A/N: Oh Look I started another story ... I go two years without writing a damn thing and now all of a sudden I start writing three bloody stories at once. Ah well I'm sure y'all ain't going to complain right? Anyway let's see if I still got it when it comes to writing Buck/Lou.
Prologue
Buck Cross sat atop his horse as he stared towards the horizon, to the future, a future that he did not know what was in store for him. He looked behind him at the town of Rock Creek, his past, he knew was there. A family or the sad remains of one, his brother Ike long gone, Noah just recently joining him. Jimmy had run off with that horrible woman who was responsible in Buck's mind of Noah's death. Cody had left just last week to join the army to fight for the north in the war that was breaking out between the northern and southern states. Kid and Lou had married and where even now on their way to Virginia where Kid would abandon his wife so he could fight for the south, a land that would have kept Noah in chains. Buck did not understand how Kid could do that, Noah had been just as much a brother to Kid as to the rest of them. Jessie the little runt had left with his brother and it was good riddance, well maybe not but Buck was mad that he had left without even a goodbye. All that was left of their little family was Teaspoon and Rachel, he knew he could stay with them but what was the point? He'd never really belonged there and without the others it was even more plain that he didn't belong, but where was he to go? He turned back to the horizon, he couldn't go to the Kiowa, he knew Red Bear would kill him on sight as he once said he would have to do if they ever crossed paths again. No he couldn't return to the Kiowa, he belonged among them even less than he did among the citizens of Rock Creek, he didn't belong anywhere it seemed.
Buck made a clicking noise with his tongue and set his horse into a slow trot towards the horizon and to the future and whatever it held for him. Rock Creek, the past and family he once had there, grew small behind him but he didn't look back. No matter what the future held for him, he would look towards it and put the past and all the joy and pain it had held for him, behind him for good for there was no going back. There was no turning back the clock and bringing Noah and Ike back to life. There was no stopping Jimmy and Cody from leaving. There was no stopping the Kid from marrying Lou and taking her away from them, from him. Ah there was the biggest hurt of all, Buck realized. Though the others leaving and Noah and Ike dying, especially Ike dying had hurt Buck terribly and took a large part of his heart with him. It was the fact that the once woman that had been there for him and had cared about him since the day they had met was gone and he had never told her just what she had meant to him, just how much he had cared. He had never dared to utter the words of love that was in his heart because she had belonged to the Kid from the very beginning but oh he loved her and now he would never see her again and that was why he couldn't stay in Rock Creek. His loss of his dear brother Ike was bad enough, the loss of Noah added to that pain, but the loss of his heart, that was something he just couldn't get over. So Buck rode west towards the sun and the future.
Lou McCloud stared down at the crumpled newspaper in her hand, tears had long since run their course down her face, she had no more in her to shed for the man she had married, the man according to the list in the paper had been killed at the battle for Gettysburg. She was alone in a hostile land because she had followed him like a good wife ought to follow her husband. She had left behind the people that had been their family, she had left behind her own flesh and blood siblings in the mission, to follow him to this godforsaken land, just for him to leave her to go fight in a that bloody war for a cause that she didn't believe in. No matter what Kid had said, she could not see how the war was about anything other than the south's right to own slaves, how Kid could fight for a land that would have gladly kept Noah their brother and friend in chains and beat him with a whip like the one he carried, she did not know and could not understand. But she had married the Kid despite her misgivings about giving up her independence because she had loved him, and so she had followed him. But now what was she to do? She had no friends, no family in Virginia, she had no money to live off of let alone to leave the blasted place. She was trapped in a bleak and barren future with no hope of getting out. In that moment, she despised Kid for leaving her, but oh her heart broke for him. She had loved him, she truly had, but she really did not miss her husband because he had not been there, her husband had only been there for the length of time it had taken to get to Virginia and to find a place for her to live and then he had left her. So no she did not miss her husband because he had never really been there, but she did miss the boy, the Kid, that had rode with her in the Express. She missed the boy that she had loved, but she was done crying for him, she had cried enough tears to fill a small lake over the past few years. She was done trying to the perfect southern wife he had wanted her to be. She was done being Louise. She wanted to be Lou again, she wanted to just be another one of the boys living in the bunkhouse in Sweetwater with Emma caring for them all. Back when they were all young and alive and happy. But she knew that was impossible, there was no going back to those days.
There wasn't even the possibility of returning to Rock Creek as there was no one there anymore either. It wasn't even a month back that she had received word from Rachel saying that Teaspoon had died in his sleep and that she was moving west with her new husband. The rest of the boys had left long ago. Cody and Jimmy both were fighting for the North she knew and Buck, well nobody knew where Buck had gone after the express ended, he had just rode out one morning and never came back according to Teaspoon. She doubted he even knew about the old man dying. So there was no where for Lou to go, she was stuck and she hated it. Lou didn't know how but she vowed that one day, she would get out of there, she would go back west, maybe she'd go to Sam and Emma in Omaha. She knew Emma would take her in, she just wished that she could do it sooner rather than later. She knew she would do whatever it took to earn money to live on and she would save as much as she could until the day she had enough to leave this godforsaken land. She just prayed that when that day came there would be enough of her left to still be Lou and not just a sad shell of the girl she used to be.
Chapter 1
15 years later
St. Louis
Lou McCloud stepped off the train and breathed deeply. She had missed the Midwest more than she could explain. It had taken a lot longer than she had hoped to save the money to come west, to come home and she had done some things she was ashamed of to get the money. Emma would be ashamed of her, Kid would never forgive her for what she had done if he was still alive. She was pretty sure none of the boys would understand why she had done it, especially knowing her history with Wicks. How could she ever work in a brothel? But she had, oh she wasn't one of the entertainers, not at first. She had signed on as washer woman and cook for the girls but the pay was pitiful. So after much debating and arguing with herself, she took a position as one of the working women, with the promise that she had complete control as to which customers she would entertain and how she would entertain them. Some of the other girls would allow the men to get rough, to dominate them, to tie them up and other horrible things in Lou's opinion. Lou never took those men, in fact Lou would only take the ones that the other girls would turn their noses up at. Ones that reminded Lou of Ike, with their gentleness, their shyness, ones like Noah or Buck who's skin color or breeding put them as outcast never fitting in anywhere. Those men never mistreated Lou, and some of them never wanted anything more than a woman to spend a bit of time with them, to just talk to them. Those were the ones that made Lou miss her brothers more than anything because with some it was almost as if Buck, Noah, or Ike were there with her again. But that was over now, she was free, she was back in the west where she belonged, now it was just about getting to Emma.
Sweet Emma, who was the mother to them all, the mother who they all needed, was in Omaha eagerly waiting for Lou. She knew that if she had asked Emma, she would have had Sam come get her years ago, but this was something that Lou had to do for herself, despite how she had to do it. Lou was a fallen woman now, but it didn't matter, she never intended to marry ever again. She couldn't image any man who could possible change her mind.
Lou made her way from the train station towards a hotel to get some food and a room, and hopefully a bath. She would continue on towards Omaha in the morning. She passed the first hotel she saw because she knew it would be more expensive with it's proximity to the station, and with only having a limited supply of funds to complete her journey and have some left to start her new life, she needed to be economical in her lodgings. Lou walked several blocks away from the major traffic area and finally came across a small hotel, the outside was very shabby looking with paint flaking in large chunks and dirty windows, definitely not the kind of establishment a respectable lady would stay in, but Lou didn't think she qualified for one of those anymore if she ever did. So she went inside and asked for a room from the mousy blond girl behind the counter. The room was cheap but it was clean if a little dinghy looking and the food in the dinning room was decent. It wasn't the greatest place to stay but Lou had stayed in worse. After having a bath brought up and filed with lukewarm water, Lou sat in the tub and washed the days of travel away. She washed away all the pain and shame of her past. She washed away the tears she had once shed so long ago. She washed away any remnants of Louise McCloud, the young wife of Kid. There was nothing left of that young girl anymore, all that remained was Lou. Lou had been strong, Lou had been brave, Lou had done what she needed to do to survive and she had come out of it with herself intact and not just an empty shell as she once feared might happen. It was time for Lou McCloud to be reborn.
Lou stepped out of the cool water and wrapped a towel around her small body, she had never been busty woman and that had never changed. It used to bother her that she wasn't very well endowed in womanly curves but now her slight and smaller frame would be to her benefit. It had been easy enough when she was younger to pass for a young boy, her face was softer now than it had been then but she thought she could still pull it off. She sat in front of the cracked and dirty mirror in her room and took out the knife that Buck had given her years ago that she always carried on her. Lou grabbed her long hair and pulled it in front of her shoulder and took a deep breath as she used the knife and cut it off as short as she could. It was messy looking and choppy but with a hat and a fake pair of glasses again she could pass for a guy, hopefully. Lou went to her bag and pulled out the old pair of pants, shirt, and worn jacket that had seen better days, they would still be baggy on her which would help hide few curves she did have. But she would still need to bind her chest, so she took the case of her pillow and with the knife sliced it into long strips that she used to wrap around her chest to flatten her chest as much as possible. Then she dressed. The disguise wasn't perfect, she was sure that if anybody looked hard enough they would know she wasn't a man but it should do well enough to protect her as she traveled the rest of the way. Lou gathered up her things and left the hotel, it was time to get back to living her life.
Buck Cross stood at the door to his small cabin looking at the three warriors on horseback headed his way. He knew who they were, they had come to trade but he didn't have anything to trade today and if the two women being lead on ropes behind them were any indication of what they wanted to trade, he didn't have any desire to do any business with them today. He had no interest and buying a woman, even if he wanted to have a woman in his life, which he didn't, he would not buy one, that went against everything he thought right. True he didn't like leaving those woman in the braves possession, but all he had was a few horses and he needed them for his business. There wasn't anything he could do for them. Buck sent the braves on their way and went back into his home.
He looked around the small room he had called his home for the past five years. It wasn't much but it was his and the twenty acres of land it sat on. It had taken him ten years working odd jobs on ranches and a few scouting jobs for the army to save the money to buy the land outright and the few horses he planned to breed to start the horse ranch that him and Ike had always talked about having. He was on his way of fulfilling his dreams but he was lonely. He had nobody, no friends, no family. He was all alone in the middle of nowhere, the closest town was over half a day ride away, but it was for the best. He didn't fit in anywhere, so he might as well be alone. He often thought about the family he once had and wondered if he should write Emma to let her know where he was at and was alive. But he didn't because she would want him to come for a visit at least and Buck had been on his own for too long, he didn't know if he could deal with having a family again only to return to his home and be alone all over again.
Buck knew he needed a wife but there was only one woman he had ever thought would make him a good wife and she had been married for the past eighteen years. And besides even if there was another woman he might want to marry who would have him. A half breed whose lived on his own so long that he was looking more like a wild mountain man, well plains man since no mountain was nearby. His dark hair fell almost to his waist, he couldn't remember the last time he cut it, his clothing was worn buckskins, his medicine pouch and earring the only thing that would set him apart from any other 'mountain' man. Yeah there wasn't a single woman in the area who would look at him a second time in anything other than horror. Maybe he should think about trading for a woman, no he couldn't do that. He was just destined to be alone for the rest of his life because unless Lou McCloud just shows up out of the blue and not married, which that wasn't going to happen, there was no woman he wanted.
