Disclaimer: I do not own The Young Riders.

Ike looked out the window for the seventeenth time in as many minutes. A ninth plate had been set at the table, but no one sat in front of it. Jimmy stared longingly at the biscuits and sighed.

"Ike, she ain't comin," he said. "I'm sorry, Ike, but we've been waitin half a hour. She ain't gonna come."

"You said she said she was coming," Ike turned to Kid, his expression sad and disappointed.

"That's what she said when I saw her in town," Kid repeated his story again. "She said to thank Buck and, if the invitation to dinner still stood, she'd like to accept."

"She knew it was tonight, right?" Cody asked.

"Yes," Buck and Kid spoke at once.

"I was just askin!"

"Ike, let's give her another few minutes," Rachel said kindly. "Maybe something delayed her."

"Thirty minutes?" Noah scoffed and leaned forward on the table. "C'mon, Rachel, can't we just eat? It's gettin cold. The girl just got herself cold feet and now she's gonna make us eat cold food."

"I was ridin all day," Jimmy complained. "I'm hungry."

Ike stomped across the room and through the door, not bothering to mask his anger as the door slammed closed behind him. He wasn't angry with them. They were right. He was just angry. Angry with Polly for getting his hopes up. Angry with himself for getting his hopes up, for being that stupid. He knew better than to dream about Polly Tucker or any other girl for that matter. And, yet, he'd let himself do something as stupid as falling in love with her.

The men who thought he was stupid were right. He was just a big dummy who couldn't talk. Worth nothing. He'd never be anything but a worthless dummy. Nothing more. Just a big dummy.

Ike swung up onto Marie and rode out of the yard, heading towards town. Ike tried to push Marie past a trot, but the horse seemed to know he was heading out to do something stupid and wanted to give him as much time to calm down as she could. Halfway to town, Ike's shoulders were drooped forward in defeat. Why had he gotten his hopes up that she would come? The thought was stupid – like him. It was the thought of a big dummy.

He looked down at his hands. They were rough and leathery, worn tough from years of physical labour. It was all he'd ever be good for, really – a lifetime of hard work with very little to show for it and certainly nothing to offer a pretty girl. Any woman that chose him would be signing up for a very hard life. Ike couldn't imagine Polly's soft, smooth hands ever looking like Emma's or Rachel's. He'd never be able to buy her that pink calico she'd been admiring or books like the one she'd dropped.

Riding into town, Ike wasn't sure why he had kept riding this way instead of turning back to the station house. He should have gone back to the station house. If he had gone back to the station house, he wouldn't have seen what he just saw. Polly walked down the street, arm-in-arm with Doc Jr.

She was smiling at Doc Jr and Ike felt a pang of jealousy surge through him. He needed to give up. This entire charade was nothing more than a simpleton's idiocy run rampant. Polly looked away from Doc Jr and her eyes met Ike's. The smile on her face faded and she looked terribly sad. The brown eyes seemed to plead with him, for what, he wasn't quite sure.

Ike gave her a curt nod, trying to tell her that he understood, and then pushed Marie into a trot back out of town. He circled around for a while, riding aimlessly, before heading back to the waystation. It was still plenty light out when Ike left Marie in the barn and headed into the bunkhouse to find Jimmy, Cody and Buck playing poker with Rachel. Ike swung up onto his bunk and watched the game unfold. Just after Rachel left with her winnings, Teaspoon walked through the door.

"Kid leave for Bend yet?"

"Couple hours ago," Jimmy answered, shuffling what little coin he had left from the table into his hand.

"Tomorrow morning, one of you boys is gonna havta ride over ta Pine Bluff," Teaspoon walked around the table to stop next to Cody to grab the coffee pot. Ike perked up, listening intently as Buck voiced the question Ike wanted to ask.

"Why?"

"Anybody here know o' Larson Biggers?"

"He's a nasty piece of work," Jimmy commented, following Teaspoon's movement. Ike had heard the name before, but only in passing: no tales, just the name. Larson Biggers meant about as much to him as Owen Bakers and Ike had just made that name up.

"Owns half the town, don' he?" Cody tapped the playing card against the table, not looking up from the card as he moved it between his fingers.

"Also owns ten thousand acres by the western pass through the Wasatch," Teaspoon sat. "And that land has the only water fer fifty miles around."

"Wait a minute, Teaspoon," Jimmy looked concerned, as did Buck. "Didn't Biggers already agree to let us use it?"

Ike sat straight in his bunk. Now he was remembering the name.

"He did, but he conviently forgot ta sign the papers 'n now he's making noise about raisin' the price," Teaspoon waved a hand around like he was swatting an annoying fly.

"They can't do that," Buck protested in his normal, calm nature – a complete departure from the way Ike had been feeling the past while.

"The company agrees with ya, Buck. That's why I'm gonna send one o' you boys over there ta get him to sign this here contract," Teaspoon pulled a folded piece of paper out of his jacket and tossed it on the table. "Which, more'n likely, he ain't gonna be to eager to do. I'd go myself, but with Barnet outta town…"

Ike didn't hear anything else. His mind was whirring faster than Marie could run. He could take the contract. He could do it. Swinging his legs over the edge of the bunk, he jumped down. He didn't even need to speak, Teaspoon knew what he was thinking and stood to meet him.

"You wanna go, Ike? Hold on, maybe that's not such a good idea. What if he wants to argue the thing?"

Ike's heart plummeted. Not even Teaspoon had any confidence in him. For all his talk about earning and deserving, Teaspoon didn't expect anything of him anyways. Ike crossed his arms over his chest and looked down, as if covering his body could protect him against the unintentionally inflicted wounds that burrowed into his soul to create tears that couldn't heal.

"Ike," Jimmy spoke up. "Even I ain't goin."

Who was Jimmy to talk? Jimmy had everything; Jimmy didn't have anything to prove to anyone, much less to himself. Ike needed this. He needed to prove himself to them, to the town, to Polly… to himself. If he could do this – and he knew he could! – he know he was worth something, that he was more than just a sack of bones tied together with muscle and skin.

"Why don't you trust me?" Ike asked angrily, his resentment growing the more the thought about it and replayed memories in his mind.

"Ike, you know I trust you. That idn't what I'm talkin' about."

"Teaspoon, I'll go with him," Buck offered, jumping to help his friend the way he always did, but this time Ike felt a flare of irritation rather than the usual gratitude. He didn't need Buck. He could do this by himself.

"Is that okay with you, Ike?"

No! Ike wanted to scream, but he didn't. Throwing a childish tantrum would just prove everyone right, just show he wasn't a man worth anything, that they were all right and he really was just a big dummy who cried when he didn't get what he wanted. Instead, he nodded.

"Good, than that's settled. But I want you boys to promise me one thing. No matter what happens, you won't let him git yer goat. Just get his John Hancock on this piece o' paper and get out."

Teaspoon went to hand the contract to Buck and Ike couldn't help himself. He snatched the paper from Teaspoon before Buck could even get a grip and turned to his buck, climbing back up and sitting where he had been before, clenching the contract as he formed a plan.

A/N:

I'M ALIVE. This story has been kiiiiilling me. Like I told J early today, Polly and Ike have been holed up in a root cellar refusing to talk to me at all. They wouldn't tell me what was supposed to happen in their story, they wouldn't tell me what they were up to, they wouldn't even acknowledge my existence. I think they were having s-e-x. Shhhh. Don't let them know that I know.

Anyways, everything I've written for them sucks so hard it could rip the roof of a house like an Oklahoma twister. So J threatened them and they started cooperating earlier this evening. Or maybe I just needed the time away from them to let them sort themselves and their story out. Who knows. Hopefully they'll be nice to me from now on. However, I do go back to school on Monday, so writing of any kind will be slow goings.

I'm hungry. I went to my best friend's little brother's Eagle Scout ceremony this morning. I've been bff's with Squishie since grade 3 and his brother was in, like, kindergarten at the time? Anyways, 15 years. So it was pretty awesome seeing the ceremony. Then we went back to Squishie's house and had homemade pizza with the family and played Cranium. It was awesome. I love them. But now it's 1:30 and I'm hungry again. So I'm gonna go get something to eat.

I hope the wait didn't make yall too angry with me!

Love, Thal

P.S. Thanks, J. (I'll be angry again later).