Doctor and the Kid, The (A Weird West Tale) (Weird West Tales) (2 page)

H

There was a mangy-looking dog stretched out on the ground by the front door, gnawing on a bone. Holliday paused and stared at it until he was certain that it wasn't going to morph into another of Geronimo's message-bearers. The dog stared curiously at him for a moment, then went back to its bone.

Holliday approached the impenetrable brass door that reflected the light of the sign, keeping a wary eye on the dog. After all, it didn't have to be a mystic Indian to feel threatened and decide to bite, but the dog decided that the bone was far more interesting than the emaciated dentist/gambler.

“Friend or foe?” demanded a voice that didn't belong to Thomas Edison or Ned Buntline.

“That depends on who you are,” responded Holliday warily, his fingers gliding down to the top of his pistol.

“I am one of the many protective devices created and installed by the owners of this building,” said the voice.

“Then I'm a friend.”

“Advance, friend, and be recognized,” said the voice, as a small circular lens he hadn't seen before began to glow.

“Goddamnit, Tom, it's colder than a witch's tit out here!” growled Holliday. “Are you going to keep me standing here all night?”

He heard Edison utter a hearty laugh and then order the door to swing open. “Good evening, Doc,” said the inventor, standing in the doorway. “Just testing out the latest addition to my security system.” He smiled at Holliday. “Come on in.”

Holliday walked past the dog and entered the brass building, joining Edison as they walked to his study, a wood-paneled room with books and scribbled notes everywhere—on a desk, on tables, tacked to the wall, crumpled on the floor. Suddenly Holliday stopped and stared at his host. “Where the hell's your arm?”

Edison glanced briefly at the stump on his right shoulder, all that remained of his original arm. “Ned is making some improvements to it.”

“It already spins, cuts metal, weighs things to the closest ounce, could lift all of the Earps tied together, and can probably outdraw me in a gunfight. What else does it have to do?”

“It's too good a conductor of electricity, and it actually becomes a hazard during some of my experiments. I'm tired of removing it every time I'm working with positive and negative charges, so Ned's trying to negate its conductivity.”

“I think I may introduce you to a British visitor I met tonight. He'd love to write you up in song and story for the stage.” A pause and a cynical smile. “Well, he'd love to write your arm up, anyway.”

“Mr. Wilde?”

“I was going to ask how you knew,” said Holliday. “Then I remembered that he's probably the only writer currently on tour in Leadville.”

“Well, the only playwright,” agreed Edison. “Miss Anthony has written some powerful articles. I hope to meet both of them before they leave town.”

“If you want to meet Mr. Wilde, come over to the Monarch. He'll be there pretty soon.”

“I can't,” said Edison regretfully. He wiggled his stump. “I'm being, ah,
re-attached
in another hour.”

Holliday shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Edison sat down at his desk, gestured to a wooden chair with a cushioned back, and Holliday seated himself. “Now, my friend, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

“Have you got any business with Geronimo or the Apaches?” asked Holliday. “Did you promise them anything, or offend any of them, before you left Tombstone?”

“No to the first, and I hope not to the second,” answered Edison, frowning. “Remember, it was Hook Nose and the Southern Cheyenne who got Curly Bill Brocius to try to kill me—and wound up blowing away my arm—back in Tombstone, not the Apaches.”

“Good,” said Holliday.

“Why?”

“Because I was just visited by one of Geronimo's representatives, so he obviously knows I'm here—and if he knows that, he knows you and Ned are here too.”

“What did he want?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Geronimo's warrior just walked up, said ‘Hi, Doc,' and went away?” said Edison sardonically.

“In essence.” Holliday's brow furrowed in puzzlement. “He told me to remember that I had once made a deal, long since consumated, with Geronimo. Before I could ask what kind of deal the old bastard wants this time, he was gone.” The gambler grimaced. “I'll take war chiefs to medicine men any day. I still can't get used to magic.”

“That's pretty difficult to believe at this late date,” said Edison. “It's their magic that's stopped the United States from extending to the Pacific, and it's what I'm being paid to study and counteract.”

“Geronimo knows that. That's what I came to tell you: He knows you're here.”

“Well, he probably knew it last night and last week as well, so let's assume he has some other reason for contacting you.”

“I wish he'd choose some other way,” complained Holliday irritably. “I just hate giant snakes turning into braves before my eyes.”

“If he wanted to kill you, he could have,” offered Edison. “So if I were you, I'd wait until he decided to say what he wanted. You're not going to be leaving town, are you?”

Holliday shook his head. “I'm here for the duration.”

Edison frowned again. “The duration of what?”

“Of my life.” Another grimace. “You'd think they could have built the damned sanitarium a few thousand feet lower, where nothing but dogs pant and gasp for breath.”

“I hear they're building one a few hundred miles south of here in Arizona,” said Edison. “You might consider that.”

“Too many men in Arizona want to save the sanitarium the trouble of burying me,” answered Holliday with a wry grin. “No, I've set twenty thousand dollars aside for my upkeep. At five thousand a year, the place will run out of me before I run out of money.”

“Try not to be such an optimist,” said Edison dryly.

“I'm just being a realist. When you've been dying as long as I have, realism gets easier every day.” He turned toward the door. “I think I'd better be going. Nobody'll ever remember a consumptive gunfighter, so I want to impress the illustrious Mr. Wilde and have him write me into a book or a play.” He paused, then smiled. “I'm going to stop by Kate's office and pick up my bankroll, just so I can flash it and impress him.”

“Let me make absolutely certain first I understand the purpose of this visit,” said Edison. “The only reason you came here is to tell me Geronimo knows I'm in Leadville—or, rather, that we can assume he knows it?”

“Right,” said Holliday. “And to accept a drink, if you hadn't forgotten your manners.”

Edison chuckled, opened a desk drawer, and pulled out a bottle.

“No sense getting a glass dirty,” said Holliday, taking it from him. He took a long swallow, then another, put the top back on, and handed it back. “My best to Ned.”

“You may see him later,” said Edison. “He's working on another of Kate's robots. I think he should have it—or should I say, her?—in working order by midnight.”

“Must be nice work, field-testing metal whores,” said Holliday.

“You know he doesn't do that.”

“More's the pity,” remarked Holliday. “I won't see him, though. Once I get my money, I'm off to the Monarch until sunrise.”

He walked out the door, which closed automatically behind him, and headed toward Kate Elder's establishment. The dog got up and began walking beside him.

“You sure you're not from Geronimo?” asked Holliday.

The dog made no reply, which seemed almost as odd to Holliday as an affirmative would have been. He walked the two blocks to Kate Elder's whorehouse on Second Street, pausing three times to catch his breath, and cursing the thin night air.

Finally he arrived at the large two-floor frame building, one of the holdouts against Buntline's impervious brass, climbed the three steps to the broad veranda, and entered. There were four scantily clad girls and two robots positioned around the parlor, talking to a trio of local men. The girls, none of whom were as young as they looked, all smiled and nodded to him, while the robots, whose feminine appearance always surprised him, ignored him and continued their pre-programmed flirting with the men. Holliday walked through the room, proceeded down a long corridor, and opened the door to Kate Elder's office.

Kate was a busty woman in her early thirties, with a proboscis that had earned her the sobriquet of Big-Nose Kate. She sat at a desk, staring at him, her head framed by a large painting on the wall of a passionate Leda and a highly motivated swan. “Well, you're back early,” she said dryly. “Did you shoot all the customers, or did the saloon burn down?”

“Only in your dreams,” said Holliday, walking over to a safe in the corner, kneeling down, and dialing the combination.

“What do you think you're doing?” she demanded.

“Taking my bankroll out for an airing,” answered Holliday as the lock clicked and he was able to open the door.

“You're not touching that!” she snapped.

“Don't be silly,” replied Holliday, pulling it out. “Whose money is it?”

“What if someone shoots you and takes it?”

“Then, my love, you will be shit out of luck when they read the will,” answered Holliday in amused tones. “You know, it's difficult to feel sorry for the proprietor of the biggest whorehouse in the territory.”

“I thought you needed it for that place where they're going to lock you away to die,” said Kate.

“Ah, the mistress of the delicate phraseology,” said Holliday. “I told you—I'm just taking it out for a few hours to impress someone who may very well immortalize me.”

“I thought all those dime novels did that.”

“There's immortality, and then there's immortality,” replied Holliday with a wry smile. “The money and I will both be back here before you wake up.”

“It had damned well better be,” she said, glaring at him. “If you lose it, or get robbed, or get killed, don't come running to me for any money.”

“Kate, light of my life, if I get killed I promise not to come to you for more money,” Holliday responded.

“I'm not kidding, Doc,” she said, suddenly serious. “You come back without it, and you can cough your life out in some goddamned stable or toolshed.”

He closed the safe, riffled the money as if it were a deck of cards, placed it in a vest pocket, walked over, and kissed her on the cheek.

“I love you too, my angel,” he said, trying to suppress a grin.

She glared at him for a moment, and then her expression softened. “Why do we put up with each other, I wonder?” she asked almost wistfully.

“There's an easy answer to that.”

“What is it?” she asked, honestly puzzled.

Holliday smiled. “Who else would?”

He picked up his cane, and a moment later he was out in the street. He looked around for the dog, couldn't spot it, couldn't decide whether that was a comforting sign or a bad omen, and finally shrugged and headed toward the Monarch.

A

“Top of the evening, Miss Anthony,” he said.

“Do I know you?” she asked curiously.

“No, Miss Anthony,” replied Holliday. “But I know you. Or
of
you, anyway.”

“If we haven't met, why such a fancy bow?”

He shrugged. “Why not?”

“Well, let's make the introduction official,” she said, extending a gloved hand. “I am pleased to meet you, Mister…?”

“Doctor,” he replied, taking her hand. “John Henry Holliday.”

“Dr. Holliday,” she concluded.

“Doc Holliday,” he corrected her. “Why stand on formality?”

Her eyes widened and she pulled her hand back as if it had been touching a rattlesnake. “The notorious
Doc Holliday?”

“As opposed to all the other Doc Hollidays?” he asked in amused tones. When she had no answer, he continued: “May I buy you a drink, Miss Anthony?”

“Certainly not!” she said in outraged tones.

“I'd offer to play five-card stud with you, but that seems somehow inappropriate.”

“I know all about you, Doc Holliday!” she said angrily. “I was hoping not to encounter you before my tour continued. You are a dreadful man!”

“True,” he agreed. “But I'm a very good dentist.” A self-deprecating smile crossed his once-handsome face. “Or at least, I used to be.”

“I will not stand here conversing with a terrible killer!”

“Actually, I'm quite probably the best killer you will ever encounter,” replied Holliday. “You're sure I can't buy you a drink?”

“You are a drinker and a shootist!” she snapped. “You represent everything I am campaigning against. You are the enemy!”

“If the enemy is composed of drinkers and shootists, you should be thanking me rather than condemning me,” said Holliday easily. “I've eliminated more of your enemies than I think you can imagine.”

“Murderer!” she yelled.

Suddenly his demeanor changed. “I have never shot a man in cold blood. And I do not call half the human race my enemies before judging each of them in his turn.” A very brief pause. “Excuse me. I meant each in
her
turn.”

She glared at him in silent rage.

“Well, it's been a pleasure, Miss Anthony. But if you'll excuse me, you are standing in the doorway to my office,” he concluded, indicating the saloon's swinging doors.

She walked past him without another word.

Holliday looked at his reflection in the Monarch's glass window. “That went about as well as usual, you old charmer, you,” he said sardonically, then walked to the swinging doors, pushed them open, and entered the saloon.

The robotic bartender, a gift from Buntline, nodded to him, then went back to pouring drinks. Edison's latest phonograph, running on the same electrical circuit that powered the overhead electric lights, was playing a Viennese waltz, which seemed very out-of-place here. There was a brass roulette wheel at a large table, a dozen smaller tables for poker and blackjack, and a faro table in the corner. Holliday had considered building a stage and importing some dancing girls, but decided against it on the reasonable assumption that his clientele couldn't watch the girls and gamble at the same time, and if it were a choice between the two, he knew which was the more lucrative.

“Howdy, Doc,” drawled a tall, burly man wearing a frock coat and sporting a ten-gallon Stetson.

“Hello, Jack,” replied Holliday. “I see you've saved my seat for me.”

“Ain't no one whose money I'd rather win,” said Texas Jack Vermillion.

Holliday took his seat, joining Vermillion and the three other men who were at the table. “Has Oscar Wilde been here yet?”

“Never heard of him,” said Vermillion.

One of the other men laughed. “You must have passed twenty posters of him on the way here from the Grand Hotel.”

“Who looks at posters?” said Vermillion with a shrug.

“He's a British gentleman,” said another. “Here on some kind of tour. I heard him speak last night. Very witty, though I'm sure half of it went over my head.”

“What's he look like?”

“He'd never miss a hundred pounds,” answered Holliday, “and he's got just about as much hair as Kate does.”

“Nope,” said Vermillion. “Ain't seen no one like that, knock wood.”

Holliday signaled the bartender to bring a bottle to the table.

“How many glasses?” it asked in a mechanical monotone.

“Just one. If these gentlemen wish to partake, I'm sure they'll be happy to buy their particular poisons.”

“I regret to inform you that we do not sell poison in the Monarch,” replied the bartender to a chorus of laughter.

Holliday grimaced. “Ned and Tom are always telling me that I've got to be literal with it. I guess you gents will have to go to Mort Shale's store to buy poison. But if you want some fine drinking stuff, we can cater to your needs, and it'll make losing all that much less painful.”

“And winning that much more pleasurable,” added Vermillion, shuffling the cards. “Ante up, gents. Five-card stud is the game.”

“How much to play?” asked Holliday.

“Ten dollars.”

“I approve.” Holliday placed ten dollars in the center of the table.

He lost the first two hands, won the third, and lost another.

“Not your night, Doc,” said Vermillion as he won his second pot. “I can't tell you how happy that makes me.”

Holliday filled his glass, drained it, and filled it again. “This is doubtless going to come as a shock to you, Jack, but occasionally I've even lost three hands in a row.”

Suddenly he became aware of a large presence standing behind him. He turned and saw that it was Wilde.

“Welcome to the Monarch,” he said. “Pull up a chair and I'll show you how this game is played.”

“Poker, isn't it?” said Wilde, seating himself just to Holliday's left.

Holliday nodded. “You know the rules?”

“I read up on it,” answered Wilde.

“What do you play in England?” asked Vermillion.

“Three-Card Brag,” said Wilde.

“Never heard of it,” said Vermillion. Suddenly he smiled. “Is it anything like Six-Gun Brag? Doc's a master at that.”

“There's a difference between recounting and bragging,” said Holliday, taking another drink. “I don't brag.”

“I'd love to hear you recount some of your adventures,” said Wilde, pulling out a pen and a notebook.

“Not if you're going to write it down,” said Holliday. “It'll come out like recounting, but it'll read like bragging.”

“As you wish.” Wilde put the notebook back in his pocket. “Tell me about the O.K. Corral.”

“Damned thing's been written up in half a dozen dime novels,” replied Holliday.

“How about Johnny Ringo, then?”

“Johnny Ringo was my friend.”

Wilde frowned. “I thought I read that you killed him.”

“I did,” said Holliday, draining and refilling his glass.

“But—”

“He was my enemy too.”

“Sounds like a strange relationship,” said Wilde.

“It was complicated,” agreed Holliday.

“If you think the
relationship
was complicated, you should have seen Ringo himself!” laughed Vermillion.

Wilde turned to him. “Why?”

“Because a dead man takes more killing than most.”

“I don't understand.”

“One of the medicine men brought him back from the dead to kill Tom Edison and Doc.”

“Where I come from, we call that a zombie,” said Wilde. “How do you kill one?”

“Carefully,” said Holliday. “Is anyone going to deal, or am I moving to another table?”

Vermillion began dealing the cards. “Draw poker this time,” he announced. “Ante up.”

One of the players reached for his cards, and found himself looking down the barrel of Holliday's gun.

“Forgot a little something, didn't you?” asked Holliday.

“What?” asked the player nervously.

“You pay to play
before
you look at your cards.”

The player tossed ten dollars onto the table, waited for Holliday to holster his gun, and then picked up his cards. “I'm out,” he announced, laying his cards on the table, getting to his feet, and walking off.

“You frighten ‘em all away and you and me are gonna wind up cutting cards for money,” drawled Vermillion.

Holliday drained his glass again. “He knows the rules,” he said at last.

“That was positively frightening,” said Wilde.

“He didn't pull the trigger,” said Vermillion. “Can't compare to people getting their heads blowed off in all your Limey wars.”

“Mr. Wilde is a writer, not a soldier,” remarked Holliday. “I would guess that he's never seen a man killed.”

“But I've written about them,” replied Wilde with a smile.

“Probably reads better than the real thing,” offered Vermillion.

“Neater, anyway,” said Holliday.

“Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” said Wilde, as Holliday pushed fifty dollars to the center of the table.

“Go ahead.”

“What was Clay Allison like?”

“Never met the gentleman,” answered Holliday.

“And Ben Thomson?”

“Same answer.”

Wilde frowned. “I'd have thought—”

“The West is a mighty big place, Mr. Wilde,” said Holliday. “And contrary to the dime novels, it's populated by more than gunslingers, a term we don't use much.”

“What
do
you use?”

“Shootists.”

“How many cards, Doc?”

“Two, please,” answered Holliday, sliding two cards, face down, across the table to Vermillion.

“I
know
you knew the Earps,” continued Wilde. “What were they like?”

“Morgan was a sweet man with a wonderful sense of humor. If I'd had a brother, I'd have wanted him to be like Morgan Earp.”

“And Virgil?”

“He and Wyatt were cut from the same cloth,” answered Holliday. “Humorless men, hard men. Their word was their bond, and there was nothing they were afraid of.”

“They didn't have to be afraid of anything with
you
there,” said Vermillion. He turned to Wilde. “Doc was their enforcer, just like Ringo was for the Clantons.”

“Tell me about it,” said Wilde eagerly.

“Up to you, Doc,” said one of the players.

“How much?”

“Two hundred to stay in.”

Holliday pulled out the wad of money he'd taken from Kate's safe, peeled a pair of hundred-dollar bills off the top, and shoved them into the pot in the middle of the table.

“Two hundred dollars!” said Wilde, clearly impressed. “Translate that into pounds and it's more than my advance for
The Nihilists
.”

“That's one of the advantages of being a successful gambler,” replied Holliday. “Do you know how many teeth I'd have to pull for two hundred dollars?”

“Another fifty to stay in, Doc,” announced Vermillion.

Holliday pulled a fifty out of the wad.

“Don't you want to look at the two cards you drew first?” asked Wilde.

“If there's another raise, I may very well do that,” said Holliday. He looked at the empty bottle in front of him, frowned, and snapped his fingers to get the robot bartender's attention. “Another bottle over here,” he ordered.

“Since you are the proprietor there will be no charge,” announced the robot, walking out from behind the bar and carrying the bottle over to the table.

“Damned generous of you,” said Holliday sardonically.

“Thank you, sir,” said the robot.

“Call me Doc.”

“Thank you, sir Doc.”

“I've got to talk to Tom about you,” said Holliday. He gestured to the bar. “Go back to making money.”

“I do not make money, sir Doc,” replied the robot. “I serve drinks.”

“I stand corrected.”

“You
sit
corrected.”

“Whatever.”

“Call,” said one of the players.

“Three ladies,” announced Vermillion.

“Shit,” muttered the man who had called. “Beats two pairs.”

Vermillion turned to Holliday. “What have you got, Doc?”

“Let's see,” said Holliday, laying down two aces and a jack. He turned up the two cards he'd drawn, an eight and a six.

“Maybe I should have looked first,” he said, pouring another drink.

The game continued until midnight, at which time the other two players had left, and Holliday and Vermillion were waiting for someone to join them. Suddenly there was a loud
“Yahoo!”
from the far side of the room, and a well-dressed man stood up from a table. He surveyed the room, saw that the crowd had thinned down to perhaps twenty men, and announced that he was buying drinks for the house.

“Here it comes,” said a grinning Vermillion to Wilde.

“The house cannot drink, sir,” said the bartender. “Only humans can.”

Wilde chuckled in amusement.

“All right,” said the man. “Drinks for all the humans.” He walked over to the bar and slapped a bill down on it. Then his gaze fell on Holliday, and he walked over. “You gents still playing?”