Nothing remotely like that was reported in either the Dodge City Times or the Ford County Globe, nor is there any court record of such a large number of cowboys being arrested and booked all at once—before, during, or after 1878. And yet, for the next fifty years, whenever anyone asked why he stuck with Doc Holliday long after the dentist was far more trouble than he was worth, Wyatt Earp would always give the same unadorned answer. “Doc saved my life in Dodge.”
At the time, however, the whole thing was over so quickly that Wyatt only came to understand its significance during the long hours of silence he would soon spend waiting for the dentist to die, listening to a clock tick Doc’s life away.
I shoulda thanked him, Wyatt would think.
Too late, too late, too late …
For instead of expressing gratitude as soon as he and Morg and Doc left the saloon, Wyatt asked, “Where’d you get that gun, Doc?”
The eastern sky was beginning to lighten. The day was going to be gray and rainy, but between the approaching dawn and the lamplight from the saloon, Morgan could see that Doc was trembling. “Come on, Wyatt. Let it go!”
“Where’d you get that gun, Doc?” Wyatt repeated.
“Morgan, you may correct me if I am wrong,” Doc said, his eyes on Wyatt’s, “but I believe I just saved your brother’s miserable Republican hide, and he is about to arrest me for it. You have anything to say about that?”
Wyatt was right, and Morgan backed him. “It’s illegal to carry firearms in town, Doc.”
The dentist’s hand was shaking when he offered the Deringer. “I told you before, Wyatt: I am never entirely unarmed. And a damn good thing, tonight.”
Wyatt took the little pistol Doc held in the palm of his hand. “I’m sorry, Doc, but you’re under—”
Before he could finish, the dentist busted out laughing—
And shouted, “Oh!” and doubled over, and staggered backward with both hands to his chest, where … something had just broken loose inside him, and he could feel a sharp clear focus of pain and pressure … but he honestly didn’t care. He was still flying: still feeling the magical effects of that moment when seven men had backed away in fear. And it wasn’t Wyatt Earp they’d feared. It was little ole John Henry Holliday, a sick, skinny dentist from Griffin by-God Georgia!
For those few enchanted minutes, he had felt strong and unafraid. And now this! This was the capper!
Straightening, throwing an arm around Wyatt, he declared, “Nemo supra leges! That’s what I love about you, Wyatt! One law for everyone!”
“You’re drunk, Doc,” Wyatt said shortly, for he was embarrassed by the gesture, and Doc was starting to cough again. The sound of that right in your ear was kind of disgusting. Doc seemed to understand and moved away some, but he looked kind of strange.
“An accurate observation,” he agreed, beginning to choke, “though not—not germane to our discussion—”
Just then, James showed up, wanting to know what in hell had happened. Morg started to tell him, “That Driskill kid’s family showed up, but Doc …”
Morgan’s voice trailed off.
Wyatt was staring past him toward Wright’s General Outfitting, across the street. Morg turned to follow his gaze. Why is Bob Wright up so early? he wondered. Then it hit him.
“Oh, shit,” he whispered. “Wyatt … no.”
There was already a crowd. Not the hundreds of high season, but thirty or forty men drawn by Doc’s gunshots, and by the abrupt departure of city deputies from saloons all over town. At first they thought maybe the Earps had some kind of beef with Doc Holliday, but then the word started to get around that a bunch of Texans had tried to kill Wyatt, and that was interesting enough to make it worthwhile to stand in the rain that was starting up, especially when Wyatt yelled, “Bob Wright! You want me dead, you rich sonofabitch? I’m right here!”
The merchant was at the edge of the crowd talking to somebody and kind of smirking. Bob turned at the sound of his name and stared at the deputy advancing on him. “I got no quarrel with you, Wyatt,” Bob called, but there was something in his eyes …
“No, you’d rather pay people to do your dirty work,” Wyatt said, unbuckling his gun belt, jerking the badge off his shirt, dropping them both onto the dampening dirt. “Come for me yourself, you sonofabitch!”
“All right, goddammit!” Bob agreed, pulling his own jacket off. “You’re on!”
“Wyatt,” Doc called, bent over, one arm braced against a hitching rail. “For the love of God! Your teeth!”
Morg started forward, meaning to get between Bob and Wyatt, but Bat was on the street now, too, and gripped Morgan’s arm to stop him.
“Let them settle it,” Bat advised. “This has been coming since the Fourth of July.”
But Morg wasn’t the only one who’d seen Wyatt this angry before. James knew what could happen, too, and he was already at Wyatt’s side, trying to talk sense to him.
“Give this to Doc,” Wyatt said, pulling the denture out and handing it to James.
Bob took that opportunity to throw a sucker punch. It was a solid hit, but poor judgment.
“You dirty dog!” James cried, backing away. “Go ahead, Wyatt. Kill the bastard!”
All of this made for a good show and the gathering mob grew noisier as the sky lightened to a dull pewter. At first, the money was mostly on Wyatt. He was eight years younger, fifteen pounds heavier, and ablaze, his face transfigured by rage heaped up, night after night, during years of fruitless, thankless, dangerous work, protecting the lives and wealth of storekeepers and lawyers and politicians who set the price of killing a peace officer at no more than a $12 fine. But Bob Wright had advantages, too. More physical strength than anyone suspected. A slightly longer reach. A deep, cold well of resentful envy and the sudden ferocious desire to take for himself everything priceless that Wyatt Earp had. The regard of other men. Respect. Loyalty, if not love.
The odds pulled even.
The rain got heavier.
The noise of the crowd dropped off.
When he figured they’d spent enough fury to be controllable, Bat stepped toward the pair, hoping he could make this into a genuine boxing match, with rounds and rests, but there was no talking to them. So he backed off.
Mud sucking at their feet, both men were staggering after half an hour, and Bob’s age had begun to tell. He continued to punch at Wyatt’s mouth, but every time he took a shot, he opened his own ribs, and there’s a limit to how much punishment those bones can take. When Bob finally went down, he was almost too exhausted to cry out when Wyatt planted one foot and hauled off with the other, kicking with everything he had left.
“For Christ’s sake, Bat, stop the fight!” Eddie Foy cried. “Sure: he’s going to kill the man!”
Nobody moved. Not Bat, or Morgan, or his crippled brother James, all of them mesmerized by the stunning realization that Wyatt Earp, who never lost his temper, intended to beat Bob Wright to death before their very eyes.
Finally Doc Holliday pushed through the crowd, lowered a bloody rag from his mouth, and gripped Wyatt’s shoulder so hard his knuckles went white in the gray morning light.
“Wyatt,” he said, “stop now.”
Backhanded for his trouble, Holliday reeled and fell, bleeding from the mouth, but got back on his feet.
“Wyatt,” he said again, with that whipcrack emphasis he could sometimes produce. “Stop now, or it will be murder, and you will hang.”
The rain, by then, had turned the street into a soup of horse manure, trash, and gory mud. Mouth agape, the red haze beginning to clear, Wyatt stumbled back from Bob’s body and fell, sitting down hard in the slop.