Doctor Who_ The Gunfighters - Donald Cotton [45]
got it?’
Dawn in Tombstone, October 26, 1881, and all these things occurring:
Johnny Ringo, riding in alone; he generally rode alone, remember?
Followed, after some time, and at a very discreet distance – silhouetted against the sunrise – by Ike, Phineas, Billy, their Pa and the yellow hound-dog, which had come along for laughs. All in that order.
Doc Holliday, who, the night previous, had checked in to the Last Chance, rising to shave his immaculate jowls.
Dodo, snoring delicately in the next room.
Wyatt, Warren, and the Doctor, stepping out into the centre of Main Street, jaws set – in one case, as with the onset of tetanus – on their doom-laden way to the widely anticipated holocaust.
Kate saying to Steven that, if so be as Ringo got his, then she’d always admired the type of man who knew his way round a keyboard, so what the hell? Why didn’t they ride in to watch the big event, while making plans for the future?
Steven going along with it for now; because, frankly, he couldn’t think what else to do at this point.
And all over the landscape, little groups of outlaws, ne’er-do-wells, and bad-hats, galloping in to witness the grand finale. Becase word had got around; and if so be as the Clantons won, then the town would be wide open, wouldn’t it? Sure it would! Sure!
So – got all that, have you? Because all these strangely
compounded concomitants are the stuff of legend!
Fine. So here we go, friends: The Gunfight at the O.K.
Corral!
23
Come Sun-Up...
Ringo, of course, was early; as he might have known he would be, if he hadn’t been so all-fired anxious to snatch the star part. So there were now two courses open to him, he figured: he could stand there, exuding menace like Attila the Hun at a poll-booth; casting his long shadow in all directions, until such time as the supporting cast arrived to back him up – the disadvantage of this being that he would look a mite foolish if they didn’t show; which he wouldn’t by no means put past them, having had some opportunity the previous night to study their sterling worth: or else he could kill a little time over a breakfast bottle at the Last Chance; and return later, to make the delayed appearance which is not only dramatically effective, but sometimes gets an entrance round.
So he settled for the latter alternative as being better from every point of view; and following a circuitous route to avoid Main Street, which he fancied might well be busy at this hour, he presently fetched up at the long-bar; where he remembered, with sudden irritation, that he had lately shot the bar-keep.
So he served himself.
But Ringo had underestimated the Clantons who, true to the few words they knew, were now arriving at the preordained scene of combat, one by one and as silently as they could contrive.
Dismounting, they hitched their horses – who had been afraid something like this might happen – in positions chosen to provide suitable cover; and then withdrew for a council of war into the darkness of the livery stable; where a roll-call swiftly established that Ringo was not yet amongst them.
‘Damn!’ said Pa. ‘There ain’t no other corral in town, is there? I mean, you boys did tell him exactly how to find this place?’
‘Drew him a map,’ said Phineas, proudly, ‘with little arrows an’ such... in coloured inks...’
‘Oh God!’ groaned Pa. ‘That’s all we needed...’
And then, to complete their enjoyment, they saw the TARDIS.
Dodo awoke from a dream of missed trains and lost opportunities, said ‘Oh – surely it can’t be that time!’ and rushed into her captive’s bedroom, to see if he was stirring yet.
As we have seen, he was shaving; and, at her precipitous entrance, cut himself, painfully. He really was going to be glad to see the back of this one and said so...
‘Then hurry up!’ she advised him. ‘The sooner you take me to