Chapter Two

Cricket spent the night observing her parents. If Cricket thought her parents were acting strange before, they were really confusing her now. For instance, Cricket sat at the dinner table between her parents who were seated on the ends. They were smiling at each other like they were silly kids. She had never seen them make such faces at each other. Cricket looked back and forth between the two almost as if she was watching them play a game of some sort.

Cricket had almost lost complete interest in her food. Sure the pot roast and mashed potatoes smelled delicious, but Cricket almost audibly gasped when her mother drown her potatoes in maple syrup. Her parents shared a giggle at that and her mother actually licked the plate clean. This was not normal behavior. Cricket dropped her fork with a very loud clang when dessert came out of the kitchen. Cricket's mother put dill pickle slices on top of her piece of chocolate cake. Cricket would never want to eat chocolate cake and dill pickles together. Never! Her mother savored every bite.

Cricket thought maybe she should feign being sick so she could ransack her parent's room searching for clues. There had to be something in there that would explain everything. Cricket actually caught her mother knitting later that night. It was the first time she had ever seen such a sight. Her mother didn't knit and now, not only was she knitting, but she was humming while doing it. Add that to all the fond smiles her parents kept giving her. Cricket just knew that parents were hiding something terrible. They were too outwardly happy all the time. It was like they were trying to keep something from her. Cricket almost wished she had less on her mind. Then she would figure out what her parents were up to.

After several days of the weirdness that was her parents, Cricket decided to focus her energies trying to figure out what was going on with Jesse. Jesse was outright ignoring her and practically falling asleep in class. Cricket had finally had enough of not knowing what Jesse was up to. She excused herself from dinner early claiming she had a headache. She told her parents that she was going to go to bed early and they seemed to believe her. She wasn't actually sure they even heard her as they were too busy smiling at each other with goofy grins. As soon as she was ready, she popped her window open, and snuck out. Hopefully, she would catch Jesse before he left the jailhouse on his nightly clandestine outing.

Cricket settled in underneath an exterior stairway watching as Jesse and Teaspoon left the bunkhouse for the night. She would stay right here and wait until Jesse snuck out and then she would follow him. She didn't have to wait long before she saw Jesse's shadow creep out the back of the jailhouse. She let out a barely audible harrumph and started to follow her friend at a safe distance.

Cricket's face peeked around a tree and she looked over in time to see Jesse embrace an older boy who looked a lot like Jesse. 'This must be Jesse's brother, Frank,' Cricket surmised. There was something about Frank that fascinated Cricket. Maybe it was the way Jesse was always talking about him. She could tell Jesse idolized Frank and Jesse had that same look in his eye now as he had when he would tell her about his brother.

All of the sudden, Jesse's being so secretive made sense. She remembered Jesse telling her that Teaspoon and the Riders didn't like Frank and that Jimmy really wanted to put Frank in jail. At one point Kid, Lou, and Buck hunted him as did Teaspoon and Jimmy, only Teaspoon and Jimmy found him first. Jesse loved his brother though and no amount of criticism was going to make him turn on Frank. She sat back and watched for a few minutes and decided to go home. She would gently ask Jesse about Frank in the morning. Maybe Jesse would even introduce her to his brother. Cricket thought it would be interesting to form her own opinion about Frank supposedly being a bad influence.

Cricket turned to go and stepped on a small branch which cracked as she put weight on it. She held as still as possible when Jesse and Frank suddenly stopped talking. When their conversation resumed she took another step trying to be quiet. She carelessly looked back to make sure Jesse and Frank had let their guard down, when she tripped over a larger branch. She let a groan escape her lips as she landed on the ground and was rewarded with a couple of gunshots one of which nearly hit her. Cricket was scared and she let out a tiny scream. The next thing she knew someone had grabbed her by her shirt and slammed her up against a tree. Her heart was racing and her chest constricting. This was not the time for an asthma attack.

"Well, what do we have here?" a menacing voice asked.

"Frank, leave her alone!" Jesse shouted as he raced up wide eyed and out of breath.

"Is this a friend of yours, Jesse?" Frank asked scowling.

"Yeah, this is Cricket," Jesse answered. "Let her go, she won't say nothin'."

"What are doing hanging around with little girls?" Frank asked sneering.

Cricket was offended and started to struggle to get free. She needed to get away and now she was more angry than scared. She closed her eyes and kicked with all her might. She felt her foot make a connection with Frank's shin and he growled in pain.

"Son of a…" Frank yelled. He slammed Cricket against the tree again with his forearm against her throat.

"Let her go, Frank," Jesse said sternly. "She won't tell nobody you're here."

Frank loosened his hold on Cricket. "You get out of here before I ignore the fact that you're my little brother's friend," he said and pushed her to the ground.

Jesse ran to Cricket's side and helped her up. "Cricket, you can't tell nobody that Frank is here, got it?"

Cricket just nodded. She and Jesse would talk about this later.

"Jesse, send her away from here or I swear I will end her," Frank growled.

"Cricket, you gotta go now," Jesse said and pushed her along. "I promise we'll talk about this tomorrow at school."

Frank fired another round into the air and Cricket took off running. She thought she heard Jesse protest to Frank on her behalf, but she didn't wait around to find out.

As soon as Cricket started running she knew she wouldn't be able to make it home. She was already wheezing and she needed to rest. The closest place she could think of was the Pony Express station. She would reach there first. Perhaps if she could just reach the bunkhouse porch, she could rest a while and then make it the rest of the way home. She stopped to cough and when she finished she walked the rest of the way to the station. She was nearly out of energy as she crawled up onto the porch. Curling up under the window, she passed out.