Epitaph

by Mary Doria Russell

  Fillet a Boueff, a la Financier

  Leg of Lamb, sauce Oysters

  Corned beef and Cabbage

  Lapine Domestique

  Peach, Apple, Plum and Custard Pies

  California Fresh Peach a la Conde

  “Damn if I know what half them words mean,” Bessie said.

  “There’s more,” Lou told them. “At the bottom, it says, ‘We will have it or perish. This dinner will be served for fifty cents.’”

  “All that for fifty cents?” Mattie wondered.

  “I’m not sure,” Lou admitted.

  “We could buy one dinner and all four eat parts of it,” Allie suggested.

  “Or, perhaps you will do me the honor of bein’ my guests.”

  They turned at the sound of that soft Georgia voice and saw Doc Holliday, leaning on his cane.

  “Ladies,” he said, “it would be my very great pleasure to take y’all to dinner this evenin’.”

  THE PEER OF MURDEROUS MARS

  INSIDE THE MAISON DOREE, GASLIGHT CHANDELIERS gleamed and oil paintings in big gilt frames hung on wallpaper that shimmered like silk. Crystal sparkled on big round tables covered with white damask, and there was silver everywhere. Silver vases, silver platters, silver pitchers, silver teapots, silver coffee urns, and silver cutlery that clinked quietly against white bone china decorated with wide silver bands.

  “Everybody’s dressed up like it’s a wedding,” Allie whispered.

  “Except that one,” Bessie whispered, lifting her chin toward a man wearing a black suit with a starched white shirt who was hurrying toward the door to meet them. “He oughta be runnin’ funerals.”

  Doc kept a straight face as he removed his hat and requested, “A table for five, please. Toward the back.”

  The man bowed and said, “Very good, sir,” and made a sweeping gesture when he said, “Follow me, ladies, if you please.”

  “Well, I guess we do please,” Bessie said, sashaying a little, but she didn’t say it real loud.

  Everything seemed hushed and special as they made their way down the length of the long, narrow dining room, their steps cushioned and quieted by carpets. Over in a corner, a fiddler was playing something slow and soft, and all around them there was a murmur of conversation.

  “That’s Doc Holliday,” someone whispered, but only after the little party was out of earshot. And if anyone in that room was inclined to disdain clean calico and dowdy hats, he wisely kept his remark inaudible to the thin man with the refined face who accompanied four unfashionable ladies to the far end of the room.

  Doc took his place with his back to the wall, silent while he caught his breath. Exclaiming over the elegance of their surroundings, the girls had barely settled into their seats when a man with a white towel wrapped around his middle arrived at the table.

  “Champagne Perrier-Jouet for the ladies,” Doc told him. “Bourbon, neat, for me.”

  “Very good, sir,” the man replied, giving a little bow before he turned on his heel and swanned off toward a huge walnut bar.

  “Well, I never!” Allie whispered. “A man waitress?”

  “And him wearing an apron!” Mattie cried softly.

  “Girls, we need to get us one of those at home!” Bessie declared. “I should think a fella like him would be awful handy to have around.”

  “Look how pretty these candlesticks are!” Lou exclaimed. “Do you suppose all this silver comes from right here in Tombstone, Doc?”

  He’d started to answer when the door banged open at the other end of the room. Three men sauntered in like they owned the place, and though the fiddler kept playing, conversations ended, one by one, around the room.

  Allie twisted in her chair and sized up the newcomers. Drunk, all three of them, she noted with an ex-waitress’s automatic disapproval of difficult customers.

  The cleanest and soberest was smiling broadly and acting like everyone in the restaurant had been waiting for him to arrive so the party could begin. Black trousers were bloused into knee-high tooled boots, and his spurs dragged big brass rowels across that nice carpet. Still, he appeared to have had a bath recently. Clean black curls sprang out beneath a sombrero, which he now removed and used to knock the dust off his clothes.

  Which might have been nice of him, if he’d done it outside.

  The loudest and dirtiest was bearded and coatless. A red shirt, faded to pink, gray with dust where it wasn’t wet with sweat stains. Battered leather vest. Filthy canvas trousers with a pistol jammed into the waistband at the small of his back. He was talking a lot but seemed nervous, too. Showing off, but not really sure of himself.

  He’ll probably break something before he leaves, Allie thought sourly.

  The quietest stayed by the entrance, swaying slightly. Cleaner than the dirty one, drunker than the clean one. Two guns, a knife in his boot, and the look of a man who’d welcome a reason to explode.

  That one’s trouble, Allie thought. And Doc Holliday must have been thinking the same thing, for she heard him say, “Miss Allie, I wonder if you would move your chair a little to the left.”

  With his view of the room clear, Doc unbuttoned his coat and drew a flat silver case from an inside pocket. Eyes on the quiet man at the door, he removed a slim black cigar from the case, which went back into his pocket. He left his coat open.

  The loud one was at the bar now, leaning over a large brass tray, poking at odd-shaped items displayed on ice. “Waddya call them things?” he was asking the bartender. “Huh? Huh? Waddya call them?”

  “Those are oysters, sir, iced and shipped in daily, direct from—”

  “Oysters? Oysters, you call ’em? Well, damn if they don’t look like elephant boogers to me!”

  It was a joke his friends had heard before. The curly-haired one smiled indulgently. The quiet one looked away, bored. The nice people in the restaurant pretended not to hear him, but that just made him laugh louder at his own cleverness.

  Moron, Allie thought.

  He was driving business away, too. A pair of new customers took a step or two inside the restaurant and turned right around when they heard the loudmouth holler, “Just like elephant boogers! I swear!”

  Just then, the waiter returned with a little table only big enough for a silver ice bucket with a heavy green bottle in it. As he pulled the dripping bottle out of the ice and wrapped it in a white napkin, Allie jerked her head toward the three drunks and asked, “Who in hell are those idiots?”

  That startled a laugh out of Doc, who’d been lighting his cigar. Smoke and amusement set off a coughing fit, but he was smiling behind his handkerchief when a second waiter arrived with four tall, narrow glasses and Doc’s bourbon in a cut-glass snifter on a silver tray.

  “Cow Boys. Old Man Clanton’s boys,” the first waiter told Allie. “The comedian is the old man’s son—Ike. The chummy one is Curly Bill Brocius.” He glanced over his shoulder and turned back toward Doc Holliday to warn, “The one by the door? That’s Johnny Ringo.”

  Who was staring at Doc.

  While the second waiter placed a glass in front of each lady, the first one removed the little wire cage from the green bottle’s cork, which he gripped and twisted. He had just about eased it out of the bottle when it suddenly came loose with a pop! that made Allie and the other girls jump.

  When they finished exclaiming over the startling noise of the uncorking and how the champagne fizzed in their mouths, Doc helped them with the menu. (“The French is more ambitious than authentic,” he told them.) Everybody was trying to pretend that things weren’t getting worse down at the other end of the restaurant. Curly Bill was wandering around the dining room, his manner offensively friendly as he leaned over tables, asking, “How is that? Any good? Would you recommend that dish?” Ike Clanton was still talking about the elephant he’d seen at a carnival one time.

  Ringo had not taken his eyes off Doc Holliday since the coughing fit, but now he turned his head slowly. “Ike,” he said, dead-eyed, “shut up
.”

  Ike’s face went slack. He covered his unease with a nervous laugh, like what Ringo said was a joke. Curly Bill changed the subject by reaching across a table and taking something off a stiff-faced mining executive’s plate. “Now that is real damn good!” he declared, chewing. “We should have us some of that, Juanito! C’mon, Ike!” he called, beckoning his companions toward a table near the front window. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  Conversations around the room resumed, and yet another waiter arrived at the table in the back, bearing little cups filled halfway up with brown water.

  “Might be I could worry some of that down,” Allie said, “if it didn’t have them little weeds in it.”

  “That would be parsley, Miss Alvira,” Doc told her. “It is meant to add color without harmin’ the soup very much.”

  “They got some nerve callin’ this soup,” Bessie said, frowning at the novelty. “Nothin’ much in it.”

  “Consommé is French for ‘broth,’” Doc told her. “It is meant to arouse the appetite without layin’ it to rest.”

  “It’s nice,” Lou said after an experimental taste. “It’d be easy to make, too.”

  “I admire your new suit, Doc,” Mattie said. “It’s very becoming.”

  Allie noticed Mattie said that like it was some kind of private little joke between her and Doc. The dentist’s eyes warmed up, like Mattie’d done good, but he sounded doubtful about the judgment.

  “It is very kind of you to say so, Miss Mattie. I am disappointed in it myself. Martha Anne—she is a very dear cousin of mine, Miss Alvira, back in Georgia—Martha Anne asked me to send my photograph. I thought a double-breasted suit might bulk me up some, but I fear she will receive the picture and think it a portrait of an unusually sturdy ghost.”

  “Well, I think you look nice,” Mattie said. “Are your headaches better?”

  “Infrequent, and not so severe as your own,” Doc said, reaching over to squeeze her hand briefly.

  “Morg and I miss having you at the house,” Lou told him.

  Allie’s ears pricked up at that, for she knew Lou was glad when Doc’s head cleared enough for him to move into a boardinghouse nearby.

  “Miss Louisa, there is no plumb that could sound the depths of your hospitality, but I expect you two are relieved to have your home to yourselves again.”

  “You were no trouble at all,” Lou assured him.

  Another lie, Allie noted. I guess Miss Louisa ain’t so pure as she looks!

  “How is your new place, Doc?” Mattie asked.

  “Clean, quiet, and entirely suitable to my small needs. Mrs. Fly is a very competent cook who is determined to fatten me up. I wish her well in this endeavor, though I don’t imagine she will succeed.”

  “I heard she’s a photographer, too,” Bessie said. “Not just her husband.”

  “A photographer?” Allie cried. “Her own self?”

  Doc nodded. “Yes. Mr. Fly travels a good deal and Mrs. Fly does much of the studio work in his absence. She’s the one who took my picture.”

  The waiters arrived again. Soup cups were removed to make room for the main course.

  “The rabbit is real tasty,” Bessie said after a few bites. “How’s that lamb, Mattie?”

  “Better’n elk. More like venison but not so chewy.”

  Allie was staring suspiciously at the fish on Lou’s plate, and Lou didn’t look much happier.

  “Salmon is supposed to be that color,” Doc told them. “‘Try one bite, sugar.’ That’s what my mamma used to say, Miss Louisa. If you don’t like it, we shall send it back and order you something else.”

  Lou picked up her fork and carried a little piece of the strange pink fish toward her lips. “Kind of a strong taste,” she admitted, “but I like it enough to keep going.”

  “And how are you findin’ your corned beef and cabbage, Miss Alvira?”

  “Good,” Allie said, then held her tongue.

  Doc Holliday was always so polite Allie suspected he was making fun of people, even if she couldn’t quite work out how. Sometimes he didn’t talk at all, but when he did, he talked a streak, and a lot of it was hard to understand. The other girls knew Doc from when they were all living up in Dodge, but Allie had only met him here in Tombstone after he got hit in the head. The clerk at the sundry store told her about how dangerous Doc was, but when she asked Virg about him, Virg just smiled. “Well, now, Pickle, tales are told that Doc Holliday has murdered men and committed crimes around the country, but when you ask a fella how he knows all that, it’s just gossip and hearsay. Wyatt checked into it back in Dodge, but nothing much could be traced up to Doc’s account. And Morgan thinks highly of him.” Bessie liked Doc, too, but what caught Allie’s interest was the way Mattie brightened up and got sort of shiny when Doc was around.

  Of course, all four of the girls were feeling pretty shiny by the time they finished their main courses, for they were working on their second bottle of champagne. Doc himself just sipped at his bourbon whenever his cough got bad. He didn’t eat much either—no wonder he was so skinny! But when the waiter asked about dessert, Doc said, “Let’s have one of everything for the ladies to try. And I myself would like to see how a California peach stacks up against the Georgia variety.”

  “When was you home last, Doc?” Bessie asked, sounding a little wistful.

  “Mercy . . . Must be seven years now.” He stared at nothing for a time, then shook the mood off. “You ever consider a trip back to Nashville, Miss Bessie?”

  “No kin there. None who’d care to know me, anyways.”

  “Yes. And if my family ever finds out what I do . . .” Doc left that hanging. “We had an acquaintance from Charleston back before the war—he was from a very good family, but a thing or two happened and his fortunes changed. When it became known that he was reduced to gamblin’ for his livin’”—Doc paused to draw his silver case from that inside pocket and removed another slim black cigar—“no one in society would so much as speak his name. I fear my fate would be the same.”

  “What’s wrong with gambling?” Allie asked. “Everybody gambles!”

  “It’s not gamblin’ per se that is objectionable, Miss Alvira. It’s professional gamblin’. I do for a livin’ what respectable folks do for recreation.”

  “Like a whore,” Bessie said. “Most women do it. Some of us get paid, is all.”

  Doc had barely puffed on the little cigar to get the burn started before the smoke set off a nasty coughing fit. Allie herself didn’t mind a pipe of tobacco now and then, but she reckoned she’d have the sense to give it up if smoking made her cough herself blue that way.

  “Should I get you another?” Mattie asked, glancing at Doc’s empty glass.

  Still coughing, Doc nodded, handkerchief over his mouth. Mattie turned toward the bar, holding up Doc’s empty and waggling it at the bartender.

  Once again, folks in the restaurant were starting to go quiet. Allie reckoned that was because of the disgusting, croupy noise of Doc’s cough. You could tell he was sorry for making this ugly racket, for he’d turned away from the table to face the wall, but when the violinist stopped playing in the middle of a tune, Allie looked behind her and saw why.

  At the other end of the long room, Johnny Ringo was on his feet and headed toward the table in the back.

  He was handsome, almost. Tall, slim. Boyish features. Mussed-up red-brown hair. But he was really drunk now. Mumbling to himself. “Lunger. Pathetic lunger. Die and be done with it, why don’t you?”

  Halfway along, he staggered against a table. The gentlemen sitting there moved quickly to catch their glasses before their drinks spilled. A few steps later, he almost banged into the waiter who was bringing Doc another bourbon. The waiter hesitated, but Ringo didn’t. He just snatched that heavy crystal glass right off the silver tray and carried it himself to the table at the back of the room.

  “Come out here for the dry air, did you?” he asked Doc.

  Handkerchief stil
l over his mouth, John Henry Holliday turned.

  “Won’t help,” Ringo told him. “Sunshine won’t help. Rest won’t help. This won’t help.” Ringo lifted the glass high. “Nothing’s gonna help you, lunger.” He drained the bourbon in three long swallows before tossing the glass at the wall. “Nothing’s gonna help you. Nothing but a gun. Pain’ll get so bad, you’ll want to die. It’ll get worse, and worse, and worse, until you blow your own head off. Bony old skull, making everyone remember death. Walking momento mori, that’s all you are.”

  “It’s memento, not momento,” Doc murmured, “but I suppose the metaphor is apt.”

  Ringo didn’t even pause. “Every day is el Día de los Muertos when a lunger’s around! Why don’t you just put a gun to your head? Pull the trigger, and the pain’ll end—just like that!” Ringo said, snapping his fingers, his voice rising now. “Why don’t you just be done with it? Too scared? Too scared to do it yourself? I’ll put you out of your misery, lunger. Say the word. I’ll shoot you, and it’ll be over—just like that.”

  “Careful, Juanito,” Curly Bill called, making his voice jolly. He was on his way to the back of the room, with Ike Clanton trailing him. “That’s Doc Holliday.”

  “Yeah, Johnny, that’s Doc Holliday,” Ike repeated, smiling uncertainly.

  “Doc Holliday?” Ringo’s dead eyes glittered. “Well, now . . . I’ve heard of you, Holliday! I’m Johnny Ringo. You heard of me, Holliday?”

  “I cannot say that I have had that pleasure, sir, though I must confess that I was not listenin’ attentively.”

  “Well, I’ve heard of you.”

  “So you mentioned.” The coughing had stopped. Laying his handkerchief on the table beside his plate, Doc sat back in his chair. Allowing the drape of his coat to slip back. Letting a brace of pistols become visible.

  “Oooh, now, lookit them!” Curly Bill said, with fun in his voice. “I heard Doc Holliday’s real fast, Juanito! I heard he dropped Mike Gordon over in New Mexico! Single shot, straight through the heart!”

  “Yeah?” Johnny said, eyes still on Doc’s. “Well, I heard he emptied a gun in the Oriental and only hit a bartender in the toe.”