Doc Page 13

  Eyes widening seraphically, Doc poured another shot into von Angensperg’s glass. “Do tell, sir! We are agog with anticipation.”

  Alexander’s own stories came first. These were matched, then topped by a variety of other tales. The laughter was raucous and good-natured, the cigars were very fine indeed, and there was no bottom to the bottle. Dressed as he was in a soft cotton shirt, without the nudge of a starched Roman collar to remind him of who and what he was, Alexander relaxed into the general conviviality. For the most part, however, he found himself talking to John Holliday, whose accent became more familiar as the evening progressed, and whose opinions were as strong and undiluted as his bourbon.

  Before long, their conversation made Alexander think of two starved men falling upon a banquet table laden with richer food than either had tasted in years. The Chinese labor question, Dodge City politics, Mr. Darwin’s proposal. (“The notion explains a great deal of natural history,” in Doc’s opinion, “but considerin’ the presidency from George Washington to Rutherford B. Hayes, I believe we can dismiss the case for evolutionary progress.”) The electrical principles underlying telephony. Strategy in poker. The Schliemann excavation of Troy, and Lucian’s satires, which they both loved, especially The True History. Homer’s “Wrath” reminded Doc of Saint John’s “Logos,” and he asked if Alexander thought the beginning of that Gospel reflected the philosophy of Heraclitus. “Quite likely” was Alex’s answer, which led them on to biblical criticism and the work of Hermann Reimarus, and somehow that wandered into a discussion of German versus Italian opera.

  They only noticed that the room had emptied out when the manager came to the table, asking if he could lock up. There was a short, whispered discussion. Doc counted out what must have been over three thousand dollars and made one last purchase of cigars and a final fifth of bourbon. Cane in one hand, bottle in the other, Doc led them around to the north side of the building, away from Front Street’s all-night carouse. There they sat on kegs and packing crates, smoking and drinking under the stars, and talking about home.

  By that time, only four men were left: Doc himself, Morgan Earp, Eddie Foy, and the former Prince Alexander Anton Josef Maria Graf von Angensperg, who was just plain Alex by that time, drunker than he’d been in fifteen years and long past noticing how late it was or how soon he would be saying Mass.

  Many hours later—when the funeral was over and Johnnie had been buried—on the train back to Wichita, Alexander should have been preparing himself to confess gluttony and public intoxication and a failed fast. Instead he found himself trying to remember everything he’d said to Doc in the deep dark before dawn when, for the first time since leaving Europe, Alexander had felt—suddenly and fully—how homesick he was, how much he missed his mother tongue, and his brothers and sisters and friends, and skiing and parties, and simply having a good time. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he’d become rather maudlin at one point, and suspected that Doc had saved him from making an ass of himself.

  “Yes … Kin and conversation,” Doc had agreed before deflecting the talk delicately. “And good music—played well,” he emphasized, for somewhere out on Front Street, a Strauss waltz was being hammered approximento. “At my last count, there are nineteen saloons in this town. Seven have pianos, not a single one of which is in tune. I cannot bear to put my hands on any of them.”

  “You are a pianist, then?” Alex asked.

  “Thalberg was a pianist, sir, but I do love to play.”

  “Thalberg! So you have been to Europe?”

  “Regrettably: no. The maestro toured the South when I was a boy.”

  “I heard Liszt in Paris,” Alex said, like a man laying aces on the table.

  “They say he changed pianos the way another man might change horses,” Doc said, “to keep from wearin’ the beasts out.”

  “And that he played so intensely the very keys would bleed! I can testify that he drove women to frenzy. A young lady sitting next to me wept so, she fainted during a sonata. I preferred Chopin’s performance, frankly—”

  “You heard Chopin?” Doc fell back against the clapboards. “I am prostrate with envy, sir!”

  “He played at a private salon one night. I was young, but the evening was unforgettable … He played the Polonaise in A-flat, and some truly magical variations on a Bellini aria. Such delicacy! His pianissimo was like angel’s breath! A selection of mazurkas—those were remarkable, as well, his left hand always in strict tempo, but the right rubato: ahead of the beat, behind it. And when we thought he had nothing left, an encore! The G-flat Waltz. It was such a demanding program, and the poor man was half dead from consumption, but somehow he got through the whole—” Alex stopped. “Forgive me. That was thoughtless.”

  “Yes,” Doc said coolly, but he waved the moment off. “Apart from Miss Kate, you are the first person I have spoken to since leaving Georgia with the slightest notion of who Chopin was. We, sir, are an atoll of culture on this godforsaken ocean of grass,” he said, lifting a hand toward the vast darkness around them. “Kate loves the mountains, as you do, but my own eyes are schooled to a gentler landscape. Rollin’ hills. Curvin’ roads. No vista entirely untouched by human hands …” Doc looked at Eddie, who’d been strangely quiet all this time. “How do you stand this wilderness, after Chicago?”

  “It’s a job, then, isn’t it, and that’s more than I could find at home,” Eddie snapped, his brogue deepening. “It’s a bed to sleep in and a roof over me head when the show is over, and don’t that beat a traveling carnival all hollow, now? And I don’t mind the wilderness one wee bit. It’s being trapped in a burning city gives me the cold creeps, and if any of youse so much as breathes the name O’Leary, I’ll have your guts,” he promised. “Changed my name from Fitzgerald to get out from under the curse—they blamed all us micks for that damn cow. I tell you true, Father: when I shuffle off the mortal coil, I’m going straight to heaven, for I’ve served me time in hell. Run for miles, I did, me sister’s small boy in me arms, and there was us standing in Lake Michigan, watching the whole city go up, not knowing if there was anyone left alive at home. There’s nothing worse than burning, that’s the lesson I learned from Chicago! At least in Dodge, there’s a fighting chance you could get away from a fire—”

  Silence fell. They were all thinking the same thing. Finally Eddie asked the question that had gnawed at him since he’d smelled Johnnie’s charred remains as the mortician’s men carried the body out of the ruins.

  “Doc, do you think he was dead, then? Before he burned, I mean.”

  “No,” Doc said, “but I believe he was unconscious. He would not have felt the flames.”

  “Christ,” Eddie said, holding his hand out for the bottle, and speaking for them all. “That’s a mercy, then.”

  They listened to the pianos, and shouts, and drunken laughter, to the wind in the grass and to the crickets. A few yards away, a vixen’s eyes caught a bit of light from a saloon, then darkened again as she turned her head; presently, they heard the whir of wings—a prairie chicken, flushed by the fox and caught to feed her kits.

  “And you, Morgan? Where is home for the Earps?” Alex asked.

  “You know, I been sitting here wondering about that,” Morg said. “I don’t guess my family stayed anywheres long enough to call it home. Illinois. Iowa. Missouri. California. Pa always had some reason for moving on. New opportunities, he told us, but there were debts … And trouble with neighbors, usually. It was hard on my mother. And my two sisters hated losing their friends over and over, but there was six of us boys, and we didn’t need anybody else. We’re all grown now, even Warren, but we keep moving. Utah, Nevada. The Dakotas. Colorado. Kansas. Arizona. I guess wherever my brothers are, that’s home. When we’re scattered, like now? I guess missing them is like being homesick for you and Doc.”

  “The early Church,” Alex said. “Wherever two or more of you are gathered …”

  “Yeah, well, Earps seem to need at least three or four brot
hers to feel right. It’s just me and James here in Dodge, and that’s still pretty lonesome … I wish Wyatt would get back. I keep hoping he’ll show up for the funeral, but we’re running out of time.”

  Roman Venus was climbing. Greek Eos—saffron-frocked and rosy-fingered—had begun to show herself over the gray-green Kansas prairie. Alex stood and stretched and groaned.

  “I think I must turn in, gentlemen, and get a few hours’ sleep before Mass. Dr. Holliday, this has been an extraordinary experience. Nothing in Vienna could compare! Thank you again for all you’ve done.”

  Doc was slumped over, elbows on his knees. Head cocked to look up at the priest, he raised a hand to accept the one Alex offered. “My pleasure, sir. Next time: happier circumstances, I hope.”

  Alex shuffled off, and Morgan told Doc, “You should be in bed, too,” but the dentist remained where he was.

  Eddie asked, “Would you like me to go find out where herself has fetched up, then?”

  “Check our room. If she’s not there, I don’t need to know more.”

  “Sure, Doc,” Eddie said, exchanging a look with Morgan before he left.

  “I can ask Deacon Cox if he’s got a different room for you,” Morg offered.

  Doc’s wheezy laugh ended with a cough. “Can’t afford it, son. Spent my last two dollars on those Cuban cigars,” he said with a lopsided grin.

  So much for the fifteen grand. Morgan made a note to divide anything Bat Masterson said by five. “You can bunk with me. If you need to.”

  “I ’preciate the offer, Morg, but Kate usually stays at Bessie’s.”

  “Doc, I probably shouldn’t ask this—”

  “Then don’t.”

  “It’s not about Kate.”

  Doc didn’t say anything, but he didn’t tell Morg to shut up, either.

  “I just wondered—and it’s not ’cause you’re Southern or anything—I just wondered about why you did all this tonight. I mean, I don’t know how much a piano costs, but it seems like you could’ve bought a nice one with what you spent on the wake. I liked Johnnie, too, but you seem to care so much …”

  Sudden, slanting light broke the horizon and made the dew glitter. Doc sat silently for a time, watching the short grass ripple in the breeze, listening to the red-winged blackbirds down by the slough, and to the meadowlarks and the quail.

  Morg was about to apologize for asking when Doc spoke at last.

  “Oh, it was selfishness, I expect.”

  Which didn’t make any sense at all until Doc finished.

  “That poor boy died all alone,” he said softly. “He has no kin to bury or remember him … So I took him for my own.”

  Eddie came back. The room was empty. It was safe to go to bed. Half-amused by the situation, Doc let Morgan haul him to his feet. Anyone watching would have thought he’d drunk himself bandy-legged.

  “I fear I shall not be able to attend the funeral,” he told Morg and Eddie as they walked him back to the hotel. “I may have overplayed my hand.”

  He refused to let them accompany him to his room, insisting that he was fine now, and demonstrating it by taking the staircase with a sudden show of energy. He had discovered a few years ago that if a thing could be accomplished quickly—between one breath and the next—it could be done with a brief but serviceable burst of strength, though there was a price to pay. The ache in his hip became a sharper pain and he was winded when he got to the second floor, but no matter. For a few moments, he looked and felt healthy and unimpaired.

  In case Kate had returned with someone in the meantime, he knocked on their door. No one answered. He let himself in. The sun was climbing, and he pulled the curtains closed.

  Sleeping was somewhat easier this time of day. Dodge roared in the darkness, but it was quiet in the early morning light. He thought, We live like bats in this burg, and wondered idly if the habit of being up all night had given Sheriff Masterson his nickname.

  Undressing seemed almost more trouble than it was worth, but in that way lay degeneracy and ruin. Feeling pleased by his own resolve, he slipped out of his coat and by-God hung it up. Carefully removed the diamond stickpin that Uncle John had given him and returned it to the small velvet-lined box. Unknotted his cravat. Folded it neatly. Placed it on the chiffonier. His boots proved more of a challenge. He sat down, intending to take them off, but gave the project up and laid his head against the high-backed chair.

  He was learning to doze while sitting up. Sometimes it was easier to breathe that way. The chair was upholstered and reasonably comfortable, but when he woke, he wouldn’t feel rested, and that would make him short-tempered. Still, when he was tired enough, it was possible to drop off for a few hours.

  Soon he would have a better alternative. Last week, he’d fallen asleep while getting a shave. Upon awakening, it came to him that barbers and dentists had the same basic requirements for working on people’s heads. A reclining chair that could be raised to a comfortable level would reduce the muscular effort expended while leaning over during examinations, and he could nap in it between patients. That afternoon, he’d telegraphed an order to a supplier in St. Louis and asked Bob Wright to transfer the money.

  Tom McCarty had been generous about sharing his clinic space, accepting no payment apart from occasional help with injuries of the face, teeth, or neck. Still, it would be good to have a proper office of his own again, and Deacon Cox had given him very reasonable terms on No. 24, Dodge House.

  Jau Dong-Sing was surprisingly distressed by this good news when told of the new office. Mr. Jau had peculiar ideas about numbers. “Twenty-four no good! Bad luck for you,” the Chinaman had insisted with strenuous conviction. “Number nine much better.”

  Too late now. The lease was signed.

  In any case, he himself did not believe in lucky numbers. He did not believe in luck at all, good or bad. Gamblers believed in luck, and he was not a gambler. Never had been, never would be. John Henry Holliday believed in mathematics, in statistics, in the computation of odds. Fifty-two cards in a deck. Make it easy. Say it’s fifty. Any card has a 2 percent chance of being dealt from a full deck. Keep track of what’s out. Adjust the probabilities as the hand progresses. Observe your opponents. Be aware of the chemistry of the table, the nerves, the tells. At his best, he played poker with the same combination of informed artistry and complete concentration he had once brought to the keyboard, and yet …

  There is always something else—something uncontrollable—at work in every hand. The most cold-blooded card counter knows that, though he might not name it luck.

  Moera, the Greeks called Mother Fate, the ancient apportioner of lots. Her decisions were unalterable and made long before a mortal’s birth, rendering human striving valueless and vain. Fortuna was the Romans’ answer to that grim Grecian goddess. Not everything was settled before a babe drew breath, but Fortune ruled over half of life; her caprices could explain why a man might prosper one day and come to ruin the next, without a single change in his habits or his character. Providence, Christianity countered. Destiny is divinely dictated, but influenced as well by our decisions and our deeds. Providence, moreover, holds out the promise that, one day, a just God’s plan will be made known to his puzzled people.

  John Henry Holliday believed in none of them.

  He did not imagine that Moera had decreed before his birth that he would die as soon and as wretchedly as his young mother had. He could not accept that Fortuna might smile on him for half of his short life, only to watch pitilessly while his lungs gave out, leaving him to suffocate slowly. He refused to bow before a Providence determined to deliver him to an unmarked pauper’s grave in Colorado, fifteen hundred miles from the home he would never see again.

  John Henry Holliday believed in science, in rationality, and in free will. He believed in study, in the methodical acquisition and accumulation of useful skills. He believed that he could homestead his future with planning and preparation: sending scouts ahead and settling it with pioneering eff
ort. Above all, he believed in practice, which increased predictability and reduced the element of chance in any situation.

  The very word made him feel calm. Piano practice. Dental practice. Pistol practice, poker practice. Practice was power. Practice was authority over his own destiny.

  Luck? That was what fools called ignorance and laziness and despair when they gave themselves up to the turn of a card, and lost, and lost, and lost …

  An hour later, he woke to Kate’s fingers on his buttons, to her lips, to her voice, to her breath, whiskey sweet, smoke sour.

  “Viens au lit,” she was saying. “Viens t’allonger près de moi, mon amour.”

  “Darlin’, please,” he mumbled. “I am beat flat. I can’t—”

  “You don’t have to do nothing, Doc. I’ll do it all,” she said. “You’ll sleep good.”

  “I was sleepin’.” His voice sounded fretful and peevish, even to himself, and he tried to spunk up. “You have to let me rest, Kate.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Doc. I was drunk last night, that’s all. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll make it right.”

  The vulgarity. The exaggerated, theatrical, lascivious carnality. All that was gone. In its place was this fearful, earnest, pathetic need to please. He fought to open his eyes, too tired to lift a hand and stroke her hair.

  “Let me make it up to you,” she said. “You’ll get some rest, you’ll feel better.”

  He was consumptive and exhausted; he was male and twenty-six. And Kate, too, was practiced in her trade.

  “See how good that is?” she whispered, lifting her skirts now, straddling him, lowering herself. “That’s good, isn’t it, Doc?”

  She watched his face as she worked, saw the growing tension, the rigidity. She slowed her rhythm, deepening her hold, smiling when she saw release, triumphant when his breathing caught, and stopped, and then went on, without any coughing at all.

  “That’s my man,” she said softly. “That’s my loving man …”

  The doctors said this was bad for him, but she knew that they were wrong. They all said something different. He should rest. He should exercise. He should go to the mountains. He should stay on the plains. Get plenty of fresh air. No, stay inside. They said the smoking was bad for him, the drinking, the all-night games, but he could make so much money at the tables, and it was so easy for him! It was this day work that was killing him, anybody could see that. And it didn’t pay!