Chapter Nineteen: Washington

Corporal Michael Barker had spent more than two years as a guard at the American consulate in Macau when Matt Dillon arrived in that city. Barker knew he was due for rotation back to the States and, after two years in China, he felt ready to leave the service of his country and return to the open range of his youth. What he didn't expect, when he boarded an American ship in Canton, was to find the patronizing Oliver VanHaes on the same vessel. Barker kept himself to himself and stayed out of the former attaché's way. He heard, as rumors passed among the men, that the gentleman had been sent home by the consul in some disgust. A good family in New York and friends in high places didn't necessarily make a man a diplomat, but no one watching VanHaes would have guessed he even realized that his time in Macau hadn't been a complete success.

Barker and VanHaes arrived in San Francisco the last week in May. VanHaes headed straight for New York by train, but ended up in Washington by midsummer. The Secretary of State declining to have anything more to do with him, his family found him a post in the Attorney General's office where he shuffled papers and attended parties. Since the man had good manners, dressed well, and danced better than he worked, he found himself much in demand in the nation's capital.

Mike Barker, on the other hand, spent a week or two at the Presidio in San Francisco mustering out and then took a Union Pacific train across the country to Kansas City and another south towards Texas. When the tracks ran out, Barker bought a horse, a six gun, a rifle, some supplies and headed west towards Austin. He enjoyed the freedom of the unfenced land, the company of soft-spoken Texan cowboys, and the attentions of a variety of Texan women. And everywhere he stopped he told the story of meeting Matt Dillon in Macau. By the time he reached his family's home in Austin, the story of Marshal Matt Dillon alive and well in, of all places, China, was already there ahead of him. As the herds moved north over the summer months, the story went with them.

OoOoO

Festus, of course, heard it first. One of the trail bosses approached him down at the quarantine line and asked, "Ain't you the fella what was deputy to Marshal Dillon last summer?"

"Still am." Festus said, moving his vest aside to show his badge. His thirteen dollar a month paycheck wasn't always on time, but it hadn't stopped, and no one had asked him to give back his badge.

"So it's true then?" the man went on.

"What's true, mister?"

"About Dillon bein' alive. Bein' somewhere way the hell across the world," the cowboy replied, "Now look here, deputy, you settle it for us. My buddy told me he heard a man in Texas sayin' right out in a saloon that he saw Matt Dillon in China. China! But my sister, she says her sewing lady's husband's cousin was the one what saw him and it was down in South America somewhere. You bein' his deputy, mister, you tell me the truth of it."

Festus looked at him sharply, his eyes squeezed half shut. "Now don' you ask me that, mister, 'cause you don' really want ta know."

"Sure I do!" the man told him, "I got five dollars riding on it bein' China."

"Nah, ya don't." Festus said, pulling his mule a little closer to the man and letting his hand rest on his gun, "'cause if I told ya, I'd haf ta kill ya." With a wink and a nod, Festus turned Ruth and rode away.

The saloons in Dodge rocked with the news, and the drovers couldn't understand why no one seemed willing to confirm the gossip. Sam, Frank, and the others tried to keep it from Kitty, but the task was impossible. The first few times that someone cornered her and tried to get information, she ignored them, her heart in her throat, but eventually she took it as blandly as any other saloon owner, and her stock answer became, "You couldn't prove it by me, mister, but if you see him, send him my way. He still owes me for a bottle of whiskey." Mollie and Chet picked up the line, as did Sam, and soon it was the only answer you'd get in most of the saloons in Dodge. Bull Murray over at the Bull's Head saloon did open a lottery with betting on where Matt had been and when he'd return, but most, though not all, of the cowboys were smart enough to realize their chances of winning were pretty low since they'd only be in town a few days – still, Bull had quite a pot of money displayed behind his bar.

Frank came into the Long Branch late one evening, his face a bit worse for wear but grinning and smelling of whiskey. He slipped an arm around Kitty's waist and kissed her soundly. The saloon was busy and rowdy, and it seemed like old times. Sam watched and smiled, remembering all the years when Frank and Matt would come in from the trail, and Frank would do just that while Matt stood quiet, smiling but not even touching her hand. He'd wondered, at first, if Frank did it just to tease his friend, knowing Matt never showed affection for Kitty in public. He'd come to realize though, over the years that the Hays sheriff had visited frequently, that it was just his way. Matt never objected, and Kitty never put him off, as she was certainly capable of doing. Frank was busy telling Kitty about the fight he'd broken up at the Bull's Head when one of the locals found Bull dipping into the lottery jar and replacing large coins with smaller ones.

"You have any idea how those rumors got started, Frank?" Sam asked, handing the Marshal a beer.

Frank took a long draw on it and then shook his head. "They seem to be comin' up from Texas, Sam. That's as much as I can figure. Guess we'll have to wait for Matt to get back and tell us." The calm certainty with which he spoke gave Kitty a shiver of expectation, but left Sam with a cold lump in his gut.

OoOoO

In Washington that night there was a gala party being held at the British embassy. President Cleveland had been there earlier, and there were still a number of governors, cabinet members, and foreign diplomats in attendance. Oliver VanHaes was also there, and was looking for someone to impress. When a friend introduced him to Kansas Governor John Martin he began, jokingly, to tell him about the scarred sailor in Macau who'd tried to pass himself off as Marshal Matt Dillon. The governor was not amused. "You're telling me, young man, that a United States Marshal came to your consulate for help and you tossed him out in the street?"

"Of course not, Governor," VanHaes said backpedaling as fast as he could. "It was just some sailor off a foreign ship trying to cage a ride home."

"How do you know that, boy?" Martin asked him.

VanHaes didn't like Martin's term of address, even if he was a governor, and answered with some of his usual arrogance, "You would have known too if you'd seen the man, Governor. He was dressed practically in rags, had a heavy beard, and a scar across his face. The man was actually carrying a sack on his back with his gear in it. And he had some scruffy boy with him."

"A United States Marshal came to you and you sent him away because you didn't like the way he was dressed?" Martin shouted, causing conversation to stop and their fellow partygoers to stare. But John Martin wasn't concerned. He grabbed VanHaes' arm and forcefully started pulling him across the room yelling for Bill Endicott. The Secretary of War, a man twenty years older and bit shorter than the governor, stepped in to see what the trouble was.

"This blithering idiot," Martin told Endicott, "Says that he had Matt Dillon in the consulate in Macau back in April and that he threw him out in the street."

"Dillon?" the Secretary said, "He's seen Matt Dillon?"

"No, sir," VanHaes replied, trying not to stammer, "Not at all. Governor Martin misunderstood. It wasn't Dillon at all. Dillon's dead. It was some ragamuffin sailor trying to get a handout from the consulate." VanHaes' assurance was returning, "Might have succeeded too, if he'd gone around the back door instead of knocking at the front."

"Tell me what the man looked like." Endicott ordered.

"Well, he was tall, very tall, and he had brown hair and a brown beard, both touched with grey. He was wearing a sailor's clothes, neither very clean nor very neat, and his feet were bare under a pair of rope sandals like the seamen wear." VanHaes replied throwing his mind back to the big man who'd invaded his study some months before. "And he had a scar, a big badly-healed scar like from a knife or maybe a bullet – went straight across his face. He was a rough customer, I'm telling you. I had to get my guardsman to throw him out. Anyway, everyone knows Matt Dillon is dead. It was in all the papers."

Ignoring that last statement, Endicott asked, his voice now very low. "What side of his face was the scar on, man?"

VanHaes thought for a moment, closing his eyes to remember the tall, ragged man standing across the desk from him, "His right side, Mr. Secretary. It went straight across the right side of his face."

Endicott drew back a fist and smashed it into the younger man's jaw sending him to the floor in a circle of horrified guests. "That should have been my privilege, sir, not yours." Martin told him stiffly.

"Matt Dillon may be from Kansas, Governor, but he's one of my Marshals. Grab one of his arms, Mr. Martin, and help me get him out of here."

OoOoO

The news made its way to Dodge City as a formally worded special delivery letter from the Governor of Kansas to Marshal Frank Reardon. The letter asked him to please share the information with Marshal Dillon's "close friends and family". Frank knew that Governor Martin knew that Matt had no family, but he also realized that the governor was certainly aware of Matt's relationship with the former Kitty Russell. Frank stopped himself at that point and began to wonder just how well informed the Governor of Kansas might after all be. Did he know about Kitty's marriage, about Matt's daughter? Frank shook his head. That was a little too much to imagine, but still, the way it was phrased…

Leaving those details to take care of themselves, Frank headed off to the Long Branch finding there, as he had hoped, Kitty and Doc having coffee while Sam organized things behind the bar. Frank scanned the empty room and then closed and latched the door behind him. "Anyone else here?" he asked.

"Estelle's over at Newly's, and Julie's upstairs with Maria. I think a couple of the girls might be in their rooms." Sam answered coming around the bar. "What's wrong, Frank?"

"Nothing's wrong, Sam, but I've got a letter here from the governor of Kansas, and it's got some news about Matt." Frank said.

Frank handed the letter to Kitty, and Sam and Doc both came to stand and read over her shoulders. When she lowered the letter, Frank sat down next to her and took her hands. "We're still more than three months behind him, Kitty. But it looks like he was healthy and free to move around. We just have to trust he'll manage to get home to us."

Doc took his seat and took the letter to read again before tucking his glasses away in the case in his pocket. "Macau makes some sense, ya know," he said.

"Why's that, Doc?" Sam asked, his hand still resting protectively on Kitty's shoulders. He knew that each bit of news they heard fueled Kitty's hope. Hope was good, but it could lead so easily to despair.

Doc scrubbed a hand across his moustache. "Well, from what those Texas Rangers learned about that ship down in Galveston, they were all Portuguese aboard. And Brazil, that was a Portuguese colony back when it started, and Macau, that's still a Portuguese city. Makes sense that they'd pass Matt from one Portugee ship to another and that the ship would be going to a familiar port."

"China? A Portuguese city in China?" Kitty said, not realizing she was repeating Matt's own words. "How did that happen, Doc?"

"I guess about the same way the French started a city in America and called it New Orleans," he told her.

Frank was thinking hard. "What kind of ships would go there? American ships? Why is that fellow VanHaes already back in Washington and we haven't heard another word from Matt?"

Kitty stilled at that, and Sam stoked her shoulders. "I'd guess," he said, "That our people over in China know the schedules for all the American ships, and that they get the fastest ships, too. If Matt had to get work on some boat, he might not have too much choice about where it was going, and it might not be goin' there fast. He might have to work his way one place and another trying to get back to the States."

"I think that's right, Sam," Doc agreed, "We can be pretty sure he'll find a way back, but it may take him a while." He took one of Kitty's hands from Frank and patted it comfortingly, "What I wonder about is them saying he had a boy with him. Think that's the boy he mentioned in his letter?"

But at that Kitty smiled a genuine smile. "I don't wonder a bit at it, Doc. You take Matt away from everything he knows, put him somewhere he doesn't even know the language, and you just bet he's going to end up protecting somebody smaller and weaker. You wait, I wouldn't be surprised to see him walk through that door with a half-grown boy, a couple of girls rescued from a Brazilian bawdy house, a dog, a parrot, and maybe somebody's old granny to boot."

OoOoO

Doc wasn't surprised when Kitty made her way up the stairs to his office the following morning. He poured her a cup of coffee and seated her in the big chair by the window, taking the smaller chair across from her. "You got something special to talk about, or are you just here to brighten my morning?" Doc asked.

Kitty smiled at him. It did him good to see the smile. There had been whole months last year when he hadn't seen a single one. "I think you know what I want to talk about, Doc."

"I can guess." Doc said, sipping his own coffee. "You and Sam talked about it?"

"Last night. Again. We never seem to come to any agreement, Doc. I want to leave things as they are until we know… really know… something. Sam's got a guilty conscience, but it comes and goes. I don't know what to do, Doc." Kitty answered.

"What exactly is he feeling guilty about, Kitty?" Doc said evenly. Kitty just looked at him.

Doc ran a hand over his lower face. "I wondered. Didn't seem my place to say anything." His next question wasn't what Kitty expected. "You still nursing Maria, Kitty?"

"Yes. Morning and night mostly. She's been drinking out of a cup for almost a month now." Kitty replied proudly. "It makes it a mite easier with me working and Julie or Estelle watching her upstairs. They don't have to interrupt me down in the bar, and I don't like either of them down there. Why do you ask?"

"You know you're less likely to get pregnant while you're nursing the baby full time, don't you?" Doc said.

Kitty shook her head. In all the discussions she'd had with Doc over the years about ways to keep from getting pregnant, this had never come up. "You never told me that, Doc."

He scrubbed at his moustache again. "Well, it never seemed relevant to our discussions, Kitty. I suppose I should have said something to you before." Doc pulled his ear and then faced her squarely, "What exactly is bothering you, Kitty? Spit it out."

After all the talks she'd had with Doc over the years, she hadn't thought it would be this hard. "Sometimes Sam and I disagree on whether or not we should continue… being intimate."

"Who's on which side?" Doc asked, thinking, as if I didn't know.

"Even though he's my husband, Sam thinks he's somehow cheating Matt by being with me. I think as long as we're married, well, we're married. But I leave that up to him." Kitty replied.

"You didn't work this out before you tied the knot?" Doc asked.

"We did. And things went pretty well until Festus came back with Matt's things. Sam never believed it was possible that Matt was alive until then. It changed how he felt."

"How he felt about you, honey?" Doc asked gently.

"No. But about living with me as man and wife. We've discussed it, but we never settle anything either way. Then, well, things go on as normal for a while, and then he'll get to feeling bad, and we'll talk the whole thing in a circle again. I could deal with it either way, Doc, but having to go over it again and again…" Kitty sighed. "Doc, back last year it really seemed easier just to agree that we'd make it a real marriage. Sam was willing to give Maria and me his name and leave it at that, but I thought… " she hesitated and then came out with it, "I've always cared for Sam, and sharing a bed just plain didn't seem that important. He was doing a lot for me, Doc, and I wanted to be able to give him at least something." Her voice went lower, "Doc, I knew if we didn't start being husband and wife at the beginning that someday the day would come when we needed to change what we were doing, and when that happened I'd have to admit to myself that Matt was really dead. If I didn't have to own up to that change, then I could keep believing."

Doc reached over to pat her hand. "How do you think Matt's going to feel about you marrying Sam?"

Kitty shrugged. "I can't see Matt taking offense. The way things got left I pretty much had to marry someone, and I still think Sam was the best choice. I know, from his letter, that he thought it would be Frank, but Doc, that wouldn't have worked, you know that. I think Frank knows that, too."

"I can see that now, Kitty." Doc said, "I admit that at the beginning I thought it should have been Frank, but you were smarter than that. You and Frank spark on each other like flint and steel – it wouldn't have been peaceful for either of you. Sam going to give you a divorce?"

"Yes. We both agree on that. It's what we do while we're waiting that bothers him from time to time."

"Let me ask you this, Kitty, what do you think Matt's expecting to happen when… if… he gets home? Pretty clear he thinks you married Frank. You think he'd expect Frank to step out of the way for him?" Doc asked.

"No, I don't. And I think that must be eating at him inside, no matter where he is or what he's doin'. If he's alive, I think he'll be back come hell or high water, but what happens then… Doc you know Matt wouldn't ask me, wouldn't even expect me, to get a divorce. I'd say he's just expecting to, well, be around, to see me, to have some part in his daughter's life. Doc, I couldn't live like that!"

Doc moved to sit on the arm of her chair and pulled her head against him. "This has been a hell of a year for you, Kitty," he said stroking her hair, "And you've pulled it off with such a straight face that we forget, sometimes, what you're going through." They sat in silence, and Kitty relaxed against him. It meant so much to be able, just for a little while, to stop pretending that everything was fine.

After a bit, Doc moved her away from him and took her hand, "You listen to me here, Kitty. You're looking for an answer that's going to make things easier on Sam. I don't think there is one. The two of you have been married about a year now. You've shared a pregnancy, and a child, and living comfortably – and intimately – with each other. There's no way for that to end without some pain on both sides. I think you just need to accept that – for yourself and for Sam. You can't make it better for him, Kitty, you have to trust his judgment to do what he thinks is right. If that changes from day to day, well, just keep going. I do know one thing you can try to do though."

"What's that, Doc?" Kitty asked.

"You can try not to let the pain turn to anger. In the long run anger will hurt you both a lot more than sadness. Why don't you talk to Sam about that? Work together on it."

Kitty was silent for a while after that, and Doc just sat stroking her hand. Eventually her chin came up in a gesture he knew well. "You're right, Doc," she said. "You usually are. I've been getting angry because I can't just fix things. I want there to be an answer that makes everything better, and that just isn't going to happen, is it?"

"No, Kitty, I don't think it is." Doc said.