Weird West 04 - The Doctor and the Dinosaurs (10 page)

“Would you really have done it, Doc?” asked Younger curiously as the tension began seeping away from his body.

“Get a good night's sleep,” said Holliday, “and you can ponder it all the way back to Cope's camp in the morning.”

Younger seemed about to argue, then thought better of it, and walked off into the gathering darkness.

Holliday pulled out his flask, took a swallow, and watched the two men walk away until they were out of his range of vision.

“Truth to tell,” he said, “I've never seen either of them in action. I wonder what the result would have been?”

“That's easy to answer,” said Roosevelt.

Holliday turned to him. “Oh?”

Roosevelt nodded.

“Okay,” said Holliday. “Who'd have won?”

“The Comanche,” said Roosevelt.

“S
O WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED
?” asked Roosevelt. He and Holliday sat beside a dying fire after all the others had sought out their tents or any available shelter and gone to bed.

“Other than that Cope and Marsh are both about ready for the lunatic asylum, you mean?” responded Holliday.

“Other than that,” said Roosevelt with a smile.

“Well, they know their stuff. You could fill a couple of freight trains with the bones they've dug out of the ground.” He grimaced. “What I don't think anyone can do is make them stop.”

“Or work together,” added Roosevelt, as one of the lanterns ran out of fuel and flickered out.

“Or work together,” agreed Holliday.

“Well, none of the things Geronimo was worried about have happened yet,” said Roosevelt, “except for someone taking a shot at you. Maybe the old gentleman was overreacting.”

“I don't think anyone ever referred to him as a gentleman before,” said Holliday. “When the white men talk about the Indian they most
want to see dead, Geronimo beats Sitting Bull by a comfortable margin.” He frowned. “More to the point, I've never seen him overreact before. I just wish I knew what the hell he expects us to do about it.”

“Maybe Cody had a point,” suggested Roosevelt.

“Oh?”

“Hire them all.”

Holliday shook his head. “They might take money rather than go to war with you over most of their land, but not their burial grounds. I don't know why that should be, because to the best of my knowledge none of the tribes believe in resurrection or reincarnation, but they'll kill to keep people from messing in their burial grounds.”

“But they
haven't
,” Roosevelt pointed out. “From what I've been able to tell, there have been some sporadic attacks, usually by lone warriors, but they've kept their distance.”

“I know,” said Holliday, pulling out his flask. “The only answer I can come up with is that their graveyard may well be eighty miles by fifty, but they've only using a couple of hundred acres so far, and neither Cope nor Marsh has desecrated the ground that's in use as opposed to the ground that's earmarked for future use.”

Roosevelt considered Holliday's statement. “It
sounds
reasonable, Doc,” he said at last, “but somehow I don't believe it.”

“For what it's worth, neither do I,” admitted Holliday, taking a swallow from the flask. “Just clutching at straws.”

“Well, as long as the most dangerous situation so far is a lone outlaw who thinks he can beat you to the draw, I suppose we'll have a few pleasant weeks—well, as pleasant as they can be around Marsh and Cope—and then we'll go back East with their treasure and see how they reconstruct them in their various museums.” Roosevelt leaned forward, his enthusiasm obvious even in the dark. “It's really a fascinating science, Doc. Imagine a creature that could kill an elephant for
lunch, or one that could give a pronghorn buck a half mile lead and run him down in another half mile.” He offered his trademark grin. “It makes you wonder what the world was like back then—and more to the point, how Man ever got a foothold here, let alone became the dominant species.”

“I imagine any preacher'd be happy to explain it to you,” said Holliday. “Of course, they might have a little difficulty explaining what happened to the dinosaurs.” Suddenly he smiled. “They'd probably say that they were too big to fit in the Ark.”

Roosevelt sighed deeply. “This science is too new. I doubt that we'll ever know the answer during our lifetimes. That's damned frustrating!”

“I'll be hobnobbing with Satan in less than a year,” replied Holliday. “I'll ask him when I get there, and try to get word upstairs to you.”

“Don't talk like that, Doc,” said Roosevelt.

“You don't like to think about dying?”

“I don't like to think about you winding up in hell, or accepting it so casually.”

“Not to worry,” said Holliday, taking another drink from his flask. “I'll be surrounded by damned near every friend I ever had except you, and certainly I'll be rubbing shoulders with every man I ever killed.” His face suddenly distorted in a grimace. “I hope Kate gets religion. I do
not
look forward to spending an eternity with her.”

“She broke you out of jail,” noted Roosevelt.

“Only so she could try to kill me a few more times.”

“It's an unusual relationship, I'll grant you that.”

“
Was
,” Holliday corrected him. “It
was
an unusual relationship.”

Roosevelt flashed Holliday his familiar grin. “Texas Jack Vermillion writes me the occasional letter,” he replied. “He says she still visits you regularly at the hospital.”

“Of course she does,” growled Holliday. “Those metal chippies she's
got working for her don't feel a thing when she slaps ’em or whacks ’em with a gun barrel. If she wants blood, she has to come to me. Admittedly, I've got a limited supply of it, but still…”

“So she's still running a house of ill repute?”

Holliday shook his head. “Actually, it's a house of excellent repute. Those metal chippies Tom and Ned built never need a break or a meal—not that Kate would give ’em either even if they
did
need them.”

“You two would have produced a hell of a child,” said Roosevelt.

“A hot-tempered sadistic shootist with consumption,” retorted Holliday. “You have peculiar taste in kids, Theodore.”

He paused and took a final swig from his flask, emptying it. “In fact, there's those who'd say you have a peculiar taste in, if not friends, at least allies—a dying shootist and the most powerful medicine man alive.”

“You're both primaries,” said Roosevelt. “I'm drawn to that.”

Holliday frowned. “Primaries? Like elections? I don't understand.”

Roosevelt smiled. “No, like colors. Most people are pastels. They can't help it, and it doesn't make them any better or worse. There are very few primaries, but they stand out for better or worse, and they seem to be the ones I'm attracted to, or at least the ones I keep running into.”

“So I'm a primary, cough and all?”

“Doc, they'll be arguing about who were the good guys and who were the bad guys at the O.K. Corral for another century, but the one thing they'll all remember is that you came to the aid of Wyatt Earp and his brothers and risked your life solely for friendship, with no thought of recompense.”

“I suppose so,” said Holliday without much enthusiasm.

“Answer me this,” continued Roosevelt. “Have you ever shot a man who wasn't trying to kill you?”

“No, never.”

Roosevelt grinned again and bowed his head to an imaginary audience. “There you have it.”

“Some of them thought they had pretty good reasons for trying to kill me,” continued Holliday.

“Now you're just being Doc,” said Roosevelt.

Holliday blinked in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“You've emptied that flask, and if I say you're a terrible man who'll be remembered as a cowardly backshooter, you'll argue with me, just as you're arguing when I'm praising you.”

There was a brief pause while Holliday considered the statement. Then he uttered an amused laugh. “Well, I'll be damned!”

“Probably,” replied Roosevelt with a smile. “But what was that in reference to?”

“You know me even better than Wyatt did.” Suddenly he frowned. “I wish he'd known I was just bullshitting the last time we spoke.”

“That was when you said the wrong thing?”

Holliday nodded. “About his wife.”

“Perhaps he'll forgive you.”

“Wyatt's not the forgiving kind,” said Holliday, shaking his head. “Can't blame him for that. Neither am I.” He turned the flask upside down, just to make sure it was empty. “Besides, I got you now, and truth to tell, I don't think I can handle more than one friend at a time.”

“You're a very unusual man, John Henry Holliday,” said Roosevelt.

“Out of all the millions of white men on this continent Geronimo will treat only with you, and you think
I'm
unusual?”

“I'm not qualified to judge myself.”

“Well,
I
am,” said Holliday firmly. “Geronimo thinks you're going to be king of America if you live long enough.”

“America will never have a king,” said Roosevelt firmly.

“King, emperor, chief, president, it's all the same to him,” continued Holliday. Then he smiled. “Probably the best title is Boss.”

“I'm flattered than he should think so,” replied Roosevelt, “but I've been elected to the State Assembly of New York, nothing else—and I left it when Alice died. I've never been a mayor, a governor, a Senator, a—”

“You've been a deputy marshal,” interrupted Holliday. “You brought in those three killers in the Dakota Badlands during that blizzard. I heard all about it from Bat Masterson.”

“The Winter of the Blue Snow, they called it,” acknowledged Roosevelt. “And yes, I was a deputy—but it was a volunteer position. I was unelected and unpaid.”

“You're young yet,” said Holliday, shaking his head. “You'll learn.”

“I'm twenty-seven,” answered Roosevelt.

“See? You've got your whole life ahead of you.”

“How old were you at the O.K. Corral?” asked Roosevelt.

“What's that got to do with anything?” demanded Holliday.

“Just asking.”

“Maybe thirty.”

“And before the afternoon was over your reputation, for better or worse, was made for all time to come,” said Roosevelt.

“What are you getting at, Theodore?”

“Just that while it's nice to have most of one's life still ahead, the incidents that posterity will judge you by are few and far between, and you can rarely spot them in advance, so you can't procrastinate, you can't loaf, you have to live each moment as if this is the moment that posterity will remember.”

“It sounds exhausting,’ said Holliday.

“It does require one to believe in the vigorous life,” chuckled Roosevelt.

“I'm glad you feel that way, Theodore,” said Holliday, slipping his flask into a coat pocket and gently moving his coat back to expose his gun. “Because I think we're about to put it to the test.”

“What do you see?” asked Roosevelt, his voice tense but his posture unchanged.

“Over your left shoulder,” said Holliday. “It could be a deer or even a bear, but it could also be a Comanche.”

Roosevelt paused a moment in thought before he spoke. “If it's a Comanche, and he's not threatening us, pretend you don't notice him. If he's just scouting the camp, let him go back and report what he sees, which is just you and me. His leaders know where the camp is, so it won't do us any harm. But if we kill or capture him, they're going find out, and then they'll have no choice but to retaliate.”

A grim smile crossed Holliday's face. “I could have killed him in the time you spent telling me not to.”

“Is it definitely a Comanche?

“Unless deer or buffalo have taken to wearing beads,” answered Holliday. Suddenly he smiled. “Take that back. Couldn't be a buff, or Cody'd be out here blasting away with his rifle.”

“What's he doing?” asked Roosevelt.

“Trying not to let us know he's here,” replied Holliday in amused tones. “He's never going to step out into the open while we're here, and having gone to all the trouble to sneak this close I don't imagine he's returning to his camp without whatever information it is that he's after.”

“So he'll just stand there until we go to sleep,” said Roosevelt. Suddenly he grinned. “And if we sit up all night…?”

“Then none of the three of us is going to get any sleep.” Holliday frowned. “I wonder what he
is
here for?” he mused.

“There can only be two reasons, and it's the wrong time of day for one of them.”

“Which one is that?”

“Counting our guns. I assume not everyone here carries one.”

“Yes, they do. Marsh insists.”

“It will just antagonize the Comanche,” said Roosevelt disapprovingly.

“I don't think he gives a damn about the Indians,” Holliday pointed out. “My guess is that the guns are in case we run into Cope's party.”

“He told you that?”

“I haven't been here long enough to ask.”

“Then—?”

“Because every one of Cope's men goes armed for the same reason,” said Holliday.

Roosevelt shook his head in wonderment. “Can you imagine what these two men could do if they worked
together?
”

“I gather they tried that once. That's how they came to be mortal enemies.”

“I'm inclined to say ‘What a waste!’” said Roosevelt. “Except that I wonder if they'd be so fiercely motivated, so willing to spend every last cent of their fortunes and every last minute of their days, if they
didn't
have such a rivalry.”

“Beats me,” said Holliday.

“It's getting chilly, and I'm getting stiff and uncomfortable. Is the warrior still there?”

Holliday nodded. “Bet he's getting kind of stiff and uncomfortable himself. It's a hell of a lot easier to pretend we don't see him than for him to pretend that he's not there.”

“I think I might as well go to my tent and do a little reading,” said Roosevelt.

“The light will attract him,” said Holliday.

“I doubt it. He's not here to kill anyone, because as far as he knows we haven't spotted him and he could try to do it right now. He's just
counting guns, as you say…or maybe he plans to sneak into the bone shack and make sure we don't have any of his ancestors in there. Either way, he doesn't want to kill me, and as long as I convince him I don't know he's there he won't bother me.”