AN: Playing around with a new (but old) fandom, trying to see if I can get the voices right. Feedback always welcome.
Fences were the easiest way to tell when you had nearly made it to Dodge. They'd crop up a few miles out of town, just randomly at first - the occasional homesteader trying to impress someone by making a shack look like some version of home that he remembered from back east.
Of course after a few years, Matt could tell he was closing in on Dodge just by the rise and fall of the land, long before any fence line cut across the grass.
But he never felt like he was really home until he heard it.
"Listen," Dutch had told him when he was just a boy. "Close your eyes and tell me how many horses there are in that corral."
"I'm not stupid," Matt had argued. He was maybe six years old then, but tall enough to hang around with boys far older than he was. "I can't see anything with my eyes closed."
"You can hear more with your ears than your eyes can tell you." Dutch had bent down, turned him away from the corral. "Now tell me," he'd said. "How many horses?"
Even after Dutch had been run out of town, after everyone told Matt that he was just an old horse thief, Matt remembered the lesson. He learned the sound of unshod Indian ponies, and when it was man out in the dark trying to sound like a coyote, rather than an animal.
He learned when the rustling out in the brush was a man and not a deer, and the sound of a pistol's hammer being pulled back. He knew whether to turn to the left or the right and pick his target before he even saw the man behind the gun.
And he knew that from a mile or more out on the prairie, sounds would change. Bird song would shift from the calls of the warblers and the bobwhites hiding in the tall grasses to the caws of crows and other scavengers who lived easy off the garbage and waste of the town.
Yells and shouts echoed off the walls of the wooden buildings and blew out with the wind onto the prairie. Buggy wheels rattled and bounced in the ruts when there was no rain, and splashed and squelched when it was wet.
Sometimes, when the wind blew in from the east, Matt could hear the piano playing at the Long Branch from as far away as Boot Hill - never clear enough to make out a tune, but the high notes seemed to bounce off the headstones in a way that make his skin crawl.
Every man had his own way of knowing he was home. Doc could name every broken bone he'd set and every case of ague he'd treated from every wagon and house for a 20-mile circuit around Dodge - and how much money each person still owed him.
Chester always swore he could smell the cookstoves before they even saw the buildings.
"I'm telling you, there's antelope stew over at Delmonico's," he said one fall day just a few weeks back. "Can't you smell the onions?"
"All I smell is the stockyard." Matt held his horse back, the stallion knowing he was close to home by some other sense that was shared by all animals. "You're just hoping they've got stew on because you're tired of jerky."
Darned if Chester wasn't right, though.
"I'm not surprised," Kitty had said that night.
"You really believe he could smell supper from a half mile away?"
"Of course not, but think about it. In all the time you've lived here, has Delmonico's ever hired a cook who knew more than three recipes?" She'd led them to an open table. "And by the end of the week, he comes into the Long Branch, drinks whiskey for breakfast and then goes to work and throws all the leftovers in a pot and calling it stew. If I was a betting man, I'd lay odds on stew any Friday of any week."
Sometimes Matt would stand just outside the doors of the Long Branch for a few seconds, listening for the sound of Kitty's voice. If anyone had ever asked, he would have said he was just trying to get a feeling for whether the cowboys were behaving themselves. He was pretty sure he could tell just by hearing her.
When it was a busy night, she'd raise her voice just loud enough to be heard over the music and the gambling and the arguments. Her voice would go high, losing its natural ease and duskiness when she was trying to charm some fellow into buying another drink and spend a little more money, as if she was trying to sound like what other men thought a woman should sound like.
He knew how her voice would drop low and dark when someone crossed a line - making herself sound nearly as good a threat as Matt and his guns. And then there was the easy laugh she'd give while pretending to ignore Chester and Doc as they needled each other over some old quarrel.
Tonight it took nearly a minute before he heard her. Her voice came from the back of the bar. She was asking about how many cases they had in stock, so it was slow enough that they were talking business, rather than talking up customers. Dusk was just coming down. The Texas herds had mostly cleared out for the season, and with luck everyone would get some rest before a hard winter set in.
Matt took a moment longer while he could, looking up and down the street, listening for anything that didn't sound right before he pushed through the doors.
Kitty looked up as if she'd been expecting him.
"Welcome home, Matt."
He walked to the bar, the sounds of the street and the horses and other men fading away with every step. "Thanks, Kitty. It's good to be home."