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Ah, I love cooking and eating real food. In protest of the dining hall's month-long policy of serving almost no decent food (everything's either entirely vegetarian, or so filled with things like broccoli, peas, and beans that I can't eat it), I made vegetable-free protest stew. For the first time in days, there's protein and iron in my bloodstream.
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pixyofthestyx and I have finished another chapter/episode of Gunslinger.
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by… no, wait, scratch that. This story is partially based on actual historical figures and events, and partially based on our own hours of twisted fantasies produced by seeing Tombstone one too many times. No money is being made and no offense is intended.
Posted By:elspethdixon and pixyofthestyx
Ships: Mentions of Virgil Earp/Allie Earp and Doc/Kate.
Warnings: This instalment of Gunslinger contains profanity, drinking, and violence. It does not contain hot sex. Sorry.
Gunslinger: Dodge City
Part Two: Once Upon a Time in the West.
“So, Wyatt, why’s that skinny gambler always following you around?” As he spoke, Bat rotated the rim of his bowler hat through his hands, inspecting it for dust. He was leaning back in the chair behind the jail’s desk, his feet resting on top of the ever-growing pile of the Conklins’ written complaints.
“He is not following me around.” One shared drink over the course of two days did not constitute ‘following someone around.’
“He came to Dodge looking for you,” Bat said. Clearly he had picked his topic of conversation for the next half-hour or so, and was unwilling to let the subject drop. He brushed at the crown of his hat, removing a speck of dust visible only to himself.
“I’m not the only interesting thing in Dodge,” Wyatt said. He straightened from the wall he had been leaning against and began pacing back and forth between the door and the desk. “He’s a gambler. Dodge has got to have better play than that little cow town in Texas.”
“He’s trouble, Wyatt,” Bat insisted. “He’s killed at least one man that we know about, probably more.”
“Well, it’s not like you can run him out of town. He hasn’t done anything here.”
“Yet. When he does, I’m blaming you.” Bat swung his feet off the desk and leaned forward to place his hat neatly beside the muddied papers. He nodded toward the jail’s one occupied cell. “Do you think Rutabaga’s ready to talk?”
“My name’s Rudabaugh,” the man in question protested. “Bastard,” he added, under his breath.
“What was that?” Bat asked cheerfully. “Wyatt, Mr. Rudabaugh here has insulted us.” He raised an eyebrow at Wyatt, inviting him to take up his end of the conversation.
Wyatt folded his arms and stared hard at Rudabaugh. “When we want your opinion, we’ll ask for it. Until then, unless there’s anything you’d like to tell us about those friends of yours, you can keep your mouth shut.”
Rudabaugh silently mouthed something that looked suspiciously like “bastard” and turned away to glare at the wall.
Wyatt returned to pacing. He was halfway between the desk and the jail door when Charles Pike, one of the bartenders at the Lady Gay saloon, came in to report a disturbance. Standard procedure amongst Dodge’s peacekeepers was that complaints would be attended to by the closest person to the door, or Morgan. There were benefits to being an older brother. Unfortunately, Morgan was off duty, so it was Wyatt who followed Pike south across the railroad tracks to Front Street—South Front Street, not North Front Street, which was on the other side of the tracks—and the Lady Gay.
Ever since Bat’s brother Ed had been shot a month ago, the lawmen had been a little uneasy about working south of the tracks—the “deadline” where the city’s no-firearms ordinance ran out. Still, a man had to earn his keep.
“So, these Texans come in and start pushing people around, acting like they own the place. People start pushing back. I just hope nobody’s drawn down on anyone else while I was gone.”
“Who started the fight?’ Wyatt asked. He could see the façade of the Lady Gay up ahead, the sound of shouting and the crash of fallen furniture echoing out the front windows.
“A Texan,” Pike said.
“Damn.” Texans liked shooting things. Wyatt started walking faster.
The first thing Wyatt noticed when he walked into the Lady Gay was Three-Fingers Jack Danver and a strange cowhand rolling around on the floor beating the living daylights out of each other. The second thing he noticed was Doc Holliday standing at the bar, calmly watching the fight in the saloon’s long glass mirror. He turned as Wyatt entered and saluted him with his shot glass.
Several of the saloon’s other patrons turned as well at Doc’s gesture, and at least one shoving match stilled instantly. The two cowhands on the floor fought on, oblivious.
Wyatt drew his gun and thumbed back the hammer, the sound going unnoticed under the noise of the scuffle. Then he pointed the barrel at the ceiling and pulled the trigger.
It worked like a charm. The brawlers froze instantly, staring up at him with wide eyes.
“Both of you,” Wyatt said, “get up and come with me.”
The two men climbed slowly to their feet, Three-Fingers Jack staring sullenly at the floor. The other one—Wyatt took him to be the Texan—began inching his hand slowly toward his pistol. As the man’s fingers began to close around the weapon’s butt, Wyatt reversed his own gun and struck the Texan over the head with it. The man let go of the gun and staggered sideways into the nearest table, knocking over a red-faced cowhand’s drink.
The red-faced cowhand let out an outraged yell and jumped to his feet, glaring at both Wyatt and the Texan. “You flea-bitten sonuvabitch, you spilled my drink!”
“Yes, he does that,” Doc said dryly. He frowned at Wyatt, and added, “Couldn’t you have turned up a few minutes later? My money was on the Texan.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Doc.” Wyatt holstered his gun, then turned to Three-Fingers Jack—who had been sidling quietly toward the door—and asked, “You going to come quietly, or do I have to hit you, too?”
Three-Fingers Jack froze, trying to look as if he hadn’t been attempting to escape, and mumbled, “Quietly.”
“Good.” Wyatt grabbed the Texan by the collar and started for the door.
“What about my beer?” the red-faced cowhand demanded.
Wyatt reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a coin, tossing it to Doc, who snatched it from the air. “Pay for his drink.”
* * *
The Long Branch saloon tried very, very hard to be sophisticated, and succeeded mainly in looking something like a well-lit bordello. Carefully polished chandeliers hung from the ceiling, keeping uneasy company with the cattle horns mounted over the bar, and on one wall, a naked woman reclined on something Doc thought just might be a flying chaise lounge. It was long, narrow, and crowded with cowhands and gamblers, save for the table Doc was occupying at the moment, which was crowded with lawmen.
Wyatt Earp and his two badge-wearing brothers had been playing cards and talking for the past hour, while Doc sat back and watched them, and won hand after hand. Virgil Earp was a fairly good poker player, but over-cautious, and Morgan was over-eager; bluffing either of them took very little effort. Wyatt, on the other hand, was an opponent worthy of serious attention, when he wasn’t being distracted by his brothers’ conversation.
“So Wyatt comes into the jail dragging this Texan by the collar,” Morgan Earp said, continuing his relation of the afternoon’s events. “And Rutabaga takes one look at him and says, ‘Marshal, Marshal, you never said he beat people,’ and starts talking. He told us absolutely everything.”
“The problem was getting him to stop,” Virgil Earp put in. Virgil, Doc had determined, was a man of few words. His younger brother, on the other hand, seemed inordinately fond of them.
“Wyatt scared the information out of him without even touching him,” Morgan went on. “Or looking at him.”
“Or meaning to,” Wyatt added. “I raise.” He set another twenty cent piece on the table, nudging it into the middle to join the collection of dimes, half-dimes, and Doc’s one lonely gold quarter eagle. Apparently, it was considered rude to bet actual money when playing poker with your brothers.
Doc coughed and set down a twenty cent piece of his own, wondering once again why exactly he had accepted Wyatt’s offer of a friendly round of cards at the Long Branch when he could easily have found another game south of the deadline with higher stakes. “Twenty whole cents,” he said. “My, you do like to live dangerously.”
Wyatt shrugged. “We don’t get paid ‘til next week.”
Virgil regarded his cards grimly, as if they had done something to displease him. “I think I’ll fold.” He laid his cards face down on the table and settled back in his chair to watch the rest of the round.
Morgan, who, judging by the hint of a smile he was wearing, thought he had a good hand, added his own twenty cents to the pot. “I’m staying in.”
And things came back to Wyatt. He studied his hand for a long moment, as if unsure whether the cards he held merited raising the pot again. It was all a show, however. He managed to keep his face straight, but Doc could tell by the way the corners of his eyes crinkled up that Wyatt was trying not to smile. He had a good hand, probably a better one than Morgan. He was going to raise again.
“I’ll raise you again, Doc,” Wyatt said. This time, he set down a half-dime, looking straight at Doc and smirking. If the betting went around the table again, he’d be putting in pennies.
“I’ll see you, and call.” Doc laid his own hand on the table and returned Wyatt’s smirk.
Wyatt looked from Doc’s cards to his own hand, then placed it on the table. Three of a kind. Unfortunately for Wyatt, even three kings didn’t beat a full house, especially not one with two aces in it.
Morgan flung his own cards—two pair, plus a seven—onto the table in disgust.
“I believe that money is mine,” Doc announced. “All forty cents of it.” He began collecting the assortment of pocket change on the table.
“So, that makes three hands in a row now, Holliday,” Virgil said. His moustache twitched. “Interesting how this one had all four kings in it.” He pointed at the fifth card in Doc’s hand, the King of Hearts.
“Yeah,” Morgan said, grinning. “I just can’t figure out whether it’s you cheating, Wyatt cheating, or if you both are and you’re just better at it.”
Wyatt cuffed him on the back of the head. “Morg. You don’t accuse your brother of cheating. It’s just not right.”
“What about me?” Doc asked. He slouched casually back in his chair and smiled silkily at Morgan. Unfortunately, without a gun to toy with pointedly, the gesture was distinctly less intimidating than it might have been. Morgan didn’t even twitch.
Convincing people to take one seriously was extremely difficult when everyone else at the table was over six feet tall, and the bartender had confiscated one’s gun when one walked in the door. Morgan had obviously been joking, but it was the principle of the thing. If a man let people get away with implying that he cheated at cards, he was just asking for trouble.
Wyatt smiled again, looking back to Doc. “It’s not right and it’s not safe.”
Morgan blinked. “You mean Bat wasn’t just making all that stuff up?” He turned to Doc. “You don’t look anywhere near as mean as people say.” Clearly, it was intended to be reassuring, rather than vaguely patronizing.
“Don’t people also say that Mister Masterson shot a man over some woman down in Texas?”
“Well, yes,” Wyatt admitted, “but there’s more to the story than that. For one thing, the man shot him first.”
“So that’s why he carries a cane.”
“No,” Virgil said, “he carries a cane because he likes it.”
Doc had been planning to say something insulting about canes, but couldn’t quite manage to get the words out. There was a cough rising inside his chest. He took a deep breath, trying to force it down, but was seized by a spasm of coughing. All of the air in the saloon was suddenly twice as thick as before, rasping at his throat like sand as he struggled to draw another breath.
When the black and gold spots had cleared from his vision and he was able to breathe again, Doc looked up to discover that everyone at the table was staring at him. Wyatt had one hand on his arm, and was peering at him closely, looking concerned.
“You’re the dealer, Wyatt,” Doc said. “Weren’t you going to deal the next hand?” The words hurt the inside of his throat; he coughed once, and reached for his glass. It was empty.
Oh, yes. Kate was otherwise engaged, so there was no one there to keep his glass filled.
Wyatt blinked, then looked away and handed Doc the whiskey bottle. “No, I’ve lost enough money for the evening. I’d like to go home with something left in my pocket.”
“You got five dollars today for arresting those two cowhands,” Morgan said. He was still staring at Doc, with the sort of wide-eyed, worried expression that generally made Doc want to slap people and tell them to keep their eyes to themselves. He poured out a shot of whisky and drank it instead. It burned its way down his throat; he liked to imagine that it made his chest feel better.
“Yeah, and Doc just won half of it.” Wyatt gathered up the cards and handed them to Doc.
“Good point.” Virgil stood up and pushed his chair back in. “I’m going to call it a night. Allie likes it when I come home early.”
“Give her a kiss for me, Virg,” Wyatt said. He nodded a good-bye, then turned to Morgan, who was also getting up to leave. “You calling it a night, too?”
Morgan shrugged. “I was supposed to take over watching Rudabaugh from Bat a half hour ago.”
“No rest for the weary, huh?” Wyatt reached up and punched Morgan in the arm.
“Nope,” Morgan said, “your shift starts at dawn.” He punched Wyatt on the shoulder, and they both grinned.
And then Wyatt and Doc were alone. Well, as alone as one could be in a crowded saloon.
Doc tapped the deck of cards on the table to line the edges up and shuffled them, the cards sliding easily through his fingers. “Are you sure you don’t wish to play another hand?” It was still short of midnight, far too early to return to the Great Western Hotel and attempt to sleep.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Wyatt returned.
“Perfectly.” Doc tapped the cards on the table again, and tucked them inside his coat.
Wyatt stood to go, stretching his arms out to the sides and rotating his neck. He really was astonishingly tall, especially when one was looking up at him. It probably proved useful in law enforcement. The broad shoulders didn’t hurt either. When the majesty of the law was represented by someone that physically imposing, the law began to seem very majestic indeed. Perhaps that was why all of the Earp brothers seemed to be lawmen.
“You’re sure about that game?”
“Maybe some other night. And we’re not using your deck anymore.” He set his hat back on his head. “Be seeing you.”
“Changing decks won’t make a difference. I’ve always been luckier at cards than anything else.”
“’Night, Doc.” Wyatt gave him the same little nod he’d given Virgil, then headed for the door.
* * *
After the bright lamps of the Long Branch, Front Street seemed even darker than was usual for this time of night. Wyatt stepped out from under the overhang of the saloon’s porch and looked up at the sky. The moon had thinned down to a sliver, and the street was lit only by the glow spilling through the saloon windows, which was why it took him a few moments to notice the men lurking in the shadows across the street.
There were three of them standing in front of the darkened windows of the Conklins’ store, all of them holding pistols.
“We’ve been waitin’ for you, Marshal,” one of them said in a flat Texas drawl. “We think you oughta let Billy go.”
“Billy’s staying where he is,” Wyatt said. He let his right hand drift carefully toward his gun, just in case these idiots tried to start something. “The rest of you can join him if you don’t put those guns away and go on home.” Three of them. If it actually came down to shooting, at least one of them would likely run away, and he shouldn’t have much trouble with just two. Of course, that was probably what Ed Masterson had thought, before those two drunk cowhands had killed him.
“Well, now, what if we don’t feel like doing that, Marshal.” The voice came from behind him, and Wyatt twisted around to see another man emerging from the porch of Rath’s General Outfitters, a shotgun held to his shoulder with the barrel pointing straight at Wyatt’s chest. There was another man behind him, still half-hidden by the shadows. Wyatt couldn’t see whether he was carrying a gun or not, but was betting that he was.
“You’re all making a big mistake here, boys.” Wyatt tried to make his voice sound calm, as if they were having a nice, normal discussion that did not involve guns.
The men by the Conklins’ store took a few steps closer, and the one in the middle—the one who had spoken first—cocked his gun. “You think just ‘cause you’ve got that badge you can tell us what to do. Knock people around with that fancy Colt of yours. Well, guess what, Mister Lawman? We’ve got guns too.”
“Yeah,” said the man with the shotgun. He was only a few feet away now, and Wyatt recognized him as one of the cowhands from the Lady Gay. He hadn’t said anything when Wyatt had hauled his friend away that afternoon, but a few rounds of whiskey had clearly made him bolder. “And we don’t need no goddamn badges.”
Wyatt closed his hand around the butt of his gun, shifting his weight into a shooting stance. “No one has to get shot here,” he said. Somehow, his voice came out steady, even as he tried desperately not to think about how much two barrels worth of buckshot would hurt.
The man still hidden in the shadows fired into the ground by Wyatt’s feet, the bullet kicking up a little cloud of dust. The flare of the muzzle blast illuminated his face for a half-second, like a flash of lightning. “No one except you.”
There was an endless moment of silence, broken by the sound of two pistols being cocked.
“I beg to differ, gentlemen.” Doc Holliday was standing in the doorway of the Long Branch, a revolver in each hand. The light spilling from the saloon backlit him, casting a long shadow across the porch and into the street and glinting off the metal of his guns as he twirled them through his hands, then brought them up to point at the group of men surrounding Wyatt. “Now, which of y’all would like to be first?”
“And who the hell are you?” the man with the shotgun demanded. He swung his gun around to aim it at Doc.
Wyatt took advantage of the fact that all the men were now watching Doc to draw his own gun, thumbing the hammer back slowly to avoid making noise.
“A good Samaritan?” Doc stepped out of the doorway and into the street, his guns still trained on the group’s ringleader. He walked past the man with the shotgun as if he wasn’t even there. “It looks awfully crowded out here, Wyatt. Are you sure you don’t want to take me up on that last game of cards?”
“Hey, you, I asked you a question, Mister Samaritan.”
“Maybe you’re right, Doc,” Wyatt said. “Sounds like a good idea.” He turned to the shotgun holder, who was now pointing his weapon somewhere between Doc and Wyatt. “You planning on using that gun, or are you just going to wave it around?”
The man finally noticed that Wyatt’s gun was out and pointed at him. “Hey, Harvey, the lawman’s got his gun out, too. You gonna hit me with that?”
“Not unless you make me.” Wyatt took a careful step sideways toward Doc—and, incidentally, toward the saloon.
“Nonsense,” Doc drawled. “You’d only dent your gun. I say we just shoot them.” He glance around the cluster of cowhands and smiled. It was one of the most unnerving smiles Wyatt had ever seen, mostly because he had the uneasy conviction that Doc truly was enjoying this, and that he would keep on smiling even as he put bullet after bullet into the men in front of him.
The others must have had the same thought, for several of them were lowering the muzzles of their guns, and the two men on either side of the group’s self-appointed leader shifted their feet nervously.
Wyatt crossed the rest of the way over to Doc, feeling the cowhands’ eyes boring into his back. “That would be a little noisy for this time of night,” he said. “How about we just go play poker?”
“After you.” Doc stepped to one side and waved a hand at the saloon door, somehow managing to make the gesture look elegant despite the fact that he was still holding a gun.
Wyatt relaxed the moment they stepped back into the Long Branch, feeling the tension drain out of his shoulders as he slid his gun back into its holster. “Thanks for the back-up, Doc,” he said.
Doc shrugged bony shoulders and set his guns back down in the pile at the end of the bar. The two pistols weren’t a matched set; one all ivory and gleaming nickel plating and the other ordinary wood and steel. Wait, when exactly had Doc gotten another gun?
“Hey, I thought you just had the one gun when you came in here.”
Doc gave the gun with the ivory handle a pat and then looked up at Wyatt, smirking. “A kind gentleman made me a loan of his.”
“Did he know he was doing it?”
“He didn’t argue.”
Wyatt grinned and clapped Doc on the shoulder. “Right. You deal this time. I’m going to go get a drink.”
When he got back to the table, drink in hand, Doc was already shuffling the deck.
“So,” Doc asked, “what game do you want to play now?”
* * *
notes: The Lady Gay was another real saloon. You can’t not use a name like that. Also, quarter eagles are cool. We should go back to gold and silver money.
Part One: Frontier Marshal.
Also,
pixyofthestyx and I have finished another chapter/episode of Gunslinger.DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by… no, wait, scratch that. This story is partially based on actual historical figures and events, and partially based on our own hours of twisted fantasies produced by seeing Tombstone one too many times. No money is being made and no offense is intended.
Posted By:
elspethdixon and pixyofthestyx Ships: Mentions of Virgil Earp/Allie Earp and Doc/Kate.
Warnings: This instalment of Gunslinger contains profanity, drinking, and violence. It does not contain hot sex. Sorry.
Part Two: Once Upon a Time in the West.
“So, Wyatt, why’s that skinny gambler always following you around?” As he spoke, Bat rotated the rim of his bowler hat through his hands, inspecting it for dust. He was leaning back in the chair behind the jail’s desk, his feet resting on top of the ever-growing pile of the Conklins’ written complaints.
“He is not following me around.” One shared drink over the course of two days did not constitute ‘following someone around.’
“He came to Dodge looking for you,” Bat said. Clearly he had picked his topic of conversation for the next half-hour or so, and was unwilling to let the subject drop. He brushed at the crown of his hat, removing a speck of dust visible only to himself.
“I’m not the only interesting thing in Dodge,” Wyatt said. He straightened from the wall he had been leaning against and began pacing back and forth between the door and the desk. “He’s a gambler. Dodge has got to have better play than that little cow town in Texas.”
“He’s trouble, Wyatt,” Bat insisted. “He’s killed at least one man that we know about, probably more.”
“Well, it’s not like you can run him out of town. He hasn’t done anything here.”
“Yet. When he does, I’m blaming you.” Bat swung his feet off the desk and leaned forward to place his hat neatly beside the muddied papers. He nodded toward the jail’s one occupied cell. “Do you think Rutabaga’s ready to talk?”
“My name’s Rudabaugh,” the man in question protested. “Bastard,” he added, under his breath.
“What was that?” Bat asked cheerfully. “Wyatt, Mr. Rudabaugh here has insulted us.” He raised an eyebrow at Wyatt, inviting him to take up his end of the conversation.
Wyatt folded his arms and stared hard at Rudabaugh. “When we want your opinion, we’ll ask for it. Until then, unless there’s anything you’d like to tell us about those friends of yours, you can keep your mouth shut.”
Rudabaugh silently mouthed something that looked suspiciously like “bastard” and turned away to glare at the wall.
Wyatt returned to pacing. He was halfway between the desk and the jail door when Charles Pike, one of the bartenders at the Lady Gay saloon, came in to report a disturbance. Standard procedure amongst Dodge’s peacekeepers was that complaints would be attended to by the closest person to the door, or Morgan. There were benefits to being an older brother. Unfortunately, Morgan was off duty, so it was Wyatt who followed Pike south across the railroad tracks to Front Street—South Front Street, not North Front Street, which was on the other side of the tracks—and the Lady Gay.
Ever since Bat’s brother Ed had been shot a month ago, the lawmen had been a little uneasy about working south of the tracks—the “deadline” where the city’s no-firearms ordinance ran out. Still, a man had to earn his keep.
“So, these Texans come in and start pushing people around, acting like they own the place. People start pushing back. I just hope nobody’s drawn down on anyone else while I was gone.”
“Who started the fight?’ Wyatt asked. He could see the façade of the Lady Gay up ahead, the sound of shouting and the crash of fallen furniture echoing out the front windows.
“A Texan,” Pike said.
“Damn.” Texans liked shooting things. Wyatt started walking faster.
The first thing Wyatt noticed when he walked into the Lady Gay was Three-Fingers Jack Danver and a strange cowhand rolling around on the floor beating the living daylights out of each other. The second thing he noticed was Doc Holliday standing at the bar, calmly watching the fight in the saloon’s long glass mirror. He turned as Wyatt entered and saluted him with his shot glass.
Several of the saloon’s other patrons turned as well at Doc’s gesture, and at least one shoving match stilled instantly. The two cowhands on the floor fought on, oblivious.
Wyatt drew his gun and thumbed back the hammer, the sound going unnoticed under the noise of the scuffle. Then he pointed the barrel at the ceiling and pulled the trigger.
It worked like a charm. The brawlers froze instantly, staring up at him with wide eyes.
“Both of you,” Wyatt said, “get up and come with me.”
The two men climbed slowly to their feet, Three-Fingers Jack staring sullenly at the floor. The other one—Wyatt took him to be the Texan—began inching his hand slowly toward his pistol. As the man’s fingers began to close around the weapon’s butt, Wyatt reversed his own gun and struck the Texan over the head with it. The man let go of the gun and staggered sideways into the nearest table, knocking over a red-faced cowhand’s drink.
The red-faced cowhand let out an outraged yell and jumped to his feet, glaring at both Wyatt and the Texan. “You flea-bitten sonuvabitch, you spilled my drink!”
“Yes, he does that,” Doc said dryly. He frowned at Wyatt, and added, “Couldn’t you have turned up a few minutes later? My money was on the Texan.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Doc.” Wyatt holstered his gun, then turned to Three-Fingers Jack—who had been sidling quietly toward the door—and asked, “You going to come quietly, or do I have to hit you, too?”
Three-Fingers Jack froze, trying to look as if he hadn’t been attempting to escape, and mumbled, “Quietly.”
“Good.” Wyatt grabbed the Texan by the collar and started for the door.
“What about my beer?” the red-faced cowhand demanded.
Wyatt reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a coin, tossing it to Doc, who snatched it from the air. “Pay for his drink.”
The Long Branch saloon tried very, very hard to be sophisticated, and succeeded mainly in looking something like a well-lit bordello. Carefully polished chandeliers hung from the ceiling, keeping uneasy company with the cattle horns mounted over the bar, and on one wall, a naked woman reclined on something Doc thought just might be a flying chaise lounge. It was long, narrow, and crowded with cowhands and gamblers, save for the table Doc was occupying at the moment, which was crowded with lawmen.
Wyatt Earp and his two badge-wearing brothers had been playing cards and talking for the past hour, while Doc sat back and watched them, and won hand after hand. Virgil Earp was a fairly good poker player, but over-cautious, and Morgan was over-eager; bluffing either of them took very little effort. Wyatt, on the other hand, was an opponent worthy of serious attention, when he wasn’t being distracted by his brothers’ conversation.
“So Wyatt comes into the jail dragging this Texan by the collar,” Morgan Earp said, continuing his relation of the afternoon’s events. “And Rutabaga takes one look at him and says, ‘Marshal, Marshal, you never said he beat people,’ and starts talking. He told us absolutely everything.”
“The problem was getting him to stop,” Virgil Earp put in. Virgil, Doc had determined, was a man of few words. His younger brother, on the other hand, seemed inordinately fond of them.
“Wyatt scared the information out of him without even touching him,” Morgan went on. “Or looking at him.”
“Or meaning to,” Wyatt added. “I raise.” He set another twenty cent piece on the table, nudging it into the middle to join the collection of dimes, half-dimes, and Doc’s one lonely gold quarter eagle. Apparently, it was considered rude to bet actual money when playing poker with your brothers.
Doc coughed and set down a twenty cent piece of his own, wondering once again why exactly he had accepted Wyatt’s offer of a friendly round of cards at the Long Branch when he could easily have found another game south of the deadline with higher stakes. “Twenty whole cents,” he said. “My, you do like to live dangerously.”
Wyatt shrugged. “We don’t get paid ‘til next week.”
Virgil regarded his cards grimly, as if they had done something to displease him. “I think I’ll fold.” He laid his cards face down on the table and settled back in his chair to watch the rest of the round.
Morgan, who, judging by the hint of a smile he was wearing, thought he had a good hand, added his own twenty cents to the pot. “I’m staying in.”
And things came back to Wyatt. He studied his hand for a long moment, as if unsure whether the cards he held merited raising the pot again. It was all a show, however. He managed to keep his face straight, but Doc could tell by the way the corners of his eyes crinkled up that Wyatt was trying not to smile. He had a good hand, probably a better one than Morgan. He was going to raise again.
“I’ll raise you again, Doc,” Wyatt said. This time, he set down a half-dime, looking straight at Doc and smirking. If the betting went around the table again, he’d be putting in pennies.
“I’ll see you, and call.” Doc laid his own hand on the table and returned Wyatt’s smirk.
Wyatt looked from Doc’s cards to his own hand, then placed it on the table. Three of a kind. Unfortunately for Wyatt, even three kings didn’t beat a full house, especially not one with two aces in it.
Morgan flung his own cards—two pair, plus a seven—onto the table in disgust.
“I believe that money is mine,” Doc announced. “All forty cents of it.” He began collecting the assortment of pocket change on the table.
“So, that makes three hands in a row now, Holliday,” Virgil said. His moustache twitched. “Interesting how this one had all four kings in it.” He pointed at the fifth card in Doc’s hand, the King of Hearts.
“Yeah,” Morgan said, grinning. “I just can’t figure out whether it’s you cheating, Wyatt cheating, or if you both are and you’re just better at it.”
Wyatt cuffed him on the back of the head. “Morg. You don’t accuse your brother of cheating. It’s just not right.”
“What about me?” Doc asked. He slouched casually back in his chair and smiled silkily at Morgan. Unfortunately, without a gun to toy with pointedly, the gesture was distinctly less intimidating than it might have been. Morgan didn’t even twitch.
Convincing people to take one seriously was extremely difficult when everyone else at the table was over six feet tall, and the bartender had confiscated one’s gun when one walked in the door. Morgan had obviously been joking, but it was the principle of the thing. If a man let people get away with implying that he cheated at cards, he was just asking for trouble.
Wyatt smiled again, looking back to Doc. “It’s not right and it’s not safe.”
Morgan blinked. “You mean Bat wasn’t just making all that stuff up?” He turned to Doc. “You don’t look anywhere near as mean as people say.” Clearly, it was intended to be reassuring, rather than vaguely patronizing.
“Don’t people also say that Mister Masterson shot a man over some woman down in Texas?”
“Well, yes,” Wyatt admitted, “but there’s more to the story than that. For one thing, the man shot him first.”
“So that’s why he carries a cane.”
“No,” Virgil said, “he carries a cane because he likes it.”
Doc had been planning to say something insulting about canes, but couldn’t quite manage to get the words out. There was a cough rising inside his chest. He took a deep breath, trying to force it down, but was seized by a spasm of coughing. All of the air in the saloon was suddenly twice as thick as before, rasping at his throat like sand as he struggled to draw another breath.
When the black and gold spots had cleared from his vision and he was able to breathe again, Doc looked up to discover that everyone at the table was staring at him. Wyatt had one hand on his arm, and was peering at him closely, looking concerned.
“You’re the dealer, Wyatt,” Doc said. “Weren’t you going to deal the next hand?” The words hurt the inside of his throat; he coughed once, and reached for his glass. It was empty.
Oh, yes. Kate was otherwise engaged, so there was no one there to keep his glass filled.
Wyatt blinked, then looked away and handed Doc the whiskey bottle. “No, I’ve lost enough money for the evening. I’d like to go home with something left in my pocket.”
“You got five dollars today for arresting those two cowhands,” Morgan said. He was still staring at Doc, with the sort of wide-eyed, worried expression that generally made Doc want to slap people and tell them to keep their eyes to themselves. He poured out a shot of whisky and drank it instead. It burned its way down his throat; he liked to imagine that it made his chest feel better.
“Yeah, and Doc just won half of it.” Wyatt gathered up the cards and handed them to Doc.
“Good point.” Virgil stood up and pushed his chair back in. “I’m going to call it a night. Allie likes it when I come home early.”
“Give her a kiss for me, Virg,” Wyatt said. He nodded a good-bye, then turned to Morgan, who was also getting up to leave. “You calling it a night, too?”
Morgan shrugged. “I was supposed to take over watching Rudabaugh from Bat a half hour ago.”
“No rest for the weary, huh?” Wyatt reached up and punched Morgan in the arm.
“Nope,” Morgan said, “your shift starts at dawn.” He punched Wyatt on the shoulder, and they both grinned.
And then Wyatt and Doc were alone. Well, as alone as one could be in a crowded saloon.
Doc tapped the deck of cards on the table to line the edges up and shuffled them, the cards sliding easily through his fingers. “Are you sure you don’t wish to play another hand?” It was still short of midnight, far too early to return to the Great Western Hotel and attempt to sleep.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Wyatt returned.
“Perfectly.” Doc tapped the cards on the table again, and tucked them inside his coat.
Wyatt stood to go, stretching his arms out to the sides and rotating his neck. He really was astonishingly tall, especially when one was looking up at him. It probably proved useful in law enforcement. The broad shoulders didn’t hurt either. When the majesty of the law was represented by someone that physically imposing, the law began to seem very majestic indeed. Perhaps that was why all of the Earp brothers seemed to be lawmen.
“You’re sure about that game?”
“Maybe some other night. And we’re not using your deck anymore.” He set his hat back on his head. “Be seeing you.”
“Changing decks won’t make a difference. I’ve always been luckier at cards than anything else.”
“’Night, Doc.” Wyatt gave him the same little nod he’d given Virgil, then headed for the door.
 |
| North Front Street |
After the bright lamps of the Long Branch, Front Street seemed even darker than was usual for this time of night. Wyatt stepped out from under the overhang of the saloon’s porch and looked up at the sky. The moon had thinned down to a sliver, and the street was lit only by the glow spilling through the saloon windows, which was why it took him a few moments to notice the men lurking in the shadows across the street.
There were three of them standing in front of the darkened windows of the Conklins’ store, all of them holding pistols.
“We’ve been waitin’ for you, Marshal,” one of them said in a flat Texas drawl. “We think you oughta let Billy go.”
“Billy’s staying where he is,” Wyatt said. He let his right hand drift carefully toward his gun, just in case these idiots tried to start something. “The rest of you can join him if you don’t put those guns away and go on home.” Three of them. If it actually came down to shooting, at least one of them would likely run away, and he shouldn’t have much trouble with just two. Of course, that was probably what Ed Masterson had thought, before those two drunk cowhands had killed him.
“Well, now, what if we don’t feel like doing that, Marshal.” The voice came from behind him, and Wyatt twisted around to see another man emerging from the porch of Rath’s General Outfitters, a shotgun held to his shoulder with the barrel pointing straight at Wyatt’s chest. There was another man behind him, still half-hidden by the shadows. Wyatt couldn’t see whether he was carrying a gun or not, but was betting that he was.
“You’re all making a big mistake here, boys.” Wyatt tried to make his voice sound calm, as if they were having a nice, normal discussion that did not involve guns.
The men by the Conklins’ store took a few steps closer, and the one in the middle—the one who had spoken first—cocked his gun. “You think just ‘cause you’ve got that badge you can tell us what to do. Knock people around with that fancy Colt of yours. Well, guess what, Mister Lawman? We’ve got guns too.”
“Yeah,” said the man with the shotgun. He was only a few feet away now, and Wyatt recognized him as one of the cowhands from the Lady Gay. He hadn’t said anything when Wyatt had hauled his friend away that afternoon, but a few rounds of whiskey had clearly made him bolder. “And we don’t need no goddamn badges.”
Wyatt closed his hand around the butt of his gun, shifting his weight into a shooting stance. “No one has to get shot here,” he said. Somehow, his voice came out steady, even as he tried desperately not to think about how much two barrels worth of buckshot would hurt.
The man still hidden in the shadows fired into the ground by Wyatt’s feet, the bullet kicking up a little cloud of dust. The flare of the muzzle blast illuminated his face for a half-second, like a flash of lightning. “No one except you.”
There was an endless moment of silence, broken by the sound of two pistols being cocked.
“I beg to differ, gentlemen.” Doc Holliday was standing in the doorway of the Long Branch, a revolver in each hand. The light spilling from the saloon backlit him, casting a long shadow across the porch and into the street and glinting off the metal of his guns as he twirled them through his hands, then brought them up to point at the group of men surrounding Wyatt. “Now, which of y’all would like to be first?”
“And who the hell are you?” the man with the shotgun demanded. He swung his gun around to aim it at Doc.
Wyatt took advantage of the fact that all the men were now watching Doc to draw his own gun, thumbing the hammer back slowly to avoid making noise.
“A good Samaritan?” Doc stepped out of the doorway and into the street, his guns still trained on the group’s ringleader. He walked past the man with the shotgun as if he wasn’t even there. “It looks awfully crowded out here, Wyatt. Are you sure you don’t want to take me up on that last game of cards?”
“Hey, you, I asked you a question, Mister Samaritan.”
“Maybe you’re right, Doc,” Wyatt said. “Sounds like a good idea.” He turned to the shotgun holder, who was now pointing his weapon somewhere between Doc and Wyatt. “You planning on using that gun, or are you just going to wave it around?”
The man finally noticed that Wyatt’s gun was out and pointed at him. “Hey, Harvey, the lawman’s got his gun out, too. You gonna hit me with that?”
“Not unless you make me.” Wyatt took a careful step sideways toward Doc—and, incidentally, toward the saloon.
“Nonsense,” Doc drawled. “You’d only dent your gun. I say we just shoot them.” He glance around the cluster of cowhands and smiled. It was one of the most unnerving smiles Wyatt had ever seen, mostly because he had the uneasy conviction that Doc truly was enjoying this, and that he would keep on smiling even as he put bullet after bullet into the men in front of him.
The others must have had the same thought, for several of them were lowering the muzzles of their guns, and the two men on either side of the group’s self-appointed leader shifted their feet nervously.
Wyatt crossed the rest of the way over to Doc, feeling the cowhands’ eyes boring into his back. “That would be a little noisy for this time of night,” he said. “How about we just go play poker?”
“After you.” Doc stepped to one side and waved a hand at the saloon door, somehow managing to make the gesture look elegant despite the fact that he was still holding a gun.
Wyatt relaxed the moment they stepped back into the Long Branch, feeling the tension drain out of his shoulders as he slid his gun back into its holster. “Thanks for the back-up, Doc,” he said.
Doc shrugged bony shoulders and set his guns back down in the pile at the end of the bar. The two pistols weren’t a matched set; one all ivory and gleaming nickel plating and the other ordinary wood and steel. Wait, when exactly had Doc gotten another gun?
“Hey, I thought you just had the one gun when you came in here.”
Doc gave the gun with the ivory handle a pat and then looked up at Wyatt, smirking. “A kind gentleman made me a loan of his.”
“Did he know he was doing it?”
“He didn’t argue.”
Wyatt grinned and clapped Doc on the shoulder. “Right. You deal this time. I’m going to go get a drink.”
When he got back to the table, drink in hand, Doc was already shuffling the deck.
“So,” Doc asked, “what game do you want to play now?”
notes: The Lady Gay was another real saloon. You can’t not use a name like that. Also, quarter eagles are cool. We should go back to gold and silver money.
Part One: Frontier Marshal.