Doctor Who: The Gunfighters (10 page)

So he was thus engaged when Holliday hit the stairs like a dry-season twister, and began his meteoric descent of same. All still might have been well, and they could have passed like ships in a bottle, with no harm done; had not Dodo, who had been watching the ebb and flow of events in Main Street from her bedroom window, chosen that very moment to holler after the retreating dentist, words to this effect: ‘Doc, they’ve got my friend Steven out there!

Oh, please, please, save him from the many-headed monster! Please, Doc!’

Well, that was the gist of it, anyway; but the point to note is that she not only said ‘Doc’ but that she said it twice!

The word sank into Seth’s unpractised mind, like a gleam of truth in a naughty world, as the saying is. And he levered himself away from the bar, into the very path of the cyclone. Of course, he’d been drinking heavily for some years, else he’d’ve never; but still, that’s what lack of temperance’ll do for you sometimes. One moment, you’re on top of the cock-eyed world – and the next, you’re telling the muscle-man in the corner that if he looks at you sideways again, you’ll knock his head off! That’s the way it goes, in my experience.

And that’s how it went with Seth. ‘Back up there, friend!’ he said. ‘Wait jest one little minute, will you?’

Strangely perhaps, Holliday obliged. Oh, he recognised Seth, all right, but he fancied he was secure in his own anonymity; and besides, he was, as we have seen at all times, a gentleman; and it was his impression that the gun-man was perhaps in need of a match, or some such. He therefore raised a brow enquiringly, while glancing at his fob-watch. ‘Can maybe give you a moment,’ he agreed politely, ‘but I’m in something of a hurry.’

‘Seems to me,’ continued Seth, laboriously, ‘that some party jest addressed you as Doc?’

Expressing silent thanks to Dodo, Holliday confirmed that this was indeed the case.

‘Well now, could it be that this high falutin’ soubriquet is but the prefix to the further word, "Holliday", by any chance?’

It was not in Doc’s nature to deny the truth when it was unavoidable. So he agreed that the name had been attached to him in infancy, and had clung there ever since.

‘In that case, friend, you ain’t goin’ no place – except maybe to hell!’ Seth qualified.

Too late he remembered that, whereas he was now alone, Holliday had his reputation with him. But, oh, what the hell? He’d started the thing now, and couldn’t rightly figure how to discontinue. So he reached for his gun...

His eyes, as we have previously noted, had always been close: but now they felt that something had come between them. They were right. Doc had performed a miracle of marksmanship, and squeezed a bullet into that tiny gap!

As he sank to his knees, Seth’s last draining thought was that if he’d played things right in his youth, and studied hard, he could perhaps have been a school-teach... if only he hadn’t been so goddamned ug...ly...

But that was it! No use thinking along those lines now –

and he’d nothing left to do it with, anyway... Because the last drops of his inadequate brains were oozing bloodily on to his go-to-show-down weskit... So he subsided slowly to the sawdust, and left it at that.

Well, I warned you, it weren’t by no means pretty.

Wyatt Plays It By The Book

Some moments later, Charlie, bar-proud entrepreneur that he was, mopped up Seth’s slimy detritus with a face-flannel, and felt he’d better say something because he’d been warned about this sort of carry-on in his premises by Bat.

‘Stranger,’ he said judicially, ‘you shouldn’t rightly have done that...’

‘So I’m supposed to stand back at three paces, till such time as he gets the range worked out? Look at this!’ said Doc, indicating the splattered
corpus delicti
. ‘Bits of him all over my boots! Borrow your flannel?’

‘And welcome,’ said Charlie, agreeably. After all, the late Mr Harper had not been a highly valued customer.

‘So then, I’ll be on my way – long as you don’t plan to give me no further argufyin’ – ‘cause I don’t take kindly to such...’

Having registered his complaint, Charlie assured him that, as far as he was concerned, the matter was now closed.

‘But if’n you are indeed Doc Holliday,’ he continued,

‘which personally I am now prepared to believe, then if I was you, I wouldn’t go out there. There’s a mob fixin’ to lynch you,’ he explained.

‘Now why in tarnation would they want to do an unfriendly thing like that? I mean, conflagratin’ my surgery, an’ stealin’ my chair is one thing – two things,’ he amended. ‘But lynchin’ is pushin’ it some!’

‘The Clantons has got ’em all riled up... an’ supposin’

they hadn’t, you’ve jest given ’em another pretty fair excuse for a hang-me-high, I’d say. No offence, of course.’

He reached for the bleach, and sprinkled it some. ‘But you know how towns-folk is? One touch o’ fancy shootin’, an’

they’re sayin’ it ain’t safe fer their kids to step into a bar-room no more! No, if I was you, Mister, I’d have lit out backwards by now.’

So here was yet another deportation order, however friendly meant; and, for the first time, Doc began to wonder if there was maybe something in it, at that. Because you gotta be more than fast to get the drop on a whole town

– you gotta be mayor; which he wasn’t. And no use appealing to a higher authority for help, either; since the said authority had already hoofed him in the slats, and told him to get lost come sun-up! So what was one chair more or less, he finally figured.

Somewhere over the far-away hills would be a booze-packed, shining new horizon; and rolling summer meadows, no doubt, crammed with rotten teeth for a man to pick. So, what the hell?

Furthermore, considering Wyatt’s unfriendly attitude, the latter could damn well whistle for assistance come Doomsday as far as he was concerned!

And he had just arrived at this gloomy conclusion when his female dependants joined him, descending the stairs as women do at such times, both hands on the same rail, and assorted expressions of frozen horror on their chalk-white features.

Actresses do quite a lot of this, of course; but even amateurs can usually manage an approximation, when pushed; which Dodo and Kate considered they had been.

‘Are you responsible for that?’ demanded Kate, pointing to Seth’s mortal remains with a quivering, paste-bedizened forefinger.

‘Not any more,’ disclaimed Doc. ‘Rightly speakin’, he’s the concern of the mortician, as of now. I just washed my boots of him...’

Interesting enough, naturally; but Dodo had other, more urgent matters in mind. ‘Forget all that!’ she said.

‘Have you rescued Steven yet? Where is he?’

‘Well now, I’ll tell you how it is,’ he said, slowly, ‘if you’ll both kindly discontinue your well-meant whining.

As I see it, Miss Dodo, if your friend, Steven, is goin’ to be extracted from his unfortunate predicament, then steadier and more numerous hands than mine are called for; which, ideally speaking, should be backed up by the full majesty of rough justice; such as can be more suitably administered by Wyatt an’ Bat, whose responsibility such a recrudescence of blind blood lust rightly is.

‘They’re bound to notice what’s goin’ on, give ’em time; which time we are now goin’ to utilise by gettin’ the hell out of here; an’ installin’ ourselves’for the nonce in a nearby hide-away I know of.

‘So, Kate, you will now oblige me by bringin’ the buggy to the rear entrance – as has been your helpful habit on previous and similar occasions. An’ meanwhile, you, Miss Dodo, would help considerable if you would kindly button your flappin’ lip!’

‘But I must go to Steven and the Doctor!’ wailed Dodo.

‘They need me,’ she explained.

‘Cain’t think
why
they would,’ he said. ‘Time he’s facin’

his last reckonin’, a man don’t relish the jabberin’ o’

females. Leastways, such has been my frequent experience

– as I’ve often taken it on myself to inform Kate. So don’t argue –
git
!’

And toying meaningfully with a gun-butt, he shepherded his bleating little flock out of that place; and pretty soon they were raising the dust, safely installed in a Surrey – but with no immediate prospect of a binge on top.

They were headed for that unpopular resort and salt-spring spa – Purgatory Bend.

Doc had been right about Wyatt and Bat: they noticed what was going on in practically no time at all – and invited the Doctor to come and enjoy the view from the gaol-house window.

‘Now see what you’ve done?’ said Wyatt. ‘The Assyrians descend like the wolf on the fold!’

‘Do they?’ enquired the Doctor. ‘Oh, my goodness, so they do! But I refuse to accept any responsibility; I have done nothing whatever to encourage them!’

"Cept maybe ‘personate the meanest killer as ever made

’em look right foolish,’ agreed Bat, ‘an’ that’ll do it, every time.’

It was not, to be honest, a comfortable sight which advanced to claim their attention. The milling mob had squeezed the last drop of possible entertainment from the Holliday home, and was now swirling purposefully round the gaol-house, murmuring menace like bees at a barbeque

– or possums in a bakery, as Phineas might have put it.

There could, you’d have thought, be no mistaking their intentions; although, in fact, Eddie Foy, who was just leaving the stagedoor, did have the brief impression that they wanted his autograph. On second thoughts, however, he decided he’d best let his agent handle that kind of thing in future; and he went rapidly back inside, to smarten up the tricky bit in the second act. But I digress...

The Doctor presently noticed that the crowd carried Steven, trussed like a rupture, amongst them; and it soon became obvious that he was no willing participant in the proceedings.

‘You still in there, Holliday?’ called Ike, who had become the spokesman by general agreement.

Wyatt sighed. He’d been through all this sort of thing before, and knew most of the lines by heart...

‘Get off the street, Clanton,’ he advised. ‘The Doc’s my prisoner!’

Ike knew all about that, of course, and wasn’t disposed to waste time arguing the rights and wrongs of the case.

‘That’s too bad, Marshal,’ he sympathised, ‘because, if he ain’t out here quicker ‘n you can... you can...’

‘Skin a ring-tailed ‘coon?’ Phineas suggested.

‘That’s right... skin a ring-tailed ‘coon,’ Ike agreed, ‘then his friend Regret’s gonna swing in his place! An’ bein’ the fine old Southern gentleman he is, I’ll bet Doc wouldn’t want that.’

He was dead right, of course... But, on the other hand...

Well, I mean...

‘What can I do?’ asked the Doctor. ‘Shall I go out and explain to them?’

‘Wouldn’t advise it,’ commented Earp. ‘Them boys ain’t accustomed to the cut an’ thrust of rhetorical logic. Their talk,’ he amplified, ‘is as the crackling of thorns under a pot...’

‘But if I don’t go, they’ll hang Steven; you heard him say so...’

‘An’ if you do go, they’ll hang you along of him. ‘Sides of which, I need ’em to continue believin’ as you’re Holliday for a while, so don’t go tellin’ ’em different! Not that they’d believe you anywise, but don’t try it! No... I’ll think of something... pretty well bound to...’

‘Time’s runnin’ out, Marshal,’ called Ike, having worked out how long three men could reasonably occupy themselves in skinning a ‘coon. ‘What’s it gonna be?’

Being personally concerned, Steven now decided he would like to say something.

‘Stay where you are, Doctor,’ he advised, ‘they’re bluffing!’

‘You think that, boy, you’re gonna be powerful surprised, any moment now,’ growled Phineas; and, at the third attempt, he succeeded in throwing the unoccupied end of the rope over a convenient branch of the hanging-tree – not as simple an operation as you might think... at least, not with Phineas on noose.

‘Well, what about it?’ persevered Ike. ‘You all a-comin’, or ain’t you?’

He was beginning to fear an anti-climax, and after all, he had his standing with the mob to consider...

But Wyatt had now thought, and was well-pleased with the result. An unoriginal scheme, perhaps, but it had always gone down well before...

‘You keep ’em talking, Bat – and I’ll try to work round behind ’em.’

‘Ain’t that jest a mite corny?’ asked the Sheriff. ‘I mean, law-men’s forever doin’ such...’

‘Well, because it works, that’s why! Now, don’t get me all riled up, when I’m trying to concentrate!’

And he slipped out of the building by the rear entrance

– or exit, rather.

Now, you must picture the scene; because, if you don’t, all this will mean nothing. On one side of the street is the gaol-house, right? And directly opposite is the hanging-tree, famed in legend. But
between
them – and this is important – is the milling mob, carrying those blazing torches; unnecessarily, you’d have thought, since it was a fine moonlit night – but, for whatever reason, they had

’em. And this, as you will readily appreciate, had the fortunate effect of throwing the tree into shadow.

Yes, it did – if you work it out. Well, comparative shadow, anyway... (Look, who’s telling this tale, you or me? Don’t give me no argument, right?) And of this
shadow
, I say, Wyatt took advantage...

We have previously remarked the circuitous manner in which the late Seth Harper moseyed down Main Street; and now the Marshal adopted a somewhat similar technique – although, being a law-man, the effect was, of course, far more dignified. Happily, no one, in fact,
did
notice this effect – because that would have negated the whole time-honoured manoeuvre – and pretty soon he was in a position to make, as the saying is, his play. And not a moment too soon, either – because the one weak point in the strategy was that Bat was supposed to keep them talking; and he wasn’t particularly good at that sort of thing...

‘Heard a good one the other day,’ he volunteered, at length. ‘Seems there was this feller, Bob Ford, got himself behind Jesse James...’

Wyatt groaned. Trust Bat to give the whole plan away...