“I trust y’all will forgive my late arrival,” he said, returning a hollow-eyed gaze to the priest. “I speak no German myself, but I had hoped for the pleasure of watchin’ Miss Kate enjoy the sound of one of her cradle languages. Instead, I have spent the evenin’ in the unedifyin’ company of a Texan who disliked bullets so much, he tried to damage one with his face.”
“Your work must be rather like that of an army surgeon in a town like this,” Alexander suggested.
“Beginnin’ to look that way. Days, it’s general dentistry, but after dark …” Doc shook his head and leaned over to stub out the cigarette butt on his boot heel. “Roll me another, will you, darlin’? I treated facial trauma back in Philadelphia, and there were plenty of barroom brawls in that fine city, but nothin’ like this gunshot wound! Cracked ascendin’ ramus on the impact side. Molars shattered, tongue torn up. Mandibular body blown apart on the way out—”
“Jesus, Doc!” Eddie cried. “We just ate, now, didn’t we!”
“When do you sleep?” the priest inquired.
“Still figurin’ that out,” Doc said, ignoring the little sound of annoyance Kate made.
“I got the night off,” Morgan pointed out, “but the doctors are on call all the time.”
Without being asked, a waitress delivered a tray laden with clean glasses and a full bottle of bourbon, along with a cup of tea and a little pot of honey.
“Why, thank you, Miss Nora. You are very kind,” Doc said, smiling up at her. She poured the first round, and Doc lifted his glass. “To John Horse Sanders,” he said, and they repeated the toast. More quietly, Doc added, “And to the nameless young fool from the Lone Star State who has just entered eternity with half his jaw shot off.”
“So he died anyway! After all you did for him!” Disgusted, Kate lit the cigarette, took a pull herself, and handed it to Doc. “And now who will pay you?” she demanded, shooting a plume of smoke upward.
Doc’s wheezy laugh became a dry cough that eased when he took a sip of bourbon. “I doubt the boy expired just to avoid his dental bill, darlin’.” He paused to stir some honey into his tea before addressing the priest. “Not countin’ Johnnie, the tally this week is one dead, three others shot up, and two knifed—one of whom has no more than a fair prospect of survival. And it is only Thursday, sir.” Cigarette between two fingers, Doc lifted the cup with both hands and breathed over the surface of the tea to cool it. “Healthy young men, throwin’ their lives away,” he said softly, eyes unfocused. “Sometimes the sheer waste is more than I can bear.”
From his vantage at the end of the table, Morgan smiled a little, watching Father von Angensperg try to make out what he’d just heard. Before Morg himself met Doc a few weeks ago, he’d hardly ever spoken to anyone from the South, excepting Texans, and about the only thing he ever said to them was, “Shut up. You’re under arrest.” Tonight, Doc was whipped, and that must have made his accent even harder for a foreigner to understand.
You could see the Austrian’s wheels turning, but by the time he began to say something back, Kate had started in on Doc again.
“You look terrible! You’ll make yourself sick again! And for what? For nothing!”
“I am beat hollow,” Doc admitted, “but there is no fever or chest pain, darlin’. And paid or not, there is considerable satisfaction in the exercise of a hard-won competence. For example,” he said, trying to head her off, “the good father here was not materially recompensed for the time he spent teachin’ our young friend Johnnie, but I believe he must have found the effort rewardin’. Am I correct, sir?”
“Indeed,” von Angensperg said quietly. “He was an extraordinary student.”
“An unusual and intriguin’ mind,” Doc said. “One night, we were havin’ a smoke outside the Alhambra and he remarked that the Greeks and Romans named the heavens—Venus, Mercury, Mars—but Indians named the ground beneath our feet. Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska … It was a moment of poetic metanoia, sir. I had never thought of things that way.”
Doc pulled out a pocket watch and checked the time. It was a nice enough piece, Morgan noticed, but not extravagant, as you might’ve expected, given how freely he was spending money on this affair. Morgan had heard about Doc’s win the other night—walked away with fifteen grand and damn near killed a cattle boss, according to Bat. There had to be some truth to the story. Patching up Texans and pulling teeth for farmers wouldn’t hardly pay for the priest’s train ticket and hotel room, let alone this kind of shindig. The liquor alone …
Doc returned the watch to his pocket and caught the waitress’s attention with a wave. “Nora, honey, I am perishin’ for a dish of peaches in cream. Will y’all join me?” he asked the table. “Father von Angensperg, I calculate there is plenty of time yet, sir. As I recall, the rule is nothin’ after midnight when you are going to say Mass in the mornin’ and—”
“All this is costing us a fortune,” Kate muttered.
Doc slowly turned his gaze toward Kate. “Us?”
“Yes, us! I bring money in, too. I staked you—”
“A loan, darlin’, repaid with interest six hours later.” Doc stared until Kate’s eyes dropped. Then he smiled at his guests. “I assure you, gentlemen, peaches in cream will not bust the Holliday bank.”
As much to spite Kate as to please Doc, Morgan and Eddie accepted the offer, as did von Angensperg.
“You know the rules for the fast,” the priest observed with some surprise. “Are you a Catholic, Dr. Holliday? I have thought Catholicism rare among Southerners.”
“It is, outside of New Orleans. My people are Presbyterians and Methodists for the most part, but our clan does hold in its wide embrace a few lace-curtain Irish—”
“Does it now!” Eddie cried. “Is it possible we’re family, then?”
“Why, Eddie Foy, you miserable shanty bog rat,” Doc said affably, “kindly give my kin credit for
Eddie took it for the joshing it was, but Kate said, “Even if you have none, I suppose? Is that what you’re saying?”
There were a dozen things about Doc Holliday that Morgan didn’t understand, but this was the most baffling: why did he put up with Kate? She was not bad-looking and she was nice enough when she was sober, but at least once a week, she’d tie one on and try to pick a fight with him.
“—so I am not unfamiliar with the customs of the Church of Rome,” Doc was telling von Angensperg. “My dearest cousin prays for my conversion nightly, I am given to understand.”
“That girl!” Kate said with a dismissive wave of the hand. “Poor Penelope! Still weaving …”
“And shall your cousin’s prayers be answered?” the priest asked.
They were following Doc’s lead now, pretending Kate wasn’t there.
“After the war, the Lord God in his
As often happened when Doc’s blood got up, he started to cough, and this time it was pretty bad.
“You see? I told you!” Kate said, sounding satisfied. “You’re killing yourself, damn you!”
Father von Angensperg didn’t seem to mind profanity or cursing, but he was beginning to realize that Doc was a lunger. Concerned, the priest started to say something. Morgan caught his eye and shook his head, for in Morg’s opinion, the best policy was to wait things out and let Doc finish whatever he was saying, after he got his breath. Eddie, by contrast, usually tried to fill in.
“Vile, murderous Yankee barbarian …” the Irishman recited dreamily. “Miserable shanty bog rat … Ignorant goddam Carolina cracker … I collect them,” he told the priest brightly. “Georgia poetry, that is! An artist with an insult, our Doc.”
“
“
“Yankee—”
“
“—continues to enjoy to this very day.” Doc drained the bourbon in his shot glass and cleared his throat before finishing. “The Almighty and I have scarcely been on speakin’ terms since the sixteenth of September 1866.”
Nora delivered the peaches just then and Doc thanked her prettily, his voice genteel once more. “I must
