by Matt Braun
“Well then, consider it done. Lottie tells me there’s action to be found.”
Shanssey chuffed a deep laugh. “No two ways about it. Least a quarter million buffalo hides will be shipped out of here this year. Hell, it’s better’n a gold mine.”
“Hide hunters,” Holliday said wryly. “A crude lot, but congenital gamblers. What more could a man ask?”
“One thing’s for sure, you’ll never run out of chumps. You’re liable to stay here forever, Doc.”
A commotion erupted at one of the poker tables. Two men slammed out of their chairs, drawing their pistols, and fired in the same instant. Their faces were etched with astonishment, a study in disbelief. One slumped across the table and rolled onto the floor. The other folded at the knees, dead as he fell.
The musicians never missed a beat. Some of the crowd edged forward for a closer look at the bodies. But for the most part, the shooting was a matter of passing interest. “Dumb bastards,” Shanssey said in a low rumble. “Couple of tinhorns always trying to outsmart the other. Guess they finally done it.”
“So it would appear,” Holliday remarked. “I’d wager neither of them figured on a tie. But then, no man does.”
Marshal Will Cruger hurried through the door. A man of medium height, with muddy eyes and a bowlegged walk, he pushed through the crowd. After questioning the other players in the game, he ruled the shooting a double suicide. Holliday thought his inventive edict was probably typical of how he enforced the law. That and never being around when the shooting started.
Cruger sent someone to fetch the undertaker. Then, as though pressed for time, he strode toward the door. As he passed the faro layout, he noticed Holliday with Lottie and Shanssey. He stopped, one eye cocked in a quizzical look.
“You must be Doc Holliday. Heard you were in town.”
“Hasn’t everyone?” Holliday said casually. “You have an unusually speedy grapevine, Marshal.”
“Hope you don’t kill nobody while you’re here. Got all the bother one man can handle.”
“I will endeavor to restrain myself, Marshal.”
Lottie stifled a giggle as the lawman walked away. Shanssey was unable to suppress a broad, jaw-cracking grin. He beamed at Holliday.
“Doc, I admire your style. Welcome to the Flat.”
CHAPTER 19
A brisk October wind rippled across the plains. Cottonwood trees along the river sparkled with leaves turning scarlet and gold. High overhead, a vee of ducks winged their way southward.
Holliday emerged from the hotel under a late afternoon sun. He took a deep breath, savoring the crisp air, and turned downstreet. By now, after a month in the Flat, he was known to everyone in town. Storekeepers and shop owners, as well as passersby on the street, greeted him by name. His fashionable attire no longer drew stares.
Today he was dressed in a sharp brown suit tailored from worsted wool. As he strolled along the boardwalk, it occurred to him that he felt at home in the Flat. The townspeople, as well as the sporting crowd, had accepted him with cordial respect. Unlike Denver, he was not considered an oddity, and there was no stigma attached to his reputation with a gun. Killings were common in the rough-and-tumble life along the Clear Fork of the Brazos.
For all that, he’d not had reason to resort to the gun. He was only too aware that his reputation gave other men pause. Yet he treated them with the respect and consideration that he himself demanded. So far, though he never missed a night at the tables, no one had attempted to sharp him in a game. Nor had anyone tried to bullyrag him because of his courteous manner, or his frail physical stature. In that sense, his reputation worked to the benefit of all. He hadn’t been forced to kill anyone.
Downtown, he turned into the Bee Hive. Shanssey and a gang of buffalo hunters were huddled at the end of the bar. Their voices were raised in argument, and he noted that Shanssey appeared to be the referee between opposing factions. The evening rush hadn’t yet started, and Lottie Deno was alone at her faro layout. She waved him over.
“Hi, there, Doc,” she said brightly. “You’re looking spiffy, as usual.”
“Why, thank you, Miss Deno. I bask in your appreciation of sartorial fashion.”
She never ceased to be amused by his dry wit. Still, despite his tailored suits and Southern charm, she saw beneath the guise he presented to the world. His health was of particular concern, for the wracking cough deviled him day and night. More and more, though he was clever about it, she saw him spitting bloody phlegm into his handkerchief. She worried as well about his mental state, the letters he never spoke of to anyone. She knew he all but mourned the girl in Atlanta. He was a lonely man, bitter beneath the outer shell. He hid it with droll humor.
Holliday nodded toward the bar. “John seems to have his hands full. What’s all the commotion about?”
“Another dogfight,” she said with disgust. “I’ll never understand why he involves himself in such a cruel business.”
“Don’t be so harsh. Men love their bloodsport, a throwback to our atavistic nature. John merely provides the forum.”
“I still think it’s too brutal for words.”
“Whose dogs are to be pitted?”
“Two hide hunters,” she said waspishly. “One has some sort of bulldog. The other has what he claims to be a wolf. They’re arguing over the stakes.”
“A wolf against a bulldog. Interesting match.”
“Honestly, Doc! You’re as bad as John.”
“All men are base by nature. God made women to subdue the beast.”
“Small chance of that.”
One of the saloon girls wandered over to the table. She was a redhead, with green eyes and an impudent expression. Her figure was sumptuous, with long, shapely legs and a narrow waist. Holliday didn’t recall seeing her before, and wondered why. He inspected her with open interest.
“Do I pass muster?” she said with a sassy smile. “Or do you ogle all the girls like that?”
“Doc Holliday,” Lottie said quickly, “this is Kate Elder. She just started today.”
“Miss Elder.” Holliday bowed with his head. “To answer your question, I am a student of feminine pulchritude. You do indeed pass muster.”
“Thanks … I think,” she said in a flippant tone. “You always use two-dollar words?”
“Only when the two-bit variety won’t suffice. Do you enjoy seeing dogs pitted, Miss Elder?”
“Forget the polite stuff. Everybody calls me Kate. And no, I’ve never seen a real pit fight.”
Holliday glanced past her. Shanssey and the buffalo hunters were walking toward a door at the rear of the building. “Well, Kate,” he said. “Today’s your lucky day. Are you game?”
“I’ll try anything once.”
“Good for you.” Holliday looked around. “Will you join us, Lottie?”
“God no!” Lottie said vehemently. “I wouldn’t watch it blindfolded.”
“Kate and I will apprise you of the outcome.”
Holliday led the way. Kate followed him to the rear of the room, across the dance floor, and through the back door. When they stepped outside, they found nearly a hundred men gathered in a rough circle. Holliday eased through the crowd, with Kate close behind. He wedged out a spot in the front row of spectators.
Pitting dogs to the death was a popular sport in the West. The men jostled for position around an open pit six feet square by four feet deep. The pit had been designed by Shanssey with considerable thought: large enough to allow fighting room and deep enough to discourage a cowardly dog from trying to escape. Apart from wagering bets of his own, Shanssey operated the pit to profit the Bee Hive. Bloodsport had a curious way of making men thirsty.
Kate caught her breath as one of the hide hunters moved to the edge of the pit. He restrained a full-grown male wolf on a short length of plaited rawhide. The wolf stood close to three feet at the shoulder and topped a hundred pounds. His chest was as broad as that of a young bull, and his yellow eyes glinted fiercely in the lat
e afternoon sun. His mouth curled to reveal saber-sharp fangs, and he strained at the leash. Holliday overheard a spectator remark that the hide hunter had raised him from a pup.
A moment later the other buffalo man appeared on the opposite side of the arena. The bulldog he led was a brindle-colored brute, with short hair, clipped ears, and predatory eyes. Though somewhat shorter than the wolf, he was wider through the chest, with the massive, knotted jaws of a killer. Known more commonly as a pit bull, he’d been bred with no other purpose in life but to fight in the pits. The breed was vicious and strong, born without fear of man or beast.
Shanssey motioned the owners forward. The leads were let out enough to allow the animals to claw their way into opposite corners of the pit. The wagering quickened throughout the crowd as the slobbering brutes strained to get at one another. When Shanssey swept his arm downward, the hide hunters slipped their leads. The wolf and the bulldog sprang forward, clashing head-on in the center of the arena. The wolf nearly lost the fight in that first bloody exchange.
The bulldog was a scarred veteran of the pits. He dropped low under the wolf’s opening lunge and came up with a hold on the throat. Only the thick, double-coated ruff around his neck saved the wolf. The bulldog’s massive jaws, embedded in heavy fur, were unable to get a death grip. The wolf reared back and slung the bulldog against the side of the pit. The veteran kept his feet as he bounced off the wall, and they began circling. The spectators watched spellbound as the beasts gathered themselves with bared fangs.
The wolf launched himself in another attack. This time he struck lower, jaws working in a maddened rage, and the bulldog went down under his weight. They rolled, snapping and biting, obscured within an explosion of dust. When they separated, hunks of fur floating skyward, the onlookers loosed a murderous roar. The wolf’s muzzle was laid open to the bone, blood spurting over his snout. Yet it was the bulldog who had suffered most. One eyeball hung from its socket on a silvery thread of tissue.
The monsters backed off and again resumed their shuffling dance. The earth puddled red at their feet as they circled the pit with gnashing teeth. Then the bulldog snarled with savage ferocity and leaped to the attack. He came in low, lunging for the throat, and for an instant, his nape was exposed. The wolf’s jaws chomped down on the brindle neck, and there was an audible crunch as the bulldog’s spine snapped. Head high, the wolf lifted the limp body and shook it like a dead mouse. His yellow eyes glinting, he dropped it disdainfully in the center of the pit.
The crowd went mad, cheering and shouting as they surged around the arena. Kate clutched Holliday’s arm in a fierce grip, her eyes wide with a mix of excitement and revulsion. The wolf calmly licked blood from his muzzle as his owner jumped into the pit and hugged him around the neck. On the opposite side of the hole the other hide hunter stared down at the bulldog with an expression of shocked disbelief. Then, suddenly, the strident voice of a man racketed over the murmur of the spectators. Everyone turned to look at two men squared off on the edge of the crowd.
“Don’t gimme that shit!” one yelled. “We shook on it and you lost. Pay up!”
“You’re a lyin’ asshole, Pritchard. You told me that wolf hadn’t never fought before. All bets are off.”
“The hell you say! Fork it over.”
“Kiss my rusty butt.”
The man turned, about to walk away. Pritchard’s eyes glazed with rage, his hand on the pistol holstered at his side.. He drew and fired with a crazed oath, the distance less than three feet. The other man staggered, struck in the back, then stumbled forward and folded at the waist. He fell dead.
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then, led by Shanssey, several men jumped Pritchard and wrestled the gun from his hand. A muttered anger swept through the crowd, the dogfight abruptly forgotten. He had broken the code, the sacrosanct tenet that no man could be shot without fair warning. The ugly look of a mob came over them as they pressed forward.
“Hang him!” someone shouted. “Sonovabitch shot Wilson in the back.”
“No!” Shanssey roared, holding them off. “There’ll be no lynching here today. We’ll try him fair and square.”
“We ain’t got no court here, Shanssey.”
“Then we’ll make our own. Better that than mob law.”
“Let’s get to it,” a buffalo hunter rumbled. “Quicker we convict him, quicker he swings.”
The crowd adjourned to the Bee Hive. By acclamation, Shanssey was appointed judge, to preside over the trial. Twelve men were selected at random as the jury, and took chairs positioned by the bar. Pritchard was seated in a chair in the center of the room, his hands bound behind his back. He looked like a man who had heard the death knell.
Holliday, standing with Lottie and Kate, watched from the faro table. As Shanssey brought the court to order, Marshal Will Cruger burst through the door. One look told the tale, and he argued strenuously against vigilante justice. The legal way, he declared, was to transport Pritchard to the county seat for a proper trial. The crowd hooted him down, threatening to hog-tie him unless he backed off. He stormed out of the saloon.
Shanssey asked for witnesses to the shooting. Several men stepped forward with their account of the argument, and the untimely death of Elijah Wilson. One of them, a bearded hide hunter, pointed a thorny finger at Pritchard. “Seen it with my own eyes,” he announced hotly. “Sorry polecat’s a gawddamn backshooter. I say we string him up!”
The onlookers grumbled their agreement. Shanssey rapped the bar with his knuckles. “Joe Pritchard, you’ve heard the testimony. Have you got anything to say in your defense?”
“Lost my head,” Pritchard said lamely. “Could’ve happened to any man here. Ain’t no reason to hang me.”
The churlish response from the spectators said otherwise. Shanssey motioned for quiet. “Gentlemen of the jury, all the evidence is in. What’s your verdict?”
“Hang the bastard!” someone shouted over the roar of the crowd. The vote being unanimous, they hauled Pritchard from his chair and headed toward the door. Holliday followed along as they hustled the condemned man to a grove of trees bordering the riverbank. Shanssey, still acting as judge, selected a stout limb about ten feet off the ground. A rope whistled over the limb, and one of the men made it fast around Pritchard’s neck. Others scrambled to grab the loose end.
Shanssey faced the prisoner. “We tried you fair and square, Joe. You got any last words?”
Pritchard’s voice was weak. “Guess I’ll see you boys in hell. Praise Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Shanssey gave the signal. The rope snapped taut and Pritchard shot into the air. He twitched and kicked, his face slowly turning purple in the last rays of sunset. The men tied the rope around the base of the tree, and stood back to watch him strangle to death. When it was finally over, the body hanging limp, they trooped off toward the Bee Hive. Everyone agreed that it had been a memorable day, even for the Flat. A bulldog and two men dead. And the night yet to go.
Holliday had never seen a man hanged. Nor had he witnessed the crazed bloodlust that transformed ordinary men into a vengeful mob. There was an indelible impression in his mind of the condemned man dancing on air, struggling against the stranglehold of the rope. He made a mental note to avoid mobs, and a personal promise that he would never allow himself to be hanged. There were better ways to die.
A celebratory mood followed the men to the Bee Hive. They toasted the dogfight, bragging on the wolf, and hoisted another round to Joe Pritchard’s necktie party. Holliday took a seat at a poker table, and soon had a game with three hide hunters and a couple of ranchers. As the night went on, the laughter got louder and the men ganged around the bar began to wobble under the influence of popskull whiskey. Around midnight a drunken cowhand started pawing at Kate, trying to sneak a squeeze. Shanssey rounded the end of the bar with a bungstarter, but he was a step behind. Kate beat him to the punch.
Her green eyes flashing, she grabbed a bottle off the bar and broke it over the cowhand’s he
ad. The blow squashed his hat, and he went down as though struck dead with a broadaxe. The crowd roared with laughter, impressed by her spunk as well as the way she wielded a bottle. A couple of the men scooped her up and sat her on the bar, her legs dangling over the counter. Her gaze drifted across to the poker table, settling on Holliday, and a vixen smile touched her mouth. She lowered one eyelid in a saucy wink.
Holliday reminded himself to invite her out for a late supper.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 20
The curtains fluttered on a gentle April breeze. A noonday sun, streaming through the window, flooded the room with light. Outside, the curse of a muleskinner was followed by the sharp pop of a whip.
Holliday rolled to a sitting position at the edge of the bed. His lungs contracted and a spasm shook his thin frame. The rattling cough doubled him over, head between his knees, his sides heaving. He uncorked a bottle on the nightstand and gulped three long swallows. His labored breathing slowly eased off.
“Are you all right, sweetie?”
Kate scooted across the bed, one hand on his shoulder. Holliday took another slug of bourbon. “I’m fine,” he said hoarsely. “The picture of health.”
“You shouldn’t sleep with the window open. I keep telling you, but you won’t listen. The night air only makes it worse.”
“Spare me another of your misguided lectures. Fresh air never killed anyone yet.”
“C’mon, honey.” She rubbed his shoulder. “I was only trying to help.”
“Aside from bourbon, there is no help. You should know that by now.”
Holliday instantly regretted the rebuke. For the past six months she had shared his bed, offering only comfort. She was concerned for his welfare, evidencing no fear for herself, though consumption was known to be infectious. She had nursed him through a hard winter, warming him with her body when frigid winds whipped off the plains. Some days she was more attendant than lover.
Yet she never made demands. Unlike other girls, who expected lavish presents for their favors, she seemed content to be Doc Holliday’s woman. In January, when he’d turned twenty-six, she had reversed their roles by presenting him with a fine silk shirt. Embarrassed by the gift, he’d had to ask her age, which was twenty-three, and her birthday, which fell in June. She revealed little about herself unless prompted to talk.