When spring arrived, he and Penny caught a train to Dallas only to discover his family had moved on and hadn’t seen fit to leave anything more than an empty house. Caleb wasn’t too surprised, since the last words he’d shared with any of his relatives had been anything but civil.
The Wayfinders weren’t exactly feuding, but they weren’t the warmest family under the sun. They were mainly a collection of loners who’d been forced to live together through no fault of their own. Blood ties had kept them together for as long as was required, but once they were cut they stayed that way.
After all this time away from them, Caleb doubted he could have thought of much to say if there had been a reunion.
The Busted Flush was still in business. Even though Caleb had helped build that saloon, he didn’t want to do more than pass it by to make sure it hadn’t burned down. In fact, the longer he stayed in Dallas, the more he felt like he was walking backward.
For the moment, forward seemed to be east. That was the direction Caleb picked once he put Dallas behind him again. Actually, Penny was the one who chose that direction, since the horse decided to walk that way the moment Caleb eased up on the reins.
“Looks just as good as any other direction,” Caleb said. “You seem to have better luck than I do anyhow.”
Caleb made it to Louisiana in May of 1877. The air was heating up and gave him a welcome change from the frozen misery he’d gotten in the Dakotas. No matter what he’d been told about the swamplands, he still wasn’t prepared for the first time the ground sank beneath his feet. The warm sucking sound he heard when he’d pulled his leg back out had sent the fear of God through his heart. There was just something about the ground grabbing hold and not wanting to let go that didn’t set well with him.
That fear lasted until he woke up on the first morning and saw the sunlight slicing through the loblolly pines as birds sang songs around him that he’d never heard before. There was also something about the way the local girls rolled their tongues around their words that made him want to stay awhile. A few more crooked card games against a bunch of drunks who didn’t know any better, and Caleb pulled together enough money to buy his own little shack on a patch of land a stone’s throw from a swamp.
Not long after that, he got a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. The joy of walking forward was curling up like a caterpillar under too much sun. In its place was the suspicion that he was becoming just as stagnant as the groundwater beneath him.
The pittance of money he could dredge up was still coming in a steady trickle, but there was no joy in stealing from men who were too stupid to put up a fight. If he’d wanted that, he could have stayed in Dallas and poured drinks for a living. Even Penny was getting anxious to stretch her legs again.
Around this time, Caleb wondered what had happened to Doc.
There hadn’t been any letters waiting for him in Dallas, which was the spot where Doc knew Caleb would be heading. Now that he was well out of Dallas, Caleb couldn’t really expect Doc to track him down. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about what happened to his partner. Caleb was mostly reluctant to get any sort of confirmation regarding the inevitable fate of John Holliday.
Even now, Caleb had to grin and shake his head when he thought about Doc. The man was crazy, but he was also too stubborn to just sip his medicine and fade away. Instead, Doc preferred to swig his medicine from a flask and raise some hell.
Suddenly, Caleb realized he was thinking about Doc as if the man was already dead. For all he knew, that could be completely true. The odds were certainly stacked in that direction. Then again, Doc was awfully good at stacking the odds in his favor.
Wherever Doc was, Caleb wished him the best.
17
Sixmonths earlier
Doc crept into Deadwood less than a day after Caleb had slipped through the camp. He kept to himself and did everything he could so that he wouldn’t be noticed. The scent of whiskey on his breath was so strong, it seemed the liquor flowed through Doc’s veins in greater quantities than blood. His sunken eyes were hooded and his head was perpetually bowed. The wide-brimmed hat he wore covered up enough of his face to keep himself hidden while he was inside Bullock’s jurisdiction.
Even if he was directly in front of that posse, Doc figured he had a good chance of going unnoticed. For the time being, he was just another frail figure propped up by a cane. It stuck in his craw to even think such a thing, but Doc played that role well enough to get into the back entrance of the Bella Union and have a word with Alice Ivers.
Doc didn’t get a chance to say much of anything to her. Neither Bullock nor anyone resembling a posse member was in sight, but Doc wasn’t about to gamble everything on him being able to pick one of those men from a crowd. He made do with seeing Alice’s face, giving her a curt nod, and leaving the saloon.
From there, Doc rode to the stagecoach platform in the nameless town where he’d first crossed paths with Dave Rudabaugh and purchased a ticket to Kansas. As much as he would have liked to meet up with the outlaw again, Doc didn’t find any familiar faces there either.
On the train to Kansas City, Doc refused to lean back and rest his head upon the window or anything else. He sat up as straight as he could and used his cane to remain that way. When he slept, he let his head nod forward and closed his eyes. There would be plenty of time later for being stretched out on his back. For now, he sat up like a living person.
Every breath Doc took was a trial.
Every inhale was a set of claws raking against wet meat.
Every exhale was a wheezing gasp or shuddering cough.
His condition had affected him since he was a boy. Even as a baby, Doc had been sick enough to stay in bed more often than he was on his hands and knees. There had always been times when he had to sit back and let his condition have its way with him. Although Doc may have admitted that to himself when the quiet times came, he didn’t have to like it.
When he caught himself thinking too hard about what his condition had in store for him in the years to come, Doc reached for his flask and took a drink.
The whiskey burned a bit, but that was just enough to remind him of where he was. As it passed through him, the liquor dulled his thoughts and senses the way fire dulled jagged iron so it could be molded into something else.
When he inhaled again, it was easier.
When he exhaled, it was to let out a slow, relieved sigh.
Doc’s head bowed and his arms pressed in against his holstered guns. Only then was he able to get some rest.
When he arrived in Kansas City, Doc knew he had to stay for a while. It wasn’t because of an inviting saloon he’d spotted or any particular whim. He simply wasn’t feeling up to the task of moving on.
His condition was getting worse.
As that thought passed through his head, Doc had to chuckle. Making that observation was similar to predicting the sun was going to move from the east to the west. His condition was always going to get worse, simply because it had nowhere else to go.
Lately, however, it had been bad.
Rather than cash in the gold he’d won from Caleb, Doc made his way to a saloon and started playing. His luck wasn’t great, but he found his skills were normally sharp enough to make up for that deficit. He played until he had enough to rent a room for a good amount of time and then got up to leave.
“Where the hell d’you think yer going?” asked the tall man who’d been sitting directly across from Doc.
“I’m tired,” Doc replied. “And I intend on getting some sleep.”
“Really? Right now, you got to go to sleep?”
“That usually is the remedy for my particular ailment.”
Scowling beneath a long mustache, the tall man looked Doc up and down. His eyes were sharp and focused. With hair that flowed past his shoulders in a wild mane, he looked like one of the many men trying to invoke the spirit of the recently departed Bill Hickok. “Looks to me like your ailment ain’t something that sleep’s g
onna cure. Why don’t you sit back down and play while you still got the breath?”
Doc gritted his teeth and coughed once in the back of his throat. “Your concern is heartwarming. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll be on my way.”
“Sit down, I says.”
This time, there was no attempt at humor in the tall man’s voice. His eyes were fixed upon Doc and his hand rested upon the pistol strapped across his belly. “No man wins a pot that big and then just gets up to leave,” he warned. “A man should get a chance to win some of his money back. It’s only sporting.”
“Watch your tone, sir,” Doc warned. “I just returned from the Dakotas and I learned that men who gussy themselves up like you don’t fare too well.”
If there was any doubt the tall man was paying his own tribute to Wild Bill, it was dispelled when he flinched at the merest mention of Hickok’s unfortunate demise. “You talk about someone gussying themselves up and you’re dressed like that?” he growled. “I should—”
“You should what?”
Doc hardly moved when he asked that question.
He didn’t reach for his gun.
The look in Doc’s eyes was more than enough to get the job done.
Although the tall man looked worried at first, he hastily tried to cover it up by chuckling uncomfortably. When he shifted in his seat, it looked more like he was squirming.
“Do whatever the hell you like,” the tall man grunted. “I came here to play cards, not squabble like a couple of . . . well . . . I came here to play cards.”
Doc nodded and slowly moved his eyes away from the man across from him. When he walked away from the table, he fought with every bit of strength he had to keep from coughing. The itch that had started in the back of his throat now felt like a set of jagged fingernails scraping against the inside of his neck. His mouth was dry, and when he pulled in a breath through his nose, it got even drier.
Although Doc walked with a slow stride, he gripped the handle of his cane hard enough to whiten his knuckles. Even after he left the saloon, Doc waited until he was farther down the street before giving in to the itch that had all but overpowered him. The coughs were relief and torture at the same time. Once he’d gotten them out of his system, he took a drink from his flask and let out an easier breath.
The hotel he’d spotted upon entering town was just ahead. Doc didn’t pay attention to street names, storefronts, or anything else around him. All he wanted was to get to a room and stay there for a while. Anything beyond that seemed too far away to worry about.
He checked in, paid for a week in advance, and arranged for a bath.
A tub was brought to his room by a boy in his early teens. After that, some buckets of hot water were carried in by a young woman who looked to be just shy of her twentieth birthday. When she stepped into his room, Doc couldn’t help but notice the way her cotton blouse clung to her chest. The smile on her face told him that she’d been expecting scrutiny the moment she’d heard that she was delivering the water to a man traveling alone.
“Hello,” she said as she pushed open the door with her hip. “I brought you your . . .” As soon as she got a look at Doc’s face, her expression lost its sheen and her smile became forced.
Accustomed to seeing that reaction from folks when he was having one of his bad spells, Doc waved toward the tub and said, “Over there will be fine.”
“Are you feeling all right?” she asked.
Lifting his chin to aim his sunken eyes in her direction, he replied, “Fine and dandy, why do you ask?”
“You don’t look so good. Should I get a doctor?”
“Check on me after I’ve had my bath. I’ll be a new man.”
“Sure,” she said as she set the buckets down next to the tub. “I’ll do that.”
It didn’t take an experienced cardplayer to know she was lying. In fact, she barely tried to hide her disdain as she turned her back on him and headed for the door. “There’s a few more buckets outside. You want me to bring them?”
“Yes.”
She brought them to the room and set them just inside the door. When she smiled at him again, she must have thought she was doing him a favor.
Doc filled the tub and chuckled under his breath as he settled into the hot water. He knew plenty of folks didn’t know the real differences between his consumption and the Black Plague, but he was still amazed at how vastly their reactions differed. Some looked at him with pity in their eyes and others couldn’t get themselves to look in his direction. Doc didn’t concern himself with all of that, since neither of those two reactions set well with him.
That was the good thing about spending so much time in a saloon. Folks there were more accustomed to unusual sights. Gamblers didn’t worry about much more than their odds of winning a hand. Bartenders only wanted to sell whiskey. Whores only wanted to sell themselves. The dancing girls only wanted applause, and Doc was willing to accommodate every one of those groups in one way or another. Most everyone else in a saloon was too drunk to know he was there.
For the moment, Doc was enjoying the next best thing to a saloon: solitude.
He kept on enjoying it until the water started to cool and he drifted off to sleep with his arms draped along the sides of the tub.
Doc didn’t cash in the rest of his gold until it was absolutely necessary. His streak at the poker tables wasn’t exactly dying, but he simply wasn’t able to get out of his room every night of the week. There were also no big games happening at the moment, so he sustained himself for as long as he could and spent a bit of his winnings to lease a storefront where he could hang his shingle.
An advertisement went in the newspaper and Doc eventually saw his first few customers. While he may have been a little rusty where his skills as a dentist were concerned, a little bit of practice went a long way. Soon, his hands were going through the motions that he’d learned in the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery as if he’d only been on an extended sabbatical.
As winter’s grip loosened and spring made its presence known, Doc was feeling more like his usual self. He’d taken to riding the train to nearby towns in search of a good game, but his condition only worsened the more he tried to maintain his preferred habits. More and more, it seemed he needed to move on whether or not he had the strength to do so. He sure as hell didn’t want to be buried in Kansas City.
Dodge City was supposed to be a great town for gambling and there was always plenty going on in Colorado. The gambler’s circuit had some interesting stops in California, Arizona, and New Mexico—all of which were more promising than where he was now.
But to make a dent in the circuit, Doc needed more money than he had. Without a stake, no gambler could get a start unless he wanted to claw his way up from the little games and into the big ones. Since he was starting to be recognized in certain sections of the circuit, Doc didn’t like the prospect of being seen taking silver dollars from drunks. He’d worked too hard to gain his reputation. It may not be the most sterling one around, but he’d earned every bit of it.
There were other ways to build up a bankroll. One of them was to put nose to grindstone and earn enough to have some left over once the essentials were covered. Doc knew he could build up his practice to a respectable level, but he could never become too rich by pulling teeth. Although folks came to his practice, they winced whenever Doc had to put down his instruments so he could hack into a handkerchief.
In April of 1877, Doc found himself leaving his office earlier and earlier before finally taking down his shingle altogether. As soon as he realized he still cared enough to pay close attention to street names or his neighbors’ faces, the urge to move on became close to unbearable.
Doc sold what he could, collected his money, and made arrangements to spend some time with family in Laclede, Kansas. His aunt hadn’t gotten any letters or received any word from Caleb, which hadn’t come as a big surprise. That man was an enterprising sort, who liked to take the occasional stab at respectabil
ity. Doc figured it was only a matter of time before Caleb came back around.
In May, Doc was feeling well enough to make the long train ride back to Texas. He didn’t need his cane to sit upright any longer and some of the color had returned to his cheeks. He even sparked up some conversations with a few other passengers that trumped the ones he’d had with folks he’d seen every day outside his practice.
While he may have been making small talk here and there, Doc was thinking about the same thing he’d been thinking about when he’d left Kansas City. He needed more money to build up steam on the gambler’s circuit.
He arrived in Dennison, Texas, and cashed in the last of the gold he’d carried out of the Black Hills. The man who worked the scales was a grizzled old-timer with a full head of perfectly combed white hair. He was either an honest buyer or a horrible cheat, because he nodded in approval the moment he saw Doc’s gold. He kept on nodding as he meticulously balanced the scale.
“You’d be amazed how rare it is that I see the real thing anymore,” the old man said.
“Pardon me?”
“This gold. It’s the real thing.”
“It damn well better be,” Doc replied with just enough of a smirk to take the edge from his words.
The old man made a note on the scrap of paper he kept next to the scales and said, “It’s just that so many men come in here with a handful of fool’s gold and expect to walk out as rich men. Some might say it’s funny that men who make it their business to dig for gold don’t even know one sparkling rock from another.”
“And would you be one of those people?”
After glancing at Doc to find him smiling back at him, the old man nodded. “Yeah. I know the difference real good.”
“Will I be walking out of here a rich man?”
“Not quite, but you should be wearing a smile on your face.” Holding up the paper and tapping a number written on the bottom of it, he asked, “How’s that grab you?”
Doc nodded and reflexively kept himself from doing much more. Years of playing poker had given him the reflex of hiding his reaction to such beautiful sights. “Looks pretty good. Would I have gotten a better price somewhere else?”
The Accomplice: The Silent Partner Page 16
