Born to the Badge Page 15

  With the cards the Southerner was driven, sometimes reckless, hell-bent on fleecing a man out of his money or going broke in the process. Though not much older than Bat Masterson, Holliday seemed already used up in some fragile way that Wyatt could not identify. The man’s faded-blond hair and gray pallor marked him as someone who seldom ventured into daylight. A feminine quality sometimes emerged in his face, but his cool eyes could be predatory, taking in everything, even when he laughed . . . even as the lids fell partway to shield his thoughts. He drank enough whiskey at one sitting for three men, yet he never appeared drunk.

  With Holliday on a streak, Wyatt folded early on three hands, and then, after winning once, he folded again three times. Holliday’s foxy eyes seemed to bore into him as though digging into his thoughts.

  “You appear to know your way around the cards, suh,” he said, smiling at Wyatt as though they were old acquaintances.

  Wyatt sat with his wrists crossed on the table. The cigar loosely clamped in his fingers sent up a thin string of gray smoke that snaked before his face.

  “I have my moments.”

  “Indeed,” Holliday said and began dealing. “Let us see who will have this one.”

  The play came down to Wyatt, Holliday, and a heavy-set Texan, whose scarred cheeks were pitted with tiny craters. “Are we to believe that you have suddenly come into good fortune after so many staggering losses?” Holliday said pleasantly to the Texan.

  The thick-necked man stared at Holliday long enough to stretch the moment into an awkward standoff, but Holliday merely smiled, laid his cards face-down, and threaded his fingers together on the tabletop as though expecting an answer to his rhetorical question.

  “We gonna play poker?” the Texan drawled. “Or yap?”

  Amused, Holliday glared at the man and then picked up his cards again, laughing like a rebellious adolescent. After another glance at his hand, he stared at the Texan with a look of cool disdain. Without breaking his gaze he dropped a card on the table.

  “I’ll take one,” he said, his eyes shining with mischief inside their pale-blue irises.

  When Wyatt folded, Holliday looked at him with feigned disappointment and then raised the pot again. It went back and forth three times before the play was called. Holliday showed two pairs—sixes and nines. Laying down three queens and two sevens, the Texan broke into a wide, gap-toothed grin.

  Holliday chuckled as the money was swept away. “And here I thought I was someone to be reckoned with.” He turned to Wyatt. “But you apparently knew to be less foolish than I.”

  “Guess that was one of my moments,” Wyatt said evenly.

  The Texas winner leaned on his forearms and smiled. “I’d say that was one o’ my goddamned moments!”

  Holliday was still chuckling when the general laughter tapered off. “And so it was, suh. Yet the night is young. Many moments yet to unfold.” Then the humor dropped from his expression as if a mask had been ripped away from his face. His voice turned acid. “Now deal the cards!”

  Every man at the table stared at Holliday, but he only ignored them and drew on the slender, silver flask he kept inside his coat. Each time he drained the flask he called for Shanssey to refill it, which the Irishman did six times throughout the night.

  When the game closed at dawn, Holliday’s pockets were heaviest. Wyatt had come out thirty dollars ahead, and the others seemed satisfied with the play. When Wyatt stopped at the bar to leave a tip for the management, a silver eagle rolled in a spiral next to his elbow and came to rest on the polished-wood counter.

  “Buy you a drink, suh?” Holliday’s voice was now warm, almost confiding. He stood nearly as tall as Wyatt, but, beneath his finely tailored suit, he appeared to be little more than skin and bones. He hooked his cane over the edge of the bar and, plucking at the lapels, adjusted the hang of his suit.

  “ ’Preciate the offer,” Wyatt said. “I don’t drink.”

  “God in heaven,” Holliday drawled sourly. He leaned in and squinted at Wyatt. “Is that true?”

  Shanssey approached, smiling and wiping his hands on a towel. “Fill your flask for you, Doc?”

  Holliday surrendered the flask from his inner coat pocket. This time when his lapels parted, Wyatt caught the gleam of a nickel-plated revolver tucked under one arm in a compact holster.

  “So, you’re a doctor,” Wyatt said.

  “I am a dentist,” he announced with an obvious undertone of irony.

  When Shanssey returned, Holliday pocketed the flask and patted the coin lying on the bar. “I’ll have a glass now, too.”

  Shanssey poured, and Holliday picked up the glass to assess the color of the liquid. The barman watched as his customer threw back the amber fluid and wiped his mouth with the back of his scrawny hand.

  “Now I’ll have one to savor, suh. Pour me one more.”

  As Shanssey accommodated with another tilt of the bottle, his smile stretched across his face. “Nectar of the gods,” he declared and capped the bottle.

  “And for the rest of us,” Holliday amended.

  “Anything for you, sir?” Shanssey asked Wyatt. Wyatt shook his head, and the Irishman moved away.

  Holliday sipped the whiskey and closed his eyes when he swallowed. A faint smile played at the corners of his mouth, but only for a moment. When he opened his eyes he looked at Wyatt with a sense of genuine curiosity.

  “And what do you do to empty men’s pockets, if I may ask, suh?”

  Wyatt nodded back toward the table. “I reckon you just saw me at work.”

  Holliday frowned. “It is a profession, of course, but I’ll warrant there’s more to you than that.” He raised the glass to his lips and paused. “You strike me as a man who has more on his mind than the random fall of the cards.”

  Wyatt averted his eyes and studied the room. “No more’n any other man, I reckon.”

  Holliday waved away the unanswered question, drank the remains of his refreshment, and slapped the shot glass down on the bar. “John Holliday,” he said and held out his pale, slender hand that looked like it might be nimble enough for a dentist to maneuver inside a man’s mouth.

  Wyatt took the offered hand, and they shook. The strength in Holliday’s grip was unexpected.

  “My friends call me ‘Doc,’ ” the dentist said, intoning the remark as both a disparagement and an invitation.

  The Hungarian whore approached and attached herself to Holliday’s arm. She gave Wyatt a self-satisfied glare just short of scathing. Holliday turned to her and raised his eyebrows.

  “Kate, have you been cavorting around and distracting men from their better judgments at the tables?”

  “No,” she said, “I haff been on da prowl t’inkin’ maybe I find someone prettier d’an you.” She laughed and leaned in close enough to bite Holliday’s ear. When she propped her arm on the bar and stared at Wyatt, her eyes were as cold as beads of glass.

  Any plan for Wyatt to use an assumed identity in tracking the train robbers was dashed by the woman’s hostile eyes. Like Mattie, she had resented James and, by extension, any of the Earps.

  “Name’s Earp,” Wyatt said, completing introductions with the Southern dentist. “Wyatt Earp.”

  Wyatt was surprised when the whore thrust a stiff hand toward him and waited to shake his hand. “Kate Elder,” she announced, the message on her face insistent and clear: The two of them would declare no common past.

  When Wyatt took her hand, it was as cold and limp as a cut of raw meat.

  “ ‘Wyatt Earp,’ ” Holliday repeated quietly, delivering the name in a singsong melody. He made a small bow from the waist toward Kate. “I’ve got a little story Mr. Earp might want to hear. Will you excuse us, dahlin’?”

  Kate smiled and bent at her knees to perform a shallow curtsey. Then her face darkened like the sudden approach of a cloud casting its shadow over a hillside. Flashing a private warning to Wyatt with her eyes she sulked away. Holliday laughed at her performance.

  “I’
m afraid we’re just too much alike to stand each other for much longer,” Doc quipped, still watching her sashay across the room. He swung back to Wyatt and shrugged. “What about you? Are you tied up in the hopeless plight of all men, Mr. Earp?”

  “What would that be, Dr. Holliday?”

  Holliday pocketed the flask. “Please, just call me ‘Doc.’ ” He spread his hands with the obvious. “Why . . . the fairer sex, of course!” When Wyatt did not answer, Holliday looked around the saloon and pointed to a table. “Let’s have a seat over there, shall we?”

  They laid their hats side by side on the table and settled in like two men striking up a business deal. Across the room Kate Elder sat with two soldiers, drinking and chatting as if she were the guest of honor at a private party. Holliday acknowledged her by raising his flask as a toast, but he did not drink. Laughing quietly, he set the flask aside and leaned toward Wyatt.

  “Wyatt Earp,” he breathed, as though wanting to hear the sound of the name again. “I sat in with a crowd of ruffians a few weeks ago,” he began in a muffled monotone. “They were talking about a man coming down from Kansas . . . a de-tec-tive for the railroad.” The dentist smiled as if he had said something clever. “They got your last name wrong . . . ‘Arp’ . . . but the first one is dead on.”

  Holliday beamed with a wicked smile and leaned in with a conspiratorial gleam in his eye. “Have we been using an alias, Mr. Earp? I tried it once myself for a time. Never did grow accustomed to it. It always made me feel I was cheating my past.” He straightened and raised both eyebrows with regret. “When a man gives up his beginnings, he can feel a little lost.”

  Wyatt looked around at the patrons closest to them. All were preoccupied with cards, whiskey, or women. Turning back to Holliday, Wyatt decided to take a chance with the Southerner.

  “Didn’ change my name,” Wyatt said. “The newspapers were always getting it wrong. I was a marshal in Dodge City. Now I’m workin’ for the Santa Fe Railroad. I’m after some men who waylaid a couple o’ their runs and busted into the mail cars.” Wyatt lifted a hand off the table and tottered it back and forth like a seesaw. “Never used any other name but my own . . . not yet anyway.”

  Holliday pursed his lips and shook his head. “You shouldn’t.”

  Wyatt held dead eyes on the smug dentist. “Why’s that?”

  Holliday shrugged and turned his gaze to the room at large. “Oh, I don’t know. Pretending to be someone you’re not just doesn’t suit some people. I think maybe you’re one of those.”

  Wyatt let that go. Most of what Holliday said seemed to be for his own entertainment, and this he considered to be more of the same.

  The dentist’s eyes narrowed. “So you were the marshal in Dodge City?”

  “Assistant,” Wyatt said.

  “But now you’re a railroad detective.”

  Wyatt leaned and adjusted the hang of his coat over his revolver. “I go wherever the money takes me.”

  Doc sat back in his chair and studied Wyatt’s face with interest. “Well, I’d say you came to the right place if you’re looking for thieves and scoundrels, but you’re a little late.” He laughed. “The reprobates you are after were in here last month with the Clear Fork crew. I had a good run of the cards against those boys. I guess maybe I’m living off some of that railroad money as we speak.”

  “They actually talk about stopping a train?” Wyatt asked.

  Doc shrugged. “They talked around it.” He turned suddenly and coughed repeatedly into his fist. Then he pulled out a white handkerchief and waited as if expecting more of the spasm. When it did not continue, he dabbed the cloth at his watery eyes and put it away.

  “That crowd has not been back,” he resumed hoarsely. “They were flush with money, yet seemed unaccustomed to such fortunes. If their conversation can be believed, the party you seek struck out for Missouri.” He spread his hands. “Thus, you—as a detective—may be wasting your time here, suh.”

  “Any names to go with these boys?”

  Holliday smiled as if both he and Wyatt were the brunt of a joke. “All Smiths and Joneses.” Then his face turned hard and his eyes distant. He cleared his throat with a rough cough that caused him to wince. “I don’t tell stories like this often,” he snapped.

  Wyatt looked into Holliday’s pale, ice-blue eyes, seeing nothing there that would explain the enigma that seemed to exist at the core of the Southerner. “Any reason you’re tellin’ me this one?”

  The skin on Holliday’s face tightened, and he flicked the backs of his fingers at the air. “I don’t need a goddamned reason for everything I do,” he barked. Now his expression was as sour as his tone. He looked around the room, as if searching for something better to occupy his attention.

  Wyatt assumed the conversation had come to its natural end. He expected Holliday to leave, but a series of hacking coughs overcame the dentist. Doubling up in his chair, he whipped out the linen handkerchief again and clapped it to his mouth. When the seizure finally abated, he wiped his mouth with the linen and angled his teary eyes away. For a time he held the cloth in place as if another spell might be forthcoming. Wyatt waited.

  “I’m sorry,” Holliday said, his voice now as soft as a mother’s lullaby to her child. “I am often rude for reasons that would not seem evident to my acquaintances.” He drank the flask dry, folded the handkerchief, and stared at Wyatt with unabashed interest, as though he were only now seeing him well enough to make an appraisal.

  “Can I buy you another?” Wyatt said, nodding to the flask.

  Holliday cleared his throat loudly and shook his head. “It’s not that I like the stuff so much, but it eases the pain, you know.” He laughed quietly to himself. “Sometimes I convince myself it’s a medicine.”

  When Wyatt made no response, Holliday discreetly opened the handkerchief and privately inspected it. He made a thin smile and stuffed the linen back into his pocket.

  “You’re not going to ask?” he said.

  Wyatt shook his head. “None o’ my business.”

  Holliday laughed. “Well, that’s refreshing. Most of the people I’ve met in Texas think everything is their business.” Now his face turned earnest, and he looked pointedly into Wyatt’s eyes. “Anyone ever tell you . . . your eyes are like ice?”

  Wyatt felt a memory cut free of its moorings and float from a deep place inside him to the front of his mind. He’d been sixteen in a peach orchard in San Bernardino when Valenzuela Cos had guided him through the initiations of manhood. She had told him about his eyes . . . about how they sometimes turned to ice.

  “People say that about me, too,” Holliday continued and made his ironic smile. “But I’ll wager that’s where our similarities end.” He sat back gloating with a grin that suggested he knew the whole of Wyatt’s story.

  Wyatt tolerated the inspection and said nothing.

  “They say that opposites attract, you know,” Holliday went on. “I’m inclined to believe that. I, for instance, could play any part on a stage, whereas you, Mr. Earp . . . you are, suh, what you are. I like your direct manner. And you play the gentleman’s game like a seasoned gentleman. But, of course, you will never do as the undercover sort.” He chuckled, which led into another racking cough. He retrieved the handkerchief and pressed it to his mouth again until the fit subsided.

  As soon as he was able to regulate his breathing Doc turned, held up the flask, and signaled to Shanssey for more whiskey. The two men sat without speaking, letting the ambient noise of the saloon fill the gap in their conversation. When Shanssey arrived with a bottle, he filled Holliday’s flask. Wyatt laid money on the table.

  “This one’s on me, Doc. Maybe I can return the favor someday.”

  Shanssey scooped up the money with a deft movement of his thick hand. “Thank you, sir,” he mumbled and returned to the bar.

  “There is a favor you could afford me, suh,” Holliday suggested. “You could tell me about this Dodge City of yours. How’re the pickings up there in Kans
as for a professional of the green cloth?”

  Wyatt pushed his lower lip forward. “During the cattle season, pretty good.” He nodded toward the noisy room. “ ’Course your clientele will be the same as what you’ve got here—mostly Texans—the difference bein’, in Kansas every one of ’em will have three-months’ pay in his pocket.”

  Holliday nodded thoughtfully. “I might want to visit your fair city.”

  Wyatt took in a long breath and let it slowly seep from his nose. “It ain’t my city. I reckon you can go where you please.” He stood, donned his hat, and plucked down on the brim. “Take care of yourself, Doc. Tell your lady friend it was a pleasure to meet her.”

  “Where’re you headed?”

  “North,” Wyatt said. “I might want to see Missouri again.”

  Holliday cleared the phlegm from his throat and wiped his mouth with the handkerchief. “Hang on to your good name, Mr. Earp. It might be all we ever really have.”

  “It’s ‘Wyatt,’ ” Wyatt corrected.

  When Holliday put away the cloth and offered his hand again, Wyatt took it and watched the man’s face fill with color as though he were in the prime of his health.

  Wyatt wired the A.T. & S.F. Topeka office and awaited instructions. The message that came back was brief: Forget Missouri. Wire Dodge City mayor immediately.

  He did just that.

  While waiting for a reply, Wyatt read a dated issue of a Kansas newspaper with Dodge’s last election returns: Bat Masterson had been elected sheriff. His brother Ed was assistant marshal under Charlie Bassett. But there was more crime in Dodge reported in this paper than during the whole of Wyatt’s last season on the force.

  When the agent brought out the folded message, he made a little bow of his head and took a step backward, giving Wyatt some privacy. Wyatt opened the paper and turned to the light from the window.

  Ed Masterson killed. Wire immediately if return as assistant marshal to Bassett.—J. Kelley, mayor.