Chapter 3

"You Are (Not) Here"

The charming young man smiled and extended his elbow to the woman he was preparing to escort on this most informative of tours. Kitty decided to surrender all hope of making sense out of what was happening and just go along for the ride. She had to wake up eventually.

She wrapped her arm around his as they walked outside onto Front Street. She looked up and read the worn sign hanging cockeyed over her establishment—"The Peacock Saloon."

What? Despite the missing furniture and strange bedroom décor, this looked exactly like her place. "Isn't this The Long Branch?"

"Not for many years," he said. "When Bill Pence decided to sell, the only offer he got was from a shady businessman who ended up destroying it. Watered down drinks, bad whiskey, crooked card games—the man was practically run out on a rail. A couple of people tried to reopen it under different names, but they could never make a go of it. So they eventually sold most of the inventory to the other saloons, just to get something out of it."

"What about Floyd?" she asked, suddenly concerned for her trusted employee.

"What about him?" he inquired.

"Well, where is he? He's my barkeep, I hired him after Sam died." She got a lump in her throat thinking about that difficult loss.

"You didn't hire anyone, remember? You never lived here. Floyd didn't work at The Long Branch, it was long gone before he got here."

"But he's okay, isn't he?" she asked hopefully.

"Oh yes, Floyd is fine. He works at The Lady Gay. It sure is a shame about Sam, though."

"I know," she said sadly. "He was one of my dearest friends, and I still miss him. I just lost him last year."

"Actually, Sam died thirteen years ago," he declared. "He couldn't find a job in town, so he ended up hiring himself out as a cheap farm hand. That kind of work was too physically demanding for a man his age, but he was desperate. He died of a heart attack shortly after."

"That's not true!" Kitty cried. She couldn't stand the image of her fatherly friend struggling to make it as a farm hand.

"Well, I can take you to his grave if you'd like to see it," he offered. "It's a very small ground marker, but the date will show you when he died."

Kitty was in no mood to see a grave marker. She took a deep breath and told herself to calm down. It's not real, remember? Just play along. "No, thank you," she responded.

"Are you ready to see the rest of the town?" he prompted. "I think you will find it interesting."

Kitty glanced around the street and noticed a smattering of activity. She instinctively crossed her arms around her middle, aware that she was most inappropriately dressed for a stroll through town.

"You don't need to worry about your appearance," her tour guide assured her. "No one can see you."

She started to ask how that was possible but decided against it. She hadn't liked any of his answers so far.

Kitty scanned each building as they continued down Front Street. Other than The Long Branch nothing looked out of the ordinary, yet she had the distinct feeling that she wasn't in Kansas anymore. She couldn't explain it, but the town had a different feel to it.

Dodge City was open for business, and the breakfast crowd had begun assembling at Delmonico's. As she walked past the Post Office, menacing faces stared back at her from the plethora of wanted posters that decorated the outside wall.

She wouldn't have stared back had it not been for a name she recognized among the sea of assumed criminals. Kitty slowly approached the poster, her left hand covering her heart. It couldn't be…could it? She hadn't seen him in years, though they had kept in touch with letters. He was grown now, a young man but a man just the same. She looked closely at the picture as her mind flashed back a dozen years to the chestnut haired, brown-eyed freckle face that she had fed sugar candy and taught to fish. The eyes were the same, but the youthful innocence had been replaced with a hardened reality.

She reluctantly read the words under the picture. "Wanted: For bank robbery. Thad Ferrin."

"He was a good kid with a lot of potential," said the man who seemed to possess no shortage of bad news. "He just didn't have a chance."

"I don't understand," she said weakly. "He was adopted by such a nice family. He's supposed to be in college now."

"Thad wasn't adopted," she was informed. "He was raised by his father. Raised to be an outlaw, just like him."

Kitty felt sick at her stomach. Tucker Ferrin was as vile a human being as she had ever known. He had viciously killed her friend, the mother of his child. But Tucker Ferrin could not have raised Thad, she had made sure of it.

"That's not possible. His father is dead," she insisted without elaborating.

Oh, I'm afraid Mr. Ferrin is very much alive," he stated. "It's Thad's mother who is dead. After Tucker killed her, it didn't take him long to find his son."

"Tucker Ferrin did not find his son," she stressed, almost angrily. "I…I killed him before he could."

"No, you never met him."

"Yes I did. Thad's mother was my friend, she was working for me when she got involved with Tucker. I promised her that I would protect Thad from him if anything ever happened to her. And I kept that promise." Despite the years that had passed, she could still see the expression on that soulless face as Tucker Ferrin charged toward her, threatening, daring her to pull the trigger on the rifle she was aiming at him.

"You're forgetting where you are," he politely reminded her. "Ellie never worked for you, and neither did anyone else here. She was working at another saloon when she met Tucker Ferrin, and she didn't have a friend who was willing or able to take responsibility for that child. At least not for very long. Nobody promised her anything."

Kitty put her head in her hands and let out a growl of frustration. "Look, I don't know who you are or what kind of rabbit hole I've fallen down, but I've had enough of this. Take me home. Now."

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that just yet," he replied sympathetically. "I have a job to do, and my boss isn't the kind you want to disappoint."

"I don't care if your boss is God almighty, I'm telling you to get me the hell out of here," she hissed through clenched teeth, emphasizing every word. She thought she saw him trying to stifle a laugh, and it infuriated her.

"Is my predicament amusing to you?" she asked disapprovingly.

"No Ma'am," he assured her. "It's just that you're still…I mean, you're a very feisty lady. You sure keep a fellow on his toes."

"It doesn't seem to be doing me much good," she remarked dryly. "Please tell me what it's going to take to get me out of this place."

"Just a couple of more stops," he promised. "Follow me."

They continued walking, and Kitty stopped at the bottom of a familiar wooden staircase. She smiled for the first time all day as she looked at the name on the sign. "G. Adams." She hadn't seen anything she had liked so far, but Doc was still here and that was something. It was beginning to feel like Dodge after all.

"Would you like to see him?" the young man asked.

"More than you know," she answered, starting up the steps.

"Oh he's not in his office, he's over at the stable tending to Ruth."

Kitty turned around, puzzled. "Why? Ruth belongs to Festus."

"Doc took him after Festus was killed," he clarified. "He didn't need a mule, of course, but he couldn't bear to sell him. He thought taking care of him was the least he could do for Festus. They sure argued a lot, but Doc loved him dearly."

Kitty swallowed hard and looked toward the jail. How could Festus be gone?

"What happened?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"Jude Bonner happened," he replied, shaking his head. "One of the meanest men this town has ever seen."

No one knew that better than Kitty. A wave of nausea overcame her as memories of the unspeakable abuse she had suffered at Jude Bonner's hands came flooding back to her. She quickly grabbed the railing and sat on the nearest step. It had been almost two years and the psychological wounds were still healing, much more slowly than the physical ones.

"What are you talking about?" she pressed. "He took me, not Festus. Newly and Festus were wounded by the dog soldiers, but they survived."

"Except you weren't here, and the marshal didn't have a woman for Bonner to take," he explained. "There was no one to give herself up so he would leave the rest of the town alone."

That moment was forever burned into her memory. Walking down those stairs, standing toe to toe with a monster, determined to hide the terror she felt at her unknown fate. It had affected her in ways no one could possibly understand, but she would do it all over again knowing what Bonner would have done to her friends.

"Bonner was furious that he had no bargaining power," the man continued. "He could have just left when he realized he couldn't help his brother, but he wasn't that kind of man. Somebody was going to pay, and he decided that the marshal's deputy was the next best thing to the marshal. So he marched Festus out onto the street and shot him in front of the town. Doc worked all night but couldn't save him. He was devastated. Everyone was."

Kitty wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. She was physically exhausted and emotionally numb, wondering how long she was going to be stuck in this nightmare. She was tempted to jump up and start screaming—maybe she could wake herself up. Then again, she didn't want to cause a scene. I know it's not real, but I don't want to look like a maniac in the middle of Front Street wearing my nightgown and robe. She knew her logic made no sense, but neither did anything else. She said nothing.

"Would you like to go to the stable and see Doc?" he asked.

"No," she replied softly. Doc working in his office would have been a welcome sight. Doc lovingly caring for Festus' mule would be heartbreaking.

"Well then, we just have one more place to go," he announced, nodding toward Matt's office.

TBC