Doctor and the Kid, The (A Weird West Tale) (Weird West Tales) Read Online Free Page A

Corral.”
    “Damned thing's been written up in half a dozen dime novels,” replied Holliday.
    “How about Johnny Ringo, then?”
    “Johnny Ringo was my friend.”
    Wilde frowned. “I thought I read that you killed him.”
    “I did,” said Holliday, draining and refilling his glass.
    “But—”
    “He was my enemy too.”
    “Sounds like a strange relationship,” said Wilde.
    “It was complicated,” agreed Holliday.
    “If you think the relationship was complicated, you should have seen Ringo himself!” laughed Vermillion.
    Wilde turned to him. “Why?”
    “Because a dead man takes more killing than most.”
    “I don't understand.”
    “One of the medicine men brought him back from the dead to kill Tom Edison and Doc.”
    “Where I come from, we call that a zombie,” said Wilde. “How do you kill one?”
    “Carefully,” said Holliday. “Is anyone going to deal, or am I moving to another table?”
    Vermillion began dealing the cards. “Draw poker this time,” he announced. “Ante up.”
    One of the players reached for his cards, and found himself looking down the barrel of Holliday's gun.
    “Forgot a little something, didn't you?” asked Holliday.
    “What?” asked the player nervously.
    “You pay to play before you look at your cards.”
    The player tossed ten dollars onto the table, waited for Holliday to holster his gun, and then picked up his cards. “I'm out,” he announced, laying his cards on the table, getting to his feet, and walking off.
    “You frighten ‘em all away and you and me are gonna wind up cutting cards for money,” drawled Vermillion.
    Holliday drained his glass again. “He knows the rules,” he said at last.
    “That was positively frightening,” said Wilde.
    “He didn't pull the trigger,” said Vermillion. “Can't compare to people getting their heads blowed off in all your Limey wars.”
    “Mr. Wilde is a writer, not a soldier,” remarked Holliday. “I would guess that he's never seen a man killed.”
    “But I've written about them,” replied Wilde with a smile.
    “Probably reads better than the real thing,” offered Vermillion.
    “Neater, anyway,” said Holliday.
    “Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” said Wilde, as Holliday pushed fifty dollars to the center of the table.
    “Go ahead.”
    “What was Clay Allison like?”
    “Never met the gentleman,” answered Holliday.
    “And Ben Thomson?”
    “Same answer.”
    Wilde frowned. “I'd have thought—”
    “The West is a mighty big place, Mr. Wilde,” said Holliday. “And contrary to the dime novels, it's populated by more than gunslingers, a term we don't use much.”
    “What do you use?”
    “Shootists.”
    “How many cards, Doc?”
    “Two, please,” answered Holliday, sliding two cards, face down, across the table to Vermillion.
    “I know you knew the Earps,” continued Wilde. “What were they like?”
    “Morgan was a sweet man with a wonderful sense of humor. If I'd had a brother, I'd have wanted him to be like Morgan Earp.”
    “And Virgil?”
    “He and Wyatt were cut from the same cloth,” answered Holliday. “Humorless men, hard men. Their word was their bond, and there was nothing they were afraid of.”
    “They didn't have to be afraid of anything with you there,” said Vermillion. He turned to Wilde. “Doc was their enforcer, just like Ringo was for the Clantons.”
    “Tell me about it,” said Wilde eagerly.
    “Up to you, Doc,” said one of the players.
    “How much?”
    “Two hundred to stay in.”
    Holliday pulled out the wad of money he'd taken from Kate's safe, peeled a pair of hundred-dollar bills off the top, and shoved them into the pot in the middle of the table.
    “Two hundred dollars!” said Wilde, clearly impressed. “Translate that into pounds and it's more than my advance for The Nihilists .”
    “That's one of the advantages of being a successful gambler,” replied Holliday. “Do you know how many teeth I'd have to pull for two hundred