 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
   |
 |
|||||||
 |
 |
 |
||||||
 |
 |
 |
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
||||||
Kid woke up and almost fell off of the top bunk. He wasn’t used to the
height. When he finally remembered where he was, he slid off the
bunk to
check on Lou. However, the bed was empty, the sheets were all messed
up, and no one else was in the bunkhouse.
"Jimmy! Rachel! Cody!" Kid yelled as he stumbled over his pant leg and
pulled them up to his waist. "Where’s Lou?" Kid ran out of the
bunkhouse and toward the main house. "Rach…Lou?" Kid found the two
on the porch of the house. "What she doin’ out here?" Kid asked
Rachel.
Lou was covered in an old quilt and sipping broth from a cup. Rachel was
busying herself with the monotonous job of sweeping the porch.
"Hey, Kid." Lou said softly. "Been waitin’ on ya, ya sleepy head."
Kid walked over to Lou, and kneeled by her chair, putting his arms gently
on her knees. Lou put her hand on his head, and messed up his hair.
"Lou, how ya feel? Sure gave us a real scare." He couldn’t help
but
smile at seeing her looking much better, yet still pale. Her bruises were
still colorful, but the swelling had gone down, and she was awake. Alive
and breathing. She smiled back at him.
"Lou’s doin’ just fine. She woke up last night a coupl’a’hours after you
dozed off. The weather was nice this mornin’, so we brought her
out here.
Figured the fresh air would be healin’." Rachel then went into the
house
to check on lunch.
"Lou, what happened? Jimmy found you in town on Thursday, after
Lightning came back without ya. Do you remember anything?"
"Yeah, I kinda do. After I left Tompkin’s I passed a man sitting on the
steps of the saloon’s porch. He looked pretty drunk. He started
harassin’ me. Pokin’ fun at me, cuz I was small," the words seemed
forced. She was still very sore and quiet.
"A funny lookin’ fella? Red hair?" Kid interrupted.
"Yeah, I think I heard the name Mc….
"McMasters?" Kid interrupted.
"I think so…"
"Teaspoon told us about him." Kid responded.
"Well, anyways, I just kept walking, but he got the jump on me. The last
thing I remember was drawin’ on him, and hearing another voice from
behind. That’s it. Woke up a coupl’a’hours ago. He could’ve done
worse,
Kid," Lou drew her head away. She couldn’t tell Kid the whole truth.
Lou
knew that McMaster’s knew she was a girl. She wasn’t sure how, but
he
knew. His eyes glared at her in a devilish way, and that scared her. He
could’ve done a lot worse.
"Worse? What do you mean ‘worse’? Lou, you were out cold for three
days. Look at’ya now. You can barely hold your head up right. He
beat’ya bad, Lou, and he’s gonna pay." Just then, Jimmy and Cody
approached the porch. Kid stood up, walked toward the end of the porch,
leaned on the banister and turned his head toward the plains.
"Hey there, Lou," Jimmy and Cody chimed in perfect unison.
"Hey boys," she whispered. Lou was now getting tired, and Kid’s
frustration wasn’t helping.
"We’re just headin’ into town to check on things." Jimmy said.
"Thought we’d check on ya first." Cody added.
"Listen, boys, I’m just fine. Need a little rest is all. Don’t be getting’
into
trouble. Doing something you’ll regret, ya hear?"
"Regret? We wouldn’t do nothing like that." Cody replied, a little too
quick for Lou’s liking.
"Well, we’ll check on ya when we get back."
"WAIT!" Kid yelled in fury, "I’m goin’ with ya’s." Jimmy and Cody
nodded, jumped on their horses and took off. Kid kissed Lou on the
cheek, and was off to catch up with the others.
A little while later, Rachel came back out onto the porch to find Lou
asleep. She wrapped her up good in another blanket, and pulled the
chair
into the shade. "It’s gonna be alright, Lou. We won’t let anything
happen
to you." Then Rachel returned to her lunch preparations.
Hickock, Kid, and Cody arrived in Sweetwater in the late morning. The
sun had gotten much warmer, and in turn, the townsfolk were keeping
inside. Teaspoon and Barnette met the boys in the street, and walked
them down toward the jailhouse.
"Anything happenin’ in town today, Teaspoon?" Cody asked.
"Well, there were some early shots at the saloon…," Barnette
commented.
"But it ended up bein’ nothin’. Didn’t it Barnette?" Teaspoon interrupted
Barnette.
"Yeah, nothin’."
"Now, boys, what’ya doin’ here? Aren’t ya supposed to be doin’ chores
today? Watching out for Lou?" Teaspoon got right in their faces.
"We are watchin’ out for Lou, Teaspoon!" Jimmy raised his voice.
"Where is he? Is he still in town? I swear, if I get my hands…" Kid was
cut off by Teaspoon…
"If nothing. We are gettin’ as much information as we can on that
McMasters. We don’t have any proof, though. Maybe he hurt Lou,
maybe he didn’t. You boys aren’t to touch him. Understand?"
"Teaspoon, what do ya mean ‘maybe’? You saw Lou. How bad she
looked. Why ain’t he in a cell now?" Cody questioned the obvious.
"Well, er, well, we haven’t been able to locate him just yet." Teaspoon
said sheepishly, as his voice raised an octave, embarrassed to state
the
present situation.
"What’ya mean you haven’t found him? He’s still in Sweetwater, right?
He hasn’t left the hotel, right?" Kid bellowed.
"We ain’t so sure. No one has seen him. He didn’t answer the door to his
room, so we barged in and found nothing. Some other fellow says
he came
in from Warm Springs. I sent Ike and Noah to go check things out
there.
They should be back in a couple’a’days. Until then, we gotta find
this
McMasters. See what he wants with Lou, but you aren’t to harm him,
understand?"
The riders slowly nodded their heads. Teaspoon opened the jailhouse
door, and they all entered. They would deal with McMasters in whatever
way seemed fit, when they found him.
Meanwhile a.k.a. Back at the Station
A man peered from behind the barn, toward the house. He saw the petite
woman sleeping in the shade. He crept up quietly, picked her up,
and as
silently as he came, he left.
Lou awoke in the wagon; her arms tied up and mouth gagged. Her body
still ached from the torture she had gone through three days earlier,
and
she knew she was in trouble, again. But this time, it was different.
She
looked over and saw Rachel gazing back at her. Neither of them could
say a word, but they knew they had to get out of there.