Lou sighed wearily as she and Lightning finally reached the outskirts of the village of Douglas just as dusk was falling. Two months and five days. That's how long it had been since Kid left Sweetwater, and there'd been no word from him. There hadn't even been any word of him, though Lou and the other boys had taken every opportunity along their routes to ask other riders if they'd heard of their former teammate. It had Lou all tied up in knots, worrying over him. Kid could protect himself, but Lou fretted that in some life-or-death situation, his naturally peaceable nature would make him hesitate for the split-second it would take someone less tender-hearted to plant a piece of lead between his eyes.
After 11 hours in the saddle, Lou had been relieved to hand off her mochila to a rider at the station, and with no return packet waiting, she decided to head into town and treat herself to a hot bath and a rare night in a real bed. With a pang, she realized the last time she'd stayed in a hotel was with Kid in Redfern.
Unlike that fairly decent hotel where she and Kid had been intimate the first time, the only lodgings in this small settlement were above a rather rough-looking saloon. Ordinarily, Lou hesitated to go into such houses of ill repute, for a variety of reasons. Tonight, though, she was just tired and discouraged enough to put aside her qualms.
Stepping through the swinging doors into the public house, Lou instantly found her eyes stinging and throat burning from the thick cloud of smoke that filled the room. Apparently this place was the designated watering hole for a wide radius of the country – the saloon thronged with cowboys, card players and fancy women. Peering through the crowd, she saw a small counter at the back of the room, next to a staircase that presumably led upstairs to the sleeping rooms. A bored-looking man stood behind the counter, leaning on his elbows and watching the activity in the room. Lou pulled her wide-brimmed hat a little further over her face and began to edge her way between the clusters of tables and milling drinkers.
She'd nearly reached her destination when her peripheral vision caught a broad patch of light brown at the bar to her left. Glancing over, she stopped dead in her tracks. There was a man leaning over the bar, his back to her. He was wearing buckskin trousers and a matching fringed tunic; a thick shock of curly brown hair curled underneath the collar. His head was bowed, shoulders hunched, and he swayed slightly as he stood at the bar.
Lou would know that form anywhere in the world. She was about to race over to him, without really knowing what she'd do when she got there, when he turned his head to gesture to the barman for another drink. Lou gasped. She could see he was unshaven, an uneven stubble peppering his strong jawline. In profile, his face looked slightly distorted, his normally aquiline nose marred by an angry red cut and his left eye swollen almost shut. Her heart leapt toward him, every particle in her body desperate to hold him, soothe him, caress his battered features with her hands and lips.
Just then Kid raised an arm and slammed his fist down on the bar, causing shot glasses to rattle all along the polished wood surface. Through the babble of strange voices, Lou made out the Kid's familiar baritone – but thick and slurred in a way she'd never heard before.
"Hey! Whassit take to get a drink arou'n this joint?"
At the other end of the bar, the barkeep looked over with a disgusted expression.
"Hold your horses, cowboy," he snapped. "I'll get to you in a minute. Ain't like you're dyin' of thirst."
Kid responded with a belligerent wave of his arm and hunkered down over his shot glass again. Lou suddenly realized she'd moved closer during this exchange, so that she now stood only a few feet behind the man she thought she knew better than any other, but who now seemed a stranger. Kid rarely drank, and apart from one incident where they were all led astray by his dissolute brother, always in moderation.
Caught between a need to get a closer look at him and an unfamiliar uneasiness over how he might react to seeing her, Lou hesitated. At that moment a woman approached Kid from his right side. She was dressed in a flounced red dress that seemed only half there at both ends. Her face was painted and she wore a garish feather in her long, blond hair. Lou watched her sidle up to Kid and lean toward him. He seemed oblivious to her until she placed her lips close to his ear and whispered something. Kid's head shot up and he reared back from the woman, who laughed at his obvious shock. Lou watched her lightly run her fingers up his arm and say something more in a low voice.
Kid shook his head. "No, thank you, ma'am," he mumbled. "I appreciate the invitation, but I ain't looking for that kinda company tonight." In spite of the disturbing tableau before her, Lou had to smile slightly, noting that the Kid's courtly Southern manners hadn't left him.
The woman's response was to dart her face toward his and kiss him firmly on the mouth. For a second Lou was afraid he was going to kiss her back, but he immediately pulled away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I said I wasn't interested," he growled. "I already gotta girl." As if suddenly realizing what he'd said, Kid's shoulders slumped and he looked down. "I hadda girl," he almost whispered in a tone that pierced Lou's heart.
"Well, if she let a handsome young buck like you get away, she can't be too bright," the soiled dove cooed ingratiatingly, tightening her hand around his bicep.
With the speed he usually reserved for a quick draw, Kid grabbed the woman's wrist and flung her arm away from him, knocking his shot glass off the bar in the process. "You ain't got no call to say that," he sputtered, weaving drunkenly as he took a step toward the now-affronted lady.
"Take it easy, mister," she spat, giving him a hard push with the flat of her palm. He staggered back a step, regained a semblance of balance and advanced toward her. "Take it back, what you said," he demanded. He extended his long arms and grasped the lady's bare shoulders. "Didja hear me? Take it back!"
Lou's heart pounded in her ears as she watched the scene rapidly becoming more dangerous.
"Git your hands off me, you dirty waddie," the painted peacock screeched at him. Lou saw Kid's eyes darken at the derogatory term for a hired cowhand. Suddenly a burly figure interjected himself between Kid and the woman.
"Nobody molests my ladies," he barked in a gravelly voice.
"I warn't molestin' nobody," Kid retorted, "and besides, I don't see no ladies around here."
The man's eyes flashed fire and he shoved Kid hard, knocking the younger man to the hard plank floor. With an agility belying his intoxicated state, Kid was instantly back on his feet and closing on his opponent. As he drew back his arm to throw a punch, Lou heard herself cry out, "Kid!"
Instantly his head swiveled in her direction and she saw his eyes widen. "Lou?"
Then a ham-sized fist collided with Kid's jaw, knocking him flat-out on the floor. He lay moaning as his adversary stood over him, ready to deliver a swift kick, but Lou was at Kid's side in an instant. Kneeling beside him, she grabbed his elbow and started trying to haul him to his feet.
"I'm awful sorry, mister," she said in as mannish a voice as she could muster. "My brother here has been feeling poorly. Ma's afeard he might be tetched. It runs in the family."
"Well, you oughtn't let a loon out among decent folks," the man said sternly, but Lou could see the worst of his fury had dissipated "
"Yer right," Lou agreed, roping her arms around Kid's waist. He was on his feet, but still dazed and apparently not grasping what was going on around him. "I'll just get him to bed."
"Are we goin' to bed, Lou?" Kid mumbled, lolling his head on her shoulder. "No, that cain't be right."
"Never mind, Kid," Lou murmured, tugging him away from the belligerent circle around them. "I'm gonna take good care of you. You'll be right as rain in the morning." They made it as far as the check-in counter before Kid's legs failed him and he slumped into an unconscious heap at Lou's feet.
Lou gave the man behind the counter a dollar for a room, and another 25 cents to have one of the stocktenders throw Kid's limp body over his shoulder and tote him upstairs, where the young cowboy was unceremoniously dumped onto the bed. Lou locked the door after the stockman left, then turned to look at her former beau. He was a tangle of long limbs across the mattress and his breathing had deepened into a raspy snore.
Though the single kerosene lamp on the bedside table didn't provide much illumination, Lou was able to see, once she got close to him, that Kid was in even worse shape than she'd thought. In addition to the cut on his nose and blackened eye, the skin on the right side of his neck was scraped raw from his jawline to his collarbone. And now there was a rapidly darkening, fist-shaped bruise forming under his eye where he'd just been punched. Lou gently ran her thumb over the several days' growth of stubble on his chin. At her touch, he unconsciously turned his face so her hand cupped his cheek and mumbled something unintelligible into her palm. Gently she pushed him onto his back and straightened out his limbs. Seeing his lips still moving soundlessly, she leaned her ear close to his mouth and could just make out what he was saying in his troubled sleep. It was the same phrase, over and over again:
"I'm sorry, Lou. I'm so sorry …"
Louise pulled the scratchy wool blanket up over his shoulders. She was tempted to lay down beside him, just to hear him breathe, feel his warmth against her as she had in Redfern. Instead, she tugged off her jacket and sat down on a creaky wooden chair in the corner of the room. She sat and for a long while watched him toss and turn, occasionally whimpering as if he were a small, frightened boy.
Lou's heart broke a little with each restless movement. Shaking her head, she whispered, "What happened to you, Kid?"