Weird West 04 - The Doctor and the Dinosaurs

by Mike Resnick

  “Nothing,” replied Holliday. “They know where we're going. They're just making sure we're not the vanguard of a war party.”

  “It's making me nervous.”

  Holliday smiled. “That's another reason they do it.”

  “Oh, well,” said Roosevelt, “at least we won't have to fight off any dinosaurs while they're with us.”

  “I don't know,” said Holliday. “I have a feeling only the medicine men, maybe only Tall Bear, can control them.”

  “I agree. But Tall Bear won't put his own warriors at risk.”

  “Let's hope not,” said Holliday.

  They fell silent, and rode another two miles in silence, paced by the Comanche warriors. The ground became more level, the rocks disappeared and the trees thinned out, and finally they saw an Indian village in the distance.

  They got to within a quarter mile of it, and then two of the warriors urged their horses forward and blocked the way.

  Holliday and Roosevelt pulled their mounts to a halt.

  “What now?” said Holliday. “As if I didn't know.”

  The warriors gestured for them to dismount and proceed on foot.

  “I'll be too sore and too exhausted to talk once we get there,” complained Holliday, painfully climbing down.

  “Oh, come on, Doc,” said Roosevelt, “you walk more than this every day.”

  “True,” admitted Holliday. “But not all at once.”

  Half a dozen more warriors dismounted and walked silently alongside them.

  There was a fire in the middle of the village, and a burly, middle-aged warrior sat before it, bedecked in many of the tokens of his tribe.

  “He doesn't take chances, does he?” said Holliday with a smile.

  “It's an old African custom too,” said Roosevelt. “Put a double—well, not quite a double—out to greet your visitors in case they have any bad intentions. This fellow can't be much more than five feet six when he's standing up. There's no way he can go by the name of Tall Bear.”

  “Well, let's pretend we think he is, until they're satisfied we don't mean him any harm. If we ask for the real Tall Bear, they'll be sure we're here to kill him.”

  “I agree,” said Roosevelt.

  They were escorted to the seated Comanche, and then their guides stood back.

  “You are Holliday, and you are Roosevelt,” he said.

  “That's right,” said Holliday.

  “And Geronimo has sent you here to kill me.”

  “No,” said Roosevelt. “We're here to reason with you.”

  Holliday considered withdrawing his pistol and handing it, butt first, to the Comanche, but decided he'd probably be killed before it cleared his holster. “Have your men disarm us if you're worried.”

  “I am not worried,” said a voice from behind them. “Nothing can kill Tall Bear.”

  They turned and found themselves facing a tall man, very close to seven feet in height, with a serious scar running from his right collar bone down across his chest to his left hip. His eyes were dark, his cheekbones high, his thick hair hanging down to his shoulders, his expression grim.

  “Why have you come to my camp?” he said.

  “We have come to bargain,” said Holliday.

  “I know of you, Holly-day,” said Tall Bear. “You are a famous killer. Why should I think you have not come to kill me?”

  “Three reasons,” said Holliday. “First, if I had come to kill you, you'd be dead already; I'd have fired the second I knew you were Tall Bear. Second, I offered to let your men take my gun away. And third,” he concluded, gesturing toward Roosevelt, “if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't need help.”

  Tall Bear stared at him for a long moment, then slowly nodded his head. “Good answers, Holly-day.” He turned to Roosevelt. “I know you too. You are the Roosevelt.”

  Roosevelt resisted the urge to correct him and explain that he was a Roosevelt. “Yes, I am,” he answered.

  “It is you who Goyathlay sought out, among all the White Eyes, to make a treaty with,” continued Tall Bear. “He must think you are an honorable man.”

  “I try to be.”

  “So the killer and the honorable man have come to me together. Why?”

  “I think you know why,” said Holliday.

  “You want no more nightmares from the past.”

  “That's right.”

  “But even with them, your men continue to desecrate our sacred ground,” said Tall Bear.

  “They're not our men,” said Roosevelt.

  “But you have lived and worked with them,” said Tall Bear. “Do you think we are not aware of that?”

  “I was sent here by Geronimo—by Goyathlay—to try to stop them,” said Holliday. “Surely he's not keeping that a secret.”

  “And have you stopped them?” said Tall Bear. “The answer is no.”

  “No,” admitted Holliday. “We haven't stopped them. And neither have your monsters.”

  “But mine will.”

  Holliday shook his head. “Not a chance. We can only stop them if we work together, and we can only work together if you will trust us.”

  “Why should I trust the killer, and the man who signed a treaty that allowed the White Eyes to invade my land?”

  “Because you want them to stop desecrating your burial ground, and so far you haven't been able to,” said Roosevelt. “And in your heart, you know we wouldn't be here if we didn't have something to offer.”

  “You think to buy the Comanche?” demanded Tall Bear, frowning.

  “What we have to offer is a plan,” said Roosevelt.

  “Why should I listen?”

  “You got anything better to do with your time?” said Holliday, and immediately wished he'd kept his mouth shut, certain that such a remark could cause both of their deaths.

  Tall Bear stared at him again, even longer this time, and just when Holliday was certain he was going to order his warriors to run them through with their spears, he sighed heavily and said, “No, Holly-day. I have nothing better to do. Tell me what you came to tell me.”

  Holliday felt a sense of relief. His first instinct was to reach for his flask and take a swallow, but he realized that if he reached for anything at all he was liable to be minus a hand two seconds later. So he settled for taking a deep breath, trying not to cough, failing, coughing some blood into his handkerchief, and speaking.

  “You know the monsters that you have brought forth?” he began. “They are called dinosaurs by my people. And some of my people find them bewitching, and spend their whole lives studying them. The two expeditions—the two groups that are digging up the ground—are led by the two greatest lovers of these dinosaurs.” He paused to make sure Tall Bear was assimilating what he said. “They have come from far to the east—a much greater distance than from here to Goyathlay's camp—to study these creatures.”

  “But they did not exist until after they began to tear up the sacred ground,” said Tall Bear, frowning.

  “They had no idea they would encounter live dinosaurs,” Roosevelt put in. “Their studies told them that this is a very rich ground for fossils, which is to say, for the bones of long-dead dinosaurs.”

  “It is not a rich ground,” said Tall Bear firmly. “We have tried to grow many things, but the ground is poor.”

  “It is poor on the surface,” agreed Roosevelt, “but it is rich in the bones of dinosaurs, and that is what they have come here to find.”

  “And having found them, they will not go away until they have uncovered them all,” added Holliday.

  “Then my monsters will chase them away.”

  Holliday shook his head. “Your monsters will bring still more people who love dinosaurs. The thought of seeing living ones will bring them by the dozens, and will bring work crews by the hundreds.”

  “Then they shall all die,” said Tall Bear.

  “I killed the biggest of them with nothing more than this pistol I have at my side,” said Holliday. “Look into my heart and tel
l me if you think I am lying.”

  “You speak the truth,” replied Tall Bear promptly. “But you are Holly-day, born to kill with that. Others will not be as skilled.”

  “Then they'll hire men who are as skilled, or who will use better weapons. It doesn't matter. However many you kill, more will come, once they know what they will be able to see here.”

  “We shall see which will be the greater number, my creatures or your killers.”

  “They're not my killers,” persisted Holliday. “And it won't make any difference who produces more in the end, because in the meantime they're going to be digging up your sacred ground every day. That is what we both want to stop, is it not?”

  “I will ask the Roosevelt, for he is an honorable man,” said Tall Bear. He turned to Roosevelt. “Does he speak the truth?”

  Roosevelt nodded an affirmative. “About all things,” he said. “But mainly, that we want to stop it.”

  Tall Bear turned back to Holliday. “You will speak, I will listen.”

  “All right,” said Holliday, who wished Tall Bear would sit down and invite him and Roosevelt to do the same, rather than towering above them. “As long as these men think there are things to discover, either live dinosaurs above the ground or dead ones beneath it, they will remain where they are, and they will continue to dig in your sacred ground. You cannot frighten them away with your living nightmares, you can only attract more of them. That is the situation, the basic truth we must address.”

  “And how do you propose to address it?

  “I can't address it alone,” replied Holliday. “We must do it together.”

  Tall Bear made no immediate reply as the firelight flickered off him, and Holliday saw a number of heads peeking out of their huts, staring at the two white men and the medicine man.

  At last Tall Bear spoke: “I am still listening.”

  “What we have to do is make this area totally worthless to them. There must be no more dinosaurs walking the land. But that is just the first step. We have to convince them that there is nothing of interest here, or at least nothing remaining.”

  “And how will you do this?”

  “Not I,” replied Holliday. “We.”

  “How will we do this?” said Tall Bear.

  Holliday thought he might cough, took out his bloodied handkerchief, and held it to his mouth. Then the urge passed, he settled for merely clearing his throat. “I wasn't sure until we were attacked on the way here.”

  “You were not injured. Goyathlay saved you.”

  “I know. But it was what happened after he saved us that gave me the idea.”

  Tall Bear stared at him, but said nothing.

  “He turned the dead dinosaur to dust,” continued Holliday. “Not a bone, not a tooth, not a piece of skin remained. All dust.”

  “I know this,” said Tall Bear.

  Suddenly Roosevelt's eyes widened, to be followed by a huge grin. “The perfect solution!” he exclaimed.

  “You are a great medicine man,” continued Holliday, “or you could not have brought the nightmare creatures to life. Surely if Goyathlay could turn one to dust, so can you. The question,” said Holliday, leaning forward, “is this: Is your medicine powerful enough to turn them all to dust? Not just those that are alive and walking the Earth, but also the few that Roosevelt and I have killed? And, every bit as important, the bones that they have dug up from your burial ground?”

  Tall Bear looked from Holliday to Roosevelt, then back again.

  “Yes, I can do this,” he said. “But they will just tear up the sacred ground searching for more bones.”

  “Leave that to Roosevelt and me,” said Holliday. “If you will do what I described, you will have no further trouble.”

  “Let me be sure I understand,” said Tall Bear. “I must turn every living and every dead creature to dust, both those that have died recently and those that died many lifetimes ago. Is this correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if I do this, they will leave and not return?”

  Holliday nodded an affirmative. “Yes.”

  “So if I do this right now, they will vanish?”

  “No,” said Holliday. “You're not killing them. You're making the land worthless to them. Do this at noon tomorrow, and give Roosevelt and me until noon the next day.”

  “If this does not come to pass, I will turn the Roosevelt to dust,” said Tall Bear.

  “Just me?” said Roosevelt, frowning.

  “Your friend is already dust,” said Tall Bear. “Goyathlay has done for him what I did for the living nightmares.”

  “We have a bargain,” said Holliday, trying not to dwell on what the Comanche had just said. “Roosevelt and I will begin riding back to the camp where these men are.”

  “I hope what you say comes to pass,” said Tall Bear. “I will give you safe passage as you return to your camp—but if you lied to me, if they have not left by the time and day you promised, there will be an army of nightmares such as you cannot imagine.”

  HOLLIDAY AND ROOSEVELT WERE IN NO HURRY to get back to camp before Tall Bear's magic went into effect, so they rode leisurely, stopping three or four times for welcome rests—welcome to Holliday, anyway—and slept out beneath the cloudless sky, secure in the knowledge that nothing from prehistory was going to bother them.

  They timed their arrival for mid-afternoon, which gave Cope and Marsh plenty of time to realize that all the fossils they had collected during the past few weeks had turned to the same fine powder as the monster Geronimo had killed.

  It also gave Cope and Marsh time to ride out to where the tyrannosaur and the pteranodon were, only to discover they too had become nothing but dust.

  When Holliday and Roosevelt dismounted they were greeted by Edison and Buntline, the former with a makeshift cane, the latter on crutches.

  “What the hell has happened?” asked Edison.

  “A medicine man has kept his word,” answered Holliday.

  “And we've got maybe twenty hours, tops, to keep ours,” added Roosevelt.

  “Is there anything we can do to help?” offered Edison.

  Holliday shook his head. “If I'm any judge of character, this should be the easiest thing of all.”

  “I agree,” said Roosevelt. “But I think we'll keep your weapons another day, just to be on the safe side.”

  “It's the damnedest thing,” observed Buntline. “At first Cope and Marsh were both screaming that it was sabotage, but then they realized it couldn't be, not when both of their collections of fossils were gone.”

  “And if there was any doubt, it vanished when they saw what had become of the tyrannosaur and the pteranodon,” added Edison.

  “So have they drawn battle lines anyway?” said Holliday. “It would make too much sense for them to combine forces to figure out what's happening.”

  Cole Younger rode up on horseback just then.

  “Welcome back, Doc, Theodore. You'd have done better to stay away.”

  “So Tom and Ned have been telling us,” answered Holliday.

  “Just stopped by to say adios,” continued Younger. “They're all crazy here. Next thing you know they'll be accusing me.”

  “Where are you off to?” asked Holliday.

  “Like I told you,” said Younger with a smile. “I'm gonna hunt up Frank James, and we're gonna give Bill Cody a run for his money.”

  “Good luck,” said Roosevelt.

  “Best luck I can have is making it back to civilization in one piece,” laughed Younger. He spurred his horse, and was soon out of sight.

  “So what do you have to do now?” asked Edison.

  “Not a thing,” said Holliday. “We'll go to work after dark.”

  They could hear Cope screaming and cursing at one end of the camp, and Marsh doing the same at the other. Each of them ate in solitary splendor as far from each other as they could get.

  After dinner Holliday announced that since he and Roosevelt were reasonably fresh, they'd p
atrol the camp at night, just in case any Comanche or their creatures should return.

  When they saw the kerosene lamp in Cope's tent go off, they walked by, seemingly lost in conversation.

  “Yeah, it beats me too,” said Holliday when they were within earshot. “I didn't realize there was such a limit on magic, that he could turn everything to dust here, but he can't make it reach to Colorado.”

  “Well, no sense telling them,” replied Roosevelt. “They'll just go hell for leather to Colorado and run into those damned monsters there.”

  “Yeah, count me out,” agreed Holliday. “I plan to live to a ripe old age without ever again seeing anything bigger or more dangerous than a horse.”

  They kept talking until they were out of range, and five minutes later they were carrying on the same “private” conversation alongside Marsh's tent, only this time the dinosaurs were roaming the hills and valleys of Utah.

  The camp was a bustle of activity—well, two separate bustles—at sunrise, and by ten in the morning only Holliday, Roosevelt, Edison and Buntline remained.

  “Now I guess we can give you these,” said Roosevelt handing the two weapons back to Buntline.

  “Are you going back East now, Theodore?” asked Edison.

  Roosevelt nodded. “I've got a woman to marry, a house to finish, and”—he flashed the grin that would become famous—“I think I'll probably run for Mayor of New York.”

  “We're on the mend. If we may, we'll travel some of the way with you,” said Edison.

  “How about you, Doc?” asked Buntline.

  Holliday shrugged. “I imagine I'll head on back to Leadville. Sooner or later I'm going to need that sanitarium again.”

  “Take care,” said Roosevelt. “Perhaps we'll meet again.”

  I sure as hell doubt it, thought Holliday.

  HE SPENT TEN MONTHS GAMBLING AND DRINKING. At one point he even moved back in with Kate Elder, but after a pair of knock-down drag-out fights in which he came off much the worse, he decided that he wanted the full year he'd been promised and moved out again.

  Finally he wound up back in the sanitarium, in the very same room he had occupied a year ago. When it had been one day shy of a year, he opened his eyes and saw Geronimo, all six feet of him, standing at the foot of his bed.