A KNOT TO UNTIE
by DayDreamer P.
Chapter 2
Finally, Lou decided to cook with Jimmy. He only knew how to cook one thing, porridge, but at least he did it well.
"Hey, Jimmy? Don't you have to meet Rosemary for lunch?" she asked her fellow cook.
Rosemary Burke, widow of Isaiah Burke, had decided to stay in Rock Creek after her husband's death, but during those months she had continued to fight for her cause, as well as her relationship with Jimmy. The Pony Express family didn't like the situation very much. Kid had even fought with Jimmy and for that reason Lou had risked not being accompanied to the altar by her best friend. Fortunately in the end they were able to come to an agreement and now Rosemary lived in a little cottage at the other end of the town.
"Nah, I can't risk you poisoning Cody, he's just come back." He smirked in her direction.
"Don't start you too!"Actually her inability to cook weighed on her. Kid was a wonderful husband and now that she finally decided to marry him, she wanted to be the best of wives for him. Instead she couldn't even fix a meal. How would she do when they had their own home?
She smiled to herself; it wasn't worthy of her to think in that way. She had changed, she admitted that, from the diffident and coy tomboy she had been when she signed for the Express. She had learned to trust others again, she had found a family and became the wife of the man she loved more than anyone in the world.
During those three months every day was better than the one before. After the end of the Express she and Kid had gone to St. Joe to pick up her brother and sister, and now Jeremiah and Teresa lived with them at Rachel's house. What's more they were able to buy a little ranch near 'their' pond – they had discovered it during one of their walks and she had immediately fallen in love with it. It was one of the first autumn days, the last sunrays still warmed the earth and the house was surrounded by bushes full of roses. When Kid found the owner and bought the 'Rosebush Ranch', as she called it, she couldn't believe it. Sure, they had a lot of work to do, but in the spring they finally would have their own ranch.
Lou sighed; it wasn't only the cooking that bothered her. There was something else that she couldn't stop thinking about, a fear that made her lay awake at night even as Kid held her lovingly…
"Hey, Lou." Jimmy nudged slightly with his shoulder. "Now I understand why you can't cook. You can't ALWAYS be thinking about that blue-eyed guy who sleeps in your bed."
She glared at him, but Jimmy continued.
"'Oh, Kid'" he sighed theatrically, rolling his eyes.
"James Hickok, you stop that right now! I've every right to think about my husband. I tolerated enough from you all during the Express."
The gunslinger couldn't help but laugh. "Okay, okay!" he hurried to say, raising his hands. "But you can't deny that those were wonderful times."
"Yes," she responded nostalgically.
They remained like that for a while, lost in their memories, then Jimmy suddenly broke the silence.
"Look who's coming," he said, pointing at the window.
Lou looked outside, and straight away her eyes lit up and her lips curved in a smile.
"What on earth…? Look at the size of the tree they've brought! It will never fit through the door," she scolded, but her voice was full of mirth and kindness. "Those three…I can't leave them alone even for a minute!"
She wiped her hands and bustled towards Kid and her siblings, who that morning had left to get 'the most beautiful Christmas tree in the world', as Jeremiah had declared.
Jimmy observed his friend run out the door, with her apron still on and sleeves rolled up. He couldn't help the tightening of his stomach. Louise McCloud would always have a special place in his heart. There was a time when he would have done anything to have her by his side and hated the Kid for being so insensitive with her. But he understood that the two of them were meant to be together and that he could be only a friend to Lou.
In the last few months he had watched her bloom – the old Lou didn't get lost, she hadn't been tamed by the bonds of the married life; instead Kid with his love and devotion gave her a serenity she didn't have before.
'Could you ever have given her all of this, James Hickok?' he chided himself. 'No, you would have deluded yourself that you could make her happy, because with you she wouldn't have lost her independency. But if she had chosen you, you would had denied her the life she had always wanted.'
To have a family, to settle down somewhere and have babies, all of that didn't suit him, not now, at least. He envied Kid for being able to take a responsibility so big and he wished for them all possible happiness. He only hoped that one day he would have the luck to meet a woman who loved him as Lou loved the Kid.
The laughs from the yard distracted him from his thoughts. Through the window he could see Kid wrap his jacket around Lou as she hugged him, giggling.
"Where did you find a tree so big?" she exclaimed. "It'll never fit inside the house!"
"Actually we'll keep it outside," Kid stated firmly.
"What?" She didn't understand "Then why did you take it?"
He smiled. "It was their idea." He pointed the children. "When Teresa figured out I was going to have to chop the tree down she stopped me."
The little girl nodded. "He would have killed him, Luly!" she said with a hint of desperation in her voice. "A poor tree who never hurt anyone!"
"Then we decided to take the tree with all its roots and plant it in one of the old wash tubs."
"Yes," Jeremiah exclaimed excited, "and after the holidays we'll plant it at the Rosebush Ranch."
"They arranged everything, Lou, you can't say no," Cody said from the porch where he observing the scene.
Kid lifted his head. "Cody?!"
The blond scout stepped down to greet his friend. The two of them shared a brotherly hug and then Kid made the introductions.
"Miah, Tessie, do you remember Cody?"
The children nodded, remaining shyly where they stood. But it didn't take long for William F. Cody and his jokes to win them over.
The lunch was less terrible than Cody expected; Rachel returned just in time to check on Lou's cooking and correct her mistakes. Now the two women had sent the others outside to decorate the tree so they could do the dishes and tidy up the kitchen. From their spot before the sink they could observe them while they were trying to put the tree in one of the old washtubs which was too damaged to be used for washing clothes. They laughed, seeing the efforts the others made to put it in place, the action made more difficult by the ground being covered with snow. When they were finally able to achieve it, Kid lifted Teresa on his shoulders so she could place the higher up decorations, while Jeremiah chose and passed them to his sister.
Lou's eyes pricked with tears. Her heart melted every time she saw how Kid took care of her siblings as if they were his own. When he asked her to marry him, she had not wanted to impose their presence on him, though she'd hoped he would take them. It was her dream to take them away from the orphanage, not his. But it was Kid who suggested they go to St. Joe to collect them when he returned from his last run.
Lou had been afraid that Jeremiah wouldn't accept Kid – she knew how life had made him insecure and the boy still remembered how Kid had shot their father before his eyes. But Kid had been wonderful, he described the ranch they wanted to open and he told Jeremiah that he would have a horse all of his own if he wanted. And he meant every word he said.
When Lou saw him teaching Tessie and Miah how to ride or helping them with their homework, she found herself thinking that this was the life she always wanted… A place she could call home, her brother and sister near to her who finally had a real family… Lou even had what she thought could never happen to her: a man that loved her and who she loved back, a man to have children with. Children…
Everyone expected that she'd announced she was with child anytime now, and her only wish was to do just that. But she was scared – scared that she couldn't give him the babies they longed for, that what Wicks had done to her had destroyed any chance of that.
"Lou?" Rachel said. "Louise, that dish is dry now."
"W-what?" The girl turned to look at her.
Rachel smiled. "It's time we got out there, otherwise they'll finish the tree without us."
Lou nodded, and they took their coats and exited the house. On the porch they stopped for a moment to fasten them against the bitter chill. Kid had put Tessie down and now he was crouched, talking at eye level with Jeremiah who was explaining to him seriously how the decorations had to be placed.
"Kid is very fond of your brother and sister," Rachel said.
"Mmh." Lou nodded, but she couldn't respond to her due to the lump in her throat.
"I'm sure he'll make a wonderful father."
"Yes…" Lou's voice trembled.
Rachel turned toward her friend and found her with cheeks wet from tears, and they weren't tears of joy.
"Louise?" Rachel immediately she went to her. "What's happened?"
She made her sit on the swing porch, so the others couldn't see her and they could have some privacy. Rachel wrapped her arm around her shoulder while Lou continued to sob against her chest. Louise couldn't stop now she had begun; she had held everything inside of her for too long and now she felt the need to open her heart to someone.
"I'm scared, Rachel," she said when she had calmed herself.
"Of what, honey?" Rachel didn't know what was bothering her friend, but to see her like that tore at her heart.
"I'm scared …I can't have babies…" she finally managed to say.
"Why would you say that?"
"W-Wicks hurt me so m-much…" she sobbed, still unable to think about that night without trembling. "And after I got away, when I was in St. Louis…o-one night, about a month later, I woke up in pain…I was bleeding, and I l-lost so much blood I thought I was going to die…I d-don't know what happened to me, but s-since then I ain't never been regular." She blushed, to talk about these things that embarrassed her, even if Rachel was like a mother to her.
Rachel felt her stomach lurch, thinking about how Lou still suffered because of that monster.
"Darlin'... you can't be sure about not being able to bear children…you've only been married three months," she tried to console her. "It's normal you aren't pregnant yet."
"But you know that we been… dancing… longer'n three months…" Lou smiled self-consciously. "And we've never been very careful…"
Rachel embraced her. "All right. Maybe you should see the doctor."
"No!" Louise shook her head vehemently, pulling away from Rachel. "No doctor. I don't want someone else knowing about it… touching me… I- I can't," she finished in a whisper.
"Oh, Louise." Rachel kissed her forehead, "I'm sure the Lord won't deny you the joy of a baby…"
"I hope not," Lou said in a faint voice. She remained for some moments close to her friend, then she got up and wiped her tears. She felt a little better now that her worries had found an outlet.
"We'd better go or the others will come to looking for us," she tried to speak lightly, as if nothing were wrong, but Rachel stopped her.
"Louise, you know you should talk to Kid about this."
"I know, I just have to find the strength to do it," she replied grimly.
Rachel watched her friend walk away. She understood what had happened to Lou. To bleed until she fainted, so much so that she thought she would die… Louise had conceived a child from that violent act, and then she'd lost it. That explained why her monthlies weren't regular; it had also happened to Rachel after she has miscarried, for a while. She wasn't a doctor but the fact that Lou still wasn't all right made her afraid that her friend's worries were true. Rachel couldn't stop her own tears, then.