The door opened and Chester and I both stood up fast. It was a woman who came through the door. Francie – Clay’s widow. “Matt! Matt, I’ve got to talk to you!”
I gave Chester a look. He shrugged. It was almost an apology. Then he went back to looking out the window towards the saloons. When the girl was past him he nudged the door shut with his toe.
Francie came towards me. She should have been in mourning. If she cared for Clay at all anymore, she should have been in black.
“Matt!”
I first saw Francie twenty years ago, when we were both younger than the kid here. She’s only gotten more beautiful in the time between.
“Matt, I was just at Fred’s funeral –“
“Fred?” I said. “You mean Fred Grinnell’s funeral?”
“Yes! And the people there were all talking about me!”
“Well, Francie – your husband did gun him down.” I was amazed that she’d gone to the funeral. But women are funny sometimes.
“Have you heard what they’re saying?” she asked me.
“What are they saying, Francie?”
“That you and me, that you made Pete Ziegler kill Clay because –“ Her voice trailed off.
I nodded. “I’m sorry that got back to you.”
“It’s all over Dodge!” She waved a hand towards the door. “I left before the service was over and went back home, and Adam stopped me on the way. He almost stoned me before they dragged him off.”
From the back room, Ziegler called out, “Francie, I didn’t shoot Clay! Francie, I beg you, believe me!”
“Shut up, Ziegler,” I said.
Ziegler didn’t listen. “Francie –“
I turned my head as my temper snapped. “Shut up or I’ll club you to death!” I stared at the Dutchman and he quailed, but it wasn’t him I was seeing. I was remembering the last time I lost my temper. Back in Texas. Reel it in, I told myself. Uncock that gun.
But another voice in my head, the dangerous one, asked, What good is an uncocked gun?
With something like a normal tone I turned back to Francie. “It’s just one of those crazy stories. They needed one and they made one up.”
“But, Matt, everyone believes it! On my way down here, people were pointing, whispering. Old women, clucking their tongues at me. They believed it!”
I wanted to pat her shoulder. Chester was still looking out at the street, but I knew he was paying attention. I kept my hands by my side. “They’ll forget it as soon as this is over,” I said. “They’ll remember that, even if we once did go with each other, it was finished and done with even before the war ended – before you even met Clay.”
Francie shook her head, her blonde curls flopping around like a moppet’s. “No, they won’t forget it! For the rest of my life, as long as I stay here –“
“Look, Francie – go home and give matters a chance to simmer down.”
That was when she settled down and looked me in the eye. “Matt… I’m going to ask you something.”
“Yeah.” I thought I knew what was coming.
“Turn Pete Ziegler out,” she said instead. “Into the street.”
“What?” I must’ve looked as dumbfounded as I sounded. That wasn’t at all what I’d expected. “Francie, they’re itching to get their hands on him.”
“Let them have him,” she said. “It’ll prove that story’s a lie, that you didn’t make a deal with him. Please, Matt! I have to live here! I have to live here! Matt? Matt? Don’t look at me like that.”
I walked past her, and looked at the peeling paint on the doorframe instead. “Go home, Francie.”
“Matt…” She touched my arm with her little fingers.
“Go home, or leave town, or hang yourself, or anything you like, just go away.”
“But Matt…”
I looked her in the eye. “Right now.”
The hand went away. She backed up like she’d never seen me before, like I’d never held that hand under a cottonwood tree up by the Arkansas. She left with that look still on her face.
Coming back to Dodge wasn’t working out so well.
Chester blinked a few times, cleared his throat, then said, “I bought me a bottle at the Allafraganza, Mr. Dillon. Would you care for a drink?”
“No.”
And we sat listening to the funeral bell ring.
