Southern Son
Page 44
He knew without glancing back that the girl’s eyes were looking somewhere far away.
The landlady at the Tivoli House gave him rags and a bowl of clear water to wash off the blood. But there was nothing she could give him to wash away the shame he felt. Because of his impetuous actions, the sailor’s girl would likely suffer more now than she would have suffered before. And what had his bravado won him, anyhow? Just a split and bloodied lip, a shooting arm strained and aching, and a back already turning black and blue from bruises.
A fine sporting man he’d turned out to be, unable to handle himself in a saloon full of gamblers! And what good was it to be fast on the draw if he couldn’t keep ahold of his pistol long enough to pull off a shot? Worse than that, what good did it to do to carry a knife the size of a meat cleaver if it only made people laugh? It was the laughter that was the worst of it, the memory of it making him feel small and ridiculous. His father had said once that pride was about all they had left in life; now even his pride was gone.
But there was something more than shame that was burdening him. For try as he might, he couldn’t forget the face of the boy he’d killed on the river, or the way his dead-aim pistol shot had blown that face away. Accident or not, he was still as guilty as the hell he’d found himself in and deserving of every bad thing that might come to him. His blood and bruises were nothing compared to what God would lay upon him for his sin: scourges and flogging and an eternity in fire and brimstone.
And as his shame turned to contrition, he fell to his knees beside the narrow bed. His mother had taught him how to pray those many nights at her own bedside, having evening prayers before she passed on. She had taught him to believe in the goodness of God, in Jesus’ forgiving grace. And surely, sinner that he was, only Jesus could save him now.
His prayer was more a plea of desperation than the praises his mother had offered, but the words were the same: “Have mercy upon me, O God . . .”
And as he poured out his heart to heaven, the penitent tears welled up in his eyes and overflowed, wetting the bedcovers. It would take all night, at least, to confess all that he’d done wrong in his life, and beg forgiveness for it. But his mother had taught him that the angels heard every honest prayer, and wrote the words in God’s holy book against the Judgment Day. He only hoped his angel mother wasn’t having to hear him now.
He prayed himself to sleep that night, and slept well for the first time in weeks. And when he woke the next day, the only pain he had left was the spreading bruising on his back and an aching in his shooting arm. But his heart was lighter than it had been since he left Mattie, and even his breathing seemed to be coming easier. And though he didn’t know whether or not he was forgiven, he knew at least that he was repentant.
The tall ship Golden Dream set sail from Commendencia Wharf, bound for New Orleans and Galveston, on a day so clear it seemed that sea and sky were one boundless wash of blue. Alongside the ship, windward, dolphins danced and laughed, daring the schooner to a race. And standing at the rail, watching them leap and dive, John Henry felt like laughing too.
He was leaving the past behind and sailing off into the future on a fine summer day. And though he’d used up nearly all of his gambling winnings buying his passage west, he didn’t care. At the end of the voyage Texas was waiting, wide and wild and full of opportunity for a bright young man like himself. But there was one part of the past that he would never forget: Mattie, eyes full of affection, heart full of love. The Irish heirloom ring she had given him shone gold on his little finger, like a promise. Someday he’d come sailing back, take her in his arms again, and hear her speak the words that meant everything to him: “I love you. I always have, and I always will. . .”
But for now he was looking westward, across the Gulf of Mexico toward the bright blue of the rest of his life. He took a breath of fresh sea air, smiled, and faced into the wind.
Author’s Note
WHEN I FIRST SET OUT TO RETELL THE STORY OF DOC HOLLIDAY, I thought it would be so simple: just dramatize the known history, add in a bit of legend, and tie it all together with some old-fashioned Southern romance. And how else could one tell a tale that sweeps from the Old South to the Wild West and stars a man whose supposed sweetheart was the model for Melanie in Gone with the Wind? That was the story I had uncovered in my work with a Georgia museum: an amazing melding of Western legend and Southern literature.
But when I tried to make a timeline of the historical events, I found that the lines didn’t connect properly and the accepted facts about Doc Holliday didn’t add up. Of course, I wasn’t the first writer to see inconsistencies in the accepted facts; others had run into them, too, and tried to explain them away by saying that Doc Holliday was, well, crazy. But crazy doesn’t account for dates that don’t add up and timelines that don’t connect. Maybe, just maybe, the “facts” weren’t facts at all. It soon became apparent that if I wanted to write about the real Doc Holliday, I’d have to find him first.
Thus began eighteen years of original research, discovering previously unknown court documents and deeds, reading old newspaper accounts and memoirs and letters, interviewing living family members and visiting all the places Doc Holliday had been in his adventurous life: from Georgia to Philadelphia to St. Louis, from Texas to Colorado, from New Mexico to Arizona, even down to New Orleans and up the Mississippi River. And somewhere along the way, I found that in trying to dramatize his life I’d discovered his life. Or a lot of it, anyway, enough to fill three volumes of novelized reality as I relived his life from childhood to his last days.
This is not a history book, nor is it a simple work of fiction. It is a true historical fiction, combining the best history I could find in those eighteen years of research with the best story I could weave in almost as many years of writing. The Doc Holliday you meet here may not be the man you have seen in movies or other novels, but he is likely closer to the real person of John Henry Holliday: a Southern boy who had no idea that he was destined to become a Western legend. And the same could be said of his cousin Mattie, who didn’t know that years later her name and character would be recast in the South’s greatest novel by a younger cousin, Margaret Mitchell. Neither of them knew that one day they’d be famous—they likely would have been uncomfortable with the thought. But I think they’d like the portrayal I have given them here.
While you may not always admire the Doc Holliday you meet in these pages, a man whose legendary life was filled with very real human failings, I hope that you will come to understand him, as I have. Mattie Holliday, who knew him better than we ever will, loved him.
I am indebted to many people for their help in this work, from Doc’s early biographers to the archivists who aided in my original research to friends and family who gave encouragement along the way. The following is but a short list of those with whom I have worked personally:
Authors: Susan McKey Thomas (In Search of the Hollidays), Doc’s cousin whose family history work started my own research and who became my dear friend over the years; Dr. Gary Roberts (Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend), Doc’s most eminent biographer whom I met through Susie and who also became a friend as well as an advisor and collaborator as we were both writing our books; Casey Tefertiller (Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend) whose late night thoughts on the streets of Tombstone helped me to get my work done; David O’Connell (The Irish Roots of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind) for his unique insights into the story behind the story.
Holliday and McKey family members: Susan McKey Thomas, Jack McKey, Morgan DeLancey McGee, A. J. Young, Regina Rapier, Carolyn Holliday Manley, Constance Knowles McKeller, Robert Lee Holliday, and John P. Holliday who all contributed family history and the kind of family stories that bring the past to life.
Historians, archivists, and researchers: the late Franklin D. Garrett and the staff of the Atlanta History Center; Noelle King of the Margaret Mitchell House Museum in Atlanta; Anthony R. Dees, Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta; Mary Ellen Brooks
, Margaret Mitchell Archives at the University of Georgia Library; John Lynch & Bobby Kerlin of the Fayette County Historical Society; Joseph Henry Hightower Moore of the Clayton County Historical Society; J.P. Jennings of the Griffin Historical Society; Shirl Tisdale, Dental Medicine Library Archives at the University of Pennsylvania; Joan Farmer of the Old Jail Art Center, Albany, Texas; Harold F. Thatcher, City of Las Vegas Museum and Rough Rider Memorial Collection, New Mexico; Robert Fisher, Arizona Historical Society; Christine McNab Rhodes, Cochise County Recorder, Arizona; Gary McClelland, Tombstone, Arizona; John Denious, Silverton, Colorado; Nancy Manley at the Mountain History Collection of the Lake County Public Library and Mary Billings-McVicar, Leadville, Colorado; Lois Ann McCollum of the Frontier Historical Society in Glenwood Springs, Colorado; and Dr. Arthur W. Bork, Prescott, Arizona, who knew and interviewed Kate Elder and shared his recollections with me.
Literary Agents and Editors: Catherine Drayton of Inkwell Management, Peter Rubie of FinePrint Literary, and Lila Karpf of Lila Karpf Literary Management. And especially to Erin Turner, Senior Editor at TwoDot Books, who understood that this Wild West story had to begin at the beginning, in the Old South.
Members of the Holliday House Association, founding organization of the Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House Museum: Jeanne Brewer, Karlan Coleman, Michele Cox, Eleanor Ebbert, VelDean Fincher, Elizabeth McCombs Kissel, Nancy Meyer, Joan Neal, Dr. Kate Robinson, and LaVanda Shellnutt Gibbs, along with advisor Dr. Tommy H. Jones of the Georgia State University Heritage Preservation Program.
Family & Friends who were my early readers, first critics, and stalwart supporters: Patricia Petersen, Samuel Shannon, Sterling Felsted, Jennifer Felsted, Heather Shannon, Ashley Wilcox, Ross Wilcox, Mack Peirson, Daniel Mikat, Michael Spain, Melinda Talley, VelDean Fincher, and Dr. Dorothy Mikat. Special thanks to Laura Pilcher, copyeditor extraordinaire, and to Dan and Sally Mikat for giving me long quiet weeks to write at their home on Mackinac Island, Michigan.
Finally, but never done, thanks to my husband, Dr. Ronald C. Wilcox, the real Doc in my life, who didn’t mind sharing me with a much, much older man, and to my parents, Malcolm and Beth Peirson, for a house filled with books and a love of all things literary. John Henry and I thank you all!
Victoria Wilcox
—Peachtree City, Georgia
Visit more of the world of Doc Holliday at www.victoriawilcoxbooks.com
About the Author
Victoria Wilcox is Founding Director of Georgia’s Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House Museum (the antebellum home of the family of Doc Holliday, now a site on the National Register of Historic Places), where she learned the family’s untold stories of their legendary cousin. Her work with the museum led to two decades of original research, making her a nationally recognized authority on the life of Doc Holliday. She is the author of the documentary film In Search of Doc Holliday and the award-winning historical novel trilogy The Saga of Doc Holliday, for which she twice received Georgia Author of the Year honors and in 2016 was named Best Historical Western Novelist by True West Magazine. She has lectured across the country, appeared in local and regional media, guested on NPR affiliates, and was featured in the Fox Network series Legends & Lies: The Real West. She is a member of the Western Writers of America, the Wild West History Association, Women Writing the West, and the Writer’s Guild of the Booth Museum of Western Art and has been a featured contributor to True West Magazine. In the summer of 2017, she joined actor Val Kilmer (Tombstone) as guest historian at the inaugural “Doc HolliDays” in Tomb-stone, Arizona, site of the legendary OK Corral gunfight.