Challenge: "Why didn't I keep last years resolution!" by Winnie
Type: Gen
Rating and / or Warning(s): PG-13, Language
OW or AU designation: Old West
Characters: Chris and Buck
OC(s): One and it is very brief.
“Why didn’t I keep last year’s resolution!” grumbled Chris Larabee from his seat at the outside saloon table.
“What’s that?” asked Buck Wilmington from his slouched position.
Chris just chugged his beer as Mary Travis, the town’s newspaperwoman, stomped past on the opposite side of the street.
She never looked his way.
“Damn.”
Buck got enough strength to push himself up in his chair and tip back his hat. “What in the gall-dang hell are you muttering about?”
“Women.”
Buck snuffled. “Huh. Chris, Chris, Chris . . . you know you can come to me about these things. I’m a professional.”
Chris sneered at his oldest friend. “A professional what?”
Buck laid his left hand over his heart. “Oh, Chris. Is it that bad? So bad that you have to attack your best friend like that?” Buck sat up a little straighter. “So, tell ol’ Buck what the trouble is.”
Chris allowed himself to slide down in his chair. His eyes were reduced to shadow and reflected light from the town’s street. “Women.”
“Yeah?”
Chris sighed. “I made a resolution last year to swear them off.”
Buck shook his head slowly. “Pitiful, just pitiful. Ain’t that the same resolution you’ve had every year since I met up with you?”
“Every year I hope I have the sense to keep it.”
Buck snorted. “Well, it was Ella when we met. You swore you wouldn’t look at another woman again.”
“And I didn’t . . . for a while.”
Buck snorted again. “Then you met up with Clotilda. Man, I think she could have seriously given those milk cows of hers some competition if she ever had a reason to be breastfeedin’.”
“Buck,” whined Chris.
“She could have kept you warm at night. Really warm.”
“She wanted me to be plowing the fields day in and day out and sow seeds,” muttered Chris.
“Boy, if you don’t know how to plow the fields and sow your seed, then you need more help than I expected.”
“Buck!” yelped Chris as he looked up and down the boardwalk. All he needed at this point was Mary to sneak up and give him another tongue-lashing over public lewdness. “Keep it down.”
“Then you met up with Sarah. Oh, she had you in the palm of her hand from the moment you laid eyes on her. I knew it, her mama knew it, she knew it . . . I think the only ones who didn’t know it were you and ol’ Hank.”
“I had made that resolution again. It was right after Clotilda decided to marry that preacher’s son.”
Buck patted his arm. “Now, didn’t that all work out for the best? And if you’d have kept your resolution, then you wouldn’t have had that beautiful wife and son.”
“Got that right.” Chris fiddled with his empty beer mug as he thought about Sarah and Adam. He tried not to think of the fire that took them from his life.
Buck sensed his uneasiness and moved away. “Then they were gone. And what did you tell me?”
“That I was swearing off all women.”
“Right! And what did you do?” asked Buck with a twinkle in his eye.
“Meet up with Lidia.”
“Oh! That was a hot grass fire right there. Last time she was around, you two seemed to still be going strong.”
Lidia, the madame, had come back into his life not long after he was hired to watch the town for Judge Travis. At the time, Lidia and her girls were running from the abusive Wickes and his men.
“Naw. Wasn’t nothing there and it wouldn’t have worked out.”
Buck thought back to when he first saw Lidia with Chris. He was just glad his friend was connecting with someone, anyone after Sarah’s death. It was a blow to Chris when Lidia finally went her own way.
Buck tapped his chin with a finger. “Hey, don’t you have that girl out in Purgatorio?”
“Buck.”
“Some cute little thing . . . didn’t you call her Maria?”
“Buck.”
“Yep, must have forgotten that whole swearing off women thing again. She must be something special.”
Chris sighed. There was nothing that Buck liked to talk about more than women. Once he got started, it was like stopping an avalanche.
“And let’s not forgot about Mary.”
At the mention of Mary, Chris flinched. Buck jumped on that right away.
“Oh, so it’s Mary that’s the problem.”
“I made a resolution. No more women,” snarled Chris in reply.
Buck narrowed his eyes. After Chris left town, shacked up with Ella Gaines, and then came back with his tail between his legs, Mary had been distant and bitchy.
“So, what did she say?”
Chris clamped his mouth shut.
“If I know Mary, she had plenty to say about you sowing your oats or some such.” Buck received a glare that could burn a hole in his hide. “What’d she say?”
Chris poked out his lower lip and remained silent.
Buck stopped his interrogation long enough to watch Mary stomp out of the Mercantile and back toward her newspaper office.
With every heavy step she took, Chris seemed to get lower in his chair.
Buck almost snickered. If it had been J.D. or Ezra, heck, even Nathan and Josiah, he would have laughed out loud. However, this was Chris Larabee in a foul mood and woman trouble on his mind.
Buck didn’t laugh, but that didn’t stop him from trying to find out what happened.
Buck cocked his head and sucked his teeth. With a stretch, he pushed back his chair. “Well, I think I’ll go see if Mary needs any help.”
Chris’s hand shot out to grab at Buck’s gunbelt. “Sit yer ass back down.”
Buck sucked his teeth again and retook his seat. “So?”
“None of this would have happened it I’d have stuck to last year’s resolution.”
Buck nodded encouragingly. “And the year before that.”
“I’d of never went back with Ella, and I wouldn’t give a damn what Mary thinks right now.”
Buck placed his chin in his left hand and leaned on the table. “Uh-huh. Go on.”
“Maria sent a note to me about Ella. I asked her to look around for me in Purgatorio. For some reason, she decided to send word to me through the newspaper office.”
“Oooh,” came the sympathetic pain Buck felt for Chris. “That had to hurt. What’d the note say?”
“That she heard that someone that looks like Ella was spotted over in Kettleston. And she wished me luck with the reunion.”
Buck nodded. “’Course Mary thinks that means you’re looking to get back with Ella.”
Chris shrugged his shoulders. “I guess. All I got was an earful of noise when I last saw her.”
Buck settled back in his chair and contemplated. “She’d ease up if you told her what was going on with Ella. What she did to Sarah and Adam and you.”
“Ain’t none of her business.”
Buck snorted. “She’ll find out sooner or later. She’s a reporter. Might as well tell her sooner and save your ears some wear and tear.”
They sat in silence as Mary stomped back down the boardwalk and slammed the door to the bank.
“Why, why didn’t I keep last year’s resolution!” moaned Chris.
“So, what’s your resolution going to be this year?”
“The same damn resolution!”
“Aim for the top, Chris. I’m sure you can do it this time.”
Chris just growled as Mary jerked open the bank’s door and glared up the street at them.