by Matt Braun
“Holy Hannah!” Kate cried, her eyes bright with excitement. “Wasn’t that the greatest thing you ever saw, Doc? He’s wonderful!”
“A true jester,” Holliday agreed. “He even made me laugh.”
“Sugar, that makes him the funniest man alive. You’re the original stoneface.”
“Why, Kate, you strike to the quick. I’ve always thought myself a man of some humor.”
“Oh sure,” she mugged. “You keep me in stitches day and night.”
Her face was suddenly arrested in shock. Lloyd Franklin halted at the table with Eddie Foy at his side. He waved a hand in introduction. “Eddie, I’d like you to meet a couple of friends. This here’s Doc Holliday and Miss Kate Elder.”
“A pleasure,” Foy said genially. “Hope you enjoyed the show.”
“We did, indeed,” Holliday replied. “Won’t you join us for a drink, Mr. Foy?”
“I’d be delighted. Dee-lighted. But only if you call me Eddie. Mr. Foy was my father.”
To Kate’s amazement, the entertainer dropped into a chair. Then, as Franklin walked away, she caught him nodding to Holliday with a sly wink. Even more astounded, she realized that there was nothing impromptu about the introduction. Holliday had arranged it.
A waiter materialized with another glass, and Holliday poured champagne for Kate and Foy. He lifted his own glass in a toast. “Welcome to Dodge City, Eddie. I think it safe to say you’ve taken the town by storm.”
“Has he ever!” Kate bubbled. “You were just marvelous. I never saw anybody so light on their feet.”
Foy smiled modestly. “A little of this and a little of that. A hoofer’s stock-in-trade.”
“Are you kidding? I used to be a dancer myself. I know a headliner when I see one.”
“How about that, a fellow hoofer! Were you a solo act?”
“No, no.” She shot Holliday a warning look. “I always performed with a partner, sort of a duo. That was before Doc retired me.”
Holliday thought it a harmless lie. “Kate has a gift for ballroom dancing. I’m afraid I ended a promising career.”
“Don’t take it too hard.” Foy patted her hand. “The variety circuit is a real grind, believe me. You’re better off with a good man.”
“Amen to that,” she said with heavy irony. “Doc’s made a regular little homemaker out of me.”
“Domesticity becomes Kate,” Holliday said lightly. He looked at Foy. “I understand you’re from New York.”
“Wonderful place, New York. You should visit it sometime, Doc. You’re famous back there.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Well—” Foy sensed he’d hit a nerve. “Hope I didn’t speak out of line. You know how newspapers are. Never get the facts straight.”
“Those rags!” Kate said with a grand air. “They don’t know half the things Doc’s done. Isn’t that right, sugar?”
Holliday ignored her. “Is this your first trip west, Eddie?”
Foy brightened. “First trip to the Wild West. Quite an experience.”
“What is your impression of Dodge City?”
“Wild and woolly, just like I’ve always heard. They ought to rename it Baghdad on the Plains.”
“Certainly apropos,” Holliday acknowledged. “We have our share of sin and sinners.”
“The more the merrier,” Foy said. “I’ve never played to a better audience! These cowboys are just great.”
“You’re pretty swell yourself,” Kate marveled. “How long will you play Dodge?”
“I’m booked through July. Hope you’ll catch my act again.”
“You bet your boots we will. Doc loves the theater, don’t you, sweetie?”
Holliday spread his hands. “I am a patron of the arts, Eddie. You will see us here often.”
“Champagne’s on me next time.” Foy hitched back his chair. “Sorry to drink and run, but I have to get ready for the next show. It’s been a pleasure. A real honor.”
Kate laughed. “The honor’s all ours. Good luck, Eddie.”
Foy waved, moving off through the crowd. Holliday dropped money on the table, and Kate rose from her chair. She took his arm as they walked from the theater through the saloon. Dealers at the gaming tables nodded to Holliday, and cowhands along the bar cast admiring glances at Kate. She vamped them with a bright smile.
Outside, Holliday turned uptown. The boardwalks were jammed with Texans, and the sound of laughter and music mingled all along Second Avenue. As they moved through the teeming crowds, Kate kept peering into the doorways of saloons and dance halls. Finally, her mouth downturned, she let out a deep sigh.
“Sugar, it’s still early. Couldn’t we stop for a drink somewhere? Maybe a couple of dances.”
“I have a game awaiting me at the Long Branch. Perhaps tomorrow night.”
She grimaced. “C’mon, have a heart, Doc. I’m tired of sitting in that room. A girl’s got to live a little!”
“You’ve done quite well,” Holliday remarked. “A show and champagne, not to mention meeting Eddie Foy. All in all, a pleasant evening.”
“Yeah, I know, and that’s fine as far as it goes. But what about the rest of the night? You expect me to sit around and twiddle my thumbs?”
“I expect you to be content with what you have, Kate. Don’t try my patience.”
“Your patience!” she screeched. “For chrissakes, you’ve all but got me in chains. I’m bored silly!”
Holliday looked at her. “Perhaps you should take up reading. Charles Dickens, or maybe Longfellow. It would improve your mind.”
“What the hell’s wrong with my mind?”
“Nothing a sampling of literature wouldn’t cure.”
“Next thing you’ll want me to start attending sewing bees and church socials.”
“Not a bad idea,” Holliday said, chuckling. “God does love a sinner.”
Gunfire sounded a short distance ahead. As they approached the Lady Gay saloon, they saw two trailhands standing in the middle of the street. The men were clearly tanked on rotgut whiskey, and out to tree the town. One raised his pistol overhead and fired.
“I’m a curly wolf from the Brazos. Lemme howl!”
“Whooeee!” the other one bellowed, firing his gun into the air. “We done cut the wolf loose!”
Ed Masterson, the town marshal, rushed out of a nearby gaming parlor. He crossed the street, slowing to a steady walk as he approached the cowhands. One was tall and lanky, and the other was of medium height, stoutly built. He halted in front of them.
“You’ve had your fun, boys,” he said in a firm voice. “Nobody’s hurt and I aim to keep it that way. Let’s have those guns.”
“Like hell!” the tall one growled. “I ain’t fixin’ to spend the night in jail.”
“No way around it. Town ordinance says there’s no shootin’ in the streets. Don’t give me any trouble.”
“Trouble’s my middle name! Just lemme be, goddamn you.”
Masterson grabbed his gun arm. The cowhand grappled with him and there was a muffled explosion. Shot in the stomach, his shirt on fire from the muzzle blast, Masterson staggered backward. He pulled his pistol, fire licking around his belt buckle, a ghastly expression etched on his face. The Texans were jarred out of their stupor as his pistol came level. An instant too late, they raised their guns. He triggered four shots in a blinding roar.
A slug caught the tall cowhand in the chest, and he went down with a strangled grunt. The shorter one was struck in the arm, the shoulder, and the chest, lurching backward under the impact. Yet he somehow kept his balance, wobbling across the street, and collapsed in the doorway of a saloon. Masterson stood there a moment, watching them, casually brushing out the flames on his shirt. His eyes suddenly went blank, and the pistol slipped from his hand. He slumped to the ground.
Upstreet, Bat Masterson bulled through the crowd and sprinted forward. A short distance behind, Wyatt Earp rounded the corner onto Second Avenue at a dead run. By the time he reached th
em, Masterson was on his knees beside his brother. The sharp odor of blood mixed with burnt cloth steamed off the body. Masterson stared down into his brother’s sightless eyes.
“Sonsabitches!” He hammered the earth with a fist. “They killed him.”
“Not any consolation,” Earp said gently, “but he got them, too. You wait here, Bat. I’ll have a look.”
Earp checked the cowhand in the street, then walked to the door of Peacock’s Saloon. As he turned away from the second body, he saw Holliday and Kate standing at the front of the crowd. He motioned them forward, nodding to Holliday. His voice was raspy.
“You see what happened here, Doc?”
“The marshal tried to disarm them. The tall one shot him and he still popped off four rounds. Do you know them?”
“Yeah, I know them,” Earp grated. “Alf Walker and Jack Wagner. We’ve had them in jail three times since they hit town.”
“Four times was too much,” Holliday observed. “They were determined not to be jailed again.”
“Bastards,” Earp muttered. “Guess they got their wish.”
“Yes, the hard way,” Holliday said. “Offer Bat my sincere condolences. His brother was quite a man.”
“I’ll tell him, Doc.”
Earp moved into the street and knelt beside Masterson. Holliday threaded a path through the crowd, and led Kate toward the Deadline. As they crossed the railroad track, she glanced up at him. Her expression was bemused.
“What’s with the condolences? Bat Masterson doesn’t have any love for you.”
“Nor I for him,” Holliday noted. “That’s hardly the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“A friend of a friend, Kate. Nothing more, nothing less.”
She thought it more than less, but held her silence. Wyatt Earp was one argument she would never win.
CHAPTER 26
Four men, sweltering in the July heat, sat around the poker table. The hour was late, and only a few of the gaming layouts were still in play. Apart from Holliday, who never removed his coat, the men were playing in their shirtsleeves. Their features were beaded with perspiration.
Earlier that night, at his usual table in the Long Branch, Holliday had organized a high-stakes game. By two in the morning, a Texas rancher and a cattle buyer, both heavy losers, had dropped out. Those remaining were Dog Kelly, the mayor of Dodge City, and a couple of wealthy cattlemen. The Texans were out of their league.
Jim Kelly owned the Alhambra Saloon, located in the next block along the plaza. Elected mayor last fall, he was universally known as Dog because he operated greyhound races outside town every Saturday afternoon. He made it a practice never to gamble in his own establishment, and usually played three or four nights a week at the Long Branch. He was considered one of the better poker players in Dodge.
Holliday was dealing five-card stud. He looked across at Kelly, who was high on the board. “Pair of nines bets. That’s you, Dog.”
“Not too proud of nines,” Kelly said, thumbing a bill from his stack. “I’ll just bet twenty.”
The rancher beside him debated a moment. His high card was a ten, and everyone knew he had another one in the hole. He tossed bills into the pot. “Raise you fifty.”
Holliday folded, and the Texan seated next to him dropped out. Kelly deliberated on the raise a moment, and finally, with an air of some reluctance, he called. Holliday dealt the last card, a queen to Kelly and an eight to the rancher. After peeking at his hole card, Kelly mopped sweat from his face with a handkerchief. He checked the bet.
“The worm turns,” said the rancher with a gloating laugh. “Cost you a hundred to stay in.”
A hundred dollars was the table limit. Kelly stared at the Texan’s hand a few seconds, then shrugged. “Just can’t convince myself you’ve got tens. Have to raise you a hundred.”
“Well, pardner, I say I got ’em. Your hundred and bump it a hundred.”
“What the hell, I’ve gone this far. I’ll take the last raise.”
Holliday admired a craftsman who was able to sucker the other player. He watched as the rancher, certain of a winner, called the raise. Dog Kelly flipped his hole card, a trey, which matched one on the board and gave him two pair. His mouth quirked in a faint smile.
“Nines and treys.”
“You sandbagged me!” the Texan hollered. “Flat talked me out of three hundred.”
“It’s only money,” Kelly said smoothly, raking in the pot. “Where else could you have so much fun?”
“Who the hell’s havin’ fun? You just cost me ten cows.”
“Yeah, but longhorns breed quick. Look on the bright side.”
Kelly’s comment was grounded in fact. On the holding grounds outside town, a sea of longhorns awaited shipment to Eastern slaughterhouses. More herds were arriving daily, and the Santa Fe estimated that three hundred thousand cows would be driven to railhead by the end of the trailing season. Texas cattlemen would collect something on the order of nine million dollars—and a good part of it would be spent in Dodge City. All of which made it a banner year for the Queen of Cowtowns.
Yet there was a darker side to the boom times. The death of Ed Masterson, and the two trailhands he’d killed, had heightened antagonism between the Texans and town officials. In the month since the shootout, ugly rumors had surfaced of a loosely organized plot among the cattle outfits camped outside Dodge City. Word had it that the Texans meant to exact revenge for the deaths of the trailhands, even though their rowdy behavior had provoked the incident. Dog Kelly had fanned the flames by roughly ejecting a drunken cowhand from the Alhambra.
The Texans’ general animosity was directed toward the town’s lawmen. But Jim Kennedy, the cowboy manhandled by Kelly, added the mayor to the list of those targeted for reprisal. Not quite two weeks ago, late at night, Kennedy emptied his revolver through the bedroom wall of the mayor’s house. The bedroom was occupied not by Kelly, but rather two saloon girls who worked at the Alhambra. One of them, Dora Hand, was killed in the blast of gunfire. Jim Kennedy, thinking he’d killed the mayor, lit out for Texas.
Before dawn, Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp, along with two other deputies, rode south in pursuit. Late the next day they overtook Kennedy at a ford on the Cimarron River, in Indian Territory. The Texan elected to fight, and in the ensuing shootout, he was wounded and captured. Upon being returned to Dodge City, wealthy cattlemen provided Kennedy with a lawyer, who got him freed on the grounds that there were no witnesses to the murder of Dora Hand. Kennedy wisely departed for Texas the same day.
The upshot was even deeper antagonism. Dog Kelly, who by mere happenstance had escaped assassination, ordered harsh enforcement of town ordinances. Charlie Bassett, a political appointee who had replaced Ed Masterson as marshal, gave his deputies a free hand. Earp and the other lawmen were quick to respond to the slightest infraction, often with brute force. Below the Deadline disorderly Texans were now routinely “buffaloed,” a practice which involved cracking a man across the skull with a pistol barrel. The jailhouse was full every night.
Tonight, watching Dog Kelly rake in the pot, Holliday was amused by life’s smaller ironies. He thought it somehow symbolic that the mayor of Dodge City was trimming Texas cattlemen at a poker table. In the larger scheme of things, he considered himself an impartial observer, almost a spectator. He had no fondness for the law, and apart from Wyatt Earp, he felt no great concern for the fate of the town’s lawmen. Who won and who lost in the struggle between rebellious trailhands and peace officers was a matter of passing interest. A touch of anarchy merely added spice to the brew.
From a personal standpoint, he found life’s little ironies even more amusing. A marshal and two cowhands had been killed, not to mention the aborted assassination attempt on the mayor. Yet, during his two months in town, he hadn’t once drawn his gun, much less killed anyone. In part, his reputation discouraged trouble, and to avoid embarrassing Earp, he was not so quick to take offense. Still, after a hard nigh
t of gambling, he sometimes awoke wondering at his newfound flair for tact and diplomacy. He felt all but slated for sainthood.
The rancher seated beside him dealt a hand of five-card draw. Holliday spread his cards, his expression betraying nothing, and found himself holding three sixes. Kelly opened for fifty, and the other cattleman, clearly pleased with his hand, raised fifty. Holliday placed his cards on the table, sorting through bills.
“Get out while you can, gentlemen,” he said in a genially confident tone. “I call the opener and the raise … and raise a hundred.”
The other men stared at him like three owls contemplating a shared mystery. Over the course of the night he had bluffed relentlessly, and he’d been caught out twice, losing large pots. Whether he was bluffing now was a question the other players pondered at length. His jovial confidence led them to fool themselves.
“I’ll call,” said the rancher to his left. “That’s two hundred to me.”
Kelly chuckled. “Doc, just to make it interesting, I’ll take the last raise. Pony up another hundred.”
“You’re not runnin’ me out,” the other Texan said curtly. “I see the raises and wish’t there was one left.”
Holliday dropped a hundred on the table. “I do admire sporting blood. Your donations are most welcome, gentlemen.”
The dealer called. On the draw, Kelly took three cards and the rancher to his left took one. Holliday kept four, holding the three sixes and a king, leading them to believe he had two pair. He suspected the cattleman on his right, who was a conservative player, actually held two pair. The dealer dealt himself three cards.
Wyatt Earp came through the door. He waved to Luke Short, who had one player at his faro layout, and walked back to the poker table. He halted, taking in the pot at a glance, and looked around at the players. “’Evening, gents,” he said, nodding to them in turn. “You’ve got yourselves a nice pot there.”
“And Doc’s trying to buy it,” Kelly said with a grin. “Has some notion his two pair will hold up.”