The Doctor And The Rough Rider Part 28

Roosevelt smiled, shook his head, and pointed to his ears. "I can't hear you."

"What is wrong with you?" asked Geronimo.

Roosevelt shrugged and pointed to his ears. "I'm sorry. I can't hear you. Edison closed my ears."

And then it seemed to Roosevelt that he could feel Geronimo's voice inside his head.

"I understand," said the medicine man. "This has to do with the weapon."

"Yes," said Roosevelt.

"You think to find War Bonnet out here, in the desert?"

"I hope to," replied Roosevelt. "I can't go around deaf for weeks waiting for him to show up, and I can't lug these weapons everywhere. I don't even know how long the battery holds a charge."

"The battery?"

"Don't worry about it. It powers the weapons." Roosevelt wiped some sweat from his brow. "I was hoping to draw War Bonnet out, that if he thought he'd find the two of us together he might attack-or if he thought I'd learned something from Edison or anyone else that might prove detrimental to him, he might want to attack me before I could contact you." He paused. "At any rate, my idea was to get him to attack while I'm ready for him."

Geronimo closed his eyes for a moment and frowned, as if concentrating on something. Finally he opened them. "You are about to get your wish, White Eyes."

"Get away from here as fast and as far as you can!" said Roosevelt. "Even you are not safe from these weapons."

Suddenly Roosevelt was speaking to empty air. He decided there was no sense getting back onto his horse, that the weapons were hard enough to handle when he was on solid ground. Besides, there was no question that the light would blind and probably panic the horse, and the sound would kill it, and he didn't need to have a horse bucking in terror or falling over dead on him while he was training his large, awkward weapons on War Bonnet.

He slipped into the harness Edison had made that held the heavy battery onto his back, lay the weapon he'd dubbed "the deafener" gently on the ground, and held the one he called "the blinder" across his chest after making sure it was connected to the battery.

He stood motionless for a long moment in the blazing sun, wondering if Geronimo had finally been wrong about something. But then a huge shadow fell across the ground just ahead of him, and he found himself facing War Bonnet, who seemed to have gotten even taller and more ma.s.sive since their last encounter.

"I have come for you, Roosevelt!" thundered the creature. "And this time there are none to protect you."

Roosevelt tried to lip read, but it was futile; the monster had no discernible lips. So he simply pointed the blinder at War Bonnet and prepared to fire.

At the last second he realized he hadn't flipped down his special lenses. He reached up, lowered them in front of his gla.s.ses, hoped War Bonnet was either standing still or approaching in a straight line, because he couldn't see a thing, and then he pulled the trigger.

Roosevelt couldn't hear it, but War Bonnet's scream of surprise and anger could be heard within a radius of five miles-and suddenly he could see, plain as day, through the almost-opaque black lenses. He depressed the trigger for another four seconds, then laid the weapon on the ground, removed the clip-ons, and saw the creature staggering blindly around, some thirty feet away.

Roosevelt knelt down, picked up the deafener, attached it to the battery cord, and pressed the firing mechanism. War Bonnet screamed, though Roosevelt couldn't hear him, took a blind step toward his enemy, then clasped his hands to his ears and screamed again. Roosevelt kept the mechanism depressed, War Bonnet kept screaming and clasping his ears, and then, about ten seconds later, he literally exploded in a thousand pieces.

Roosevelt lay the deafener down next to the blinder and walked around the area, making sure there was nothing alive and moving where War Bonnet had been. Satisfied that the creature was totally gone, he turned to load the weapons onto his gelding, only to realize that of course the sound had killed the horse, too.

"d.a.m.n!" he muttered. "It's going to be a long walk."

"You have done a service to your country and saved both our lives. You will not have to walk alone."

And suddenly Geronimo was beside him, picking up the smaller of the two weapons. Roosevelt, the battery still on his back, retrieved the blinder, and the two men walked back to town, ignoring the burning rays of the desert sun as best they could.

As they came within sight of Tombstone, Geronimo came to a stop.

"Is something wrong?" asked Roosevelt.

"I will see you one more time before you return home. And again, many years from now."

Before Roosevelt could ask what he had meant, Geronimo, the chief medicine man of the Apache nation, had vanished.

HOLLIDAY DRAGGED HIMSELF OUT OF BED, turned a handkerchief red with the blood he coughed up, walked painfully to the sink in the corner and splashed some water on his face, then stared blearily into the mirror on the wall.

"You look worse than usual," he managed to croak, and was sure his image agreed.

He was getting ready to put on his clothes when he realized that he hadn't taken them off the night before. He seemed to remember getting back to his room just about the time the sun was rising, and he thought he'd won something like three thousand dollars, but he wasn't sure of anything. Everything would become clear after his first drink of the day, as usual.

He retied his tie, felt for his Derringer, realized it wasn't in his pocket, looked around, and saw that he'd left it on the nightstand. Just as well. The safety catch was off, and he might have blown a hole in his chest if he had rolled the wrong way.

"It's so easy to go to bed," he muttered. "Why is it so G.o.dd.a.m.ned hard to get out of it?"

He found his holster on the floor where he'd let it drop, put it back on, checked to make sure his gun was loaded, then looked around for his hat. It lay against a wall, and he figured he'd aimed at the chair and missed. He picked it up, dusted it off, and donned it, then decided that the rest of him needed dusting as well.

Finally he was ready to face the world, and he opened the door, walked out into the corridor, followed it to the top of the stairs, and climbed down to the main floor, where he saw Masterson at the front desk.

"Good morning, Doc," said Masterson.

"Well, it's morning, anyway," replied Holliday. "I see you've got your carpet bag. Where are you off to?"

"Home."

Holliday frowned. "Home?"

"Haven't you heard the news?" said Masterson. He studied Holliday's face for a moment. "No, of course you haven't. You've been asleep all day."

"What news?"

"Theodore killed War Bonnet," said Masterson.

"How?"

"You'll have to ask him. He's telling his Rough Riders all about it over at the Oriental."

"So why aren't you there?" asked Holliday.

"This life isn't for me, Doc, not anymore," replied Masterson. "I brought Theodore out here, and I stuck around until he met Geronimo and killed War Bonnet, but I belong back in New York, writing about a horse race or a baseball game. I served my decade out here fighting bad guys. It cost me a brother and ten years of any reasonable income. Now I'm a writer and enjoying the h.e.l.l out of it."

"I'm sure you'll be writing about your pal Theodore one of these days," said Holliday. "That young man has a h.e.l.l of a future ahead of him." He paused. "He really killed War Bonnet?"

"He really did."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," said Holliday. "I do believe you woke me up."

Masterson chuckled. "Anyway, he doesn't need me to guide him back. Anyone who can do what he's done can find the Badlands or New York City on his own when he's ready to go back home."

"True enough," agreed Holliday. He extended his hand. "Take care, Bat."

"You too, Doc," said Masterson. "Theodore killed his monster. I hear that yours is still making his way here."

"He's just a man."

"And John L. Sullivan is just a guy with a temper. Don't give him any kind of edge, Doc."

"You can bank on that," said Holliday.

Then Holliday was out the door and walking over to the Oriental. When he got there he saw Manitou tied to hitching post out front, with Edison's weapons hanging from his saddle.

He entered the saloon and walked over to his usual table.

"Breakfast!" he grated.

"In a gla.s.s or a bottle?" asked the bartender.

"Yes."

"d.a.m.n it, Doc..."

"A bottle."

The bartender brought a bottle over, Holliday took a swallow, and as he did so Roosevelt, who had been conversing with Hairlip Smith, Luke Sloan, and Morty Mickelson got up and walked over to Holliday's table.

"Good morning, Doc."

"If you say so."

"Well, it was," chuckled Roosevelt. "Actually, it's about five in the afternoon." He stared at Holliday. "You look like death warmed over."

"That good, huh?" said Holliday.

"Have you heard that I killed War Bonnet?"

"Yeah, Bat told me. But I still don't know how the h.e.l.l you did it. I shot that b.a.s.t.a.r.d from point-blank range and never made a dent in him."

"Tom and Ned crafted a pair of weapons that did the trick."

"I saw them hanging on your saddle."

"No one's going to take them. I've got the Rough Riders keeping watch on them through the window."

"So when are you going back East?" asked Holliday, taking another long swallow and starting to feel more human.

"Very soon," said Roosevelt. "I have to say good-bye to Tom and Ned first." He flashed Holliday a guilty smile. "I haven't even been to their houses since the battle. I've been too intent on telling my Rough Riders all the details of what happened. After all, Tom and Ned made the weapons, but it was the Rough Riders who faced War Bonnet and kept him from killing me."

"Buy 'em all a drink," suggested Holliday.

"I bought a bottle for each of them," said Roosevelt, flas.h.i.+ng the grin that Holliday was getting used to. "Anyway, in answer to your question, I'll be going East tomorrow or the next day, but I haven't decided how far east."

"If your hat floats, you've gone too far," said Holliday.

"Very funny," replied Roosevelt. "Anyway, I don't know if I'm going to stop at Elkhorn-that's my ranch near Medora-or go all the way back to New York." He sighed deeply. "Nothing's going to bring my Alice back to me, and there's so much that needs doing. I can't hide from the world in the Badlands all my life."

Holliday smiled. "I have a feeling that the world has a way of finding men like you wherever you hide."

"There are important things to be done," agreed Roosevelt. "Things that can't be done from Medora. Would you think I was crazy if I told you that someday I plan to open a channel through Panama, so our s.h.i.+ps don't have to sail all the way around the tip of South America to get from one ocean to another?"

"If you plan to do the shoveling yourself, I'd say you were crazy," answered Holliday. "Otherwise, I'd say that's a d.a.m.ned useful project."

"And I have so many more, so many that we truly need."

"Can I offer a word of advice, Theodore?"

"Certainly."

"Forget the Badlands and New York. Go right to Was.h.i.+ngton, DC."

Roosevelt uttered a hearty laugh. "The thought has crossed my mind."

"Hang on to it," said Holliday. "The country needs someone like you running things, especially if it's going to more than double its area."

"I appreciate the thought, and I'll admit it has crossed my mind as well, but I've got things to do first."

"And I've got one thing to do last," said Holliday grimly.

"Hardin? Is there any word on when you can expect him?"

Holliday shook his head. "He could have been here two or three days ago if he'd just take some time off from all his killing."

"What makes someone kill like that?" asked Roosevelt.

"Seriously?" asked Holliday.

"Seriously."

"The fact that he can."

"That's a h.e.l.l of an answer, Doc," said Roosevelt disapprovingly.

"It's an answer based on all the killers I've known, Theodore," replied Holliday. "If you can't, you don't even get started. But if you can, and there's no one who can stop you, then you either kill when you have to, like me, or when you want to, like Hardin."

"Do you remember the first man you ever killed?"

"I remember all of them, Theodore," said Holliday. "That's not to say that they haunt me; they don't. Every last one of them is better off dead. But when a man puts his own life on the line to kill you, even if he's just some empty-headed punk kid out to make a reputation, you remember him. Sometimes you forget the details, and often you forget the reasons, since almost as often there weren't any real reasons, but you remember the faces, and usually the names." Suddenly he smiled. "Do you remember who you beat in your New York elections?"

"Of course."