Chapter 8

Lou closed her eyes in an attempt to hold back the tears she felt welling up when she heard Kid's angry voice, but held her breath in anxiety when she heard the pounding hooves and Jimmy yelling after the troubled rider. She knew there and then he was hurting so badly he couldn't stand to be around anyone anymore and rode off to be alone. A hot tear ran across her cheek but she didn't care. Kid was miserable and so was she.

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"Jimmy? What's goin' on? Where's the Kid off to?" Cody asked confused as both he and Ike ran towards Jimmy from the barn. "We saw him burst into the barn, took Katy and heard him ride off. What happened?"

Jimmy ran his hands through his hair and paced back and forth not really knowing what to do with himself. He felt angry with his fellow riders for leaving him alone with Kid like they had and he felt angry with himself for saying all the wrong things, for making things worse.

"I don't know what happened!" Jimmy snapped.

"Well, ya must've said somethin' for him to ride off like that!" Cody answered raising his voice.

In a split second Jimmy had leapt up to Cody and had his hands clutched firmly around Cody's collar.

"If you hadn't left me alone with him, this wouldn't have happened!" Jimmy hissed through grated teeth, his face only inches away from Cody's.

Cody instantly grabbed Jimmy's wrists and struggled to release himself from his friends' firm grip "So this is my fault now? How 'bout we don't go pointin' fingers for a change and go after him before he goes and does somethin' we'll all end up bein' sorry for!"

Ike, who had witnessed the sudden explosion between Jimmy and Cody, finally jumped in between the two and separated one from the other. He gave each in tern a stern look like only Ike could before signing what he thought about all of this.

--This is not Cody's fault. It's not yours either. Kid's in a bad place right now and he needs time to figure things out for himself. Let him. We owe him at least that.-- He directed to Jimmy. --and we're not going anywhere, we're staying put.-- Just like Teaspoon said. He turned to sign to Cody.

Jimmy grated his teeth and placed his hands on his hips, still very much upset over what happened. But he nodded as he had to admit that Ike was probably right. Cody stared at the ground as he kicked the dirt with his left foot. He hated when things escalated to fast between him and one of his friends.

"I'm goin' to see how Lou's doin'. She musta heard everythin that went on out here." Jimmy said and as he passed Cody he patted him on the shoulder. Actually he knew Ike was right.

Cody knew that pat on the shoulder was Jimmy's way of apologizing and nodded. "We better fill in Rachel and Teaspoon what happened. Let's go Ike."

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Entering the bunk house to face Lou was almost as if facing Kid. Jimmy took in a deep breath and walked up to the tiny rider that had nestled herself on Kid's bunk.

"Hey" Jimmy spoke. He saw her bloodshed eyes and knew she had been crying.

"I don't want to talk about it" She said and turned her back towards him.

Jimmy took a chair and sat down in front of Kid's bunk.

"Then just listen" He said and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "Now I don't pretend to know what's going on inside that head of his, but I think Teaspoon's wrong. I won't believe for one second that Kid's losing it. He's just frettin' over somethin' and we just have to sit tight till he's ready to talk about it, 's all."

Lou suddenly sat up straight, her feet loudly stomping the floor and her hands gripping the edge of the bunk bed facing Jimmy with an angry look on her face.

"And what if you're wrong and Teaspoon is right? I'll never forgive myself or anyone else if anything happens to him!" She spat angrily.

Jimmy was getting very annoyed. From the moment Teaspoon had talked to them he knew from the depths of his being that Teaspoon was wrong. Kid was just being his stubborn, introvert, brooding self like he always was when he was fretting over something and had everyone worried sick about him like always when he was in one of his moods.

Only this time Kid had taken things too far. Everyone was at each others throat and walking on eggs trying not to make matters worse. But what matters? And how did were they supposed to know if they weren't making things worse?

"Lou, to tell you the truth I don't know what the right thing to do is anymore and I'm getting tired of all this guessin'. The only person that knows and can put an end to all this crazy talk is out on the planes; ridin' his horse into oblivion and leavin' us here worried sick about him! Jimmy retorted as he made wild hand gestures.

Something snapped in Lou. She knew Jimmy was right.

"Jimmy, I don't know what to think anymore" She sobbed. "After the doc left when I asked him what was wrong he told me the doc said he needed to talk more. And here's Teaspoon sayin' the exact opposite."

Jimmy crouched down in front of her and met her eyes "Then I think we need to go pay that doctor Fuller a little visit to clarify things."

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Kid rode Katy as fast as she could. He needed to get as far away as he possibly could from them. He felt a damn fool for allowing himself to get hurt by people he thought he could trust. How could he be so stupid to think anyone would care?

He had learnt that lesson the hard way when he was a child and he allowed himself to think this time things were different, that he had found a place where people cared about him. A place where he thought he found love. The fact that he was feeling this betrayed and miserable was his own stupid fault.

As he continued chastising himself for what he believed were mistakes and misjudgments he wasn't allowed to make in the first place he pulled Katy to a halt. He dismounted his trusty mare but didn't pat her lovingly for taking him where he wanted to go as he usually did. He was too angry to even care about her at this point. The anger rose with each incident from the past he pulled out of context. Jimmy's taunting attitude towards him, Cody's wise cracks, Buck and Ike always siding with each other and most of all Lou's defensive position towards him.

Now having reached his boiling point he started pacing around, one hand rubbing his mouth the other on his hip, completely oblivious to his surroundings. He needed to release some of this anger and the only way he knew how was to smash something to smithereens but he couldn't.

On top of how miserable he already felt he was scared to death not knowing how to find another outlet to vent his rising anger. Under no circumstance would allow himself to resort to violence; afraid that if he'd do it once he wouldn't be able to control himself in the future and end up hurting people the people he loved in the process.

He could feel his chest tighten again and the airflow stemmed like it had before. This time his lack of oxygen and the anger boiling inside him caused a massive panic attack that hit him like a tidal wave.

Grabbing his chest and breaking into a cold sweat when he realized he was all alone in the middle of nowhere he stumbled around trying his best to orientate and find Katy. His sight was blurry from the tears that started to well up in his eyes when he fell over what seemed to be the dead stump of a tree.

He fell down on his back, but instead of his body hitting the hard, rocky surface he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his right shoulder blade. The little air he had managed to inhale before he tripped was violently pressed out of his lungs as the pain took over his entire body and he struggled to refill them with much needed air.

Overcome with the surging pain and not knowing what caused it he tried to get up from the highly uncomfortable position he was in. He also couldn't breath and started gurgling blood. He felt he wasn't able to move and reached behind his shoulder to find out what was holding him back. To his shock he realized he fell on to a branch of the dead stump and had punctured his shoulder blade.

Now fully in survival mode he grabbed his arm and clenched his teeth together. If he was to live to see another day he needed to free himself and get help. Afraid that by heaving himself off the branch he would cause more damage or bleed to death he braced himself to break off the piece that had speared him. One swift move to the left and he heard a loud snapping sound and felt an overwhelming pain that caused him to gag.

Finally free to move and get help he crawled on hands and knees to where he believed Katy was. Each move intensifying the burning pain and making it harder and harder to breath he managed to reach her but collapsed into unconsciousness when he tried to get up on his two feet.

Taking in only an occasional ragged and gurgling breath, his paint mare watched over him as he lay there to die.

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