Michaela was waiting at the train station. She'd received a telegram that the Coles were stopping by for a visit, and at last, the train hissed and creaked to a stop. The older couple was one of the first to disembark and she greeted them with hugs.
"I hope we weren't an unpleasant surprise," Kid said. "Sister Ruth insisted we stop and visit, but I always breathe a little easier here and I can't say I mind seeing you again."
"If you can see her," Sister Ruth muttered.
"I can see her," he replied, shooting her a look.
Michaela's eyebrows lowered a little in puzzlement, wondering what the source of this particular fight between them was, but then she smiled brightly, "Of course not. I'm always happy to see you both. Sully and the kids can't wait either. I promised I'd make you all come for dinner."
"You think you can find our bags?" Sister Ruth asked Kid.
After another frown in her direction, he answered by going off in search of them.
Ruth moved in closer and took her arm, moving them toward the edge of the platform, in case he was quick to come back with the luggage. "As much as we love you, I do have an ulterior motive for coming here," she whispered conspiratorially. "I'm worried that Kid Cole's eyes ain't what they used to be, and I know he could use a pair of glasses."
"There are specialists called opticians who are trained to fit people with eye glasses, and more importantly they have a wide variety of lenses at their disposal. I only have a handful at the clinic. You're more likely to find the right fit if you go to a shop where they make and sell corrective glasses."
"I can't get him to go see an eye doctor or I would. I can't seem to convince him that a bat has sharper vision than he does, and believe me, I've tried. I even tried to get a peddler to come by the house, but he slammed the door in the poor man's face before he could even show him the first pair."
"But he'll see me about his vision?"
"Well, not exactly. He thinks we're here purely to visit, but you can kind of sneak an examination in real subtle like, so that he won't even know you're examining him till you've determined he needs them. He won't know what's coming till it's too late."
"Even if I somehow manage to do that, he has to want to wear the glasses."
"But maybe if he hears he needs them from a doctor, he'll finally get it through his thick skull that he ought to have them. You can see the danger of a gunfighter, retired or not, who can't see, can't you?"
"I'm afraid I can," she said, knowing as well as Ruth that Kid would never truly be retired as long as he was capable of getting around, "but how am I supposed to sneak an examination?"
"I ain't too sure, but you're smart, and I'll play along with whatever you come up with," she promised.
She didn't get a chance to discuss it further with Sister Ruth because Kid had gotten back with the bags.
He suddenly stumbled over a bag some passenger had set down to greet her family. Michaela and Sister Ruth both reached out and steadied him before he could fall.
"If it'd been a snake, it'd have bit you," Sister Ruth told him.
"If it'd been a snake, I'd've shot it," he grumbled. "Anybody could've tripped over it."
"Dr. Mike and I didn't and we walked right by it just a few seconds ago," she said as she relieved him of one of the bags.
He used his free hand to take her arm. "Do you hear what I go through?" he kidded to Michaela, deftly deflecting the attention from his eyes to his wife to keep the good doctor from getting any ideas that he had less than 20/20 vision.
But Sister Ruth had obviously taken up the cause to save his eyes in the same manner she had once taken up the cause to save his soul with full, unrelenting force. "Doesn't that fellow look sharp in his spectacles?" she said, pointing to a small, bookish man walking by.
"I ain't going to look like some fop cause you think it'd improve my looks."
"Oh, let's drop it for awhile and go have some lunch. I'm starving," Ruth said with a roll of her eyes.
"I didn't bring it up," he pointed out. "You ate lunch yet, Dr. Mike?"
She had but then inspiration struck. "Just give me a few minutes in the clinic, and I'll join you."
They followed her to the clinic. Sister Ruth started toward the door and Kid asked, "Why are we going in? We can wait just as well for her out here."
"Cause every once in a while I like being inside a real building with a roof over my head like a civilized human being," was her quick retort.
He followed her in still holding onto her, Michaela noticed. Even as they did their bickering she'd never seen a couple who had to be so near each other. She found it amusing and sweet. "I'm glad you came in," she said. "I could use your help."
Sister Ruth brightened to see she had a plan underway and Kid frowned, beginning to smell a rat, and asked, "What kind of help?"
She picked up the new medical journal she'd been reading this morning and handed it to him. "Can you read this for me?" The print was just the right size to know if there was a problem with his close-up vision. "There's an article in there that discusses an operation procedure, and it helps me if I can hold the instruments in my hand and visualize it."
Kid knew he smelled a rat now. "I'm not going along with this so you two can gang up on me about my eyes, which work perfectly fine by the way."
Sister Ruth sighed and snatched the journal from him. "Oh for heavens sake, give me the magazine and I'll read it for Dr. Mike, you suspicious-minded old goat. What article?"
"The Modern Operation for Cataract," Michaela answered. "Start about the fourth line down, please."
"He makes a cat throughout in the curve, curved about the airway between its horizontal insides and its upper or lower ledge and, having raptured the capsule, extends the lines without removing any potion of the rise."
"I ain't a doctor, but that don't make a lick of sense to me, and judging from the look on Dr. Mike's face, I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense to her either. Hand it here and I'll read it," Kid grumbled. Article in hand he reread, "'He makes a cut throughout in the cornea, curved about midway between its horizontal meridian and its upper or lower edge and, having ruptured the capsule, extracts the lens without removing any portion of the iris.' It still don't make much sense to me, but at least it sounds like doctors' jargon now."
"Oh, I forgot my instrument," Michaela said. "Can you go get my scalpel, Kid? It's over on the tray there."
He squinted and it took him a few seconds to determine where it was though it was in plain sight, but once he got on top of it, he had no trouble locating it on the tray.
"Thank you," she said, taking it from him. "Sister Ruth, do you mind sitting down for me?"
"I don't, but I'd feel a mite easier about it if you put that scalpel thing down."
She smiled, having forgotten she'd had it, and took it back over to the tray. "I'll visualize later. I want to look at something."
She lit a candle and brought it over to Sister Ruth's eyes, so she could more clearly see them. "They look healthy. Can you read the signature on the candlestick?"
"What signature?" she asked.
"Never mind." She turned to Kid. "May I examine your eyes?"
"So we're not even pretending anymore that that's not what you're doing?"
Ruth planted her fists on her hips. "Just sit down and let her look at you," she demanded.
He sighed. "Might as well get this over with, I reckon, so I can get a little peace."
A chuckle escaped her lips. This tall, fearless man who carried a dangerous, wild edge to his persona like the land he roamed and whose very name could still strike fear into people even though he was in his 60s was no match for his shorter, unyielding wife. He became as meek as a lamb under her peerless gaze and sat down.
Although love for her was the reason for his giving in, there was no denying Sister Ruth would be a match for some of the reluctant patients she'd treated in the past, as she had an instinct for knowing when to dole out gentle love and when it was time for the tough love approach. "You remind me of some nurses I knew back in Boston. You'd have made a good one," she commented.
"Maybe so. Heaven knows I've had plenty of practice with difficult patients with this one."
"You going to look at my eyes or not?" Kid said, not enjoying the line of conversation.
She brought the candle closer to look for the cloudy beginnings of cataracts in the lens of his eyes and saw that it was beginning to form, but it wasn't advanced enough for surgery yet.
"Well, what's the diagnosis?" Sister Ruth asked.
"You both need glasses," Michaela told them and then she blew the candle out.
Kid looked pleased at this turn of events.
"Me?" Ruth asked, not sure she'd heard right.
"It happens so gradually most people don't even notice, and you don't have to wear them all the time just when you want to read or see something up close."
Michaela pulled out a box and handed her a pair of glasses, and once she had it on, held up the candlestick. "Do you see the signature now?"
"So there is one," Sister Ruth said in surprise.
Kid thought she looked adorable with the little round specs on. He smiled an amorous smile that she mistook for amusement.
"It's lucky I ain't a vain woman or I'd not be real happy with you right now," she said with an annoyed look.
"No, sweetheart. I think you look fine, real fine," he said. He went over and kissed the tip of her nose to prove he didn't find her repulsive.
Michaela said to Kid, "You, on the other hand, should wear your glasses everywhere except to bed."
He let go of Sister Ruth and said, "I ain't going to wear them. Whoever heard of a nearsighted gunfighter? People'd laugh if I had them bottle caps on my eyes. I'd look old and weak." He turned his attention back to his wife. "Not that you do, baby, but it's different for a man."
"You have a gun in your hand, honey, and I guarantee you people won't be laughing whatever you got on your face," Sister Ruth replied. "Might even make them a little more fearful to know your vision's going. The only thing worse than a gunman who's a straight shooter is a blind one. Besides, the right pair of glasses can make a man look very distinguished and handsome."
"What do you have?" he asked in a resigned tone, gesturing to the box.
He tried on a couple pairs until he found one that worked for him.
"I guess we really are a matched set," Ruth said with a chuckle. "We won't ever be able to leave each other because you see up close and I see far away, we'll have to be each other's eyes."
"I wouldn't leave you anyway," he said with a loving smile.
They paid for the glasses and headed out to have that lunch. Michaela was in the process of following them when the sound of a gunshot caused her to jump. She quickened her pace outside where she discovered that Kid had lodged a bullet into a tree behind one of the buildings.
"I ain't shot this good in months," Kid said happily. "You sure are a miracle worker, Dr. Mike."
"Thank God you gave him the right prescription or you'd be extracting a bullet from some poor soul right now," Sister Ruth said dryly.
Michaela shared a laugh with the bespectacled couple. It seemed life was never dull with the Coles around.
The End