Chapter 18
An orange, dull sun hovered low on the horizon, and soon enough it would disappear. The dome covering the sky would be tinted in a dark color and the bright moon would replace its celestial partner.
After spending the day at the station Teaspoon and the men he sometimes still called his boys decided to walk in town. The marshal led the way in animated conversation with Cody, and their guffaws reverberated in the solitary streets of town; Jimmy and Kid followed them in the company of Ike Cross, Buck's eldest son, who had insisted on coming along. At a close distance came Lou and Buck.
The latter pair walked in companionable silence. Louise kept watching her husband as he easily talked to little Ike, and they shared some laughs. The boy seemed delighted to have the attention of his two uncles. Lou felt a tug at her stomach as she kept studying the scene in front of her eyes. If the darn war had never taken place, or more importantly, if she had not been so stubborn and proud for so long, Kid and she might be parents now. As Kid had repeated several times the night before, they shouldn't have any regrets. They had been given a new chance to start fresh, and she wanted to believe that if parenthood was in their destiny, they would fulfill that dream one day.
"If you keep staring at him so intensely, he's going to get two marks from the reflection of your eyes on the nape of his neck."
Louise turned her glance to her side, and blushed when she saw Buck's amused grin. "I wasn't looking at Kid… I… I was looking at your son. That's all."
The Kiowa gave her a skeptical look, and decided to play along. "Why, Lou? Are you planning to start a family tonight?"
Louise made a face and punched him on the shoulder. "When did you go and turn into a new Cody?"
Buck replied by simply smiling from ear to ear, and Lou could not help but join his mirth. "Well," she started shyly after a beat, "I can't deny I'd love to have a family with Kid one day."
"I'm sure you will."
Lou nodded her head in thanks, and suddenly, a voice started in her head. She remembered the conversation she and Theresa had before she left Seneca. "I don't know if that'll be possible. I ain't so young anymore."
"Nonsense, Lou! You ain't even thirty yet."
Louise nodded again, and even though she knew Buck was right, she also felt she had wasted too much time because of her own stupid pride. It seemed as if she now had to work against the clock, and try everything in her power to achieve what her tomfoolery had prevented her from having.
For a few seconds she debated with herself whether she should bring up the issue she had been so against when talking to Theresa. If indeed there was something that might increase her possibilities to give Kid a child, she wanted to try it. So despite her initial objections, she started to smooth the way for what she wanted to finally spit out. "Buck, can I ask you something?"
The Kiowa gazed at her with curiosity, noticing a strange quality in her voice all of a sudden. "Sure. What is it?"
Uncomfortable, Louise cleared her throat. "Uh… this is kind of embarrassing, but Theresa told me something and I'm curious… well, not curious, just interested to know if there's some truth in it."
"What is it, Lou?" Buck asked again.
"Tessie told me that when you and Julia were first married, she overhead a conversation between the two of you."
"What kind of conversation?" Buck asked with a frown.
"Of… of intimate nature," Lou whispered, and as she noticed Buck's ears crimson in obvious embarrassment, she quickly exclaimed, "Not in that sense! Tessie… she says you were talking about something you or Julia… I don't know… something you ate or drank to help you … help you with your fertility."
An amused smiled appeared on Buck's lips. "I see."
Without noticing his amusement or his smile, Lou kept talking, looking ahead of her. "Tessie is quite desperate to become a ma. I believe she's taking things too far because she's still too young to worry about that, but you know what my sister is like. She almost begged me to ask you for your secret… for your secret… uh potion. I had no intention to do so, but now that things are working with Kid… I…" Louise turned her eyes to his friend, and added, "I really want to give him a child. I hadn't realized how important it is to me till now, and I need to do anything to make it happen."
"And let me say this again. Let Mother Nature run its course. I'm sure you'll be a wonderful ma one day."
"Buck, why don't you help me here? Maybe Mother Nature needs a little push. Kid and I lived together for three whole months as husband and wife, and nothing happened." Lou did not say that before their marriage they had been intimate more times than she was able to count, but the idea that not once did she even have to worry she might be with child concerned her now.
Buck sighed at her stubbornness. "Let me be honest with you."
"I'm listening."
"I don't know what Theresa heard years ago, but she got everything muddled up."
Louise frowned. "How so?"
"When Julia and I got married, we didn't want children straightaway. Our courtship was too short, you know, and we still needed to learn too much from the person we had married, and we thought we needn't have distractions from a bawling baby day in, day out. I knew some men from my tribe used a concoction with some special herbs to… to stop Mother Nature from doing its duty."
Louise's forehead creased in wonder, and when it dawned on her what he was saying, her eyes widened in surprise. "So you took that… that brew to… to… to…?"
"Exactly," Buck answered, understanding what Lou seemed unable to ask. "Julia didn't get pregnant that first year, and we thought it really worked. And when we had our second boy, we thought two children were enough, and we started drinking our magical tea again. Yet, as you can imagine, seeing as my wife's about to make me a father for the fifth time, the beverage ain't too effective." Buck looked at Lou, and the dumbfounded expression on her face made the young man burst out laughing.
"I… I'm sorry," Lou apologized, feeling totally mortified. "I knew I shouldn't have told you anything. I'm such a blabbermouth. I didn't mean to pry."
Buck sobered and added, "It's fine, Lou. You needn't apologize. Just hear me out. Things will develop as they should. I have the feeling that before too long, you and Kid will have news to share with us."
Lou smiled, thanking Buck for his kindness. The others had stopped walking, and Buck and Louise reached them. Noticing his wife's expression, Kid grew curious and asked, "What's that face for?"
"Nothing. Buck and I were just talking about… unimportant things," Lou promptly replied, hoping Kid did not want to know more about that conversation.
The Southerner did not try to press for more information, not thinking much of it. When Teaspoon then announced he was going to turn in, Little Ike out of the blue asked his father to allow him to sleep over at the marshal's. With an exchange of looks, Buck silently checked with Teaspoon whether it was all right for the boy to stay with him, and when the marshal nodded his consent, Buck granted his son his permission, which was followed by Ike's cheerful whoops.
When the child and Teaspoon walked away, and the former riders were left alone, Cody said, "Fellas, why don't we have a drink at the saloon? I'm feeling quite thirsty." The other three men just directed their eyes to Lou pointedly, and Cody added, "Or maybe we can go to Mrs. Sherman's tea room. It ain't the same, but it can do. I guess it's still open."
Louise did not like the patronizing tone in Cody's voice. Years ago when she worked for the Pony Express, she could go in and out of the saloon without drawing anybody's attention, but now it would not be proper. Naturally, she had no interest in going into the saloon, but she sometimes missed the freedom that her disguise as Lou granted her.
Lou and Kid shared a look, and without uttering a word, the Southerner could guess what his wife was thinking. "You go ahead, but we're turning in. We didn't get much sleep last night, and we're tired."
The grins on the men's faces clearly gave away what they were all thinking. Lou's cheeks turned crimson, but she held her head proudly as she said, "We did a lot of talking… we stayed up until late and we just slept a couple of hours."
"Good night then, Lou," Buck said.
The couple nodded their thanks and goodbyes, and walked in the opposite direction Teaspoon had taken as they headed for their home. They had not taken more than a few steps when Kid wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and Lou snuggled closer. They kept walking close to each other, and in the close distance his friends kept watching them until they disappeared into their house.
"After all these years it's kind of incredible, ain't it?" Jimmy remarked with a smile.
"It's Kid and Lou," Buck just said, and Hickok's grin let him know he was aware of what his friend meant. "I can't imagine them being apart from each other. Even when miles and problems separated them in these years, I still felt they were together."
"I know what you mean," Jimmy agreed.
Cody hardly heard a word of what his two friends were saying since he was thinking about something else, and then he suddenly said, "So now that the happy couple ain't around, what do you say about some bets?"
"Oh Cody…" Buck uttered in reprehensible tone, shaking his head.
"When do you reckon they will have their first fight?"
"Do us a favor, and shut up, Cody," Hickok ordered, giving the blonde man a push, and joined Buck as they started to walk away, leaving Cody behind. Feeling left out, the blonde former rider called after his friends, and when they did not even bother to acknowledge his cries, he had to give in and reluctantly followed them in their tracks.