Doctor Who_ The Gunfighters - Donald Cotton [22]
‘It surely looks like you was explainin’ – jest like Samson explainin’ to the Philistines,’ agreed Wyatt. ‘But that ain’t no jaw-bone of a mule you got there! So I suggest you hand it over – before the Temple of the Ungodly falls about your damn fool ears!’
‘You too, Kate,’ said Bat. ‘Wyatt an’ I handle that kind of explainin’ round here!’
They obliged with various degrees of reluctance: and, not wishing to be left out of things, Steven added his own guns for good measure. He’d had enough of them for the time being.
‘Now then,’ said Wyatt, ‘who started what?’
‘Holliday did,’ obliged Seth. ‘He started the whole blame thing!’
Since Holliday wasn’t noticeably present, this was something of a puzzlement.
‘Holliday?’ the lawmen enquired slowly, and in unison.
They weren’t here to be made fools of.
‘Sure,’ said Billy, ‘we was jest havin’ us a friendly sing-song...’
‘Yeah,’ said Ike, ‘like cattle-men do round a camp fire, come nightfall. An’ before we knew it, he got us lined up against the wall here... Look, ain’t we against the wall?’
This was undeniable, but still...
‘He was goin’ to shoot us down in cold blood... like varmints in a... in a...’
‘Shut up, Phin!’ said Ike. ‘Leave it at cold blood.’
‘Cold as it comes,’ agreed Billy. ‘I tell you, Marshal, I saw the whole thing! I mean, I was in it, wasn’t I?’
‘An’ so was I,’ contributed Kate. ‘An’ the Doc got the drop on ’em fair an’ square – accordin’ to the rules laid down by Queensberry, or some feller. Seems like they was a-gunnin’ for him.’
‘Who isn’t?’ said Bat, scratching his singed moustache.
‘But that still don’t explain...’
‘Quiet, Bat!’ warned Wyatt, looking like the prophet Jeremiah after a bad morning.
Behind the Marshal’s marble brow, there moved a mind of ice-like acumen; and in rather more time than it takes to tell, he had weighed the situation in the balance; and found it short on equilibrium. But that didn’t mean he was unable to work out that what he had here was a case of mistaken identity. And he thought that, all things considered, it would be best to leave it that way, for the time being.
‘Guess it all seems pretty clear,’ he agreed. ‘I’m sorry, Doc, but I’ve got to take you in.’
‘I am not taken in for a moment!’ contradicted the Doctor. ‘This whole situation is a...’ What was the expression he wanted? ‘A frame-up!’ he remembered,
‘that’s what it is!’
‘Be that as it usually be,’ continued the imperturbable monument, ‘you’re under arrest!’
‘Arrest? How dare you? May I remind you that this is the second time today you have forced me to ask that? And you have absolutely no excuse for this constant custody!
You know perfectly well who I am!’
‘Surely do, old friend,’ agreed Wyatt, ‘which is why I aim to put you out of harm’s way for a spell.’
‘Then I demand to see a solicitor!’
‘You wouldn’t take to him,’ said Phineas, ‘not no-how!
Why, he’s bent as a crawdad’s claw in a swamp-hole!’
‘I’ve warned you, Phin,’ hissed Ike. ‘Let it lay, cain’t you?’
Phineas subsided, muttering resentfully, and the Doctor, also muttering, and with my Buntline Special hard against his ribs, was prodded towards the door; with Bat on shotgun at coverpoint.
‘Goodnight, sinners!’ said Wyatt to the congregation;
‘I’m sorry your stay in this festering haunt of the Malachite has been so rudely disturbed...’
And the three men backed warily into the West-infested darkness...
Left to themselves, the rest of the company was something at a loss for words, and groped for them accordingly.
Kate was the first to find some, and spoke as follows:
‘Well now, gentlemen, if that concludes the evening’s entertainment, and you don’t want no quick gallop through “The Star-Spangled Banner”, I guess I’ll be goin’
back to my room... An’ that’s where I’ll be if anyone wants me,’ she added, with a glance from beneath her half-mast lashes at Steven, who chose to ignore her, having quite enough to panic over at the moment, without any of that nonsense... And, disappointed, Kate oscillated up the stairs.
‘Well, if that don’t beat all,’ said Phineas, referring not to her