Weird West 04 - The Doctor and the Dinosaurs Page 19

  “I can arrange that.”

  “What?” demanded Holliday and Roosevelt in unison.

  “With blanks,” said Cody with a grin. “Hell, we can even enact the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral every night.”

  “I've fought it once,” replied Holliday. “That was enough.”

  “I could make you famous!”

  “I've already got a little more fame that I can handle,” said Holliday.

  Cody sighed. “You two are a couple of hardheads. It's a shame I like you so much.”

  He turned and walked away. When he was just out of earshot, Holliday turned to Roosevelt. “He may like us, but he likes Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show better.”

  Roosevelt chuckled, then went back to moving the wing off the wagon, decided it was too awkward to carry, and placed it onto a cart that he could then take to his tent. Holliday began heading toward Edison's tent to see if he and Buntline were interested in seeing Roosevelt's grisly trophy when Cole Younger walked up to him.

  “Cody try to buy you away?” he asked.

  “He tried,” acknowledged Holliday.

  “You said no?”

  “I said no.”

  “Good!” said Younger. “Because Frank James and I will pay you twice what he would have paid.”

  “You're really starting a show with Frank?” asked Holliday curiously.

  “Yeah,” said Younger. “Face it, Doc, the shootist's day is just about over. I suppose I could rob a bank or two, but it ain't as easy as the dime novels make it sound. I got shot up all to hell last time I tried, and it cost me and my brothers a lot of years in jail. No, I think a Wild West show is the answer. I mean, hell, you and me and Frank, we are the Wild West, or damned near all that's left of it anyway. Why don't you join us?”

  “I don't think so.”

  “Hell, say ‘Yes’ and we'll even make you a partner!” said Younger.

  “Cole,” said Holliday, “that's a damned handsome offer, and under other circumstances I'd probably take it, but I'm afraid I've got to turn you down.”

  “You're sure?” urged Younger. “Why not cash in on your reputation? Believe me, it beats gambling for the rest of your life.”

  Holliday shook his head. The problem, he thought, is that my life's of much shorter duration than you think.

  “Okay, I did my best,” said Younger. He extended a hand. “No hard feelings.”

  “Between two members of a vanishing species?” said Holliday with a bittersweet smile. “None.”

  He continued making his way to Edison and Buntline's tent. Once there, he described the events of the day. Roosevelt joined them a moment later.

  “That's a hell of a bird!” exclaimed Buntline, wincing in pain as he tried to sit up. “It must have an eighteen-foot wingspread.”

  “Twenty,” offered Edison, moving his wounded limbs very carefully. “But look at the leather, Ned—and no trace of feathers, just the same kind of fuzz you find on a bat's wings. I wonder if it's a bird at all.”

  “It was once,” said Roosevelt. “Millions of years ago.” He paused. “Anyway, it flew, so I don't know what else you'd call it.”

  “Did it have teeth?” asked Edison.

  “I don't know,” admitted Roosevelt. “The head is buried under about seven tons of tyrannosaur.”

  “With the jaws it had, I don't know if they were necessary,” added Holliday. “It grabbed a bird and just seemed to swallow him whole.”

  “But we don't know if birds were that small back when he was alive,” noted Roosevelt.

  “Too bad,” said Edison. “It would have been interesting to examine him.”

  “Well, if you're so inclined, you can have someone cart you out there and examine something that tried to eat him for breakfast,” said Holliday.

  “I don't think anybody should go out there,” said Roosevelt. “A body that big has got to attract scavengers…and around here, that means carnivores bigger than hippos and rhinos.”

  “When you put it that way, it sounds damned foolish to stay,” said Buntline. “If we survive today's enormous carnivore, all that means is we have to face tomorrow's.”

  “What can we do?” said Edison. “You've met Cope and Marsh. You couldn't move either of them out of here if there were just fossils in the area. How are we going to convince them to leave when they can encounter real dinosaurs any time of the night or day?”

  “Maybe we should just let the damned dinosaurs eat them, and then everyone can go home,” said Holliday half-seriously.

  Roosevelt shook his head. “You're a shootist, Doc, not a murderer.”

  “I'm adaptable,” answered Holliday.

  “Besides,” continued Roosevelt, “we don't know that they look any tastier than the sixty or seventy men who are working for them and never bargained on having to face creatures out of their worst nightmares.”

  “So we just sit here until one of them develops either a conscience or, better still, an instinct for self-preservation?” asked Edison. “If that's the case, Ned and I had better go build a weapon for every man here.”

  “The problem is, most of the men probably won't be here any longer by the time you built the weapons and bring them back here,” said Roosevelt.

  Edison frowned. “I hadn't considered that,” he admitted. “But it makes sense when you say it.”

  “Or I could just kill Cope and Marsh, and then everyone could go home,” said Holliday.

  “This is serious, Doc,” said Roosevelt. “Stop your joking.”

  “Am I smiling?” replied Holliday.

  CODY HAD DEPARTED, taking two men with him, when Holliday awoke the next morning. He got up, looked around for his boots, finally realized that he had slept with them on, got to his feet, walked outside, and winced as he moved into the sunlight.

  “I have got to start wearing a Stetson,” he muttered to himself as he tried to shield his eyes from the sun.

  When he'd adjusted to the brightness of the morning, he walked over to the remains of a campfire, realized he'd overslept breakfast again, and sat on a tree stump, waiting for everything to come into focus.

  Buntline, on crutches, joined him a few minutes later.

  “Good morning, Doc,” he said.

  Holliday winced. “Not so loud.”

  “I'm just speaking conversationally,” replied Buntline. He raised his voice. “This is loud.”

  Holliday groaned. “I bet you think you're pretty funny.”

  “I have my moments,” said Buntline with a smile.

  “I'd tell you to draw, but you'd probably reach for a notebook and a pencil.”

  Buntline laughed. “So, how are you on this fine day?”

  “Same as usual,” replied Holliday. “Hung over.”

  “You know that the famous Buffalo Bill has deserted us?”

  “He said he would. I may not like him all that much, but he's always been a man of his word,” said Holliday. “Well,” he added, “except when he's talking money.”

  “Maybe you should have gone with him,” suggested Buntline. “He could have made you famous.” He paused. “More famous, I mean.”

  “Most shootists would like less fame, not more,” answered Holliday. “Half the men I've killed have been green kids out to make a reputation, kids I'd never seen before and that nobody will ever see again.”

  “I see what you mean,” said Buntline. “When we get back East, I'm going to write a stage play about the West, and as a sign of friendship, your name will never be mentioned.”

  “Write about Billy the Kid,” suggested Holliday. “Everywhere I go they're still singing songs about him.”

  “Maybe I'll do that,” replied Buntline, wincing as he shifted his weight. “Or maybe Bill Hickok. Everyone's heard of Wild Bill.”

  Holliday snorted contemptuously. “One lucky shot from fifty yards away and he becomes the most famous shootist in the world!” Then he shrugged. “What the hell. Write about him. At least he doesn't have to worry about kids calling him out,
unless they can call him up from hell.”

  “You didn't think much of him, I take it?”

  “I don't think much of a lot of people,” replied Holliday.

  “I've noticed,” said Buntline with a smile.

  There was a sudden commotion at the far end of camp, and then Marsh and a dozen of his men appeared. Marsh dismounted and issued some orders. Holliday saw the men were all carrying things—bits and pieces of the tyrannosaur, he assumed—wrapped in cloth, and they carted them off to the tent that he was using to store his fossils.

  Marsh saw Holliday and Buntline, and walked over to them.

  “Good morning,” said Holliday with no show of enthusiasm.

  “It's almost noon,” Marsh corrected him.

  “Whatever.”

  “Do you know what that bastard did?”

  “Which bastard are you talking about?” asked Holliday.

  “There's only one, damn it!”

  “Ah!” said Holliday. “You mean Mr. Edison.”

  “I don't like your sense of humor,” said Marsh harshly.

  “You've got a lot of company,” said Holliday with no show of anger.

  “That bastard left camp before sunrise so he could stake out a claim on the head all for himself,” continued Marsh.

  “Maybe you should call him out and shoot him,” suggested Holliday pleasantly.

  “It's just lucky I know what kind of backstabbing swine I'm dealing with,” continued Marsh. A look of triumph crossed his bearded face. “I got there twenty minutes ahead of him!”

  “No question about it,” said Holliday. “You're an even better backstabbing swine than he is.”

  Marsh glared at him. “I don't think your presence is required here any longer, sir!” he snapped.

  “Bullshit,” said Holliday. “My presence and Roosevelt's is all that's kept you alive. But if you'd like to see the last of me, that can be arranged easily enough. Go dig in Colorado or Montana.”

  “When the greatest finds of all are right here?” demanded Marsh incredulously. “You must be mad!”

  “Not yet,” said Holliday. “But I'm getting there.”

  “Bah!” snorted Marsh. “You're hopeless!”

  He turned on his heel and walked off to his fossil tent.

  “Do you get the feeling that they turn every ounce of their intelligence onto their hobby and leave the rest of their lives to fend for themselves?” asked Holliday.

  “I don't know that I'd call it a hobby,” replied Buntline. “I think science is the word you're looking for.”

  “I've already found the word I'm looking for,” said Holliday disgustedly. “It's obsession.”

  “May I point out as a friend and not a potential shootist that you're even more unpleasant than usual today?”

  “Damn it, Ned,” said Holliday irritably. “Yesterday I faced a tyrannosaur with a goddamned six-shooter. The only reason I'm here at all is to get you and Tom healthy and move these fools out of here before they're killed by dinosaurs.” He spat on the ground. “Do you think it was worth the risk?”

  “You were dying and now you're here,” said Buntline. “Ask me an easy one instead.”

  “I'm still dying,” said Holliday, coughing some blood into a handkerchief as if for emphasis. “I just wish there was anyone or anything around here worth dying for. Do I care what kills Cope or Marsh as long as it does it slowly and painfully? No. Do I care what happens to some Apache village I've never seen? No. So what the hell am I doing here?”

  “Same as most of us,” said Buntline, forcing a smile. “Trying to make it to tomorrow.”

  “True,” said Holliday with a sigh. “I can remember days when I liked the odds better.”

  They fell silent for a moment. Then Buntline looked around. “Someone ought to be making lunch any minute now for those of us who stayed behind or returned to camp.”

  “Makes no difference,” said Holliday. “I don't eat this early in the day.” He took a sip from his flask and smiled. “It interferes with my digestion.”

  Buntline laughed just as Roosevelt drove a wagon carrying Edison into camp, lifted the inventor out of it, and helped him walk over to join Holliday and Buntline.

  “That was a hell of an animal,” remarked Edison.

  “There were fifty or sixty men chopping it to bits this morning,” said Holliday. “Is there anything left of it?”

  Edison smiled. “About ninety-five percent of it. And I can tell you that you're lucky as hell to be alive.”

  “So says everyone who's not on this side of my lungs,” replied Holliday.

  “It was in the nature of an experiment,” explained Roosevelt. “We won't leave camp without your weapons again.” Suddenly he frowned. “I just wish he hadn't fallen on my pteranodon.”

  “There'll be more,” said Holliday. Suddenly he smiled. “If you don't die from a snake or insect bite first.”

  “My friend the optimist,” said Roosevelt with a smile.

  “By the way, I don't suppose one of our scientists killed the other?” said Holliday.

  “There were a couple of times I thought they would. Marsh wanted the right half—the tyrannosaur collapsed on his left side, if you'll recall. Cope decided making either side take the crushed half was unfair.”

  “That doesn't sound like him,” said Holliday.

  Roosevelt grinned again. “His solution was to take the front half and leave the back half for Marsh.”

  Holliday laughed aloud, which brought on another coughing seizure.

  “Anyway,” continued Roosevelt, “with Cody gone and Younger retiring from the security business, no one on either side was anxious to get into a gunfight over it, and for a minute there I thought Cope and Marsh would actually come to blows.”

  “So Theodore used the toe of his boot to trace out a boxing ring in the dirt, and invited Cope and Marsh to duke it out,” said Edison with an amused grin. “After all, he came out here to referee one of John L.'s boxing matches, so he was the perfect choice to referee it.”

  “I suspect they each remembered they had urgent business back at camp,” suggested Buntline.

  Roosevelt shook his head. “Couldn't lose face in front of the men. Of course, neither of them wanted to lose any teeth either. Cope claimed he needed his hands for the fine work he had to do with his fossils, and he couldn't take a chance of breaking one of them on Marsh's jaw.” Roosevelt chuckled at the memory. “Marsh claimed he was a coward, and did it so loud and for so long that Cope finally agreed.’”

  “And?” asked Holliday. “I just saw Marsh, and he didn't seem any the worse for wear.”

  “He and Cope began arguing the rules,” said Edison, still amused. “Marsh wanted a bigger ring. Cope wanted gloves. Marsh wanted bare knuckles. Cope wanted five-minute rounds, Marsh wanted three-minute rounds, Cope wanted to fight to first blood, Marsh wanted to fight to a knockout. After twenty minutes they realized they were wasting time, and that some of the men were playing cards, so they started yelling at them about getting back to work, and suddenly everyone forgot about the boxing match.”

  “I wish I'd been there,” said Holliday. “I'd have booked bets on the fight and kept all the money when it didn't come off.”

  “Well, it's funny,” admitted Roosevelt, “but it leaves us with the same problem we've had from the beginning. They have to leave, but they hate each other so much one won't leave if there's a chance the other can discover something new and valuable by staying behind.”

  “Well, as long as we're stuck here, at least you had a pleasant diversion,” said Holliday.

  “It's only pleasant in the retelling, Doc,” said Roosevelt. “I like most of the men I know, but these two…” He shook his head. “I'd like to take ’em both on in the ring myself.”

  As the words left Roosevelt's mouth, Cope and his men entered the camp. Like Marsh, Cope began directing his men to put the morning's finds in the bone building, and when they had finished he posted two men armed with rifles on eit
her side of the crude door.

  “Trusting soul,” remarked Holliday.

  “Not without cause,” said Edison. “I wouldn't put it past Marsh to try to sneak in there—him, or one of his men. After all, they've been stealing from and sabotaging each other for years.”

  “Well, it's a cluster of superlatives,” said Holliday.

  “What are you talking about, Doc?” asked Roosevelt.

  “What we have here,” explained Holliday, waving a hand at the camp. “The greatest shootist, the greatest scientist, and the greatest politician on the continent may all die trying to protect the two nastiest paleontologists from destroying each other and maybe the greatest medicine man as well.”

  “I'm not the greatest politician,” said Roosevelt. Suddenly he grinned. “Yet.”

  “Seriously, what do you suggest, Doc?” said Edison. “It's pretty clear that we can't force them to leave, Ned and I are in no condition to travel anyway, and it's just as obvious that the Comanche have started resurrecting dinosaurs and won't stop until both parties stop desecrating their burial ground.”

  “I don't know,” admitted Holliday. “Perhaps we—”

  There was a shrill scream of terror from the stable area, followed a moment later by a dozen or more gunshots. Holliday and Roosevelt went off to see what was happening, and returned a few moments later.

  “What was it?” asked Edison.

  “Damned dinosaur killed one of the horses,” growled Holliday.

  “Huge one?”

  Roosevelt shook his head. “No, he couldn't have weighed much more than four hundred pounds or so.

  “Well, if they kill enough horses, that'll settle whether we're leaving or not,” said Buntline.

  “Goddamn it!” said Holliday grimly. “I'm getting mighty sick of paleontologists and dinosaurs! After all, a bargain's a bargain!”

  “What are you talking about, Doc?” asked Roosevelt, frowning. “What bargain?”

  “Geronimo made a deal with me,” answered Holliday. “It was a shitty deal, but I agreed to it, and I haven't been keeping my end of the bargain.” He stared off at the dead dinosaur in the stable area. “Enough is enough!”