Authors: Donald Cotton

Tags: #Science-Fiction:Doctor Who

Doctor Who: The Gunfighters (15 page)

BOOK: Doctor Who: The Gunfighters

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So the dice were somewhat loaded; and Blind Justice, on her pedestal over the Court-house, trembled accordingly.

It was about now that Johnny Ringo discovered he had left his copy of
The Gallic Wars
back at the ranch; so seeking light literary distraction before battle, as had been Caesar’s constant habit, he cast an idle eye over the hotel register.

And, on seeing the previous night’s entry, all thoughts of the O.K. Corral were swept into abeyance by the call of more urgent personal business. He mounted the stairs with the surprised look of a man born in the saddle, and sought the first-floor back.

The sign of the decayed tooth still swung, groaning in the wind, from the charred ruins of Holliday’s business premises; and as it came to the Doctor’s attention, so did the sequence of events which had led so remorselessly to his present predicament; and he erupted with spluttering indignation.

‘There it is!’ he snapped. ‘That’s the whole cause of the trouble!’ And he pointed to it with his shotgun.

‘
What
is?’ asked Wyatt and Warren, jumping like jack-rabbits – for the nervous tension was considerable. And was infectious – causing the Doctor to jump in his turn; whereupon both barrels exploded.

The first shot caught Curly Bill in the diaphragm; and the second brought Frank McLowry drifting lead-like to the street before them, in a shower of broken glass; these events coinciding with the breaking from cover of the Clantons – who promptly revised their plans, and sought fresh hide-aways, from which to assess the situation.

‘If I was you, friend,’ said Wyatt, laconically as always,

‘I’d reload right smart!’

‘Reload?’ said the Doctor. ‘But, good heavens, I never intended...’

‘Never mind what you intended,’ said Warren. ‘Seems like you just made a pre-emptive strike!’

And, carrying the appalled Doctor between them, the Earps sprang, with an interesting Catherine-wheel effect, into the dubious shelter of the horse-trough.

The sound of shots fired in anger was something which had surrounded Holliday from infancy, so he continued imperturbably to settle his cravat; but not having his background, Dodo squeaked, and spun towards the door which, she now realised, she had carelessly left open. And framed in it, like a picture of a mortician touting for trade, twin six-guns at the ready, stood Johnny Ringo.

‘Doc,’ she gulped, ‘I think you’ve got a smut on your nose...’ And she held before his face a small hand mirror, such as young ladies carry at all times...

‘Why, so I do declare!’ said Doc. And he loosed an underarm shot behind him with his Derringer.

He had never previously attempted such a manoeuvre; but he had once seen Bill Cody perform this difficult feat to the detriment of Annie Oakley’s hair-do, so he was interested to see the outcome, and was pleased to note that on this occasion it worked, the bullet taking the astonished gun-man in the place it would do most damage – no need to specify.

‘Sorry, old friend and colleague,’ said Holliday, sadly –

for he’d always had a professional admiration for the man –

‘but how you have the gall to come bustin’ in here while I’m dressin’...’

‘My gall,’ said Johnny Ringo, a scholar to the last, ‘is now divided into three parts...’ And thereupon he quietly died, not, perhaps,
quite
like a gentleman, but going on that way.

‘Little lady,’ said Doc, mopping his face with the crêpe-edged bandana he kept for such occasions, ‘I am surely obliged! And now let us see what is portended by the noise of the multitude... Only, if I was you,’ he added, ‘I would stay right where you are, until I have investigated same..

And he sauntered forth, to see if he could be of any assistance to anyone.

‘Well, Glory be!’ smiled Wyatt, as his friend’s dapper figure manifested itself on the sidewalk. ‘We got company!’

‘Confound the man!’ objected the Doctor. ‘He is the cause of this whole intolerable imbroglio!’ And he inadvertently sent another shot in the approximate direction of the reinforcements.

‘Maybe,’ agreed Wyatt, ‘but it would pleasure me some if you’d stop doing that! Over here, Doc...’ he called.

Doc knew perfectly well where they were, but preferred to stay where
he
was – behind a newly perforated trash-can, in point of fact – till he had weighed all the relevant circumstances.

‘What you plannin’ to do, Wyatt?’ he asked. ‘Cain’t jest lay there all the cock-eyed morning...’

‘Gonna work round behind ’em,’ explained Wyatt.

Doc groaned to himself. His friend, he sometimes felt, was sound, but limited...

‘Seems to me,’ he said, ‘as they look pretty much the same, whichever side you see ’em. Come on now – you got Warren there, ain’t you? Reckon the three of us can take

’em, face to face, like always.’

About to make good this confident claim by stepping into mid-thoroughfare, he paused briefly to suggest that maybe one of them might explain to that trigger-happy old buzzard that he, Holliday, was one of the good guys, and nobody’s turkey at a Thanksgiving Shoot...

And this point having been established to his satisfaction, he strolled jauntily across the street to join them.

Surveying the scene from his temporary field-headquarters, back of the wooden Indian by the cigar store, Pa Clanton was chagrined to observe that the Earps were now supported by, not one, but a pair of doctorates –

something which is always impressive...

‘Hey, that ain’t fair!’ he hollered. ‘They got
two
Hollidays with ’em!’

‘Yeah – I meant to tell you about that...’ said the ineffable Phineas.

The others just looked at him the way they did so often.

Ah, well...

‘What do I do now?’ asked the Doctor, after Holliday had enquired politely as to the current condition of his jaw. ‘I mean, surely you don’t need
me
any more?’

‘Don’t know about that,’ said Wyatt. ‘So far, you’re doin’

jest fine. So, reckon we’ll keep you with us, for luck. An’

since all innocent parties are now here assembled, kindly consider yourself free to shoot the first thing that moves!’

In fact, the Doctor was beginning to enjoy himself, rather; but unfortunately, the first thing that
did
move was Eddie Foy who had thought to improve the shining morning by passing out a few handbills. He now decided, as he retrieved his shredded head-gear, that if they thought the show was
that
bad, why then, a mid-week closing was not altogether unprecedented: and the disenchanted actor legged it for the stage-stop. They lamped his dampened flamboyance with passing interest.

‘Who in hell was that?’ asked Warren, bringing down Florentino Cruz with a casual left and right.

‘Nobody special,’ they assured him.

Ah! The transitoriness of theatrical fame!

And the boys in the gallery, reckoning they could tell well enough by now how this thing was going to turn out, left Frank, Curly and Florentino to make their own arrangements, and withdrew to Ma Golightly’s.

Witnessing the departure of these unreliable floating voters, Pa thought, Hell, they might as well get it over.

So, lining up as if for a square dance, the Clantons and the Earp faction advanced slowly towards each other along the shopping precinct.

Strictly speaking, no further dialogue was called for at this late stage in the proceedings, the parties involved being well aware of the formalities about to ensue. But blabber-mouth Billy, the fastest streak of lightning as ever called for a competent conductor, couldn’t leave well alone, could he?

‘Earp,’ he called, ‘I already sent your little brother to a high time in Hades! Time for you to join the action there, I’d say - ’

Which was the last thing he
did
say; because shortly thereafter he had no further engagements to speak of on account of Wyatt and Warren, indulging in a certain amount of overkill, simultaneously shooting him in his rotten heart.

However, Doc Holliday, with untypical lack of judgement, chose to shoot Phineas in the head –

wherefrom the flattened bullet ricochetted elsewhere with a petulant whine. So Phineas merely slept once more, another crease in his long-suffering skull.

And Pa himself was presently put out of action by the attachment of his faithful dog to an ankle of which it had happy memories.

Which left Ike; who was about to redress the balance of the casualty figures somewhat by drilling the Doctor, a thing to which he had been looking forward, when from behind him...

‘Hands up!’ said Steven Regret and Kate Elder, in their customary close harmony...

And Dodo came running from one end of the street, saying, so that’s where they’d all been, while she’d been so anxious; and Kate from the other, saying as she’d always been faithful, and how could anybody ever have thought different?

And Doc raised an eyebrow, and left it at that for the time being.

So all friends were safely re-united at last – and fortunate to be so, in the unlikely circumstances.

On the side of the angels, Warren had acquired a bullet in the shoulder, and Doc a thirst – which was nothing unusual for either of them.

And Bat Masterson emerged cautiously from his gaol-house, noted the high proportion of corpses disfiguring the amenities of a town he was trying to keep clean – for God’s sake! – and thought he’d better take some kind of positive action.

So he arrested Eddie Foy for causing an obstruction.

And that was about it, really...

‘There’s just one thing,’ mused Wyatt, some time later in the O.K. Corral. ‘Seems like only the other day, Doctor whatever your name is, you told me you was a master of legerdemain and prestidigitation? Whereas your recent performance on the shooting-iron does not incline me to support that vainglorious claim! Have you, by any chance, been guilty of providing me with false information, such as would be an offence unto the Lord?’

‘Not at all,’ said the Doctor. ‘Now, if you’ll all stand in a semi-circle, and stay quite still, my friends and I will show you a very difficult trick...’

And they stepped into the TARDIS...

Epilogue

‘Well, of course,’ said Doc Holliday, ‘seein’ as I’d been told about the surprisin’ habits of that there infernal contraption by young Miss Dodo during the course of our sojourning together, personally I was not surprised any more than somewhat when it took off for points invisible.

‘But Wyatt now, an’ the others, they was struck a touch transmogrified themselves by the whole unprecedented event, an’ you can’t rightly blame them: which likely explains why nobody’s ever seen fit to mention the occurrence previous to this day.

‘I mean, a man don’t want to be accused of intemperate hallucinations, when he’s a Biblequotin’ officer of the law; and, as for Ike an’ his Pa... well, I suppose they was by nature so accustomed to such alcoholic unreliability of the eyeball, that they never said nothin’, neither.

‘As I recall, Wyatt made some crack about Elijah – who, I gather, was a well-known sky-chariot operator at one time; an’ that was the end of it.

‘But, as for me: I tell you, friend, that in a life devoted to the pursuit of violent an’ bloody incident, I have never had me such a pleasurable rush of superfluous adrenalin to the nerve-endings as in those few, hell-poppin’ days back there...

‘Which is why,’ he concluded, grinning all over his disreputable features, ‘I have raddled and surely enjoyed rememberin’ it all now...’

At this point in his extraordinary story, he lay back on his pillow; and I figured he was about ready to file his claim on Eternity.

Maybe he was at that; but suddenly he opened one bright eye, which encountered a previously unmolested bottle of the right stuff I had been foolishly hoping to save for the journey home.

‘Pity to leave that,’ he sighed; and – if you’ll believe me

– he knocked it back in three!

And
then
he died.

And I can’t say I’m the least bit surprised.

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