Dragon Teeth

by Michael Crichton

  Johnson nodded and locked himself back in his room.

  And waited. If they come in the door, he thought, I better be ready. He put a loaded pistol into each of his boots at the foot of the bed.

  The hours dragged by. At midnight, he went out again in his wool socks to ask about Earp, but Edwin was asleep and Earp’s key was on the wall behind him, which meant he had not yet returned from the saloon.

  Johnson went back to his room and waited.

  All around him, the hotel was silent.

  He stared at the hands of his watch. He listened to it tick, and he waited.

  At two, there was a scratching on the wall. He jumped up, raising his gun.

  He heard the scratching again.

  “Who’s there!”

  There was no reply. More scratching.

  “Get away!” he said, his voice quavering.

  He heard a low squeaking, and the scratching moved quickly off. He recognized the sound now.

  “Rats.”

  He slumped back down, tense and exhausted. He was sweating. His hands were shaking. This was not his line of business. He didn’t have the nerve for it. Where was Wyatt Earp, anyway?

  “I can’t figure what you’re so hot about,” Earp said, the next day.

  “We had a deal,” Johnson said. “That’s what I’m so hot about.” He had not slept at all the night before; he was angry and tired.

  “Yes, we did,” Earp said. “To protect your fossils from the Curry boys.”

  “And I paid you in advance.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “And where were you?”

  “Doing what I was hired to do,” Earp said. “I played blackjack all night. With the Curry boys.”

  Johnson sighed. He was too tired to argue.

  “Well, what do you expect me to do,” Earp said. “Leave ’em to come and sit in the dark with you?”

  “It’s just that I didn’t know.”

  “You look peaked,” Earp said sympathetically. “You go get sleep.”

  Johnson nodded, started back to the hotel.

  “You want to hire me again tonight?” Earp called to him.

  “Yes,” Johnson said.

  “That’ll be five dollars,” Earp said.

  “I’m not paying you five dollars to play blackjack,” Johnson said.

  Earp shrugged. “Suit yourself, boy.”

  That night he put the loaded pistols and extra bullets in his boots again. He must have fallen asleep after midnight, because he awoke to the sound of wood splintering. The broken door opened, and a figure slid into the room. The door closed again. It was pitch-dark because of the crates blocking the window.

  “Foggy,” a voice whispered.

  “Wyatt?” Johnson whispered.

  The sharp clock of a gun being cocked. A footstep. Silence. Breathing in the dark. Johnson realized he made an easy target and eased out of the bed and beneath it. He took one of the pistols out of its boot and flung the boot against the wall.

  At the sound of the boot hitting the wall, there was a tongue of flame as the man fired at the noise. Someone yelled immediately elsewhere in the hotel.

  “You get out, whoever you are!” Johnson said, the room filled with smoke now. “I have a loaded gun, you get on out.”

  Silence. Another footstep. Breathing.

  “That you, Foggy boy?”

  The door opened again and another man came in.

  “He’s in his bed,” came a voice.

  “Foggy, we are going to light a lamp now. Just sit still and we will get this all straightened out.”

  Instead, the men opened fire into his bed, splintering the frame. Johnson grabbed his second pistol and lifted both guns, emptying each without skill.

  He heard wood splintering, groaning, something falling, then maybe the door being opened.

  He paused to reload, fumbling in the darkness. He heard breathing—he was sure of it. That made him nervous. He could imagine the killer squatting there, listening to Johnson’s panicked exhalations, listening to the clink of the bullets going into the chambers, focusing on the sound, locating Johnson . . .

  He finished reloading. Still nothing.

  “Oh, Carmella,” came a sad and tired voice. “I know I’ve been—” The man’s breathing became labored. “If’n I can just get my breath good . . .” He coughed and there was a kick against the floor. Then a crackling, choking noise. Then nothing.

  In his journal, Johnson wrote,

  I apprehended then that I had killed a man, but the room was too dark to see who it was. I waited there on the floor with my guns ready in case the other shootist came back, and I resolved to fire first and ask questions afterward. But then I heard Mr. Perkins, the proprietor, calling from the hallway. I answered back. I told him I wasn’t going to shoot, and then he appeared in the doorway with a lamp, throwing light across the room and down to the floor, where a big man lay dead, his blood a wet rug beneath him.

  There were three neat bullet wounds in the man’s broad back.

  Perkins rolled the body over. In the guttering light of the lamp, he looked into the sightless eyes of Clem Curry. “Dead as a doornail,” he muttered.

  The hallway filled with voices, and then heads poked their way through the doorway to gawk.

  “Stand back, folks, stand back.”

  Judge Harlan pushed roughly through the onlookers into the room. Harlan was in ill humor, probably, Johnson thought, because he had been called out of bed. It turned out to be nothing of the sort. “I left a hell of a poker game,” the judge said, “to deal with this here murder.”

  He stared at the body.

  “That’s Clem Curry, isn’t it?”

  Johnson said it was.

  “No loss to the community, as far as I’m concerned,” the judge said. “What was he doing here?”

  “Robbing me,” Johnson said.

  “Figures,” Judge Harlan said. He took a drink from a hip flask, passed it to Johnson. “Who shot him?”

  Johnson said he had.

  “Well,” the judge said, “as far as it matters to me, that’s fine. The only trouble is, you shot him in the back.”

  Johnson explained that it was dark, and he could not see.

  “I am sure of it,” the judge said. “But the problem is, you shot him three times in the back.”

  Johnson said he hadn’t intended to kill anyone at all.

  “I am sure of it. You have no problem with me, but you may have some difficulty when Black Dick hears of it, tomorrow or the next day, depending if he’s in town.”

  This had already occurred to Johnson, and he did not like to think about it too long.

  “You planning to leave Deadwood?” the judge said.

  “Not just yet,” Johnson said.

  Judge Harlan took another pull from the flask. “I would,” he said. “Myself, I’d be gone before daybreak.”

  “Well, damn me,” Sam Perkins said, fingering the bullet holes in the wall after the crowd had left. “You surely had some hot work here, Mr. Johnson.”

  “They didn’t get the bones.”

  “That’s so, but they got every one of my guests out of bed in the middle of the night, Mr. Johnson.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Scared Edwin the night clerk so bad he wet his trousers. I’m not fooling.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I can’t run a hotel this way, Mr. Johnson. The Grand Central has its reputation. I want these bones out of here today,” Perkins said.

  “Mr. Perkins—”

  “Today,” Perkins said, “and that’s final. And I’ll charge you to repair the bullet holes. That’ll be on your bill.”

  “Where am I going to move them to?”

  “Ain’t my problem.”

  “Mr. Perkins, these bones are valuable to science.”

  “We’re a long way from science. Just get ’em out of here.”

  Moving the Bones

  With the crates loaded in h
is wagon the next morning, he went first to the Deadwood bank, but they had no space to store anything but gold dust.

  Then he tried Sutter’s Dry Goods. Mr. Sutter had a strong room in the back where he stored his firearms for sale. Mr. Sutter refused outright. But Johnson took the opportunity to buy more bullets for his guns.

  The National Hotel was not as particular as the Grand Central, and was known to be accommodating. But the man at the desk said he had no storage facilities.

  Fielder’s Saloon and Gaming House was open around the clock, and the scene of so many altercations that Fielder kept an armed guard to maintain order. He had a back room that was large enough.

  Fielder said no.

  “It’s just bones, Mr. Fielder.”

  “Maybe so, maybe not. Whatever it is, the Curry boys are after ’em. I want no part of it.”

  Colonel Ramsay was feisty, and had plenty of room in his stables. He just shook his head when Johnson asked him.

  “Is everybody afraid of the Curry brothers?”

  “Everybody with sense,” Ramsay said.

  The afternoon was drawing to an end, the light starting to fail, and the temperature in town was dropping quickly. Johnson went back to his photo studio, the Black Hills Art Gallery, but he had no customers. It seemed he had become extremely unpopular overnight. He was looking around the studio, trying to see whether he could store the bones there, when his landlord, Kim Sing, came in from the laundry with his young son, the one who had dragged away the dead body out of the street.

  Sing nodded and smiled, but as usual said nothing. The son said, “You need place to store some things?”

  The boy’s English was pretty good. “Yes, I do. What’s your name?”

  “Kang.”

  “I like your boots there, Kang.”

  The boy smiled. Chinese boys never wore leather boots. His father said something to him. “You store your things in Chinese Town.”

  “I can?”

  “Yes. You can.”

  “It would have to be a safe place.”

  “Yes. Ling Chow has tool shed, very strong and just new, it has lock and no windows except small windows at the top.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Behind Ling Chow restaurant.”

  In the middle of Chinatown. It would be perfect. Johnson felt a rush of gratitude. “That’s very kind of you, I appreciate your offer very much. No one else in this town will even—”

  “Ten dollar a night.”

  “What?”

  “Ten dollar a night. Okay?”

  “I can’t afford ten dollars a night!”

  Unblinking: “You can.”

  “That’s outrageous.”

  “That’s the price. Okay?”

  Johnson thought it over. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

  “At this time, I still had more than a thousand pounds of fossils,” Johnson later recalled.

  Ten boxes weighing about a hundred pounds each. I hired Kim Sing’s boy, Kang, to help me with the wagon. I paid him two dollars for the afternoon, and he earned it. He kept saying, “What is this?” and I kept telling him it was old bones. But my story didn’t get more persuasive. I also didn’t know there were so many Chinamen in Deadwood. It seemed to me their smooth impassive faces were everywhere, watching me, commenting to each other, standing four deep around the tool shed, peering from windows in the surrounding buildings.

  Finally when all the crates were stacked neatly in the tool shed, Kang looked at them and said, “Why you care so much?”

  I said I didn’t know anymore. Then I went to the Grand Central for dinner, and returned to the tool shed at nightfall, to keep my evening watch over the dinosaur bones.

  He did not have long to wait. Around ten, shadowy figures appeared around the high transom windows. Johnson cocked his gun. There were several figures outside; he heard whispered voices.

  The window creaked open. A hand reached down. Johnson saw a dark head appear in the narrow glass. He aimed his gun.

  “Get away, you bastards!”

  A sharp giggle startled him. They were kids, Chinese kids. He lowered his gun.

  “Get away. Go on, get away.”

  The giggling continued. Scraping footsteps, and he was alone again. He sighed. It was a good thing he hadn’t shot hastily, he thought.

  There was more scraping.

  “Didn’t you hear me? Get out of here!”

  Probably they didn’t speak English, he thought. But most of the young ones had passable English. And the older ones spoke a lot more English than they were willing to admit they did.

  Another head at the window, shadowy.

  “Get away, you kids!”

  “Mr. Johnson.” It was Kang.

  “Yes?”

  “I have the bad news for you.”

  “What?”

  “I think everybody know you here. People in laundry say talking you move boxes to this place.”

  Johnson froze. Of course they knew. He’d merely exchanged one room in town for another. “Kang, you know my wagon?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “It’s at the stable. Can you get it and bring it here?”

  “Yes.”

  It seemed he returned only a few minutes later.

  “Tell your friends to load the boxes as fast as possible.”

  Kang did that, and soon the wagon was loaded. Johnson gave them a dollar and told them to run away. “Kang, stay with me.”

  Chinese Town was larger than it looked, with new streets being built constantly. Kang showed him how to guide the wagon through the narrow lanes. At one point they stopped as four horsemen went by in a hurry in the street ahead.

  “Look for you, I think,” said Kang.

  They eased out onto a side road, and in a few minutes they came to the tall pine where Johnson had buried Little Wind. The ground was still soft, and he and Kang gently exhumed Little Wind, holding their breaths as they pulled him out of the hole. The stench was wretched. The ten boxes took up the space of about two more graves, and Johnson widened the hole he had made for Little Wind and stacked the boxes as evenly as he could. Then he laid Little Wind on top of the boxes, as if he were sleeping atop them.

  If I had my camera and it was daytime, I would take a photograph of that, Johnson told himself.

  He piled the dirt back over Little Wind, spreading it around so the excess would not be so apparent, then brushed pine needles over the spot.

  “This is our secret,” he told Kang.

  “Yes, but it can be a better secret.”

  “Yes, of course.” Johnson pulled a five-dollar gold piece from his pocket. “You do not tell anyone.”

  “No, no.”

  But he did not trust the boy not to talk. “When I leave, Kang, I will pay you another five dollars if you have kept the secret.”

  “Another five dollar?”

  “Yes, the day I leave Deadwood.”

  A Shootout

  Black Dick showed up in a rage at the Grand Hotel at breakfast time the same morning. He kicked open the door. “Where is the little bastard?”

  His gaze fell on Johnson.

  “I’m not a shooting man,” Johnson said, as calmly as he could.

  “No coward is.”

  “You may hold whatever opinion you like.”

  “You shot Clem in the back. You are a yellow-bellied snake.”

  “He was robbing my property.”

  Dick spat. “You shot him in the back, you son of a poxy whore.”

  Johnson shook his head. “I won’t be provoked.”

  “Then hear this,” Dick said. “You meet me outside now, or I’ll go to that shed in Chinese Town and plug every one of your precious crates with dynamite and blow ’em to smithereens. Might blow up some of those Chinamen who helped you, too.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “I can’t see who might stop me. You care to watch me blow your precious bones?”

  Johnson felt a strange deep fury fill him. A
ll his frustrations, all the difficulties of his weeks in Deadwood, overwhelmed him. He was glad he had moved the crates. He began to breathe deeply, slowly. His face felt oddly tight.

  “No,” Johnson said. He stood. “I’ll see you outside, Dick.”

  “That’s fine,” Dick said. “I’ll be waiting on you.”

  And Dick left, slamming the door behind him.

  Johnson sat in the hotel dining room. The other breakfasters looked at him. Nobody spoke. Sunlight came in through the windows. He heard a bird chirping.

  He heard the rattle of wagons in the street outside, the people shouting to each other to clear out, that there was going to be some gunplay. He heard Mrs. Wilson’s piano lessons in the next building, a child playing scales.

  Johnson felt completely unreal.

  Minutes later, Wyatt Earp hurried into the dining room. “What’s this foolishness about you and Dick Curry?”

  “It’s true.”

  Earp stared at him a moment, then said, “Take my advice and back out.”

  “I’m not backing out,” Johnson said.

  “Can you shoot?”

  “Not real good.”

  “That’s unfortunate.”

  “But I’m going up against him anyway.”

  “You want some advice, or you want to die your own way?”

  “I will be grateful for any advice,” Johnson said. He noticed that his lip was quivering, his hand shaking.

  “Sit down,” Earp said. “I been through lots of these, and it’s always the same. You get a pistoleer like Dick, he is pretty full of himself, and he has shot a man or two. He’s fast. But mostly his victims have been drunk or scared or both.”

  “I surely am scared.”

  “That’s fine. Just remember, most of these gunmen are cowards and bullies, they have a trick that works for them. You must avoid his tricks.”

  “Such as what? What tricks?”

  “Some of ’em try and rush you, some of ’em try and distract you—they smoke a cigar, toss it away, expecting your eyes naturally to follow it. Some of ’em try and talk to you. Some of ’em yawn, try to get you to yawn. Tricks.”