Chapter Five: Absolution
"He can't be dead!" Cody exclaimed at the older man, "Can't be!"
"I assure you he can be," The doctor snapped, squinting in the light of the candle he held, "Now is there any reason you boys are beating down my door in the middle of the night and telling me I don't know when one of my own patients is dead?"
Jimmy and Cody had the sense to look sheepish. It was the middle of the night, and they'd just made it to Sand Creek. In their urgent search they hadn't taken into account that the doctor would be asleep.
At the despair on the two young men's faces, the doctor softened a bit, "Were you family or friends of Roger Miller?"
"No sir. He just knew something that would help someone who is a friend of ours," Cody said with a sigh.
"Family," Jimmy corrected.
The doctor squinted, "Doesn't have anything to do with a girl in trouble does it?"
Jimmy's eyes were instantly piercing the doctor's, "It has everything to do with a girl in trouble."
"Maybe you two boys should come in," The doctor suggested and stepped aside. Jimmy and Cody attempted to beat the top layer of dust off of their clothes before they crossed the threshold.
Once they were inside, the doctor relayed what he knew, "I was in the hotel when Roger was stabbed. I was checking on a guest who had a touch of the fever. I heard an awful ruckus from the office, as did all the other guests. Suddenly a man emerged with a lady in his arms; she'd been roughed up badly. He told us that he'd stabbed the man inside in self-defense, and that the same man had put the marks on that poor girl. He sent one man after a doctor, and he left before I could say that I was a doctor. I walked in the office expecting to find some vermin from the street, but instead I found Roger Miller, who I've known since he was just a lad, nearly dead. I knew the man's story couldn't be true, Roger wouldn't harm a fly. I brought Roger back here and did the best I could, but it wasn't enough. I lost him early this evening."
"I'm sorry," Jimmy murmured, then explained, "It's just that the townspeople think our friend is the one who killed him too, in cold blood. A posse has came to our town to bring her back here to be hanged...but the problem is she ain't been awake to tell us what really happened and we can't hold off that posse forever."
"The girl is your friend? Well, it looks like she did kill the other man, Frank Wicks. And I've heard talk she had his money."
"Yes, but she killed Wicks because he would have killed her if not," Cody said, "And the marks he left on her prove that. We just need some way to prove that she didn't kill Miller. The fact that Wicks told a lobby full of people that he'd done it is a good start."
"I can do better than that," The doctor said, "Roger was conscious just once before he died, and he told me, that the man who attacked him was going to kill that girl. He was very adamant about it, made me swear to help her. I'll testify that he said that. Most of the townspeople know and trust my word. Maybe I can help her after all."
Jimmy reached out for the doctor's hand, "Thank you sir! Can you ride out with us tonight? We're afraid they might try to hurt her before they get back here."
"Give me a few minutes to get my things in order," The doctor nodded, "I'm Richard Williams, by the way."
Cody introduced both of them and told Dr. Williams, "We'll meet you in the livery stable in half an hour."
Once outside the doctor's house, Jimmy and Cody collapsed on the porch in sheer exhaustion and relief.
Suddenly Jimmy jumped to his feet, "Come on, let's check the hotel, maybe there's something there..."
"Does it matter?" Cody whined, "We already have enough to assure anyone that she didn't kill an innocent man!"
"I want to know!" Jimmy said, "Come on, we already been riding more than ten hours, and we are about to ride ten more. It ain't going to make that much difference if we rest five minutes or not."
"Speak for yourself," Cody growled, but followed his friend. A few minutes later they were standing in the hotel, scanning the guest book.
"Here it is. She is under the name Rachel Hunter," Jimmy murmured more to himself than Cody. After getting the key from the clerk, they explored the room where Lou had been held captive. A violent shudder seized Jimmy when he thought of what might have happened in this room; how terrified she must have been, and how desperate. The room smelled of blood, sex and fear to Jimmy, though he realized he was probably imagining it.
"Hickock, I think I'm gonna be sick," Cody murmured, echoing Jimmy's thoughts.
Jimmy shook his head, "No time. Look around."
Cody suddenly appeared from under the bed holding Lou's purple handbag and they sat on the bed and emptied it on the space between them. Inside they found a fair amount of money, Lou's gun, and a piece of crumpled paper. Cody quickly grabbed it and read it aloud. Both he and Jimmy exchanged furious glances when he was done, and Cody tucked the letter into the lapel of his buckskin coat.
"So that's how he did it. He told her he had her brother and sister. Warned her to come alone," Jimmy said shaking his head, "he'd know she would do what he said; she wouldn't have wasted the time to ride back for help, thinking he had her sister."
"What if he really had them?" Cody wondered.
"He didn't," Jimmy said with conviction.
"What makes you so sure?"
"Because Lou would have either returned with them, or not returned at all," Jimmy reasoned, "Let's ride. This is enough to prove that Wicks had every intention of doing her harm."
"Please let us be time!" Cody muttered as they ran for the stable.
Kid was aware of two things. First and foremost, he had a terrible headache. Secondly, he was freezing. His first thought was that Cody must have left the door open again, like he always managed to do on cold mornings when he had an early ride and the others didn't.
Coming closer to rousing, he realized suddenly he was on the floor. The jail floor. He jumped to his feet, but not before he managed to ram the lump on his head into the desk above him.
As he feared, she was gone. For the second time, she'd been taken from him. Ignoring the dizziness and the sharp pains, Kid bolted from Teaspoon's office, not bothering to close the door behind him.
He saddled Katy in record time, and pointed her in the direction of Sand Creek without ever looking back or considering wasting enough time to ask for help.
"Rider comin' fast!" A man from the back of the posse shouted. Marshal Gates swung in his saddle to see a young man riding hell-bent for them. He sighed when he recognized the young man who had been caring for Louise McCloud, not overly surprised.
"Could be trouble boys! Be on your toes, but don't do anything stupid! He's just a boy!" The marshal warned.
Kid pulled Katy to a trembling halt at the back of the line, right beside the wagon that Lou lay in.
"Now son," The marshal began.
"You had no right to do what you did!" Kid shouted, pointing at the marshal and trying to ignore the pulses of pain through his skull, "I'm taking her back with me!"
"This warrant says different. We are taking this girl to be tried for murder."
Kid reached for his gun, but the men had been ready, and several barrels were aimed at him before his cleared the hostler.
"Go back to Rock Creek, son. Tell Teaspoon Hunter that the girl is conscious and able to travel. It will take a few days for the judge to make his rounds. You can all be there for her trial, which I intend to see she gets."
The Marshal's intentions may have been good, but the look that passed from man to man made Kid highly doubt there would be any trial.
"I ain't leaving without her!" Kid insisted.
"Boy, I'm growing tired of this. Get out of here, or I'll put you under arrest for obstructing justice."
Kid sighed. If it meant staying with Lou, he'd have to do it. "I'm not going."
"Ken, put the irons on him," Ben Gates said. "Damn it boy."
Kid glanced over his shoulder after the cuffs weighted his wrists, and hoped for signs of Teaspoon. Teaspoon could stop this madness. He glanced at Lou in the wagon. Her eyes were open and fixed on the sky. She moved them neither to the left nor right, nor did she blink often. She was ashen and lifeless. Kid called her name softly once, but she didn't respond. Dread dropped anew in the pit of his stomach, and he would have given anything to go to her.
As they rode along, he searched the faces of the men. Why did everyone believe that Lou had killed one of their friends? She hadn't. Not without a damned good reason, but they all were mad with the need for revenge. Their thirst for justice could not have been inspired by Wicks, a man that was not one of theirs and by all accounts was a poor excuse for a human being. So, the question was, who had lied, who had something to gain from lying?
They pushed ever westward, under a sky that was growing ominous with thunderheads. Lightning flashed ahead and the wind was picking up. Kid was watching the ever-darkening sky when three riders came into view. He straightened in interest, recognizing Jimmy's palomino.
When it became obvious that the riders were coming toward them, Marshal Gates called for the posse to halt. Kid was relieved at the arrival of Jimmy and Cody, and another man.
"It's Doc," One of the men said, "And it looks like two of them boys from Rock Creek."
"What's going on Richard?" The marshal shouted over the howling wind.
"You're making a mistake Ben. The girl isn't the one who stabbed Roger Miller."
"How do you know?"
Jimmy spotted Kid, his hands bound together at the back of the posse, and nudged Cody. They moved closer to where he sat on Katy.
"What are you doing here?" Cody wondered for both of them, as the doctor explained how Roger Miller had died defending the girl from Wicks, and how Wicks had admitted in front of all the hotel's guest that it had been him who had killed the man.
"They took Lou last night. They knocked me out. When I woke up, I rode after her."
"Where are the others?" Jimmy asked.
"Back at Rock Creek. They weren't in the jail at the time, and I don't even know if they've missed me yet. Did you find a way to get Lou out of this?"
"What does the jail have to do with this?" Cody wondered.
"Nevermind that," Jimmy said, "We found the doctor who cared for Miller. And we found the ransom note for Lou's brother and sister that Wicks sent her."
"Ransom note?" Kid asked in confusion but Jimmy held up a hand to stop Kid's questions, his eyes falling on a man who seemed to be taking the doctor's account badly.
"Watch him," Jimmy muttered and Kid nodded, "Yeah. I see him."
Thunder suddenly shook the earth and there was a moment of chaos as everyone tried to bring their spooked horses under control. The marshal was then asking to see the ransom note, which Cody gladly handed over. After he read it, his eyes sought out Thomas Harley, who had been edging toward the wagon carrying Lou.
"You've got a whole hell of a lot of explaining to do," Ben Gates thundered as the first fat drops of rain fell.
"She murdered him! She was his and she killed him!" He screeched, and drew his gun.
Lightning flashed and the world seemed to move in slow motion in the seconds that followed. Kid flung himself off Katy, toward the wagon, screaming "Jimmy!" as he did so. He fell on his knees but scrambled up as Jimmy's gun cleared his holster.
Thunder crashed and the sky opened up in torrents of rain as the two guns went off simultaneously, one toward the wagon, one toward Thomas Harley. And then, it was over, and everyone sat motionless in the pouring rain, trying to understand what had just happened.
Slowly, Thomas Harley slid sideways off his horse and fell dead to the ground.
Kid, who had frozen in shock at the sound of the gunshots suddenly screamed Lou's name, and made himself look over the edge of the wagon.
Jimmy and Cody, in the meantime had leapt off their horses and hurried for the wagon's edge also, expecting the worst. There lay Lou, her eyes closed against the rain, with a bullet hole in the wood not half a foot from her head. She seemed not to notice the near miss. Kid, Jimmy, and Cody all grabbed the edge of the wagon for support as they stood on knees trembling with relief.
Suddenly Kid was striding away from the wagon and toward the marshal.
"Get these off of me!" He demanded, thrusting his wrists toward the man with the key. The marshal wordlessly did so, seeing too late the mistake he had saw that he had paled in realization of what his men might have done to the relatively innocent girl in the wagon.
Kid leapt in the wagon beside Lou and gently gathered her into his arms. She stirred and cried out in fear, and fought for a moment before her wild eyes rested on Kid's face.
"I thought they had killed you," She whispered, her voice sounding rusty after days of not speaking.
"I thought they'd killed you too." Kid said and then was overcome by an emotion so strong he could no longer speak. Instead he pulled her to him and hugged her tightly. Then he stood up in the wagon.
Over the heads of the other men his determined gaze found the marshal's. "We're going home," He stated.
The marshal nodded, "I'm coming back with you. I still got questions for her about the money. If she answers them, maybe it can end there."
He turned to the posse, the fire and blood thirst gone once they realized one of their own had not been murdered by the girl after all.
The men of Sand Creek watched as the girl was handed to Jimmy, who waited until the Kid was on Katy to hand her back to him.
Jimmy and Cody swung on to their horses, and without a backward glance, the four of them turned and headed back for Rock Creek.
Marshal Ben Gates swallowed the apology that had formed at the base of his throat, and instead turned his horse to follow, motioning his deputy to take care of Harley's body.
They were not far from home when another group of horsemen approached them. Buck, Noah, and Teaspoon pulled up in front of them.
"Is she alright?" Buck asked, looking at Lou who'd been asleep against Kid's chest for most of the ride back.
"I don't know," Kid said softly.
"Should we be expecting another posse to come retrieve her any time soon?" Teaspoon wondered.
"No, but the Marshal there still has some questions for her. Posse rode on home," Cody supplied.
"Kid, you all right?" Teaspoon wondered, looking at the gash on his temple.
"Yeah. Let's go home."
*
Lou felt like her mind and body had been overtaken by someone else. Someone cool and dispassionate, who could remember to move her arms and legs, and breathe, but was a hundred miles removed from everyone around her.
They'd brought her back to the bunkhouse, settled her on her bunk. The Marshal from Sand Creek hung back while they fussed over her, trying to make her comfortable, trying to put her at ease. Lou let them, but personally didn't think she'd ever feel easy again.
"Marshal, make your questions quick, why don't you? She's had an ordeal," Teaspoon ordered. And though it was technically Marshal Gates' investigation, he had enough grace to recognize that after he'd let his posse drag her halfway across the prairie and almost get shot by a man who'd lied to them about her role in the events of the last days, his authority on the matter was rightfully in question.
"Lou, you want us to leave you?" Teaspoon asked gently.
Lou's eyes slowly turned in his general direction but didn't really focus on anything. She shrugged. Teaspoon worried at the vacant look in her eyes, but didn't say anything.
"I ain't leaving her with him," Kid growled.
"Me either," Jimmy echoed.
"All right, the rest of you boys, out." Teaspoon murmured, glanced at Lou, who was now looking at her lap. "I'll stay too."
Marshal Gates dragged a chair to her bunk and sat down at her side, closer to her than Lou would have liked. Kid, without comment, sat at the foot of her bed, not exactly creating a barrier between her and the Marshal, but making it clear he stood between them.
Kid was careful to avoid touching her, and when Lou realized that, a little peal of pain struck at her heart, through all the layers of indifference she'd pulled around herself. Jimmy sat at the table and Teaspoon leaned up against the next bunk. The Marshal sighed. "Miss McCloud, I know this must be very difficult for you to speak about."
Lou did not respond. She simply met his gaze steadily for a moment, then let her eyes drift somewhere over his right shoulder.
"How do you know Frank Wicks?"
It surprised her when a hysterical, but humorless, laugh from somewhere deep broke from her lips before she could stop it. It was the sheer absurdity of both the question and the answer. Biblicaly, but not by choice? How the hell did she answer that question?
She saw the concerned look that her men exchanged at her bizarre reaction, knew they thought her afflicted in her brain, and struggled to quiet herself. The brittle laugh died away and tense silence ruled again.
Clearly worried for her sanity, Kid spoke up, telling the Marshal of how she'd come to work for Wicks, how he'd raped her as a girl and how she had run from him.
Lou half-listened, not entirely interested in the story. She knew how it ended, after all. She fixated on one of the glass pitchers on the shelves above the kitchen basin; it was dangerously close to the edge.
"That true?" Marshal Gates asked her.
"Yeah," Lou murmured and shrugged, reluctantly looking away from the pitcher. If she could just go fix it, she thought, stretch up on her toes and push it an inch back from the edge, maybe things would feel right in this room and in her own skin. But she couldn't, and the pitcher and her own mind remained perched on the edge of a precipice.
"Didn't it occur to you that working in a brothel, that something like that might be expected of you?" Marshal Gates asked.
Jimmy stood up so quickly his chair crashed on the floor behind him, causing Lou and everyone else in the room to startle. His voice boomed to the rafters, "If all your questions are gonna be this damned stupid Marshal, we might as well end this now! She was a kid!"
"Jimmy…" Teaspoon warned, but then pinned the Marshal with a glare. "Let's move this along to more present times, Marshal Gates, why don't we?."
"Did you steal Wicks' money, Miss McCloud?" the Marshal asked, cutting to the point.
"Of course she didn't!" Kid growled at the same time Lou shrugged, "Yeah, I guess I did."
Under their shocked stares, she elaborated, "One of his girls had stolen it from him and turned up here needing help. Wicks was pretty tight-fisted with the girls' money. Kept them dependent on him enough to keep them in their place. When Charlotte couldn't stand it any more, she took what she thought he owed her. Wicks hunted her down like the dog he thought of her as. She killed herself rather than go back to him. When I found it, I didn't intend him to ever have it back."
"It wasn't your money to keep," the Marshal said, not unkindly. "You know that, don't you?"
"It certainly cost me more than I planned," Lou retorted, bitter down to the depths of her soul that Wicks had come back into her life, that she had imagined she might best him. That she had lost.
"Can you tell me what happened in Sand Creek?"
Lou shrugged, returned her eyes to the pitcher as she muttered, "Wicks got a message to me that he had my brother and sister and to come to him in Sand Creek or he'd hurt them...I just, I had to go. I never thought that he might be lying, baiting me like a fool…and I walked right into it."
"Lou, he wasn't playing fair," Kid murmured. "You're no fool."
"I went to get them back. I had the money with me. I don't know what I was gonna do with the money...I didn't want it, but I couldn't let him have it back after Charlotte died. But when I thought he had my brother and sister, that all changed. I would have given him anything not to hurt them…"
The terror of the day of not-knowing if her sister and brother had been harmed...and what had come next...broke her voice, but with every ounce of determination she had, Lou pushed the emotion back down. To feel something was to feel everything, and she would not bear it. She looked down at her hands in her lap, realized they were clenched into fists.
"I'd planned to outsmart him, get Theresa and Jeremiah and run when he wasn't looking. But he was waiting for me. He got into my room."
"What happened there?" The Marshal persisted.
"Marshal, are the details really important?" Kid growled.
"A man died. Two men. It's important."
Lou concentrated on retreating far into herself, letting the stranger under her skin take over in a distant voice. "He beat me. I lost consciousness. When I woke, well, he'd had his way with me already. I don't remember anything about it, except waking up alone and knowing he'd taken me while I was out."
Both Kid and Jimmy made identical sounds of distress. Teaspoon turned his back for a moment, pacing the floor and back again. "Lordy, lord," he muttered to himself, reassuming his position against the bunk.
"I got out of the room and asked Miller to help me. He tried to, but Wicks found me, stabbed him. He took me back up to his room."
She hoped the Marshal would tell her that it had been enough, but he simply watched her with a shrewd gaze. Pity had started to crowd out the suspicion in his eyes, and she thought she preferred the condemnation.
"He planned on...having his way again. I tried to fight him. He was stronger. But, I'd found a letter opener in the office when Miller was attacked. I waited for the opportunity, and I stabbed him. In the back while he was on me. Twice, maybe three times, maybe more. I don't remember. I kept on until he stopped."
The Marshal nodded. Kid, Jimmy, and Teaspoon looked at Lou with horrified expressions at what she'd had to do.
"I didn't know what else to do, and I didn't care. Don't care now that he's dead. I just needed him to stop hurting me. And then, I ran. I knew the law'd come for me, but all I could think of was to get back home...I knew you'd be crazy with worry if I didn't come home."
Kid's eyes filled with tears as Lou glanced at him. He mastered control of his expression, nodded, and spoke around the tightness in his throat, "Yeah. I would have been, Lou."
The telling left a heavy, awkward silence over the room. She fixated back on the pitcher. Wondered why it didn't tumble down.
Finally, Teaspoon prodded, "Well, Marshal. What's your move?"
The marshal sighed, rubbing his face. "I'm sorry for what happened to you, Miss McCloud, and for my part in what came next. Truth be told, I should probably arrest you and let you tell your story to a judge...but then, both men who accused you of stealin' the money's dead and I can't say as I am sorry to have the world rid of them. I think my work here is done as good as it can be. No witnesses left to testify against the lady now. Seems like a waste of time and money to have a trial."
"What about the money?" Jimmy asked quietly. "Shouldn't Lou have a say in what happens to it?"
"Miss McCloud?"
Lou shuddered. "Use it to bury Mr. Miller."
"And the rest?"
"I don't care."
Lou said no more as the men stood and the Marshal and Teaspoon let themselves out of the bunkhouse.
When they closed the door, the pitcher finally lost purchase, fell, and shattered into a thousand pieces.
Lou hugged her arms around herself and turned to face the wall.
"Lou, please eat something!" Jesse pleaded, as he sat at her bedside.
It had been two weeks since Kid had carried her back into the bunkhouse. Her wounds had closed and her bruises had faded, but her eyes still held pain and distrust, and very little else. She'd rarely moved from her bunk. She lay for long hours facing the wall, her eyes open and fixed on the wood. She hadn't spoken more than a few words, and still had not shed the first tear.
The other riders feared her spirit was broken completely, her fire extinguished.
Lou found that it was easy to block the pain, but doing that meant blocking everything else, especially the love that was showered upon her.
They all tried to draw her out in their way. Cody with a funny story, Buck had brought herbs to reduce the swelling of the wounds on her head and chest, Noah had brought her chocolates from Fort Laramie. Kid had spent endless hours trying to talk to her about everything and nothing.
But she couldn't, wouldn't, face the reality of all that had happened. She couldn't do it again, she decided. She just didn't have the heart to start all over, to recover. Even if it was breaking the hearts of all around her to see her give up. Only Jimmy let her be. He was there, often, watching, but he didn't pepper her with mindless chit-chat.
Now, Jimmy sat at the bunkhouse table, balancing himself on the back legs of the chair. His eyes were on Lou as Jesse sat at her bedside holding out a bowl of soup to her. He sighed as she turned her back to the boy, hugging her arms across her chest and staring at the wall she'd stared at for nearly fourteen days.
Buck came in the door and met Jimmy's eyes, asking if there was a change, a tiny sign that Lou was going to try to live again. Jimmy shook his head slightly.
He'd just gotten back from his ride, and had been surprised to hand the mochila to Kid for the first time. Teaspoon had finally urged the boy to leave Lou's side. Although Kid never would have admitted it, the other boys all knew he must be grateful for the break. It broke his heart to sit with her day after day looking at her small shoulders hunched against his gentle hands should he try to touch her.
"Hey Lou, got some snow out on the trail today!" Buck called to her, knowing Lou loved the snow.
As usual, she didn't seem to hear him. Jimmy had seen her stiffen at her name, though the movement was barely visible. She heard them, all right, he thought, she was just determined that they would not draw her back into their world.
Suddenly he was determined to do just that. And he was going to do it today. They'd tried being patient. They'd walked around on eggshells for days, trying not to upset her. Well, they hadn't upset her. She'd been as good as a corpse, shutting all of them out. And it had already gone on too long. She was stubborn, Jimmy knew, and she'd made up her mind that she wasn't going to recover.
Yes you are damn it, he thought.
"Hey Jesse, go saddle up Lighting and my horse, would you? Lou and I are going riding."
Jesse turned in surprise, but it was Buck who said, "Doesn't look like she's up to riding."
Jimmy again saw Lou stiffen as she listened to every word that was said.
"Time for her to start earning her keep, building her strength back up," Jimmy said forcefully, "Go on, Buck, why don't you help Jesse?"
Buck stood up as Jimmy did and the two stood face to face, "Jimmy, what's gotten into you? You can't rush her. We've got to give her time."
Jimmy stared at Buck evenly. "You all tried it your way. Now mine," he whispered to Buck.
Buck glanced uncertainly back at Lou. Then he sighed and without looking Jimmy in the eye said, "Come on, Jesse."
When they were out of the bunkhouse Jimmy walked over to Lou, and gently touched her shoulder, "Come on, Lou, we're going riding."
"No," she mumbled and tried to pull away from his hand. However, his gentle grip was nonetheless firm, and he didn't let go.
"It's a beautiful day outside Lou," Jimmy continued, "The sun's out, but there's also some snow on the ground. Real pretty."
"I don't care about the damned snow, leave me alone," Lou whispered, wishing him away.
"I don't care if you don't care. We're going riding," Jimmy insisted. And with that he gathered her in his arms and lifted her off the bed.
She flinched at his touch, a flash of fear in her eyes when they met his. Jimmy saw it and it floored him. He froze for a moment then whispered through a throat thick with emotion, "don't you be afraid of me, Lou! You know better!" But as much as it slayed him to see her fear, to know it wasn't unfounded, he didn't let up.
"Stop it!" She protested weakly, as he stood her on her feet far away from her bunk. She weaved unsteadily for a moment, and he didn't let her go until he was sure she wouldn't fall. Her eyes were still dull when she turned them up to look at him, "Why are you making me do this?"
Her voice and her sad eyes were enough to break his heart, but Jimmy fought with himself, and told himself it was for her own good. Let her hate him, he thought, at least that would be some kind of emotion, and any emotion was an improvement.
Jimmy ordered her to stand where she was, and knew that she wouldn't dare fight him, not yet. She wasn't ready to let go of her passiveness. She thought she could wait him out. He searched her dresser for her warmest wool shirt and returned to face her.
"Put this on over that shirt," He ordered her.
"No," she said weakly, but didn't fight when Jimmy gently pulled the shirt over her head, careful to avoid contact with her still healing scratches. She was equally passive when he pulled on her coat and gloves, thick socks, and boots. Jimmy felt as if he was dressing a child, not a young woman. All the while Lou looked at him with haunted, accusing eyes that he had trouble meeting.
After gently placing her hat on her head and pulling on his own coat, he ushered her outside. His movements were ever gentle but always firm, always brooking no argument.
Buck and Jesse held the horses at the foot of the bunkhouse stairs, and Cody and Noah had gathered nearby to watch with interest as Lou stepped outside for the first time in two weeks. She blinked and held up her hand to shield her sensitive eyes.
She looked like a waif, like she shouldn't be strong enough to stand on her own two feet.
Cody was about to say something to Jimmy in rebuke, but Jimmy's piercing glare silenced him. Cody sighed. It was a good thing Kid wasn't here. Or Teaspoon. Or Rachel for that matter. None of them would approve of Jimmy's actions. He just held his breath as Jimmy lifted Lou onto her black horse and hoped whatever the plan was, it worked.
"You all right?" Jimmy asked Lou softly when they both were astride their horses.
Lou looked down at Lightning's neck. It felt like years since she'd sat on him. Her eyes found two chunks of mane missing and she remembered vaguely Rachel and Kid prying her hands open and removing chunks of horsehair that had cut into her flesh that first night she'd come back. She had clung to it like her lifeline. She glanced at her palms, saw the fading marks as proof it hadn't been a nightmare.
The memory startled and upset her, and she quickly blocked it out, making her mind the blank it had been since she'd regained consciousness in the back of a wagon on her way back to Sand Creek to be hanged.
"Come on then," Jimmy said firmly and started to ride away.
When she didn't follow, he patiently rode back and picked up her horse's reins, and Lightning followed obediently.
Noah raised his eyebrows and shook his head, "That might be just crazy enough to work," he commented.
"What's he gonna do?" Jesse wondered, worried about Lou.
"He's gonna force her to feel again," Buck said quietly, suddenly understanding.
"As stubborn as both of them are, I hate to think about either one of them forcing the other to do something they got their mind set against," Cody pointed out.
"That's exactly Hickok's plan," Noah explained. He whistled through his teeth. "If it works, Hickok may not come back in one piece."
"He knows that," Buck said quietly.
Lou sat in sullen silence as Jimmy rode beside her, prattling on endlessly about how beautiful the trail was, how nice a day it was, and anything else he could think of to talk about.
"Let's race," He suddenly suggested.
"I want to go home," Lou whined with the look of a child being dragged across the desert with no water.
"Come on, you think I'll beat you?" Jimmy goaded her.
"Why are you doing this?" Lou begged of him, "Why don't you just leave me alone?"
"You've been left alone long enough Lou." Jimmy suddenly said, looking straight into her eyes, "You've given up on everyone that loves you and on yourself!"
She didn't respond, but Jimmy would have bet money that he'd seen a flicker of anger in her eyes. He latched onto it desperately, like her life depended on it. He believed it did down to his toes.
"You lay in bed day after day feeling sorry for yourself. You just are ready to roll over and play dead and it's selfish and foolish and I'm tired of it."
Now her eyes were glittering with anger, and it spurred Jimmy on, "You got hurt, yes, and it was awful and we're all just so sorry, Lou! But you won, and Wicks is dead, and you aren't! It's time for you to stop acting that way!" He half-shouted.
"How dare you!" Lou whispered, color falling out of her already pale face. "How dare you act as if you understand one thing that I went through or that I felt! How dare you tell me when it's time for me to move on, to forget about it! You don't know!" Her voice was climbing in volume and in pitch and her eyes were filling with tears, "You don't know what it is like to have your nightmare come to life! To chase you right into the life you made to never have to see him again. And to stand before him, helpless as a child, even after everything you've done and everything you have tried to become, and to look into his eyes for some kind of regret for all he's done to you, to wish for an explanation of 'why you' and to see nothing but indifference! I thought about him almost every day of my life after what he done to me...he ain't thought of me once until he thought I had his money!"
"I know I have no idea what you been through...or how you are hurting. Why don't you talk to me about it some?" Jimmy said softly, surprised at how quickly her control had been lost.
"You wouldn't understand!" She flung herself off her horse to stand looking back toward town. But the floodgates were open, unstoppable, and she kept talking as Jimmy stepped off the palomino and stood a few feet away, watching with his heart in his throat.
"You couldn't know what it's like to find yourself in his control again, as powerless to stop him as when you were a child. I can't even remember what he did to me, Jimmy. And that might sound like a blessing, but it ain't! He didn't even care that I was out cold, for God's sake. That's how little thought he gave me. I was nothing to him, and yet his face is all I can see, everytime I close my eyes! How is that fair, damn it! And I wanted to kill him. I want to kill him again. I just want him to die over and over and over, and it is all I can think about. But in my mind, he ain't dead. He's still out there."
"He's gone Lou. And no one blames you for what you did or what you feel. You had no way out, Lou. And that's something I do understand completely. It was him or you, and no one is sorry that it was him that died. We just want you back."
"You can't have me back. I'm not who I was, Jimmy. I'll never be the same again. I don't want to be the same. I don't want to ever feel like I feel now again!"
Jimmy walked around to where he stood face to face with her. Tears rolled down her face as her control continued slipping, as the walls she'd been fortifying for weeks faltered. He gently placed a hand on each of her shoulders and bent down to look her in the eye, his face only inches from hers.
"You know what I think?" He asked, but didn't wait for an answer, "I think this does not define you. I think that it is time that you grieved. Time that you grieved for a brave woman who saved you and died trying to find that same escape. But most importantly I think it's time you grieved for a child that lost her innocence to a vicious man, and I don't know, maybe you should grieve a little for the woman standing right here in front of me. You got to find the strength to let this out, Lou."
"Jimmy, I can't. It's gonna rip me wide open...I can't…"
"Darlin', you ain't got a choice. You have to face it, or Wicks' face is all you are ever gonna see when you close your eyes. Damn it, Lou. You're the bravest person I know. You can do this."
Lou looked him fully in the eyes, and Jimmy blinked back his own tears as he saw all in those eyes that he'd ever seen. The fire, the love, the intelligence, and even the sadness that had always been there, and perhaps that touch of sadness always would be there.
The first sob rocked her hard.
"It's all right, Lou, it's time," Jimmy whispered and pulled her closely to him, arms a band of security. She folded her arms against his chest and bent her head into his shirt. For the first time since he'd met her, Lou dropped every pretense of control and didn't try to hide the hurt she'd known. She sobbed like her heart was broken into a million pieces, and Jimmy knew that it was, and he grieved with her. But even as he felt the pain of every indignity done to her, Jimmy felt hope for her.
It had been a week since Jimmy had returned with a soul-weary, but recognizable Lou. The riders had all watched in amazement at the change the ride had made on her. She took care of her horse after the ride and sat at the table with them for the first time. She had been very quiet at first, but over the next few days she slowly smiled a bit, and then she talked a little more.
She wasn't her feisty self, but she was trying, she was fighting to put herself back together. She was the only one out of all of them that doubted she could do it.
Kid was speechless when Lou walked out onto the porch to greet him when he returned from his ride.
When Kid had found out it was Jimmy to break through to her, he'd awkwardly approached him a few days later.
"I just wanted to thank you for whatever you said to Lou to make her better."
"I didn't do it for you," Jimmy said simply, as always his feelings for Lou making his loyalty to Kid confusing and frustrating, "I did it for her."
Kid realized as Jimmy walked away how lucky he was that Lou had given her heart to him. For the first time, he wondered how he would feel if it was Jimmy she had fallen for, and that gave him perspective he hadn't had before where Jimmy and Lou were concerned.
A few days later after saddling both Katy and Lightning, Kid pulled them to the porch and called for Lou. "Come on, Lou, it's time to go!"
She came out of the bunkhouse with Rachel and Jesse behind her. The others gathered around curiously.
Teaspoon appeared, holding an envelope. He gave it to Kid.
"Rider up, Lou," Kid grinned at her.
"What are you talking about? I'm not scheduled to make a run until Wednesday."
"Special delivery for Teaspoon. I requested an extra gun."
"The day you request for me to go on a dangerous ride, or any ride for that matter, will be the day hell freezes over," Lou pointed out, "What's going on? Why is everyone so insistent on me going on mystery rides all of a sudden? You think I'm gonna forget how?"
"We're going to St. Joe. And I thought, as long as we were there, we'd stop by the orphanage and visit your brother and sister. Thought you might like to see them," Kid smiled gently as she turned soft eyes on him.
Her eyes held almost no sadness as she leapt down the stairs to throw her arms around him.
"I take it you accept your mission?" Cody commented, his grin curling his mouth.
Within a few minutes they rode out side by side.
"She's sitting tall in that saddle," Teaspoon murmured and sighed with relief.
A few days later Kid glanced at Lou nervously as she rode down the streets of St. Joe. Her shoulders were squared with purpose.
"It's not too late to change your mind you know," Kid suggested.
"I want to see it," She insisted, and Kid knew better than to argue with her though he personally did not want anything to do with this errand.
They'd had a wonderful time with the children, taking them to a carnival in town. The goodbyes had been hard, but Kid had no doubt that seeing her brother and sister was exactly the medicine she needed after the scare that they had been hurt by Wicks.
On the other hand, he wasn't sure about this notion that had worked into her brain.
"That's it," she suddenly said very quietly, pulling up.
Kid sighed and let his eyes pass over the brothel. The new owner had already changed the name, and laughter and loud voices came from inside, along with a spirited tune from the piano.
"It seems smaller than I remembered," She murmured.
"Ready to go?" Kid asked. He hated being so close to the place where she'd been hurt so badly. This was where the Lou he had met had been born, in circumstances he never would have wished on anyone he loved. But for the first time, Kid realized that the hard times in her life, as in his, had driven them to meeting.
Lou nodded, but cast one last look over the place, and could almost see it as the dark, frightening place where her innocence had been stolen from her. The vision of Wicks forcing his way into her room played out before her eyes, and she froze and shivered.
Then a warm gentle hand was covering her own, and she was looking fully into the eyes she thought she was destined to look into for all time.
"He is a monster, Lou. But he's dead now," Kid reminded her.
"No, not a monster." Lou said slowly, "Now, he's more like a ghost."
They exchanged a warm look and headed for the loving home they had found. They'd both had their share of ghosts. Lou knew she still had healing to do, might have healing to do for the rest of her life, whenever a certain timbre of voice or carriage of shoulders brought back to mind the man who haunted her. But, she knew for a fact that the ghosts of her past had driven her into the promising arms of the future.
And that, she could live with.
The End
*I'd love to hear from you if you read this!