Not long after the echoes of gunshots quieted, horses could be heard coming in from the same direction Kitty had returned. Doc, Festus, and a handful of other Dodge citizens came in full bore, guns drawn. Matt kept a hold of Kitty when she would have stepped away from him. Her breath came in light, quick puffs under his arms. He still held his gun at the ready for the last two members of Crocker's gang.
"Matthew, Miss Kitty… you two awright?" Festus asked. Doc was already stiffly sliding off the bay mare he'd ridden. He completely disregarded the men on the ground, heading for Matt and Kitty.
Kitty seemed to have lost all the starch in her spine as the posse rode up, and Matt supported much of her weight against him. His shoulder still ached, a deep, heavy soreness he knew would take time. He had over-acted the injury in front of Crocker and his men, once the shoulder was back in place he had pretty decent function. It hurt now from being cuffed behind his back for such a long stretch. But he wasn't about to move from his lady, or complain about the soft burden in his arms.
He directed Festus and the men from town, speaking over Kitty's hair. Someone brought the keys to the handcuffs still hanging from his wrists. Kitty shuddered slightly against him, and he set her back slightly, pulling the edges of her short cape together. She raised her hands to hold over his. Purple smudges beneath her eyes spoke of her exhaustion. Her skin was pale beneath her freckles. She had not bothered with powder or paint, and the bruise on her porcelain cheek stood out in the morning light. Matt raised his hand, his thumb grazing her jaw beneath the bruise. She ducked her head down, away slightly.
"I'm fine, Cowboy." Her voice was weary and thin, belying her words. "Can we go home?"
"Yeah." He sighed. "We've got some money to return." Doc was fussing near both of them, wanting to know if they were injured. Both shook their heads and told him to attend to any of the gang that might still be alive. None were.
Leaving Festus to deal with the details, Matt half-lifted Kitty into the buggy, conscientious not to grasp her waist. She was breathing quickly still, in short breaths. Having sustained broken ribs more than once in the past, Matt knew she had felt every hoofbeat of the ride to town, and every bump and rut in the path on the way back. After he seated her, he went to the horse Festus had ridden in on and took the bedroll blanket off the saddle. Leaving it in a roll, he handed it up to Kitty. "Push this against your side, it helps." Kitty accepted with a smile that looked more like a grimace. She tucked the bedroll between her elbow and her side.
Having no patients to tend, Doc mounted up and followed the buggy as Matt set out at a fairly sedate pace in deference to both Kitty and the old sawbones. Normally he would have let Doc take the buggy back, but he really did not feel up to riding himself… and truth be told, he wanted Kitty next to him.
He felt her shiver again, and gathered both reins in his left hand, putting his good right arm around her and drawing her against him. He could not resist brushing his lips to her temple as she rested her head on his shoulder.
"I told you not to come back." There was censure in his soft tone, but more concern.
"I am done discussing it." Her voice was low. "If you don't understand already why I had to, you never will." He glanced down at her, expecting her to be cross. The corners of her lips were lifted in a gentle smile as her eyes drifted shut.
Though Kitty drifted into a light sleep, she continued to shiver. Finally Matt had to pull over and take the blanket she'd been guarding her ribs with, and wrap it around her. Doc rode up alongside. Kitty did not wake.
"What's wrong?" Doc's face scrunched with worry.
"She keeps shivering." Matt felt a cold ball of dread forming in the pit of his belly. The day was warming up nicely, the autumn sun bright and clear.
Doc dismounted, and climbed into the buggy. "Kitty?" She didn't respond to his voice. He checked her brow, finding it clammy. He quickly returned to the horse and pulled his bag down from the saddle. He came back with his stethoscope. His brows knit together as he passed the scope from one side of her chest to the other and back again.
"Here, help me lean her forward so I can listen at her back." Matt gently eased Kitty forward, cradling her to him, while Doc moved the stethoscope up and down, side to side.
"What is it?" Matt was more worried by Doc's worry than anything else.
"Well, she's either getting some pneumonia from not breathing well with those broke ribs, or part of her lung has collapsed… "
"Her lung? Collapsed?" Matt looked at Doc, begging him to say this was just a simple thing, this was common. Doc met his eyes, then glanced away.
"We need to get her home, Matt." Doc climbed out of the buggy, leaving his medical bag there, and remounted his horse. "As fast as you can and still be smooth. Not too many bumps Matt."
Thoughts raced through the tall marshal's mind as he tried to keep the buggy as steady as he could. The good bay gelding was a willing sort, and kept a good cadence. He still drove with one hand, the other keeping Kitty securely against his side. Shivers wracked through her every few minutes. When they hit a particularly rutted section of road, she groaned slightly, and turned into him, raising her hand to grasp at his vest. But she did not wake.
Dodge never looked so welcome as it did in the autumn afternoon sun that day. Matt did not even see who he handed the horse off to. He carefully picked Kitty up, trying not to jar her, trying not to touch her injured side. His long legs were up the stairs of Doc's office and gently lowering her onto the table before Doc was even off his horse.
Kitty moved restlessly on the hard surface, waking slightly. "Matt?"
"I'm right here, honey. Just lie still, OK?" He held her hand with his left, and with his good arm, reached to brush the damp hair from her face. The purple, green and brown marks on her cheek made him sick. What had happened to her when he had to leave with Crocker's men? Before and after they discovered HE was the marshall and the dying man was Monk Wiley?
Doc saved him from those dark thoughts, bustling in with his bag. Immediately he stoked the stove and put water on in a pail and in the kettle.
"Help me get her shirt and shift off." Doc ordered. Matt's fingers were clumsy at the buttons on her white shirt. As he unbuttoned the camisole underneath, pushing the sleeves down her arms, he could not help but flash back to other times he had done this. It almost broke him. Doc laid a sheet over her for modesty, tucking it at her armpits. The bright light above the table with it's mirrors made her look even paler. Before Doc had covered her, Matt had seen the black, purple and deep red mottling all over her side, practically from hip to shoulder.
Doc listened, moved the stethoscope, listened. Matt became impatient. Doc lifted the sheet and began probing and pushing at Kitty's injured side. She grimaced, making a small sound, but did not wake. Matt clutched at her hand.
Doc shook his head. "I don't know. I just don't know for sure. She's definitely got some crackling-some pneumonia-" he said, glancing up at Matt. "But I think maybe a piece of that rib slipped into her lung and made it collapse… " Doc scrubbed at his moustache as he thought out loud. "We know she rode hard with those ribs… and I just don't hear enough breath sounds "
He squared his shoulder as he came to a decision. He went to the drawer that held his surgical supplies and came back with a metal syringe with a long needle. One that looked big enough for a horse. Matt eyed him warily.
"I'm going to need you to keep her very still Matt. I can't risk using ether because that could make her breathing worse. But this is going to hurt, and she can't move. I have to let the air out that's trapped under her ribs so her lung can come back up."
"You're gonna stick that…"
"Between her ribs." Doc nodded gravely. "I need you to hold her shoulders, can you do it? Can you hold her down and still?"
"If that's what it takes to make her better Doc." Matt's answer was subdued. Doc moved the sheet aside, exposing the brutally bruised ribs. Matt placed his big, calloused hands on her bare shoulders, getting ready to brace. Her skin was cooler than it should be, but still like silk. She felt so delicate, so breakable…
"Talk to her Matt, if she wakes up." With a glance to be sure Matt could drop his weight onto her as needed, Doc took a breath. "Ready… Now."
Kitty cried out and tried to push up against Matt. He couldn't see what Doc was doing, he held her down, putting his not inconsiderable weight into it. He talked to her, nonsense words running together about how brave she had been, how smart it had been of her to think so fast to take his badge off, how sorry he was for leaving her with them…
And then it was over. Doc held a bit of cloth against the tiny spot of blood. Kitty coughed a little, scaring Matt, but Doc's lips lifted in a tiny, relieved smile.
"Good girl. You start to breathe again."
Kitty coughed again, and began to wake up some. "Let's move her to the bed, Matt. She needs to be propped up on pillows."
Matt swept her into his arms, curling the sheet around the top half of her. "Ungh... no… Matt?" She was awake enough to help, looping the arm on her good side around his neck.
"Shh… you're fine now. It's OK." He brushed his lips to her head. Doc piled several pillows against the headboard, and Matt gently lowered her.
Ignoring propriety, Doc ordered, "Help me get her undressed the rest of the way. I'm an old man." Matt did most of the work, trying to move Kitty as little as possible. She coughed a few times more. Then Doc brought the soft quilt up around her. Matt looked like he had seen a ghost, and just stood at the side of the bed.
Doc cleared his throat slightly. "I'm going to make some tea that will help her. You stay here while I do. Make sure she doesn't need anything." Pointedly he shoved the chair over closer to the bed-hitting Matt in the back of the legs with it.
Matt sat, just watching her chest rise and fall. She had risked everything to come back for him. His heart had broken into a million pieces when she walked back through the door of that wretched cabin. His death was one thing, but hers… and then when they took her… He rested his elbows on his knees, lowering his face into his hands.
A small cough. "Is it that bad?" She asked weakly. He looked up at her, immediately reaching for the hand she held toward him.
"No, no. You're going to be fine." Matt's voice was uncustomarily rough.
"Then why am I here and when can I go home?" She tried to tease, but ended on a cough.
"Good, she's already champing at the bit to get home, that's a good sign." Doc came back in wtih a steaming cup. Matt could smell the tea from halfway across the room. It smelled like mint and sassafrass and something earthy.
"Here." Doc said, handing the cup to Matt. "Hold it for her. Kitty, breathe in the steam until it cools enough to drink." Doc turned on his heel and exited the room.
Matt scooted the chair closer to the bed, right up against the side of it, and reached over, holding the cup for Kitty to breathe in the fragrant vapor. She raised the hand on her good side, placing it over his. Her eyes drifted shut as she inhaled the steam. She coughed. Matt's brows drew together.
Once the tea cooled enough, Matt helped her to raise the cup and drink it. She grimaced, but dutifully downed the whole cup. She wasn't able to suppress a slight whimper when she tried to adjust her position. Matt shifted, helpless to make it better for her.
Exhaustion pulled at her inexorably…
She was at the cabin. Matt had gone with three of them to sell the coach horses and buy riding horses. Monk Wiley had woken up and whispered something to Tate Crocker. And then Wiley died. And Crocker came after her…
"Kitty… KITTY!"
Crocker had her by the shoulders and was shaking her, shaking her… and her neck hurt and her head hurt and she couldn't breathe… The cabin was in fire and Matt was in there and she ran into the fire. The fire was in her lungs and heat seared her body. Matt…
"Kitty… "
And then Matt was there. A cool cloth on her forehead. More coolness, wiped on her arms, her legs, her belly. She was leaning forward, into his arms, and she wanted to stay there, but it hurt…
Darkness. Pain. She was drowning. Crocker was kicking her in the chest, in the ribs and the chest and she couldn't breathe.
Cold. So cold shivering didn't help. She couldn't feel her hands and feet. Then a furnace, safety, ensconced her…
She woke to gold afternoon sun slanting through windows in a familiar room. But not her room. Doc's. She was afraid to take a deep breath. She was afraid to move. There was still weight across her chest. She was comfortably warm though her nose felt the chill of the fall air. The weight next to her registered-the weight on her chest. She turned her head, carefully.
Matt lay on top of the covers, facing her, one arm across her. Even in sleep the lines of exhaustion etched deep into his face. She saw the wring of bruises on the wrist which lay near her shoulder. Tears pushed against her will. She raised the arm that didn't hurt, and clasped his hand.
His eyes snapped open. "KItty?"
Her voice was hoarse with misuse. "Hi." She smiled at him. He was here. Safe.
The darkness beckoned again, but this time she slept.
The next time she woke she was surrounded by rose and burgundy and the bright and soothing colours of her own room. She knew before she even opened her eyes, because her bed was so much better than Doc's. She didn't remember getting here.
Once again, her eyes opened to see tousled brown hair nearby on the pillow. This time he was under the covers, and the flat of his palm rested spread on her belly over the chemise she wore. He sprawled in her big bed, the only one in town big enough for him. His knee was bent, leg laid possessively over hers.
It still hurt to move, she discovered when she tried to turn on her side to face him. But breathing didn't hurt.
Her movement woke him. He came aware slowly this time, with none of the urgency of before. His hand moved soothingly against her belly. "How are you?"
She thought about it a minute. "Pretty good I think. How long?"
"Four days." Shadows crossed his eyes. He carefully adjusted his position without jostling her.
"How's your shoulder?" She inquired.
"Pretty good. Though I'll probably be off work another day or two according to Doc." His eyebrow rose mischieviously at that. Her heart fluttered a bit.
"So… next time, let's not take the stage, huh?" Kitty's lashes fluttered down demurely.
Matt's laugh was so big and startling it made Kitty start to laugh, which made her cough. But it ended with him sitting up against the headboard and ever-so-gently pulling her against his chest.
"Yeah. Maybe next time we take a vacation we just never leave this room.
"Works for me, Cowboy."