Doc

“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

With Kate’s departure, the mood cleared the way prairie weather does after a short, violent summer storm.