Dragon Teeth

by Michael Crichton

  “He’s a lying skunk, no doubt of it,” Marsh said.

  “Sounds a bad one,” Johnson said.

  At that moment, Wyatt Earp came around the corner and said, “Hey, Johnson! On your pegs! We’re moving out.”

  Marsh smiled at Johnson. “You little son of a bitch,” he said.

  The Laramie Bone Deal

  “It seemed,” wrote Johnson in his journal, “that many pigeons had come home to roost in Laramie.”

  Most of the town was preoccupied with another figure from Johnson’s past, Broken Nose Jack McCall. Jack had run from Deadwood and had gotten to Laramie, where he had bragged about killing Wild Bill Hickok. The reason he spoke so freely was that a miners’ court in Deadwood had tried him for that murder, and had acquitted him when he claimed that Wild Bill had killed his young brother many years before, and he was just avenging that crime. In Laramie, Jack talked openly of killing Hickok, certain that he could not be tried twice for the same crime.

  But Jack didn’t realize that the Deadwood miners’ court was not legally recognized, and he was promptly thrown into jail in Laramie and formally tried for Hickok’s murder. Since Jack had already publicly admitted to it, the trial was short; he was convicted and sentenced to be hanged, a turn of events that “irked him mightily.”

  While Jack’s trial was going on, an episode far more important to William Johnson was occurring down the road in Sutter’s Saloon. Wyatt Earp was sitting at a table, drinking whiskey with Othniel C. Marsh and negotiating for the sale of half Johnson’s bones.

  They were both hard bargainers, and it took most of the day. For his part, Earp appeared amused.

  Johnson sat with Miss Emily in the corner and watched the proceedings. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he said.

  “Why does it surprise you?” she asked.

  “What were my chances of running into that professor?” He sighed. “One in a million, or less.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said. “Wyatt knew Professor Marsh was in the territory.”

  A slow creeping sensation moved up Johnson’s spine. “He did?”

  “Surely.”

  “How did he know?”

  “I was with him in the hotel dining room,” she said, “when he heard the rumor that there was some college teacher in Cheyenne buying up all manner of fossils and asking about some bones in Deadwood. The miners were all laughing about it, but Wyatt’s eyes lit up when he heard the story.”

  Johnson frowned. “So he decided to help me get the bones out of Deadwood to Cheyenne?”

  “Yes,” she said. “We left the day after he heard that story.”

  “You mean Wyatt always intended to sell my bones to Marsh, from the beginning?”

  “I believe so,” she said softly.

  Johnson glared across the saloon at Earp. “And I thought he was my friend.”

  “You thought he was a fool,” Emily said. “But he is your friend.”

  “How can you say that? Look at him bargaining there, haggling over every dollar. At this rate they’ll be at it all day.”

  “Yes,” Emily said. “Yet I’m sure Wyatt could conclude the deal in five minutes, if that was what he intended.”

  Johnson stared at her. “You mean . . .”

  She nodded. “I’ve no doubt he’s wondering why you are sitting here while he stalls Professor Marsh for you.”

  “Oh, Emily,” he cried, “I could kiss you!”

  “I wish you would,” she said softly.

  “Too many things were happening at once,” wrote Johnson.

  My head was fairly spinning with these developments. I hurried outside with Emily, and postponed kissing her in order to send her off for a hundred-pound sack of rice, a bolt of tarp cloth, and a long-handled shovel. Meanwhile I hastily obtained the requisite large rocks, which fortunately were near at hand, remnants of the blasting that had been done to erect the new Platte bridge.

  He found yet another Chinese laundry and paid a small sum to use the fire and iron kettle with which they heated water. He spent three hours boiling fresh rice paste, making sure the concoction was gelatinous enough, and clutching the rocks with bamboo laundry tongs and dipping them into the pasty ooze, coating them. When they were dry, he poured dust over them, to make them suitably grimy. Next to the heat of the fire, they dried quickly. Finally, he removed the precious bones from all ten crates, and placed the new stones in the old crates, closing them carefully so that there would be no marks indicating they had been opened.

  By five that afternoon, he was exhausted. But all of Johnson’s fossil bones were safely hidden in the back of the stable, wrapped in tarp cloth and buried under a pile of fresh manure, the shovel hidden in the straw with them and the substitutions set out with a tarp covering, as the originals had been. Earp and Marsh arrived soon after. Marsh grinned at Johnson. “I expect this will be our last meeting, Mr. Johnson.”

  “I hope so,” Johnson said, with a sincerity Marsh could not have imagined.

  The division was begun. Marsh wanted to open all ten crates and inspect the fossils before dividing, but Johnson steadfastly refused. The division was meant to be between him and Earp, and it would be done randomly. Marsh grumbled but agreed.

  Midway through the process, Marsh said, “I think I had better look at one of these crates, to satisfy myself.”

  “I have no objection,” Earp said. He looked directly at Johnson.

  “I have plenty of objections,” Johnson said.

  “Oh? What are they?” Marsh asked.

  “I’m in a hurry,” Johnson said. “And besides . . .”

  “Besides?”

  “There’s your father,” Emily prompted him suddenly.

  “Yes, there’s my father,” Johnson said. “How much did Professor Marsh offer you for these stones, Wyatt?”

  “Two hundred dollars,” Wyatt said.

  “Two hundred dollars? That’s an outrage.”

  “It is two hundred more than you have, I believe,” Marsh said.

  “Look, Wyatt,” said Johnson. “There’s a telegraph office here in Laramie. I can cable my father for funds, and by this time tomorrow I can give you five hundred dollars for your share.”

  Marsh darkened. “Mr. Earp, we have made our deal.”

  “That’s so,” Earp said. “But I like the sound of five hundred dollars.”

  “I’ll give you six,” Marsh said. “Now.”

  “Seven fifty,” Johnson said. “Tomorrow.”

  Marsh said, “Mr. Earp, I thought we had a deal.”

  “It’s amazing,” Earp said, “how things keep changing in this world.”

  “But you don’t even know if this young man can come up with the money.”

  “I suspect he can.”

  “Eight hundred,” Johnson said.

  Half an hour later, Marsh pronounced himself happy to take Earp’s share of the bones, at once and without inspection, for a thousand dollars in cash. “But I want that box,” he said suddenly, spying the one with the small X on the side. “That means something.”

  “No!” yelled Johnson.

  Marsh drew his weapon. “It would appear that box has contents that are especially valuable. And if you believe that your life is also especially valuable, Mr. Johnson, which I do not, then I suggest you let me remove this crate without further discussion.”

  Marsh had the boxes loaded onto a wagon, and he and Navy Joe Benedict headed north, toward Deadwood, to retrieve the rest of the bones.

  “What does he mean, the rest of the bones?” Johnson asked, as he saw the wagon drive off into the sunset.

  “I told him there was another thousand pounds we left behind in Deadwood, hidden in Chinese Town, only you didn’t want him to know about them,” Earp said.

  “We better get moving,” Johnson said. “He won’t go far before he cracks open one of those cases and finds he has bought worthless granite. And he’ll be back hopping mad.”

  “I’m ready to go,” Earp said, thumbi
ng through the money. “I feel well satisfied with my return on this trip.”

  “There’s one problem, of course.”

  “You need crates to replace the ones you just lost,” said Earp. “I bet the army garrison has some, given their need for provisions.”

  Within an hour they had procured ten crates of more or less equal size as the ones Marsh had taken. Johnson unearthed the bones from their manure bed, and packed them carefully but quickly. The box containing the dragon teeth received another X, which satisfied him more than he could say.

  They left, within minutes, for Cheyenne.

  Earp was up on the box with Tiny. Inside the coach, Miss Emily stared at him. “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “I think I’ve been very patient.”

  “I thought you might be Wyatt’s girl,” he said.

  “Wyatt’s girl? Wherever would you get an idea like that?”

  “Well, I thought so.”

  “Wyatt Earp is a scoundrel and a drifter. The man lives for excitement, gambling, shooting, and other pursuits of no substance.”

  “And me?”

  “You’re different,” she said. “You’re brave, but you are also refined. I bet you kiss real refined, too.”

  She was waiting.

  “I learned,” Johnson wrote in his journal, “one immediate lesson, which was the unwisdom of kissing aboard a bucking stagecoach. My lip was deeply bitten and the blood flowed freely, which inhibited, but did not stop, further explorations of this nature.”

  He added, “I hope she did not know I had never kissed a girl before, in the passionate French way which seemed to be to her liking. Except for that one time with Lucienne. But I will say this for Emily. If she did know, she did not say anything, and for that—and for other experiences with her in Cheyenne—I am eternally grateful.”

  Cheyenne

  In the unimaginable splendor of a room at the Inter-Ocean Hotel (which he had previously seen as a roach-infested dump), Johnson took his ease for several days, with Emily. But first, upon arrival and signing the hotel register, he ascertained that the Inter-Ocean maintained a steel-walled strong room, with one of the new combination time locks, developed for banks against would-be bank robbers. The boxes were carried into the room by the porters. He tipped them generously so that they would not resent him and whisper about the boxes to their less friendly colleagues.

  The first day, he soaked in four baths in succession, for after each he found his body was still dirty. It seemed as though the dust of the prairie would never leave his skin.

  He visited the barber, who trimmed his hair and beard. It was startling to sit in the chair and inspect his own face in the mirror. He could not get used to it; his features were unfamiliar; he had the face of a different person—leaner, harder, determination now in his features. And there was the scar over his upper lip; he rather liked it, and so did Emily. The barber stepped back, scissors in one hand, comb in the other. “How’s that look, sir?” Like everyone else in Cheyenne, the barber treated Johnson with respect. It wasn’t because he was rich—no one in Cheyenne knew he was rich—but rather because of something in his manner, his bearing. Without meaning to do so, he looked like a man who might shoot another one—because he now had.

  “Sir? How does that look?” the barber asked again.

  Johnson didn’t know. Finally, he said, “I like it fine.”

  He took Emily to dinner in the best restaurant in town. They dined on oysters from California, and wine from France, and poulet à l’estragon. She recognized the name of the wine, he noticed. After dinner they walked arm in arm on the streets of the town. He remembered how dangerous Cheyenne had felt when he had been here before. Now it seemed a sleepy little railway junction, populated by braggarts and gamblers putting on airs. Even the toughest-looking customers stepped aside on the boardwalk when he passed.

  “They see you wear a gun,” Emily said, “and you know how to use it.”

  Pleased, Johnson took Emily back to the hotel early, and to bed. They stayed in bed most of the following day. He had a wonderful time, and so did she.

  “Where will you go now?” she asked him on the third day.

  “Back to Philadelphia,” he said.

  “I’ve never been to Philadelphia,” she said.

  “You’ll love it there,” he said, smiling.

  She smiled back, happily. “You really want me to come?”

  “Of course.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t be silly,” he said.

  But he began to feel that she was always one step ahead of him. She seemed to know the hotel better than he would have expected, and enjoyed an easy overfamiliarity with the men behind the desk and the waiters in the dining room. Some even seemed to recognize her. And when he and Emily strolled the streets and window-shopped, she recognized Eastern fashions readily.

  “I think this one’s very pretty.”

  “It seems out of place here, not that I am the expert.”

  “Well, a Western girl likes to know what’s fashionable.”

  He would have reason to ponder this statement later.

  A few steps along the wooden walkway, she said, “What sort of person is your mother?”

  Johnson had not thought of his mother for a long time. The very thought was jolting in some way. “Why did you ask that?”

  “I was just wondering about meeting her.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Whether she will like me.”

  “Ah, of course.”

  “Do you think she’ll like me, Bill?”

  “Oh, she’ll like you fine,” Johnson said.

  “You don’t sound convinced.” She pouted prettily.

  “Don’t be silly,” he said, and squeezed her arm.

  “Let’s go back to the hotel,” she said. And quickly, she licked his ear.

  “Stop it, Emily.”

  “What’s the matter? I thought you liked that.”

  “I do, but not here. Not in public.”

  “Why? Nobody’s looking at us.”

  “I know, but it’s not proper.”

  “What difference does it make?” She was frowning. “If nobody is looking at us, what possible difference could it make?”

  “I don’t know, it just does.”

  “You’re back in Philadelphia already,” she said, stepping away and staring at him.

  “Now, Emily . . .”

  “You are.”

  But all he said was, “Don’t be silly.”

  “I’m not being silly,” she said. “And I’m not going to Philadelphia.”

  He did not know what to say.

  “I just wouldn’t fit in,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek.

  “Emily . . .”

  She cried openly. “I know what you are thinking, Bill. I’ve known for days now.”

  “Emily, please . . .” He had no idea what she meant, for the last three days had been the most deliriously pleasurable of his life.

  “It’s no good—don’t touch me, please—it’s no good, that’s all.”

  They walked back to the hotel, side by side, not speaking. She held her head high and sniffled occasionally. He was uncomfortable, clumsy, not knowing what to do.

  After a time, he glanced at her and saw that she was no longer crying. She was furious. “After all I did for you,” she said. “Why, you’d be long dead from Dick if I hadn’t helped you, and you’d never have gotten out of Deadwood if I hadn’t talked Wyatt into helping you, and you’d have lost your bones in Laramie if I hadn’t helped you see a plan . . .”

  “That’s true, Emily.”

  “And this is the thanks I get! You cast me aside like an old rag.”

  She was really angry. Yet somehow he realized it was he who was being cast aside. “Emily . . .”

  “I said don’t touch me!”

  It was a relief when the sheriff came up to them, tipped his hat politely to Emily, and said, “You William Johnson o
f Philadelphia?”

  “I am.”

  “You the one staying at the Inter-Ocean?”

  “I am.”

  “You have some identification of who you are?”

  “Of course.”

  “That’s fine,” the sheriff said, taking out his gun. “You’re under arrest. For the murder of William Johnson.”

  “But I am William Johnson.”

  “I can’t see how. William Johnson is dead. So whoever you are, you’re surely not him, are you?”

  Handcuffs were snapped on his wrists. He looked at her. “Emily, tell him.”

  Emily turned on her heel and walked away without a word.

  “Emily!”

  “Let’s go, mister,” the sheriff said, and pushed Johnson toward the jail.

  It took a while for the details to come out. His first day in Cheyenne, Johnson had cabled his father in Philadelphia, asking him to send $500. His father had immediately cabled the sheriff’s office to report that someone in Cheyenne was impersonating his dead son.

  Everything Johnson produced—his Yale class ring, some crumpled correspondence, a newspaper clipping from the Deadwood Black Hills Weekly Pioneer—was taken as proof that he had robbed a dead man and probably killed him as well.

  “This fellow Johnson’s a college man from back East,” the sheriff said, squinting judiciously at Johnson. “Now that couldn’t be you, could it.”

  “But it is,” Johnson insisted.

  “He’s rich, too.”

  “I am.”

  The sheriff laughed. “That’s a good one,” he said. “You’re a rich college man from back East, and I’m Santa Claus.”

  “Ask the girl. Ask Emily.”

  “Oh, I did,” the sheriff said. “She said she’s real disappointed in you, you gave her a big story about yourself and now she sees you for what you are. She’s living it up in your hotel room and selling off those crates of whatever it is you brought with you to town.”

  “What?”

  “She’s no friend of yours, mister,” the sheriff said.