Taggart drank his double whiskey in two gulps and headed for the marshal's office. Misses Kitty and Lillian sipped their chilled cider as they talked and smiled, their manner secretive. They took no notice of Taggart as he passed them.
He found no pleasure in foiling the plans of such fine women, and felt a stab of guilt over his scheme to deceive Chester, not sufficiently painful, though, to scrap the trick he had in mind. He saw the dance as his only path to Miss Lillian's heart.
Taggart would look in the window, and if the marshal was in, stroll on past and return at a later time. The door to the jail was open, the cells empty. Chester slept on the bed in the office. Marshal Dillon was out.
Taggart went in and shut the door, expecting Chester to waken. His eyelids barely twitched and his face looked slack and peaceful, with no hitch in his breathing.
Taggart approached the bunk. "Chester." No response. Taggart shook his shoulder.
Lying on his side facing the wall, Chester opened his eyes. The thought that Mr. Dillon was back from Fort Dodge and needed him drifted through the fever haze in his head. Then he thought of the basin of drinking water by the front door. He felt like a torched tumbleweed. Hot as the room was, he couldn't sweat. Doc had told him a body with summer complaint did not sweat, and the nitre would keep his fever down.
Chester turned on his back and saw Taggart standing by his bed looking down at him. Dodge was rough, even amidst the hot spell when folks dragged through the days doing only what was needful to keep body and soul together. Though he figured Taggart simply wanted Mr. Dillon's help for somewhat, Chester calculated the gambler's size and strength just in case.
He neither feared or trusted Taggart, liked or disliked him or considered him much at all. Taggart just was. Still, when a man woke to a fellow not counted as a friend standing over him, he took care natural.
Of middling height and build, the gambler had no look of force about him. What he did have, if anything out of the way, Chester did not see or bother to think on, except to hope Taggart would be kindly enough to fetch him a dipper of water, as he felt too weak at the moment to sit up.
"Mr. Dillon ain't here," Chester mumbled. His tongue felt swollen and dead.
"I came to see you," said Taggart.
"Kin you git me some water? By the door thar."
"Sure." Taggart supposed Chester would have a muddled head while not accounting for his feebleness. Unless he had the strength to walk out on the prairie, Taggart's plot would crumble. The gambler filled the dipper with a sinking in his belly.
Watching him carry the dipper to the bunk, Chester sat up with an effort and leaned against the wall. Taggart's finely cut features wore a simpering look like he had a trick brewing. He'd likely mock in his head if he helped Chester drink the water.
Chester took the dipper and drained it. "Thanks."
"Get you anything else?" said Taggart.
"No."
Taggart hooked the dipper on the basin, pulled out a chair and sat in it backwards while Chester's brown eyes warily followed him. "Heard you were down with Siriasis. I had it last summer," said Taggart.
"What d'you wanna see me 'bout," said Chester.
"Well, Chester, this real pretty woman I know, she wants you to take her to the dance."
Chester thought of his dream, and felt his hot face stretch into a big grin before he could stop it. Taggart's simper vanished and he frowned sulkily like a shadow darting across his face, then his sneak smile flashed back on.
"She your lady, is she?" said Chester.
"No," Taggart said impatiently, his smile strained. "I met her at the Long— uh, that long open market that sells fruit and peas. Tomatoes and whatnot. And she asked me to tell you."
Chester looked at the gambler in suspicious bewilderment, and Taggart shifted his gaze away, taken aback. The intensity of Chester's eyes boring into his made him uneasy. He'd taken little notice of Chester before, figuring there wasn't much to him. "What," said Taggart, studying a point on the wall behind the desk.
"That the first time you met her, at the market?" said Chester.
"No. I first met her quite a spell ago and we got to be friends," said Taggart.
"Who is she?" said Chester.
"You've never seen her."
"If she seen me 'nough times to want me to escort her to the dance, I woulda seen her an' said hello an' chatted. You dun make sense at all, Taggart." Dizziness hit Chester in a burning wave, and he rested his head against the wall.
The gambler wondered if he should forget his scheme and leave Chester be. Not only was he hard to fool, he was likely too sick to walk more than a few yards without fainting away. As Chester's eyes closed, Taggart resolved to play one more hand before quitting the game.
"Don't doze off, Chester," he said urgently. "This woman is coming to you from her house outside of town. You can't disappoint a lady walking in this heat. She expects you to meet her on the prairie."
Chester opened his eyes. "Why would she do that? You should oughter tole her not to, Taggart. The sun will kill her."
"She's not thinking of the sun, just you. She figures you two walking to meet each other for the first time will be romantic. Alone on the prairie together. You know how women are. You've never seen her on account of she likes you so, it makes her bashful. When she sees you from a distance on the street, she gets out of sight," said Taggart.
"Oh my goodness," Chester said breathlessly. He rose unsteadily from the bed and mussed his hair with a quivering hand. "She's maybe in poor shape if she has far to walk."
"Not far. About a mile," said Taggart.
"I best go for Doc an' we can ride out to her in his buggy," said Chester.
"No," Taggart snapped, which made Chester jump. His heart bounded too, though he had no fear of Taggart. Chester's heart had gone skittish when the fever struck.
"You'll muck everything if you show with Doc in a buggy. That will unsettle her and she'll have nothing to do with you. She pictures it just so, you walking to meet her alone. No horse."
The gambler hoped Chester would head out soon, as Taggart was tired of struggling to trick him. Taggart suffered from languor, which was why he chose cards as a profession. His spirits were too debilitated to do real work.
"Well . . . alright." Chester pulled a canteen from under the bunk, put on his hat and drank another dipperful of water.
"You didn't fill your canteen," said Taggart.
"Water's cooler 'n fresher at the pump outside. That in the basin's turned warm 'n dust-rid," said Chester. Taggart followed him out into the searing white sunlight.
"Whereabouts she comin' from?" said Chester.
"West."
"What's her name?"
"She wants to tell you her name," said Taggart. Sober-faced, he watched Chester limp along Front Street. The deception made Taggart queasy of a sudden, and he quelled an urge to catch up to Chester and confess the lie. Though the gambler hoped a walk on the prairie under the midday sun would worsen Chester's fever so he couldn't go to the dance, looking after him now as he slowly made his way to the edge of town filled Taggart with misgivings.
Chester could collapse and die on the plains. Taggart had never killed a man or spent time in a jail cell. Harming an innocent man plagued him. He dreaded prison, and providential justice terrified him.
He thought of Lillian Temple's angelic face and graceful form, her luminous dark eyes and silken gold skin. Women considered Chester a sweet fellow. Miss Lillian would give her attentions to him if he escorted her to the dance, and Taggart would lose his chance to woo her into staying in Dodge and marrying him.
No, he'd take the gamble and let Chester fall for his trickery. Chester had a canteen, and after a planting season of heavy rains, the creeks flowed full in spite of the hot spell. If anything, he might thwart Taggart's plot to make him sicker, return from his walk on the prairie no worse than when he started out, and eagerly agree to take Miss Lillian to the dance when she asked him.
When Chester reached the railroad depot on the way to meet his dream lady, he knew he'd either have to sit and rest a minute or topple in the dust. He dropped onto the bench in the shade of the ticket and telegraph office awning.
His heart raced like he'd run all the way from the jail. He still wasn't sweating a drop, and wished he remembered to take the nitre before setting out. His skin felt sore with fever heat and his eyes burned. He drank half the water in the canteen. He'd refill it from the station pump.
The three o'clock train was in, and Chester saw Jonas standing nearby as two hired men piled a wagon with his merchandise shipment. Chester wanted to call howdy but felt too tired to make the effort.
Jonas looked aimlessly about as the men worked, saw Chester and waved, moved to the bench and sat beside him. "Chester."
"Jonas."
"Moss said you got too much sun out fishin' yesterday and come down with summer complaint," said Jonas.
"Yeah wahl," said Chester.
"You don't look any too good, Chester. Right poorly for a fact."
"Reckon so."
"Why aren't you indoors resting? Didn't Doc tell you to?" said Jonas.
"I got somewheres to go."
"Where? Don't seem likely the marshal would send you out in the hot sun."
"Mr. Dillon ain't sendin' me. He went to Fort Dodge."
"Can I give you a ride back to the marshal's office? I have the wagon there," said Jonas.
"No thank you kindly, Jonas. I gotta go." Chester rose from the bench and filled his canteen. Jonas followed him to the other side of the tracks and watched as he left town, walking west on the prairie.
Returning from Fort Dodge, Matt recollected the name of the young'un sitting on a hay bale out front of the livery. Little Wes jumped off the bale and reached up to pat Buck.
"Hello, Wes," said Matt, dismounting.
"Hello, Marshal."
"Wanna ride 'im to the stall?" said Matt.
"Yes, sir." Matt lifted Wes to the saddle and gave him the reins.
Moss clucked his tongue from inside the stable, and Buck twitched his ears and walked to his stall. "Wes has something to tell you," said Moss.
"What is it, Wes?" said Matt.
"Mr. Jonas said wait at the livery for you, sir," said Wes. "He said come to his store straightaway on account of he needs to talk to you. He says it's real important."
"Alright," said Matt.
"Mr. Jonas says ride your horse to his store. I didn't tell you outside cuz I wanted a ride to the stall. You asked me if I wanted to, Marshal," said Wes.
"Don't worry about it, Wes." Matt led Buck out of the stable and lifted the boy to the ground.
"Marshal?" Wes stroked Buck's tail.
"Mm-hmm."
"Mr. Jonas give me a nickel to wait for you, sir."
"He did, did he?" Matt pulled a nickel from his pocket. "Here you go, Wes."
"Thank you," Wes whispered.
"Sure," said Matt. Wes ran away whooping. Matt mounted his horse and rode to see Jonas.
Chester lay in the grass in the shade of an elm a mile from Dodge. Not that he was too weary to walk a ways more. There was just no reason to. He'd stopped by the elm to rest his bones, and looked west to where the glaring sky met the prairie. His gaze swept southwest to northwest, and the truth hit him of a sudden so he had to lie down fast or fall.
Taggart had played him. No lady was walking to meet him. She was only a dream. Men and women tricked Chester many a time, and he long ago settled his head to getting fooled betimes all his days. What he couldn't get the drift of was why Taggart tricked him.
Strange, how Taggart hatched a lie just like Chester's dream, as if the gambler heard tell of it. Even pillowed in the grass beneath the elm tree's branches, Chester's head felt caught in a whirlpool, and thinking hard made it worse. He wondered why Mr. Dillon or Doc or Miss Kitty would tell Taggart his dream. They weren't friendly with the gambler.
Chester was too wore down and parched to think on it further. He'd drunk near half the water in his canteen, and poured the rest over his head when the sun scorched his skin through his clothes and the fever roasted him from the pit of his belly and flamed up through his chest and head. He knew of a creek a short piece away, but felt too weak to crawl there, much less walk. Chester closed his eyes. A little sleep would strengthen him, surely.