Decisions and Desires

Chapter 15

Arlo stopped by the Long Branch and looked around for Kitty. He spotted her standing beside a gambler at the faro table. He managed to catch her eye and she excused herself to come join him.

"I just wanted to tell you I'm heading out today"

"I'm sorry, Arlo."

"Don't apologize. I enjoyed our time together very much and I'm glad you managed to prevent our friendship from crossing the line. Matt hadn't been quite truthful with me or himself I think, but I know that deep down he is an honest man, and he really does care about you."

He had to leave before his emotions got the better of him, but as he turned to go he felt her hand on his arm

"Arlo, I have to say this. I want to thank you for risking your life to bring Matt home. I'm sorry that I ever led you to believe that there could be anything more between us. It all happened so quickly that I guess, at the time, I didn't realize where it was leading."

He couldn't say anything, this woman was someone he really wanted to care for and he didn't want his true feelings to show. It would make it even harder for her. At last he reached out and took her hand briefly.

"So long, Kitty." He turned quickly and left while he still had control.

She watched him leave. There was an ache in her heart for something that could have been, but another man had her love, and there was nothing she could do to change that.

He was on his way to the livery, determined to leave town before the temptation to run back, take Kitty in his arms and beg her to marry him, became overwhelming. He had a pain inside him that no medicine could cure. His horse was all saddled and ready to go, but as he passed the steps leading to Adams' office he knew he couldn't leave without talking to Dillon. It was not what he wanted to do, but there were words that needed to be said and they had been put off for too long.

He trod heavily up the stairs, new thoughts filling his head with every step. He and Dillon had a long history, and there were things from the distant past that needed to be resolved as well as more recent events that Dillon needed to understand. He opened the door to find Adams standing there. For a moment the physician looked like he was going to turn him away.

"The marshal needs to rest. I know you helped to save his life out there, but right now is not the time to get him riled up. I can't let you see him."

Doc stood in front of Arlo like a mother bear protecting her cubs, but the trail boss wasn't about to leave without clearing the air between himself and Dillon.

"Listen Doc, I have known Matt a lot longer than you, or anyone else in this town come to that. I think he will see me. Go and ask him."

Doc wasn't used to being made to back down, especially by someone he hardly knew, but there was a fire in the man's eyes and a force in his voice that made him turn and go check on his patient.

ooo000ooo

Matt wanted to be standing on his own two feet when Arlo entered the room. It would bring a sense of normalcy to the situation and make them equals. Reluctantly he had to settle for being propped up on a few extra pillows that Doc provided. He waited a moment for the pounding in his head to settle down before nodding to the physician.

"Send him in, Doc. Now is as good a time as any."

"You don't have to do this, Matt." The physician was genuinely concerned for the health of his patient's mind and body.

"Yes I do."

Arlo entered the room, carefully closing the door to the outer office behind him. The two men looked at each other but did not speak. There was a chair next to the bed, and after the moment of silence had passed Arlo sat there and extended his hand.

"Matt?"

It was a few seconds more before Dillon raised his own to grasp it.

"Arlo."

Dillon looked at the man. He was strong and self-sufficient. Someone that Kitty could depend on. Someone who would be home every night to put his arms around her, protect her. One question was burning in his mind - one he hated to ask. Eventually he managed to get it out.

"What's going on between you and Kitty? Doc said she spent a week with you going to look at land in Colorado. Is she going back with you?"

Arlo could feel the blue eyes boring into him as if Matt was trying to will the answer he wanted.

"No, she isn't." Arlo had removed his hat and placed it on the bed. Now he turned his eyes to meet the marshal's straight on, "I wish she was. I wanted to ask her to, believe me, but I didn't. Somehow she let me know that I shouldn't. Not in words, you understand, just that there was something, or someone, in the way."

There was an uneasy silence. Neither man was used to discussing feelings or personal emotions as private as these, but Arlo was determined that somehow he was going to have his say, if not for himself, then for Kitty and also, he supposed, for the man in the bed. He had once called Dillon an ungrateful whelp - or maybe worse. Perhaps both of them were remembering that.

"Things have never been easy for us, Matt, but now I figure the score is about equal."

"I don't try to keep score."

"It was a long time ago. I was barely 21 and you were almost fifteen. I knew you didn't like me, and I thought of you as an annoying, arrogant brat. Still I did go out of my way to get you that job at the Circle G. I did it so you would have some money to help your Ma. Good jobs were hard to come by then, and old man Giles paid better than most. I thought you would be grateful for that and I would have something over you. After all I was the ranch foreman. Pretty good achievement for a boy of my age, or so I thought."

"Do we have to go back to that Arlo - it's best forgotten."

"I have come here and I am going to have my say one way or another. You'd barely been working there for a month when you came and told me that Elgin Giles was stealing cattle from his neighbors. I guess I knew something was going on, but didn't want to admit it. I was the ranch foreman earning good money and courting the boss's daughter. You told me in no uncertain terms that you didn't want to work for a cattle thief. I called you all kinds of an ignorant, ungrateful kid as you rode off. I thought you'd never be back, but about month later there you came, one dark evening, telling me that the local sheriff and a group of deputies were coming to arrest Giles and his crew, and if I was smart I would leave before that happened. Just as well I took your advice, they hanged Giles, and all his men got prison sentences. I guess I thought I owed you something after that, but I never met up with you again 'til I started bringing cattle to Dodge. Somehow we never even spoke about it then. That's part of the reason why I went with Quint - I thought it would even things up between us."

"And the rest of the reason?"

"I figured if maybe you never came back, I could ask Kitty to come with me and she would. I needed to know what happened to you so I could tell her for sure. Then I saw how much she cared for you, and knew that there was no way I could ever make her completely happy, even if you didn't come home."

Again a silence separated the two men. Matt had to ask the other question that was haunting his mind, the one question he had no right to ask. He took a breath.

"You and Kitty were together a whole week. Did she…did you and she…?"

He left the question hanging in the air, he wanted an answer but at the same time dreaded what it might be. Arlo could have said nothing and made the marshal put his thoughts into words, but he didn't.

"No, we never did. Not that I didn't want to, but somehow she avoided it, something was there that made it not the right thing to do." He paused to let what he had just said sink in. "Why did you lie to me, Matt? Why did you say there was no one special in your life? After all these years you flat-out lied to me, that's not like you."

Matt leaned across to the table beside the bed and picked up the tin star that had been laying there since Quint returned it to him. He turned it over in his fingers as he spoke.

"As long as I wear this, I can't allow myself a permanent relationship with any woman."

Arlo could really get angry with Matt over how he had treated Kitty. She was willing to give so much, and in return he thought she got very little. He had nothing to say.

"Why did you ride out with Quint? It would have been better for you, and maybe Kitty too, if you had left me out there to die. You could give her much more than I can."

"Oh don't go there, Matt, that is just self-pity talking. You can't make those decisions for any woman - especially Kitty Russell."

"Even so, she would be better off with you. You can give her a home, maybe a family, stability. She wouldn't have to wonder if you were going to make it home safely every night."

Arlo cut him off

"Don't try that excuse, Matt. That is her choice to make, not yours." He stood up to pace the small room. "She made her decision a long time ago, and if you try to change it that will just hurt her more. It's not the absence of marriage vows that hurt Kitty, it's when you pretend you don't really care." Arlo was standing looking down at him, green eyes burning with anger.

"I can't let people know how I feel. That would put her in harm's way. This badge doesn't give me a lot of room for relationships."

Arlo turned the chair so he could straddle it, he was now more at Dillon's level but those eyes had lost none of their fire. "What's happened to you, Matt? You always used to stand up for truth and honesty. How can you lie to me, lie to yourself, and most of all lie to Kitty? Let me tell you something, all those nights on the trail I spent bringing you home, you'd be running a fever and thrashing around in your sleep, rambling on about killings till I thought that every Comanche within a day's ride would hear you. Then you'd start calling for Kitty. Somehow, in your mind, she always found you because in a little while you would calm down and sleep. That was when I really knew that I had no chance."

"Have you finished?" Matt was feeling tired, but more than that he knew there was a lot of truth in Arlo's words.

"No I haven't, you need to hear me out for your own good."

Johnson got up from the chair one more time and walked towards the window. He stood there for a moment looking down at the street and all the inhabitants going about their everyday business. He turned back to face the marshal, placing one hand on the foot rail of the bed. Matt waited, it was as if he was facing a hired gun, all he could do was wait for the man to draw.

"Ever since we were kids, you considered it your duty to take it upon yourself to do whatever needs to be done. You never let anyone share the load. You just kept trying to prove that you had the toughest fists, the fastest draw, and the strongest guts of anyone around. Maybe it's because you had to stand on your own feet from such an early age, but a man can't live his whole life like that. Sometimes there are things you can't fix by yourself. Maybe there are some lives you can't save. You have to accept that you are not responsible for all the bad stuff that other men might do."

Matt had looked away. Despite the fact that they had never had a close relationship, this man knew him well - better and longer than most. He looked back.

"So what is your advice? I should marry Kitty and all will be well?"

"Nothing like that. Kitty doesn't need you to marry her. She just wants you to be honest with her. Give her the love she deserves. She loves you, Matt. You are the only man in the world for her and she is willing to wait for you as long as it takes, but she does need to feel your love, not your denial."

He stopped and looked out the window one more time, knowing he had one more thing to say. He managed to control his anger and lower his voice before speaking.

"I know you had it tough when you were a kid. Your Pa was gone a lot of the time riding with the Rangers, and then after he got killed you had to watch your Ma struggle to survive. Is that what makes you the way you are? Think about it, Matt. Bad things happened to you as a kid but you are a man now. You can't let those things destroy the rest of your life, or someone else's life. A woman has the right to her own choices. Do you think your Ma would not have married your Pa if she knew what lay ahead. She loved him for better or for worse, Matt, think about that. I remember her better than you do, I was older. She loved him and accepted the good with the bad. The badge he wore was maybe the bad part that she didn't like, but she married the whole man. That badge is your excuse," he stopped for a moment. Dillon was still staring at the star he was still holding in his hand.

"I know how badly you hurt a good woman. She never told me what had happened but I could tell you hurt her. It wasn't that piece of tin that caused her pain. It was something you did." He stopped again to let his words sink in. "I also know that she will forgive you. It will be tough for her, but she will do it."

"Have you finished?"

"Yes, I guess I have. I just want to make you stop and think, Matt. We never were close, and that won't change, but we are kin and I don't want to see you ruin your life. I have to go now - I've got a long ride ahead."

He picked up his hat with his left hand and extended his right once more. "Come by and visit sometime. Kitty knows where to find me."

Dillon hesitated then shook hands for the last time. He couldn't say anything. He heard the catch on the door click as Arlo Johnson left.

TBC