Doctor Who: The Gunfighters (6 page)

Nevertheless, he tried one for size...

‘Doc?’ he enquired.

The Doctor leaped like a bee that has sat on its sting. He knew few people in Arizona, and could have wished to have known fewer.

‘Eh?’ he enquired, in his turn. ‘Yes, my good man, what is it?’

‘Holliday?’ pursued Seth, wanting to leave absolutely no room for the smallest doubt.

The Doctor considered the question. ‘Well, yes – in a way, I suppose. Yes – you could say so...’

After all, he generally took a break at this time of year...

‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ ingratiated Seth.

‘My name’s Harper – Seth Harper...’

The despised name threaded its way through the key-hole of the back room, and sidled into Holliday’s ear like an earthworm. He approached the door.

Light dawned on the Doctor – or, at any rate, he thought it did.

‘Oh, I see... yes, Mr Harper? I presume you have brought me a message from my friends?’

‘Kind of a message, sure...’

This was going to be easy as... What was that crack of Phin’s again? Something about frogs? It was going to be as easy as that, anyway...

‘They’re a-waitin’ for you in the saloon. An’ also there’s this: the boys an’ me would like you to join us for a drink.’

‘Well, I must say, that is extremely sociable of you. But I fear I never touch alcohol... except for purely medicinal purposes, of course,’ he added, remembering his recent foul experience.

‘Not what I heard, Doc – but play it your way. Be there in five – no, maybe ten minutes.’ After all, they had to arrange the set-up. ‘Else we’ll come a-lookin’.’

He left the shop backward, with a relief tempered only by his forgetting about the step. And Holliday, who had heard the whole exchange, suddenly realised exactly how the Doctor could settle his account... He entered, smiling like a coyote that has just stumbled on a beef steak in Death Valley.

‘Did you hear that?’ asked the Doctor. ‘A complete stranger has just invited me to join him and his friends for a drink! How very kind, to be sure!’

‘Jest typical Western hospitality is all,’ murmured Doc.

‘Goes along with tumbleweed an’ deer an’ antelope playin’

the fool an’ such. Oh, you’ll soon learn. But forgive me for sayin’ so, friend; in my opinion, you ain’t dressed entirely right for the kind of a get-together like you’re goin’ to...’

‘I fail to see in what respect my clothes are unsuitable.

In fact, they are almost identical to your own, I notice...’

‘Ain’t they just? But it ain’t your clothes so much, as that you do not appear to be wearing a gun. You see, round here,’ he continued, before the Doctor could embark on a pacifist diatribe, ‘it’s kind of an insult not to wear one. And you surely do not wish to go around insulting folks, do you now?’

‘Of course I don’t – but regrettably I have no gun to wear.’

‘Is that truly so? Well, in that case, friend, looks like you’ll just have to borrow one of mine...’

And, with the lightning rapidity which had made his name such a popular epitaph, he produced a Colt .45, and extended it in the general direction of the Doctor. Who winced once – and then lowered his hands, as he realised it was being offered butt first.

‘Oh, but my dear fellow,’ he protested, ‘I couldn’t possibly accept...’

‘Come on now,’ insisted Doc. ‘You’ll notice it’s got my name right there on the grip? So it won’t get lost no-how –

an’ you can return it before you leave town. And, say, you’d better take this gun-belt, as well – ‘cause you don’t want to go wavin’ such a weapon around, or folks’ll likely get the wrong idea... or else you’ll shoot yourself in the foot, or whatever... Go on, take it!’

And he slung the lethal arbitrator round the Doctor’s reluctant waist.

‘There – now you look real smart!’

The Doctor admired himself in the cracked mirror.

‘Well, this is extremely civil of you, I must say! But please – you really must let me give you... Oh yes, by the way, there is also the matter of my account. How much do I owe you altogether?’

‘There ain’t no charge at all, friend; seeing as how you’re my very first patient, consider it on the house!

Maybe I’ll get your tooth silver-mounted as a keepsake. It’s a real beauty!’

‘Well,’ said the Doctor, overwhelmed by this further evidence of Western hospitality, goodwill, and camaraderie, ‘I really don’t know how I can pay you back.’

‘You’ll find a way, friend – you’ll find a way. And you will also find the welcoming committee right along the street there...’

So, with expressions of mutual esteem, they parted; and the Doctor strode off to keep his appointment with History

– and to redecorate the annals of the Golden West, while he was about it...

10

Left alone, Doc Holliday wasted a certain amount of time congratulating himself on his masterly grasp of essentials, and his generally unprecedented ability to kill two buzzards with one rock. Not only had he avoided putting his foot in a bear-trap, but he was confident that the little woman would thank him for doing so. Furthermore, in less time than it takes a Gila monster to prove it’s the only poisonous lizard in the world, the substitute Doc Holliday would be a very dead ringer indeed!

So then he could start trading under a new name, to general acclaim and flag-flapping. How about that for a bowl of sweet potatoes and corn-pone, he asked himself?

Anxious to claim Kate’s very special brand of congratulations, he spring-heeled back to the bedroom; only to find that the fiancee who had previously lent such a high tone to the love-nest had now departed for points elsewhere! All that remained to remind him of her was a note pinned to the pillow with an ice-pick...

‘Why, you ornery, spineless, down-wind skunk,’ it began affectionately, ‘what kind of a belly-crawlin’, ham-hearted, low-down, white livered apology for a no-good pistol-packing, knife-fighting, dental practising prairie-dog do you think you are, huh?

‘Furthermore, how dare you let that nice old gentleman, who treated me with every courtesy, as if I was almost a lady – which is more than some do, let me tell you for nothing – where was I? – yes, how dare you let him go to front for you in a well-deserved show-down, and shortly occupy your reserved, unconsecrated parking-lot on Boot Hill? Answer me that!

‘Well, at any rate, one of us has guts enough to wrap around the weekend whisky; and for your information I am goin’ blazing down to the saloon right now to do what’s right, while there’s still time, and while the mood lasts!

‘I have left a stew on the stove, which kindly do not allow to burn, as you will shortly do in hell, if there’s any justice, which I doubt!

‘More in sorrow than in anything else I care to name,

‘I am always,

‘Your previously loving,

‘Kate Elder, Miss, and likely to remain so!’

Holliday rubbed his chin – which didn’t help any.

Obviously, he considered, she had penned the document in something of a hurry, which would account for the somewhat erratic imagery; but still, reading between the lines, he could detect a bum’s rush when he saw one. And he didn’t like it. Wasn’t he in the process of straining the honourable habits of a lifetime to make an honest fallen woman of her? Would he have sent an innocent man to his death if it hadn’t been for the ennobling power of love?

Not for a Royal Flush in Spades, he wouldn’t! Well, maybe that was pushing it some, but nonetheless...

Well, you never knew with females, that was for sure!

Always have to meddle with what don’t rightly concern

’em, don’t they? Still an’ all,
when
they do, a man gotta likewise do what a man gotta do.

So, sighing like a distillery, he strapped on his second best gun-belt, tucked a Derringer into his boot, slung a Bowie knife round his neck, and thus loaded for bear, Childe Roland set out for the Dark Tower...

Meanwhile, at the Last Chance Saloon, the stage was already set – as if by an incompetent director. For the last half hour, Miss Dodo Dupont, piano, and Mr Steven Regret, heavy baritone, summoned from their rooms not so much by the lure of the bright lights as by Phin’s buffalo gun, had been entertaining the gathering to a random selection of the songs you’d rather whistle; and everyone was getting a mite tired of it. The audience, in fact, was restive.

Well, to be fair, it ain’t that easy to concentrate on the cabaret when you are at one and the same time watching the door for the Big Entrance of the fastest man who ever shot your brother. But, do them justice now, the Clantons were making a very brave effort.

Seth, on the other hand, wasn’t. He was telling Charlie about how he had gone straight up to Holliday, bold as you please, and told him straight to his face how it would be if’n he didn’t get his carcass down here where the fun was at, right soon...

‘So why ain’t he here?’ asked the cynical bar-keep.

‘Well, maybe I scared him some, at that,’ admitted Seth, laughing down from lazy nostrils. ‘Could be he’s trying to get his dander up.’

Charlie thought this unlikely; but didn’t like to say so in the present company.

‘Sure you got the right man?’ he enquired. ‘Lots of strangers in town fer the hangin’...’

‘Which hangin’?’ asked Seth, apprehensively.

‘Whichever,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s the time of year fer it...’

Whereafter the conversation flagged some.

In point of fact, the
wrong
man was even now trying to talk himself out of a misunderstanding at Ma Golightly’s Place; where he had incautiously enquired if this was where his young friends were waiting. Well, they certainly were – but not the kind he wanted; and Ma, unused to complaints, had taken a certain amount of umbrage in consequence. And these things take time.

So, when the Big Entrance was made, it was Kate who made it – carrying a brace of pearl-handled shoot-me-downs Doc had given her as an engagement present. She figured she could return them later, along with the ring.

‘Well, well, well!’ she began, blasting the chandelier with a broadside. ‘So Charlie’s got hisself a new Burly-Q

Queen, jest ‘cause I turn my back for five minutes? Move it, sister – and I mean fast!’

‘Bang!’ she went again, so’s Dodo would get the point.

Which she certainly did, of course, quick as anything; but was in something of a quandary. I mean, here she and Steven were performing by urgent request of an armed audience; and here was Little Orphan Annie Oakley, or someone, suggesting, equally forcibly, that they desist.

So she paused in mid-arpeggio – that difficult bit, in the middle of ‘Love, could I only tell thee...’ it was; you probably know it – and glanced round to try and gauge the feeling of the majority.

But the majority was equally disconcerted.

It looks bad to let a dame get the drop on you; especially when you’re the toughest bunch of no-account hombres as ever missed a spitoon; and for the moment they were uncertain how to proceed.

They looked to Ike for guidance; and he presently obliged with ‘Best do as she says, little lady, if n you want to grow old graceful. Kate’s a mean one to get the wrong side of.’

Always difficult to say which was the wrong side of Kate Elder. Her every elevation was equally formidable, and Dodo wanted none of them.

‘Very well,’ she pouted. ‘If that’s your attitude, I’m sure I wouldn’t wish to share the billing with an amateur!’

Not bad, really, on the spur of the moment; if a trifle unwise.

‘Come, Steven,’ she continued, ‘let us return to our dressing-rooms – until such time as the management extends an apology!’ And she looked enquiringly at Charlie, who was an apology, of course, but didn’t care to extend himself just at the moment.

So up the stairs she flounced: and Steven was about to follow her with a more masculine version of the same exit, when Kate gave tongue once more.

‘The feller stays here,’ she said. ‘I’ve been plannin’ to get myself a new partner, an’ looks like he’s drawn the short straw! I like the cut of his jib,’ she explained, somewhat confusingly; and took his arm, in a way which suggested further favours to come.

‘Oh, do you?’ said Steven, who had not hitherto realised he had a jib to cut. ‘Thank you.’

‘Well, thank
you
, Steven – and goodnight!’ said Dodo.

‘Please don’t mind me! Just you go ahead and enjoy yourself with your new friend. I shall go to my room, and ponder on perfidy!’

And she stalked off to do both.

‘Now then,’ said Kate, ‘seein’ how everything’s been arranged so amicable, let’s you an’ me show these boys how bar-room ballads from the Parlour Song Book should
really
be sung. Make with the piano, Mister!’

‘Ah – now
there
, I’m afraid, you rather have me,’ said Steven. ‘Songs for all Occasions", possibly; but as far as the piano is concerned, all I know is "America the Brave".’

The ex-astronaut had, in fact, learned this as an essential part of his advanced course at Cape Canaveral, or someplace, and was rather proud of it.

‘Then that’s what we’ll give ’em,’ agreed Kate. ‘Hats off boys – and the first one to hit a bum note in the chorus, gets it from me! O.K? A one, and a two...’

Since she was preparing to conduct the male voice choir with a revolver barrel, what could the boys do but clamber to their feet, remove their stetsons, and take a nervous breath – because the song, as you’ll realise if you’ve ever tried it, isn’t that easy.

So that is what they did.

And, with Steven Regret on the jangle-box, they were fairly launched into ‘O, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light’ – which, in fact, they couldn’t often – with Kate’s cracked contralto soaring like a vulture over the toute ensemble, when the Doctor at last entered the bar.

And Some Durn Tootin’

On leaving his surgery, Doc Holliday – master of tactics as we have seen him to be – had decided, after tossing the idea around some, not to enter the saloon by kicking open the swing-doors, which could sometimes swing back and do you an injury; but to approach the premises from the rear, thereby preserving, he hoped, the highly spoken of element of surprise. For without some such, he was up against a stacked deck, whatever that may be; and he knew it.