Chapter 15

Excerpt:
Buck fell silent and the wind took over, passing through the grass with a whisper. Kid squeezed his eyes shut as if that would somehow still the sounds that roared in his ears, sounds that had nothing to do with wind in the prairie grasses and everything to do with the war being fought in his head. “So what do we do?” he asked, feeling desperate for an answer, something that would allow him to believe Buck’s words, show him how he was supposed to accept that there wasn’t a choice. Buck sat back, pulled up his knees and rested his own weary head on his arms.

“I don’t know.”

“What?” Kid’s head snapped up, a flash of panic crossed his face as he looked at the man beside him. “You don’t know? You dragged me all the way out here to tell me you don’t know?”

“Well, yeah, I guess.” Buck raised his head, surprised by the intensity of Kid’s response. “I wanted you to see how hard…” Kid dragged himself painfully to his feet.

“You don’t know! Are you trying to tell me I’m supposed to live with these doubts, feeling like I have no reason or place, nothing to believe in, to belong to, to be proud of? I’m just supposed to go through life a traitor to both sides because I’m too weak to pick one!” He was shaking with fury as he began to harangue Buck for wasting his time, wearing him out for nothing, absolutely nothing. “How dare you!”

His anger became focused all of a sudden and Buck realized a second too late that it was focused on him. He tried to get to his feet, to avoid the hands that grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him up, but he wasn’t quick enough. Before he knew what was happening, he was struggling to breath, Kid’s tight hold around his collar cutting off his airway. At first he tried prying Kid’s hands from his shirt but the other man had the fabric wrapped in a vise-like grip and was too busy hollering at him to see that he couldn’t breathe. So, in desperation, Buck kneed him hard in the groin, dropping Kid where he stood. Buck doubled over, his hands on his knees coughing and gasping for air.

About the time he was able to fill his lungs, Kid was on him again, punching him hard in the ribs, sending him crashing to his knees. Another blow connected with his jaw and he was flat on his back in the dirt, Kid’s fists pounding into his stomach. His friend was like a crazy man, all of the anger and frustration he had been feeling these last days boiling over and coming out in his fists. It might be making Kid feel better Buck thought, but he wasn’t sure how much of this he could take, he was still fighting to breathe. He wasn’t strong enough to push Kid off. With one hand he attempted to fend off Kid’s punches, with the other he began to feel beside him in the dirt searching for something he could use, a rock a stick, anything that might get Kid off of him. He managed to pry a fist sized rock from the earth. He covered the sharp edges with his hand but that was the only concession he made. With a good hard swing he hit the side of Kid’s head, sending the other man to the ground. He immediately rolled to his stomach and crawled away from where Kid lay still in the dirt.

He had a choice to make. He could wait to see if the blow had knocked some sense into his friend, or he could make sure that it did. He didn’t think Kid would hurt him intentionally, but he remembered perfectly the surge of hatred that had driven him to throw Cody against the porch rail just a short time ago. He could so easily have done more than that, so deep was his anger, and sense of betrayal, he had controlled himself only because he knew Rachel and Teaspoon were standing behind him. And that was exactly how Kid felt, betrayed, Buck was sure of it. Buck had made him face an awful truth and then, when it was time to offer him a saving hand, Buck had offered only empty, meaningless words. He’d given the only thing he had but it wasn’t enough.

Kid was on his feet again, swaying, holding his head where the rock had made contact. Buck had gotten to his feet too and was still debating what he should do. With a certainty that he was only going to make things worse but equally as certain that he wouldn’t last another assault by Kid’s fists, he drew his gun, hoping it would buy him the time he needed to calm Kid down, help him see that even if there weren’t answers, he wasn’t facing this alone.

Kid brushed his hand once more across the lump that Buck could see forming on the side of his head, then fixed a level look on Buck and the gun. At first he seemed confused, then disbelieving. Then his face went blank and Buck found that more frightening than when he had been trying to beat Buck senseless. Kid placed a hand on the butt of his own gun, still safe in its holster.

“Don’t do that,” Buck commanded. “Put your hands up.” Kid blinked at him, then pulled his lips into a half smile.

“I have to, Buck. And so do you.” He wrapped his hand around the gun handle. This was not at all what Buck had expected or wanted.

“Don’t Kid, I mean it!” he said, his voice shaking.

“I know you do.”

“Stop, right now!” Kid began to slide the gun from its holster, the smile taking over his face as he did. Buck’s hand was shaking as hard as his voice, so hard he was afraid the gun would go off by accident. What was Kid doing? What had gotten into him? It was as if he were daring Buck to shoot. He had to know that Buck could never do that, didn’t he? Or perhaps the months they had been apart had made them strangers to what the other was thinking or feeling or would do. Well, Buck might have changed, changed in awful and horrible ways, but this wasn’t one of them. He dropped his gun.

“Sometimes there just isn’t an answer Kid, no answer that you can live with. And that’s what you’ve got to figure out, how to live with it.” He turned from his friend, pain and exhaustion bringing him once more to his knees. When he heard the gunshot, he was already halfway to the blackness that claimed him seconds after.