After dinner that night Jimmy left the bunk house wordlessly and started walking off into the distance. His actions were understandable, the tension in the bunkhouse was evident despite the loud card game that was taking place. Kid was sitting on his bunk reading and Lou was silently watching the poker game ignoring Buck’s attempts to get her involved. A few minutes after Jimmy left, Lou decided to follow him. She didn’t know exactly what she was doing or where she was headed. She couldn’t even make up her mind as to whether she should go after Jimmy and have some company or just be by herself. In the end she started heading toward the west and became so wrapped up in her thoughts she didn’t even hear the voice behind her.

“Lou! Would you wait a minute!” Jimmy yelled at her for the third time.

“Huh? Oh, Jimmy, sorry. Guess I wasn’t listening,” Lou muttered when he caught up with her.

“Yeah, I guess not. What are you doing out here?”

“I needed to get out of the bunkhouse,” Lou told him, shrugging her shoulders, hoping he wouldn’t start trying to make her have the conversation he offered to have earlier.

“Me too. You want some company for a little while?”

“Sure,” Lou replied, immediately falling silent.

She and Jimmy walked wordlessly for half an hour and then began to head back to the station. Lou knew she hadn’t been great company, but Jimmy had been the one to offer to stay with her. It actually made her feel better to know that someone would stick around and walk with her in total silence when she didn’t feel like talking.

“Jimmy, thanks for putting up with me tonight,” Lou said right before they reached the barn, “You’re probably the best friend I’ve ever had and I really appreciate it.”

Jimmy didn’t say anything, he just slipped his arm around her shoulder and gave her a hug. It was moments like that he knew he could never have Lou for himself, but at least he could steal a second here and there where he could let himself hope. He figured it was better to be able to offer her some comfort as a friend when she really needed it than to think about something that could never happen. What surprised him when he hugged her was how tightly she held on to him in return. Of course, he realized why she was holding on after a second when he felt the tears come through his shirt. A minute later Lou suddenly pulled away from him.

“Jimmy, I’m sorry,” Lou whispered as soon as she saw the wet area in the middle of his chest.

“It’s ok. Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve just been holding this in for a week and I guess I let it spill out on you,” Lou said, embarrassed at how she’d reacted to someone offering a hug. She’d felt so isolated for such a long period of time that she would have cried no matter who had done it. Lou knew she had brought it on herself, but things had become too much for her and being mad at everyone was the only way she knew to deal with it. It was just such a relief to see that someone still cared about her even after her behavior.

“Well, if you want to we can stay out here for a while. We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, you can just keep using my shirt as towel,” Jimmy said smiling to let her know he was only kidding with her.

“I’m so sorry about that, Jimmy,” Lou said again, not being able to think of anything else but how awful she felt about crying on him.

After a few minutes Lou had calmed down and Jimmy’s shirt was dry so they walked back to the bunkhouse in silence. Lou was grateful that no one said anything about the two of them returning together and her face had lost all traces of the crying she had done so there was no need for her to think they were watching her to see if she’d start crying again. Only Jimmy knew it had happened and that was how things were going to stay. She still hadn’t told him why she was so upset, but did feel incredibly relieved to know she could turn to him when she had a problem.

Of course, Jimmy wasn’t the only person on earth she could turn to, but there was always some kind of awkwardness in talking to the other people in her life. With Rachel, she would always try to fix things herself or ask the wrong question at the wrong moment to get the whole story out of her in order to make it all right. With the Kid, hard as he tried to understand, he would always see her as his girlfriend and only that way. There was some kind of block in his mind that wouldn’t let him think of her as a girl, not just his girlfriend. And as for Teaspoon, despite his fatherly well meaning toward all of them, he certainly wasn’t the greatest person to bring problems to. To put it mildly, his advice was incomprehensible half the time and the other half it would backfire horribly. Jimmy was different, the first person she could really talk to, the first person since Emma had left anyway. Of course, thinking about Emma didn’t help Lou feel better. As much of a friend as Rachel was, Emma had been the mother Lou still needed once in a while to get some serious advice or comfort from.

Even with all the help he could give her, Jimmy probably wasn’t the best person to be looking for comfort with. He was more than a little bit complicated than everyone else and with his life it was understandable. There was also that unanswered question that would rear its head every few months between the two of them, was there more of a physical attraction between them or was it really just a deep friendship? Since this wasn’t the night to try to figure out the wrongs in her life, Lou simply gave up and got into her bunk falling asleep to the sounds she’d gotten used to living with whether she liked it or not. Reviewing everything she’d thought about that night made her start thinking about what kind of a future she was getting herself into.

“Am I just going to accept that I have to spend the rest of my life living in this bunkhouse with these guys? This isn’t exactly what I had expected to be doing now. I was supposed to have Teresa and Jeremiah back by now. I was supposed to have my own place so I could take of them like I should be. Something has got to change,” Lou firmly decided before falling into a deep sleep that for the first time in weeks wasn’t filled with dreams about the Kid.

How to change things was certainly another question entirely for Lou to wrestle with. She hadn’t made as much money as she’d expected to when she signed on with the Pony Express. In fact, if she didn’t have the bunk house to sleep in and Rachel cooking for them, Lou couldn’t imagine how she would have survived for so long on her own. There was no way she could afford to take care of the two of them by herself. It would mean having to quit riding and find another job. It also meant making sure they were taken care of when she wasn’t around and that wasn’t going to easy. There was no way Jeremiah was old or responsible enough to watch himself and Teresa.

Lou wasn’t even sure she felt comfortable leaving him by himself. Despite the fact that he was already eleven, he had spent his entire life in the care of other people. He had gone from his mother, to his sister, to the nuns at the orphanage, to a nanny with his father, and then back to the orphanage. Not only had he always been watched by other people, both of her siblings had been bounced around so much from place to place that Lou was worried they wouldn’t even remember what it meant to have a real family and home.

There was no way there would be a simple solution to her problems and for the next few days instead of being angry Lou ended up feeling frustrated and depressed. Whenever she would come up with a potential solution she would end up striking it down. Usually the end result would be the worst situation for everyone involved. It wasn’t easy trying to think of how to completely change her own life and that of her siblings without upsetting their entire world to the point where it would have been better if she hadn’t done anything. At least at the orphanage Teresa and Jeremiah were getting food three times a day and a solid roof over their heads which was more than Lou knew she could guarantee them.

To make matters worse, there was no improvement with the Kid. While the slamming doors had stopped, neither one could bring themselves to talk to the other. For Lou it was still too painful to think about what had happened and the Kid was mad at her for holding a grudge and at himself for being so stupid. As a result silence ruled when they were together and everyone avoided the two of them being together at all costs. This was the longest they had ever gone without speaking and it worried everyone. At first Rachel would just tell herself that it was young love and the more in love with someone you are, the longer you stay mad at them for doing something they should have known not to do. Of course, after nearly three solid weeks even Rachel’s perpetual optimism was starting to fade.

Things didn’t get any better when a dance was announced. Instead of looking forward to it as she usually did, all Lou could think about how to handle it. From the beginning she and the Kid had always made up before a dance and would go together, but this time things were not looking too good. She had never gone to one without the Kid being by her side and dancing with her at some point. Even when everyone still thought she was a boy, the Kid would make an effort to make it better for her.

The first time he took her outside to dance it had been to make her feel better and less left out of things. After that it had become something of a tradition between them to go outside to be alone during a dance. Being alone was one part, but Lou also knew that if they didn’t leave people would start to wonder why the same girl always showed up at the dances with the Kid and was gone the next day. She knew the last thing she needed was to make people start asking questions. That was just another drawback to the life she’d chosen for herself and had made her even more determined to make things change.

On to Chapter Four

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Campfire Tales Way Station

Tales of the West Saddlin' Station