Billy Bone, who loved beans, ate a pound or two of them, which relaxed him so much he took a nap in a corner. I secured a table with a healthy candle and scratched out a few pages of a half-dimer called Sister of the Sangre; or, The Mission in the Mountains, about a nun who robbed the rich.

Pleasant Burnell, when he finally awoke, seemed to be in a state of benign amnesia. He quite forgot that he had been mistrustful of Happy Jack and seemed unaware that the bromide that had put him to sleep had been the barrel of a 10-gauge.

“Dern, I never meant to nap so long,” he said before he went off in search of a whore.

16.

Toward sundown of that day, as Billy was polishing his shotgun with a greasy rag, Joe Lovelady rode into town.

“Can’t stay away from the fun, can you?” Billy said when Joe dismounted.

“I ain’t had no fun since Nellie died,” Joe said without rancor. “You ought to get saddled up. Old Whiskey’s coming again, and this time he means to finish the job.”

“Why, that old sock,” Billy said pleasantly, peering through the barrel of his shotgun. “He does scamper around, don’t he?”

“Jody Fay went to see him,” Joe said. “The old man was rather fond of Elmer.”

“Oh, I know I killed the most popular man in the country,” Billy said, but he didn’t seem regretful.

“He’s coming with a pretty good crowd,” Joe said.

“Why would you care? You ain’t an outlaw,” Billy said. “Isinglass likes you. He’ll make you the boss of his ranch any day.”

He spoke in his coldest tones. Joe hitched his horse and went inside to inform the other men, who soon boiled out of the cantina. They were less nonchalant about the news than Billy was.

“I bet he’s had trains running in gunfighters all this time,” Happy Jack said. “And now the buffalo hunters are dead. It’s just us.”

“Why, Doc Holliday’s here,” Billy said. “If he’s as good as his reputation, he can shoot down fifty Texans in an hour. I may just snooze on through this affair and leave it to Doc.”

It was then discovered, to everyone’s amazement, that Doc Holliday wasn’t there. No one had seen him go, or heard him mention going; but a search party, after inspecting the crap-house and the two or three whore shacks, reported that the shooting dentist was distinctly absent.

“I expect that’s why he’s so famous—he leaves before the fight,” Billy observed sarcastically.

“Yes, and we best do the same, if there’s still time,” Happy Jack said. “I wouldn’t care to be wiped out in an ugly little place like this.”