people do,” said Holliday. “That's his job.”
“His job?” repeated Wiggins.
“Making people like him. He's a politician.”
“He's a lot more than that,” said Wiggins.
“Oh?”
“I had lunch with him at the Grand. He's a bird expert—”
“Ornithologist,” Holliday corrected him.
“And a taxidermist, and an author, and a boxer, and no end of things. Did you know that he's writing a series of books on the taming of the West? I imagine you'll be one of the stars.”
“Or one of the villains.”
“Don't be silly, Doc. He's your friend.”
“He's everyone's friend. That's what politicians do and are.”
“Then he's not destined to be much of a politician,” said Wiggins. “I think there are a lot of things that young man wouldn't do to get elected, and lying is one of them.”
Holliday suddenly stared at the ceiling. “Let's see if he lives long enough to run for office again.”
“Is someone after him?” asked Wiggins.
“You never know.”
“What are you staring at, Doc?”
“There's a bat up there.”
“So what? There are bats in all the rafters in town.”
“Yeah,” said Holliday, “but this one's staring at me, and it's broad daylight.”
“That is unusual, isn't it?” said Wiggins.
Holliday stood up. “Henry, I have to leave. The bottle's yours.”
“Are you okay, Doc?” asked Wiggins.
“So far,” replied Holliday, and then added: “But it's early yet.”
He knew he wouldn't be approached in the street, so he walked around the building and went into the alley behind it. The bat fluttered out through a door a moment later, and a few seconds after that Holliday was staring into Geronimo's eyes.
“He walks, he breathes,” said Geronimo.
“When does he get here?”
“He comes from the land of the Tsistsistas.”
Holliday frowned. “The Tsistsistas?” he repeated.
“You call them the Cheyenne.”
“It makes sense,” said Holliday. “After all, you killed Hook Nose. When does he get here?”
“It takes him no time to get from there to here.”
“He's here now?”
“He is between Tombstone and my southern lodge, waiting for Roosevelt or myself to ride out and challenge him.”
“So instead you're sending the sacrificial lamb,” said Holliday, unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
“Remember: there is a reward.”
“I hope I can collect it in hell,” said Holliday.
HOLLIDAY HATED HORSES. He thought he'd hated them all his life, back to when he was growing up in Georgia, and horses meant cavalry, and cavalry meant more Union soldiers. He wasn't sure about that, but he knew he'd hated them ever since he'd come out West and had to start riding them.
He knew Masterson loved horse racing, and went into rhapsodies over Hindoo and Aristides and some of the other equine champions, but he had no use for them, and only a grudging use for saddle horses. In his mind, horses were good for one thing: pulling wagons, surries, coaches, anything with four wheels.
So of course he was mounted on a bay gelding, heading out across the desert, an ugly, barren land that everyone he knew from Wyatt Earp to Theodore Roosevelt found beautiful.
“I hope to hell you've pointed me in the right direction,” he muttered, but there was no answer.
He pulled his canteen off the saddle horn where it had been hanging, opened it, and took a swig of whiskey. Not bad, he decided; maybe the barley that went into this had been fertilized by Hindoo. Probably not by John L. Sullivan, though he was such a drunk that you could never be entirely sure.
“Getting dark,” he said. “Am I going to be able to see him?”
There was no answer.
“Thanks a lot,” said Holliday.
He wished that he weren't riding alone, that he had someone he could count on riding shotgun for him. Wyatt would have been good at it.
Of course, the best man for the job would have been Johnny Ringo. Ringo was dead, to be sure, but that hadn't stopped the medicine men from reviving him and sending him out to kill Holliday and Edison almost three years ago. He was a drunkard with a foul temper, but even as a zombie he'd been one hell of a killer—and more to the point, Holliday had actually enjoyed his company. They were the only two college-educated shootists in the West, and there was no one else in his chosen profession that he could discuss philosophy and the classics with. They'd hit it off, and it wasn't bitterness or hatred that led them to their final confrontation. It was Fate. Not only had the other side enlisted his services, but both men craved competition at the highest level, and that meant that under any circumstances they