Summary:  When Adam’s favorite professor pays him a visit, another visitor hides in the shadows, intent on proving a skewed theory about savagery.

(Rated: T, Word count: 27,000)

NOTE: If the first chapter looks very familiar, you’ve probably read “Something So Savage.” Think of this as a WHI for that story.  This is a “reprint” of the WIP that served as the foundation for what ultimately became “Something So Savage.” SSS was a complete retelling; and I’d never intended to post this original version in the library. However, with the forum clean-up underway I decided posting it here would be better than losing it completely. This original version of the story is quite different from SSS. It contains different characters, a different ending and some Adam and JAM scenes that didn’t fit with “what happened instead.”

*I hope you forgive the raw, unedited state of this story. The drastic changes I’d made during my first massive edit made me afraid to even try to edit it again! 😉

The Decklin Principle

1

XxXxX

Joe laughed so hard his stomach hurt. Professor Brodermann made Adam sound a whole lot more naïve and gullible than Joe could ever have imagined.

“I presented lies as though they were facts,” the professor said pointedly, “until he began to believe every word.”

Adam’s jaw went tight and his lips, thin. “You said those facts of yours had been based on the latest scientific studies, about which the public had yet to be informed.”

“I said it to prove you neither did nor could know everything you believed you knew.”

Sighing and looking like he’d just lost a chess match, Adam admitted, “You said it to put me in my place.”

“Quite right. You were trying much too hard to prove yourself when what you really needed to do was to open your mind.”

“Quite right,” Adam repeated flatly.

Throughout the conversation, Joe had noticed the professor taking frequent glances toward the window across the room. Now the man pulled out his pocket watch. “Well, my friends, I’m afraid it’s time for my medicine, and I am forced to admit I could not find it amongst my things when I unpacked.”

“I wish you would have said something sooner,” Pa answered. “We could have asked Doctor Martin in town to—”

“No, no,” the professor countered. “There was no need to trouble anyone. It might simply have fallen out of my valise into the buggy. Young man,” he added, turning to Joe, “would you be so kind as to check for me?”

“Of course,” Joe said, jumping to his feet. “And if I can’t find it, I’ll head back to town and see what Doc Martin can do for you.”

“Sure you will,” Adam said as Joe headed for the door. “And you’ll also see what a beer or two can do for you down at the Bucket of Blood.”

“All I ask is that you check the buggy, dear boy. If the bottle is not there, I shall be fine until tomorrow.”

Joe was still giggling after he closed the door behind him. The professor’s tales about know-it-all Adam made it clear Joe’s oldest brother didn’t know everything, after all. Joe couldn’t wait to tell—

Something sharp slammed into him as he stepped down off the porch. He stumbled, barely keeping his feet as he looked at the shaft of an arrow that had embedded itself in his chest. Where…? How…? It didn’t make sense. He was at his own home…and Winnemucca wouldn’t….

Think, you idiot! But the point of that arrow seemed to have skewered his thoughts.

Part of him knew he should dive for cover and shout a warning to his family. But he couldn’t seem to do either. The “Pa,” that formed on his lips found no volume. And diving was given over to spiraling downward until….

He lay on his back, gazing up at a blood-red, evening sky and listening to Hoss’s belly laugh. It spilled out of the house like a bucket of cold water, and was just as chilling. He had to warn them, had to….

“Pa,” he tried again, but his pa was laughing almost as hard as Hoss; and Joe’s soft cry was nothing to all that laughter.

Then that blood-red sky went black.

And everyone in the house was still laughing.

XxXxX

Adam was glad his favorite professor had finally paid him a visit. The man had been promising to make a trip west for several years. Still, Adam would have been happier if the stories of his first term at Harvard had been left to the two of them. He found it uncomfortable to hear his family laughing at his expense, especially Joe. Little Joe’s incessant giggle was bound to taunt him in the days—and weeks, maybe even months—to come.

While Pa wiped a new round of tears from his eyes and Hoss doubled over with a hearty guffaw, Adam finished the last swallow of coffee in his cup, and then reached for the pot on the table in front of him. As he did so, he noticed Joe’s cup sitting cold and untouched. Surely Joe should have been back by now. Frowning, Adam glanced at the door before deciding he had the perfect excuse to separate himself from the professor’s unintended mockery, if only for a few minutes. He would go out and see just what was keeping his young brother.

Those brief moments as he walked to the door, moving himself out of the center of attention, helped Adam to breathe easier. It also helped him to remember how much he appreciated the professor’s visit. After all, the man had traveled a long way specifically to see Adam. Considering that fact alone served to build Adam’s spirits, giving him some assurance that Professor Brodermann had not been “presenting lies as though they were facts” when he’d acknowledged Adam as a favorite student.

By the time he pulled the door open, Adam had relaxed enough to draw his lips into a small smile. He might even be able to withstand Joe’s humor in another minute or two. But just as he was about to call out to his little brother, Adam’s gaze landed on a horrific image that stole his voice and jabbed a dagger of ice into his spine.

Joe was on his back with an arrow in his chest, and…worse…an Indian had one hand tangled in Joe’s hair, yanking Joe’s head back, while a knife in his other hand hovered near the top of Joe’s forehead.

Adam was one heartbeat away from watching his little brother get scalped.

“No!” he hollered, rushing out into the yard with no weapon and no thought for his own safety. He probably looked like a savage himself, a rabid, toothless pup threatening a full-grown wolf.

The Indian froze nonetheless, his eyes going wide, his knife never quite reaching Joe’s skin. And then…astoundingly,miraculously…he turned away, running for the cover of the trees.

“Joe!” Adam called out as he dropped to the ground beside his brother. “Joe,” he said again, grasping Joe’s shoulders.

The groan that escaped Joe’s lips at that moment was both wretched and amazing. It proved he was still alive.

XxXxX

2

“I just can’t figure it,” Hoss said after Joe had been settled on the settee. “Why would that Indian run off like that when you weren’t even armed?”

Adam cast him a quick glance before focusing once more on the growing shadows beyond the open doorway. “Frankly, I don’t care. I’m just glad he did.” One more second, just one more, and that Indian would have taken Joe’s scalp. He looked inside again as Pa sat down on the coffee table, setting to work gently prying Joe’s shirt away from the arrow shaft.

“Thank you, Hoss,” Pa said in a tone of dismissal, clearly intended to stop Adam’s middle brother from hovering. “Hop Sing and the professor will help me here in a moment, as soon as they’ve finished collecting what we’ll need. Why don’t you keep an eye out over at the front window? And Adam, close that door! You’re just making yourself another target!” Pa barely looked up as he spoke; he was too focused on examining Joe’s wound.

Adam could have told him that arrow was not going to come out easily. He could have told him, but he didn’t. Maybe somehow he hoped his pa would find a way other than cutting it out.

“Adam!” Pa yelled, this time giving his oldest son his full attention. “I said close that door!”

Sighing, Adam looked out toward the trees once more before stepping back into the room and easing the door shut.

“What’s wrong with you?” Pa went on. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“I don’t think they’re still out there, Pa,” Adam admitted.

“You don’t think? You don’t think? I don’t care what you think! Your brother has just been attacked right here on the Ponderosa! And until someone can prove to me it isn’t going to happen to another one of my sons, we are all going to assume it can, and take every precaution against that possibility!”

Pa was both angry and worried, so there was no point to arguing. From the string of Chinese complaints coming from the kitchen, Hop Sing’s disposition was no better. Adam knew he should go in to rescue Professor Brodermann from the tirade; but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had more important things on his mind. Besides, it was highly unlikely George Brodermann needed rescuing. The professor was a man of theory and discourse; the thrill of a verbal fight was in his blood, and debate, his weapon of choice. Then again, it was also unlikely Professor Brodermann had ever been challenged by an angry Chinese man who considered himself a patriarch of the Ponderosa every bit as much as Adam’s pa, albeit from a far different perspective.

Adam smiled sadly. Pa and Hop Sing both had good reason to be angry and worried—not only for Little Joe, but for the Ponderosa, in general. Adam’s family had worked hard through the years to maintain peaceful if not always pleasant relations with their Shoshone and Paiute neighbors; but one Indian raid could be enough to tear all that peace apart. The last thing anyone wanted was to see the Ponderosa turned into a battleground.

“Hey, Adam?” Hoss called from his new post by the window. “What makes you think they’ve gone already?”

“What?” he asked absently before remembering what he’d said to Pa. “Oh, right.” He moved closer— although, now that he had shut himself away from the shadows outside, he found it difficult to pull his gaze from that damnable arrow still skewering Little Joe. “They had every opportunity to kill you, me and Pa before any of us thought about taking cover or arming ourselves. They didn’t even try.”

“No. No, they sure didn’t. I wondered about that, too.”

“And,” Adam added, “that Indian could easily have taken Joe’s scalp before he ran.”

Hoss looked as sick as Adam felt. “Why do you reckon he didn’t?”

“I don’t know. There was something…odd…about him.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’m not sure. I think I frightened him, for one thing. Maybe….”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe he was acting alone.”

“Why would he do that?”

“To prove himself, somehow?”

“Ain’t never known one of Winnemucca’s men try to prove himself by attackin’ folks for no good reason.”

“What makes you so sure he was one of Winnemucca’s men?”

“That arrow’s Paiute, ain’t it?”

“Yes. But I’m not so sure the man was. In fact, the more I think about it, I’m not even sure he was Indian.”

“He sure looked Indian to me.”

“You only saw him running away. He was dressed like an Indian. He also acted like an Indian…that is…until I frightened him.”

“Just ’cause you scared him don’t mean he’s not an Indian.”

“No, it doesn’t. But there was something…. I wasn’t paying particular attention at the time, but…looking back on it, I could almost believe the color of both his skin and his eyes was too light.”

“A white man?”

“Maybe.”

“What would a white man be doin’ dressin’ up like an Indian and shootin’ an arrow at Little Joe?”

“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

When Hop Sing’s tirade grew in volume, Adam turned to see him coming out of the kitchen carrying a tray laden with bandages, an empty bowl, and what looked to be…yes…a small selection of knives. Adam’s stomach turned yet again. Then he realized the professor, who was walking beside Hop Sing with a pitcher of water in his hand, was uncharacteristically quiet.

No, Adam corrected himself as he watched the professor give Hop Sing’s shoulder a quick, gentle squeeze. Professor Brodermann was simply exhibiting another aspect of his character. For all his love of argument, George Brodermann was a man of infinite compassion. It was a trait that had secured him a place in Adam’s heart years ago when sickness had plagued the Ponderosa, taking the lives of three cowhands and threatening to take Adam’s brothers, as well. It had been the professor who had intercepted a telegram warning Adam to cancel the trip that would have brought him home for the first time in more than a year. Professor Brodermann had then taken it upon himself to both deliver the devastating news to his young student, and provide the fatherly support Adam had truly needed at the time.

Now Adam’s youngest brother was facing a different threat against his life. And the professor was making it clear he would provide Adam and his family—including Hop Sing—all the support they needed.

“Joseph! No!” Pa’s urgent shout lent speed to Hop Sing’s previously slower shuffle and pulled Adam’s attention to the settee. Joe was not only awake, he was flailing about, seeming intent to pluck the arrow out himself. “Leave it, Joe. We’ll take care of it, but you must leave it be!”

“Get it out!” Joe cried softly. “Please…can’t….”

“Easy, Joe,” Pa said as he grabbed hold of Joe’s arms. “Easy.”

Joe’s chest was heaving erratically, in halting, catching breaths. “Can’t…. Can’t breathe.”

In an instant, Hoss and Adam both came forward to help quiet their brother. But when Adam noticed the professor drawing Pa toward the dining table, he left Joe in Hoss’s more than capable hands to join the conversation.

Brodermann seemed relieved to see him. “Adam,” he said the moment Adam was close enough. “You know I’m good friends with Frederic Beaumont, one of the finest surgeons in Harvard’s teaching staff?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I have audited his lectures and demonstrations often enough through the years to practically call myself a surgeon, had I a mind to…except for one very important thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I have never made the attempt nor would I ever deign to try to hold a surgeon’s knife.”

Pa drew his shoulders back, seeming as indignant as he was frustrated to have been pulled from Joe’s side. “I had no intention of—”

The professor held up a hand. “Please, let me explain.” He waited for Pa to close his mouth, glance back at Joe and Hoss, and then give the man his impatient nod. “I provided you this glimpse into my background to make certain you could recognize I speak from a degree of experience to warrant your respect with regard to the…observation…I feel it necessary to provide.”

“Pa!” Joe’s pain-wracked cry further tensed Pa’s already taut shoulders.

“Just tell me what it is you are trying to say!” Pa complained. “We don’t have time for—”

“That arrow,” Brodermann said pointedly, “lodged where it is, could very well be the only thing keeping your son alive.”

“That’s absurd! You can’t expect us to leave it—”

“No. You’re right. I fully admit that it must come out. However, I feel an obligation to warn you of what I believe might be a terrible risk. If the point of that arrow has embedded itself in his lung, then that lung will collapse the moment the pressure is released, and your son will suffocate. There is nothing that can be done, should that occur.”

Adam felt as though his own lung collapsed at hearing that statement.

Pa looked no better. “But…but we don’t know that’s the case. Do we?”

“His breathing is labored, which could indicate one of three things. Either he is simply experiencing a degree of shock and pain to cause the difficulty, or the lung is punctured…or the arrow is causing pressure to be exerted against the lung. If the latter is true, then a careful surgeon stands a good chance of succeeding in removing it, but a careless surgery could in fact drive the arrow deeper before removing it, in which case the lung could yet be punctured.”

“Then it’s decided,” Adam said. “We need to get Paul out here.”

“We can’t!” Pa replied quickly. “At least,” he added an instant later, his shoulders sagging, “not until morning, when we stand a better chance of seeing the men responsible for this.”

Or the man, Adam added in his thoughts.

“Hoss!” Joe cried. “Help me…please…! Get it…out!”

“We can’t wait that long,” Adam decided. “Joe can’t wait.”

Pa nodded slowly. “I’ll go.”

“Joe will do better with you here.”

“I won’t risk this happening to you.”

“Hop Sing go,” the Ponderosa’s alternate patriarch announced.

Surprised and aghast, both Pa and Adam shouted, “No!” in unison.

“If I may?” Professor Brodermann interceded. He waited for all three men to look at him, and then added, “From what I understand, most Indians will not attack at night. Is that true?”

“Usually,” Adam said.

“Not always,” Pa added.

“Well then, the risk is at least minimized. And since Adam is younger and leaner, and will no doubt ride more swiftly—”

“Thank you,” Adam cut in before swiveling around to hurry toward the front door.

“Maybe I ought to go along and watch your back,” Hoss called after him.

Adam stopped for a moment to watch the calm but uncompromising way Hoss held Little Joe, and then smiled sadly. “Then who will watch yours? No, Hoss. You stay here with Joe. I’ll be faster on my own, anyway.”

“You be careful!” Hoss hollered as Adam closed the door behind him.

Pa said nothing, but his silence made his own concern very clear. And Adam had no intention of letting a stray arrow find him.

One man, he told himself again and again. There was just one man responsible for that arrow in Little Joe, a white man who was playing at being an Indian. Adam was sure of it. And with any luck, that one man would have already had enough…excitement…for one night.

XxXxX

3

Adam wasn’t sure if he was blessed or cursed by the clouds rapidly overtaking the barely formed stars. As black as this night was promising to become, he should be able to make his ride without being accosted. Any Indians—or white men acting as Indians— who might be watching would have a hard enough time seeing him, let alone trying to attack him. But it would be equally hard for him to see them. And any ride on the darkest of nights could still pose plenty of other dangers.

As if in answer to the turn of his thoughts, a small disturbance caught his eye in trees that were not yet quite as black as they soon would be. He eased Sport from a slow canter to a full stop, and then patted the animal’s neck while he gazed into the woods surrounding him.

Nothing moved.

Whatever had drawn his attention—probably a foraging animal—was likely already gone. Even so, it had left him with a sense of both dread and doubt. On any other night, Adam would return his horse to the barn and put off his ride until morning. But this was not any other night. And Adam would gladly face such dangers as a dark ride might present if it meant saving his little brother. But what about Paul Martin? Should the same be true for him? Was Adam being selfish expecting the good doctor to ride out to the Ponderosa on a night as black as this, especially with the possibility—remote as Adam thought it was—that an Indian attack was imminent?

Yes, he decided—although it would not be selfish for him to explain everything to the good doctor and allow the man to make his own decision. Besides, Adam needed to inform the sheriff. Whether Joe had been attacked by a real Indian or a make-believe one, Roy Coffee would need to know.

Adam was about to urge his horse forward again when he heard something…a soft but disturbing sound that made him freeze, listening….

He heard it again, and was almost certain it was someone crying…and sniffling…. A child?

Sport huffed loudly, seeming impatient at the delay.

“Shh,” Adam soothed, patting the animal once more. Then, focusing, listening, he heard only silence. “Hello?” he dared to call out.

There was no reply.

“Who’s out there?” he tried again. “Do you need help?”

A long, quiet moment passed. Sport danced anxiously sideways.

Maybe he’d heard nothing, after all. But…just as he put his heels to the horse’s flanks, he was sure someone called out his name.

He pulled the animal back around and said again, “Who’s there?”

“Mr. Adam?” The reply came in the tiny, frightened voice of a young child. “Is that you?”

Instantly concerned, Adam dismounted. “Where are you?” He turned a full circle, looking out into the blackness of the trees. “Hello? Do you need help—”

The child rushed forward like a crazed animal flushed out of hiding, and then collided with Adam’s legs, nearly toppling him.

“Billy?” Adam said as he recognized the towheaded boy in nightclothes. Small arms wrapped around Adam’s thighs. “What are you doing out here?”

The boy only cried in answer, his face pressed up against Adam’s leg.

“Did you run away?”

Adam felt Billy’s head rolling back and forth against him; but the child did not look up or say a word.

“Did you get lost out here?”

Sobbing, the boy gave his head another rolling shake.

“Well, I’d better get you home. Your grandfather is probably pretty worried by now.”

The boy cried louder, his arms pulling harder around Adam.

Suddenly Adam felt as worried as Mr. Hinckley must be—perhaps more. He tugged at Billy’s arms, gently prying them away so he could kneel down. “Tell me what happened.” He kept his voice low and wiped at the child’s tears with what he hoped was a feather touch.

“Indians.”

Fear clutched Adam’s heart. “Where?” He could barely get the word past the tightening in his throat. “Were they at your house?”

Billy nodded.

“Did they…?” Adam’s jaw clenched; but he had to ask. He had to know. “Did they hurt your grandfather?”

The boy nodded again, sobbing louder, harder, and then he dove forward, burying his face this time in Adam’s chest.

Enfolding the boy in his arms, Adam was about to tell Billy it was all right, that he would see to it Billy’s grandfather got the help he needed, when the boy said something that stole all of Adam’s words away.

“They cut off his hair!”

God, no.

Adam rose in an instant, still holding the boy. He was barely conscious of mounting Sport and aiming the animal back home again. He only knew he’d never been more grateful to see the welcome lights in his own house, or to hear his father’s concerned greeting.

“Adam? What—?” When Pa saw the boy in Adam’s arms, his eyes went wide.

“Ralph Hinckley was attacked.” There was no need to say more.

XxXxX

Hoss let out a long breath after Joe passed out again. He felt his own muscles loosen, as though the air he’d sucked in—and held in—during the battle to keep Joe still had locked them all up on him. And it had been a battle. Little Joe might be small…and hurt…but he had a whole lot of strength in him, enough to make him hurt even more—on account of the fact that, hurtin’ like he was, he just didn’t have enough sense to keep still like he ought to. All that time he’d twisted around, Hoss could tell the arrow had gone on twisting against him, digging deeper and cutting his brother a whole lot more than Joe could take.

It cut deep into Hoss’s own heart the whole time. And when Joe finally collapsed from it, all the fight going right on out of him, Hoss felt ready to collapse, too.

Rising, Hoss still couldn’t pull his attention away from Joe, not even when he felt Professor Brodermann’s hand on his shoulder.

“I am sorry,” the professor said softly. “It looks like I was wrong to recommend waiting for the doctor. That wound is getting worse. He’s driving that arrow deeper all on his own with all that thrashing about.”

“Yeah,” Hoss answered absently, barely aware he’d even spoken.

“I can watch over him, if you’d like to join your father and see why Adam has returned.”

Those words cut through Hoss’s stupor as effectively as that arrow had first cut into Little Joe. He turned to look at the professor, feeling somewhat lost. He’d been so focused on his struggle with Joe he’d only been dimly aware of the sound of a horse in the yard. He hadn’t even realized Pa wasn’t there next to him anymore.

Saying nothing, Hoss swiveled back to face the door. In three quick strides he’d skirted around the settee when a sound in the distance behind and above him turned him again. Someone was climbing the back stairs.

“Take up that shotgun over there.” Without looking, Hoss pointed to the weapon that had been set on the credenza. “An’ wait here.” He grabbed his revolver from the table behind the settee. And then, sucking in another muscle-tensing breath, he hurried up the main staircase.

XxXxX

“Adam?” Hoss was both relieved and startled to find it was his own brother who had snuck in the back way. He was even more surprised to see the boy in Adam’s arms.

“I found him by the road,” Adam offered in explanation, “or rather, he found me.” He glanced at the child whose arms were wrapped tightly around his neck, and then returned his attention to Hoss. Gesturing toward the great room downstairs with a tilt of his head, he added, “I couldn’t let him see….”

Hoss’s own thoughts returned to the settee, where Little Joe lay with that ugly arrow sticking out of him. “No,” Hoss answered quietly, his voice hampered by something sticking in his throat. “No, I guess you couldn’t.”

“How’s he doing?”

Hoss met Adam’s gaze for a long moment, probably—hopefully—saying everything he couldn’t. When he finally answered, all he said was, “We can’t wait no more.”

Adam nodded, but his eyes made it clear he didn’t like Hoss’s answer. Hoss couldn’t blame him; he didn’t like it any better.

“Pa’s bedding Sport down for me.” Adam’s voice was light, like he didn’t have anything to worry about. “I figured I’d bed this little guy down in my room for tonight.” He even managed a smile. It was hollow; but it was a smile, even so.

Of course, it didn’t matter much. The boy never saw it. He pulled himself higher in Adam’s arms, wrapping himself so close around Adam’s throat it almost looked like Hoss’s brother was gonna start choking.

“It might take awhile,” Adam added.

“I can see that.”

“I’ll help as soon as I can.”

Hoss knew Adam was telling him to go on ahead taking care of Joe without him. He also knew Adam didn’t like having to tell him that at all. If the professor was right about that arrow keeping Joe alive…. Well, Hoss didn’t want to think about what it might mean to take it out of him. But if…well, if….

They should all be there if anything like that happened. All of them. Including Adam.

Sighing, Hoss gave Adam a quick nod. He’d run out of words. And he sure couldn’t ask all the questions he had churning around in his head. Why had the boy been by the road? Where was Mr. Hinckley? And, most important, how much of a threat were them Indians out there? Or that one Indian, anyway.

He couldn’t ask a word of it as long as that boy was listening.

Hoss settled for patting him lightly on his back. “You sleep well, Billy.”

He was disappointed to see the friendly gesture didn’t soothe the boy none. It just made Billy cling tighter to Adam. He was as scared as any little fella’ Hoss had ever seen. The worst part was, Hoss didn’t even know why.

XxXxX

4

Adam had finally gotten Billy tucked in and settled when a horrific wail from downstairs gave them both a start. And then, before Adam even knew whether his own heart was still beating, the boy was crying again.

Closing his eyes briefly and wishing he could close his ears as well, Adam forced out the words of yet another song. “Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, dormez vous? Dormez vous…”

It was maddening. Joe’s cries provided evidence of the surgery Hoss and Pa were trying to perform on their own…without benefit of a doctor to guide them…with nothing more than a philosophy professor’s poorly qualified observations to prevent them from a “careless surgery” that could cause more harm than good. And Adam could do nothing except to play nursemaid, singing nonsense songs to a little boy who was supposed to be in his own home, in his own bed.

“…Sonnez les matines. Sonnez les matines. Din, din, don. Din, din, d—”

“Come now, Adam,” the professor called in from the bedroom doorway. “Surely you can do better than that! The child needs a bedtime story, not a song about waking up to the ringing of bells!”

It had been many years since Adam had thrown angry words back at his old mentor; and his anger in those days had generally been misplaced, the result of youthful, thick-headed arrogance. But at that moment he knew if he were to say anything at all, angry words were inevitable. He had neither the time nor the patience for a lively discussion about the benefits of bedtime stories compared with those of childish songs. His little brother might be dying downstairs!

Clipping his song short and clenching his jaw against words he knew he should not utter, Adam felt his entire body tense. There was nothing to do to release that tension except to rise and face Professor Brodermann directly—man to man this time, rather than student to mentor.

But when he sought the older man’s gaze, Brodermann was looking at Billy, instead.

“My boy,” the professor said in a deep and booming tone as he moved to take the seat Adam had just vacated. “Have you ever been pricked by a thorn?”

Stunned, Adam watched young Billy watching the professor. The boy nodded, his confused gaze riveted to the man.

“I imagine it was quite painful. Is that true?” Professor Brodermann’s voice reverberated through the room. It would have been impossible for Billy not to listen. “Well then, can you imagine if you were to have a thorn stuck deep in the palm of your hand and you could find no one to help you take it out? Oh!” the professor cried out dramatically. “Oh, such pain! Oh, such torment!”

Billy’s eyes went wide, his tears momentarily forgotten.

The professor smiled back at him. “Now, do you know what a lion is?”

Billy nodded once more.

“Lions are the kings of the jungle are they not? Well, once upon a time, many years ago, a great and fearsome lion stepped on a thorn, whereupon it became stuck in his paw….”

The professor began to play-act, as though he were performing on a stage, shaking his hand and grimacing like the fabled lion itself. And suddenly Adam realized not only were Billy’s tears forgotten, Adam was forgotten as well.

The professor had given Adam the opportunity to join his family.

It was strange then to discover he was hesitant to move. For a long moment he stood transfixed, fear holding him in place. What would he find when he reached the bottom of the stairs? He focused his attention beyond the professor’s tale only to realize…Joe had gone silent.

“Hoss!” Pa shouted. “Press harder! Hop Sing! We need more bandages!”

“If I press any harder I’ll break his rib!”

Over Hoss’s anxious reply, Hop Sing complained in a cacophony of Mandarin.

And over all of it, Professor Brodermann spoke louder.

Adam felt his heart beating faster, more intensely. But still his feet remained rooted in place—until his father shouted Joe’s name.

And then, before Adam even realized he was moving, he found himself at the bottom of the stairs, wide-eyed and breathless, looking at Little Joe…who was looking at him.

XxXxX

Ben had been relieved when Joe passed out—and then horrified when his young son’s eyes came open again. He dreaded jabbing that needle into Joe’s skin. But the wound had to be closed. And surely no stitch could match the pain Joe had endured while Ben had removed the arrowhead—it had been buried deep and wedged between two ribs.

Yet after Ben drew the needle upward, dragging a line of thread through Joe’s flesh, he came to realize Joe was enduring it well.

Too well.

“Joe?” he said. “Little Joe? Look at me, son.”

Joe’s gaze, his eyes red and clouded, remained locked across the room—on the staircase, from what Ben could tell.

“Joe!” Ben called louder.

Still his son did not respond. Joe made no movement. He gave no indication of having heard Ben at all.

Frantic, Ben called Joe’s name again and again. He felt Hoss stiffen beside him…and heard thumping on the stairs, a sound that gave him an unexpected degree of comfort. Adam was coming—as though Ben believed that somehow, just by standing close, Adam could pull them all through this horror.

All this blood….

There was so much of it. On Ben’s hands, and Hoss’s…splattering the sheets they’d placed beneath and around Little Joe…absorbed deep into the fibers of gauze strips that had been hastily tossed to the floor….dappled on Hop Sing’s apron and shoes.

And more was still pulsing from Joe’s wound.

Yes! Ben realized. Blood was still pulsing. Joe’s heart was still pumping.

A hand fell on Ben’s shoulder, and he sagged in relief. Closing his eyes—only for a moment—he drew a deep breath to stifle the sob he knew there was no need to release.

“Why don’t you let me finish, Pa?” Adam’s voice was soft, calm…comforting.

Dully, Ben nodded. With hands that were inexplicably shaking—for how long had they been shaking?—he gently placed the threaded needle onto a cloth resting on Joe’s chest.

The boy didn’t move. But his lids eased shut again, as though he, too, had found relief.

He’s going to be all right, Ben told himself. He’s going to be just fine.

XxXxX

It wasn’t until later in the night—after all the evidence of Ben’s horror had been washed away and Joe lay sleeping in his own bed under Hoss’s watchful eye—that the elder Cartwright was finally able to think clearly enough to wonder at the oddities of both the attack on Joe and that on Ralph Hinckley.

“Did the boy say anything?” he asked finally, breaking a silence that had been reigned over by the crackle of burning logs in the fireplace beside him. “Anything at all, to either of you?” He looked first to the professor, sitting quietly in Adam’s chair, and then to Adam, who was standing at the hearth with one arm resting on his knee, staring into the flames.

“While I was up there with him,” George Brodermann said softly, “young Billy was far too tired and frightened to speak.” The professor seemed almost too tired to speak, himself…although something about his demeanor suggested to Ben that his weariness might be more mental than physical.

Adam nodded. “And all he told me was the Indians took his grandfather’s hair—or rather…that they had cut it off.”

“Don’t you find that strange, Adam?” Ben asked.

“Very.”

“What is strange about it?” the professor asked. “Isn’t that what Indians do?”

Adam’s jaw tightened visibly. “Indians collect scalps as trophies. Ralph Hinckley’s scalp could hardly be considered a trophy. He has…had…more skin than hair; and he wouldn’t be considered a man of such prominence that evidence of his death would give a warrior prestige of any kind.”

“Your brother,” Brodermann said, his voice even softer than it had been a moment earlier, “you saved him from…from being…. Well, I can’t help but wonder. You don’t think this Hinckley fellow…you don’t think he was still alive when he was scalped…do you?”

“I hope not,” Adam answered, almost equally soft. “And if he was, I hope he didn’t stay that way for long. I had to get Billy to safety. I couldn’t…I just couldn’t go back for him.”

“Of course, you couldn’t!” Ben said in as stern a voice as he could muster. You were needed here, he thought, holding his silence. You are needed.

“I should have.” Adam’s own voice was barely a whisper as he absently studied the tip of his thumb gliding across a fingernail. An instant later, he turned abruptly from the fire. “If it was you…or Hoss…I would have. It shouldn’t be any different for any other man.”

“But it is,” Ben asserted. “You know it is.”

“It shouldn’t be. Don’t you see that? Any man’s death diminishes me. Any man….”

“But not in equal proportions!” Professor Brodermann said more sternly than Ben, suddenly speaking louder than before—almost as loudly as when he’d been reciting the tale of Androcles to young Billy Hinckley. He sat taller as well, Ben noticed. “You are not John Donne. And this situation transcends philosophical debate.”

“Why?” Adam asked pointedly.

“Because it is real!” the professor shot back with equal vehemence.

Adam’s brow fell, his gaze narrowing in dismay. He glared at his old professor. “Isn’t that what philosophy is all about? What you taught me it was about? Questioning the fabric of reality? Of what makes things real?”

“The reality of our current situation is far more…real…than that damnable tree falling in the proverbial forest!”

“No, it most certainly is not!” Adam insisted. “When Ralph Hinckley fell he assuredly cried out, even if neither one of us was there to hear him!”

Ben was aghast. “What is going on with the two of you? A man is dead, for heaven’s sake! Or…or at least presumably so….”

“That, Pa!” Adam shouted, pointing an angry, accusatory finger at nothing at all. “That is what’s going on! What if he’s still alive out there, even now? I left him there. I abandoned him to—”

“No!” Ben shouted right back at him. “You did not abandon him. You saved his grandson. You did what you had to do.”

“Well, then now it’s time to do what else I have to do.” Turning his back on his father, Adam strode purposefully toward the front door. “What I should have done the moment after I brought Billy back here.”

“Adam?”

He grabbed his gunbelt from the credenza.

“Adam?” Ben rose, moving toward his son. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going to see to Mr. Hinckley.”

“You can’t! You mustn’t! We don’t know if—”

“I can, and I must!” Adam set his hat on his head and reached for the latch. “If he is alive, I’ll take him straight to Paul Martin.”

“Adam! Please!”

“And if he isn’t, I’ll take him to the sheriff.”

“God help me, Adam! It’s you I’m more concerned with.”

Adam sighed, the tense set of his shoulders easing. “I know, Pa,” he said in a softer tone. “I’ll be careful.”

“You still don’t know what we’re facing. If it is Indians—”

“Wait,” Professor Brodermann interrupted.

Ben saw him rise slowly. The man seemed older somehow, as though the past hours had worn him even more thin than Ben’s family…as though…. “Your medicine!” he remembered suddenly. “We forgot. We all forgot. I’m so sorry! Adam, could you—”

“No.” The professor turned to face them. “Please. There’s something…something I need to explain.”

“Later,” Ben suggested, confused by the man’s timing. “Can’t it wait until—”

“You know.” Adam’s eyes were locked on the professor, his glower even more accusatory than his pointing finger had been a moment earlier. “Don’t you? You know who’s responsible.”

George Brodermann’s responding sigh was so profound it caused his shoulders to sag. “I sincerely hope I’m wrong. I truly…truly do. But…perhaps…yes; there is a chance that perhaps I do.”

XxXxX

5

Hoss sat watching his little brother sleeping. He wished that’s all there was to it: Joe was just sleeping. But it was a lot more than that—a lot more worrisome than that. And none of it made any sense. The Indian who’d done this…well, he sure didn’t act like no Indian Hoss had ever known. And if he really was a white man like Adam thought…well dangnammit, why?

It was probably a good thing the sound of raised voices coming from downstairs pulled Hoss from his thoughts, muddled as they were. But then a few moments later those same sounds pulled him from Joe’s side, too. What in tarnation was all that arguing about?

Curious, he stepped into the hallway while keeping his eyes on Joe, and tried to listen to the conversation. Did Adam just say he was going to check on Mr. Hinckley? As curiosity turned to concern, Hoss let go of his attention on his little brother. Joe was sleeping pretty deep, anyway. And if Adam was going anywhere, Hoss sure didn’t want to find out about it after it was already too late to stop him.

Or to help him.

Moving to the top of the stairs, Hoss looked down to see Pa, Adam and that professor fella all standing by the door. Adam was wearing his holster. Oh no you don’t, older brother. He took one step down, but then froze when he saw Adam give that professor one of those narrow-eyed glares of his.

“You know,” Adam said. “Don’t you? You know who’s responsible.”

Hoss held his breath to listen to the professor’s response. And then he gripped the railing so tight he darned near tore it loose. Because Professor Brodermann admitted Adam was right.

“Three years ago,” that professor told Adam and Pa then, “I found myself taking to a young student much the same as I took to you, Adam.”

“This isn’t time for one of your stories, professor.” Adam’s voice was going as loud as it’d gotten when he’d pulled Hoss away from Joe. Maybe louder. “Get to the point!”

“Very well. I have reason to suspect these attacks have come at the hands of that very student. Heaven knows I hope I am wrong; but if I am not, then the only plausible explanation is that he has given in to madness.”

Pa looked about ready to attack that professor, the way his shoulders rose up and his hands balled into fists at his side. “What sort of madness would turn a student into something so…so savage?”

The professor shook his head—not a lot, just a little bit, almost like he wanted to turn away. “Last year, our discussions focused on the subject of educating Indians. An entire group of us spent hours debating the possibility of turning savages into civilized men.”

Hoss took another two steps. He was ready to tell that man a thing or two about the differences between Indians…and civilized men…and savages. But then he froze again, because Adam said it even better.

“Whoever attacked Joe is more of a savage than any of Chief Winnemucca’s men ever were!”

The professor inclined his head, like he agreed. “Which could in fact prove out the reverse—that it is possible to turn a civilized man into a savage.”

“What are you saying?”

“Bradley Decklin has for many months insisted both hypotheses could prove true. Frankly, I’d been rather proud of his tenacity…as well as his sense of compassion for Indians. Once he learned Sarah Winnemucca had attended school in California, he spent weeks developing a theory on the subject, one that favored the education and…enlightenment of Indians.”

“How does that have anything to—”

The professor held up one hand. “Hear me out, Adam. Please. Young Mr. Decklin preceded me out here and enlisted my aid in testing that very theory.”

“You!” Adam accused. “You sent Joe out there on purpose! That medicine of yours was nothing more than a—”

“A ruse.”

“A trap!” Adam said almost over top of the professor.

The professor shook his head this time like he meant it. “Not a trap. Not at all. I had no idea what Bradley was planning. He simply asked me to provide him with an opportunity to encounter your young brother privately. I honestly thought his purpose related to Sarah Winnemucca. In one of your letters you told me young Joseph had attempted to court her.”

“You had no right to share that information with anyone!”

“I saw no harm in doing so. Believe me, Adam…and Ben…I had no idea what exactly Bradley Decklin had planned. None at all. I didn’t want to know; I didn’t want to influence the results of Mr. Decklin’s…experiment.”

“An experiment? He tried to kill my brother! Not to mention almost scalping him! You call that an experiment?”

“Indeed not. I call it madness. I never suspected his intentions could involve anything so horrific. To be honest, I thought he might simply ask Joseph for an introduction to Chief Winnemucca and his daughter.”

“Then you’re slipping professor.” Adam’s voice was low and cold—but strong enough to pull Hoss slowly, quietly the rest of the way down the stairs.

“Slipping?” the professor asked.

“Surely you used to be intelligent enough,” Adam’s voice started rising again, gaining volume with each word, “to realize it is far easier to ask for an introduction by first introducing yourself with a knock on the front door!”

“Yes. Well. I also suspected he wanted to keep you—and perhaps your father also—unaware.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Adam’s shoulders rose up, and Hoss almost expected him to bring up a fist then, too.

But Pa eased his shoulders down a mite with a touch of his hand. “Professor…,” Pa said, “George…all this speculation aside, do you really believe this Bradley Decklin could be capable of such cold-blooded…savagery?”

“If you had asked me that question this morning, I would have said absolutely not. But….” The professor sighed heavily. “The more you have talked about the differences between these attacks and common Indian behavior has led me to examine Mr. Decklin’s behavior more closely in my mind. I am forced to admit I have seen troubling signs in him over these past months. The changes have been subtle, but very real. And….”

“And what?” Adam prodded when the professor’s voice trailed off, the man’s gaze moving to the ground as though he could see something there.

“And…well, there are two seemingly extraneous facts that suddenly appear to provide substantial circumstantial evidence against him. First, there was a series of disturbing animal…mutilations…occurring on the grounds back at Harvard before Mr. Decklin went on holiday. Raccoons and dogs, mostly. They’d been killed and…scalped. Not skinned. Not butchered. Just…scalped.”

Hoss bristled, feeling his own hands ball into fists even tighter than his pa’s had moments earlier. When he walked up beside the professor, Pa gave him a small nod. It was enough to let Hoss know they stood together, but too danged subtle to loosen Hoss’s fists.

“And what’s the second fact?” Pa asked, the set of his jaw as firm as Hoss’s felt.

“Bradley Decklin is a champion archer.”

Hoss couldn’t keep quiet anymore. “Sounds like evidence enough to string a man up. Maybe the man who put him up to it, too.” He felt Pa’s hand on his shoulder; but Pa should know better than to think he could hold Hoss back now. It didn’t much matter that Adam had looked up to Professor Brodermann all these years. Hoss was sure looking down on him now. That man had sent Little Joe out there to die!

The professor didn’t seem to know what was going on in Hoss’s thoughts. Or maybe…in a way, he did. He inclined his head toward Hoss like he had with Adam earlier. It wasn’t quite a nod, but it still looked like he agreed with what Hoss had said. Like he agreed but wasn’t scared for his own self…like he knew he’d done something he shouldn’t…like he regretted it, and was ready to face up to it.

And then Hoss realized his thoughts got all muddled again.

“It was important for you to know this,” the professor said, “all of it, before you go out there and put yourself at potential risk. I can’t begin to guess what Mr. Decklin might do next, or who else he might choose to harm. His actions are simply beyond my comprehension at this point.”

“Thank you, professor,” Adam said stiffly before turning his attention again to the door. “At least now I know what we’re up against. One man is a lot easier to avoid than a war party.”

Hoss wasn’t so sure. Throwing one final glare at the professor, he gave his attention fully over to his older brother. “One man or not, he’s a killer, Adam. A cold-blooded killer. I’m goin’ with you.”

“Joe needs you here.”

“No he don’t. He’s got Pa and Hop Sing to look out for him. You need me more. Between the two of us, that animal won’t stand a chance.”

“Please.” The professor’s sudden, urgent appeal surprised Hoss. When he looked the professor’s way again, he saw the fear he’d expected a moment before. Only…only it still didn’t seem to be directed at his own self. It sure seemed like he was afraid for Hoss and Adam, instead; and Hoss felt a prickle of fear creep up his own spine. “Be safe,” the professor added. “Don’t let him harm anyone else.”

Then Pa cleared his throat, and Hoss felt that prickle fade away. “Once you reach Virginia City,” Pa said, “stay there tonight. I don’t want either of you on that road before dawn. It’s bad enough you have to go out now, dark as it is. It’s only for Mr. Hinckley’s sake I’m allowing it at all. There’s no point to being out any longer than absolutely necessary. Is that understood?”

Hoss shared a worried glance with Adam. “But Joe—”

“Joe is fine for now!” Pa said it like he was daring God to prove him wrong. “He will be fine long enough for Doctor Martin to get out here tomorrow. And as for the two of you, ride back with a posse, if you can.”

“We will, Pa,” Adam answered before Hoss had a chance. Then he took hold of Hoss’s arm, making it clear he was ready to pull Hoss right out the door with him.

Hoss didn’t even have time to glance up at the empty staircase where his thoughts wanted to take him. He just grabbed his holster and headed out after Adam. And then he wasn’t sure what he was really aiming to do. Did he want to avoid that madman they knew was out there… or find him?

XxXxX

6

“God go with you,” Ben said silently as he watched his sons ride into the darkness. But after he stepped back into the house and closed the door behind him, finding himself face-to-face with the professor, God’s grace was suddenly the furthest thing from his mind. “Experiments!” He spat the word, wanting no part of it. “Games!” he corrected then. “How dare you play games with people’s lives?”

The professor shook his head. “I had no idea. You must understand, I would never have asked Joseph to—”

“Not just Joe. No. You played a game with that Decklin boy’s life just as much as you did with Little Joe.”

The professor’s expression changed then, shifting from guilt-ridden to offended. He drew his back up straighter and met Ben’s glare with a milder one of his own. “Bradley Decklin was my student. I treated him no differently than I did Adam, when he was under my tutelage.”

Ben saw it then. He saw it so clearly he could hardly comprehend how he had overlooked it before. “Yes,” he said softly, coldly, turning the word into a small hiss. “I imagine you did, at that. Just the way you treated Adam.” He shook his head and walked to his desk. “You played games with Adam, too. And I laughed. I saw how uncomfortable those stories of yours made him, and yet I laughed. How could I have been so cruel to my own son?” He asked the question quietly, expecting no answer…knowing the answer he needed to hear would never come as he gazed longingly…guiltily at his picture of Adam’s mother, Elizabeth.

“Your son needed to be enlightened with humility, Ben. Most young men do at that age. As you saw yourself, he grew to appreciate those lessons.”

Gently setting the picture back in its place, Ben swiveled around to face him. “No. Not lessons. Games. Adam grew to appreciate the spirited discussions, the arguments that stretched his way of seeing the world. But the games? No. He was as uncomfortable as I have ever seen him while we sat in that room and laughed at how you had enlightened him with humility. We should all be ashamed. You, most of all.”

“I disagree. My methods have—”

“Your methods have turned a young man into a savage, Professor Brodermann. Do you feel no shame in that?”

“Surely you know madness is a disease. There was nothing I could have done to cause it…or to stop it.”

“How can you be so sure? You, yourself, talked about turning civilized men into savages. What greater madness could there be than that?”

“Please! You are over-simplifying a highly complex series of—”

“No. You are complicating a very simple fact. Bradley Decklin has been afflicted with a madness that has turned a civilized man into a savage. Whether or not you caused it, you most certainly encouraged it.”

The professor sighed. “I am sorry you see it that way. Of course I understand how your current emotional distress could color your thinking; and for that I see no point to further debate on the matter.”

“Well, you’re right in one regard. There is no point to further debate. Now you will have to excuse me. I have an injured son to look after!”

Angered almost beyond thought, Ben started toward the stairs, his stomach churning with concern for all three of his sons, when a heavy thud at the front door pulled him back. The professor stiffened, looking suddenly more curious than affronted…and not the least bit afraid. But Ben was afraid. What if Adam and Hoss had been forced to turn back? Yet if they had, what would stop them at the door, preventing them from opening it?

He had no thought to his own safety when he hastily pulled the door open to what was very clearly a grim message from Bradley Decklin, himself. The nearly hairless scalp of Ralph Hinckley had been skewered with a knife planted deep into the thick wood.

“Good lord!” Professor Brodermann said in a horrified whisper.

Perhaps Ben should have closed the door then, but he didn’t. He stood in the threshold looking out into the yard. Decklin was there. He could feel the man watching him. “Show yourself!” he shouted. “If it’s savagery you’re after, allow me to teach you the meaning of the word!” He could feel his eye twitching. His fingers curled inward, instinctively trying to grip the gun he’d left holstered on the credenza. “Even an Indian knows when to accept a challenge! Are you so much of a coward you would refuse—” An arrow plunked into the doorframe beside him. “Yes. A coward! No Indian brave would blindly shoot an unarmed challenger!”

There was a rustling in the bushes beside the barn. And then another, further back.

Ben started when something brushed his hand. Professor Brodermann was trying to get him to take hold of his gun. “No,” Ben said softly. He cast another quick glance around the yard, and then closed the door. “I won’t go after him. That’s exactly what he wants me to do.”

Instead, Ben prepared himself for a long night of watching and waiting. And then he went into the kitchen to prepare Hop Sing.

At least one thing gave him peace of mind. If Bradley Decklin was there at the house, Adam and Hoss were safe. Now all Ben needed to do was keep that monster from getting any closer than he already had.

XxXxX

7

Adam and Hoss encountered no trouble on the road to the Hinckley farm. Nor did they come across anything unusual when they arrived. While still mounted, a cursory search of the main property around the house revealed nothing unusual. The corral had not been disturbed; the fencing remained secure and unbroken. The barn was closed up as would be expected for the night. The house was quiet, with only a thin, red glow showing through the open front window—most likely the last embers of a dying fire.

All in all, there were no signs of a struggle. And where was Ralph Hinckley?

Sharing a bewildered glance with Hoss, Adam dismounted and reached for the lantern he’d affixed to his saddle. He was both grateful he’d had the foresight to take it with him, and fearful of how the light would affect his vision, stealing his ability to see clearly beyond its small circle of illumination. It couldn’t be helped if he wanted to find Mr. Hinckley amidst the depths of this particular night’s shadows.

But it wasn’t the light that proved to be his undoing. It was the act of lighting the lantern. His attention to the details around him was given over just long enough to make him jump like a skittish dog at the feel of Hoss’s hand tapping his arm.

“Hey, Adam,” Hoss whispered. His own lantern had been left on the ground an arms-length away. “I think we got company.”

Adam’s skittishness increased tenfold. He held the lantern outward, keeping it low to lessen the glare on his eyes, and started to scan it around in a circle. “What’d you hear?” he whispered back.

“Nothin’. It’s my gut tells me we ain’t alone here.”

Relaxing, Adam started to swivel toward Hoss when he realized the outer edges of the light seemed to have touched something no more than twenty feet away. He swung the lantern back only to find a dark object, a shadow where no shadow ought to be. His free hand moved to the gun at his hip.

“Hold, Adam Cartwright,” a gruff voice called from where the shadow stood. It sounded familiar…yet not at the same time, and was somehow neither friendly nor threatening.

“Who’s there?” Adam called out. “Show yourself.”

Surprisingly, the shadow obliged. Adam’s light landed first on a moccasin, then on the leather fringe of an Indian brave’s trousers. Next came a sinewy fist wrapped around a lance set butt-end on the ground. Finally, Adam saw the painted face of a Paiute, a man he recognized from Chief Winnemucca’s tribe—a man who had threatened Little Joe once before….

The man Sarah Winnemucca had been destined to marry when Joe had tried courting her.

“Lean Knife?” Adam’s hand remained poised above his gun. He knew it would be foolish to draw now, with six Paiute braves ready to kill both him and Hoss. But he wanted to. Oh…he wanted to. It had been the Paiutes all along! How could he have gotten it so wrong? Even Professor Brodermann had been wrong. His student hadn’t attacked Little Joe.

“I do not come to fight you, Adam Cartwright.”

“No,” Adam shot back, as angry at himself as he was at Lean Knife. “It was only Little Joe, wasn’t it? You’ve hated him all this time. So why did you wait until now? And why Ralph Hinckley? He never—”

“Hold, Adam Cartwright!” Lean Knife stepped closer. “I come to fight only one man, a man whose name is not Cartwright.”

Adam stared at him. It made no sense. Nothing made any sense anymore. “Ralph Hinckley?” He could not keep the disbelief from his voice.

“No. I come to fight the man who killed Ralph Hinckley.”

Suddenly anger gave way to curiosity. “You know this man? You’ve seen him?”

“Lean Knife not see him. He-who-is-no-longer-my-brother see him, give him Paiute clothes for white man’s clothes and firewater. Bring shame to Winnemucca.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He-who-is-no-longer-my-brother return to Winnemucca’s camp wearing white man’s clothes. Stink of white man’s firewater. Say white man take Paiute clothes.”

” \Decklin,” Adam said through clenched teeth.

“Deck-lin?”

“That’s the man’s name, the man who took your brother’s clothes. He tried to kill Little Joe. Apparently, he wanted to make it look like a brave from your tribe was responsible.”

“If he only try, not kill, then Adam Cartwright know this man not Paiute brave.”

Strangely, Adam smiled. It was a cold smile, borne of his relief to find the Paiutes truly had not been at fault. “He wasn’tany kind of brave, that’s for sure,” Adam offered, remembering how Bradley Decklin had run from him in the yard. “But you’re right. I knew he wasn’t a Paiute, although he did everything he could to make himself look like one.”

Adam tried once more to pull all the pieces together. “Now, if you didn’t see him kill Mr. Hinckley, how do you know he did it?”

“Lean Knife not see. He-who-is-no-longer-my-brother see. Return to camp. Risk death to tell Lean Knife white man do these things. He-who-is-no-longer-my-brother see white man dressed like Paiute attack Little Joe. Then follow white man here, see attack on Ralph Hinckley.”

“Wait just a minute,” Hoss interrupted. “You’re tellin’ us this brother of yours watched both attacks? Why didn’t he try and stop ’em?”

Lean Knife’s eyes grew dark. Dangerous. “He-who-is-no-longer-my-brother say he can bring white man to Chief Winnemucca to punish. Restore honor. But wait to give proof, show Winnemucca he not lie.”

Adam stiffened. “What kind of proof?”

“He-who-is-no-longer-my-brother return to Winnemucca’s camp with body of Ralph Hinckley. No white man wearing Paiute clothes.”

So it was true. Mr. Hinckley was dead. Adam realized he felt a wash of relief along with remorse at hearing this news. It would be better to be dead, he thought, than to endure the agony of being scalped. Of course, poor Billy would probably not agree. The boy had already lost his parents. Now his grandfather was also gone.

“If he didn’t catch him,” Hoss asked, “why’d he go back to Winnemucca?”

“To warn of white man bringing dishonor to Winnemucca.”

“That’s got to count for somethin’ in gettin’ his own honor back,” Hoss said hopefully. “Don’t it?”

“He-who-is-no-longer-my-brother fail. Lean knife will not fail.”

Adam met Hoss’s confused gaze and gave a small shake of his head. Don’t push it. The man is probably dead or dying by now for causing so much dishonor.

“Lean Knife will protect Winnemucca honor,” the Paiute added.

“I believe you,” Adam said honestly. Lean Knife will find Decklin, all right. And God help that boy when he does. “We intend to look for him also. We’re going into Virginia City to get a posse together. Come morning, there will be so many men on his trail, he won’t stand a chance.”

“Come morning,” Lean Knife repeated, “no need for posse. Lean Knife find Decklin tonight.”

“You can’t be serious,” Hoss said. “It’s too dark out here now to pick up a trail.”

There was something in Lean Knife’s glare that told Adam he already had found a trail. “You know where he’s gone?”

“To Ponderosa.” Lean Knife nodded his head forward, just once. “To house of Adam Cartwright.”

Adam felt the chill prickle of fear lift his spine up straighter. They should have stayed home. Dammit! Why hadn’t they just stayed home? “I’ll go with you, if you don’t mind,” he said then. “Hoss, you go on to Virginia Ci—”

“No,” Hoss cut in. “Ain’t no way I’m leavin’ you right now.” Adam saw the way his brother’s eyes lingered on Lean Knife’s small but dangerous war party, making it clear Hoss didn’t—or wouldn’t—fully trust them. “If Lean Knife here thinks he can find this Decklin fella’, won’t be any need to get a posse anyhow.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Suddenly Adam did feel confident it would be all over by morning. One way or another, Bradley Decklin would be brought to justice for what he’d done to Little Joe…and to Ralph Hinckley. Privately, Adam hoped the man would face Winnemucca’s justice rather than Sheriff Coffee’s. But outwardly he knew he had to do what he could.

Adam had to at least try to make sure Bradley Decklin was still drawing breath long enough to be introduced to the Virginia City jail.

XxXxX

8

A wisp of sound pulled at Joe. He felt it brush his cheek and tingle along the top of his hand. A breeze? No. A sound.

Arguing.

Pa was arguing with someone. But they were a long way away. Or a long time. An echo riding the back of a leaf that could never quite settle…a leaf Joe wanted to grab out of the air, to take hold of in the hand it tingled.

But his hand refused to move. And the leaf was drifting further away.

Pa? 

He couldn’t speak. His pa had a voice, distant, but true. And yet Joe had none.

The leaf brushed his nose with a light, feathery flutter, and Hop Sing’s voice joined Pa’s. They rode the swells of rain-washed echoes…drifting closer.

Pa? Joe tried again. This time he could feel the word forming on his lips; still no sound came.

The leaf became a boat he couldn’t quite reach, drifting tauntingly close only to move away again, further and further away. He was floundering in a heavy current that wanted to pull him under.

“Pa?” he had to reach that leaf. That…boat. Finally, his fingers curled, clutching…fabric.

And the leaf came to rest, settling onto the mattress beside him. In its wake he crested a wave that thrust him straight into the jaws of a monster.

His chest…oh, God, it hurt! With every breath. With every….

“Pa,” he breathed. It was a whisper that needed no leaf to guide it.

Joe opened his eyes to his own darkened room. Lit only by the dim glow of the lamp on his nightstand, it was enough to show him he was alone, except for the stray that had curled up beside him.

Pa would be furious when he discovered a dog was in the house. But Joe liked the feel of it there next to him, especially with Pa shouting so angrily downstairs. It made him feel…not alone.

Joe was in trouble again, wasn’t he? And this dog was just going to get him into more trouble. But it was here already. Shooing it downstairs would only make Pa madder. Joe might as well let it stay right where it was.

He closed his eyes again, ready to settle himself back to sleep, when the dog shifted in its own sleep, sniffling and wrapping its tiny hand around Joe’s arm.

Its hand? 

Joe’s eyelids flew open. He turned his head just enough to look at the dog…at the boy in the bed beside him…a boy he knew…a young orphan who had been sent to live with his grandfather after losing his parents to an outbreak of influenza.

“Billy?” This time Joe found himself saying the word in something more than a whisper.

Still it wasn’t loud enough to pull the boy out of his slumber. And maybe…maybe Joe shouldn’t wake him. Billy’s cheeks were streaked with tears that were only just beginning to dry. Joe didn’t have the heart to make him start crying again. He saw himself in that little boy, crying himself to sleep, curled up in big brother Adam’s bed during all those long, lonely nights shortly after his mother had died.

No. Joe couldn’t wake Billy. He didn’t know why the boy was there—why he was even in the house—but since he was, Joe might as well leave him be.

Although… Billy would get cold, lying like he was on top of the bed covers rather than tucked underneath. Joe started to push himself up, to remedy that situation. But the stab the movement brought to his wound was as bad as it had been when the arrow had first found him. Worse, even. And just as the shock of that arrow plunging into him had spiraled Joe into darkness, the shock of this simple movement in his own bed sent him spiraling once more.

XxXxX

When he opened his eyes again, Joe could tell time had passed; the currents of it felt different around him. He had no idea how much time, but the shouting downstairs had ended. The house was silent…almost painfully silent. He heard nothing but the soft breaths of the sleeping child beside him.

Billy. There was a blanket draped over him now, proof that Pa had come. And gone.

As bewildered as Joe had been to find the boy there earlier, he was even more confused now to know that Pa had let Billy remain. Joe knew his wound couldn’t be jostled. Even the slightest movement stole his breath and threatened to send him spiraling again. Pa would know that, too—better than Joe, even, knowing Pa—and would enforce whatever demands he had to, to prevent Joe from moving, let alone being jostled.

But Pa had let Billy remain.

And Joe was glad. There was something comforting in the feel of that child beside him, as though, somehow, just having Billy there could be enough to keep the darkness at bay. There was something cold in the darkness, something…chilling. But the boy was warm. And as Joe closed his eyes this time, he floated on the currents of sleep rather than sinking into darkness.

XxXxX

The next time Joe opened his eyes, he found himself facing a different kind of darkness. His heart was already beating hard and heavy against his chest, heavy enough to cause his wound to throb angrily, burning like fire. He struggled for every halting breath. But…why?

A crash downstairs made him tense, turning the fire into a blade. He fought against the spiral. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

“Take it!” Pa shouted.

“I will not harm that boy!” The professor…. Joe had almost forgotten about the professor. Professor Brodermann had wanted Joe to get his medicine for him. But—

“Take it!” Pa shouted again, louder this time. “He’s a savage! A killer! Not a boy!”

The boy beside Joe kicked out, punching his small foot into Joe’s thigh—nudging Joe just a little…just enough to reawaken that stabbing fire in Joe’s chest. He held his breath as the darkness swirled around him, pulling him downward. He could hear nothing but the rush of a river…a raging river…the river of his own blood, pulsing through him with every violent throb of his chest.

And then…it was quiet again.

XxXxX

 

Joe took a breath…and another…and looked up at his ceiling. His gaze traveled in a path toward his closed door…and then shifted…moving to the window. The open window.

A cold breeze was flitting through the curtains, causing them to wave out like two flags…two white flags of surrender.

No. Joe wasn’t going to surrender. He knew that even without knowing what sort of a fight he was facing.

As the boy stirred beside him, Joe turned his gaze…and saw a blue-eyed Indian looking down at him.

XxXxX

“You’re supposed to be dead,” the Indian said. “I can’t do this if you’re not dead.” He didn’t sound like an Indian any more than he looked like one. His speech was…too clean.

“Then don’t do it,” Joe answered, wishing his voice was stronger. Wishing he was stronger. The white flags of his curtains flapped toward him again. He willed himself to ignore them.

“I have to. But how can I?”

There was a noise downstairs. Men talking. Not just Pa and the professor this time. No. There were others. Adam was there, too. And Hoss.

“You have to be dead.”

Joe had forgotten the Indian. He’d been floating on the sound of voices, listening for Pa’s and wondering what his brothers were saying, wondering also who else was with them. Hearing the strange Indian’s voice right beside him again surprised Joe. He turned his head and looked into eyes as blue as Hoss’s, but far less certain. “You’re afraid,” Joe realized. Shouldn’t Joe be afraid? The blue-eyed Indian clutched a knife, his fingers loosening and tightening their grip by turns. But his blue eyes weren’t right. They weren’t angry or cold, just…afraid.

“I’ll have to kill you first. Why didn’t you just…just die like you were supposed to?” His brows pulled down…not in anger, but confusion.

While that blue-eyed Indian was getting more and more confused, Joe was finding his own thoughts getting less muddled. “You shot that arrow?” He received nothing more than a somewhat less bewildered gaze in response. “Why?”

“It’s easier that way.”

“What is?”

“Killing. It’s…surprisingly easy.” The blue-eyed Indian sounded like a polished easterner. “Have you ever tried it? From a distance like that, it’s almost like playing a game.” Confusion gave way to excitement. His blue eyes grew wider, more…alive.

“You’re not sane.” Fear did begin to creep in then. Joe could feel it in the heavier beat of his heart, the more painful throb of his wound.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just trying to prove that we are the same, Indians and white men.”

“You don’t need to kill to do that.”

The blue-eyed Indian started to look confused again. “It would hurt too much if you weren’t dead.”

“What?” Joe’s thoughts were getting muddled again. He couldn’t make any sense of the blue-eyed Indian’s words.

“Scalping.” He said it like the answer should have been obvious, almost…scoffing…at Joe for needing to ask. “Seems to me, a man would rather be dead. And it’s only natural you’d fight me.”

Joe’s heart beat heavier still. His fingers curled into the bedding. “Scalping?” Was it possible this polished easterner who dressed like an Indian would actually go so far as to scalp someone? It was…insane, just as Joe had thought earlier. The man was mad. And he was in Joe’s room. And Joe…. Joe had no strength to fight him. None at all.

“Indians collect scalps as trophies, you know. If I want to prove myself to Sarah Winnemucca, I have to give her yours.”

“Sarah?” Joe choked on the word, his voice fading as the darkness began to swirl around him again. “Sarah’s my friend.” He forced the words out through clenched teeth while the curtains fluttered again. He couldn’t give in. Not now, not… “You would never survive the—”

“No!” the blue-eyed Indian said excitedly. “It’s more than that! Don’t you see?” He waved his hands like a conductor in front of an orchestra, the knife acting as his baton. “She’s more than your friend. You wanted to court her.”

“How could you know th—”

“Your brother might not have said it directly, but reading between the lines—”

“My brother?” Joe’s voice fluttered like the curtains. The strange Indian ignored him.

“It seems pretty clear she wanted to let you court her. But she’d already been spoken for to a man she had no choice but to accept. It’s a classic story, a plot that’s been visited again and again throughout history. It transcends cultures.” He was grinning then. “I just…I need to prove that. If I can reach the Paiutes through Sarah, I can show them that we’re driven by the same motives, the same hopes and fears and yearnings.”

“By killing me?”

“Well…no. Not really. I told you. It’s not about the killing. It’s about the trophy, the gift for Sarah, to show her I understand.”

“But you don’t. You don’t understand.”

“Apparently, I am the only one who does! But my work will change all of that.”

“All you’ll do is get yourself killed.”

“No!” the false Indian shouted. And then his blue eyes went dark, after all. “I already told you!” He pointed the knife accusingly at Joe. “You’re not listening! Why can’t I get anyone to listen to me?”

Joe felt a stirring beside him. Billy…. “Look,” he said softly, his voice coming out as little more than a breathy whisper. “Why don’t you get out of here now? While you still can.”

“It’s not finished. I have to…have to finish it.”

“It is finished. You can’t…. And Sarah….” Joe was finding it harder to breathe. Each inhalation brought agony, and the darkness kept spiraling, trying to pull him in. “Sarah’s married. It’s too…too late.”

“No,” the blue-eyed Indian’s voice changed from angry to pleading. “It’s too important. Don’t you see? This could change everything. Everything.”

Billy screamed. Joe jumped at the shrill sound, jerking at his wound. His head swam. He could feel the boy grabbing at his arm, but he couldn’t do anything in response. All he could do was fight to stay afloat.

And then he felt fingers in his hair.

His head was yanked backward. A sharp sting cut into the top of his forehead. He heard the curtains flutter, but could no longer see the white flags. It didn’t matter. He had no choice but to surrender.

XxXxX

9

While Lean Knife explained to Adam’s father why his fellow Paiute braves were prowling around outside, Professor Brodermann had his eye on the staircase. Adam watched him edge ever closer, finding himself curious, maybe even suspicious as to why.

By the time the professor reached the foot of the stairs, Adam decided it was time to find out. “Something bothering you, professor?”

His old mentor gave him a bewildered look. “I’m not sure. I thought perhaps I heard some—” A piercing scream from above cut him off.

Adam reached the top landing almost before he’d even realized he was moving. As the screams continued, he followed them to Joe’s room, where he found a sight as bizarre as it was horrific. The false Indian, Bradley Decklin, had one hand wrapped around the scruff of young Billy Hinckley’s neck. In his other hand was a knife, and Billy was doing everything he could to make him drop it. The boy’s arms were thrashing wildly about, landing punches on Decklin’s chest and arms. Poor Joe was in the midst of it all. Though his face was obscured in the melee, it looked as though Billy was stepping on him to get closer to Decklin. Adam found himself hoping Joe wasn’t conscious.

When Billy kicked out at Decklin’s groin, Adam took it as an opportunity to stop Decklin where he stood. He rushed forward…but the boy’s kick wasn’t as hard as Adam had hoped.

Furious and now aware of Adam’s presence, Decklin wrapped his arm around the boy, pulling Billy to his chest. He swiveled to face Adam, stepping away from Joe’s bed and holding the knife to Billy’s throat. Adam was sick to see the blade already glistening with fresh blood. Thank heavens it didn’t look as though the blood was Billy’s. But that meant it could only be Joe’s.

Feeling sicker still, Adam didn’t dare pull his eyes away from Decklin. “Haven’t you done enough harm already?”

Decklin’s eyes were wide, his chest heaving with panting breaths. He was trapped, and he knew it. But was he a man or an animal? A trapped animal would have nothing to lose, but a trapped man might still be able to reason.

“Let the boy go,” Adam went on, surprised to find that he sounded calm despite the fear and anger roiling inside him. “You’ll gain nothing by hurting him.”

“Mr. Decklin!” Professor Brodermann’s voice behind Adam was commanding enough to make him jerk. It was the same for Bradley Decklin; Adam saw him flinch. “You are to release that boy at once. Do you hear me?”

Billy started crying. Decklin’s grip loosened, lowering the boy by inches, the knife pulling away but still held dangerous close. “You have to let me finish,” Decklin said then. “Take the boy downstairs with you and leave me be.” He sounded composed. Rational. Not at all like a disheveled man dressed as an Indian and holding a blood-dampened knife to a child.

“Leave you be to do what?” the professor asked.

“What I came here to do. Please. You’ll understand when I complete my research. I’ll be famous. We both will. They’ll be writing about this for decades to come.”

Adam had heard enough. “What they’ll be writing about is a madman who attacked two innocent men and left them to die. Don’t add this boy to the mix.”

“No! That’s not it at all. It’s about human nature. It’s about Indians and—” Decklin  ‘s eyes went wide again. When Adam followed his gaze, he saw Lean Knife entering the room, looking very much like the warrior he was. His back was straight and tall, his eyes cold, his jaw rigid.

“You are the white man who took Paiute clothes from he-who-is-no-longer-my-brother.” Lean Knife walked forward as though he was oblivious to the stand-off.

“I gave him my own in return. And whiskey.” Decklin grinned, clearly expecting approval.

Lean Knife scowled instead. “Firewater! You bring shame to he-who-is-no-longer-my-brother. You bring shame to Chief Winnemucca!”

Decklin looked confused. He shook his head. “No. I— Hey!”

Billy sank his teeth into Decklin’s arm. Decklin instinctively released his grip, dropping Billy to the floor. When the boy darted forward, Adam scooped him up and passed him back to Hoss, happy to find his brother so close behind him. Then Adam saw Professor Brodermann’s face go pale. He turned back to Decklin and instantly saw why. Lean Knife had already taken the advantage. He had Bradley Decklin’s knife pressed up against Bradley Decklin’s throat.

“You make white men believe Paiute kill for no reason. When Paiute kill, always there is good reason. You make war come to Paiute and white men for no reason!”

“N-no!” Decklin’s Adam’s apple bobbed against the blade. “I only…only wanted to give Sarah a gift!” The blade bit into his neck.

“You’d be wise to keep quiet,” Adam warned.

“But Sarah—”

“Is Lean Knife’s wife!” Adam said flatly.

“You bring gift to Lean Knife’s woman?” The blade bit deeper. A dribble of blood spilled to Decklin’s collarbone.

“O-only to show I understood. I—”

“Don’t.” Joe called out from his bed. His voice was weak, but his tone was strong enough to draw Lean Knife’s hand back visibly.

Startled and relieved, Adam finally looked at his little brother and was shocked to find Joe’s face covered in blood. A closer look showed an ugly cut along his hairline. Adam stepped slowly toward him.

“This man is not worth Lean Knife’s time,” Joe said softly. “He’s mad…loco. Lean Knife…is a warrior. This man is a…a skunk.”

Adam felt his lips curl up unexpectedly at Joe’s description. Meeting Joe’s gaze then, his little brother grinned back at him. It looked…disturbing beneath that blood, but it was a welcome sight, nonetheless.

“Joe’s right,” Adam added. “He is a white man who committed crimes against other white men. Leave him to us. We’ll see to it that he is appropriately punished.”

“He bring shame to Winnemucca!” Lean Knife argued. “He would bring gift to Lean Knife’s woman!”

“He’s lost his mind,” Adam reasoned. “He didn’t know what he was doing.”

“He take Lean Knife’s brother!” This last was said with such vehemence, Adam was taken aback. All this time, Lean Knife had spoken of his brother as though he had already steeled his heart against the man. Yet now…now Lean Knife showed that losing his brother had caused him pain…a kind of pain Adam could understand only too well, the kind that had been threatening him since he’d first seen Little Joe with that arrow sticking out of his chest.

“I understand,” Adam said sincerely. “But he is mad. Insane. I don’t know your word for it, but he does bad things because he can’t comprehend what—”

“Stop it!” Decklin  shouted then. “Stop talking about me like I’m not here! I can speak for myself!”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” Adam warned.

“I don’t care what you would ad—”

“Mr. Decklin !” the professor demanded again. “If you value your life you will hold silent this instant!”

Adam looked at his old mentor, losing himself for a moment to memories of a time when that voice of authority had meaning for him. But now…now the man sounded like nothing more than a father scolding his child…a young and foolish child. Had the professor sounded like that all those years ago? Had Adam simply outgrown it? Or had the professor somehow lost…something…between then and now?

Lean Knife’s far more authoritative voice cut into Adam’s thoughts as he called each of his braves to him. And then, speaking only in his own language, he propelled Bradley Decklin  into the arms of two of his men. In an instant, the Paiutes led Decklin away. There was nothing the Cartwrights could do for him without risking more lives…without risking the start of a senseless and inevitably bloody war.

Somewhere in Adam’s heart, he would always be left to wonder if that were really true, if he’d even tried at all. But for that moment, all that mattered was Adam’s family was safe. And Joe…well, Joe was safe, too. He was bloodied and beaten, yes. But at least he was safe.

XxXxX

10

As soon as Lean Knife and his men stepped into the hall, Adam swiveled around to help Joe. He heard his father calling out for fresh bandages and water, but Joe couldn’t wait for any of that. He couldn’t even open his eyes anymore, thanks to the trails of blood that had trickled onto his lids…or maybe that wasn’t the only reason. Joe barely stirred when Adam reached down to wipe the blood away with his handkerchief.

“How bad is it?” Pa asked, moving up beside Adam.

“Hard to tell just yet. But I–

“Adam?” Joe’s weak voice stopped them both.

“Don’t worry, Joe,” Adam answered in a light tone that did not match the darkness in his eyes or the tight line of his lips. “We’re still going to have to lasso you to get you to the barber for your regular haircuts.”

Joe’s small, responding smile faded quickly. “Who was he? The things he said…and Sarah….”

Adam tensed, feeling the weight of his own guilt pressing down on him. If he had never trusted Professor Broderman…. If he hadn’t been so open in his letters to the man…. If he hadn’t….

When a warm hand wrapped around his, it pulled Adam from the turn of his thoughts and called his gaze upward from Joe to his father. Pa smiled back at him with all the kindness and understanding he had ever shown any of his sons, giving his head a small shake to say, ‘It’s not your fault.’

But how could it not be? The professor would never have come. And Decklin would never have—

“Adam?” Joe whispered.

“Adam is getting some fresh water, Joe,” Pa said softly, nudging himself into the position Adam had held before allowing his guilt to draw him away. “He’ll be back in a moment. Now as to you, young man, you don’t need to trouble yourself with such things right now. You need to concentrate on getting well. There will be plenty of time for questions after you’ve had some rest.”

Somehow, that was all Joe had needed to hear. The creases in his brows smoothed and he seemed to sink more heavily into his mattress. Maybe it wasn’t even the words that had mattered; the sound of Pa’s voice might well have been enough to quiet Joe’s restlessness.

Adam found himself wishing it could have the same effect on him. But wishing was for children. And Adam was no more a child to believe in the magic of wishes than he was a college student eager to believe in the wisdom of his professors. It was time for him to prove that fact. With a single, steadying breath, he left Little Joe in his pa’s more than capable hands, moving purposefully to his own room, where he was sure he would find the professor sitting up with Billy Hinckley.

He found Hoss, instead.

“Is Joe all right?” Hoss asked quietly, rising from his seat the instant Adam pushed open the door.

Adam gave only a quick nod in reply. “How about Billy?”

“Went right to sleep. I guess he’s just plumb exhausted.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“I figure it’ll probably be okay to leave him be for a while.” Hoss stepped over to join Adam in the doorway, his gaze straying to the open window across the room. “The moon’s finally startin’ to poke a dent in all them clouds. I could ride out now without too much trouble, and fetch both Doc Martin and Sheriff Coffee back here first thing in the morning.”

“I’ll go,” Adam offered, feeling oddly relieved at the decision. “And I’ll bring the professor with me.”

Hoss looked like he was about ready to argue, but after he took a good long look into Adam’s eyes, he closed his mouth and nodded. “I’ll get the buggy ready.”

“Don’t bother.” Adam felt a small smile slip into place. “He can ride into town. After all, he came west to see how we live out here.” Of course, whatever dark humor Adam had found in that decision did not last. But for a moment, at least, it gave him a touch of satisfaction.

XxXxX

 Adam could not find Professor Brodermann anywhere in the house. After confirming the kitchen was empty, he returned to the foot of the staircase and looked up, wondering if perhaps the professor had returned to Adam’s room to sit with Billy. The muted voices of Pa and Hop Sing told him they were still with Joe; but Adam could hear nothing of the professor’s deep baritone. Had he taken the back stairs—both going down and then up again? Frustrated, Adam decided the only way to know for sure would be to go back upstairs and look.

Just as he set his foot on the first step, Hoss’s voice pulled his attention toward the front door. “Hey, Adam,” Hoss said without fully stepping inside. “You’d better come out here.”

Although there was nothing urgent in his brother’s tone, Adam couldn’t help but feel a stab of trepidation. “What’s wrong?”

Hoss scratched his head, his gaze slipping outside again. “I was gonna saddle up some horses for you and the professor, when I….”

“Hoss?”

“Dadburnit, Adam. It’s the professor. He’s out there tryin’ to get Lean Knife to let that Decklin boy go.”

Adam’s hand tightened around the newel post. “The fool,” he said under his breath. “Is he trying to get them both killed?” Maybe he should just let it be. Let the professor become Lean Knife’s problem for one night. Or Winnemucca’s. Just until morning. And then maybe the sheriff could convince the chief to turn them both over to white man’s justice.

“Adam?”

When Hoss’s voice cut into Adam’s thoughts again, he found himself moving slowly toward the door without even knowing what he wanted to do. Then he saw something in his brother’s eyes that made him feel like more of a fool than the professor. Worse, he felt like more of a scoundrel. “I suppose we’d better save his sorry hide.”

XxXxX

11

“How can I make you understand?” Adam heard Professor Brodermann talking before he’d cleared enough shadows to see anyone. “His mind is addled,” the professor said. “I must make sure that he receives both the punishment and the care he needs, not just the punishment. He is my student. I am responsible for him.”

“You bring dishonor to Chief Winnemucca?” Lean Knife did not sound at all willing to enter into one of the professor’s infamous debates.

“No,” the professor argued.

“You take life of white man?”

Rounding the barn, Adam could finally see the small group. Lean Knife was standing, facing Professor Brodermann, although his braves already sat astride painted horses. One mounted brave shared a horse with Bradley Decklin, whose hands were tied in front of him.

“No, I—“ the professor stammered.

“Attack son of Ben Cartwright?” The diffuse moonlight cast deadly shadows across Lean Knife’s face.

“Of course, not!” the professor proclaimed in a shout. “Mister Decklin acted of his own accord, but he—“

“He, student?” Lean Knife went on. “You, teacher?”

“Yes. I—“

“You teach this man to mock Paiute ways?”

“How could I?” the professor was starting to look rattled, as Adam had never seen him. “I know nothing of your ways!”

“This man also know nothing! No Paiute kill for no reason! No Paiute take scalp for no reason! No Paiute—“

“Then teach us your ways!” the professor shouted over Lean Knife. “Teach us both! We would be honored to learn your ways!”

“Honor?” Lean Knife shouted back. “Lean Knife will teach honor! Teacher and student both learn to show honor! Lean Knife will teach you Paiute ways in blood!”

With a quick gesture from Lean Knife, two braves dismounted and grabbed hold of the professor’s arms.

Adam hurried to join them. “Leave him!” he shouted. “It will bring no honor to Chief Winnemucca if you punish an old man for talking too much!”

“This old man teach other to bring dishonor to Winnemucca!”

“No, Lean Knife,” Adam said more softly. “This old man is not a teacher in the way you’re thinking. He does not teach how to use a knife or how to hunt. He teaches through stories. He tells stories.”

“Stories?” Lean Knife looked more suspicious than puzzled.

“Yes.”

“Stories of the feats of your father’s fathers?”

Adam shrugged. “Sometimes. But not always. Not all of his stories are true. He uses them to teach about truth, aboutfinding the truth.”

“He teaches truth by telling lies?”

“Don’t be absurd!” the professor shouted. “That is an over-simplification of—“

“Yes!” Adam shouted over his words, throwing the man a warning glare before turning his back to keep Professor Brodermann out of his sights. “Yes,” Adam repeated. “He teaches truth by telling lies. Or he tries to, anyway.”

“Then he has no honor!”

Sighing in frustration, Adam shook his head. “No,” he said quietly. “He has a different view of honor. But he is at least honest in the compassion he shows to his students. He feels responsible for…your prisoner…as a father might, but not as a chief, or a leader of braves.”

“As father, he would take punishment in place of Deck-lin?”

It was a question Adam could not answer. He turned to the professor. There was both fear and doubt in the man’s eyes as they strayed to a very bewildered Bradley Decklin. Then Professor Brodermann looked to the ground and gave his head a slow, sad shake. “He is not my son,” the professor said, giving his attention to Adam. “Nor could I approve of his actions. But my poor teaching surely influenced him. If only I’d known….”

“I couldn’t tell you, professor!” Decklin said then. “No one could know but me. It was the only way to authenticate—“

“You authenticated nothing!” The professor’s cold shout took Adam by as much surprise as it did Bradley Decklin. The young man’s brows pulled downward. “No, I suppose that’s not quite true,” the professor added in a quieter tone. “Youauthenticated your own madness.”

“No, professor! I—“

“Yes, Mister Decklin. You are mad. Only a madman would do as you have done.”

“No! I did it for—“

“You killed a man, Mister Decklin! Killed him and scalped him! My God, man! You very nearly did the same to young Joseph Cartwright! There is no excuse, no justification. But….” All eyes looked to the professor, waiting for him to finish, waiting for him to give Lean Knife a reason to either take him or leave him behind. He met each gaze, staying longest with Adam’s, before turning his attention back to Bradley Decklin. “But I need to know why? What drove you to this masquerade? To this…madness?”

Decklin looked more puzzled than before. “You…you said…. All those discussions…all those arguments with the group…. You said the Indians could be civilized.”

Adam saw Lean Knife’s jaw go taut.

“I believed you,” Decklin went on. “You know I agreed with you! I had to…had to prove it! It wasn’t enough that Sarah Winnemucca had a white woman’s name or went to a white school. The group didn’t see enough proof in that. She went back to live with her tribe. To them, that proved Indians would always be savage.”

Lean Knife’s chest rose, his shoulders drawing back.

“You didn’t have enough proof to argue against them,” Decklin added. “I had to get you that proof. I had to; don’t you see? I had to do it to prove you right! I had to!”

The professor’s eyes dropped sadly once more, his own shoulders sagging. He glanced at Adam, and then met the growing rage in Lean Knife’s gaze. “Yes,” he said.

Lean Knife said nothing. He stood, watching quietly, waiting for the professor to finish his statement.

“Yes, I will take the punishment in his place.”

“No,” Adam countered. “You said it yourself! You would never have approved of his actions if you’d known.”

“But he did it all….for me. I have no choice but to take responsibility.”

Adam was stunned and…touched?…by the professor’s sudden show of courage. “He is mad. You said it yourself. You can’t be blamed for his madness.”

“Hold!” Lean Knife’s shout and raised hand closed the professor’s mouth before he could reply. “Adam Cartwright speak for this old man?” His eyes locked with Adam’s.

“Yes,” Adam answered. He looked at the professor again, and realized he’d forgiven the man already. He’d forgiven him for everything. For Joe. For Ralph and Billy Hinckley. And for his own harsh introduction into academia. Maybe it was the professor’s defeated posture, or the way he finally accepted responsibility for influencing Bradley Decklin’s flawed ideals. But suddenly Adam saw a haggard, old man rather than a glorified mentor. And just as suddenly, Adam saw no point to holding him at fault for anything more than being blinded by his own self importance.

“Then old man stay with Adam Cartwright.”

Adam gave his attention back to Lean Knife in time to watch the Paiute mount his horse and ride away with his braves and Bradley Decklin .

After the last rider was swallowed by the night, Professor Brodermann broke the heavy silence that had taken hold, repeating softly, “He did it for me.” He was still looking out into the empty darkness where the riders had been.

“Come on back inside,” Adam told him, unwilling to provide any words of comfort the professor might expect—or might offer himself had the situation been different. “It’s late. Hoss and I will both have to get an early start tomorrow.”

The professor turned to him, confusion evident in the curl of his brow. “Why is that?”

Tensing, Adam reminded himself the man had yet to learn about life in the west. Yes, Adam decided. Professor Brodermann was very much like a young freshman far removed from the life he’d always known and over-confident about his ability to fit in, to belong…or rather, knowing far less about the world than he’d believed. “We need to get the sheriff,” Adam said in a frustrated tone that made it clear the professor should already have been well aware of that fact, “and meet with Chief Winnemucca before he doles out too much punishment to Bradley Decklin .”

“You…you’re  going after them?”

“Of course! You didn’t expect us to leave Decklin in their hands, did you?”

“But you…let them ride away. You didn’t do anything to stop them.”

“There wasn’t anything we could do. Not without starting the kind of war Deckln’s actions were leading us toward.”

“But if…Lean Knife was it?” At Adam’s stiff nod, the professor went on. “If Lean Knife would not listen, what makes you think Chief Winnemucca will?”

“Because the chief has a bigger view of things, as any man in a position of power should. He won’t be blinded by personal affronts. Lean Knife can’t help but want vengeance.”

The professor looked into the darkness again and slowly shook his head. “They really are not so very different from us, after all. Are they?”

“Let’s go inside,” Adam repeated. He turned away, not waiting for a reply, and met Hoss’s gaze. “We might as well let him stay,” he explained. “At least for tonight. I don’t believe he’ll do very well riding right now. But if you don’t mind, I’d be happier for you to stay here and let me get the sheriff and the doctor. I could use the fresh air.”

When Adam finally rode out into the night, he did it without fear of attack, without fear of losing his little brother, and without the hate that had been building up within him through the course of the long and grueling evening. And the fresh air did help. By the time Adam made it into town, he came to realize he had suddenly become the teacher, and the professor, the student.

He vowed to show that man how to do it right.

XxXxX

12

It was after midnight by the time Adam reached Virginia City, and the streets were disturbingly quiet. An odd silence shrouded even the Bucket of Blood—a rarity when miners were in town. But Adam’s sights weren’t set on beer or poker, or any of a typical saloon’s other commodities. He passed without pausing, shrugging off the silence without questioning its cause and keeping his eyes on the road ahead of him. The dim glow coming from the sheriff’s office proved either Roy or Clem would be there, working late or preparing to spend a night on the cot if the cells had been recently occupied. Adam counted himself fortunate for that—it would save him the trouble of rousing Sheriff Coffee from bed.

But as it turned out, he wasn’t saved from trouble; he was delayed by it, instead. The cells were packed with trouble makers who had kept Roy, Clem and Doctor Paul Martin busy for most of the night—Roy and Clem with breaking up a massive brawl at the Bucket of Blood, and Doc Martin with patching up the losers. Both Roy and Paul had only recently turned in for the night. Clem was left guarding the snoring hoard.

“That’s quite a story,” Clem said, shaking his head in disbelief at Adam’s description of all that had happened since the professor’s arrival at the Ponderosa. “Since you already know where this Decklin fella is, might as well give the sheriff a couple hours shut-eye, then I’m sure he’ll be anxious to join you. Wouldn’t be too good showin’ up at a Paiute’s doorstep in the middle of the night, anyhow. I feel bad about the doc, though. I know you want to get him out there to tend to Joe, but he was dead on his feet. You might want to give him a bit more time if you want him to be at his best. Besides, you look like you could use some sleep yourself. We’re full up, as you can tell, but I’m sure the hotel—“

“I’ll be fine,” Adam said softly, disappointed that Joe would have to wait even longer for some real, medical help.  “Just….” He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Do me a favor and send Doc Martin out to the Ponderosa come morning. I’ll stop by Roy’s on my own just before dawn.”

With time on his hands, a mind far too restless to nap, and a mood that demanded solitude, Adam decided the best place to wait it out was the last place he would ever expect to find peace and quiet on   any other night—the Bucket of Blood.

XxXxX

The beer was flat and the whiskey watered, but at least the saloon was quiet. That was all Adam needed: A big, dark, depressing room so he could share his broken thoughts with the broken furniture stacked in the corner along with a bucket full of broken glass from the evening’s excitement.

Suddenly, everything seemed broken, and with each passing hour Adam’s mood grew more dour. Over and over again, his thoughts took him back to Little Joe lying on the ground with an arrow in his chest, or little Billy Hinckley wandering alone in the woods. And then to Professor Brodermann feigning innocence until he’d been able to deny it no longer. Adam had always trusted that man. Loved him, even. The professor had filled a role Adam’s own father had been too far away to provide whenever Adam had needed guidance. Brodermann had always been ready with sage advice, the wisdom of the ancients even—or…that’s what Adam had always thought. But now…. Now Adam didn’t know what to think of the man. Was he simply human, a wise man who had made a foolish mistake? Or had he always been a fool, and Adam an even bigger one for ever having listened to him?

Draining his beer, Adam fixed his eyes on the ceiling and wished he was looking at the sky.

“Hey, fella’s! It’s Adam Cartwright!” The shout was unwelcome, but not entirely unexpected.

Adam set his mug on the table in front of him and took a long breath, bracing himself. As soon as he’d heard the ruckus moving up the street, inexorably drawing closer to the saloon with each new whoop and holler, he’d found himself wishing the men involved would have had enough of drinking for one night. He should have known wishing was a useless endeavor.

“Hey, Adam! What’re you doin’ out so late? Ain’t even Saturday!” The companionable slap against Adam’s back would have knocked him to the tabletop if he hadn’t been holding himself so rigidly.

“You’re right,” he responded tightly as three men sat themselves down at his table, uninvited. “I should be on my way.” He started to push himself upward, but a hand grabbed his shirtsleeve, determined to keep him seated.

“Cain’t go now! I been waitin’ nigh on two weeks t’see if that dandy ever’ found his way to the Ponderosa.”

If Adam had been rigid before, he became granite in that instant. “What—dandy?” he asked as he slowly, steadily retook his seat, his eyes locked on the man in front of him.

His new companion laughed. “Silliest dang get-up I ever did see. Come in off the stage actin’ all prim and proper. Next thing we knew, he’s in here with us. We’d a’tossed him out on account’a his prissy attitude, ‘cept he kept buyin’ rounds.”

“Sure made a lot a’good friends that day,” another man snickered. “Almos’ hated to help him get hisself scalped.”

The first man punched him on the arm. “Aw, hell! He prob’bly got them Paiutes even drunker’n he got us!”

Adam narrowed his eyes at the second man. “What do you mean about helping him get himself scalped?”

It was the third man who answered instead. “Fella’ was askin’ all kind a’questions about them Paiutes. Wanted to make sure he knew how to find ‘em, so Hank there tol’ him enough to all but walk him right into Winnemucca’s camp!”

As tense as a coiled spring, Adam planted his hands on the table in front of him and pushed himself to his feet. “And did you also happen to tell this dandy exactly how to get to the Ponderosa?”

“Nah!” Hank answered. “Was Emmet tol’ him that!” He nodded to the third man.

The first man slapped his hand on the table, laughing even harder than before. “That was the funniest thing of all! You should’a heared it, Adam! That dandy fella’ asked what Little Joe looked like, and Emmet…. Emmet….” He was laughing so hard he couldn’t finish talking.

“Show him, Emmet!” Hank prodded. “Show him how you imitated Li’l Joe!”

Adam lost all reason at that moment. He wasn’t sure who he punched first, but two men were already on the floor, rubbing their jaws. Adam had his hands dug into the collar of the third, pulling him so close he could smell the drunk’s rancid breath. “You put him up to it!” Adam accused. “You miserable, no good—”

“Adam!” Sheriff Coffee’s voice called out behind him. “Leave him be, Adam.” A hand fell on his shoulder. “It ain’t these fellas you’re after, an’ you know it.”

He didn’t move. “I wouldn’t be after anyone if it weren’t for these drunken, low—”

“Come on, Adam,” Roy said softly. “You know that ain’t true. That boy would’ve just found someone else to help him.”

“Help how?” the drunk in Adam’s grip asked, his bloodshot eyes wide with surprise and fear. “What’d he do?”

“He shot an arrow into Little Joe.” Adam spoke in a voice so cold it didn’t even sound like his own. “And then he tried to scalp him.”

The drunk’s eyes grew wider. “Dandy did that? Nah. Cain’t be. Not that fancy—”

Adam tightened his grip, choking the words right out of the man.

“Adam!” the sheriff scolded, his own grip tightening on Adam’s shoulder. “Come on, now. Clem told me what happened. Dawn’s awful close. We hit the trail now, we’ll get things settled with Winnemucca in no time at all.”

Settled? The word itself sounded wrong. It was too neat. Too…clean. There was nothing clean about what that…dandy…had done. Ready for a new target, Adam threw the drunk away from him and spun around on the sheriff. But when he saw concern in Roy’s eyes, he realized the only person he was really angry with was himself. But it wasn’t about his college days anymore. No, he hadn’t been at fault for having been a boy far from home putting his trust in a stranger. He’d just been…a boy. No. He was angry for how he’d let those days color his thoughts now. He was angry at himself for being too blind to see that the heroes of youth could only stay heroes if they were left in the past, protected behind layers of memories unsullied by the harsh edges of reality every man discovers over time.

“Let’s go,” he said simply, decisively, edging past his father’s old friend to lead the way outside. At least some things could be settled. As for others, well, maybe it was time for Adam to put his own youth behind him, where it belonged, and to instead help his youngest brother through his. Maybe he could help Joe to be wise enough to realize that heroes were as pointless as wishes…and as elusive.

XxXxX

13

When Adam and Sheriff Coffee reached the ranch house, Hoss already had Chubb saddled and ready to go. Adam’s brother was in the yard when they rode up, clearly as anxious as Adam to get this mess with Chief Winnemucca’s tribesettled. Pa seemed equally anxious when he came out of the house, with a subdued Professor Brodermann trailing behind him.

“How’s Joe doin’, Ben?” Roy asked without dismounting.

But Pa craned his neck past him, focusing his gaze down the road. “Where’s Paul?”

“’Bout an hour behind us, I’d say,” Roy explained. “Clem’s ridin’ in with him. After all you went through yesterday, I didn’t want him traveling alone just yet.”

“Don’t you fret about that,” Hoss said as he climbed into the saddle. “Lean Knife ain’t about to go lettin’ that boy loose again.”

“That may be so, Hoss, but it’s still best to be careful.”

“Yes,” Pa said softly, absently. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.” He looked at Roy then, his brow so heavily creased with worry, Adam found his own gaze straying to the window above the door. “About an hour, you think?”

Roy nodded. “He’ll be here before you know it, Ben.”

“How is Joe?” Adam pressed.

“He ain’t any worse,” Hoss was quick to answer—maybe even a little too quick?

“He’s confused,” Pa added gruffly. “Trying to make sense of what’s happened.” His glare was telling, and though it was aimed his way, Adam knew it was focused on Bradley Decklin, the dandy who had tried to become a Paiute over the course of two weeks. Two weeks.

I been waitin’ nigh on two weeks….

If they had known about that dandy two weeks ago, they could have gotten to Decklin before he’d had a chance to get to them. At the very least, they could have been warned that someone was interested enough in the Ponderosa to ply a saloon full of miners with drinks to get information—and interested enough in Joe. All of this could have been avoided. All of it. Joe wouldn’t be lying upstairs in agony and Billy Hinckley wouldn’t be waking up an orphan.

And maybe Adam wouldn’t have come to hate a wise and foolish hero he thought he’d loved once upon a time.

“I been tryin’ to make some sense of it myself,” Roy said. “But from what Adam told me, I don’t reckon there is much sense to be made.”

“No,” Pa answered. “You’re right about that. No sense at all. Now you boys, be careful,” he added, pointing a finger toward Adam and Hoss. “If you have to leave that…that murderer to Paiute justice, then so be it.” He waved his hand in the air. “I will not have you risking your own lives for the sake of…of—”

“Now, Ben,” Roy interrupted. “You really think I’m gonna let all this rile Chief Winnemucca enough to make him go on the warpath?”

Pa sighed. “No, Roy. I know you won’t. It’s just….” He shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck, looking as though he might be as confused as Joe. Or maybe just as tired.

“Don’t worry, Pa,” Adam offered. “I’ll make sure the chief understands enough blood has been shed already.”

Pa nodded knowingly, heaving another long sigh.

“Perhaps I could help him to understand,” the professor’s voice pulled all eyes toward him, “that Bradley Decklin is not well?”

Hoss reined in beside Adam. “I already told him them Paiutes are mad enough already. He don’t need to go makin’ ‘em any madder.”

“But he and I could speak elder to elder,” the professor went on. “Perhaps that would—”

“No,” Adam said dismissively. “You’re staying here.”

The professor’s shoulders drew back, his chest puffing out indignantly. “You can’t—“

“I can!” Adam countered. “You’re my guest, professor! And as long as you’re on the Ponderosa, you’re my responsibility. I happen to take my responsibilities very seriously. I don’t intend to let anything happen to you.”

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“Are you?”

“Of course.”

“Like you did last night with Lean Knife?”

The professor heaved a frustrated sigh. “All we did was talk.”

“Do you have any idea what would have happened to you if I hadn’t intervened?”

“I imagine they would have taken me with them.” He did not seem at all concerned.

“And you don’t think that would have been a problem?”

“Heavens, no! It would have given me the opportunity to speak with the chief.”

“It would have given the Paiutes the opportunity to punish two men instead of just one!”

There it was, the blanched look the professor had shown the night before. “Well,” he said, finally seeming flustered. “As I said last night, I do have a responsibility to—“

“You wouldn’t survive, professor,” Adam interrupted brusquely.

Professor Brodermann studied him, saying nothing.

“You’re trying to be noble,” Adam went on, “to be honorable, to do the right thing. It all sounds well and fine in literature, but the reality is….” Adam took a deep breath, looking to Joe’s bedroom window. The reality can be brutal. Deadly. Giving his attention back to the professor for just a moment, Adam repeated, “You wouldn’t survive.” Then he turned away once more, kicked his heels into his horse’s flanks, and rode away.

XxXxX

The Cartwright brothers and Sheriff Coffee were greeted by the Paiutes as though they had been expected. They were ushered into the camp silently by two braves, neither of whom Adam recognized from the night before. At the edge of the camp, Adam caught sight of Bradley Decklin. He was hanging by his wrists from a tree limb, his toes barely touching the earth, his head dropped forward, unmoving. It was impossible to tell whether or not he was still alive.

Nor was Adam given the opportunity to find out. A brave prodded him in the back with the butt end of his lance, urging him to dismount, and then the three of them were directed toward a wickiup.

Chief Winnemucca was waiting for them inside. His greeting was limited to a terse nod as they sat down. “Does Joe Cartwright, son of Ben Cartwright, yet live?”

“He does,” Adam answered quickly. But a glance toward Hoss revealed something disturbing. The quirk of uncertainty pulled at his brother’s brow.

Hoss’s doubt did not go unnoticed by Winnemucca. “Perhaps tomorrow your answer would not be the same.”

Hoss started, surprised, his brows shooting upward as he noticed three sets of eyes directed his way. Then he took a deep breath, nodding solemnly before focusing on Adam instead of the chief. “We left that arrow in him too long, Adam. His fever just kept climbin’ higher and higher all night. By dawn, that wound was hot to the touch. Reason I had Chubb saddled already, I was aimin’ to head to Virginia City to hurry Doc Martin along.”

A familiar anger began to roil within Adam. But Hoss didn’t deserve to be a target. “Then why didn’t you?” he asked, trying to sound much calmer than he felt.

“Because the sheriff already said the doc was comin’. An’ it was just as important we see to this.”

Adam looked to the dirt beneath him, his hands clenching into fists, his jaw clamped almost too tight to speak. “No,” he said softly. “It wasn’t.” And then he couldn’t hold it in any longer. Deserving of it or not, he threw his anger toward Hoss. “You saw him as we rode in! Bradley Decklin isn’t going anywhere! And Joe’s life is more important than whether that…man…gets Paiute or white man’s justice!”

Hoss’s expression remained soft. He knew even better than Adam that he wasn’t the real target of all that anger. “Ain’t nothin’ we could’a done by stickin’ around except to maybe get in the doc’s way. At least here we’re doin’ somethin’ that matters. At home, all we’d do is pace the floor and pester the doc for promises he couldn’t possibly give us.”

Adam looked at him for a long while. Hoss was right. Adam knew he was right. He lso knew there was no real target for his anger except circumstance. Decklin was mad; that was clear. A madman has a different view of reality, a perspective no one else could ever hope to understand. Adam doubted Bradley Decklin had any idea why he was being tortured. As to the professor, he had displayed an egregious lack of good judgment, but he’d proved to be more a fool than a criminal. Even those men in the saloon could not be faulted, not really.

“One man,” Chief Winnemucca said, his voice pulling Adam from the confusion of his thoughts, “has brought harm to both Cartwrights and Paiutes. He has cost Winnemucca’s tribe one brave. He may yet cost Ben Cartwright one son. You have come for this man?”

“Yessir,” Hoss answered.

“We aim to put him in our jail,” Roy Coffee added. “Lock him up so he can’t bring any more harm to anyone, white man or Paiute.

“He also killed a man,” Adam said, forcing himself not to focus on Winnemucca’s words. He may yet cost Ben Cartwright one son. “A white man. Lean Knife brought his body back here, as proof of Decklin’s crime. We need to take Mr. Hinckley’s body back home, so we can give him a proper burial.”

Winnemucca had looked to each of them in turn, and finally nodded at Adam. “This man has caused more harm to white men than Paiute, but Lean Knife feared white men would blame Paiute.”

“No,” Adam said. “We know the Paiute are not to blame. Decklin, the man responsible is…confused. His mind is damaged.”

“Loco,” Hoss said, trying to help. “He ain’t right in the head.”

The chief nodded again. “He is bad medicine. He take pleasure in punishment.”

“Pleasure?” Adam asked, stunned.

“He say punishment will make him a Paiute. Because he wants this, we can punish him no longer. Lean Knife would kill him, but medicine man fear his angry spirit.”

Adam caught a glimpse of Roy Coffee nodding beside him. “Then you’ll let us take him to our jail?”

“You may take. Then Paiute leave this place. Make new camp where no bad medicine lingers.”

“Thank you,” Adam said, relieved there would be no trouble with the Paiutes, but irrationally disturbed by the thought of taking bad medicine back with them. Hoss seemed to be equally torn. Only the sheriff was genuinely appreciative of the outcome. Of course, Roy Coffee hadn’t seen Joe squirming on the settee desperate to remove that arrow, or lying on the ground with a knife at his forehead, on the verge of being scalped.

“Is it true?” a woman’s voice called from the entryway. “Does Joe Cartwright still live?” Sarah Winnemucca entered, and then knelt beside her father.

“Yes,” Adam said firmly. And tomorrow my answer will be the same, he insisted to himself.

“And his…?” She pointed to her hair.

“Still attached,” Adam answered.

Her relief was obvious, though it was colored with anxiety. “He said….” She looked at her hands, and then at her father, before continuing. “He said he wanted to give me…a gift.” Her troubled gaze met Adam’s. “A gift of Joe’s scalp. I do not understand. Why would he offer this? Why does he hate me so? Why does he hate us both, your brother and me?”

“It has nothing to do with hate,” Adam offered. “He is insane. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“When I went to the white school in California,” Sarah added, “I met a woman there who would say this man has the devil in him.”

“She may be right,” Hoss said. Adam could hardly disagree.

“He frightens me,” Sarah confessed then. “I do not want him here. My husband wants to kill him, but that frightens me even more. The bad medicine could go into Lean Knife.”

“It has already been decided,” the chief told her, a kind and caring look in his eyes such that Adam had never seen in the man before. “They will take him. And we will leave this place.”

“Are you not afraid of the bad medicine?” she asked Adam.

Yes, Adam realized then. That was it exactly, wasn’t it? The crux of his anger. He was afraid of the bad medicine. He had already seen how it could turn an intelligent, young man into a savage and a wise, old man into a fool. And it could take lives as easily as break them. Just like it was threatening to break his. He couldn’t let it.

“There’s only one way to stop bad medicine,” he said, feeling suddenly calmer than he had since the professor had first stepped off that stage in Virginia City. “With good medicine. Which is why we have to take him with us. He needs to be brought to justice. He also needs help, because this bad medicine of his is a sickness.”

“What good medicine can you find for such sickness?”

“Humanity,” Adam answered, confident it wouldn’t cure Bradley Decklin, but it would at least prevent the sickness from spreading to him, as it had been doing, through the rage he’d found it so difficult to control.

He answered Hoss’s confused and concerned look with a comprehending smile. No, everything was not all right; but if they could keep the bad medicine at bay, then it should be, in time.

XxXxX

14

Sheriff Coffee took a badly beaten and handcuffed Bradley Decklin back to Virginia City. Decklin would need Doctor Martin’s care, but he was not in such dire shape as to warrant taking him back to the Ponderosa. Humanity or not, neither Hoss nor Adam wanted that young man anywhere near their little brother ever again. Decklin would get his care soon enough. If the doctor hadn’t yet returned to his office, he would soon—unless Joe was in particularly bad shape.

Adam didn’t want to think about that possibility. But when he rode into the yard to see Paul’s buggy was still there, he knew he would have to face it. Glancing quickly to Hoss and seeing his own worry etched in his brother’s drawn brow, Adam dismounted with more energy than he thought he had left. He took two steps toward the front door until a shout from inside had him running the rest of the way.

By the time he opened the door, the single shout had become a mess of voices, all talking at once. Hop Sing’s high pitched tirade in Mandarin topped them all. His words were aimed at Paul Martin, and the white cloth he waved in front of him was clearly not intended as a surrender.

Paul tried pushing him away. “It’s all right, Hop Sing. It will dry.” Standing in front of the settee, he was moving oddly, shifting from foot to foot.

Pa was trapped between Hop Sing and his red chair. “I’m so sorry, Paul. Why don’t you let Hop Sing wash those for you? I can give you a pair of trousers to wear in the meanwhile.”

“No, no, Ben. I’m quite all right, really. Just my own clumsiness.”

Another sound caught Adam’s attention—a child crying. Turning toward his father’s desk, he saw Professor Brodermann kneeling in front of a very distraught Billy Hinckley. Adam couldn’t hear the professor’s words, but whatever he said seemed to do the trick. Billy bounded into him much as the boy had when Adam had encountered him in the woods, throwing his arms around the professor and burying his face in the older man’s shoulder.

“Adam!” Pa greeted loudly. “Hoss!” He disentangled himself from the confusion by the fireplace and moved toward them. “Is everything all right? How did it go with Chief Winnemucca?”

Adam was less interested in answering than in getting some answers of his own. “Just fine, Pa,” he said casually, looking past his father to see Hop Sing brushing at Paul’s trouser leg with that cloth of his. “What happened here?”

Pa let off a small chuckle. “Oh, nothing, really. We were just sitting down to coffee and Billy…well, he decided he wanted to climb up onto the settee with Paul just as Paul was taking a drink. Spilled the whole cup into his lap.”

Adam glanced at Billy and the professor. The boy was quiet now. The professor was hugging him and patting his back.

“I imagine it’s time for a nap for that young man,” Pa added. “We haven’t given him much attention today. But we haven’t really had to, either. George seems to have accepted the responsibility of taking care of him quite well.”

“I see that.”

“How’s Joe?” Hoss asked then.

Pa’s gaze slid across both of them. He heaved a heavy, weary sigh. “Hopefully, the worst has passed. Paul had to reopen the wound, and the fever was concerning for a while; but it’s come down some.” Letting his gaze move to the stairs, he added, “He was sleeping. With any luck, the medicine Paul gave him will have allowed him to sleep through all this noise. We’d better check on him, just in case.” He returned his attention to Adam and Hoss while they shed themselves of holsters and hats. “What about the chief?”

“If ya’ ask me,” Hoss answered, “he was happy to be rid of that Decklin fella. Said he was ‘bad medicine.’”

“Roy took him back to Virginia City,” Adam added.

Pa stiffened in alarm. “Alone?”

“He’s not in any shape to cause more trouble, Pa.” This time, it was Adam who heaved a weary sigh. “They weren’t easy on him. It would probably be a good idea for Paul to go straight to the jail when he heads back.”

“He’ll be going back soon enough. George…,” Pa glanced toward the professor again, “is going with him.”

Professor Brodermann tried rising with young Billy still in his arms. Adam started toward him, realizing it would not be easy for a man of his age, but the professor managed to get to his feet before Adam had a chance to offer any help. He did meet Adam’s gaze though, offering a silent thank you for the attempt before sheepishly…guiltily…looking away.

“I’d better go check on Joe,” Pa said behind Adam.

“I’ll come with ya’, Pa,” Hoss added.

Adam followed closely behind both of them, while he, in turn, was followed by the sounds of Hop Sing still fussing over the results of young Billy’s accident and Professor Brodermann fussing over young Billy. It was all pretty inane—so normal as to make Adam think maybe some good medicine had made its way back to the Ponderosa. A few moments later, he even managed to smile when he saw a very tired but lucent Little Joe smiling up at him.

“Hey, brother,” Joe said weakly, his eyes open to small slits and the cut on his forehead well hidden beneath a pristine, white bandage. “That professor of yours…he told us…more stories…while you were gone.”

“He did, did he?” Adam bristled while Pa helped Joe take a few sips of water. After all that had happened, Brodermann had the audacity to tell more of those demeaning stories of his? He glanced toward the open doorway, eager to kick the professor right out of the house but knowing he couldn’t…not while Billy was with him. And not while Joe was—

“Yes,” Pa answered. “He did.” Pa’s expression was…odd. He looked neither angry nor amused. There was a gentleness to his gaze…but, of course, he was looking after his youngest son.

“While the doc was…,” Joe added, “patchin’ me up. Made you sound like…some…sort of….”

A lot of words went through Adam’s mind while Joe tried to catch his breath. Imbecile. Half-wit. A backwater cowpoke. A—

“Hero,” Joe said.

XxXxX

Adam felt lost and somewhat humbled when he slipped quietly out of Joe’s room a half hour later. He’d stayed to hear Joe tell him pieces of some of the professor’s stories until his brother’s words became nothing more than mumbled fragments and Joe fell into a deep, healing sleep. It wouldn’t have been enough for a stranger to understand; but Adam knew the truths hidden in what Joe had been trying to say. Professor Brodermann had followed Adam’s college career much more closely than Adam had ever realized. He hadn’t discussed the sort of major events Adam’s family would have heard from Adam himself. He’d spoken instead of smaller ones Adam had held in private, like the time he’d counseled a young man who’d lost faith in himself and had been on the verge of abandoning his dreams. The professor had clearly known more of that story than Adam. According to Joe, that young man had graduated with distinction two years after Adam had returned home, and had gone on to further his studies abroad.

Joe had called Adam a hero for that. A hero. Such a strong word. Such a…wrong…word.

Adam had once thought his professor to be a hero for similar, if somewhat less life-changing, moments. Adam was no more a hero than the professor. He’d simply done what he could to help a fellow student. Anyone with a decent sense of…humanity…would have done the same. That’s what the professor had done for Adam, wasn’t it? He’d been a counselor, a friend, a role-model even—to a point. Adam had chosen to ignore the man’s faults. The good had outweighed the bad…until now. Until the bad had allowed that arrow to strike Joe.

“I don’t want you to go away!” Young Billy’s shout pulled Adam from his thoughts and drove him down the stairs. The professor was kneeling in front of the boy again. This time, Billy looked more indignant than distraught. His arms were crossed in front of him, and his lower lip curled down in a magnificent pout.

“But I must, child. This is not my home.”

“Then I’ll go with you!” Uncrossing his arms, Billy pulled his hands into fists and dropped them to his sides in a show of stubbornness that rivaled any of Little Joe’s rants in younger days. Once again, Adam found himself smiling.

“Why ever would you want to do that?” The professor asked.

“This isn’t my home either!”

“But the Cartwrights are a good family. You are in excellent hands here.”

“I want to go away so I can be with my mama and papa. Mr. Ben says grampa’s there, too.”

Adam’s smile faded as he drew nearer. What were they going to do about poor Billy?

“Dear boy,” the professor answered softly, placing a comforting hand on Billy’s arm. “I am not going to where they’ve gone. Not yet, anyway.” He took a deep breath, forced a smile and playfully poked at Billy’s chest. “And neither can you.”

“Why not? I want to go!”

“But you have things you must do here, first.”

“What things?”

“I don’t know. Something special, I’m sure. Perhaps you’re meant to become a great man, someone everyone will respect.”

“I just want to be with mama and papa.” The pout returned. His bulging lip began to quiver.

“After you’ve done what you’re meant to do, you shall.”

“Then tell me what, an’ I’ll do it! Just tell me what I gotta do!”

“Only you can know that, boy. God will help you figure it out, in time, I’m sure.”

“How much time?”

“Enough to let you grow up into a strong man.”

“As strong as Mr. Hoss?”

“Perhaps. Or you might be strong of mind and character, like Mr. Adam.”

“I like Mr. Adam.”

“I do, too.”

“Mr. Adam took me here.”

“Yes. Yes, he did.”

“I don’t want to go home. Bad things happened there.”

“You won’t ever have to see those bad things again, my boy. Not ever again. You will go to a new home, a special home, someplace where you shall always be safe and warm.”

“I’m safe and warm here.”

“Yes, of course you are. And so am I. But this is not my home.”

“Is your home safe and warm?”

“Yes it is.”

“Then I want to go home with you.”

The professor looked as stunned as Adam. “Well, I….” His mouth worked through unformed words before he finally managed to utter, “It’s a very long way from here.”

“Is it as far away as where my mama and papa and grampa are?”

“No, child. Not quite that far.”

“An’ could I do what I have to do there, so I can go to where mama and papa and grampa are?”

“Well, certainly you could, but—”

“Then take me with you!”

“Why…I just…I don’t…it isn’t quite that simple.”

Billy threw his arms around the professor’s neck. “I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t care! Take me with you!”

For the child’s sake, Adam decided it was time to intervene. He reached for Billy to gently pull him away, but the boy let out a shrill scream and clung more tightly to Professor Brodermann. Taken aback, Adam’s gaze strayed up the stairs to where Joe should be sleeping as the front door was flung open, and Pa, Hoss, Paul Martin and Hop Sing all hurried inside.

“What the devil is going on in here?” Pa shouted above the boy’s persistent, piercing cry.

“He doesn’t want the professor to leave him,” Adam shouted back.

“Then for heaven’s sake tell him to stay! And put that boy down for his nap before….” Adam watched Pa look resignedly upstairs. “Oh, I’m sure Joe’s up again now anyway. Just, please. Tell him to stay. And have him take the boy up to bed!”

Ten minutes later, the house was finally quiet once more. The professor was upstairs with Billy. Paul was making a final check on Little Joe. And Adam was coming to realize he was actually glad to have the professor stay for at least one more night. It would give them a chance to speak as equals—as man-to-man with neither taking the role of student or teacher.

XxXxX

15

By mid-afternoon, the house was quiet and still. There was nothing more to do. For a long while, Adam watched Little Joe in sleep, his thoughts moving him past Decklin’s horrors to the sound of his brother’s laughter. It was infectious, that laughter. And as much as Adam had seethed at hearing the professor’s stories of his naïve youth in the moments before that arrow had launched, Joe’s laughter had come close to undoing Adam’s scowl. He had very nearly given in, to accept that yes, he had been arrogant and gullible, and the professor had cured him of one by taking advantage of the other.

Joe still didn’t know everything that had happened. He didn’t know that the professor had set him up for that arrow…unwittingly, perhaps; but whether he’d known of the impending crime or not, Professor Brodermann had still enabled it. What would Joe think, once the truth was known to him? Would he count on Adam’s thinking to guide his own? Or would he take the opposite path, whatever that may be, as he’d so often done in recent years while trying to find his own footing in the world?

Was Joe anywhere near as arrogant and gullible as Adam had been all those years ago?

No, Adam decided. Not arrogant. Over-confident, perhaps…but Joe never tried to pretend he knew more than he did. He’d never felt the need as Adam had during those early days at Harvard. Adam’d had to make a place for himself there. He’d had to find a way to fit in with young men of privilege, their hands smooth as ladies,’ unmarked by the kind of hard work Adam had grown accustomed to doing. He’d had to prove himself more than an ignorant cowboy.

But Joe…Joe had a confidence about him that made it clear he knew where he belonged—perhaps more importantly, where he wanted to belong.

And suddenly Adam’s thoughts took a new turn. The professor did not belong in the west. He was out of his element, perhaps floundering as much as Adam had when he’d first arrived at Harvard. Professor Brodermann’s arrogance had been clearly evident when he’d warned Pa to think twice about removing that arrow without a skilled surgeon present. Perhaps he’d been trying as hard as Adam had years ago. Maybe he’d even been as gullible…maybe even gullible enough to follow Bradley Decklin’s lead, rather than to lead Decklin as he should have.

And suddenly, Adam felt the need to talk to the professor.

He found Professor Brodermann sitting on the low table in front of the fireplace, staring into the flames much as Adam had been staring at the rise and fall of his brother’s chest in sleep. Adam had no doubt the older man was as deep in thought as Adam had been, too. “Professor?” he called softly as he approached.

Professor Brodermann closed his eyes in response, shutting out the flames, or maybe locking in his thoughts. His own chest rose with a deep pull of breath. When he exhaled, his shoulders sagged. He did not turn to face Adam. “For the first time in many…many years,” he said, “I truly do not know what to do.”

Yes, Adam realized. The professor was floundering. “About what?” he asked, resting one hand loosely on the top of the tall, blue chair.

“Everything.” Another breath turned the professor’s gaze toward Adam. “Absolutely everything.” Shaking his head, he gave a small, sad smile. “I believe I have learned more here in the course of a single day than in my entire career at Harvard.”

Adam smiled back at him. “I doubt that.”

“Good.”

The response caught Adam off guard, giving him a brief reminder of those early talks, years ago. But Adam did as he’d learned to do back then. He said nothing, and merely waited for the professor to explain.

“I want you to doubt me. I need for you to doubt me. After all, I doubt myself.”

“Good.” Now it was the professor who’d been caught off guard.  Adam tried to repress a grin of satisfaction at seeing a dumbfounded expression that was as welcome as it was unfamiliar. “Only through doubt,” Adam went on, “can a man look deep enough to find truth.”

The professor’s smile took a less mournful turn as he nodded appreciatively. “A very astute observation, my boy. Perhaps you could help me to find the truth.”

“About what?”

“About what to do for that small boy upstairs.”

“He’ll be fine. We’ll see to that.”

“How?”

Adam shrugged, and then walked around the chair to settle himself into it. “Find him a family who can take him in.”

“Do you know of such a family?”

“I’m not sure. I can think of a few possibilities.”

“What if he doesn’t like any of those possibilities? What if he screams when you try to leave him with strangers?”

“You’re worried he’ll react like he did earlier, when he didn’t want you to go away?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t be. He’s a child, Professor. He was tired and he threw a tantrum. It’s not unusual for boys his age. Little Joe threw his share of them, believe me.”

“And you knew what to do, of course.”

“I learned.”

“I have never had to deal with children.”

“It takes patience. And…doubt.”

“Yes. I imagine it does. But I find myself wondering….”

“Wondering what?”

“If I could learn.”

“You’re not thinking of adopting him yourself, are you?” Adam leaned forward in his chair, pulling his hands together and resting his elbows on his knees.

The older man shrugged. “My wife has passed, God bless her. We had no children of our own. And…well, I don’t suppose I would consider it at all were it not for the fact that I already know that boy was being raised by a man as old as I, and…. And it was my fault his grandfather was taken from him.”

“No,” Adam finally admitted out loud. “It was Bradley Decklin’s fault. You couldn’t have known what he would do.”

“Yes, I could have. I should have.”

“What Decklin did was unthinkable. You would never have considered that any of this might have happened.”

“But there were signs. The butchered animals. The—“

“The only thing you’re guilty of, Professor, is that you refuse to see the bad nature in anyone, especially your students. You accept that they are all worth your time and your guidance, and you expect them to be wise enough…and sane enough…to do the right thing.”

“And when they do not meet those expectations?”

“You have no power over what they will or will not do.”

“Oh, I am a fool to even consider adopting that child! He could run around pulling all kinds of shenanigans, of which I would be absolutely oblivious.”

“I doubt it.”

“What is there to doubt? I have proved the wool can be pulled over my eyes.”

“Not entirely.”

“How so?”

“By the time you meet your students, they’ve already learned how to hide what shenanigans they pull. If you were to start with them at a much younger age…say, Billy’s age…I think you would learn how to see through all that wool.”

“Are you suggesting that I adopt him?”

“I don’t know. I guess what I might be suggesting is that there could be value to considering it.”

“And perhaps even greater value to doubting it?”

Adam smiled. “Perhaps.”

They sat in silence for several long moments, each looking into the flames to find something deeper in their own, respective thoughts, when Adam decided to bridge another subject. “When the doctor was here,” he started, moving his eyes to his hands and rubbing them lightly together, “you told my brother some things that—”

“Oh, please,” the professor scoffed, “don’t tell me you disapprove! I will fully admit that I was wrong to belittle you earlier—not that it was ever my intent to belittle you, but—”

Adam stilled his hands and met the professor’s gaze. “I’m trying to say, ‘thank you.’”

“Thank you? Whatever for? I have brought calamity to this great Ponderosa of yours.”

“You made me a bigger man in my brother’s eyes than I deserve to be.”

“For all my bulk and girth, you are a bigger man than me, Adam Cartwright. You always have been. I saw that in you years ago. I see it even more clearly now. After all that has happened, I simply wanted your brother to know what kind of a man you truly are…although I suspect I did not need to tell him. He showed no great surprise.”

“He didn’t?” Adam asked, doubtful.

“No, he did not. In fact, he seemed quite pleased and…confident…as though I had simply validated something he’d already suspected to be true.” The older man studied Adam for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes. He has known you long enough to have no reason for doubt. He already sees the truth.” He sighed heavily. “I suppose that means young Billy would know me long enough to see my truth, were I to adopt him. But would I ever come to see his?”

“Adopt him?” Pa’s booming voice caught them both in surprise. “You’re can’t seriously be thinking about adopting Billy Hinckley?” The anger in his eyes as he approached from the stairway made it very clear there would be hours of discussion ahead of them to weed through all the doubt Joe’s attack had planted deep in his heart.

But Adam felt no tension rising up within him. Instead, he settled back in his chair, confident that the truth they all needed would be exposed. Maybe even as confident as Little Joe.

XxXxX

16

Billy’s high-pitched scream pulled Joe out of a light sleep. It was just as well. Joe had been getting too much sleep lately. He was growing increasingly restless. He was tired of his bed. Frankly, he was tired of being tired. His wounds were healing, but the process was far too slow for his liking. He’d already lost the better part of a week. And he was still confused. No matter how much his family tried to keep him informed, he seemed to encounter surprises every time he opened his eyes. Like now.

Of course, no surprise would ever quite match the breath-stealing shock he’d gotten when he’d opened his eyes to find a blue-eyed Indian poised over him with a knife. But his breath was stolen once again when a cacophony of shrill screams and squealing laughter erupted from the yard beyond his open window. Apparently, Billy wasn’t the only young child visiting the Ponderosa.

Gingerly pushing himself up onto his elbows, Joe sucked in his breath at the tight pull on his chest wound, but he didn’t let it stop him. Within minutes, he was on his feet, shuffling more than walking toward the window. He almost giggled when he realized he was moving like he was old enough to be his pa’s pa, but he decided to limit himself to a grin. Giggling would steal more breath than he had to offer. Besides, the children outside were doing enough giggling on their own.

It was an odd sound to discover after so many days of somber moods. Everyone had been on edge, and Joe was pretty sure it wasn’t just because he’d been attacked.

“Of course, I’m angry!” Pa would argue whenever Joe asked. “This should never have happened to you! How could I notbe angry?” There was more he wasn’t saying, but try as he might, Joe just couldn’t figure what it was.

And Adam…. Well, Adam had gone from angry to frustrated, to…distant. He wasn’t avoiding Joe, exactly. He would step in to Joe’s room, see if Joe needed anything, and then go out again, like he was always in a hurry to be somewhere else.

Hoss seemed as confused as Joe about the whole thing. He acted like he knew something about it, even so. Still, he wouldn’t say anything about what he knew—or what he thought he knew—to Joe.

Now there was a mess of children playing in the yard. And all that anger, frustration and confusion just didn’t seem to matter anymore.

Reaching the window, Joe saw Billy running after another small boy, and a girl chasing both of them. Then he heard something he hadn’t heard in too many days: Pa’s laughter. And then Hoss was laughing. But when Joe started to look for them amidst the chaos, his gaze landed on Adam first. And Adam was grinning back up at him.

Joe watched as his oldest brother uncrossed his arms and started moving toward the front door. A moment later, Joe shuffled back toward his bed, settled into the chair beside it…and waited.

XxXxX

“Looks like you’re feeling better,” Adam said when he stepped into Joe’s room. “Is there anything you need?”

Joe raised his brows up at his brother, instantly regretting the pull on the stitches at his hairline. “And here I thought you came up to actually talk with me for a change.”

“I did.”

“What’s going on out there?” Joe asked then, deciding that talking about talking would be a waste of time.

“The McGlaughlins are thinking about adopting Billy.”

“I thought the professor was gonna adopt him.”

“He was considering it.” Adam sighed, glancing toward the window and then back at Joe. “He couldn’t seem to decide whether it was the right thing for Billy or not.”

“Look like you’re the one who couldn’t decide.”

The tension in Adam’s shoulders eased, and so did the creases in his forehead. “Actually, I was pretty sure it wasn’t a good idea. It would be hard for a man of his age to raise a child that young on his own.”

“Isn’t that what Ralph Hinckley was doing?”

Adam gave Joe a tight smile. “That’s what the professor said. But there is a difference between stepping in to care for a grandchild and coming to the aid of a boy to whom he has no direct obligation.”

“But the professor does have an obligation to Billy, doesn’t he? I mean, he…he thinks he does.”

For a long while, Adam said nothing. He just studied Joe like he was looking for an answer in Joe’s eyes. “Do you think he does?”

Self-conscious under Adam’s scrutiny, Joe dropped his gaze. “It…it doesn’t matter what I think. I hardly know what happened. I’m still trying to make sense of it.”

“It does matter what you think, Joe. And I’m pretty sure you’ll never make sense of it. None of us will, not even Professor Brodermann. It was his student who caused all of this—hurting you, killing Billy’s grandfather. He feels an obligation to both of you.”

Joe grinned. “I hope he’s not thinking about adopting me.”

“I’m serious. The professor sent you out like a lamb to slaughter.”

“A lamb?” Joe shot back, trying to sound offended. “You’re comparing me to a lamb? You ought to know better than to call a cattleman—”

“Stop it, Joe!” Adam’s tense shout was matched by his knotted up shoulders. “Professor Brodermann was working with Decklin without even knowing what Decklin was going to do. If he hadn’t sent you out to get a bottle of medicine that didn’t even exist….” Clenching his jaw, Adam shook his head and looked toward the window.

“You said it yourself, Adam. He didn’t know.”

“That doesn’t absolve him of having a responsibility to both you and Billy.”

“To Billy, maybe.”

Adam looked at Joe again. “And to you.”

“He made a mistake and he’s trying to make up for it. But what happened to me isn’t permanent. It’s different with Billy.”

“You could have died, Joe.”

“But I didn’t.” As Joe watched the lines in Adam’s brow grow deeper, he suddenly came to realize why. “And it wasn’tyour fault, either,” Joe said softly, finding the words hard to get out. The very idea that Adam would feel at fault was more bothersome to Joe than anything the professor might have done.

“I brought him here, Joe. I practically begged him to come!”

“Because he was important to you. You were anxious for us to meet him. Heck, Adam, I wanted to meet him! Do you know how good it made me feel when you wrote those letters telling us about him? You joked that he was looking out for you almost like Pa would. But I didn’t find it funny at all. I was relieved to know you had someone like Pa with you.”

Suddenly, Adam looked more surprised than angry. “Relieved?”

“Yeah. Relieved. I was worried about you being so far from home and all alone.”

“You were worried about me? I thought you were angry with me for leaving.”

“I was. But I was worried, too.”

All those creases in Adam’s forehead smoothed out then, and so did the hard set of his shoulders. “I had no idea,” he said softly. “And here I thought you always figured I was just like Pa, that I could stand on my own two feet and move mountains if I needed to.”

“I did think that. I still do.”

Adam’s smile looked disturbingly sad. “I wish I could move mountains. I would have put one between you and Bradley Decklin.”

“You did. The asylum where they’re sending him might as well be a mountain.” Joe couldn’t help but feel a little sad himself then. Or at least, disturbed. When Sheriff Coffee had brought the judge to the Ponderosa to get Joe’s statement, they said Bradley Decklin would probably spend the rest of his life in an insane asylum. Decklin deserved to be punished, and Joe didn’t want to have to see those blue eyes ever again. But thoughts of living in a place surrounded by other mad men seemed a more horrific fate than living out the rest of his days in prison—maybe even worse than hanging.

“I mean before he had a chance to shoot that arrow at you.”

Joe was glad to return his attention to his brother. “You didn’t know you’d need to move a mountain before then. Just like the professor didn’t know what would happen when he asked me to get his medicine.”

Adam looked at Joe for a long while again. “So,” he said finally, heaving out a tired sigh, “if you thought I could move mountains, why did you think I needed someone like Pa to help me through college?”

Joe was able to smile back at his brother without feeling sad or disturbed. “When I was little, I thought Pa could move even bigger mountains than you.”

“Is that what you thought Professor Brodermann was doing for me? Moving mountains?”

“He was, wasn’t he?”

“I don’t know.”

“He was,” Joe insisted, realizing it was true. Thanks to Professor Brodermann, Adam had returned from college with more confidence and more patience than when he’d left. To Joe’s young eyes at the time, Adam had become the kind of man who could move the same sort of mountains as Pa.

When another round of squealing laughter erupted from the yard, Joe added, “Come to think of it, maybe it’s time you paid him back.”

His own thoughts clearly elsewhere, Adam simply turned to Joe with a look of confusion.

“Seems to me all this obligation the professor feels is like a mountain that’s gotten in his way,” Joe explained. “He might need a little help moving it. Maybe then it’ll get out of our way, too.”

Adam’s brows curled down again, like he was thinking awfully hard about something. “Do you blame him, Joe?”

It was not a question Joe had expected. “What do you mean?”

“The professor. Do you blame him for what happened to you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, Joe. It does matter. Do you blame him?”

“Do you?”

Adam’s jaw went tight again. He closed one hand into a fist. “I blame him for being a fool by giving Bradley Decklin his blind trust.”

“And you’ve already forgiven him for that,” Joe decided. Somehow he could tell Adam wasn’t really angry at the professor anymore. But then why was he still so angry?

The fist loosened. “I can’t fault him for being human enough to make a mistake.”

“But Pa hasn’t forgiven him, has he?”

“All Pa knows about Professor Brodermann is what he’s seen since the professor arrived.”

“And what you wrote in your letters, and all you’ve told us all these years. But Pa’s not thinking about the good things the professor did for you in college. Why not?”

“Because Pa wasn’t there to see it. The only thing he can focus on is what he saw happen right in front of him. What he saw happen to you.”

“He laughed, too.”

“What?”

“Pa. He laughed just like Hoss and me when the professor was telling us those stories about your first year at college.”

“What has that got to do with any of this?”

“I don’t know. Just…. You weren’t laughing.”

“Why would I? The professor was making me sound like a fool.”

“Maybe that’s why Pa won’t forgive him. But I didn’t look at it that way.”

“What way?”

“Those stories showed me you weren’t always as wise as you are now.”

“Wise? I don’t think—”

“You’re my wiser, older brother, aren’t you?”

Joe was glad to see Adam’s grin return. “Wiser than you, maybe. Sometimes.”

“You were about as old as I am now when you went to college.”

“Just about,” Adam nodded.

“And when you were my age, you thought you knew more than you did.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“You know, I’ve always looked up to you, Adam.”

“Seeing as how you’ve always been shorter, that’s not—”

“I mean it, Adam. Hearing those stories showed me you were more like me at my age than I ever could have imagined. I guess it’s just nice to know that even a hero can be human.”

“A hero?” Joe couldn’t remember ever seeing Adam grow so pale so quickly.

“Well…yeah.” And suddenly Joe felt uncomfortable for having said the words out loud. It was something he’d always known, and he’d always figured Adam had to know, too—something that shouldn’t have to be said. But he had said it. Now he had to explain why. “It takes a hero to move a mountain, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know what it takes.” Adam’s words were so soft Joe almost didn’t hear them at all.

“I do,” Joe said loud enough to pull Adam back from whatever dark place he was visiting in his thoughts. “It takes a brother who’ll do whatever he has to, to protect his family—and who feels the weight of a mountain bearing down on him when he thinks he hasn’t done enough. But you did, Adam. You did what you could. And it was enough.”

Adam went quiet again as he looked toward the window. Then shook his head slowly and took in a deep breath. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done, Joe?” When he turned back to Joe, one of those lopsided grins of his started forming. “You just moved a mountain no one else could even see.”

“Are…are you calling me a hero?”

“I suppose that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

XxXxX

A week later, when it came time to bid Professor Brodermann farewell as he boarded the stage that would start his journey back east, Pa wasn’t angry anymore, Adam was able to wish him well, and Billy Hinckley clung to Mrs. McGlaughlin like he’d known her his whole life. Joe watched it all from his seat on the buggy next to Hoss, and waved politely as the stage began to pull away.

“Well, little brother,” Hoss said, gently tapping Joe’s shoulder, “what do ya’ say we celebrate with a couple of beers while Adam and Pa do all that bankin’ business they were talkin’ about?”

“Celebrate what?”

“I don’t know.” Hoss shrugged. “Just feels like a good day for celebratin’.”

Joe grinned over at him. “It does feel that way, doesn’t it?” And then Joe realized why: He was surrounded by mountains, but every single one of them was right where it ought to be.

XxXxX

end

 

Tags:  Adam Cartwright, ESA, Family, Joe / Little Joe Cartwright, SJS, torture