‘I don’t
know
, boy, but I surely do figure so. On account it’s the first bar-fall out o’ Tombstone, an’ Doc’ll be thirsty.’
‘All right then – so,
if
they’re here, how do we find them?’
‘The way it mostly happens,’ explained Ringo, ‘is, you take one side of the street, while I take the other. And then,’ he continued, ‘what J. Caesar would have done, is try every saloon.’
‘And if I find him first, how will I know him?’
‘You’ll know him, boy – you’ll know him! An’ if so be you do find him, don’t try nothin’ on your own. Holler fer me!’
‘I’ll be glad to,’ agreed Steven, setting off on a tour of the unsavoury tourist traps and leaving Johnny to tie down his holsters, check his firing pins, and generally follow the accepted guide-lines laid down for gunfighters, at such moments in their lives.
However, since we know that Holliday was no longer in residence, the whole scene might be said to lack dramatic tension; were it not for the fact that in the very first bar Ringo entered, Kate Elder, who had finished her shopping, was trying to earn a litle blameless pin-money at the Faro table.
And that encounter led to tension enough for anybody in their right mind.
‘Whoops!’ said Kate, on meeting Ringo’s ice-cold eyes.
‘Now what kind of a remark is that?’ he enquired. ‘Ain’t you pleased to see me?’
‘When am I never?’ she assured him. ‘Jest a mite unexpected, that’s all. Well now, Johnny, it’s been nice meetin’ you again, but I really must be leavin’ now, on account of shoppin’ an’ such... Woman’s work,’ she improvised, ‘is never done!’
‘So don’t do it,’ he advised. ‘You got no call to go no place, as I can see. ’Less, of course, you plan to travel feet first?’
‘Why, Johnny, you wouldn’t gun down no frail female, would you?’
‘Generally speakin’, it’s no trouble. But cain’t say as I recollect your bein’ frail, Kate. More like a bob-cat in a hen-coop, as I remember,’ he said, his mind drifting back to their previous close relationship. ‘But right now, that don’t make no never mind. Reason I’ve come a-callin’ is so’s I can offer you my congratulations on your forthcoming nuptials.’
‘Oh, those?’ She dismissed whatever
they
were, with an airy wave. ‘Most folks has ’em.’
‘Which are indeed widely spoken of,’ he continued. ‘So what I would also like to do at this time is offer those same good wishes to the degenerate bridegroom.’
‘Oh, him? I’d let it ride, if I was you, Johnny – he wouldn’t thank you.’
‘Reckon I’ll chance that, after I’ve come all this way, so specific. Take me to him!’
And since his sensitive fingers were, she noticed, playing a devil’s tattoo on both gun-butts, our home-spun Delilah led him at once to the one-night love-nest. There she found Dodo’s note and reacted to it like a powder-keg to a fast fuse.
‘Why, the innocent-lookin’ little prairie-flower!’ she spat – or words to that effect. ‘She an’ Doc has cleared out to New Mexico!’
No fool, Miss Dodo Dupont.
‘Mean to say,’ asked Ringo, anxious to get everything straight, ‘he’s jilted you in favour of Regret’s bespoken?’
‘Looks that way,’ she sighed. ‘Ain’t life a livin’, breathin’ cactus in the cushion?’
He considered the judgement, and found it hasty.
‘Don’t know about that,’ he comforted her. ‘Look at it
this
way, instead: here was I, about to kiss you an’ Doc off to Hades – him first, an’ then you!’ he elaborated. ‘But now, here we both are – two young people with a life of broken promises stretchin’ before us to wherever...
‘Now, New Mexico’s a ways; so I reckon Doc’ll jest have to wait patient till I can attend to his requirements at some future date. Because, lookin’ on the bright side now, I have been offered gainful employment by the Clantons – an’ you know you always wanted me to work steady a day or two...’
‘Not, for God’s sake, with the Clantons! They ain’t in your kind of class, Johnny!’
He admitted that, by all accounts, they weren’t company such as a mangy dog would choose to dine alongside of.
‘But you know how it is,’ he told her, ‘these days of the dyin’ West, you take what you can get. Which is why,’ he added, tactlessly, ‘I’m takin’ you back...’
So, being a girl who had always known which side her bed was bartered, she settled for that. And having whistled up Steven, and offered him their condolences on the tragic outcome of his love life, they set out, in their turn, for Tombstone – where the vultures certainly were gathering some.
And Steven, not being entirely sure where New Mexico might be, followed along... although just what he was going to say to the Doctor, Heaven alone knew!
And, for the moment, it wasn’t telling...
22
Back at the Clanton Ranch, the atmosphere, never of the best, was now redolent of yesterday’s hog-wash, left to get on with it in an air-tight container; Phineas having arrived at the homestead just previous, bearing Wyatt’s pressing come one – come all to a sun-up conference at the O. K.
Corral.
‘But we gotta settle it sometime, Pa,’ Ike was saying,
‘an’, for God’s sake, there’s four of us, ain’t there?’
‘An’ three of ’em’s you boys,’ agreed Pa, ever the realist,
‘while them two survivin’ Earps is not only fast an’
accurate, but consider they got a grievance. Thanks, that is, to you two goin’ off premature, an’ ventilatin’ their little brother! You know how folks feel about their brothers –
you’ve told me yourselves.’
They thought about the late Reuben Clanton; and it crossed their minds – which didn’t take long – that, in fact, they hadn’t liked him much anyway. But still an’ all, a man’s gotta do et cetera; and no doubt the Earps felt the same. If the boys had been figuring shrewd, they might have thought of that sooner; but it was, of course, too late now.
‘Well,’ said Phineas, searching for a silver lining, ‘at least Masterson ain’t gonna be with ’em. That means they’re as far outside the law as we are.’
‘What it means,’ said Pa, ‘is that, ‘less we emerge victorious tomorrow, I ain’t gonna make Mayor; an’ you boys can likewise whistle for any hopes you had of makin’
Town Clerk, Borough Surveyor, an’ Dog Catcher – which had been my dearest wish! ’Sides of which, we’ll be dead!’
The sun was going down now, for want of anything to detain it; and as it sank towards the cactus-packed scenic attractions, three long shadows fell across the floor; and lay there, commanding general interest. Well, one long shadow, and two medium-sized ones, actually.
Pa was the first to track the phenomenon to its source.
‘Well, Glory be!’ he exclaimed. ‘Slit me, if it ain’t Johnny Ringo! Now we’ve maybe got a chance!’
Phineas wasn’t sure. His keen eye had perceived that the pianola dude and that hellion choir mistress were also along.
‘Pa,’ he complained, ‘for pity’s sake, we don’t want no musical evening, do we? I mean, seein’ as how it’s maybe our last?’
Night in the gaol-house was an event not much enlivened by the brooding presence of two mourning Earps and a less than sanguine Doctor, trying to learn how not to shoot his own foot off with a twelve-bore.
‘For the love of your Eternal Salvation, Doctor,’ said Wyatt, ‘you hold it this a-way – pointing at the forces of Beelzebub – not at the Powers of Light!’
‘I appreciate that,’ said the Doctor, ‘it’s just that if at any juncture I need to ask your advice, then the weapon will tend to turn with me. Look...’ he illustrated. As one Earp, they all ducked.
‘Seems to me,’ advised Bat, ‘that you boys should let the old guy stay right here. What I mean is, cain’t you jest rely on the threat of his presence? That should do it, I’d say. He sure enough scares the hell outa me!’
‘Don’t give me no argument, Bat,’ said Wyatt. ‘Since you seen fit to get a rush of yellow-livered conscience to the bowels, I’m gonna need him out there – if only to draw their fire. Now then,’ he continued, wearily, ‘we’ll take it from the top, one more time. You place the buck-shot in the blunt end – so; and then you point it
away
from you; with your finger on the trigger, here...
that’s
the trigger...
got it?’
Dawn in Tombstone, October 26, 1881, and all these things occurring:
Johnny Ringo, riding in alone; he generally rode alone, remember?
Followed, after some time, and at a very discreet distance – silhouetted against the sunrise – by Ike, Phineas, Billy, their Pa and the yellow hound-dog, which had come along for laughs. All in that order.
Doc Holliday, who, the night previous, had checked in to the Last Chance, rising to shave his immaculate jowls.
Dodo, snoring delicately in the next room.
Wyatt, Warren, and the Doctor, stepping out into the centre of Main Street, jaws set – in one case, as with the onset of tetanus – on their doom-laden way to the widely anticipated holocaust.
Kate saying to Steven that, if so be as Ringo got his, then she’d always admired the type of man who knew his way round a keyboard, so what the hell? Why didn’t they ride in to watch the big event, while making plans for the future?
Steven going along with it for now; because, frankly, he couldn’t think what else to do at this point.
And all over the landscape, little groups of outlaws, ne’er-do-wells, and bad-hats, galloping in to witness the grand finale. Becase word had got around; and if so be as the Clantons won, then the town would be wide open, wouldn’t it? Sure it would! Sure!
So – got all that, have you? Because all these strangely
compounded concomitants are the stuff of legend!
Fine. So here we go, friends: The Gunfight at the O.K.
Corral!
Come Sun-Up...
Ringo, of course, was early; as he might have known he would be, if he hadn’t been so all-fired anxious to snatch the star part. So there were now two courses open to him, he figured: he could stand there, exuding menace like Attila the Hun at a poll-booth; casting his long shadow in all directions, until such time as the supporting cast arrived to back him up – the disadvantage of this being that he would look a mite foolish if they didn’t show; which he wouldn’t by no means put past them, having had some opportunity the previous night to study their sterling worth: or else he could kill a little time over a breakfast bottle at the Last Chance; and return later, to make the delayed appearance which is not only dramatically effective, but sometimes gets an entrance round.
So he settled for the latter alternative as being better from every point of view; and following a circuitous route to avoid Main Street, which he fancied might well be busy at this hour, he presently fetched up at the long-bar; where he remembered, with sudden irritation, that he had lately shot the bar-keep.
So he served himself.
But Ringo had underestimated the Clantons who, true to the few words they knew, were now arriving at the preordained scene of combat, one by one and as silently as they could contrive.
Dismounting, they hitched their horses – who had been afraid something like this might happen – in positions chosen to provide suitable cover; and then withdrew for a council of war into the darkness of the livery stable; where a roll-call swiftly established that Ringo was not yet amongst them.
‘Damn!’ said Pa. ‘There ain’t no other corral in town, is there? I mean, you boys did tell him exactly how to find this place?’
‘Drew him a map,’ said Phineas, proudly, ‘with little arrows an’ such... in coloured inks...’
‘Oh God!’ groaned Pa. ‘That’s all we needed...’
And then, to complete their enjoyment, they saw the TARDIS.
Dodo awoke from a dream of missed trains and lost opportunities, said ‘Oh – surely it can’t be that time!’ and rushed into her captive’s bedroom, to see if he was stirring yet.
As we have seen, he was shaving; and, at her precipitous entrance, cut himself, painfully. He really was going to be glad to see the back of this one and said so...
‘Then hurry up!’ she advised him. ‘The sooner you take me to the Doctor, the sooner you’ll be rid of me. You really can’t expect me to comb an unpleasant town like this, all on my own!’
‘How many times do I have to tell you, little lady,’ said Doc, ‘he’ll be with Wyatt? So he’ll keep till we get there, I’d say. There ain’t no hurry.’ Little did he know!
‘What in hell
is
that contraption?’ demanded Ike.
‘Like nothin’
I
ever seen before,’ admitted Phineas.
‘That don’t prove a thing,’ said Billy, offensively. ‘Half the time you ain’t capable!’
‘Phin,’ said Pa, slowly, ‘you say it was Wyatt suggested we meet up here?’
‘Far as I recollect. I mean, it weren’t my idea – that’s for certain sure!’
They believed him.
‘Then I tell you what it likely is,’ deduced Pa. ‘I’ll bet you five to a horse-laugh, that treacherous, biblequotin’
bastard has filled this here large-size sarcophagus with dynamite – or some such unsporting substance – which he will presently proceed to blow! Boys, stand not upon the order of your going, but get the hell outa here!’
And they broke cover, like bankers from a busted cat-house!
Meanwhile down the centre of Main Street strode the gallant Doctor, supported left and right, with vice-like grips to the elbows, by Warren and Wyatt.
I’m sure you can easily imagine the nerve-scraping accompaniment which would have been playing, had there been a symphony orchestra available. Because you should also realise that, by now, all first-floor windows were packed to their sashes by the previously reported assortment of rough-necks, bad-lots, and
personae non
gratae
, waiting to see which way the cookie crumbled before joining in.
Frank and Jack McLowry were there, for a start; as were Curly Bill, and Florentino Cruz, to name but several anti-social elements. In fact, such a collection of fancy-dressed desperados had seldom been previously assembled at the same time and place in the whole history of carnage. They had long been looking forward to seeing the Earps get theirs – and it looked as if this was likely it!