The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday

by David Corbett

  He pulled up a chair across from her and sat. “None of this was supposed to happen.”

  Her breath was even, but shallow. “Well, isn’t that a comfort.”

  “You can’t imagine I wanted it this way.”

  “Imagine? No. No. Not at all.”

  “Meredith—”

  “If only that were the point.”

  She turned toward him finally—her dull eyes, like wells pumped dry of caring.

  He said, “They want to know where the keys are. For the cars. Out there in the garage.”

  She reached one-handed for her loosely knotted hair, began absently braiding it again. “Yes, but everyone wants everything. All the time. Don’t you find that to be true?”

  “I said it already—”

  “Assuming for just a moment we could get beyond this.” She gestured to the four dead men, like they were statuary, an exhibit. The Museum of Unwanted Consequences. “Suppose we could forget it all, pretend it never happened, run away, whatever…”

  The drift of her voice into silence conveyed the chasm between this and that. “We won’t get another chance,” Tuck said.

  She waved that away. “Here’s a thought. Maybe you can just make this all un-happen.”

  “Meredith, please, listen to—”

  “Bringing back the dead these days? I imagine that brings a pretty penny. Even better than forging the occasional masterpiece. Which is, admittedly, in its own way, conjuring the dead, no?”

  He leaned forward over the table, lowering his voice. “You’re right. I can’t make any of this go away. But one of those marines took a knife in the neck, he most likely won’t make it neither. Let’s not forget that. But your boy there, he gets a free pass?”

  “He was trying to protect me.”

  “Or himself. Or maybe he was just plain stupid, who knows?”

  “No.” She shook her head absently.

  “What about those men out at the gate, or the ones up there on the ridge? Think they don’t want us dead? Think that’s to protect you?”

  He reached a hand across the table, opening it for her to take.

  “Not one single person on this earth, not one, can ever, will ever—”

  “Don’t say it.” Pinning him with her glassy stare. “Not now. Not after all—”

  The sound of someone clearing his throat: Rags, in the doorway, with his unnerving, disfigured face. He held a pistol in his hand.

  ***

  “We’re running out of time,” Rags said, doing his best to contain his impatience. Take a look at these two, he thought. “The cars you got parked out in that garage, we need the keys.”

  The woman, Meredith, glanced his direction only briefly, then turned back toward the room. “Given the issue with my eyesight,” she said with that air of backwater aristocracy, “my husband denies me the privilege of driving. Call it a condition of my confinement. So whatever cars are there and wherever the keys are kept—”

  “You know where they are. Get them.”

  She turned to face him. “Or else what—you’ll shoot me? Don’t be tedious. We’ve been through this.”

  And that, Rags thought, takes care of that.

  He strode forward, grabbed Tuck by the hair, slammed his face hard against the tabletop, then pressed the pistol’s barrel against his neck. “Tell ya what—how about I shoot him instead?”

  She studied Tuck with a dispassionate expression. He struggled, though not all that aggressively—clenched teeth, a breathy grimace, eyes clenched shut.

  After what seemed like far too long a pause, she murmured, “That would be redundant. He died a long time ago.”

  Rags took note of her eyes, like staring into a dark room. He let go of Tuck, came around the table in three quick steps, fought through the crazy batting of her hands and windmill arms then gripped that knot of loosely braided hair, dragged her up and out of her seat, forced her to her knees directly on top of the nearest body.

  “You wanna talk about dead? Seth’s his name, have I got that right?” He shoved her head down, drove her face into the lifeless neck. “Well, let’s get a good look. Don’t be shy. Believe me, you get used to it. And here’s a little secret—he’s gonna stick with you. Don’t worry. He’s gonna be right there with you till the goddamn end.”

  “Rags, whoa.” Tuck stepped forward, hands held up. “Like you said, she’s not well, there’s no—”

  The barrel of the pistol swung up and leveled, a bead on Tuck’s breastbone, though for an instant what Rags saw was a black cloak and turban—a Taliban elder, the man shoveling dirt into a deep narrow hole, the hole containing a weeping girl, a girl who would get stoned to death for hiding a book she’d hoped, one day, to learn how to read.

  In revenge there is life.

  The Rankin woman’s arm flailed vaguely toward the vestibule, she was saying something, but the words were muffled, her mouth pressed hard against the dead kid’s flesh.

  Rags turned to glance over his shoulder in the general direction of her gesture, then let go and stumbled to his feet. Pushing past Tuck, he went out into the entryway, the marble-top table beneath the mirror, pulled open the drawer—lo and behold, several sets of leather-bobbed keys.

  Honestly—how hard was that?

  “We still gotta wait till dark,” Chalky said, sitting on the floor, Wander’s head tucked into his shoulder. “Only way we can make it all the way to that garage, unless you wanna offer them a decoy, sacrificial victim—know what I’m saying?”

  Yeah, Rags thought. I do.

  “Give them Queen Crazy in there.” Rayella’s two cents, reading his mind. She was sitting on the floor as well, across from Chalky and Wander, a stranglehold on that satchel of letters.

  Rags mopped the sweat from his face. “Given what she said on the phone, first to the guys out front, then to the lawyers, the judge, her old man, I think she’s pretty much worthless as a hostage.”

  “Yeah.” Rayella again—just like that, deflated. “Wack-job wife, who cares?”

  Rags glanced toward the dining room, wondering if even Tuck had given up on the woman. “Regardless, you’re right. Sit tight till dark. That’s our only chance.”

  “They’re making a move,” BBK said. He was crouching near the front, peering through a bullet hole in the frosted glass window. Reaching up for the knob, he eased the door open just a crack, then slid out onto the front porch. From a prone position, he waited, aimed, fired three stuttered bursts on full auto—the chugging roar of his weapon, ejected brass chiming as it hit the porch.

  He scrambled back inside. “Using the trees along the drive for cover.” He dislodged his clip, put it aside for reload, pounded a second against the floor to clear any jams, whomped it home. No expression, half-mast eyes. Face etched with the cat-claw scars from the sniper’s near miss earlier. “Got one for sure, maybe two, trying to inch in closer. Now they know—we ain’t the only ones pinned down.”

  ***

  That’s how the stalemate remained through sunset, twilight. Up on the ridge, as darkness fell, someone built a series of fires along the bluff, and Rags had to give whoever it was credit. Was it just one man up there? Several? A dozen? No way to tell.

  Chalky had switched places with BBK at that point, and so he was lying there using the Indian laurels for cover, siting through his scope, as the fires got lit.

  For a long, voluptuous second a clear shot presented itself—he caught the man’s silhouette brought into focus by the sudden eruption of flame. He took his time, pretty sure of the distance, clicking the sight’s turret as he adjusted the reticle to compensate, as best he could, for the crosscut winds.

  Hard to tell how close he got—not cocky enough to claim a hit—but it drove that man and any others with him away from the edge, which was all the advantage they could hope for.

  A short time later, he and BBK exchanged places again, and resuming his position beneath the front porch bedsheet, Chalky traded out the Schmidt Bender for his night vision sco
pe, then settled in to take out anything that moved in the dark out near the gate.

  Rags with Rayella’s help had taken over caring for Wander, whose drifts into unconsciousness seemed to be accelerating. He needed to be reliably alert before they could risk a run to the garage. If they had to drag him, that simple element of delay could prove lethal. Not just for Wander.

  As it turned out, the delay already in-hand proved costly enough. The reinforcements he’d feared would likely come showed up about a half hour after nightfall—a Mercedes sedan and a Chevy Suburban. Not the law, interestingly. It seemed the law wanted no part of this fight. Maybe they’d been warned off, given the judge’s influence. Maybe they were out there already—street clothes, civilian capacity, rogue-cop-gone-minuteman.

  Rags had already ordered all the lights inside turned off, so the house sat utterly dark. He scrambled out onto the porch, took up position behind the pillar opposite Chalky, and donned his NVGs. Waiting for the headlights at the end of the drive to go out, he focused on movement, saw a figure—smaller, long-haired, dressed in a skirt—getting dragged from the back of the SUV.

  “They’ve got Rayella’s lawyer, looks like.”

  Chalky, siting her in his scope, replied, “That change anything?”

  Rags saw another of the newcomers dig something out of his breast pocket, press it to his ear. “Guess that remains to be seen.”

  The phone in the vestibule rang—once, twice. “Suppose I should get that,” Rags said.

  He scrambled back inside, checked briefly on Wander who offered an eye-swimming thumbs up, then grabbed the phone off its table and put the receiver to his ear, lying on the marble floor since he feared presenting a target if he stood.

  Before he could get out a word, the voice on the other end said curtly, “Meredith?”

  Rags glanced toward the living room. He’d duct-taped the woman to a chair, sparing her the indignity of a gag once she seemed agreeable to behaving. Tuck sat nearby. Judging from their expressions, the romance had taken a southerly turn.

  “Lady of the house is occupied. You deal with me.”

  “And who the hell are you?”

  Interesting, Rags thought. He didn’t ask if she was safe. Or even alive. “I’m the Killer of Christmas Present, Scrooge. Sorry it took me so long to get here. Better late than, you know.”

  “There’s no way out—you realize that, right?”

  “I know nothing of the kind. Here’s what I do know—we’re much better at this than your boys are. Count the bodies on the ground, Scrooge. That’s not all of them, trust me.”

  “You’re outnumbered—”

  “Says who? You’ve got no idea how many of us are here. Besides, point is we’re not outmanned. That’s the difference. I’ll put mine against yours any day of the week, screw the numbers. Now, you want to put something on the table, start talking. Otherwise, I’m hanging up, and we move on to Phase Two.”

  “You’ll never—”

  His voice broke off, then came a garbled scramble of voices until Chalky said, “The lawyer broke free. She’s walking toward us. I’ve got a clear shot.”

  “Not her. She’s the bait. Nail anybody tries to grab her though.”

  Chalky obliged, driving back the one man foolish enough to expose himself. Another round for good measure, shattering a windshield. Drive the point home: leave her be.

  Through his NVGs Rags could make out in the distance the blurred, vaguely feminine shape. She cringed with each whistling miss, but didn’t fall to her knees or scramble back for cover. Instead, she just kept totter-stepping forward across the driveway stones. Good for you, he thought. At least somebody out there’s got some honest-to-God spine.

  A moment later, he caught the sound of an engine starting up, revving out at the gate. Shortly the thing lurched forward—headlights dark, but from the general shape and outline he could tell it was huge—a long-bed, four-door, Mega-Cab SUV, six-wheeler, meant to pull an Airstream trailer up mountains. The gunmen rushed to fall in behind, like infantry using a tank for cover.

  “Gimme a go on the driver,” Chalky said.

  “No. Windshield’s tinted, Christ, could be bulletproof. Don’t waste the shot. But tell you what—from what I can tell, there’s a big ol’ lumpy tarp in that truck bed, and I’ll bet you anything those lumps are humps.”

  No sooner were the words out than Rags started to laugh—a sudden tickle of insight. Fresh hope. The plan came to him just like that, the tumblers of its mad logic slipping into place.

  “They’re doing us a favor, Chalkers. That’s our ride outta here.”

  CHAPTER 45

  Lisa heard tires crunching gravel behind her as she reached the first bend in the tree-lined drive. No headlights—the huge rumbling vehicle fell in behind like a massive hearse, matching her pace as she walked.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she saw maybe ten huddled shapes scrambling forward to use the big truck as cover, positioning themselves so it shielded them from the gunman at the house.

  Littmann was presumably among them—or maybe he called out Shotgun! and scrambled into the passenger seat, the dick.

  Either way, look at me. I get to lead the parade.

  She resumed moving forward, one shoe in each hand, the raking wind making chaos of her hair, blinding her from time to time as one strand or another whiplashed across her face. What in the world did she hope to accomplish? Nothing, really, or something she couldn’t quite place as yet. For now, just another step, another after that. Let the killers work out their own differences.

  A voice from behind, only recognizable as Littmann’s after a moment: “Once you get close enough, tell them: Put down their weapons. Otherwise, no deal.”

  Lisa wanted to laugh. There’s a deal?

  ***

  Inside the house, Rayella and the marines smeared on nightblack—even BBK, because skin is skin and light makes it shine—coating their faces, necks, throats, hands, then wiping their tarry fingertips on their pants, their shirtsleeves. Once he had his own skin darkened, Chalky bent down to work on Wander, who perked up a bit with this new round of prep, readying himself with his squaddies—his eyes clearing a little, that mercurial grin.

  Catching a glimpse of himself in the entryway mirror, Rags noticed that the heavy streaks of black grease had all but obscured his disfigurement, and for just a moment, eyes bright white in the darkened face, he thought he detected his former self.

  After the war paint, those not already wearing a Kevlar vest strapped one on—Wander, in a semi-conscious fog of chivalrous deference to the lady (who, after all, unlike him, could stand and fight), surrendered his to Rayella.

  Next, they loaded their magazines with the rounds they had left—would that be enough? If all went well, Rags supposed, a possibility lying somewhere between dream and myth. Left unsaid, because every man already knew: Make every shot matter.

  As they were wrapping up, Tuck ventured in from the living room. Rags glanced up, then the others.

  “I understand how you folks feel about me,” Tuck said. “Can’t say as I blame you. But there’s only two sides in this fight, and I’m sure as hell not on theirs.” He nodded to convey what lay outside. “You don’t put me to use, you’re doing yourself no favors. You’re short a man, looks like. Well, I ain’t no stranger to a firearm. Hunted from the time I was five. And given all I been through, working rodeo to federal stir, I don’t scare easy.”

  Rags glanced at Chalky and BBK, who offered no objection. Even Rayella could only shrug—after all, she’d seen him in action that morning at the gate.

  By way of answer, Rags held out the tin of nightblack.

  Tuck just shook his head. “Let me stand out, present a clear target. After all, if Littmann wants anybody dead, it’s me.”

  Rags remembered what the woman said: He died a long time ago. “I’m not a big believer in walking targets,” he said. “Suicide mission’s just an ass-backward kind of surrender. I’m gonna need you to fight.”


  “Trust me, I’m all about the fight. Had my shot at killing myself a long, long time ago. Every day since been borrowed time.” He seemed to get lost in some private stream of thought, then chuckled. “Suicide mission. Christ. Life in a nutshell.”

  Rags said, “We need to hurry.”

  Tuck nodded. “Time comes, you let me draw their fire. A man can withstand a gunshot or two, vest or no. Besides, don’t forget, I rode some mean bulls. Got what’s known as a high tolerance for pain.”

  ***

  Chalky and BBK slipped out on opposite sides of the house, stealing into the thick desert darkness, each man jogging in a crouch along a shallow arc through scattered scrub, one left, one right, hoping to outflank the incoming group.

  Rayella still had the pistol Tuck had given her that morning and held it in her lap atop the parcel of letters as she sat with Wander, clutching his strangely cold, feverish hand, watching his chest saw in and out with each rattling breath. Her job: not one stranger gets through the door. No matter what else is happening outside. Not even if he’s wearing a badge.

  Rags gave the Benelli to Tuck. “Just like any other shotgun, same range and kick, except it’s semi-auto, no need to pump—you’ve got nine in the extended mag, one in the chamber, if the fight’s still on after that—and God help us if it is—find cover and reload if you can.” He handed him a box of shells. “Otherwise, turn to your pistol.”

  For himself, Rags took Wander’s M4, standard weapon back in the ’Stan—the dink little brother you love to hate—set it on single-fire, to preserve his rounds, thinking: a marine and his rifle. No better fighting machine in the world.

  He waved Tuck forward, opposite side of the door, then on a silent three-count threw it open. They scrambled out onto the porch and dove behind the pillars as the strange procession of killers, the barefoot lady lawyer out in front, made the final turn toward the house, flanked by the well-spaced cottonwoods, sycamores. As the big SUV pulled within five yards of the broad concrete slab abutting the porch, Rags whistled softly to Rayella.