Festus walked into the Long Branch midafternoon on the eleventh of December, a set of saddle bags slung over one shoulder, and followed by a young woman with reddish blonde hair. Surprised wasn't nearly a big enough word for his reaction when he saw Kitty standing beside the bar talking to Newly. "You done had the baby without me, Miss Kitty!" he exclaimed as he hugged her.
Smiling, Kitty told him, "Well, we had some excitement here, and she decided to come a little early. You want to see her?"
"A girl, Miss Kitty? I shore do! Bet she's as pretty as the sun shinin' down from heaven."
"Come on up, Festus. Sam's with her, but it's about time for me to feed her." Kitty said.
"Jus' one leedle minute, if ya don' mind, Miss Kitty." Festus said, turning to Newly, "Can you get Doc an' Frank, Newly. I got somethin' to say an' it's better I jus' say it onct. Oh, an' Newly, Miss Kitty, this here's my cousin Julie Haggen from down Texas way. She's got a bit to say about what went on as well."
Newly tipped his hat to the lady saying, "Miss Julie," then excused himself to Kitty and went in search of the doctor and the marshal.
Kitty drew Festus and the young woman upstairs and got the door closed behind them before Festus began bellowing out questions at the sight of Sam, clearly injured, laying on the big bed. "You'll just have to wait until Frank gets here and tells you about it, Festus, I'm not going to start and then have him start all over." Kitty said. She picked up Maria and handed her over to him. The distraction proved sufficient, although it wasn't long before the baby began fussing for something Festus couldn't possibly provide. Kitty was seated in her rocker, nursing the baby, and Festus was over talking to Sam when Newly returned with Doc and Frank. With a little help from the men, Doc got Sam sitting up in the big chair, introductions were made, and the rest of them settled around the room. No one seemed to know where to start.
"You want for ta go first, Frank, or you want me to?" Festus asked.
"First," Newly said firmly, "We need Estelle here."
Festus shook his head, "There's some a' this jus' ain't fittin' for a child, Newly."
"You're wrong there, Festus," Newly corrected him, "Estelle's been in this from the beginning and she's a right to hear the whole story."
"Newly's right, Festus," Sam agreed catching Kitty's eye and her troubled nod, "Estelle saved my life, and Kitty's too. She's part of this."
"She in her room?" Doc said rising. Kitty nodded and he headed off, returning shortly holding Estelle's hand and seating himself on the settee with Julie on one side of him and Estelle, hand still held warmly in his, on the other.
"You go first, Ace." Frank told him, and he did. It was a tale, and Festus had always been good at telling them, but his voice was harder this time, and the facts came out without elaboration. He told about picking up the gang's trail in Vernon, always many days behind them, losing more time as they went south and he had to double back again and again to find someone who had seen them. He talked about finding the Indian woman they'd left gutshot and dying as she tried to escape them, and about finally beginning, by ones and twos, to catch up with the men as they dispersed across the countryside, but never getting close to Tonneman and the giant called Tiny who protected him. He told them, finally, the details about what had happened in Galveston, letting Julie have her say as well, and ended by saying straight out that Julie was a Haggen now and that was all that anyone in Dodge needed to know about her.
As the flow of words ran down, Festus rose and very gently took the sleeping baby from Kitty, carrying her over to Doc before returning to go down on one knee at Kitty's feet. He laid the heavy saddlebags on the floor and took one of Kitty's hands in his. "Now this part here, Miss Kitty, this is hard, but I gots ta tell ya. When I done sent that tellygram askin' you for money, well, this is what it was for." Slowly he drew Matt's gun and holster out of the saddle bag and laid them in her lap. Then he pulled out the clothing. Kitty, her hands shaking, found the pin holes on the stained shirt where a badge had hung and felt inside the inner vest pocket to remove the small key.
Kitty looked into Festus' eyes, her own heavy with unshed tears. "Where did you find them, Festus? Do you know what happened to him?"
"I got these here things at a pawn shop in Galveston, but I don't rightly know how they got there, Miss Kitty, and that's a fact. It hurts me to say it, 'cause findin' out what happened to Matthew was one a' the reasons I done did this thing, and I cain't tell ya for sure any more now than I could when I left. But I'm gonna tell you what I think, Miss Kitty." Festus stopped for a moment to look at Doc, and then rested his eyes back on Kitty's. "I think ol' Matthew lived through that shootin', an' I think they tooked him, hurt like he was, all the way down there to Galveston, an' then I think they did with him what they was gonna do with those girls they captured, they put him on a boat an' sent him away someplace cain't nobody find him. That's what I think, Miss Kitty, but I cain't say as it's true anymore than someone else can say it ain't."
Sam struggled to his feet, finding Frank's arm supporting him before he made it out of the chair, and walked over to where Kitty sat, laying a hand against her hair. "He could be alive, Kitty. If anyone could survive that, it would be Matt, and if he's alive, he'll make it back. It might take a long time, but you know he wouldn't ever stop tryin'."
"I'm almost afraid to say it, Kitty, but Ace could be right. No way of knowin'," Frank hesitated, his strong arm around Sam's waist helping him to stand, "No way of knowin', darlin', but maybe enough to keep… well, to keep us hopin'. For a while at least."
"Now, Miss Kitty," Festus said, "All this don't make no difference to what we gots to do. Tonneman, and his man Tiny, and that Shiloh what shot Matthew and Estelle and her ma, they's still out there. And I think likely they're headin' fer Dodge and fer you, Miss Kitty."
"They've already been here, Ace," Frank said, settling Sam back in his chair. "Ten days ago. Tiny and Tonneman tried to ambush me in the street while Shiloh used that as a cover to come in and capture Kitty. They had it planned out, but they didn't know I'd have Newly watching my back."
"That how Sam got shot?" Festus asked.
"Yep."
"You kill 'em, Frank?"
Frank walked across to where Estelle sat next to Doc and baby Maria. "I killed Tiny, and Newly and I both shot Tonneman, but Estelle shot Shiloh. Put five bullets in him one after another, just like Newly taught her to do with coyotes," Frank stopped there for a moment, his hands on Estelle's thin shoulders, looking around the room and drawing them all in, "Or wolves."
OoOoO
Kitty wrapped up her evening poker game early, and made her way to the table where the men were drinking and having a quiet talk. Feelings were still too raw for much more than that. The four men rose as she joined them. "I'm goin' to bed, Doc," she told him. "Clem will lock up."
"If you listened to me, you wouldn't even be down here," he told her sternly.
"If I listened to you, Doc, I'd be wrapped in cotton wool and I'd be broke," Kitty replied pinching his cheek. She turned to Festus, "You get Julie settled over at Ma Smalley's, Ace?"
"Yes'm, I got her all set, but, Miss Kitty, you don' need to be a-callin' me that there name no more. I was Matthew's Ace when I was a-doin' the job he gived me. Tha's done now."
Kitty smiled at him. "You did a good job, Festus. You did just what Matt would have wanted you to do." She reached up to kiss his scruffy cheek. "You have Julie come see me tomorrow, will you do that?"
"Yes'm, I will. Good night, Miss Kitty."
"Good night, boys. And thank you all." Kitty said.
After looking in on Estelle, Kitty went to her room and found Sam lying in bed with the sleeping Maria next to him. She went into the washroom to clean up and change into a nightgown that buttoned down the front, then lay down next to the baby, waking her gently and putting her to her breast. Sam watched without comment, his eyes sorrowful, until Maria finished and fell back asleep between them.
"I'll move back into my own room tomorrow, Kitty," he told her trying to keep his voice level.
Kitty was surprised. "I know she cries some, Sam, but I didn't think you'd mind that. I'll keep the cradle right here by the bed so I can get up with her when she wakes."
"It's not that, Kitty." Sam said, "Maria doesn't bother me a bit."
"If you're thinkin' I'll crowd you or hurt you while we're sleepin', Sam, well, I'll try not to, but… "
"Kitty, don't make this harder than it is." Sam requested.
"Sam? Make what harder? Here I was thinkin' maybe tonight we had cause for some celebration…" Kitty's voice petered out as she finally figured out what Sam was saying to her. She drew a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye, "I guess it's not much of a celebration for you, is it, Sam?"
"Kitty, that's not so and you know better than to say it! I can't but be grateful at the idea Matt's alive, but I told you when we agreed to this that I would step out of the way if he came back. I didn't believe it was possible," Sam shook his head, "I know you believed, but I didn't. I didn't let myself. But now, well, now it's time for me to move aside like I said I would."
Kitty reached out to run her hand up and down his arm. "No, Sam, just no," she said, and that was all for a while. Eventually, she gathered up the sleeping baby and put her in her cradle and then, turning the lamp low, returned to the bed and climbed in on Sam's good side. She lay facing him. "Now you listen to me, Sam Noonan. Maybe things changed for you today, but they didn't change for me. I've always thought, hoped, prayed that Matt might still be alive. And I married you thinkin' that. What Festus found down there in Texas, well, it gives me a little more hope, and I'd be lyin' if I didn't say I treasure that. But Sam, nothing's changed between you and me." Kitty put a hand on either side of his face, glaring down his misery. "We cannot spend our lives waiting for something that may never happen. I made up my mind to that, and I thought you had, too. You're my husband and I'm your wife, and until the day Matt walks through that door… well that's how it is."
"It's not that simple, Kitty, and you know it." Sam told her.
"It's never been that simple, Sam, and we did it anyway. Now we see it through." Kitty said. She sat up and got a handkerchief from beside the bed - there were going to tears but she wasn't going to let them distract her - then turned herself to sit against the foot board where she and Sam could see each other plain. "Okay, partner, let's talk about this. You going to leave me?"
"Kitty, that's not what I said." Sam replied.
"I need to get it clear, Sam. I never meant for you to get hurt by this." Kitty gave a sigh, "I suppose that sounds downright foolish after everything that's happened, but I never thought it would come to you bein' shot, and when we started this whole thing, well, it seemed like we were close enough friends we could just make a deal and carry it through. I never counted on getting… used… to you being such a big part of my life, Sam."
"Kitty you need to understand that the only reason I agreed to a marriage – as opposed to just givin' you and the baby my name – was because I was absolutely sure Matt was dead. Yes, I told you I'd give you a divorce if he came back, and I meant it, and I will, but I never thought that would happen. I thought it was just a way to make the whole thing easier for you." Sam stopped again, and when he went on his voice was almost hard, "Kitty, I love you, I have for years, but not the way Matt did… does. If I'd had any notion Matt was alive, I could not have done this. A man doesn't do that to his friend."
"Really, Sam? I think you've acted Matt's friend, and I think he'd thank you for it. When I told you we were too good of friends to make a fuss about sharing a bed, I honestly meant that, and I still do. I didn't think it would be that important to either of us." Kitty lowered her voice but it was still perfectly clear, "And I didn't want my husband feelin' he needed to keep on visiting Mollie on Thursday nights." Sam met her gaze and nodded before she went on. It had never been much of a secret. "What I thought was that if we were going to make a new life, well, that we'd just do it right."
"You've done that, Kitty. I think we both have." Sam said, "I've tried not to make too many demands on you, but you've never turned me down, never let me feel like anything but your husband."
Kitty kept her face calm despite the tears she had to wipe away. "You know I love Matt more than anything, anyone, I've ever known. Sam I'm tryin' to be honest with myself as well as you here, but you know that if he comes back, and I know that's a mighty big "if", you know I'm going to want to leave you and marry him. We agreed on that, both of us. We agreed that if Matt came back we'd sell the Long Branch, split the money, and you'd give me a divorce."
"Yes, we did." Sam said.
"But we also agreed that until that time, we'd be married to each other." Kitty said, "I see now that you thought that would be the rest of our lives, and I thought, hoped, it wouldn't. I'm feeling now like I cheated you, Sam."
"You didn't cheat me, Kitty. I knew you believed Matt might be alive, but you're too fine a woman, too honest a woman, to go half measures on anything, especially a marriage. I understood that. I still do."
"I have a bad feeling this isn't the last time we'll be havin' this conversation, Sam, but how about we just go on with things like they are for a while at least? Until you're well again, and I'm over havin' the baby. Then if you want to leave me, I suppose we'll work that out."
"I don't want to leave you, Kitty." Sam told her. "I may have to but that doesn't have anything to do with wanting to."
"But not tonight."
"No, not tonight. Come to bed, Kitty." Sam said, lifting the quilts and holding out a hand to her, "Maria's going to be awake in another couple of hours. You need to sleep."
OoOoO
Christmas came and passed. Kitty opened the Long Branch for her usual party on Christmas Eve, and celebrated it by Sam coming downstairs for the first time and joining in the festivities.
It was a snowy Tuesday morning in mid-January when Chet Parks came back to the Oasis after a walk over to the mercantile for supplies and dropped an envelope in front of his wife. Mollie was standing behind the bar, and she looked up at Chet. He shrugged. "Elton called me over as I was passing the Post Office. Said this had been waiting for you a couple of days."
The envelope was addressed to her in good ink and a fine copperplate hand. The address in the corner told her it was from Jedidiah Coffin in New Bedford, Massachusetts, but the postmark said New Orleans. Mollie slit the envelope and drew out two pieces of paper. The first, white and crisp, had only a few words saying that the enclosed letter had been given into his care by a ship's boy in Rio de Janeiro to mail for an American friend. The second letter, folded, rubbed, and stained, was written in pencil on a piece of rough paper. Mollie read it in silence and handed it to Chet. When he raised his eyes from the paper he told her simply, "Go the back way. I'll take care of things here." Wrapping a heavy shawl around her head and shoulders and tucking the envelope inside it, Mollie went out the back door of the Oasis and down the alley to the Long Branch.
She found Sam and Kitty drinking coffee at a table in a barroom as deserted as her own. Sam rose as she approached and she let him hold a chair for her. Without a word she handed the letter to Kitty and sat, her hands clutched together in front of her, while Kitty read:
October 20, 1887 Dear Mollie, I am sending this to you instead of to Doc or Kitty because I think they may be watched. I don't want anyone in Dodge to suspect that I am still alive. I imagine there have been some changes, and I don't know if Kitty is even in Dodge, or what name she is using. I count on you to get this letter to her without raising suspicion. I was taken south by wagon to Galveston and put on a ship heading for Brazil. Every time we have made port I've been kept chained below deck. I don't know what will happen when we reach Rio, but I don't think it will be good. The ship's boy, Luiz, is going to try to get an American ship to take this letter back to the States and mail it. This ship, the Lupinho, takes women from Galveston to sell to brothels in Rio. From what Tonneman said to me, I think they will try to capture Kitty for that. All of you need to watch and protect her. Doc, I want to apologize for all the times I've fought you when I've been shot. On that long road south my constant dream was to wake in the safety of your office with you patching me up. Kitty, it comforts me to believe that you've married one of the men who love you and that you and the baby are being cared for. Know that I understand that was the right thing for you to do. Remember that Ruth married Boaz. I think of you always and if there is any way on earth to do it, I will come home. That may not be possible, but I will never stop trying. Frank, Festus, Newly, Sam - you are the best friends a man could have, and I trust you to keep Kitty safe. Don't spread the word that I am alive. It could make it more dangerous for her. I am well and strong again. The work on the ship is no harder than a trail drive, although the food is not as good. I do not know when or if I will be able to write again. Kiss our baby for me, sweetheart. God bless and keep you all. With love, Matt
Eyes wide and face drained of color, Kitty passed the letter silently to Sam. He read it. "So he was shanghaied, just like Festus thought." Kitty nodded. "I don't understand the part about Ruth and Boaz. They friends of yours, Kitty?"
Kitty found herself relaxing just a little. "That's a special message for Frank, Sam. They were always quoting the Bible to each other. It tells us that he thinks I married Frank, and that it was the right thing to do. That first night he came back, Frank said those very same words to me - that Boaz married Ruth - and I had to ask Doc what it meant. Ruth's husband died in a far country, and she took his mother home to her own people. When they got there her husband's kinsman married Ruth, to take care of her, because that was their way, and their children became kings over the whole land." Kitty looked across and met Sam's eyes, "He's sayin' he understands what I did, Sam. He's countin' on me to have found a husband and a father for his child." Suddenly there were tears running down her face, "He's alive, Sam. Oh God, Sam, he's really alive."
OoOoO
Doc came in soon after, and the letter left him scrubbing his hand across his moustache and using the handkerchief he was pretending to clean his glasses with to wipe his eyes. Mollie told them she'd go home by way of Hank's stable and let Festus know he and the others were wanted, quiet-like. Before she left, she shared a hug and a kiss with Kitty, her own eyes wet, and then laid a hand on Sam's cheek, meeting his gaze with a depth of understanding that warmed him.
The other men dropped quietly in the various back doors of the Long Branch. Frank read the letter out loud slowly so that Festus could hear it, but his voice broke several times in the reading. No one commented on his difficulty. Kitty asked what Matt might have meant by "no harder than a trail drive" and Frank told her it was long hours and heavy work but that likely he was saying it was just men working together, not forced labor like a chain gang. "I'm more concerned about that line about the food not bein' as good." Frank said, and Festus frowned agreement, "Trail drive's been some of the worst food I've ever eaten, and sometimes not much of it."
Kitty's eyes clouded over again with tears at that piece of frankness, and Sam wrapped his arms around her shoulders and shifted his head towards the door indicating the men should leave.
OoOoO
Doc, Frank, Festus and Newly found their way back to the Marshal's office. They'd shared Kitty's joy and agreed to keep the news Matt was alive to themselves for the time being, but they knew there was more to say on the subject than they were comfortable saying in front of her. Frank sat down at his desk and started writing out telegrams. "If that ship was on its way back to Galveston the first of November, then it's likely there now. I need to get the Texas Rangers involved. The local police in Galveston are no help. I want that white slave trade stopped, and I want someone questioning everyone on that ship about what happened to Matt."
"You right sure be needin' ta do that, Frank," Festus told him, "I wisht I was down there now my own self ta get things a-goin'."
"Pretty sure we can leave it in McNeill's hands, Festus." Frank said, "You told him the whole story, I just need to fill him in on what's in Matt's letter. And make sure Barney doesn't spill the beans. I'm tryin' to think of how to say this in a way that will let Les know what's happening but not let on to anyone else that Matt's alive." He went on to state what they were all thinking, "Or that he was alive three months or so ago."
"That's really it, isn't it, Frank?" Newly said, "We don't know any more about Matt being alive now than we did when Festus found his things. We're always too far behind on his trail to see what might be happening right now."
Doc nodded his agreement. "I didn't like that part where he said he expected it to be bad when they got him to Rio. If they've been keeping him chained up while the boat's in port, it's clear they're not going to let him go. That ship might not be coming back to the States, might be anywhere by now, or they could have put him on another ship. Or…" Doc stopped, unable to go on.
"Or they might have just killed him." Frank finished for him. "I know, Doc, I know. But we have to make a try to see if the ship does go back to Galveston. If Tonneman really expected to capture Kitty when he was here on December first, and I think he did, then he may have been arranging the times to let him get back to Galveston to meet the ship. He may not have known that his men in Texas had been taken out. Or he may have known and made other plans. There's too damned much we don't know."
"Well, we know Matt expected Kitty to get married, to have a new name, and maybe to leave Dodge." Doc said.
Frank turned his back on the other men and stared out the window at Front Street. After a silence he said, still looking away, "He counted on me to marry her, Doc. That's pretty clear. And I didn't."
"If you had, Frank, would you be ready to give her up if Matt came back?" Doc asked him quietly. He hated to say the words, but he knew it was better to get it out in the open.
Frank shook his head. "No I wouldn't, Doc," was the first thing he said, and then, smashing his fist against the bars on the window, he turned to face them and said very softly, "Yes, I would."
"But you'd never have felt the same about Matt again, would you, son?" Doc asked him.
"Maybe not. I just don't know. I know I'm gladder than I can say that he lived through all that, and that I can try to believe he's still alive. And I'm for sure going to find out what happened to that ship." Frank grabbed up the paper from his desk and headed over to the telegraph office.