Doc: A Novel (6 page)

She was restive, standing there when she’d expected to run.

“Best we move on,” Grier said.

Raising his hand in a half salute, the officer leaned forward slightly. The mare took off, and she was a sight: her body perfectly balanced, her timing beautiful. She had a lovely floating stride that made you forget she had muscles at all. Fast, but you almost didn’t notice it, dazzled by how effortless the movement appeared.

Roxana, Wyatt thought. Pretty name.

He wheeled Dick southward, and kicked him into a lope.

For the rest of the day and most of that night, Wyatt fought the thoughts, but he had a tendency to ruminate on the trail, and there was no quieting an idea once it took hold. At dawn, he doubled back toward town and rode all day, arriving in Dodge by late afternoon. When the mule was unpacked and Dick was settled into his usual stall at the Elephant Barn, Wyatt went looking for Johnnie Sanders.

The boy was a newcomer in Dodge, but he already had half a dozen small jobs around town. Johnnie was responsible and pleasant, so people mostly overlooked that he was colored. Bob Wright had hired him to restock shelves at the store, but then Bob found out that Johnnie was real good with numbers; now the boy was helping with the account books, which were always a mess because Bob did a lot of bartering and carried debtors for a year at a time. Johnnie got another job sweeping up at the barbershop, which led to cleaning the floors at a couple of saloons. Then he showed how he could cover at the faro tables when regular dealers needed to take a piss or something. So now he did that pretty regular, too.

Wyatt found him at the barbershop and motioned him outside.

“Mr. Earp,” the boy said, leaning his broom against the wall. “I thought you was goin’ to Texas.”

Almost ashamed, Wyatt explained what he had in mind. Listening carefully, the boy started to smile, and the smile turned into a wide gap-toothed grin.

“You can count on me,” Johnnie told him. “We’ll get that mare for you, Mr. Earp. And I’ll be careful, I promise.” For the first time, the boy offered his hand, man to man. “Thank you for lettin’ me do this, sir. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to pay you back for your kindness.”

He was so pleased to be trusted. So eager and grateful. It would haunt Wyatt later on, that gratitude.

Wyatt walked across the tracks to the bordello and went inside. Bessie started to welcome him. Then she realized who he was.

“You’ll be wantin’ James,” she said.

Wyatt nodded, not meeting her eyes.

“Have a seat,” she suggested, and left him alone in the vestibule.

Perched on a horsehair sofa, Wyatt waited for his brother. He was doing the sums in his head again and gave a little jump when James said, “I thought you was going to Texas.”

“Loan me three hundred—Hell. Make it three-fifty, to be safe.”

“It’s yours if you need it,” said James, but he didn’t hide his surprise.

Wyatt took a dim view of his older brother’s business and an even dimmer view of his older brother’s wife. “Wyatt, what have you got against Bessie?” James had asked him once. “Well, James … she’s a whore.” “Yes, she is,” James replied with perverse pride, “and a hardworking one, too.” Wyatt had never reconciled himself to the situation and thought the brothel money was tainted. But here he was, asking for a good-sized pile of it.

James counted out the cash and handed it over.

“Pay you back,” Wyatt said, and left to finish his business with Johnnie Sanders.

Dawn, the next morning, he headed south again.

He kept back enough of the money to have Dick reshod every five weeks. Usually Wyatt tried to get at least three months out of each set of shoes for a horse, but it’s important to keep a clubfoot leveled. He needed to equalize the work of the shoulders and hindquarters, so Dick’s gait stayed balanced during the long ride south. Morning and evening, Wyatt stretched out that leg good, too.

Dick’s mouth was ruined, so Wyatt had taken him off the metal bit and used a
bosal
instead. Treated with kindness, filling out, the horse appeared to appreciate that his situation had improved, but Wyatt had come to understand why that Texan had hated the animal. There was just no give in Dick. He had heart and smarts, but even when his halter fit right, he’d balk when you tried to lead him and just about pull your arm out of the socket. Or he’d move up and snap at your back to let you know he could take a chunk out of you if he cared to. On the other hand, Dick enjoyed being groomed. He was the first horse Wyatt knew who really liked to have his face brushed. Afterward, Dick would lean his muzzle into Wyatt’s shoulder and they would just stand together quietly. It was a sign of growing trust and made a nice end to the day.

The long, steady rides that winter served two purposes. They were the best thing you could do for a horse hard done by in his youth, and they kept the pressure up on Dave Rudabaugh.

In February, Wyatt almost caught up with his man at Shanssey’s Saloon in Fort Griffin, Texas. When Wyatt asked about Dirty Dave, John Shanssey directed him to the table of a thin, ash-blond gambler from Georgia who’d played cards with Dirty Dave a few days earlier.

About Morgan’s age—twenty-six or so, Wyatt guessed. Dressed nice, but not flashy. Nickel-plated pistol, cross-draw shoulder holster. No other weapons visible.

“Forgive me, sir, if I do not rise,” the Georgian said, using a silver-headed walking stick to tap a chair in invitation. “I am still recoverin’ from an unfortunate injury.”

He offered Wyatt a drink. Wyatt turned it down. The Southerner’s brows rose coolly above slate-blue eyes. An explanation seemed both courteous and wise.

“Methodist,” Wyatt told him.

“Ah. My mother was a Methodist, sir! In her memory, I, too, have taken the pledge. Twice, in fact,” the Georgian said. “Lately I have found it necessary to deviate from the path of rectitude in the name of health. Chest complaints run in the family, and bourbon is effective for a cough. You look weary, sir! May I offer you a coffee?”

“Sure. I guess. Thanks,” Wyatt said, disarmed.

Shanssey brought a mug over for him and put a bowl of sugar on the table. Wyatt dug in, adding three big spoons of it before the coffee tasted right to him.

The Georgian’s eyes widened.

“I like it sweet,” Wyatt admitted. “Rudabaugh?”

“He was here three days ago, braggin’ that he had recently taken out an unsecured loan from the Santa Fe Railway. I must say, I applaud your determination to bring that man to justice, sir. If you were to hang him accidentally, it would be a mercy to his future cellmates. His habits would shame swine. He already smells of the grave.” The Georgian’s voice got gravelly, and he paused to clear his throat. “David Rudabaugh rates himself clever,” he continued. “That is a delusion. He is confident but stupid, as are most thieves. He was headed to Galveston but knows you are on his trail, sir, and believes it might make a fine joke if he were to circle back into Kansas again.”

The Georgian had used more words in five minutes than Wyatt had spoken during 1872 and ’73, combined. It took a moment to get his thoughts together, but Wyatt thanked him for the information.

They spoke briefly about Dodge.

“Bigger’n Wichita now,” Wyatt said. “Thousands of drovers. Money to throw at the birds.”

“Any dentists in residence, sir?”

It was a strange thing to ask, but Wyatt answered, “Not when I left.”

“Well, now, that sounds promisin’,” the other man said. “My companion and I have been discussin’ a move to that city, which is to say Miss Kate will not take no for my answer and I am bein’ worn to a nubbin on the subject. I have begun to think of reopenin’ my practice. From what you say, the plan is not unreasonable—”

It was only after a short spell with an ugly hacking cough that the gentleman lifted the shot glass to his lips. He took a sip of bourbon, eyes on Wyatt’s mouth, and set his glass down. With a slowness that signaled no ill intent, he drew a flat silver case from his inside pocket. From this, with long, slender fingers, he extracted a pasteboard card and reached across the table to offer it to Wyatt.

“J. H. Holliday,” Wyatt read aloud to make sure he got it right. “Doctor of Dental … Sugery?”

“Surgery,” Holliday corrected gently. “I am a dentist.”

Wyatt’s hand went to his mustache, to smooth it, and to make sure it covered his lips.

“I can help you, sir,” the dentist said quietly. “Look me up when you get back to Dodge, y’hear?”

They shook hands. Holliday didn’t look sturdy enough to stand up in a stiff wind, but his grip was surprisingly strong.

Wyatt sent a telegram to Bat Masterson, alerting him to the rumor that Rudabaugh might return to Kansas. Wyatt himself continued to pursue the fugitive toward Galveston, in case Dirty Dave was as stupid as the dentist thought and proved it by staying in one place more than a night or two. Then, after three bone-chilling months of chasing Rudabaugh across Texas and into Missouri as far as Joplin, Wyatt got word that Dirty Dave had been arrested a little east of Dodge, near Kinsley, Kansas, where he’d tried to rob another train.

The reward would go to Bat and the Kinsley city marshal.

It was hard not to feel bitter about that.

With little else to occupy his mind, Wyatt found himself brooding about how Ed and Bat Masterson had managed to get so far ahead of him in life. Just five years ago, those two kids were doing Wyatt’s scut work, wrenching the skins off thousand-pound buffalo carcasses from dawn to dusk. Stinking of blood and filthy for months at a time, Bat and Ed would banter and josh all day, and compete all winter to be the first to get Wyatt Earp to smile. He paid them no mind and concentrated instead on dropping bison for them. They were young, of course, and game, but Wyatt didn’t think either of them would amount to much.

Now Bat was sheriff of Ford County at twenty-four, and Ed was only twenty-six when he made chief deputy in Dodge. Wyatt himself was about to turn thirty, with nothing to show for it. That was starting to eat at him.

At least Ed Masterson was earning his salary running the city police force for Fat Larry; as far as Wyatt could see, Bat was paid to sit around in bars, telling stories to his cronies. Bat was a good man in a fight, but he won sheriff mostly on the strength of being “the hero of Adobe Walls,” as if there weren’t twenty-seven other men right there with him, shooting at those Comanches. And the way Bat told it, you were sort of invited to believe he’d been wounded while rescuing two little girls from the Indians, even though Wyatt knew for a fact Bat got himself shot in a fight over a dance hall girl, down in Sweetwater. After he got elected, Bat started dressing fancier than a Kansas City hooker. Brocade vests, silk sashes, embroidered shirts. He even designed himself a big gold badge, special, so it would look nice with the gold top of his fancy walking stick. Wyatt himself hardly ever carried a sidearm, even on duty, but Bat had a pair of chrome-plated, ivory-handled .45s and wore them all the time, prominently displayed in a heavily tooled, silver-studded gun belt that must have cost what Wyatt made in a month.

What Wyatt couldn’t work out was how a county sheriff like Bat could be making so much more money than a city marshal. Dodge was dangerous day and night, all season long. Ford County covered a lot of territory, but it was empty apart from a few German farmers who worked like mules and minded their own business. They’d drive into Dodge every month or so to buy supplies from Bob Wright. Their idea of blowing off steam was going to church and treating their wives and kids to some pie. Then they’d climb into their buckboards and head home. All Bat ever had to deal with was horse theft now and then. And maybe bill collecting or something.

How could a man do so well by doing so little? That’s what Wyatt wanted to know.

Some folks just had the knack of making money, he guessed, the way some could sing nice or read. Now, you take Bob Wright, just as an example. Bob didn’t look like much, with his pale eyes and that big mustache hanging over his little chin, but everything he touched turned to cash. Wyatt shot buffalo and the Masterson brothers skinned them, and they did well while the herds held out, but Bob? He got richer than Croesus, selling the meat to railway crews and mining camps and army garrisons, and shipping the hides east.

Like pretty much everybody in the country, Wyatt lost what he had in the crash of ’73. Next thing you knew, the buffalo were gone, too, and then the grasshoppers and drought were killing off the crops in Kansas. People were going bust left, right, and center. That was when Bob Wright got the notion of paying bankrupt farmers to go out and collect buffalo bones off the prairie. Wyatt thought he was crazy, but Bob sold the skeletons to factories back East, where they were ground up for bone china or burned to make carbon black for printer’s ink. Only Bob Wright would have thought up something like that. Now Bob had that big store, and the post office, and a bank, almost. Nicest house in Dodge. A pretty wife and real good kids …

Wyatt had worked like a full-grown man since he turned thirteen—ever since his older brothers went off in ’61 to fight for the Union—but he never seemed to see the payoff himself. His father got the good of it, or men like Bob Wright, who owned things: freight wagons, and stores, and livestock, and land.