The summer I turned ten, Adam decided he was never going to fall in love again. At least, that’s what he said, when Pa asked him why he wasn’t going to the barn dance. That spring, Emily Anderson had broken my oldest brother’s heart like a grizzly cracking open a honeycomb. I’m older now and know that a broken heart isn’t something a fellow gets over easy. Back then, it didn’t seem like it should be so much of a problem. 

After Emily, Adam wouldn’t play poker, he refused to go fishing, and he didn’t even make me practice my arithmetic. Adam had held a tight rein over my education since he got back from college, and I’d thought it would be nice to not have so much of his attention. But I missed him ordering me around, even though Pa said Adam would start telling me what to do again before I knew it. 

And just like Pa called it, after a couple months, Adam started to act like his old self again. Took some time, but one night, he started laughing at Hoss’s jokes, the next night, he stayed at the table for dessert, and the third night, he threatened he’d sit behind me at school all day if I didn’t turn in my homework on time. That was an awful threat, but I was glad to have my brother back, all the same.

Then came one fine morning, when I came downstairs to the sound of Pa trying to talk Adam into going to a barn dance, come Saturday. Now, this wasn’t like Pa. Usually, he could be counted on to have some common sense. This was not one of those times. Just when Adam had gotten over one girl, Pa was trying to get him tangled up with a barn full of them. I groaned out loud, and they looked up. Pa said smiled and said good morning, told me to fetch my own breakfast, and then went right back to his sweet-talking. And Pa was good. He was making the dance sound mighty fine. Said there’d be well-bred ladies there from miles around, and Lord knows that didn’t happen every Saturday night! At most dances, there were a lot more men than women, and fellows had to partner up with each other if they wanted to dance up a jig. This time, it was going to be different. Reverend Parker had made it a point in church to encourage the unmarried members of his congregation to attend.

(Some of the older boys said Reverend Parker was trying to get some new babies born in his congregation; that’s why he told all the girls it was all right to go to the dance. When I told Hoss about it, he said, “No, no! You got it all wrong, Little Joe. He wants folks to get to courtin’ all right and proper, not have babies with each other.” But then Hoss started blushing and wouldn’t say anything more. To this day, I’m pretty sure I got it right.) 

My stomach was growling, and I was anxious to fill it with some of Hop Sing’s leftover biscuits. I knew something was up, because they’d forgotten to give me a shake and wake me up in time for breakfast. I grabbed a biscuit in each hand, but I didn’t bother closing the door to the kitchen. Pa was just getting started, but I could tell that Adam wasn’t real happy about it. 

“Son, it’s been a couple months since things… ended… with Emily. You’re a young man. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Don’t you think it’s time to take a chance again?”

“No sir,” Adam said, sounding a lot more disrespectful being polite to Pa than I ever did, even during my worst temper. “I’m over taking chances. I’m going to stick to ranching and save myself a lifetime of grief. Give me a self-respecting pestilence or drought any day over a girl who thinks she knows everything about me…”

I had no idea what “pestilence” meant, and I couldn’t ask since I wasn’t supposed to be listening, but I knew what “drought” meant, and that was bad enough. The summer before, we’d had the worst drought in twenty years. It had been hot enough to sunburn a horned toad – that’s what Hoss said, and he ought to know. As far as I was concerned, if Adam wanted to sweat through another scorcher of a summer with dead cattle and dried up rivers rather than fall in love again… well sir, I figured he must know what he was talking about. He was serious. But then, Adam was always serious, even back then, before he met her. Before he met Caroline, that is.

You see, Adam did go to the dance that Saturday night, even if he swore he would only watch the dancing. He told Pa he wouldn’t dance a jig, unless it was with a respectable grubstaking miner. Pa smiled the kind of smile that let us know he’d gotten what he wanted.

The night of the barn dance, Pa waited up. I waited up too, because I didn’t have anything better to do. Of course, Pa didn’t know that. I was really good at faking sleep. I could lie as still as you please. Hoss had never been good at it at all. As soon as his head the pillow, he was snoring.

So, when Adam came home from the dance, humming a tune to an Irish jig, Pa hardly looked up from his papers. He asked, “Have a good time, son?”

“Real good,” Adam said, and he walked over to where I was hiding behind the chair and scruffed up my hair. I glared up at him for letting Pa know my hiding place. “Pa, you were right. It was fine dance. A man’s life can’t end at twenty-two, now can it?”

“What’s her name? Must be someone special to bring you back to life again.” Pa said, even as he walked over to haul me out from behind the chair by my elbows. He gave me a thump on my backside and was about to send me to bed, but couldn’t help trying to organize my hair first. Thanks to Adam messing it up, Pa would be after me to get a haircut again. 

Adam just smiled. “It’s Caroline. She goes by Callie. Callie Rumer. Remember, her father and brothers helped at the last roundup?”

“Yes, of course. Caroline Rumer. She went to school back east, didn’t she?”

“She did,” Adam said, and he snatched an apple from the bowl on the sideboard and straddled the back of a chair. “Bentley School for Girls. Had a fine education. Callie’s a pleasure to talk to, Pa. Her understanding of 18th century English literature is very impressive.” 

My brother bit into that apple like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

“It sounds like Miss Rumer is a little more impressive than pestilence and drought. Have you decided against courting natural disasters?”

Adam had to grin. “I suppose I’ll have to own up to more than my share of famous last words…”

“Don’t we all?” Pa said, and then they both laughed. I laughed too. Pa looked over at me, remembering I was there, and pointed to the stairs. “Upstairs, for you, young man. Bed.”

I always had to leave when things got interesting. It was the price of being the youngest. Adam, on the other hand, got to stay up the latest, got to know everything that was going on when it was actually happening, and he got to laugh with Pa like they were friends. Then again, Pa expected a lot from Adam, more than he did from the rest of us. But the main thing he wanted from Adam was for him to be happy. It was good to see Pa getting what he wanted.

“Night, Pa. Night, Adam,” I said and gave Pa a quick hug before heading toward the stairs. When I got to the landing, I turned and watched as Pa poured Adam a brandy, and they clinked glasses. 

I liked seeing them like that, happy together, but something was starting to bother me, a niggling feeling that made me feel funny inside. I’d have been hard-pressed to explain it. It wasn’t the fact that my brother met a girl. I liked Callie. Even though Adam hadn’t had the sense to know she’d existed before he saw her at the barn dance, I’d known Callie for most of my life. After all, she was Luke Rumer’s big sister, and she came home every summer from her fancy school back east. She sat a horse as well as Luke. Besides that, she made the best apple pie I’d ever tasted. Callie was pretty, with hair the color of a sand harbor, and she smiled like she had a secret. I should have been happy for my big brother. 

If I’d been building up my vocabulary like Adam wanted me to, I’d have called my strange feeling a “premonition.” I wasn’t going to tell Adam or Pa. I wished Hoss was home, so I could talk to him about it; I always felt like I was slipping out of the saddle without my big brother around. Hoss had been asked to help on the Silver Spur’s roundup, and Pa had said he could go. Hoss was mighty proud to be off on his own, and if I’d been a good brother, I’d have been happy for him. But more than anything, I wanted Hoss around to tell me I was getting myself riled up for nothing. 

I could hear them laughing, as I slipped into my room and closed the door. I didn’t bother lighting the lamp to get ready for bed. Moonlight slanted through the window, and I slid under my blankets, wiggling my toes to keep myself awake a little bit longer. Lying there like that, I said my prayers for all of us. Even for Callie and for the bad feeling I had about the whole thing. I fell asleep to the sound of Adam and Pa laughing together, downstairs.

********

The next morning, I couldn’t remember what I’d been so worried about. Adam took me riding after church, and he seemed just about as normal as a fellow could be, even if he was in love. What could happen? He’d already gotten a broken heart and survived it all right. If the same thing happened with Callie, I figured that Adam would get over it in time. 

But the days kept moving along, like they had a mind of their own. Hoss came home from the roundup, cheerful as a chickadee, and he tossed me into a pile of hay like he hadn’t seen me in years. Summer was slipping on by, and school waited for me at the edge of August like a bully getting ready to steal my lunch pail. 

Summer was ending, but Adam loved Callie. 

Folks were talking like Adam was going to marry her, and my friends teased me about it once I got back to school, doubling over at their own jokes like they were the first ones to think them up. I didn’t mind, even though I practiced my left hook a couple times to let them think I did. Adam marrying Callie… That would mean that Luke and I would end up brothers, and I didn’t mind having a brother who got into more trouble than I did. 

Once, I asked Pa whether Adam was fixing to marry her, and he frowned at me and said, “Now you mind your own business, young man. Let them have some privacy.” But Pa couldn’t keep from smiling a little. He added, “We’ll have to wait and see. You never know what might happen…”

As for Hoss, he was dreaming about all the pies that Callie could make if she lived with us on the Ponderosa. The connection between my big brother’s heart and stomach was a direct one. As far as I could tell, Hoss would marry a gal for pies alone, but that wouldn’t have been enough for Adam. It wouldn’t have been enough for me either. But I liked Callie just fine, mostly because she loved Adam. She understood him, something she let me know, one day when I’d had about enough of my big brother. 

It was late one afternoon, and just like most afternoons, Adam was letting me know that my idea of “good enough” didn’t match up with his. He’d finished yelling at me about what he thought of my creative attempts at whitewashing the icehouse, and I was about to hurtle my paintbrush at his back, as he stomped away. Callie didn’t let me. She slipped around the corner and took hold of my hand. She didn’t even seem to care that I was getting paint all over her. I didn’t even know she’d been watching; I was so mad at Adam. I should have known she’d have been with him. They were always together. 

“Don’t,” she whispered and pulled me around the corner, out of Adam’s sight. “I want to tell you something about your brother.”

“Reckon I know everything there is to know bout Adam,” I grumbled, knowing I sounded like I was nine years old, but not caring.

“No. You don’t.” Callie smiled at me, and I held my breath. She really was a pretty girl. Copper freckles dusted the tip of her nose. She pushed hair out of my eyes, and I leaned in to be a little closer to her, even though I wasn’t sure why. “Adam gets mad because he cares too much. He needs to have the illusion of control. Do you know what that means?”

I shook my head.

Callie leaned against an unpainted section of the icehouse. She sighed. “It means that he needs to think he’s in control of things that no one can be in control of. So, when something’s important to him, he puts all his attention into getting it right.”

“Like the whitewashing?” I mumbled, glancing worriedly at my haphazard paint strokes. I guess I hadn’t really gotten it right after all.

“Not the whitewashing, silly thing. You!” she said with a laugh, putting all her emphasis on that last word. “He doesn’t mind whether you paint well or not. He wants you to turn out the way he thinks you should, and that’s why he gets so upset, when he doesn’t think you’re listening.”

I was listening. She had my attention.

So she continued, “He can’t control everything. Nobody can. He certainly can’t control you or me, can he?”

I had to grin and shook my head.

Then she said, “But let’s you and I let him think he can, just a little bit longer.”

The way she said it made a lot of sense and made me feel like by obeying Adam I’d be obliging Callie. She was a pretty girl, like I said so before, and she made a mighty fine apple pie. So I stuck out my hand, we shook on it, and it became our secret. And I went back to painting, this time trying my best to control my strokes. Back and forth, up and down. Just like Adam taught me. Did I mention that I liked Callie?

But summer was over. 

It came down to a single Sunday, after the church picnic. Most folks had already gone home, but we Cartwrights had stayed longer, helping the reverend clean up. Callie and Adam made their signal at each other, and they swung into their saddles and rode off for a while. They didn’t get far. I was able to follow them on foot. They didn’t see me, so I hunkered down behind a tree. I’d been hoping to get one of them to go fishing with me, but they only had eyes for each other. I’ll never forget the look on Adam’s face. His smile was different back then. It’s hard to explain how I saw it, but my brother was happy that day. I was already tramping downstream, while they said their goodbyes. He touched her cheek, they kissed each other, and then they rode off in different directions. There wasn’t anything different about that afternoon, except that it was the last one.

But, not much held my attention for long. I was going to catch me some fish, so they could be in love all they wanted. Knowing what I know now, I wish more than anything that I’d asked Callie to go fishing with me, but she’d already headed the opposite way up the river. To this very day, I wonder if it could have been different. I wonder what would have happened if only Adam had rode home alongside her… But you can’t go and get bogged down in the “if onlys” and “should-haves.” That’s actually harder for me to understand now. It was easier for me to believe back then. 

I walked along that creek for hours that day, my fishing pole slung over my shoulder. The Ponderosa was my whole world. It was my Eden, but I didn’t know enough to see it that way. I might be remembering that day wrong, but I’m sure that a day hasn’t seemed so perfect since. The wind kept sailing my hat through the trees, the frogs were complaining so loud, you’d swear they were sitting on your shoulder, and the air smelled like cedar and pine in the sun. Boys like me could run wild when the work was done. I took my time getting home. Nobody ever seemed to worry, as long as I was back by supper. It would be a while before the Ponderosa was my world again. 

The sun was already going down when I strolled back into the yard, scuffing shapes in the dirt with my boots. They were out by the barn – Sheriff Coffee, Mr. Rumer, and a whole bunch of other men were talking to my pa. They were using quiet serious voices, but they stopped when I walked up. Hal, the livery owner, was in his saddle, but he didn’t smile and wink at me like he usually did. 

“Howdy Sheriff,” I said. “Howdy Mr. Rumer.” Suddenly, I felt like my throat was knotted up. It was hard to swallow.

“Howdy Little Joe,” the sheriff said, but Mr. Rumer didn’t say anything at all. His eyes were red-rimmed around the edges. He’d looked a lot different than the last time I saw him when I was sitting across from Luke, eating Callie’s pie. “We need to talk to Adam. Why don’t you go fetch him?”

Pa tried to smile at me, but it came out all wrong. He put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed hard. “Stay inside, son, until we come get you.”

I stuck my fists in my pockets. I went to fetch Adam, but not because I wanted to. For a reckless minute, I wondered if I could sneak Adam out the kitchen door, so he’d never need to hear anything they wanted to tell him. We could go off fishing and hunting in the high country for days, and maybe when we came home again, everything would be back to normal again. 

But Adam was already coming out of the front door, with Hoss at his heels. He didn’t need me to tell him that something was wrong. I tried to stand in his way and threw my arms around his waist. I wished I were as big as Hoss. Whatever news the sheriff was bringing, I didn’t want Adam to hear it.

Without taking his eyes from the group by the barn, Adam pulled me away and gently moved me aside. Then he swallowed and walked over to the other men. Hoss was there, and he crouched beside me and looked me in the eye, taking hold of my shoulders. 

He said very quietly, “Listen here, Shortshanks. I reckon something bad’s happened. Ain’t that what you’re thinkin’?”

I nodded, even though I didn’t know what it was. 

“Then you know you have to stay close to home, until we come back. That’s how you can help right now. You hear me, Little Joe?”

I couldn’t look at him. Hoss always knew what I was thinking, even the dark thoughts that I didn’t want anyone to know about. But I nodded. I was always ignoring inconvenient orders, but this was serious. Hoss wasn’t a man. He was only sixteen, but he knew how to give orders already, and I knew how to obey.

I didn’t look back at them. I didn’t want to hear what Sheriff Coffee had to say. Inside the house, I raced up the stairs and into my room. I didn’t want to be a grown man like my pa and big brother. I wanted to be a boy. So I hid. I hid under my bed, something I hadn’t done since the horrible year my mama died. But the planked pine floor felt awfully solid under my elbows and knees, even if the dust made me sneeze. I was supposed to be mopping under there once a week, but I usually found something better to do. So, I spent some of my worrying time, tracing my name in the tracks of dust. 

I don’t know how long it was before Pa came around looking for me. I guess I’d fallen asleep down there. Hop Sing must have found me earlier, because a blanket was tucked over my legs, which had been sticking out from underneath the bed. For a minute, I couldn’t remember what the heck I was doing under there, but then it came back to me. The dark looks, the circle of men. Adam walking out to meet them. But Pa was back home to see to me.

He knocked very gently but came in before I had a chance to get out from under the bed. He didn’t even ask what I was doing there or holler at me for getting my clothes all dusty like that. Instead, Pa put his lamp on the table and sat on the floor beside me. He didn’t even try to brush the dust off my pants. 

“Where’s Adam?” I hadn’t meant to ask that question first. It just came out like that.

Pa looked so tired. He ran his hands over his eyes. 

“Where’s Adam?” I repeated myself, fear in my voice this time.

I couldn’t help myself; I started to cry. That seemed to bring Pa back, and he pulled me onto his lap, like I was some sort of a kid.

“Adam’s outside,” Pa said, and I could hear his heart beating too fast. “He’s saddling fresh horses. We were out all night… looking. Now, we have to go out again. We’re going to be gone for a while, and I need you to stay inside the house while I’m gone. I need you to mind Hop Sing, Joe.”

“Are you still looking?” I asked.

Pa just sighed again. He hadn’t let me go, but rested his chin on the top of my head. Usually, I’d have pulled away from him, already squirrelly, but it felt good being held by Pa like that. 

“Sheriff Coffee has organized a posse,” Pa said. “He wants Adam and I to come along. Hoss is going to stay here with you. He’s… worn out.”

“Are you looking for Callie?” I asked.

I felt him shudder. “No, son. We’re not looking for Callie.”

“Is she already dead?”

Pa pulled back, surprised. He spent a long time looking at me. I couldn’t ever remember seeing him so sad. Then he answered, “Yes, Joseph, she’s dead.”

I didn’t cry. I got up and walked over to the window and looked out the rippled glass out to the barn. From where I stood, I could see Adam leading the horses out into the yard. In the harsh moonlight, everything looked yellowed and strange. I tracked my brother until I lost him in the shadows.

“Joseph, I need to leave now. I need to know you’re all right.”

“How did she die?” 

“Son, I don’t have time now to explain.”

“Did someone kill her?” 

I hadn’t even been thinking that thought until I asked it. Truth be told, I’m not sure where the question even came from. Until that day, it had never even occurred to me that pretty girls who baked the best apple pie in town even could be killed. Riverboat gamblers were always getting themselves killed – that’s what Pa claimed when he wanted me to get a haircut. But pretty girls like Callie…? It didn’t make sense at all.

But, I’ll tell you one of the best and worst things about my pa. He never lied to us, no matter how much he wanted to.

“Yes, son,” Pa said. “Someone killed her.”

I couldn’t stop myself. I had to know.

“How?”

“Her horse came home without her. We found her down the river.”

That didn’t answer my question, but suddenly, I didn’t want to know more. I let Pa tuck me in, even though I hadn’t even changed out of my clothes, which still smelled like creek water and dust. 

I asked, “Can you stay with me?”

Pa cleared his throat. “Hoss will be in soon. He can sleep in your room, if you want him to.”

I got the feeling that Pa would have climbed in bed with me if he could have. But the men were waiting. Pa leaned over and kissed me on the cheek before he left the room. I couldn’t remember the last time he did that. Even though I was way too old, I didn’t wipe it away. I just lay stock-still in bed, and waited for Hoss, and I tried to make sense of the dark.

********

They caught the man who killed Callie. Nobody knew him; he was a drifter. Some men who had daughters of their own broke him out of Sheriff Coffee’s jail and strung him up on a tree at the edge of town. To this day, I don’t know why he did it or even if he did it. It’s not something we talk about. Not ever. I don’t even know his name. 

Those were terrible days. Adam mourned quietly, different than the rest. I bawled like a baby at Callie’s funeral, and Hoss kept swiping at his eyes. But Adam looked like he’d grown up too quickly. It’s hard to explain the difference. You’d have to have known him before to really understand. Pa stood beside Adam, shoulder to shoulder, even though he kept his other arm hooked around me. I got the feeling that Pa was having trouble letting any of us out of his reach.

When the funeral was over, I came up to Adam. He was standing by her gravestone, looking tired and old.

“Adam? Can I be with you for a while?” 

My brother looked down, and he smiled for me. To this day, I count that smile as grace. It was the most generous thing he could have given me.

He didn’t answer, but he put his hand on the back of my neck. I let it rest there, but it was time to go inside. For once I led my big brother, and he followed toward the Rumer’s house. From inside, I could hear Callie’s mama sobbing…

********

Autumn came on us hard that year. The first snow came in October, before we’d gotten most of our herd to safe pasture. We lost fifty head of cattle that winter, but it didn’t seem like much of a loss. Not compared to what had come before.

We were snowbound, and normally, I’d have been glad to get out of school. But things had changed, and I’d found that being bored in a classroom was a whole lot better than staying too long at home. My whole family was different; we lost something that winter. Callie’s death shook us all. Lots of folks died young. That was just part of life. Jeb Nelson lost his wife and twin daughters to the flu just the year before. But Callie hadn’t died for any reason that made sense. She died because someone else decided to kill her. It was the first time I’d ever thought someone could do something like that. Learning about evil didn’t come easy. Not then, not now. To this day, I don’t think I’ll ever really understand what happened in the soul of a man that that let him do something like that.

Hoss took it hard. I don’t know if he really knew Callie all that well, but Hoss loved her for our brother. Hoss never had a dark thought about anyone or anything. It hit him like a punch in the gut – that’s what he told me later. He’d always thought the best in people; he’d never known a stranger. Hoss started fretting over me and where I was, no matter the time of day. He tracked me all the time. Didn’t want me out of sight. My whole family was like that, come to think of it. I’d been going off during daylight for half my life, and it never seemed to bother anyone before. The man who killed Callie was months in the grave, and I didn’t think anything like that could ever happen again. I didn’t know any better. It was my first time coming up close to evil. Everything changed after Callie was gone. 

Adam grieved alone, and it didn’t have anything to do with us. I think that was the hardest thing of all. The way he was home all the time without being home at all. Pa always seemed calm and collected around Adam and patient with the rest of us, but once I found my pa, taking out the devil with his axe at the woodpile. I’d never seen my pa so angry, and he was just chopping wood. When he saw me watching him, he sort of slumped up against the wall.

“I didn’t want us to run out of kindling,” he explained and propped up the axe as gently as you please. Pa didn’t meet my eyes as he walked into the house. I stared at the hacked up pile of firewood for a long time after that.

I swore I’d never do anything to make my family feel worse than they already did, so I did what I was supposed to and tried not to complain. Instead of setting off and having myself an adventure, I kept myself small and quiet and stayed inside that winter, pressing my face across the icy window. Everything was frozen outside.

But I was a boy and “never” was a long time to be good. I should never have swore to it, even if it was only to myself. I’d stayed close by, for as long as I could. I’d tried to make my family feel better, but it wasn’t about me anyway. 

It came to me at dinner one night, the fact that I had to go off by myself again. It took wide-open spaces for me to do some good thinking. I’d been watching Adam across the table. He lifted the fork to his lips, chewing each bite carefully. I don’t think he tasted Hop Sing’s roast beef at all. But he was in control. The illusion of control. That’s how Callie put it. Sitting around me, my family was being so quiet and polite, but I felt like something inside me was going to burst open. For months, I’d been in shock, but I could feel my feet tapping underneath the table. I couldn’t stand it any more. It was time to have an adventure. Even if it killed me, I never could stay pent up for long.

When I snuck off way before dawn the next morning, I didn’t know where the day would lead me. That was the fun of it. I was hungry and cold as I saddled my horse, but I didn’t care. The air froze my smile in place as I led him out of the yard. I’d bundled myself so well I could hardly swing in the saddle, but once I did, I felt better than I had in a long time. The sunrise backlit the mountains. I had no idea where I was going, so I just flicked the reins and followed the clouds in the moonlit sky.

It was a fine ride throughout that sunrise and into the morning. Honest to God, I had no idea where the time went. I didn’t even know where I was headed. As I found my way toward the river through the snowy woods, I didn’t notice the storm clouds churning overhead. By the time I made it to the edge of the Truckee, the wind was blasting ice and pine needles into my eyes. I couldn’t remember my reasons for heading out in the first place. I knew it had to do with Callie. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. She would have been a good wife for my brother. I ground tied my pony and scooted my way down the bank, protecting myself from the wind by nestling against it. The river was working itself up, but I sat up the bank, away from the edge. I had no idea what I’d come for, and I was getting kind of lonely. I’d have been happy to have a conversation with the water, but it was too loud and angry. Couldn’t even skip stones. My hands were shaking too hard for that.

I don’t know how long I crouched by the river. The clouds were too thick for me to keep track of the sun. I know I prayed a while. Not for myself – I didn’t figure myself in much trouble. It would be a straight ride back home, after the storm had gotten out of the way. But I prayed for Adam. For Pa and for Hoss too. Even for Callie, but I reckoned that she didn’t need those prayers anymore. 

I prayed so hard that when I heard my name in the wind, I thought that God was calling back to me. The truth of it was that I was so dull-witted from the cold, I didn’t have the sense to answer. But there was my name again, over the wind, through the current, knocking against the stones.

“Joe! Little Joe! Answer me, Joe!”

Before my hands had gotten so numb, I’d made myself a bed of pine needles against the bank. It felt pretty good, and I was proud of the effort, but I began to close my eyes, as I curled up underneath them. I was starting to dream – about Callie’s smile… does anyone really forget the first time they noticed a pretty girl’s smile? …when strong hands lifted me up and out of that warm dream and back into the cold day I’d already forgotten.

The whole world was shaking.

“Wake up, Joe! Open your eyes. Come on, listen to me… damn it, wake up!”

I had no choice. I opened my eyes, because Adam was mad. Did I ever tell you that there wasn’t much that scared me more than Adam getting mad?

When I saw him, his face showed more than I really wanted to see. After Callie died, it was like a door shut over his eyes, like there was nothing he cared about left to let in. Now, there was plenty in my brother’s eyes. And it scared me more than I’d scared him. He was shaking, beside himself. I was shaking even harder, but didn’t know why. Adam looked like he wanted to thrash me, but he took a huge breath and hugged me instead. He hugged me so hard it hurt. Then he started yelling.

“Do you know what you did? Do you have any idea? Do you?” 

It had been so long since I’d heard anything like that in Adam’s voice, I started to cry. All I’d wanted was to make Adam feel better, but instead I’d gone and ruined everything. When he saw I was crying, he took another deep breath, like he was willing his self-control to creep back in. 

In a calmer voice, he said, “If you hadn’t trained that cowpony to stay put, I’d have never found you. Do you know that, Joe?”

“Then, it’s a good thing I trained him.”

Don’t know where I found the grit to say that to my big brother in the middle of my bawling, but for whatever reason, it made him laugh. It was a snort of a laugh – Adam was out of practice – and then he wrapped me in a scratchy blanket he’d taken from his saddlebag. I tried to stand up while he braced me, but my legs were jittery, and they buckled like a newborn calf.

“I’ve got you,” Adam said, and I was suddenly too tired to complain when he picked me up. It was a funny thing. I hadn’t been the least bit scared the whole time I was off on my own, even though I’d likely been half-frozen by the time I got to that river. For the past few months, all I’d been was scared. Maybe it was a good thing that I’d taken off after all – it took the Ponderosa to clear up my thinking. But I knew enough not to say that to Adam.

He put me in front of him, in his own saddle, and we started a careful ride home, leading my pony behind us. The wind was fierce and was blowing snow into our eyes. I turned my face into my brother’s shoulder, but Adam kept facing forward, riding into it. He was holding on to me tight though.

“I hope Pa and Hoss are home safe,” he said. “They were riding out to the ranches to round up some help.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, miserably. The last thing I wanted was for Pa and Hoss to be out in the storm looking for me. I hadn’t thought of that when I set out. 

“Do you know how this could have turned out?” 

“Yes,” I said, hoping that was the right answer. He grumbled at me a little under his breath. And then we were quiet for a while. 

Adam was still awfully angry, but he pulled his coat tighter around me. It smelled like the tonic he’d been using since he came back from college. He smelled like Pa, only different, because he was my brother. I wanted to close my eyes but started thinking about Callie again. I thought about Callie all the time, about the way she died. If I thought about her all the time, I figured that Adam must be thinking about her too, so there was no reason to give any warning before I said what I was thinking.

“Adam?”

“What is it, Little Joe?” 

“Why did he do it? Why did he kill her? He didn’t even know her.”

I couldn’t be certain, with all the layers around me, but I could have sworn I felt Adam shiver. 

“I don’t know,” he said after a while. “I wish I knew, Joe, but I don’t.”

I’d been fighting off sleep for a long time. The sun was going down on the other side of the mountains. We were still a long way from home. I couldn’t figure how I’d gotten so far in less than a day. I’d made good time on my little cutting horse. 

Drowsily, I told Adam, “Callie was awfully good for you. She knew all about you and wanted to marry you, anyway.”

Adam laughed. I’d made him laugh again. It made me warm inside. It was of my best moments, even to this day.

“How do you figure that?” he asked dryly, with that laugh still in his voice.

So I told him what Callie told me that day when I’d been whitewashing the icehouse. All about control and how we’d be best off letting him think he was getting things right. Adam laughed again, but sadly this time.

More to himself than to me, he said, “You’re right about one thing, little brother. A girl like her won’t be coming around again.” After a while, he added, “You can sleep if you want, buddy. I’ll be handing you back to Pa before you know it.”

I believed him. That was the thing about my oldest brother. He knew where he was going, even when snowblind. Callie knew it too; maybe that’s why she loved him. I missed her, but I wanted to think about her and not be sad. I was going to try. Maybe someday Adam would be able to do the same. I’d never understand why it happened. But Callie deserved to be remembered for more than the terrible way she died. 

I was ten years old and didn’t know that grief could last a lifetime. But Adam felt like my brother again, so I leaned back against him, closing my eyes when his arms closed in around me. There was still a thin line of light dividing the sky behind us. It gave me real hope that we’d find our way. I knew Callie would want him to try. It had been a hard lesson for my big brother and for all of us. Adam loved Callie as hard as he could, and it wasn’t enough. But he would get me home. It was a start. And that was kind of like love again, don’t you think?

The End