Doc - Mary Doria Russell [94]
“Since November.”
“Of 1867,” Bessie muttered. She shot a hard look at Wyatt, who suddenly found his shoes interesting. “You sit down here for a minute, Mattie,” Bessie said before yelling, “James! Your brother brought us a girl.”
Drying his hands on a bar towel, James stepped outside and took it all in. The hooker, slumped against the back stairs. Bessie, tight-faced, arms crossed. Wyatt, miserable.
“I’m sorry, James. I caught a vaquero trying to cut her,” Wyatt told him. “I threw him in jail, but she keeps following me, and … I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Wyatt,” Bessie whispered fiercely, “your brother and I run a clean house—”
“I’m not saying give her a job!” Wyatt dug into his pocket and handed over some crumpled bills. “Just let her sleep here?”
“Here? She’s probably got fleas! Not to mention—”
James put his good arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I’ll take care of this, honey. Go on up to bed. Wyatt, there’s bread and jam in the kitchen. Get yourself something to eat. I’ll be back soon.”
Pulling her shawl tight, Bessie gave Wyatt one last mean look and left without another word. Murmuring encouragement, James got the girl on her feet and steered her off toward China Joe’s, still holding that nasty oilcloth to her bosom.
Wyatt watched them go, his mind blank. He was past thinking, but even if he’d just spent a week taking a rest cure, he wouldn’t have known what to do about Mattie Blaylock. Anything with men or horses, Wyatt handled it, but women? Well, Doc Holliday was right about that much. It was a comfort and a support to have his brothers near. Women were James’ job, and he was good at it.
After a few muddled moments, Wyatt went inside simply because James had told him to, and because he liked bread and jam.
For a while he stood dumbly in the whorehouse kitchen, glad none of the girls had come in to see what was going on. There were mirrors all over the place in Bessie’s, and he caught sight of himself in the one hung above the sink. Listening hard for footsteps, he decided it was safe and lifted his upper lip in something like a smile. Wincing at what he saw, he sat down heavily.
The Frowner, his mother called him. Well, it was that or look like an idiot.
Hell. What difference did it make after all these years? He was used to things the way they were. He could hardly imagine what it might be like to laugh or smile freely. On the other hand, there was the awful memory of the tooth that went bad in ’73 while he was hunting buffalo …
They say you forget pain, but Wyatt sure as hell hadn’t forgotten being so desperate to make it stop, he came close to putting the barrel of a pistol to the tooth and shooting it out of his mouth. In the end, he let Ed Masterson hammer it out, using part of an elk horn as a chisel and a pistol butt for a mallet. If Doc Holliday could prevent that from ever happening again, it would be worth any amount of money.
Which was why, a little at a time, Wyatt was talking himself into a plan that would let him pay James back and pay the dentist, too.
Fat Larry didn’t see any harm in city deputies working two jobs, and the saloons liked having a badge in the house. John Stauber and Chuck Trask were both dealing faro part-time, and they were making a good buck. Wyatt thought that was kind of wrong—a lawman could cheat all he wanted, bash anyone who caught him at it, and say it was for disturbing the peace. But there was no rule said you had to cheat. Drunks generally did their own losing.
With his mind just about made up, Wyatt tried to summon the gumption to fry a couple of eggs but decided to rest his eyes for a few minutes. Next thing he knew, James was back and it was full daylight.
“I took her over to China Joe’s,” James told him. “When she’s clean, she can come back here and sleep off whatever she’s using. Joe thinks it might be opium. I think laudanum, more like.”
“Thanks, James.”
“Soon as she sobers up, she’s back out on the street, Wyatt. Bessie’s not gonna let her work here. You eat anything?”
“Too tired.” He pushed himself to his feet and