Chapter Three-Buryin'
Matt steered the buggy on the road to their private fishing spot, Kitty sitting next to him holding a small box on her lap. Matt tried to figure out how he could have possibly gotten himself roped into this. Of course, he would never deny Kitty anything, but he felt mighty silly participating in a kitten funeral. He was just thankful he'd been able to talk her out of asking the preacher to officiate, telling her the man was much too busy to bother with a private family funeral. The truth was, the man was a pompous windbag who didn't have the time of day for Kitty Russell except for when it came time to ask for a donation, in spite of the fact that she worked just as hard as any of the "respectable" town ladies at their ladies' aid dinners and whatnot, and donated as much money as their "respectable" husbands, and he'd take off his badge before he let that man anywhere near her in the state she was in over those kittens. When he found out the second part of her plan, which was to ask him to baptize the surviving kitten, he knew he needed to put a stop to that or the man would laugh her out of his office and then notify the State Asylum to come pick her up, and if that happened, Matt would have to punch the salvation out of him, even though he was having some doubts about her sanity himself. He'd managed to convince her that as a law enforcement official, he was authorized to perform funerals, and that the Lord allowed anyone, not just preachers, to perform baptisms, and he guessed he was probably going to end up doing that, too, and he would, if it would put a smile back on her face.
Matt looked down at Kitty. "Almost there," he said, putting his arm around her shoulder. She looked up at him and leaned against his chest, keeping one hand protectively over the top of the box. She sighed, knowing that Matt thought she'd taken leave of her senses when he walked into her room to find her lining a heart-shaped candy box with two of her best handkerchiefs, declaring that the kittens were going to receive a proper burial even if she had to do it herself. The truth was, her heart and mind were miles away from those kittens. Thinking of four other tiny babies who were never to be, she choked back a sob. Matt cradled her head in his large hand, brushing his lips against her forehead. "Everything is going to be all right, Kitty." She nodded, knowing he had no idea what was going through her mind. Doc had known, even before she did. When she took Pumpkin Pie over to Doc to see if he would take care of him during the funeral (showing signs of her usual spirit when she wordlessly dared Matt to try to tell her that the kitten would most likely survive without the skills of an M.D. for the couple of hours they would be gone) and had finished her sad tale (already related to him by Festus in his own colorful way), Doc took off his glasses, shook his head and brushed his mustache with one hand.
"Of course I'll keep the little fella for awhile, Kitty, and I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed me." Kitty's eyes began to fill up again. "But you and Festus did everything right. Sometimes babies that little just can't survive without their mama." Kitty gasped and covered her face with her hands. "Oh, my God, Kitty, that was a cruel thing for me to say. Can you ever forgive me?"
Kitty patted her old friend on the shoulder. "It's all right, Doc. It's not the same thing."
"Maybe not. But it was still thoughtless of me to say it, and I'm sorry. Sweetheart, don't you think this would be a good time to tell Matt? At least about the last one?" Kitty shook her head, unable to say anything for fear of once again bursting into tears. Doc was her oldest friend in more ways than one, and knew more about her life before Dodge than, God willing, Matt ever would. The first three babies, a result of her former profession, were gone long before she ever got to Dodge City, intending to just pass through on her way to-she couldn't even remember any more where she had intended to go. Doc knew just how hard she had worked to keep from thinking of the babies her previous life wouldn't allow her to have. The last one had been the most heartbreaking; after she had reserved herself only for Matt, and she had wanted that baby the most of all.
Kitty took a deep breath. "I can't, Doc. I can't do that to him. I can't hurt him like that." In spite of Matt's assertion that a family had no place in his life, she believed that he would have done the right thing by her and the baby and come to accept and even want it as much as she had. There was no need to trouble him with what might have been.
"Don't you think he'd want to know, Kitty?" Doc asked kindly.
"I don't know, Doc, I don't know."
Festus was waiting for them next to the old tree, a tiny grave freshly prepared. He took off his hat as Matt helped Kitty down from the buggy, Kitty still carefully clutching the candy box. "Miss Kitty, Matthew," he said by way of greeting. "Are you ready to get started?"
"Why don't we give her a few minutes, Festus." Kitty walked alone toward the water, collecting wildflowers as she went. Matt hung back to give her her privacy, but close enough to offer any assistance she might need. She seemed to be trying to gather her courage to let go of the kittens. Matt couldn't recall ever seeing a grown woman this upset over a few kittens, although, admittedly, Matt had little other experience with grown women, and certainly not with any other woman like this one.
Kitty turned and walked back toward Matt, smiling bravely. "I'm ready," she said, placing her hand on his waiting arm. They joined Festus at the gravesite. Kitty turned to Matt, finally offering the heart-shaped box. Please don't let me down, Cowboy, she implored him silently. Wouldn't dream of it, ma'am, he seemed to say as he accepted the box from her. Kneeling at the grave, he gently placed the kittens in their final resting place. Standing up, he removed his hat and cleared his throat several times before speaking, suddenly realizing he had no type of speech prepared for the occasion.
"We are gathered together," he began, "to lay to rest these three precious little ...um...kittens," he finished, feeling more foolish by the second. Kitty shot him a look that said she was fighting between sadness for the kittens and amusement at his embarrassment. But thankfully, disappointment was nowhere to be seen on her face. With relief, he continued, figuring he couldn't possibly do any worse than he just had. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I am the resurrection and the life, whosoever shall believe in me…" Matt realized he had reached the limit of his ministerial knowledge, at least in this setting. "And so on, and so forth, Amen." Matt looked at Kitty, whose face was now devoid of expression. Matt nodded at Festus, who began to sing "Amazing Grace" without a trace of his usual hillbilly manner.
"I thought you said you'd done this before," Kitty said softly, trying not to interrupt Festus.
"I didn't say I was any good at it." Neither could look at the other, for fear of losing control and offending Festus during his beautiful rendition.
Festus finished singing and Kitty approached the grave, letting her flowers fall one by one onto the little box. Finally, she nodded at Festus and turned, fully intending to wait until the burial was complete before returning to the buggy to leave. Festus began to fill the grave as gently and quietly as he could, but even that small sound was too much for Kitty to bear. She collapsed to the ground in a heap of exhausted sobs, Matt immediately gathering her into his arms as she clung to him.
"I'll just go tend to some business and come back and finish this later, Matthew," Festus said softly as he crept away, doubting if either one of them even heard him.
"I'm sorry, Matt, I'm so sorry," Kitty cried brokenly, and Matt wasn't sure if she was sorry for crying, or for the real reason she was crying. Something in the depths of her sorrow finally gave Matt an understanding of the real reason why these kittens meant so much to her, because he remembered.
It was a couple of years after Kitty came to Dodge, and they had been keeping company for quite some time, and sharing a bed whenever they could. Matt was no expert, but he knew there were certain changes that happened to women when they were expecting, and Kitty seemed to be experiencing some of them. No announcement was forthcoming, however, and Matt wasn't sure if it was because she wasn't yet aware of the changes, or if she just wasn't ready to tell him. One night, while he was preparing for a week-long trip to transport some prisoners, she seemed to be on the verge of trying to tell him something, but when she didn't, Matt decided he would take the bull by the horns and say something when he came back. Unfortunately, he returned to find that Kitty had spent the last two days in her room crying and wouldn't tell anyone why, letting no one in but Doc, who spouted some sort of nonsense about doctor patient confidentiality, whatever the hell that meant, when he tried to get some answers out of him. Kitty refused to tell him anything other than that she wasn't feeling well and she had just wanted him to come home so much that she couldn't stop crying. It wasn't too hard to figure out what had happened, and Matt could think of no reason to make her feel even worse by asking her if there had been a baby. He held her all that night, telling her over and over how sorry he was that he hadn't been there when she got sick, while she had cried the same way she was crying now. The next morning, Kitty was back to being herself, and Matt knew that this was the woman he would spend the rest of his life protecting and making happy. And tomorrow, he would baptize every cat in Ford County if it would keep her from crying like this ever again.
After the buggy finally left, Festus returned carrying a large shoebox. Setting it down, he picked up the shovel and enlarged the still-uncovered kitten burial plot. Placing the shoebox next to the heart-shaped candy box, he carefully covered the boxes and placed a homemade wooden cross at the head of the grave.
"Don't you worry yourself none, mama cat," said Festus softly, holding his hat in his hands. "She's gonna take real good care of yore baby."
A/N It occurs to me that several things about this chapter with regard to Kitty's pregnancy history came to me way too easily (although not nearly as easily back out onto the screen) to be completely mine, so if I have stolen any dialogue, scenes, or plot points from anyone, please send me a PM and I will do my best to fix things.
As far as I know, US Marshals having authorization to perform funerals is a complete fabrication intended to protect Kitty from dealing with a holier-than-thou preacher.
Can someone please tell me if Doc wore glasses? I'm drawing a blank, and I can only find one picture online with him in glasses. Oh, well, it looked good while I was writing it.