The Hardest Thing, a young riders fanfic

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters you've heard of before. The series and setting aren't mine either. But the situation is of my own devising.

Audio copy: You can listen to this story on my podcast: There Are Three of Me. It is read in Ep60 S4E7. You can find There Are Three of Me on Spotify, Google Podcasts, and .

The Young Riders

The Hardest Thing

By Gabrielle Lawson

Buck could see Teaspoon through the window. Teaspoon was leaning back in his chair with his feet propped on the desk and his hat tipped down over his face. Asleep. Buck turned, not wanting to wake him.

But that was just an excuse. He knew it. He was looking for a way out. But as he was now facing the street, he was faced with why he'd come in the first place.

It was a busy day. Carts and horses crossed each other in the street. People bustled about, going about their business. Mrs. Jenkins was just coming out of the dress shop. The barber stepped out to greet a customer. Tompkins was chatting with a farmer who'd come in for supplies. And all three looked up at Buck standing in front of the Marshalls office, as if he didn't belong there.

They were white people. The whole town was white people. The whole world was white people. He felt dizzy thinking about it and walked away. Away from their questioning eyes and their assumptions. Away before Teaspoon woke up and realized he'd been there.

He passed the saloon on the way back to the station just as three soldiers decided to go in. They watched him, too, with hatred in their eyes. They stood in his way. Buck really didn't feel like a fight right then. He stepped down into the street and walked around them while their laughter followed close on his heels.

Buck ignored everyone else he passed all the way to the station.

"You alright, Buck?" Rachel called over from the clothesline where she was hanging laundry.

"Fine," he answered, not really feeling it. He went into the bunkhouse, sat down on his bunk, and waited for relief to come. This was home. This was family.

But it didn't come. The other bunks were empty. Cody was gone with the Army. Jimmy spent all his free time with the abolitionist woman. Kid and Lou spent theirs together. Jesse was off with his brother. Noah was in the cemetery and Ike . . . Ike had left a hole inside him he didn't think would ever be filled.

His gaze fell on the table where the letter still lay. The one from the head office. The one that said what they'd all been feeling these last few months. The Pony Express was done, made obsolete by the telegraph. In less than a month, he'd be out of a job. And alone.

Alone.

He hadn't been alone since he left the Kiowa. Since the mission school. Then he'd found Ike. When he'd left the school, Ike had gone with him. They'd faced the hostile world together. He'd never been alone when Ike was there. He hadn't been alone since. Until now.

This was all he'd had. All he had now. And it was gone, going away in less than a month. And everyone had a place to be. Except him.

He couldn't go back to the Kiowa, not knowing the way it would end. He couldn't watch his people die, his culture crushed. His heart broke when he thought of them, though most of them had never cared for him. He never stopped loving them, wanting to be part of them. But his skin and then the encroaching white man made that impossible. He'd recognized that a long time ago. He couldn't go back.

He was stuck in the white man's world. He'd tried to embrace it, learn it, find his way. But his skin and his spirit within him made that just as impossible. Every eye turned on him with suspicion. Every eye except a few, the few that were leaving him now. Going their own ways. Leaving him behind.

Every white person Buck had met had first looked on him with fear and suspicion. Even Ike. Some had softened since. Some had hardened into hate. Every white person. Except one.

Buck stood up again and walked back out the door. He met Rachel coming in to fix supper. "You sure you're alright?" she asked. Her eyes held concern. She would never know how much he cherished that, even though he pushed it away.

"I'm fine," he replied. "I need to see Teaspoon." He brushed past her, back out into the street.

Teaspoon felt it again. Someone was watching him. After so many years, a body could feel that, know it. And, provided one's hearing hadn't diminished, the boards creaking out front helped. He opened one eye and peeked out from under the brim of his hat. He recognized the hat, the long, dark brown hair. Buck wasn't facing his way now. He wasn't pacing anymore. He was sitting with his back to the window, on the bench outside the office.

Teaspoon got up slowly, easing his chair back onto the floor. He could tell something was eating at the boy. Hell, it didn't take a genius to figure that out. Not with Buck. He wore hurt like a coat of armor: strong to protect him but heavy so as it weighed him down. Teaspoon could only guess at what had made him that way. Buck never really talked about his life much. Someone had given him that strength though, and someone else had taught him to carry all that weight alone.

Teaspoon loved all his boys—and Lou. He felt confident that they could make their way now. He'd done what he could to give them the tools to make the right decisions. Some would; some wouldn't. But that was their decision to make now. Though he still worried about them.

Buck was different. In a perfect world, Teaspoon would worry less about him than any of the others. Buck was skilled and sharp. And he was wiser at times than he deserved to be at his age. But the world was less than perfect, and Buck was given so much less a chance to make it. Teaspoon had done what he could to give the boy a fair shake, a refuge from the hostile world. But times were changing. The Express was ending. The war was coming. And Teaspoon worried what would become of Buck, left alone with no refuge, no family. Teaspoon could send the others into the world to make their way, but he wanted to hold on to Buck.

He just didn't know how to tell Buck that. And he didn't know how Buck would take it if he did.

Buck's head was down as Teaspoon stepped to the door, but he knew Buck had heard him, no matter how quiet he'd tried to be. That boy could hear a jackrabbit twitching his tail a mile away. And Teaspoon wondered where he'd gotten that, too, that sense of wariness that kept him so alert.

Teaspoon opened the door, and Buck's head turned toward him just a bit.

Something was obviously eating at him, but with Buck it was best not to pry. If he wanted to talk, he'd come around to it in his time. And if he didn't, well, then one had to ease the words out of him.

"'Bout time for supper, ain't it?" Teaspoon asked, knowing full well that Rachel was probably just now beginning to cook.

Buck shrugged and pushed a bit of hair behind his ear. He turned his gaze back to his boots. Teaspoon's deputy, Barnett, came back just then and entered the office after waving his hello to both of them.

Teaspoon stood there in the door, waiting for more, but Buck didn't say anything. He held his knife in his hands and twirled it over and over.

So he was going to have to be eased, Teaspoon decided. "Rachel send ya by?"

At that, Buck stood and faced him. It was so abrupt that Barnett even looked up from inside the office. "Can I talk to you, Teaspoon?" Buck asked. He was still looking down though, and he nervously replaced his knife in the sheath on his boot. "In private?"

Teaspoon was a bit taken aback. Buck had asked to talk. That didn't happen very often. Actually, Teaspoon couldn't remember it happening at all. And Buck had even taken off his hat to ask! Something was definitely eating at the boy. Something more than usual.

Buck felt his palms sweat and nervously clutched the brim of his hat. He shouldn't have come. Shouldn't have said anything. Teaspoon didn't need a half-breed hanging around, especially one without a job.

"Sure, Son," Teaspoon answered, touching him lightly on the shoulder and gesturing toward the office. At the stare they got from Barnett, Teaspoon added, "We can go out back."

Buck took a deep breath and thought maybe, just maybe, it hadn't been a mistake after all. He put his hat back on as they crossed the office and stepped out the back door. But then he didn't know what to do with his hands.

Teaspoon sat down on the steps, and Buck could see he was waiting for him to join him there. Buck sat, but he still couldn't bring himself to really look at Teaspoon, for fear he'd see the look on his face. The one he'd gotten from everyone else at one time or another.

Now that he'd gotten this far, he didn't know where to start. He'd been thinking of that very thing for days-especially after the letter-but now he couldn't remember anything he'd come up with.

Buck's mind ran in circles, filled with images, stories never told, and wishes never shared. The look in Red Bear's eyes when he talked of his father. The way the older boys had tormented Buck for not having a father, or for having a white one. The acceptance and peace he'd found in the bunkhouse around the rowdy dinner table. His longing for what he'd never had, what he had now that was slipping farther away. The despair he felt when he thought of being alone in this white world. The dread he felt when he thought of going back to the Kiowa.

"What's wrong, Son?" Teaspoon asked, pulling Buck from his thoughts.

Son. He called him that a lot. Teaspoon had called each of them that at one point or another—even Lou. Buck wondered if the others felt the hope leap up in their chests when they heard that, like he did. Or the doubt that pushed it back down. It was just something Teaspoon said, the way some folks said "boy." There was no particular meaning to it.

"It's over," Buck finally said, as he counted the footprints in the dust at their feet. He hadn't planned it that way. Those words. It hurt to speak them, made them real somehow.

"I know, however," Teaspoon replied brightly, with a flourish of his hands, "it was great while it lasted. But the march of progress can't be stopped. The telegraph—"

"I'm not talking about the Pony Express," Buck said, cutting him off. The Express was just the catalyst that had brought them all together. "I meant us. We're over. Everyone's leaving."

Teaspoon sighed and put one hand on Buck's back. "All families do that eventually. Children grow and leave the nest. But the family doesn't end. It just changes. It grows new branches, spreads out."

"But we weren't a family like that," Buck held, standing up again. He walked a few paces away, keeping his back to Teaspoon. "We're different. There's no blood to hold us together." The bond they'd all forged together had proved strong, but it was tenuous. It could only stretch so far before it would break.

"Does that make us less a family?" Teaspoon asked from behind him. "There was no blood between you and Ike, and you two were brothers if I ever seen any."

"There were years between us." Buck felt sad just speaking of Ike in the past tense. His friendship with Ike had been the most perfect relationship he'd ever have. He'd never have that again. Not with Teaspoon. Not with anyone.

"Yes," Teaspoon agreed. "There were. I wish I could say we'd all get years, too. But sometimes the world moves too fast. Carries us along with it."

Buck nodded. That was true. "In different directions."

"Sometimes."

Teaspoon felt they were talking around it, around what Buck was really trying to say. Teaspoon worried about just what it was. He feared Buck was leaving and wanted to beg him to stay, but he knew that wouldn't be fair to Buck. He deserved the choice as much as the other riders. That was what Teaspoon had wanted for him all along, after all, to be treated the same.

Still, when Buck didn't speak again for several minutes, the worry won out. "So what direction do you think you'll go in?"

"I don't know," Buck admitted, still facing away. It broke Teaspoons heart, the way he'd said it. Just like that night when he'd said he missed Ike. That was what despair sounded like. "What direction is there?"

Teaspoon wanted to encourage him, show him the possibilities, even though he didn't want Buck to leave. A father prepares his children for the world and then sends them on their way, he reasoned with himself, even when he wants them to stay. Doesn't he? "There're plenty of directions. You're good with horses. And horses aren't going away just because those telegraph lines go up. People'll still need good stock. You're better at trackin' than any scout or trapper I ever run across. You can translate between the Indians and the whites."

Teaspoon could have thought up a few more, but Buck was shaking his head. "People wouldn't buy horses from me. White people wouldn't. Not when they could buy them from a white person. Who'd need a tracker but the Army? Or a translator?"

Teaspoon knew he'd been down that road before, with the Army. And he knew how badly both times had turned out for Buck. No, he couldn't be put between the Army and the Indians. That would tear him to pieces.

He wanted to say that Buck could be his deputy. But he didn't know if that counted as hanging on. It probably did. He was supposed to be letting go. Wasn't he? He wasn't sure when it came to Buck.

Buck didn't seem to need an answer. He didn't turn back around. He just kicked at the dirt and watched the horizon. Teaspoon thought maybe Buck was shaking, but that might just have been the wind blowing against his coat. He waited.

Teaspoon thought surely Rachel would be ringing for supper by the time Buck spoke again. But when Buck did finally speak again, Teaspoon was glad that he'd waited.

"Did I ever tell you about the Kiowa?" Buck asked so quietly that Teaspoon almost didn't hear it.

"Not so much," Teaspoon answered, sensing this was very important. Buck didn't talk about his past much to anyone.

"A Kiowa father teaches his son to be a man," Buck began, and Teaspoon heard a tremble in his voice. "How to ride, to hunt, to track. He teaches his son what it means to be Kiowa."

Teaspoon knew that from his own time with Indians. Indian children were doted upon, taught and cared for by the whole village. But a father had the main responsibility for raising his son to be a man, while a woman raised their daughters.

"I never had a father," Buck admitted. "My brother taught me those things. He was just a boy himself. The other boys his age were still learning from their fathers, and he was teaching me."

"He did a fine job," Teaspoon interjected, meaning it. But his heart was sinking. Buck was trying to tell him he was leaving, returning to his brother and the Kiowa.

"But I wanted a father." There was that despair again. "I wanted a family like the other children had. I wanted to be a part of them. They wouldn't let me."

Teaspoon wasn't sure he'd heard that right. The Kiowa wouldn't let him? He got up and walked closer to Buck, hoping, for his own sake, that he'd heard right, and for Buck's sake, that he hadn't.

"I left to see if the white world was better," Buck continued, "to see if I could find a place."

Teaspoon hoped Buck would say that he had, that the white world was better, if only so it would mean that he would stay.

"It's worse," Buck said, dashing Teaspoons hopes again. "Until Ike, it was unbearable. I only stayed because I knew I needed to learn and because I couldn't go back."

Teaspoons hopes rose again, though he knew Buck was hurting just saying so much. Teaspoon could see that he was indeed shaking. Bucks left hand clenched his medicine pouch. He was afraid. Teaspoon again put his hand on Buck's shoulder, hoping to reassure him.

"Ike knew me," Buck went on. "He understood me. He got beat up, just because he was different." It was hard to breathe, but the words, little by little, kept flowing out of his heart, like water through the walls of a cave. Out of the darkness of his own spirit into the light where others could see them. Where they were vulnerable. Behind him, Teaspoon sighed and squeezed his shoulder. "He didn't try to make me something I'm not," Buck continued. "He made this world bearable."

But Ike's gone! Bucks mind screamed and his heart ached. Ike was gone and all that he'd had to keep going was leaving him or being taken away. Words were wrong. They didn't fit, couldn't reveal his thoughts and fears. They were inadequate, but they were all he had.

His pulse raced in his chest, making him feel dizzy. He just had to say it. He had nothing to lose, not really. He was losing everything already. His mind knew that. But his heart feared the hurt Teaspoon's rejection would cause. He closed his eyes and decided to jump, to let the waters rush out into the daylight. "I can't be alone," he said, expecting his voice to be loud. But it was only a whisper. His voice wouldn't work. "I could take the insults, the stares, the beatings, all of it. Tompkins can kick me out of his store; the pastor can call me a heathen; the women can look at me with disgust; the whole town can turn on me. But I can take it if I'm not alone. If I know there's one person who won't look at me that way."

Teaspoon's hand had slipped-fallen-from his shoulder, and Buck felt Teaspoon step closer. He saw him come around until he faced him. Buck still couldn't look up. "I want to stay with you," he whispered, knowing that it was ridiculous, half hoping Teaspoon hadn't heard.

He felt Teaspoon's hands on his arms before he saw them. "Look at me," Teaspoon ordered softly.

He couldn't. He knew what was coming. He had no right asking that of a white man. He wanted to take the words back. He closed his eyes.

Teaspoon's hand on his chin lifted his head, and Buck forced his eyes open again, trying to tell himself he was prepared, that he'd had worse, that this meant nothing.

But when he saw Teaspoon's face, he didn't see hate, distrust, loathing, or laughter. He saw pain. He saw the same thing in Teaspoon's eyes that he'd seen in Ike's the first time Buck had been beaten by the boys in the mission school. The same thing he'd seen in his mother's eyes after he'd come home with bruises from the older boys in the village.

"I will never look at you like that," Teaspoon told him, replacing his hand on Buck's arm. He sighed. "I was so afraid you were fixin' to leave and worried I might try and talk ya out of it." He squeezed Buck's arms until they hurt, but it didn't matter to Buck. He wasn't feeling the pain. He was feeling the words. "I want you to stay."

Buck had never heard those words before. The fear fell away from his body so quickly that he lost his balance and had to sit down, right there in the dirt.

Teaspoon sat down in front of him and took hold of his arms again. "You're my son. Not by blood, but that don't matter. Not to me. You're not alone."

Buck felt relief wash over him like a cool breeze, releasing his breath so he could breathe again. Teaspoon wanted him. No one had ever wanted him before. Not his mother, though she'd loved him, even fought to keep him. He'd been forced on her. Not Red Bear, though he'd never pushed him away and had sacrificed so much for him. Not even Little Bird, though she had cared for him and was happy with the elders decision that the two of them should wed. It was a logical decision since she was white. Want wasn't part of the decision. Not even Ike, not at first anyway.

Teaspoon watched the change in Buck's countenance. He'd let go of the pouch, and his breath came more evenly. Teaspoon decided that all that stuff he'd thought about what a father should do was all wrong. Or at least unimportant. A father should tell his children that he loved them. That was the most important thing.

Just then the dinner bell began to clang. Teaspoon started to get up but his bones creaked a little. Buck offered him a hand that still shook just a bit. Teaspoon took it and they helped each other off the ground.

The dinner bell clanged again. Rachel was waiting for them.

"You hungry, Son?" Teaspoon asked.

Buck game him a sheepish smile. "Starving."

Teaspoon laughed and put his arm around Bucks shoulders as they walked. "That's on account of you not eatin' when you're upset. You just push the food around on your plate. Family notices things like that."