The Sunset Trail

by Alfred Henry Lewis

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE WORRIES OF MR. HOLIDAY

  It was growing dark in California Gulch. Red Jack, the barkeeper of theFour Flush saloon, began to light up one by one the kerosene lamps, sothat the Four Flush might be made resplendent against the advent of itsevening customers. Just then the customers were at flap-jacks and bacon,for it was supper time in California Gulch. Having rendered the FourFlush a blaze of expectant glory, Red Jack took a rag and mopped thebar, already painfully clean. Then he shifted the two six-shooters,which were part of the concealed furniture of the bar, so that vagrantdrops from careless glasses might not bespatter them.

  Commonly, Red Jack consoled himself by whistling the "Mocking Bird," atthis hour, when the stones of the Four Flush were grinding low. On thisparticular evening he was mute. Also his glance, when now and then hecast it upon Mr. Masterson and Mr. Holiday, who were engaged inwhispered converse over a monte table just across the room, showed fullof decorous interest.

  Not that Red Jack objected to Mr. Masterson and Mr. Holiday holding aconference on the premises. It was plain by the respectful softness ofhis eye that he dwelt in sympathy therewith, and was only restrainedfrom making a third for the pow-wow by an experience which taught himnever to volunteer advice or put a question. Patronage and curiosity arecrimes in the West, and ones sophisticated will not risk theircommissions.

  However, Red Jack might, without violating the canons of his tribe andregion, relieve himself with one act of amiable politeness. While hecould not have a share in the talk between Mr. Masterson and Mr.Holiday, wanting an invitation to join them therein, he was free toprovide the inspiration. Wherefore Red Jack brought a bottle and twoglasses, and set them between Mr. Masterson and Mr. Holiday. Having thusmade himself one with them in spirit, Red Jack left the pair tothemselves, and made the rounds of the lamps to turn down ones which ina primary exuberance had begun to smoke.

  "It's tough lines, Bat," said Mr. Holiday, as he poured himself a drink."I've never done anything worse than down a man, always a warrior atthat, and now to have to rustle a party, even when it isn't on thelevel, comes plenty hard."

  "But it's the one thing to do, Doc," returned Mr. Masterson. Mr. Holidayhad been a dentist in his native Georgia, and his intimates called himDoc. "It's the only trail," reiterated Mr. Masterson. "The message saysthat they start to-day from Tucson. They'll be in Denver day afterto-morrow. The only way to beat them is to have you under arrest. OurGovernor won't give up a man to Arizona who's wanted here at home. Thosereward-hungry sports from Tucson will get turned down, and meanwhile youwill be on bail. That Arizona outfit can never take you away while acharge is pending against you in Colorado. You'll be safe for life."

  "That wouldn't be for long," returned Mr. Holiday, "at the rate my lungsare losing."

  Mr. Holiday was in the grasp of consumption, as one might tell by thesunken chest and hollow eye, even without the cough which was never longin coming. It was this malady of the lungs which had brought him West inthe beginning.

  "On the whole," objected Mr. Holiday, following a moment of thought,"why not go back to Arizona and be tried? It's four to one they couldn'tconvict; and I've gone against worse odds than that every day since Iwas born."

  "Man!" expostulated Mr. Masterson, "it would never come to trial. Youwouldn't get as far as Albuquerque. Some of the band would board thetrain and shoot you in the car-seat--kill you, as one might say, on thenest! It isn't as though you were to have a square deal. They'd get youon the train: get you with your guns off, too, for you'd be underarrest. Doc, you wouldn't last as long as a pint of whiskey at abarn-raising."

  Mr. Masterson spoke with earnestness. His brow was wise and wide, hiscool eye the home of counsel. It was these traits of a cautiousintelligence that had given him station among his fellows as much as anywizard accuracy which belonged with his six-shooters.

  "What is your plan, then?" said Mr. Holiday.

  "You see the Off Wheeler over yonder?" Mr. Masterson pointed to adrunken innocent who was sunk in slumber in a far corner of the saloon.The Off Wheeler having no supper to eat, was taking it out in sleep."You go to the edge of the camp," continued Mr. Masterson. "When you'vehad time to place yourself, I'll wake up the Off Wheeler and tell him totake my watch to the Belle Union. You stand him up and get it. Then I'llhave him before the alcalde to swear out a warrant. You see, it will beon the square as far as the Off Wheeler is concerned. At the same time,because we don't mean it, it won't be robbery; you can console yourselfwith that. It'll be a bar to those reward hunters from Tucson, however,with their infernal requisition papers. They ought to be calledassassination, not requisition, papers, for that is what it would cometo if they took you from here. Now, do as I tell you, Doc; your friendswill understand."

  Mr. Holiday pulled his sombrero over his forehead and went out. Tenminutes later Mr. Masterson aroused the Off Wheeler by the genialexpedient of holding a glass of whiskey beneath his sleeping nose. TheOff Wheeler, under this treatment, revived, with all his feeblefaculties, and drank the same. Then he turned a vacant look on Mr.Masterson.

  "Take my watch to the Belle Union," observed Mr. Masterson, giving theOff Wheeler the timepiece. "Give it to Dick Darnell and tell him to takecare of it. I'm going to play poker to-night, and if I keep it with meit'll work its way into a jack-pot and get lost. I go crazy when I'mplaying poker, and will bet the clothes off my back."

  The Off Wheeler was pleased with this speech; the more since it smackedof a friendly confidence on the part of Mr. Masterson. To be on eventerms with the most eminent personage in camp flattered the Off Wheeler.He departed on Mr. Masterson's errand, Mr. Masterson having firstenlivened his heels with a five-dollar bill.

  In twenty minutes the Off Wheeler was back in the Four Flush, and aswell as he might for the chattering terrors of his teeth telling Mr.Masterson how Mr. Holiday had held him up at the street corner with onehand, and confiscated the watch with the other.

  "He didn't even pull a gun!" wailed the Off Wheeler. "I wouldn't feel itso much if he had. But to be stood up, an' no gun-play, makes it looklike he was tryin' to insult me."

  "All right," returned Mr. Masterson, preserving a grave face, "you get adrink, and then we'll have out a warrant for that bandit's arrest. We'llshow him that he can't go through the quietest gent in California Gulchand get away unpunished."

  "You don't reckon now," observed the Off Wheeler faintly, "that Mr.Holiday would turn in an' blow the top off my head, if I swore ag'insthim, do you?"

  "I'll attend to that," said Mr. Masterson; "I'll see that he doesn'tharm you."

  Then the Off Wheeler was brave and comforted; for who did not know theword of Mr. Masterson?

  "It's all right, judge," said Mr. Masterson.

  The magistrate, with his sleeves rolled up from a hard day's work in hisshaft, had been brought from supper to make out the affidavit. When heunderstood for whom it was designed he hesitated in a mystified way.

  "It's all right," repeated Mr. Masterson. "Let the Off Wheeler swear tothe papers; I'll take the responsibility. And, by the way, you mightbetter authorise me to execute the warrant."

  Thus it befell that Mr. Holiday was presently brought in by Mr.Masterson on a charge of robbing, with force and arms, one CharlesStackhouse alias the Off Wheeler. The bail was fixed, and half the menin California Gulch went on the bond. When these technicalities werecomplied with, Mr. Masterson, glancing at the very watch of which theOff Wheeler had been depleted, said:

  "Doc, it's eight o'clock. We've got to get back to the Four Flush. Youknow we're to have a game there at eight-thirty."

  Mr. Holiday, six years before, had left Georgia for the West. He broughtwith him a six-shooter, a dentist's diploma, a knowledge of cards, and ahacking cough. When story-tellers mean to kill a character off withoutgiving him a chance, they confer upon him a hacking cough. It was true,however, in the case of Mr. Holiday; a hacking cough he had, andwhenever it seized him it was as though one smote against his breastbonewith the bit o
f an axe.

  In the West Mr. Holiday's diploma would do him little good. There livesno more of Western call for a dentist than for one who paints flowersupon silks. Wherefore, and because Mr. Holiday must dine and drink untilhe died of that consumption, he took to cards.

  Now, cards make up a commerce wherein the West confesses an interest.Mr. Holiday became a busy man, and encountered fortune, black and white;but he never complained until one Dallas evening, when a gentleman saidthat he held six cards. The game was draw poker, and a hand consistingof six cards would have been an inexcusable vulgarity.

  There was no long-drawn discussion. The gentleman who had mentioned thesix cards cut off debate with a Colt's pistol. Mr. Holiday met thesituation half way, and Dallas buried a foremost citizen.

  Dallas blamed no one.

  "They broke even as to guns," said Dallas, "and Joe lost."

  "Let Charlie Swear to the Papers."]

  From Dallas Mr. Holiday travelled into the Panhandle. Perhaps his brokenhealth made him irritable, or possibly he was over-sensitive. Whateverthe argument, when a rude spirit, a rider for the Frying Pan ranch, whomhe met in Tascosa, spoke of Mr. Holiday as one who ought to have beenclerking in a store, he promptly hived him with a bullet through hisheart. This was when Mr. Willingham flourished as Sheriff for thePanhandle; but as that officer was over towards Goodnight's at the time,no fault should attach to him. Panhandle sentiment, as had that ofDallas, justified Mr. Holiday; his critic had his guns on when heperished, and that is, or should be, sufficient wherever justice holdsthe scales.

  From the Panhandle Mr. Holiday migrated to Denver. No one packs a gun inDenver, at least no gun big enough to win the respect of Mr. Holiday.Yielding to the jealousy of Denver touching pistols, our dying one fromGeorgia put his irons aside. He felt lonesome without them, a feelingthat grew into disgust when a rough, having advantage of his weakcondition, heaped contumely on his head, Mr. Holiday sighed as he drew aknife--it was carried somewhere between his shoulders--and altered theappearance of the insolent one to such a degree that he was as astranger to his friends.

  It was six months later when Mr. Holiday next claimed attention bylistlessly emptying his pistol into the head of a gentleman who had laidunlawful claim to a stack of his chips. They were reposing, coppered, inwhat faro gamesters term the Big Square.

  This homicide, which occurred in Las Vegas, also found popularendorsement. The illicit action of departed had placed him beyond thepale. There is no love in the West for rash or wicked ones who illegallycovet their neighbour's chips. The episode bore somewhat upon Mr.Holiday, however, who had an imagination edged by books. He was heard tomourn a trifle.

  "I don't see what's the matter with my luck," said Mr. Holiday, as hearranged with an undertaker on the Plaza for the obsequies. Mr. Holidaywas too well bred to leave a burden upon the community, and even hisenemies admitted that he never failed to make a proper clean-up andalways buried his dead. "I don't see what's the matter with my luck,"repeated Mr. Holiday, "but it looks as though I had more of this sort ofthing sawed off on me than any invalid in the Territory."

  "That's what!" replied the undertaker, sympathetically. His sympathy inno wise dimmed the brilliancy of his bill, which document did him proud.

  Following that Las Vegas difference, Mr. Holiday withdrew to Tombstone.It is best for a gentleman, when he has filled a grave with one otherthan himself, to seek new theatres of effort. In Tombstone, foremost inthe social and business swirl of the camp, Mr. Holiday became acquaintedwith the brothers Earp. Said brothers, being respectively Virgil, Wyattand Morgan, were all splendid shots and sterling folk of standing,character and force. The brothers Earp and Mr. Holiday became friends atsight. It was as though a fourth had been born into the Earp family.

  The East, supercilious and white of shirt, should avoid a narrow view ofWestern men and manners. The East should not measure up the West byEastern standards. While the West pays its faithful interest, and doesnot borrow more than one-fifth of the security, the East should restcontent. The one is a banker, the other a warrior; one employs interest,the other uses a gun; both kill.

  Virgil Earp was marshal of Tombstone. It was a post not wanting invicissitudes, and Virgil Earp's arm had been crippled and made as naughtby a shotgun in the hands of an illwisher. But it was his left arm; hisright, with the hand that appertained, was all that one might ask. Whatmore should a Western marshal require than a perfect pistol hand and eyeto match?

  Wyatt and Morgan Earp were in the service of the Express Company. Theywent often as guards--"riding shotgun," it was called--when the stage boreunusual treasure.

  Over in the San Simon Valley lived a covey of cattle people, with CurlyBill at its head. The cow business is a lazy trade. It leaves plenty ofidle time in the hands of ones who follow it. Those of the San Simonwere by nature bubbling springs of industry. Since the cattle trade didnot employ their whole energy, they oft repaired to a nearby trail andstopped the Tombstone stage.

  There came an occasion when Curly Bill could not go with the expedition,and that was unfortunate. He was obliged to entrust the enterprise tosubordinates, who bungled the affair. They shot the stage driver whenthey should have shot a wheeler. The reins fell from the driver's deadhands; the fear-maddened team ran away and carried one hundred thousanddollars in gold from beneath the larcenous palms of the hold-ups. Intheir wrath the road agents sent a volley after the rocking, reeling,disappearing coach. It snuffed out a tourist who was riding outside.

  Four days went by, and a quartette of the San Simon people, being theMcLowrie brothers, Frank and John, and the Clanton brothers, Billy andIke, came into Tombstone to spy out how much was known or guessed ofthose desperately poor workmen who had so let the stage job fallthrough. The investigators discovered that more was known than stoodbest for their health. They lost no time in deciding to ride back to theSan Simon.

  Virgil Earp had made a different plan. The San Simon, as a region, wouldnot suffer in its respectability were it never again to see a Clanton ora McLowrie. With a purpose to detain the San Simon delegation, VirgilEarp assembled his kinsmen, Wyatt and Morgan. To be polite, Virgilinvited Mr. Holiday, then but a week in Tombstone, to have his smokypart in the coming war. He might act with the Earp household in thatproposed round-up of the road agents.

  Virgil Earp did this in a spirit of politeness. It is Western mannerswhen you have a fight to make--one that is commodious and in which thereis room for their honourable accommodation--to invite your friends. Thisyou may do to a point that brings your party even with the enemy. Youmust not, however, overtop the foe in numbers. That would be the worstof form, and fix you as coarse and low and ignorant in every refinedmind. With only a trio of the Earps, there existed in the pendingengagement a reputable vacancy, and Virgil asked Mr. Holiday to fill it.Mr. Holiday accepted. To decline such a courtesy would want a precedentand destroy one's good repute. Such action on Mr. Holiday's part wouldhave shocked the Tombstone taste, which is as silken as a spaniel's ear.

  The brothers Earp and Mr. Holiday met the San Simon outfit as thelatter, mounted for the long ride, came spurring forth of the corral.There was no time frittered in speech. The San Simon contingent jumpedfrom their saddles, each using his horse as a breastwork. The brothersEarp and Mr. Holiday had no horses to cover them. A horse makes a goodbreastwork, but a bad gun-rest.

  The gods fought on the side of the law, the stage company, the brothersEarp, and Mr. Holiday. There was a rattle of six-shooters. Two McLowriesand one Clanton fell with bullets where their thoughts should be. Thesmoke lifted, and there stood Ike Clanton begging his life.

  "Run for it, then, you coyote!" cried Wyatt Earp, and the suppliantheaved himself into the saddle and sped with the flying wind.

  "That was a mistake, Wyatt," quoth Mr. Holiday; "you should havecollected his hair." Mr. Holiday was far of sight; before a week went byevents arose to justify his comment.

  After the battle the brothers Earp and Mr. Holiday repaired to thenearest saloon and
refreshed themselves. Then the stage company'ssurgeon came and stopped up the bullet holes, whereof the four ownedseven among them. Tombstone meanwhile issued forth in a body andjoyfully planted the dead.

  Six days later, having advantage of the darkness, Ike Clanton, with Mr.Spence, Mr. Stillwell, and one Florentine, a Mexican, crept to the rearwindow of the Eureka saloon, and shot dead Morgan Earp, engaged atseven-up.

  Virgil and Wyatt placed the body of the dead Morgan in a coffin and,with Mr. Holiday to be of the mourners, carried it to Colton. At Coltonthe body would take the train for California, the home of the Earps.Virgil would go as company for the dead.

  Wyatt Earp and Mr. Holiday rode as far as Tucson. They would have goneto California with the dead Morgan, but they did not have the time. Itwas now their duty to get the scalps of the San Simon four who hadworked the destruction of Morgan. Also, to save their reputations andsecure their prey, they must move at once before the trail grew cold.

  Fortune and luck were theirs. As the train, bearing the dead Morgan,drew into Tucson, the hawk-like gray eyes of Mr. Holiday showed himMessrs. Stillwell and Clanton on the station platform. He pointed outthe red-hand ones to Wyatt Earp.

  The two swung from the train.

  The quarry separated, Mr. Clanton running craftily in and out among thecrowd, while Mr. Stillwell, with an utter dearth of war-wisdom, fledalong the lonely track. Wyatt and Mr. Holiday pursued Mr. Stillwell, andbrought him to bay near the water tank. Filling him full of lead, theyreturned, and rapped on the car-window to attract the attention ofVirgil.

  "One!" cried Wyatt, holding up a finger.

  Virgil looked up; the funeral sadness of his face for a moment gave wayto a smile. He nodded, and then the train pulled out.

  That night Wyatt Earp and Mr. Holiday turned Tucson upside down huntingfor the evanscent Mr. Clanton. He had fled and left no sign.

  "I must sleep, Wyatt," said Mr. Holiday, at last.

  One is not to forget that Mr. Holiday was an invalid, with days not onlynumbered, but few. His fatigue was excusable. That he was wearied to astandstill his yellow moustache, a-tremble with the nervous twitching ofhis lip, made proof.

  Speaking of Mr. Holiday's moustache--the colour of corn: Is it not thething strange how those gentlemen of guns and perils should have beenevery one of the gray-eyed strain? Or was it that the desperate drop inthe veins of each came from some old forgotten viking ancestor of thatyellow-haired, battle-axe breed which once foraged and fought along thecoasts of Northern Europe?

  Mr. Holiday was vastly repaired by a long night's sleep. The morningfound Mr. Holiday and Wyatt Earp in the saddle, their belts heavy withcartridges, war-bags bulging with provant. They rode out of Tucson, andtheir desperate campaign of revenge commenced. They invaded the SanSimon and blotted out the Mexican Florentine. This was slight work, likethe killing of a jack-rabbit. There should be braver game in the SanSimon.

  The San Simon ranks, however, were growing thin. Mr. Spence,fear-winged, had fled into Mexico. The surviving Mr. Clanton had madegood his flight begun that Tucson evening, and was never traced.

  Curly Bill, the San Simon chief, owned a better courage, and Wyatt Earpand Mr. Holiday found him at the Whetstone Springs. There was a battleroyal; Wyatt Earp and Mr. Holiday on the one side, with Curly Bill and acouple of his adherents on the other. Curly Bill was rubbed out, whileWyatt Earp, shaving eternity, had the cantle of his saddle torn awaywith a double handful of buckshot. The two adherents of Curly Bill,while somewhat shattered, escaped.

  "With Pete Spence in Mexico," said Wyatt Earp to Mr. Holiday, as hechanged his shattered saddle for the saddle of Curly Bill, "and IkeClanton nowhere to be found, I take it we might as well quit and call ita day."

  "There's nothing else," said Mr. Holiday.

  Mr. Holiday and Wyatt Earp rode back to Tombstone. They were in theirrooms when a word of warning reached them. That recent blazing work inTucson and in the San Simon had invoked the invidious admiration of aSheriff who was lusting for fame. He was even then below with a possebrought from afar, equipped of warrants and weapons and ready toapprehend them.

  "What do you say, Doc?" asked Wyatt Earp.

  "For myself," said Mr. Holiday, smothering a cough, "I think I shallshoot my way out. Considering the state of my lungs, it would endangermy health to be locked up."

  They sent down quiet word, and had their horses saddled and broughtaround. Then Mr. Holiday and Wyatt Earp walked into the centre of thataspiring posse. There was a giving way; no one stretched his hand tostay their going. Only the ambitious Sheriff spoke.

  "Mr. Earp," said he, sweetly, "I want to see you."

  "My friend," said Wyatt Earp, turning on the other a glance of warning,"you may see me once too often."

  Mr. Holiday and Wyatt Earp, at a road-gait, took the trail for Tucson.In the blistering heat and whiteness of the summer dust, theydisappeared; that was the last of their story in Tombstone. They didn'tsee Tucson; at a fork in the trail they halted.

  "Well, _adios_, Doc," said Wyatt Earp, extending his hand. "Write me in'Frisco how the world goes with you."

  "I will," returned Mr. Holiday. "I shall try Colorado. I must considermy health, and I prefer the climate there. _Adios!_"

  It was a year later when the Arizona Sheriff, who stood aside thatTombstone day, broke into California Gulch, and the wisdom of Mr.Masterson became for Mr. Holiday a shield of thickness.

  "Your papers," observed the Governor to him of Arizona, "are in properform, and set clearly forth the death of one Stillwell at the hands ofMr. Holiday. But Mr. Holiday is under charges here for robbery on thehighway. You cannot expect me to cheat justice of its due in Colorado,in order to send you a man whom you should never have let escape. Therequisition must be refused."

  Mr. Holiday lived on in California Gulch, sheltered by the charge of theOff Wheeler. It protected him to the end, which was not far away. Whenhis sands were running low, Mr. Masterson was by his couch.

  "You must have used up a ton of lead, Doc," observed Mr. Masterson oneafternoon, being in a mood of fine philosophy; "and, considering youryears in the West, it beats the marvellous. It would look as though yousimply shot your way out of one battle into another. How did you come todo it?"

  "It used to worry me," gasped Mr. Holiday, "to think that I must die,and, to take my mind off my troubles, I mixed up with everything thatcame along. It was the only way in which I could forget myself."

  California Gulch was present at the funeral. They buried Mr. Holidaybeneath a clump of cedars high up on the mountain side, and Red Jackdraped the Four Flush bar in mourning.

  "We're going to miss him," he remarked, with a lugubrious sigh, to Mr.Masterson, when, after the services, the latter came in for his eveningdrink. "We'll shorely miss him from our midst! An' when I think on hisc'reer, sort o' run over it hittin' the lofty places, I'm here toobserve that he was the vividest invalid, an' the busiest, with which Iever crossed up. He certainly was an in-dee-fat-ig-a-ble sick man; an'that goes!"