Blinking in the bright sunlight, Lou McCloud yawned and stretched her arms over her head as she stumbled out of the bunkhouse. She was barely awake, but already in a good mood. It was Sunday morning, the weather was fine and an entire day lay before her without chores or obligations. Heaven!
There would be no church services today. The circuit-riding preacher only came around every couple of months or so, and Teaspoon, who officiated at the marryin' and buryin' of Rock Creek citizens in the absence of a regular clergyman, drew the line at weekly sermonizing. Noah, Cody, Buck and Jimmy were still snoring away in their bunks, and likely would be until noon after carousing in town most of last night.
Kid was absent from his bunk already, but that wasn't surprising. Most Sabbath mornings he was up before dawn, stealing away to his favorite mossy log on the banks of Rock Creek where he'd read his Bible a while and then, like as not, drop a line in the creek for some leisurely fishing. Lou had joined him once or twice, but she generally lacked the patience both for prolonged praying and for waiting hours for a half-pound trout to take the bait.
Louise McCloud had an active, restless nature. Sometimes while riding on her Express Route she caught sight of a herd of wild mustangs thundering over the prairie far in the distance. They always seemed to be running at full speed; Lou couldn't recall ever seeing them pause to rest or slow to a canter. She identified with those independent creatures and wondered if they, like her, were running from some nameless fear that nipped at their hooves and spurred them to keep racing faster, farther, longer. Lou knew she couldn't entirely outrun the horrors of her past … but as long as she kept moving, it kept the memories at bay.
Now she scowled, irritated at herself for spoiling her mood with such dark musings. Determined to recapture her good humor, she headed for the corral to give Lightning some attention. Entering the stable, she was surprised to find Kid there, saddling up Katy.
"Mornin', Kid!" she said brightly and was rewarded with that dazzling smile and sparkling blue eyes that sent butterflies swirling in her belly.
"Hey! You're up early," he greeted her.
"Too nice a day to waste in bed." She moved to Lightning, who nickered a greeting as she picked up her curry brush.
"I was thinkin' the same thing," Kid said. "In fact, it occurred to me that this would be a fine opportunity to do some ridin'."
She laughed. "You don't get enough of that during the week?"
He made a dismissive gesture with one hand. "Aw, that's work. I'm talking about riding for pleasure. There's some mighty fine country hereabouts that we don't get a chance to appreciate riding full speed for the Express."
"I reckon that's true," she agreed, giving Lightning's withers a firm stroke of the brush that made the stallion's ears twitch with pleasure.
"Care to join me? I asked Rachel to pack up some of that fried chicken from last night and some other vittles to go along with it. We could stop someplace and have a picnic."
Lou glanced at him, smiling inwardly to see the hopeful look in his eyes. She cocked her head, pretending to weigh the merits of the offer. "I don't know. There were a few things I thought I'd like to get done around here today …"
Kid sauntered over to her side and leaned over her shoulder, his warm breath causing a pleasant shiver to run over her. "C'mon," he cajoled quietly in her ear. "You don't want to hang around here all day. Rachel's bound to find some chores for you ̶ and might I remind you that Cody had three helpings of beans for supper last night? I 'spect the bunkhouse will be intolerable most of the day."
Lou giggled, an expression of her girlish nature that she wouldn't expose to anyone else. "Ha! I was wonderin' why Jimmy was up in the middle of the night openin' the windows. I s'pose it'll be nightfall before the place airs out."
"So will you come, Lou?" Kid persisted.
She made a pretense of hesitating just a minute longer, though in truth she couldn't think of anything in the world more wonderful than spending a day in the company of the earnest young man beside her. "All right," she shrugged at last. "As long as Rachel didn't tuck any of them beans in the picnic basket."
Before she came west from St. Joe to join the Express riders, Lou had imagined the Nebraska prairies to be as flat and featureless as the slate board the sisters at the orphanage wrote their lessons on. The reality was far different. Though there were indeed broad stretches of flat grassland that stretched from horizon to horizon, much of the countryside rolled in undulating waves westward, gradually rising toward the rugged Nebraska Sand Hills. Even here, where Rock Creek flowed south to meet the Little Blue River, there were rocky ridges dotted with pines and shady stands of birches and cottonwoods.
Lou and Kid rode through this still-wild landscape, sometimes side by side, but more often single-file over winding, narrow trails. They had started out on one of the familiar pathways the Express riders used, but after a while Kid turned from the well-worn route to strike off over the trackless prairie. Lou soon found herself in unfamiliar territory, but she wasn't worried. Lou trusted the broad-shouldered man swaying comfortably in the saddle ahead of her more than she'd ever trusted anyone in her life. It scared her sometimes to realize how willingly she followed him – literally, like she was doing at the moment, but also with her heart.
Today, however, she wasn't thinking about that. Instead, she savored the breathtaking natural beauty on every side, the warm sun on her face, the familiar motion of Lightning under her. She was aware they were gradually moving to higher ground through increasingly dense vegetation. Kid had ridden a few yards ahead and she squinted to keep sight of him between the trees. Suddenly she heard him give a loud exclamation – more a hoot than a holler – and in a minute she had come up on where he had stopped and dismounted Katy. He greeted her with a broad grin.
"Betcha thought I'd gotten us lost!" he teased.
Lou slid gracefully off Lightning's back and tethered the horse to a poplar next to Katy. "Naw," she said indifferently. "And even if you did, it looks like Rachel packed us enough food to last us until the first snowfall at least." She gestured at the leather pouch Kid was unbuckling from his saddle. "Kind of close quarters for a picnic, though." Indeed, trees and rocks clustered so closely on either side of them that it seemed impossible to spread the blanket Lou had tucked into her own saddlebag.
Kid's face took on a sly expression as he slung the food pouch over one shoulder. "Just wait." He started walking further up, with Lou trailing close behind, until they reached a point where the way seemed blocked by a large pile of rockfall.
"Now what?" Lou inquired, beginning to wonder whether Kid meant to lose them after all.
Kid extended a hand to clasp Lou's small palm in his. "Oh, ye of little faith," he muttered cheerfully as he helped her pick her way over the rubble. They edged around a boulder the size of the bunkhouse, and …
"Oh!" Lou exclaimed as they stepped onto a broad, flat plateau. Between the sparser trees, fat wedges of sunlight created pools of golden light. Here and there clumps of golden black-eyed susans, brilliant whit daisies and orange poppies glowed like Japanese lanterns among the gently waving grasses.
"Pretty, ain't it?" Kid grinned, tugging her further into the clearing.
"How on earth did you ever find this place?" Lou said wonderingly.
"My razor-keen tracking skills, of course," her companion boasted. At her challenging look he laughed. "All right. C'mon. I'll show you." He led her across the space to the far side. At the edge, Lou discovered they were standing atop a ridge. Below her the ground sloped away at an easy angle down to the broad prairie. Across the straw-colored expanse of grass a slender thread of lusher green ribboned into the distance – a foliage-lined creek, Lou realized.
Beside her, Kid extended an arm and pointed toward the horizon. "See the dark smudge way over yonder?"
Lou squinted into the distance. "Uh huh."
"That's Rock Creek."
The girl rider looked at him in surprise. "Our Rock Creek?"
"'Course. I don't know any other ones, do you?" He directed her attention to a gray stripe roughly parallel to the creek. "That's the Express route. You should recognize it; we take it three times a week."
Lou visualized the view from the trail and in her mind's eye she recreated the bluff on which she was currently standing. "I only ever seen this place from the bottom before," she said.
Kid had taken the blanket from under her arm and was now laying it out on a patch of ground close enough to the edge to enjoy the view. "I was curious a long time about what was up here, so one day on the way back from Ft. Kearny, I took a little detour and wound up here."
Lou joined him on the blanket and helped lay out the picnic things: Rachel had packed an ample supply of cold chicken, thick slices of bread slathered with sweet butter and, Lou noted with chagrin, a jar of cold beans. They opened up their tin plates and canteens and tucked into their feast.
A full belly and warm, late afternoon sunlight made Lou feel drowsy and perfectly content. She wiped off her tin spoon with her kerchief and leaned back on her elbows to study the cloud-studded sky above her.
"Kid, this place is just about as close to heaven as I can imagine," she sighed.
"Glad to hear it," the young man replied, settling down next to her, "because I'm strongly thinkin' of buying it."
Lou sat up abruptly. "What are you talkin' about?"
"I've been discussing it with Mr. Larson, the land agent in town." Kid got to his feet and extended a hand to help her up. "I can't afford to buy it outright, of course, but Larson said I could put earnest money down and make payments until I own it free and clear."
Lou felt a sudden chill in her belly. "You ain't thinkin' of leaving the Express, are ya Kid?"
He shook his head. "Not any time soon. But I reckon that decision will be made for all of us sooner rather than later."
She didn't have to ask what he meant; all the riders knew that, with the recent completion of the transcontinental telegraph and the ever-expanding reach of the railroads, the era of the Pony Express was winding down. Lou swallowed the lump in her throat at the thought of her new-found family parting ways, perhaps forever.
Sensing the change in her mood, Kid strode close to the edge of the plateau and looked down. "It's 160 acres, from up here on the ridge down to Rock Creek," he explained. "Not a big spread, but enough to start out with, I reckon." His voice became animated as he shared his plans. "I figured to put up a corral down there, close by the water, and a barn just south of that."
Lou found herself being swept up in his description, picturing the little ranch he was building in his dreams.
"And I guess the cabin would probably go nearby the barn-"
"Aw, no!" Lou interrupted. "You want the cabin up here, Kid."
"I do?"
"Course! Right here, lookin' down on the whole spread."
He rubbed the back of his neck, as if considering the idea. "Hm. Seems like kind of a hike to tend to the chores every mornin'."
Lou gave him an exasperated look. "It'd do you good. All the time you spend in the saddle's making you soft." She gave his ribs a light poke, and the hard, taut muscles she encountered beneath his shirt belied her argument.
Kid seemed unconvinced. "I don't know …"
"Sure you do! See, you build the cabin facing the valley, with the front porch right here." She paced off the imaginary construction. "Put a bench – no, a porch swing – right next to the door, so you can sit and watch the sunset in the evening."
"You make it sound right nice."
Lou squinted her eyes, accomplishing the cabin-raising in her mind. "The kitchen will be here, with a big window that looks out onto the front garden. There's enough room here for some potatoes, greens, maybe even a little stand of corn." She turned around to face the denser woodland at the back of the clearing. "And a sweet, little bedroom in the back, where the wind sighing through them pines would sing you to sleep at night."
"Looks like you've got it all worked out."
Lou turned to see Kid watching her with shining eyes and a soft smile. Suddenly embarrassed at having gotten so carried away, she shrugged. "Well, those are just a few ideas. It's your place to do with as you like, of course."
"You know I value your opinion, Lou. Especially in this particular matter." The look he gave her was so direct, so weighted with meaning, that she flushed and dropped her eyes.
"How come you're set on buyin' this land now, Kid?" she asked, looking up at him through lowered lashes.
His mouth set in a grim line. "It's pretty clear what's comin', with all the talk out of Washington. Seems like a man oughta take stock of himself and settle some things before …" He trailed off, and looked out into the distance as if trying to read the future in the fading sunlight. "If I have to go back East for a spell… well, I'd just like to know I have something to come home to afterwards."
Lou knew he was talking about more than a little cabin on a hill. Her heart ached with fear of the coming conflict that could – that would – take him away from her. What would she do, she wondered, when the time came to pick sides? "It's gettin' kinda late," she said quietly. "I reckon we ought be packin' up and heading back to the station."
Kid, still lost in thought, simply nodded and bent to gather up the remnants of the picnic. While he did so, Lou slipped off into the underbrush on a private errand. She returned a few moments later to find him looking worried. His brow furrowed more deeply when he saw the pained look on her face.
"Lou! I thought I lost you. Are you all right?"
The girl grimaced slightly. "Kid, when you buy this plot, I suggest the first improvement you make to the property is construction of a necessary." She rubbed her backside. "Them bushes is full of thistles!"
He laughed. "That will be first on the list," he promised. "It's mighty hard work, though. A fella might need a little help."
"I guess I'd be willing to come along with you up here again," she replied, "to provide moral support."
"Fair enough." He turned to take a last look over the brink of the hill and Lou moved to stand beside him. The sun was dipping toward the horizon, and they both knew they'd have to hustle to beat the sunset back to Rock Creek. Still, they lingered a moment. Lou felt Kid's warm, strong hand slip around hers. "So … you think this is a good place to make a home, Lou?" he said quietly.
"I think this is a perfect place to call home, Kid."
They glanced at each other, their eyes exchanging promises that needed no words. Then, still hand-in-hand, they turned to make their way back to the horses.