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

by Mike Resnick

  “And?”

  “And you take the money and go back to Colorado, and maybe you'll live long enough to get to that sanitarium before some hotshot newcomer guns down the man who killed Billy the Kid.”

  “What do you get out of it?” said Holliday. “You're a lawman. You can't collect a reward for doing your job.”

  “I won't have to,” said Garrett.

  “Explain.”

  “I've been offered a lot of money for a book on the life and death of Billy the Kid,” said Garrett. He grimaced. “There's just one catch. They'll only buy it if I'm the man who's responsible for killing him.” He paused. “What do you say, Doc? You never tell anyone I didn't kill the Kid, and I never tell anyone you did.”

  “Let me think about it,” said Holliday.

  They rode the rest of the way in total silence.

  As Garrett pulled the horse to a halt in front of the undertaker's, he turned to Holliday. “Well, Doc?”

  Holliday nodded his agreement. “And if I find out that you collected any part of that bounty, I'll come back and kill you.”

  “Fair enough,” said Garrett. “And if you ever contradict a word of my book, I'll hunt you down and kill you.”

  T

  WO DAYS LATER Holliday was atop a buckboard again, sitting outside the Grand Hotel while he waited for Edison and Buntline to emerge. Charlotte Branson's casket was in the back. He pulled out his flask, took a quick drink, and was tucking it back into his pocket when Edison walked out the front door, a large suitcase in his hand.

  “I didn't know you had to pack a change of clothes to go up to Boot Hill,” observed Holliday cynically, as Buntline came out with another piece of luggage.

  “We don't,” replied Edison. “But the last time we left the hotel for more than an hour, the Kid and Brady broke into our room and stole those prototype pistols. I've got all the ultrasonic equipment in these cases, and I'll be damned if anyone's going to steal them.”

  “Makes sense,” agreed Holliday. “Well, stick ‘em in the back and we'll be on our way.”

  “There's not room for three up there,” said Buntline as Edison climbed up to share the driver's seat with Holliday.

  “If you don't mind sitting in the wagon, it'll save you the bother of renting a horse,” noted Holliday.

  “Yeah, why not?” said Buntline, pulling himself up to the wagon, sitting at the back, and letting his legs dangle down. “It's only about half a mile out of town, right?”

  “Right,” said Holliday, urging the horses forward.

  “Did you arrange for a preacher?” asked Edison.

  Holliday shook his head. “I don't know what religion she belonged to, but I don't think she was much of a believer. We'll just bury her, plant the headstone, and leave.”

  “Headstone?”

  “I had one made up,” said Holliday. “It'll be better than Julia Bulette's, anyway.”

  “I don't believe I've heard of her,” said Edison.

  “She was a madam in Virginia City, up in Nevada,” said Holliday. “Gave a goodly percentage of her take to the local police and fire departments, and when there was a cholera outbreak she turned her whorehouse into a free hospital. Got killed by a drunken customer a few years back, at which point the local ladies, who wouldn't say a word against her when she was alive, decided she wasn't fit to be buried in the local cemetery, and insisted they plant her in Boot Hill. Her only marker was the brass headboard of her bed.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” replied Holliday. “At least Charlotte will have a headstone.”

  They rode the rest of the way in silence, entered the little graveyard, and stopped the wagon by a recently dug grave where two men were standing, shovels in hand. Holliday tossed them each a gold coin, indicated the casket, and stood aside as they pulled it off the buckboard, carried it to the grave, and lowered it on ropes. Then they quickly filled in the grave, planted the headstone, and left on horseback.

  “Maybe you should say a prayer over her, Doc,” suggested Buntline.

  “I don't know any,” replied Holliday.

  “Not one?” asked Edison.

  Holliday shook his head. “Not one.”

  “I do,” said a voice, and the three men turned to find themselves facing Geronimo.

  “I thought we were even,” said Holliday, frowning.

  “We are,” said Geronimo. “I pay tribute to a brave woman.”

  “I have no objection to that,” said Holliday, stepping back and allowing the Apache to step closer to the grave.

  “But I do,” said another voice.

  They all turned and saw Hook Nose standing some fifty yards away.

  “Stand back, White Eyes,” said Geronimo softly. “His battle is with me, not with you.”

  “My battle is with all of you!” said Hook Nose sternly. “But it is especially with you!” He pointed a finger at Geronimo and a lightning bolt shot out of it.

  Geronimo held up his hand and deflected the bolt, then chanted something in his native language and a whirlwind instantly encompassed Hook Nose.

  “Do you think to harm me with a mere wind, Goyathlay?” demanded Hook Nose, stepping forward through the whirlwind.

  “What I harm you with is immaterial to me,” answered Geronimo, making a mystic gesture. Instantly two hawks appeared thirty feet above Hook Nose and dove down, clearly aiming for his eyes. When they were halfway to him, he made a slapping gesture with his hand; the hawks screamed and vanished.

  For another two minutes the two medicine men hurled mystical creatures and weapons at each other, while Edison and Buntline gathered up their luggage and began creeping away. Holliday, though fascinated by the battle, accompanied them.

  “Not so fast, White Eyes!” yelled Hook Nose, conjuring up a dragon-like creature and sending it after them.

  “They are under my protection!” said Geronimo, holding both hands up. The dragon stopped. Then he uttered a low command, and the dragon turned and began approaching Hook Nose. “Woo-Ka-Nay created him,” said Geronimo, “Woo-Ka-Nay may have him.”

  Edison opened his suitcase and began rummaging through it. “Damn!” he muttered. “Wrong one!”

  Holliday saw the device they had used to kill White Eagle, reached in, and pulled it out.

  “We don't want that one, Doc,” said Edison as Buntline opened the other case. “This is the ticket!” he said, and pulled out a smaller device.

  “That's the thing that turned the Great Gray Owl into a fireball, right?” asked Holliday.

  “Right,” answered Edison.

  “Put it away.”

  “What are you talking about, Doc?” demanded Edison. “It worked on the owl. It'll work on these two.”

  “I know.”

  “Then what—?”

  “Geronimo's protecting us, Tom. You can't kill him.”

  “Then what do we do—just wait this thing out and hope he wins?”

  “We lower the odds,” said Holliday, holding up the device he'd taken from the first case.

  Geronimo and Hook Nose had escalated their weaponry from conjured creatures to a rain of fire, huge boulders, tornado-like winds—and still each stood up to whatever the other hurled against him.

  Holliday began moving forward, the device in his hand, trying to use Geronimo as a shield. Finally when he was just a few feet behind the Apache he took two steps to Geronimo's left, aimed the device, and fired it.

  It didn't have the same deadly effect on Hook Nose that it had on White Eagle, but it clearly stunned him, and as he turned to concentrate on Holliday he lowered some part of his psychic guard, for Geronimo threw one last fireball at him. It exploded in his face, and an instant later Hook Nose's headless body fell to the ground.

  Geronimo turned to Holliday.

  “We seem to have made another trade, John Henry Holliday. What service can I do you in exchange for this?”

  “I don't suppose you can make my consumption go away?”

  Geronimo sho
ok his head. “It will kill you. Even my magic cannot change that.”

  “I was afraid you'd say that,” replied Holliday with a wry smile. “I have nothing else to ask of you. But I think my friend Tom has.”

  Geronimo shook his head. “He has done me no service. I will do none for him.”

  “That's not so,” said Holliday. “He invented the device that I—” But suddenly he was speaking to empty air.

  “What should we do about Hook Nose's body?” asked Buntline.

  Holliday shrugged. “Do you feel like digging a grave?”

  Buntline looked around. “They took the shovels with them.”

  “When we get to town I'll pay someone to come out and bury him,” said Edison.

  “Do Indians get buried?” asked Buntline.

  “Unless someone claims him in the next couple of hours,” said Edison, “this one will.”

  Holliday walked over to Charlotte's grave and looked at the headstone.

  Charlotte Branson

  ?—1882

  A true friend

  Who might have been more

  He stood there in silence for a minute, then walked to the buckboard.

  “Ready to go back to town?” he asked.

  Edison and Buntline nodded their assent, and ten minutes later he was packing his bags in the Grand Hotel, preparing to go back to Leadville, make his peace with Kate Elder, and face the slow, painful death that awaited him.

  E

  DISON AND BUNTLINE had gone to Tombstone to retrieve some devices they'd been working on, and Holliday sat alone in the stagecoach as it made its way north from Lincoln. He'd brought along a flat board, placed it on his lap, pulled his cards out of his coat pocket, and began playing solitaire. It helped him pass the time and ignore the myriad of bumps in the road, and finally, after three hours, the coach came to a stop. “What's the matter?” Holliday called up to the driver.

  “Changing horses,” was the answer. “Stretch your legs, have a drink, visit the privy, whatever takes your fancy. We'll leave again in half an hour.”

  Holliday climbed down from the coach and went into the station. He walked up to the bar and ordered a beer, which was as close as he was willing to get to water to clear the dust out of his throat.

  “Welcome back, Doc,” said the bartender. “How'd things go for you down in Lincoln?”

  “Pretty much as expected,” answered Holliday noncommittally.

  “And that lovely lady who was traveling with you?” continued the bartender. “I guess she's staying there?”

  Holliday nodded his head. “She's staying there.”

  Holliday finished his beer, wiped his mouth with a sleeve, and went out back to visit the outhouse. As he was emerging a moment later, he became aware that he was no longer alone.

  “I thought we were done with each other,” he said.

  “That was before I was aware of what your friend Edison had invented,” said Geronimo. “You could have used it on me, but chose not to.”

  “I don't kill honorable men,” replied Holliday. “At least, I try not to.”

  “You told me in the White Eyes' burial ground that you had nothing to ask of me.”

  “That's still true.”

  “But I have thought long and hard,” said Geronimo, “and I have something to offer.”

  “What?”

  “Exactly what your friend was sent here to wrest away from my people.”

  “Good!” said Holliday. “I'll tell you him said so.”

  Geronimo shook his head. “No.”

  Holliday frowned. “Then I don't understand.”

  “There is only one member of your race I will treat with.”

  “President Arthur?”

  “No.”

  “Then who?”

  “You do not know this man,” said Geronimo. “But you will. He is a young man, younger than you, and he will not cross the Mississippi for another year. But he has greatness within him, and when he does cross the river, I will treat with him.”

  “If I don't know him, how can I set up a meeting?” asked Holliday.

  “You and he have a mutual friend who will arrange the meeting when the time comes,” said Geronimo. Suddenly he smiled. “The friend is he whom I turned into a bat last year.”

  “Bat Masterson?” said Holliday. “And what is the name of the man you want to meet?”

  But there was no answer, for Geronimo had vanished upon the winds that swept across the prairie.

  T

  HERE HAS BEEN QUITE A LOT written about Doc Holliday, Billy the Kid, Geronimo, Pat Garrett, and the so-called Wild West. Surprisingly, a large amount takes place in an alternate reality in which (hard as this is to believe) the United States did not stop at the Mississippi River, but crossed the continent from one ocean to the other. For those of you who are interested in this “alternate history,” here is a reference list of some of the more interesting books:

  Alexander B. Adams, Geronimo: A Biography, Da Capo Press (1990)

  Stephen Melvil Barrett and Frederick W. Turner, Geronimo: His Own Story, New York: Penguin (1996)

  Bob Boze Bell, The Illustrated Life and Times of Doc Holliday, Tri Star-Boze (1995)

  Glenn G. Boyer, Who Was Big Nose Kate? Glenn G. Boyer (1997)

  William M. Breakenridge, Helldorado: Bringing the Law to the Mesquite, Houghton Mifflin (1928)

  Walter Noble Burns, The Saga of Billy the Kid, New York: Konecky & Konecky Associates (1953)

  E. Richard Churchill, Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, & Wyatt Earp: Their Colorado Careers, Western Reflections (2001)

  Pat F. Garrett, The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, University of Oklahoma Press (1882)

  Pat Jahns, The Frontier World of Doc Holliday, Hastings House (1957)

  W. C. Jameson and Frederic Bean, The Return of the Outlaw Billy the Kid, Plano: Republic of Texas Press (1998)

  Jim Johnson, Billy the Kid: His Real Name Was…, Outskirts Press (2006)

  Sylvia D. Lynch, Aristocracy's Outlaw: The Doc Holliday Story, Iris Press (1994)

  Paula Mitchell Marks, And Die in the West: The Story of the O.K. Corral Gunfight, William Morrow (1989)

  John Myers Myers, Doc Holliday, Little, Brown (1955)

  Frederick Nolan, The West of Billy the Kid, University of Oklahoma Press (1998)

  —, The Lincoln County War, Revised Edition, Sunstone Press (2009)

  Fred E. Pond, Life and Adventures of Ned Buntline, The Camdus Book Shop (1919)

  Philip J. Rasch, Trailing Billy the Kid, Western Publications (1995).

  Gary Roberts, Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend, John Wiley & Sons (2006)

  Karen Holliday Tanner, Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait, University of Oklahoma Press (1998)

  Paul Trachman, The Old West: The Gunfighters, Time-Life Books (1974)

  Ben T. Traywick, John Henry: The Doc Holliday Story, Red Marie's (1996)

  —, Tomstone's Deadliest Gun: John Henry Holliday, Red Marie's (1984)

  John Tuska, Billy the Kid, A Handbook, University of Nebraska Press (1983)

  Robert M. Utley, High Noon In Lincoln, University of New Mexico Press (1987)

  —, Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life, University of Nebraska Press (1989)

  Michael Wallis, Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride, W. W. Norton (2007)

  I

  N THAT “ALTERNATE HISTORY” in which the United States extended all the way to the Pacific, there are also a number of films made about the principals in this book, and a number of very popular actors portrayed them. Here's a list of them: SOME MOVIE DOC HOLLIDAYS:

  Victor Mature

  Kirk Douglas

  Jason Robards Jr.

  Stacy Keach

  Dennis Quaid

  Val Kilmer

  Randy Quaid

  SOME MOVIE BILLY THE KIDS:

  Johnny Mack Brown

  Roy Rogers

  Robert Taylor

  Audie Murphy

  Paul Newman

  Michael J.
Pollard

  Kris Kristopherson

  Val Kilmer

  Emilio Estevez (twice)

  SOME MOVIE THOMAS ALVA EDISONS:

  Spencer Tracy

  Mickey Rooney

  SOME MOVIE NED BUNTLINES:

  Lloyd Corrigan

  Thomas Mitchell

  SOME MOVIE GERONIMOS:

  Chuck Connors

  Wes Studi

  Jay Silverheels (four times)

  Monte Blue

  SOME MOVIE PAT GARRETTS

  Wallace Beery

  Thomas Mitchell

  Monte Hale

  John Dehner

  Rod Cameron (twice)

  James Coburn

  Patrick Wayne

  William Petersen

  T

  HIS IS A “WHO'S WHO” of the book's participants in that fictional alternate reality where the United States extended to the West Coast. DOC HOLLIDAY

  He was born John Henry Holliday in 1851, and grew up in Georgia. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was fourteen, and that is almost certainly where he contracted the disease. He was college-educated, with a minor in the classics, and became a licensed dentist. Because of his disease, he went out West to dryer climates. The disease cost him most of his clientele, so he supplemented his dental income by gambling, and he defended his winnings in the untamed cities of the West by becoming a gunslinger as well.

  He saved Wyatt Earp when the latter was surrounded by gunmen in Dodge City, and the two became close friends. Somewhere along the way he met and had a stormy on-and-off relationship with Big-Nose Kate Elder. He was involved in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and is generally considered to have delivered the fatal shots to both Tom and Frank McLaury. He rode with Wyatt Earp on the latter's vendetta against the Cowboys after the shootings of Virgil and Morgan Earp, then moved to Colorado. He died, in bed, of tuberculosis, in 1887. His last words were: “Well, I'll be damned—this is funny.” No accurate records were kept in the case of most shootists; depending on which historians you believe, Doc killed anywhere from two to twenty-seven men.