For Lou the next couple of days couldn’t have passed slower. The difficulties of looking at the Kid each time they sat down to eat combined with the excitement of seeing her siblings made everything seem to take a hundred times longer. Cody’s jokes were more annoying than ever and all the habits she’d learned to ignore suddenly began to aggravate her like never before. By the time she had left it was no secret that everyone was glad to see her go. It was nothing personal, but at that point no one could take her moodiness any more. Even Rachel who was the most sympathetic thought it was a wonderful thing that Teaspoon let her go so early.

It seemed to Lou she had set a new record getting to Eagle Ridge. She didn’t even stay long enough to clean up or eat anything. It had become a near obsession with her to get to Saint Jo as soon as she could. While it was at least another day’s ride there, Lou didn’t mind getting an early start. She also knew before she arrived she’d have to get a couple new dresses since she couldn’t live for two weeks in the two she already owned. There was also the presents she was determined to get for Teresa and Jeremiah. All this occupied so much of her thoughts that by the time she got to the orphanage the Kid had barely crossed her mind. Of course, that was not exactly the case in Sweetwater.

“How long do you think he can keep this up?” Buck asked Noah as they watched the Kid try again to break in a new horse. He had been thrown twice already, but hadn’t been hurt and everyone thought he had lost his mind when he kept getting back on. “I don’t know. Probably until he breaks his neck. Maybe the next fall will knock some sense back into him. I’ve never seen him act like this before.”

“Me neither. I don’t know what Lou said to him before she left, but it must have been big.”

“Kid! That’s enough! You’re getting tired and you’re gonna get hurt. Let Noah take a shot,” Teaspoon yelled from the corral fence.

Rather than voluntarily get off the horse, Kid was thrown off for the third and final time. Brushing himself off he started to approach the horse again, but Noah had moved too fast and was on before Kid could grab the reins. Instead of arguing that he could keep going Kid walked back toward the bunkhouse with his head hanging. He was sore, tired, and frustrated. The a couple of nights before (the day Lou left) Kid had debated whether he should go after her. He wanted to let her have space, but at the same time he did not want to wait for her answer.

“Son, is there anything you want to talk to me about?” Teaspoon asked following Kid into the bunkhouse.

“No, Teaspoon. Everything’s fine,” Kid said sitting down on his bunk.

“I was just worried. The way you were going at that philly out there it seemed like you didn’t care whether you lived or died.”

“I’m fine Teaspoon. But there is something I was wondering about.”

“Yeah?”

“Could I take a little time off this week?”

“I can’t do that. You know we’re already short handed and with Lou being gone there’s no way I can let you leave until we find someone to take over for you.” “What if I found someone? I’ll only be gone for a few days,” Kid asked hoping to find some kind of loophole.

“Kid, I’d like to let you, but I just can’t. You’re going to have to wait until the company sends someone on their own. The replacement should be here in a couple of days. You’ll be fine until then. If you need something to do, I’m sure Rachel has plenty of chores that need to be finished around here.”

“All right. Thanks anyway,” Kid grumbled accepting his defeat. He was just going to have to hope that the company was going to move faster than they usually did when it came to sending replacement riders.

While Kid was trying to find a way to get to Lou, she was in Saint Jo where he had barely crossed her mind in the two days she’d been there. This was the day she was going to see Teresa and Jeremiah that day for the first time in nearly a year. She kept praying that it would go well. The best case would be their not wanting more answers when it came to their relationship to Boggs, but she could only hope. Lou put out of her mind any thought that things would not go well. She was nervous enough as it was, thinking of something going wrong was not the best way to get ready for the visit.

“Louise!” Teresa cried when she spotted her sister who was still heading toward the gate of the orphanage.

“How are you doing, sugar bear?” Lou said hugging her sister tightly.

“I’m fine. Have you come to take us home with you?”

“Well, I can’t do that just yet. But I am here for a little while,” Lou told her immediately feeling a pang of guilt when Teresa brought up one of the things she had wanted to avoid on her trip. “Don’t worry. We’ll be able to be together soon. I promise.” “That’s what you said last time,” Teresa told her, pouting.

“I know I did, but things are a little harder than I thought they were going to be. I’m here now though, aren’t I? Why don’t we go see Jeremiah? Where is he?”

“Over there,” Teresa said pointing to a group of children playing tag.

Lou headed over holding Teresa’s hand. Jeremiah looked up and saw them both, but pretended he hadn’t. He went on playing the game; acting as though there was nothing unusual about seeing his two sisters together.

“This is off to a rousing start,” Lou thought rolling her eyes. “Why does he have to make this even more difficult than it already is?”

“Jeremiah! Louise is here!” Teresa called to him, apparently forgetting about her hurt feelings from the moment before.

“Yeah. So?” he asked trying to continue to concentrate on the game. Unfortunately he had lost track of who was “it” so he gave up and walked over in their direction. “Aren’t you glad to see her? She brought us presents!” Teresa informed her brother, barely able to contain her excitement over what could have been in the packages Lou was carrying.

Rather than wait for another sarcastic reply, Lou bent down and hugged her brother. It wasn’t everyday they saw each other and she was not going to let his bad mood ruin it for her. Jeremiah instantly tried to pull away from her, but after a moment gave in and hugged her back. He was happy she was around, but still annoyed that she had once again showed up when everything was fine, instead of the times he needed her.

“Here. This is for you and this is for Teresa,” Lou said handing over the two presents. Teresa couldn’t have been more pleased at the doll dresses she received. Jeremiah was less than thrilled at the toy gun he got.

“Why can’t I have a real one? That man Boggs was going to teach me how to fire a rifle and that was an entire year ago! I’m old to have a gun of my own.”

“For one thing, you are still way too young to be thinking about owning a real gun. I don’t care what Boggs was going to do or not. For another, Sister Mary Margaret would never let you have a real gun in there. She’d be too worried about you hurting yourself or someone else. Can’t you just enjoy the fact that you got something?” Lou asked feeling exasperated at her brother’s behavior. It was moments like that that made her wonder if she could ever really handle having children of her own. She felt like enough of a mother to them, but they still thought of her as their sister. In their minds that meant she had no parent-like authority over them. “I also don’t want you talking about Boggs anymore. I don’t want to hear that name come out of your mouth in front of me. Just forget that you ever met him, all right?”

Jeremiah stood in the yard with his jaw wide open. He had been scolded by Lou before, but she had never sounded so irritated as when she was lecturing him on Boggs. He didn’t see the harm in talking about what to him had been the greatest adventure of his life. He had gotten away from the orphanage and finally had someone who wanted him as a son. Louise certainly didn’t act like she wanted him all the time. If she had cared about them at all she would have brought them home with her back then.

He quickly recovered from the surprise and walked back to the building with his sisters who were already a few feet ahead of him. There were a few questions he suddenly felt like dropping on his sister. Since she was already mad at him, she couldn’t get much madder. After all, he was entitled to know a few things about the parts of his life he couldn’t remember too clearly. He was old enough to hear the truth; at least in his own mind he was.

“Well, Louise, this is quite a surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Sister Catherine commented when the three siblings walked in the door.

“Well, I got a little time off and thought it would be a good time to come see Teresa and Jeremiah.”

“Are you staying in town?”

“I wanted to ask you about that, actually. Hotels are so expensive and I want to see Teresa and Jeremiah as much as I can, so I was wondering if I could stay in a spare room here?” Lou asked hoping that she wouldn’t get laughed at. The idea of sleeping under the roof of the orphanage was incredibly strange to begin with, but adding that to the fact that she had run away from there made the request even more awkward. Fortunately Sister Catherine was fairly pleasant about it and showed Lou to the spare room.

“This place never changes,” Lou muttered as she placed her hat on the bed in the tiny spare room. She had been in the spare room once in her entire life at the orphanage and it looked exactly the same as it did now. Teresa and Jeremiah had been sent to get the rest of her things by Sister Catherine, giving Lou a few minutes to herself.

It was absolutely amazing to Lou that even after six years life at the orphanage had stood still in a way. Sure there were plenty of new faces there, but it felt the same. Not a single piece of furniture had been moved out of place. Everything looked a little more faded with age, but otherwise it seemed like she had just left the room a moment ago. Her thoughts were quickly interrupted by the sound of the children running back up the stairs.

“Teresa! Why are you carrying that?” Lou cried as soon as she saw her sister. She was attempting to hold onto the bag Lou had brought with her while Jeremiah was only holding her saddle bag which had nothing in it. “Jeremiah, why didn’t you help her?”

“She wanted to carry it herself! It’s not my fault she wanted to. I tried to take it from her, but she had a fit,” Jeremiah explained wondering why his sister was already mad at him again without his doing anything.

“Is that true, Teresa?”

“Yes. I wanted to show you how big I’ve gotten. I’m not a baby anymore, not like Jeremiah says I am,” Teresa said sticking her tongue out at her brother.

“I guess you’re not. Well, let me take it. I think you might still be a little too small to carry something so heavy.”

“Louise, can I ask you a question?” Jeremiah asked feeling his stomach tighten. He knew he wanted to ask the questions he had on his mind, but with her getting so mad at him that day it wasn’t going to be easy.

“Sure. What do you want to know?”

“First I want you to promise me you won’t get mad.”

“What are you going to ask me? All right, I promise you I won’t get mad.”

“I wanted to ask you about our father. Who was he? You said he’s not Boggs, so who is it?” Jeremiah asked, immediately regretting it after he saw the look on Lou’s face. “Jeremiah, didn’t I tell you not to say that name?” Lou asked closing her eyes and trying to keep herself from getting unnecessarily angry with him. She knew it wasn’t his fault, but at the same time, she didn’t want lie to them or tell them the truth. “I’m sorry. I won’t get mad at you. You both should know about our father and when you’re old enough I’ll tell you about him. Right now all you need to know about him is that he was a good man and died a long time ago.”

“Come on, Louise! I want to know! I’m already eleven. You shouldn’t keep hiding him from me just because Teresa is in the room! She can leave. I’m old enough to know about him!” Jeremiah said practically on the verge of tears with frustration over his sister’s stubbornness. He thought the only reason she was keeping the truth from him was because Teresa was too little to hear about it.

“Jeremiah, I don’t remember very much about our father either. Mama told me he was a good man and that was all. I can barely remember what he looked like. If I did, I would tell you about him, I promise,” Lou told her little brother gently. She knew that he would ask these questions sooner or later, but she had hoped that he wouldn’t do it for a couple of days. Lou had wanted to be able to make up a few things about an imaginary father other than that he was a good man like her mother had told her to say. Just saying she couldn’t remember wasn’t going to keep Jeremiah quiet for long.

“But you’re six years older than me and nine years older than Teresa! You have to remember something about him!”

“Jeremiah, he was away a lot. I didn’t get to see him a whole lot. Sometimes he would have to be gone for seven or eight months at a time. I didn’t really get to know him. He was a good man and mama loved him very much and they both loved us. That’s all I can remember.”

On to Chapter Six

Be sure to send some feedback!

Campfire Tales Way Station

Tales of the West Saddlin' Station