Part 33 (1/2)
Mr. Holiday became a busy man, and encountered fortune, black and white; but he never complained until one Dallas evening, when a gentleman said that he held six cards. The game was draw poker, and a hand consisting of six cards would have been an inexcusable vulgarity.
There was no long-drawn discussion. The gentleman who had mentioned the six cards cut off debate with a Colt's pistol. Mr. Holiday met the situation half way, and Dallas buried a foremost citizen.
Dallas blamed no one.
”They broke even as to guns,” said Dallas, ”and Joe lost.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Let Charlie Swear to the Papers.”]
From Dallas Mr. Holiday travelled into the Panhandle. Perhaps his broken health made him irritable, or possibly he was over-sensitive. Whatever the argument, when a rude spirit, a rider for the Frying Pan ranch, whom he met in Tascosa, spoke of Mr. Holiday as one who ought to have been clerking in a store, he promptly hived him with a bullet through his heart. This was when Mr. Willingham flourished as Sheriff for the Panhandle; but as that officer was over towards Goodnight's at the time, no fault should attach to him. Panhandle sentiment, as had that of Dallas, justified Mr. Holiday; his critic had his guns on when he perished, and that is, or should be, sufficient wherever justice holds the scales.
From the Panhandle Mr. Holiday migrated to Denver. No one packs a gun in Denver, at least no gun big enough to win the respect of Mr. Holiday.
Yielding to the jealousy of Denver touching pistols, our dying one from Georgia put his irons aside. He felt lonesome without them, a feeling that grew into disgust when a rough, having advantage of his weak condition, heaped contumely on his head, Mr. Holiday sighed as he drew a knife-it was carried somewhere between his shoulders-and altered the appearance of the insolent one to such a degree that he was as a stranger to his friends.
It was six months later when Mr. Holiday next claimed attention by listlessly emptying his pistol into the head of a gentleman who had laid unlawful claim to a stack of his chips. They were reposing, coppered, in what faro gamesters term the Big Square.
This homicide, which occurred in Las Vegas, also found popular endors.e.m.e.nt. The illicit action of departed had placed him beyond the pale. There is no love in the West for rash or wicked ones who illegally covet their neighbour's chips. The episode bore somewhat upon Mr.
Holiday, however, who had an imagination edged by books. He was heard to mourn a trifle.
”I don't see what's the matter with my luck,” said Mr. Holiday, as he arranged with an undertaker on the Plaza for the obsequies. Mr. Holiday was too well bred to leave a burden upon the community, and even his enemies admitted that he never failed to make a proper clean-up and always buried his dead. ”I don't see what's the matter with my luck,”
repeated Mr. Holiday, ”but it looks as though I had more of this sort of thing sawed off on me than any invalid in the Territory.”
”That's what!” replied the undertaker, sympathetically. His sympathy in no wise dimmed the brilliancy of his bill, which doc.u.ment did him proud.
Following that Las Vegas difference, Mr. Holiday withdrew to Tombstone.
It is best for a gentleman, when he has filled a grave with one other than himself, to seek new theatres of effort. In Tombstone, foremost in the social and business swirl of the camp, Mr. Holiday became acquainted with the brothers Earp. Said brothers, being respectively Virgil, Wyatt and Morgan, were all splendid shots and sterling folk of standing, character and force. The brothers Earp and Mr. Holiday became friends at sight. It was as though a fourth had been born into the Earp family.
The East, supercilious and white of s.h.i.+rt, should avoid a narrow view of Western men and manners. The East should not measure up the West by Eastern standards. While the West pays its faithful interest, and does not borrow more than one-fifth of the security, the East should rest content. The one is a banker, the other a warrior; one employs interest, the other uses a gun; both kill.
Virgil Earp was marshal of Tombstone. It was a post not wanting in vicissitudes, and Virgil Earp's arm had been crippled and made as naught by a shotgun in the hands of an illwisher. But it was his left arm; his right, with the hand that appertained, was all that one might ask. What more should a Western marshal require than a perfect pistol hand and eye to match?
Wyatt and Morgan Earp were in the service of the Express Company. They went often as guards-”riding shotgun,” it was called-when the stage bore unusual treasure.
Over in the San Simon Valley lived a covey of cattle people, with Curly Bill at its head. The cow business is a lazy trade. It leaves plenty of idle time in the hands of ones who follow it. Those of the San Simon were by nature bubbling springs of industry. Since the cattle trade did not employ their whole energy, they oft repaired to a nearby trail and stopped the Tombstone stage.
There came an occasion when Curly Bill could not go with the expedition, and that was unfortunate. He was obliged to entrust the enterprise to subordinates, who bungled the affair. They shot the stage driver when they should have shot a wheeler. The reins fell from the driver's dead hands; the fear-maddened team ran away and carried one hundred thousand dollars in gold from beneath the larcenous palms of the hold-ups. In their wrath the road agents sent a volley after the rocking, reeling, disappearing coach. It snuffed out a tourist who was riding outside.
Four days went by, and a quartette of the San Simon people, being the McLowrie brothers, Frank and John, and the Clanton brothers, Billy and Ike, came into Tombstone to spy out how much was known or guessed of those desperately poor workmen who had so let the stage job fall through. The investigators discovered that more was known than stood best for their health. They lost no time in deciding to ride back to the San Simon.
Virgil Earp had made a different plan. The San Simon, as a region, would not suffer in its respectability were it never again to see a Clanton or a McLowrie. With a purpose to detain the San Simon delegation, Virgil Earp a.s.sembled his kinsmen, Wyatt and Morgan. To be polite, Virgil invited Mr. Holiday, then but a week in Tombstone, to have his smoky part in the coming war. He might act with the Earp household in that proposed round-up of the road agents.
Virgil Earp did this in a spirit of politeness. It is Western manners when you have a fight to make-one that is commodious and in which there is room for their honourable accommodation-to invite your friends. This you may do to a point that brings your party even with the enemy. You must not, however, overtop the foe in numbers. That would be the worst of form, and fix you as coa.r.s.e and low and ignorant in every refined mind. With only a trio of the Earps, there existed in the pending engagement a reputable vacancy, and Virgil asked Mr. Holiday to fill it.
Mr. Holiday accepted. To decline such a courtesy would want a precedent and destroy one's good repute. Such action on Mr. Holiday's part would have shocked the Tombstone taste, which is as silken as a spaniel's ear.
The brothers Earp and Mr. Holiday met the San Simon outfit as the latter, mounted for the long ride, came spurring forth of the corral.
There was no time frittered in speech. The San Simon contingent jumped from their saddles, each using his horse as a breastwork. The brothers Earp and Mr. Holiday had no horses to cover them. A horse makes a good breastwork, but a bad gun-rest.
The G.o.ds fought on the side of the law, the stage company, the brothers Earp, and Mr. Holiday. There was a rattle of six-shooters. Two McLowries and one Clanton fell with bullets where their thoughts should be. The smoke lifted, and there stood Ike Clanton begging his life.