Mardi Gras Misunderstanding
Once again, thanks so much to everyone who is reading and commenting.
Disclaimer: No ownership, no profit...just love and nostalgia for these wonderful characters.
Chapter Six
"First of all, technically, I didn't run away. Sam knew where I was going, and I did leave the letters for you and Doc explaining a lot more details, so you can't accuse me of running away."
"What letters? I don't know anything about a letter and neither does Doc. Surely he would have mentioned...maybe you better start at the beginning, Kit."
"Apparently so. Right after you left for Mexico I got a telegram from Ira--you know, my cousin Charlotte's husband--saying that Charl was pregnant and not at all well. Charlotte's four years younger than I am, and this was her third pregnancy, but the other two ended in miscarriages. Anyway, the doctor ordered her to bed and Ira thought perhaps it would be good for her if I could keep her company for a while. I don't know if I ever told you, the three of us grew up together. Ira and I have known each other since we were in our cradles, so he was a friend long before he married Charl. His telegram made me think about how long I'd been away from my beautiful city and how much I missed what little family I have. The timing was perfect...no herds, you were gone anyway, and Sam's completely capable of running the Long Branch. So I decided to take a vacation."
"I sent a telegram back to Ira saying I'd be there soon as possible. You were part way to Mexico, and Doc was at that big medical conference in Denver, so I wrote long letters to both of you, telling you where I was going and giving you Ira's name and address. I put the envelopes right in the center of Doc's desk...it was all nice and neat, so I know they didn't get lost...one was addressed to Doc and the other had your name on it." She paused and blushed. "There was some pretty personal stuff in yours, so I was kinda leery about leavin' it at the jail."
Matt groaned and swore. "Damn...the break-in. According to Festus and Newly, the night before Doc got back from Denver, a drifter broke into his office and ransacked the place. Apparently he was lookin' for morphine 'cause that, a few bottles of laudanum, some needles and syringes were the only things missing, but the place was a mess, or so they told me. The letters must have gotten lost or destroyed in the confusion."
"I'm sorry, Kitty...sorry I doubted you. I should have known you wouldn't just disappear again. But why didn't you write?"
"Why didn't you?" she countered, but in her mind, the words in her letter stood out big and bold:
...and so I think the time apart will be good for both of us. I look forward to hearing from you when you return from Mexico. But if you don't write, I'll know that you have decided not to let a woman in your life, or not this woman at least. I love you, Matt, and I always will. Be safe and happy, Cowboy.
Kitty
She heard Matt's rational voice speaking. "New Orleans isn't Dodge. I couldn't very well address a letter to 'Kathleen Russell, New Orleans, Louisiana' and hope that you'd get it."
"You probably could have, but that wouldn't be you. You could have used your influence, your connections, to find me if you had really wanted to, but you didn't want to do that, did you? You wanted me to be the first one to write."
"Wellll...yeah. Remember, Kitty, I never saw that letter. I didn't know until two minutes ago that the reason you left Dodge was to visit your cousin. For all I knew, you left because you were mad at me for some reason I wasn't even aware of. Let's face it, if you were mad, you probably would have torn the letter up without opening it anyway."
"I wasn't really mad, but I was hurt...very, very hurt. It started when Elijah Wright was killed out in Pueblo. You said, 'that's what happens when a lawman lets a woman in his life.' Now what the hell was I supposed to make of that? Then you were away so much. You were in Colorado for six weeks and before that you had been in St. Louie and, and Topeka before that. When you were in town you didn't come by the Long Branch very often and you spent a lot of nights at the jail. I hardly ever saw you any more, so I could only assume you didn't want to see me. The trip to Mexico was kind of the last straw."
Matt felt the need to defend himself. "Kitty, the War Department did keep me pretty busy for a while, especially right after Elijah was killed."
And then his voice softened as the full impact of her words...his own words, really...hit him.
"But Kitty, I never meant...oh, God, honey...no. I never meant you...never meant that I don't want you in my life. I was talkin' about Josephine. You met her; you know what she's like. Josephine with her Boston breeding and her blue blood and her high society ways. She was never right for Eli in the first place. Frank Reardon and Chauncey Deamon and me...we tried to tell him, talked 'til we were blue ourselves. Don't know why he couldn't see it. Much as I miss him, at least he's getting some well-deserved peace and quiet now."
"I'm sorry you lost your friend, Matt. But you kept going away, and I never had a chance to talk to you about it...or about what you meant by that statement. It sounded pretty bad to me...pretty final."
"So you just let it fester and grow bigger and more painful."
"Uh hunh. And when Ira's telegram came, I decided I deserved to get away and to forget about Dodge and everyone in it for a while."
"Go on."
"It was exciting to be back in New Orleans, and it was so good to see Charl and Ira again. Several of my childhood friends still live here in the Quarter, and I was having a social life the likes of which I haven't known in 25 years. It was at one of the dinner parties that I ran into John Chapman again. He's a very prominent and respected doctor down here, and we started uh, seeing each other socially. We were...we are...friends, Matt. Good friends, but nothing more, and John understands why we can never be anything more."
"In July Charlotte had her baby, a little girl, all pink and healthy. I thought I'd stay a bit longer to help with little Arianna Kathleen, and then I'd go back to Dodge. But as time went on, things started to get kinda complicated."
"I had a taste of freedom, the first real freedom I'd known in my entire life. First I was my mother's daughter, then I was Panacea's...well, let's just say I worked for her. Then I was your woman. Oh, I don't mean that the way it sounds. I've always loved being with you, being your woman. But I was finally on my own, and I, I liked it."
Matt started to respond. "Kitty, I never..."
"Please, Matt. Let me finish before I lose my nerve."
He nodded, his blue eyes now hooded and unreadable.
She swallowed and continued. "This is the really hard part. As I said, I've always loved being with you and being your woman, and you've always given me the freedom to do what I wanted. You've never held me back. I've done it to myself. For nearly twenty years, my first thoughts have always been of you...what would Matt like, what would Matt think, what would be best for Matt?"
"For nearly twenty years, thoughts of you have filled my every waking moment, and my dreams, too. I've spent more than half my life watching you ride off to somewhere, terrified that you wouldn't be coming back. Then came the waiting, always the horrible waiting, watching the street day after day, lying in bed at night, window open, even in the dead of winter so that I wouldn't miss the first sound of Buck's hooves when you turned on to Front Street, jumping up at the sound to see if you were sitting straight in the saddle or slumped, barely hanging on. Then waiting again, waiting for the sound of your footsteps on the back stairs, waiting to feel you in my arms again, making sure you were all right."
Matt's voice was tight and low. "I'm sorry, Kitty, I never meant to be such a burden."
"You were never a burden, Matt. I loved trying to please you, to do things that would make you happy. It's just that I was so busy being your woman, I forgot to take time to be my own woman. I just kind of lost myself."
"I felt that life was passing me by. There are so many things I haven't done...seen the grand palaces of Europe, or even the streets of New York. I don't have a husband; I don't have children; I don't even have close women friends. Matt, my best friends in Dodge are a cantankerous old doctor, a bartender and an illiterate hillman..."
"...any one of whom would lay down his life for you in a heartbeat. And you have me, Kitty, unless I don't count any more."
"Oh, you count, Matt, you count more than anything or anyone. That's why this is so difficult. I love you with all my heart and I always will. But I've found myself here. I love living in my little house instead of those noisy rooms above that damned saloon. I love my courtyard garden and being able to work in it. I like breathing real air, even if it is humid, rather than dirt and grit. I like eating in good restaurants and I like having a social life that doesn't include drovers and drifters and buffalo hunters who haven't seen a woman in six months and a bath tub in twice that long."
"And there's the New Orleans Lady." She smiled like a proud mother. "Ira and I own a floating gambling palace. A very successful gambling palace, I might add. You need to get better so that you can see it. We'll take it upriver, maybe all the way to Memphis, just the two of us and the pilot. Oh, Matt...it would be heaven to be alone on the river with you."
The last words left her mouth before she could stop them. And once out, she couldn't take them back.
Matt watched her carefully, his eyes wary, his voice taking on a dangerous edge. "Let me make sure I have this right. You love me and you always will. You don't want to be my woman in Dodge. You don't even want to be in Dodge anymore. But you want the two of us to take a long, slow riverboat trip to Memphis. Do I have it right, Kit?"
"Well, when you say it like that, it doesn't sound so good, but..."
"What happens after our little boat trip ends? We shake hands and go our separate ways?"
"Uh...no, that's not what I want."
"What do you want, Kitty? Do you even know?