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But still and all, this wasn’t the sort of craven attempt to shuffle sideways out of responsibility that I could easily associate with John H. Holliday – or, leastways, with what I’d always heard about him. The coldest killer the West had ever seen – well, maybe. But always a gentleman with it, so Wyatt had told me. A man with a healthy dislike for facing the music; but never one to deny that he’d written the tune; or called it, either, come to that! So why would he start trying to fool me at this time of his life? Or of his death, rather – because you could tell he wasn’t long with us by the way his drink kept glazing over.

So I went on listening to his crazy-sounding story for the rest of that afternoon; while the whisky sank lower in the bottle – and in another he drew from a shoulder-holster, round about tea-time – until, you know, I finally believed him! Yes, sir, I did; and I make so bold as to hope that you will, too. Because it explains a deal of stuff that had just never seemed to add up in the other accounts I’d heard from so-called eye-witnesses – who’d probably never been nearer to the O.K. Corral than the railhead at Abilene!

And so, friends, here follows:

‘A True and Full Account

of

The Gunfight at The O.K. Corral,

And of Events leading Thereto;

As told to me, Ned Buntline,

In the Terminal Ward of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, by

Doctor John H. Holliday,

Dental Surgeon, Gambler, and Gun-Man,

Knife-Fighter, Con-Artist and Southern Gentleman.’

And Liar? Oh, surely not...!

1

Landfall in Tombstone

To hear Holliday tell it, life on board the TARDIS can’t have been all candied yams and sassafras at the best of times; what with one thing and another, such as alien life forms cluttering up the cuspidors, and so forth. But when the Doctor had toothache, it became downright intolerable...

‘It’s no use,’ he groaned, ‘I simply have to find a dentist before we move another millenium!’

Steven and Dodo looked at each other in alarm.

Difficult to find a decent one anywhere in an emergency –

never mind a millenium... and then there’d probably be a waiting list.

‘Haven’t you got any pain-killers in the lab?’ asked Steven. ‘Something to tide you over till we get... wherever we’re going?’

‘My dear boy, amongst my supplies I have everything we could possibly need to counteract the effects of all death-rays from alpha to omega; devices for the instantaneous resetting of broken bones; and specifics to counteract cellular mutation... but for some reason I neglected to pack any aspirin! No, the tooth will just have to be extracted...’

‘Shall I have a go?’ said Dodo, helpfully. ‘I once did a first-aid course at school... not very well, though...’ she admitted.

‘Certainly not!’ snapped the Doctor. ‘In any case, I’m sure the curriculum did not include the more sophisticated techniques of dental surgery. I fear there is nothing for it but to land at once.’

‘Yes – but where?’ said Steven.

‘It doesn’t matter!’ the Doctor agonised. ‘Wherever there is some form of vertebrate life, there will be teeth –

and where there are teeth, there will be... oh... ouch!’ And he reeled over to the control panel.

The dials wavered uncertainly. They’d been through all this before.

‘But look here,’ objected Steven, ‘supposing there’s only in-vertebrate life when we get there? It would be just like you to land us on Jupiter or somewhere, where everything’s gaseous or liquid – you know, like those great, nebulous jelly-fish things we met on... where was it?... with poisonous what-nots...’

‘ Don’t!’ shuddered Dodo.

‘Quite right, Dodo. Don’t you presume to lecture me on intergalactic biology, my boy! I know perfectly well what I’m doing...!’

‘Makes a pleasant change...!’ muttered Steven, fortunately inaudibly.

In any case, the Doctor was already clutching at an apparently haphazard selection of levers with the air of a demented xylophonist, who finds he’s brought along the wine list instead of the score.

‘Don’t you think,’ said Dodo, without much hope, ‘it would be better to wait until... ?’