“Let’s unload ’em here,” said Ringo as they came to a run-down shed on the edge of town.
“Any particular reason why?” asked Raven.
“He’s a sometime undertaker, and like a lot of folks in town, he hates the Earps.” Suddenly he smiled. “Perhaps I should say he hated the Earps.” Ringo dismounted. “You stay there, Ike. This’ll just take a minute.”
Ringo vanished into the shed, and came out a moment later accompanied by an emaciated man who looked like a grinning ghoul. They shook hands, Ringo unhitched his horse from the wagon, and a moment later he and Raven were riding into Tombstone.
“Word’s going to get out pretty soon,” noted Raven.
“Hell, half the town’ll be celebrating.”
“I was thinking of the other half,” answered Raven. “Especially one particular member of it.”
“He’ll be sleeping off last night’s drunk for another few hours,” answered Ringo. Suddenly he smiled. “Which reminds me, maybe we should get started on ours.”
“What the hell,” said Raven with a shrug. “It’s too early for me to drink, but I’m safer in your company than without it, especially today.”
“Haven’t been to the Deuces Wild in a week,” said Ringo. “That suit you?”
“Anything that gets me out of the public eye suits me.”
Ringo laughed. “I don’t know how you got a reputation for being such a tough bastard.”
“Probably by not going up against you or Wyatt Earp,” answered Raven.
Ringo chuckled again, then pulled his horse to a stop.
“What’s the matter?” asked Raven.
“They don’t allow horses in saloons,” answered Ringo. “And we’re here.”
They dismounted, tied their mounts to the hitching post in front, and entered the Deuces Wild.
“Go get what you want,” said Raven. “I’ll be sitting at that table by the far wall.”
“I can bring you a drink,” said Ringo. “Hell, it’ll be my treat.”
“No, thanks. I’ll take coffee if they have it.”
Ringo laughed aloud at that. “Some rough tough cowboy!”
Raven walked over to a table while Ringo approached the bar.
Lisa? Can you read me?
Yes, Eddie. I’m on my way over right now. Deuces Wild, correct?
Yes. He paused. There’s been some serious bloodshed.
I know. I saw it.
You were there?
No, of course not.
I killed Wyatt Earp. Me, not Ringo or Curly Bill. I still don’t know quite how it happened.
It’ll all come back to you as you calm down.
You’re not mad?
Of course not. The alternative would have been for Ringo to bring five bodies back to town.
Damn, I miss you!
Count to thirty.
Why?
I’ll be there while you’re still in the twenties.
Raven suddenly sat up, totally alert, and wished he’d chosen a table next to a window so he could have a view of the street. Then, a few seconds later, a pudgy, once-attractive woman entered the saloon and began approaching him. He was about to suggest she had the wrong bar or at least the wrong person, and then realized it was Lisa in her Kate Elder persona.
“I was wondering if I was ever going to see you again,” said Raven.
“I’m not a deserter,” she said, sounding somewhat annoyed.
He shook his head. “No, I meant that when the shooting started, given my skills with a gun, I figured the odds were heavy that I wouldn’t make it to the end of the fight.”
She smiled, reached forward, and laid her hand on his. “You must never underestimate yourself, Eddie,” she said. “Neither Rofocale nor I ever have.”
“So what’s next?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It depends on circumstances.”
“What circumstances.”
She smiled again. “You’ll figure it out.”
“Okay,” he said. “I came to Tombstone, four Earps are dead and one’s in no condition to do anything for months. I hope to hell I’m not here to shoot it out with Doc Holliday.”
“Only if you want to,” she replied.
“Trust me,” said Raven. “I really, truly don’t want to.”
Lisa shrugged. “Well, there you have it.”
“Have what?” he said, frowning. “Lisa, if I can’t come to you for answers, where else can I go?”
“You’re preparing for something so vast and complex that there are simply no straightforward or easily comprehensible answers.”
Ringo walked over to the table, pulled up a chair from a neighboring table, and sat down.
“Hi, Kate,” he said.
“Hello, John,” she said coldly.
“Doing well, I trust?”
“Getting by.”
“And your boyfriend?”
“Same as always.”
“That unpleasant?”
Lisa stood up. “I don’t have to listen to this.”
She had walked halfway to the door when a familiar voice rang out in the street.
“John Ringo, come out of there, you backstabbing coward!”
Ringo smiled. “The boyfriend,” he said, getting to his feet. He walked over to Lisa, took her by the arm despite her flinching from his touch, and led her back to the table. “You’ll be safer here,” he said.
Then he walked back to the door, looked outside to make sure Holliday wasn’t already covering him with his pistol, and walked out into the street.
“I’m sorry,” Raven whispered to Lisa as he got to his feet, “but I’ve got to see what happens.”
He walked to the door, took one step outside, raised his empty hands in the air when Holliday glared at him, and stayed in the shadow of the building.
“John Ringo,” growled Holliday, “you killed the only friend I ever had.”
Raven resisted the urge to blurt out, “No, it was me!”
“He never really liked you, Doc,” said Ringo. “Hell, nobody does. And I’m here to put you out of your misery.”
The two men stared at each other, absolutely motionless, for almost ten seconds. Then, by some unseen, unknowable mutual consent, they went for their weapons.
The two shots were fired simultaneously. Onlookers later claimed to have heard only a single shot. Both men flew backward and lay motionless on the ground.
Raven rushed over and looked at the bodies. Holliday had a bloody hole over his heart, and Ringo had a small hole right between his eyes.
“My God, they were as good as everyone thought they were!” he muttered as Lisa joined him.
“I know,” she said. “Now come with me.”
“But someone has to be an eyewitness for the authorities,” protested Raven.
“You and Ringo brought the authorities into town in the back of your wagon,” she noted. She pulled gently at his arm. “Now come with me.”
He turned reluctantly from the bodies and fell into step beside her.
They turned off the main street, walked over to a totally nondescript street, walked half a block, and then she led him into a small building, abandoned store or bar, he couldn’t tell which.
And one step into it she was Lisa again, and then Eddie Raven found himself alone, staring at the walls of his Manhattan apartment.