Mary Russell - Doc

His face reduced to bone, eyes fever-bright, the not-yet-infamous Doc Holliday summoned all the strength he had left, but could not raise the gun again.

“Get out of my sight,” he muttered, despairing. “Get out of Dodge. And don’t come back, you soulless cur.”

The oldest of John Riney’s four boys generally showed up at the Elephant Barn a little before seven. Young John—Junior, everybody called him—got the job right after they moved into town, when he was eleven, and he could do the work while half asleep. You drew water for the horses in the stalls, and fed them, and mucked out the straw, and spread new, and then went on to the horses in the corral, who got less attention because the customers paid less.

Whenever Captain Grier was in town, he left Roxana at the barn, and he paid extra, which is to say he put extra on his tab. Even so, Junior always took his time getting around to Roxana because she was a bitch of a horse and he was scared of her. She seemed kind of worked up this morning, too, so truth was, he might’ve drug his feet a little, hoping she’d settle down. It was almost nine when he finally got to her end of the barn and saw what was bothering the animal.

If it’d been any other drunk sitting on the floor in the corner of Roxana’s stall, Junior would have just shoveled the shit out from around him, but his mother was one of Doc Holliday’s patients, and Junior did not consider sitting in horse stalls to be among that gentleman’s habits.

“Are you all right, Doc?” he asked, glancing at Roxana. The dentist’s eyes were open but there was no answer, so Junior bent over and shook the man’s shoulder some. “Dr. Holliday? You all right?”

The dentist seemed to come back from somewhere far away. His voice was weak and kind of wavery, and Junior had to lean in to hear him say, “I am fine, thank you. Very kind of you to ask.”

“You don’t look too good,” Junior told him. “You want me to get somebody?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Junior waited, but the dentist sort of drifted off again. “Who, Doc?”

Junior was a little nervous about asking that because he expected Doc would send him for Kate. If he did, Junior planned to find his littlest brother and send Charlie to get her. Mabel Riney would wear Junior out if he went near a bad woman like Kate, but she doted on Charlie and wouldn’t belt him as bad.

“Doc? Who do you want me to get?”

“Morgan,” the dentist decided, after a time.

Relieved, Junior asked, “Mr. Morgan over by the saddle shop, or Morgan Earp?”

“Morgan Earp. If you would be so kind.”

“You bet, Doc. I’ll get him.” Junior looked up at the horse. “I don’t think you better sit in here. That mare’s dangerous.”

“Yes,” Doc whispered. “So I hear.”

Junior leaned the shovel in the corner, and helped the dentist onto his feet, and got him out into the aisle, and kicked the stall door closed, and found a stool for Doc to sit on, and double-checked the latch on Roxana’s stall, because if a horse that valuable got loose, there’d be hell to pay. Then he went off to look for Morgan Earp and found the deputy at home. Morg’s girl, Lou, said that Morgan was sleeping. Junior explained about how he’d found Doc Holliday sitting like Job on a dung heap, so she got Morg up, and he dressed and came over to the barn with Junior.

Doc was still on the stool when they got back to the barn, and Mr. Earp hunkered down next to him. Junior had more work to do, but naturally he wanted to find out what was going on, so he decided to sweep up the aisle. He was real quiet about it, too, though he still didn’t hear much of anything because Doc Holliday’s voice was always so soft. Then Junior saw out of the corner of his eye that Doc’s face was wet. That surprised him so much he stopped sweeping, and he heard Doc say, “I couldn’t do it, Morg. I just couldn’t do it.”

Mr. Earp’s face got soft. “Don’t worry, Doc. I won’t tell nobody.” The deputy stood up and looked away. “Sonofabitch probably had it coming, but you’d’ve hanged.”

Doc kind of laughed and said something else.

Mr. Earp frowned and said, “Don’t talk like that.” The deputy looked thoughtful. “No point going after him. His word against yours. We wouldn’t be able to prove a damn thing.”

Doc lifted a hand toward Roxana and asked a question.

Mr. Earp glanced over his shoulder at the horse and said, “Not a chance, Doc. You know Wyatt.”

Doc sounded stronger and more awake when he said, “Not well, but well enough. Help me up.”

Leaning on his broom, Junior watched the two men as they left the barn. Doc Holliday was unsteady on his feet, and Mr. Earp was helping him quite a bit, but they were talking, heads down, all the way out to the tracks. They had just turned toward their little houses north of Front Street when Junior saw Mr. Earp stop short. Doc turned back to look at him, and the dentist was smiling now. Then Morgan gave a great shout of a laugh and put his arm around Doc Holliday’s bony shoulders, and damn near lifted the dentist right off his feet.

“Now, what do you suppose that was about?” Junior asked Roxana, but she was eating and paid no mind.

The next few days were pretty lively in Dodge. On top of the usual drunk-and-disorderlies, Dora Hand got killed. People felt bad about that. She was a whore, but she sang real nice. Then Nick Klaine reported that Dull Knife and Little Wolf were headed toward Kansas with a bunch of starving Cheyenne, hoping to steal some livestock. That got everybody worked up for a while and sold a lot of newspapers, but nothing came of the scare. Then a badger burrowed under China Joe’s laundry and collapsed one side of the shack, which burned down, although the new fire brigade got over there pretty quick and stopped the blaze from spreading. Eddie Foy made a funny story out of that and added it to his act. Jau Dong-Sing considered the fire good luck. He would build a new bathhouse and a better laundry, and add a cookshop. He had stoves going all the time to heat water anyway. Might as well get a big pot to boil noodles, too, and sell them the way Doc Holliday suggested.

Even with all that to talk about, the main topic of conversation in Dodge City at the end of September was how Captain Eli Grier and a good bay gelding had gone missing and how, right after that, Alice Wright took her two youngest kids and boarded the train for St. Louis, and how Bob Wright was making out like it was a pure coincidence and nothing was wrong.

His daughter Isabelle was doing her best to take over the household, though anybody could see the girl was still feeling washed out and sickly from that damn cold. Soon the Belle of Dodge became Poor Little Belle. As much as she hated the pity, Belle herself was glad to see the end of September. It had been a hell of a month, made worse when her father started looking at her like he’d never seen her before. Once he even muttered, “No wonder you’re so pretty. You’re probably not mine.” He was drunk when he said it, but still.

Wyatt Earp didn’t participate in the gossip about Alice and Eli. He wasn’t exactly living a blameless life himself these days, so there wasn’t a whole lot of room to look down on Eli Grier or the Wrights. Which isn’t to say that Wyatt didn’t take a certain amount of secret pleasure from the notion that Bob Wright had gotten his comeuppance. Maybe ole Bob would pay attention to his own troubles now, instead of going around hiring ignorant kids like George Hoyt to shoot at men who were just trying to do their jobs.

Of course, it had not escaped Wyatt’s notice that Roxana was still over at the Elephant Barn. She didn’t belong to the post, Wyatt knew that much for sure. The fort commandant said she was Grier’s personal mount, not government-issue. Somebody was paying her keep at the barn, but when Wyatt asked Hamilton Bell who it was, Ham said he didn’t know. That seemed kind of odd, but it wasn’t really any of Wyatt’s business, so he didn’t push it.