CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Kitty came into my office a few minutes later, after the
crowd had gone.
“Matt?” she said.
“Yeah, Kitty.” I had a bottle open, and I was gingerly
sipping at my glass. The whiskey wasn’t doing my lip any good, but it warmed my
middle. There are worse trade-offs in life.
“You oughtta have the Doc take a look at you,” she said.
“In a few minutes,” I said. “I’ll go up and talk to him in a
few minutes.”
“And see Chester,” she said.
“Yeah. And see Chester.”
“You two’ll make quite a pair. A matched set.”
I squinted up at her. “That bad?”
“Well,” she shrugged, “I wasn’t drawn to you for your looks
anyway.”
I laughed. It hurt, so I stopped pretty quickly. Even smiling
was painful, but around Kitty I had trouble not smiling.
She pulled a chair towards my desk. “Are you all right?”
“Sure,” I said. “The face always hurts, but it’s not anything
that won’t heal. Stobo will be in pain a lot longer than I am.”
Kitty took in a breath. “That was pretty incredible.”
“You didn’t think I could take him?”
“No,” she said. “I was pretty sure you could. But I think the
townsfolk were impressed.”
“Yeah,” I said. “They thought that Washington had sent them
just a shooter.”
“Now they know you’re something more,” said Kitty.
“Yeah,” I said sourly. “Now they know I’m a bigger brute than
Stobo.”
Kitty leaned forward and took my bruised hand. “No,” she
said. “Matt, you know what they’re saying? They talking about how lucky they
are. They didn’t know before, but they do now. You taking the side of the
cowboys the other night with Howard, you letting the town council have their
way even when you knew they were being fools, you taking on Stobo without a
gun, because of the way he’d taken Chester – they’re proud of you, Matt.
They’re proud to have you.”
I looked at Kitty out of my one open eye. “Yeah?”
She nodded, then that wicked smile came out and she laughed.
“Of course, you better lay low untl your face heals up. They may be proud of
you, but they won’t want to be seen with you until you look a little more
human!”
I laughed again, careful not to take my hand out from under
hers. I placed my other hand on top of her hand, and grinned at her. “I suppose
that’s true,” I said.
She patted my hand, then stood. “You go see Chester, then
come by the Texas Trail. I’m sure Sam and Big Kate’ll want to buy you a few
drinks.”
I stood and looked into her bright green eyes. “I’ll be by,”
I said.
“Good,” she said. Then, with a smile and a swing to her hips,
she left. Watching her go, I felt warm inside. It wasn’t the whiskey, which I
locked up in my desk. As I stowed it away, I saw the bundle that little runaway
had had when Chester’d brought him in. I wondered if I should give it back to
him. It’d been almost a week, and there was no sign of anyone looking for a
runaway. There had been no answers to the telegrams Chester had sent out. And
the kid seemed to be settling in all right, hanging around with Shiloh and
Chester and me. It might be nice to have a kid around town. Maybe we could get
him a job at one of the stables. He’d certainly taken to Clay Richard’s
strawberry roan – though that was hardly a surprise. It was one of the fastest
horses I’d ever seen.
Yeah, I thought as I left the jail and walked up the stairs
to Doc’s, if we can get him thinking about horses and not guns, maybe the
kid’ll settle down and like it here.
Doc wasn’t in when I got to his office, so I walked up to the
door of the back room and knocked. “Chester? Can I come in?”
“Yessir, Mr. Dillon.” I came over and sat by the side of
Doc’s sickbed. Chester’s face was a mass of cuts and yellow and purple bruises,
but his eyes were clear. He saw my face, which must’ve looked a little like a
mirror to his own just then. If anything, mine was probably worse.
“My,” he said. “What happened to you?”
“I, ah – I been lecturing a couple of hard-nosed cowboys,” I
said. “One in particular.”
“Oh,” said Chester. “I see. Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Dillon.
Those two sure got the drop on me.”
“Yeah, they sure did.”
“Mr. Dillon?”
“Yeah?”
“I been – thinkin’. And – and I –“
“What is it, Chester?”
“Well, Mr. Dillon – I- I’m not much help to you here. An’
with my hands all a mess, and my knee – Doc says maybe I won’t ever draw the
way I used to. I wasn’t no help before, and now…maybe I better just…”
“That’s enough, Chester,” I said.
“Well, but I been thinkin’ –“ he said.
“Well, just stop thinking.”
“Yessir, Mr. Dillon.”
“Now, look, Chester,” I said, “I’m gonna tell you something.
I, ah – I need you, here. You see – you’re the only man in Dodge I can really
trust. The only one.”
It was true. There was Doc and there was Shiloh and a
half-dozen other decent men, men I’d have a drink with, or play a game of cards
with, or maybe go to if there were some easy trouble. But if for anything real
– anything I didn’t think I could handle alone – well, there was only one man I
wanted at my back.
Chester’s voice was quiet at first. “Yessir. Well, you – you
can trust me, Mr. Dillon.”
“Yeah, I know I can. I’m – thanking you, Chester.” I slapped
my hand on my knee. “But, listen, you’re sure no help to me lying there,
y’know! No help at all!”
“Well, I don’t aim to stay here long. The Doc says I’ll be up
and around again in –“
“Look, Chester,” I said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll go get
patched up, then we’ll get Kitty to come over and fix us some steaks, and we’ll
have us some beer too, eh? What do you say?”
“My, that’d be fine, Mr. Dillon,” he said. “My, I’d sure like
that.” He studied me for a moment. “Say – isn’t that the shirt I gave you?”
“Yes, Chester. Yes, it is.”
“That was a new shirt, straight from Boston,” he told me.
“Well,” I said, “it still is.”
