Doc looked at Virgil.

“You understand your brother?” he said.

Virgil smiled slowly.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I do.”

Doc shrugged and shook his head. He went to drink and realized his glass was empty. He stood.

“Be right back,” he said. “You boys want anything?”

Both Earps said no. At the bar, Doc got two glasses of whiskey. As he turned from the bar, a big man in a black jacket with velvet lapels jostled him and Doc spilled one of the drinks onto the triangle of white shirt that showed above the last button of the black coat.

“You better be careful what you’re doing, skinny,” the man in the black coat said.

Doc stared at him for half a second and then threw the other drink into his face, glass and all. In a continuation of the gesture his hand continued on under his own coat and came out with a short silver Smith amp; Wesson revolver. He thumbed the hammer back as he drew the gun.

“Are you ready to die today?” Doc said.

There were red smudges on his cheekbones and his voice was high and metallic. He held the gun straight on the big man’s face.

The big man wiped the whiskey from his face and stared at Doc’s gun.

“You scrawny little bastard,” he said. “I ought to take that thing ’way from you and wring your goddamned neck.”

“Do it.” Doc’s voice had dropped to a shrill whisper. “Go ahead and do it, you sonova bitch.”

The space around the two men had cleared; one of the bartenders leaned across the bar and spoke to Doc.

“No sense to this, Doc, it was just an accident.”

Without taking his eyes off the big man, Doc swatted at the bartender with the back of his left hand. The bartender pulled his head back out of the way. Wyatt and Virgil got up from their table and walked over. They reached Doc at about the time the owner of the Oriental, Bill Joyce, appeared around the end of the bar.