Doctor Who_ The Gunfighters - Donald Cotton [19]
‘The feller stays here,’ she said. ‘I’ve been plannin’ to get myself a new partner, an’ looks like he’s drawn the short straw! I like the cut of his jib,’ she explained, somewhat confusingly; and took his arm, in a way which suggested further favours to come.
‘Oh, do you?’ said Steven, who had not hitherto realised he had a jib to cut. ‘Thank you.’
‘Well, thank you, Steven – and goodnight!’ said Dodo.
‘Please don’t mind me! Just you go ahead and enjoy yourself with your new friend. I shall go to my room, and ponder on perfidy!’
And she stalked off to do both.
‘Now then,’ said Kate, ‘seein’ how everything’s been arranged so amicable, let’s you an’ me show these boys how bar-room ballads from the Parlour Song Book should really be sung. Make with the piano, Mister!’
‘Ah – now there, I’m afraid, you rather have me,’ said Steven. ‘Songs for all Occasions", possibly; but as far as the piano is concerned, all I know is "America the Brave".’
The ex-astronaut had, in fact, learned this as an essential part of his advanced course at Cape Canaveral, or someplace, and was rather proud of it.
‘Then that’s what we’ll give ’em,’ agreed Kate. ‘Hats off boys – and the first one to hit a bum note in the chorus, gets it from me! O.K? A one, and a two...’
Since she was preparing to conduct the male voice choir with a revolver barrel, what could the boys do but clamber to their feet, remove their stetsons, and take a nervous breath – because the song, as you’ll realise if you’ve ever tried it, isn’t that easy.
So that is what they did.
And, with Steven Regret on the jangle-box, they were fairly launched into ‘O, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light’ – which, in fact, they couldn’t often – with Kate’s cracked contralto soaring like a vulture over the toute ensemble, when the Doctor at last entered the bar.
11
And Some Durn Tootin’
On leaving his surgery, Doc Holliday – master of tactics as we have seen him to be – had decided, after tossing the idea around some, not to enter the saloon by kicking open the swing-doors, which could sometimes swing back and do you an injury; but to approach the premises from the rear, thereby preserving, he hoped, the highly spoken of element of surprise. For without some such, he was up against a stacked deck, whatever that may be; and he knew it.
So to this end, he made his pussy-footing way down Crum’s Alley, scene of the late mayor’s last reception; and with some thought for the probable effect on his gambler’s finery, discarded the obvious plan of climbing a drain-pipe to the first floor of the Last Chance, in favour of the nimble leap from the back of an astonished horse to the rail of a sort of balcony affair; where he hung by his sensitive hands for a spell, reflecting on Life, Art, and what he would say to Kate when he found her again.
You will probably have seen this sort of manoeuvre executed countless times. But I’m here to tell you it ain’t a peacherino by no means – especially without a standin who is paid to do it for you. And so, as I say, he took a brief pause for heavy breathing, and things of that nature.
But at last he managed to swing a leg or so over the balustrade; when, after a further pause to take a quick slurp from his hip-flask, he crashed spectacularly through the window of Dodo’s bedroom. Where, as we know, she had gone to ponder on perfidy; and this new occurrence didn’t help any! In fact, being a well-brought up girl, she was about to go so far as to scream the place down, when the Doc clapped a gloved hand over the in-breath.
Always wore gloves, these sort of characters – don’t know why...
‘Hush, little lady!’ he advised; ‘I’m a friend.’
She inspected his forbidding features as carefully as possible under the circumstances; and couldn’t, for the life of her, remember them.
‘Are you sure?’ she enquired, as soon as her mouth was once more available. ‘Perhaps you’d care to remind me of when and where?’
‘Hush!’ he counselled yet again. ‘My name’s Doc