Summary: WHN for “The Magnificent Adah.” Adam tries to understand his father’s words: there are many kinds of love.

Rated: K+  WC 2700

Another Kind of Ending

* This story is a WHN story for the episode, “The Magnificent Adah.”

*****

Adam can feel his own arms straining, as he tries to hold his father back. Hoss is taking a hard beating, and from where they’re standing, they can almost feel every blow.  John Regan’s fists make a dull, thudding sound when they make contact with Hoss’ body, like a butcher slapping a side of beef. It is that primal and that brutal. Fighting reduced to the most ancient pair of motives: vengeance and justice twined together.

The crowded saloon reeks of tobacco, spilled whiskey, and the thrill of a damn good fight. Blood lust is in the air. Adam is tempted to let go of his father, just to have a go at the men who are enjoying this. He knows better than to think of this as entertainment. The image of Joe’s poor beaten body overwhelms everything else, as he know it does for his father and for Hoss.  Joe’s blood is Cartwright blood, and it’s on all of their hands. It’s about atonement. About Adah Menken and her poor choice in men. His kid brother didn’t deserve to be the price for her indiscretion.

Hoss is hurting. Adam can feel it. Hoss’ body is as familiar to him as his own, and Adam can predict all his reactions. His younger brother has always used his massive strength to his advantage, but his opponent, a washed-up prizefighter, knows exactly what he’s doing. In his mind, Adam has to fight off the image of Joe’s seventeen year old body being attacked with bruising, bone-shattering blows that would have pounded the boy into the dirt on an empty Virginia City street…

“Let me go to him, Adam!” Ben hisses, and his breathing is as ragged as if he were the one fighting rather than Hoss.

But Adam holds him tight. It’s playing out too quickly. Hoss’ defenses are slowing down, growing sluggish in pain and shock, and Regan knows it. The boxer’s taken down big men before. Used their own power against them. He’s watched men die this way. Almost at once, Adam realizes that Regan is biding his time, waiting for the moment to end this fight.

And he’s smiling.

Anger rises in Adam’s chest until it could strangle him. Gritting his teeth, he’s trying to hold it in. Like his pa and brother, Adam has been tamping down his rage, trying to stay in control. However, from the moment he saw Little Joe lying in the lobby of the hotel, he has known this is all about control and violence. An unholy union if ever there was one. The room is rank with sweat, and Hoss is reeling from an uppercut that would have snapped the neck of a smaller man. The fight is almost over when Adam suddenly realizes that Hoss is choosing the wrong strategy. The right one comes to him all at once…

“Don’t try to fight him!” Adam shouts at his brother. “Wrestle him!”

Adam won’t breathe until he’s sure that Hoss hears him. But Hoss always hears him. That’s the way it is with all of them.

Regan hauls Hoss up for another lethal blow, but this time, Hoss wraps his massive arms around Regan’s gut and pulls him up off his feet. Hoss begins to squeeze him hard, an embrace that could be deadly if Hoss wanted it to be. Regan cries out in pain, and Adam can almost hear ribs cracking from where he stands, can almost feel lungs compressed to the point of bursting. Hoss has Regan shoved against the bar, and the man’s groans are growing more intense and unbearable with every passing moment.

At the rate he’s going, Hoss could kill him but he won’t. That’s not the way this is going to play out. Hoss is a very different man than John C. Regan. Without knowing it, Adam has let go of the breath he’s been holding, and he lets go of his father as well. There’s no need to hold him back now. From where he stands, Adam knows that Hoss has already won. Everyone knows it now, everyone but Hoss. Hoss is somewhere else altogether. Adam can tell his brother’s mind is still back in the International House lobby with Little Joe. This is retribution, but it’s not justice. There’s not going to be justice for the hard road that’s ahead for his kid brother. Adam shakes his head and at the same time, Hoss does the same. The fight is over by the time Hoss lets Regan go and the man lies on the bar counter, gasping for an honest breath. Instead, Hoss hits him hard, and he falls onto the floor. Hoss hits him again and again and is reaching back for a final blow, when it happens…

Adah Menken bursts into the room.

She’s a glory, she is, in her blood-red dress that brushes the sawdust on the floor. For a wild moment, Adam believes he might be in love with her, now that she’s been saved from this monster of a man. But then he remembers his father. Adah Menken belongs to Ben Cartwright. This is their love story, not Adam’s. And yet, all at once, Adam realizes that this isn’t the way this night is going to end.

Adah is furious, angry with all of them, not relieved at all, and she shoves Hoss away from Regan. It’s all about love all right, but not the kind of love that Adam can understand.

“It’s all right, John. It’s all right, John,” Adah keeps repeating, cradling him in her arms on that filthy floor.

Adam remembers the feel of Adah in his arms, the touch of her lips on his. It’s not only about her beauty. There’s something else about her. She is not the kind of woman a man forgets to remember. Adam does not blame his father for loving Adah, but he does blame her for this and always will. This woman could have had it all. She could have had Ben Cartwright. And she has set her sights on so much less.

Regan’s narrow, glinting eyes are fixed on hers. They are blind to anyone else in the saloon. They are making promises to each other, promises that the next time and the time after will be different. Adam would like tell them what he thinks about all their “next times,” but his father has a hold of his arm now and is leading him towards the door. With blood streaming down his face, Hoss follows. They leave Adah Menken and John Regan behind, huddled together on the floor, in the half light.

**********

Morning light streams through the window of the International House, but Joe is still asleep. He hasn’t woken once not since he regained consciousness in the lobby. He may not be blinded, but the boy’s body is hurt in ways the doctor has tried to help his family understand. It’s beyond their comprehension really, the ugliness of the beating. The harm one human being can inflict on another.

Ben spent most of the night sitting on the edge of the bed like there was no way he could get close enough to his youngest son. They all feel that way, which is why they decided to share the room rather than take the adjoining one. Joe’s recovery from this isn’t going to be easy, but then, little in life is easy. Vengeance is easy; it’s the morning after when things get rough.

Adam wakes up awkwardly. He’s a light sleeper – has always been – and the conditions in the room didn’t allow for a whole lot of sleep. Despite the fact that he’s weary down to the marrow of his bones, Adam smiles affectionately at his father and Hoss. Ben is asleep, crooked in an upright chair. He will likely be stiff when he wakes up. After hours of trying to find a comfortable position in the other chair, Hoss apparently gave up and is stretched out on the floor. It took a long time to get him cleaned up, and bruises are blooming under his many cuts and abrasions, but despite all that, Hoss is still snoring.

In his sleep, Joe is stirring. He looks more like a kid than usual, with his face swathed in bandages like that. Damage that looked bad the night before looks a whole lot worse in the stark light of morning. It’s a wonder he’s still alive, yet alone sleeping and looking like he’s dreaming about a pretty girl sashaying down the street. Little Joe always looks like he’s dreaming of a girl when he’s asleep. He’s dreaming of good things…

While asleep, Adam was dreaming too, but not the about the kind of girl who would catch Little Joe’s attention. He dreamt of Adah and her secrets. That woman is still a mystery to him, but his father acts like he understands. Ben seems to have tucked Adah away with all the other things in his life that weren’t meant to be. Maybe he loved her, maybe he didn’t. She didn’t love him. Simple as that. Pa says that nothing worth having in life is easy, and yet this is simple enough. Isn’t it?

That’s what Adam has been telling himself since he and his father carried Joe upstairs to the hotel room. Hoss wanted to help, but the other two wouldn’t let him, because Ben was sure he must have cracked a rib by the way he was wheezing.

“Ain’t hurt that bad,” Hoss protested, while trying to keep a hand on Joe anyway.

“A smaller man would have been killed from the beating you took.” Adam retorted without thinking, and they all looked stricken by the implications.

Frowning, Hoss replied, “Little Joe’s gonna be fine. Kid’s got a lot of grit. He’ll come back from this, sure ‘nough.”

“He’s got us,” Ben added quietly, like they needed reminding.

But that was true enough. There wasn’t much to say or do besides the waiting. So they settled in for the rest of that long night, sleeping but not really resting. Morning only came as a surprise because it took so long to come around.

“Did he wake up while I was asleep?”

Coming back to the present, Adam startles and looks over at his father. Ben is awake and leaning over his youngest son. He tries to stroke any part of Joe’s battered face, but there is nowhere to rest his hand. Flushing guiltily, Adam manages a tight smile for his father. He was supposed to keep watch, but all he’s managed so far is pointless dreaming.

“No,” Adam replies, keeping his voice low for Hoss’ sake. “He’s still all out. But he’s having one hell of a dream.”

That doesn’t go over well.

Ben gives his oldest a familiar look that makes it perfectly clear he doesn’t care for that kind of talk, before their gaze settles back on Joe. Even though he wasn’t blinded from that gash over his optic nerve, Little Joe might wish he was blinded when he wakes up and gets a look at himself in the mirror. For the first time, Adam notices that the knuckles on Joe’s left hand are raw and bleeding. At least he got in a blow or two before he was beaten down, Adam muses to himself.

“This is going to take some time,” Ben says quietly, reaching for a rag and trying to rest it on Joe’s forehead without hurting him.

“We’ve got time,” Adam says sharply. “I wonder how much time Adah will have before Regan gives her the same treatment he gave Little Joe.”

“Miss Menkin.” Ben looks up from tending to Joe. “Her name is Miss Menken, son, and I’d appreciate that you get it right from now on, if you’re going to be discussing her with me.”

“Pa, how can you pay her that much respect when -?”

“Adam…” The way Ben says it, it’s more of a sigh than a name. “I told you… there are many kinds of women, and – ”

“There are many kinds of love,” Adam finishes for his father. He remembers what his father said outside the saloon after the fight before they returned to Little Joe. They know Ben’s stance on the whole matter. That doesn’t mean they have to agree with it.

“That’s right,” Ben says, sadly this time. “There are many different kinds of love.”

They’re being watched, but they don’t realize it. He’s been awake, listening to them. Joe’s hair is in his eyes. He never did go and get that haircut he promised his father.

“Pa,” he whispers, and that gets their attention real fast. Even Hoss wakes up from the floor when he hears the ghost of his little brother’s voice.

“I’m here, son,” Ben says as gently as he can. He reaches for Joe’s hand and holds onto it. “We’re all here.”

“I don’t understand why this happened,” Joe whispers and closes his eyes again, like keeping them open is asking too much.

“You don’t gotta understand,” Hoss says, looking for all the world like he’d be happy bouncing on the edge of Joe’s bed. “We’re just real happy to see you, little brother.”

Adam doesn’t speak. He knows he should say something – anything – but the words don’t come. He is still a very angry young man. Adam thinks of the stage that left for San Francisco last night. He thinks of beautiful Adah Menken supporting John Regan, with the former prizefighter leaning heavily on her arm. It’s not right. It’s outrageous, as a matter of fact. The wrong man walked off with the girl, his kid brother paid the price, and this isn’t anybody’s idea of a happy ending.

Joe is hurting bad, but he bites his lip until it bleeds and holds his hurting in. The doctor is due any time now. His family pretends not to notice, and Hoss begins to tell his little brother the story of how he whipped that former heavyweight right there in the Bucket of Blood. Hoss is a generous storyteller and attributes his win to the fact that Joe had tired him out first. Hoss embellishes his victory so extravagantly that it begins to rival every tall tale they ever told each other around a campfire. After a while, Ben starts to chuckle, and even Joe manages to smile.

Adam takes a deep breath and lets some of his anger go. Listening to Hoss with the others reminds him of the kind of love he does know about.

Joe is asking to hear the part again where Hoss wrestled the prizefighter onto the bar, and Hoss is happy to oblige. It’s the best part of the story, much better than the ending. Real endings don’t tidy themselves up like they do in tall tales. Adam was both right and wrong in what he told Hoss during Miss Menken’s premier at the playhouse. They never kill the hero, but sometimes they do give him one hell of a beating. Sometimes, the wrong man gets the girl. And sometimes, everyone has to settle for less than a happy ending.

Hoss is still telling his story, using up time until the doctor gets there. Joe might be in terrible pain, but he’s almost laughing as Hoss describes how he spit out his broken tooth and nailed the hitching post with it. Pa reaches over to push all that wild hair out of his youngest son’s eyes. Not that it matters. Little Joe can see just fine.

Smiling a little, Adam closes his eyes and leans against the upholstered wall, content to listen. Like the others, he’d like to find out how the story ends.

The End

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