STATE OF CONSPIRACY

by

Alli Ance

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. Abraham Lincoln

Part One

Dodge City – May 1892

NOTE: I want to make it perfectly clear that I (LadyofDodge) am not the only author of this story. It grew out of a late night of round robin e-mails among five friends. One person started it with a short paragraph, someone else added the next, etc, etc, etc. At the end of the evening, we realized we had the beginnings of an actual fan fic story. That was the easy part! From there we divided it into sections, each person writing the part(s) she felt would best match her writing style, interests and strengths, and, a few months later, "State of Conspiracy" by Alli Ance was born. It was previously posted on a private site, but this is its "public debut."

xxx

Matt approached as quietly as he could, almost tiptoeing in his big boots. The room was still – too still. There was the faintest whisper of sound as he neared the bed – the quiet exhalation of the woman who lay there, but even that seemed tenuous – as tenuous as her grasp on life. Under his deep prairie tan, Matt paled. Whatever he had expected, this was worse than anything he had imagined. Without being aware of it, he went to his knees beside the bed. He reached for her hand on the counterpane. It felt as if he were holding a bird in his thick, calloused palm - the flesh a mere covering for the brittle bones it encased.

"What…" His voice broke, and he licked his lips, trying again. "What – happened to her?"

There were tears in Doc's voice. "We don't know. Festus found her about three days ago and brought her into Dodge. Her horse had turned up at the stables, and Festus went out looking for her. When he finally found her, she'd been missing almost a week."

"Why didn't you let me know?"

Doc half turned and stared out the window. "We – we thought you had enough to worry about – and there was nothing you could have done."

"I could have come back and looked for her," Matt burst out, and then fell silent. Both of them knew that couldn't have happened. He buried his head against the bed for a moment. Then he looked back up at Doc. "Di – Did she tell Festus what…"

"Matt, she hasn't been conscious since he found her." Doc sighed. "I'll leave you two alone for a bit. Call me if – if anything changes." He turned to leave and then dragged the ancient high-backed armchair closer to the bed. He pushed the frayed pillow back into place on the seat. "Easier on your knees," he said gruffly and closed the door firmly behind him.

Matt rose painfully and seated himself, staring at the frail woman in the bed. The crocheted yoke of her nightgown had slipped off one thin shoulder, and he gently traced the pattern of the lace with a blunt finger. He recognized the gown and even remembered the last time he had seen Kitty wearing it. The full, nearly-translucent fabric attached to the yoke had swirled around her slender body, and he had kissed her warm skin through the crocheted lace. Now, the soft peach color stood out in stark contrast to the waxy, greenish cast to her skin, and her body no longer seemed slender, but emaciated.

He leaned over and kissed her shoulder, and then he stroked her hair. "Oh, Kitty, what happened? Who did this to you?" He could feel the throb of her pulse, and it seemed to falter as he sat there. Once more he said, "Kitty, I'm here. Please, honey, don't – don't leave me." He held onto her hand, afraid of crushing it in his. Long moments passed, and then he heard her voice – the merest whisper of her voice.

"Matt…" she said, so softly he thought at first he had imagined it. "Matt? What – what happened… in Topeka ?"

He drew a harsh breath. "Nothing important. Really," he told her, forcing a sliver of cheer into his voice. "Everything's fine." A lie, of course.

Another half minute passed before she spoke again. "I don't – believe you."

Despite everything he had been through, despite the unthinkable scene that greeted his long-overdue return, he breathed out a chuckle. He had never been able to fool Kitty Russell, not about anything. But the laugh died just past his lips as she moaned feebly.

"Kitty?" he asked, stretching out his hand to cradle her cheek, no longer soft and smooth, but hard and angular, almost skin on bone.

"Tried – to – wait – for – you," she murmured, eyes pinched shut from her pain.

Gingerly, he caressed her face, heart aching at his own impotence to help her. "Shh. It's going to be okay, Kitty. I'm here."

"I – know. Now I can – "

Her head lolled on the pillow, and her hand slipped in his grasp as the ravaged body relaxed with a rattling sigh.

Sudden, sickening realization slammed into him. "No!" he cried out, standing so quickly that the chair Doc had pushed under him crashed backwards. "Kitty!"

The lawman's huge hands grasped Kitty's thin shoulders, and he shook her. Never before in his life had he touched her in anger, but he was furious with her now, furious and frantic at the thought that she would leave him. As a sudden wild rage washed over him, his strong fingers dug into her tender flesh, and he shook the love of his life with a vehemence he had no idea he possessed. "Damn it, no, Kitty. No! Don't leave me. No!"

The sounds of the chair crashing and Matt's gut-wrenching roar sent the old physician back into the room with amazing speed to see the younger man, his initial fury spent, drop Kitty's limp body back against the bed and bury his face in her neck, broad shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

Doc wasn't close enough to hear the whispered, "Remember our someday. Please, Kitty, try for me...for our someday." But he did see a frail hand, colorless as the sheet on which it lay, twitch slightly.

"Move back," Doc ordered as he stood over the bed and felt for a pulse beneath the translucent skin of her thin wrist. There was a flutter, so feeble he had to feel three times to reassure himself it was really there.

"Move or I'll move you," he said again and shoved hard at Matt's shoulder, effectively edging him aside.

"She...she's gone," Matt said as he pushed numbly up from the bed.

Doc didn't reply, but placed the diaphragm of his stethoscope against her chest. "Lift her up for me, so I can listen to her back."

Matt complied, cradling her limp form against his chest while Doc listened again and again to the faint, yet reassuring soft whoosh of air struggling painfully through Kitty's tortured lungs.

He unhooked the stethoscope from his ears and ordered, "Put her down and let her rest a minute."

"Doc...?"

"You shook her, didn't you?"

"Doc, I didn't..."

"No need to deny it - those red marks on her shoulders could only be from your thumbs, same as the ones on her back are from your fingers. Want to tell me what happened?"

"Doc, I...I didn't mean...but she stopped breathing, and then her head fell to the side. God knows I've seen that often enough to know what it means."

"And you got mad at her, didn't you...and you shook her?"

The big lawman looked chagrined. "Yes."

Doc's weary old eyes looked up at his dearest friend. "I'm not positive, but I think you may have saved her life. That shaking gave her heart the jolt it needed." Once again, he reached for Kitty's wrist and then offered Matt the faintest of smiles. "Her pulse is awfully weak, but the rhythm's fairly steady right now. She's not out of the woods yet, son, but I think she just might make it."

Matt righted the chair and sank weakly into it.

xxx

The pale glow of early morning washed gently through the window panes of Doc's office, casting soft shadows across Kitty Russell's slight frame, the heavy quilt almost swallowing her beneath it. She barely made a rise in the covers, and Matt wondered how much strength she had left to fight.

Two days had passed since he literally shook the life back into her, but the distraught lawman had not budged from the chair beside her bed. Night and day he sat by her side, tracing her fingers with a tenderness that belied his great physical power. Hour after hour he whispered words of love, of strength. Now he held one frail hand against his cheek, his eyes bleary and red-rimmed, jaw rough with a half-grown beard, bugger-red shirt rumpled and still sooty from the train.

She had not stirred, had not given him more than a thin whimper since her last heartbreaking words. Now I can –

He didn't want to think about what she meant, couldn't bear to consider that she had been holding on just to make sure he returned safely, wouldn't accept that she'd just let go and leave him. Doc had told him he thought she was going to be all right, but he had seen the furrowed gray brow, heard the sighs each time the physician examined her. And each time his heart clenched in fear, an emotion that was almost foreign to Matt Dillon - except when it came to Kitty Russell's fate.

He was not a praying man, at least not in any kind of organized fashion, but he and the Almighty had shared words on occasion, and Matt was not so convinced of his own omnipotence that he didn't believe there was some benefit in invoking the power of God.

Still cradling her hand against his jaw, he closed his eyes and whispered, voice desolate with fatigue and anguish. "Please. I need her. Please."

Less than a minute after his wrenching plea, the cold fingers touching his cheek twitched once, then twice, then spread in a slight caress. His eyes flew open, and he found himself staring into hers, glazed and dull, but aware.

"Kitty?" he groaned, emotion choking him.

A smile hinted at her lips for only a moment. "Don't take – this – wrong, Cowboy," she managed. "But you – look like – you've been – rode hard and – put up – wet."

Her tone was thin, her breath labored, but to him it sounded as sweet as the song of an angel.

`Rode hard and put up wet' just about described the last two months, he thought wryly. Ever since Archer Romans had ridden into Dodge, things had been going steadily to hell.

TBC