Doc sat at his desk staring at the small sign he tenderly held in his hands.
'Sam McTavish MD" he read aloud in a soft, thoughtful voice.
Setting the sign down carefully, he drank down a small glassful of the brandy she had loved.
"You bet," he said with a slight nod of his head, "You bet!"
Squinting his blue-gray eyes, he sat slumped and staring off into the past when beautiful Sam had been vibrantly alive.
She loved him.
And he loved her.
So smart and feisty and intelligent. A fine, fine doctor with a rare innate sensibility.
And now…how could it even be…she was gone.
Dead from a disease she had fought for her patients until she had literally collapsed. Even then, her mind was working hard for the transmission of the illness, which she had found, but too late to save herself.
As the old man sat in the chair with no desire to go anywhere or speak to anyone, a bird's mournful cry broke through his reverie.
"That lonesome Whippoorwill out there, he sounds too blue to fly," he mused.
Through the open window with the curtains moving in the slight night breeze, Doc then heard the midnight train whistling as it passed through Dodge.
The combination of melancholic sounds struck his bruised heart.
"I'm so lonesome I could cry."
Yes, he knew he had dear friends who were worried about him, but they were wisely giving him the space and time he needed.
The heavy paralysis of his grief made leaving the chair impossible. He hated going to bed, where his mind whirled and stabbed at him as he tossed and turned in the dark. Sitting in the desk chair all night, head eventually drooped on his arms, was more bearable.
"I've never seen a night so long, when time goes crawling by," he thought as he unthinkingly pulled out his old pocket watch and looked at the time without even seeing it.
Glancing out the open window, he noticed the full moon.
"Even the moon just went behind the clouds…to hide its face and cry."
Sighing, he turned back to the wooden sign still on his desktop, and gently traced the letters of her name with his right forefinger.
"Oh, my Sam, did you ever see a robin weep, when leaves begin to die? That means he's lost the will to live…"
"I'm so lonesome I could cry."
Looking out the window once more, he saw a streak of light in the velvety sky.
"The silence of a falling star lights up a purple sky."
Turning back to his desk, he picked up Sam's sign and carefully put in on the bottom shelf in the nearby cabinet. He placed a soft cloth over it, lingered for a moment, and shut the door.
Tomorrow he would see his friends, dear, dear Kitty, and Matt, and Festus.
It was time.
He was a doctor. The only doctor for miles.
Seeing patients had been the only thing keeping him sane these past days.
But for the rest of this waning night, he would continue to sit at his desk.
He put his weary head down on his arms, trying to silence his thoughts.
"Sam, my Love, I wonder where you are…"
"I'm so lonesome I could cry."
And he finally did.
End.