The loudest clap of thunder and lightning Lou thought she'd ever heard shook her house to it's foundation, coinsiding with the painful memory of her attack on one of the only women to have ever stayed in her life. Rascal sprang up from his post by the front door and began a howl that would wake the dead.
"Rascal, for God's sake, shut up! It's just lightning, you silly ol' man," Lou laughed and reassured the dog in a less certain voice than she'd intended. The storm was changing into a different sort of violence and Kid was somehwere out there in it. "Come here, you mangy beast," she smiled as Rascal made his way to her, growling threateningly at the darker corners of the house. This made Lou smile again, more assuredly now that the warm dog was sitting on her feet as she sat in the kitchen chair.
In her wanderings outside of her memories she'd found herself in the kitchen making sandwiches for when Kid returned. She wanted to heat water for coffee or tea, but she couldn't risk opening the flew for fear that the storm would pour in on top of her. She'd have to find other ways of warming her husband up if he came through that door after being out in the wilds of this weather. She grinned at the thought, but her small pleasure faded with another crash from the storm outside as the rain began to hit the roof like nails.
"Not if he comes through that door, Louise. When. When...please."
Kid heard the thunder and realized this might be the only oppertunity to get home safe to his wife. If it began to rain, the dust would be cleared from the air and be replaced by torents of rain mixed with mud from the sand storm. He knew one thing for certain, if he stayed where he was, he and Katy would both probably catch pneumonia in the coming rain or be buried alive in the mud.
"Come on, sweetheart, we gotta take this last chance to get back to Lou and Lightning." Kid leapt onto his horse's back and waited for the right moment to charge out into the storm. With a monsterous crack from the heavens, the sky opened up and the rain came in torrents, turning the loose dust instantly into a muck that Katy's reliable hooves slushed through the muck as her master turned her toward home. Home and hay, as far as Katy was concerned.
Lou had lit more candles after she'd finished what would be Kid's dinner "when" he came home. Their comfortable home was aglow with lit wax pillars. It wasn't that the storm itself had frightened Lou into needing more light around her. She'd weathered many a storm without Kid by her side to cuddle near. It had more to do with the dread feeling that had been slowly taking grip all afternoon. Lou closed her eyes tight to block out the sights of the past. Rachael's hurt and angry eyes. Her own hands before her, shaking like a leaf as she saddled Lightening. The courtyside flashing by in a blur of tears. The sight of the rider on the horizon.
"Remember what you saw on the horizon, Lou," she ordered herself as she curled back up on the soda, pulling a blanket over her now shaking shoulders. "You can fight this feeling if you remember what you saw on the horizon."
Rascal gazed at his mistress with a curious eye, looking about the room to see to whom she'd spoken. Seeing no one, the faithful dog crept up on the sofa with her again and snuggled into the crooks of her knees. Lou let her eyes close again as she tried to concentrate of the warm, reasssuring head of her dog resting on her legs. Safe and warm. That's where Kid will be soon. She had to believe it.
Lou didn't know where she was riding, she just knew she had to escape the scene she'd caused at the homestead. The hurt in Racheal's face. The shame Lou felt at blaming Rachael and Teaspoon for her lack of faith. Her sobs renewed, she pulled Lightening to a quick stop and blindly stumbled out of her saddle to fall to her knees on the rocky ground.
"What have I done?" she screamed to the sky above her. "Oh God, Kid, I'm so sorry! I never meant to say it...please...I never meant to believe it!" Lou's body was shaking so violently from the sobs that wracked her body, she couldn't support her weight on her hands any longer. With one heaving cry, she collapsed to the ground, her tears wetting the earth and streaking mud across her face.
"Forgive me, Kid...please....oh God please don't let it be true....please. Forgive me Kid." Her cries turned to a quiet murmur of sorrow. She'd said it outloud. She'd admitted her fear that her husband, her life, her Kid was dead. For three and a half years she'd promised herself, however unconsciencly, that she would never give in to the doubt that always seemed to be lurking around every corner. And somehow, she'd let everything fall apart within mintues of reading an innocent letter from a caring man.
Almost an hour passed by before Lou woke again. Somehow she'd falled asleep laying in a heap in the dessert. A wind had picked up and there was considerably less light. Sore and stuffed up from crying, Lou pushed herself off the dirt and stood on uneasy legs to find Lightening only a few steps away, grazing. A sigh bigger than any she'd ever sighed escaped from her as she began to recall the reason she was taking a nap on the praerie.
"I'm such a fool," Lou sighed, as she walked to her horse to get a drink from her canteen.
After taking a long draught of water and attempting to wash her face with what remained, she quickly mounted Lightening, but for some reason she didn't feel ready to spur him home.
"Kid," she began whispering into the air, "I'm not sure what this means now. I've held onto you for so long and I don't understand why today should'a been the day for me to lose hope." Lightening whinnied softy, thinking her mistress might be speaking to her. Lou smiled ruefully. "I'm crazy, aint I, old boy? Talking to the sky and then praying that a voice might answer and have all this craziness make sense." The horse snorted in approval and Lou patted his mane. "Restless tonight, too?" She always felt her horse could sense her moods and at times, mimick them. She felt bad for bringing this on the innocent beast.
With a heavy heart, Lou clicked her tounge and lifted the reigns to steer Lightening home when a stong breeze caught her hat from behind and blew it to the ground some 20 feet away.
"Damn," she hissed under her breath. Hopping from her horse, she chased her hat to the ground and began to plant it firmly on her head, securing it under her chin, when she saw something. A good distance away still, Lou could just make out a single rider on the horizon. The beginning of a sunset lingered to the left of the figure, pale pink and orange at first, making the silhoutte stand out against the sky, highlighting only bits if the rider at a time.
Why Lou did not regard the rider with less than idle curiosity was something she'd never be able to exlpain. But somehow this man (she could tell now that it was indeed a man) had captured her interest, even her immediate obesession. Walking slowly toward Lightening, she gathered her horse's reings in her hand and began absently letting him nuzzle her arm and hand, looking, perhaps, for a sugar cube.
The man was riding well in his seat, an expert rider if Lou had to guess. The horse also looked to be one of excpetional quality, taking the awkward terrain at a steady and sure gallop. Rider and horse seemed as one. As the man reached a table rock, he stopped his horse and Lou knew he had seen her. For a long minute, the two regarded each other across the distance of the valley. Niether moved from their vanatge points, and yet each looked as though they were preparing for whatever lay ahead.
Lightening gave a short whinney and Lou turned her head at the exact moment that a final ray of sunshine pierced the hilltop she stood on. Warm, colored light streamed across her figure and face as the wind picked up and blew her hat back off her head and aginst she shoulder blades.
Suddenly, a cry of a horse rearing up reached her ears and she turned back to the mysterious rider only to see his horse raised high on his back hooves and the rider, for that one second before the horse came down to start it's gallop, was caught in the last bit of sunlight.
Lou had no breath, no sound, no tears, when her eyes took in the figure on the horizon, now illuminated by the reddish sunset. She felt paralyzed, in a dream that she couldn't wake from, wouldn't wake from. As the rider's horse found the ground, only then could Lou find her voice, watching the pair take off in a streak across the valley, closing the distance between them by the second.
Lou could utter only one word before she began running.
"Kid..."
Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III
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The Storybook
The Kidnation