Kid saves the Day

"Where you goin’ so early this morning?" At the sound of Lou’s groggy voice Kid stopped and turned around to face her. He lifted his finger to his lips to try to get her to lower her voice.

"Quiet do you want to wake everyone!" He whispered as he turned to go out the door.

Lou, not satisfied with the answer she got, jumped off her bunk and followed Kid out the door to the barn. "What kind of an answer is that?"

"Lou go back to sleep, or just go back. Leave me alone." Exasperated by Lou, Kid grasped the handle on the barn door, swung it open and headed straight to Katy’s stall.

"Not until you tell me where your goin’! Besides you can’t go, you're up next." Lou stepped in between Kid and Katy and laid her hand on his chest to stop him from putting on Katy’s saddle. Getting more annoyed with Lou’s persistence, Kid gently grabbed her wrist, moved her hand, and shoved her out of his way.

"Lou go back. I’m just going for a ride. Alone! I’ll be back in time for my ride don’t worry."

"Kid why are you so angry with me?" Leading Katy out of the barn he walked past Lou, ignoring her last question. Stunned, she stood there not able to move. When she realized that he was out of the barn she picked up her feet and ran out the door, just in time to see him riding off.

"KID! Kid come back!", Lou leaned up on her tip toes and shouted as loud as she could "Kid come back, you have a run!" She knew that she was just making a fool out of herself. There was no way Kid could hear her, he was already too far away. "Damn that Kid." She muttered to herself as she walked back to the bunkhouse.

"Why were you out there shouting at Kid for?" Jimmy asked when Lou entered the room.

"Nothin’, he was just trying to sneak off and not tell anyone, I wanted to know why," Lou covered her face with her hands, to try and hide her embarrassment. "He wouldn’t tell me. He just ignored me and rode off."

"Who cares where he went," Noah sat up on his bunk and looked at Lou with annoyance, " He’ll be back."

Laying on his bunk with arm over his eyes to shut out the light, Cody turned over to talk to Lou. "Thanks Lou for waking us all up with your shouting. Why don’t you give Kid a break."

"I’m sorry. I was just worried about him. He hasn’t been himself lately. Haven’t any of you noticed?"

"No we haven’t," they all said at the same time.

Cody got up off his bunk walked over to Lou and put his arm around her. "Lou it’s great that you’re so concerned over the Kid’s well being and all, but next time do it later in the day. O.K.?"

Lou looked down at her hands, she shrugged her shoulders. "Sorry guys."


Chapter 2

Everyone was sitting at the table eating supper when Kid burst through the door. He walked over to the table and sat down to eat with the rest of them "You will never guess what just happened to me!" Kid rushed into his story before anyone could ask where he had been all morning. He was going to answer that question right now.

"What?" Jimmy asked a little annoyed that he would leave Lou feeling so bad and then act like nothing happened.

Kid looked at Jimmy surprised by his reaction "What’s the matter with you?"

"Nothin’," Lou cut in glancing up at Kid "your shot, are you all right, what happened?!" Lou reached up to touch the blood on Kid’s right shoulder."Does it hurt? Come here let me look at it!" She led him over to his bunk sat him down to fix his shoulder.

"I was in town earlier this morning, that’s where I went," Kid said looking at Lou. "When I got there I noticed that there was some trouble at the saloon. So I went to get Barnett, but he was already there. I knew that he would need some help so I ran back to the saloon." Rachel walked over to give him a glass of water. Kid grabbed the glass and took a drink. "He was sitting outside the saloon with blood all over him…"

"Kid stop! I can’t get this button undone with all your movin’."

"Here let me do it for you Lou. I may be shot but I can still take off my own shirt. That reminds me did Ike take my run for me today?"

"Yeah Ike took it, he was up next after you." Rachel said.

"I’m back," Buck walked into the room looked around at all that was going on and sat down "What did I miss?"

"Nothing, Lou’s just trying to get Kid out of shirt," Jimmy smirked at Lou. "As usual." Lou glared a warning to him.

"Can I go on with my story now?" Kid got up from the bed after Lou was done patching him up and sat down at the table.

"Finish what story?" Buck asked.

"Oh the Kid here has this incredible story of some trouble at the saloon." Teaspoon informed him.

"Well since Barnett was injured he told me to go in there and take care of the problem. He said that there were six men with guns ready to shoot a man who they thought cheated at poker." Kid picked up the meat and put a piece on his plate, then he grabbed the peas dished some up, and started eating.

"Where were you Teaspoon, when all this was happening?" Buck asked.

"I was here, fixing the hole in Rachel’s wall." Teaspoon said with raised eyebrows looking straight at Jimmy.

"Well what happened next? Did you go in there like Barnett asked?" Buck asked before Kid had a chance to finish chewing.

"Of course I did! I just walked right in there and told them to leave."

"Did they leave?" Lou grabbed Kid’s leg under the table and squeezed.

"No. They said they would leave when they had finished what they were doing. I told them to leave if they wanted to walk out of the saloon at all."

"You said what? No way you said that. I don’t believe it." Jimmy snickered.

"Ask anyone in town. I said it. They still said that they wouldn’t leave, said that if I didn’t leave they were going to shoot me." Lou’s grip on his leg tightened with each detail of the story.

"Ouch! Lighten up Lou." Kid reach down and took Lou’s hand from his leg and held it in his.

"What did you do next?" Cody asked.

"Well the leader pointed his gun at me like he was going to take a shot, so I drew my gun and fired before he could . He went down, so one of his friends decided to try. I shot him too," Kid stopped to take another bite of his food. "The next few seconds were really blurry, I knew that I had got two of them and that left four. I thought that I was dead for sure!"

"I got to hear this." Jimmy said laughing.

"Stop it Jimmy. Give the Kid a break," Teaspoon warned "Go ahead Kid finish your story."

"Thank you Teaspoon. Like I said there were four left and not a whole lot of time to think of what I was going to do." He stopped to take another bite "Right when the first shot was fired I dove behind the bar, that’s when I got shot in the arm. There I was sitting behind the bar with four guns ready to shoot at anything that moved. So I figured that I might as well go for it. I leapt up shot the one who shot me, aimed at the next and shot him too! The other two knew that they wouldn’t walk out of there alive so they ran instead. Didn’t get very far though, cause Mr. Thompkins was outside waiting with his rifle and shot them."

"So what happened to Barnett?" Teaspoon asked as he got up to leave.

"I took him to the doctor," Kid followed him out the door "Where you goin’, Teaspoon, don’t you believe me?"

"Of course I do Kid. But I think that it would be a good idea for me to get back to town."

"Want me to come with you, to help clean up?"

"No I want you to stay here and rest so your arm can heel. Besides I don’t think Lou will let you out of her sight now for awhile." He said looking over his shoulder to see Lou standing in the door of the bunkhouse.

"All right I guess I should go rest, got to be ready to do the next run for Ike." Kid turned around and walked back into the bunkhouse with Lou.