The Parting Glass 

	The blizzard’s howling snow beat against everything in its haste to get through Kansas.  Dodge City had had enough warning to get undercover before the worst hit.  Inside the Long Branch Saloon, Kitty Russell enjoyed the quiet.  She’d sent Sam home hours earlier and locked up.  Now it was just her and Doc Adams keeping company through the long night.  Kitty set the kettle on the saloon stove to boil but before she put the coffee in she asked, “Doc you want to try something a little wild and exciting tonight?”
	Adams looked up from his paper at his favorite saloon keeper, “Sure why not live it up while we can.”  
	“I got a sample of some smoked teas a while back and have never got a chance to try them.  How does that sound?” she asked as she went behind the bar.  
	“Smoked tea?  They must think the Long Branch is a ladies establishment,” the physician snorted.  
	“It is Doc, or don’t you think I’m a lady?” she asked defensively but with a twinkle in her eyes.  
	“I’ll punch anyone who says otherwise,” Doc replied quickly, and he meant it.  
	Kitty smiled wickedly, “So, Matt’s out of town, Dodge is all tucked in bed, and you’re stuck with a beautiful, single woman all evening.  What’re you gonna do?”  
	Doc thought, “Say you are a beautiful, single woman.  And I am a reasonably good looking, single man.” 
	Kitty leaned forward seductively, “Yeah?” 
 	“I think we should…” Doc licked his lips, wiped his mouth, and winked, “play cribbage,” he decided and pulled the game out of his coat pocket.  
	Kitty’s laugh filled the saloon as the kettle boiled, “Set ‘em up Curly.” 
	She’d just finished pouring the tea when a thunk at the main doors made Kitty jump.  “What was that?” she asked cautiously and Doc got up to walk with her over to the doors.  Trying to push them open they could only move one far enough to see Festus huddled in the snow with another body nearby.  With all their strength they pushed the door open far enough to drag the deputy in by the collar.  The other body was Louie Pheeters.  He was stiff, sopping wet from head to toe, and a little blue at the lips.  Pulling them inside Doc and Kitty got the doors bolted back up.  “Kitty, help me get Festus over by the fire,” Doc directed.  
	Not only was Festus cold, but he was soaked from the waist down and his clothes nearly brittle with ice pellets, but he was in far better shape than Louie.  After they got both men settled, Kitty went to fetch every blanket she had in the building.  She was about to come down the stairs with the pile of linens when Doc called, “I don’t suppose Matt’s got any extra clothes around here does he?” 
	Kitty answered a little breathlessly, “Yeah, what do you need?”
	“Some pants for Festus and anything for Louie,” he replied grimly.  The town drunk was ashen and his lips nearly black from the exposure.  To save time, Kitty flung the blankets over the balcony and hurried back to her room.  Doc managed to get Festus and Louie’s wet things off and had them swaddled up by the time she got back.  Doc started rubbing Louie as vigorously as he could to try to get the circulation going.  If he had a vat of warm water it’d be better.  “Kitty, do you think we could Louie up to your bathtub?”
	“I think so but why?” she asked. 
	“His body temperature’s lower than a corpse.  Festus isn’t too bad.  We’ll put Louie in the tub with some lukewarm water and see if that helps,” he instructed and the two managed to lift the nearly weightless body.  
	Awkwardly they managed to get Louie into her bath and in the tub.  Doc left him in the blanket and started to pour cool water in.  Kitty was confused, “I thought you wanted to warm him up that’s cold water?” 
	“Don’t want to shock his system.  We’ll change the water pretty frequently and each time make it warmer.  Now I need you to see to Festus.” 
	Kitty glanced worriedly at Louie who looked even worse against the white porcelain tub.  It was clear he was close to death.  She hurried downstairs to see how Festus was doing while Doc tried to bring the old friend back to them.  
	
After nearly an hour of massaging, Kitty was nearly exhausted.  Sitting back she worked her shoulders so they could find some amount of rest.  The deputy was awake and able to tell her what had happened, “He was a walkin’ in his sleep again and fell in that pond behind the stable.  By the time I fished him out he was half froze to death.”  He winced at the pain in his legs.  Kitty had seen enough frostbite cases to know that was a good sign that the circulation was coming back.    
Doc’s voice from on the balcony broke in, “Kitty, how’s Festus doing?”
“Never mind me, how’s Louie?” Festus asked the concern for his friend clear in his tone.  
“Not good.  Kitty if you can leave Festus I need your help for a few minutes.”
Kitty exchanged glances with Festus; neither liked the way Doc sounded.  She patted Haggen’s hand, “Just holler if you need anything.”
“I will Miss Kitty,” he promised.  
Kitty Russell hurried up to her bath not really ready to face what she found.  Louie’s pitifully thin body immersed in the tub was so sunken in that he looked like he’d already been dead a long time.  She swallowed, “Doc?”
The physician shook his head, “He’ll not make it Kitty.  His body’s just too worn out.  The bad thing is I don’t know how long he’ll keep hanging on.  Any normal man would have drunk himself to death years ago.”
At the sound of Doc talking to someone, Louie’s eyes popped open and he looked around wildly, “Doc?”
“Right here Louie,” he answered loudly.  
“I can’t see you Doc,” he complained.  
“I know Louie but I’m right here,” Adams replied.  The drunk flailed a hand out of the tub and brushed Kitty’s long skirt.  He stopped, “Who’s that?”
Kitty answered, “It’s me Louie, Kitty.  You’re in my bathtub.”
The town drunk absorbed that notion, “Why am I in a bathtub?”
“You fell in the pond at the stable Louie.  You’ve got frostbite pretty bad,” Doc answered. There wasn’t any need to sugar coat things.  
“I was dreaming again…” he tried to explain but his voice trailed off.  He was beginning to see colors and shapes now and realized he didn’t have much in the way of clothes on and Miss Kitty was a lady, “Doc, where are my pants?”
“Never mind that,” Doc said and then laid a blanket across the tub so he wouldn’t fuss over it.  
Kitty stepped out so that Louie could see her, “What were you dreaming Louie?”
The thin face went limp trying to think, “I don’t know…  I just know I had to walk to get there.”
Something about being able to see Kitty clearly made him smile, “Miss Kitty… you’re so good to me.”
“Louie, I just want you to get better,” she insisted and leaned down to be nearer to him.  He shook his head, “I think I’ve done it this time Miss Kitty.”
	Kitty didn’t argue with him.  She knew the man couldn’t last much longer.  He held out his hand to her and she took it.  “I wish my Penny could have met you.  She would have learned how to be a real lady.  Her mother never…” he drifted off.  His eyes focused on something beyond the bathroom wall in a time so long ago that Doc and Kitty were unable to see it.  Both had heard about a Penny at various times in Louie’s drunken states, but they’d never gotten the story about who she was.  Kitty decided it was now or never, “Louie, who is Penny?  You’ve talked about her but never really told us.”
	“Penny?” he asked like he’d never heard the word then repeated, “Penny…  Her full name is Penelope Agnes Rose Pheeters.  That’s how I was supposed to address her as Penelope Agnes Rose, but I never could seem to say all that to a baby.  I just called her my Penny.  Her mother didn’t like that.  She didn’t like a lot of things.” 
	“I didn’t know you’d been married Louie,” Kitty said. 
	“I still am unless Agnes is dead,” he revealed to Doc and Kitty’s amazement.  
	“If you’re married, why aren’t you with your wife?” Doc asked.
	“Because she hasn’t wanted anything to do with me for twenty years, but I didn’t do it.  I don’t care what anyone says, I didn’t steal that money,” Louie insisted vigorously. He was nearly wild eyed with the statement. The fact that Louie had spent time in an Arizona prison had been known the whole time he’d been in Dodge.  “They said I embezzled money from my own company,” he muttered.  “But I didn’t do it!” he shouted. 
	“That’s right Louie,” Kitty soothed trying to get him to calm down.  Demons of the past were holding the frail body together now, and she feared that when they were gone the life of Louie Pheeters would be over for good.  
	“I didn’t do it,” he said the watery blue eyes filling with pleading tears.  “But she never believed me.  She’d believe everyone else but the man she was supposed to love.  But, she never loved me.  I loved her though.”
	“Of course you did Louie.  That’s why you married her,” Doc agreed.  
	“Agnes thought I married her for her money.  She never understood it didn’t matter.  As long as we had Penny nothing else mattered.  But she took Penny away from me,” Louie lamented and started to cry.  
	Kitty sniffed and looked to Doc for some support.  By the look on his face he didn’t have much to give.  “How long has it been since you saw Penny?” 
	“Twenty years, I don’t even know if she’s alive or dead,” Louie mused.  He repeated, “Alive or dead.  Don’t know…”
	“Louie?” Kitty tried to get the man to come back to her but he was unresponsive.  “I need a drink,” he wailed.  
	“Doc, there’s some in my room,” Kitty instructed, and he retrieved a glass and the decanter from her dresser.  
	Louie took the glass with a shaky hand but the fine liquor went down smooth and hit the spot.  He smiled, “Miss Kitty you always have the best in town.”
	She smiled a little, “You know it Louie.”
	“Thank you,” he said and carefully handed her the glass back as if it were of the utmost importance to make sure it didn’t break.  As soon as she had it in her hand he slumped in the tub.  Doc checked the man’s thin wrist for a pulse.  He couldn’t find anything.  With a shake of his head he said, “He’s gone.”
	“Aw Louie,” Festus’ voice whispered.  He’d somehow managed to come up the stairs without Kitty or Doc hearing him.  His legs were killing him, but right at that moment, he didn’t care.  Kitty arranged the stray lock of hair that always seemed to fall over the old man’s forehead so that it was plastered in place better.  For a long time the three friends just stayed that way sitting in Kitty’s bathroom with a dead man in her tub.  Finally, Kitty got up, walked into her room and then back with three more glasses.  Filling each one, she toasted Pheeters, “To a real gentleman, Louie Pheeters.  May your glass always be filled.” 
	“Louie,” Doc and Festus toasted and downed the brandy.  It took the edge off the moment.  Now they could get Louie out of the tub and ready for the undertaker.  
	“I’ll pay for his funeral,” Kitty offered as she helped Doc with the body.  
	Festus nodded, “I’ll tell Percy.  It might be awhile before he can be buried though.  That ground is frozen pretty solid.” 
	“Doesn’t matter,” Kitty said and started wrapping Louie up in one of the quilts she’d brought in for him.  
	“Where should we put him until we can get him to Percy’s?” Doc asked thinking in Kitty’s bed probably wouldn’t be to her liking.  
	“We can keep him in the back store room,” Kitty decided.  “It’ll be plenty cold back.  And I think in some odd fashion he’d have appreciated being laid to rest with all the whiskey he could drink,” she laughed sadly.  There was so much to Louie Pheeters that no one knew or would ever know now.  He wasn’t just a bum or a drunk.  He’d been somebody at sometime and fate had cut his legs out from under him.  
	Festus picked up Louie’s watch that he was never without.  The tune still played as sweet and melodious as it had the first time he’d heard it.  “What time does it say Doc?” he asked.  
	Doc looked at it, “Ten fifteen.” He sighed, shook his head, wiped his mustache.  Death was never welcome with him.  “Ten fifteen and a good man is dead,” he muttered.  Festus nodded in agreement.  “Come on, let’s get him down,” Doc said and picked up on the head of the quilt.  Kitty had another corner and Festus managed to grab the other one.  They made an odd sort of pallbearer as they made their way down the stairs.  Setting the quilt wrapped body on top of the stacked whiskey crates, Kitty was glum, “I wish Matt were here.”
	“Yeah he could have carried Louie alone,” Doc grouched and at the burning look the saloon keeper gave him apologized, “Sorry.”
	Festus still had the watch, “What should we do with it?”
	“Tell Percy to give him a new set of clothes when you talk to him.  Make sure Crump knows I’ll be mad if he gets him one of those cheap $2.00 suits from Lathrop’s too,” Kitty instructed as she walked out of the room.  
	“But what about the watch?” Festus asked.  
	“You keep it,” Doc suggested.  “You tried to save him.”
	“But Doc, I can’t keep Louie’s watch.  What would I do with it?” the deputy asked.  He couldn’t tell time so it wouldn’t be of any use to him. 
	Kitty Russell thought of something, “I’ll take it.  That way when I find Miss Penelope Agnes Rose Pheeters, I can give it to her.”
	Doc and Festus eyed her.  They could practically see the cogs spinning in her brain.  “You’re gonna try to find her?  She could be dead like Louie says.”
	“And she could be alive and well and have no idea that her father missed her so much.  It can’t be too hard to find her.  I’ll have Matt wire the Arizona Territorial Prison and see if they can tell us where he was from when he was sent there.  They’ll have records for things like that,” she thought.  
	“Sounds like a tall order to me, but then we have a mighty tall marshal so it’ll probably get done.  Is there any of that tea left or did Festus here drink it all?” Doc asked with a grump.  
	“I can always make more tea,” Kitty said.  “Right now I’d go for a good stout cup of coffee with a little bourbon in it.”
	“Let me Miss Kitty,” Festus offered. “I’ll have it ready before you can say rat ran over the roof with a piece of raw liver in his mouth…” 
	With a whistle and a slight grimace the deputy was off to the back kitchen.  Kitty laughed at the sight.  Doc looked at her, “What’s so funny?”
	“I just realized how funny Festus looks in Matt’s clothes,” she chuckled and then grew somber, “Oh Doc it’ll be hard to believe Louie’s not here anymore.”
	“Yes, we’ll miss him, but we’ll remember him too.  And when all is said and done that’s about all anyone has to give or take from this world, memories and friends and time.  And when you find that Penny, and I know you will or your name isn’t Kitty Russell, we’ll all be able to tell her what she missed by not knowing Louie Pheeters.”