The girl child slept, utterly exhausted, until a little after noon. Kitty, curious to see the child that Matt had died to defend, was sitting up in Doc's inner room with Ma when she awoke. With prompting, the girl shared, through a mixture of fear and shyness, that her name was Estelle and that she would be twelve that summer. She had no sisters or brothers, no relatives that she knew, but there were names in Papa's Bible. Papa was dead. He'd been shot when the outlaws had come to take her and mamma. Mamma was dead as well; she had been holding Estelle while she died. Ma Smalley told her that was enough for now, and that the men would want to hear more later, but for the moment the chamberpot and then something light to eat and drink were more important.
It was Ma who spoke because Kitty was standing at the window, looking out on the alley, her face working hard to hold back tears. This child, this child, had lost everything. Everyone. And she had watched it happen. She hadn't made a conscious choice to love a lawman and have him die. She'd had both parents – all the support and protection and love that she had ever known - torn away from her for no reason whatsoever. Doc's words returned to her, "People die, Kitty. Even people we love as much as we loved Matt. People die and people are born." It didn't make it any better, but it gave her a mite more courage to face her loss.
Ma had moved into the other room to fix the girl's food. Kitty walked over to the bed. She sat down next to the child – the same place she'd sat so many times next to Matt when he was wounded or ill. "Estelle, my name is Kitty Russell. I know you hurt now, and I know you don't understand what's happening, but I want you to know one thing – you never need to worry about where you'll live or what you'll do. I will take care of you. I can't be your mother or your father, but you'll never want for a home. We'll talk more later but you just hold that in your heart against the grief. You will always have a home with me."
The girl's hand came slowly over to touch hers, "But why, ma'am? I'm nobody."
"You're not nobody, you're Estelle. And my man died trying to save your life. That makes your life worth more than you can even imagine." Kitty said, trying to explain something she couldn't understand herself.
"Your man?" Estelle asked, almost whispering, "He was that big man they took off the train and shot? The one who bled so much? The one they slung over a horse and said they was gonna feed to the wolves?"
"Dear God." It was Doc who said it. He and Festus were standing in the doorway.
Kitty turned wide-eyed towards him. "Doc? Doc! They wouldn't do that, would they?"
OoOoO
Estelle knew she was too old to cry. Her mamma had told her that the summer before when they buried the dead baby in the little plot behind the house. She tried to keep back the tears, but a few spilled over. The grey-haired lady came and helped her drink a cup of soup. The little man in the dark suit gave her a spoonful of bitter medicine, and the sweet-smelling lady laid her back and held her hand. She hurt so much – in her body and in her heart – but these people were kind to her. The darkness came over her again.
Doc sent Kitty, still protesting, back to the Long Branch with Festus, and Ma out to eat her own lunch. He sat in his rocking chair beside Estelle's bed and watched her, dozing a bit and thinking. He had heard what Kitty said and she'd been right. Matt Dillon had given his life to save this child, and none of his family of friends were going to let the child want for anything.
He knew that Festus and Newly, and probably other lawmen, were going to want to talk to the girl – especially after that comment about the blood - but he couldn't allow that yet. Awful as it was, he was glad that Estelle's comment about the wolves seemed to have knocked her previous statement out of Kitty's head. He let his thoughts run over what had happened. It was probable, he thought, that they'd left the child for dead. It was even possible that she might have heard something that could help them locate Tonneman. But all that would have to wait until she was stronger. It wasn't as if there were anything she could tell them, or that they could do, that would bring her mother back to life, or Matt Dillon either.
Festus came jingling up the stairs and through the door from the front room, trying vainly for quiet, and hissed at him. "Doc, I've got to talk to that little girl!"
"Not now you haven't," Doc replied. "That child is not well enough to answer questions. When she wakes up again we can try – but it's going to be quiet and gentle and if she gets excited I'm putting her right back to sleep."
"Doc, you don' understan'," Festus said, "I heared what she said about him bleeding. If there's any chance that Matthew is alive, we'uns got to get out thar an be a-lookin' for him, be a-tryin' to help him."
Doc took Festus by the arm and dragged him from the room, dragged him down the stairs and over to the middle of Moss Gimmick's livery stable. There, in the middle of the big straw-covered room with shafts of light gleaming through the open doors and small windows, he rounded on the younger man in fury, "Don't you dare raise Kitty's hopes, Festus Haggen. Don't you dare." Doc shouted. "Even if by some chance the child is right and Matt was still alive when they slung him over a horse and took him away, and I'm not saying that's even possible, he's dead now. Did you hear what that girl said, they were going to feed him to the wolves. He's dead, Festus. God knows, I want him to be alive, but he's dead, and I will not have you raising Kitty's hopes just to have her go through this a second time!"
"But Doc…"
"Don't you 'but Doc' me you worthless scum, think of someone else for once in your life. Matt Dillon is dead, and Kitty's alive and carrying his baby. It's her and that child we have to think about!" Doc dropped onto a bale of hay, and rested his head in his hands. "He's dead, Festus, he's dead, and there's nothing any of us can do about it."
Festus settled himself next to the old man. His hand hovered for a moment over his back, and then, finding courage, he laid it gently between Doc's shoulders. "Doc, did you get ainy sleep last night?"
Doc hunched his shoulders, but Festus kept his hand steady. "No, I didn't sleep last night."
"An' what about the night afore, Doc? I know you gived Miss Kitty a sleepin' powder. Did you get ainy sleep yo'r own self?" Festus' hand moved in a slow circle. He knew Doc didn't want to be touched, but he did it anyway.
"No, I didn't sleep that night either, you… you…" Words failed him and he just sat there in the old stable, his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands.
Festus stilled his hand but left it spread warm against Doc's back. "Doc, you got to sleep some. You cain't go makin' important decisions for everyone when you ain't slept in two nights. You go there an' sleep some on my bed here in the stable. I'll wake you when the girl wakes up. I promise you I will, Doc. I won't go to questionin' her without you there. But Doc…"
"Yes?"
"What if ol' Matthew wast alive when they pulled him off that wagon?" Festus asked.
"Then he's dead now, Festus. You know that, and I know that, and Kitty needs to know it, too. There's only so much a body can take, and she's taken about more than she can bear." Doc said, and then lowered his voice, "And so have I, my friend, so have I."
Festus walked Doc to the little stable room where he slept and laid him down on the blanket covered bunk. He was asleep before Festus left the room.
OoOoO
Festus found Mollie Parks back in the room with the sleeping girl, and explained to her that Doc was sleeping and that he would wake him when the girl awoke. Then he helped himself to some of Doc's coffee and sat himself down in the big padded chair in the front office to think.
Festus knew that there were some disadvantages to not being able to read, but he'd always felt that one of the advantages was that it kept his mind and memory sharp. If you couldn't write things down, you just had to remember them. When Matt had told him that he was to be their ace in the hole, he'd accepted that job and begun it immediately. Watching carefully out of the windowed cupola he'd had a view of everything that was going on. He'd counted fourteen men, including the two who were driving the wagons. From the time that he and Newly had spent watching the gang when they had rescued Matt previously, he recognized all but four of them. Either those four were new, or they had been away doing something else during Matt's rescue.
Festus sat, his eyes closed, and viewed each man, counting them up, remembering each face, the markings on each horse with any distinction. Fourteen men not including Tonneman, three teams, and a dozen riding horses. It was a lot to remember. He ran them through his mind again. Tonneman needed to come first, but clearly there was someone else in the gang with brains or the rescue wouldn't have come off. Fourteen men, he remembered each and every one, and surely each of them were going to die – but not before they told him what they knew about Matt Dillon's death.
His face pinched, he thought about that death. There had been no question in his mind, at the time, that Matthew was dead. He'd seen men die before and had been sure of what he'd seen. He remembered the tightness in his belly when Tonneman pulled Matt's gun out of his holster and pointed it at the Marshal's chest. He remembered the rifle shot, and the spatter of blood that sprayed out from the right side of Matthew's head. He'd been about six feet up over the men's heads, and not more than fifteen feet away. Newly, looking through the window on Matt's left, wouldn't have seen that spray of blood, but Festus did, and he counted the Marshal dead at that very moment, even as his body was falling limply into the wagon bed. The woman and the girl had been to the Marshal's right, and he thought, now, that spray of blood was probably what the girl meant by "the one who bled so much", but he needed to be sure. There were so many thing that he needed to be sure of.
OoOoO
Estelle felt a little better when she woke again. Her shoulder hurt badly, but she knew where she was, and she recognized the grey-haired lady sitting knitting beside her bed. The woman helped her to drink a glass of water and sat talking to her comfortingly of nothing at all until the doctor and the scruffy man came back.
The doctor untied the bulky bandage from her shoulder and looked at her wound, touching it and pressing it painfully, before tying it up again. Then the scruffy man knelt by the bed. She was scared of him at first, but he had the gentlest voice, and he told her about finding her, and tending her, and bringing her back here so Doc could fix her up.
"Now, honeychild," he said, "We gots to talk about some hard things here, 'an I'd lots rather we didn' have to, but we do. I need ya' to know it's jus' mighty important for you to try to tell us everything that you remember about what happened at the train."
"Do I have to?" she asked.
"Yes, sweetheart, you do. You're the onliest one who can. Ifn there was sumbody else, I'd sure ask them instead, but you're the only one who knows, so you have to jus' be a brave girl and tell us. I'll be right here with you, an' I won' let no one harm you, not a smidge."
"What's your name, mister?" Estelle asked him.
"My name's Ace Haggen, Miss Estelle, and I'm mighty pleased to meet you," he said offering her a slightly dirty hand. Estelle knew to shake hands, her pa had taught her that, although her ma had taught her to make a curtsey.
She shook with the man, and when he didn't say anything more, she began to talk. "We was all in the wagon, all the women and children they pulled up from the different homesteads. I knew most of them, and we was all scared. They took Mrs. Simpson and her children from the wagon special, made her come over to the side so they could get her, and tied them to that post. Seemed like they just took Mamma and me 'cause we was standing at the end and they could reach us easy."
"Now aren' you a smart chile, Estelle," Festus told her in polite wonderment. "Now that's jus' ezzacly the kind o' thing I be'd wantin' to know."
Encouraged, Estelle continued, "They put us in the other wagon, and took us around to the side of the train, to that little yellow caboose, only a caboose should be at the end, and this one was in the middle. Is that the kind of thing you want to know, Mister Ace?"
"Yes'm it shore is. You just keep a-tellin it jus' like you remember it." Festus encouraged her, noting without actually looking that Newly was now standing in the door of the room, listening intently.
"The smiling man, he jumped off the train into the wagon, and then the big man, he was so big he just stepped down, he didn't have to jump. He stood real still, and the smiling man told him what to say, and he said it, telling them to take the train away and not to stop. Then the smiling man asked him if he was ready to die, and mamma, she took me in her arms and she turned away from them and put my head in her shoulder so I couldn't see. She used to do that when I was a little girl and papa was killing hogs, before I got to be big enough to help."
"I didn' rea-lize you was such a big girl, Miss Estelle," Festus said politely, "Why I bet you was a lotta help to your ma and your pa. Now you jus' go on an' tell me what happened next. Don' you be afeared now. Ol' Ace has got ya." Festus reached for the child's hand and held it, secure but not too tight.
She was breathing hard now, and Festus was afraid that Doc was going to make her stop, but he let her continue, tears drifting slowly down her face. "I couldn't see then, but I heard the big man tell them to let us go, he said 'Let the women and children go.' But the smiling man, he said he needed us for hostages, and then he told the big man 'You're gonna be dead." and there was a gunshot and mamma jerked and there was fire in my shoulder where she held me against her, and that's all I remember."
"Tha's jus' fine, little lady, jus' fine," Festus told her. "You got a quick mind and you remember good, I bet you're mighty good at school, ain't ya? I bet you can read just like a growed person."
Estelle nodded, and he went on, "Now Miss Estelle, you tell me about when you was talking to Miss Kitty earlier today, Miss Kitty's the real pretty lady with the red hair, and you tole her that the big man, that was Marshal Dillon, that he was bleedin' a lot. You jus' tell me about that."
"That was later, after we drove a while, and I realized that mamma was," Estelle took a gasping breath, "that mamma was dead. I hurt really bad, and mamma's body, it was layin' on top of me, but I could see a little over her shoulder, and I could see the big man, the marshal, where he was laying in the wagon next to us. The smiling man he was up on the wagon seat, and he didn't look back at us, and we was going real fast."
"What did it look like happened to the marshal, honey? What did you see?" Festus was quiet but insistent, stroking the child's hand.
"His face was all over blood, Mister Ace," she said, "And it looked like it was half shot off, and his eyes was wide open, and the blood was just rolling down over him, and he didn't move at all, so I guess he was dead, too."
"Tha's prolly right, honey, that's just what we were thinkin' our ownselves. Now what about the wolves, Miss Estelle, you said sumthin' earlier about wolves, an' I don' think I quite got that part. Why don' you tell me about that there."
"That was when they stopped the wagon. I closed my eyes because I didn't want them to see me watching, but I heard them. Some men rode their horses right up and got off into the wagon, and they were grunting and cussing while they lifted him, 'cause he was so big an' heavy. And then someone said, "You shouldn't have shot him." And someone else says, "I told you he needed to be killed." And there was another gunshot and a yell, and that first man, I think it was the smiling man, he said, "I was saving him to feed to the wolves." I peeked just a little then, and I saw the poor man, his face all bloody and dripping, and they slung him over the back of one of the harness horses – there was no saddle, just the harness from the wagon, and they tied him to the harness and then they all rode away. I was afraid they would shoot me again, but they didn't, they just rode away, and I hurt so bad and I held on to mamma and prayed that God would take me to heaven with her."
"I'm sorry your mamma's gone, chile, but I'm mighty glad you're still with us, and you jus' rest easy knowin' that we'uns is gonna take care of you from now on." Festus stopped as Doc came up and took the girl's wrist to feel her pulse. He saw the old man begin to shake his head and slipped in one last question, "Did you notice, Miss Estelle, if the marshal's eyes was still open when they put him across that horse?"
"No sir, Mister Ace," she said, "They was closed, and I was glad."
"That's enough, 'Ace'," Doc said, "That's about as much as any of us can take."
"You did fine, baby girl, jus' fine. You was a big help. Now I'm gonna leave you here with Doc and Ma, but I'll come back later to see ya'." Festus rose to his feet and, spurs jingling, walked towards Newly and past him out the door.
OoOoO
"A Sharps," Newly said as he and Festus met in the front room.
Festus nodded his head, "Shorely seems like it."
Doc came in and went over to his desk, picking up a metal slug and handing it to Newly. "I was going to give you this before, but it slipped my mind. It was lodged against the inside of her right shoulder blade and it took a heck of a lot to dig it out."
"So likely whoever it was shot Matt they did it with a Sharps rifle and the bullet got his head and went on through Estelle's mother's chest and on into the girl's shoulder. I can't think of anything but a big Sharps, a buffalo gun, that would do that," Newly said, "And the shooter must have been up just a little higher – maybe on the train – and shooting down at a slight angle."
"Musta been shootin' out one o' them windows in the passenger cars, like, or maybe one o' them liddle platforms between the cars." Festus said, "I'm right shore there weren't no body on the top of the train."
"It looks like someone in that gang wanted Matt dead and didn't trust Tonneman to do it," Newly commented.
"Wael what I want to know," Festus said, "Was ifn that shot really killed him or ifn he was alive when they took him away."
"The girl said his face was half blown off, Festus!" Doc said.
"But she said his eyes was open, Doc, so both his eyes was still there, and she said he was bleedin', an' a body don' bleed onct it's daid, and then she said that when they moved his body offn the wagon, that his eyes was closed." Festus argued. "I ain't gonna tell Miss Kitty, Doc…"
"Just what aren't you gonna tell Miss Kitty, Festus?" came that lady's sharp query as she stepped through the outside door and into the office.