Love's Last Gift (on hold)

Chapter 9

A woman who pretends to laugh at love is like a child who sings at night when he is afraid." 

Anonymous 

Kid Curry stretched the stiffness from his bones and stood for a moment in the mid morning sun, soaking in the rays like a cat on a window sill.   He stood outside the front door of Fannie's place patting his stomach, now full of steak and eggs he'd just eaten.   If they stayed here in Cheyenne much longer,  Fannie would be able to retire on all the money he was spending in there.    He smiled at that thought and then started deciding on which kind of pie he was going to go back for in a couple of hours.    Peach or cherry?   He just couldn't decide.  He'd just have one of each.  Kid's smile broadened.   Life was pretty darn good right now.   If all went according to plan,  he, Heyes, Evie,  Livvy and Gabbie would all be riding out of here any day now.   He was just biding his time, waiting for Heyes to ride in and tell him the plan was in motion.    He could hardly wait to get Livvy and his baby girl out of here.   And then he would make Livvy his wife.   Mrs.  Thaddeus Jones.    He liked the sound of that.   Not as well as he would have liked Mrs.  Jedediah Curry,  but giving up a name was easy when it was the only way to keep his newly formed family together.

He stepped onto the busy main street and headed towards the hotel.   He had wanted Livvy to join him for breakfast, but she had insisted that it was foolish for them to be seen together this close to the end of the entire ordeal.  And she was right.   He just didn't want to be too far away from them.    And he couldn't wait to get back to them now.   The bond he had with his child and her mother was unlike any he'd experienced.  It was just as strong as the bond he shared with Heyes.  Different, but just as strong.   And he hadn't thought there would ever be another person alive who he would have as strong a bond with as the bond he had with Hannibal Heyes.   He now understood his partner's need to protect Evie and never be far from her side.  He hurried across the street, anxious now more than ever to see his daughter.

"Hey, you!"   someone yelled out from down the street.

Everyone on the street and inside the shops and businesses, including Kid,  stopped and searched for the source of that voice.  He found it at the eastern end of the street near the dry goods store.    Kid turned slowly eastward to find a young man who couldn't have been more than sixteen or seventeen staring him down, his young face scowling in anger.

Kid stuck his own thumb into his chest as he asked,  "You talking to me?"

"Yeah, I'm talking to you.   You're Kid Curry ain't ya?"

Gasps,  murmurs and hushed whispers spread through the street as onlookers and pedestrians anticipated what was going to happen next.    Folks began to take cover inside buildings and behind wagons, barrels and water troughs.

"Aw, no. Not again,"  Kid thought.  "Who wants to know?"  Kid asked as he gave the boy a once over, sizing him up.

"Folks call me Pecos Pete.  And I here tell you think you're the fastest gun there is."

"I don't recall ever saying that I was the fastest.   Other folks have made that claim, not me.    I don't plan on proving it one way or the other today."   Kid turned away from the boy and started back towards the hotel.

But Pecos Pete  had other plans.   He took a few, brisk steps forward.  "But I say you are going to prove something today.    Only it ain't gonna be that you're faster than me.   I aim to prove that I'm faster."

Kid hung his head and looked  at the ground.  He thought he wasn't going to have to deal with this in Cheyenne.  There was time when he would have stared the boy down with his icy blue gaze and  accepted the challenge without any doubt that he was the faster gun.  But now....he wasn't so sure of himself.    He'd been practicing ever since he'd gotten out of prison and the time he'd spent in Laramie, he had proven many times he could still outdraw most men.   But in Laramie,  he had not known he was a father.   If he had known, he might have walked away from those challenges too.   His instincts were always right when it came to sizing up a man set on a fast draw contest.   And his instincts were telling him he was faster than this boy.   But what if this time his instincts were wrong.   He didn't have only himself to think about anymore.   He looked up to the window of Livvy's room that faced the street.    He had a lot more to consider these days.