Dancing With the Doc

In the classic Western movie Tombstone (1993) Val Kilmer, as Doc Holliday, says to Johnny Ringo, “I’m your Huckleberry, that’s just my game.” Did the real Doc Holliday say this? Well, the first time this quote shows up in print is in Walter Noble Burns’ book Tombstone in 1928. Burns interviewed many oldtimers in Cochise County and may have gotten the quote from one of them. We do know that the saying is Southern and basically means, “If you want a fight, I’m your Man.” Some believe it has a more devious insult implied, as in, “If you want to dance, I’ll dance with you.”