Return of Little Big Man

by Thomas Berger

  But we finally reached my shack without further incident. Old Pard was waiting outside. I don’t know what he did all day, maybe went out to the desert and chased lizards or hung around the neighborhood looking for some tail from a Mexican bitch, but he was always there when I come home. Right now, though, he appeared right dubious of my companion and steered clear of her, even to the degree that he was slow to come get the meat scraps I brung him as usual. He never cared for the smell of alcohol, which I think is why he come with me in the first place, to get away from my brother Bill.

  Now if I had wanted to have my way with Kate I would of been out of luck, for soon as she spotted that cot of mine in such moonlight as come through the open door, she went and fell onto it with a force I was afraid might split the old canvas, and begun to snore with the sound of a tuba soon thereafter. Pard couldn’t take much of that and left the shack.

  I didn’t have noplace for myself but the earthen floor, which I wasn’t happy to sleep on, owing to the easy access of vermin, especially now the dog was outside, but tired as I was I rolled up in the serape and soon drifted off despite the concert.

  I was woke by somebody staring at me. I possess that natural trait, I can’t explain it, and it’s true even when my back is turned to the starer, as now. So I rolled over and there is Kate Elder glaring down, standing erect, showing no sign of either drunkenness or hangover, and in fact making a better appearance by morning sunshine than she had by moonlight, except for that big black eye which was actually various shades of blue and purple.

  “You got two minutes,” says she, “to explain where you have abducted me to and beg my forgiveness, else I pity you when my husband finds out. He happens to be one of the leading professional men of Tombstone, Dr. John H. Holliday by name, and he don’t take lightly to anyone trifling with his missus.”

  I’ll tell you, far from being worried by any threat concerning Doc, I was so relieved she was no longer noisy and disorderly that I scrambled to my feet and hastened to say, “I’m real pleased to see you got over your attack of the vapors, Mrs. Holliday. I’m sorry I didn’t have no better place to give you shelter than this dump, but it was real late at night. You must of hurt your eye in the spill you took. May I suggest you stop by Bauer’s and get a hunk of raw meat to put on it?”

  This pile of buffalo chips struck the right note with her and she smiles and says, “Well sir, you’re a real gentleman. I wish you’d call in soon at Fly’s and take a cup of tea with me and the doctor, so he can express his gratitude in person. I expect I was a victim of the cowboys.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “They’re an unruly element, and one of these days my husband, assisted by his dear friends, them fine Earp boys, will have to do something about that crowd.”

  “May I escort you home, ma’am?”

  “That won’t be necessary, sir. Just point me the right way.”

  Pard was waiting outside the door, but he shied away when Kate appeared.

  Despite my pointing she looks first in the wrong direction as she steps out, sure on her feet and even dainty, and she sniffs with disdain. “Where did all them greasers come from?”

  “They’re harmless,” I says, “but you go the other way.”

  10. The Gunfight That Never Happened at the O.K. Corral

  THE NEXT THING OF note that occurred in Tombstone in ’81, of which the month was only March, though the sun was hotter than in August of any other place I lived, was an attempt to rob the stagecoach to Benson, not an uncommon event especially when treasure was on board, in this case silver valued anywhere between twenty-five and eighty thousand, depending on who was doing the estimating, and it was probably worth at least half the lowest figure. There was always a lot of lying in such matters, even when, as here, the holdup men didn’t get the strongbox, on account of a fellow named Bob Paul was driving, and he wouldn’t stop though the villains begun to fire and they killed Bud Philpot, the regular driver who didn’t feel well and in switching jobs with Paul, riding shotgun, traded a stomachache for a .45 slug in the heart. A passenger also got hit and died later on.

  Bat Masterson welcomed the opportunity to join the big posse that headed out to track down the outlaws. Him and me had been in town hardly a month, and he was doing pretty much the same thing he would of done anywhere else, namely, gambling and drinking, but he was already getting tired of Tombstone, which as you might have noticed was his way. For my part, having lived longer than him, I wanted to locate for a spell and Tombstone didn’t seem any worse than anyplace else if you liked the climate, and I did once I got used to it, for though the days was blazing, the air was so dry your sweat dried as soon as it appeared, and the nights was generally cool. I never had a head cold during my time there nor knowed anyone else who did. Doc Holliday didn’t cough nearly as much as he had in Dodge. If he could of kept his nose clean he might of stayed in Tombstone and lived longer.

  Another thing I changed my mind about: whereas on first sight I had not taken to the endless stretches of alkali dust and rock where only mesquite, greasewood, and spiky cactus would grow, with rain usually a dim memory, and populated by land creatures whose hides was scaly and not furred, after a while on my day off I got to going out to the edge of town, Pard trotting along, and watching the vast desert sunset, which seemed to have a greater range of colors than elsewhere, and there was mountains in every direction, some rounded and soft in the purple haze and others, such as the nearby Dragoons, which had a jagged look as befitted the Apaches who hid out there from time to time and maybe right now, but as you could see in every direction I didn’t think I was in danger and never carried a weapon.

  This was probably foolish, particularly with what I knowed of Indians’ gift for stealth, but I’ll tell you why I did not own a gun at this time: I couldn’t be sure what Big Nose Kate might of ended up telling Doc Holliday about the night she spent with me. Enemies generally found out whether one another was armed before trying to kill each other. This hadn’t nothing to do with fairness. If you shot down a fellow who didn’t have no weapon on him, your chances of successfully pleading self-defense when arrested and tried could not be called good. As it turned out, however, I was in error as to the consumptive dentist’s regard for legality. When it came to Doc Holliday, you did well to reflect that he was dying anyway.

  Getting back to the attempted holdup of the stage and the killings, the posse rode out of Tombstone including three Earps and Doc Holliday, along with Bat, as well as Sheriff Johnny Behan and his deputies. Behan resented the Earps sticking their nose in local law enforcement, though Virgil always had some kind of official position, being at this time a deputy U.S. marshal for that part of Arizona Territory. Buckskin Frank Leslie, another who liked excitement, left the Oriental bar to me while he also went with the posse.

  The wonder is that though the sheriff and his bunch was at odds with the Earp crowd, they found a fellow hiding on a ranch who admitted to holding the horses during the attack on the stage while it was being committed by three men of which the leader was one Billy Leonard. This trio was thought to be connected with the cowboys, which was to say rustlers, who stole cattle down in Mexico which they drove back to Arizona and distributed amongst the herds of the Clantons, the McLaurys, and other ranchers in the country near Tombstone, not all of which was the desert I mentioned before, especially on the higher ground.

  The Earps believed Sheriff Behan was too friendly with the cowboys, while Johnny considered Wyatt and his brothers tinhorn gamblers, and there was talk from supporters of each side that the other was in cahoots with the killers and intentionally steering the posse away from the trail. Whatever was the case, the outlaws Leonard, Head, and Crane was never caught by any peace officers, but the first two was shot from ambush by a couple brothers seeking the reward money who before they could spend it was themselves killed by the surviving Jim Crane and his new gang, and then a few weeks later Crane was with a bunch of rustlers driving a herd of stolen cattle through Guad
alupe Canyon, near the border, when some Mexican hard cases dry-gulched them and stripped their corpses bare. So you can decide for yourself whether justice was done.

  But a mystery remained and does so till this day, and it begins with the fact that Doc Holliday had been a real good friend of Billy Leonard’s! So was it likely he could of been seriously helping the posse in the pursuit of same? By the way, Leonard was still another called Billy the Kid.

  Bat Masterson not only had had enough of Tombstone by the time the posse came back emptyhanded, but he got a telegram to the effect his brother Jim had run into trouble in Dodge, having lost his marshal’s job, and a couple of bastards was gunning for him. Now this was a mission up Bat’s alley.

  “Sure you don’t want to come along?” he asked me as he waited for the stage for the first leg of the lengthy trip back.

  “How long since we got here, Bat?” I asked. “I have barely got settled.” Bat as usual had stayed in a hotel. I don’t think he had a real home during the time I knowed him. “Besides, I ain’t no gunfighter. I wouldn’t give you much help—not that you’ll need it.”

  Grinning, he says, “I can recall the time when you wanted to go for Doc Holliday.”

  “I didn’t know who he was.”

  “Well, you keep away from him down here,” Bat told me, his smile fading. “He’s nothing but trouble, but you can’t tell that to Wyatt.”

  I might of said the same for Wyatt, but I didn’t want to differ with Bat, good friend as he had always been to me, even though once I accompanied him someplace at his suggestion I never saw much of the man.

  I shook his hand and wished him luck, and I says, with some truth, “You know, I have went some interesting places because of you, and I want to thank you.”

  He gives me the famous Bat grin once more and says, “I’ll let you know when I get another good idea.”

  And just then the stage comes hurtling along the street, horses being driven as fast as they could go, and skids to a dramatic stop in a spew of dust. This was one of the public spectacles in Tombstone for which people waited every day. Next thing happened a few weeks later when a member of my profession at Arcade saloon on Allen Street lit a cigar while inspecting a barrel of bad whiskey that smelled like coal oil and probably was, for it exploded, not hurting the bartender or nobody else physically, but soon burning all of downtown Tombstone to the ground, for one reason because there wasn’t no water to stop it. Given that fact and an early summer afternoon considered right warm even for this place, over 100 in the shade, and real windy, all that remained of the business district in a couple hours was a few empty walls of the buildings made of adobe. All of us at the Oriental at the time did what we could, but the only thing we could save from the flames was one barrel of whiskey. However, by the time the fire had burned itself out, this was the only supply available in the center of town, so Milt Joyce, the saloon owner at the time, had me and Frank Leslie open it up in the street outside, while the flames was still flickering here and there in the ruins, ashes swirling in the wind, and sell drinks to parched firefighters, at inflated prices that kept going up further as the barrel emptied, and by the time it was all gone Milt had made almost enough to pay the cost of rebuilding, which in our case, and in fact that of most of the sixty other burnt-out businesses, begun early the next morning and, believe it or not, was completed in only a few weeks, for buildings of that kind consisted of bare boards nailed together, with the exception of the adobe structures that distinguished southwestern from northern towns. It took a while longer to restore the fancier furnishings at the Oriental. At the time, some of such things as cut-glass chandeliers might first have to travel from the East by ship around the bottom of South America and up the Pacific to San Francisco before heading our way.

  Owing to the fire, however, all fireworks and the random discharge of guns was forbidden in Tombstone for the Fourth of July, and what with the rebuilding there wasn’t room in the streets for the usual parade, which temporary ordinances, along with the existing laws, would be enforced by the new chief of police, none other than Virgil Earp.

  Allie was real pleased by her husband’s elevation, but she told me Wyatt had got himself a girlfriend and come home only now and then so Mattie could wash and iron his shirts, which of course weren’t none of my business, but when she told me Big Nose Kate Elder was back in town and threatening to cause trouble for Doc Holliday, who beat her up so much, the news give me a turn, I admit. I had heard Kate left Tombstone and was hoping it was for good.

  “Why does she keep coming back to him?” I asked.

  “She’s just crazy about that good-for-nothing,” says Allie. And when I shakes my head, she adds, “Jack, you don’t know much about women.”

  “You’re sure right about that.”

  “You oughta get yourself one.”

  “How do you figure I should do that? By punching some girl in the eye?”

  Allie laughed like the devil at that remark, which I hadn’t intended to be comical, but then she got serious and says, “Virge wouldn’t ever try that, let me tell you. I might be little, but I’m an Irish Mick and would wipe the floor with him, big as he is.” But she laughed again. “He wouldn’t do it, ’cause he’s a real sweetheart. There ain’t nothing better than real love, Jack. You oughta try it.”

  It didn’t take long for Kate to make her return known to me, though soon’s I heard she was back I determined to avoid passing Fly’s boardinghouse, near the corner of Third and Fremont, going across to Second and down Tough Nut Street, and then coming over to the Oriental at Fifth and Allen, a lengthy route the purpose of which was to also avoid the other Allen Street saloons, where she done her drinking. She never come into the Oriental, where she might run into Wyatt, who never liked her any better than she liked him, each believing the other had a bad influence on Doc Holliday. Which was a laugh. As if Doc needed any help in being what he was.

  As if avoiding Kate on the sidewalks meant I wouldn’t ever encounter her! Fact is, I come home one night not long thereafter, and it happened to be real dark, and I stumbled over something soft on the ground at the doorstep of my shack, first fearing it was Pard, who if he stayed there so quiet must be dead. But some loud cursing in a whiskey-hoarse voice proved otherwise, and when I got a lamp lit and brought out, I seen it was Kate Elder, by now on all fours and shortly standing up though not remaining in one spot.

  She looked quite a mess, hair in her face, clothes in the condition you would expect when they had been rolled in the dust after having been dampened down the front by spilled whiskey.

  “You son of a bitch!” she says, shaking a fist, which was enough to threaten her balance, so she lowers it. “You run out on me!”

  “I believe you was the one who left town.”

  She shakes her head, dark hair flying. “Who bought you off? Wyatt? Doc don’t have no money, I know that. He and them others messed up that stage holdup.” She said this with lisps and slurrings of a drunk, so it took me a minute to figure it out.

  When I did, I asks, “What? You’re saying Doc was one of the gang?”

  “Damn right he was, and I turned the bastard in. Trouble is, they didn’t keep him in jail. Wyatt bailed him out, and now he’s gunnin’ for me.”

  I didn’t believe much if any of this. I have mentioned the suspicions regarding Doc Holliday’s friendship with Billy Leonard, but it seemed unlikely that he worked as a holdup man himself, and while the Earps was said to often straddle the line between right and wrong in their business practices, especially Wyatt, it was hard to believe they consorted with common criminals, not to mention that Virge was now chief town marshal.

  And how reliable could Kate be? She now went on: “So I wantcha to kill him for me, Ringo. Then I’ll be your woman.” Having said which, she fell onto my bed like the other time and immediately passed out, her head hanging over the side so far I was afraid her neck would be broke, so I lifted it back onto the bed and while I was doing so I brushed the hair back
from her face so she wouldn’t breathe it in or swallow any, and I seen now she had two black eyes and a split lip to boot. I guess Doc had beat her awful, and I was relieved I didn’t own no gun, for I never could stomach the using of fists on a woman no matter how bad she acted, and I might of felt obliged to go looking for him—ending up like his other enemies.

  Kate woke up briefly while I was smoothing back her hair, though she never opened her sore eyes, and she moaned as if I was doing something else, and says, “Oh, what a man you are,” in that fake passion harlots sometimes show to please a customer.

  But to go back to her earlier calling me Ringo. She could of got me killed while not even knowing my name! There was a real Ringo, first-named Johnny, and he was in and around Tombstone, associating with the cowboy element, and some said he was the deadliest man with a gun west of St. Louie, a claim made at one time or another about everybody, Wild Bill, Wyatt, Bat, Doc, Ben Thompson, John Wesley Hardin, and so on, but so far as I know Ringo never shot anybody in town except Lou Hancock who took a beer when Johnny wanted to buy him a whiskey, so Ringo shot him, which never killed Lou but did make him more wary of his future drinking companions.

  Now having been through this before, I expected Kate to wake up next morning in the same mood as the other time, and so as to beat her to it I kept alert for her first stirrings, on hearing which I scrambled to my feet.

  “I know you’ll be sober now,” I says, “and I don’t want none of your high-horse stuff about being abducted. You was laying on my doorstep stinking drunk. I took you in and give you a night’s lodging, like I did that other time, and on neither occasion did I try to have my way with you.” I run on for a time, for I was real indignant.

  But she wasn’t like before. Once again the night’s sleep had refreshed her considerable, though of course them two black eyes and split lip remained, but as it happened she was real humble now. “Sir,” says she, setting on the edge of my cot, her woebegone face in her hands, “I’m in terrible trouble and am afeard for my life. Let me tell you what I done. I got mad at Doc Holliday and went and told them he was one of the stage robbers, so Johnny Behan arrested him.”