Ch 3
That night, everyone sits to eat. Lou sits right across from Jimmy. He sees her sitting there looking so pretty. He looks at Rachel and smiles. Then looks at Lou. Rachel reaches over and rubs his arm motioning for him to go sit by her. He gets up and walks over. He set down by Lou. She looks at him with the sweetest look on her face. Buck slides down to be closer to Rachel . As they eat, Jimmy feels a kick on his foot. He looks up to find Buck looking at Rachel's breasts softly bouncing as she fixed herself some seconds.
Jimmy smiles and has himself a look too. After dinner the boys and Lou start to head back to the bunkhouse. Rachel cleans up and heads to bed.
The next day about nine in the morning as the storm clouds rolled in, Buck walked out on the porch. He could see rain coming across the land. The thunder was rolling. He looked again. Kid was returning from his trip . Buck greeted him and grabbed his horse as he got off. Kid looked back to see Ike riding off hard and fast with the mail.
"Well how was your trip?" Buck asked.
"It was ok." Kid says.
"Things were great here." Buck told him.
"We got a extra nice thunderstorm night before last." Buck explains, "It was so good." laughing to himself.
"Ok then." Kid said laughing along with him.
"I'll go put Katy up for ya." Buck offers.
"No, I got it thanks Buck." Kid says.
Walking his girl in the barn, he sees two paints playing in the pasture. They came running over thinking he had some good sugar cubes for them.
"Wow, y'all are a fine pair ain't ya. One boy and one girl." Kid says.
Rachel walks in to visit her new lady and sees Kid.
"They something ain't they!"
"Hey Rachel, they sure are." Kid replied.
"This one is mine, she is so sweet." Rachel said.
"Buck gave him to me." Rachel says with a glow in her face.
"Good deal." Kid laughed. "Who's is the other?"
"Jimmy gave him to Lou." Rachel looked at Kid as his face turned red with anger.
"What... ? I'll kill him if he thinks he's going to go after my girl." Kid snarls.
"Now Kid, Lou don't belong to you. It's just a gift." Rachel tells him.
Kid snaps, "A gift! What the fuuuu!" He stopped talking.
Rachel sees a tear run down his face. He was not breathing. His face was red as fire.
"Who does he think he is?" Kid tried to ask slowly but it came out broken up.
"Kid it's ok! Calm down. Go wash your face, I'll fix you some eggs. I'm sure you can use some good warm food." Rachel tells him.
"Damn it, thats bullshit Rachel."
He says gripping his fist so tight that his hands were shaking. Jimmy walked in the barn to see the babies .
"Hey Kid." Jimmy says.
Kid flew up in his face swinging like a wild man that had lost his mind.
"Kid stop!" screamed Rachel.
The boys squared up and went at it. Kid swings and hits Jimmy right in the lips. Jimmy swings back breaking Kid's nose. Blood runs down Kid's face while Jimmy has blood running down his chin. Rachel runs outside to find help. Buck was the first person she sees.
"BUCK help me! Help me!" screamed Rachel.
Buck runs in to find Kid on top of Jimmy with his knife in his shoulder.
"Noooo!" Buck screams. "You sumbitch."
Buck runs , but not before Kid plunges his blade in the belly of Jimmy. The long knife goes through to the dirt on the other side. Jimmy screams out in pain. Lou comes running from the house. Buck runs and flys through the air to kick Kid in the face but misses . Kid dives over and slides his blade between Buck's ribs. He pulled it out, slicing Buck's body open. Lou runs in and grabs a shovel to swing for Kid's face. Kid ducks and dodges the blow. He comes up slicing Lou's arm open in a fit of rage. Kid
makes a run for it . Running past Rachel, he looks at her with hate in his eyes stabbing her in the leg. She fell to the ground screaming.
Cody runs to the barn to see Kid covered in blood. He still has his knives in his hand. Kid runs to his horse. Katy had ran outside from all the yelling. He mounts up and spurs her hard. She leaps off her feet in a break neck run. Cody finds all of his family gashed open inside the barn. What to do? What to do? He thinks. He checks on Rachel and Lou first .
"Cody ride to the doc's fast as you can." Rachel tells him.
He mounts up to ride town. The rain is starting to come down. As Cody gets closer to town, he looks to right and sees Kid riding fast. About four hundred yards to the east, he stopped his horse dismounts. He pulls his long gun from it's holster. He aims and he fires off one shot. The shot missed its mark hitting Kid's horse in the hind leg. He remounts and hurries off to town.
Returning to the barn with the doctor, he finds blood everywhere but no one was there. They ran to the house to find Buck and Jimmy laid up on the table bleeding like cut hogs for the butcher.
"Cody help us." Lou yelled.
He rushes over. He holds rags on Jimmy's arm and belly. Rachel is with Buck, who is barely breathing.
"Doc help, help!" screams Rachel.
The doctor was momentarily at a loss from the carnage. He gains his composure and went to work.
It was late that afternoon before he had everything under control. The boys were a mess.
"Jimmy was been stabbed bad." The doctor says. "In one side and out the other. The blade missed all his organs but that wound will take a few days to heal. His shoulder will take longer. The blade hit his shoulder blade breaking it. There ain't much I can do with that. Buck is lucky. The blade missed his heart but hit his lung. It will heal in a few days as well. They should be ok in about three weeks." the doctor said.
"Lou, Rachel, y'all keep them cuts clean and washed real good. I'll be back in two days to redress the wounds." He says waving goodbye.
That night it stormed like hell. The wind blew and the rain came down. Rachel could not sleep. Lou walked back and forth from man to man, watching them close. Cody had every gun on the ranch in the front room. He was ready to kill Kid if that's what it came down to.
The next day both Jimmy and Buck were awake. The girls explained what the doctor told them. When they showed them their wounds, Jimmy's face changed. He looked at Buck and said aloud, "We are going to kill him slowly."
Without saying a word, Buck knew what was going to happen.
"Now y'all he was out of his mind." Rachel said. "He don't have to die."
"Yes he does." replied Lou.
Buck spoke up.
"He will pay for putting his hands on both of y'all."
The next to weeks were hard but the boys healed up and was making plans for a long trip. They had to track him down and make shit right.
"Morning fellas, y'all ok today?" Asked Rachel.
"Morning darling." Buck said.
"Yes ma'am." Jimmy replies.
"Teaspoon should be back today or tomorrow." Lou says.
"That's good " chimes Cody, "Maybe he can help out with Kid."
"Help out?"Jimmy asked.
"No, there won't be no need in helping out." Buck said.
"Kid is going to pay for this shit. You don't put your hands on a woman point blank!" Jimmy shouts.
Rachel and Lou did not say a word. They were afraid Kid was going to come back and kill them in their sleep.
"This shit ain't going to happen again. Look what he did to Jimmy. He almost took my brother from me. Jimmy is all I got in the world." Said Buck.
Rachel places her hand on Buck's face.
"When it's all said an done, I want you to come home to me. I want to love you til I die." Rachel says to Buck.
"You mean that? " Buck asked.
"Yes I do." Rachel answered.
Lou looks at Jimmy and kisses his lips as she runs her fingers in his hair .
"Jimmy, I want to talk to you after supper tonight ok. Don't forget." Jimmy and Buck were sitting side by side when Cody leans in.
He whispers, "I love you too baby.", to both of them.
The boys bust out laughing. They grabbed Cody and pulled him to the floor. They rolled around for a few before they got up.
"Cody your like a brother to us." Jimmy says.
They both place an arm on each of his shoulders.
"Cody, we love you too brother." Buck says.
They hugged Cody and thanked him for all his help.
"Well when I went to get the doc, I saw kid riding East. He was about four hundred yards out so I shot with my long gun. I missed him but hit his horse. I'm thinking that slowed him down a bit."
"Your a good friend Cody " said Jimmy.
"Well Jimmy you would of done the same for me right?"
"Damn right." said Buck.
The boys walked outside and looked at the wet ground. They walked down to the creek so they could talk about their plan.
"Jimmy, when we catch him, I'm going to take his skin off. I'm going to kill his horse and wrap him up inside of the horse hide and hang him over a fire. I want him to die slowly. We got to have pay back."
"Buck, I'm going to take a dull knife and run it through him, just like he did you an me. I'm going to cut his eyes out. I'm going to cut his tongue out his mouth and his ears off his face. I want to kill him so bad." Jimmy explains gruesomely.
"Don't worry we will find him
We won't stop til we do. Jimmy, I think we need to head East tonight before Teaspoon comes back. I'll have Ike pack our horses with as much as we can carry . I'll ride for a year if I have to!"
"East, East." Jimmy says.
"He did go east I bet." Jimmy smiled and looked at Buck. "The son of a bitch is from Virginia man."
Buck sits back. His face goes cold.
"Jimmy let's pack warm clothes and say our goodbyes. We're leaving tonight. We know what we have to do."
Buck and Jimmy sat in silence for the next few hours, looking at the land, watching the water flow in the creek, watching the hawks fly over in the air. The evening came as they made their way back to the homestead. Walking slowly taking it all in, side by side. They explain to Ike what to pack. They tell him what they will need and send him on his way then instruct him to return to the barn when he gets back from town to start packing. He agrees and does exactly as they asked.