Chapter Four ~ Matt
I kept a room at Ma Smalley's when not sleeping at the office. Ma and I got on well. She cooked my favorite food and brought it fresh to my room, as she knew I was somewhat discomforted dining at the big table. She always had fresh coffee on hand, and a hot water pitcher at my door.
Ma upbraided me when Yury Kincaid told folks her establishment was a house of ill repute. She said I should've run Yury out of town awhile back, and Mrs. Kincaid had best divorce him as he was headed for trouble.
"I said some saloon gals stay here when he asked me," Ma said. "The girls know my place is respectable, Marshal. They're not even allowed men in their rooms after ten o'clock, eleven at the very latest."
Why anyone would want to blemish the reputation of a good soul like Ma was beyond me. I've never understood these gossipy fellows calling themselves correspondents who wreak mischief everywhere they set down their fancy boots.
Fortunately for me, Ma liked me too much to hold a grudge. To make up for scolding, she baked a green-apple pie for me to take to the office and share with Chester. It "was that scoundrel Kincaid's fault," she said, not mine. She wasn't one to wish folks ill, she said, but knew something "real bad will happen to that man if he doesn't mend his ways. I feel for his wife. I've never met a more gracious woman."
Running Yury out of town would mortify Mrs. Kincaid, so I let him stay and spread malicious gossip. I blamed myself for not asking him to leave Dodge soon after he arrived.
I couldn't jail the McClearys as there were no witnesses. There never were. I wished I had the courage to take off my badge just long enough to do the job. It would be like shooting rabid wolves. I imagined aiming close range at Rolfe McCleary's nose so he'd be buried with no face, but knew I'd never purposefully shoot a man in the head. Rolfe and the idiot middle brother Clay I'd shoot through the heart, and I'd spare young Tanner. Little more than a whelp, Tanner wasn't big like his brothers, and I doubted he'd pose a danger away from Rolfe's lead.
An odd brutish set who kept their own company, the McClearys were nonetheless garrulous when approached. Rolfe was demonstrative to the point of indecency, and things ended badly for any man who got real friendly with the brothers.
Chester caught Yury as he fell through the office doorway that night. He held onto Chester there on the floor and wouldn't let go. Chester couldn't walk up the stairs to Doc's carrying a man, so I bent down and tried to pick Yury up. He tensed, hissed "No!," and held tighter to Chester, who looked to me.
I shifted my position on the floor so I could meet Yury's eyes. "We have to get you to Doc," I said. "I won't hurt you. Chester will come with us." When Yury didn't respond, I mouthed "Talk to him" at Chester.
"Let him pick you up so's we can get you to Doc, Yury. Mr. Dillon's not gonna hurt you," Chester said.
Yury let me lift him then, but he still clutched the arm of Chester's shirt so Chester had to walk close beside me, making our steps awkward on account of his limp. Yury told me on the way what the McCleary brothers did to him. I almost tripped over Chester's foot more than once as our steps weren't matched, and tried not to think what would happen if we tangled and the three of us fell. We'd all need Doc then.
Doc is a regular nursemaid, his patients' moral character notwithstanding. I saw no reason for Kitty to soil her hands nursing a man like Yury, but Doc said he needed her to spell him and Mrs. Kincaid as Yury couldn't be alone in Doc's office; he might wander out and fall down the stairs.
"Why would he fall down the stairs?" I said. "His legs are mending tolerable. It's inside his head that's sick."
Doc shushed me; Yury sat in bed in the other room. "I think he understands some of what he hears," Doc said.
"I've treated men in shock before, Matt. They're like babies—have to watch 'em round the clock. I need Kitty's help, and times when she's too busy, I'll need Chester."
Chester had been broody lately. I knew nursing duty wouldn't improve his mood. "Come on, Doc," I said. "Chester's not up to this. Mrs. Kincaid's a fine woman; I'd like to do what we can for her husband, but you're asking too much."
"I'll only ask Chester's help when I need it," Doc said. "It's mostly just sitting with the patient. It's up to you, Matt; Chester won't say no to you. The only doctor in town can't stay in his office every minute. The burden will fall on Mrs. Kincaid without Chester's help."
Though I yielded to Doc's irrefutable logic at the time, when Chester scared me half to death yowling from a nightmare, I told Doc my partner's nursing days were over.
"No, you're right, Matt," Doc said. As Yury had nearly recovered sufficient to travel, Doc would no longer need Chester's services. Doc said Mrs. Kincaid would take her husband to an asylum for feeble-minded in Virginia. "Have Chester take one of these in water every night." Doc handed me some sleeping powder packets.
Must've been a week or so after the Kincaids left Dodge when young Tanner McCleary came to the office. I thought first thing of a confession, as the McClearys never asked help from the law. I was writing a report on the Circle Z ranch hands' latest drunken rampage through Dodge. I'd turned the cowboys loose that morning.
Chester was cleaning the jail cells when Tanner walked in with the furtive air that always surrounded him. I looked up from my report, and Chester stopped mopping the jail floor.
"You got something you wanna get off your chest?" I said to Tanner.
"It was Rolfe, Marshal," he said. "I ain't done it. Rolfe made me and Clay hold 'im. I was too scared of Rolfe not to do what he says, and fool Clay obeys him no matter if it's somethin' bad."
I stood and moved to talk to Tanner face on. Chester set the mop aside, came into the front room and sat on the edge of my desk.
"Rolfe made you and Clay hold who?" I said. We'd need a full confession to convict, including names.
"Yury Kincaid," said Tanner. "Clay and me hit him some to hold onto 'im. He most got away a coupla times and fought us. Clay beat him hard when Yury give him a black eye."
"You said it was Rolfe," I said. "What did Rolfe do?"
Tanner reddened. "Attacked 'im. Yury. Beat him over and over and . . . worse 'n that.
"Things was friendly when Yury first come over our place. We made jokes. Then Rolfe got real close to Yury, backslappin' and shoulder huggin' and such. Yury, guess he'd had enough of that outta Rolfe from times afore, so he called Rolfe an unmannerly brute and backhanded 'im. Rolfe don't take that off no man, and that's when . . . it started."
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked. I didn't need his answer for testimony, but I wanted to know.
He said nothing for a moment, then spit out his response, talking rapidly. "Rolfe, he . . . since we was young 'uns . . . he's forceful like. He goes on like friendly but he's mean. Real mean. It's me he fixes on, not Clay." Tanner ran his words together; it took a close listen to understand him. "Clay won't let-let h-him cuz Clay's bigger," he said. "I can't fight Rolfe off." He crushed his hat in his hands, pulling it apart. "He says he'll track me if I run off. I choose prison over a fate worse 'n death is all.
"I let Clay know I was goin' to the law, Marshal. Rolfe treats Clay bad, so my first thinkin' in my rilement was Clay might want Rolfe in prison much as me." Tanner shook his head hard enough to crack his neck. "Fearin' now I made a mistake tellin' Clay," he said. "He's mighty loyal to Rolfe, and Clay ain't so foolish he don't know what prison is. He might tell Rolfe I went to the law."
I figured Tanner was right, that Rolfe and Clay fled from the law as we spoke. Even knowing what Rolfe did to Yury, I failed to understand the depth of evil to which a man can sink.
"Chester, lock Tanner up and get my horse," I said, strapping on my gunbelt. "I'm gonna bring those two in."
The door banged open. Rolfe stood in the doorway, gun drawn. He shot Tanner in the chest. Tanner's body jerked up rigid, then crumpled to the floor.
I drew my gun and shot Rolfe through the heart twice in quick succession. The floorboards rattled as he pitched face-down on the floor. Both brothers lay motionless and silent.
I was holstering my gun when Clay appeared in the doorway and leveled his gun at me. A shot cracked from behind me before my gun cleared the holster, and Clay dropped the gun and grabbed his chest. His mouth opened wide as he fell, landing on his back. I shot a slug through his hands still pressed to his chest as he went down. He was bigger than Rolfe, and the whole office shook as he landed. He lay silent like his brothers, his mouth hanging open and his eyes staring wide.
I turned to see Chester still holding the shotgun aimed at Clay's body. Chester moved to the body and looked down. "He's dead, Mr. Dillon," Chester said, in the same tone he used after shooting a copperhead. He moved to Rolfe and with the shotgun barrel flipped the body face-up. Rolfe's open eyes were unblinking and unseeing. "This one's dead too," said Chester.
He returned the shotgun to its place on the wall, then we both bent down next to Tanner's curled-up body. A crowd had gathered outside. I rolled Tanner onto his back. His eyes and mouth were slightly open. I held my palm close to his mouth and felt no breath.
I mailed Mrs. Kincaid a letter to let her know the men who attacked her husband were dead. I told Chester I was riding out to the McCleary shack to burn it, everything in it, and the grass around it to the ground. When Chester said he'd ride with me, and asked if he could strike the matches and light the shack on fire, I said alright. I understood. It sometimes helps for a man to clear away the aftermath with his own hand.
Fond as Kitty was of Mrs. Kincaid, she had no plans to correspond with her. Kitty wanted "to forget the whole dark business" if she could.
Doc won't write to the psychiatrists treating Yury. "He's in capable hands. Plenty folks right around here need my attention," Doc said
Doc read a book on psychiatry he ordered from a catalog in Jonas' store. Doc said Chester was stricken by the melancholy from the night Yury was attacked until the day I killed Rolfe McCleary and Chester killed Clay. Doc said the brothers' deaths brought Chester back to himself.
After the McClearys' bodies were hauled to Boot Hill, Chester scrubbed the office floor clean of blood. He played his guitar that night and sang lively songs like Camptown Races and Skip to my Lou.
We're sitting outside the office now, Chester and I. I'm dozing light with the hat shading my eyes while Chester practices his rope tricks.
Yury won't be writing falsehoods about our townspeople if his senses ever return. Ma Smalley said Mrs. Kincaid threw her husband's writing tablets in the fire.