It had been a long day of riding. Ruth longed for the wagon, which was not necessarily the most comfortable form of travel either especially over bumpy terrain, but her legs were sore from all the riding. The only positive thing was that she was enjoying the closeness to Kid and had occasional back support now.
Kid dismounted first and helped Ruth down. He started to help her unpack the saddlebag.
"Do you mind helping them down?" Ruth asked as Carmel caught up. "It's long way down to the ground for a little girl and it looks like Camille could use someone to walk her down to the river for some water."
He went over and helped Lydia down with a small smile. She smiled back. He didn't intimidate children like one might expect. He had a gentle way with them that brought their immediate confidence.
Smile gone, he helped Camille down. From the gloatful way she responded, Ruth was afraid Camille was reading more into it than there was. She would take her down to the creek herself, but she was the only competent cook in this bunch.
She turned her attention to Lydia and focused on the task at hand. The girl was an eager helper. Surely her mother would have begun to teach her by this age, but apparently she hadn't. Her poor dress argued against a hired cook. Maybe she only had her father. She smiled at the girl, realizing it was a conundrum she would soon figure out when they dropped her off at home. She hoped her family wasn't too worried about her, although she could hardly see how they wouldn't be after this many days.
"Can I walk you down for some water?" he asked Camille.
She did look a bit pallid as she shook her head yes. He offered her an arm and with a slight wave at Ruth, more for Camille's knowledge than Ruth's as he didn't want her to think he was whisking her away behind his wife's back, he led her down the brambly path.
At the creek, she bent down and wet her handkerchief in the water. She dabbed at her face and then pulled a sleeve down to bathe her skin further though he realized she was probably trying to tempt him by the action more than anything else. He responded by quickly averting his eyes and turning his back on her.
"I'm decent again," she said after a few moments, wearing a smirk on her face but in full dress as she said.
"You feeling better?" he asked genuinely.
"A little." She went from a squatting position to a sitting position and patted the dirt beside her. "Not feeling up to walking back though unless you want to carry me."
He didn't. He sat down making sure there were a good couple feet between them.
"I will say this about your wife. She is not an uppity woman for one in her profession. She has treated me well though I have purposely tried her patience. You know Florine, do you not?"
"Anyone who's spent any time in St. Louis knows Florine."
"Lydia is her daughter," Camille revealed. "The girl doesn't want your Sister Ruth to know."
"Ruth won't care. I take that back. Ruth will care. She will fight to see that she doesn't continue to grow up in that kind of a place and I support that. A saloon is no place to raise a child."
"No, it is not," she agreed meaningfully. "I suppose she told you that I'm with child."
"She did and I've told her that we will raise it." His eyes automatically lowered to her stomach to see if he could see the telling bulge. "I think it's brave and kind of you to give this baby a chance at life. We will love it."
"I haven't totally made up my mind yet. Will you tell it who it's real mother is?"
"Some day maybe. Why do you want us to?"
"No. He or she shouldn't have to know their mother is a whore." She suddenly turned to the side heaving out the contents of the small lunch from earlier, proving that she hadn't been putting on an act solely for the purpose of luring him.
He brought out his own handkerchief and offered it to her. She took it and wiped the corners of her mouth. He took it back and then stood up, offering her his hands, so she could get up and move away from the nauseating smell.
She used the opportunity of his sudden nearness to move in even closer with nothing but a couple inches separating them. "Why all the sudden attentions, grown tired of your wife already?" she taunted. "She's a cold fish in bed who doesn't know how to heat your blood, which is why she hasn't produced you a baby of your own, oui?"
Kid came as close to hitting a woman as he ever had in his life. He took a large step back and said through gritted teeth, "Get it through your head. I love Ruth in every sense of the word. You and I never shared anything close to love and we never will."
"You flatter yourself to think I ask for your love. I was merely trying to relieve the tensions between us."
"The tensions between us are not those kinds of tensions. So then that's why you've been trying to get me in your bed since I got back?"
She laughed though not a mirthful laugh. "What is it they say? Misery loves company? No, I just don't like to see men that think they're so highfaluting when it wasn't all that long ago they were rolling in the mud and filth themselves."
"Is that what you think? I don't think I'm better than you," he said adamantly.
She snorted in reply. "No? You at least think Ruth is better than me."
"I don't think that either and neither does she. We are made new and different by God's grace, but we're all sinners. Far be it from us to judge you."
"Save your preaching." Her hand went to her midsection. "You are only treating me nicely for the baby's sake. You both could care less that my soul will rot in hell. In fact, I bet your wife put you up to taking care of me."
His silence was the only answer she needed. "Oh, get out of my face. Go help the little woman and let me be. Just remember that when I am burning in hell, it's men of your ilk that helped put me there."
He could see that there would be no reasoning with her today, so he did leave.
She followed but kept a measured distance behind him. Camille was jealous. Not of Kid so much. It had been a game more than anything else to see if she could tempt him away from matrimony and his newfound God with her charms, although she had liked him well enough, at least before. He had always been unfailingly polite and decent, making her feel more like a lady than what she was and not an object to take pleasure from, a true rarity in the line of men that she spent time with. No, what she was jealous of was the bond between them.
Her eyes and nose tingled as she watched the tenderness with which he helped her prepare the meal. Lydia was helping too. Camille wondered if Ruth knew how lucky she was to be loved that way. What would it be like to be loved like that by a man and child? It was like a scene from the future. She could substitute Lydia for the child that grew in her womb in her mind's eye. A happy little family it painted. She was even jealous of her child, but her life was what it was. She was just glad she had worked her way up from a common prostitute. Well, not worked so much as gambled some would say, but it had taken years to perfect her card game and seduce the original owner into putting the deed on the table. It pained her in a way, but she knew in that moment, she would let this child live to fulfill that glimpse of what could be; he or she would have a chance at a happy, normal life even if she'd lost that chance long ago.