It was the unflappable Sam Noonan who broke up the tableau. "You folks hungry? I got breakfast started before I left the Long Branch and one of the girls is watching it now. Let's get over to the kitchen before you all freeze." He placed a gentle hand under Hattie's elbow and started her across the platform towards the street. His clear assumption that the rest of the family would follow proved true. Kitty moved forward with an arm still around Carolina, but Caleb came up to lay the dropped shawl around his sister's shoulders. "You go on with Mistah Critt, Miss Kitty. He got somethin' to tell you 'bout how things be. We talk to you after we eat some."

The colored family was shepherded off by Sam and Annie leaving Kitty forlorn and tearstained as the small train puffed its way out of the station towards Cimarron. Matt came up to take her arm, but it was Frank Reardon who suggested they head over to the Marshal's office. Critt bridled a little at that, but settled down under Frank's calm statement that there weren't many places in a town this size where a man could have a private conversation. Newly and Festus were dispatched summarily to make the morning rounds. Without comment, Doc trailed the party heading for the Marshal's office.

It didn't take long for the five of them to settle in what seats there were in the small office. Frank poured two mugs of coffee and handed them to Critt and Kitty. The other gentlemen helped themselves. The office had its effect on Matt. He was calm but very direct. "Tell us what happened, Critt. We don't know anything except what your sister wrote to us – and that wasn't very much. There's got to be more to the story."

Billy Critt took a long drink of his coffee before replying equally directly. "Wayne Russell took the girl for a 'walk' one afternoon about a month ago and sold her into a brothel called the Golden Lily." Matt's hand tightened on Kitty's shoulder, but neither of them commented. "I heard about it when my groom Caleb came to me and said his sister had been stolen away. I had seen Carolina just last summer, so I knew there was only one thing that could have happened. I was sorry, but I didn't think there was anything I could do. I told Caleb that. Thought he would accept it. It was bound to happen, and was just something her family would have to live with. But he was determined to do something about it. Next thing I knew, about a week later, I was walking along the street one night with a group of friends and there was my carriage, pulled up in an alley beside the Golden Lily. With my Caleb up on the box. It was pure chance. I saw a man and a woman come out the side door and get in the carriage, so I excused myself and just stepped in behind them. I opened the trap and told Caleb to take us to my sister's house." Critt shrugged. "Those boys had spirited Carolina away by telling her that her mother was ill. When she found out what was happening, she threw a fit. But by that time it was too late."

"Why was it too late?" Matt asked.

"Because Russell called me out in a restaurant the next morning. In front of several of my friends. When I wouldn't fight him, he pulled a gun and tried to shoot me." Billy turned to look at Kitty. "I'm sorry, Miss Kitty. These are not things a man wants a lady to hear, but I'm afraid there's no backing away from it. Russell's bullet burned my left leg and I fell back on the floor. I wasn't even wearing a gun. When he tried to shoot me again, my cousin Louie Dupre shot him dead. It was all horribly public and completely unavoidable."

Kitty's brows furrowed. "Why did he attack you, Billy? Was it about Carolina?"

"I'm afraid so, my dear. Someone had noticed my carriage. When the manager of the Lily accused Russell of reneging on his contract, well, that someone told him that I had been involved. Russell accused me of stealing his girl – that's how he put it "stealing his girl" – and demanded I return her to him. Naturally I told him I had no idea to what he was referring. He had been drinking, and I think likely he was frightened about what Gordon at the Lily might do to him if he didn't return the girl. Probably very justifiably frightened. Angus Gordon is not a gentleman. In any case, he forced the fight and got himself killed."

"Quite a sordid story, Mr. Critt," Doc commented from where he sat in the chair behind the desk. "And it left you in nasty fix."

"Yes, sir, it did." Billy replied. Doc's sarcasm soaring right over his head. "The Critts, and the Beauforts, and the Dupres have always been close. In the old days we traded our people and let them marry and kept the children between the families. I always abhorred separating families, even slave families. That's why I took Caleb on when he was about fifteen. He was horse mad, and my head groom trained him up. I've wanted Hattie to work for me since I married a few years ago, but she always turned me down. Said she liked having her own place, and I must admit it was a good one, even if it was in the colored quarter. Then last summer she came to me and said she'd leave and work for me if I took her daughter on as a maid or a nursery maid. That's when I met Carolina. I saw the resemblance at once, and I knew I couldn't have that girl in my house. She was too light. And too uppity, too. It wouldn't have worked at all."

Billy turned to speak directly to Kitty sitting across the table from him. "I should have written you then, Miss Kitty. Asking you to take the girl. You could have handled her here in the West, I suppose, but in New Orleans there was only ever one thing that would happen to girl that light and that pretty. I regret that I did not write the letter then, but I thought maybe there was time. She was only fourteen last summer." He repeated it again. "I thought there was time. And I didn't think any girl would be fool enough to go off with Wayne Russell."

Kitty's smile was bitter. "I was. Why should Carolina be different? Do you know what my father gave me for my fifteenth birthday, Billy? He had a man come and take me away from the woman I was stayin' with. He told me my father wanted me to come and live with him. I was thrilled. I felt like my father was rescuing me at last. The man drove me to a big, fancy house down in the Quarter. Same place he took Carolina. 'course it was quite a few years before I realized what had actually happened. I thought I'd been kidnapped, or that maybe my grandfather had finally decided to solve the problem of my existence. But it wasn't either of those things. It was Wayne Russell, and I'm glad he's dead. Now what are we going to do about that girl?"

Critt kept his eyes on the table. "I did hear that story. After I got back to New Orleans from my travels. I didn't believe it at first, but, well, at some point I realized it must be true. I never mentioned it to Lucy, Kitty. I swear to you I did not. By the time I got home, well, a few more things had happened and I realized that I owed you my life. I was an ignorant and arrogant boy, but not a stupid one. I pay my debts. But I'm afraid that Hattie and her family are in your hands now. I'm catching the afternoon train back to St. Louis. I've been away from my business and my family far too long."

He pushed back his chair as if to stand, but the Marshal laid a firm hand on his shoulder. "Got to be more to it than that, Critt. Your sister asked Kitty for a policeman. What's left that you aren't tellin' us?"

"I don't believe, sir, that we have been introduced," said Critt with a touch of his youthful conceit. "It was my understanding that Marshal Dillon was the law in this town, but I see that you are now wearing that badge."

"My name's Frank Reardon, Mr. Critt. I'm Marshal here in Dodge City. Marshal Dillon stepped down from the office when he married Miss Russell a while ago. So if there's trouble comin' then I'm the man who needs to know."

Critt did stand now, and shook the hand extended to him, and then reached his own to Matt. "I am delighted to hear that, Mr. Dillon! It pleases me to know that Miss Kitty is safely married." His pleasure was evident, but he seemed troubled as well. "It may make things awkward, though. I had hoped, well, hoped that Miss Kitty could take Carolina on in her establishment."

"I wouldn't do that, Billy," Kitty replied. She shook her head firmly. "Couldn't. First off, she's too young. And while this isn't New Orleans… the men here, well, they wouldn't accept a colored girl in a saloon. I'd have to be watching her day and night to keep her from being hurt. It just wouldn't work."

"She doesn't have to be colored any more, Kitty. She's octroon, maybe less. Here in the west she could certainly pass for white. And she favors you strongly. Anyone would see that and, well, treat her accordingly."

But Kitty shook her head again. "I can see you think that, Billy, but you're wrong. Too many people here saw her arrive. News will be all over town by now. And even if we'd somehow done it secretly, or if you'd had her in the train with you instead of in the baggage car, why would you think that would work?"

"Because it's what she wants, Miss Kitty. Only way we could get the girl to come with us without a fight."

Kitty's face went rigid, but she nodded her understanding. "I should have expected that. We'll deal with it. Now tell us why you expect trouble."

"Angus Gordon paid your father $500 for Carolina's contract. He didn't get it back from Russell, and he didn't get it back when he raided Hattie's business and her home. I think we've come far enough away to discourage him, but the way we had to travel we wouldn't be hard to trace. He might send a man to follow her." He stopped, trying to find a way to put what he had to say into words a lady, even a lady who'd been a prostitute, could hear. "When old Michel Dupre ran the Golden Lily it was a brothel and a gambling house, yes, but it had class. Finest place in New Orleans. Known for honest play and honest value. It's changed since Gordon bought it. Gordon is a not a kindly man, maybe not an honest man, and he's certainly not a man who will let $500 walk off down the street without trying to get it back."

Frank did not seem impressed. "It's 1888, Mr. Critt. And this is Kansas. Matt and I will keep an eye out, but I doubt there will be any trouble."

"Could be, Frank," Kitty disagreed. "You don't know these people. It's not the $500 so much, although that too, it's the insult. And it's the money Carolina could bring in. You don't understand what it's like in one of those big houses. After a few months, well, she could bring him in that $500 in just a week. Trust me on this, Frank. I know."

Frank laid a hand softly on her cheek and then tipped her face up to look at him. "I'm not as innocent as I look, Kitty. I do understand what you're sayin', but I'll put my gun, and Matt's, against any gambler comin' up from the south, and figure to win." He ran a thumb over a cheek still damp with tears. "I think you've got the harder job, darlin', figuring out what to do with that girl."

Billy watched this with surprise, and some aversion. Dillon stood quietly with his arm around his wife's shoulder making no move to stop the other man from his quite intimate caress. He could not imagine allowing another man to touch his own wife in that fashion. Not even his own brother, or hers. He did not, could not, understand these people. Whatever Kitty had once been, it was gone. Lowering his eyes, he took a step towards the door.

Kitty reached out to snag his hand. "Look at me, Billy," she demanded, and when he did she met his eyes and held them. "You did the right thing. And I thank you for it. There's a lot of men down south who wouldn't have bothered. You give Lucy my love, Billy, and tell her I'll write her at Christmas and let her know how everything turns out."

Kitty stood, bringing all the men to their feet. "Doc, why don't you take Billy over to Delmonico's for some breakfast? I'm going to go back to the Long Branch and see Hattie. Matt, maybe you and Frank could pick up a few things for the boys. They're not dressed for a Kansas winter." She held out a hand to Critt, and gripped it hard when he took it. "Goodbye, Billy. I doubt I'll be seeing you again, but I pay my debts too. Just remember that." She was out of the door and down the boardwalk in a swirl of skirts that left them standing and gaping.

Doc set his hat firmly on his head. "Well, gentlemen, it looks like we've been given our marching orders. Mr. Critt, let's go get some breakfast."

9 - 9 - 9 - 9 - 9

Frank and Matt walked slowly over to Jonas' mercantile. The door was still locked, although they caught glimpses of Mr. Jonas bustling about inside. Frank settled himself on the hitching rail, and Matt leaned against the post beside him.

"You've always had an eye for a good horse, Matt."

"I like to think so."

"And now you breed them."

"I do."

"I keep thinkin' there must be more to the story than Wayne Russell takin' advantage of his wife's slave girl."

It was usually Frank who turned their conversation to the Bible, but Matt had been thinking hard on the matter since he first saw Carolina step off the train. "Rachel gave her slave Bilhah to Jacob that she might bear children in her name."

Frank nodded. "And Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham."

"I thought we were done with that twenty years ago, Frank."

"I don't think we'll be done in a hundred, Matt."

Jonas opened the door at that point and the two men went in. Matt thought about the day not that long ago when he had come to the store to buy a white man's clothes for Quint Asper to help the half breed live among his father's people. How similar would this be? And how would it work out?

Frank stacked work shirts, under things, and socks on the counter while Matt eyed a rack of sheepskin coats and did his best to match sizes. When Wilbur Jonas had figured up the total, Matt told him to put it on the account for the ranch and was surprised when Jonas hemmed and hawed and asked him for cash.

"I've had an account here for more than fifteen years, Mr. Jonas. And Kincaid has been doing business for longer than that. You have a problem with the way I pay my bills?"

"Can't say as I have, Mr. Dillon, but…" the man stared out the window and refused to meet Matt's eyes "I'm not so happy taking trade from a man who's doing his best to ruin my business."

"Ruin your business?"

"You loaned money to Polly Mason that's going to cut sharp into my dry goods trade. Banker Botkin wouldn't do it. He knew better. You can't expect to be welcome if you do a thing like that."

Matt stared at the man. He knew Kitty had made an arrangement with the dressmaker, but he hadn't asked for the details. When had he ever meddled in Kitty's business? He kept his voice sober. "Wrap that all up Mr. Jonas and put it on the Kincaid account. You'll be paid at the end of the month like always. If you decide you don't want our business just let me know the first of December and we'll move the Kincaid accounts to Jetmore. It's about the same distance. Wouldn't bother me at all to oblige.

It would bother him. Dodge City was his home. It was to stay close to Dodge that he and Kitty had settled at Kincaid rather than moving out to Colorado.

Less than an hour later the cavalcade was driving north towards the ranch, Kitty driving the wagon with Hattie sitting up beside her. Cairo and Caleb sat in the wagon bed with their sister between them. Matt rode slightly ahead. There were days, he knew, that seemed like they would change the world. This was surely one of them.