Kitty found him sitting at a table in the back of the saloon, an almost empty bottle of whiskey next to him. "What're you doing back here, cowboy?"
Dillon shrugged. "Trying to forget what a disloyal friend I am."
"Oh Matt, don't do this to yourself." She sat down. "This isn't your fault."
"Maybe not, but I haven't helped him, Kitty. I haven't helped him at all." He looked into her eyes so intently it almost hurt. "I'll have to testify to what I saw. I'll have to testify, and he'll be convicted, and they'll hang him."
She took his hand. "You don't know that."
He jerked his hand away from her. "Yes, I do. I know the evidence against him. He has only his version of the story. Beeman's gonna bury him, and I'm going to help."
"Doc knows this isn't your fault."
Dillon laughed sarcastically, "Yeah, that'll make both of us feel a lot better when they're placing the noose around his neck." His eyes narrowed in anger. "He's been asking about you, you know; I'm sure he's wondering why you haven't bothered to come and see him. Are you even going to come to the trial?"
Kitty slapped him hard across the face. "Just stop it, Matt. You're being very unfair. You have no idea how much he hurt me, and I have every right to be angry with him."
Dillon looked down. "Yes, Kitty, you had a right to be angry; but that was before he was sittin' in a jail cell waitin' for a murder trial. He needs you now, and you haven't been around; Festus has been missing since I arrested Doc, and he knows that I'm going to have to testify against him. Do you have any idea how alone he must feel right now? The three people who should be closest to him have deserted him during the worst moment of his life."
Her voice was soft, "I haven't deserted him."
Dillon glared at her. "I'm not the one who needs to hear that right now."
And Kitty suddenly felt very small.
He looked up when he heard the door and was surprised to see her standing there. He nodded at her.
"Miss Bradley...what brings you by?"
"Who was she to you?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Margaret, I think he said her name was...who was she?"
After so many years, it still felt like a knife in his heart when he heard the name. He swallowed hard and turned his back to her. "I don't know what you're talking about, Miss Bradley."
"I want to know."
He spun around, anger in his pale blue eyes. "And I'd like to know why you're lyin' about what happened at the Dodge House. But we don't always get what we want, do we?" She backed slightly away from the bars, as if he would come through them to get at her, and he relaxed his posture slightly. "I'm sorry, Miss Bradley, I didn't mean to frighten you."
She swallowed and tried again. "Who was Margaret?"
He looked down at the floor, noting how the dust had settled there; another sign that Festus hadn't been around. And then he looked at her, his voice a soft caress.
"She was Maggie to me..."
He swallowed hard, feeling his eyes fill: he hadn't said her name aloud in 27 years. Doc sat down on the cot, no longer able to stand.
"Tell me about her."
His voice held hurt, and years of pain, "I can't..." He looked up at her then, and she noted that his eyes were filled with unshed tears. "Why are you here?"
"He...my father...he mentioned her to me the night he died. I wanted to know who she was."
"Well, I'm afraid I don't much feel like tellin' ya, Miss Bradley."
The woman nodded; she could hardly blame him for that. "Good day, Dr. Adams."
"For you, maybe." He stared hard into her eyes. "For me it's possibly one of my last."
Ruth Bradley swallowed hard and quickly left the jailhouse, no longer sure that she was doing what she must to protect her father's memory. If Adams were reticent to discuss any of it with her, she couldn't picture him talking to anyone else about it. He had yet to ever mention it, and she was beginning to believe that he wouldn't - not even to save his own life.
In his final drunken stupor, her father had said that Galen Adams was of a special breed; she was beginning to think of such an assessment as a gross understatement.