Mary Russell - Doc

Like Belle Wright, Doc Holliday hadn’t really gotten over that cold either and he was back in bed, trying to kick it. Wyatt noticed that Kate was splashing some cash around and seemed to be in a better mood for some reason. So it was pretty quiet next door, though Doc’s cough sounded worse than ever.

Then one morning Morgan told Wyatt he was going over to see how Doc was doing, which was ordinary enough. Except Morg looked like he used to when he was a little kid and had some big secret, like he caught a toad or something and planned to scare the girls with it, but didn’t dare tell Wyatt because he knew Wyatt would stop him.

Which is why Wyatt decided to sit out on the front porch for a spell before going to bed, to see what was going on.

Doc must have been feeling better because after a few minutes, he and Morgan came outside. Morg got Doc settled into the wicker rocker on the porch and pulled a shawl around the dentist’s shoulders before setting off toward Front Street, grinning like an idiot.

Wyatt decided maybe he’d just go on over to Doc’s and ask what in hell that was about. All Doc said was “I’m sure I haven’t the slightest idea, Wyatt,” but he was grinning, too, and then just sat there, rocking and looking pleased with himself, until Morg came walking back up the street.

With Roxana. Saddled.

Confused, Wyatt stood, one hand on the porch post. From behind him, he heard Doc say, “She’s yours, Wyatt. A gift.”

Stunned, Wyatt looked back at Doc, whose eyes were shining above a shy, sweet, crooked smile and—Well, hell. Wyatt supposed it wasn’t the worst moment in his life. Seeing the light leave Urilla’s eyes was the worst, but this came pretty close. It took him a few seconds because he hated to do it, but he said what he had to.

“I’m sorry, Doc. I can’t accept anything like that.”

It pained him to see Doc’s reaction. The dentist looked like he’d been slapped.

“Why, you stubborn, stiff-necked, self-righteous—! I can’t believe it!” Doc cried. “And I thought you were a friend—the more fool me!”

“I told you, Doc!” Morgan tied the horse to the post by the front gate and scuffed along the walk toward the porch. “I knew he wouldn’t take her.”

“Doc,” Wyatt pleaded, “try to understand! It was a real nice idea, but I’m sorry, it’s just not right!”

Doc was almost sputtering, he was so mad. “Are you—are you actually goin’ to stand there and accuse me of tryin’ to bribe you? I won the damn animal in a card game! What in hell am I going to do with a horse like that? I can’t afford to have her standin’ around in the Elephant Barn, eatin’ me out of house and home! I ask you for one damn favor and this is the—”

Wyatt said, “Calm down, Doc! You’re gonna make yourself sick—”

Sure enough, the dentist was looking for his handkerchief now.

“All I’m askin’ is that you take her off my hands! That is the rock-bottom least that any sort of friend would do for a sick man, but no! You are too goddam—”

“Hey, Doc! Maybe you could sell her,” Morgan suggested helpfully. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out some money. “How does two dollars and fifteen cents sound?”

Doc didn’t even pretend to think about it before holding out his hand for the coins. “Morgan, that sounds just about right,” he said. “Help me up.”

Morg offered him an arm for leverage. For a while, the two of them just stood together, side by side, watching Wyatt work out exactly which ethical issues would be rendered moot if Morgan owned the horse.

Doc said, “Listen close, Morg. I believe you can hear the gears grindin’.”

It sounded like he was making fun, but Doc had that look on his face again: pleasure and satisfaction and affection, all mixed. And Morgan himself felt just about as fine as he had ever felt in a lifetime of feeling pretty good about things. He was proud of his older brother’s earnest, boneheaded, mulish honesty; tickled that he and Doc had surprised Wyatt so completely; grateful to Doc for seeing to it that Wyatt got his dream back, even after his money had gone to build a library full of books Wyatt couldn’t read if he gave each one a whole damn year.

Suddenly jubilant, Morgan couldn’t keep still any longer. Giggling like a six-year-old, he did a little dance, and threw an arm around John Holliday’s shoulders, and pulled him close. “Hot damn! We got him good, Doc! Look at that, will you? He’s … Yes! Here it comes! A smile! Wyatt Earp is smiling!”

“Nice teeth,” Doc remarked.

Wyatt laughed. “Should be,” he said. “They cost enough.”

“Somebody get Nick Klaine!” Morg yelled out at the empty street. “Stop the press! Wyatt Earp is laughing!”

Wyatt murmured, “Doc, I don’t know what to say.”

“Sure you do, Wyatt,” Doc said softly. “Mississippi. Fifty-five. Go on, now. Take a ride on your brother’s fine new horse.”

Wyatt walked out to Roxana, who pranced some and shifted away, but settled as he stood talking to her quietly, letting her get to know him a little. When the time was right, he swung up and wheeled her a turn or two, until she was ready to pay attention.

He leaned forward. She gathered herself beneath him. They took off, headed north through the short grass toward a ripening wheat field, gold and copper and ocher in the mellow autumn light.

“Now, that is a sight to see,” Morgan said, for it appeared that his brother was flying, as though Roxana had no legs at all but just swept along, weightless as a bird skimming the prairie. “You did good, Doc. That was a real nice thing to do.”

“Yes,” Doc said, sounding content. “She’ll be something to remember me by.”

Morgan turned and looked at him hard, but Doc’s eyes were on Kate, who was walking up the street now with some groceries.

“Morgan,” Doc said warily, “if Miss Kate were to ask you about Roxana? Remember: I cut the cards for the horse with Grier the other night, just after she and Bob Wright left.”

For Morgan, autumn had always been a special joy. Of all the Earp kids, he was the one who liked it best when the family lived close enough to a town for him to go to a regular schoolhouse in the fall. Back when the Earps lived in Iowa and Illinois, he liked how the air got crisp as an apple, and how the leaves smelled when they piled up in heaps against buildings. He liked how his mother’s eyes warmed when he brought in as big an armload of wood as he could lug for the stove. Most of all, Morg liked climbing up to the attic after supper and getting into bed with a book.

He always claimed the space closest to a western window. It was colder there, but he’d pull a knitted cap down over his ears and burrow into the quilts and stick the book up to catch the dying light, reading until his hands were frozen and his eyelids were too heavy to stay open for another word. Now, of course, working nights the way he did, he didn’t go to bed in the dying light, but his and Lou’s bedroom window faced east. When the bright morning sun came in and hit his eyes and helped them close, he got that same feeling as he read himself to sleep.

This fall, he was working on a book called Black Beauty that he’d borrowed from Belle Wright. It was kind of strange because you were supposed to believe a horse was telling you the story, but it was good, too, and said a lot of true things about horses and made you think different about what you saw every day. Morgan thought Wyatt would enjoy the story if he could get past the silliness of animals talking to each other, so Morg was planning to read it aloud to Wyatt this winter when the weather closed in.