The Doctor And The Rough Rider Part 18

Holliday looked up at the swinging doors. "Here's one. Care to meet him?"

"Of course!"

Holliday signaled to the short, burly man who had just entered. He turned and began approaching the table, and Roosevelt saw there was something wrong with his upper lip.

"Charlie, I want you to meet a friend of mine, Theodore Roosevelt," said Holliday without getting up. "Theodore, say h.e.l.lo to Hairlip Charlie Smith."

Smith offered his hand to Roosevelt, who rose to his feet. "It ain't a real hairlip," he explained. "I got shot in the lip in a gunfight back in Abilene ten, twelve years ago."

"Have a seat, Charlie," said Roosevelt. "Doc's been telling me about you."

"Nothing good, I imagine," said Smith with a smile. "Doc's just p.i.s.sed because that teenaged chippie went off with me instead of him last time he lived here." He turned to Doc. "We both know Kate would have killed you if you'd taken her home with you."

"There are a lot of rooms in town," replied Holliday easily. "And hard as it may be for you to believe, I was saying favorable things about you."

Smith chuckled. "Maybe so, but I ain't loaning you no money."

"Mr. Smith..." began Roosevelt.

"Charlie," Smith corrected him. "Or Hairlip, if you want."

"Charlie, I am about to embark on an exciting enterprise, and I'd like your help. Doc's told me about your heroism during Wyatt Earp's Vendetta Ride. I have something similar on tap."

"What's the job pay?" asked Smith.

"Not a single penny," said Roosevelt. "What we're going to do, we're doing because it's the right thing."

"I dunno," said Smith. "Whenever someone talks about doing the right thing, some other folks usually wind up getting themselves shot all to pieces."

"What if I told you that Geronimo has decided to lift the spell that's kept the United States bottled up east of the Mississippi?"

Smith frowned. "You want to kill him for that? I thought that's what everyone back East wanted."

"I want it too," said Roosevelt. "We all do." He paused. "Well, almost all of us. But there's a group of medicine men who don't want Geronimo to make peace with us, who are determined to kill him."

"And you're after them?" asked Smith.

"That I am," Roosevelt a.s.sured him.

"So it's whoever you can put together riding off to kill some medicine men?"

"Almost," said Roosevelt.

"Almost kill them?"

"That's almost all we're riding off to kill."

Roosevelt spent the next few minutes explaining about War Bonnet, having Holliday describe him and their meeting, and suggesting that if he and his Rough Riders didn't go hunting for War Bonnet and the medicine men, that War Bonnet would probably tear Tombstone apart looking for him.

"So that's the situation," said Roosevelt in conclusion. "Are you man enough to come with us?"

"Of course," said Smith. "So will d.a.m.ned near every other man you ask."

"They grow them brave out here," said Roosevelt.

"Brave's got nothing to do with it," said Smith with a smile. "Doc's already explained that War Bonnet can't hurt n.o.body but you and Geronimo, so the rest of us are safe."

"Then you'll come?"

"h.e.l.l, yes! Once in my life I ought to do something because it's the right thing."

"I'm glad to have you on our team!" said Roosevelt, reaching out and shaking his hand again.

"Hard to resist," replied Smith. "I don't know what the h.e.l.l a Rough Rider is, but I sure like the notion of calling myself one."

HOLLIDAY, LUKE SLOAN, AND HAIRLIP SMITH spent the day pa.s.sing the word-as Roosevelt explained, they probably didn't have much more than a day to select and a.s.semble the Rough Riders-and they began showing up at the designated spot, which was Baltimore Jack Miller's abandoned ranch a mile north of town.

The first to make an appearance was Jack "Turkey Creek" Johnson, a burly man with pale-blue eyes, a nose that had clearly been broken a few times, a thick but well-trimmed beard, a colorful s.h.i.+rt, and stovepipe chaps over his jeans.

He rode up to the decrepit ranch house with its broken windows and missing door, tied his horse to a very shaky railing, and walked up to Holliday.

"Howdy, Doc," he said. "I hear tell you're looking for men."

"Not me," said Holliday. He pointed to Roosevelt, who stood on the porch. "Him."

Johnson walked over and extended his hand. "Turkey Creek Johnson at your service," he said. "Any friend of Wyatt's is a friend of mine."

"I appreciate that," said Roosevelt. "But it's a bit removed from the source. I'm a friend of Doc's."

"And Doc's the best friend Wyatt ever had, and that's good enough for me," said Johnson.

"May I ask what precipitated this friends.h.i.+p for Wyatt?" said Roosevelt.

Johnson merely frowned in puzzlement until Holliday spoke up. "He means, what caused it, Turkey?"

"Johnny Behan locked my brother away on a trumped-up charge, and Wyatt got him out." Suddenly Johnson smiled. "I was on the Vendetta Ride with him and Doc."

"So I a.s.sume you know how to use that?" said Roosevelt, pointing at his six-gun.

"You just tell me who you want shot, and if it ain't Doc, the deed is as good as done," replied Johnson.

"Doc?" asked Roosevelt.

"He's as good as he says," replied Holliday. "With a pistol, anyway. It gets a little stranger with a rifle."

"That's 'cause I lost my specs a couple of years ago, and we ain't got no lens grinders out here since the Apaches killed old Hermanson as he was taking his wagon from one town to another," said Johnson. "But trust me: I can hit anything I can see."

"How far do you have to be before you can't see it?"

"I don't know," admitted Johnson. "A ways."

"Let's find out," said Roosevelt. "Luke, take that bucket"-he indicated an old bucket at the corner of the porch-"and set it out a couple hundred feet away."

Luke Sloan lifted the bucket and began walking.

"You sure you want me to do this?" asked Johnson. "I mean, if I put a hole in it, you can't use it no more."

"We're not using it now," Roosevelt a.s.sured him.

Johnson shrugged. "You're the boss." He paused. "By the way, I didn't catch your name."

"I didn't throw it," said Roosevelt with a smile. "But it's Theodore Roosevelt."

"Okay, Teddy-glad to be working with you."

"You'll be gladder if you call me Theodore."

"Whatever you say."

"That's far enough, Luke!" called Roosevelt. "Set it down."

Sloan put the bucket on the ground. "Don't shoot yet!" he hollered, trotting back.

"Is something wrong?" asked Roosevelt.

"Everyone knows Turkey Creek is blind as a bat," said Sloan. "I don't want to be standing anywhere near what he thinks he's aiming at."

"I don't suppose you'd like to hit leather right now?" said Johnson angrily as Sloan reached the porch.

"h.e.l.l, even a bat can see from ten or twelve feet away," said Sloan.

"To h.e.l.l with Sloan," said Holliday. "Just kill the bucket."

Johnson pulled his pistol, held it in front of him with both hands, took aim, and pulled the trigger. The bullet plowed into the dirt about three inches in front of the bucket."

"You missed," said Hairlip Charlie Smith.

"The h.e.l.l I did," said Johnson. He turned to Roosevelt. "The bucket's a man, right?"

Roosevelt nodded. "That's right."

"Anyone can shoot him in the head or the chest," said Johnson. "I just shot him in the b.a.l.l.s!"

Everyone laughed at that, even Roosevelt.

"So am I on your team?"

Roosevelt shook his hand. "Turkey Creek Johnson, welcome to the Rough Riders."

"Who are we going up against?" asked Johnson.

"Certain select medicine men."

"Geronimo? I been waiting for a chance to go hunting for that Apache b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"No," said Roosevelt. "He's on our side."

Johnson frowned. "If a bunch of white men are siding with a bunch of Apaches, who the h.e.l.l's the enemy-a bunch of Chinamen?"

"I'll explain it once we've a.s.sembled all the Rough Riders," answered Roosevelt. "No sense saying it half a dozen times."

"Wouldn't bother me none," said Johnson. "It's either that, or listening to Luke tell me how no woman has ever said no to him, or having Hairlip Charlie tell me how he caught a bullet in his lip without flinching, or maybe Doc give me odds on how many scorpions live between here and that bucket, and if I have to listen to a bunch of bulls.h.i.+t, at least I ain't heard yours yet."

"I'm almost flattered," said Roosevelt. "But I think we'll wait anyway."

"Just as well," said Holliday. "Here comes another."

"He doesn't look like a typical cowboy," remarked Roosevelt.

"A fair a.s.sumption," agreed Holliday.

The man riding toward them wore a top hat, smoked a pipe, and carried a bright-yellow umbrella to protect himself from the sun. He didn't wear a holster or a six-shooter, but Roosevelt could see tell-tale bulges in every one of his coat pockets.

"Good day, one and all," said the newcomer in a thick British accent. "Word has come to my ears that you're recruiting men of action."

"And are you one?" asked Roosevelt.

"My bona fides," said the man, pulling a rolled-up poster out of his otherwise-empty rifle sheath and handing it to Roosevelt.

"Stay three rounds with English Morton Mickelson and win fifty dollars!" read Roosevelt. "You're a boxer?"

"The best."

"Then if I may ask a question, what are you doing here?"

"My manager took my money and ran off with it," said Mickelson. He flashed a satisfied smile. "I found him. I didn't want to take a chance of breaking a finger on his jaw,"-he pulled out a pistol and twirled it around his finger, then replaced it-"so I put a bullet in his head and two more in his heart, always a.s.suming he had one. That was, let me see, eleven days ago. I thought it was a nice time to take a vacation-I'd been fighting in Wichita-so I thought I'd see the Arizona Territory before the Apaches drive everyone else out of it."

"Are you any good with that gun?" asked Roosevelt.

"Absolutely deadly, up to five or six feet, after which it becomes problematical."

"How about your fists?"

"I stand behind my offer. I'll pay fifty dollars to any man here who can last three rounds with me. Doc Holliday excepted, of course; he could knock me out just by breathing on me after he's got a morning's worth of booze in him."

Everyone laughed, even Holliday.

Suddenly Roosevelt took his gla.s.ses off, placed them in a jacket pocket, then removed his jacket and hung it over a chair. "Well," he said, "since you can't shoot, I suppose we'd better find out just how well you can defend yourself in close quarters." He unb.u.t.toned the cuffs on his sleeves and rolled them up.