Mary Russell - Doc

When Nashville fell in ’62, a hundred thousand Yankee soldiers came to occupy the city. Within months, miserable Southern prostitutes had accomplished what gallant Southern soldiers never did: the complete destruction of an invading Northern army. Smokey Row put a third of the occupiers into hospitals with syphilis and gonorrhea, but when the Yankees tried to expel the girls, each hooker’s place was immediately filled by two new women willing to trade the certainty of starvation for a high probability of disease and early death. Finally a Union provost marshal got fed up with high-minded hand-wringing over the Necessary Evil and instituted a system of licensed prostitution.

And that, by God, made it safer for everyone.

Each week, Nashville’s working girls kept an appointment at a quiet office in a secluded part of town. One by one, they went into an examination room that had good light, a nice bed, a table, and all the necessary appliances for a private examination. If a girl showed the slightest sign of disease, she was sent to a well-run hospital, where she was treated by an army doctor, provided with decent clothing, and given instructions in hygiene and comportment. When she was clean, inside and out, a medical officer declared her fit for duty and she was given a certificate to present to customers. Disease rates plunged and stayed low for the rest of the war. The system even made a profit, its whole expense covered by the girls’ weekly license fee of fifty cents apiece.

The Yankees went home after Appomattox. Smokey Row went back to business as usual. By then, Bessie’s mother had died and Bessie herself had married James Earp, a Yankee boy who’d first laid eyes on Bess when she was hanging out laundry in the courtyard of Hospital Eleven. James might have been looking down on her from a second-story window in Hospital Fifteen, but that was the only way he looked down on her. They were both being treated for the same thing, and James Earp was no hypocrite.

And no matter what anybody thought or said, he was no pimp, either.

Even after he and Bessie married, she ran the house, for James was an easygoing, broad-minded man who nearly always deferred to Bessie’s commercial judgment. That said, it was his idea to head west in ’65, out where there was no law to make criminals of Bessie and the Nashville girls they took with them.

James had no real use of his left arm, for his shoulder had been shot to kindling during the war, but he could still run the bar and he had a nice way of keeping things peaceful in the house. No matter where they went, Bessie kept back money to pay doctors for exams, and set a room or two aside for girls who shouldn’t be working. Local johns appreciated knowing that they wouldn’t carry the pox or clap home to their wives, and they paid extra for the peace of mind. James made sure that Bessie’s place got a town’s best transient traffic, too, politely directing filthy miners and stinking cowhands elsewhere, but welcoming visiting industrialists and cattlemen.

When things got civilized enough for politicians to rail against vice, Bess filled envelopes with cash and smiled when she handed them over, while James made plans to move on to the next boomtown. Wherever James and Bessie opened shop, two or three of his brothers were on the police force. If things got rowdier than James could manage, there was always some signal that would bring Morg or Virgil in fast to settle things down. Even Wyatt came running, although after he got religion, he hardly ever looked Bessie in the eye anymore and left the house again as soon as he was able.

Into this smoothly running business, one woman came and went like the goddess Discord: unpredictable, disruptive, exhausting. Kate Harony, Kate Fisher, Katie Elder … Who knew what her real name was? In Wichita and Ellsworth, she had worked for Bessie; here in Dodge, she just used a room in the house and gave Bess a percentage of her income from private clients. Kate was good company when she was sober and lent tone to the proceedings, for she was able to speak to eastern businessmen with charm and poise, and to wealthy foreigners in their own languages. Katie could be sharp-tongued, but some men found that exciting, and they asked for her, special. Trouble was, she drank when she was bored or scared, and picked fights when she was drunk. Bessie wouldn’t have put up with Kate’s behavior in anyone else, but James had always liked the girl. There was something underneath her snappish belligerence that made him feel protective and tolerant.

“She’s gonna get us in real trouble this time,” Bessie had whispered when Kate showed up at the house that morning. “Talk to her, James. I can’t do it.”

James kissed his wife’s forehead and patted her behind. “You ain’t so tough as you make out,” he said, but even he waited to speak to Kate until the liquor wore off. Sometimes it’s better to strike when the iron is cold.

When he found her at three that afternoon, she was sitting, slumped, at the kitchen table, aching head in her hands. James poured coffee for them both and sat down across from her. “Katie,” he said quietly, “Bess says your carpetbag is full of money. Where’d you get all that cash, honey?”

She wouldn’t look at him, which was as good as a confession.

“It’s Doc Holliday’s, isn’t it,” he said.

“Most of it,” she admitted. “Not all.”

“There’s an election coming up,” James told her, sitting back. “Reform’s looking to slap a bunch of vice laws on us here. Dodge has been good to us, Kate. We’re trying to keep a lid on things. If Holliday asks Morg to press charges, George Hoover will say we’re harboring thieves.”

“Doc won’t press no charges,” she muttered. “He ain’t that kind.”

James stood and went to the stove and checked the flame, adding some small wood to bring it up a little. “You want something to eat?” he asked over his good shoulder. “How ’bout I fix you some eggs?”

She shrugged, but nodded.

“Bacon?” he asked. “Toast?”

She made a face. “Just eggs.”

He scrambled half a dozen and poured them into a fry pan with some bacon grease. While they sputtered and sizzled, he set bread and jam on the table for himself. When the eggs were done, he spooned them onto two plates and sat down again with Kate. They ate in silence, but when she was finished with her meal, James spoke again.

“Look at me, Katie.” He waited until she did. “Does Holliday ever beat you?”

She shook her head slightly and looked away.

“He don’t pimp you neither,” James pointed out. “You said yourself: he’d just as soon you quit.”

“I make my own way, goddammit! Nobody keeps me.”

“I know that, honey. Still … My opinion?” he asked. “Doc Holliday’s probably the best thing ever happened to you. Tell me I’m wrong, and I’ll listen.”

James stood and cleared the dishes off the table. He did the washing up, too, because he could hold plates steady with the bad side and scrub with the good one. He liked feeling competent with small tasks like that.

When he heard Kate snuffle, he put a wet plate on the rack and came over to plant a kiss on her head. “Go back to him, honey. Treat him good. You won’t be sorry.”

“Maybe,” she muttered, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. “Maybe,” she said. “I guess.”

Three years later, after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, barricaded against a lynch mob in a Tombstone hotel with his brothers and Doc Holliday, James Earp would look back on that conversation with Katie and think, All this is my fault.

There was plenty of blame to go around, but James was right. If he hadn’t talked Kate into going back to Doc, that damn street fight in Tombstone never would have happened. Wyatt only got mixed up with Ike Clanton after Kate got mad at Doc one night and then got drunk enough to tell Sheriff Behan that Doc was in on the stagecoach robbery that touched the whole thing off. Her story was horseshit of the highest order, and as soon as she sobered up, she took it back. But by then? It didn’t matter. There was already bad blood between Wyatt and Behan over that Marcus girl. Kate’s accusation drew Wyatt and Morg and Virgil in on Doc’s side. Before you knew it, bullets were flying and five men were bleeding in the dirt, and everything was on its way straight to hell.