Doc - Mary Doria Russell [68]
“Last time I saw a lawman gunned down, the drunk who did it walked away for a twelve-dollar fine.” Wyatt fell silent. No one moved. When he spoke again, he seemed to be talking to himself. “Nobody dies tonight,” he said. “We all go home in the morning.”
In the back of the Alhambra, at a table as far from the noise and dust of the street as possible, John Henry Holliday shuffled and reshuffled a deck with absentminded precision, watching as the policemen left the saloon—all except for Morgan, who had noticed Doc and Kate there and stopped by their table briefly.
“Hey, Kate. What’re you reading?” Morg asked.
“Crime and Punishment. Translated from the Russian.”
“Sounds interesting. Can I borrow it when you’re done?”
She shrugged.
“Twenty bucks says Wyatt don’t even raise his voice,” Morg offered, “and the Texans do as they’re told.”
Doc reached over to lift Kate’s hand to his lips. “You’re on your own with this one, darlin’. I wouldn’t take that bet.”
“Make it ten,” Kate told Morgan. “We’re short.”
The River
Winters in Kansas could fool you, John Riney always warned newcomers.
A man would come west in the springtime, and it would be just like the newspaper said. Homesteads weren’t free anymore, but they were sure enough dirt cheap. There were no trees to clear nor swamps to drain. No rocks to dig out before you could break ground. First day you got up and ran your eyes over your land at sunrise, you’d be so glad you came to Kansas, you’d think, Damn, how’m I gonna know when I’m in heaven after living someplace this good?
Couple months later, you knew just how tough that grassland was, and how hard you and your wife and kids and the mule had to work to bust through it—and not a particle of shade for five hundred miles, sun beating on you like a hammer. Still, you’d get your crop in, and when that first summer passed, you’d have a pretty good harvest, even after the cyclone that one time and a long stretch of dry in August.
And anyways, you could get bad weather back East, too. Farming’s the biggest gamble there is. Ask the man who’s tried it.
With no trees, you wouldn’t even notice so much that it was getting to be autumn, but then nights would cool off a lot. You’d tell your wife, “Well, it’s hot as hell, summer, but when the heat breaks, the weather’s real pleasant.” There’d be cold snaps and frost in October and you’d think, Oh, Lord. Here comes the snow! But that was squaw winter, and November would surprise you. The air would turn mild and sweet, and the light was soft and golden, slanting in low as the days shortened.
The first sign of what you were in for? Just a shift in the wind. Right before Christmas, usually. Huge clouds the color of spent charcoal would pile up on the far horizon. Suddenly the temperature would drop like a rock, and the first blizzard of the season would roar across the plains and hit you like a damn train. Men would get caught outdoors—fixing a fence, maybe—no coat, just wearing what seemed sensible that morning when the sun was shining and it looked to be another pretty day. Happened so fast, you didn’t hardly know what to think.
That’s how it was the year John Riney took over a farm from a Dutch fella, out north of Dodge. The Dutchie had a run of bad luck and went bust, what with the drought and the hoppers and the depression, but John reckoned him and Mabel and the boys could make a go of it, and by December he could see his way clear to proving up on the land.
Then one day—mid-December—John was out in the shed working on a broken harness when the breeze came up. Before he even thought twice, the wind was so strong, the whole little building started to shake and the snow was coming down like nothing he ever seen in north Arkansas. Can’t last, he told himself and went back to the harness, figuring he’d wait it out, but the storm just got worse and worse, and next time he peered through a gap in the siding, he couldn’t see the house anymore, nor hear his own voice above the wind when he hollered.
Before long, it got so