by David Boop
“We brought you these horses to trade!” Hiram added.
The rain had become entirely hail. Hiram shivered. He felt cold, tired, and suddenly alone. He was too cold from the mere weather to be able to feel whether there were spirits present, and there was no way he could light a lamp in these conditions.
“We give you this herd!” He tried one last time. “We ask you to bring back the Oldhams’ herd!”
Nothing.
He sighed.
“That’s it, then.” McCrae kicked at the muddy earth. “Well, foolish as I feel, I appreciate the effort.”
Hiram nodded. They trudged down off the promontory Carre Shinob, heading down the saddle toward the valley below.
Lightning flashed.
McCrae sucked breath in past his teeth. “You see that, Woolley?”
Hiram raised his eyes. “What?”
Lightning flashed again. The valley below them was full of horses. Not phantasms, but flesh and blood beasts, huddling together beneath the trees to shelter from the storm.
“He brought them back,” Hiram murmured.
Lightning flashed a third time. Hiram smelled horses surrounding him, felt their heat as they passed, and heard the thunderous rattle of hooves on the ridge—and yet the ridge held not a single flesh-and-blood horse.
At the high end of the valley, standing just outside the rail fence penning in the horses on that end, Hiram saw a band of Indians. He only saw them for a moment, but he saw them clearly and he knew their faces. He’d seen them before.
He’d seen their funeral.
But now all five sat on horseback. Chief Walkara faced Hiram with one arm raised over his head, holding a spear in greeting.
Hiram raised his own arm in return, and then the Indians were gone.
The heat, smell, and sound of the phantom horses passed with them.
“I’ll be damned,” McCrae said.
“I don’t think so. Anyway, I hope not.”
McCrae took two steps away from Hiram, as if mere proximity would damn him. He cleared his throat. “What do I…what do I tell them?”
Hiram felt tired. “Mrs. Oldham said she wasn’t looking for an explanation. She just wanted her five hundred horses back. She said she’d hire you right back.”
“She’ll think I stole them.”
“Tell her we found the Indians. Tell her the Indians weren’t from around here, but they were famous horse thieves, and we bought the horses back. That’s the simple truth, as I see it.”
McCrae nodded slowly. “And if she asks what we paid?”
Hiram began trudging down to his truck. “Then, Mr. McCrae, I would consider telling a lie.”
THE DOCTOR AND THE SPECTRE
A Doc Holliday Story
Mike Resnick
The date was November 8, 1887.
Doc Holliday lay on his deathbed in the Hotel Glenwood in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, struggling to breathe. Suddenly, he opened his eyes, and the hint of a smile crossed his lips.
“This is funny,” he said, and died.
According to most of his biographers, including Ben T. Traywick, Gary L. Roberts, Sylvia D. Lynch, and E. Richard Churchill, those were the last words ever spoken by the notorious gunman, and there is no reason to doubt them.
But would you like to know what the dying gunfighter thought was funny?
* * *
April 23, 1887. It was almost midnight. Kate Elder was down in the hotel’s bar having a drink, while Doc, his body wracked by tuberculosis, lay on their bed, trying unsuccessfully to get some sleep.
Suddenly, he heard the door open, but the footsteps were too heavy to be Kate’s. He reached carefully for his holster, slid his gun out, and swung his feet to the floor.
“Hold it right there!” he growled.
“Oh, damn!” said a masculine voice. “You’re not her.”
Holiday pulled a match out of his pocket with his free hand, struck it against the rough surface of the bed table, and lit the lamp that resided there.
And stared.
And frowned.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “In fact, what the hell are you?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” came the reply.
“Not to me,” said Holliday, staring at the tall white skeleton wrapped in a black robe and carrying a wicked-looking scythe.
“I am the Spectre of Death.”
“You took long enough getting here.” Holliday showed little surprise. “I’ve been waiting years for you. Okay, how do we go about it?”
“You misunderstand,” said the Spectre. “I’ve made a clumsy mistake.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’re the famous Doc Holliday,” said the Spectre. “I was sure you’d be downstairs gambling.” It paused, finding its words. “I have come for Kate Elder.”
“Don’t be silly!” snapped Holliday. “I’m a lunger who’s been dying for years, and she’s in perfect health.”
“Nonetheless, it is she who I’ve come for.”
“You leave her alone!” growled Holliday.
“Why?” asked the Spectre curiously. “Surely you’re not going to argue that you love her. Hell, you’re Doc Holliday—you’ve never loved anything but your gun and your cards.”
“I’ve always had a woman,” replied Holliday.
“Had, not loved,” said the Spectre. “And especially not this one.”
“She takes care of me,” Holliday replied, uncomfortable about even mouthing the word “love.”
“Well, I’m sure you can find someone else,” said the Spectre, turning toward the door. “I’ll go downstairs and claim her now.”
“Don’t do anything foolish,” warned Holliday.
“I’m just doing my job.” The Spectre spoke with no show of anger or malice.
“And I’m just doing mine!” Holliday aimed his pistol at the hand that held the scythe and pulled the trigger.
“Now look what you’ve done!” The Spectre held up its hand for Holliday to see that his third and fourth skeletal fingers were completely shattered.
“Didn’t seem to hurt you,” noted Holliday.
“Of course not!” growled the Spectre. “But the force of the bullet, coupled with my missing fingers, knocked my scythe clear out the window.”
“So pick it up on your way back to wherever the hell you came from,” said Holliday sardonically. “Which had better be soon.”
The Spectre shook its head rapidly. “You don’t understand. If someone touches the scythe—”
Before he could finish the sentence, a horrible scream rose from the wooden sidewalk below Holliday’s second-floor window.
“That was your fault, John Henry Holliday!” The Spectre pointed at him accusingly with his good hand. “I’ve got to retrieve my Scythe of Death before anyone else can lay a hand on it or trip over it in the darkness. Even the slightest contact with it is fatal.”
Holliday indicated the gun still directed at the Spectre. “Our business isn’t finished yet.”
“This encounter was just an accident,” said the Spectre. “I have no business with you.”
“Yes, you do.”
The Spectre frowned. “What are you suggesting?”
“Take me instead of Kate.”
“Why should I? You’re dying anyway.”
Holliday got to his feet, walked over to the Spectre, and pointed the gun at its head. “But not necessarily alone,” he said.
The skeleton stayed silent as he contemplated Doc’s proposal. “You for Kate Elder?” he said at last.
Holliday nodded.
“All right.” The Spectre gave Doc a resigned sigh. “It’s a deal.”
“Okay,” said Holliday. “Give me a minute to get dressed and we can go.”
The Spectre shook its head. “Not yet.”
Holliday frowned. “Why not?”
“You have one more man to kill yet.”
“Who?”
“I am forbidden t
o tell you,” said the Spectre. “But you’ll know him when you see him.”
“And then you’ll come for me?”
“As soon as I can work you into my schedule.”
“It’s a deal,” said Holliday. The Spectre began extending its hand to cement their agreement with a handshake, noticed its shattered fingers, turned, and walked out the door.
* * *
Weeks passed. Then months. November 8 arrived, and Holliday lay on his bed, from which he had not risen for almost two full days.
Kate Elder sat in a corner of the room, reading a book and waiting for the inevitable. Finally, she stood up, walked to a bucket of water, rinsed out a cool compress, and laid it across Holliday’s forehead.
“It’s too soon,” he rasped.
“What?” she said, straining to hear him.
“I’ve still got to kill someone.”
She sighed and shook her head sadly. “Delirious,” she muttered, and walked back to her chair.
Holliday thought back on all the men he’d killed—Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, Mike Gordon, Frank Stillwell, Jim Austin, Ed Bailey, Kid Colton, the ones with no names or faces that he could bring to his fevered mind—and decided that he’d more than held his end of the deal. But he sure as hell couldn’t see how he was going to kill one more man before the Spectre came back for him.
He thought he heard a sound near the door, and tried to prop himself up on an elbow to see if it was the Spectre with a new game plan, or perhaps the man he was supposed to kill—but his strength, what little remained of it, failed him and he collapsed back onto the bed.
“Is something wrong, Doc?” asked Kate solicitously.
“No,” he rasped hoarsely.
“Can I get you anything?” she continued. “Anything at all?”
He stared at her, the woman who, on different occasions, had broken him out of jail, sworn out an arrest warrant against him, supplied him with guns, and even backed him up in a fight.
“Just keep on being my Kate,” he whispered.
She was about to answer him, realized that she didn’t know quite how to reply to that, and settled for smiling. Nodding her assent, she went back to reading her book.
Holliday closed his eyes again, and thought back across the tapestry of his life. What would have been the odds, he wondered, when he was twenty years old and a serious dental student, that over the next decade and a half he’d be wanted for murder in four different states, or that he and the Earp brothers would take on their enemies in the single most famous gunfight in history—or that he’d wind up at age thirty-six, unable to stand on his own power, in a bed in the middle of Colorado, which wasn’t even on a lot of maps when he was a kid?
Or, he added mentally, that I’d be lying in a hotel bed in a room with one of the more notorious women in the West, wishing that my number was up and scared that it isn’t.
Kate got to her feet and walked to the door, where she paused and turned to Holliday.
“I’ll be right back,” she told him, holding up an empty flask. “I’m just going down to the bar to fill this up.”
“Go.” Holliday mouthed the word, but nothing came out.
He closed his eyes again, then opened them a couple of minutes later when he heard footsteps approaching.
“Back already?” he tried to say, but again, no words emerged.
“Good afternoon, Doc,” said a masculine voice that seemed vaguely familiar. “It’s been awhile.”
Holliday made a supreme effort and opened his eyes. Standing at the foot of the bed was the Spectre of Death.
You’re early, thought Holliday.
Actually, I’m a few days late, answered the Spectre. I hope you haven’t been in too much pain.
I can’t feel much of anything, including pain, replied Holliday.
Be grateful for small favors, said the Spectre.
I haven’t killed anyone since last we met, Holliday admitted.
I know, answered the Spectre. It was determined by the Celestial Record Keeper that you’d never be strong enough to do so. Anyway, the paperwork’s all done, the permissions have all been granted, and I’m here to take you now.
Good, said Holliday. I’ve been ready for weeks. Months, even.
You see? said the Spectre, its lipless, fleshless face contorted in a nightmare version of a smile. Not everyone has a reason to fear me.
I’ve never feared much of anything, Holliday confessed.
Just then the door opened and Kate reentered. She walked over to the bed, laid a hand on Holliday’s forehead, then went to her chair, sat down, picked up her book, and started reading.
Son of a bitch! thought Holliday. She can’t see you.
Certainly not, answered the Spectre. She belongs to this world.
But I can see you.
You’re more than halfway inside my domain already, explained the Spectre.
The hell I am, said Holliday. I’m laying in a bed in a godforsaken little town in Colorado.
Only the unimportant parts of you, said the Spectre.
Okay, said Holliday. Let’s get this show on the road.
That’s what I’m here for, said the Spectre.
Quick question, said Holliday. Do they play poker where I’m going?
Beats the hell out of me, answered the Spectre.
Holliday frowned. What are you talking about?
I’m just your guide between worlds, said the Spectre. I live in the in-betweens.
Some guide! snorted Holliday.
Some dentist! shot back the Spectre.
I was a damned good dentist! said Holliday angrily. I lost my clients because I kept coughing and bleeding on ’em, not because I couldn’t fix ’em.
I know, answered the Spectre gently. And now, are you prepared for the voyage to that Other Place?
I’ve been ready a long, long time, said Holliday.
Then let’s go!
Holliday tried to sit up and swing his legs over to the floor. The movement was barely discernable.
I can’t do it, he announced.
I’ll give you a hand, said the Spectre, reaching out for him.
Holliday looked at the Spectre’s hand, missing most of its third and fourth fingers from when he had shot it in April.
Ain’t you healed yet? he asked.
Not a problem, answered the Spectre. I don’t feel pain. You know that.
He tried without much success to grab Holliday’s arm and help him up to a sitting position.
Maybe you don’t feel pain, said Holliday, but you don’t grip too well neither. Better use your other hand.
I can’t, said the Spectre.
Why the hell not?
The Spectre held up its other hand. It was missing the thumb, the forefinger, and had a large ugly hole in the palm.
What happened? asked Holliday.
It seems that unlike you, John Wesley Hardin had no interest or desire to come with me.
Yeah, that sounds like John Wesley, agreed Holliday. He paused for a moment. So what do we do now?
I’ll think of something, said the Spectre. After all, it’s my job. I’ve messed up the Holliday file enough as it is, trading you for the lady in the corner, then making a deal you couldn’t keep. I’m not about to screw it up a third time.
So, like I said: What do we do now?
We sit here and wait. Something will come to me.
Holliday opened his eyes for the last time. He looked briefly at his less-than-elegant surroundings and at the woman reading in the corner—the woman who defied every assumption the world had made of her. Then Doc turned his gaze to the skeletal creature standing at the foot of the bed, awkwardly holding its Scythe in the shattered fingers of one hand, frowning as it concentrated on the seemingly insoluble problem confronting it.
A hint of a smile crossed Holliday’s dry, cracked lips.
“This is funny,” he whispered aloud, and died.
The date was November 8, 1887. Kate Elder lived until November
2, 1940.
DOTH MAKE THEE MAD
Jane Lindskold
“We hear you’re looking for work.”
Prudence’s hand slid to where one of her six-guns rested, hidden by the folds of her skirt. The man looked respectable enough, as did his companions, but a woman on her own could never be too careful.
“Depends on the work,” she replied guardedly.
The man flushed from his stiff collar up. “My apologies. My name is Wayne Chambers. I am the head of a committee that is seeking to hire a schoolmistress for the town of Copper Creek, New Mexico. May we be seated? We can explain over a meal—on us, of course.”
Prudence nodded politely. About a half hour earlier, she’d learned she lost the teaching post she’d interviewed for to a newly arrived Boston miss whose blond curls and cultured accent were her best qualifications. She’d retired to the hotel dining room to consider her options, and now options had come looking for her.
Orders were given that made the waitress, who’d sniffed over Prudence’s previous request for coffee and a buttermilk biscuit, brighten considerably. She returned promptly with a heaping plate of biscuits and a pot of fresh coffee. Prudence helped herself as introductions went around the table. Wayne Chambers proved to be Copper Creek’s banker, as well as its mayor. His companions were Reverend Jenkins and Sheriff Dixon.
“And you,” said Wayne Chambers, glancing at a paper in his hand, “are Miss Prudence Bledsloe.”
“That’s right,” Prudence replied. She knew what they were seeing—a severe-looking young woman with brown hair whose most distinguishing features were brown eyes so light some had called them yellow. “I’m originally of the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. I don’t have much in the way of formal credentials, but I can read, write, and cipher well enough to teach your children. I know history and geography. I’ll admit, my ancient languages aren’t the best, but I can get by with the basics of Latin and a smattering of Greek. I speak and read Spanish, as well as some German and French. I know my Bible front to back and back to front.”
“So we were told by Mayor Walters,” Chambers said. “We’d asked him to inform us who their selection committee would have chosen if Miss Clarke had declined the position.”
Sheriff Dixon, who’d been slathering strawberry jam on one of the biscuits, explained, “Y’see, Miss Bledsloe, we heard they were interviewing, and came to ride drag on their herd. We lost our schoolmaster a few weeks back to an accident, and didn’t have time to advertise for a post if the term was to start on time.”
