Chapter 5 – Lou's POV
We left Fort Laramie early the next morning. And even though I'd had a hard time falling asleep I woke up refreshed and ready to get back to work, well maybe not work but I was ready to spend the whole day with Buck just the two of us. Buck didn't seem too anxious to get back to Sweetwater either, since he was keeping his horse at a slow pace so we could talk. On the ride home I learned more about Buck. He had told me his mother had been raped by a white man after I had told him about my own past. What he hadn't told me at the time was that his mother was married to the chief of their tribe when she was raped. Buck has an older half-brother, Red Bear who is a powerful war chief of the Kiowa. That kind of impressed me; Buck was brothers with a chief.
He also told me why he left the Kiowa to begin with. He had always been treated differently because of what he was but he had been promised to a young girl, Little Wing. Little Wing was white she had been taken in by the Kiowa after her family had been killed by a different band of Indians, Comanche I believe is what he said. Even as young as they were Buck had loved her, then one day while he was out hunting with the men, white trappers came to the village and murder all the women and children. They took Little Wing with them because she was white. Buck never forgave himself for leaving her that day; she had begged him to stay. I told him he couldn't have known what would happen; besides they would have killed him too. He says he knew that but he still blamed himself. After that he just couldn't stay so he just left.
After leaving the Kiowa he was taken in at the mission school. They were the ones that had given him the last name Cross and shortened his name from Running Buck to just Buck. After he and Ike were old enough they left the mission and set out to make their way in the world together. They had taken odd jobs here and there, even worked on a ranch for a while but they would always have to move on before long because someone would either start in about his being a half breed or Ike being mute, calling Ike a dummy.
Buck told me the day they signed on at the Express had been the best decision they had made. They had finally found a place where they both belonged, with a bunch of other misfits. I had to agree with that one. We were a bunch of misfits but we had become friends and were slowly becoming a family. Buck told me that eventually he and Ike wanted to start a horse ranch together. I learned a lot about Buck during that ride, more than anyone else other than Ike knew about him. So I told him more of my past
Buck's POV
I had told Lou everything I could think of about my past. I wanted her to know what had made me the man I am today. I wanted her to accept all of me not just what was on the surface. I could tell she did when she told me more of her own past.
She told me that her father was a man name Boggs. He was a criminal; selling stolen guns to Indians and murders and every sort of scum imaginable. Her mother had taken her and her siblings when they were younger and ran from him changing their name back to McCloud. Her mother had told her brother and sister that their father was dead but Lou was old enough to know better. Her mother took sick when Lou was around eight. Her mother made Lou promise to take care of her siblings and to never tell them the truth about their father; she wanted them to think he had died as a good man. They had been put into a mission orphanage much like the one Ike and I had been in. I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if we had been in the same one. I wondered if we would have been friends then. Something tells me we would have.
When Lou was thirteen she ran away from the orphanage and promised to send for Jeremiah and Teresa when she had saved enough money to buy a grub stake. She told me she still had a ways to go but she had a good start. She told me the first job she found was the one doing laundry at the place she had told me about. I realized Lou had barely been more than a child when she was raped. I felt nauseous just thinking about it. How could someone do that to an innocent girl like that? I asked whatever happened to the man who had used her. She told me he was still around, still owned that brothel. I swore to myself then and there that if I ever met that man I would kill him for hurting Lou.
Lou told me since leaving that place she has worked odd jobs her and there. She had worked in a livery mucking stables, as a shop boy, she had really hated that job, she had even gotten a job on a small ranch doing odd chores for the woman of the house, little jobs that the ranch hands didn't have time to do. She never stayed long at any one place, whenever someone started looking at her funny she would move on knowing they were bound to figure out what she was. She didn't want a repeat of what happened to her before. I asked her if she was going to stay on with the Express now that she knew Ike and I knew what she was. She told me she wasn't going anywhere, she trusted me and the other guys. She knew that even if they knew they wouldn't hurt her. Besides she said she knew I would protect her if the need arises, not that she couldn't take care of herself of course. I had to smile. It made me feel good to know that she had complete faith in me. I had never met a woman who trusted me like Lou did.
Lou's POV
The ride home had been nice. We had learned a lot about each other, but we were almost home now. It was almost time for me to be a boy again. I didn't know how long it would be before I had a chance to be alone with Buck again, so I stopped my horse and dismounted. "What are you doing Lou?" Buck asked stopping his horse and dismounted as well. "Is something wrong?" He asked coming to stand beside me. My tongue was tied, I couldn't tell him the reason I had stopped. So I did the only thing I could do, I smiled at him before I reached up on my tippy toes and pressed my mouth to his.
I could feel Buck's grin against my lips as his arms went around behind me pulling me closer. After I broke the kiss to catch my breath, Buck just continued to hold me in his arms, my head resting on his chest. I don't know how long we stood like that, but eventually the sounds of a horse approaching made us break apart. We couldn't see who was coming yet so we automatically got into a defensive position. We were relieved to see it was just Ike. He told us Teaspoon had sent him out to see if there was any sign of us yet. There had apparently been some trouble with bandits while we were gone. And when we hadn't made it back a few hours ago they had begun to worry. So we remounted our horses and rode back home with Ike.
