IT DEFIES LOGIC. IT INSULTS COMMON SENSE,” DOC ADMITTED when he told Josie Marcus his plans. “Kate is selfish and mercenary and impossible to live with, but when she’s gone? I miss her like I miss breath. Madness, I suppose. Or plain stupidity.”
“You love her,” Josie said firmly. “Love isn’t stupid.”
Eyes narrow, he glanced sideways at the girl, marveling at the lack of cynicism. “That, sugar, is an eminently debatable assertion, but . . . Well, I calculate Kate and I are even now. This will be a fresh start.”
They were going to meet halfway. In Tucson. In mid-October, when the weather was good. They would spend some time alone in a town where no well-meaning friends could question the wisdom of this reconciliation. They would see if they could work things out.
Doc wired ahead to reserve a modest but clean room on the outskirts. I’m not a spendthrift, he meant. Unaware of this, Kate got to town early and booked the best room in the best hotel. I’m not a miser, she meant. I love you, and I wanted to please you. That’s what they really meant, though neither could say it aloud.
Instead of arguing, they split the difference: a nice room in a decent hotel just off the central plaza. They were careful with each other at first, but care soon turned to tenderness, and tenderness to that deep satisfaction in each other’s company, which they always remembered more clearly than the anger and the fights. In that state of grace, they began to discuss what was left of Doc’s future. We don’t have much time, they agreed. Let’s make the most of it.
They had no real ties to Arizona, and the territory grew more dangerous by the week. Five Cow Boys had been killed recently. That left at least thirty-five others to raise hell with impunity. Outlaws from Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and California were joining them, for Cochise County was considered the last, best place in the country for men who would not be governed. The Chiricahua Apaches were making trouble again, as well. Why stay in this hellhole? That was what they asked themselves in the quiet of their Tucson bed. Arizona was ferociously hot in the summer, numbingly cold in the winter, and plug-ugly most of the year. All Doc had to show for eighteen months in its climate was another fist-sized hollow deep inside his right lung. Kate was ready for a change as well. Why not just pack up and go?
They settled on the Rockies, for there was reliable research coming out of Switzerland: Whatever caused tuberculosis, the disease seemed to need high concentrations of oxygen to do its worst. Sanatoria in the Swiss mountains were having considerable success with advanced cases of the disease; the higher the altitude, the more efficacious the treatment.
Why pay doctors, Kate asked, if simply spending time in thin air could cure you? She could open another boardinghouse—in Denver, maybe. Doc could do a little gambling, and Kate would look after him. They would live frugally and wait the disease out while the mountains did their work.
THAT WAS THEIR PLAN, four days before the gunfight.
If anyone had asked, “What about Ike Clanton?” Doc would have answered with a question of his own: “You mean the idiot who told that revoltin’ joke about oysters? What about him?”
IKE WAS PANICKING, IS WHAT.
“Ringo knows,” he insisted, pleading with Wyatt to understand how scared he was. “He looks at me funny! He knows all about it.”
“Keep your voice down!” Wyatt said, his own voice low, for if there was so much as a rumor of him being involved with Ike Clanton, any edge he had over Johnny Behan in the sheriff’s election next year would blow away. “Ike,” he said, trying to stay patient, “did you tell Ringo?”
Ike shook his head, eyes wide.
“Well, then, he can’t know. You and me are the only ones who know. But if you keep talking about it like this, the whole town’ll know!”
“The whole town’ll know,” Ike repeated, close to tears. “The whole town’ll know! And Ringo will kill me!”
Exasperated, Wyatt gripped the man by the arm and steered him deeper into the alley. “Ike, nobody knows. It’s over. All three of the men who attacked that stage are dead now. The deal is off! You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”
“No!”
“And neither did I,” Wyatt told him. “So nobody else knows!”
“But you told Holliday he was in the clear!”
“No! I didn’t, Ike! Holliday don’t know.”
“Holliday will tell Ringo and Ringo will kill me!”
It went on like that—round and round and round—until Wyatt was ready to kill Ike himself. “Holliday don’t know, and I’ll prove it to you,” he said finally. “Go home. Stay out of Tombstone and stay quiet. I can fix this, Ike. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry” was what Ike said, but what he thought was this: Don’t trust nobody.
“YOU KNOW WHERE DOC IS?” Wyatt asked Morgan that night, over at the Alhambra. “John Meagher says he took a couple of weeks off.”
“Yeah, I was afraid he was sick again, but Molly Fly said he looked fine and he was going to Tucson to visit a friend for a while.”
“Well, go on up there and find him, will you?”
“In Tucson?”
“Quick as you can,” Wyatt said. “I need him here, Morg. It’s important.”
“NO,” KATE MOANED. “No. No. No. No. No.”
She didn’t sound alarmed, only annoyed, so Doc kept his eyes on the table until the cards played out half a minute later. “What is it, darlin’?” he asked then, but when he looked up, he knew what had upset her. Morgan Earp was standing in the doorway of the gambling hall, searching faces.
Doc raised a hand. Morgan came straight over.
“Wyatt needs you,” he said.
“Did that other molar finally crack in half? Morgan, I warned him—”
“No, it’s something else. He wouldn’t tell me what’s going on, but he needs you back in Tombstone right away.”
“No!” Kate cried. “No, no, no, no, no!”
“DOC, WHY?” she demanded, back in their room. “Wyatt Earp crooks his finger, you don’t even know what he wants, and you go running! Why?”
“Because Morgan asked me to.”
“And I’m asking you not to!”
Doc opened the wardrobe and pulled out his valise. “I don’t believe this will take long, darlin’. While I’m in Tombstone, I’ll close out my affairs. When I get back to Tucson, we’ll go on up to Globe and do the same for you. Then, I promise, we shall stamp the dust of Arizona from our feet.”
“I’m coming with you.”
Deliberately misunderstanding, Doc turned, a shirt in hand. “Of course, you will! Colorado’s as much your decision as mine—”
“No. I’m going with you to Tombstone.”
“Morgan and I will be takin’ a freight train to Benson, darlin’.”
“If you can take a freight, I can take a freight.”
“And it’s a bad road from Benson to Tombstone—”
“If you can do it, I can do it.”
He’d learned this much: When Kate made up her mind, he might as well quit arguing. “Suit yourself,” he said.