“I grew up in Louisiana. My family was very poor. My mother worked as a seamstress. My father was a sharecropper. He was also an alcoholic. One night when I was seven he came home drunk and he hit my mother across the face when she didn’t get him dinner quick enough. That night she woke me and my little sister up and told us to get our stuff together. She told us that we were going to visit our aunt and uncle in Atlanta. We did as she asked us to. On the way out the door my little sister, Madeline, started to cry and say that she wanted to say good bye to daddy. Mother just held her and said that daddy was sleeping and he wouldn’t like it if we disturbed him. We left for Georgia that night and I never saw my father again.”

Jonathan’s eyes had started to tear up and Lou, understanding what he had experienced, slipped her hand in his and gave it a comforting squeeze. He sadly smiled at her and squeezed back. Then he continued his story.

“We didn’t stay in Georgia long. My aunt was very kind, but she had a family of twelve to look after and they were having trouble making ends meet even before we got there. We just kind of wandered after we left her house. My mother did what she could, but at least four or five nights out of the week we went to bed hungry. Eventually, when I was ten we ended up in small town whose name I can’t even remember. My mother had decided that she would do whatever it took to make sure me and Maddy were well-fed and taken care of properly. She took a job as a prostitute in one of the local whorehouses. Maddy and I were well cared for. All the ladies in the house were very kind. I could see my mother was wasting away though, but when you’re ten there’s nothing you can do about stuff like that. One day when I was thirteen, she took my sister and I to one of the restaurants in town. We had just finished dinner and were walking out of the restaurant when a gunfight broke out in the street. Both my mother and my sister were hit. Mother bled to death right in front of me on the street. Maddy died two days latter in the doctor’s office. I was hit with the same bullet that killed my mother. It went through my shoulder. I still have the scar.”

Jonathan had tears streaming down his face. Lou, not wanting to intrude on this private moment that Jonathan was having with a long hidden pain, didn’t say anything, but merely hugged him. He buried his face into her shoulder and shed tears that were at least ten years overdue.

Finally Jonathan sat up and started to speak again.

“After my mother and sister died I left town. There wasn’t anything there for me and I needed to make my own way. Like you, I spent several years just traveling around working at whatever jobs I could find. I guess what you could call my ‘big break’ came when I was sixteen. I got job washing dishes on a riverboat that traveled up and down the Mississippi River. I was clearing tables in one of the onboard saloons when one of the regular gamblers on the boat called me over to his table. He told me that they had another seat at the table if I wanted try my luck. Needless to say, I lost miserably. An entire weeks wages were in some one else’s pocket just like that. I was obviously very upset. I excused myself and made some comment about how I should get back to the kitchen where at least I knew what I was doing. I walked away and thought that would be the end of it. However, later on that night, one of the gamblers, Robert Patterson, found me working and asked me if I’d like to learn how to play to win. I said yes and Patterson took me under his wing. He taught me all the tricks; how to keep an ace up my sleeve, how to read people so I could tell what cards they were holding, how to compose my own face so others couldn’t tell what cards I had. Pretty much the whole kit and caboodle. Soon I was winning more often than I was loosing.”

Jonathan paused to take a drink and Lou had to use all her self-control to stop herself from bombarding Jonathan with questions. She was just about to give up the struggle and ask when he began his story again.

“I became one of the best riverboat gamblers ever to gamble my way up the Mississippi,” Jonathan said this without pride and Lou knew that it wasn’t pride that made him say that, it was just the god’s honest truth.

“Soon, I was raking in money, property, and stocks and bonds. Women were throwing themselves at me and I was to young to see that they didn’t really want me, they only wanted my money and if the only way they could get at it was to sleep with me, so be it. Eventually, I realized that what I was doing was wrong and I realized how truly disappointed my mother would be. She hadn’t brought me up like that. I decided that I would finish the poker tournament that I was in the middle of and then I would cash in my chips and call it quits. I made it to the last game of the tournament and the stakes were getting very high. The players were all big-time players. Even Robert Patterson, the man who taught me everything I knew about the game, was there. It was nerve-wracking for me to play against him. He knew all my strengths and weaknesses, just like I knew his. We had always avoided playing against each other, but this time it was unavoidable. As fate would have it, the game ended with just the two of us playing. Everyone else had folded and we were both trying to bluff the other out of the game. The stakes were very high. I had put in deeds for some gold mines that I had acquired earlier in the tournament and he put in the deed for his pride and joy: his horse ranch. Now that ranch was worth thousands of dollars. Along with the ranch came one of the top breeding studs in the country, a real money maker. It was when he put that in that I started to get nervous. I knew he wouldn’t gamble with his horse ranch if he didn’t have a good hand. I called him right after he put it down. I remember being so nervous. I had put almost everything that I owned on that table. He showed me his cards. He had a straight flush. I saw it and raised my eyebrows at him. He smiled back and started to reach towards the center of the table, but I stopped him and showed him my hand. I had the best hand I’d ever played: a royal flush. Patterson stood up, shook my hand, and said that he wished he’d never taught me the game. I smiled and told him that he wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore. I was serious when I told myself that that was my last game. And it was. I haven’t played since then. And that, my darling, is my secret. I am a very wealthy man, but all the money I have was ill-gotten. Gambling is not an honest profession and everything I have now, came from it.”

Lou just stared at him with her mouth wide open. She couldn’t believe that the man she had just eaten lunch with was a wealthy, ex-riverboat gambler. She honestly didn’t know what to say, but when she saw Jonathan looking at her with shame in his eyes she knew she had to say something.

“Jonathan, for heaven’s sake, your past isn’t important to me. Trust me, I have to much of one myself to be judging people on things that don’t make no nevermind now. I don’t care who you were, all that matters is who you are now.”

They both stood up. Jonathan was holding Louise in his arms and looking down into her face that was being highlighted by the awesome sunset behind them. He bent his head down and kissed her passionately. She leaned into him and returned the kiss.

The next morning Lou waited for Jonathan outside the hotel. She, again, wasn’t feeling to well, but was going to try and ignore it for Jonathan’s sake. She knew she wasn’t going to have to much more time with him without it getting complicated and she wanted to enjoy every second that she could. She was getting tired of waiting and was about ready to go and look for him at the boarding house where he was staying when she saw him come walking down the street.

“I’m so sorry I’m late darling, but I had some business to take care of first.”

“Don’t worry about it Jonathan. I was enjoying the fresh air. After being inside a stuffy hotel all night, it’s nice to be able to breath some clean air.”

“Do you mind if we stop at the bank on our way to lunch? I had to pay some fees and they took all the pocket cash that I had.”

“No of course not.”

Lou and Jonathan started to walk up the street towards the bank when they heard shots being fired.

Jonathan took one look at Louise, drew his gun, and started to run towards the bank. Lou pulled her gun out of her handbag and was only a split second behind him. They reached the bank just as the robbers came out the front doors. Both Jonathan and Louise dove for cover as the robbers decided to shoot their way out of their predicament. The sheriff had, by now, come running out his office and was trying to do everything in his power to stop the thieves from making their robbery attempt a success, but he was having trouble defeating them. Louise and Jonathan helped out as much as they could. Finally all but one of the robbers had either been taken into custody or gunned down. And, as luck would have it, the one robber who hadn’t been caught was the one carrying the majority of the money. He was desperate to get out of town. He jumped on someone else’s horse and took off at a run through the town’s streets. As he was passing them, Lou stood up and leveled her gun for a shot, but as she did so, the robber turned and saw her. He aimed his gun and pulled the trigger. After that everything seemed to go in slow motion. Later Lou would swear that her heart missed a beat when she heard the gun go off. When Jonathan saw what was going on, he jumped up and grabbed Lou. But he wasn’t fast enough to stop the bullet from hitting her. However, the robber didn’t think he had hit his target and fired again, hitting Jonathan in the back.

“Oh my God, Jonathan,” Lou painfully cried. “Where is all this blood coming from!”

Jonathan just moaned and rolled himself off of Lou. She looked at him and knew that he had been badly injured.

“Louise … are you … are you ok.”

“Shush, Jonathan don’t talk. Save your strength. I’m fine. The bullet just knicked me. You’re going to be ok. Trust me, what with the boys at the station and everything, I’ve seen much worse.”

“I guess I won’t be able to take you to that dance after all.”

Lou smiled at him through her tears.

Jonathan smiled faintly and tried to speak again. Lou leaned her head down to his so she could hear him.

“Louise,” he said as he gasped for breath and tried not to choke on the blood that was filling his mouth. “Louise, I love you.”

After those words were said, Jonathan leaned back into Lou’s arms and gasped his last breath. Lou bent her head over his body and started to cry in earnest. She sat there in the middle of the street for what seemed like an eternity, but was, in reality, only minutes.

The sheriff, who had finally shot and killed Jonathan’s murderer, came over and held Lou while she cried. He then brought her over to the sheriff’s office and made her some coffee. When she could speak again, she thanked him for his kindness.

“No problem, Ma’am. I understand what it’s like to lose a loved one.”

“So did Jonathan,” said Lou sadly. “He deserved so much more than this. He deserved to be happy.”

“Yes ma’am. I called the doctor and he’s going to come over here and take a look at that wound of yours. I don’t want it getting infected.”

“Thank you sheriff, but afterwards I need to see someone about funeral arrangements.”

“I’ll have the mortician came by the office later on today, ma’am.”

“Thank you sir.”

Lou didn’t have time to say anymore, because at that moment the doctor came in. They went to his office and he checked out the bullet wound on her collar bone.

“Well, ma’am, you were lucky today. You seem to be alright. I’m going to wrap it up and you’re going to have to be careful with it for a few days, but you’ll be fine.”

“Thank you doctor. While I’m here is there anything you could give me for my stomach. It’s been upset lately and I can’t think of anything that would cause it.”

Lou told the doctor her symptoms and he listened carefully. When she was done talking he looked at her and smiled.

“Now ma’am, I’m going to have to check you out to be certain of this, but I think you might be pregnant.”

“Pregnant,” Lou said tonelessly, obviously shocked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

On to Chapter Nine

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