Wichita chapter 9 Dead Ends
By MarMar1
Oct/Nov 2007
DISCLAIMER: see chapter 1
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yes, I know that last chapter was frustratingly short, but it had to be said and it was long enough to do it. This chapter is a tad longer. Enjoy.
WICHITA chapter 9 DEAD ENDS
"Not a good idea, Matt." Doc's acerbic comment mingled with the strains of fiddle and banjo music. Even halfway down Front Street the music drifted clearly on the night air, too clearly; and the irony was not lost on the marshal of Dodge City. Here he was, for once, in town during a Sociable and still he wasn't attending. Had no desire to attend. No, he had the desire. What he didn't have was the someone he wanted to dance with and he knew it was his own damned fault. Matt didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to think about it. In his frustration, he had kicked out at the boardwalk as if in some way it had offended him. For his efforts he felt a sharp stab of pain up his leg and back. Damn!
Even now he often felt the aftermath of his most recent brush with the reaper, the reaper or something worse. This only darkened his mood further.
"What are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be down there dancing and keeping Festus out of trouble?" Matt wanted only to distract his old friend from his observations. The last thing he needed was to have Doc nagging him about his back.
Doc chuckled, "Not me; oh no!" He chuckled again, quietly. The two men walked side by side. Reaching the marshal's office, each took a seat in one of the chairs on the boardwalk. Doc let the silence sit on them for a while before speaking.
"How is your back, Matt?" he had a pretty good idea how it was, but he wasn't sure he should ask what he really wanted to know.
"Fine." An abundance of words, as usual. Matt knew Doc too well, knew there was more on his mind than the condition of Matt's back.
The music stopped. Matt could see in his mind the people moving about, lining up at the table to get a glass of punch, some hoping for a little something extra in the cup. He was ambushed by the question of the glasses. Where had they gotten the glasses? How long had it been now that Kitty had supplied the glasses, hell, the punch, the bowl, the something extra, for the Town Sociables? He shifted quickly in his chair, another spike up his back. Not enough to distract his thoughts. It was just something she did and everyone had just come to expect it. Like so many of the things she did, it was a detail that was woven into the fabric of life in Dodge City, woven so expertly into the fabric that it went almost unnoticed. She had that quiet way of seeing what was needed and taking care of it, quietly, even anonymously when she could. Everything, every place, most people, in town seemed to have some tie to Kitty. More than once in the past few weeks he had been amazed at how much of her there was in Dodge. Somehow he had stopped noticing. Stopped noticing how she connected with people, how she did so much to ease the rough edges of life. All the little things she did for so many people. God, how he missed her. Again he shifted in an effort to shake the thoughts from his mind; again the pain.
"You need to look after that back, Matt." Doc could see the way he flinched with each quick movement. He heard only a grunt in return.
They sat, neither speaking, hearing the music start once more; each man missing the woman who crowded their thoughts, the woman he considered the only dance partner worth bothering about, the only woman either had accompanied to a Sociable in years, the only woman who could fill the void yawning before them..
The older man noticed that the marshal's gaze had taken the same path as his own. "It's been mighty dark over there for too long." He measured his words, not ready yet for a full assault. Most of Front Street was dark; folks were either in bed or down at the dance, but the light from The Long Branch had been gone for much longer than an evening. The upstairs light. His comment was met with silence. Doc wondered if it was just Matt's natural reticence or if it was a symbol of something more. He worried that it was surrender that he heard in the silence.
It was a thought he found unbearable. He knew, of course, that something was wrong. Kitty never left town without some warning, not unless there was something wrong. He felt keenly the difference here; never had he been at a total loss to understand her absence. More than three weeks, no explanation, no word. It wasn't good. He usually worked to tread lightly in the private lives of his friends; it was a rare occasion when he made any direct comment, asked a question. They were adults; they worked things out for themselves. For years he had watched them do it. Watched the ups and downs, the growth, the deepening of their bond. He knew that this time nothing was usual.
"Is she coming back?" Doc had come to the end of his patience. His words cut to the heart with the same precision he used in surgery. The best cut was the one performed with the sharpest scalpel, no hesitation, no half measure. Infection, tumor, did not heal from being ignored. He held his breath, the way he had held his breath as he prepared to cut into Matt's back, daring to believe that he could reach the bullet that deadened the giant man's legs, reach it and remove it. He waited. His chest cinched at the sound of Matt's reply, his voice raw, his words ringing of defeat.
"I don't know." It was all he could do to force the words out, to say the words he had tried so hard not to think. Fear seared through him at the admission. What he did know was that he needed, wanted, to have her back. He still didn't know what had happened. Oh, he knew sure enough what he had done, what he had said. He just didn't understand how he could have done it. She always called him a man of few words. His jaw tightened. Evidently, not few enough. He had been tired. No, if he were going to be honest with himself, and Matt was an honest man, he had been scared. His recovery had taken so long and still he wasn't in the shape he needed to be. He had been trying to banish the thoughts of what if. What if that were as far as he would make it in recovery? What if his strength, his body, that he had always depended on, let him down? What if he could no longer do his job? What if keeping the badge meant putting others in danger more than it meant protecting them? Damn it! He hated uncertainty! Now, his life was nothing but uncertainty. Uncertainty and new questions. What if he had truly lost her? What if he had finally pushed her too far, hurt her too much? What if putting the badge before his heart meant loosing the only woman he had ever truly loved? What would life be?
"Damn it, Matt!" Doc flung himself out of his chair. He had been on edge too long and wouldn't hold back any longer. "I don't pretend to know what happened between the two of you, but I can see that Kitty is the one who is gone and that tells me chances are damned high that you did something stupid!" His voice had neither the volume nor the depth of the Matt's, but it was every bit as hard as that of the marshal facing down the worst of the spoilers. "Do you want her back?" His words were meant to get a rise. "You just may have to do something to get her back!"
"There's nothing I can do." His voice again was hollow, but he continued, cutting Doc's response. "I don't know where she is." The edge of fear did not go unnoticed by the older man. He realized now the reason for the frequent trips out of town. How many times in the past weeks had he looked out onto Front Street to see Buck carrying Matt out to or back from the trail? He realized now why it was that even Festus, Newly, seemed to know little about these missions. Still, unwilling to accept it, he countered.
"Matt, you can look, you…"
"Don't you think I've tried?" at last Matt's voice gave some challenge. He rose from his chair and towered over his prying friend, anger, tension evident in his stance. "I have looked. I have looked everywhere I know to look. I have asked everyone I know to ask. I have run out of places to look! Dead ends!" His eyes locked with those of his friend, then he turned away. His hands shoved deep into his pockets, he stood slumped, his back to his tormentor. "It's a big world out past those dead ends, Doc." The despair had returned to his sound.
Doc scrubbed his hand across his face; he struggled for words, for hope.
"I messed up, Doc." Matt spoke quietly, but with no hesitation. "I messed up and I don't know if I can fix it." Messed up didn't begin to describe it. He had destroyed the best thing he had ever had in his life. He had been fighting his own demons, fighting to convince himself that he could still stand up to the demands of the badge. Fighting to convince himself that he was still able to take care of himself, hold his own, that he was able to take care of his town, his woman, just as he always had. Fighting to believe it, to believe that the challengers were not getting younger, faster. He had been fighting to hold on to his edge. He had not wanted to look at the reality Kitty saw; did not want to consider the possibilities, the demands for change it would mean. He had needed, wanted, things to remain as they had always been. With just a little more time…
Now, there was no more time. Oh, he could do his job. He doubted he would ever again do it without some pain, but he would manage. He had always managed. But, in his private struggle to hold on to that which shaped his life, defined him, he had lashed out. His words had ripped apart the tether to his true anchor, the touchstone of his life. Too late, he realized just how lost he was.
"She'll be back." Doc's words surprised Matt. Looking up, he searched his friend's face for some hope. Turning away, he stood gazing across the dark street, seeing only the darkness in her upstairs windows. Doc's eyes followed the direction of Matt's focus.
"That's my only hope, Doc. I've tried to find her," Matt spoke quietly, his resonant voice a low rumble in his chest. "I keep telling myself she has to come back; she has The Long Branch. She'll have to contact someone…maybe Sam, maybe…" Matt looked once more at his old friend, his eyes trying to penetrate into his thoughts, desperation and hope warring across his own face. "Doc…?"
Doc wanted mightily to answer him, to offer him some bit of hope. "No," he shook his head, swiped angrily at his moustache. "No, I haven't heard from her. "I…I haven't heard."
Matt gave only a half nod, he hadn't expected anything else. No word, no word to Sam, none to Doc, none through Barney or the post. No word. He turned once more toward the dark face of the Long Branch, for so many years an oasis, his sanctuary, the expanse of Front Street before him now a desert he feared he could never cross.
