Winter Kill

by Bill Brooks

  Cole started up the street and Holliday said: “Wait.”

  Cole turned, knowing that when he did, Holliday could be holding a Derringer on him, ready to pull the trigger and assure that he fulfilled the rumor of Cole’s death. Instead, he held only the lit cigar, its tip burning red in the blackness.

  “I’d appreciate it if I could buy you a drink, over there at the Golden Spur. I am a member of the club.”

  “It’s late,” Cole said.

  “It’s never too late for a drink, sir. If anyone would know, it would be me. I’m the self-appointed timekeeper of drinking.”

  Cole wasn’t in the mood to drink, especially not with Doc Holliday. His reputation as a mean drunk who went out of his way to pick fights only made him doubly dangerous. Cole wondered if Doc Holliday didn’t have some fanciful, morbid wish that someone would kill him outright in a gunfight and save him from the lingering death in his lungs. If that was his intention, Cole didn’t want to be his foil.

  “I’ll pass,” Cole said. “I’ve had a long ride and still got a ways to go.”

  “A man’s life should not be reduced to having to drink alone,” Holliday said. “Whatever I’ve done to offend you, I regret.” He stood there, one hand extended to support himself against the wall, his voice a near rasp from the effort it had taken in coughing away his sickness. But it wasn’t for those reasons that Cole agreed to walk with him to the club for a drink. Cole had a sudden thought, a question that Holliday might be able to answer because of the dark world in which he operated.

  “OK, Doc, I’ll sit and have a drink with you.”

  “Well, sir, what are we waiting for?” With that he seemed to regain his strength, and they crossed the street and entered the gaily lighted club.

  Most of the patrons were well-dressed men, with frock coats, gray fedoras, and kidskin gloves. But none was dressed any finer than Doc Holliday himself, who sported a cravat with a diamond stickpin to set off his Prince Albert coat. Hanging from the pocket of his brocade vest was a gold fob. Cole could see the bulge of a pistol in Holliday’s pocket. He carried in his left hand a silver-tipped cane. Except for the malevolent gaze, Doc Holliday looked no different from any of the other dandies standing at the oak or sitting in red, cushioned chairs.

  The club itself was posh with Brussels carpeting, green velvet drapes over the tall windows, a bar that ran one length of the room, a mirrored backbar, and waiters in jackets and white aprons. Several paintings of fat nude women hung on the walls and a cloud of gray smoke from expensive cigars hung in the air. It reminded Cole a lot of the Inter-Ocean Hotel in Cheyenne, where Billy Cook was shot to death while taking a bubble bath with a married woman.

  “Over there,” Holliday said, pointing with his cane to a corner with two empty chairs. A waiter came to take their order. “Two tall whiskeys,” Doc said. When they came, Holliday held his glass to the light as though to examine the quality of the liquor, then said: “Farewell to Deadwood and old loves, eh?” His reference to a woman that they’d both had an interest in, but one that neither of them had won, didn’t escape John Henry Cole.

  Under the light, Holliday’s pallor was like that of aged candle wax, his eyes sunken into dark cavities. Still, he was a handsome man, even in his condition, and several of the women who were in attendance with their escorts cast longing looks in Doc’s direction. Holliday didn’t fail to acknowledge a single one of them, offering them a slight nod and a wan smile.

  “To old times and new,” he said, hoisting his glass in a salute before knocking it back and signaling the waiter to bring another round, even though Cole hadn’t touched his. “Drink up, the night is yet young.”

  “I have to be honest with you, Doc. I didn’t accept the invitation to be sociable.”

  Holliday looked at Cole, his brow slightly furrowed, dampened with sweat, even though it wasn’t that warm in the room. “Oh?”

  “I want to ask you about someone.”

  The waiter came with two more drinks, and Holliday paid him from a fold of cash he pulled from his wallet. “Keep these coming until I tell you not to,” he said, and the waiter smiled knowingly. Doc took up one of the glasses and pressed it lightly to his cheeks, rolling it for a moment, then set it down again. “Would that I could absorb the demon rum through osmosis,” he said. “It would save me the time of actually having to swallow it and trigger my paroxysms. Now who was it you wanted to inquire about, sir?”

  “Do you know a man named Gypsy Davy? Have you ever heard of him in your travels?”

  His gaze came to rest on Cole in a way that seemed as though he were trying to see into his soul. “He’s a complete madman, a man without a scintilla of conscience,” Holliday said in that whispery, liquor-ravaged voice. “He is also a highly intelligent individual, which therefore makes him even more dangerous than your average brute. Whatever would bring you to ask about such a man?”

  “I’d like for you to tell me what you know about him, Doc.”

  He tasted some of his liquor, his eyes seeming darker, if that were possible. “My first encounter with Gypsy Davy was when we met in Baltimore, where I attended dental school. Young Davy was practicing to become a physician. I met him at the party of a mutual friend. He was quite charming, Davy was. In fact, he was the most charming individual I’ve ever met. And most deadly, too, as it turned out. He would have made a fine doctor if he’d been so inclined to save lives rather than take them. A brilliant mind.” Doc Holliday pulled a silk kerchief from his pocket and wiped his lips with it, delicately, like a woman. “But you see,” he continued, “Davy was a man with a taste for blood and blooding, and it wasn’t contained simply in the surgical theater or in the practice of medicine. He enjoyed cutting people with his scalpel whether they be patients or simply men to whom he took a dislike. It is what ultimately brought about his expulsion from medical school.”

  “Tell me about that,” Cole said.

  “He killed two men in a fight in some riverside bar one night, cut their throats just like that, nearly decapitated the one. Do you know how sharp a surgical steel scalpel is? There were varying stories as to how it began, who perpetrated the engagement. But because of the notoriety, Davy was given his walking papers from the school. Some say it left him embittered enough to murder his mentor, the chief of the medical staff, because of it.”

  “Did he?”

  Holliday shrugged, dabbed at his lips some more, then smoothed his pitch-black mustache. “The man was found with his throat neatly cut and Davy nowhere to be found afterward … he’d simply dropped out of sight. They say that one of the poor man’s ears had been neatly sliced off as well, some sort of mark of Gypsy’s vendetta. Nothing was ever proven and the murder went unsolved.” Holliday finished his drink, then started to order another when Cole pushed one of his across the table.

  “I need to stay sober,” he said.

  “Good Lord, whatever for? Sobriety only clouds the mind.”

  Holliday downed half of Cole’s glass. The gleam in his dark eyes told Cole he was well on the verge of changing moods. “I later ran into Gypsy Davy in San Francisco, where he had become the fair-haired child of Nob Hill’s effete and wealthy, regaling them with tales of his exploits on the frontier. He was written up in the Police Gazette, you know, several times … a regular Wild Bill.” Doc spoke as if he were envious of Gypsy Davy’s reputation, practically snorting the words. “It was in that yellow journalistic tome that I first read that Gypsy’s trademark for killing was slicing off the ears of his victims … claimed to the reporter that he had a collection of them. Thus, I assumed that he had indeed committed the murder in Baltimore.”

  Cole reached for his remaining drink and knocked it back.

  “So what is your interest in this mad-hatter, John Henry?”

  “It’s a private matter, Doc, that’s all I care to say about it.”

  “I can tell you this about
Davy Devereaux,” Holliday said. “You’d be wise to shoot him on sight like a rabid dog than allow him to charm you into revealing your throat to him.”

  The name struck a chord. “You certain about his last name being Devereaux?”

  “Why, yes, I believe it was. I remember, because of its alliteration … Davy Devereaux.”

  Cole could feel his blood ticking in his wrist.

  “Practically rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?” Doc said, his gaze gone flat now. He seemed to be staring at a porcine man sitting a number of tables away.

  “Thanks for the drink, Doc, but I’ve got places to go.”

  “I would enjoy watching the encounter if you find him,” Doc said. “Beware, John Henry, his blade is quick and sharp.” Doc ran a finger across his throat.

  But Cole was already on his way out. Something cold, like iron, pressed at the back of his skull. The questions hammered away: Were Gypsy Davy and Ella married? Colorado Charley Utter had called her Ella Devereaux. It might explain why she had been involved with Gypsy Davy, but it wouldn’t explain why she’d be running from him. Had she loved him enough to be part of a murder? Cole had to get to Gonzales, find Teddy Green and Harve. Most of all, he had to find Ella.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A hard ride brought John Henry Cole into Gonzales late in the day. The sky was a bled-white and Gonzales seemed nothing more than a sleepy little village with plenty of natives in their cotton shirts and trousers and wide sombreros. He asked one of them where the marshal’s office was and he told Cole in Spanish that it was above the farmacia, which stood at the east end of the main street. Cole thanked him and walked the horse he’d rented in San Antonio in that direction. He dismounted and knocked dust from his hat and ascended a set of outside stairs that led to an office above the drugstore. It was a warm day and the door stood open. A fat-bellied man with skin as brown as saddle leather sat hunched over a desk, eating tortillas filled with beans; a bottle of mescal stood near his right hand. He had a round face and pitch-black hair cut straight across his forehead and wore a leather vest with silver conchos for buttons. Grease ran down his fingers and smeared his chin and slicked his mustache. He didn’t seem happy to have his supper interrupted.

  “You John Law?” Cole asked.

  “Juan Law?” he said in a heavy accent. “No, no, señor, you got me mistaken for somebody else, eh. I am Carlos. Carlos Delgado. I am the sheriff.” Some beans dropped out of his greasy sandwich and he scooped them off the butcher paper they’d been wrapped in and fingered them into his mouth.

  “That’s what I meant,” Cole said. “My name’s John Henry Cole and I sent a wire to you a few days ago, asking about my friends … men named Teddy Green and Harve Ledbettor.”

  “Oh, sí, I got your telegram. What you want me to do with it, go find them, these men you talk about?”

  It was clear this man wasn’t going to be of much help unless Cole wanted to raid a restaurant. “So you haven’t seen these men?”

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t looking for them, they wasn’t looking for me, so I guess I haven’t seen them.”

  “You know a man named Feathers, owns a cattle spread around here?”

  He suddenly stopped eating. “Why you want to know?”

  “This is important, Sheriff.”

  “So is my supper, señor. You tell me why you want to know about Señor Feathers, maybe I tell you where he lives.”

  “His boy,” Cole said. “He’s headed this way with a friend of mine, and I want to meet up with him.”

  “Oh, so if you are his friend, how come you don’t know where he lives?”

  Cole didn’t care for the way the conversation was going. It was simply more time wasted. “Skip it. I’ll find the place on my own.”

  “Sí, sí, you do that, señor, leave me to my meal, eh.”

  Cole started to leave, paused in the door, and said: “One more thing, there are some men coming, ten of them riding together, hats pinned up. They’ll be asking questions, too, only they’ll not fool with you … they’ll shoot you in the guts for answers. If I find Feathers’s boy before they do, I might save you and this town mucho trouble.”

  Some more beans dropped from his tortilla and his eyes narrowed with concern.

  “Señor Feathers lives south of town … three, four miles … you’ll know it by the big water tower he’s got there. Who are these men who might come shoot me in the guts?”

  Cole was already descending the stairs. He followed the south road until he spotted the water tower of which the Mexican sheriff had spoken. The sky was by then a dusty rose as twilight encroached; in the weeds crickets could be heard, beginning their night song.

  A trace angled off from the main road toward the tower, and Cole followed it, pulling the Winchester from its scabbard as he went. Whoever or whatever might await him at the house, he wanted to be prepared. His heartbeat quickened when he topped a slight rise and there below stood a long house in need of some fresh whitewash. The house was topped by a cedar shake roof and three chimneys. Panes of window glass reflected the ocher sky and the rockers on the front porch sat empty. There was no sign of life, no livestock, no horses tied up out front.

  Cole spurred his pony forward, the rifle balanced across the pommel of his saddle. Except for the state of disrepair of the main house, everything appeared to be normal. He pulled up and sat the horse.

  Then a voice called from behind and above him. “John Henry Cole!”

  He turned about slowly, not knowing if the man behind the voice was armed and dangerous. Standing on top of the tower was Teddy Green. Harve Ledbettor stepped out from within the shadows of one of the outbuildings.

  “In the living flesh!” Harve cawed. “I see you finally decided to haul your bacon out of that featherbed and come join us.”

  Cole waited for Teddy Green to climb down from the tower while Harve summed up what had happened since they had parted company. “We ain’t seen hide nor hair of any of them,” he said. “I don’t know how we could have missed them or got ahead of them.”

  “Unless,” Teddy Green said, coming up, “they got waylaid somewhere along the road. Or changed their minds about coming here.”

  “You didn’t backtrack?”

  “We was waiting for you,” Harve said. “Waiting for them and you. If we left, you might not find us. We figured it best to hang close a few more days, wait and see if they showed, if you showed and they did.”

  “The Mexican sheriff didn’t deliver my wire?”

  Teddy Green shook his head negatively. “Delgado don’t leave that office or get more than a stone’s throw from a dinner plate, if he can help it. I’ve had previous dealings with him … once came here to arrest a man who turned out to be Delgado’s cousin. Never found the cousin, even though I suspect to this day Delgado was hiding him. I wouldn’t count on him to spit.”

  “What now, John Henry?” Harve said. “We wait it out?”

  “No. We backtrack.”

  “Let’s get to riding then,” Teddy Green said.

  Harve squinted into the setting sun. “So late in the day, we won’t get far.”

  “He’s right, John Henry, may be best to spend the night and head out first light,” Teddy Green said.

  Cole sheathed the Winchester. “Stay if you want,” he said.

  They rode until dark.

  * * * * *

  That night, they could hear thunder in the distance. Harve looked across the campfire and said: “I hope it ain’t another cyclone headed our way.”

  “You see any more crows today?” Teddy Green asked.

  “Not a single one.”

  “Well, at least that’s a piece of good news.”

  They sat in silence for a while before Teddy Green said: “We have to face the possibility that she’s dead, John Henry.”

  “Then let us find
her and bury her,” Cole said.

  He nodded. Harve passed around a bottle. They drank.

  Stars smeared the sky above them while off to the west heat lightning flashed and occasionally they could hear the rumble of thunder. From off in the distance a coyote called, then another and another. Finally more silence.

  They rolled up in their soogans and tried to sleep. Then Cole heard the crack of a twig from outside the light of the campfire. He slid one of the pistols from under his blanket and heard the others doing the same. The distinct double click of cocking double-action pistols—hammers being thumbed back and the single rotation of the cylinders—had the same effect as the rattle of a snake.

  More silence.

  “Maybe nothing,” whispered Harve.

  They waited, then heard a groan, and a shadowy figure stumbled into the firelight, dropped to his knees, and said: “Lord, mercy!”

  He was a black man and bleeding from a head wound, a red stripe that scored his scalp, his clothes torn.

  “Who are you?” Teddy Green demanded, jumping from his blankets with the barrel of his revolver aimed at the man.

  “Isom,” the man said. “Isom Dart.”

  “What happened to you, Mister Dart?”

  “Was ambushed, two, maybe three days ago, maybe a day before that, I … I sorta lost track of time.”

  He looked old.

  “Why?” Teddy Green said.

  The man blinked several times as though trying to understand the question.

  “Give him a drink of whiskey,” Cole said to Harve. “See if we got something we can patch up his …”

  That’s when they all saw the missing ear—when the black man turned his head toward the light—the blood dark red, dried to a crust around what was left of the ear.

  “Jesus,” Harve said, “this feller must be …”

  “Tom Feathers’s man,” Cole said.

  The mention of Feathers’s name caused the black man to stare, wide-eyed.

  Harve retrieved the bottle of liquor and pressed it into the man’s hand.