Mary Russell - Doc

The hand firmly grasped. The elbow gripped. The sincere gaze applied.

“Very pleased to meet you, sir,” Hoover said in a startlingly high voice. “And welcome to our community. It’s an honor to have a man of learning and religion in our midst. Until just last year, I was the mayor of Dodge City, and I hope to serve the public again—”

“George Hoover has always served the public,” Eddie declared in a burlesque of civic pride. “Served the public bourbon. Served the public rye.”

“You are the proprietor of a drinking establishment?” Alexander asked politely.

“Long ago, sir—”

“Four years,” Eddie noted. “Everything in America is done double-time, Father.”

“I am in wholesale liquors, wines, and cigars now,” Hoover said, “but my wife and I yearn for the day when Demon Rum is driven from our community and I am reliant on tobacco alone for a modest but honest income—”

“Hypocrite,” Kate muttered.

“To be put out of business, sir, that is my ambition,” Hoover continued smoothly. “What a blessed day that will be! And what a tragedy young Sanders’ death was, sir! The second dreadful loss to our community in less than a month, and all on account of drunkenness!”

Alexander stared. “Am I to understand that Johnnie was a drunkard? Because he had never touched liquor when—”

“No, sir. No, you mistake me! While young Johnnie did not take the pledge, neither had he fallen to the depths of so many of his kind. Nonetheless! He was the victim of drink, sir—”

“We don’t know that,” Morgan said, but Hoover didn’t even pause.

“—just as our late chief deputy Edward Masterson was, and that, sir—” There was a small noise behind the massive Mr. Hoover, and he paused in his stump speech to look behind him. “Goodness! Margaret, my sweet. I forget my manners! Permit me to introduce my wife, Father.”

Hoover reached down and took the tiny hand of a tiny woman whose head barely topped the middle button on her husband’s waistcoat. Emerging from his considerable shadow, this miniature brunette dropped a well-tutored curtsy, her eyes downcast.

“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure, Father,” she said, Ulster still audible in her voice.

“The lovely Margaret,” Eddie announced, “and isn’t she a picture!”

Eddie said something in Gaelic then, and the lovely Margaret shot him a defiant look, as though accepting a dare.

“I’m a Methodist now, Father,” she said, chin tilted upward. “And didn’t I leave the Church because Rome refuses to join the battle against intemperance! German Catholics have fought Prohibition every step of the way in Ford County, and aren’t you a fine example! If I were a betting person, I’d wager you heard this afternoon how many drink has ruined. Lives blighted. Pay pissed away, wives in despair, sons thieving, daughters on the street!”

Kate moaned with boredom and tossed back another shot.

“The church will be free tomorrow by half past twelve,” Eddie told her helpfully. “Come back then, and you can preach all you want, Maggie.”

“Not afraid to speak her mind, my little Margaret!” George declared, putting a huge square hand on Maggie’s shoulder. He pulled her toward him with affection and not a little pride, but with a slightly better idea of how their audience was taking her remarks. “You came in from Wichita, I understand,” Hoover said, and turned the conversation toward weather. “We had quite a rainstorm here last night! It must have reached you by this morning!”

Appointing himself host, Mr. Hoover inquired then as to the comfort of the priest’s journey, his satisfaction with his hotel room, his enjoyment of the meal, and his possible desire for anything additional to eat, or to drink, or perhaps to smoke. (“Those cigars are Cuban, sir! The very finest in the world!”) The interrogation stopped only when Kate demanded, “Who in hell do you think you are? It’s Doc’s party, not yours, you arrogant sonofabitch.”

“You see, Father?” Margaret Hoover asked. “You see the depths to which liquor has brought this woman?”

Kate was on her feet. An instant later, Morgan Earp was between her and Maggie, who was shouting now about walking with Gentiles in lasciviousness and lust and excesses of wine, while Kate cursed in three languages. Big George lifted his wife off the ground and deposited her behind him, concocted a credible excuse for leaving early, and promised to attend the funeral in the morning. Before the Hoovers were halfway to the door, Alexander found himself refilling his glass.

“You see, Father?” Kate mimicked triumphantly. “You see the depths to which that woman has driven you?”

“The pair of them don’t bear thinking of, now, do they, Kate?” Eddie remarked. “She must ride that bull or risk being squashed flat!”

Kate hooted. Morgan snickered. Alexander choked on his drink.

Eddie clapped his hands and pointed at the priest. “Got you good with that one, now, didn’t I, Father!” Just then, the comedian’s eye was caught by the tall and sparely built young man entering the restaurant. In the voice that filled the Commie-Q twice nightly, Eddie Foy announced, “And here’s himself at last!”

Kate’s face lit up, only to darken in a mixture of wifely concern and fury. Like everyone else in the room, Alexander had turned toward the door.

The newcomer was in his mid-twenties, slim in well-tailored silver-gray. Freshly barbered, with a neatly trimmed imperial mustache, he was also visibly fatigued and leaned on a walking stick that was not merely a fashionable accessory. Shaking hands, murmuring greetings, he occasionally paused in these brief conversations to cough into a square of fine cotton cloth.

When he came even with Mr. and Mrs. Hoover, he learned that they were leaving. His disappointment at this news might have been just a shade too sincere. When he glanced at Kate, one eye twitched ever so slightly in what might have been a wink.

Uncharmed, Kate snarled, “Just look at him! He’s exhausted, goddammit.”

Alexander tried for diplomatic neutrality. “So! This must be your husband at last!”

“That’s Doc,” she confirmed, but her tone implied correction. With drunken hauteur, Kate lifted her head and chose High German. “My husband left me the day that he discovered I was pregnant, Hochwürden . Oh, the baby wasn’t his,” she admitted breezily, speaking now in the language of the brothels, “but the bastard didn’t know that when he left me high and dry.” She looked at the priest, and then at the other two—the Irishman and Bessie’s brother-in-law—and laughed at their dismay. “And that makes my husband a no-good goddam lying sonofabitch! Doesn’t it!”

“Kate, darlin’,” Doc said, now standing just behind her. “What a remarkable line of conversation you have opened!” He leaned over to kiss the back of her neck and spoke into her ear. “Is there any of Kentucky’s finest left? I was hopin’ for a drink myself.”

Slightly breathless, the young gentleman then reached across the table to offer his hand. “Father von Angensperg, I presume. John Holliday. An honor, sir. Johnnie Sanders spoke highly of you.”

Alexander stood. “Dr. Holliday, you have been far too generous, but I am very grateful for your thoughtful—”

“Don’t mention it, sir! It was the least I could do for the man who educated John Horse Sanders.” Doc straightened and glanced toward the noisy crowd. “Would y’all mind, I wonder, if we were to move to a quieter table? I am happy when my guests enjoy themselves, but it has been a longer day than I anticipated. I don’t have a lot of shout left in me.”