Home on the Range
By Kallie
Ch 2
Kento's eyes moved from the gun to the person holding it. Her green eyes were alive with electricity. She stepped outside into the sunlight and he could see that her clothes were bloodstained, and she had a red smudge on her cheek. She growled at him, then seemed to notice the people behind him. They all had looks of shock on their faces.
"Step back and keep your hands where I can see them." She ordered. Kento did take one step back. "Get over by your friends." Lita kept her gun trained on his face. "Why are you here?"
Before they could respond Mina came running out of the house. "Luna's getting worse! She's got a fever now, and she still won't stop bleeding!"
Lita dropped the gun, picked up her skirts and ran in the direction of the kitchen. Mina turned to the group of strangers. "Do any of you happen to be a doctor or nurse?" She pleaded urgently.
Mia stepped forward, "I'm trained as a nurse, and Sage knows something about healing as well."
"Oh thank you. Hurry and follow me." Mina turned and ran into the house. The others followed her. They entered in time to see Lita come out of the kitchen with a tub of steaming water. "Where's Serena?"
"She's up there trying to help."
They ran up the stairs, with Lita, Mia, and Sage at the front. When they entered the room Mia gasped. There was blood everywhere. "Set the water over there, and get clean bedding now!" Her nursing instincts kicking in. She washed her hands and moved over to Luna. "Sage I need you to apply pressure to the wound." She turned to the others, "I want all of you out of here."
Mina rounded up everyone and shooed them out, but Serena wouldn't budge. "I'm not leaving!"
"Serena do you really think you'll be of any help?!"
Serena looked at Mina, her bottom lip trembling. "Oh, Serena. I didn't mean it like that. Come on let's go get some of Lita's tea." She put her arm around Serena's shoulders and led her out of the room.
They got down to the first floor and went toward the kitchen. They found Lita standing by the door. Mina's eyes got wide. "Lita, we need some more beef."
"No we don't." She said and turned to enter the kitchen. She'd got the door halfway open when Darien ran in with the doctor.
"Where's Luna?"
They pointed upstairs and he raced up.
"Who are they?" Darien asked, looking suspiciously at the hired help. The girls looked at each other. "You know in all the excitement we forgot to ask." Before they could get an answer they heard noise in the courtyard.
"What now!" Serena exclaimed.
They entered the courtyard to see Ami and Raye. They gasped when they saw the girls' appearance. "What happened?"
"And who are they?" Raye demanded.
"Now Raye, don't be rude. They're obviously the hired help." Ami reasoned.
Serena, Mina, and Lita looked at each other. "Why didn't we think of that?"
"Ami, Raye, we need to talk."
"What happened?" Ami asked apprehensively.
"Well last night we had bandits . . . and . . . well . . ." Serena broke off.
"They killed Artemis, and shot Luna." Lita finished for her. Then she went into detail as to what exactly had happened. Ami ran to comfort Serena and Mina, who had been closest to the two guardians. She started to sob herself. Raye on the other hand, clenched her fists and a single tear rolled down her cheek. She'd grieve in private.
When they'd collected themselves Serena turned to the "strangers". "Thank you for your help. Let us introduce ourselves." Serena smiled at them, but it was a sad smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Welcome to the Cosmos Ranch." She spread her hands to indicate the area around her. "My name is Serena." She pointed to her left, "The blonde is Mina, and the Blue haired girl is Ami. The brunette is Lita, and to her right is Raye."
Ryo stepped forward. "It's nice to meet you. My name is Ryo Sanada." He turned to the guys; "This is Kento Rei Faun. And to his right is Cye Mouri. Rowen is the other one. The woman upstairs tending your friend is Mia Koji, and the guy helping her is Sage Date."
At that moment the Doctor, Mia, and Sage walked outside.
"How is she?" Raye demanded.
The doctor smiled at her. "She's got a temperature, but thanks to all of your quick thinking she should be fine in a few weeks."
Everyone sighed in relief. "Make sure she gets lots of liquids, and that nothing gets her too riled up. And the biggest thing of all, make sure that you keep the wound clean. It's slightly infected, and if the infection gets worse it could kill her."
They all nodded.
"Right then, I'll be on my way."
When the doctor had left and they'd brought Mia and Sage up to speed, Mina offered to give them a tour of the ranch. She led them to the bunkhouse to drop off their bags. "Miss Mia you can stay in the main house with the rest of us girls." Mia smiled at her. "You can call me Mia."
"Thank you, but only if you call me Mina." They made more small talk while the guys claimed beds, which was pretty funny.
Kento was wrestling Ryo for a bunk; Sage and Rowen were having a staring contest. And while they were all fighting over beds, Cye strolled past them and claimed the bed he wanted. In the end Sage and Kento won, and Rowen and Ryo took the other beds, but not without pouting.
"Boys! Are you done yet!" Mia demanded, tapping her foot quickly. They nodded sheepishly and followed Mina out.
Mina gave them the grand tour, which lasted about half an hour. They ended up at the cattle pen, where Raye was. Mina waved to Raye, and she waved back.
"Let's go see what Raye's up to!" She exclaimed.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Rowen questioned.
"Oh sure! Raye's a peach. Maybe we can give her a hand."
"All right." Mia announced and headed for Raye. The others looked slightly shocked, and hurriedly followed. When Mia reached Raye, her back was to them. She was standing next to the fence that bordered the road. "What are you doing?"
Raye jumped and whirled around, her hand over her heart. "Don't do that!"
"Sorry."
"It's OK. I'm just counting the cattle." A bitter look passed over her face, followed by sadness. "I have to see how many we have left after we were raided last night."
"How many were taken?" Rowen asked.
"Well so far, from what I've counted, they took 500."
"WHAT?! But that's half our stock!"
"I know. Looks like we'll be cutting down on supplies again."
"Well better go tell Ami. She'll want to get to work on our expenses right away."
They were about to head back to the house, when someone greeted them. "Hello Raye. You're looking beautiful as usual."
"And Mina, a vision as always."
The two people addressing Raye and Mina were the last people they wanted to see. They happened to be from a competing ranch. The one that spoke to Raye was tall with dark purple hair. He was handsome outside, but inside he was as ugly as you could get. His mane was Jim. Mina's would be gentleman, Roy, was a little shorter with chestnut colored hair, and he was as good looking as his companion. Unfortunately for him, he was also lacking where it mattered.
The two girls stiffened when they heard the voices. Raye turned around, a look of disgust on her face. "What do you want." She spat.
"Tsk. Tsk. is that anyway for a lady to talk." Raye's only answer was to glare at him.
"Go away. We don't need this right now." Mina answered for her. Her look was cold enough to freeze.
"Looks like you ladies are short some cattle. What. Didn't you play nice with the bandits." Roy joked. Jim joined in on Roy's laughter.
At this point Raye's temper got the better of her. Her gun was cocked and pointed at them before even she realized what was happening. "I fail to see what is so funny."
Jim and Roy's laughter died. "Now get off our property." When they made no move to leave Raye fired a shot, purposefully missing. "I SAID GET OUT!" She yelled. They still just stared at her stupidly.
The guys moved toward them. "You heard the lady." Kento said. " I believe she told you to get lost." The guys all had their hands on their gun handles.
Roy and Jim glared at the guys, but wheeled their horses around and left. They all watched till the two were out of sight. Then they headed back to the house. Raye reported their loses to Ami.
"What?! I've got to go work on our expenses right away!" and she raced off to the library.
"Does anyone want some tea?" Lita asked.
"I do." Came from Mia, Cye, Sage, Serena, and Ami's faint reply from the library.
"I'll get it!" Mina hurriedly said and raced around Lita.
"No, it's OK. I can get it Mina."
"NO!"
Lita gave Mina a strange look. "What I mean", Mina rambled," Is that we're out of tea. So you can't have any."
"Then why did you say earlier that Lita would be making tea?" Serena asked confused.
"Because . . . I just remembered that we're out."
"We're not out of tea Mina. I just checked yesterday." Lita said and pushed past Mina into the kitchen. Mina stood there a look of growing apprehension on her face.
"MINA!!"
Lita stormed out of the kitchen. "What did you do to my kitchen!" she demanded.
"Well, I was cleaning it, and . . . you see . . ."
"All I see is my kitchen in shambles, and half our flour on the floor."
"It's really a funny story." Mina said unconvincingly.
"I don't want to hear it. I'm going to go make the tea and start cleaning up."
"I'll help"
"NO you won't." Lita cut her off. "You've helped me enough." Lita went back into her kitchen, Mina following her, apologizing the whole way.
"So." Serena started," What do you guys like to do? And how on earth did you get together?"
"We met up on the railroad." Rowen started to explain. But was interrupted when Ami came out of the library. "Lita where's that tea?" She rubbed her temples. "I'm going to need a lot of it. Luna and Artemis really had no idea what they were doing. No wonder our expenses were getting bad." She sighed. "Oh, and don't expect me for supper tonight, I'll be lucky if I can finish this before midnight." She turned to go back to the library.
"Would you like some help?" Rowen asked.
"All right, thanks." Ami smiled at him. "But bring the tea, or don't bother helping." She joked.
"Yes, ma'am." He bowed to her. Ami went into the library chuckling.
"Well, picking up where Rowen left off," Ryo continued," we met at the railroad. Rowen was there doing the calculations and mathematical stuff. Kento and I were the ones doing the hard labor. Mia was a nurse, and Sage helped out at the clinic when he wasn't working with us."
"And where does you fit into this?" Raye asked turning to Cye.
"I was the cook."
"Really?"
"Yea, but I got stuck doing labor too."
"That must have been yucky work." Serena commented. "I've heard some horrible things about the railroad."
"Whatever you heard, it's true." Mia spoke up.
Lita and Mina walked in then with the tea. "Really?" Lita asked, her eyebrow raised. "I've heard some pretty bad things."
"Believe me, they're all true."
"You poor thing." Mina gushed and ran over to give her a hug. Mia looked slightly shocked.
"Mina stop wierding out our guests, and go give this to Ami, and ?"
"Rowen." Mia answered for her. Lita nodded her thanks, and handed Mina a huge thermos of tea.
"So did you get the kitchen cleaned?" Cye asked.
"No." Lita sent a dirty look at Mina.
"Would you like some help with it?"
"Thank you, but you don't need to."
"Girls? Whose upstairs with Luna?" Darien asked.
The girls all looked at each other. "Luna!"
"It was your turn Serena." Mina caused.
"No way. It was Raye's turn."
"How could it have been my turn, when I just got home!" Raye exploded at Serena.
"Well it was your turn after mine. And I finished when the doctor got here."
"It can only be my turn if I know about it meatball head!"
"Don't call me Meatball head!" Serena screamed back at Raye.
"SHUT UP!" Everyone froze and looked toward the library, where Ami was standing. "How do you expect me to get anything done with all this racket?! You should be up there with Luna, not down here arguing about it!" Ami turned around and slammed the door.
"I'll do it." Raye said.
"No I will." Serena said.
"Would you just shut up and get up there!" Mina shot out. The two looked sheepishly at the floor and went up to stay with Luna.
"Honestly! Those two are horrible!" Mina commented.
"I'm going to go make supper. Mina you can help."
"Lita is that really a good idea?" Darien questioned.
"I said she can help, all right."
"Yeah, of course." Darien quickly replied.
"Lita, is there anything I can help with?" Mia asked.
"If you really want to then of course there is. And that goes for anyone who wants to help." So they all relocated to the kitchen.
"I hope you don't mind me asking, but how did you ladies meet up?" Sage asked.
"Well, we've always been together." Mina started. "Our parents were friends, and when they died they left us with Serena's father. We were 4 at the time."
"But he died two years ago." Raye picked the story up as she walked into the kitchen. "When that happened, Luna and Artemis became our guardians. They'd been helping out with the ranch for as long as we can remember."
"When did you move to the ranch?" Mia asked as she chopped carrots.
"Right after our parents died and Serena's father took us all in, he bought this ranch. He had Luna and Artemis move out here to start it up. We were kept in polite society, except we didn't fit in, we all moved out here when were 8. So we've grown up together."
"And you've been running this ranch ever since?" Kento asked, surprised.
"You got a problem with that?" Raye snapped.
"No. It's just surprising that so few people could run this ranch for so long."
"We haven't been running it by ourselves." Lita explained. "Mia, could you give me those carrots, and Mina move away from the stove." She commanded. "You see, Serena's father had hired help. We used to have lots more cattle, so we had lots of people who dealt with just moving the cattle around, but only a few who actually stayed here. But the one's that stayed with us died with Serena's father and the others left afterwards. So we've been doing everything by ourselves."
"Oh."
"How did Serena's father and the others die?"
"They were on a train that was robbed, and then derailed. Everyone but the bandits was killed."
"I'm sorry .I shouldn't have asked that." Kento apologized.
"It's all right."
"Well supper's ready." Lita announced.
So Sage went to get the others and they all sat down and ate. When supper was over Kento volunteered to help Lita with the dishes. Everyone else moved out to the parlor. When the dishes were finished, Lita took some of the food they'd had and forced Ami and Rowen out of the library.
"So Ami, how's it look?" Serena asked. It was Darien's turn with Luna.
"Not good." Ami replied. "We've got to get the cattle to market right away. We saved lots of produce from the garden right?" Lita nodded. "Good. Because we're only going to buy what we absolutely need for this winter."
The girls looked outside. "Autumn's almost over. Just a few more hot days left." Raye commented.
"How can that be?" Mia commented. She looked up from the piece of cross-stitching she was doing. "It was so hot today."
"Well out here it's either hot or cold. We don't have very long springs or falls. One day it's hot, and the next it snows."
"Oh."
Ami stretched. "Well I don't know about you guys, but I'm tired, and going to bed. " The girls nodded, concealing yawns. "Good night." Mia called after them, as they climbed the stairs.
She turned to the guys, "So, what do you think?"
"I think we'll fit in perfectly." Rowen commented, his eyes still on the stairs. Mia gave him a sly look. "Would that be because of a certain blue haired girl?"
He blushed. "Man it's late. Well I'm going to bed." He said quickly. The other guys followed him, teasing him the whole way.
Mia smiled to herself. She laid her cross-stitch down. As she was walking up the stairs she thought to herself, I think we're finally home.
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