In the end it was not only Newly but Doc and Frank as well who escorted her to dinner. Sam and Annie regretfully turned down the invitation. They had work to do. And that made Kitty's brain whirl a little as she looked at the saloon business from the outside for possibly the first time in her life. She thought of all the times she'd taken her dinner break at Delmonico's with Matt – and then of all the evenings she hadn't been able to because she was busy running her establishment. She wondered, now, if Matt had been as bothered by that as she had been bothered by his long trips out of town. For the most part neither of them had complained. But not complaining was a way of life for them in those years.
It was a festive evening, and for once the restaurant had a decent cook. Of course that meant that Joe was not best pleased to have one of his prime tables occupied for two hours when he had customers waiting. He might have hurried Doc and Newly along, but when you added Kitty Russell and the new Marshal to the mix, no one in Dodge was about to raise a fuss.
Midway through their meal, Kitty asked about Festus. Frank had said something about him escorting a prisoner to Hays and that he expected him back soon, but they had been interrupted before she got the whole story. Now Doc calmly continued eating while Newly regarded his plate with some embarrassment, but Frank just laughed easily and started in on the kind of story that a man didn't share with a lady. Less than a week back, probably figuring that Dodge was wide open again in the absence of Marshal Dillon, one of Bonner's gang of dog soldiers had ridden into town and lighted down at the Lady Gay. It hadn't taken more than a few minutes of the man's mouth and the pistol in his hand to make his expectations clear. But the hero of the piece was a hard-eyed saloon girl named Ruby. She taken a bottle of whiskey from Jase Elliot's hand with a wink and a nod of her head towards the rear door and walked up to that desperado bold as brass. An invitation to leave the barroom for the privacy of her quarters upstairs, along with the bottle she held, appealed to the outlaw.
"When I kicked in the door about five minutes later she had him naked as a jaybird and the only piece he was holdin' was his…" but Frank broke that off at a hard look from Doc. "Anyway, the man was wanted for murder, among other things, in both Kansas and Colorado, so I figured I'd let them work out the details in Hays. Festus started up there with him four days ago."
Kitty wiped her mouth and took a sip of her coffee. Matt would have taken the prisoner himself – unwilling to let another man take chances that he felt were his own duty. Frank probably saw that thought in her eyes. He shrugged. "Darlin', you know Matt and I do things different. We usually get the same results though. I feel like I need to be here in town, and I'm makin' that as clear as I can to those gents in Washington. Now Festus, he was a friend of Ruby's and while he was mighty proud of what she done…"
Two hands descended with gentle firmness on her shoulders, and Festus himself finished Frank's statement, "I weren't too happy with the way that no-good dog treated her. How you doin', Miss Kitty? Matthew here in town with ya?"
The men scooted their chairs over to make room for the newcomer, and Newly snagged a chair from another table and placed it next to Kitty. "Mighty nice to see you back, Festus. No Matt's not with me this time. I just drove in with Doc to take care of a few things." She frowned. "Was Ruby hurt?"
"Not so much as she mighta been, Miss Kitty, but her dress was all tore up an' her face was bleedin' some. Doc fixed her up, but still, ain't no need to treat a woman like that, 'specially one who come with him all willin'."
"Why do men do that?" Kitty asked, not expecting a response. But she got one.
"Some men are just purely mean, Kitty, and others, well, they need to make someone else feel small so they can feel big," Frank told her soberly, "And it's less dangerous to beat a woman than to fight a man. Women do that too, ya' know, but they usually cut a man, or another woman, down to size with their tongue. Men are more likely to do it with their fists. Ruby knew that. You know it too, darlin', you just don't like to think on it. She was a brave girl, and I'm going to see to it that she gets the reward that's comin' for it." He turned to Festus, all business, "You have any problem takin' him in?"
Festus snorted, already making inroads into the bowl of stew Joe had placed in front of him. "With his hands tied behind his back and my rope around his neck the whole way? If he'd a'tried to run off he'd a'ended up draggin' dead behind ol' Ruth the rest of the way to Hays. I 'splained it to him proper before we ever headed out. Told him which way I'd pree-fer to see it go." He shook his head a little sadly, and downed another spoonful of stew. "He jus' din want to oblige me none, though. Handed him over to the sheriff in Hays, had me a drink and a meal, and started home. I would a' come some faster, Miss Kitty, if I'd a'knowed you'd be here. How you and Matthew doin' out there at that big ol' ranch?"
"We're fine, Festus. Matt's workin' hard out with the men. But I was beginnin' to feel bad that no one had come out to visit us. Thought maybe you didn't like us anymore."
Festus regarded Doc triumphantly. "Now ya see, you ol' scudder? I told you Miss Kitty would be lookin' for us to make a weddin' visit, but you gone and said…"
"Never mind what I said, Festus," Doc interrupted him. "Have you heard Kitty's news? She's got old friends from New Orleans on the way up here to stay with her."
That topic took a while to finish, and a boy came in with a telegram for Kitty just about the same time Joe, hoping maybe that their meal was about to end, dealt out slices of pie to the whole party. Kitty read the ten words and then handed the telegram thoughtfully to Doc.
WILL START UPRIVER TOMORROW. LOOK FOR US MID NOVEMBER. BILL
"Well, what's it say, Miss Kitty?" Festus demanded as the telegram passed from hand to hand. "It from your folks in New Or-leens?"
"Yes it is, Festus. Bill Critt says he's starting tomorrow and will be here in, oh, two weeks or so."
"Two weeks! Golly Bill, Miss Kitty, it don't take that long to cross the whole NewNited States on them there new railroads! They comin' by wagon?"
Kitty shook her head, but it was Doc who answered, "They'll likely take a riverboat to St. Louis, and that shouldn't be too hard, although it's slow, but then they'll have to take trains from there on out across Missouri and Kansas." His voice was terse and cross. "Maybe you didn't understand, Festus, but the family that's coming out to see Miss Kitty are Negroes, people that worked for her family before the war."
"Well, I knowed that, Doc. I heard Miss Kitty explain all that, but…"
Kitty spoke gently. Festus had clearly never lived in a place where black and white mingled. "They'll have to travel freight, Festus. Billy could get a ticket all the way through and be here in three or four days, but he'll have to stop at every town on the line and arrange for room in a baggage car. If there is room. And it will be hard for them to find a place to stay between. Billy can get a hotel room, but the Potters can't. And the railroad won't want them hanging around the station. They'll have to camp outside town, or find a colored family that will take them in. If it were just one servant, Bill could likely get away with it pretty steady, but a whole family, a woman and two grown men, that's not going to be easy."
Newly raised his hand, a signal for which Joe was eagerly waiting, and paid their bill. "Come on, Kitty, I'll walk you back to the boarding house."
7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7
Kitty had hoped for Matt's old room, not that she had spent much time in it, but at least it was familiar. Apparently, though, a room with an outside entrance wasn't right for a married lady, and she had a small but pleasant bedroom on the upper floor. It also amazed her how odd, since she'd used one all her life, a chamberpot seemed after just a month of inside plumbing. There was one fairly comfortable chair, but no table or desk. Kitty sat tailor-fashion on the bed and spread out Polly's papers in front of her. She had snuck a weighty book of photographs up from Ma's parlor. Its hard surface served her to make notes and sums on the back of one of the papers with the stub of Newly's borrowed pencil. Polly's arithmetic was sound, but she queried out each premise in her mind, and then ran the numbers herself, before leaning back against the pillows and stretching out her legs.
She wondered why Botkin had denied Polly the loan - because twelve percent interest and a mortgage was clearly an indication that he didn't want to do business. Did he really think she couldn't pay it off? The banker was a hard man, but a canny one. This plan was clearly going to make money. And wasn't that what bankers did? Make money? She closed her eyes and spread her thoughts across the town. Her own innate sense of fair play blinded her for a bit, but eventually, with a sour look, she hit on it. If one person made money, then another person would not. As things stood, the two dry good stores – two of Botkin's best customers - were earning a nice profit on every dress made in the county. If they lost even half that trade to Polly Mason… And if they found out Botkin had financed Polly's business… Well, that certainly wouldn't make for good dealings among the business men who thought they ran Dodge City. She tidied the papers and Ma's book into a neat stack and laid them on the floor.
Using water that had been hot an hour or so ago, Kitty washed her face and hands in the basin on top of the low dresser. She stripped out of her day clothes and hung them neatly on the hooks next to the window before slipping a flannel nightgown over her head and buttoning it up to her chin. It was a chilly night, but the room seemed close and a little stale. She cracked open the window, removed the derringer from her reticule, blew out the lamp, and hurried into bed. Her body soon warmed a comfortable nest in the covers. She hadn't expected sleep to come quickly, and it did not.
She let her mind tease line by line through Lucy's letter. So her grandfather was still alive. That was news. And the Critt family were still in touch with Etienne Beaufort. It made sense in a way. It was how she'd come to know Lucy. The Critts and the Beauforts were old New Orleans, and had known each other for years, likely generations. Her mother and Lucy's mother, a Dupre in those years before her marriage, had been childhood friends - had shared a room at St. Anges Seminary in their own day. She herself had been quite content at the Critt home. The family had not been happy when she had to leave. She wondered idly what her life would have been like if she had stayed – a hanger on, a poor 'relation', treated kindly but never quite as one of their own? Or would Charles Critt, or even his father, have embarrassed her own grandfather into providing for her? It was all water under the bridge. She concentrated firmly on the bits of information Lucy had let drop.
So Nell had remained 'faithful'. Not a surprise. Nell was a shrewd woman and also a pretty one. She knew where her bread was buttered, and what would likely happen to her on the streets. Nell and Hattie had always been close, taking their young charges to and from school, sharing work – Nell the better seamstress and Hattie the better cook – not that their respective families, other than the children, had ever known about that. That likely explained why Billy Critt had hired Hattie's son as a groom. It was more comfortable to trust people who had worked with your family before the war, and Caleb, even in those early childhood days, had always been good with horses. His raging ambition at the age of eight had been to become a jockey, but by ten it was clear he was already growing too big.
Now what could young Cairo - he couldn't be more than twenty three or four - have done that would have sent the watch out after his whole family? Murder or even assault would be her first thought, but it had to be something too private, too embarrassing for Brother Bill to even mention to Sister Lucy. Rape? No, Bill wouldn't have defended Cairo or any other black man against that charge, true or not. It must have something to do with one of the white families involved, something that made Cairo an embarrassment but not a criminal. And the easiest thing to do about an embarrassment, if the person were colored, was to sweep him permanently under the rug. Still. If Billy was involving himself, if he had applied to her grandfather for help, was taking a month off from his business… And why bring them to her? Yes, Hattie and her boys had belonged to her family, but… all the way to Kansas?
It was too much. There were too many loose ends. She would have to wait and hear the story when they arrived in Dodge. She shivered just a little and pulled the quilts closer around her neck. She wished Matt were here. Things always made more sense when she talked them through with him. Why had she ever thought that a night in town would be a good idea? On this depressing thought, sleep overcame her.
7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7
Kitty was sitting at the writing desk in Ma Smalley's parlor carefully copying out a very straightforward loan contract – $500 with an annual interest of six percent due quarterly and the balance of the loan due at the end of two years – before the smell of frying bacon began to amble through the big, old house. She had washed in cold water, dressed in a clean shirtwaist and yesterday's black skirt, and packed her bag all before stealing down to the parlor at dawn. She hadn't slept well. She was eager to complete her business and head home. She hoped that Matt would send Cookie in early, and that they could be on their way back by noon. The sky outside the front windows was grey and cloudy – a far cry from yesterday's clear, autumn sunshine.
She blotted her paper, waved it gently back and forth to finish drying, and when she was sure it wouldn't smear, she rolled it up and placed it in her reticule. Both reticule and carpet bag stood inconspicuously behind a chair in the parlor when Kitty went in to help Ma with breakfast.
It couldn't have been more than a few minutes past eight – an hour she'd rarely seen during her long tenancy in Dodge City – when she stepped briskly down the boardwalk towards Polly Mason's dress shop. The familiar clop of a team of horses pulling up beside her made her turn her head to look into the street. There was Cookie driving a buckboard with one of the Kincaid teams hitched on, and riding beside him on a tall, blue roan was Matt Dillon, grinning at her to beat the band.