Doc Holliday

by Matt Braun

  “Same here,” Earp said. “Unless it’ll bother you, maybe I’ll tag along. I could get some extra shells at the hardware store.”

  “By all means, join me, Marshal. We’ll have an outing.”

  Earp walked across to the hardware store. Holliday collected a sack of empty airtight cans from the cafe, and met him on the street. They cut across town, weaving through alleyways, headed toward a deserted stretch along the riverbank. By the time they reached the treeline, they were on a first-name basis.

  Holliday placed a row of cans on a fallen log. He stepped off ten paces, and offered Earp the first round. The lawman carried a Colt .45, with a five-and-a-half-inch barrel, holstered high on his hip. He pulled, thumbing the hammer, and extended the pistol at shoulder level. When he fired, a can leaped into the air, and he continued until the chambers were empty. Four cans out of five were kicked off the log.

  “You excel with a pistol,” Holliday commented. “All dead-center hits.”

  “All but one,” Earp said, frowning. “Good thing he wasn’t shooting back.”

  “I suppose that’s what makes the game interesting, Wyatt.”

  While Earp reloaded, Holliday set out a row of ten airtights. Last night, before the poker game started, he had questioned Shanssey about the Dodge City lawman. He learned that Earp was a former buffalo hunter who had made his mark as a peace officer. His first post was Wichita, during the town’s heyday as a Kansas railhead, and from there he’d moved on to Dodge. He was considered the toughest of all the cowtown marshals.

  Holliday took his position on the firing line. All in a motion, he brushed back the skirt of his suit jacket and drew the Colt Peacemaker. He thumbed and fired, not a heartbeat between shots, and five cans sailed off the log. Without a moment’s hesitation, he holstered the Peacemaker and snapped the Colt Lightning from beneath his arm. His eyes steady, firing double-action, he sent five more cans flying toward the riverbank. From start to finish, not ten seconds had elapsed. He began shucking empty shells.

  “Jee-zus,” Earp said slowly. “That’s pretty fancy shooting.”

  “And a measure of luck,” Holliday said with offhand modesty. “I’m seldom so steady.”

  “Doc, from what I hear, you’re steady all the time. Nobody’s beat you yet.”

  “Not as of today,” Holliday remarked. “I hear the same of you.”

  “Pure hogwash,” Earp confessed. “Three years a peace officer, and I’ve never killed a man. Always managed to get the drop on them before it went too far.”

  “Well, that is certainly an enviable record, Wyatt. Perhaps you’ll teach me the secret.”

  “Nothing in the world I could teach you, Doc. Not a thing.”

  Earp was an observant man. The nature of his work made him mindful of other men’s traits, particularly those of dangerous men. By his manner, he recognized Holliday as a man of taste and breeding. From the constant cough, he knew that the gambler was a doomed man. A consumptive living on borrowed time.

  Today, having seen it with his own eyes, he understood something more about Holliday. He knew now that all the stories circulating throughout the West were true. Holliday was unquestionably the deadliest man with a pistol he’d ever come across. The gambler was possessed of a fatalistic courage, virtually devoid of fear, born from the knowledge that he had only a short time to live. That fatalism, in tandem with his speed and uncanny accuracy, made Holliday a formidable mankiller. His contempt for death gave him the edge in any fight.

  After their practice ended, Earp was impressed by another of Holliday’s traits. The gambler insisted on returning to the hotel, where he carefully cleaned and oiled both of his pistols. To him, a gun was a tool, something to be treated with respect and kept in perfect operating order. Earp gathered from his offhand comments that he approached the matter from a practical, and somewhat pragmatic, standpoint. A tool designed to kill should be counted on to perform its intended function.

  Later that afternoon they walked toward the Bee Hive. As they approached the intersection, a company of soldiers from Fort Griffin rounded the far corner. The men marched in columns of fours, led by a captain, Springfield rifles slung across their shoulders. The company wheeled column right onto Griffin Avenue, executing the turn in perfect cadence. The brass on their uniforms glittered under a westerly sun.

  “Looks like a parade,” Earp said. “What’s the occasion?”

  Holliday laughed. “The commander at Fort Griffin periodically delivers a message to those who inhabit the Flat. You’re about to see an example.”

  “What’s the message?”

  “Some of the dives are notorious hangouts for cardsharps. Now and then, they allow greed to cloud their common sense. Colonel Pratt takes personal offense when his men are fleeced too flagrantly.”

  “So he parades troops through town?”

  “The colonel subscribes to the theory that might makes right. You’ll enjoy this.”

  Farther downstreet, the captain brought his company to a halt outside the Alamo Saloon. At his barked order, the men performed a right face, with two rows kneeling and two rows standing. Their rifles came up on the next command, trained on the saloon’s roofline. A shouted order to “Fire!” rocketed along the street, and forty rifles simultaneously belched smoke. The roof of the Alamo disintegrated under the fusillade, blown to flinders, debris raining skyward. The captain re-formed his men and marched off toward Fort Griffin.

  “I’ll be dipped,” Earp marveled, watching shattered timber settle to the street. “They shot it to hell and gone.”

  “Quite a spectacle,” Holliday agreed. “The cost of a new roof will put the Alamo on its good behavior. Are you impressed?”

  “Doc, that takes the cake. Never saw anything like it.”

  “I’ve always considered it one of Fort Griffin’s more amusing customs. The colonel has an eccentric sense of justice.”

  When they entered the Bee Hive, Holliday saw Kate coming down the stairs. He excused himself, leaving Earp to order a beer, and walked to the end of the bar. Kate stood waiting, one hand on her hip, her expression sullen. He nodded pleasantly.

  “Your sulk tells me there’s good news. What did Sally have to say?”

  “Fort Davis,” she said, tight-lipped. “Wherever the hell that is.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Good girl.”

  “You’re still a sanctimonious bastard.”

  “Yes, but I’m your bastard, Kate. Cheer up.”

  Holliday patted her affectionately on the cheek. He turned and walked back to the front of the bar. Earp looked up from his beer, his pale eyes quizzical. “All quiet on the domestic front?”

  “We have our moments,” Holliday said amiably. “Kate’s bark is worse than her bite. In fact, she is the bearer of glad tidings.”

  “How so?”

  “Dave Rudabaugh’s destination was Fort Davis. I recall that’s west of the Pecos River.”

  “And then some,” Earp amended. “From here, it’s likely a five-hundred-mile ride. Rudabaugh sure gets around.”

  “Will you go after him?”

  “I’ve never seen that part of Texas. Maybe it’s time I did.”

  Holliday signaled the barkeep for a bottle. He poured himself a shot of bourbon, placing the bottle on the counter. Then, lifting the glass in a toast, his mustache curled in a smile.

  “I wish you good hunting, Wyatt.”

  “Doc, I owe you and your lady friend. Look me up if you’re ever in Dodge.”

  “One day, perhaps. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.”

  They drank to the uncertainty of the future.

  CHAPTER 22

  The summer trail drives got under way in early May. Cattlemen fixed the distance from the Clear Fork of the Brazos to Dodge City at roughly four hundred miles. Barring stampedes and rustlers, they planned to reach the railhead by late June.

  The Bee Hive was packed. Nine longhorn herds were bedded down along the river for the night. At su
nrise, their trek would start northward on the Western Trail, which meandered through Indian Territory and on into Kansas. Once the drives began, there would be no break along the trail, and herd owners had allowed their crews one last night in town. There were nearly a hundred cowhands swarming through the Flat.

  The usual mix of buffalo hunters and soldiers added to the crowd jammed into the Bee Hive. Holliday and six other men were seated around his regular poker table. The game was loose and fast, with three of the players, all from the same cattle outfit, determined to make the most of their night on the town. Their interest seemed equally divided between whiskey and poker. They were drunk, and losing.

  Their outfit was the Circle T, the largest cattle spread in West Texas. One of them was the foreman, a beefy, hardfaced toughnut named Ed Bailey. He was loud and crude, clearly cock-o’-the-walk at the Circle T, with a rough, pugnacious manner. Losing heavily, his temper fueled by liquor, he began cursing the cards and his run of bad luck. The other players eyed him warily.

  Holliday ignored the outbursts. He was winning consistently, and an unruly drunk was one of the burdens all professional gamblers learned to endure. Some three hours into the game, the hide hunter seated next to him dealt a round of five-card draw. Bailey opened for five dollars, Holliday raised him five, and everyone except the dealer folded. On the draw Bailey took three cards, Holliday asked for two, and the hide hunter dealt himself three. They looked at their cards, waiting on Bailey, as the opener, to bet.

  Bailey studied his hand a moment. Then, grunting to himself, he reached out and slyly picked up the deadwood of the dealer. In poker vernacular, the cards discarded by other players on the draw were called the deadwood. The practice was akin to cheating, for it gave a player an insight into his opponent’s hand. The tactic was one used on a greenhorn, or by a hardcase trying to intimidate the other players. The standard penalty across the West was loss of the pot.

  “Play poker,” Holliday admonished him. “Leave the deadwood alone.”

  “Stuff it,” Bailey said coarsely. “I ain’t afraid of you, Holliday. I’ll do whatever I damn well please.”

  “Don’t press your luck. You’ve had too much to drink. Bet or get out.”

  “Hell, I’m gonna bet your ass off. Ten bucks!”

  “Your ten—” Holliday tossed bills on the table. “And raise you ten.”

  The dealer folded. Bailey mumbled something under his breath, again inspecting his hand. He gave Holliday a venomous look and reached across the table. He casually flipped over Holliday’s discards. His mouth split in a wet chuckle.

  “Gonna call ten and raise—”

  “You’re out,” Holliday interrupted. “Twice in the deadwood is once too often. The rule says you forfeit the pot.”

  “Don’t gimme none of that shit! I’m still in the game.”

  “You’re all through, cowboy.”

  Holliday leaned forward, started to scoop in the pot with his left arm. Bailey muttered a sharp curse, lurching from his chair, and fumbled at the gun on his hip. Caught out of position, stretched over the table, Holliday was unable to reach either of his pistols. He pulled the sheath knife from his breast pocket with his right hand and slashed out across the table. The blade, honed to a razor’s edge, opened Bailey like a gutted hog, from the sternum to his beltline. He howled a scream of bloodcurdling terror.

  The crowd froze in a stilled tableau. Bailey stumbled backward, eviscerated, steamy intestines spilling down over his belt. Mesmerized by the sight, the crowd watched as he tried to hold his innards from leaching through the horrendous wound. One of the girls retched, gagging as she turned away, spewing vomit across the bar. Bailey dropped to his knees, still holding his guts in his hands, and his eyes rolled upward. He fell facedown on the floor.

  There was an instant of doomsday silence. Suddenly, as though galvanized, one of the cowhands bolted from his chair. “Sonovabitch murdered him!” he shouted drunkenly, pointing at Holliday. “Ol’ Bailey never had a chance!”

  “Get hold of yourself.” Holliday calmly wiped blood from the knife with his handkerchief. “Everyone here saw what happened. He went for his gun.”

  “Like hell!” the other cowhand yelled. “Looka there if you want proof. His gun’s still in his holster.”

  The crowd strained for a better look. Bailey lay in a welter of blood and offal, the gun anchored in his holster. A guttural murmur swept through the room, and Holliday all but read their minds. What they saw was a man who had been killed without warning, with no chance to defend himself. A butchery that went against their sense of fair play, violated the code. Their faces abruptly took on the look of a mob.

  “Hang him!” one of the cowhands cried. “Gawddamn murderer!”

  Holliday slipped the knife into its sheath as the hide hunter beside him bellowed for silence. “You boys got it all wrong! Holliday never—”

  The cattlemen in the crowd roared him down. They pressed forward, their faces cold with bloodlust, leading what was now a lynch mob. Holliday jerked the Peacemaker, switching it to his left hand as he backed to the wall. His right hand darted beneath his jacket and came out with the Colt Lightning. He leveled both pistols on the crowd.

  “Stand fast!” he commanded. “I’ll kill the first man who moves.”

  The men ganged before him stood as though rooted. Across the room he saw Kate, her features twisted in fear, and Shanssey watching from behind the bar. Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of Lottie seated at the faro table. He knew they could offer no help, not in the face of a mob set on vengeance. His one out was to hold the crowd at bay, and somehow get clear of the saloon. The alternative was to go down fighting. He would not be hanged.

  Marshal Will Cruger burst through the door. He took a tentative step into the room, then slammed to a halt. His eyes skittered from Holliday to the motionless crowd. His voice sounded parched. “What the devil’s going on here?”

  “Murder, that’s what!” someone shouted. “Holliday killed a man in cold blood.”

  “Marshal Cruger,” Holliday called out. “I am placing myself in your custody. Do your duty and cover my retreat.”

  “Hold on now, Holliday. You want me to put a gun on these men?”

  “Unless you prefer that I open fire. I have ten shots, and I will take ten men with me. What’s it to be?”

  Cruger slowly drew his gun. “You men hold real still. Just be sensible and I’ll get Holliday locked away in jail. Don’t make me shoot nobody.”

  Holliday wagged his pistols, motioning men to clear a path. He kept his back to the wall, easing along the row of tables, never taking his eyes off the crowd. There were low rumbles of protest from the cattlemen, but no one dared risk being the first one shot. Finally, skirting Lottie’s faro table, he moved to Cruger’s side. They backed toward the door.

  “Stay put!” Holliday ordered. “Anyone who tries to follow will be killed. Let’s have no heroes.”

  Outside, waving his pistols, Holliday pushed through knots of men thronging the boardwalks. He turned upstreet at a fast clip, with Cruger rushing along at his side. The lawman kept darting looks over his shoulder.

  “We better get you locked away damn quick. They’ll hit the street any minute.”

  “I must decline the offer,” Holliday said. “Your jail is far too easy to storm.”

  “You got something safer in mind?”

  “I suggest we fort up in my hotel room. Given time, perhaps they’ll cool off.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Then you will have to earn your pay, Marshal.”

  “Jesus.”

  The street was clogged with men. The mob had swelled to over three hundred in number, and they blocked the intersection outside the hotel. Their shouts carried through the town.

  “We know you’re in there, Cruger. You’re not foolin’ nobody!”

  “Bring the gawddamn tinhorn out! Make it easy on yourself.”

  Cruger stood at the edge of the window, lookin
g down at the street. His eyes were round with fear and his face was beaded with sweat. He saw a wedge of some thirty or forty cowhands in the front ranks of the mob. One of them was holding a knotted rope.

  “Christ A’mighty,” he said shakily, turning back into the room. “How’d they find us so fast?”

  “You forget, we were seen coming into the hotel. Someone probably told them.”

  Holliday sat in a chair near the door. He avoided the windows, wary of someone in the crowd taking a shot at him. Instead, his ear cocked to the door, he listened for stealthy footsteps in the hall. A lynch mob, boiling with fury, was short on patience. Before long, he expected them to rush the room.

  “Them damn cowhands,” Cruger said, peeking out the window. “They’re the ones leading that pack.”

  “A tribe sticks together,” Holliday commented dryly. “Bailey was one of their own. They want an eye for an eye.”

  “Why’d you have to gut him thataway?”

  “Under the circumstances, a knife was more expedient.”

  Cruger sighed heavily. “They’re not gonna wait much longer. Gotta figure some way to get you to the county jail.”

  Albany was the county seat, some fifteen miles to the south. Holliday knew they would never make it out of town, much less to the protection of the sheriff. On several occasions, he had seen Cruger back off in the face of a lynch mob, and he had no doubt about tonight. Cruger would surrender him rather than fight.

  A stone shattered the window. Glass exploded across the room and the rock bounced off the far wall. Cruger jumped away as the howl of the mob took on a maddened pitch. A furious voice, louder than the others, ratcheted over the street. “Send the bastard out. We want him now!”

  Cruger looked desperate. His features were contorted with alarm. “They’re gonna be poundin’ on the door pretty quick. You got any ideas?”

  “Let them come,” Holliday said impassively. “They’ll pay a dear price before they break in here. I won’t surrender.”

  “You expect me to get killed for you? Hell, that ain’t part of my job.”