Chapter Text
Matt seldom takes note of the dwindling evening hours spent by lamplight with Chester. They always while away the time in the same spots, Matt reading the periodicals or the posters, organizing the files, playing solitaire, while Chester whittles, ties his rope, reads his Bible, or writes on scrap pieces of parchment when the inkwell isn't dry. Matt rarely asks why he's writing; it's Chester's quietest, cleanest pastime, which means he takes advantage of the hours of peace.
In fact, Matt doesn't think anything of it at all, until one night when Doc barges in at the blue hour after dusk, interrupting their game of checkers. He shakes the light rain from his shoulders and hangs the hat on the rack by the front door. "Sorry I'm late. Got caught up with an idiot out on the Arkansas. Slipped and fell on his own dagger."
Matt turns back over his shoulder to look at him. "Late? We weren't expecting you. But pull up a chair. Chester's just about to whoop me at checkers."
Doc complies, sliding up in the middle between the two of them. "Whoop you? Why, you've got a fresh play right there. If you jump—"
"'Ey! No two brains allowed, one's quite enough." Chester swats Doc's hand away from the checker board. Matt flashes a grin, ducking his head at the way Doc betrays his strategy: letting Chester win to put him in a better mood. "And for's the record, I was expecting Doc. But Doc, I put a note under your office door I wasn't gonna be ready tonight, on account of we was playin' checkers."
"Ready for what?" Matt asks.
Doc ignores him. "Well, fancy that. I haven't been in my office all day. How am I supposed to know you put a note under my door?"
"Well's, what would you like me to do? I wasn't gonna hunts you down, not knowin' where you was, on account of we was playin' checkers," Chester repeats. He jumps one of Matt's pieces and claims it, but he doesn't see he could continue his jump. Instead, he waits for Matt to move.
Flummoxed, Doc tosses his hands up. "Well, on account of you are playing checkers, maybe you should focus on it!"
"C'mon, Doc, Chester can't send a telegram to your brain. What do you expect?" Matt, too, is distracted, nudging one piece into a square without really looking at the board. "What's this about, anyway?"
"Oh, Doc's just a mite puffy with me, seein' as I didn't finish the last bit of the thing I was writing for him, on account of—"
"I know, Chester, we're playing checkers."
Chester, too, nudges a piece across the board. There are two ways he could start jumping Matt's pieces now, and Matt is running out of ways to let him win.
Doc thumps his elbows on the table. "Oh, you were too busy sunning yourself like a fat hop toad all day to bother using a scrap of brain power, was that it?"
"Now, Doc, what do you want me to say? You can't read what I ain't writ yet, can ya?"
"No, but it's the final installment, Chester, I should think you'd be just as excited about finishing it."
"Why would I be excited? I already know how it's gonna end. You see, Miss Matel is gonna run across her old friend—"
Doc honks like a goose. "You'll ruin it! You'll spoil the ending!"
"Seein's you wanna know so bad, and I didn't get it writ on account of—"
"The worst game of checkers I've seen in my entire doggone life, between the two biggest idiots I think I've ever laid eyes on. Do you both realize how many winning plays you've missed since I walked in here?"
Chester squints at the board. Matt chuckles. "Now, that may be, but I seem to recall we've both beaten you at checkers in the past, Doc, so maybe you should sit and learn something. Go on, Chester, make your move."
"Why, it's your turn, Mr. Dillon."
"No, it isn't, I moved this one here."
"And then I moved this one here."
"I didn't see you do that. But I also had moved this one—" Doc grumbles under his breath at the way they put back and forth. "Alright, old timer, why don't you tell us whose turn it is, since you're clearly the only one with any investment in this game?"
"I have to have investment in something, seeing as this simpleton is incapable of finishing the final chapter of a book I've been reading piece by piece for the better part of three months!"
A book? Matt raises his eyebrows, glancing between Doc and Chester, who has his regular doe-eyed look, all clear and hopeful, so Matt draws a hand over his head in frustration. "I don't know what has bit you, Doc, but Chester's got the right to play a game of checkers. Go order a book from the catalogue if you want to read one so bad." He and Chester exchange a glance, and when Chester shrugs, so does he, picking up the pieces from the unfinished game and putting them back in the box. "Whatever it is he's working on, he'll get to it tomorrow."
"I will?" Chester echoes.
"Yes, you will, as long as Doc is looking all rabid over it."
"Rabid—" Doc sputters, shaking his head. "Matt, you just have never had any respect for good fiction. You and your whole 'only real life matters' schtick—sometimes, things are just good for the sake of being good, whether or not it has the ability to shoot you between the eyes. There's more to living than moseying around with a gun blowing things apart, you know!"
Chester purses his lips. "There's no reason to get all riled up at Mr. Dillon. He ain't done nothing. You's being a mite unreasonable, Doc."
He stands from the table and paces. "A mite unreasonable—well, yes, I suppose I am, to the man who doesn't appreciate literature. Chester, you ought to understand where I'm coming from. But you've already got that look on your face like I'm speaking Greek, like you haven't read anything decent since your Ma first opened the Bible."
He frowns thoughtfully. "Well, I dunno. I ain't got no memory of my Ma, but I reckon she was probably illiterate, seein' my Pa was, 'nd some of my brothers. I don't think she ever read the Bible."
Doc stops mid-stride. Then, he chuckles. "Well, I'll be. Chester, when was the last time you read a book?"
"I dunno. I used to carry dime novels, y'know, after the war, but then I run plumb outta dimes. I ended up burning 'em 'fore I headed south. That Mankato winter was awful bitter, y'know."
"Mankato?" Matt repeats. "What on earth were you doing in Minnesota?"
"Freezing, is what I was doing!"
He raises his eyebrows, looking between Doc and Chester, the former frustrated to the point of amusement and the latter apparently missing the humor of the situation, appearing all the more distressed by their interaction. Doc shakes his hand, ambles forward, and claps Chester on the shoulder. "Alright, then, Chester. Alright. I suppose I can wait another night. Goodnight, boys. Sweet dreams."
"So long, Doc." He takes his hat from the rack and leaves the jail, and in his absence, Matt tilts his head at Chester. "Are you going to explain why Doc seems to think you're the next William Blake, or am I left to hedge a guess?"
"The next who?"
"Never mind. Since when are you a writer?"
Chester chuckles, taking their dirty dinner plates. "A writer? Naw, I ain't a writer. I just make up li'l stories sometimes." He wipes off the plates with a damp cloth and puts them away in the cupboard for tomorrow. "Don't everybody make stuff up sometimes?"
"Yes, they do. If you're no good at it, we call you a liar. If you're halfway decent, you get called creative. Doc seems to think you fall into that category. Raises some questions, doesn't it?"
"Like what? You ain't never told yourself some story to help ya fall asleep? To make you feel a little bit safer, so's you can close your eyes?"
A deep frown sets onto Matt's face. "No. No, I can't say I have." The stories he tells himself to fall asleep are memories, not inventions, and with age, he's learned to ease back into the good memories instead of the bad ones, thinking of fishing along the riverbank with Chester instead of watching the light die in bad men's eyes while his gun smokes. "I don't pick up a quill when I'm falling asleep, neither."
"Oh, well, I jus' started writing it down so I could remember where I had left off, y'know, in the story, so's I didn't end up replaying all the same parts over and over."
This really isn't giving me any more answers than I had a few minutes ago. "Where does Doc come into play?"
"He's reading it, ain't he?"
Matt bites back a sigh. Apparently, to pick up more clues, he'll need to talk to Doc, as Chester is yawning and rubbing his eyes, doing a familiar end-of-day stretch. "Yeah. You go and rest your brain, then. You'll need plenty of sleep to finish that thing you're writing for Doc tomorrow."
Chester nods astutely. "Yessir, Mr. Dillon." He plops into his cot with no fanfare, leaving Matt to blow out the lanterns.