AN: Thank you to all those guests I couldn't thank personally. Your insights are quite perceptive.
Chapter 6 – A Matt and Kitty Interlude
Matt entered the Long Branch from an empty Front Street anticipating nothing more than a chance to relax until morning. Barring an emergency he was free to spend the night with his redhead. The saloon was nearly closed. All that was left was putting the night's take in the office safe and locking the doors.
"Sam, go home through the back after you lock the front door. The marshal will be with me when I put the money in the office safe. I'll relock the back door later."
The tall, craggy faced bartender, who Kitty hired six months earlier in her first act as soon to be sole owner, smiled at how his boss had phrased that. He knew the big lawman would spend the night. He'd expected to be fired when he accidently caught the marshal letting himself into her rooms after she went upstairs to get off her feet the night before Joe Lyme robbed the bank. Sam wasn't sure he was spotted but fessed up to Miss Kitty the next time he saw her alone.
"Sam Noonan, you just proved to me I was right to hire you. You've already shown you can handle unruly drunks as well as I thought you would. Now, instead of blabbing about what you witnessed all over town or simply pretending you didn't see what was meant to be private, you've proven you're both honest and discrete. I'm not gonna fire you. I'm gonna promote you to head barkeep."
Sam, thinking of that day nearly a month ago, smiled to himself as he watched Miss Kitty and her man enter her office together and close the door in the split second before he closed the back door to lock it. He knew it would more likely be the marshal who opened and relocked that door when he left at dawn for his morning rounds rather than Miss Kitty tonight.
In her office Matt Dillon bent forward to put his arms around Kitty Russell and draw her to him just as she stood up from closing and locking the safe until she or Bill Pence took the night's take to the bank in the morning. He turned her in his arms so that their lips met in a long kiss while his hands moved up and down her back. Kitty's lips opened in response but when they came up for air she pulled away.
"What's wrong Kitty?" he asked fearing he'd done something to upset her.
"I think our practical joker is back. I'm probably being silly. It was just a note…. Wrapped around a rock that glanced off my hat. It didn't cause any real harm and the message was meaningless. It said something like, the reason Texas haunts you is here."
"You sure you're okay?" Matt added trying not to show the sudden stab of fear he felt.
"Yeah, my hats can take a lot of punishment. They have to stand up to all this dust and sun. I'm sorry I mentioned it. I'm ready to go upstairs where we both can be more comfortable. You coming?"
"I'll join you directly."
Matt checked behind every barrel and keg to make sure nobody was lurking within the building. He rattled every door on the lower levels to ensure they were locked. Satisfied, he exited through the back door, locked it with the key Kitty had given him before she left him, instinctively knowing the reason for his delay in joining her upstairs, and checked the basement entrance before climbing the exterior back stairs to let himself in with his key. He tensed before each door, listening intently, but didn't try any of them. Only the four corner rooms included attached washrooms. The remaining six were smaller, utilitarian spaces designed for temporary occupancy. The girls assigned to them lived elsewhere and only kept work clothes in the tiny wardrobe. Only the temporary hires for the cattle season when rooms were scarce actually lived in them. Those girls made do with a water pitcher for daily washing and arranged to use one of the permanent hire's washrooms to bathe and wash their hair. He knew, even this early in the year, two of those six rooms were occupied by Kitty's newest hires, Sally and Tilda Teasdale, and had no intention of letting them know he was heading toward their boss' rooms after closing.
Finally, he reached and let himself into the rooms he spent more nights in than either his own rented room with a private entrance at Ma Smalley's or his office. Kitty sat by her vanity dressed only in a sheer negligee and watched Matt in the mirror.
"It took you long enough. Bring over the brandy I poured."
He didn't act on her purred demand immediately. Instead he removed his hat and gun belt and hung them on the peg by the door, which he locked before moving toward the round table where two glasses of brandy sat on either side of a decanter. Taking one glass in each hand, the now grinning man sauntered over to his beautiful redhead, set the glasses down on the left and right sides of what she'd told him was a vanity and used the opportunity to enfold his arms around her and bend down to kiss the nape of her neck.
"I should make up for lost time," he murmured knowing she could see his mischievous smile and sparkling blue puppy dog eyes in the mirror. "Here's your brandy ma'am. I'll just mosey over to the bed to get ready for what follows."
Kitty laughed as Matt released her from his embrace, turned and walked to the bedroom area where he hung his vest on a nearby chair before sitting on the bed to remove his boots. By the time she stood to join him his shirt and pants were with his vest on the chair. When she reached their bed, carrying the two glasses, he was clad only in his union suit bottoms and was leaning against the brass headboard watching her approach. She handed him both snifters before snuggling up next to him, running her hand against his bare chest before claiming a brandy for herself.
"Is all of Dodge safe and secure?"
"I don't know about all of Dodge. My final rounds only included this building. It's secure, but you'll have to decide if it's safe," he said placing his drink on the nightstand and turning down the lamp.
"That all depends on what you have in mind, Cowboy," she responded taking a sip of the amber liquid before placing the glass on her own nightstand and turning back toward him.
Kitty reached around Matt's broad muscular chest for better leverage as well as the erotic sensation rubbing against him provided as she moved her body for the best position for a long passionate kiss. Instead of the expected response, he involuntarily winced.
"Oh Matt, I'm sorry. I forgot about that pulled muscle on your left side. Have you at least stopped coughing?"
"Yeah, pretty much," he replied as a short, shallow coughing fit hit him. "That's the first I've coughed in a while."
"How long's a while? I know you coughed before you left this morning."
"Is that a fact?"
"Yeah, that's a fact. Did you cough since then?"
"I can't keep anything from you. I coughed some between then and now, maybe twice, but not like a week ago."
"Time to listen to your nurse. Drink the medicine I poured. Then we'll proceed with the rest of your treatment."
Matt awoke as the worst coughing he'd experienced in the last three days hit him. It was still dark, but dawn wasn't more than an hour off. As he shook off sleep he realized the air in the room was colder, smokier and fouler smelling than it should be. He padded toward the window to investigate without waking his companion for the moment and yelped as his bare foot touched a hard, spherical warm object. Before he could take another step something with a burning fuse attached flew into the room, giving off obnoxious sulfur fumes along with a great deal of smoke. It was a second stink bomb disguised as the firecracker known as a global salute and caused the worst coughing fit he'd had since the buggy broke down 100 yards from Moss' stable to end their first of April romantic evening.
Somehow between gut wrenching hacking coughs he managed to pull his clothes on glad to see the sleeping redhead who'd been lying beside him all night begin to stir. He'd have to get her up if only because the room had become uninhabitable.
"Matt, what's going on?" she gasped between her own raspy coughs. "Is the Long Branch on fire?"
"No. It's firecrackers. Get dressed while I go down the backstairs and meet you out front as if it is a fire," he explained as his eyes watered from the smoke yet became accustomed to the gloom enough for him to see his boots and find his way to the door where his hat and gun belt still hung on a peg. He hoped all the trouble was coming through the now broken window and not from within the building.
Nobody was in the room with them. The door was as he'd left it – locked. As quietly as he could Matt made his way out of Kitty's rooms and down the hallway to the back stairs, listening for any sound. He stopped to unlock and then lock the backdoor before descending them before racing down the back alleys toward his office as if he were making his way down Front Street on his morning rounds. The stench from the bombs was apparent at street level where he stood in front of the saloon pounding on the door Kitty opened on his third hard set of raps.
"Kitty, are you alright? Is anybody still upstairs?" he added as if he actually was coming from his office.
"I'm fine, Matt. My throat's a little sore from all the smoke that's all," she added as the Teasdale sisters came through the door behind her wrapped in robes.
"Our rooms weren't affected, Marshal and we're the only ones who slept here last night besides Kitty," Sally provided in answer to his unspoken question.
"You girls stay out here by the door until I get Kitty over to Doc. I don't want anyone inside until I've checked it out," he said closing the glass doors behind him and locking them with the key Kitty handed him."
As the couple walked the short distance to the stairs leading to Doc's office Matt put a protective arm at the small of Kitty's back. However, he didn't say a word to her about his thoughts until after Doc began his examination of both of them. This was partially the fault of another coughing fit, but mostly to be sure the three of them were alone. As it turned out, Kitty spoke first.
"I didn't want to say it in front of Sally and Tilda but burning paper was stuck under the door while I was getting dressed after you left. I was able to stomp it out before it did any damage."
"Kitty, how many people have keys to the Long Branch?" Matt asked between coughs while Doc listened to his lungs.
"I've got keys to every door as do Bill and Laura, except only I have them for my and the girls' rooms. Sam, since I promoted him to head barkeep, has keys to the front, back and cellar doors. Olive, Trudy and now Sally and Tilda have keys to their own rooms and the door at the top of the outside stairs. Laura gave her key to her and Bill's old rooms at the back to the Teasdale sisters so they can use the tub. You have a key to that same back door and are the only other person with a key to my rooms. Oh, Olive and Trudy are visiting relatives and won't be back for another week."
"What about the girls you take on for the season? Do they return their keys when they leave in September?"
"Mostly, but not always. Why?"
"All the mishaps are a warning. The minor ones were just to throw me off. Somebody doesn't want you to be sole owner of the Long Branch and the possibilities include Sam Noonan. Too many people have keys or access to them to narrow it down yet."
"You can take one name off your list, Sam! That holds if the target's you. It's not in his character and you know I'm a mighty good judge of character!"
"You seem sure about him. Do you know if he's ever lived in Texas?"
"Plenty of people in Dodge have lived in Texas – you, me, Chester, the Circle T riders. Need I go on? Fact is, Sally and Tilda Teasdale lived there and you know it!"
"Kitty, don't get mad now! I'm only trying to do my best to protect you!"
"Protect me! I'm quite capable of protecting myself Matt Dillon!"
"Kit, I know you are, but protecting you and everyone else in this town is my job. When you think about it, all this started just about the time you promoted Sam."
Doc pulled on his ear and stroked his mustache as he watched his two favorite people argue as if he weren't there. He grabbed Kitty's arm just as she was about to throw the heavy medical book she'd taken off his desk at Matt who was momentarily incapacitated by another coughing fit.
"Kitty, pour some whiskey into one of my coffee mugs for Matt. As for you, Mr. Marshal, drink it down before you pull another muscle. That last one hasn't completely healed!"
Doc's interference calmed the furious redhead down enough that she did as he asked and handed her coughing lover a full mug of whiskey. He took large gulps between hacks, finally stopping the bout altogether when he drained the mug.
"Bronchitis takes a long time to get out of your system even when a patient listens to his doctor. But you had to go and breathe in sulfur fumes on top of being a stubborn fool trying to do too much too soon."
"Matt, I'm sorry. I forgot you're sick. I'm still angry with you for being so wrong about Sam, though. It's more likely the Teasdales are behind all this with maybe some help from the Circle T boys they've been buttering up."
"Why do you say that? Those two were last in Tascosa."
"Now you're getting it Cowboy," Kitty declared before Matt could point out they didn't come from Laredo. "I hired them right out of Texas. I wasn't gonna tell you why I promoted Sam, but I'll have to now. He saw you going into my rooms. He didn't have to, but he told me about it; then gave his word to protect our secret."
"If you two are ready to be civil with each other, what do you say to breakfast at Delmonico's?"
In reply, Matt took Kitty by the elbow and escorted her toward the door with a "You buyin', Doc?"