Dry Route to Dodge

A Gunsmoke Story

by MAHC (Amanda)

Chapter Two: Goodbye

POV: Kitty

Spoilers: "Daddy-O"

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I did not create these characters, but I love them.

Kitty Russell sat by the plain, starched bed in the Kansas City hospital, looking at the gaunt face, wondering, with more than mild suspicion, what had prompted him to call for her, to want her. She had not seen him in almost 15 years, had not even heard from him since that painful visit to Dodge when he needed money. If he had just asked, instead of trying to trick her –

But the hurt of that time had faded, especially as she sat watching the life quietly shrink from his body.

For a moment, his eyes opened, and she saw surprise and gratitude in their fading light. "Kathleen?" The cultured voice of her childhood was faint, but clear.

She had long ago dropped the accent that reminded her of pretentiousness and class prejudice, but now the sound brought a strangely warm flow of nostalgia for home. "Yes," she answered. "It's Kathleen."

"You came." Relief, disbelief.

"I did."

"You're still – beautiful," he said. "Like your mother."

She didn't want the compliment, didn't want to hear about the woman he had abandoned so many years ago, didn't want to feel anything for him except resentment – or pity. But the regret that swam in his eyes, the plea that called from his face tugged at her, cutting through decades of bitterness and anger.

"Don't try to talk," she urged, not sure she wanted to give up all of those old feelings.

But he didn't listen. "I wanted to tell you – " he rasped, straining forward, barely able to lift his head from the pillow, his cheeks flaming with fever, hair dripping with sweat.

"Shh. It's all right. Just lie back."

But he shook his head. "Kathleen – Kitty – I want you to know – I know I wasn't much of a father – "

Despite the poignancy of his deathbed confession, she couldn't suppress a jolt of anger. She wanted to tell him he sure as hell wasn't, but what good would it do now?

"But all these years – what you've done – who you've become – "

Her head came up, waiting warily.

"I'm trying to say – I'm – proud of you, Kathleen."

"What?" The certainly wasn't what she had expected, and she couldn't help but pull back from him.

He closed his eyes again, but kept talking. "I've got a little – money – "

"I don't need money – "

"I know, but I want – you to have it. And I've got two – tickets back to Dodge."

"What?"

"For us. I thought when I got better, I'd take you – home, but now – Well, I thought maybe that constable of yours might come – "

So he remembered Matt. Well, not likely he would forget. "He was out of town when I got the doctor's telegram," she explained, illogically not wanting him to think any less of Matt for not being there with her.

"So you and he are still – "

She smiled. What did it matter what she confessed to him now? "Yeah."

"Married?"

"No." She braced for a pious reprimand, a comment about appearances, about proprieties.

He opened his eyes once more to look at her face. "He loves you?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"He takes care of you?"

She wanted to tell him she took care of herself, but instead she smiled. "Yeah."

Finally, he took a rattling breath and said, "Good."

Tears burned her eyes at the unexpected response. Perhaps there was some good in Wayne Russell after all, even if it only surfaced at the end. And it was the end, she could tell. In the five days since she had arrived in Kansas City, he had floated in and out of consciousness, never acknowledging anyone until this moment. The doctor in attendance, a fresh-faced youngster who must be barely out of medical school, had told her at the beginning that her father would not survive.

La Grippe, he had called it. At least that how it started out. But now the old man's lungs were heavy with fluid, and he was drowning inside. Pneumonia. And nothing they seemed to try worked. Only a matter of time, they said.

So she sat and stared at the gray walls of the small room, sat and waited for her father to die, sat and felt very much alone. Not for the first time, Kitty wished she had waited for Matt, for his strong presence to soothe her and bolster her – and comfort her. Of course, she knew she couldn't have. Wayne Russell was dying, and waiting for Matt would only have kept her from these last moments.

"Kathleen?" It was barely a whisper.

"I'm here," she assured him, grasping his hand, frail and dry, in hers.

But he said no more, only sank into the bed as the final breath wheezed from his ruined lungs. Kitty stared into the slack face of death, something she had done too many times before. She couldn't cry for him, but she could mourn, if only for what might have been.

She didn't know how long she sat there, but the gas lights had been lit by the time the doctor stepped into the room, his eyes shifting quickly from the bed to her, then back. His fingers sought the old man's wrist, waited. Waited longer. With a sigh, he turned to Kitty.

"He's dead."

"I know."

"Is there anyone we should contact?"

A sad smile curved her mouth. "No. Just me."

The doctor's face was tight, exposing his relative inexperience with the death of those he was supposed to save. "Can I do anything for you, Miss Russell?" he offered as consolation.

She almost laughed ironically. "You know a good undertaker?"

He flinched, then nodded.

XXXX

There was nothing lonelier, Kitty reflected, than a funeral with no mourners. She stood alone among the headstones. The priest, a concession to her father's long-abandoned Catholic upbringing, had delivered last rites, proclaimed appropriate words, and left to tend to more pressing needs.

But Wayne Russell was buried, and read over, and now his daughter could put the lingering ghosts of her past behind her – if she chose. Lifting her head against the growing breeze, she steeled herself for the long journey back to Dodge.

"Goodbye," she murmured, maybe more for herself than for him.

With a final glance at the gaping grave that waited to be filled in by the rough laborers lingering impatiently a few hundred feet away, she turned to walk toward the gate.

And saw him.

There was no mistaking that towering frame, broad and solid and strong. He wore his gray coat and the dark dress trousers that made his legs seem to stretch even taller. He stood, watching her, hat in hand, thick hair tousled and whipped by the wind.

Suddenly, Kitty's world came together again. Suddenly, everything was all right. Suddenly, the trip home didn't seem nearly so long.

That familiar, endearing smile broke the solemn lines of his handsome face, and she sighed as the burden shifted from her shoulders to his.

"Oh, Matt."