Excerpt: The Shootist and the Playwright

On Dec. 20, Pyr releases the second of Mike Resnick’s Weird West dime-novel-style adventures, The Doctor and the Kid. In this installment, the irascible, consumptive Doc Holliday goes after Billy the Kid with Thomas Edison on hand to help him fight Indian magic. In the PW review, we call it “a rollicking Western with a steampunk tweak.” In the opening scene, below, Holliday meets a clever, up-and-coming young playwright named Oscar Wilde.

HOLLIDAY WAS CUTTING INTO HIS STEAK at the Sacred Cow when the large shadow fell over his table. He looked up to see an elegantly dressed pudgy man standing next to him. “Are you the notorious Doc Holliday?” asked the man. Holliday checked to make sure the man was unarmed. “I am,” he replied. The man extended a hand. “I am the notorious Oscar Wilde. I wonder if I might join you?” Holliday shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Wilde sat down opposite him. “I didn’t see you at my lecture last night.” “Good.” “Good?” repeated Wilde, arching an eyebrow. “It means you’re not hallucinating.” Wilde threw back his head and laughed. “I knew I’d like you!” “I’m flattered,” said Holliday. “Not many people do.” He gestured to the bottle on the table. “Pour yourself a drink.”

“Thank you. I will.” Wilde reached for the half­empty bottle and filled a small glass. “I am told that you are the only shootist who might have read my writings.”

“Johnny Ringo probably did, but he’s dead now.” Holliday paused. “I hope,” he added. “The only other one might be John Wesley Hardin. He’s been in jail the last few years, but I hear he’s studying to be a lawyer when he gets out, so at least it’s safe to assume he can read.” He paused. “Though I’ve met my share of lawyers who couldn’t.”

Holliday shook his head. “No, I’ll be playing cards at the Monarch, over at 320 Harrison Street.”

“Surely you can stop gambling for an hour or two to come hear me speak.”

“Do I ask you to skip speaking and come on over to watch me gamble?”

“Speaking’s part of my livelihood,” protested Wilde.

“Gambling’s part of mine.”

“Touché.”

“Whatever that means,” said Holliday.

The waiter came by and asked Wilde for his order.

“I’ll have what my friend is having,” replied Wilde.

“Including a bottle of whiskey?”

Wilde smiled. “No, I’ll just borrow his.”

“Within the limits of propriety,” said Holliday. Wilde looked for a smile, but couldn’t find one.

Wilde shifted his weight, trying to arrange his bulk comfortably on the plain wooden chair. “So what is the notorious Doc Holliday doing in Leadville?”

“Trying to be less notorious,” replied Holliday.

“Seriously,” said Wilde. “Is there some gunfight brewing?”

“I hope not.”

“Surely you jest.”

“Look at me,” said Holliday irritably. “I’m a dying man, wracked with consumption. I can’t weigh a hundred and thirty pounds. I’m a dentist by trade, but I’ve pretty much given it up, because you can’t keep your clientele when you keep coughing blood in their faces.” He stared at Wilde. “There’s a very good sanitarium in Leadville. I’ll move into it when I can’t function on my own any more.” A brief pause. “I came up here to die, Mr. Wilde.”

“Excuse me,” said Wilde. “I didn’t know.”

“You’re damned near the only one.”

“I haven’t heard anything about a sanitarium here in Leadville,” admitted Wilde.

Holliday coughed into a handkerchief. “There are other good ones, I’m told. I came here because everyone told me the air was pure and clean at ten thousand feet, and it is.” He grimaced. “What they didn’t tell me was that it’s so damned thin that the birds prefer walking.”

Wilde nodded his head and smiled. “I may borrow that line from you someday.”

“There’s no charge. You’re welcome to the consumption, too.”

“You fascinate me,” said Wilde, pulling a thin cigar out of his pocket and lighting it up. “I may have to write a play about you.”

“For a British audience?” said Holliday. “If you insist on wasting your time and money, come on over and do it at the Monarch.”

“You own it?” asked Wilde.

“Part of it.”

“Then why not call it Doc Holliday’s, and put a huge sign out front?”

“Because there’s fifty or sixty men that would like to see me dead,” answered Holliday. “Why make it easier for them?”

Wilde leaned forward. “Did you really kill all those men you’ve been credited with?”

“Probably not.”

Wilde studied his face. “I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”

“I’m supposed to have killed two men who were five states apart on the very same day.” Holliday smiled. “They must have thought I was riding Aristides.”

“Aristides?” repeated Wilde.

“He won the very first Kentucky Derby, which my friend Bat Masterson assures me is on the road to becoming a very important race.”

“Bat Masterson? What does a gunman know about horse­racing?”

“We’re not all one­dimensional shootists, Mr. Wilde,” said Holliday. “I’m a dentist. Masterson is a sports journalist. And it looks like Hardin is going to be a lawyer.” Holliday snorted in amusement. “I’ll bet it won’t stop him from killing people. It just means he’ll have a defense lawyer he can trust.”

“What about this Billy the Kid that everyone’s talking about?” asked Wilde.

“I’m not talking about him.”

“I mean, what else does he do?”

Holliday shrugged. “I hear he’s barely twenty years old. I don’t imagine he’s had much time to find a profession yet.”

“Besides killing people, you mean,” said Wilde.

“That’s only a profession if someone pays you to do it,” answered Holliday. “I’ve never been paid a penny. Neither have most of us. And if you do it for free, no matter how reluctantly, then it’s not a profession, it’s an art form.”

“Or a hobby,” suggested Wilde. “How reluctant are you about killing people?”

“You make it sound like it’s all I do, Mr. Wilde,” said Holliday, and Wilde couldn’t tell if he was being sardonic, angry, or merely conversational. “Occasionally I eat and sleep, and even pull a tooth or two.” A brief pause. “But I will say that I never killed a man who didn’t deserve killing.”

“If you’re looking for men who deserve killing, you might spend some time with Miss Anthony,” observed Wilde. “I had dinner with her last night, and I gather she’s had enough death threats to fill a small book.”

“Believe it or not, Mr. Wilde,” said Holliday, “I have spent most of my adult life trying to avoid confrontations, not seeking them out.” He paused. “But I think you may overestimate the dangers to Miss Anthony.”

“The threats are real,” insisted Wilde. “She showed me some of the letters. Semi­literate, most of them, but dangerous.”

“If anyone harms her, or even attempts to harm her, we’re likely to have a replay of Lysistrata,” said Holliday with a smile.

“You know the story of Lysistrata?” said Wilde, surprised.

“I have had a classical education, Mr. Wilde,” replied Holliday. “Why, I’ve even read The Nihilists.”

“You have?” exclaimed Wilde. His chest puffed up with pride. “What did you think of it?”

“I thought it showed promise.”

Wilde’s face dropped. “Only promise?”

“You’re a young man with your whole career ahead of you,” said Holliday. “I’m a dying man who is difficult to impress.”

Excerpted from The Doctor and the Kid by Mike Resnick, copyright © 2011 by Mike Resnick. Excerpted by permission of Pyr.