Doctor and the Kid, The (A Weird West Tale) (Weird West Tales) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Holliday.
    “Big deal.”
    “A man like me hasn't got many friends, so I cherish the ones I have.”
    “Have you ever noticed that you're always helping him, that it's never the other way around?”
    “That's enough, Kate,” he said, and something in his tone convinced her to stop talking and concentrate on eating her eggs.
    They ate in silence, they walked to Kate's bedroom in silence, and Holliday collapsed on the bed and spent the next eleven hours sleeping in silence.

 
    H
     
OLLIDAY HATED TRAVELING on the horseless Bunt Line at night. He knew that Edison had installed what he called spotlights on the front of the coach, but seeing a hole or perhaps a buffalo corpse in the trail didn't mean avoiding it. Horses would find a way, but with no horses the coach's safety depended on the driver, and Holliday had very little confidence in his fellow man.
    The one thing he knew was that the brass coach was safe from attack. He'd been attacked twice by Apaches, and their bullets and arrows simply bounced off the exterior of the coach. In the old days, which, he reflected wryly, meant two years ago, attacking Indians would simply kill the horses that were pulling the stagecoach and that would be that. But the Bunt Line was powered by an electrical engine and battery that Edison had designed and Buntline had built, and while he expected to break an axle—and his neck—on the hazardous road, he knew he was safe from attack.
    Soon it was completely dark, and he lit the little battery-powered lamp next to his seat and continued reading the dime novel he'd picked up on his way to meet the coach. It was a rootin' tootin' shoot-‘em-up about, of all people, himself. In this ridiculous story he faced a gang of twenty-two and killed them all, which was a pretty good trick with a pair of six-guns. Then he saw the illustration, and realized he was firing Buntline's Gatling pistols that carried about two dozen bullets apiece. He'd actually tried one out back in Tombstone, and realized that in his condition he was too weak to hold the weapon up and aim it. Evidently no one had told the illustrator, who'd put an extra fifty pounds of muscle on him and had him looking like a normal human being.
    There was a Where Is He Now? feature on John Wesley Hardin. Easy answer: He was in jail, studying for a law degree. But the magazine had him hiding out in Mexico, killing any stranger who approached his hacienda.
    Next there was a Great Jail Breaks section. This issue featured the daring escape from the Lincoln County Jail by Henry McCarty, who was fast becoming known as Billy the Kid. He'd killed two deputies and made his getaway in broad daylight. Holliday wished they'd run a photo of him, rather than a drawing of him shooting the deputies by an artist who had clearly never been west of the Mississippi and had no idea of how people dressed or even what kind of gear the horses carried. The Kid was making quite a name for himself; he'd have liked to see what he really looked like.
    Finally there was an annoying article on The Fastest Guns , as if that meant anything. The six fastest guns Holliday had ever seen all died young, beaten by accurate guns.
    When he was done he put the publication on the seat beside him, lay a small suitcase on his lap, and started playing solitaire. Before long he was so engrossed in it that he barely noticed that the coach was slowing down.
    “Denver in ten minutes!” announced the driver from his protected cab atop the coach.
    “Thanks,” said Holliday, gathering up his cards and putting them in a pocket. “You'd think more people would want to come here from Leadville.”
    “Miss Anthony and Mr. Wilde are both speaking today,” answered the driver. “They tell me we're full tomorrow.” He paused. “You got a place to stay, Doc?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Try the Nugget,” said the driver. “That's where I always stay. Clean and cheap.”
    “Sounds good,” said Holliday.
    “Stick around five minutes after