Doc

by Mary Doria Russell

For the space of six months, from November of 1877 to April of ’78, Wyatt S. Earp was empowered to follow David W. Rudabaugh across state lines, to arrest him for a train robbery, and to return him to Kansas for trial. To sweeten the deal, the Santa Fe Railroad was offering a big reward for Dirty Dave, a thief whose personal hygiene was notoriously unwholesome and whose notion of personal property consisted of, “If I can take it, well, I guess it’s mine.”

“The law can relieve a man of guilt,” Doc told him quietly, “but not of his remorse.”