"You have really done well for yourself," Caroline said, looking around the Longbranch with admiration. "But I always said that Kitty Russell would succeed in business, and not lose an ounce of her femininity doing it!"
"Why, thank you," the proprietress of the Longbranch replied, smiling with pride. "Your confidence in me always meant a lot. If you are anything, you are a good judge of human nature, Caroline Bodkin! I have yet to see you proven wrong on such things!"
The two friends laughed and sat down to coffee at one of the tables. They had not been there very long before the batwing doors swung open and a very tall man wearing a badge came into the saloon. He glanced around, and without any hesitation, came over to the table where the two ladies were sitting.
"Morning, Kitty."
"Good morning, Matt." The redhead nodded at her friend's direction. "This is Caroline Bodkin, a friend of mine from New Orleans. We have known each other…oh, about ten years?"
"Nearly eleven," Caroline interjected in a confident tone.
"Eleven, then. Caroline, this is Marshal Matt Dillon."
"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ms. Bodkin," was his polite response.
"Sit down, Matt, and have some coffee," Kitty said, pouring another cup.
"I might just do that," the marshal said, pulling out a chair and settling down in it.
Kitty passed him the cup and began to refill her friend's. While waiting for her coffee, Ms. Bodkin addressed the lawman,
"So, how long have the two of you known each other?"
"You're asking when I met Kitty? Right after she moved to Dodge."
"Five years, then?" the lady confirmed, as she accepted the brimming cup that Ms. Russell offered her.
"Yes."
Caroline took one sip, and then, placing the porcelain cup back onto its saucer with a decisive clink, chuckled.
"Well, Kitty, it appears that you have been holding out on me." When Kitty's brow furrowed with confusion, Caroline glanced meaningfully at the marshal and said, "You never mentioned your sweetheart in your letters."
Ms. Russell naturally had fair skin, but became two shades paler at this unexpected, blunt statement.
"What – Caroline…I don't think you understand…Matt and I are just friends, that is all!"
Instead of apologizing, Ms. Bodkin threw back her head and laughed mockingly.
"Is that the story you have been spreading all over town, and deluding yourself into thinking that your fellow residents of Dodge believe it?" She looked at the embarrassed Matt Dillon. "Your eyes softened the minute they saw Kitty, and a smile began to play around the corners of her mouth the moment she beheld you. Platonic friends, indeed! A child would know better. So, when is the wedding?"
Matt choked on his coffee.
"Wedding? No, there…I am afraid you have the wrong idea altogether, Ms. Bodkin-," he began to stammer.
"Caroline, you are making a lot of assumptions," the redhead interjected angrily.
"A few moments ago you were praising my ability to make assumptions and predictions, calling me a good judge of human nature, Kitty. And I'll make another assumption, right now – that all this outcry from you two at the mention of a wedding means that you have absolutely no plans on getting married in the near future," Caroline returned, just as angrily.
Matt Dillon, in the meantime, had recovered some of his equanimity, and hoping to smooth things over before making his escape back to his office, said soothingly,
"Now, Ms. Bodkin, even if your assumptions were correct, the fact is, as marshal, I am in no position to get married."
"That is a weak excuse, considering that I have seen scores of married sheriffs and marshals," Caroline Bodkin retorted. "All had their enemies and little money to their name, but that did not preclude them from having wives and children."
Matt could barely keep his expression neutral at this well-placed reproof. Seeing that she had effectively silenced him, Caroline turned upon the painfully blushing Kitty and said in a tone which brooked no opposition,
"I've told you in the past that you were too softhearted where men were concerned, Kitty Russell, but now I tell you that you are a fool if you allow this to continue any longer. It doesn't take five years for two grown people of good sense to decide that they are meant for each other! At this point, you two are simply wasting time – each other's, and your own." Kitty Russell, for once in her life, was speechless, and stared at the table, avoiding Matt's eyes. There was no one else whom she would allow to speak to her in such a manner, but Caroline was one of her best friends, and in some small recess of her heart, she was glad that her outspoken chum was giving her reticent lover a piece of her mind. "You have never, ever settled before in your life, Kitty – you did not settle, like so many other women, for merely having a job. No, you bought your own business, and now you hire others. So don't be a dunce and settle for this kind of behavior from a man. If this continues, you will wake up one day with a wrinkled face and old, aching joints and realize that you wasted your life on cooking for, nursing, and loving a man who did not love you enough to give you a commitment, a real home, or the children that you dreamed of having. You are one of the prettiest women in Dodge, and you could have almost any bachelor in Kansas if you gave him one or two words of encouragement. Now, I'm sure that you are saying to yourself that it would be hard to throw away five years…but better to throw away five years when you are twenty-four and start afresh with a man who respects you enough to publicly claim you as his wife, rather than waiting around foolishly for a lifetime, hoping that an evading marshal will eventually condescend to marry you." Taking one last sip of her coffee, the unabashed Caroline concluded, "There seem to be quite a few nice farmers milling around at the bar right now, Kitty, and at least three of them have looked over with admiration at you multiple times since they came in. I don't see any wedding rings on their fingers. I am going over there to talk to them, and if you have any sense, you will join me." Sparing Matt one final, biting glance, she parted from him with a frosty, "Good day, Marshal."
The breathless couple was left sitting alone. Kitty felt her heart beating harder and her breath coming in faster than if she had just run the entire length of Front Street. It was humiliating, yes, to be so berated in front of Matt – but the truth was, Caroline had again worked her well-honed instincts and tongue and had managed to say, very succinctly, what Kitty had been vaguely considering in the back of her mind for months.
Five years ago, when she had first met Matt, Kitty had been little more than a schoolgirl of nineteen…a young, infatuated creature who had been over-the-moon thrilled at the idea of being noticed by the tall, handsome marshal. For a little while, their sweet, secret romance had made her feel as happy and important as a heroine of a novel. But with the passing of years and maturity, other feelings had started to develop – those of disappointment and disillusionment. She loved Matt deeply, and knew that he loved her – but he seemed to love the tin badge he wore far more. Racking her memory, she realized that she could not recall a single incident when she had won a battle against it. Time and again, she had been left to go to dances, picnics, and sociables alone because Matt had a trial to attend or a prisoner to transport. And as her circle of acquaintances had grown, she herself had met many married lawmen, and had started to wonder where Matt Dillon had come up with the notion that a marshal could not be married.
The simplest explanation was the most painful. Matt refused to marry her because he preferred it this way – he wanted to retain both her affection, and his freedom. He benefited from the food she cooked, the lively conversation she provided, and the care she gave him whenever he was shot – and in return gave her nothing more substantial than smiles and witty comments.
Considering the bleak picture of her future that her friend had painted, Kitty fingered her coffee cup and wondered if, in twenty years, she would be satisfied with possessing only memories as recompense for all the times that she had flown into the street, her heart in her throat, at seeing Matt lying in the dust with a bullet in him.
Right then and there, she decided that she wouldn't be.
Looking up, she looked at the men that Caroline had pointed out. They were indeed handsome, and she knew them to be hardworking and single. Some of them had already made advances to her, advances which she, in her blind loyalty to Matt, had rebuffed.
Setting her jaw, she pushed away her own coffee cup and made her decision. Caroline was right. If Matt had not made her any serious offer, she was a free woman. It was high time that she started disentangling her heart from his, and leaving him with the real love of his life – that tin badge.
On the other side of the table, Matt Dillon was panicking. At first, he had been indignant at Caroline Bodkin's candor, but he was now far more troubled at Kitty's reaction to her friend's tirade. Rather than laughing and shrugging it off, she seemed to be gravely considering her words. But surely, Kitty would not actually take her advice and send him away…would she?
What stung him the most was the implication that he was being an irresponsible leech. One of the things that Matt Dillon abhorred most was men who were derelict in their duty. He had studiously worked to always be faithful to his office as marshal…but how had he treated the woman he loved? The bitter truth was that he had treated her very badly, sweeping her aside again and again. He had taken and taken, and given very little in return. By golly, as a lover, he was the unreliable loafer that Caroline had made him out to be!
And Kitty deserved much, much more than that.
He saw that Kitty was pushing her chair away from the table, and beginning to stand. Even worse, he noticed with jealousy that she was gazing at some of the other men in her establishment, with a look of interest that he had never seen her give any man, besides himself.
Their love story could simply not end this way.
Before she could take a step away from the table or say a word of farewell to him, Matt Dillon suddenly burst out in a tone commanding and loud enough to be heard in every corner of the room:
"Kitty Russell!"
Slightly startled, she and everyone else in the Longbranch looked at him.
Getting up from his own chair, Matt Dillon strode around the round table, and stopping only a foot from Kitty, took her right hand in his own. Taking a deep breath, he said,
"Kitty, you know, and…perhaps, despite our best efforts, everyone in Dodge also knows…that for a long time I have held you in the highest regard. You are the most beautiful and clever woman that I ever saw. Being around you always puts a smile on my face, and whenever I am injured, the sight of your blue eyes is a better medicine than even old Doc's pills. I know that a man in my line of work will likely not live to old age, but I want you to be entirely mine until death do us part, whenever that might be. Kitty Russell," the tall lawman suddenly sank to one knee, "will you make me the happiest man west of the Mississippi River, by marrying me?"
Kitty clasped her hand over her mouth in shock. For a moment, she wondered if she would wake up from this charming dream. But even as she paused for several seconds, the vision of Matt kneeling in front of her did not melt away, and the murmurs of encouragement from the bystanders encouraging her to give her consent to the proposal grew louder by the instant.
Half-laughing, half-crying, she somehow found her voice and said,
"Yes, Matt Dillon, I will marry you!"
Amid the deafening cheers of her customers, the marshal stood up and swept her into his arms, and for the first time, pressed his lips to hers in the presence of witnesses. She kissed him back, allowing a few tears of happiness to slip out from under her long eyelashes. When then parted and she, overcome with emotion, allowed herself a brief glance around the room before ordering a round of drinks on the house, she saw Caroline Bodkin grinning from ear to ear, very well pleased with herself.
Kitty could not blame her. After all, she was very pleased with Caroline's interference herself!
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