Mr.
& Mrs. CodyMr.
& Mrs. Cody
Chapter 8
They rode through the night, stopping only long enough to rest their horses and arrived in Willow Springs late the next morning. Jimmy headed straight for the doctor's office with Kid right on his heels.
Jimmy's impatience was showing again and Kid thought he'd better do the talking, but Jimmy beat him to it.
"I'm looking for some friends of ours. I think one of them might have been the one that shot the bank robber a few days back." Jimmy told the doctor.
"Would it be Mr. and Mrs. Cody you're looking for?" The doctor asked.
Jimmy flinched when the doctor said Mrs. Cody, but he held his tongue and simply nodded.
The doctor went on to explain the seriousness of Cody's condition and how his wife hadn't left his side since they arrived.
"Can we see them, doc?" Kid asked.
"Sure, sure. Maybe having his friends around could help him from his unconsciousness. Mrs. Cody's been reading to him, but he won't wake up." The doctor led the way to the back of the house where his patient was. Before he opened the door he said, "Infection hasn't set in yet, so that's a good sign. I'll just leave you all alone for awhile and come back to check on Mr. Cody later." The doctor left them alone.
Jimmy opened the door and saw Lou sitting in a chair reading to Cody. She looked pale and tired and hadn't even noticed anyone coming into the room. He must have made a noise because suddenly she looked up to see him standing there.
Lou's face lit up and she ran to Jimmy enveloping him in a hug. She then raised up and kissed him deeply. "I'm so glad you found us." She said. "So much has happened. I didn't know how much longer I could go on by myself. Oh, Jimmy…" Lou broke down into tears.
Jimmy hugged her to him, trying to soothe away the tears by gently rubbing her back.
"Shh, it's okay. We're here now. You don't have to take on everything by yourself anymore. I'm right here and I'm not letting you go."
She drew back and wiped her tears away.
"The doctor told us about Cody and how you haven't left his side. You don't have to do it all on your own anymore." Jimmy hugged her again.
Kid didn't get it. Not so very long ago if he had said those same words to Lou she would have decked him and told him she didn't need his help. Now here was Jimmy saying it and she didn't seem to mind it in the least. 'She really must love him - a lot more than she ever loved you.' Kid thought to himself.
Not wanting to interrupt Jimmy and Lou, Kid crept over to Cody's sleeping form and sat down.
Lou finally noticed the Kid. She walked over and put a hand on his shoulder and said, "He just won't wake up. The doc said there's nothing more he can do for him. He dug the bullet out, but it was in deep. He hasn't been awake since it happened." She started crying again.
Jimmy pulled her into his arms and let her cry it all out. When she had calmed down he asked, "When's the last time you got any sleep? Don't take this the wrong way, but you look terrible." She gave a small giggle in between her tears and playfully batted Jimmy's chest. "Gee, thanks a lot. You sure know how to make a girl feel beautiful." She teased.
Jimmy suggested they go over to the hotel to get some rooms and a bite to eat. She and Kid agreed. As they were leaving they told the doctor where they'd be and he said he'd send someone over if anything changed.
The trio dropped into seats at a table in the corner of the restaurant, all of them clearly exhausted. The waitress came to take their order and quickly left.
Kid was the first one to break the silence. "Lou, why did the doctor think you and Cody were married?"
She blankly stared at him and blinked. "It's the first thing I thought of. I was afraid he wouldn't let me stay with him otherwise."
Then Jimmy spoke up. "But Lou, back in Deer Creek they thought you two were married, too. Is there something you need to tell me?" He asked half joking.
Lou looked stunned. "You were in Deer Creek?"
"Yeah. We stopped at all the Express stations trying to find you two and our search ended in Deer Creek. The stationmaster said Cody told him you were laid up at the doc's and someone seen Cody bring you in over the back of his horse and when you left Cody had to carry 'his wife' out to the wagon and laid you in back. Exactly what's going on, Lou?" Jimmy asked.
"Oh, Lordy." She looked at him sheepishly. "Jimmy it's a long story."
"I've got all the time in the world, Lou." Awaiting her answer, he looked her directly in the eye and grew concerned at what he saw there. If he didn't know better he'd think she was afraid. Jimmy gently took her hand in his. "It's alright. Whatever it is everything will be okay. Do you want to talk about this later?"
She quietly nodded, tears in her eyes. She quickly brushed them away.
Kid, who had been trying to make himself invisible, was grateful when the waitress arrived carrying a tray full of food. He was starting to feel like he was intruding on the couple and was glad for the distraction of the meal.
Jimmy and Kid dug into their food, but Lou just pushed hers back and forth on the plate, too worried to eat.
"Lou, aren't you hungry?" Kid asked her.
She hung her head and mumbled, "Not really."
"Do you want to go up to the room and rest for awhile?" Jimmy suggested.
She nodded and left the table.
Jimmy and Kid watched her go. Both of them concerned for her.
"Do you think Cody and her really got married?"
Jimmy threw a piece of bread at him. "Don't be stupid, Kid."
They ate the rest of their meal in silence. When he finished, Jimmy said he was going upstairs to check on Lou and asked Kid if he'd go sit with Cody for awhile. "Your room is next to ours, number 4, we're in 2." He passed the key across the table to Kid.
Before he went upstairs, Jimmy went outside and headed across the street to the schoolhouse. There were some wildflowers growing beside the small building and he quickly snapped one off at the stem and snuck off before someone caught him.
When he reached their room he found Lou curled up on the bed sleeping. He placed the flower on the bedside table and laid down next to her, snuggling her against his chest.
"I love you, Jimmy."
"I love you, too, Lou. I thought you were sleeping." He reached over and picked up the flower and placed it in front of her.
"My favorite." She said and burst out into tears once again.
Jimmy turned her around in his arms and asked her what was wrong, but she just cried harder. He held her tight until he finally heard her even breathing. She had cried herself to sleep. Jimmy sighed, realizing he wasn't going to be getting any answers out of her any time soon.
He laid awake trying not to think about what was wrong with Lou, it wasn't like her to keep crying like she had been since they found her. 'She must just be exhausted.' Jimmy tried to tell himself. Hoping that's all there was to it, he stared out the window, watching the sun slowly dip down into late afternoon.
Kid was sitting in the chair next to Cody's bed when the doctor entered the room. The doctor inquired after 'Mrs. Cody' and Kid told him they had gotten her a room at the hotel and that she was resting. The doctor looked relieved. "That's good. She hasn't had much sleep since we brought her husband in. I told her she needed to rest for the baby's sake, but she wouldn't listen. Just kept sitting in that chair you're in, reading a book aloud to her husband. Don't often see someone so devoted to another."
The doctor started to leave, but Kid jumped up to stop him. "Doc, did you say baby?"
"Why, yes. I guess I shouldn't have said anything. I just assumed you knew being friends of theirs and all." The doctor eyed him suspiciously.
"He's my brother." Kid said pointing toward Cody. "And Lou, well, she's like a sister to me."
"Oh, I see. Well then, no harm done." The doctor clapped his hand on the Kid's shoulder and said, "You're going to be an uncle, son. Congratulations."
'Good Lord, what if it's mine?' he thought. "How far along is she?" He managed to croak out.
"I'd say about two months." Came the wonderful reply.
Kid sighed in relief. Two months. Thank goodness. They had broke up four months ago.
"Well if you'll excuse me, I've got a patient I need to go see. I shouldn't be gone long." The doctor left.
Kid sat back down, stunned. Jimmy and Lou were going to be parents. He thought he had come to terms with Jimmy and Lou getting married, but now they were going to be parents, too. He didn't want to, but Kid felt jealous. Jealous of his best friend. Jealous that Jimmy was going to have everything he, the Kid, wanted but wasn't able to keep. He knew he had best sort this out in his mind before he saw Jimmy and Lou again, he just didn't know how to go about it. It had been so hard at first knowing Lou was going to marry Jimmy, after she had turned down the Kid's marriage proposal. Over the months he had learned to push the hurt aside and try to be happy for his best friend and Lou, who he had tried to treat now as a sister. But it was hard sometimes when he thought back to all the good times he had shared with Lou.
As Kid was lost in thought, Cody started to stir. Cody opened his eyes, trying to focus on the room around him. "Kid? Is that you?"
"Cody, yeah, it's me. How you feeling?"
"Like hell. Where's Lou? Is she okay?" Cody looked around but didn't see her.
"Oh, you mean, Mrs. Cody?" Kid couldn't resist teasing him. "She's back at the hotel with Jimmy."
Cody looked embarrassed. "She told you about that did she?"
"Actually the doctor surprised us with that little bit of news. Why are you two going around telling everyone you're married?"
"Aw geez, Kid, it's a long story."
"Funny, that's exactly what Lou said when we asked her about it. What is going on with you two?" Kid asked.
"Well it all started out as a misunderstanding with the doc in Deer Creek, then we made a game out of it and it just kind of got out of hand after that. Wait a minute, we're in Willow Springs, right?"
Kid nodded.
"And the doctor here thinks we're married, too?"
Again Kid nodded.
Cody grinned. "She must have told him we were married."
"She said she did it so she could stay with you. Didn't think the doctor would let her stay here alone with you otherwise." Kid paused a moment and then asked, "So what gave the doctor in Deer Creek the idea you two were married in the first place?"
Cody wasn't sure how to answer him. He didn't want to betray Lou in telling her secret before she was ready. "I don't know. He just did." Cody hoped Kid would leave it at that. Of course he didn't.
Kid leaned closer to Cody and said, "It would have anything to do with her expecting now would it?"
"You know?! How in the world did you know? She didn't even know until we got to Deer Creek." Cody demanded.
"The doc here just told me. By the way, I told him you were my brother. We are in a way, so it's not stretching the truth. But saying you're married to Lou?"
"Listen I did it to protect her. How would it have looked to have me bring in a pregnant woman who wasn't my wife and I stayed by her side the whole time. The doc would have thought the baby was mine anyway, so it was just better if he thought we were married. I don't want anyone to think bad of Lou - ever. She don't deserve that."
"Calm down, Cody. I agree with you. Any of us would have done the same thing." 'Especially me', he added to himself. "So Jimmy don't know yet, about the baby I mean." Kid asked.
"Unless Lou is telling him right now. She didn't have any idea until the doctor checked her out in Deer Creek. I tell you, I've never been so scared in my life when she wouldn't wake up. The doc was afraid she would lose the baby, but she's been okay so far." Cody started filling him in on the events of being chased, Lou's horse being shot and her falling unconscious, all the way up to ending up in Willow Springs and the shoot-out outside the bank.
Kid got up to check Cody's bandage and saw that the wound was clean and wasn't bleeding. The doc had done a good job with him.
"Kid, can I ask you something?" Cody asked, unsure of himself.
"Sure, shoot."
"Well all this time I spent with Lou, we got really close. And pretending to be married got me thinking of what it would really be like to be married. I know she's marrying Jimmy and everything, but every once in awhile I'd catch myself looking at her and wondering what it would be like if she were marrying me."
Kid started to interrupt.
"No, listen to me. I love her like a sister, but sometimes I just couldn't help but wonder…" Cody stopped and took a deep breath. "What I want to know is how do you do it? I mean you were a couple for awhile and now she's with Jimmy. How do you deal with it? How do you stand it? I know she's happy with him, but you were happy with her once. How do you keep going knowing what you once had, or could have had, and just let her go?"
Kid couldn't believe Cody was asking him about the same thing he was wrestling with just minutes before.
"I don't know, Cody. I just do. I try not to think about it too much, else it hurts too much. I just try to remember that Jimmy makes her happy, happier than she was with me. All I want is the best for her and if that happens to be Jimmy then so be it."
Cody considered this for a moment, letting it sink in. Finally he nodded. And Cody being Cody tried to lighten the mood. "We're gonna be uncles, you know. I sure hope the baby looks like Lou. If it takes after Jimmy, I'm really gonna feel sorry for the kid."
Kid chuckled. "You got that right. Hey, are you hungry?"
Cody clutched his chest, "Why I thought you'd never ask." And he fluttered his eyelashes at Kid.
They both cracked up laughing.
Kid stood up and said he'd go over to the restaurant and bring something back for him. Cody told him to hurry back because he was starving. Kid told him he was glad to have the old Cody back and headed out the door.
Back at the hotel, Lou awoke to Jimmy smiling sweetly at her.
"Hello there beautiful." He tenderly kissed her lips. "Did you have sweet dreams?"
"I dreamt of you and our…" She stopped. He didn't know about the baby yet. How was she going to tell him?
"You dreamt of me and our what?"
She smiled mischievously, grabbed his hand and placed it on her stomach. "I dreamt of you and our baby."
"Our baby?" He asked incredulously.
"Mmm hmm. In about seven months Baby Hickok is going to make his or her way into this world."
Jimmy shouted for joy and quickly kissed her.
"I take it that you're happy then?"
"Ecstatic is more like it. Oh, Lou, this is wonderful." He told her proudly.
"I was worried. We were both going to keep riding after we got married and we're going to need the money. What are we going to do?" She asked.
"Lou, honey, don't worry about that now. We'll figure something out. All that's important is we're a family and as Teaspoon always says, 'Family sticks together.' Is that why you were crying earlier because you didn't know how I'd feel?"
She nodded.
"Don't ever worry how about how I'll react. I love you and I love our child. You're all that's important to me. You're my life, my reason for living. Nothing else in this world matters except you…and our little one." He caressed her abdomen.
Suddenly a thought dawned on him, "That's why you and Cody pretended to be married."
"Yeah. Oh, Jimmy, he's been wonderful to me. I never thought Cody had it in him, but he's really taken good care of me. He's really sweet underneath all that bravado of his. How is he? Has he woke up yet?"
Jimmy shook his head no.
She frowned. "Jimmy I've got to go back to him. He sat with me the whole time I was unconscious in Deer Creek. I've got to take care of him like he did me. I can't leave him there alone."
"Kid's with him right now. But we can go over and see him. But I want you to come back here and rest later. We can all take turns sitting with him."
"Can we go now? I just want to make sure he's alright."
"Sure, Lou, let's go."