"Here's a 50 dollar advance," Edgar said, holding the crisp, brown bills out as a sign of good faith and will.
Ruth didn't know whether he was being generous or worried about the exaggerated stories concerning Kid. She had a feeling it was the former as the Kid of legend would kill a man for looking at him cross-eyed.
Out of the stagecoach office and into the street, Ruth and Kid led with Camille and Lydia trailing behind.
"You invited Camille along? Why?" Kid asked quietly.
"I was willing to try anything and she was a creditable witness if not for that fool man's prejudice."
"Good thing you brought that little girl. She saved my skin back there. Who is she by the way?"
Ruth shook her head and sighed. "She says she wants to be like me when she grows up. She followed us purely by accident. By the time we knew, it was too late to send her back."
He laughed. "I like her even better now. Not such an accident though, is it?"
"No, never is with God. Not a sparrow falls without His knowledge or will."
He saw the horses tied to the hitching posts. "You and I can ride back on Horse and Camille and the girl can ride back on Carmel."
"Camille ain't going to like that. She's taken a strong disliking to my horse."
"She'll have to deal with it or walk back," Kid said unsympathetically.
"We didn't plan for Lydia, our little extra companion. We need a little more food to see us back."
"I'll go buy some then. The sooner we get back to St. Louis the better. I believe that's where our man is. It's populated enough to make it fairly easy to hide there and we know he's been to Camille's saloon at least once. Chances are he'll go back if he's in the area. I think it's the best place for me to start looking. We might be there longer than we planned."
"Maybe longer than you think," she said mysteriously.
He wanted to question her more about that comment when she didn't explain further, but there would soon be plenty of time for talking on the trail. He didn't want to waste precious time.
He went and got the needed food while Ruth and Lydia watered the horses.
Ruth watched as 2 women flocked around him as he came out of the store; word of his being in Franklin must have already spread. The same phony stories that put fear and admiration into the men made the women's hearts flutter. She didn't see what was so all-fire romantic about killing people though she knew why he was attractive in person with his tall, dark looks and good manners. What appealed to her most, of course, was his godly character, a fact most weren't aware of. Ruth didn't like the trimmings, of which the women were one, that came with being famous, not for herself and not for Kid. She trusted him though, even with women throwing themselves at him. Whatever he said to them worked and they let him be.
"Ready?" he asked her after he put the food supplies in the saddlebag.
"Before we go, can I talk to you a minute privately?"
They moved over to a deserted spot of the street. She could feel Camille's eyes on her. She obviously knew what the conversation was going to be about.
"How would you feel if we had a baby?" she began.
His face lit up with surprise and delight. "You're having a baby? This is wonderful!" He brought her in an embrace and spun her in a circle before she could explain.
She turned red with embarrassment and immediately clarified, "No, not exactly, but I know someone who is and who needs 2 parents to raise it."
Confusion came first then realization. "Camille," he said more statement than question.
"Yeah. I know it's not what we planned, but I know we could love a child that wasn't ours in the fullest sense as much as we could love one of our own."
"And how would we feed it those first few months?"
"There are things it can drink and we could find a woman still nursing a child of her own to help us. We can work something out."
"I don't know, Ruth. I'll think about it."
"If we don't say yes, she says no to bringing it into the world." She didn't want to force him into anything, but he needed to know.
He wasn't shocked. He'd hung around enough with prostitutes to know how that side of things worked. He was sorrowful about it though. "You're sure this is what you want?" he asked at last.
"Positive," she answered quickly, hope shining in her eyes.
"How can I say no to you or to the baby?" he asked.
"Oh, thank you, honey," she said joyfully, throwing her arms around him in love and gratitude. "You made the right choice. You'll see."
"I know who you are," Camille said to Lydia while Ruth and Kid were still off having their conversation. "I thought I'd seen you around and it just came to me. Your ma works at Jon Baudin's place. You're Florine's girl."
It made the girl panicky. It was a secret she didn't want Sister Ruth to know. She had learned young in life that normal people didn't like what her ma did for a living and that dislike extended to her. She'd even seen a couple of these "normal" people, who were frequent visitors to her mother, pretend not to know her and scorn her if they met her anywhere besides the street where she lived. People on the outside treated her like she was not a little girl but a creature beneath their pity.
She had once tried attending a school that a lady had opened in her home, but the shunning she had received from the children and parents had brought enough tears to soak her pillow that day, which had made her ma insist she not go back. She had picked up what learning she could in her small little corner of the saloon, a room more closet than bedroom, copying letters from an old hornbook while trying to tune out the disturbing and frightful noises she heard seep in under the crack, noises she'd heard almost all of her life but bothered her nonetheless.
The most condemning folks of all seemed to be church folks, but she sensed somehow that Ruth was different. Nonetheless, she couldn't take the chance that her view of her would change. If she continued being helpful, maybe Sister Ruth would let her be a part of her revival and she wouldn't have to wait until she grew up to be respectable. Her ma would understand and let her go, she knew she would. "Please, don't say anything," she begged Camille.
Camille laughed. "I suppose we all have our secrets, don't we? I won't say anything."
The tension went out of her thin body in a way that commanded Camille's compassion.
"But your hero's not much of a hero if she doesn't accept what you can't change. You didn't ask to be born to the woman and life that you were." As she saw the girl's unhappiness, Camille knew what she'd known all along. She'd been doing her unborn children a favor by seeing that they weren't born into this kind of life.
