This is a long one, and I think it's what you've been waiting for. But I'm on my way to Iowa for my oldest son's wedding at the Friends Meeting House in West Branch. I'm bringing my computer but I'm really thinking it will be a week before I'm able to post... the rest of the story. Enjoy! Rose
8 - 8 - 8 - 8 - 8
Seemed like Matt had been lonely too. He dismounted and tied his gelding on behind the wagon before coming over to slip an arm around her waist where she stood on the sidewalk. "You drive on, Cookie. We'll meet you at the dry goods in an hour or so. It will likely take longer than that for Jonas to put up your order."
Cookie tipped his hat to her, and chirruped to his team. He wasn't the kind who said much, but his biscuits were almost as light as her own and his beans were spicy and rich with sidemeat.
Matt looked up and down the street like a little kid about to vault the fence into a neighbor's apple orchard and then gave her a quick kiss. "I missed you."
"I missed you too. I knew by yesterday afternoon this was a fool idea, but there wasn't much to do then."
He squeezed her waist. "We'll think it out better next time." She agreed and took his arm to amble down towards the center of town. The bank wasn't open, but the marshal's office was. Festus and Frank both greeted Matt with warm handshakes before starting right in on the town news. Kitty had heard most of it yesterday and figured the men could talk more freely without her so she excused herself to go see that Jonas had put up her order correctly and to pick through the small shelf of stationary supplies. She needed a new ledger, like the ones she had kept at the Long Branch, and picked out a selection of pencils, pens, and ink. She added a banded set of envelopes and a tablet of good writing paper. All her own supplies, except her paper knife, were still in the office at the saloon. And the knife was in her pocket. Well, it was only right. Those things belonged with the Long Branch. These bit and pieces would make do for now, and she could order more from one of the stores in Topeka when she figured out just what she needed. It was amazing, when you thought about it, that she could write out an order, have the letter delivered in less than two days, and get her package on the train the following week. Who would have thought, before the railroads came through, that a body could do a thing like that?
She was sitting on the railing in front of the feed supplies, and swinging a foot lazily back and forth while listening absently to Wilbur Jonas' querulous murmurings when she noticed a small crowd gathering in front of the store. It was Frank and Matt going over the big, blue roan that Matt had ridden. Festus and a number of other men had joined in the examination. Not wanting to hinder the conversation with a lady's presence, Kitty stood quietly in the doorway listening and trying not to giggle.
Kitty knew the horse, and she also couldn't imagine any circumstances other than fire, flood, or bushwhackers that would see Matt riding an uncut stud into town. Still, he was a tall horse, and he did have that heavy neck. But when Burke actually moved the geldings tail aside to look between his back legs it was all she could do not hold back a laugh behind her hand.
"You like him, Frank?"
"Couldn't not like him, Matt. He's a good-lookin' horse. Legs long enough for some real speed."
"He's yours if you want him, partner. I know you came to town with just one mount."
Frank ran a hand down the roan's neck and then stepped up to stroke his face. "I can't afford him, Matt. Horse like this should bring you two, maybe three hundred dollars."
"Mebbe. In another year. Jake was lookin' at him for stud, but decided against it just last summer. He's five years old. He's broke, and he's pretty well behaved, but it will take a good horseman to really train him up right. I don't have the time or the interest, so I thought of you. You work him good over the winter, and he'll be fit for the trail by spring. He'd never make a cattle horse."
Frank still shook his head, but Matt went on. "What's money ever been between you and me, Frank? You give me a hundred for him, pay me when you can, and I'll be happy."
The gelding snorted and laid his lips into Frank's hand looking for a treat. Kitty scooped up and apple from the barrel beside the door and tossed it to him. Frank caught it left handed, took out his knife to split it open, and fed it to the blue horse.
"You in on this, Kitty?"
"Nope. But I knew Matt was going to sell him."
Frank nodded then, and reached out a slightly slobbered hand to Matt. "A hundred and fifty, and I'll pay you by Christmas." Matt shook on the deal.
Festus stood by shaking his head, and Burke stepped up on the sidewalk commenting that he'd never seen a man sell a horse for more than he had asked. But Kitty had. She'd seen Matt do the same thing before, with the right man, and have the same results.
"I'm headin' over to the bank, Matt. And then I've got some business with my dressmaker. I'll be ready to go in half an hour."
As it happened, it was nearly two before they got away.
Botkin wasn't thrilled with Kitty's withdrawal from her personal account, and he made a point of asking what she was going to do with all that money. Kitty smiled and wrote out a second slip for the ranch account asking for a two twenty in tens for the payroll and another twenty in coin for herself. Polly Mason was willing enough to take Kitty's loan, all tied up in the ribbon of a straightforward business contract. She balked a bit at the amount, but Kitty told her to rework her figures and see how her discount improved with a larger purchase. She also asked her to be sure to pick up a nice dark green lustring silk. There was going to be a wedding at Kincaid that winter, and she was going to be dressed for it.
Back at the dry goods, Cookie had left to eat someone else's cooking at Delmonico's. Jonas, still muttering, stacking things on the counter, and adding prices to their lists, told her that Matt had gone over to the Long Branch. She found him there, congratulating Sam, and listening to much the same story from Annie that Kitty had heard yesterday.
A hand clasping her upper arm and shaking it slightly, Matt agreed to the wedding party. "But you keep things in line, young lady. I'm happy with Mark and Web and Ray and as many girls as you like. And I'd be mighty pleased to see May Lou and Johnny, but I will not have Rafe or my sisters in the house. Do you hear that plain?"
Kitty had never heard him sound so much like a father in her whole life.
"Yes, sir." Annie hesitated just a moment. "And Luke?"
"Annie…" Matt's arm went around her shoulders, "Your brother is just as welcome in my home as you are. But you just leave it up to him. Done?"
"Done!" She swung her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly. "We're going to have a fine time come Christmas, just you wait and see."
Annie and Doc both insisted on having lunch with them before they left, but Annie cooked it herself – filling the tiny kitchen behind the barroom to capacity - so they weren't interrupted by a gaggle of hangers on as Kitty showed her husband Lucy's letter and told him what was behind it.
They headed out of town, stopping briefly to pick up Kitty's carpetbag, with Matt and Kitty on the wagon seat and Cookie stretched out and apparently sleeping among a dozen bags of flour. They didn't talk much at first, but Kitty noticed a glum, hardness in Matt's eyes that she recognized all too well. "Something Frank said?" she finally asked.
Matt nodded, glancing back at their silent passenger and then shrugging. "Frank and I, well, we both wonder what that dog soldier was doing in Dodge. Bonner's men usually work west of here. Wyoming. Sometimes Colorado. I've never seen him in Kansas before."
"But you've seen him? You'd know him?"
"Frank and I have both seen him, Kitty, but it's not a story I'll tell you, so don't ask."
A mile or so further on, just as the horses were pricking up their ears and scenting their own stable ahead, Matt finished the topic. "I think this was just a fluke, Kitty. Bonner doesn't hold herd on his men. Don't let it bother you."
Kitty acquiesced with a nod, but wondered to herself, a fluke… or a scout?
8 - 8 - 8 - 8 - 8
Home seemed more welcome than it ever had. Matt helped her down at the back door, and the two of them unloaded Kitty's supplies onto the porch before leaving Cookie to drive the wagon on through to the bunk house. Matt pulled a key from his pocket to unlock the kitchen door, and that surprised his wife.
"You locked the house? I never thought of doing that when I left."
"Foolish I suppose," he commented mildly as he lifted a box and brought it in to sit on the kitchen table. "Anyone wanted to get in could just break a window or force the door."
Kitty looked around the big kitchen, seeing everything just as she'd left it except for a few dishes in the sink. But it suddenly didn't seem quite the haven that it always had before. She heard clearly what Matt wasn't saying. He wasn't afraid of a thief, he was worried that he'd come home and find someone waiting for him with a gun. If the doors were still locked and the windows unbroken, then likely no unsuspected visitors were waiting inside. "Not foolish, Matt. Sensible," she replied. "I'll remember."
For many years she or Sam had walked every room of the Long Branch each night checking for stragglers, or worse, before he had left, and she had gone up to bed. Although locked doors had not proved a deterrent to Lou Stone. Or Mannon.
The couple were quiet as Kitty unpacked the wooden carton and Matt brought in bags of flour and sugar from the porch. Kitty started coffee and turned around to pick up her apron where she had left it on the back of a kitchen chair. Matt was standing quietly looking at her. She walked into his arms.
"You know I'll do my best to keep you safe, Kitty."
She rubbed her face against the soft leather vest where his badge no longer hung. "But you want me to know you may have to expend some effort doin' that."
"Yeah."
Kitty stepped back just a little to look up at him. Her hands smoothed his shirt and twitched the collar before she reached up to cup his cheek. "Nothin' we haven't known for a long time now, Matt. I'm pretty good at taking care of myself you know."
"I do know that, Kitty. Sometimes you do it better than I do." He let out a tiny breath of a sigh. "I always try to leave some of the hands here at the home place, but sometimes… well, sometimes that isn't possible. I wish you had somebody in the house with you."
She tilted her head and sharp blue eyes met his. "Like Hattie?"
But that brought a more gusty sigh. "I just don't know, Kitty. I need to see what trouble she's bringing before I decide what's right."
Kitty rose on tip toe to kiss him lightly, but her voice was solid as she turned back to her apron and the sink. "I can understand that, Matt. You don't know these people. But I do. So set your mind clear on one thing – if Hattie wants to make her home here with me, then I will have her. She may not want to. She may be just looking for a helping hand, and she'll get that, but if she wants to settle down then my home is hers."
"That sounds a lot like what I said to Annie a few months ago."
The smile she gave him as she handed him a cup of coffee and nodded him to a chair at the table told him that for once he'd got it right. It was just like that.
8 - 8 - 8 - 8 - 8
Matt went a little short on breakfast the next morning. There was coffee, and Kitty was drinking a cup of it while she perused a tall, slender, bound journal. There was cold ham on the table and a loaf of bread. Matt found butter and jam in the pantry and watched Kitty as he ate.
"Payday's at ten this morning, Matt, and then the men are free until after church tomorrow. You can tell them that if they ask, but I don't think they will."
He hiked himself out to the barn without comment. After his own chores, and a brief inspection of the work done by his crew, he found himself a spot on the top rail of the corral. It looked like he was watching the horses, but he kept a circumspect eye on the back porch. About quarter of ten Kitty lifted a small table through the door and set it in front of the steps. Normally he would have jumped down to help her, but he kept his place as she went back in for one of the kitchen chairs. She sat there behind the little table. The new ledger she had picked up yesterday at Jonas' store was open in front of her and she was making notes in it, dipping her pen neatly in the bottle of ink set carefully on the corner of the table. A stack of banknotes stuck out under the edge of the ledger.
About the time that Kitty finished writing Matt saw activity begin around the door to the bunkhouse. It was the foreman, Bat Ford, who came up first, removing his hat as he walked up the two stairs to the porch. Matt was too far away to hear, but their short conversation contained smiles on both sides. Kitty handed over several bills, which Bat folded and tucked in his back pocket, and made a note with her pen in the ledger. By the time Bat had descended the stairs Tope Myers was walking up towards the house. It went slow like that until the end when the two newest hands, Tony Rider and Mike Johnston, came up together – Mike moving from one foot to the other impatiently at the bottom of the stairs while Kitty paid Tony and insisted on looking at his injured hand. The last transaction went quickly, and the two young men sped off towards the front gate where the other hands awaited them with saddled horses.
Matt walked up to the back porch as his crew spurred their horses and headed out for Dodge City with their pockets full of pay. Hat in hand he presented himself at Kitty's table. She hummed a little and made a point of running her finger down the line of names in her book. Finally she shook her head and met his amused stare with sparkling eyes. "Sorry, cowboy, your name's not on my list." She closed the book and lifted it to look underneath. "And I'm out of cash, anyways." She pushed her chair back a little and stood up. "You got something else in mind?"
He didn't answer but lifted her squealing over his shoulder and proceeded into the house and up the stairs to their bed.
8 - 8 - 8 - 8 - 8
It seemed over the next two weeks that things began to settle into place at Kincaid. The work went on. The weather got colder. Matt brought more of the stock into closer pastures and had his men plow and sow two fields to winter wheat. They didn't like the plowing, but they did it, all but Bat taking their turns. Some furrows were straighter than others. Snow still held off, but the days were cool and the nights cold.
Matt, for the most part, spent his days on or near the home place, and Kitty took to asking one or another of the hands in for lunch or dinner a couple times a week. The food was good, and Matt let himself begin to relax more around his men – not feeling a constant need to prove himself. He remembered those earlier years with Chester always on his heels – competent, lazy, a little silly, a fine shot with a rifle, always obedient, always hungry, and with a heart full of love that neither man ever felt the need to mention.
Kitty's head was usually in a book these days, and the books were the ones that Rose Kincaid had written. He was surprised sometimes when she asked him questions. How many mares were in foal and what pasture were they in? Was he planning on a trip up to the hills to cut more firewood before Thanksgiving or after? He answered the first question easily. He thought a little about the second because it hadn't occurred to him, looking at the woodpile, that more would be needed. A little quick calculation though, and he saw the point. Grateful for her lead he told her he'd planned to wait until the first good snow so they could bring the logs back on sledges. He saw her making notes in her own ledger of both those things.
They began to have visitors. Festus first. And Festus most often. He showed up neatly in time for a meal a few times each week. Frank Reardon rode out one afternoon, had dinner, and spent the night. The two men sat late in big chairs in front of the fire, drinking and talking. Kitty sat with them for a while after the dishes were done, but outlaws, killings, hide outs, and rustlers were not her favorite topics. Both men stood when she got up to leave, and both kissed her goodnight, but that was one of the few nights Matt didn't wake her when he came in, She slept through until morning.
Doc didn't come often. He was busy. Too busy for a man his age. Dodge was growing, and the country all around was settling up solid. When in town, both Matt and Kitty talked to him, separately, about whether it might be time for him to bring in a partner. He pooh-poohed Kitty's concern, patted her hand, and challenged her to a game of checkers. But they never got a chance to finish because a little girl broke her arm over at the schoolhouse. Grabbing his bag, Doc hurried away.
He listened more soberly to Matt. "You callin' me old, Matt Dillion?" Matt let that hang for longer than Doc liked and then said, "Yes. Yes I am. I want you around for a good long time, Doc. I want you to deliver Kitty's babies." Doc's head perked up like a bird dog at that, but Matt shook his head. "Not now. Maybe not anytime soon. But you're gonna kill yourself, Doc, if you don't slow down some. And the only way I see that happening is if you take a partner." Doc grumbled but he agreed to look into it.
The two of them drove over to the Roninger's place one afternoon. Darkness came early this late in the year, but the moon was near full and Matt figured they could stay for an early dinner and still be able to see on the drive home. His mind went back, as they trundled along, to a summer night that seemed very long ago, but really wasn't. He'd come out to the ranch to pick up Kitty and take her back to Dodge. He'd slept in the barn, and Kitty had joined him there - ducking back into the house at first light with no one the wiser. He glanced over at his wife sitting beside him on the buggy seat and saw her smiling, too. He laughed out loud. But her response was all mock anger. "A vixen, eh? Wasn't that what you said that night? A vixen. You just wait until I get you home, Matt Dillon. I'll show you a vixen." And that stirred his loins enough that he almost turned the buggy around and headed back to the ranch. Almost.
When they did get home, an hour or two after full dark, Newly was there waiting for them. He turned down Kitty's offer of food saying he'd eaten at the cookhouse, and handed them a telegram from Bill Critt. It was already the 13th of November, and they had both been getting worried. Newly agreed to stay the night and head back to Dodge in the morning to spread the word that Hattie and her family would be arriving on the early train in two days' time.
8 - 8 - 8 - 8 - 8
It was a small local train. One that went from Pueblo to Wichita and back stopping at every whistle-stop along the Santa Fe route. The sun was barely up and shining flatly through the windows of the station when the engine and three cars pulled up alongside the Dodge City platform. They were all there. Frank, Doc, Newly, and Festus standing carefully back by the station wall with Sam. Annie's hand was tucked in her father's arm, but she dropped it and stood still in the middle of the platform as Matt and Kitty stepped forward. A slender, shortish man dressed in a white suit swung down from the rear platform of the second car. Both of them recognized Bill Critt in the composed gentleman who held out his hand first to Matt and then to Kitty, but he was a far cry from either the child she remembered from New Orleans or the young dandy who had visited her here in Dodge twelve years ago. If I'd just met him today, Kitty thought, it would be with some respect and maybe a little caution. But what she said in her warmest voice was, "Billy, how very good to see you."
Critt nodded and gave her a tight smile. "Always a pleasure to see you, Miss Kitty, Marshal. But I suggest you wait a bit to decide whether or not you are pleased to see me." He walked along to the door of the baggage car and, to Kitty's surprise, reached up to help the conductor roll back the big panel. Two men stood in the wide doorway, blinking against the light. One was dark-skinned and wearing what could only be livery. The other, lighter and younger, wore ordinary work clothes. Both men jumped down onto the platform and then reached up to take the arms of an older Negro woman. Hattie was a bit heavier than Kitty remembered, and she wore a plain black dress that looked both crumbled and a little dirty. The bright red tignon was the same as ever. Kitty ran forward with a glad cry, and the men swung their mother down practically into the younger woman's arms.
It was a surprise to find Hattie shorter than herself. Somehow she had never thought of her own head as being higher than Hattie's ample bosom. They hugged tightly, tears on both their faces. It was Annie's hiss of surprise that made Kitty look up, her arm still around Hattie's waist. A girl stood posed in the doorway of the baggage car. As they watched, she dropped the heavy shawl she wore around her to the floor. She was dressed beyond her age in an evening dress of mussed blue silk. The dress was cut low and her shoulders were nearly bare. An ornately wound and decorated tignon was wrapped high around her head. Her eyes were full of cold fury.
Kitty took a step forward. She recognized those eyes. She recognized that pale face. She saw it in the mirror every morning. The men swung the girl to the platform as they had her mother, and steadied her for a moment. But she shook them both off. She reached up and pulled off the blue turban – dropping it as she had the shawl. She shook her head and a mass of red-brown hair, thick and wavy, fell around her.
Her dark blue eyes looked straight into Kitty's . "I will never wear that thing again, and no one can make me. Not my mother, and not my brothers, and not you, Kitty Russell."
Kitty turned first to Hattie, and then to her sons. Her rising anger was a fearful thing. She forgot that Matt stood behind her. That her friends circled close. That Critt and the conductor and half a dozen strangers stared at her. She forgot everything on earth but her hatred and her wrath. "I swear to God above I'll kill Wayne Russell dead."
Caleb shook his head sadly, his answer mild. "You cain't do that, Miss Kitty. He already daid."
"Then God damn his vile, despicable, lying soul to hell."
"Kitty!" It was Doc who protested.
She took a step forward, and then another. Her arms opened and she gathered in the stiff, furious child in front of her. She didn't say a word but the rigid shoulders relaxed and the girl's face burrowed into her neck. Tears finally replaced the vehement rage on which Carolina had lived for the last two weeks.