"Hello, Chester. Scared of me again? Well, this time you have reason to be," said Anders.
"I ain't done nothin' to you, Anders."
"Huh. I suppose almost drowning me at Rattlesnake Creek is nothing."
"That was self-defense. An' I saved you after."
"Sure you did. So you wouldn't go to prison," said Anders.
"What do you want with me, Anders."
"I wanted to be your friend, Chester. But I know I never will."
"So why're you here," said Chester. Anders took off his gun belt and put it on the table.
Chester sighed. "You wanna fight?" Anders did not mean to kill him leastways. Chester figured he might get bunged up though, as Anders was the bigger man, if a tad shorter. Maybe pummeling Chester would rid Anders of his anger, though Chester hoped he could fend the pummeling off somewhat. He wished he had strong fists and a whole working knee in his right leg.
Anders smiled crookedly, like he'd just won a hefty pot at cards and cheated to do it. His fine red mouth glistened wetly and his dark eyes gleamed. He made Chester feel like a trapped rabbit.
Anders closed the space between himself and Chester in two swift steps and shoved him. He fell back on the bunk and Anders leaped on top of him, grinning. Chester wrapped his hands around Anders' throat and squeezed. Choking, Anders yanked at Chester's wrists and punched him, loosening his grip. Anders pulled Chester's hands away from his neck and struck him again.
Chester grabbed two handfuls of Anders' curling dark hair and jerked, banging his head against the wall. Anders hammered Chester's face and head with both fists, and Chester's hands fell away from Anders' hair and swatted at his assailant.
Anders' face blurred as Chester weakened. He felt his arms pinned to the mattress, and Anders' face, wreathed in fog, moved close to his. Then the face pulled back into the mist clouding Chester's eyes as the tailor turned his head. Chester felt a cool breeze in the room and Anders scrambled up off him.
Matt pushed the door closed and stood still a moment, facing Anders, who backed away from him. Anders lunged for the door and Matt grabbed him by his suit jacket lapels, swung him round clear of the bunk and the table, and hit him. Anders fell and lay motionless on the floor.
Chester sat up on the bed, blinking the fog away. His face throbbed and stung, and he felt the trickle of blood on his skin. "Chester." Matt put a hand on his shoulder.
"I'll be alright, Mr. Dillon. He bunged up ma face some is all. Ain't nothin' busted."
Matt lit the lamp and looked at Chester. Cuts bled on both sides of his face, he had a cut lip and a gash near his right eye, and his face was reddened and starting to swell in spots. He looked dazed.
Matt wet a cloth and handed it to Chester. "Mop up and rest easy a minute while I take care of Anders, and I'll walk you to Doc's."
Matt filled the dipper and dashed the water in Anders' face. Anders came to, coughing and snorting. "Get up," Matt ordered.
Anders struggled to obey. "You knocked me out," he said. "I'm muddled."
Matt leaned over, took hold of Anders' arm and pulled him to his feet. Chester looked at the cloth stained with his blood, and turned his brown eyes on the tailor. Anders glanced at Chester, and looked warily back to Matt.
"You want to bring charges against him, Chester?" said the marshal.
"Not long as he leaves town. I dun wanna tend to 'im in jail. Dun wanna look at 'im at all," said Chester.
"I'll give you 'til noon, Anders," said Matt. "Settle up on your shop at the bank, take leave of Phoebe and get out of Dodge. And don't ever come back."
"I won't say 'bye to Phoebe," said Anders, strapping on his gun belt. She'll just be mad when she finds out what I did to Chester. She's fond of him. And I will leave Dodge, Marshal. I can leave easy in my mind now. I evened the score, if not quite to my satisfaction." Anders put on his hat and gave Matt a taunting grin.
Matt backhanded him and Anders staggered, tripping over his own boots. Matt steadied him with a hand on his jacket collar, strong-armed him to the door and pushed him outside. Matt and Chester watched as Anders stumbled past the window.
"Can you make it to Doc's, Chester?" said Matt.
"Yeah." Chester rose from the bunk and Matt gave him his hat.
"How'd you know ta come help me, Mr. Dillon?" said Chester as they walked to Doc's.
"I saw Anders at the upstairs window of his shop," said Matt. "He was dressed to go out, late as it was, and he watched me as I passed by, like he waited to see me go to my room for the night."
"You come jest in time . . . maybe," said Chester, his voice strained. "That Anders is plumb addled. Ain't like he had no one keepin' 'im company. Pretty as Phoebe is, an' she knows how to give a man lovin'. He oughtn't minded not bein' friends with no man. He's crazy."
"He's a different sort. That's what addles him," said Matt. "Don't trouble yourself about him anymore, Chester. He'll be gone in a few hours."
"He's stuck in my head howsoever. Haveta think hard on gittin' shet of 'im," said Chester.
Doc gave Chester a double dose of laudanum, stitched his lip and the gash under his eye, cleaned his other cuts and sprinkled healing powder while Matt watched attentively from the desk chair. "You'll have some bruising and swelling, Chester," said Doc. "Stay abed a day, maybe two. Give your body a chance to heal from the shock. I'll let you know when to go back to work." Doc shook his head. "I knew that Anders fella was dangerous."
"I ain't stayin' bedrid here," said Chester.
"You need somewhere quiet to rest. Your nerves are worn," said Doc. Chester was more fidgety than usual. There was a tremor in his hands when Doc gave him a cup of water, and tension in his voice.
"He can stay at my room, Doc. I'll sleep at the office," said Matt.
Doc took a bottle labeled Cognac Brandy from his medicine cabinet. "This will help us all sleep," he said, filling three whiskey glasses. "Be sunup before too long."
Matt normally sent Chester to keep an eye out for men told to get out of Dodge. If Chester reported the fellow in town past his leaving time, the marshal ran him out. As Chester was taking it easy in Matt's room on Doc's orders to rest, and seeing Anders again would likely hurt Chester's recovery, the marshal himself sat on a bench a short ways from the tailor's shop early in the morning and waited for Anders to come out.
An hour passed and Anders emerged from the shop, headed down Front Street and stopped when he saw Matt. "Anders," said the marshal.
"You said noon. I have five hours before the stage leaves," said Anders.
"That's right. And I'll be at the depot to make sure you're on it," said Matt.
"Is Chester alright?" Anders asked.
"Doc's taking care of him," said Matt. "Never mind him, Anders. You'll never see him again."
"Never is a long time, Marshal. Seems after all the misery I bought on Chester's head, I could at least say I'm sor—."
"No more apologies," Matt interrupted. "Tend to your business and have your hide on the noon stage when it leaves Dodge."
"Don't worry, I will. This town and most everyone in it stinks, including you and Chester. You got nerve looking down those long snouts of yours at folks on account of they aren't the same as you. Dodge is a pen of swine, and you are pigs wallowing in the mud," Anders sneered.
Matt rose from the bench and loomed over the tailor. "Anders, you're near as foul as the worst of us. Now get your carcass movin' before I do somethin' about the stench." Anders sidled round Matt and hurried away, glancing fearfully over his shoulder at the marshal.
When the noon stage left the depot, Anders leaned out the coach window, mimed holding a gun, pointed his forefinger at Matt and crooked it, squeezing the imaginary trigger as he pursed his moist red mouth and puffed his lips at the marshal. The lips formed a silent oath and Anders gazed at Matt as the stage rolled away, his large dark eyes glimmering. He had the decency at least not to utter the oath aloud with ladies in the coach.
The marshal headed for his room to tell his friend that Anders was gone, figuring the knowing might help Chester mend and lift his spirits. Matt found his room crowded. Chester sat on the bed as Doc cleaned the wounds on his face. Kitty sat in a chair at the bedside, and Phoebe sat close by Chester on the bed, stroking his hair as Doc tended him.
Phoebe appeared to have suffered no ill effects at the sudden departure of her beau without so much as a goodbye. For a hardworking woman of the night, she had intelligent eyes, which regarded Chester with a lively warmth, her creamy smooth skin flushed.
They all said hello to Matt, who returned their greetings and sat on the bed at Phoebe's other side. She wore a modest green-sprigged lawn dress with a matching sun bonnet hanging down her back, and looked fresh, sweet and girlish. With her delicate features and slender soft curves, she was the sort of genial young woman that attracted Chester, and Matt figured Chester would eagerly court her if not for the job she pursued with such relish.
Matt had succumbed to Phoebe's charms last summer in Dodge while Kitty visited friends in New Orleans. Phoebe confessed to Kitty on her return, and Kitty told Matt she knew. And that she didn't care. "Phoebe beds most every man who sets foot in Dodge, Matt," Kitty had airily said. "You were just another twenty dollars to her." If Phoebe was cheap, she didn't come cheap.
To punish Matt for sharing Phoebe's bed, Kitty luridly related her own tryst with a strikingly handsome New Orleans fellow she'd kept company with when she was sixteen. She wasn't given to lying, and the marshal saw she spoke truthfully. Matt pushed the recollection from his head.
Demurely dressed as Phoebe was, he was keenly aware of her nearness. He looked at Kitty, who rather sulkily watched him. She knew he felt drawn to Phoebe. Matt hoped Kitty wouldn't turn him down at nightfall, when he planned to suggest passing the time in her room.
"I just saw Anders off on the stage. He won't be comin' back to Dodge," said Matt.
"Good," said Phoebe. "You did well running Caden out, Marshal. I hope Chester and I never see him again. I hate what he did to Chester." Her small hand with its long pink-painted nails moved from Chester's hair and rubbed his back. He looked blissful under her caresses even as Doc probed the swollen bruises on his face and applied stinging carbolic acid to the cuts made by Anders' knuckles.
"Don't fret none 'bout it, Phoebe. You make me feel some better, bein' so obligin' an' all," said Chester. He smiled, and winced as a thread of blood trickled from his stitched lip.
"Just suck on that lip a minute, Chester," said Doc. He dusted his patient's face with healing powder.
"By golly, Doc, I'm fixin' ta sneeze," said Chester.
"Hold it in," Doc ordered. "It'll make everything bleed."
Chester sucked in a deep breath, frowning in concentration, then relaxed. "It's gone," he said.
Doc patted Chester's shoulder, and scooped soft soap from a tin to clean his hands in the wash basin. "That Anders fella is a no-count butcher," said Doc. "I will never understand what makes someone hound an innocent person to the point of violence, man or woman."
"Anders wanted a friend too much," said Chester. "I jest dint cotton to 'im is all. Cain't git the drift of why he pined for no man friend when he had you, Phoebe. Any feller with a grain of sense in 'is head wouldn't never feel lonely with you fer 'is girl, were there no one else a hundred miles."
Phoebe smiled and gave Chester a gentle kiss. "No better medicine than that," said Doc. "I calculate his mouth will heal twice as fast as usual for that sort of wound."
"Matt, you should've killed Anders last night," said Kitty. "If he was buried on Boot Hill, we'd know he'd never hound Chester or anyone again."
Matt grinned. "And I'd join Anders on Boot Hill in short order if I killed 'im. On account of I'd get the noose."
"No," Kitty argued. "Only you and Chester would know you did it, and he'd never tell, would you, Chester."
"My heavens no," said Chester.
"I'd never tell if I saw you kill 'im, Matt," said Doc. "Might even killed him myself."
"Aw you would not, Doc," said Chester.
"Well, maybe not. At any rate, I'd try to save him after I shot 'im," said Doc.
Phoebe took Chester's hand and held it in both of hers, her pretty face softening as she considered, and Chester reddened beneath his purplish bruises. "Anders is a tragically lonely man," said Phoebe. "Like there's a hole in his heart, and the loving I gave him just spilled out. Some women need a woman now and then, no matter if she has a man. I don't know what I'd do without my gal friends to talk to and go places with and cuddle up with. Dress each other and such like. And even if he has a woman, some men need a man to play cards and checkers and pool. Go fishing with, talk about what men do. I find out these things, my job being what it is."
"Doc made us a pot of coffee, and Phoebe brought in sugar and cream," said Kitty.
"Store-bought white sugar cubes and cream fresh from Mrs. Smalley's cow," said Phoebe. "I shall do the pouring out! And Mrs. Smalley sent a baking of molasses cookies with walnuts for Chester. Still warm from the oven."
"For everyone to share," said Chester.
C*******************************************************************************
Though Phoebe looked like a blooming young girl, she was not well. Symptoms of Bone-ache came and went, and she suffered bouts of Bilious Fever. The diseases would abate with Doc's treatment, and he warned her to give up servicing men as a profession if she wanted to live past thirty.
"I will never see thirty, Doc," Phoebe said pragmatically, "or even twenty-nine. It's alright. Nothing is holding me in this dark world."
Doc had no answer for her, as he knew she spoke truth. A month after Anders left Dodge, Phoebe was struck with a severe attack of Bilious Fever and died a fortnight later at age twenty-six. Chester gathered white spider lilies for her grave and cried at her burial.
The next day, Kitty heard a morbid account of Anders' fate from Sam, who got it from a drover stopping at the Long Branch on his way through Dodge on his return to San Antonio following a trail drive to Oregon. Phoebe's death and the cool, rainy spring day gave Kitty a taste for hearing and relating the gruesome incident, and to give her something to look forward to, she saved the tale until she met Matt, Doc and Chester for supper at Delmonico's.
"So according to Sam, this trail hand said Anders introduced himself in a Portland saloon," said Kitty. "Asked if he could buy the cowboy a drink and set and chat a spell."
"Oh," said Chester. "My gracious."
"Yeah," said Kitty. "Well, there was something about poor addled Anders that the drover did not take to at all."
"I think we can guess what that something was," said Matt.
"Mm-hmm." Kitty nodded and paused for a big bite of steak with mushrooms and wild onions. "Sam said the cowboy's a good-looking charming sort, so it makes sense. He kinda felt sorry for Anders, but decided against drinkin' with him.
"So Anders commenced weeping real loud, like a young 'un having a tantrum. A shocking scene of hysterics. He fell on the floor in a mad fit, and some of the men carried him to the doctor's office. The doctor gave him a morphine injection with a dose of chloral hydrate—"
"Good heavens," Doc interrupted. "Morphine and chloral hydrate. That finished the poor fella off, right, Kitty?"
"Well, the Portland doc said in hindsight that mixing the narcotics likely led to Anders' quick merciful end. The doc soothed him while he fell asleep and sank into coma, but his death was recorded as malignant infection from French pox," said Kitty.
"I might've known it. The pox causes derangement," said Doc.
Chester, who reveled in morbid tales even in the best of spirits on warm sunny days, listened in fascination. "Poor lonesome feller. I feel for 'is end, now that ma face is mended from him poundin' it. I coulda let 'im buy me one drink, maybe, chatted with him a l'il."
"He'd just hounded you worse if you did, Chester. I don't see how you could've handled Anders any other way," said Kitty.
"Kitty's right, Chester. I wouldn't fret on it," said Matt.
"Course you shouldn't fret on it, Chester," said Doc. "Folks have a right to choose who they befriend, for heaven sakes. There will be hurt feelings; that's the nature of the thing. What's sad about Anders is, he couldn't handle the hurtin'. I expect he never learned how, so he was like an abandoned child in the end. Now what on earth are you tearing up about, Chester?"
" 'Tain't so much him as Phoebe. Did she suffer like Anders done, Doc?"
"No. It was more the Bilious Fever took Phoebe. Times she was delirious, but I kept her sedated and she went peaceful like. Bone-ache was more advanced in Anders."
"Oh, Chester." Kitty patted his arm as he dabbed his eyes with his napkin.
"Matt, you and Chester come see me some time tomorrow," said Doc.
"Naught you kin do for mournin' 'cept give a tonic an' tell me go fishin' when the sun comes out warm, Doc," said Chester. "The tonic bottle you give Mr. Dillon for his sore throat last week is still full. I kin take some a that."
"Throat's about cleared up. Just a little scratchy," said Matt.
Doc shook his head slightly, cut his eyes toward Kitty and gave Matt a keen eye, none of which Kitty missed. Men would go on about the delicacy of women's feelings when it came to such things as venereal disease, but their own feelings seemed to Kitty more delicate than a woman's when it could infect themselves or folks close to them.
The secret sickness was as much a part of life—and death—at the Long Branch as beer and whiskey. Kitty had discussed cases and treatments with Doc at length; they'd talked of it right there at the dinner table in regards to Phoebe and Anders, yet when it might touch Matt and Chester, it became ungentlemanly, and shameful to Kitty's menfolk to speak of before a woman, even a woman like herself.
Kitty saw Matt got Doc's drift at once. Matt appeared unconcerned. As intimately acquainted with illness and death as Doc, Matt was more fearless about just anything than any man Kitty knew.
"We'll stop by tomorrow, Doc," said Matt.
"Why cain't jest Mr. Dillon see ya. I ain't sick," said Chester.
Kitty knew Chester did not understand, and him so modest, too. The mercury was worse than getting checked. Doc would prescribe a week's dosage whether or not signs showed. Matt would take the full dosing, and make Chester take it, too. The stuff was awful. Kitty knew.
"We'll do as Doc says, Chester," said Matt.
"Jest wish betimes I could git the sense of what goes on in yer head, Doc," said Chester. He picked up his fork and mashed the heap of untouched peas on his plate.
Kitty reached over from her chair and rubbed his back. Poor Chester didn't get it at all.
C************************************************************************************
Though his examination of Matt and Chester revealed no symptoms of the disease that killed Anders and Phoebe, Doc ordered his friends to take one tablet from a bottle of Triturates Mercury every day for a week. Within a few hours after the first dose, Matt felt out-of-sorts, tired and clumsy. Not one to take to his bed or even rest from work in the throes of illness, he'd trailed outlaws on the plains and restored order in Dodge with his fists while infected with the grippe or recurrent bouts of fever 'n ague. His body was hardy, and his mind sounder and sharper than the norm, and he resolved to do his job even when the mercury's effects worsened.
Chester suffered more than the marshal. By the third dose of mercury, he was weak and shaky, stumbling and unable to eat. "Tastes like I swallowed a bullet," he complained to Matt.
"I know, Chester," Matt sympathized. "I have the same foul taste, and no appetite either."
"Mr. Dillon, reckon ah'll die if I swallow any more of that poison. Ma breath's comin' short."
Matt looked at Chester lying on his bunk. His face was drawn and grayish, his brown eyes ringed by dark circles.
"Come on, Chester," said Matt.
"Whereabouts? I cain't."
"You'll make it to Doc's."
Matt picked up the bottle of mercury tablets, and Chester commenced shuddering. "Alright, Chester," said Matt. "I'm takin' this back to Doc."
"It's too late for me, maybe," Chester said as they slowly walked to Doc's. "Ah'll pass the time with Phoebe in heaven. The parson visited her on her death bed and prayed with her, so she's there, Mr. Dillon. Phoebe's in heaven."
"Sure, Chester. Sure she is."
"I said ma prayers, myself, too," said Chester.
"Can't go wrong there. But you'll be alright, Chester."
"Ya think so, Mr. Dillon?"
"I know so."
"Reckon yer right. Doc wouldn't give us that stuff iffen it was a danger to kill us."
"Well, of course not," said Matt. He recollected what Kitty told him the night before Doc examined him and Chester and gave them the tablets. Matt and Kitty sat in bed in her room as he drank coffee and she sipped tea. Doc had prescribed a week's mercury dosage to her three separate times since she started working at the Long Branch. "I was bedridden the whole week each time," Kitty said, "plus another three days after I finished the dosage. I went to a watering hole outside Tucson twice to convalesce from mercury poisoning, and once to the seashore near Savannah.
"I suppose you'll weather the treatment alright if you're bound to. You get through anything you set your mind to. But I'm worried about Chester, Matt," said Kitty.
Matt put his arm around her and held her close. "Don't worry, Kitty. I'll keep a close eye on Chester. If it gets too bad, Doc will cut the treatment short."
Now, three tablets into their course, Chester was close to collapse and Matt worried. When they reached Doc's office, he gave Chester a probing look, frowned, shook his head and fluffed his hair, took the bottle of mercury tablets from Matt and returned it to the medicine cabinet. "Set, Chester," said Doc, and Chester sprawled on the recliner.
"Three tablets should be enough to destroy any seed of infection in your blood," said Doc. "Since you and Chester show no symptoms, particular. I'll tend Chester here 'bout two, three days, then you take him fishing for a spell, Matt. Oh, a fortnight or so. Fresh air and sun, rest, peace and quiet. Good as most medicinals and better than some."
"Doc, I can't leave town to go fishin' at planting season with the trail herds comin' through," said Matt.
"Chester oughtn't go alone, and I can't take the time to go with him," said Doc. "What with the mercury treatment, Phoebe's death and getting over that Anders fella hounding him, he has a touch of melancholia."
"Ya dun haveta go with me if you cain't see yer way clear, Mr. Dillon," said Chester. "I kin go to myself. Jest won't be no fun is all."
"Deputize that cheery steady fella you usually hire to run things when you're out of town," said Doc. "What's his name? Kent."
"Kent, huh?" said Matt. Kent was young, vigorous and trustworthy, skilled with his fists and gun, and not too quick or too slow to use either.
The marshal felt almost as ill and tired as Chester looked. Concealing Matt's need for a break from his friends was harder than plowing through his duties.
"Well, if any man can keep order with the cattle drives in town, it's Kent," Matt said. "Quint will help him out."
"Then you 'n me are goin' fishin', Mr. Dillon?" Chester perked up at once, his dulled eyes brightening as he sat up on the recliner. "Oh, please don't make me lay 'bout yer room for no two, three days, Doc. Fresh air an' sun's the best thing; you said so yourself."
"So I did. By golly, Chester. You look stronger already just thinking about the two of you off fishin'. Matt, why don't you round up Kent now. Give him that badge so you and Chester can be on your way before noon," said Doc.
"Take these with you." Doc took bottles of stomach bitters and peppermint, and a big ginger root from his cabinet. "These will fix you up, give you a proper appetite for all that good fish. Chew the root to clean the poison from your blood."
Matt and Chester took doses of bitters and peppermint, cut shavings of ginger root to chew and took their leave of Doc. Chester carried the restoratives in a sack, and sang as they walked Front Street in the warm sunlight.
"Gonna put on my travelin' shoes down by the riverside
Down by the riverside, down by the riverside
Gonna put on my travelin' shoes down by the riverside
Ain't gonna study war no more."