This fic is intended for mature readers due to the vivid depiction of a consensual adult relationship. The setting is First Season, post-“The Preacher”, screenplay by John Dunkel, story by John Meston, original airdate June 16, 1956. The locations/events in this fanfiction bear absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to actual Kansas geography or meteorological activity.
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Fat raindrops pelted Matt and Kitty before they could reach the safety of the sheltering trees by the small ridge up ahead. Black clouds in the near distance, upstream from where they were riding, scudded sinisterly across the sky and threatened to overtake them, and they could see the massive wall of rain moving across the prairie, headed directly for their location.
“This way!” Matt called to Kitty over the rising howl of the wind. He jumped down from his own mount, grabbing both sets of reins, and led the horses to a large tree that might provide them with at least a little protection. He hurried to help Kitty dismount and tied the animals to a nearby bush. Digging his slicker from his saddlebag and untying the bedroll he usually carried, he grabbed Kitty’s hand and pulled her farther beneath the spreading branches of the gnarled old oak.
“Put this on,” he urged as held the slicker expectantly behind her.
“But, Matt, you’ll be soaked!”
“No time to argue. Put it on.”
Pressing her lips into a thin line, she poked her arms in, worried that Matt would be drenched without it, but with the storm heading their way so quickly, they didn’t have time to debate the issue. The slicker swallowed her relatively small frame, but she wrapped it gratefully around her and helped Matt untie his bedroll and unfold the blanket so that he would have something to keep the rain off him as well.
The lawman and his lady friend perched together on a flat rock near the trunk of the tree and waited, listening, expectant. As the pounding of the torrential storm advanced closer and closer, Matt held the blanket aloft over the both of them and muttered ominously, “Here we go…”
Kitty could smell the rain—the roiling, liquid heavens and warm earth colliding. It overtook their tree and descended upon them, the sky opening up and angrily spilling its contents on the prairie and its occupants with a vengeance. Unexpectedly, a clap of thunder shook the ground beneath them and reverberated in the very air around, lightning streaking across the sky.
Kitty’s arms involuntarily slipped around Matt’s waist as she let out a little gasp. She swore she could feel tingling in her skin. Kitty wasn’t one to be scared of storms, but it was a different matter entirely when you were smack dab in the middle of one with not even a roof over your head.
“Oh boy…” Matt grumbled, scooting closer to Kitty on the rock. “Just what we needed. An electrical storm while we’re sittin’ under a big damn tree.”
“Where else could we go?”
“Nowhere, Kitty. We got nowhere safe to go, really.” He looked down at his dainty companion, her hair damp and straggling, her heavy skirts already dripping. He lowered one arm to wrap around her slim waist and pull her tightly against him, tucking the blanket more securely around her. They huddled together and prayed they wouldn’t be struck dead by lightning before the storm passed.
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One very long and uncomfortable hour later, and it was still raining torrents. Matt and Kitty were soaked to the skin, even beneath the cover of their saturated blanket. Kitty couldn’t remember ever being so utterly wet and miserable, and if they got out of this without being hit by lightning, she figured it would be a bona fide miracle.
Every time there was a deafening thunder clap followed by a bolt of white hot fire in the sky, she thought she’d come clear out of her skin. Matt could end up with bruises from her death grip around his middle at this rate. Her teeth were nearly chattering with the damp and cold. “I’m sorry I got you into this, Matt.”
He looked pointedly down at her, his hat brim streaming rivulets of water. “Kitty, would you wanna be out here by yourself right now?”
“No, most definitely not.”
“I rest my case.”
Wretched and soggy and completely unconcerned with propriety at this point, she held fast to him even more determinedly and laid her head wearily against his chest, hoping to feel some residual warmth from his body. “One of these days we’ll look back on this and laugh, right?”
Matt attempted to tug the sodden blanket more tightly around the two of them and wordlessly grunted in reply. He patted Kitty’s back comfortingly as he watched the rain inundate the surrounding countryside, coursing in muddy streams down their little ridge toward the river, which was already beginning to overflow its banks. They’d not had a good rain in these parts all spring, and the downpour wasn’t able to soak into the hard-packed prairie soil.
“Kitty, I sure hope this rain…” Matt suddenly jerked violently and groaned, then slumped over.
“Matt!” Kitty cried as she tried to catch him and keep him from falling, but he was far too big for her to manage. He hit the ground hard. Kitty threw the heavy, water-logged blanket off her shoulders and kneeled by his side in the pouring rain, cradling his crumpled face between her hands. “Matt, what happened? Are you hurt?”
Matt groaned and raised his hand to gingerly touch the back of his head, then looked with disbelief at the blood on his fingertips. “Something hit me…” he hissed.
Over the sound of the whipping wind, a menacing voice called out from behind Kitty. “That something would be me…” Prize fighter Sam Keeler grinned down at the two of them as he dropped the heavy stick he wielded and quickly snatched Matt’s gun, tossing it far away onto the prairie. With a wicked glint in his eye and his hammy fists clenching and unclenching, he asserted, “I said I was gonna’ get me a marshal, and I meant it. Get up, Marshal Dillon, cause you and me’s gonna’ finish this once and for all…”
tbc
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