John. Look at me. Where did those two horses come from?

They have four legs apiece, Mary Katherine, and an enviable turn of speed. I should think their utility speaks for itself.

Do not play the Georgia scholar with me! You did not buy them in Las Vegas. I balance your ledger books. If a territorial marshal spots that Mexican silver on the cheek-straps, we will be swinging from a cottonwood branch before we ever see the Arizona line!

A hanging offense? Good heavens. You wound my delicate sensibilities.

You stole them!

I am a dentist, Kate, not a rustler. A gentleman does not steal horsepower. He merely... negotiates collateral. Good heavens, woman, you are all wound up over two horses off a legitimate ranch that paid a debt!

She's right, Doc. Stock with those bloodlines attracts unwanted eyes. Whose brand is on the flank?

Those mounts come straight off John Tunstall's spread down along the Rio Feliz. A mutual acquaintance down from Lincoln County—a charming young vagabond by the name of William Bonney.

Billy the Kid? You took mounts from the Regulators?

The boy had a lower bicuspid rotten to the jawbone and three months of unfortunate luck at Spanish monte. I extracted the tooth, spared him the faro bank, and he insisted on lending me two fresh hooves to pull our heavy iron through the high mountain passes.

He "lent" them? A wanted outlaw gave you a line of credit?!

Since you are so pious with my ledger books, Mary Katherine, write out a formal receipt to him at our next stop. Credit the dental account two horses, debit one infected jaw. It balances to the nickel.

She's got a right to be skittish, Doc. Stock with that kind of breeding catches a deputy's eye thirty yards off through the brush.

You wound me, James. Even you take me for a common horse thief?

Hell, Doc, in Missouri back in sixty-one, the seventeenth Illinois didn't ask for bills of sale. When the Confederate cavalry started burning corn cribs between Ironton and Fredericktown, our regiment swept every pasture. We took horses, mules, oxen... even took the stray camp dogs into our remuda just for their safety and to keep them out of rebel hands. We called it military necessity.

Out here on the frontier, an empty wagon is a dead man. If a horse has shoes, pulls an axle through the mud, and keeps four women and six men from freezing to death on the Mogollon Rim, you don't ask if the preacher blessed the halter. You hitch him up and you roll.

It is easy for an Earp to speak of military necessity! When the law comes, you put on a badge! When the law comes for John, they bring thirty men with shotguns!

Hush, now.

I have made my share of catastrophic wagers in this life. I drink far more liquor than my physician recommended, I have settled disagreements with twenty-one ounces of cold steel, and I have squandered a scholar's education on the turn of a greasy pasteboard. But I am not a thief. And I do not leave a debt rotting behind me.

When the frost clears in the spring, I am riding these animals back to the Plaza in Las Vegas. I will hand the reins to Bonney's people, I will settle my balance on the Del Rey Saloon with John Ghiggeri, and not a soul in New Mexico will say John Henry Holliday left behind an unpaid dime. Until then... they pull the wagon. James, pass the canteen. My throat tastes like lime dust.

Fair enough. But don't linger in New Mexico come spring, Doc. Prescott is just a way-station. Virgil writes that the San Pedro valley down south is sitting on a mountain of pure silver. Tombstone is where the fortunes are.

And Tombstone is where the graves are.

One territory at a time, Wyatt. Let us see if Prescott has enough whiskey to warm my lungs first.

Civilized. Real window glass and clean dresses. Lord be praised, James, I might actually unpack my Sunday china without finding sand in the gravy boat.

Which means, John Henry, you are under strict orders to leave your Las Vegas habits on the other side of the mountains. I will not have my good name dragged through Yavapai County because you took offense at how somebody cut a deck of cards.

Bessie, darling. Your confidence in my Christian forbearance is, as always, an inspiration to my soul.

She means it, Doc. Wyatt says you nearly turned Center Street into a shooting gallery over a spilled drink.

Nearly? The man perforated a gentleman through the collarbone, stepped back inside, bought the house a round of rye, and ordered the piano professor to play a waltz.

Cost him two cases of Old Overholt and a new bar rail, too. High price to pay just to correct a Texan's grammar.

Do not encourage him, James! He already fancies himself an ambassador of southern culture. If he shoots another hole in a saloon floor, I am charging him double for the laundry.

I am deeply touched by this tribunal of my peers. Truly. But you all overlook one singular, magnificent detail about our arrival in Prescott.

And what would that be, Doctor?

In Las Vegas, I had the misfortune of owning a financial interest in the establishment. When a patron mistook the faro table for a wrestling ring, it was my mahogany he was splintering and my liquor he was splashing against the wallpaper. I had to play landlord, referee, and physician all before the midnight train.

Here in Prescott, I do not own so much as a wooden matchstick on Whiskey Row. I am merely a humble, law-abiding patron seeking relief from the trail. For once... Kate and I can mind our own interests without having to mop up the floor afterward.

Our own interests. Mind you remember what that means, John.

It means you leave that nickel-plated Colt under your frock coat. I run a quiet camp here, Doc. The miners on Montezuma Street have money in their pockets and gold dust in their buckskin pokes, but they don't cotton to street duels. If Governor Gosper hears gunfire outside his bedroom window, he'll have my star on his blotter by breakfast.

Governor Gosper and I shall be thick as thieves, Virgil. I shall bid him good morning in the parlor, inquire politely after the health of the territory, and relieve his senators of their surplus funds in the evening with nothing more dangerous than fifty-two paper pasteboards. A bloodless extraction. Far cleaner than dentistry.

God help the territorial treasury.

Come on. My teeth are rattling and my boots are full of frost. Let's get these women out of the snow and find that hot cider Virgil's been bragging about.

It smells sweet here, John. Like Christmas.

It does, Mary Katherine. It truly does.