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The pounding on the door finally got through to Doc, and he opened
one eye. The ripped blind let in a shaft of sunlight that fell across
the pillow and hit his eyes like a physical pain as he turned his head.
The pounding was repeated, and
he struggled to sit up. As he swung his legs over the side of the bed a
fit of coughing doubled him over, and he clapped the dirty rag from
under his pillow to his mouth. When the spasm finally subsided he
noticed that the phlegm he had produced was heavily flecked with blood.
A voice came from the other
side of the door.
“Doc, Doc, wake up.”
He stood up and pulled on a
coat to hide partially his stained and worn underwear. Shivering, he
picked up the sawn off shotgun from where it hung on its strap from
the iron bedframe.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, Wyatt, let me in.”
Doc took the two paces to the
door, and opened it about three inches.
“What do you want? I’m
sleeping.”
“Come on, let me in. I’m
hurting, you got to help me.”
“Ah, come back in a couple of
hours, I ain’t been in bed any time at all.”
The sunken eyes on the other
side of the door narrowed dangerously, and the mouth, half hidden under
the thick drooping moustache worked spasmodically.
“I’m warning you Doc. You
gotta let me in. I'm in a bad way. I’ll blow the fucking door away if
I have to.”
“Okay, okay.”
Doc stepped back and opened the
door, and Wyatt hurried inside. He was a big man, but thin to the point
of emaciation, and an open sore on his cheek bone marred what was once a
strong, well formed face. The fine bone structure was still there, but
the flesh had the pallor of a corpse.
Wyatt’s clothes had
originally been well tailored and expensive, but the brocade of the
waistcoat was worn and filthy, and the frockcoat was threadbare, torn
under the arm, and the front was patterned with cigar burns. The only
things about his whole person well cared for were the heavy, long
barreled revolver that was strapped to his hip and the sawn-down shotgun that hung
from one shoulder by a strap.
He brushed past Doc, and tossed
his battered wide-brimmed hat onto the chipped washstand.
“You going to help me out?”
“You got any money?”
“Ten dollar gold piece.”
“That won’t get you further
than sundown.”
“You know I could blow you
apart and take all you got. I could do it an’ walk away. I’m the law
in this town.”
Doc nodded.
“Sure you could but when that
bottle ran out, you’d never get any more. You couldn’t order it up
from back east. That’s why I’m safe, an’ you go on paying my
price. You know what I mean?”
Wyatt nodded impatiently.
“Sure, sure. You got it all
set, Let’s cut out the talk and get on with it.”
Doc unlocked a wall cupboard
above the washstand and took down the heavy bottle with its glass
stopper. He placed it on the marble top, and reached for two chipped
enamel kidney bowls. From one dish he produced a worn glass hypodermic.
Then he poked through the other dish until he found a needle that was
comparatively new. He fitted one into the other, splashed a little
whiskey into the empty dish, took a hit from the bottle, and began
flushing the spirit through the needle. He shot the whiskey into the
dish, and shook out the last remaining drops, then he picked up the
boule of cocaine and morphine mixture, and began to prepare the
injection.
While the whole operation was
going on, Wyatt had taken off his coat, thrown it on the bed, and
started to roll up his sleeve.
He held the tourniquet tight
around his upper arm while the doctor probed for a vein just below the
inside of his elbow.
“When the fuck are you going
to get some new needles?
“They’re hard to come by. I
do my best.”
“You’ll fucking kill one of
us some time:”
“Go somewhere else then.”
Wyatt said nothing, and watched
silently as Doc drew a small pattern of blood into the glass of the
works.
He slowly eased the plunger
home, and finally removed the needle. Wyatt sat for a long time
breathing deeply, his eyes half closed. After a long time, he stood up
and walked slowly to the door, squaring his shoulders in a theatrical
attempt to live up to the Wyatt Earp legend that had been created by the
reporters from the east.
Doc Holiday put everything back
in the cupboard, pocketed the ten dollar gold piece, and returned to
bed.
Jimmy Clanton had been playing stud all night. It had been good in
itself, and he had even won about thirty dollars off a drunken cowboy.
The drawback had been that when dawn came and the game broke up, he had
looked for a woman to fuck, and found that, with the daylight filtering
greyly into the saloon, nearly all the girls had disappeared. He was
forced to settle for Conchita. It would have been nice to have had a
white woman, maybe one of the pair that had come in on the stage the
previous week, but at that time of the morning, any woman was better
than none.
He walked aver to where
Conchita was dozing in a chair. He stood over her, but she didn’t
wake. He kicked the leg of the chair, and she sat up with a start.
“What you want?”
Jimmy grinned.
“How ‘bout you take me
upstairs?”
Conchita stared at him, and her
eyes seemed to him to have a hint of greaser innocence. She slowly
uncoiled from the chair, and stood up.
“You got any money?”
Jimmy jingled the coins in his
pocket.
“Sure have.”
She walked towards the stairs
that ran up one of the walls of the building. Jimmy thrust his hands
into his pockets and sauntered after her. Halfway up the stairs she
turned and grinned at him.
“I guess you must be looking
for a change from the marshal?”
Jimmy stopped and scowled.
‘Whadda you mean?”
Conchita continued to sway her
hips up the stairs.
“I thought you were the
marshal’s pretty boy.”
Jimmy started up the stairs.
“You shut your dirty fucking mouth.”
Conchita turned, and shrugged.
“Sure, sure. It’s none of my business.”
Immediately they were inside
her tiny room, which was almost totally filled by a tarnished brass bed,
Conchita quickly began to undress. It was a swift mechanical process,
without even an attempt at a sexy come on. Before Jimmy even had his
boots off she had slipped under the blankets and was watching him
impatiently.
“Hurry up darlin’, I want
to get some sleep tonight.”
Fucking greaser bitch. The
phrase flashed through Jimmy’s mind, and he took the rest of his
clothes off with studied slowness, turned down the oil lamp and climbed
into the creaking bed.
Wyatt Earp pushed open the swing doors of the saloon. The place was
echoing and empty, all except the negro boy who was still sweeping up the night’s debris. He looked up as Earp stepped through the door.
“We’re all closed up,
marshal.”
Earp paused, and looked round
the deserted room.
“Where’s Jimmy Clanton? I
heard he was playing poker here.”
The boy nodded.
“He was, but he’s gone.”
“Where?”
The boy jerked his thumb
towards the stairs.
“He’s upstairs with Miss
Conchita, getting his ashes hauled.”
Earp winked at the boy and spun
him a coin. The boy caught it and slipped it quickly into the pocket of
his apron. Earp walked to the foot of the stairs, paused, and slowly
climbed them, with his back held very straight and one hand hanging
loose beside his gun.
At the top of the stairs he turned and walked even more slowly down the
narrow corridor that led to the doors of the upstairs rooms. His boots
rang hollowly on the board floor. Outside Conchita’s room he stopped,
slowly drew the long barrelled pistol from its holster, and rested his
other hand on the door handle.
He jerked the door, and it flew
open with a crash.
“Jimmy Clanton!”
Conchita sat bolt upright in
bed.
“What you doing in here? You
crazy!”
Jimmy Clanton rubbed his eyes.
“Wyatt? What’s the matter?”
Earp’s hand shook slightly as
he gripped the gun.
“Just shut your mouth Jimmy,
and don’t move…”.
He motioned with the gun
barrel.
“…And you, woman, get out
of that bed. Get up against the wall.”.
“My clothes…I…”
“Just get against the fucking
wall.” Terrified, the woman jumped from the bed and cowered in a
corner, trying vainly to cover herself with her hands. Jimmy Clanton
stared at Earp nervously.
“What’s wrong? What’s the
matter? You ain’t sore because I just happened to screw
Conchita? You ain’t sore about that?”
Earp’s face was like a death
mask. “I’m gonna kill you Jimmy..”
“Why, for God’s sake? Why?”
“I’m gonna kill you, you
bastard.”
“Wyatt you’re crazy. What
you…”
Jimmy hesitated, his throat had
gone dry, and he struggled to speak. Before he could find the words, the
gun roared and cut him off. Jimmy Clanton grunted as the bullet slammed
him against the wail. Then, almost in slow motion, he fell over onto his
side, as his life ebbed away.
There was a long terrible
silence as Earp dropped the pistol back into its holster. It was finally
broken by Conchita’s voice, cracking with hysteria.
“Why? Why you kill him? Why?”
Earp looked at her for long
moments.
“Because the dirty little
motherfucker gave me syphilis.”
He turned, and walked slowly
out the door.
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