THIS ONE'S FOR YOU, SAM

Rating: PG13

Spoilers: A Man A Day; Hostage!

Disclaimer: No ownership; no profit...just love and nostalgia for these wonderful characters.

Note: Due to lack of background information on the character of Sam, I have used Glenn Strange's actual age at the time of GS filming, but have transported him back nearly 100 years to Dodge City and then still farther back in time to give him what I hope is a plausible backstory. This story takes place shortly before Mr. Strange's death in September, 1973.

THIS ONE'S FOR YOU, SAM

Sam Noonan hummed to himself as he dried and polished the last of the glassware and wiped down the well worn bar. It was a hot mid-August day and before too long the first of the early morning patrons would be coming in to satisfy both their thirsts and their need for the latest news and/or gossip over a cold mug of beer.

He heard the upstairs door close and paused at the end of the bar to watch his red haired boss descend the stairs. As he watched, he worked to control the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. He was pretty sure Kitty Russell's sunny countenance this morning, as well as her rather late appearance downstairs, was the result of one very large and legendary U.S. Marshal's return to town the night before.

"Good morning, Sam, and happy birthday," she called from mid-way down the highly polished wooden stairs.

"Thank you, Miss Kitty. It's already a scorcher out there, so I brought up an extra keg from the cellar. I have a feeling we'll be needing it before too long."

Kitty poured coffee into one of the blue and white china cups. "Good. I'm going to work on the books for a while...holler if you need me." Coffee cup in hand, she turned and walked through the scarred wooden door marked "OFFICE."

Sam's hound dog eyes followed her again. This time he didn't even try to hide his smile.

Truth be told, in those rare moments of self-introspection, the weathered bartender would have to admit that he, like nearly every other man in Dodge City, was probably just a little bit in love with the stunning saloon owner. Well, maybe more than just 'a little bit.'

His dark brown eyes softened as he recalled the slender beauty who had owned the Long Branch Saloon when he first started tending bar there nearly twelve years before...

She had been so very young then, hardly more than a girl, but with a shrewd sense for business and a head for numbers that could put most grown men to shame.

Sam himself had been over 60 when he first stepped behind the bar of the Long Branch, but he wasn't so old that he couldn't appreciate a gorgeous woman when he saw one. He also wasn't so blind that he couldn't see the close relationship between his young boss and the handsome lawman who routinely made the Long Branch the last stop on his evening rounds.

From the very beginning, Sam had seen how it was with the lovely lady and the big marshal. At first Sam had presumed that the marshal was merely partaking of the perquisites of his job, as so many of the western lawmen were wont to do. But if one were observant, it took only a few minutes in the company of Kitty Russell and Matt Dillon to know that their feelings for each other were very deep and very real...a slight brush of hands; a long, tender look across the crowded room; clear blue eyes that searched for her from behind the batwing doors; deep sapphire eyes that followed his every move; a large hand placed surreptitiously against the small of her back as he guided her across the saloon floor; arms touching gently, discreetly, as they leaned against the old wooden bar; sparks snapping like lightning bolts when their eyes met. Oh, yes, he knew that what those two had for each other, what they felt for each other was deep and wonderful and real.

And over the years he had been the unintentional witness to some very private moments as well...a curly dark head, now shot with gray, pressed into a soft neck after a long absence when that upstairs room seemed just too far away; long, calloused fingers tenderly caressing a silk clad breast as the office door swung shut. In recent years, Sam would sometimes hear the slow, heavy tread as Dillon climbed the rickety back stairs, especially if he was particularly tired or his leg was exceptionally painful. Sam couldn't help smiling again, remembering how the sound had once been...quick, eager footsteps running up those same stairs. Ah, youth!

Even now, sometimes his keen old ears just couldn't help but hear the slight squeak of the springs from the room above as the marshal settled his massive body into the big brass bed. Then there was the low, throaty feminine laughter and the deeper rumblings of the marshal's chuckle, coming from somewhere far down in his chest. And sometimes Kitty's cry of "Matt, Oh, Matt," followed by a prolonged masculine groan, came through the worn floorboards much clearer than Sam would have preferred.

But he never said a word, never let on. Probably half the town, half of Ford County, maybe even half the State of Kansas speculated about the relationship between the exquisite saloon owner and the cowtown marshal, but Sam was the only one who knew for sure, and he wasn't telling. Well...maybe Doc knew, although neither would ever learn their friends' secrets from the other.

How many times he had wanted to hold her, to comfort her when Dillon was missing or hovering between life and death in Doc's office. But it wasn't his place to do so, and except for one or two particularly perilous occasions, he had allowed himself only to touch her hand or her arm, careful never to cross the bounds of friendship.

And he was neither resentful nor jealous of the steadfast lawman who held her heart. He recalled the time Dillon had asked him to protect her, to be her bodyguard after an especially worrisome threat. And, above all, he would forever remember the time he couldn't protect her, the time nobody could--the time she had given herself up to the dog soldiers to save the lives of three men, including Sam himself.

He had cradled her in his arms as he carried her up the steps to Doc's office where she had lain beaten, battered and near death. Sam, praying with Festus and Doc, had never felt so helpless in his life. Then the marshal had burst into the quiet room, his expressive blue eyes raw with emotion...with fear...with love.

Sam knew those feelings, that kind of love. He had felt it himself with his beautiful young Elizabeth. Of course, that was a long time ago, but not so long that he couldn't still remember what it was like to ache for her touch and to want to be with her more than anything or anyone else in the world. But that was of another time and place.

Trained as an eastern newspaper man, the young husband had gone off to Mexico as a war correspondent for The Daily Enquirer, leaving Elizabeth in Richmond with her family. He was so handsome--tall and straight and proud that summer of 1846--as he kissed her goodbye on the big front porch of their home and rode off toward the southwest, promising to be home in time for the birth of their first child.

But the war in Mexico dragged on, and when Sam finally returned to Richmond, he found not the chubby toddler on his mother's knee that he had been dreaming about, but rather a single grave in the garden of the old house on Jefferson Street. He learned from Ella, his sister-in-law, that Elizabeth had died in childbirth and the baby boy for whom she had given her own life had survived only a few short hours.

Heartbroken, the young widower headed west again, looking for solace in new and unknown places. Being tied to a desk, facing deadlines, no longer had its appeal. He needed to keep on the move.

Taught to play the violin as a young boy, Sam soon discovered that he could make a respectable living tending bar and playing in local bands. His needs were few, his desires fewer, and as he expanded his repertoire to popular rather than classical music, he was in even more demand, often tending bar until the wee hours of the morning and then playing in "by invitation only" after-hours clubs in the big cities...Cincinnati, Chicago, Memphis, Natchez, and St. Louis.

He was in Memphis when shots were fired at Fort Sumter and civil war loomed on the horizon. A southerner by birth, but considerably older than most of the recruits, he stayed out of the conflict until the fighting moved into Tennessee. Once confronted with strife on his own soil, he realized the futility of secession and volunteered his services to the Union as an ambulance driver and spent the next two years behind the lines at Ft. Donelson, Collierville, Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Jackson, Chattanooga, Nashville and other battlefields across the state of Tennessee.

Once again, the war dragged on longer than anyone dreamed it could, and both of his brothers were killed in battle, one wearing the blue, the other the gray. Restless and now completely alone in the world, Sam again began to wander, thinking he might head into Texas or the untamed Arizona Territory.

One dark night, on his way to no place in particular, he rode into Dodge City, Kansas, curious to see this "Gomorrah of the Plains" that was being talked about in every other city and town for miles around. He walked into the Bull's Head and walked back out. He'd seen places like that before and wanted nothing to do with it. Leaving his horse at the stable, he walked down Front Street to the Long Branch and pushed through the batwing doors. Immediately, a beautiful redhead smiled into his wrinkled face, looked into his melancholy brown eyes, and said "Welcome, stranger. Let's get you a drink." Sam saw the genuine sparkle in her large blue eyes, felt the honest warmth of her smile and miraculously felt that he was home.

He returned again the next night...and the next. The regular barkeep had gone home sick, and the lovely redhead was trying to cope with the large and rowdy Saturday night crowd on her own. Sam offered his services and, well...

Rousing from his reverie, Sam stretched his back and smiled again. That had been nearly twelve years ago, and he had never once regretted his decision to stay. The crotchety old doctor, the beer-mooching deputy, the amazing and fiery redhead who became his boss, the honest and honorable marshal who kept order in the town and surrounding territory, these were his friends. No, this was his family, not the family he had lost, but the family he had found.