Doc

than get bucked off by a skittish horse, John Henry dismounted and spoke soothingly to the animal, letting Dick come to terms with the situation. In the meantime, the arch of the bridge provided a slight rise in perspective he enjoyed.

“Dick, if you want a hill in Kansas, you have to by-God build it yourself,” he remarked.

It was a pretty morning. A thunderstorm the night before had cleared the air. Graceful in the breeze, bluestem grass rippled under a sky the color of Kate’s eyes. Phlox and mallow and goldenrod added lavender and pink and yellow to the scene. Red-winged blackbirds trilled in the cattails along the river.

It was a wonder to him now that he’d once failed to appreciate the beauty of this land. The trick of it, he’d lately realized, was to pay attention to the sky as part of the landscape. The rising sun was gilding high cottony clouds from below. In a few hours, as the light shifted upward, those clouds would send amethyst and turquoise shadows racing over the emerald ground, and their sweep across the land would reveal subtle undulations in terrain that only appeared flat to the careless observer.

His own quiet contentment calmed Dick. Soon the horse felt ready to walk over the scary, hollow-sounding surface with the noisy, glittery water below, and to let his rider remount when they reached the solid ground beyond. Swinging easily onto the saddle, sitting comfortably fifteen and a half hands above the earth, gazing at the country south of the Arkansas, John Henry found himself engulfed by a sense of his own well-being. He was grateful to Kate for insisting that they come to Dodge and glad the two of them were working things out. He was pleased that he had made friends here and elated to have returned at last to a useful profession that provided him with so much satisfaction.

And—God a’mighty—to be riding again!

Since coming West, he had been neither well enough nor prosperous enough for long enough to consider keeping a horse to ride for pleasure. Now, with Dick Naylor beneath him, he felt himself a joyful boy once more: privileged to share in the athletic power of a large and dangerous animal willing to be controlled by the small, frail strength of a mere human being.

It came to him then that if things worked out the way he hoped, he might just buy a colt from Wyatt Earp one day. By Dick Naylor out of Roxana.

For the first time since he’d begun his practice in Atlanta at the age of twenty-one, John Henry Holliday was beginning to think of the future as though he had a right to it. And why not? Outside, in the growing warmth and the brilliant sunshine, rocking in the rhythm of a ground-eating lope, he was aware of his body from his head to his heels and he felt fine.

Thirteen and a half months had passed since Henry Kahn had tried to kill him. His hip had healed slowly but fully; the scarring gave him trouble with some movements, but most days now his cane was more fashionable than functional. The pain beneath his left scapula was probably muscular; he just needed to get used to stooping over patients again. The cough was bad occasionally; he should be more careful about the things that set it off. Granted, breathing was sometimes difficult, but he expected to do better after the cattle season ended, absent the dust.

He could ride now for a good two hours at a stretch, and he felt fortunate to have lived long enough to learn that the cure for his illness might be as simple as “Go on outside and enjoy yourself, son.” He wasn’t so certain he’d enjoy cold baths when the weather cooled off, but for now, they were remarkably refreshing after exertion. China Joe charged less for unheated water, so that part of the therapy even saved money, which pleased Miss Kate. He was tired after the rides, but that was the whole point of the exercise, and he was sleeping so much better! He awoke restored, feeling far more rested than he had during the enforced idleness imposed by Tom McCarty after the fall on the Fourth of July.

John Henry Holliday was better in every way he could think of.

It didn’t occur to him to think that better is not the same as well.

Was he fooling himself? He would not have said so. Even at twenty-two, when his diagnosis was confirmed, he was realistic. Most suffer. Everyone dies. He knew how, if not when.

Now more than ever, he was determined to cheat the Fates of entertainment, but naturally, his time would come. When it did, he believed he would accept death as Socrates had: with cool philosophical distance. He would say something funny, or profound, or loving. Then he would let life fall gracefully from his hands.

Horseshit, as James Earp would say, of the highest order.

The truth is this. On the morning of August 14, 1878, Doc Holliday believed in his own death exactly as you do—today, at this very moment. He knew that he was mortal, just as you do. Of course, you know you’ll die someday, but … not quite the same way you know that the sun will rise tomorrow or that dropped objects fall.

The great bitch-goddess Hope sees to that.

Sit in a physician’s office. Listen to a diagnosis as bad as Doc’s. Beyond the first few words, you won’t hear a thing. The voice of Hope is soft but impossible to ignore. This isn’t happening, she assures you. There’s been a mix-up with the tests. Hope swears, You’re different. You matter. She whispers, Miracles happen. She says, often quite reasonably, New treatments are being developed all the time! She promises, You’ll beat the odds.

A hundred to one? A thousand to one? A million to one?

Eight to five, Hope lies.

Odds are, when your time comes, you won’t even ask, “For or against?”

You’ll swing up on that horse, and ride.

A week earlier, while enjoying a state of happiness as profound and unexamined as Doc’s own, Alexander von Angensperg had come at last to the border of the Indian Territory. There the Great Western Trail was a wide path beaten into the grassland by millions of hooves. Trusting that it would lead him to the German farming communities of Ford County in southwestern Kansas, Alexander turned Alphonsus northward.

Pasturage improved steadily. Approaching the Arkansas River, he began to encounter cattle companies that had paused to fatten their herds before sale in Dodge. He camped with several crews overnight, but his days were spent alone until a clear mid-August morning, when he saw in the distance a coal-black dot, startling against the sunlit grass.

A lone surviving bison, he supposed, forlornly searching for a companion. But as Alexander closed on it, the shape gradually resolved into a fine dark stallion with a slender, smiling rider. It seemed a message from God when this person called out a quote from Saint Paul.

“Put to death that which is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness … ridin’ a respectable horse.”

“Dr. Holliday!” Alexander cried, adding with astonished delight, “You look … well!”

“Very kind of you to say so, sir. I am well!” Doc declared, leaning over to offer his hand. “Keats and Shelley went to France and Italy for their cure. Kansas doesn’t have the same cachet, but then I am a dentist and not a poet. What is a refined Austrian hyparchos like yourself doin’ on an ugly mule like that?”

“The Lord’s work,” Alexander replied, feeling sure of it now. “That is a splendid animal you have!”

“Isn’t he a daisy? When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk! He trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it!”

“Homer …? No! Wait—Henry V!”

“Full marks!” Doc cried, reining around. “Father von Angensperg, may I present Dick Naylor? A quarter-miler to be reckoned with.”

“And this is Alphonsus,” Alexander replied, “a mule aptly named for a saint of many virtues.”

As though no time had passed since their first meeting, they tumbled into a conversation that began with Alexander’s now unabashed admiration for Alphonsus and Doc’s gracious admission that mules were highly prized in the South and considered superior to horses for many purposes. This led to a discussion of mule breeding, and that to horse breeding, and that to Wyatt Earp, who hoped to build a stud farm around Dick Naylor.

“I fear you have missed Wyatt again, sir,” Doc told Alexander. “He’s in Topeka, at the state convention of the Republican Party—” His lip curled at the words, and he added a confession dark with melodrama: “I have fallen in with evil companions.”

From there, the conversation veered off toward the score for Brahms’ Second Symphony, which Alexander had sent two months earlier, and that became a discussion of its orchestration. Music persisted as their topic until