The bullet pierced the rope above Lou's head, and she toppled heavily onto the ground, unable to brace herself with her hands bound behind her. Jimmy raced to her, frantically loosening the ropes, and in that unguarded moment, clutched her body to his desperately, murmuring her name, overcome with relief that she was alive. When he pulled back and loosened his grip from around her shoulders, and looked into her eyes, he was shocked to see her face contorted with pain.
"Lou? What is it?" Jimmy asked, frightened. Looking her over for wounds, he was shocked to see blood seeping slowly but steadily through her blue dress, down her legs, in a growing puddle on the ground. A lot of blood. Her face was white and her breathing shallow; her pulse weak but racing. She clutched at her abdomen, and with effort, whispered, "It started last night - - when I woke up … I was tied up but I tried to sneak off… he … woke up and grabbed me… knocked me down and started kicking me in the stomach… tied me standing up to a tree until this morning. I started having bad cramps and some blood - - but when I fell, something tore inside - -"
He didn't know what to do -- he was afraid to move her, but what choice did he have? He picked her up as gently as he could, wincing at her gasp of pain. She was so small, like a child - and she clung as best she could to his neck as he clambered up onto his horse again. He balanced her sidesaddle in front of him and she buried her face in his shirt front. As they rode back to town, he could feel the blood dripping down the front of the saddle and soaking his own pants down the front, and her body's paroxyms at every jolt. Somehow, he couldn't imagine how, she managed to stay balanced on the saddle despite her obvious agony . Jimmy's own nerves were shot , as he finally reached a doctor's office.
Jimmy carefully handed Lou down from the horse, but as her feet touched the ground she slumped suddenly. Jimmy caught her up in his arms to carry her up the steps into the doctor's. By this time, she was not only pale, but sweaty, cold, and confused, her head dizzily bobbling back and forth.
Jimmy reached the door, and without knocking shoved it open and entered.
At the sight of the bleeding form in Jimmy's arms, the elderly doctor's initial protests died instantly. "Lay her down on this cot," the doctor ordered, "and then get outside so I can examine her."
Lou's eyes, dilated and crazed with pain, met Jimmy's. Hoarsely, she pleaded, "Jimmy - - please don't leave me - -"
"I ain't leavin'," Jimmy instantly responded, laying her down and positioning himself behind Lou's head. She weakly put her hand up, seeking, and he grasped it.
"You're her husband?" the doctor inquired, suspiciously, as he gathered his instruments and cloths, and set a pot of water to boil on the stove in the office, with practiced hands.
After a moment's hesitation, Jimmy nodded. Lou looked gratefully at him. "Well, all right, but don't interfere in my examination, understand?"
The doctor cut away Lou's undergarments and skirt, swiftly depositing them in a basin at his feet. Jimmy blanched and lowered his head to rest on top of Lou's, avoiding the sight. The doctor's examination was painful and humiliating for Lou, but mercifully brief.
"The bleeding's stopping on its own, it seems. What's her name?"
"Louise… Hickok" Jimmy improvised.
"Louise, I'm Dr. Jackson. It's almost over now." Continuing to work on Louise all the while, Dr. Jackson gestured to the nurse who'd taken her place by his side. "Get some blankets, keep her warm and her feet elevated. No fluids."
Lou's eyes drooped shut as the doctor finished his work and the nurse placed pillows under her feet and covered her with the blankets. Dr. Jackson jerked his head toward the door, indicating to Jimmy to join him outside.
"She can stay here for a day or two, and then if the bleeding doesn't come back too badly, she can be moved, but if she has to go any distance, keep her laying flat with her feet elevated. Bed rest for at least a week."
Dr. Jackson removed his glasses, wiping them carefully. "I don't hold out much hope for the baby, mind you. But if you keep her still, there's a small chance."
Jimmy's mouth dropped. "Baby?"
"Yes, of course, Mr. Hickok. Didn't she tell you? She's about three months' pregnant… though I believe that the beating she took resulted in a rupture or tear of the placenta, causing the bleeding. The bleeding has stopped, but the cervix is still partly open. As I've said, if she stays as still as possible, on her back with her legs elevated, and there's no more bleeding, maybe the baby can survive. But I doubt it, from the amount of blood she already lost."
Jimmy couldn't make heads or tails of most of what the doctor said, but was reeling from the clear information that Lou was carrying Kid's baby, and that she was probably losing it because of him. How could he face her with this? And how could he face Kid?
Several days later, Kid, Buck, Ike and Noah were gathered outside the bunkhouse hauling, chopping, splitting, and stacking firewood, with Rachel nearby hanging the wash on the line,. Teaspoon was leaning against a post "supervising", when he spotted a wagon heading toward the station. In the distance they could make out a man and a red-headed woman on the front seat. As they approached, Teaspoon smiled in surprise. "Well I'll be! It's Emma and Jimmy. About time we heard from that boy… but where's Louise?"
Coming down from the porch, where he'd been stocking the wood box, Kid looked anxiously toward the wagon .
"Nice of you to put in an appearance, Jimmy," Teaspoon commented. Kid spoke first. "Where's Lou, Jimmy? Why didn't she come back?"
Jimmy was silent.
"Did you hear me, Jimmy? Where's Lou?" Kid demanded, advancing on Jimmy.
"She's in the wagon, asleep, Kid.," Emma interrupted, swinging down from the buckboard. "She got sick on the run with Jimmy, and he brought her to my place since I was closer than the station and she couldn't travel right away. I thought I'd come back with them to help out. And I must say this isn't much of a welcome for an old friend."
The boys and Teaspoon crowded around Emma, overwhelming the small woman with hugs. "Sorry not to give any warning I was coming for a visit. I'm hoping to stay in town for a few days."
Rachel approached through the throng. "You'll do no such thing, Mrs. Cain. I've heard so much about you I feel like an old friend. And this is still your house, after all."
Emma eyed her replacement station "mother". "You must be Mrs. Dunne. I must say you're as lovely as I've heard." Rachel thought there was an odd tone to Emma's voice, despite her smile and outstretched hand. "Thank you, I'd be glad to stay. Lulabelle is going to need some extra watching for a few days, and I know from experience how much you already have to do for these young ones."
Kid, who'd hung back nervously, stepped up to Emma now, hat in hand. "Hello Emma. It's good to see you."
"Good to see you too Kid. Been a long time."
Kid fidgeted with his hat uneasily. "Emma, what's wrong with Lou? Why is she riding in the wagon?"
Emma glanced briefly at Jimmy before answering briskly, "She's just a little under the weather, is all Kid. Mr. 'Spoon, she'll need another week off and I think it's best if she sleeps in the main house too, if that 's all right, Mrs. Dunne."
Emma turned to Jimmy. "Jimmy, it's time she woke up and had her medicine. Can you help her up to the porch?"
Jimmy hopped up onto the back of the wagon, looking down. A moment later, Lou's head popped up, sleepy and confused. "Are we home?" She asked. "Yes, now hold on to me and I'll help you down." Jimmy carefully helped her slide to the end of the wagon and then lifted her down off it. She seemed unsteady, and Jimmy supported her with an arm around her shoulders. The two proceeded up to the porch, where Emma pulled a rocking chair into the shade. "Now you sit down here Lulabelle, and take your medicine like a good girl."
Emma turned to the boys, standing awkwardly at the bottom of the porch. "Well, boys, don't you have chores to get to? Nothin' to see here. Lou needs her rest. Now scat. We'll catch up at dinner."
"Seems like old times around here," Teaspoon chuckled, at Emma's bossy tone.
The group wandered off, Kid last of all. It hadn't escaped his notice that Lou wouldn't look directly at him. "Glad you're back, Lou. Hope you feel better soon," he ventured.
Lou didn't answer, just nodded briefly and looked off toward the corral.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" Kid asked.
Lou smirked sadly, thinking, No Kid, you've already done enough. She still didn't trust herself to speak, so she simply shook her head..
"Well, I'll see you later then."
Emma came back out on the porch, stirring a glass of cloudy water and handing it to Lou. Lou meekly took the glass and drained it, setting the empty glass on a small table next to her. Emma said, not unkindly, "Now Kid, when I said scat, I meant everybody. You run along."
Mystified, Kid nodded and slowly headed back to the bunkhouse.
Emma sat down next to Lou after Kid was out of earshot. "You're really not gonna tell him, Lulabelle?"
Lou silently shook her head.
"It might help you feel better, honey," Emma started, but Lou cut her off softly.
"It wouldn't make it any better, Emma, and it would just make him feel bad or guilty. What he felt for me is dead anyway… he's moved on to greener pastures as it is. It's just.(..)" She stopped, smothering a small sob.
"This baby was the last thing left between us. And now it's gone and dead just like everything else we shared together," Lou managed to tell her friend.
"I wouldn't be so sure of that Louise. I saw the way he looked at you when you got out of that wagon, and I have a feeling you still -"
Lou cut Emma off, more sharply this time. "Emma, I can't tell him. I'll just get through this like everything else I've had to get through before. I'll be okay; I can take it better than he can anyway. And I can't have it getting out to the others, especially Teaspoon. I'm not sure he'll want me working here anymore if he finds out I was pregnant and got hurt and all. I already have him tryin' to give me special treatment all the time anyway and I don't want it."
No, thought Emma. You always did have more to prove than the others, from the first day, and you have had to go through a lot. But you don't have to do it alone, if you'd only see that.
But all she said was, "All right, Lulabelle. It's your decision, and I'll respect it and so will Jimmy, if that's how you want it. Any time you need to talk, you know either of us are here for you."
Her eyes shining with unshed tears, Lou whispered, "I know, Emma. Thank you."
Rachel, hanging the last pair of long johns on the line, picked up her basket and came up the steps. "Mrs. Cain, I'd be glad to show you to your room, if you'd like."
"Will you be okay out here for a few minutes, sweetheart?" Emma asked. Lou nodded and tried to manage a small smile for her two friends, who headed up the steps.
As Lou sat on the porch quietly, Cody thundered in from his run. Ike ran out and performed the routine switch of the mochila, with Ike riding out again. Cody spotted Lou unattended on the porch and headed up the steps.
"Hey Lou, you're back, finally. Where ya been?" Cody bellowed.
"Long story Cody, and a pretty boring one at that," Lou hedged. Her medicine, intended to help with the last vestiges of pain she had after the miscarriage, was making her feel a little fuzzy-headed. "What's been going on around here?"
Cody flung himself into a chair across from Lou's. "The usual for around here. Let's see… well there was a dance. We all went." Unable to stop herself, Lou asked, "Was the new schoolteacher there?"
"Sure thing. Kid brought her." Cody spotted some apples in a basket next to Lou's chair and bent and grabbed the basket, missing the stricken look on Lou's face as he sorted through the fruit, and kept talking. "Speaking of Kid, you sure missed him makin' a fool of himself over her. He almost got himself killed in a duel with her old boyfriend, if you can believe it."
"A duel?" Lou asked hollowly. Cody had picked out an apple and started munching on it.
"Yeah, the whole pistols at dawn bit. I guess they do things a little different back east. Teaspoon tried to break it up and ended up havin' to kill the other fellow. Guess he was a sore loser."
Cody, despite his kind heart, had an unperceptive side. He had spoken without first considering the effect his words might have. He suddenly realized that Lou was staring past him at the bunkhouse with teary eyes, and her hands were shaking. It occurred to him, finally, that Lou was really hurt, and he cast around frantically in his mind for something to repair the damage. As she rose unsteadily from her chair, he still hadn't come up with anything. She walked down the stairs and stormed past him and across to the bunkhouse.
Teaspoon, Buck, Jimmy, Noah and Kid were all seated around the dinner table, waiting for Rachel to bring in dinner, when the heavy door flew open and smashed against the wall. Lou was standing in the doorway, trembling with emotion, her small fists balled up at her sides. An abashed-looking Cody was a half-step behind her.
Lou wordlessly advanced on the Kid, who was seated with his back to the table on a long bench next to Jimmy. He was too stunned at her wild-eyed appearance to get up, and they stared each other down silently for a long moment. Abruptly, and without uttering a word, she drew back and slapped him open-handed with all her strength, deliberately, first on one side of the face and then on the other.
Her voice shaking, she snapped, "That's for your new little girlfriend, you low-down traitor."
Kid flushed angrily and stood up, looming over the tiny girl. "Samantha's not my girlfriend. She left town, anyways. But that ain't your business, Lou, we're broken up - and it was more your doing than mine. You can't tell me who I can or can't see, got it? I have every right to move on and-"
"You got no right, Kid! No right!" she shrieked, hysterically. Jimmy rose and tried to calm her, but she shoved him aside. "You think I was moving on? That I could have if I wanted to? You're having a grand old time courting other women, taking them places, and we still had unfinished business." Her voice was raspy and she was beginning to rave wildly, almost drunkenly, her face flushed and her breath coming faster. "Unfinished business I had to deal with. By myself, with no help from you. Where were you when I was laying at Emma's losing our baby? Already two-stepping with the next woman who happened to cross in front of your path, I guess? That's nice for you. It wasn't so easy for me, though."
Kid drew back as if bitten by a snake at the words "our baby".
Lou ranted on. "I can't believe I was worried about how you'd feel about it. I was going to keep it to myself, to protect you, no less," she added, derisively. "What a fool I was. I believed you when you said you cared. But you never did. You risked your own life for a woman hardly knew. You don't even know what love is, if you can forget what we had and then fall for another woman that bad in a couple days. I've learned the hard way now, what a man's words count for. You got what you wanted and then you moved on, easy as that, and left me with the pieces to pick up. The pieces of our baby," she railed, mercilessly, as Kid slumped down onto the bench, head in his hands, helpless under her onslaught.
"Look at me, damn it," she screamed. "Can't you even face me, you lying, skirt chasing -" Kid leapt up and brushed past her, trying to escape to the door.
"That's it! Run away, why don't you! That's what you do whenever you don't get your way, isn't it? Cheer up Kid, maybe you'll meet a new girl you can fall in love with on the way to the barn," she shouted after him, as Emma and Rachel ran up the steps to the bunkhouse. "Lou, what's going on?" Rachel asked, wonderingly. Emma spoke quickly. "Lou? Jimmy, quick, she's fainting," Lou knees buckled and she slumped backwards, limp, into Jimmy's arms.
Night fell without sign of the Kid, though Teaspoon , Rachel, and the rest of the riders sat up late in the bunkhouse, waiting for him to return.. Emma was staying with Lou, who'd fallen into a deep sleep after her emotional exertion. Just as Rachel was about to return to the main house as well, Buck sat up suddenly. "I hear a horse ridin' in." A moment later they all heard it, then saw Kid and Katy streak past the window toward the stable.
Only a minute or so later, the bunkhouse door flew open and a staggering Kid entered. Teaspoon took Kid to task.
"Listen son. I know you're worried about Louise, but she's young and strong. She'll pull through this. You'll have to pull yourself together so you can be a help to her when she needs it."
Kid sank down on his bunk and laughed bitterly. "She don't need me, Teaspoon. Ain't you heard? She's the one who ended things, not me. You're all feeling sorry for poor Lou. Well she probably is relieved. Relieved she doesn't have to be tied to me for life with a baby. She made it plain enough that being stuck with me was the last thing she wanted."
"You think I wanted to end things with Lou? I didn't. She wanted her freedom and I gave it to her. I didn't stop loving her just because she didn't want me."
"Well, you gave a pretty good imitation of it, running around with Samantha and getting into duels over her," Cody pointed out, helpfully.
"I never stopped loving Lou. I spent time with Samantha because I was trying to forget Lou...have a distraction. Seemed like if I… found someone else and tried hard enough to have those feelings again, then maybe the hurt would go away. It didn't work. And now, the last thing left between us is dead."
He sat unsteadily on the bunk. While he was talking, Kid had unbuckled his holster, and one of his guns clattered to the floor. He'd picked it up and was waving it unsteadily as if in emphasis of his words as he spoke, drunkenly. The riders inched closer, hoping for an opening to retrieve it before it went off accidentally. "It would have been a little girl. A daughter," he asserted, thickly.
Rachel was closest now. She sat carefully down on the bunk next to Kid. "Tell me about her, Kid."
"She would have been little, like Lou. With big brown eyes like hers."
"Mm hm," Rachel nodded, warily eyeing the still-waving pistol.
"Rachel, I'd give twenty years off my life if … if that baby had lived."
"I know, honey," Rachel murmured, reaching her hand out for the gun, which Kid obediently handed to her. Then, as he dropped his head into his hands, he broke down. She put her arm around Kid. "I know this is hurting you too. I've been where you are now. Time will help you. And maybe you and Lou can still work things out sometime."
"No," Kid sobbed. "You heard her. She hates me now. She'll never trust me again. I've lost her for good. And I know, deep down, there'll never be anyone else like her for me. She's my … my soul mate, and I've broken her heart, let her down."
Jimmy stood back against the wall, racked with sympathy for his friend, but unable to step forward to help.
Noah sat in a chair by Kid's bunk. He and Kid had learned a lot from each other. Kid had learned through working and living with Noah, to question the values he'd been brought up to believe in about slavery. In turn, Noah had come to consider this white Southern boy his friend. He reached out and patted Kid on the shoulder. "Seems to me that there wasn't anything you or Lou could have done. No one knows why these things happen, Kid, but they do and it isn't anybody's fault."
Jimmy winced at the words. That ain't true, Noah. If it weren't for my past, Lou and Kid would be planning for a baby now, not tearing each other apart.
"It's the good Lord's will, Kid. You have to put it behind you and help Lou. She didn't know what she was saying before. She's sick and hurt, and you have to be the strong one now," Noah pointed out.
"God help me, Noah I don't know if I can. Losing her as my girl was bad enough. Now we've lost the baby we made together. If she turns away from me, won't let me help her, I don't know if I can live through it." Kid was slurring his speech. Noah figured too much more talking was pointless, but he added one thing, to reassure his grief-stricken friend.
"Kid, look for the strength, take it one day at a time, and you'll find it. Thing is, I believe Lou still cares, deep down. She's angry, and yeah, she probably feels like she hates you right now. But she wouldn't be so angry if she didn't care. When she is well again, and stronger, she'll come around. Be patient."
Kid nodded, and was about to lay down on his bunk and rest, when he noticed Jimmy in the corner, looking down. For some reason, this seemed to trigger a reaction. "You got something to say, Jimmy?" Kid demanded, his words still slurred from whiskey. "I guess you got to be the big hero for Lou, being there for her when she was in trouble. Trouble I caused. That makes things easy for you, don't it?"
Here we go, thought Teaspoon. Just when it looked like Noah had the situation under control. Lucky Rachel took that gun from him already.
Kid bolted up from the bunk and hurled himself across the room at Jimmy. Oddly, Jimmy didn't so much as raise his hand in self-defense as Kid started raining down punches, as the rest of the riders tried to pull him off.
"Dang it, Kid, I'm willing to put up with just so much, even under the circumstances. You got no right to lash out at Jimmy, and if you don't cool down, you're leaving me no choice but to fire ya," Teaspoon started, before Jimmy broke in. "No, Teaspoon. If anybody's leaving, it'll be me."
Now the riders' heads swiveled back to Jimmy, dumbfounded. "Come again?" said Teaspoon.
"Kid does have a right to be mad at me, though he don't know the reason yet." Jimmy faced his friend. "Kid, Lou didn't just lose her baby - it was my fault. She got beaten up and almost hanged, and that's when she lost the baby. I couldn't get there in time to save her. When I shot through the noose, and she fell, she started bleeding… I got her to a doctor. She hadn't even known she was pregnant yet. There wasn't anything the doc could do to stop it."
Buck spoke quietly. "Jimmy, that don't make it your fault."
"Yeah, it does." Jimmy spoke slowly, avoiding Kid's eyes. "She got chloroformed and kidnapped by a fella I crippled in a gunfight. He took her because he saw us together, and he wanted to use her to get even with me. It's my past that … that caused this, Kid, and I'm so sorry. You'll never know how sorry," Jimmy finished brokenly.
Jimmy thought, for a split second, that he'd confess even more - how Kid was right about how he felt about Lou. Even back when Kid and Lou had been together, although Jimmy had never acted on it, Kid had an uncanny intuition about Jimmy's true feelings. The jealousy that had caused so much trouble between Kid and Lou, was in one sense not totally unfounded, though it had looked that way to everyone else at the time. And after the pair had broken up, in those happy moments dancing with a tipsy Lou in the street, Jimmy had thought maybe he'd have a chance with her. He'd realized fully just how much he really cared, when he saw her lying on the ground helpless after the confrontation with his old enemy.
But Jimmy kept this to himself, knowing he'd never allow himself to act on his feelings again, no matter how things went with Kid and Lou. He could never put her in danger again. There was no point getting into it with Kid now. But as he thought this, he met Kid's eyes. The look that passed between them said it all. Kid knew, and Jimmy knew he did.
"Damn you, Jimmy," Kid choked out. But the fight was out of him. "Let me go, Noah, Cody. I ain't going to do anything. Fighting won't change anything." Kid realized, even in his incoherent state, that Jimmy loved Lou. Even if we don't agree on how to protect her, Jimmy would never willingly hurt Lou, Kid thought. Between the pain from the loss of his child and Lou's hate-filled words, and his own drunken exhaustion, he couldn't work up the energy to continue to fight with Jimmy, who was hurting, in a way, as much as he was. But next time he puts her in danger, I ain't holding back again, he thought.
"Now you're talking some sense, Kid. Just go to bed and try to get some rest, all of ya," Teaspoon ordered.
Rachel made her way back to the main house, wiping away her tears. Emma was sitting in the kitchen, brewing a pot of tea. "Hope you don't mind, I made myself at home, Rachel. Thought it might be a long night, so I made us some tea. I saw Kid come back, looking like he was rode hard and put up wet. How is he?"
"Pretty bad." Rachel sat at the table as Emma poured out the tea. "I never thought the two of them would end up like this."
Emma sat down, warming her hands around her cup. She hesitated, started to say something, then seemed to change her mind and raised the cup for a sip.
"Emma, is there something that… is bothering you about me? I'm getting the feeling that I've done something to offend you. Is it … is it that I've taken your place around here? Because as close as I am to the boys and Lou, they've never forgotten you."
Emma shook her head, then plunged ahead. "It ain't that, Rachel. I'd be glad to know that there was someone here the boys could turn to, since I've moved on. But there is something… something I'm not sure is my place to say, but I'm gonna say it anyways."
Emma set down her cup and looked full at Rachel. "I'm … a little disappointed in you, Rachel."
Rachel was taken aback. "What do you mean, Emma?"
"I just question your judgment where Lou and Kid were concerned, is all. She told me how you … helped Kid out, changing the schedule so they could stay overnight at Redfern. That's when she got pregnant, you know."
Rachel flushed. "No, I didn't know that."
"And how you got her a nightgown to wear for the big night." Emma paused. "Don't you think you might have handled that situation better? Or at least not encouraged them so?"
"Emma, I know you thought of yourself as a mother to the boys and Lou. But I was trying to be a friend to Lou and Kid."
"That's all well and good, Rachel. I know you didn't sign on to be a mother to these boys any more than I did, but I knew they needed a good influence from time to time. And even setting that aside, as Lou's friend, and Kid's, do you think it was wise to encourage them to take that step?"
Rachel shifted uncomfortably under the other woman's direct gaze and words. "Emma, they were in love. You may not feel the same way, but I happen to think if two people are in love, expressing that love isn't wrong."
"Reasonable people might disagree on that point, but that isn't what I'm driving at. Wrong or no, was it a wise step for two young, lonely children to take before they made a commitment to each other?"
"Emma, I'm telling you, if it wasn't at Redfern it would have been somewhere else, in the barn, by the pond, anywhere they could have been alone together. It had been building too much, they were going to do it one way or another. I thought at least it could be special for them if I helped them out."
Emma raised her eyebrows. "So that's what you thought, is it? Excuse me for saying so, Rachel, but I think it's closer to the truth to say you didn't think. You know as well as I do, children will play with fire, but that's no reason to show them where the matches are and tell them to use them. And that's what you did - you gave your stamp of approval. And you're underestimating your influence. If you had discouraged them, especially Kid, it might not have happened, at least not so soon."
Rachel was silent for a moment. Although what Emma was saying was hard to hear, she couldn't help but respect this woman's strength and clarity. "Go on," Rachel said.
"And once you decided to help them do this, did you make sure they had thought it through? That they were prepared for the consequences? That they even understood the risks? Because from what Lou told me, her grasp of the birds and bees is next to nothing, and Kid's not much better. Kid thought a woman couldn't get pregnant the first time, and Lou thought since her cycle had stopped when she started working so hard at this job, she couldn't get pregnant. And they both thought Kid could "stop" in time, but found out different at Redfern."
Emma looked down for a moment. "Like I said, I know teaching these young ones the facts of life ain't part of the job you hired on for. But you took it on yourself to interfere and influence them to do this. You should have been more responsible, Rachel. And I'm not even getting into the emotional costs of the step they took. They rushed into it, because they'd been alone so long, especially Louise. They wanted to feel that closeness, that belonging to each other. But they were too young and inexperienced, and it was too soon in their courtship, to handle it."
Emma sighed before finishing. "There's an awful lot of hurt and suffering that could have been avoided if they had waited, or at least been properly prepared. I think they do have very special feelings for each other. If they can survive this, maybe they'll be even stronger for it in the long run. I hope to heaven that they do get past this."
Rachel sighed. "I guess they'd have been better off if I'd never taken your place."
Emma stood, taking their dishes to the sink. "Now Rachel, I'm not saying that. I've heard a lot of good things about you from the letters all of them send me. I hope that you'll take what I've said in the spirit it's meant. I know you meant well. They all love you and they're better off for having known you. I just mentioned it so next time, maybe if you see one of our boys or girl is about to take a big step off a cliff, you can try to tell them what they need to hear, not what they want to hear?"
Emma reached around Rachel's shoulder and gave her a hug. Rachel nodded, "I promise, Emma", and the two new friends headed up to check on Louise one last time for the night.
Hurt and misunderstanding kept Lou and Kid avoiding each other as much as possible over the next weeks. When they did have to be together, Lou's pride caused her to be more distant, out of her continued feeling that he'd moved on, when, she knew now, she just hadn't. Kid's guilt and shame kept him from confronting her about her occasionally dismissive remarks. But finally, he felt it was time to clear the air.
He found her reading under a tree back behind the main house, near a tangled patch of daisies and wild roses Rachel had planted. Dropping down next to her, he wasn't sure how to begin. Lou took care of that for him.
"Hey, Kid." She looked embarrassed. "I … think I owe you an apology for the way I've acted, especially the things I said the day I came home. I had no call to act like I did, in front of everybody. I didn't intend to tell you about the baby at all. .. But once I did I should have done it different. I was just really hurt that you fell in love again, so soon after we parted. It kind of made me feel like I wasn't ever that important to you. I … I guess I wanted to hurt your feelings like mine were hurting."
"Lou, you don't need to apologize. You've been through a lot, and I … I was acting like a … well, like a fool. I would've been just as hurt in your place."
Sadly, he continued. "I want you to know, Lou. I'm … I'm sorry about the baby. More than you know."
She looked out over the horizon, dreamily. "I can just seem him, Kid. A little boy with your eyes. They're what I fell in love with in the first place, you know."
Kid looked over at her soft, tender face. He smiled, thinking how he'd imagined a small Louise. Her face turned sad again, and he whispered to her, "Lou, you know … you're always a mother now, even if our baby didn't live. You carried her inside you.. That makes you a mother."
She smiled softly. "I guess that makes you a daddy, too, doesn't it?" He reached out and the two clasped hands for a moment, silently - almost reverently, mulling over the sacred bond that they shared now, no matter what the future held.
After a while, Kid plucked one of the nearby daisies and handed it to her. "A peace offering," he said. She chuckled, took it and placed it in her book, thanking him. He started absently plucking the petals from the other flowers, one at a time. He couldn't meet her eyes as he spoke again, embarrassed.
"You know, I wasn't in love with Samantha. Just so you know. I just … couldn't keep brooding, sulking over us. I wanted so much to stop feeling bad. Focusing on someone new, took my mind off missing you so much."
"I guess I can understand that." Lou recalled for a moment how much better she had felt when Jimmy paid her some attention that night, before everything went so wrong. Yes, I can certainly understand how you felt, she thought silently.
"Know what I miss most of all?" Kid asked.
Lou shook her head.
"My best friend," Kid said. Lou laughed, saying just like she did that night in Redfern, "Me too." They fell quiet again, for a moment, remembering.
"Friends again?" they both asked at the same time. They smiled, each knowing they'd somehow get through this difficult time, if they helped each other. Lou glanced overhead. "It's noon. I promised Rachel I'd help with the baking today," She said, grimacing. "I'll be glad when they let me ride a full schedule again. I'd rather ride 100 miles any time than sit in that hot kitchen all day." She pulled up to a stand. "Talk more later?" Kid smiled and nodded yes in answer.
Watching her go, he finished pulling the petals from the last flower, saying the old children's rhyme in his head as he did. Noah and Jimmy passed by the tree and spotted him. "So, Kid, what's the answer?" Noah asked.
Kid smiled. The last flower had come out the same as all the others. Deep down, he'd always known; but this time he'd be patient, not force things. In the end, he knew what the outcome would be, and he was prepared to wait as long as she needed to heal and be ready for their future together. Looking up, he answered. "She loves me."