Chapter Four: Trouble for Kitty
Doc stared at the neat pile of goods, and then looked back at where Kitty had seated herself on the lounge, her hands clasped tight in her lap. "You recognize those things, Kitty?" he asked.
She nodded. "I can't say for sure, but the boots and the Stetson are the kind that Marlow wore. I've never seen the saddlebags."
Doc went and poured a glass of whiskey and handed it to her. "You drink that up, Kitty." He went into the corner, lifted the saddle bags and took them over to the bed. Carefully, piece by piece, he emptied both bags and laid the items out on the bed. Some neatly folded shirts and underclothes, shaving things, a leather wallet with a few papers, matches, some jerky, a small bag of coffee, a large buck knife, a gunbelt folded neatly around a Colt revolver, and two hundred and forty dollars in five dollar gold pieces. Doc finished counting the coins and opened the wallet. There were a few small bills and a folded paper that he read and then walked over to hand to Kitty. Army discharge papers dated three months ago for Lieutenant Samuel Pike Marlow.
"Looks like he came by the name honestly," Doc said, "But I wouldn't bet on the money."
"The girls said he lived up to the nickname – mighty proud of it, liked to show off." Kitty said flatly. "I did wonder about all the gold pieces. Gold's heavy, most men don't carry more than a few gold coins. Marlow used them for everything."
Doc sat down next to her. "You know what this means, don't you, Kitty?"
"Yeah, I know, Doc."
"Well say it out loud, Kitty. Don't let it fester."
A shiver went up Kitty's spine, but she sat up straighter, and said with more of her usual spirit. "It means he was coming for me after he got done with Ellie, and then he was going to pick up his things and head out."
"I think that's exactly what it means, Kitty." Doc replied, "But don't you lock your door at night?"
"I most certainly do, and no one else has a key, not even Bill." Kitty stated baldly. Doc was still looking at her with a question in his eyes. "No one has a key to my room, Doc." She accepted his nod, and went on, "But I don't always lock it in the daytime when I'm in and out. I do always lock myself in at night, but sometimes, during the day, or the evening…" she shrugged, "I don't remember about yesterday. It's possible he could have come in during the afternoon, or," here she sighed, "Yeah it's more likely I didn't lock it during the evening and he came in after he was done with Gabby. I can ask her if he had his boots and hat when he came up with her."
"All right, Kitty, let's go through this," Doc said, "He put these things here so they'd be handy when he was done. He didn't want the boots because he needed to move quietly while he was waiting for the saloon to close down. He didn't want to leave the saddlebag with the gold in his room at the Dodge House, and he didn't want to carry it with him. He'd been up here, what, three times, once with Stella, once with Mariah, and once with Gabby?"
Kitty nodded. "I can talk to the girls, but likely by the time he finished with Gabrielle he knew the layout pretty well. Gabby should have walked him back down, but it was quitting time and she didn't want to get dressed again to walk him out. He wasn't casual about it, Doc, like a lot of the cowboys are. He took his time and he wanted the girls in bed and he wanted them undressed."
"You tell Matt any of that, Kitty?" Doc asked.
She shook her head. "I never thought to do that. Mostly I was just checking that he wasn't being abusive with them. They all three said he wasn't a problem. But Ellen wasn't like that, Doc." Doc watched tears gather in Kitty's eyes, but she blinked them away. "I'm not saying she was an innocent, and the boys liked her downstairs. She smiled and she flirted and she was mighty pretty, but she did not take customers. Ever. Not once since she came here, and that's been about a year. She even turned Bill down, and that made him pretty mad for a while."
Kitty stood up and paced back and forth across the room, "You think he intended on going to Ellen Sue first, and then coming to me, Doc? Or you think he was going to skip her, or maybe leave her for last?"
Doc shrugged. "Does it make a difference? With the pattern he set, I certainly don't think he was going to skip over her. He wanted all the girls, one after another."
"Well, Ellen Sue told him, and I told him, and even Matt told him that Ellie just served drinks, she didn't take customers." Kitty said, "But that likely wouldn't have made any difference. He kept asking her and she kept saying no. So I guess he just figured out a different way to get what he wanted." Kitty stopped still in the middle of the floor, her arms wrapped around herself.
"Kitty?" Doc probed, watching her.
"Doc, he asked me too. Asked me three different times. You know the gents are always asking, and I just say no and mostly have a laugh with them, or put them on to one of the other girls, but sometimes a customer gets really serious, and I have to get kind of forceful or even get Sam or Clem or Bill to stand up to them."
"Or Matt." Doc added.
"Or Matt," she agreed, "But he'll mostly stand there and let me take care of myself until it's clear that's not going to work. He rarely steps in unless someone actually tries to hurt me." She was quiet a minute, then shook her head, "No, I think he planned on Ellie first, and then coming round to me last so he could pick up his things and leave." She looked Doc straight in the eye, "I don't think it ever occurred to him that either of us would really object when he got down to it. That man couldn't imagine a woman resisting him. Oh, God, Doc, why couldn't he have come here first? Why did he have to go after Ellie?"
"You think you could have handled him, Kitty? Stopped him?" Doc inquried.
"Well, Doc, he might have forced me, or more likely I would have gone along with him at least long enough to get to my gun – which might have been the same in the long run – but he sure wouldn't have left this room without a bullet in him, and Ellie would have been alive, and I would have been alive, and that would have been a lot better end to the story. But Ellie, she couldn't deal with it. She just started screaming and that didn't stop him at all." Kitty took a breath, "You examined her, Doc?"
He nodded.
"Marlow had her?"
Doc nodded again.
"You going to tell Johnny Lyon that, Doc?" Kitty asked.
"Not unless I absolutely have to, Kitty, but, well, I suppose he has a right to know," he answered.
Kitty regarded him with disgust. "I will never understand men," she declared. "Now what are we going to do with all this?" She waved her hand towards the bed.
"I'm going to pack it up and put it in Matt's safe down at the jailhouse." Doc told her, "And then I'm going to send a wire to Matt in Larnad and tell him what we found."
"You have the combination to Matt's safe?" Kitty was a little surprised.
"Yes, I do. He knew someone might need to get in there one day when he wasn't here." Or when he didn't come back, Doc told himself. "There's a slip of paper tucked away all legal at the bank, as well, but I'm sure not going to disturb Botkin's Sunday afternoon dinner to get it, and I want all of this put away where no one can get hold of it."
Doc had just packed up the saddlebags when Bill Pence came knocking on Kitty's door. "You in there, Kitty? I've got another telegram from the Marshal, and no one can find either you or Doc Adams."
Doc bent to tuck the saddlebags out of sight under the far side of the bed and was just walking around the bed towards Kitty when she unlocked and opened the door. Pence's eyes went first to Kitty's robe, then to Doc, and then to the wrinkled bed cover where Doc had laid out the contents of the saddlebag. He handed the telegram to Doc. "You should tell me when you're entertaining; Kitty," he said slyly, "And I'd make a point not to interrupt." He backed out the door and closed it behind him.
"That slimy, mealy-mouthed, little panderer." Doc declaimed, taking a step toward the door.
"Don't bother with him, Doc, open the telegram," she said urgently.
Still snarling, Doc did so. "Matt's in Larnad, and he has Marlow in the jail there. He's going to take him on into Hays tomorrow after he gets some sleep. Says he won't be back here until Thursday."
"You still going to send Matt that telegram, Doc?" Kitty asked.
"You bet I am, Kitty. Going to go scare up Barney right now and get him to open up the telegraph so I can do that." Doc harrumphed. "And I'm going to have a word with that partner of yours on the way down."
"I wouldn't bother, Doc," Kitty said with scorn, "He wouldn't believe you, and it would just give him a chance to talk about it in public. I'll tell him I was letting you take my medical bills out in trade."
Doc looked at her incredulously for a moment, and then wiped his hand over his mouth to hide a grin, "You just think twice about that, young lady. You malign my professional reputation and I'll take you over my knee, and don't you think I won't."
He pulled the saddlebags from under the bed and slung them over his shoulder. "I'm going out the back way, Kitty. Don't let that little pipsqueak bother you now, you understand? I'll let you know when I hear back from Matt." He stopped just inside the door, and regarded her seriously, "You going to be okay, Kitty? I can see that this… well, that this has shook you some."
"I'll be fine, Doc. There's enough to worry about without you worrying about me."
Doc didn't agree, but he didn't see anything else to do, so he nodded and left the room. The boots and Stetson stood quiet accusation in the corner as Kitty salvaged her green dress from behind the screen. It was too wrinkled to wear tonight. She hung it up in the wardrobe, chose another dress, and quickly slipped it on. Ten minutes to work on her paint and put up her hair and she was ready for the evening. She closed and locked both her windows then did the same for her door, slipping the key into her pocket as she walked down the hallway to descend the stairs to the saloon.
OoOoO
There was a lot of talk about the killing, but little talk of murder, and it slowly sank into Kitty's head that the most that her testimony was going to do for Spike Marlow was get him five years for manslaughter. It wasn't enough. Not near enough.
Johnny Lyon, when he came in just after dark, thought the same thing – but he laid the blame squarely at Kitty's feet. Never a regular at the Long Branch until he started coming there to see Ellen Sue, Johnny Lyon was a farmer's son turned cowboy. He'd been raised with church on Sunday, women who prided themselves on good cooking and obedience to their husbands and fathers, and whose idea of a rowdy evening was a glass of beer and hand or two of poker with his friends. If a pretty girl brought him the beer, it made the evening shine out as one to look back on during the week. Still, Kitty had always felt sure that Johnny's feelings for Ellie were both deep and real, and that their careful plans and savings would indeed come to fruition in the spring.
It always pleased her to see one of her girls marry away from the saloon. She knew there were problems with that, and that even the most enamored storekeep, cowboy, or rancher would likely begin to have questions about his woman's past. Still, there were enough success stories that Kitty made it a point never to discourage the girls who wanted to try.
Kitty took Johnny up to Ellie's room and did her best to tell him the truth about her death. He looked at the carpetbag of clothes and asked her to find some of Ellen Sue's friends who might want them. The box of family possessions he wanted, and asked Kitty to keep for him until he could come in with a wagon to get it. The details of her death left him grim – unimpressed with Kitty's marksmanship, or the marshal's capture. "You should never have let her work here, Miss Kitty." Johnny told her, "She was a good girl. No man would have treated her that way if she hadn't been at the Long Branch. She deserved better, Miss Kitty."
Kitty scrunched her anger down tight inside her. "She did deserve better, Johnny, but we don't always get what we deserve. Ellen Sue was good at what she did. Her smile made people happy. I'm sorry it came to this Johnny." That's what she said. What she didn't say was, "Who else was going to take her in when her family died?" and "You could have married her right off." and "You didn't seem unhappy about the money she was earning."
Kitty handed Johnny the envelope with Ellen Sue's savings, plus her wages. "You're as near as it comes to kin for Ellie, so I think this is yours," she said. "I'd like to ask you to make me one promise, Johnny."
He looked at her hard. "I will if I can, Miss Kitty, but you'll have to tell me what it is."
"I want you to go through the letters in that box and see if there's any family living who you could notify. Anyone who might want to keep that family Bible. It's a sad thing to die alone, Johnny. Ellie surely did deserve more than that."
"I can promise that, Miss Kitty. Whatever else, I can promise you that." With those words he turned and left the room.
Kitty returned to the barroom to smile and serve whiskey to the local Sunday night crowd. She ignored Bill's smirk when Doc came in with a telegram from Matt to share with her.
WONDERED ABOUT BOOTS STOP GOLD COULD BE ROBBERY LINK STOP KEEP KITTY SAFE STOP DILLON
"I'll sure be glad to see Matt back on Thursday, Doc," Kitty said. "You really think he's worried about my being safe? He's got Marlow under arrest."
"Well, Kitty, I don't want to scare you any more than you are already, but if Marlow got that gold as part of a robbery, then he likely had partners, and they might not be happy to see him hung for murder – especially if he knows where the gold is and they don't." Doc said, "I want you to be careful, Kitty. Keep your doors locked and I'll have a talk with Sam and Clem about being sure the premises are cleared out each night when they close."
"Yeah, Doc, you do that," Kitty agreed with a withering look at where Bill Pence stood behind the bar, "If Bill had managed to do that last night, Ellen Sue might still be alive." And if I'd been just a little faster blowing that door, Kitty thought, Ellie might indeed be alive. But aloud she just said, "Don't worry about me, Doc. I'll supervise closing myself for a while until we get into some better habits. And I'll lock my room up tight when I'm there and when I'm not."
OoOoO
Monday morning someone took a pot shot at Kitty while she was walking across to Delmonico's for breakfast. They missed her head but shot the feathers off her newest hat. And as if that weren't enough, a horse and wagon standing hitched outside the mercantile broke away and nearly ran her down as she crossed to Mr. Jonas' store in the afternoon. Dirty, bedraggled, and with a favorite dress torn beyond repair, Kitty began to wonder just what exactly might be going on. Thursday seemed a long way off.