is going to be a much bigger country now,” said Buntline with a satisfied air.
“I wish I could stick around to see it.”
“Why don't you?” asked Buntline.
“No,” replied Holliday. “It's time to go to Leadville and die.”
“My God, that's a morbid way to put it!” said Edison.
“If it was my choice, I'd live another twenty or thirty years and see what young Roosevelt can accomplish with his new nation. Hell, if I could lift a sixth of a coffin, I'd mosey down to El Paso and be a pallbearer when Hardin finally gets backshot—he's too good for anyone except maybe me to take him in a fair fight. But I'm not going to live twenty years, and I can't lift a sixth of a coffin, and I'm running out of handkerchiefs, so it's time to go back to Leadville.”
“We have an office up there,” said Edison. “Maybe we will see you again.”
“I won't be much to look at,” said Holliday. Suddenly he grinned. “But then, I never was.”
“Can I get you anything before you leave?” asked Buntline.
“I've already drunk my breakfast, but if you've got something wet before lunch…”
Buntline shook his head. “Neither of us drink whiskey.”
“If you're not careful, you just might live to be a hundred.” Holliday walked across the room and shook hands with each of them. “Thanks, again. You are the only two men I've ever been able to count on.”
Then he was gone, and a few minutes later he was riding north in one of the Bunt Line's horseless coaches. He leaned back, sighed, pulled a flask out of his lapel pocket, uncapped it, and took a drink—and was suddenly aware that he wasn't alone any longer.
“I know, I know,” he said. “This stuff'll kill me.”
“You are dying anyway, so drink what you want,” said Geronimo.
“You magicked yourself here just to tell me that?”
“And to tell you that no matter what others say, you are a good man.” He paused. “Roosevelt will get the credit.”
“He's welcome to it,” said Holliday. “It's not going to do me any good where I'm going.”
“You are dying,” repeated Geronimo. “But you are not dead yet.”
And with that he was gone.
Holliday stared out the window, shading his eyes and trying to imagine the Mississippi some two thousand miles distant. They'd start crossing it in the coming weeks and months—settlers, farmers, soldiers, everyone. There would be a mad rush to the West.
And, unknown to him, there would be two brilliant and half-crazed millionaires, one from Philadelphia and one from New Haven, who would rewrite the history of American science as their lives intertwined with his.
THERE HAS BEEN QUITE A LOT written about Doc Holliday, Theodore Roosevelt, Geronimo, John Wesley Hardin, and the so-called Wild West. Surprisingly, a large amount takes place in an alternate reality in which (hard as this is to believe) the United States did not stop at the Mississippi River, but crossed the continent from one ocean to the other.
For those of you who are interested in this “alternate history,” here is a bibliography of some of the more interesting books:
L. F. Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, Doubleday, Page (1919)
Alexander B. Adams, Geronimo: A Biography, Da Capo Press (1990)
C. E. Banks and R. A. Armstrong, Theodore Roosevelt: A Typical American, S. Stone (1901)
Stephen Melvil Barrett and Frederick W. Turner, Geronimo: His Own Story, Penguin (1996)
Bob Boze Bell, The Illustrated Life and Times of Doc Holliday, Tri Star-Boze (1995)
Glenn G. Boyer, Who Was Big Nose Kate? Glenn G. Boyer (1997)
H. W. Brands, T. R.—The Last Romantic, Basic Books (1997)
William M. Breakenridge, Helldorado: Bringing the Law to the Mesquite, Houghton Mifflin (1928)
E. Richard Churchill, Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, & Wyatt Earp: Their Colorado Careers, Western Reflections (2001)
Michael L. Collins, That Damned Cowboy: Theodore Roosevelt and the American West, 1883–1898, Peter Lang (1989)
O. Cushing, The Teddysey, Life Publishing (1907)
Paul Russell Cutright, Theodore Roosevelt—The Making of a Conservationist, University of Illinois Press (1985)
Jack DeMattos, Masterson and Roosevelt, Creative Publishing (1984)
Mike Donovan, The Roosevelt That I Know: Ten Years of Boxing with the President, B. W. Dodge (1909)
G. W. Douglas, The Many-Sided Roosevelt: An Anecdotal Biography, Dodd, Mead (1907)
E. S. Ellis, From the Ranch to the White House: Life of Theodore Roosevelt, Hurst (1906)
T. T. Handford, Theodore Roosevelt, the Pride of the Rough Riders, M. A. Donohue (1897)
John Wesley Hardin, The Life of John Wesley Hardin, as Written by Himself, Smith & Moore (1896)
Albert Bushnbell Hart and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds., Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia, Theodore Roosevelt Association and Meckler Corporation (1989)
Pat Jahns, The