Harbinger

Kitty's Outlaw ATC

Chapter 2

by Lilyjack

Author's Note: To Lostcowgirl, in the episode Panacea Sykes, the age at which Kitty went to live with Pan was never explicitly stated. Perhaps you are remembering Kitty's quote to Panacea: "You haven't been shocked, frankly, shocked since you were ten." (Amanda Blake's talents as a comedic actress were given a rare chance to shine in this ep.) I will admit, though, that as an author of pure fiction, I wouldn't have thought twice about changing a detail like Kitty's age within a single episode if it were necessary for a rollicking good plot. Dramatic license is useful and necessary at times. FYI, I did choose Kitty's age for a reason, hopefully to be made apparent in a future fic.

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"Matt…you haven't asked me about Cole Yankton."

"No. Should I?"

"Well, I…just thought maybe you would."

Kitty's Outlaw, 1957

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I sit up straight, scrub my palms over my wet face, and take a deep, deep breath, filling my lungs and my belly and every empty part a' me. The vast prairie, burnt golden by the sun, stretches out endlessly in front of my tear-swollen eyes. Its openness used to mean freedom and opportunity to me, but I'm not so sure anymore. Now it just looks empty, barren, and lonely, like me.

I fully realize I just need to get ahold of myself. I'm a grown woman now, not a New Orleans schoolgirl in love with a slick gambler who has promised her the moon. I know the world of men, and I walked into this with open eyes. I shoulda' known better than to think an upright man like Matt Dillon could ever really want me outside of those hungry glances he regularly gives me.

But I've been around long enough to recognize that gaze, to realize that a man appreciating how you look doesn't amount to much if his heart isn't in it. And so far, Matt Dillon hasn't shown the slightest interest in deepening our friendship, in becoming intimate in more ways than sharing confidences and revealing secrets.

I should be satisfied, even happy, I reckon, because Matt and I are such close friends. The truth of the matter is that Matt and Doc and Chester are the closest thing to family I've known since Mother died. Yeah, I thought at first that Panacea Sykes might become my substitute family, what with the way she made over me, especially in the beginning. She bought me fine clothes and taught me how to be a lady…well, a "fancy" lady, but a girl who could be turned out in certain circles of society and appear pleasing in face and manner.

But to my bitter disappointment, Pan ended up bein' more of a business manager than anything else, mostly interested in how much money I could earn for her. So she taught me to deal cards; poker was my specialty. Yeah, Panacea Sykes taught me everything I know about how to fleece an unsuspecting fella' outta his greenbacks plus his grandfather's gold watch in a game of five card stud. She showed me how to smile prettily and bat my eyelashes, to lightly place my fingers on a gentleman's arm and look into his eyes, to laugh at his jokes even if they aren't funny, anything to enchant and distract. No, I'm not proud of the fact that I took advantage of a whole lotta men who were so busy lookin' at me in my dazzling new finery that they failed to notice me dealin' from the bottom of the deck. But it made Pan happy so that was all that mattered. I still believed she was my savior at that point, so I wanted to please her.

Then came the day when Pan mentioned, casual-like, how much more money I could be makin' for the both of us. We were dressed to the nines, havin' café au lait and hot beignets sprinkled with white powdered sugar down in the French Quarter. I didn't get what Panacea was sayin' at first. I was busy tryin' to dust the sugar off the pale blue skirt of my new dress. Of course, I very well knew what the other girls did upstairs in Pan's place. I was no baby, but… It finally dawned on me what she meant and I stopped dead still, the sugar forgotten. My throat constricted and the beignets no longer tasted sweet on my tongue, but dry like sawdust. But… I was different from Pan's girls. Wasn't I? It'd never occurred to me that she'd want me to go upstairs, too.

And that's when I met a gambler at my table one night, an older man by ten years or so, but I thought he was handsome enough. Truthfully, the most appealing thing about him was his charm. Cole Yankton treated me different than the other men did. He was polite, even courtly, and he looked at me with respect. That's what I thought anyway. And that meant a lot to a seventeen-year-old girl just comin' up in the world.

Pan had, up until that point, safe-guarded me from her customers. She'd made it clear that I was there to deal cards. I don't know when all that changed. I just remember the panic I felt, the sickness in my belly and the bile rising in my throat at the prospect of what she was expectin' me to do. But then Cole Yankton came along to save me.

Of course, that whole ill-advised love affair didn't last too awful long either. Cole didn't pan out to be someone I could lean on or even trust, let alone be my knight in shining armor. When I cut my ties first from Panacea Sykes and then Cole Yankton, I was at sea, floating from town to town, rootless since the day my mother died.

Until the day I first laid eyes on Matt Dillon. I stood there in the puddled doorway of that café, gawkin' like the moonstruck schoolgirl I thought I'd left behind in New Orleans. I quickly looked away before he caught me staring. But that dreary morning, soakin' wet, exhausted, and down to my last forty dollars…that was the first time I'd felt a stirring in my chest, an irresistible tug, an innate feeling that was impossible for my world-weary heart to ignore. By the time I finished my meager breakfast in a quiet corner of the café, I decided to stay anchored in Dodge. Just for a little while anyway…

And here I am, still in Dodge City, yet even more in love with that giant man than I'd dreamed possible. Matt Dillon reached right inside a' me, wrapped his long fingers around my heart, and now holds it in the palm of his big hand. Apparently though, I've failed to capture his heart in return. Wonderin' why keeps me up at night. More than anything, I want those blue eyes of his to look on me with love, but to my utter heartbreak, my deepest despair, after two and a half years here in this dusty Cowtown, it still hasn't happened.

There was a time or two when I grabbed onto hope that something was stirrin' inside of him, that he could feel something more for me beyond friendship. Once was when Matt killed a whole gang of bank robbers and felt an awful guilt inside, a sickness deep within him at killin' so many at one time, and he quit the law, decided to do somethin' else with his life. For a while, I thought he might be lookin' at me with different eyes. He even took me fishin', and I wore the most impractical dress for fishin' that I own, a soft, feminine dress that didn't have a bead or spangle or fringe on it, just pretty flowers and girlish ruffles. I had a hope of catchin' more than fish that day. I wanted to catch someone's attention…and his heart. I thought I'd never seen Matt so relaxed, so happy, without that badge weighin' him down. I saw a spark in his eyes, a "maybe," and I thought he might be of a mind to kiss me later, after dinner when we settled down together to laugh and talk beside the river.

But then Chester came ridin' a lathered horse from the town, sayin' how our new girl Linda had been gunned down by a ruthless gunslinger named Joe Stanger. Chester was breathless with desperation, insistin' that Matt was the only one who could stop him. My heart plummeted when Chester took that gun belt from around his slim waist and handed it back to Matt. I felt sick inside. Sick and disappointed because with that gun belt, I watched as the heavy burden of responsibility and duty and heartache settled back down over Matt's broad shoulders. And I thought I saw that spark of light in his eye that might've turned into a kiss that afternoon, just flicker out and die.

That's when I set my own heart on something. I thought maybe that Matt didn't believe he could be with me because of what I was - a workin' girl, calico queen…soiled dove. There were as many names for what I was as there were brothels out West. A plan started brewin' in my mind once I heard Bill Pence bellyachin' about the long hours he worked and the wish he had for a business partner to share the burden of a bustling saloon. I seized onto that idea, my own spark of hope. It was a desire above all others to escape this hard life I'd settled into so easily after bein' turned down that path by people I thought were older and wiser than me. A life I initially thought would be simpler and more glamorous than the one bequeathed to me by my own mother. Oh, if only I'd known…

The harsh reality wouldn't set in till much later when I was away from the place I'd always called home, when I was way out West, on my own without a friend in the world, tryin' to escape. But in runnin' away from first Pan and then Cole, I was forced to fall right back into my newly learned trade, the easiest, most lucrative way of makin' a living that I knew. A girl's gotta know her strengths.

In the end, I did manage to squirrel away a lotta my hard-earned money, and I doubled my efforts to scrimp and save once Bill set in talkin' about a partner. I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, a way outta this. I found the perfect time to surprise Matt with my new position in society. He travelled to Hays for a trial and wouldn't be back for two whole weeks. So that's when I settled up with Bill - went to the bank, signed the papers, and made it official. My new partner even had a sign made for the occasion to hang out in front of the Long Branch. I was so happy, my step felt lighter than it had in a month of Sundays. Unfortunately, Matt's two weeks stretched into an interminable three, and I began to get a little worried. I couldn't wait for him to return.

But finally, he did. He was so proud of me, he said. Proud of my accomplishments. I beamed, flushed with pride myself, thinkin' maybe now he would look at me differently. But nothin' changed. Oh yes, he backed me when my own long-lost father came to town and showed himself to be a regular mercenary. Wayne Russell created an abiding suspicion within my disappointed heart when he turned out to be more interested in my money than in me. Matt stood by me and even held me in his arms after my father left town, feelin' the sting of my rejection and Matt's thinly veiled threats.

I cried when I got back to the Long Branch afterward, up in my room where Matt quietly followed me. He pulled me close and let me cry and cry on his shoulder, but even then I felt that Matt was just bein' a good friend, a gentleman. He was a great comfort to me. I couldn't have faced my greedy father without Matt's courage supporting me, and for that I'll always be grateful.

Then just a few weeks later when Cole Yankton came to town, I thought maybe I could stir somethin' in Matt, maybe make him jealous. That idea failed miserably, too. Yeah, I made sure Matt could see me talkin' happily with Cole, smilin' at him. I even went out back with Cole right in front of Matt the first time Cole walked into my place.

As a matter of fact, Cole kissed me there. I don't know what got into me, lettin' him kiss me like that again, aside from me just feelin' so lonely and blue. Maybe I wanted to see if he could rekindle some of those old feelings of mine. Of course, it didn't feel like it used to when I was a naïve girl who thought Cole hung the moon. Before I found out Cole was no good for me. Before I realized Cole was not a good man.

And it was all for nothin' anyway. Matt never bothered to say a word to me about it. He never acted like he cared one damn bit. I even tried bringin' it up at dinner one night, hopin' to get a reaction outta him. But then, as so often happens, Chester breathlessly interrupted us…with the news that Cole had robbed the bank. It left me feelin' like I was at the end of my rope, all outta ideas, and outta hope. To make matters worse, Cole up and robbin' the bank while I wined and dined the marshal, diverting his attention way out on the edge of town, makes me look real bad, so I reckon Matt now doubts my honesty to boot. He claims he doesn't believe I helped Cole and his gang, but I'm not so sure. I know better, but even I think I look guilty as sin.

So here I sit cryin' my fool eyes out for a lost love, and he's not Cole Yankton. I got over Cole the first night he sold me for a stake in a poker game. And the guilt I felt at kissin' him on a whim the other night when I really love Matt Dillon proved it to me in spades. Any genuine love I might've felt for Cole Yankton bled out years ago, when I decided I had to leave him in the dead of night, slip away and hop on a westbound train so he wouldn't be able to find me. When he showed up here the other day, I harbored no hard feelings for him. Our time together was all water under the bridge.

And just like every other fix I'd ever gotten myself into, I walked into Cole's arms all those years ago with my eyes wide open. I wasn't stupid, but sometimes our hearts lead us make unwise decisions. I reckon naïve would be a better way to describe me back in those days, but my life turned out the same any way you slice it.

Now Cole Yankton is dead. Perhaps my youthful dream for an undying love with Matt Dillon is dead as well. I feel hopeless, lost again like the day I buried my mother and walked home in the damp, shivering against the chill in the air, against the feelin' of utter loneliness. Once again, I feel like my heart is drownin' in disappointment and sorrow.

The light of the sun dancin' on the surface of the river beckons me. My dress is hot and uncomfortable, damp with sweat from my feverish sobbing, dotted with salty tears. I look up at the surrounding sea of golden grass and endless sky. Not a soul in sight for miles around. I reach behind me to unbutton my frock and tug it down my arms. Rising slowly, I let it drop, puddling at my feet. The petticoat and confining corset joins the dress. I can breathe freely now. The warm breeze ruffles my cotton underthings, deliciously caresses my bare arms and calves. Watchin' small waves lapping at the bank, I finally strip off my shoes and stockings and dip my toes into the cool water. Bending down, I splash it on my hot face. Then I take a deep breath and wade in.

tbc

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