Chapter Twenty-five: "I did what was needful"

It had only been about four hours since Matt had left Kincaid, but people were already gathering. There were a buggy and a couple of buckboards in front of the house, and several saddle horses hitched to the front rail of the porch. Matt rode on to the barn, and found Bat there to greet him. "Can you get one of the boys to put up my horse?" Matt asked him, "And take this bag and drop it over at the bunkhouse? I'm going to be stayin' for a while."

"Yessir, Marshal," the older man replied, "I'm glad to hear that. We've got him laid out in the main room. Tope and Joe they're workin' on the coffin. The boys started on a grave up by where the babies are. In this heat…"

Matt agreed. If it were up to him, he'd already have had the body planted. He'd done that for all too many homesteaders and outlaws over the years. But it was clear Jake Kincaid was different, and he figured Bat would know best. He walked around the back of the house and across the small back porch to enter through the kitchen. Annie was still there, washing dishes at the sink. Several other women were busy at the table, arranging food on plates and chatting, their backs to the sink.

Hanging his hat by the door, Matt walked over to Annie and laid a gentle arm around her shoulders. "You doin' okay, honey? You get to have a break or you been workin' straight through here?" He felt her sag against him just a little and then stiffen as the other women turned to look at them. It wasn't a pleasant look. Matt's arm tightened supportively. "Miz Warner, Liz, Becky," Matt nodded a greeting to the women, "Have you all met my brother's girl, Annie Dillon? She came in with Kitty and I before light this morning to help with things."

The ladies nodded greetings, faces stiff, and turned back to their work. "Don't fight it, Matthew." Annie told him in a low voice. "I'm doing what I want to do, and I'm here for Kitty when she needs me. Just let it go." Matt hugged the girl and planted a quick kiss on her temple before heading for the big living room.

A makeshift bier covered with some sort of dark fabric stood alone on the far side of the room. Jake's body lay on it. Matt walked over and stood looking down. He'd never known the man well. Jake and Rose had always been more Doc's friends than his own, but he'd known him for a lot of years, admired his generosity, his good sense, and his way with horses. It was enough of an epitaph. He looked around the big room. Kitty and Rose weren't down yet. Through the open doors to the dining room, he saw a table already loaded with food. He headed up the stairs.

Kitty answered his knock on the bedroom door. The heavy wooden bed where Jake had breathed his last just hours before had been stripped but not yet remade. Rose sat in an armchair next to the empty fireplace. Matt went over and stood next to her, decided he was far too tall, and dropped to one knee, taking her hand. "Miss Rose, I'm mighty sorry about Jake. I'll do everything I can to help you get through this hard time."

Kitty came and sat on the arm of the chair, "Rose and I were just talking about that, Matt. Rose does want to sell up and go live with Elizabeth in Saint Louis. Have time to spend with her grandchildren."

"Yes'm." Matt said, continuing to hold Rose's hand. "Doc told me it would likely be that way. I hope you don't mind, ma'am, but I've already talked to banker Botkin about it. He'll be here in a couple hours. We thought we'd get a few of the most reputable ranchers and stockmen together and form a little committee to value the property. That way we could set a fair price that no one could rightly argue with."

"That was kind of you, Marshal, and very sensible," Rose told him. "Jake and I had talked, a little, about selling up, but I knew he never really would. He thought the place was worth about fifteen thousand. I felt that was high. Your way will get us some good estimates and we can find something in the middle." She sighed. "I wish we didn't have to rush it this way, but Kitty and I have been talking, and I agree that I'm probably going to be pushed to sell before Jake's even buried."

"Ma'am, Bat and your boys are digging the grave now. I don't think we should wait longer than tomorrow morning. You want me to talk to Reverend England? I saw him downstairs."

"Mr. England has already been up to talk to me. We decided on ten tomorrow morning." Rose gripped Matt's hand, looking up to hold his eyes. "Now you listen to me here for a minute, young man. I met your Annie this morning. She and Kitty did what I didn't have the physical strength to do and they did it with love and respect. I value that. Kitty tells me you two are going to be married. And she tells me you want to buy Kincaid."

Rose paused, and Matt said, "You don't have to think about that now, Miss Rose. Kitty didn't need to bring that up."

"No, she was right to do it now. So let me tell you this, and then I'll go downstairs to mourn with my friends. First you have to hear what Kitty has to tell you, and then you have to listen to the reading of Jake's will. If, after that, you still want Kincaid, and you can meet the price your committee sets, then I will sell it to you. It's a day for promises, Marshal, and you have my word on that. It would give me pleasure to see Kitty's children here on Kincaid. Maybe you'll understand that better later. Will you help me up, Marshal?"

Matt stood and assisted Rose to stand then took her arm and let her down the stairs.

Once he'd settled Rose he went into the dining room and filled a plate with food. He grabbed napkins and a couple forks and headed back upstairs. Kitty was waiting for him. She smiled at the food, "We do need to talk, Matt, but that looks mighty good. You going to share with me?" she asked. They ate in silence, Kitty sitting in one of the armchairs, Matt on the floor next to her. When they were done, she set the plate aside. "Now's as good a time as any," she said.

"Kitty I know you promised you'd tell me about whatever this is, and I honor that. I can tell this is going to be hard for you, or you wouldn't have put it off so long, but I can't imagine it's going to be all that bad." Matt said.

Kitty shrugged. "It depends on you, Matt. Rose and I settled this to our mutual satisfaction a long time ago. On the other hand, Jake and I argued about it on and off for ten years, so I think likely it's something that means more to a man than to a woman."

"Go ahead then. Whatever you want to say, I'll listen." Matt told her.

Taking a deep breath, and determined to keep things clear and simple, Kitty began. "Back the year I first came to Dodge, Jake was forty-seven and Rose was fifty-two. She'd had three stillborn babies in as many years and Doc told her if she got pregnant again it would kill her. Now you'd think, at that age – which I have to admit looks a whole lot less old to me now than it did when I was nineteen – they could have just taken separate bedrooms for a while and avoided the whole thing. Rose said they tried, it just didn't work that way for them. I can understand that part better now than I could then as well."

Matt nodded and she went on. "Rose is from New Orleans. Her first thought had been to find a young colored woman and set her up here on the ranch for Jake. Well, that's not as easy or acceptable here in Kansas as it was in Louisiana – even after the war. So she asked Doc if he knew anyone local who could take that role, and Doc suggested me."

"Doc did what?" Matt nearly shouted.

"Now Matt stop that and keep your voice down." Kitty told him. "You said I could tell this story, and I'm tellin' it. You have to remember when this was. I'd been in town less than a month. He knew I was turning tricks at the Long Branch and he knew I was broke. Jake and Rose had been his friends for a long time, and he hardly knew me. But he knew I was young and clean and pretty, and that I badly needed money, and that I was from New Orleans so he thought I might understand how it was supposed to work."

"He brought me out here and Rose and I talked. At first she wanted me to live out here, in a little place where their foreman used to live. I turned that down flat. But we agreed on a one year contract for Jake to visit me once a week for the whole evening. She paid me a price that was a lot more than my usual rate, even after Bill took his cut, and she added something extra. She told me that if I got pregnant then, no questions asked, she and Jake would adopt the baby. All legal. I would have done it for that alone, but I won't say the money wasn't welcome. We shook on it. Jake never even enquired as to the details and he never saw money change hands."

"Now I know you want to ask this and you're determined not to, but no, I was never in love with Jake. The more I knew him, the more I liked him, but it was never a love affair. It was a business deal. But he was gentle and he was kind, and you know that not all my customers were like that. He took exactly one hour and twenty minutes of my time once a week, and the middle hour of that was spent talking. I'd have the rest of the evening free and paid for."

"By the time that first contract was over, I was involved with you, and I was beginning to work with Bill about buying in to the Long Branch. I said I'd keep on until I made my deal with Bill. Rose wasn't happy with that. She said that if I'd stay with them another two years she would buy the Long Branch for me outright. But I wanted to stop the trade, and even though Jake and I were pretty good friends by then, it was still trade. What I didn't want to stop was the part about a baby. We negotiated, and I agreed to another year. Rose raised the price, and I didn't tell her no."

"At the end of the second year, with your help, I bought a half interest in the Long Branch, and I told Rose I was done. It wasn't that I minded Jake, that had never been a problem, but I'd told you that I wasn't taking customers anymore, and I wanted to keep my word on that. Doc had told Rose she needed a little more time to be sure she wouldn't get pregnant. We argued some."

Kitty looked down at him where he still sat on the floor beside her. "Now this is the hard part, Matt. This is where Jake and Rose and I disagreed. I felt I couldn't take money from them, but Doc, and Rose, convinced me to take on another six months or so of the arrangement. I told you I wouldn't take any more customers, and I didn't. Last money I ever took from Rose was at the end of the second year. But I kept on with Jake until Doc felt it was safe for Rose. I told them I had a lover, and that he was jealous of me, so we kept the whole thing quiet. Sometimes Jake would come to town, sometimes Doc and I would go out to Kincaid for dinner, and he and Rose would eat, and Jake and I would go upstairs. I didn't like it, and I felt dishonest, and I was afraid you would somehow get wind of it and think I was having an affair with Doc 'cause we were traveling together so much. But I also felt like I couldn't stop. So that's it."

Matt shook his head. "There has to be more to it than that, Kitty."

"Well, a couple of years later, I don't know how, Jake found out that Rose hadn't paid me for the last part. And that made him mad. Somehow – and don't ask me to explain this because I'm not a man – he felt that if I'd been hired and paid that he wasn't being unfaithful to Rose. He insisted on paying me, and somehow he'd got the idea that Rose had promised to buy me the Long Branch. I refused to accept any money from him. Told him I was willing to help out a friend, but that I'd left that business behind me. That argument went on for a couple of years, and then Jake told me he'd changed his will to leave me money. I didn't want to argue anymore, and him dyin' seemed a long way off, so we just made our peace."

"And…" Matt prompted.

"And then when Etta Stone kidnapped me, and everyone in Kansas with half a brain figured out who my lover was, and Jake decided that he'd insulted you, Matt Dillon, personally. That you had some sort of ownership of me that he'd trampled on. I never understood that part, Matt, but he was determined I should tell you, and by that time it was all long over and done with and I wouldn't. So there we sat. Until this morning. I never thought it was as important as Jake made it out to be, but clearly it mattered enough to him that he didn't want to die with it on his conscience."

She stopped and waited. Matt sat silent. She waited what seemed a long time. And then she waited some more. Finally, she laid a hand against his face and asked, very quietly, "Can we be done with this now, Matt?"

He stood up and pulled her up beside him, holding her where he could look into her eyes. "Yes, we can be done with this. I am not angry with you, Kitty, and I'm not hurt. I might have felt different ten years ago, but now it just seems like water under the bridge." He cupped her face in one big hand. "Honey, you know I never asked you to be faithful to me. I didn't feel, those first years, that I deserved that when I knew I couldn't marry you. Only promise we made to each other was about me not getting you with child, but you agreeing to marry me if I did. That was enough."

Matt's eyes fell from hers, though his big hand stayed on the back of her neck. "But I always thought, when you offered me a key to your room, well, that was what you were really offering. You were telling me that I'd never find you there with anyone else."

"Matt, there hasn't been anyone else, at least by my choice, since the last time I visited Jake here at Kincaid. And that was a dozen years ago. I never asked you to be faithful to me, Matt." She lifted a hand to his lips when he would have spoken, "And I'm not interested in hearing about it. I've had what I wanted all these years, and pretty soon, when we get married, well, then we can make another promise to each other. Can we leave it at that?" she said.

"Yes Kitty, we can just leave it there. You've kept your promise to Jake. You're done with that part. Now we just have to keep Rose safe and get her settled on her way to Missouri."

Kitty laid her head against his chest, and he stroked her hair for a minute or two before he tipped her face up to him. "Want to know what I did in town this morning, other than meet with the banker?"

Her eyes began to come alight. "Did you really, Matt? Already?"

"Yes I did," he told her. "I asked to resign as of the first of September and be on leave until then, but they actually answered right back and told me, if I would hold out until the first of October, that they would send Frank Reardon out to replace me."

"Oh, Matt!" she almost squealed, "You couldn't ask for more than that, and neither could Dodge City."

"That was my thought exactly, honey. C'mon, let's go down."

It was a long hot, afternoon. Seemed like nearly everyone in Ford County stopped by at one time or another, bringing food or flowers from a garden. Matt and the banker managed to meet with their chosen band of notables and have a little conversation. Botkin told Kitty the will would be read the next morning after people left from the funeral.

Towards dusk, the last neighbors left, leaving Rose upstairs being put to bed by Kitty and Till, and Annie still doggedly finishing the last of the dishes and already baking for the following day. Matt was drying dishes for her when Doc came in through the back door. "Matt. Annie. Any coffee left?"

"Didn't think to see you again this evening, Doc." Matt told him as Annie poured him coffee.

"I'm heading out to the Emersons after the funeral tomorrow, and this is on the way. Told Rose I'd just sleep here tonight. This is good coffee, Annie, but you look tired. You get any rest today?"

"No sir, but I did what was needful and kept Tillie from having to do it. I'm strong. She's not." Annie answered.

Matt poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Annie. "There's a nice sunset shining out over the front porch, Annie. Why don't you go and watch it and sit a spell. Doc and I need to have a little conversation out back." She looked up at him in some confusion, but at the look in his eyes and the motion of his head towards the door, she took her coffee and left.

Matt opened the back door and stepped through. "Doc." The doctor followed him.

"I suppose this means you've talked with Kitty."

"I have." Matt answered.

"Well. Go on then."

"You were right this morning. I do think the whole thing is your fault." Matt rounded on him with utter fury. "How could you do that to her, Doc? I understand it was as difficult situation, but how could you do that to her? And how could you live with yourself after it was done?"

Doc just stood there, looking down at the board floor. Eventually he spoke, but he didn't look up. "It didn't seem so bad at first, Matt. But the more I got to know Kitty, the more I regretted it. And by the time I realized what I'd gotten her into, there was no way out." He did look up then, and met Matt's eyes. "She never seemed to mind, you realize that? She never held it against me. Never blamed me. But I blamed myself. More and more each year, stuck there between the three of them. Worst damn position I ever got myself into in my life."

"There's a word, Doc, for men who do that." Matt said, his voice low and savage.

"Then you just go ahead and use it and maybe it'll give you some relief. You know damn well you can't hit me, and you can't shoot me – you may as well use any words you can find." Doc thumped his fist hard against the porch rail. "But I'll tell you one thing, Matt Dillon, I've had a damn sight more years of schooling than you have, and you're not going to find one single word that I haven't called myself this last dozen years."

The two men stared at each other with more anger than they'd ever felt or than either knew how to deal with. The screen door slammed. "Oh, that's just fine, gentlemen, fine." There was scathing sarcasm in Kitty's voice, "That is just what we all need."

She stood between them, hands on her hips, a damp dishtowel in her hands. "You two just fight it out. That's going to be a big help to me. You can stand there and argue about which one of you is most at fault, but you know what you seem to be ignoring?"

She looked them both up and down in turn, and then said, "You're ignoring me. You act like I had no part in this. Sweet little Kitty – always does what someone else tells her to do – always lets someone else make her decisions for her – always needs someone around to protect her. How about you just get it through both your fool heads that it was my choice? I did it. No one forced me into anything. I weighed the options, and I considered the prices – oh, yes, you don't like to hear about it, but the price was damn important to me especially that first year – and I chose what I wanted to do. It was all over a long time ago. Over, do you hear me? Rose and I had settled everything to our mutual satisfaction. Women can do that, you know? And then first Jake, and then Doc, and now you, Matt – you had to just put your irons in the fire and stir things around."

She sat down hard in the rocking chair and looked up at them. "Jake's gone. And Rose will never have him to touch her or hold her or talk with her or laugh with her again. But I've still got you. Both of you. And I love you both, and I will be damned if I'll let you fight with each other over something that was over and done with a dozen years ago – and didn't matter anyway." She put her face down in the damp towel and sobbed.

Matt went over and knelt next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders and transferring her wet face to the front of his shirt. Doc went in the kitchen and got a glass of water and brought it back out to her. He turned to Matt, "She pregnant again?"

Matt thought a moment, and shook his head. "Not likely."

They heard a deep growling noise and it took both of them a moment to realize it came from Kitty. The screen door slammed open and Annie came out, holding a glass of whiskey. "Get away from her," she demanded, and both men moved back in surprise. She handed the whiskey to Kitty, who downed the drink in a single swallow. Annie took both Kitty's hands and pulled her to her feet, slipping an arm around her waist. "You are the biggest pair of fools I've ever seen, and I've seen my share. How she has managed to put up with either of you, much less both of you, all these years I will never know. Now leave her alone, I'm taking her up to bed." Annie led Kitty to the door but stopped in the doorway and looked straight at Matt, "And I'm going to be in that bed with her, mister, so don't you get any silly ideas about slipping upstairs after everyone's asleep. Go away. The two of you. Just go away for a while and let her have herself for herself." The screen door slammed one final time and both women were gone.

Doc picked up his hat from the bench and set it on his head. "Well." he said, "Guess she told us."

"I guess she did." Matt replied. "I don't think I liked that."

"I don't think we were supposed to." Doc told him taking a step towards the kitchen door. "Good night, Matt."

"Good night, Doc," he said, and headed over for the bunkhouse.