Worlds That Weren't

by Harry Turtledove, S. M. Stirling, Mary Gentle

  “My God.” Wonder rang in his head. “No one has ever read my journals.”

  That is her Jewish aspect, he thought, the people of the Book. Reverence for thought, from the only people in the world who held literacy as a test of manhood.

  Josie glanced down at him. “Tell me what that means—that we should propagate not only downward, but upward.”

  Weird elation sang through his head. “I meant that we need not be animals when—” He recalled the decencies only at the last second. “—when we marry,” he finished. “We need not bring only more apes into the world. We can create. We can be together not because we are lonely or inadequate, but because we are whole, because we wish to triumph!”

  Josie gave a low, languorous laugh, and with an easy motion slid into his lap. Strangely enough he was not surprised. He put his arms around her, wild hope throbbing in his veins.

  “Shall we triumph, Freddie?” she asked. Troy burned in her eyes.

  “Yes!” he said in sudden delirium. “By God, yes!”

  She bent forward, touched her lips to his. A rising, glorious astonishment whirled in Freddie’s body and soul.

  “You taste like a narcotic,” she said softly, and—laughing low—kissed him again.

  It was an hour or so later that the shots began echoing down Tombstone’s streets, banging out with frantic speed, sounds startling in the surrounding stillness. Freddie sat up. “My God, what is that?” he said.

  “Some of your friends, probably,” Josie said. She reached out her hands, drew him down to the mattress again. “Whoever is shooting, they don’t need you there.”

  Is that Behan’s motto? Freddie wondered. But at the touch of her hands he felt flame burn in his veins, and he paid no attention to the shooting, not even when more guns began to speak, and the firing went on for some time.

  In the morning he learned that it had been Curly Bill Brocius who was shooting, drunkenly fanning his revolver into the heavens; and that when the town marshal, Fred White, had tried to disarm him, Brocius’s finger had slipped on the hammer and let it fall. White was dead, killed by Brocius’s modified gun that would not hold the hammer at safety. A small battle had developed between Brocius’s friends and various citizens, and Brocius had been slapped on the head by Wyatt Earp’s long-barreled Colt and arrested for murder.

  The next bit of news was that Marshal White’s replacement had been chosen, and that Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp was now in charge of enforcing the law in the town of Tombstone.

  It is like Texas again! Freddie wrote in his journal. It is not so much the killing, but the mad aimlessness of it all. Would that Brocius had been more discriminating with those bullets of his! Would that he had shot another lawman altogether!

  The good citizens of Tombstone are overstimulated, and to avoid the possibility of a lynching the trial will be held at Tucson. I believe that law in Tucson is no less amenable to reason than was the law in Texas, and I have no fear that Brocius will meet a noose.

  But while Brocius enjoys his parole, Tombstone must endure the Earps, in their black uniforms, marching about the streets like so many carrion crows. It is their slave souls they hide beneath those frock coats!

  But I stay above them. I look down at them from my new rooms in the Grand Hotel. My landlady on Toughnut Street did not approve of what she called my “immortality.” Though she was willing to accept as rent the gambling winnings of a known killer, she will not tolerate love in her back room. The manager of the Grand Hotel is more flexible in regard to morals—he gives me a front room, and he tips his hat when Josie walks past.

  But I must train his cook, or indigestion will kill me.

  How long has it been since a woman held me in her arms? Three years? Four? And she was not a desirable woman, and did not desire anything from me other than the silver in my pocket.

  Ach! It was a mad time. Life was cheap, but the price of love was two dollars in advance. I shot three men, and killed two, and the killing caused far less inconvenience than a few short minutes with a dance-hall girl.

  Nor is Helen of Troy a dance-hall girl. She cares nothing for money and everything for power. The sexual impulse and conquest are one, and both are aspects perhaps of Jewish revenge. It is power that she seeks. But most atypically, her will to power is not based on an attempt to weaken others—she does not seek to castrate her men. She challenges them, rather, to match her power with their own. Those who cannot—like Behan—will suffer.

  Those who act wisely, perhaps, will live. But I cannot be persuaded that this, ultimately, will matter to her.

  “I don’t understand,” Freddie said, “how it is that Virgil Earp can be Town Marshal and Deputy U.S. Marshal at the same time. Shouldn’t he be compelled to resign one post or another?”

  “Marshal Dake in Prescott don’t mind if his deputy has a job on the side,” said John Holliday.

  “I should complain. I should write a letter to the newspaper. Or perhaps to the appropriate cabinet secretary.”

  “If you think it would do any good. But I think the U.S. government likes Virge right where he is.”

  Holliday sat with Freddie in the plush drawing room of the Grand Hotel, where Holliday had come for a visit. Their wing chairs were pulled up to the broad front window. Freddie turned his gaze from the bright October sunshine to look at Holliday. “I do not understand you,” he said. “I do not understand why you are friends with these Earps.”

  “They’re good men,” Holliday said simply.

  “But you are not, John,” Freddie said.

  A smile crinkled the corners of Holliday’s gaunt eyes. “True,” he said.

  “You are a Southerner, and a gentleman, and a Democrat,” Freddie said. “The Earps are Yankees, not gentle, and Republicans. I fail to understand your sympathy for them.”

  Holliday shrugged, reached into his pocket for a cigar. “I saved Wyatt from a mob of Texans once, in Dodge City,” he said. “Since then I’ve taken an interest in him.”

  “But why?” Freddie asked. “Why did you save his life?”

  Holliday struck a match and puffed his cigar into life, then drew the smoke into his ravaged lungs. He coughed once, sharply, then said, “It seemed a life worth saving.”

  Freddie gave a snort of derision.

  “What I don’t understand,” said Holliday, “is why you dislike him. He’s an extraordinary man. And your two greatest friends admire him.”

  “You and who else?”

  “Your Sadie,” John Holliday said. “She is with Wyatt Earp this moment, across the street in the Cosmopolitan Hotel.”

  Freddie stared at him, and then his gaze jerked involuntarily to the window again, to the bare façade of the Cosmopolitan, built swiftly and of naked lumber, devoid of paint. “But,” he said, “but—Earp is married—” He was aware of how ridiculous he sounded even as he stammered out the words.

  “Oh,” Holliday said casually, “I don’t believe Wyatt and Mattie ever officially tied the knot—not that it signifies.” He looked at Freddie and rolled the cigar in his fingers. “I thought you should hear it from me,” he said, “rather than through the grapevine telegraph.”

  Freddie stared across the street and felt flaming madness beating at his brain. He considered storming across the street, kicking down the door, firing his Zarathustra, his pistol, again and again until it clicked on an empty chamber, until the walls were spattered with crimson and the room was filled with the stinging, purifying incense of powder smoke.

  But no. He was not an animal, to act in blind fury. He would take revenge—if revenge were to be taken—as a human being. Coldly. With foresight. And with due regard for the consequences.

  And for Freddie to fight for a woman. Was that not the most stupid piece of melodrama in the world? Would not any decent dramatist in the world reject this plot as hackneyed?

  He looked at Holliday, let a grin break across his face. “For a moment I was almost jealous!” he laughed.

  “You’re not
?”

  “Jealousy—pfah!” Freddie laughed again. “Sadie—Josie—she is free.”

  Holliday nodded. “That’s one word for it.”

  “She is trying to get your Mr. Earp murdered. Or myself. Or the whole world.”

  “Gonna kill him!” said a voice. Freddie turned to see Ike Clanton, red-eyed and swaying with drink, dragging his spurs across the parlor carpet. Ike was in town on business and staying at the hotel. “Come join me, Freddie!” he said. “We’ll kill him together!”

  “Kill who, Ike?” Freddie asked.

  “I’m gonna kill Doc Holliday!” Ike said.

  “Here is Doc Holliday, right here,” said Freddie.

  Ike turned, swayed back on his boot heels, and saw Holliday sitting in the wing chair and unconcernedly smoking his cigar. Ike grinned, touched the brim of his sombrero. “Hiya, Doc!” he said cheerfully.

  Holliday nodded politely. “Hello, Ike.”

  Ike grinned for a moment more, then remembered his errand and turned to Freddie. “So will you help me kill Doc Holliday, Freddie?”

  “Doc’s my friend, Ike,” Freddie said.

  Ike took a moment to process this declaration. “I forgot,” he said, and then he reached out to clumsily pat Freddie’s shoulder. “That’s all right, then,” he said with evident concern. “I regret I must kill your friend. Adios.” He turned and swayed from the room.

  Holliday watched Ike’s exit without concern. “Why is Ike trying to kick a fight with me?” he said.

  “God alone knows.”

  Holliday dismissed Ike Clanton with a contemptuous curl of his lip. He turned to Freddie. “Shall we find a game of cards?”

  Freddie rose. “Why not? Let me get my hat.”

  Holliday took him to Earp country, to the Oriental Saloon. Freddie could not concentrate on the game—Wyatt Earp’s faro table was in plain sight, Earp’s empty chair all too visible; and visions of Josie and Earp kept burning in his mind, a writhing of white limbs in a hotel bed, scenes from his own private inferno—and Holliday calmly and professionally took Freddie’s every penny, leaving him with nothing but his coat, his hat, and his gun.

  “You don’t own me.” Freddie wrote in his notebook. She almost spat the words at me. It is her cri d’esprit, her defiance to the world, her great maxim.

  “I own nothing,” I replied calmly. “Nothing at all.” Close enough to the truth. I must find someone to lend me a stake so that I can win money and pay the week’s lodging.

  I argued my points with great precision, and she answered with fury. Her anger left me untouched—she accused me of jealousy, of all ridiculous things! It is easy to remain calm in the face of arrows that fly so wide of the mark. I asked her only to choose a man worthy of her. Behan is nothing, and Earp an earnest fool. Worthy in his own way, no doubt, but not of such as she.

  Ah, well. Let her go. She is qualified to ruin her life in her own way, no doubt. I will keep my room at the Grand—unless poverty drives me into the street—and she will return when she understands her mistake.

  I must remember my pocketbook, and earn some money. And I must certainly stay clear of John Holliday, at least at the card table.

  I think I sense a migraine about to begin.

  “Freddie?” It was Sheriff Behan who stood in the door of the Grand Hotel’s parlor, his derby hat in his hand and a worried look on his face. “Freddie, can you come with me and talk to your friends?”

  Freddie felt fragile after his migraine. Drugs still slithered their cold way through his veins. He looked at Behan and scowled. “What is it, Johnny?” he said. “Go away. I am not well.”

  “There’s going to be a fight between the Earps and the Clantons and McLaurys. Your friends are going to get killed unless we do something.”

  “You’re the sheriff,” Freddie said, unable to resist digging in the spur. “Put the Clantons in jail.”

  “My God, Freddie!” Behan almost shouted. “I can’t arrest the Clantons!”

  “Not as long as they’re letting you have this nice salary, I suppose.” Freddie shook his head, then rose from his wing chair. “Very well. Tell me what is going on.”

  Ike Clanton had been very busy since Freddie had seen him last. He had wandered over Tombstone for two days, uttering threats against Doc Holliday to anyone who would listen. When he appeared in public with a pistol and rifle, Virgil Earp slapped him over the head with a revolver, confiscated his weapons, and tossed him in jail. Ike paid the twenty-five-dollar fine and returned to the streets, where he went boasting of his deadly intentions, now including the Earps in his threats. After Ike’s brief trial, Wyatt Earp had encountered Ike’s friend Tom McLaury on the street and pistol-whipped him. Now Tom was bent on vengeance, as well. They had been seen in Spangenburg’s gun shop, and had gathered a number of their friends. The Earps and Holliday were armed and ready. Vigilantes were arming all over Tombstone, ready for blood. Behan had promised to stave off disaster by disarming the Cowboys, and he wanted help.

  “This is absurd,” Freddie muttered. The clear October light sent daggers into his brain. “They are behaving like fools.”

  “They’re down at the corral,” Behan said. “It’s legal for them to carry arms there, but if they step outside I’ll—” He blanched. “I’ll have to do something.”

  The first tendrils of the euphoria that followed his migraines began to enfold Freddie’s brain. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll come.”

  The lethargy of the drugs warred within Freddie’s mind with growing elation as Behan led Freddie down Allen Street, then through the front entrance of the O.K. Corral, a narrow livery stable that ran like an alley between Allen and Fremont Streets. The Clantons were not in the corral, and Behan was almost frantic as he led Freddie out the back entrance onto Fremont, where Freddie saw the Cowboys standing in the vacant lot between Camillus Fly’s boarding house, where Holliday lodged with his Kate, and another house owned by a man named Harwood.

  There were five of them, Freddie saw. Ike and his brother Billy, Tom and Frank McLaury, and their young friend Billy Claiborne, who like almost every young Billy in the West was known as “Billy the Kid,” after another, more famous outlaw who was dead and could not dispute the title. Tom McLaury led a horse by the reins. The group stood in the vacant lot in the midst of a disagreement. When he saw Freddie walking toward him, Billy Claiborne looked relieved.

  “Freddie!” he said. “Thank God! You help me talk some sense into these men!”

  Ike looked at Freddie with a broad grin. “We’re going to kill Doc Holliday!” he said cheerfully. “We’re going to wait for him to come home, then blow his head off!”

  Freddie glanced up at Fly’s boarding house, with its little photographic studio out back, then returned his gaze to Ike. He tried to concentrate against the chorus of euphoric angels that sang in his mind. “Doc won’t be coming back till late,” he said. “You might as well go home.”

  Ike shook his head vigorously. “No,” he said. “I’m gonna kill Doc Holliday!”

  “Ike,” Freddie pointed out, “you don’t even have a gun.”

  Ike turned red. “It’s only because that son of a bitch Spangenburg wouldn’t sell me one!”

  “You can’t kill Holliday without a gun,” Freddie said. “You might as well come back to the hotel with me.” He reached out to take Ike’s arm.

  “Now wait a minute, Freddie,” said Ike’s brother Billy. “I’ve got a gun.” He pulled back his coat to show his revolver. “And I think killing Holliday is a sound enough idea. It’ll hurt the Earps. And no one ’round here likes Doc—nobody’s going to care if he gets killed.”

  “Holiday and half the town know you’re standing here ready to kill him,” Freddie said. “He’s heeled and so are the Earps. Your ambush is going to fail.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell them!” Billy Claiborne added, and then moaned, “Oh, Lord, they’ll make a blue fist of it!”

  “Hell,” said Tom McLaury. The side of
his head was swollen where Wyatt Earp had clouted him. “We’ve got to fight the Earps sooner or later. Might as well do it now.”

  “I agree you should fight,” Freddie said. “But this is not the time or the place.”

  “This place is good as any other!” Tom said. “That bastard Earp hit me for no reason, and I’m going to put a bullet in him.”

  “I’m with my brother on this,” said Frank McLaury.

  “Nobody can stand up to us!” Ike said. “With us five and Freddie here, the Earps had better start praying.”

  Exasperation overwhelmed the exaltation that sang in Freddie’s skull. With the ferocious clarity that was an aspect of his euphoria, he could see exactly what would happen. The Earps were professional lawmen—they did not chew their own tobacco, as Brocius would say—and when they came they would be ready. They might come with a crowd of vigilantes. The Cowboys, half unarmed, would stand wondering what to do, would have no leader, would wait too long to reach a decision, and then they would be cut down.

  “I have no gun!” Freddie told Ike. “You have no gun. And the Kid here has no gun. Three of you cannot fight a whole town, I think. You should go home and wait for a better time. Wait till Bill Brocius’s trial is over, and get John Ringo to join you.”

  “You only say that ’cause you’re a coward!” Ike said. “You’re a kraut-eating yellowbelly! You won’t stand by your friends!”

  Murder sang a song of fury in Freddie’s blood. His hand clawed as if it held a gun—and the fact that there was no gun did not matter; the claw could as easily seize Ike’s throat. Ike took a step backwards at the savage glint in Freddie’s eyes. Then Freddie shook his head, and said, “This is folly. I wash my hands of it.” He turned and began to walk away.

  “Freddie!” Behan yelped. He sprang in front of Freddie, bouncing on his neat polished brown boots. “You can’t leave! You’ve got to help me with this!”

  Freddie drew himself up, glared savagely at Behan. Righteous angels sang in his mind. “You are the sheriff, I collect,” he said. “Dealing with it is your job!”