"So...what about you, Ike?" Cody blurted out. The room fell into an awkward silence. Noah and the Kid eyed each other nervously and Jimmy tried to punch Cody quickly on the arm without Ike noticing. But leave it to Cody - "OW!" he 
yelled out loud. Four pairs of eyes hit the floor and stayed glue there as Buck and Ike slowly realized what was going on. They shared a knowing grin with each 
other. Jimmy stole an upward glance and saw that Ike was smiling. 

Always the one to avoid making a friend uncomfortable, Jimmy volunteered, "You know Ike...just because this has been one big kiss ‘n’ tell session don’t mean everybody’s got to contribute" - he stopped as Buck laughed out loud. Ike’s eyes danced. He flashed his friend a look that said, "They think I’ve never been with a woman before!" 

The rest of the guys seemed to catch the drift. They were both relieved they 
hadn’t put Ike on the spot and embarrassed anew that they had assumed he had no sexual experience. "You forget," Buck supplied, "we were corrupted at the mission school!" Ike smirked at his own remembrances of Buck and him doing everything the nuns had said not to do. Everyone relaxed again. 

They couldn’t say how it had all started exactly. After supper, Rachel had cleared out of the bunkhouse earlier than normal. No cards tonight. Lou was off on a run and that meant it was just the guys. The cold wind whipping around outside, combined with the warm fire inside, made for the perfect storytelling atmosphere. They sat in a rough semicircle around the wood-burning stove and some of the riders sipped an after-dinner coffee. Somehow or other the conversation had turned to sex. And then Cody had started it. He had let a grin creep over his face 
as he took a deep breath and sighed. 

"I’ll never forget my first time," he had said dreamily. The five other young men had listened eagerly as Cody recounted his exploits with detail and much relish. 
Kid had been prodded into describing his first time with Lou. When Noah had volunteered next, the clockwise pattern had been established. Ike was seated on Noah’s left side, so naturally Cody had expected Ike to 'go' next. 

The guys had assumed Ike’s inability to speak and hairless head, not to mention his inherent shy nature, would have prevented him from achieving sexual 
intimacy with a woman. But as they surveyed Ike and Buck's surreptitious antics, they soon realized there was a story to be told after all. 

"Right about now, I’m wishin' I knew a little bit more of Indian Sign," Noah commented sardonically. "There’s only one sign you really need to know," Cody responded devilishly and with a wink. "I made sure I asked Ike that one the first week we met." "Ha. Ha." Noah said, not laughing at all. "I’ll fill in the blanks," 
Buck jumped in. Ike shot him a look. Buck threw his hands up, "Okay, okay! Not 
all the blanks!" Everyone laughed good-naturedly. 

Ike started to nod his head quickly and he waved his right hand as if to say, "Enough already! I’ll talk!" He had everyone’s undivided attention. When he realized this he looked down briefly and his cheeks flashed with heat. 

"Where do I start?" he thought to himself. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. This did not phase his friends at all. Without the power of speech, Ike had developed extremely expressive body language that his friends had become attuned to after living with him for so long. Ike knew he said a lot with just his 
eyes - so he often closed them or looked away when he did not want to communicate with someone. 

Ike let his mind wander back over the past three years. Chloe. The word brought 
on a tight pain in his chest and he winced involuntarily. His audience noticed this but did not interrupt his thoughts. It was all coming back to him - her smile, that summer, her laugh, her kiss. Finally, Ike smiled too at his memories and he 
opened his eyes once more. 

"Ok," Ike generically gestured. Cody rubbed his hands together greedily and 
inched to the edge of his chair. Ike pretended to ignore him as he prepared to continue. "The year after Buck and I left the school we went together to Canton’s Crossing. We found work at the livery stable in town. We’d been there about a month when Greeney hired two more hands to help out during the remaining 
winter season" - Buck stopped his friend by touching Ike’s arm. "Greeney was our boss’ name," Buck explained to the guys. Ike nodded as he realized he had used Greeney’s name sign and the riders didn’t have that in their repertoire. 

Ike gave sign names to anyone he would need or want to talk about - all the riders had gotten sign names and they knew each other’s. "That’s when she came to 
work for us," Ike skipped ahead so Buck could speak her name too. Ike looked at Buck expectantly. "Her name was Chloe," Buck offered to the group. 

It was a simple movement, but when Ike made the motion again for the first time in years, he felt as if he couldn’t breathe. To him the sign was every bit as 
beautiful as she had been. Simple; connoting freedom, wildness, and laughter all 
at the same time. Ike had felt really satisfied when he had developed her sign name. He had felt it perfectly captured her intensity - that intensity he was becoming addicted to. To everyone else it was just another sign; even Buck never executed it as sensitively as Ike had intended its use. But to Ike, it summed up everything he had ever felt for her. 

Suddenly, Ike snapped back to the present. He had paused in the storytelling, but no one had even noticed. The riders were watching Buck repeating the sign for them so that they would recognize Ike using it. While they were distracted, Ike surrendered completely to her memory... 

It was the summer of 1857. Ike was 16 at the time. Chloe had come into his life 
out of nowhere. She was as free as the breeze - and acted like it too. When she was 13, she had lost both of her parents to the cholera and had since become estranged from her only brother. She had been doing as she pleased for six years then - she’d even been to see New York! Ike could see now that he was so attracted to her because she was everything he was not - bold, outspoken, and experienced. Even though she was only three years older than he was, she seemed like she had lived for thirty. At the time, he just seemed to notice her chocolate-colored eyes, infectious laugh, and enticing figure. She sure taught me 
a lot that summer, Ike thought to himself now. He was not her first lover; but he would be her last... 

"Ike....Ike!" Someone was calling out his name. He looked out to find five expectant faces staring at him again. "Did you hear my question?" Cody asked. 
Ike shook his head 'no.' Cody repeated it for him. "I said, tell us what she was 
like! Was she a blonde?" Ike wrinkled up his nose. "Not really," he signed. He looked to Buck for help. Buck took over. "It was kinda in between brown and blonde. She kept it fairly short but long enough to pull it back into a stubby ponytail." As he listened, Ike tipped his chair onto two legs and hung his left arm over the back. When Buck stopped, he gestured to him to go on. 

"She was a real spitfire," Buck continued. "She was short and cute and she loved 
to laugh. She created a scandal in town at least once a week because she wore pants and slung a Colt on her hip... Actually she was a lot like Lou in some ways," Buck admitted. 

"Good taste, Ike," the Kid interjected. Noah smiled and Jimmy just rolled his eyes. Buck felt the need to amend his comment. "She was different from Lou in a lot more ways though. She liked to cause a commotion, she loved to be the center of attention. She moved into town around the first of the month and, I swear, in one week she had met everyone in Canton’s Crossing and everyone liked her." 

"Now, hold on," Jimmy interrupted. "Whose story is this? Take a time-out there for a minute, Buck. How would you describe her, Ike?" 

Ike didn’t miss a beat. With a devilishly smug look, he brought his two hands in front of his chest, palms facing each other. He then made a slow and deliberate outline of the hourglass shape. The room erupted in laughter. Cody hooted and slapped his thigh. Ike nodded slowly with a self-assured smirk for the express purpose of egging them on. "That’s what I thought," Jimmy said with satisfaction. "Ike’s givin’ us the important details!" 

Ike took over his own story. "Don’t tease Buck," he defended his best friend. "Everything he said about Chloe is completely true. She was an incredible girl..." 
he trailed off and gave the group his typical gesture for ‘whatever.’ "Where was 
I?" he asked. 

"Uh...you were working at a livery when Chloe was hired to help out," Noah 
offered. The Kid asked Ike, "So, how did you two meet?" Ike launched into an account of the first day they had met. 
 

Ike McSwain walked into the livery that February afternoon to find her brushing down a foreign horse. Actually, Ike had noticed the mare itself before he realized there was a person behind it. The young woman was cooing softly to the animal 
as she worked and Ike noticed immediately that the beast was at ease. As she stepped from behind the horse, she drew her breath in fast when she spied Ike. 
But she immediately giggled at her own reaction and said with a smile, "You startled me!" Her smile was easily her best feature, among a plethora of nice features. Ike noticed right away her full lips and the sparkle in her bright brown eyes. And he enjoyed them. 

Sheepishly returning the grin, Ike instinctively signed, "Sorry." But his smile vanished, as he became self-conscious that he was using his hands to speak. He was suddenly painfully aware she would have no idea what he was saying. He forced his hands into his pockets. Luckily for Ike, Mr. Greeney walked in just after that moment. 

"Have you two met?" Greeney inquired amiably. Ike shook his head from side to side while the woman answered, "No." "Well then, this here is Chloe Jacobs, Ike. Chloe, this is Ike McSwain. Chloe’s gonna help us out here until business slows down again." 

Chloe. Ike said the name in his head. She closed the space between them and extended her right hand, saying, "Pleased to meet you, Ike." Ike shook it somewhat timidly but gave her his best smile to return the greeting. 

He hated this part; the part where the other person realizes that he can’t speak. 
It never failed to make him feel inferior. He certainly didn’t need another incident to remind him of his differences. As he released her hand, he sighed inwardly at 
the coming interchange he’d had memorized for years now. 

"Now, Chloe," Greeney started, "Ike here can’t talk…But he can hear just fine." While waiting for the usual reaction he knew all too well, Ike stared at the wall. When there was no obvious commotion, he looked back at her curiously. She was studying him, but not unkindly. "I see," she said at last. Ike grew slightly encouraged. "Know any Indian Sign?" Greeney asked Chloe with a grin. "Well....no...I don’t, but I...could learn," Chloe said slowly. She eyed Ike again. "Is that how you communicate?" she asked him directly. Again Ike was encouraged. Most folks looked at the person speaking for him when they wanted to say something to him. It annoyed Ike to no end, but at the same time he didn’t really blame them. 

Ike nodded immediately and also made the motion of writing on paper. "And you write, too?" Ike nodded again. At that she broke into a wide smile. "Well, then, 
Ike. We’ll get on just fine," she told him warmly. 

She looked into his eyes then. Ike felt vulnerable; as if she would be able to read his thoughts. For as soon as it was clear she had accepted him with his 
limitations, he had felt something happen within him that he couldn’t quite describe. Ike only knew two things. There was something special about this 
Chloe Jacobs. And he needed to talk to Buck. 
 

Buck was out in the small corral back behind the stable. He was sitting on the rail watching the horses interact with each other. Buck had his back to the direction 
Ike was approaching from, so Ike made a clicking sound with his tongue as he walked up behind his friend. When they were at school together, it had only taken two occurrences of Ike unwittingly scaring the crap out of Buck with his silent comings and goings, before Buck insisted they create a signal so that Ike didn’t just sneak up on him. It was second nature to Ike now. 

Buck looked over his shoulder. "Hey, Ike," he called to his buddy. "Did you see her??!" Ike asked excitedly. "Who?" Buck looked blank. Buck hopped down from the corral and stood in front of Ike. Ike shook his head with frustration. "Name, later," he motioned. "I need your help," Ike said with a pleading look. "With 
what?" Buck inquired. 

"Talk for me. Help me talk with her. Teach her sign." Ike barraged his friend with a flurry of quick signs. Buck smiled at him, but said, "You’re being pretty demanding there, Ike." "Please," Ike signed slowly. Ike looked him in the eyes. The conviction Buck saw there both surprised him and won him over. 
 

Buck was introduced to Chloe and he too liked her instantly. At first he had 
worried that Ike was just going to get his heart broken, but he then decided that Chloe seemed to have more than a passing interest in Ike as well. Buck fell easily into his role as Ike’s interpreter, but it wasn’t even a week before Ike and Chloe had taken to just keeping a sheet of paper and a pencil handy in case any confusion arose. When Ike was out or busy with chores, Chloe begged Buck to teach her the signs for everything in sight. 

Over the next month, Chloe fell into the livery’s routine. She was good with 
horses and she was beating all the other hands at poker. She made friends quickly and several people had taken to affectionately calling her CJ, including Buck. More than one person noticed that every free minute she had was spent either with 
Buck or Ike. 

Not everyone was comfortable with this. Although she dressed like a man, she never hid the fact that she was a woman - and unmarried at that - and some folks considered them an ‘unlikely’ trio. Truth be told, some of the other men at the livery were a little resentful that Chloe had taken a shine to Ike and not to them. But soon the stable hands got used to Ike and Chloe’s budding relationship and Canton’s Crossing got used to the idea of this unusual woman in their midst. 

Late at night, when Buck and Ike were alone in the quarters they shared, Buck would often marvel to Ike at how quickly Chloe was picking up Indian Sign for someone with no previous experience with it. Ike never commented on this. He thought - and hoped - he knew the reason. She had motivation to learn. "Buck has forgotten how fast I learned, too," Ike always thought to himself when Buck made these comments. Ike suspected that Chloe was developing the same feelings for him that he was beginning to feel for her. 
 

One afternoon in April, Chloe was sitting by the window in the common room of 
the livery stable. She was reading a book. It was a slow day - most of the customers had their mounts out, and there is only so much tending one can do to two or three horses in a set amount of time. Ike walked into the room with an armful of various objects and gazed quickly at her silhouette. She looked up from her pages and smiled at him. "Hi Ike," she said before she got interested in her book again. Ike sat down at the table in the middle of the room and set his things out in front of him. He wasn’t really expecting anyone else to be around. He was thinking he would be alone but he wasn’t disappointed to see Chloe. She seemed preoccupied herself, however, so Ike figured it was just as well that he was feeling kind of solitary. 

Moments later, Buck walked in with Mike Hadley, another one of the stable hands; the two were immersed in conversation. They seemed to be disagreeing about something. Buck broke off the argument to address Ike. "Ike, do you remember what day it was that Marshal Beckett brought his palomino in here?" 

"Yes, last Wednesday," Ike answered immediately. 

This seemed to resolve the dispute because they exited the room again, apparently with a known destination in mind. Ike thoughtfully watched them 
leave. He had not noticed that Chloe had looked up to watch the boys’ conversation. Ike snorted a laugh and shook his head at the randomness of the whole exchange. As he returned to his papers he had taken out, he caught her 
eye. She was framed in the afternoon light behind her. The atmosphere of the room seemed to change, their gazes interlocked. 

Something happened in that moment. Ike couldn’t take his eyes off of her and Chloe became suddenly shy and looked away in embarrassment. It was almost as if both of them realized that things would be different between them now. Despite his nervousness, Ike felt he should do something about the situation. He stood up from the table and walked over to her. When he glanced at her book, he asked 
her, "What are you reading?" 

"Oh nothing," she responded noncommittally. She didn’t know if her cheeks were as red as they felt but she was sure that Ike would realize now that she was terribly attracted to him. Both her thoughts and her heart raced. She was 
weighing in her mind the consequences of falling for this sweet-faced Ike 
McSwain. She had no idea if his shyness was because of her specifically or 
because he’d never been in love before. If she let him get too close, he might find out things about her past that would change his mind about her. Chloe didn’t want that. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him; wondered at how it would 
feel to have those expressive hands touching her skin. He seemed so young to 
her sometimes, but she already knew that he had suffered enough in his lifetime 
to understand where she was coming from. Chloe dared to look again into those crystal blue-green eyes. 

"If we’re not too busy tomorrow, would you like to go for a ride?" Ike asked her. She looked interested. He signaled her to ‘hold on’ and he went for the things he had left at the table. As he approached her again he was scribbling something down on a piece of paper he had extracted from his belongings. "Ride, new sights, new signs," Ike had quickly scrawled. He handed it to her and looked at her expectantly. 

Chloe read the note and grinned up at him. "Alright, Ike. That sounds pretty 
good." 
 

The next day was uncharacteristically warm for an April day in Canton’s Crossing. As it worked out, Greeney gave Chloe, Ike, and another hand Willie the afternoon off because there wasn’t much to do. Ike walked into the stable to find Chloe saddling up her horse to ride. She smiled when she saw him. "Are you ready?" she asked him. He grinned back her. He was glad to see she was not acting nearly as bashful as yesterday afternoon. He took his horse from its stall and got it ready to ride. Chloe and Ike led their mounts out into the warm spring air. "Do you know where we’re goin’?" Chloe asked Ike as she hoisted herself into the saddle. "I 
know a place," Ike responded. 

They headed out of Canton’s Crossing towards the creek well outside of town. Ike and Buck had discovered it in their exploratory wanderings the autumn before. They rode in a comfortable silence for a while. But Chloe wasn’t known for keeping quiet for too long. She started talking about some of the livery’s clients. Ike was always entertained by her. She had a good sense of timing and she was very 
witty. They rode side by side so that Chloe could see Ike’s hands in case he 
wanted to interject. There was a patch of trees up ahead and Ike pointed. Ike 
made the sign for ‘creek,’ but Chloe looked perplexed. Apparently it wasn’t as obvious as it was to him. Instead he pretended to be fishing and he pointed ahead again. Chloe only had a vague idea of what she was supposed to be getting from him. But she’d find out. "Ok," she answered brightly. 

When they reached the small thicket, Ike dismounted. It certainly isn’t as pretty here as it is in the fall, Ike thought to himself, but it’ll have to do. The leaves were just starting to come out again. But it was quiet, and they could probably stay there and not see another human being in five days time. Ike untied his bedroll from his saddle and took out paper and a pencil from his saddlebag. Chloe dismounted as well. Ike spread the blanket on the damp ground and motioned for her to sit. Chloe seemed uncertain but she smiled at him and did as he wished. 
She was just afraid that she might be expecting something other than Ike. She’d been wanting badly to kiss him for a good two hours now - and she just couldn’t 
tell what his reaction to that would be. 

Ike dropped to the ground next to her, drew his legs up, and rested his arms on 
his kneecaps. It suddenly dawned on him that he was completely alone with her 
for the first time in the two months that he’d known her. Ike put the thought out of his mind. Luckily for Ike, Chloe distracted him by asking what sign he had used 
just a few minutes ago. He showed her again and then grabbed his pencil. "Stream... or creek... or brook... or river..." he wrote. Chloe giggled. "But not 
lake," he added. Chloe laughed again. I can do this, she thought, business as 
usual. No problem. She looked about her to start once again the game she’d been enjoying ever since she wandered into Canton’s Crossing back in February. She asked for signs and Ike showed her if there was one for what she asked. 

They spent about forty-five minutes this way. Chloe lay on her back on the 
blanket, Ike sitting beside her. Ike would teach her and then he would quiz her. He’d trick her by asking her something she hadn’t learned that day or using signs very similar in execution. He did this because he loved her reaction to being teased. She was overly dramatic. She was overly dramatic about a lot of things; that was part of her nature. Her very passionate nature. She would verbally protest he was trying to trick her, pout when she was wrong, and squeal triumphantly when she was right - despite his efforts to foil her. At last it seemed Chloe had exhausted all the topics of their surroundings. She sat up again. 

"You know, Ike," Chloe said with a smile, "You never showed me the days of the week." Ike looked at her quizzically. "The days of the week," Chloe repeated as if that cleared everything up. When Ike didn’t register understanding, Chloe started over. "Yesterday Buck asked you what day Marshal Beckett brought his horse to us. And when you answered him, I thought you told him a day." 

Ike nodded to show he understood her now. Chloe continued. "Now correct me if I’m wrong, but you and Buck use Indian Sign. I didn’t think that the Indians had 
the same concept of time as us, and that would mean that there would be no
signs for the days of the week and" - Ike interrupted by scribbling fast notes on 
the paper between them. "Buck and I made them up," he had written. "Oh. Well, can you teach me them please?" Chloe asked Ike. He nodded, "Of course." He looked at her as if to say, "Pick a day." 

"Friday," Chloe requested immediately. "That’s my favorite day of the week I think." Ike wrote "poker" on the paper and Chloe laughed. Ike showed her the sign that he and Buck had devised for "Friday." Then he pointed at her. This is how 
they had been spending the last two months. Chloe asked for a sign, Ike showed it to her, and Chloe tried it herself. She shook her head, "You show me again!" she said with a laugh. Ike did so. Because she was looking at Ike she always got the mirror image of his signs. Sometimes she had trouble reproducing the signs from the right perspective. This was one of those times. She was using the wrong 
fingers and Ike was shaking his head ‘no.’ "Not right," he signed to her with a grin. She laughed as she struggled with the precise formation, but now she was getting silly and losing focus. "No, that’s not right," Ike said to her again with a wide 
smile, and instinctively grabbed her hand to position her fingers for her. 

They both froze. Chloe stopped giggling as she felt Ike’s strong, warm hand on hers. Ike looked in her eyes to gauge what her reaction was, to see if she could 
feel it too. She did not try to move her hand and Ike did not let go. Instantly, Ike wanted to kiss her more than anything, but he wasn’t sure he should. However, 
the look in her eyes was more powerful than his shy nature and he moved to bring his lips to hers. To his surprise, she met him half way with her own eagerness. 

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the feel of his soft lips on hers. He brought his hands up to hold her face and he brushed his fingers on her left check. Chloe parted her lips to deepen the kiss and Ike followed suit. She wrapped her arms around his neck and as Ike kissed her, he leaned her onto her back. Lying on his side next to her, Ike kissed her lips once again. Chloe reached for his left hand and she placed it on her right hip. Ike stopped and looked into her eyes. He tried 
to judge what he should do. She closed her eyes - she wasn’t giving any hints. 

Ike kissed her chin and then her earlobe and then her neck. He watched as a dreamy smile crept over her face. As he kissed the skin at the top of her shirt, he let his hand roam where it wanted to. To Ike, Chloe’s body had the most wonderful shape and it felt so nice to be able to trace that shape with his own hand at last. Chloe was kissing him now. "Come here," she whispered in between kisses. She encouraged Ike to shift his weight so that he was covering her. 

Ike was barely thinking. It was like he was under some kind of spell, and, frankly, he suspected that he was. As they kissed, Chloe tried to remove Ike’s overcoat. 
He helped her by freeing one arm at a time. She moved his suspenders off of his shoulders. Chloe raked at Ike’s back as he kissed her. Then, she positioned her body beneath him to fit in that familiar fashion. 

Ike stopped. If they weren’t fully clothed, they could be having sex! Did she want that?!, he wondered. He wasn’t sure he really knew enough to be doing all that. 
Ike panicked and quickly rolled off her. Chloe was at first confused, and then embarrassed she seemed to have crossed a line of some kind. "Ike?" she asked. He looked at her with something like distrust in his eyes. In actuality, he was just worried that if things progressed any further she would be disappointed in him. 

Chloe saw that look and was immediately furious with herself for letting herself 
get carried away. You fool, she said in her head, he’s younger than you! "I’m 
sorry, Ike," she said quietly. "Don’t be sorry!" Ike pleaded. He looked away and Chloe studied him. He’s just nervous!, she suddenly realized. 

She sat up and took a deep breath. She hoped she wouldn’t wound his pride but 
she thought she could improve the situation by finding out. "Ike?" she started. "Have you ever done this before?" He looked down at the blanket, but shook his head 'no.' Chloe bit her lip and scratched her right temple. "Do you want to go 
back home?" she asked. He looked at her curiously, wondering what she meant by that. He answered, "No." Chloe was slightly relieved. She seemed to make a decision. 

She stood up. Ike watched her confusedly. She motioned for him to stand with 
her. He did so. She put her arms around his waist and rested her head on his 
chest. Although he wasn’t quite sure what was happening, Ike wrapped his arms around this small but amazing woman. She brought her lips to his and kissed him again. She looked Ike in the eyes. "Do you want to stop?" she asked him seriously. He shook his head 'no.' When he looked in her eyes as well, he saw something 
very powerful there. She kissed him tenderly. "Let me show you," she whispered. Ike swallowed hard, but he nodded. 

As Chloe unbuttoned his pants, Ike closed his eyes submissively. He never meant for this to happen when he asked her to ride with him. But she set him on fire! Things seemed to be happening of their own accord. Although it was obvious to 
him now that she knew what she was doing, he couldn’t help but be half-afraid 
that this afternoon was going to impair the progress of their friendship that had come to mean so much to him. When he felt his skin exposed to the air, he 
stopped worrying about things. Chloe was pulling him by his hands back down 
onto the ground. 

She lay Ike on his back. She seemed to kiss and touch him everywhere. He let 
her; he had given up completely. He trusted her. He could hear her removing her own pants, and Ike stole a peek. Her legs looked smooth and soft; and he wanted to touch them. She caught him looking at her. Ike did not look away. Instead, he smiled at Chloe. As she smiled back, Chloe slowly moved on top of Ike to straddle him. She liked the feel of her skin touching his, yet she sat quiet so that Ike could get used to the idea. She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. Something 
she knew he was comfortable with now. She placed her hands on his chest and kissed his neck. She briefly wished they could both be completely naked, but she didn’t make it a habit of getting naked out in the open - even if Ike didn’t seem to think that anyone would happen by their secret place. 

When she felt he was ready, Chloe took Ike in her right hand and eased him inside of her. Ike’s eyes flew open. Chloe giggled. She moved up, then down on him once. The movement forced an audibly ragged breath from Ike. "Is this alright?" Chloe asked. Ike gave her a look that said, "Are you kidding me?!" but then he nodded 
his approval to make sure she understood. He did not want her to stop. He placed his hands on her hips. "Good," she said softly as she leaned down to kiss him again. 

Ike closed his eyes as Chloe slowly made love to him. Nothing he’d ever heard about sex quite prepared him for these feelings. Every time she moved her body, he experienced the most incredible sensations. For a brief moment, he hoped that women had the same feelings during sex - but from the sounds he was vaguely aware Chloe was making, he suspected the feelings were about the same! He didn’t want it to end, and he regretted that it had to. 

Ike had enough experience with his body to realize that the feelings were much
too intense for it to last any longer. He looked directly into her eyes and held her tightly against him. Chloe shuddered on top of him. She lay on his chest, breathing heavily. She listened to his heart beating rapidly. He put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. They did not move for several minutes. Suddenly Chloe removed herself from him, threw his jacket over him, and scrambled to put her pants back on. Facing away from Ike, she lay back down on her side. He took his cue from her and buttoned his pants and put his suspenders back up. He lay next to her, fitting his body to hers, and spread his jacket over the two of them. 

After they lay quiet for awhile, Chloe turned her head towards Ike and asked, "Are you sleepin’, Ike?" He moved to show her that he was not. Sleep was the farthest thing from his mind at this point. He wanted to hold her forever, so that the afternoon would never end. "It’ll be dark soon," she added. She turned over so 
that she could face him. She kissed him quickly on the lips. "We should get back," she said with a smile. Ike screwed up his face in protest. She giggled. He touched her face with his right hand. He looked at her for a long moment. "Thank you," he signed. "It was my pleasure, Ike," Chloe said. 

They packed up their things and headed back to Canton’s Crossing. When they reached the edge of town they stopped to say good night. Ike reached for her 
hand and kissed it. "Good night, Ike," Chloe said. "That was a good idea you had - goin' for a ride," she added with a sly smile. He grinned and tipped his hat. Ike headed back to the livery to pick up the rest of his things he left earlier today. Chloe had decided on the way back to town that she was going to the hotel to double her week’s wages at a poker table. When Ike got to the stables, Buck was waiting for him. 

"Where have you been?!" Buck demanded, angry that his friend had not even left 
a note, and now it was after dark. "I’m ok," he tried to appease Buck. "I was out with Chloe." At that, Buck eyed him suspiciously. He looked his friend over from head to toe. He sensed now that something was different about Ike. A slow grin crept over Buck’s face. "We have a lot to talk about tonight, don’t we?" Buck 
asked knowingly. Ike looked away embarrassed. Buck laughed and let Ike have 
his privacy for the time being. He lightly punched Ike’s arm. "C’mon, let’s get out 
of here, Romeo," Buck said with a laugh. 
 

"So what happened after that?!....Ike?... Whatever happened after that day?!" Always hungry for the specifics, Cody was pushing to know more. In fact, all the boys, except Buck, had more than just their curiosity aroused by the story. Ike 
was jolted back to the present once again. Even though he’d been telling his story to the other riders, he had been reliving it in his mind at the same time – in much greater detail. He grew silent now. Quiet. His friends noticed this. 

"What happened to Chloe, Ike?" Noah asked gently. 

"We had until July together," Ike started. "Did you have more sex?" Cody interrupted. Ike glared at him. "Well, I’m jist askin’!" Cody defended himself. "It’s beside the point," Ike signed. "Well, did you?" Cody wouldn’t give up. Ike rolled 
his eyes. "Yes. Ok? Yes." 

"A lot?" Cody kept up. "CODY!" came a chorus of disgusted voices. "What?!" Cody acted surprised. "So, anyway!" Jimmy said loudly. He said to the silent rider almost apologetically, "Please continue." 

Ike felt tears in his eyes that he didn’t want his friends to see. He looked down at his hands. When he was sure there would be no sign of them, he looked up and motioned to Buck to finish this story. Buck felt sorry for his ‘little brother.’ He 
knew it was painful for him to remember these things. He gave Ike a look of concern, but Ike nodded. 

Buck began. "One night in late July, Chloe was down at the hotel getting in on a 
few games of poker as usual. To make a longer story shorter, a drifter came in and took a seat at one of the tables. He got in an argument with one of the locals and they started to draw guns. Folks say that Chloe tried to stop them and she somehow took a shot in the thigh. She wasn’t even armed that night. Guess she figured she could charm her way out of anything." 

"When we heard Chloe had been shot we both rushed over to the Doc’s where she was by then. The doctor said he had no trouble removing the bullet and that she’d be fine in a few days. She hadn’t even lost too much blood! Greeney gave Ike the next day off and he spent the whole day with her. She was feeling a lot better that night but..." 

Buck broke off to look at Ike. From the almost disinterested look in Ike’s eyes, 
Buck could tell his friend had revisited the following scene thousands of times in the last three years. Buck knew that one more time through wasn’t going to hurt Ike. He continued for the benefit of the other four riders who wanted to know the fate of Ike’s first lover. 

"A week went by and Chloe wasn’t getting better like she was supposed to. She had been up and around but she was getting weaker. The doctor realized her wound had become infected and later that same night she came down with a 
fever. We tried everything we could be we couldn’t bring it down... Her body gave out two days later," Buck finished softly, looking at the ground. 

The room was quiet for a long moment. "That’s a saaad story, Ike," Noah commented at last. Ike looked thoughtful. "Not all sad," he signed. The other boys were touched by Ike’s willingness to cherish his short time with Chloe without letting it be tainted with bitterness over her death. They were also impressed with Ike’s ability to pull out ‘the good’ from bad situations, but on some level they realized that it was this very ability that had allowed Ike to survive for nineteen years – through his childhood sickness, past the murder of his family, and other difficult losses, such as Chloe. 

"Definitely not all sad," Jimmy agreed. Kid smiled at Ike encouragingly. 

"In fact," Cody added. "Some of that sounded pretty damn good to me!" Ike 
smiled and the others knew it was okay to move on then. "Pretty damn good," Cody muttered again, shaking his head. "That was a pretty hot story, Ike," Noah admitted. Ike leaned back in his chair and smugly snapped his suspenders with 
his thumbs, much to the amusement of the others. 

When the moment passed, all eyes rested on the next in line. "Guess it’s your turn now, Buck!" Cody announced. "You’ll have to try and top that one!" The friends laughed together, and got settled in for another story.