My Secret Yesterday
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters.
This story takes place after the events of Hostage but before the death of Sam Noonan, Kitty's faithful bartender.
Kitty brooded on the events of the last few hours. It would be easy if they'd never occurred, but that, she knew, was beyond her control now. It didn't matter that she'd missed those clues at their first meeting in the Long Branch: slender fingers that grasped a shot glass much too daintily; the voice only a hint higher in pitch than her own; the smoothness of the face that looked like it hadn't ever felt a razor; the bright, dark blue eyes with the lighter flecks that danced when caught in the wavering light of the oil lamps; the short steps with a lightness as his feet touched the floor; the thin, rust colored eyebrows. But the thing she'd noticed most of all was the smile the young man gave her. It was familiar.
Everything came together in Doc's office, as the youth lay unconscious on the old healer's examining table.
The thick, curly, copper colored hair had been hidden securely under the big hat. Released, it was obvious the young man was a young woman. Doc cast her a surprised look before unfastening the buttons of his patient's shirt. Another shock grabbed then both when they saw the strips of undyed linen binding the woman's breasts tightly to her chest.
At that very moment Kitty Russell both dreaded and anticipated Doc's next move.
With a blunt scissors in his right hand, Doc Adams neatly sliced the linen and pulled the two ends apart to reveal what both he and she knew lay beneath. Two pink tipped breasts, wrinkles deeply ingrained, lay exposed.
Kitty hadn't heard it, yet she knew she must have done something to take Galen Adams' full attention from his patient.
The true identity of the young woman lay before her, out in the open, just like the secret she'd kept for eighteen years: the heart shaped port wine birthmark just above the girl's right breast.
Kitty Russell's well-spun net of concealment now had one huge hole in it. Her seventeen-year-old secret was here in Dodge City.
Kitty pushed aside her own feelings of apprehension to brush a hand across Kate's soft cheek. The girl whimpered with unconscious pain and pressed into Kitty's hand like a newborn craving the touch of its mother. At that point, Kitty lost her fight to control the ever mounting swell of past decisions and visibly and audibly let the tears and the ragged gasps of air escape.
"We've known each other a long time, Kitty."
His words were gentle, the tone he used to convey both the love and concern he felt toward his close friend. His hand on her shoulder was a reassuring reminder of his physical presence, as well.
Yes, they'd known each other for a good period of time. She watched him trundle to the small black stove and pour two mugs of coffee. She took the offered cup, sure that he caught the obvious tremor in her hand as she grasped it.
"Do you want to tell me something?"
Time seemed frozen in spite of the ticking of the rose wood framed clock that hung on the wall above his desk.
The sharp tang of disinfectant mingled with the smell of blood. Kate's blood.
"Not yet."
Another gentle pat on her arm declared louder than any words ever could, his acceptance of her decision. He was, for this very reason, her dearest and closest friend. He wouldn't push; he'd simply put the matter aside and wait until she was ready to talk.
Kitty did feel a bit sorry for the man. She had no idea just when she would find the words to tell him about Kate.
"I'll get her cleaned up and then I'll need to keep a close eye on her for a few days." He took off the silver rimmed spectacles and laid them beside the bowl of bloodied water that held the extracted bullet. "She'll need time to mend. But she's young."
"As soon as she's able to be moved," Kitty spoke in a carefully controlled whisper, "I've got a room for her at my place."
Those 'why does this not surprise me' pale blue eyes of Doc's teamed with questions.
His thoughts were obvious. Two redheads with deep blue eyes in the same room at the same time; the probability was not too out of the realm of possibility. But two blue-eyed redheads who looked so much alike. That was another matter altogether. She'd seen his conundrum as he looked from Kate to herself more than a few times in the course of tending the bullet wound in Kate's side.
He swiped his thick-fingered hand across his nose. "Matt will need to know that a great deception was successfully carried off on the good citizens of Dodge City."
A great deception. Doc had no idea of the true depth of his words.
"Are you alright, Kitty?"
For the third time in as many hours, Kitty Russell lied. "Yes. I am."
The first and second times had been to Matt Dillon; one inside the saloon next to the stain of Kate's blood, the other on the boardwalk just before her nagging suspicions forced her to come up to Doc's office to check on the young man.
Doc sniffed and shook his head. "I don't believe that, Kitty. Not for a second."
He was right.
"She'll be out for at least sixteen hours. Why don't you go back to your room and get some rest."
No. "I can't leave her, Doc."
The calmness in which she delivered those five words was diametrically opposed to the way she felt inside both her mind and her heart.
Two red heads. Doc puzzled over it now, just as he'd done the previous night. The only difference being that he was walking in the direction of the marshal's office. Those two women could be sisters, they looked so much alike. But Kitty's reaction, he shook his head negatively, just wasn't right for that.
He had another thought. This one nagged at him no matter how hard he tried to keep it pushed down.
Doc found Matt Dillon on the street side of the Long Branch swinging doors with his left hand resting on one of the bat wings. He was searching the inside of the saloon.
"Well, you going in or what?" Doc knew full well that if a certain carrot haired female saloon owner were in sight, the marshal would have those doors swinging. "Kitty's with my patient." He felt obligated to put the leggy man out of his misery.
Doc waited as the six foot seven man peered down on him as if weighing a decision of grave importance.
"Well good morning to you too."
Doc could hear just a subtle hint of irritation in the lawman's strong voice.
"I repeat," Doc craned his neck as he looked up at Matt Dillon. He made sure he held his bottom jaw firmly jutted out to show that he wasn't in any mood for either jokes or threats, "are you coming or going?"
If Matt Dillon was in any way annoyed or intimidated, and that was highly unlikely anyway, he didn't show it. "How's the boy doing? He ready to talk yet?"
Doc tugged at his left earlobe. "My patient will be fine but you need to wait on the questioning." Doc congratulated himself on his skill at speaking the truth but not the whole truth. "How'd it go out at Wentworth's last night?"
Matt's azure blue eyes scrutinized the toes of his booted feet before answering. "Well," he started slowly, "he wants more information. Wants to hear," Matt finally looked at Doc, a resigned expression on his face, "it from the kid himself."
"Don't think he'd hurt the kid, do you?"
Matt responded with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "He's pretty shook up. Jake was supposed to take over this year."
Doc's hand swiped slowly across his more salt than pepper shaded mustache. "Yup. Gotta feel bad for the old man, loosin his only boy like that. Gotta hurt."
Doc wondered if the grief the old man felt would intensify or ease up when he found out the true gender of the person who killed his son.
"Say, Doc, how long before the boy can be moved?"
Doc wondered how the marshal would take the same news that waited for old man Wentworth. "By the end of the day. Kitty's got a room."
Doc didn't have to wait long before the marshal's bushy eyebrows knit together into on straight line and the man's head jerked back in surprise.
"Didn't see that one coming."
Another thought passed silently through Doc's overactive mind. It just could be that more things were coming down the pike when it concerned this cross dressing young woman named Kate. But he'd have to be patient and wait until his dear friend Kitty Russell was ready to talk. Could be a while. Kitty could be pretty dog-goned tightlipped when she wanted to be.