Maybe It's All Blind Luck
AN: I'm posting a second chapter today because a busy weekend means I might not be able to post another until Monday.
He didn't know if it was the scrambling needed to find Frank Walker to free Billy Poe or finally having time to relax until he could put the events leading up to, during and following his time in Elkader behind him but Matt Dillon suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous. The world around him became an impenetrable blur. The cause sure couldn't be the brandy he'd just drunk. Matt carefully tried to place the empty snifter on the nearby table only to see it fall off the edge onto the carpet. That reminded him he'd neglected to see Doc as soon as he got back. Now he desperately needed the comfort of Kitty's body against his.
Kitty Russell was used to the man she loved hiding ailments from her. She knew he always had to appear strong and in charge until giving into the fact his body had limitations no matter how hard he tried to ignore them. She sensed something was terribly wrong.
"Cowboy, you feelin' okay?" she asked, snuggling even closer. "What can I do to help?"
"I don't know if I can make it across the alley," he confessed squeezing her tight as if his life depended on it. "Frankly I don't know if Doc can help more than bein' with you can."
His reply scared her. It wasn't simply what he said. It was the fear in his voice. She decided to take charge.
"Matt Dillon, sit right where you are. I'm going for Doc. I promise I won't be gone more than a couple minutes," Kitty informed him in a tone that brooked no argument. "I'll deal with the broken glass when I get back."
For once the big man obeyed. Matt withdrew his arms from around her & let the love of his life rise to cross the room. He couldn't see her but sensed from the sounds coming to him that she was throwing on some clothes before using the backstairs to cross the alley. Despite the short distance traversed it seemed an eternity later Kitty returned with Doc.
As Kitty Russell left to bring him back to her place Doctor Adams was at his desk on the brink of shutting the medical journal he'd been reading. He was ready to go into his bedroom, change into a nightshirt and fall into bed. His eyes kept closing and he found himself reading the same sentence over and over when he heard a knock on his office door. Folding his glasses into their case, he rose to let in his patient. "Be right there," he cried out as he shuffled toward the door to open it.
"Kitty! What's wrong!" Doc exclaimed as he recognized his visitor. He ushered her inside, but she remained in the doorway.
"Doc, it's Matt! There's something terribly wrong with him. I can feel it!" she said stopping her outburst briefly to catch her breath. "You've got to come with me right now!" she exclaimed while finally closing the distance between them. "Matt Dillon doesn't fail to put a glass on the table!" she blurted, grabbing his left elbow to pull him out the door.
"Kitty, honey, slow down. I can't do much for Matt without my medical bag. Let me at least grab that," he begged the clearly distraught woman who'd become like a daughter to him.
Upon his arrival in Kitty's rooms Doc took one look at the person on the settee and knew this wasn't the Matt Dillon he'd come to know and love like a son. He saw someone clearly unsure of his future, a man who feared being a burden and hoping for help finding his way there. The Matt Doc normally saw was too stubborn to let physical ailments stop him from carrying out his duty as he saw it. That stubborn devotion to duty included with it a reluctance to marry Kitty, the woman he deeply loved. In some ways the older man understood the younger man's reluctance. They both had taken oaths that meant their lives weren't always their own. Their work came first before any personal preferences or feelings. This time the oath wasn't part of what he saw. The person on the settee wasn't the Matt Dillon he knew almost as well as his surrogate daughter. Kitty had every reason to sense something was seriously wrong with the man she loved with every fiber of her being. Doc cleared his throat. Dillon finally looked toward him.
"What did you drink before the brandy?" the physician began noting the decanter on the table, the broken snifter on the carpet and the slow response time.
"Nothing, Doc, just a beer before my last rounds," he replied in a strained voice. "I can't be drunk. Reckon I should have checked with you as soon as I got back from Elkader but I plum forgot. I got my sight back on the way home so it hardly mattered my vision was blurry, among other things."
"Just what do you mean you got your sight back?" Kitty and Doc asked simultaneously. "How did you lose it?" Doc asked, his tone being more of an interrogation than of sympathy.
The town doctor began his examination of his now somewhat submissive patient, a sign in itself that Matt Dillon was truly ailing. He gave curtly voiced instructions to Kitty concerning what instruments he needed. While using them in the course of the physical exam he peppered his patient with more questions in order to grasp what might have caused the symptoms being displayed.
Matt answered as best he could, relating how after getting settled in Elkader he stopped in Kelly's Saloon to gain information. He told how a local drunk lured him to an alley. As the recollection unfolded Doc and Kitty learned Matt woke up the next morning in an alley dizzy, sick to his stomach, a throbbing head and with vision too blurry for him to get to his room in the nearby hotel. Finally, unable to trust himself to stumble any farther, he'd sat on a bench until Billy Poe offered to help.
Both Doc and Kitty were amazed by his words. While Matt continued his tale Doc was busy checking the pupils of Matt's eyes. The physician double-checked his observations while Kitty responded with incredulity.
"You mean you relied entirely on Buck to get you home? Matt, he's just a horse! Did you really expect him to find the road again after you veered off it to camp for the night?"
"Yeah, maybe I wasn't thinking too clearly, but I knew I wasn't safe in Elkader. I'm sure that maid thought I was daft, but what was I to do? I was essentially defenseless in a town that had it in for lawmen. My being conked on the head was proof enough of that."
Matt mentioning being hit on the head gave Doc the opening he was waiting for. "Kitty, you've berated him enough. Everything you've told that stubborn public servant is true. It's time for some medical facts. Matt, you're gonna listen to me and follow my instructions unless you have a death wish, which I hope to God you don't. You're still suffering from a severe concussion. The symptoms eased because you began the necessary rest in that hotel room. However, they've returned thanks to all the running around you've been doing the past few weeks."
"I felt fine. Besides, who else was there to see that justice prevailed?" Matt replied defensively. "What I want to know from you, Doc is being blind permanent?"
"What could be permanent is your death, not just a lack of clear eyesight. For now being dizzy, sick to your stomach and the inability to see makes it impossible for you to do anything but rest. What I want is for you to give me your word you'll spend the next two weeks doing nothing but getting lots of rest. Don't even think of riding a horse anywhere, not even from the stable to the Long Branch. Fact is, I need you to move about as little as possible. Only after a period of complete rest will I sanction doing much more than catching up on your paperwork and that's only if your vision allows you to see the paper well enough to write or read anything."
"Doc, I can't hide out. People needing me will find me. If you don't want me to travel where can I stay?'
"That's easy Cowboy. You'll stay with me," Kitty interjected. "Only our closest friends will know you're up here. Chester, Quint, Sam, Doc and I will spread the word that you've gone out of town somewhere you can't be reached. Doc and I will monitor your progress. I'm sure this is a temporary relapse," she said, unable to hide a quaver in her voice. "Isn't it, Doc?"
"Let's hope so," Doc replied in response to both of them. "Now Matt, even if you wake up tomorrow without symptoms I want you to stay up here with Kitty. Your meals will be hand delivered. I don't expect you'll suffer too much of a hardship except for the lack of a certain type of strenuous exercise," a hint that was quite clear to the couple. "Perhaps, if after a week you're significantly improved you and your redheaded nurse can go fishing. Of course such an outing will require the buggy you use to be well padded and as a further precaution you'll go slow enough that any bumps in the road are avoided."