(PULLING MOLARS FOR DOLLARS OR DEALING FARO FOR FORTUNES)
INT. HOLLIDAY DENTAL SURGERY - CENTER STREET, LAS VEGAS, NM - DAY (1879)
Morning light cuts sharp through a frosted transom. Amber apothecary jars line the shelf. In the corner, an empty cast-iron dental chair beneath an angled brass reflector.
DOC HOLLIDAY (27) stands over a white porcelain basin in a starched dental smock, sleeves rolled high. He rinses steel extraction forceps under a hand pump.
Crimson clouds swirl down the drain. On a silver tray: two bloody molars rest on gauze.
Across the room at a pine desk, MARY KATHERINE "BIG NOSE KATE" HORONY (28) logs ledger entries in iron-gall ink. She wears a crisp Hungarian lace collar, her dark hair pinned neat. A small leather medical bag sits beside her ledger.
The street door CREAKS open. Heavy boots thud across pine floorboards.
WYATT EARP (31) stands in the threshold. Trail dust clings to his dark wool frock coat. He carries a battered leather valise, his unblinking blue eyes surveying the bottles, the steel tools, and Doc’s smock.
WYATT
Well strike me blind and call me a Methodist. Look at you, John. Still finding a way to draw blood before noon.
Doc sets down the forceps with a gentle metallic clink. He does not turn around right away. He dries his pale hands on a starched linen towel with surgical deliberation.
DOC
(smooth, rhythmic Georgia drawl)
A gentleman's science, Wyatt. Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery, class of seventy-two. Four dollars for an extraction, six for rolled gold fillings, and the patients rarely reach for a pocket Derringer when presented with the reckoning.
Kate doesn't look up from her ledger, though her quill strokes noticeably firmer against the parchment.
KATE
He is Doctor Holliday in this county, Wyatt. And you are tracking three miles of Kansas trail mud across my clean floor.
WYATT
(tipping his brim, deadpan)
Good morning to you as well, Kate.
KATE
We have eighty-four registered patients. We work by God's daylight, we sleep by ten, and he takes his rye only by the medicinal spoonful. He has not touched a deck of cards since this shingle went over the street.
WYATT
And you've got him penned up in an apron, playing house.
KATE
I have him breathing.
Wyatt steps closer to the chair, setting his valise on a corner bench. He pulls a thick roll of greenbacks from his vest pocket, tossing it with a dull thud onto the pine table beside Doc's instruments.
WYATT
Doc, with a mind for quick math to run faro, and talented hands to deal for hours, you could continue pulling teeth for quarters, or pour whiskey over a faro bank and make fortunes.
KATE
(rising from the desk, Hungarian fire)
He coughed up half a lung in Dallas, Wyatt. He woke up in Fort Griffin with blood soaking straight through the mattress. I fired that shed and broke him out of Texas so he could live, not so he could bleed out over your ambition.
WYATT
I didn't ask the man for his blood, Kate. I asked him for his talented hands.
Doc hangs his starched smock from an iron peg on the wall. Beneath it, his tailored waistcoat and charcoal trousers fit loosely over his narrow, hollowed frame. A faint, knowing smile touches his mustache.
DOC
A gentleman ought to choose how he spends his remaining daylight, Catherine. I have very little interest in expiring between clean sheets.
WYATT
Then let's go take the town, John.
Doc slips into his heavy frock coat, checking his pocket watch with a quiet snap.
DOC
Lock the street door, Kate. It appears the doctor has concluded his office hours.
[SCENE END]
CINEMATIC KEYFRAME STUDY: THE PROPOSITION ON CENTER STREET (JULY 1879)
Dr. John Henry Holliday (27) evaluates Wyatt Earp’s (31) faro proposition across the surgery chair, while Mary Katherine "Big Nose Kate" Horony (28) watches from her practice ledgers. Through the reversed gold leaf of the bay window, the newly arrived AT&SF steam locomotive rolls into Las Vegas, New Mexico—signaling the sudden arrival of the frontier boom economy.