Matt was able to rise in the morning without waking her. That seemed to be the way of it. She always heard him come in, but rarely woke when he dressed and pinned on his badge in the dawn light. Carrying his boots he softly closed the door behind him and walked down into the room below to put them on. He left through the back door, locking it behind him, and glanced up at Doc Adams' window as he crossed the alley. Probably too early, he thought, as he began his morning rounds of the slowly awakening town.
An hour later he was back at the wooden staircase, and climbed slowly up to tap on the door. "I'm comin', I'm comin'. Can't you let an old man sleep?" But Doc was fully dressed except for his coat and hat when the lock turned and he opened the door. "Hmpf. You." Doc said turning to let the Marshal enter his office. "When did you get back?"
"Last night."
"Seen Kitty?"
"Yep. Want to slit my throat?"
Doc wiped a hand across his mustache, and moved over to the stove and shook the coffeepot. "You had breakfast?"
"No. Thought maybe you and I could talk private for a bit before we did that."
Doc looked up at him sideways then nodded and sat down in his desk chair. Matt settled against the examining table, hat in his hand. "How is Kitty, really?"
"Fine, healthy woman. Nothing wrong with her at all. Mostly."
"Mostly."
"Damn it, Matt! What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to tell me why she's lost so many babies the last few years."
Doc sighed. "Not so many. I know women who've lost more." But most of them, he thought, were worn out from child-bearing and years of hard life on the Kansas prairie.
Matt waited. Eventually Doc went on. "I don't have enough information to go on, Matt. When I have this talk with some young man and his wife, I'm pretty sure what's happening between them. You and Kitty, well, I know you sleep with her from time to time. Couldn't even say I actually knew even that, though I was pretty sure, until the first time she came to me pregnant. But I don't know much more. She won't talk about it. You sure don't talk about it." He shrugged.
"Well, what do you need to know?"
Doc turned his face to look up at him sideways. "You won't like it."
"Lots of things I don't like, Doc. Some need doin' anyway."
Doc pulled a piece of paper in front of him and put out a hand for his pen. "How long?"
"How long what?" said Matt.
Doc snorted at him in disgust. "How long have you been together?"
"Since her first year in Dodge. Going on fifteen years now. Do you have to write this down?"
"I do. But no names anywhere. Just notes and numbers. How often?"
"These days, I stay with Kitty most nights I'm in town. Unless there's something going on in town, or I have a prisoner I don't want to leave with just Festus."
"And before?"
"Is that important?" Matt asked.
"Yes."
"Well, right at first it was mostly summertimes, when we could go out fishing or riding for a day. Sometimes she would come to the jailhouse, if I was alone. I took a room at Ma Smalley's that second year, but Ma mostly knew if Kitty came over, and she didn't like it."
"Not at the Long Branch?"
"Not until we bought out Bill Pence. He charged for visitors. I was willing, but Kitty wouldn't have it."
Doc voice showed his surprise, "We?"
"I didn't want Kitty entertaining, and she didn't want it either. Couple of times, things turned rough on her. It made me mad. And… it made me madder that she thought of it as just part of the business. So we changed that as soon as we could. But that's not part of what's going on now."
Doc ducked his head, and stared at his paper. "So now, it's just you?" He knew better, but he still asked.
Matt's hands twitched as he turned the hat in his hand. "I'm sorry you have to ask that, Doc, but yes. Just me. For a long time now." He hesitated and then went on quietly, "Me… and Mannon."
Doc looked sharply up at that. "She told you about that?" He wondered if she'd told Matt about the other times as well.
"She told me. All about it, Doc. Everything."
Doc shuffled the papers on his desk. Cleared his throat. Twice. "I'm sorry about that, Matt. Not something I would usually do. But for Kitty – and knowing the circumstances. It was safer for her to come to me than one of the madams over on Red Alley. And she swore she would do that if I didn't help her. So I did."
"I'm not blaming you, Doc. It was her choice. I'm glad you kept her safe." Matt nodded at the paper of notes. "Anything else you need to know?"
Doc's hand went up again to his moustache. He looked down at his hands, and then up and straight into Matt's eyes. "You have any children, Matt?"
Matt's eyes met his. "One. That I know of for sure. There were women before Kitty, we both know that."
Doc was writing on his paper. "Well then, that, along with Kitty's other pregnancies, leaves no reason to think you're not fertile. And she certainly is now, even if she wasn't before."
"You don't think she was… before?"
Doc sighed and tried to find the right words - words that would explain, but maybe not hurt his friend as much as the plainer ones that came first to his mind. "Matt, it's hard on a woman's body. Bill Pence wasn't bad to his girls, he protected them pretty well, and he didn't force them to take customers if they were set against it, and he kept the roughest men away. You helped with that as well, and not just for Kitty – you've kept this town pretty clean. I know Kitty was young when she came to Dodge – I doubt she was twenty – but she'd been through that rough game for several years at least. More than one abortion if I'm not mistaken. They were hard years. Scarred her mind, but scarred her body as well. I wouldn't be surprised if it's just in the last five years or so that her body has recovered enough to conceive again."
Doc looked down at his notes. Wrote some numbers down the side of the sheet, and tapped his pen against the desk. "So what I'm hearing is that you're together more now than when you two were younger. And she's been pregnant four times in the last four years – twice in the last year - but not in the years before that."
Matt ran his hand over the back of his head. "I hadn't really thought of it that way, Doc, but you're probably right. Once Kitty owned the place, and set up her own rooms, then, yeah, I came over more frequent."
"Well, that's likely part of it, then, Matt. Most couples, they're with each other more at the beginning, less and less as the years and the children move along. When you say you stay with Kitty do you mean… "
"Yes."
Doc's head came up in surprise for a direct stare. "All the time?"
Now Matt shrugged, but his voice was matter of fact. "Pretty much. There's three days, sometimes four, at moon dark when she bleeds. And, I'm always out of town some - sometimes even more days in a month than I'm in Dodge, except in high summer when the herds are coming through. And sometimes I need to be at the office at night – 'though usually I can get away for a while. So unless one of us is sick, or hurting," he sighed, "and that's usually me, yeah, all the time."
Doc went back to his scribbled notes, crossing out a line here, jotting a new one there. "Well, if there's even ten days in a month when you could get her pregnant, I'm more amazed there have been so few pregnancies than that's she's miscarried each time."
Now it was Matt's turn to clear his throat. He looked out the window, and then back at Doc. "I didn't mean to say, Doc, that there was that many times a month when Kitty could have, when I could have gotten her… damn it, we were careful. We've been careful for years."
flashback June 1875 c2c2c2c2c2 June 1875 flashback
She knew she shouldn't. It was a bad time. The worst time, but it had been such a long winter, and their times so few and so short. Matt had come back from a trip down into the Nations, talking about the early summer weather and the rise in the Arkansas River. He asked her to go riding with him on her next day off, and mentioned fishing poles and a picnic, she accepted with glee.
He drove the buggy to a private place by Carter's Creek, well shaded by cottonwoods. There was no one else about, he made quite sure of that, though he didn't expect any visitors mid-day on a Tuesday. Sunday afternoon, that would be something else. He spread out their blankets, and she sat down facing him, blue eyes shining and red hair cascading down her back. It was all he could manage not to fall on her.
Kitty patted the blanket beside her. "Can we talk a little first, Matt?" Her breath was short, and it suddenly dawned on him she was scared. Of him? "I won't make you wait long."
Matt seated himself next to her, determined that there would be no reason, none at all, for her to fear him, now or ever. "What's the matter, honey? Something wrong back at the Long Branch? Someone been bothering you?"
"No. Nothing I can't handle." She moved up to kneel beside him, her hands stroking his hair as she looked into his eyes. "Matt, I told Bill I wasn't going to entertain any more. In my room. He's not happy about it. He still asks me to, sometimes, but I won't do it, and he won't make me." Just let him try, Matt thought, but he kept silent. Her words came faster now. "I'm getting more pay now, for doing the books, and I get a cut on the games I deal. We're almost ready to go halves with Bill on the place."
There had been bounty money this winter. He hated to take money for killing, mostly didn't even file for it, but for this… to see Kitty free and on her own, he was willing. "All that sounds mighty good, Kitty," he told her, trying to understand, "I'm glad that you're not doing that anymore. You know I worried about that, about you getting hurt." About his own controlled but jealous anger at the thought of her with other men. He took a breath and went on, "Now tell me what's got you worried here today."
She plumped down again beside him, her lips pouting a little. "I don't want to get pregnant, Matt. That about sums it up."
Matt ran a hand over the back of his head. He couldn't say the thought hadn't occurred to him before, although, to be honest, it hadn't seemed to concern her. He forgot sometimes, how young she was, and how hard a time she'd had before Dodge. He looked at the fishing poles. Not the day he'd hoped for, but maybe he could manage a dip in that cold water at some point. He took her hands and smiled into her eyes, "Okay, honey, I understand. I'm just glad to be here with you today, and I won't bother you."
But she was laughing at him now. "Well, if you don't bother me, I will most certainly bother you! Matt, you're more than anyone like me deserves. Listen, we just have to be careful."
"Careful." he repeated.
"Here, I'll show you." And she did. It was warm there, even in the shade, and they kissed and stroked, slowly divesting themselves of all their clothes. Kitty nibbled and teased him until he thought surely he would lose his mind, or something else, but when he tried to move over her she firmly pushed him back and bent over to take him in her mouth. The surprise of it, and the heat of her mouth on him, brought him over the edge almost at once. She held him with her hands and her mouth until he began to soften and then sat back, watching him, her blue eyes vulnerable. A few deep breaths and he pulled her into his arms, lying back with her hair spilling over his chest, and trying to think of what to say. "I didn't know you could do that." Well, that wasn't quite right. And "Where on earth did you learn that?" was clearly not a question he wanted answered at all. He settled for kissing her very softly on the lips, tasting the salt flavor that was surely his own, and just trying to catch his breath.
"That was not," he said at last, stroking her back, "Quite what I thought we would be doing today." She relaxed a little against him, but the tension was still there. When his hand moved over her rounded bottom and pressed her against him, her hips moved slightly but sharply and her breath caught. Matt laid her back and looked into her eyes. "So that's being careful?" She nodded, her expression as old as wisdom and her eyes fearful as a child.
She could see he'd liked it, and that it was new for him. But deep inside she feared to hear him say, "A whore's trick." and push her away. What he said next was not anything she expected at all. "My Pa told me, long time ago, that a gentleman sees to a lady's pleasure as well as his own."
Her eyes were wide and seemed so dark as to be almost black. "I know you feel that way, Matt, and you always have, but" she looked up into the blue of his gaze, "but I'm not a lady, and there's nothing you need to do."
"You are my lady, Kitty. Now show me just how to be 'careful' of you." One hand on her hard-tipped breast, he kissed her deeply, and moved his other hand to the warm wetness of her mound. "I've not done this with you before and I want to get it right for you. You need to show me what you like." There was surprise there for her as well, in the skill of his soft stroking. She let herself guide his fingers to just the right place, and helped him find the rhythm she needed. Kitty cried out sharply as, touching her, he moved his mouth over her nipple and sucked it hard. And when he didn't stop, and didn't stop, her hips lifted and she spent against the pressure of his hand.
When she was able to breathe she found him still holding her, his eyes very bright, and himself standing large. "That seems to have gotten you pretty excited, cowboy." she purred.
"Better than a rodeo at the fourth of July. Can you give me a little help here, Kitty?" she reached out to grasp him and his hand covered hers. A few long strokes, and there were fireworks falling all over both of them.
They did manage to swim a bit, but it was too cold and too swift to stay in for long. They fished, and ate, and even napped spread out together under the cottonwoods. As the sun lowered in the sky, they finished dressing, and he hitched up the buggy.
Driving slowly back towards town, he asked her, "So that's the way it is from now on, Kitty? I'm not complaining, I just want to know."
Whore's trick. Whore's trick. Whore's trick. She ignored the word's pounding in her mind, and explained to him, with less embarrassment than she expected, that her fertile time came mostly at the full moon and that she would keep track and let him know when they had to be careful, and when they could do whatever they wanted.
What she didn't tell him, and what he wondered about but didn't manage to ask, was why, after nearly two years with each other, it was only now that she seemed concerned that he might get her with child. He didn't know what had changed, but it seemed clear that something had. He didn't want a child any more than she did at this point in his life, and the thought had worried him from time to time. If Kitty knew how to make this work for them, well, that was certainly a good thing.
As they neared Dodge, and she saw a buggy coming towards them in the twilight, she buttoned herself up to her collar and smoothed her hair. Her hand made a last soft stroke against his thigh, and she moved over to the far edge of the seat, pulling the basket up to sit between them. Matt's back tightened and he shook out the reins. You can have some things, he thought, but you can't have them all the time. And something was far better than nothing.
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"We've been careful for years."
Doc looked at him sternly, "Sorry, son, but if you want my advice on this, you'll have to tell me just what you mean by 'careful'. French letters?"
Matt shook his head. "No, Kitty said that wasn't safe. Safer than nothing, but not safe. We, well we…" Doc sat silently his eyes carefully on the paper before him, waiting for the Marshal to find his own way to say what he needed to say. After a minute or two, Matt went on, but now he did blush, although he kept his voice steady, "For about ten days, five either side of the full moon, we mostly do… other things." He looked up now as he spoke, "There's lots of ways to love without me being inside her, or letting myself spill inside her. We're careful."
Doc stalled a moment. Thinking, writing. "Sounds like you probably are. Looks like you and Kitty can count better than most folks I know." Doc wondered why Matt smiled so suddenly at that phrase, but didn't ask.
Doc added a few lines to his notes, and turned his chair to face Dillon. "I'd say, hearing all this, that Kitty's body is repairing itself. She still can't seem to hold a pregnancy past the first few months, but that will probably get better as time goes on. If you don't want her pregnant, Matt, you'll need to be even more 'careful' – say a full week on either side of her mid-cycle, or just leave her alone during that time. You said full moon, and that's likely pretty accurate, but she should count days, or you should."
Matt stood up and walked over to the window. He kept his back turned now as he hadn't throughout all the frank talk before. "I think there's a few things you don't have straight yet, Doc. Question I asked you when I came in, it was why Kitty was losing those babies. I think I understand that a little better now, but if we've come this far, well, there's more you need to know. I'm not the one who doesn't want Kitty to have a baby. That's her choice. Always has been. I go along with it as best I can because it is her choice, and she's got her reasons. Some are good ones as far as I can see, although I don't agree with them all." He went to the door, and opened it, putting on his hat and settling it in front. "You won't need to slit my throat. I'll take care of Kitty best I can, Doc, but I won't leave her alone."
Doc nodded. "All right, then. And Matt…" the Marshal turned back to face him, his shoulders stiff and his face stern, "Son, I'm so sorry about the baby."
All the rigid strength seemed to drain away from him, "I am too, Doc. More than I know how to say."