My Eternal Portion
A Gunsmoke Story
By Amanda (MAHC)
"Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion,
Scarce can endure delay of execution:
Wait, with impatient readiness, to seize my
Soul in a moment."
The Task
William Cower (1731-1800)
Chapter Three: To Seize My Soul
POV: Billy Justus
Spoilers: None
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters (but I wish I did).
Dodge City
7:18 p.m., Thursday, June 17
Justus surveyed Dodge City at night and decided it was much more interesting in the evening hours than the daylight ones. The streets fairly jumped with activity, swarms of cowboys whooping and riding and singing mixed with the laughter and hubbub of the saloons, brothels, and pool halls. Weaving through a rowdy group of drovers, he pushed into the Long Branch, scouting quickly with his eyes until he found the person he was looking for. It wasn't too hard. No one else in the place looked like her. Not even close. She leaned against the far edge of the bar, a pencil in one hand, writing in what looked to be a ledger. Carefully, he negotiated his way through the crowd and stopped a few feet away from her.
"Miss Kitty?" he asked tentatively, holding his hat in his hand
She turned, and Justus felt as if the world had stopped spinning, and everything froze except her smile, her eyes.
"Well, hello, Mister Jones," she greeted.
"Ma'am," he managed. He hoped she wouldn't grieve over Dillon too long. He really didn't favor hurting her.
Her smile faded a little, her brow drew down. "You all right?"
Get ahold of yourself, Billy, he scolded. She's just a woman. But even as he thought it, he knew he was wrong. She wasn't just a woman. Kitty Russell was definitely not just a woman.
"Yes, ma'am," he assured her, "I'm fine. I just – I just come by ta' thank you for my room, but there wasn't really no need – "
Her hand waved away his gratitude. "Yes, there was. You did the marshal – and me – a good deed, two good deeds, really. A few days rent doesn't much stack up to a life saved."
He didn't have to work too hard to blush in the face of her gushing. "Well, I'm just happy things ended up okay," he professed.
"Sam," Kitty called, turning toward the bar, "bring Mister Jones a beer."
Justus tried to refuse, but the cool, foaming liquid convinced him not to put too much effort into it. To his delight, Kitty sat next to him at the only open table in the room.
"Did I hear you tell Matt – the marshal – you're from Yuma?"
God, he hoped she didn't know anybody from there. Why hadn't he chosen some place in the middle of Mexico? "Well, long time ago," he admitted. "I'm mostly not from anywhere anymore, though. Just driftin' through."
"You sure drifted through Dodge at the right time," Kitty said.
"I guess so.," he conceded, then asked casually, "How's, uh, how's the marshal tonight?"
Kitty shook her head. "Doc's keeping him to his promise to stay in bed."
"Peers to me that was your promise." The words were out before he could stop them.
In a heartbeat, blue eyes narrowed, and he had to leap over a surge of panic as he scrambled to explain. "I mean," he clarified, "you told the doctor he was headed that way this morning, didn't you?" He certainly didn't want her to know he had overheard her conversation with Dillon. Besides, he really hadn't meant it that way, anyway.
Slowly, her frown relaxed. "Yeah."
Swallowing back the near disaster, he let a few seconds pass before he spoke again. "The marshal's a little stubborn, I take it."
Kitty laughed ruefully. "You have no idea."
Justus thought back ten years to weeks of relentless tracking through the dry, scorched prairie of Kansas and across the barren waste that they called the Arizona Territory. Miss Kitty was wrong. He had a damn good idea about Matt Dillon's stubbornness.
"Can I buy you a beer, ma'am?" he offered gallantly, even though he wouldn't have had enough money for his own drink if she hadn't offered him one for free.
With a knowing smile, she placed her hands on the tabletop, as if she were about to rise. "Thanks, but I need to get back to the inventory."
Before she could push herself up, though, he noted, as if it had just occurred to him, "I ain't seen nobody in particular with the marshal. He got himself a wife?"
A flicker of something that resembled regret crossed her face before she covered it. After only a slight hesitation, she said, "No."
"Just as well, I suppose. Figure it's not fair for a lawman ta' make a woman and kids go through the sufferin' of knowin' any day he could come up dead." He shook his head sadly and let his eyes cut toward her.
Her lips pressed together tightly for a moment. Then, with a deep breath, she asked. "Do you have a family, Mister Jones?"
"Oh, no, ma'am," he smiled, careful to allow an edge of remorse into his tone. "Hadn't settled down long enough ta' find anyone." Then, he gave her a shy smile. "'Course, things change. I ain't got the obligations of a lawman. I wouldn't expect no woman ta' wait around for me ta' die."
He had expected a frown, perhaps, maybe a wince, but her response was neither of those. In fact, it was just the opposite: a smile. A smile so warm, so inviting that he was taken aback at the depth of welcome in her eyes. He started to say something, wondered if he might be spending the night upstairs at the Long Branch instead of at the Dodge House, wondered if he had misjudged her relationship with the marshal.
Then he realized with a pang that her gaze was not aimed at him at all, but just past him toward the entrance of the saloon. Turning, he felt his heart kick cruelly when he saw who had elicited that enviable expression.
Matt Dillon stood in the doorway, his lips curved slightly in a responding smile, his eyes locked with hers for a brief moment before he pushed through the swinging doors and stepped down into the room. Justus saw that the marshal had abandoned the bandages wrapping his head for a smaller patch that rested over his eye. He was hatless still, his thick hair curling in haphazard scatters over his forehead.
With a nod, he approached their table. "Kitty," he greeted casually as if there were nothing more than mild acquaintance between them. "Mister Jones."
"Marshal," Justus returned, deciding not to stand. Dillon was a good foot taller than him. He didn't need to be reminded of the big man's physical advantage. Besides, in a little while, the only person worried about how tall the marshal was would be the undertaker who had to measure him for his coffin.
Kitty's smile widened, and she reached out to touch Dillon's arm. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," he assured her. "Mind if I join you?"
Forcing pleasantness he didn't feel, Justus gestured grandly. "By all means."
"How are you today, Mister Jones?" Dillon asked, settling into a chair that groaned a bit in protest of the solid frame that tested it.
Justus nodded. "Just fine, Marshal. You're lookin' a little fitter this evenin'." He had taken a few close glances and decided Dillon did, indeed, look much better. His color was back, and only the reddish-purple bruise and the white bandage it spread from were indications that he was injured at all.
Dillon didn't answer. Instead, he turned his smile again on Kitty, and Justus felt a stab of something akin to jealousy at the intimacy that leaped between them. Knowing emotion could only lead to failure, he cleared his throat and continued.
"Maybe the cowboys won't be so rowdy tonight."
"Maybe," the marshal agreed, dragging his gaze away from Kitty's. Justus noted that she let her eyes linger on the big lawman several more seconds before she, too, let her attention shift.
"Between you and Mister Jones, here," she laughed, "I figure we're in good hands."
Billy found himself flattered, and momentarily succumbed to the warm feeling before he forced it back down. Emotion, he reminded himself, was dangerous.
"Hey! I said gimmee another beer!"
Their attention was drawn to another ragged drover, one Justus recognized as a friend of the previous night's rabble rouser, his fist pounding without much rhythm against the bar in front of Sam. The bartender had removed an empty glass from the counter, and was apparently refusing to refill it. Smoothly, Kitty rose to address the issue.
"Kitty – " Dillon began, but stopped when she gave a subtle shake of her head.
"Problem, Sam?" she asked, sliding her hand down the bar and she walked toward the drunken man.
"This fellow ain't takin' no for an answer, Miss Kitty," the weathered bartender told her.
The drover slapped the counter. "I ain't!" he confirmed. "I wannaotherbeer!"
"Why don't you go on back to your room, mister," she suggested, voice calm and even.
He took a step toward her. At the same moment, Dillon's broad back straightened, and Justus watched him tense to rise.
Kitty didn't flinch. "Well, you're not getting one tonight. Not in the Long Branch."
The man's growl barely preceded the action, but it was enough for the marshal, who was out of his chair and in front of Kitty before the man's hand could come down. Instead of leaning forward to slap the woman, he found himself flying across the saloon, slamming against the steps in front of the swinging doors. Justus couldn't help but smile at the complete astonishment on the idiot's face.
The marshal had barely straightened from delivering the powerful backhand when a second cowboy jerked up a chair and swung it toward him. But Dillon was ready. Not ducking this time, he snapped one hand up and caught the chair leg as it arced toward him, stopping it with a sudden, sure grab, then jerking chair and cowboy over the table and onto the floor beyond. Stunned, the would-be brawler blinked his eyes once before his head thunked back against the wall and he lay, subdued, waiting for someone to drag him to a cell adjoining his equally hapless friend.
Too drunk or too stupid to take note of his friends' failures, a third drover growled and snatched at his gun. Justus' eyes widened as he saw the blur of the marshal's hand sweep his own pistol easily from its holster. In the space between breaths, two shots rang out. The cowboy fired first, but he was too hasty and his shot damaged nothing but the mirror behind the bar. Dillon's followed so quickly it sounded almost like an echo of the first and found its target with accustomed and deadly accuracy.
The dying man used his last ounce of consciousness to stare down at the blossoming crimson that covered his chest. Then he dropped to the floor.
Pressing his lips together in a conflict of resolve and regret, the marshal replaced his gun in the holster and leaned back. The room hung in stunned silence for a full minute, dozens of eyes shifting from the three men sprawled about the room to the one man still standing. Dillon hadn't been particularly slow before, but Justus observed that ten years had added almost unnatural speed to the marshal's draw.
Slowly, the crowd breathed easier, and the normal background noises returned; customers turned back to their beer and poker, content to let the evening progress without further conflict.
"Matt?" Kitty stepped next to the marshal, laying her hand gently on his arm.
"I'm okay, Kitty," he assured her quietly, as if he had answered that question before.
Billy took in the scene with more than a little awe. Dillon stood, tall, commanding, seemingly without a hint of his earlier weakness. Upon closer inspection, however, Justus could see the perspiration beaded again on his forehead, could detect a bit of labor in his breathing. The man needed to sit, but Justus didn't figure Matt Dillon would let up until he had the situation well in hand. At another place, another time, he considered that he might have had a certain admiration for the lawman. Dillon had sand, he'd give him that. Only a day after getting smashed against the head, he braved the same possibility and emerged not only unscathed, but more formidable than ever.
Yes sir, he had sand – as well as two other characteristics Billy admired the most: skill and damn good taste in women.
Ruthlessly clamping down on that dangerous chink in his shield of revenge, Justus dug down to feel again the pain of years of misery in prison, the ache of months of careful planning committed to repaying Dillon for the waste of a decade of his life – his youth. Perhaps Matt Dillon could have been spared in another life, but in this life, Billy Justus had put to much effort into his demise. Still, it had become alarmingly obvious that Dillon's talents presented an obstacle to Billy's goal. The only way to get the advantage over the lawman was for him to be taken by surprise – or even better, taken by someone else.
"Matt?" The tall, thin young man from the day before stood in the doorway, one eyebrow raised. He must have heard the commotion from outside.
"Haul those two off to the jailhouse for me, will ya', Thad?" Dillon asked, hooking his thumbs in his gunbelt. He lifted a chin toward the dead man. "And take him to Percy Crump's."
"Yes, sir," Thad nodded, reaching down to jerk the first drunk off the floor.
"We'll git that thar feller ta' Percy's fer ya, Marshal," two other patrons offered, eager to separate themselves from the lawbreakers.
Dillon nodded to them. "Thanks."
In a moment, the only evidence that the drovers had even been there were the shattered remnants of the chair one of them had tried to clobber Matt Dillon with and the smear of blood that the bartender had already begun mopping up.
"Let's sit down," Kitty suggested, smoothing her hair with one hand and taking Dillon's arm with the other.
The marshal took a breath, nodded, and lowered himself back into a chair. Billy watched him closely, noted the quick grimace Dillon couldn't quite avoid, the long fingers pressing against the bandage, spotted again with red.
"You okay?" Justus asked, surprised at himself that the sincerity didn't have to be forced.
Immediately, the marshal dropped his hand, as if suddenly aware that it was evidence of his pain. Staring across the room to the bartender's mopping, he shrugged. "Yeah." Then, Billy saw another kind of pain flicker across his rugged features. "Needless," he mumbled.
"Sir?"
"Needless," Dillon repeated. "That man's death. If he just hadn't drawn – "
Genuinely confused, Justus said, "You couldn't do nothin' else. He was gonna kill ya."
Those blue eyes lifted to look right at him, and he almost reeled from the regret that filled them. "Why? Over a beer? Over pride?"
Justus stared at the marshal, seeing, for the first time, someone besides the iconic lawman who had become the epitome of his nemesis over the past decade. He was disturbed to feel something too close to sympathy with him.
Without apparent concern about propriety, Kitty reached up and let her fingers touch the stained bandage over the marshal's eye. "That doesn't look too good, Matt," she said, her voice carrying both concern and reprimand. More softly, she suggested, "Why don't you go lie down for a while. You can use my room – "
"I'm fine," he returned quickly – too quickly to convince anyone.
Frowning, Kitty shook her head. "I swear, you are absolutely infuriating."
Billy found himself grinning at her futile efforts, remembering her rueful comment about the marshal's stubbornness. Then, realizing what he was doing, he gritted his teeth in anger at his own weakness and looked away. He was getting too close, too involved. Damn Dillon. Damn Kitty Russell for complicating his plan, for making him want her. And damn that idiot cowboy for smashing a chair against the marshal's head and keeping him from taking care of business as soon as he had arrived in Dodge.
A semi-talented piano player clanged out mostly-recognizable songs; glasses clinked against rings, poker chips, and themselves; chatter grew in volume as the crowd returned to normal.
Suddenly, Kitty dropped her voice and clutched at the marshal's sleeve. "Matt," she whispered, nodding toward the entrance.
Justus' eyes automatically lit on the man who pushed through the swinging doors. There was something that drew attention, that declared he was one to be reckoned with. He stepped up to the bar and ordered a whiskey, his voice sharp, all business.
The man was slight, clad completely in black with a Mexican-style flat hat hovering low over his eyes. Kitty's hand closed over Dillon's forearm as she stared at the new customer. The marshal had turned slowly, and Justus couldn't see his expression, but he saw hard muscles tense across broad shoulders.
"Don't, Matt," Kitty warned, her eyes pleading.
He rose anyway and took two steps toward the bar. If the man saw him, he gave no indication of it.
"Hillen," Dillon called after another few seconds, his voice dangerously quiet.
After a moment of frantic footsteps while men dashed out of the line of fire, the room collapsed into silence once again.
The man didn't turn. "Marshal."
"What're you doin' in Dodge?"
Hillen took a sip of his whiskey and continued to stare ahead. "Just visitin'. Didn't know there was a law against that."
"There's not," the marshal responded, "but there is law against breaking out of prison."
"That so?" Hillen asked.
"That's so."
Finally, the smaller man let his head shift toward their table. "Some men'll do a lot to pay back a debt. And I owe you one, that's for sure, Marshal."
Justus' eyes widened as he considered the irony in Hillen's comment.
Dillon braced himself, hands at his sides. "Don't be a fool, Hillen. You give up and I'll tell the judge you went back voluntarily."
The fugitive laughed, a harsh grunt. "I'll probably go back, all right," he admitted, "but it ain't gonna be voluntarily."
Slowly, he turned so that he faced the marshal squarely. Dillon's arms hung loosely, fingers spread slightly in the familiar posture of the draw.
Justus let his gaze slide between the two men, his blood flowing warm with sudden enlightenment. This was it. It was perfect, of course. Hillen would solve his problem and never be the wiser. If he was lucky, Dillon would take the other man down just as he breathed his own last breath.
And Billy Justus would have his vengeance – and his woman.
