Doc

by Mary Doria Russell

  Wyatt was stupid with the need for sleep. “What’re you talking about, Doc?”

  “Well, as you may know, I sometimes supplement my income with games of skill and chance. I was in a position to have observed young Mr. Sanders at similar employment in the weeks prior to his death. I calculate he was at least eighteen hundred dollars to the good when he died and—”

  “Eighteen hundred dollars!”

  “In my estimation, yes. I have only resided in Dodge since the end of April. He may well have won more prior to my arrival. There was no mention of the money in the local press. I would like to call your brother Morgan a friend of mine, and I would never wish to question his competence, but it seems to me that someone in authority might have at least considered robbery as a motive for assault and arson! I told them there was every indication that the boy sustained an ante-mortem blow to the back of the head before the fire, but Sheriff Masterson decided the death was an accident and that was the end of it. Justice was not well served, in my opinion.”

  Wyatt shook his head. The man never used one word when twenty would do the same job. “Make it simple for me, Doc. You’re saying somebody killed Johnnie for the money and set the fire to cover it up?”

  “Yes—”

  Wyatt turned on his heel and strode away without another word.

  Mouth open, John Henry Holliday watched until the lawman had disappeared down the hallway. Then he went back inside No. 24 to ready the office for the next patient, if and when such a one might arrive.

  “About time somebody took this seriously,” he muttered, cleaning out the basin so he could rinse the instruments in carbolic. “That boy deserved better than he got.”

  Isabelle Wright was just entering the lobby of Dodge House with little Wilfred Eberhardt at her side when Wyatt Earp brushed past her looking like thunder.

  This was the first time Belle had seen Mr. Earp since he left Dodge in the autumn to track down David Rudabaugh. Ordinarily, she would have welcomed him back to town, and told him how glad she was that he’d been rehired by the city police department, and introduced Wilfred to him, and so on, but the deputy was out the door before she could say a word. He didn’t even notice her.

  Maybe it was because her hair was different. Last time Mr. Earp saw her, she was still in braids. Belle was wearing her hair up now and with Wilfred at her side, she might have looked like a young matron. Maybe Mr. Earp thought she was somebody else. Even so, you’d have thought he’d tip his hat at least.

  Not being noticed was an unusual experience for the Belle of Dodge City. On one hand, it was humbling; on the other, a considerable relief, for she had been relentlessly reminded since turning thirteen that the entire Wright family would be judged by her dress and her comportment, and that her own future depended on her behavior.

  Even with wealth and beauty to give her an edge, her mother had told her repeatedly, Belle was going to have a hard time attracting a suitable husband, living here in Dodge. There weren’t a lot of gentlemen to choose from, and Belle wasn’t getting any younger. “When I was fifteen,” her mother had reminded Belle just this very morning, for what must have been the seven hundred and thirty-fifth time in the past two years, “I was already married with two babies!”

  As though that were enviable, Belle thought. As though Alice Wright simply couldn’t wait for her daughter to repeat her mistakes.

  “Yes, Mother,” Belle said in her Humble and Obedient voice. “I suppose I am being too picky.” If preferring not to be repulsed by one’s husband counts as picky. “If it’s all right with you, Mother, I’d like to take Wilfred to see Dr. Holliday about that tooth. May I do that, please? With your permission?”

  “Don’t try that fakery on me,” her mother snapped.

  “What fakery, Mother?”

  “You’re just like your father,” Alice Wright said, knowing that nothing could insult her daughter more. “Yes. Take the boy to the dentist.”

  This would be Belle’s sixth visit to Dr. Hollidays’ office. She had excellent teeth herself and had considered that a blessing until the first time she saw the dentist in the store, picking up his mail. The strange thing was that John Holliday was about the only eligible gentleman in Dodge City whom her mother hadn’t invited to dinner, so Belle had taken it upon herself to escort each of her brothers and sisters to No. 24, Dodge House, to get their teeth checked. Dr. Holliday was always exquisitely polite, and very kind to each of the children, but it never seemed to enter his head that Belle Wright might be interested in him. Maybe he just thought she was being scrupulous about the children’s dental health.

  In any case, young Wilfred’s sudden tragic need for a foster home had provided a welcome opportunity to knock once more on the dentist’s door.

  “Why, Miss Isabelle!” Dr. Holliday cried. “What a delightful surprise. You look a picture this mornin’.” He took the gloved hand she offered and held it between both of his own. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” There was sudden frowning concern. “I do hope you yourself are not sufferin’ from toothache.”

  “I am well, thank you, Dr. Holliday, but I’ve brought someone who may require your professional services,” Belle told him, putting her arm around Wilfred’s little shoulders.

  “And who is this?” the dentist asked. “I thought I had met all your brothers …”

  Belle drew the boy forward. “Dr. Holliday, may I present Wilfred Eberhardt? Wilfred, this is Dr. Holliday. He will help you with that tooth. Did you understand, honey? Er hilft mit diesem Zahn.”

  “What seems to be the trouble, Mr. Eberhardt?”

  Wilfred stared at his feet, so Belle answered for him. “He has a baby tooth that won’t come out—the new one’s growing in behind it.”

  “Does he speak any English at all?”

  “He might understand more than he lets on,” Belle said, “the way I do with German—I picked it up, just listening, from the farm families. Wilfred’s people spoke nothing but German. He might not have heard much English until last week.”

  “And what happened last week?”

  Belle told the dentist what she knew. The immigrant family, the worn-out mother, the bereaved father. The bad weather, the growing debt. The loneliness. The suicide. The little boy leading his even littler sisters to the neighbors …

  “God a’mighty,” Dr. Holliday said softly. “Is there no one in this vast land who is not in mournin’?”

  “I blame my father,” Belle said, suddenly angry and glad to have someone with whom to share her indignation, a luxury she had not enjoyed since Johnnie Sanders died. “Daddy actually blocked legislation that would have provided relief to those farmers when the hoppers ate their crops. And during the drought? He did it again. He said if folks back East find out how bad it is in Kansas, they’ll stop coming here to homestead and property values will drop. Can you believe it? He thinks he’s making up for it by letting Mother and me give charity to families that go bust, but they wouldn’t need charity in the first place if they hadn’t been lured out here with a pack of lies about what a paradise Kansas is!”

  Dr. Holliday’s face was grave. “That is a disturbin’ accusation, Miss Isabelle.”

  “It’s God’s honest truth, Dr. Holliday! I’m not lying—”

  “Most certainly not. I meant that I was disturbed by the accusation, not that I doubted your word—”

  “Daddy always says he’s a self-made man. Well, let me tell you something,” Belle declared. “He thinks very highly of his creator! Why, he—” She stopped and stared. “Are you laughing at me, Dr. Holliday?”

  “Not at all, Miss Isabelle. I beg pardon for givin’ you that impression. It was an amusin’ turn of phrase, is all. Now, if you would be so kind as to act as our interpreter, ask young Mr. Eberhardt, please, if I may have a look at the tooth that is troublin’ him. Tell him that I’d like to use this little mirror to look inside his mouth.”

  Belle did her best, which must have been good enough. Wilfred climbed in
to the seat.

  Dr. Holliday showed the boy the mirror and let Wilfred use it to peek around in the dentist’s own mouth. Belle had seen all this before when she’d brought her sisters and brothers in, but she settled herself behind the desk in the corner of the office to watch the dentist work, while thinking, just hypothetically, of course, Isabelle Holliday. Mrs. John Holliday. Belle Holliday …

  In the past two years, she had often studied the paired daguerreotypes on the mantelpiece at home: pictures taken to commemorate her parents’ wedding day. No doubt about it, Alice Armstrong was a lovely child at thirteen. In Belle’s opinion, her mother might have caught herself a better husband if she’d waited a year or two before settling on a man, but Alice was probably practical even as an infant. Picky, after all, requires at least one alternative to reject. A Missouri farm wasn’t likely to provide even that much choice in the way of suitors. Bob Wright’s proposal was the only one Alice was likely to get.

  Gazing at her father’s photograph, Belle had tried but simply could not imagine a beautiful little girl like Alice looking at the nineteen-year-old Bob Wright and thinking, My hero! Not with Bob’s bland boyish face and his dreadful little chin, which looked so much worse now that he was wearing that big, full mustache! Belle could hardly stand to be in the same room with him these days, given the amount of sheer physical effort required not to cringe.

  Still, there must have been something attractive about her father, once upon a time. Certainly, he had always been a man to make the most of an opportunity—if you could believe his own boasts, that is. Belle had caught him in so many lies, she no longer gave him the benefit of the doubt and checked every claim.

  Yes, her mother had confirmed, before he turned twenty, Bob Wright was leading trains of forty freight wagons, delivering supplies to mining camps and railway crews and army depots on the far frontier. And before Alice turned twenty, Bob had indeed made his little bride the mother of three surviving children.

  In the ordinary way of things, there might have been even more children by then, Belle supposed with a shudder, except that Bob was often gone for long stretches, tending to business interests scattered across Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico.

  Her father routinely offered that as praiseworthy evidence of gumption, but it also meant letting his wife fend for herself and their kids in a dirt-floored soddy with nobody but wolves and savages for neighbors. Belle’s own earliest memory was of huddling with her brothers under a feather bed while their mother loaded guns for the hired hand during an Indian raid. And then there was the time they all nearly drowned, fleeing downriver by canoe during an attack …

  What kind of man hears about something like that when he gets home, and then leaves again a couple of weeks later? That’s what Belle wanted to know.

  To her misfortune, Alice Wright always seemed to do just fine on her own, which absolved her husband of the need to stick around. He’d come home now and then, get her pregnant, light out again. And there she’d be with all those little children and a new one on the way, and no word from her husband for months at time, and no way to know if she was a widow or simply abandoned.

  Like most entrepreneurs, Bob Wright was hostile to federal power and interference, but he saw no harm at all in the postwar scramble for government contracts. And don’t think Belle hadn’t spotted that hypocrisy. Land grants, mineral rights and rights-of-way, mail monopolies, Indian agencies—that was where the real money was. After the war, her father was in there with the best of them, snout in the federal trough.

  From what Belle was able to patch together, her mother had hoped things would get better when the family moved to Fort Dodge after Bob got the sutler contract, but Belle was old enough to remember how gloomy and angry and cold her mother turned when they got there. Living inside the fort during the Indian wars meant there was more danger of attracting an attack by hostiles, but also more help in surviving it. So that was a mixed blessing. And having neighbors might have made a nice change, except it turned out the only other civilians at the fort were buffalo hunters passing through and the Irish girls who called themselves laundresses.

  As a child, Belle found the girls’ curly hair and bright dresses pretty, and their breezy manner amusing and gay. She enjoyed their songs and laughter, and liked that she was their pet, but quickly learned that her mother absolutely despised them and that it was wise to keep her own fascination well hidden.

  Now that she was grown, she understood, of course. Whatever Bob Wright had done with such women during his long absences, it was something a wife could ignore; at Fort Dodge, the women were right there, mocking and obnoxious. Alice might not be eager for yet another pregnancy, but neither did she welcome the constant bitter reminders of what was going on behind her back.

  A lot of things got better when they moved to Dodge City. The house Bob built for the family was an enormous improvement over their little shack at the fort. Buffalo hunters and Indians were becoming a distant memory, but the whores were everywhere. Laughing and lewd, or drunk and desperate. Walking the streets, browsing in the store. Leaning from second-story windows, calling out to passersby.

  Alice insisted that Belle’s dresses be made in dark, sober colors and expensive fabrics, to avoid her being taken for one of them. “You never know who might be watching, Belle,” her mother told her over and over, “so you must conduct yourself as a lady at all times.” Alice allowed Belle to go out only between the hours of ten and noon, so her maiden eyes would not be subject to the spectacle of open prostitution. As though Belle hadn’t seen worse, back at the fort. As though she didn’t know what her own father was doing over at Bessie Earp’s bordello.

  Since Belle’s last birthday, Alice’s concern for her daughter’s future had bubbled into a rolling boil of desperation. “Even if we started planning a wedding tomorrow, you’d be sixteen before your first baby.”

  “Don’t fret, Mother,” Belle replied, selecting the voice of Sweet Reason. “Abraham and Sarah had a baby when she was ninety-nine, so I guess I have a few years left.”

  The remark earned her a slap, but it was worth it.

  All year, Belle had endured a series of her mother’s dreary Sunday dinners, each one a transparent job interview. A visiting banker, lumpish and self-important. A railroad man, bumptious and balding. Tommy McCarty, son of the town’s doctor, who was nice enough, really, but boring. A cattleman’s nephew, educated at Harvard, who could only talk about how sophisticated Boston was and how he couldn’t wait to go back East.

  Don’t let me stop you, Belle thought. There’s a train leaving in the morning.

  The latest, and most persistent, in this tiresome procession was Elijah Garrett Grier, who’d been calling on the Wrights regularly for months. Eli Grier was from a prominent Connecticut family and he was a war hero, her mother told Belle before the gentleman arrived that first Sunday. Even Belle had to admit that Captain Grier had seemed like a real possibility when he rode up to the house on his beautiful Arabian mare. Slim and straight-backed, good-looking and worldly, Eli Grier was almost as old as her father, but with his well-brushed tailored uniform, and his silver captain’s bars, and his tall cavalry boots all shined up, he was quite handsome.

  And don’t think he didn’t know it.

  During the soup course, the captain pretended not to notice that his foot was pressing against Belle’s under the table or that he had brushed her hand with his when she passed the salt. By the time the roast was served, however, it wasn’t entirely clear to Belle whom the captain was courting. He hardly spoke to Belle at all, preferring to discuss business with her father and to flatter her mother, who was still pretty at thirty-two and probably just starved for attention because Daddy was never home, what with the store, and the state congress, and his political meetings, and card games. And his women.

  Belle manufactured a headache before dessert, and the captain found this an opportunity to stand and bow over her hand as though he were going to kiss it, bu
t instead he looked into her eyes with a leer. Little lady, you’re not likely to top this opportunity, that leer said. Best grab me while you can.

  I’d rather be buried alive, Belle smiled back, and went to bed with a book.

  “What did you think of him?” Johnnie Sanders asked her the next morning when she came into the store.

  “His horse is pretty,” Belle said.

  “That’s called damning with faint praise,” Johnnie observed. He tapped an account book with his pencil. “The captain’s got quite a tab here, and at Ham Bell’s, too. Grier’s over his head in a lot of places.”

  “So I’m to be a line of credit,” Belle said.

  “And a very pretty one,” Johnnie told her, and he was so matter-of-fact about it, Belle found no reason to blush. “Course, you’re an ethical person,” Johnnie pointed out, “but Captain Grier might overlook a character flaw like that.”

  Oh, how she missed Johnnie Sanders!

  Despite the lack of encouragement from Belle herself, Captain Grier was still coming to dinner, and still playing hard to get, although it should have been obvious by now that Belle did not consider him worth having, thanks all the same, and—

  “Miss Isabelle?” Dr. Holliday was saying. “Miss Isabelle!”

  Belle felt a tug at her sleeve and looked down to see Wilfred standing at her side.

  “It is just as I thought,” the dentist told her. “Sometimes a permanent tooth erupts just behind a milk tooth whose root doesn’t absorb on schedule. Tell young Mr. Eberhardt, please, that I believe nature will take care of it in a few days. If it remains a source of discomfort to him, bring him on back. I will help things along.”

  Belle gave Wilfred the good news, and the little boy smiled shyly.

  “Well,” she said, trying not to hope that Wilfred would experience enough discomfort to justify another visit, “we’ll be on our way then. Thank you, Dr. Holliday …” She stopped, for the dentist looked as though he were thinking something over, and her heart gave a little lurch.