He turned to stare at her, appalled by her coarse language and her callousness. “What an
She was ashamed and so she was belligerent; their first night together ended with their first fight. She threw the skinny, smug, high-hat bastard out of her room. But when the hangover wore off, she found herself remembering his hands. And how clean he was. And how gentle. The next night, she sat down near his table again to watch him deal.
Like Kate, Doc had made a study of gamblers and had theories about the breed. “A game like faro gives men the power to stop time,” he told her when they’d been together for a week. “That is the appeal, in my observation.”
He was lying on his back with his hands behind his head. She thought he was staring at the ceiling, the way some men will when they’ve rolled off. Later she learned that lifting his arms that way helped him breathe.
“When the bet is placed,” he said, “a moment is carved away from the past and the future. In that enchanted moment, anything is possible. A man’s debts and regrets and limitations disappear. He is buyin’ the chance to imagine—for one moment at a time—that the next card I deal will make him rich.”
Speaking, Doc had begun to shiver. Falling silent, he rolled away from her in bed. He’s cold, she thought. A Southerner with no meat on his bones. She came up close behind him, putting an arm over his shoulder, warming his bony back with her own small, soft body. She tried to remember the last time she had listened to such a thoughtful man. Not since her father died, most likely.
“I hate it,” Doc muttered. “Makes me feel like a thief.”
Faro was the means to an end for Doc, something to which he resorted when he needed to accumulate cash to play poker. Kate found that mystifying. Why give up a sure thing for a game you could lose? If it had been up to her, Doc would do nothing but deal faro night after night, raking in money from one idiot after another. Drovers, farmers, soldiers … Every damn one of them would bet his eyeballs out if you gave him odds.
“Who cares how hard they work?” she cried. “Nobody puts a gun to their heads!”
They argued their way through Texas. Nothing she said about faro made any difference to Doc, but she’d won the battle over moving to Dodge. Now that they were here, she would make it her business to find him high- stakes games.
After years of watching gamblers, she was a good judge of poker players. Doc himself could be astonishing. He didn’t cheat, as far as she could see, but he was impossible to predict, and that could be just as effective. He’d play tight and slow all evening and then destroy an opponent in twenty minutes. Raising and reraising, jacking the game up, betting like a tyrant until his baffled competitor folded or lost. Once she saw him win nearly $3,500 with a pair of nines that way and the biggest loser hardly knew what had happened to him. Two hands later, sure that Doc was bluffing, the table lost another grand to him because that time Doc had the goods. Then he played small for the balance of the night, driving the others crazy.
This evening, she had the perfect mark: a South Carolinian named Estes Turner, a consistent, aggressive player who expected the same from others. Last night in a private game at Bessie Earp’s bordello, Turner tossed a grand into a $315 pot to chase another player out. He ragged the man about it for the rest of the night, and then— sitting on thousands of dollars—he argued about the brothel tab! It was going to be a real pleasure to watch Doc take that bastard down a notch.
Just as she and Doc reached the Green Front’s door, he stopped short and whistled his admiration for a fine dapple-gray mare tied to a rail out front. “That might be the prettiest head God ever put on a horse,” Doc remarked to a pair of troopers who lounged nearby, smoking and complaining.
Kate turned back and frowned. Doc was broad-minded, but he usually drew the line at uniformed Yankees. These boys were too young to have been in the war. Maybe that made it possible not to hate them on sight.
“Take a look, darlin’,” he said, gesturing with his cigarette. “Unless I miss my guess, she is one of Anthony Keene Richard’s fillies.”
“Naw,” a stringy corporal told him. “She’s Captain Grier’s horse.”
“I stand corrected,” Doc said with a slight but courteous bow. “I should have said that Captain Grier’s mare carries the bloodlines of Mr. Richard’s horses. One must choose one’s words carefully among scholarly Yankees.”
Kate rose on her toes and breathed, “Turner,” into his ear.
Ignoring her, Doc asked, “Now, why aren’t you two gentlemen enjoyin’ the city’s hospitality this evenin’?”
“Goddam barn burned down,” the corporal told him. “So we’re guarding this goddam horse all night.”
“All night, or until the goddam captain goes bust,” a private added, lifting a blunt chin toward the Green Front.
“The captain would not be
The soldier nodded. “That’s him.”
“Well, now …” Doc drew on the cigarette and coughed a little: dry and shallow. “It is an unexpected treat to see such a mare right here in Dodge. My understandin’ was that all Mr. Richard’s breedin’ stock was lost durin’ Mr. Lincoln’s war.”
Stolen, he meant.
“Horses bore me,” Kate said with a calculated sullenness, tugging at his elbow.
“Can’t have that, now, can we?” Doc told the troopers. “If you’ll excuse us, gentlemen?”
Doc turned and held the saloon door open for her. Stepping inside, she smiled up at him, pleased to demonstrate her own acumen. The Saratoga was more plush and the Long Branch was much bigger, but the Green Front clientele was more serious about both drinking and gambling. There was a piano, badly tuned and poorly played, but the predominant sounds were the slide and slap of pasteboard cards, the clatter and chink of chips and coins, the clicking of a roulette wheel. Around the saloon, the low male mutter of conversation was punctuated by crisp professional calls.
“Are you all down, gentlemen?”
“Eight to one on the colors.”
“Keno!”
Around the room, customers and bar girls alike paused to take note when Doc Holliday and his woman arrived, for they made a handsome couple in silver gray and pale shimmering pink. Noticing the hush, Bat Masterson rose from his table at the back and approached with a friendly smile. He spent most nights at the Green Front, taking a percentage of the house for making sure the rougher element in town didn’t smash the place up. It was his custom to greet newcomers to the saloon as though he owned the place, and then say, “A word to the wise” about not starting any trouble.
“Evening, Kate. Nice to see you again, Doc,” Bat began, but before he could say more, the dentist’s admiring gaze rendered him mute.
“Why, Sheriff Masterson!” Doc said. “I never before noticed how intensely blue your eyes are. That waistcoat sets them off a treat! You should wear the color more often, sir.”
Kate had both hands around Doc’s arm and tightened them a little, but kept her face carefully composed. The sheriff of Ford County was built like a chunk of wood: short, solid, cylindrical. That evening, Bat’s burly body was resplendent in a lavender suit and a pale yellow shirt. A vest of midnight blue and gold brocade set off his silvery pistols.
“
“Clothes make the man,” Doc told Bat. “Marcus Fabius Quintilianus. Isn’t she a daisy?” Eyes on Kate’s, Doc brought one of her small hands to his lips, then seemed to remember that Bat was still standing there. “I apologize, Sheriff. You were about to say something?”
“Welcome to the Green Front,” Bat said tightly. “First drink’s on the house. I’ll be at the back table if you need anything.”
If you start anything, he meant.
Kate almost laughed. She hadn’t planned on that little joust, but it didn’t surprise her either. Doc could be patronizing and snide, and cocky little bastards brought out the worst in him. As for Bat … Well, sure as henna hates a natural red, Bat Masterson would always think the worst of Doc Holliday. Bat told stories; Doc was a wit. Bat was false; Doc was wily. Bat was ambitious, but Doc had a sense of his own superiority so deep in him, he didn’t even know it existed. Most galling of all, both men had physical limitations they worked hard to conceal, and
