o’ laughs!’
‘Tain’t no laughin’ matter,’ denied Charlie, ‘on account this altogether different Doctor, Holliday by name, the real one, he’s jest been in my bar... an’ if I’m drunk, as you so kindly imply, then your friend Seth Harper’s still alive...
which ain’t so! Holliday shot him clean as a dude’s trousers. Fastest thing I ever saw – which is pretty fast, considerin’ what goes on in my place, since you boys hit town! So, I jest thought I’d best stop you gettin’ up against the law, all over nothin’...’
‘Thanks!’ said Ike, grimly. ‘We’re surely obliged...’
And Charlie blew – secure in the satisfaction of a job well done...
‘So,’ said Billy, ‘you knew all along the old guy weren’t Holliday, did you, Earp? That’s clear contrary to the natural, clear course of dad-blasted justice, ain’t it now?’
‘Try sayin’ Marshal, and rememberin’ it, too! I don’t have to answer to you, Billy. I’ll justify my actions to the Citizens’ Committee, if I have to. Now, walk away, while you still got the equipment!’
‘I ain’t takin’ no orders from no sanctimonious...’
‘Leave it, Billy,’ counselled his brother. ‘Cussin’ ain’t called for. Marshal’s jest about all through givin’ orders!
By the time Pa gits through with him, he’ll lose his badge so fast, it’ll... it’ll...’
But Phineas was in no condition to help him find le mot juste . So, mumbling mechanically, the boys backed up and off, towards where the sunset would have been if it hadn’t been over.
Where the sunset used to be was now the Clanton Ranch; and the difference was immediately apparent. For one thing, whereas the sunset had been a golden testament of glory, and poets had said so, the ranch fell somewhat short of this high standard in several respects, and everybody said so. ‘Squalid’ was the word they generally used. Pa Clanton claimed he kept it that way in memory of his wife, God rest her tongue, whose early death had followed hard upon her premature burial, back in ‘75.
You could still see her temporary grave near the blocked over-flow from the hog-pound, if you weren’t careful; and along about now of an evening, it was the old man’s habit to wander gladly down there, and get in some spitting practice – a thing he hadn’t hardly got enough of when she was alive.
It was at these times of solitude he would remember his early pioneering days, when he had trecked West to carve out a false name for himself, far from her father’s shotgun; and also with what soulless devotion she and the Pinkertons’ men had finally tracked him down to this blessed corner of nowhere.
But now he was alone in the world; apart, that is to say, from his four fine boys – no, three now, he chuckled to remember – who seemed to be doing their damndedest to remind him of her. Still, they were all he’d got, Heaven help him; so, tossing a bunch of poison-ivy onto the hallowed mound, he strode – briskly, for a man with his unpleasant diseases – back to the chill intimacy of his old colonial kitchen – so called, because the termites were into it in a big way – to see if they were home yet.
Rightly speaking, he considered, there should have been big doin’s in town this day; and, by now, Holliday should be gracing a trestle-table in the cold-store at Jackson’s Hardware – so often pressed into service as ante-room to the infernal hot-spot.
And with the demon dentist thus occupied, why, the way would be clear for an undisturbed final confrontation with the more properly constituted authorities; for Earp and Masterson, he judged, were now all that stood between him and the mayoral parlour, with its bright vistas of graft and civic corruption, plus a complimentary pass to Ma Golightly’s.
So he was a mite discountenanced to find no-one in residence bar his yellow hound dog, which was gnawing a disused buffalo skull on the groaning table. Absent-mindedly, he removed
‘Tain’t no laughin’ matter,’ denied Charlie, ‘on account this altogether different Doctor, Holliday by name, the real one, he’s jest been in my bar... an’ if I’m drunk, as you so kindly imply, then your friend Seth Harper’s still alive...
which ain’t so! Holliday shot him clean as a dude’s trousers. Fastest thing I ever saw – which is pretty fast, considerin’ what goes on in my place, since you boys hit town! So, I jest thought I’d best stop you gettin’ up against the law, all over nothin’...’
‘Thanks!’ said Ike, grimly. ‘We’re surely obliged...’
And Charlie blew – secure in the satisfaction of a job well done...
‘So,’ said Billy, ‘you knew all along the old guy weren’t Holliday, did you, Earp? That’s clear contrary to the natural, clear course of dad-blasted justice, ain’t it now?’
‘Try sayin’ Marshal, and rememberin’ it, too! I don’t have to answer to you, Billy. I’ll justify my actions to the Citizens’ Committee, if I have to. Now, walk away, while you still got the equipment!’
‘I ain’t takin’ no orders from no sanctimonious...’
‘Leave it, Billy,’ counselled his brother. ‘Cussin’ ain’t called for. Marshal’s jest about all through givin’ orders!
By the time Pa gits through with him, he’ll lose his badge so fast, it’ll... it’ll...’
But Phineas was in no condition to help him find le mot juste . So, mumbling mechanically, the boys backed up and off, towards where the sunset would have been if it hadn’t been over.
Where the sunset used to be was now the Clanton Ranch; and the difference was immediately apparent. For one thing, whereas the sunset had been a golden testament of glory, and poets had said so, the ranch fell somewhat short of this high standard in several respects, and everybody said so. ‘Squalid’ was the word they generally used. Pa Clanton claimed he kept it that way in memory of his wife, God rest her tongue, whose early death had followed hard upon her premature burial, back in ‘75.
You could still see her temporary grave near the blocked over-flow from the hog-pound, if you weren’t careful; and along about now of an evening, it was the old man’s habit to wander gladly down there, and get in some spitting practice – a thing he hadn’t hardly got enough of when she was alive.
It was at these times of solitude he would remember his early pioneering days, when he had trecked West to carve out a false name for himself, far from her father’s shotgun; and also with what soulless devotion she and the Pinkertons’ men had finally tracked him down to this blessed corner of nowhere.
But now he was alone in the world; apart, that is to say, from his four fine boys – no, three now, he chuckled to remember – who seemed to be doing their damndedest to remind him of her. Still, they were all he’d got, Heaven help him; so, tossing a bunch of poison-ivy onto the hallowed mound, he strode – briskly, for a man with his unpleasant diseases – back to the chill intimacy of his old colonial kitchen – so called, because the termites were into it in a big way – to see if they were home yet.
Rightly speaking, he considered, there should have been big doin’s in town this day; and, by now, Holliday should be gracing a trestle-table in the cold-store at Jackson’s Hardware – so often pressed into service as ante-room to the infernal hot-spot.
And with the demon dentist thus occupied, why, the way would be clear for an undisturbed final confrontation with the more properly constituted authorities; for Earp and Masterson, he judged, were now all that stood between him and the mayoral parlour, with its bright vistas of graft and civic corruption, plus a complimentary pass to Ma Golightly’s.
So he was a mite discountenanced to find no-one in residence bar his yellow hound dog, which was gnawing a disused buffalo skull on the groaning table. Absent-mindedly, he removed
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