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

fine,” he said. As the station master was hunting up the bottle, Holliday added, “It's been a long trip. You got an outhouse around here?”
    “There's one out back.”
    Holliday turned to Charlotte. “Ladies first.”
    “I'm fine, Doc,” she said.
    “Then if you'll excuse me…”
    He turned and walked back out the door, then circled the station until he saw the outhouse and began approaching it. Then a prarie dog caught his eye. It was sitting on the ground a few feet from the outhouse, staring unblinking at him.
    He pulled out a handkerchief and waved it at the prarie dog. “Shoo!” he growled, taking a step toward it—and suddenly he was facing what was becoming the familiar Apache warrior.
    “What now?” demanded Holliday irritably.
    “He knows why you have come.”
    “He sent you here to tell me that?”
    “No,” said the warrior. “He sent me here to tell you that you will never conquer Henry McCarty who is known as Billy the Kid on your own.”
    “We'll see about that,” said Holliday.
    “It will be best if you listen to him. McCarty who is called Billy is protected.”
    “By a gang?”
    The warrior shook his head.
    “By another medicine man?”
    The warrior nodded.
    “Maybe so,” said Holliday dubiously, “but I haven't come all this way just to turn around and go back to Leadville.”
    “He does not expect you to.”
    “Can he answer a direct question?” said Holliday. “Just what the hell does he want?”
    “A service.”
    “Why should I do Geronimo a service? He's an enemy of the United States.”
    The trace of a smile played about the warrior's lips. “Do you really care about that?”
    Holliday shrugged. “No, not really. But my question remains: Why should I do him a service?”
    “Because then he will do one for you.”
    “One having to do with the Kid?”
    “Yes.”
    “He'll help me kill him?”
    The warrior shook his head. “Only you can do that, if you are capable, and neither he nor anyone else knows if you are.”
    “Then what?”
    “He will make it possible for you to find McCarty who is called Billy without his protector.”
    Holliday frowned. “Just possible, not certain? That's not much of a service.”
    “It is impossible right now.”
    “All right. What does he want in exchange?”
    “He will tell you.”
    “He's talking to me right now, isn't he?” demanded Holliday.
    “He will tell you himself,” said the warrior.
    “When?”
    “Soon.”
    “Why not now, damn it?” growled Holliday, but suddenly he was talking to the prairie dog again. “I'd like it a lot better if you'd use one of Tom Edison's new-fangled telephones,” he muttered. “It's getting to where every time I see a goddamned animal I think it's one of your braves.”
    He entered the outhouse and emerged a moment later. The prairie dog, if it actually existed, was nowhere to be seen, and he went back into the station.
    “I didn't know you were an animal lover, Doc,” said Charlotte when he had rejoined her.
    “I can take ‘em or leave ‘em,” he said. “Why?”
    “I looked out the back window and saw you talking to a prairie dog.”
    “For how long?” he asked.
    “Maybe two minutes.”
    “And that's all you saw?”
    “Should I have seen something else?”
    Holliday frowned and shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me.”

 
    T
     
HE COACH PULLED INTO L INCOLN , a town that seemed apiece with its surroundings: brown, flat, dry. No building, not even the church or the courthouse, was more than three stories high, and except for a pair of hotels, the vast majority were low, flat, single-story structures. The Bunt Line hadn't made any inroads here, and horses still provided the most common means of transportation, but it was too hot to leave the animals tied to hitching posts, and they passed a number of stables along the way to the center of town.
    Holliday opened the door and did his best to help Charlotte down to the dirt street, though she outweighed him, as did almost any