Unshown Moments for Seven Hours to Dawn (2)

This is for The Well Mannered Guest (Now I'm done for just a little while.)

"Don't you worry about Kitty." Doc said as he grabbed his jacket and headed out of the basement. "I'm not going to leave her alone for a minute."

Matt laid down in the basement after Doc left, tightly clutching the gun to his wounded chest and thought about that. If it hadn't been for Doc's quick thinking, it would've been he that would've left Kitty alone, permanently. Married or not, he knew Kitty was most likely grieving for him right then as any wife would for the man she loved.

"What was I thinking?" He sighed aloud, aware there was no one around to hear him. "I should've known that Gore wouldn't have been that careless. I should've known, he'd not let me get away. But I just had to try it. I just had to jump on that horse and take off. Now look at me."

Laying as still as he could, to lessen the pain, Matt considered his life up to this point. He'd known the moment he first put on a badge that he'd found his calling in life. He didn't expect an easy life with that kind of job and he had pretty much got what he'd expected. But he knew he'd made a difference on the frontier. Though far from egotistical, he wasn't blind to the changes that had been wrought through his efforts. Though still wild in many ways, Dodge and the territory as a whole was now a better place to live, despite men like Mace Gore. And Matt was justifiably proud of his role in making it that way.

But he knew, he hadn't done it all alone. People such as Festus as well as Quint and Chester, before him, had backed him when a lot of other, supposedly braver men wouldn't have. And without the friendship and medical skill of Galen Adams, saving his life time and again, he'd been long dead by now.

But without the love and support from Kitty, he'd not cared about whether he was dead or not. She had been the one constant, the glue that held him as well as their friends together and it grieved him to think of her being up in her room, bereft of hope and thinking of him as dead.

He understood Doc's reasoning. And he grudingly agreed with it. Doc had done the only thing he could under the circumstances. Still, the thought of him being the cause of such heartbreak for her, nagged at him and he decided he couldn't just lie there and do nothing. He might still have to fight to get Gore out of town and he might still succumb to his wounds, but not yet. He had something to do first.

Grunting with the pain, Matt forced himself up to a sitting position. He'd failed to get away on that horse, but he was determined that he wouldn't fail again. Not just for his job's sake, or the town's, but for his own as well as for Kitty's.

But being shot four times took a lot out of a man, even a man like Matt Dillon and it took all the strength he could muster to pull himself up and get to his feet. Still, his will was stronger than his body and he forced himself on.

"Doc's gonna be mad at me for this but..." He groaned as he took his first step, but he kept pushing himself forward. He was about half way up the stairs and about to sit down on the next step and rest when he heard the first shot.

"No time for rest." He sighed as he grimaced, clung tightly to the railing and made himself go on. He knew Festus would carry through with their plans to trick Gore and was postive that was the reason for the shot he heard. But what he didn't know, and wouldn't until he got to the main floor, was what Gore's response would be. Matt didn't want the man taking out his anger at being fooled on Festus or worse, Kitty. If he could stop him, he would.

Once he reached the top step, Matt gripped the gun with the three bullets, opened the door and stepped out to face the man that thought he was dead.

END