Chapter 35
Lou was so lost in her thoughts of the past that she didn't hear Kid approach. She started violently when she heard his voice and almost fell off the fence and into the water trough below her feet. Kid laughed as he reached out a hand to steady his wife.
"I really don't' think it's the right weather to go swimming Lou." Kid said laughingly, as he climbed up beside her.
His smile faded as he took a closer look at her face and noticed that her eyes were red and her face moist with tears. Loving concern filled his azure eyes as he gently wiped away the tears from her face with the tips of his thumbs.
"I'm alright Kid. I just woke up early and decided to come out here and watch the sun rise."
Lou pressed her cheek into the palm of his hand and closed her brown eyes for a brief moment. It was little things like this that made her aware of how special a man she was married to. She smiled softly at him. He always seemed to know when something was troubling her. She knew he ached to ask her what was wrong, but also knew he wouldn't. He had learned the hard way to never press her into talking before she was ready. Sometimes she wondered why he even put up with her.
"I was just thinking about the past and how it felt when I first met you and the others. So much has changed in all our lives since then and yet, it doesn't seem like nothing's really changed at all. I'm still here fretting over one of you boys, just like I used to when you were out on rides and one of you, hadn't returned back from a ride as scheduled. Makes me wonder how everyone's doing and if they ever think about the past or us." She said with a sigh.
Hearing the sadness and longing in her voice made Kid wince. He should have seen this coming. As time passed and the separation from everyone else in their family grew longer, Lou tended to reminisce about the past and recall the good times they had all shared together. Those times had been extremely happy ones for all of the members of the close-knit 'family' that the Pony Express and Teaspoon had bonded together. They had all shared so much together, including the loss of one of their own. Ike's death had been hard for all of them to deal with, especially Buck. Together they had gotten through that terrible, hurting time and had grown closer together.
It wasn't until a few months before the Civil War started that they faced their darkest days as a family. When an old friend of Teaspoon's came to town to recruit men for the army, none of them had realized just how much the war was going to change their lives. Just a few short days after he and Lou had been married their whole world had come down around them. Cody signed up to fight in the army, Noah was killed trying to protect Rosemary burke and Jesse had left town with his brother, after helping them find the men responsible for Noah's death. No one in the family had heard anything from Jesse since he left. He hoped that the teenager was all right and remembered how much he was loved by all of them.
Those times had been extremely difficult for all of them. Cody left with the army, Buck went back to live with the Kiowa, and Jimmy left with Rosemary the same day that he and Lou had started for Virginia. He could still remember the tears in Rachel's beautiful green eyes as she and Teaspoon watched them ride out of town. Outside of Rock Creek, he and Lou had stopped and watched as their best friend rode away from them. As if he could sense their eyes upon him, Jimmy had turned Sundancer to face them. With one fluid motion, Jimmy lifted his black hat from his head and waved it at them in farewell. He and Lou had responded by doing the same with their own hats. The bond that had almost been severed by the war was repaired when Jimmy and Cody rescued him from a Union prison. They had sworn then that they would never take up arms against each other again.
"I'm sure they do. They just have their own lives to lead Louise. It doesn't mean that they don't love us anymore." Kid told her.
"I know that. Don't you think I don't know that?' Lou told him sharply. She took a deep breath to try and calm her emotions. "I'm sorry Kid. It just hurts so much to think we may never see them again. Ike and Noah have been gone for so long, but it still feels like we lost them yesterday. We haven't heard from Jesse since he left nine years ago! Where is he? How is he? Does anyone else besides me care? I hate not knowing if he's alive or dead! What about Buck? Or Jimmy? We haven't heard from either of them since they left five years ago! I understand that Buck isn't in a place that he can easily contact us, but Jimmy doesn't have any excuse at all! What if something happened to him? How would we ever know?"
More tears fell from her eyes as she finished this last sentence and Kid pulled her close. Kid was grateful that Lou had finally broken down and told him what had been troubling her for the past few days. Not that he enjoyed seeing her so upset. Lou had the tendency to keep things bottled up inside her until she was almost physically ill, before she finally broke down and revealed what was troubling her. He had guessed that Jimmy's prolonged absence was the most difficult of everyone's for her to bear. She and Jimmy had always been especially close since their Express days, and his absence was eating her up inside. The thought of losing him terrified her.
"Nothing's going to happen to any of them, Lou, especially Jimmy. He's one man that can handle himself in any situation. 'Sides didn't' Amanda writes that Jimmy was in Abilene? That he had accepted her offer to work at the Silver Spoon for awhile?" Kid told her as she cried.
"Then why doesn't he keep in contact? I know he doesn't read or write well but it never stopped him from keeping in contact with us before! If he cared anything about us he would have written to us by now! Or send a damn telegram! He just doesn't care is all!" Lou said angrily, and pulled out of Kid's embrace. She jumped down from the fence and started toward the house. Halfway there she spun around and shouted angrily,
"You know what else, I don't think I would be in the mind to forgive James Butler Hickok even if he did show up, got down on his knees and begged me to!"
As he watched her storm away, Kid vowed to go and personally hunt down Jimmy if necessary, and drag him back to Sweetwater by the nape of his neck if he refused to come home for a visit. In fact, he thought, he was going to write to everyone and invite them all back to Sweetwater for a long visit. It was time that the family was together again. He was also going to tell them how their absences' were affecting Lou and how much it would mean to them both to see everyone again. He made the decision not to tell Lou about what he was planning because he didn't want her to get her hopes up if no one came home.