I do not own the Young Riders
This chapter takes off near the end of the last chapter. I am sorry it is only short, but I needed to end it where I have, for the next chapter to work.
Jimmy
"I was held down by my arms while Roberts did...put...grabbed...I...I...it hurts...I'm hurt...I...I..." I let her go immediately, as my stomach churned when I heard where her mind was at.
I turned around and looked at Teaspoon, absolutely grief stricken. I didn't think.
I was an ass. All I was trying to do was to get her to fight. I didn't want her to fear me, but I just made it worse.
I turned back to Lou, who was mumbling under her breath. She was making no sense, but we could all here her anguish.
We all watched as Lou warred with herself. She was shaking in fear.
Kid kept calling out her name, and I wanted to scream at him to shut the fuck up, but I couldn't take my eyes off of Lou.
I had never seen someone lose themselves so completely. I was scared. I was scared that I had lost her. That she wasn't ever coming back to us. To me.
"Louise," Rachel said carefully, I thought it would go unnoticed just like Kid's plea's, but it worked as Lou seemed to come out of her state.
"Rachel?" She asked in a dazed tone,
"Yeah Louise, its Rachel, are you alright honey?" Rachel's own voice was quivering, as she watched the woman she thought of as a daughter, fall apart.
"I um...Jimmy...he..." She started, but was unable to finish her sentence. I had hurt her, not physically, but emotionally.
I knew more than anyone that being hurt emotionally, left deep scars. The way my father would speak to me, what he did to my mother, emotional scars run deeper than physical ones.
"I know honey. How bout we get you to the house?" Rachel suggested, as she went to help Lou.
"You idiot," Kid yelled as he came at me from the side. I did not stop him. I did not fight back. I welcomed this pain, as I deserved this pain.
I hurt her. I hurt Lou, one of the only women that meant anything to me.
Kid tackled me to the ground, his fists found purchase against my ribs and to the side of my face, I didn't fight him.
I had no idea how long he laid into me, but he was pulled from me before I felt like it had even started.
"I'm done," Lou's voice said sounding broken, and I hated it. I wiped the side of my mouth, and looked over to her.
I hated the way it sounded coming from her, and I hated what those words meant.
"Louise..." Rachel went to argue.
"No Rachel I'm done, I can't be here anymore,"
What? No. I looked to Teaspoon who had a grip on Kid. He looked back at me and shook his head. He knew like I did, that couldn't happen. She couldn't go anywhere.
She swung around to look at Jesse.
"Jesse I'm sorry, I just can't be here." She told him sadly.
"Louise honey, what are you talking about?" Rachel asked, not getting what Lou was on about. But I knew, I knew what she was going to say and do.
"I can't be here. I can't be around you, I'm hurting you all and I'm hurting myself. I can't breathe I can't live like this anymore."
"Louise you can't..."
"Rachel, I had no right to this kind of life to begin with."
"LOU!" I yelled, but Kid went for me again.
Lucky for me Buck and Teaspoon held him back, so I could pursue Lou.
"God damn it Lou, do not walk away." I warned as I walked behind her. I was well aware that she was scared of me at the moment, and I had to try and remember that.
"What more do you want form me? I have nothing left to give, can't you see that?"
"Bullshit Lou, bullshit. You need to fight for us like you did with Jesse. I heard you. I heard what you told Jesse, you need to do the same for us. Don't we deserve it? You need to fight for us, fight the fear."
"Jimmy it is not just the fear that I have had enough with. It is everything about my life, it is everything about me."
She looked so utterly broken and I wasn't sure that I wasn't making it worse.
"I shouldn't have been there. I should not have fooled you all, fooled the company in thinking I was a man, that I could handle this job. I had no right. No right at all."
"Lou, when will you see that what happened to you was not your fault?"
"I don't know Jimmy, how 'bout the same time you do." She snapped back.
I had not told anyone of my underlining guilt. Of course this whole fucking thing was my fault, how could it not be?
"Your right Lou, I do blame myself. If I had just met Roberts, and taken him out, you would not have come to any harm. He saw you with me. He knew that you mean something to me. This was not about you, this was about me."
"He didn't hurt you Jimmy, he hurt me. He still continues to hurt me." Lou cried in anguish.
"Of course he hurt me Lou. My heart fucking aches when I see you struggle every day. I hurt when I see the sadness in your eyes, I hurt with every flinch you make when I'm around. We all love you Lou and we are all hurting in one way or another."
"It's different." She said so coldly,
"I know its different Lou but..."
"No Jimmy you don't know. You don't go through the day, feeling his hands on your skin, smelling the whisky on his breath, and his laughing in your ears. He is still with me, and I can't get him off me. He was mean, and he was rough..."
Her cries turned into gut wrenching wailing as her mind took her back to that night, this torture, watching her suffer like this. I don't know how she did it, but she found the will to keep going, to keep telling us all what she was feeling.
And we were all listening. We could all hear her pain and agony behind every word she spoke.
"I hate myself. I hate myself in the worse kinds of ways. I walk round town feeling ugly, I look in the mirror and all I see is ugliness. I'm covered in dirt half the time. I wear clothes that are designed for men. My hair is short and has no shine.
The women that are always around you and the others are beautiful. They are clean, graceful, beautiful, so why me? Why did Roberts pick me?"
"I don't know Lou maybe it was because he saw what you mean to me." I admitted. I think back to that day in town when Roberts watched Lou and I, he obviously saw that I cared for her. "Where are all those woman that you say surround themselves around us? Where are they Lou?"
Lou shook her head, not knowing what to say.
"They come and they go. Lou you are ten times better than any of those women, and that is what Roberts saw."
I watched as Lou continued to cry, she looked up to the sky as she wiped her eyes of her tears. What I wouldn't give, to not see her shed another tear.
"Do you want to know the sickest thing in all of this?" I didn't know what to say to that. I had a feeling it was going to hurt her and us more than before.
"That was the only thing in months that reminded me I was a women. It took something like that, to remind me I am a fucking woman, but still not women enough to carry a child." I heard Rachel let out a cry, and I would be lying if I said that I didn't have to swallow my own.
"I can't live like this anymore. I can't pretend to be somebody I'm not."
"Then don't. Be Louise."
Lou seemed to think about that for a second. Her eyes looked around her. I looked behind me to see that everyone was still watching, waiting.
"Fight for you, fight for me Lou. Don't let Roberts win, please."
I returned my eyes back to hers. She looked at me, I could see she wanted to do something, but she wasn't sure. I was about to ask, but Lou slowly, painstakingly slowly walked up to me. Her body shook as she stood in front of me, her head coming up to my chest.
I looked down into her big brown eyes, so sad, so hurt, god how I wanted to take her pain away.
"Hold me," she cried, "Please can you hold me,"
I didn't know if I should, but the desperation in her voice and in her eyes told me that is exactly what I should do.
I wrapped my arms around her back, as she wrapped hers around my middle. Her head rested on my chest, as I raised one of my hands to the back of her head. I held her to me while she cried her heart out.
I have no idea how long we stayed there, but after a while I felt Lou's knees start to buckle. I caught her before she slumped, and I held her in my arms.
"Let's get her in bed," Rachel said from beside me.
I picked Lou up bridle style and followed Rachel inside the house.
"Bring her to her room," she said quietly.
I carried Lou into her room and went to lay her on the bed, but she grabbed a hold of me.
"Don't leave me," she whispered,
I looked up to Rachel wondering what I should do.
"Lou honey let me get you ready for bed, and then Jimmy can come back in,"
"Don't leave me," she repeated,
"I'm not leaving you Lou. I will be right out that door."
Reluctantly I let her go and I waited out her door. I could her soft cries as Rachel got her changed.
After a few minutes Rachel came back out,
"You can go in Jimmy," Rachel said not sounding sure if this was the right thing.
I nodded my head as I walked back into Lou's room. Lou lay under her blankets, her eyes closed but tears still made their way down her cheeks.
I took my boots off, and my jacket. I unbuckled my colts, and placed them beside the bed with my hat resting on top of them.
"Jimmy, please just hold me," she cried.
"Hang on honey,"
I lay beside her, but on top of the blankets. Once I was settled back on the bed, Lou inched closer to me. I wrapped my arms around her caging her to me. She felt right, she felt safe, I didn't ever want to let her go, and that scared the shit out of me.
"I will always fight for you," she said softly, making my heart swell.
"And I will always fight for you," I told her with conviction.
"I'm sorry I freaked out on you,"
"Lou if any man, including Teaspoon or me and the other boys, grab you like that, and you don't like it, I would hope you would freak out. I'm sorry I didn't listen to you." I placed a kiss to the top of her head. It was so soft that she probably didn't even feel it.
I stayed awake all night, scared that if I fell asleep she would leave, scared that if I closed my eyes something would happen to her.
She did not move she did not stir. She stayed asleep in my arms all night.
