Doc: A Novel (15 page)

When the priest looked blank, Doc said, “Let me put it this way: Johnnie was dealin’ faro, but the way he played? It wasn’t gamblin’.”

“I won’t believe that,” von Angensperg said, offended now. “Johnnie was an honest boy.”

“Yes, sir. Yes, he was, fundamentally,” Doc agreed. “But a dealer generally gets a percentage of the house, so there is every temptation to cheat, and a thousand ways to do it. John Horse Sanders knew more of them than I do, and that is no small statement.”

Doc raised his handkerchief again and turned away. He coughed hard—deliberately and only once. Everyone could see that it hurt him and they kept quiet while he sat still.

“A dealer needs three, four hundred dollars to bank a small-stakes faro table,” he continued a moment later. “I have asked around Dodge a bit, but nobody seems to know how Johnnie got his game started. Do you have any notion from whom he might have obtained that kind of money, sir?”

“I’m quite sure I have no idea,” von Angensperg said. “Certainly no one at St. Francis had such a sum, and we would not have encouraged gambling.”

“Just as well, for whoever staked him may have placed him in the line of fire, so to speak. Dealin’ faro is a dangerous occupation. I myself have learned to avoid it when I can,” he added, tapping his cane lightly with an index finger. “I wonder if Johnnie mentioned any kin to you. I understand that he was born in Texas, though the family was livin’ in Wichita when he was orphaned. Perhaps there is someone who should be informed of the boy’s passin’.”

“We do not encourage our students to keep their ties to the past,” von Angensperg said, shifting in his chair when Doc’s mouth opened in astonishment. “It can only hold them back.”

“I do not believe that is the case, sir,” Doc said. “Johnnie was knowledgeable about his family and their traditions. He took considerable pride in them, as I do in my own, and as I expect you do in yours. Tell me, sir, how did his parents die?”

“I never asked.” Von Angensperg was starting to sound a little huffy. “Many of the children come to us after a tragedy,” the priest explained. “We try not to allow them to dwell on their sadness.”

“I can tell you, Doc,” Morg offered, glad to take some pressure off the priest. Doc could be pretty relentless when he was riding down an idea. “See, Johnnie’s mother was a squaw and his father was a buffalo soldier.”

“A Seminole Negro Indian Scout,” Doc said.

“The Indians call them buffalo soldiers, Father,” Eddie told him, “because Negro hair is curly, like a buffalo’s.”

“Anyways,” Morg said, “Charlie Sanders—that was Johnnie’s father—his regiment moved up from Texas to Fort Sill during the Indian wars. Charlie brought his family up north, too. They moved to Wichita after he mustered out. This was a few years back,” Morgan told the priest, “when the cattle drives all went to the Wichita railhead. And you’ve seen what these cow towns are like! Wichita was almost as bad as Dodge, in its day. Charlie was working as a hod carrier in the city and when he got home one night, he found a couple of drovers interfering with his wife. Beat the tar out of ’em.”

“I expect the Texans came back with their friends,” Doc said. “To even the score?”

“Murdered Charlie and his wife, both,” Morgan said.

“Don’t never bow down …” Doc said, eyes closing. “Charles Sanders had more courage than wisdom. It is a trait I fear he passed on to his son.”

“I blame myself,” von Angensperg confessed. Everyone looked at him. “I was too lenient with Johnnie. He argued often with Brother Sheehan, and I interceded, but I was wrong to do so …” He looked away.

“Sheehan. Now, there’s a name I know,” Doc said, narrow-eyed. “Tried to thrash the devil out of Johnnie a couple of times, I was told. Any truth in that?”

“Johnnie, Johnnie, Johnnie!” Kate muttered.

“Yes, and I see the reason for it now!” the priest told Doc. “There are many men in this country who would kill an Indian or a Negro who is disrespectful, or who is simply better than they—”

“Who is Johnnie Sanders to you?” Kate demanded suddenly. “Why do all of you care so much about some nappy-haired—”

“
Kate!
” Doc was working on the tea again, staring at her over the rim of the cup. “Say another word,” he warned softly, “and you will regret it.”

“These are excellent,” von Angensperg said of the peaches.

He’s learning, Morgan thought. And he was sobering up a little, too.

“They are canned,” Doc pointed out apologetically, “but they are a taste of home, and a comfort to me.”

“Ah! Georgia peaches—of course!” the priest said, his tone changing slightly. “You are a most gracious host, but I must confess, Dr. Holliday, that I am somewhat surprised by your kind regard for a boy like Johnnie, and by your keen interest in his life.”

Doc’s brows rose slightly. “And why should that be, sir?”

“Well, you are a Southerner, and … of a certain class.”

“Why, Father von Angensperg,” Doc said, “whatever do you mean?”

Morgan shifted uneasily. Doc’s voice always took on a peculiar musical quality when he was about to go off on someone. “Come on, Doc. Don’t take it like that. He didn’t mean—”

“The hell he didn’t,” Doc snapped, not even glancing Morgan’s way. His eyes remained steadily on the priest’s. “Twenty dollars says Father von Angensperg has read Mrs. Stowe’s little book and now he knows all … about … Southerners. Any takers?”

“Ah, Father,” Eddie cautioned happily, “you’re in grave danger of learning a lesson, so you are!”

“I have offended you,” the priest said.

“Yes, sir, you have.”

“C’mon, Doc,” Morgan said, “let it go.”

“No, Morgan, I don’t believe I can do that,” Doc replied with that eerie musical malice. “If the good father and I are goin’ to be friends, this is a topic worth explorin’. I am curious to know what he means by ‘a boy like Johnnie.’ I am reasonably certain I understand ‘Southerner of a certain class.’ Father von Angensperg is callin’ me a bigot.”

The priest blinked. “Not at all—”

“I beg to differ, sir,” Doc said politely. “I believe you are callin’ me an idle, vicious, slave-ownin’, nigger-beatin’ bigot.”

Von Angensperg looked stunned. “I assure you: I never meant—I said no such thing!”

“Not in those words, but that is most certainly what you meant to imply, and I will thank you not to deny it.” Doc leaned forward suddenly, the anger open now. “I was thirteen years old when the war ended, sir. I myself never owned a slave. It is true that my father had seventeen hundred acres under cotton before the war. He owned slaves who worked his fields. It is also true that I was served by slaves in my childhood. I was born to that life, sir, as princes are born to theirs.”

“Let it go, Doc,” Morgan said again, but the priest shook his head. He seemed willing to hear Doc out, which was just as well, because Doc didn’t even pause.

“Of course, we are told in Scripture that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons. Do you believe that, sir?” Doc asked. “Or perhaps there is somethin’ about my
own
behavior or my conversation that strikes you as bigoted?”

“No, of course not.”

“And yet you are surprised by my regard for John Horse Sanders. Earlier today, I took my noon meal with a Chinaman. Morgan here is a Republican. Why, at this very moment, there is an Irishman at my table!”

“Which is as low as any gentleman in Dodge is willing to go,” Eddie noted proudly.

“And I’m a whore,” Kate declared. She was really skunked now.

“Miss Kate’s marital status cannot be regularized,” Doc said in her defense, “which places all her associations beyond the pale, but I must point out that in many social circles, sir, Jesuits are considered the very worst that the Great Whore of Babylon has to offer in the way of papist idolaters. And yet: you, too, are my guest, sir. Where, then, do you suppose I might draw the line?”

Eddie was grinning his head off and even Kate seemed entertained, but Morgan felt bad for the poor damn priest, who only wanted to know something Morg himself had wondered about, because it was kind of strange how Doc was doing all this for a kid he’d only known a few weeks.

Doc’s voice was getting roupy again and he turned away, coughing hard into his handkerchief to clear some obstruction. “I admit,” he said a few moments later, “that I might not have an equal regard for other boys
like
John Horse Sanders. Then again, I have never met anyone remotely worthy of the category. In fact, I am inclined to argue that anyone who imagines that such categories exist should be considered a bigot himself.”

“Your points are taken, Dr. Holliday,” von Angensperg said.

“Then perhaps you would like to reconsider your words,” Doc pressed.

“All right, that’s enough, Doc,” Morgan said. He meant it, too, because John Holliday was—bar none—the most educated man Morgan Earp had ever met, and he could be the most courteous and kind, but there was just no quit in him when he got like this, and he was stupid sometimes about how long and how hard he pushed. Morgan himself had made a study of this sort of thing. You didn’t have to be chummy like Ed Masterson, and you didn’t have to bash heads with no warning, the way Virgil did. You could give an order and make it stick, like Wyatt did, but you had to leave a man some pride to walk away with. That’s what Doc just never seemed to see.

To Morgan’s surprise, the priest thought it over and replied, “Yes. I believe I would like to correct myself.” He straightened, looked directly at Doc, and declared, “There was only one John Horse Sanders. He was worthy of respect. I am pleased and grateful that he had yours, as he had mine.”

There was a considerable silence.

“
Sunt lacrimae rerum
,” Doc said finally, “for he is gone now, and that is a pity, and I offer you my hand on it, sir.”

“No victor, no vanquished!” Eddie cried.

Doc poured them all another round. “To Johnnie,” he said, “and to men who won’t bow down.
Requiescant in pace
, by God. They ever catch the killer, Morg?”

Morgan put his glass down and frowned. Doc could pivot like a stock horse sometimes.

“Johnnie’s parents,” Eddie prompted.

“Oh! No, but everybody knew who done it. Fella name of Ramsey rode through town right after, shooting his mouth off about how he pulled the trigger. My brother Wyatt, he wanted to ride after Ramsey, but the city marshal called him off.”

“Nobody wanted trouble with the cattlemen,” Doc guessed.

“Bad for business,” Eddie agreed with a shrug.

Morgan nodded. “Anyways, Wyatt was just a part-time deputy and he—”

Kate, who had drifted off into her own world, suddenly turned to von Angensperg. Her eyes were teary when she asked, “And what could Penelope offer Odysseus but illness and death if he returned to Ithaca?”

Baffled, Eddie and Morg looked at each other and then at the priest, who seemed about to say something, except Doc answered her instead.

“Calypso was offerin’ Odysseus immortality, darlin’. Penelope offered him endurin’ love. I myself just wanted some company.” Kate’s mouth opened, and she looked like she’d been slapped, but Doc turned to Morgan. “You were sayin’?”

“Yeah, well … Wyatt don’t hardly ever get mad but when he does, look out! He told Marshal Smith off, and they got into it some. The town ended up putting Wyatt on full-time, but Ramsey was long gone by then.”

“And that’s why your brother took Johnnie into his home, after the boy’s parents were killed?” von Angensperg asked.

“Wyatt took Johnnie in?” This was news to Morgan.

“Yes, that is what Johnnie said.”

“I’ll be damned! Wyatt never said anything about that part—”

“I don’t need you,” Kate told Doc, defiant now. “I never did!”

“Darlin’,” Doc said, weary of her at last, “the door is behind you and to the left.”

“Go to hell,” she muttered, getting unsteadily to her feet. She flounced off through the main room, staggering against a table, knocking over some bottles. “To hell with all of you!” she shouted. “I’m going to find myself a Texan! With some meat on his bones!”

In the alcove and in the big room, forty-some men watched Kate go, then turned uneasily toward Doc Holliday to see how he would take it. For a while there was no sound in the room but the thrum of moth wings as the big white insects thumped against glass lamp chimneys.

Eddie was the first to speak. “Hellion and a half, our Kate,” he said. “You’re a better man than I am, Doc.”

Doc seemed distant, his face expressionless. When he spoke again, it was with that quiet, careful thoughtfulness that Morgan Earp liked best in him.

“When I am sick,” he told them softly, “she fears that I will die, and she will end up on the street. When my health improves, she fears that I will go back to Georgia, and she knows I will not take her home to my family.” He glanced at the others. “Strikin’ a balance eludes me.”

Nobody said anything. Apparently unperturbed (unstirred, Morg thought), Doc finished his tea and set the cup down carefully before taking a shallow, careful breath. “Not Calypso,” he decided. “Athena. She is a warrior.”

“And she is fighting wounded,” Alexander said, pouring the next round.

Their eyes met. Doc tossed back the liquor and began to recite.

“
Desire with loathin’ strangely mixed … On wild or hateful objects fixed … To be beloved is all I need … And whom I love, I love indeed
.”

“Deny it, if you will, but there’s an Irishman revealed!” Eddie accused, thumping his emptied shot glass on the table. “Make him sad, get him drunk, and on to the poetry, it is!”

Doc unleashed a sudden charming, crooked smile. “Morgan!” he cried with theatrical good humor—loud enough for the others in the restaurant to hear. “What ever happened with that horse up in your sister-in-law’s bordello?”

Three Grand Gone

W
ith Kate’s departure, the mood cleared the way prairie weather does after a short, violent summer storm. Doc called for more bourbon, and cigars all round, and the crowd began to gather.

“You sure?” Morgan asked, because Doc was tired hours ago.

“Hell, yes,” Doc insisted. “Why, the evenin’s hardly begun!”

“Well, all right, then,” Morg began, “you know how narrow Bessie’s second-floor hallway is—”

“I most certainly do not, sir,” Doc insisted amid howls of disbelief, “and I hope you will never again suggest such a thing in polite company.”

“Polite company?” Eddie asked innocently. “And what would that be, then?”

“Any gatherin’ without an Irishman,” Doc replied.

“What’s the difference between a Chinaman and an Irishman?” Eddie asked, shouting above the laughter. “Either one’ll sell you his granny, but the Chinaman won’t deliver!”

“Narrow,” Morg yelled, trying to take back the floor. “The hallways are narrow! Anyways, this dumb sonofabitch decides to ride up the stairs to visit his temporary best girl, right? And the horse is fine going up, but once he’s on the second floor, he can’t turn around. Now, James—that’s another one of my brothers, Father—James wants to shoot the animal, but Bessie—that’s James’s wife—she says it won’t be any easier getting a dead horse out of the building—”

“To Mrs. Earp, a levelheaded woman,” Doc said, raising his glass, and every man in the place joined him.

“—so me and John Stauber climb in one of the windows—”

“Spoiling some poor Texan’s fun,” Eddie noted mournfully.

“Right,” Morg said, “and we apologize for the interruption, and go on out into the hallway, and there we are—looking at this horse, who’s looking at us like he wants to say, ‘I hope
you
got a plan, because I’m fresh out.’ So we decide to take him into Dora’s room, down at the far end of the hall—”

“Christ, Morg,” Eddie cried, “you’re lucky Lou’s not here! ‘And how would yourself be knowing that was Dora’s room,’ she’d be asking you!”

“ ‘Lou,’ I’d swear, ‘I only know because Stauber told me,’ ” Morgan said, ignoring the hoots. “Lou’s a girl I’ve been seeing, Father. Anyways, Dora’s not in her room because she’s singing down at the Bird Cage—”

“And,” Alexander offered sagely, “it is easier to ask forgiveness than to obtain permission.”

There were cheers for this useful notion, and the priest inclined his head.

“—so we open up her room and lead the horse inside, figuring that we’d have enough play to head him around, but the stirrup gets hung up on the damn doorknob. So, now, I’m inside Dora’s room, and the horse is halfway through the door, and Stauber’s down on his knees trying to reach the girth and the horse gets nervous—”

Everyone moaned.

“Yeah, well, Stauber can take a bath, but the carpet in that hallway’ll never be the same,” Morgan told them. “So, me and Stauber get the saddle off, and we get the horse turned around, and we’re leading him back out into the hallway, and now he’s headed toward the stairs, but when we get there, the animal just will not budge. Stairs are fine going up, I guess, but he’s not having any part of going down. I’m hauling on this horse’s head, and Stauber’s pushing from behind because—hell, he already reeks, and I’ve been a deputy longer than he has. But it’s just no use, and—”

“Wait!” von Angensperg cried, to everyone’s surprise. “You found a mare in season?”

“Yes!” Morgan yelled, and there were shouts of laughter. “The horse caught the scent and damn near ran over me trying to get to her! How did you know?”

“I served in the imperial cavalry in my youth,” the priest told them, adding, “Dodge City is not the first town to be invaded by unruly young men on horseback.” He waited for the reaction to die down before noting with a sly grin, “And narrow hallways are not unknown in Europe.”

Eyes widening seraphically, Doc poured another shot into von Angensperg’s glass. “Do tell, sir! We are agog with anticipation.”

Alexander’s own stories came first. These were matched, then topped by a variety of other tales. The laughter was raucous and good-natured, the cigars were very fine indeed, and there was no bottom to the bottle. Dressed as he was in a soft cotton shirt, without the nudge of a starched Roman collar to remind him of who and what he was, Alexander relaxed into the general conviviality. For the most part, however, he found himself talking to John Holliday, whose accent became more familiar as the evening progressed, and whose opinions were as strong and undiluted as his bourbon.

Before long, their conversation made Alexander think of two starved men falling upon a banquet table laden with richer food than either had tasted in years. The Chinese labor question, Dodge City politics, Mr. Darwin’s proposal. (“The notion explains a great deal of natural history,” in Doc’s opinion, “but considerin’ the presidency from George Washington to Rutherford B. Hayes, I believe we can dismiss the case for evolutionary progress.”) The electrical principles underlying telephony. Strategy in poker. The Schliemann excavation of Troy, and Lucian’s satires, which they both loved, especially
The True History
. Homer’s “Wrath” reminded Doc of Saint John’s “Logos,” and he asked if Alexander thought the beginning of that Gospel reflected the philosophy of Heraclitus. “Quite likely” was Alex’s answer, which led them on to biblical criticism and the work of Hermann Reimarus, and somehow that wandered into a discussion of German versus Italian opera.

They only noticed that the room had emptied out when the manager came to the table, asking if he could lock up. There was a short, whispered discussion. Doc counted out what must have been over three thousand dollars and made one last purchase of cigars and a final fifth of bourbon. Cane in one hand, bottle in the other, Doc led them around to the north side of the building, away from Front Street’s all-night carouse. There they sat on kegs and packing crates, smoking and drinking under the stars, and talking about home.

By that time, only four men were left: Doc himself, Morgan Earp, Eddie Foy, and the former Prince Alexander Anton Josef Maria Graf von Angensperg, who was just plain Alex by that time, drunker than he’d been in fifteen years and long past noticing how late it was or how soon he would be saying Mass.

Many hours later—when the funeral was over and Johnnie had been buried—on the train back to Wichita, Alexander should have been preparing himself to confess gluttony and public intoxication and a failed fast. Instead he found himself trying to remember everything he’d said to Doc in the deep dark before dawn when, for the first time since leaving Europe, Alexander had felt—suddenly and fully—how homesick he was, how much he missed his mother tongue, and his brothers and sisters and friends, and skiing and parties, and simply having a good time. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he’d become rather maudlin at one point, and suspected that Doc had saved him from making an ass of himself.

“Yes … Kin and conversation,” Doc had agreed before deflecting the talk delicately. “And good music—played
well
,” he emphasized, for somewhere out on Front Street, a Strauss waltz was being hammered
approximento
. “At my last count, there are nineteen saloons in this town. Seven have pianos, not a single one of which is in tune. I cannot bear to put my hands on any of them.”

“You are a pianist, then?” Alex asked.

“
Thalberg
was a pianist, sir, but I do love to play.”

“Thalberg! So you have been to Europe?”

“Regrettably: no. The maestro toured the South when I was a boy.”

“I heard Liszt in Paris,” Alex said, like a man laying aces on the table.

“They say he changed pianos the way another man might change horses,” Doc said, “to keep from wearin’ the beasts out.”

“And that he played so intensely the very keys would bleed! I can testify that he drove women to frenzy. A young lady sitting next to me wept so, she fainted during a sonata. I preferred Chopin’s performance, frankly—”

“You heard Chopin?” Doc fell back against the clapboards. “I am prostrate with envy, sir!”

“He played at a private salon one night. I was young, but the evening was unforgettable … He played the Polonaise in A-flat, and some truly magical variations on a Bellini aria. Such delicacy! His
pianissimo
was like angel’s breath! A selection of mazurkas—those were remarkable, as well, his left hand always in strict tempo, but the right
rubato:
ahead of the beat, behind it. And when we thought he had nothing left, an encore! The G-flat Waltz. It was such a demanding program, and the poor man was half dead from consumption, but somehow he got through the whole—” Alex stopped. “Forgive me. That was thoughtless.”

“Yes,” Doc said coolly, but he waved the moment off. “Apart from Miss Kate, you are the first person I have spoken to since leaving Georgia with the slightest notion of who Chopin was. We, sir, are an atoll of culture on this godforsaken ocean of grass,” he said, lifting a hand toward the vast darkness around them. “Kate loves the mountains, as you do, but my own eyes are schooled to a gentler landscape. Rollin’ hills. Curvin’ roads. No vista entirely untouched by human hands …” Doc looked at Eddie, who’d been strangely quiet all this time. “How do you stand this wilderness, after Chicago?”

“It’s a job, then, isn’t it, and that’s more than I could find at home,” Eddie snapped, his brogue deepening. “It’s a bed to sleep in and a roof over me head when the show is over, and don’t that beat a traveling carnival all hollow, now? And I don’t mind the wilderness one wee bit. It’s being trapped in a burning city gives me the cold creeps, and if any of youse so much as breathes the name O’Leary, I’ll have your guts,” he promised. “Changed my name from Fitzgerald to get out from under the curse—they blamed all us micks for that damn cow. I tell you true, Father: when I shuffle off the mortal coil, I’m going straight to heaven, for I’ve served me time in hell. Run for miles, I did, me sister’s small boy in me arms, and there was us standing in Lake Michigan, watching the whole city go up, not knowing if there was anyone left alive at home. There’s nothing worse than burning, that’s the lesson I learned from Chicago! At least in Dodge, there’s a fighting chance you could get away from a fire—”

Silence fell. They were all thinking the same thing. Finally Eddie asked the question that had gnawed at him since he’d smelled Johnnie’s charred remains as the mortician’s men carried the body out of the ruins.

“Doc, do you think he was dead, then? Before he burned, I mean.”

“No,” Doc said, “but I believe he was unconscious. He would not have felt the flames.”

“Christ,” Eddie said, holding his hand out for the bottle, and speaking for them all. “That’s a mercy, then.”

They listened to the pianos, and shouts, and drunken laughter, to the wind in the grass and to the crickets. A few yards away, a vixen’s eyes caught a bit of light from a saloon, then darkened again as she turned her head; presently, they heard the whir of wings—a prairie chicken, flushed by the fox and caught to feed her kits.

“And you, Morgan? Where is home for the Earps?” Alex asked.

“You know, I been sitting here wondering about that,” Morg said. “I don’t guess my family stayed anywheres long enough to call it home. Illinois. Iowa. Missouri. California. Pa always had some reason for moving on. New opportunities, he told us, but there were debts … And trouble with neighbors, usually. It was hard on my mother. And my two sisters hated losing their friends over and over, but there was six of us boys, and we didn’t need anybody else. We’re all grown now, even Warren, but we keep moving. Utah, Nevada. The Dakotas. Colorado. Kansas. Arizona. I guess wherever my brothers are, that’s home. When we’re scattered, like now? I guess missing them is like being homesick for you and Doc.”

“The early Church,” Alex said. “Wherever two or more of you are gathered …”

“Yeah, well, Earps seem to need at least three or four brothers to feel right. It’s just me and James here in Dodge, and that’s still pretty lonesome … I wish Wyatt would get back. I keep hoping he’ll show up for the funeral, but we’re running out of time.”

Roman Venus was climbing. Greek Eos—saffron-frocked and rosy-fingered—had begun to show herself over the gray-green Kansas prairie. Alex stood and stretched and groaned.

“I think I must turn in, gentlemen, and get a few hours’ sleep before Mass. Dr. Holliday, this has been an extraordinary experience. Nothing in Vienna could compare! Thank you again for all you’ve done.”

Doc was slumped over, elbows on his knees. Head cocked to look up at the priest, he raised a hand to accept the one Alex offered. “My pleasure, sir. Next time: happier circumstances, I hope.”

Alex shuffled off, and Morgan told Doc, “You should be in bed, too,” but the dentist remained where he was.

Eddie asked, “Would you like me to go find out where herself has fetched up, then?”

“Check our room. If she’s not there, I don’t need to know more.”

“Sure, Doc,” Eddie said, exchanging a look with Morgan before he left.

“I can ask Deacon Cox if he’s got a different room for you,” Morg offered.