Summary:  Following the family’s ordeal in Trial by Fire, can they finally bury Adam’s experiences at the hands of Kane?  This story is part of the Bloodlines Series, with the addition of a non-canon character.

Rating:  T  (109,400 words)

 

Bloodlines Series:

Bloodlines
The Lo Mein Affair
The Wedding
Sacrificial Lamb
Poltergeist II
Independence Day
Virginia City Detour
The Guardian
Li’l One
Young Cartwrights in Love
San Francisco Revisited
There But for the Grace of God
Between Life and Death
Orenna
Clarissa Returns
Trial by Fire
Mark of Kane

Mark of Kane

Prologue

A soft, discreet cough emanating from the direction of the open French doors drew the attention of Adam Cartwright, his wife, Teresa, and their two children from the late luncheon, they had been enjoying outside on their verandah. Adela Cortez, the housekeeper, stood, framed in the open doorway, with a sealed envelope in hand. “Senor Cartwright?”

“Yes, Senora Cortez?”

“This message was just delivered by a young man from the Western Union office,” Adela said as she made her way across the verandah. She handed Adam a plain white envelope marked, ‘Mr. A. Cartwright.’

“Thank you,” Adam said, as he accepted the envelope. “Does the young man from the Western Union office expect an immediate reply?”

“No.”

“Thank you, Senora Cortez.” Adam slipped his thumb under the sealed flap and sliced open the envelope. Inside was a small sheet of paper, folded in half. He removed the paper and read the wired message. Short and to the point, it read:
Adam [stop]

Fire early morning day before yesterday [stop] House gone [stop] Lost nearly everything [stop] Everyone survived [stop] Joe missing believed kidnapped [stop] Stacy hurt bad [stop] Need your help [stop] Please come if you can [stop]

Hoss [stop; end of message]
“Adam?”

He lowered the paper bearing Hoss’ message, and found himself staring into three anxious faces.

“Adam, is it . . . is it bad news?” Teresa probed gently.

“Here. Read for yourself.”

Teresa took the message from her husband and read it over twice. Looking up, she said very quietly, “Yes, Adam, you MUST go.”

“Go where, Pa?” Dio, their daughter, demanded.

“To Nevada, Dio,” Adam said quietly.

“To see Grandpa?” Dio asked, her entire countenance brightening.

“Yes . . . . ”

“Can I go with you, Pa? Please?”

“Not this time.” Adam shook his head.

Dio’s face fell.

“Dio, this visit’s not going to be the same kind of visit we enjoyed three summers ago,” Adam explained patiently. “Grandpa’s house was completely destroyed by a fire early in the morning, day before yesterday.”

“Oh no!” Dio cried, her eyes filling with tears.

“Papa?”

Adam turned his attention to his son. “Yes, Benjamin?”

“Did . . . is . . . is everyone . . . o-ok?”

Adam smiled and nodded. “Everyone made it out,” he replied, electing for the time being, to withhold the other details concerning Uncle Joe and Aunt Stacy.

“Thank goodness!” young Benjamin exhaled a long, heartfelt sigh of relief.

“Your grandpa, uncles, and aunt want me to come and help them build another house,” Adam continued. “Since I designed and built a lot of the old one, it’s reasonable they would ask.”

“When do you plan to leave, Adam?” Teresa asked.

“If possible, I’d like to leave on the noon stage tomorrow,” Adam replied, as he took the wired message back from his wife.

“You need any help with packing?”

“Thank you, Sweetheart,” Adam replied with a smile, “but I can manage. Benjamin?”

“Yes, Papa?”

“Would you please find Senor Mendez and ask him to meet me in my study immediately? I’d like him to take my reply to Uncle Hoss’ message to the Western Union office.”

“Yes, Sir,” Benjamin nodded, then dashed off in search of Juan Mendez, the family gardener and handyman . . . .

Part 1
Nine Days Later . . . .

“VIRGINIA CITY, LAST STOP!” the driver yelled, after bringing the team of horses pulling the stagecoach to a complete stop in front of the depot. In all, there were three passengers. Two of them were a young husband and wife, newly married, on the first leg of a long journey home from an extended honeymoon trip. The third, Adam Cartwright, exhausted and feeling slightly lightheaded, gathered together the drawings spread out across the seat next to him and placed them neatly into his portfolio folder.

“Mister Cartwright?”

Adam glanced up into the equally weary faces of his traveling companions, Lorenzo and Maria Estevan.

“My wife tells me that you will be getting off here in Virginia City?”

“Yes.”

“I wanted to let you know that it was a real pleasure traveling with you from Sacramento,” Lorenzo Estevan smiled and offered his hand. Aged in his mid to late twenties, he stood a few inches taller than Adam, and his build was of a type Hoss would likely describe as beanpole skinny. He was clean-shaven with dark brown, almost black eyes, and a full head of jet-black wavy hair.

“Thank you, Mister Estevan,” Adam returned the man’s smile and shook his hand. “I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent talking with you and Mrs. Estevan, as well. My pa always said that good traveling companions shorten the miles. He’s absolutely right.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright,” Lorenzo said, beaming. “I was afraid I might have bored you a few times along the way.”

“Certainly not,” Adam hastened to reassure. “Architecture and engineering are my occupations, but I’ve always been very interested in ancient history and archaeology. Your accounts of the trips you took down to Mexico City with your father to study the ancient ruins were fascinating. I especially enjoyed looking through your sketch book.”

Lorenzo turned to his new bride, flashing her a smug, triumphant smile. “You hear THAT, Maria? You worry for nothing.”

Maria Estevan smiled. She was very young, not much older than Adam’s own sister, Stacy. She stood all of five feet tall in her stocking feet, and weighed in at slightly less than a hundred pounds. Her long, dark brown hair was worn in a simple French twist. Some of the short, fine tendrils had escaped their confines during the course of the day, and framed her delicate oval shaped face like a halo.

“I’m most gratified you enjoyed listening to his stories about those trips he took with his papa to Mexico City,” Maria said, the relief evident in her voice. “Unfortunately my loving husband has unwittingly bored many a captive audience to tears talking about ancient history and the archaeology trips he and his papa took together.”

“I can assure you . . . I was a captivATED audience, Mrs. Estevan, not captive.”

The stagecoach driver opened the door. The two men graciously hung back, allowing Maria to exit the stagecoach first.

“Mister Cartwright?”

“Yes?”

“You say you are from here? That your family lives here?”

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps you can suggest comfortable overnight lodging and a good place to relax and eat?” Lorenzo Estevan asked, as he and Adam exited the stagecoach. “My wife and I leave tomorrow morning on the ten o’clock stage.”

“As a matter of fact, I can,” Adam replied. “The International Hotel has very good, very comfortable accommodations. There’s also an excellent restaurant in the hotel.”

“Howdy, Adam! Glad you could come!”

Adam turned and saw the biggest of his two brothers standing at his elbow. “I’m real glad you sent for me, Big Brother,” he murmured his heartfelt sincerity, as they exchanged big, bear hugs. “Hoss, I’d like you to meet my traveling companions, Lorenzo and Maria Estevan. Mister and Mrs. Estevan, this is my big brother, Hoss Cartwright.”

“You are the eldest, Mister Cartwright?” Maria asked.

“No, Ma’am,” Hoss smiled warmly and politely tipped his hat. “Adam here’s the oldest. I’M the biggest.” He, then, turned and offered his hand to the young man. “Glad t’ make your acquaintance, Mister Estevan.”

“Your name is . . . HORSE!?” Lorenzo queried with a puzzled frown.

“No, just HOSS. Pa once told me Hoss is mountain talk f’r a big, friendly fella,” Hoss replied. “I have the buckboard with me. Can Adam ‘n me drop you folks off somewhere?”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright, but we don’t want to impose,” Maria politely declined. “If you could just direct us to the International Hotel . . . . ”

“That where you folks’re stayin’?” Hoss asked.

“Yes.”

“It won’t be any trouble at all droppin’ you folks by,” Hoss immediately assured the Estevans. “Adam ‘n I hafta drive by there anyway t’ git t’ where WE’RE goin’.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright,” Lorenzo Estevan said gratefully. “THAT being the case, my wife and I would appreciate the lift very much.”

Arrangements were quickly made to deliver Adam’s single trunk to the Fletcher house, located across the street from Doctor Martin’s office and the home he shared with his wife, Lily. The Cartwright family had taken up residence there, until their home on the Ponderosa could be rebuilt. Hoss, meanwhile, retrieved Adam’s small carpetbag, along with two smaller bags, belonging to the Estevans, that contained the essentials for their overnight stay in Virginia City. Their trunks would remain at the stage depot overnight. That done, Hoss ably assisted Maria up into the back seat of the buckboard. Her husband settled in beside her.

“How long are you folks gonna be in Virginia City?” Hoss asked as he and Adam climbed into the buckboard’s front seat.

“Overnight,” Lorenzo answered. “We leave tomorrow morning on the ten o’clock stage.”

“Too bad you folks can’t stay a li’l longer,” Hoss said, as he picked up the reins and nudged the horses into motion. “There’s a lot o’ beautiful countryside ‘round here.”

“We’ll have to make a point of it the next time we travel,” Lorenzo said. “For now, however, my wife and I are anxious to get home.”

“We’ve been away nearly two months now, Mister Cartwright,” Maria added. “Lorenzo and I are returning home from our honeymoon trip.”

“Congratulations! I hope the two of ya have a real long, happy life together,” Hoss said with a big, warm smile.

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright,” the young bride said, returning his smile. “For your good wishes and the ride to the hotel.”

A few moments later, Hoss pulled up in front of the International Hotel. He and Adam saw the Estevans into the hotel lobby.

“Mister and Mrs. Estevan, I hope the rest of your journey is a safe one,” Adam said, as Hoss set their bags down next to the check-in desk.

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright. I hope you enjoy your visit with your family,” Maria said with a smile.

“Speakin’ o’ the family, Adam ‘n I need t’ move along,” Hoss said. “Knowin’ Pa, he’s back at the house chompin’ at the bit, with waitin’. Mister ‘n Mrs. Estevan, you both have a good safe trip back, y’ hear?”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright. It was a pleasure to meet you,” Lorenzo said in parting.

“The Estevans seem t’ be real nice folks, Adam,” Hoss remarked as he and his older brother climbed back into the buckboard.

Adam nodded. “Yes, they are. I am grateful for having had their company,” he said quietly. “Had it NOT been for them, I . . . I’m pretty sure I would’ve gone completely out of my mind with worry. Hoss?”

“Yeah, Adam?”

“Have you and Pa found Joe yet?”

Hoss nodded. “Pa, Candy, ‘n I found him . . . I guess it’s been pert near a week ago now, Adam.”

Adam closed his eyes briefly and offered a silent, heartfelt prayer of thanks.

“I wish there was a way we could’ve gotten hold of ya t’ tell ya,” Hoss said contritely, when his older brother opened his eyes.

“It’s a little difficult getting a wire to way stations with no telegraph lines,” Adam said gently, placing a paternal hand on his biggest brother’s shoulder. “I’m just thankful to hear that he’s been found . . . hopefully none the worse for wear.”

“We’re still out t’ lunch on that last part,” Hoss said soberly.

“What happened to him?”

“He was kidnapped,” Hoss said, his face darkening with anger.

“Kidnapped?!” Adam echoed, incredulous.

Hoss nodded. “He had no sooner gotten himself outta the burnin’ house when they grabbed him, ‘n took him off.”

“Who?”

“You remember Lady Chadwick?”

“Oh yes,” Adam said in a wry tone, as memories of her last visit to the Ponderosa began to surface.

“She’s the one who kidnapped Joe.”

“What?!” Adam exclaimed in surprise. “You’re joking!!”

“Nope. It WAS Lady Chadwick, Adam.”

Adam vigorously shook his head, still finding that difficult to believe. “I thought we saw the last of HER . . . how long has it been now? Ten years? Fifteen, maybe?”

“Closer t’ ten, I think, and I wish with everything that’s in me that’d been the last time we ever laid eyes on her.

“Why did she kidnap Joe? Was it for ransom?”

Hoss shook his head. “It was f’r some kinda revenge.”

“Revenge?! For what?” Adam demanded, his own brow darkening with anger. “For Pa exposing her scheme to financially ruin him?”

“We think that was part of it,” Hoss replied. “Joe’s talked some about what happened. Not much, but some. He told us somethin’ about her wantin’ to use him as some kinda weapon t’ git back at Pa f’r what happened not only then, but for when he jilted her nearly THIRTY years ago back when they was in New Orleans.”

“Some kind of weapon?!” Adam echoed, as a bewildered frown deepened the lines already present in his brow.

“Somethin’ about turnin’ our li’l brother against Pa,” Hoss tried to explain. “Exactly how that was t’ turn Joe into some kinda weapon . . . well, I ain’t figured THAT one out yet.”

“Hoss, I . . . I don’t understand! Pa didn’t jilt her in New Orleans . . . it was the other way around.”

“She wasn’t right in the head, Adam,” Hoss said grimly. “She may not’ve been right in the head when she came t’ visit us. Pa said she was rememberin’ stuff that never happened . . . even then.”

Adam let out a long, low whistle.

“She also set fire to our house,” Hoss continued. “That’s what she told Joe. She had her boy pay someone t’ do it.”

“Her boy?”

Hoss nodded.

“Her boy . . . as in her SON?!”

“Yep.”

“I . . . I had no idea she and Lord Chadwick had any children,” Adam said, shaking his head. “She never mentioned having a son.”

“I think she even told Pa that she ‘n Lord Chadwick never HAD children.”

Adam frowned. “I find that very strange.”

“That ain’t nearly the half of it,” Hoss said. “Her boy worked on the Ponderosa f’r a couple o’ months, so he could watch US, ‘n tell HER everything we were doin’. Pa ‘n Candy hired him. He led us t’ believe he was a drifter, come up from down Texas way. We . . . none of us, had no reason to think different. Then, the night of the fire, after she kidnapped Joe, she . . . Adam, Lady Chadwick had her man kill him. Her own boy!”

“What?!” Adam’s breath caught in his throat. For a brief, horrifying instant, he felt as if he had been slammed hard in the chest with a sledgehammer.

“We . . . Pa ‘n me, figured it out when we started goin’ through her boy’s things,” Hoss continued, gripping the reins hard, to keep his hands from shaking. “Joe . . . well, that was one o’ the things he DID tell us. He saw it happen.”

“M-My God, Hoss! H-Her own son! Why?”

“ ‘Cause he was the same size as Joe ‘n had hair like his. She had him runnin’ around the night o’ the fire, dressed the way Joe dresses . . . just so she could have her man kill HIM ‘n burn his body . . . t’ make Pa ‘n the rest of us think Joe died in the fire.”

Adam looked over at Hoss, his face a few shades paler than normal, his eyes round with horror, too stunned to speak. The thought of anyone, particularly a mother, so callously murdering her own child was beyond unfathomable. “I . . . somehow I n-never figured Montague to be such a . . . a cold blooded killer.”

“It wasn’t Montague.”

“Oh?”

“It was some new man, name o’ Crippensworth. She killed Montague, too, Adam, ‘bout six months ago, over in Carson City.”

Adam shook his head. “Damn! I can’t say I held a lot of affection for the man, not after all the things HE did to Pa . . . AND to us . . . at her bidding, but I had to admire the him for his loyalty. He stuck by her, even after that plan of hers to ruin Pa blew up in her face . . . and now . . . you’re telling me Lady Chadwick . . . murdered him, too?!”

“Yeah. Crippensworth told Sheriff Coffee all ‘bout THAT. Seems Montague was threatenin’ Lady Chadwick somehow . . . threatenin’ t’ go to the sheriff ‘bout somethin’, so she up ‘n killed him.”

“Where’s Lady Chadwick and this Crippensworth now?”

“Lady Chadwick’s dead,” Hoss replied. “Dead ‘n buried now, over in Carson City. Pa didn’t want her grave anywhere ‘round here where he . . . or the rest of us . . . might see it.”

“How did she die?”

She was strangled first, then had a couple o’ bullets put in her chest,” Hoss replied. “Sheriff Coffee’s pretty sure Crippensworth killed her, then tried t’ kill Joe, before tryin’ t’ run off with Lady Chadwick’s money ‘n jewelry in his pocket. He’s in jail, right now.”

“When does he come up for trial?”

“Sometime after he gits back t’ England, I expect.”

“England?!”

“Yeah. Seems he’s wanted for killin’ a half dozen or so men over there. Judge Faraday signed the papers . . . only thing t’ do now is wait for the men from Scotland Yard t’ come.”

“At least I have the satisfaction of knowing he can be convicted over there on less than he can here,” Adam said grimly. “You said this Crippensworth intended to kill Joe?”

Hoss nodded. “When we found our li’l brother, he was in that big meadow across from the Marlowes’ house. That fella, Crippensworth, was WITH him. Pa said he had a derringer aimed right at Joe’s heart. I . . . I still get the willies when I think o’ what we might’ve found if we’d . . . if we’d— ” Hoss broke off, suddenly unable to speak.

“I understand . . . . ” Adam said tonelessly, as he placed a steadying hand on his big brother’s forearm.

For a time, Adam and Hoss rode along together in silence, the former utterly shaken to the very core of his being by everything that his younger, bigger brother had just told him.

“S-Sorry, Adam, I . . . I guess it’s all kinda catchin’ up with me, now that Joe’s back ‘n Stacy’s on the mend,” Hoss said ruefully, when he was once again able to speak. “We could’ve ALL died in that fire. If . . . if Pa hadn’t woken up that night when he did . . . . ”

“Thank God he DID wake up,” Adam said very quietly, his words a heartfelt prayer of gratitude.

“I . . . I really hate like anything havin’ t’ say this, but when Pa ‘n Sheriff Coffee told us Lady Chadwick was dead . . . God help me, Adam, I was GLAD,” Hoss continued, his voice shaking. “All I could think of was how bad she hurt Joe, in just about the worst way a body CAN hurt another . . . ‘n when she burned down our house? She hurt Stacy, too . . . almost . . . almost K-KILLED her.

“I was worried ‘bout Pa, too. Worried about what it’d do to him if one or BOTH them young’ns had . . . had . . . well, hadn’t pulled through. I . . . I was also worried about Pa might’ve done t’ if he ‘n Lady Chadwick, if he ‘n Sheriff Coffee hadn’t found her dead.”

“Hoss, if Lady Chadwick HAD been found and taken into custody alive, Pa would have done as he’s always taught US to do . . . what any CIVILIZED man would do,” Adam said sharply, more sharply than he either realized or had intended. Something in Hoss’ words, the quiet conviction by which he spoke them, unsettled him deeply. “He would have seen to it that she was handed over to be tried fairly in a court of law, AND he would have abided by whatever decision was handed down by that court.”

“S-Sorry, Adam, I . . . well, just ‘cause I’M feelin’ kinda rattled ‘n upset right now, I ain’t got no call to get YOU upset,” Hoss apologized, his voice now filled with remorse.

“ . . . no more than I had any right to snap at YOU because I’M worn out from the trip and, well, I’ve been upset and worried, too, since I left Sacramento before you and Pa found Joe,” Adam said, equally contrite. “Which reminds me, would it be alright if we stopped by the telegraph office before going ho— before going to the Fletchers’ house? I’d like to send a wire to Teresa, letting her know that I’ve arrived safely and that things are on the mend here. She was pretty worried, too, when I left.”

“Sure thing, Adam. When you send that wire, would you mind sendin’ Teresa an’ the kids all OUR love?”

“Not at all,” Adam replied, managing a wan smile. “In fact, I was going to do that anyway.”

“Mister Cartwright, Mister Cartwright, Mister Hoss back!” Hop Sing announced, grinning from ear-to-ear, as he bounded into the living room from the kitchen. “Mister Hoss have Mister Adam!”

Ben placed the book in hand down on the coffee table, and turned to wake up Stacy, who had dropped off to sleep on the settee beside him. “Time to rise ‘n shine, Young Woman,” he said, as he gently shook his daughter. “They’re here.”

Stacy opened one eye, then the other. “Who’s here, Pa?” she asked, punctuating her inquiry with a big yawn.

“Hoss is back with Adam,” Ben quietly explained.

Stacy yawned again, then sat up straight.

“Where’s Joe?” Ben asked, upon glancing around and finding his youngest son absent.

“He said something about going upstairs to take a nap right after we finished playing checkers,” Stacy replied. “I think he actually let me win that last game, Pa.”

“Good for him.” Ben said, smiling. He, then, rose and walked over toward the stairs. “JOE?”

No answer.

“JOE, YOU ASLEEP?”

Still no answer.

“JOE, WAKE UP,” Ben yelled again, raising the volume slightly. “HOSS IS BACK . . . WITH ADAM.”

Still no answer.

“That boy’s gonna sleep right through Gabriel’s trumpet on the day of the last judgment,” Ben muttered to himself as he started up the stairs.

“No, Mister Cartwright,” Hop Sing protested, as he moved toward the stairs on a direct intercept course. “You stay here. Say hello to Mister Adam. Hop Sing go up, fetch down Little Joe.”

Earlier on, after having soundly beat his baby sister six games of checkers out of seven, fair and square despite her protestations to the contrary, Joe had retreated to his room upstairs, intending to stretch out on the bed and rest his eyes for just a little while.

“Poor Kid,” he had mused silently, as he sat down on the bed to remove his slippers, all the while shaking his head. “The least little bit of activity and she’s out like a light.” He remembered Pa saying that Stacy had spent the better part of four days lying flat on her back. He knew from personal experience that spending long periods of time lying around in bed, whether it be from injury or illness always left a body weaker than a newborn kitten. That coupled with having to get about now on crutches . . . .

Hopefully Stacy would regain enough of her old vim and vigor over the next few days to keep awake and alert while they played checkers. There was absolutely no challenge in rearranging the pieces on the board when his opponent was so tired, she kept nodding off. He had even let her win that last game because he felt so sorry for her.

Joe yawned as he stretched out on the bed, gazing down at his sprained ankle, still much too swollen and tender to even consider wearing boots. He had injured it when he fell out of that tree, growing up next to the Marlowes’ old house in his bid to escape the clutches of Lady Chadwick. As he closed his eyes, his mind drifted to the tick, tick, ticking of the wall clock hanging above the bureau . . . .

The clock hands, big just drifting down to the two ,and the little sitting squarely over the four suddenly looked for all the world like tree branches. The sun’s glare shining in through the window, with curtains parted, struck the clear glass over the clock face, obscuring the two, then dipped down slowly toward the four.

“Fifteen minutes . . . half an hour . . . three quarters of an hour . . . one hour,” he murmured softly, uneasily.

The even rhythmic ticking of the clock became the steady taping of a lady’s pair of shoes, the kind with the slightly elevated heel, striking against a hard wood floor. The clock’s pendulum, swinging back and forth, back and forth, keeping even cadence became a riding crop tapping an even beat against the open palm of a woman’s hand, keeping time with the tapping of her shoes against the floor . . . .

“No,” he groaned in protest. “No! This can’t be happening . . . . You’re dead.”

Little Joe?

“NO. You’re dead.”

Little Joe.

“I told you . . . you’re dead! Now willya please, go ‘way. Lemme alone . . . .”

Little Joe . . .

“ . . . wake up.”

Joe’s eyes snapped open. For a moment, he had no idea in the world where he was. He lay, unable to move, gazing at his unfamiliar surroundings with mounting dread.

“Little Joe? What wrong with Little Joe?”

He gasped at the sound of another voice. He turned, and found himself staring into the anxious face of Hop Sing.

“Little Joe alright?”

“F-fine . . . I’ll be fine,” Joe murmured as he struggled to sit up. His heart was racing, and his brow was liberally dotted with beads of cold sweat.

“Hop Sing come, tell Little Joe Mister Hoss back. Bring Mister Adam,” Hop Sing said quietly. “Little Joe alright? Not sick?”

Joe flashed Hop Sing a smile, meant to reassure. The increased apprehension mirrored in Hop Sing’s eyes and the appearance of an anxious frown told him he had failed miserably. “It’s alright, Hop Sing, I’m not sick. I just kinda dozed off, ‘s all.”

“Little Joe ok now?”

“I will be. I just need a minute to wake up a little.”

“Ok. Tell Papa you be down few minutes?”

“Yeah. I’ll be down in a few minutes.” Joe waited until Hop Sing had left the room, and closed the door. “She’s dead,” he muttered very softly, under his breath. “I saw her lying at the undertaker’s, in a pine box coffin . . . dead. I also saw her coffin loaded onto a buckboard, taking it to Carson City. She’s dead. She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s DEAD.”

“Adam, it’s so good to see ya,” Ben declared, as his eldest son stepped through the door a split second behind Hoss. He caught Adam up in a big, fierce bear hug.

“I can’t say I much care for the circumstances, Pa, but I’m glad to see you, too,” Adam said with heartfelt sincerity as he returned his father’s embrace with equal strength and affection.

“Come on in and sit down,” Ben said, taking Adam gently by the elbow. “You must be exhausted.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Hoss?”

“Alright if I put Adam in the big room upstairs?”

“Sure, Son, that’s fine.”

“Hoss?”

“Yeah, Adam?”

“I’ll take the portfolio.”

“Which is the portfolio?” Hoss queried with a perplexed frown.

“The flat black leather case.”

Hoss handed the portfolio to his older brother, then started toward the stairs.

“Hey, Adam . . . . ” That was Stacy. “Don’t I rate a hug, too?” she demanded, leveling a ferocious glare in his general direction.

“Absolutely.” Smiling, Adam walked over toward the settee, where Stacy sat with her leg propped up on the coffee table, resting comfortably on one of the chair cushions.

“I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t get up,” she quipped, as he carefully sat down beside her.

“Well . . . MAYBE I will, just this once,” Adam teased as he caught his sister up in an affectionate bear hug.

“Glad you’re here, Oldest Brother.”

“Me, too,” Adam said as he planted a quick kiss on Stacy’s forehead.

“You have the house plans drawn up already?” Stacy asked, as she and Adam separated, and her eyes moved to the portfolio lying on the coffee table.

“I drew up a few preliminary sketches on my way out here,” Adam replied, “but nothing final yet, not by any means.”

“Can I see?”

“Her leg may be broken, but there’s sure nothing wrong with her nose.”

Ben, Stacy, and Adam turned toward the stairs together, their movements in unison, as Joe trotted down the steps with a distinct limp, with Hop Sing and Hoss following close behind. Ben noted his youngest son’s pale complexion, his trembling hands, and the wan smile with an anxious frown.

“Are you implying that I’m nosy, Grandpa?”

“No, I was IMPLYING nothing of the sort . . . leastwise I didn’t THINK I was,” Joe said very slowly, as he paused at the bottom of the steps. “I was trying to say it straight out.”

“Well, it takes one to know one I suppose,” Stacy returned without missing a beat.

Joe responded by thumbing up his nose.

Stacy stuck out her tongue.

“I’m very glad to see that SOME things never change around here,” Adam said with a smile.

“It’ll be quite a while before Stacy and I are up to practicing our fencing in the living room, however . . . . ” Joe said, as he favored his eldest brother with a warm smile.

“You two had best behave yourselves or you’re going to find out real quick that I’m more than up to making that trip out to the woodshed,” Ben warned, half teasing.

“Good seein’ ya, Adam, I’m glad you came,” Joe said, as he gave his eldest brother a big hug.

“This real happy day,” Hop Sing declared, grinning broadly. “This real big happy day. Whole family together. Supper ready half hour.”

“That will give me just enough time to splash some water on my face, comb my hair, and change my shirt,” Adam said. “If you’ll excuse me . . . . ”

“Don’t you dare dawdle, Oldest Brother,” Joe called after him. “You know how Hop Sing is about eating while it’s hot.”

“Basically, I’ve kept the general layout of the house roughly the same,” Adam explained, as he spread his preliminary sketches out on the coffee table, following an enormous, delectable supper, courtesy of Hop Sing. He sat on the settee, sandwiched in between his youngest brother and his sister. Ben occupied the end of the settee, next to Joe, while Hoss and Hop Sing peered over everyone’s shoulders. “I enlarged the area of Pa’s study a bit . . . . ” he looked over at his father, and smiled. “I noticed how cramped things had become when Teresa and I visited with the kids two years ago.”

“I suppose they have . . . . ” Ben admitted with a chuckle, then sobered. “HAD.” He sighed. “I’m sure glad I had extra copies of the important documents, like the deeds to the Ponderosa and contracts we’re working on NOW, either in the safe, or on file in Lucas Milburn’s office.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“If you’d like, we COULD fit a vault sized safe right in here . . . . ” Adam removed a pencil from his shirt pocket and lightly reworked the lines of the study on the sketch placed square in the center of the coffee table. “You’d STILL have the same amount of space I had envisioned, even though a third of it would be taken up by the vault. But, you could keep YOUR copies of important documents in here, where they would be protected from fire.”

“That sounds like a real good idea, Adam,” Ben said, nodding, “but, such a thing IS pretty expensive. I’d like to give the matter some thought before I answer one way or the other.”

“Sure, Pa.”

“Mister Adam, what that over there?” Hop Sing asked, pointing toward what appeared to he a block of squares sitting perpendicular to the proposed kitchen area.

“That, Hop Sing, is a green house,” Adam replied. “That would enable you to grow fresh herbs, maybe even a few other fresh greens, and flowers, too, if you wish, through out the winter months.”

Hop Sing looked over at Adam, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Grow herb in winter?! How THAT work? Or did Mister Adam chew loco weed?”

This last prompted a loud burst of giggling from Joe, then from Stacy, who had from the first day she had joined the family, found his laughter potently infectious.

“No, I have NOT chewed on any loco weed,” Adam said in a wry tone. “Hop Sing, it works like this. This green house is made out of glass, tinted green. The sun shines through the glass, its heat magnified to the point of keeping the inside not only warm, but moist. In the summer, you could grow things in here that would only survive in warmer, more humid climates.”

“Hop Sing grow herbs in winter. This very, very good,” Hop Sing declared, grinning from ear to ear. He, then, pointed over to a small, square room adjacent to the kitchen door. “What THAT for, Mister Adam?”

“First of all, it’s a place where you can hang your herbs to dry,” Adam replied. “Second, I saw that doubling as a mud room. When you come in from the garden, with your feet dirty or boots muddy, you can step in here, remove your boots, wash your feet and not track it onto your clean kitchen floor.”

“Oh, Hop Sing like THAT very, VERY much.”

“The rest of the kitchen I’ve left blank, because I wanted to ask what you want, and where you want it to go,” Adam explained, then smiled. “The kitchen is yours after all . . . . ”

“ . . . and don’t nobody forget it!” Hop Sing added, directing a ferocious scowl at everyone gathered.

“That’s not something I’M very likely to forget,” Joe quipped with a grin, “not after having been chased all the way out to the road with a meat cleaver a few times.”

“Hop Sing only chase Little Joe out to street once,” Hop Sing defended himself immediately, “and not with meat cleaver. Hop Sing NEVER chase Little Joe with meat cleaver. Maybe dull carving knife . . . . ”

“Awww, come off it, Hop Sing,” Hoss guffawed. “You ain’t never chased Joe outta your kitchen with nothin’ sharp in your whole life, ‘cept maybe your TONGUE.”

Joe giggled again. “I almost rather he HAD run me out of his kitchen with a knife or meat cleaver on a few of THOSE occasions, believe you me. Of course I didn’t understand a word of it, since it was pretty much all in Chinese.” This last he punctuated with a smug, secretive, Mona Lisa type smile.

“If Hop Sing say in English what said in Chinese, Hop Sing have to wash out mouth with soap,” Hop Sing said with a chuckle.

“With real, good, strong lye soap, too, the way some of those words sound,” Stacy added with a smile.

“YOU’VE got no room to talk, Little Sister,” Joe teased. “I’ve heard you utter a word or six, or seven in Paiute that sounded like they could’ve used some real, good strong lye soap, too.”

Stacy responded by sticking out her tongue.

Joe returned the gesture, all the while trying not to succumb to a fit of giggling.

“Would you YOUNG ‘NS mind behavin’ yourselves?” Hoss admonished his younger siblings, favoring first Joe, then Stacy, with a stern, warning glare.

“Yes, Pa,” Joe and Stacy chorused together in unison, before succumbing to another fit of giggling. Ben and Hop Sing immediately joined them, followed by Hoss a few moments later.

Adam smiled politely, though, in truth, he was far from amused. Hop Sing’s words regarding the dull carving knife, though spoken in jest, had left him feeling oddly disturbed. He immediately castigated himself for being so ridiculous.

“The, uuummmm REST of the downstairs layout I’ve left pretty much the same,” Adam raised his voice slightly so to be heard above the rest of the family’s fading laughter. “The fireplace and the living room area is over here, Pa’s study here, with the downstairs bedroom over here, on the other side of the front door, dining room here, kitchen and Hop Sing’s room back here.”

“Looks like you’ve enlarged the dining room area a little,” Joe observed thoughtfully.

“Yes, I did,” Adam replied. “We’ve . . . and I guess you STILL do . . . enjoy having people in for supper. I remember how things got a little, shall we say cozy? if we happened to invite one too many, so I thought I’d enlarge it, provide room not only for a larger table and a cabinet to hold and display the good china, but for a side board as well.”

“Great idea, Adam,” Joe said with an approving smile. “I never even thought about a sideboard. There’s one request I’D like to make, however . . . about the choice of painting we hang in the dining room.”

“Oh? What’s that, Joe?” Adam asked.

“Can we get a landscape, or maybe a garden scene? I found that one of the fruit and flowers crawling with bugs real unappetizing.”

“I’ll have you know, Young Man, THAT painting was selected by your mother,” Ben laughed.

“MY mother?! Are you kiddin’ me, Pa?”

“Nope,” Ben said, turning serious. “She always thought it was a very fine painting, and it was. Most people never noticed the bugs . . . only your mother, and YOU from the time you were three or four.” He smiled again. A wistful, nostalgic smile. “She was delighted when you picked out a few SHE’D never noticed before.”

Joe smiled. “After Stacy came to live with us, SHE showed me a couple I didn’t know were there . . . and I thought I’d pretty much found ‘em all.”

“Ok, no paintings with bug infested fruit,” Adam said, “though I just BUILD the house. I don’t FURNISH it. Now as for the upstairs, I’ve pretty much sketched things in the way they were, except for placing a larger window in Stacy’s room here . . . . ” He looked over at his sister and smiled. “All the better to see the moon, stars, and the night sky.”

“Thanks, Adam,” Stacy said, punctuating her words with a yawn. “Excuse me, it’s NOT the company . . . . ”

“Hey, Kid, if you’re ready for bed, I’ll walk behind you to see you up safely,” Joe offered.

“Not just yet. I want to see the rest of the upstairs,” Stacy said, this time, trying not to yawn.

“I’ve kept the spare rooms the same, and enlarged all of YOUR rooms, since I added room to the downstairs,” Adam said. “These other sketches were things I was playing around with, but nothing’s final by any means.”

“Say, uhhh . . . Adam . . . . ”

“Yeah, Buddy?”

“Any chance of us finally getting the back house moved indoors?” Joe asked. “This business of bundling up in the winter just to go out and . . . well, YOU know . . . . ” Two bright splotches of crimson blossomed on his cheeks and began to spread. “It’s getting kind of . . . OLD . . . and speaking of old, much as it pains me to admit this none of us are getting any younger. Those last three inches to the chamber pot are getting harder and harder all the time.”

“Well, Joe, it appears great minds think alike,” Adam said with a grin.

“You mean . . . . ?!” Joe queried, looking eager and hopeful.

“Yes,” Adam replied with a smile. “I’ve been studying the work done by the Crapper brothers in England, AND there’s an antebellum mansion in Louisiana, near Baton Rouge called Nottoway that has indoor plumbing.”

“You ain’t joshin’ with us . . . are ya, Adam?”

“No, Big Brother, I’m NOT,” Adam replied. “Furthermore, a good friend of mine happens to be well acquainted with one of the sons of the man who built Nottoway, and he was able to get me a copy of the drawings. I’ve been studying them on my way out here and I think an indoor privy just might be do able.”

“Hallelujah!” Joe and Stacy chorused together in unison.

“Water closet . . . phooey!” Hop Sing snorted derisively. “In China, back house for elderly, sick, or sissy people. When Hop Sing little boy back in China, Hop Sing go all the way to river, many, many miles, rain, shine, snow, even big hurricane. Hop Sing go many mile to river, day, night, no matter.”

“Hop Sing, you’re going to appreciate and enjoy that indoor plumbing every bit as much as the rest of us,” Ben returned, chuckling, shaking his head. “Well, Adam . . . looks like you’ve made a real fine start.”

“Thank you, Pa,” Adam said, returning his father’s smile, basking for a moment in the warmth of his praise. “I guess my next question is . . . When can I ride out to the Ponderosa? I need to see how much has been cleared, and what needs to be done.”

“You can ride out with me tomorrow mornin’ right after breakfast, if ya like,” Hoss said.

“You two mind if I tag along?” Joe asked.

“Me, too?” Stacy asked, suddenly alert and looking hopeful. “Please?”

“PRETTY please?!” Joe added, with those big, very round, very sad puppy dog eyes, and a slightly quivering lower lip.

Ben sardonically rolled his eyes heavenward. “Joseph . . . Stacy, one word,” he said sternly. “NO!”

“Awww, Pa . . . . ” Stacy protested.

“No! N-O, NO! That’s final, end of discussion!”

“Please?” Joe wheedled, trying a different track. “I’m starting to go stir crazy.”

“Joseph, YOU’RE STILL limping . . . your ankle’s too swollen to even think about wearing a pair of shoes, let alone a pair of boots, not to mention those fractured ribs,” Ben started to recite the list of Joe’s physical injuries. “Even though they’ve lessened, you’re still having occasional bouts of lightheadedness. As for YOU, Stacy, in ADDITION to that broken leg— ”

“Pa, I don’t need to stand up to ride,” Stacy argued.

“You need to be awake and alert to ride,” Ben quickly pointed out. “You’ve gotten better, but you STILL tire and fall asleep very easily.”

Joe said nothing, rather he turned and leveled the full force of that poor, sad, lonely puppy dog look against his father. Stacy followed suit. Though she ably mimicked the look, she lacked the years of experience Joe had spent in perfecting it to get just that right amount of pathos.

Ben sighed. “Alright, I’ll tell you what,” he said, unable completely to resist his younger children . . . especially Joseph Francis, when they got “that look” on their faces. “IF . . . and ONLY if the two of you behave yourselves, tomorrow morning, I’ll go to the livery stable and rent a buggy so we can all go out for a drive.”

“Thank you, Pa!” Stacy said gratefully, her eyelids drooping.

“Come on, Kid, let’s get you upstairs,” Joe said as he rose, and gingerly stretched his arms. “I’ll go up behind you. I’m kinda tired myself.”

“Adam, you wanna go over to the Silver Dollar ‘n git a couple o’ beers?” Hoss asked, as Joe and Stacy made their way toward the stairs.

“Don’t mind if I do, Big Brother, as long as we don’t stay out too late.”

“How ‘bout YOU, Pa?” Hoss asked.

Ben smiled. “Not tonight, Hoss. I’m more in the mood for sitting down with a glass of brandy, my pipe, and a good book. But you boys g’won and enjoy yourselves.”

After seeing his sister safely up the steps, to the door of her room, Joe walked back to the front of the house, to the room he had chosen for himself for the duration, and collapsed down onto the bed, bone tired and very hungry. He had graduated to a heavier liquid diet a few days ahead of schedule, with the grudging approval of Doctor Martin, that now included soups with meat and vegetables, milk, and eggnog, in addition to what he had been allowed on the clear liquid diet. But the thing he wanted most right now, in the whole wide world was a plate of fluffy yellow scrambled eggs as only Hop Sing could make them.

“Maybe if I look sad enough . . . HUNGRY enough . . . maybe Pa will let me try a taste,” Joe mused silently. This time sad and hungry wouldn’t be very much of a stretch at all. He slowly stripped off his clothing, and slipped on his nightshirt, wincing as he had to lift his arms up over his head.

Tick . . . tock . . . tick . . . tock . . . .

Joe’s eyes were drawn once more to the clock on the wall, facing his bed. The time was four minutes before ten . . . .

Tick . . . tock . . . tick . . . tock . . . .

Joe yawned once, then again, as his eyelids grew increasingly heavy. Within less than the space of a heartbeat, his eyes were fast closed. An easy silence fell over the room, broken occasionally by a bout of soft snoring.

Tick . . . tock . . . tick . . . tock . . . .

Tick . . . tock . . . tick . . . tock . . . .

Clack . . . clack . . . clack . . . clack . . . .

He saw her once again, clad in that flowered print morning dress, pacing the floor; heard again the steady rhythmic clack, clack, clacking of the soles of her shoes tapping against the floor.

“Tell me again, Little Joe,” she demanded, as she paced. She had a riding crop in one hand. With each step, she slapped it against the palm of her other hand.

Clack . . . clack . . . clack . . . clack . . . .

Tap . . . tap . . . tap . . . tap . . .

“Tell me, Little Joe.”

Clack . . . clack . . . clack . . . clack . . . .

“Tell me again . . . . ”

Tap . . . tap . . . tap . . . tap . . .

“Tell me what REALLY happened . . . . ”

Clack . . . clack . . . clack . . . clack . . . .

Tap . . . tap . . . tap . . . tap . . .

“ . . . the night of the fire.”

“No,” he whimpered. No. This can’t be . . . .

Without breaking stride, she turned her head, facing him, her unblinking eyes, meeting and holding his own. A malevolent smile slowly spread across those cotton candy pink lips.

“Tell me, Little Joe,” she said in a voice low and menacing. “Tell me AGAIN what REALLY happened . . . the night of the fire.”

Why?

Why is this happening?! I’m back now . . . back with my pa, my brothers and sister . . . and Hop Sing! WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING?

A peal of cruel laughter, soft and low, flowed from between her parted lips.

“Little Joe . . . .

DEAR, Little Joe . . . .

Dear, SILLY Little Joe . . . .

You HAVE to wake up SOMETIME.”

He stared over at her, numb with horror, eliciting another peal of cruel, mirthless laughter.

“Silly, Darling,” she laughed.

“Silly, silly Darling.

Surely you know . . . . ”

“What?” he demanded. “WHAT?! SURELY I KNOW . . . WHAT?!!”

“That THIS is what’s real, Little Joe. Being with your father and the rest of your family . . . THAT’S the dream.”

He buried his face in his hands and shook his head in vigorous denial. “No,” he moaned. “No . . . please, God, no . . . . ”

Then he remembered.

The trip with Pa to the undertaker . . . .

Seeing her laid out in a pine coffin . . . .

Laughter, harsh and mocking, as much without mirth as hers was, welled up from a place deep inside and exploded out of his mouth. She paused, breaking stride, and turned, her eyes slightly round with frightened surprise.

“You’re LYING, Lady Chadwick,” he declared triumphantly. “I AM back with my family. THIS is the dream.”

Joe?

“THIS is the dream, Lady Chadwick . . . . ”

Joe, wake up.

“This is the dream . . . . ”

Suddenly, his eyes flew open. He bolted immediately from prone to sitting, eliciting a started gasp from his sister, seated on the edge of his bed.

“Stacy?! Wh-What’re YOU doing here?” he demanded with a bewildered frown.

“I heard you yelling, Grandpa.”

Joe flashed her a triumphant grin. “Yeah,” he said. “I reckon you did.”

“You ok?” she asked anxiously.

“If I’m NOT. . . I’m well on the way,” Joe said with confidence. Then, his smile faded. “Sorry, Kid,” he said with a touch of regret. “I didn’t mean to wake ya.”

“It’s ok, Grandpa. I must’ve woken YOU up at least a hundred times screaming in the middle of the night when I first came.”

“TWO hundred, but who’s counting,” Joe quipped, unable to resist.

Stacy stuck out her tongue.

Joe gamely thumbed his nose up at her, then slowly eased himself to a sitting position. “Can you stay a little while?”

Stacy nodded. “As long as you want me to.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Three years ago, when your uncle kidnapped you . . . he . . . I remember, he beat YOU up pretty good . . . . ”

“Yeah.”

“Did he . . . did he ever tell you WHY?”

“He tried to convince me that Pa didn’t love me, that he couldn’t have cared less about me,” Stacy replied, her voice catching. “When I refused to believe him— ”

“I’m sorry, Stace, maybe . . . maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”

“ ‘S ok, Grandpa,” she said in a small voice, stunned by the intensity of emotion remembering that incident had provoked.

“I . . . what I really wanted to know is how YOU got through. How YOU refused to be convinced.”

“I think I got through the same way YOU got through, Grandpa,” she said slowly, thoughtfully. “I KNOW Pa. I KNOW that if he HAD known I was out there, he would’ve come looking for me and for Miss Paris, too.”

“Were you . . . scared?”

“Some, but I think I was more sad,” Stacy replied. “The last thing I remember before they . . . b-before they knocked me out was s-some man telling . . . telling one of his companions, I guess to . . . to f-finish off PA. Until the night h-he and M-Miss Paris came to . . . to rescues me, I . . . I thought Pa was— ” She broke off, unable to continue.

“Sorry, Kid,” Joe murmured softly.

“It’s ok, it’s just that I . . . well, I kinda feel a little silly going on like this,” Stacy said ruefully. “For a minute there, I was f-feeling like it was all happening again . . . fresh.”

Joe slipped his arms around her and held her close. Stacy slipped her arms up under his arms, as she buried her face against his shoulder for a moment. “I’m sorry, Grandpa,” she sighed dolefully, at length. “Here I come in here to try and help YOU . . . and you end up being the one t-to comfort me.”

“It’s MY fault. I should’ve realized those questions might be upsetting.”

“You didn’t know. I didn’t even know that talking about it w-was gonna hit me THIS hard,” Stacy said softly, grateful to have the youngest of her three brothers home, alive and safe. “But . . . Joe?”

“Yeah, Stace?”

“The whole time John McKenna kept me prisoner? I KNEW that you guys were out there looking for me . . . trying to find me . . . that if I couldn’t find a way to escape, you’d have found me.”

Joe remembered bursting into that room where Stacy’s uncle not only held HER prisoner, but their father as well. He saw again the rifle in John McKenna’s hands, still aimed at Pa and Stacy, even as his cohorts were busy surrendering their own weapons, giving themselves up. Had it not been for Roy Coffee’s lightening quick reflexes, then . . . .

. . . or Pa, almost two weeks ago now . . . astride Big Buck, galloping through that meadow, lying across the street from the Marlowe mansion, looking like some very angry god of vengeance, bearing down on Crippensworth . . . .

He shuddered.

“Lady Chadwick tried to tell me that Pa and the rest of you believed I was dead,” Joe said, as tears suddenly welled up in his eyes once again. “That the whole t-time I w-was gone? you . . . none of you ever spared me a . . . a moment’s thought.”

Stacy quietly slipped her arms around him once again, upon seeing one tear, then another, slip down over his eyelids and flow down onto his cheeks. “That was a nasty, vicious, cruel LIE,” she declared vehemently, her voice catching. “I was worried sick the whole time you were gone. So was Pa, Hoss, Hop Sing, and a lot of other people. They . . . they were all working hard trying to find you. I would’ve been, too, if— ”

“I know, Kid . . . I know,” Joe said hugging her closer, smiling through his tears. “Had it not been for that broken leg, you would’ve been out helping them look for me, too. I know that because I know . . . well, b-because I know YOU.”

“I’m so glad you’re back, Grandpa. I missed you.”

“I missed you, too . . . but you wanna know something?”

“What?”

“You were there with me,” Joe said, his voice filled with awe.

“What?!” Stacy looked over at him askance.

“You WERE,” Joe insisted. “All of you! You, Pa, Hoss, Hop Sing . . . even Adam! You were all there! In all my lowest moments, I’d remember all the times we were there with and for each other . . . and it got me through. Every time Lady Chadwick tried to tell me that Pa, Hoss, and you didn’t care . . . I’d remember a time, something that happened . . . that proved otherwise . . . and like you, I knew that my family would find me, if I couldn’t find a way to escape myself.”

“Just like . . . you were all there f-for me, too. Joe?”

“Yeah, Stace?”

“We’re gonna come through all this . . . and when we do? We’re gonna be stronger than ever.”

“You betcha!” Joe nodded in wholehearted agreement. “That dream I just had, with all the yelling?”

“Yeah . . . . ”

“Well, it started out as it always did . . . with me being back there again . . . with her,” Joe said with a shudder. “She kept trying to tell me that this . . . me being back here with you, Pa, Hoss, and Hop Sing was the dream . . . that I was still THERE, with her. But, this time, I remembered she was dead. When I did? I KNEW . . . beyond any doubt whatsoever, I knew THIS is real . . . and that all the times, I found myself back there with her . . . was the dream.”

Looking into his eyes, Stacy was greatly heartened to see something of the old sparkle once again.

Unbeknownst to either Joe or Stacy, another had been rudely awakened by the former’s yelling. Adam stood in the hallway, just outside the open door to his youngest brother’s room, his entire body tense, listening. His first impulse had been to rush in, shoo his sister on back to bed, then sit with Joe himself.

Yet, he had hesitated . . . .

“What I really wanted to know is how YOU got through.” Joe’s words spoken just a few moments ago, spoke again in the deep silence of his own thoughts.

“I got through the same way YOU got through, Grandpa,” came Stacy’s reply once again. “I knew that you were out looking for me . . . trying to find me . . . that if I couldn’t find a way to escape, you guys would find me.”

“You were there with me. All of you! You, Pa, Hoss, Hop Sing . . . even Adam! You were all there!”

Even Adam?

EVEN ADAM?!

Words set apart from the rest, spoken in complete astonishment.

Deep down, it rankled . . . and hurt. “Can’t say it’s entirely unexpected,” an inner voice spoke to him quietly from somewhere deep within. Though Adam loved his youngest brother, there existed a certain amount of animosity between them, subtle, yet something that ran very deep, even to this very day.

His thoughts drifted back to an encounter, two years ago, the summer he and his whole family came to visit. A minor incident, yet one that spoke volumes . . . .
“Little Brother . . . ”

He heard his own words again, with subtle, but clear emphasis on ‘Little.’

“ . . . think about it! We’re dealing with a man able and willing to inflict violence on the mother of his unborn child. If he finds out she’s HERE and comes looking . . . . ”

“Alright, Adam, I get the picture,” Joe had snapped, zeroing right in on the faint, yet unmistakably clear condescending note in his tone of voice, with all the uncanny precision of a seasoned sharp shooter.
At the time, he was referring to the husband, now long since EX-husband, of Peggy Dayton van Slyke. Dangerous, violent, completely insane.

Like Ross Marquett.

Like Kane.

Like Kane?

Adam stepped back away from the door, shocked and astonished, that he would even think of Peter Kane. What had passed between them happened many years ago, a whole lifetime ago, or so it seemed now, standing alone in this darkened hallway. It was past . . . over and done. He had never told his father or brothers about it, apart from a few cursory facts; nor had he ever told Teresa. There was no reason to tell Teresa. He had put it all behind him and moved on, without sparing so much as a backward glance.

“Oh, Brother,” he groaned softly, then vigorously shook his head, as if to physically dislodge all the strange and errant thoughts that had suddenly sprang up into his mind. “Adam Cartwright, you MUST be more exhausted than you realize.”

“Adam?”

He started violently, and turned. It was Pa, his face a veritable mask of worry and concern, stepping up along side him.

“Sorry I startled you, Son,” Ben apologized, placing a steadying, paternal hand on his eldest son’s shoulder. “You all right?”

“Just tired, Pa,” Adam flashed Ben a reassuring, if weary smile. “It’s been a long day. I think Joe had a nightmare a short while ago, but he and Stacy seem to have things well enough in hand.”

“Stacy?”

Adam nodded. “She beat me to the punch.”

Ben gave Adam’s shoulder a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “You g’won back to bed, Adam. You’ve had a long, tiring journey, and right now YOU need your rest every bit as much as your youngest brother and sister. I’ll go in and check up on ‘em.”

“In that case, goodnight, Pa.”

Ben favored his firstborn with a weary smile. “Actually, Adam, I think it’s good MORNING.”

The following day dawned clear, with not even the slightest wisp of cloud to mar the bright azure blue sky overhead. Hoss and Adam set out together right after breakfast, on Chubb and Fido, a horse rented from the livery stable, respectively, bundled against the morning chill.

“Can y’ feel it, Adam?” Hoss asked, smiling. “There’s that li’l bit o’ warmth in the air that tells me spring ain’t so far off now.”

Adam returned Hoss’ smile. “Yes, I CAN feel it, Hoss.”

Hoss closed his eyes and took a whiff. “Another month now . . . maybe a li’l more . . . things’ll be warmin’ up an’ staying warm,” he said, opening his eyes. “I reckon you’ll be puttin’ up our new house fast ‘n furious by then.”

“VERY fast and furious,” Adam agreed. “If memory serves, I believe the spring rains begin, very soon after the temperature starts staying warm. I definitely want to have the roof in place by then.”

“I guess you’ll be wantin’ t’ start hirin’ men t’ work with ya in the next couple o’ days?”

“I’d like to start hiring men TOMORROW,” Adam said firmly, “and Hoss . . . .”

“Yeah, Adam?”

“I’d appreciate your assistance. I’ve . . . well, I’ve been away for so long, I don’t know any of the people passing through anymore,” Adam said. “You’re also a very good judge of character, and I trust that.”

“I’ll be glad t’ help ya any way I can,” Hoss said by way of agreement, “and since y’ ask my advice . . . . ”

“Yes?”

“I know a man who’s lookin’ f’r work right now, who’d make a real good foreman.”

“Oh? Who?”

“You remember George Farlyn?”

“Yes, indeed I do,” Adam replied, then frowned. “I thought he was working as Clay Hansen’s foreman over at the Five Card Draw.”

“Last fall, George was tossed by one o’ the horses they were tryin’ t’ saddle break, a real ornery cuss, name o’ Diablo,” Hoss explained. “He ended up breaking BOTH his legs. He got better, his legs healed ‘n all, but he was left with a real bad limp ‘n a stiff back. Doc Martin told him if he got thrown from another bronc, he could end up in a wheel chair . . . permanent. George handed Mister Hansen his walkin’ papers right after Christmas.”

“I’m sorry to hear about George’s misfortune,” Adam said quietly. “He was one of the best horse breakers around.” He smiled. “Right up there in the same class as our baby brother. Where’s George now?”

“He ‘n his wife moved t’ town, where she’s been taking in sewin’, and he’s been doin’ odd jobs as he c’n get ‘em,” Hoss replied. “Gettin’ work’s been hard f’r George lately, with some o’ bigger silver mines closing down. Most folks’d rather hire from among the strong, able bodied miners, who’re findin’ THEMSELVES outta work.”

“I see,” Adam said slowly.

“I kinda figure he wouldn’t hafta sit a horse much, since you’d be workin’ pretty much in the same place.”

“You’re right, Hoss. George Farlyn WOULD be an excellent foreman,” Adam agreed. “You don’t foresee any problems with the men we hire following his orders?”

“Not a bit, Adam, not one bit. In fact, most folks ‘round here admire him for the way he’s kept right on goin’ without NOT givin’ up.”

“If we get back early enough this evening, we’ll go pay him a visit,” Adam decided. “If we don’t, we’ll see him tomorrow morning.”

For a time, the eldest of Ben Cartwright’s four children rode together in companionable silence.

“Hoss?”

“Yeah, Adam?”

“I noticed last night at supper and again at breakfast his morning that our little brother’s on a liquid diet,” Adam said. “Is he ill?”

“Lady Chadwick didn’t feed him,” Hoss said very quietly. “ ‘Cept for ONE time, she served him up a real fancy meal . . . spiked with poison.”

Adam could feel the blood draining right out of his face, as he turned and looked over at Hoss. “P-Poison?!” he whispered. “She . . . she actually POISONED Joe?!”

Hoss nodded.

“Hoss, please . . . don’t take this next question the wrong way, but . . . why is he still alive?”

“Doc Martin thinks he got to a place where his stomach couldn’t take regular food, ‘cause o’ Lady Chadwick not feedin’ him,” Hoss replied, his face darkening with anger. “When she served our li’l brother that big fancy meal, up it came, with most o’ the poison.”

“My God . . . . ” Adam murmured softly. The thought of how close he had come to actually losing his youngest brother left him shaken to the core.

“Joe seems t’ think she wasn’t tryin’ t’ poison him, but PA,” Hoss continued, drawing a bewildered frown from his older brother. “When Lady Chadwick served JOE that meal, she was callin’ our li’l brother by PA’S name.”

“You also said she killed Montague?”

“Yep.”

“Poison?”

Hoss nodded. “We’re pretty sure she poisoned him, too. When Pa ‘n I went t’ check on an address over in Carson City . . . an address one o’ Joe’s kidnappers’d been writing to . . . we found out the house belonged t’ Lady Chadwick.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“That would explain how she was able to accomplish so much, so quickly when she visited last,” Adam remarked in a wry tone of voice. “How long ago did she buy that house?”

“It was given her as a belated weddin’ gift from Lord Chadwick,” Hoss replied with a shudder. “Pa figured he must’ve bought it for her ‘way back when Mama was still alive . . . ‘n Joe was a wee tyke, not much more ‘n a baby.”

“You’re kidding! THAT long?!”

“Gives me the willies just thinkin’ about it.”

“Gives ME the willies just thinking about it, too,” Adam said soberly.

“Anyway,” Hoss continued, “when Pa ‘n me went t’ check out that house, I found a decanter ‘bout half full o’ brandy on the buffet on the dinin’ room. I thought it had gone bad, ‘cause when I took off the top ‘n smelled it? It smelled like rotten almonds. The smell was real strong, too. I found out later that brandy had some kinda poison in it . . . I can’t remember what kind now.”

“Cyanide smells like bitter almonds,” Adam said.

“Cyanide,” Hoss murmured softly. “That’s it. Sheriff Coffee said the sheriff over in Carson City thinks she used THAT to do in Montague.”

“All I can say is . . . thank the Good Lord she turned Pa down when he asked her to marry him,” Adam said softly, shaking his head.

“Amen t’ that.”

“So Joe’s on a liquid diet now to get his stomach used to taking in food again,” Adam said, coming back to the initial subject of their conversation

“Yeah.” An amused smile tugged at the corner of Hoss’ mouth. “He was s’posed t’ be on a CLEAR liquid diet f’r the rest o’ this week, but somehow talked Doc Martin into lettin’ him have stuff like soup, ‘n eggnog three days ‘fore he was supposed to. Poor li’l fella! I could tell he wanted a taste o’ them scrambled eggs we had f’r breakfast this mornin’ real bad.”

“It was all poor Pa could do NOT to give in, especially when he looked up with that sad puppy dog look on his face,” Adam said. “Maybe after he’s able to eat solid food again, he won’t be so picky at the table.”

“Maybe not,” Hoss agreed as they rounded the corner of the barn and rode into the yard.

Adam was stunned to find what remained of the house lying in ruins, except for the massive fireplace that had dominated the entire back wall of the great room and the equally imposing stone chimney that rose from it.

“The stuff that came through the fire’s in the back o’ the barn, in a couple o’ the empty stalls,” Hoss explained. “Most of it’s stuff outta the kitchen ‘n some o’ Hop Sing’s things. That was the only part o’ the house left standin’ when the roof fell.”

“Did . . . did any of OUR things survive?”

“That big, red leather chair that once belonged t’ Mama,” Hoss replied, “an’ the horns Pa kept over the fireplace. The chair needs t’ be upholstered, ‘n the horns need cleanin’, but they came through. Joe saved the pictures on the end table . . . the ones of our mothers, of Cousin Will ‘n Uncle John, yours ‘n Teresa’s weddin’ picture, an’ that picture we had taken o’ all of us a couple o’ years ago when you, Teresa ‘n the kids came t’ visit.

“There were a few other odds ‘n ends,” Hoss continued. “Stacy’s jewelry box ‘n medicine bag, the Virgin Mary statue that belonged t’ Mama, the safe, which was fire proof anyway, and the map that used t’ hang on t’ wall behind Pa’s desk . . . . bits ‘n pieces of it anyway. Hop Sing’s pa, Hop LING’S got the pieces with HIM. He’s been workin’ on puttin’ what’s left back t’gether. The daughter o’ one of his friends is in artist . . . real good, too, I’ve seen her work. She’s gonna paint another map, from the pieces. Hop Sing ‘n me are gonna give it to Pa f’r his birthday.”

“He’ll like that,” Adam said, as they dismounted and lead their horses toward the barn. “Was there . . . was there anything else?”

“Not much,” Hoss said. “ ‘Course the important thing is WE got out, a li’l worse f’r wear, maybe, but we all got out.”

Adam nodded.

“Tell ya what, Older Brother. I’ll g’won ahead ‘n stable our horses, while you take a look at the house,” Hoss continued. “We were able t’ salvage pieces that can be used for buildin’ material, if you’re of a mind. Candy ‘n Hank got it all stacked up in the loft.”

“Thanks,” Adam said, his voice a hallow monotone.

As he made his way across the yard toward what remained of the house, memories rose within his mind, one after the other . . . .
“This is our first Christmas together as a family.”

Adam could hear Marie’s voice again echoing in the recesses of his own thoughts and memories. He could see her face again, too, gently illumined by the joy and happiness welling up inside.

“I ordered this special to mark the occasion.”

She held a small box in her hands, a parcel he, his father, and Hoss had picked up at the post office in town. Inside the box, lying amid a mountain of tissue paper and packing material, was an angel, with dark hair and a fine bone china head with painted face. She wore a white lace gown and had gold paper wings . . . .
The lace patterns in the angel’s gown shifted, and filled in with color, transforming them from empty space to tiny pieces of material, all different sizes, shapes, and textures, each with its own story to tell. Every last one of those pieces, culled from rags that had once been clothing, had been lovingly hand sewn together by Inger’s mother to form a memory quilt.

“See these pieces of satin and lace, Adam? They were part of my mother’s wedding gown,” Inger, her eyes the same sky blue as those of her son, Eric Hoss, had grown misty with her remembrance of loved ones. “These soft blue ones came from your uncle, Gunnar’s baby blanket.”

“Where did THESE come from, Mama?” Adam asked, his small fingers darting over the surface of the quilt, touching the bright red pieces of cloth.

“These came from my papa’s favorite red shirt.”

“Mama?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“What was your papa like?”

“He was a big man, Adam, a very big man,” she replied, “with a big chest, and wide waist . . . very much like a great big beer keg. His arms and legs were big, too, bigger than most tree trunks. He had reddish hair, and blue eyes, same as mine.”

“Was he strong?”

“Ja, VERY strong . . . but, very gentle, too. He had such a kind heart, Adam, such a very good and kind heart that was as big as all out doors . . . . ”
Adam smiled.

Inger had no idea then that she also described the son she carried inside her, to whom she would very soon give birth. In the years following Inger’s sudden, tragic demise, he had dutifully taken it upon himself to tell Hoss all of the stories lovingly sewn into that quilt. Many was the night, before Marie came, that he sat next to Hoss on his bed, with Inger’s memory quilt spread over both of their laps, telling and retelling his brother all the stories Inger had told him. Those stories had kept Inger’s memory fresh and alive for him, a beacon of light when he, his father, and brother, Hoss laid claim to the very first parcel of land that would someday become the Ponderosa . . . and the dark hole left in the wake of Inger’s parting was very keenly felt. Adam fervently hoped that he had given something of Inger to Hoss, as well.

Inger’s memory quilt had lain on Hoss’ bed from the time he was very young, until, very probably the night of the fire. The thought of that lovely, colorful quilt, the tangible remains of Inger’s loved ones and their stories, reduced now to ash and cinder saddened him immensely.

As he approached the place where the house stood, where some of its charred, blackened pieces yet remained, Adam shook his head to clear away the obscuring mists of memory, of things past, that he might focus on the task at hand. He carefully mounted two of the remaining steps, leading up to what was once the porch. Most of the boards there had actually escaped burning. The wood supports that had once held up the porch roof also remained in place, their top ends lightly singed, thrusting skyward, vaguely reminiscent of an animal corpse’s ribs, left behind after carrion birds and insects had stripped away the meat and organs.

Adam paused a moment to check those stark posts, test them for strength and stability and found them all sound. As he carefully picked his way across the porch, he cast a critical eye over what remained, estimating that a third to half of the debris had already been cleared away. He stepped over where the threshold of the front door had been, impelled by force of many years’ habit, duly noting that the floor boards had remained largely intact. They would have to be pulled up so that he might inspect the foundation beneath, but, from all appearances they could be laid down again to form the floor of the new great room.

He moved across the floor slowly, shoving the occasional large piece of wood or broken plaster aside with his booted foot, until he found himself standing before the immense fireplace that had wholly dominated the area designated as living room. Looking up, he noted the jagged, uneven line of chimney top against the bright blue sky.

“The chimney was, in all likelihood, damaged when the roof collapsed,” Adam mused aloud, as he moved back toward the fireplace. There, he crawled inside pushing against the stones with all his strength. “The fireplace seems solid enough . . . . ”
“PA!” The voice of Little Joe, aged six, frantically rang out, bouncing off the wall and echoing throughout the house. “PA! ADAM! HOP SING!”

The three of them bolted toward the living room from three different directions, Pa from his desk, Hop Sing from the kitchen, and himself from the master bedroom downstairs, where he had often retreated to do his school work. They nearly converged in a frantic, head on collision right there in front of the fireplace. In the space of less than a single heartbeat, they came to the realization that young Joseph Francis was nowhere to be seen.

“Joe?” Ben called the name of his youngest son, as he glanced around in complete bewilderment. “Joe, where are you?”

“PA! YOU GOTTA COME QUICK!”

Hop Sing, with feet planted solidly on the floor, space shoulder width apart, and hands firmly on hips, looked upward. “WHERE LITTLE JOE?” he demanded with an indignant scowl. “WHERE LITTLE BOY GO?”

Adam smiled, upon remembering it was he, himself who found Little Joe, inside the fireplace, half way up the chimney.

“Hey, Buddy . . . what’re you doing up there?”

“Where?” Ben demanded, annoyed and concerned.

“Up here, Pa.”

Ben unceremoniously moved his eldest son aside and thrust his own head into the fireplace. “Joseph Francis Cartwright, WHAT are you doing up there?”

“I wanted to make sure our chimney’s big enough for Santa Claus to get down, Pa,” the boy wailed, “and it AIN’T . . . . ”
Images, pictures of other Christmas Eves began to surface, rising like tendrils of smoke from the remnants of a dying campfire, or of sweet incense left in offering to Mnemosyne, Goddess of Memory, according to the Greek myths he loved so well.

Himself and Hoss, seated together in the big blue chair before a roaring fire, soon after the downstairs portion of the house had been built. He and Pa squeezed into the chair, side-by-side, with Hoss curled up on Pa’s lap. Pa had one arm around him, the other around his brother, while yet holding the book sent by Pa’s brother, Uncle Aaron, titled The Night Before Christmas.

A year later, Marie had joined them, and Little Joe another year after that. The blue chair had been relegated to a corner, it’s place usurped by a brand new settee, just wide enough to accommodate them all. At Marie’s insistence, Ben had started to read the Christmas story, as had been set down in the Gospel According to Luke, along with Clement C. Moore’s poem about Santa’s visit.

Adam remembered many of the quiet evenings he, his father, and brothers spent by the fireplace with a roaring fire. Joe and Hoss, more often than not, indulged themselves in game after game of checkers, with the former taking outrageous creative liberties with the rules of the game, while he and Pa quietly read. Sometimes, he would fetch his guitar down from his room, and regale his family with new songs. Joe often joined in, as did Hoss, LESS often . . . fortunately.
Then, memories of another day surfaced, bringing with them darker images, filled with tragedy and grief.
He heard again the thunder of hooves, announcing the return of his stepmother, Marie, and Clover, that new, high spirited mare Pa had given her for her birthday a scant week before. She had spent most of the morning working with the mare out in the corral, as had become her custom since receiving Clover. Afterwards, she had climbed on the skittish mare’s back and taken her for a brisk ride. Now, Marie was heading into the yard, riding her horse ‘way too fast, as usual.
“Same as Joe STILL does, I’m sure,” Adam silently remembered . . . .
Pa slammed his pencil down onto the desk alongside the open ledger, and bolted right out of his chair with a thunderous scowl on his face. He strode briskly toward the door, with Adam trotting close behind. Pa stormed out onto the porch, his mouth open, ready to read his beautiful, headstrong wife the proverbial riot act for galloping that horse into the yard so fast. The words sitting at the very tip of his father’s tongue died before he could give them utterance, upon seeing Clover’s leg sink down into a very deep chuckhole.

The gut wrenching crack of poor Clover’s leg shattering, the result of her leg coming to a sudden stop while the rest of her surged forward, reverberated once again in Adam’s ears. Marie tumbled from the saddle, striking the ground with a dull, sickening thud. Before she had a chance to move, to think, or even scream, Clover had collapsed on top her, killing her instantly. The only thing he and his father could so was stand by helplessly and watch.

Micah Everett, who at the time was the Ponderosa’s senior foreman, entered the yard in the company of his grand nephew, Hank Carlson, and a half dozen other hands when the accident occurred. He immediately took charge of the situation upon catching sight of his employer and good friend, standing on the porch, unmoving, his body stiff, his face pale.

“Hank!” Micah snapped, as he half climbed, half jumped down out of his saddle. “You g’won into town ‘n fetch back the doc.” he ordered, his face set with grim, almost angry determination.

Hank wheeled his horse around, without question, without a word, and rode out of the yard, as fast as he dared.

“Adam!”

The sound of Micah’s voice, cracking like a whip, rudely jarred him from the stupor into which he seemed to have fallen. “H-Hunh?!” he grunted.

“Get your pa back into the house, Boy,” Micah ordered, “ ‘n see to it your brothers are kept occupied for the next hour or so.”

“Y-Yes, Sir,” Adam barely managed to stammer. He took firm hold of Pa’s forearm and steering him back toward the front door, still standing wide open. Pa moved, automatically placing one foot in front of the other, offering not even the slightest resistance.

The sound of Micah’s rifle releasing poor Clover from her suffering, brought Joe, then aged five, screaming from his room upstairs. Hoss, nearly six years older, followed close at his younger brother’s heels, his face nearly white as a sheet, his blue eyes round as saucers.

“Hoss! Take Pa over there, to the settee,” he said harshly, with tears streaming down his face, before tearing across the room after Joe, who at that moment was barreling headlong toward the open front door, fast as his little legs could carry him.

Hours later . . . after the doctor had come and gone, after Marie’s body had been whisked off to the undertaker in the Everetts’ buckboard, gently bundled up in a white shawl belonging to Micah’s wife, Jenny . . . and the younger boys put to bed with an herbal tea to help them sleep, courtesy of Hop Sing . . . Adam, all of seventeen years old, swallowed nervously, and walked over to the settee, taking up position next to his stunned, grief stricken father.

“Pa,” he said softly, laying his hand on his father’s shoulder, “don’t you think you’d better come up to bed? It’ll be light, soon.”

Pa looked up, his face haggard, his eyes and cheeks wet from tears, copiously shed.

Adam felt the sudden acrid stinging of tears in his own eyes as he sat down on the settee next to his father. “I . . . I can’t sleep either, P-Pa,” he sobbed, laying his hand on top of Pa’s, resting on his thigh.

Pa’s hand moved out from under Adam’s. Less than a second later, the arm was around Adam’s shoulders. He slid across the settee, until his thigh and hip touched his father’s, and together they wept for Marie, as equals, as peers rather than as father and son . . . .
“Adam, NO! You can’t leave . . . not like THIS.”
It was his father’s voice, several years after he had returned home from attending college. It was the night Adam left the Ponderosa . . . and home, for good. Pa’s bewilderment, hurt, and anger came through loud and clear, but there was something else. Something Adam had never heard before, perhaps something only the passage of time and his own parenthood could have revealed. It was deep concern, subtle, yet all pervading.

He heard his own exasperated sigh explode from between his own lips, slightly parted. “Pa, we’ve been over this and over this— ”

“This is so sudden!”

“Aww for—!! Come ON, Pa! It’s not as if I haven’t talked of leaving before for crying out loud . . . . ”

“Not like THIS, Son, NEVER like this.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY NOT LIKE THIS, PA? YOU MEAN BECAUSE ALL THOSE OTHER TIMES, YOU TALKED ME OUT OF IT?!” Adam shouted as his mounting frustration and anger reached explosion point.

“I MEANT NOTHING OF THE KIND, AND YOU KNOW IT!” Pa shouted back, without missing a beat. He, then, took a deep breath and counted to ten. Adam could see his lips move as he silently counted. Pa opened his eyes and took another deep breath. “Adam— ” he entreated in a calmer tone of voice.

“No.”

“Would you please hear me out before you answer?” Though pleading, Pa’s tone nonetheless held a strident note of asperity.

“Pa, my mind is made up,” Adam said through clenched teeth. “I’m leaving. That’s it . . . final. End of discussion.”

“One question. Just answer me this one question.”

“WHAT?”

“Was your decision to leave was prompted by what Randy Paine said?”

Pa’s question took him completely by surprise. For a moment, he felt as if he had just been slugged hard right smack dab in the middle of his solar plexus. “NO!” he shot right back, too angry, too quick.

“Adam, we’ll talk more about this in the morning,” Pa said. “Right now, we’re tired, it HAS been a long, arduous day, after all, and both of us are upset.”

“Pa— ”

His father held up his hand, commanding silence. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll be well rested and in a calmer frame of mind. We’ll talk then.”

He and Pa never had that talk. That night, he had resolutely lain on top of his bed, wide awake, until he was absolutely certain his father had gone to sleep. He, then, rose, and silently crammed his drafting tools, his toiletries, undergarments, and a few shirts into an old carpet bag that had supposedly belonged to his mother. After scrawling his father and younger brothers a hasty note, he left, in the dead of night, without saying good-bye . . . .
The screech of a catbird, perched atop the chimney, rudely jarred Adam’s thoughts back to present time and place.

“So many memories,” he murmured softly, “so long ago . . . a whole lifetime ago, so it seems . . . . ”

He realized, suddenly, with a sharp pang, that the place containing all those memories, the house he had designed, helped build, and once called home, was gone. Soon, after all that remained was cleared, it would be as if that house had never been. Though he would plan, design, and oversee the building of the new house, he would never live in it . . . never call it home.

The tears that suddenly stung his eyes, shocked and surprised him.

“Adam, I— ”

He turned. It was Hoss, standing behind him, to the right. He had been so absorbed by pictures, by memories of people and events long past, he had never even heard his younger brother approach.

An anxious frown marred Hoss’ brow upon catching the tell-tale brightness in Adam’s dark brown eyes and the wetness on his cheeks. “Adam, are you alright?” he asked, surprise mingling with concern.

“Fine,” Adam said curtly, turning away.

“It’s alright, Adam,” Hoss said quietly. “After . . . after the rain put out the fire, ‘n everyone had gone . . . leavin’ me by myself . . . I went in the barn ‘n sat down on that stool next t’ Chubb’s stall and bawled like a new born baby . . . I dunno, f’r a good long time anyway . . . . ”

“Hoss, I’m alright!” Adam snarled through clenched teeth, immediately regretting his angry outburst upon catching sight of the hurt, bewildered look on his younger, bigger brother’s face. “Sorry,” he murmured contritely, filled with remorse.

“ ‘S ok.”

“Hoss, really . . . I-I honestly don’t know what got into me just now, but I didn’t mean to snap at you like that . . . . ”

“ ‘S ok, Adam, let’s just forget it, alright?” Hoss said.

“Alright.”

“Anything more y’ need to check on?”

“Yeah. I’d like to go around to the side and check the outside walls of the kitchen and Hop Sing’s room to see how structurally sound or UNsound they may be,” Adam replied.

“While YOU do that, I’m gonna check on our horses ‘n git Sport II saddled,” Hoss said. “We’ll take him back t’ town for YOU, ‘n return Fido to the livery stable. If ya need me for anything, I’ll either be in the barn or out in the corral.”

“Alright, Hoss. I shouldn’t be much longer.”

“Three letters . . . first class postage . . . . that’ll be six cents total, Mister Cartwright,” the postal clerk, a young man by the name of Cory Baker said in a brisk, business like tone.

Ben dug into his pocket and pulled out the exact change.

“Thank you, Sir,” Cory murmured politely, as he accepted the money and placed it in the till. “I’ll be right back with your mail.”

“Good morning, Ben.”

The Cartwright clan patriarch turned, and smiled upon seeing Paul Martin stepping behind him. “Good morning, Paul.”

“I see you have Joe and Stacy along for the ride,” the doctor observed.

“I know . . . they probably should be home, sitting down, with their feet propped up, but they’re going stir-crazy,” Ben said defensively, “so I decided to bring them along while I run my errands. I figure I can keep a better eye on ‘em THIS way.”

Paul smiled. “I WAS going to say that getting them out for a little fresh air AND a change in scenery would probably do them a world of GOOD,” he said.

“You know how those two are about jumping the gun on doctor’s orders.”

“I do indeed,” Paul chuckled, then sobered. “How ARE they doing, Ben?”

“Stacy still tires easily, but she’s doing better,” Ben replied, “and poor Joe’s hungry as a bear all the time, though he’s doing well on his present diet.”

“Everything staying down?”

“Yes, Paul, everything’s staying down. He wanted to try a plate of scrambled eggs this morning . . . it was all I could do to tell him no with that hungry, whipped puppy dog look on his face.”

Paul Martin laughed out loud. “Tell you what, Ben,” he said, as his laughter subsided. “If Joe continues to keep everything down over the next couple of days, let him go ahead and try the eggs.”

Ben smiled. “He’ll be very glad to hear that.”

“How’s Joe doing otherwise?”

“I thought he was having a doozy of a nightmare last night, from the way he way yelling,” Ben said quietly. “Stacy reached him first. By the time I got there, he two of ‘em had pretty much talked things out. But, Joe told me the dream was different this time.”

“Oh? Did he say HOW it was different?”

“Always before, he woke up frightened, not knowing where he was, not knowing what was real, but last night, he told Stacy and me that while dreaming . . . he realized Lady Chadwick was dead and he told her so,” Ben said.

“He told Lady Chadwick this . . . in the dream?”

Ben nodded. “When I sat down with the two of ‘em . . . for the first time, I didn’t see fear in Joe’s eyes . . . I saw victory.”

“I’m no expert in dream analysis, Ben,” Paul said, “but, from the sound of things . . . it would seem Joe’s taken a significant turn mentally and emotionally . . . for the better.”

“I’m glad to have conformation that Joe’s doing better, because . . . between you and me? I’m a wreck.” Ben briefly told Paul about Joe’s insistence on seeing Lady Chadwick dead, of him giving Roy Coffee his deposition, and of his confronting Gerald Crippensworth. “I . . . tried to talk him out of it, Paul, but . . . you know how stubborn he can be.”

“I can only imagine how hard it must have been for you to go through all that with him, but I’m glad you DIDN’T talk him out of it,” Paul said earnestly. “It’s a gut feeling on my part, Ben, but for what it’s worth . . . Joe spent the better part of a week, rendered completely helpless, unable to do or fend for himself in any way. Now that he’s home, he’s STILL unable to completely fend for himself because of his physical injuries. Making the decisions to see Lady Chadwick dead, confront Mister Crippensworth, and give his deposition to Roy . . . then following through on them gave him back a measure of control over his own life.”

“I DID let him know how proud I was of him, even though I was scared to death,” Ben said very quietly.

“That in and of itself will probably do Joe more good than the best medical science has to offer,” Paul said. “Has he been able to talk about his ordeal at all?”

“Some,” Ben replied, nodding his head. “The night we moved into the Fletchers’ house, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I decided to go downstairs and have a glass of brandy, hoping that would help me back to sleep. When I went downstairs, I found Joe sitting on the settee. I sat down with him, and we talked . . . which brings me to something that . . . well, it . . . kinda upsets me.”

“What is it, Ben?”

“When Joe and I talked? He asked me about that time I was abducted, and my kidnappers demanded that my boys pay a hundred thousand dollars ransom . . . specifically what did I do the whole time I was being held captive,” Ben replied. An anxious frown deepened the lines of his brow. “He and I talked about it. Then, last night, Adam told me that Joe asked Stacy the same thing . . . what did SHE do the time she was kidnapped and held prisoner by Paris’ deranged brother. I just hope this isn’t going to turn into something unhealthy.”

“I can see how there might be similarities between what happened to the three of you,” Paul said thoughtfully. “Joe knows that you and Stacy came through your own ordeals with flying colors. Discovering HOW you two made it through, or finding out he employed the same or similar means himself could be a very real, very powerful source of hope and healing.”

“You think so, Paul?”

“As I said before, I’m no expert when it comes to treating mental or emotional traumas, but for what’s it’s worth . . . THAT’S my opinion,” Paul replied. “I also think that the most important thing now is that Joe doesn’t keep it bottled up inside. Giving Roy his deposition, comparing notes with you and Stacy . . . all that keeps what happened out here, where he can see it, acknowledge it, and ultimately work it through.” He smiled. “I don’t have many worries about Joe on that score, given the way he generally wears his feelings on his sleeve, as it were.”

Ben nodded in agreement. “This is true. Most of the time Joe’s pretty straight forward about what he’s thinking and feeling.”

“I’d be a lot more worried if something like this had happened to someone, oh . . . like Adam, your oldest,” Paul continued, “given his natural stoic reserve, the way he’s always kept a tight lid on his feelings . . . . ”

The doctor’s words stirred an odd, nebulous foreboding within Ben. “Adam’s mellowed quite a bit over the years, Paul, especially since his marriage and the birth of his own two children,” he said, feeling oddly on the defensive.

“Marriage and fatherhood’s certainly been the mellowing of many a man,” Paul agreed, “as you and I can ably attest. How’s he doing these days, Ben? Adam, I mean.”

“Very well. He’s here, you know.”

“Oh? I thought I had heard Hoss talk about having sent for him . . . . ”

“Adam arrived on the stage late yesterday afternoon,” Ben said. “He’s going to oversee the rebuilding of the new house. He and Hoss went out to the Ponderosa this morning, so he could look around and get an idea as to what needs to be done.”

“I’m glad Adam was able to come and give you a hand. I know between having BOTH of your younger children convalescing and keeping on top of the Ponderosa, you and Hoss must have your hands pretty full. Please give Adam my regards, Ben.”

“I will, Paul . . . . ”

“Hey, Pa, it took ya long enough in the post office,” Joe quipped with a grin.

“Yeah,” Stacy voiced her own whole hearted agreement, with a smile. “I’ve NEVER taken that long to pick up the mail, not even when Jason O’Brien used to work there . . . before he went back to school.”

“Speaking of Jason, Young Woman, I have three letters from him, all addressed to YOU,” Ben said as he placed the three envelopes into his daughter’s outstretched hands.

“You remembered to mail the letter I wrote him last night?” Stacy asked, looking anxious.

“Yes, I did,” Ben replied with a smile.

“So, Little Sister, what does ol’ Jason have to say?” Joe asked, making a big point of looking over her shoulder as she tore open the first envelope.

“Grandpa, if you DON’T mind, I’d like to read my PRIVATE mail WITHOUT an audience,” she growled back, in mock outrage.

Joe laughed and stuck out his tongue.

Stacy immediately returned the gesture.

“All right now, CHILDREN, we’re out on a public street,” Ben admonished both gently. “S-Settle down.”

“Pa?” Joe queried, as he and Stacy both turned, hearing the catch in their father’s voice. “You ok?”

Ben smiled over at his youngest son and only daughter, his eyes blinking more than the norm. “I’m fine,” he hastened to assure them. “I . . . I never quite realized until now how m-much I enjoy watching the pair of you tease each other.”

“Oh, Pa . . . I don’t care if we ARE out on a public street . . . . ” With that, Stacy reached over and gave Ben and affectionate hug.

Ben put one arm around Stacy, then reached out to Joe with the other, and held them both very close for a moment.

“You SURE you’re all right, Pa?” Joe asked.

Ben nodded. “I guess the magnitude of . . . of everything that’s happened is starting to catch up with me,” he said as he gave them both an affectionate squeeze, then let them go. “We’d best get on to the general store.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Joe?”

“If Stacy and I are really good while you’re in the store . . . would you buy us some candy?” Joe asked, his eyes twinkling with impish merriment.

“Please, Pa?” Stacy begged. Though she tried her best to look the part of the poor deprived waif, the amused smile tugging hard at the corner of her mouth completely derailed her efforts.

Ben smiled at his daughter first, then over at his youngest son. “Alright, but the two of you have to be on your very best behavior,” he said in the solemn tone he had used to admonish and exhort when they were much younger, “and NO candy before supper. If you two spoil your appetites, Hop Sing will have all of our heads.”

Joe looked over at his sister, and dissolved into a fit of giggling the minute they made eye-contact. Within less than a heartbeat, Stacy found herself laughing along with him. Ben joined them a moment later, caught up in the contagion of his younger children’s merriment.

“I only wish I COULD have a piece of candy,” Joe sighed, as their laughter subsided.

“I see no reason why you couldn’t suck on a peppermint stick,” Ben said slowly.

“Really, Pa?” Joe’s face brightened at the prospect.

Ben nodded. “You’ll also be pleased to know Doctor Martin told me, while we were in the post office just now, that if you continue to keep down what you’re eating now for the next couple of days, you can try a plate of Hop Sing’s scrambled eggs.”

“Ummmm UM!” Joe hungrily licked his lips. “I never dreamed I’d EVER see the day when a plate full of scrambled eggs would look so good.”

The three settled into companionable silence as their buggy continued down the street. The warm, afternoon sun on his face, and the rhythmic clip, clop, clip, clop of horse hooves against the packed dirt road lulled Joe into that place mid-way between wakefulness and sleeping. He settled himself comfortably against the seat, with eyelids half closed, vaguely aware of people, of other horses, other conveyances moving all around him.

“JOE! JOE CARTWRIGHT!”

He turned his head upon hearing his name, and saw Sallie Devlin, the wife of Mitch, one of his oldest friends standing next to the hitching post on the street smiling and waving. Joe waved back, thinking at first how pretty she looked with that bright smile, wearing that white dress with blue flowers.

Clip, clop, clip, clop, clip, clop . . . .

He saw again that white morning dress with blue flowers, but it wasn’t Sally Devlin wearing it. This woman was older, much older, closer to his pa in age.

Clip, clop, clip, clop, clip, clop . . . .

Clack . . . clack . . . clack . . . clack . . . .

A woman’s shoes striking against the boards of a hard wood floor, each step measured, beating out an even cadence. Clack , clack, clack, clack, clack, keeping time with the clip-clopping of the horses’ hooves.

“Tell me, Little Joe.

Tell me again what happened . . .

. . . what REALLY happened . . .

. . . the night of the fire.”

Joe screamed.

“Joe? You alright?”

He turned and found his father and sister looking at him, their faces nearly identical masks of worry and concern.

“Joe?” his father queried again, peering anxiously into his face.

“I . . . I’m ok, Pa . . . I-I guess . . . . ” Joe murmured, feeling horribly disoriented.

“What happened, Grandpa?” Stacy prodded gently.

“I . . . I dunno . . . . ” Had he been dreaming? He had been drowsing, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember having actually fallen asleep. It seemed like he was in the buggy with his father and sister one minute, back there with her the next, then suddenly back here again.

“We’ve been out and about for quite a little while,” Ben said gently. “I’ll stop by the general store and leave this list with Amelia. I’ll ask her to fill it and have Virgil to deliver it later.”

“Do Stacy and I still get our peppermint sticks?” Joe asked. His levity seemed forced and the smile never quite reached his eyes.

“Of course, Joe,” Ben replied with a wan smile. “You and your sister have been very good today. You’ll get your peppermint sticks.”

“Pa, I think I WILL g’won upstairs ‘n lie down for awhile,” Joe said in a hallow voice, as Ben pulled the buggy up in front of the Fletchers’ house.

Ben noted his youngest son’s glazed over eyes, staring, wholly unfocused, with concern. “Alright, Son. Think you can manage to hold the horses long enough for me to help Stacy down, and— ”

“ ‘S ok, Pa, I got Li’l Sister.” It was Hoss. He lifted Stacy out of the buggy, crutches and all, in one easy swoop. “Why don’t you git Li’l Brother in the house, ‘n see him on upstairs? I’ll take the buggy ‘n horses back once I git Stacy settled.”

Ben nodded. “You and Adam are back already?”

“Yep. Adam’s seen what he needed to,” Hoss replied, as he started up the walk with Stacy gently cradled in his arms.

“Where’s Adam now?” Ben asked.

“He’s gone over t’ see George Farlyn,” Hoss replied. “I told Adam I thought he’d make a good foreman.”

“Yes, he would,” Ben agreed. “I’m glad you thought of him.”

“Hoss?”

“Yeah, Li’l Sister?”

“My letters from Jason. I don’t have them,” Stacy said. “I . . . I must’ve left them in the buggy.”

“I’VE got ‘em, Stacy,” Ben said, “along with the other mail.”

“Thanks, Pa,” she murmured, as her head dropped down heavily on Hoss’ shoulder.

“Tell ya what, Li’l Sister?” Hoss said gamely as he carried Stacy up the side walk and into the house. “I’ll get you settled on the settee, ‘n while you’re reading the letters y’ got from Jason, maybe Hop Sing’ll brew up a cup o’ that peppermint tea, and— ”

“Hoss . . . . ”

“What is it, Pa?”

“I think you’d better just take her on up to her room,” Ben whispered. “She’s sound asleep.”

After Hoss had placed his somnolent sister down on her bed, Ben placed the three letters she had received from Jason on her night table, then gently covered her with the quilt lying neatly folded across the foot of her bed. He, then, moved her crutches from the corner by the door, where Hoss had left them, to a place within easy reach, before quietly tip-toeing out of the room. Satisfied that Stacy was adequately settled, Ben walked down the hall to Joe’s room, and softly knocked on the fast closed door.

“Who is it?” a weary voice called out from within.

“It’s Pa, Son. May I come in?”

“If you want.”

Ben quietly opened the door and stepped inside. He found his youngest son stretched out on top of the bed, with his injured foot propped up on a pair of extra pillows taken from the linen closet.

“You’re checking up on me, aren’t you?” Joe asked, his question sounding more like a resentful accusation.

“As a matter of fact . . . yes. I am,” Ben readily admitted. “Pa’s prerogative.”

A wry smile spread slowly across Joe’s lips. “I know. I’ll understand it a lot better when I have kids of my own someday.”

“Well I’m glad you’ve listened to SOMETHING I’ve been tellin’ ya over the years,” Ben teased, as he carefully settled himself on the edge of Joe’s bed. His smile quickly faded. “Seriously, Son. ARE you all right?”

“I . . . thought I was, Pa,” Joe said slowly. “After that dream last night, when I told Lady Chadwick she was dead . . . therefore my being with her wasn’t real . . . I’d kinda thought I was over and done with her.”

“It may take a little while for the dreams to stop altogether . . . as Adam and Stacy can tell you.”

Joe looked over at his father, bewildered and perplexed. “Adam?!”

Ben nodded. “For a time, right after Inger died, Adam kept having a recurring nightmare night after night, in which either Hoss and I were killed along with Inger . . . or we’d gone off and forgotten him.”

“Really? I had no idea.”

“It WAS a long time ago,” Ben said. “Adam couldn’t have been any more than six or seven. He finally had a turning point a month or two after he started having the dreams. After that, the dreams continued for a little while longer, but they weren’t quite as frightening.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Joe?”

“What happened to me today . . . it scared me! It scared me a lot more than even the worst nightmare I’ve ever had . . . partly because I wasn’t asleep,” Joe said, his voice shaking.

“You looked as though you were drowsing.”

“I was . . . a little, but I wasn’t asleep, Pa. I KNOW I wasn’t.”

“What . . . exactly . . . happened, Son?”

“Sallie Devlin called out to me,” Joe replied, suddenly grateful for his father’s presence. “She was wearing this dress, white with flowers on it. I remember thinking how pretty her dress was . . . then I found myself thinking about how much it looked like the dress Lady Chadwick wore, when I . . . when I first woke up and found myself tied down to a bed in her guest room. By the time I turned to wave at Sallie? She had turned into Lady Chadwick, and suddenly . . . I was back THERE again. It was only for a minute, but I . . . Pa, just thinking about it’s giving me goose bumps.”

Not knowing what else to do or say, Ben quietly reached out and covered Joe’s trembling hand with his own.

“It’s not the first time it’s happened either.”

“Oh?”

“Yesterday, just before Hoss arrived with Adam, was the first time,” Joe said. “I dunno . . . it was something about the hands on that wall clock there . . . . ” He pointed. “ . . . or maybe it was the way the sun hit it, but . . . all of a sudden . . . I was back there again . . . with her. Pa, I’m so afraid I’m . . . I’m going crazy.”

“These kinds of . . . of waking dreams . . . visions . . . sometimes they happen to men and women who have gone through a harrowing ordeal very much like the one YOU’VE gone through,” Ben said quietly, hoping to reassure. “Eventually, they pass.”

“What if they DON’T pass?” Joe demanded. “All I can think of right now is that friend of yours . . . he was sheriff over in Concho for many years before he . . . before he all of a sudden just . . . snapped.”

“Paul Rowan DIDN’T just all of a sudden snap,” Ben said with a touch of sadness. “What happened to him was something that had been building and festering inside him for a number of years . . . and the REASON all that festered inside him was he kept everything bottled up. He never told his wife what happened during the years he fought in the war because he wanted to spare her— ”

“THAT’S understandable,” Joe murmured in a voice barely audible.

“Unfortunately, he never shared with anyone else . . . his doctor for instance, or the minister of the church he and his wife attended,” Ben continued. “To make matters worse, he went right from being soldier to being sheriff, without a break, or any kind of a vacation. Paul did bring law and order to Concho, but it was an uphill battle, one waged virtually alone, every bit as bloody and violent as any battle he fought during the war. By the time he felt like he COULD take time off . . . it was too late.”

“I don’t want what happened to Paul Rowan to happen to ME, Pa,” Joe declared in a granite firm, resolute tone of voice.

“You’re doing something very important that Paul didn’t. You’re NOT keeping it bottled up inside ya. You’ve been talking very freely about what happened, AND you’ve not kept back your feelings . . . your fears, your concerns, even your anger and frustration,” Ben said. “I honestly think that if Paul Rowan had someone HE could have talked to . . . he wouldn’t have gone over the edge the way he did.”

“Pa, the first night after we moved in here . . . when you and I were up late talking, you said that Doc Martin knows a couple o’ guys who specialize in things mental and emotional,” Joe said slowly, thoughtfully.

“Yes.”

“I . . . meaning no disrespect toward YOU, but . . . would it be alright if I sat down and talked with one of Doc Martin’s friends?” Joe asked. “I know YOU’VE told me I’m gonna be alright, but . . . I’d feel better if I could hear another doctor say the same thing.”

Ben smiled. “I’m not the least bit offended, Joe. There’s wisdom in bouncing things off an impartial third party, especially if it gives you added peace of mind. I’ll g’won over and leave word with Doc Martin now.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Son?”

“If it’s alright . . . I’D like to be the one to speak with Doc Martin.”

“Of course,” Ben agreed.

“I . . . I hope you’re not mad.”

Ben looked over into his youngest son’s anxious eyes and face. “Joseph . . . no. I’m not mad,” he said with a reassuring smile. “I’m very pleased . . . and proud . . .to see you making your own decisions and taking the initiative to see them through. It tells me you’re moving in the right direction, mentally and emotionally, as well as physically.”

“Thanks, Pa. Right now . . . that means a lot.”

“I intend to build the new house over the foundations of the old,” Adam said. He was seated across a kitchen table, rough hewn, covered with a red and white checked table cloth, from George Farlyn, his prospective foreman. “The job will be easily accessible by horse and buggy, which means you WON’T be required to sit a horse. The foreman’s job pays five dollars a day, plus lunch. We work six days a week, with Sundays off, and there’s a generous bonus when the job’s complete.”

Aged in his early forties, George Farlyn was a small man, about the same size as Joe Cartwright, but with a thinner, more wiry build. He had red hair, silver gray around the edges, thinning on top, and bright, piercing blue eyes.

George silently mulled over Adam’s proposal for a few moments. “Ya heard about my accident?” he asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“Yes . . . . ”

“I don’t take no charity work, Mister Cartwright,” George said, his voice generously laced with contempt.

“Fine,” Adam replied, “because I am not in the habit of hiring charity cases.”

“If my missus put ya up to this— ”

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the missus, Mister Farlyn. I was long gone by the time you finally got around to getting yourself hitched,” Adam hastened to point out. “The reason I came to see you is . . . HOSS recommended you. I know that my brother is an excellent judge of character, and I learned a long time ago to trust his judgment.”

“What, exactly, did Hoss tell ya?”

“He told me that you’re a good manager, you work very well with people, and that you’ve earned considerable respect because of the way you’ve continued on after your accident without giving up,” Adam said bluntly.

George silently mulled over Adam’s words again, then nodded. “Alright, Mister Cartwright . . . you got yourself a foreman.” He and Adam solemnly shook hands on the deal. “You hired anyone ELSE yet?”

“Not yet,” Adam replied. “Hoss and I had planned to begin recruiting first thing tomorrow morning. I would welcome YOUR input as well.”

“What time tomorrow morning?” George asked.

“Eight o’clock,” Adam said. “We’ll set up outside the town hall.”

“Eight o’clock tomorrow morning . . . outside town hall. I’ll see ya there, Mister Cartwright,” George said with a curt nod. “Is there any way I can get out to see what’s what with the house . . . what’s left of it?”

“Certainly,” Adam readily assented. “I was thinking we’d spend tomorrow morning hiring men to help with the building, break for lunch around noon, then head out to the Ponderosa afterward.”

“What time do you figure we’ll be back?” George asked. “I just started working nights over at the International Hotel. The pay’s not as good as I was getting at the Silver Dollar Saloon, but it gives Annie peace of mind. I’ll need to make arrangements if we’re going to be late getting back.”

“What time are you supposed to be at the International Hotel?”

“Seven o’clock.”

“I’ll see that you’re back in plenty of time.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright, and . . . I’d be much obliged if you told your brother that I appreciate him thinking of me,” George said gruffly.

“I’ll be sure to tell him, Mister Farlyn,” Adam promised, then rose. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Hop Sing, you’ve outdone yourself tonight,” Adam said with a big grin, punctuating his words with a soft belch. “Oh! . . . uhhh, excuse me,” he murmured, flinching away from the dark glare his father leveled at him.

“Now in house of Hop Sing grandfather, NOT to burp after supper big insult,” Hop Sing said, as he moved to clear away the supper dishes. “Not to burp means meal not good. Big insult. Cook quit.”

“When ya look at it THAT way, that belch of Adam’s was pretty wimpy,” Joe said, his eyes sparkling with mischief. He quickly swallowed air, then let out with a loud, resonant belch, with all the juicy quality of the most foul smelling fart.

“Was that the BEST you could do, Grandpa?” Stacy asked, with a disparaging roll of the eyes.

“Whaddya mean was that the best I could do?!” Joe echoed in tones of mock outrage.

“I’d like t’ know the answer t’ Li’l Sister’s question myself,” Hoss said. “WAS that the best ya could do?”

“I’d like to see the two of YOU do any better,” Joe growled, glaring over at Hoss, then at Stacy.

“You do, and so help me, I’m marching all FOUR of ya out to the woodshed,” Ben declared, glaring at each one of them in turn, starting with Adam.

“Hey! What did I do?!” Adam demanded.

“YOU started the whole thing,” Ben snapped right back.

“How about everybody go in living room, Hop Sing bring everybody coffee, except Little Joe. He get tea.”

“ . . . and a peppermint stick,” Joe added, as he rose. “Don’t you DARE forget that peppermint stick.”

“Adam, Hoss told me earlier that you had gone to see George Farlyn,” Ben said, as the family rose from the table, and began their mass exodus from the dining room to the living room.

“Yes, I did,” Adam replied with a smile, as he fell in step alongside his father. “I offered him the job, and after making certain to his satisfaction that I wasn’t offering charity, he finally accepted.”

“George has always had his pride, even before his accident,” Hoss said quietly, as he followed behind his father and older brother. “Now . . . well, the only one I ever met who was worse ‘n George is now was Li’l Sister’s ma.”

“I remember,” Adam said quietly.

“I’m glad you boys thought of him,” Ben said, as he settled himself in the middle of the settee. “George is a good man.”

“When do we start hirin’ other men t’ help with buildin’ the new house?” Hoss asked, taking his customary place in the easy chair to the left of the fireplace.

“Tomorrow morning,” Adam replied. “We start at eight o’clock, in front of the town hall. George is going to be there, too, Hoss.”

“How’re things going on the Ponderosa, Son?” Ben asked.

“Hank ‘n Candy pretty much have things in hand with the round up, ‘n branding,” Hoss said. “I figure they’ll be ready t’ move the herd out t’ the summer pastures in another couple o’ days . . . maybe three at the outside.”
“Will you be going with them to move the herd?” Adam asked.

Hoss shook his head. “I need t’ be here t’ keep an eye on that string o’ horses for that army contract.”

“Good,” Adam declared, looking a little relieved. “I’m hoping we can get the men we need lined up by lunchtime tomorrow. “As I said before, I would appreciate YOUR input along with George’s.”

Hoss nodded. “Sure, Adam. Hank ‘n Candy both are more ‘n able t’ oversee movin’ the herd.”

“Hoss . . . . ”

“Yeah, Li’l Brother?”

“WHICH string of horses were ya talking about just now?” Joe asked, as he and his father helped settle Stacy on the settee between them.

“The string y— uhhh, WE . . . was workin’ on for the army . . . before the fire, Li’l Brother.”

“Oh yeah . . . . ” Joe murmured, crestfallen. That string of horses was to have been his project, with the able assistance of his sister after they had been broken to saddle.

“I thought we was gonna end up payin’ penalty on ‘em, with out Li’l Brother t’ break ‘em, ‘n Li’l Sister t’ lend a hand in trainin’ ‘em proper,” Hoss continued, blissfully unmindful of Joe’s and Stacy’s increasing discomfiture, “between that new man Hank ‘n me hired, Alex McPherson ‘n Darryl Hughes comin’ from Shoshone Queen, ‘n Big Swede from Valhalla, we just might be able t’ get all them horses properly saddle broke AND trained by our deadline date, after all.”

“That’s wonderful!” Ben declared, favoring his two older sons with a broad grin. “Sounds like you boys have things well in hand.”

“Yep . . . knock on wood,” Hoss replied, punctuating his words with three soft knocks on the wood table.

Joe looked over and Stacy and sighed. “I dunno about YOU, Kid, but suddenly . . . I feel just about as USELESS around here, as . . . as a fifth wheel on a wagon.”

“I . . . know what you mean,” Stacy said. “Y’ know? I never thought I’d ever live to see the day I’d actually miss doing my daily chores.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“Well! Will wonders never cease!” Ben declared with a smile and an impish gleam in his dark brown eyes. “I never thought I’d live to see the day I’d hear you two actually admit to missing your chores.”

“Uh oh,” Joe quipped, unable to quite hold back the smile threatening to burst forth on his lips. “Stacy, I gotta real strong feeling Pa’s never gonna let the two of us forget we ever said that.”

“Not until my dying day,” Ben said, with an evil chuckle.

“Well, all I gotta say is you young’ns better enjoy it while it lasts,” Hoss exhorted his younger brother and baby sister, “ ‘cause once the pair of ya are back up ‘n around, you’re gonna have chores aplenty waitin’ for ya.”

Both Joe and Stacy gave their big brother a rousing raspberry.

“On THAT note, Everyone, I’m going to bid all of you a fond good night,” Adam said wryly, as he rose to his feet.

“Already?” Ben asked.

“I want to get the preliminary drawings of the kitchen done, so Hop Sing can look ‘em over tomorrow,” Adam said.

“Alright, Son. I’ll see you in the morning.”

A soft knock on the door drew Adam from the task at hand. He lay aside his pencil and automatically glanced up at the regulator clock hanging on the wall directly above his head. He noted, with mild surprise that the time was a few minutes before midnight.

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” he murmured softly, under his breath, as he turned toward the door to his room, standing wide open. He was surprised to find Joe there, standing framed in the open portal, leaning heavily against the door jamb on his left.

“Joe?! Come on in,” Adam invited, then frowned. “I’m surprised you’re still up. You looked pretty done in when you stopped in to say goodnight a couple of hours ago.”

“I WAS,” Joe confessed, then sighed. “Yet . . . somehow . . . the minute my head touched the pillow, I was suddenly wide awake. I thought maybe I’d g’won down and see if I could talk Hop Sing into brewing up something to kinda help me off to dreamland. When I saw that YOUR light was on, so I thought I’d check in with ya . . . see what YOU were doing.”

“I’m just about finished with those preliminary kitchen sketches. This will give Hop Sing all day tomorrow to look ‘em over, and decide on whatever changes he might want to make.”

“Can I see?”

“Sure.”

Joe walked over and looked over Adam’s shoulder. “I see you’ve enlarged Hop Sing’s . . . . ” He frowned. “What did you call it yesterday?”

“His mud room,” Adam replied.

Joe smiled. “Does he need more space for herbs?”

“Yes, he does, but I’ve moved his herbs over here . . . . ” Adam moved the blunt end of his pencil around an area that would measure ten feet by ten feet when actually realized. It was set on the other side of the door, that would open out into the garden, directly facing the entrance into the mud room. “Hop Sing asked if I could put in a small fire place to help facilitate the drying process. That’s going to go in right here.” He lightly drew an ‘X’ to mark the blank spot where he intended to put the fireplace.

“Over here . . . ” Adam continued, as he marked in a series of four ‘X’s along the wall adjoining the main kitchen, “ . . . will be a nice, spacious work space, with plenty of storage. There’ll be overhead cabinets, but instead of cabinets under the counter here, I’m putting in drawers. Hop Sing very pointedly reminded me that he’s not getting any younger.”

“That’s gonna be quite a set up,” Joe mused with a thoughtful smile. “Did he tell you why he wanted the extra space in his mud room?”

“Yes. He wants to store his garden tools in there.”

Joe nodded. “Makes sense. That way, he can grab what he needs on his way out the door to work in his garden.” He fell silent for a few moments, watching as his oldest brother continued to work. “Adam?”

“Yes, Joe?”

“What’s that square over there?” Joe pointed to a blank square above and to the right of the main kitchen space, upon which Adam continued to work.

“That’s going to be the layout of Hop Sing’s new root and wine cellar,” Adam replied. “It’ll fit in under the kitchen here . . . in the middle.” He traced out the intended area overtop the kitchen. “The outside entrance will be here.” He showed his brother in relation to the main kitchen area. “I’m also putting in a set of stairs between the cellar and the mud room, so Hop Sing won’t have to go outside after dark or when the weather’s bad.”

Joe nodded visibly impressed. “Can’t wait to see it all finished,” he murmured softly, then smiled. “Don’t tell PA I said this,” he said, taking great pains to lower his voice, “but between us? It’s a real good thing you thought to enlarge Little Sister’s room.”

“Oh?” Adam queried, curious about Joe’s sudden secretiveness.

“I’ll put it THIS way, Older Brother. Give The Kid another couple o’ years . . . tops! You, me, and Hoss are going to have a brother-in-law.”

Adam’s left eyebrow lifted slightly, betraying his mild surprise. “Jason?” he queried, taking care to lower his own voice.

Joe nodded, his grin fading into his own look of surprise. “How’d YOU know?”

“That summer Teresa and I were here with the kids . . . he seemed pretty smitten with her, as I recall,” Adam said with a smile.

Joe shook his head, and laughed softly. “I still can’t believe Jason didn’t recognize Stacy that summer.”

“You said he’d been away for two years?”

Joe nodded, still chuckling over the memory of that whole incident. Jason O’Brien had returned home after attending Harvard University for two years, taking a two year hiatus from his studies in veterinary medicine to come home, and earn money enough to return to Boston and complete his education. When it became clear to his younger sister, Susannah, that he was very much smitten with the young woman he failed to recognize as her good friend, Stacy Cartwright, she had taken it upon herself to solemnly make introductions.

“Those particular two years can bring significant changes in a young woman’s appearance . . . especially when a young man’s not around to see them,” Adam said quietly. “Dio’s changed a lot, especially within this past year. So much, you’d probably be hard pressed to recognize HER.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Joe said with confidence. “Of course, in Dio’s case, I know to look for a young woman who bears a close resemblance to the way Teresa looked first time I met HER.”

Adam’s smile broadened. “That’s very true,” he agreed. “So tell me something. How’s PA taking the addition of Jason to our baby sister’s life?”

“Looking to get in some early pointers?” Joe teased, knowing that it wouldn’t be very long before his young niece started showing interest in those of the male persuasion. He chuckled at the dark glare Adam suddenly leveled in his direction. “Well . . . Pa DID tell me once that he was relieved when it became clear that Jason was the first guy Stacy was gonna fall head over heels in love with.”

“Relieved?!” Adam put down his pencil, then leaned back in his chair, with his arms folded across his chest.

“Yeah. The O’Briens have been friends and neighbors for many years . . . and we all know Jason’s a pretty decent young man,” Joe said, as he walked over and seated himself in the edge of Adam’s bed. “The fact that Jason hasn’t even so much as sneezed around Stacy, with out asking Pa’s permission first has helped.”

Adam chuckled softly and rolled his eyes. “Jason’s got more guts than I have. If I were in his place . . . having to face the prospect of asking Pa for permission to pay court to Little Sister?! I think I’D be looking at someone whose father WASN’T so overly protective.”

“I know exactly what you mean, Oldest Brother of Mine,” Joe laughed. “The Kid’s also allowed Pa to be overly protective regarding matters of the heart,” he added, as his initial mirth began to fade. “That’s helped matters, too . . . a lot!!”

“THAT’S quite a surprise! That baby sister of ours has a real strong independent spirit, not to mention a stubborn streak at least a yard wide and a mile long.”

“ONLY a yard wide and a mile long?!” Joe chuckled again. “If you think THAT, Adam, all I can say is you must’ve caught her on a real GOOD day.”

“Though I’m surprised, I think it’s very sweet of Stacy to let Pa be overly protective,” Adam said, as Joe’s chuckling gradually faded. “I only hope Dio grants ME the same courtesy when SHE falls in love for the first time.”

For a time the two brothers lapsed into a companionable silence. Adam returned to his drawings of the proposed kitchen for his family’s new ranch house, while Joe waxed thoughtful.

“Adam?”

“Yeah, Buddy?” Adam responded, reverting back to the name he had affectionately called his youngest brother from the time he was a young child clear up until the night he had left the Ponderosa to make his own way in the world.

“Alright if I ask you a question?” Joe ventured hesitantly, drawing a sharp, wary glance from his oldest brother.

Adam laid down his pencil once again, and returned his full attention to his youngest brother, still seated on the edge of his bed. “Sounds serious,” he observed.

“It IS serious.”

“What do you want to know?”

Joe took a deep breath. “I was wondering . . . about the time that guy, Kane held you prisoner . . . .?!”

“What about it?” Adam demanded in a voice suddenly gone stone cold.

“What did YOU do that whole time?” Joe asked. “How did you cope? Did you try to escape? Did you try somehow to beat him at his own game? Did he tell you things that weren’t true? Did he—?”

“Joe, that whole thing was over and done years ago,” Adam very pointedly, very succinctly cut off his youngest brother mid-sentence. “It was SO long ago, I don’t even remember that much about it.”

“Sorry, Adam, I . . . I didn’t mean to upset you,” Joe quickly apologized.

“I’m NOT upset,” Adam snapped back. “Surprised that you would even ask after all these years, yes . . . but not upset.”

“I . . . I just wanted to know,” Joe said, feeling suddenly, very much on the defensive, and completely bewildered by the dark, angry glare on his oldest brother’s face, giving blatant lie to his protestations about not being upset.

“It’s over and done,” Adam said curtly, as he again picked up his pencil.

“Ok, Adam,” Joe murmured softly, as he rose from his seat on the edge of his bed. “I’m . . . starting to get a bit drowsy, so . . . I guess I’ll mosey on to bed and let you finish up your drawing of the kitchen.”

“Thank you. I’d appreciate that very much,” Adam said in a voice that dripped icicles.

Joe involuntarily shivered. “Good night, Adam. Sorry I upset you.”

“I am NOT upset,” Adam snapped.

“I don’t get it,” Joe mused in uneasy silence, as he made his way down the darkened hallway, back toward the small room he had claimed as his own for the duration of their stay in town. “One minute we’re laughing . . . kinda joking around, and the next . . . . ” He involuntarily shuddered, as a vision Adam’s face, its handsome features marred by that terrible angry scowl rose and swam before his mind’s eye.

Just like Lady Chadwick.

Joe shuddered again.

As he stepped from the hallway into his own room, words, a quote, ironically from Adam’s beloved William Shakespeare, immediately came to mind . . . it was something about protesting too much. These were not so much words rising up in judgment against his brother, rather, they seemed to come as words of warning.

End of Part 1

 

Mark of Kane

Part 2

By Kathleen T. Berney
“Uummmm UM!” Joe murmured softly, with eyes closed and a beatific smile on his face, as he lifted the plateful of fluffy scrambled eggs to his nose and inhaled the delicate aroma. “So light . . . so fluffy . . . so yellow!”

“Little Joe supposed to EAT egg, not SMELL egg,” Hop Sing admonished the youngest Cartwright son with a dark glare, as he entered the small dining room, where the entire family had gathered for breakfast, bearing a large platter piled high with steaming hot pancakes.

“I never thought I’d live t’ see the day my li’l brother’d be fawnin’ over s plate full o’ scrambled eggs the way he’s doin’,” Hoss muttered under his breath, all the while shaking his head.

“You and me both!” Adam agreed.

“Say, Adam?” Joe queried as he reverently set the plate down on the table before him.

“Yeah, Buddy?”

“Would you please pass the salt, pepper, and tabasco sauce?”

Adam grimaced. “Tabasco sauce?!” he echoed, incredulous.

“Joseph Francis, you may put a little bit of salt on those eggs,” Ben said in a very brisk, very firm tone, “but the key words regarding your present diet are ‘soft’ AND ‘bland.’ Tabasco sauce and pepper do NOT come under either category, not by any stretch of the imagination.”

Joe’s face fell.

“Here’s the salt, Son.” Ben slid the salt shaker across the table to within Joe’s reach. “Remember what Doc Martin said about using it sparingly.”

“Yes, Sir,” Joe exhaled a long melancholy sigh, meant to tug very hard on the heartstrings. He picked up the salt shaker and began to lightly salt his scrambled eggs.

“Joseph, I said SPARINGLY,” Ben admonished his youngest son with a stern glare.

“But, Pa . . . . ” Joe protested. “I hardly used ANY.”

“I hate to tell you this, Little Brother, but that’s exactly what sparingly means,” Adam quipped, as he reached for the platter of sausage.

Joe favored Adam with a sharp glare, as he set the salt shaker down on the table next to his plate. “Oh well,” he finally sighed. “At least I get to have a couple of pancakes this morning.”

“One,” Ben snapped, as he picked up the salt shaker and placed it well out of Joe’s reach.

“One?!” Joe echoed, incredulous.

“One,” Ben sternly reiterated.

“One.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Maple syrup, Grandpa?” Stacy asked, as she held up the pitcher.

“Yeah . . . thanks, Kid,” Joe said gratefully, as he accepted the proffered container from his sister. He dribbled a little syrup over his pancakes, then as an after thought, poured a little over his eggs. “I . . . uhhh guess a taste of that sausage is kinda . . . well, out of the question, hunh.” He looked over at his father through whipped puppy dog eyes, round as saucers.

“You guess right, Son.”

“Not even a little, teensy-weensy, very tiny little taste? Please?”

“Joseph, let me put it this way,” Ben said, making a point of not looking his youngest son directly in the eyes. “You’re progressing along very nicely. In fact you’re all the way up to soft and bland foods now . . . one week AHEAD of schedule, I might add.”

“I know, Pa.”

“Then maybe I need to remind you that if you indulge yourself in that taste of sausage . . . and it comes right back up . . . Doc Martin said you begin at square one,” Ben said.

Joe paled. “Y-You mean . . . b-back t-to . . . to clear liquids?!”

“That’s EXACTLY what I mean.”

Joe sighed mournfully.

“Tell ya what, Son. You eat what’s on your plate now . . . give it a couple of hours to settle . . . I’ll letcha have a peppermint stick,” Ben offered by way of compromise.

“Can I have a little of that gingerale with it?” Joe asked.

“We’ll see,” Ben said evasively.

“Adam, it’s ‘bout time you ‘n me was moving’ along,” Hoss said, as he finished up the last of his third helping of eggs, pancakes, and sausage. “You said we was meetin’ George at eight?”

“Yes . . . that’s right, I did.” Adam quickly downed the remainder of his coffee in a single swallow.

“So what have YOU two got planned for today?” Ben asked, turning his attention to his oldest sons.

“We’re going to be hiring men to work on the house until lunchtime,” Adam replied. “After we have lunch, we’ll be taking Mister Farlyn out to the Ponderosa, so he can see for himself what’s what and what’s where.”

“You boys seem to be moving right along,” Ben said, visibly impressed. “Will you be home for supper?”

“I will,” Adam replied. “Mister Farlyn needs to be back in time to report for work over at the International Hotel.”

“I’ll be checkin’ out the horses whilst Adam ‘n George are lookin’ over what’s left o’ the house,” Hoss said, “but, unless somethin’ unusual comes up, I expect I’ll be back, too.”

“See you guys later,” Stacy sighed, wistful, not without envy. A great big yawn followed on the heels of her words.

“Pa, I think I’m going to get myself dressed, then g’won across the street and see Doc Martin about calling in that colleague of his,” Joe said, after Hoss and Adam had left. “I won’t be very long.”

“Alright,” Ben said dubiously, “but you watch yourself going across that street . . . and don’t you dare forget to stop and look both ways, you hear me?”

“Yes, Pa,” Joe said very solemnly, then grinned. “Of course if you don’t trust me to cross the street by myself, I guess you can always take my hand and lead me across . . . like you did when I really was Little Joe!?”

“Scamp! Get on upstairs with ya . . . before I take you up on that suggestion,” Ben growled back in tones of mock outrage.

“Yes, Sir,” Joe said with a chuckle and a crisp salute.

“As for YOU, Young Woman,” Ben turned, and addressed his daughter in a more kindly tone, “would you like to sit down and play a few rounds of checkers with the best checker player in this family?”

“You, Pa?” Stacy asked.

“Darn right.”

“ . . . uhhh, Stacy?”

“Yeah, Grandpa?”

“If you DO sit down and play checkers with Pa?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you dare take your eyes off the board for a single minute.”

“Joe? Joe Cartwright?! Well! Ain’t THIS a pleasant surprise,” Hilda Mae Graves, the Martins’ housekeeper declared with a broad grin, upon opening the front door. “Good to see ya up ‘n about.”

Joe returned her grin with a warm smile of his own. “Thank you, Mrs. Graves . . . it’s good BEING up ‘n about. I was never much for lying around in bed for any length of time . . . except, maybe for sleeping.”

“Scalawag!” she retorted, knowing all too well the youngest Cartwright son’s solid, well earned, and much deserved reputation for being the good doctor’s second worst patient. The absolute worst, of course, was the clan patriarch, who by his own admission had a few more years of experience. “Well, don’t just stand there, come in.”

“Thank you.”

“AFTER you wipe your feet!” she snapped, pointing down at the mat.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Joe returned, his smile never wavering. He very dutifully complied with her request, then followed her into the house.

“The doc’s with a patient, ‘n the missus is out shoppin’,” Hilda Mae said, as she led Joe down the short length of narrow, dimly lit hallway to the Martins’ formal parlor. “Doc won’t be but a few minutes, if ya wanna wait.”

“Thank you, Miss Graves. I’ll wait.”

“You g’won in, make yourself at home,” Hilda Mae said, inviting him to enter the parlor with a broad, sweeping gesture of her left arm. “I’ll tell the doc you’re here soon as he’s through.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I getcha anything while you’re waitin’? Tea? Coffee, maybe?”

“No thank you, I’ll be fine,” Joe said, as he settled himself comfortably on the small settee.

A few moments later, Paul Martin entered, still wearing his lab coat. “Good morning, Joe,” the physician greeted his favorite patient, with a weary smile.

“Howdy, Doc,” Joe quipped, as he slowly, stiffly rose to his feet. “Wow! So early in the morning and already no rest for the weary.”

“Indeed!” Paul agreed. “Sit down, Joe. I need to take a load off myself.” He dropped down into the wingback easy chair, positioned between the settee and the small fireplace, set into the wall directly opposite the door. Joe sat back down in the middle of the settee. “So far today, I’ve had all the usual appointments, an emergency, and Ellen Fox like as not giving birth before the day is out.”

“Sounds like you got a full plate ahead of you today.”

“Joe . . . you’re not here to . . . well, to somehow make my full plate even more so . . . are you?” Paul queried, favoring Joe with a jaundiced eye.

“What do you mean?” Joe asked, with all the solemn innocence of a choir boy.

“I mean your sister hasn’t tried anything foolish like attempting to ride that horse of hers, or anything like that . . . has she?”

Joe threw back his head and laughed out loud. “No, Doc. Stacy’s behaving herself,” he said, as his merriment began to fade. “Not that she’s got a whole lot of choice in the matter right now.”

“Still tires easily?”

“Actually, she’s doing better in that department,” Joe replied. “I meant with Pa and Hop Sing looking after the two of us . . . well, I’m sure you know as well as I do that the two of ‘em can be a pair of real rough customers when set their minds. That’s why I’VE been as good as gold.”

“Glad to hear it,” Paul said sternly, then smiled. “So . . . what CAN I do for you, Joe?”

“Pa said you had made mention of a couple of colleagues who specialize in treating problems mental and emotional in nature,” Joe said, his smile fading.

“Yes . . . . ”

“I’d like to consult with one of ‘em.”

“Your timing’s very fortuitous, Joe,” Paul said. “One of those colleagues . . . Doctor Carl Jefferies, wired me just this morning. It seems he and his wife are on their way east to work in that new hospital for the mentally ill in Washington D. C.”

“Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital?”

“Yes,” Paul replied, surprised that Joe knew of it.

“A good friend of Pa’s in a patient there,” Joe said very quietly.

“Ah yes. Mister Rowan,” Paul murmured sadly.

“Yeah.”

“Carl and Jennie plan to spend a few days with Lily and me on their way east,” Paul said. “They’ll be arriving on the stage out from San Francisco day after tomorrow. I know he’ll be more than happy to consult with you, Joe. After they arrive, and have a chance to collect themselves a little, we’ll set up an appointment.”

“Thanks, Doc. I really appreciate this,” Joe said, rising.

“Sure.” Paul followed suit. “ . . . and, Joe?”

“Yeah?”

“I want to let you know that I find it very heartening . . . very heartening indeed . . . to see you not only making the decision to consult with Carl, but following through on it,” Paul said, in all sincerity. “That shows a lot of courage and maturity on your part, AND it tells me you’re heading in the right direction mentally and emotionally.”

“Maturity?! Now that’s a word I don’t hear too often in the same breath with my own name,” Joe said, half teasing, half awed and gratified. “Seriously though . . . thanks. Right now . . . you have no idea how much it means to me hearing you say that,” Joe said quietly.

“How does your pa feel about you consulting with Doctor Jefferies?”

“He said that sometimes there’s wisdom in talking to a third party,” Joe replied. “He also said he’s for it, if it helps bring me some peace of mind.”

“Certainly no surprise there.”

“Well, I’d best be going and let you get some rest yourself, before you have to go running out in the dead of night to help Ellen Fox with bringing that baby into the world,” Joe said.

“Alright, Joe . . . and I’ll get back to you about that consultation with Doctor Jefferies . . . . ”

One Week Later . . . .

“Are you still having the nightmares, Mister Cartwright?”

“Yes,” Joe Cartwright replied. “But, they don’t come as often now . . . and when they do? They don’t really scare me anymore.” He frowned for a moment, as he silently mulled over his words. “I just thought of something . . . . ”

“What’s that?”

“If they don’t scare me anymore . . . they’re not really nightmares, are they?”

Doctor Carl Jeffries smiled. Aged in his late thirties, he was roughly the same height and build as Joe, though thirty pounds heavier. He had full head of light brown hair, graying around the edges, a neatly trimmed goatee, and warm golden brown eyes, framed by a pair of gold wire framed glasses. Though a much respected friend and colleague, Doctor Paul Martin took special pride in the fact that the young man was also his godson.

Doctor Jefferies’ specialty was in the field of psychology. He had spent the better part of the afternoon, comfortably ensconced on the settee in the living room of the Fletchers’ home, next to the fireplace, conversing with Joe Cartwright.

“You tell me, Mister Cartwright. Are they dreams? Or are they nightmares?”

“Dreams,” Joe decided. “If I don’t wake myself or my family up in the middle of the night, screaming in terror . . . then, they’re dreams.”

“When did the nightmares become dreams?”

“It was a little over a week ago,” Joe replied. “The day my oldest brother arrived from Sacramento, in fact. I was in the midst of a really bad one, when . . . all of a sudden . . . I remembered Lady Chadwick was dead . . . that I had actually seen her body at the undertaker’s, all laid out in its coffin. When she tried to tell me again that the dream was real and my waking hours the dream, I told her flat out SHE was lying. She got this real funny look on her face, then poof! The dream was over.” He grinned. “I woke up screaming that night, but it was a scream of victory, not of fear.”

“Sounds to me like you’re progressing in the right direction,” Carl said.

“You . . . really think so?” Joe asked, his voice edge with doubt.

“The nightmare becoming a dream is most heartening,” Carl said, speaking candidly to Joe’s doubts and fears, “and I feel encouraged by the fact of you making the decisions about seeing Lady Chadwick’s body, making your deposition to sheriff, and especially by the way you confronted Mister Crippensworth. It took a lot of courage on your part to decide upon those courses of action, and follow through on them.”

“Pa said the same thing.”

“Your pa sounds like a very wise, very intelligent man. I hope you pay attention to him.”

Joe grinned. He had been nervous and apprehensive about this meeting all morning long. But, Carl Jefferies’ easy going, friendly demeanor had put Joe very much at ease within the first few minutes. “I do . . . most of the time.” His smile faded. “Doc?”

“Yes?”

“You wanna know what DOES scare me?”

“If YOU wish to tell me.”

“Like I just said . . . it’s not the nightmares, not since they’ve become dreams,” Joe said. “It’s what I call the WAKING dreams?”

“The waking dreams?”

Joe nodded.

“What . . . exactly . . . are these waking dreams, Mister Cartwright?”

“I call ‘em waking dreams because they happen when I’m awake,” Joe explained. “I’ll see or hear something, and suddenly, I’m back there again with her. It looks and feels just as real as . . . well, as you and I are right now.”

“Do you recall when the waking dreams started?”

“I sure do. They started the same day my brother, Adam, arrived . . . the same day my nightmares became dreams,” Joe replied. He looked up at Carl with a wan smile, and quipped, “You don’t suppose it’s all ADAM’S fault, do you?” He saw immediately that his attempt at humor had fallen flat on it’s face. “Sorry, Doc,” he immediately apologized. “Bad joke.”

“Probably more along the lines of an INSIDE joke,” Carl offered with a kind smile. “I have no idea what kind of relationship you have with your oldest brother, so your joke goes right over my head. Getting back to the waking dreams you just mentioned . . . what sights and sounds trigger them? Is it something specific?”

Joe dolefully shook his head. “It can be anything,” he replied. “That’s one reason why they scare me so much.”

“Can you tell me about the first time you experienced one of these waking dreams?” Carl probed gently.

“Yeah. Like I said, it was the day Adam arrived from Sacramento,” Joe replied. “It was late in the afternoon, and I was feeling kinda tired, so I went upstairs to rest.” He frowned. “I’m not sure what set it off, exactly . . . whether it was the ticking of the wall clock in my room . . . the glare of the sunlight in the glass over the clock face . . . or maybe the position of the hands. I don’t know . . . it could’ve been a little of all three.

“I heard her first before I actually saw her. I heard her pacing the floor, slapping her riding crop against her hand. Then, I was back there again. Back in that room with the sun shining right in my eyes . . . tied down to that bed . . . with her pacing, trying to make me acknowledge HER version of things.”

“Her version being that she and Mister Crippensworth had come upon you injured, and had stopped to help?” Carl asked.

“Yeah,” Joe said, his voice shaking. “It was a lie, of course. A great big, ugly bald faced lie.”

“Yes. Lady Chadwick and Mister Crippensworth really came with the intention of abducting you,” Carl said, reiterating what Joe had told him earlier.

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember how you felt when you found yourself in the midst of that first waking dream?”

“Scared outta my mind for one thing,” Joe replied immediately, “and so low, I think I could’ve walked upright under the belly of a snake. I kept telling her over and over she was dead, but it was like she never heard me. For a minute, I honest and truly believed I WAS back there . . . that my being home again with my family was the dream.”

“How did you come out of the waking dream?”

“The first time it happened, it was Hop Sing calling me. He had come upstairs to tell me that Hoss, my BIG brother, was back from picking up Adam at the stage depot.”

“How did you feel when you came out of that waking dream?”

“At first, I had no idea in the world where I was,” Joe replied. “Though I think part of that was my family and me having just moved into THIS house a week before.”

“That’s a reasonable assumption.”

“I also have this awful feeling of being completely helpless, Doctor Jefferies, because I never know when they’re going to happen, or what’s going to trigger it.”

“It must’ve been very close to the way you felt the entire time Lady Chadwick and Mister Crippensworth held you prisoner,” Carl said slowly, after a moment of thoughtful silence.

Doctor Jefferies’ observation drew a sharp glance from Joe. “Doc, I . . . I think you just hit the nail on the head,” he murmured in a voice barely audible. “I never thought of it before but . . . yeah. I WAS scared the whole time, and except for the two days I was locked up in that attic room, I was tied to a bed . . . completely helpless.

“I also never knew what to expect whenever Lady Chadwick came into the room,” Joe continued. “One minute, she could be stone cold rational like you and me . . . or maybe more like my oldest brother, Adam . . . the next, screaming with rage . . . and the next, living in her own dream world somewhere. Her mood would change . . . just like that!” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

“Do you know what, exactly, would trigger her changes?”

“Sometimes she would get angry because I refused to allow her to sway me. Other times . . . . ” Joe shrugged. “It could’ve been anything from something I said to looking at her cross eyed. I just wish to heaven I could understand.”

“What would you like to understand, Mister Cartwright?”

“I want to know why,” Joe replied. “Why did she hate Pa so much? SHE’S the one who turned him down when he asked her to marry him all those years ago in New Orleans. Then, when she came to visit us . . . she tried to ruin Pa, so that he’d have to marry her for her money. Fortunately for us, we found out about her scheme, and Pa called her on it. But . . . she had the gall to claim that Pa humiliated HER. Then, toward the end of my captivity, she started acting like she and Pa were married.” He sighed. “I know . . . there’s no rhyme or reason to insanity.”

“In this case, perhaps there is,” Carl said. “There’s a very fine line separating love and hate. I’ve found that to be very true in living life, and certainly in my practice. Both are very intense, very passionate feelings, to which people often invest their all emotionally. One wrong move, word, gesture, or glance . . . love can very quickly turn to bitter hatred.”

“I’m not so sure I can accept that, Doctor Jefferies.”

“About love quickly turning into hate?”

Joe nodded. “One of my favorite passages in the Bible is the one about love,” he said. “It’s usually read at weddings. According to THAT passage, love is always patient, kind . . . and it’s not selfish, or riled up very easily. I think if Lady Chadwick had felt anything even remotely resembling love for my father, she would have been up front about Lord Chadwick back in New Orleans, and when she came to visit, she would have tried to woo Pa, not destroy everything he’s ever worked for.”

“You have a valid point there, Mister Cartwright,” Carl said thoughtfully.

“ . . . and there ARE a lot of feelings and emotions that can be part and parcel of love, but are also very often mistaken FOR love,” Joe continued.

“You speak of passion perhaps?”

Joe nodded. “I could see THAT not only as being mistaken for love, but also turning to hate real quick when it DOESN’T come along with love.”

Carl Jefferies smiled. “Mister Cartwright, I dare say, YOU could probably teach ME a thing or two when it comes to dealing with human emotion,” he said quietly. “If you ARE certifiably insane, would that we all were as crazy. The world would be a lot saner place, no question about it.”

Joe found himself returning Carl’s smile. “Is that your way of telling me I’m NOT crazy?”

“Indeed it is,” Carl said. “My diagnosis, for what it’s worth is . . . that you’re a young man, who’s survived an incredibly harrowing and painful experience, but who seems to be well on the way toward eventual healing and becoming a stronger, better man for it.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Joe said gratefully, the relief evident in his voice, his face, and especially his eyes, glowing a deep emerald in the waning late afternoon light. He rose.

Carl Jefferies followed suit, knowing that their time together had reached a mutually satisfying end. “If you wish to speak with me further, my wife and I will be with the Martins’ for another couple of days. Don’t hesitate to let me know, if you need me.”

“I won’t,” Joe said, as they shook hands, knowing full well that he wouldn’t need to see Doctor Jefferies again, at least not on a professional basis. “I’ll see you to the door.”

The pair walked to the front door in companionable silence.

“Thanks again, Doc,” Joe said again, with deep, heartfelt gratitude as they came to a stop at the front door. “Our talk has really given me real peace of mind . . . the first, I think, since I came home.”

“My pleasure, Mister Cartwright. Would that ALL my patients’ difficulties could be resolved so quickly and easily.”

Joe reached for the door knob and opened the door for Doctor Jefferies. He was mildly surprised to see his father and sister stepping up onto the porch. “THAT was good timing,” he remarked, favoring Ben and Stacy with his infamous smile, dubbed his ‘lady killer smile,’ by the latter. “Doc, this is my pa . . . the ELDER Mister Cartwright . . . and my sister, Stacy.”

“A pleasure,” Carl declared with a grin, as he shook hands with Ben first, then Stacy. “Now I have faces to put with your names.”

“ . . . uh oh,” Stacy murmured, casting a wary glance over at her brother.

“Don’t worry, Kid,” Joe said. “It was all good.”

“I can certainly vouch for that,” Carl Jefferies said with a smile.

“Thanks again for talking with me, Doctor Jefferies,” Joe said gratefully. “I . . . realize it must’ve been on real short notice.”

“Truth be known, Mister Cartwright, my godfather’s told me so much about you, and the rest of your family— ”

“Uh oh. I hope SOME of it was good.”

“Some of it was, and the rest . . . well, let’s just say I was hoping I’d get a chance to meet my godfather’s . . . now how did he put that?!” Carl frowned, then brightened almost immediately. “Oh yes. He said that you, your brothers, and your sister especially numbered among the most IMpatient of all his patients, but that your father’s the absolute worst.”

“That’s because Pa’s a few years up on the rest of us,” Joe said with a smile. “Well . . . if I don’t get to see you before you leave Virginia City, I hope you and your wife have a safe trip, and I hope everything works out well for you both in Washington.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright. I wish you and your family all the best as well.”

Upon stepping back inside the house, Joe found Ben and Stacy comfortably seated together on the settee, facing the small fireplace. Stacy’s injured leg rested on the coffee table, cradled on the center of one of the larger cushions, normally placed at either end of the settee. Joe slowly ambled across the room, and plopped down on the settee, on the other side of his sister.

“Grandpa?”

“Yeah, Stace?”

“If you want to talk to Pa, I can make myself scarce for a little while.”

“Thanks, Kid, but that won’t be necessary,” Joe said.

“So . . . what DID Doctor Jefferies have to say?” Ben asked.

“He said a lot of the things YOU’VE been telling me all along, Pa,” Joe said, as he and Ben together settled Stacy on the settee between them. “At one point, I even told him that he sounded a lot like you.”

“Really?” Ben queried with a smile. “What did Doctor Jefferies say about THAT?”

“He said . . . and I quote . . . ‘your pa sounds like a very wise, very intelligent man. I hope you pay attention to him,’ ” Joe replied.

“Really?” Ben queried.

“Uh oh, Grandpa,” Stacy warned, her eyes dancing with impish merriment. “I don’t think Pa’s ever gonna let you live THAT down.”

“Darn tootin’!” Ben agreed, smiling.

“The upshot of his diagnosis is also something else you’ve been telling me all along, Pa . . . in one way or another,” Joe said, turning serious. “Doctor Jefferies said that I’m a young man, who’s gone through a painful and harrowing experience, but who’s well on his way toward healing . . . and something else . . . . ” He frowned for a moment, trying to remember, then brightened. “Oh yeah. He also said that I’m gonna come out on the other side of this a stronger, better man.”

“Sounds like Doctor Jefferies has a thing or two on the ball himself,” Ben said quietly. “Do you feel better about things now, Son?”

Joe nodded. “I feel LOTS better.”

“You wanna know something? You LOOK lots better, too,” Stacy said as she impulsively reached over and gave him a big bear hug.

“Thanks, Kid,” Joe said, hugging her back. “You up for a game of checkers?”

“Ok, but I’m not taking my eyes off the board for a second,” Stacy declared, as they divvied up the pieces and began to set up for play.

“Pa, you wanna play the winner?” Joe asked.

“No, thank you,” Ben replied, as he rose and moved over to the easy chair, in order to allow his two younger children room to play. “I thought I might just relax and read for a little while before we sit down to supper.”

“So . . . how’s the rebuilding going Adam?” Matt Wilson asked, raising his voice so that he might be heard over the din generated by the crowd of people thronging the Silver Dollar Saloon.

Matt and Adam had been close friends since they were boys. After leaving the Ponderosa and Virginia City to make his own way in the world, Matt Wilson was one of the few in Nevada, apart from his family, with whom Adam had maintained a regular correspondence. He had also had the honor and pleasure of standing up for Matt three years ago, when he married the former Clarissa Starling at what continued to be spoken of as ‘The Wedding of the Century.’

“Everything’s coming along just fine,” Adam replied, smiling. He took a big gulp from the beer mug in front of him, then continued. “In fact . . . we’re actually AHEAD of schedule. I didn’t expect to have the repair work on the foundation done until about the middle of next week, and from the looks of things, we’re going to be finished by the end of THIS week.”

“That George Farlyn’s a wonder, ain’t he?” Hoss said with a smug grin.

“That he is,” Adam agreed wholeheartedly, “that he is. He’s an excellent manager and overseer, he’s very good with people, and you were right, Hoss, when you said that everyone has a lot of respect for him. We wouldn’t be so far ahead of the game without George, that’s for sure.” He looked over at Hoss, his smile widening. “Thanks for recommending him.”

“Glad everything’s going so well, Adam,” Matt said. He finished the last of the beer in the mug before him, then asked, “How’s the rest of the family doing . . . especially Joe and Stacy?”

“Joe’s still limping, but he’s breathing a lot better, and a lot easier than he was when I arrived last week,” Adam replied. “His bruises are fading, and the other wounds . . . ” the physical ones, though Adam didn’t say that aloud, “ . . . are nearly healed, including that bad one on his right arm that Doctor Martin was concerned about.”

“Glad to hear it,” Matt declared with a grin. “How’s he eating?”

“He’s graduated to soft and bland,” Adam replied. “He enjoyed those scrambled eggs the first couple of mornings, after he was finally allowed to try them, but now, I think he’s getting a little tired of having to eat them without salt, pepper, and tabasco sauce.”

“Tabasco sauce?!” Matt wrinkled his nose in utter disgust.

“Yes, tabasco sauce.”

Matt shuddered. “How’s Stacy doing?”

Adam waved to the bartender, and pointed to his empty mug. “Doctor Martin wants to remove her cast in another week or two so he can check and make sure everything’s healing up properly,” he replied. “Assuming everything IS alright under all that plaster-of-paris, he’ll put on another cast, for four more weeks. She’ll have some hard work ahead of her before she’s walking and riding again, but Doctor Martin’s confident that she’ll make a full and complete recovery.”

“Glad to hear it. I heard things were really touch and go with Stacy for a while there . . . early on.”

“Yeah,” Hoss said quietly. “But the worst is over.”

“Physically, at any rate,” Adam sighed with a droll rolling of the eyes heavenward. “Patience is a virtue, but NOT one of Stacy’s, I’m afraid . . . especially when she’s convalescing. Joe’s just as bad . . . if not WORSE.”

“The one I’M feelin’ sorry for right now is PA,” Hoss said with a chuckle. “HE’S the one who’s really been lookin’ after the pair of ‘em.”

“So . . . what can I getcha, Adam?” It was Sam, the bartender. “Another beer?”

“Yeah, Sam . . . for me and for Matt, at least. How are YOU doing, Hoss? YOU ready for another beer?”

“I will be in just a second,” Hoss replied. He lifted the mug in hand to his lips and downed the remainder in a single gulp. “NOW I’m ready.”

Adam placed three fifty-cent pieces down on the bar. “This round’s on me,” he said.

Hoss frowned. “Didn’t you buy the last round, Adam?”

“No, he bought the last TWO,” Matt said. “Put your money away, Adam . . . you, too, Hoss. I’M buying this round.”

“Matt, I SAID this one’s on ME,” Adam argued.

“Tell ya what. While you boys sort out who’s buyin’, I’ll go refill your mugs,” Sam said, as he reached for the empties.

“Howdy, Boys . . . Adam . . . Hoss . . . Matt . . . . ” Roy Coffee greeted each of the younger men with a smile and a nod of the head, as he stepped up to the bar.

“Howdy,” Hoss returned the greeting and the smile. Adam and Matt both grinned and nodded by way of greeting.

“How’re things going, Sheriff Coffee?” Adam asked.

“Can’t complain,” Roy grunted. “How ‘bout with YOU? How’s that house comin’ along?”

“I was just telling Hoss and Matt that so far, we’re ahead of schedule,” Adam replied. “We’ll be finished with the repairs to the foundation by the end of the week, and THAT being the case . . . we’ll be completing the necessary repair work on the fireplace and chimney by the end of the following week, and who knows? Keep on like we’re going, we may be laying down the floor for the downstairs.”

“That puts him ahead of his own plans by almost a whole week, Sheriff Coffee,” Hoss said proudly.

“You always was a fast worker, Adam,” Roy said with a grin.

“Gentlemen, to give credit where it’s due, George Farlyn’s the one who deserves the lion’s share for all the fast work,” Adam said. “Every last one of those men we hired would walk a mile across hot coals barefoot for George. THAT’S what’s put us so far ahead of schedule.”

“Here y’ are, Boys,” Sam, the bartender returned with a big grin and three mugs of beer.

“ . . . and here YOU are, Sam,” Adam said, as he placed two silver dollars onto the bartender’s large, beefy palm. “Consider the change as a thank you note.”

“Thank you, Adam . . . thank you very much,” Sam’s grin widened appreciably, as he pocketed the extra silver dollar. “ ‘Evenin’, Roy. What can I getcha?”

“I’ll have a beer, Sam,” Roy said.

“Comin’ right up.”

“Adam Cartwright, I said I was buying,” Matt said, leveling a ferocious glare at his old friend.

“You?!” Hoss echoed, glaring at Matt first, then over at Adam. “As I recall . . . I said I was buyin’ this round.”

“Now you boys’d best settle down right quick, or else I’m gonna run the lotta ya in.” Though Roy Coffee spoke in his sternest, most authoritative sheriff’s tone of voice, the devilish twinkle in his eyes wasn’t lost on his three younger companions.

“On WHAT charge?” Adam demanded. A wry half smile tugged hard at the corner of his mouth.

“Disturbin’ the peace,” Roy quipped without missing a beat.

Sheriff Coffee, can I buy YOU a drink?” Matt asked.

“Much as I’d love t’ take ya up on it, Matt, I’m afraid I’m gonna hafta turn ya down,” Roy said. “Elections are comin’ up, an’ I don’t want nobody t’ think I’m on the take or somethin’.”

Adam, meanwhile, finished his beer and set the mug down on the bar. “Gentlemen, I hate to break this up, but I need to be moving along,” he said.

A bewildered frown creased Hoss’ brow. “What for, Adam? Supper ain’t for another couple o’ hours yet.”

“I know, Big Brother. I wanted to review the final drawings on the first floor of the house and start working out what we’re going to need in the way of building material . . . for THAT much of the house, at least. If YOU want to stay a little longer— ”

“Nah, I’d best mosey along with ya,” Hoss decided. “Poor Pa could probably use a break after spendin’ all day cooped up with a pair o’ cranky, stir crazy young ‘ns.”

“Adam . . . Hoss, you boys say hello to your pa for me,” Roy said, “an’ tell Joe ‘n Stacy I’m thinkin’ about ‘em.”

“That goes for me, too,” Matt said.

“Excuse me, Sheriff Coffee?” It was Garth Parker. He was a young man, who had started work at the Western Union Office in Virginia City three and a half weeks ago.

“What’s up, Garth?” Roy asked.

“This just came in from the Overland Stage Office in Freedonia,” Garth said, passing the slip of paper in hand over to the sheriff. “Something about an overdue stage coach.”

A nebulous sense of foreboding settled over Adam like a thick, heavy shawl.

“Seems it left Virginia City . . . day after YOU arrived, Adam,” Roy said, as he quickly scanned the note.

“How many days overdue IS that stage?” Adam snapped out the question drawing sharp glances from Hoss and Roy.

“If that stage left day after you arrived . . . it’ll have been missin’ little over a week,” Roy answered, with a frown. “You alright, Adam?”

“Sorry, I . . . didn’t mean to take your head off, Sheriff,” Adam said contritely.

“Any particular reason why you’re askin’?”

“If that was the stage that left here in the morning, the day after I arrived . . . I may know two of the passengers.”

“Friends o’ yours, Adam?” Hoss asked.

“Acquaintances, actually. Hoss, you met them.”

“I did?”

“Remember? Lorenzo and Maria Estevan. We gave them a lift to the International Hotel.”

“Oh yeah . . . the newlyweds,” Hoss said quietly.

Adam, then, turned to Roy Coffee. “The Estevans and I traveled together from Sacramento,” he explained. “Charming young couple. They were returning home to Santa Fe from their honeymoon trip.”

“I see,” Roy murmured thoughtfully.

“Has anything been done to try and locate that stage?” Adam asked.

“The Phoenix office would’ve sent out search parties,” Roy said, “but, considerin’ that stage is two weeks overdue, I hafta assume those search parties didn’t find nothin’. Next step’s t’ check the relay stops between here ‘n Freedonia, find out who saw ‘em last. That would take a while since most relay stations don’t have a telegraph station.”

“Sheriff Coffee, I’d be much obliged if you kept me posted?”

“Sure thing, Adam,” Roy promised. “First thing t’morrow, I’ll send wires t’ Freedonia ‘n the Overland Stage Company’s main headquarters. I’ll letcha know what they say.”

“Thank you,” Adam said gratefully.

“It’ll be dark before long. Time we thought about stoppin’ t’ make camp,” Hugh O’Brien wearily told his eldest daughter, Crystal McShane, and foreman, Darryl Hughes. He and his family had been close friends and neighbors of the Cartwright family for many years. Hugh was the owner of a small spread called Shoshone Queen, in honor of his late wife, Angelina Thundercloud Woman, a full blooded Shoshone. Crystal McShane had served well as his “right hand man,” in the years following the deaths of her mother and husband.

“There’s watering hole up ahead, Pa,” Crystal said, pointing straight ahead, slightly to her left. “It’s nestled in the midst of that rock circle up yonder.”

“How far you figure?”

“Quarter of a mile at most,” Crystal replied.

“Alright, we’ll make camp there,” Hugh decided.

The three were on their way home from Eastgate, where they had sold a dozen saddle horses at auction for a whopping ten thousand dollars. Crystal had wisely insisted on having a bank draft drawn up, rather than carry a that large amount of cash on a four day trek back home. They reached the water hole that Crystal had pointed out, just as the sun began to dip down behind the jagged line of mountains in the far distance. Hugh and Darryl immediately set themselves to the task of settling the horses for the night, while Crystal took an arm load of wood from their pack horse for their camp fire.

“Darryl, Crystal ‘n I’ve decided t’ give ya a couple o’ days off,” Hugh said, as he unsaddled his own horse, Tarannis. “Official just as soon as we get home.”

“You deserve it, Darryl,” Crystal added, in complete wholehearted agreement. “You worked real hard not only helping Pa ‘n me get OUR horses saddle broke, trained, and ready for that auction, but in giving Hoss a hand with that string they we’re trying to get ready to fill that army contract, as well.”

Darryl looked from one to the other, his cheeks flaming scarlet. He had unsaddled Dagda, Crystal’s big palomino gelding, and his own horse, Kentucky Blue. “Gee, I . . . I dunno, Mister O’Brien . . . Mrs. McShane,” he stammered modestly, as he turned to unload their pack horse. “I . . . well, it IS my job after all . . . . ”

“Which you’ve performed admirably . . . ‘way above and beyond the call of duty, especially with Joe and Stacy Cartwright being sidelined the way they were,” Crystal said, as she arranged the wood and lit the camp fire. “Pa?”

“Yeah, Crys?”

“SPEAKING of Joe and Stacy . . . what’s the latest?” she asked. “You told me you’d bumped into Mister Cartwright over at the general store just before we left for Eastgate.”

Hugh smiled. “Ben told me they’re goin’ stir crazy.”

“THAT’S a good sign,” Crystal said, with a smile. The entire Cartwright family, especially the youngest son and only daughter, had, over the years, established a solid reputation for being Doc Martin’s worst patients in times of illness or injury.

“He also said Stacy wrote Jason a nice long letter.”

“Good.” Crystal smiled. “That would’ve been a couple of weeks ago. Jason oughtta be getting it about now. I know he’s been worried sick since we wrote and told him about the fire and about Stacy being hurt.”

Hugh and Darryl approached the campfire carrying dishes, cooking utensils, three large cans of beans, and a small sack of coffee.

“Darryl?”

“Yes, Mrs. McShane?”

“Would you mind fetching us some water?”

“Not at all, Ma’am,” Darryl replied, as he picked up their coffee pot and a large bucket.

“Say, Darryl . . . . ” Hugh called after his young foreman, as he and Crystal set to work opening the cans of beans.

“Yes, Sir?”

“I was just thinkin’ . . . it’s gonna be a while before Joe Cartwright’s able to attend any Saturday night dances, what with that bum ankle o’ his,” Hugh said with a sly smile. “I’ll betcha Lilly Beth Jared’s just dyin’ for an invitation.”

“Pa! That’s TERRIBLE!”

“What’s terrible?”

“Encouraging a nice young man like Darryl t’ take shameless advantage of another man’s misfortune is bad enough,” Crystal sternly admonished her father, as she emptied the first can of beans her father had just opened into a large pot. “But when the man suffering misfortune is a friend . . . . ” She sighed and shook her head. “You oughtta be ashamed of yourself!”

“Lilly Beth and Joe ain’t engaged, are they?”

“No . . . . ”

“Do they have any kind of an understanding?”

“No, not that I know of.”

“Ok, then,” Hugh said reasonably. “T’ ain’t nothin’ wrong with makin’ hay whilst the sun shines.”

“Mister O’Brien?”

“Yes, Darryl?”

“Joe and Lilly Beth broke up last year,” the younger man said, as he returned to the campfire with the coffee pot and bucket filled with water.

Hugh’s face fell. “Really?”

“Yup.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Hugh murmured, shaking his head in mild surprise. He handed the second can of beans, he had opened, over to Crystal, then set to work opening the third. “You know how come?”

“Pa, I don’t think that’s any of our business,” Crystal admonished her father severely.

“I only wanna know,” Hugh immediately defended himself in a lofty tone of voice.

“Why? So you can tell your friends at the Cattlemen’s Association?”

“Well . . . . ”

“Honestly! You MEN are worse gossips than the likes of Mrs. Kirk and Miss Mudgely put together,” Crystal said as she finished opening the third can of beans and poured it into the pot. The two women she had referred to were unofficially known among the populace of Virginia City and the surrounding environs, as the walking branches of the Territorial Enterprise.

“Mister O’Brien?”

“Yes, Darryl?”

“I can’t tell ya all the whys ‘n wherefores behind Joe ‘n Lilly Beth breakin’ up,” Darryl said. Joe Cartwright had sworn him to secrecy so not to besmirch Lilly Beth’s reputation. Though he remained firmly of the opinion that Lilly Beth Jared deserved no such consideration, Joe had been adamant. In the end, Darryl agreed to keep the matter secret for the sake of the girl’s family, and because Joe had asked it of him . . . not out of any concern or consideration for Lilly Beth Jared. “I, uhhh . . . agree with Joe ‘bout WHY they broke up, but that’s all I can say. As for Lily Beth, well she’s got a new fella and I’ve got me someone else t’ be sweet on.”

“Oh yeah? Who?” Hugh prompted.

“Pa . . . . ” Crystal growled threateningly.

“It’s ok, Mrs. McShane,” Darryl said. “Her name’s Rebecca Sullivan.”

Hugh lapsed into a moment of thoughtful silence. “She the gal who just started work over at the bank a couple o’ months ago?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“She DOES seem t’ be a real nice, down t’ earth kinda gal,” Hugh said, grinning from ear-to-ear, “an’ she’s pretty as a picture t’ boot. You gonna ask HER t’ the Saturday night dance?”

“Already did, Sir,” Darryl replied. “A man don’t go ‘n keep a gal like Rebecca Sullivan waitin’ around. Not if he’s smart.”

“What’d she say?”

Darryl smiled. “She told me she’d love to go to the dance with me.”

“That’s wonderful, Boy,” Hugh declared, grinning from ear-to-ear himself. “Now if you need any advice as to how t’ handle women . . . . ”

“ . . . uuhhh, M-Mister O’Brien, meanin’ no disrespect, Sir, but I’ve already got someone givin’ me advice ‘bout handlin’ women.”

Hugh’s face fell. “Oh yeah? Who?”

“Mrs. McShane.”

Hugh looked over at the eldest of his three offspring, and frowned.

“Well, you know what they say, Pa,” Crystal quipped with a smug grin, “that the only person who knows best how to handle a woman is another woman. Now why don’t you two gossipy ol’ roosters make yourselves useful, and set out our bedrolls?”

“I’ll go get ‘em,” Darryl quickly offered.

“Smells good, Crys,” Hugh said, licking his lips in anticipation.

“It should. It’s Ma’s recipe.”

“I remember,” Hugh said with a wistful, nostalgic smile. “There was no trail cook in the world anywhere near as good as your ma.”

“Nor will there ever be,” Crystal declared. “Ma could take a dried out ol’ tumbleweed and make it taste like a gourmet meal.”

“Nights like this I miss her most.”

“I know . . . nights like this I miss Robert most,” Crystal said as she gave her pot of simmering beans another stir, then set herself to the task of fixing their coffee. Robert, her late husband, had died seven years before, when her youngest son was a baby.

“Crys?”

“Yeah, Pa?”

“Can I ask ya a personal question?”

“Ask all ya want. I make no promises I’ll answer.”

“Fair ‘nuff,” Hugh grunted. “How come you ain’t ever remarried? Not like you never had no prospects.”

“I probably never remarried for the same reason YOU never remarried,” Crystal said.

Hugh frowned. “What reason is that?”

“You know how you’re always telling folks no one’s ever quite measured up to Ma?”

“Yeah . . . . ”

“Well, it’s the same with ME. Sooner or later, usually sooner, I start making comparisons between the fella I’m with . . . and Robert,” she said with a touch of sadness. “So far, all the fellas I’ve ever been with come up wanting.”

“Your boys could use a pa.”

“My boys have a perfectly good GRANDpa, thank you very much . . . and a perfectly good uncle, besides,” Crystal quipped, then grinned. “ . . . and if things keep going the way they seem to be going between our boy and Stacy Cartwright . . . they’ll have two more perfectly good uncles in Hoss and Joe.”

“ . . . and I imagine ol’ Ben’ll become like a SECOND grandpa to your boys,” Hugh grunted.

“I just hope HE doesn’t spoil ‘em rotten like YOU do.”

Hugh chuckled. “Grandpa’s privilege, Gal. You get to turn the tables when your boys git themselves hitched, ‘n start presentin’ YOU with grandkids.”

“Well, supper’s about ready,” Crystal said, then frowned. “I wonder what’s taking Darryl so long with those bed rolls.”

“I’ll go check on him,” Hugh said.

“N-No . . . oh no, no . . , please, G-God, n-no . . . . ”

Darryl, with bedrolls clasped firmly in hand stared down at the frightened, cowering young woman in dismay, not knowing what to do. She was very young, not much older than his employer’s youngest daughter, Susannah, who was eighteen going on nineteen. She was barefoot. Her only clothing was a tattered, soiled chemise, with a long, jagged tear, reaching from the neckline, clear down to the waist. Her long, dark brown hair was matted, and caked with sweat, grime, and dust. She had an oval shaped face, with enormous eyes, a pixie-like upturned nose, and small, rosebud mouth with full lips. The exposed portions of her skin were bright red, very much like the shell of a steamed lobster.

“P-Please, Miss . . . I-I ain’t gonna hurt ya,” Darryl said as he tried to edge closer.

“Stay BACK!” the woman snarled.

“Darryl? What’s goin’ on, Boy?”

“It’s . . . I mean . . . SHE’S a l-lady, Sir,” Darryl stammered, his gaze moving back and forth between Hugh and the young woman.

“A lady?!” Hugh echoed incredulous.

“Oh no . . . oh, G-God, no . . . please . . . oh please, no!”

Hugh turned and found himself face to face with a badly frightened young woman, not much older than his youngest daughter.

“I . . . I think she n-needs help, but . . . she won’t let me anywhere near her.”

“Miss, it’s alright . . . . ” Hugh said in a low, soothing voice, as he knelt down, bringing himself nearly eye level with the young woman. “My name’s Hugh O’Brien. This here’s m’ foreman, Darryl Hughes.”

The woman tried desperately to scuttle away, but her arms and legs simply would not support her weight. She collapsed down onto the sand, sobbing in despair and angry frustration. “No, oh no, no, no . . . . ” she murmured, amid the torrent of weeping, that wracked her diminutive body.

Hugh watched with an anxious, bewildered frown, as the woman, amid her heart wrenching sobbing, tried desperately to close the torn bodice of her chemise with trembling hands. Then, suddenly, revelation slammed into him hard, like the powerful kick of a good strong mule to the solar plexus. “Dear, God . . . . ” he whispered, utterly shaken to the core.

“M-Mister O’Brien . . . . ?! Are you al— ”

“I . . . I . . . No!” One minute Hugh saw the woman as she was, the next he saw his own youngest daughter, Susannah in her place. His entire body trembled with a swift rising black tide of rage, that threatened to consume him. “Darryl . . . . ”

“Y-Yes, Sir?”

“ . . . I want ya t’ git up . . . slow ‘n easy,” Hugh ordered, laboring mightily to speak calmly in the face the murderous fury within him toward the man who had so terribly hurt the young woman cowering away from him and his foreman. “Go back ‘n send Mrs. McShane over here.”

“But— ”

“Do as I tell ya, Boy. I’ll be alright.”

Darryl nodded, then reluctantly rose to his feet and set off. A few moments later, Crystal appeared. “Pa?”

“Over here, Crys,” Hugh responded in a low voice, while keeping a wary eye on the woman now lying on the sand, weeping piteously, with her back to him.

“Pa, Darryl just came to me with a wild story about a— ” Her words died a quick and sudden death when her dark, chocolate brown eyes fell on the tiny young woman lying several yards from her father’s feet, sobbing.

“I don’t know where she’s come from,” Hugh said very softly, as his eldest daughter knelt down beside him. “She musta blundered into our campsite when Darryl was fetchin’ our bedrolls. She’s in a real bad way . . . but she won’t let Darryl or me within ten feet of her.”

Crystal turned and favored her father with a bewildered frown.

Hugh sidled over closer to Crystal, then lowered his voice to a mere whisper. “I . . . I’m pretty sure she’s been . . . violated, Crys.”

The blood drained right out of Crystal McShane’s face, as her own eyes took in the woman’s chemise, reduced now to filthy tatters and rags, along with the telltale jagged, angry red rope burns on her wrists and ankles. “Wait here, Pa,” she said, feeling terribly sick at heart. “Miss?” she called out, speaking at normal volume, struggling against her own feelings of grief and rising anger to keep her tone of voice calm.

The woman raised her head, and regarded Crystal through eyes as dark brown as her own. “No, p-please . . . no, no . . . . ” she sobbed.

“It’s alright, Miss. I’m not going to hurt you. I want to try and help you.”

“Oh, G-God . . . dear, God, please . . . no, please . . . n-no more, no more . . . . ”

Keeping to her hands and knees, Crystal very slowly, very carefully moved toward the woman. “My name is CRYSTAL McShane,” she continued in a low, soothing tone of voice. “This is my father, Mister O’Brien. He won’t hurt you either. We want to help you.”

The significance of the higher pitched speaking voice and the name finally penetrated. The young woman regarded Crystal warily, but made no attempts to flee as she continued her slow and easy advance.

“Please . . . . ” the woman began to sob anew when Crystal finally reached her side. “St-stage robbery . . . my husband . . . sh-shot. Please? Please help him . . . . ”

Crystal could feel the heat of fever radiating from the young woman even before she touched her. “Pa?” she said very softly.

“Yeah, Crys?”

“I need you to fill my canteen . . . you’ll find it with my saddle,” Crystal said, as she gathered the young woman gently into her arms. “I’ll also need a clean cloth. When you get the canteen, grab the extra bedroll from our supplies. Have Darryl roll it out next to mine.”

“You gonna be alright?” Hugh asked, his voice edged with worry.

“I’ll be fine, Pa. Shape she’s in right now, if she DID put up a fight, I can safely guarantee it’ll be a real short one.”

“Ok, Crys. If you need me, yell.” Hugh began to back away very slowly, taking great care to keep his movements fluid and easy.

Crystal turned her attention back to the woman. “It’s alright, Miss. It’s going to be alright . . . . ” As alright as it ever can be, ever again, she mused in angry silence, upon noting the mottled purplish skin under her eyes, and across her chest, its lurid hues muted by the what had to be a very painful sunburn, her bruised, swollen lips, split and cracking, caked with dried blood. “We’re not going to hurt you . . . we only want to HELP you.”

“H-husband . . . hurt . . . shot . . . p-please,” the woman murmured, her voice painfully hoarse, barely audible, before collapsing against Crystal, sobbing.

Crystal held her as she wept, in manner not unlike the way she gathered her own sons, or even her younger sister, Susannah to herself whenever they were hurt or injured.

“Crys?”

She glanced up and saw her father emerge from the deepening shadows, his face pale and drawn, with clean cloth and full canteen in hand. “Bring ‘em to me, Pa,” she murmured, in a low voice, calm to the point of monotone. “Slow and easy.”

Hugh nodded, then took a deep breath as he willed the muscles in his body to relax. He took another deep breath, then another, before moving toward Crystal, in the silent, easy manner of a Shoshone hunter moving through the forest in search of prey, all the while thanking the Good Lord, he had been man enough to ask his late wife to teach him. Upon reaching his eldest daughter and the young woman, she clasped so tenderly in her arms, he handed her the cloth, then knelt down to unscrew the cap in the canteen.

Crystal mutely nodded her thanks, as she accepted the proffered canteen from her father, then returned her attention back to the woman. She carefully settled the woman, with her head resting on her lap, taking care to see that her face was turned away from Hugh. She poured a generous amount of water into the cloth, the started to gently blot the woman’s face.

The woman moaned softly. “F-feels good . . . water . . . . ” She opened her eyes, and peered up into the face of the kind woman ministering to her. “Please?” she begged. “Water . . . drink . . . ?!”

Crystal set the nestled the canteen in the sand beside her, then carefully raised the woman in her arms from almost prone to half way between lying down and sitting up. As she brought the canteen down to the woman’s mouth, she seized hold of the canteen, yanking it from Crystal’s grasp with surprising strength.

“Hey, easy! Take it easy!” Crystal said firmly, as she gently wrested the opening of the container from the woman’s lips. “I know you’re very thirsty, but you can’t gulp it like that. You have to drink very slow, very easy.” She returned the opening to the woman’s mouth, open and gasping.

The woman drank briefly, then pushed the canteen away.

“M-My husband . . . . ” she moaned softly.

“Where is he?” Crystal asked as she handed the canteen back to her father, still kneeling in front of her.

“Shot . . . stage robbery . . . left back . . . left back THERE . . . w-with others . . . b-back . . . with stage.”

“She’s gonna need a doctor, Crys,” Hugh said quietly.

“I know it,” came Crystal’s grim reply. “How far are we from Virginia City?”

“If we move out first thing in the mornin’, we’d get there by late morning . . . early afternoon, at the latest,” Hugh replied.

Crystal silently debated the consequences of moving the woman through what her late mother had wryly referred to as the garden sport of the desert verses remaining here with her father, and sending Darryl back for help. “Pa,” she finally said.

“Yeah, Crys?”

“We got any of that beef jerky left?”

“Yeah . . . we do.”

“Good. We’ll make do with that for breakfast tomorrow,” Crystal said. “After we eat supper tonight, I’d like you and Darryl to get things washed and packed up ready to be loaded on our pack horse. I’d like to leave as close to first light as we possibly can.”

“You gonna be able to manage her on your horse alright?”

“Pa, I can easily manage Susannah,” she hastened to point out. “This woman is probably every last bit of a head shorter and twenty . . . maybe twenty-five pounds lighter. But, we need to get her into town . . . to a doctor . . . sooner the better.”

“No!” the woman protested with surprising vigor. “Please . . . m-my husband . . . he n-needs . . . needs h-help.”

“We’re going to get him that help,” Crystal ardently promised, “but, if there’s a stage . . . and other passengers, who are hurt . . . they’re going to need more help than just the three of US can give.”

“Robbers . . . they . . . they took everything,” the woman moaned. “Then they . . . they . . . m-made my h-husband watch while they . . . they . . . oh, Madre de Dios, they sh-sh-shot h-him . . . they . . . they SHOT m-my husband . . . left him . . . left all of them t-to . . . to die. Took m-me . . . took m-me away . . . oh, L-Lorenzo . . . I’m s-sorry . . . I’m so sorry, please . . . please f-forgive m-me . . . .” Her words were downed in a brief, yet very fierce torrent of agonized weeping.

Crystal had never, in her entire life, ever heard such depths of grief and hopeless despair pour fourth out of another human being.

“Mister O’Brien?” Darryl ventured hesitantly, hours later, with a belly full of coffee and beans, as he watched Crystal diligently caring for the young woman, who had blundered into their campsite, through a translucent curtain of leaping flames.

“What is it, Boy?”

“She’s pretty feverish . . . . ”

“Yeah.”

“You think there’s anything to that story about a stage hold up . . . ‘n others out there . . . hurt, maybe dyin’?” Darryl asked. “ . . . or does it come from a hot desert sun workin’ on a fevered mind?”

“I dunno, Darryl. I do know one thing though . . . . ”

“What’s THAT, Sir?”

“That gal’s been through hell ‘n back, stage robbery or NO stage robbery,” Hugh said grimly.

“Damn!” Adam swore softly under his breath as the paper directly beneath his kneaded eraser disintegrated, leaving an oblong hole, with ragged edges, in the place where he had been trying to put the finishing touches on the final sketches for the second story of his family’s new house.

The hour was very late, or perhaps very early, depending on one’s perspective. His eyes automatically moved up to the wall clock, upon hearing it strike the three-quarters hour. The time was fifteen minutes before three . . . in the morning.

“Damn, damn, damn, damn, DAMN!” he swore. On that last, he savagely wadded the entire sheet of paper into a tight ball, and hurled it across the room with all his might.

You’re pathetic, Cartwright.

Adam’s entire body went rigid.

Lines and rectangles. That’s all it is . . . just a bunch o’ friggin’ lines ‘n rectangles all put together. A CHILD could draw that. Y’ hear me, Mister High-‘n-Mighty-Thinks-He’s-So-Friggin’-Smart Cartwright!? A child!

That harsh, grating voice, made painfully hoarse by years and years of over indulgence in whiskey, mostly the rot gut variety, could only belong to one man: Randy Paine. He saw himself as Virginia City’s answer to the likes of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. Nearly everyone else saw him as Randy Paine-in-the-ass. When sober, he had no word for anybody, kind, unkind, or indifferent. However, when drunk, he was mean, cruel, and verbose.

By the time Adam was old enough to go into saloons without necessarily being in the company of his father, Randy Paine had been holding court at his round table in the very back of the Bucket of Blood Saloon for many years. He was a very bitter, very angry old man, made so by circumstance, according to the rumors. No one seemed to know where he had come from, nor did anyone much care.

Most evenings, by the time the regular patrons arrived, Randy Paine had been seated at his table, quaffing cheap whiskey since noon. Every night, he targeted one man, occasionally two, as the bull’s eye for all his vitriolic barbs, slings, and arrows. The Bucket of Blood’s regular patrons ignored him for the most part. Occasionally, tempers would flare, and violence erupt. It usually ended with Randy Paine being hauled off to jail, where he could sleep off his intoxication and the chosen victim of his verbal abuse being asked to leave.

“This is crazy! I haven’t thought of Randy Paine in YEARS!” Adam murmured softly, while vigorously shaking his head, as if to physically dislodge those unpleasant memories. Not since Pa had told him in a letter about Randy’s death within a month of his having left the Ponderosa for good.

A harsh bark of laughter, accompanied by the tell-tale rattle of the thick accumulation of phlegm that had always seemed to be present within the man’s lungs. “I ain’t dead, Cartwright, not to YOU, I ain’t. I just been waitin’ all curled up inside ya . . . just like an old rattler.”

“Shut up,” Adam growled.

“That the best you can do, Cartwright?”

“Shut UP! You’re dead!”

“ . . . an’ YOU’RE just another rich man’s pathetic son.”

“Shut up, you hear me? Shut up, damn it, SHUT UP!”

“A-Adam?”

Adam turned abruptly with enough force and momentum to almost send him toppling to the floor. A wild, flailing hand reaching out, and snaring the edge of the massive roll top desk in his room, by sheer luck, kept himself and his chair upright. Barely.

“Adam . . . you ok?” It was his youngest brother, Joe. Clad in a pair of pajama bottoms, no top, he stood framed in the open door, his face a shade or two paler than normal, his hazel eyes round with shock, astonishment, and concern.

“Y-Yeah,” Adam murmured. “I must’ve dozed off for a moment. Sorry I woke ya.”

“ ‘S ok, Adam.” Joe yawned. “I can always sleep in. One of the few advantages of convalescing.” He entered the room, carrying the crumpled up wad of paper upon which his oldest brother had laboriously agonized over, in trying to get the drawings for the new house exactly right. “I, uuhh . . . found this. It was lying out in the middle of the hall.”

“Thanks,” Adam sighed disparagingly, as he held out his hand.

“It’s awfully late for YOU to be awake, Adam,” Joe said, as he watched his oldest brother crumple the paper again and lob it into the waste basket. “YOU alright? You were awfully quiet at the supper table tonight.”

“I’m fine,” Adam lied right through his teeth. The anxious scowl in his youngest brother’s face told him that Joe saw right through it. “I was kinda tired. We got a lot of good work done today, though.”

“I remember Hoss saying that you guys are running ahead of schedule.”

“We are,” Adam affirmed. “That’s another reason I didn’t say much at the supper table. All I could think of was getting up here and finishing up the final drawings, so I can begin to figure out what we’re going to need in the way of building supplies.”

“Oh. Then, maybe I’d better g’won back to bed and letcha get back to work then,” Joe said with another yawn.

“You don’t have to leave so soon, Buddy.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” Adam said ruefully. “I, umm . . . have a whole wastebasket full of paper wads just like THIS one . . . . ” he held up the wad his youngest brother had retrieved from the hall, “ . . . to show for an entire evening’s work. Kinda pathetic, isn’t it?” He punctuated his words with a sardonic chuckle, as he dropped the paper wad in hand on top of its brethren, filling the waste basket beside his desk.

“You SURE you’re ok, Oldest Brother?” Joe asked anxiously as he walked over and sat down on the edge of Adam’s bed.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Adam replied just a hair too quickly. “I probably need to put it aside for a little while. How’d things go with you and with Doctor Martin’s friend this afternoon.”

“Very well,” Joe replied with a broad grin.

“Glad to hear it,” Adam said, returning his younger brother’s smile. “I know you we’re a little nervous this morning.”

“A LITTLE nervous?!” Joe laughed with genuine mirth. “If you thought I was only a LITTLE nervous, I’d hate to see what you call a LOT nervous, Oldest Brother of Mine.”

Adam found himself laughing along with Joe. “So . . . what was his diagnosis?” the former asked, as their laughter began to wane.

“Doctor Jefferies told me that the things I’m feeling and experiencing right now are normal responses to what I went through with Lady Chadwick,” Joe replied. “He also told me that eventually, I’m going to come out of all this a better and stronger man for it.”

“I’m sure PA could’ve told you that.”

“He DID, Adam . . . many times,” Joe admitted, feeling ever so slightly on the defensive. “He also told me that there’s wisdom in consulting with an impartial third party.”

“I suppose.”

Joe found himself inwardly bristling against Adam’s condescending, dismissive tone. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then slowly, silently counted to ten. “Adam . . . . ”

“Yeah, Buddy?” Adam queried as he returned his attention back to the task of drawing up the final plans for the first floor of his family’s new home to be.

“For awhile there . . . before I talked with Doctor Jefferies, I was scared,” Joe said quietly, his smile fading. “I thought sure I was gonna end up spending the rest of my life in a snake pit somewhere, wrapped up tight in a straight jacket, drooling and messing myself.”

Adam laid down his pencil, then looked up, favoring his youngest brother with a bewildered frown. “Where in the world did you get an idea like that?”

“I kept having these waking dreams, just like Pa’s friend . . . you know, the guy who was sheriff over in Concho?”

“Paul Rowan?”

“That’s the guy. One day, he fell into a waking dream and couldn’t find his way back out,” Joe said. “Pa told me it wasn’t a sudden thing . . . that there’d been a lot of things building up over time, but I was still scared to death. Talking with a doc who specialized in dealing with that sort of thing help me to realize I don’t have to end up like Paul Rowan and . . . that Pa was right.”

“About?”

“About me coming out on the other side of all this stronger and better than I was before Lady Chadwick kidnapped me. To say I feel a lot better about things now is a gross understatement.”

“You’re certainly LOOKING the best I’ve seen you since I arrived,” Adam remarked, upon seeing the easy smile back on his youngest brother’s face, the posture more relaxed, a return of the old twinkle in his eyes.

“Thanks. Adam . . . . ”

“Yeah, Buddy?” Adam murmured, as he once again picked up his pencil and turned back to the black sheet of paper spread out on the desk before him.

“Can I ask you something?”

“May,” Adam corrected automatically, without thinking.

An exasperated sigh, soft, barely audible, escaped from between Joe’s lips.

“I’m sorry, Joe,” Adam immediately apologized, with sincere regret. “I guess I’m so used to correcting Benjy and Dio these days, I— ”

“It’s ok, Adam.”

“What did you want to ask me?”

“About your time in the desert with that guy, Kane,” Joe replied.

Adam groaned softly.

“You went through hell with the man, Adam,” Joe continued. “We all pretty much figured THAT out. What I’m wondering is . . . well . . . I guess what I’m wondering is how did YOU come through, with your sanity intact?” His question drew a sharp glare from Adam. Joe flinched away from its intensity and the raw fury he saw smoldering in his oldest brother’s golden brown eyes.

Adam was immediately filled with remorse upon seeing the horrified, frightened look on Joe’s face. “Joe, I . . . I’m sorry, I . . . . ” He sighed and shook his head.

“It’s alright, I’m sorry I asked.”

“I . . . think, perhaps right now ISN’T a very good time,” Adam said quickly. “It’s late, for one thing . . . VERY late! . . . and just before Hoss and I left the Silver Dollar this . . . LAST evening, I heard that the Overland Stage, the one that left the day after I arrived, is missing. It should have arrived in Freedonia a week and a half ago, A young couple I met in Sacramento and with whom I became acquainted on the trip out, may be among the passengers on that missing stage.”

“You taking about that young couple . . . the newly weds?”

“Yes.”

“Hoss told me a little about ‘em,” Joe said. “Adam, I’m sorry . . . I had no idea.”

“Please, don’t give the matter another thought,” Adam said quietly. “There’s certainly no way you could’ve known.”

“I hope they turn up ok.”

“I hope so, too.”

Joe rose, and stretched. “I’m gonna g’won back to bed and let YOU do the same. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

“Good night,” Adam said, then smiled. “Spending the afternoon today with Doctor Jefferies seems to have worked wonders for you, Joe. I meant it when I said that you’re looking the best I’ve seen you since I arrived.”

Joe smiled back. “Thanks, Adam,” he said, before quietly leaving the room.

“ ‘Mornin’, Pa . . . ‘mornin’, Stacy,” Joe greeted his father and sister affably, with a big, sunny smile. There was a definite spring in his step, and a sparkle in his gray-green eyes that had not been there since the night the Cartwrights’ home had burned down.

“Good morning, Joe,” Ben responded, returning his youngest son’s smile with a warm one of his own. “You’re in a good mood this morning.”

“Yeah . . . I am, Pa.”

“ ‘Mornin’, Grandpa,” Stacy returned his greeting, then sighed. “I think I’m envious!”

“Envious?” Joe echoed, favoring his young sister with a bewildered frown. “Of who? For what?!”

“You!” she quipped. “I just noticed you’re not walking with a limp!”

Joe walked behind her, paused, and acting purely on impulse, planted a big kiss on top of her head. “You hang in there, Kid. You’re gonna be walking ‘n riding again before ya know it,” he said as he continued around to his place on the other side of the table.

“Your brother’s right, Young Woman,” Ben said, offering his daughter a reassuring smile. “As for YOU, Joseph . . . I don’t care how well you’re getting around, you don’t do anything strenuous before Doctor Martin tells ya you can. You understand me?”

“Yes, Sir,” Joe replied with a big, bold grin.

“Make sure that you do,” Ben admonished.

“Is . . . Adam up yet?” Joe asked, as he sat down in the place across the table from his sister.

“Up and gone, Son,” Ben replied.

“Oh.” Joe’s face fell. “When?”

“He and Hoss rode out at the crack of dawn this morning.”

“I hope he took plenty of good, strong coffee with him,” Joe murmured, shaking his head.

“Why do you say THAT, Grandpa?” Stacy asked.

“Because he was up pretty late.”

“Oh?” Ben queried, favoring his youngest son with a bemused look.

“Yeah. He woke me up in the wee early hours of the morning, yelling at somebody to shut-up,” Joe explained. “I went to his room to see what was wrong, and I found him still up, still dressed, laboring over those drawings of what’s gonna be our upstairs. I guess he must’ve dozed off and dreamed of whoever he was telling to shut-up, because when I went in and called his name? He must’ve jumped ten feet. Pa . . . I’m worried about him.”

“Why?” Ben queried, trying hard to ignore the uneasiness that had gnawed at him ever since Paul Martin had made that offhand remark in the post office, about being more worried if what had happened to Joe . . . had happened to Adam instead.

“When I ran in to check up on him, he told me about a stage being missing,” Joe said, “and said that he may have known two of the passengers.”

The lines already present in Ben’s brow deepened as his eyebrows came together to form an anxious frown. “Really? I don’t recall him saying anything about that last night.”

“He didn’t . . . leastwise not at the supper table,” Joe said. “I wanted to see him this morning, though . . . just to make sure he’s alright . . . and I wanted to ask him something.”

“What was it you wanted to ask him?”

“It’s certainly nothing that can’t wait ‘til later, Pa. I mainly wanted to make sure he was alright.”

“He didn’t say very much this morning,” Ben said slowly. “I know he’s got a lot on his mind, now that work on our house has begun in earnest, and if he’s also concerned about missing friends . . . . ”

“We’re those people close friends of Adam’s?” Stacy asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Joe replied. “Hoss told me they’re a young couple, just married, headed home to Santa Fe. They got on the stage in Sacramento, when Adam did.”

“There’s a lot of way stations between here and Santa Fe,” Ben said, turning a deaf ear and blind eye to his own, steadily growing uneasiness, “and a pretty fair number of ’em are in remote areas, with no access to telegraph or wire services. Chances are, they’ll turn up at one of those stations.”

“I hope so, Pa,” Joe said quietly.

As Adam and Hoss rounded the corner behind the barn and rode into the yard, they were very much surprised to find a small crowd gathered around the dug hole, that would soon be Hop Sing’s root cellar. They were mostly women and children, all family members of the ranch hands who worked on the Ponderosa.

“I wonder what’s going on,” Adam murmured, as he and Hoss dismounted.

“Uh oh. THAT looks like Doc Martin’s buggy over there,” Hoss said, with an anxious frown.

George Farlyn and Jacob Cromwell, upon catching sight of the two older Cartwright brothers, left their places at the edge of the hole, and started moving toward Adam and Hoss.

“ ‘Mornin’ Jacob . . . George,” Hoss greeted both men with a curt nod. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Hoss, I . . . doggone it, I don’t know what t’ say,” Jacob said, flustered, shaking his head at the utter futility. “I know I’VE told those kids, time ‘n time again, t’ stay away from the buildin’ site. So have Hank ‘n Candy . . . ‘n their folks, too, I dare say.”

“It’s a young fella by the name o’ Jeremy Watkins,” George said. “He and a couple of friends were playing near the construction site and . . . somehow . . . Jeremy ended up falling into the hole we dug for Hop Sing’s root cellar.”

“Unfortunately children, especially little boys, seem drawn to building sites like iron to lodestone,” Adam remarked wryly, as his thoughts drifted back to memories of some of his youngest brother’s exploits, when HE was a child. “Was he badly hurt?”

“Doc’s pretty sure Jeremy’s got a busted leg, maybe a cracked rib or two,” Jacob said grimly, as Adam and Hoss handed their horses’ reins over to one of the younger hands. “Other than that . . . . ” He shrugged.

Upon reaching the edge, the Cartwright brothers saw that someone had placed a ladder down into the hole. Doctor Paul Martin, clad in a pair of brown pants and the white shirt he had worn the previous day, both hastily donned, was hard at work splinting the boy’s left leg. Thelma Watkins, Jeremy’s mother knelt down on the other side of her son, facing the doctor. Hoss climbed down first, followed by Adam.

Thelma looked up at the two older Cartwright sons, as they approached. “Hoss, I . . . I just plain don’t know WHAT to say,” she said in the same helpless tone, they had heard in Jacob Cromwell’s voice moments ago. “These kids have been told, over ‘n over ‘n over again . . . . ” She directed a meaningful scowl in the general direction of her young son, lying before her on the ground.

Hoss knelt down beside the flustered, distraught, and angry young mother. “Is Jeremy gonna be alright?” he asked, directing his question to Thelma and to the doctor.

“His leg’s broken,” Paul Martin glanced up at Hoss, then over at Adam. “Simple fracture. I’ve already set the bone, and I’m just about through splinting it. That’ll keep everything in place long enough to get the boy up out of here and to my office in town where I can put a proper cast on it.”

“Is he hurt elsewhere, Doctor?” Thelma asked anxiously.

“He’s covered with cuts and bruises . . . par for the course with a tumble like Jeremy took, but nothing serious . . . apart from the broken leg,” Paul said in a calm, reassuring tone of voice. “I’ve cleaned all the cuts, and bandaged a couple of the larger ones, but they should all heal up pretty quickly.”

“Well, Jeremy, looks like you got t’ stay home from school for a li’l while,” Hoss said with a grin.

“Really?” Jeremy smiled, delighted at the prospect.

“You may be home from school for a time, Young Man, but you’re gonna keep up with your lessons,” Thelma said sternly.

Jeremy’s face fell. “You mean . . . I STILL gotta do my homework?!”

“Yes, Jeremy, you’ve still gotta do your homework.”

“Awww, Ma . . . . ”

“Don’t you ‘aww, Ma,’ ME, Young Man. Furthermore, when that cast comes off, ‘n you’re up ‘n about again, you’re gonna be gettin’ a few more chores added to your list. Maybe THAT’LL keep ya outta mischief.”

“DOC MARTIN??! DOC MARTIN!!!”

Adam, Hoss, the Watkins, and the doctor all glanced up toward the edge of the hole, from whence the frantic voice issued. A moment later, the pale, worn face of Darryl Hughes, the O’Briens’ young foreman appeared.

“Doc, y’ gotta come back to town with me,” Darryl said. “Mister O’Brien, Mrs. McShane ‘n me . . . we found a lady in the desert coming back from Eastgate last night. She’s in a bad way, Doc. A REAL bad way!”

“Eastgate?!” Adam echoed, his earlier feelings of foreboding deepening.

“Adam . . . . ” An anxious frown creased Hoss’ brow upon noting his older brother’s ashen gray complexion and round, staring eyes. “ . . . y-you alright?”

“Hoss, did he say Eastgate?!” Adam anxiously pressed. There was a troubling edge to his voice Hoss had only heard there once before . . . when his older brother had insisted upon seeing a man named Peter Kane lying dead in his grave.

“They have that big horse auction there twice a year, Adam . . . remember?” Hoss said in a quiet, calm tone of voice. “The O’Briens musta gone there ‘n sold that string o’ horses they been workin’ on for the last six months.”

“MISTER HUGHES?!” Paul Martin called out to the O’Briens’ foreman, as he scrambled to his feet. “WHERE IS THIS YOUNG LADY NOW?”

“I LEFT HER WITH YOUR WIFE, ‘N MRS. McSHANE BACK AT YOUR OFFICE.”

“DARRYL, YOU G’WON BACK TO TOWN . . . TELL MY WIFE AND MRS. McSHANE I’M RIGHT BEHIND YOU,” Paul yelled.

“ ‘EY . . . JACOB?!” Hoss called out to Jacob Cromwell, who still remained standing at the edge of the hole.

“YEAH, HOSS?”

“TAKE DARRYL IN THE BARN ‘N GIVE HIM A FRESH HORSE,” Hoss ordered, “AND GIT MITCH OR BOBBY T’ LOOK AFTER KENTUCKY BLUE.”

“YES, SIR,” Jacob replied, as he turned and started moving away from the edge.

“THANKS, HOSS. MUCH OBLIGED.”

“YOU’RE WELCOME, DARRYL.”

“I’ve finished splinting Jeremy’s leg, Mrs. Watkins,” Paul Martin said, returning his attention to the anxious mother of his young patient. “That’ll hold until you can get him into town.”

“I’ll be bringing him in myself soon as we can get him up outta this hole and situated in the back of a buckboard,” Thelma said, as both she, Adam, and the doctor rose to their feet.

“Adam . . . Thelma . . . ‘n you, too, Doc. Why don’t the three of ya go ahead on up?” Hoss said. “I’ll bring Jeremy up with me.”

“You sure you can manage him alright, Hoss?” Thelma asked anxiously.

“Hoss CAN manage, but if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll follow him up the ladder and keep a close eye on Jeremy,” Adam offered.

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright . . . yes. That WOULD make me feel a lot better.”

“Alright, Mrs. Watkins, up YOU go,” Paul Martin said, gesturing toward the ladder.

Thelma nodded curtly, then started up the ladder, with Paul following a few moments later.

“Ok, Jeremy, you ‘n me’s next,” Hoss said, as he knelt down beside the injured youngster. “Y’ remember how y’ used t’ play ‘Horse’ with your pa ‘n me, when you was younger?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Good, ‘cause I’m gonna have ya climb on my back like y’ used t’ do back then,” Hoss said. “I’m also gonna need ya t’ wrap your arms around my neck real tight.”

“Mister Hoss?”

“Yeah, Jeremy?”

“It’s a pretty good long way up, and . . . well, I’m kinda scared.”

“I understand, Jeremy,” Hoss said kindly.

“You ain’t mad?”

“No, I ain’t mad,” Hoss quickly assured the boy. “One thing t’ help ya NOT be scared is t’ hold on t’ me real tight, an’ t’ just look up. Think y’ can do that for a little bit?”

“Yeah . . . as long as it’s just a little bit.”

“Jeremy, I’m going to be following right behind Hoss,” Adam said.

“In case I . . . slip?”

“You’re not going to slip,” Adam said. “You look to me like you’re a big, strong young man. Not big like my brother, Hoss, but getting there . . . and I can plainly see that you’ve got plenty of strength to hold on long enough for us to get out of here.”

“Ready, Jeremy?”

“I’m ready, Mister Hoss.”

Adam carefully helped the boy rise up onto his good foot, while Hoss edged closer. Jeremy wrapped his long, bone slender arms around Hoss’ neck and clung for dear life. Hoss rose, with Adam’s assistance, keeping one hand on Jeremy to keep him steady. Three long, quick strides brought Hoss and Jeremy to the bottom of the ladder.

“Hang on, Jeremy. I’m startin’ up.”

A few moments later, everyone gathered around the hole exhaled a collective sigh of relief, as Hoss and Jeremy stepped from the lost rung of the ladder onto terra firma.

“Thelma, if y’ want t’ use our buckboard, I’ll ask one o’ the men t’ get it ready,” Hoss said, as he knelt down, so that the boy’s mother and Adam might help him down off Hoss’ back.

“Thank you kindly, Hoss . . . but, my man’s gone t’ fetch ours,” Thelma said, “but, I’d be much obliged if we could use some fresh straw t’ line the bottom.”

“Help yourself,” Hoss readily assented. “You can borrow a blanket, too, if ya need it.”

Thelma nodded her thanks, then, with the able assistance of Ellen Cromwell, turned her attention to the task of helping Jeremy over to the water trough.

She woke from her daze to find herself lying on a cold, hard metal examination table, stark naked, save for the thin white sheet covering her upper torso. Her dark eyes were glued to the ceiling, to a small dark spot directly over head.

“The spot,” she silently told herself. “Think of the spot. Nothing else but that spot. It’s a dark spot, not very big. I can barely see it from here. Concentrate on the spot . . . nothing else . . . but . . . the spot.”

She caught movement at the very edge of her peripheral vision, slight, but enough to break her concentration, to draw her focus away from the spot. She shuddered as a shadow passed over her eyes, long and thin, enough to dim the late morning sunlight shining in through the window.

. . . and in the shadow, she found herself lying once more on the desert sands, with two big, burly men holding her down. She struggled mightily to free herself, to rise, but her efforts were in vain. It was like struggling with all her might, with every last ounce of her strength to push over one of those giant redwood trees, she and her husband saw in California . . . so long ago . . . .

. . . almost a whole other lifetime ago.

Three faces moved into view . . . frightening faces, unshaven, smiling down at her as if she were something good to eat, their eyes burning with an evil, bitter hatred. Two large, well muscled hands seized the neckline of her chemise, the only piece of clothing that still covered her body.

Somewhere, off in the far distance, she heard the sounds of someone sobbing . . . .

“No . . . no, please . . . pl-please . . . not again!” the young patient sobbed, as she struggled desperately to keep the sheet in place over her upper torso. “Oh, D-Dear G-God . . . n-not again . . . not again!”

Paul Martin immediately removed his hand from the edge of the sheet covering the patient, and stepped back away from the table. Though certainly not the first time a woman, who had endured the pain and humiliation of having been raped, ever recoiled from his touch, it nonetheless cut deep to the heart.

Crystal McShane, who had not left the young woman’s side since she had stumbled into their camp the night before, stood next to the examination table, with the patient’s small hand clasped gently, yet firmly in her own larger one. She leaned over and slipped her arm under the young woman’s heaving shoulders and held her close.

Lily Martin, who had taken up position on the other side of the examination table, now moved toward her husband. She quietly slipped her arm through the crook of his, then gently squeezed his hand as she pressed close to his side. “Paul, you have no choice,” she whispered. “You can’t treat her wounds until you examine her.”

“I know,” Paul whispered back, his voice unsteady. “Problem is, despite my intention to heal, to treat her wounds, as you say . . . leastwise the PHYSICAL ones . . . I’M forced to violate her every bit as much as the man, or the men who raped her.”

“Could you give her a dose of laudanum, or better yet chloroform?”

Paul shook his head. “She’s running a high fever, and is dangerously weak, from being out in the desert as long as she was with no food or water. I give her too much of either one . . . it could kill her.”

At length, the young patient’s deep, heart wrenching sobbing gradually subsided to an occasional soft hiccup. Crystal hugged her closer, and gently pushed back a stray lock of hair that had fallen down into the young woman’s face. “I’m here,” she said softly, “and I’m going to stay right here for as long as you need me.

“I . . . I’m not going to insult you by telling you I know how you feel right now, when I don’t. I know you’ve been hurt physically and in here . . . ” She touched the place of her own heart, “ . . . in just about the worst way a woman CAN be hurt. You’re also alone in a strange place among strangers. I . . . can’t begin to imagine how frightening that must be.”

“I . . . I want t-to die,” the woman sobbed. “Please . . . please let me die.”

“I hear you say that with your lips, and with your heart, but somewhere . . . deep down inside, I see a part of you that wants very much to live,” Crystal said gently. “That part of you gave you the strength, the courage, the iron will to leave the place you were and travel I don’t know HOW many days across harsh desert to our camp last night.”

“Courage,” the woman murmured bitterly. “You confuse courage with cowardice. I was plain and simply too afraid to die.”

“As I said before . . . I have no idea in the world what you’re feeling right now, but, I DO know the difference between courage and cowardice,” Crystal said in a very gentle, yet very firm tone of voice, “and I’ve not seen one bit of cowardice in you.”

“But . . . I AM afraid.”

“That’s very understandable. But there’s also a big world of difference between being afraid and being a coward.” Crystal paused to allow her words, what she felt to be her poor wisdom given the circumstances, to sink in. “Courage is finding the wherewithal to act when you ARE afraid.”

The young woman began to cry again. “I . . . I . . . I always th-thought . . . c-courage was n-not being . . . afraid.”

“If you’re NOT afraid, then you have no need of courage,” Crystal said gently. She held the hurt, frightened young woman, and allowed her to cry on her shoulder for a time.

When, at last, the young patient’s weeping once more began to subside, Crystal took a deep breath, and mentally braced herself for what had to be said next, while at the same time, wishing with all her being she didn’t have to utter her next words. “You’ve been so courageous. I . . . to be honest, I . . . I have doubts as to whether or not I could summon the strength and courage you have, had I gone through what you’ve endured,” she said very quietly. “Even so, I need to ask of you one more act of courage.”

The young woman looked up at Crystal, her eyes filled with dread.

“Doctor Martin needs to finish examining you,” Crystal continued. “To do that, and to treat your injuries . . . the physical ones . . . he needs to go into the places where you’ve already been so badly hurt. I wish it didn’t have to be. I wish that with everything that’s within me. But, unfortunately, wishing can’t change what needs to happen.

“I want you to know that, if you want me, I’ll be right here . . . right by your side,” Crystal continued. “I also want to let you know that I’ve known Doctor Paul Martin all my life. He helped my ma bring me into this world, and he helped me bring my two boys into this world. He’s a very kind, very gentle man, who I believe was put on this earth to HEAL.”

“You . . . you’ll b-be with me?” the woman asked.

“Yes, if you want me.”

“Alright. I . . . I will try to endure . . . so the doctor c-can finish . . . . ”

Crystal raised her head, looked over at Paul Martin, stricken and weary . . . and nodded.

She turned her eyes once more to the ceiling, to that spot directly overhead, forcing herself to think of the spot . . . the spot . . . nothing else . . . just the spot. In that spot, she beheld the image of a man, an older man, aged twenty-eight, very soon to be twenty-nine. Their family and friends had a surprise birthday party planned for him, when they arrived home from their honeymoon trip.

The man was tall, and thin, clean shaven, with eyes the same dark brown, almost black as her own, and a full head of wavy, jet black hair. He smiled down at her with that beautiful smile, a row of straight, pearl white teeth, against the darkness of his olive complexion. Its warmth flooded her entire being.

Then the image changed, as in a dream. The man now stood before the woman she saw lying on the doctor’s examination table, as she must have appeared before the terrible evil that had befallen her. She was so very young, no more than eighteen, maybe nineteen at the most. The top of her head barely reached the middle of the man’s chest. Her long, luxuriant, coal black hair framed her delicate oval shaped face like a halo.

She smiled as the man kissed the woman. She could almost feel his lips gently pressing against her own, his hands caressing her face, her hair . . . .

Suddenly, the vision was gone . . . .

. . . leaving her all alone, except for the kindly, white haired woman, standing next to the examination table, on her right, holding her hand firmly clasped in both of her own . . . .

. . . and Mrs. McShane, standing on her left, holding her other hand, and gently stroking that matted, tangled mass, once her crowning glory . . . just the way Mama did, when she was very little . . . .

. . . and the doctor, examining her, cleaning and salving the raw, wounded places. Though his were the gentle hands of a well practiced healer, his touch violated her every bit as much as the evil monsters who had so cruelly used her.

Lorenzo . . . .

My Dear, Sweet, Beloved Lorenzo . . . .

Now, when I need you most of all, the hand of Cruel Providence has snatched you up and taken you away from me . . . .

Leaving me to face this alone.

No . . . .

No . . . .

“No!” she whimpered. “Oh, God, no . . . please . . . . please don’t t-touch me . . . don’t l-let him touch me . . . . ” She tried to pull her legs together, to roll over and curl up as she was when she lay in her mother’s womb.

“Lily . . . Crystal . . . please . . . try and hold her for just a few more minutes,” Paul Martin begged, his face mirroring the hopeless anguish in that of his patient. “I’ll be through in just a few more minutes.”

Crystal moved in closer, and slipped her arm under the young woman’s shoulders. “Hold on to me,” she whispered. “The doctor’s almost finished. Just hold on to me.”

She wrapped her arms tight around Crystal’s neck, and wept, as the doctor quickly finished his ministrations.

“I’m finished,” Paul Martin said wearily, as he rose to his feet.

Crystal continued to hold onto the young woman, until finally, she had cried herself into a deep, exhausted sleep.

“Would you like me to stay here with her for a few days, Doctor?” Crystal asked.

“If you could, yes! I would appreciate that very much,” Paul Martin said wearily. “She knows you . . . she obviously TRUSTS you. Being in a strange place among strangers after all she was forced to endure . . . to say she could use someone willing to be a friend would be a gross understatement.”

“In the meantime, I’ll stay here while you two speak with Hugh,” Lily offered.

“Thank you, Mrs. Martin,” Crystal said gratefully. “I promise you . . . I won’t be long.”

Upon entering his formal parlor, located on the first floor of the townhouse he and his wife, Lily shared, Paul was surprised to find Roy Coffee waiting with Hugh O’Brien and Darryl Hughes.

“I sent Darryl to fetch him, Doc,” Hugh said by way of explaining the sheriff’s presence. “Somebody put that poor li’l gal through hell, ‘n I figured the sheriff oughtta know about it.”

“Hugh ‘n Darryl also said she was mumblin’ somethin’ about a stage coach robbery,” Roy added. “It just so happens, yesterday evening, I got a wire from the Overland Office in Phoenix about a stage bein’ overdue. It would’ve left Virginia City . . . . ” He lapsed into silence, as he did some mental figuring. “It wouldda been nearly a week ago now, or somewhere there abouts.”

“Roy, my patient’s sleeping right now,” the doctor said, “and for the time being, I’d like to let her sleep.”

“Will I be able t’ speak with her in the mornin’, maybe?”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Paul replied. “She’s running a high fever . . . she’s dangerously dehydrated . . . her fingers and toes show signs of frostbite . . . she’s so badly sun burnt, I fear she may have sun poisoning, and inside . . . . ” He shuddered. “Inside, she looks like a piece of raw beef, freshly skinned and butchered.”

Roy Coffee’s face lost nearly every bit of color that it had. “Y-You mean . . . she’s been . . . . ”

Paul nodded, accurately discerning the question the sheriff couldn’t bring himself to voice. “The only patient I’ve ever treated who was in WORSE shape was Lotus O’Toole,” he said very quietly.

Roy sighed and shook his head. “It’s a real sad comment of our kind the way some men out there figure every woman’s free for their takin’,” he observed, his face darkening with anger. “My ma ‘n pa really pounded this business o’ treatin’ a woman with respect real hard. If my pa even so much as caught me lookin’ the wrong way at a gal, my butt got warmed with his razor strap real quick.”

“Same here, except MY pa contented himself with using his belt,” Paul said. “Lily taught me a thing or two about respecting women also, and SHE was every bit the exacting taskMISTRESS as my pa was the taskMASTER. Only difference was, my wife didn’t beat me with a belt, though there were a couple of times I wish she had. At any rate, Roy, I can’t tell you for certain right now when or if my patient be up for questioning.”

“Alright,” Roy murmured, then turned to Crystal. “Mind if I ask YOU a couple questions, Crystal?”

“Not at all, Sheriff Coffee, especially if it may help you catch the **** it was that did this to her,” Crystal assented with a grim, angry look on her face. The word was Shoshone. From the way her father blanched, Roy knew it had to be a real bad one.

“Has she told ya her name?”

Crystal shook her head. “She cried out for somebody named Lorenzo a few times during the night, this morning on the way here, and a couple of times in there, while the doctor was examining her. Though, she hasn’t told me who Lorenzo is . . . I’m pretty sure he’s her husband.”

“How do ya figure?”

“When she first spoke of the stage robbery, she begged us in the same breath to help her husband . . . who had been shot.”

“Did she tell ya anything about where this stage robbery took place?”

“All she said was her husband . . . the others, presumably the other passengers, and the stage itself was back there,” Crystal replied. “To be perfectly up front and honest with ya, Sheriff Coffee, I can’t tell you for sure whether or not this stage robbery isn’t the product of several days exposure to the desert sun.”

“There IS a stage coach out there missin’ . . . . It left here a week, maybe a week ‘n a half ago, ‘n should’ve reached Freedonia . . . five goin’ on six days ago,” Roy said. “I sent wires off this mornin’ to Freedonia an’ to the Overland Stage’s main office for more information. I’ll have a better idea what’s what when I hear back from ‘em. One more question, Crystal.”

“Sure.”

“Where’d ya meet up with this woman anyway?”

“At the water hole, about fifteen miles southwest of here,” Crystal replied. “I have no idea how long she had been out in the desert, but I figure it couldn’t be anymore ‘n three . . . four days. That’s all a body can go without food AND water.”

“Big difference between three or four days ‘n pert near the week ‘n a half what’s passed since that stage left HERE,” the sheriff mused thoughtfully.

“She was also going on about being taken away,” Crystal added. “Assuming there WAS a stage robbery, it’s possible the robbers abducted her so they could go right on using her for awhile.”

“Thank you, Crystal. Much obliged,” Roy said as he rose. “Now I gotta big favor t’ ask ya.”

“Alright . . . . ”

“If she says anything to you about who she is . . . anymore about that stage robbery . . . or anything about where the stage ‘n the others are, I’d sure appreciate it, if ya’d let me know.”

“I will,” Crystal promised. “Pa?”

“Yeah, Crys?” Hugh replied.

“I . . . hate leavin’ ya short handed, but I think I’d best stay with our young friend in there . . . at least for the next couple of days,” Crystal said. “I’m probably the closest thing she’s got to a friend here in Virginia City.”

“I kinda figured ya might,” Hugh said, “so I talked Darryl into takin’ his days off not THIS weekend comin’ up, but the next weekend.”

“While we’re at the dance, I’m gonna ask Rebecca to go to the church social with me comin’ up Sunday a week,” Darryl said with a big, wide grin. “I could use the Saturday before to gussy up a little.”

Crystal smiled. “Glad to see you’re taking my advice, Darryl.”

“Oh yeah?! What advice is THAT?” Hugh demanded.

“My advice on handling women . . . remember?”

“Sheriff Coffee, we got a reply from Freedonia,” Deputy Clem Foster said grimly, by way of greeting, upon Roy’s return to his office that afternoon.

“Thanks, Clem,” Roy murmured softly. He took the sheet of paper from his deputy, and read over the message scrawled there. Brief, succinct, and to the point, it read:

“Sheriff Coffee [stop]

Stage still missing, six days overdue [stop] So far search parties find nothing [stop]

A [stop] D [stop] Dewey
Manager Freedonia Depot [stop; end of message]”

“Looks like that stage never got t’ Freedonia,” Roy mused grimly. “Was there anything from Overland’s headquarters over at the telegraph office?”

“No, but I DID get a passenger list from the depot manager here,” Clem replied. “I left it on your desk.”

Roy nodded his thanks, before walking over to his desk and sitting down. The passenger list lay square in the middle of the desk, amid a half dozen piles of paperwork. Clem had weighted it down with his lucky horseshoe, a memento left over from his very first horse, Palomino Joe, a distant cousin several times removed to his present horse, Tin Star. Roy returned the horseshoe to its place in the top, right hand drawer, then sat down to look over the list:

Sally Johnson
Annie Johnson, her daughter (5 years old)
Brentwood J. Carroll
Maria Estevan
Lorenzo Estevan
Tom Haney
Ezekiel Cruthers
Ruth Cruthers
He was personally acquainted with four people on that list. Mrs. Johnson had gone to Carson City to help care for her ailing mother. She had taken her youngest child with her, leaving her husband and three older children, all boys, to fend for themselves at home. Roy remembered overhearing Zeb Johnson telling a couple of friends in the C Street Café, that his wife and daughter had, in fact, arrived safely in Carson City, the day after they had left. He had received a wire from them that morning.

His eyes moved down to the names listed at the very bottom: Ezekiel and Ruth Cruthers. They had owned a pretty fair sized farm that earned them and their family a good living for a number of years. Their children, numbering five, were grown. The two youngest, both boys, were attending college back east somewhere. The three eldest, two daughters and another son, were married, the two daughters with growing families of their own.

With their children gone, and Ezekiel ailing, the Cruthers had sold their farm, earning a handsome profit. Doc Martin had told Ezekiel that living through another winter here in Nevada would, at best, be very detrimental to his health. If severe, he may not even survive it. They had made the decision to move down to Prescott, where their eldest daughter lived with her husband and children, and had left the same day as Mrs. Johnson and her daughter.

Roy made a mental note to wire his friend, Amos Dudley, the sheriff over in Carson City, to verify that the missing stage did reach Carson City, and to ask for a passenger list to see if anyone new got on board. He, then, scanned down the list of names once again, this time stopping abruptly in the middle. “Estevan . . . . ” he murmured. “Estevan . . . . ” The name niggled at the edge of his memory. “Estevan,” he repeated the name very softly. Then, he remembered.

The newly wed couple who had traveled from Sacramento to Virginia City with Adam Cartwright! THEIR last name was Estevan! Her name was Maria and his—

Roy gasped, as the blood suddenly drained right out of his face.

“Sheriff Coffee?!” Clem glanced over at him, noting his paled complexion with an anxious frown.

“The Estevans,” the sheriff murmured softly, his voice barely above a whisper.

Clem’s frown deepened. “Who . . . are the Estevans?”

“Maria and Lorenzo Estevan! Adam Cartwright was tellin’ me about ‘em last night over at the Silver Dollar,” Roy explained, feeling horribly sick at heart.

“They friends of his?”

“He met ‘em when they all got on board the stage in Sacramento.”

“I take it their names are on your passenger list?”

Roy nodded.

“That’s too bad.”

“It’s worse ‘n that, Clem,” Roy said grimly. “That gal the O’Briens found in the desert kept cryin’ out for a fella named Lorenzo, leastwise accordin’ t’ what Crystal McShane said.”

“You think she’s Mrs. Estevan?”

“I’m almost sure of it now that I got two ‘n two t’ put together.”

“Then . . . her story about a stage robbery . . . is true?”

“It’s beginnin’ t’ look that way.” Roy opened the bottom left hand drawer of his desk and drew out a blank sheet of paper. He jotted down a simple message, then handed it over to Clem. It read:

“Amos Dudley Sheriff Carson City. Confirm safe arrival Overland Stage Tuesday three weeks ago Carson City late afternoon. Send passenger list same stage leaving following day. Thank you. Roy Coffee Sheriff Virginia City.”

“I’d like ya t’ take that down to the telegraph office ‘n have that sent t’ Amos,” Roy ordered, rising.

“You want me to wait for a reply?”

“No, you best get back here. Tell whoever’s on duty if he gits a reply, to bring it here t’ the sheriff’s office,” Roy said, as he removed his gun belt from the back of his chair and strapped it to his waist. “In the meantime, I’m gonna stop by Doc Martin’s again, t’ see how things are with that li’l gal, then, I’m gonna stop by the Fletchers house ‘n leave word there for Adam about his friends.”

“Joseph Cartwright, you put that checker piece right back where you found it!” Susannah O’Brien turned on her opponent with a dark, murderous glare.

Joe gasped in pure melodramatic mock outrage. “Susannah, are you insinuating that I— ”

“Nope! I’m not insinuating a thing! I’m saying it straight out. YOU moved that piece.”

“Of COURSE I moved that piece! It was MY turn, wasn’t it?”

“I told you, Susannah . . . you’ve gotta watch HIM like a hawk,” Stacy chuckled.

“Now, Susannah . . . did you actually see me move . . . whatever piece you’re accusing me of moving . . . out of turn?” Joe asked, all too wide eyed and innocent.

“Well, no, I— ”

Joe smiled. “All right, then,” he said in a reasonable tone of voice. “Now why don’t you just put aside all those nasty lying pieces of slander my brother and sister have no doubt filled your pretty little head with . . . . ”

This prompted a sigh and a sarcastic roll of the eyes from Stacy.

“ . . . and let’s enjoy the rest of our game,” Joe blithely rambled on. “Half the lies Hoss and Stacy have told you aren’t even true, anyway.”

“ONLY half?” Susannah quipped, grinning from ear-to-ear.

A knock on the door forestalled the reply sitting at the edge of Joe’s tongue. “Looks like its up to ME,” he said rising, casting a pointed glance at Stacy cast.

Stacy stuck out her tongue.

Joe returned the gesture, then thumbed up his nose for good measure, before turning and walking over to the front door. He was surprised to find Roy Coffee standing out on the doorstep. “Sheriff Coffee! Come on in. I guess you want to see Pa about something?”

“If he’s around,” Roy said, as he stepped inside.

“He’s upstairs,” Joe said. “I’ll call him.”

“Howdy, Stacy . . . Susannah,” Roy walked over toward the settee, occupied by the two young women. “How’re things goin’?”

“I’M doing fine,” Susannah said immediately.

“ . . . and I’m coming along,” Stacy said with a rueful glance down at her cast. “Hopefully the cast comes off and stays off in another five weeks or so.”

“Now you behave yourself,” Roy said sternly, “ ‘n make sure y’ mind what the doc says.”

“You have no cause to worry about that, Roy,” Ben said by way of greeting, as he and Joe walked over toward the settee. “Stacy, and Joe, too, for that matter have been good as gold.”

“Pa, you want Susannah and me to go upstairs or something?” Stacy asked, noting the grim look that had settled on Roy’s face.

“No, the three of you stay put and finish your game,” Ben said, “and Joseph?”

“Yeah, Pa?”

“Put back that piece you moved.”

Ben’s admonition elicited a bark of merry laughter from Susannah. Joe favored her with the meanest glare he could possibly summon, as he complied with his father’s request.

“Roy, why don’t the two of us step outside?” Ben invited, gesturing toward the front door.

Roy nodded mutely, then fell instep behind Ben.

“I wonder what Sheriff Coffee wants?” Stacy asked, after her father and the sheriff had stepped out onto the front porch, closing the door behind them.

“I don’t know,” Joe said slowly. “If it had anything to do with Crippensworth and Lady Chadwick, I would’ve thought they’d ask ME to step outside too.”

“I kinda think it has something to do with that young woman Pa, Crystal, and Darryl found out in the desert last night, coming home from Eastgate,” Susannah said slowly.

“What woman?” Stacy asked.

Susannah told Joe and Stacy all she knew.

“What’s up, Roy?” Ben asked, as he and the sheriff stepped out onto the Fletchers’ front stoop.

“When Adam gets back— ”

“Someone mention my name?” It was Adam. He had already dismounted from Sport II, and was leading him up the drive, which lead to the stable in back.

“You’re home early, Son,” Ben said.

“Yeah. I need to get moving on those final drawings for new house, so I can begin to work out how much more we’re going to need in the way of logs, lumber, and other building supplies,” Adam said, as the three walked together, toward the back of the house. “I’m afraid I didn’t get very much done last night.”

“How’re things comin’ along with that new house otherwise?” Roy asked.

“The repairs to the foundation are nearly done,” Adam began to cheerfully, with a touch of pride, recite the litany of progress thus far made, “ . . . we’ve already dug out Hop Sing’s new root and wine cellar.”

“Heard about the Watkins boy,” Roy grunted.

“What happened to the Watkins boy?” Ben demanded anxiously.

“You know how young boys are about construction sites, Pa,” Adam said. “Young Jeremy and a couple of his friends were playing near the hole in the ground that’s going to be Hop Sing’s root cellar, and . . . Jeremy took a tumble down into the hole.”

“I tell ya . . . that boy’s as bad as Joe was at the same age,” Ben muttered darkly under his breath. He sighed, and shook his head, before turning to gaze over at Adam. “Is Jeremy all right?”

“He broke his leg,” Adam replied. “Doc Martin said it was a simple fracture.”

“I saw his ma ‘n pa carryin’ him into the Doc’s office a li’l while ago,” the sheriff said.

“It won’t happen again, Pa,” Adam said. “I asked Hank and Candy to put a couple of men on the site, after Mister Farlyn and the other men leave for the day.

“Good,” Ben declared with an emphatic nod of his head. “Not that I’m happy about the boy being injured mind you, but . . . now that it’s happened . . . I sure hope it serves as a real good object lesson to Jeremy’s friends and the other children we have living on the Ponderosa.”

“I’m sure it will, Pa.”

“So, Roy . . . what can I do for ya?” Ben asked, turning his complete attention to the lawman.

“Actually I came t’ leave ya a message for ADAM, but seein’ as how he’s here . . . . ”

“What can I do for ya, Sheriff Coffee?” Adam asked.

“I . . . have news ‘bout that young couple you was tellin’ me about last night over at the Silver Dollar,” Roy said, as the three entered the stable.

The stricken look on the sheriff’s pale face immediately told Adam that the news, in all likelihood, wasn’t good. “What did you find out?” the eldest Cartwright son asked warily, as he tethered Sport II to one of the support beams, and set himself to the task of removing the saddle.

“Hugh, Crystal, ‘n their foreman found a young woman out in the desert on their way back from that horse auction over in Eastgate,” Roy began.

An anxious frown deepened the lines of Ben’s brow upon hearing a sharp intake of breath from his eldest when Roy mentioned Eastgate.

“Last night, they made camp at a water hole, ‘bout ten . . . fifteen miles, t’ the south west o’ here,” the sheriff continued. “This woman . . . I don’t think she’s any older ‘n Stacy, kinda blundered into their camp. She was in a real bad way. It was real clear she’d been wanderin’ around out in the desert for awhile . . . she was feverish, goin’ on ‘bout a stage robbery, her husband bein’ shot— ”

Adam removed the bridle and blanket, handing both to his father. “You think this woman is . . . Mrs. Estevan?” he asked, as he reached for a brush.

“Almost certain of it,” Roy said grimly. “That overdue stage ain’t shown up in or around Freedonia, ‘n your friends, the Estevans WERE on the list of passengers who left Virginia City on that stage a week ‘n a half ago.”

“Where is this young woman now?” Adam demanded curtly.

“She’s over at Doc Martin’s,” Roy replied. “Crystal McShane’s with her.”

“Pa, as soon as I get Sport II stabled, I’m going over to Doctor Martin’s and see this young woman,” Adam said.

“Adam, there’s one more thing y’ gotta know,” Roy Coffee said.

“What’s that?”

“That li’l gal’s been . . . . ” Two bright splotches of red appeared on his cheeks. “Adam, that li’l gal’s been used. Real bad.”

Adam could feel the blood draining right out of his face, and his knees suddenly turning to jelly. He automatically reached out and held onto his horse for support. A vision of the young couple, as he had last seen them, standing on the porch of the hotel . . . smiling, happy, their arms about each others’ waists, waving good-bye to Hoss and himself . . . flashed before his mind’s eye. The thought of Lorenzo Estevan lying somewhere out in the desert shot to death, and his beautiful young wife, Maria . . . .

Suddenly, Adam didn’t want to think anymore.
“Adam?” Sheriff Coffee prompted, disturbed by the younger man’s sudden silence. “Adam, didja hear what I said?”

No answer.

“Adam?”

“I heard you, Sheriff Coffee, alright?! I heard you,” Adam snarled back. “What happened to that young woman has a name, you know. It’s called rape!”

“Adam!” Ben snapped out his oldest son’s name, as grave concern mingled with outrage.

“It’s . . . It’s all right, Ben . . . . ” Roy murmured, stunned by Adam’s sudden outburst. He would have expected something like that from Joe, Stacy . . . or occasionally even from Ben. But, Adam? Never.

“No, Roy,” Ben said tersely. “It’s NOT alright— ”

“I’m sorry,” Adam said in a voice stone cold.

“We’ll talk about this when you come inside,” Ben said in that low, quiet voice that carried in it the lull before the proverbial storm.

Ben’s words drew a sharp, angry glare from his son. “No, we WON’T talk about this when I come inside,” Adam said tersely. “I’ve already apologized. I don’t see any point in discussing it further. Now if you’ll BOTH excuse me, I’d like to finish stabling my horse, so I can go over to the Martins and visit this young woman.”

“I, umm . . . need t’ be moseyin’ along anyhow,” Roy said, as two bright spots appeared on his cheeks and a third in the middle of his forehead. Through out that brief, angry exchange between father and son just know, Roy had wished with all his might for a hole into which he could’ve crawled.

“I’ll see you out,” Ben said, his voice deceptively calm. The dark angry glare he directed toward Adam in parting, the jaw, rigidly set, and the steel glint in his eyes, gave very strong indication that the conversation between himself and Adam was NOT over, not by a long shot. In fact, it hadn’t even, as yet, begun.

After Adam had finished stabling his horse, he went into the house, upstairs to his room to change his shirt, splash a little water on his face, and run a comb through his thinning hair. He emerged from his room upstairs, and started down the short corridor toward the steps, mentally bracing himself for the inevitable face off with his father. Every step of the way, he reviewed the exchange between himself and Roy Coffee, over and over and over again, trying to figure out what bedevilment had possessed him to turn on the sheriff like that.

No answers were forthcoming.

“HEY! NOW who’s cheating?!” Joe’s voice, filled with indignation, assailed Adam’s ears as he neared the bottom of the stairs.

“Joseph Cartwright, how DARE you!” That was Susannah O’Brien, one of Stacy’s closest friends, equally indignant.

“Don’t you get all huffy on ME, Miss Susannah Beee-youu-llah O’Brien!”

Use of her middle name elicited a deafening shriek of outrage. “STACY ROSE CARTWRIGHT, SO HELP ME IF YOU TOLD HIM . . . . ”

“Hey! Back off!” Stacy giggled, fending off her enraged opponent with an upraised crutch. “How COULD I tell him? I didn’t even know what your middle name was myself . . . until NOW.”

“When I find out who told, so help me, my vengeance will be horrible to behold!” Susannah fumed.

“Susannah, I believe there’s a passage in the Bible that says something about vengeance belonging to the Lord,” Adam said, as he stepped down off the last step onto the first floor. In his own ears, his voice sounded as if it had come from a place far distant, almost as if someone, other than himself, had spoken.

Adam’s words drew a murderous glare from Susannah.

Adam favored her with a complacent smile. “By the way, Susannah, HIS middle name is FRANCIS.”

Susannah’s dark, angry glare evaporated into a bright sunny smile of utmost evil. “Oh it IS, ‘ey?”

“Thanks a LOT, Adam!” Joe growled.

“Don’t mention it,” Adam said. “You, uhh . . . happen to know where Pa is?”

“He told us he was going to go upstairs and catch a quick catnap before dinner,” Joe replied.

“I’m going to run across the street for a few minutes,” Adam said.

“To Doc Martin’s?!” Joe queried in surprise.

“He has a patient who . . . well, I think she’s someone I know,” Adam said. “If Pa comes down before I get back, would you mind telling him where I am?”

“We’ll tell him,” Stacy promised.

“Thanks,” Adam murmured, before slipping out through the front door. A within a few minutes, he was standing on the Martins’ front stoop, ringing the doorbell. He was very much surprised, when Hugh O’Brien, Susannah’s father, opened the door.

“Come on in, Adam,” Hugh moved aside, allowing the eldest of the Cartwright offspring to enter. “Good seein’ ya.”

“Thank you.” Adam grinned as the two shook hands. “Good seeing you, too, Mister O’Brien. You’re looking well.”

“As are you. If you’re here lookin’ for the doc, he’s in fittin’ Jeremy Watkins’ broken leg with a plaster cast,” Hugh said as they walked the short distance to the Martins’ formal parlor. “His pa’s been waitin’ in the parlor with Crys ‘n me.”

“M-Mister Cartwright?”

Adam looked up and found Carl Watkins, the boy’s father, standing framed in the open door to the Martins’ parlor, holding his wide brimmed hat clutched in both hands, his eyes round with shock and apprehension.

“I’m real sorry ‘bout what happened. Thelma ‘n I done warned Jeremy time ‘n time again ‘bout— ”

“I KNOW you have, Mister Watkins,” Adam said quietly. “I also know there’s something about a construction site and a great big hole in the ground that draws small boys like a magnet. My own son, Benjy was every bit as . . . shall we say adventurous? . . . as your son. For THAT matter, my youngest brother was the same way, and he’s got the scars to prove it.

Carl nodded, visibly relieved by Adam’s understanding.

“Is Jeremy going to be alright?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“That’s the important thing,” Adam hastily assured the anxious young father.

“Mister Watkins?” It was Paul Martin, stepping from his examination room, covered in plaster-of-paris from head to toe. “Your boy’s ready to go home. He and your wife are waiting for you in my examination room.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Carl said wearily. “Mister O’Brien, good talkin’ with ya.”

“I’ll remember your boy in my prayers tonight,” Hugh promised. “I’m glad he’s gonna be alright.”

“Thanks, and Mister Cartwright, thank you for everything YOU done,” Carl said with heartfelt sincerity and gratitude. “When ya see Hoss, wouldja mind tellin’ HIM thank you for me?”

“I’d be more than happy to do so,” Adam replied.

“Hugh . . . Adam, I have some final instructions to give the Watkins,” Paul Martin said, after Carl Watkins had left the parlor. “I’ll be right with you.”

Adam and Hugh nodded, then moved into the parlor. “I, ummmm hope Joe ‘n Stacy ain’t took a turn for the worse,” the latter said quietly as the latter resumed his place on the settee.

“No, Sir . . . Joe and Stacy are doing just fine. In fact, I left them playing a game of checkers with YOUR daughter, Susannah,” Adam replied, as he settled himself in the easy chair, to Hugh’s right. “My reason for coming here was to see the young lady you found out in the desert.”

“Oh?” Hugh frowned.

“I may know her,” Adam explained.

“Friend o’ yours?”

“She and her husband might have been, I think . . . had fate been much kinder,” Adam said sadly. “When I boarded the stage in Sacramento, a young couple . . . newly weds . . . got on board with me. Their name was Estevan . . . Lorenzo and Maria. They were on their way home from their honeymoon trip.”

“This li’l gal cries out for somebody named Lorenzo,” Hugh said quietly, “though she can’t be much older than Susannah . . . or Stacy, either, for that matter.”

“That sounds about right,” Adam said in a hollow voice.

“Pa . . . oh! Adam! I’d heard you were coming . . . . ” It was Crystal McShane. She stood next to the settee, at her father’s elbow, with arms folded across her chest, regarding Adam with mild surprise.

“Yes,” Adam said, as he and Hugh both rose to their feet. “I’m here to oversee the building of my family’s new house. Crystal . . . . ”

“Yes?”

“Would it be possible for me to see the young woman you and your father found out in the desert?” Adam asked. “I may know her.”

“He and a young couple got on the stage in Sacramento, Crys,” Hugh said. “They traveled together from there to here.”

“Their last name was Estevan,” Adam said. “Maria and Lorenzo Estevan. They had planned to leave here the next morning on the stage bound for Freedonia.”

“Sheriff Coffee stopped in a few minutes ago, Crys,” Hugh said quietly. “He got a passenger list for that missin’ stage. There WAS a Lorenzo ‘n Maria Estevan on that list. Adam, here, thinks that li’l gal in there’s Maria Estevan.”

“She’s still sleeping, bless her heart. Doc Martin wants her to sleep as long as she can . . . that it’s the best thing for her right now.”

“I . . . wanted to see whether or not she is, in fact, Maria Estevan,” Adam said. “I’ll understand if you say no.”

“Whether or not you’re able to see her is entirely up to Doctor Martin . . . not me,” Crystal said quietly. “If that poor woman DOES turn out to be Maria Estevan, she can use all the friends she can get.”

“Thank you, Crystal.”

“Crys, I’m gonna amble on across the street, ‘n collect Susannah,” Hugh said. “I . . . kinda want the two o’ us t’ git home before dark.”

“I understand, Pa.”

Hugh and Crystal embraced briefly. “I’ll see ya in the mornin’, Gal.”

“You, too, Pa. You and Susannah be careful going home.”

“We will,” Hugh promised. He kissed his eldest daughter’s forehead, then nodded to Adam, before taking his leave.

A few moments later, Paul Martin entered the parlor, this time without his lab coat. “Crystal? Your pa left?”

“Yeah,” Crystal replied, as she and Adam both rose to their feet. “He wanted to get himself and my sister home before dark. I . . . can’t say as I blame him.”

“Neither can I,” Paul Martin said grimly. He, then, turned his attention to the eldest of the Cartwright offspring. “Adam, what can I do for YOU?” he asked. “I hope Joe and Stacy . . . . ”

“Please . . . don’t worry about them, Doctor. BOTH of ‘em are fine . . . following doctor’s orders to the letter, and behaving themselves.”

“THAT’S a novelty,” Paul said with a wry smile. “If memory serves, it’s also a FIRST.”

“There’s a first time for everything, Doctor,” Adam returned. “My reason for stopping by is that I would like to see the young woman Mister O’Brien, Crystal, and their foreman found in the desert. I . . . I’m almost certain I know her.”

“She’s upstairs sleeping in our guest room,” Paul said wearily. “I can only let you stay for a minute, but . . . if there’s any chance you can verify this woman’s identity— Please, come with me.”

Adam silently fell in behind Paul Martin, leaving Crystal McShane to bring up the rear. The guest room was on the second floor of the Martins’ townhouse, last door on the left. Inside, the patient was lying on the bed, next to the window over looking the backyard, eyes closed, breathing shallow, her form ominously still. Crystal McShane quietly slipped past Adam and the doctor. Adam silently followed her across the room, as she moved toward the bed, and the diminutive young woman, almost swallowed up by the bedcovers.

As he stepped close to the bed, Adam took a deep, ragged breath, and closed his eyes, fervently praying that their suspicions were all wrong, that the woman he was about to see would NOT be the young newly married wife, he had come to know so well on the trip out from Sacramento. At length, he opened them, and forced himself to gaze down into the woman’s face. “Oh, God . . . no . . . . ” he murmured, with a heavy heart.

Even through cuts and bruises, skin burned to the same hue as the shell of a steamed lobster . . . and worst of all, in spite of those lustrous, shining coal black tresses, now cut shorter than his own, there was no denying the woman’s identity.

“Adam?” Paul Martin prompted.

“Yes,” Adam quietly answered the doctor’s unspoken question. “Your patient is Mrs. Maria Estevan.”

“Hugh, you sure you can’t stay long enough for a cup of coffee?” Ben asked. “Hop Sing’s just put on a fresh pot.”

“I wish I could, Ben,” Hugh O’Brien said with much reluctance, “but, I think Susannah ‘n me need to be pressin’ on toward home. You . . . heard about the young lady Crys, Darryl, ‘n me found out in the desert?”

“Yes,” Ben said, “and I understand.”

“Susannah . . . let’s get a move on,” Hugh exhorted his youngest daughter.

“Coming, Pa,” Susannah replied. Turning to her hosts, she smiled. “Stacy, Joe . . . I really had a nice time, even if Joe DID find out my middle name . . . .” She looked over and favored Joe with an impish grin. “I also found out what HIS middle name is, so we’re even.”

Joe stuck his tongue out at her.

“Joseph Francis Cartwright, is that anyway to behave when we have a guest?” Ben admonished his youngest son with mock severity.

“It is when she cheats at playing checkers and beats me seven games out of ten,” Joe growled back.

“You gotta watch this li’l gal like a hawk, Joe,” Hugh said with a chuckle.

“ . . . and in any case, isn’t accusing Susannah of cheating kinda like the pot calling the kettle black?” Stacy asked.

“I don’t recall asking for YOUR opinion, Kid,” Joe retorted in a lofty, imperious tone of voice.

Stacy responded by sticking out her tongue.

Joe thumbed up his nose.

“Alright, CHILDREN, both of ya . . . settle down,” Ben growled, glaring first at Stacy, then over at Joe. He, then turned his attention to the O’Briens. “Hugh . . . Susannah . . . I’ll see ya to the door.”

“Mister Cartwright, I had a wonderful visit with Stacy and Joe,” Susannah said, in all sincerity, after the three had stepped outside. “I’m glad to see they’re both doing so well.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more, Susannah,” Ben said with a smile. “You feel free to come back and visit again, whenever you want. You being here this afternoon has lifted both their spirits tremendously.”

“How’re YOU coping, Ben?” Hugh asked. “I understand Joe ‘n Stacy can be a real handful bein’ sick or hurt one at a time. Now y’ got BOTH on the mend all at once.”

“I have to remind ‘em that they’re not too big to turn over my knee once in a while, but other than that, they’re behaving themselves,” Ben said. “I’ve also given Hoss strict instructions to leave Cochise and Blaze Face at the ranch, unless or until I say otherwise.”

“Good thinkin’,” Hugh murmured. “Well . . . you ‘n me’d best move along, Li’l Gal. It was good seein’ ya, Ben, even if it was brief.”

“Good seeing the both of you. Take care riding home.”

Ben waited behind the closed gate until the O’Briens had mounted up and ridden off. As he turned, with the intention of heading back into the house, he caught movement at the outer edges of his peripheral vision. He turned back again, just in time to see his eldest son crossing the street between the Martins’ townhouse and the Fletchers’. Ben waited.

“Pa, I— ”

“I was seeing Hugh and Susannah off,” Ben said, suddenly feeling very much on the defensive. He lifted the latch, then stood aside, so that his son might enter. “I just happened to glance up in time to see you coming out of the Martins, so I waited.”

“Did Joe and Stacy tell you where I was?” Adam asked, as he fell in step alongside his father.

“They told me you had gone over to the Martins,” Ben said quietly, as they slowly walked up the sidewalk together, toward the front stoop. “Adam . . . . ”

“Yeah, Pa?”

“The young woman Hugh and Crystal found in the desert . . . is she . . . . ?”

Adam nodded. “Yes,” he said in a voice, barely audible.

“I’m sorry, Son. From what you and Hoss told me . . . the Estevans sounded like a lovely young couple,” Ben said quietly, as he placed a paternal hand on his eldest son’s shoulder, with the intention of offering a small measure of comfort and reassurance.

Adam reached up and covered his father’s hand with his own for a moment, before politely shaking him off. “I’m all right,” he said, favoring Ben with a wan smile.

Ben had serious doubts as to the veracity of Adam’s statement, but wisely decided against voicing them . . . for the time being, at least.

“I . . . also went to see Sheriff Coffee.”

Ben glanced up sharply, remembering Adam’s angry outburst earlier.

“I apologized properly for my churlish behavior earlier,” Adam said very quickly. “I also told him who the young woman is.”

“Good.”

“Pa . . . . ”

“Yes, Adam?”

“The sheriff and his deputy are out banging on doors, trying to get a search party together,” Adam said.

“To find that missing stagecoach?”

Adam nodded. “We leave tomorrow morning at first light.”

“We?!”

“I volunteered to go with them.”

“Oh?” This came as something of a surprise to Ben.

“I have to know what happened, Pa. However, if you have any objections— ”

Ben fell silent for a moment, trying desperately to come up with a plausible excuse. None were forthcoming. “I have no objections, Adam,” he said finally. “Any particular reason why you have to know what happened?”

Ben’s question drew a sharp glare from his eldest son.

“I’m NOT trying to talk you out of it, Son,” Ben said quickly. “Heaven knows, you’re ‘way too old for THAT. I was just curious, that’s all.”

“Sorry, Pa, I . . . . ” Adam frowned, wondering what had prompted him to apologize. True, his father’s question rankled him, but he didn’t respond in a manner offensive or disrespectful. In fact, he hadn’t responded at all.

“When do you ride out?” Ben asked.

“Tomorrow morning, first light,” Adam replied.

End of Part 2

 

 

Mark of Kane

Part 3

By Kathleen T. Berney

 

“Gotta get away . . .

. . . gotta get away . . .

. . . gotta get away . . . . ”

He chanted the words silently, over and over, like a mantra, keeping time with the pounding of his bare feet against the earth, as he fled in terror through an endless flat stretch of yellow, that seemed to stretch on and on, away to forever.

“Gotta get away . . .

. . . gotta get away . . .

. . . gotta get away . . . . ”

His naked body was soaked, drenched from head to toe, from perspiration that seemed to ooze out of every pore. Sweat poured from his head, plastering his hair to his skin, pooling in his eyebrows, and dripping down into his eyes, stinging them with its salty touch. His breath came in shallow, ragged gasps, each more agonizing than the last, as his lungs desperately struggled to expand, pushing hard against the constricting millstone the muscles of his chest had become.

“Gotta get away . . . .

Gotta get away . . . . ”

His feet grew heavier and heavier with each step. Lifting them became a chore. Every muscle in his legs ached and cramped with each extension and contraction. He moaned softly in his agony, unable to take in enough air . . . enough breath . . . to truly cry out. Had it not been for the driving force of his strong, nearly indomitable will, impelled forward by sheer terror, he would have collapsed many hours, and many, many miles ago.

“Gotta get away . . . .

Gotta get away . . . . ”

“You’ll NEVER get away from us, Cartwright.”

No! How could that be? He had left them behind . . . FAR behind. How could they possibly be with him . . . here . . . now . . . after all this time?

He heard their cruel, mocking laughter echoing in his ears. “You’ll never get away from us, Cartwright. NEVER. No matter where you go . . . how far and how fast you run, you will ALWAYS find US there . . . waiting.”

Incredibly . . .

. . . despite the searing, white hot pain flowing like liquid fire through out his chest and his legs . . .

. . . despite the stinging, burning sweat that flowed like rivers into his eyes, blinding him . . .

. . . despite the ever diminishing capacity of his lungs to draw breath, and a heart that felt on the very edge of exploding, bursting into a million bloody pieces within the walls of his chest, pressing down heavier and heavier . . .

. . . he poured on more speed, pushing himself on faster and faster, ever faster.

“Run, Cartwright, run,” they mocked him. “See Cartwright run . . . always running, never escaping.”

He gasped as his bare foot slammed hard into a rock, hidden deep within the veritable jungle of overgrown grass. Then, suddenly, the hot, yellow earth rose before his eyes, fast and furious. Two forms, their lines blurred, their details reduced to near opaque black silhouette, stepped out from the white hot, blinding glare of the sun. He had no need of seeing their faces, nor the details of their bodies, their clothing. He knew all too well who they were by the way they moved, by the sounds of their harsh, derisive laughter still echoing in his ears . . . .

The short stooped man was old Randy Paine, a sour, bitter man, when he was sober . . . mean, abusive, and cruel when he was drunk. He spent most of his waking hours falling down drunk . . . .

. . . at least, he TRIED to . . . .

The other was a man, more in the prime of his life . . . or what should have been the prime of his life. He, too, had died, many, many years ago, on the sands of a desert very much like the one in which he found himself.

Or so he had been told . . . .

“KANE!” Adam screamed as his eyes snapped open. For what seemed an eternity, he lay on his bed, unmoving, his heart racing, gulping in deep lung full after deep lung full of blessed cool, refreshing night air.

The staccato beat of bony knuckles knocking on the hard wood of his bedroom door, fast closed, finally drew him wholly back into the world of waking reality. “Adam?” It was his youngest brother, Joe. “Hey, Adam, you ok?”

“I’m . . . I’m fine.”

“You don’t SOUND fine. Alright if I come in?”

“If you MUST,” Adam sighed with a touch of asperity.

“I heard you scream,” Joe said as he opened the door, and entered the room. By the dim, silvery silver gray light of approaching dawn, he saw the tiny beads of sweat liberally dotting Adam’s forehead, his face nearly bone white, and trembling hands that seemed to clutch the edge of his blanket, as if for dear life. “You sure you’re ok, Adam?” An anxious frown knotted and creased his normally smooth brow. “You’re not sick . . . are you?”

“No, I . . . I’m fine, Little Brother,” Adam said as he threw his sheets, blanket, and comforter aside. He offered Joe a smile, hoping to reassure. The deepening lines in his youngest brother’s forehead, the sharp glare all the more pointedly focused on his face, then his hands told Adam that he had failed miserably. “Honest, Joe. I’m fine,” he said curtly, as he slowly swung one leg over the edge of the bed, then the other.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“If you must know, I’m riding out with Sheriff Coffee and a few others,” Adam said curtly, as he paused to light the oil lamp beside his bed.

The anxious concern on Joe’s face, quickly transformed into a look of surprise. “Posse?”

“Of sorts, I suppose.”

Joe stared at his oldest brother, long and hard, through narrowed eyes. “This have anything to do with that woman Mister O’Brien, Crystal, and Darryl found out in the desert?”

“Yes,” Adam replied, as he crossed the room to the massive dresser, set against the wall facing the bed. “How did you find out about her?”

“Susannah told Stacy and me yesterday afternoon while we were playing checkers.”

“The woman’s name is Maria Estevan,” Adam said in a voice bland almost to the point of monotone. He opened the top drawer and removed a fresh change of underwear. “I met her and her husband when we boarded the stage together in Sacramento.”

“The newly weds?”

Again, Adam nodded. “She told the O’Briens about a stage robbery, and . . . about her husband being shot.”

“So this posse you’re going with is actually a search party . . . going out to find that missing stagecoach,” Joe accurately surmised. “Does Pa know you’re going?”

“Yes, I told him yesterday afternoon.”

“He going?”

“No,” Adam said curtly, as he quickly put on his pants and removed his nightshirt.

“Hoss going?”

“No.” Adam splashed some of the ice cold water, left over from last night’s washing up, over his face, then patted it dry with his nightshirt. “From what Hoss told me last night, he’s got a pretty full plate of things to do at the Ponderosa.”

“ . . . and YOU don’t?”

“What the hell IS this?” Adam demanded angrily. “Twenty questions? Some kind of inquisition?!”

“Hoss is already running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to keep track of everything that needs doing on the Ponderosa,” Joe returned, in a tight, angry voice. “He doesn’t have time to oversee the work on the new house . . . while YOU’RE traipsing off all over the country side on some blamed wild goose chase.”

“Joe, I’m only going to say this ONCE, so listen closely and get it through your head,” Adam said through clenched teeth, as he snatched up the shirt he had worn the day before and slipped it on. “First of all, I am NOT accountable to you as to my comings and goings, and second, you’re not my father. So, I would greatly appreciate it if you minded your own business, and let ME take care of mine.”

“That’s the problem, Adam. You’re NOT taking care of YOUR business,” Joe angrily shot right back.

“ ‘Morning, Boys.”

Adam and Joe’s heads snapped around to the open door of the former’s room. There, they saw their father, leaning up against the door jamb, with his arms folded across his chest.

“Everything . . . all right?”

“Everything’s fine, Pa,” Adam replied in a tone of voice surprisingly calm, even bland, as he finished dressing.

“Joseph?” Ben queried.

“Yeah, Pa, everything’s fine,” Joe muttered through clenched teeth, his voice heavy laden with angry sarcasm. “Everything’s JUST peachy dandy. I’m going back to bed.” With that, he abruptly turned heel and strode briskly out of the room.

Ben silently waited until he was reasonably certain his youngest son was well out of ear shot, before turning to ask his eldest, “What was THAT all about?”

“I . . . nothing, Pa. Nothing of consequence.”

“Adam?!”

The eldest of the Cartwright offspring quickly averted his eyes from his father’s dark, penetrating, all knowing, all seeing glare. “Joe and I just had a little bit of a set to,” he said too quickly. “My fault. I’ll apologize when I get back. By then he’ll have had plenty of time to cool off . . . and so will I.”

Though the relationship between his oldest and youngest sons had, more often than not, been prickly over the years, Ben sensed the undercurrents of something far deeper. Something which neither Adam nor Joe was consciously aware . . . .

“ . . . the most important thing now is that Joe doesn’t keep it bottled up inside.”

The words Paul Martin said to him in the post office, the morning after Adam arrived, echoed once again in his ears. The doctor was referring to the ordeal Joe had suffered at the hands of Lady Chadwick and her man, Crippensworth, the sadistic brute now locked up in the Virginia City jail, waiting extradition back to England.

“I’d be a lot more worried if something like this had happened to someone, oh . . . like Adam, your oldest, given his natural stoic reserve, the way he’s always kept a tight lid on his feelings . . . . ”

The vague, nebulous foreboding Ben had felt in the post office, when Paul had initially uttered those words, that he had felt again yesterday when he learned of the young woman who had found her way into the O’Briens’ camp, returned again a hundred fold. Every protective instinct within him screamed at him to not let Adam ride out with Sheriff Coffee and the others this morning. It was all he could do to remain in place, right where he stood, and not rush over to bodily restrain his oldest son.

“Pa?”

Ben shook his head to clear it of the dark, forbidding musings that had risen so suddenly to overwhelm him.

“YOU all right?”

“Yeah, sorry, I . . . I didn’t sleep real well last night.”

Adam smiled and placed a comforting, reassuring hand in his father’s shoulder. “Why don’t you g’won back to bed?”

“Perhaps I will. You take care of yourself, Son.”

“I will, Pa, and please . . . don’t worry. I should be back in a couple of days.”

Joe, meanwhile, had returned to his own room, with every intention of going back to sleep until the sun was fully up, but the emotions surging within him, direct consequence of that face off with his oldest brother, had rendered sleep all but impossible. He was hurt over the way his oldest brother had so curtly rejected his offer to help, his attempt to reach out; bewildered by Adam’s growing preoccupation with the Estevans and the missing stage coach; and angry on general principles.

But, more than all that, he was deeply worried.

In addition to being the smart one in the family, Adam had also been the COOL one. No matter how dire the circumstance, how great and insurmountable the crisis, he always remained calm. Nothing EVER seemed to ruffle his feathers. Adam was the strongest, bravest man Joe knew . . . next to Pa. Seeing his oldest brother as he had a short time ago, when he had so unceremoniously burst into his room . . . his face pale, his brow gleaming with a thin sheen of cold sweat, his hands trembling, and most unsettling of all, the stark fear and murderous anger mirrored in those dark eyes, so like Pa’s eyes . . . had left Joe utterly shaken to the very core of his being.

He waited until he heard the sounds of the front door closing, of Sport II’s hooves leaving the Fletchers’ yard, before throwing aside the covers and getting up out of bed. His first thought was that a healthy dose of Pa’s brandy down on the coffee table might help him back to sleep. Then, he remembered. He was still on a soft, bland diet. Brandy was not on his list right now, nor was it likely to be, not for a good long while yet.

“Maybe . . . if I look sad enough . . . MAYBE I can talk Hop Sing into brewing me up one of his herbal concoctions that’ll help me go back to sleep . . . without him threatening to quit and go help some cousin with a restaurant somewhere,” Joe mused silently, as he tiptoed down the hall.

Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Joe was mildly surprised to find his father still up, seated over on the settee, staring into the darkened fireplace before him.

“ ‘Morning, Pa,” Joe said by way of greeting. “It IS morning now . . . isn’t it?”

Ben turned, and smiled. “Yes, Joe . . . it IS morning.” He patted the place on the settee next to him, a wordless invitation to come, sit-a-spell.

Joe nodded, then walked over and sank down into the soft depths of the settee, next to his father.

“I thought you had gone back to bed,” Ben said.

“I tried.”

“You all right?”

“I . . . . ” Joe sighed and dolefully shook his head. “No. Pa . . . I’m worried about Adam.”

“You said that yesterday morning at breakfast.”

“I know.”

“Does your concern have anything do to with the argument the two of ya were about to get into when I walked into the room?”

Ben’s question drew a sharp glare, a mixture of surprise and chagrin, from his youngest son. “Y-You knew?!”

Ben nodded.

Joe sighed. “After all these years, you knowing shouldn’t surprise me anymore.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“It wasn’t my intention to pick a fight with him,” Joe said defensively. “He was having a nightmare. A real beaut, from the way he was yelling! I went in to check on him . . . to see what was wrong. One thing led to another and then— ” He shrugged helplessly. “You have ANY idea what’s eating him?”

“Mind you, Joseph, Adam’s . . . NOT confided in me,” Ben said, with a touch of sadness. “But, I think I have a few ideas.”

“Oh yeah?! Like . . . WHAT for instance?”

“Well . . . for openers, Adam left Sacramento to come here BEFORE we found you,” Ben said quietly. “Since we had no way of getting word to him while he was traveling, he had no way of knowing how you were. For all HE knew, you might have been dead.”

Joe shuddered, remembering the poisoned meal Lady Chadwick had served him, and Crippensworth standing before him, with that ice cold smile plastered on his face, fingering the trigger of a derringer pointed right at his chest.

“Adam’s told Hoss and me both that if it hadn’t been for that young couple he met, when they got on board the stage in Sacramento, he would have been going out of his mind with worry,” Ben continued. “I . . . know you and Adam haven’t always gotten along very well, but he’s still your oldest brother, and he loves you . . . more, I think than you’ll ever know.”

“I love Adam, too . . . even if we DO end up fighting sooner or later,” Joe said ruefully. “That’s why I’m worried about him. Pa . . . . ”

“Yes, Joe?”

“I . . . asked him about the time he was held prisoner in the desert by that guy named Kane,” Joe confessed. “The look he gave me . . . . ” He shuddered. “I’ll put it THIS way, Pa. If looks could kill, I’d be lying dead and buried out by the lake next to my mother, and ol’ Adam would be swingin’ from the gallows for murder.”

“He’s never talked very much about what happened between him and Kane,” Ben said slowly.

“He never even told YOU?!”

Ben sadly shook his head. “. . . and I never pressed.”

“I didn’t mean to pry or anything like that,” Joe said defensively. “I . . . just wanted to know how HE came through it all with his sanity intact.”

“I know, Son.”

“He CLAIMED he didn’t remember very much.”

“It WAS a long time ago.”

“ . . . and now it seems to have come back to haunt him.”

“There could be other things at work, too,” Ben pointed out.

“Such as . . . . ?”

“That young couple who traveled with him from Sacramento here,” Ben replied. “He’s been very concerned about them ever since he heard that the stage they left Virginia City on has turned up missing.”

“At the time I asked him about Kane, he had just found out about that,” Joe said thoughtfully, “ . . . and now finding out what happened to the young wife . . . . ” He sighed again, and shook his head. “NOW I wish I hadn’t lit into him about running off on what I saw as a wild goose chase and leaving the new house go.”

“You can apologize to him when he gets back,” Ben said. “Speaking of the house, though . . . Adam had a lot of memories . . . good and bad . . . connected with the old house too, even though he hasn’t lived on the Ponderosa for . . . well, it’s been a long time. In fact, it feels like a whole lifetime. At any rate . . . that first morning he rode out there with Hoss? He . . . Hoss, that is . . . told me he thought Adam was suffering a few emotional pangs.”

“I wish we could help him, Pa,” Joe said, feeling miserable, forlorn, and more helpless than he could recall ever having felt in his entire life.

“It may be that the best way we CAN help Adam is let him know we’re here, then allow him the time and space he needs to work things through on his own . . . in his own way,” Ben said. “I think you and I’ve already made it clear that we’re here if he needs us right before he left this morning.”

“Ok, Pa . . . I’ll TRY to mind my own business.”

“You ready to g’won back to bed now?”

“Not quite yet,” Joe replied. “You mind if I sit up for a little while?”

“Not at all, Son. You want me to stay with you?”

“Thanks, Pa, but I’ll be all right. I’m glad we talked things out, though, and I meant what I said about minding my own business.”

“I know you did, Joe.” Ben rose. “Good night.”

Joe looked up at his father, and grinned. “Pa . . . don’t you mean good MORNING?”

Adam, meanwhile, walked the scant few blocks between the Fletchers’ house and the Virginia City sheriff’s office, leading Sport II by his reins. He reached his destination just as the deep maroon and port wine hues of sunrise began to lighten into the brighter shades of red and scarlet.

There, he tethered Sport II to the hitching post just outside the sheriff’s office, alongside Kentucky Blue, the magnificent big brown gelding belonging to Darryl Hughes. Roy Coffee’s horse, Tin Star stood placidly on the other side of Kentucky Blue. Glancing over at the other horses present, he recognized brands from the Five Card Draw spread, belonging to Clay Hansen; the Wilsons’ Square W, the simple HU, for the Hurley family’s farm, and the mark used by the livery stable. Two pack horses, bearing the livery stable’s mark in their left rear flanks, stood side by side, tethered to another hitching post, a few yards from the first. Both were loaded with supplies, food, coffee, cooking utensils for the most part, and ready to go. Adam also saw a buckboard, stocked with blankets and pillows, extra clothing, and bandages. Clem Foster and Sam, the bartender over at the Silver Dollar Saloon, were loading a large barrel of water, the third of three, up into the back of the buckboard.

“ ‘Morning, Adam,” Clem greeted him politely, once the barrel was in place.

“Good morning, Clem . . . Sam,” Adam nodded to both the deputy and bartender, respectively.

“ ‘Morning, Adam,” Sam returned the greeting with a curt nod. “Clem, I’d best be goin’.”

“Thanks for the barrels of water, Sam,” Clem said gratefully. “Sheriff Coffee ‘n the others’ll sure appreciate it.”

“Glad I could help out,” Sam said. “If there’s anything else I can do once you bring those poor folks back outta the desert, you just let me know, y’ hear?”

“I will, Sam, thanks again.” After Sam left, Clem returned his attention to Adam. “You’ll find Sheriff Coffee ‘n everyone else inside waiting.”

“Thanks. I hope I’m not the last to arrive.”

“No. We’re still waiting on Doc Martin.”

“You coming along, too?”

“ ‘Fraid not, Adam,” Clem shook his head. “I’ve got a couple o’ prisoners to keep an eye one, one of ‘em being the guy who kidnapped Joe.”

“Crippensworth?”

Clem nodded.

“I heard he was being extradited to England.”

“Yeah. He’s wanted for a string o’ murders there.”

“Popular fellow,” Adam remarked with wry sarcasm.

“Yeah. He sure is,” Clem chuckled, then sobered. “Sheriff Coffee got a wire this morning from the men at Scotland Yard sent to fetch him. Seems they’ve been delayed by storms and flash flooding out in the plains area.”

“I sure hope they arrive soon,” Adam said grimly. “I’d hate to see that man released on some kind of technicality.”

“You don’t have to worry none about THAT, Adam,” Clem declared, with an emphatic nod of his head. “The extradition papers have been drawn up, and signed by Judge Faraday. That says Mister Crippensworth STAYS in jail until the men from Scotland Yard arrive to fetch him, no matter HOW long it takes. Meantime, Adam, you’d best get on inside, especially if you want any o’ them donuts Mrs. Braun made up ‘n brought down to us special.”

“Thanks, Clem.”

“ ‘Mornin’, Adam,” Roy Coffee greeted him briskly, as he stepped inside the sheriff’s office. “Glad you could join us. I think you know just about everybody here.”

He did, indeed. Darryl Hughes stood next to the pot bellied stove nursing a generous mug of hot strong coffee, conversing with Eli Barnett, the foreman at the Five Card Draw spread, and his twenty year old son, Andy. Clay Hansen, the owner of the Five Card Draw, sat in one of the chairs beside the sheriff’s desk, munching on a cinnamon donut, lost in his own thoughts, while Blake Wilson sat in the other chair, blowing across the surface of the hot mug of coffee, he held in both hands. His son, Matt, one of Adam’s oldest friends, nodded by way of greeting, as he bit into the cinnamon donut in hand. Jack Hurley and David, the younger of his twin sons both silently nodded their greetings.

“Hey, Adam . . . for a minute there, I thought I was dreaming!”

Adam turned and found himself looking up into the big, smiling face of Apollo Nikolas, one of Hoss’ oldest and best friends. “Apollo, you ol’ sea dog, you! I understand congratulations are in order for you and Colleen . . . again,” he said as the pair enthusiastically shook hands.

“Yes, Adam . . . thank you,” Apollo said with a grin.

“How many to you have now?” Adam asked as they enthusiastically shook hands.

“Aisling’s the oldest . . . she just turned two last birthday, and we have another girl, named Erin Helene for the places her grandparents came from. She’s six months.” Apollo recited his daughters’ names, ages, and other facts with all the reverence of a priest reciting a litany.

“How’s Colleen faring?”

“Well enough.” An anxious frown creased the smoothness of Adam’s brow. “She’s having a bit of trouble with this one, Adam,” he confessed, his smile fading. “Doc Martin says it’s normal, because she’s older, but . . . I’m kinda worried. Molly’s staying with her while I’m away.”

“Molly?” Adam queried with a puzzled frown.

Apollo nodded. “Why do you ask?”

“Sorry, Apollo, it wasn’t my intention to pry,” Adam quickly apologized. “I was under the impression that Molly had left for the Platteville Normal School out in Wisconsin at the end of last summer.”

“She was supposed to leave at the start of August last year, but Myrna . . . Mrs. O’Hanlan . . . took very ill suddenly, and she’s STILL not quite back on her feet,” Apollo said. “To say that Francis and Molly have had their hands full makes light of the matter.”

“What about Frankie?” Adam asked. Frankie was the O’Hanlans’ only son.

“HE left home a year ago after he and his mother had a royal row to end all rows,” Apollo said grimly, then sighed. “Granted it was about time Frankie struck out on his own, but I’m real sorry it had to happen the way it did.”

“I . . . understand your mother-in-law has apron strings made of cast iron.”

“Indeed she does,” Apollo agreed. “Between you ‘n me, Adam? I think a lot of her sickness has more to do with Frankie leaving home and Molly, at the time, ABOUT to leave home, than with any kind of physical ailment.”

“From what I saw of Mrs. Hanlan when I came to visit two summers years ago, I’d say your observations are right on the money,” Adam said. “But despite the circumstances, I’m glad Molly’s able to be with Colleen now, though.”

“So am I,” Apollo agreed wholeheartedly. “Molly’s grown up to be a real self assured, level headed young woman . . . thanks in large part to your sister, despite Myrna’s constant assertions that Stacy was a bad influence.”

“Would that OUR daughters come under such bad influence.”

“Amen to that, Adam. Amen to that.”

“Alright, Folks . . . listen up!” Roy raised his voice slightly, so to be heard above the many different conversations going on at once. “Doc Martin’s just arrived. He’s outside now with Clem loadin’ up his stuff in the buckboard, so let’s the rest of us git ready t’ move on out.”

“Where are we headed . . . exactly?” Adam asked, as he and Apollo both fell in step alongside the sheriff on either side.

“We’re gonna start at the spot where Hugh, Crystal, ‘n Darryl found Mrs. Estevan,” Roy replied. “From there, I figure on headin’ toward Desert Springs. That was the where that stage was last seen.”

It was a little past noon when they arrived at the watering hole where Hugh O’Brien, Crystal McShane, and Darryl Hughes had camped out their last night on the trail coming home from Eastgate. Andy Barnett and David Hurley, along with a couple of the younger men from the Five Card Draw Ranch, immediately took charge of the horses, seeing that each one was taken to the water to drink its fill.

“Mister O’Brien, Mrs. McShane, and I had our horses tethered here,” Darryl pointed out the exact spot to Roy Coffee, Adam Cartwright, Paul Martin, and a few of the others, who had elected to follow. “I saw Mrs. Estevan coming from that way.” He pointed in the direction due east. “She could hardly walk. She’d take a couple of steps, then fall . . . get up, take another step or two, then fall again.” He silently led the sheriff, the doctor and the others around to the other side of the watering hole. “It was right here she fell . . . and couldn’t get up again.”

Roy Coffee walked over and took a cursory look at the spot of ground at which Darryl Hughes still pointed. His eyes, still sharp despite his advancing years, caught the glint of something metallic lying in the sand at his feet. He knelt down for a closer look. It was a ring, a plain simple gold band, made to encircle a very slender finger.

“Sheriff Coffee? What is it?” Adam Cartwright asked.

“A ring,” Roy replied, placing it in the palm of his own hands. “A weddin’ ring from the look of it. There’s an inscription here on the inside, but I ain’t got m’ readin’ glasses on me, so I can’t make it out.”

“Mind if I have a look, Sheriff Coffee?” Darryl asked.

“Help yourself,” Roy said, as he handed Darryl the ring.

The young foreman raised the ring to eye level, and squinted. “It says . . . ‘Maria, all my love, forever yours, Lorenzo.’ ” He, then, handed the ring back to the sheriff.

“Thank you,” Roy snapped, his eyes blinking excessively. “Doc, when we all git back, I’d be much obliged if ya gave this back t’ Mrs. Estevan.”

“Certainly, Roy,” Paul said very quietly, as he accepted the ring, and tucked it safely away in his deep right pants pocket.

“Were you ‘n Crystal able t’ git anything more out of her?” Roy asked the doctor as he scanned the horizon, shielding his eyes from the steadily rising sun with the palm of his hand.

“As . . . as I was finishing with her examination, she told Crystal that she was . . . taken by the men who robbed the stage coach,” Paul said, still visibly shaken by the memory and accompanying emotions of his having examined and treated Maria Estevan the day before. “I took it to mean that those men abducted her, and . . . and kept her prisoner somewhere for a time . . . I’d say at least a week . . . maybe a little longer. The rope burns on her ankles and wrists certainly bear that out . . . and the fact that she’s still ALIVE.”

“Whatcha mean by THAT, Doc?” Roy asked.

“A human being can only survive without food AND water three . . . maybe four days on average,” Paul Martin explained. “That stage coach has been missing for a week.”

“Is there anyplace that could offer shelter within three or four days travel from here on foot?” Adam asked.

“You figure on us finding that missing stage there, Mister Cartwright?” Andy Barnett asked.

Adam shook his head. “I’m figuring on finding the place where Mrs. Estevan was held prisoner,” he said grimly. “If we can find THAT place, we may find clues there that would lead us to that missing stage, and . . . and to the rest of the passengers . . . . ” At that moment, he suddenly realized that the likelihood of finding any of the other passengers alive was virtually nil . . . .
In a flash, less than the space between one heartbeat and the next, Adam suddenly found himself sitting atop Sport . . . the first horse to bear that name, looking down on a man, unshaven, clad almost entirely in black, smiling in greedy anticipation as he glanced through the wallet he held in both hands. “That’s it,” he said.

“Now get down off that horse,” his companion and partner ordered.

Despite the searing heat of the sun beating down on them relentless, without a shred of mercy, Adam’s blood suddenly ran cold. “You got your money.” He heard again the anger, the desperation in his voice as he pointed out the obvious.

“Climb down,” the man holding his wallet, and the five thousand dollars inside ordered tersely.

He slowly complied.

“We’re gonna let you WALK outta here,” the other man said with a sneer, as he took hold of Sport’s lead.

“I’ll never make it without food and water,” Adam said, angry, yet half pleading. “Nobody would.”

The thieves laughed as they mounted their own horses. “Well now, I feel real sorry for him . . . ‘cause he’s right,” the man, who still had his wallet, was still laughing.

“Yeah,” his partner chuckled. “I’m all shook up.”

“I don’t want your pity . . . I just want a chance,” Adam said through clenched teeth. At the time, he was more angry than fearful . . . .

. . . angry at the two men who had just taken, not only his wallet and the money it contained, but any and all chance of him even surviving the encounter . . . .

. . . but, most of all, he felt very angry with himself.

“We’re givin’ you a chance,” the other man said, in a mocking tone of voice. “We ain’t KILLIN’ ya.”

“Very funny,” he said sardonically.

“Ain’t it?”

He stood, unmoving, watching, helpless and angry, as the two men rode off, their mocking, derisive laughter echoing in his ears . . . .

Adam . . . .

“Adam!”

He started violently, losing his balance. He would have taken a very nasty tumble, had it not been for Roy Coffee and Matt Wilson standing on either side of him, steadying him. For a moment he stared blankly at one, then the other.

“Adam . . . you all right?” Roy asked anxiously.

“I . . . I . . . y-yes. I’m all right . . . I’m fine,” Adam stammered, squeezing his eyes shut tight against a sudden onslaught of dizziness.

“You SURE, Buddy?” Matt asked, his voice laden with doubt.

“Yes. I’m fine,” Adam said curtly, as he rudely shook both of them off.

“You were talking then all of a sudden you blanked out on us,” Matt said quietly, with a worried frown on his face.

“I’m fine. Honest. I am. Now will the both of you please . . . stop hovering?!” Adam said tersely, syllables tersely clipped.

“Roy?” Clay Hansen, owner of the Five Card Draw Ranch, ventured, casting a wary glance over in Adam’s general direction.

“Yeah, Clay?”

“You were wonderin’ if there was someplace within three or four days o’ here?”

“Yeah,” Roy replied. “YOU know o’ someplace?”

Clay nodded slowly. “I seem to remember an old prospector’s shack . . . oh . . . ten, maybe fifteen miles that way.” He pointed in a general southeasterly direction.

“You thinkin’ o’ Crazy Cal’s place?” Blake Wilson asked.

“Crazy Cal as in . . . Crazy Calhoun Callahan?!”

“Yeah. That’s him,” Blake said, “I used t’ stop ‘n visit on my way back from the horse auction at Eastgate, leastwise up until he died a few years ago. If MY memory serves, its about ten or eleven miles in the direction Clay just said.”

“Any idea what Crazy Cal did f’r water?” Roy asked.

“There was a water hole . . . about a mile or so from his place,” Clay answered, “maybe just a tad less.”

“You have any inkin’ as t’ where, exactly, that water hole o’ Crazy Cal’s might be?” Roy asked.

“It was to the south or southeast of his shack, as the crow flies,” Blake replied.

Roy silently did some mental figuring. Ten miles out . . . ten miles back . . . plus time to look around . . . all that would take at least a good two days, maybe three. “Looks like Crazy Cal’s shack’s the only lead we got,” Roy said grimly. “Blake, Darryl, Apollo, ‘n Matt . . . I’d like YOU t’ come with me.”

“Sheriff Coffee?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“I’d like to go with you, as well.”

“I dunno ‘bout that, Son,” Roy said doubtfully. “Seemed like you were sufferin’ a touch o’ heatstroke just now . . . . ”

“I SAID I was fine,” Adam snapped.

Roy looked Adam square in the face, seeing not the son, but the father in the fierce, determined anger burning in those golden brown eyes, the mouth thinned to a near straight, lipless line, the rigid set of his jaw. Ben wore that very same look every time HE stubbornly made up his mind about something . . . and there was no changing it, no backing down. “Alright,” Roy said, exasperated, surrendering ungraciously to what he supposed to be the inevitable. “Alright, Adam, you can come along, but— ”

That last drew a sharp glare from Adam.

“You do exactly WHAT I tell ya . . . WHEN I tell ya t’ do it,” Roy said sternly. “That understood?”

“Understood,” Adam snapped, inwardly bristling against the sheriff admonishing him in the same manner he might a small boy.

“Alright,” Roy said tersely. He looked over at the other five men he had asked to accompany him. “I want all of ya t’ make sure your horses are watered ‘n your canteens filled.”

A soft ripple of ascent from the five men, accompanied by a couple of curt nods, followed in response to the sheriff’s request.

“Since we have that barrel o’ water from the Silver Dollar AND that water hole, I’d really appreciate it if some of you fellas, who’re stayin’ behind could spare a couple o’ extra canteens,” Roy continued. “Clay . . . Doc, I’m leavin’ you in charge. While WE’RE gone, I the lotta ya t’ break up in small groups o’ two or three ‘n ride out in different directions, keepin’ an eye out for any sign of that missin’ stage. I don’t want none o’ ya ridin’ out any more ‘n a half day’s journey, ‘n I want at least three men standin’ guard here at all times. I expect t’ be back here in a couple o’ days . . . maybe three. Any questions?”

None were forthcoming.

Satisfied, Roy Coffee turned to the men he chose to ride with him. “Let’s ride,” he ordered.

In the waning light and lengthening shadows of late afternoon, Roy Coffee and his companions paused atop a slight rise. They were surrounded on all sides by a flat expanse of desert, stretching away into the distance as far as the eye could see, broken only by a thin, jagged line of mountains, marking the northwesterly horizon line.

“Roy?”

“Yeah, Blake?”

“I think that’s it,” Blake Wilson said, pointing to what appeared to be a cluster of irregular shaped triangles and rectangles, silhouetted against the bright, near blinding desert sand.

“That’s it . . . what?” Roy queried with a perplexed frown.

“Crazy Cal’s shack,” Blake replied with a touch of asperity.

“You sure?” Roy asked.

“Course I’m sure,” Blake responded, taking no pains to hide his growing annoyance. “I’d know Crazy Cal’s shack in a heartbeat! Although . . . .”

“Although . . . what, Pa?” Matt asked.

“Well, I don’t rightly recall him having that lean-to,” Blake said, pointing to a triangular silhouette, sitting in front of the shack, a little to the right.

Roy removed his binoculars from one of his saddle bags and raised them to his eyes. “That’s a lean-to, alright,” he said grimly, “an’ it’s got four horses stabled in it.” He immediately lowered the binoculars. “We must be down wind here, or else those horses would o’ caught scent o’ ours, ‘n alerted whoever’s in that shack about us bein’ here. C’mon. We need t’ git ourselves BELOW this rise.”

Within minutes, the six men had moved down from the top of the small hill created by blowing wind and drifting sand. Blake Wilson and Darryl Hughes remained with the horses, at the foot of the rise, well out of sight of the individuals occupying Crazy Cal’s shack, while Adam Cartwright, Apollo Nikolas, and Matt Wilson followed Roy Coffee back up to the top on foot.

“Sheriff Coffee, you think maybe the people living in Crazy Cal’s shack are the men who robbed that stage?” Apollo asked, after they had all dropped down to their bellies just behind the ridge.

“I think it’s a real good possibility, Apollo,” Roy replied, “but, at the same time, I ain’t jumpin’ to conclusions. Those folks could like as not be squatters or maybe prospectors tryin’ t’ work Crazy Cal’s claim.”

“How do you propose we find out?” Adam asked.

Roy silently studied the landscape stretched out before him. The rise, sheltering them, curved slightly around to his right, sloping gradually until it came even with the ground roughly half way between their position and the shack. The lean-to had been erected near the door, its opening facing due east, so that its roof might provide the horses adequate shade against the hot afternoon sun, as it began its descent toward the western horizon. Between the men positioned at the top of the ridge and the shack lay a vast expanse of open space, broken only by an occasional tumbleweed. The only entrance from the front of the shack was a single door. There were no windows, at least none that could be seen from atop the ridge.

“Sheriff Coffee, if I keep to the ridge, I could sneak around to the place where this rise begins to curve,” Matt Wilson said softly. “That should give me a pretty good view of the side . . . and I could find out whether or not there’s any windows.”

Roy carefully thought the matter over. “Alright,” he finally assented. “We’ll cover ya, but, Matt . . . . ”

“Yes, Sir?”

“The wind seems t’ be blowin’ down from a northeasterly direction,” Roy said. “Y’ go too far along that down slope, you’re gonna find yourself down wind from them horses . . . an’ THEY’LL catch your scent, quicker ‘n you can catch pneumonia out in a snowstorm nekkid.” He paused to allow his warning t’ sink in. “You keep a real sharp eye on them horses, y’ hear me?”

“I will, Sheriff Coffee,” Matt promised.

“You better,” Matt’s father, Blake, growled. “ ‘Cause if you come back the least bit busted up . . . your ma ‘n your wife BOTH ’re gonna be out after my blood.”

“I’ll be careful, Pa . . . I promise.” With that, Matt Wilson slowly drew his gun from its holster, and silently set off.

“Somethin’ ain’t right, I tell ya. I feel it . . . deep in m’ bones . . . I can FEEL it!” Bartholomew Troutman, known as Black Bart among his associates, was a big, swarthy man, with dark brown, almost black piercing eyes, a head full of jet black wavy hair, graying around the edges, and a three day stubble, generously laced with gray. He stood nearly as tall as Hoss Cartwright, and weighed in at nearly twenty pounds heavier.

“You been goin’ on ‘n on ‘n ON about that for the last three days now,” one of his companions, a short, plump man, by the name of Timothy Higgins whined, rolling his eyes heavenward. Though aged only in his early twenties, his reddish brown hair was already thinning on top. His hazel eyes were round and staring, as if a single moment of surprise, or perhaps fear, had been indelibly frozen into the muscle and bone of his face, while his thick, sausage like lips seemed locked in a perpetual pout. “We ain’t seen hide nor hair o’ nobody.”

“Don’t mean they ain’t out there . . . somewhere,” Black Bart growled. “Hell, they could be hiding up there on top that ridge . . . . ” he pointed with a vigorous thrust of his powerful, well muscled arm. “I STILL say we shouldda gone out after that li’l gal, ‘n either drug her back by her hair, or killed her on the spot.”

“Why?” a third man demanded. Aged in his mid-forties, he was the eldest of his associates, and by nature, a cold, calculating man, named Jacob Carter. He was tall, and slender, yet well muscled. He had thinning light brown hair, generously laced with stands of silver, and alert blue eyes that missed seeing nothing.

“She’s a witness,” Black Bart said, rounding on Jacob furiously. “THAT means she can point us out to the sheriff.”

“I KNOW what that means,” Jacob said in a tone insultingly condescending. “I ALSO know there ain’t no way that li’l gal’s gonna make it outta this desert all by herself . . . on foot. The nearest li’l town . . . if ya wanna call two shacks, a near dried up well, ‘n a poor excuse for a saloon a town . . . is a good twenty miles t’ the north. That li’l gal’s buzzard bait, Black Bart . . . and buzzard bait don’t usually end up talkin’ t’ no sheriff.”

“NO!” The fourth man, young, aged all of nineteen years old, cried out. He was tall, and well muscled, with blonde, almost white hair, and startling sapphire blue eyes. “No! Jacob, she . . . she ain’t . . . oh, Jacob, she ain’t REALLY dead . . . is she?”

Jacob turned to the stricken young man, and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Y’ liked her, didn’t you, Billy Bob?”

Billy Bob nodded his head. “I liked her, Jacob. I liked her a whole lot. She . . . she was real pretty.”

“There’ll be other gals, Boy,” Jacob said, favoring the young man with an indulgent smile.

“I don’t want no other gals. I . . . I want HER.”

“First one’s ALWAYS special,” Jacob said. “You’ll never, ever quite forget her. I still remember Charlene, after all these years . . . . ”

“Jacob, I wanna find her. Please? Can I please find her?”

“No, Kid . . . y’ can’t.”

“Why NOT?!”

“For one thing we got no idea what direction she took,” Jacob patiently explained. “It’s a big desert out there, Billy Bob. If I letcha got out wanderin’ around . . . YOU could end up buzzard bait.”

“I gotta TRY, Jacob,” the boy ardently begged. “Please? Can I please TRY?”

“Billy Bob, by now, there . . . probably . . . ain’t much of her left TO find,” Jacob said soothingly. “The desert is a harsh task mistress to them not acquainted with her ways.”

Two large tears rolled down Billy Bob’s cheeks. “Th-then she’s . . . she’s d-dead. She’s really honest t’ goodness DEAD.”

“Aww fer— is that cry baby brat o’ your’s gonna start cryin’ AGAIN?!” Timothy whined.

“SHUT-UP!” Billy Bob yelled, glaring over at Timothy with a dark, murderous frown. “SHUT-UP, SHUT-UP . . . SHUT- UP!”

“Why don’t ya g’won over to your cot, ‘n lie down, maybe try ‘n get hold o’ yourself,” Jacob suggested, in a tone of voice surprisingly kind. “Seems ol’ Tim over there’s doin’ enough cryin’ for all of us.”

Billy Bob nodded, then shuffled over to the cot, set up in the farthest corner of the shack.

“Jacob, he gonna be all right?!” Black Bart queried, with an anxious frown. “You know how he gets when he takes a notion to his head. Ain’t NO stoppin’ him.”

“If you’re worried about him takin’ off t’ look for that li’l gal on his own . . . ya needn’t,” Jacob said, taking great care to keep his voice low. “Give him another minute, maybe two, he’ll have forgotten all about that li’l gal ‘n gone on t’ somethin’ ELSE. YOU know that, Bart. You know that better ‘n just about anyone.”

“Blatherin’ idiot!” Timothy growled, casting a disdainful glare over in the direction of the young man, now lying stretched out on the cot, with his face to the wall. “Y’ shouldda put him in an orphanage somewheres.”

Jacob gritted his teeth, then lashed out, striking Timothy with force sufficient to send him careening into the wall behind him. The younger, portlier man cried out in pain, astonishment, and outrage as he body slammed into the wall with a sickening thud, then collapsed to the sandy floor. Jacob, his eyes blazing with raw fury, moved in on his hapless opponent, with fingers clenched into a pair of tight, rock hard fists.

“Jacob, stop it!” Black Bart growled, as he interposed himself physically between Jacob and Timothy, now sitting on the floor, gazing up with a shocked, stupefied look on his face.

“Outta my way,” Jacob growled.

“I mean it,” Black Bart growled back, “ or so help me . . . I’m gonna knock the both of ya down ‘n sit on ya ‘til ya come t’ your senses.”

“Alright!” Jacob snarled. But, I don’t wanna hear no more talk about orphanages or hospitals, or so help me . . . so . . . HELP . . . me . . . I’m gonna KILL him.”

“No one’s stickin’ Billy Bob in no orphanage or hospital,” Black Bart tried to reassure his associate and old friend. “You promised your ma you’d look after him when she was lyin’ on her death bed.”

“Damn right,” Jacob snarled, as he glared over at Timothy, still sitting where he had fallen just a short while ago, whimpering.

“Mean time, we gotta saddle up ‘n move on,” Black Bart continued. “Sooner the better.”

“We can’t leave now,” Jacob argued. “That silver shipment don’t come through for another couple o’ days yet.”

“We can’t stay HERE.”

“Why not?”

Black Bart cast a quick, furtive glance over toward Billy Bob, now snoring softly. “That li’l gal, Jacob,” he said, taking great care to lower his voice.

“Bart, you’re tremblin’ worse ‘n a vaporous old woman,” Jacob sneered.

“We can’t take the chance. She can point us out to the law.”

“Bart, I keep tellin’ ya . . . she CAN’T point us out to the law or nobody ELSE,” Jacob argued, “ ‘cause she’s dead. Gotta be, by now. Even if she DID get lucky ‘n blunder into the nearest water hole . . . there still ain’t nothin’ but desert f’r twenty, maybe even thirty miles no matter which way ya look. Ain’t no way possible for her to’ve gotten out on foot.”

“What if she found help?” Black Bart demanded.

“Aww, Bart . . . where in the ever lovin’ world is she gonna find help?! Whole time WE been livin’ out here in this shack, we ain’t seen much o’ NOBODY.”

“What about them three we saw leave Eastgate few days ago, after that horse auction?”

“Ok, so three people left Eastgate,” Jacob snorted derisively. “So WHAT? The chances of them runnin’ into that li’l gal are . . . astro-nomical.”

“I’d still feel a helluva lot better about things if we’d gone after that gal,” Black Bart declared.

“Look. Day after t’morrow that silver shipment bound f’r Placerville comes through,” Jacob pressed. “After we relieve ‘em of all that precious, heavy metal . . . we’re GONE . . . as in SOUTH to Mexico, to live like kings.”

“ . . . an’ we can hook up with some real live red hot mamas,” Timothy ventured hesitantly, with a bare hint of a lecherous sneer pulling hard at the corner of his mouth. “I’ll even betcha you can find one t’ make Billy Bob forget the one that got away . . . ?!”

“THAT won’t be hard,” Jacob grunted, “makin’ Billy Bob forget all about that li’l gal. I hafta admit, she was a nice piece of ass . . . fun while she lasted. Her cryin’ all the time for that sissy boy, Lorenzo, got tiresome real quick, though.”

“How can YOU sit there and . . . and . . . think about women, when the three o’ US as good as got our necks in a noose?” Black Bart yelled.

“Robbin’ a stage AIN’T no hangin’ offense,” Timothy immediately shot back.

“Maybe stage robbin’ ain’t, but murder IS.”

“I didn’t commit no murder.”

“The hell ya didn’t. Whaddya call the bullets ya put in the driver of that stage . . . an’ the man ridin’ shotgun?”

“Self defense,” Timothy snapped. “THEY drew on ME, first.”

“You think anyone’s gonna— ” Black Bart’s entire body suddenly went rigid. “What was THAT?” he gasped, his eyes round with sheer terror.

“Aggh! You’re WORSE ‘n an old woman,” Timothy sneered.

“I just heard our horses,” Black Bart gasped.

“So what?!”

“LISTEN to ‘em, dammit.”

Both Jacob and Timothy paused to listen. “Aaah, so the horses are makin’ noises,” the latter snorted contemptuously. “So what?!”

“Someone’s out there!” Black Bart declared vehemently.

“Dagnabit!” Roy muttered under his breath.

“What’s the matter, Sheriff Coffee?” Adam asked.

“The wind shifted,” Roy said, “so Matt’s now down wind o’ their horses.”

“ . . . and they’ve picked up his scent,” Adam said quietly.

“What do we do NOW, Sheriff Coffee?” Apollo asked.

Roy waved at Matt, frantically gesturing for him to immediately take cover. Matt glanced back with a bewildered frown, but complied. “Adam . . . Apollo . . . you boys cover me.” He rose, and cupped his hands around his mouth. “HELLO, THE HOUSE.”

“Dammit!” Black Bart swore vehemently. “I told ya someone was out there.”

“NOW what’ll we do?” Timothy wailed, his entire body quaking with sheer terror.

“The two of YOU need t’ git hold o’ yourselves for one thing,” Jacob growled. “Honest t’ God, I ain’t never, not in all my born days EVER seen nuthin’ as scaredy cat as the two o’ you!”

“Jacob?!” It was Billy Bob. He stood at Jacob’s elbow, eyes still half closed, trying hard not to yawn.

“Whatcha want, Billy Bob?” Jacob asked, unable to keep the exasperation out of his voice.

Billy Bob flinched, as if Jacob had just struck him.

“Sorry, Kid,” Jacob immediately apologized.

“Everything . . . oh . . . kay?”

“Yeah, Billy Bob, everything’s ok— ”

“No!” Timothy wailed, rudely cutting Jacob off mid-sentence. “Everything’s NOT ok. We’re caught! We’re just as good as blamed CAUGHT! Y’ know what THAT means . . . . ”

The blood drained right out of Billy Bob’s face.

“Well, I’ll tell ya one thing. I AIN’T goin’ to the gallows, no sir, not Pearl Troutman’s li’l boy . . . not no how, not no way, ‘n especially NOT for t’ likes o’ YOU.” Black Bart punctuated his passionate declaration with a dark, angry glare directed in the general direction of Timothy Higgins.

“Dammit, I told ya . . . THAT was self defense!” Timothy shot right beck. “Jacob saw. HE’LL back me up.”

“Maybe it WAS self defense agin’ the driver ‘n the man riding shot gun,” Black Bart rounded furiously on his cohort, “but NOT agin’ that boy.”

“WHAT boy?”

“That tall, skinny boy! He didn’t have no gun, no knife, no nuthin’!”

“You talkin’ ‘bout Low-ren-zo?” Timothy sneered.

“I’m talkin’ ‘bout YOU shootin’ down an unarmed man, not much more ‘n a BOY . . . in cold blood. I saw ya, Higgins. Ya shot that boy down in cold blood, just so ‘s YOU could have his girl.”

“YOU had YOUR fun with ‘er, too.”

“Will the both o’ ya puh-leese . . . shut-UP?!” Jacob ordered, taking no pains to conceal his swift growing annoyance. “You’re scarin’ the wits outta Billy Bob!”

“That boy don’t have any wits t’ be scared out of,” Timothy muttered softly, under his breath.

“What was THAT?!” Jacob demanded.

“Nothin’,” Timothy snapped back in a sullen tone of voice.

“I MEAN it, Jacob!” Black Bart defiantly insisted. “I AIN’T swingin’ from the end of a rope . . . NOT for the likes o’ him.”

“Nobody’s askin’ ya to!” Jacob’s words drew a sharp, angry glare from Timothy, mixed with generous doses of fear and trepidation. “Now, shut-up ‘n settle down . . . the BOTH of ya!” He glared at Black Bart first, then over toward Timothy. “Like as not, it’s some ol’ squatter lookin’ for shelter.”

“What’re we gonna do?” Timothy demanded.

“I’M gonna go see what the man outside wants,” Jacob replied, as he started for the door.

“J-Jacob?”

“What’s the matter, Billy Bob?”

“Are we goin’ to jail?” Billy Bob asked, his face pale, his eyes round with sheer terror.

“Billy Bob, ain’t nobody goin’ t’ jail,” Jacob hastened to assure the young man. “Now you wait right here with Mister Troutman ‘n Mister Higgins, ‘til I come back.”

“Ok,” Billy Bob agreed reluctantly, with much fear and trepidation.

“HELLO, THE HOUSE!” Roy shouted again.

The door opened. Jacob Carter stepped out from the darkened interior into the bright sunshine. “HELLO, FRIEND,” he yelled back in an affable tone of voice. “WHAT CAN I DO FOR YA?”

“I WAS WONDERIN’ IF I MIGHT ASK YA A FEW QUESTIONS,” the sheriff yelled back in response.

“WHATCHA WANNA KNOW?”

“THERE’S AN OVERLAND STAGE COACH MISSIN’. IT LEFT VIRGINIA CITY A COUPLE O’ WEEKS AGO. I THOUGHT MAYBE YOU LIVIN’ OUT HERE IN THE DESERT THE WAY Y’ ARE . . . MAYBE YOU’D SEEN OR HEARD SOMETHING.”

“SORRY, FRIEND, ‘FRAID I CAN’T HELP YA. YOU FROM THE STAGE LINE?”

“NOPE. I’M THE SHERIFF FROM OVER IN VIRGINIA CITY,” Roy replied. “GOT A WIRE FROM THE STAGE LINE A COUPLE O’ DAYS AGO THAT THE STAGE WAS MISSIN’.”

“Damn, damn, damn, DAMN!” Black Bart vehemently swore, upon hearing Sheriff Coffee identify himself. “I knew we was caught! I knew it, I KNEW it!”

“Willya f’r heaven’s sake settle DOWN?!” Timothy growled back.

“Settle down? Settle DOWN?! Didn’t ya hear what I just SAID?! We’re as good as caught . . . ‘n you’re tellin’ me t’ settle DOWN?!”

“I swear! You got more fright in ya that the Good Lord gave a rabbit . . . and you’re scaring the boy, besides! The sheriff’s just askin’ questions. That’s ALL! He ain’t accusin’ us o’ nuthin’ . . . . ”

“ . . . YET! How you of all of us can stand there so cool ‘n calm, I’ll never know. YOU’RE the one facin’ a hangman’s noose, after all.”

“I ain’t neither!” Timothy declared heatedly. “It was self defense, y’ hear me? Self defense! When in the hell are ya gonna get that through your thick head?!”

“I don’t call shootin’ two men lyin’ in the sand, trussed up like a pair o’ calves for brandin’ self defense,” Black Bart shot right back. “I call it cold blooded murder . . . same as that boy . . . ‘n same as that WOMAN.”

“You’d tell ‘em that, wouldn’t ya?”

“Damn’ right, if it’ll save m’ own neck, you snivelin’, whinin’ li’l— .”

“Well. So much for honor among thieves,” Timothy said, as he whipped his revolver out of its holster.

“Hey! Whatcha gonna DO?” Billy Bob cried out.

Black Bart’s swarthy complexion paled as he watched his cohort aim the barrel of his revolver straight at his own heart. “Come on, Higgins . . . put that thing away,” he murmured, as he raised his hands to shoulder level.

“Get this through your head, Big Man,” Timothy said contemptuously, “I got no intentions o’ dancin’ on air either.” With that, he pulled the trigger.

Black Bart had vague awareness of Billy Bob somewhere, screaming, as he dropped to the floor, his face contorted with agony, clutching at his chest. “Y-You . . . b-back stabbin’ J-Judas goat son of a bitch,” he spat.

“You’re no better,” Timothy sneered. “You we’re gonna tell on me t’ save your own crummy neck, remember?”

“What the hell’s goin’ on here?” Jacob Carter demanded, as he charged into the shack.

“I had no choice,” Timothy whined. “I HAD t’ shoot him. T’was that or let HIM shoot ME.”

“You . . . you l-lyin’ b-bag o’ shit dust,” Black Bart muttered angrily through clenched teeth. “I . . . I ain’t even wearin’ m’ gun.”

“You . . . you stupid . . . THAT’S IT!” Jacob screamed, his face contorting with rage. “THAT IS THE ABSOLUTE, POSITIVE LAST STRAW! HIGGINS, YOU ‘N ME ARE QUITS! BLACK BART, BILLY BOB ‘N ME ARE LEAVIN’ . . . JUST AS SOON AS I CAN SADDLE OUR HORSES.”

“GOOD RIDDANCE!” Timothy shouted, on the edge of hysteria. “GOOD RIDDANCE TO YOU AND THAT IDIOT FREAK BROTHER OF YOUR’S! Y’ HEAR M— ” His words ended abruptly when Jacob punched him, with a granite solid right cross, that shattered virtually all the teeth in the front of his mouth.

“Billy Bob, get your things,” Jacob said, his entire body quaking with fury. “We’re leavin’. We gotta get Black Bart to a doctor.”

“Jacob . . . n-no!” Black Bart gasped, as Jacob knelt down beside him.

“We gotta get those slugs outta ya,” Jacob said in a calm, almost detached tone of voice.

“T-too late . . . . ”

“Mister Black B-Bart, are ya . . . are ya gonna . . . die?” Billy Bob asked, as he knelt down beside his brother.

“ ‘Fraid s-so, Billy Bob . . . . ”

“No,” Billy Bob said softly, shaking his head. “Y’ can’t die . . . how’s Jacob ‘n me gonna rob that stage, if . . . if YOU die?”

“Listen t-to me, Billy B-Bob . . . you ‘n Jake . . . y’ gotta git, y’ . . . y’ hear me?” Black Bart said. “There’ll be . . . there’ll b-be plenty . . . other . . . st-stages.”

“It’ll be ok,” Billy Bob protested, “ ‘Cause J-Jacob already g-got rid o’ that sheriff.”

“Well, now, I wouldn’t go so far as t’ say THAT, Son.”

Jacob, Billy Bob and Timothy looked up, and found, Roy Coffee standing framed in the doorway, with revolver in hand . . . much to their sinking horror.

“I want all three of ya t’ take the guns outta those holsters . . . slow ‘n easy . . . with the finger tips o’ your LEFT hands,” Roy continued. “Then toss ‘em over here next t’ my feet, by the barrel.”

“I had nothin’ t’ do with this, Sheriff . . . neither did Billy Bob,” Jacob said, nodding toward his brother, as he reached across with his left hand and slipped his gun from its holster. “I w-was outside . . . talkin’ with YOU . . . remember?”

“I remember.” Keeping a sharp eye and the barrel of his revolver trained on the three men standing before him, Roy bent down to retrieve the gun belonging to Timothy Higgins.

“ . . . ‘n Billy Bob here?” Jacob continued.

“What about him?”

“He wouldn’t harm a fly.”

Roy glanced over at Billy Bob, standing alongside Jacob, with trembling hands upraised. Slow. THAT was the kind word for folks like Billy Bob Carter, who ended up having the body of a grown man . . . or woman, with the mind of a child, or sometimes even a baby living inside.

“I MEAN it, Sheriff. Billy Bob wouldn’t harm a fly!” Jacob insisted.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Roy said as he lifted Timothy’s weapon to his nose and sniffed. The gun was still warm to the touch, the smell of powder quite strong. “If you gimme your word you won’t try nothin’ silly, like an escape attempt, I’ll let you ‘n Billy Bob share a cell, so you can better look after him.”

“What are you takin’ Billy Bob ‘n me in for?” Jacob demanded, outraged. “I told ya . . . I DIDN’T shoot Bart . . . neither did Billy Bob.”

“I ain’t takin’ you or the boy in for shootin’ that big guy in front o’ ya,” Roy said. “I’m takin’ HIM in . . . ” he inclined his head toward Timothy Higgins, “ . . . for that.”

“Then . . . why are you takin’ Billy Bob ‘n me in?”

“Suspicion.”

“Suspicion? For WHAT?!”

“ ‘Cause I got a real strong feelin’ you know more ‘bout that stage disappearin’ than you was lettin’ on just now.”

“Are you . . . are you g-gonna . . . hang me?” Billy Bob asked, his entire body trembling.

“They ain’t gonna hang ya, Boy, ‘cause y’ ain’t killed nobody,” Jacob said quietly, yet very firmly.

“P-Promise?”

“I promise. Only one’s gonna get hanged is Higgins over there— ”

“N-No! NO!” Thoroughly panicked, Timothy scrambled to his feet, pushed past Roy and fled from the shack.

“Going somewhere, Mister?”

Timothy immediately stopped dead in his tracks. The momentum of his forward thrust coupled with his sudden stop, sent him toppling face first down onto the sand. For a time he simply lay as he fell, rendered immobile by the pain of his body thudding hard against the desert sand, and from all the broken, shattered teeth in his mouth, resulting from a single blow from Jacob Carter’s fist. Upon glancing upward, he found himself staring into the long barrels of three rifles in the hands of Adam Cartwright, Matt Wilson, and Apollo Nikolas.

“On your feet,” Adam ordered, his face dark with the murderous rage steadily building inside him. “Keep your movements slow and easy. You so much as bat an eyelash the wrong way . . . . ” He let his voice trail away to ominous silence.

For less than a second, Timothy considered making another mad dash, only to think again in the face of the black fury he saw mirrored in Adam Cartwright’s eyes. He swallowed, then slowly rose to his feet, his entire body quaking with fear.

“Damn! I was hoping he’d make a run for it,” Adam muttered angrily under his breath.

Behind his back, Matt and Apollo both exchanged apprehensive glances. They would have expected that kind of an angry response from Joe Cartwright, when he was much younger . . . but Adam?! Never! Not in a million years!

“I . . . I had nothin’ t’ do with it y’ know,” Timothy said, his voice shaking.

“Then why are you so hell-bent on running?” Adam snapped out the question.

“ ‘CAUSE I DON’T TRUST YA,” Timothy yelled., on the verge of tears. “THAT LOOK ON YOUR FACE . . . . ” He shuddered. “YOU’D KILL ME AS MUCH AS LOOK AT ME.”

“No!” Adam whispered, as the blood drained right out of his face. “No!” He could hear Kane’s maniacal laughter echoing within the deepest recesses of his heart and soul.

“You want to kill me, don’t you, Cartwright?”

“No . . . . ”

“Yes, you do. You want to kill me.”

“NO.”

Adam?!

Adam started so violently, he nearly dropped the rifle in his hands. He turned and found himself staring into Matt Wilson’s pale, apprehensive face. Timothy Higgins stood less than ten yards away with trembling hands reaching upward. Apollo had his own rifle aimed square at the short, squat man’s belly.

“Adam?! Hey, Buddy, you alright?” Matt asked, anxiously.

“I . . . . ” Adam shook his head vigorously to clear it of the strange reverie that had just possessed him. “No!” he snapped, glaring over at their badly frightened prisoner. “I look at that man and keep thinking that I have a wife, a daughter . . . AND a sister.”

Matt gave Adam’s shoulder a firm squeeze, meant to reassure. “Hey, Apollo . . . how about you keep covering us whilst I search this low life bag o’ scum,” he said, as he ambled over toward the cowering man with his hands still up.

“My pleasure,” Apollo replied. “To echo Adam’s sentiment, I have a wife, TWO daughters, a twin sister, and a niece. Not to mention my in-laws. I, too, wish he’d make a run for it . . . for THEIR sakes.” He caressed the trigger of his rifle for emphasis.

“I . . . I d-d-don’t know what you f-fellas are t-talking about,” Timothy stammered.

“Oh, yes, you do,” Matt countered, in a tone of voice deceptively benign. “However, your appalling lack of respect for those of the opposite gender is gonna be the LEAST of your worries, if the man you shot in there dies. That’ll get you the gallows for sure.”

“I didn’t do nothin’, ya hear me?! Nothin’!” Timothy declared, his voice shaking, his eyes round as saucers. “I don’t know what you fellas are talkin’ about, I swear, I d-don’t.”

Matt set himself to the task of searching for the man. He took a knife from Timothy’s boot, an enormous wad of bills from his right pant’s pocket, and a man’s gold wedding ring from the top pocket of his shirt. “Don’t know what were talkin’ about, hunh?” he said, fixing the hapless Timothy with a hard, steely glare.

“What’s THAT s’posed to mean?” Timothy demanded warily.

“YOUR name Lorenzo?”

Timothy unconsciously stepped back , and brought his hands down to shield his face against the raw, primal fury he saw in both Matt’s and Adam’s faces, when the former uttered the name of the young bridegroom. “I, uh . . . I . . . I . . . . ”

“The inscription inside this ring says, ‘ . . . darling, Lorenzo. I will love you always and forever. Maria.’ You Lorenzo?” Matt pressed relentlessly,

“No, I . . . .”

“Alright, if you’re not Lorenzo, then where’d you get that ring?” Adam asked, his calm, dispassionate tone at frightening odds against the rage burning in his dark eyes, his body rigid, trembling with anger.

“I . . . I FOUND IT!” Timothy yelled. “I FOUND IT, DAMMIT, Y’ HEAR ME? ! I FOUND IT!”

“Boys, I’LL take over the questionin’ when we git back t’ town.”

Three heads, three pairs of eyes turned, just in time to see Roy Coffee stepping into their circle. His complexion had paled to a sickly ashen gray, and his mouth was thinned to a very taut, near lipless, angry line. A dark, murderous scowl, deepened the furrows already present in his forehead and made darker the shadows, formed by the bony structure of his eye sockets. The haunted look in his eyes stood out in stark, uneasy contract against the raw fury so present, so very palpable in the rest of his face.

Jacob and Billy Bob Carter walked meekly in front of him, with their hands firmly tied behind their backs. The former’s head was bowed, his face masked by the deep shadows cast by the harsh desert sunlight against the lines and planes formed by bone and sinew. Young Billy Bob’s face was noticeably pale, and he glanced around at the others stupidly, in fear and bewilderment.

Roy inclined his head toward Timothy Higgins, with trembling hands still raised to shoulder level, amid a half circle formed by three angry men, with rifles aimed at his head. “We got this one for murder,” he stated in a hollow voice.

“Muh-muh-muh-murder?!” Timothy stammered, looking from one man to the next through the round eyes of a wild animal, irrevocably caught in a trap.

“That’s what I said,” Roy affirmed.

Timothy blanched. “N-No! Th-those men on the stage . . . it was self defense, I tell ya! Self defense!” he cried nearly overcome now with hysteria. “I HAD t’ kill ‘em . . . or else THEY wouldda killed ME!”

“I ain’t talkin’ about the stage . . . I’m talkin’ about YOU shooting down your partner in cold blood,” Roy said grimly. “I saw ya do it.”

“I SHOT him,” Timothy sobbed. “I didn’t KILL ‘im!”

“Yes, y’ did,” Roy said. “Black Bart Troutman died five minutes ago from the bullet YOU put in his gut. That counts as murder in my book, AND in the eyes o’ the law.” He paused to let the import of his words sink in. “He also made a death bed confession. Said he wanted t’ clear his conscience before leavin’ this world t’ meet his maker.”

“A . . . a . . . what?!” Timothy stammered, reeling under the impact of all that had just happened, and the grim consequences that lay ahead.

“Black Bart confessed,” Jacob angrily rounded on Timothy, “to everything. The stage robbery, the killin’, that li’l gal . . . everything!”

“Oh no,” Timothy sobbed. “Oh, G-God, no . . . no, no, no, no . . . . ”

“Ahh . . . shut-up! It’s your old woman’s fright what got us caught. Least y’ can do is face the music like a man!” Jacob growled.

Within a very short time, the Carter brothers and Timothy Higgins were both atop their saddled horses with their hands securely tied behind their backs. The body of Black Bart Troutman was buried in front of the shack, and marked by a simple cross. A quick search inside yielded Maria Estevan’s traveling suit, now reduced to a pile of filthy rags, two wallets with money and letters addressed to men listed as passengers aboard the missing stage, and an assortment of men’s and women’s jewelry. Everything was handed over to Sheriff Coffee as evidence.

“Hey, I . . . I c-can’t ride like this . . . with my hands tied behind my back,” Timothy whined in protest.

“Mister, y’ got a choice,” Roy said, taking no pains to hide his anger and contempt. “Y’ can ride like y’ are now . . . OR y’ can stay here . . . ‘n keep Black Bart company, if y’ git my meanin’. Which’ll it be?”

Timothy blanched at the implications, but said nothing.

“Alright, Men, we got three prisoners t’ take back t’ town,” Roy said, still angry, yet all of a sudden very weary. “Let’s go.”

“Just a minute, Sheriff Coffee,” Adam protested, gazing over at the lawman in utter disbelief. “What about the missing stage?”

“You wanna know where that missing stage is, Pal? It’s about twenty miles due south o’ here,” Jacob immediately replied. He looked down at Adam from atop his horse, and smiled. It was a nasty, cruel smile, void of any and all mirth or joy. “It’s THAT way.” He inclined his head over his shoulder, to his right. “Y’ go along the road, ‘bout ten miles or so, ‘til ya get to the gateway rocks.”

Adam frowned. “Gateway rocks?! What are the gateway rocks?”

“You’ll know ‘em,” Jacob said cryptically. “At the gateway rocks, ya leave the road, ‘n go right. Ride as the crow files, you’ll find the stage.”

“Sheriff Coffee, I’m going to ride out and— ”

“Adam, there ain’t no point in going out t’ look for that missin’ stage,” Roy said, accurately perceiving what Ben’s eldest was going to say. He felt very sick to his stomach, and even sicker at heart.

“WHAT?!” Adam sputtered, outraged and bewildered.

“Y’ heard me,” Roy said.

“Sheriff C-Coffee, are y-you suggesting that we . . . that we ABANDON those people?!” Adam demanded, appalled by the thought.

“Before he died . . . Black Bart said they waited ‘til that stage was too far out in t’ desert for those poor folks t’ make it b-back on foot before settin’ upon it. After . . . after these men . . . ” Roy grimaced as if he had just bitten into something very rancid, very foul tasting, “ . . . after these m-men robbed the folks aboard that stage . . . shot the two men drivin’ . . . shot M-Mister Estevan . . . they took their food, their water, ‘n the horses . . . ‘n just LEFT ‘em there . . . all of ‘em . . . except f’r MRS. Estevan . . . . ”

Adam felt the air explode from his lungs, as if he had just taken a hard blow to the stomach. Had he not been holding tight to Sport II’s saddle, he would have almost certainly fallen down. He stared over at the sheriff through eyes round with horror, too stunned to move, or even speak . . . .

“Hold it right there, Mister.”

Adam froze.

A man moved out from behind a large boulder, just ahead to his right, with his gun drawn.

“Just don’t move,” a second man ordered, from his perch in the niche of a larger rock on Adam’s left. He jumped down, with gun in hand, its barrel aimed squarely at Adam’s chest. “Drop your gun, easy like.”

“Didn’t I see you in Eastgate?” he queried, looking from one to the other, concluding he had no chance of escape . . . for the moment, anyway. He reluctantly handed over his gun and his rifle.

“Yeah,” the second man answered his question. “You did. It’s been a long trail.”

“You sure took your time before making your move,” Adam observed sardonically, as the men retrieved his gun and rifle.

“In OUR line of work, we like privacy,” the second man returned with a wry smile, without missing a beat. “You know what we want.”

“Yeah,” Adam said with rancor. “I’m intuitive.” He reached into his back pocket, and pulled out his wallet, all the while silently cursing himself for the stupidity . . . HIS stupidity . . . of carrying around such a large sum of money alone.

“Just toss it down here,” the first man said. “No tricks, huh?”

Adam did as he was told.

The first man caught the wallet, then opened it. A greedy smile spread slowly across his lips. “That’s it,” he declared, the instant his eyes fell on the generous wad of bills squeezed into the back.

“Now get down off that horse.”

The second man’s words chilled the very morrow in Adam’s bones. “You got your money,” Adam said tersely, as horror mixed with rising anger.

“Climb. Down.” The first man reiterated the order, enunciating each word for emphasis.

Adam warily obeyed.

“We’re gonna let you WALK outta here,” the second man sneered.

“I’ll never make it without food and water,” Adam argued, as he watched them mount their own horses with a fast sinking heart. “Nobody would.”

“Well now, I feel real sorry for him,” the second man laughed derisively, “ ‘cause he’s right.”

“Yeah,” the first man agreed, also laughing. “I’m all shook up.”

“I don’t want your pity. I just want a chance.” There was a pleading note in Adam’s terse, angry tone of voice.

“We’re givin’ you a chance,” the second man snickered. “We ain’t KILLIN’ ya.”

“Very funny!” Adam returned in a voice as cold as the stone that had formed deep in the pit of his stomach.

“Ain’t it?” the men laughed as they rode off with his wallet, his money, his horse, food, and water . . . reducing his chances of surviving the encounter from slim to virtually nil . . . .

Adam?

“Adam?!” Matt ventured hesitantly, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“N-No . . . . ” Adam murmured, shaking his head vigorously in denial. “No . . . . ”

“Come on, Pal, we got a long way back— ”

“No, Matt,” Adam said, angrily shaking his old friend off. “I’m going to find that stage.”

“Adam, every last one o’ them folks is DEAD,” Roy said, giving vent to the fury and the sickness rising within, threatening to devour him alive. “Y’ hear me?! They’re dead! There ain’t a blessed thing we can do for any of ‘em now.”

“We DON’T know that!” Adam argued. “We can’t possibly know that. All we have is the word of . . . of . . . of a damned murderer and a rapist!”

“Twenty miles due south o’ here . . . the closet town bein’ Eastgate, which has gotta be at least two ‘n a half days away, maybe even THREE days RIDE away from there. . . no food, no water, no horses . . . Adam . . . for God’s sake . . . do I hafta spell it out for ya?!” Roy argued, angry, yet deeply troubled that he was actually having this conversation with the eldest of Ben’s boys, rather than the youngest.

“Sheriff Coffee, I am going to find that stage,” Adam said through clenched teeth. He lifted his leg and angrily jammed his foot into the stirrup.

Roy seized Adam by the shoulder in a painful, vice like grip and spun him around so that they stood face to face. “It’s been a week ‘n a half since they was last seen in Desert Springs, Adam. You remember ANYTHING o’ what Doc Martin said?”

“Of COURSE I do,” Adam growled back, trying hard not to wince. For a man of his years, Roy Coffee’s grip was surprisingly strong.

“Y’ know what that means?”

Adam furiously pulled away from the hold Roy Coffee had on him. “I know very well what that means,” he said in a low, dangerous tone. “In fact, I know better than most what that means.” He grabbed hold of the saddle and, this time, climbed up with the surprising speed and agility of a man half his age. “I am going to go look for that stage,” he said again. There was a determined, steely glint in his eyes, not unlike the same that appeared in his father’s once a hard decision had been made. “I . . . I have to do this, Sheriff Coffee.”

“Now if this ain’t the most hair brained— ” Roy sputtered, outraged, angry, and thoroughly perplexed.

“Sheriff Coffee . . . . ” Matt ventured hesitantly.

“What?” Roy snapped.

“I’LL go with Adam,” Matt said quietly.

“Matt— ” Blake Wilson started to protest.

“I’ll be alright, Pa. Adam and I’ll be along in another three days, four at the most.”

“We got three prisoners t’ take back t’ Virginia City,” Roy immediately reminded the two younger men.

“They’re tied up. You, Apollo, Darryl, and Pa can manage ‘em,” Matt replied, “and when you return to the water hole where the others are waiting . . . well, you’re NOT going to miss Adam and me.”

“Tryin’ t’ find that blamed stagecoach is gonna be like . . . well, like looking for a needle buried deep in a haystack,” Roy argued. “I don’t wanna hafta be getting a search party together to look for the pair o’ YOU.”

“Adam and I will follow the directions given,” Matt said. “If they don’t lead us to that missing stage, we’ll head home. RIGHT, Adam?”

Adam pointedly remained silent.

“Adam . . . . ” Matt pressed.

“Oh, all right,” Adam snarled. “We don’t find that missing stage following directions, we head for home.”

“I want your word on that, Boys,” Roy said, glaring at Adam first, then Matt.

“I give you my word, Sheriff Coffee,” Matt said immediately.

“Adam?” Roy prompted.

“Alright! I give you MY word as well,” Adam growled, ungraciously surrendering to the inevitable.

The search party, minus Adam Cartwright and Matt Wilson, reached Virginia City with their three prisoners, Timothy Higgins, and the two Carter brothers, Jacob and Billy Bob, during the early afternoon hours the following day. Clem stood outside the open door of the sheriff’s office, cradling a loaded rifle in the crook of his left arm, having been forewarned of the sheriff’s return by a half dozen concerned citizens with in the space of the last five minutes.

“Clem, I want ya t’ take charge o’ the prisoners,” Roy said wearily, as he dismounted from Tin Star’s back. “Apollo . . . Darryl, you boys give Clem a hand.”

Apollo Nikolas and Darryl Hughes both nodded curtly, then set themselves to the task of helping Clem Foster escort the three prisoners to the jail cells inside.

Satisfied that the Carters and Timothy Higgins were in reliable hands, Roy turned to address the rest of the men who had made up the search party. “I want t’ thank each ‘n everyone o’ you for all your help. I know this is a busy time o’ year for all o’ ya . . . ‘specially those who have farms ‘n ranches t’ look after . . . ‘n I appreciate ya takin’ the last few days from everything else y’ had t’ do. My only regret is that we were ‘way too late t’ save any o’ those poor folks who had the terrible bad luck o’ bein’ on that stage.”

“At least I can rest easier knowing that we caught the filthy lowlifes who robbed that stage and . . . and violated that poor girl,” Clay Hansen declared with a black, angry scowl on his face.

“Too bad we couldn’t have done t’ THEM, what they did t’ those poor folks on that stage,” Eli Barnett declared, drawing a loud murmur of ascent from most of the others gathered.

“Those men are gonna get a fair trial,” Roy said very sternly, “ ‘n I believe we got evidence strong enough t’ convict all three of ‘em.”

“Then why bother with a trial?” one of the other men in the crowd shouted. His name was Emil Jennings. He had just started work at the Five Card Draw Ranch, after having been fired from the Wilsons’ Square W, the O’Briens’ Shoshone Queen, and the Ponderosa. Aged in his mid-thirties, he was about the same height and build as Joe Cartwright, with sandy blonde hair, blue eyes, and a single thick eyebrow stretching the length of his forehead, that seemed forever locked in a perpetual scowl.

“Emil’s right! Why bother with a trial? Let’s string all three of ‘em up right here . . . right now,” Andy Barnett declared. “I know I’D sleep a lot better tonight.”

“So would I!” Clay Hansen declared. “ ‘Specially with a wife ‘n four daughters still at home t’ look after.”

The murmurs of ascent grew louder, more strident.

Roy Coffee quickly slid his revolver from its holster and fired two shots into the ground. All voices were suddenly stilled, leaving a strained, tense silence in their wake. “That’ll be ENOUGH o’ that kind o’ talk!” he angrily admonished the men still gathered. He closed his eyes for a moment and quickly counted to ten.

“I know . . . it’s been a rough couple o’ days for all o’ us . . . in more ways than one,” Roy said in a calmer, more conciliatory tone of voice. “Traipsin’ through the desert . . . finding out what those men did to those poor folks on the stage . . . it’s enough to weary a man t’ the bone.” He paused briefly, to allow his words to sink in. “I think the best thing all o’ us can do is go home, rest, put our feet up, have a good supper, ‘n git t’ bed early.”

Though most of the men left quietly, a ripple of discontent could still be heard, mostly among the men from the Five Card Draw. Roy grimly bade everyone a curt good night, then turned, intending to trudge wearily into his office. He was surprised to find that Doctor Paul Martin remained. “Somethin’ I can do for ya, Doc?”

Paul Martin shook his head. “I was going to ask you if you might need an extra hand to help keep an eye on things tonight,” he said. The apprehension and concern came through in his voice loud and clear.

Roy barely managed a wan half smile, as he resolutely shook his head. “Clem ‘n I’ll be fine, Doc, ‘n besides . . . Mrs. Estevan probably needs ya a heckuva lot more’ n I do.”

“True,” Paul agreed. “Roy . . . . ”

“Yeah, Doc?”

“I . . . don’t like what I heard here just now.”

“Can’t say I care all that much for it either,” Roy retorted in a wry, sarcastic tone of voice.

“You think there’ll be trouble?”

“I dunno . . . but if there is? Clem ‘n me are ready for it.”

“If you need me, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“There IS one favor y’ can to for me, Doc.”

“What’s that?”

“You can stop by the Fletchers’ ‘n let Ben know that Adam’s not gonna be back for a few more days.”

“HE’S . . . WHAT??!”

“You heard me, Ben,” Paul Martin said grimly, bound and determined to maintain his ground and not flinch against those dark brown, almost black, piercing eyes filled with anger, astonishment, and worry.

“Why in the hell didn’t Roy stop him?! For that matter why didn’t YOU stop him?”

“NOBODY could have stopped him, short of knocking him down and sitting on him,” Paul said, his voice rising slowly, steadily in volume.

“WELL? WHY DIDN’T YA?” Ben yelled.

“WHY DIDN’T I . . . WHAT?!” Paul Martin yelled back.

“WHY IN THE HELL DIDN’T YOU KNOCK HIM DOWN AND SIT ON HIM?!”

“BECAUSE . . . DAMMIT, BEN, ADAM’S NOT A LITTLE BOY ANYMORE! HE’S A GROWN MAN . . . WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!”

Ben lapsed into sullen silence, his intense glare, wholly directed toward his physician and good friend never wavering. Finally he looked away, and sighed. “Sorry, Paul.”

“He’ll be alright, Ben,” Paul Martin tried to reassure his old friend with a confidence he was very far from feeling. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders . . . always HAS.”

“ . . . and you said Matt Wilson went with him?”

“Yes.”

“That’s some consolation anyway,” Ben sighed again. Not very much, but certainly lots better than the thought of Adam having set out on his own.

“The two of ‘em should be along within the next few days.”

“I hope so, Paul. I sure hope so.” Even as he tried desperately to remind himself that Paul Martin was right—that Adam WAS a grown man, not a child, Ben knew that he wasn’t going to rest easily until his oldest son was safely back here . . . with his family.

“They will, Ben,” Paul said, feeling suddenly bone weary. He rose from the settee in the Fletchers’ home. Ben automatically followed suit, rising from the easy chair that he had occupied. “I’d best be going. I’m anxious to see Lily and . . . I still have a patient under my care.”

“Paul, I . . . really AM very sorry I jumped all over ya the way I did,” Ben said ruefully as the pair walked toward the door . . . .

“ . . . and it’s all MY fault.”

Unbeknownst to either Ben Cartwright or Paul Martin, their entire conversation had been overheard by a young man with hazel eyes and an unruly mop of thick, chestnut brown curls, standing at the top of the stairs, well out of sight. He had just awoken from a brief nap a short while before, and had intended to go downstairs to pick up where he had left off in the new detective novel he received from his father last birthday. The sounds of his father’s and Doc Martin’s voices, raised in anger, had stopped him. He had paused at the top of the steps, not meaning to eavesdrop, yet unable to help himself.

“I should NEVER have said those things to Adam,” Joe Cartwright ruefully castigated himself, as the words of the argument he and his oldest brother had in the dark early morning hours the day he left, began to relentlessly replay themselves within the silence of his mind, over and over and over again. He found his troubled thoughts drifting back to memories of the time he and Adam had sold a herd of prime beef cattle in Eastgate . . . .

After they had concluded their business, and Adam had pocketed the five thousand dollars made from the sale, they had gone over to the barber shop together for a bath to wash off the dirt of the trail. It had been a long, exhausting drive, most of it through harsh, dry, badlands.

Joe remembered again how, at that point, he was so sick and tired of living life on the trail. All HE wanted was a bath, a steak dinner with a big mug of cold beer to wash it down, and most important . . . a soft bed with clean sheets, and down pillows. Adam, however, wanted to head out toward Pyramid Lake, across country even more harsh than what they had traveled through on that cattle drive from the Ponderosa to Eastgate.

“Signal Rock . . . three days. Be there . . . ON TIME.”

Those were Adam’s parting words, before setting off toward the badlands.
Three days later, Joe and Cochise arrived at the appointed meeting place, on time for once, as he himself had admitted to his beloved pinto companion. He had yelled for Adam a few times, whistled once all with no response. As he settled himself down to wait, Joe wasn’t worried about his normally punctual-to-a-fault oldest brother’s absence . . . not at first. In fact, he spent the first few hours eagerly contemplating how he was going to tease Adam unmercifully for not arriving on time.

As the day wore on, with still no sign of his oldest brother, Joe’s light, playful mood slowly gave way to concern. By nightfall, he was nearly going out of his mind, envisioning every dire possibility, that would have left Adam either too badly injured to help himself, or worse. Joe slept little that night, starting to full wakefulness at even the slightest sound. He would call his oldest brother’s name over and over again several times, all the while peering hard into the near impenetrable blackness of the night surrounding him and his campfire. After a time . . . he would never be sure if it was MINUTES later or HOURS later. . . he would drop off into light, fitful slumber, only to be wakened again.

The following day, exhausted from not having gotten enough sleep and from the ride out from Eastgate the day before, he spent the early morning hours sharing a cup of coffee with Cochise, silently debating on whether he should stay and wait for Adam, or leave to begin searching for him. Finally, as the sun rose to the very top of the sky, marking the noon hour, Joe suddenly knew with a dreadful certainty that Adam wasn’t coming.

Joe immediately set out, heading in a southerly direction, heading toward Pyramid Lake. He and Cochise ended up with a man, who operated a blacksmith’s forge and small livery, a few miles south of Eastgate, when the horse went lame. The man examined the bad leg and found that the pinto had a split hoof.

“It’s going to be while before I can ride him,” Joe murmured in complete, utter dismay.

“You can stay here, if you’d like,” the man graciously offered.

“No thank you, I need to push on. You have a horse I can borrow?”

The man nodded, and went to the barn to fetch him.

“Can you tell me where the next town is?” Joe asked, as he secured Cochise’s lead to a nearby hitching post, and prepared to remove his saddle. He intended to stop there to pick up extra supplies of food and water.

“Salt Flats, to the west,” the man called back from the barn.

“I’m heading south.”

The man laughed as he led a big, magnificent brown horse, with three white feet and a white stripe down its face. Joe suddenly felt as if he had taken a hard sucker punch below the belt. He legs shook and his knees began to buckle. If he had not happened to have both hands clasping the saddle, still secured to Cochise’s back, he would have almost certainly fallen.

“South? There’s nothing— ”

“Where’d you get that horse?” Joe demanded, his face darkening with anger. “That’s my brother’s horse!”

The man looked at him oddly.

Joe seized the man by his shirt collar, and pulled his gun, all in the same swift, fluid movement. “I asked you where you got that horse?” he asked again in a low, dangerous tone.

The man paled as the cold steel of Joe’s gun barrel lightly touched his cheek. “I . . . I didn’t steal him . . . I b-bought him from two fellas— ”

“You have a bill of sale?” Joe snapped out the question like the crack of a whip.

“Y-Yes . . . it’s . . . it’s right here— ”

Joe snatched it out of the man’s hand the instant he drew it from his shirt pocket. “Jim Gann,” he read the name on the bill of sale. “You know where he was headed?”

“Salt Flats,” the man replied. “He and another fella . . . Frank . . . Frank P-Preston were headed for Salt Flats.”

“Looks like I’m going to Salt Flats after all,” Joe muttered through clenched teeth.

His search for Adam ended abruptly at Salt Flats when the sheriff there told him that Jim Gann and Frank Preston were both dead. “Last night, they tried to shoot up the town and a few of its leading citizens,” the sheriff explained. “I ended up shooting both of them. I have ‘em laid out in the back.”

Joe wired Pa and Hoss from Salt Flats.

Together, the three of them diligently searched the badlands for Adam. Joe would never forget his father’s face during the course of those terrible, uncertain days. At the start of the search, Pa had that fierce, determined scowl on his face, and that hard glint of steel in his eyes. He sat very tall in the saddle, his back straighter than a seasoned cavalry officer, hands gripping the reins, jaw set with an almost granite-like obstinate determination. Ben Cartwright had made up his mind he was going to find his oldest son and that . . . was simply that.

Three days into the search, Pa found an empty gun belt.

“Adam’s?” Hoss asked.

“Yeah,” Pa replied wearily, in a voice barely audible. They had been on the move, non-stop for three days and three nights, with very little rest and no sleep. The grueling pace to which they had set themselves would have completely done in a lesser man half Pa’s age before the first day was out. After three days, Joe saw in Hoss’ face and in his body the same bone deep weariness he, himself felt.

“Tracks . . . out there, by the rocks,” Pa continued. “Tracks show three horses . . . one man on foot.” The implications were all too dreadfully clear. “We have to spread out . . . cover every direction,” Pa insisted, bound and determined to continue.

Using the spot where Adam’s gun belt had been found as their starting point, they fanned out, each riding off in a different direction, diligently searching. Hours passed into days . . . the days became a week, then two weeks. Joe noted, as time passed, how Pa sat a little less straight in the saddle . . . a little less tall. His jaw, so rigidly set in the beginning, grew less and less like granite. At times, it even trembled. Gazing into Pa’s eyes was the worst thing of all, as that steel hard glint melted into the bright, glistening sheen of tears, yet to be shed.

At the end of those dreadful two weeks . . . even the eternal optimism of big brother, Hoss, started to wane. “Pa . . . . You can’t go on, Pa . . . you can’t do it.” Joe heard again the voice of his biggest brother, filled with despair, grief, and a deep, abiding concern for their father.

“We’re gonna have to face it, Pa. We’re not gonna find Adam,” Joe said in a voice stone cold, wholly resigned to the fact that Adam was gone, forever swallowed up in the shifting sands of the desert. He remembered wishing desperately to scream, to cry, to curse . . . but all he felt inside was a terrible numbness that had dampened all his ability to feel.

“It’s been two weeks since he left Eastgate,” Hoss pressed, his voice breaking.

“Yeah, I gu— I s’pose you’re right.”

Joe would never, not if he lived a million years . . . EVER . . . forget the terrible look on his father’s face that day. He saw a flash of anger toward his younger sons for reminding him of the grim reality facing them, mixed with hopeless despair and a deep, all pervading, all consuming grief. Worst of all were Pa’s eyes. The warmth, the sparkle of life were gone, leaving behind the opaque abysmal blackness of a man about to leave behind a vital piece of his soul.

As the three turned their horses, to begin that long, weary ride back to the Ponderosa, to home, empty handed . . . with not even a body to bury to give them a measure of peace, and closure . . . .

Pa caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned, as kind of an afterthought . . . and spotted Adam, walking along the flat expanse of sand below them, moving on a course parallel to the rise upon which they stood, still mounted on the backs of their horses. He shuffled along, moving forward, mindless, with no purpose, no destination . . . with his dark eyes fixed on the horizon ahead, staring intently, but seeing nothing . . . aware of nothing. His back was bowed under the weight of a gurney strapped to his back. On it lay a man, roughly the same size and build as Adam, his body ominously still.

They called to him, shouting his name over and over . . . Pa, Hoss, and himself . . . frantic, near hysterical with relief, and deeply thankful that they HAD found him.

Their shouts fell on ears beyond hearing.

They turned their horses and rode, hard, on an intercept course. Adam stumbled, just as they reached him, dropping to his knees, then flopping down onto his belly. Pa reached Adam first. He half climbed, half fell off of Buck, then reached down to free Adam of his gruesome burden and lift him to his feet.

Soon, they were all surrounding Adam, frantically calling his name, trying desperately to pierce the mindless fog that had surrounded and engulfed him.

Finally, Adam laughed. Softly at first, swelling, increasing in volume and intensity. “There . . . there was no gold,” he murmured, laughing so hard now, the tears flowed down his cheeks like rivers. “No gold . . . there w-was no gold . . . . ”

“ADAM!” Pa shouted, frightened by the hysterical edge, and the increasing intensity of his oldest son’s laughter.

Pa’s voice acted as a bucket of ice water, dispelling the fog, the near hysteria. The laughter stilled, leaving for a moment the thick silence of the grave.

“Oh, Pa . . . . ” Adam whispered, before collapsing into his father’s arms, sobbing.

The thought of losing Adam to the desert again . . . this time, maybe, for good . . . .

For one brief, insane moment, Joe desperately wracked his brains, trying to come up with a plan to go out himself in search of Adam. His sides still felt a mite tender, but he was walking really well now, with barely a trace of his limp, and he was keeping down everything on his current diet of soft and bland. Though his beloved Cochise remained on the Ponderosa, Joe was confident of his ability to manage Buck, his pa’s horse . . . assuming he could slip by Pa. That in and of itself could be a big if, given that in the past, the more desperate he had ever been to sneak out, the greater his chances of finding Pa waiting for him.

That, however, pretty much paled in the face of his biggest obstacle . . . which was trying to find out which way Adam went in the first place. Any inquiries that he made would almost certainly get back to Pa . . . .

“Joe?”

He gasped and started so violently, he nearly toppled over backwards.

Ben, his face a mixture of worry and remorse, reached out and caught his youngest son by the shoulders, preventing him from taking what might have been a very nasty tumble. “Joe? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, Son . . . . ”

“ ‘S ok, P-Pa,” Joe murmured softly, as he clutched the lapels of his father’s shirt for support.

An anxious frown deepened the creases already present in Ben Cartwright’s brow, as he noted Joe’s complexion, paled to a sickly ashen gray, the round, intense staring eyes, and the slight tremor in his hands. He touched his lips to his youngest son’s forehead. “Thank the Good Lord he’s not running a fever,” Ben mused silently. Aloud, he ventured, “ . . . Joe?”

“I . . . I’m . . . I’m all right, Pa,” Joe barely managed to stammer.

“Come on, Son,” Ben said gently. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

Joe allowed his father to gently turn him away from the top of the steps, and lead him back down the hallway to the room he had chosen for himself. “My fault,” he murmured in a voice barely audible. “All MY fault.”

“What’s all your fault, Joe?” Ben probed very carefully as he eased his son down into the big, overstuffed easy chair near the bed.

“Adam . . . oh, Pa, I’m so sorry . . . it’s all my fault,” Joe insisted.

Ben seated himself on the edge of Joe’s bed, then leaned over to touch his arm, resting atop the arm of the easy chair. “Can you tell me about it?” he invited in a kind, gentle tone.

“It’s my fault Adam went into the desert . . . then and now,” Joe said miserably. “If only we hadn’t had that argument . . . well, maybe . . . just maybe . . . he’d have come back w-with everyone else.”

“Joe, I want you to listen to me very closely.” Ben’s tone was gentle, yet very firm. “I don’t believe for one minute Adam went in search of that stage because the argument the two of you ALMOST had . . . drove him to it. I think Susannah O’Brien told you and your sister about the young woman over at Doctor Martin’s?”

“Mrs. Estevan. Yeah, Pa, she told us.”

“You know the Estevans traveled out here from Sacramento with Adam,” Ben said.

Joe nodded.

“He was grateful for their company, of course, but more than that, by the time the three of them reach Virginia City, they’d established the beginnings of what might have been an enduring friendship, had it not been for the terrible tragedy that befell the Estevans,” Ben continued in a gentle, yet firm tone of voice. “I’M more inclined to think that Adam insisted on finding that missing stage so that he might ascertain for himself what finally happened to Mister Estevan . . . in order to give Mrs. Estevan some kind of closure that would eventually, enable her to move to a place of healing . . . of maybe even falling in love again.”

“B-But, Pa . . . he’s gotta know that M-Mister Estevan’s dead,” Joe protested.

“I’m sure he does . . . and DID before setting out to look for that stage,” Ben said. “Just like you knew Lady Chadwick was dead before you laid eyes on her lying in her coffin . . . because I had told you.”

“Y-You mean . . . Adam, maybe had to see for himself that Mister Estevan’s dead?”

“That’s EXACTLY what I mean.”

Joe silently digested all that his father had told him. “Pa?” he ventured at length.

“Yes, Son?”

“Do you really believe that? What you just told me?”

“Yes, I do,” Ben said with conviction. He did. But, deep down, he sensed other, deeper currents at work in his enigmatic oldest son. The Estevans were merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Looking into Joe’s eyes, Ben knew HE sensed the same thing. “I believe the Estevans are PART of what’s troubling Adam.”

“ . . . and what about the REST of whatever it is that’s troubling Adam?” Joe demanded.

“I wish to heaven I could tell ya, but I CAN’T . . . because I just plain don’t know,” Ben replied. “However, I DO know this. The argument you and your brother were on the verge of having when I came into his room the morning he left had absolutely NOTHING to do with his decision to go look for that stage.”

Joe stared hard into his father’s warm, dark brown eyes for a long moment, and saw that the big silver haired man he knew as Pa, spoke truly about the set-to between himself and Adam not being the reason for his oldest brother’s trek into the desert. “Th-thanks, Pa,” he murmured, covering Ben’s hand, the one still gently resting on his arm, with his other hand. “But, I’m STILL worried.”

“So am I,” Ben readily admitted.

“I want to go after him, Pa,” Joe said, half surprising himself upon making that confession. “I want to go after him so bad, I . . . well, when you came upon me just now? My mind was working fast and furious, trying to come up with a plan. That’s why I never saw you coming.”

“I would advise you to discard that notion immediately, Young Man,” Ben said, favoring his young son with a stern glare.

“I know,” Joe said with a rueful smile. “I’m not too told for you to turn over your knee.”

“Actually, I was going to remind you that I was dead serious about hogtying you and your sister both, if I so much as caught you LOOKING at Cochise and Blaze Face, before Doc Martin tells ya it’s alright,” Ben said in a wry tone.

“Pa, we almost lost Adam to the desert once,” Joe said, his smile fading. “I . . . I don’t want to lose him to the desert NOW.” His voice caught on the last word.

“Joe, there IS something you and I can do for Adam,” Ben said slowly.

“What’s that?”

Ben smiled. “I found myself doing it a lot while you were being held prisoner by Lady Chadwick,” he continued, “and it’s something we can do any time . . . any place, whenever we feel so moved. It’s called prayer.”

“I found myself doing a lot of that, too, while I was still in Milady’s clutches,” Joe said, returning his father’s smile.

“For yourself?”

“Some, but mostly for YOU, Pa . . . you, Hoss, Stacy, and Hop Sing.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I . . . I knew Stacy was hurt, and . . . and for awhile, I . . . I thought she had actually . . . that she had actually DIED.” It took nearly every ounce of will Joe possessed to utter those words. The next, however, poured forth from his lips, like a river in springtime, its waters swollen my winter melt. “Then, I thought, I was afraid you had been taken in by Lady Chadwick’s plan to make you think that her son’s body was MINE.

“One night, I had this horrible nightmare in which I f-found myself at Stacy’s funeral, then mine,” Joe continued, his voice shaking. “Then, finally, I saw a new tombstone, standing along side Mama’s.” He looked over at Ben, his eyes and cheeks glistening with tears as all the feelings that had accompanied those dreams surfaced now with a vengeance. “It was YOURS, Pa . . . and the inscription s-said something about you dying of a broken heart because . . . because STACY had died and . . . and because you thought I was dead.”

Ben gently drew Joe over to sit beside him on the bed. “So THAT’S why you were so happy to see Stacy and me . . . why you kept hugging the both of us like you were never going to let go,” he murmured softly, as he wrapped his arms tight about his distraught, weeping son.

“I prayed that . . . that Stacy would b-be alright and . . . and that y-you wouldn’t m-mistake Jack Murphy f-for me,” Joe sobbed, as he slipped his arms around his father’s waist.

“I’d say God ANSWERED those prayers,” Ben said softly. “Stacy almost died . . . in fact, they . . . they told me she HAD died, but she came back, Son.” He smiled amid the tears now forming in his own eyes. “By golly, she . . . she gave the Angel of D-Death a good, swift kick in the shins and . . . and she came back.”

“Good for Stacy! I hope he’s STILL limping,” Joe said, laughing now as he wept.

“I’m sure he is, Son, in fact, I think he’s gonna be limping for another hundred y-years, at least,” Ben said, his own voice unsteady. He paused for a moment to wipe away the tears from his own eyes on the sleeve of his shirt. “Joe . . . . ”

“Yeah, Pa?”

“We weren’t fooled by Lady Chadwick’s feeble attempt to pass her son’s body off as YOURS,” Ben said, “not for a second. We KNEW you were out there somewhere, and we were searching long and hard for ya.”

“I . . . I came to that realization when I looked out the window and saw the full moon, after . . . after I woke up from that horrible nightmare,” Joe said, as his tears began to subside. “I remembered Stacy’s Grandmother Moon, and saw Hop Sing’s Moon Hare, and, I found myself remembering Mama’s prayer.”

“Your mother’s prayer?!”

“Yeah . . . you remember, don’t you, Pa? She used to say that prayer every night, whenever you were away on business,” Joe continued. “ ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, we turn to you for protection. Listen to our prayers and help us in our needs. Save us from every danger, O, glorious and blessed Virgin.’ Sometimes? If I close my eyes and listen real hard? I can almost hear her voice as she prays that prayer.”

“I remember now,” Ben said, his voice tinged with sadness and regret as his thoughts lingered for a moment on Marie, his third wife, and mother of the young man he still held in his arms. “She also used to say that prayer whenever she knew . . . or sensed . . . that her men folk were in danger.”

“ . . . and sometimes when we were sick,” Joe suddenly remembered. “One time . . . I think it was right before she died, Pa, but, I remember . . . Adam was sick . . . bad sick. It started as a cold, but real quick turned to pneumonia. I can still see him, even now, in bed, with his eyes closed, his face white as a sheet, burning up with fever . . . . Doc Martin had all but given up hope, but . . . Mama sat up with him all night, saying that prayer over and over.”

“I remember,” Ben said quietly. “God answered HER prayer, too, because the next morning . . . when I went in to check on Adam and your mother, I found him awake . . . barely, but he WAS awake, and telling me to shush, because your mother was fast asleep.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Joe?”

“Would you mind saying that prayer now . . . for Adam?” Joe asked. “I’ll pray silently along with you.”

“Joe, I was just thinking that maybe, this time, YOU should be the one to pray out loud, and I be the one to pray silently.”

“I don’t know, Pa,” Joe said doubtfully. “I don’t think I could do it half so well as YOU do.”

“I think you CAN, Son. After all, you had a lot of opportunity to practice while Lady Chadwick held you prisoner.”

“I . . . I hadn’t thought about that,” Joe said quietly, then bowed his head.

Ben quietly followed suit, then waited.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, we turn to you now and pray for protection . . . THIS time for my brother, Adam,” Joe prayed softly, with all the rock firm conviction he had ever heard in the prayers his father had offered over the course of his own long life. “Please, listen to our prayers and help Adam now, where he needs your help. Save and keep him from every danger, O, glorious and blessed Virgin. Amen.”

“Amen,” Ben murmured softly. In the course of that prayer, he saw dark days ahead for Adam, for Joe, for all of them. Yet, hidden in the deepest, darkest place of all, a tiny candle burned, it’s flame flickering, occasionally sputtering, but never going out. Then, he heard a still, small voice speaking from the deep places of his heart and soul, over and over repeating, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path,” words well known and very familiar.

He realized, then, that the small candle, its tiny, brave flame burning so brightly amid the deep darkness surrounding all of them, was hope . . . and that it would lead them all out of the darkness, one step at a time. All he had to do was trust.

End of Part 3

 

 

Mark of Kane

Part 4

By Kathleen T. Berney
The stage coach loomed ominously before them, silhouetted black against a cloudless sky, bleached pale blue by the white hot desert sun hovering high overhead. There was no movement, no sign of life. Even the near incessant drone of the desert winds had stilled into an eerie silence that fell over the two approaching men like a thick, heavy pall. Adam Cartwright and Matt Wilson exchanged brief, uneasy glances, as they brought their respective mounts to a complete stop roughly fifty yards from the stagecoach. For a time, both remained in the saddle, gazing out over a debris field, stretching nearly the entire length between them and the coach, generously littered with clothing, shoes, luggage, and other personal items.

“Adam?” Matt queried, at length, in a voice barely audible.

“Yeah, Matt?” Adam responded, automatically lowering his own voice as well.

“You think we’re going to find anything . . . or any . . . ONE?” Matt asked, unable to stop or repress the shudder that shook his entire frame.

“I . . . don’t think we’re going to find anyONE, Matt,” Adam replied in a hallow voice, his gaze fixed straight ahead. “The . . . natural inclination . . . would be to move and to try and KEEP moving . . . assuming the men who set on them and robbed them didn’t shoot them all.”

“Even though it was hopeless?”

“ESPECIALLY if it was hopeless,” Adam returned in a voice stone cold.

“You sound so sure.”

“I AM sure,” Adam shot back angrily.

Matt frowned, taken completely aback by his Adam’s sudden anger. “S-Sorry, Adam,” he murmured, not quite knowing what else to say.

“Matt, I’M the one who should apologize,” Adam said contritely. “I had no call to snap your head off like that.”

An uneasy silence fell between them. Though the time was brief, less than a minute, for Adam and Matt, it seemed to stretch into eternity.

“Adam?” At length, Matt finally broke the silence.

“Yeah, Matt?”

“I’ll accept your apology . . . if you’ll accept mine?!”

Adam managed a wan smile. Barely. “Deal,” he replied, as he climbed down from Sport II’s back. “Come on. We only have a few hours of daylight left.” With his horse’s lead firmly in hand, he began to move slowly into the debris field, his eyes glued fast to the stagecoach, straight ahead.

Matt slowly dismounted. With his gun in one hand, his horse’s lead in the other, he followed at a slower pace, with his eyes glued to the ground. As he walked, his mind played and replayed that brief exchange between himself and his old friend, trying to figure out what he had said to upset him. He finally chalked the whole thing up to how close Adam had come to losing his entire family in the fire that had taken their home . . . what? A month ago? Two? He shrugged, then let the whole matter drop.

Matt took another step, then stopped when the toe of his boot hit up against something buried in the sand. “Whoa, Boy,” he whispered to his horse. “Adam?”

Adam paused and turned. “Yeah, Matt?”

“Hold up a second.” Matt began to carefully clear the sand away from whatever it was buried in the sand with his foot.

“Find something?”

Within the space of a few seconds, Matt had uncovered a small rectangular object, red, with a light brown strip along one edge. He jammed his gun back into it’s holster, then crouched down for a closer look. “Adam . . . it’s a book.” He lifted it from the sand, opening it as he slowly rose to his feet. “I . . . think it’s a TEXT book. There’s a name written here on the inside of the cover . . . Brentwood J. Carroll . . . along with an address in Freedonia.”

Adam turned and carefully picked his way back among the clothing, and luggage strewn over the desert floor. “May I see?” he asked, upon reaching Matt’s side.

Matt closed the book, then handed it over to his companion. “This Brentwood J. Carroll someone you know?”

“No,” Adam replied, as he opened the book, and started to carefully turn the pages. “I was going to ask if YOU know him.”

“No . . . I don’t know him, either. Obviously just someone passing through like— ” Matt caught himself an instant before naming the Estevans.

“You were right, Matt . . . . ” Adam said slowly, as he leafed through the pages. “It IS a text book . . . biology, if I’m not mistaken . . . wait— ”

“What is it?”

“Two envelopes stuck in the middle,” Adam replied. “One addressed to Mother, the other addressed to someone named Kellie.” He turned over the latter, and found that the flap had simply been tucked in, rather than sealed. Adam lifted the flap and removed a single sheet, folded in thirds.

“What does it say?” Matt asked.

“ ‘Dear Kellie,’ ” Adam read slowly. “ ‘Forgive me. I wanted so much to see you, to be with you that when offered the choice of taking an earlier stage out of Virginia City, I took it. Now, my impatience has very likely brought me to a bad end. Early this morning we were overtaken and set upon by robbers. They took our money and other valuables, then killed the drivers, a woman . . . an older woman, about the same age as your mother, and a young man just married. Though they left me and the others alive, they took our horses, what little food we had, and lastly chopped holes in our water barrels, emptying them in the sand. They also took the young bride and the girl, who was traveling with the older woman.

“ ‘It is evening now. Two of the others left earlier to try and find help, or at the very least, find water. If they don’t return by daybreak, I intend to strike out on my own. If I don’t make it out of this desert alive, please know that I love you, more than life itself, far more I can say on this one tiny scrap of paper.

“ ‘Promise me this, Dearest Kellie. Promise me that if it happens that I don’t survive this, that you’ll not spend the rest of your life in mourning. Promise me that you will live your life to its fullest, that you will open your heart and let yourself love another. If this is my time, I will rest easier knowing that you have made and kept this promise.

“ ‘I love you. I will always love you.

“ ‘Until we meet again, whether it be on this earth or beyond the veil . . . . ’ ” Adam glanced up. The hand holding the letter trembled slightly, and his eyes glittered with unusual brightness. “It’s signed Brent.”

“I . . . s’pose we ought to see those letters get to M-Mister Carroll’s mother and . . . to his girl,” Matt said, finding it difficult to speak past the lump in his own throat, as his thoughts turned briefly to his own wife, the former Clarissa Starling, and their young daughter.

“Matt, we need to turn these letters over to Sheriff Coffee when we reach Virginia City,” Adam said stiffly, as he replaced the letters back among the pages of the text book. “This letter to Kellie, at least, is testimony of what happened.” He, then, turned and angrily stuffed the book into his own saddle bag.

Matt sighed. Adam DID have a valid point about Brentwood Carroll’s letter to his girl, being testimony of what had happened. He made himself a mental note, however, to ask Sheriff Coffee if the letters might be sent on to Mother and to Kellie, after the trial was over.

As they drew near to the stagecoach, they spotted the bodies of two men, lying side by side, face down, roughly ten feet in front of the stage coach. Their wrists had been and tightly bound behind their backs, using leather strips. Half of their heads had been blown away by shots made at point blank range, and most of their flesh, what remained of their heads, their forearms, and hands, had been consumed by carrion eaters. Large splatters of dried blood stained ragged remnants of what had once been their shirts and jagged, white pieces of skull were clearly visible in the desert sands near their heads.

“These men must be the driver and his relief,” Matt said grimly, as they tethered their horses’ leads to the rim of the right front wheel. He knelt down alongside the larger of the two men, next to what remained of his head, while Adam slowly knelt down along side the other.

“Matt, I . . . know this man hasn’t got much of his face left, but he kind of looks like . . . Johnny Jacobs,” Adam said in a hollow voice, inclining his head toward the dead man beside him.

Matt glanced up and studied the smaller man for a moment. He slowly nodded his head. “Yeah, that’s Johnny alright,” he murmured softly. “Damn! I’d heard he was going to leave his job with the Overland Stage at the end of the year, and buy a nice little piece of property to farm. Pa said that’s all he’s talked about at the Silver Dollar for the last month or so.”

“Any idea who THAT fella is?” Adam asked, nodding to the big man lying alongside the place where Matt had knelt down.

“Yeah,” Matt replied with a curt nod. “He lives . . . LIVED . . . over in Carson City.” He frowned. “I don’t know his first name . . . but his LAST name’s Dawson.”

“Does he have any family?”

“I don’t know. He never mentioned family members the few times I talked with him, but . . . . ” Matt shrugged helplessly. “I guess the sheriff over in Carson’ll know.”

“I don’t suppose YOU thought to bring a shovel . . . . ”

“ ‘Fraid not, Old Friend.”

Adam sighed and shook his head. “I didn’t either,” he said with much regret. “Damn! Bad enough they had to die like they did. At the very least they deserve a decent burial.”

Matt stood for a moment, with hands resting squarely on his hips, staring over at the coach. “Say, Adam . . . . ”

“Yeah, Matt?”

“Think we could pry a couple of boards loose?” Matt asked. “If so, we could use the boards to carve out a hole big enough so we can cover ‘em over . . . at least for a little while.”

“I don’t know about the stage, but maybe the lid from a trunk, or the bottom out of a carpet bag would suffice.”

“I’ll see what I can scare up,” Matt said, scrambling to his feet, suddenly anxious to put a little distance between himself and the two dead men.

“I’m going to look around,” Adam said, also rising.

The two men moved off in opposite directions. Matt beat a straight line back around in the direction they had just come, to the field of debris in search of something . . . anything that might adequately serve as a shovel.

Adam, meanwhile, slipped his gun from his holster, and moved around to the other side of the stage. His sharp eyes immediately fell on a rounded, dark blue-black form, lying on the ground roughly ten feet from the back corner of the stagecoach, in direct line with the sun, now beginning its descent toward the western horizon. He approached slowly, reluctantly, every sense fully alert. He realized, upon covering nearly half the distance from Mister Dawson’s body, that the rounded, dark blue form was the body of a large, stout woman.

When he finally reached the side of the dead woman, Adam was horrified to discover that she had suffered a terrible beating. The left side of her skull had been broken, cracked like an egg shell, leaving a large, jagged, cavernous hole. Her clothing was ripped and torn, due in part, to the fierce struggle in which she had been involved. He remembered the letter from Brentwood to Kellie, mentioning a girl, also abducted by the thieves, traveling in the company of an older woman.

Had this woman been killed in a fight, trying to prevent the thieves . . . the Carter brothers and Timothy Higgins . . . from abducting the girl?

Adam noted with grim satisfaction that the woman’s finger nails were blood stained. “I hope the blood ISN’T hers,” Adam mused silently, upon remembering the scratches on Timothy Higgins’ face and Jacob Carter’s arm. “It would be really nice to know that SOMEONE had paid those animals back a small measure of the pain they inflicted on the Estevans, the drivers, and the other passengers.”

“ADAM?! HEY, ADAM!” It was Matt. Judging from the sound of his voice, he had returned to the front of the stagecoach, presumably where the bodies of the two drivers yet remained.

“HERE, MATT,” Adam yelled back. “I FOUND ANOTHER BODY.”

Within a few minutes, Matt was at his side, his hair and face drenched with sweat. There was also a large wet circle on the front of his shirt, and large semi-circles under his arms. “I . . . managed . . . to rip a couple of lids off a . . . off the t-two biggest trunks,” he said, breathless from his exertions. “They’re . . . I left ‘em back there . . . with the . . . with the two drivers.”

“Have some water and rest,” Adam said, eyeing his companion’s reddened face anxiously. “There’s shade on the other side of the stage. I’m going to move this woman’s body up to the front where the two drivers are.”

“Can you manage by yourself, Adam? From the looks of things, she was a big woman . . . . ”

“Yeah. I can manage. She’s . . . she’s a lot lighter than she looks, Matt . . . courtesy of the vultures and dehydration.”

Using the trunk lids procured by Matt, the two men labored diligently to gouge out three trenches, roughly three feet deep. They had wrapped the bodies of the two men, using a man’s cotton bathrobe and a large linen petticoat as burial shrouds. The woman’s body was wrapped in two large petticoats. After Matt and Adam had covered the three bodies with sand, they gathered as many rocks as they could and piled them overtop the graves. Matt fashioned three simple crosses to mark the graves from the wood of two ladies’ parasols, using shoe laces to bind the vertical and horizontal pieces together.

“Adam?” Matt ventured, after they had completed their sad, grim task.

“Yeah, Matt?”

“Think maybe you could say a few words?”

“I’m not a religious man these days, Matt.”

“You still have a better way with words than I do,” Matt pressed.

Adam sighed. “Alright . . . . ” he agreed reluctantly, before bowing his head, and closing his eyes.

Matt respectfully followed suit, then waited patiently for Adam to gather his thoughts.

“Eternal God . . . and Heavenly Father, we commit the spirits and souls of these men . . . Mister Jacob, Mister Dawson, and the woman . . . not known to us, but known to You . . . into Your hands for safe keeping. We ask also that as they enter Your heavenly kingdom, You would show them the mercy that their fellow men failed to show them as they left this Earth.” He paused briefly, then added a soft, “Amen.”

“Amen,” Matt murmured softly.

For a few moments, both men observed a time of silence before the newly dug graves.

“I . . . guess we ought to be moving on,” Matt, at length, broke silence. “We could make camp tonight either at Crazy Cal’s old shack, or the watering hole he used— ”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer the watering hole,” Adam said quietly. “I saw more than I cared to in that shack.”

“Yeah,” Matt agreed.

“Before we leave, mind if I have one last look around?”

“No, I suppose not,” Matt said with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders. “Is there something you’re looking for?”

“I want to try and find Lorenzo Estevan’s body,” Adam replied.

Matt frowned.

“It’s GOT to be here. That letter addressed to Kellie said the thieves killed a young bridegroom.”

“I know, but— ”

“They were good people, Matt,” Adam said tersely. “Intelligent, charming, gracious . . . still basking in the afterglow of their honeymoon . . . they ended up being a real Godsend on my trip out from Sacramento. I left before Pa, Hoss, and Candy found Joe, and, well . . . to say I was worried sick would be a gross understatement. Lorenzo and Maria Estevan lightened that load considerably. Had I NOT had the pleasure of their company, I know I would have gone out of my mind.”

Matt nodded, knowing very well how close the members of the Cartwright family were to one another.

“If it’s in any way possible . . . I want to give Maria Estevan some kind of closure.”

“I understand, Adam,” Matt said. “You remember my Aunt Hetty.”

Adam nodded. Her husband and eldest son had been lost when one of the smaller mines collapsed, burying everyone on the two lower levels. All attempts to rescue the trapped miners had to be abandoned early on, due to flooding in some of the levels above. There was no way anyone could have reached, let alone rescued, or even retrieved the bodies of the men and boys trapped down on the levels below the flooding. With no bodies to bury, no tangible proof of their deaths, Hetty Wilson’s life, for all intents and purposes, had come to a screeching halt that day. She had spent every minute, every hour since, patiently waiting for her husband and first born son to return home . . . until the day she finally drew her very last breath. The thought of Maria Estevan ending up like Matt’s Aunt Hetty, grieved and disturbed him.

“However . . . . ”

“However . . . WHAT, Matt?”

“We don’t much time,” Matt said, casting an anxious eye at the lengthening shadows all around them.

This drew a sharp, angry glare from Adam.

“Adam, I’m not faulting you for wanting to find Lorenzo Estevan’s body,” Matt said curtly. “I wouldn’t wish what happened to Aunt Hetty on my worst enemy. But, it’s getting late. If we’re going to reach that watering hole by dusk— ”

“Alright,” Adam snapped, before abruptly turning heel and beating a straight path toward the stagecoach. He would never know what had prompted him to go to the coach and throw open the door. It had all happened, almost without his realization. Upon opening the door, his eyes were immediately drawn to the floor of the coach, where the body of a tall, slender young man lay half curled in fetal position. A full head of thick, coal black hair remained, presenting a stark, even shocking contrast to the whiteness of his exposed skull.

Adam knew beyond all doubt that he had found the body of Lorenzo Estevan. He also knew from the vast amounts of dried blood staining what remained of Lorenzo Estevan’s clothing and the floorboards of the coach, that the young bride groom had been shot in the stomach and left there to die.

“Adam, is that . . . . ?!” It was Matt, standing a little behind him, to his right.

“Yeah, Matt . . . it IS,” Adam replied. “Help me get him out of here. I want to take him back to town so his wife can give him a decent burial.”

Matt immediately opened his mouth to point out the impracticality of such a move, only to shut it upon getting a good look at Adam’s face, pale despite having spent the better part of the last two days under the desert sun, his dark eyes smoldering with fury. “I’ll . . . I’ll get something to wrap around M-Mister Estevan’s b-body.”

Adam curtly nodded his thanks. A few moments after Matt set off, back in the direction of the debris field, his eyes fell on a small, flat object, hued a deep forest green. It was lying on the floor of the coach, almost completely buried under the seat behind Lorenzo Estevan’s head. He reached across the young man’s body and carefully pulled it out. Adam immediately recognized it as Lorenzo Estevan’s sketch book . . . the one containing all those wonderful drawings of the ancient ruins down near Mexico City.

“He must’ve had it out . . . showing his sketches to another passenger, like he showed them to me,” Adam mused softly, noting the blood splatters across the front of the leather bound book, lying cradled in his hands. He fervently hoped and prayed that the very last person to see Lorenzo Estevan’s drawings, and hear his stories was one who was interested and captivated, as Adam himself had been.

“Adam?”

He glanced up sharply. Matt Wilson had returned an armload of ladies’ petticoats, skirts, one dress and a handful of mens’ belts and suspenders.

“You say something?”

“No, nothing of consequence,” Adam said curtly. “Just thinking out loud.”

“What’s that?”

“I found it right over there . . . under the seat,” Adam said, pointing. “It belongs . . . it BELONGED . . . to Lorenzo Estevan. He showed it to me on our way out from Sacramento.”

“May I see?” Matt asked.

“Sure.” Adam handed the book over to Matt. “The glue on the binding’s become brittle, Matt, so please be careful. I . . . I want to give it to Mrs. Estevan, when we return.”

Matt nodded, then opened the book. “Wow! Adam, I don’t know much of anything about art . . . except for what I like and don’t like, but . . . but whoever did these drawings is very good,” he remarked, as he randomly leafed through the pages.

“The drawings were done by Lorenzo Estevan, while on an archaeological expedition in Mexico with his father,” Adam said in a voice, suddenly gone stone cold.

“Was he an artist?”

“He was certainly gifted, as you can see, but he was a man of many talents and interests,” Adam replied, feeling very sick at heart.

“Sounds like a Renaissance man.”

“Yes.”

Matt continued to leaf through the sketch book, while Adam set himself to the grim task of wrapping Lorenzo Estevan’s mortal remains. Suddenly, he stopped. “Hey, Adam . . . . ”

“What?!”

“I think you need to take a look at this . . . . ”

Adam finished covering the dead man’s face with one of the petticoats, then turned his attention to Matt. “What have you found?”

“More evidence,” Matt replied. “Mister Estevan drew pictures of the men who robbed this stage.”

“Let me see.”

Matt handed Adam the sketchbook. The faces of four men, roughly sketched in apparent great haste, glared malevolently back at him from the pages of the open sketch book. Bandanas covered the lower faces of two, but had apparently slipped down, revealing the third man’s nose and part of his mouth. The fourth man’s face was completely exposed. Adam and Matt immediately recognized him as Jacob Carter’s slow witted brother, Billy Bob.

“This one’s the man we caught trying to run away,” Adam said, pointing to the rendering of the partially masked third man, an unmistakable portrait of Timothy Higgins.

“You’re right,” Matt murmured, awe struck, “ . . . and THIS guy, with the scraggly eyes brows and black hair has to be the one who ended up getting killed.”

Adam turned the page.

The handwriting proved difficult to read, between the glare of the bright desert sun against the white paper, the smearing, the splotches of ink and blood. The irregular shaped lines and curves forming letters and words, had been set down quickly, by someone in great pain.

Adam read the date at the top of the page. “ ‘We were robbed. Four men, pictures on previous page,’ ” he continued reading aloud. “ ‘One man called the youngest Billy Bob . . . . ’ Dear God . . . . ”

“What is it, Adam?”

“Matt . . . this is Lorenzo Estevan’s account of what happened.”

“We need to get his sketch book back to Sheriff Coffee,” Matt said, “along with the letters written by Brentwood Carroll.”

“Yes,” Adam said grimly. “We need to see to it that Mister Estevan and Mister Carroll BOTH have their day in court . . . . ”

Adam Cartwright and Matt Wilson finally reached Virginia City amid the lengthening shadows and the waning daylight of late afternoon three days later. The body of Lorenzo Estevan, half eaten by desert carrion and the remainder dried to the consistency of tough rawhide by the dry climate, lay draped over Sport II’s back, behind the saddle, securely wrapped in three petticoats and a long navy blue skirt, and a dress, that had apparently belonged to the stout woman, who lay back there, with the stage, buried along side the two drivers.

Matt exhaled a long, very soft sigh of great relief as meadow, trees, and mountains, finally gave way to stores, office buildings, saloons, and houses, mostly wood frame, occasionally brick. Adam had slept very little, if any the nights they had spent on the trail, as they rode from the place where they had found the stagecoach back to Virginia City. Every time Matt had roused, he found his old friend sitting on the ground, with legs crossed, completely engrossed in the forest green, leather bound journal/sketchbook that had belonged to Lorenzo Estevan. This morning, when Matt awoke at daybreak, Adam was STILL sitting there, in the exact same spot, with legs crossed, this time clutching the forest green book tight to his chest.

Matt cast a furtive, anxious glance over at his old friend, as they neared the sheriff’s office. Adam’s face had paled to a sickly ashen gray, and his brown eyes, still round with shock and horror, stared straight ahead, unfocused, as one trapped in the throes of a vivid waking nightmare . . . with no means or hope of escape. The darkened circles under Adam’s eyes, from lack of sleep and the play of the waning, late afternoon sunlight against the shadow cast by the bony structure of his skull, had lent his eyes, and his face the eerie, haunted look of a man somehow possessed.

“Adam?” Matt ventured hesitantly.

No answer.

“Adam.”

Still, no answer.

“ADAM!” Matt raised his voice slightly.

Adam started so violently, he nearly toppled right out of his saddle.

“Oh my God!” Matt gasped, alarmed. “Adam, I . . . I’m sorry. You all right?!”

“Fine,” Adam snapped, as he favored Matt with a withering glare.

“Sorry. I tried to get your attention before, but— ”

“What do you want?” Adam asked in a voice stone cold.

“I . . . was going to tell you that we’re here . . . at the sheriff’s office,” Matt ventured hesitantly.

“Confound it, Ben, it’s YOUR move,” Roy Coffee said, taking no pains to conceal his growing annoyance.

“I KNOW it is, Roy,” Ben growled back. “I’m thinking.”

“You plan on bein’ all night thinkin’?”

This drew a dark, murderous glare from the Cartwright clan patriarch. An exasperated sigh exploded from between Ben’s lips as he reached up and moved his only remaining rook.

Roy stared down at the chessboard lying on his desk between them, and shook his head in complete and utter disbelief. “Y’ sure y’ wanna do that, Ben?” he asked.

“One minute you’re urging me to hurry up and make my move . . . the next you question the move I make,” Ben observed irascibly. “What’s with you tonight, Roy?”

“I was about t’ ask YOU the same question,” Roy said, as he moved his bishop in to capture Ben’s rook. “Checkmate. That makes six games now outta six.”

“So my game’s off,” Ben sighed.

“Your game ain’t OFF, ‘cause your mind ain’t even been ON the game. You’re worried about Adam.”

“I should never have let him go with you in the first place.”

“I don’t think there was a whole lot y’ couldda done t’ stop him, short o’ hog-tyin’ him with a good, stout rope ‘n maybe hittin’ him a couple o’ times over the head t’ keep him still,” Roy said wryly, then sighed.

“Ben, he’ll be alright. Matt Wilson’s with him. I made the both of ‘em promise they’d head for home if the directions given ‘em didn’t pan out.”

“I still don’t like it,” Ben groused.

The door opened. Adam wearily trudged into the sheriff’s office, with his shoulders slumped, and back slightly bowed, as if he carried the full weight of the world’s burden. Matt followed close behind.

Roy immediately rose to his feet. “Come on in, Boys . . . glad you’re back,” he said. “We was just talkin’ about ya.”

“Adam and I found the stagecoach, Sheriff Coffee,” Matt said, as he gently pushed Adam over in the general direction of the sheriff’s desk.

Ben rose to his feet slowly, and motioned for Adam to take his chair.

“ ‘S ok, Pa . . . I’m fine,” Adam said in a hallow voice, barely audible.

“We found four bodies,” Matt continued. “The drivers . . . Johnny Jacobs and that Dawson fella from over Carson way . . . both of them . . . what was left of ‘em. . . were lying in front of the stagecoach on their stomachs, tied up and shot in the head.”

“The short man made a game of shooting them,” Adam said, incredulous, his face an unsettling mixture of anger and revulsion. “A game! Put a single bullet in the chamber . . . give it a spin, then pulled the trigger. The man who ends up with a bullet in his head first is the loser. The winner gets to play again and again, until the gun finally fires . . . and HE ends up with a bullet in his head. The man with the gun gets to laugh while the players sweat.”

“Adam . . . how do you KNOW that?” Ben asked, gazing uneasily into his eldest son’s face. “How can you POSSIBLY know that?”

“It’s all right here,” Adam growled as he slammed Lorenzo Estevan’s journal with all his angry might down onto the game board in the middle of the desk, sending the chess pieces flying in all directions.

“What’s this, Adam?” Roy asked warily, as he reached out to pick up the leather bound, forest green book.

“Lorenzo Estevan’s journal,” Matt said quietly. “He . . . before he died, he wrote an account of what happened. He also managed to draw pictures of the men who robbed them, abducted Mrs. Estevan, and left the rest of them to die in the desert.”

“Mrs. Estevan wasn’t the only person those . . . those rabid sons of bitches took with them,” Adam said, his voice shaking. “There was a girl . . . a young girl, named Isabella de Gallo. She was fourteen years old . . . a . . . a month shy of her . . . her Quinceañera.”

“Her Quin-cee-what?” Roy queried with a bewildered frown.

“Her fifteenth birthday,” Ben replied, as he watched his son with growing alarm. “According to Mexican tradition, a young girl comes of age when she turns fifteen, and is just cause for a magnificent celebration.”

“Matt and I found another body, in addition to the two drivers,” Adam continued. “HER name was Jaunita Alverez. She was Miss de Gallo’s duenna. She . . . according to what M-Mister Estevan wrote in his journal . . . Mrs. Alverez died trying to protect her young charge, but she wasn’t as lucky as the two drivers. THEY died with a single bullet fired into their heads. M-Mrs. Alverez had half of her head bashed in with a rifle butt.”

“Adam . . . come on, Buddy . . . take it easy,” Matt pleaded, the fear and worry on his face mirroring what Ben felt in his heart.

“Those animals . . . . ” Adam muttered angrily. “That girl was . . . she was only a few years older than Dio.”
“There . . . there was no gold. No gold . . . there w-was no gold . . . . ”

The words Adam spoke so long ago, after he, Hoss, and Joe had freed him from a travois, upon which lay the dead body of a man by the name of Peter Kane, echoed once again through Ben’s mind and memory.

“No gold . . . there w-was no gold . . . . ”

“That girl . . . a little older than Dio . . . . ”

“No gold . . . . ”

“A little older than Dio . . . . ”

“Those animals . . . . ” Adam muttered softly under his breath, as he turned toward the closed door separating the jail cells from the sheriff’s office, his entire body trembling with rage. Then, suddenly, before anyone could even think of stopping him he was heading back toward the jail cells, moving with surprising agility and speed, given his age.

Roy shot out of his chair with force and momentum sufficient to send it crashing to the floor with a resounding bang. With his face set with grim determination, he struck out on a direct intercept course toward Adam, who had just reached the door separating the office from the jail cells, and thrown it open. Ben anxiously followed on the heels of the sheriff, while Matt, looking lost and bewildered, slowly brought up the rear.

“Where is she?” Adam demanded angrily, as he exploded into the back room. “You!” He turned the full force of his dark, murderous glare on Timothy Higgins. “Where is she?”

“Sh-She . . . she who?” Timothy stammered. He involuntarily stepped back and raised his arms to shield his face, as if to ward off the blows of many fists flying at him, fast and furious.

“If you’re talking about Maria . . . she’s DEAD,” Jacob said with a nasty sneer on his face.

Adam moved with lightening swiftness over to the cell, occupied by the Carter brothers. Before Jacob could even think to move himself out of harm’s way, Adam had thrust his arms through the bars and seized the eldest Carter brother by the lapels of his shirt and yanked him forward with all his might, slamming him into the iron bars separating them.

“I KNOW what you did to Mrs. Estevan, you miserable excuse for shit dust,” Adam growled. “I want to know what you did with the girl!”

Jacob turned his head and squeezed his eyes shut, in a desperate bid to escape the burning intensity in those golden brown eyes that seemed to bore into the very depths of his soul.

Adam slammed Jacob into the bars once again, drawing an agonized gasp from the latter, as the force of the blow drove the air right out of his lungs. “Look at me when I’m talking to you— ”

“STOP IT!” Billy Bob Carter shouted, his face white as a sheet, his eyes round with fear. He rushed forward and tried to pry Adam’s fingers loose from Jacob’s shirt. “STOP IT, STOP IT . . . YOU’RE KILLING HIM.”

“Where’s the girl?” Adam snarled once again, ignoring Billy Bob. “What did you do with her?”

“HELP! HELP! HE’S KILLING HIM!” Billy Bob yelled.

“ADAM!”

The sound of his father’s voice, filled with astonishment, anger, and fear, acted as a bucket of ice water in Adam’s face, dampening the white hot rage burning within him. The next thing he knew, a pair of strong, wiry arms encircled his waist and shoulders.

“STOP HIM,” Billy Bob yelled again. His voice seemed oddly far distant. “STOP HIM, SHERIFF . . . HE’S . . . HE’S KILLING ME BROTHER.”

“Adam, let go of him . . . NOW!” Sheriff Coffee ordered in a stern, authoritative tone of voice.

“He’s killing my brother . . . . ”

“You ready to kill me now, Cartwright?” Peter Kane mocked him from somewhere in the deep places of his memory. “Surely you MUST be ready to kill me now.”

“He’s killing my brother . . . . ”

“You ready to kill me now, Cartwright?”

“He’s killing my brother . . . . ”

The sound of Billy Bob’s frightened sobbing, assailed his ears then quickly gave way to Peter Kane’s maniacal laughter.

Adam, let him go.

“Adam, please . . . . ”

He turned and found himself staring Ben, full in the face. Never . . . not in the whole four decades of his life had he ever seen such a look of horror on his father’s face.

“Adam, let him go,” Ben begged. “Please . . . you keep on the way you’re going . . . you bring yourself down to THEIR level.” He inclined his head toward the three prisoners. “Let him go, Adam . . . please . . . . ”

Adam looked over at Jacob Carter again, grimacing as he might if he had suddenly found himself holding on to a hunk of decaying meat, infested with maggots. He, then, abruptly dropped Jacob like a hot potato.

Jacob collapsed onto the floor, like a limp sack of potatoes. With a cry of relief, Billy Bob ran to his brother’s side and dropped down onto his knees beside him. “You ok, Jacob?” the boy sobbed. “Oh, Jacob, please! Please be ok.”

“I’ll be all right, Kid . . . relax,” Jacob said, breathless, his voice hoarse. He placed a reassuring hand on his young brother’s shoulder, then, turned his attention back to Adam, now staring down at him with morbid fascination. “You wanna know where that gal is, Mister?” he snarled. “I’ll tell ya what we did with her. We traded her to a band o’ renegade Injuns for a hunk o’ venison.”

“R-Renegades?!” Adam could feel the blood draining right out of his face.

“That’s right . . . renegades!” Jacob returned, with a mirthless smile, deriving what amusement he could from Adam’s fear and dread.

“You have any idea what they might do to her? Any idea at ALL?!” Adam demanded, his voice shaking.

“Ain’t MY problem,” Jacob replied with callus indifference.

“Who were they? Bannock? Paiute? Shoshone?!”

“How the hell should I know?” Jacob returned with an indifferent shrug. “Injuns is Injuns. One ain’t no different than the other.”

“That girl . . . she . . . she w-was only a little older than Dio,” Adam murmured in a voice barely audible.

“So now ya know!” Jacob spat contemptuously. “What’re ya gonna do about it? Ya wanna kill me? Go ahead!”

“You wanna kill me NOW?” Kane again mocked him from deep inside his head. “Come ON, Cartwright . . . SURELY you wanna kill me now . . . . ”

“No.”

“You were ready to kill HIM a minute ago,” Kane sardonically mocked him. “If you’re ready to kill him . . . you gotta be ready to kill ME.”

“No. Shut up . . . get out of my head.”

“Adam?! What’s the matter with ya, Son?”

“I . . . I . . . Pa, I . . . g-got business to t-take care of . . . I’ll see you at the Fletchers,” Adam stammered, anxious, all of a sudden, to be away . . . to put as much distance as he possibly could between the prisoners and the Virginia City jail. With that, he abruptly turned heel and started beating a straight path to the door, leading back into the sheriff’s office.

“Run, Cartwright . . . see Cartwright run.” Randy Paine’s harsh, derisive laughter echoed in his ears, every bit as clear as it had the night he left the Ponderosa, left Virginia City and the State of Nevada, for good. “Run, you spineless, gutless, wretch. I KNEW you didn’t have the guts to kill him, you pathetic, miserable excuse for a human being.”

“Shut UP, Randy Paine-in-the-ass, shut up. Dammit, you’re DEAD! Why in the hell can’t you STAY dead?!”

Randy laughed. “I keep tellin’ ya, Cartwright . . . for YOU, I’ll NEVER be dead. The harder you try to shut me up, the louder I get. You’ll never escape from me, Cartwright . . . NEVER.”

“Adam, wait,” Ben called after him.

Adam slipped through the door and continued through the sheriff’s office, as if his father hadn’t spoken.

“ADAM—,” Ben yelled. He turned, with every intention of pursuing his eldest son. A gentle, yet firm hand on his shoulder stopped him before he could take the first step. “Dammit, Roy, get your hands off of me!” he said tersely, as he turned and favored his old friend with a dark, angry glare.

“Let him go, Ben,” Roy said very quietly.

“Roy, I can’t just— ” Ben hotly protested.

“Ben, he’s a grown man,” Roy said sternly, “ ‘n right now, he needs t’ be alone t’ collect himself.”

“Alright!” Roy had a point, though Ben silently vowed to sit down with Adam later, even if it meant hogtying him to a chair, and getting to the bottom of whatever was bothering him, once and for all. He deeply regretting letting things go as long as he had. “In the meantime, the three of US are going to sit down, and Matt?!”

“Y-Yes, Mister Cartwright?” the younger man stammered, as he looked away from that intense gaze Ben leveled at him, like a double barreled shotgun, fully loaded for bear.

“You’re going to tell Sheriff Coffee and me everything that happened after you and Adam left to go look for that . . . that damned stagecoach,” Ben growled, “and I mean everything.”

Adam, meanwhile, walked down the street to the funeral parlor, leading Sport II behind him. After securing his horse to the hitching post outside, he turned, and drew himself up to full height, with his posture ramrod straight, and strode briskly into the undertaker’s establishment.

“Good evening, Sir,” a tall, rail thin young man greeted him in a quiet, subdued voice. “My name is Tobias Chaney, Junior.” He extended his hand.

“Adam Cartwright,” he murmured his name very softly, his voice a near monotone, as he shook hands with the younger man.

“How may I help you?”

“I’d . . . . ” Adam swallowed nervously. “I’d like to make tentative arrangements for a friend of mine . . . pending notification of his . . . of his next of kin.”

“Certainly, Mister Cartwright. My condolences on your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“Was the deceased a close friend?”

“He might have been, if . . . if we’d had the chance.”

“What was the name of the deceased?”

“Lorenzo Estevan,” Adam replied. “His . . . body . . . what’s left of it . . . is wrapped in a kind of m-make shift shroud, tied to the back of my horse.”

“I will see to Mister Estevan’s remains straightaway, Mister Cartwright,” the younger Tobias Chaney said. “In the meantime, if you’ll come with me, I will show you to my father’s office. You can make the arrangements you need to make . . . for now . . . with him.”

“Thank you, Mister Chaney,” Adam said, as he fell in step behind the younger man.

He was taken to a well apportioned office, with its oak paneled walls, stained a deep, rich cherry hue, and stained glass windows, made from clear glass and same in varying shades of red that complemented the paneling. A massive toll top desk, the same color as the walls, stood against the wall directly opposite the door, and three massive barrister’s book cases line the wall in between. They were stained the same rich cherry wood stain as the desk. On the wall above the desk, Adam was greatly surprised to see a reproduction . . . a very good reproduction . . . of Jacques-Louis David’s painting of “The Death of Socrates.”

“My father is quite the philosopher, Sir,” Tobias, Junior said, duly noting that Adam’s eyes were focused on the painting. “He also has a particular fondness for the artist.”

“I see.”

“A word of warning, Mister Cartwright. Do NOT, under any circumstances, bring up Mister Socrates, Mister Plato, or Mister David,” the young man said, in all seriousness, “lest you find yourselves talking the entire night through. It HAS happened before.”

“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.” Another time, another place, under better circumstances, Adam would almost certainly have welcomed such an opportunity.

“In the meantime, please sit down, Mister Cartwright,” Tobias, Junior invited graciously, gesturing discreetly toward the small round table and four chairs, just inside the door to his right. “I’ll let my father know that you’re here.”

“Thank you,” Adam said quietly.

A few moments later, the elder Tobias Chaney entered. He was nearly a dead ringer for his son, albeit a few pounds heavier, and with a few more gray hairs. “Good evening, Mister Cartwright,” he greeted Adam cordially. “My son tells me that you’ve come to make TENTATIVE funeral arrangements?”

“Yes, Mister Chaney.” Adam explained the situation, omitting mention of Mrs. Estevan’s whereabouts and the grim details concerning her present circumstances. “I’m afraid there’s not much left of Mister Estevan’s body,” he concluded apologetically. “After two weeks in the desert, I . . . I guess it’s a miracle there’s anything left to even bury, let alone identify.”

“I understand, Mister Cartwright,” Tobias said quietly. “My son has taken the liberty of moving Mister Estevan’s body from your horse. We will see to it that he is properly coffined.”

“Thank you.” Adam reached into his back pocket and withdrew his wallet. He opened it, and with drew three bills. “I’d like to put this down as a deposit, Mister Chaney.”

“Certainly, Mister Cartwright,” Tobias said graciously, as he noted the denominations on the bills. “Most generous, given that Mister Estevan was an acquaintance.”

“I owe Mister Estevan a great deal, Sir,” Adam said, rising. Tobias Chaney quietly followed suit. “After Mister Estevan’s next of kin has been notified, someone . . . either myself of a representative for his next of kin will be in touch about the final arrangements.”

“Thank you. We will be waiting.”

After leaving the undertaker’s establishment, Adam trudged wearily on to the Fletchers’ house, again leading Sport II behind him. He paused momentarily as he came to the Silver Dollar Saloon. “Perhaps a couple of beers, or better yet, maybe a shot or two of whiskey WOULD be in order,” he silently decided, as he led Sport II over to the hitching post outside the saloon. If nothing else, it should help fortify him against the inevitable onslaught of questions from his family, especially his father, after . . . .

Adam shook his head vigorous, as if trying to physically dislodge the terrible memory of his actions in the jail, lurking at the very edges of his conscious thought, waiting, like a pair of thieves for an opportunity to strike . . . .

“You know what we want.”

“Yeah. I’m intuitive.”

“Just toss it down here. No tricks, huh?”

The memory of his having been robbed, after leaving Eastgate all those years ago, to camp out amid the rugged, stark beauty of the badlands, suddenly rose to the surface, like the body of a drowning victim eventually rises from the depths of the water where he met his death.

“That’s it,” one of the thieves, declared, upon looking into the wallet and finding the thick wad of bills crammed into the back flap.

“Now get down off that horse,” his partner ordered . . . .

“No . . . . ” Adam murmured softly. “You got your money . . . . ”

“Climb. DOWN.”

“Adam?!”

The sound of Sam’s voice rudely jolted Adam’s eyes snapped wide open. He found himself standing before the bar, staring the bartender straight in the face.

“Hey, Adam . . . you all right?” Sam queried anxiously, as he peered into the younger man’s pale face and round, staring eyes.

“I . . . . ” Adam shook his head. “Sorry, Sam . . . I . . . I guess I’m more tired than I realized.”

“I heard you and Matt Wilson were back.”

“Yeah . . . just.”

Sam filled grabbed a clean mug from under the bar, and filled it to the brim with beer. “Here y’ are, Adam. This one’s on the house.”

“Thank you, Sam.” Adam favored the bartender with a grateful, if weary smile.

“I also heard none of the other passengers survived the robbery . . . except for the young lady over at the doc’s.”

“That’s right,” Adam replied, electing to hold back the known details about the young girl.

“Hey . . . Adam! I heard you ‘n Matt were back.” He turned and found Clay Hansen standing at his elbow, to his right. Emil Jennings and another man, a stranger, flanked Clay on either side.

“Yes, Mister Hansen. A couple of hours ago.”

“Excuse me, I’m forgettin’ my manners,” Clay said. “You remember Emil, of course.”

“Yes, I do,” Adam said wearily, as he turned and offered his hand to Emil Jennings. “Good seeing you again.”

“Likewise, Mister Cartwright,” Emil said, as they shook hands.

“This is Todd Warrick,” Clay continued with the introductions. Todd was a small man, an inch or two shorter than Joe Cartwright. He had a dark, olive complexion, dark eyes, and a full head of thick, slightly wavy, jet black hair. “Adam, you might remember his pa . . . . ”

“Frasier Warrick?” Adam queried with a slight lift of his eyebrow.

“Yes, Sir,” Todd replied.

“Yes. I DO remember your father,” Adam said. “How’s he doing these days?”

“Pa . . . died three years ago, Mister Cartwright, a couple o’ days after Christmas,” Todd said with a touch of sadness. “He went out to ‘Frisco to have some kinda operation, ‘n the doc out there found growths on both his lungs. Said there wasn’t anything they could do.”

“I’m sorry,” Adam said with heartfelt sincerity.

“So . . . what’s the word?” Clay asked.

Adam took a big swallow from his beer mug, then wiped his mouth against his sleeve. “What’s the word . . . about . . . what?”

“Were the fellas Roy’s got locked up over at the jail on the level about the passengers of that stage?” Clay asked with a dark, angry scowl.

“Yes, Mister Hansen, they were,” Adam said curtly.

“What all’d ya find, Adam?” Clay pressed. “You ‘n Matt. Did ya find that stage?”

“Yes.”

“Were . . . were the passengers . . . there?”

Adam downed the remainder of his beer in a single swallow. “Mister Hansen, I don’t want to talk about it,” he said as he slammed his empty mug down on the bar.

“Don’t matter if the passengers were there or not,” Emil Jennings declared, his face darkening with anger. “Point is those three fellas over at the jail killed ‘em . . . and what they done to that gal over at the doc’s office . . . I STILL say why bother with a trial?”

“Because every man has the right to a fair trail,” Adam said, his own anger rising.

“Adam, two of ‘em confessed,” Clay argued. “The one that got killed an’ that Carter fella . . . the older one. What else do we need?”

“Mister Hansen, you can’t take the law into your hands,” Adam shot right back.

“Why not?” Clay angrily returned. “I gotta wife and four daughters livin’ with me at home. You gotta wife ‘n a daughter, too, dontcha?”

“Yes, I do, but— ”

“DAMMIT, A MAN’S GOTTA RIGHT TO PROTECT HIS WOMEN FOLK!” Clay shouted, banging his balled fist down on the bar for emphasis.

“THAT’S RIGHT!” another voice yelled out from the middle of the room. A soft ripple of ascent rose from among some of the other patrons.

“Mister Hansen, all three of those men are securely locked up in the jail cells at the sheriff’s office,” Adam said, laboring to keep his own voice slow and even. “Your wife and daughters are safe.”

“For how long?” Clay hotly demanded.

“If two of them confessed . . . as YOU said . . . the jury’s going to turn a guilty verdict, and they’ll in all likelihood be sentenced to hang,” Adam replied through clenched teeth.

“Not if that son-of-a-bitch hotshot lawyer what’s defending ‘em has HIS way about things, Mister Cartwright,” Emil Jennings said grimly.

“What’re you talking about?” Adam demanded.

“Word is their lawyer’s asked Judge Faraday to approve movin’ the trial out to PLACERVILLE,” Clay spat contemptuously. “Claims those . . . those . . . those mad dog sons-of-bitches can’t get a fair trial here in Virginia City.”

“I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you, Mister Hansen, that all this . . . this . . . insane talk about ‘why bother with a trial’ is playing right into the hands of their lawyer . . . has it?” Adam spat contemptuously.

“If YOU ain’t got the stomach to do what oughtta be done, well I sure as hell, do,” Emil declared.

“So do I,” Todd Warrick adamantly agreed.

“Yeah . . . me too,” another man standing at the bar, with a whiskey glass in hand quickly voiced his own agreement.

“Mister Hansen, I’d appreciate it if you and your men left right now,” Sam said sternly. “Feelings are running high enough without talk of lynching.”

“We got every right to be here just as much as everyone else,” Emil angrily shot right back.

“Mister Hansen,” Sam said again, pointedly ignoring the ranch hand, “I asked you and your men to leave.”

“We’ll leave . . . when we’re good ‘n ready t’ leave,” Clay said.

“Really?” Adam queried sardonically. “So tell me, Mister Hansen . . . who’s looking after your wife and daughters back on your ranch . . . while you and your men are HERE?”

Clay favored Adam with a dark murderous glare for a long, tense moment, as his hand slowly dropped down to touch the gun in his holster.

“I wouldn’t, Mister Hansen,” Adam warned. He whipped his gun from its holster and aimed for Clay Hansen’s heart. “Though I may be a city boy these days, I’m NOT out of practice.”

“Aggh!” Clay spat contemptuously. “Come on, Boys. Let’s go. The air’s startin’ to get real STALE in here.” With that, he angrily turned heel and left, roughly shoving aside a couple of patrons who didn’t move out of his way soon enough. His men followed, muttering angrily under their breaths.

“I think I’d best be moving along myself, Sam,” Adam said, rising. “Thanks for the beer, and . . . I’m sorry about all this trouble just now.”

“ ‘S all right, Adam . . . wasn’t YOUR fault,” Sam said, “but, a word to the wise?”

“What’s that?”

“You’re best off keepin’ your opinions about recent events to yourself,” Sam replied. “I know it’s a free country ‘n all, but . . . as high as feelin’s are running right now, it won’t take much to set folks off t’ doing things they’re gonna deeply regret later.”

“I fully intend to follow that advice,” Adam said soberly. “May I ask you a question?”

Sam shrugged indifferently. “Sure . . . why not?”

“Is it true what Mister Hansen said about their lawyer seeking to move the trial?”

“I can’t tell ya for absolute sure, Adam, ‘cause so far, everything’s been done behind closed doors,” Sam replied. “But, there’s been talk. A LOT o’ talk.”

“I sure hope Sheriff Coffee is able to keep a handle on things,” Adam said grimly.

“Me, too,” Sam agreed wholeheartedly.

“Good night, Sam. I have one more thing to take care of, and then I wash my hands of this whole business,” Adam said. “I came here to build a house, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“Good night, Adam.”

“Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!” Adam muttered softly under his breath, as he unhitched his horse and climbed up in the saddle. “If I had even a small shred of plain common sense, I would have sat down at my drafting table at home, drawn up those damned house plans, and sent them to Pa special delivery.”

As he climbed up into the saddle, Adam’s eyes were momentarily drawn to the deep indigo sky over head, just as the first star winked into sight. “Star light . . . star bright . . . the first star I see tonight . . . I wish I may, I with I might have the wish I wish tonight,” he murmured softly the rhyme Pa had taught him, that he, in turn, had taught his own children.

As he spoke aloud those words, Adam found himself wishing he were back home in Sacramento, with all his might. He suddenly missed Teresa and their children, Benjy and Dio, so much, he nearly cried out in agony. More than anything he wanted to be back home . . . .

. . . far away from Virginia City, from the State of Nevada, from places where men robbed stagecoaches . . . or a lone rider . . . then left their victims to die in the harsh, cruel desert . . . .

. . . where a young bridegroom could be gunned down in cold blood, so that his murderers could claim his widow as their chattel, to do with as they will . . . .

. . . or a young man, left to die out in the desert finding his only hope of salvation in water, food, shelter, and torture at the hands of a demented prospector, whose only reason for continued existence was goad another to murder him . . . .

“Run, Cartwright, run. See Cartwright run,” Randy Paine taunted him from his own place in the deep, wounded places within Adam’s soul. “See Cartwright run as fast as his legs can carry him. You can run as far, as hard, as fast as you like, but you’ll NEVER escape. You hear me, Cartwright? You’ll NEVER escape.”

“Shut-up,” Adam growled back, “ just . . . shut-the-hell-UP.”

“Make me, Rich Boy. Make me shut-up . . . . ”

The next thing Adam knew, he was standing on the Martins’ doorstep, ringing the bell, with no memory of having tied his horse to the hitching post, or walking up the walk.

The Martins’ housekeeper, Hilda Mae Graves, answered the door.

Adam closed his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing himself to inhale slowly, evenly.

Hilda Mae regarded his pale complexion, his trembling hands, the beads of sweat dotting his forehead with an anxious frown. “May I help you, uhhh . . . Mister?!

“Cartwright, Ma’am,” Adam greeted her cordially. “My name is Adam Cartwright.”

“You related to the Ponderosa Cartwrights?” Hilda Mae asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“Yes, Ma’am. I’m Ben Cartwright’s oldest son.”

“The one who lives out in California?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Adam replied. “I’d like to see the doctor, if I may. I . . . I have news about Mrs. Estevan’s husband.”

“Come in.”

Hilda Mae led Adam down the hall to the Martins’ formal parlor, on the first floor. “Wait here, Mister Cartwright,” she said quietly, then withdrew.

Adam was very surprised when Crystal McShane and the doctor’s wife stepped into the formal parlor a moment later. He immediately rose to his feet, and waited until the two women seated themselves. Lily Martin sat down on the settee next to Adam, while Crystal elected to remain standing, leaning heavily against the door jamb with her arms folded across her chest.

“Adam. I had no idea you and Matt Wilson were back,” Lily Martin said by way of greeting.

“Yes, Ma’am. We returned a little before dusk.”

“The doctor is away right now,” Lily continued, apologetically. “He’s out at the Larson farm. Etta Larson went into premature labor this afternoon . . . I don’t expect him back before morning. I . . . understand you have news of Mrs. Estevan’s husband?” Judging from his trembling hands, the haunted look in his eyes, and a complexion several shades paler than normal, the news couldn’t possibly be good. She swallowed, and mentally braced herself.

“Matt and I found the stagecoach,” Adam said quietly, with much reluctance. “Mister Estevan . . . his body was inside the coach. He had been shot, several times, judging from the amount of dried blood on the floor. I . . . don’t know whether he climbed into the coach, or if someone else helped him climb inside.”

“I . . . I had hoped,” Lily Martin said in a small voice, barely audible, her voice breaking on the last word. “I knew it was impossible, but I still hoped.”

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of such terrible news,” Adam said contritely.

“It’s not YOUR fault, Adam . . . you can’t help the horrible things that befell that poor young woman,” Lily said. “I . . . I wish I knew what to do at this point.”

“Mrs. Martin,” Crystal spoke up for the first time, “we HAVE to tell her.”

“I . . . I’d rather wait until the doctor returns, and discuss it with him,” Lily said morosely. “Her mental and physical health are so frail right now.”

“Matt and I brought Mister Estevan’s body back with us,” Adam continued. “I’ve . . . taken the liberty of dropping him off at the undertaker’s. I told Mister Chaney that someone would contact him in the next day or so about final arrangements.”

“Thank you, Adam.” Lily rose. Adam and Crystal followed suit. “I’m afraid the two of you will have to excuse a silly, frightened old woman, but . . . I just don’t have the heart to tell her. Not tonight.”

“You don’t have the heart to tell who . . . about what, Mrs. Martin?”

Three heads, three pairs of eyes all turned toward the open parlor door in unison. They were astonished to find Maria Estevan, clad in a night gown and bathrobe, borrowed from the doctor’s wife. She also wore a while ruffled mob cap over her short cropped hair.

“Mrs. Estevan . . . you shouldn’t be up.”

“You’ve NOT answered my question, Mrs. Martin.”

“Mrs. Estevan, this is Adam Cartwright,” Crystal McShane quickly introduced them.

Maria turned and offered Adam a wan smile, along with her hand. “Mister Cartwright and I have already met, Mrs. McShane. My . . . my husband and I had the pleasure of traveling here from Sacramento in his company.”

“He . . . has news of Mister Estevan,” Crystal said quietly, drawing an uncertain, anxious look from Lily.

Maria turned toward Adam expectantly.

Adam wished with all his heart, with every fiber of his being that he didn’t have to utter his next words. For a long desperate moment, he wracked his brains searching for a way, a kind and gentle way . . . .

“Mister Cartwright, my husband is dead . . . isn’t he.” It was a statement of fact, not a question.

“Yes, Mrs. Estevan. I’m sorry.”

“I . . . I think I’ve known all along,” Maria said in a bland tone of voice, completely void of any and all emotion.

“Mister Wilson . . . he’s an old friend of mine . . . he and I brought your husband’s body back with us, so that . . . that he might be given a decent burial,” Adam said, his voice shaking. “I took the liberty of . . . of taking him to the undertaker.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright,” Maria said in a voice barely audible. “If you might do me one more favor?”

“Certainly, Mrs. Estevan. Anything,” Adam immediately agreed.

“I would appreciate it if you would ask the undertaker to prepare Lorenzo’s body as best he can for private viewing,” Maria said. “I . . . after two weeks, I . . . I realize there can’t possibly be much to work with, but . . . I want to see him. I want to see my husband one last time before . . . before I bury him.”

“I will let Mister Chaney know what your wishes are, Mrs. Estevan,” Adam promised.

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright. I deeply appreciate everything you’ve done. Now . . . if you would all excuse me, I . . . I’d like to be alone now.”

“Would you like me to see you back upstairs to the guestroom?” Crystal asked.

“Thank you, Mrs. McShane, but I can manage. I . . . I really need to be alone right now. I’m sorry, if I seem ungracious . . . . ”

“I understand,” Crystal said very quietly.

“Good night, Mrs. Martin . . . Mrs. McShane,” Maria said. “Mister Cartwright, thank you again, very much, for all that you have done . . . for Lorenzo and for me.”

“If there’s anything else I can do, Mrs. Estevan, please don’t hesitate to ask,” Adam said. “For now, I bid all of you good night.”

“Mister Adam. Hop Sing glad you back. Start to worry,” Hop Sing greeted the eldest of Ben Cartwright’s issue with a warm smile, as he trudged through the back door into the kitchen. “Supper ready ten minutes.”

“None for me, Hop Sing, please . . . . ” Adam said wearily. “I . . . I’m not hungry.”

Hop Sing frowned. “Not good. After almost whole week on trail . . . no good Mister Adam not eat supper.”

“Please, Hop Sing, I’m ‘way too tired to argue with you,” Adam begged. “Right now, I just plain and simply want to go to bed. I would appreciate a little hot water, so I can wash.”

“Hop Sing fix,” the Cartwright family’s chief cook promised.

“Hey! Look who’s back!” Hoss exclaimed with a big happy smile, as Adam stepped through the kitchen door into the dining room, where the rest of his family was gathering for supper.

“Adam, did you and Matt find that stagecoach?” Joe asked.

“Not tonight,” Adam groaned wearily. “Please . . . no questions tonight.”

“All you gotta say is yes or no,” Joe pressed.

Ben caught the murderous glare in Adam’s eyes, as he turned to face his youngest brother. “Joseph, leave it be,” he said sternly.

Joe opened his mouth to protest, only to snap it shut again, when he got a good, hard look at the steely glint in his father’s dark brown eyes. “Yes, Sir,” he murmured softly, as he dropped down into the chair on Hoss’ left .

“Adam, supper’s almost ready, if— ”

“I’m not hungry, Pa,” Adam said curtly. “I already told Hop Sing. All I want right now is a good wash, then bed.”

“Alright, Son,” Ben said quietly.

“Good night, Pa,” Adam said, as he walked past the table toward the great room and the steps leading to the second story, “and good night, Hoss, Joe, and you, too, Stacy. I . . . I’m sorry for not being very good company tonight— ”

“That’s alright, Adam,” Ben said. “You g’won up and get to bed. We’ll see you in the morning.”

They ran together, down past the long line of happy well wishers, laughing, with her gloved hand tucked trustingly within his, ducking their faces away from the rice raining down upon their heads. He paused at the open door of the stagecoach to gather her in his arms and plant a good, sound kiss upon those luscious ruby red lips.

“I love you, Teresa,” he said, as their lips parted.

“. . . and I love you, Adam,” she declared, throwing her arms around his neck with a wild, and joyous abandon.

“Hey, c’mon, Oldest Brother of Mine,” Joe teased, favoring him and his new bride with that cocky, boyish smile of his. “Better can the mushy stuff, or else you’re gonna miss the stage.”

Laughing, he reached out to affectionately tousle that mop of often unruly curls atop Joe’s head, before turning to hug his father, and Hoss. Teresa, meanwhile, had turned to bid her own parents, and her brothers, good-bye . . . .

The next thing he knew, they were in a stage coach, heading in a south easterly direction. Their final destination: Santa Fe. Mister Dawson from Carson City was driving. He and the team of horses making good time. VERY good time. Johnny Jacobs rode shot gun.

Inside, the stage was packed to near full capacity.

There was an older couple, aged in their late-fifties, occupying the seat beside them. They had boarded the stage in Carson City, taking the seats vacated by the Cruthers, after illness had forced them to disembark. Married now for almost thirty-six years, they seemed to take great delight in Teresa and himself, wed barely thirty-six HOURS.

On the seat directly across from them sat a young man, returning home after completion of his freshman year in college. He had told them he was studying medicine, that someday, he wanted to be a doctor. He looked so young, so fresh of face, he and Teresa couldn’t help thinking he belonged back in the first grade.

Another young man with carrot colored hair, a face full of freckles and a big, toothy grin, sat next to the college freshman. He made his living selling encyclopedias. He had a large truck on top of the stage, that contained a brand new twenty volume set, destined for a customer in Freedonia, one of the many stops between Virginia City and Santa Fe..

On the other side of the young salesman sat a young girl, a little older than Dio . . . traveling in the company her stern duenna, whose dimensions roughly equaled the same as his biggest brother, Hoss. Bright, vivacious, animated, she chatted almost non-stop with Teresa about her upcoming Quinceañera, until her duenna sternly admonished her as to the virtues of listening to others once in awhile. They occupied the seats vacated by Sallie Johnson and her daughter, Annie. Like Teresa and himself, they, too were bound for Santa Fe.

Johnny Jacobs . . . .

Mister Dawson, from Carson City . . . .

The older couple . . . .

The salesman . . . .

The college freshman . . . .

The young girl and her duenna . . . .

The newly weds, himself and Teresa . . . .

Suddenly, he was filled with a heavy, almost unbearable sense of foreboding.

Then, the stagecoach began to slow.

“No.

Don’t stop . . . .

Oh, God . . .

Please!

DON’T STOP!”

But, the coach did stop . . . finally.

There were four men up ahead, standing in a straight line, stretched across the dry, dusty, sand yellow road. They stood with their backs to the sun. He couldn’t see their faces, nor make out any other distinguishing characteristics. Only a vague, general outline. Yet, he knew them. Somewhere, buried very deeply inside himself, he knew them intimately.

Next, he heard the sound of gunfire.

Then, suddenly, he found himself struggling . . . struggling harder than he could remember ever having struggled his entire life . . . to free himself. All of the other passengers were gone. Vanished, as if they had never been. The driver, Dawson, and Johnny Jacobs both lay up near the front of the stagecoach, with their hands tied behind their backs, and half their heads blown away.

“No! Dear God, no . . . please . . . please don’t do this . . . . ”

It was Teresa, his beloved wife for all of a day and a half now. Glancing up, he saw her clasped tight in the arms of one of the robbers, struggling mightily to extricate herself. The man seized hold of a generous fistful of her long, luxurious dark tresses and yanked her head back, forcing her to look into his face.

“Yes . . . struggle! Struggle for all you’re worth, you slut! I LIKE ‘em feisty!” the man exhorted and taunted her in a menacing tone of voice.
Overcome by near blind, murderous rage, he renewed his own struggles, against the men holding him back in a desperate bid to free himself.

Another man sidled up on the other side of his wife. He and the first man half dragged, half carried her around to the other side of the stagecoach, out of his sight. Her heart wrenching sobbing quickly escalated to screams of agony as the two men forced themselves upon her, taking from both of them something infinitely precious.

With a scream borne now of pure, unadulterated, primal murderous rage, he broke free of the men holding him, and barreled headlong around to the other side of the stagecoach. He rounded the corner only to be shoved back, hard . . . once, then once again, as a pair of bullets slammed into his chest.

As he stumbled across the burning desert sand, his eyes shifted from the still smoking gun barrel, to his wife, lying at the feet of the men who had so grievously abused her, clad now in the torn, bloodied remains of her chemise, her face filled with grief, horror, and despair.

“You’re pathetic, Adam Cartwright,” the man laughed, “you’re the pathetic son of a rich man, who never . . . ever . . . had to do a lick o’ honest day’s work in his whole pathetic, miserable life.”

Those words, that voice, made hoarse by many long years of keeping himself falling down drunk nearly every waking minute of everyday . . . and worst of all, that cruel laughter, harsh and grating, with no joy, no mirth . . . .

No! It couldn’t be . . . .

It wasn’t possible!

He was dead!

“I keep tellin’ ya . . . I AIN’T dead, you miserable excuse for a human being.” The man laughed again as the shadows, obscuring his face moved and shifted. “For YOU, I’ll never be dead. No matter where you go, I’ll always be there . . . even if ya can’t see me, I’ll STILL be there, always watching . . . always waiting”

It was Randy Paine, laughing . . . laughing as he had that night, when . . . .

“No!”

He stumbled, and pitched backwards, collapsing hard against the men who had held him before. He knew them, too. Their names were Jim Gann and Frank Preston. They were the men, he saw playing poker in a saloon in Eastgate, who later robbed him in the desert, not only of the five thousand dollars he carried tucked away in his wallet, but of his horse, his supplies, his canteen, and rifle.

Of any and all chances of survival.

But, they, too were dead. Shot down in self defense by the sheriff over in Salt Flats. That’s what he had been told . . . .

He heard Teresa cry out once again. Adam. Over and over, begging, half in anger, half in prayer. Adam . . . Adam . . . Adam . . . .

He had never, in all his life, ever heard such terrible depths of hopelessness, despair, and grief that he heard in his wife’s voice now. “I’m sorry, Teresa,” he sobbed as the men holding him now released him . . . as his body collapsed onto the desert sands with a soft, sickening thud.

“I’m sorry . . . . ”

“So sorry . . . . ”

“So terribly sorry I . . . that I couldn’t help you when you needed my help the most . . . . ”

“ . . . and worst than that, now . . . now when you need ME the most . . . I have to leave you to face this alone.”

Then, a shadow rose blocking the blinding glare of the desert sun overhead. It was the other man who had raped, who had violated his wife. Though he couldn’t see the man’s face, he knew him by the general outlines, the shape of his head . . . .

. . . by the play of sunlight on hair gone mostly silver gray . . . .

. . . by the sound of his mocking laughter, echoing in his ears.

“Well, Cartwright?” he demanded, his voice filled with smug, contemptuous triumph.

“No . . . . ”

Laughter. That same horrible maniacal laughter he heard day in and day out as he sweated and labored to work that man’s worthless claim. “Surely you MUST want to kill me now . . . . ”

“This can’t be happening.”

“ . . . after what I’ve done to your wife?!”

“This . . .

. . . can’t . . .

. . . POSSIBLY . . .

. . . be happening . . .

DAMMIT, YOU’RE DEAD . . .

“WHY IN THE HELL DON’T YOU STAY DEAD?!” Adam screamed as his eyes suddenly snapped wide open. He found himself consumed with murderous rage, in a strange dark room, with sweat flowing, oozing from every pore in his body, like swift flowing rivers, despite the night chill in the air surrounding him.

Next came the near frantic, rapid fire staccato beat of knuckles against the fast closed door to the room in which he found himself. “Adam? Adam, it’s Joe. You alright in there?”

Joe?

Then he remembered.

Teresa, thank God, was safe . . . safe with their children back home in Sacramento, while he was here . . . in Nevada, in Virginia City, with his pa, his brothers and sister, and Hop Sing, staying in a house belonging to a couple he barely knew.

Peter Kane . . . Randy Paine . . . even Jim Gann and Frank Preston . . . were all many years dead.

None of the events in that horrible nightmare had ever happened . . . at least, not to him.

“Hey, Adam, what’s going on in there? You all right?” Joe called again from without, the worry and concern in his voice loud and clear.

“I . . . I’m f-fine,” Adam stammered, trying desperately to recover at least a small measure of his wits.

The door flew open, nearly exploding right off its hinges. Joe strode briskly into the room, without waiting for permission or invitation. “You don’t SOUND fine, Adam.”

Adam inwardly bristled against Joe’s statement of the painfully obvious, and against his brazen, even rude, intrusion his privacy.

“Now c’mon, Adam . . . what’s going on? I heard you scream— ”

“I . . . had . . . a n-nightmare,” Adam admitted with grudging reluctance through clenched teeth, feeling as if he had somehow let his youngest brother down. “I’m all right now.”

The penetrating, all-knowing, all-seeing glare on Joe’s face, so very much like Pa’s, told Adam that his youngest brother saw right through the lie with almost embarrassing clarity. “Adam, you’re sweating, your hands are shaking . . . you are NOT all right.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I . . . WILL . . . be . . . all right,” Adam said slowly, offering his youngest brother a smile meant to reassure. The sharpening intensity of Joe’s glare told him that he had failed miserably. “I’ll be fine, Joe. Honest. I’ll be fine. All I need— ”

“Adam? Joe? What’s going on?”

Adam and Joe both turned and found their father standing framed in the open door way, with his robe hanging open over his nightshirt, his hair mussed, and eyes half closed.

“Boys, is everything alright?”

“Ask Adam,” Joe snapped, as he suddenly turned heel and left the room.

Ben stood, watching his youngest son’s retreating back, with a perplexed frown for a moment, before turning his attention to his oldest. “Adam? What was THAT all about?” he asked, as he moved across the room, toward his son’s bedside.

“Nothing, Pa. Sorry I woke you,” Adam murmured contritely.

Ben noted Adam’s pallor, the sheen of perspiration across his forehead, and his trembling hands, with grave concern. He sat down on the edge of the bed, as he had done long years ago when the man before him was just a boy, and touched the back of his hand to his son’s forehead.

“I’m not sick, Pa,” Adam said irritably.

“SOMETHING’S troubling you, Son.”

Adam flinched away from his father’s dark, penetrating gaze, feeling horribly exposed, almost as if he had somehow been stripped naked and raped, as his wife had been in that terrible dream. “I’ll be all right, Pa, honest,” he said a little too quickly.

“Adam, is . . . is everything alright between you and Teresa?”

“Teresa and I are doing just fine,” Adam replied, taken aback by the question, surprised and outraged his father could even think such a thing.

“How about the children?”

“They’re fine, too. Pa . . . what’s this all about? Why the sudden concern about my marriage and my children?!”

“Adam, I don’t know WHAT’S wrong, but I know SOMETHING is,” Ben said, “and HAS been for quite awhile. I’ve not said anything before this because I had thought . . . whatever it is . . . that you would work it out on your own. But, that doesn’t seem to be happening. If anything, it’s grown worse. MUCH worse. Your actions in the jail this afternoon— ”

“Pa, I don’t want to talk about it,” Adam said in a voice that brought all the bitter cold of dead winter into the room, and erected a barrier between father and son higher, more insurmountable than the mountains surrounding them.

Ben sighed softly, feeling helpless and frustrated. He wanted so much to take his oldest son into his arms, as he had when he was a small boy . . . as he could even now with Joe, Stacy, and occasionally Hoss . . . and hold him close, to give to him of the abundance of love, of strength and comfort he always had in his heart to give to his children in their times of need. But, Adam held him off now, as he had since he was seven years old.

There were two exceptions . . . .

The first time was after that last Ash Hallow dream, the one more terrible, more frightening than all the others.

The second and the only time Adam, as a grown man, had allowed his father to gather him in his arms, and really hold him close as he sobbed out his anguish, was the day he, Hoss, and Joe had found him walking nearly mindless through the desert, dragging the dead body of a man named Peter Kane tied down to a travois.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“I . . . WILL . . . be all right,” Adam said in a dead monotone, his eyes glued to his hands, tightly clasped on the quilt covering him.

Ben nodded, as he stiffly rose from his seat on the edge of Adam’s bed. “Alright, Son, I’ll . . . see you in the morning, then,” he said listlessly. “Good night, Adam.”

“Good night, Pa.”

“Good morning, breakfast ready,” Hop Sing announced, grinning from ear to ear, as he entered the dining room carrying a large serving platter, piled high with steaming hot cakes in carefully balanced in one hand, and a bowl full of fluffy, yellow scrambled eggs cradled in the other.

He noted with dismay and concern, that the family members who had come to the table, Mister Cartwright, Mister Hoss, and Little Joe, were too quiet this morning. Apart from mumbled, barely audible, barely even discernable good mornings, Papa and boys hadn’t spoken at all. Mister Cartwright seemed lost in the very private world of his own thoughts, troubling ones judging from the uncertain look on his face, and the great sadness in his eyes. Mister Hoss and Little Joe looked over at each over occasionally, worried and anxious, wanting to do something, but not knowing what.

Miss Stacy’s chair was empty, sure sign she had overslept this morning. Not that Hop Sing could have faulted her for that. She WAS still recovering from the terrible injuries she had sustained as a result of the fire that had taken their home . . . that had damn near taken THEM as well. Plus all that had happened in the wee hours of the dark morning with that nightmare Mister Adam had . . . .

Hop Sing dolefully shook his head. Even with all that, it was still very unusual for Miss Stacy to oversleep.

It was ADAM’S absence at the table, however, that disturbed and worried Hop Sing the most. Like Miss Stacy, he, too was an early riser. Before leaving the Ponderosa and the house of his papa to make his own way in the world, Adam, like his young sister now, more often rose with the sun to get in a ride out to Ponderosa Plunge, or someplace else just as beautiful, to contemplate the awesome magnificence of that part of the world he once called home.

Of course Mister Adam HAD spent the last six days and nights out on the trail, something rarely, if ever, part of the lifestyle he now enjoyed out in Sacramento. Spending the better part of the daylight hours on horseback, the nights sleeping out in the ground, all the while traveling through some of the hardest country around would have wearied Mister Hoss , Little Joe, and even Miss Stacy, all of whom were well used to that sort of thing. Mister Adam wasn’t, not now, and like everyone else, HE wasn’t getting any younger either.

Still, for Mister Adam to sleep in past the stroke of seven was very unusual.

“Ummm UM! Nothin’ like a good, hearty breakfast before goin’ out t’ put in a full day’s work,” Hoss declared with a broad, appreciative grin, as reached up to relieve Hop Sing of the bowl, containing the scrambled eggs.

“Where Mister Adam, Miss Stacy?!” he demanded, casting a pointed glare at the two chairs that yet remained empty.

“Sorry, Hop Sing,” Stacy yawned, as she hobbled slowly into the dining room. Though she had taken a few moments to wash her face and run a comb through her hair, she was still wearing her nightshirt, robe, and a single slipper. “I didn’t MEAN to oversleep this morning.”

“I’m sorry, Stacy. It certainly WASN’T my intention to rudely wake everyone up out of a sound sleep last night, either,” Adam said, angry and very much on the defensive, as he entered a few steps behind his sister.

Stacy stared over at the oldest of her three brothers, open mouthed with shock, as he slipped past her. “Adam, I wasn’t— ”

“I SAID I was sorry,” Adam snapped. “Can we just forget it?”

Stacy’s face immediately darkened with anger.

“Come on, Li’l Sister, sit yourself down here ‘n have some breakfast,” Hoss said very quickly, patting the empty seat beside him, on his right.

Stacy mutely nodded, as the sharp, angry retort sitting on the tip of her tongue evaporated under her biggest brother’s earnest gaze, begging her to please hold her peace.

“Sit down, Mister Adam,” Hop Sing ordered, gesturing to the remaining empty chair. “Best eat when hot.”

“I’m not very hungry this morning, Hop Sing,” Adam said stiffly. “I’ll just have coffee, if you don’t mind.”

“No good!” Hop Sing declared, sparing no effort to conceal his vexation and his concern. “Last night, Mister Adam come home, breath smell of beer. Mister Adam no eat supper, today Mister Adam no eat breakfast. No good.”

“Hop Sing, I’m NOT hungry,” Adam reiterated with a touch of asperity.

Hop Sing glared over at Adam as he set the platter of hot cakes down on the table next to Joe, then abruptly turned heel and strode at a very brisk pace back toward the kitchen door, muttering a long string of bleak invectives under his breath in Chinese.

“Adam, you ok?” Joe asked.

“I wish everyone would stop asking me that,” Adam returned through clenched teeth.

“Well, maybe everyone WOULD stop asking that if YOU’D stop behaving like a lunatic,” Joe immediately shot right back.

“Joe!” Hoss exclaimed, making eye contact with his younger brother, and shaking his head.

Joe glared over at Hoss, seething with anger and frustration, but kept silent. A strained silence fell over the entire family.

“Pa . . . . ” Adam ventured in a voice barely audible, taking great care to avoid looking into the faces, most especially the eyes of his father, brothers, and sister.

“Yes, Adam?” Ben responded without looking up. His head remained bowed, his eyes pointedly fixed on the rim of his plate, at the place of twelve o’clock.

“I really AM sorry . . . about . . . about last night, and . . . for what happened yesterday afternoon at the jail.”

“It’s all right, Son. Consider both matters forgotten,” Ben replied in a wooden monotone, drawing a sharp glance filled with complete bewilderment and grave concern from his younger sons and only daughter.

“Thank you,” Adam murmured softly, his words stilted and formal. “I appreciate that very much.” As he reached for the coffee pot in the middle of the table, he was all too aware of three pairs of eyes intently watching every move he made. “Stacy . . . . ”

“Yes, Adam?” she responded warily, every muscle in her body tensed, like a cougar ready to spring on its prey the instant it came within range.

“I’m sorry I jumped all over you just now,” Adam apologized. “I . . . I guess I’m not as used to spending nearly a week out on the trail as I once was.” His excuse sounded lame even in his own ears.
“ ‘S ok, Adam,” Stacy replied. “Like PA just said . . . consider it forgotten.”

Adam curtly nodded his thanks, as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“You want anything in that, Adam?” Joe asked.

“No . . . thank you. Black is just fine.” He set the coffee pot back down on the table, and blew gently across the steaming surface, heartily wishing his younger brothers and sister would turn their attention elsewhere . . . ANY where, but on him.

“Say, Adam?”

“Yes, Hoss?”

“I was just thinkin’ . . . . ”

“ . . . and?” Adam prompted.

“Well, I’m gonna be headin’ out t’ the lumber camps and the saw mill tomorrow, t’ see how things are comin’ along on them railroad ties,” Hoss said, as he speared a generous helping of hot cakes from the serving platter. “If ya wanna tell me what ya need as far as buildin’ material goes, I can— ”

“Dammit, first Joe . . . now YOU!” Adam exploded.

“A-Adam, I only— ” Hoss protested, astonished by his older brother’s sudden angry outburst.

“I’ll have ALL of you know, I’ve put in a lot of good, hard work on that house,” Adam angrily cut his biggest brother off, mid-sentence, “and in case the lot of you have forgotten, things are moving along AHEAD of schedule.”

“Hey, Adam, I’m sorry I— ” Joe began, feeling very strongly that somehow an apology was in order, without having the slightest idea why.

“I’ll see you at supper,” Adam said curtly. He downed his coffee in a single gulp, then banged his empty coffee cup down onto the table before turning heel and walking away, leaving his father, brothers, sister, even Hop Sing, staring after his retreating back, too stunned to move or even speak.

It was the sound of the front door opening, then closing, as Adam left the house, that galvanized Joe to action. “THAT does it!” he angrily muttered under his breath. Before anyone could move or even think to stop him, he had shot right out of his chair and set off, beating a straight path toward the kitchen door.

Joe found his oldest brother in the small stable out back, in the process of saddling Sport II. “Adam— ”

A short, curt, exasperated sigh exploded from between Adam’s lips, thinned with anger. “What the hell do YOU want?”

“For starters, I’d like to know just what the hell’s wrong with YOU,” Joe angrily returned without missing a beat.

“None of your business,” Adam shot right back, as the adjusted his cinch and securely buckled it.

Joe defiantly planted himself in the middle of the stable door, now standing wide open, effectively barring Adam’s egress, with arms folded tight across his chest. “I beg to differ, Older Brother . . . especially when you’re jumping all over the rest of us with both feet every time WE so much as say, ‘BOO!’ ”

“Get out of my way.”

“Ok. Fine. DON’T talk to me,” Joe said, his words and syllables terse and clipped. “I’m the little brother, the baby of the family, who in YOUR eyes, doesn’t know or understand diddlysquat! All right! I can accept that! But, Adam, please . . . I’m beggin’ ya, please! Don’t shut PA out.”

The change of tone from impassioned anger to ardent pleading stunned Adam into silence.

“Talk to him, Adam, please,” Joe pressed, taking full advantage his oldest brother’s momentary pause. “I don’t know what happened between the two of you last night after I left the room, but it’s hurt him . . . it’s hurt him deeply.”

“I can’t see it.”

“Maybe its because you’re so wrapped up in your own self pity you don’t give a damn about anybody ELSE,” Joe spat contemptuously.

“Joseph, THAT will be enough.” It was Ben. He stood behind Joe, with back stiffly erect, feet shoulder width apart, hands at his sides, loosely curled into a pair of formidable looking fists. Both Adam and Joe flinched against the dark, angry glare he leveled at both of them.

“But, Pa— ” Joe started to protest.

“I SAID, ‘That will be enough,’ ” Ben said again, in a stern tone that brooked no further argument, as he walked the remaining distance between himself and his youngest son.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Now g’won back into the house. I want to speak with your brother alone.”

Joe nodded, and after one last angry glare over at Adam, abruptly turned heel and started walking toward the back door, still standing open.

“Pa, if you came out here to ask me yet again if I’m all right— ” Adam began, once he felt sure his youngest brother had done as their father had bid.

“No, I HAVEN’T come out here to ask you yet again whether or not you’re all right, because its clear as the nose on my face that you’re NOT all right,” Ben angrily cut his oldest son off, mid-sentence.

“I’m sorry,” Adam responded in a sullen tone, as he turned his attention to checking the fastenings on his bridle.

“Adam, will you please LOOK at me when I’m speaking to you?!”

Adam sighed and sarcastically rolled his eyes. “Pa, I am NOT a five year old child . . . I’m a grown man— ”

Ben seized Adam by the shoulder and forcibly turned him so that they were eyeball to eyeball, their faces bare inches apart. “Then ACT like one,” the former growled.

“What the hell’s THAT supposed to mean?” Adam demanded, angry and outraged.

“It means get hold of yourself and stop this business of sniping at me . . . at Hop Sing . . . at your brothers and sister . . . and at anyone else who says something the wrong way or looks at you cross-eyed,” Ben said sternly. “If you can’t work through whatever it is that’s troubling you on your own— ”

“Alright!” Adam snapped, rudely cutting his father off mid-sentence. “You want to know what’s bothering me?! My brothers’ impatience!” He closed his eyes and forced himself to take a deep breath. “Ok . . . I should know by now to expect it of Joe. But Hoss?! Pa, he’s always been the very heart and soul of patience . . . and right now, when I really need that the most— ”

“Adam, I don’t think Hoss was trying to put any kind of pressure on you,” Ben said in a more kindly tone. “He was simply going to offer to take a list of whatever you’re going to need in the way of building material out to the saw mill when he goes over there tomorrow morning.”

“Pa, how can I possibly give Hoss a list of what I need . . . when I don’t have the final drawings completed yet?” Adam demanded.

“Y-You . . . you haven’t finished the final drawings . . . yet?” Ben echoed, mildly surprised.

“No,” Adam replied, angry, and very much on the defensive. “I haven’t.” . . . and all he had to show for his efforts was a waste can, full to overflowing with paper wads, containing all his fits and starts. “You want to lambast me about that, too?”

“Adam, no! I’m not criticizing you,” Ben said. There was a desperate pleading note in his voice. “Neither are Hoss and Joe. We know you’re doing a fine job on that house. A real FINE job . . . and we appreciate it.”

“Sorry,” Adam muttered under his breath. It seemed like every time he turned around, every time he so much as opened his mouth, he was apologizing to someone for something. He took hold of Sport II’s reins and led him out of the stable, into the yard.

Ben silently followed Adam, his troubled thoughts churning a mile a minute. He would have accepted this kind of moodiness from his youngest son a given, barring any kind of disrespect of course. “Even so . . . Joe’s temperament’s evened out a lot in the last year or so,” he mused in uneasy silence. He had even accepted the strict, sometimes even harsh restrictions forced upon him by his convalescence with a mature grace that almost certainly wouldn’t have been there this time last year. Not that any of it had been easy of course . . . .

By contrast, Adam had always been the cool, stoic one. He was certainly capable of fierce, white hot anger, when sufficiently provoked, but such occasions were rare, even when he was a very young child. While not easy going like Hoss, he had never, not as far back as Ben could remember, ever displayed this kind of mercurial temperament.

Granted, the terrible tragedy that had overtaken the Estevans, Adam’s traveling companions from Sacramento to Virginia City, was certainly more than enough to make of blood of any decent human being, man or woman, boil. His own certainly did, especially at the thought of his own daughter, Stacy, suffering through the horror Maria Estevan was forced to endure. However, in Ben’s mind, all that couldn’t adequately explain the sullen, black mood that seemed to be taking possession of his oldest son. There were deeper currents, running swift and silent, at work here.

Ben fervently hoped and prayed that he might discover what lay at the heart of the matter . . . before whatever lay at the heart of the matter devoured Adam body and soul . . . .

. . . or better yet . . . that Adam himself would.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“Would you like to come out and see how things are progressing?”

“Today?”

Adam nodded.

“I’d like to come, Adam,” Ben said. “I’d like that very much, but I don’t want you to feel like I’m checking up on you, or trying to rush you, or put undue pressure on you.”

“Pa, I WANT you to see what we’ve done.” There was an almost childlike pleading on Adam’s voice. “If you’d like, you can bring Stacy and Joe along. A breath of fresh air and a change of scenery would probably do them both a world of good.”

“You sure it would be alright?”

“Yes, Pa . . . it’ll be fine,” Adam replied. “After you’ve seen the foundations of the new house, I’ll come back with you . . . so I can finish those drawings, and give Hoss my order before he rides out to the saw mill tomorrow morning.”

Ben smiled, delighted and relieved to see something of the Adam he knew so well back in the face and the eyes of the man standing before him. “Alright . . . I’ll come out this afternoon,” he said, “and if Joe and Stacy want to come, I’ll bring them along, too.”

“Great! I’ll see you later.”

Upon reentering the house, Ben found himself staring into four stunned, pale faces, four pairs of eyes filled with apprehension and concern.

“Pa?” Hoss spoke up first, as Ben closed the front door behind him. “Is Adam—?”

“For now,” Ben replied. He, then, turned to his two youngest children. “How would the pair of you like to make a trip out to the Ponderosa this afternoon?”

“Oh, Pa . . . I’d LOVE it!” Stacy exclaimed, her bright blue eyes shining with pure delight. “Can I visit with Blaze Face, too? Please?”

“I suppose it would be alright . . . just so long as YOU remain on one side of that corral fence, and HE stays on the other,” Ben said firmly.

“I will, Pa,” Stacy eagerly promised.

“Tell ya what, Li’l Sister . . . I’ll leave some o’ those tasty treats that Blaze Face likes in the pocket o’ your jacket,” Hoss said.

“Thank you, Hoss,” Stacy said gratefully. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! If I had you right here, I’d give you a great big hug and a kiss.”

Hoss grinned. “Now that’s something I can take care of real easy,” he said, as he walked over to stand within arms’ reach of his young sister.

Hop Sing gamely took charge of her crutches, as Stacy threw her arms around the biggest of her three brothers, and squeezed tight. She then, stood up on the toes of her good foot, and with a steadying hand from Hoss to keep balance, planted a great big kiss on his cheek. Hoss hugged her back and kissed her forehead.

“Now you behave yourself, ‘n mind what Pa says,” Hoss gently admonished her as he let her go, then slipped an arm back around her waist to steady her, as Hop Sing handed her back her crutches.

“I will, Hoss,” Stacy eagerly promised.

Ben, meanwhile, turned expectantly to his youngest son. “Well, Joe? You up for a trip out to the Ponderosa with your sister and me?”

“Would you ‘n Stacy mind too terribly much if . . . well, if I sat today’s trip out?” Joe asked, drawing worried glances from his father, his brother, sister, and Hop Sing.

“Are you feeling alright?” Ben asked, as he automatically eyeballed his youngest son, from head to toe, with an anxious frown. He reached over across the table, and touched the back of his hand to Joe’s forehead.

“I’m not coming down with anything, if THAT’S what you mean,” Joe replied. “I . . . well, I was kinda thinking that . . . after last night . . . AND this morning . . . maybe it would be better all the way around if I stayed out of Adam’s way today.”

“I’m sure it would be alright if you came with your sister and me,” Ben said. “In fact, ADAM was the one who suggested that I bring the both of you.”

“Well, he’s hardly gonna tell YOU to come and just bring Stacy, Pa,” Joe pointed out. “I . . . also didn’t sleep real well last night, and my ribs are feeling a mite tender.”

“Will you be alright by yourself?” Ben asked.

Stacy looked over at her brother and smiled. “He won’t be alone, Pa,” she said.

“Yes, he will. I gave Hop Sing the afternoon off so he could go and visit with his father,” Ben said.

“I wasn’t thinking about Hop Sing.”

“Then who—?!” Ben’s dark brown eyes suddenly shone with the light of revelation. A big smile slowly spread across his face. “Yes, of course. Susannah O’Brien,” he said slowly, thoughtfully. “She’s been coming into town with Hugh . . . and while HE’S visiting with Crystal over at Doc Martin’s . . . Susannah’s been coming here to visit with the two of you.” His eyes moved up to the clock hanging on the wall above the Fletchers’ sideboard. “She’s due here in about another hour or so, isn’t she?”

“Well, uhhhh . . . yeah,” Joe said.

“Stacy, if you’d rather stay and visit with your friend— ”

“Not a chance, Pa,” Stacy replied. “When it comes down to either spending a beautiful afternoon like today’s gonna be visiting with my friend cooped up in the house and or spending it with YOU out in the fresh air and sunshine . . . MY choice is pretty clear, and besides! . . . I think . . . lately . . . my friend has been coming more to visit with my brother, than with me.”

“Well, now I don’t know about THAT, Kid,” Joe murmured, as a spot of brilliant scarlet appeared on each cheek.

“I do, Grandpa,” Stacy said with a smile. “Susannah O’Brien and I have been close friends for a very long time, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her face light up like that when she sees ME.”

“I’m sure she says the same about YOU . . . and HER brother, Jason,” Joe teased.

“She DOES,” Stacy agreed, her complexion a bit ruddier than usual.

“Stacy, you’d best get on upstairs and get yourself dressed . . . and Joseph, YOU need to make yourself presentable, if you’re going to be visiting with a nice young woman,” Ben said, with a wry, pointed glance at Joe’s unruly mop of curls, and the thin sheen of stubble covering the lower portion of his face.

“I’ll be ready in two shakes, Pa.” Stacy said, before turning and heading for the stairs.

“As for YOU, Young Man,” Ben said, favoring his youngest son with a stern glare. “I expect you to conduct yourself like a gentleman.”

“Pa . . . a guy with broken ribs on the mend . . . who’s STILL limping from a badly sprained ankle has no choice BUT to conduct himself like a gentleman,” Joe sighed with dramatic melancholy.

Ben nodded curtly, satisfied with Joe’s answer. Yet, somehow, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that somewhere . . . somehow . . . his youngest son had a hidden agenda.

“Good morning, Susannah,” Joe greeted one of his sister’s two best friends with his boldest smile, the one about which his own mother, Marie, had on many occasions, declared would someday leave a string of broken hearts pining in its wake. “Please . . . come in.”

“Where IS everybody?” she asked, with an impish, knowing look in her deep chocolate brown eyes, as she demurely entered the house, firmly closing the door behind her.

“Pa gave Hop Sing the afternoon off so he could go look in on HIS pa,” Joe replied, “and Pa . . . MY pa, that is, took Stacy out to see the progress on our new house.”

“Obviously you didn’t go with them.”

“Obviously.” Joe’s smile began to fade. “Susannah?”

“Yes, Joe?”

“I, uhhh . . . have a favor to ask of you. Hopefully you came in your buggy?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Susannah replied. “Pa’s arthritis has been acting up lately, and sitting a horse isn’t a prospect he particularly relishes much right now.”

“You left him over at the doc’s?”

She nodded.

“Susannah, would you mind giving me a lift down to Sheriff Coffee’s office?”

“Would YOU mind telling me what for?”

“That’s only fair, I suppose, but you’ve gotta promise not to tell anybody,” Joe begged.

Susannah didn’t exactly cotton to the idea of keeping secrets from her father and older sister, but she also knew that Joe Cartwright would never ask this of her unless there was a very good reason. “Alright,” she agreed. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Adam,” Joe said, as he led her over to the settee next to the fireplace. “Something’s wrong, Susannah, something’s terribly wrong, and . . . well, frankly . . . I’m worried.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“You remember Adam . . . how he was before he left the Ponderosa and Virginia City for good,” Joe began. “Always so cool, calm, and collected. Sure, he could get madder ‘n a wet hen sometimes, but not often . . . and it would have to really be something.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“He’s been edgy, Susannah.”

“A lot of people have been edgy since we found out about that missing stagecoach and all the horrible things that happened to Mrs. Estevan,” Susannah pointed out. “Edgy and outraged! SO edgy and outraged, the main topic of conversation at the Silver Dollar these days seems to be why about why bother with a trial. That what Pa says, anyway.”

“Hoo boy!” Joe chortled, with a sarcastic roll of his eyes. “I’ll bet Sheriff Coffee and Clem are real overjoyed about THAT.”

“I’m sure they are,” Susannah agreed wryly, as she sat down on the settee. “But . . . Joe, think about it. If people here in town . . . who didn’t know the Estevans from Adam ‘n Eve’s house cat before all this happened . . . are going so far as to talk lynching because what happened to them . . . well, doesn’t it stand to reason that Adam might be even MORE edgy and outraged?! After all, he had the chance to get acquainted with them on the trip out from Sacramento.”

“It’s STILL not like Adam. Susannah, you should have seen him at breakfast this morning,” Joe said miserably. “First off, Stacy comes to the table late, apologizes for oversleeping this morning and BAM! HE’S jumping all over her with both feet.”

“Uh oh. What did STACY do?” Susannah asked, knowing all too well about the ferocious Irish temper her best friend had inherited from her mother, Paris McKenna.

“Nothing. Thank goodness HOSS got to her first,” Joe replied. “When Adam sat down at the table, he and Pa both were acting like they were barely on speaking terms with each other. After Hoss got Stacy half way settled down, he tells Adam that he’s going out to the lumber camps and saw mill tomorrow, then offers to take a list of the building supplies out to the foreman at the sawmill. Adam jumped down HIS throat and MINE, too . . . and I hadn’t even said anything to him.”

“What did HOSS do?”

“Nothing. He was too shocked. At that point, I had just about all I could stand, so when Adam stormed out of the house like . . . like an immature fifteen year old, who had just been told no . . . I went after him.”

“I take it things quickly went down hill from there?”

“You take it right . . . or they WOULD have, if PA hadn’t shown up.”

“Well . . . you and Adam have NEVER quite seen eye to eye on a lot of things.”

“Sure . . . and I freely admit that it’s come down to trying to settle things with our fists more times than I care to count, but . . . he’s NEVER been like this,” Joe insisted. “There’s something else going on with Adam.”

“Why do you want to see Sheriff Coffee . . . if . . . whatever it is, had been affecting him since he arrived?”

“Because it’s grown steadily worse since he found out about that stage coach missing and since he and Matt Wilson returned yesterday?! He went straight to bed with barely a hi, how are you, I’m back, kiss my— ” Joe suddenly broke off, as two bright splotches of red appeared on his cheeks. “ . . . uuhhh . . . sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” Susannah said demurely. She refrained from adding that she said a lot worse herself in the course of things.

“You get the picture.”

“Yes. I don’t suppose its occurred to you that Adam may have been out of sorts last night because he was tired after having spent six glorious days and nights out on the trail . . . has it?”

“I’ve seen that man weary to the bone, but he’s always kept his good humor,” Joe sighed wearily. “Last night, after he woke all of us out of a sound sleep with a real beaut of a nightmare, I started wondering if something had happened while he was out with the search party . . . something that might have really unsettled him. That’s why I wanted to see Sheriff Coffee.”

“Seems to me the man you REALLY want to talk to is Matt Wilson. Didn’t the two of them end up finding that stage and . . . and Mister Estevan’s body?”

“The thought HAS crossed my mind, Susannah, but if Pa found out I went all the way out to the Square W, after begging off a trip to the Ponderosa with him and Stacy, I’d be in heap deep trouble up to my neck.”

“You will be anyway . . . after Sheriff Coffee tells your pa about you visiting HIM,” Susannah hastened to point out.

“True, but I’ll only be in KNEE deep for visiting with Sheriff Coffee,” Joe said with “that” smile.

“Joe . . . any one ever tell you you’re absolutely impossible?”

“Sure. You, ummm want me to name ‘em all alphabetically or numerically?”

Susannah sighed and rolled her eyes. “Well,” she said briskly, “ we’d best get going if we’re going to go.”

“Susannah?”

“Yes?”

“You won’t be in trouble for taking me . . . will you?” Joe asked, his smile fading.

“No,” Susannah shook her head. “I’ll just tell Pa and Crystal . . . TRUTHFULLY, I might add . . . that I was taking a convalescing friend out for a bit of fresh air . . . and for a visit with an old friend of the family.”

Sheriff Roy Coffee, with a loaded rifle resting in the crook of his arm, his other hand pointedly at his side with knuckles occasionally brushing against the handle of his holstered revolver, stood in the open door to his office, glaring at the crowd gathering on the board sidewalk outside. They were all men of varying ages and occupations, numbering approximately twenty and steadily growing.

“ . . . and you can rest assured with all the evidence we have against ‘em . . . the jury’s gonna find all three of ‘em guilty as sin,” Roy sternly addressed the angry men gathered around the door.

“Well if it’s a sure bet those . . . those ANIMALS . . . are gonna be found guilty . . . why should we even bother with a trial?” one of the men demanded. His name was Wesley McGrath. Aged in his mid-thirties, he was a ne’er-do-well, who spent more time bending elbow at the Silver Dollar and the Bucket of Blood Saloons than putting nose to the grindstone. He was a born follower, rather than leader. Unfortunately, the men he most often chose to follow, were those who ended up making some of the worst kinds of trouble.

“That YOUR opinion, Mister McGrath?! . . . or is it Ray Donnelly’s?” Roy asked, knowingly.

Wesley glared murderously at the sheriff, but said nothing.

“Sheriff Coffee, that may very well BE Ray Donnelly’s opinion, but we ALL share it,” Walt Jared declared with a curt nod of his head for emphasis. He was the younger brother of Virgil Jared, who ran the general store, along with his wife, Amelia .

Walt’s words stirred a loud murmur of ascent among the men gathered.

“Alright. The bottom line is THIS,” Roy said sternly. “The LAW says those men are entitled t’ a fair trial. Period. As sheriff, it’s my sworn duty t’ uphold the law . . . whether anybody agrees with it, or not.”

“Come ON, Roy,” an old man, standing at the edge of the crowd, now spilling out into the street demanded. “You ain’t gonna shoot down your friends ‘n neighbors t’ protect the scum you got locked up in your jail . . . is ya?”

“I sure hope it don’t come down t’ that, Zach,” Roy replied, patting his rifle for emphasis.

“Well, I hear tell the lawyer representing the scum you got locked up in there’s tryin’ t’ get the trial moved to Placerville.” It was Chad Morgan, a widower with a son and two daughters. He and his family owned a small farm a few miles east of Virginia City. He stood at the front edge of the crowd, with arms folded tightly across his chest, glaring defiantly back at the sheriff.

“Why?” someone demanded from somewhere in the back.

“ ‘Cause THEY claim those animals in there can’t get a fair trial HERE,” Chad sneered, his eyes still glued to the sheriff.

Murmurs of surprise and discontent began to circulate among the crowd gathered.

“Well, lemme tell ya somethin’ . . . the lot o’ YOU gatherin’ ‘round my office like . . . like a pack o’ jackals around a lamb or an antelope could go a real long way t’ convincin’ any judge they CAN’T git a fair trial here, if push comes down t’ shove,” Roy said, taking no pains to hide his growing anger and frustration.

“What’s the name of the lousy son-of-a-bitch that’s defendin’ the scum o’ the earth you got locked up in your jail, Sheriff?” someone standing along the outer fringes of the crowd demanded.

“I know who he is,” Dirk Alverez, a young man recently hired by Rita Mae Kirk to work as gardener and handyman at Kirk’s Hostelry. “I heard Miss Kirk ‘n her ma talkin’ ‘bout it the other day.”

“Who is it?” Walt Jared demanded.

“Who CARES?!” That was Eli Barnett.

“I do!” Walt immediately returned. “Only fittin’ we string HIM up along side his clients.”

This provoked a smattering of derisive laughter.

“Now you listen t’ me . . . ‘n you listen real good!” Roy Coffee said, raising his voice to be heard above the harsh laughter and murmuring among the men gathered. “Ain’t NONE o’ ya gonna be stringin’ up the prisoners locked up in my jail, their lawyer, or anybody else f’r that matter. First one that tries . . . . ” He let his voice trail away to an ominous silence, patting the rifle balanced in the crook of his arm for emphasis. “Now I’m sure the lot o’ have other, more important things y’ gotta do— ”

“I don’t.” It was Wesley McGrath again. “ ‘Cause I’m out of a job . . . again.”

“THAT bein’ the case, you might better spend your time LOOKIN’ for work,” Roy countered. “As for the rest of ya . . . well, it’s long PAST time you were all about your business.”

“You ain’t heard the last o’ this, Sheriff,” Wesley vowed, as the men began to slowly disburse.

Roy waited until the last man had gone before heaving a great big sigh of relief. He had prevailed in upholding the law, he had dutifully sworn to protect many, many times over the course of years, on the heels of more victorious elections than he cared to count sometimes.

THIS time.

Barely.

By the skin of his teeth.

Roy had been witness to at least a dozen or so lynchings over the course of his life. Decent men, angry, embittered, and frustrated over what they perceived to be the gross imperfections in the law. Too much talk, and worse, too much whiskey and beer to fuel the rage, in the same way too much oil or kerosene fuels a fire, and men, otherwise and at better times, law abiding, moral, and upright, become a mob, out for blood, hell-bent on murder.

Worst of all, if they ended up following through on their murderous intentions, the relief, that sense of justice having been served would elude them. It always did. The rudely sobering dawn of the morning after brought guilt in its wake to all participants, a particularly corrosive kind that ate away at a person the rest of his life . . . .

. . . and THAT was if the man lynched turned out to be guilty as sin.

Roy Coffee had seen it in folks all too often, especially in the early days . . . .

He sighed, and morosely shook his head. “I’m gittin’ too old for this,” he muttered.

“Hey . . . Sheriff Coffee!”

Roy turned, upon hearing and recognizing the voice of Joe Cartwright, noting that the young man sounded more chipper this morning than he in a long time. “Howdy, Joe . . . Susannah.” He nodded politely and touched the rim of his hat as his eyes fell on the youngest of Hugh O’Brien’s daughters walking alongside Joe.

“Good morning, Sheriff Coffee,” Susannah politely returned the greeting.

“What was THAT all about?” Joe asked, gesturing to the last of the departing crowd of men.

“They were all makin’ it clear they felt a trial for those three men locked up in the jail would be a complete waste o’ time,” Roy said, as the three went into the sheriff’s office. Susannah shot Joe a sharp ‘I-told-you-so,’ glance.

“You don’t think they’d actually . . . well, go through with anything foolish . . . do you?” Joe asked.

“I hope t’ heaven they don’t,” Roy said grimly, his voice filled with doubt. “ ‘Cause I sure don’t have the stomach for shootin’ down friends ‘n neighbors to protect men like the Carters ‘n Mister Higgins. Mind ya now, if push comes down t’ shove, I’ll do what I’ve sworn t’ do . . . . ”

“Maybe it won’t come to that, Sheriff,” Susannah suggested hopefully. “After all, you were able to talk ‘em out of it a few minutes ago.”

But, would he the NEXT time? . . . and Roy Coffee knew there WOULD be a next time. He knew it with as much certainty as he knew that the sun would rise tomorrow morning and set the following night. He smiled again for Susannah’s benefit, and for Joe’s, too. “ ‘Course it’s early yet . . . they got the whole rest o’ the day t’ cool off ‘n start thinkin’ sensible,” he said, trying to reassure his young companions with a confidence he, himself, was far from feeling.

“Good morning, Joe . . . Susannah,” Clem greeted both with a smile, as they followed Sheriff Coffee in from outside. “Hey, Joe! You’re really lookin’ GOOD.”

“Thanks, Clem,” Joe replied with that mischievous, boyish smile. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

“Thanks,” Clem retorted with a wry smile, then sobered. “Seriously, Joe, how’re you coming along?”

“Physically, I’m doing great,” Joe replied. “As you can see, I’m NOT limping much anymore.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Roy said. “Can I getcha some coffee?”

“I’d love a cup,” Susannah said immediately.

“None for me, thank you, Sheriff Coffee,” Joe politely declined.

Roy walked over to his desk, and sat down in the chair Clem had just vacated. “So . . . what can I do for ya?” he asked, looking from Joe to Susannah, then back to Joe. He wordlessly invited them to sit down with a sweeping gesture toward the chairs in front of the desk.

“Joe, you, uhhh . . . maybe want Clem and me to step outside?” Susannah asked, drawing a sharp glance of surprise from the deputy. Catching the look, she turned to Clem and smiled. “This could get kinda personal.”

“Tell ya what,” Roy said. “Clem, take a rifle with ya. You ‘n Susannah can go sit out on the bench, and kinda keep an eye out on the street. If there’s anymore trouble, let me know.”

“I will, Sheriff Coffee.”

Joe sat down in one of the chairs facing the sheriff’s desk, and waited until both Clem and Susannah had stepped outside.

“What’s this all about, Joe?” Roy asked, as a worried frown deepened the creases already present in his well lined brow.

“Adam.”

“Adam?”

“Yeah. Sheriff Coffee . . . did something happen out there on the trail?” Joe asked, coming straight to the point.

“You askin’ if somethin’ happened TO Adam?”

Joe nodded. “Either TO Adam or if something happened, maybe . . . that really upset him.”

“No, leastwise not while he was with US,” Roy replied. “He WAS kinda edgy . . . right from the git-go, but I figured it came o’ bein’ worried about the Estevans.”

“But nothing happened?” Joe pressed.

“Nope.” Roy shook his head. “Not as far as I could see.”

“How about when Adam and Matt took off on their own to look for that stage?”

“Matt told your Pa ‘n me yesterday evenin’ that he ‘n Adam found the stagecoach . . . right where Jacob Carter said they would,” Roy began slowly. “They found the bodies o’ the two drivers . . . what was left of ‘em . . . lyin’ on their stomachs all tied up like a pair o’ calves for brandin’. Both of ‘em had been shot in the back of the head.”

Joe felt the blood drain right out of his face.

“They also found the body of an older woman,” Roy continued. “She was a doo . . . a doo . . . . ” He frowned trying to remember.

“A duenna?” Joe asked.

“Yeah. THAT’S the word,” Roy said quietly. “Your pa said she’s like some kind o’ governess, or something. Anyway, she was travelin’ with a young lady fourteen goin’ on fifteen. The Carters ‘n their cohorts beat her t’ death, ‘cause she tried t’ keep ‘em from takin’ off with the girl.”

Joe suddenly felt very sick to his stomach. “Y-You mean those men back there . . . . ” he inclined his head in the general direction of the door that led back to the room where the jail cells were. “You tellin’ me those men took Mrs. Estevan and a . . . a fourteen year old girl?!”

“Yeah,” Roy replied, feeling every bit as sick as poor Joe looked.

“What happened to her?”

“Jacob Carter told us that they traded her to a band o’ renegade Indians for food,” Roy replied. “He didn’t know whether they was Paiute . . . Shoshone . . . Bannock, or whoever.”

“Charming fellas you got back there, Sheriff Coffee,” Joe said grimly, his voice shaking, “and THAT includes Crippensworth.”

“Leastwise I won’t have HIM long,” Roy said quietly. “Got word from the two fellas Scotland Yard sent to fetch him just this morning. They’ll be arriving within the next week or so t’ collect Crippensworth.”

“I’m glad to hear THAT,” Joe declared with heartfelt relief.

“I gotta admit I’M gonna be happy to see him go m’self,” Roy admitted. “I tell ya, Joe, I’ve seen more warmth in the eyes of a hungry rattlesnake.” He shuddered, then sighed. “Anyway, getting back t’ Adam, he ‘n Matt buried the bodies o’ the two stagecoach drivers ‘n the duenna. Matt said Adam wanted t’ take one last look around ‘fore they left. That’s when he found Mister Estevan’s body, lyin’ curled up on t’ floor o’ the stagecoach.”

“Didn’t they bury Mister Estevan’s body along with the others?”

Roy shook his head. “They brought Mister Estevan’s body back with ‘em. Adam said somethin’ about givin’ Mrs. Estevan some kinda closure.”

“I can understand that,” Joe murmured softly, remembering his own insistence on seeing Lady Chadwick lying dead in her coffin.

“Adam ‘n Matt also found a journal the Mister Estevan kept pretty regular,” Roy continued. “He managed t’ give account o’ what happened AND draw pictures o’ the men that robbed ‘em. They also found a couple o’ letters one o’ the other passengers wrote, that also tell what happened.”

“Did . . . did Adam read the journal or the letters?”

“Matt Wilson said he did.”

“You mind if I borrow them for a couple of days?”

Roy shook his head. “It’s evidence, Joe. I got it all locked up tight in my safe, ‘n it’s gonna stay there ‘til the trial.”

“I see.”

“Joe?”

“Yeah?”

“My advice for what it’s worth?”

“Fair enough, I suppose.”

“I read both letters, ‘n part o’ what Mister Estevan wrote down in his journal,” Roy said. “Not all of it mind, but enough. Now takin’ into account what all happened t’ Mrs. Estevan, I imagine readin’ MISTER Estevan’s accountin’ o’ what happened just might leave Adam more rattled than usual, t’ say the very least.

“ . . . ‘n he ain’t the only one that’s come back feelin’ edgy either. Like as not every man who made up that search party’s feelin’ anxious, ‘specially those with women folk t’ look after,” Roy continued. “Hell, I’M feelin’ kinda skittish . . . ‘n I ain’t got no one t’ look after ‘cept myself. Adam’s dealin’ with all the same stuff as the rest of us . . . plus HE’S got the extra burden o’ havin’ gotten t’ know the Estevans.”

“ . . . and knowing that girl who ended up being traded to a band of renegade Indians was close to Dio’s age didn’t help matters any, either, I s’pose.”

“No.”

“So. What’s your advice, Sheriff Coffee?”

“Try not t’ crowd Adam too much the next couple o’ days or so,” Roy said quietly. “I expect he’s gonna need some time t’ work out ‘n come t’ terms with everything we found out. I know I will.”

“You don’t have to worry about me crowding Adam,” Joe said grimly. “Whenever I’m around him, I feel like I’m walking on eggshells. So do the rest of us. . . even Hop Sing! One wrong word, move . . . glance . . . or even a gesture . . . and he’s snapping our heads off. This morning . . . well, to make a long story very short, Adam and I were real close to slugging it out. Probably would have, too . . . of PA hadn’t come on us when he did.”

“Now, Joe . . . you know as well as I do . . . THAT’S nothin’ new. You ‘n Adam’ve been at each other’s throats since you got old enough t’ say no ‘n sass back,” Roy pointed out.

“Not like THIS, Sheriff Coffee,” Joe insisted. “Sure, Adam and I HAVEN’T seen eye to eye on a lot of things in the past, and I’m not telling YOU anything new when I admit to us trying to settle the things with our fists a lot of the time. But this time . . . it’s different.”

“HOW is it different this time?”

Joe sighed wearily. “OK. I’ve seen Adam boiling mad a few times, and I freely admit that a lot of those times, it WAS at me, but when he still lived with us on the Ponderosa, it’s really took a lot to set him off,” he explained, “and when Adam DID blow up? He and I always apologized . . . after we cooled off first, and THAT was an end to it. Now, I get the feeling he’s angry ALL the time, and getting more so with each passing minute. I also can’t shake the feeling that something ELSE’S eating Adam. Something that’s been made worse by that stagecoach being robbed and all the terrible things that have happened to the Estevans.”

“You got any inkin’ as t’ what that somethin’ might be?”

Joe sighed and shook his head. “Try as I might . . . I just can’t quite put my finger on it. I was hoping that something had happened while Adam was away that might give me a clue as to what’s eating him.”

“I’ve told ya everything I know,” Roy said. “Tell ya what, though . . . . Matt Wilson’s comin’ in later on this afternoon t’ give me a formal deposition as t’ what he ‘n Adam found. I’ll ask HIM if he can recall anything outta the ordinary happening that might’ve account for the way Adam’s been actin’.”

“Thank you, Sheriff Coffee. I sure would appreciate it,” Joe said gratefully. “In the meantime, I’m going to make an effort to mind my own business and try to keep out of Adam’s way for a little while. That’s one reason I decided not to go out to the Ponderosa with Pa and Stacy to see how things are coming with the new house.”

“ . . . an’ the OTHER reason’s sittin’ outside with Clem,” Roy said knowingly, with an impish wink.

Joe grinned. “I’m not denying THAT!” he declared.

Roy decided not to say anything about the sudden appearance of a complexion slightly ruddier than usual. “You give Adam a few days, Son,” he said. “I’ll bet you anything he’ll be back t’ his old self.”

“Thanks. I sure hope so.”

“I hope so, too, Joe.”

End of Part 4

 

Mark of Kane

Part 5

By Kathleen T. Berney
Stacy settled herself comfortably next to her father in the plush, two seater buggy, savoring the warm sunshine on her face, and the cloudless, bright blue sky above. In the meadow surrounding them on both sides of the road, tender shoots of new green grass pushed their way up past the dried yellow and brown remnants of last year’s growth, in their bid to reach the warm, life giving sunshine. Come May, after the spring rains had passed, those meadows would be awash with all manner of blues, whites, yellows, pinks, reds, and violets, when the wild flowers bloomed. The bright yellow green new leaves on the aspens, cottonwoods, oaks, and birch trees in the forests beyond the broad expanse of meadow stood out in stark, delicate contrast against the deep blue green of the pine trees, in the same manner as baby’s breath in a floral arrangement.

“A penny for your thoughts, Young Woman,” Ben said quietly, upon noting the far away look in his daughter’s bright blue eyes, the half smile tugging hard at the corner of her mouth.

“You have to promise me you won’t get upset,” Stacy replied.

“Alright . . . . ” Ben said with a touch of wariness. “I promise.”

“I was just thinking of how it would be to take Blaze Face and ride out to Ponderosa Plunge or maybe the lake on a beautiful day like this,” Stacy said wistfully.

“You’re going to have many, many lovely spring days like this yet to come,” Ben said, not without sympathy.

“I know . . . . ”

“ . . . and I’m certainly NOT upset with ya for THINKING about riding out on Blaze Face on a day like this,” Ben continued, favoring Stacy with an indulgent smile.

“You’re not?!”

Ben shook his head. “To be honest, I’d be concerned if you WEREN’T thinking about riding Blaze Face. However, if I catch you actually trying to ride Blaze Face before that cast comes off and Doc Martin says you can . . . well, THAT’S going to be a whole ‘nuther story.”

“I know . . . even if I live to a hundred and you . . . longer than that, I STILL won’t be too old for you to be marching out to the barn,” Stacy said, returning his smile.

“ . . . and don’t you ever forget it.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“What were YOU thinking about just now?”

“I was thinking about the night Hoss, Joe, and I brought our gal home for the first time. You remember?”

Stacy nodded. “I remember, Pa . . . . ”

It was actually the dark hours of early morning. The moon had set hours before, and the last of the stars had gently winked out of the indigo black skies to make way for the dawn soon to come. They had stopped for supper and to rest their horses shortly after sunset. When faced with the prospect of spending another night on the trail and reaching home late tomorrow morning, or continuing through the night until they reached home, the three men opted for the latter.

“I don’t know about the REST of you, but I’m really looking forward to sleeping in a nice, soft bed tonight,” Joe declared, as he doused the remnants of their cook fire with what remained in their coffee pot.

“Pitiful,” Hoss murmured, shaking his head. “Just out ‘n out plain pitiful.”

Joe frowned. “Who do you think you’re callin’ pitiful, Big Brother?!” he demanded, indignant and outraged.

“I’m callin’ YOU pitiful, LI’L Joe,” Hoss retorted, grinning from ear to ear. He exhaled a long, melodramatic sigh and shook his head. “That’s the trouble with you young folks today. No stamina . . . not one li’l bit.”

“I got sta-min-uh,” Stacy, who was all of eleven years old at the time, declared with her arms folded defiantly across her chest, and an emphatic nod of her head.

“Yeah, Young ‘n, you do at that,” Hoss agreed.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“What’s sta-min-uh?”

“It means you’ve got a lot of spunk, Kid,” Joe quipped, as he and Hoss finished cleaning the dishes.

“Oh.” She frowned. “Is that good?” she asked, as she gazed over at Joe through eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“Yes, Stacy, that’s VERY good,” Ben said. “Boys?”

“Yeah, Pa?” Hoss responded.

“We about ready?”

“We’re ready,” Joe said this time.

“You gonna ride with me, Li’l Sister?” Hoss asked, turning to her expectantly, with a big smile on his face.

“Hey! It’s MY turn to take Stacy,” Joe indignantly protested.

“Whaddya mean it’s YOUR turn?” Hoss demanded, favoring his younger brother with the meanest glare he could possibly summon. “Stacy’s been ridin’ with you all day.”

“Well, she rode with YOU all day yesterday, AND the day before,” Joe immediately returned.

“Stacy, who do YOU want to ride with?” Ben asked, noting that the child seemed to be taking great delight in having her two older brothers fighting over her.

“I . . . can I ride with YOU, Pa?” she asked, looking up at him with those big blue eyes, punctuating her words with a yawn.

“Yes, you certainly may,” Ben replied, shooting his sons a look of smug triumph. “Up you go, Young Woman.” He gave her a boost up onto Buck’s back, then climbed up behind her. Within less than an hour, she had fallen asleep, lulled by the movements of his horse and the loving security of his arm wrapped around her.

The very next thing she remembered was her father gently shaking her. “Wake up, Sleepyhead,” he said gently. “We’re home.”

Stacy slowly opened one eye, then the other, and yawned.

“We’re home, Stacy,” Ben said again.

“Come on, Young ‘n . . . I’ve gotcha.” Hoss reached up and lifted her off Big Buck in a single, fluid movement, and gently set her down on terra firma.

“Would you boys mind taking care of our horses?” Pa asked.

“Yeah . . . we can manage,” Hoss replied, as he took Big Buck’s lead from his father. “Come on, Li’l Brother.”

“Well, Stacy, what do you think of your new home?” Pa asked.

Stacy saw the warm, flickering lamp lights in one of the windows on the first floor and the single window overlooking the front yard. As the darkest hours of early morning began to slowly, almost reluctantly gave way to the silver gray light of dawn, she was able to make out the lines of a large two story log house, with a covered porch running nearly its entire length.

“Pa!” she gasped, as she took in the house through eyes round with surprise. “You never told me you lived in a castle . . . . ”

“I never stopped thinking of our home as a castle,” Stacy said quietly, with a nostalgic smile, and a dreamy, far away look in her eyes.

“Oh?”

“Promise me you won’t laugh?”

“I promise,” Ben said, noting the serious, almost solemn look on her face.

“Castles are supposed to be like fortresses. I remember learning that in school.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I kept thinking of our house as a castle at first because it was lots bigger than anything I’d ever lived in before,” Stacy said, “but later, it was because for the first time in my whole life . . . I felt safe and secure. I know THAT was because of you, Hoss, Joe, and Hop Sing, but something of the people always rubs off on the house where they live. I’m probably not making very much sense . . . . ”

Ben reached over and gave her hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “Yes, you ARE making sense . . . perfectly GOOD sense.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“I’m g-gonna MISS that castle of ours.”

“I am, too,” Ben said, as he drove the buggy into the yard between the barn, still standing, and the new house, in its early stages of construction. After bringing the horses to a complete stop, he sat for a moment staring at the giant hole where the house . . . the castle . . . once stood . . . .

“Pa, I’ve designed and rebuilt this house so that it will stand for the next hundred years.”

Adam’s voice, the day he, Hoss, and Joe, stepped into their refurbished home, the house that was. He saw his eldest son, a much younger Adam, clear as day standing straight and tall, with a proud smile on his face, eyes alight with an eager, almost childlike anticipation, ready to show the rest of his family their new home. He opened the front door, and gestured for them to enter.
“If you’d all kindly step right this w— ”

Adam’s invitation was rudely interrupted by his youngest brother, then eleven going on twelve, as he pushed past the young architect and designer, clad in black, and bolted headlong in through the front door. Ben and Hoss followed at a slower, more sedate pace, sharing a chuckle with Adam over Little Joe’s sheer, unbridled excitement. As the three elder Cartwrights entered the house for the first time, the youngest member of the family was no where to be seen . . . but his infectious laughter could be heard echoing through out the house, from pillar to post . . . .

Little Joe’s childish laughter diminished, faded into the steady, rhythmic pounding of mallet striking hard wood. The house and young Adam disappeared too, leaving behind a platform, slightly raised, and the enormous hole, amid the surrounding ponderosa pine trees and within his own heart.

Ben felt Stacy’s arm around his waist, the weight of her head dropping gently onto his shoulder. He automatically slipped his own arm around her shoulders, and hugged her close for a moment, grateful to have her there, in the buggy beside him, alive, and well on her way back to wholeness again. “You all right, Young Woman?”

“I . . . I don’t remember the whole house being gone, Pa,” Stacy said softly, her voice shaking. “Last thing I remember that night . . . or early morning was . . . I think it was Kevin telling us the roof was about to go . . . then running as fast as I could behind Hoss and Joe. I can’t even remember leaving the house for . . . for the last time.”

“Hoss carried you out,” Ben said. “From all the plaster we found in your hair, we figured a good sized chunk of ceiling must’ve fallen and hit you over the head, knocking you out. Joe carried you to the top of the steps, and . . . must’ve been holding on when the steps fell.”

Stacy shuddered. “I’m kinda glad I wasn’t awake for that, Pa,” she said quietly, grateful for her father’s comforting presence, his arms wrapped securely about her.

“I . . . don’t think I would’ve wanted to be awake for that either, if I had been in your place,” Ben agreed.

“Pa? Stacy?!”

Father and daughter turned, and found Adam standing outside the buggy, to Ben’s right.

“Everything all right?”

“Sorry, Adam,” Stacy said contritely. “I was just telling Pa that I didn’t remember whole house being gone . . . like it is now. I . . . wasn’t exactly awake when I left the old house for . . . for the last time.”

Adam favored her with a wan smile, that never came close to reaching his eyes. “I understand,” he said. “Would you like to see what we have done on the new house?”

Stacy nodded.

Adam walked around to the other side of the buggy, while Ben set the brake and grabbed her crutches. “What happened to Joe?” he asked.

“He said his ankle and ribs were feeling a mite tender this morning,” Ben replied, “so he opted to stay home today and take it easy.”

“I see,” Adam murmured, hurt, yet relieved in an odd, and very profound way. “Well, I’m glad the two of YOU were able to come. Stacy, if you put your arms around my neck . . . . ”

Stacy complied. “Thank you, Adam. I appreciate the lift out of the buggy . . . . ”

“But?” Adam prompted, as he carefully lifted her into his arms.

“How did YOU know there was going to be a but?!” Stacy demanded, looking into her oldest brother’s face, surprised and with a touch of awe.

“I could hear it in your voice.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Ok. The but is . . . I promised myself that the first time I went up to our new house, I was going under my own steam,” Stacy said in a gentle, yet firm tone of voice. “I . . . hope you’re not upset with me.”

“No.” Adam shook his head, then carefully set her down. “Not at all. In fact . . . I should’ve known that you WOULD want to enter the new house . . . yourself,” he said, remembering summer . . . what? . . . three years ago now?! . . . her convalescent period after she had been grazed by a bullet and knocked off her horse. To say that she was a very IMpatient patient would be to grossly understate the matter.

At one point, mid-way through the one week of sternly prescribed rest, Stacy had become so cantankerous, Adam was ready to cheerfully strangle her . . . .

Strangle her.

He heard Peter Kane’s harsh, mocking laughter echoing through his head . . . just as clear as he had heard it echo through his head again and again and again in that damned worthless mine hauling out pile after pile of rock like a pack mule.

“You ready to kill me NOW, Cartwright?!”

Adam shook his head vigorously. “No.”

More laughter.

“Surely you must be ready to kill me now,” that voice mercilessly . . . relentlessly taunted. “If you were ready to so cheerfully strangle your sister for simply being cranky, then surely you must be ready to kill ME, after all I’VE done . . . . ”

“NO!” Adam yelled.

“Adam?!”

He started, then turned, and found himself staring into the anxious, concerned, and bewildered faces of his father and sister.

“Son, are you alright?” Ben asked, noting the thin sheen of sweat on Adam’s forehead, his face nearly white as a sheet, and his trembling hands.

“Fine,” Adam snapped, glaring over at his sister. He quickly balled his still shaking hands into a pair of tight rock hard fists and jammed them self-consciously into the pockets of his jacket. “If you’ll both excuse me for just a moment, I’d like to make sure there’s no obstacles.” With that, he abruptly turned heel and beat a straight path toward the house, moving at a brisk, angry pace.

Ben and Stacy stared after him, their faces near twin masks of astonishment, shock, and deep concern.

“P-Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?” Ben replied, his anxious frown deepening.

“What did I do?” she asked, thoroughly perplexed.

“About . . . . ?!”

“Adam. The way he looked at me just now . . . Pa, if looks could’ve killed, y-you’d be planning my funeral,” Stacy said grimly.

Ben favored his daughter with a sharp glance, remembering that Joe had said the something along those very same lines the morning Adam left with that search party. Joe had later confessed to asking Adam about the time he had been held prisoner by a demented prospector named Peter Kane. Ben’s thoughts drifted back to the day he, Hoss, and Joe found Adam shuffling through the badlands, bound like a beast of burden to a travois bearing a dead man . . . .

. . . so weak, he could barely slide one foot in front of the other. They called out to him, yelling his name at the tops of their lungs, but, incredibly, Adam seemed not to hear. He continued, moving on a course parallel to their position, his face, his eyes firmly fixed to the horizon in front of him.

Then, Adam collapsed, without a word, without a sound, as hunger, thirst, exposure, exhaustion, and the weight of the man lying on that travois finally extracted their grim toll. Fearing the absolute worst, Ben practically fell out his saddle, then half ran, half stumbled down the ridge and across the sand, desperate to reach his oldest son’s side. At first, he was greatly relieved to hear Adam laughing. It meant his son was alive. But as Adam’s laughter increased, in volume and intensity, Ben’s relief quickly turned to a fear far greater than what he had felt at the prospect of his firstborn being dead.

“ADAM,” he cried as he threw off the straps binding his son to the travois like a mule. He threw his arms around him and dragged him to his feet. “ADAM . . . . ”

“ADAM!” It was Hoss, slipping his arms around his older brother’s chest, taking the full weight of his body onto himself.

“ADAM . . . .” Joe appeared on the other side, taking his oldest brother by the arm, with a frightened look on his face that mirrored the terrible fear mushrooming within his own heart.

“Th-there . . . there w-was no g-gold,” Adam murmured, laughing so hard now, the tears were rolling down his cheeks. “N-No gold . . . . ”

“ADAM!” Ben shouted, terrified and grief stricken, almost certain now that his son had tumbled over the edge into the dark, bottomless pit of insanity.

Then the laughter stopped, leaving in its wake a terrible silence. Ben, Joe, and Hoss stared over at the son and brother they clasped tight in their midst, their faces identical masks of fear and dread.

“Oh, Pa . . . . ” Adam finally spoke in a voice not much above a whisper. He, then, fell into his father’s open arms sobbing, as he never had before.

Hoss and Joe had set themselves to the grim task of burying the dead man lying on the travois their oldest brother had been carrying for only God knew how long, over how many miles, while Adam himself continued to weep, clinging to his father and in so doing, perhaps clinging to what remained of his own sanity as well . . . for dear life. Hoss fashioned a simple cross from the frame of the travois, to mark the final resting place of a, then, mystery man. In days to come, Ben would learn that his name was Peter Kane, that he had been a prospector who had failed, and that he had somehow pushed Adam to the very edge of the boundary between sanity and madness . . . but little else.

After burying Peter Kane, Ben took Adam up onto Buck with him, and held him close as he had when his firstborn was but a small boy, the whole way back to Eastgate, to be examined by the doctor there. Morningside, his name was. Doctor Uriah Morningside. A short, portly man, with red cheeks, a full head of white hair, and pair of bright blue eyes, filled with kindness.

“A few days of rest, plenty of water, three good squares a day . . . PHYSICALLY, your son will be good as new, Mister Cartwright,” Doctor Morningside said in a voice, surprisingly deep. “The rest . . . will be entirely up to your son.”

Ben knew all too well what “the rest” was. “Is there nothing you can do, Doctor? No advice you can offer?”

Doctor Morningside sadly shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sir, but I’m afraid my medical training covered only the ailments and injuries of the physical body. The mental and emotional are beyond my poor scope of knowledge. As for advice . . . if your son wishes to speak with a man of the cloth— ”

“Which I do NOT.”

Ben was surprised to find Adam, clad in a newly purchased nightshirt, bathrobe, and slippers, standing in their midst.

“I’ll be fine, Pa. Honest. I’ll be fine.”

“Alright, Son,” Ben said, desperately wishing that to be true.

“Doctor . . . Morningside, is it?”

“Yes, Mister Cartwright,” the doctor replied, as he rose, and turned his attention to his patient.

“Would it be possible for me to leave here tomorrow, first thing?”

“I wouldn’t advise it.”

“I am NOT asking what you would ADVISE, Doctor,” Adam said through clenched teeth, his syllables terse and clipped. “I am asking if it would be POSSIBLE.”

“Yes,” Doctor Morningside said with much reluctance. “IF you rest, and get three good, solid square meals in you today. You should also be drinking water, and plenty of it, and make sure you take MORE than enough for your journey. I would also like to check that arm wound in the morning before you leave.”

“May I come to your office at eight o’clock?”

“Let’s make it NINE o’clock . . . AFTER you’ve eaten a nice BIG breakfast,” the doctor said.

“Fine. I’ll see you at nine o’clock . . . AFTER breakfast.”

“Adam,” Ben had said, “there’s no real hurry to— ”

“Pa, if you DON’T mind . . . I would rather NOT stay around here any longer than I absolutely have to,” Adam said in a voice stone cold, that sent a chill running down the length of Ben’s spine. “Nothing personal, Doctor Morningside.”

“I . . . understand, Mister Cartwright.”

Although he had slept like a baby the three nights they had spent on the trail between Eastgate and the Ponderosa, Adam found himself unable to sleep upon reaching home. It was very late one night, after nearly a week of sleepless nights, that Adam finally told him a little of what had happened, beginning with his being robbed of the five thousand dollars he and Joe made selling that herd of cattle.

“ . . . after that, I went from the old frying pan right into the fire,” Adam said, his voice filled with anger and bitterness. “In addition to my wallet, those men took my horse, my supplies, my water . . . they robbed me of any and all chances of survival.”

“What happened to you out there, Son?” Ben asked anxiously. “How did you come to be where we finally ended up finding you . . . trudging through the desert, bearing . . . what was his name . . . . ?!”

“Kane, Pa. Peter Kane.” Adam said in a tight, angry tone of voice that told Ben Peter Kane was a name that the young man, clad in black, standing with his hand resting on the mantle, his eyes fixed on the cold, empty firebox . . . would NEVER forget.

“Adam . . . Son . . . please. Talk to me?” Ben remembered begging.

“Pa, if it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon NOT talk about it . . . I . . . I just plain and simply want to forget it.”

Would that it could have been that simple . . . .

“Pa?!” Stacy’s tremulous voice cut through his terrible reverie like a hot knife through butter. “Pa, I’m sorry . . . I didn’t MEAN to upset Adam . . . . ”

“Stacy, please believe me . . . YOU haven’t done or said anything wrong,” Ben hastened to reassure her.

“You’re not mad at me for wanting to enter our house for the first time . . . myself?!”

Ben slipped his arms around her, crutches and all, and gave her a gentle, loving squeeze. “No . . . I’m NOT mad at you. Proud as the dickens of you, yes . . . but certainly not mad.” He could feel her body gently leaning against him, the weight of her head resting against his chest. “What you said about ‘if looks could kill’ . . . it put me in mind of something Joe said recently, and got me to thinking about other things, that’s all.”

“What about Adam?”

“He’s got a lot on his mind right now . . . . ”

Stacy cast a quick, furtive glance over her shoulder, then lowered her voice. “You mean . . . the Estevans?”

Ben nodded.

Stacy shuddered. The hell Mrs. Estevan had suffered . . . and no doubt, continued to suffer was horror beyond her imagining. Ever since Susannah O’Brien had shared the details with her and Joe . . . Stacy found herself alternating between rage and feeling acutely sick to her stomach, every time she thought about it happening to a stranger. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how she would feel if all that had happened to someone she actually knew. “Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“Is Adam going to be alright?”

“I . . . think it might take him a little while to work things through,” Ben said quietly. “But, I have every confidence that he will.”

A moment later, Adam returned. “Stacy?”

“Yes, Adam?” she responded warily, mentally bracing herself.

“I’m sorry if I . . . well . . . if I seemed upset with you just now,” he said contritely.

“It’s ok, Adam,” Stacy said, not quite knowing how else to respond.

“You ready to see what’s going to be the downstairs of your new home?” Adam asked. “All potential obstacles have been cleared away, so it should be pretty smooth sailing, once you get there. However, the ground between here and the new house is somewhat lumpy, so you need to be careful.”

“You take your time, Young Woman,” Ben exhorted his daughter. “We’re in no big hurry this afternoon.”

“Yes, Pa,” Stacy murmured, before setting off on a slow, yet steady pace, with her father and oldest brother flanking her on either side.

Leaning heavily onto his solid oak cane, George Farlyn, the job foreman, waited patiently for the Cartwrights beside the two steps leading up onto the porch. “Miss Cartwright?”

“Yes, Mister Farlyn?”

“You have two steps from the ground up to the porch, roughly the same size and steepness as they were before,” George told Stacy in a brisk, yet polite tone of voice. “Will you be able to manage?”

“Easy,” Stacy replied. “I’m doing very well . . . if I DO say so myself . . . in getting up and down the steps in the Fletchers’ house, and they’re lots higher and steeper.”

“She certainly is,” Ben put in with a proud smile.

George smiled back. “In THAT case, if you’ll follow me?”

Adam stepped up onto the porch first, leaving Ben to follow behind Stacy in case of a mishap. He and George both were surprised to see her move up the steps with nearly the same fluid grace, with which she had always moved before the crutches.

“This looks like the same planking that was here before,” Ben remarked as he gazed down at the porch.

“It is, Mister Cartwright,” George said, when Adam failed to respond. “Apart from a few nicks and scratches when the old house collapsed, these boards came through pretty much unscathed.”

“Probably because of that downpour that let loose shortly after the roof must’ve fallen,” Ben said quietly. “Though I noticed you boys replaced the steps.”

“The old ones were rickety and unstable, made so, no doubt, then the porch roof and some of the beams collapsed,” George explained. “It was easier to replace them than repair them. The front door is going to be right here, where it was before.”

The four of them stepped over where the threshold was going to be onto the new wood floor that would cover the entire first story of the new house. George led the way, with a subdued eagerness that came of a job thus far well done. Stacy followed, with Ben protectively close behind. Adam brought up the rear, moving slowly, as a man lost in deep thought.

Stacy smiled upon seeing the massive, gray stone fireplace, with its tall, thick chimney thrusting skyward. “I was hoping the new fireplace would be a big one, like the old one was,” she murmured softly.

George smiled. “Miss Cartwright, that IS the old one.”

“It IS?! Really?”

“Yep. We had to rebuild the top half of the chimney, and make repairs to the mortar, but basically it’s the same,” George said.

“I’ve always loved that great big fireplace. I’m so glad it survived the roof falling in,” Stacy said.

“Its size . . . the fact that it was so well constructed . . . . ”

“Pa told me Adam designed and built the old house,” Stacy said.

“Not the ENTIRE house, Stacy,” Adam immediately set himself to correcting his sister’s inaccuracies. A smile tugged hard at the corner of his mouth, upon hearing the pride in her voice, and seeing it in her face. It lingered briefly, then quickly faded. “I enlarged the kitchen, added on the dining room, and built on the entire second floor,” he continued in a low voice, barely audible. “PA built the original house, which included the original kitchen, which was about a third of the size of the one YOU knew, and the great room, including that great big fireplace.”

“I hired a man to build that fireplace and chimney, actually,” Ben admitted with a smile. “Someone who was once very well acquainted with Mister Farlyn.”

“MY pa?” George asked.

Ben smiled and nodded.

“I should’ve known,” George said, gazing over at the Cartwrights’ fireplace and chimney with a wistful smile. “Pa was the best stone mason in the whole Territory of Nevada in his heyday. When that man built, he built to last a hundred years at the very least.”

“Did he teach you how to do stone masonry?” Stacy asked.

George grinned. “Gotta give Pa credit for trying, but my talent . . . AND interest . . . lay in working with horses. When MY pa came out to work on the fireplace, your older brothers and I would go out to the corral and watch the men saddle break the horses. I knew I wanted to work with them even then . . . . ”

“I’m . . . sorry about . . . about . . . that you can’t work with them anymore,” Stacy ventured hesitantly, noting the wistful smile on his face.

“You needn’t be, Miss Cartwright,” George said, as he and Stacy slowly moved over to the area, intended to be their new kitchen. “Supervising the work on that grand fireplace and chimney of yours has brought back to remembering a lot of the lessons Pa taught me . . . or TRIED to teach me . . . and helped solidify them.” He smiled. “I can’t do much in the way of lifting and carting heavy stone because of my back, but I sure can pile one stone atop another and slap on the mortar in between.”

“Adam, it sounds as if George Farlyn’s rediscovered a whole new line of work for himself,” Ben mused, as he watched the foreman take Stacy on a grand tour over what would soon be Hop Sing’s kitchen, showing her the changes between it and the previous one and helping her to envision the new layout. “Adam?”

There was no answer.

“Son?!”

Still no answer.

“Adam . . . . ” Ben raised his voice slightly.

Adam started.

“You all right, Son?”

“Pa, I wish everyone would stop asking me that,” Adam said with a disparaging sigh.

“I’m sorry, but . . . that was the THIRD TIME I called you.”

Adam closed his eyes for a moment, and slowly counted ten. “I’m FINE, Pa,” he said finally, through clenched teeth, his words and syllables terse, and clipped. “Honest. I’m fine.”

“I’m FINE, Pa. Honest. I’m fine.”

“I’ll be fine, Pa. Honest. I’ll be fine.”

Words slightly different . . . but, the tone of voice, the scowl, that jaw so stubbornly set . . . all the same, now as then . . . .

For a fleeting instant, Ben saw Adam as he remembered seeing him in Eastgate, after they . . . himself, Hoss, and Joe . . . had taken him there to be examined by the doctor. Clad in a nightshirt and bathrobe, that younger version of his eldest son stood once more before him, his body posture . . . with feet firmly planted shoulder width apart, shoulders back, arms dangling on both sides with fists clenched . . . mirroring the same of his older counterpart now.

“I’ll be fine, Pa. Honest. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m FINE, Pa.

Honest.

I’m fine.”

Then, suddenly . . . he knew!

For that tiny space of time between one heartbeat and the next, Ben knew exactly what demons had return to torment his firstborn, and how the missing stage, the ultimate fate of its passengers, the unspeakably tragic end to Lorenzo and Maria Estevan’s all too brief time as husband and wife . . . all came together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, to form a very dark picture.

“PA!”

Adam’s voice, tight and angry, rudely jolted him back to present time and place. The vision of the younger Adam, as Ben remembered him in Eastgate right after they had miraculously found him in the badlands, was gone . . . and with him, went the revelation. Like a flash of lightening it was there and gone . . . that quick. Ben looked over at the firstborn of his four children through eyes round with surprise and bewilderment.

“Pa . . . that’s the second time today YOU’VE faded out on me,” Adam said with a touch of asperity.

“Sorry, Son, I . . . I was just remembering,” Ben said quietly.

“What?” came the curt reply.

Ben sighed. “Forget it, Son . . . it was nothing.”

Adam sighed again. “Sorry, Pa,” he said with weary remorse.

“What for? You haven’t said or done anything that demands an apology.”

Adam ruefully shook his head. “I don’t know. Ever since I got here . . . it seems every time I open my mouth to say something, I . . . I feel like I’ve hurt someone . . . or perhaps insulted, or in some way made them angry.”

“If you’re referring to your youngest brother— ”

“No. It’s NOT Joe . . . he and I’ve been locking horns over one thing or another all our lives,” Adam said in a dismissive tone. “I don’t really expect THAT to change. It’s . . . . ” He exhaled a curt, exasperated sigh, then shook his head, angry, frustrated, and perplexed. “Sometimes it’s the way everyone looks at me, like . . . well, like Stacy when you and she first arrived. You’d have thought that I had hit her or something.”

“She thought you might have been a little upset with her because she wanted to enter this house herself,” Ben said, wisely opting to keep back Stacy’s “if looks could kill” remark.

“Why should THAT upset me?” Adam demanded.

“Adam, I— ”

“Am I that difficult to get along with, Pa?”

The question took Ben completely by surprise.

“Well?” Adam pressed. “Am I?”

“Not usually . . . no.”

“In other words not usually, but I’m being a real pain in the ass NOW?! Is THAT it?”

“I didn’t say that,” Ben said, wholly taken aback by Adam’s words, accusing more than questioning.

“You didn’t HAVE to,” Adam snapped, before turning, with every intention of beating a hasty retreat.

Ben immediately reached out, and caught hold of Adam’s forearm. “Young Man, I will NOT have you or anyone else putting words in my mouth that aren’t there . . . that I had no intention of ever saying,” he said sternly. He, then, closed his eyes and forced himself to take a deep breath. “Adam, I . . . WE . . . all of us . . . know and understand that YOU’VE been through a lot, too. You had no way of knowing that we had found your brother, alive, if a lot worse for wear . . . that Stacy is going to make a full and complete recovery . . . the missing stage . . . the terrible things that have happened to the Estevans— ”

“Pa, from here on out, I fully intend to concentrate on completing this house,” Adam said curtly. “I won’t be riding off on anymore wild goose chases, to quote my youngest brother. You have my word on that.”

“Adam, I’m NOT the least bit concerned about the house,” Ben said, angry, yet earnestly pleading. “I’ve signed a six month lease on the Fletchers’ house, with an option for six more months, if needed. You have plenty of time to get our house built.”

“Alright,” Adam said stiffly, “if you’re NOT concerned about the house . . . what ARE you concerned about?”

“I’m worried about YOU,” Ben said earnestly, passionately. “Adam . . . a house can be replaced. If I DIDN’T know that before . . . well, I certainly do NOW. But my REAL treasures . . . my sons and my daughter . . . they CAN’T be replaced.” He paused a moment, to allow his oldest to digest the import of his words. “Son, please . . . I don’t want to LOSE you.”

The anxious, pleading look on his father’s face filled Adam with remorse. “Pa, I’ll be fine. Honest. I . . . I guess I just need a little time is all.”

“Adam, I’m only going to say this once, then I promise ya . . . I’ll drop the whole subject like a hot potato and leave well enough alone,” Ben said. “I . . . don’t know WHAT’S eating you, Son . . . but I know something is.”

Adam opened his mouth to protest.

“Please, hear me out,” Ben said holding up his hand. “I meant it when I said I would only tell ya this once.”

“Alright . . . . ” Adam said curtly, as he folded his arms tight across his chest.

“I want to remind you that Hoss, Joe, Stacy, Hop Sing, and I . . . we’re your family, TOO, Adam . . . every bit as much as Teresa, Benjy, and Dio,” Ben said, “and WE’RE here for you, too . . . because we love ya, and we care about you. If you need ME for anything, whether it be an ear to bend, a shoulder to cry on, or to just simply BE there . . . you can come to me anytime. The same can be said of your brothers, your sister, AND Hop Sing.”

“Thank you, Pa. I’ll keep that in mind,” Adam said stiffly. Though his gaze remained fixed on his father’s face, it stopped just short of his eyes. “Now, if you don’t mind, I think we’d best catch up with George and Stacy.”

For Ben, the remainder of the house tour passed in a blur. He felt as if he were trapped between two worlds, two different places of existence, as he tried hard to focus attention on what George Farlyn was telling him and Stacy about their new home soon to be . . . while at the same time, trying very hard to put aside, at least for a little while, his increasing worry and concern about Adam.

“Thank you very much for showing us around, Mister Farlyn,” Stacy said with a warm smile, as she and the foreman shook hands. “I can’t wait to see our new castle after you guys’ve finished.”

“Castle?!” George echoed, bemused.

“The first time, Pa, Hoss, and Joe brought me home . . . and I saw the old house for the first time? It was so much bigger than anything I had ever lived in before, it looked like a castle to me,” Stacy explained. “Pa and I were remembering that as we were riding into the yard today.”

“If the first house seemed like a castle to you, Little Sister, THIS one’s going to seem like a big PALACE,” Adam said with a genuine, if slightly wan, smile.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“Can we call our new house the Ponderosa Palace?” Stacy suggested, her eyes sparkling with delight.

“If we do, I think we’d best keep that name to ourselves,” Ben said, his voice sounding oddly distant, almost as if someone else was speaking, using his mouth and his voice. “There’s too many folks in Virginia City who think we Cartwrights are too high and mighty for our britches as it is.”

“Hmm. I’d forgotten about THAT,” Adam said wryly. “Pa . . . Stacy . . . I’m going to head on home so I can get some good work done those drawings for the upstairs before we sit down for supper.”

“Alright, Adam . . . Stacy and I will be along in a little while.” He looked over at Stacy, and smiled. “I promised her that she could visit with Blaze Face.”

“Ok . . . I’ll see you both at the Fletchers’ house later,” Adam said.

“Little Joe . . . Hop Sing home,” the Cartwrights’ chief cook, bottle washer, assistant doctor, and sometimes assistant pa announced himself as he stepped through the front door.

“In here, Hop Sing,” Joe called back, favoring Hop Sing with a smile, and a wave of his hand. He sat in the middle of the settee, with book in hand, resting his injured ankle on a plush cushion in the middle of the coffee table. He marked his place, then turned his full attention to Hop Sing. “I . . . wasn’t expecting you back ‘til closer to supper time. Everything ok with YOUR pa?”

“Hop Ling fine. Tell Hop Sing painting of new Ponderosa map for your papa birthday come along fine, too,” Hop Sing replied as he made his way over toward the settee. “Hop Sing see Missy Stacy Friend leave house, go to doctor house across street.”

“You talking about Susannah O’Brien?”

Hop Sing glared down at Joe, with hands planted very firmly on hips, through eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Little Joe Papa know Missy come, see Little Joe?”

“Of course he did.”

“Hop Sing hope very much Little Joe behave.”

“I’ll have YOU know that I conducted myself like a perfect gentleman,” Joe declared in melodramatic tones of mock outrage, “not that a guy with busted ribs and a bum ankle on the mend has much choice otherwise.”

“Why Little Joe and Missy go see sheriff?”

Joe’s jaw dropped. For a moment he stared up at Hop Sing through eyes round as saucers, too stunned to speak.

“Hop Sing and Hop Ling hear from venerable uncle, who hear from Jimmy Chong, who say he see Little Joe, Missy Stacy Friend go see sheriff,” Hop Sing said with a touch of smugness.

“Geeze loo-weeze! It sure didn’t take long for word to get around,” Joe wryly observed.

“So why Little Joe and Missy go see sheriff?”

“Missy . . . I mean Susannah very graciously offered to take me for a ride in her buggy,” Joe said very solemnly. “We stopped by the sheriff’s office so I could visit for a little while with Sheriff Coffee.”

“So why Little Joe visit with sheriff?” Hop Sing pressed.

“He’s an old friend of the family. Do I need a reason?”

That very solemn, wide eyed innocent look on Joe’s face told Hop Sing there was more to this visit than simply stopping by to see an old family friend. “That whole truth?” he demanded, favoring the youngest Cartwright son with a suspicious glare.

“Well, uhhh . . . yeah,” Joe murmured softly, his eyes not quite meeting Hop Sing’s.

“Little Joe sure?”

Joe sighed. “Alright, Hop Sing, the REAL reason I went to see Sheriff Coffee was . . . . ” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then mentally braced himself. “I wanted to ask him if anything had happened to Adam when they were out on that search party, that might have upset him.”

Hop Sing glared down at Joe. “Little Joe ask for big trouble,” he said tersely. “Much, much big trouble if Mister Adam find out.”

“Y-You’re not going to tell him . . . are you?”

“Hop Sing SHOULD tell Mister Adam, but Hop Sing not tell,” Hop Sing said. “One condition.”

“What?”

“Little Joe mind Little Joe business. Keep nose away from Mister Adam business.”

“Ok, I shouldn’t have done it,” Joe admitted, “but, the way he’s been jumping all over the rest of us if . . . if we so much as sneeze the wrong way . . . well, I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Hop Sing understand what Little Joe say,” he said, not without sympathy, “but stick nose in Mister Adam business very bad. Make much trouble if Mister Adam find out.”

“I know,” Joe sighed.

“Papa and Miss Stacy back yet?”

“No, Hop Sing,” Joe replied, greatly relieved that Hop Sing had opted not to pursue the matter further. “Pa and Stacy aren’t back yet.”

“Hop Sing go in kitchen, start supper now.”

Adam, meanwhile, had left the Ponderosa after giving George Farlyn his final instructions for the day. The men would finish laying down the floor for the downstairs by the end of the week. Come Monday morning, they would be ready to start building the walls. Adam knew he could get enough logs from the sawmill to get the men started, IF he could get those final drawings completed and work out the exact amounts of logs and lumber needed to build the new house.

IF.

BIG if.

. . . and given his present rate of speed, coupled with a wastebasket and a half upstairs, filled with paper wads, crumpled in his ever increasing anger and frustration, the task of finishing the final drawings on the new house seemed impossibly daunting.

As Hop Sing entered the kitchen to begin preparations for the evening meal, he was surprised to see Adam quietly stepping in through the back door. “Mister Adam back early,” he remarked, as he gathered together a dozen white potatoes, and set himself to the task of washing them. “Hop Sing not expect ‘til supper.”

“I came home early so I could put in a couple of hours on those drawings for the new house before we all sat down to supper,” Adam said wearily.

“Papa and Miss Stacy . . . they come back with Mister Adam?”

“No,” Adam wearily shook his head. “Pa promised Stacy she could visit with Blaze Face for a little while.”

“Hop Sing hope Papa know what he doing,” Hop Sing said darkly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Adam asked, with a puzzled frown.

“Let Miss Stacy see Blaze Face, could be trouble, maybe.”

“Trouble?” Adam queried. “How?”

“Miss Stacy see Blaze Face, next thing Miss Stacy try and RIDE Blaze Face before doctor say she can.”

“I don’t think you have a thing to worry about on THAT score, Hop Sing,” Adam said, with an amused grin. “Pa reminded her that if she tried anything before the doctor said she could, he was dead serious about hogtying her until she came to her senses.”

“That good,” Hop Sing declared, as he finished washing the last potato. “If Miss Stacy be bad girl, Hop Sing hope Papa do what he say he do.”

“I’m sure he will,” Adam said wryly. “In any case, they should be along in a little while.” He, then, turned and silently made his way up the steep, narrow back stairs that led from the kitchen to the second floor.

After Adam had gone on upstairs, Hop Sing filled the largest pot in the kitchen from the pump, then set it on the stove to boil. They ALL loved their mashed potatoes, especially Mister Hoss, and they had come to be a main staple on Little Joe’s present soft and bland diet. He peeled three, then as an afterthought, decided to wash three more potatoes for the pot, bringing the number to fifteen.

Within a few minutes, Hop Sing fell into a cadence, singing an old Chinese folk song under his breath, that kept time with peeling the potatoes.

Hop Sing was barely half way through that particular task, when someone pounded very loudly on the front door. Muttering a few choice Chinese invectives under his breath, he put down the potato and knife in hand, then reached back to untie the strings of his apron . . . .

“I’LL GET IT, HOP SING,” Joe called out from the great room, as he rose stiffly from the settee. Upon opening the front door, he was surprised to find Matt Wilson standing outside. “Hi, Matt, come on in,” he cordially invited, standing aside to allow the unexpected visitor to enter. “I don’t expect Adam back much before supper— ”

“That’s ok because I stopped by to see YOU, actually,” Matt said, as he stepped into the house.

“You did?”

“Yeah. Sheriff Coffee asked me if something happened after Adam and I parted company with the others in order to search for that stagecoach,” Matt said, “ . . . something that may have unduly upset him in some way?!”

“Yeah . . . please, come in, Matt, I really appreciate you stopping by like this,” Joe said, as he stepped aside to allow his visitor to enter.

“If there’s any possibility that what I know may help Adam in someway— I’m worried about him, too, Joe.”

Joe silently led Matt over to the settee and the easy chairs clustered around the fireplace. “Please . . . make yourself at home,” he invited with a broad sweep of his arm that seemed to take in all the furniture. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you,” Matt immediately declined the offer for refreshment. “I can’t stay very long. Ma’s perfectly capable of looking after Clarissa expecting OR mischievous Wilhemenna getting into everything and anything she can’t put in her mouth . . . but not both, leastwise not for very long, especially since she’s been looking after them for the better part of a whole week now.”

“I won’t keep you, Matt,” Joe promised as the two of them sat down together on the settee. “Did . . . anything happen?”

“Adam was on edge the entire trip,” Matt began. “I overheard a couple of the older guys talking about how Adam wasn’t himself. . . Mister Hansen for one, but my pa said something to me, too. I didn’t think much about it, leastwise not at first. After all, the guy almost lost his entire family in that fire . . . . ”

“WOULD have if Pa and Hoss hadn’t woken up in the nick of time,” Joe said soberly, with a shudder.

“He also didn’t know about you and Stacy ‘til he got here,” Matt continued, “and his having made the acquaintance of the Estevans on his way out from Sacramento . . . well, with all that going on, I’d certainly be a little edgy, too . . . if I had been in Adam’s shoes.

“The two of us parted company with Sheriff Coffee, Pa, and Apollo Nikolas at Crazy Cal’s shack,” Matt continued. “That’s where we found the Carters, Timothy Higgins, and Black Bart Troutman.”

“Four men? Sheriff Coffee only brought back THREE.”

“Higgins shot ‘n killed Black Bart . . . I think to keep him from spilling the beans, for all the good it did him,” Matt said. “Black Bart had ample time to confess everything before he died. Jacob Carter, the ringleader of the bunch, confessed, too, trying to save HIS neck. Meanwhile, Adam, Apollo, and I were outside the shack, with our rifles on Higgins, who had tried to run, and ended up falling flat on his face. Literally.” This last was added with angry relish. “Adam wished out loud that Higgins WOULD try something stupid and give us an excuse— ”

“Adam?!” Joe echoed, incredulous.

Matt nodded.

“You didn’t think THAT was . . . well . . . a little odd?”

Matt favored Joe with a bleak, mirthless smile, as he shook his head. “Adam said he wished Higgins would try ‘n make a run for it because he has a wife, a daughter, and a sister. Apollo agreed, adding that HE has a wife, two daughters, a twin sister, and a niece . . . plus in-laws. Though I didn’t say so at the time, I found myself wishing that Higgins would try something, too . . . because I ALSO have a wife, a daughter, and a mother.

“Sheriff Coffee and the others took the prisoners and headed on back to the watering hole where Mister O’Brien, Crystal, and Darryl found Mrs. Estevan. Adam and I set out together to try and find that coach.”

“How did you know where to begin looking?” Joe asked.

“Jacob Carter gave us directions,” Matt replied. “Not a whole lot to go on . . . and it came from a source about as unreliable as you can get, to boot! But, Adam was bound and determined to follow up on it. Needless to say, Sheriff Coffee wasn’t real happy with the idea, and he tried to talk Adam out of it, but . . . as I just said . . . Adam was bound and determined.”

“When he and I were much younger, I know it was a toss up as to which of us was the most stubborn, sometimes.”

“His . . . insistence on going out to find that stagecoach . . . Joe, I think it went BEYOND out ‘n out cussed stubbornness.” Matt cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder toward the stairs. “Between you and me? The reason I volunteered to go with Adam was, I wanted to make damn’ sure he came back.”

Matt’s words drew a bewildered frown from Joe.

“If Adam had gone by himself and NOT found that stagecoach where Jacob Carter said he would . . . I know he would have gone on searching until he either found that coach or dropped dead somewhere in that God forsaken wilderness of sun stroke and thirst.”

Joe shuddered, remembering how fearful he had been of losing his oldest brother to the desert the day Doc Martin came by to tell Pa about Adam and Matt setting out together to try and find that stage. “I . . . know he felt he owed the Estevans a lot . . . . ” he murmured softly, his voice barely audible. “Matt?”

“Yeah, Joe?”

“You think maybe he expected to find Mister Estevan alive?”

Matt immediately shook his head. “No. Adam’s certainly smart enough to have figured out what the score was . . . and even if he wasn’t, Doc Martin had already spelled things out in terms clear enough for anyone to understand.”

“Then why—?!”

“He wanted to bring Mister Estevan’s body back so his wife could see that he was properly buried and . . . more important than that, he wanted to give her a means by which she might have some kind of closure, and hopefully be able to move on,” Matt said. “We both agreed that no one deserved to end up as my Aunt Hetty did.”

“I . . . understand,” Joe murmured softly.

“Adam and I DID find that stagecoach, as you probably already know,” Matt continued. “The water kegs up top had been emptied, the thieves took the horses, and every bit of food. We found four bodies. The two drivers . . . Johnny Jacobs and Angus Dawson— ”

“The guy from over Carson way?”

Matt nodded. “The two of them, AND Mister Estevan, had been shot. There was also an older woman, who had been beaten to death.”

“My God, Matt!” Joe exclaimed, horrified. “They shoot the drivers, beat one woman to death, abduct another to rape and torture after shooting down her husband before her eyes . . . Sheriff Coffee told me they also traded a young girl, not much older than my niece, to a band of renegade Indians for food, and . . . on top of all that, they leave the other surviving passengers to the mercy of the desert . . . what kind of . . . of men are they?”

“In MY book, they don’t qualify as anything even remotely resembling human OR animal,” Matt said, as an angry scowl clouded his face and his eyes. “I’m not what you’d call particularly religious, Joe, nor do I give much credence to things supernatural, but . . . if someone told me those thieves were demons from the deepest, darkest pits of hell, I’d have no problem believing that.

“Adam and I buried the woman and the two drivers out there, where we found them. As for Mister Estevan . . . we brought his body back with us.”

“What about the other passengers?”

“Adam was absolutely convinced they set out on foot, to see if they could find help,” Matt replied. “A letter one of the passengers wrote to his girl seems to bear that out. Adam and I found it stuck in a text book along with a letter that same passenger wrote to his mother.”

“You mean one of the passengers actually wrote letters to his mother and to his girl . . . telling them what happened?”

“He told his girl what happened . . . and . . . and . . . . ” For a moment, Matt was too overcome to speak.

“ . . . and he told them he loved them?”

“Y-Yeah, Joe . . . how’d YOU know?”

“If I were in that passenger’s place, knowing I would more than likely not come out of the situation I was in alive . . . and being able to write to my pa and a woman I happened to be in love with, I . . . I know I’d want MY very last words to them to be how much I love them,” Joe said, his own voice unsteady.

“We . . . found Mister Estevan’s journal in the coach near his body, half shoved under the seat,” Matt continued. “He also wrote up an account of what had happened, and managed to sketch the faces of the men who robbed and . . . and murdered them, while he lay on the floor of that stagecoach slowly bleeding to death.”

Joe felt the blood drain right out of his face. “Did you read it?”

“No. I only looked at the pictures of the men Mister Estevan sketched. I didn’t read any of his testimony.”

“Did Adam?”

“Yes. He read the entire thing.”

“How was he . . . after he read Mister Estevan’s account of what happened?”

“Adam never slept. The whole time we were on the trail, he sat up every night . . . the ENTIRE night reading Mister Estevan’s account of what happened,” Matt replied. “Yesterday morning . . . I found him sitting on top of his bedroll, clutching Mister Estevan’s journal to his chest like this . . . . ”

Matt picked up the murder mystery, that Joe had been reading, from its place on the coffee table, and held it tight to his own chest, as Adam had the leather bound, forest green journal that had belonged to Lorenzo Estevan. “His eyes were round, like he was surprised, shocked, or maybe scared out of his mind, and he was . . . staring.” He shuddered.

“At . . . what?” Joe asked, with an anxious, perplexed frown.

“I don’t know,” Matt replied with a helpless shrug. “Joe . . . you remember Mrs. McAllister, as she got older and started to loose her memory . . . . ?”

“Yeah . . . . ”

“You remember that vacant look in her eyes, like . . . like there wasn’t anybody home inside her head?”

“Yeah,” Joe said with a shudder.

“That very same look was in Adam’s eyes,” Matt said.

Joe remembered seeing the very same look in Adam’s eyes the day he, Pa, and Hoss found him stumbling under the weight of that travois bearing the dead body of Peter Kane.

“ . . . and the rest of the way home, he barely said a dozen words,” Matt continued. “When we finally reached Virginia City late yesterday afternoon, we went right to Sheriff Coffee’s office. Your pa was there.”

“Yeah. Hop Sing, Stacy, and I shooed Pa out of the house,” Joe explained. “Between being worried about Adam, and having spent the better part of the last month cooped up inside, looking after Stacy and me, he was starting to get a mite testy.”

“Whatever the reason, I’m sure glad he WAS there.”

Joe frowned. “Why? What happened?”

“Adam and I started to tell Sheriff Coffee what we had found,” Matt said. “When we started to talk about that missing girl?!”

“The girl who was traveling with her duenna?”

“Yeah. Adam started muttering over and over about how that girl wasn’t much older than Dio, then . . . before any of us realized what was happening, Adam ran back into the jail, and . . . . ” Matt swallowed, and took a deep breath. “Joe, by the time we got back there . . . Adam . . . had his hands around Jacob Carter’s neck, and— It took all three of us to pull him off. I’d hate to think of what might have happened if we hadn’t all been there.”

Joe stared over at Matt, numb with horror and shaken to the very core of his being . . . .

“All I can think of right now is that friend of yours . . . he was sheriff over in Concho for many years before he . . . before he all of a sudden just . . . snapped.”

His own words, after one of those terrifying waking dreams, in which he suddenly found himself with Lady Chadwick again, naked, bound hand and foot to a bed in the Marlowe mansion. He never knew what, exactly, was going to trigger them, and most frightening of all, it was all so vivid, he couldn’t be sure what WAS real, and what was dream. He was deathly afraid that he was slowly, but surely, going insane.
“All I can think of right now is that friend of yours . . . he was sheriff over in Concho for many years before he . . . before he all of a sudden just . . . snapped.”

“Paul Rowan DIDN’T just all of a sudden snap,” Pa said, gently yet very firmly. “What happened to him was something that had been building and festering inside him for a number of years . . . and the REASON all that festered inside him was he kept everything bottled up. He never told his wife what happened during the years he fought in the war because he wanted to spare her— ”

“THAT’S understandable . . . . ”

“Unfortunately, he never shared with anyone ELSE . . . his doctor for instance, or the minister of the church he and his wife attended,” Pa continued. “To make matters worse, he went right from being soldier to being sheriff, without a break, or any kind of a vacation. Paul did bring law and order to Concho, but it was an uphill battle, one waged virtually alone, every bit as bloody and violent as any battle he fought during the war. By the time he felt like he COULD take time off . . . it was too late . . . . ”

Paul Rowan DIDN’T just all of a sudden snap . . . .

What happened to HIM was something that had been building and festering inside him for a number of years . . . .

. . . a number of years . . . .

. . . a number of years . . . .

Paul Rowan DIDN’T just all of a sudden snap . . . .

What happened to HIM was something that had been building and festering inside him for a number of years . . . .

Joe remembered seeing a letter from Paul’s wife a year after he had been taken back east, to Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington D.C., that not only specialized in treating mentally ill patients, but did so in a humane way. In the end, Paul couldn’t bring himself to face the events and the outcome of that battle, his mind kept reenacting over and over and over again. When it became clear that Paul was never going to leave Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital, ever, his wife sold their home in Concho along with most of their possessions and moved, with their son, back to her parents’ home in Ohio. As far as Joe knew, Paul Rowan lived a marginal existence now, drugged into near unconsciousness to keep back the demons that would otherwise devour him.

“DAMMIT, YOU’RE DEAD . . . . WHY IN THE HELL DON’T YOU STAY DEAD?!”
Adam’s voice now, screaming as he awoke from a dreadful nightmare, sometime in the dark early hours of this morning. Who was supposed to be dead? Joe had no idea. Adam didn’t tell HIM about the dream . . . and he was pretty sure Older Brother hadn’t told PA, either.

“Dammit, you’re dead . . . .

You’re dead . . . .

Why in the hell don’t you STAY dead . . . . ”

Then, in the deep recesses of his mind, Joe heard Adam scream again, upon waking from a nightmare the morning he left with the search party.

It was a name.

KANE!

Somehow, that stagecoach robbery, the men locked up in the Virginia City jail, the Estevans all figured into whatever had happened to Adam all those years ago in the desert at the hands of a man named Peter Kane . . . .

. . . the very same man lying dead on a travois, that he, Pa, and Hoss found Adam mindlessly dragging the badlands . . . .

Paul Rowan DIDN’T just all of a sudden snap . . . .

What happened to HIM was something that had been building and festering inside him for a number of years . . . .

. . . a number of years . . . .

. . . a number of years . . . .

“Joe?!”

He started. Upon recovering his wits, he found himself staring into the anxious face of Matt Wilson.

“Joe? You alright?! That was the third time I called to you . . . . ”

“Sorry . . . . ”

“It’s ok, Joe, I need to be moving along anyway,” Matt said, as he rose slowly to his feet. Joe followed suit. “At any rate, I’ve told you everything that happened out on the trail. I don’t know how helpful any of it’s been . . . . ”

“More, I think, than you know, Matt,” Joe said, as they turned and started for the front door. He knew what he had to do in order to reach Adam . . . question was, did he have the guts to actually go through with it? “Thanks for coming by.”

“You’re welcome. Joe?”

“Yeah, Matt?”

“How HAS Adam fared, since . . . . ?”

“I’m doing very well, Matt, thank you.”

Joe and Matt turned and saw Adam standing at the top of the stairs, with his arms folded across his chest, leveling a dark, murderous glare down at both of them.

“S-Sorry, Adam . . . . ” Matt stammered, flinching away from the white hot fury burning in his old friend’s golden brown eyes. “I . . . I had n-no idea you were there.”

“That’s obvious,” Adam said in a tone that dripped icicles as he started down the stairs, moving slowly, deliberately.

“How long have you been standing there?” Joe demanded, angry and deeply ashamed at the prospect of Adam having overheard everything that had passed between himself and a man who numbered among his oldest friends..

“Long enough.”

“You should’ve made your presence known,” Joe returned, lightening quick.

“What? . . . and miss out on what’s proved to be a very interesting conversation?”

“Adam, I . . . really, I’m sorry, I— ” Matt hastily tried to stammer out an apology.

“I thought YOU were my friend,” Adam said in a low, menacing tone, as he stepped down onto the first floor.

“I AM your friend,” Matt said, very much on the defensive.

“Get out.”

“Adam, please— ” Matt begged.

“I said, ‘Get out,’ ” Adam snapped, “and don’t bother to come back.”

“You’d better go, Matt,” Joe said quietly, his voice filled with remorse. He had never meant to bring about the end of their long standing friendship. “I’m sorry.”

Matt nodded, then slipped out the front door without a word.

“You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” Adam turned the full brunt of his fury on his youngest brother. “You . . . just . . . couldn’t . . . leave it alone.”

“If you expect me to apologize for trying to find out just what the hell’s eating you— ”

“You wanna know what the hell’s eating me, LITTLE Joe?! Well, I’ll tell you just what the hell’s eating me. It’s having a BABY brother who can’t seem to mind his own damned business!”

“Look! I’ve TRIED to mind my own business . . . to stay out of your way and let you work things out yourself,” Joe rounded on his oldest brother furiously. “But, you’re not doing a damned thing, except getting worse and worse by the day, sniping at the rest of us if we so much as look at you cross eyed . . . and I, for one, have HAD it.”

“Oh, so you’ve had it, eh?” Adam returned sardonically. “You’re REALLY something, LITTLE Brother, you know that?! YOU are really something.”

“What the hell’s THAT supposed to mean?”

“You think YOU’RE the only one allowed to get angry? To throw temper tantrums? Three years ago, when Teresa and I came with the kids, I thought you had really grown up,” Adam said contemptuously. “Seems I was WRONG.”

Joe opened his mouth to respond to his oldest brother’s remarks on his lack of maturity. “He’s pushing you into the ropes,” an inner voice screamed, loud, clear, and very insistent. “You’ve GOT to find a way to turn this around.” He took a deep breath, then forced himself to look Adam right in the eye. “Come on, Oldest Brother, give!” he snapped, moving at once to what he believed to be the heart of the matter. “What happened out in the desert between you and that guy Kane?”

Adam’s face lost every bit of color it had. He stared over at his youngest brother, too stunned to move, or even speak.

“What’s the matter, Adam? Cat got your tongue?!” Joe pressed. “Come on, TELL me! What happened in the desert between you and that guy, Kane?”

“I . . . I don’t believe this!” Adam exclaimed, the instant he recovered a measure of his voice. “I can’t believe you’re actually dredging THAT up, after all these years.”

“What happened, Adam?”

“I DON’T want to talk about it!”

“What. Happened?”

“I SAID I don’t want to talk about it.” Adam stepped around Joe, intending to retreat to his room upstairs.

Joe immediately sidestepped, effectively blocking Adam’s path. “Oh no! You don’t leave this room until you tell me.”

“LEAVE IT ALONE!” Adam yelled.

“NO!”

“DAMMIT, JOE, IT’S OVER!”

“NO, ADAM . . . IT’S NOT OVER . . . IT’S NEVER BEEN OVER,” Joe relentlessly pressed. “CAN’T YOU SEE THAT?!”

“I don’t know what the hell you think you’re trying to prove by dredging up this whole sorry business, but I can assure you . . . it’s OVER.” Adam stated in a low, menacing tone. He began to move toward Joe, slowly, his entire body trembling in the throes of a raw, passionate fury, barely contained. “You understand me, BABY Brother? It’s over! Over and done! I put that whole sorry business behind me and moved on a long time ago.”

Joe involuntarily took a step backward, his arms instinctively rising to shield his face. The intensity of his oldest brother’s emotions now rushing to the surface with lightening speed terrified him, as nothing ever had before. But, the thought of all that lay within his oldest brother, unspoken . . . never truly faced or acknowledged . . . pushing Adam toward the same precipice from which Paul Rowan fell, shoved Joe beyond his own fear to that place where fools rush in and angels fear to tread.

“Come on, Adam. Give!” Joe’s voice cracked like a whip. “What happened in the desert between you and Kane?”

“Shut-up.”

“Did you bargain with him?”

“I TOLD you to shut-up.”

“Did you try to escape?”

“Joe . . . . ”

“Did you have to kill HIM to save yourself?”

Joe watched in a kind of morbid fascination as the blood drained right out of Adam’s face, leaving it a deathly white. Adam stood, as if rooted to the spot, staring over at Joe in horrified, angry, dismay, feeling as if he had suddenly been stripped naked. Then, gritting his teeth, he lashed out with lightening speed, catching his youngest brother’s jaw with a powerful right cross, with force sufficient to send him half flying, half stumbling backwards across the room. The heel of Joe’s slippered foot struck a low footstool, causing him to lose his balance. Dazed and horribly disoriented, he frantically waggled his arms in a desperate bid to remain on his feet. He teetered, then fell over backwards, landing in a sprawled heap between the settee and the coffee table.

“DAMMIT . . . WHY?” Adam shouted, towering over him like some angry, god of vengeance. “WHY?? WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DREDGE UP ALL THAT GARBAGE AGAIN?!”

Joe scuttled backward with surprising agility, given the physical injuries from which he was still recovering. After he had passed the other end of the settee, he scrambled gracelessly to his feet. “I WANNA KNOW, ADAM,” he mercilessly shot right back. “WHAT HAPPENED IN THE DESERT BETWEEN YOU AND KANE?”

“Stop it, Joe,” Adam growled, as he began to advance on his brother. “You hear me? Stop trying to dredge up things long past . . . that are better off STAYING past.”

“What’re you afraid of, Adam?” Joe taunted him, as he continued to move backward.

“I’m not afraid of a damned thing.”

“Then why won’t you tell me what happened?”

“BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!”

Suddenly, Joe felt the solidity of a wall pressing hard against his back. He slowly, reluctantly raised his head and found himself staring into the face of his older brother, twisted into a frightening mask of rage coupled with agony.

“I . . . DON’T want to talk about it,” Adam said in a low voice, barely audible. “Get it through your head. I . . . DON’T . . . want . . . to talk about it.” His arms shot out, like a pair of whips, and his hands seized Joe by the lapels. “It’s OVER, Joe. You understand me?! It’s over! Over and done! Leave it ALONE!”

A sharp intake of breath, coming from the direction of the front door caught and drew Joe’s attention. He turned and, much to his horrified surprise, saw Stacy leaning heavily on her crutches, roughly half way between where he and Adam stood and the front door. “Adam? Joe!?” She looked from him over to Adam, then back, her face pale, her bright blue eyes round with shock and astonishment. “What’s going on?”

“N-Nothing,” Joe stammered.

Stacy frowned.

“It’s over, Joe, you understand me?!” Adam continued in a low menacing tone, his entire attention focused on his youngest brother, to the exclusion of all else, including the presence of their young sister. “It’s over . . . I DON’T want to talk about it . . . ever! END of discussion . . . END of conversation!”

“Adam, please . . . . ” Joe begged, fearing now for his sister’s safety. “Stop it!”

“I strongly suggest you get that through that thick skull of yours, Little Brother, because of you don’t . . . so help me . . . I’m gonna POUND it into you.”

“Adam, stop it!” Stacy said tersely, as she began to move toward them. “You’re hurting him— ”

“Stacy, no . . . stay back!” Joe ordered.

“Joe— ” she started to protest.

“It’ll be ok, Kid, I promise . . . it’ll be— ” The next thing Joe knew, he was being dragged out of the corner in which he had been trapped. A second hard right cross to the jaw sent him reeling across the room, back once more toward the settee. He felt his left calf striking the edge of the coffee table. He wavered briefly, then collapsed onto the coffee table, breaking it into splinters no good for anything except kindling.

“HEY!” Stacy shouted, as astonishment quickly gave way to anger. “COME ON, GUYS, CUT IT OUT!!!”

“NO, STACY, NO . . . STAY BACK!” Joe shouted, as Adam, enraged past all reason, seized him by the lapels again and roughly hauled him to his feet. Gritting his teeth, he quickly balled his left hand into a tight, rock hard fist and drove it into his oldest brother’s abdomen with all his might.

Adam groaned and doubled over, releasing his hold on Joe. The latter immediately followed through with a hard, powerful left hook, catching the former squarely in the jaw. The force of his momentum slammed Adam into the nearest easy chair and sent it toppling. Muttering a string of terse, clipped Paiute obscenities under her breath, Stacy hobbled into the fray, far too shocked and angry to even consider anything remotely resembling good judgment.

Adam, meanwhile, had scrambled to his feet with the swiftness and agility of a man half his age. Before Joe could even begin to realize what was happening, Adam had lowered his head and charged, like an enraged bull. His head caught Joe square in the mid-section and sent him flying across the room. He crashed into his sister, knocking her off her feet. Both tumbled to the floor with a sickening thud, with Stacy landing on the bottom, and Joe on his back, sprawled on top of her.

“Oh my God!” Joe murmured, with heart in mouth, upon realizing what had just happened. “Stacy?!”

“Right HERE, You big Lummox!” she growled. “Would you mind getting OFF of me?”

Joe immediately rolled over, wincing against the pressure of his own body mass against his still injured ribs. He, then scrambled to his feet, as Adam looked on, numb with horror. “S-Sorry, Kid . . . . ” Joe murmured softly, as his eyes strayed to his sister’s cast, now cracked and splintered. Large pieces of plaster dotted the floor surrounding her injured leg.

“You sure as hell are,” Stacy shot right back, giving vent to her own anger. She glared up at Joe first, then over at Adam. “That goes for the BOTH of ya!”

“Here, lemme g-give you a hand,” Joe offered, bending over.

“I can manage!” she growled back.

“Stacy— ” Joe begged.

“NO, GOD DAMMIT, LEAVE ME ALONE!” Stacy shouted, her face dark as a dangerous thundercloud. “BOTH OF YOU . . . JUST . . . LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!”

“Stacy, I’m . . . I’m sorry,” Joe said, his voice shaking. “Now come on, let me help you— ”

“So help me, as God is my witness, either one of you so much as touches me, I’ll break your arms!” she spat.

Hop Sing, meanwhile, upon hearing the fracas out in the great room, angrily slammed the hunk of beef, intended for supper that night, down onto the counter with a resounding thud, and bolted for the kitchen door, muttering a long string of some of the more colorful Chinese idioms under his breath.

“Foolish boys,” Hop Sing angrily grumbled, shifting momentarily to English. “Foolish, stupid boys! Too old! Too old for settle things with fight.”

He heard the sickening sound of wood breaking, followed a moment later by the thud of an easy chair hitting the floor.

“NO, STACY, NO . . . STAY BACK!”

That was Little Joe.

“Oh no!” Hop Sing moaned softly. The blood drained right out of his face at the horrifying prospect of poor Miss Stacy finding herself caught in the middle of whatever was happening between Mister Adam and Little Joe. He quickened his pace, bursting through the kitchen door just in time to see Little Joe crashing hard into Stacy, knocking her off her feet.

“What the—?! Hey! What’s goin’ on around here?!” That was Hoss. He stepped through the kitchen door and took up his place behind Hop Sing, with his hands planted firmly on his hips, staring at the disordered room, utterly perplexed.

“That what Hop Sing want to know,” Hop Sing declared, glaring first at Adam, then over at Joe and Stacy.

“I fell,” Stacy said in a stone cold voice.

Hoss was across the room and kneeling at her side in less than a heartbeat, as Adam and Joe looked on, stunned and badly shaken. A low whistle escaped Hoss’ lips upon seeing Stacy’s cast, cris-crossed with a myriad of fine lines and cracks, with large pieces missing. “Hoo-whee!” he murmured softly, gazing down at the broken cast in dismay. “You sure did take a tumble, Li’l Sister.”

“Joe?”

“Y-Yeah, Hoss?”

“I think you’d better git across the street ‘n fetch Doc Martin,” Hoss said, taking charge of the situation.

“Y-Yeah, Hoss, sure,” Joe said contritely, still visibly shaken by all that had just happened. “Be right back.”

“Mister Hoss?”

“Yeah, Hop Sing?”

“Where Papa?”

“He . . . he left ME off at the front door, then left to return the buggy and horse to the livery stable . . . and pick up Buck,” Stacy answered the question, her voice shaking as her anger began to quickly dissipate.

“Maybe in Fletcher barn, stable Buck,” Hop Sing suggested hopefully. “Hop Sing go see.”

“Thanks, Hop Sing,” Hoss said. “I’d sure appreciate it if you would.”

“Hop Sing be right back.”

“In the meantime, I’d best git YOU upstairs,” Hoss said as he gently scooped Stacy up in his arms. This time she uttered no protest, nor did she make any move to resist. “You ok, Li’l Sister . . . apart from your cast?”

“Yeah,” Stacy sighed wearily. She slipped her arms around Hoss’ neck, and dropped her head down on his shoulder.

Adam dutifully retrieved Stacy’s crutches, and silently followed.

“No harm done,” Doctor Paul Martin finally declared after a thorough, painstaking examination. He and his patient were upstairs in the latter’s room. Ben and Hoss were also present. “I had planned to remove the cast to examine your leg next week anyway, Stacy, just to make certain things were still healing properly. Your fall just moved the schedule up a week.” He paused, just long enough to flash all three of them a reassuring smile. “You’re coming along fine. I think another four weeks in the new cast will just about do it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to run back across the street and get a few things.”

“Doctor Martin, are you going to put the new cast on now?” Stacy asked.

Paul nodded. “It won’t take long,” he promised. “By the time Hop Sing has supper ready, the plaster-of-paris should be set hard enough for you to join the rest of the family at the table.”

“Before you put my new cast on, I was thinking that, maybe you’d better check on Joe,” Stacy said quietly, “just to make sure he didn’t do any more damage to his fractured ribs. He, ummm . . . fell, too.”

“That MIGHT not be a bad idea,” Paul agreed wryly, upon remembering Joe’s disheveled appearance and the disordered living room downstairs.

“I think he’s gone to his room,” Hoss said very quickly, upon seeing his father’s eyes narrow with suspicion. “I can show ya the way, Doc.”

Ben waited, his fingers impatiently drumming against the night stand beside Stacy’s bed, until he and his daughter were alone. “Stacy?”

“Yes, Pa?” she queried warily.

“What happened?”

“When?”

“Just now,” Ben replied, “between you, Joe, and Adam.”

“What . . . makes you think something h-happened?” Stacy asked. Though she stared earnestly into Ben’s face, her eyes did not quite meet his.

“Oh, let’s just say I suspected that SOMETHING out of the ordinary happened, when I saw the living room with half the furniture overturned, and the coffee table broken into a thousand pieces,” Ben said with a touch of wryness.

“I fell, Pa. Joe fell on top of me.”

“That’s IT?”

“That’s it!”

“Stacy . . . . ”

“That’s it as far as I’M concerned.”

Ben sighed, knowing that he was not going to get anything more out of her pertaining to what had happed downstairs. He silently made himself a mental note to question Adam and Joe later. “The important thing is YOU’RE alright,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, I’M ok. The only thing that got badly bruised was my dignity, but that’ll recover quick enough,” Stacy said, relieved that her father had no intention of questioning her further about the circumstances surrounding her fall. Then, suddenly, she burst into tears.

Ben immediately gathered her into his arms and held her close. “It’s all right, Stacy,” he murmured softly, as her arms reached up under his arms and loosely encircled his shoulders. “I promise you, everything’s going to be all right.”

“Oh, Pa . . . I’m s-sorry,” she sobbed.

“What in the world for?”

“F-For . . . for acting like s-such a . . . a b-big crybaby.”

“Stacy, you’re NOT acting like a crybaby. Honest . . . you’re not,” Ben gently tried to reassure her.

“I . . . Oh, Pa, I feel s-so . . . so silly.”

“There’s no reason in the world for you to feel silly, either, Young Woman,” Ben said. “We’ve all gone through quite a lot in the space of a month.”

“B-but, y-you and Hoss haven’t . . . . ”

Ben placed the handkerchief in her hands, then hugged her closer. “Oh, yes we have,” he hastened to assure her. “Hoss told me later that once the fire was out, after Hop Sing and I left to bring you to Doctor Martin, and everyone else returned to their homes or to the bunk house, that he sat down in the barn next to Chubb’s stall and bawled like a baby.”

“H-He did?! Really?” Stacy asked, as she wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks with her father’s handkerchief.

“Yes, he did. Really,” Ben affirmed with an emphatic nod of his head. “For ME, the first time everything began to hit home was when I came to see you before Doctor Johns operated on you to fix your leg. You had passed out, and I . . . I just sat there with you, holding your hand, bawling like a baby myself, just like your big brother.”

“ . . . and when you, Joe, and I went out the other day?”

Ben smiled. “When you two were teasing each other?”

Stacy nodded.

“One minute I was enjoying myself listening to you and Joe, and the next . . . I realized just h-how close I came to . . . well, to losing BOTH of you— ” Ben broke off, unable to continue. He hugged her closer, grateful for her arms encircling his waist, squeezing affectionately, and for the weight of her head resting against his chest. “Now that the worst is behind us, we’re all going to have moments like this, when the enormity of what happened and what still lies ahead begins to really hit home. I’m sure coming up on Adam and Joe in the midst of a knock down drag out didn’t help matters any, either.”

Stacy glanced up at him sharply, through eyes round as saucers. “H-How did you—?! I never said anything about them—”

“You didn’t HAVE to,” Ben said gently.

“ . . . just like I don’t have to tell you anything about me trying to go in and break it up, either . . . do I?”

“No. But, if you WANT to talk about it, I’m more than willing to listen.”

“I think I’m more upset with myself for falling and b-busting my cast,” Stacy said ruefully, her eyes glistening with tears once again. “I should’ve known better than to rush in where . . . where angels fear to tread.”

“I know it’s been rough on all of us dealing with Joe’s progress and set-backs . . . along with his anger and frustration— ”

Stacy adamantly shook her head. “No, Pa . . . it’s NOT Grandpa!” she said, taking great care to lower her voice. “I’d be lying if I said it HAS been easy, but I know him, and I know what to expect. When he’s upset or something’s bothering him, he SAYS so, and . . . HE’S willing to let us be with him.

“But, ADAM . . . ever since he came back from that search party? Whenever I’m around him I suddenly feel like I’m hauling n-nitroglycerin, or . . . or walking around on . . . on a floor full of eggs,” she continued. “I can’t shake the feeling that something’s really eating away at him, but every time one of us asks, he clams up real tight and says he’s fine. Maybe my feelings are wrong and he IS fine . . . I don’t know.” She sighed dolefully, and shook her head. “Of course, I haven’t had a chance to be around Adam very much, since he was gone before I came . . . . ”

“ . . . which is something I will always regret very much.”

Ben and Stacy glanced over toward the open door and saw Adam leaning heavily against the door jamb, his face pale and shoulders slumped, as if trying to bear up under a great, heavy burden. His dark eyes were filled with sadness. “Stacy, may I come in for a moment?”

“Sure,” she readily assented.

“I promise . . . I wasn’t eavesdropping,” Adam quickly assured his father and his sister, as he drew up a chair alongside her bed. “I want to apologize for what happened earlier. I’m not going to offer any kind of excuse because there is none. I’m just going to say that the fault was all mine, and ask if you’ll forgive me?”

“Of course, Adam,” Stacy said, gazing into his face anxiously. “I . . . I hope you’ll forgive me, too . . . for losing my temper with you and Joe. I said some things I wish I hadn’t.”

“You had every right to be angry, Little Sister.” Adam gently squeezed Stacy’s hand. “Unfortunately, when Joe and I are together for any length of time, we tend to bring out the stupid in each other. My fault mostly. I’m sorry you got caught in the middle.”

“It’s my own fault I got caught in the middle,” Stacy replied.

“I . . . I hope you’re alright,” Adam said.

“I’m fine, Adam. The only casualty’s the cast.”

“I’m very relieved to hear that,” Adam declared with heartfelt sincerity. “Pa?”

“Yes, Adam?”

He reached into his right pants pocket and drew out his wallet. “Here’s a hundred dollars for the coffee table,” he said, placing the cash in his father’s hand. “If the damages come to MORE than that, you can send me a bill.”

“SEND you a bill?!” Ben queried anxiously.

Adam nodded. “I plan to leave on the ten o’clock stage day after tomorrow.”

“What?!” Ben felt as if he had just taken a hard blow to his solar plexus.

“Adam, you CAN’T!” Stacy protested. “We need you!”

“No, you DON’T need me, not really,” Adam said with a sad smile. “I’ll have all the final plans and drawings completed by this evening. Tomorrow morning, I’ll give Hoss a list of what’s needed from the saw mill, then I’ll head into town to purchase and place orders for the remaining building material that’ll be needed.”

“Adam, I . . . WE . . . were counting on you to oversee the rebuilding of the new house,” Ben said, stunned by Adam’s sudden decision to leave.

“Anybody can oversee the rebuilding of the house, Pa. By the time the men are ready to start work on erecting the walls, I’ll bet JOE will probably be up to doing the job himself.”

“ . . . and if he’s NOT?”

“If he’s not, George Farlyn can continue with the work already started. I’ll see that he has copies of the plans before I leave. If he’s got any questions, he can come to you or Hoss. Joe can assume the mantle whenever Doctor Martin gives him the go ahead.”

“Adam, please . . . stay?” Ben begged.

“I can’t, Pa. I . . . I probably shouldn’t have come in the first place.” With that, Adam rose from his chair and left the room.

All Ben and Stacy could do was watch Adam’s retreating back in stunned silence.

“Pa?”

“Y-Yes, Stacy?” Ben replied, his voice shaking.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured contritely, as tears once more began to sting her eyes. She reached over and took her father’s hand in her own. “I . . . I know you’re always w-warning me about my . . . about my temper.”

Ben gave her hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “None of this is YOUR fault, Stacy,” he said quietly. “Your gut feelings about Adam are right on the money. Something HAS been eating away at him, but whatever it is . . . it has nothing at all to do with you, and while I’m inclined to believe that Joe may have in some way been fuel for the fire, I don’t believe HE’S really at fault, either.”

“Do you know what IS troubling Adam?”

“ . . . I’d be a lot more worried if something like this— ” meaning Lady Chadwick’s abduction of Joe and subsequent torture, “ —happened to someone, oh like Adam, your oldest. Given his natural stoic reserve, the way he’s always kept a tight lid on his feelings . . . . ”

Paul Martin’s words echoed once more in Ben’s ears, invoking the same feelings of dread and foreboding he had felt when they had conversed in the post office.

“No, Stacy, I don’t know what’s troubling Adam,” Ben said dejectedly. “I sure wish to heaven I DID.”

“Adam, I’m NOT gonna let you do it!”

Adam finished folding the shirt lying on the bed in front of him, and straightened. He was surprised to see his youngest brother entering the room, his jaw rigidly set, and mouth thinned to a near straight, lipless line. He flinched away from the raw intensity of emotion he saw reflected in those gray-green eyes. “Did PA send you in here?”

“No,” Joe snapped.

“Then get out. I have those drawings to complete and a lot of packing to do.”

“Adam— ”

“If you’re feeling guilty, DON’T. What happened just now between us . . . with Stacy . . . was MY fault. I told Pa that.”

“I see,” Joe said rancorously. “Everything all nice and neat, wrapped up in a pretty box and tied with a bow.”

This drew a sharp, angry glare from Adam, as he took another shirt from the stack piled on his bed and began to fold.

“I’m not here because I’m feeling guilty,” Joe continued. “I’m here to stop you from running out on PA.”

“I’m NOT running out on PA.”

“Aren’t you?”

“NO!” The word exploded from Adam’s lips as he dropped the second folded shirt on top of the first, and snatched a third off the top of the stack.

“Then how about an explanation?” Joe pressed.

“An explanation?! For WHAT?”

“For why you’ve all of a sudden decided to up and leave,” Joe shot right back.

“Joe, please! Leave it ALONE!”

“NOT until you answer my question.” Joe stubbornly planted his feet side by side, slightly more than shoulder width apart and folded his arms across his chest.

An exasperated sigh exploded from between Adam’s lips. “Look! I said I was sorry. I apologized to Stacy, I told Pa that . . . what happened . . . was MY fault. I even paid for the damned coffee table. What MORE do you WANT?”

“I want you to tell me just what the hell’s eating you.”

“ . . . and I’ve told YOU . . . I DON’T want to talk about it,” Adam shot right back through clenched teeth. “It’s none of your business anyway.”

“Ok, maybe it WAS none of my business . . . but, THAT changed the minute you tried to rip my head off with your bare hands,” Joe immediately returned. “Come ON, Adam . . . please! Don’t shut us out like this . . . we’re your family, for heaven’s sake. We . . . I . . . want to help.”

Adam sardonically rolled his eyes as he finished folding the third shirt and slammed it down on top of the first two. “I see. The relentless pain-in-the-ass brat baby brother approach didn’t work, so NOW you’re going to play amateur psychologist,” he returned scathingly, as he snatched the fourth shirt off the pile and threw it down onto the bed.

“I don’t NEED to be a trained head shrink or even a man of the cloth to see that SOMETHING’S tearing away at your gut,” Joe returned without missing a beat. “You’ve been on edge ever since you got here, and it seems ever since you found out about that stage going missing . . . you’ve been so touchy, you’re jumping down our throats with both feet, if any of us so much as looks at you the wrong way.”

“Well, starting the day after tomorrow, you call all heave a great big collective sigh of relief,” Adam said in a voice that dripped icicles, as he seized the shirts he had already folded and emphatically stuffed them into the open carpet bag sitting on the bed directly in front of him, “because I’ll be on the very first stage going OUT.”

“Adam, leaving’s not going to solve ANYTHING.”

“I DON’T belong here, Joe. I’m not sure I ever DID. I should never have come in the first place.”

“WHAT THE HELL KIND OF CRAZY TALK IS THAT?!” Joe exploded, stunned by his oldest brother’s words and the quiet intensity by which he had spoken them. “WHEN YOU FIRST GOT HERE, YOU TOLD US . . . TOLD PA HOW GLAD YOU WERE THAT HOSS THOUGHT TO SEND FOR YOU, BUT EVER SINCE YOU AND MATT WILSON CAME BACK AFTER FINDING THAT STAGECOACH OUT IN THE DESERT— ”

“DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?! THOSE POOR PEOPLE WERE ROBBED, TORTURED . . . THEN LEFT OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT, WITH NO FOOD, NO WATER, NOT EVEN A SINGLE HORSE, NO CHANCE OF EVER MAKING IT OUT ALIVE, JUST LIKE . . . JUST LIKE— ” Adam abruptly broke off.

“JUST LIKE . . . WHAT?” Joe immediately pounced with both feet.

“Nothing!”

“Nothing my backside! Come on, Adam, GIVE! Just like WHAT?” Joe mercilessly pressed. “Those people were left in the desert with no chance of making it out alive . . . just like WHAT?”

“JUST LIKE ME!” Adam shouted, his entire body trembling with the rage and grief that had been growing and festering inside for so long. “JUST LIKE ME, AFTER THOSE MEN ROBBED ME OUT IN THE DESERT . . . OF THE MONEY, MY FOOD, MY WATER, AND MY HORSE. THEY LEFT ME OUT THERE IN THAT DESERT TO DIE, THE SAME WAY THOSE PEOPLE ON THAT STAGE WERE . . . were l-left to die— ” He abruptly turned his back on his youngest brother, his words drowned in a torrent of agonized weeping.

Joe was immediately at Adam’s side, with his arms around him, fiercely holding him close, with tears, borne of guilt and remorse streaming down his own cheeks. “Oh, God . . . Adam, I . . . I’m s-so sorry . . . so s-sorry . . . please? Please f-forgive me?”

For a time, the two brothers stood, clinging to one another for dear life, with faces tightly pressed, buried against the other’s shoulder, sobbing openly, holding back nothing. Neither saw the solitary figure standing in the hallway, just outside the door to Adam’s room. Ben, with tears streaming down his own face, reached out, took the door knob in hand and silently closed the door.

“Pa?”

Wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt, Ben turned and found himself staring into the pale, anxious faces of his middle son and only daughter. He lifted his finger to his lips and motioned for them to go on back down the hall, away from the room where Adam and Joe were.

“Pa, are . . . are Adam ‘n Joe gonna be alright?” Hoss asked, once the three of them had moved to a place well beyond earshot.

“They will be,” Ben said quietly, with confidence.

“You think it’s . . . ok to . . . to leave them alone?” Stacy asked, remembering the terrible brawl in the living room a short while ago.

Ben nodded. A wistful smile tugged hard at the corner of his mouth. “I think we can trust them now to work out their difficulties without bashing one another’s brains in.”

“Mister Cartwright?”

Ben, Hoss, and Stacy looked up and found Hop Sing standing in front of them on the top landing, looking troubled and uncertain.

“Hop Sing come to let know supper ready, but— ” His dark eye peered over Ben’s shoulder into the darkened hallway and the room where Joe and Adam remained.

“I don’t know about the two o’ you, but I’m hungrier ‘n a bear,” Hoss declared, with a broad grin.

“Hop Sing, it looks like its going to be the four of us for dinner,” Ben said. “Suddenly, I’M hungrier ‘n a bear myself.”

“Come down, wash up,” Hop Sing said. “Hop Sing go, put supper aside for Mister Adam, Little Joe . . . keep warm in oven.”

Later, after the passage of what seemed many hours, Adam and Joe sat together on the former’s bed, side by side, with their feet flat on the floor, hands resting on their knees, eyes and faces pointedly staring straight ahead. Both were utterly spent, physically and emotionally. Adam could not remember a time in his entire life in which he felt as exposed, as fragile, and as vulnerable as he did at that moment.

“It happened so long ago,” he murmured softly, incredulous, his voice barely audible, “so . . . LONG . . . ago . . . I should be over it by now.”

“But, you’re NOT.”

“No, I’m not,” Adam admitted, then shrugged. “Maybe there’s some things a man . . . or a woman, for that matter . . . NEVER gets over . . . never EVER quite forgets.” He rose, and to his youngest brother’s great dismay, walked over to the chest of drawers, set against the wall directly opposite the door, and opened it.

For a moment Joe silently watched his oldest brother lifted one stack of neatly folded underwear from the drawer, then another, setting them on top of the dresser. “Adam?”

“Yes?”

“Didja ever think that maybe, just maybe that’s the REAL problem?”

Adam froze, his hands poised just above the drawer, ready to lift out the last stack of neatly folded clothing. He turned and glared at his youngest brother, still seated on the edge of his bed. “Maybe WHAT is the real problem?” he demanded reluctantly, his voice tinged with weary exasperation.

“Trying to FORGET what happened.”

Adam sighed and sardonically rolled his eyes. “Joe— ”

“Adam, hear me out, PLEASE.”

Adam bristled against his youngest brother’s terse, clipped tones. He opened his mouth to utter the scathing retort sitting right there on the tip of his tongue, only to snap it shut again, upon seeing the desperate, unspoken plea reflected in Joe’s hazel eyes. He closed the drawer with a melancholy sigh, then turned to face his brother. “Alright, Joe, speak your peace and be done with it,” he said, folding his arms across his chest.

“One thing that’s really helped me since . . . since I’VE come back from being held prisoner by Lady Chadwick is talking about what happened,” Joe said quietly.

Adam sighed, and shook his head. “What’s the point in talking about it?” he demanded, taking no pains to hide his annoyance. “All THAT accomplishes is rehashing the same old ground over and over. Nothing is ever changed. Nothing CAN be. What happened . . . still happened.”

“I know. You can’t go back and make what happened . . . NOT happen,” Joe replied, “but I’ve found out that when I try to keep things bottled up inside, they eat me ALIVE. I can feel it, Adam. But, when I talk about it to someone kind enough to listen, it somehow becomes less scary. I’m better prepared somehow to face it head on, and work it through.”

Joe’s words prompted the memory of an incident that had happened when he, his wife, and their children had spent an entire summer visiting his father, brothers, and sister at the Ponderosa. His son, Benjy woke up screaming from a frightening nightmare . . . .
“Oh, Papa, it was horrible!”

Adam heard again his son’s small frightened voice, just as clearly as he did that night. “Can you tell me about your nightmare?” he had asked.

“D-Do I have to?”

“No, Benjy, you don’t HAVE to tell me. I just thought maybe you’d WANT to tell me.”

“No!” Benjy half sobbed, as he buried his face against his father’s shoulder, drawing from him comfort and reassurance. “I . . . I’d rather NOT, Papa. Please don’t make me! It’s . . . it’s too scary!”

“I won’t make you tell me, Buddy,” Adam promised.

“Thanks, Papa.”

“May I tell you a story instead?”

Benjy smiled despite the terror that yet remained with him. “Y-you haven’t told me any bedtime stories since . . . I guess since I was Dio’s age.”

“This one’s a little different because it’s true,” Adam said. “Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes, Papa.”

Adam had told his son about having no memories of his own mother, Elizabeth, because she died when he was a baby. The first real mother he had ever known was Inger Borgstrom, the woman who became his father’s second wife and mother to his biggest brother, Hoss.

“What happened to her, Papa?” Benjy had asked.

“She was killed in an Indian raid at the Ash Hallow Way Station,” Adam said, his voice catching. “One minute, she was at the window with rifle in hand, the next she lay dying in your grandpa’s arms. Your grandpa and I were devastated. After we buried Inger and moved on, I began to have some terrifying nightmares. One night, I woke up screaming from what had to have been the scariest one of them all.”

Adam had shared with Benjy the horrifying details of “The Ash Hallow Dream,” in which not only Inger died, but Pa and Hoss as well, leaving him all alone in a world, overwhelmingly big and frightening. Every night, for the better part of a month following Inger’s death, the dream plagued him. He had also told Benjy of his reluctance to share the details of the dream with his father. One night, “The Ash Hallow Dream,” had taken on some new, even more terrifying dimensions. Adam had woken up screaming, on the edge of hysteria.

“Papa?”

“Y-yes, Benjy?”

“What happened? When you woke from that dream?”

“Pa took me in his arms and held me while I cried, like he always did. After I settled down, he asked me once again what the dream was about. I wouldn’t tell him. That night, however, your grandpa told me something I never forgot.”

“What was THAT, Papa?”

“He told me that most dreams are letters we write to ourselves. Instead of writing those letters in words, we write them in pictures. The good dreams let us know that everything’s alright. The bad ones are trying to tell us that something needs to be fixed. He told me that the only way something can be fixed is to take a good, long, hard look at it, and see where it’s broken. That night, I told Pa about the dream, and I also told him about my fear of losing him. You know what?”

“What?”

“He DIDN’T laugh at me or get mad at me for being a sissy. He just sat there and held me in his arms for a very long time, the exact same way I’m holding you right now. He told me how much he loved me and that he and Hoss would never, ever leave without me.”

“Did you stop having the bad dreams?”

“Not right away. But when they came, they weren’t as scary as they had been. As time passed they came less and less often, until they eventually stopped coming altogether . . . . ”
“Nothing like being hoist by my own petard,” Adam murmured softly, his voice barely audible.

“What was that?”

“In other words, there’s nothing like being brought up short and slapped hard in the face with my own advice,” Adam said ruefully, then shared the incident with Joe, including the advice he had passed on to his own son.

“Adam?”

“Yeah?”

“You want to take your own advice and . . . talk about it?”

Adam sighed, then opened his mouth with every intention of telling Joe that enough was enough. The words were actually sitting right there on the very tip of his tongue, awaiting utterance. ENOUGH, Joe. Enough. It’s over. Done. There’s no point in dredging all that up now, at this late date, after the passage of more years now than he cared to admit. It’s past time for letting sleeping dogs lie. The words that did come from his mouth were nothing less than a villainous betrayal by his own voice, lips, and tongue.

“Kane had been out in the desert for the better part of twenty years, working that claim, day in, day out,” Adam began. His voice was placid and bland, almost to the point of being a straight monotone. He felt himself oddly detached, as if the experience he spoke of had happened to someone else. “That claim was his last great hope, his last chance to make up for what he saw as a life time of failure. He told me that himself. By the time I blundered into his camp, Kane had known for a long time that his claim was worthless.”

“Why did he stay?” Joe prodded carefully.

“I think when he realized his CLAIM was worthless, he must’ve decided his entire life had been worthless . . . without any kind of meaning,” Adam replied. “Sad, when I think about it now. Sad and pathetic. If Kane had been of a more positive frame of mind, he would have seen that his life WASN’T over because that claim didn’t pan out. Who knows? Maybe . . . in time . . . he would’ve found something that did work, that would have given his life value and meaning in his own eyes.”

“He was dead when Pa, Hoss, and I found you,” Joe said. “After Hoss and I buried Kane, he . . . Hoss, that is . . . told me there were no marks, or wounds on the man’s body that could’ve killed him. He was also in pretty good shape physically. In other words, Adam, Kane shouldn’t have died . . . yet, he did. Do you suppose he died because he WANTED to die?”

“I . . . KNOW Kane wanted to die. No doubt in my mind at all about that,” Adam said slowly. “But simply dying wasn’t enough. He wanted to take someone else down with him.”

“Why?” Joe queried with a perplexed frown.

“I think he had come to the conclusion that taking someone ELSE down . . . destroying them in the process . . . was the only means left to him to make a difference in this world,” Adam said sardonically. “But, we’ll never know . . . not for absolute certain. I don’t think HE could have told you why. So he waited. For someone . . . anyone, it didn’t matter who, just so long as it was another human being he could torture first, then destroy.” It had taken every ounce of will he possessed to force those last words out. His hands, resting on top of his thighs, suddenly clenched into a pair of tight, bloodless fists.

Adam shook his head, chuckling softly, without a shred of mirth. “Looking back? I was the perfect choice. I was everything Kane wanted in a victim. Young . . . very naive in a lot of ways for all that I had attended college back east, so sure of myself . . . so sure I knew everything there was to know about human nature . . . . ”

Joe’s own thoughts drifted back to that day.
After selling that herd of cattle in Eastgate, for a whopping five thousand dollars, they had a few extra days to kick back and relax before heading home. They had found out about a murder trial, scheduled to begin the following morning. The defendant, a man by the name of Obediah Johnson, had been accused of murdering his partner, Jeb Early, along with his own wife. Joe, having had enough of being on the trail, opted to stay in town and watch the trial to see how it came out.

Adam, however, had rejected that option, disdainfully asserting that he already knew what the outcome would be. Obediah Johnson murdered his wife and his business partner, he should and would hang. That was the law . . . period. No ands, ifs, or buts. When Joe had suggested that his oldest brother might think a little differently if HE were the defendant, Adam stated with smug confidence that he would never end up as a defendant in a murder trial . . . because he, as a civilized man, was incapable of murder.
“As you know, I was robbed not long after I left you behind in Eastgate,” Adam continued. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to take shallow breaths, slow, even. “They not only took the money we got for selling that herd of cattle, they also took the horse I was riding . . . along with my food . . . and my water.” He felt his youngest brother’s hand come to rest firmly on his shoulder.

“Just like that stage coach,” Joe said softly, his mouth, his jaw tightening with anger.

“Yeah. EXACTLY like that stage coach,” Adam said tersely. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I started to retrace my steps back. I . . . I KNEW I’d never make it back alone . . . on foot . . . with no food or water. One of my last coherent thoughts was to curse the men who had robbed me for leaving me alive to die like that . . . for not just shooting me, killing me outright and . . . and getting it over with.”

“I felt that, too, Adam,” Joe said in a soft voice, barely audible. “After having spent three days tied spread eagle to a bed, completely naked, with no food, no water . . . I . . . I asked Crippensworth straight out—why didn’t he and Lady Chadwick just out ‘n out kill me and get it over with. For a little while, I . . . I honest and truly wished they had.”

Adam peered into Joe’s face and eyes and saw another who truly knew, and understood. From that knowledge and understanding came compassion. He managed a wan smile as he reached up and affectionately squeezed the hand still resting on his shoulder.

“Joe?”

“Y-Yeah, Adam?”

“Lady Chadwick and Crippensworth . . . they did the same to you as Kane did to me,” Adam said softly. “Lady Chadwick had a different agenda, but it still comes down to the same thing.”

“You’re right, Adam,” Joe said, closing his eyes against the flood of tears stinging them. “Lady Chadwick and Crippensworth WERE trying to . . . to tear me apart, like that guy Kane tried to tear YOU apart.”

“I . . . I must’ve been a real sight when I blundered into Kane’s camp half dead of thirst and . . . and of heatstroke, not entirely in my right mind,” Adam continued. “He gave me shelter and water . . . he fed me. He even offered me the use of his mule and enough food and water to make it back to Eastgate, if I’d work for him for three days. He claimed he was on the verge of a strike, even had a good sized chunk of gold ore to prove it. His proposal sounded reasonable, even though . . . even though by that time, I was already late meeting YOU. I also knew that the only chance I had of making it back alive was to accept Kane’s proposal and his offer, so I did. I had no idea in the world that he was lying.

“The first couple of days things went well enough,” Adam continued. “He was anxious and impatient . . . again, understandable, since I had believed him when he said he was on the verge of making the strike. But, the third day, it seemed every time I stopped to rest, to catch my breath, he was on me like a slave driver, making snide remarks, ordering me to get back to work.

“I . . . I actually allowed this to go on another two days, before I decided I had finally had it. I grabbed the nearest canteen and went to take the mule. He pulled a rifle on me, Joe, a rifle he had kept hidden, and ordered me to stand away from the mule. Then, he turned the rifle on the mule and shot it. Our only way out of there, and he KILLED it.”

“My God!” Joe murmured softly, shaken to the very core of his being. “Why?”

“It’s as we said before . . . Kane wanted to die,” Adam replied. “As to WHY he wanted to die . . . I must’ve asked myself that question a million times after you, Pa, and Hoss found me, and brought me home. For weeks, maybe even MONTHS, after, I lay awake night after night after night, uselessly speculating. In the end, the only sure answer I could come up with is . . . there’s no rhyme or reason to insanity.”

“Not much of an answer is it?”

“No.”

“Lady Chadwick told me that I was supposed to some kind of weapon she planned to use against Pa in revenge for his having humiliated her when she visited us, AND for jilting her back in New Orleans,” Joe said, surprised to find a great measure of comfort in his oldest brother’s presence. “None of it made any sense. You know what happened when she came to the Ponderosa to visit, and Pa told us that he had asked her to marry him in New Orleans, but SHE turned him down flat.”

“I remember. I was ten years old at the time,” Adam said, scowling. “Pa left Hoss at home with Mister and Mrs. O’Brien, but decided to me with him. They met at someone’s party and apparently hit it off very well. The next morning, she took Pa and me on a grand tour of the city. It was a whirlwind courtship. I remember Pa being shocked and devastated when she turned down his marriage proposal. I also remember how furious he was when he found out that she had actually eloped the night before with Lord Chadwick, then sailed off with him to England a few days later.”

“You mean to tell me . . . she was actually MARRIED to Lord Chadwick when she officially turned PA down?!”

Adam nodded.

“That means . . . she was courting HIM the whole time she was stringing PA along.”

“There’s no doubt of that at all in MY mind.”

“Damn! That bitch was a real piece of work, wasn’t she?”

“Well, I, for one, am glad things turned out as they did. Otherwise, God forbid, he might STILL be leg shackled to that scheming harridan, and even worse, he would’ve never met YOUR mother. I’m GLAD he met and ended up marrying Marie. If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t have had YOU.”

“Thanks, Adam,” Joe said quietly, with a smile. He sighed, and the smile faded. “I knew Lady Chadwick wasn’t right in the head after she killed her son. I’d hear her call Crippensworth by PA’S name, and toward the end of my time with her, she actually started calling ME Ben. She also started acting like she was married to Pa.

“Hoss told me later that Lady Chadwick had been working on a painting, almost life sized. He and Pa saw it in the house she owned in Carson City. They had gone there looking for me or clues to my whereabouts. That painting was a picture of her and Pa dressed as a bride and groom. Hoss told me that painting gave him and Pa both a real case of the heebie-jeevies.”

“I’ll bet! She probably painted Pa’s face from memory, too, just like she did on the one she gave him when she came to visit,” Adam observed with a shudder.

“Adam?”

“Yeah, Buddy?”

“Promise me you won’t tell Pa that I know about the painting? He’d throttle Hoss if he knew that he had told me,” Joe said. “To give Big Brother credit, he didn’t WANT to tell me. I dragged it out of him.”

“I know very well how stubborn and relentless you can be, Baby Brother,” Adam said with a wry smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t say a thing to Pa.”

“Thanks,” Joe said, returning his oldest brother’s smile. “I appreciate it, and if Big Brother knew, he’d appreciate it, too. Adam, may I ask you one more question? You don’t have to ANSWER it, if you don’t want to.”

“Fair enough. What’s your question?”

“Have you been able to come to terms with what happened between you and Kane?”

“I thought I had, but now . . . . ” Adam shrugged and shook his head. “After I got home, I made damn’ sure I kept very busy, pushing myself until I was physically exhausted, too tired to see straight, let alone think. That was the only way I could sleep at night.”

“I remember,” Joe said quietly. “For months you ran yourself into the ground, and in the end . . . it seemed to have worked. You were pretty much back to your old self again . . . so I thought, anyway. I wanted to do the same thing. There’s so much work to do, it would have been real easy. But, I couldn’t.”

“Because of your injuries?”

Joe nodded. “ . . . and the fact that my stomach had come to a place of no longer being able to accept solid food. Pa told me later I was so dangerously dehydrated, that if I vomited again . . . or had any bouts of what Sheriff Coffee sometimes refers to as the ol’ back door trots . . . it could’ve killed me.”

“My God! I . . . I had no idea!”

“Neither did I. I was a little upset with Pa for not telling me at first, but now . . . I’m kinda glad he didn’t.”

The two brothers lapsed into silence for a time, each mulling over all that had been spoken between them in the privacy of their own thoughts.

“Joe . . . . ” Adam finally, at length, broke the silence.

“Yeah, Adam?”

“You were wrong.”

Joe frowned. “About what?”

“About me running out on Pa,” Adam said. “I was actually trying to run out on MYSELF . . . this evening . . . AND the night I left the Ponderosa for good.”

His last words drew a look of surprise from Joe.

“I . . . never realized that before,” Adam said slowly, “I certainly didn’t think of it then, not in so many words . . . . ”

“You probably would have left anyway . . . eventually,” Joe said quietly. “You’ve always had your own dreams. Though for a long time, I . . . I’d thought your leaving the Ponderosa . . . AND us . . . was MY fault.”

Adam looked over at his youngest brother, shocked and astonished. “Where in the world did you get an idea like that?”

“You left not long after I was attacked by that wolf up in Montpelier Gorge,” Joe said. “I don’t remember anything about that night, I was pretty much out of it, but Hoss later told me what happened. He also told me how you were so hell-bent on leaving for someplace more civilized once you knew I was out of the woods, so to speak. I thought later, after you HAD gone, if only I hadn’t insisted on you and me going after that wolf that day, I wouldn’t have been hurt and the rest that came later wouldn’t have happened . . . and YOU would’ve stayed.”

“Joe, no! It wasn’t YOUR fault,” Adam said in his own very firm, very Pa-like voice. “For one thing, I wanted to stop that wolf from killing any more of our cattle every bit as much as you did. That whole business of Doctor Hickman having to attend to a breech birth, Hoss having to go to a warehouse twenty miles away, Dowd and HIS cohorts bushwhacking Hoss to steal your medicine and hold it hostage, well, I’d be less than honest if I didn’t admit to it all being fuel for the fire.

“But when morning came? Pa was home, Hoss had taken Dowd to the sheriff, and I knew that YOU were going to pull through, things looked a lot brighter. I saw again how beautiful this country is, and all that we Cartwrights have here. The last thing in the world I wanted to do then was leave it all behind for good.”

“Adam, you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to either . . . but what DID prompt you to leave for good?” Joe asked. “I remember your decision being very sudden, and all the loud, furious arguments between you and Pa that whole week before you left.”

“Randy Paine.”

“What?!” Joe looked over at his brother, incredulous. “You mean the old drunk who took up residence at the old Bucket of Blood Saloon, in that corner table, ‘way in the back?”

Adam nodded. “Randy Paine. You remember how he was always singling out somebody to scorn and ridicule.”

“Yeah,” Joe affirmed with a scowl and a curt nod of his head.

“Well, for almost that entire month before I decided to leave here for good, he had decided to single ME out,” Adam said. “At first, I ignored him. Then, his nasty remarks started hitting too close to home, beginning with comments about me killing Ross Marquett.”

“Adam, THAT was self defense!” Joe declared, outraged. “Ross gave you no choice.”

“I know,” Adam sighed. “I know. I tried my best to keep right on ignoring him. I might have succeeded if he hadn’t started making accusations about DELPHINE and me. She NEVER had eyes for anyone else but Ross, from the first day she met him. She never would have dreamed of being unfaithful to him. In fact, the entire time she was with us, right before . . . before Ross killed her . . . Delphine thought of no one BUT Ross. Ol’ Randy Paine-in-the-ass . . . sitting at that back table, drunk as a skunk, slandering her good name, and Delphine Marquett no longer in a position to defend herself . . . I was furious.”

“I don’t blame you. What did you do?”

“If he had been younger, stronger, in better health, I would have mopped up the saloon floor with him,” Adam said, his ire rising. “Instead, I grabbed his whiskey bottle, it was almost full, and I threatened to pour every last drop of it out on the floor, unless he took back every filthy, lying word he had said about Delphine.”

“Did he?”

“Yes. I thought that would put an end to his tormenting me, but it didn’t. Randy never mentioned Delphine again, or any other young lady, with whom I had been friendly, but he found other things.”

“WHAT other things?”

“One of his favorite jabs was to tell me that I was a rich man’s son . . . who had never had to do a lick of real work . . . or honest work . . . in his entire life.”

Joe’s face darkened with anger. For one brief moment, he wished with all his might, that he could have Randy Paine back from the dead and in the prime of his life, so he could put his own fist right through the man’s face. “That’s a lie!” he declared in a low voice, barely audible. “Adam, that’s a . . . big, ugly, vicious LIE.”

“Part of me believed him then . . . and I think still does . . . even n-now.”

“How can you say that?!” Joe demanded, incredulous. “For one thing, Pa’s ALWAYS been a demanding task master, especially toward US. For every full day’s work he expects from the men who work for us, he expects a full day and a half from Hoss, Stacy, and me . . . and he did from YOU, too . . . before you left.

“ . . . as for being the son of a rich man, you weren’t always. You and Pa went through a lot of years of being poor, of drifting from place to place . . . job to job. Once, when I was little, and wanted this pair of boots I didn’t need in the absolute worst way . . . Pa told me about the summer YOU ended up going around barefoot because you had outgrown your last pair of boots, and . . . and he couldn’t afford to buy another pair.”

“I think there was something in the WAY Randy said the things he said . . . and, in MY case, the way he kept carping on that particular thing every single night for a whole solid month,” Adam said wearily. “There’s something about that . . . having a certain point constantly thrown up in your face over a long period of time. After awhile, you start believing the lie.”

“Like . . . Lady Chadwick trying to t-tell me that she and Crippensworth had come to help me the night our house burned down, when the truth of the matter was . . . they had come to kidnap me,” Joe said slowly, his voice shaking, “or worse . . . when she told me that . . . that Pa and the rest of the family believed me dead and that they were actually HAPPY about it.”

“I hope you know that none of US would have been happy, had you actually died in that fire,” Adam said.

“I knew THAT,” Joe said quietly, surprised by the intensity of emotion churning up within him. “The thing that scared me . . . I mean really . . . scared me . . . was that somehow, I got it in my head that STACY had died and that PA had died, too . . . because Stacy was dead, and . . . and because he believed I was dead.”

Adam looked over at Joe, noting that his eyes blinked excessively. “THAT’S how Randy Paine made ME forget everything that had ever happened before,” he said gently, as he placed his arm around his brother’s shoulders, this time offering comfort as he would to a peer, an equal, rather than to the child he had always thought of Joe as being.

“I think . . . things would have turned out a lot different if I only had to work through the repercussions of Kane holding me prisoner, forcing me to do the work of his pack mule . . . OR Randy Paine needling and badgering me night after night,” Adam said. “But, having to face BOTH—

“A week before I left . . . for good . . . I had gone into the Bucket of Blood with Matt Wilson and Hoss,” Adam continued. “It had been one of those days in which everything that could have gone wrong, DID go wrong . . . . with a vengeance. That night, all I wanted to do was relax, and have a couple of beers with Hoss and Matt. The very last thing in the world I was in the mood for was Randy Paine’s needling.

“Randy, however, was in rare form that night. He started in almost from the second I stepped into the saloon. For a little while, Hoss and Matt were able to keep me under wraps, but in the end, I . . . I finally snapped. I was up, and running across the room before Hoss or Matt could even think of stopping me. I grabbed Randy by the lapels and literally threw him across the room. Then, I started after him, with every intention of killing him. But when I reached Randy? It wasn’t RANDY I saw, but Kane, lying there laughing at me, telling me that he had won after all.

“Afterward, I tried desperately to ignore it, to blame it on circumstance, but deep down, I knew I wanted more than anything to kill Randy Paine, to shut his mouth permanently . . . just like I wanted to kill Kane,” Adam continued. “I knew couldn’t just pass it off anymore, and THAT frightened me. My first thought was, if I could get away from HERE, go to one of the big cities back east, maybe . . . just someplace more civilized, I . . . I could keep that urge to kill . . . to murder . . . safely under wraps.

“Pa KNEW I was running away from something, though he didn’t know WHAT that something was. I know he was worried. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he told me that if I didn’t stay long enough to face what was bothering me, and work it though, it would haunt me for the rest of my life.” Adam shuddered. “It would appear . . . he was right.”

“Is that why you left in the dead of night, after we had all gone to sleep?”

Adam nodded. “As you probably remember, Pa and I had our worst set-to yet that day. It began in the afternoon, as we were all riding in from the range and continued on into the evening and most of the night. Finally Pa called a truce, and said we’d talk about it in the morning. I was scared to death, Joe. Scared that come morning, he would somehow talk me out of leaving.

“So I waited for the rest of you to fall asleep. After stuffing in everything that would fit into this old carpet bag sitting behind me on the bed, I left a note for Pa on the credenza, and snuck away in the dead of night like a thief. I was on the first stage out the following morning. I didn’t care at the time where it was going, just so long as it was going AWAY from Virginia City.”

“Why were you so afraid that Pa would talk you out of leaving?” Joe asked.

“I was scared because that night, I was so angry with Pa,” Adam replied. “After being dragged through hell by Kane, then on top of that, having to put up with Randy Paine night after night, I KNEW I was capable of getting angry enough to want to kill someone, and . . . and I was frightened beyond all imagining at the prospect of getting so angry that I’d . . . that I’d end up killing Pa . . . or YOU . . . or Hoss.”

“M-My God, Adam,” Joe whispered, his voice catching. “B-Bearing up under such a heavy burden for all these years . . . is THAT why you stayed away so long?”

Adam nodded, unable to speak.

“Why didn’t you ever tell US? Or at the very least tell Pa?”

“Pride, I think,” Adam said ruefully. “I was the eldest. I . . . I knew you and Hoss looked up to me, counted on me to be strong. Pa depended on m-me a lot, too, especially in those first years after . . . after YOUR mother died. I felt as if . . . as if I might be letting HIM down and the two of you, as well.” He turned and stared very hard, very pointed at his hands clasped tightly in his lap.

Joe, noting that his oldest brother’s eyes blinked excessively, gathered him in his arms and held him close, in manner not unlike the way his father did even now, whenever he was hurt or troubled. “Adam, I . . . I don’t know WHAT to say, except . . . well . . . just because you show yourself t-to be human . . . doesn’t make you any the LESS my hero . . . . If anything . . . it makes you even M-MORE my hero!” he whispered fiercely, as fresh tears began to slip down over his own eyes lids, and down onto his cheeks.

Adam looked over at his youngest brother, his face a mixture of awe, surprise, and a deep, profound relief, as if the weight and burdens of the whole world had suddenly been lifted from his shoulders.

“You haven’t let me down, Adam . . . and . . . and you h-haven’t let Pa, Hoss, Stacy, or . . . or H-Hop Sing down either,” Joe continued, his voice tremulous, “ . . . and I . . . WE . . . aren’t going to turn our backs on YOU . . . especially not now, when YOU need US the most. I’m HERE, Oldest Brother . . . I’m right here . . . and . . . and I’m gonna st-stay right h-here . . . whether . . . whether you WANT me or n-not— ”

Joe’s words were lost, drowned in a torrent of grief for the brother he held clasped tightly in his arms. He could feel Adam’s arms encircling his waist, and the weight of his head dropping down heavily onto his shoulder. Joe gently leaned his head against Adam’s and, tightened his embrace as both again wept openly.

They remained thus for a very long time.

Hours later, long after dim twilight had passed into the dark of night, Adam’s heart felt lighter than he could ever remember, as he and Joe made their way downstairs. “Thank you, Joe,” he said softly.

Joe turned and regarded his oldest brother with mild surprise. “For what?”

“For being there.”

Joe’s grin trembled slightly. “That’s what brothers are for. Think of it as a real small down payment for all the times YOU’VE been there for ME.”

As they stepped down off the last step onto the first floor, they saw their father, seated on the settee, his face turned toward the dying embers in the fireplace. Ben’s posture straightened, upon hearing the soft sounds of their footfalls. He immediately rose, and turned, regarding them anxiously.

“Adam? . . . Joe? Is . . . is everything all right?” Ben ventured hesitantly.

“Not y-yet, but it will be,” Adam replied, his voice still unsteady. He walked over toward the fireplace, with Joe following silently behind. “Pa?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“You think maybe . . . we could ride out to . . . to Ponderosa Plunge . . . tomorrow?” Adam asked as he dropped down in the nearest vacant easy chair, over next to the fireplace. “Just you and me? I . . . I just realized that . . . well, it’s been a long time since you and I’ve ridden out there together.”

“Pa, you don’t need to worry about The Kid and me,” Joe immediately put in. “I think the two of us can fend for ourselves for ONE day . . . and besides! Hop Sing’ll be here . . . and he’s a worse stickler for us following the doc’s orders than YOU are.”

“Uh oh. Maybe we’d b-better postpone that trip out to Ponderosa Plunge, lest you find yourself short a chief cook,” Adam said in mock horror, his eyes sparking with mischief.

“Whaddya mean lest Pa finds himself short a chief cook?” Joe demanded.

“After being forced to spend the day alone . . . with you and Stacy BOTH on the mend . . . Hop Sing’s gonna be on the first stage to San Francisco to help that cousin of his with the restaurant,” Adam teased.

“Oh, I think Hop Sing can cope for ONE day,” Ben said, as Joe stuck his tongue out at his oldest brother. He, then, sat back down on the settee, his face an odd mixture of relief and bewilderment. “Adam, I’d like nothing more than to ride out to Ponderosa Plunge with ya,” he said. “But, are you going to have the time?”

“Sure, Pa. I’ll have PLENTY of time.”

“But . . . aren’t you leaving day after tomorrow . . . on the first stage out?!”

“Pa, I can’t POSSIBLY leave day after tomorrow,” Adam said in mock surprise, then smiled. “I have a house to build first.”

Joe, with wild, joyous abandon, whooped at the top of his lungs, in response to Adam’s words. “ALRIGHT, OLDEST BROTHER OF MINE! NOW YOU’RE TALKIN ’ GOOD SENSE.”

“Joseph Francis Cartwright, will you for heaven’s sake keep your voice DOWN?! We’re in town, NOT out on the Ponderosa. Our nearest neighbors are only several FEET away, NOT several miles.” Though Ben reprimanded his youngest son very sternly, he couldn’t quite keep back his own happy smile. “Besides, Hoss, Stacy, and Hop Sing are probably trying to sleep.”

“No, we ain’t, Pa.” It was Hoss.

Ben, Adam, and Joe turned, and found the remainder of the family, Hoss, Stacy, and Hop Sing standing together behind the settee, clad in nightshirts, bathrobes, and slippers.

“How long have you three been standing there?” Joe demanded.

“Not long, Grandpa. We followed you after we heard you and Adam start down the stairs,” Stacy replied.

“I thought the three of ya had gone to bed,” Ben said, his eyes moving from Hoss, to Stacy, and finally to Hop Sing.

“We tried, Pa,” Stacy said, “but . . . it was one of those nights we just couldn’t get to sleep.”

“Good thing HOP SING plenty wide awake,” Hop Sing said. “Need fix lunch for Mister Cartwright, Mister Adam. Very good Mister Adam ride to Ponderosa Plunge with Papa. Very, very good.” He smiled, then yawned again, as he turned and started toward the kitchen.

“Hop Sing, please wait,” Ben said earnestly.

Hop Sing paused mid-stride, then turned and favored Ben with a quizzical look.

“You’ll have plenty of time after breakfast to fix up that lunch for Adam and me,” Ben said firmly. “Right now— ” He broke off, suddenly unable to speak.

“Pa?” Stacy prodded gently, noting the excessive blinking of his eyes.

Ben felt her hand gentle, yet firm coming to rest on his shoulder. Joe, his eyes round with apprehension, also reached over and covered his father’s hand, lightly resting on the arm of the settee, with his own.

“I-I’m alright,” Ben tried to assure them, his voice unsteady. “I . . . I just want all of you to c-come and . . . s-sit down awhile.”

Hop Sing nodded mutely and pulled one of the small straight backed chairs over close to the chair Joe occupied, while Hoss and Ben helped settle Stacy between them on the settee.

Adam moved the ottoman from its place in front of the chair he occupied, over directly in front of Stacy. “Here you are, Little Sister,” he said, smiling. “Sorry about the coffee table. Hoss, would you mind handing me one of the cushions behind you?”

“C-Comin’ atcha, OLDER Brother,” Hoss quipped, with tremulous smile, as he drew the cushion squashed behind his back and lobbed it toward Adam. His own big sky blue eyes gleamed with unusual brightness. The pillow sailed over Adam’s head and hit Joe squarely in the face.

“H-Hey! You did that on purpose,” Joe accused, laughing and crying at the same time.

“ACCIDENTLY on purpose,” Hoss countered, as he reached into the pocket of his robe and drew out a handkerchief.

“Gimme that,” Adam growled, smiling amid new tears forming in his own dark eyes. He snatched the cushion away from Joe and carefully placed it on the ottoman beneath Stacy’s new plaster cast. “There you are, Kid, nice ‘n comfy.”

“Thank you . . . G-GREAT Grandpa,” she replied, her own voice unsteady.

“GREAT Grandpa! I LIKE that,” Joe declared, a split second before breaking into a gale of infectious laughter that ensnared them all, one by one.

Ben slipped one arm around Stacy’s shoulders and squeezed Joe’s hand, still resting lightly on top of his. He offered a silent, heartfelt prayer, filled with gratitude for having all four of his children and Hop Sing gathered around him, alive, whole, and in one piece. “Alright, CHILDREN, let’s settle down,” he admonished them all gently, as the laughter subsided.

“Right!” Joe quipped with a grin. “We don’t want the neighbors complaining to the sheriff about all the noise.”

“Hoo boy! THAT’S gonna cramp our style,” Stacy said with an exaggerated, melodramatic sigh. “Adam?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“How long is it gonna take you to build our house anyway?”

“I don’t know . . . several months I imagine.”

“Several MONTHS?!” Joe echoed, incredulous. “Just to build a house?! Adam, are you kidding?!”

“Actually, I COULD get it done in a few weeks, weather permitting, IF I were in a hurry,” Adam said with a complacent smile. “But, seeing that I’d probably be expected to leave upon completion . . . I don’t think I’m in all that much of a hurry.”

“Adam, I’ve got a proposition for ya,” Ben said.

“What’s that?”

“You get that house built BEFORE one of your exuberant younger siblings lands the lot of us in jail for disturbing the peace, and I’ll let you stay as long as you like.”

Adam’s smile broadened. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Pa . . . . ”

Epilogue . . . .

“Feast your eyes upon THAT, Adam,” Ben said softly, reverently, as he gestured toward the magnificent vista of lake, mountain, sky, and a vast carpet of pine trees spread out before him with a broad sweep of his arm. “I STILL don’t know whether or not I’ll someday see heaven, but even so . . . I can’t imagine the beauty of heaven surpassing the beauty of the Ponderosa.”

“Amen to that, Pa,” Adam murmured, his voice every bit as soft, as reverent.

For a time, father and son stood together, in companionable silence, looking out on the view named Ponderosa Plunge by the latter, each lost in his own thoughts.

“Joe and I had three days to kill after we sold that herd of cattle in Eastgate,” Adam began, inwardly astonished at the ease in which the words flowed out of his mouth. He was grateful beyond measure for the loving strength radiating from his father’s close proximity. “Joe told me he was tired of being on the trail . . . that he wanted to stay over, rest, spend the next couple of nights sleeping in a real bed, with sheets, and a couple of soft, down pillows. I, on the other hand, was anxious to put some distance between myself and the town. I wanted very much to explore the area, of course . . . but that hardly explains why I was so eager to leave.”

“You’ve always needed your time alone, Son, from the time you were a small boy,” Ben said quietly. “After spending nearly a week on the trail, constantly in the company of your youngest brother, I can well understand you feeling the need to spend a couple of days alone.”

“We didn’t argue once on the trip out to Eastgate, Pa,” Adam said, feeling himself on the defensive. “Looking back, I’m still amazed at how well he and I got along.”

“I’m sorry . . . I meant no criticism of the relationship between you and Joe,” Ben said. “I was trying to say that you’ve always needed your time of solitude to replenish your energy, mental and physical. Joe, on the other hand, thrives on being around and interacting with people.”

Adam silently digested his father’s words. “You’re right, Pa. I . . . never realized that before, but . . . looking back . . . you’re right.”

“The beauty of the land surrounding you has always been a source of strength for you, too, Son,” Ben added, “and the starkness of the badlands out past Eastgate is in its own way every bit as magnificent as the view spread out before us here.”

Adam took a deep breath and shared with his father all that had happened from the time he had left the barbershop, where Joe was luxuriating in a hot bath, and finally ending with his setting out across the desert, carrying a travois, with Peter Kane’s inert body lying stretched out upon it, holding back nothing.

“I should’ve bowed to my baby brother’s wisdom and remained in town,” Adam said ruefully, “or at the very least . . . left the money with Joe or better yet, put it in the bank. I . . . I have no idea in the world why I insisted on carrying all that money around with me like that.”

Ben placed a comforting, paternal hand on Adam’s shoulder and gently squeezed. “Did you ever stop to consider that if you HADN’T taken the money with you, the men who robbed you might’ve killed you right there on the spot because they didn’t get what they were after?”

“They were watching me, Pa. They HAD to have been watching me. Had I put that money into the back . . . they would’ve known about it and . . . well, almost certainly looked for another victim.”

Ben winced against the bitterness, the anger he heard in his eldest son’s voice. “Son, you don’t know that. You CAN’T know that. Just before I left home to make my own way in the world, MY pa told me that hindsight is always crystal clear. ‘Use it to look at your mistakes and learn the lessons they have to teach, but never let it incriminate you.’ I . . . know it’s difficult sometimes— ”

Adam forced himself to turn, to gaze into his father’s face, and eyes. Instead of the expected reproach, he saw the great depths of his father’s love and compassion for the first time in a very long time.

“I . . . oh, Pa, I . . . I can’t believe how naive . . . how arrogantly cock sure I was of myself . . . of what I believed,” Adam said, his voice filled with bitter self reproach and grief. “I honestly and truly believed that a civilized man . . . like . . . myself . . . couldn’t be driven to commit murder. Kill to defend himself . . . to protect others, particularly those he loves, yes. But to commit premeditated, cold blooded murder . . . no.

“As Kane went on working and treating me like a . . . like a brainless animal, goading me every step of the way, I became angry, Pa. So angry, I wanted to kill him . . . to put my hands around my neck and choke the very life out of him. That scared me . . . more than anything in my whole life.

“In the end . . . when Kane t-told me we were going to have a . . . a fight to the death to . . . to see who got to leave with the rifle and . . . and the secret stash of f-food and water, God help me, Pa, I . . . I pummeled him within an inch of his life. The minute he fell, I was on him. I . . . I actually hand my hands around his neck.”

Adam felt his father’s hand leave his shoulder. Then, in less than the space of a heartbeat, Pa’s arm encircled both shoulders and held on tight. He quickly swallowed back the lump quickly rising in his throat, as he slipped his own arm around his father’s waist.

Ben felt the acrid sting of tears in his own eyes, not only for the agony that Peter Kane had inflicted upon the man he held against him, with his arm wrapped tight about his shoulders, but for the terrible burden he had carried inside all the years since. “Adam . . . DID you kill him?”

“No! I . . . I grabbed h-his rifle and . . . I smashed it into a million tiny pieces,” Adam replied, his voice shaking. “Then, I . . . I located the stash of food and water, but . . . b-before I could even think of running . . . Kane got in one last jab. He t-told me that he had won after all . . . that I was as good as killing him by going off w-with . . . with the very last of our food and water— ” He abruptly broke off, unable to continue.

“I’m here, Son . . . . ” Ben whispered very softly. “I’m right here. Whether you want me or not, I’ll still . . . ALWAYS . . . be right here.”

Adam’s head dropped down onto his father’s shoulder, with a natural ease that surprised him. He had stopped coming to his father like this, in what he considered to be the manner of a child, in the wake of Inger’s death. Pa needed him to be strong, to be a man, that together, both of them might properly look after Hoss. There had only been two exceptions. The first was in the wake of those frightening Ash Hallow dreams, prompted, no doubt, by the suddenness of Inger’s demise. The second was the day Pa, Hoss, and Joe found him trekking blindly through the badlands, dragging a travois bearing the dead body of Peter Kane.

“Adam . . . if you never listen to another word I say . . . if you decide to never again listen to or act upon any piece of advice I give you in the future . . . please . . . please hear this,” Ben said, his tone gentle yet rock firm with conviction. “One thing I’ve learned in all my travels . . . from the countless numbers of people I’ve met along the way . . . is that people are capable of great good . . . AND great evil. The choice is always ours.

“Now from what you’ve told me about that time, I see a young man who chose NOT to kill, despite his wanting so very much to do so,” Ben continued, as his arms wrapped tighter about his eldest son’s body. He pulled him closer, gratified and deeply touched that Adam came willingly, without offering even the slightest bit of resistance. “In spite of all that Kane did . . . and tried to do, you took your hands from around his neck, and later . . . you placed him on a travois and tried to bring him back, along with yourself. Your decision to try and save Kane in the face of your feelings, your instincts to the contrary, speaks to me of a very strong . . . very courageous man . . . who . . . who I am very proud to have as my s-son— ”

Father and son stood together, for a time, locked tight in each others’ arms, weeping openly, without shame. Their tears flowed freely, overtop their eyelids, and down their cheeks, pressed close, to mingle, and become as one. For the first time in many, many years, Adam knew once again the profound depths of his father’s love, and in those depths discovered anew the bonds that united them as father and son.

Afterwards, Adam told Ben about Randy Paine, and the circumstances that had finally led to his leaving his home . . . and his family . . . for good. “I . . . I wanted to kill him every b-bit as much as . . . as I had wanted to kill K-Kane. That’s . . . that’s why I left home, Pa . . . left you, Hoss, Joe, and Hop Sing the way I d-did,” Adam confessed, as their weeping began to subside, “sneaking out . . . in the dead of n-night like a thief, without . . . without saying good-bye. I saw a part of myself I didn’t w-want to see . . . that I . . . I tried m-my damndest NOT to see, and I was afraid.”

“ . . . afraid that y-you’d get angry enough to want to kill me, your brothers, or . . . or Hop Sing?”

Adam nodded.

“You wouldn’t have, Son.” Ben gently cupped Adam’s face in his own hands, and gazed lovingly into his firstborn’s golden brown eyes, filled with uncertainty and dread, yes . . . but there was also a glimmer of hope there that had been absent for many, many years. “You chose NOT to kill Peter Kane and Randy Paine . . . two men who cruelly abused you for their own twisted purposes. If you’re capable of sparing the lives of men like that . . . how much more capable are you of sparing the lives of people you love?”

“I n-never even thought of that, Pa,” Adam murmured, as fresh tears once more filled his eyes.

“I . . . think you would have left the Ponderosa . . . and us . . . eventually,” Ben said quietly, with a touch of sadness. “As a young man, YOU wanted to see the world every bit as much as I did at the same age.”

Adam nodded.

Ben favored his eldest son with an encouraging, yet wistful smile. “I . . . I miss you, Son, so much, it sometimes hurts,” he said, “ever since . . . since that first morning I woke up and found your note on the credenza . . . and I always will. You and I . . . we’ve shared and gone through a lot together . . . for good and for ill, that I will never share with your brothers or your sister. I would be less than honest if I didn’t acknowledge and admit that, but . . . over the years, I’ve come also to see that you and Teresa have made a life for yourselves and for your children that’s every bit as good as the life I’ve tried to make here on the Ponderosa for you, Hoss, Joe, and Stacy.”

“Thank you, Pa. When Teresa and I came with the kids three years ago, she asked me if I missed my life here on the Ponderosa.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I answered yes, but I also told her that as much as I DID miss my life here, I still wouldn’t trade it for the life she and I’ve made together,” Adam said. “I’ve found, much to my surprise that I enjoy being a city slicker very much. However . . . . ”

“Yes?”

“I have every intention of coming here to visit you more often, Pa . . . a LOT more often.”

Ben smiled. “I’m gonna hold you to that, Son.”

“You’d better,” Adam said, smiling back.

“ . . . and you’d better bring your family with you, too.”

“Dio’d never let me hear the end of it if I didn’t,” Adam said. “Of course this business of bringing the family along works both ways, y’ know. Eduardo and Dolores remind me every chance they get that my brothers haven’t been to visit since the wedding . . . and that Eduardo has yet to meet my sister.”

“I’ll have to wait until your sister’s back on her feet again— ”

“Given her impatient nature in times of enforced convalescence . . . . ” Adam smiled, as he sarcastically rolled his eyes heavenward, “she should be mobile by late summer . . . if not before.”

“If she is, then I promise to descend on you en masse. That includes Hop Sing.”

“That BETTER include Hop Sing.”

“I hope you and Teresa’ll be up for it. Your brothers and sister can be an unruly bunch sometimes, y’ know.”

Adam laughed out loud, upon remembering how he and Teresa had come back from a ride to this very spot, and found the entire great room trashed, Joe and Stacy armed with the matched set of fencing rapiers, that had belonged to Marie, half sitting-half lying on an overturned settee, clad in outlandish make shift costumes, laughing their fool heads off . . . and Pa, towering over them, altering from astonishment, to anger, and to amusement.

“When we do come?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll make sure Joe and Stacy leave the fencing rapiers at home,” Ben promised, with a knowing smile.

The End.