"Good heavens. He dead, Mr. Dillon?"
Matt probed his fingers to Tenley's throat and felt a thready pulse. "He's alive."
"Think he'll live long enough to git 'im ta Doc? It's a day an' night back to Dodge," said Chester.
"We'll make camp first. See if he'll take some food. Then if he doesn't die on the way, he might stand the trip better. Do what you can for him, will you, Chester? I'll start a fire." Matt gathered sticks from the base of the oak tree.
Chester wet a bandanna with water from his canteen and washed the gash on Tenley's temple. "It's a fair deep cut," said Chester.
"Doc will stitch it. If Tenley lives 'til we reach Dodge," said Matt.
"What about his execution date?" said Chester, tying the bandanna round the prisoner's head.
"The state will set a new date. They won't hang a severely wounded man." Matt folded the provisions sack for a pillow and laid Tenley on his bedroll near the fire.
"Yonder's a flock of prairie chickens," said Chester. "Full-growed fat 'uns. You 'n me can each eat a roast one an' boil one up in a soup for Tenley if he wakes."
An hour or so past noon, Matt and Chester sat by the fire with plates of chicken, beans and onions flavored with fatback, biscuits and cups of coffee. Eating their first hot meal since breakfast the day before, they gave the food their full attention.
They took no notice when Tenley stirred and opened his eyes. He turned his head side to side and raised his chin so the sun shone on his peaked face with its neatly chiseled features. His light-brown eyes widened, the sun tinting them gold under the blue bandanna wrapped round his head. Tenley squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. "Chester," he said.
Chester jumped. "Goodness," he said, setting his plate in the grass. "I'm right here, Tenley."
Tenley sat up, his eyes distended. Grasping at the air, he reached toward Chester. Matt set his plate aside and swallowed hard, staring at the prisoner.
Chester took Tenley's hand. Sweating, Tenley grabbed Chester's arm.
"You fell an' hit your head on a rock when you run at Mr. Dillon. We'll take you to Doc. In Dodge," said Chester.
Matt gave his partner a sharp look. Chester wasn't given to lying. Then again, Tenley did fall. When Matt picked him up and flung him to the ground.
"Chester, I can't see. Not a speck of light. No shadows; it is all blackness. I am blind," Tenley said.
"Easy," said Matt. "We'll look out for you."
"Yeah. Yeah, jest rest easy. Here, have some water," said Chester. Tenley drank from the canteen, and Chester helped him lie down.
"Mr. Dillon an' me fixed chicken soup with biscuits 'n coffee. I'll fetch you some." Chester patted Tenley's shoulder.
"Marshal?" said Tenley.
Matt moved to sit beside the prisoner. "Tenley."
"I recollect you picking me up and throwing me on the ground. I did not just pass out when I ran at you," said Tenley.
"Sorry. I wasn't aiming to hurt you."
"It was an accident. You're not to blame. It wouldn't have happened if I'd surrendered peaceable," said Tenley.
Chester sat at Tenley's other side. "Set up an' I'll feed you," he said.
Tenley sat up, and Chester fed him a heaping spoonful of chicken. "Drink some a the broth. It'll strengthen you," said Chester. "This here's the bowl at your mouth."
Tenley took a big swallow of broth and another. "It tastes so good. How can I think of relishing food when I am just struck blind."
"On account of you ain't et goin' on five days. This here's biscuit," said Chester. Tenley filled his mouth with flaky hot bread.
"Don't give him too much at one time, Chester. Won't do 'im any good if he brings it back up," said Matt.
"I'd like some coffee," said Tenley.
Chester filled a tin cup with steaming coffee, wrapped a cloth round the cup, took Tenley's hands and pressed them against it. "Be careful. It's hot," said Chester. "More coffee, Mr. Dillon?" Chester filled the marshal's cup and his own, and sat down again next to Tenley.
"Will the state hang a blind man, Marshal?" said Tenley.
"No. Not unless your sight comes back before the court commutes your sentence. You'd have to see more than light and shapes. If your vision returns so you can get around without help, see clear as a man who wears spectacles," said Matt.
Tenley sipped his coffee. "Supposing my sight returns after they commute my sentence?"
"Makes no difference. Once the state reduces a sentence, they won't impose a harsher penalty for the same crime," said Matt. "I'm guessing the prison officials at Lansing will say they're not equipped to tend a blind inmate, and the court will grant you full clemency on account of they won't know what else to do with you."
"You mean I will be a free man?" said Tenley.
"So long as you don't regain your sight before the court makes it decision," said Matt.
"Then I will hope to stay blind until the court frees me, and get my sight back at that time. I shall pray for it," said Tenley.
"Feel up to riding?" said Matt.
"It burns where the rock split my temple and my head is pounding. Not like sick headache. I am dizzy but this feels different. I'm recovered from the sick headache, I think."
"You had a run of hard luck, ain't ya," Chester said to the prisoner.
"I'll lead your horse and you ride double with Chester, Tenley. He'll hold onto you if you pass out or go to sleep. You might take a tumble if he leads your horse with you in the saddle," said Matt.
They broke camp, and Chester led his horse to where Tenley sat in the grass. He stood up, and Matt supported him while Chester guided his boot to the stirrup and his hands to the pommel. The marshal and Chester stepped back, and Tenley easily mounted the horse.
He pulled his boot out of the stirrup and let go of the pommel, and Chester mounted, sitting behind the saddle. He slid his boots into the stirrups and reached around Tenley for the reins. "I'm a sight uncomfortable ridin' like this, but I reckon I'll do tolerable 'til we git to Dodge," said Chester.
After an hour on the trail Tenley moaned, gripped his head and leaned back against Chester's shoulder. "You'll make yer cut bleed, pushin' at it thataway," said Chester, fidgeting for an easier position.
"My head is throbbing. It's not so bad as the sick headache was, but somehow I am having more trouble with it," said Tenley.
Matt reached into his saddlebag, took out a whiskey flask and handed it to Chester. "Give him a swig of that."
Chester put the bottle to Tenley's mouth. "This here's whiskey."
The prisoner filled his cheeks and gulped it down. "More," he gasped.
Chester put the bottle to his mouth again, and Tenley took another big swig. "That there's enough," said Chester, handing the bottle back to Matt.
Tenley either fell asleep or passed out, his light weight growing heavy and hot against Chester's chest and shoulder as they rode. "I surely do hope we make camp for the night, Mr. Dillon. Dun know how much longer I kin hold out ridin' like this."
"We'll make camp come sundown. Tenley has a better chance getting to Doc alive with another hot meal and a night's sleep," said Matt.
"Tenley's cozy in my saddle a'ready sleepin' with me for a pillow. Either that or he done fainted. He's gittin' 'is rest howsoever. I'm the one cramped in knots," Chester grumped.
"Want him to ride with me a spell?" said Matt.
"No. Ah'll make it alright, Mr. Dillon."
When they rode into Dodge and stopped at Grimmick's the next afternoon, Chester sat still on his horse's rump with Tenley in the saddle. Moss was pumping water in the trough out front of the stable. "Howdy. You caught him," said Moss.
"Hello, Moss. I split my head out there on the prairie and went stone blind. Marshal Dillon says they won't hang me," said Tenley.
"Blind," said Moss. As Matt dismounted, Moss moved to Chester's horse and stared up at Tenley's eyes.
"Why don't you dismount, Chester," said Moss.
"Cain't. I been ridin' this way too long."
"Let me give you a hand here, Chester." Matt helped his friend climb down. Chester limped around stiffly, rubbing his legs.
"Lead your horse to Doc's and take Tenley on up to see him," said Matt.
"I'd rather walk," said Tenley. "I need to stretch my legs. It's just a dull ache in my head now and the dizziness is gone."
"Alright. You're hardier than you look. I'll help you dismount," said Matt.
"I can do it."
Chester linked Tenley's arm through his and moved slowly along Front Street to Doc's. Matt walked ahead of them to the marshal's office to let Quint know they were back in town.
Doc gave Tenley two spoons of laudanum, cleaned the gash on his temple with carbolic acid, stitched the wound and sprinkled it with healing powder, and wrapped a bandage round his head. "You have a mild concussion," Doc said. "Chester will give you this laudanum until the pain goes away. You won't need morphine like with the sick headache."
"Will my sight ever come back, Doc?" said Tenley.
"No telling. It could come back any time or never. You might regain your vision gradually or at once, good as before you hit your head, or you could have partial vision the rest of your life. There's just no telling," said Doc.
Locked in the front jail cell, Tenley slept long hours. He habitually read in his spare time before he went blind, and asked Chester to read aloud. Chester read frontier penny books and dime novels, which held the prisoner's rapt attention.
Matt wrote a letter in his free moments to Chief Justice David Brewer of the Kansas Supreme Court in Topeka, relating developments in the Tenley Whelan case including his escape and subsequent capture, Tenley gashing his head on a rock and losing his sight as a result of Matt picking him up and throwing him on the ground. The marshal's letter petitioned for full clemency, stating that the penitentiary was not equipped to tend a blind inmate.
Matt gave the letter to Chester to take to the post. "You'll have to hurry. I want this letter to go out with the mail shipment on the noon stage."
"Yes, sir."
Matt glanced in the prisoner's cell to see if he needed anything. The marshal and Chester looked in on Tenley some three times as much as they normally checked on prisoners.
Tenley lay napping on his back on the bunk, his fine even features peaceful. In the days since returning to Dodge, his headaches had gone and he'd gained a few pounds on his small frame. He seemed to adjust remarkably well to blindness. Matt figured escaping the noose, even if temporarily, had a lot to do with that.
Matt turned from the cell and moved to the windows opened to the warm spring air, just as Kitty passed on the boardwalk outside. She looked through the window and laughed up at him, and Matt opened the door for her.
"Hello, Kitty."
"I saw Chester trying to run to the post. He said you told him to get a letter on the noon stage. Matt, you shouldn't have him racing like that with the trail herds in and Front Street swarming. There're some rough characters out there. What if he bumps into one of them and—"
"Don't worry about Chester, Kitty. He'll be alright and deliver the letter on time, too."
"Well, even so," said Kitty.
"Did you come here turned out all pretty just to scold me?"
"No. I came to ask you to lunch. I told Chester to meet us here. Doc's paying sick calls, or I'd ask him, too."
"Sounds good," said Matt.
Kitty glanced at the sleeping prisoner and lowered her voice. "How's Tenley."
"Surprisingly well, seeing all he's been through."
"He's a gentle sort. That doesn't mean he's not suffering," said Kitty. "None of this would've happened if Durham hadn't murdered Tenley's father. Tenley did this town a favor killing that brute."
"No one saw Durham shoot Tenley's pa, Kitty."
"Everyone knows he did, though. Durham was mean as the pit, and obsessed with the woman who married Tenley's father. A shame poor Tenley has no wife, or parents left to care for him now he's blind," said Kitty. She moved to the cell and gazed at the sleeping man.
Her words stirred the guilt that gnawed Matt like rotgut, for he blamed himself for Tenley's blindness. The marshal knew Kitty did not mean to trouble him, nor did she notice Matt's unease. He stepped back to the window and looked out at the bustling street.
Kitty stood quietly looking at Tenley. A softness in the curves of his face, his long lashes, curly brown hair and clean tan complexion, called to mind the face of a little boy. He was not the sort of man who generally attracted her, yet she felt drawn to him.
Chester came in, his sun-browned skin flushed. "Got thar in time, Mr. Dillon! The stage driver was fixin' to leave the depot an' I yelled stop, I gotta letter from Marshal Dillon to Chief Justice Brewer what must go out on the noon stage. Well that driver snapped at me like a skittish coyote, an' a coupla fellers swore from inside the coach, but the driver growlin' the whole time, he snatched up the mail sack from atop the stage an' untied it. He hollered me ta give 'im the letter, what am I waitin' for, so I did an' watched 'im stick it in the sack."
Chester's voice woke Tenley. As Kitty watched him, he turned clear gold-brown eyes on her, jumped up from the bunk, reached through the bars and took her hands. "Matt," said Kitty.
Matt and Chester moved to the cell and Tenley released Kitty's hands, looking at each of the men in turn. "Gracious sakes. His sight done come back," said Chester.
"Sharper than ever," Tenley said soberly. He took hold of the bars. "Marshal. This means I must hang after all."
"Oh Matt," said Kitty.
"You haveta send another letter to the state sayin' Tenley's sight returned, Mr. Dillon?" said Chester.
"No," Matt said.