Chapter 8
The young couple found themselves alone by the pond. The ice had thawed, the grass was green, the flowers were blooming and the scene was romantic. They had come out to the pond for a picnic to talk about wedding plans, but somehow had got sidetracked. Instead of talking about the wedding, they were kissing passionately.
As he laid her back on the blanket, a voice inside his head said, Kid, she's not yours yet. Wait until after the wedding. Kid had enough sense to listen to that voice inside his head. He kept control of his hands.
"What's wrong?" Louise asked.
"We need to stop while we can." he told her as she looked into his desire filled eyes.
"Why?" She asked surprised.
"Louise, you know I love you and nothing would please me more than to keep going, but, Honey, we're not married yet and I want our first time to be on our wedding night." Kid said as he looked apologetically.
While a little disappointed, Louise did see the logic in Kid's words and agreed that it would be more special if they did wait. She remembered when she walked in on her father and the Widow Jones about three years after her mother's death. That's when she had found out that there were times when it happened outside of marriage. It was still wrong, but it happened. She realized that she wasn't really thinking straight. She had been determined to be better than her father had been that night and here she was just about to break that promise she had made to herself years before. But with Kid's sense of right and wrong, they would wait. But she had learned a lesson that night so many years ago, "Never to judge anyone for one sin in their lives."
~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*
After about a month of Samantha coming around, Lee noticed that she came around only when Kid was around and just hanging on to Cody's every word. This seemed a little strange to her. Not the fact that she was hanging on every word Cody spoke, although that was strange in itself. It just seemed that she was trying to make a show of her feelings for Cody only when Kid was around. When Kid wasn't around, she ignored Cody. Lee was so puzzled by this action; she talked to Louise about it. They came to the conclusion that Samantha was trying to make Kid jealous. Louise was secure enough and trusted Kid enough to know that this plan of Samantha's would never work. Kid had even remarked to her how over dramatic Samantha was.
One day right after Kid had left for a run, Lee cornered Samantha in the barn as she was getting ready to leave. "Leave the Kid alone."
"Whatever are you talking about?"
"Kid's engaged and not available. Stop trying to make him jealous. You're only making a fool of yourself."
"He loves me," Louise said as she entered the barn. "Now I could care less if you think you love him. I know he loves me and we will get married this summer. So stop chasing him."
"Ladies, I really don't know what you are talking about."
"Oh so it's just a coincidence that Kid happens to be around everytime you come around or if he's not here, you treat Cody like dirt?"
Samantha got the look in her eyes that said that she was caught, but she was not going to admit it, "For the last time, I don't know what you are talking about. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've papers to grade and lessons plans to make." Louise and Lee stepped back and let her pass.
After she was gone, Lee asked, "Well, what do you think?"
"She'll never admit it. Maybe if I hadn't showed up, you would have been able to get her to admit to it."
"But the look in her eyes was like a mouse caught with the cheese."
"True."
"Think I should talk to Cody?"
"Yeah go ahead and talk to him. Point out how she treats him when Kid's not around."
"OK."
"But ultimately it's up to him."
"Yeah I know. I just don't want to see him get hurt."
"Neither do I, but he's fallen for her so hard, that he's going to be hurt anyway."
~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*
Lee spent days trying to figure out what she was going to say to Cody. She wished that she didn't have to do this. But she finally got some time alone with Cody when the others were doing chores or on rides.
"Cody, can I talk to you for a minute?" Lee asked nervously.
"Sure, Lee, what's on your mind?"
"Samantha actually."
"What about her?"
"Cody, does it seem odd to you that she's all over you whenever Kid is around, but when he's not around, she treats you like dirt?"
"What are you talking about?"
Lee sighed, "Cody, haven't you noticed that the only time she pays any attention to you it's when Kid is around and when Kid is not around, it's like you don't even exist."
"Lee, you're just imagining things. Why are so concerned with this any way?"
"Because, Cody, I hate to see you being used. And she's using you to try to get to Kid."
"Lee, you're so jealous that I can show my love for a woman in public and you can't show your love for Jimmy that you're either lying or you're imagining all of this!" Cody yelled, as he stormed out of the bunkhouse. Lee just collapsed onto Jimmy's lower bunk.
Louise walked in and observed, "I guess you told him."
"Yeah I told him."
"And?"
"He didn't believe me. He even accused me of being jealous of him!"
"Well, then we're going to have to show him."
"How?"
~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*
"Louise this is crazy, you see how she's all over Cody, how can you say that she's doing that to try to make me jealous? Especially since I'm in love with you?" Kid wondered.
"Kid, you're not around when she treats him like dirt." Lee interjected.
"Fine, I'll go along with it, but to show you that you're wrong about her. She truly is in love with Cody."
"See, girls! Even Kid says that she's not chasing him. I think a man would know if he was being chased."
"Not always, Cody." The two girls said simultaneously.
"Just do as we say." Louise said.
"Fine" The boys answered simultaneously.
~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*
Emma and Sam came to see Boggs and Cindy get married. It was a beautiful wedding. Cindy's mother was able to attend the wedding, however, her father had refused to attend. Cindy had asked Sam to step in for her father. Sam had been a good friend to her before he left with his new job. Louise stood beside her best friend as she took the vows. Cindy also added to her vows that she would treat Jeremiah and Theresa as her own children. (She had discussed this with Louise beforehand and they had decided that it was best for them to remain as sisters and for her to take on the mother role with Jeremiah and Theresa.) Bogdanvovich "Boggs" McCloud was surprised at this addition to her vows, but was very pleased.
When the couple had decided to leave to go on a short vacation, Boggs announced that if anyone needed any medical attention in the next week, then Louise could handle it, he was on vacation. Everyone understood and chuckled at his antics.
~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*
It wasn't but just a couple of days after the wedding that Lee's and Louise's trap for Samantha was sprung. Kid was in the barn tending to Katy. Cody had told Samantha that there was oil in the barn that he needed to clean his gun. Samantha volunteered to go get it.
When she went into the barn where Kid was alone, she remembered that she didn't know where the oil was. "Kid, Billy said that there was some oil in here that he needed to clean his gun. Where is it?" she asked in her over exaggerated southern drawl.
"Samantha, you can cut it out. I know how you feel about Cody and I know how you feel about me. I'm in love with Louise and I'm going to marry her this summer."
~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*
Rachel and Mrs. Holmes were walking into the barn when they saw Cody hiding around the corner and he looked at them and asked them to be quiet by putting his index finger over his mouth. And they could hear every word that was going on. Lee and Louise were around the other corner.
~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*
Samantha turned serious and this time instead of denying it, she replied, "Well maybe this will convince you of who would be the better wife." and as Cody, Lee, Louise , Rachel, and Mrs. Holmes, rounded the corner, Samantha, who had her back turned to the barn entrance, kissed Kid on the lips.
He immediately pushed her away and said in a quiet voice, "I think you better go now." He and Cody had been proven wrong. Samantha was really doing what Louise and Lee had thought she was doing.
Before Samantha could answer Kid, Mrs. Holmes said, "Don't expect my children in school tomorrow. If this is the way that you behave, then I can teach my own children and I'm sure that there are other parents that feel the same way I do."
Cody had already left and was in the bunkhouse on his bunk. Lee went after the man she thought of as a brother.
"Cody, I'm sorry, we had no idea she would go that far."
"Forget it, Lee, you were right and I was wrong. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
"No. No, Cody, it's not what I wanted to hear. What I wanted to hear was that I was wrong. I was hoping that I was wrong. That you were right and I was just imagining the whole thing," she informed him. "Cody, I didn't want to see you get hurt, I just wanted you to see her for who she was and if you still loved her then great. I was hoping she was who you thought she was."
"Lee, it's all right, you did what you thought was best." Even though Lee truly believed that last statement, it didn't make her feel any better knowing that her friend, her brother was used to get to another friend, another brother. Cody tried to smile as he continued, "You know in the process of making a fool out of herself, she made a fool out of me. I don't think I could ever look at her again."
"Well, I wouldn't worry about that. She'll probably lose her job too. Mrs. Holmes has the biggest mouth in town. I bet that by supper time, everyone in town will know she kissed an engaged man."
~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*~TYR*
Lee was right. By suppertime, Mrs. Holmes had Teaspoon call a town meeting and told everyone what she saw. The town decided that they didn't want a whore, and that's what they called her, as their schoolteacher. They fired her. Her house came with the teaching possession so she was evicted as well. She left town the next day and none of the Pony Express Family ever heard from her again.
