"I killed the biggest of them with nothing more than this pistol I have at my side," said Holliday. "Look into my heart and tell me if you think I am lying."

"You speak the truth," replied Tall Bear promptly. "But you are Holly-day, born to kill with that. Others will not be as skilled."

"Then they'll hire men who are as skilled, or who will use better weapons. It doesn't matter. However many you kill, more will come, once they know what they will be able to see here."

"We shall see which will be the greater number, my creatures or your killers."

"They're not my killers," persisted Holliday. "And it won't make any difference who produces more in the end, because in the meantime they're going to be digging up your sacred ground every day. That is what we both want to stop, is it not?"

"I will ask the Roosevelt, for he is an honorable man," said Tall Bear. He turned to Roosevelt. "Does he speak the truth?"

Roosevelt nodded an affirmative. "About all things," he said. "But mainly, that we want to stop it."

Tall Bear turned back to Holliday. "You will speak, I will listen."

"All right," said Holliday, who wished Tall Bear would sit down and invite him and Roosevelt to do the same, rather than towering above them. "As long as these men think there are things to discover, either live dinosaurs above the ground or dead ones beneath it, they will remain where they are, and they will continue to dig in your sacred ground. You cannot frighten them away with your living nightmares, you can only attract more of them. That is the situation, the basic truth we must address."

"And how do you propose to address it?

"I can't address it alone," replied Holliday. "We must do it together."

Tall Bear made no immediate reply as the firelight flickered off him, and Holliday saw a number of heads peeking out of their huts, staring at the two white men and the medicine man.

At last Tall Bear spoke: "I am still listening."

"What we have to do is make this area totally worthless to them. There must be no more dinosaurs walking the land. But that is just the first step. We have to convince them that there is nothing of interest here, or at least nothing remaining."

"And how will you do this?"

"Not I," replied Holliday. "We."

"How will we do this?" said Tall Bear.

Holliday thought he might cough, took out his bloodied handkerchief, and held it to his mouth. Then the urge passed, he settled for merely clearing his throat. "I wasn't sure until we were attacked on the way here."

"You were not injured. Goyathlay saved you."

"I know. But it was what happened after he saved us that gave me the idea."

Tall Bear stared at him, but said nothing.

"He turned the dead dinosaur to dust," continued Holliday. "Not a bone, not a tooth, not a piece of skin remained. All dust."

"I know this," said Tall Bear.

Suddenly Roosevelt's eyes widened, to be followed by a huge grin. "The perfect solution!" he exclaimed.

"You are a great medicine man," continued Holliday, "or you could not have brought the nightmare creatures to life. Surely if Goyathlay could turn one to dust, so can you. The question," said Holliday, leaning forward, "is this: Is your medicine powerful enough to turn them all to dust? Not just those that are alive and walking the Earth, but also the few that Roosevelt and I have killed? And, every bit as important, the bones that they have dug up from your burial ground?"

Tall Bear looked from Holliday to Roosevelt, then back again.

"Yes, I can do this," he said. "But they will just tear up the sacred ground searching for more bones."

"Leave that to Roosevelt and me," said Holliday. "If you will do what I described, you will have no further trouble."

"Let me be sure I understand," said Tall Bear. "I must turn every living and every dead creature to dust, both those that have died recently and those that died many lifetimes ago. Is this correct?"

"Yes."

"And if I do this, they will leave and not return?"

Holliday nodded an affirmative. "Yes."

"So if I do this right now, they will vanish?"

"No," said Holliday. "You're not killing them. You're making the land worthless to them. Do this at noon tomorrow, and give Roosevelt and me until noon the next day."

"If this does not come to pass, I will turn the Roosevelt to dust," said Tall Bear.

"Just me?" said Roosevelt, frowning.

"Your friend is already dust," said Tall Bear. "Goyathlay has done for him what I did for the living nightmares."

"We have a bargain," said Holliday, trying not to dwell on what the Comanche had just said. "Roosevelt and I will begin riding back to the camp where these men are."

"I hope what you say comes to pass," said Tall Bear. "I will give you safe passage as you return to your camp-but if you lied to me, if they have not left by the time and day you promised, there will be an army of nightmares such as you cannot imagine."

HOLLIDAY AND ROOSEVELT WERE IN NO HURRY to get back to camp before Tall Bear's magic went into effect, so they rode leisurely, stopping three or four times for welcome rests-welcome to Holliday, anyway-and slept out beneath the cloudless sky, secure in the knowledge that nothing from prehistory was going to bother them.

They timed their arrival for mid-afternoon, which gave Cope and Marsh plenty of time to realize that all the fossils they had collected during the past few weeks had turned to the same fine powder as the monster Geronimo had killed.

It also gave Cope and Marsh time to ride out to where the tyrannosaur and the pteranodon were, only to discover they too had become nothing but dust.

When Holliday and Roosevelt dismounted they were greeted by Edison and Buntline, the former with a makeshift cane, the latter on crutches.

"What the hell has happened?" asked Edison.

"A medicine man has kept his word," answered Holliday.

"And we've got maybe twenty hours, tops, to keep ours," added Roosevelt.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" offered Edison.

Holliday shook his head. "If I'm any judge of character, this should be the easiest thing of all."

"I agree," said Roosevelt. "But I think we'll keep your weapons another day, just to be on the safe side."

"It's the damnedest thing," observed Buntline. "At first Cope and Marsh were both screaming that it was sabotage, but then they realized it couldn't be, not when both of their collections of fossils were gone."

"And if there was any doubt, it vanished when they saw what had become of the tyrannosaur and the pteranodon," added Edison.

"So have they drawn battle lines anyway?" said Holliday. "It would make too much sense for them to combine forces to figure out what's happening."

Cole Younger rode up on horseback just then.

"Welcome back, Doc, Theodore. You'd have done better to stay away."

"So Tom and Ned have been telling us," answered Holliday.

"Just stopped by to say adios," continued Younger. "They're all crazy here. Next thing you know they'll be accusing me."

"Where are you off to?" asked Holliday.

"Like I told you," said Younger with a smile. "I'm gonna hunt up Frank James, and we're gonna give Bill Cody a run for his money."

"Good luck," said Roosevelt.

"Best luck I can have is making it back to civilization in one piece," laughed Younger. He spurred his horse, and was soon out of sight.

"So what do you have to do now?" asked Edison.

"Not a thing," said Holliday. "We'll go to work after dark."

They could hear Cope screaming and cursing at one end of the camp, and Marsh doing the same at the other. Each of them ate in solitary splendor as far from each other as they could get.

After dinner Holliday announced that since he and Roosevelt were reasonably fresh, they'd patrol the camp at night, just in case any Comanche or their creatures should return.

When they saw the kerosene lamp in Cope's tent go off, they walked by, seemingly lost in conversation.

"Yeah, it beats me too," said Holliday when they were within earshot. "I didn't realize there was such a limit on magic, that he could turn everything to dust here, but he can't make it reach to Colorado."

"Well, no sense telling them," replied Roosevelt. "They'll just go hell for leather to Colorado and run into those damned monsters there."

"Yeah, count me out," agreed Holliday. "I plan to live to a ripe old age without ever again seeing anything bigger or more dangerous than a horse."

They kept talking until they were out of range, and five minutes later they were carrying on the same "private" conversation alongside Marsh's tent, only this time the dinosaurs were roaming the hills and valleys of Utah.

The camp was a bustle of activity-well, two separate bustles-at sunrise, and by ten in the morning only Holliday, Roosevelt, Edison and Buntline remained.

"Now I guess we can give you these," said Roosevelt handing the two weapons back to Buntline.

"Are you going back East now, Theodore?" asked Edison.

Roosevelt nodded. "I've got a woman to marry, a house to finish, and"-he flashed the grin that would become famous-"I think I'll probably run for Mayor of New York."

"We're on the mend. If we may, we'll travel some of the way with you," said Edison.

"How about you, Doc?" asked Buntline.

Holliday shrugged. "I imagine I'll head on back to Leadville. Sooner or later I'm going to need that sanitarium again."

"Take care," said Roosevelt. "Perhaps we'll meet again."

I sure as hell doubt it, thought Holliday.

HE SPENT TEN MONTHS GAMBLING AND DRINKING. At one point he even moved back in with Kate Elder, but after a pair of knock-down drag-out fights in which he came off much the worse, he decided that he wanted the full year he'd been promised and moved out again.

Finally he wound up back in the sanitarium, in the very same room he had occupied a year ago. When it had been one day shy of a year, he opened his eyes and saw Geronimo, all six feet of him, standing at the foot of his bed.

"You look like you again," he said weakly.

"My argument with the Comanche is finished."

Holliday coughed, and blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. "Thank you for the extra year."

Geronimo made no reply, but merely stared at him.

"So are you here to offer another bargain, or to say good-bye?" asked Holliday.

"Yes," said Geronimo.

THERE HAS BEEN QUITE A LOT WRITTEN about Doc Holliday, Theodore Roosevelt, Geronimo, William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, Cole Younger, and the so-called Wild West, as well as the infamous "Bone Wars" between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. Surprisingly, a large amount takes place in an alternate reality in which (hard as this is to believe) the United States was not stopped at the Mississippi River until Theodore Roosevelt signed a treaty with Geronimo in 1884.

For those of you who are interested in this "alternate history," here is a bibliography of some of the more interesting books: L. F. Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, Doubleday, Page (1919) Alexander B. Adams, Geronimo: A Biography. Da Capo Press (1990) C. E. Banks and R. A. Armstrong, Theodore Roosevelt: A Typical American, S. Stone (1901) Stephen Melvil Barrett and Frederick W. Turner, Geronimo: His Own Story, Penguin (1996) Bob Boze Bell, The Illustrated Life and Times of Doc Holliday, Tri Star-Boze (1995) Glenn G. Boyer, Who Was Big Nose Kate? Glenn G. Boyer (1997) H. W. Brands, T. R.-The Last Romantic, Basic Books (1997) William M. Breakenridge, Helldorado: Bringing the Law to the Mesquite, Houghton Mifflin (1928) Robert A. Carter, Buffalo Bill Cody: The Man behind the Legend, Wiley (2002) E. Richard Churchill, Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, & Wyatt Earp: Their Colorado Careers, Western Reflections (2001) William F. Cody, An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill, Cosmopolitan Book (1924) Edwin H. Colbert, The Great Dinosaur Hunters and Their Discoveries, Dover Press (1984) Michael L. Collins, That Damned Cowboy: Theodore Roosevelt and the American West, 1883a1898, Peter Lang (1989) Homer Croy, Cole Younger: Last of the Great Outlaws, Bison Books (1999) O. Cushing, The Teddysey, Life Publishing (1907) Paul Russell Cutright, Theodore Roosevelt-The Making of a Conservationist, University of Illinois Press (1985) Jack DeMattos, Masterson and Roosevelt, Creative Publishing (1984) Robert J. Desmond, The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs, Dial Press (1976) Mike Donovan, The Roosevelt That I Know: Ten Years of Boxing with the President, B. W. Dodge (1909) G. W. Douglas, The Many-Sided Roosevelt: An Anecdotal Biography, Dodd, Mead (1907) E. S. Ellis, From the Ranch to the White House: Life of Theodore Roosevelt, Hurst (1906) T. T. Handford, Theodore Roosevelt, the Pride of the Rough Riders, M. A. Donohue (1897) Albert Bushnell Hart and Herbert Ronald Ferleger, eds., Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia, Theodore Roosevelt Association and Meckler Corporation (1989) Mark Jaffe, The Gilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War between E. D. Cope and O. C. Marsh, Crown Publishers (2000) Pat Jahns, The Frontier World of Doc Holliday, Hastings House (1957) John Koblas, The Great Cole Younger and Frank James Wild West Show, North Star Press (2002) John Koblas, When the Heavens Fell: The Youngers in Stillwater Prison, North Star Press (2002) Uri Lanham, The Bone Hunters, Columbia University Press (1973) Sylvia D. Lynch, Aristocracy's Outlaw-The Doc Holliday Story, Iris Press (1994) Paula Mitchell Marks, And Die in the West: The Story of the O.K. Corral Gunfight, William Morrow (1989) Edmond Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan (1979) Edmond Morris, Theodore Rex, Random House (2001) John Myers Myers, Doc Holliday, Little, Brown (1955) Frederick Nolan, The Lincoln County War, Revised Edition, Sunstone Press (2009) Robert Plate, The Dinosaur Hunters, David McCay (1964) Adam J. Pollack, John L. Sullivan: The Career of the First Gloved Heavyweight Champion, McFarland (2006) Fred E. Pond, Life and Adventures of Ned Buntline, Camdus Book Shop (1919) Gary Roberts, Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend, John Wiley & Sons (2006) Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography, MacMillan (1913) Theodore Roosevelt, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Putnam's (1885) Theodore Roosevelt, Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, Century (1888) Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders, Scribner's (1899) Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life, Century (1900) Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, 4 vols., Putnam's (1888a1894) Elizabeth Noble Shor, The Fossil Feud, Exposition Press (1974) David A. E. Spalding, Dinosaur Hunters, Prima Publishing (1993) Karen Holliday Tanner, Doc Holliday-A Family Portrait, University of Oklahoma Press (1998) Paul Trachman, The Old West: The Gunfighters, Time-Life Books (1974) Ben T. Traywick, John Henry: The Doc Holliday Story, Red Marie's (1996) Ben T. Traywick, Tombstone's Deadliest Gun: John Henry Holliday, Red Marie's (1984) David Rains Wallace, The Bonehunters' Revenge, Houghton Mifflin (1999) Helen Cody Wetmore, Buffalo Bill: The Last Great Scout, Alexander Books (2013) R. L. Wildon, Theodore Roosevelt-Outdoorsman, Trophy Room Books (1994) Cole Younger, The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself, Borealis Books (2000) IN THAT "ALTERNATE HISTORY" in which the United States extended all the way to the Pacific, there are also a number of films made about the principals in this book, and a number of very popular actors portrayed them. Here's a list of them: SOME MOVIE DOC HOLLIDAYS:.

Victor Mature Kirk Douglas Jason Robards Jr.

Cesar Romero Stacey Keach Dennis Quaid Val Kilmer Walter Huston Arthur Kennedy Randy Quaid (TV) Douglas Fowley (TV) Gerald Mohr (TV) SOME STAGE AND MOVIE THEODORE ROOSEVELTS:.

Brian Keith Tom Berenger Karl Swenson Robin Williams Frank Albertson (TV) Peter Breck (TV) James Whitmore (Broadway) Len Cariou (Broadway musical) SOME MOVIE THOMAS ALVA EDISONS:.

Spencer Tracy Mickey Rooney SOME MOVIE NED BUNTLINES:.

Lloyd Corrigan Thomas Mitchell SOME MOVIE GERONIMOS:.

Chuck Conners Wes Studi Jay Silverheels (four times) Monte Blue SOME MOVIE COLE YOUNGERS:.

Wayne Morris Alan Hale Jr.

Frank Lovejoy Cliff Robertson David Carradine Randy Travis SOME STAGE AND MOVIE BUFFALO BILL CODYS:.

William O'Neal (Broadway musical) Art Lund (Broadway musical) Ron Holgate (Broadway musical) George Hearn (Broadway musical) Louis Calhern Joel McCrea Paul Newman A MOVIE EDWARD DRINKER COPE:.

Steve Carell A MOVIE OTHNIEL CHARLES MARSH:.

The late James Gandolfini was to have portrayed Marsh; no replacement has been announced as of press time.

THIS IS A "WHO'S WHO" of the book's participants in that fictional alternate reality where the United States extended to the West Coast.