Doctor Who_ The Gunfighters - Donald Cotton [1]
A man wouldn’t want to miss out on all that, would he?
For without some such, Eternity would be as bleak as a Faro-dealer’s eye; and nothing to get excited over at all.
But fortunately there was cash-in-poke a-plenty to support the middle-aged old-timer slogging out his last bare-knuckle bout with tuberculosis in the private room set aside for this purpose; gains ill-gotten and misspent for the most part, but that didn’t trouble him so’s you’d notice.
No, his one problem was the probability that any moment now one of his old cronies would likely kick the door in, and try to beat the Grim Reaper to the draw – for he had many such over-ambitious friends.
So he awaited his well-earned end like the fine old Southern gentleman he used to be; a six-gun in one hand, in case of unwelcome health visitors, and a bottle of ‘Rare Old Grandad’ in the other, in case of sudden sobriety.
And meanwhile he was filling the flying time with a little target practice; to the discomfort of the hitherto flourishing population of resident cockroaches, who skipped and trembled accordingly. In fact, the terminal ward of Glenwood sounded like it had been hired for a reunion of the Wild Bunch; and I therefore paused somewhat diffidently before knocking on the door marked
‘Quiet at all times’. After all, I had ridden several hundred miles to meet this particularly celebrated, inebriated invalid; and I didn’t wish the journey to be wasted on account of my sudden decease. I mean, if you were a journalist in the last days of the Old West, you learned to be a little careful before insisting that the public has the right to know. There were a few characters still around who would give you an argument about a crack like that...
My name’s Buntline, by the way – should have told you before; Ned Buntline – pleased to meet you. And, as you may have heard, I’ve made a certain amount of coin in my time biographising these same notorious characters for the edification of the reading fraternity. Fact is, I can honestly claim to have put Buffalo Bill Cody where he is today – but that’s another story. Right now, I was on the track of one of the last colourful survivors of a vanishing era, as the saying is; and since truth must at all times be served, as another saying is, I eventually took advantage of a brief pause in all this justifiable pesticide, and rapped smartly on the splintered panels...
‘Come in shootin’, then; if you’re comin’,’ coughed a raucous but well-modulated voice from within.
‘I ain’t armed,’ I replied, ‘so I fear I can’t oblige.’ And I stepped into the now tranquil room, to find myself looking down the open-for-business end of a large calibre Colt.
‘Friend of Wyatt’s’ I announced hastily, ‘called to pay my last respects.’
‘Are you now? Well, in that case,’ acknowledged Doc Holliday gracefully, sliding the shooter politely into a bunch of funereal lillies Bat Masterson had sent him,
‘you’ll have a drink with me...’
In view of my recent association with Wyatt Earp, you may think it strange that Doc and I had not previously locked horns? But you maybe know how it used to be on the old gamblers’ circuit? Folks tended to leave cow-towns by night, and in opposing directions; and at this time –
which, to be precise, was November 10, 1887 – Earp and Holliday had not met for several years. Busy in their very different ways, of course; and neither being much of a hand at the epistolary, as opposed to the pistolry, art, Doc had never even heard of me; so he was at a loss to account for my well-meant visitation; and, after a glass or two said so.
‘Well,’ I told him, notebook at the ready, ‘it’s about the O.K. Corral...’
‘What about it?’ asked Doc, reaching for his six-gun once more. ‘You ain’t also a friend of the Clantons, by any chance?’
I quickly denied any such ill-advised relationship.
‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s just that there’s one or two things about that little fracas of yours and Wyatt’s has always puzzled me some. I mean, why, for instance, does everyone say you used a shotgun? You never had