Doctor and the Kid, The (A Weird West Tale) (Weird West Tales) (5 page)

“But no longer?” suggested Holliday.

“Today a track runs through the valley, and there is a building where people await the train or depart from it.”

“OK, there's a valley with a train station. What about it?”

“You will destroy it,” said Geronimo as a trio of bats flew overhead. Holliday wondered where they came from in this desolate landscape, or if they were actually bats at all.

“Why?”

“It desecrates an Apache burial ground.”

“You're the medicine man,” said Holliday. “Why don't you destroy it?”

Geronimo frowned. “I cannot.”

“Hook Nose is protecting it, too?”

“I do not know. He swears he is not, and we are allies now. But we have been enemies before. This is Apache holy ground, so there is no reason why he should care about it, but there is also no reason why he should protect it. But someone or something is protecting it.”

“I assume the Apaches have other enemies?” said Holliday.

“Like grains of sand when the wind blows across the desert,” answered Geronimo.

“Suppose you tell me what's special about this station, or the men defending it, what you've tried to do and failed.”

“We tried to burn it. It will not burn. We have captured three cannons from your cavalry. We know how to use them. We fired at the building and could not even shatter the window. Our arrows bounce off the men who guard the station. We fire bullets into them, and they do not fall or even flinch.”

Holliday was silent again for another moment. Finally he looked into Geronimo's cold, unblinking eyes.

“Let me see if I've got this straight,” he said. “All I have to do is destroy men and buildings that are impervious to arrows, bullets, cannonballs and fire, and in exchange for that, a sick, dying man gets to face the greatest killer in the West on even terms, is that your offer?”

“That is my offer.”

“Give me a minute to think about it,” said Holliday, staring down at the ground.

Geronimo nodded his assent.

Holliday stood motionless for awhile, then looked up at the medicine man.

“What the hell,” he said. “If he kills me, I don't need the money anyway.”

“We will trade,” confirmed Geronimo.

“We will trade,” agreed Holliday. “But before I attack your station I have to send for two friends who are currently in Leadville.”

He looked to Geronimo for his consent, but found that he was back inside his room, and a small bird was flying off into the night.

H

“I was starting to worry about you,” was her greeting.

“No need to,” replied Holliday. “He's not going to kill me as long as he needs me.”

“Who?”
she asked sharply.

Suddenly he realized what he had said and who he had said it
to.
“I apologize. I must have been preoccupied.”

“Who's not going to kill you?” she persisted.

“I think that statement can apply to everyone in the world,” he said with a lame attempt at flippancy. “How late am I?”

“About half an hour. Are you all right?”

“Don't I look all right?” he responded.

She stared at him for a moment, then smiled. “I'm beginning to understand why you get into so many gunfights,” she said. “You can be an infuriating man to talk to.”

“Then why not see if I'm less infuriating to eat with?” He offered her his arm. “Shall we go scout out the restaurants?”

“There ain't but four,” said the desk clerk.

“Which do you recommend?”

“The Silver Steak,” answered the clerk.

“Silver steaks sound hard on the teeth,” remarked Holliday, as Charlotte chuckled.

“Take it from me,” said the clerk. “It's the best.”

“What makes it the best?”

“My cousin owns it.”

“I suppose we can't go wrong with a testimonial like that,” said Holliday. He turned to Charlotte. “Shall we go?”

“Where is it?” she asked the clerk.

“Out the front door, and two blocks to your right.”

They left the hotel, walked along the raised wooden sidewalk, crossed the dirt street, repeated the process a block later, and finally came to the Silver Steak.

“Sounds more like something you'd find in Tombstone,” remarked Holliday.

“Oh?” said Charlotte. “Why?”

“Town was built around a big silver strike,” replied Holliday. “It was almost played out when I left. Should be just about empty now.”

“You've traveled all over, haven't you, Doc?”

“I've spent most of my adult life looking for a place with air I can breathe where not too many people want to shoot me.” He paused, then offered her a self-deprecating smile. “I'm still looking. For both.”

“Are you considering Lincoln?”

He shook his head. “I'm just here on business.”

“Where were you before this?”

“Leadville, Colorado.”

“Are you going back there when you're done with your business?”

He shrugged and uttered a sigh. “I don't know. They've got the medical facility I want…” His voice trailed off.

“But?”

“But the air is so damned thin there even the birds prefer to walk.”

“Then you really should consider staying down in the flatlands here, or in Arizona.”

Another smile. “That runs smack dab against the other consideration.”

She frowned, confused.
“Other
consideration?”

“Finding a place where not too many people want to shoot me,” he replied.

“It's none of my business, Doc,” said Charlotte, “but Lincoln's not known as a gambing center, and we passed a dentist's office on the way in, so I assume you're here for some other reason. Something to do with
that,”
she concluded, pointing to his gun.

“It's possible,” he admitted.

“Well, then?”

“I'm a dying man. I'm just trying to raise enough money so that I can die under competent medical care.” A sudden smile. “With my boots off.”

“Damn you, Doc!” she complained. “Why do you have to be so honest? Now I'm not going to enjoy my dinner at all!”

“Then we'll demand a refund from the guy who recommended this place.”

A waiter approached them nervously.

“Excuse me, Doc,” he began. Then: “You
are
Doc Holliday, aren't you?”

Holliday nodded his head. “Is that a problem.”

“Absolutely not, sir,” the waiter assured him. “The management, that is to say, my boss, would like to treat you and the lady to the specialty of the house if he can post a sign saying that you ate here.”

“Tell him he's got a deal,” said Holliday.

“Thank you, sir!” said the waiter, rushing off.

“Does this happen a lot?” asked Charlotte.

“From time to time.” He smiled across the table at her. “They got away cheap.”

“I don't understand.”

“If I stay in town another two or three days, the undertaker will offer me ten dollars if I write a note saying he's got the right to bury me, and he'll make it twenty-five or even fifty if I give him permission to display me in his window for a few days first.”

“That's horrible!” said Charlotte.

“What's horrible,” explained Holliday in amused tones, “is that whether I take the more expensive deal or not, he's going to display me anyway.”

“That's all you mean to him—a body to display?”

He nodded. “And one to bury.”

“I don't know how you shootists can live like that.”

“It's dying like that that upsets us,” replied Holliday wryly.

Their steaks arrived.

“Well, nothing's going to change you,” said Charlotte. “So you might as well regale me with tales of other shootists you know or knew. It'll keep my mind off how overcooked the steak is.”

“I can tell you about Wyatt Earp and his brothers,” offered Holliday. “Or Curly Bill Brocius. Or Bat Masterson.”

“I've heard of all of them,” she said. “Do you know Wild Bill Hickok?”

“No, I regret to say I've never had the pleasure. But I knew Clay Allison and Ben Thomson and the McLaury Brothers.”

“They say you killed the McLaurys,” said Charlotte.

“It's possible.”

“You're a walking dime novel,” she said with a laugh. “Who was the most memorable?”

“Johnny Ringo,” said Holliday without hesitation.

“An interesting man?”

Holliday nodded his head. “The most interesting man I ever met. And as good a friend as I ever had.”

“Is he still around?” she asked.

“No.”

“Who killed him?”

“I did,” said Holliday.

T

“It doesn't seem remarkable or unusual in any way,” remarked Edison, adjusting the polarity of his goggles to keep the sun from affecting his vision.

“No super-hardened brass,” added Buntline, studying the walls of the station.

“Geronimo says it's more than the station and the railway,” said Holliday. “He says even the people are immune to bullets and fire.”

“Any
people?” asked Edison. “If you were to drop me off there so I could wait for a train, would
I
be invulnerable?”

Holliday shrugged. “I
think
so, but don't know for sure, and I didn't know how to test it out. I mean, if it
doesn't
affect passengers, then I could kill an awful lot of them.”

“Sensible,” said Edison.

Buntline nudged him. “Wind's starting to blow from the west, Tom,” he announced.

“Bad?”

“Could be. There's not much to stop it, and there's an awful lot of sand.”

Buntline reached down and grabbed a cloth bag from the floor of the buckboard, then pulled out three round metal objects an inch in diameter, handing one each to Edison and Holliday while keeping the third for himself.

“What the hell is this?” asked Holliday, examining it. “It's got a hundred little holes in it, but I can't see any use for it, and unlike most of Tom's inventions it doesn't seem to plug in anywhere.”

“It's powered by one of these,” said Edison, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a tiny battery.

“Powered to do
what?”
said Holliday suspiciously.

“To filter the sand out of the air so you don't have to hide during a dust storm,” answered Edison. “Put it in your mouth like
this
, and remember not to breathe through your nose until the storm passes.”

Buntline pointed toward the goggles that hung around Holliday's neck. “And put those damned things over your eyes if you don't want to go blind, Doc.”

While Holliday was inserting the filter and donning the goggles, Buntline climbed down and put a contraption that seemed half-net and half-glass over the horse's head.

“Now the horse won't choke or go blind either,” he announced when he'd climbed back onto the buckboard.

Holliday clucked to the horse and the animal began pulling the wagon down to the station.

“The tracks are just about covered,” he noted. “How do they get the sand off?”

“The wind that covered them will uncover some of them,” answered Edison. “And along with cow-sweepers, the trains out here are equipped with kind of a brush that moves the sand off the tracks as the wheels approach it.”

“One of your inventions?” asked Holliday.

Edison shook his head. “A Mr. Glover from Chicago. Contrary to what you read in the papers,” he added with as much of a smile as he could manage with the filter in his mouth, “I am not responsible for every invention of the past dozen years.”

When they were within one hundred yards of the station, the wind died down as quickly as it had spring up, and Holliday immediately took the filter out of his mouth and stuck it in a pocket. “Damned difficult to talk with that thing.”

“My problem isn't talking,” said Edison. “It's remembering not to breathe through my nose.”

“Place looks deserted,” remarked Buntline.

“No reason why not,” said Holliday. “There's only one train every two days, and it passed through yesterday.”

“Where does this damned thing go?” asked Buntline.

“From what I hear, it goes to Tombstone and the other five towns in Arizona, then continues on to California.”

“Where in California?”

Holliday shrugged. “Beats me. I've never ridden it. Never been to California either.”

Holliday reined the horse to a stop, and the three men climbed awkwardly down from the buckboard. Edison returned the filter to Buntline, who replaced it in the bag.

“What about
those?”
asked Holliday, indicating Edison's and Buntline's goggles.

“We'll keep them a bit longer,” replied Edison.

“Doesn't look like it's going to blow again for awhile,” said Holliday. “And besides, you'll be inside.”

“Doc, do you see that little button on the left temple of your goggles?” asked Buntline.

“I don't
see
it, but I can feel it.”

“Press it.”

Holliday did so, and suddenly his vision was so blurry he could barely see. “What the hell happened?” he demanded.

“You just turned the two lenses into magnifying glasses. If you press the button on the right temple, they'll become spyglasses. Not powerful ones, but far stronger than your eyes.”

“We don't know what we're looking for,” added Edison, “and it may be that we'll need the goggles to spot anything unusual.”

“And if not, we have other methods,” added Buntline.

The three men walked into the station building. There was a bearded middle-aged man in a railroad jacket standing in the kiosk where tickets were sold, and a young man who had barely enough stubble to make his chin look dirty was sitting on a bench, reading a dime novel.

“Still blowing?” asked the stationmaster.

“Just finished,” said Holliday.

The stationmaster studied the three men. “Damnedest spectacles I ever saw,” he said at last.

“They're all the rage in New York,” said Holliday sardonically.

The young man looked up. “New York?” he said. “I knew someone from there once.”

“Bet he wishes he was back there every time he found himself in a dust storm,” said the stationmaster.

“I don't know,” said the young man. “I never asked.”

Edison turned to Holliday, “Ned and I are going to take a good, thorough look around.”

“I'll help you,” offered Holliday.

Edison smiled. “You don't know what you're looking for.”

“Neither do you,” said Holliday.

“True,” admitted Edison. “But we'll know it when we find it.”

“Grab yourself a drink, Doc,” added Buntline. “We won't be that long.”

Holliday pulled his goggles down until they hung around his neck again, and walked up to the stationmaster. “I assume that's a service you provide?”

The man nodded. “It gets mighty dry out here, waiting for the train to come.” He reached down, found a bottle and a glass, and poured Holliday a drink.

Holliday laid a dime on the counter, then turned to see which bench he wanted to sit on, and became aware that the young man was staring unblinking, at him.

“Is something wrong, son?” asked Holliday.

“You're
him
, ain't you?” said the young man. He got to his feet, still staring with an expression of total awe on his face. “They called you Doc.”

“I
am
a doctor. Well, a dentist, anyway.”

“A
dentist
!” exclaimed the young man. “Then you
are
Doc Holliday!”

Holliday tipped his hat. “At your service.”

“Doc Holliday!” repeated the young man excitedly. “I can't believe it!” He held up the dime novel. “I been reading about you all year!”

“Am I in that one?”

“No, this one's about the Younger Brothers.” Suddenly the young man blushed furiously. “Where are my manners?” He held out his hand. “I'm Henry Antrim.” Holliday took his hand. “Damn! Now I can say I shook Doc Holliday's hand!”

“Come on over and share a drink with Doc Holliday,” said Holliday. “My treat.”

“Are you sure?” said Antrim. “I mean, I should be buying one for you!”

“Someday, Henry, when you have money, you can return the favor.”

“What makes you think I don't have money?” asked Antrim defensively.

“The train doesn't come until tomorrow,” answered Holliday. “There's only one reason to be waiting for it now. You've got no money to buy a room back in town.”

The young man's face displayed a guilty smile. “Truth to tell, I couldn't have bought you a drink. But I felt I had to offer.”

“Loan me that book for a minute, Henry,” said Holliday, stretching out his hand. Antrim gave it to him, and Holliday turned to the stationmaster. “You got a pen?” The man supplied it, and Holliday signed his name on the cover, then returned the pen. “Here,” he said, handing the book back to Antrim. “Wait a year or two until I'm in the grave, and you can sell that thing, with a genuine Doc Holliday autograph, for half a dollar. Maybe a dollar if you're lucky.”

Antrim clutched the dime novel to his chest. “I'm never going to part with it. Never!”

Holliday smiled. “Never's a long time, Henry. You'll grow a little older, someone will offer to trade you some of those French postcards I've seen and you've probably at least heard about, and you'll jump at the chance.”

“Not me!” Antrim assured him.

“Well, it's nice to have such an admirer,” said Holliday. “Now how about that drink?”

“Sure,” said Antrim, walking over and waiting for the stationmaster to pour him a glass. He lifted it to his lips, took a swallow, and made a face.

“A little strong for you?” asked Holliday.

“A little!” Antrim whispered as he gasped for breath.

“You'll grow into it.”

Buntline entered the room just then.

“Well?” asked Holliday.

Buntline shook his head. “Seems absolutely normal to me. Some of the wood even has termites.”

Edison joined them a moment later.

“You're sure
this
is the station he was talking about?”

“Absolutely.”

“Very strange,” muttered Edison. He stood up and looked around. “Well, at least it's empty.” He walked up to the stationmaster. “I want to buy you a new window. How much will it cost?”

“Don't need one.”

“You may. How much?”

The stationmaster scratched his head. “Including labor, a dollar and a half.”

“It's a deal.” Edison turned to Holliday, “Doc,” he said, pointing to a window, “shoot that damned thing out of its frame.”

Holliday drew his gun and fired in one motion.

Nothing happened.

Buntline walked over and examined the glass. “Not a mark.”

Antrim, who had ducked when Holliday fired, was on his feet now. “Where's the bullet? I didn't hear or feel anything ricochet.”

They all spent a couple of minutes looking, without success, for the spent bullet.

“It's like magic!” said Antrim.

“Exactly,” agreed Edison, his face lighting up with excitement. “Doc, stand six inches away from that wooden wall and put a slug into it.”

Holliday did as requested. The result was the same: no mark on the wall, and no spent bullet.

“This is wonderful!” enthused Edison. “Simply wonderful!” He turned to his companions. “Come along! It's time to go back to town and get a couple of rooms for the night.” He walked over to the stationmaster. “Are there seats available on tomorrow's train?”

“Always,” was the reply.

“Good! We'll want two tickets to Tombstone.”

“Three,” said Holliday. Edison looked at him questioningly. “I told you about my trade. The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

“So I'll see you tomorrow, Doc?” asked Antrim.

Holliday nodded. “We'll be here.”

“Could we maybe…maybe sit together on the train?”

“Sure,” said Holliday. “How far are you going?”

The young man shrugged. “I don't know. As far as my money will take me.”

“See you tomorrow,” said Holliday, turning and joining his companions. They walked out to the buckboard, then climbed onto it one by one.

“There's a horse out behind the station,” said Buntline. “But before we shoot it, we should make sure it belongs to the stationmaster.”

“It won't matter,” said Holliday. “Geronimo sounded like it's the area that's protected, that it doesn't make any difference if you work there or are a customer—or his horse.”

“And we can't just walk up and slap it,” added Edison. “If we're not trying to kill it, my guess is that nothing will happen except that we'll spook the poor dumb creature. God damn, this is lucky! Thanks for calling us in on it, Doc!”

“What's so lucky about finding a place where bullets and cannonballs and fire don't work on wood, on people, on
anything?”
demanded Holliday as the horse began pulling the buckboard.

“Don't you see?” said Edison happily. “This is
magic!”

“I know it's magic,” replied Holliday. “So what?”

“The government brought me out here to see if I could find a way to combat the medicine men's magic, which is what has stopped us from expanding beyond the Mississippi,” answered Edison. “Here's a kind of magic that William Tecumsah Sherman's entire army probably couldn't defeat or destroy. If I can find a way, we're that much closer to finding a way to combat
all
their magic.”

“I never looked at it that way,” admitted Holliday. “I suppose that's why you're the genius, and I'm the shootist.”

Edison turned to Buntline. “There's no sense unpacking. We'll be back here tomorrow.”

“Right,” agreed Buntline.

“Just out of curiosity, why are we going to Tombstone?” asked Holliday, idly wondering if there was still a warrant out for his arrest.