Chapter 6
It was still dark when two figures carrying saddlebags, canteens and rifles left the Marshal's office, heading for the stables. A short time later just as the sun's first rays were emerging over the eastern horizon, they could be seen riding south out of Dodge City.
Matt's thoughts were dwelling on the night before. It had been hard to explain to Kitty that he was leaving town and probably would be gone for at least three weeks, maybe more.
He could still recall the feeling of lying side by side on the only bed in Dodge that could accommodate someone who stood well over six feet tall.
The saloon had been very quiet all evening and well before midnight Kitty decided to let Sam go home early for once. She'd locked the doors behind him and headed up the stairs to her own set of rooms. Matt was already waiting there. That was a sure sign that something was about to disrupt the few stolen hours they managed to grab once Dodge City settled down for the night.
He was stirring the stove to liven up the embers as she entered. Immediately she knew her suspicions were correct. He was staring into the soft warmth of the fire and it was several minutes before he began a quiet, careful recounting of the events of the day. It was almost as if he was trying to explain the situation to himself as well as to her.
"I can't see why you have to go. It's not even in your territory. Besides, you hate to leave town when the trail herds are about to start arriving."
"I know." His voice was soft and apologetic. "I don't really want to go but it's more or less an order."
"You're not in the army, Matt." She was searching his face. "They can't order you to go, can they?"
"I guess not, but I don't really have a choice." Suddenly he was very tired, his back hurt and he needed to stretch out. He sat on the side of the bed and removed his boots and gun belt. He wanted to close his eyes and shut the world out.
Kitty looked over at him before loosening her hair. Then she kicked off her own shoes and carefully stretched out on the bed next to him.
"It's a serious business," he explained as he reached for her hand. "A man who orchestrates the crimes of others. He's becoming his own force for evil and has to be stopped before he gets to be too powerful. Many people's lives will be lost if he's allowed to continue."
"What about the trail herds?"
"I hope to be back before they get underway. I sent a wire to Hays asking the sheriff to send a man to cover for me. Slim Dawkins agreed to handle things until he gets here."
He rolled onto his side so that he could look at her. It only served to make him all the more reluctant to leave. For the last few months he'd only had to make a few short trips out of town so they had both become accustomed to sharing this bed most nights.
"This will be our last few hours together for a while so let's just lie here and enjoy it."
Neither of them remembered exactly what occurred after that. They exchanged a few words and then their feelings for each other took control. They drew closer and whatever happened later became a blurred memory of quiet pleasure and contentment.
Matt remembered the morning clearly enough though. The soft sheets and her beautifully shaped body made it difficult to force himself to leave her side but it had to be done.
He pulled on his boots, fastened his gun belt around his waist and was about to sneak out without waking her when a sleepy voice called to him from under the bed covers.
"Make sure you come back to me, Cowboy." A wisp or two of red hair emerged from behind the quilt shortly followed by arms that reached up to pull his face down to hers. Before he could move, soft lips still stained red with the remnants of yesterday's face paint were there pressing on his own. It lasted only a short while until he had to pull away before his resolve had a chance to weaken.
"I'll see you later, Kitty." He managed to mumble those same words he always said. The door closed and she laid her head back down on the still warm pillow, hoping it wouldn't be the last time she heard them.
()()()
It would take about four days to ride all the way to Kenton in Oklahoma Territory. The trip should be fairly easy until they had to cross the Cimarron. By all the recent accounts he'd heard, the river wasn't running too high and shouldn't give them much trouble, but beyond the river the land was rife with roaming bands of hostile Indians and equally hostile fugitives from the law.
He looked over at the big bay Ada was riding. Agnes was right - she did look out of place on that animal. He was the size of the buckskin, maybe a little bigger, but Ada rode him with confidence and he in turn seemed to carry her with pride. He could probably tote her slight frame for days on end without needing much of a break.
They were riding through grassland with a few trees dotted in small groups here and there. Occasionally an antelope on its way to find new grazing land crossed their path. Other than that all was peaceful except for the constant wind blowing through the prairie grass, providing a distinctive whine, almost like a continuous musical note. For a while each of them was silent. Dillon wasn't given to casual conversation and Ada knew little about him so she wasn't quite sure how to start one.
They'd been riding side by side for almost two hours when he surprised her.
"Tell me, Ada, whatever made you take on the job of marshal? I mean, I never expected to see a woman wearing that badge."
She thought about her answer before beginning. He didn't seem to notice her delay.
"I'll try to explain it to you - but then afterwards it'll be your turn."
"What do you mean?" he asked, seeming genuinely confused by her statement.
"It's a long ride, Matt. We need to pass the time somehow. Women need to talk but they also need to listen. So, I'll tell you my story then it'll be your turn to tell me something about you."
Dillon vaguely agreed. He could happily go for days out here without speaking to anyone and could never understand the need to talk. Still if it made her happy he'd be fine with it.
He adjusted his hat at a better angle to block the sun from his eyes, then slowed his mount to a more relaxed pace. They'd been moving at a brisk walk, having pushed the horses to a faster gait for the previous hour when it was cooler. He didn't want them to get overheated now that the sun was almost directly overhead. Ada pulled back on the bay to match his speed then began her story.
"Growing up I had four older brothers," she started. "After a while I found they had all the fun things to do while I was supposed to stay home and learn to bake bread and sew. I asked my father why I couldn't ride out and help gather up the stock. I wanted to learn to shoot a gun and hunt game like my brothers. I got tired of being told that girls didn't do such things. They talked about sending me away to some school where I could learn to be a lady, but that didn't appeal to me either. All that would lead to was being married to a banker or some such, which would only take me back to baking bread and sewing clothes - at least that's how I saw it."
"Perhaps your father was thinking about what would give you a safe and settled life," Matt suggested. He thought it quite reasonable for a father to want those things for his daughter.
"The same could be said for you, Marshal Dillon." She could almost see that he agreed with her father's wishes and tried to turn the tables a little. "You could've found a safer and easier way to earn a living," she pointed out. "Did your family think it a good idea that you should take a job like this? Risking your life every day for such a little pay. There are more profitable ways for a man to earn a living."
He didn't reply to that and after a minute or two she continued.
"I eventually talked my father into teaching me to shoot a gun. You can imagine how surprised he was when I turned out to be very good at it. By the age of twelve I could out- shoot all my brothers, and ride better than all but one of them."
Matt pointed to a small side track leading off the trail. "There's a good place to water the horses if we take that path," he commented and gently neck-reined the buckskin to follow the rough track. Ada went along behind him. When the path widened again she caught up so they were riding side by side once more.
"Go on with your story." He wasn't sure why, but he wanted to hear more about her life. In many ways she reminded him of Kitty, not that they looked or acted as if they had anything in common, but deep inside they did. They'd both fought to survive in what was very much a man's world. A world that tried to tell them what they could and couldn't do… and against all odds they'd both succeeded.
Ada was continuing with her story and he found himself anxious to listen.
"A few years later, my father took me with him on a business trip to St. Louis. He wanted me to see the nice hotels, the ladies in silky evening gowns and all the pleasures of being a society wife. I found it all kind of boring until the return journey home. We were sitting in the railroad depot waiting for the train when I picked up a newspaper. There was a notice saying that Washington was looking for "young men" to join the United States Marshals." She paused while guiding the big bay around a large gopher hole before going on with her story.
"I remember showing it to my father and asking him why they specifically asked for 'young men'. He said "Because women can't do work like that."
"Well," she laughed. "You can guess the rest. I set out to prove that women could do all of that and more. I wanted to have a purpose. I wanted to experience more than the sheltered life on the ranch where I grew up. I knew that someday I'd find a man who could handle my independent ways and then I'd want to marry him, raise a family and such, like most women do. But I figured there's plenty of time for me to do that." She looked across at Dillon and he could see a smile in her eyes, as if she was challenging him to raise an argument against her ideas.
That last statement did hit home with Dillon, but not in quite the way she expected. Was there really time to do both? Somehow he couldn't give up the badge he was wearing or the oath he swore when he pinned it on. His job and desire for freedom to spend time alone out here on the prairie seemed to work well together. But was it really freedom? Here he was riding miles to a small insignificant town in Oklahoma Territory where they'd face unknown dangers, even death. He'd wanted to stay and protect his town from the craziness that overtook it when the herds came in. But was that what he wanted to do either? What about the beautiful redheaded saloon owner he'd left half asleep in that big brass bed. He wanted to make her happy too and in making her happy he'd bring untold happiness to his own heart. What about children? He knew that one day Kitty hoped for a family. He told himself it didn't matter to him but was that really so? Here was this young woman, brave, intelligent and barely out of childhood herself, telling him she had time for both. Neither of them knew what lay ahead. Time could indeed run out at any moment for either of them.
They followed the trail and took the opportunity for a break at the nearby creek where they allowed the horses time to drink.
The water ran clear and cold here. Matt knelt down at the edge and splashed the chilled liquid on his face. Ada watched him then dismounted and walked back into the bushes. By the time she returned the horses had quenched their thirsts and Matt was busy filling both canteens.
"Here," he said, handing over hers. "This is the sweetest water for miles around. We'll appreciate it later when we cross the Cimarron. The water isn't so clear there. The cattle drives cross further upstream and stir up the mud."
When they mounted again, they rode in silence for ten miles or so. Finally Ada restarted the conversation.
"Come on Matt. Now it's your turn."
"My turn for what?"
"You said you'd tell me why you decided to wear the badge."
Matt as usual was reluctant. "I needed a job and the post was available. That's about all there was to it."
"I don't believe it was so simple, Matthew Dillon. You're a much more complicated man than that."
For a young woman, barely out of her teenage years, Ada was very perceptive. Her confident manner reminded him of Kitty Russell when he'd first met her. It was as if she could look inside his head and see all those things he was never able to talk about. Doc had much the same ability but he'd been around a lot longer than either of these two women and his profession alone gave him insight into the workings of a man's mind.
"I guess I never thought about it much. I was kind of wild at one time. I worked cattle for a while and was pretty good at that, even worked as a trail hand a time or two." He paused, thinking back on all the apparently disconnected events that had led him to the life of a lawman. He couldn't imagine why he was discussing them with this young woman when there were some things he'd never even told Kitty.
"I rode with a pretty wild bunch back then." How could young Ada Boothe possibly understand what his life had been like? He shouldn't even be talking to her like this, but somehow he had to. "Although I came pretty close to encountering the law a time or two, I somehow avoided crossing that line. Finally I found myself pushed onto the right path. It could just as easily have gone the other way."
She wanted to know more about his childhood, where he grew up, who his parents were. Many other questions came to her active mind but she soon figured out that she wasn't getting anywhere.
They camped that night just north of the Cimarron. Normally Matt wouldn't bother to make a meal. A stick of jerky and a mug of coffee would suit him just fine. Ada left him and the horses only to return a short time later with a pair of prairie chickens.
"You wanna fix these, or shall I?" she asked him.
Somehow it became a joint effort. One marshal built the fire and the other cleaned and prepared the food.
It was a dark, clear night. A small crescent moon accompanied by a myriad of stars that seemed to hang down from the black sky beyond.
"This is one of the good things about being out here alone." Ada was looking up at the sky just as a shooting star streaked above their heads.
"You know they say that means something big is about to happen?" she added.
Matt replied with something akin to a grunt. He too enjoyed the feeling of being alone under the night sky but never found words to talk about it. It was there and it gave him a sense of peace inside. There were no words involved.
TBC