Doc

belittle it.”

For the moment, the argument was suspended, the two of them glaring at each other. In the silence, they became aware again of the noise outside. Gunfire. Strings of small firecrackers crackling. The cheers of drunken spectators egging on a fight.

Kate dropped her eyes first. Seeing his notes, with their careful drawings and orderly numbered paragraphs, she asked, “Who’s that for?”

“Wyatt.”

“He’ll never pay you,” she said dismissively.

“He already is,” Doc said tightly. “Two dollars a week.”

“For crissakes, Doc, that ain’t even ante!”

“Kate, the discussion is closed.”

“You know he bet everything he’s got on that race this afternoon?”

Doc looked up warily and saw the smug expression of a handicapper with inside information. He had money on that race himself. So did Morg. The odds on Dick Naylor were twenty-seven to one, last time he checked.

“He’s going to forfeit,” Kate said with satisfaction.

This was news, and she could see it.

“That big stupid hick didn’t think it out,” she said. “The whole town is filled with Texans trying to kill each other. Listen to them out there! He ain’t never going to get away from work long enough to ride—Dammit, Doc, where are you going?”

Things happened. He reacted. He didn’t intend to defy Kate or shake off her angry solicitude. In quieter moments, he was touched when she nagged him about taking better care of himself, even if her motives were a good deal less than pure. That said, by the time he left the hotel and plunged into the roiling crowd outside, he had forgotten her.

Dick Naylor was entered in the quarter mile.

Post to post, no more than thirty seconds.

The entire population of Ford County appeared to be in town for the festivities, and those nine hundred locals had been joined by upwards of three thousand cowboys. Temperance ladies from Wichita were marching through this throng, holding up neatly lettered placards meant to warn illiterate drovers of the dangers of Demon Rum, while an unknown number of freelance pickpockets and sneak thieves, exported by the City of St. Louis, worked the crowd. Farm families made their way through the crush in open wagons driven by stiff-faced German fathers trying not to provoke an anti-immigrant riot by running over singing, shouting, belligerent Texans. Scandalized German mothers did their inadequate best to shield the eyes of gleefully curious German children from the spectacle of Irish streetwalkers hawking their commodities as shamelessly as the Jewish drummers who offered notions and patent medicines at makeshift tables along the teeming length of Front Street. And all the while, Mr. Jau’s two assistant laundrymen busily sold Chinese firecrackers to idiots who lit the fuses and tossed them under the bellies of horses, just to see the animals go berserk and bolt through town, scattering the citizenry.

Battling through the swarm, Doc scanned faces, hoping to spot Wyatt or Morgan. When ten minutes failed to yield sight of a single lawman, he decided to put the von Angensperg Principle into effect: skip permission and ask forgiveness later. He had to get to the barn, saddle Dick, and ride to the racetrack by three, and he was running out of time. If anyone at the track argued, he’d say Wyatt sent him, and deal with the consequences later.

Tired of the buffeting and shoving, he decided to try for one of the alleys and moved to the edge of the street. He had just reached the boardwalk when a chair crashed through the Comique Theater’s front window.

Ducking low, off balance, he raised his arms against the shower of glass. A moment later, he was spun around and knocked to the ground when thirty-some wild-eyed Texas boys boiled out of the building. He was still struggling to find his footing when he heard Eddie Foy shout, “Doc! I’m coming!”

Minnowing through the mob with lithe acrobatic dispatch, Eddie arrived at his side, hauled him onto his feet, and pulled him backward until the two of them were flattened against the wall of the theater. Once there, they had no thought except to stay out of the brawl.

The Texans were screaming for blood, a quantity of which was already streaming from the head of a limp German fiddler—and if he wasn’t already dead, he would be soon, for the cowboy on top of him was pretty clearly set on opening the fiddler’s throat. “When I tell you to play ‘Yaller Rose,’ ” the kid was yelling, “you by God play ‘Yaller Rose,’ you damn Dutch sonofabitch!”

Wyatt appeared. Calm and workmanlike, he elbowed his way toward the middle of the mob where the German lay. With a spare economy of movement, Wyatt lifted the heavy-hilted knife up and out of the Texan’s raised hand and brought the butt end down sharply on its owner’s head.

The motion was so quick and so effective that things got quiet, and everyone could hear Wyatt say, “You’re under arrest for assault and disorderly conduct,” as though he were remarking on the weather. Kinda hot today. Looks like rain.

He’d reached down to pull the assailant upright and haul him off to jail when one Texan—out of thirty—one approached to object.

Wyatt dropped the unconscious Texan and straightened with a look of contempt so plain and powerful, the drover took a step back.

“Hey!” the drover said, trying for bluster. “Hold it right there, law-dog!”

“Why?” Wyatt asked. “You wanna get your sister to help?”

There were snickers.

Embarrassed, the Texan stammered, “H-hey! Hey! You can’t—”

Wyatt slapped him hard. One cheek, the other.

“Yes,” he said. “I can.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Eddie whispered, pale under his freckles. “They’ll kill him sure.”

“No,” Doc said softly. “No. They won’t.”

And he had no idea why he was so certain, except … it was as though Wyatt knew something that the other man didn’t. Or maybe he knew something about the other man, who was ashamed of it. Yes! And whatever that something was, both of them were agreed as to its significance.

If there was any doubt about what would happen next, the roar of a shotgun ended it. Morgan Earp’s voice sang out nearby. Within seconds, Charlie Bassett, John Stauber, Chuck Trask, Jack Brown, and Bat Masterson arrived, running. Crouched, shotguns shouldered, they pushed through to Wyatt and wheeled to form a cordon around him, backing the mob away.

“Wanna go get your sister?” Morg laughed as he took his place next to his brother. “Jesus, Wyatt, you sounded just like Pa—”

“Shut up,” Wyatt snapped.

Morgan’s face went slack, and he looked like he’d been backhanded.

What was that about? Doc wondered.

“Sorry,” Wyatt said briefly. “See to the fiddler.”

Morgan knelt at the German’s side. “Still breathing,” he reported. “Stauber, fetch Doc McCarty!”

Drawn by the noise and the excitement, the crowd was getting bigger by the moment, and the buzz of comment became louder when people noticed which Texan Wyatt Earp had just arrested. The kid was sitting on the ground, one leg out straight in front of him, the other crumpled beneath him, a circumstance he’d lament when he sobered up. He looked like any of a thousand beardless boys in town that day, but the spur he’d landed on when Wyatt dumped him was heavy silver. His boots were custom-made, and the hat lying in the dirt nearby was an expensive Stetson.

Word got around fast. Dog Kelley and Bob Wright showed up on Doc McCarty’s heels.

“That’s Billy Driskill,” Bob said. “Wyatt, wait! You can’t—”

Wyatt had the kid by the ear, but he was looking at Dog Kelley. “I told you when I started: I don’t care who it is. He breaks the law, I’m taking him in.”

“Dog,” Bob Wright said, his voice low and urgent, “that’s Jesse Driskill’s nephew. His uncle’s worth millions to the city! You’re the mayor—do something!”

“C’mon, Wyatt,” Dog pleaded. “Be reasonable!”

“You want my badge back?” Wyatt asked.