Balm of Hurt Minds
Sleep that knits up the ravel'd sleave of care;
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
~William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Sometime after midnight, but before the first streaks of early dawn sliced through the sky, a sleeping Kitty felt the mattress sink under the weight of the big marshal as he stumbled against the bed and lay down beside her. She slipped one hand out from beneath the covers and moved it gently over his face and chest and stomach, searching, as always, for new wounds on his scarred body. "You hurt?" she whispered into the darkness.
"Not hur…jus…need…sleep," he mumbled as he rolled against her and fell instantly into a deep slumber.
Satisfied that he wasn't bleeding or obviously injured, she laced her fingers into his shaggy curls and drew his head against her breast, the quiet rhythm of his breathing lulling her back to sleep as well.
The hands of the little French clock on the mantel were pointing to nine the next time Kitty opened her eyes. Sunlight was peeking in through the folds in the drapes, and she looked down in surprise at the man still sound asleep in the circle of her left arm. The part of his face she could see was covered with trail dust and his left eye was swollen, the flesh beneath it torn and sporting the ugly black and blue hues of a fresh bruise.
"Oh, Matt," she whispered, "what happened to you—this time?"
When he didn't move, she made a quick decision and carefully eased his head onto the pillow. Then she slipped out of bed and, not bothering to search through the armoire, donned the simple black skirt and white shirtwaist she had worn the day before. She pulled her hair into a pony tail low on her neck, stepped into her shoes and exited the room as silently as possible.
Downstairs in the saloon, Sam was tapping a fresh keg as the first customers of the day straggled in for an early dose of morning libation and gossip. "Morning, Sam. Has Festus been around yet?"
"Haven't seen him, Miss Kitty. Do you need something?"
"No, I…" She thought of the man sleeping in her bed. "Yes, I need to talk to him. I'm going down to the jail."
She stepped outside and sped down the boardwalk to the ugly brick building on the corner, where she found the deputy whistling and relaxing in the morning sunlight. "Mornin,' Miz Kitty. Iffen yore lookin' for Matthew, he ain't here.'"
"That's all right, Festus. Can you watch the town this morning?"
"Well, shore, I kin do that. Matthew send word he got delayed, did he?"
"Uh, not exactly. But he needs you to keep an eye on things for a while."
"Well, where is he, then?"
"He…well, he's not available just now, Festus," she hedged.
"What do you mean he's not avail-y-able?" The deputy inclined his head toward the interior of the building. "You know, his bed doan look like it's even been slept in. I wouldn't be s'prised iffen he ain't been here all night." Festus squinted and looked at her slyly. "Where you think he might be, Miz Kitty?"
"Festus, please, could you just take care of things until Matt gets back to the office?" Kitty smiled and placed a soft hand on his arm. "There'll be a couple of drinks in it for you later."
"I shorely will, Miz Kitty. Doan you worry. I'll take care of ever'thing. And I'm much obliged fer the drinks."
In the bedroom above the Long Branch, Kitty saw that Matt had rolled on to his back, and she took advantage of the opportunity to clean him up a bit. She dipped a soft cloth into a basin of water and wiped it over his stubbly face, gently washing away the grime and applying salve to both the bruised eye and to the raw scrapes on his right cheek. He never stirred.
Approximately ten hours had passed since he had collapsed into bed, not an inordinate amount of time to sleep, but something as foreign to Matt Dillon as greed or corruption. She rubbed one hand lightly down his left arm, noting the multiple scars of varying age and size that peppered his flesh from shoulder to elbow. And below them, she observed the freshly abraded knuckles of his big hand. She shook her head and sighed. How long can you keep this up, Matt? How much more abuse can your body take? How much more can your mind endure? Nineteen years—more if she included the time he had spent serving the law in Moundville, Coffeyville, San Antonio and elsewhere. She kissed his forehead, whispering, "Sleep well, Cowboy, you deserve it. I'm going down to help Sam with the noonday crowd. I'll be back later."
The patrons below dispersed, and Kitty returned to the upstairs room, taking with her a tray of thick sandwiches and a pot of coffee. After hanging up a few stray articles of clothing and tidying up the powders and paints and colognes on her dressing table, she lay down beside the sleeping giant and rested one arm lightly across his chest. As she watched him, she recalled a long ago time when she herself had slept the days away in her own futile effort to escape from reality. And then a man had come along, larger than life and twice as important.
She remembered the night he had held her in his arms, tracing his thumb along the soft line of her jaw. "I have to be honest with you, Kitty, I'm a lawman. That means I can't ask you to be my wife, can't promise that we'll have a future together." He swallowed and continued. "I don't even know if I have a future. A lawman lives from day to day." He shrugged. "That's just the way it is…but still, I'd…I'd be honored if you would be my woman." And she had agreed with all of the enthusiasm and optimism of youth. Had she been older, wiser…
She shook her head and smiled. Had she been older, wiser she would have done the very same thing. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard the lilting French accent of her great grandmother, the family rebel. "Je ne regrette rien"— I regret nothing.
She propped herself on an elbow, and her sapphire eyes softened as she gazed at the love of her life in the fading afternoon light. The once young and handsome face was now furrowed by age and weathered by the elements—ravaged by life, by the things he had seen and done, been forced to do in the name of keeping the peace. And the things that had been done to him—and to her—in the name of reprisal. All had taken their toll.
As dusk began to settle over the town, she kissed him gently and slid from the bed to dress for the evening's work downstairs.
"You know much about sleep, Doc?" She asked the seemingly casual question when the physician stopped by the Long Branch on his way to supper at Delmonico's.
"I know it's something I don't get enough of—not in this dadgum town—drunks that decide to fall down and crack their heads open in the middle of the night, babies that can't tell time and decide to be born at 3 a.m. instead of 3 p.m.," he groused. And then he peered at her. "You having trouble sleeping?"
She shook her head. "Oh, no, no trouble. I was just wondering how many hours a person can sleep without waking."
"Well, now, that's kinda difficult to say." Doc swiped his hand over his mustache. "But if a woman—or a man—were very, very tired—maybe hadn't had any sleep for a few days, had been traveling a long distance, I'd say fifteen, eighteen hours wouldn't be unusual. Maybe even twenty-four if a person is really exhausted. That answer your question?"
Kitty touched his sleeve and nodded. "I think so."
Doc started out the door and then turned back. "Oh, and Kitty, it would be important to make certain the person doesn't have any sign of fever or head injury. If the sleep seems natural, I wouldn't be concerned."
She smiled at the old physician. "Thanks, Doc."
Back in the quiet sanctuary of her room, Kitty placed a soft hand on Matt's brow. When she detected no fever, her fingers cautiously probed his scalp, searching once more for any sign of injury. Satisfied that he was not hurt, she prepared for bed and once more climbed in beside him, moving close and lacing her fingers through his. She smiled when she felt a gentle squeeze on her hand.
Hours later she awakened to the familiar sounds of Matt moving about the room, pulling on his boots, strapping on his gun belt. She pushed herself up against the headboard. "So you finally decided to wake up. You all right?"
He settled his hat on his head. "Yeah. I'm sorry—don't know when I've been that beat." He nodded toward the window. "Sun's up, I gotta do rounds. Afterwards, I'll clean up and take you to breakfast. All right?"
"Not so fast, Matt. Sit down a minute." She patted the space beside her on the bed and watched him remove his hat and sit down beside her.
"Something wrong?"
"No, not wrong exactly, but I don't think you realize just how tired you were. You came in here about two Wednesday morning. It's not Wednesday any more, Matt. It's Thursday morning now."
"Wha…that's not possible." His head jerked toward the window and back to her again, a puzzled frown on his face.
Her hand caressed his sleeve. "It is possible, Matt. You were asleep before your head hit the pillow, and you barely moved in the last 28 hours or so. You were totally exhausted. I'm worried about you, Matt. How much longer can you keep abusing yourself this way?"
He started to push up from the bed, but she grabbed his hand and held it. "There's no need to rush off. I'm sure Festus has already done rounds, and he'll keep an eye on things—same as he did all day yesterday. You're not the only one who knows how to walk these streets and rattle door knobs, you know." Her smile was gentle as her eyes held his, and she watched his face as he wrestled with the reality of her words.
"Kitty, I need to…we'll talk about this later. Right now I'm still trying to accept that today is Thursday, so give me a little time, will you?"
"Of course. We still having breakfast?"
He nodded. "I'll stop by in an hour." He leaned in for a soft kiss and was gone.
That night, after a quiet dinner in her sitting room, Kitty poured two snifters of brandy, handed one to Matt and curled up beside him on the settee. "You ready for that talk? I really am worried about you, Matt."
"I'm fine, Kitty. I was just tired—too many miles and too many days, I guess."
She nestled closer against him. "Probably. But maybe you should let Doc take a look at you just to be sure."
He was quiet for so long she thought her suggestion had made him angry. When he finally spoke, it was the last thing she was expecting. "I'm getting old, Kitty."
She dropped her hand to the inside of his thigh and caressed the coarse fabric of his tan pants. "Oh, I don't know about that."
He placed his own hand over hers. "I'm serious. Know what I was thinking about out there on the trail—other than you, of course?"
"I have no idea."
"I've outlived more than half the lawmen I've ever known."
She patted his thigh again. "Something for which I am very grateful, by the way."
"Me, too. But I never expected to live this long, Kitty."
She sighed. "Yeah, you've reminded me of that a couple dozen times over the years."
"And it was true, Kitty. Most lawmen don't live to dandle their grandchildren on their knee." He sipped his brandy and stared into the glass. "But the point is, they never had to think about life beyond the badge."
She shifted so that she could watch his face. "What are you saying, Matt?"
He shook his head and frowned. "I always figured I'd die with my boots on—either here on Front Street or out there on the prairie. In the performance of duty—that's the way it is with western lawmen, the way it happens in the dime novels." He gave a derisive laugh. "Fact is, it doesn't seem all that glamorous anymore."
"Are you saying you want to quit before that happens?"
He drained his glass. "I think I still have some good years left, but I'll admit my knee hurts most of the time, and in cold weather they can hear my bones creaking all the way down the boardwalk." He shook his head. "No, I'm not ready to quit yet, but maybe I am ready to let Festus and Newly rattle the door knobs more often, maybe take on more of the load."
She took the empty glass from his hand and carried it to the side table for a refill. When she handed it back to him, she looked into his eyes and asked, "What drives you, Matt—has driven you all these years?"
She watched the blue eyes lower momentarily, and when he again raised them to hers they were filled with love. "I don't know, Kitty. I wish I did, I wish I could answer that for you, but I can't. I just know that I have a job to do, and I have to do it my way."
She managed a weak grin. "So I've noticed."
He pulled her down beside him and buried his lips in her hair. "I'm sorry, Kitty. I wish I could change, wish I could be the person you want me to be, but I can't."
Her hand caressed his face. "I'm perfectly happy with the wonderful and amazing man you are." She laced her fingers through his and urged him toward the bedroom. For nineteen years she had loved him, had trusted him with her life—and with her heart, sharing him with not only the piece of tin that possessed him, but also with the demons that tortured him, the monsters that fueled his nightmares, the ghosts that haunted him and shared their bed. She had long ago lost count of the number of nights he twisted and tossed beside her—sweating, mumbling, trembling, sometimes crying out in his sleep—nights she had held him, offering the comfort of her arms, her words, her body. He would sleep well tonight; she would see to that. But tomorrow night—what about tomorrow?
The End