Chapter Nine: Old Troubles Told
Kitty snapped out of her doze as the big mare began climbing up a rougher track away from the road. It only took them a few minutes ride and a turn in behind a low hill to reach the cabin. It was a small place, with a barn that wasn't much more than a closed shed with a hayloft, but it looked neat and well cared for. There was a pump in the dooryard, and a porch along the front with two wide benches.
"Who lives here?" Kitty asked as Frank pulled up the mare and dismounted.
He reached up and lifted her off from behind the saddle. Kitty's legs almost collapsed under her and Frank kept his hands at her waist, holding her up, until she could steady herself. "No one now, but up until a couple weeks ago Ham and Sarey Mueller lived here. Bank sent Matt out here to serve eviction papers, and well, after a little talk they just packed up and lighted out for California. You go on in Kitty. I need to take care of the horses."
Her legs still a little unsteady, Kitty took the step up to the porch and then through the unlocked front door. There was a comfortably sized front room with a big fireplace, some cupboards, a table, and four chairs. She walked through and opened the only other door. It led to a smallish bedroom furnished only with a double bed and a rough washstand. Two feather ticks lay rolled on the leather lattice of the bedframe, with a couple of quilts and pillows stacked beside them. There was a metal basin on the washstand. It was all bare but relatively clean. Frank came up behind her as she was still looking around.
"There's a privy round the side of the house, but I didn't think to bring a pot. Sorry. I came up last night with a wagon and brought the bedding and some food and things, but I just slept in the barn. You think you'll be okay here?" Frank asked.
"I think we'll be just fine, Frank. I'm still amazed that you and Matt got this all worked out in such a short time," she replied, moving back into the main room. "You want to start a fire for me, and let me see what there is to cook?"
She found out that what there was to cook was mainly an antelope that Frank had shot on the way in the day before and hung in the barn. He butchered a haunch and brought it in for her while she pumped water into a bucket and used it to fill the kettle hanging over the fireplace. A wooden box on the table contained enough fixings to keep them easily for a week. Two bottles of decent whiskey were the first thing she found, and Kitty sorted deeper to find coffee, sidemeat, potatoes, flour, and a few other necessaries along with tin cups, plates, and forks.
"Matt said the Muellers packed up most of their things, but left the furniture, so I just brought what I thought you'd need." Frank said.
"You going to stay here with us, Frank?" Kitty asked, starting to put together a stew.
Frank shook his head. "I need to start back by noon tomorrow, Kitty," he said, "But I figure Matt will be here in time for breakfast."
Kitty disagreed. "I'm expecting him before midnight."
"Well, I suppose we'll see, but the way I figure it, Jim Buck or that young guard - Jones was it? - one of them'll take a horse in to La Crosse and send a telegram to Dodge. Matt can't do anything until he gets the telegram, and then he'll have to argue some to keep a posse from forming, and I'd be surprised if he gets out before four or five."
Kitty smiled. "He didn't tell me much, but he did say this place is only about six hours from Dodge. It'll take him an extra hour because he'll have to start out up the coach road, but I don't think he'll stay on it long. I wouldn't be surprised to see him by ten."
"You think he'll ride on after dark, Kitty?" Frank asked doubtfully. Kitty just hummed a little and started peeling potatoes.
She and Frank ate about eight when the stew was ready and the biscuits were hot. She swung the kettle as far over away from the fire as possible, hoping the keep the stew warm but not let it burn. She knew Matt would be hungry.
Frank ate with appetite, and wiped his plate with a second biscuit. "Doesn't seem fair, honey," he said, "You're beautiful, you can fuck, and you can cook too. You have any more hidden talents?"
"I can sew when I have to, but I don't like it much. I'm pretty good at doing the books on a business, and making deals with drummers. I can swim, and I can ride sidesaddle, and what makes you think I can fuck?" she answered him, stacking their plates and preparing to wash them in the bucket.
Frank shrugged. "Thought you ran a whorehouse, Kitty."
"Pretty sure you didn't hear that from Matt, or from Chester." she commented, waiting.
"Nope, that part was from Spike Marlow. Didn't much like that man, but he did go on, and on, about the Long Branch being a whore house run by a redhead who kept turning him down like he couldn't afford to pay." Frank looked at her speculatively, "You not a whore, Kitty?"
"No." she said, and then went on firmly, "I was. Not anymore. You have a problem with that?"
"Nope, I like whores – the right kind, of course. How long you do that, Kitty?"
"About seven years."
He whistled. "You must have started mighty young."
"My father left me at the Golden Lily in New Orleans the day after my fourteenth birthday. I worked there nearly four years," she looked up at him questioningly, "What do you mean, the right kind?"
"Women who like men. Like to have a good time – laugh and drink. Like the money they earn. You that kind?" he enquired, watching her.
Kitty gave it some thought, and then shook her head. "I like men, well, I like the right men, and these days that's just one man. And I sure liked the money, but I didn't like not having a choice. Some of the places and some of the men here on the plains were mighty rough. Some men weren't bad. Some tried to give me a good time," she sighed, "But you never really knew which was going to be which."
"Don't know as I ever looked at it like that," Frank said, "Women mostly like me, and I like them, so we just enjoy what we do. But I suppose, for a woman, it's kind of like a turn on the roulette wheel – black or red and only now and then you get a double zero."
"New Orleans was better, some ways." She said after they were silent for a while, watching the fire. "I was expensive, and they mostly treated me right, and the men who could afford me, well, they respected what I could give them."
"Bet you were more expensive than I could afford." Frank commented with a grin. "Why'd you leave?"
"The Lily charged as much as fifty dollars a night for me, Frank, if a man wanted something special, and I never saw a penny of it. I suppose, in the long run, that's why I left."
She watched him get up and stir the fire. He sat back on the floor, one leg stretched out in front of him, and the other pulled up against his chest with his arm curled around it. The pose was so reminiscent of Matt that it almost hurt. "That's bad, Kitty. How'd you get out?"
She shrugged, "A man. He helped me run. I thought he loved me. But he didn't. He left me in Galveston."
"You ever see him again?"
"Yes." Frank sat quiet, waiting for her to speak. Finally she did. "Matt shot him. In Dodge. Robbing a bank."
"Matt know?"
"Not until after. I told him. And Doc."
"When did you stop whoring, Kitty?"
"'Bout two years ago, when Matt helped me buy into the Long Branch."
"Matt?" Frank's surprise was evident, "Where'd he get money?"
"He took bounties all one winter, whenever he could."
Frank stood up. Walked back and forth across the small room. "Kitty, most lawmen take bounties when they can. Only way to earn a decent living at this trade. But Matt… he and I had this out a lot of times over the years. He wouldn't take money for killing. Wouldn't do it."
Kitty's voice was very soft. "He did for me, Frank."
Frank stood for a while leaning an arm against the mantle beam. When he looked at her again, he asked, "You two make a deal about it?"
This time Kitty laughed, really laughed, and Frank had to smile just hearing her. "Not the one you're thinkin', Frank. I don't think Matt ever even considered the idea he was buying me. It's… it's not like that for us, Frank."
They didn't talk for a while. Frank poured them more coffee. Kitty stood up and got the bottle from the shelf and tipped a good slug of whiskey into each cup. She sat down again, holding the warm cup between her hands, sipping slowly. "Go on, Frank. Ask the rest."
"You run a string of girls, Kitty? There at the Long Branch?"
"Best girls in town, Frank. Clean, pretty. They smile and flirt and dance and serve drinks, and sometimes, if a fella asks nice and they like his looks, they go upstairs. But not all of them do that. I've always got one or two that sleep alone – mostly saving to marry some cowboy or other. It's always their choice, Frank. I'd quit the business before I'd force them take trade, or let my partner do that." She was back to sighing again. "Bill's not the best partner in the world, Frank. He's mostly honest, but he's mostly weak. We fight sometimes about him not getting rough enough with the cowboys or doing enough to protect the girls. I'll buy him out someday, I suppose."
Frank's voice was genuinely curious now, "If you didn't like it for yourself, Kitty, then why'd you stay in the business?"
Kitty took her time. "That's a good question, Frank. Doc asks me, now and then, why I don't sell out and do something else. But, well, it's what I know. I'm good at it. A lot better than most. Bill and I make twice as much with me running things as he did on his own." She stopped. He didn't comment. "I like the Long Branch, Frank. I like talking and laughing with the men. I like the kinds of conversation we can have in a saloon – it's a lot more fun than a Ladies Aid meeting, and that's for sure." Her pause was longer this time. "And partly I guess I want to run the kind of place where I would have liked to work. Where I do like to work. I treat my girls well, and I pay them well, and I protect them as best I'm able."
He looked over and saw the tears streaming silently down her face, and went to kneel by her chair. "And that's why Marlow killing that young girl bothered you so much? You felt like you should have protected her, and you didn't?" Kitty nodded, but she couldn't speak. "You take time to cry over that yet, Kitty?" he asked. She shook her head, surprised even at the question. "Well, you just take some time now, honey." Frank set her coffee on the table, and put both arms around her, holding her head against his shoulder. And she did cry. Not just tears, but big sobs – for Ellie, and for Johnny, and for being scared, and for not knowing what to do next.
Kitty didn't cry long, and when she raised her head, Frank was quick to let her go. She went to the basin in the bedroom and washed her face. It wouldn't do for Matt to find her with tear stains on her face. "Thank you for that," she said, her eyes still turned away from him. "In my business, that's not something I make a habit of letting myself do."
"Women need to cry some, Kitty. Helps them get through things. Men, we fuck, or fight, or shoot, or sometimes nothing will serve but killing. Women mostly don't do that. You don't cry on Matt?"
"Not if I can help it. It hurts him too much."
"He always was an ignorant son of a bitch." Frank said savagely. "You listen to me, Kitty, and find someone who lets you cry sometimes. A woman friend maybe. Maybe Doc. You just take that advice from me."
Kitty looked over where he sat across the table from her in the firelight. "Why are we talking about all this, Frank? I just met you today, and I'm telling you things I've never even told Matt."
"I want to hear it from you, Kitty, need to hear it from you. There's going to be a trial, and I'm guessing I'm going to hear a deal of other stories. I want to know the truth."
"What makes you think I'm telling you the truth?" Kitty wanted to know.
"Are you?"
"Yes."
"Well then."
In the end, Kitty was right. The two of them talked some more, and drank a little more, and Frank told her stories about he and Matt cowboying and working the law in Texas, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. About eleven, they heard hoofbeats, and Frank doused the light and pulled his gun before opening the door.
"That you, Matt?" he called out.
"It's me, Frank," came Matt's familiar voice, "Kitty?"
"I'm here, Matt." She was lighting the lamp again as he came in the door. Her eyes devoured the tall figure, meeting his eyes and smiling into them, but she walked towards the fire. "Have a seat, Matt, and let me get you something to eat."
Matt shrugged off his coat and hung it, with his hat, on a hook by the door. She noticed he kept on his gunbelt. "Getting chilly out there." He commented, taking a seat. "Everything go the way we planned, Frank?"
"Seems so." Frank replied, "You can ask Kitty for the details. Pretty damn sure we weren't followed up here, and I'd just like to see someone track us from where I picked up Kitty."
Kitty put a plate of stew and biscuits in front of Matt, and went to pour him coffee. When she came back with it, Matt touched her hand for just a moment as she set the cup in front of him. He looked up at her, "You okay, Kitty?"
"Parts of me are a little sore, but I'll get over that," she said, looking into his eyes, "I'm fine, Matt."
Frank wasn't sure what to think. Seeing them together for the first time wasn't what he had expected. He'd thought at first that she would run to him, but she hadn't. The only time he'd touched her had been that brief moment when she handed him his coffee. Their conversation had been cordial but eminently practical. But the look that passed between them now…
"For love is as strong as death, and it burns like a blazing fire." Frank recited quietly.
Matt looked across at him, "You spent the whole day lookin' at Kitty and that's the best you can give us from the Song, Frank?"
"Her hair is like a crimson tapestry, and the young king is held captive by its tresses." Frank answered back.
Matt nodded, "That's better." He took a drink of his coffee, "This is good, Kitty. Frank been telling you your breasts are like two fawns and your neck like an ivory tower?"
Kitty shook her head, "We talked about a number of things, Matt, but I don't believe he mentioned my breasts, and the antelope that went into that stew is as close as we got to a fawn." She looked from one to the other, "You gentlemen care to tell me what's going on here?"
Matt laughed and reached out at last to put an arm around her waist and pull her in to him. "Frank has a number of bad habits, Kitty, and one of them is reading the Bible."
Frank headed towards the door. "I'll put up your horse, Matt, and then I'm going to sleep. We can talk at breakfast."
"I'll need my saddle bags, Frank." Matt told him, "Or at least Kitty will be a sight more comfortable if she has what's in them."
Frank brought in the saddlebags and laid them on the table, took his hat from the rack, and closed the door behind him.
"Now what did you do to make Frank shy?" Matt asked Kitty, finishing his meal and pulling her onto his lap.
Kitty snorted. "I like your Frank, Matt. I like him a lot. But I don't think I'd call him shy." She yawned once and laid her head against him, "Could we go to bed now, please?"
Matt carried the lamp into the little back room and they spread the two feather beds on top of each other and covered them with a quilt. Kitty stripped off her traveling dress and hung it on a hook and then began taking off her under things. Matt hung the saddlebag over the foot of the bed but Kitty ignored it, lying down naked on top of the quilt. He carefully placed his gunbelt on the bedpost where he could reach it, took off his clothes, and blew out the lamp stretching out next to her. Kitty moved to lie alongside of him and put a very sleepy head on his shoulder. "Matt?"
"Hmmm?"
"You mind if we just go to sleep?" she asked.
"I can hold you?" he asked in return, and she snuggled against him in answer.
"Nothing that won't wait until tomorrow, Kitty," his deep voice told her. He kissed her lightly, and pulled the second quilt over them. "Go to sleep, sweetheart," Matt said, but she already was.