Doctor Who_ The Gunfighters - Donald Cotton [27]
And he proceeded to prove it...
‘Long as you’re sober enough to ride,’ pursued Wyatt, grimly.
‘Now Marshal, when have you ever seen me drunk? The booze an’ I came to an amicable understandin’ some years gone: it don’t never back up on me, so long as I never let up on it! No, let me advise you Wyatt; it’s when you discontinue the lubrication that them crimson gophers part your scalp with a meat axe. Like they was jest doin’,’
he explained. ‘So if you’ll kindly excuse me, while I pacify
’em some...’
‘Don’t take all night about it, then; I mean what I say.’
Doc wiped his moustache with a surgical swab.
‘Can you please explain to me, Wyatt, why every son of the morning I meet gives me that self-same message? Bat Masterson, now – he started in on it before I’d fairly got here. An’ I’ve done nothin’ agin the law – well, not recent,’
he qualified.
‘Bat wants you out ‘cause he don’t like you: with me, it’s
‘cause I do. Comes to the same thing though, don’t it? So you’d best git!’
‘For pity’s sake, why? I jest opened this here much-needed clinic. An’ moreover, I aim to get married right soon; to a real fine... well, to a real woman, anyway!’
‘A Jezebel of Babylon,’ commented Earp.
‘No, a Kate Elder of Sourdust Creek,’ corrected Doc.
‘You probably know her. Most people do,’ he remembered, gloomily. ‘Big girl in boots.’
‘I seen her around some,’ confessed Wyatt. ‘Had the pleasure of removin’ her gun-belt only this evening.’
‘That strikes me as bein’ a mite familiar, when she’s an engaged party...’
‘An’ I’ve no objection to your takin’ her along with you, if such be your hell-bent inclination. But this thing’s your own fault, Doc: seemingly you set up this here other Doctor for a headstone he somehow side-stepped; an’ I cain’t keep him in the gaol-house forever; not till Judgement Day neither, whichever be the sooner. An’
when I do let him loose, there’s gonna be questions. Which questions, when answered, will likely prove he ain’t you.
So by then, you’d best be long gone; else there’ll be gun-play in the streets’ll make the Alamo look like... like the Boston Tea Party,’ he concluded, lamely.
‘Now, come on Wyatt – you know you an’ me – an’
maybe Bat, if’n he’ll tolerate my company – you know we can take care of the Clantons, for sweet sake!’
‘ And the McLowries; an’ any other law-shy gunsel Pa Clanton chooses to throw at us? No, Doc – before that kind of Armageddon is declared, I got to have my brothers to back me. I already sent for ’em – but Virgil an’ Warren’s got a way to come; an’ Morgan – well, he ain’t no more than a boy. Now, if you’re around before they get here, Doc, there’ll be no holdin’ the outbreak of hostilities. So I ain’t askin’ you to go forever, understand? Just until the hosts of the Righteous is well-assembled. Then maybe I’ll send for you – so stay close, so’s I can get word...’
‘Well, thank you kindly, an’ here endeth the first lesson,’ bowed Doc. ‘I don’t like it, Wyatt; it don’t come at all natural to run!’
‘I’m not askin’ you to like it – I’m tellin’ you to go! An’
furthermore, if you ain’t gone come sun-up, then I greatly fear, friend, that Bat an’ I’ll have to...’
‘I know, I know – you’ll come a-lookin’! Ain’t it always the same?’ he grumbled, for the second time that day.
Then, tucking the bottle under his arm, he turned his offended back on the flail of the Lord, and sashayed back to base.
15
A Very Nasty Little Incident
You may have wondered, during the course of this brief history, why a popular sink of iniquity, such as the Last Chance, remained so singularly free of paying customers during licensed hours? And the answer is simple: word had got around that the Clantons were whooping up the place, that’s why. And that’s all.
So, for the best part of a whole day, the thirst-racked walk-on parts had been prowling the town, looking for alternative distractions. Ma Golightly, for one, had done very well out of it; and at the Bird Cage Theatre Eddie Foy was thinking that if business went on like this, they were going to hit Broadway with a box-office bonanza