Doc - Mary Doria Russell [167]
“This isn’t the first time you’ve sold that mare to cover a gamblin’ debt. Is it.”
“What are you—?”
“Lie to me,” the Georgian suggested with gentle, smiling malice. “I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“You needed money. Johnnie Sanders knew that. He did the books for half the businesses in Dodge. He offered two grand for the horse. You agreed. He went to the safe at Bob Wright’s store and met you at the barn with the cash.”
“Yes, but—”
“You accepted the money and then you brained that boy, you spineless, gutless, heartless bastard.”
“No!”
“You set fire to the barn, and raised the alarm, and walked away with the cash and the horse, both. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“But—No, it wasn’t that way at all! He—Yes! I sold the horse to him,” Eli admitted, “but I didn’t kill him—”
“You broke his skull and left him to die.”
“No! Listen to me: I took the money and I went back to the saloon to pay off. When I came out, I swear, the barn was already on fire! I ran back—”
“Into a burnin’ building,” Holliday said, voice flat. “How courageous.”
“There were men sleeping in there!”
“So you raised the alarm.”
“Yes, of course!”
“You went back to Roxana’s stall, and you led her out.”
“I had to! She wouldn’t go past the flames! I got Roxana out and helped clear the barn, and when it was all over, I took her back to the fort—just overnight! I couldn’t leave her out on the street, could I? I figured I could come back in the morning and find the kid and sort it all out—”
“So you didn’t see Johnnie?”
“I figured he left. I had no idea he was still in the barn—”
Holliday pulled the hammer back. Eli flinched at the quiet click.
Speaking quickly now and quietly, he said, “I swear I didn’t hurt that boy. I ran back to the barn, and he was already on the ground. Roxana must have—You’ve seen it yourself! Look at her!” Eli cried, for the horse was showing white around her eyes. “She doesn’t trust strangers and she’s liable to go light on her front feet. I don’t think that kid knew the first thing about horses! He probably went into the stall and she came down on him.”
There was a curve to the fracture. It might have been the size of a hoof, but … “Doesn’t matter,” Doc insisted. “You turned his body over. You must have seen that he was still alive.”
“Maybe! Yes! I don’t know! I didn’t look that hard! It was dark, for crissakes! The roof was caving in and—”
“So you paid your debt, you got your horse and saved the cowboys. And you left John Horse Sanders to lie there and burn.”
Mouth dry, Eli tensed slightly, thinking he could—
“By all means,” Holliday urged courteously. “Try it.”
He’s going to kill me, Eli thought. This is how I’m going to die.
“Four years of war,” the Georgian said softly, “to teach them rebs a lesson and set their darkies free! But when it came down to your horse or that boy … Well, hell, he was just a colored kid, and kin to no one.” For an endless moment, John Henry Holliday just stood there, trembling. “God a’mighty,” he said quietly. “To think we lost to trash like you.”
As much as anything, it was the weight of the pistol that saved Elijah Garrett Grier’s life that morning. Suddenly and utterly exhausted, Doc lowered his gun, letting it dangle at his side.
“Bob Wright knows everything,” he said. “I recommend you run.”
Eli nodded his entire agreement but pointed out, “I’ll need a mount.”
Doc glanced toward the corral. “Pick one.”
“They hang horse thieves,” Grier objected.
“Only if you’re caught. Best hurry.”
“I—The money? For Roxana?”
Slate blue eyes went wide.
“Toujours l’audace!” Doc said with specious admiration. “The price was twenty-one sixty. Two grand will go to Miss Kate, to clear your debt to her. I will wire the remaining one hundred and sixty to my father. Grier and Cook Carriage Company owes him the money. That leaves me with thirty-eight dollars and change. Forgive me if I am not inclined to share that with a lyin’, low-life Yankee skunk. God as my witness: I should rid the world of you.”
His face reduced to bone, eyes