Doctor and the Kid, The (A Weird West Tale) (Weird West Tales) (24 page)

E

“What's the matter?” Holliday called up to the driver.

“Changing horses,” was the answer. “Stretch your legs, have a drink, visit the privy, whatever takes your fancy. We'll leave again in half an hour.”

Holliday climbed down from the coach and went into the station. He walked up to the bar and ordered a beer, which was as close as he was willing to get to water to clear the dust out of his throat.

“Welcome back, Doc,” said the bartender. “How'd things go for you down in Lincoln?”

“Pretty much as expected,” answered Holliday noncommittally.

“And that lovely lady who was traveling with you?” continued the bartender. “I guess she's staying there?”

Holliday nodded his head. “She's staying there.”

Holliday finished his beer, wiped his mouth with a sleeve, and went out back to visit the outhouse. As he was emerging a moment later, he became aware that he was no longer alone.

“I thought we were done with each other,” he said.

“That was before I was aware of what your friend Edison had invented,” said Geronimo. “You could have used it on me, but chose not to.”

“I don't kill honorable men,” replied Holliday. “At least, I try not to.”

“You told me in the White Eyes' burial ground that you had nothing to ask of me.”

“That's still true.”

“But I have thought long and hard,” said Geronimo, “and I have something to offer.”

“What?”

“Exactly what your friend was sent here to wrest away from my people.”

“Good!” said Holliday. “I'll tell you him said so.”

Geronimo shook his head. “No.”

Holliday frowned. “Then I don't understand.”

“There is only one member of your race I will treat with.”

“President Arthur?”

“No.”

“Then who?”

“You do not know this man,” said Geronimo. “But you will. He is a young man, younger than you, and he will not cross the Mississippi for another year. But he has greatness within him, and when he does cross the river, I will treat with him.”

“If I don't know him, how can I set up a meeting?” asked Holliday.

“You and he have a mutual friend who will arrange the meeting when the time comes,” said Geronimo. Suddenly he smiled. “The friend is he whom I turned into a bat last year.”

“Bat Masterson?” said Holliday. “And what is the name of the man you want to meet?”

But there was no answer, for Geronimo had vanished upon the winds that swept across the prairie.

T

For those of you who are interested in this “alternate history,” here is a reference list of some of the more interesting books:

Alexander B. Adams,
Geronimo: A Biography
, Da Capo Press (1990)

Stephen Melvil Barrett and Frederick W. Turner,
Geronimo: His Own
Story
, New York: Penguin (1996)

Bob Boze Bell,
The Illustrated Life and Times of Doc Holliday
, Tri Star-Boze (1995)

Glenn G. Boyer,
Who Was Big Nose Kate?
Glenn G. Boyer (1997)

William M. Breakenridge,
Helldorado: Bringing the Law to the Mesquite
, Houghton Mifflin (1928)

Walter Noble Burns,
The Saga of Billy the Kid
, New York: Konecky & Konecky Associates (1953)

E. Richard Churchill,
Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, & Wyatt Earp: Their Colorado Careers
, Western Reflections (2001)

Pat F. Garrett,
The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid
, University of Oklahoma Press (1882)

Pat Jahns,
The Frontier World of Doc Holliday
, Hastings House (1957)

W. C. Jameson and Frederic Bean,
The Return of the Outlaw Billy the Kid
, Plano: Republic of Texas Press (1998)

Jim Johnson,
Billy the Kid: His Real Name Was…
, Outskirts Press (2006)

Sylvia D. Lynch,
Aristocracy's Outlaw: The Doc Holliday Story
, Iris Press (1994)

Paula Mitchell Marks,
And Die in the West: The Story of the O.K. Corral Gunfight
, William Morrow (1989)

John Myers Myers,
Doc Holliday
, Little, Brown (1955)

Frederick Nolan,
The West of Billy the Kid
, University of Oklahoma Press (1998)

—,
The Lincoln County War, Revised Edition
, Sunstone Press (2009)

Fred E. Pond,
Life and Adventures of Ned Buntline
, The Camdus Book Shop (1919)

Philip J. Rasch,
Trailing Billy the Kid
, Western Publications (1995).

Gary Roberts,
Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend
, John Wiley & Sons (2006)

Karen Holliday Tanner,
Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait
, University of Oklahoma Press (1998)

Paul Trachman,
The Old West: The Gunfighters
, Time-Life Books (1974)

Ben T. Traywick,
John Henry: The Doc Holliday Story
, Red Marie's (1996)

—,
Tomstone's Deadliest Gun: John Henry Holliday
, Red Marie's (1984)

John Tuska,
Billy the Kid, A Handbook
, University of Nebraska Press (1983)

Robert M. Utley,
High Noon In Lincoln
, University of New Mexico Press (1987)

—,
Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life
, University of Nebraska Press (1989)

Michael Wallis,
Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride
, W. W. Norton (2007)

I

S
OME
M
OVIE
D
OC
H
OLLIDAYS
:

Victor Mature

Kirk Douglas

Jason Robards Jr.

Stacy Keach

Dennis Quaid

Val Kilmer

Randy Quaid

S
OME
M
OVIE
B
ILLY THE
K
IDS
:

Johnny Mack Brown

Roy Rogers

Robert Taylor

Audie Murphy

Paul Newman

Michael J. Pollard

Kris Kristopherson

Val Kilmer

Emilio Estevez (twice)

S
OME
M
OVIE
T
HOMAS
A
LVA
E
DISONS
:

Spencer Tracy

Mickey Rooney

S
OME
M
OVIE
N
ED
B
UNTLINES
:

Lloyd Corrigan

Thomas Mitchell

S
OME
M
OVIE
G
ERONIMOS
:

Chuck Connors

Wes Studi

Jay Silverheels (four times)

Monte Blue

S
OME
M
OVIE
P
AT
G
ARRETTS

Wallace Beery

Thomas Mitchell

Monte Hale

John Dehner

Rod Cameron (twice)

James Coburn

Patrick Wayne

William Petersen

T

D
OC
H
OLLIDAY

He was born John Henry Holliday in 1851, and grew up in Georgia. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was fourteen, and that is almost certainly where he contracted the disease. He was college-educated, with a minor in the classics, and became a licensed dentist. Because of his disease, he went out West to dryer climates. The disease cost him most of his clientele, so he supplemented his dental income by gambling, and he defended his winnings in the untamed cities of the West by becoming a gunslinger as well.

He saved Wyatt Earp when the latter was surrounded by gunmen in Dodge City, and the two became close friends. Somewhere along the way he met and had a stormy on-and-off relationship with Big-Nose Kate Elder. He was involved in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and is generally considered to have delivered the fatal shots to both Tom and Frank McLaury. He rode with Wyatt Earp on the latter's vendetta against the Cowboys after the shootings of Virgil and Morgan Earp, then moved to Colorado. He died, in bed, of tuberculosis, in 1887. His last words were: “Well, I'll be damned—this is funny.” No accurate records were kept in the case of most shootists; depending on which historians you believe, Doc killed anywhere from two to twenty-seven men.

B
ILLY THE
K
ID

He was born Henry McCarty in New York on November 23, 1859, became Henry Antrim when he took the surname of his stepfather when he moved to New Mexico, became William H. Bonney sometime during his teen years, and became known as Billy the Kid. He stood five feet eight inches tall, weighed about one hundred forty pounds, had brown hair and eyes, possessed buck teeth, and was said to be left-handed.

He killed his first man, “Windy” Cahill, on August 18, 1877, when Cahill was bullying him. He then joined a gang of rustlers and killers known as “The Boys.”

By March 1, 1878, he had joined a group of pseudolawmen named “The Regulators.” By March 9 he had killed two lawmen and a Regulator he believed was a turncoat. He and the Regulators shot themselves out of a number of ambushes in the spring and summer of 1878.

Eventually he was captured and made a deal with Governor Lew Wallace: his testimony for a pardon. The deal didn't stop him from killing again, and finally Pat Garrett hunted him down and killed him on July 14, 1881.

Two different men later claimed that Garrett had killed the wrong man; each claimed that
he
was Billy the Kid, and each had a few experts believing it.

P
AT
G
ARRETT

Pat Garrett was born in Alabama in 1850, grew up in Louisiana, and moved to Texas when he was nineteen. He was a cowboy and a buffalo hunter, then hired on as a “protector” when cattle rustling got too bad.

He moved to New Mexico just as the Lincoln County War was drawing to a close. While he was bartending at Beaver Smith's saloon he met and befriended Billy the Kid. They spent so much time together that they became known as “Big Casino” (Garrett) and “Little Casino” (the Kid).

He became the sheriff in Lincoln County in November of 1880, and captured the Kid on December 23 of that year. The Kid was sentenced to hang, but he broke out of jail, killing two deputies, and Garrett tracked him down again, killing him on July 14 of 1881.

That was the highlight of Garrett's career. He wrote a book about it, waited for Fame to find him, and waited, and waited. He lost his bid for reelection as sheriff in 1882; ran for the State Senate—and lost—in 1884; ran for sheriff of Chaves County—and lost—in 1890; and in 1901 he was appointed Customs Collector by President Theodore Roosevelt (who refused to reappoint him in 1905).

Garrett was shot to death in a financial dispute in 1908.

T
HOMAS
A
LVA
E
DISON

Born in Milan, Ohio, in 1847, Edison is considered the greatest inventor of his era. He is responsible for the electric light, the motion picture, the carbon telephone transmitter, the fluoroscope, and a host of other inventions. He died in 1931.

N
ED
B
UNTLINE

Buntline was born Edward Z. C. Judson in 1813, and gained fame as a publisher, editor, writer (especially of dime novels about the West), and for commissioning Colt's Manufacturing Company to create the Buntline Special. He tried to bring Wild Bill Hickok back East, failed, and then discovered Buffalo Bill Cody, who
did
come East and perform in a play that Buntline wrote.

K
ATE
E
LDER

Big-Nose Kate was born in Hungary in 1850. She came to America as a child, seems to have married a dentist in St. Louis at the age of sixteen, had a baby, and lost both her husband and her child to yellow fever. She got her start as a “sporting woman” by working for Bessie Earp, the wife of James Earp, eldest of the Earp brothers.

She met Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday in 1876, hooked up with Doc shortly thereafter, and helped him escape from jail in Fort Griffin. She was partial to liquor, and at one point in 1881 Sheriff John Behan got her drunk and had her sign a false accusation that Holliday had robbed a stagecoach. She stayed with Holliday on and off until his death, then married a blacksmith, later divorced him, and lived to the ripe old age of ninety, dying in 1940.

T
EXAS
J
ACK
V
ERMILLION

A friend of both Holliday and Wyatt Earp, Texas Jack Vermillion (later known as Shoot-Your-Eye-Out Vermillion) participated in Wyatt Earp's Vendetta Ride, and was saved in at least one shoot-out by Holliday.

O
SCAR
W
ILDE

Author of such classics as
The Picture of Dorian Grey
and
The Importance of Being Ernest
, Wilde was born in 1854, became the darling of the British intelligencia, was imprisoned for a lifestyle that would raise almost no eyebrows today, and died at the age of forty-six. He was in Leadville on a lecture tour in 1882.

S
USAN
B. A
NTHONY

Born in 1820, she became the leading force for women's rights and suffrage in the nineteenth century. She was lecturing in Leadville in 1882.

G
ERONIMO

Born Goyathlay in 1829, he was a Chiricahua Apache medicine man who fought against both the Americans and the Mexicans who tried to grab Apache territory. He was never a chief, but he
was
a military leader, and a very successful one. He finally surrendered in 1886, and was incarcerated—but by 1904 he had become such a celebrity that he actually appeared at the World's Fair, and in 1905 he rode in Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade. He died in 1909, at the age of eighty.