The Young Riders is owned by MGM.
This story is for entertainment purposes only, not for personal profit. The Young Riders and all the characters therein belong to MGM.
The Young Riders is a T.V. show that ran from 1989-1991 about the 18 month span of the pony express.
This story is set about seven years after the end of the pony express. If you don't know the characters, you might want to get to know them on Hulu. It's three seasons of old western fun, drama, social issues, and goodness.
*
She knocked on the door of the little house with more than a bit of trepidation. Myrtle, the nice elderly lady that she had met at the general store earlier in the week was not expecting her, but the diminutive figure on the porch had wanted to be welcoming and neighborly.
She fidgeted with the welcome basket in her hands while looking about her. Knocking once again, she stepped down off the little porch and turned to survey the leaning fence that haphazardly enclosed the hard dirt that tried to be a front yard. Outcroppings of rocks and scattered tufts of weeds completed the ramshackle look of the property.
A deep gravelly voice behind her startled her out of her perusal.
"Yeah," it growled belligerently.
She turned to the open door, then blushed mightily, eye level to a pair of long john clad legs, a gun belt and a sizable bulge beneath it. An ivory-handled, silver plated gun rested in the holster, and in the split second it took her to register that fact, her eyes shot up to the face of the man at the door.
'It can't be,' she prayed to herself.
His face was scruffy with a couple of days' hair growth on it, and long brown hair framed it, but it was the eyes that made her breath catch. Despite their bloodshot appearance, she would have known those eyes anywhere. Those eyes that had watched her from across a bunkhouse lifetimes ago.
Eyes that had squinted in the sun on long rides next to her. Those eyes that had both teased and tormented her with their endless threats and promises. Eyes that had harbored so much pain, and yet crinkled up in laughter with such ease. Those light brown eyes that seemed steely and hard when gunning down blood-thirsty outlaws yet chocolaty brown and deep when he laughed or looked at her with desire in the moonlight by a fire.
"Jimmy," she whispered, her heart pounding, eyes wide.
She willed her hands to stop shaking on the handle of the basket.
He glared around at the scenery.
She wasn't even sure he saw her. Would he recognize her? Would he remember? She steeled her nerves and squared her shoulders. Stepping back onto the porch, she held out her hand in greeting.
He was scratching his backside and yawning. Out of habit, he perused her body first. His sleepy eyes raked up and down her form appreciatively. Dark brown skirt, white puffy blouse, classy but not flashy or frilly. Wavy brown hair looked like it went halfway down her back.
Her heart fell. He didn't know her. Of course he wouldn't remember. This was Wild Bill Hickok, she chided herself. Not Jimmy. Not ... her Jimmy.
She hadn't written anyone. She hadn't kept in touch by any means. She knew she couldn't expect much of a welcome. From anybody. She left and spent all her energy trying to keep Kid happy. He had known their departure would be heartbreaking for the people they both considered family. His insistence that it was the right thing to do filled her with guilt for not wanting to follow her husband. So she played the dutiful wife and went along with him. For seven years, she did.
She lowered her eyes to the ground, embarrassed by her automatic expectations. Embarrassed that even after all these years, there was still some tiny seed of hope, eager to plant itself in the heart she thought had been hardened by so many years of neglect and disappointment. She didn't know whether to lower her hand, or to leave it there in case he decided to shake it.
He raised an eyebrow in appreciation. This just might be his lucky day, he thought, as one side of his mouth curled up in a humorless smile. Or hers, he smirked to himself. He decided to let this little piece of cake have a big piece of Wild Bill.
He finally raised his eyes to her face and she met his gaze, stifling her chagrin. His smirk widened into a grin, taking in the beauty before him.
The big brown eyes, the pert little nose, the soft pouty lips. Oh, he was going to have a—wait a minute.
Why did those eyes snag at something inside him? Why did he suddenly expect those lips to softly put him in his place when he was acting out or share her deepest secrets when things were quiet? What was this feeling of guilt and shame welling up inside him suddenly? Who the hell--?
For a moment, so quick she thought she imagined it, she saw him as he was over seven years ago. She saw a flash of life, of interest. That flash flooded her whole being with images of his boyish blush and wry smile from her kiss on his cheek at dinner. Her blue dress and his warm, firm hand around her waist as they clumsily and joyfully waltzed together, heedless of the world around them. For just a moment.
Something moved inside him. Deep inside him. Something that he'd hidden away seven years ago. A sound. One he had held on to as if his life depended on it. For seven long years. It started fighting, clawing, and kicking to escape. It wanted out of the special place he had kept it. The place he had buried it under years of drinking and women. It wanted to be reunited with its owner. It bubbled inside, boiling over until he couldn't keep its lid on anymore.
It scratched its way out.
"Lou," he rasped her name, his eyes wide in disbelief.
She gasped. Her heart skipped, again trying to allow hope in. He remembered!
Then he was gone.
It wasn't Jimmy anymore.
