Faster Gun

1.

A dusty sun crested the rooftops of Tombstone on the first day of November, 1881. Doc Holliday staggered across the vacant lot next to Fly’s boarding house. There was nothing in his life so pressing as the idea of a shot of whiskey to ease the ice-pick of pain through and behind his left eye.

And nothing in his life so unwelcome as the spectre of John Ringo strolling down Fremont Street in a yellow check shirt that needed washing. Or maybe burning.

Ringo turned his head and spat in the dust between Doc’s boots.

Another day, Holliday might have stepped over it.

This particular day, he stopped dead in the street. Having been deputized, he had the right to carry a firearm in the streets of Tombstone. Not every man did.

His hand hovered over his holster as he turned and faced Ringo. The sun stabbed through his pupils until he thought the back of his head might explode from the pressure, but he kept his voice level and full of the milk of human kindness and the venom of sweet reason.

“You son of a bitch,” Doc said. “If you ain’t heeled, you go and heel yourself.”

But Ringo just turned and showed him an empty right hip, hands spread mockingly wide.

Doc said, “Ringo, all I want out of you is ten paces in the street. And mark my words, some day I will get them.”

“You better hope not, Holliday,” Ringo said, spinning on the ball of one foot.

Impotently, Doc watched him stagger away. By the gait, he could tell that Ringo was still drunk from the night before.

A solution Doc wished he’d embraced his own self. Instead, he kept walking, intent on undertaking the next best option—getting drunk again.

He was seated staring at the ornate back bar of the Alhambra Saloon when John Ringo walked in. Still unarmed, still with the rolling gait of a sailor off the sea or a man on a bender. He pretended not to see Doc, and Doc pretended not to see him.

Doc was on his second whiskey when three men and a woman came up on his left side. The leader—or at least the one in the front—was careful to keep a respectful distance.

”Doctor Holliday?“ the lead man asked.

He was tall, broad, red-cheeked behind gingery stubble. A healthy-looking fellow with his shirt collar open in the heat. Doc’s hand crept up to check his own button.

“I am,” Doc said. “But I’m pretty sure I don’t owe you any money.”

The man said, “The opposite, sir. We are hoping for the opportunity to pay you some.”

Doc let his hand rest on the side of his whiskey glass, but didn’t lift it. The pain in his head wasn’t going away.

He asked, “Who might you be?”

“Reuben,” the man said. “Jeremy. We hear there’s an old wreck out in the desert. We hear you’ve been there.”

“Once,” Doc allowed, cautiously. “On my way into Tombstone.”

“We want to hire you to take us there.”

“Not up to it today, I’m afraid.”

“Doctor Holliday—”

But Doc turned back to the bar, and the man didn’t persist. He and his friends formed a huddle by the vacant faro table, whispering an argument Doc was pleased to ignore until he spotted a flash of dirty yellow and black. Headed that way.

Ringo stopped about four feet off from Reuben and his group and cleared his throat. “I can take you out to the wreck.”

Doc put his forehead on his palm.

“And you would be?”

“John Ringo,” Ringo said. “I know this desert like my hand.”

Doc took a deep breath and let it out again. He still had half a glass of whiskey.

And he had half a mind to let Ringo try it. These men might be easterners, but the leather on their holsters was worn soft and slick. They might give the cowboy a harder accounting than he was reckoning on if he lured them into an ambush.

He managed to make himself wait another three whole seconds with that line of thought before turning his stool. “Reuben.”

Reuben looked up from haggling with Ringo. “Doctor Holliday.”

Ringo shot Doc a wild look full of bitter promises. Doc shrugged. “You better run along, Johnny.”

Ringo opened his mouth—Doc could almost see him forming the words You haven’t heard the last of me. And then he shut it in silence, squared his shoulders, and stalked off like a wet cat.

Doc said, “I’ll go. This once. I won’t make it a habit, sir.”

One of the men behind Reuben leaned to another and said something excitedly, incomprehensibly, making Doc want to blow his nose to clear his ears.

Neither that nor Ringo’s performance were what sent the chill of recognition through Doc. He winced and rubbed his eyes.

Reuben said, “What?”

“Déjà vu. Damn. That’s funny.” Doc heard his own tones ring flat as the rattle of a captured snake. A sinking and inexplicable sense of futility sucked at him. “I’d swear I’ve had every word of this conversation some damn other time.”