Doc - Mary Doria Russell [76]
So there wasn’t really all that much drama in the job, except for what police always called “family” fights. Wyatt hated them. Given a choice, he’d take fifty drunken cowboys over two drunken lovers. Ask him, “What kind of call do you hate the most?” and he’d tell you, “Family fights. Family fights are always the worst.”
And they were always the same.
Somebody’d come running up, hollering, “They’re killing each other next door!” Get there, and the woman’s screaming that she’s being murdered, so you go in after the husband or the boyfriend or the pimp. But the minute you try to arrest him, the woman would be on your back, pounding on you with her fists, yelling, “Leave him alone, you sonofabitch! I love him!”
Nine times out of ten, she wouldn’t let you press charges, and you’d be back again a couple of nights later. It was unrewarding work, and you could get hurt doing it. Wyatt was laid up for a week one time, not drawing pay, and he got ragged for months about the lamp that whore busted over his head.
Everything about a family fight was a misery, and he avoided those calls when he could, but he appeared to be the only officer around when Deacon Cox came out of the Dodge House, yelling about a pair of his hotel guests who were fighting.
Wyatt shrugged and nodded and crossed the street, feet dragging some after a long night. The argument became more distinct as he climbed the Dodge House stairs and scuffed down the corridor. A female voice, heavily accented, dominated. Her themes were perfidy and abandonment. As proof of her opponent’s faithlessness, she loudly offered his desire to save money so he could return to an old girlfriend. A soft answer turneth away wrath, and that was evidently the gentleman’s policy. Then the term “bastard” entered the conversation. Wyatt reached their door in time to hear the unmistakable sound of a solid slap delivered to a face.
“You speak of my mother again,” said a soft Georgia voice, “I will shoot you where you stand.”
“Son of a bitch!”
Wyatt raised a foot to kick open the door and prevent the murder. He nearly fell, off balance, when the door was flung open.
“Get out,” the gentleman suggested, without looking into the hallway. “And this time? Don’t come back.”
“I don’t need you! There are men lining up for me. I pick and I choose! What I do is less disgusting than looking into stinking, diseased mouths,” the woman snarled, stuffing clothing into a carpetbag. “Be damned to you!” She snapped the bag shut and pushed past Wyatt. “And you can go to hell with him!” she shouted over her shoulder.
For a few moments, both men stood in the hallway, watching as she stomped down the corridor muttering curses under her breath.
“I apologize, Morgan,” the gentleman said. “I swear: this time, it wasn’t my fault—” He stopped and stared.
“I’m Morg’s brother,” Wyatt told him. “People mix us up all the time.”
“Wyatt! Of course. Just last evenin’, I was admirin’ your work from a distance.” The gentleman offered his hand. “John Holliday, sir. I don’t know if you remember me.”
“Fort Griffin. You gave me your card.”
“You ever find David Rudabaugh?”
“He circled back to Kansas, like you said. Thanks for the tip.”
“And Dodge is everything you said it would be … Well, sir, if you will excuse me, I am late for office hours. If, however, you are here to arrest me for creatin’ a disturbance”—the dentist stepped back into his room and pulled a frock coat on over his shirtsleeves—“I shall not dispute the charge, unless you intend to put me in a cell with that insufferable woman!”
He shouted the last two words toward the window, apparently hoping his whore would hear him out in the street, but it was poor judgment. The effort set off a hellacious coughing fit.
“No harm done,” Wyatt said.
It seemed rude to walk away while the man was hacking like that, so Wyatt waited. That was when he noticed a copy of the Dodge City Times on the bed. “I saw your ad in the