The Doctor and the Rough Rider

by Mike Resnick

  He wished that he weren't riding alone, that he had someone he could count on riding shotgun for him. Wyatt would have been good at it.

  Of course, the best man for the job would have been Johnny Ringo. Ringo was dead, to be sure, but that hadn't stopped the medicine men from reviving him and sending him out to kill Holliday and Edison almost three years ago. He was a drunkard with a foul temper, but even as a zombie he'd been one hell of a killer—and more to the point, Holliday had actually enjoyed his company. They were the only two college-educated shootists in the West, and there was no one else in his chosen profession that he could discuss philosophy and the classics with. They'd hit it off, and it wasn't bitterness or hatred that led them to their final confrontation. It was Fate. Not only had the other side enlisted his services, but both men craved competition at the highest level, and that meant that under any circumstances they would eventually have faced each other in the street. Of course, he had an edge, the Buntline Special that Tom and Ned had created for him—but then Ringo had an edge too; after all, he was already dead.

  He wished he'd stopped by Edison's and Buntline's connected houses and picked up something, anything, with which to face War Bonnet. But Geronimo had been adamant: this was where he would be at such-and-so a moment, and if Holliday wasn't there to meet him, he'd go into town, ripping it apart in his efforts to find Roosevelt and killing dozens of innocent people in the process.

  Now, Holliday wasn't convinced that there were a dozen men in Tombstone who were innocent of anything, and he didn't really give a damn if War Bonnet wiped them all out—well, except for Tom, Ned, and Roosevelt, and maybe that fawning Wiggins—but he'd consented to go, not out of any noble or heroic notions, but simply because he wanted to collect Geronimo's reward if he actually survived, and because a quick death didn't seem any worse to him than the slow, debilitating, painful one he was facing.

  He estimated that he was five miles out of town, and three miles from anything or anyone remotely alive. He keep looking for hawks, eagles, wrens, prairie dogs, rabbits, anything that might be Geronimo or one of his braves keeping watch on him, but he saw absolutely nothing.

  “It's mighty empty and more than a little foreboding out here,” he muttered to his horse. “I'd sing if I knew how to, and if I didn't have to take any deep breaths.”

  The horse grunted, as if pleased to know that his rider was neither asleep nor dead.

  Holliday kept scanning the horizon, looking for a sign of War Bonnet or anything else, but it remained barren and empty, and he realized that he probably wouldn't see or hear a magical creature's approach anyway.

  He pulled the Derringer out of his lapel pocket, checked it for the third time since he'd ridden out from town, and replaced it. He drew his six-gun to make sure there were no obstructions—there had never been any, but he was a careful man—and slid it back into his holster. He knew that young guns practiced their draws all the time, as if fast were more important than accurate, or as if either meant more than cold, emotionless efficiency. He'd been outdrawn many times, and yet except for a minor wound at the O.K. Corral, he'd never been hit in any of his gunfights.

  “I hope you're listening,” he said aloud, “because I'm going to give it just ten more minutes, and then I'm turning around and heading back to town. He's got enough advantages already; there's no sense facing him in the dark.”

  There was no answer.

  He looked down at the back of his horse's neck, which was obscured by a long black mane.

  “I don't suppose it's you, is it?” he said.

  The horse continued walking, and didn't reply.

  And then, suddenly, the horse stopped, and Holliday could feel it tense beneath him, because standing there some fifty yards away from him was War Bonnet. Not Geronimo's wavy, semitranslucent apparition, but a real—well, surreal—flesh-and-blood creature, his hands afire, the blaze in his eyes matching them.

  “You're bigger than he said,” said Holliday, some of the tension actually leaving him now that he was finally confronting the huge Indian.

  “What does Goyathlay know?” said War Bonnet contemptuously in a harsh, exceptionally deep voice. “When I finish with him and the one who hides his eyes behind glass, they will be less than the dust on the ground.”

  “That's what we have to talk about,” said Holliday, trying to steady his mount.

  “We know you, Holliday,” said War Bonnet. “You are a dying drunkard. We have nothing to say to you.”

  “We?” repeated Holliday, frowning. “All I see is one big bastard who's going to jar the ground when he falls.”

  “We made this warrior,” was the reply. “We can address you through him. He obeys our will.”

  “And just who the hell are you?”

  “We are the medicine men of all the assembled tribes except the Apache,” replied War Bonnet expressionlessly. “We are Dull Knife of the Cheyenne, Spotted Elk of the Lakota, Cougar Slayer of the Arapaho, Tall Wolf of—”

  “You're not going to bore me until sunrise with this, are you?” interrupted Holliday.

  “No,” came the reply, and now War Bonnet's face was animated again. “I am going to kill you.”

  “I and not we?” asked Holliday. “Make up your mind, or don't you have one?”

  War Bonnet advanced, and Holliday drew his gun and fired three times, placing a bullet in each of the monstrous Indian's eyes and one in his forehead. They didn't bounce off, but instead seemed to be absorbed into his massive head, doing no damage. War Bonnet roared his rage and continued approaching.

  “Thanks for all your fucking help,” muttered Holliday under his breath as he prepared to be torn limb from limb by the approaching behemoth.

  “Your skin will shrivel and your bones will melt, Holliday,” roared War Bonnet, reaching out to him. “You will live only a few seconds, but they will be the most agonizing seconds any man has ever suffered.”

  Holliday fired three more shots into War Bonnet's chest, then reached for the pistol in his lapel as the monster reached out a blazing hand for him.

  Holliday tensed, and prepared to suffer exactly as War Bonnet had predicted, but instead the insubstantial blazing fingers passed right through him.

  “Shit!” said Holliday. “They're not even warm!”

  War Bonnet cursed, beat his chest like a bull gorilla, and tried once again to grab Holliday. He terrified the horse, who started bucking and squealing, forcing Holliday to hold on to the saddle horn with both hands, but the monster was completely unable to make physical contact with him.

  Finally he backed off, glaring at Holliday, who used the opportunity to dismount before he was thrown off.

  “Well, Fred, Joe, Tom and Johnny, and whoever else is in there, what now?” he said, starting to reload his gun as the horse calmed down.

  War Bonnet wasn't done yet. He lifted his massive foot high and brought it down on Holliday's head—and this time, instead of passing through him, the foot bounced off, and Holliday could tell from his face that he was in pain.

  “I take it all back,” he whispered. “You were right.”

  War Bonnet spent the next five minutes alternately trying to burn, grab, hit, and kick Holliday, but to no avail. Then he spotted a massive rock, weighing perhaps a thousand pounds, on the ground a few yards away. He walked over to it, lifted it with ease, held it aloft, and approached Holliday, who eyed him very nervously, since unlike War Bonnet himself, the rock was not magical and was solid and real.

  But as War Bonnet drew closer, he began straining, the veins stood out on his neck, and his arms started trembling. Finally he could walk no farther but stopped and dropped the rock onto the ground, where it landed with an audible thud.

  “Are you getting tired of this yet?” asked Holliday.

  War Bonnet glared at him, and lifted the rock again. Once more it was apparent that he could barely hold it aloft, and Holliday fired two quick shots into him to see if his weakness had spread to his invulnerability, but they had
no more effect than before. Then the huge Indian turned his back to Holliday, and Holliday could see that he was no longer straining. With a scream of rage, War Bonnet hurled the massive rock some fifty yards away.

  “Do not smile at me, Holliday!” roared War Bonnet, turning back to him.

  “Oh, call me Doc, now that we're not going to be killing each other,” said Holliday, still smiling.

  “Your days are numbered,” vowed War Bonnet.

  “I've heard that before,” said Holliday. “Usually it's come from men who could at least draw blood.”

  “It is true that I cannot kill you,” said War Bonnet in his deep, thunderous voice. “I have been created for one purpose, and one purpose only: to kill the invader Roosevelt and the turncoat Goyathlay.”

  “I wish you the same luck with them that you had with me,” said Holliday.

  “It is true that I cannot kill you,” repeated War Bonnet. “But there is one who can, and he shall be my surrogate.”

  “You know words like ‘surrogate’?” said Holliday. “I'm impressed. Now why don't you shamble off to whatever hell you came from and forget about all this?”

  “How little you know,” said War Bonnet. “You, Roosevelt, and Goyathlay are all doomed, corpses who do not yet know you are dead.”

  “Are you guys inside this clown going to send another ugly creature here to scare me to death?” asked Holliday.

  Suddenly War Bonnet vanished. Holliday looked around, but knew that something that big couldn't hide on this barren, featureless landscape. He waited a moment, then walked to the side of his horse, pulled down his canteen, and had two quick swallows of whiskey.

  And as quickly as he vanished, War Bonnet returned, standing exactly where he had been.

  “Nice trick,” said Holliday. “Did you run home to get some advice?”

  “No, walking corpse. I went to the land you call Texas.”

  “Waste of time,” said Holliday. “They don't scare any easier than I do.”

  “There is a jail there. After I reached an agreement with an inmate, I tore his cell apart and freed him.”

  Holliday stared at him, waiting for him to finish his story.

  “There is a man who is even a greater killer than you,” continued War Bonnet.

  Holliday finally saw where the tale was going, and nodded his head. “You broke John Wesley Hardin out of jail.”

  “In exchange for his promise to hunt you down and kill you.

  “You might be disappointed.”

  “You think you and the thing that was once Johnny Ringo were the greatest killers of all, but John Wesley Hardin has killed more than both of you put together.”

  “I'll make you a promise,” said Holliday.

  “Your promise to leave and not involve yourself is too late,” said War Bonnet.

  Holliday shook his head. “That wasn't what I had in mind.”

  “What is your promise?” demanded War Bonnet.

  “I promise that after I kill Hardin and Roosevelt kills you, we'll bury you side by side.”

  “This is Hardin—the greatest killer ever to walk across this land,” said War Bonnet. “And you are a dying man who cannot walk fifty paces without gasping for breath.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  “You are a fool, Holliday. If you run now, perhaps you will die before he finds you, for you will surely die the day he does find you.”

  “Remember what I said,” replied Holliday. “Side by side.”

  War Bonnet glared at him furiously, but said nothing.

  “It won't be so bad,” continued Holliday. “You're not a Christian, so you won't care that we don't put a cross on your grave. And once Geronimo finds all the medicine men who are pulling your puppet strings, we'll bury them opposite Hardin on the other side of you.”

  War Bonnet was silent for a few seconds. Then he began to hum, a very low, very soft sound that became louder and louder until Holliday clapped his hands over his ears. The sound morphed into a scream, louder and louder still, until Holliday was sure it could be heard all the way back to his ancestral home in Georgia.

  And then, suddenly, both the scream and War Bonnet himself vanished.

  Holliday waited five minutes to make sure he wasn't coming back, then climbed onto his horse, noticed that the animal was thoroughly lathered with sweat and still tense and nervous, and began riding slowly back to Tombstone.

  “John Wesley Hardin,” he muttered. “Why couldn't it have been something easier, like all fifty medicine men at once?”

  He continued riding, and every half mile or so he'd take another sip from his canteen, close it, look off into the distance in the direction he thought Texas lay, and say, grimacing, “John Wesley Hardin. Shit!”

  He was still repeating it when he finally rode back into town.

  IT WAS TEN O'CLOCK AT NIGHT when Holliday entered Tombstone. He considered waking Edison and Buntline, decided not to, and continued riding. He returned his horse to the stable where he'd rented it, walked to the Grand, asked for Roosevelt at the front desk and was told he'd gone to bed, and stopped by the bar for a drink.

  “I'm surprised to see you here this early, Doc,” said the bartender. “Usually you shut down the Oriental and then find another game or two before you come back here.”

  “I'm just giving the cards one night to recover,” said Holliday.

  “I'm sure some of the other gamblers appreciate it,” said the bartender with a smile.

  “They'd better,” said Holliday. “I'll be back tomorrow with a vengeance.” He was silent for a moment. “Tell me, did John Wesley Hardin ever visit Tombstone—before he was jailed, I mean?”

  “I don't think Tombstone even existed when they put him away, Doc,” said the bartender. “He's been gone a long while.”

  “Just curious,” said Holliday.

  “You ever meet him?”

  Holliday shook his head. “No, never had that pleasure.”

  “I gather it wasn't all that much of a pleasure for something like forty-five men,” said the bartender with a grin.

  “Forty-two,” Holliday corrected him. “At least, that's what they were able to prove in court.”

  “Word has it that he's become a lawyer.”

  “That's what I hear,” said Holliday. “No reason why not. There's not much else to do in jail.”

  “It means if he ever gets out, he can prosecute and defend himself,” said the bartender, laughing at his own comment.

  “Anything's possible,” agreed Holliday.

  “Not getting out,” said the bartender. “If he lives three hundred more years, he'll still be serving time.”

  “Let's hope you're right,” said Holliday without smiling.

  He finished his drink, got to his feet, stopped by the desk long enough to leave a note for Roosevelt to meet him at Edison's house at noon the next day, and went up to his room, where he had another coughing fit. When it had passed, he looked out the window to see if any of the birds or bats looked like an Apache in disguise, decided they looked like birds and bats, and went to sleep.

  There was blood all over his pillow when he awoke, which was becoming a regular occurrence these days. Sometime during the night, while he was sleeping, he'd had another coughing seizure, but not bad enough to bring him to instant wakefulness, and he'd coughed up blood on the pillow and bed linens.

  He got up, climbed into his clothes, and left a quarter on the pillow to pay for it, for the blood had seeped through and he knew they wouldn't use it again. Then he descended the stairs to the main floor. He pulled his watch out, checked the time, decided he could either have breakfast or get a shave, decided that he couldn't take the sight or smell of food this early in the day, and opted for the shave.

  “Morning, Doc,” said the barber with a big smile.

  “What's causing that shit-eating grin?” asked Holliday as he seated himself in the chair.

  “Johnny Behan,” answered the barber. “You put a real scare into him, so he sho
wed up at nine this morning for a shave, because he knows you sleep until early afternoon.” A pause. “Matter of fact, you're a little early today.”

  “I thought maybe you'd like a tooth pulled,” answered Holliday, leaning back and closing his eyes.

  “I might, if I had any left,” said the barber. “These things in my mouth were all the tusks of an elephant or hippo or something half a world away.”

  “Or a cow from the next town,” replied Holliday.

  “Makes no difference to me, as long as I can bite into a steak over at Sarah's Restaurant. You been there since you got back to town?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You ought to go,” urged the barber. “Not only does she make one hell of a steak, but she's got photos of you and the Earps and the O.K. Corral plastered all over the wall. I'll bet she'd give you a couple of free meals if she could advertise that you've eaten there.”

  “I'll look into it,” promised Holliday, though he knew he wouldn't.

  “Okay,” said the barber, spreading the lather and producing a razor. “Don't laugh or stick your tongue out.”

  “I'll try not to,” said Holliday.

  Five minutes later he was clean-shaven except for his mustache. He paid the barber, told him to tell Behan that now that he knew Behan's schedule he was thinking of showing up at nine o'clock in the morning for his shave, though of course he had no more intention of getting up early than of eating at Sarah's, and then he was out the door and on his way to Edison's house.

  He arrived a couple of minutes later, walked up to the door, and waited for it to recognize him and swing open. Then he walked into the living room, where Edison, Buntline, and Roosevelt were all waiting for him.

  “I see you survived,” said Edison. “Of course, we knew you had, because of the message you left for Theodore. Can I get you something to eat or drink?”

  “Maybe later,” said Holliday. “We have things to talk about first.” He looked around the room.

  “Is something wrong?”