Chapter Fourteen: Dodge

Kitty Noonan hadn't known exactly what to expect from having a baby, but she hadn't expected it to be either so wearying or so boring. She'd stayed working in the barroom until the middle of September – running an afternoon poker game and then another in the early evening. Those few hours, along with doing the books, handling orders, and doing inventory, had left her exhausted. Before October came around, she'd hired an extra bartender and a couple of new girls – including one who could deal – and retired from the bar for the duration. There was still plenty to do. She found herself sleeping less well and getting up early – at least early for her – to cook breakfast for Sam and Estelle, and send the child off to school. Sam took on the extra work without complaint, and encouraged her to nap during the day and go to bed early at night.

Her upstairs rooms, once a refuge of privacy for her and Matt, now held visitors at all hours. Estelle sat at the big table to do her schoolwork in the afternoon, and Doc, Newly, and Frank dropped in as casually as they had once joined her at the bar downstairs. Ma Smalley made time to join her most mornings, her hands busy with knitting while Kitty sewed efficiently but irritably on baby clothes. Mollie Parks, and other women from the various saloons, dropped in to chat. At Doc's insistence, one of the men took her walking every afternoon.

Half from boredom and half from a desire to pass on her own skills to the child that everyone seemed to be taking a part in raising, Kitty started teaching Estelle about both cards and bookkeeping. Just as Newly taught her about guns and ammunition in afternoons in his shop, and Ma Smalley insisted on twelve stitches to the inch on the seams she sewed, Kitty matter-of-factly answered the child's questions about the work the saloon girls did with candid explanations.

"Do they like that?" Estelle asked her curiously.

Kitty shrugged, "Not all the time. No one likes everything they have to do to earn a living. But most of them do, or they wouldn't be in this business."

"Does it hurt? I would think it would," the girl essayed cautiously.

But Kitty smiled warmly at her and shook her head. "That's because you're still a child, honey, and not ready for something like that yet. When you're grown, and you meet a man you love, you'll find there's not much better in the whole wide world than the pleasure you can give each other."

"But Lizzie and Cora and Helen – they aren't in love with the men they… entertain, are they?"

"Nope. You don't have to be in love, although it helps to care about each other some. And most of the girls who work here do go on to marry. Some people think less of them for what they do, but you never need to. It's a living, like any other. Sometimes girls are forced into it, and that's hard, and a bad thing, but I don't hire girls at the Long Branch unless they're doin' what they choose for their own reasons. Now deal me five hands of seven card stud and let's see what you can do."

OoOoO

Frank came in one November afternoon to find Estelle sewing quietly by the window while Kitty sat sideways on the settee with a pillow at her back and her bare feet in Sam's lap. He was rubbing her ankles and she was reading to him from the newspaper.

"You all look pretty comfortable," he commented, laying a hand against Kitty's hair. "You know it's startin' to snow outside?" Estelle dropped her quilt patch on the chair seat and went to press her nose against the window.

"You want me to take you out for a ride in it, punkin?" Frank asked, and Estelle looked a question at Sam, who smiled and nodded.

"Go put your coat and your boots on, Estelle, and meet me at the back stairs, I've just got to talk to Sam and Kitty for a minute here." Frank told her, and she darted out the hall door.

Kitty looked up, troubled, into Frank's eyes. "Something wrong, Frank?"

"I just got a wire from Ace. You know he's in Galveston?"

"Yes. He wired me for money a few days ago. Seemed to think he'd found something, but he didn't tell me what." Kitty replied.

"Well, now he wants the name of an honest lawman, and that's not an easy thing to find in Galveston," Frank told them.

"You know someone?" Sam asked.

"I do. Texas Ranger named Les McNeill – if he's in town. Matt and I worked with him down in Houston a few years ago. You know anyone in Galveston, Kitty?" Frank asked.

Kitty shook her head. "Used to know a few girls there, but no one who could help Festus. Not even sure they're there anymore. You think this is serious, Frank?"

Frank nodded. "I do. Ace wouldn't ask for help if he thought he could handle it on his own. I'll let you know if I hear anything more, but it's hard just countin' on telegrams and him not knowin' how to read and write. Have to be mighty careful what we say. Kitty? You do me a favor, darlin', and stay inside the next couple a'days?" Frank requested.

"Frank, we haven't seen anything happenin' in Dodge all fall that's related to that business…" Kitty started.

"Well, if things are movin' in Galveston, they might start movin' here as well. Just stay snug up here for a bit. You do that for me?" Kitty nodded reluctantly, noticing that Frank met Sam's eyes and not caring for the look that passed between them. She wondered why he even bothered asking her when it was pretty clear he and Sam had just made an agreement about what she'd do.

"I'll go take Estelle out for a bit. Don't worry about her, we'll be back before dark." Frank said. He walked over to lean down and kiss Kitty's lips but she turned a cheek up to him. Frank took her chin and held it lightly while he kissed her mouth. "Don't fight us on this, darlin', you behave yourself and let us keep you safe, hear?"

Sam chuckled and continued rubbing her feet, meeting her look of irritation with a candid comment, "I'm not stepping in between the two of you without better cause than that, Kitty. Frank and I made our peace, and he holds the line. We all know where we stand."

"You all stand over me like guardian angels flappin' your wings to scare off the buzzards, that's what you do." Kitty replied with some rancor.

But Sam just smiled at her and moved his hands up to rub the muscles on the back of her calves.

OoOoO

Thanksgiving passed with its usual feast, and Kitty entered the last weeks of her pregnancy. Dodge was quiet, and Marshal Reardon was glad that he'd turned down the War Department's offer and remained a City Marshal. There was little out of town work for him to do, but enough within the county to keep him active and still let him sleep in town at night. It was the first of December and he'd received a wire that day from Les McNeill telling him that Ace Haggen was headed home for Dodge and would have a story to tell him. It was mid-afternoon, and he was headed over to the Long Branch to share the news with Sam and Kitty when Hank stopped him on the boardwalk.

"You know those horses you asked me to watch for last summer, Marshal?" Hank said, "Well, there's a mighty pretty sorrel came in this morning with two other horses. I fed and groomed them, but the gent that brought them in rented a wagon from me round about dinner time, and he's got the two bays hitched up to it, and it's just sitting tied up over behind Monk Tyson's warehouse. That big sorrel gelding? Man saddled him up, and he's tied to the rail over by the Bull's Head."

"What did the men look like, Hank?" Frank asked.

"Only saw but one. He came in riding the sorrel and leading the other two. Nothin' special about the fella. Dressed in buckskins. He's over at Bull's place now."

"Hank, you go on over to Newly's shop and tell him I need him out here on the street straight away to watch my back. I'm goin' over to the Bull's Head to have a look." Frank told him. He headed across the street and stopped to smooth a hand along the withers of the bright sorrel horse with a light mane and tail that stood tied to the rail. The saddle was fancy worked leather with a matching rifle scabbard. Frank slid the rifle out slightly – it was an old Sharps buffalo gun. He looked over towards the gunsmith's shop and saw Newly standing there with a Winchester, watching the street and buildings behind him. Frank nodded to him, pleased that Matt's deputy, as he still thought of him, was following his instructions literally. He took one step towards the boardwalk and then stopped as a deep, growling voice called his name from further down the street.

"You ready to die, Reardon?" the man called a second time, and Frank watched as the biggest man he'd ever seen walked into the street. Dressed all in black, and in clothes that surely must have been made for him alone, the man would have stood a head taller than Matt Dillon and was nearly twice as wide. Feeling like the shepherd boy David, Frank turned his back on Newly and stepped into the street to face the Goliath who could only be Tonneman's man "Tiny". He'd always felt that the giant in that story was the one at a disadvantage against David's sling and five smooth stones, and he hoped that his own fast draw and the six bullets in his Colt would do as well.

The man facing him didn't seem to be in a hurry, he walked some nearer, cussing a blue streak of epithets. Frank didn't let himself be pressed backwards, and he didn't turn his head. He was betting this was an ambush, and knew his only job was to face down the big man before him and leave Newly to guard his back. When it finally came, the giant's draw was fast, but not fast enough. He went down firing even with three of Frank's bullets in his chest.

There were more shots behind him, and Frank turned then and threw himself to the left, grimacing as a bullet grazed his thigh, but keeping his gun hand free. Newly stood in the street now, looking up at the balcony of the Lady Gay where a familiar man stood, gun in his right hand and his left hand pressed against his ribs. The man raised his gun to fire, but stumbled backwards and fell as two bullets smashed into his chest, one from Frank's Colt and the other from Newly's rifle.

Both outlaws were down, and Frank, clutching at his leg, left it to Newly to walk over to the hulking black form lying in the street and kick the gun out of his hand. He watched as Newly and another man turned the body over. Newly rose and strode toward him shaking his head. Above Frank, from the balcony of the Lady Gay, a man's voice called down to the lawmen, "It's Tonneman, all right, Marshal, and he's for sure dead."

That was the point at which the men in the street, including Doc hurrying towards Frank with his bag in his hand, were startled by the sound a rifle shot and then five closely spaced pistol rounds from inside the Long Branch saloon.