"How do ye do, mister?"
Matt hadn't actually gotten down from the stage yet. He had only awoke when it had stopped, when he began to hear people beyond the rattle of the coach. He blinked in the June sun. It wasn't as dry as Arizona, nor as hot. Matt felt like he got more air for his breath here, where there were things growing, even if those things were mostly grass.
"Uh, fine," said Matt.
"Well, that's good," said the same man, who was leaning on a post and looking, somehow, both bored and curious.
"One minute," said Matt. He took his trunk down, then his bag. He'd have to come back for the saddle. When he came back around the other passengers were leaving, but the townsman from before was still propped in place.
"Got a name, sir?"
"Matt Dillon."
"Oh, I see. That your saddle yonder?"
"Yeah."
"Will I help you with it?"
"Sure. Thanks."
"Alright, sir," said the man in a conciliatory tone that had Matt either vexed or, indeed, consoled, but which he was too far asleep still to say. He hefted the saddle and looked pointedly at Matt. He had a fuzzy sort of drawl and something about him that reminded Matt of a rag doll someone had thrown out of a train. He wore a worn-out duster and worn-in boots, with a confederate bodice and a felt slouch hat. Green felt. Dark green. But green. "Where you headed?" His eyes were muddy, and a little crooked–they went two different ways. No, it was his nose that went too different ways.
"You don't happen to know Ma Smalley's, do you?"
"Ma Smalley's? Why, of course I do."
"Well, that's where I'm to be staying."
"You don't say. Well, I best guide you there, then."
"Thanks."
"T'ain't nothing, Mr. Dillon."
He waited a second, then started off. Matt followed, from the street to the boardwalk.
"What's your name, then?" he said to the man's hat.
"Chester."
"Just Chester?"
"Chester Wesley Proudfoot."
"Glad to know you, Mr. Proudfoot."
"Oh. You can call me Chester. Most e'rybody does. Even most of the sprouts 'round town," he added regretfully. Matt snorted.
"That bothers you?"
"Me? No, that don't bother me. Not exactly. Here we are." Chester turned abruptly up to face a tall, thin house set back from the boards to make way for a tiny, covered porch. With both of them and a rocking chair, they took up all the space there was. Chester knocked with his foot.
"Ma?" He shouted. A stout, rosy woman as tall as Chester opened it a crack. She sighed. "Hello, Ma."
"Chester. What do you need?"
"Oh, I don't need nothing," said Chester, laughing faintly. Ma Smalley did not laugh. "Ma, I got the new marshal here."
"What?" She blinked, and in another second transformed. "Oh my goodness! Do come in, Marshal! And Chester too, of course." She stepped aside and shuffled them into a real, carpeted parlor, so soft all around it swallowed their footsteps. There was a pink sofa and a melodeon and plenty of embroidery, and a vase of enormous lilacs on the coffee table. Matt found himself wanting to blink to the ticking of the clock. You could hardly hear the street, and if Matt had been dropped here out of the sky, or rather the ceiling, he might have guessed he was in St. Louis.
"Do sit down, gentlemen. Can I get you some coffee?"
"Thank you, ma'am, that'd be fine," said Matt.
"Oh, good. It'll be just a moment–do sit down, gentlemen, please. You must be just worn out." She swept away. She was a sweeper alright. Matt felt sure she was a grand woman. Chester had already taken a seat.
"So," said Matt, settling on the other end of the sofa, with his hat on his knee. Chester was nudging the lilacs with his toe. "Who told you I was the Marshal?"
"Hm?"
"You told Mrs. Smalley just now that I was the marshal."
"Well, sir." Chester met Matt's eyes with perfect blankness. "Nobody ain't told me nothing, why, I just make it my business to see who comes and goes 'round here."
"If nobody told you, how did you know?"
"Well, I carry the mail."
"You're a mailman?"
"They ain't none other. Anyhow, as I say, I carry the mail and I couldn't help but know we was getting a marshal sent us, with all them circulars and orders and government things coming in for the US Marshal. We only got us a handful of town marshals and they ain't a one of 'em any good, I expect you'll meet 'em."
"They get much mail?"
"How's that?"
"The town marshals. They get much mail?"
"Oh, no sir. Ollie Topham does have a girl in Santa Ana writes him regular, but aside of that they don't get nothing much. Nothing of the government's, that's sure enough."
"I see, I see." Chester nodded. "You met the stage, though."
"Yes."
"How'd you know I was going to be on it?"
"I ain't."
"What, you meet the stage every time it comes in?"
"Yessir." Chester stared for another second. "Anyhow when I knowed we was to expect you, I went ahead and asked Judge Bent when he come through what Marshals was where, and he talked a good deal about Pat Garrett and Doc Holliday and all them fellas and said none a t'all of their moving, so t'weren't about to be them, only they got the only towns to my mind rougher'n this and I figured if I was a US Marshal I'd stay clear of here unless it was a improvement some way. And the only places colder'n this in the winter are way up into the mountains where they ain't no right towns to speak of, and the only places hotter'n this in the summertime are Arizona or New Mexico or West Texas, maybe, down over Live Oak County, only they ain't never had no law 'round there. They say if a man get hisself kilt down there, they ain't enough good men left to form a jury to try the bad ones."
"Yeah?"
"Mm-hm. So I figured you maybe to come from Arizona. I ain't never heard of no good towns in Arizona Territory."
"Well, there aren't many."
"Yessir, that's what they say. Then it happened Ma got your letter about lodging and things, and I kindly, uh," Chester lowered his voice. "Aggrieved her some a little bit ago, and I aim to make it up to 'er, so I says, Ma, when that new boarder of yours comes I'll collect him for you, don't you worry 'bout a thing. And I says I bet he's the new marshal we's to have, and you know what she says?"
"What?"
"She says I been reading her mail!"
"Weren't you?"
"Well my land, I gotta read a body's names and things. But I sure ne'er glimpsed the part where you was the marshal. I just seen your name and how you like a west-facing window when you can get it, Mr. Dillon."
"Oh. Oh, I see," said Matt.
"Reckon you'll be comfortable here?"
"I expect so. Looks like Mrs. Smalley keeps a nice place."
"It's Ma, not Mrs. She gets up a fair catfish muddle time to time, but you really want her chicken pie. My gracious…" Ma Smalley emerged then, with a tray of coffee wares and a look of welcome. She was around fifty and looked to Matt immensely strong in the head. She had written as a 'Mrs.'. Perhaps she was a widow.
"I'll leave the sugar to you, Marshal," she said, and handed him a cup. Chester took one off the tray and dropped some three lumps in.
"Thank you, Mrs. Smalley," said Matt.
"It's a pleasure." She grinned. "We're awful glad to have you here. Dodge City could certainly do with some keeping-in-line."
"That's a fact," said Chester.
"Where do you come from, Marshal Dillon?"
"Oh, Ma," said Chester.
"I was born in Louisville," said Matt. "My father and mother made it out to Ohio when I was small, but I ended up back in Kentucky before the war."
"Are your people still there?"
"Not anymore, no," said Matt. Matt's father was a serious man and a pastor. He died in Ohio, blind with fever while the winter screamed in the caulking. They brought his body back with them. His brothers buried him beside his parents in Kentucky, and when Matt's mother died, much warmer and less frightened, he was old enough to bury her himself. He was old enough to work, and old enough, in another year, to ride out through Missouri to the territories, and he had never since been back across the Mississippi except to accept this post, and that was different–Washington was foreign altogether. Matt had missed plenty of people in his life, but never any place, and he didn't suppose he'd ever live again where he was born. He didn't suppose he had the manners for it any longer, or the clothes. It had been fifteen years.
"They've been dead some years now," said Matt.
"Oh, I'm sorry, dear," said Ma. Chester nodded.
"Well, I've got a good memory," Matt said. "In any case I've been out on unorganized dirt so long I don't guess I have claim to much else." He laughed, and he may have sounded forced without feeling it. "The last couple years I've been down in Arizona territory."
"Was you a marshal there, too?" asked Chester.
"I was."
"My."
Chester stared while he drained his coffee. Matt was very glad, suddenly, that he'd arrived so near to evening. A new town could take the starch out of anyone, especially if one knew one came to stay.
"Excuse me, but I best get on down to the depot," said Chester, unhurriedly pouring himself another cup of coffee. "The Santa Fe's due ten past five. Thank you for the coffee, ma'am, and I'm right proud to know you, Marshal." Chester downed his fresh coffee, coughed, and left.
Matt looked between Ma and the empty doorway. Matt saw her shaking her head, out of the corner of his eye, but she stopped primly when he turned back to her.
Matt woke up slow in general. This morning was no exception, but somebody sure was knocking their heart out all the same.
"Okay!" Matt bellowed. "Take it easy, I'm up!"
"Mr. Dillon?"
"I can hear you!"
"Alright, sir." Whoever it was didn't have to raise his voice to be heard through the door, and Matt felt a little bad for shouting, for the sake of the other boarders. The knocker was asking for it. "I'm right sorry to wake you, but I come to tell you a man been shot down." Matt threw himself out of bed with some difficulty. For the first time since he'd hit Arizona, the floor was cold. "I seen it myself, so done some three, four girls from the Allafraganza and Pete Hightower."
"Well?" Matt got his second boot on, gave up trying to find the washbasin in the dark, and unlocked the door. He opened it to meet Chester Proudfoot, exactly as he'd been last they'd met, with the addition of a lamp. "What…" Matt yawned furiously, and Chester waited. "What happened?"
"Ye'll want your coat, Mr. Dillon. It's kindly gusty out. T'was Terry Black what done the shooting, and Raphe Gordon what's laying dead. We four of us and Savannah–one a' them girls–was sitting in a game, and Raphe all-of-a-sudden-like jumps up and grabs up the pot, all he can of it, and without nary a blink Terry shoots him. Smack between his mouth and nose," said Chester, pointing. "Through the teeth, like. Poor fella died a'fore he hit the ground."