Doctor and the Kid, The (A Weird West Tale) (Weird West Tales)

by Mike Resnick

  “I telegraphed Tombstone and had Henry Wiggins send it over,” answered Edison. “I'm going to be going out into the countryside almost every day testing various things, so why should I keep renting a horse and buggy?”

  “That's a good, reasonable answer,” said Holliday. Suddenly he grinned. “Now how about the truth? The government is paying you, so surely they were paying for the buggy too.”

  “All right,” said Edison with a guilty smile. “It gets so damned hot up there holding the reins. This thing hasn't got any reins, because it doesn't have any horse pulling it, and I don't even have to steer it. Henry supplied a driver,” he pointed to the top of the carriage where the driver sat. “And it is essential that I get out into the country. In fact, why don't you come along? I want to test something out on you.”

  Holliday looked at him suspiciously. “You've got a driver. Why not test it on him?”

  “I can't.”

  “Tom, I need a better answer than that,” said Holliday. “The only one that comes to mind is that if you kill him you don't know how to drive the coach and you won't want to walk all the way back.”

  Edison chuckled and shook his head. “I can't test it on him because he's deaf.”

  “I couldn't hear what you used on White Eagle,” said Holliday. “You already know it works.”

  “What I'm testing today is infinitely more powerful, and has a far broader range.”

  Holliday frowned. “Are you sure you're on the right track? It may have worked on the Comanche, but it didn't seem to bother Geronimo at all.”

  “I've added some new twists,” answered Edison. “Either climb in or don't, but I'm anxious to test it. I can't stay here talking.”

  “All right,” said Holliday, climbing into the coach. “Let's see what it can do.”

  “Loan me your cane,” said Edison.

  Holliday handed it over.

  “I'm glad you have it with you today.” He poked the top of the coach just above Holliday's head three times, and suddenly it began rolling down the street. “That's the problem with a deaf driver,” said Edison, handing back the cane. “He can't hear when I yell at him to stop and start.”

  “I can see where that would be a problem,” said Holliday.

  “I hear you had another good night at the tables.”

  Holliday nodded. “The cards are running my way. I've worked my bankroll up to thirteen thousand, more or less. I'll stick around another week or so, and then make my way back up to Leadville.” He paused. “Probably.”

  “Probably?” repeated Edison, arching an eyebrow.

  “I had a business proposition yesterday that I'm considering.”

  “Long term or short term?”

  “Short term, most likely.”

  “Care to tell me about it?”

  Holliday shook his head. “No, I'm still thinking about it.”

  “I've seen the way you look and act when Mrs. Branson's around,” said Edison. “You might give a thought to getting married.”

  “Who'd want to marry a man who's dying of consumption?” asked Holliday.

  “I've seen the way she looks and acts around you, too,” replied Edison with a smile. “A few good years are better than none at all. Seriously, you might consider it.”

  Holliday shook his head. “No, if I don't accept the proposition, I'll be going back to Leadville and spending my last few years fighting with Kate.”

  Edison shrugged, “If that's what you want.”

  “I'll tell you what I don't want,” replied Holliday. “I don't want to marry a woman and have her turn into my nurse less than a year later.”

  “Won't Kate be your nurse if you go back to Leadville?”

  “Kate's had a few good years with me; Charlotte hasn't,” said Holliday. “Besides, if I go back to Leadville, I'll pay for my own nurses. That's what the hell I came down here for in the first place—to put enough money together to pay for the sanitarium when I have to go there.”

  “Okay,” said Edison. “Your life is your own. I have no business making suggestions.”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  Holliday smiled. “For saying that, so I won't have to.”

  Edison returned the smile. “I'm sorry. It comes from all these long days of working alone. I think I'd beg Ned to stick around, even if I didn't need his super-hard brass and his manufacturing skill.”

  “He doesn't seem like he's in a hurry to leave Lincoln.”

  “Oh, he will, sooner or later,” said Edison. “Hopefully later. Do you know what he really wants to do?”

  “I've no idea,” said Holliday.

  “He wants to be a publisher and a producer.”

  “A producer?” asked Holliday, frowning.

  “The man who puts on a show, like a rodeo or a play,” said Edison. “Can you imagine it? A genius like him, and he wants to do that. Hell, the next thing you know he'll be talking you and Annie Oakley into going to New York to put on a sharpshooting exhibition.”

  “Ned?” said Holliday disbelievingly.

  “We all have our dreams,” said Edison. “That's his.” He turned to Holliday, “What's yours?”

  “Mine's a lot simpler,” said Holliday with a grim smile. “To cough up phlegm instead of blood. How about you?”

  “To find a way to combat the medicine men's magic.”

  Holliday shook his head. “That's your job. What's your dream?”

  “Same thing,” said Edison. “An entire nation is depending on me to open up half a continent to westward expansion. My dream is that I'm not remembered as the man whose failure kept the United States forever east of the Mississippi.”

  Holliday stared at him. “I once faced eight Mexicans who were out to kill me after a card game south of the border. I scared off maybe twenty men when they had Wyatt Earp cornered in Dodge. But I wouldn't have your burden for anything. I couldn't stand up under it. I wonder if anyone else could.”

  “If you had to, you could,” said Edison. “If you were the only man who could do it, you'd find a way. And so will I.”

  Holliday continued staring at him, and finally spoke, “I haven't called many men friend in my life, but I'm proud to call you my friend.”

  “Thank you, Doc. That means a lot to me.”

  “Good,” said Holliday, suddenly uncomfortable by what he considered a display of emotion. “Now let's go out and see how the hell to kill Hook Nose and Geronimo.”

  Edison shook his head. “We're not interested in killing them, Doc. If we do, tomorrow there'll be two more medicine men, probably just about as powerful. What we have to do is neutralize their magic.”

  “How do you fight something you can't see?”

  “I lit all of Tombstone with something you couldn't see,” replied Edison. “Can you see the electricity that's powering the motor that's running this coach?”

  “Okay,” said Holliday with a shrug of defeat. “I'm just along for the ride anyway.”

  “And that ride should be ending soon,” said Edison, looking out a window.

  The coach went another five hundred yards, and then Edison borrowed Holliday's cane and knocked on the ceiling twice. There was no response. He waited a moment and did it again, and this time the coach came to a stop.

  “Probably we were driving over a bumpy patch the first time and he didn't feel it, or interpret the feeling correctly,” said Edison, returning the cane.

  “You didn't have a cane when you picked me up,” said Holliday. “How did you get him to stop?”

  Edison smiled. “When we started, I wrote a note that told him to stop if he saw you or Ned on the street.” He laughed and tapped his head with a forefinger, “Genius. No doubt about it.”

  Holliday joined in the laughter, then began coughing, and Edison climbed out and left him to finish on his own, which he did a minute later.

  “Where are your weapons?” asked Holliday, looking back into the empty coach after he'd climbed down to the ground.

/>   “I prefer to think of them as devices,” said Edison. He reached in, lifted a cushioned seat, and pulled out a large box. He opened it, removed some padding, and withdrew a small metal object that he could hold comfortably in one hand. It looked somewhat like a pistol to Holliday, but there was no trigger, nothing with which to aim or sight it, and not much of a handle.

  Edison bent over the box and withdrew one end of an electric wire, which he inserted into the metal device. It immediately emitted a low humming sound.

  “If that's as loud as it gets, we've made the trip for nothing,” remarked Holliday.

  “No, it's a totally silent device. The humming just alerts me to the fact that it's receiving power from the battery it's attached to. It'll stop in a minute, when it's fully powered.”

  As Edison had said, the device did indeed fall silent in another sixty seconds, after which he removed the wire and placed it back in the box.

  “All right,” said Holliday. “What does this thing do?”

  “That's what we have to find out,” answered Edison.

  “How?”

  Edison smiled. “First we spot Geronimo or Hook Nose. One or both will be watching us.”

  Holliday scanned the barren landscape. “My eyes are as good as anybody's, but I don't see Geronimo, and while I've never met Hook Nose I'm sure I could spot an Indian out here.”

  “Think back, Doc,” said Edison, starting to walk toward a small stand of trees a quarter mile away. “How did Geronimo first contact you back in Tombstone? Didn't you tell me you were in an alley and were confronted by a snake that turned into a warrior?”

  “Son of a bitch!” said Holliday. “And Geronimo himself visited me as a bird on my windowsill at the Grand. That was when he offered to take the Kid's protection away if I'd destroy the station.” He looked around with renewed interest. “I see two lizards off to the left, and there's a rabbit about fifty yards on the other side of the coach.”

  Edison shook his head. “No, that's not him.”

  “How do you know?” demanded Holliday.

  Edison smiled. “Because I've spotted him.”

  “Where?”

  “Do you see that large bird perched at the top of the very last tree there?”

  “Yes.”

  “That's him.”

  “I repeat: how do you know?”

  “That's a Great Gray Owl.”

  “Okay, it's a Great Gray Owl,” said Holliday. “So what?”

  “They live in the northeastern United States and up in Canada,” said Edison.

  “So he flew south. Birds do that.”

  “Not this far south, and not this far west.”

  “That's mighty thin reasoning,” said Holliday.

  “There's more,” said Edison. He checked his wristwatch. “It's past eleven in the morning. The sun is almost directly overhead.”

  “You say that as if it should mean something.”

  “The Great Gray Owl is nocturnal, Doc. If that were a real owl, he couldn't see a damned thing in this sunlight.”

  Holliday stared at the owl, which stared back. “Okay, that makes sense,” he said. “Which of the two do you suppose it is?”

  “I don't know,” answered Edison. “I don't know if it's either of them, or a surrogate warrior, or if it's actually a bird they somehow control and use to spy on us. The nice part is that it makes no difference for this experiment. It's clearly operating on magical principles, and all I want to know is if what I've brought along will disrupt the magic.”

  “Just a minute,” said Holliday. “How the hell did you know anything would be out here watching you?”

  “I proved I could kill White Eagle,” answered Edison. “Wouldn't you keep an eye on me if you were Geronimo or Hook Nose?”

  “What if they attack you?”

  “If nothing I have with me harms them, why bother?” asked Edison. “And if I can hurt them, then how much more damage might I do if they attack?”

  “There's a difference between harming and killing,” Holliday pointed out.

  “Damn it, Doc,” said Edison in exasperation, “I can't just make notes and spout theories. I have to put them into practice sooner or later.” He paused. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you.”

  “It's all right,” answered Holliday. “Sometimes I forget what kind of pressure you're under.” He looked at the device in Edison's hand. “What do we do now?”

  Edison suddenly stared at Holliday's pistol for a moment, then off at the owl. He didn't say a word, but Holliday could see that the man was thinking, his jaw clenched, his gaze darting—and suddenly he snapped his fingers. “I've got it!” he exclaimed. “Bringing you along was a stroke of genius!”

  Holliday studied the inventor's face, which seemed more elated than he'd ever see it before. It did not translate into elation on Holliday's part. “Am I going to want to hear this?”

  For a moment Edison seemed too preoccupied to answer him. Then he suddenly became himself again. “There was one problem, Doc,” he explained. “I could use this”—he held up the device—“and annoy or disable or even kill the owl. Or I could have no effect on it. And it would imply things, but it wouldn't prove a thing. After all, the Great Gray Owl does exist. The odds are hundreds to one that the one we're looking at didn't migrate across half a continent to a climate it's not suited for, and thousands to one that it wouldn't try to observe anything with a cloudless sky and the sun directly overhead—but while those odds may be incredibly unlikely, they're not impossible. That's where you come in.”

  “How?”

  “Get close enough to the owl so you can't miss, and then shoot it.” Holliday merely stared at him without saying a word, and Edison continued. “If you kill it, we know it was just a misplaced and unlucky bird. But if I'm right, bullets won't have any effect on it at all. That's what I'm counting on.”

  Holliday frowned. “You're hoping I can't hurt it?”

  “Right,” said Edison. “Because if you can't, then we know it's part of Hook Nose's or Geronimo's magic—or maybe both of theirs together. And if I can then harm, or kill, or somehow disrupt it with this device, we'll know it's effective against magic.”

  “What if it only harms it, but doesn't kill it?”

  “Makes no difference,” answered Edison. “It'll mean I've got the right principle, and I simply have to find ways to strengthen and refine it.”

  “Am I going to need ear plugs?”

  Edison shook his head. “This noiseless sound will be beyond the ability of any man, any dog, any living thing at all, to hear. It doesn't harm people or animals; if it works, what it does is disrupt magic.”

  Holliday shrugged. “I hope you're right. I suppose we might as well start right now.”

  Edison nodded his assent, and Holliday began walking toward the stand of trees. The owl watched him approach, but made no effort to fly away. Holliday walked around the stand to the far side of it, where he had a better view of the owl. He felt uncomfortable shooting at something that might be, and probably was, magical. He had an urge to pull his gun, fire off three or four quick shots, and then back away, but he knew he had to be sure he hit it. So when he was about twenty paces from the tree he slowly withdrew his gun, took careful aim, and squeezed off a shot. He heard the thunk! as the bullet hit, and saw some feathers fly off, but the owl never moved, never gave any indication that it had been shot. He fired twice more with the same effect, or lack of effect, and finally he holstered his gun and walked back toward Edison.

  “You're sure you hit him?” asked the inventor.

  “I'm sure.”

  “Then let's see if I'm on the right track, or if I've wasted a week.”

  Edison pointed the device at the bird.

  “Don't you want to get closer?” asked Holliday.

  “This will affect everything for miles,” said Edison. “In theory, anyway.”

  His thumb moved to a small switch that Holliday hadn't seen. There was no noise, not even a low humming
, nothing glowed, nothing sprang forth from the end of the device—but the owl screeched, began flying off, and suddenly burst into a fireball and vanished as a handful of ashes swirled down to the ground.

  “Well, I'll be damned!” said Holliday.

  “But maybe the United States won't be,” said Edison, a satisfied smile on his face.

  “That wasn't either of them, was it?”

  “I doubt it,” answered Edison. “They knew what I did to White Eagle. They'd have known what we were doing when you fired your gun at them, and would have fled. No, he or they—make it they, I'm sure they were both watching, even if only one wove the bird from a spell—just wanted to see how far I've gotten.”

  “Have you figured out that makes you a marked man?” said Holliday.

  “In a way,” replied Edison. “But they don't know what this can do to them personally, and they don't know what else I've got that might do even more damage. I think I'm reasonably safe for the moment.”

  “I think you're an optimist.”

  “Perhaps,” said Edison. “But just to put this into historical perspective, this is the first time since the war between science and magic began that science has won a skirmish.”

  “White Eagle would disagree with that if he were here,” said Holliday with a grim smile.

  “All right, the second time.”

  Edison, using overdone gestures, finally got the driver to understand that he was to take them back to town. They climbed back into the coach, and Holliday pulled out his flask and offered Edison a drink.

  “No, thanks. I've got to make notes of this, and I'll need a clear head.”

  Holliday took a drink, capped the flask, and put it back in a coat pocket. “I was just wondering, Tom…”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think maybe the bird was Geronimo or Hook Nose?”

  Edison looked out the window and smiled. “Not a chance,” he said firmly.

  “You sound very certain.”

  Edison pointed to a tree, “See that white bird?”

  “Yes.”

  “It's a Snowy Owl. It has even less business being in New Mexico, and watching us at high noon, than the Great Gray Owl.”