The Last Ride of German Freddie Read Free Page B

have a real existence.” He laughed. “To believe that you  are the only real thing.  That is an ego speaking! That is a  ruler —very much like the Brahmins, who believe their egos are immortal but that all other reality is illusion ...”
    He paused, words frozen in his mouth, as he saw the identical, quizzical expression in the faces of both Ringo and Josie. They must think I'm crazy, he thought. He took a sip of soda water to relieve his nervousness. “Well,” he said. “That is some philological thought for you.”
    “Don't stop,” said Josie. “This is the most interesting thing I've heard all night.”
    Freddie only shook his head.
    And suddenly there was gunfire, Freddie's nerves leaping with each thunderclap as he ducked beneath the level of the bar, his hand reaching for the pistol which, of course, he had left in his little room.
    Ceiling lathes came spilling down, and there was a burst of coarse laughter. Freddie saw Curly Bill Brocius standing amid a grey cloud of gunsmoke. Unlike Freddie, Brocius had disregarded the town ordnance forbidding firearms in saloons or other public places, and in an excess of bonhomie had fanned his modified revolver at the ceiling.
    Freddie slowly rose to his feet. His heart lurched in his chest, and a kind of sickness rose in his throat. He had to hold onto the bar for support.
    Josie sat perfectly erect on the mahogany surface, face flushed, eyes wide and glittering, lips parted in frozen surprise. Then she shook her head and slipped to the floor amid a silken waterfall of skirts. She looked up at Freddie, then gave a sudden gay laugh. “These  men of strife,  these  boni,” she said, “are getting a little too  good  for my taste. Will you take me home, sir?”
    “I—” Freddie felt heat rise beneath his collar. Gunsmoke stung his nostrils. “But Mr. Behan—?”
    She cast a look over her shoulder at the new sheriff. “He won't want to leave his friends,” she said. “And besides, I'd prefer an escort who's sober.”
    Freddie looked at Ringo for help, but Ringo was too drunk to walk ten feet without falling, and Freddie knew his abstemious habits had him trapped.
    “Yes, miss,” he said. “We shall walk, then.”
    He led Josie from the roistering crowd and walked with her down dusty Allen Street. Her arm in his felt very strange, like a half-forgotten memory. He wondered how long it had been since he had a woman on his arm—seven or eight years, probably, and the woman his sister.
    In the darkness he sensed her looking up at him. “What's your last name, Freddie?” she asked.
    “Nietzsche.”
    “Gesundheit!” she cried.
    Freddie smiled in silence. She was not the first American to have made that joke.
    “Don't you drink, Freddie?” Josie asked. “Is it against your principles?”
    “It makes me ill,” Freddie said. “I have to watch my diet, also.”
    “Johnny said you came West for your health.”
    It was phrased like a statement, but Freddie knew it was a question. He did not mind the intrusion: he had no secrets. “I volunteered for the war,” he said, and at her look, clarified, “the war with France. I caught diphtheria and some kind of dysentery—typhus or cholera. I did not make a good recovery, and I could not work.” He did not mention the other problems, the nervous complaints, the sudden attacks of migraine, the cold, sick dread of dying as his father had died, mad and screaming.
    “We turn here,” Josie said. They turned left on Fifth Street. On the far side of the street was the Oriental Saloon, where Wyatt Earp earned his living dealing faro. Freddie glanced at the windows, saw Earp himself bathed in yellow light, standing, smoking a cigar and engaged in conversation with Holliday. To judge by his look, the topic was a grim one.
    “Look!” Freddie said in sudden scorn. “In that black coat of his, Earp looks like the Angel of Death come to claim his consumptive friend.”
    The light of the saloon gleamed on Josie's