Death Has Its Price

Chapter 6 – Beef Stew and Lemons

Early morning. The house was quiet; Gage was asleep upstairs and Amy had made a temporary bed in the downstairs room, sleeping so that John would have her close by if he needed something. Last night he'd sounded restless, moaning and mumbling in his sleep, but had said nothing memorable. She knew he was in pain when he was awake, but he made no complaints or requests, other than an occasional one for water.

He didn't have much of an appetite; he ate some of what she tried to feed him but not much. She worried that he wasn't getting enough nourishment and offered him coffee simply as a way to get something into him. That seemed to hit a nerve; he was always ready for the drink whenever she brought it to him.

The days passed slowly, most of the time spent trying not to shift around much, because of the agony any kind of movement caused. There'd been so much damage to his body that healing seemed to take even longer than it normally would. Amy took to reading to him in the afternoons, just to help pass the time, and he brightened considerably when she started on the Dickens novel 'Great Expectations.' That amused her no end, that Doc Holliday should be a Charles Dickens admirer.

Sometimes they talked, but his memory seemed to be sketchy about a lot of things. He remembered nothing of any of the men he'd supposedly killed, and Amy wondered if the tales were untrue. Texas seemed to be familiar to him, and he knew a lot about other odd places, like Kansas City and Santa Fe, but little about Georgia, where he was born and lived most of his early life. He recalled almost nothing about the 'art' of dentistry, which seemed highly unusual, but almost everything about the game of poker.

He seemed gentle and soft spoken, not at all the reputation Doc had and was well versed in literature and of all things, the Bible. She was startled one afternoon when he asked her if she had a Bible and requested she read some of the New Testament. Doc Holliday and the Bible? But she honored his request, and he was quiet and attentive as she read through the Gospels.

One afternoon she stopped to ask him a question. "Why the Bible? I didn't think you even knew what it was."

It took him a moment to answer her; it seemed he was trying to remember something that was just out of his grasp. "My mother . . . . . I think she taught me to read . . . . using the Bible." He watched her, waiting for her reaction. "But I don't remember a lot else about her. Just that. She died . . . . . sometime. I don't know when. Your voice . . . . sounds like hers sometimes."

Amy was touched. Such a sweet memory for such a vile killer. The more time Amy spent with John, the more she liked him. He listened to her and asked her questions about everyday things. What time of year it was, what the weather was like that day, the new foals that were born, how to cook an egg without over-cooking it. When she repeated the conversations to her father, he was confused. How could a man that had done some of the things Doc Holliday was accused of be so interested in such ordinary matters?

One afternoon Gage stopped by the ranch and found Amy deep in conversation with Holliday discussing politics. He stood in the hallway outside the room for almost fifteen minutes and listened to the talk go back and forth, with the gunslinger agreeing almost entirely with Amy's views, about such radical notions as Arizona statehood and women's voting rights. When she left the bedroom a few minutes later, she was surprised to find her father outside shaking his head.

"What's that for, Daddy?" she asked.

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard it myself. Who would have expected him to agree that women should be able to vote? I thought they were just so much chattel to someone like that."

"You've got the wrong idea about John. I certainly did. He's a gentle soul, not at all like the villain he's been portrayed as. We talk about everything. I read the Bible to him. I can't imagine him taking a gun to anyone, much less killing them."

"And he's never worried you or scared you?"

"No."

Amy want to the pantry, and Gage wandered into 'Doc's' room. "Mr. Holliday," Gage intoned, and got a reply.

"Mr. Stanhope."

"You know Amy is my daughter."

"Yes sir."

"You will treat her with courtesy and respect."

"Yes sir."

Gage had been walking around the room, but now he stopped and looked directly at the man in the bed, who was beginning to look like he might well live. "If you mistreat her in any way - "

"I wouldn't do that."

" – I would not hesitate to throw you to the wolves."

Holliday said nothing.

"I don't care how fast you are with a gun, or who you've killed before. Do you understand me?"

"I do."

"Alright then. You can stay while you heal. But if one thing changes - "

"Understood."

"Daddy, what are you doing in here?" Amy was back with soup for the patient. She stared at her father, wondering just what he was up to.

"Just talking to . . . . John. Is that alright with you?"

"Is that what he was doing?" she asked the gunslinger.

"Yes," he agreed quickly.

"Go on now, Daddy. Lunch time." Gage Stanhope left the room, but he lingered in the hall outside. He could hear Amy talking, asking John questions that could be answered 'yes' or 'no.' "Do you like beef stew?" "Will you eat scrambled eggs?" "Do you have a favorite dessert?" "Do you like lemon?" He heard the answers, mostly "yes," littered here and there with a laugh. Until she asked the last question. "Do you have a sweetheart?"

There was silence, and then an answer he didn't want to hear. "No."

XXXXXXXX

The day after Bret put Doc to bed, he went to the livery and got a horse. He left early, soon after dawn, and rode the trail to the Superstition Mountains. The road was still there, even though a lot of it was obscured by rocks and boulders that hadn't been there earlier in the week. Bret rode for what seemed like hours before finally finding the area Doc described, then got down and walked his horse over the rest of the ground. With minimal effort he located the tree that had felled the gunslinger, then traced the path to the spot where Bart's horse had gone down and been buried. He spent almost an hour, searching every square inch of the area, and he was rewarded. Hidden under tree branches and a whole layer of dead leaves and loose rocks was a black leather-bound book that Bret recognized – Momma's Bible.

Bart carried it with him everywhere. It was the one thing Bret rescued when the Double C Ranch house burned to the ground, and was second only to the cuff links Bart received when Momma died in importance. As Bret wiped the dirt from the cover he remembered the reading lessons with Momma and the book, and how important it was to both the boys. He felt all the air go out of him and he dropped to the ground, overwhelmed by what he might have lost. In just a minute he gripped the Bible harder and forced himself to get back up on his feet. "Hold on, Bart. I'm comin' for ya."

He dug through the pile that remained, and several more around it, but found nothing else. The ground was disturbed and torn up, and it looked like something large had rolled down the hill. A body, perhaps? Bret kept walking, following the downward path of whatever marked the trail.

He moved hundreds of yards south, searching the ground for the continuing 'drag' marks. The trail ended at a gully, where something large had been deposited and then moved. The earth was disturbed and there were multiple boot prints in the dirt. If the tracks down the mountain and out of the gully were human tracks, then odds were they were made by his brother. It seemed logical; if his horse stumbled and fell, or was knocked down, Bart could have easily rolled or been drug down the hill with the moving mountainside. It would also explain why none of the search party found him; under normal circumstances this was much too far for an injured man to travel.

But Bart wasn't here. And it looked as if the person that had been here was removed from the area alive – if they'd been dead the body would have probably been buried right there. There was no evidence of that.

If it was Bart, he could be anywhere, and in any condition. Or he could have died after being taken off the mountain. But somehow Bret didn't believe that to be the case. Just as strong as it had been before, the feeling that his brother was out there somewhere persisted. Now the hard work began.