“Kid.”
“Lou? Did you say something Lou?” Rachel asked softly, pausing in her administrations to see if she had really heard the female rider say something.
“I want Kid.”
Rachel glanced over her shoulder to look at Teaspoon. He moved to the door of the bunkhouse and opened it.
“Jesse, go to the barn and get Kid. Lou wants him.”
By the time that he had closed the door and returned to his seat, the door burst open and Kid came in followed by Jimmy and Jesse. Teaspoon motioned for Jesse to head back outside, and the teenager went reluctantly. He gazed from Kid to Jimmy, as if trying to determine whether or not it was a good thing that the two riders were in such close proximity with each other, and quickly noted that the earlier animosity between them were gone.
“Will wonders never cease?” he commented in a low voice that brought sheepish grins to both Kid and Jimmy’s faces.
“Kid?”
Hearing his name hoarsely spoken, propelled Kid over to the bed. Rachel rose from her place and cast the chestnut hair rider a warning look before she moved away. Kid settled himself in her place on the side of the bed and glanced down at the beautiful flushed face of the woman that he loved. How could he have treated her so badly? His self-recriminations were going to have to wait. Lou needed him and he wasn’t about to let her down again…not ever.
It took him a moment or two to realize that Lou wasn’t really awake, but that she had been calling out to him in her fevered state. Kid felt humbled that even after everything he had done to her in the past couple of months, that she would call out to him over anyone else. It gave him hope that things might not be permanently over for them after all.
He took up bathing Lou’s face with the damp cloth that Rachel had been using a few moments earlier. Rachel set to work making dinner. Teaspoon, after quietly arguing with Jimmy for a moment, left the bunkhouse to corral the other riders into tending to the evening chores. Jimmy scooted a chair over from the table and sat down, his gray eyes hooded as he gazed down onto Lou’s restless form on the bunk.
Rachel had to coax both Kid and Jimmy to come away from Lou’s side to partake of the dinner that she had prepared. They did so reluctantly, their eyes drifting over to the bunk upon which the female rider laid, as they ate their food. It was a somber group who sat gathered around the table in the bunkhouse. Conversation was kept to a bare minimum and only spoken in low tones so as not to disturb Lou from her healing, but restless slumber.
When it was time for everyone to turn in for the evening, Kid stubbornly refused to leave Lou’s side. Rachel gave in to the young man, showing him the powder that the doctor had left and instructing him on the precise amount he was suppose to add to a glass of water if Lou needed it. She refilled the bowl he was using to dampen the cloth he used to cool Lou’s face with cool water before she left the bunkhouse to go retire for the evening in her own house across the yard.
Teaspoon and Jesse headed off to the tool shed where they slept, while the other riders readied themselves to turn in for the night. A single lamp was left burning so that Kid would be able to see to care for Lou, and with mumbled good nights, the rest of the riders soon fell asleep. All except Jimmy. He lay awake on his bed and kept up a silent vigil for Lou, along with Kid.
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