Wilde West Part 41

Holliday nodded. "And then some."

Holliday stood. He indicated Elizabeth McCourt Doe with a single inclination of his head. "Let's get her back."

And so Holliday had untied her hands as Oscar held her, and then the two of them had walked her, each supporting her by an arm, to the carriage. Oscar had driven it back toward Leadville, with her sitting against him in the seat, her head at his shoulder. Holliday had followed on horseback. Along the way, they had met a party of policemen coming from the town. Holliday had sent Oscar on, had remained behind to deal with them.

And now Grigsby said, "He came to my office, von Hesse, and gave me a story about some corporal in the army. Diggin' up graves without knowin' he was doin' it. Fella's mind was all jumbled up, von Hesse said. What I wonder is, you reckon he knew what he was doing? Von Hesse? Or was he crazy in the way he was talkin' about? Killin' em all without knowing he was doin' it?"

Oscar had wondered this himself. "The latter, I believe. I believe that the von Hesse we knew was truly a good man, a religious man. At some level, deep within his consciousness, he must have been under a terrible stress. Suffering terrible guilt. Perhaps this was why he felt it was so important to tell us about the young corporal."

Grigsby frowned. "Maybe. Reckon we'll never know. There's one other other thing I'm still not real clear on."

"Yes?"

"Why would a note from you send Mrs. Doe way out to the Ice Palace at night?"

"Mrs. Doe writes poetry. She had asked me if I might read some of it and give her my opinion. When she received the note, she a.s.sumed that I wished for her to bring me her verses." This was the story that Elizabeth had insisted he tell, a tale which Oscar found utterly absurd.

Grigsby apparently agreed. "To the Ice Palace? At ten o'clock at night?"

"She has, evidently, something of a romantic bent."

"Uh-huh." Dubious. "And von Hesse knew about the poetry?"

"He knew that Mrs. Doe and I had become friendly. If he hadn't seen us talking last night, in Manitou Springs, then he would've learned from O'Conner, on the train today. He mentioned the woman."

Grigsby nodded. He studied Oscar for a moment. "Good thing there won't be a trial. I wouldn't want to hear you use that story on a jury."

"It's quite true, I a.s.sure you."

Grigsby was studying Oscar again, speculatively. At last, having apparently made up his mind about something, he shook his head. Firmly, definitively. "Don't matter now. It's all over. So what're your plans?"

"Tomorrow we leave for Kansas City."

"All of you?"

"Except for Countess de la Mole. She told me that she wishes to stay here for several days, and then join with us later."

Grigsby nodded. "Well. If I don't see ya tomorrow, you have yourself a good trip."

"Thank you," said Oscar.

Grigsby stood up. "Time for me to mosey on."

"Where you off to, Bob?" Holliday asked him.

"The hotel. Maybe get some rest." He turned to Oscar. "You take care now, hear?"

"Thank you, yes. You, too, Marshal."

Grigsby smiled faintly again. "Just Bob'll do."

Oscar watched him walk slowly away. Even after the man himself had disappeared among the crowd, the big white hat bobbed for a time over the heads of the women, the miners, the cowboys, the shopkeepers.

Oscar turned to Holliday. "He seems ... depressed." He would never have thought it possible that Grigsby, a monolith, might become depressed.

"He is," said Holliday. "Like he said, he let himself down." He poured more whiskey into Oscar's gla.s.s. "What about you, Poet?"

"How do you mean?"

"How're you feeling?"

"Exhausted. I'm glad, I suppose, that it's over, that we can all get on with our lives." All of them, of course, but von Hesse. "But, as I said, I wish it could have ended some other way."

"Just stick with being glad that it's over."

Oscar nodded. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his watch. One-thirty in the morning.

And then, abruptly, as he stared at the watch, a thought came to him. He looked at Holliday. "You knew that Darryl had my watch."

His eyebrows raised ever so slightly, Holliday looked at him.

"This morning," Oscar said. "Yesterday morning. When you appeared, there in the clearing. As we were leaving, Mrs. Doe and I, you told Darryl to return my watch to me. You could have known that he had it only if you'd been there, watching, all along."

Holliday smiled that ghost of a smile. "Makes sense."

"You were there? The entire time?"

Holliday nodded.

"Why didn't you ... intercede before?"

A faint shrug. "You seemed to be doing all right on your own." A faint smile. "I figured maybe you'd talk him to death."

"But he could've killed us."

Holliday shook his head. "Not fast enough."

"And how did you get here so quickly tonight? When we saw you last, you and Darryl were-"

"Didn't take long to bury him. Darryl did most of the work. I caught the same train you did."

"Darryl is all right? He's still alive?"

Another faint smile. "As much as he ever was."

Oscar sipped at his whiskey. "Tell me something, Doctor."

"The name's John."

"John. Yes. Tell me. Marshal Grigsby-you know, I'll never be able to think of him as anything but Marshal Grigsby-in any event, he told me that you'd been following the lecture tour in order to arrange poker games with the men who attended. Is that true?"

Holliday smiled. "Partly," he said.

"Partly?"

Holliday finished the whiskey in his gla.s.s, refilled it from the bottle. "The games were the icing on the cake."

"What, then, was the cake?"

Holliday's black empty eyes looked levelly into Oscar's. "You were."

Oscar frowned. "I was? I don't know what you mean."

Below the handlebar mustache, the quick ghost of a smile flickered once. "Sure you do, Poet."

And suddenly Oscar did. And suddenly, astonis.h.i.+ngly, so did. Freddy Phallus, who stirred slightly, like a child beneath the blankets about to awaken from a long slumber.

"Ah," Oscar said. "Ah. Well. I see."

Holliday's stare hadn't wavered.

"Well," said Oscar. "Yes. Well. Doctor. John. If I understand you aright-"

Holliday nodded. "You do."

"Yes. Well, then of course, yes, I'm very flattered. Very flattered. Of course. But you see, I'm not, well, I don't ... As it happens, you see, I'm very much attached to a particular person. A young woman, actually."

Holliday nodded. "Mrs. Doe."

"Well, let us simply say a young woman. And you know, well, it's my loss, probably, but I've never actively engaged in ... the other."

Another flicker of a smile. "So far."

"Indeed. So far, yes, exactly. Who knows what the future may bring, eh?"

Holliday nodded. He lifted his gla.s.s, drank it down in a single swallow, set the gla.s.s back on the table. He smiled once again. "Well," he said, "when you change your mind, you let me know."

"Absolutely," said Oscar. "The very instant."

"Like I said," Holliday said, "when I find something I like, I stick with it."

He stood, looked down at Oscar, nodded. "Be seeing you, Poet."

As he walked away, a dark, slim, lithe figure moving with the grace of a toreador, the crowd parted to let him pa.s.s-out of respect, or awe, or simply out of fear.

What an extraordinary man.

What an extraordinary few days these had been.

Had it truly been only five days since he had met Elizabeth McCourt Doe in Denver?

Between then and now, he had fallen in love. He had been battered about inside a madly driven carriage, been given opium to smoke, been bored by drunken old men, been hurled into sawdust and then stalked for days by a bearlike buffalo hunter. He had watched the bearlike buffalo hunter die. He had suffered a broken heart. He had been at the receiving end of two revolvers, and at the discharging end of one. He had been propositioned by a legendary gunman. He had learned that a man he had liked and respected was a killer, and he had seen him open his own throat with one savage swipe of a knife.

Perhaps it was the sheer number of events, or perhaps it was the velocity with which they had arrived. Or perhaps it was his horror at von Hesse's death. Whatever the reason, Oscar was too worn and weary now to worry about his betrayal by Elizabeth McCourt Doe. She was a beautiful woman, and very probably, at some time in the future, he would mourn the death of his love, and of his hopes.

Farewell my love, and remember me ...

Just now, Oscar wanted, he needed, a respite.

Grigsby was right. The best thing to do was put it all behind him. Everything. Elizabeth McCourt Doe. Biff. Von Hesse.

And what of the brooch that still lay in his pocket, the brooch he had purchased for Elizabeth McCourt Doe?

Give it to Mother.

Put the rest behind.

Think of it as a book. One chapter closes and another begins. Tomorrow, and in the tomorrows which followed, there would be new cities, new adventures, new people. Perhaps new women.

No. No new women for a while, if you please.

Perhaps he should take up Dr. Holliday's offer.

Extraordinary man. He ought to meet Wilbur.

"Sure you do, Poet."

Fancy that.

Enough. This chapter is over.

It was, as Grigsby said, time to mosey on.

EPILOGUE.

From the Grigsby Archives.

November 7, 1890.

MY DEAR GRIGSBY,.

It was with great surprise and greater pleasure that I learned, in a letter sent by Mr. Jack Vail, that he had seen you recently in San Francisco, at a lecture given by Vail's current charge, someone called Lysander Richards (which must be, surely, a nom de route?). According to Vail, you were accompanied by a lovely wife and two lovely, nearly grown children, all of whom you successfully concealed from us when we met you eight years ago in Denver.