Death's Aftermath - Joplin
They'd taken refuge in the cave to avoid the rainstorm that sprang up without warning. It was the first time Bart Maverick, gambler, and Doc Holliday, gunslinger, had ridden together since that day long ago they'd begun an ill-fated trip over the Superstition Mountains. That one had ended in a rockslide and an almost twelve-month journey into the psyche of Bart Maverick, who'd woken with broken bones and a broken mind, completely convinced that HE was Doc Holliday. There'd been many adventures since then for both men, but they hadn't traveled together for quite a while.
Bart had spent a good deal of his time with his older brother, Bret Maverick, or his cousin, Beau Maverick, while Doc had spent his time with, well, with himself. They'd only run into each other one other time, and they were headed in opposite directions. Finally they ended up in St. Louis, both playing poker at the 'Gilded Lady', and when it was time to move on discovered both were headed for Joplin. There was a lot of lead mining going on in the rapidly growing town and the area surrounding it and where there were plenty of miners there was plenty of gambling.
They headed southwest and passed several days in pleasant conversation, each catching the other up on their lives since the debacle in Arizona. Doc had made minor friends with two or three men along the way, but none as close as Bart Maverick. Bart tried to keep his friendships to a minimum; other than his relatives and Doc there weren't too many men he trusted enough to call 'friend.'
The third day after leaving St. Louis the weather took a change for the worse, the bright summer sunshine seeming to vanish in minutes and storm clouds appearing over the hills. Knowing Missouri weather, Bart wasn't sure that it was actually going to rain, but the further they rode the darker it got until Bart finally gave in and he and Doc started looking for shelter.
Within a few short minutes it was almost black outside and the two gamblers were lucky to find a cave large enough to accommodate them and their horses, just as the thunder and lightning started, followed rapidly by a torrential rain. "Whew! That was close!" Bart exclaimed as he shook the first few raindrops off his hat.
"I told you an hour ago it was going to rain, Bart," Doc observed.
"Doc, this is Missouri. You know how fickle the weather is. Just because it looks like it's gonna rain doesn't mean it's really gonna rain!"
"And just what would you call that?" Doc asked, pointing to the rapidly increasing rainfall.
"Whiskey," Bart laughed, good-naturedly teasing his friend.
"Would that it was," came the reply. "I would be outside bathing in it."
"I've no doubt of that." Bart got down off of his horse and stared out into the downpour. "Looks like we could be here for a while."
"Brilliant reasoning. I thought Buckley said you weren't bright?" Now it was Doc's turn to tease his friend.
"Oh, he did," came the chuckling reply. "But he did give me credit for being shifty. How about if I look for some kindling and you start a fire? It's kinda chilly in here."
"And just what am I supposed to start a fire with?"
"Here, use this," Bart told his friend, pulling a 'pulp' magazine out of his saddlebags. The cover page declared "Doc Holliday Rids the Town of Another Low-Life" and depicted the gunslinger shooting yet another 'heinous' villain in the streets.
"I see you're following my exploits," Doc declared. "Who have I killed this time?"
"How should I know? I don't read that stuff. I just kept it for this very purpose. Get started, will ya?"
Doc attempted to swat Bart with the magazine, but the gambler moved too quickly and evaded Doc's aim. "I'm goin' back further to see if I can find anything to burn," Bart declared. He wandered back into the cave and in just a few minutes was out of sight.
Doc had just started a small fire when the earthquake struck. "What?" he jumped up and yelled. This wasn't the time of year for earthquakes! Before he could move a step everything around him began to shake and he was knocked flat on the ground, just in time to witness a massive cave-in on the near end of the very path his friend had taken.
"BART!" Doc yelled at the top of his lungs. "BART! Answer me! BART MAVERICK!" Everything quit shaking as the ground stopped rolling. Doc scrambled to his feet and stared hopelessly at what used to be the cave's tunnel leading under the mountain. Then he ran to the pile of boulders and frantically started picking up those small enough to handle and heaving them over to the side of the entrance.
"BART! BART! YOU GOTTA BE ALIVE! BART! BBBBBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTT!"
Doc was in a state of panic. This couldn't be happening again! Other than his own voice yelling hysterically the only sound was that of an occasional rock dislodging itself from the pile and hitting the ground. No response from the other side of the rock pile, not even an inkling that his friend was anything other than dead. "BBBBBBBAAAAAAARRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTT!" Doc howled again, certain that he was REALLY witnessing the final demise of his best friend. "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!" he screamed, and quickly descended into wild sobs. "This . . . . can 't . . . . . be . . . . . happening . . . . again! Not twice to me! I mean twice to Bart!"
He kept up his frenzied efforts to make a dent in the rock pile that had once been cave walls, all the while babbling incoherently. "Can't go through this again . . . . . you weren't dead before . . . . . you can't be dead this time . . . . . I can't lose you twice . . . . . what am I gonna tell Bret . . . . . he'll swear it's me, that I'm cursed . . . . maybe he's right . . . . . . . we shoulda kept riding . . . . . .Bart!"
He worked for fifteen or twenty minutes and made very little headway. Then the effort finally began to take its toll on him and he started coughing violently. He eventually had to stop picking up rocks and sit down on the ground, panting and choking, partly from the consumption, partly from the sobbing, and partly from the dust trying to settle in his lungs. His sobbing tapered off into a strangled wail, and eventually into nothing more than painfully sad hiccups. All the pain and anger and misery he'd accumulated the first time he thought Bart was dead manifested itself into a feverish rant, directed primarily at the crumbled cave walls and his deceased friend. "Okay, I understand what happened the first time . . . . . you weren't dead, you were just broken . . . . . and you thought you were me . . . . . but you're not me . . . . . I'm here and alive and this time you're really gone . . . . . . I can't stand this again. Don't you know why I didn't seem real excited when we found you alive . . . . . I was afraid that we'd get close as we were before . . . . and something else would happen . . . . and now it has . . . . and you're really gone . . . . . . you're my best friend. . . . . I love you like a brother . . . .you're the only one that ever took me at face value . . . . . and stayed my friend, no matter what I did to drive you away . . . . . and I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE!"
Doc whimpered. A strange sound to be coming from a grown man. Then he whimpered again. Wait a minute, that wasn't him. He wasn't the one whimpering. Well, if it wasn't him . . . . . .
"Bart! Bart! That has to be you! You're alive! Bart, say something! Anything! Make noise, any noise! Pick up a rock and drop it! I don't care!"
As soon as Doc stopped babbling the sound of a small rock hitting another rock could be heard. Once, twice, three times he heard it, and the biggest grin anyone had ever seen lit up Doc Holliday's face. "I heard you, Bart. Just hang on, I'll get you out. I'm coming!" And once again Doc started moving rocks and boulders, trying desperately to create a way through the debris to get to his obviously injured friend. For over an hour, he carried stones and boulders back and forth until he'd finally managed to clear a path through the rubble to the other side of the collapsed wall.
He got three feet past the point of impact and saw a hand with a pinky ring on it waiving pitifully, trying to attract his attention. "I see ya!" Doc yelled, and the hand immediately dropped to the ground. Bart was face down on a pile of rocks, his legs virtually buried under another pile, with no way to move or extract himself from the position he was in. It took Doc several minutes to dig him out from under the blanket of boulders, all the while coughing and hacking for everything he was worth. More than once Bart joined him in the coughing, the dust settling all around them from the cave-in. At long last Doc got the last impediment off of his friend and he helped Bart roll over onto his back. He was cut and bruised all over his face and neck, but he was conscious and semi-lucid.
"Bart! Say something to me. Please!"
"I love you too, Doc." Bart's eyes were closed, but he said it with all sincerity.
"You heard me! How much did you hear?"
"Everything."
"Everything?"
"Everything."
"You son-of-a-! If you ever repeat any of what I said I'll kill you!"
Bart opened his eyes carefully, slowly, and Doc's face gradually came into focus. "Can we get me out of here, please? I don't think I can get up by myself. My legs . . . . . . "
Doc wrapped Bart's arm around his neck and helped him to stand. Bart's legs wouldn't support him and Doc had to help hold him upright. One small step at a time Doc got him out of the rubble and back out to the cave entrance. The rain had slacked off and was coming down in gentle sheets, but a chill had definitely invaded the air. They made their way to the small fire Doc had gotten started and the gunslinger lowered his friend carefully to the ground, up against the cave wall, and immediately gathered a pile of sticks and tree branches that had been blown inside by the wind right before the rain started. He built the fire slowly while Bart started rubbing his legs, trying to get the feeling and circulation back into them. Doc pulled out his handkerchief and gave it to Bart, telling him, "Here, wipe your face off. You're full of blood."
There was nothing further said for the next few minutes. Doc retrieved his flask from his breast pocket and unscrewed the lid, offering it first to Bart. To his surprise, the gambler accepted it and took a good long drink. He handed it back to Doc, who still looked startled, and went back to rubbing his legs. Both of them continued coughing, Doc from the frantic exhaustion as much as the consumption, Bart from the dirt and dust he'd been forced to breathe in while unable to move. When they both settled down and sat looking at each other, Doc thought it was about time he explained himself, including the things he'd never discussed with his best friend about the first disappearance all those months ago.
"That day I lost you – because that's what it was, losing you for almost a year – I got back to Apache Junction somehow and tried to organize a search party, to lead back to the mountain. The doctor told me if I went back out without taking care of my arm I'd probably lose the use of it permanently. I sent half the town back out instead. I even offered a reward to anybody that could find a trace of you. A big reward. They couldn't find you. So I proceeded to get drunker than I ever have in my whole life, before or since. And I stayed that way for three days. You were dead. Wasn't any doubt in my mind. I grieved for my lost friend, my brother, the man that died because I didn't want to ride around a mountain. I was so drunk I cried. FOR THREE DAYS. And when your brother finally got to town I acted like the real coward I am and made the coroner tell him you were dead. I couldn't even tell him myself.
"I did everything I could to convince your brother that you were gone. I knew it in my soul. And Bret never believed it for one second. He was so sure that finally I gave in and believed him. He had to be talked into going back to Montana to stand by Beau, and I promised him I would keep looking for you. And I did, except when I got shot in the leg and couldn't get around. And when he came back I went with him willingly, because I needed to believe you were alive. And then we found you, and you didn't know us. Broke my heart all over again."
Doc stopped and took another drink from the flask. He offered it again to Bart, who waived it off this time. "So when you finally remembered everything, I was glad. But I was afraid to let our friendship go back to the way it'd been. Because if we got close and I lost you again – I couldn't go through that. And then we met in St. Louis and started on this trip, and by God if it didn't happen again. I thought you were dead. I was sure you were dead. But if you're dead I must be, too, since we're both sittin' here."
Bart had stopped rubbing the feeling back into his legs and sat there looking at Doc; his friend, his brother with a different mother, and understood how strong the bond was between them for the first time. He didn't know what he'd done to deserve a friend like that, but he had one in Doc Holliday. "We're not dead, Doc, even though we've both come close a few times. Maybe we should just stop worryin' about how long it's gonna last, and enjoy it while it's here. Thanks for diggin' me out today. And thanks for everything you did in Arizona." He stopped and they both heard something they hadn't heard before. The rain had ended and a bird was right outside the cave, singing for all it was worth. Soon it was joined by another, singing a different song.
"Whatta ya say we get outta here? We've still got a couple hours of daylight left. We can get that much closer to wherever it is we're goin'."
"That's the best idea I've heard all day, my friend."
Doc put out the fire and they mounted their horses and left their shelter, riding back out of the cave and into the world. Just lookin' for another poker game.