CHAPTER 10

"Well," Jimmy began, "this story starts with a family."

This Louise was cold, steely. Whatever she might be feeling was hidden well as she listened to Jimmy's story. This wasn't his Lou, the one that wore her heart on her sleeve.

He expected her to scoff as he explained how she lived with the rest of them as a man, but she didn't seem surprised. She kept her face unreadable as she slowly ate the meal he'd brought her. He decided to leave out the part about the night they were together and the things she had told him about Wicks.

"The day your horse came back without you tore our family apart. It tore me apart. We searched for months. I admit I lost hope. But Cara's letter came-"

"Cara brought you here?"

JImmy nodded. "She was scared for you and didn't know what to do. She knows what that man is, Lou." He forgot himself, started talking to her like he used to. "We all do now. We know how to fight him and we're going to bring you home."

She'd remained calm, at least on the outside as he'd told her this story of her past. She pieced it together with the things Alexander had told her. The stories were the same but different. Alexander had claimed her life was brutal and that she was barely more than a whore to these men. But if that were true, it would make no sense for these people to come searching for her knowing the danger they were in. This was not good. It stirred up too much hope and that was dangerous.

Her hands were shaking in her lap. She wrung them together. Suddenly the man was kneeling in front of her. His large hands engulfed hers. They were warm and rough on her skin. It reminded her of Jack. The hot tears came. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, willed them away. "He'll kill all of you."

"We're prepared." He squeezed her hands for reassurance.

She pulled away, tried to back up but she was pinned into the chair with him kneeling before her. She nearly pushed herself over but he caught her. He settled her on the chair and then backed up, giving her the space she'd wanted.

"No one's leaving you for that thing, Lou. You might not remember but we've fought side by side against shitty odds before. We don't leave family behind and if we knew where you were, if I knew… I came as fast as I could, I promise you." Was she mistaken or did his voice break?

The whole time he'd been telling her about their history, this family of orphans, she'd listened with a practiced detachment. But his emotion stirred something in her. A life with family and love and freedom, not just for her but for her baby too. Her hands drifted to her stomach. Her eyes met Jimmy's. "How do you fight something that can't die?"

Louise had agreed to come out of her room and hear more about their plans. As she surveyed their cache of weapons she grew increasingly skeptical. She let a handful of silver bullets slip through her fingers and onto the table. "Even if these things work as you say, you'll never get a chance to use them. He'll kill you or control you before you even try."

"We do have a countermeasure for that," Tomasi stated. "It's a bit unpleasant."

Step by step he showed them what to do. He popped the cork off a small glass bottle of stinking black liquid. As soon as the liquid in the bottle met the air, a stench of rot and decay filled the room. It was something like a mix of dead meat and dying flowers. It was death. With great care, the priest poured a few drops into the palm of his hand. It smoked at first, burning the flesh beneath it until it bubbled and was absorbed into his skin. It left behind a tiny branding, the mark of a cross. Beads of sweat formed on the older man's forehead. "It hurts like hell, but it protects you from the demon's control."

"What is it?" Teaspoon asked.

"Death in a bottle. It is the blood of other demons mixed by alchemy. They cannot drink their own kind and they cannot control their own kind. It seeps into the blood and pulls a kind of trick."

"Smells like Hickok after a long ride," Colter japed, but his tone was somber and no one laughed.

"I want to go next," Louise interjected. To think a little drop of death in her hand could have spared her so much.

Tomasi took her hand and laid it palm up in his own. As he'd done before, he tipped it just enough for a few drops to pool into her upturned hand. It did not smoke or bubble or burn. It simply moved as if a living thing, it beelined down her palm and across her wrist, dripping onto the floor.

"What does that mean? She looked at him, back at her hand. "Why didn't it work?" He stared at her empty, perfectly unscarred palm, bewildered. She knew the answer. She was too infected by Alexander already. Her body had rejected the cure.

"It's okay." He swallowed. "He's given you too much of his blood. It will not work on you but that's okay."

"There's enough of us to fight him, sweetheart. Don't worry on it," Teaspoon tried to reassure her.

She wanted to tell them to run, not to throw their lives away on her when she was already lost. But she thought of her baby again. It was one thing for her to give into Alex but another to give him her child. For the first time Louise allowed herself to look around the room at the people gathered here for her. She could only nod and watch as the others, one by one, let Father Tomasi mark them with the foul blood.

Teaspoon was the next to get the mark and he took it stoically as the Father had. Buck and Jimmy went after that and while they both did their best, you could tell it hurt a lot more than you would think possible for a few drops of blood. But then, shouldn't she know how powerful blood can be? The others went in turn, Rachel, Father Bohannon, Cara and eventually the one named Colter.

"You sure?" Jimmy asked him. "This ain't your fight," he had said. But in the end the tall, gruff man said he'd come to see the monster and he meant to see it through. Louise had told Colter that he was stupid and would most likely die here. For some reason that caused him to laugh and exchange odd glances with Jimmy and Buck.

After everyone had received their mark, Tomasi plugged the bottle back up and amazingly it seemed as if the smell was sucked back into its container. The air in the house was fresh and clean once again.

There were nine of them. Together they made the spacious sitting room seem cramped but there was some comfort in being together. Louise sat facing the fire, her back to the rest of the room. She could still feel their eyes on her. They treated her like a stray cat, giving her space lest she flee.

After a bit, Cara approached her, taking a seat next to her on the sofa. "I thought you might like having this. I brought your pencils too. Something to pass the time." She handed her the sketchbook that she'd packed with her other things. "The Father says this house is a religious sanctuary. He won't be able to find us here. It's like a blindspot. He can't…he has no connection to you here."

This made sense to Louise. She could not feel him like she usually did. "How long will we hide here for?"

"When this storm clears and we have our next full day of sun, so we can start out early." She paused. "The father says we shouldn't tell you the details, just in case."

"Of course. Well, you're quite good at hiding things from me so I wouldn't worry about it."

"Are you cross with me missus?"

"I'm scared for you, Cara? If you knew what he is, why didn't you just run?"

"You don't deserve this, what he's done to you. No decent person would leave you to that, iif there was anything to be done."

"How did you even find these people?"

"These people are your family. They're from a whole life that he ripped from you. I went into the study and read his journals. Father Tomasi has them now. Read them. If you want to know who you were before, read them for yourself."

Cara left her to think on what she'd said and Louise began to flip through her sketchbook. The most recent images were her renderings of Cara, some of Jack and of his boat. She quickly turned away from those. But when she flipped further back what she found was landscapes. Rolling meadows, plains, colorful wildflowers. Things she had never seen in real life. Things she could not remember ever having seen.

"Tea?" Jimmy sat across from her, offering her a cup of steaming tea. She took it from him, placing it on the table beside her. "Can I see?" he reached his hand out for the book and she gave it to him.

"Are they real places?"

"Let's see." He started at the beginning. "They're good." He flipped through a few more pages. "These could be a lot of places. This is what it looks like in Nebraska. Lots of space." He paged quickly through a few more and then stopped on a drawing of a dogwood tree, white flowers in bloom, sun setting golden in the background of barren hills.

"What is it?" Louise joined him on the opposite sofa and leaned over to see what had caught his attention. Her body brushed against his. Jimmy's heart started to race.

When he'd caught his breath, Jimmy pointed to a spot at the base of the tree. "We sat here together once. Not long," he tried to steady his shaky breath, "not long before you went missing."

"We did? Why? What were we doing?" She leaned over him to look as if they would suddenly appear on the paper.

"Hey, what you got there?" Out of nowhere Buck came up from behind them and placed a hand on Jimmy's shoulder. Jimmy looked at his friend. Was it that obvious he was about two seconds from losing it? "I know this tree. It's not far from the station. Best spot for watching sunsets. We'd all go there from time to time." Buck took the empty seat on the other side of Louise. "Guess your memories are in there somewhere."

Jimmy cleared his throat. "So what else is in here?" He continued to turnover each page but nothing else caught his eye like the dogwood. The landscapes turned to still lifes, city blocks, some sketches of Cara that weren't half bad. The ocean. A man. "Is this…"

"None of your business." She snatched the book away and stormed off, upstairs to her temporary bedroom.

"It's Jack," Cara said once she was sure Louise had closed her door. "He's dead, I think. I think he's buried in the garden at the house. I wonder if he…if maybe he did it in front of her."

"Why would he do that?' Rachel asked, shocked.

"These creatures are cruel," Tomasi answered. "They enjoy inflicting pain on people. They feed on it as much as blood. Perhaps it sweetens the taste."

Then he will certainly like my blood, Jimmy thought to himself. Let him come after me so I can be the one to kill him.

Buck listened to what the others were saying. It made him feel sick, but he knew Jimmy felt even worse. He was most worried for the friend sitting next to him on the coach right now. Anger has a way of clouding one's judgment and that was never a good thing in battle.

She wanted Alex right now. She knew it was perverse of her to feel this way but he could make everything go away. He would take every single bad thought from her mind and replace it with pure bliss. And she wanted that right now. She didn't want to feel these things, or anything, anymore. Alone with just her thoughts, guilt over Jack consumed her.

She turned her sketchbook to her favorite drawing of Jack. He was sitting up in bed and she had captured his face and his broad shoulders, a sheet pulled up around his waist. The way she had captured him on the page made it seem as though he was looking right at her, beckoning her back to bed. She placed the open book on the table, like it was a photograph she wanted to display. Her body shook and she slumped to the floor. She pulled a pillow from the bed and buried her face in it as she cried.

Sometime later she woke and realized she must have cried herself to sleep. She was thirsty and hungry, and rather embarrassed by the way she had stormed off from the others. She didn't know what time it was but assumed it was close to dinner so she figured she would dress. She rifled through the bag Cara had brought for her, laying out her choice on the narrow bed. Everything here was much smaller than at home. It could have felt cramped but she found something comforting about the small room. It was like these four walls could cocoon her from the outside world. Cara has said that Alex wasn't connected to her here. Louise felt that loss, in her mind, in her veins, but she also felt something new. She couldn't say what it was.

Cara only packed her one extra dress, so that was what she would wear. She changed her undergarments and her stockings. The navy blue dress that Cara has packed was rather form fitting. She didn't bother with the corset (she'd grown to loathe those things). Her modest breasts were hugged by the cotton fabric of the bodice and that would do. She took the time to brush her hair and apply a few pins so that it was off of her face but hung freely in the back. With no mirror to speak of, she could only assume that she looked presentable as she left the security of her room and ventured downstairs. Her full skirt brushed either side of the narrow stairway while she made her desent.

When she entered the parlor, everyone was more or less as she'd left them. She felt very foolish, realizing no one else had changed their attire for the evening. Teaspoon saw the confusion on her face plain as day and it dawned on him what she had done. She had been living the life of a wealthy woman and naturally had adopted their highfalutin ways.

He rose and grabbed her by the arm to escort her to a seat by the fire. "You look lovely this evening Miss Louise," he told her. "I fear in our rush to make it here, the rest of us didn't pack our evening clothes, but you would have outshone us all even if we had."

"You're being kind because I've made a fool of myself," she said quietly to him.

"No," He lovingly brushed some stray hairs over her shoulder. "You have never been a fool. You are my smart, strong, beautiful girl," his voice cracked and he pulled her into a tight hug. Louise was not expecting his embrace. She felt him shake and she knew he was crying. Not knowing what else to do she brought her arms around him and stood there holding the old man that was a stranger to her.

As she stood there she glanced at the others in the room. Rachel was crying openly and even some of the men had tears in their eyes. Strange sensations welled up inside her. They were too much. "Stop." She twisted away from him.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to overstep."

"It's fine. I just need some air." She looked towards the door.

"Wait," Father Tomasi cautioned. "You cannot cross the threshold. This way." He ushered her through the kitchen to a back porch that was partially enclosed. "You can stand out here, just don't leave the porch."

She stepped out into the cold and let it embrace her. It was familiar. There was a light dusting of snow on the area of the porch protected by the overhang but the railing was covered in a thick coating.. She gripped the railing, letting the white powder cover her hands until they disappeared. The priest just stood there by the door.

"Are you worried I'll run?"

"Will you?" It was Jimmy's voice. The priest was gone, replaced by the tall cowboy clutching a worn wool blanket. He was looking at her with that intensity again. "Lou, your hands, Jesus." He was beside her in two strides and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. He took her hands in his own. They were ice cold. "What are you doing?" He rubbed her hands trying to bring warmth back into them. "Lou?"

"Why do you call me that?"

"What? I told you," he said half distracted by her red hands that he couldn't quite seem to let go of.

"Because it was my man's name? But I'm not a man and you know that now."

He looked away from her hands and let them fall and looked into her eyes. Her big, curious, confused eyes. "Because that's how I got to know you. You were one of us, you were a rider. You were, are my friend. You've always been Lou."

"It never bothered you that I was a woman and I lived with all you men?"

"No, Lou. That never bothered me." He sighed. "You rode with us, fought with us, lived with us. We were family."

"Did we sleep together?"

"Ah yeah, we all slept together in the bunkhouse."

"That's not what I meant."

He was silent.

"How many of you had me then?"

"It was never like that," he growled back at her. "Is that what he told you? He lies. He took your whole life from you. Why do you think he would tell you the truth about it?"

"You were a poor little orphan about to be turned out by a flesh peddling drunk when you ran away. To protect what was left of your virtue, you took on the dress and manner of a man to get a decent job, as it were. Riding horses, doing chores, working in the dust and dirt and shit that humans always leave in their wake. You bunked with men, slept with a couple of them."

"You lie!"

"I found you like that. Wreaking of man."

"Fuck you!" She yelled back. "Why can't I remember? What did you do to me?"

"I supposed he wouldn't." She turned back to the railing and looked out over the yard. "Was I happy?"

"Yes. I think so. You had people that loved you and we had fun, adventure too but it was sometimes dangerous. There was sometimes pain. But I think overall you were happy. You smiled a lot, and for real." She looked at him like she'd been caught in something. "You spoke your mind, had a short fuse, were stubborn as hell…"

"Those are good things?"

"Very. And you were also loyal, honest -"

"I lied about being a man and tricked all of you."

"Yeah, but you had your reasons."

She seemed to contemplate that they stood for a while watching the snow come down.

"I wanted him to kill me," she said suddenly.

"What?" Jimmy didn't understand what he was hearing.

"The first time I slept with Jack I thought that Alexander would be so mad. I thought I would go home and he would kill me and I would be free." There was deep sadness in her voice as she spoke.

JImmy ran his hands over his face. He knew what she went through was bad, maybe he had tried to deny how bad.

"He was mad but he was never going to kill me. I went back," she paused. "I guess to pretend that I was free or normal or happy. If I hadn't been so selfish, Jack would be alive instead of rotting in the garden. It's selfish to expect you to help me now."

"There were times when I was in trouble. Times you came to help me knowing it meant risking death. It never stopped you." He shivered. While they'd talked the snow had stopped and the temperature had dropped. "It's cold, Lou. Let's go in."

She hesitated. "There's too many people in there. It's too much."

"I'll be with you. Come on." He took her hand and she followed behind him.