Summary:  Adam and Tilly go to Europe for the worst honeymoon ever, landing in the middle of a war to end up missing and presumed dead. Meanwhile, Ben, Joe and Hoss move on with their lives, finding new friends and uncovering strange secrets from the past.  Part 2 of the “Lilies” series.

This story contains strong tie-ins to “The Savage” and “Forever.”

Rating: T+. Violence, character death, attempted rape, etc.   (109,635 words)

The Lilies Series:

The Lilies of the Field
The Lilies of the Valley
One Scarlet Lily
The Strawberry Roan

 

The Lilies of the Valley

by sandspur

Chapter 1

“Farewell and adieu to you, daughters of Spain…”

 

August, 1870, Nevada

Ben Cartwright looked around. Hoss was in the kitchen stealing biscuits for his trip home, and Joe was still in the barn. He supposed it would be easier just to wait until Hoss went home and Joe left for town, but somehow he couldn’t wait any longer. He only had one guilty pleasure these days, aside from praying for grandchildren from Hoss, and that was rereading Adam’s letters. He kept them in a little tin box in the bottom drawer of his desk, and although his two younger sons continually ribbed him about how he was reading the ink off the pages, he still liked to look them over periodically.

He supposed it was mostly because, whether he could admit it or not, he missed Adam. He’d originally thought a mere two-year absence would not be anything to worry about; after all, Adam had been gone longer than that when he was off at college. But a year had gone by, and he found himself missing Adam more and more—and realizing more and more just what a contribution Adam had always made in his quiet, steady, and occasionally moody way.

Of course, whenever Joe or Hoss left for more than a day or two, he missed them just as much. Hoss lived barely five miles away; he still came over every day before starting work and frequently before going home too, but Ben somehow missed him anyway. So maybe it wasn’t just missing Adam that led to the constant visits to the six letters.

Maybe it was the fact that what the letters lacked in quantity, they more than compensated for in length. With the exception of the first letter, each was at least 12 pages long. Or maybe it was their sheer entertainment value. He couldn’t believe those letters came from his cool, reserved, unemotional son. Not these letters. These letters had been written by a slightly manic tour guide.

June 6, 1869

Dear Pa,

I’m mailing this from Argentina, where we have put in for supplies before crossing the Atlantic. We are in good health and spirits, although I have some shocking news for you. Do you remember all those times I used to talk about being a sailor like you? Why didn’t you tell me I was insane? We crossed under the Cape last week, and I have never been so sick in my life. Even Tilly thought I was going to die, and she was sick as a dog herself. (Meanwhile the dog in question remained unaffected, but I was already convinced that Lady possesses a stomach of steel.) We have established one thing for certain: when we come back, we’ll sail out of England and take the train across country. I don’t care if the Indians are on the warpath; I’d rather face them than another Cape crossing. At least with Indians I can shoot back!

Other than the Cape, it has been an uneventful voyage thus far. Dare I say boring…? What do sailors do to pass the time? I’ve spent a lot of time watching them at their various occupations, even asked a few questions of the friendlier crew members, hoping to vicariously experience some of what you must have done during your time at sea, but I only came to a better understanding of why you were so determined to succeed at ranching.

Tilly and I will shortly observe our four-month anniversary as man and wife. We plan to celebrate by looking at more penguins, although this is in fact how we have spent much of the trip down the coast of South America. I’m told that the species we have seen so far include Rockhoppers, Magellans, and Macaronis. From the distance we were, I could see little to differentiate them, and I wonder how they manage to tell each other apart. I did find myself wishing we could have made landfall and actually looked closer, but then it was pretty cold. Tilly stays cold these days; thankfully, Lady stays warm and usually sleeps on Tilly’s feet. Tilly says that of all Lady’s heroic actions, being a foot-warmer may be the bravest thing of all.

I have spent this entire letter complaining, haven’t I? I’m sorry—and I hope you won’t share this letter with my brothers. I have written them individually this time around. I found myself not wanting them to know their older brother who can do anything was bested by—in Hoss’s words—“a big ol’ bathtub.”

One other private observation…I had gotten a glimpse of it with the two marriages you had that I was privileged to observe, but having looked a little deeper into the matter, I have to say I highly recommend being married. This reminds me: Tilly sends her love and is threatening to write you herself, although seeing as how she has also kissed you (and someday I will find out just how that happened!), I have told her she cannot write you without my direct supervision. (And if she “obeys” in that as well as she does in everything else, you can count on hearing from her pretty soon.)

This is really more a question for Hoss, but how are the new dogs doing? Are they working with cattle yet? And how are you getting on with them? Do they still threaten you when you come home? Hoss once told me that dogs innately know whether people like them or not, and they tend to respond in kind. Perhaps, if you ever decide dogs aren’t so bad, and come to like them, they will like you a little better, Pa. You really should give them a chance. Lady’s ownership of me has convinced me that most of the things you always said about dogs when I was young were…well, Pa, let it suffice to say you are human, after all, and to err is human—to forgive, take a lesson from Lady. There’s nothing better than a dog when it comes to forgiveness.

I am going to give this to one of the sailors to post for me; my next letter, God willing, will be a little longer, and from Spain.

Devotedly,

Adam, Tilly, and Lady

Ben returned the letter to its grubby envelope with a wistful smile. That was the first letter he had received. The next, as promised, had been from Spain.

July 30, 1869

Dear Pa, Hoss, and Joe,

We arrived in Spain three weeks ago and have been in motion ever since. Immediately after our arrival I was dragged to Pamplona, sans Tilly, for an event called the “Running of the Bulls.” On hearing I had never seen or even heard much about this event, Don Fernando and his sons and sons-in-law-to-be all demanded my presence. My protests that I had seen lots of bulls running did not help, even when I added weight to my protest by relating to them that I had even chased a great many bulls myself. In fact, I even told them how my brothers and I had once chased a bull down the streets of Virginia City—Hoss, Joe, I’m sure you recall the one I mean. (Tilly was no help at all as the ladies in the house had grabbed her and taken her off for dress fittings. Therefore I gamely ventured to Pamplona, out of nothing but a desire to ingratiate myself to these people Tilly loves. Funny, isn’t it, how a pair of blue eyes can make a man overcome all practicality?) So, I was ordered to participate in this…rite of passage, I suppose…although it never occurred to me that in this particular “running,” the men take a head start, and the bulls chase them. That’s right, Hoss. This is quite the fashion in Pamplona, so “the boys” and I all participated, while Don Fernando cheered from a safe balcony.

There’s something about running down narrow, cobblestoned streets with six bulls breathing down your neck that does not inspire confidence, and even if I had had the choice of turning and fighting, I didn’t care much for the odds. Times like these, though, you really find out just how fast you can run—and Joe, that day I could’ve outrun you, there is no doubt! I was one of the fortunate ones, learning AFTER the race that a horn had nicked one shirt-sleeve. No one in Don Fernando’s party was injured, but one of the less fortunate men in the crowd was gored. Surprisingly, it was only a flesh wound, although I suspect the fellow will not be sitting down for some time to come. After finally proving my own manhood to the Spaniards, I was warmly welcomed as a family member, although it took a little longer for them to decide they approved of my marrying “their” Mathilde.

Valencia is beautiful. There are orange groves everywhere, and Moorish architecture abounds, as well as a few still-standing Visigoth and Roman structures. Not only that, but also there are weekly concerts in the Palau de Musica, and less formal musical get-togethers nightly. The architecture and music alone make this place heavenly, and I think I could live here, were it not for the crowded city streets with which we must contend. Valencia at midmorning reminds me of Virginia City in its heyday—narrow streets full of people. The Lopez Chavarri hacienda is on the outskirts of town, where it’s a bit more spread out.

Tilly’s family here—that is what she calls them—are wonderful people but they do, as feared, speak Castilian Spanish and thuth it alwayth thoundth ath if they are lithping. Tilly thayth it ith thuppothed to thound that way and hath threatened me with Hilliard if I continue to giggle.

Don Fernando, the patriarch, is a kindly, soft-spoken man in his early 60s, not quite a decade older than you, Pa. His two oldest children are the daughters whose weddings we came to see; following them he has two sons a little younger than Joe, and another three girls just entering adolescence. His wife is wonderfully witty, but it’s a wit to be careful of; she could melt silver with that tongue of hers. She is also an imposing figure physically—imagine Hoss with brown eyes, wearing a dress with lacy silk brocade and carrying a fan. Oh, and with floor-length black hair piled on her head in some artistic design that must be achieved by at least three maids.

Tilly had told me that she became very much a part of the family during her years there, and it is quite true. As Don Fernando said, “Teelda” (that’s what they call her here) “is our flower, and you now being her gardener, we must ensure you take proper care of her.” I thought of promising to pour water on her every day, but decided to save the humor until we got to know each other a little better. It turned out to be a wise move.

They are all warm and funny people, who eyed me with some suspicion initially. While the Pamplona side trip seemed to convince the men I was not a bad sort, the women still had quite a few doubts. I made an interesting discovery about my wife here: when we showed the family a photograph of my family, the Lopez Chavarris all asked Tilly why she had not married Joe! It seems she was always captivated by that “physical type,” and indeed her late fiancé apparently looked something like Joe. At last I proved myself in the eyes of the family, but even then I think they were more won over by Lady. Don Fernando seems to think anyone so beloved by such a wonderful dog as Lady and such a wonderful girl as Teelda must be a decent fellow after all. This is a new experience for me, as you may expect. I haven’t been quite such a fish out of water since I first arrived at school back East, and have never before had to rely on a woman and a dog as character references.

When the family isn’t lisping in Castilian, they are insulting each other in Catalan. Joe, remember asking me once what in the world is a “pastanaga”? It actually means “carrot,” but used with the proper scorn, is apparently a very strong Catalan insult. Catalan, spoken throughout Valencia and the surrounding area, is either a Spanish dialect or another language related to Spanish; haven’t quite puzzled that out yet. Talk to five different people; you’ll get five different answers. Further north is a region where they speak the Basque language, and it isn’t related to anything. Listening to it is like trying to understand a drunk with bronchitis.

I say that to tell you about the other guest here: a little boy some 9 years of age, named Isaac Albéniz, visiting Don Fernando from Barcelona—the boy speaks Basque as well as Spanish, but not a word of English. He has run away from home several times and seems determined to do so again. Don Fernando is trying to reconcile him to staying in Spain for a few more years. The boy wants to go to New York. Why, you may ask…? Because the Paris Music Conservatory will not accept him, and he is determined to be the greatest concert pianist and composer the world has ever known. This all sounds very funny on paper, but when you hear the child on the piano it isn’t funny at all: he is a genius. Tilly says he has more musical ability in one finger than most pianists in all ten. I’m sure the boy will be famous someday. He also reminds me of the trials and tribulations you went through with three sons—and gives me hope that someday I will have one (if not 9!) of my own.

Ben skimmed the next page and a half, which was some sort of dissertation on Spanish music, particularly the “folk” music of the land and its influence on Spain’s classical music. Ben had never even known Spain had classical music. Spanish music was Spanish music. That was all. “It must be nice, Adam, knowing your father is now your captive audience, and however much you make my eyes glaze over, I’ll still read every word you write….”

The hacienda itself is huge—it dwarfs the Ponderosa. There are 25 rooms and a ballroom, all so elegant I am usually nervous about touching anything—though I have learned to feign confidence pretty well. It may give you some idea of the immensity of the house if I tell you there are four pianos in four different rooms—each piano being a Bechstein concert grand—and there are places in the house where you can stand with all four pianos being played at the same time and you wouldn’t hear a thing. And yet Pa, for all its sophistication, the house is a little too cool and frilly for my taste. I liked the roughhewn, thick timbers we used to make our house and furniture. I was pretty young when we built it though, and now I can see flaws in the design. When we get back and I start building my own place, I may take an idea or two from Europe, but I still think the Ponderosa style is more “home.”

You can write us here for the next three months, after which we still intend, as planned, to pay a visit to Italy and then onward to Paris. You asked about the tensions between the French and Germans, but Don Fernando says this has been the case for 1,000 years and nothing is to be done about it. He says there is no cause for alarm, because Louis-Napoleon (you will see him referred to in the newspapers as Napoleon III) is busy with internal corruption in his own government. Meanwhile, Chancellor Bismarck has enough problems trying to get all the non-Prussian Germans to ally themselves with him. Between the two, Don Fernando figures they have difficulties to keep them both busy handling their own affairs for another hundred years, thus they will be far too busy to declare war on each other. Oddly enough, the most recent pretext they are using for throwing down the gauntlet is Spain itself—the Spaniards kicked out their last monarch and have offered the throne to a German; I believe he’s the nephew of the current king. It’s hopelessly confusing, especially for us Americans, who see no need for royalty anyway. But Don Fernando says the royalty provide most of the entertainment for this continent, and it’s all in good fun. I’m not sure I quite believe the “fun” part, but according to Tilly, the Prussians have been trying to provoke a war with France for five or six years. Diplomacy always intervenes, and everyone leaves the table thinking his side has won! So, don’t worry.

For some reason Adam then found it necessary to provide character sketches of the heads of government both of France and Prussia, and to tell with great glee the Spanish opinion of both these personages. Fortunately, that only took one page.

It’s HOT here. Tomorrow we’re going to the beach. I know you’ve been in the Mediterranean area, Pa, so I’m sure I’m not telling you anything new, but you might want to have Hoss and especially Little Joe cover their eyes and ears for this part: I’m told there are beaches here where women wear very little, if anything. Tilly has already laid down the law: I will not be allowed anywhere near those beaches. Oh well, I shall make do with what I have. And I do…we get on surprisingly well, Tilly and I, in spite of her outrageous and unnecessary restrictions on my behavior!

You said that Hoss has been paying quite a lot of attention to a new girl in town. Well, of course I always advise checking them out, because Hoss is the most decent man in the world and can’t imagine other people not being as decent as he is. This leads to his unfortunate tendency to attract gold diggers. But if this girl loves him and he loves her, then by no means should he wait for me to get home before marrying her. It’s an honor that he would even think of it, but no, no, no. Time is too precious to waste. In fact, tell Hoss and Joe they must both get married, and quickly. I’m astonished now that I waited so long, especially once I met Tilly. I wasted a lot of time fighting off the notion that I could actually find someone, and now I’m irritated to think about the inefficiency of it all.

And Pa, you should really give romance another try yourself. Hmmmm, dear old Ducky, why not drop in on poor Clemmy sometime? As I recall, I was usually the one interfering with everyone else’s marriage plans, so I hope to find you all just as happily wed as I am by the time we get back.

It’s time for another concert—little Isaac is playing at the Palau—and I’ll stop at the post office on the way.

In haste,

Adam

Well, Hoss hadn’t wasted that much time, Ben reflected. He had taken Veralyn to a couple of dances, and then, just that fast, gone to her father for permission to court her formally. He had courted Veralyn about as properly as it could be done—Ben privately thought Hoss had probably been too proper, and possibly courted too long before their engagement—but after all the gossip about the family had endured about Adam and Tilly, they all played things cautiously. And now here was Hoss, still grinning like an idiot most of the time. The good news was that since Virginia City’s population had dropped not long after Adam’s departure, and now had doubled, there were few people around who would remember the “scandalous schoolmarm” he had married; for that matter, few people remembered Adam now.

Ben reached into the box again. The next three letters, all from Spain, described more concerts, visiting guest musicians—apparently this Lopez Chavarri fellow was quite a musical magnet—and included detailed sketches of Moorish buildings along with many blood-curdling tales that had made Hoss and Joe shiver with delight about a local hero called El Cid. (Joe had actually murmured, “Dang, that’s nearly as good as one of my dime novels…”)

In one of the letters he also briefly described the weddings of the two daughters.

This was our whole reason for coming to Spain, so you may think, quite reasonably, that these would be elaborate affairs. They were fancy enough, I suppose, but neither groom bothered to take a ring for himself, and there was not a single dog in the church. Not even Lady was allowed in! And finally, not a single person fell over a pew. Now when Tilly and I were married, we had all these things. I like a wedding where the entertainment is provided, so I confess to feeling cheated. I look back with great happiness on my own ceremony, where people (and dogs) knew how to behave.

The pervading theme of each, Ben thought each time he read them, was that no matter where Adam was, or what he was doing, in these letters he sounded genuinely happy—sometimes even a little giddy. Ben had gotten used to Adam’s bizarre sense of humor over the years, but usually it had been drier, darker. Now…well, it was different. Whether complaining about a boring and terrifying sea voyage or excitedly visiting some ancient building, he could laugh in pure joy about anything. It was enough to make Ben wonder, occasionally, who this strange fellow was who had replaced Adam—or how Tilly and Lady had managed the change.

From the time Adam had first shown an interest in women, Ben had had trouble envisioning his eldest as a married man. Adam had always seemed so determined to be a self-contained unit, and he never seemed lonely even though he was always alone. With each failed romance another brick went on the wall he built around himself. How Tilly had managed to penetrate that defense, Ben had no idea, but now he was glad she had. Hoss and Joe, who had seen the blossoming romance—such as it was, for they both declared there was precious little romance to it—said Tilly had only followed the path Lady had cleared, and that without Lady, there never would have been a Tilly. Ben could scarcely believe that, but he did notice that somehow Lady seemed to find it possible to travel to exotic places where ordinary dogs could not possibly go. According to Joe and Hoss, Adam was simply one of those places.

Adam’s sixth letter had come from Italy, not long before Hoss’s wedding.

May 2, 1870

Dear Pa, Hoss, and Joe

Amid a great many tears and kisses from everyone, male and female alike, we left Don Fernando’s house and “Tilly’s family” today. We sailed from Valencia, stopping first at Mallorca, one of the places where women wear too little for Tilly’s tastes. I don’t believe she intended us to disembark, but Lady had a conniption fit at a nearby flock of seagulls and led us a merry chase. Thankfully, it’s a small island! (Don’t tell Tilly, but it turns out she was probably right not to want me getting off the boat. By the time I caught Lady, my face was redder than Sport’s hide, and not just because I’d been running.) Next we stopped at Sardinia—more of the same. From there we went directly to Rome, and will be here for the next six weeks.

If things went as planned back home, Hoss will be married to Veralyn by the time you get this…

The tenor of that one was a little different; Ben would almost have sworn there were undertones of homesickness in it. He demanded all kinds of irrelevant wedding details that no man in his right mind would notice, asking if any of the collies would be included in the ceremony, wanting to know who had designed the house Hoss and Joe were building. Further mention of Tilly had been brief: “Tilly was ill and had to beg off the visit to the Coliseum, but Lady and I went…a fascinating experience to stand right where the Roman gladiators stood…”

But that letter had arrived in June. It was now August. The way Ben figured things, another letter was due; in fact, another letter was overdue.

 

Chapter 2

“The road is unclear…”

 

August 2, 1870, Paris

The only ear she had left clamped down on her head in protest, her stubby tail likewise tucked against her behind, Lady wasn’t happy—and she made sure everyone knew it. Adam bent down to stroke her head, and she ducked away, whining, wiggling frantically to get out of the collar and leash that bound her to someone else.

Adam went down on one knee beside her and took her face in his hands. “You won’t believe me, old girl, but this is for the best,” he said soothingly. “We’ll join you as quick as we can, I promise.”

“You won’t need to,” replied the English boy holding the dog’s leash. “We shall come back and rejoin you as soon as this ridiculous business is over. My father is an annoying autocrat to demand my presence at home. Things are far more interesting here. Besides, practicality demands a diplomatic solution to the international problems. France and Prussia both stand to lose far too much if they actually come to blows. Mr. Cartwright, do give your wife my regards, won’t you?”

“Of course, Liam. You know I will. I’m sorry she couldn’t be here.”

Liam raised an eyebrow. “Well, if she could be here, we should not be having this conversation, should we?” he asked in sardonically. “You and she would be accompanying me to England as we planned, and your poor dog would hardly be in such a state.”

“Tilly and I will be there as soon as she’s over her illness.”

“I will never understand the form of modesty that insists upon calling childbearing an illness,” Liam said rhetorically. “Your wife doesn’t appear sick at all.”

“Liam…you’re doing me a big favor, but I have one more to ask of you.” Biting his lip, Adam slowly worked the wedding ring from his hand. It had always fit snugly, since he’d put it on 17 months before. Without waiting for a response from Liam, he took a small box from his pocket and opened it. Then he took his Dahlonega gold band and laid it on top of the small gold ring that had circled his mother’s—and more lately, Tilly’s—finger. “Keep these for us, if you would, Liam.”

“This is senseless!” the boy protested. “You act as if you really expect things to come to the worst!”

“No, but I learned a long time ago to plan for things coming to the worst,” Adam replied. “We don’t need these to make us married, Liam. They’re just symbolic. But in war—even in small battles—there’s always a lot of lootings and robberies. We’ve already met up with robbers once. I don’t intend to give up anything I don’t have to.”

He gave the dog one last pat on the head and rose to his feet, reaching for his wallet as he did. Liam instantly took a step backward. “We already discussed this as well, sir, and I already said no.”

“True, but I didn’t agree.” He took out half of his money and handed it over to the still-protesting boy. “Look, if you won’t take it, I’ll mail it to you.”

“You make me feel quite the mercenary,” Liam said sullenly, but he obediently pocketed the money.

“You’re just taking care of it for me,” Adam replied smoothly. “Liam, if this thing goes the way everyone—including you—seems to think it will, you and Lady and this money will be back in Paris before Tilly and I finish packing. But if it doesn’t, you’re going to need money to take care of Lady. She does eat a lot, you know.”

“All ashore that’s goin’ ashore,” bellowed a voice through a bullhorn, and then repeated the command in French.

Liam stuck his hand out. “Her Majesty assures us that the hostilities between France and Prussia will be resolved peacefully,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll meet again soon, Mr. Cartwright. Until then, do remember—the London Times is delivered everywhere in the world, and the agony column is the best way to communicate.”

“I’ll remember,” Adam replied, shaking the boy’s hand. He had a good grip, this skinny kid with his too-long mop of black hair. Adam had barely known him six weeks, but between the boy’s love of music and his Joe-like tendency to find trouble wherever he went, Liam always reminded Adam of home. Adam smiled lopsidedly at him, and looked one last time at Lady before turning to go. Back on the dock, he turned and waved…and wondered if he’d ever see his dog again.

Then he sighed. It was futile, as Liam had reminded him on the way to the dock, to speculate without “data.” And Tilly would be looking for him back home. She was already feeling upset because she was bedridden—and she was blaming herself for keeping them from leaving France. Involuntarily, he rubbed his ring finger, noting how cold it suddenly felt. He looked down and was surprised to see the thin white line around his finger where the ring had been.

There were so many things pulling him in different directions. He stopped at the post office, just long enough to mail the letter he had finished the night before, and then returned to the flat.

 

Chapter 3

“As the battle began, in a faraway land…”

 

September, 1870, Nevada

“Hey Pa, one look at what I brought you and I bet you won’t even be mad that I forgot to pick up that bag of nails at the store.” Joe brandished the travel-worn packet above his head as he walked in the front door.

Ben looked up—and sucked in his breath. “Adam?”

“Yeah. Wanna read it out to me?”

“But Hoss isn’t here.”

“That’s his own fault,” Joe giggled. “That’ll teach him to go gettin’ married and movin’ out.”

“Well, he can read it when he comes over in the morning…” Ben took the letter and began to read.

July 5, 1870

Dear Pa, Joe, Hoss, & Veralyn,

We got to Paris a couple of weeks ago but it took a while to find a long-term residence, so I am late writing to you. We finally found a flat (one that would accept Lady) near the Invalides, which is some kind of old soldiers’ home. We’ll be here probably three or four months, while I satisfy my curiosity regarding the Louvre, the Opera House, and perhaps even the sewers that Victor Hugo immortalized in “Les Misérables.” Tilly, having already seen the sights, is more interested in looking for her “old crowd.” When she was here some years ago, she tells me, there was a group of French, German, and English college students who used to meet every night in a saloon called the Sergeant of Waterloo, and there they would talk about revolutions and reform, much like the students in Hugo’s books. Tilly somehow got herself included in this elite group of intellectuals and idealists. “We solved all the problems of the world among ourselves, but no one would listen,” she told me. We all think we can solve the problems of the world when we are 20, but I didn’t tell her that. Tilly is 29 now; I’m 36 and we are doing well to solve the problem of how to allow Lady to stay with us. Leaving her at the Ponderosa would have been a terrible thing, especially after all the trouble you went to in order to bring her back to me, Pa, but sometimes I wonder how smart it was to bring her along. For all Queen Victoria’s publicity in England, collies are still not well-known on the Continent, and Lady is hardly a show specimen anymore. In Italy we were attacked late one night by a gang of ruffians, and in the fracas Lady had an ear cut off. The fellow was grabbing Tilly until Lady got hold of him and just about ate his arm, but he got one good cut on Lady. Tilly and I came away mostly intact, and all five of the young toughs were left bleeding on the cobblestones, but poor Lady really is a disreputable sight these days.

I’ll look forward to hearing about the big July 4^th celebration, by the way—did Hop Sing win the barbecue contest again? I’ve eaten some things over here that really make me appreciate his cooking. I hope you’ll tell him that. People over here think nothing of eating eels and snails and horses—and lest they be insulted, I usually have a bite. The strangest thing was when we ran into another young American couple here in Paris, and got into a discussion of cuisine that led to a spirited debate between Tilly and the husband on the merits of rattlesnake versus alligator. (The young man thought alligator was too fishy and much preferred rattlesnake.) They tried to drag me into the argument, but I replied that while I had eaten rattlesnake, and I respected everyone’s tastes, I usually only ate such things from necessity and therefore had to beg off the conversation. The other young wife, however, quickly settled the entire argument by vomiting into her husband’s hat.

“That’s one way to do it,” Joe chuckled.

“Just as well Hoss isn’t here,” Ben sniffed. “He’d lose his appetite.”

“Hoss? Not likely. Read on, Pa.”

July 13. We’ve been here a month and have become fast friends with an English boy. His name is William Scott something-something Holmes—he has about a dozen names or at least that is how it seems. Tilly calls him Liam. He’s about 17, a student from Eton who, for reasons unfathomable to me, spends all his holidays (that’s what Europeans call “vacations”) on the Continent rather than with his family. (He is able to justify these visits to France since his grandmother is French, but apparently he doesn’t spend much time with her, either. And he has an Irish grandfather whom he does not speak to at all.) He plays the fiddle beautifully and has taught us some interesting Irish words. He says he and his family don’t get on well, especially since his father—whom he describes as somewhat dictatorial, not that anyone at the Ponderosa would know anything about that—apparently does not agree with his chosen profession.

“What are you sniggering at?” Ben demanded.

Joe looked fixedly at the fireplace so his father could not see his smile. “Nothin’, Pa. Read on.”

What Liam’s chosen profession is to be, I have no idea, although when he goes back to England in September he’ll be starting “at University” as the English say, and most of his classes seem to be medical in nature. I’m telling you about him because, in addition to being our best friend here, he’s about as bad as Little Joe for leading people into trouble. When we get home, remind me to tell you about the “Affair of the Aluminum Crutch,” as Liam calls it. Way too long to go into here; suffice it to say that he dragged us on a wild goose chase all over an artist’s colony which finally resulted in finding a hollow crutch made of aluminum that had been filled with jewels and stolen from the Court of Napoleon. How we came to be involved is all Tilly’s fault and will make for a great story when we get home. But the payoff was excellent, as our share of the reward enabled us not to have to make another bank draft for a while. And Liam is a fascinating youngster, despite his sharing Joe’s penchant for getting people into awkward situations. (He also seems to share Joe’s hatred of haircuts; his hair is black, dead-straight, and perpetually covering his eyes.)

“Do you know,” Ben commented, “I think Adam misses you, Joe. Look how often he compares this English boy to you.”

“Not exactly high praise, though, is it?”

“I don’t know—but he seems to think well of the boy, after all.”

“Yeah; considering the source I guess I should take what I can get. Especially after what he said about dictatorial fathers,” Joe snickered.

“Huh?”

“Read on. Looks like he didn’t get a chance to write more for a week or so.”

July 20^th.  Doubtless you have heard that France has declared war on Prussia.

Ben set the letter in his lap, his brow creasing worriedly. “I hadn’t heard…Joseph, did you know about this?”

“No…maybe tomorrow I’ll pick up a copy of the Enterprise and see if they mention it.”

“We’d have a better chance of finding out from one of the larger city newspapers. See if they have anything from San Francisco…and tonight I’ll write to the New York Times for a subscription. I’ve been meaning to anyway. You know, Adam and Tilly seemed so certain there wouldn’t be any problems….”

So far it’s been nothing more serious than the usual heaping of insults and racial epithets. There’s a lot of excitement in the streets; the crowds yell things like “Death to Bismarck” and such. The newspapers say the French army is marching toward Prussia, but it’s just a show of force. Given the words of Don Fernando and everything the newspapers from both France and Germany have been saying, Tilly and I talked it over and decided to stay for a while. The French army is huge and well-equipped, and the Germans are not, although they have a sizable Reserve. The French also have the edge in that their soldiers are seasoned professionals; the average Prussian soldier has been in the army less than five years. During Napoleon’s wars—not that long ago, you know—the French army walked across the Germans as if there was no resistance at all, and the opinion here is that history will soon repeat itself. Certainly no one feels there is any danger of imminent invasion, and Paris is a major seaport, so we should be able to leave any time if the situation truly becomes serious. Please don’t worry about us.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Joe said, reassured. “Keep reading, Pa.”

For a moment Ben was silent, a sudden queasy feeling in his gut.

July 21^st.  There are only two of Tilly’s old crowd left in Paris. Of the others, one died of influenza, three married and left Paris, and two others joined the armies of their respective countries. Of the two who remain, one is a Frenchman named Alain de Béville, who claims to be related in some way to one of Napoleon’s aides; the other a German called Max Beckenbauer, who describes himself as “Prussian by acquisition.” (That is to say he is from one of the non-Prussian-but-still-German territories that Prussia acquired a few years ago in their war with Austria.)

By now I suppose you have noticed the irony here, Pa. In Virginia City it was accepted that I would constantly run into women whose acquaintance I had made—that I was “known.” Now we are in territory that is new and strange to me, as Tilly is back among her old chums, these two nice-looking men who sat and glared at me throughout our first meeting as if they had found me under someone’s back porch eating dirt. I confess to wondering if either was a former lover of Tilly’s, but found the truth stranger than that. Max—right in front of me, I might add—reminded Tilly that he had proposed to her twice and twice had been turned down. “Don’t you regret it?” he asked her, and I was preparing to give him a good old Cartwright roundhouse, but Tilly’s response was better than anything I could have done or said. “Max,” she told him, “I regret it every single day—and am happy as heck every night.” The poor boy withered and turned to dust on the spot. He is leaving tomorrow for his home in Bavaria, where he is a Prussian Reservist. I expect he’ll be glad to get back to those nice, quiet, compliant Bavarian girls. As for Alain, whose silent glares made me so uneasy, Tilly waited until we were alone to tell me that he wasn’t glaring at me, but at her. It seems Alain has a taste for men, and “fancies” me. I must confess I don’t think I have ever had THAT happen before. Certainly it has not been an experience I ever hoped to have. At least in France, this behavior isn’t even considered strange. Somehow that one never got into the tourist books.

“Well, we always knew he was irresistible to women, but that’s a new one.” Joe shook his head, chuckling. “Europe is a funny place.”

This letter was the longest by far, an unbelievable 18 pages. In it there were more strangely comedic stories about Tilly’s two friends (apparently both sang beautifully); the English boy Liam; occasional wistful references to home; more odd hints about an undisclosed ailment of Tilly’s; more problems keeping Lady in town; more chit-chat about the “silent war.” But at some point—Ben and Joe could not say where the change took place—the letter turned in a whole new direction as Adam became more homesick, increasingly restive and uneasy about the entire “war” business, and more worried about Tilly’s unnamed illness.

I had thought we would be staying here throughout our time in Paris, but the landlord informed us this morning that “that mangy dog must go.” I remember saying something like that myself once, before I got to know Lady, but for all I am deeply ashamed of it now, I can understand how an uninformed person like our landlord could feel as he does. But Lady isn’t going anywhere without me, and I’m not going anywhere without Tilly, so we are looking for a new place.

At the moment Tilly is ill again, which precludes us moving anywhere. This is the third time. I confess to some uneasiness about it because each time things go badly it seems to break her spirit a little.

I think I am going to have us perhaps spend the autumn in England, coming back later, when the French-Prussian matter settles down. Everyone knows that for the last four or five years there has been an annual crisis between Louis-Napoleon and Bismarck, and that in the end it is all a lot of nonsense. But we thought the same about our own southern insurrection that became such a bloody war between the states, didn’t we, Pa? The last thing we Americans need is to get caught up in the problems of two European powers. Originally I thought our neutral status would protect us, but then I remembered that occasionally wars really do become violent, and cannon balls don’t ask for nationality papers. More disturbing than that is just how unknown the United States is over here. I know it sounds crazy, but with the exception of Joe’s ubiquitous dime novels, the Europeans seem to get very little information about us. Since the dime novels are so prevalent, they seem to have formed the bulk of European opinion. We are regarded everywhere as a backward colony of cowboys and savages.

August 1^st. Don’t worry Pa, I haven’t forgotten my promise—and as things look now, we may be gone a great deal less than two years. This is a strange and fascinating part of the world, but I confess I miss the Ponderosa, and you, and Hoss and Joe—and this new sister I haven’t even met yet. Tilly is fairly jumping to meet Veralyn as well, since she has never had a sister either. She has high hopes for their becoming friends, and I think it would be a real novelty for her to have women friends for a change—not to mention perhaps her health might improve if I got her away from this diet of snails and eels.

Joe and Hoss, I even miss Sport. That should make you smile.

The thought of coming home is one that really starts tugging at me when I let it. It’s only been a little over a year that we’ve been gone, compared to the four years I was at school, but it’s hitting me hard this time. I don’t think I ever realized before how attached to the Ponderosa I really am. You and I started it together, Pa; my own hands and heart and blood can be found on every one of those thousand square miles, just as yours can, and I guess you can’t separate yourself from your own blood that easy. I remember once commenting to Joe about how the lake can get under a man’s skin. It baffles me that I brought Tilly all the way to Europe, but never to the lake. I’m sure that hearing this, Joe will say, “And you were supposed to be the smart one!” Apparently I’m not as smart as I thought. I thought I could leave my life’s blood behind and still be the same when it’s the Ponderosa that made me what I am. I thought the combination of love for my wife and desire to see new things would take the edge off the pain in my heart when I think of the family I left behind. Well, I was wrong. And so, since Tilly only really wanted to go to Spain anyway, the rest all being my idea, I think she’ll forgive it also being my idea to go home. I feel like a small boy admitting to a great deal of silliness right now, but she’ll forgive that as well; so far she’s shown a lot of forgiveness for my many faults, and homesickness is really among the least reprehensible of them, don’t you think?

I miss you all and look forward to seeing you again. Who knows—we may reach home before this letter.

Devotedly,

Adam

“The letter was mailed on August 2^nd,” Ben observed. “First order of business tomorrow—sending a telegram to Adam to make sure he and Tilly are all right. Second—finding out about this European war.”

“They may have already left,” Joe said.

Ben’s gaze was far away. “Maybe.”

The telegram to Paris went unanswered. And thus began the learning process. Over the next few weeks they found out more—much more—than they wanted to about the European war. They learned France had nominally invaded Germany and taken a little town…and then stopped, and sat there…and that four days after Adam’s letter was mailed, the Prussian army had, with no warning, poured into France in retaliation. Communications had been the first thing to go, so assuming they were still in Paris, Adam and Tilly had never received the telegram at all. Paris had clamped itself tight while the prestigious French army marched out to meet the invaders.

Nor was it necessary to go to the big newspapers for information. Even Salt Lake City’s little Deseret News carried notice in mid-October that French troops at Tours had been smashed by a superior Prussian force.

The French army, everyone knew, had better generals and more advanced weaponry. It should have been no problem to kick the Germans out…only…the generals weren’t better, and the weapons weren’t more advanced, and they hadn’t kicked the Germans out either. Moreover, the Germans were as innovative as…well, as Americans. They used the railroads to move their troops rather than marching them, so the Prussians arrived at their battlegrounds rested and ready to fight. The French arrived exhausted and out of sorts. Word went out of a new machine gun that the French would use to decimate the Prussian army, but the gun was apparently too advanced for the French soldiers to figure out. Within the month every major military stronghold in eastern France fell to Prussian might; by September, Paris was surrounded and under siege, and by the time Hoss found the article in October’s Deseret News, Paris was starving….

 

Chapter 4

“She escapes the lion…”

 

November 15, 1870, Paris

The poor in Paris took their joy where they could find it. Hence little Gavroche, the street urchin in Hugo’s Les Misérables, went around singing…and why Adam Cartwright was singing now. He was going home with three dead rats, one the size of a small cat, slung over his shoulder. As long as he could put meat on the table, he hadn’t failed as a provider.

Beside him Girard Gravois, who lived two doors away, was whistling the same tune. Unable to speak English, he had learned the words by rote, but although Adam had explained them in slow, careful French, Girard was still confused.

“I don’t understand why the ladies of Camptown would want to sing about ugly horses who have to run all the time because they’re so slow.”

“I never said they were slow. I said they run all day and all night,” Adam explained. “That just means they hold races one after the other.”

“I’ve never even ridden a horse,” Girard muttered. “Is it true that everyone in your country is a cowboy?”

“Absolutely not. In some parts of my country, there are big cities—like Paris, but not as old. Crowded, full of people on foot who can’t afford to hire a carriage.”

“So there are poor people in the United States as well?”

“Sure. My own family was poor for many years.”

“But not now?”

“Not really. Mostly when we were traveling. That was a long time ago.”

“What happened when you finished traveling?”

Adam shrugged. “We claimed a 40-acre piece of land and built it into a cattle ranch.”

“You mean you owned it?”

“Yes, why?”

Girard gaped at him. “You owned your own land, a big farm with cowboys?”

“Not a farm—a ranch. There’s a difference.”

“But you owned it—you didn’t work it for someone else?”

“Well, sometimes we just barely owned it. It was a long, hard journey to build the place up into what we ended up with. But yeah, we owned it.”

“My God, I’ve never spoken so casually with a property owner before. You didn’t even require me to bow.”

“Girard, do I look rich? My owning property in Nevada doesn’t put any food on the table here.”

“I still don’t comprehend it. You killed more rats than I did—you gave me two of your own. How is it a man of property is so skilled at rat hunting?”

Adam rolled his eyes. “We have rats back at home, too, Girard—and they love to hide out in barns. I’ve been on plenty of rat hunts.”

“You don’t have servants do it for you?”

“We don’t have any servants! Well, we have a cook, Hop Sing, but he’s a lot more like a family member than a servant. Quit looking at me funny, Girard. I’m a working man, not a member of the ruling class.” He grinned. “Tell you what—try not to hold it against me, okay? I promise, in France I’m as poor as you.”

Girard grinned back, but as they shook hands and parted—with Girard still whistling “Camptown Ladies”—Adam wondered if the fellow would get past the class reverence so they could be friends.

“Tilly, I got a couple of big ones for you,” he called out as he went into the flat.

There was no answer.

He called out again—and then heard Tilly’s voice: thin, weak, unsteady. “Adam…please come in here.”

**

Adam put a cold compress on Tilly’s forehead. She looked at him miserably. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’d think this was the first time I ever played nursemaid,” he said with false lightness. “Well, acushla, let me tell you—it ain’t. I could tell you stories about my two brothers…oh wait, you were there for some of them, weren’t you?”

“I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” he said, a sharpness that he hadn’t intended creeping into his voice. He took a deep breath and reminded himself again: you’re supposed to be the strong one. “Tilly, you’ve said it before—what the good Lord wants and what we want aren’t always the same.”

“This makes three times in a row,” she whispered. “Why does the good Lord let me conceive in the first place if he doesn’t want me to have it? I did what I was supposed to…I got right into bed and didn’t move…and I’m still losing it.”

“Guess that’s one of those famous questions that won’t be answered until we get to Heaven,” Adam replied over the hurt in his own gut. “But don’t you worry, I’ll certainly be asking.”

The first miscarriage had occurred shortly before their arrival in Spain; the second, the day after the thieves had attacked in Italy. Neither of those pregnancies had lasted three months, but this one…she was well into her fifth month this time. After the second loss an Italian doctor had hinted that it might be difficult for her to carry a child to term. So when she conceived again, she’d done as the doctor said and observed total bed rest…but it hadn’t worked.

“We both might get a chance to talk to the Lord pretty soon,” Tilly observed, and despite her hollow chuckle Adam felt chilled. “Adam, I have this feeling that your pa is gonna have one whale of an ‘I told you so’ waiting for us if we live through this.”

He hadn’t had the heart—or the money—to write his father lately. It was difficult, if not impossible, to get a letter out of Paris; it could only be done by hot-air balloon or carrier pigeon since the war had begun. And besides, what could he say…because of Tilly’s pregnancy, they hadn’t been able to get out of France when the Prussians had invaded, or even when the other Americans had evacuated. He’d given most of his money—and Lady—to their friend Liam, who had returned to England. Adam still remembered the boy’s confident words about how the war would end without bloodshed by simple diplomacy at best, or at worst, with a quick French victory. But there had been no quick French victory. The Prussians had gone into the Alsace-Lorraine region and taken city after city. By early September, Emperor Louis-Napoleon himself was a prisoner. By mid-September, Paris was under siege. Out of money and with no way to write an overseas bank draft to get more, with eviction looming, Adam had taken the only job he could find, cleaning sewers for the Paris government—but shortly after his hiring, government jobs had stopped paying wages to put all their money into the war effort. Rents, however, were still due. Evicted shortly thereafter, Adam and Tilly soon found themselves in one of the poorest parts of Paris, Montmartre. And the blasted landlord who’d evicted them…Adam had, at first rumor of a siege, purchased a month’s worth of tinned meats and beans, but when the landlord had thrown the tenants out, he had kept all the canned goods for himself.

By early October the siege was hurting people. Like all urban areas, Paris had brought in its food from farms outside the city. Now with the Prussian army cutting them off from the French countryside and its farms, there was no food. Late that month all the animals in the zoo had been butchered, the meat distributed to the first people to get there. Adam had come home with a small bag of ground tiger, but it was long gone. Even the elephant meat had run out. Most of the horses in town had long since been shot. Restaurant menus listed such delicacies as Begonias au juice, cat with mushrooms, and filleted dog in tomato sauce. Adam could only thank God he had gotten Lady out of the city and curse himself for ever wanting to see Paris at all. He’d seen it all right; he’d seen more of it than most tourists ever saw. He’d seen the sewers of Les Misérables; he’d even cleaned them. He’d seen the poor of Montmartre…well, he was one of the poor of Montmartre, now. They were living in a microscopic courtyard flat surrounded by 23 other families. Waste removal was nonexistent, and there was practically no food. He and several of the other men spent entire days hunting mice and rats to get their families some much-needed meat; it was how he had met his friend Girard. *

And now, this. There was no doctor and no money to pay for one; the local midwife was a drunk who never so much as washed her hands. “Please, just stay with me, and I’ll be fine,” Tilly had said when he found her. He had stayed, all right…but she wasn’t fine.

About 18 hours, some of the longest he had known, passed before Adam was able to take the blood-sodden bundle out to the garbage pile. There was no place to bury it; no cemetery or even open ground big enough for a grave for several miles in any direction, and he couldn’t leave Tilly that long. So the rats would probably get it…but then, they were also eating the rats, so it all worked out in the end. For a moment, he closed his eyes and tried to pray; it was the closest the poor thing would get to a funeral. He ended up just staring bleakly at it. Finally he swallowed hard and went back inside to his wife. At least, thank God, she had somehow lived through it. And the needs of the living were always greater than those of the dead.

* Historical note: the Siege of Paris is a real historical event, complete with cats, dogs, and flowers on restaurant menus, and rats eaten regularly by the local populace.

 

Chapter 5

“Girls turn into women…”

 

November, 1870, Nevada

“Who ya reckon that is?” Hoss asked, looking up from the broken corral fence. They’d gotten a new stud bull in the week before, and he had torn through the wood like a giant termite and taken off, requiring all the ranch dogs and four hands to bring him back.

Joe took off one glove and shielded his eyes for a look. “Dunno, but that’s a Nez Perce Appaloosa she’s ridin’, Big Brother. Those things ain’t too common in Nevada. Especially not wearin’ a saddle and bein’ ridden by a white woman.”

“Yeah,” Hoss said.

The woman was tall, strong, and big-built; they could see that from where they were. Hoss thought she had a strange sort of resemblance to Inger in the pictures he had seen. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was pretty, with blonde curls cascading down her back in a pony tail that ended at her waist; there was a quiet grace and dignity about her, and her eyes were wide and gray as a winter morning. She sat the horse with the ease of one who spent long hours on horseback…but she seemed in pain, occasionally hunching her shoulders against it and holding one fist clenched against her stomach as she rode.

She drew rein before she reached them, and just sat, surveying the area. Hoss approached her hesitantly; almost deferentially. “Ma’am, can we help you with somethin’?”

She looked at the two with a regal gaze. “I am looking for Adam Cartwright.” Her speech was oddly guttural; clearly English was not her mother tongue.

“Would you like to come inside and talk?” Hoss asked, thinking she really did need to get off that horse and relax. She was obviously hurting.

“Not unless Adam Cartwright is inside this house.”

“Well, um, he did live here,” Joe said quietly. “This is the Cartwright ranch. But he’s in Europe right now, ma’am. We don’t expect him back for another year.”

At that the woman looked to the sky and smiled. “That is as it should be, I suppose,” she said. “Well, it is of no matter. When he returns, you will give him this.” From a patch pocket on her long skirt she drew an envelope. “Please, you must save this for him. It is urgent.”

“Ma’am, if it’s urgent, there ain’t no way he can handle it right now.”

“No, he cannot handle it now. When he comes back in a year will be sufficient. Please, you will save it and not send it in the mail. You must put it into his hand. I do not want this to get lost.” She shrugged. “I will likely be dead when he returns anyway. It is of no consequence. This is still a matter that he must resolve. I have searched too long and too far for things to simply end with this.”

“Um…ma’am…can you please tell us what you’re talkin’ about?” Hoss asked. “We don’t even know you, meanin’ no disrespect.”

She swallowed, hurt evident on her face. “My name is Ruth. Did my husband never even tell you of me?”

“My God, you were real,” Joe blurted, and Hoss just stood, stunned.

“What do you mean, ‘real’?” Ruth asked severely.

“That was…what, seven years ago?” Joe thought out loud. “Miss Ruth, er, I mean, I’m sorry.”

“It is of no matter,” she said again, looking fixedly at her horse’s neck. “I left of my own choice. I am not bitter…now.”

“He loved you,” Hoss said faintly, and her head snapped up to look at him.

“We found him fevered and havin’ chills…” Hoss went on. “He kept sayin’ he had to get Ruth back. Our Pa thought he was imagining things…even when Joe found your Bible, and the names and places written in the front, Pa said Adam had just read everything and his imagination did the rest.”

“That’s true,” Joe added. “We brought him home—he didn’t want to come. He was so sick he couldn’t even sit his horse; I had to go into the nearest town and rent a wagon for him. He got pneumonia and nearly died, and he spent the whole two months he was sick talking about you. We could never understand it. Pa tried to make him see sense…but he wouldn’t.”

“He told us he had married you.” Hoss took up the story again. “He said he had to find you. As soon as he was strong enough, he left the ranch and went lookin’ for you. I went with him because—well, I didn’t think he’d make it. We looked for weeks, riding to every Shoshone village we could find. We never found you…”

“I think, in the end, Adam decided you must not have been real after all,” Joe said.

“No.” Hoss shook his head. “That wasn’t it, Joe. Pa told Adam that if the myth of the White Buffalo Woman was the only thing that kept the Indians from killing Ruth, then she was dead already. Pa said nobody could live among the Shoshone for long before they discovered the truth.” He turned back to the woman. “Adam just shriveled up when Pa said that. He went off by himself for a while, and when he came back he wouldn’t talk much…didn’t show much interest in anything at all. I’m sorry, Miss Ruth…more sorry than you can know. He mourned your loss. And he never stopped thinking about you.”

Ruth hunched miserably over the saddle horn, murmuring something that sounded like “Ow-doon…Ow-doon…” and Hoss looked questioningly at an equally confused Joe.

“Ma’am, will you come in and rest?” Joe finally asked. “You look pretty tired.”

“I am tired,” she whispered. “But I will not rest. My guides are waiting for me a few miles from here, and I go with them to the winter camp. Soon enough I will sleep, and that will last forever. Right now, sleep is only sleep, and rest is rest—and there is only one thing that can grant me rest. A year is nothing compared to what has been and what must be. Have you something to write with?”

Joe took a pencil stub from the pocket of his jacket. Ruth quickly wrote something on the back of the envelope, and then handed the envelope and the pencil back to Joe, who reached for them automatically. But Ruth would not let go the envelope. Locking her eyes onto Joe’s she said fiercely, “Promise me. Promise by everything you hold sacred and everything you hold dear. You will give this to Adam when he returns. Whether one year or ten, you must give this letter to him. And if he does not return…or if he is unwilling, or unable, to do this, then you will do it for him.”

“What is it?”

“You will know when the time comes.”

“Ma’am, I can’t promise you when I don’t know what you’re asking…”

“I can,” Hoss said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper. He took the envelope, but held onto her hand. “One way or another, Miss Ruth, whatever you want will be done.”

Silent tears began to roll down the woman’s face, and she clutched at her gut again. “The fire burns in my belly,” she said quietly, her voice trembling. “They all say I will be dead in a year. I will fight…I will try, now that I know he loved me, it is harder to let go of my life. But in the end I will still let go. If he loved me, even a little, that is enough for me…but…Ow-doon…I cannot stay. Tell Adam…tell him…well, he will know. Never mind. I am going now.” She wheeled her horse, but turned back to look at them again. Her gaze settled on Hoss, and there was a peculiar expression on her face. “Has he found—happiness?”

Hoss thought carefully for a moment, finally nodding decisively. He swallowed hard before he spoke. “Yes’m. It took him a long time, but yes, he did.”

“I am glad,” she said with a ghost of a smile. She nudged the horse, and they watched her ride away.

“We should have made her stay,” Joe said quietly. “Whatever it is that’s wrong with her, maybe some real medicine could fix it.”

“Ain’t no medicine can fix a cancer,” Hoss replied. “Didn’t you hear what she said? That’s what that ‘burning in the belly’ means. Only thing to do for it is make her comfortable in body and make her easy in her soul. I hope we did the second thing, anyway.”

“Yeah, but is it a promise we can keep?” Joe asked. “We don’t know what she wants. Whatever ‘ow-doon’ means, it doesn’t sound good. And what was goin’ on between you two? When she asked if he was happy, you turned it into a Shakespeare monologue or something.”

“There wasn’t no monologue. I just answered the question she was really askin’, that’s all.”

“Huh. You know, if she’s lookin’ for a visit from Adam, Tilly might have something to say about that.”

“Tilly knew about Ruth. She asked me about her once. She said she thought Ruth would’ve been a good friend to have. And I can’t see her denyin’ the last request of a dyin’ woman, nohow.” Hoss sighed. “Reckon we best turn this over to Pa for safekeepin’.”

Ben added the envelope to the stack of seven in the tin box. But as the months passed with no further word from Adam, Ben would find his eyes straying to that box. Each time he pulled out Adam’s letters, he would wonder what this new missive was about. Then the uncomfortable feeling would hit him that someday he might himself have to read it and find out, and he would feel mildly sick. That thought alone was frequently enough to stop him reading Adam’s letters altogether…for a while.

 

Chapter 6

“But she runs into the bear…”

 

February, 1871, Paris

Tilly walked fast, head-down, as all Parisians did these days. The week-long bombardment of the city with the new Krupp artillery had not kept the people indoors; it had driven them underground. Nowadays everyone was well acquainted with Victor Hugo’s sewers. And there were no more “Paris strolls.” Anyone unfortunate enough to be above ground walked fast.

She had barely regained her feet after the miscarriage when Adam had taken ill, the result of some nastiness picked up underground. Nursing him back to health had proven difficult; he needed meat, or at least meat broth, and they had no money for it. One day she had taken out Adam’s elegant razor and her own scissors and bid Adam to sleep for a while. He had known exactly what she intended, and had expressly forbidden her to do it, but she smiled at him and left anyway. Three hours later she was in an affluent part of town offering shaves and haircuts to the wealthy. It was amazing in the middle of a war that somehow the bourgeois always managed not only to feed themselves, but also to stay clean and get nice grooming, too. By the end of the day she had made enough money to purchase a cat at the butcher’s, which she made into a stew that seemed to get a little of the pastiness out of Adam’s complexion. He was so angry at her he refused to eat, at first, but she tartly informed him that he’d never be strong enough to beat her for disobedience if he didn’t get well. At that he’d finally grinned—somehow they could still make each other laugh—and managed to sit up and take a little nourishment. She didn’t tell him, of course, what kind of meat he was eating. Neither of them had asked that question for a long time.

Since then she had gone out barbering several times a week, always over Adam’s objections, although she had a feeling he was fussing more out of habit than real anger nowadays, and thus she managed to keep them fed. But today was different.

Elihu Benjamin Washburne was the U.S. Ambassador to France during what the Americans called the “French-German War.” The only foreign ambassador to keep an office open in Paris during the siege, he made a name for himself by protecting German and other foreign residents of Paris during the war. Unfortunately, his protective umbrella never covered Adam and Tilly Cartwright.

The first four times they went to the embassy they had stood in a line of humanity comprising at least 20 nationalities from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. and never managed to even get in. By the fifth time, they had learned that Americans could sneak in a side door through a neighboring apartment building, but by the time their place in line was called, the embassy was closing.

The sixth time, they actually got to talk to someone; a clerk who had duly taken their names and address and made an appointment for them to see Undersecretary Wickham Hoffman on the 25^th of January. But by then the bombardment had started, and shrapnel was falling all around the embassy building, so they had missed it. A few days later the National Defense Government had surrendered France to the Germans, and just as quickly fled Paris to set up a government in Versailles.

Inside the capital city, though, pockets of resistance had sprung up, mostly in the poorer parts of town. In the district where Adam and Tilly lived, a group of people had purchased an ancient cannon and 14 balls, and now threatened to blast the first Prussians or surrendering French to come anywhere close. The groups called themselves Communards, and shouted that Paris would be ruled by its own people, not a cowardly emperor who had long ago surrendered.

Tilly and Adam, on their first foray out since Adam had been sick, saw the column of approaching soldiers, but at first had no idea what was going on. It was the French National Guard, and they were headed for a group of people who were standing around the old cannon.

“Adam, I think we need to be somewhere else—and fast,” Tilly said. “I heard General Thomás was coming, and I have a feeling that’s him. We’re in the wrong place.”

“But what’s it all about?”

“He says he’s going to make those people surrender their cannon, even if he has to shoot them to do it—but I heard what the civilians said they’d do to him if he tried.”

“But it doesn’t make sense,” Adam said instead. “Look at those men, Tilly—the ones in the National Guard. They all live around here. See that fellow—fourth from the front? I went rat-hunting with him. We talked about cattle; I remember he had an interesting recipe for steak. His name’s Girard Gravois. There’s no chance he’ll fire—his own family’s in the crowd. And there are other men out there I recognize from this part of town, too—even a couple others from our courtyard.”

“We really need to get out of here,” Tilly murmured again. “This is going to get ugly.”

But the way in which it got ugly was not the way she had expected—when Thomás gave the order for the civilians to turn over their cannon, they indeed refused, and Thomás indeed gave the order for the Guardsmen to fire…but no one fired. Instead, the men all looked at each other nervously. The crowd began to cheer—and in short order the National Guardsmen tore off their uniforms to dance and drink with the civilians. And General Thomás, commander of the National Guard, became a prisoner. Later that day he was shot.

**

A few days later, the Regular Army—what was left after its defeat by the Prussians—marched into Paris under General Le Comte, only to find the National Guard had declared war on the Army. The French-German war became another French civil war as Paris erupted in fighting. In the middle of everything, the police began randomly arresting the population of Montmartre District 17 for the cannon incident. Adam and his friend Girard Gravois were together at the time, and when Girard was arrested, the police took Adam as well.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Girard cried in a misguided attempt to help Adam. “He’s not a Communard—his family owns property!”

“Well,” replied the gendarme, “Maybe he’s a Communard, maybe he’s a Prussian, but he’s with you, and you’re a criminal—so he’s under arrest too.”

**

So Tilly stood in line another four hours, refusing to wring her hands simply because she knew it was expected, and at last she was standing in front of the same clerk who had taken their names back in December.

“Adam and Mathilde Cartwright,” she provided the names at the prompt.

The clerk checked his book. “You missed your appointment. It was last week.”

“The entire city was being shelled at the time,” Tilly replied. “I imagine a lot of people missed their appointments.”

“I can reschedule you for March 18th….”

“Mister, you cannot reschedule us. This is no longer a simple matter of getting us out of the country.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No.” She took a deep breath. “My husband was arrested. He’s been charged with being a Prussian spy.”

“And how do you know he isn’t one?”

Tilly rolled her eyes. “Why would he be? He’s from Nevada, for heaven’s sake. He’s never been out of the country until this past year. We sailed from California to Spain, then to Italy, and now here. My husband can barely string a sentence together in German. We were evicted from our flat in October and have been living in Montmartre ever since. How many German spies do you know who choose to spend time in Montmartre?”

“What district?”

“The 17th.”

The clerk shrugged. “Actually there’s been a lot of reported spy activity in that area.”

Tilly made a face. “Sure, but they’re not Prussians. They’re Communards—those youngsters who believe everything Karl Marx writes. Adam Cartwright is not a Communard, believe me. His family runs a cattle ranch. He has no interest in overthrowing any government and no sympathy for the Germans, the Communards, or the French. All we want is to get out of here and go home to Nevada.”

“Then you should have left at the end of October with the rest of the Americans!”

“Well, we’d have loved to, but I was in the middle of losing a baby at the time and couldn’t get out of bed,” she snapped.

Sighing, the clerk made a few notes. “I can get you in to see the Assistant Secretary on March 9th. That’s the best I can do.”

“That’s more than a week away!”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t understand. My husband has been sick. He was barely on his feet again when they took him. He’ll die if they keep him in jail.”

“Madame, I’m sorry, but believe me, every day I hear stories just as sad as yours. I’m sure you and your husband were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”

Tilly got up, walked to the wall, turned around, and slid down the wall to sit on the floor.

“What are you doing?” the clerk demanded.

“I’m staying here until I see somebody who can help my husband. If that doesn’t happen until March, fine. I’m told I’m not that hard to look at; doubtless you’ll get used to my face.”

“Ma’am, please, don’t you have somewhere else to go?”

“No. Not until my husband is released.”

And there she sat, motionless, not fidgeting, not reading, not doing anything but looking dead at the clerk while he saw the other visitors, made his notes and kept his books, prepared memoranda and telegrams. Every time he looked up her eyes were locked on him. She barely even blinked.

When the office closed at 5 p.m., she was still there. “You’ll have to go,” he told her, but she didn’t reply; she just sat and looked at him. “If you won’t leave voluntarily, I’ll send for the Marines.”

She grinned. “Don’t tell me you’re not man enough to do it yourself, sir. Evicting a weak and feeble woman shouldn’t be a problem for a big strong man like you. Do you really need a couple of Marines to get rid of li’l ole me?”

Maybe on any other day he would have ignored her taunt and gone for the Marines, or made her the offer he sometimes made to other women in trouble. But today…he was fed up with the problems of other people, and she certainly was just a wispy girl, and he was tired to death of her sitting there staring at him.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing her arm. She flopped on her back and screamed at the top of her lungs.

The doors to both the secretary and the assistant secretary’s office flew open and both Wickham Hoffman and Elihu Washburne, accompanied by a couple of Marines, bolted from their offices. They all took in the otherwise empty office and the clerk, kneeling over the woman lying on her back on the floor.

“Sir, all I did was—” the clerk began, panicked.

“Mr. Stevenson, go and sit down at your desk. We’ll take your statement presently. Madame, please, let me assist you.” Wickham Hoffman bent down and the sobbing woman took his arm, hiccupping.

“Oh sir, thank you…are you one of the ambassadors?”

“I’m Wickham Hoffman, undersecretary to Ambassador Washburne. And this is Mr. Washburne.” Both looked over at the clerk. “We’ll take care of him, madame, you can rest assured.”

“I apologize, Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Washburne. Truth is, all that man did was grab my arm to make me leave the office. But I wasn’t going to—and I won’t—leave this place without talking to someone about my husband. He’s the most decent man you’ll find anywhere on this continent, and the French have arrested him on false charges. Mr. Ambassador, Mr. Undersecretary, I am prepared to lie, steal, extort or blackmail, or do anything else I have to do to get someone from our embassy to intervene on his behalf.”

In the end, Tilly’s laudable histrionics were futile. Wickham Hoffman did attempt to intercede on behalf of Adam Cartwright, but it availed nothing. The provisional government—very pro-monarchy—had no interest in jailed spies, being too busy making arrangements for Bismarck’s forces’ triumphal entry into the city.

Chancellor Bismarck sent trains full of food to Paris to “reward” them for surrendering, only to find the city embroiled in a miniature civil war. From a few isolated groups in Montmartre, the Communard movement had expanded outward. Barricades sprang up all over the city, with people shouting that they would never surrender either to Prussia or to a monarchist French government. With this new uprising the U.S. embassy found itself in trouble all over again, and the problems of Tilly and Adam Cartwright didn’t amount to a hill of beans in the craziness that was France.

* Historical note: Although originally the Prussians intended to starve the Parisians out, after four months they decided it would be faster and more humane to use artillery to shell the city into submission.

 

Chapter 7

“We’d stay at home alone and it would rain…”

 

March, 1871, Nevada

Veralyn Cartwright sighed and looked at her husband, who was sitting moodily in his chair and staring across the room.  She knew exactly what he was looking at, and what he was thinking. And she knew what was coming.

“Dadblast it!” came the exclamation—a stronger one than she’d anticipated. For Eric “Hoss” Cartwright, this was tantamount to blasphemy. “Why didn’t I say somethin’? I knew it! I knew it!”

“Eric, don’t,” she said quietly. “You’re only working yourself into a state.”

“I was the one that knew,” he repeated. “I shoulda said somethin’.”

The wall at which he gazed was full of photographs and painted cabinet pictures. Veralyn had helped him hang them. Inger Cartwright’s blue eyes beamed down from that wall, as did Ben’s stern features, though softened slightly as he’d glanced at his boys while the picture was taken. Little Joe’s face, lacking its usual mischievous expression, radiated nothing but warmth and a confidence beyond his years. There was a single picture of Hoss, taken at the same time, and there was their wedding picture, the day she’d traded her last name for his. (She remembered hearing Joe giggling after the ceremony when he thought no one would hear, as he muttered to his friend Tab, “Lord love ’em, they’re both so shy I bet they go to bed tonight in their winter coats.”) And then there was the photograph that had provoked the outburst.

It was Adam Cartwright at his most devilish. Veralyn had never met Adam, and occasionally had been glad of that—the stories she’d heard were just too contradictory. He was arrogant or kind, menacing or chivalrous, wonderfully helpful or a complete ass—depending on who you listened to, and sometimes when. That photograph alone had been enough to terrify her; she was a quiet, shy girl, and people as brazenly confident as that dark-haired, mischievous man scared her to death. She’d heard the story of the day the picture was taken. Ben had had his portrait taken first, and then he’d left, trusting his three sons to be well-behaved with the photographer. Joe and Hoss had uncharacteristically posed perfectly, providing lovely full-face photographs like their father. But Adam…Adam Cartwright dragged the photographer to Ben’s desk, whipped out his father’s chair, placed it in front of the map of the Ponderosa, and then he dashed to the door. He returned with his sleeves rolled up, and wearing his hat tilted back on his head. He straddled the chair like a horse, with his arms across the back. He gave the photographer a cheeky and dimpled grin, his eyes wide open and flashing tomfoolery. And he held that pose throughout the long exposure time right under the hot lights.

“Pa was about to bust a gut when he saw it, he was so mad,” Hoss had told her proudly. “He’d spent a bucketload of money for those pictures, and had ordered a bunch of copies made up so we’d each have a set, and he’d sent another set off to all the relatives…and there was Adam lookin’ fulla spit ’n’ vinegar.”

“Why’d he do that?” she had asked, and Hoss laughed.

“It was the only way he could think of to tell Pa to go to the devil. Adam wasn’t but maybe 27 at the time, and he was still holdin’ onto some of his college notions. He wanted to put a bridge over Willet Creek, and Pa wouldn’t let him. Pa was afraid it would encourage people to cut through our north section. They had words like you wouldn’t believe. Well, Adam lost the battle, but he wasn’t ready to give up the war. The next day we had those portraits made, and Adam got his revenge ’cause there wasn’t a thing Pa could do about it. The photographer only came to Virginia City once a year back then, and the pictures had to be mailed outta St. Louis, so Pa got that face lookin’ pure devilment on his wall, and it’s what was sent to all the relatives, too.”

There was another photo—a painted cabinet type that had been taken shortly after Adam and Tilly had married. Hoss looked at it for a minute. It was another atypical pose. Instead of facing the photographer, the newlyweds had faced each other, holding hands. That was the picture of Adam that Veralyn didn’t mind. Whatever else he was or wasn’t, did or didn’t do, in that one picture he’d made it obvious to the world that he loved his wife, and that was the best character reference Veralyn could imagine. Few people saw that picture, though. Ben had never liked it—at best, he didn’t like photos where people overrode the professional photographer and decided their own poses. And worse, it had been Tilly’s idea to stand that way, Hoss had told her. Tilly and Ben had always had rather tenuous relations, starting, according to Hoss, with the night they first met when Tilly had heaved a couple of skillets at him. While Veralyn adored Hoss, she could not imagine ever standing up to the kindly but occasionally terrifying Ben Cartwright, much less bombarding him with cookware.

Hoss jumped up from his chair and paced across the room to the wall. He touched the photograph gently on the frame. “I knew it when I was standing on the dock. I knew it right then. I told Pa I felt like a ghost had passed through me.”

“But you didn’t know what would happen,” Veralyn said softly. So few people really knew Hoss. He was always worried about something—even crushing insects on the ground. He hated to hurt things. He hated to be hurt, but he had been…and so many times.

“True enough, I didn’t know there’d be a war,” came the glum reply. “But I knew we wouldn’t see ’em again. Didn’t have the guts to say it, though. I just said, ‘what if they don’t come back for a long time.’ I meant ‘what if they don’t come back at all. Ever.’ They’re not comin’ back, Veralyn. And I let ’em go, knowin’ it.”

“There was nothing you could’ve done, Eric. They wouldn’t have believed you—and you didn’t have any reason for feeling that way. You still don’t, really. They might have gotten out of Paris, you know.”

“I ever tell you about the time Adam and I bought a racehorse, honey?” Her husband smiled, reminiscing, still touching the picture frame. “Only time I ever remember Adam not carryin’ any cash on hand…and boy was he mad…I sported a fat lip for a week after he got done with me….”

His face crumpled suddenly. “I’d do anything to see him again, Veralyn….”

Once Veralyn had loved those days when it rained and Hoss stayed at home with her. Today she would have given anything for Ben and Joe to come by, or for Hoss to find some hard work to occupy his time. That little two-second feeling of uneasiness he had felt in San Francisco when his brother left now seemed to have taken on the status of a biblical prophecy. That morbid fear of never seeing Adam again didn’t happen often, but when it did…when he sat in his chair and looked at those pictures…Veralyn resolved to move the furniture the next time he left the house.

But for now, she simply crossed the room to stand with him, to reach up her arms and wrap them about his broad back, and he dropped his head to her shoulder and sighed—a long, shuddering sigh.

“Reckon you think I’m an old worrywart,” he murmured.

“I do,” she whispered back. “He’ll come home someday, Hoss. He promised, and you told me Adam always keeps his promises.”

 

Chapter 8

“I am not a soldier; I am just a minstrel boy…”

 

March, 1871, Paris

They had been at him for days now. Realizing he wasn’t a Communard had not solved the problem—they simply decided he was a Prussian. Either way, he had to be a spy, or he wouldn’t be in France after the other Americans had been evacuated. Simple logic, they said.

The most chilling part had been when he demanded to know what he was being charged with and why he was not allowed a lawyer.

“Only the very rich can pay for a lawyer,” he was told, “and you are not very rich. Besides, no lawyer could assist you with the treasonous charge of espionage. You don’t even rate a trial.”

“Espionage?” He had laughed at the thought. “Where in the world did you get that notion? Why would I be spying on France? And whatever happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?”

“Do you think we waste our time arresting innocent people?” the gendarme had asked, and gone on without waiting for an answer. “Your arrest proves your guilt.” That had set the tone for the next few days. They already knew he was guilty; all they wanted was a confession and the names of his contacts. “Now tell me about Max Beckenbauer.”

“Yes, I met him,” Adam said patiently. He’d already learned what happened when he wasn’t patient, and when he shouted. “Look, he and my wife were friends years ago. She used to have a bunch of friends in Paris, but Max Beckenbauer and Alain whatever-his-last-name-was were the only ones still here. Max was in the German army, Prussian army, I can’t keep them straight. I only met him once before he left.”

“What did you do with him?”

“We sang.” Adam looked at his cuffed wrists and sighed. “One day is not a lot of time to make a lasting friendship. I doubt I would have formed any friendship with him anyway; I didn’t like the way he spoke to my wife.”

“Was there a rivalry between you?”

“If there was, I won it. She went home with me, after all. Look, I don’t know what you have against Beckenbauer; he was hardly the only German in Paris right before the war. But I also don’t care what you have against him. I met him one time. We talked. We had a few drinks. We sang a little; I taught him an American song and he taught me a German song. We had a couple of political debates…”

“About what?” the gendarme pounced.

Adam pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d known he was too tired for this; now he was letting them push him into making silly mistakes, and that could get him killed. “I don’t remember…something about whether Prussia had any business fighting with Austria a few years ago. It wasn’t important; nothing to do with the French. Look, the man tried to court my wife right in front of me. If he was any kind of spy I am not aware of it, and I am certainly not a spy. I’m from Nevada, for heaven’s sake. Why would I be spying on France?”

“There are many reasons. Perhaps you are just what you say, but you are in desperate need of money. Oh, but wait, you are in desperate need of money.” His interrogator smiled ominously. “Perhaps the Germans offered you money for secrets.”

“At the time I met Max, I still had money, and I had no idea this whole powder keg was about to blow.”

“Aha! What powder keg? Where? And who blew it up?”

Adam ground his jaw; he discovered his limits in French every time he tried to express a colloquialism. “It was a figure of speech. Look, I don’t know anything about Max Beckenbauer….”

Adam’s situation was not unique. Hundreds of people had been arrested all over Paris: some by the gendarmes or the Regular Army, both of which worked for the monarchist government; others by the National Guard, which had sided with the Communards, or as Wickham Hoffman called them, Communists. Some were arrested as spies for Prussia, some as spies for the government, some as spies for the Communards.

They did let him talk to Tilly once a day, and she told him what she was doing on his behalf, although she had nothing to show for it. The American Embassy had first been busy helping the Empress of France sneak away to England. Once it turned its attention to Adam Cartwright, the affair soon became an embarrassment both to the French, who could not admit the possibility of being wrong, and to the Americans, who could not accept that there were limits to their power.

“Tilly,” Adam finally said in late March, after he had stubbornly defied all her predictions and survived more than a month in jail (since the prisoners could kill their own rats, he probably got more meat than she did), “It would be better for everybody if you would just go home. You might be able to get the embassy to help with the money—you could even wire my Pa for it. He’d bring you home.”

Tilly reached through the bars and touched his face, not quite affectionately—more like a teacher getting the attention of a reluctant student. “If you think I’m going home to your father and telling him I just left you all by yourself with a charge like this hanging over your head, you’re dead wrong. In fact, if you think I’m leaving you—anywhere, for anybody, for any reason—you’re still dead wrong.”

“Look, if you were in here instead of me, I would go. I’d raise a little Cain in Washington and see if I could stir up a diplomatic incident. But in any case, I’d get out of here before another war starts.”

“Sure, Adam. You could’ve also left me when I was lying around for a few months waiting to miscarry, but you didn’t. Besides, in case you forgot, there’s a war still going on. The people of Paris haven’t exactly resolved the question of government, and the Prussians aren’t forcing the issue. They’re content to wait until they have a credible government to deal with, and in the meantime they don’t have to feed us.”

The argument hadn’t gone much further because Adam knew Tilly could be about as stubborn as he was, and besides…although he would never have told her out loud, he didn’t really want to be left alone.

“Just wire my father. You might have to cut some hair and shave some beards to get the money to send the wire, but at least—”

“At least what? Your father’ll have the peace of mind that comes from knowing you’ve been arrested for a crime that carries capital punishment, and that he’s six thousand miles away and can’t do a thing about it?” The rhetorical question dripped acid. “The embassy at home can’t do anything the one here can’t do, and when France courts power, Nevada’s not a place they look to. If the worst happens, I will go to your father after it’s all done and I’ll tell him what happened. But I don’t think the worst is going to happen if I keep right on stirring up this hornet’s nest. I go to the American Embassy every morning and Prime Minister Thiers’s office every afternoon. There’s nothing your father could do right now except worry.”

Help…of a sort…finally came from the strangest source possible: Tilly’s old friend Alain de Béville. He sent her a note asking her to meet him at the Café Rue de Pension; he had important news for her.

“I feel badly for your husband,” he said when Tilly joined him. “I have a big mouth, and I think it was my speaking of Adam and Max together that led to all this. They have confused Adam with a German named Schneider—a friend of Max, I think. It’s dangerous to mention one name too close to another these days; people become suspicious far too fast.”

Tilly just looked at him; she had gone so far past feelings of hurt and betrayal at this point that his “confession” was meaningless.

“Well,” she said stonily, “if you did it, maybe you can fix it. Have you tried?”

“Mathilde, I’ve spoken to everyone I can think of, including my uncle, Napoleon’s aide. Officially, I can do nothing to help you. But, unofficially…well, I have an idea. I need your help, though.”

“What can I do? What are you going to do?” Tilly leaned forward, all eagerness now.

Alain looked around. “Not here. Let us go for a walk.”

Out in the cold gray air as they walked down a shell-pocked street, he reminded her of where the prisoners were being kept.

“I know they’re in the cellars of the old Ballet House! I go there to see him every day, how can I not know?” she snapped back. Lord, how well she knew. She had once loved the Opera Building; she and the old crowd had frequented it often in her Paris days. She loved the carvings in the walls, the ornate draperies, the massive chandelier that dominated the main auditorium with its hundreds of candles and reflective glass…of course, back then she hadn’t known about the cellars beneath the place and how easy they were to use as a dungeon. And it had never in her wildest dreams occurred to her that Adam might end up in one of those cellars.

“Théâtre Impérial de l’Opéra,” he corrected, looking around. “And you know that they still hold performances there of an afternoon…Mathilde, I have made a few friends among the guards. It would not do for you to know which ones. But suppose you were to go to the opera tomorrow evening. You and I together, as a couple, and I will be wearing this cape and this dark hat. During the opera, I will leave. Then, near the end, if things go well, you will be re-joined. By someone in this cape and this hat…but that someone will be other than myself. If things go well, it will be your husband. If things go well, his absence will not be missed before the performance ends, and you can both slip away in the crowd. And if you are smart, you will get out of Paris, out of France, altogether.”

“How do you think you’re going to get the guards away from Adam?”

“They’re easy enough to divert. I’ve diverted them before, when the stakes were less.”

She dressed in a shabby frock that had seen finer days, and went to the ornate building that housed the Paris Opera. Alain came as promised, sporting his enormous black cape and his great black slouch hat, and they went to Box 5 to be seated for the performance of Faust. During the intermission, Alain left. Sometime later, a man in a black cape and black slouch hat entered and joined Tilly. Tilly pretended to barely notice him, and he in turn ignored her. For some moments they sat still and silent, their eyes fixed on the dancers below.

Finally the man leaned over. “How much longer does this thing have?”

“Another hour,” Tilly murmured. “And don’t go getting antsy. We jump up and leave now and everyone will be looking at us.”

“It’s not the ones looking at us that worry me; it’s the ones looking for us,” Adam whispered.

A couple of people in a neighboring box glared over at them, and Tilly swiftly shushed him. “Patience.”

Patience, however, was their undoing. Just as Faust’s fourth act reached the duel between Faust and Valentin, they heard the rhythmic tramping of a group of soldiers—or guards, or gendarmes, it hardly mattered which—coming up the stairs. Adam had been uneasy since getting out of the cell, and he had been looking for an escape route from the time he first sat down next to Tilly. They were seated right next to a massive rope cable that was attached to other cables at the center of the enormous room, and that was the only thing he’d been able to think of. “We’ve got to go,” he whispered. He pulled from under the cloak the huge butcher’s knife Alain had given him as a weapon, but he had other intentions for it.

Tilly had also heard the marching footsteps, but she looked around. “Where?” she demanded as he began to cut the thick rope.

“It’s a little theatrical, but we are in a theater,” he replied, sawing frantically. “Climb up on the rail.”

“Are you out of your mind? We can’t—you’re not strong enough—you—”

“Woman, you’re starting to vex me!” Adam snapped, climbing onto the balcony railing and continuing to saw. “Come on, Tilly; it’ll be fun! Haven’t you ever wanted to fly?”

Tilly carefully joined him on the railing, balancing precariously. The chandelier was making a funny groaning noise, and she wondered why.

“Put your arms and legs around me,” he said. He now had four of the five layers severed. Tilly put her arms around his neck and gave a little hop that nearly threw them both off balance, but she managed to wrap her legs about his waist.

Adam looked at her for half a second. Her eyes were huge with terror, but she had obediently wrapped her legs and arms about him and was hanging on in a death grip. He grinned. “Next time you do that I hope the circumstances are more pleasant!” And with that, the last layer was severed. Both his hands were already wrapped around the rope, so as the footsteps stopped outside Box 5, he shouted, “Here goes!” But instead of swinging to another balcony, or anywhere across the theater, Adam and Tilly shot right up into the rafters.

What he didn’t know was that the heavy cable was attached to the gigantic chandelier, which groaned a final time—the surrounding smaller cables that held it could not bear the weight alone—and plunged directly to the floor below; every man in the orchestra pit had already seen it wobbling and had started to move, but now there was pandemonium as audience, cast and crew, and orchestra alike were all screaming and rushing for the nearest exit. The candles from the chandelier hit the cloth seats below and began to burn.  Adam and his rider were seen only by another member of the stage crew who was on a catwalk below, and he merely scratched his head as they flew by. Adam carefully maneuvered the rope to another catwalk, and jumped over to it. He had balanced himself on narrow rotting bridges, on beams above fallen mine shafts, and had even satisfied his curiosity about hot-air balloons by taking a brief ride in one when it had been anchored at his home; heights were not new to him. “You all right, Tilly?” he asked as he carried her cautiously across the beam to safety.

There was no response. Tilly had passed out cold against him, although how she had managed to keep her grip, unconscious, was a mystery that would never be satisfactorily explained. None too gently, he woke her, and they climbed out a window to the roof, where they skirted a few overhangs and made it to the other side of the building. There they rushed down an auxiliary set of stairs and joined in the crowd pouring from the theater.

Outside, Alain had left a carriage waiting for them with his own guard (he still had a horse, which was a miracle in itself) but just as they thought their luck had changed, that they might actually get out of the city, they were picked up by a National Guard patrol.

* Historical Note: Gaston Leroux, author of “The Phantom of the Opera,” took his inspiration from the dungeons of the old opera house, which really were used to house war prisoners and Communards.

 

Chapter 9

“In our hearts we feel so empty and alone…”

 

March, 1871, Nevada

Buck loped easily along the road into Virginia City, freeing Ben’s mind to wander. Maybe today would be the day. Mail was coming in from Paris to the United States nowadays by the wagon load. Most of it was old; some was even from 1870. But Paris was under control now, and communications with the outside world had been restored, and so every day Ben rode into town, stopping first at the post office—sometimes, in fact, it was his only stop. (Privately, Hoss and Joe wondered if their father thought his personal appearance in front of the postmaster could produce the letter from Adam that theirs could not. But that was not a subject they discussed even with each other, and certainly not with Pa.)

No letter today. Just a request for a bid from the railroad. “Just” a bid request, Ben thought in disgruntled amusement. You’d think he didn’t make his living from stuff like this. He could remember times when getting one single bid meant the difference between money to make it through the winter and seeing lean times. Now he would have traded every mail-borne moneymaking tool that arrived each day for a single letter from Adam.

Morosely, he picked up a copy of the Enterprise and went into the International House for coffee.

So, General Crook was taking over the Apache campaign in Arizona…Mr. Hyan, escaped from the state prison, had been arrested in Virginia City—Roy must’ve had a field day with that one…an Indian agent had put an illegal dam up on the Truckee and was pulling a ton of trout from the river each day, not to feed the Reservation Indians but to make a profit…

“I disagree. I don’t think there was anything dishonorable about the elopement. I simply think they would have been better served by telling a few people outside the family, since anything done in such a secret manner always encourages gossip.”

He recognized the speaker’s voice, and did not bother looking from behind the newspaper to verify. It was certainly Beth Cameron, the widow of young Cameron, the storekeeper who’d been killed by Sam Bryant’s men a few years ago. What was young Cameron’s name, anyway? Farmer Perkins had murdered him…Funny I can remember the name of the killer, but not the victim, Ben thought, shaking his head. He could remember most of the details right after that killing, but mostly Beth Cameron’s grief and terror, each keeping the other from being fully expressed. She was an admirable woman, he thought, overcoming both the grief and the terror to become the chief witness against Perkins at his trial. In the days after Perkins’ execution, though, he hadn’t had much opportunity to think about her or wonder how she was because Adam—who had been the Rock of Gibraltar during the whole ordeal—had had something just a few steps from a nervous breakdown after it was all over.

He supposed he should have checked in on Mrs. Cameron from time to time, but somehow he never had, beyond the occasional purchase at her store. Well, apparently she was doing all right. She still ran Cameron’s store and still curtsied whenever she saw him on the sidewalk. But in spite of her youth, she never had remarried, and if the voices he heard with her were any indication, she was rapidly becoming an established member of the formidable widows’ brigade.

“Luv, I’ll tellya, when that little wispy creature first walked into my ’ouse I knew somethin’ was afoot between them two. Why, young Adam was ’angin’ about me place all the livelong day once she moved in, an’ never showed ’is face again once she was gone.” Clementine Hawkins’s strident voice always carried, never malicious, but making up for it in sheer volume. “She walked out one day in February, lookin’ for all the world as if it was just a stroll, and come back married, to get her trunks. Great joke on me, wot? Only thing those two loved as much as each other was them collie dogs. Not that I blame ’em—Tilly gave me two of the dogs, and I love ’em meself.”

“Will you just forget the dogs, Clementine? I’ll admit Adam and Tilly were perfect for each other.” Ben winced as he recognized the third voice as Mrs. Ernestine O’Reilly, who had malice enough to make up for both the other women. “She wanted someone with money and figured the oldest Cartwright boy had it. He wanted a high time, and I’m sure she provided plenty of that. And—”

Ben stood, folding the newspaper under his arm, and smiled pleasantly. “Good morning, ladies.”

All three looked up at him, their mouths forming little “o” shapes as he slid his chair over to join them at their table. “I’ve been reading the paper, but I thought possibly you might have some news that I didn’t. The Enterprise is pretty drab fare when it comes to local doings, now that Sam Clemens is gone, don’t you think?”

“Ben,” Beth Cameron said, “I apologize if we seemed to be gossiping about your son. We were just curious as to what had happened to him. He hasn’t been around in so long….”

“And perhaps you would actually like to ask me?” Ben questioned gently. “Well, he and Tilly went to Europe—sort of a belated honeymoon. I’m hoping they’ll be back sometime this summer.”

“And how many children will they be bringing along?” Mrs. O’Reilly asked sweetly.

Ben looked at her with raised eyebrows. “They don’t have any just yet, Mrs. O’Reilly. That’s rather an extraordinary question, isn’t it?” He stood again, and looked down at her, smiling. “Gossip can be a terrible thing, can’t it? People’s lives can be ruined by a misplaced word, you know. It’s so easy to say things lightly. For example, the rumor has gone out about town that there never was a Mister O’Reilly, that he was an invention to explain your daughter. I have never spread that rumor, Mrs. O’Reilly, although I never met the gentleman myself…because it’s not my business. A person might also observe that what my son does is no business of yours.”

He walked away, wishing it wasn’t against the law to punch women in the mouth. Once outside he heard running footsteps behind him and he turned to see Beth Cameron again. “Please, Ben, I’m sorry. I feel very ashamed talking behind your back like that. I know you must think I’m just looking for people to talk about.”

He looked at her and smiled. “I know you didn’t have unkind intentions, Mrs. Cameron. You should watch yourself very carefully, though. Around Virginia City, women are known by the company they keep. You’re, um, moving in dangerous company right now.”

“You’re right,” she sighed. “I will watch myself. Thank you, Ben.”

He had started to walk away when she said suddenly, “It’s just that I don’t have anyone to talk to.” He pretended he hadn’t heard, and kept going.

Neither do I, he realized bitterly. Adam was gone; the war had been over for two months; and the idea was settling fast on Ben Cartwright that his oldest son wasn’t coming back. He couldn’t say that aloud, though…he couldn’t let his two younger sons hear it…and he couldn’t even let himself think it; it would be giving the devil ideas.

 

Chapter 10

“Let’s drink to the friends we may ne’er see again”

March, 1871, Paris

“We need the horse and carriage,” the sergeant of the National Guard said. He probably isn’t even 20 years old, Adam found himself thinking. “For all I know it could be the only horse in Paris that hasn’t been eaten yet. We need it as an ambulance for the wounded. Although I wonder why I am telling you this when you are the ones in violation of the law by still having a horse. I think you should be arrested.”

“You can have the horse and carriage,” Adam said tiredly. “And I’ve already been arrested. I just escaped from the cellars under the opera house, Sergeant. They were holding me as a spy.”

That earned him a second glance from the sergeant; Adam remembered that the National Guard was largely siding with the Communard rebels.

“Adam Cartwright!” From behind the wagon they heard running feet, and then Girard Gravois panted up. “However did you escape the gendarmes?”

The sergeant turned to Gravois. “How do you know this man, Private?”

Gravois and Adam exchanged a glance, smiling. “We went hunting together a few times. He’s all right, Sergeant Desmarais.”

“How did you escape the gendarmes, Girard?” Adam asked.

“Ah, there was never yet built a jail that could hold a Gravois. My great-grandfather escaped the Bastille—twice. They made the mistake of putting me in a cell with a dirt floor and giving me a spoon! When did they let you out?”

“Let me out? I just escaped tonight—in the middle of Faust, no less!”

“You see, Sergeant Desmarais? Adam’s all right, even though his family owns property.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “It’s a cattle ranch. And I told you we all worked every inch of that property, too.”

“Never mind that,” said the sergeant. “On the word of this man, you are free to leave. In Montmartre there’s a safe place you can go. The people there bought their own cannon and a supply of balls and have committed to defending their district to the death.”

“We live in Montmartre,” Tilly put in. “I know the district you mean.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go back to your old home,” the sergeant advised. “It’s probably being watched. Here.” He scrawled something on the side margin of Tilly’s identity papers—“this will get you into the 11^th district. It’s where Gravois and I live now. You can either try to get out of Paris on foot, and take your chances with the Prussians just outside the city, or stay in Montmartre. If you stay, you can work with us to further the revolution.”

“Doing what?” Adam asked.

“He’s very good at catching rats,” Gravois supplied helpfully.

“You might drive this ambulance,” replied the sergeant with a smile. “And if your woman—”

“My wife.”

“Marriage is out-of-date and something the Church uses to oppress us.”

“I like being oppressed,” Tilly spoke up. “I’m his wife and expect to be referred to as such.”

The sergeant looked doubtfully at Girard Gravois.

“Ah, she probably owns property, too,” Gravois said. “But she doesn’t know any better.”

Tilly bristled. “I never owned a thing in my life. I’m a school teacher.”

“Well, we need those too. The Communards have issued a decree separating church and state, so the girls in the 11^th District Convent School need a teacher. The Church, seeing the girls as poor and useless and having no desire to better them, did not bother to teach them reading and writing. They were only taught to cook and sew and pray.”

“There’s value in cooking and sewing and praying—and reading and writing,” Tilly replied. “I would love to teach again, though.”

“Don’t promote religion,” the sergeant said. “We have no use for it. But if you can teach reading and writing, we can use you. Under the new government, women will be granted opportunities.”

Tilly would forever blame herself for allowing herself to smile briefly at the thought of teaching again, but the truth was that now Adam’s brief adrenaline rampage was over, and he knew he could not walk out of the city. It was too far to the countryside, and there were too many Germans in between, and they tended to shoot first and ask questions later. Nor could he take Tilly back to the American embassy—the rioting all over that section of town had made it as bad as the war zone. So, out of other options, he agreed to the guard’s proposition. He and Tilly returned to Montmartre and the 11th district, where they both went to work: Tilly teaching teenage girls to read and write, Adam rushing southern battlefront victims to the hospital. In return, the Communards shared what food they had with Adam and Tilly, and at first the pair thought they had done well. After all, for all their atheism and dislike of capitalists, the Communards simply believed in self-rule. Other cities all over France had that.

“Of course,” Tilly pointed out to Adam, “I do believe my relatives in the American Confederacy were in favor of self-rule as well, and you know what that got them.”

“I don’t think the issue is quite the same. In our country we had slavery to contend with.”

“That was mainly an issue in the North, Adam. In the South it was secondary—I’ve never said it was right, but left alone, slavery would’ve died on its own in another generation. It cost too much. For most of us it was self-rule, pure and simple—and in Paris right now it’s self-rule, pure and simple…and I have the uncomfortable feeling these people are going to end up in the same boat we did back home.”

Within a few weeks her prophecy was fulfilled. Paris had always been full of rich monarchists; the “common people” had no idea how to rule. The Communards were idealists with lofty goals, but no practical experience in governing, and the leaders had no idea how to keep the people unified. Few of their decrees were ever enforced; they had no money; they argued with the National Guard constantly. Within the governing body, bickering groups had emerged, fragmenting the supposed government and making it impossible to reach consensus on anything. And the “ordinary” Communards in the street seized the opportunity to get drunk and grab a little property of their own, without regard to proper ownership, so looting and riots were the order of the day.

By the middle of May, the National Guard—which had chased the Regular Army out of Paris—was running short on supplies. Fighting continued in the southern part of the city, and Adam, ducking a hail of bullets each day, took the ambulance out to the battlefield to pick up the wounded, National Guard and Regular Army alike, for transport to the hospital.

At the beginning of their “revolution,” the Communards had taken some 70 hostages, with the intent of using them to have their most important leaders released from prison, but the “legitimate” government of Paris refused to negotiate. In one of the meetings the subject of the hostages became of paramount importance. This particular meeting was open to everyone.

“As some of you may know,” announced the head of the Committee for Public Safety, “our original intent in taking hostages was to use them in order to secure the release of our comrade-in-arms, Auguste Blanqui. This has not worked out as we hoped, and now we must decide what to do with the hostages.”

“Kill them all!” shouted someone in the back, and scattered laughter resounded through the building, but there were far too many who were not laughing. Adam and Tilly looked at each other.

“In our first attempt to negotiate, we offered to exchange the hostage Darboy for Blanqui.”

Adam nudged Tilly frantically. “Are they talking about Archbishop Darboy?”

“Yes,” Tilly said flatly. “They’re insane. He’s a hero all over Paris. He wouldn’t leave when he had the chance because he was taking care of the wounded after the last battle with the Prussians. If anything happens to him….”

“Minister Thiers refused our offer,” the committee head went on. “We then sweetened the pot for him, offering Darboy and General Le Comte.”

“You shouldn’t have offered Le Comte,” someone yelled. “He’s the one who ordered his troops to fire on the National Guard, even though there were civilians in the crowd. He should be the first hostage you shoot!”

A few cheers went up.

The Public Safety Committee head said, with considerable frustration, “Yes, he’s a salaud—but we wanted Blanqui!”

“Did you get him?” a woman asked.

“No,” the committee head went on in defeat. “In fact, our last offer, made only today, was all of the hostages for Blanqui alone. We were refused.”

“The hostages are a drain on our resources,” pointed out the head of the Committee for Victual Procurement. “We can’t feed them; we have no money.”

“That’s not true—we took over the Mint last week and are putting out five-franc coins as we speak,” retorted the head of the Committee for Public Finance.

“What about the national bank?” one man shouted. “I used to work there. Why don’t you seize the assets? We’d have all the money we need!”

“And we’d lose the world’s support!” the Public Safety Committee leader snapped.

“Do we have it now?” cried the head of the Committee for Victual Procurement. “If we have a few five-franc coins, it doesn’t matter. We need large amounts of assets. The hostages were supposed to be assets. Now you say they are of no worth as a negotiating tool. If that’s true, they are only a liability!”

“We should begin executing them,” another committee leader said, stabbing the air with a pointing finger. “After a few of the bishops and generals are dead, the government will have to negotiate with us.”

Adam was certain he was hearing things, but what he missed, Tilly translated for him. He grabbed her arm and jumped up. “Help me talk to them—concepts like these are hard to get across.”

“You’re contemplating a large mistake,” he shouted in English, and Tilly echoed him in flawless French. “As soon as you execute the first hostage, you’ve proven that you’re no better than the bourgeoisie you thought were so evil! You’re going to lose any support you ever had if you kill a priest—and you cannot stage this kind of a government rebellion if you don’t have the support of the people. All the people. They will turn on you—”

He might as well have been arguing in Chinese. No one listened; they soon shouted him down with cries of “Damned property owner—what do you know?” At that, Adam dragged Tilly from the Hall, muttering, “I should’ve taken my chances with the Germans.” That night they began looking for another way out of the city. But there was no way out of Paris; the city was surrounded by Prussian cavalry. Light units of hussars and dragoons ringed the city in every landward direction, and the cuirasses and lancers fanned out through the farmland beyond.

A day later the Communards began executing their hostages; the first six to go included Archbishop Darboy and General Le Comte.

Reprisal—and more—came only a day or two later. The “official” government in Versailles now sent the Regular Army back to Paris, this time flanked by the Germans. Fighting was fierce all over the city.

On the 21st, the last day of gainful employment for Adam, he went to the battleground (not as far away as it had been) to find a badly wounded man on the ground. Gut shot, he realized as he rushed to the man’s side—and then looked into his face.

It was Girard Gravois.

“You needn’t bother,” he protested as Adam looked at the wound. “But I’m glad you’re with me, Adam. When I get to Hell I can boast of being the best rat hunter—except for you.”

“Hush,” Adam replied. “You’re not gettin’ away from me that easy.”

“Seriously, you should leave,” Gravois panted. “The Regulars…are going to start shelling in…a little while. This is not where you should be.”

“I’ll decide where I need to be,” Adam answered, putting a pressure dressing over the wound. “I’m going to slide you onto this board so I can load you into the wagon, all right? Don’t move.”

“No danger of that,” Gravois sighed.

Suddenly the air was awash with the whistles of artillery shells. Adam threw himself across Gravois as the explosions began. Looking to the north, he could see fires all along the Seine.

“Sure hope that’s not the Louvre on fire,” he muttered conversationally, bending back to work on Gravois again.

“Bugger the Louvre,” Gravois retorted with a pale smile. “What about the…department store across the street? That’s where the important artifacts are.”

“You’re an evil man,” Adam said—and just down the street, a shell scored a direct hit on a building, brick fragments and glass slivers filling the air along with explosive fragments from the six-pound cannonball. He covered Gravois again.

“You’re wasting your time,” the injured man murmured in his ear.

Adam merely grunted as he was pummeled.

“Are you all right?” Gravois demanded.

“Finer ’n frog hair,” he replied with a grin. “Think I got a sliver or two in my back. Nothin’ to speak of.”

Moments later a Regular Army patrol appeared. Unable to run, the two stayed where they were, hands raised in surrender. They were more fortunate than most that day—the first day of what became known as “the Blood-Soaked Week”—hundreds of men, women, and even children were shot down where they stood.

A couple of soldiers took Gravois, none too gently, away. Adam never saw him alive again.

“The man is badly wounded—he needs a hospital,” Adam protested as the soldiers handcuffed him.

“He needs a priest. Worry about yourself,” came the retort.

Adam was lumped in with the Communard leadership. A summary trial was held a couple of days later, and they were all sentenced to death by firing squad.

* Historical Note: Archbishop Darboy was a real person, and the description provided here is accurate. The only thing I changed is the addition of General LeComte as a hostage. In real life, he was shot immediately after being captured.

 

Chapter 11

“In my death, the minutes pass like years…”

 

May, 1871, Paris

From the frying pan to the fire, Tilly thought when Alain told her. The man seemed to know everything that happened in Paris, and when she’d gone to him after two unsuccessful days looking for Adam, it had taken only a few hours for him to report back. Adam was alive, for the moment, but under a death sentence—executions being held, ironically, near Père Lachaise Cemetery.

She went from there directly to the American Embassy, despite Adam’s orders to stay away from that part of town…only to find her enemy, the hateful clerk, in sole possession. The interview didn’t last long.

“Look, lady. Mr. Hoffman isn’t here, and Mr. Washburne isn’t here. Get it through your head. It doesn’t matter how many bombs are going off outside. They’re not here. They can’t help you.”

“Washburne is supposed to be here four days out of the week, and in Versailles the other three. If he’s not here today, tell me when he will be here, and I’ll come back.”

“I find myself very disinclined to help you. If I survive this posting since these crazy Communists took over, I only have five years to go before I can draw a pension. Provided someone like you doesn’t try to crucify me again!”

“Okay, maybe you have no heart, Mister, but how about pride? Does it not bother you that the American Embassy can help save the Empress of France and more than 2,000 Prussians, but can’t keep one of its own citizens from being sent before a firing squad? Do you really have so little feeling for your own country that you wouldn’t lift a finger to help in that situation?”

“In five years I can retire and draw a pension—that’s what I feel for. You nearly got me fired that day.”

“You were never in any danger. Hoffman knew I was just desperate to see him.”

“At the moment, I don’t care. Let me tell you something, lady. This place is in a constant uproar. We’re the only embassy to have remained in the city! For the last few weeks we’ve been getting Alsatians and Lorrainers out of Paris at a rate of 200 or more per day. The damned Communists have invaded my own home and carried off all my furniture because they ‘don’t like the attitude of the American diplomats.’ Ambassador Washburne has been spending all his time trying to negotiate between the Communists and the Versailles government for the release of the hostages, and Thiers is being his usual jackass self. I haven’t had any beef in more than a month, and my wife left me because I’m always at the office. Do you think I want to listen to your problems? You want to see Hoffman, or Washburne? Good luck. I wouldn’t help you now at twice the usual price.”

“What’s the usual price?” Tilly asked in a small voice…she didn’t have a centime.

The clerk looked her up and down appraisingly, and then shook his head. “Figure it out. Anyway, scream all you like now; there’s no one to hear.”

Feeling somehow unsettled by his eyes, Tilly shook her head. “Maybe I’ll make you scream.”

“Go ahead and try. I learned my lesson. The gendarmes would be here in less than five minutes to escort you out—and if you continue to harass me, I will tell them you’re a Pétroleuse.”

“What the devil is a Pétroleuse?”

“Oh, the gendarmes say they’re out in bands, women prowling the streets with jars of petroleum they can throw through the windows of shops and houses to start fires. The penalty’s death if one’s caught, of course—and we both know how careful the gendarmes are to make sure they’re arresting the right people, don’t we? Right now there’s nothing I’d love more than for you to be discovered carrying a bottle—and if I said I took a bottle away from you, do you think the gendarmes would bother to check? Now get out!”

Tilly thought for a minute. Her face paled, and then she smiled. “Thank you for that. You’ve just helped me more than you know.”

**

At home she pulled the two tattered red tablecloths from the cheap table and pinned them over her skirt. A Pétroleuse they wanted, a Pétroleuse they’d get. She got out a bottle of water, along with two glass jars that she filled with lamp oil. Then she headed to the Army headquarters.

**

“Adam Cartwright, you have been found guilty of the crime of espionage against France by affiliation with the Communards, and you are sentenced to death by firing squad. Do you have any last words?”

He just looked at the captain impassively. What was the point? Everything he would have said had already fallen on deaf ears time and again. Now he only wanted it over with. What he had described to Girard Gravois as “a sliver or two” in his back really felt more like a million shards of glass and shrapnel, and if death would make the pain stop, he wouldn’t protest. He no longer had the energy for it.

If it were true what Blake said, that eternity is in an hour, then in death the minutes became years. He felt each sinew in his arms tighten as they bound his hands behind his back…noticed the stripe down the sides of the trouser legs of the French Regular Army soldiers as they escorted him out to the wall. He noticed the pock-marks in the wall, the red dots and blobs spattering sections of the old bricks…noticed the body of the last execution victim being carried away…realized, with some sadness, that it was Girard, who had lived long enough to get another death sentence. They had had to tie him upright in order to shoot him.

There were absurdities, too, that made him smile a little. The corporal’s nose was running, and in his haste to wipe it, the corporal forgot about the buttons on his sleeve and gave himself a bloody nose.

Each minute lasted for years, but they ran backwards. He was on the dock with his brothers and father, hugging them goodbye…he was in the church, taking Tilly as his wife…he was in the schoolhouse with her, trying to tell her how he loved her…he was proposing and she was crying because she thought he was just trying to get over the loss of his dog…he was bowing over the hand of the new schoolteacher, hoping to God this one would stay single and not get herself tied to the flagpole by the rowdy boys….

Tilly, I know I didn’t tell you the way you wanted, or as often as you wanted, but I hope you always knew how I loved you….

He was looking at Joe, who seemed to have all the blood in the world coming from what looked like a simple shot under the collarbone…he was trading punches with Joe over a slight untruth Joseph had told to get him to accompany the new schoolteacher to a dance…he was trading punches with Joe over a dog… over the secession of the South… over whether chores had been done on time…and suddenly he was a gawky, long-legged kid, hearing the cry upstairs, and seeing his father bounding down the stairs shouting, “It’s a boy! You’ve got a little brother…again!”

Joe, seemed like we were always scrapping over something, from the time you were born. Dear God, I hope we hugged half as often as we fought. And I know when I left you were madder than you let on…hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I really did mean to come back. I loved you, Little Brother.

He was lying hurt in his bed looking up at Hoss, trying to tell him of his fears of letting their father down, and Hoss was laughing gently, telling him he might as well blame himself for the Great Flood…he was sliding down the wall, looking up at the mountainous brother who had just clocked him, saying, “I hope you know who’s got the most blood to spare, Older Brother”…he was chasing Hoss down the street in the wake of a lost horse race…he and Joe were chasing Hoss and a bull down the street after yet another misplaced bout of confidence…he was hurting all over from the beating Hoss had just given him after finding him with Regan Miller, but far worse than the physical pain was knowing that however good his intentions, he had betrayed his brother…he was sitting dejectedly on the front porch with Hoss, describing the death of Ross Marquette…trying for the fifth time to convince Hoss that “i” really did come before “e,” except after “c”…holding Hoss in his arms as he watched the only mother he had ever known die, still trying to smile at him…and finally he went back all the way to some unspecified day on the trail when Inger had whispered in his ear, “How would you like to be a big brother, Adam?”

Hoss, did you know you were my best friend? The one I could talk to when I couldn’t talk to anyone else…the one who believed in me when no one else did…the one who understood my feelings—and better yet, you realized I had feelings, even when I didn’t express them the way everyone else thought I should…I know I broke your heart…please forgive me. I just wanted to see a little more of the world…reckon I saw way more than I bargained for.

He was smiling into his father’s eyes. “Just two years, Pa. I’ll be back after two years. I just want to see a little of what I’ve been studying about all this time”…he was looking sullenly at his father, who was convinced “the girl loves you, Adam—just go ahead and ask her and let nature take its course”…he was throwing his father across the room in a rage, shouting, “if I can’t have your trust, Pa, I don’t want your love!”…he was calmly saying, “Sure, Pa, I’ll look after the place while you go to Kansas—it won’t be that long, and what can go wrong?” while inwardly he was terrified of all the things that could go wrong…he was sitting on the heavy wooden coffee table in front of the fireplace, filled with doubt, but not about the thing everyone thought he should be doubtful about. “Adam, except for your brothers, you stand alone in this business.” “How about my father?” “Do you really have to ask that?” And suddenly, in spite of all that was wrong, everything was right…he was arguing with his father. They were arguing about Ed Payson, the man who had killed Will Cass’s son…they were arguing about Ruth. “There is no Ruth! Adam, you were sick and hallucinating, that’s all!” They were arguing about windmills, and his father had told him his education was standing in the way of his thinking…they were arguing about Adam going to college….

Pa…oh God, Pa…all those years we wasted fighting just because we were both so obsessed with the need to be right and too stubborn to let on how much we cared…all the time I wasted pining for things out of reach when everything I wanted was on the Ponderosa with you…oh, Pa, I’m sorry. Of all the regrets I have….

He looked at the firing squad. He smiled and lifted his head. “Don’t botch it,” he yelled. “Pretend I’m the broad side of a barn!”

The captain didn’t smile back as he commanded, “Ready!”

The 10 soldiers raised their rifles.

 

Chapter 12

“We had a reason to believe…”

 

July, 1871, Nevada

“I don’t get it,” Joe mumbled from behind the San Francisco Chronicle. “The war ended in February. So what are all these executions for?”

“Well, it didn’t exactly end,” Hoss said, chomping an apple and looking at the Salt Lake City Deseret News. “Looks to me like they just switched who they was fightin’ against.”

Ben, still trying to puzzle everything out himself, muttered something unintelligible from under the New York Times.

“These people called the Communards…” Veralyn said hesitantly, and everyone jumped to listen because she seldom opened her mouth when anyone besides Hoss was around. “They appear to have taken over the government in Paris.”

“But not legally,” Ben corrected. “They took over the National Guard, so the Guard, under orders from the Communards, fought against the Regular Army, and the official government was kicked out—”

“Relocated,” Joe said. “To Versailles.”

“Not Ver-sales. Ver-sigh,” Ben corrected again.

“It shore-nuff makes me wanna sigh.” Hoss did sigh. “Wouldn’t Adam just love this? How many times did our brother try to get us interested in world politics? And now here we sit, all of us rackin’ our brains tryin’ to figure out the government situation in a country we ain’t never been and ain’t ever gonna go to!”

“Yeah, and when he gets back I’m gonna sock him in the jaw for makin’ me waste my time like this,” Joe growled. “It’s Saturday afternoon and I could be in town havin’ a beer, for Pete’s sake! But until then, I’m still tryin’ to figure this out. So somebody help me understand what these executions are for.”

Veralyn tried again. “When the Communards took over, it was the same as starting a civil war right in Paris. Now the Regular Army has defeated the National Guard, so the war is really over. And just as things happened here at the end of the Southern Insurrection, there are a lot of bad feelings on both sides. In the last days of the war, the Communards executed a lot of government hostages. Now that the Communards have surrendered, a lot of them are being executed too, in retribution for the hostages.”

“Or in general retribution,” Ben said bitterly. “This is why I’ve always tried to keep us out of wars.”

“Well, Adam has better sense than to get involved in all that,” Joe shrugged. “He didn’t even get involved in the war here, and here there were things he believed in and wanted to fight for. He’s not gonna do it over there. He’s got no stake in the outcome.”

“When our war happened, Adam was a thousand miles away from it,” Ben said with a dour shake of his head. “This one is going on all around him. He may have to get involved, to save himself and Tilly, or he may get swept along by the current. It’s very difficult to be neutral when you’re stuck in the middle of the fighting…remember what happened with us and the Paiute.”

They heard galloping hooves outside and a horse skidded to a halt almost at their front door. Joe and Ben both got up; Ben nodded and sat down again as Joe went to answer. A few minutes later he returned. “Mutton Jim was in town when this came in…he thought it might be important. It’s a telegram from Señor Lopez Chavarri.”

Ben and Don Fernando had begun corresponding a year ago, after one of Ben’s letters to Adam had included a note to their host thanking him for his hospitality to Adam and Tilly. As two wealthy but hard-working heads of powerful families, they found they had a lot in common and had continued to write.

“I, um, wired him when I got his last letter,” Ben said a little awkwardly. “His son-in-law was going to Paris on business since the war is over, and I asked if he could check the last address we had for Adam.”

He tore the envelope open and read, “Found address—stop. Buildings destroyed—stop. Unable discover if present at bombing—stop. Adam and Tilda unknown at embassy—stop. All dogs eaten—stop. Enquiries continue welcome ideas…full stop….”

Ben set the telegram down, looking old.

“That don’t mean nothin’, Pa,” Hoss said hastily, and Veralyn shut her eyes as he went on desperately, “If they got kicked outta that place there’s a whole city’s worth of other places they could’ve gone. In fact, if Adam knowed they was gonna be under siege, I bet he got ’em outta Paris altogether and into the countryside. They could be on the way home now for all we know.”

“I’m a little tired,” Ben said quietly. “I think I’ll lie down for a while.”

Little Joe said nothing, but he got up and walked outside, shutting the door carefully behind him.

“Time was he’d a’ slammed it so hard the hinges would break,” Hoss said tightly. “And Veralyn, I got no words a’ comfort for ’em, ’cause I’m thinkin’ the same thing they are.”

 

Chapter 13

“A new day comes and rushes by so fast”

 

September, 1871, Nevada

It was just after sunrise on a Sunday, the weather was beautiful, and the herd was even-tempered. Three Cartwrights, three ranch hands, and four dogs were guiding them to Slippery Ford, where a buyer was waiting. They had camped the night just south of Echo Lake and were figuring to arrive in Slippery Ford Tuesday morning. Joe and Hoss had found themselves exchanging rather bewildered glances when their father had announced a Tuesday contract date. Usually, unless the move was a sufficient distance for a trek of multiple weeks, their father didn’t like going anywhere on Sunday but to church. But then, he’d been doing a lot of strange things of late.

“Am I just thinkin’ wrong or is Pa really off the hunt?” Hoss asked Joe as they rode along, barely looking at the placid cattle walking in front of them. Bruce, Honey, and Gumbo had them well in hand. In the distance, their father rode, a little slumped, with Ceirdwyn trotting alongside and periodically barking once or twice, as if to remind him that she was there.

“Whaddaya mean ‘hunt’?” came the irritated retort.

“He just ain’t actin’ like hisself. Yesterday, when we was leavin’ our land, and we rode through the north section, he stopped near the windmills and sat there lookin’ at ’em like he’d never seen a windmill afore. And today…well, if we hadn’t had the dogs along, we’d still be pullin’ pieces of him off ole Grandma’s horns. He’s distracted, and moody, and….”

Joe sighed. “You know what I think. I think he’s in mourning.” He turned to meet his brother’s eyes. “Hoss, it’s been more than a year without a word from Adam. That crazy war ended months ago. He was there with Tilly, so even if something happened that he couldn’t write, she could’ve wired us or written us.”

“You sayin’ you think Adam’s dead?” Hoss asked, his voice unnaturally soft, almost a whisper.

“What do you think?”

“I asked you first.”

For a long time, Joe did not answer. Finally, he turned back to Hoss and said quietly, “Adam spent most of his time with us tryin’ to teach us how to think with our heads, not our hearts. I reckon we needed it, since you and I do tend to rely on our hearts overmuch. My heart’s real torn. I don’t want to think of Adam bein’ dead…but my head says it’s the most likely explanation. Is that wrong?”

“No…” Hoss murmured. “I don’t like sayin’ it out loud…but I feel the same way.”

“Well, I think Pa’s in the same shape, too…only, well, it’s his son. You know how he’s acted any time any of us has ever gone missing. Saddle the horses, get the other sons, and go find the lost one. He can’t do that this time…but it ain’t for want of tryin’.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You know he’s had me doin’ the books, right? Well, I came across some receipts that say he’s hired a Pinkerton agent from the London office. He must not have found anything, but Pa’s paid him at least $2,000…so far…and he wants the fellow to keep looking.”

“How long you think that’ll go on?”

Joe shrugged. “I’d guess until Adam turns up…or a body is found. Pa’s a bulldog, in case you forgot.”

“I ain’t forgot. Ain’t likely to, either. But Joe, there’s men—bodies—that ain’t been found from the Southern Insurrection to this day, and that was over six years ago. And at least they’re in this same country. Not across an ocean. Accordin’ to the papers them French people don’t know theirselves how many people died in the war or in that Paris rebellion afterwards. There was people shoved into mass graves and never identified. Our own embassy doesn’t even know about the Americans that stayed in France while the war was goin’ on. So how’s Pa figure to find out?”

“He won’t find out,” Joe sighed. “I don’t think we’ll ever know. But do you want to be the one to tell him to give up the search? We tried it in the desert, after Eastgate—and as soon as we made the suggestion, Adam turned up. Not that I’d mind if he turned up right now, even if there’s no reasonable explanation for what went on. After seven years, we can have him declared dead, but I can’t see Pa giving up before then—not as long as he can keep paying the bills, anyway. Who knows, he might even go there himself.”

They were just north of Twin Bridges, a little hole-in-the-wall town with no past and, as far as anyone could tell, no future. In fact, the town periodically seemed to disappear, only to pop back into existence a couple of years later. They hadn’t planned to stop there, and if their father hadn’t heard the song, they probably wouldn’t have. As things were, he pulled out his pocket watch, gave it a glance, and listened again. Then they saw a small group of people sheltered by some trees, just standing together and singing, a dark-garbed minister leading them.

 “…In sorrow He’s my comfort, in trouble He’s my stay;

He tells me every care on Him to roll.

He’s the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star,

He’s the fairest of ten thousand to my soul…”

It was a bouncy, cheerful song, full of hope and joy, and the small congregation seemed to be feeling it; they were clapping to the beat. Hoss looked up to see his father stopping his big dun gelding to listen.

”…He will never, never leave me, nor yet forsake me here,

While I live by faith and do His blessed will;

A wall of fire about me, I’ve nothing now to fear,

With His manna He my hungry soul shall fill.

Then sweeping up to glory to see His blessed face,

Where rivers of delight shall ever roll.

He’s the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star,

He’s the fairest of ten thousand to my soul…”

Abruptly, Ben turned away from the outdoor revival and loped back toward the herd. “Don’t you two have anything to do?” he snapped as he rode by. Hoss and Joe exchanged a glance and followed.

Later, Hoss found himself humming that hymn again. It was one he’d never heard before, probably one of the new ones from back East. It sure did sound happy, and the harmony was wonderful.

Adam would’ve liked it, Hoss thought, and for a moment, felt at peace.

* Historical Note: The “Lily of the Valley” is a beautiful, joy-filled Christian hymn, but its appearance here is slightly anachronistic; it came out in 1881.

 

Chapter 14

“How long has it been, we were just children then…”

 

December, 1871, Nevada

There was an overseas packet in the mail that day, but it was only from the Pinkerton agent, and it was not encouraging news.

Mr. Cartwright:

I have shown the American embassy clerk the photograph of your son and daughter-in-law, but he insists they never came to the embassy. I have attempted to see the ambassador himself, but thus far have been unable to circumvent the clerk. However, I see no reason why the clerk would lie.

A clerk in Monsieur Thiers’s office thought Mathilde Cartwright looked familiar, but he had no written documentation pertaining to her. Of course, the French government offices were abandoned when the Provisionals retreated to Versailles, and their records keeping has been in a shambles ever since, so this is not surprising.

I have returned to England hoping to find out something of the boy you mentioned, William Holmes, but while Eton has had some 20 or more students named ‘Holmes’ in the last five years, none were named William Scott, nor is there a William Scott Holmes currently registered in any of the medical schools in London.

I will continue doing what I can, but I think I’m trying to get blood from a turnip. However brief its duration, this war has disrupted Europe for at least a decade. Thousands of people have died or been displaced. The mass graves around Paris hold hundreds of unidentified bodies. The means simply do not exist to identify them. I am doing what I can, but I despair of learning anything.

1. Franklin

Pinkerton Agency

Ben sighed and re-folded the letter, crumpling it hastily into his pocket as he walked toward the bank. Whatever turmoil he was in, life never seemed to slow down. He still had to pick up the payroll. Hoss and Little Joe had gone to Sacramento on business, and while Ben supposed he could have just sent Mutton Jim for the payroll, there was no point. Ben had become downright compulsive about picking up the mail himself, and when the letter from Adam came, as it must someday, he would be there to get it.

As he opened the door to the bank, Beth Cameron smacked right into his broad chest. She was sobbing, but when she realized what she had done, she looked up at him long enough to mutter, “Damn all men!” and flounce past him, ignoring his apology. For a minute Ben just stood there, wondering what on earth had happened. Finally he scratched his head and approached his friend Cyrus, who was wadding up a piece of paper and tossing it into a waste basket.

“Women,” Cyrus quipped as Ben approached. “There’s a reason they’re not allowed to vote.” He chortled in satisfaction at his joke.

“What happened?” Ben demanded. “She was crying—”

A shrug. “I had to turn down her loan request. I’m not laughing about that, believe me. It was hard to do; after all, she’s been a good customer for a long time, and frankly Ben, married or not, I appreciate a trim figure as much as the next man. But—”

“Why does she need a loan? Is her store in trouble?”

“No, no, it seems to be well above water, in spite of all the people she’s ‘carrying.’ But she came to me wanting to expand her business. Ever since Cass died last fall she’s been eyeing his store, and now that Sally’s decided to give up the business and go back East, she wants to buy Sally out. I knew Sally wouldn’t be able to make it on her own when Cass died. Remember, I told you….”

“Cyrus,” Ben said in a low voice, “Why couldn’t you give Mrs. Cameron the loan?”

Cyrus looked blankly at him. “Huh?”

“She’s been managing her husband’s store alone now since Cameron died…what, eight, nine years ago? That seems to indicate she’s doing pretty well, if the store’s still turning a profit. So why can’t she have the loan?”

“Ben,” Cyrus said patiently, “She is a woman. You saw her. As soon as a man says ‘no’ to her, she primes the pump and sheds tears by the bucket.”

“Yes, but why couldn’t she have the loan?”

“I just told you. She’s a woman. Women do not have a proven record of success in business. Now she’s done better than some, I’ll admit. And I might have considered it if she’d been willing to put up her store as collateral, but she wanted the loan on her good word, the same as if it was you or Barney Fuller.”

“But if she’s proven that she can turn a profit, just as I have, or just as Barney has, why shouldn’t she get the same treatment? I thought the issue here was money.”

“It is!” Cyrus replied in exasperation. “Now you saw how she got all emotional a minute ago. You or Barney would’ve got right up next to me and demanded to get the loan or you’d take your business elsewhere. Not her. She reverted to Papa’s Little Girl and ran away.”

“Cyrus,” Ben said quietly, “You draw up the papers for her loan, or I’ll take my business elsewhere. I know women have their silly moments, but if you stood there and denied me the same right to my good word that you’d give Barney Fuller—and he’s a son of a gun who’ll say or do anything to turn a dollar, and you know it—I’d punch you in the mouth. Mrs. Cameron knew she couldn’t punch you in the mouth because then she’d be talked about as being ‘not a lady.’ This is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You’d really take your business to another bank, Ben? We’ve been a successful team now for nine years.”

“I’d really take my business to another bank. By the way, you start one rumor about me and Mrs. Cameron just because I had the good sense to correct your error in judgment, and I’ll still take my business elsewhere. I’m going to find her and bring her back now; you do what you need to. And while you’re at it, make my regular monthly payroll withdrawal. I’ll be back in a little while.”

He headed straight to Cameron’s General Merchandise. There was a “Closed” sign up, but he hammered on the door until Mrs. Cameron appeared. She was no longer crying, but she looked a sight.

“Ben,” she said flatly, and then seemed to remember herself. “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I, um, had a little run-in with someone at the bank, but there was no reason to take it out on you. That was inexcusable, and I hope you’ll accept my apology.”

“Mrs. Cameron,” he said with a smile, “I heard about that run-in. I think you should’ve just punched Cyrus in the mouth, and then you and I would not be having this conversation.”

She chuckled a little. “Maybe next time I will, but I doubt it will help my chances. What did you need, Ben? Aside from my apology, that is?”

“I didn’t need that. I came to tell you I’ve spoken to Cyrus. He’s going to approve your loan. Virginia City’s businesses need to grow along with the town.”

Beth Cameron looked silently at him for a moment. “Ben, how much did you have to do with this?”

“I only pointed out the mistakes in his thinking. Whatever else he is, Mrs. Cameron, Cyrus is a businessman. All his decisions ultimately are based on two things: risk and profit. I showed him the risk and the potential for profit.”

“Are you sure that’s all? I know how you’ve helped out some of the people around town—and not that I don’t appreciate it, but I really don’t want to be one of your charity cases.”

“I promise, Mrs. Cameron, you’re not. I was only involved in an advisory capacity.”

She shook her head. “Oh, Ben, you do beat all. It’s been so long since we’ve spoken, and…have I ever told you how much I admired you for the way you were so brave against Sam Bryant? I believe you were the only man in town who could have convinced me to testify…and then, after you were captured, when Adam nearly got you killed, you were so forgiving. You set such a wonderful parental example.”

As he took her by the arm to escort her back toward the bank, he said “What on earth do you mean by ‘Adam nearly got me killed’? Adam did the right thing.”

“And you’re such a wonderful father, to say so even now.”

Shaking his head in puzzlement, he found himself remembering a line in Adam’s letter about the things a man would do for a pair of blue eyes, and for some reason he smiled. Mrs. Cameron’s eyes were brown, but they held a certain amount of interest, all the same.

 

Chapter 15

“Before the evening retires we’ll sit by the fire…”

 

December, 1871, Nevada

Hoss and Joe had finished loading the wagon; their father was just finishing his business at the bank before it closed for Christmas. The boys weren’t sure if their father was being deliberately casual, or whether he really had given up any hope, but aside from exchanging curious glances when they saw him leave the bank and head to the post office (normally his first stop), they did not react.

He emerged a few minutes later with his copy of the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. “We’ll grab a cup of coffee before we head home,” he announced in tones far too cheerful, and Hoss sighed and followed obediently without mentioning that Veralyn would be waiting supper for him. Joe rolled his eyes. “Anything to keep from goin’ home,” he muttered. True, the house did seem to be getting bigger by the day, since Adam and Hoss were both gone. Lately Joe had begun wondering what to do with that book-filled room, guitar leaning against the desk as if waiting for Adam’s return.

Ben handed the Chronicle to Hoss; Joe already had the latest Enterprise, so the three began scanning headlines.

“Huh,” Hoss announced. “Now they’re deportin’ people.”

“Who?” Joe asked.

“The French. Remember after they lost the war to the Germans, some of their own rebelled against ’em and said they’d never surrender to anybody, German or French?”

“Sure. The Communards. But they all got executed.”

“Not all of ’em. Looks like they’re deportin’ 5,000 of ’em to some islands in the South Pacific.”

Joe giggled involuntarily. “Ain’t that where the women don’t wear no tops? Now that’s my kind of deportation. Seems like Adam told me once—”

“Young man, watch your mouth,” Ben snapped from behind his paper, and Joe sighed.

“So what are they bein’ deported for?” he asked Hoss.

“I don’t know; this explanation don’t make sense. Says here the Communards were all found guilty of bein’ godless savages, so the Versailles government is sendin’ ’em to a place where there’s some other savages, like Indians or somethin’. It says here that once the Communards see the wonders of nature they’ll start believin’ in God again, and they’ll all get redeemed.”

“If that was true, then how come the savages already living there haven’t been redeemed?”

“That’s what I mean. Besides, if there’s people already livin’ there—natives—ain’t that like what happened with us and the Indians here? If the natives there are anything like the Indians, they’re not gonna be real happy about gettin’ their land took away from ’em, and they’re liable to start a ruckus.”

“Some people never learn,” Joe said solemnly.

“Boy, iffen Adam was here now he’d be lecturin’ everybody within hearin’ distance about the mistakes silly white people make,” Hoss murmured.

Ben lowered his newspaper and looked daggers at his oldest remaining son. “Can we not have a simple cup of coffee in peace?”

“Sorry,” Hoss said softly, staring at his fingers. “Didn’t mean to start nothin’. Pa, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go ahead and take the wagon home. Veralyn’s got supper waitin’, I just know it, and she’ll tan my hide if I’m late.”

He practically bolted from the room, not giving his father a chance to respond. Ben’s eyebrows lowered into battle stance as he looked at Joe. “Did you have something to say?”

“Yes, sir,” Joe gulped. “I’m goin’ down to the Sazerac. They’ve got a yodelin’ contest on tonight and I thought I might give it a shot. See ya back at home, Pa.” And then he was gone too.

Before their chairs were even cold, Ben was thinking, Joseph Cartwright is interested in a yodeling contest? Have I become THAT bad to be around? He wasn’t even sure what had happened, or why he was so irritable. But it sometimes seemed that any mention of Adam triggered anger—and there were still so many occasions to mention Adam.

It was time to go home. If Buck was feeling as impatient as he was, they’d get home before dark. Maybe even pass Hoss on the road.

He emerged from the International House and took a sharp turn as soon as the door slammed behind him—and smashed right into Beth Cameron, knocking her down on the board sidewalk. He dropped all the newspapers in his rush to help her right herself. “Mrs. Cameron, please forgive me; I’m so sor—”

She started to laugh as she stood. “Ben Cartwright. We really must stop meeting like this!”

“Really, Mrs. Cameron, it was completely my fault. I don’t know what got into me; I was just in a hur—”

“Don’t fret yourself, Ben. Only my pride was injured. How are you?”

“Um…”

“You know, it’s really ideal to run into you today, although I don’t think I’d have planned it quite so violently. I’ve wanted to talk to you for a week now.”

“Oh? Why?”

“The new store, of course. You do remember that loan you helped me get.”

“I helped? I’m sure you’re mistaken—”

“Oh, don’t cover it up, Ben; Cyrus already told me,” she admonished with a smile. “I can’t thank you enough, but you know this makes you almost a partner.”

“Of course not,” Ben protested.

“Not formally, perhaps. But it’s your good faith in me that enabled me to start this venture. So I want to tell you what I’m doing. Come along, Ben—I’ll show you how I’m having the building refurbished. This is going to be a specialty store. I’m only going to sell shoes and boots!”

“What?”

“Oh, yes.” She took his elbow and all but propelled him to the old store where Mr. Cass had been such a fixture. “You know, there’s a fellow back East who invented a new sewing machine a few years ago just to sew soles onto shoes. Now another fellow—Goodyear, I believe—has done the same thing to make boots! This will make production so fast, and it’ll make the shoes and boots more comfortable, too—and the way people go through footware out here, there’s always someone in need. You can’t work mines and cut timber barefoot, after all. You brawny fellows at the Ponderosa might even find them handy for all the riding you do. Ben, I’m sinking a lot of money into this venture, but I believe it’s going to pay off in spades—isn’t that what poker players say?” Without giving him time to answer, she went on, “I want to thank you again for your vote of confidence. This wouldn’t have been possible without you.”

“Really, Mrs. Cameron, I—”

“And we’ve known each other for 10 years now, Ben—I always called you Ben, even when my husband was alive. You might as well call me Beth. How about letting me cook your dinner tonight? It’s the least I can do after all your help.”

“Mrs. Cameron, I’m sorry, but I’ve been in a foul humor all day; I think I’d best go home.”

For the first time she stopped her chatter and just looked at him. Then she smiled slowly. “My Gordon used to have an occasional foul mood of his own. He called it ‘Scotch humor.’ Are you a Scot, by any chance?”

“Um…my great-grandparents were from England, I believe.”

“Close enough. One of my fried chicken drumsticks always brought him out of those foul humors; I daresay it’ll work on you. Come along, Ben. I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer—not today.”

 

Chapter 16

“Shall we ne’er see them again…”

 

August, 1872, Nevada

Ben pulled the letter from its envelope and stared at the words, unseeing. The pages were soft in his hands from all the times they had been handled over the years. He knew all seven letters by heart…but sometimes he still had to take them out and look at them, just because they were the last link remaining to Adam. Years before, Adam had touched these pages. Now Ben could touch them too. Sometimes he even mentally composed new letters to Adam—letters he never wrote and would never write. But the thought somehow gave him comfort.

It’s been a long time, son, since you sent me this letter from Argentina. Back then all you knew was love, seasickness and penguins. But three years have gone by. In that time Little Joe has fallen in and out of love a dozen times or so…don’t you think that’s a record? I remember a time when he could fall in love a dozen times in a single month. He must be growing up.

Hoss and Veralyn built a nursery, but the Lord hasn’t yet provided them the opportunity to fill it…although this will make you smile, Adam. I asked Hoss once, “Do you think I’ll be a grandfather anytime soon?” And your brother turned red as a tomato and said, “Well Pa, if you don’t, it won’t be for want of tryin.’” It must have cost him terribly to say something so cheeky. He does love that girl, Adam…I hope you and Tilly had that kind of love—oh God, I hope you still do. I hope you’re still alive to love each other. But if you are, where are you and why don’t you write?

Multiple roundups have come and gone. The windmills in the north section—remember, they were your quixotic notion—saved 2,000 cattle during the drought last year. I’m now forced to overcome my own pride and stubbornness and admit you had good ideas. Oh Lord, what I’d give to have you back right now, arguing with me about some other new-fangled innovation…or maybe just talking about dogs. Do you remember Ceirdwyn and Bruce, Lady’s pups? Joe and Bruce are almost inseparable. Joe says he has the greatest “team” to work with—between Bruce and Cochise the cows have nowhere to hide. And Ceirdwyn…you wouldn’t believe this in a million years…she’s mine, and as devoted to me as Lady ever was to you. Except for inheriting her father’s brown eyes, she is the spitting image of Lady, and she has her courage, too. Remember Jigger Thurman’s bull? Well, the old rapscallion got out of his pen again and headed our way. Joe and I took Ceirdwyn and Bruce out and found him. Guess who won the fight? By the time Ceirdwyn was finished with that bull, he was happy to go home.

You and Tilly would be proud of me, Adam. I struck a blow for women’s rights a few months ago when I saw Beth Cameron—you remember her—in the bank arguing vehemently with Cyrus over the possibility of procuring a loan. She wished to buy Cass’s store—you remember Will Cass, don’t you? He died last fall, and his daughter has decided to sell out. Mrs. Cameron wanted to buy it, but couldn’t get a loan because of her sex. I told Cyrus it was a lot of balderdash. By one means or another, I eventually persuaded him to see reason, and so the lady now owns two stores. The second store is exclusively devoted to shoes, boots, and hosiery. I drop in on Mrs. Cameron of an evening now for a cup of coffee, just to ensure she’s still well, and I’m told both stores are doing a lot of business.

This will make your eyebrows go up. Mrs. Cameron confessed to me that even after all this time she has never come to terms with your actions during the Sam Bryant business, and it is in vain that I have assured her how masterfully you handled the situation. Perhaps it’s something women can’t understand. Tilly, I suppose I just loss the vote of confidence with you. I wonder what you think of how your husband handled that affair—although if I know my son…and I do…he probably never told you the story, either.

Joseph met a young lady in town a week ago and has that look in his eye again—but this time, Adam, he isn’t talking about it. He’s been very quiet lately, and I have even seen him reading books—real books, “borrowed” from your room—of late. I haven’t said anything, but I have to wonder…oh, and Adam, I was thinking…just in case you and your mother—mothers—are looking down, would you mind putting in a good word with the Lord regarding—

“Pa…” Hoss’s voice trailed off sadly as Ben jumped. “I thought you’d quit doin’ that.”

Ben cleared his throat almost guiltily and stuffed the letter into its envelope. “There’s no crime in reading a son’s letters. If you or Joe ever left, I would do the same thing with yours.”

“For three years after you’d gotten it?” Joe asked quietly. “Pa, a couple of days after Adam sent his last letter, the Prussian army attacked France, and we haven’t heard a thing from him or Tilly since. It’s been two years since that war started, nearly two years since it ended, and we haven’t had so much as a telegram. He hasn’t contacted the bank either, and you know he’d have run out of cash by now.”

Hoss added—it probably wasn’t meant to be as cruel as it sounded—“And when Tilly’s people in Spain went lookin’ in Paris, they found the whole street where Adam and Tilly lived was bombed to rubble.”

“They were going to move,” Ben said flatly. “You said so yourself, Hoss. They could have been out before the street was bombed.”

“Then why haven’t we heard from them?” Joe asked. “The war was over within six months. Don’t you think two years is a long time for someone to not do anything to contact us?”

“Why are you both trying so hard to convince me that my son is dead?” Ben roared.

A long silence followed.

“It’s not what I want,” Joe mumbled finally. “I just can’t think of any other explanation for them disappearing. His last letter was from July of 1870. He was homesick and planning to come back…and then we never heard from him again, and his house was destroyed. If it was someone else’s son, what would you think?”

“I would think,” Ben said slowly, “that it was that person’s business, not mine.”

“Pa, we got a stake in this too—he’s our brother, after all,” Hoss said in a thick, hoarse voice that threatened tears. “I can’t bring myself to believe it either, not after all the times we thought we’d lost him but he somehow came through. I pulled him out of the Ophir mine all by myself when everybody else thought he was dead. We were ready to chalk him up after Eastgate—and that was after two weeks, not two years. But silence gets loud after a while, and two years of it…oughtta tell us somethin’.”

“We spent the whole first year after the war waiting for a letter.” Joe sighed heavily. “You rode in every day yourself, as if you thought it made a difference. This last year…I thought you were gonna pull yourself together and move on. You’ve still got us, Pa, and we still love you. Don’t forget to enjoy the rest of your life.”

“What do you think we should do,” Ben said, daring them to respond.

“I’d say it’s time to put those seven letters away, and maybe read ’em on his birthdays from now on. Remember the good times, let go of the bad, and pray that his spirit found rest.” Joe put an encouraging hand on his father’s shoulder.

“And I’d say it’s time to get out the other two envelopes, the ones in the bottom of that box,” Hoss added. “If he had business to tie up, we need to set about tyin’ it up.”

Ben had begun to waver at Joe’s suggestion, but now he looked askance at Hoss. “No. I’m not ready for that.”

“Then Joe and I’ll handle it, if you can’t. We understand, Pa.”

“No!” Ben shouted. “Not yet!”

His two sons eyed him for a moment. Hoss broke first, as expected.

“Well, I need to get home or Veralyn’s gonna have my hide. I’ll be over in the mornin’ early. Joe, you still game to divert that stream tomorrow?”

“Sure, Hoss. Hey, I’ll ride with you as far as the turnoff. Goodnight, Pa; I’ll give Alice a hello from you.”

Alice? Who the heck is Alice? Ben thought vaguely, but he found he didn’t really care. He watched as his two sons walked out together, and then sorted through the letters, as if by squeezing them hard enough he could find more information. Adam, where are you? You can’t be dead—I’d know in my heart if you were. But I find myself thinking of you with God…and…I haven’t even seen you in my dreams in all this time. It’s been more than three years since you left…did Tilly die, and you couldn’t face coming back alone? Did you die, without even saying goodbye to me?

It’s been nearly two years since your last letter. But not exactly. It’s only the middle of August. Adam, you wrote the last letter in July and we got it in September. So I’ll give you till the end of the month—that will be two years. And then…what? I don’t know…I don’t have the strength to give up.

Lord, why the silence? You’ve spoken to me before, sometimes in the strangest, most unexpected circumstances. Lord, where is my son?

 

Chapter 17

“I’m Callin’ You Out…”

 

October, 1872, London

“Guinness, Alfie,” the young man called out, and made his way through the pub to the only occupied table. “Mind?” he gestured to the opposite chair, and the bald, bespectacled little fellow sitting there shrugged.

“Desperate for company, are ya?” the little fellow asked, swirling his own ale and taking a long draught.

The boy smiled. “I’ve been cutting up cadavers all day. After a while one gets an urge to talk to someone where there’s a possibility of getting a response.”

The man chuckled and wiped the foam from his lip with one hand, extending the other. “Homer Franklin. And as I reckon you’ve gathered, I’m not from around here.”

“No…New York, I’d venture,” said the youth, shaking the proffered hand.

“Good guess.”

“I try not to guess. I’ve heard your accent before, and it’s always belonged to a New Yorker. Your suit also has an American cut.”

“Not much gets past you, eh kid? So what’s the name on your birth certificate?”

The boy laughed. “My actual name and what’s on my birth certificate are two different things. But as you asked, it’s Sherlock Holmes. Why does an American find such interest in the London Times Agony Column?”

“Well, I’ll tell ya, Sherlock…Holmes, was it? You wouldn’t have a brother named William, by any chance, would ya?”

The boy looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. “I have two brothers. Neither was blessed with such a name, however.”

“Too bad. For a minute I thought you might be related to someone special. I’ve been looking for someone named Liam or William Scott Holmes, and the only one I’ve found is 68 years old and in Ireland.”

“Sorry. Holmes is a very common name here. I happen to think I’m pretty special, though.”

“Doubtless.” The American tapped the newspaper. “Take a look at this advertisement here. ‘Adam and Tilly—you are sorely missed. When will you return? Lady waits just round the corner from the British Museum. I’ll be with her. Yours till the cows come home, Liam.’ Now what do you make of that?”

“That’s been in the column for almost two years now,” Holmes said thoughtfully. “You’d think a fellow would give up by now. These people are obviously unwilling, or unable, to respond.”

“But this Liam fellow hasn’t given up yet.”

“He is certainly a sentimental fool,” Holmes snorted. “Probably the sort of fellow who’d keep a friend’s dog for years, too.”

“Well, he may be, but the fella’s father is, too, and he’s loaded.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Franklin shrugged and pointed at the ad again. “Adam and Tilly. Last name, Cartwright. Couple of Americans who got married and decided to get cultured for their honeymoon. Cartwright’s old man is a moneybags kind of guy out West—cowboys and Indians and all that. He hired me to find them—or at least find out what happened to them. Never saw a case with so many dead ends. Problem is, apparently they were still in Paris when things blew up between the Frogs and the Cabbage-heads.”

“Frogs and Cabbage-heads? Do you mean the French and Germans?”

“Yeah, don’t you call ’em that here?”

“Not really. You see, my grandmother is a ‘Frog.’ And my reigning sovereign is, technically, a Cabbage-head. Why, two of the German princes are her sons-in-law. A lot of us in this part of the world are related to each other. But you were telling me about a fellow looking for his son.”

“Like I said, everywhere’s a dead end. Only hope I ever held for this Liam guy was just that if I found him I could definitively tell Old Man Cartwright the case is closed. But I guess it doesn’t matter. This way I keep gettin’ paid, and I don’t have to work for it. Still, I’d like to have SOMETHING to show for all I’ve done.”

“What exactly have you done?”

“Oh, the usual. I went to Paris, checked their last known address—bombed all to hell, it was—found other people on that street and asked if they knew if anyone was in the flat when it got hit. Nobody knew a thing…dead end number one…went to the American Embassy—tell you what, Washburne’s clerk thinks he’s the King of Prussia himself.”

“Prussia doesn’t have a king. There’s an emperor running things now, you know. The kaiser.”

“Well, in any case, Washburne’s clerk thinks he runs the embassy. Won’t let nobody see the ambassador ’less’n they’re on a diplomatic mission. But he knows everybody that’s come and gone in the last couple years and says the Cartwrights never came to see ’em, so that was dead end number two. Checked over at the French government offices—Thiers’s people. They thought Mrs. Cartwright might have come in at one point, but they didn’t have any records of it. Checked all the morgues, showed their pictures to half the French population. Didn’t help. They had friends in Paris—like this English kid I’m looking for—who is, by indications from this newspaper, looking for them too, but I can’t find him.”

“What do you expect he would tell you?”

“Nothing useful, I’m sure. Apparently he thinks running a newspaper ad is the way to make a search. But at least I could tell Old Man Cartwright that I tried. I mean, the other two friends, one was a Cabbage—oh, sorry, a German, and he left Paris right after the war started so he wouldn’t know, and the only guy left was a French guy who ran afoul of a couple of looters not long after the war ended, and got himself killed.”

“How terrible!” the young man said sympathetically.

“Yeah. I’m out of leads.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” Holmes polished off his stout and stood up. “By the way, have you tried contacting this ‘Liam’ through the London Times?”

“Kid, you are obviously not a professional. Of course I have. All they’ve got is a cash receipt and a post office box. Even staked out the post office once, but I really didn’t know who I was looking for. I mean, this Holmes kid is only described as skinny, with long black hair, and is somewhere around 16 years old.”

“You mean 18,” Holmes said absent-mindedly, running a thin hand through his short black hair.

“What makes you think so?”

“Well, if this whole thing started two years ago and he was 16 then, he’d be 18 now—right?”

“Huh. Guess so. Well, nice talkin’ to ya, kid.”

“Surely. Um…this Cartwright fellow in Montana…what about him?”

“Old Man Cartwright? The particulars of the case here are so pitiful they’re mostly public, but I gotta respect my client’s confidentiality. Besides, I’m the kinda guy likes to play things a little close to the vest.”

Holmes quirked up his thin lips into a half-smile. “Of course. Good afternoon—and good luck to you.”

 

Chapter 18

“You know we can’t keep livin’ in the past…”

 

November, 1872, Nevada

Her name was Alice Harper. Joe couldn’t remember the day of the week that he’d met her, and he only remembered the circumstances because they had been unpleasant—she had thought he was fleecing her brother. He remembered very little of all that mundane stuff. He only remembered her.

Unlike the multitude of past girls he’d loved from afar, loved and lost, or loved and left, Alice was not the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. She was indisputably pretty, sure. But not the most beautiful. She didn’t leave trails of magic everywhere she walked, like some of the girls who’d struck him senseless. Her voice was quiet and a little shy—not stage quality. She was diminutive, and her wide, dark eyes were soft and gentle, not sparkly and mischievous.

He’d been in love so many times, and each and every girl had been the most beautiful, the most special, the most…something-or-other, he no longer knew what, but while he’d once been so sure about that past parade, he couldn’t remember even one of them now. Not one of those beauties stood out in his mind as anything other than a girl who’d made him feel momentarily special himself. Alice Harper was none of these things, but there was some indefinable, almost luminous, quality about her…some connection between his very soul and hers.

And for the first time in his life, his attention wasn’t drawn to how wonderful she made him feel. His sole focus was on what he could do for her, and how he could make her feel wonderful. This was different from anything he’d ever known before; he wanted to do things for her, build things for her. Unlike all those other girls, for whom the most memorable time in the world was that very moment, he wasn’t thinking about “the moment” with Alice.

He was thinking about eternity. Forever. He wanted to live a lifetime with her, and then some.

It would be a shock to Pa; that was certain. Usually when Joe Cartwright was in love with a girl, all of Virginia City knew about it. But he was pretty sure he’d never mentioned Alice. They’d gone out on a few walks…they’d sat and talked for hours…he’d taken her to a dance or two. Most girls he took to every dance within riding distance. But while he loved to dance with Alice, he also loved to sit and talk to her; sit and listen to her. Sit and look at her and wonder, for the first time in his life, what went on inside her head, what made her do the things she did, think the way she thought.

They’d gone riding more often than dancing; walking more often than picnicking. Talking more than kissing. He wanted to know her—and for her to know him. For the first time, courtship wasn’t a social event. It was personal.

He’d even taken her up to Hoss’s little valley, once. The most special place in the world.

“He calls it ‘the Happy Place.’ See way over there—that’s the house he built for his wife. I’ll take you to meet them soon. You’ll love ’em both. Never thought Hoss would get married, but he finally got over bein’ shy and asked her.”

“And Hoss is really as big as Jigger Thurman’s bull?”

“That’s Hoss.”

“He must really love this land. It’s so beautiful here.”

“Yeah, he claimed it even before he turned legal. He does love this place. We used to come here a lot when we were kids, especially when we wanted to get away from Adam.”

“Who’s Adam?”

For the first time, he hesitated. “My other brother. He was the oldest. Used to boss me and Hoss around till we’d run off up here just so he couldn’t find us.”

“I didn’t know you had another brother.”

“He…” it came out naturally and unforced, which had to mean it was true: “he died. About two years ago. He’d just got married, and he and his wife went to Europe, and then they had that war over there. They were caught in the middle of it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He was so bossy, Alice. Bossy, stubborn as a mule…he used to make us crazy—but at the same time, I’ll tell ya, Hoss and I never had to worry when he was around, either. He thought it was his mission in life to protect the two of us—even after we were grown up and didn’t want protecting anymore. I remember one time I was in a fight and Adam jumped in to help me, and I punched him just to let him know I didn’t need his help.” He laughed a little, but his voice trembled when he went on. “Turned out I did need his help after all.”

“You must have loved him very much.”

For a moment his throat was too tight to reply. “If lovin’ could be measured in punches thrown, Alice, he died knowin’ his kid brother adored him. I hope to God he knew it, anyway.”

Joe swallowed hard as he put up Cochise. He was pretty sure he’d never been as honest with a woman in his life as he’d been with Alice. It was hard to imagine saying aloud to anyone, even Pa or Hoss, what he’d said to her…but he’d said it, and he didn’t regret it. And she’d understood.

In the morning, maybe he’d talk to Pa. And then he’d talk to Alice. Now he knew why Adam and Tilly had gotten married so fast. He could hardly wait, himself. He wanted his own “forever” with Alice to start as soon as possible.

**

Ben was allowing Hoss, Joe, and Mutton Jim more and more of the day-to-day running of the ranch, while he frequently stayed at home with Ceirdwyn. He looked down at her and smiled. From being the “not a dog person” fellow that he had thought of himself for most of his life, Ben had developed a soft spot the size of the Ponderosa for those collies, and his little lady Ceirdwyn especially. She always seemed to know when he was feeling low—like today—and kept herself pressed against his leg, grabbing his hand in her mouth whenever she could reach it, and at all times providing easy access to her head if he wanted to give her a quick pat between the ears.

Ceirdwyn’s brother, Bruce, lived with them as well, but he was Joe’s dog. On the days when they had to work the cattle, Bruce earned his bed and board, just as did Honey and Gumbo, who now lived with Hoss and Veralyn. The collies—even Ceirdwyn—were all working dogs. And they were great friends. Collies. The first collie at the Ponderosa had been Lady, and Adam was the one who had found her and brought her home…and now he and Tilly and Lady were gone…everything always came back to that. Adam was gone. It had been more than two years since Adam’s last letter had arrived. Adam and Tilly were under a pile of rubble somewhere in France, and Lady had been eaten. It was as simple as that.

Joe and Hoss were right. It was time to move on.

There were two other letters in the box where Adam’s correspondence was kept. One of them was in a long envelope so white and clean that there was no doubt in Ben’s mind what it could be. It was Adam’s will. Of course he would have one; he had handwritten one at age 13, leaving his guitar to his toddler brother Joseph and his horse, Trigger, to Hoss. His possessions might have changed a bit in the intervening years, but his organized mind had not. He had handed the envelope to Ben at the San Francisco dock when he hugged his father goodbye, saying “You know I’ll be back—but it’s always best to be careful.” And the thickness of the package convinced Ben that there were probably letters for himself and the others…but he didn’t think he could look at those right now.

The other letter was not from Adam—it was to him, and had been hand-delivered the fall of 1870, when they still expected him to return. Until now Ben had been saving it, reluctant to read it unless he had to. He knew only that it was important and dealt with business that “had to be handled.” Ben had been away that day and had not spoken to the woman who had brought it to the Ponderosa. But Hoss and Joe had talked to her…and their account of the conversation had made Ben shiver.

He tapped the letter in his hands for a few minutes. Not for the first time, he wondered about the woman who had obsessed Adam so many years ago. He had been out of his head, raving, and in the midst of all that it had seemed quite reasonable to believe Ruth to be no more than one of his fevered rants. But she had been real enough to Adam that he had defied his father’s wrathful orders and ridden off to look for her. Hoss had gone with him, not so much to look for the woman as to ensure Adam survived and came home. Ben had lost track of the number of weeks they were gone; he only knew that when Adam came back there was a grim set to his jaw that had never been quite so pronounced before…and when Ben had unwisely disregarded Hoss’s careful shake of the head to ask what had happened, Adam had looked witheringly at him and said, “You were right, Pa. You always are. I hope it’s enough for you.” He had never mentioned Ruth again; for that matter, he had never mentioned windmills again. When the flatlands had suffered the loss of their water in the drought, Adam, although he had contributed to the work, had advanced only a few ideas toward it—Ben himself had suggested the flatland windmills, and Adam had only gone along with it. In fact, he had only gone along with everything for years, never mentioning any other kind of ranching innovations, either—until Tilly.

Hoss stomped in without knocking. “Mornin’ Pa. Hey, did Hop Sing fix extra bacon by any chance?”

“Didn’t you eat at home?”

“Well sure, but I can’t take a chance on offending Hop Sing now, can I?” He disappeared into the kitchen as Joe stumbled down the stairs, yawning.

“Better hurry,” Ben advised. “Hoss just went in for his second breakfast.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I ain’t too hungry then, huh?” Joe looked at the envelope in his father’s hands, and his eyes widened. “What are you doin’, Pa?”

Ben looked evenly at him. “Something I should have done months ago,” he said. “Go ahead and eat. I’ll let you know if it’s something I can’t handle myself.”

He turned the envelope over and looked at the penciled note on the back. The woman’s handwriting was minuscule. Muttering, he dug his reading glasses from the desk drawer. He didn’t mind being a little slower and stiffer at age 58; he’d earned those aches and pains. But he resented the devil out of the vision changes. He put the glasses on and read the envelope:

Adam, your brothers told me you loved me and you tried to find me. Forgive the doubt I wrote of in this letter. You always had my love, even when you had my doubt as well. Now you have only my love—and you always will. Ruth

For a moment he held his breath, suddenly realizing this was a very personal and private piece of correspondence…this woman had loved his son, had called him her husband. He remembered Adam confusedly referring to her as his wife, as well. He swallowed hard. “Adam, I’m sorry…but son, you should have come home…”

He took his letter opener—a gold-colored implement designed to look like a small, ornate sword, with “Toledo” stamped on the blade. Adam had sent it to him from Spain with some joke about how Ben Cartwright could show all the matadors his very own Toledo sword.

The letter was two pages long, on small sheets, written in that neat but painfully tiny script. Then there were two more pages—of maps? He took a deep breath and began.

“My only love, my Adam…” Before long he could hardly go on, but it was no longer the size of the print affecting him so.

Hoss and Joe came out of the kitchen to find him with his face in his hands.

“Pa?”

He did not respond.

“Are you feeling sick or somethin’?” Hoss demanded.

“Ruth.” A sniff. “I have to go to Oregon,” Ben whispered, not moving his hands. “I have to go…”

Joe picked up the letter without asking and read aloud.

“My only love, my Adam,

“At last I know where you live, now that it is almost too late to matter. And tomorrow I leave my people and my…A-u-d-u-n…” His voice trailed off. “Hoss, didn’t she keep saying somethin’ like ‘Ow-doon’ when she was here?”

“Yeah…guess we’ll find out what it means now. Read on, little brother.”

“…And tomorrow I leave my people and my Audun to see you again. Do you even remember me? Once you called me your wife. You promised to love, honor and cherish me forever. I made the same promise to you. I kept my promise. You are the only man I ever loved and the only one I will ever love, but I do not know if you will even recognize me.

“I know that I left and you were angry, but you must remember the Shoshone had threatened to kill you if I did not go with them. I hoped that someday, you might come and find me, but the years have gone and you did not. I wonder, would you have come if you knew I carried your son?” Joe stopped reading and looked up. “Holy cow.”

“Keep reading,” Hoss said quietly, his face pale.

“I was bitter when he was born, and I named him Audun. It means ‘deserted.’ I am not bitter now, and I am sorry for what I did. He knows what the word means, but does not know why he is named so. I have told him nothing but good things about you, Adam, for there was much good to tell. He is a fine boy, my Audun, your son. I wonder if you met him, would you be as proud as I am of him. He is why I write to you, my husband. When you did not come, I knew you did not want me, but I had the best part of you and so I was content. I would have been happy to grow old watching my Audun take the journey to manhood, but God has planned for me another direction. The fire began to burn in my belly last summer. Now it is summer again, but the shamans and healers all say I will not see another.

“When I found your child in me, the Shoshone said I had deceived them, that I was but a mortal woman, but they did not kill me. Instead I was banished. I wandered for a time alone with my son, and then found a band of Nez Perce hiding from the whites. They did not have a White Buffalo Woman legend, and accepted me for myself—a healer. I have my own status in the band, unusual for a woman in other tribes, but the Nez Perce are good to women. They call me Willow Bark because of the teas I make. I am happy with them, and so is Audun—but I look at him and I see you, and I know he must go to you at the last. Even if you no longer want me, Adam, will you accept your son? He has my eyes. But if I never see you again it does not matter, because to look at him is to see you.

“The Nez Perce are hiding, but that only slows what must be. The whites must rule the land. Even today you are the only kind white man I have known, and I want Audun to be the kind of man you are—not a conquered man like the Indian, and not a cruel man like all the other whites.

“I do not even know if you will talk to me when I find you, but it does not matter. You told me that families belong together. If you still believe what you said then, you must know Audun belongs with you. Please come for him. He will stay with this band of the Nez Perce until you do. I include maps to both their summer and winter grounds. I am begging you, my husband, to come and give our son the life—and the father—he deserves. Let me keep him while I live, please, as he comforts me each day, but when I am dead, he must go to you, and you must be his father, and he must be your son; and your people will be his people, and your God, his God.

“This time, I entreat you not to leave me.

“Ruth”

Joe handed the letter to Hoss and looked at his father. “I think you meant we have to go to Oregon, Pa. You can’t leave me out of a trip like this.”

“Veralyn’s gonna be fit to be tied,” Hoss said thoughtfully, looking over the letter. “But I don’t see y’all goin’ without me, either.”

 

Chapter 19

“But they’ll all return again…”

 

(A brief jump back to June, 1871, Paris)

The exact death toll following the executions of the Communards has never been calculated. The Regular Army went from street to street, shooting and stabbing with impunity. Most of them had been fed lies and propaganda to work them into their killing fit; anyone suspected of being a Communard was a target. Subsequent sweeps picked up sympathizers and suspected sympathizers. Estimates from Versailles said the total executed was around 17,000, but other sources put the death toll at more than twice that: men, women, even children not yet in their teens were rounded up and shot by firing squads. Victor Hugo’s famous poem, “Sur une Barricade,” immortalized the story of a 12-year-old boy shot to death while his mother watched helplessly.

Other Communards, however, even some in line for execution, were spared that fate by the most arbitrary of circumstances…

Adam Cartwright puffed his chest out to give them a bigger target, and as the minutes passed like years, the seconds became hours…then there was a loud commotion as a squad of men appeared, bringing in a new prisoner, and Tilly’s voice rang out, a bit breathless: “Captain! Captain, I’m sorry to interrupt, but can you please execute us together?”

“Tilly, what on God’s earth are you doing?” Adam demanded as she slipped away from her captors and ran to him.

“Oh, turns out I’m a dreadful terrorist, Adam. See, I’m wearing a red socialist skirt and carrying a jar of oil and everything.”

“What?”

“Yeah—so they arrested me and said they’ll have to execute me for that, so I thought it would be more convenient for them to shoot us both at once. I’m so glad I got here in time!”

“Are you crazy? Tilly, this is real—they’re going to—”

She was handcuffed in front, so she was able to reach up and put a finger to his lips. “We’ve got two minutes left to live. Let’s not spend them fighting. I have no doubt you’ve been thinking of your family. In a few minutes we’ll get to meet mine!”

“But Tilly, you told me you could live without me. I was counting on you to do it.”

“Well…” she pressed as close as she could to him and smiled through the beginnings of tears. She blinked them back and shrugged. “Seems I was wrong.”

“No, we’re not going to execute you together,” the captain in charge of executions shouted. “We only have 10 men on the firing squad. If you stand together—”

“Then we’ll make a bigger target, and be twice as easy for you to hit!” Tilly supplied enthusiastically.

“No; you will only receive half the bullets!”

At that, Adam gave a short, barking laugh of incredulity. “Are you telling me it takes you 10 bullets to kill one man? No wonder you lost the war!”

“Salaud!” the captain shouted, and slapped him across the face. Tilly jumped between them then, as the captain was pulling out his revolver with the apparent intention of finishing off Adam himself.

“Captain, you’ve got two alternate firing squad members,” Tilly pointed out. “Put them in the lineup and then you’ll have six bullets for each of us. Now, I can’t vouch for Adam, but I promise you I’ll die if six bullets hit me.”

The captain stared at Tilly in something like amusement, and began to laugh. He sauntered back to the firing squad, shouting orders for the alternates to report.

“You had to make it easy for them,” Adam muttered under his breath.

“Well, you were gonna make it real easy,” Tilly retorted. “Adam, he was gonna pull the trigger himself, and at this close range he might have even hit you.”

“I wanted to die with a little dignity.”

“And instead you got stuck with me.” She pressed against him again. “I happen to believe there’s not a whole lot of dignity in any kind of dying—but I’d rather be undignified with you than anybody else. I’m just hoping that Heaven’s really all it’s cracked up to be. My mother and father and both my brothers are waiting…and it’s not that I’m not anxious to see them again, but—”

“You didn’t have to go and get yourself arrested, you know.”

“Well, thanks for pointing that out now. Where were you when I was making my decisions?” She looked up at him and tried to smile, but it didn’t work.

The waiting was the hardest. The two alternate members took their time reporting, finally joining in line. “Now we will proceed,” the captain shouted. “No more interruptions, I hope!”

“Captain Jarvelle,” a runner gasped, puffing up. “New orders, sir. Immediate reply.”

“My God, can we not have one peaceful execution?” the captain cried in exasperation, grabbing the leather bag from the runner. He read the single sheet of paper contained therein. “Everybody?”

“Everybody, sir,” the runner replied. “Immediately.”

“What about these two here?” The captain demanded. “I really want to kill these two. Or at least him.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Everybody currently in the yard is to be shipped to New Caledonia.”

“Where in heck is that?” Adam whispered to Tilly. “Isn’t it in Canada?”

“Um…maybe. Sorry—I have no idea,” she whispered back. It was the first lie she had ever told him, but she had taught European history and geography too long not to know where it was. And in Adam’s present state of mind, learning that their new home might be a French prison colony on a tiny island in the South Pacific might just make him dare the captain to pull the trigger after all.

“Merde. Take them where you will.” The captain turned and strode away, leaving his executive officer—who had been standing nearby drinking brandy, ignorant of the goings-on—to carry out the orders.

Those thought by the government to be the worst of the Communards were deported to New Caledonia; this number is estimated at between 5,000 and 15,000. (How Adam and Tilly Cartwright ended up in the “worst of” group can be debated, but then, so can most of the stories from the Paris Commune. Everyone in the “Commune” had one of at least two labels—Wickham Hoffman called them all drunken terrorists and brigands; Karl Marx proclaimed them all heroes.) A few escaped, going on to Switzerland, Belgium, and Great Britain. But Adam and Tilly did not escape. They were marched, in a group of some 1,500 prisoners, to a depot called Quélern, where they stayed for three months. As all prisoners there were separated by gender, they hardly ever saw one another except from a distance, and once two weeks went by without even that. After this they were loaded onto a prison ship, but in the disorganization and the crowd they still managed to find each other and board together.

“Still think marrying me was a smart decision?” Adam tried to quip when he saw their new home—large cages on the gun deck that each would share with 99 other people. The entire gun deck was littered with such cages.

“I used to think losing you would make for an empty life.” Tilly supplied a wan smile. “Being with you sure makes for a full one.”

Adam snorted. “Full…downright crowded if you ask me. Tilly, why in the name of God didn’t you go home?”

“I am home,” Tilly said quietly, and the look she gave him was one he could not argue.

Their luck—if it could be called that—held, and both were placed in the same cage. Still, if the voyage from San Francisco had been nightmarish, this one was beyond description. Neither Adam nor Tilly was ever able to discuss it afterwards, even with each other. Prisoners were packed into large metal cages in groups of 100; there was no privacy, no separation by gender in that first shipment, no sanitation unless one counted the single slop bucket that served each cage; there was one cup of foul-tasting water per person per day, and a single meal of maggoty bread each day that Adam frequently had to fight the other prisoners for in order to ensure Tilly got a share.

“Funny, isn’t it,” Tilly remarked one day after just such a battle, “these people are all here because they believed in common property. But they’ll kill each other over a scrap of bug-infested bread just the same as a couple of capitalists.”

Adam scratched his chin. His beard was growing out and the itch was maddening. At least in prison they had shaved him once a week. “I doubt it’s ever occurred to them. Something along the lines of ‘there was never yet philosopher who could endure a toothache patiently.’”

Such conversations were few and far between. For half an hour each day they were able to walk about on the deck, and then it was back to the cage. The cages were just under six feet high, so Adam and many of the other men could not stand up straight in them. Finding a comfortable way to sit was almost impossible because of the bars—though Adam and Tilly occasionally sat back to back, giving each other a more forgiving surface. Adam’s back bothered him every time he made a sudden move, and while he had never told Tilly about the shrapnel he’d taken on the day he’d found his friend Girard Gravois, she knew something was wrong. But comfort was secondary to staying alive. Hundreds of people died on the transports; those unfortunates were jokingly called “shark food.” Adam and Tilly did not become shark food; some 37 of their fellow cage members, however, did die during the trip, which had the positive effect of giving everyone else a little leg room.

Adam noticed almost immediately that they were sailing south rather than west. “All right—where is this place?” he asked on one of their brief exercise periods, just after a horrifying crossing under what he assumed was the Cape of Good Hope. “You told me you taught European history, and this must be a French possession, so I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”

She cringed visibly. “About a thousand miles east of Australia.”

“And now you’re a fount of information. Why didn’t you know this when I asked you?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Anything else you know that I don’t?”

“Right now, I don’t know much of anything, Adam…except that I didn’t want us to die back there—and I don’t want us to die here, either.”

“I have no intention of dying,” Adam said. “And even less intention of your dying. Tilly, my home is in Nevada, and as crazy as it sounds after how desperate I was to leave, there is nothing on earth I want more than for us to get back there together.”

 

Chapter 20

“If we make it through the night we’ll be all right…”

 

December 1871, in transit

In the Southwestern Pacific, the season for hurricanes—known in that part of the world primarily as tropical cyclones or typhoons—begins in November and ends between May and June. The former “ship of the line” Tragus of the French Navy, now simply the prison hulk Trage, was four and-a-half months into its five-month voyage when it had the misfortune to be in the same general location as the outer fringe of one such cyclone. They crossed paths only briefly—about five or six hours—but in that five or six hours, the ship nearly went down. Rain pounded the hulk so badly that prisoners were released from their cages and forced to help bail; eight of them, along with three crew members, were washed overboard during a particularly bad pitch.

Adam and Tilly were not among those washed overboard. With Adam it was either a matter of luck or divine providence; with Tilly it was much simpler. Adam had, much over her protests, lashed her to one of the masts. He couldn’t hear her howls over the shrieking wind as he and the other men bailed, and it wouldn’t have mattered if he had. For months he had been in a black rage over his failure to protect his wife, first from her miscarriage in Spain, then from the robbers in Italy, since he was convinced it was their attack that had brought on her second miscarriage. And of course France…he hadn’t been able to protect either of them from the war, or her third miscarriage—or from any other the other results of their stay in Paris. In fact, he occasionally thought gloomily, Lady was probably the only one he’d been able to do right by, and only then because he’d turned her over to somebody else.

At the moment he wasn’t thinking about Lady, or anyone else in particular; he was just trying to stay alive and keep enough water out of the ship so they could get to wherever the devil they were going. He’d heard a rumor that once they arrived, they would be allowed to send letters home, and at the moment his only hope was that sending a letter home would bring his father. French government notwithstanding, he was certain Ben Cartwright would not allow his son to rot in some island prison.

The rain pounded down on them with such driving force it felt like having the contents of a bucket dumped incessantly on their heads. Occasionally a bolt of lightning lit up the distant sky—just enough to let them know there was no help and no respite.

Tilly, held rigidly to the mast, abandoned her screaming—resolving to save that for later when Adam could hear her—and began to pray for enough mercy to last them through the night. Just the night; she didn’t dare to have long-range plans at the moment. And God was in a merciful mood. The cyclone continued its southward swing as the ship headed northeast. They made landfall two weeks later. It was January—summer in the South Pacific—when they arrived at their destination.

Most of the prisoners were dropped off on New Caledonia’s main island, Grande Terre, but Adam, Tilly, and about 500 other prisoners were taken to Ile des Pins, a tiny island about 20 miles to the south. They were weak and thin and bordering on scurvy, and unless the typhoon two weeks before would count as such, no one had had a bath in five months.

To top everything off, the French government was as prepared for this sudden prisoner inundation as it had been for the Prussians and the Communard uprising, which was to say not at all. There were few supplies and little food; no cells had been built—the colony had not been designed as a prison. “You can all be pioneers!” the prisoners were told when they left the ships to row ashore. “Go forth and conquer!”

But the prisoners were so happy to be on land that they didn’t care. Having had no privacy for five months, modesty was ignored as everyone stripped and bathed in the ocean before putting on their new prison “uniforms.”

The lack of jail cells was another boost—the prisoners had free run of the island, as it was small and there was no place to go. It was easier to simply expect them to do for themselves. They were all issued one set of clothing and told to build their own hovels, find their own food, and stay out of trouble. Beyond this, they were left alone.

No dresses had been brought along for the women, either, and the overseers decided to humiliate them by making them wear men’s peasant blouses and work pants. Unknown to Adam, Tilly had always wanted to wear pants. She would never have dared to do so—now it was not only allowed, but mandatory.

“I feel like George Sand!” she burbled excitedly when she put them on.

He was stripping bark from some twigs so they could brush their teeth, and looked up in confusion at that. “Why? Your name doesn’t sound anything like a man’s, and you’ve never written a novel in your life.”

“Shucks, Adam,” she said impatiently. “George Sand’s name wasn’t anything like a man’s either. Her real name is Aumontine Lucile.” She spun about in the canvas work pants. “I mean these. What do you think?”

Adam smiled and patted her backside. “Just this once, acushla, I’d say the end justifies the jeans!”

The first three or four days the prisoners stayed bunched together. Having heard plenty about the savagery of the Kanak, the indigenous people, they wanted nothing to do with them and figured their only strength was in numbers.

The men now took stock of themselves and attempted to form a community. A couple of men who had been instrumental in the operation of the Montmartre district of the Commune, Tremerreaux and Balliere, started organizing: they designated people to hunt, fish, and garden. Others were assigned to cleaning the animals brought in and still others to prepare meals. So the prisoners did become pioneers in their exile. Using whatever they could find, the men set to work building their own hovels, and began to till the ground and plant gardens with the few seeds they had been given. Still others located wild yams and other edible plants. Many of the Communards had been laborers, but few were builders, and most of them were from the city, so frontier living was not something they knew much about.

The island was rich in food—yams and a form of wild rice grew in abundance, and there were chicken-sized, flightless birds the French called cagou. Oddly, the strange birds—and a variety of lizards which also ended in many a stew pot—were the only animal life. There were no cows, goats, or any other kind of mammal—except bats. However, fish, crayfish, and even large snails were plentiful.

This was hardly Adam’s first time as a pioneer, and finding himself on a place called “Island of Pines” reminded him of home and heartened him considerably. The fact that they weren’t pines at all, but Araucaria trees, was something to shrug off; they looked like pines, made cones like pines, and the cones made edible nuts like pines. As far as Adam was concerned, he could look up at them and realize the same sky covered them that covered the pines at home. The constellations he saw at night were different, but the moon and sun were the same. Little things like uncleared land, no supplies, no house, and no food didn’t scare him…and one man knew it.

“You are the American Adam Cartwright, officially known as Adam Charron?” Tremerreaux asked, almost as soon as they were off the boats.

Adam looked curiously at him. He’d done his best to keep a low profile. “Why?”

“I am Armand Tremerreaux. Girard Gravois told me about you back in Paris. You and your woman were the only Americans in Montmartre; I made it my business to find out more about you.”

“All right, now you know.”

“Adam Cartwright, we’re all city people. Some of the men and women worked on farms outside Paris, but most of us were laborers in factories. We have no experience at hunting, or building log cabins—”

Adam chuckled, looking around. “We won’t be building any log cabins. At least the pioneers had axes.”

Tremerreaux shrugged. “Nevertheless, you must understand what I mean. You will be expecting to live in the Commune, so you must be a useful part of it. We can use your wilderness experience. Girard told me that in spite of your being a property owner, you once knew how to work the land.”

If Adam had counted the number of insults in that statement, he might have punched Tremerreaux in the mouth, but as things were, he only nodded. “I know how to work the land. I’ve done it most of my life. And yes, I’m willing to share my knowledge.”

Adam found himself on almost every committee the prisoners had. Catching and killing a cagou was a little more difficult than catching and killing a chicken—cagou ran faster—but he could snare them easily enough. He was usually out showing a group of men how do things; one day he was showing men how to set snares; on another, he was helping them construct roofs that would keep out the frequent rain.

Tilly, however, suddenly found gaps in her education that she had never noticed before. She had always seemed to know something about everything, wherever she was, but now she found herself ignorant of gardening, planting, and gathering. She knew nothing about rice—which irritated Adam until she reminded him that it was Charleston where rice was grown, not Savannah. Besides, her father had run a business, not a plantation; she had never tried gardening. While she could cook competently enough, she had never had to pluck a bird or clean a fish. “We had servants,” she mumbled, blushing.

She tried to help, but when the other women went herb hunting, she had no idea what she was looking for. In Spain, where she had learned most of her cooking skills, the household staff of the Lopez Chavarri had kept dried herbs in clearly labeled jars, so she could not even season food without someone to differentiate herbs for her, and as for gathering, she was as likely to pick a weed as a good plant. She was as willing to work as anyone else there, and more willing than some…but she was also incompetent at anything more complicated than gathering firewood. Although she gave her best efforts to plucking birds and cleaning fish, it seemed to take her twice as long as any of the other women.

So while Adam did enough work for three men and was gone from early morning to late at night, Tilly stayed with the women—there were only 40 of them—and did the best she could to work with them, but her best wasn’t good enough. And Adam didn’t know that the other women were getting tired of Tilly’s limitations.

Things came to a head when she dropped the partially cleaned fish she was working on, and the frustrated woman who was trying to teach her took the opportunity to kick Tilly in the head when she bent to retrieve it. The booted foot struck her squarely on the right cheek and knocked her down. Tilly, already feeling supremely stupid for her clumsiness, cried out in pain, but made no protest. She picked up the fish, and herself, and returned to work.

That evening when the men returned, Adam saw Tilly and gasped in shock. Her right cheek was a deep purple, her eye black and swollen shut. “What happened?” he demanded, pulling her aside.

“I fell,” she said, and refused to say more, but between the imprint of a hobnail on her cheek and the dark look another woman flashed her, he knew. He pulled her further away from the woman and repeated his question. She looked up at him from her one good eye and repeated sullenly, “I said I fell.”

“Tilly, that woman kicked you in the head. Why?”

Tears came to her eyes, and for the first time in two years, they spilled over. He hadn’t seen her cry in their travels, not after any of the miscarriages, not even when they were facing the firing squad.

“Adam, I’m useless here. I couldn’t even clean a fish. If anyone hit me, it was my own fault.”

“Nobody hits my wife,” he muttered, and pulled her into the center of the crowd that had gathered for the evening meal. “Tremerreaux!”

The self-styled leader turned. “What do you want?”

“You know me. I am Adam Cartwright. For three days now I have served on every committee you have designated, have I not?”

“For the good of the group, you have. What do you want?”

“My own good. Look at my wife. She says she fell.”

“I’m sorry for her.”

“Not good enough, Tremerreaux. Are you all listening? Pay close attention and ask questions if you don’t understand my French. Another woman kicked my wife today. My wife refuses to tell me who did it, or even to acknowledge that it happened, but I have eyes in my head.”

“What happens between the women is no concern of ours.”

“Maybe you in the Commune have renounced marriage, but this woman is my wife. If anything happens to her, it happens to me. If someone hurts her, they hurt me. I don’t ask you to share this belief, but I demand respect. If someone has a problem with my wife, they should bring it to me, and if there is correcting to be done, I will do it. Do you understand?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” someone else demanded.

“I’ll tell you,” Adam persisted. “My wife says this happened because she was unable to clean a fish. Favre, you were unable to put a waterproof roof together today. Did anyone kick you in the head for it?”

“Of course not. You showed me again how to do it.”

“Exactly. For three days I have worked harder than any of you because I have knowledge that you don’t, and I’ve shared that knowledge with every man here. My working here ends now. My sharing of knowledge right now. I won’t live in a community that punishes my wife for her lack of knowledge, not when I’m teaching every man here how to live. My wife and I will go away and live alone.”

“The Kanak will eat you!”

“I’d rather be eaten by a Kanak than devoured by Parisians who won’t work together for the common good. I tell you here and now, what happens to my wife happens to me. I have been kicked in the head today by the people I’ve tried to help. I’ll take my chances with the Kanak.”

He tugged on Tilly’s arm, and she meekly followed him into the darkness.

 

Chapter 21

“And we think about our families…”

 

They were alone together that night for the first time in almost eight months. It was strange and wonderful, even in a wretched wilderness thousands of miles from home, to actually have a little privacy.

“I wrote my father,” he told her as they walked. “Told him we were alive, but we’d been deportated. If he gets the American Embassy involved, I’m sure they’ll be able to get us out of here. Tremerreaux said all the letters will be sent in a batch to Paris, and forwarded by the Versailles government. That means Pa could receive it in six or seven months. We just need to stay healthy, and patient, and wait.”

It never occurred to him that the Versailles government might not wish to provide funds for overseas delivery, and that his father might not receive the letter. Tilly, who had dealt with the French government during Adam’s imprisonment, saw no reason to trust in its generosity, but she also saw no reason to voice her doubts.

“I’m sorry all this happened, Adam,” she said instead.

“You’re sorry? All this is my fault, Tilly. You only wanted to go to Spain. Everything that’s happened since then has been my doing.”

“Don’t be silly. I wasn’t talking about all that, and besides, I wanted to see France again, too. I meant I’m sorry I brought all this about between you and Tremerreaux.”

“No need. At worst we’ll be eaten by the Kanak, and I’d rather that than have you slapped around by some old biddy just because she knows more than you about cleaning a fish. I bet you could out-barber her any day.”

“Oh, for some scissors and a razor,” Tilly grinned lopsidedly, as the bruised part of her face was too swollen to move. “You look too scary for the Kanak to eat. I bet they’ve never seen so much hair in their lives.”

Adam, whose hair now hung in uncontrollable tangles reaching the bottom of his collar, and whose thick, curly beard covered most of his face, grinned back. “Well, anybody who tries to eat me deserves whatever they get. Funny…we’ve been jammed together for the last five months tighter than two people have any right to be…and yet, in some ways, we were never so far apart. I’ve missed you, Tilly.”

“No more than I’ve missed you,” she said softly, and the conversation ended for a long time.

When it started again, his first words surprised her. “We need to be careful.”

“About what?”

“We’re nowhere near a doctor now, and I don’t want you miscarrying again.”

“Maybe next time I won’t miscarry.”

“All right, let me put it another way. My mother died having me. I don’t want to kill any more women. And while my two of my father’s sons weren’t born in any civilized place, I don’t care to have a child of mine born here.”

“Honestly, what Joe says is right.”

“Joe? What do you mean?”

“He says for you being the smart one, you have an amazing lack of pure human sense.”

To her surprise, he sighed a little. “Joe has had a few startling moments of insight. Sometimes he’s right.”

“Well, not all the time. He also said once that you didn’t have a heart. I know better.”

Adam chuckled. “If a fella doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve for the whole world to see the way Joe does, he always assumes they don’t have one. He’s also good at thinking nobody in the world has ever felt the way he feels about things. Every time he fell in love with a girl—which was about every other week before Pa left for Kansas—he loved her more than any man had ever loved a woman, and nobody understood how his heart completely broke over that girl. Until the next one came along.”

“What about Hoss?”

“Oh, Joe could’ve never accused Hoss of not having a heart. Hoss doesn’t carry it on his sleeve, but only because it’s too big for that. It’s too big for his whole body.”

“Was he ever in love? Before Veralyn, I mean?”

“Yeah, but…he never did too well at it. First girl he ever fell in love with died. He finally got the nerve to try again, and that one married somebody else—and then died. I’ll tell you, Tilly, I’d love to meet Veralyn, just because I’d like to see Hoss happy for once. He’s been used by gold diggers and teased by flirts, and laughed at by stupid woman who thought they were too good for him, when really, of the three of us, he’d probably be the best husband.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because Hoss was always dyin’ to worship some woman. It’s just that the women he found weren’t worth being worshipped.”

Tilly laughed. “Well, speaking for myself, I don’t want to be worshipped, so I guess it’s just as well I married you. Good thing, though—you had me thinkin’ I’d made a mistake for a minute there.”

Adam joined in the soft laughter. “What do you want?”

She shrugged. “Someone who laughs at my jokes and who can carry a tune.”

“I can probably manage that.”

“Then I’ll be okay.”

Unthinking, he reached out to stroke her cheek, and she flinched. “Sorry, Tilly…guess it’s a good thing you didn’t want someone to take care of you. I haven’t been much good at that.”

“Oh, Adam Cartwright, you think way more than is good for any mortal man. C’mere.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I’m tired of talking, that’s why. C’mere.”

**

Tremerreaux and his Apology Committee found them a couple of days later—but only because Adam wanted to be found.

“Monsieur Cartwright, you have been a valuable addition to our commune, and whether you share our beliefs or not, you have applied them very well. We are sorry for having offended you, and we want you back among us.”

Someone pushed the lone female figure of the group, and she stumbled forward. It was the woman who had kicked Tilly, and she was black and blue all over. “I apologize for kicking your woman. I was wrong, and I promise it will not happen again.”

“Who beat you?” Adam said instead of simply accepting her words, and eyebrows rose all over the group.

“I beat her,” one man announced, stepping forward. “She needed to learn not to hit your woman, so I taught her.”

Adam flattened the man’s nose with a straight left no one saw coming. As the man staggered back, bleeding and surprised, Adam turned to Tremerreaux. “I never said to beat anyone. If this woman has been beaten all her life as a method of teaching, it’s no wonder she did that to my wife. All I said was, if my wife is wrong, complain to me. I don’t want other people beating her—but I don’t want to be an excuse for violence, either. Beatings are a last resort for people without imagination.”

“Then what you did just now,” Tremerreaux said, pointing at the man with the bloody nose, “was that a lack of imagination?”

“No, that was justice,” Adam said curtly. “My wife and I have decided we prefer to live here, alone. If you want my help in the commune, I will provide it during the day, and I will take a share of the food as payment. My wife will also help—if the women will show her how to do the things she needs to do. There’s a difference between ignorance and stupidity. Ignorance only means a person has not learned. Stupidity means a person doesn’t want to learn. My wife is ignorant, but not stupid.”

“I agree with that,” Tremerreaux replied. “We of the Commune should have understood that most of all, because many of our women cannot read or write. The Church treated them as if they were stupid, but they are only ignorant.”

Adam looked back at Tilly and cocked an eyebrow. She stepped forward. “Monsieur Tremerreaux, I can read and write—in several different languages, including French. I was a teacher before I married. If the women will teach me—patiently, because I learn slowly—how to do things like clean a fish or find food, I will teach them—patiently—how to read and write.”

“It is a good exchange,” Tremerreaux said, and the rest of the committee nodded enthusiastically. Then they looked to Adam. “Is it agreeable to you? As you said, she is your woman.”

“My wife makes her own decisions. It is perfectly agreeable to me.”

**

The next few months were productive times for the two Cartwrights. They had their strength back; they were doing work that was necessary and good. They had each other and still loved each other—and the bond—physical, mental, and emotional—between them only grew stronger.

“Don’t get too attached to this job, Tilly,” Adam warned her at one point. “We’re not staying here.”

Tilly couldn’t resist a smile. “Are you calling for a flying carpet? I don’t see any other way off this island.”

Adam shook his head grimly. “I don’t know yet. All I know is, we’re not dying here. We were delivered out of the hands of that firing squad, and I have to believe it means we’re going to go home. My father will get that letter soon, and who knows, Tilly—he may come for us himself. And if he doesn’t, I’ll figure some way to get us on a boat.”

Tilly gripped his hand encouragingly, but she had no such hope. Still, without hope, men tended to lose interest in life pretty quickly. More than 40 prisoners died in their first few months; many from scurvy and disease, some from festering wounds received during the “Bloody Week;” some from simple despair. Adam’s back continued to bother him, and every now and then the hard work he did would force one of the glass slivers hiding in his back to slide out on its own. While he never said anything about it, and Tilly had never been told about the injuries he had received that day, she knew he was hurt and could see how depressed it made him. Tilly had no intention of allowing despair to come anywhere near Adam. Her own family was long dead; the Cartwrights who had made her part of their family were dear to her, but she knew she could live without them. But Adam’s life was more important to her than her own.

When they had met, they had common character traits in that they were both imbued with a strong sense of responsibility and were both fiercely protective. Now the protectiveness turned to each other. No one could say a word against Adam in Tilly’s hearing; no one could give Tilly an evil eye if Adam was in the vicinity. But as time went by they became liked or at least, respected, despite their silly notions of capitalism, and usually no one wanted to say anything against them. So, for the first time in a long time, their lives were in no immediate danger.

It was nice while it lasted.

 

Chapter 22

“…had to live his life so far away…”

 

November, 1872, Nevada

“Did she have a fit?” Joe asked with a grin as he threw the bedroll atop his saddlebags and tied it down.

“She had three,” Hoss replied proudly. “But I just kissed her and told her to hush. She knew when she married me that she was marryin’ a Cartwright, and like Adam used to say, we don’t throw family out with the potato peels. What’d Alice say when you asked her?”

“Not much. But then, I didn’t ask, either. I just told her. It’s the right thing to do. We both know Adam would’ve done the same for either of us.”

“And woulda lectured us on self-control the whole way there and back,” Hoss snickered.

“I dunno, Big Brother,” Joe said thoughtfully, beginning to saddle Buck for his father. “He was so sick then, maybe he didn’t know what he was doin’.”

“He knew,” Hoss said flatly. “I ain’t sayin’ he did wrong. Only that he knew. Remember, he kept saying she was real and that they were married. Well, she was real; we found that out the hard way. Maybe he really thought they were married, too.”

“Who knows about the married part? He sure seemed to believe it. She did, too. Who defines marriage, anyhow? Adam told me once there were some states in this country—common law states, he called ’em—where a man and a woman can say they’re married, and then according to that state, they are married, just as legal as if they’d done it in church. This thing happened years ago when we weren’t even a state yet; who knows what our laws were then. Remember, Utah Territory’s law used to say that men could have as many wives as they wanted.”

“Yeah, can’t really figger that one out. I mean, one wife’s trouble enough.” Hoss grinned crookedly and shook his finger at his brother. “Not to scare you off, Joe. The kind of trouble Veralyn gives me is just the kind I need and I’m glad of it. But I don’t think I could take it from more than one.”

“I can’t picture anything scaring me away from Alice,” Joe declared. “When we get back…well, I don’t want to rush, but I’m thinking of asking her to marry me. She just feels different from most of the women I’ve known. I can imagine us 40 years from now, still being together, you know?”

“I do. I feel the same about Veralyn.” Hoss thought for a minute. “Joe, you’re still livin’ here; you see a little more of Pa than I do…how was he last night?”

“Quiet as a church mouse. He was still up when I came home, just lookin’ at the fire and not sayin’ a word, but I could almost hear his brain humming. I don’t know how he feels about the right-or-wrong part of the situation; all he talks about is what to take, how long we’ll be gone. Um, Hoss, you know it’s gonna be a little embarrassing for us in town.”

“That’s pretty funny, when you think about it—after all the right-and-wrong talks from Pa, and all the good example Adam tried to set, looks like he’s the one caused all the embarrassment. First with Tilly, now this.”

Eyes flashing, Joe retorted, “You know better—”

“Hey, take it easy, Little Brother! I know the whole thing with Tilly was innocent as could be, and even this situation ain’t so unusual. It’s just I think it’s funny as anything. Wish ole Adam was here; I’d love to see the look on his face when he found out he had a son born on the wrong side of the blanket. Or at least, on a different blanket!”

“Maybe it’s best he’s not here, then,” Joe chuckled. “Tilly’d bean him with a skillet for sure.”

“Wonder what Pa thinks. He didn’t say anything last night?”

“Not much. I’m guessing what he’s thinkin’ right now is ‘there is a little piece of Adam out there.’ I think he’s also beating himself over the head for waiting so long to open the envelope. I mean, the information was there, all this time, and we didn’t know.”

“Yeah, and that poor woman’s probably been dead goin’ on two years, as well.”

“Wonder if the boy really looks like Adam. I guess he’s about nine years old now…what did Adam look like when he was that old?”

“I barely remember. Tall and skinny, with big knobby ole knees, but he was a lot stronger than he looked. Always looked serious, even back then. Hardly ever let on what was goin’ on inside his head, either. And he started greasin’ his hair down way before Pa said he could; he just couldn’t stand all those curls.”

Joe grinned, not seeing their father come storming out of the house with his full saddlebags and bedroll. “Hey Hoss, you reckon he’s as bossy as Adam?”

They were laughing when Ben arrived. He glared at them both. “I trust you’re ready to go?”

“Yessir,” they both chimed meekly.

**

The encampment was near a little place in Oregon called Dugout, far south of the usual Nez Perce grounds. It took two weeks to get there, and Ben’s nervousness increased the nearer they got. It was Hoss who started wondering how they would speak to the Indians. “Adam told me once that the Pacific Northwest Indians made contact with everyone from the Spanish to the Russians. Who knows what kind of white language they can speak.”

“Russians, my foot,” Joe muttered. “What would the Russians be doin’ over here?”

“Grabbin’ land, same as everybody else, I reckon,” Hoss theorized. “They had that big chunk of ice hangin’ off Canada, and that’s a nice-sized piece of acreage.”

“Sure, as long as they can think of what to do with it. Ain’t nothin’ up there.”

“Must be, or we wouldn’t’ve bought it, would we? That’s the Alaska Territory.”

“You two are entirely too noisy,” Ben muttered.

“Well then, Pa, why don’t you talk to us?” Joe invited.

“There’s nothing to talk about right now. I just want to get this over with.”

“Um…Pa, it ain’t gonna be over with,” Joe said. “We get there and find the boy, it’s just beginning.”

“I meant the trip,” Ben corrected. “I’m well aware of the time it takes to raise a child. In case you’ve forgotten, I raised three boys, and played a pretty significant part in raising Mariette after her father died. I do know about raising children.”

“Are you lookin’ forward to it?” Hoss nudged his horse forward. “I think I’m a little nervous.”

“I…I don’t know,” Ben said softly. He shook his head. “Just ride. This isn’t a Sunday afternoon parlor conversation.” And for a while they rode with no conversation at all.

“Is it just me, or does anyone have the feeling that we’re under observation?” Joe asked.

“I’ve had it about the last five miles,” Hoss responded.

Ben called a halt and dismounted. “Take your gun belts off and put them in your saddlebags,” he ordered, and at his sons’ uneasy looks, he nodded. “We need to let them know that we’re here in peace. As you said, we don’t know what language they speak—but this should show them we mean no harm.” Silently the men complied, and remaining afoot, they began to lead their horses forward. In less than a mile, they found themselves in company. The sight of the twenty mounted braves surrounding them seemed ominous, but since none of them drew a weapon Ben suggested they were an escort rather than a guard. Skin prickling anyway, they attempted to communicate with the Indians, but it was impossible. While all three Cartwrights spoke a smattering of Paiute, Shoshone, and the Bannock Shoshone dialect, this new language sounded like mumbling. And when Ben tried Spanish, that brought on even more looks of consternation than English.

“Millions of Indians from Mexico to Canada, and we get the one band the Conquistadores missed,” Joe muttered to Hoss as a raggedly garbed Indian cautiously approached. The Indian pointed to himself and said something they assumed to be a name. Ben pointed to himself and replied, “Ben Cartwright.”

The Indian nodded emphatically. “AmCawwot!” He took Ben’s arm and marched him forward, Hoss and Joe following and trying not to giggle.

The woods got thicker and deeper before the overgrown trail widened into a clearing—and there was the small village, a conglomeration of ornately decorated hide lodges in the middle of nowhere. Some women were working on hides in one area, and others were making flour from blue lily bulbs as the men walked in. One woman jumped up and ran back to one of the lodges—was she frightened, or letting someone know they were there? They had little time to wonder as they were directed to that very lodge—the plainest of them all, just brown buffalo hides covering its poles. The Indian who had called them “AmCawwot” nodded toward it.

“Should we be uncomfortable about this?” Joe whispered to Hoss as they left their horses behind and moved forward.

“Don’t know if we should or not—but I am,” Hoss whispered back. But their father did not hesitate; he ducked inside and looked around.

The man sitting there looked about his age, Ben thought, but with Indians it was always hard to tell—and it was rather dim inside anyway. He made a Shoshone hand gesture of greeting at the Indian, who frowned. Oh, blast, why isn’t Adam here? He would have reminded me that the Nez Perce don’t like the Shoshone.

“Shmoqula,” the Indian said, pointing to himself. Then he pointed to a hide on the ground. Ben pointed to himself. “Ben Cartwright.” He sat down, wondering whether or not to introduce his sons.

They solved the problem for him. Hoss had ducked in right behind him, and now pointed to himself, saying “Hoss Cartwright.” Joe followed suit. Both dropped to the ground behind Ben. There was plenty of room—inside, the place was immense; part of it was underground.

Shmoqula looked at them, a confused expression temporarily overtaking him. “Amcawwot?” he asked. They looked back, not understanding, and wondering what to do next while their eyes adjusted to the low light inside.

“Do you speak English?” Ben finally asked. The Indian did not reply. Apparently he was waiting for someone else, as he kept looking toward the entrance. They heard a brief commotion outside finally, and two more Indians entered; a man of about Joe’s age and…the second one, they realized, was not a man. He was a tall, gangly boy, in deerhide leggings and a knee-length breechclout, with a baggy woven shirt belted around his waist. He was certainly as brown as any Indian, with black braided hair that hung past his shoulders, like any Indian. But his eyes were surprisingly light—the gray of smoke—and then they really looked at him as he turned to face them.

“Adam,” Ben whispered, and his throat locked up.

The boy looked at the two older Indians as if for permission, and then turned back to the three seated Cartwrights. “I translate for Shmoqula. I am Owd’ngartwright.” He said it all as one word, but it sounded right. He had a strange, guttural way of making some sounds, and Hoss and Joe exchanged a knowing glance: Ruth.

Somehow, Ben found his voice. “I am Ben Cartwright…and I’m your grandfather.”

Hoss spoke up behind him. “And I’m your Uncle Hoss.”

“And I’m your Uncle Joe,” Joe echoed. “We’re your family.”

The boy nodded impassively, then turned and mumbled to Shmoqula, who mumbled back, repeating “Amcawwot.” Audun sat down and turned back to Ben.

“Shmoqula says, where is Ad’mgartwright?”

So that was what it meant. “He is not here,” Ben managed to say. “When your mother came to see us, Adam was in France, a country in Europe—it’s a place far away across the ocean—”

“I know that,” the boy said. “My mother’s father was from Europe. And the Nimiipuu speak French.”

“There was a war in France,” Ben went on. “The city where Adam was visiting was attacked and many thousands of people died. Adam’s house was destroyed, and we believe he was killed. He never came back and never contacted us again. We are going to ask permission to have him declared legally dead, and in preparation for finalizing his estate, we opened your mother’s letter. We would have come earlier if we had known before; Audun, you must believe that.”

Audun looked confused. “What does it mean to be ‘legally dead’?”

“Um…it means that our law accepts someone as dead.”

“White law must accept someone as dead before they can die?”

“No.” Somehow Ben couldn’t help smiling a little. “People die as God wills. But when we don’t see a person die, and cannot find their body, ‘white law’ must agree that the person is dead before their possessions can be given to anyone else.”

“Did Ad’mgartwright have many possessions?”

“Yes. Adam Cartwright—your father—had many possessions. They now…belong to you.”

The boy thought. “Is this what ‘finalizing estate’ means?”

“Yes,” Ben nodded, impressed. The boy was his father’s son.

Audun nodded, then turned and translated Ben’s speech. Shmoqula looked at Ben for a long time before responding.

“Aside from these possessions you want to give me, why should I go with you?” the boy asked.

“Is that your question, or his?” Ben replied.

“We would both of us like to know,” said the boy. “I have my own possessions. I don’t need a finalized estate. So if I am to go with you, it will not be for possessions.”

“Well—I’m your grandfather,” Ben said.

“You are a stranger.”

“Maybe now. But you are no stranger to me. Your father looked exactly like you as a boy. Well, his eyes were different, but otherwise….” Ben found himself stammering.

“My mother said I looked like Ad’mgartwright. But I’m not him. And I cannot replace him for you.”

“No, you can’t,” Ben said faintly. He looked back at Hoss and Joe for a moment.

Hoss gripped his shoulder. “Tell him, Pa.”

Ben sat up straighter. “Our family name—your family name—is Cartwright. We always believed that families should be together. You are a part of our family and…we want you with us. Audun, your father was a good man. I would like you to come and be part of our family, not for you to replace him for us, and not for us to replace him for you. Your father can’t be replaced, but we can at least tell you about him, and share his stories with you. You can grow up as he did; his legacy can be yours.”

“What is a legacy?”

“Um…heritage…um…”

Joe interrupted. “Audun, did your mother die?”

Audun nodded wordlessly.

“But do you carry her with you, in your heart?”

The boy looked at Joe with the first trace of emotion he had shown so far. “Yes. I do.”

“That’s a legacy,” Joe said.

The boy nodded, his eyes far away. He said something to Shmoqula, who replied—but Audun did not translate. Instead, he began a conversation with the two Indians which went on for some moments and seemed to become increasingly animated.

Finally the boy turned back to them. “You will sleep here tonight. In the morning I will go with you.”

 

Chapter 23

“The stars are out tonight in all their glory…”

 

The Nez Perce, or Nimiipuu—the People—already had horses through trading with other tribes and had begun their own careful breeding program; they even had a few guns of their own. But they had still been one of the friendliest tribes Lewis and Clark encountered, although the Indians thought the white people smelled bad and looked like dogs with their hairy faces. They signed all kinds of treaties, allowing missionaries to baptize them and schools to teach them. When the whites began breaking the treaties, the People had been accommodating. They had so much land, they thought they could afford to be generous. But the land the People moved over was fertile farmland, and the whites wanted it—and then gold was discovered on another part of it, so the whites wanted that, too. Finally the whites established a reservation in Idaho in 1863…only, this time the People said no. They fought back. Old Joseph’s oldest son, Sousouquee, was killed by the Blue Leg soldiers. And at this, Old Joseph tore up his Bible and swore to have no more to do with the whites. His sons Young Joseph and Ollukut continued the fight when he died in 1871. Several bands of the Nez Perce had gone on the run or into hiding over the years, rather than be tied to a reservation.

“That was how my mother found the People,” Audun told the three Cartwrights that night as they sat out in the clearing. It was a dark night with no moon, but a million stars were out, and Shmoqula had suggested that maybe Audun’s mother and father were in them. “She was also running—from the Shoshone. I was but a child then, carried in her arms. I grew up with these people. They have been my family since I can remember. My mother loved them. She told me of the Shoshone legend, and how she was mistaken for the White Buffalo Woman.” He snorted. “But whenever a people borrow their legends from others, they are asking for trouble. The Shoshone had no White Buffalo Woman legend of their own. They stole it from the Sioux. The Nimiipuu do not borrow legends from others.”

“Your mother told you many things,” Ben commented, wondering how this boy would get along with the Shoshone and Paiute who lived around Cartwright land. “What did she tell you about us?”

“She knew little of you three,” Audun replied. “Only what my father told her, and what she saw and heard when she met these two.” He thought for a while, and then looked up at Ben. “Yes…she said you are stubborn.” He turned to Hoss and Joe. “And you two are hardheaded. And wherever you are, my father was home. This was what he told her.”

“Well, I am stubborn,” Ben admitted, and jerking his thumb at his two sons, went on, “and they are hardheaded. He got that right.”

Joe laughed. “Audun, I could tell you stories…”

Audun looked at him pensively. “Why did he go away?”

“It was only supposed to be for a while,” Joe said. “He wanted to see different things. Then he was going to come back.”

Audun shook his head. “He was not very good at coming back.”

Ben, Hoss, and Joe exchanged glances.

“Audun, it ain’t like that,” Hoss insisted. “He was so sick when we found him that he couldn’t start lookin’ right away. He told me your mama had made him nearly well when the Shoshone got him and durn near killed him, and when he fought with them he opened his wounds up again. They got infected. He’d been left for dead when we found him. On the way home he caught pneumonia. He nearly died. But as soon as he could get on a horse again, he was dead-set on findin’ Ruth. I know ’cause I went with him. We looked all over Nevada and part of Idaho, tryin’ to find her. Every Shoshone village we found had heard of the White Buffalo Woman, but none of them had ever seen her.”

“When he came back he was miserable,” Joe put in. “Whatever you think about your father, Audun, I am sure he loved your mother. He lost interest in everything for a long time when he thought she was dead.”

“And when did he find the new wife?” Audun asked softly, prompting another exchange of surprised looks. They had all taken great care not to mention Tilly.

“How did you know he took a new wife?” Joe asked.

“My mother told me that when he came for me, I would have a new mother as well as a father.”

“How did she know?”

Audun shrugged. “My mother knew everything.” He pointed to Hoss. “But this one told her.”

Ben cleared his throat. “Adam got married right before he left for Europe. He took her with him.”

Audun considered for a while. Then he nodded. “Well, at least he had someone to die with. It is best not to be alone.”

“I feel the same way,” Hoss said. “I’d hate to die all by myself.”

“My mother died by herself,” Audun said.

“I’m sorry about that,” Joe said. “My mother also died when I was young.”

“And mine,” Hoss added. “Do you remember her very well?”

Audun shrugged. “It was just two months ago. I had gone to get some roots for her. They calmed her belly when the pain was bad. But when I came back she was gone.”

“I’m sorry she died,” Ben said gently. “But if it was only two months ago, then she lived much longer than the shamans thought she would, isn’t that true?”

Audun looked up at Ben in the starlight, and Ben thought he saw a trace of a smile. “My mother was stubborn, too.”

“It can be a useful quality to have,” Ben said with a return smile of his own.

“Did you see Timothy, the man who came to Shmoqula’s lodge with me?”

“Yes.” Ben wondered at the sudden change of subject.

“He wanted for years to marry my mother. She would not have him. When she got sick, she asked him to care for me until my father came for me, since I am not yet a man. Although he was not her husband, he cut his hair when she died because he loved her. He did not think Adam would come. He does not want me to leave with you, either—but Shmoqula said I am almost a man and must make my own choice.”

“What do you want to do, Audun?” Hoss leaned forward.

“I am not sure.” The boy’s shoulders were hunched. “I am sad to leave Timothy and Shmoqula and the People. But I want to do what my mother wanted. It was important to her that I go to my father’s people.”

“I’m glad for that,” Ben said simply. “We wanted you from the time we found out about you.”

“Timothy says you only want me for my horses.”

Joe chuckled softly. “Audun, you probably won’t believe this, but we do have horses of our own on the Ponderosa.”

“If you will come with us, we would like to leave early in the morning,” Ben cut in. “Is your decision final then? You will come?”

Audun visibly hesitated. “Will I have to get your kind of clothing, or cut my hair?”

“Not unless you want to,” Ben replied firmly, and Joe nearly spewed his coffee in shock. “Do you want to visit your mother’s grave before we go?”

“There is no need,” Audun said. “The shaman already performed the ritual forbidding her spirit to return. She cannot be spoken of here. She was worried about her funeral, you know.” The boy looked away, and Ben almost winced; he looked so much like Adam. “She gave her horses to me and Timothy before she died so none of them could be killed for her…will you let me bring them?”

The last thing Ben wanted was something else to slow down the return journey, but…“Of course, if you want. How many do you have?”

“I will bring one of my own and five of my mother’s. She had twenty, but the others she gave to Timothy—she was wealthy, you know.”

“Of course she was,” Ben agreed. “She had you.”

 

Chapter 24

“Some men and women, they cower in fear…”

 

December, 1872, Ile des Pins

If a visitor had asked any of the convicts on Ile des Pins who led the Communards in those days, the answer would likely have been “Tremerreaux, Balliere, and those damned Americans.” For all Adam was the real leader of the “damned Americans,” his name was never mentioned without Tilly’s, since the two always seemed to work together. And while they were outsiders, they helped the Communards stay afloat that first year, and that counted for a lot.

They might not have made such a name for themselves had Adam and Tilly not become friends with the Kanak. These people lived in small clans all over the Melanesian islands, but unlike their cousins the Polynesians, they were shy and standoffish. The French regarded Kanak women as ugly—and worse than that, inaccessible. While the Polynesians had welcomed visitors in every possible way, Kanak women were modest and generally monogamous.

Many of the Kanak spoke French—the Catholic missionaries who had spent more than 20 years in New Caledonia had taught them well. Unfortunately, the same missionaries had also taught the Kanak that whites were not to be trusted. Early in their time there, the missionaries had run out of supplies. Starving, they had asked the Kanak for help. The Kanak had turned over half their year’s harvest of yams. The missionaries thanked God, but not the Kanak. Later that year, when the smallpox the missionaries carried (but were immune to) attacked, more than a third of the Kanak died. The missionaries called it a judgment from God.

Originally, the Kanak had looked upon the whites as important people with great power. Since the whites came from the horizon, the Kanak thought these strange people could control both water and sky. A priest named Blaise, whose haughtiness did not endear him to the people, once dared them to kill him. He then struck a phosphoric match in his hand, and held the fire in his fingers. The Kanak retreated in terror. Afterwards some of the same missionaries pointed to barrels of pork stored in brine and told the Kanak they were the mortal remains of evil men, and the same fate awaited any “rebellious savage.”

After years of being treated as subhuman, the Kanak were sick of white people. When the new whites appeared in New Caledonia, the Kanak—who had already willingly given much of their land to the missionaries—retreated still more. But on a few small islands with a combined size roughly of the state of New Jersey, the Kanak soon ran out of places to run. Especially on Ile des Pins, which was only nine miles long and eight miles wide. So each day the Kanak saw white people, and ran from them. Most of the Communards, having heard nothing but legends of cannibalism and murder, were likewise suspicious and frightened of the Kanak.

But to Adam, they were like the Paiute, Shoshone, even the Apache peoples he had met in his travels. He had his ways; they had theirs, and as long as each treated the other with respect, there was no reason to fight. One day he and Tilly returned from a stream carrying several fish they intended to dry and store, but on seeing a few Kanak boys peering out from the trees, Adam changed his mind. He took the three biggest fish off the line and placed them on a rock, pointing to the Kanak boys and then to the fish. When he returned later, the fish were gone. The next day, Adam snared two cagou and put one on the rock. It soon disappeared.

Tilly put a few yams on the same rock on the third day, and those disappeared as well. But the morning after, they found a sack of coarsely ground flour made from dried yams.

After Adam and Tilly had shared a few meals with the Kanak—always bringing gifts, and never asking anything in return—it became known around the island that Adam could “control the savages.” Adam tried to point out that neither aspect of the statement was true: the Kanak were not savages, and he did not control them. His friendship with the tribe was as delicate as his friendship with the Paiute back home.

“You don’t know these people,” he told the Communard leadership as they sat together for the evening meal. “You’re not even calling them by the right name. They call themselves the Kunie—if you want to show respect, call them by their own name. You can’t be friends with them if you don’t respect them. They know I respect them—but they don’t know if you do or not.”

“Of course we don’t respect them. They’re savages,” said Tremerreaux, as if it should be obvious, and the discussion ended—for the moment.

In the fall another boat arrived, this one with more women—the wives of some of the men had come to join them in their exile. It was then they found that the French government had painted a picture, back at home, of a postal-card perfect land of beauty where people could claim their own land and build their own farms. It was less than true. The land was pretty, but it wasn’t farm land, and there wasn’t enough of it to support large herds of livestock. Moreover, the Kanak were afraid of cows and terrified of pigs, and were forever trying to chase away the few animals that had been shipped in. The whites refused to acknowledge the evidence of their eyes and persisted in their belief that the Kanak were murderous savages, and on Grande Terre they had already killed several of the natives.

Although Adam and Tilly—particularly Adam—were willing to help the Communards make the island livable, it was obvious from the beginning that they were, as Americans, participating outsiders at best, and rich bourgeois who had no sympathy for the plight of the workers, at worst. Adam’s calloused hands and his insistence that he had worked just as hard as any of them never engendered the sympathy one might have thought, because he had once made the mistake of stating that his family worked very hard for the money they had. That his family had money, even if it had been won by hard work, seemed to be an unpardonable sin, especially since the convicts on Ile des Pins were fast learning to be lazy and even to like it.

Further, the recurring argument over the “savage” indigenous population was one that never ended. One would have thought someone in Adam’s position, who had already gained plenty of experience dealing with local “savages,” would be listened to and respected when it came to the current tensions between natives and whites. But while the Communards listened, sometimes, it was clear that no understanding would ever be reached.

There was, for example, the night the decree was handed down from Grande Terre that the Kanak would have to move again, to a small section on the island set aside for Kanak only, while the whites would take over the rest of the place.

“This has all the makings of another Paiute war,” Adam commented when he heard.

“You think you know so much, just because you have lived around a few red Indians,” Tremerreaux chuckled.

“I do,” Adam shrugged calmly. “And yes, I have lived among Indians. I know the way they fight to keep their own land, and I can’t much say I blame them.”

“Savages only,” said Balliere. “Just like the Kanak.”

Adam looked at him, one eyebrow raised. “What makes them savages?”

“They’re not civilized.”

“What makes us civilized?”

“Easy—we’re not savages.”

“That’s a circular argument,” Tilly put in, only to be ignored. Despite promises of “opportunity” for women in the new order, most of the Communards had a way of hearing only men’s voices.

Tremerreaux waved an impatient hand. “France has claimed this island, and miserable as it is, we live here. So we have to civilize it. Already the Gouverneur has told the chief of the tribe—”

“Queen Hortense,” Tilly prompted, and was ignored again.

“—that the Kanak must relocate. If they don’t move, we will force them.”

“Um…and what makes you think you can do that?” Adam asked.

“We are spreading civilization,” Balliere replied, as if it should be obvious.

“Excuse me,” Tilly burst in, loudly this time, “But were the Prussians spreading civilization when they overran France?”

After a moment of shocked silence, everyone turned to regard her. “Of course not,” Tremerreaux finally said, looking at her as if he’d caught her with a finger up her nose. “The Prussians were barbaric.”

“What made it barbaric for them to overrun your land?” Adam supplemented.

“We were living there—it was ours!” Balliere cried.

“You mean like the Kanak are already here? Using that logic, then aren’t we barbaric, to invade land where people already live?”

“No—we are civilized. They are savages. Therefore we are spreading civilization.”

“Just as the Prussians civilized France,” Tilly said serenely, and in the resulting uproar, Adam was forced to remind them that if they killed him and Tilly, he wouldn’t be able to show them how to fasten wood together without nails.

But while the French were certain the two Americans were exaggerating about the savages, Balliere decided to become friendly with the Kanak, as well.

The French government only had a few officials on New Caledonia. When the nominal “gouverneur” heard that Communard leader Balliere was friendly with the Kanak, he wondered if there were some way to use this. He took a trip over to Ile des Pins and called on Balliere, asking about his relations with the locals. Balliere, uncomfortable at being so singled out, admitted that he had only followed in the footsteps of the American, Adam Charron aka Cartwright.

This was not the first time LeBlanc had heard the name of Adam Cartwright. In fact, he was becoming annoyed at how often the names of the two Cartwrights were coming before him. Officially, the couple did not exist. They were only Adam and Mathilde Charron, and as such could be eliminated at any time. But they seemed to hold great sway over the rest of the settlement on Ile des Pins, and since they had been instrumental in helping the convicts survive that first harsh year, LeBlanc was hesitant to do anything to them. The more he thought about it, though, the more he realized that Adam Cartwright could be a very big troublemaker if he so desired.

Maybe it wouldn’t be necessary to kill them. Killing was messy. With more men coming into the overcrowded island all the time, Cartwright popularity should soon decline. And if it didn’t…well, he’d keep a careful eye on them both, and be ready to take whatever measures were necessary.

 

Chapter 25

“Not long ago I remember bein’ young and so headstrong…”

 

January, 1873, Nevada

Ben was drinking a last cup of tea before going to bed. From the noises issuing from upstairs he could imagine what was going on, and it made him smile. Joe was reading to Audun, complete with dramatic flourishes, apparently. Adam would have laughed at that—it wasn’t even a dime novel; it was Robinson Crusoe.

Audun was an odd child, quiet, serious and mature for his age, but easy-going and possessed of a wry sense of humor—once he got used to people. Not for the first time, Ben wished Adam was there so they could discuss this child who was so much—and so little—like his father.

They hadn’t ridden 20 miles toward home before Joe found he had a protégé. The boy was a natural on horseback, riding with a loose-limbed ease Adam had never acquired. They had spent the first evening on the trail discussing horse-breaking methods, and the Cartwrights soon realized the boy would make an excellent trainer. He had never worked with cattle and had little interest in that direction, but he had been midwife for both animals and humans. “You’ve been around when women were havin’ babies?” Hoss asked incredulously. “Your mama didn’t mind?”

“I wanted to be a healer like her,” Audun shrugged. “I spent my life following her and watching and learning from her. I had small hands, so she had me help sometimes when the babies were breeched. She always made me keep my hands clean, no matter what the rest of me got into.”

“But didn’t you play with the other little kids?” Joe interjected. “Kids shouldn’t be around grownups all the time.”

Audun regarded him with a skeptical air. “I don’t know this word, ‘kid’, but the way you talk, you think there were other things more interesting than following my mother. There were not. She always did great things. She took a Shoshone arrow out of Timothy when I was just three. She let me help put the medicine on his arm. There was nothing better for me than to watch him get better every day and know I had been part of it.”

Ben’s questions had been more toward schooling. “Can you read?” he had asked hesitantly on the ride back.

“I read the Soyapo spirit law book every night, as my mother taught me, but many of the words are strange,” Audun said.

“Audun, what is Soyapo?” Joe cut in. Audun used it all the time.

The answer was bewildering. “What you are…white.”

“But Audun, you’re as white as we are,” Hoss exclaimed. “Your mama and daddy were both Soppyaps.”

“Soyapo. This is true, but the Nimiipuu—the People—took in my mother and me, and made us part of the tribe. I am of the People.”

“You’re a Cartwright,” Ben said flatly. “You may claim both heritages, but you are a Cartwright.”

Audun shrugged.

“So you read the Bible,” Ben went on.

“Yes. I read it. I do not claim to understand it. Shmoqula and Chief Joseph are Dreamers. I follow more that path. But I still read the spirit law of the Soya—whites.”

“Your father loved to read,” Ben told him.

“Why?” Audun asked, and Hoss and Joe burst into giggles.

Ben gave his sons a warning look. “He said reading let him visit other places in his mind. He also liked to learn.”

“I like to learn.” Audun thought a minute. “But…when my father visited other places in his mind…did he also wish to visit these places in his body?”

“Well…yes…”

“Then too much reading drew him to his death.”

Near the end of the journey, after riding through some 65 miles of Ponderosa land, Audun had only muttered, “too much land for such a small tribe. And where are the women and children?”

And the house…that had not gone as expected.

Audun stared at the ranch house, his smoky eyes large and round in surprise. “I have not seen anything like this before,” he finally said in a tone they assumed meant awe.

“Well, we’re glad you like it—your father and I built it,” Ben proclaimed with more than a little pride.

“My father built this? But my mother said he was smart!”

The three older men looked at the boy, who had not yet dismounted from his horse and now seemed to be having second thoughts about his decision to accompany them here.

“What’s wrong with it?” Hoss finally demanded.

“It cannot be moved! It stays in one place. How can you go to your winter grounds? How can you follow the movements of game? It is not…it is not…it is not practical!”

Their laughter, unfortunately, did little to ease his xenophobia.

“Audun,” Hoss finally said, still chuckling, “this house ain’t supposed to go nowhere. Yer right, Adam built it to stand right here for a hundred years. But we don’t have a summer ground and a winter ground. We live here.”

“You stay here? All the time?”

“Yup, all the time.”

“But how can you do that and not starve?”

“Well, for one thing, there’s plenty of game around here most of the time,” Hoss assured him. “That big lake we passed comin’ in is fulla fish, too. And last but not least, all those cows you saw over the last couple of days are ours. Whenever we get hungry for meat all we have to do is bring in a cow. Our cook, Hop Sing, even raises pigs and has his own garden.”

“A garden…this means he cuts open Mother Earth and makes food grow in straight lines.”

“Um…well, yes.”

“I have heard of this, but not seen it.” He shook his head. “Shmoqula says the Creator never intended us to cut into our mother with sharp blades or to cut her hair.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you are all very strange.”

The boy had begged to be left alone to tend his horses. Hoss and Joe showed him where the gate was to the pasture and left him, but Ben found himself worried that Audun might just mount up and ride back out again. “It would be an honor if I could help you care for your horses,” he told the boy instead, and Audun seemed pleased.  They discussed the horses as they worked, and Audun told him about how the Nez Perce had built their Appaloosas into a formidable breed over the last hundred years.

While they were releasing the horses into the pasture, Mutton Jim arrived, and with him Honey, Gumbo, Scooter, Ceirdwyn, and Bruce. The dogs barked and rushed the boy before Ben could order them back, and they were all over Audun, licking him, sniffing him, grabbing his hands in their mouths…for the first time in the 10 days he had known Audun, Ben saw the boy’s face split wide open in an ear-to-ear grin as he dropped to his hands and knees and hugged as many of the dogs as he could.

“I’ve never seen anything like that!” Ben muttered incredulously.

“Yep, they’re big fakes,” Mutton Jim said. “Put ’em around a kid and they drop that dignified act in a heartbeat.”

“How did you know?”

“Boss, ain’t you been to my place lately? My two-year-old daughter rides Scooter like a horse. When he comes home after work she crawls all over him, yanks his hair out, even tried to put her diaper pin on his ear once. When he can’t take it anymore he hides under the porch, but it’s something just seein’ how much he will take from her. Who’s the kid? Looks like somebody I oughtta know.”

**

Ben put Audun into Adam’s old room, thinking that being surrounded by Adam’s books, sheet music, sketches and such would provide the boy a link to his father. The results had been…interesting. Audun flatly refused to sleep on the bed, claiming it was too soft for proper relaxation. Until the snow began, he kept the window open no matter how chilly it was, sometimes even taking a blanket and climbing out the window to sleep on the roof. He put Elizabeth’s portrait facedown, and showed no interest in either of the photographs of Adam that Ben kept in the study. It was “impolite” to stare at dead people.

The books—with a few notable exceptions—had been dismissed out of hand when he found out many of them were either travel-related (for the obvious reason), or fiction. “Why read about things that never happened?”

Hoss found himself suddenly advocating novels, something he had never been known for. “But don’t you have legends and stories in the Nez Perce, Audun? All fiction is, is a legend or story somebody wrote down.”

“That is for telling people when they sit around the fire at night,” Audun replied.

“And we usually read books at night, too. Sometimes when me and Little Joe was just boys, Adam used to read stories to us before we went to bed. We always loved that. It was the best way to end the day, sittin’ around hearin’ Adam with his pretty voice readin’ stories just like he was actin’ out all the parts.”

At that, Audun looked doubtful, but said nothing else. Joe had then taken up the flag, promising to read to him each night from one of the “Soyapo legends.”

The guitar was another story, though. Audun had never heard a stringed instrument before. Drums and flutes, yes. Making music from strings…well. Mutton Jim, however, was pretty good on guitar, so he played a few tunes for Audun and the boy decided he had to learn to play the stringed box as well. Listening as Audun painfully attempted to make chords—and learn a few Soyapo songs—Ben wondered if Adam could see it all from heaven, and would find his eyes getting wet.

“You should be teaching him all this yourself,” he would mentally scold his oldest. “I should never have let you leave the Ponderosa. Don’t you see all you’re missing?”

Ben decided to delay Audun’s school entry. After all, the boy was still sporting long braids and a breechclout, never wearing the canvas trousers and cotton shirts Ben had purchased for him. Besides, he was woefully behind in most subjects. He could read English, but he knew nothing of grammar, math, or geography. He spoke a little French, but could not read it. He did not know the history—well, not the proper history—of the United States, though he could tell all about the history of the Nimiipuu, and the evils of the Shoshone and Paiute. So Ben worked with him a few hours each evening on all these subjects, and before Joe went to see Alice each evening he would read to him. During the day, Audun would usually work out on the range with Hoss and Joe, reluctantly learning about ranching. He hated fences and thought cows were stupid and smelly. They took him to one of the silver mines once…never again. Aloud, he had said only “these metals, silver and gold, they go from hand to hand, but they never get warm.” That night, and for many nights after, he had had nightmares about being trapped in the darkness. Ben started sending Ceirdwyn in to sleep with him. Between that and Joe’s nightly reading, he seemed to sleep better.

Hop Sing and Audun were frequently together, usually discussing herbs. Ben was convinced that between the two of them they knew every possible use for a plant—potion, poultice, infusion, decoction, concoction. Moreover, Hop Sing took the boy into town and introduced him to Dr. Kam Lee, Chinatown’s best physician. Kam Lee found an eager pupil in the boy. And when Paul Martin visited, he found he also had a disciple. Paul had recently acquired a great medical innovation—a binaural stethoscope. Unlike the previous models, which only had one earpiece and usually looked like a tube with a small saucer at each end, this one incorporated rubber tubing and metal sound amplifiers so that he could actually sit a foot away from a patient and still listen to their insides. Audun regarded this as powerful magic indeed, and soon was looking for excuses to visit Virginia City’s doctors.

In fact, they’d be going into town tomorrow, and they’d probably drop in on Paul Martin while they were there. If Ben Cartwright’s grandson wanted to be a doctor, that was just fine. But the main reason for the town visit was to see a lawyer, and the reason behind that was not fine at all. He was going to ask to have his oldest son declared dead in absentia.

 

Chapter 26

“I’ll pray for the comrades…”

 

January 1873, London

“Two hundred quid? Sherlock, you come demanding my presence in the sanctuary I go to when I want to get away from people, and now you want money?”

“Actually, I want more than money, Brother My.” The boy leaned back in his chair. “I also want a diplomatic pouch that’s destined for Australia—preferably one with crests both from Her Majesty and the German Kaiser.”

The heavyset man regarded his younger brother. “Explain.”

“Briefly, or in detail?”

“In detail.”

“Last week I had occasion to run into a Pinkerton detective. He was looking for the Cartwrights—the two friends I made in France. Obviously he was incompetent. He didn’t know half as much as I had already found out.”

“You were not supposed to be finding out anything. Father told you to stay in school and do your work.”

“Father is an ass.”

“That’s beside the point.”

Sherlock sighed. “I stayed in school, did my work, and last summer instead of taking summer classes I went back to France to look for my friends.”

“Glad I didn’t know. I’d have had to tell Father. Where did you get the money to go to France?”

A shrug. “I won a few bets.”

“You’re gambling now?”

He looked up at his brother and smiled. “Only when I know I’ll win. And I did win; it paid my way to France, where I made the same investigation the Pinkerton made. But I had better results.”

“What did you discover?”

“That the clerk at the American Embassy, one Mr. Stevenson, is a crook and a liar. He’s competent enough, but he makes arrangements on the side with certain women to resolve their transportation problems in exchange for ‘favors.’ Apparently my friend Tilly accused him of trying it with her, simply to get the Ambassador’s attention. It wasn’t true, in her case, but he was so terrified of an investigation that he dumped all the Cartwright files and ever since has been claiming never to have heard of them. And of course, as all good secretaries do, he keeps himself as the only conduit to Ambassadors Washburne and Hoffman, so no one can dispute his story.”

“The man admitted this to you?”

“He did.”

“What sort of disguise did you play with this time, and how drunk did you get him?”

“This was no time for games. I went into the building and ascertained his identity. Later that night, when he left and was well away from the Marines who guard the place, Lady and I paid him a visit.”

“Why on earth did you take the mangy dog?”

“That mangy dog is a ’stonishing good judge of character. Once her teeth were on his throat, the man was quite docile and willing to talk. He rambled a bit, but I was finally able to make sense of all he said. I learned quite a lot of history. Seems that Adam was charged with being a Prussian spy, and that Tilly’s attempts to get the embassy to intervene came to naught because Ambassador Washburne knew who the real spy was, and Adam, being as far as he knew, an unimportant American, made an effective diversion. I also found out Adam escaped, but somehow he then fell in with the Communards. Now, the last Mr. Stevenson knew, Adam had been sent before a firing squad, and Tilly had determined to join him there.”

“The woman wanted to die with her husband?” Mycroft laughed. “How very touching.”

“I knew Tilly Cartwright. She was all right.”

“You know what Father says.”

“‘Women are not to be trusted, not even the best of them,’ yes, I understand all that. But while Tilly will be as deceitful as the rest of her sex if it means securing the life and safety of her husband, she seems honest about everything else. She actually did get herself arrested, you know. I talked to one of the gendarmes on duty that day, and they found her dressed as a Pétroleuse and in the act of throwing a bottle of some sort at a government building.” He grinned. “It was only water, but she demanded to be arrested anyway.”

“What an intelligent woman,” Mycroft snorted. “A lot of foolishness. From what I heard, they were shooting people on sight—she’s lucky not to have been one of them.”

“She got what she wanted. She was taken to the same courtyard where Adam was in line to be executed. However, I spoke to the captain of the executions that day, and he told me the annoying Americans were put in the deportation group, instead.”

“Really? Have you checked with the depot at Quélern?”

“Of course. They have no record of anyone named Cartwright. But then it occurred to me that the French might be embarrassed at having to explain why a couple of Americans were sent to a prison colony without attempting to contact the American embassy first. So I looked a bit deeper into the records and found there was an ‘Adam Charron’ and wife ‘Mathilde’ on the list. Someone at Quélern had an evil sense of humor.”

“Really. Then why didn’t you go to the French government?”

“Brother My, for a walking memory bank you can have an amazing lack of facts at hand.”

“Relations with the French are not my specialty. My brain has only so much room, after all.”

“Well, for your information, the current government is extremely embarrassed by the uprising. They executed a lot of Poles who had joined with the Communards, but now they won’t admit to it because the Polish government might ask why. The French are having enough problems explaining why they executed thousands of their own citizens when everyone thought the war was over. They certainly can’t be bothered to explain what they did with the citizens of other countries. If I went to the French government, I have no doubt that my friends would be subject to some ‘accident’ and their bodies eaten by sharks long before I could get to them.”

“Why didn’t you tell any of this to the inept Pinkerton fellow?”

“I didn’t like him, and I didn’t trust him—and I’m not going to do his job for him and let him get the credit. Besides, Adam and Tilly are my friends. I want someone on the case who knows what’s at stake, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the best person to do the job is me.”

“All right, so you believe your friends may be in the southwestern Pacific colonies, then. Why didn’t you come to me earlier?”

“You told me I couldn’t borrow any more money from you until I settled things with Father.”

“Then why are you coming to me now? I saw him on Sunday and he said he was going to disinherit you—again—so I know you didn’t settle anything.”

“I tried. But all he wanted to tell me was that he had my life already charted, and it was my duty to fit into it. Maybe Sherrinford can do that—maybe even you can. But I can’t. The third son of an English country squire is not how I want to be known, and I will not marry that dreadful Violet Hadley-Smythe under any circumstances.  Of course Father wouldn’t listen; I didn’t expect him to. But I thought perhaps I could be patient, letting him speak his mind, and then doing what I wanted anyway, as you do. Only then he said terrible things about Mother again, and this time I hit him with my walking stick.”

“So that’s how he came by that knot on his shoulder. He wouldn’t tell me.” Mycroft gave an abbreviated nod of approval. “You do know all this rampant emotionalism of yours is going to get you into trouble…but all right, £200 and a diplomatic pouch with Her Majesty’s lions; something Prussian…I don’t know of anything going out for the kaiser. Would you settle for Crown Prince Frederick?”

“If he’s all you’ve got. A Prussian eagle is a Prussian eagle.”

“And how do you propose to get on a boat going in that direction, by the by?”

“Ah, well, I was going to ask you for one other favor as long as I had you.”

Mycroft sighed. “Sherlock, it will be worth it to send you to Australia for the sheer joy of not seeing you for eight months.”

 

 

Chapter 27

“I’m not afraid to die today…”

 

January, 1873, Ile des Pins

Adam and Tilly observed the “anniversary” of their arrival on Ile des Pins by having a quarrel.

They seldom fought, but on those rare occasions, the altercations were loud, spirited, accompanied by a great many multi-syllable words, and perhaps a few sailor words.

The problem was that in this instance, at least, if they had both known what they were fighting about, they would have been on the same side. All Adam would have had to do was tell her why his mouth and nose were bleeding, and why he didn’t want her to teach the women anymore. As things stood, he refused—and not only that, but he also refused to let her walk over to her friend Albertine’s house, either. In fact, he said she was not to travel anywhere alone anymore—and since they had no firearms, he was going to teach her to use a bow and arrow. It was at this point that Tilly went silent for a moment, and when she began again, she changed her tactics.

“All right, Adam. Obviously you think we’re in some kind of danger. If you want me to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow, I’ll try. And I won’t go anywhere without Albertine. But—”

“No. I don’t want you around Albertine anymore, either.”

“But why? She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Dammit, Tilly, just once in your life be a real wife! I want you to stay away from Albertine. I am your husband. This is the only demand I’ve ever made from you. I don’t want you going anywhere without me from now on, and that’s all there is to it!”

“A real wife? What does that mean? Sit down, shut up, and have babies? I can’t have babies, remember?”

Adam’s jaw started working at that, and without another word he went outside. When he came back in, he was quiet the rest of the evening. The next morning, he went hunting, leaving her with a stern warning that she was not to leave the house. Tilly watched as he disappeared into the woods, and then looked around. They had no table and no chairs, just a straw pallet that served as a bed, so Tilly sat down on that and tried to think the problem through. Tilly knew that some of the Communard men didn’t like her. Despite the group’s overall stance on the rights of women, there were men in the group who didn’t like women being taught to read and write. And for some reason, a lot of men had gotten upset when Tilly had added history to her teaching. It was well incorporated, she thought, since the women read and wrote about the history of France and Europe, so she could see no argument against it. Still, she knew there were men who complained about her teaching, and so far they had done as Tremerreaux had ordered—the complaints were made to Adam, not to her. But Adam hadn’t ordered her to stop teaching history: he had ordered her to stop teaching. Period. Was her teaching style so questionable that she was in danger for it?

Tilly also knew that Adam had quarreled with several different Communards, especially the more recent arrivals, and she knew that the men had come to blows several times. Adam would never tell her why he had fought, but now she was positive that she had something to do with it.

There had to be something more to it. She stood up and went to the opening that served as a door, murmuring, “Technically, we don’t have a house. He didn’t tell me not to leave the hovel.”

She headed down the path to the outskirts of the commune, where Albertine lived alone. Well, supposedly she lived alone, but lately it seemed as if there were always a few men around. One more thing for Tilly to wonder about.

Albertine was a fairly recent arrival—a tall woman with lank, almost white-blonde hair and a forehead that was usually shiny with perspiration. She originally came from the Alsace, one of the provinces Germany had annexed at the end of the war—but feeling more loyalty to France than her own German ancestors, she had fled to Paris at the start of the war and joined the Commune in February. Like Tilly, she had been arrested as a Pétroleuse, although she hadn’t even been carrying any bottles or jars. Narrowly missing a firing squad herself for the vigorous insults she had applied to her jailers, she had been deported in the third shipment of exiles. Like Tilly, Albertine was a little slow at food preparation, primarily because she was clumsy and perpetually tripping over things; her hands were also big, with thick fingers, making it hard for her to do any sort of intricate work.

“Come with me,” Tilly had offered on their first day together, seeing the other women giving her a hard time. “They don’t like me much either.”

“Why not?” Albertine asked, following obediently.

“I’m too slow, just like you. And I can read.”

“I can read too—so what?”

“So, women who are slow aren’t practical, and women who can read make them feel…”

“Stupid?”

“I hope not! But maybe so. I’ve been working with them on the reading. They want to learn—but they don’t like that I’m the one teaching them, because I’m slow.”

“You know,” Albertine observed, “When I joined the Commune, I was told women would have opportunities. If I’d known they just meant opportunities to cook, I would have stayed home. These men, I think they meant well at some point in time, but since they got here they’ve become foolish, all of them. They spend more time drinking their rice wine than working, and they all seem determined to get the women to be their personal whores. Except the one, of course.”

“What do you mean—which one?”

“That dark, Italian-looking fellow who hunts and builds things. He’s not one of the leaders, exactly, but he ought to be.”

“Italian fellow?” Tilly asked, amused. “I didn’t think there were any Italians here.”

“Well, I don’t know. He looks Italian. He also looks like a man who knows how to light a fire. Do you know, since I’ve been here, I think 40 or 50 men have asked for my attentions, but it’s always the one you want who never notices you.”

“You probably want to leave him alone,” Tilly said with a grin. “He married a terribly jealous wife.”

“Married? I thought the Communards had done away with marriage.”

“Well, the Italian fellow is old fashioned.”

That night Adam had come into the Commune just long enough to drop off the cagou he had snared—seven of them, as the birds were easy to catch—and when he saw Tilly, he smiled, just a small twitch that barely lifted his cheeks, but the warmth in his eyes made Tilly suddenly blush from head to foot. She left the cooking pot to run over to him, and uncaring of what the Communards thought, Adam swept her into his arms for a long kiss—and then said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m not hungry. Let’s go home.”

The next morning Albertine had given her an impish glare. “You must think you’re terribly clever.”

“Yes,” Tilly had agreed. “But that dates back a long time.”

“And how long have you been married to the ‘Italian fellow’?”

Tilly had grinned. “Almost four years. Sorry; I should have told you.”

“No, that’s all right,” Albertine had matched her smile. “After you left last night I asked some of the other women about you and him. So you’re Americans. I thought your accent was a little strange, but then all the Parisians kid me about my own accent. Tell me…can he really light a fire?”

Tilly had reddened. “Oh, yes.”

Albertine’s been looking a bit peaked of late, Tilly thought as she walked. Well, none of them was in perfect health. The tiny island was becoming overcrowded, in spite of the deaths of some 60 men and 20 women. There were about a thousand Kanak living there as well, although they generally did their best to stay far away from the whites.

She walked through the door to Albertine’s hovel—and bumped squarely into a man staggering out. He looked at her for a moment, eyebrows raised, and then pushed her against the entranceway, rubbing his lower body against her. Revolted, she didn’t even stop to think; she brought her knee up sharply and spat in his face at the same time. He fell outside the house, moaning.

“Where were you when I needed you?” Albertine said sourly, straightening her blouse and looking around for her pants.

“I’m so sorry, Albertine—did he hurt you?”

“No, but he annoyed the hell out of me,” Albertine shrugged, pulling on the pants. “I find myself thinking all the more that I should have stayed home in the Alsace. I don’t care for the opportunities I’m being ‘offered’ here.”

“But, did he—did he molest you?”

Albertine snorted. “Of course he did. We must all do our part, mustn’t we? So says the all-powerful Committee, and they can’t be wrong. I’ll be lucky if I’m not pregnant already.”

“I don’t understand—”

With an incomprehensible roar, the man Tilly had kicked burst back inside, backhanding Tilly into the wall, which buckled. He lunged after her again, but she twisted and rolled aside, crying out “veuve poignet!” Albertine giggled, but made no move to help as the man grabbed Tilly’s ankle and yanked her down to the ground.

“It’s not as lonely as you think,” he snapped, “It’s about to have you for company.”

That was the last thing he would say for several days; the entire hovel collapsed on him, several of the branches forming the structure of the roof landing on his head. Tilly scooted out from under him and jumped up. Her first impulse was to check to see how badly hurt he was, but on second thought she decided discretion was definitely the better part of valor.

“Albertine, are you all right?”

Her friend scrambled out from under the thatching. “Sure, but there’s going to be hell to pay for this. Why did you fight? It would have been over before you were seriously inconvenienced. That one always comes and goes fast.”

“Good Lord, Albertine—I’m not a brood mare! What on earth do you mean?”

“I mean just what I said, Mathilde. I don’t know why you would feel you’re too good for this. The rest of us have had our talks with the Committee for Biological Procurement. We know what we have to do, and we do it.”

There were disadvantages to not living in the Commune; one never heard the latest updates. Like this. There were almost as many committees as there were Communards, but this was one Tilly hadn’t heard of. “Biological…Procurement. Oh dear God. Albertine….”

Albertine shrugged. “You’d better get going. With any luck this one won’t remember what happened. I’ll tell him he was too powerful and the house couldn’t take it—he’ll like that. Go home, Mathilde.”

She did—at a full run, not stopping until she was safely inside. Now she knew what Adam was trying to protect her from, and why he wouldn’t talk about it. He was wrong, but there was no purpose served by telling him. It was part of his makeup that he couldn’t change.

By the time Adam got home she had herself under control again, but she said nothing about what had happened. Adam still seemed angry, but at least now she knew why. She left him alone to work outside.

He’d been working on that bow for a couple of weeks, selecting and cutting the wood—she didn’t know what kind it was, but it certainly wasn’t from the pine-like trees that were so common—bending it back a little at a time for a few hours each day to “teach” it to bend. She’d never realized before that he was making two of them—and one was for her. The last supply boats to come in had included a bundle of cows’ leg tendons, and he had nicked a few for their own use. He used the tendons for bow string, and the last couple of days he’d been making arrows. She’d kidded him about it only a few days before, telling him he should start off with a table and chairs if he was in the mood to build things. His only response had been to give her one of those looks that made her want to slink away with her tail between her legs. Now, she hoped he would finish the thing soon, and resolved to become the best student in the world when he taught her how to use it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a commotion outside. She heard Adam yelling, “Stop right where you are!” and peeked around the doorway. Adam had his back to the hut and didn’t see her, and if Tremerreaux and the two men with him saw her, they didn’t so much as give her a glance.

“We only came to talk,” Tremerreaux said.

“Some things are not negotiable,” Adam retorted.

“It’s a question of usefulness,” Tremerreaux began in his best diplomatic tones. “We are very grateful for the help you have given us, but we feel that each member of the Commune must serve in some capacity. Your wife serves in a very limited capacity and is not helpful at all.”

“My wife does what she can. She’s gotten better at finding food; she’s improved her speed at preparation. No woman on the island collects more firewood than she does.  And she teaches the women to read and write.”

“She also teaches history, which is of no utility at all. She might as well teach dance.”

“Just because you haven’t seen a use for history yet doesn’t mean there’s not one. Besides, there’s no additional time wasted on it; she uses the history to build their reading vocabulary.”

“Nevertheless, other women are supporting the men of the Commune in every way. Even other wives. You must do the mathematical calculations to see the logic of it.”

“My wife is not a math problem, and the first man that tries to make her one is going to get his—”

“Be reasonable, Cartwright! We have almost 2,500 men here now and only 163 women.”

“One hundred and sixty-two,” Adam said in a deadly voice. “We are not part of your Commune. I told you that a year ago. For a year now I’ve shared everything I had, every bit of knowledge and experience, with you. But there’s one thing I won’t share. You want my wife, you’ll have to kill me to get her. You might just do that, but before you do, I’ll take a few of you with me. Tremerreaux, take a look at that brown beetle crawling up the tree right next to you.”

The three men stepped back a little to look at the skinny Araucaria tree and the bug crawling up it. As they did, Adam nocked an arrow into the bow, took aim, and let fly. Suddenly white-faced, the men stared at the impaled bug. It couldn’t have been done more cleanly by an entomology professor with a pin.

“That beetle was a little smaller than your eye,” Adam said quietly. “You think about that for a long, hard time before you and your Biological Procurement Committee decide to pay my wife a visit.”

**

Fortunately, Tilly was only one woman of 163, and kept far from the spotlight as she was now, the men took little notice of her. She no longer taught, and she only came to the Commune area when Adam was with her. She helped as best she could in spite of the restrictions she now faced. And it took a while, but one day she was able to actually prove her worth.

The day came when they saw a ship a good 500 yards off the coast, apparently intending to come no closer. It was lowering a lifeboat. Once this had been done, the ship drew anchor and hurried away—and that was when everyone realized it had been flying the “yellow jack”—a flag meaning the ship was quarantined, that a deadly disease was on board. They now knew who the people on the lifeboat were, too, and every man, woman and child turned and fled.

Except for Adam and Tilly. He was resolved to help the people as best he could regardless of any warnings, and regardless of his commands, she was resolved to accompany him. “But we need to be smart—like they were in the day,” she said, and when she explained what she meant, he agreed.

The Communards peeking out from the foliage saw the two, covered from head to toe in white cloth that had arrived a few weeks earlier for shirt-making. Even their eyes were masked, and the two could be smelled long before they came near as both had dipped themselves in the vat of fresh-made vinegar.

The men on the lifeboat had bubonic plague. Four were naked and in the final stages of the disease, covered in large blisters, mostly around their armpits and groins. Adam and Tilly gave them water and made them as comfortable as possible. All four were dead by morning. The fifth man, the one who had rowed them ashore, was dying as well, but he lasted another day before breathing his last. When he expired, Adam and Tilly piled up the corpses inside the lifeboat and set it to flame—then they took off all their coverings and burned those as well. Finally, both bathed again in the vat of vinegar at the deserted commune, and then they went home.

For a full week people ogled them from a safe distance, but neither developed any of the telltale “bubos” or even had so much as a headache. After three weeks, Tremerreaux and a committee of fact-finders approached.

“Those men had the black death,” Tremerreaux said. “How did you know you wouldn’t get it too?”

Adam looked at Tilly and smiled, but said not a word.

“History,” Tilly finally said.

“Explain,” Tremerreaux prompted.

“In the Middle Ages, the black death decimated Europe’s population,” Tilly continued.

“We know that,” one man snapped, but Adam looked mildly at him and picked up his bow. The man suddenly grew quiet.

Tilly shrugged. “The cart carriers who took the corpses out and burned them usually contracted the disease too, but there was one group of people who almost never caught it. They were some of the caretakers. These people covered every inch of their bodies in cloth, and breathed through thick masks. They also bathed regularly in vinegar. A few years ago, doctors looking into microscopes saw little black things that look like earthworms in plague victims, and they believed those little animals are carrying the plague. You can’t see them without a microscope, but they’re there. Boiling water kills them. So does vinegar. So does alcohol. And it takes the bugs a while to get through cloth. My husband and I thought we might be safe if we used the same precautions those people in the Middle Ages used, and used hot water, alcohol, and vinegar to keep ourselves clean.”

“History,” Tremerreaux muttered. “Well, I’m damned.”

“Most likely,” Adam agreed. “But do us the favor of remembering this was Tilly’s idea. I think my wife has paid any debt she owed to your community. And by the way, she now knows how to shoot a bow and arrow, too.”

* Historical Note: For more information about the failure of the “colonization” efforts in New Caledonia with the Communards, read “Exile in Paradise” by Alice Bullard. The Committee for Biological Procurement is fictitious, but the situation with women—and the men’s solution to it—is not.

 

Chapter 28

“As the clouds pass o’er the sun…”

 

February, 1873, in transit

The flat he’d left behind on Montague Street was a wreck. The boy named William Scott Holmes by his mother, but called Sherlock by his father (who had doubled the hurt by refusing to put “William Scott” on the birth certificate with the “Sherlock”) knew he probably would not even be allowed back into it when he returned, but that was all right. If his mission went well, he would return Lady to her proper owners, and he would no longer have to worry about her tearing up all his books or howling each time he left the flat. She had been so well-behaved with Adam and Tilly, it had never occurred to him that apart from them, she might be a household menace. Her talents had served him well the last two and a half years, too—she had an excellent nose for tailing people he wanted to follow; she knew how to look menacing (and her teeth made the menace real enough when they had to); and she could herd anything from sheep to people. But her affections lay elsewhere, and she neither forgot it, nor let him forget it. He was her kennel-master, but “the Master” was elsewhere, and she wanted him back. It was as much for that simple reason as for any more practical reason that he insisted she be included in his passage. Mycroft had rolled his eyes, but acquiesced all the same.

If things had worked out as they should have, they would already have been there now. Normally, an “extreme clipper” like the Cassiopeia could make the voyage from London to Australia in three months—two if they used the Suez Canal. But things hadn’t worked out as they should have.

In the Coral Sea—where Adam and Tilly were—hurricane season lasted from late December to late June. And on the clipper Cassiopeia, the sailors were cursing their luck and Holmes—and his mangy dog, too. Word had arrived the day before the ship was to leave to hold for an important passenger carrying diplomatic papers. The important passenger turned out to be Holmes and Lady, and their arrival delayed the ship’s departure by another four days. This was just in time to send them directly into the arms of the last hurricane of the eastern Atlantic that year, and it picked them up just south of Spain, blowing them off course and mutilating the rudder. They had to put in at the Canary Islands for repairs. For the sailors of the Cassiopeia, whose itinerary had not included any stops so far southwest—and certainly none of such a long duration—this was nearly intolerable.

It took almost a month to repair the ship’s rudder, and by the time they had sailed through the Indian Ocean, hurricane season was beginning in the southern Pacific. This time they were lucky and only sailed through a tropical depression, but it still wrecked the third mast. The ship barely limped into Sydney Harbor. From there, Holmes ‘commissioned’ another ship to take him to New Caledonia, though he could barely stomach the thought of another two weeks on the water.

It was a shame Holmes had been forced to take the Cassiopeia from England. A clipper ship just purchased by a German firm and re-christened the Valkyrie had left London only two days before the Cassiopeia weighed anchor. On board the Valkyrie was Tilly’s old friend, the Bavarian Max Beckenbauer—better known to the governments of London and Berlin as Max Schneider. The Valkyrie put into port on Nouméa, the major port of Grande Terre, in late January of 1873. It would be June before Holmes arrived on the Cassiopeia, and by then the damage was done.

 

Chapter 29

“It’s funny, how our lives intertwine…”

 

January, 1873, Ile des Pins

Tilly’s knowledge of history might have proven her worth to the Communard leaders, but her “special treatment” won her no friends among the women. Even Albertine, the only woman who had ever shown her any kindness, became sullen and resentful.

While the leaders had put the word out that Tilly was to be left alone, Adam took no chances. She never went anywhere without him, and both traveled armed. But the trouble that awaited them was not something a bow and arrow could have prevented.

Herr Schneider’s initial meeting with Gouverneur LeBlanc was friendly enough for an “observer” from the conquering country who merely wanted to see what was being done in the conquered country’s territories. The war had netted the Prussian Empire a good deal more land; Prussia now stretched from Poland in the east to France in the west, and while Prussia’s only demand thus far had been the Alsace and Lorraine provinces of France, where the residents spoke German as well as French, the French knew that Prussia could very well demand more if the kaiser so desired. The kaiser was always looking for more colonies. Prussian possessions in the Pacific were nonexistent. France, on the other hand, had colonized parts of Asia and several islands in the Pacific. Of course, France now owed war reparations to Germany, and one never knew what kind of deals could be made in this situation. And while Schneider found what he had expected in terms of possessions, he found a few surprises, too. Schneider expected to find a few islands, nominally governed by France, with a few convicts here and there. He didn’t expect the overcrowding he found—this would be inconvenient if the kaiser annexed the islands. He expected to find the native savage population properly subjugated—and the Kanak seemed docile enough. There were too many of them, but that was easy enough to remedy. They would either become civilized, or they would be eliminated. Idly looking down the list of deportees, he smiled to see “Adam Charron, and wife, Mathilde” on page 24. “Charron? Do the French also have a legend associated with the ferryman of Hades?” he commented, pointing out the names to Gouverneur LeBlanc.

“Oh, them,” LeBlanc sighed. “You’ve misread the name—not Charon, but Charron. It’s a common enough surname—denoting someone in the cart-making trade. The prisoners are actually Americans. I don’t know how they got involved in all this, but they’ve been nothing but trouble since the day they arrived. Their real names are Cartwright—Adam and Mathilde.”

Only Schneider’s long experience undercover kept his eyebrows from meeting his hairline.

“Cartwright,” he repeated. “That’s a Saxon name, you know. They may be descended from Germans. How interesting. What makes you think they are troublesome?”

“Ah, they’ve made friends with the Kanak—not a bad thing in itself, I suppose; it keeps the peace. But in between that and some other things they’ve done, they’ve made themselves the virtual leaders of the Communards. I don’t like it when one person becomes too popular. I have almost no troops here, you know. I doubt I could put down a prisoner uprising. And the Americans, I’m certain, do not want to be here.”

“Why exactly are they here? It doesn’t make sense to me that Americans would be among Communards.”

“Me either, but my lot is simply to obey Minister Thiers. I’ve been thinking of separating the couple, actually. I think the man is the main problem, and if I bring him here where I can keep an eye on him, I’m sure the woman will be docile enough.”

“What an intriguing situation this is, Monsieur LeBlanc. Well, if you bring Monsieur Cartwright—I mean, of course, Charron—to this island, I should like to meet the man, myself.”

The next day a boat sailed to Ile des Pins, arriving at nightfall. A squad of French soldiers disembarked and promptly found the home of Tremerreaux, who directed them to the hovel where Adam and Tilly Cartwright were fast asleep.

It was over in a few minutes; somehow it had never occurred to Adam that he was worth such time and effort by the French government that they would seek him out and capture him…again. After all, he was already a captive. What more could they do to him?

He should not have asked.

 

Chapter 30

“Left without reaching her home…”

 

February, 1873, Nevada

Ben was sitting at his desk, ostensibly going over his accounts. The figures were not cooperating, though; they blurred in front of his eyes, clearing momentarily when he blinked, only to blur again.

He looked across the room to the wedding portrait of Adam and Tilly. Just as well Audun never looked at it. Ben had never liked that picture anyway. What kind of photographer let the customers dictate their poses? What kind of wife insisted on facing her husband? Ever since the invention of photography—not that long ago, come to think of it—married couples posed standing side by side, looking directly into the camera. Or occasionally the husband sat, while the wife stood behind him, one hand on his shoulder, signifying the role she would play in his life. A wife didn’t just stand there looking into her husband’s eyes as if there was nothing else in the world but him.

Well, Elizabeth had looked at him that way, come to think of it. But not in a portrait pose—she would never have done anything so untraditional…so improper. Inger, too. Even Marie would have thought twice before posing impertinently for a picture.

Drat Tilly Hoffman. Adam had been doing fine and dandy until she had turned up.

All right, he hadn’t. Apparently he had loved that Ruth woman (well, he’d slept with her, anyway; proof of that was right upstairs, sulking over his own math problems), and he had let her loss get to him. Maybe he’d really loved her, after all?

Funny that I never realized it. She was so obviously a figment of his imagination; some tortured dream from a fever…I never acknowledged her existence until last year, when I had to. For years Adam mourned for her, wondered what happened to her…and I never knew. All I ever noticed was that he was getting increasingly dissatisfied and bitter. I never wondered about the cause.

Whenever Little Joe’s heart was broken, I was right there to comfort him. Even Hoss…but Adam was left to grieve alone because we…I…thought he’d imagined the whole thing. No wonder he fell for Tilly. She just happened along at the lowest point of his life and gave him a reason to leave. He probably didn’t even love her.

No…I know better than that. Those letters…they weren’t the letters of the skeptical, reason-before-anything Adam I knew. They were the letters of a man head over heels in love with every aspect of his life. He loved his wife; he loved his dog, he even loved running in front of the stupid bulls. No, I suppose he did love Tilly. But mainly because she got him away from the Ponderosa.

That was what he disliked most about Tilly, he decided. It wasn’t just that she had posed improperly for a photograph, or that she had gotten them stuck in Paris for no good reason while the German army marched in and sacked the place…she had taken Ben Cartwright’s son away—halfway around the world—and Audun was right, Adam had gone right to his death.

Whatever the lawyer said.

He’d gone into town with Audun last month, and while the boy spent the time happily visiting Kam Lee in Chinatown, Ben had gone to see Hiram Wood.

“Adam’s dead, Hiram. He has to be, or he would have been in touch by now. Hoss, Joe and I have discussed it…and we’ve decided it’s time to accept it and get on with our lives. I need you to make it official.”

Hiram had looked over the letters, the Pinkerton reports, and the telegram from Don Fernando, and had shaken his head. “It’s not enough, Ben. This isn’t proof that Adam’s dead.”

“What do you mean, it isn’t proof? He’s been gone three years—and we haven’t heard from him in more than two.”

“So? Didn’t you send him to college back East, Ben? Wasn’t he gone three or four years then, too?”

“Sure—but we had letters. At least one each month, sometimes more. But not this time. Look at what’s in front of your own eyes, Hiram. I know my son. Look how much of the last letter is spent reassuring me that I don’t have to worry; that he’ll leave as soon as he can—that he wants to come home. If he could have come, I know he would have. What else can it mean, not to hear from him in all this time?”

Hiram frowned. “Yes, he was in a war area. Yes, the street he used to live on was bombed, and all the buildings were destroyed. But his letter says he’s moving. He may not have been in the house that was bombed. Or even if he still lived there, he might have been elsewhere during the bombing—we know from the newspapers that most Parisians went underground during the shelling. You don’t have a statement from the landlord that he lived there when the house was destroyed. You don’t have any witnesses who say he was in the house. You don’t even have any reports from the police or the army about how many people—if any—were pulled out of the rubble.”

“But the whole war only lasted six months!”

“Sure, but that was just the part between the French and the Germans. There was a civil war in France as a result of the first war—some say as many people were killed in that war as were killed by the Germans.”

“Fine. Do you think I really care whether he was killed by the Germans or the French? The point is, someone killed him. If he was alive, he would have contacted me by now.”

“Ben, your logic and common sense may dictate that if Adam’s alive, he’ll be in contact with you, but the law doesn’t work that way. Death in absentia is a difficult ruling to obtain—especially when the person in question has a large estate like Adam.”

“What do you mean? Adam was careful with money, but hardly rich.”

Hiram cocked an eyebrow. “Adam wasn’t just one of the heirs of the Ponderosa, you know. In the first place, you deeded 20,000 acres to him for his own place the day he got married. I believe you signed over some 1,500 head of cattle, too, so he could start his own herd. Besides that, he had his own investments in silver mines, railroads, telegraph companies, and before he left he purchased a partnership in an architectural firm.”

“What?”

“Didn’t he tell you? Apparently he didn’t communicate every aspect of his life to you, Ben. But the real point is this: if your son Joe disappeared today, and was last seen in an area where the Indians had a lot of white men pinned down and in trouble, it would be difficult, but not impossible, to get a death certificate in absentia. He owns no property; he has no investments. On paper, he’s a pauper.”

“He’s my son! He owns a fourth of everything I have—and a third after I’m gone!”

“Sure, but you’ve never done anything to make his status formal while you’re alive and he’s unmarried. You gave him that little strip of woods with a cabin—I think Joe called it Edelweiss—but the cabin burned down in the drought last year, and the land is worthless. Now, I’m sure if he actually married one of those girls he’s always engaged to, you’d hand him some acreage and cows too, like you did with Adam and Hoss. And of course he’s one of the Ponderosa heirs in your will. But as things stand right now, he gets whatever you pay him each month along with bunk and beans. That’s the difference between him and Adam. As I said, it would be difficult, but we could do it with Joe because on paper, he has nothing. On paper, Adam is worth around more than a quarter-million dollars. Someone with that size estate does not just get declared dead on a whim.”

“Do I look whimsical to you? I never even knew Adam was worth that much.”

“Well, he is. Whoever he declared his heir will be quite a property owner—in five more years. United States common law dictates seven years for death in absentia, and Nevada has no law to override it. And it’s more complicated still because he disappeared overseas. His home of record in France was this ‘Rue Invalides’ place. So international law may apply.

“Then it gets even uglier. Adam left everything to his wife with a provision that if they both died without producing an heir, all his possessions would revert to you and his brothers. I’m assuming his wife is also presumed dead, but we have no more proof about her than about him…and since you would thus gain that nice-sized estate, and you’re the one asking to have him declared dead, there are bound to be questions asked.”

“He has an heir,” Ben said faintly, feeling somehow lightheaded. Audun had been at the Ponderosa since November, but somehow they had kept it quiet until now. In telling Hiram, he’d be telling the world.

“Adam and his wife had children? I didn’t know. A new wrinkle—as if this case didn’t have enough! But aren’t the children missing too?”

“Not…not from Tilly. Adam told us he was married before.” He believed it as he said it, and somehow it came out sounding right. “His first wife’s name was Ruth Halverson. They had a son together—but Ruth is dead, too. And she has a grave; her death was witnessed.”

“All right. Has the child reached his majority?”

For a moment, Ben was stumped. Was Adam even old enough to have a child of 18? Come to think of it, he was…and had been for a while. Somehow Ben had never considered that. But he cleared his throat and said, “No. The boy is 10 years old.”

“And who has custody?”

“Um…I do.”

“Legally?”

“As legally as it can be. I have a letter from Ruth to Adam, telling him she was dying and asking him to get the boy. Since we couldn’t find Adam, I went for him…he was in Oregon with his guardian, a man named Timothy. Timothy turned him over to me.”

“Do you want to make him your legal ward?”

“I…I guess so.”

Hiram was looking at him in confusion. “Do you need to think this over? You don’t sound very certain.”

Ben’s enraged roar eased the man’s doubts. “Audun Cartwright is my grandson! What do you want from me, Hiram—blood?”

“Thank you, Ben. You sound a little more like yourself now.” Hiram grinned weakly. “But you still have a problem. If we put in a request for death in absentia, you still stand to gain since you’re the kid’s—what’s his name again—Timothy?”

“No. His name is Audun. A-u-d-u-n. Ow-doon.”

“Okay, well, as Audun’s guardian, you’d still stand to gain from declaring Adam dead. Look, Ben, five more years—at our age that’s nothing. Let it go. And by the time Audun reaches majority, who knows, those investments may leave him a millionaire.”

“My grandson has no intention of being a millionaire. He wants to be a doctor,” Ben snapped, getting up. “And I have no plans to finance his college education by taking a loan out, Hiram. If you say two years isn’t enough, fine, it isn’t enough. But life doesn’t stop, no matter what chaos comes—I know it from experience. I lived through chaos three times when my wives died, and now my son is gone, and I have no alternative left but to think he’s dead too. Life doesn’t stop, not even mine; not until the good Lord says I can rest. I’ll be back in six months—and then another six—and another. Eventually you’ll get tired of my face, and you’ll file that request.”

Hiram stood up as well, cocking his head to one side. “Ben, I’ve known you a long time, and I’ve never known you to give up on one of your boys so easy. I think you’re just yelling at me because you don’t believe he’s dead yourself.”

“I’d love to agree with you…” Ben’s voice trailed off. “But you tell me what to think. Seven letters. They all arrived the first year. The last letter says—for whatever reason—that they can’t leave Paris. It’s been 28 months, Hiram, 28 months since he mailed that last letter. Have you ever thought about just how long a period that is? I have. I’ve been living through every day of those 28 months, and they get heavier all the time. Every tick of the clock reminds me that my son is gone. I don’t have the comfort of a grave to visit, and now you’re telling me I can’t even have the comfort of…of…finality. There’s nothing so terrifying as living in uncertainty.”

Hiram had looked oddly at him at that statement. Well, true, Ben Cartwright was not known for using words like “terrifying.”

That had been a month ago. He remembered silently riding back from town with Audun. This was not too strange; Audun was not one for idle chatter. When they got home, Joe had met them at the door, looking as if he had something to say—but apparently changing his mind when he saw the look on his father’s face. It was strange; now and then Ben had the feeling that Joe wanted to talk to him about something, but for whatever reason, he didn’t want to say it just yet. In the old days Ben might have prodded him a little, but now he left his son alone. If Joe had something important enough, he’d say it eventually.

Joe still hadn’t said anything, but Ben wasn’t thinking about that. He was suddenly realizing that even aside from finding Adam’s son, he now understood Adam better for another reason. “There is nothing so terrifying as living in uncertainty,” he had told Hiram that day, because he couldn’t find out whether Adam was alive or dead. Now he understood Adam’s strange moods over those years: Adam had gone through the same thing, with Ruth.

 

Chapter 31

“You have two long beaten swords, and I’ve a pocket-knife…”

 

February, 1873, Ile des Pins

Tilly rocked back and forth on the straw pallet, arms wrapped around her knees, silent tears dripping on her pants. Periodically a little whimper escaped. For the first time since she had married Adam, she had no idea what to do. She had always considered herself as hard-headed and practical as her husband; always looking for solutions rather than resorting to crying…but now she didn’t even know the problem, much less a solution.

Fact 1: Eight soldiers carrying shackles had burst into their hut in the middle of the night, waking them from an exhausted sleep. They had immediately grabbed Adam, and when he tried to resist, one had gut-slugged him with a rifle butt. They quickly applied the shackles to both his arms and legs, and dragged him away.

Fact 2: Her attempt to accompany him had ended with her being flung against a tree and told that she would be shot if she followed, and Adam’s last words to her were, “No Commune—go to the Kunie.”

Fact 3: Tremerreaux had been with the soldiers. Against Adam’s direct orders, she had gone to him and asked what was going on, but beyond Tremerreaux’s terse explanation that the soldiers had awakened him and demanded he take them to Adam or be shot where he lay, he had no words of help. When she asked what Adam had done, he just looked at her and said, “Only an American could ask such a stupid question.”

Fact 4: The soldiers had been on a small sailing craft from Grand Terre; they had probably taken Adam there.

But questions like why; to what purpose; would he be allowed to return, and if so, when…would she ever see him again…there were no answers.

Before, there had always been hope. Even when he had been sentenced to die, and every attempt to free him had failed, even when she’d given up herself, she still had the hope of dying with him. Now, there was not even that.

“There is nothing quite as frightening as uncertainty,” she mumbled, wiping her face. She didn’t know where Grande Terre was; north, she thought, but even if she had a boat she wouldn’t know how to steer north with no landmarks. There was only one thing to do—obey Adam. She got painfully to her feet, packed up her bow and quiver of arrows, and went to find the Kunie.

**

Adam sat on the narrow bench in the cell, wondering. He could see the sun through the high, barred window, and he figured it had probably been about 15 hours since he’d been yanked out of his home—well, what passed for a home, and his bed—well, what passed for a bed. After the seven or eight hours on the water, they’d marched him here and dumped him, still shackled, into this cell. He hadn’t spoken to anyone; he hadn’t been interrogated. He couldn’t imagine what he’d done that would have provoked all this, but after two and a half years, he was coming to understand the European philosophy that one’s existence was frequently reason enough for an arrest.

He heard voices in conversation down the hall, and they seemed to be coming his way. He stood up as they stopped outside his cell. There was the rattling of keys, then the lock clicked and the door swung open. He didn’t recognize one of the men at all, though by his outfit he was some sort of glorified civil servant. But the other—it took a moment to push past the cobwebs of memory, but he knew this one. They had met only once, more than two years ago, but it was certainly Max Beckenbauer.

“I didn’t believe it,” Max cried. “Adam Cartwright, my friend, I thought it must be some terrible mistake. What on God’s earth are you doing here? And where is your darling Mathilde?”

“Max…” Adam said—and had to lean against the wall to stay upright. “Sorry. It’s just…it’s been so long since I’ve seen a friendly face.”

Max braced him up and led him back to the bench. “Please, sit—you look quite overcome. Gouverneur LeBlanc, may I speak with my friend a moment? Do you mind?”

LeBlanc’s eyebrows rose, but he shrugged and left the cell.

“Tell me everything,” Max commanded.

Adam sighed. “I don’t know where to start. Not long after you left, the French police arrested me. They thought I knew something about a German spy named Schneider. Some of them even thought I might be Schneider. I couldn’t convince them differently.”

“Good Lord,” Max murmured. “I had no idea that our friendship would be so costly.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was Schneider. But you and I only met once; I had no idea they would suspect you.”

“You’re Schneider?”

“I was, then—the Prussians needed information about the French military’s state of readiness, and I was in an ideal position to provide it. But the war is over now. Surely you were not deported because of me?”

“Not really. I escaped—unfortunately, it was during the Communard uprising, and I got roped into helping them. When the uprising was put down the government arrested people right and left; I was one of the lucky ones to get arrested again. This time it was for being a Communard.”

“And what of Mathilde? Was she arrested too?”

“She wouldn’t have been, but…she wanted to be with me. You know how women can be,” Adam shrugged. “I tried to send her home, but she wouldn’t go. In the end, we were both deported here. Until yesterday, we’ve been just like any other prisoners. We were on the little island south of here…I’ve written to my father at least five times, but I’m starting to think he’s never received any of my letters.”

“Of course not,” Max snorted. “The French would never pay the money it costs to forward a letter to the Americas. No, my friend, if there is help to be found, I think it will come from me. Remember, I’m an observer for the Empire—no official capacity at all, of course. But I can certainly make suggestions. And the sight of you, my dear friend, fills me with all kinds of ideas. Tell me—are you all right? You appear a little weak.”

“I was fine until I had a little altercation with the soldiers who brought me here. Serves me right for asking questions, I guess.”

“I’ll talk to Gouverneur LeBlanc…get you some food and water. But tell me, where is dear Mathilde, and is she in good health?”

“They left her on the little island.” Adam looked up into the deep blue eyes and concerned face, and wondered why he had ever thought he disliked the man. “Max, there are only 160 women on that island, and more than 2,000 men. So far I’ve kept her safe, but she’s not protected now. I told her to go to the Kunie…I hope she did, but you know she’s got a mind of her own.”

“She certainly does,” Max agreed, smiling. “Who are the Kunie?”

“The French call them the Kanak—they’re the natives here. Max, I can’t ask you to risk your position here for me; I know there’s nothing you can do officially to help. But if you could somehow get Tilly out of here, make her go home—at the very least she’d be out of danger, and who knows; she might be able to help. Will you do what you can for her?”

“I will do everything I can for you both,” Max said, and the sincerity in his voice made Adam sigh with relief. Of course Max was all right. After all, they had sung together.

 

Chapter 32

“…We all had a very good time.”

 

February, 1873, Nevada

“My goodness, Ben!”

The voice in the post office was Beth Cameron’s, and Ben looked up from the Pinkerton’s latest letter and into her worried brown eyes.

“Good morning Mrs. Ca—I mean, Beth. How are you today?”

“I’m fine. But I haven’t seen anything more than glimpses of you for the past couple of months, and now that I’m looking at you—well! To say you look like death warmed over would be an undeserved compliment. What on earth is troubling you so?”

He shook his head, attempting a smile. “Just another typical day. How’s the shoe store doing?”

“Bother the shoe store. You and I are going to sit down and talk, Ben. Since you stopped me making a fool of myself with those gossiping old crones down the street, I haven’t had a soul to talk to—and you look in desperate need of conversation. Come along, the International House isn’t far—and I heard they actually cleaned the coffee pot this week.”

Somehow—he could never quite remember how—he ended up at the International House, sitting at a quiet corner table with her. But instead of filling the air with her usual chatter about shoes, she was silent, gazing expectantly at him.

“I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I guess I’m not very talkative today, Beth.”

“It’s that letter you got, I suppose. Bad news about Adam?”

He smiled lopsidedly. “No news at all. Just a bill for expenses. I feel as if I’m dropping money down a well.”

“In a way, you are. A wishing well.”

To his own surprise, he laughed a little. “I guess you’re right.”

“Ben, I really shouldn’t ask this, but….”

“Go ahead, Beth. I’m sure I couldn’t keep a secret from you.”

“It’s just that…well, one of your ranch hands—and I won’t say which one—bought some new boots recently in my store, and he said there’s an Indian boy living with you now. He made a joke about how I’d better start stocking moccasins, because the boy refuses to dress like a decent human being.”

Ben sucked his breath in sharply, and his eyebrows came down. “Beth, that ‘Indian boy’ is as white as you and I. Furthermore, he does dress like a decent human being. He just happens to have a preference for Indian clothing. And before I start looking at all my ranch hands to see who’s wearing new boots, I think you should tell the man he’d better be careful what kind of jokes he makes about my grandson.”

“Your…grandson?”

“That’s right. The boy is my grandson. He was raised by his mother, but she died, and he’s come to live with me now. His name is Audun, and he’s—” without realizing, it he smiled—“almost a copy of Adam. Tall, strong, good-looking—he wants to be a doctor. He’s pulled out all Adam’s college books, especially the ones about biology, chemistry, and anatomy, and he’s—”

“Adam has a son?”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“But you said he and Tilly…wait a minute…”

He waved his hand impatiently. “Adam was married before. Her name was Ruth. But she left him.” The story grew easier with each repeated telling. “When she died, she left word that the boy was with a guardian, and that we should get him. He’s with us now.”

“I’m astonished. No one ever mentioned…why, Adam never mentioned….”

“Well, he wouldn’t, would he? Beth, you never really knew Adam. I sometimes think the more things mattered to him, the less he spoke of them. He loved Ruth deeply, and when she left, he tried to find her. He couldn’t, and he stopped talking about her. It’s that simple.”

“But…did he know about the boy?”

Ben’s shoulders slumped. “Beth, you asked me what was wrong. I’m trying to tell you about the only thing that’s right with me at the moment. Don’t make me think again of all the wrong things. It…hurts.”

She could not seem to think of a reply to that, and so they sat in silence for a while—until Beth noticed something, and pointed. “Isn’t that Little Joe with Alice Harper? My, he certainly has been paying a lot of attention to her lately.”

Joe noticed them then, and changed direction to join them. A small, doe-eyed girl was nervously clutching his arm.

“Hey, Pa, someone told me you were in town. I want you to meet somebody. This is Alice Harper—Alice, this is my father, Ben Cartwright, the fellow I’ve been telling you about all these months.”

Ben smiled and stood to greet the newcomer. “Hello, Alice. I’m sorry I didn’t know who you were. Joseph has been all but a stranger at home lately. It’s nice to understand why.”

“Well, it’s a darn site easier to talk to a guy who’s smiling than—” Joe blushed and backstepped. “Look, Pa, Alice and I are going on a picnic. We’d like to invite you along.”

“How kind of you—but as you see, Mrs. Cameron and I—”

“Nonsense, Ben, you go right along. We weren’t talking about anything that can’t be talked about some other time, and your son here looks like he’s about dying to tell you something. I’ll see you later.”

“You could come too, Mrs. Cameron,” Alice said hesitantly.

“No; I think this is a family affair,” Beth said with a smile. “Go on, all of you.”

 

Chapter 33

“You never come out to play…”

 

February, 1873, Ile des Pins

Tilly had learned a lot from Adam—and the Kunie people—about how not to be seen. The Kunie gathered the wild yams and dried them, and she helped them grind the coarse flour they made—but this was done in the open. When whites appeared, the Kunie melted into the forest. But at the sight of the column of soldiers, she only stood and stared. He was so completely unexpected a sight that she cried out and ran to him like a fawn to its mother. “Max! Oh, Max, I was never so glad to see anyone in my life! What are you doing here?” She threw her arms around him.

“Well, Mathilde, this is even a better welcome than I had hoped for.” He kissed her on the lips, and she hastily squirmed away.

“Max, I’m married!”

“So you are,” he sighed. “But I asked you first. Twice.”

“You also asked four other girls in Paris and one in Geneva.”

“What can I say? I was an affectionate boy. Have these savages hurt you in any way?”

“They’re not savages—they’re friends. And of course they haven’t hurt me.”

“Good. Let us talk, then, Lily Tilly.”

She pursed her lips, wondering why she’d ever confided that childhood nickname to him. Well, she’d been younger then.

“Have you seen Adam?” she asked.

“I have. He’s well and safe, at least for now. They have assigned him to a work detail on Grande Terre.”

“But why there? Why did they take him away at all?”

“Ah, Gouverneur LeBlanc is one of those timid, easily frightened men. You and your husband were too popular among the people, and LeBlanc feared Adam was turning into a Communard messiah.”

“Popular? Ha! And are you serious—a Communard messiah? Only in the sense that he was usually in trouble with them. He had a hard enough time just keeping me safe.”

He looked intensely at her. “I would have hoped a husband would be able to protect his wife. It sounds as if Adam is a disappointment to you. If so, he is one to me as well.”

She shook her head. “No, Max—what happened wasn’t his fault. But if you’ve been through the settlement I’m sure you’ve seen how crowded it is. Most of the prisoners are men, and there are very few women. Some of the men—well, Adam always protected me. When they were taking him away, he was only worried about me—he even sent me to the Kunie so they’d protect me. But is there any way you can get me to Adam? A wife should be with her husband.”

“My powers are not so great, although I like your faith in me, Mathilde. I’m only an observer here. The kaiser has sent a few of us here to look around. But as far as our influence, that is sadly limited. You understand.”

Tilly fell quiet for a moment. “Then why are you here?”

“Adam asked me to get you to safety. I thought I could do that much. I can’t get you to America, of course, but the Eastern Loyalty Islands are not far away—I could set you up there until such time as Adam is released.”

“No. I’d be even further away from Grande Terre than I am here. Maybe I haven’t been clear enough, Max—I want to be with my husband, or at least as close as I can get; you’re trying to send me farther away from him.”

“You’re an admirable wife—but I told you, I cannot take you to Grande Terre. Believe it or not, I sailed all day to get here at Adam’s request—it was not my plan to spend this day with a lot of smelly French soldiers and the evening with equally smelly savages. If you’ll come to the Loyalty—”

“I told you, NO.”

“Then what will you do? I can’t leave you here with those savages!”

“They’re not savages. They’re friends. Adam trusted them enough to send me here, so here I’ll stay until he can come back to me or I can go to him.”

“Mathilde, use your head! I can get you to civilization. I can set you up in a decent flat until things with Adam are resolved. Adam does not want you staying here when you can be safe with civilized people.”

Tilly looked silently at Max.

“All right, I’m going,” Max said tightly. “I’ll leave you to your own kind.”

He walked away, back to the squad of soldiers, and Tilly watched him go.

“Grande Terre has a prison, but the whole island is not one,” she had told her students once when teaching European history. “The city of Nouméa, for example, is quite civilized.”

Grande Terre, where Adam was, lay a mere 50 miles to the north. An easy day’s sail. The Loyalty Islands…she shook her head. Why, the nearest one was more than twice that distance. And she turned back toward the bushes, wondering why Max was powerful enough to take her to the civilization on the faraway Eastern Loyalties, but not the civilization near her husband.

 

Chapter 34

“You’re afraid of your own shadow…”

 

Ben collapsed into his chair. It hadn’t been much of a picnic—far too cold for sitting around eating on the ground. They had taken a wagon out together, eaten in the wagon, and then walked through the snowy forest. Eventually he had waved the two of them off and leaned against a tree, just enjoying the quiet…until his thoughts returned to hammer at him. Then he had longed for human companionship again.

“That was quite a day, Joe.” He smiled. “And…she’s quite a girl.”

“I’m going to marry her, Pa.”

He looked up at his youngest, who was sitting on the coffee table. Adam used to sit there. Right next to that bowl of fruit. Sometimes he’d just sit there and help himself to an apple…times like those he looked almost…content. Kind of like Joe looks right now. He pulled his thoughts back to his youngest. “That’s a song you’ve sung before.”

Joe shook his head. “There’s something you should know. I’ve been courting Alice since August. It’s February. I’d have married her long ago except we found out about Audun, and—well, I didn’t want to heap too many things on you at once. But I’ve been planning to ask her since November. Think about it. When’s the last time I kept company with a girl for more than two months, let alone seven?”

“That is a long time for you to stay with one woman, indeed,” Ben admitted gravely.

“It’s nothing to what I have planned, Pa. I want her with me for the rest of my life.”

“Have you spoken to her already?”

“Not directly, but I think she knows how I feel. I wanted to talk to you first, this time around. I know I used to get so carried away I’d forget you entirely, but…well, I guess I really am growing up.”

“You’re sure you love her?”

“Nary a doubt in my head. And I’m just as certain she loves me. Pa, her parents are dead and her brother’s a good-for-nothing. Will you walk her down the aisle?”

“I’ll be honored, if she’ll have me. When are you going to ask her?”

“I’ll ride into town in the morning.” Joe grinned impishly. “You know, I think Adam would’ve liked her, too. Now that’s unusual, for a fiancée of mine.”

Ben swallowed. “Has Hoss met her?”

“Yeah, we’ve been out to see them several times. She and Veralyn get along great too. They’re both kinda quiet, but they really seem to like each other. And Hoss already calls her his little sister.”

“I guess the father really is the last to know,” Ben chuckled.

“Pa, I’m sorry; it was just that you seemed to have so much else on your mind. I know you’re still mourning Adam, and I guess we’ll always do that, but…you have to keep living, that’s what Hoss says.”

“Have you told Audun?”

“Not exactly. He’s met Alice…I brought her out here one day and he was out, so I introduced them. You know he’s pretty standoffish with strangers, and he doesn’t have much use for women anyway.”

“Neither did you, at his age. Most boys feel that way at 10.”

“Well, I think I changed my mind when I was 11 or 12, so I guess Audun will be okay eventually. Anyway, he was polite. And she liked him well enough. Pa…will you be all right with him? I mean…would you like Alice and me to take him with us when we build our place?”

“Lord, no, Joe,” Ben replied. “You must think I’m decrepit. I can handle Audun just fine. We’ll have to work out some schedule changes since you won’t be right here, but the Ponderosa and I can manage without you well enough. If you love this girl, marry her. You remember what Adam said. It’s inefficient if you waste your time when you know you love her and she loves you.”

Joe laughed softly, looking into the fire. “I remember. You’re not the only one who ever sneaked and reread those letters.”

They just looked at each other for a while. Ben smiled. “She’s getting a good man, son.”

“Thanks.” Joe turned and stared at the fire for a while. “Pa…do you ever think about marrying again?”

“I have, over the years, I guess. But not much lately. Most men have one great love. I had three. I didn’t have them for long, but I was lucky to have had them at all. And each of them left me with something wonderful. Now I have Audun to raise, and he’s a handful, between the plants he insists on collecting and the Latin pronunciations he insists on learning.”

“So you don’t have any intentions toward Mrs. Cameron?”

“What? I—um—we’re friends. That’s all. She fixes me dinner sometimes.”

“Yeah, but the way she was looking at you when I came in today, I think she wants to fix you breakfast.”

“Great jumping Jehoshaphat, Joseph Francis Cartwright! I think it’s time for you to go to bed. Now!”

“Pa, I’m pushin’ 30—you can’t send me to bed.”

“Watch me!”

“Just because I called you on Mrs. Cameron? I didn’t say anything the rest of Virginia City isn’t already wondering.”

“And we know just how reliable Virginia City gossip is, don’t we? Drop the subject, Little Joe.”

“Oh, now I’m Little Joe again. Funny, a minute ago you were telling me I was all grown up.”

“You were acting like it a minute ago. Now you’re resorting to idle gossip and crude…honestly, Joe!”

“Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much,” Joe intoned dramatically.

“Son, Beth Cameron is a lady!”

“She’s also shrill as heck,” Joe stifled a giggle. “So don’t make her scream.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I just mean, she’s really shrill sometimes—as Hoss and I had occasion to learn.”

“Well, trust me, son, if I ever make her scream, I’ll be certain to do it when you and Hoss are not around. Now get to bed!”

At that, Joe burst into wild laughter, and ran from the room just in time to duck a barrage of apples.

 

Chapter 35

“Escape to a place where we can touch the sky…”

 

February, 1873, Grande Terre

Life on Grande Terre was nothing like Ile des Pins. Here there were prison cells, chains, work details…and even a rumor of torture dungeons far underground. Max used his influence with LeBlanc to get Adam out of his cell and onto a work detail, a work detail containing some interesting characters. One of them in particular intrigued Adam. Adam had never complained to Tilly on Grande Terre, but he had envied her friendship with Albertine, however short-lived it had been. While he was respected by most of the men and liked by some, he had little in common with them on which to base a friendship. He had turned to Tilly as a friend as well as a wife, but he no longer had her. On the other hand, he now had Henri Rochefort. Their friendship never made it into the history books, but its consequences would change Adam’s life.

Branded among the worst of the worst troublemakers, the man was not a Communard at all—in fact, he had been born a Paris aristocrat. The Marquis Victor-Henri de Rochefort-Luçay was born in Paris in January, 1831, into a family of ancient nobility. A mere three years older than Adam, he had worked at an office of the prefect of police, then as an inspector at a hotel, before finally settling into writing as a profession. He wrote theater criticism first, but his specialty was political satire. He had written such scathing commentaries of Emperor Napoleon III that he’d been fired from the newspaper he worked for. Unrepentant, Rochefort simply went into partnership with a friend and in 1868 founded his own weekly newspaper, La Lanterne. In its first month of existence, the newspaper sold half a million copies and became so popular—and so notorious—that the newspaper was suppressed by the Emperor, and Rochefort was chased out of France. Undaunted, he started another newspaper in Belgium, smuggling it into France. Sneaking back into France in 1869, the year before Adam’s arrival, he began another newspaper, La Marseillaise, and his verbal attacks on the Emperor became worse than ever.

When Prime Minister Thiers re-took the capital and the surviving Communards were imprisoned, Rochefort was sentenced to prison as well. Victor Hugo himself entered a plea on Rochefort’s behalf, but it didn’t work—the man was deported with the Communards. In truth, the main thing he had in common with the Communards was his hatred of the current government—but it was enough.

Adam had heard of Rochefort often in Paris, even seen issues of Le Mot d’ordre, Rochefort’s newspaper during the Commune days. Rochefort’s writing was witty and caustic, and although Adam hadn’t always understood the finer nuances of the language, he knew enough to recognize a man who’d be about as much fun to run with as Sam Clemens had been.

Both Adam and Rochefort had been in jail at the same time, too, but had never met—until now. And now, with his sore guts feeling better and his worry over Tilly assuaged by sending Max out to take care of her, Adam took advantage of his position working alongside Rochefort. “The name’s Adam Cartwright. I’m a great admirer of your writing,” he told the man, who looked at him, eyebrows raised.

“I’m told such a remark will earn you a day in chains,” he finally replied, stopping to lean against his shovel for a moment.

“I just came from being chained,” Adam replied. “And when they put me in the cell tonight I’ll be chained again. There’s not much more they can do to me at this point.”

“Trust me, there’s always more,” Rochefort said, taking up his shovel again and thrusting it into the dirt. “I turned 42 four months ago on a prison ship bound for this place. It was not quite how I envisioned my birthday.”

“I understand,” both Adam and his shovel responded in kind. “I should have been home a year ago.”

“You’re not French, but I don’t recognize your accent. Where are you from?”

“Nevada, in the United States.”

“Ah, the Americas. I always wanted to go to San Francisco. Have you ever been there?”

“I have.” A sigh. “Wish we were there now.”

“I’ve heard there’s a place with excellent crab cakes.”

“Many of them,” Adam laughed. “But you must not have been here very long. Believe me, you’ll get your fill of crab. And fish. And cagou. And lizard. About the only thing you won’t have is a nice thick steak or a pork roast.”

“Obviously you have not been here very long, Monsieur Cartwright. I don’t know where you were that you ate crab, but here on Ile Nou we feast on gruel and die of scurvy.”

On Ile des Pins, they had to catch their own food, but there was plenty of fish, fowl, and fruit. Since his arrival on Grande Terre, Adam had been given only some sort of gloppy gruel. He thought it was because he was in a cell. Now that he was out on a work detail, he thought the food would be more sustaining. After all, the ditches they were digging were not simply punishment; they were necessary for latrines. If they were doing valid work, they needed nutrition. He pointed this out to Rochefort, who smiled.

“There are always plenty of prisoners to replace us, my friend. They say there’ll be another boat next month. So far they have deported a few thousand Communards, a few thousand pickpockets, arsonists, and rapists—oh, and someBerber Arabs who revolted against the colonization in their land. Believe me, if we die in this ditch, our absence will not pain Mother France.”

But they did not die in the ditch; both were in good health and still reasonably young and strong. And after a week of working together, exchanging philosophies and life stories, Adam knew he’d made a friend in Henri Rochefort, and said as much.

“And I feel the same, Adam. Our friendship will be of short duration, though,” Rochefort replied solemnly. “I don’t intend to stay in this place. The food is disgusting, not something any proper Parisian should eat; the lodgings are completely without merit; the company—with the exception of you and a few others—is intolerable.” He chuckled. “And the service, in a word, stinks. I don’t care for the employment, either. I have nothing against manual labor, but I am qualified for many other things. No. I will avail myself of Gouverneur LeBlanc’s hospitality no longer.”

“I said the same thing a little over a year ago, but somehow I’m still here,” Adam replied. “If you can figure a way out of this place, it’ll be more than I’ve been able to do.”

“I’ve already done it,” Rochefort said with a nod. “Everyone is subject to bribery, you know.”

“Ah. Well, I guess you can do that when you have money. I haven’t had any of that for a while.” Adam chuckled as he realized just how long he’d been without money.

“You don’t need any, Adam. You can come with me. There’s room for seven of us. I’ve already got five others going with me. You can be the last.”

“But where will you go?”

“Australia, of course! The British won’t dare send me back—the Australians wouldn’t tolerate it. Do you know that when one of the French prison boats anchored in Melbourne, the local citizenry felt such pity for the convicts that they took up a collection of food, clothing, and money for us—and the boat captain took it and kept the money, and dumped the supplies into the ocean in plain sight of harbor? The Australians will surely lend a helping hand.”

It was tempting. Oh, it was tempting. Adam smiled and looked down. “Can’t do it, Henri. Sorry.”

“For God’s sake, man, why not?”

“Tilly—my wife. She’s on Ile des Pins. I can’t leave her behind.”

“Once you get to Australia you can contact the embassy there and have them send for her! The French government won’t dare turn down a request from Australia, not with two British Navy destroyers in Melbourne Harbor.”

“Henri, we’re not even here officially—we’re Adam and Mathilde Charron. The French government has already refused to admit there are any Americans in the group—and I have a feeling they would make Tilly disappear from the face of the earth rather than admit to having her here. No, I can’t go. But I’ll gladly help you get out, as long as you don’t let anyone know I helped.”

“You have my word, Adam, not one syllable of your name shall ever escape my lips.”

“And you have mine, Henri—not one syllable.”

* Historical Note: Henri Rochefort was a real person, and the biographical information provided here is true. He and five other men were the only escapees from New Caledonia. His escape enraged the authorities and the crackdown was fierce, including torture for those who remained.

 

Chapter 36

“…to stand strong before the fight…”

 

LeBlanc was suddenly living up to his name—his face was so white even his lips were bloodless. “Six of the worst offenders gone without a trace? How is this possible?”

Lounging in his office, Max Beckenbauer murmured, “Surely people have escaped this place before.”

“No. Not yet. Not till now. Oh God, what will I tell the prime minister?”

“Maybe they’ll turn up,” Max said encouragingly.

“Unless it’s in body parts and fragments of a raft, like the morons on Ile des Pins, my head is still on the guillotine!”

Max thought for a while. “Well, of course you have to protect yourself. Whoever these people were…someone must have known about their escape, perhaps even helped them. Yes?”

“Yes…” LeBlanc looked at Max challengingly. “I believe Rochefort was very close to Adam Cartwright.”

“Well.” Max considered this and shrugged. “If he was involved in this, I suppose you’ll have to interrogate him, then.”

“I thought you were a close friend of his.”

Max shook his head. “Not exactly close. But it doesn’t matter anyway. The alternative is to round up the rest of the prisoners here and start applying old-school methods to acquire confessions. If Cartwright is the good man I think he is, he must know that his confession will save lives.”

LeBlanc snorted. “What do you recommend—thumbscrews?”

“That rather smacks of the Inquisition, doesn’t it?” Max replied thoughtfully. “I suppose you have to use the methods at hand, but perhaps it won’t come to that. He is an intelligent man, and I’m sure he’ll cooperate when he sees it is in his best interest, as well as the interest of others here.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I’m going to round up everyone on all work details—and interrogate them. And I’m not above using Inquisition methods if I must.”

**

Adam “Charron” turned out to be less cooperative than the men had hoped. When Max went into the underground cell where Adam had been chained, the American had only been beaten—so far. But Max found the smell of blood distressing.

Adam was sitting on the stone floor of the cell, his hands chained to the wall behind him, his feet bare. His face and shirtless body were a mass of bruises. But Cartwright’s first words were surprising. “Max…is Tilly all right? Did you get her to safety?”

Max smiled. “You need have no fear about Tilly, my friend; she’s in excellent hands. She was quite glad to see me. Don’t worry about her. Worry about yourself. This is terrible, what they’re doing to you…I had no idea it would be so beastly.”

Adam snorted. “I’ve been banged around plenty before, Max. I’m a Cartrwight. The only way to hurt me is to kill me.”

“Adam, don’t be smug. LeBlanc is frightened and willing to do anything to save his own skin, right down to torturing the entire convict population here if he doesn’t find out where the prisoners went, or how they got out. His superiors in France don’t view this matter lightly.”

“I find myself not too concerned with how LeBlanc and his superiors view matters. And you can tell him that he doesn’t need to bother with all the threats and torture. Rochefort didn’t tell another soul anything.”

Max found his eyebrows rising involuntarily. “I heard what you said, Adam, but did you really say what I think I did not hear?”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“I mean that Rochefort may not have told any other souls, but he did tell you. You are the one who knows exactly how those men got out—I’d even bet you helped them.”

Adam shook his head. “Doesn’t matter what I know and what I don’t. I have nothing to say.”

“Good God, Adam, this is serious! LeBlanc and I spoke yesterday, and I assured him you would see reason. He will certainly torture everyone on the island if he thinks it will keep him out of chains. I heard him say it himself. The only way to save the others—Adam, the only way to save yourself—is to talk.”

“Tell him to save his energy.” Adam looked up at Max again, and although his eyes were swollen and purple, Max would have sworn he saw a ‘farewell’ in them. “And tell Tilly I loved her.”

 

Chapter 37

“I had my eye on her; she had a smile for everyone”

 

March, 1873, Nevada

Ben Cartwright and Beth Cameron were indeed becoming quite an item. Not that there could be anything improper about their behavior. He came into town regularly anyway; if he happened to look in on her stores, there could be nothing wrong with that, could there? If he had dinner with her of an evening, it was usually before dark, and he never stayed more than an hour.

But when he refused to draw names for the church’s spring picnic and asked her to accompany him instead, tongues began to wag.

Little Joe Cartwright and Alice Harper had announced their engagement at the end of February, along with their intent to marry come April. A scandalously short engagement, said a few, but others pointed out that he’d been courting her good and proper for more than half a year, so once things were decided, they might as well move along.

A few joked that there could even be a double wedding, since it was obvious the direction Old Man Cartwright was headed with Beth Cameron. Well, said a few old-timers, it made sense. Back in Virginia City’s wilder days, she’d been the only one with gumption enough to testify about the Sam Bryant gang, and Ben and his boys had been the only one with gumption enough to arrest them. There had been some nasty business somewhere involving one of Ben’s other boys—how many did he have, anyway?—but only a few remembered what it was, and besides, that son was long dead anyhow. A few others pointed out that if the Widow Cameron was really going to marry again after holding out for 10 years, she might as well take Cartwright. Sure, he was a little long in the tooth, but then she must have been around 35 or so herself, and she wasn’t likely to do better. Besides, Cartwright owned half the land in Nevada. She’d be a wealthy widow in a few years. And she could keep the exact same initials on her embroidered handkerchiefs.

Just as the husband is always the last to know, so was Ben Cartwright the last to learn of all this speculation. It was a little upsetting, he found. But then, many things were upsetting.

So many things were going wrong—Joe’s upcoming nuptials were the one thing he really looked forward to. The whole town had found out about “the Indian boy” at long last. Hiram’s secretary had told a friend, and the friend told Beth Cameron…who innocently responded, “No it isn’t an Indian—it’s Ben’s grandson!” And now everyone knew. The school board wanted to know if it was true the boy was really white, and if that was the case, why wasn’t he in school? The ranch hands wanted to know why the kid insisted on riding out to the lake each morning alone—didn’t they know it was dangerous? The town wanted to know just whose kid he was, since Ben, Hoss and Joe were the only Cartwrights most people remembered. And as for Audun himself, the boy was only exacerbating matters by his insistence on maintaining some Indian ritual at the lake each morning, and stubbornly refusing to wear white clothes (he was rapidly growing out of his own, not that it mattered to him) or even consider going to school.

They had disagreed that very morning—and the disagreement seemed to be about everything under the sun. “Audun, did you go to the lake again?”

“I go every morning, Grandfather.”

“In spite of my repeated warnings.”

“I’m sorry, sir. But I must.”

The argument was old and tiresome. “You’ve been here almost five months. It’s time you started school.”

Audun gazed at him with those smoky eyes. “Why?”

“Didn’t you say you want to be a doctor?”

“A healer.”

“Same thing. The point is, you have to go to school for that. You have to study.”

“I study with you.”

“I’m not a doctor!”

Audun scoffed. “I read Dr. Martin’s Soyapo medicine books. They say things that do not make sense.”

“They don’t make sense to you because they’re written for a man who’s already gone to school for at least fifteen years. You haven’t gone to school at all, and you’re only ten.”

“I can read them. I read very well. You have said so yourself.”

“You do read well—for a ten-year-old. But you’ve got a long way to go before you’re a man.”

“Among the People, I was almost a man already. This belief that a male must live eighteen years before he is grown does not make sense to me. There are two ranch hands in the bunkhouse who are that age. They don’t read as well as I do, and they are both as silly and talkative as little girls.”

Ben sighed. “Audun, I agree that men mature at different speeds, but legally—”

“And now we are back to Soyapo law. I tried to read some of that, too. Dr. Martin gave me a book he called a ‘statute’ book that is supposed to explain the white law. It made no sense.”

“Yes, but again, you’re ten years old.”

“Dr. Martin said you find some of the laws strange, too. You think my father is dead. But the man you give money to so he will explain the law to you, he says you must wait many more years. And even you say this makes no sense.”

“What I think about the laws pertaining to Adam is irrelevant. I want you to go to school.”

“I am learning the things I need to know here, from you and my uncles.”

“Yes, but the one who works with you the most is Joe, and he’s getting married.”

“Will that make him unable to teach? Among the People, men and women also marry, but it does not stop them doing the things they did before.”

Ben sighed. “He’s going to start building a house this weekend. I’ve already given him the land. When he’s married, he’s going to live there. And newly married men…well, they prefer being with their wives to being around other people. He’ll want to spend his time with Alice now, Audun. I’ll still be teaching you, but Joseph will not. You need to go to school.”

For a while the child just looked at him out of those odd gray eyes. Ben always wondered about Ruth when Audun looked at him like that. God, why couldn’t Adam just once have fallen in love with someone normal?

Then Audun turned to gaze into the fire. “When you marry the widow in town, will you also not want to be around me?”

“WHAT!?!”

“The men in the bunkhouse all say you and a widow in town are ‘cozy.’ I don’t know this word, but when I asked what it meant, they said you would marry her.”

“Who said that,” Ben said flatly.

Audun looked up at him, and set his jaw in a way that was all too Adam. “I did not tell you this so you would be angry or so someone else would be in trouble. I only wanted to know because, if you no longer want me, I should go back to the Nimii—”

“Audun, no—no.” Ben got hold of his rising emotions. “I will always want you. You’re my grandson, and I love you. Even if I ever married again—and I never said I would—it wouldn’t matter. I would still want you with me.”

“But you just said—”

“I said younger men.”

“No. You said ‘newly married men.’”

“Well, I meant younger men.” Ben rubbed his forehead. “Don’t worry about that. I have no plans to marry, and even if I did I would still want you. But I want you to go to school.”

Audun sighed. “If it is important to you, I will try.”

Ben smiled encouragingly. “That’s wonderful! All right, I’ll take you into town with me today and we’ll get you some proper clothes and shoes—”

“I have my own clothes.”

“But you need white man’s clothes to go to school.”

“Then I will not go.”

“Audun, you need to start wearing proper clothes, anyway. If you keep growing at the rate you are, this time next year those leggings are barely going to cover your calves.”

“These are my clothes. If I outgrow them I will make new ones.”

“Audun, what’s wrong with the clothing of white people?”

“Nothing, Grandfather. What’s wrong with the clothing of the Nimiipuu?”

“Nothing. If we lived among the Nimiipuu, I would want you to wear Nimiipuu clothes. I might even wear them myself. But now you live among the whites, and should wear white clothes. Haven’t you ever heard the saying, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’?”

“Who are the Romans?”

“Never mind. It’s just…it’s culture, Audun. If you live among the Nez Perce, you wear Nez Perce clothes. If you live among the Paiute, you wear—”

“I would never live among the Paiute. They are the sworn enemy of the Nez Perce.”

“Never mind that! You wear the clothing of the people you live among. That’s the rule.”

“Whose rule is it?” Audun asked. “White people’s?”

Ben found himself pinching the bridge of his nose. He counted to ten. “Audun, it would make me very happy if you would wear the kind of clothes I wear.”

Long silence, as Audun considered. Finally he nodded, and Ben sighed in relief.

“Good. We’ll get you a haircut and some clothes in town, and—”

“Haircut?”

“Yes. The barber shop in town is—”

“I will not have my hair cut.”

“But Audun, it goes with the clothes.”

“No.”

“Look, children in town can be very cruel to other children who don’t fit in.”

“I don’t care. I have seen cruelty before—usually by whites. I will not cut my hair.”

“Audun—”

And that was when it got ugly. A normal ten-year-old would have screamed, shed tears, or run from the room. Audun Cartwright did none of those things. He stood up straight, looked Ben in the eye, and said, “No.” He did not raise his voice. But his next words—delivered calmly, quietly, with no tears and almost no emotion at all—made Ben shrivel. “When you came to me, you promised I could wear my own clothes and keep my hair if I wanted—and it was. I have not changed my mind. But already you have changed yours. You want me to wear your clothing. Like the Nimiipuu, I was ready to give in when you changed your mind because you said it would make you happy. But now that’s not enough—I must cut my hair as well. Grandfather, I came with you in doubt and some fear. Doubt, because I did not know you, and fear, because the people I knew and loved did not trust you. Only my mother said I could trust you. She said Ad’m Gartwright—”

“It’s Cartwright! For heaven’s sake, can’t you at least learn to say your own name correctly?”

Audun ignored the outburst. “She said my father was a good white man, and that his family would be good also; that Ad’m kept his word and so would those he loved. You say my father loved my mother, that he did not mean to let her go. I know none of these things. I only know what I have always known: he never came for me. I came away with you because of my mother, what she said and believed and wanted. I came with you because she trusted you. You said I would not have to change. If you are now going to tell me I have to change everything I am to make you happy, then my mother was wrong, and I should not have come here.”

There was a headache, fierce and pounding, behind Ben’s eyes, and rubbing his forehead did not help. He stood up. “I will keep my word, Audun. You don’t have to get a haircut. You don’t have to wear Soy—white clothes. Or anything else. I don’t know how you intend to be a doctor without going to school, but that will be your problem, not mine. I’m going into town now—please do your chores and read twenty pages in your history book.”

He put on his gunbelt, picked up his hat and jacket, and went outside.

Well, he was his father’s son, all right. It would almost have been fun to see Adam try debating with that boy. But Audun fought dirty.

As he mounted Buck, it occurred to Ben that amongst all the things going on right now that he could not control, there was one thing he certainly could. He would go into town right now and tell Beth Cameron what was what. Lord only knew what expectations the woman had, and if he’d had the sense to tip his hat to her as he did to other women, instead of telling her all his problems and soaking up her sympathy like a sponge, he would never have gotten into this mess at all.

 

Chapter 38

“I’d rather a kiss from his dead lips than you in your finery…”

 

April, 1873, Grande Terre/Ile des Pins

Max Beckenbauer looked at Gouverneur LeBlanc with carefully concealed contempt. Ineffective bureaucrat.

“It pains me,” he began slowly, “but I think my American friend is hiding something. He says no one knew of the escape, but…well…while I believe him that no one else knew, Rochefort did talk to Adam.”

LeBlanc shrugged. “Then soon we’ll know what he knows.”

“I hate to say this about the man, but LeBlanc, I doubt you’ll learn anything from him. I know from our brief acquaintance that he’s stubborn—and he fancies himself able to withstand punishment. So far he has, after all. You know, in the United States, he was a cowboy.”

“Aren’t all Americans?” LeBlanc retorted. “If he’s a cowboy, I’m sure he can have nothing against becoming reacquainted with a bullwhip. I have a great many toys in my play room—and, he’s not the only one I’ll punish. I tried to be kind to these ingrates, but now—well, as the racing touts say, ‘all bets are off.’”

**

Max held up one hand and left the soldiers behind, walking into the woods where he had last seen Tilly. He was pretty sure someone among the savages had spotted him and the soldiers by now, and the word would have gotten her underway—“My God, you scared me,” he chuckled as she burst through the underbrush to join him. He didn’t notice just how much more conservative her greeting to him was this time. “How do you do that?”

“The Kunie are pretty good at staying away from white people,” she replied. “How’s Adam? Were you able to get him on a work detail?”

“Mathilde…I need to talk to you. Can we sit down, like the old friends we are, and will you listen to me?”

Wordlessly, she walked over to a fallen tree and sat down.

He followed her. “Tilda…I did get him put on a work detail, yes. But…he made friends with a man who had dangerous notions. The man led an escape attempt several nights ago.” With an effort he kept his voice steady, and reached out to take her hands in his. “They all got away. We can’t find them anywhere.”

To his surprise, a grin washed across Tilly’s face. “Adam got away? That’s wonderful!”

Well, that had not gone as he’d expected.

“Um…no, you don’t understand. Adam’s friends escaped, but not him. It’s generally believed that he helped them get away—but he didn’t go, himself.”

“Oh…” she looked down at her hands, and gingerly pulled away. He grasped them more firmly.

“But, Tilda, it’s worse than that. You see, LeBlanc, coward that he is, decided Adam was responsible for the whole debacle…and began to torture him.”

She looked up then, directly into his eyes, but there was a blank expression on her face that made it easier to say the next part. “Adam’s dying.”

There was a quick, sharp intake of breath on her part, but aside from that, no reaction at all. Her face did not change. Well, he’d never liked hysterical women, but he hadn’t quite expected this, either.

“Tilda, let me get you away from here. I can take you back to Germany with me. You don’t need to stay in this…this tropical cesspool. I can return you to safety and civilization and comfort; maybe, in time, you’ll forget all this grief and misery and you’ll even come to love me again.”

A strangely puzzled, annoyed expression flashed across her face—and then doubt. And finally, decision.

Her voice was flat and uncaring as she stood up. “If Adam dies, I have no reason to leave this place. There’s no place in the world that will be home for me. And thanks for your concern, but I wouldn’t want to mislead you. I never loved you to start with, and there’s certainly no way I’ll ever love you now.”

“What, because I’m the bearer of bad tidings?”

“No, Max. I’ll never love you because you’re not Adam.”

She turned and started away then. Stunned, he almost let her go. Then he shook his head and ran after her.

“All right, all right! I lied, but Tilda, it was the lie of a man in love. Tilda, I always loved you—surely you must know it.”

She ignored his declaration, and pounced on the other statement. “Is Adam going to live, then?”

“I really was only a little premature in that announcement. Tilda, he’s going to die; he may be dead already. LeBlanc, that idiot, is rounding up prisoners both on Grande Terre and right here, planning to put people into cells. He’ll be building a prison structure here within the next week or so. No more wandering the island freely—you could well be one of the ones in the cells, you know. You’re classified as a troublemaker and the wife of one. I came here just in advance of a lot of French guards and soldiers.”

“What does that have to do with anything? If Adam’s alive, take me to him!”

“You’re not listening to me, Mathilde. I’m your only hope right now. Adam is lost to you. Even if he isn’t dead yet, he won’t be coming back. I’ve loved you for years, and I have the power to save you.”

“Max, you don’t love me. And I most certainly don’t love you, and I have no desire to be rescued by you. If you won’t take me to Adam, there’s nowhere I want to go with you.”

“What do you mean, Tilda? Didn’t you love me in Paris?”

“You always thought you were irresistible. All those women you proposed to who said yes—I knew then, even though I was too young to believe it—you left them. I was the one who got away. That’s the only attraction I ever held for you. We didn’t see each other for a long time, and I guess I was silly enough to remember only the good things. But you were never more than a friend. And I don’t know how to say it any plainer. I love Adam. Alive or dead.”

Max gave this due consideration—less than thirty seconds. “If you are so very fond of Adam, it seems, then, that you might be nicer to me. It may be that I can keep whatever is left of him alive for you.”

Tilly shook her head. “I always knew you had a low estimation of women’s intelligence. But I never knew just how foolish you really thought we were. I’ll tell you what, Max—once you get your story straight, you come and talk to me.”

He grabbed her arm. “What do you mean by that?”

She yanked her arm away again. Then she replied. “I’ve been thinking about what you said to me before. About the Loyalty Islands. How is it that you have the power to take me to Maré, which is more than twice as far away as Grande Terre—but you can’t take me to Grande Terre, where Adam is? How is it that you’re only an advisor, or whatever you are, with no power to make decisions, but now you tell me Adam’s life is in your hands? You come here with some half-baked tale that he’s gone, or not gone, dying, or about die—and no one can save him, or maybe he’s not dead yet but only you can save him…and change the story whenever it’s convenient, and expect me to melt? He might be alive, or he might be dead, but I can’t believe anything you tell me.”

“All right, never mind all of that.” He took her arm again. “You’ll come with me anyway.”

“To Grande Terre?”

“To wherever I like!”

She wrenched herself out of his grip again. “I don’t think I will. And if you’re thinking of touching me again, there are six Kunie men in the woods, watching us, ready to shoot on my command.”

“And I have a dozen German soldiers with me, ready to shoot—guns, not silly bows and arrows—on mine.”

“Yes, but Max, you don’t understand. You think this is some threat to you. They will shoot me. I made certain they understood I was not to go anywhere with you. You really don’t have anything to gain here…so you might as well leave.”

Max looked at her incredulously. “You’d rather die than be with me?”

“Don’t take it so personally. I’d rather die than be taken away from Adam—and I’m pretty sure that’s what your intentions are.”

“You’re mad, Mathilde.”

“Maybe. A few Bavarians are, too.”

“Do you know, given what you’ve just said, even if I wanted to take you to Adam, I couldn’t.”

“I know. I don’t trust you. Now, you send that contemptible and cowardly LeBlanc with a squad of French soldiers, and maybe I’ll go with them. But I’m really holding out for Adam. I think he’ll come back for me.”

“Don’t bet on it, Mathilde. When I left this morning LeBlanc’s guards had your husband stretched over a wooden block and were taking turns at him with a bullwhip laced with nails. If there’s anything left of him after that, I’ll give him your love.”

“Don’t bother. He took it with him.” And she fled.

 

Chapter 39

“Little boys turn into men…”

 

April, 1873, Nevada

“Dammit, dammit, dammit…” It was Joe’s third try and he still couldn’t make a bow.

“Here, hold still,” Hoss said, coming over. “Look, you got this thing all crinkled somethin’ hopeless. Audun, will you run it down to Hop Sing and have him iron it again?”

“He already ironed it once last night and twice this morning,” Audun said, shrugging. “But if you will promise to tie it this time, Uncle Hoss, maybe everyone will stop cursing.”

“I promise,” Hoss swore, holding up one hand. Audun took the tie and galloped downstairs to Hop Sing.

“He’s sure gotten chipper lately,” Joe observed. “Remember back when he was grim as Adam all the time?”

“Adam wasn’t grim,” Hoss chided. “And neither is Audun. He’s just serious-minded. And he’s only been here five months.”

“Yeah, but he’s gotten…I dunno, kind of…almost playful, sometimes, when he thinks no one’s lookin’.”

“Adam was playful sometimes too.”

“Not as often.”

“Maybe ’cause we weren’t watchin’ Adam. We’ve been sneakin’ peeks at Audun from the time he got here. No wonder he waits till he’s alone to be silly. We’re all grownups; he thinks he has to be one.”

Joe paced nervously back and forth. “What’s taking him so long? You don’t suppose he’s playing some kind of practical joke, do you?”

“Audun? Never.” Hoss began to chuckle involuntarily. “The boy’s only 10 years old.”

“You should remember some of the stuff I did when I was 10 years old.”

“I do, but praise the Lord, Audun ain’t you. Hey, thanks, Audun.”

Joe reached for the tie.

“No.” Audun batted Joe’s hand away. “Let Uncle Hoss do it this time.”

“Oh shucks, Audun, my hands are shakin’ worse than Joe’s!” Hoss cried a few minutes later.

Audun provided a martyred sigh before taking the tie himself. “You make more of this than it is.”

“Well, Big Brother, I do believe our little nephew here is about to give us some words of wisdom,” Joe said with a grin, as Audun evened the ends of the tie and began to knot it. He’d only learned how last week, but was quite adept. He was even wearing Soyapo clothes himself today—although they made an incongruous combination with the two long black braids.

“Among the People, my mother would simply have taken a few horses to the girl’s mother. Everything would soon be handled.” Audun tied the knot and uncrinkled the ends of the tie as best he could. “It is like what my grandfather calls a business transaction. Marriage brings together two families and benefits both because they share the horses.”

“Is that all marriage is to you?” Hoss asked.

“What else would it be?” Audun replied. “Men and women have little to talk about other than horses and babies, so there would be no point without the horses.”

“Audun, wait a couple years till we start takin’ you to the dances. The boys and girls at the dances always find a lot to talk about,” Hoss grinned.

“Dances are not for talking. They’re for celebration and honoring Mother Earth.”

“Not the way we do it,” Joe put in. “They’re for fun.”

“I never understood how white people can take something sacred and turn it into ‘fun’—even the guitar songs Mutton Jim tries to teach me are supposed to be fun.”

“What’s wrong with having fun?”

“Nothing…in its time and place!” Audun retorted, an Adam-like look of exasperation setting in. “Dances and song are not for fun. They’re sacred. And marriage is not for fun. It’s for horses.”

Joe started laughing. “Much as I love horses, Audun, I’m gonna have to disagree with you on that one. Someday we need to have a real serious talk about birds and bees.”

“I know about birds and bees. Peregrine falcons are the most interesting birds, and bees have skin that stretches. The distance between their stripes expands when they get full and carry nectar back to the queen to make honey. This is how you can track a bee to the hive. Every Nimiipuu  knows this.”

Hoss was chuckling now. “But Audun, what about kissin’? What about companionship? And cooking?”

Another shrug. “Kissing is a Soyapo invention, messy and barbaric. My mother would never have done such a thing. And I don’t know this word, companionship. But I can cook for myself.” He brightened suddenly as he gave the tie one last pat. “I know what you mean by companionship! You mean you need the women to tan the hides.”

“Huh?”

“Of course,” Audun expounded. “Men hunt, and women skin the animal so they can cook the flesh and tan the hides. Ohhh-kay. Yes, Uncle Joe, you want to get married so your woman will help with your horses and tan your hides.”

Joe thought for a moment. “Okay, you got me. I do want a woman to tan my hide.” He winked at Hoss.

“Sounds good to me, too,” Hoss said, and the giggling commenced.

“If you keep behaving this way,” Audun warned, “the women will see how silly you are and will not trust you to provide for them. I would not blame them.”

“Well, we can’t have that!” Joe announced in false panic.

Ben walked in to find the men still giggling hysterically and the boy looking at them in annoyance.

“They are very childish, these uncles of mine,” Audun said gravely. “Let us go now.”

“I think Audun has a point,” Ben said with mock sternness. “Everyone’s waiting. We need to leave now if we want to get you to the church on time, young man.”

“Young man,” Joe muttered with a sigh. “My hair’s already gray and I ain’t even 30 yet. Um…give me a minute, will you? I’ll be right down.”

“Come on, let’s go get in the wagon,” Ben ordered.

“Can I drive the team?” Audun eagerly asked as the three left, and Joe smiled after them.

He looked around the room. He’d grown up here. Well, somehow he’d done it—he’d survived to ripe manhood in spite of all the wisdom of the graybeards who said he’d never live long enough to take a wife. In spite of the shootings, the wild horses, the cattle stampedes, the barroom brawls, the knock-down, drag-out fights he’d had—even occasionally with his own brothers…

Brothers. He looked down at the two miniature photographs on his desk. One was himself; one was Hoss. There was a third, of Adam—but he had put it away a year ago. He hated his own cowardice sometimes for doing that, but he couldn’t look at it without wanting to cry, and he’d gotten so good at not crying. For a while after the time he and Hoss had given up hope, he’d looked at the picture and railed against Adam and his stupid wanderlust. Later, he’d looked at the picture and railed at God. Then he’d looked at the picture, and overwhelming sadness would take him for hours. For a month or two, after he and Hoss had told their father that they needed to get on with their lives, he had looked at the picture and managed to remember the good times. But with Audun’s arrival, he had stopped looking at it entirely, and devoted himself to the part of Adam that still lived on.

Only, today was different. “No, Little Joe,” Adam had once said after a bitter argument between them; he’d used the nickname “Little Joe,” which was rare for him, and that had made Joe sit up and take note. “It’s not that I don’t want you to ever get married. Far from it.” Which girl had they been arguing about? He couldn’t even remember. It might have been that insipid Baltimore girl, or that southern belle who had so strongly believed in “the Cause”…there had been so many girls he had thought he wanted to marry, and he barely remembered their names now.  But now he understood what Adam had been trying so hard to tell him that night…and considering the rarity of the times Adam had ever opened up to have that kind of conversation, it meant all the more to him now.

“It’s not that I don’t want you to ever get married. Far from it. But I want you to marry for the right reason.”

“Oh yeah? What’s the right reason, Older Brother? ’Cause I don’t see you with a wife.”

“The right reason is because you love the girl in every possible way. And that’s why I’m not married either. It’s hard to find that kind of girl. You can’t love a girl just because she’s beautiful, or because you feel great when you dance with her. She won’t always be beautiful. She won’t always be a wonderful dancer. She’s also got to be the kind of girl you can talk to for more than five minutes without getting bored, because when you’re married you’re gonna have to talk to each other a lot. She’s got to be a friend as well as a lover, and somebody who’ll help you over the tough spots.”

“Well, Mr. Ponderosa Plato, ain’t you the voice of experience!”

“No, I haven’t ever had that. I may never have it, and if that’s the case then I’ll never marry. But I know it’s possible, because I saw it. I saw it with Pa and Inger—and I saw it again with him and your mother. They respected each other, they loved each other, they trusted each other, and they were friends too. It didn’t matter if he came in covered in cow scent, Marie loved him anyhow. It didn’t matter if he was flat broke, Inger loved him anyhow. When he was so tired he just wanted to lie down and give up, they were the ones who encouraged him to get back up and fight again. That girl you just handed your heart to, the one you can’t live without, would she still love you if your hair fell out tomorrow? If we lost the Ponderosa? If—”

“Okay, okay, I get it! She’s gotta be the Holy Virgin Mother.”

“No; she can be a saloon girl for all I care. But she’s gotta love you in every way possible, and you have to feel the same way about her. And when THAT happens, Little Brother, I will personally be at your wedding, dancing for purest joy and using naughty French words that would make Marie grin…and before you ask why, it’s because I want only the best for my little brother, that’s why.”

To Joe’s consternation, his bottom lip was beginning to tremble. He reached suddenly into the drawer and pulled out the miniature of Adam.

Joe looked into that mischievous face and bit his lip for a minute as tears came to his eyes. “Well, you may not be dancing,” he finally said. “And they probably won’t let you use any naughty French words up there. But you’re gonna be at my wedding, you contrary, Yankee granite-headed brother of mine. You’ll be standing right up there with me and Hoss just like we stood up there with you. And oh, boy, I’m warning you, if you make me start laughing…” He shook a mock-threatening finger at the photograph, then tucked it into the pocket of his frock-coat and headed downstairs.

 

Chapter 40

“…no mercy and no fear…”

 

May, 1873, Grande Terre

One thought had been running through his mind for a long time…“Thinking is the final refuge of the man who is alone.” He couldn’t remember who’d said it now. He remembered it had been said in darkness—much like the darkness he was in now, and had been in for weeks. He wasn’t sure how many weeks. Time observed no passage underground. At irregular intervals, a bowl of disgusting gruel or a cup of water might be shoved through the hole in the door. At other, equally irregular, intervals, a squad of soldiers would come in, tie him up, and ask him questions about how Henri Rochefort had gotten away. Truth to tell, he no longer remembered how Rochefort had gotten away.

“Thinking is the final refuge of the man who is alone.” Who the devil had said it? He could hear the voice in his head—deep, gravelly. And darkness…oppressive, stuffy, warm….

Both his legs were numb then, just as they were now. He’d had something pinning him down…well, he wasn’t pinned now. He just couldn’t move.

Funny that a Prussian shell exploding two years ago would, to this day, be giving him problems. The glass and shrapnel in his back was still there—though less of it, perhaps, than before. Now that the pain from the latest whipping was slowly altering from agony to overwhelming soreness, his awareness of the older wounds had returned, and the pattern wasn’t the same as he remembered. Having his back laid open must have torn some of the shrapnel out, but plenty of it hadn’t moved; it had, in fact, burrowed in deeper. And every now and then, when he moved a certain way, his legs would go numb. This made it difficult to leap to his feet as he was supposed to when his jailers came in.

Max had come in a few days before. Or maybe a few minutes before. But Max had said something that was disconcerting. “Your dear wife has been so lonely without you, Adam—and women, you know, they’re not strong. She seems to want some consolation…one never knows—if I don’t provide it, perhaps someone else will. Don’t worry, Adam, I’ll take care of her for you. She likes me.”

Adam wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think he liked Max anymore.

Tilly wouldn’t betray him any more than he would betray her. He knew that. But Max was right—one never knew. Every woman in his life had left him. His mother. Mama Inger. Marie. Rebecca. Regina. And, of course, Ruth. Walked off with a bunch of Indians and left him bleeding on the ground. And now he was bleeding in here, and Tilly was with Max.

No, Pa had said Ruth was a dream. And Pa was usually right. So he’d dreamed Ruth. Maybe he’d dreamed Tilly. Better to have dreamed her than to lose another woman. Yes, he’d probably dreamed Tilly, too.

But he was pretty sure he hadn’t dreamed Max.

A couple of his fingers hurt. Toes, too. Probably broken. He hadn’t dreamed that, either.

“Thinking is the final refuge of the man who is alone.” Ah, that’s who it was—Philip Deidesheimer. Good guy, the Dutchman, even though he wasn’t really Dutch. No…he was a German.

Like Tilly.

Like Max.

And Deidesheimer and Adam had ventured into a dark, stuffy mine, and gotten trapped there. Just like he was trapped now.

And he’d been hurt then. Like he was hurting now.

Come to think of it, thinking was not much of a refuge at all. Maybe he wouldn’t do it anymore.

 

Chapter 41

“From the shore there arose a great cheer…”

 

May 1873, Australia

The captain of the destroyer HMS Godolphin was not exactly pleased. He and his men had a comfortable posting, cruising the waters between Australia and New Zealand. It wasn’t easy sailing, of course—the blasted coral reefs were everywhere—but the sailors knew their way around, and there were shore leaves in Brisbane, Sidney, and Melbourne. At least, that was the way things had been—until a week ago, when he’d received the telegram.

A year ago, such a huge change of plans could never have been thrust on him like this. But only last year the telegraph lines to Sydney had been completed, and Australia was now connected to the outside world. Connected to London and the Lord of the Admiralty. He didn’t recognize the name on the orders, although that was nothing new. He seemed to have a different superior every year, although it hadn’t really mattered before. Before, his orders had always been the same. But these orders were different: “Special Mission/Proceed Melbourne Harbor/Diplomatic courier pickup S Holmes/Follow orders provided.”

Little suspecting anything strange, Captain Randolph gave the order to sail to Melbourne, where they had picked up Mr. S. Holmes. “S” for Sigerson, Holmes informed the captain with a curt bow. Mr. “S” was a tall, stooped fellow, with a voice that belied his thick gray hair and beard. And he had a big gray dog.

“Sir, you are welcome aboard the Godolphin, but we do not transport animals.”

“This dog is part of a diplomatic mission,” Holmes said coldly, squinting through his pince-nez. “If I must wait for you to wire London and get further instructions on the importance of the dog, I will, but I warn you, that will delay our departure by four days, and in four days, our little problem with the French could escalate significantly.”

“The French?” Randolph replied. “Sir, where exactly am I to take you?”

“Ile des Pins—in English, it’s the Island of Pines,” Holmes said curtly. “Just off Grande Terre, the primary island of New Caledonia.”

Randolph’s mouth opened, then closed. Then opened again.

“Have you never heard of it?” Holmes asked coldly, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening as he frowned.

“Um…yes, but sir, it’s due east, not an area I’ve been before. It’s still hurricane season in these waters. We could be sailing into a blow, for all we know.”

“Is that your only concern?”

“No sir, it’s not. As I said, I don’t know those waters. The Great Barrier Reef is thicker in the Coral Sea than here, and—”

“Do you have the maps and charts for those waters, Captain?”

“Well, yes, sir, but—”

“Do you know how to read them?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Good. Then unless you want to raise a few more objections, which will be duly logged and overruled, I suggest we set sail now. I expect to occupy your Very Important Personage cabin. Until we sight the Island of Pines, I do not wish to be disturbed, do you understand?”

“Yes sir, but…what about your meals?”

“I’ll take them in my cabin. Leave them at the door at 8 a.m., 1 p.m., 4 p.m., and 8 p.m. Remember—undisturbed. Oh, and I assume you have a few chickens on board?”

“Yes, sir.”

“For the dog, I’ll want a chicken neck each morning and a thigh-leg quarter each evening. Raw. With a side dish containing the organs—heart, gizzard, liver. And a bowl of fresh water in the cabin.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And one more thing. When we arrive at Ile des Pins, I’ll want an armed escort of a dozen Marines.”

“Yes, sir.” Really, he hadn’t said yes, sir so much since the last time he’d been in London. He touched the brim of his cap, and called a steward to escort Holmes and the dog to their cabin. One-eared, stump-tailed dogs as part of a diplomatic mission? What was the world coming to, really? And what an odd character, this Sigerson Holmes. He and his dog had exactly the same color hair.

**

Sherlock “Liam” Holmes closed the door and leaned on it, letting out a long, shaky sigh. “I don’t know about you, Lady,” he murmured. “But I don’t believe I was ever so scared in my life. Well, everything should be all right now…in six days or so, we’ll be there; we’ll be escorted directly to your lord and his wife, and then we can all go home. If all goes well, we won’t even stop in at Grande Terre, and we’ll avoid the French governor entirely.”

Lady did not reply, being too busy walking over to the bed, jumping up and making herself comfortable.

“And you’re not sleeping in my bed again!” Holmes exclaimed. Lady looked at him, thumped her stubby tail, and closed her eyes.

 

Chapter 42

“I’d rather light candles than curse the dark…”

 

June 1873, New Caledonia

As the New Caledonia prison boat sailed from Grande Terre to Ile des Pins, and while the Prussian soldiers aboard wondered at their latest set of orders, Max Beckenbauer was nursing his cuts and bruises and sore throat, and groaning over his swollen purple eyes that hurt worst of all.

Damn Adam Cartwright.

With most people, Max knew exactly what they would do a few minutes before they did it. But then most people were sensible enough to understand things like threats to their lives. They understood that confession usually made the pain stop. They wanted the pain to stop, therefore they confessed.

Damn unpredictable people.

The day before, he’d gone to see Cartwright again—he periodically, at irregular intervals, went to see how the fellow was doing and of course to do his part for Prussian-French cooperation. After all, if he could get Adam to confess, they could find out how Rochefort had gotten away, and what his plans had been. It had been two months since Rochefort’s escape and Cartwright’s imprisonment and torture began, and still they had learned nothing. Not that the French methods were very effective—and that was when Max Beckenbauer had stepped in to offer his expertise. Reluctantly, of course.

It was fascinating to watch just how fast a man could deteriorate, given the proper set of circumstances. Torture of the mind and spirit was far more valuable than mere physical inconvenience. Total isolation and darkness, even more than physical torture, could be most effective. Deprive a man of sleep for days at a time, and watch him lose his grip on his sanity. Deprive him of sight, smell, hearing—and watch him crumble to dust. He’d done it a few times before with such spectacular results he’d intended to write a paper about it. But this Cartwright fellow hadn’t responded as well as previous subjects. It had taken longer with this one, and they’d had to stop him from talking to himself…imagine a fellow reciting his country’s entire Declaration of Independence just to hear the sound of a voice. (That would definitely be used in the paper, once he got around to writing it.) But once they’d stopped everything that could be regarded as stimulating and left him with only his mind for company for a couple of weeks, he’d finally started to wither.

He retreated into himself, as expected. When Max arrived and began talking to him, it took a while for the man to focus on his guest, as expected. As expected, he kept his broken hand cradled protectively close to his chest. As expected, he was fascinated by the torch—it gave him something to look at, even as it hurt his eyes.

But how could you convince the man that his wife didn’t love him if the man had already convinced himself that the wife didn’t exist? That was only one surprise, when, during a session when Adam—who never said a word to the French, regardless of what they did to him—answered him. “Tilly was a dream. Like Ruth.”

“Who’s Ruth?” Good heavens, he’d allowed the man to distract him. “Don’t be ridiculous. Tilly is real, and an excellent lover; you may have some dim memory of it. Of course she and I are together now.”

“No you’re not,” Adam sighed. “Tilly never existed except once when I had a fever. She wasn’t real. See? This is how you can tell.” He held up his left hand, squinting into the light of the torch as he did so. “No green,” he mumbled.

Nothing he said made any sense. Max looked at the man’s left hand. That one hadn’t been injured, he realized. He’d have to point that out to LeBlanc. Not that breaking it would accomplish anything; it hadn’t when they’d broken his right hand, either, but Max preferred things that were symmetrical.

“There’s nothing green about your hand.” It was filthy, bruised, and abraded. But not green. Yet.

“No.” Adam squinted now at his hand. “No, there’s not. Not anymore. In my dream, I wore a wedding ring, and it looked like green ice.”

“Men don’t wear wedding rings.”

“I know…that’s how I knew it was a dream. No ring. No sign that there ever was one. No Tilly. No Ruth.” He shook his head. “Pa? Joe? I’m ready to go home now. You were right. I’m okay, Hoss. I’m always okay. You gotta kill me to hurt me.”

There had to be a way to get the man’s attention. “Adam, listen to me. I don’t have much interest in your views about your hand, or your wife, or your pitiful family in the wilderness. What I really want to know is how did Henri Rochefort get off this island, and where was he planning to go? How can we recover him, and when is the next escape attempt planned?”

An expression appeared on Cartwright’s face that could only be described as mulish, and he went silent, refusing to even look at Max. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall to which he was chained, wincing as he did so.

“Adam Cartwright.” Max forgot his own rule about not standing close to the prisoners. This one was so far gone he had no strength, anyway. He leaned down close to Adam’s ear. “You and I are going to play a little game.”

At that, the man’s eyes popped open, and for the first time, there was transparent, naked fear in them. “No,” he whispered. “No games….”

Finally! A reaction. “Yes. A game. It’s called—” and faster than Max thought possible, Adam came off the floor, roaring in rage, backhanding Max headfirst into the wall. Adam screamed, “No games! No more games!” and grabbed him by his pomaded blond hair, slamming him headfirst into the wall again before reaching for his throat.

He didn’t remember much after that except the guards coming in and pummeling Adam senseless with their rifle butts. Then, leaving him in a heap on the floor, they’d dragged Max out, and he’d awakened in the infirmary. His head hurt like blazes, his whole face was a mass of fire and suffering, and he could barely get his eyes open. His throat was sore; his nose was broken; the barbarian had even broken one of his teeth. And he had had such beautiful teeth.

Well, so much for humanitarian methods. There would be no more games of the mind. He would simply go to Ile des Pins and arrest Mathilde Cartwright, killing any Kanak foolish enough to be in the vicinity; then he’d bring her back to that same little underground dungeon cell. He’d light the place up like day, and he’d have Tilly—maybe several times—right in front of Adam Cartwright. That should certainly convince him of reality. And of who was in charge. The man would be begging to talk about Rochefort by the time Max was through.

Evening was approaching when they anchored off Ile des Pins, and his soldiers put down the little rowboat to take him ashore. He jumped out of the boat—and tripped, coming down on his hands and knees in the sand. The soldiers looked at each other doubtfully; the bad omen was legendary. Max stood up. “Thus, William the Conqueror,” he said casually. “Let’s move out—and remember your orders. Shoot anyone, white or Kanak, who tries to interfere between me and the woman.”

“Are you sure about the white people, sir?” asked the squad leader.

“The only whites here are French,” Max snapped. “They don’t matter. And remember, do not hurt the woman under any circumstances. She’s for me.”

They walked through the Commune, where they were largely ignored, and down the now-familiar trail to the western part of the island. The Kanak village, just a tiny group of huts, was only a couple of miles away. Natives saw their approach and scattered, but they saw no sign of a white woman.

The Kanak village was deserted—except for Mathilde Cartwright. She was cutting through a coconut husk when Max spotted her, and she paid no attention to his arrival. Max gave the squad the sign to stop and spread out in case she should try to run; then he walked right up to her. “Drop the coconut, Mathilde. And the pointed stick. You are under arrest.”

“Max, you might as well have the soldiers shoot me. I’m not going anywhere with you.” She brought the coconut down on the sharpened stick again. A grin appeared. “Pointed sticks are wonderful things, Max. They’ll go right through a coconut husk if you do it right. Imagine what it’d do to a man.”

“Are you threatening me?”

She shaded her eyes and looked up—and then smiled approvingly. “Nice job someone did on your face. I hope to God it was Adam.”

Adam Cartwright! Again! With an enraged bellow, he sprang at her, knocking her over backwards and coming down on top of her, relishing the sudden terror in her eyes, as she seemed to go limp under him. He tore her blouse open with one good yank, and reached for his trousers with his other—

Damn unpredictable people. It was his last coherent thought as the husking stick ripped through the skin of his abdomen and into his intestines. The pain took over then, and he thought no more but made a wordless, soundless scream—and still she pushed, her eyes closed, not even watching his agony.

She kept pushing—not that different from spitting a cagou, really—until the stick came through his back.

The squad of Prussian soldiers a hundred feet away looked at each other in surprise. They’d been ordered not to hurt the woman, but—“She killed the captain!” one soldier cried.

She crawled out from under their leader, covered in his blood and modestly pulling the torn edges of her blouse together. She wobbled on her feet for a moment, and looked back at the man she had killed. Then she stood a little taller and faced them defiantly. “Na los, erschießt mich schon!” More than willing to comply, they raised their rifles.

And then a man’s voice, speaking English, shouted, “Stand down, all of you!”

The blood-drenched woman and the Prussian soldiers turned to see a squad of British Marines behind them, rifles aimed and cocked. A gray-haired man with a dog strode forward. “Unless you want to create an international furor,” he went on, now in German, “You will all stand down now. I am an emissary of the British government, and that woman is under my protection. I command you all to stand down in the name of Her Imperial Majesty Alexandrina Victoria Regina, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland—and Princess of Hanover, in case you forgot, not to mention the mother-in-law of your own Crown Prince Frederick.” He produced a leather pouch and removed two large envelopes, one bearing the Great Seal of the Realm, and the other bearing the black eagle of the Prussian Empire. The Germans took an involuntary step back. They didn’t seem to notice his hands were shaking.

The woman cocked her head. So did the dog, sniffing and squinting. “Lady?” the woman said weakly—and fell to the ground in a heap. The dog tore away from the man and streaked to her, sprawling over her protectively, frantically licking the blood from her face, but as to which of them was making the whimpering sounds, no one could tell.

 

Chapter 43

“…the bold, gallant few…”

 

Captain Randolph stared incredulously at Sigerson Holmes. “We’re not going anywhere tonight, sir! I told you, I don’t know these waters. We’re in the middle of the Coral Sea, and I won’t take a chance on my ship or my men—”

“Follow the bloody Prussians!” Holmes exploded. “They know the way; according to Mrs. Cartwright, they’ve visited the islands many times over the last two months. Captain, we’ve got to get to Nouméa Port now. I guarantee that if we arrive even half an hour after that prison boat, we’ll be too late.”

“The bloody Prussians haven’t even moved yet!”

“As soon as they get their casualty aboard, they will make all possible speed for Grande Terre, and when they get to Nouméa, they will go directly to the prison.”

“What makes you think we can follow them? Suppose they’re shallow enough to miss a reef, and we’re not?”

“Captain, you see, but you do not observe. Their boat is only little smaller than this one, and sits just as deep in the water. Anything they can slip between or over, you should be able to do as well. You’re an experienced seaman, sir, and a man’s life is at stake.”

“What do you mean, a man’s life is at stake?” Randolph leaned forward, and his whole face changed.

Holmes looked at him appraisingly. Who would have guessed, he thought. The man’s a pirate, disguised as a stodgy, form-bound creature of habit. Men with hidden notions of romance can be most useful.

“Let me tell you a little story, Captain,” he said, putting one arm through the captain’s and walking him around the deck.

Almost half an hour passed before the Prussian soldiers arrived, bearing a body wrapped in a blanket. Within minutes of their setting sail, the Godolphin followed. “Stay right on them,” Holmes told the captain. “I’m going to check on Mrs. Cartwright.”

“She’s in your cabin, isn’t she?”

“Yes, sir. Has the doctor seen her yet?”

“I sent him; I believe he’s still with her. Give her my respects, won’t you, Mr. Holmes?”

“Assuredly, sir.”

He headed back to the cabin, smiling in anticipation—she had said but little besides telling him where Adam was, and that they had to hurry and get him—and now he hoped to catch up on lost time. After all, they hadn’t seen each other in almost three years. At the door he nearly forgot politeness, but Mycroft had always insisted social conventions must be observed. He sighed and knocked.

“Come in,” she called softly.

Seeing that she had been crying, he took out his handkerchief and handed it to her, looking away. At least, thank God, she’d washed off the blood and gotten a new blouse from the trunk. “Have you seen the doctor yet, ma’am?”

“Just did. He says I’m fine. And I always told you to call me Tilly.”

“I know, and I try, Mrs. Cartwright, but somehow whenever we’re together I can’t. You remind me too much of my mother.”

“I’m only 32, you know. You’re…what, 19 now?” she chuckled. “You look 50. I don’t think I’d have recognized you if I hadn’t heard you speak. Your voice is the same.”

“I’ll work on that. It’s not much of a disguise if someone recognizes my voice. But I’ve only tried this a couple of times; I’ll get better. I’m planning to take a couple of acting classes next term. And no, you don’t look old. It’s just…you see, Mother was the only one aside from you who ever called me Liam.”

“You look like a Liam.”

He chuckled, but turned serious quickly. “How long have they had your husband in Nouméa?”

“Since January or February…what month is it now?”

“June.”

“My God. I don’t know what they’ve done to him. According to…Max…the man I killed…they were torturing him. I don’t know if that’s true. Max told me a lot of other lies, too.”

“Wasn’t he the same fellow who was your friend in Paris before?”

“Lord!” she shuddered. “I don’t know how I could ever have been friendly with that man. He was evil.”

He shrugged. “I think he was just ambitious. Ambition often leads men in the wrong direction.”

“Maybe.” She closed her eyes. “But I’m not so sure I agree. Ambition may lead a man in the wrong direction, but I wouldn’t think it would make a man enjoy doing wrong things.” Suddenly opening her eyes again, she looked intensely at her friend. “Liam, when we get there we’ve got to talk to LeBlanc before the soldiers do. Even if Adam’s not in any danger now, Max was an official observer for the Prussian government—if he wasn’t lying about that—and when he got to my island he looked like somebody’d already taken a hammer to his face. When I told him I hoped Adam had done it, he went crazy and jumped me, so I’m pretty sure Adam’s the one. And now they’ll want to punish him.”

“And in that same vein, Mrs. Cartwright…Tilly…as you did kill the man, your life may be in danger as well. I most strongly advise you to stay aboard ship when we anchor. You’ll be safe—”

“No.”

“I cannot guarantee your safety on shore.”

“You did on Ile des Pins!”

“Against a few soldiers—and I had my own Marines!”

“Why can’t you take the Marines this time?”

“I’d never get away with it again. Grande Terre is the main island—if I go on shore with a full squad of Marines, the French could accuse us of invading. I think I can get away with four, as stretcher bearers—but no more. Besides…Tilly…what I really relied on was this.” He showed her the diplomatic pouch and the two sealed envelopes. “A German soldier is not going to question an official-looking, confident man with a diplomatic pouch. But a French bureaucrat lives for these fancy documents. If I’m forced to hand over these envelopes, my disguise is already penetrated. My brother—a government employee—gave me these for routine delivery. The one from the queen is relieving the governor of Sydney and appointing someone else—and I think the one from Frederick is a request to renovate the German embassy building. Even this destroyer was procured on a bluff.”

“Then stay on the darn ship, Liam. I’ll go in there and get Adam out myself if I have to, and if I can’t, at least maybe they’ll put me in the cell with him.”

“If they don’t immediately shoot you.”

“I’ll chance it. You’re not leaving me behind. And don’t look at me like that, Liam. No wife worth her salt is going to get that close to her husband and then be held back by fear.”

He sighed. “All right, but you must—and I mean, you MUST—keep absolutely silent and take all your cues from me. Do you understand?”

“I do. Trust me.”

He grinned lopsidedly. “‘Women are never to be trusted, not the best of them.’ Words of wisdom I learned at my father’s knee.”

“No wonder you don’t like him. Didn’t he trust your mother?”

“No—she was the worst of all. She had the effrontery to allow a man to break into our house, molest, and then kill her. The last time I saw her she looked remarkably like you when you crawled out from beneath your friend, but the blood was her own, and she was dying.”

“Oh, Liam…I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry—both for what happened to her and what seeing me did to you.”

He shrugged. “You were well enough, at least. He didn’t succeed, um…”

“No. Don’t worry about that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Liam, I’m a married woman. I would know if I’d been molested or not.”

“Yes, but in Paris you allowed the ambassador to believe you had been.”

“No, I didn’t. Once I had his attention, I told him the truth. But that rotten clerk never forgave me and did his best to sabotage every attempt I made to help Adam.”

“I know. How do you think I found you? The infamous Mr. Stevenson has been denying your existence for the last two years, but Lady got the truth out of him.”

“Good for Lady. And you, Liam.”

“You went to some rather extreme lengths on Adam’s behalf, you know. I spoke to the captain of the firing squad, too.”

“All I can say is, they didn’t seem extreme at the time. If a woman loved her husband, how could she do less?”

“I don’t know. I’ve already described my parents’ marriage to you, and I’ve never been married. I probably never will be. To be as you describe…requires an amount of trust and consequently, vulnerability, of which I don’t think I’m capable.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Liam. I used to feel the same way—before Adam.”

He shrugged. “I’m happy for you, of course. Or at least I will be, once we get your husband back. It will take the rest of the night to get to Nouméa, but I believe the ship’s captain understands now the urgency of our mission. He’ll get us there with all haste—and I hope we’ll find Adam unharmed and ready to go.”

Tilly looked down. “Much as I’d like that myself, Liam, I’m not as confident as you. I’ve been remembering way more of Max than I ever wanted to, these last few hours. I remember him once picking up a stray cat and petting it. It was all well and good until the cat wanted to get away, but Max wouldn’t let go. The cat scratched him, and Max swung it around by the tail and knocked it into a tree.” She knelt down on the floor by Lady, and wrapped her arms protectively around the dog. “Max said he didn’t mean to hit the tree, but the cat was just as dead. And Max was angry—said the cat deserved it for being such an ingrate.” She looked up at Liam. “The way he lied to me about Adam…the way he tried so hard to look like he was on my side, but couldn’t help…I just wonder how much of this he caused. I don’t think it’s his fault we came to these islands, but I wonder how much he had to do with Adam being taken away…how much he had to do with Adam being put into the cells. And I’m afraid of what he’s said to Adam. Almost as much as I’m afraid of what he’s done to Adam.”

“I shouldn’t imagine Adam would believe him, any more than you did.”

“There’s no knowing what’s been done to Adam—and he’s alone with his mind, and he thinks too much. I was with friends who encouraged me. Even then I believed some of it. Max told me a couple of times that Adam was being tortured…that he helped someone escape.”

Holmes sucked in his breath. “Henri Rochefort?”

“I think that was the name he used. How did you know?”

“Rochefort and his men got safely to Australia. I was able to talk to him before I left to come here. He said there were some men who had helped, and he had no doubt they would be tortured. He knew the facilities existed, although they were seldom used.”

“Did he mention Adam?”

“He refused to divulge names, even when I proved I was British and told him I aimed to get you and Adam out. He said there was more than one man, and he’d given a promise never to mention any of the names. Tilly, you must tell me every bit of your time here that you can remember. We have to have plenty of ammunition to use on LeBlanc. From the little I know of the man, he’s something of an ass, and we’ll need to impress him.”

For the next three hours, they talked about the time Adam and Tilly had spent on Ile des Pins, everything until the horrendous night Adam had been taken away; then Tilly related each “visit” Max had made afterwards, and his accounts of what Adam was enduring.

“I could tell Max liked to scare people; I could tell he liked to play tricks on their minds by being their friend and then switching sides. But some of it’s got to be true, Liam, and it scares me.”

Liam had been getting more and more agitated by her account, but he only smiled at that confession.

“Courage, Tilly. You’ve kept it this long. Don’t let it desert you now. Even if they have put Adam through the wringer, we’ll get him out, and it will be over.”

“You don’t know Adam,” she murmured, hugging Lady.

He did not reply, but stepped over to the small dresser that was bolted to the floor. From the top drawer he removed a slim leather medical case and pocketed it. “Get a little rest now; I’m going back on deck. See you in the morning.”

He stepped outside, shut the door, and leaned on it for a moment, looking at the medical case in his hand before he opened it and removed the morphine and syringe. “Dutch courage,” he muttered as he wiped down his arm and thrust the needle in. “I hope to God Adam doesn’t need the rest of what I brought. If this mess is ever over, I’m going to crawl inside this bottle and stay there for a week.”

 

Chapter 44

“Our minds are on our sweethearts…”

 

Tilly washed her face again and looked in the mirror. It was the first time in more than two years that she’d seen herself. “No wonder Liam said I remind him of his mother. Adam’s going to trade me in for some young filly—I look as old as the Sphinx.” She looked in the glass again. “And I’m a murderer. I even look like one. Funny; I stopped a life. I should feel guilty…I think. But I don’t. Not right now. Maybe I’m in shock.”

She rooted through the trunk on the floor. Adam had sent it along with Liam and Lady to England. In it were her three best dresses, Adam’s two suits, a couple of his shirts and her blouses, and some underthings. Smiling, she found an ancient black shirt Adam had brought from home. Some things never change, she reflected. If he hadn’t been in prison garb the last two years, he probably would have been hunting around for another black shirt. She pulled out a dress. Darned if she’d meet that jackass LeBlanc as a convict.

The wedding rings, however, were nowhere to be found. She wondered briefly about that, and then shrugged. If Adam wasn’t safe and sound, the rings wouldn’t matter anyway.

She scrubbed herself head to foot with the soap and water from the pitcher on the dresser, and then put on the dress. It hung on her. She hadn’t realized how much weight she’d dropped since Adam had been taken away.

Lady had been watching her the whole time, her face crinkling with worry. When humans put their strange fur on, it meant they were going away. She jumped off the bed, crossed to the door, and sat down in front of it. Tilly smiled and sat down next to her, rubbing her cheeks. “It’s okay—we’ll take you, too, old girl. Adam’s Lilies have to stick together.”

Adam had referred to Tilly and Lady as his “Lilies” sometime during the first part of their journey, during the trip down the South American coast. Tilly had stared at him in horror.

“You’re thinking about it all wrong,” Adam had said. “Stop associating the name with your uncle. Lilies are beautiful flowers. Like you. And Lady.”

“Adam!” she’d screeched. “Next thing you’ll tell me we’re identical twins. I don’t like being compared to the dog.”

“Well, you’re missing the point there, too,” he’d said—and blushed. “You won’t believe this, but if it weren’t for Lady, you would probably never have been more than a schoolteacher to me.”

“What?”

“I never had much luck with women, Tilly. They always left me. By the time I met you, I had resigned myself to never loving again. It put me in a position where I could be hurt, and…even befriending women hurt too much. I was friends for a while with a girl named Rebecca. I liked her, but before any of us ever had a chance to see if it was going to grow into more, the girl’s father stepped in. The family was Jewish; I wasn’t. So he sent her off someplace, and next thing I knew she’d married a rabbi’s assistant.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Religion is supposed to bring people together under God, but in reality there’s nothing that divides people quicker. Quicker. Quaker. There was another girl once named Regina—a Quaker. A man robbed her wagon train, killed her father…and she loved me, but couldn’t understand me going after the man and killing him to get her people’s money back. And I loved her, but I couldn’t understand her lack of understanding.” He had swallowed, and gone silent for a few minutes. “And then there was Ruth. I told you about her already. I don’t think I ever quite recovered from her. I knew I loved her; I thought I married her. But then I couldn’t find her, and my father said I’d dreamed the whole thing. I finally let myself believe that. Who knows, maybe we would never have lasted anyway, but it was the not-knowing that drove me to distraction. Ruth was the last in a series, and the one that drove me mad because I couldn’t find her; didn’t know if she was alive or dead; didn’t know if she loved me. If she loved me, why did she leave? Joe used to call them the three R’s of my ‘love education’: Rebecca, Regina, and Ruth. I said if that was education, I was going to quit school. It was five years before I found you and Lady.”

“But you were going to marry Laura.”

“Yes—for Peggy. And a home of my own. I was getting desperate, feeling my age and thinking I was never going to get out from under my father’s rule. He’s a benevolent despot, but a despot all the same.”

Their small cabin had had only a couch besides the bed. They’d been on the floor, Tilly sitting back against the couch; Adam lying on his back with his legs crossed and his head in her lap…and Lady had been sprawled across Adam’s belly. She remembered keeping quiet and letting him tell the story in his own time, and finally he had picked it up again. “I was in such a foul mood the day I found Lady that I nearly shot her. Instead, I brought her home. I met you not long after that, and liked you, but…I wasn’t up to looking for a girl…even when I noticed those beautiful eyes of yours, I wouldn’t let myself look. It took a long time to get me to like Lady, but I don’t know if I would’ve lived through what happened to Hoss and Joe if she hadn’t been there. And then you showed up, and made me laugh and sing, and kept me sane, but even then, I was afraid to love you. Lady loved me at a time when I was very unlovable—she taught me to love again. And when I learned the lesson, I could love you.”

Tilly had considered that for a while, wondering whether to feel flattered or not. Finally she’d decided it was probably a good thing, as Adam went on: “You know, the day after Pa came home, when I hurt my back and was under morphine, I dreamed about you. I’ll never forget it. You were wearing nothing but lilies.” He had grinned. “Best dream I ever had, until my father showed up.” He reached up and touched her cheek. “By the way, that joke you made in church, about wanting nine children…were you serious?”

“Was Lee serious at Appomattox?”

“Hmm. I was thinking about four or five—but maybe we could compromise. You can have as many as you want, on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“They all have to look like you. And I get to call them my Lilies too. We’ll have a whole bouquet.”

Tilly shook her head, remembering the smile he’d given her, and what had happened after that smile.

Lady placed her wedge-shaped head on Tilly’s knee, looking hopefully up into her eyes. Tilly had always liked dogs, but Lady was her ally, her friend. She hugged the dog. “Don’t you even think I’d leave you behind. We’re Adam’s Lilies, and from here on out we’re stickin’ together.”

**

Like any destroyer, the Godolphin was a small, fast, maneuverable ship given teeth by the torpedo tubes in her forward hull; her captain believed ships like her were the rightful successors of the pirate ships of old. Randolph currently fancied himself on the way to perform a daring and dramatic feat, like his hero Francis “by-God, sir,” Drake, raiding Cadiz. When the sky lightened just enough to see, he had his men tack the sails and pass the prison ship. Turning to Holmes, he jauntily asked, “How’s that, then, sir?”

Sigerson Holmes looked terrible. He was leaning against a mast, hair askew, pupils dilated, and the wrinkles around his eyes seemed…loose, somehow. “Damn fine job,” Holmes said, with a huge grin that looked wrong on his thin face. “How long till we dock?”

“Half an hour. We’ll beat the Germans now by a good hour and a half. How threatening do we need to appear? Shall I blow anything up?”

Holmes smiled, looking all too chipper. “Your very presence should be enough, Captain…but if you’d like to load your torpedo tubes, I won’t protest. I’ll get Mrs. Cartwright now. I’ll borrow four of your Marines, too—we may need to transport Mr. Cartwright on a stretcher.” His voice had changed, too; it was lower, slower—relaxed, almost too relaxed. When he turned away, Randolph noticed the thin medical case protruding from the pocket of his coat. So that explained it. Well, perhaps all diplomats gained their negotiation skills from a syringe.

Holmes reappeared a few moments later with the Cartwright woman and the dog, and Randolph found himself thinking that at least the woman looked better than she had when he’d first seen her. But if her appearance then had been any indication, he wondered if her husband would be alive, and involuntarily, Randolph crossed his fingers and sent a quick prayer to Francis Drake that their rescue would work.

**

They hired a coach, and the Marines jogged alongside it easily enough through Nouméa’s crowded streets. Arriving at the prison, Holmes showed his diplomatic pouch, and they were hastily ushered through the gates and into the administrative wing. Imperiously, Holmes strode up to the clerk at the door and demanded to see Gouverneur LeBlanc.

“The sovereign nation of France is not concerned with the affairs of Great Britain,” said the clerk. “Particularly not when the British are so casual as to bring their pets along.” Tilly wondered if all clerks received pomposity training along with courses in filing and using the Hansen “Writing Ball” typewriter.

Holmes looked down his long nose at the clerk. “The sovereign nation of France would be wise to remember that the reigning sovereign of Great Britain is the mother-in-law of one of the two Prussian princes who chased the troops of France right back to the Seine and graciously allowed them to eat the cats of the city when supplies ran low,” he said amiably. “You’ll pardon my lack of diplomatic charm, I’m sure, when I tell you that I have spent months and gone through major storms during my 16,000 mile journey here, and have not had my tea in two days.” He put his hands on the desk. “And by the way, I came in on Her Majesty’s Ship the Godolphin, that sleek destroyer currently sitting in your harbor, looking for interesting things to use for target practice.”

The door opened, and a tall man with a thin moustache appeared. In slow, awkward English, he began. “Monsieur, forgive me. I am Gouverneur LeBlanc. My clerk is an idiot. My wife’s brother. Please come in.”

Holmes sailed in, and Tilly and Lady followed.

“How may I assist you, sir?” LeBlanc asked, his dubious eyes traveling from the dog to the diplomatic pouch hanging from Holmes’s shoulder.

Holmes switched to French, since he was more comfortable in it than LeBlanc was in English. “I trust you heard my introduction already?”

“Yes, you are a diplomatic courier, Sigerson Holmes, and you have some urgent business here. I will assist in any way I can, but your wife and dog—do they really need to be here?”

Holmes looked back at Tilly and winked, extending his arm. She edged forward and put her hand in the crook of his elbow. “My wife stays with me because she speaks no French. And the dog stays with me because she DOES understand French.” He laughed, and like a good bureaucrat, LeBlanc did too.

Then Holmes stopped laughing—and pounced. “You have a prisoner here under the name of Adam Charron. He is to be turned over to me immediately.”

“We have almost 8,000 prisoners. I am unfamiliar with each one’s name,” LeBlanc said smoothly.

“Familiarize yourself quickly, then,” Holmes retorted impatiently. “Adam Charron: real name, Adam Cartwright. Formerly holding a United States passport, now an honorary subject of Great Britain.” He handed over a set of identification papers. “The man was imprisoned originally as a Communard on Ile des Pins and, according to your Prussian observer Max Beckenbauer, he was transferred here about four or five months ago.”

“You’ve spoken to Beckenbauer?”

“I saw him on Ile des Pins yesterday. I believe he’s on his way back here now. But the latest information Beckenbauer had was that Cartwright was being held in one of your special treatment cells.”

“Oh…yes, I remember now. But why is he to be turned over to you? He was the accessory to an escape of six of the worst convicts here.”

“Yes, I know,” Holmes replied coldly. “They met with quite a warm reception in Australia and are being wined and dined as heroes.”

“What!”

“Further, they are publicizing accounts of your inhumane treatment, such as substandard food, impossible work details, torture chambers, and use of medieval torture devices.”

“All lies,” LeBlanc shrugged.

“Perhaps, but the Diggers, may I say, are eating it up. You know they were a prison colony too. They can’t resist a good jailbreak story. LeBlanc, I saw your name mentioned in at least four of those accounts as having a personal interest in all torture activities. Now if this is the sort of thing you like, I don’t really care, but you should at least be more discreet. At any rate, Adam Charron—Cartwright—is to come with me. I have four Marines outside who can carry him if he can’t walk.”

LeBlanc folded his arms across his chest. “I had intended to make an example of him for assisting in the escape. And this ‘honorary British citizen’ business means little to me. The man is my prisoner.”

“Not quite. In the first place, he’s an American, and France has repeatedly denied having any American prisoners.”

“Well, we won’t have any once I’ve disposed of him. Why does your country care? Don’t worry about Cartwright. He shouldn’t take much longer. And I sent Beckenbauer to finish off his wife yesterday, so that takes care of the American question.”

Tilly’s hand tightened momentarily on Holmes’s arm. She forced herself to relax as he went on, “Yes, I know about that, too. Beckenbauer failed miserably. The wife escaped. She was given sanctuary on the Godolphin—that jolly destroyer sitting in your harbor. So you already have one living American prisoner sitting on that boat just waiting to be transported back to Australia, where she can repeat more embarrassing stories about French inefficiency. I’m offering you a way out of this mess. You’d be mad not to take it.”

“Let her tell her tales,” LeBlanc said imperiously. “Who’ll believe a woman?”

“One brought in by the British Navy? Probably everyone. And oh, she has plenty of things to say that could titillate the senses,” Holmes replied. “Apparently the ratio of male to female prisoners is twelve to one, and the men are taking any woman they find, white or otherwise, for their pleasure—by force if necessary. Does France need that kind of publicity?”

“It will rise overnight and die out as quickly. No one even knows where this island is. I’ll bet your ship had to use the charts to get here. Pitiful.”

“It will be more pitiful when the Kaiser finds out where his beloved ‘Schneider’ is residing.”

“What?”

“I’ve given you the first, second, and third reasons, LeBlanc. Since they don’t interest you, the fourth reason may not either—but Adam Cartwright was not originally arrested for being a Communard. His first arrest was under suspicion of being the Prussian spy, Schneider. He escaped from the Opera House dungeon and joined the Communards because he knew the French would never look for a Prussian there. He planned to get out of Paris before the insurrection was quashed. But yes, Cartwright is code-named Schneider, and is well-known to both the Kaiser and Crown Prince Frederick. The papers I have here—” he held up his two envelopes just long enough for LeBlanc to observe the seals, and then jammed them back into the pouch—“are for the governor of Sydney and the Prussian Embassy in Sydney, requesting troops to recover Schneider. As you say, LeBlanc, nobody knows or cares about this place. If the Prussians and British come in force to recover one man, nobody will find it memorable. Plans are already being drawn up to blame the whole thing on the Kanak if there is any public outrage, but obviously it’s an unnecessary contingency strategy.”

“Cartwright isn’t a Prussian!”

“You’re slow, LeBlanc, very slow. Of course he isn’t a Prussian. He’s a third-generation American, with a Lower Saxon lineage longer than your arm. He could tell you where his loyalty lies, but I doubt he will. He tends toward stubbornness. I’ll bet you haven’t gotten a word out of him.”

LeBlanc leaned on his desk abruptly. A minute later he sighed and pulled a large keyring from the drawer. “You’ll want to leave your wife here.”

“No he won’t,” Tilly spoke up in perfect French.

Holmes looked at her, and grinned at LeBlanc. “My God, it’s a miracle. She does speak French.”

LeBlanc shuddered a little and walked out, clutching the keyring. Holmes, Tilly, and Lady followed, and the four Marines followed them.

“I doubt you’ll want to go in, Madame,” LeBlanc called over his shoulder at one point. “The smell is unpleasant.”

“I grew up in Toulon,” Tilly replied. “I know what prisons smell like.”

“I should put you in Toulon,” Holmes muttered through clenched teeth. “What didn’t you understand when I said to follow my lead?”

“I told you I wouldn’t be left behind,” she whispered.

“Toulon,” Holmes snorted. “My father’s right about women. You’re natural liars, all of you.”

“But not quite as natural as the men,’” Tilly retorted softly. “Otherwise we’d be running the world.”

Down a flight of stairs and a long corridor they proceeded, noticing the increasing smell, the growing darkness and silence, as they went—and Lady, nose to the floor, her one ear pricked forward anxiously, tugging on the leash. Finally she broke free of Tilly’s grasp and disappeared down the hall. LeBlanc pulled a torch from the wall and continued, mumbling about useless women and dogs. They turned a corner a moment later to find Lady scratching frantically at the barred wooden entranceway, whimpering. “Beckenbauer was in charge of the latter part of the interrogation—not me,” LeBlanc said. “I really think he’s driven the man mad. And I think he took the gag out before he left yesterday, because the man’s been singing interminably ever since.” Holmes and Tilly exchanged a glance as LeBlanc, fumbling with the keys, unlocked the heavy door. Lady rushed in, whining; immediately a full slop bucket hurtled in their direction, and they heard Adam’s voice, raspy and furious, shouting “No more games! No more games, damn you!”

LeBlanc jumped back, but not soon enough. Covered with excrement and all manner of foul liquid, he turned back to Holmes. “He’s all yours,” he announced, handing the torch to Tilly and the keyring to Holmes, and he departed in great haste. Even the Marines made faces as he passed them.

They went in to find Adam singing, in a slurred voice. “Merr’ly…merr’ly…merr’ly…merr’ly…life is but a dream.”

“Adam?” Tilly whispered, dropping to one knee in front of him.

He looked past her to focus on the torch she held, and locked his gaze on the flame.

 

Chapter 45

“Now my strings are broken and my lute is torn in two…”

 

June, 1873, in transit

The steamboat Flying Cloud moved steadily under the night stars, and Tilly Cartwright stood alone near the stern, looking up at them and wondering if it were possible to make God feel guilty enough about this situation that he might actually give her husband back.

Physically, she had him. He was lying on his stomach on a specially rigged hammock down below, as the doctors in Australia had thought it would be better for him to leave his back exposed to the open air for now. He was restrained, because the doctors felt he should move as little as possible, and he hadn’t been exactly cooperative. And he was doped to the gills with a morphine solution, as he had been since they’d taken him.

**

It had been two weeks since she and Liam had burst into that foul-smelling cell. Adam’s back was covered with lash marks; many were open cuts, reeking and draining pus. He didn’t look at anyone, but he fixed his eyes firmly on the torch until Liam actually knelt right beside him and touched his arm. “Mr. Cartwright. Adam. It’s Liam, remember me? I’ve come to take you home.”

“No games,” Adam whispered, almost inaudibly.

“No sir, I’m not playing a game.”

Holding his right hand protectively against his chest, Adam slowly turned to try and focus on him. “I could crush your little chicken neck,” he mumbled—and his left hand shot out, obviously with that intent.

“Adam, no!” Tilly cried, almost dropping the torch, and trying to pry Adam’s hand off Liam. “Adam, we came to get you out of here! Let’s go home!”

Adam ignored her completely, his hand steadily tightening around Liam’s throat, and Liam, trying unsuccessfully to loosen the hand on his throat, began to make strange gurgling noises.

It was Lady who got through to Adam—temporarily at least. She was Adam’s dog and loved him beyond life, but what he was doing to Liam—who had been her only friend for almost three years—was crazy to her. And besides, she had barked and whimpered and danced in delight at seeing Adam again, and he was ignoring her—and that would never do. She emitted a short, impatient bark and nipped his arm, forcing him to loosen his grip on Liam; then she turned and began to lick his face. Liam quickly backed out of range, gagging, and removed the case from his pocket. “Marines, now,” he called out in a croaking voice, and the four burst in, seized Adam and held him down while Liam shoved the contents of a large syringe into Adam’s shoulder. It only took a minute to take effect, and Adam wilted into the arms of the biggest Marine; Liam unlocked the shackles from his wrists and ankles. The Marines put him on their stretcher, facedown, and headed out.

Tilly, reeling in shock, turned to Liam Holmes. “Why did you do that? He hates any kind of drug!”

“He had a real need for that one,” Liam said hoarsely. “Besides—” he dove for Lady’s leash, as she was already following Adam out, and Lady tugged him toward the door—“there was no knowing whom he would have attacked next. He didn’t recognize any of us.”

“Maybe he didn’t recognize you, but if he’d gotten a look at me—”

“He looked through you as if you weren’t even there,” Liam daid. “Let’s get out of here. If LeBlanc doesn’t know about Beckenbauer yet, he will soon.”

They left the keys in the cell and hurried after the Marines. When they came to the turn-off back to the administrative offices, they passed it and rushed to the carriage waiting outside. They drove out of the prison gates just as the Prussians, carrying their blanket-covered burden, marched in.

The Navy doctor, examining Adam’s wounds as they set sail for Australia, expressed some surprise that he was still alive. Most of the cuts and tears were not very deep, so the infection had stayed near the surface. More worrisome was that Adam’s nutrition had been so poor that his back had never been able to heal before it was torn open again. The skin there was in such bad shape it was uncertain if it would ever heal properly. The doctors also gravely announced that the last two fingers on his right hand had been smashed, and his right foot had been broken, probably by a rifle butt. The doctor re-broke his foot and bound it up so it could now set correctly, but while he tried to do the same with the fingers, he held little hope for their future usefulness.

The things that were most dangerous, they discovered after Adam regained consciousness, and could do nothing about them. First was the fact that there was something under the skin in Adam’s back. Adam had tried to stand at one point, and his right leg had buckled under him as a result. Tilly remembered him once mumbling something about glass and shrapnel, but refusing to say any more, when his back had been hurting. “I don’t doubt it,” the doctor replied when she told him. “Some of it’s annoying and painful, but it’s been there this long, so there’s no point in risking more skin damage by cutting him open to remove it. But I’m fairly certain there’s something close to his spine, and each time it shifts, it presses on the spinal cord. He’ll need surgery for that—and by someone far more qualified than I. If that’s bungled, or if there’s an infection, the best possibility is that he’d die, or worse: he’d be paralyzed.”

And the other thing…Adam still didn’t recognize Tilly. He didn’t even acknowledge her presence in the room. He stared into candles when the room was dim, and looked about hungrily for things to focus on when it was light, but he was paranoid and jumpy and spoiling for a fight. After three or four days of enforced rest under morphine, he had stopped trying to attack anyone who came near, but he still regarded everyone with suspicion and refused to talk. Lady was the only one who could get near him, and each time he sank his hand into her thick fur, he seemed to calm down a little.

“We’ll have more success in England,” Liam Holmes told Tilly as they neared Australia.

“England?” Tilly cried. “Are you joking, Liam? I’m getting him home. We’ll wire Ben Cartwright for the money and sail right into San Francisco.”

“There are two excellent reasons not to do that,” Holmes replied. “First, it’s still hurricane season here, and you have no way of knowing how many storms are underway. You’ll sail right into them.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Tilly said. “Getting him home is the best way for him to heal.”

“I’m sure of that—but as good as the doctors in San Francisco may be, do you really trust them for complicated back surgery? Tilly, listen to me carefully—you were already warned about the risks. I saw in an Australian newspaper that in San Francisco recently a surgeon actually cut the spinal cord of the man he was operating on. The man committed suicide a few days later. Besides, San Francisco still has quite a high rate of ward fever deaths even after successful operations.”

“Are his chances that much better in England?”

“Scotland. Have you ever heard of Joseph Lister?”

“I think I read about him…didn’t he work on reducing infections? There was an article about him in the newspaper right before I left Spain for America, back in the ’60s.”

“The very same. He’s been pioneering all sorts of successful surgical techniques in Scotland—and his brother Arthur went to school with my oldest brother Sherrinford. I think if you’re going to risk getting Adam that operation, you need to do it where he has the best chance to live through it and walk again.”

She thought it over. “I’ll wire Adam’s father. He’ll pay our way there—maybe even meet us in Scotland.”

“I wouldn’t advise that,” Holmes said. “You’re thinking of this emotionally, not logically. In the first place, sending a telegram to the United States and waiting for a reply will delay our departure by four to six days. If we don’t catch the Flying Cloud, there’s not another fast boat leaving for London for at least two more weeks. And do you really want to raise the man’s hopes when Adam could very well die even before we get to Scotland, if not during the operation?”

“You can be a very cold person, Liam.”

“Thank you,” he replied. “I’ve always been told I’m too emotional. I’m trying to improve.”

“You call this an improvement? You’re turning into an automaton.”

“My brother Mycroft would definitely think of it as an improvement. Emotions interfere with logic; that’s what he says.”

“Your brother’s a jackass, Liam, and so are you,” Tilly replied, throwing her coffee cup down in rage.

“Maybe…but you just proved my point,” Liam said.

**

And now they were on their way to London. Sailing on a steamboat, heading away from the storms, and using the Suez Canal to cut time. They would be there by July, he told her. His brother would lend him more money, and they’d take the first train to Glasgow.

Tilly saw no answer forthcoming from the heavens, and so turned to go back to Adam. Not that he’d know she was there. Even when she spoke directly to him, he seemed not to hear. A full two weeks after his rescue, he still didn’t know who Liam was, and he wouldn’t acknowledge Tilly’s presence at all.

Adam groaned, and Lady hurried to stand by the low-slung hammock so he could put his hand into her fur. Lady was still the only one who could get through to him. He didn’t speak to her, either; he seldom said anything intelligible. But she always seemed to know when she was needed, and kept close by so he could clutch her thick fur. It seemed to help ward off the demons.

**

They were somewhere around India, Tilly knew, when she woke from another poor night’s sleep to find Adam looking at her. At her insistence, the doctor had been steadily decreasing the morphine doses, and Adam looked almost lucid now. He still said nothing to her, but she had to try again. She got up and went over to the hammock and touched his cheek briefly before removing his tangled, sweat-soaked sheet and getting a dry one. He was already shivering by the time the tossed it over him. “You can’t fidget so much,” she said as she worked. “The skin on your back is paper-thin; it’ll tear open after the smallest exertion. You have to be still.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” he whispered. “You’re not real.”

It wasn’t encouraging talk, but he was talking to her. “What do you mean by that?”

“You’re…part of my imagination.”

“Do you even know who I am?” she asked, her voice catching on the lump in her throat.

“I know you. I have a good imagination. Everyone I ever imagined seemed very real. You’re supposed to be Tilly. Some nights I see Ruth. But you’re not there any more than she is.”

“Ruth was real, Adam. So am I. She’s not here, but I am.”

“You’re not,” he said. “When I wake up, you’ll be gone.”

“You’re awake now. Why do you want to think you dreamed me?”

“Everyone I ever loved left me.”

“I didn’t leave you, Adam—you were taken from me. As soon as I could, I came after you. And I’m here now, right by your side.”

“Only because I’m asleep.”

“You’re not asleep. When you do sleep, I’ll be here—and when you wake up again, I’ll still be here. I’m real, Adam. And I’ll stay with you, even if I have to chase you down again.”

He sighed and closed his eyes. She took his face in her hands. “You listen to me, Adam Cartwright. Open your eyes, dammit! I’ve spent the last month sucking up water into a rubber tube and piping it into your mouth because the doctor’s busy. I don’t mind, but I’m not gonna do it if you’re gonna think I’m not even here. I’m here, and I’m real! Pinch me!” She pulled up his eyelids and put her head within inches of his. “I’ll take a lot off you, Adam. I’ll take bein’ compared to Ruth and Regina and whoever the other one was. I’ll take bein’ compared to your mother. I’ll even take bein’ compared to your dog. But I won’t stand right next to you moppin’ up your drool if you don’t think I’m your wife!”

“No green.” He moved one hand—and her eyes widened. “Not married. Pa, I want to go home now….”

She fled the room then and ran to Liam’s cabin, where she beat on the door until he groggily answered it. “Tilly, it’s three in the morning.”

“I know what time it is! Where are our wedding rings? Did you bring them? Please tell me you didn’t leave them in London.”

“’Course I brought them.” He turned, tripping over the belt of the dressing gown he’d tossed over his nightshirt. She followed him into the room and watched while he turned up his lamp and began going through his trunk. “Figured my landlady’d never let me back into my flat, so I took out anything of value…here we go. Same box and everything. What’s the urgency?”

Tilly grabbed the box and fled.

She ran back to the medical cabin, finding the doctor about to give Adam another shot.

“DON’T!” she bellowed, skidding to a halt in front of the hammock.

“Mrs. Cartwright, whatever are you—”

“Doc, please, just stand back a minute. Adam—Adam, look at your hand. Just like Queen Victoria, remember, Adam? I said I’d marry you at midnight in a swamp full of ’gators and live with you in a mud hut? I said devil take anyone who’d come between us. We’ve just about done all that, haven’t we, Adam? I won’t have your own mind comin’ between us now—please, look at your hand, Adam!”

She took the dull green Dahlonega gold band and slid it gently onto his finger, holding his hand with both of hers. He looked at the ring…at his hand…at her hands…at her face. Tears came to his eyes. “Tilly,” he said, and that was all. But it was enough.

 

Chapter 46

“…nights, they don’t last forever…”

 

July, 1873, Nevada

“Pa, there’s really no reason for you to come with us. Audun and I can manage fine.”

Ben sidestepped the statement. “Where is he this morning? The lake again?”

With a sudden guilty look, Joe turned back to his horse. “He’ll be along. Don’t worry about him.”

“He should be saddling up.”

“He already told me he didn’t intend to use a saddle.”

Ben’s eyebrows drew together. “He’s not moving cattle anywhere without a saddle!”

“Pa, you know Audun’s as comfortable on horseback as any man we’ve ever had on this ranch, and he’s more comfortable bareback than with a saddle. Out on the Plains the Indians herd buffalo without using saddles, and cattle are a lot less powerful, a lot easier to control.”

“This is not the Plains, and he is not an Indian. And hunting is not the same as herding. Saddle his horse. I’m going to get him. Where is he, anyway?”

“Pa, why don’t you leave him alone?” Joe asked, looking his father in the eye. “He doesn’t act like a kid very often. Right now he’s acting like a kid. Leave him alone, and let him be what he is.”

“What do you mean, let him be what he is? When is he ever anything else?”

“Most of the time, he’s a kid trying to pretend he’s grown so he can fit in with the rest of us. For Pete’s sake, the boy reads the dictionary every day so you can’t throw in his face that he’s saying things wrong; he’s tryin’ to tone down the speech habits he learned from his mother—even though he doesn’t have much left of her besides that—and he’s tryin’ to impress you with all the things he reads so you won’t be so mad that he won’t go to school.” Joe turned back to Cochise, muttering, “If that’s how Adam grew up it’s no wonder he turned into such a stuffed shirt.”

“What did you say?” Ben rumbled.

Joe faced Ben, his face pale but his jaw set. “Pa, have you ever seen Audun skip a stone out on the lake? Ever seen him play? Every time you see him he’s doing exactly what you want him to—or if it’s something that makes him feel disloyal to his mother, you argue that he’s refusing to do it. You’re tearing the kid in half.”

“I never heard such claptrap,” Ben said, and stormed away to look for the boy.

“Talk about the honeymoon bein’ over,” Joe murmured, leading out Audun’s favorite horse.

Surprisingly, Audun’s favorite horse had turned out to be Sport—Adam’s horse. Although Audun had arrived with six horses of his own, horses of considerable value at that, once he had learned his father’s horse was here, he wanted to see him. And then…he wanted to ride him. They had all said ‘no,’ of course, because Sport was a handful, but he did it anyway—clandestinely, at first—but finally, after numerous nights of safety lectures and being sent to bed without supper, Audun had arrived at a tacit agreement with his grandfather: Audun continued to ride Sport, and Ben said no more about it.

Joe knew exactly where Audun was—he was in the pasture playing with Bruce and Ceirdwyn. The two collies officially belonged to Joe and Ben, but their natural love for children caused a lot of conflicting loyalty. When Audun was around, they wanted to play with him. But Audun never played when grownups were around. Why, Joe didn’t know, but for all his encouraging the kid to loosen up the death-grip he seemed to have on himself, Audun just didn’t want to be a kid when adults were around. He’d seen Audun a short time ago, romping with Ceirdwyn and wrestling with Bruce, throwing pine cones for them to fetch, and he’d hurried away before the kid had time to spot him and put his “mask” on.

What still threw Joe was that even after nearly a year, he doubted his father had ever seen Audun smile. If he had, Joe thought, it was something he’d have encouraged, because the kid grinned just like Adam.

**

“Go ahead, Audun,” Hoss encouraged.

“I don’t care what happened in England,” Audun protested. “Why read about events overseas that don’t concern me?”

“Yeah, me and Joe useta think the same way, and then when Adam disappeared we had to take in a lot of learnin’ real fast about the way the world works.”

“What good did your understanding do? He still never came back.”

“No, but at least we have a better understandin’ of why things happened the way they did. Besides, iffen you really end up goin’ back to the Nimiipuu someday, and they really end up in Canada, Queen Victoria’s pretty darn important up there. They call her the Great White Mother.”

Audun sighed and spread out the “Foreign News” page of the San Francisco Chronicle.

“‘Tourist or Terrorist—Barbaric Attack on Her Majesty Prevented by Gallant Police.’ These writers make everything sound important.”

“Well, I told ya, in a lot of parts of the world, Queen Victoria is pretty important.”

“Hmmm. ‘The visit of Her Majesty Queen Victoria to Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland, last week, was curtailed by a barbaric attack from an Irish terrorist. Gerald Francis Madigan, brother to the infamous explosives expert and Irish Republican Patrick Madigan, raised a firearm and aimed it at the Queen while she prepared to board her specially commissioned train to Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire. However, he was knocked down by another man in the station.

“‘The second assailant—’ I don’t know this word. Uncle Hoss, what’s an assailant?”

“Somebody what’s gonna attack somebody else.”

“All right. ‘The second assailant has thus far been unidentified. His claims to be an American were immediately silenced by a constable’s remarking on his strong resemblance to the Madigan family, and he was taken in irons to the police station along with Madigan. A woman claiming to be the man’s wife attacked one constable with a carpetbag but was easily subdued, and she was taken under arrest as well. Her Majesty thus continued her journey without further interruption. Charges have been filed against all parties. The husband-and-wife attackers have been detained pending identification and determination of their actual intent. It is fortunate that the Glasgow Con…stab…ulary were on the scene to prevent what doubtless was intended to be the assassination of the Queen.’ There, I have read it, but I don’t see anything of importance to be learned.”

“Just goes to show you it’s not only here. When you were readin’ last week about what happened to President Lincoln, you didn’t believe it could happen. But it did.”

“Well, it’s good to know it’s not just Indians,” Audun shrugged. “White people can’t even get along among themselves. Why did this Irish fellow want to kill the queen, anyway?”

“Well, Adam told me once that Ireland used to be its own country, but then England took it and made it theirs. This Irish feller, I think he just wants Ireland back for the Irish.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“Nothin’, but it ain’t right to kill the queen just to get it. And don’t start talkin’ down yer little button nose about Soyapo politics again, ’cause you ain’t as smart as you think you are.”

**

“This,” Audun said grimly, “comes from trusting a white man.”

“I am sick of that argument!” Ben thundered back. “The fact is, plain and simple, that you did not feed the pigs. It was your week to feed them.”

“I swapped my chores with Billy. I did his. I never thought he would ‘forget’ to do mine.”

“It doesn’t matter; they were still your responsibility. You should have made sure Billy did them.”

“I should supervise a grown man of eighteen, Grandfather? As you are so fond of telling me, I am not yet eleven. I cannot tell grown men what to do.”

“Then you shouldn’t have traded your chores with anyone else, should you?”

“Then why have you allowed me to do it before? If it’s wrong once, shouldn’t it always be wrong?”

“Audun…go to bed!”

Audun walked quietly toward the staircase, but Ben clearly heard his murmured “this is how you end every argument when you run out of thoughts.”

It didn’t even matter that he was walking up the stairs, Ben thought. He’d be popping out the window in a few minutes and heading to the barn to sleep. He’d been doing that every night for the past month.

I have the reputation throughout Virginia City, Placerville—even parts of San Francisco—as the man who can get through to anybody. People listen to reason when I talk to them.

But not this child. He doesn’t live in the house, doesn’t like the food we eat, won’t cut his hair or wear proper clothes, won’t go to school. Goes out to the lake to bathe rather than using a bathtub. Why in heaven’s name did he even come back with us if he’s so dead-set against being what we are?

 

Chapter 47

“…to unravel the ties that bind the pleasure to the pain…”

 

September, 1873, Nevada

“Hand me the pestle—no, the larger one. Thank you; that is good.” Dr. Kam began to grind the pungent mixture in his mortar to a coarse powder. “What is troubling you today, Audun? You look, as the white people say, ‘down in the mouth.’ Or is it ‘down in the dumps’? I can never keep the slang straight.”

“I think both have the same meaning, Yi San Kung Kung,” Audun replied. The Chinese term conveyed both family and profession: to him, Kam Lee was “Grandpa Doc.” He grinned, something he would never do in his real grandfather’s presence. “And I am down in both.”

“Arguing with your grandfather again? I will never understand how putting together such a good man with such a good boy brings such trouble.”

“He insists that when school starts, I must go, even if he has to drag me by ‘the hair I will not cut.’ Why are you not my grandfather, Kung Kung?”

Kam frowned, and Audun had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Audun, you must not say that or think it,” Kam said. “Things happen for reasons, whether you know the reason or not. I allow you to call me ‘Grandpa Doctor’ because in a sense you are a student of mine, and in sense you are like a grandchild. But Ben Cartwright is your blood kin. Family is everything to him, just as it is to the Chinese. He would be terribly hurt to hear you say such a thing. You are his grandson, and he loves you.”

“What good is that if he won’t accept me as I am? Why does he keep trying to change me? When we met, he said he would never ask me to replace Adam…my father…but I think that’s what he wants, all the same.”

“He never had time to find out what he wanted, Audun. He didn’t even know you were alive this time last year. Grandchildren who come from a courtship and marriage are no surprise, but think what a surprise you were. Learning about you meant the acceptance of having been wrong for so many years, realization that he had led Adam down the wrong path as well, and strangest of all, that out of that brief union, a child had been born, who had lived on the world for years without knowing his father or family.”

“I know all that,” Audun replied. “They all told me. Yes, they feel bad about it now, but they can only tell it to the dead. I have no parents. I have a People who love me and want me back for the boy I am and the man I will be, but here everyone says they are not my people. I have a grandfather who loves me only for the son he lost…and Kung Kung, I would almost give up myself to be that son—but I don’t even know what he was like. They put me in his room, and I am surrounded by things that were his—but that doesn’t make them mine. They tell me stories of him sometimes, but not often, because it still hurts them to speak of him, and I don’t even understand most of the stories. The only time I can feel my father at all is when I ride his horse or play his guitar.”

“Well, first, your father was white,” Kam observed. “He held the red and yellow and black people in great respect and was courteous to all, but he knew what he was and never forgot it, just as I will never forget that I am Chinese. And while you may love the Nimiipuu, Audun, and they may love you, they are adopted people. Adopted people are fine if blood kin fails, but your blood kin do love you, and they have not failed you. They just don’t know how to show their love because you are so different from what they would have expected. But that’s not a problem without a solution.”

“What’s the solution?” Audun grinned over his pun as he stirred the solution on the stove. “Become white? I may be white. Certainly I hear it enough from my grandfather. But I don’t know how to be white. I know how to be Nimiipuu, but now you tell me I cannot be Nimiipuu. And yet I don’t feel white either. That leaves me with no place I can call home.”

“You don’t have to change yourself. But you could change a few outer aspects of yourself. You don’t know what a great opportunity you have been given, Audun. Something wonderful has fallen on you from heaven, and you turn a blind eye.”

“What wonderful opportunity have I been given? All I see is conflict and grief.”

“You look with the eyes of a child. Do you regard me as a doctor, Audun? A healer?”

“Of course I do! You are Yi San—”

“Do you regard your mother as a healer?”

“She was a wonderful healer. I would do well to be half as good as either of you.”

“You are already that, Audun. Among white children, I have never seen a boy your age with half your medical knowledge—among white men twice your age, I have seldom seen it. But you could do more, and be more.”

“What have I not done? Every chance I have, I come to town and learn from you and Dr. Martin.”

“He’s a good healer too, Audun, don’t you think?”

“He has many powerful instruments to aid him, but he also has a wise eye and the right spirit; yes.”

“And yet, if any white man or white woman in this town was hurt or sick, who among the three of us would they choose as a doctor? Dr. Martin? Your mother? Or me?”

Audun lapsed into thoughtful silence.

“You know the answer, even as you don’t want to say it,” Kam said gently. “Audun, that is the gift you have. You are steadily amassing the knowledge of three systems of healing into your own mind. You’ll take the ‘spirit magic’ of the Indian, the ‘chi’ of the Chinese, and the science of the whites, and put it all together into one art. If you choose to incorporate the red man’s medicine or the yellow man’s medicine, people won’t mind. If they see a red or yellow man, or even a white woman, doing the same thing, they will give it no credence—but you could make it work.”

“How?”

“Go to the white man’s school. Then his college and medical school. Read medicine under a well-respected white doctor—but never forget the things you learned from the Nimiipuu and from my people. Combine them all into one. You can earn the respect for our ideas—and thus, maybe, someday help us all earn the respect we are due.”

“To be sure, it is a great and noble undertaking,” Audun said. “But I still don’t want to cut my hair.”

“Then don’t cut it. Chinese children don’t cut theirs.”

“If I were Chinese, perhaps I could get away with it. But I’m not.”

“Then tuck it down inside your shirt and turn your collar up. It’s likely no one will notice.”

When school started, Audun was there. He wore blue jeans and a gray shirt, and forced his feet into narrow boots. He even rode the horse his grandfather asked him to ride. Ben Cartwright knew that Audun could handle Sport, but he certainly didn’t want any of the other children at the school trying to play with that horse. “Then I’ll ride Falcon,” Audun suggested. Falcon was one of his own horses, a black Appaloosa named for his favorite bird, the Peregrine falcon. “No,” Ben replied. “He’s a beautiful horse, Audun, but he’ll also catch the eye of people I don’t want noticing you.” So Audun rode Pepper Nell, the most innocuous horse in the Cartwright stable. And on the first day of school, he was a very good student.

On the second day, someone realized his hair was not just the collar-length hair of most of the boys, and the fight that resulted sent Audun home with more cuts and bruises than anyone on the Ponderosa had seen since the last time Joe had been kidnapped, some five years earlier. It was not a rout, however; Audun knew little of fist fighting, but he was an excellent wrestler. He broke the arm of the boy who had decided to tug his hair.

For “starting” the fight, and being a “menace,” he was expelled.

“Old Man in the Stars,” Audun murmured on the long ride home, “I can’t be the white son my grandfather misses so much; I can’t be the brother my uncles wish I were. I don’t know what to say to all these women. I miss Timothy and Shmoqula and my mother, but Mother is dead and Kung Kung says I don’t belong among the People anymore. And yet, when he convinced me there was a destiny I could fulfill, I couldn’t do that either. Now I’m in more trouble than I have ever been in, for a fight I did not start. I will probably not have supper—and I don’t mind, honestly, Creator, if that’s all it is to be. Still, I can’t say I believe I earned a tanning, either, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to get one. Already the offense rises in me to the point where I could gladly take the six horses I came with and ride away. Old Man, you know the strange circumstances of my birth. If it’s true you made me this way for a reason, and my mother wanted me to come here for a reason, then I’m sorry; I can no longer act on simple faith. You must show me—and quickly—that you want me to stay in this place, or by the hair I will not cut, Creator, I swear I will pack up and leave tonight.”

Absolute stillness was the only reply.

Then a shriek came from the trees, and a Peregrine falcon burst out of the woods, carrying a small rabbit in its talons. The bird dropped the rabbit a few yards from Pepper Nell, and with another angry shriek, she climbed into the clouds and disappeared.

Audun thought about this long and carefully as he picked up the rabbit. At least, if he was sent to bed without supper now, he could make his own. And as for the Creator’s response…Audun looked up. “You didn’t have to shout.”

 

 Chapter 48

“…And we dream about the day that we’ll go home…”

 

September, 1873, Glasgow

Dear Ben,

Adam and I are alive and hoping to return home soon. I expect you have given up hope of ever hearing from us after more than three years, but you must understand that if we could have contacted you, we would have. In the last three years we have been caught up in a great many events and narrowly escaped death several times. Adam is unable to write now because of the grave injuries he received a few months ago and still others he received more recently, so I am sending this note. I wanted to send you a wire, but Adam said that would never do, and that I must try somehow to explain the inexplicable.

In the last months of the war Adam and I were deported to a small island in the Pacific Ocean. There was no way to escape. Adam tried several times to write you, but whereas other letters were delivered to the families of the deportees, we learned his letters were never forwarded because of the cost involved in sending mail out of France.

We were rescued at last by our dear friend Liam Holmes, and Adam hopes, when we return, to make some sort of monetary compensation for him. Liam doesn’t expect anything, of course, but he went to considerable lengths, both expensive and dangerous, to find us, and he is why Adam is alive now. One of Adam’s injuries had left him partially paralyzed. Liam was able to get us to one of the few places in the world where he could have the surgery to fix the problem, and Adam is recovering now. All he wants is to go home.

You’re probably wondering why, if we escaped months ago, I haven’t written before. Part of it was the travel time—we at sea until July. And, I didn’t want to raise anyone’s hopes until I was sure Adam would live. He is out of danger now, and is learning to walk again. Right after our arrival, when Adam—who really should have been on a stretcher, but insisted on standing up—saw a man raising a gun in the train station, he reacted the Cartwright way. Thinking the man was aiming at me, Adam jumped him. It turned out the man was trying to kill Queen Victoria, and Adam stopped him. There was a lot of confusion right after everything happened, though, and Adam was hurt again by a couple of police constables. This only complicated his prior injuries and made things worse when we had thought they were getting better. We might still be in that Glasgow jail had Adam not been identified positively by a boy we had known in Spain. Our friend Isaac Albéniz is currently touring Europe, and he not only identified us, but he refused to provide his command performance for the queen until we were released.

Once all the mess was straightened out, the queen felt pretty badly about what happened to us, and has covered all our bills here, bought us new clothes since we had almost nothing to wear—in fact, she has even insisted on paying for our trip home. When Adam is pronounced fit to leave, we intend to get out of here as soon as is humanly possible. Since he’s come back to himself, almost all he’s talked about has been going home.

I really hope you will understand, Ben. None of this was Adam’s fault. He already blames himself for things that have happened, things he never could have prevented. I suspect you’re more likely to blame me, and that won’t be anything I don’t already do every day. In more rational moments, I know that I didn’t take Adam anywhere he didn’t want desperately to go, and I didn’t want to stay in Paris any more than he did, but we couldn’t leave. The grim reality is that we were caught in a whirlwind. Perhaps someday both of us will come to accept that in our hearts as well as in our heads.

Ben, Adam doesn’t know what I am writing to you, so I tell you in confidence—he’s a lot more delicate than he looks, and he looks delicate enough. If he doesn’t complain, it doesn’t mean he’s not in pain. Some of the things done to him resulted in skin infections that will persist, the doctors say, for several months if not longer. It doesn’t take much to get him bleeding right now. He jokingly called himself a walking wound today—a valid assessment. He’s going to need a lot of care. I’ve been doing the best I can, but do you remember once telling me that you knew Adam loved his family, but that you weren’t enough because he needed me? Right now, Adam loves me, but I’m not enough—he needs you too.

If God is as merciful and loving as I still think he is, we’ll be home by November. We can hardly wait to see you all, and then Adam can tell you more of our misadventures in person—but I say in all seriousness, please be gentle with him, physically and otherwise. He has suffered much, and all he wants is home and family and no more surprises.

With great affection,

Tilly

“How much did you tell him?” Adam demanded.

“As few details as possible, just as you said,” Tilly replied.

“Why didn’t you read it to me first? I wanted to hear it.”

“You were asleep. I went ahead and sealed up the envelope; you said you wanted it to get out as quick as possible. The man from the consulate said he’d put it into a diplomatic pouch so it would get priority delivery, and I gave it to him.”

“Tilly,” Adam said thoughtfully, “they may not even recognize me. I’m losing my hair.”

“You’re not losing it, Adam. There’s just more of it ending up in the brush than there used to be.”

“Well, thank you for the reassurance. You’re supposed to tell me that I’m still handsome and better yet, virile.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that. Then you might get ideas about some sweet young thing, since I’m lookin’ pretty much the worse for wear myself. I figure I need to tell you just how bad you look, and then you’ll feel real blessed that somebody still wants you.”

They looked at each other for a moment—and then burst out laughing.

He held out his unbroken hand, the one with the Dahlonega gold band gleaming dull and green. “Had we world enough and time, acushla…”

She took his hand and kissed it. “We’ve got all the time in the world now, Adam.”

**

The man from the consulate marked the letter “Crucial—deliver without delay” and duly turned the letter over to his clerk, a new fellow named Stevenson who had just transferred in from Paris and who only had three and a half years left before he could retire. Stevenson looked at the names on the envelope and turned fishbelly white.

“Make sure that gets out in one of today’s pouches,” he was told.

“Yes, sir. Certainly.”

He kept his word. He put it into the pouch destined for Minsk.

**

It was an odd reversal, Adam thought. He remembered seeing Liam and Lady off at the dock in Paris, Lady frightened and fighting against the separation; Liam jaunty with his walking stick and youthful assuredness that nothing could go wrong; Tilly at home, obeying the doctor and hoping for a healthy child; Adam, wondering just what lay ahead. Now Liam had joined them in Glasgow again, and they had traveled to London together, where Adam, Tilly and Lady were boarding a steamship for New York.

But they were all greatly changed. Liam’s father had finally carried through on his threat and disinherited his third son, so Liam was without support—or a place to live. His landlady had, as expected, kicked him out of his Montague Street flat. “It doesn’t bother me,” he replied cheerfully to Tilly’s question.

“Liam,” Adam said insistently, “When I get home I’ll send you a bank draft. It’ll never be enough to repay you, but it may get another flat for you, anyway. You won’t be left with nothing after all you did.”

“You needn’t worry, Adam—really. Mycroft will put me up if I’ve nowhere else to go. We’re not all of us Cartwrights, but my brothers care enough, in their own peculiar ways…and I can always make a shilling or two—the medical schools need people to volunteer for their experiments all the time. In fact, I’m already scheduled next week to help with a cocaine test. I’m told cocaine actually raises one’s awareness and heightens all the senses. Since I pride myself on always using my senses to the fullest, I think it may be helpful in my profession.”

“Exactly what do you think your profession’s going to be?” Adam asked.

“Well, I was kicked out of medical school for missing the past year, you know—but that’s all right. I was only there because Mother hoped I’d be a doctor. I don’t think that’s for me. Actually, it came to me that I’m quite good at finding things. You know, that aluminum crutch with all the jewels, back when I first met you…even finding the two of you was quite an exercise in observation and deduction. I thought I might look into becoming a detective. God knows I couldn’t muck up a case any worse than that idiot Pinkerton. And what about the two of you? Adam, I recall in Paris you were thinking of going into architecture full-time when you returned home, but all you’ve spoken of lately has been ranching.”

“Don’t know yet,” Adam admitted, leaning on the walking stick Liam had given him. “I think it’ll be a while before I’m fit to do either.”

“And Tilly—do they allow married women to teach now, or will you be relegated to giving piano lessons to vain little girls in pigtails?”

“Last I heard, married women still couldn’t teach, but I wouldn’t mind giving piano lessons. You never know—I might wind up with the next Isaac Albéniz.”

“Quite so. And I might come to Montana with you and be a cowboy…and be mistaken for an assassin…and positively identified as a ‘good guy’ by your young protégé, even as Isaac identified you.”

“Nevada,” Adam prompted—he had no memory of the previous events at Glasgow station—putting out his left hand for a farewell shake. He kept his right hand in his pocket these days.

“Right. Geography was never my forte.” Liam obligingly shook hands.

“Well, if you ever do make it to the United States, Liam, you know you’ll always be welcome wherever we are,” Tilly said, and hugged him.

“I should hope so!” Liam replied, blushing, and knelt down to give Lady a pat. He looked at her, smiling. “Farewell, messy roommate!”

Adam held her leash, so she was sitting quietly; her world was in order. Shipboard or train, castle or mud hut, as long as her people were there, she was a happy dog. She thumped her stumpy tail and licked Liam’s ear in goodbye. He jumped up then, and without another word, turned and walked away to disappear in the crowd.

Adam closed his eyes and sighed. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. Tilly realized it, of course. He was growing a beard again—deliberately this time, to hide the scar where the lash had wound around his throat, nicked his ear and scratched his forehead. Part of the scar was still visible, however, and it turned bright red whenever he held his breath.

“Well, my Lilies,” Adam said at last, “We are going home now.”

 

Chapter 49

“‘Homeward bound’ was the captain’s command…”

 

November, 1873, Virginia City

The man leaning against the column between the saloon and the stage coach stop had been a fine-looking young buck at one time, thought the matronly lady emerging from the general store. But apparently a hard life had done him in. A thin scar ran down one side of his face just in front of the ear and disappeared under the collar of his shirt. He held his right arm protectively against one side. Too thin for his build, she thought. She’d always had an eye for a man’s build, and though this fellow was wearing a great many clothes, she could still tell. Must have been the drink. Nothing took the muscle off a cowboy quicker than the drink.

But those clothes! Where on earth did he get such a fancy, English-cut suit? It must have come straight from Savile Row, she thought—but why would he combine that beautiful gray double-breasted wool worsted with that worn, threadbare black shirt? For that matter, who wore a black shirt with a suit anyway? Apparently the same kind of man who wore dusty, scuffed cowboy boots and a black Stetson with a wool worsted. She shook her head, smiling….

A wagon from Watt & Son’s Livery pulled up in front of the man, and the woman driving it said, “Hi, handsome. You come around these parts often?”

“I used to,” the man replied with a wistful grin. “Not lately, though. But what’s a nice girl like you doin’ in front of this den of sin?”

“Well, I’ll tellya, cowboy…I’m lookin’ for a big strong fella to keep me warm at night.”

The man chuckled. “Mind your tongue, woman. I am a married man.”

The woman winked. “I’m married too. It’s okay: discretion is the better part of valor.”

“Well, if you promise to be discreet,” he said, still grinning rakishly. He bent down to pick up the small trunk by his side, and then froze, one hand on the handle. “Oh Lord…” he muttered.

All pretense at flirting vanished; the woman jumped down from the wagon, and in the back, a one-eared gray dog that looked something like a collie sat up and woofed in concern.

“You dadblamed idjit, I told you to let me do the lifting,” the woman scolded, pushing him away gently and grabbing the small trunk. With some difficulty she hoisted it into the wagon, and followed it up with another while the man held onto the side of the wagon, obviously in pain.

“Are you bleeding?” the woman asked.

“I don’t think so,” he replied. “Besides, that’s what the shirt is for. Black hides a multitude of sins.”

She pushed aside his overcoat, slipped a hand under his suit jacket and felt her way up his back to be sure. “Maybe we should stop at the doctor’s office first—”

“Absolutely not. What have I been saying for the last six months?”

The woman sighed. “‘Take me home.’ I know. And I expect you won’t shut up until I do, even if you drop dead on the doorstep.”

“Assuming we’re still welcome there.” He grinned weakly. “I thought they’d be here to meet the stage after you sent that telegram in New York.”

“And don’t think they won’t get an earful from me about that,” the woman said. “We’re down to our last penny.” Her eyebrows drawn together in worry, the woman sighed and took the man by the left arm. “Come on, cowboy. No more big brave man-acting. I’m taking you home just like you wanted—and then I’m putting you straight to bed, just like Doctor Lister ordered.”

“Do I still get to keep you warm?” the man asked with a wink, but he allowed himself to be guided to the wagon and helped aboard. The dog whined and jumped up on the seat next to the man, leaning against him and licking the scar by his ear.

Clementine Hawkins watched as the woman clucked to the horses and the wagon rumbled slowly down the street. Why, in spite of that beautiful new gown, that woman looked very like Tilly Hoffman, who had boarded with her for a couple of months, five years ago, the girl who had sneaked off and married Adam Cartwright. And that fellow…well he didn’t look much like Adam Cartwright. Far too thin, unimaginably pale, with some gray in his thinning, curly hair and beard…and besides, Adam and Tilly had run off for parts unknown right after their marriage, and everyone knew Ben had spent the last year in some kind of legal wrangle trying to get them declared dead. But after all those years in the circus, if there was anything Clementine Hawkins knew about people, it was that the best disguise was no disguise at all.

 

Chapter 50

“…a rainbow is shining for all who are there…”

 

It was Saturday, and over the past six months Saturdays had taken on a special meaning at the Ponderosa. Since Hoss and Little Joe both worked for their father, they usually saw him every day, but never as much as he would have liked, they knew. They both had their own wives and homes now and they knew their father didn’t grudge them that—but they all still missed the dinner discussions and after-dinner checker games and such. They also knew that Audun could play checkers, and he was a terror at chess, but…well, while their father was grateful for everything he had, things just weren’t the same. And so on Saturdays, while the men were still working, Alice and Veralyn would drive over to the “big house,” bringing covered dishes of their own, and of course Hop Sing performed his own culinary magic. Saturday was the big family evening for them now; after dinner Hoss and Joe would alternate debating local politics and ranching improvements with chess and checker games with their pa, and the women carrying on their own conversations or, less frequently, joining in the men’s. Audun thought “politics” was just another word for Soyapo taking land that wasn’t theirs, but he had some interest in ranching and timber. And the boy knew everything there was to know about herbs.

Today Joe had finished early and arrived at the house first. Hoss and Audun were still out marking trees for cutting, and Ben was in town talking to Hiram. Even the ladies hadn’t shown up yet. This suited Joe fine, because he had thought of something he’d been meaning to do for a long time and kept forgetting. He had a fine wooden music box that had belonged to his mother, and he wanted to give it to Alice. But he had just walked into his old room when he heard the familiar clip-clop of an approaching team. Alice or Veralyn? Or did they come together today? he wondered, heading to a front-facing window.

But it was neither. Joe’s dog, Bruce, ran around the corner of the house, barking, but stopped, confused, in mid-charge and sat down at a hand signal from one of the wagon’s occupants. There was a man and a woman…and a one-eared gray dog. As Joe watched, the man carefully got down from the wagon, while the woman jumped out and rushed around to him, fussing unintelligibly the whole time, and while he couldn’t understand her words, the voice seemed familiar, as did something about the man’s stance as he surveyed the place. And the hat he was holding looked oddly similar to one Joe had last seen years ago…

The dog jumped out last, and walked stiffly over to the quivering Bruce to regally touch noses with him; then it turned away and ignored him completely. Looks like Ceirdwyn, Joe thought idly—and then he saw the white patch of fur on one side and his eyes widened. “No…it looks like Lady.” His knees suddenly felt rubbery, and he put the music box down to keep from dropping it as he heard the knock on the door and Hop Sing’s shocked exclamation: “Mister Adam!”

There was a roaring in his head like waves crashing on rocks. Adam and Tilly were alive, and had come home. It couldn’t be. They were dead. Everyone knew it. They hadn’t been heard from in more than three years. No one could just forget to write for that long. No one could be in a house that was blown to bits by Prussian grapeshot and then walk away unscathed.

But there they were. Even the dog! How in blazes had the dog lived through it? They had read enough horror stories about the siege of Paris; how people were eating household pets and even sewer rats. But there was Lady, and aside from the missing ear Adam had mentioned in one letter, she looked whole and sleek and happy…

Still weak-kneed, he made his way to the staircase—and heard that subdued, but distinctive, baritone he’d never thought to hear again. “It’s mighty good to see you, Joe.” At the top of the stairs he froze, fixing his eyes on the man. He was standing in the shadows by the sideboard, but Joe could see him. He was older; his hair was thinning on top and he was no longer pomading it. He had a graying beard, neatly trimmed. Whatever else he was or wasn’t, he was certainly Adam Cartwright, and Joe didn’t know whether to rush down the stairs and hug him and cry—or rush down the stairs and punch him in the jaw.

He was smiling. As if he just got back from a couple of weeks in San Francisco. Joe stiffened and looked hard at his brother. Tilly was standing by Adam’s side, holding his arm, looking at him with hope and fear. Hop Sing was grinning uncontrollably—until he looked at Joe. Then he bustled back to the kitchen, mumbling Cantonese.

“Hi yourself,” Joe replied coolly, continuing slowly down the stairs. “What happened to your hair?”

Adam chuckled briefly. “I gave a lock of it to every woman who fell in love with me. The demand exceeded the supply. What happened to yours?”

Involuntarily, Joe put a hand up to his graying curls. “I went white-haired overnight from shock the day we decided my oldest brother was dead. Where’ve you been?”

For a few minutes there was silence. Joe stood on the bottom step, gripping the rail as if his life depended on it, and did not move. Adam leaned heavily on the sideboard.

“I guess you didn’t get our telegram from New York last week. I heard there was some Indian trouble in the Dakotas; maybe the cross country lines were down.”

“Nope, no telegram. Also no letters.”

Adam and Tilly exchanged a glance as Joe went on, “No postal cards. No gossip from Virginia City. No visits from angels. Last thing we got from you was a letter dated July 5, 1870, and mailed on the second of August. We had occasion to memorize those dates.” He looked Adam up and down. “Guess you were too busy buying natty suits to write, huh.”

“Joe, don’t,” Tilly cried. “It was my fault—”

“Of course it was. You had to go charging off to Spain, didn’t you? How many people travel to another whole continent just for a wedding? And then they decide to stay gone for five years, without bothering to let anyone know?”

“Joe,” Adam cut in, taking a step forward. “There were reasons. Now leave my wife out of it.”

“Wife…oh yeah, that’s right. You got married. Well, you know what, brother? So did Hoss.”

“I know,” Adam whispered.

“Of course; it happened before you dropped out of contact. Well, did you know that I got married too? You should. It was back in April. I took your picture to my wedding so you could sing and dance in Heaven. I guess you weren’t in Heaven, though.”

“No,” Adam replied softly. “I was in Hell. I’m sorry. Please drop it.”

“Drop it? Just like that? Without an explanation, without anything? For God’s sake, Adam! Pa nearly went out of his mind, and if he hadn’t had Audun and—oh, but you don’t know that, either. Hey, guess what, Adam? There’s a lot you don’t know. You have—”

“Joseph Cartwright, you should be ashamed!” Tilly burst out. “Can’t you even shake hands with your brother? If you knew how badly he wanted to come home, or—”

“Tilly, hush!” Adam commanded, and she clapped her mouth shut, staring at him as if she’d never seen him before. “This is between my brother and me. Leave it.”

And then they all fell silent as a horse loped into the yard.

“Well,” Joe said, “This’ll be fun.”

Adam turned away, trembling, and faced the door. That was when Joe noticed the thin scar running down the side of his face just in front of his ear, suddenly pulsing bright red. But he had no time to wonder as the door opened and Ben walked in.

“Hi, Pa,” Adam said.

Ben froze in the doorway, his eyes locked on his oldest son. Silence reigned until Lady gave a warning growl, and Tilly shushed her.

“Adam?” Ben whispered, tears welling in his eyes.

“It’s me, Pa. I’m sorry….”

Ben took three quick steps toward him, but before the hug he obviously intended could be carried out, Tilly ducked between them and threw her arms around Ben, who stared down at her in shock.

Well, Tilly had never had the best manners, Joe thought, but this is a new low for her. She whispered something into Ben’s ear, and he looked blankly at her. She repeated it. Ben nodded, and with no further display, she moved aside.

Ben cautiously approached Adam and encircled him with the gentlest of hugs, and Adam shocked the daylights out Joe by laying his head on his father’s shoulder and leaving it there. They stayed that way, it seemed, forever, and while they were occupied, Tilly moved over to Joe’s side.

“What was all that about?” Joe asked quietly.

Tilly looked back at him without flinching. “I warned him to be gentle. I’m telling you the same. Family or not, Joe Cartwright, you hurt him any more than he’s been already and you’ll answer to me.”

“I’m shakin’.”

“You should be, you little Cajun shrimp.” She smiled hopefully at him, but he shook his head.

“You just don’t waltz back into our lives with a joke and a grin, but no explanation for why you disappeared off the face of the earth and left us thinking you were dead, and then expect us to be happy as clams. We went through hell back here. For myself I can take anything life throws at me, but you have no idea how Pa suffered. I thought he was going to—”

“Not to belittle your trials, Joe,” Tilly said quietly, “but we did a bit of suffering ourselves. When your brother gets the nerve up to step out of that dark corner he’s hiding in, try takin’ a good look at him and see if you start to understand. I’d tell you the whole tale, but it would take hours.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Tilly,” Joe muttered. “None of us is. We’ll be right here when you’re ready to talk. I hope it’s a good story. Hop Sing can make us some popcorn and ginger beer.”

She shook her head. “You’d lose your appetite.”

Father and son broke apart then; Adam removed a linen square from his breast pocket and wiped his eyes discreetly while Ben took out his own handkerchief and blew his nose.

Adam unbuttoned the heavy overcoat. “It’s a little warm,” he said awkwardly, and started to take it off; quick as a flash Tilly jumped behind him, removing the coat and suit jacket from him herself, as if she didn’t want his arms to move. Adam glanced at her and said, “I’m fine.”

Joe noticed all this and filed it for future reference, although he found it equally interesting that despite the fineness of the wool suit, the shirt was one of the plain old black shirts that Adam had worn right on the Ponderosa five years ago, and its age was showing badly. And suddenly he realized something else—Adam was thin. Really thin. Downright skinny.

“God almighty,” Ben breathed at the same time. “Adam, you’ve lost at least 30 pounds—what—”

“I understand I missed out on a lot,” Adam said quickly. “Hoss is married, Joe’s married…I guess the house is pretty full. If you don’t have room for us, we understand.”

“The house is indeed full, and about to get moreso,” Ben replied with a grin. “But the day will never come when there’s not room for you. And Tilly and Lady.” With sudden concern, he looked at his youngest. “Um, Joe, did you tell him about—”

“No, Pa, somehow a couple of things didn’t come up in conversation,” Joe said.

“Well, I guess we all have a lot of catching up to do.” Ben cleared his throat. “Hoss and—well, Hoss should be here soon, as should the wives. Saturday nights we all have a big dinner together. Afterwards we usually talk or play a game—”

“No games,” Adam whispered, and Tilly gripped his arm. He looked at her in surprise, then swallowed and turned back to Ben, who was still talking.

“…but Adam, I do believe you’ll be the featured entertainment tonight.”

“I’d just as soon not, Pa,” Adam said. “I know you all want to know where we’ve been. And I know we gave you a fright. I’m sorrier for that than you can know…but I also don’t want to talk about it. I’d just as soon forget most of the last few years ever happened.”

The awkward silence was broken by the sound of another team clopping up. Joe dashed to the door. “It’s Veralyn and Alice. I…uh…better help bring in the food.”

**

Veralyn and Alice exchanged a glance as Joe ran out to them; neither had ever seen him so looking so simultaneously excited and distressed.

“You’re not going to believe this.” He grabbed each of them by an arm. “Adam’s alive. He’s home. Tilly’s with him—even Lady. I don’t believe it myself.” He rushed off to the wagon to get the food.

“He’s alive?” Alice repeated. “How can he be…Joe told me….”

“We never knew for certain,” Veralyn responded faintly. “Oh, Alice, some of the things I heard about him…and they say Tilly once attacked Father Ben with a skillet!”

Alice swallowed. “Well…Adam’s a Cartwright. I’m sure he can’t be that bad.”

**

For a moment Joe leaned all his weight against the wagon. This is what I’ve wanted for years…and the first thing I did was light into him. God, what’s wrong with me? He’s here. He’s alive. Be grateful to the Lord for bringing him home. “I am,” he said aloud to the heavens. “Really, I’m thankful. I’ll wait a couple hours and then I’ll beat the slop out of him for scaring the life out of Pa.”

**

“Adam…” For some reason, in spite of the myriad things he wanted to say, and the other things he needed to say, Ben could only think of one—why won’t he tell me where he’s been and why he didn’t contact me? And then he looked at Adam again, and remembered what Tilly had whispered…and began to see why. “Um…son, why don’t you sit down?”

“That’s no way to greet ladies,” Adam replied with a smile, leaning against the wall. Then Tilly moved. For a moment Ben seethed with resentment as she got between him and Adam—and then he realized what she was doing as Adam put his left hand on her shoulder and shifted his weight to lean on her.

The two women at the door had already been warned—their eyes were big as soup ladles.

“Ladies,” Adam said with a graceful, but not deep, bow, “allow me to introduce myself. I’m Adam—the Prodigal Son. Now which of you beauties has the misfortune to be married to my brother Joe?”

“I’m Alice,” said the brown-haired girl, in a voice barely above a whisper, and she curtsied.

Adam grinned and took her left hand in his, kissing the back of it. “A woman of grace and fortitude, to be sure.” He turned to the taller blonde. “And…Veralyn? You have no idea how long I have wanted to meet you.” He took her hand and kissed it as well. “Ladies, my own very patient and forbearing wife, Mathilde—but she’ll get mad if you call her that, so call her Tilly.”

Unhesitatingly, Tilly moved to both of them, arms outstretched. “Finally, sisters!” she said simply, and hugged them both. “Can I help you with dinner?” She all but dragged them into the kitchen, glancing back once at Adam as she went, and Joe looked curiously at them as he came back into the living room.

“Adam, for the love of God, sit down before you fall down,” Ben said in a low voice, and Joe, looking at his brother more carefully, suddenly understood what Tilly had meant when she’d said to be gentle.

Adam sank into the couch. “Sorry, Pa. It takes a little more effort to be charming these days.” He looked up at Ben and Joe. “I wrote you—or at least I tried. I sent you five letters before I found out it was no good. And Tilly wrote you from Scotland last month—we sent a telegram on the way from New York, too. We tried to tell you.”

“Adam, I won’t pry…but how is it possible for all those letters to get missent?”

Adam bit his bottom lip. “They weren’t all missent. I don’t know what happened to Tilly’s letter—that one should have gotten here, at least. The consulate promised to put it in the diplomatic pouch that same day. The ones I wrote…well, they were never sent at all. That’s to say, I put them in the mail drop for France, but I found out later that the French government never forwarded letters going out of the country.”

“Adam,” Joe said softly, “I am glad to see you. I know I came off pretty strong—but…it’s just…you can’t know what it was like, not knowing, wondering….”

“I can,” Adam replied, not looking at them. “And I do. Where’s Hoss?”

“He and Audun are—” Joe looked up at Ben.

“Um…Adam, a lot has happened here while you were…out of touch, as well. I really need to talk to you and Ru—I mean, um, I really need to talk to you and Tilly—privately, as soon as possible.”

Suddenly there were wild female shrieks from the kitchen, followed by nearly hysterical laughter.

“I’ve never heard Alice or Veralyn laugh so loud before!” Ben chuckled.

Adam smiled. “Well, Tilly’s sense of humor tends to cross a lot of formal boundaries.”

“I remember a few of those boundaries,” Joe said with a raised eyebrow. “I hope she remembers she’s dealing with ladies in there.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Adam snapped. His glare hadn’t changed.

“Take it easy, Older Brother,” Joe replied, grinning. “You know as well as I do. She always crossed lines, even with us.”

“I don’t recall you complaining back then.” Adam reached down and buried his left hand in Lady’s gray fur, sighing.

“Not complaining now,” Joe assured him.

“Well, anything that brings Veralyn and Alice out of their shells can’t be all bad,” Ben said. “But Adam, I really do need to talk to you about—”

Two horses trotted up outside, and they heard Hoss and another, higher voice. Ben paled. “I guess that’ll be Hoss and…um, Joe, please go outside and ask them to wait for a minute!”

Adam stood up unsteadily; Joe jumped up and ran to the door just as it flew open; and Hoss stamped in. “Pa, we gotta plant another—”

Then he saw Adam. His eyes widened. “Great Gawd a’glory!” he cried with a face-splitting grin, and Tilly, dashing in from the kitchen, was too far away to stop it. Hoss grabbed Adam, lifting him off his feet in a bone-crushing bear hug just as Tilly shouted, “No, don’t!”

Adam’s high-pitched yelp shocked them all, but worse came a split-second later when he collapsed in his brother’s arms. Only Hoss’s grip kept him from crashing to the floor, and Ben, Hoss and Joe all looked helplessly from him to Tilly.

“Adam?” Hoss whispered. There was no answer; Adam sagged limply against Hoss’s chest. And as Hoss moved one hand to pick him up, the threadbare black shirt ripped down the back, the dressing underneath soaking through with fresh blood. Everyone stared at him in shock, and then looked at Tilly again.

Tilly swallowed hard. “If you could take him to any room you’ve got open—and please lay him face down…get Hop Sing; tell him to heat some water and bring some clean cloths—and…dammit!”

Ben seized command. “Hoss, put him in the guest room; Tilly—now is not the time for crying.”

“I’m not crying,” Tilly said tightly. “Worry about yourself; I’m a rock.”

“But what did you do to him?”

“What did I do? Oh, I must’ve got a little too amorous on the train,” Tilly retorted, and marched off to the guest room after Hoss.

Pole-axed, Veralyn and Alice were the only ones still in the room when the door opened again—and Beth Cameron Cartwright cried, “Sorry I’m late, but I picked up a cheesecake! What have I missed?”

 

Chapter 51

“Reveal to me the past that’s now before me…”

 

Audun was in the barn, putting away the horses. He had already groomed Buck, Cochise and Chubb, and they were anxious to eat. Sport was last, and then he could bring in the two alternates they’d be using the next day when he and Joe went out. Falcon and Blizzard, he decided. Falcon was his favorite of his own horses, and Blizzard—also his—was a flashy “leopard skin” Appaloosa, white and covered from head to foot with red spots. She would do well for his Uncle Joe, and Uncle Joe loved riding horses with panache. He had just learned that word in his dictionary reading. It meant “flair.” Uncle Joe had a lot of flair, himself. He was 30 now, but he still preferred running to walking—just like now, Audun thought as Joe galloped in. “Where’s Mutton Jim?” Joe looked around the barn, realized he wasn’t there, and dashed off again. Audun smiled tolerantly and went back to grooming Sport.

As he led Falcon and Blizzard in from the pasture, he saw his uncle returning with Mutton Jim; both were talking at the same time.

“Audun, saddle Falcon right now—Mutton Jim needs to ride into town.”

“Why Falcon? We need him in the morning.”

“We need him worse now,” Joe snapped. “Hurry up.” Audun complied silently while Joe grabbed a hackamore and pulled it over the horse’s head—Audun’s horses didn’t care for bits.

“What if Doc Martin ain’t there?” Jim demanded as he put one foot in the stirrup, and Audun’s head came up in interest.

“Then get Kam Lee. Or a nurse. I don’t care if it’s a witch doctor. Somebody with medical knowledge.”

With that, Mutton Jim dug his heels into Falcon’s sides, and the horse flew out of the yard.

“What happened?” Audun asked. “Who is hurt, and what can I do?”

Joe looked at him, and shook his head helplessly. “Let’s sit down a minute.” He went over to a hay bale and sat down.

Audun, sensing trouble, stood in front of him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Is grandfather injured?”

“No. Audun…I don’t quite know how to say this, but…your father’s come home.”

“My father is alive?” somehow his voice came out sounding very small and faraway.

“Well, yes, but…he’s hurt somehow. We don’t know what caused it, or how bad it is, yet.”

Audun swallowed. “I must examine him. I can do things to help while we wait for Doctor Martin.”

“Um…I don’t think your grandpa would like that. He’d prefer an adult to look at him.”

“I have more medical knowledge than most of the grownups on this ranch, Uncle Joe, and you know it.”

“I do, Audun. Hoss does too. But…Pa would prefer an adult to look at Adam, and it’s his ranch.”

“Fine, but it’s my father,” Audun snapped, and whirled, heading back to the house. Joe tore after him.

“Audun, Pa says you sleep out in the barn most nights anyway, so you shouldn’t mind sleeping there tonight either.”

Audun stopped and looked up at Joe. “My father’s there—and you don’t even want me in the house? Is it my father or my grandfather who says this?”

“Audun, we haven’t told Adam about you yet. We were going to when Hoss came in, and…that was when Adam got hurt, see, and so Pa just doesn’t want him getting any sudden shocks.”

“I see.” The look Audun bestowed on his uncle made it clear just how much he did NOT see. “I have gone from being the family embarrassment, the ‘heir from mid-air’ to just a sudden shock.”

“Audun, where in blazes did you get the notion that you’re—any of those things you just said? We love you and have never treated you like anything but family. I don’t understand you.”

“I have ears, Uncle Joe. Nobody pays attention to children. They think we don’t count, or that we don’t understand. I do understand. Most of the ranch hands seem to like me, but they still make jokes when my back is turned. I’m ‘the little Injun with big wampum’—whatever that means. The—”

“You tell me the name of any man that’s called you that, and he’ll be lookin’ for a new job come sunup.”

“No. It is common knowledge in town, anyway. I heard my grandfather say that the man who interprets white laws told people when he wasn’t supposed to, and everyone knows. In the day and a half I spent in school I heard far worse from the other children there. I don’t care about any of that, Uncle Joe. I may be Nimiipuu or I may be Soyapo. I may be a bastard or I may not. I don’t know and don’t care. What I am, what I know I am, is a healer. But what about you, Uncle? What are you? I also heard in town that you once had the manhood to face down your father when something mattered to you. I heard you even drew a gun on him once.”

“Audun, I was young and stupid then.”

“When wisdom comes, courage must go? I don’t think so. You just said you know I have medical knowledge. If you meant that, then face down your father, and let me see my own. He doesn’t have to know who I am. I will not tell. If he’s not conscious, he won’t see me anyway. I only want to heal him. Then, when he’s well, he can tell me why he never came for my mother or me.”

Joe looked at him a minute. “Come on,” he said abruptly, and strode toward the house, where Ben’s voice was booming, his words unintelligible but the tone was angry.

Inside, all was strange. The woman who must be the new wife—Tilly, Audun remembered—was there, and she was standing but a hand-width from Ben Cartwright, her hands clenched into fists, and staring fiercely up at him. But the woman was not backing away from him, either; she was looking him right in the eye, fierce as a falcon. Audun decided immediately that he liked her. Veralyn and Alice were both trying to comfort Hoss, who was huddled on the couch, his shirt stained with blood that wasn’t his own. Beth, the new grandmother, was telling Ben to leave Tilly alone. Hop Sing was bringing in a bucketful of hot, wet rags. Joe didn’t even have to argue. He motioned quickly, and Audun ducked into the guest room unnoticed while Tilly and Ben Cartwright continued to stare each other down and Beth continued to tug at Ben’s sleeve.

“I have nothing to say to you now,” Tilly finally said. “My husband’s hurt, and he needs me. He needs you too, but only if you’re going to be rational.”

“Do you expect me to be rational when I see my son for the first time in five years and I find out he’s dying? What in blazes happened to him? He looks like he’s been run through a barbed-wire gauntlet!”

Audun shut his ears to them and went after Hop Sing. “Did you take his temperature, Sing Quo Quo?”

“Yes,” Sing replied. “It’s higher than normal, but not dangerous, and his pulse is fast, but strong enough.”

Audun nodded, taking one of the rags from Sing and washing his hands. Well, from the back most men looked the same. It was just as well, he thought. He ignored the big dog lying next to the man, since Sing didn’t seem worried by her, and she made no effort to interfere with him.

The man was lying on his stomach, only part of his face visible, and his shirt was off, exposing a too-white back covered with jagged, bleeding scars. Audun looked him over carefully, with a combination of disgust for useless cruelty and wonder that people lived through such treatment.

“I need to see under his eyelids, please,” Audun pointed, and Hop Sing pulled down a lower lid, allowing Audun to see how pale it was. He shook his head.

He touched the man’s back. The skin felt…wrong. More like paper or cooked fatback than skin, he thought. There was no suppleness, no flexibility—no moisture.

“What do you think, Audun Tai Tai?” Hop Sing asked.

“His food was bad for a long time,” Audun observed. “And whatever made these marks…he never got time to heal before it was done to him again. I think he’s probably had many infections, and now he’s been torn open again.”

“I can help nourish him,” Hop Sing said. “But besides cleaning, he needs some kind of healing poultice. What do you recommend?”

“First, we clean all the wounds with soap and warm water,” Audun instructed. “Use the gentle soap your cousin makes, not the lye. Second, wrap some ice in a towel and put it on his back—just to stop the bleeding. Then we’ll make a poultice of honey and cinnamon. That will kill the infection and make the skin soft again faster than anything else I—uh-oh.”

Tilly and his grandfather were both crowded into the doorway, looking at him. The woman had gone almost as white as her husband’s back, but she seemed strangely calm.

“Audun, I want you out—” his grandfather began, but Tilly grabbed his arm.

“Ben Cartwright, if Hop Sing respects this boy’s medical opinion, it’s good enough for me. And…” she looked darkly at her father-in-law, “I’m thinking you ‘forgot’ to tell us a couple of important things.”

“‘Forgot’? When have I had time to tell you anything? You dashed off for the kitchen and didn’t come back until it was too late to matter!”

“Ben!” Beth’s strident voice carried, even over his rumbling. “Leave the woman alone. He’s her husband, isn’t he? Or have you forgotten?”

Tilly walked away from them and knelt by the bed while Ben turned on his wife of seven months. “Just like I remember I’m yours, Beth—but that man is my son, and you’d do well to remember it, too.”

“I’ve never forgotten—but the Good Book says a man leaves his father and mother, and cleaves to his wife. She’s brought him home, but he’s still hers, and you can’t talk to her like she’s some street piece!”

Ben stared in shock at her, and she reddened, but did not back down. “Beth, did you just say what I think you said?”

“I did, and I apologize for the vulgarity, but it’s how you’re treating Tilly, and I won’t stand for it.”

“You won’t stand for it,” he repeated slowly.

“That’s right, I won’t. If you expect me to act like a lady, then I’ll expect you to act like a gentleman.”

Tilly still said nothing, and Audun did not look at her, continuing as best he could to examine the patient. It was easier to think of him simply as “the patient,” he found. Perhaps that was why Dr. Kam and Dr. Martin did it that way.

“The most recent scars are from stitches,” he told Hop Sing as they began to wash the patient’s back. He was well aware that Tilly, his grandfather, and Beth were listening in—probably the others were beyond the door, listening too. His hands began to tremble as he pushed the pants down a little; he’d never had such an audience before. He looked over his shoulder at Tilly. “He had surgery on his back?”

“Yes,” Tilly answered faintly. “The last week we were free, he was on the street when there was shelling. He got a lot of glass and shrapnel in his back. The operation was to remove some of the shrapnel that was too close—”

“—to his spine, yes,” Audun mumbled, and then gasped. “What happened to his hand?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” Tilly replied. “He was tortured in prison for helping some men escape.”

“What prison?” Ben demanded.

Tilly put her hands to her temples. “Ben, I can only talk to one person at a time. You want to pull the Spanish Inquisition on me, wait your turn.”

Audun touched his father’s right hand. “These two fingers have been broken…in more than one place…and probably more than once.”

“That’s right,” Tilly said. “When we got him out of the cell, they had already been broken and were healing…badly. The doctor on the British Navy ship broke his fingers again and tried to set them properly. Since then he’s been seen by doctors in Australia and Scotland, and they each had their ideas about what to do to heal his hand. The ones in Scotland said they would never heal properly and suggested just amputating them, but Adam said no…they only took the braces off right before we left Glasgow. Do you think Adam’s fingers will be useless?”

“I don’t know. Dr. Kam or Dr. Martin would know more. I have only a little experience with broken bones.”

“You don’t have much experience at all, Audun. You’re a ten-year-old boy!” Ben shouted.

Audun glanced at Tilly, and then stood up and faced his grandfather. “I’ve delivered four babies, removed two bullets and a Shoshone arrow, and nursed five children through the winter fever. These things I did by myself when I was younger than I am now, because my mother and my tribe trusted me. With my mother at my side, I did more and saw more. Truth is truth, Grandfather. It doesn’t change because the one telling it is young.”

With that he turned back to his patient. “Is it only the back that’s torn open, or is he like this all over?”

“Mostly his back,” Tilly said softly. “They used a bullwhip, and it curled around and got him in the front a few times, but it’s nothing like what was done to his back. There are a few marks on his legs and behind, but not as much tearing.”

“And what happened today to tear his back open again?”

“I did it,” Hoss said from the doorway. He was still wearing the blood-covered shirt. “I only wanted to hug him. I didn’t know he was all busted up inside, and I ended up squishin’ him like a bug.”

“Don’t be silly, Hoss,” Veralyn spoke up, her voice surprisingly firm. “Nobody knew he was busted up inside. He apparently didn’t want anyone to know, either.”

“No, he didn’t,” Tilly said, looking down. “It was my job to keep him safe, and I was too late that time.”

“Sounds like you’ve been too late ever since you married him,” Ben muttered, and Tilly looked up at him, stricken. Audun waited for her to stamp over to him and turn fierce again, but she didn’t.

“You’re right,” she said, swallowing, and she buried her fingers in Adam’s graying curls. “He couldn’t leave Paris when the war came because of me. My friend Alain got him arrested. I got him deported. And my friend Max tortured him. It’s my fault, Ben—I trust that’s what you wanted to hear.”

“His right foot was broken…” Audun muttered, but fell silent suddenly as an unfamiliar voice, muffled in bedclothes, said, “Tilly,” and Adam Cartwright raised his head to look blearily around. “Guess you were right after all. Sorry for th’ mess, Pa.” His head dropped to the bed again, and Audun looked at the man’s neck. The hair he’d expected to see slung to one side wasn’t there.

For some reason Audun felt like laughing. All these years imagining his father, and he’d never stopped to realize that the man would have had short hair like any other Soyapo.

 

Chapter 52

“You know the story; we’ll spare you the details…”

 

It was long past dark when two horses dashed up, and Mutton Jim pounded on the door. “Doc Martin’s gonna be tied up at least for tonight, Boss—mine cave-in. All I could find was the Chinaman. Sorry.”

Ben nodded in disappointment and made a brave face. “Thank you for coming, Kam Lee.”

Dr. Kam nodded impassively. He never bothered to correct white people’s insistence on using his entire name, or to tell them he had been a doctor nine years longer than Paul Martin. It wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. At least the Cartwrights accepted him as a doctor; in that they were ahead of most of Virginia City. “I’ll be glad to do whatever I can, Mr. Cartwright. Has Audun examined Mister Adam yet?”

“I suppose you could call it that. He’s insisted on putting some kind of poultice made of honey all over my son’s back, if you can imagine.”

“Honey is quite effective at fighting infections,” Kam replied, following Ben to the guest room. “We have used it so in China for thousands of years. I understand the Egyptians who built the pyramids did the same.”

“So this is something you taught him?”

“No, Mr. Cartwright. I didn’t know he knew about it. But apparently the Nez Perce do.”

Ben watched and listened as Kam asked Tilly the same questions Audun had asked, and went over Adam, but Kam found nothing Audun had not already remarked on—including the broken foot. Kam even agreed with most of Audun’s diagnoses.

“But the fingers can regain their use,” he told Audun as he moved Adam’s fingers. “If Mister Adam is the same man I remember, he will not give up, and there are many exercises I can show him to help strengthen them. You can help me make the materials for them, and Adam can learn to use them to build the digits up again. They may cause him pain, but he will keep them.”

“I was afraid he would lose them,” Audun admitted.

“Dr. Martin might try, but don’t let him do it.” He shrugged. “We are all still learning. Right now, what this patient needs is proper nourishment, which he lacked for some time. He needs to be kept still so his skin will knit itself back together. The honey poultice will help quite dramatically, I’m sure—but I remember your eldest son from time gone by, and he is not one to be patient about lying down. You must keep him still. And…” the look he gave Ben carried loads of unexploded ammunition… “Most important of all, Mr. Cartwright, there must be harmony in this house. When I walked in I felt anger from so many directions, I nearly left again. I don’t know what is wrong here, but you must all sit down and come to peace. No one can heal if his spirit is pushed down by guilt, fear, and worry. For the last three years or more, you all thought this man was dead. He’s not. This should be an occasion of joy. Try to make it so.”

“Thank you, Kam Lee,” Ben said hoarsely, showing him to the door—and resolving to bring in Paul Martin as soon as possible.

But, at least he had an excuse now. “Tilly,” he called as he strode back across the living room, “We need to have a conversation.”

In the guest room, Tilly shook her head. “What’s your name again?” she asked the boy as she stood.

“Audun,” he said, almost as a challenge.

“Audun,” she repeated. “Will you please stay with him? I don’t want him alone right now. Don’t let it get dark. He has to have a light in the room, and to know that he’s not alone. Will you do that?”

One eyebrow curled in puzzlement, so Adam-like it cut her to the quick, but all he said was “I will.”

She left and closed the door.

Somehow it had turned into something like a town council meeting, she thought. Beth Cameron, whom she barely remembered—she wondered for a moment why the woman was here, until she remembered Beth and Ben having that argument in the doorway—was in the red chair; Ben was standing by the fireplace. Alice, Joe, Veralyn and Hoss had squashed themselves onto the couch. Ben pointed to the blue chair. “Have a seat.”

“Thank you; I prefer to stand,” she replied. “And a blindfold won’t be necessary. You won’t be the first firing squad I’ve faced.” She had learned to take pleasure from small things, like their facial expressions when she said that. “All right. We couldn’t leave Paris when the rest of the Americans evacuated.”

“Because you were sick, right?” Joe prompted. “Adam said in his letter that you were sick.”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We couldn’t leave. Adam was arrested….”

**

Audun was sitting next to his father. Alone. With a closed door. Well, this was unexpected.

He moved to the other side of the bed and knelt down, the better to see his face. “Hmmmm.” They looked alike, but it was not as complete a likeness as his mother had always thought.

Mother, can you see us? What do you think now?

His mother had told him tales from the time he could speak about his father, and what a great warrior he was. Every warrior Audun had ever known had long, black hair, usually worn in two braids; if one was a thick braid and one was thin, he had been a favored son or grandson. Young Joseph’s band had once come through the winter grounds of his own band, and he had seen his great hero with his long hair in its thick braid…and it had somehow gotten into Audun’s head that his father must have had long black hair in braids, too. After all, he was a warrior. His mother had told him many times the story of how they met, and came to love each other, and how they were married with only the Creator and the spirits of the dead as their witnesses.

The Shoshone had sent men to take her—several times. The first time, Adam had killed them both, and in so doing, received the wounds his mother had nursed. Audun looked down at his father’s long legs, and lifted the sheet. There was the arrow scar she had told him about, silver with age, on his right calf. Audun replaced the sheet, biting his lip. He looked at Adam’s forehead, and saw another small scar, long healed.

The gray dog looked at him a little suspiciously. He smiled and held out a hand for her to sniff. She did so, with a politely incurious air, and then dropped her head back to her paws, still watching him.

He could almost hear his mother’s words. “The second time they came, there were four, but they only came to talk. Your father was badly hurt, but he stood and faced them while we spoke. They left in peace, that time, but he would have fought if they had not. I could see it on his face like a thundercloud; he wanted to fight them.

“The last time, he was only just able to walk again, but they came upon him alone and surprised him. I saw all the signs and talked to one of the warriors. Adam killed one of them, but the other hit him. He must have fought bravely, though—the other warrior was black and blue.” She smiled as she remembered. “They tied him to a tree, and told me they would kill him if I didn’t go with them—and still he pleaded with me not to go. As soon as they cut the ropes, he fought them again, and they had to knock him out before he would stop…I went with them. I couldn’t let them kill him; he was the only man I ever loved.” He remembered her golden hair shining in the sunlight as she bowed her head. “I like to think he looked for me. I like to think he still looks for me…and someday we’ll find each other again.”

Audun had only cried a few times that he could remember; the last time had been when his mother died. He knew she was happy and at peace now, and no longer in pain, and he knew she had left him with people who loved him and would care for him till his father came—but he had still cried. Now he looked at this man who was supposed to be a great warrior, the man who had so dazzled his mother, and wondered what he was really like, and tears came to his eyes again. He rubbed them away; he was almost grown now; he had no time for this. The woman Tilly—the woman who was supposed to be his mother now—had said Adam had been tortured, that all the scars he carried now were because he wouldn’t reveal a secret. That was something a warrior would do, too. But Kam was right: Adam Cartwright might be a warrior, but first and foremost, he was Soyapo.

**

Adam groaned. Every part of his body hurt. Tilly had tried to get him to take it easy; she had said he was doing too much…she also had told him that refusing to talk to his father and brothers was a bad idea. “I told them you’d been through a lot in the letter. They won’t ask much, but don’t be mule-headed about it, Adam. Tell them what you can.”

Well, he hadn’t listened, and this was what he had to show for it. He slowly moved his head, turning it to look for Tilly, but all he saw in the dim light was an Indian boy with two long black braids. “Tilly?”

The boy laid a gentle hand on his forehead. “Rest. She is talking to your family. She left me here to take care of you.”

He squinted at the boy. “Who…are you?”

“My name is Audun.”

“Am I on the Ponderosa?”

“Yes; you’re in the guest room downstairs.”

Adam sighed, chuckling feebly. “Pa musta rented out my room.”

“I live there now,” Audun said.

“Yeah? How come?”

Audun shrugged. “Your father is my guardian.”

Adam looked up at the boy again, narrowing his eyes to focus, but it wasn’t working.

“Dr. Kam gave you an herbal mixture for the pain,” Audun said quietly. “It may blur your sight.”

“You still look familiar, somehow,” Adam mumbled.

“Many people think I look like someone they know.”

“A girl….”

“A girl?” Audun repeated.

“Ruth…” Adam squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again and tried to look, but could not see. He drifted back to the land of no pain as the door opened.

**

Tilly came in and looked at Audun for a moment. “You look like your father,” she said quietly.

“My father does not think so,” Audun said with a small smile. “He woke up a minute ago. Long enough to tell me I look like Ruth—my mother. No one has ever told me that before.”

“Did you tell him?”

“No. He went back to sleep. He doesn’t know who I am.” Somehow, tears were coming to his eyes again. Impatiently he rubbed his fist across his eyes, and stood up. “I have to go now.”

“Audun…” Tilly said, and there were tears in her eyes, too. “Welcome to the family.”

He looked at her. Then he nodded and all but ran out of the room. He ignored the grownups in the living room and ran to the kitchen, where Hop Sing was working on dinner and making more of the honey mixture at the same time.

“Will you do something for me?” he asked, his voice coming out so soft he could barely hear it himself.

“What can I do, Audun Tai Tai?” Hop Sing replied as Audun reached into a drawer, coming out with a pair of scissors.

“Cut my hair,” Audun whispered.

 

Chapter 53

“…that cold, foggy night…”

 

“Ben,” Tilly called, and barely had time to draw breath again before he was there. He was still angry at her; she knew that. Her refusal to tell what had kept them in Paris, her refusal to explain about Max; her confession about how Adam had been sentenced to a firing squad and narrowly escaped being shot had all angered him. It didn’t matter to her. If he wanted to hang on to being mad, that was his business. But she also knew one thing.

“I haven’t gotten much sleep lately,” she said, ignoring his scowl. “I was the only one looking after him on the ship and the train. He was too keyed up the whole time to want to rest very much. You’ve told me since we got here that I’m not doing an adequate job anyway, so you might as well take over for tonight. I’d like to go and take a nap on your settee, if you don’t mind. Two things—keep the lamplight up, and if he calls out, answer him immediately. He can’t be left alone, Ben—not at all.”

Without waiting for an answer, she left him with Adam and marched back to the living room.

**

“Adam?” he said gently, but there was no response. He dropped into the chair Tilly had vacated, and took Adam’s hand. Adam gasped sharply and pulled away, only to grab Lady’s fur again.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “All right, I should’ve remembered how much you love the dog,” he sighed. “It may surprise you to know that I love Ceirdwyn, too….”

For half an hour he sat in silence, and then found himself talking again. “Adam, don’t blame me for panicking. I know I said I could let you go, but before, I could always at least go after you if you got into trouble. This time, I couldn’t. I trusted Tilly to take care of you instead—and look at the shape you’re in. I listened to what she said. I know she did the best she could, but how can I not be angry when she’s the reason you were stuck in a war zone to begin with? She wouldn’t even tell me why, for heaven’s sake.”

“Some things hurt too much to talk about, Pa,” Adam said softly, and Ben sat up straight in surprise. “There was every reason in the world to stay there, considerin’ what was was at stake,” Adam went on, opening his eyes and squinting at him. “Try not to grieve her too much. She’s got enough to mourn.”

He shut his eyes again and went back to sleep, leaving Ben to wonder what that meant.

The house slowed down about him as everyone went to bed—Hoss and Joe had refused to leave, even if he wouldn’t let them stay with him and Adam—and had retreated to their old rooms, taking their wives along; Beth headed upstairs without so much as a “good night.” Well, he knew she’d been mad about his outburst at Tilly. Funny, he’d never even known Beth liked Tilly. He didn’t know Beth all that well, come to think of it. Suddenly a lot of things that had seemed irrelevant all those months ago were coming into focus as things that could be important after all.

That March day when he’d impulsively ridden into town to tell her he appreciated her friendship, but thought it best that they no longer see each other, seemed so far away now. He still had only the foggiest memory of what had actually happened when he got into town; he only knew that he’d been angry, and the discussion had escalated; he’d thundered something or other at her…and she’d thundered something right back, and the next thing they knew they were in each other’s arms. They’d stopped kissing just long enough to walk directly to the courthouse, and everything was done just that fast. Back then it didn’t matter that she didn’t care much for Adam, because he’d thought Adam was dead; it didn’t matter about Audun, since the boy already thought the worst. It didn’t matter about Joe, since he’d be married in a month himself. And it didn’t matter about Hoss, since Hoss had an understanding heart.

He sighed and tried to find a more comfortable way to sit in the chair as he wondered just how Adam and Beth would get along now, and just where that troublemaking scamp of a grandson of his had gone. He didn’t see Audun, but he was probably still in the kitchen with Hop Sing or sleeping out in the barn. Funny that Kam Lee had stuck up for the boy so strongly. Either he really thought the kid was good at medicine, or he was just really fond of him. Maybe both. Well, irritation factor aside, any child of Adam’s was going to be pretty smart; in Audun’s case, he was usually too smart for his own good. Still…he’d rest a lot better once Paul looked Adam over.

“Tilly?” the voice was Adam’s, and borderline panicking.

Ben sat up instantly and touched his son’s arm. “Tilly’s taking a nap, Adam. I’m here.”

“Am I really home?”

“You are. Don’t you remember? You arrived several hours ago.”

Adam thought for a while. “Right. It’s hard to…I can’t keep the time straight.” He shifted uncomfortably.

“You have to stay on your stomach for right now,” Ben said. He took the cup of Kam Lee’s herbal mixture and the hollow reed. “Take a little more of this. It’ll take the edge off the pain. You’re lucky Kam Lee doesn’t like morphine any more than you do.”

Adam made a noise somewhere between laughter and a sigh. “Lucky. Been a long time since I’ve associated that word with us.” He sucked up a little medicine through the makeshift straw, then his hand went back to Lady’s fur. “Pa, I’m so glad to see you. Can’t see you very well, but I like knowin’ you’re there.”

“No gladder than I am to have you here, boy.”

Adam shifted again, and groaned. Ben reached out, but Adam waved. “I’m all right. Just have to remember not to move so fast. Tilly was fussin’ at me about that all the way. You’d think I’d remember.”

“Tilly told us a little about what you’ve been through these past years. I understand now why you couldn’t contact us.”

“Figured she would,” Adam muttered drowsily as the medicine began to work. “She wanted me to tell you. Not her fault I was stubborn.”

“No,” Ben agreed. He looked over to see Adam looking steadily at him, squinting a little.

“Pa, you’re dyin’ to say something. Go ahead and get it out of your system. If it’s just ‘I told you not to go to Europe,’ I figured that was comin’. Tilly said it once during the siege. She said you were gonna have the biggest ‘I told you so’ ever if we got back alive.”

“But what the devil were you doing there during the siege?” Ben burst out. He tried to keep his voice low, but Adam still jumped—and then came the familiar mule-headed look Ben had seen so often from Audun over the last year.

“Tilly didn’t tell you,” Adam said.

“No, she didn’t. Not only that, but she wouldn’t. She admitted it was her fault you couldn’t get out of Paris, but obviously she was too ashamed to tell the whole—”

“What do you mean ‘her fault’?” Adam lifted up on one elbow and stared at him. “And did I understand you right—you think she’s ashamed?”

“It’s how she acted,” Ben replied defensively. “Lie down.”

“Well, she should be ashamed—but not of herself,” Adam muttered, his voice beginning to slur. “Can’t seem to convince her not all women are the same. Di’n’t Marie have a miscarriage, too?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Adam mumbled, “Three of ’em. Three. She lost one in Spain and one in Italy. We thought things would be all right in France. The doctors said ‘total bedrest,’ and she did that. I made sure of it—she was laid up like a broke-leg miner for God knows how long.” He sighed shakily, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “That was why we couldn’t leave Paris. I think she lost him in the fifth month. He was beautiful…would’ve been if he’d been alive, anyway. Had her nose and chin….”

Ben sat still, too stunned to feel sick, but tears came to Adam’s eyes. “There was no place to bury him. Had to leave him in the garbage. My son. My legacy. That’s the husband I’ve been. Couldn’t take care of her any more than I could take care of Ruth…I tried, Pa, with both of them, I tried, I swear, but I messed up everything…No wonder Ruth left me. I don’t know what the hell Tilly still wants with me. Thank God my son never knew what a failure his father was….”

“What? Adam—what on earth do you—”

“No wonder you didn’t want me to fix up the ranch.”

“No! Adam, the improvements you made before you left—they were great successes. The windmills…” but Adam’s head was back on the pillow, and his eyes were closed, his breathing quiet and even. Drat that medicine.

And Audun, sitting with his knees drawn up to his chin just around the darkened corner, hanging on every word, put his head in his arms and finally let the tears loose.

 

Chapter 54

“…the coffee and bright conversation may rise through the air…”

 

Tilly opened her eyes, thinking this room looked a lot like the Ponderosa’s living room. Then she remembered where she was, and sat up. Adam. She jumped up and rushed to the guest room door. Adam was sound asleep. So was Ben, his head at an uncomfortable angle.

What surprised her was the presence of Audun—also asleep—just outside the doorway.

She’d known from almost her first sight of him just why he was there, and had heard enough about Ruth to know where he’d come from. She well remembered Adam’s first mention of Ruth: “I was married once. Well, it was sort of married. That is, I thought we were married; so did she. It’s just that no one else did and no one else cared.”

She knew that Adam still to this day regarded that “marriage” as a real one. Other people, though, had not even believed enough of Adam’s account to help him search for her. She knew he had looked for, but never found, Ruth; she knew he’d never stopped wondering what had happened to her. And from the little Ben had been persuaded to tell her, Ruth had never gotten over Adam.

“She rode in a month or two after we got Adam’s last letter and left him a note. When we finally decided Adam was…no longer with us, we read it and found they had had a son together, and that Ruth was dying. We went and got the boy; he’s been here almost a year.”

“May I see the letter?”

“I’d prefer Adam to read it.”

That he was justified in his preference didn’t really matter; she still felt a wild inclination to run for the skillets all over again, but she wouldn’t give Ben the satisfaction of knowing how upset she was. Still, it was satisfying, in a perverse way, to raise her eyebrows and say to Ben, “Guess all that ‘first wife’ stuff wasn’t quite as imaginary as you thought, huh?”

She had asked what he was like; Ben had shrugged and glowered and muttered something about her getting to know him for herself. She had smiled then. “You’ve just told me he’s exactly like Adam, and you don’t understand him any more than you ever understood Adam.”

No doubt he still wants to strangle me for that one.

Well, whatever he was or wasn’t, it wasn’t Audun’s fault that he existed, so screaming and gnashing of teeth would be pointless. Besides, if she were in Audun’s shoes, she’d probably be madder than a wet hen to find out Adam had married again—but he didn’t seem to mind her, so she could hardly resent him. It was jarring to think that each of her three pregnancies had resulted in a miscarriage, while Ruth had, without effort, given birth to a beautiful boy—but she could hardly blame Ruth for her own inadequacies. Once she really thought about it, the only thing that bothered her much was wondering how Adam would feel about all this, and she wasn’t sure he was well enough to be told yet.

Audun’s eyes popped open then, and he sat up and looked at her. “Is he all right?”

“Still asleep,” she replied as he rose gracefully to his feet. “How are you?”

He looked long and hard at her. “I’m sorry you lost your son. And the other two.”

“My…son?”

“In Paris,” he said carefully. “My father told my grandfather last night.”

She barely heard him. Adam had never told her that he’d really looked at it. They’d never talked about any of the miscarriages.

“I shouldn’t have spoken of it,” Audun went on. “Mother told me it’s unkind to speak of the dead.”

She shook her head quickly. “No, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that I never knew the last one was a boy.”

“My father said he looked like you.”

For a moment her throat tightened. Then she looked back at him. “I bet this is a strange situation.”

He shrugged. “I’ve been in lots of strange situations.”

“I want to tell you something, Audun. Adam told me about your mother long ago, and—”

Audun held up a silencing hand. “Many people have told me now that my father loved my mother. What I want to hear is what my father has to say—if you have no objection to him saying it.”

“Why would I object? I might ask that you be patient, though. You saw enough last night to know that he needs all his strength to get better right now.”

“He will not get better,” Audun said quietly, looking at the floor, and she realized somewhat irrelevantly, as the blood left her cheeks, that he had cut his hair.

“What do you mean, he will not get better?”

“He came home to die,” Audun replied. “It is not that his body has been torn and broken. Many men endure that and live. I heard him last night. He spoke to my grandfather for a long time. He is sick…in here.” He thumped his chest. “You say heart. I say spirit. My friend Dr. Kam would say his chi is unbalanced. Whatever you call it, he used all his strength to come home so he could die with his family.”

“That’s not so,” Tilly said sharply. “He’s strong….”

“Doesn’t matter. Not if he’s given up.”

Tilly shook her head. “What the dickens are you, anyway? A child, or a 40-year-old midget?”

“I don’t know this word, ‘midget.’ And I’m not the one who decided this. He did.”

“Get over here, midget-boy. We are gonna have words.”

Looking dubiously at her, Audun walked toward her. She crossed her arms then and looked down—not that far, really; he was within six inches of her height—at him. “Let me tell you something; doctor or no, you’re wrong this time. Adam is a Cartwright. I’ve heard him say more times than I can count, you’ve got to kill him to hurt him. And he’s not dead yet.”

“What does that matter?”

“You are a dressed-up midget. Tell me…given the choice, would you rather have Adam in your life, or not?”

“That question makes no sense.”

“Just answer it as if it did—now that Adam is here, would you rather stay here and get to know him, or go back to the Indians?”

“I don’t know. I miss the Nimiipuu. But…my mother wanted me to know my father.”

“Your mother’s not here. What does Audun want?”

“Audun…would want to know his father,” Audun whispered. “But only if his father wanted him.”

“That’s settled, then.”

“How do you know? You don’t even know if he will want me.”

“I’ve spent the better part of six years getting to know him. Trust me—he’ll want you.”

“And what about you?” Audun asked, one eyebrow curling.

“I come with the territory. How do you feel about having…me around?”

“My mother told me there would be a new mother.”

“And how do you like that?”

“If you are the new mother…it might not be so bad. But you….”

“I always wanted nine kids. Kinda gave up on that notion as the years went by. I’d settle for one, though, if it’s you.”

“You might still have more.”

“Maybe. But it won’t change anything with you. Now, you keep our little conversation in mind when you start talking to your father. Nothing in the world makes Adam want to live more than a spirited argument.”

There were noises upstairs then, and Tilly looked up, confused.

“Joe and Hoss and their wives spent the night here, in their old rooms,” Audun supplied. “They didn’t want to leave my father, but my grandfather sent them away. The new grandmother is still angry with my grandfather, and locked the door, but he never went upstairs anyway. He stayed with my father and they talked a few times during the night.”

“And each time, you were there listening?”

“I was getting my hair cut when they were all arguing about what to do, so nobody sent me to bed,” he said, a little defensively.

“What else did they talk about?”

“My father told my grandfather about the firing squad and how you saved him.”

“Saved him? That was the farthest thing from my mind. I just wanted to be with him.”

“He said you ‘stalled’ for time so you and he would be deported instead of shot.”

“That was never my intention. I won’t take credit for heroics I didn’t perform.”

“If I were you, I would keep silent. My grandfather might finally stop shouting at you. When he wakes up he’ll be mad already. Look at the way his neck is bent. He’ll be grumpy and sore.”

Tilly grinned. “Speaking of necks…nice to see yours. That’s a good haircut.”

He touched his black curls self-consciously. “From the time since I was small, I always washed it, pulled it out straight, and braided it. I never knew until now how unlike Indian hair it really is. It’s so coarse and thick, so…coiled. It feels very strange.”

Tilly nodded. “It’s like your father’s.”

Hoss bounded down the stairs. “Mornin’, Tilly—we ain’t said two words together since you got back. I’m sure glad to see you.”

“Prove it and give me a hug, Big Brother,” she said with a weak smile. He blushed and hugged her.

“How’s Adam doin’?”

“He’s sleeping nice and quiet.”

“Tilly, I’m so sorry—”

“It wasn’t your fault, Hoss. You couldn’t have known. He was dead-set on trying to look normal, and just did too good a job at it. When he’s better, I highly recommend you give him a sock on the jaw to set him straight.”

Joe appeared at the top of the stairs and charged down like a self-contained cavalry unit. “How’s Adam?”

“He’s sleeping, though God knows how after that racket you just made,” Tilly said.

“Oh, holy cow,” Hoss and Joe suddenly exclaimed in unison, staring at Audun.

“Who lowered your ears?” Hoss demanded, and Audun looked at him in confusion.

“Where’d you get the haircut?” Joe translated.

Audun blushed, something they had never seen before, and touched his curls again. “Hop Sing.”

“Your grandsire is gonna have a fit,” Joe said philosophically.

“It would not be the first time,” Audun reminded him. “I need to make up a new poultice for my father.”

Hoss and Joe both stared after him, amused—and bemused.

“So how’re you two hittin’ it off?” Hoss asked, finally.

Tilly smiled. “We’re both very direct people. It makes it easier for us to talk to each other. I’d like to get to know him. I have a feeling he’s anything but dull. Fellas, do you think you could stay here a couple days longer and take turns at the night shift? Medically, Adam needs someone with him all the time right now. Besides, I could use the help, and he could use the company. I know Ben’s going to fuss, but I think he’ll need some rest too—and you’ve hardly had a chance to talk to your brother. All he’s talked about from the time we were deported is seeing you all again. He wanted so badly to meet Veralyn. Joe, if he’d known about Alice, I know he’d have wanted to meet her, too.”

“You don’t have to persuade us,” Joe chuckled, looking at Hoss. “But you might have to break up the fight we get into over who goes first.”

 

Chapter 55

“The drama of the autumn plays this way…”

 

Ben woke up to the sickeningly sweet smell of honey. It assaulted his nose from every direction. He opened his eyes to glare at the guilty party—and saw a boy covering Adam’s back with strips of honey-coated cloth. A boy who looked like Adam. A boy with short black curls. A boy wearing blue canvas work jeans and a neat gray shirt.

“Dear Lord,” he whispered.

Audun looked sternly at him. “You must be quiet, or he’ll awaken, and he must not see me just yet.”

“How is he?” Ben asked softly.

“His wife says he will not die,” Audun shrugged. “I’m going now. Lady, come. You must go outside.”

Ben sat up and groaned involuntarily as he straightened his neck. Audun put a finger to his lips and silently left the room, Lady following reluctantly.

Ben shook his head and looked at Adam. He was sound asleep, the empty jar of Kam Lee’s medicine on the table next to the bed. Wondering if Kam Lee would be coming again as Paul usually did, he picked up the jar and headed out, dropping the shade and pulling the curtains against the red, rising sun as he went.

Tilly was in the kitchen with Hop Sing; she was scrambling eggs; he was, from the smell of it, preparing some more of the herb mixture for Adam. Tilly looked up and blanched. “Who’s with Adam?”

“Nobody, at the moment. I just woke up—”

“I told you, he can’t be left alone,” she said, and dropped the fork into the bowl in her rush from the room.

“He’s asleep!” Ben turned and followed her back to the room. “Tilly, he’s a grown man, and he’s sound asleep. What in the world has you so panicky?”

“If you’d seen what happened last time he woke up alone in a dark room, you wouldn’t ask,” she replied, opening the curtains but leaving the shade down so the room was dim, but not dark. “I’m serious, Ben—he cannot be left alone right now. It’s dangerous to him and anyone who ventures close to him.”

Ben rolled his eyes. But, remembering why he wanted to talk to her, he decided to ignore her over-protectiveness and broach the subject. “Tilly, Adam and I talked last night. He told me some of the things you didn’t.”

She turned away from him, pulling a clean cloth from the bucket and mopping Adam’s face with it.

“Tilly, I guess I’m trying to say I’m sorry—but so much of this could have been avoided so easily. Why didn’t you just tell us—”

“Dammit, Ben!” she muttered, angrily rubbing her sleeve across her eyes. “Why did I have to? Was ‘doubting Thomas’ your favorite disciple? Couldn’t you just accept that there was a good reason because—oh, God forbid you trust me, but couldn’t you trust Adam? I would have gotten on that boat. I was ready to do it. Adam was scared to death that I’d lose the baby, or that he’d lose me, and he refused to let me get out of bed. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. All that happened was I held onto it a couple months longer before I lost it…and all that did was give Adam one more horror to see. And it was so important to you and Joe to know the ‘reasons’ that you wanted everyone—everyone—to relive it all. Wasn’t living through it once enough?”

Her whole tirade had been delivered quietly, but her voice rose higher with each word—and broke on “all,” so the last sentence came out as a gasp. Furiously she swiped the wet cloth across her own face, then threw it on the floor and marched past Ben to the door—he grabbed her by the arms as she passed, and pulled her awkwardly into his chest as she began to sob.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, patting her hair. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She pulled away stiffly and looked fixedly at the floor, whispering, “Why is it you and I always bring out the worst in each other?”

He managed a rueful smile. “Anyone who doesn’t let me win brings out the worst in me,” he replied softly. “Just ask Beth. Better yet, ask Audun. My boys spoiled me, and I got used to it. My other daughters-in-law spoil me even worse. But with you and Beth and Audun around, I may not be the master of my domain much longer. Especially not when you make sense.”

**

Adam woke up once that morning—long enough to talk a little with Hoss, who was on “guard” duty. When Hoss tried to apologize for “squishing” him, Adam only looked confused. “Tilly told me I was too excited and I better slow down. Guess she was right.”

That afternoon, a virtual parade arrived. First came Kam Lee, bringing Paul Martin along. “I didn’t believe it,” Paul told Ben on arriving. “Kam Lee practically had to rope me.”

Paul examined Adam, and then came out to the dining room table where he joined Tilly, Ben, Kam Lee, and Audun. The first thing he did was express his doubt over the merits of a poultice with honey as its primary ingredient. “At the least, I didn’t think you’d want to draw flies.”

“It is the end of November, Doctor,” Kam Lee replied courteously. “Not many flies dare show themselves at this temperature. It’s almost cold enough for snow.”

“Nevertheless, I’d recommend this.” Paul drew out a bottle of ointment.

“No,” Audun spoke up suddenly. “His skin is too sensitive for that right now—it will burn. Right now he can’t—”

“I’ve told you before, Audun, don’t interrupt your elders,” Ben rumbled.

“Um…Ben, I don’t mean any disrespect,” Paul said. “But I’ve always encouraged Audun to participate freely in medical discussions. This is one of them. As it happens, I disagree this time, Audun, but don’t let that stop you.”

“I won’t,” Audun said softly. “The only way to prove who is right, though, is to put some on him, and I tell you, it will hurt too much.”

“I agree with Audun,” Kam Lee said, looking at the ingredients. “Dr. Martin, with respect, I would suggest waiting at least a week before trying it. Allow the skin to regain some of its normal resilience.”

Paul shrugged. “I’ll leave the bottle. It’ll be up to you, Ben.”

Tilly cleared her throat. Loudly. Everyone at the table looked at her in surprise.

“And you, of course, Tilly,” Paul said hastily.

“There is no ‘of course,’” Tilly replied. “Ben, you have my full respect as well, but unless Adam designates someone different at some future time, I’m the one who makes those decisions.”

“Certainly,” Ben said, looking with great interest at his watch fob.

“All right…oh, and Ben—and Tilly,” Paul added, “I’d think about amputating those two broken fingers. I don’t believe they can heal properly.”

“They may never recover their original usefulness,” Kam Lee said with his usual deference. “However, I believe they can, with special exercises, regain at least three quarters of their previous strength and agility.”

“Three quarters?” Paul looked mildly at the Chinese doctor. “Kam, I’d love to agree, but I’m telling you, you’re wrong. I’d put money on it.”

“I don’t want your money,” came the equable reply. “I would settle for your agreement to refer to me any cases that baffle you.”

Paul burst into involuntary laughter while Ben and Tilly, equally stunned and angry, looked at each other, and only a knock at the door spared the gamblers a stern lecture from Ben.

Ben left them there to find Roy Coffee at the door. “Heard you had some unexpected guests,” Roy said with a broad grin. “Had to come see if it was true.”

“Well, it is true,” Ben said quietly. “But he’s not well enough to receive visitors. You can come in and talk to Tilly, if you like.”

Roy had been there about an hour and was getting ready to leave when they saw a stranger riding into the yard. “Good Lord,” Roy muttered. “I saw him at the livery. Had no idea he was comin’ here. He lit into Otis like you wouldn’t believe for not havin’ any English saddles. Dangblasted tenderfoot dude. I passed him ridin’ outta town on Mr. Blue. Well, you ’member Blue—wouldn’t go no faster’n a trot iffen his tail was on fire. And that poor feller was bouncin’ around like a sack a’ flour in the saddle. Bet his feet ain’t the only thing tender right now, huh Ben?”

Ben only raised an eyebrow as the stranger, a tall, thin man with light-brown, floppy hair, no hat, and a strange sort of large leather bag slung over one shoulder, gingerly dismounted and hobbled toward them. “Hello,” he called, and walked toward the new arrival.

“I’m looking for Ben Cartwright,” the new fellow said painfully.

“You’ve found him. I’m Ben Cartwright.” Ben stuck out a hand, which the man regarded for a moment before extending his own rather limp fingers.

“I’m Michael Morton Milbury,” the stranger said, extricating his dangly fingers from Ben’s grip. “Please don’t call me Mike.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” Ben assured him, while Roy Coffee was almost choking himself to keep from laughing. “May I ask the nature of your business?”

“It’s official,” Milbury replied.

“Would you like to come in and sit down?”

“Thank you; no. I’ve had quite enough sitting on that horrid beast that brought me here. Sir, I’ve been on a specially commissioned train for the last ten days to bring you this.” He reached into the leather bag and produced a large envelope, stamped “U.S. Embassy, Washington, DC.” “Someone in Washington thought it required immediate delivery. Please sign this receipt, sir, and then I can leave.”

“Surely.” Ben signed the receipt provided and without a further word, Michael Morton Milbury bowed, executed an almost military about face, and groaning, remounted Mr. Blue.

“Bet his eggs are scrambled good ’n’ proper,” Roy chortled. “Well, I gotta get back to town, Ben, but you tell Adam I come by, and when he’s up and about again, if I don’t see him down at the jail for a game of checkers sometime soon, I’ll know why.”

“Of course,” Ben said with a distracted smile, and as Roy mounted up, he went back inside, to see Paul putting on his hat.

“Ben, I’m going now—I still think I’m right, but I trust you’ll let me know what treatments you end up doing.”

“I will,” Ben agreed. “Thanks so much for coming, Paul—oh, and by the way, if you drive past a fellow in great pain riding the old blue roan from the livery, you might consider giving him a ride in your carriage. I don’t think the poor man knows how to ride at a trot.”

“Ouch,” Paul replied, and picked up his bag. “Back in a couple days, Ben.”

The door shut as Ben opened the envelope to see…another envelope. U.S. Embassy, Minsk, Russia. Missent. Delivery time—crucial.

“Who the devil would send something from Minsk…wait a minute. Missent?”

He opened the envelope to see…another envelope.

American Consulate, Glasgow, to US Embassy, London. Delivery Crucial.

“Good heavens, it’s a Russian nesting doll,” he muttered, opening this envelope to reveal another envelope—this one addressed to Ben Cartwright, Ponderosa Ranch, General Delivery, Virginia City, Nevada. He recognized the handwriting at once, and smiled. Of course she had told the truth—he’d never doubted that, after all, he thought, and sat down by the fireplace to read his long-delayed letter.

 

Chapter 56

“When the moon comes up…”

 

They let Adam sleep most of the day; one thing Paul Martin and Kam Lee had agreed on was that sleep had a lot of restorative effects for both the body and the soul. Whenever Adam did wake up, he found Tilly, his father, or one of his brothers nearby, and that was plenty. Frequently Veralyn and Alice popped in, although they never stayed long or said much. Once he remembered who they were (he was still waking up confused), he smiled.

He talked with them all when he was awake. Learning that his father had married again brought a huge, goofy grin to his face; even the identity of the bride didn’t seem to faze him. When he saw Beth, he remembered her immediately; learning of the impulsive nature of the whole romance only made his goofy grin bigger. “Pa, I thought you could never surprise me again. Congratulations.”  He apologized profusely for not getting up to greet the new Mrs. Cartwright (senior) and expressed repeatedly his wishes for the joy of the couple.

“You know, Adam,” Beth said, “I was thinking…one of your feet was broken, and didn’t heal quite right, isn’t that so?”

“I can walk just fine,” Adam said, a little stiffly.

“I’m sure you can—but Aud—er—Kam Lee said that it had to hurt you to wear your old shoes and boots. So I was thinking, what’s the use of owning a shoe store if I can’t have shoes custom-made? When you’re feeling better, we’ll do a couple of tracings of your feet, and I’ll have some boots made up just for you.”

“That would be wonderful, Beth,” Adam said in surprise, and Ben grinned delightedly.

Listening to a description of Joe and Alice’s wedding in April, and realizing that she was due around Christmas, he’d raised an eyebrow and muttered, “You sure didn’t waste much time, Younger Brother!”

“Hey, I was getting old. I had to work fast,” Joe replied cheerfully. Still ignorant of what had happened to Adam and Tilly in regards to children, Joe went on, “I used to think, when you first left, that you’d come back with a row of kids trailing after you like ducklings.”

“I wouldn’t have minded,” Adam said thoughtfully, drinking some of Dr. Kam’s mixture. “But that part didn’t quite work out, Joe. I doubt it ever will. I’m thinking that if the Cartwright line is going to go on, we’ll have to depend on you and Hoss.”

Joe opened his mouth—and shut it again. His father had already warned him what would happen if anyone leaked the news. Ben and Tilly had discussed the matter with Audun and decided it would be best to wait until Adam was a little stronger, and a little more used to being home. Adam had already proved that he wasn’t used to that notion yet; he usually woke up with no idea where he was, and his main concerns were that Tilly was someplace close by and Lady was within grabbing distance. He still kept his left hand buried in the dog’s fur, as if she anchored him to reality.

“You sure there’s no morphine in that stuff?” Adam asked, indicating Kam’s jar.

“None at all,” Joe confirmed.

Adam shook his head. “First night I was here…how long have I been here, anyway?”

“This is the second night. Really, you ain’t been here that long.”

“Funny. I can’t seem to keep time straight lately…but some time…and I thought it was after we got here…I dreamed about a boy. We talked for a while. He had black hair, but in the face he looked like Ruth. I know, I know—I dreamed Ruth. I guess I dreamed the boy, as well. But he sure seemed real, for a while. Sometimes, though, it’s hard to tell. I don’t have too many clear memories of this past year.”

“No, I guess not,” Joe said hoarsely. “Sorry things went so bad for you and Tilly, Adam.”

“Wasn’t all bad.” Adam smiled. “I could tell you some stories about Spain that’d put hair on your chest. Italy was wonderful, for the most part. In Paris, I finally got to see the Louvre. You know, there were even times on the Isle of Pines that weren’t bad. We made some real friends among the Kunie there. And the work…reminded me a lot of when Hoss was little and you were barely a gleam in Pa’s eye, and we were stakin’ our claim out here. I finally got a real notion of what it was like for Pa and Marie. I remember he and I used to come home nights covered in mud and sweat, and Marie’d come flying out the door of that little shack and kiss him like mighty Caesar on his triumphal entry.”

“Is that how Tilly acted with you?”

Adam just smiled, and started kneading Lady’s fur. “I’ve often thought Tilly and Marie would’ve gotten along well. I hope she gets on with Beth. How did that one strike you?”

“It wasn’t unexpected, Adam. I think Pa was the only one who didn’t know—till he got hit smack in the face with it, anyhow.”

Adam thought a moment. “Is my memory playing tricks again, or is she a little…shrill?”

“Take my advice, Older Brother—drag out those old house plans and get your own place built as quick as you can.”

**

If a common thread continued in the conversation with Hoss, it was unavoidable.

“Hope you know you done spoiled our big announcement good ’n’ proper,” Hoss reproached gently. “We been waitin’ all week for Saturday, and hoo-boy, talk about bein’ upstaged!”

“Hey,” Adam replied weakly. “I’m sick; go easy on me. What on earth are you talkin’ about?”

“Well, Saturday’s the big family gatherin’ day nowadays—we all get together and share news and such. So, Veralyn and I didn’t want to break the news piecemeal; we wanted to get everyone together.”

“To announce…wait a minute. Is Veralyn in a family way?”

“Doc Martin says she is!” Actually, Audun had suggested it first, when she’d complained about feeling unsettled and tired—but of course, he couldn’t mention Audun.

“She’s not even showing,” Adam said.

“You ain’t s’posed to be peekin’,” Hoss replied with a look of his own.

Adam sighed. “I’m just sayin’ she doesn’t look chubby.”

“Well, she ain’t too far along yet. Doc says late April or so. I built a nursery two years ago, so we’re more’n ready.”

“Reckon you are. Congratulations, Big Brother. To you and your lady.”

At his use of “lady,” the dog lying by his side raised her head and licked Adam’s ear, and Hoss laughed. “Adam, you done missed out. There’s been a real baby bonanza around here.” He began ticking off names, most of whom were but vague memories to Adam, of families who had increased in Adam’s absence. “And not only that, but we got us some prime Appaloosa ponies last year, genuine Nez Perce stock, and bred ’em to Old Corsair—so we oughtta have four fine spotted colts come May.”

“How on earth did you get Nez Perce Appaloosas?” Adam asked in genuine interest. “I’ve heard the Indians won’t part with them for love nor money.”

“Oh…uh…well, you know how it is, Adam. We’re Cartwrights. The earth trembles when we walk, just like Sam Clemens said.”

Adam smiled a little at that, and Hoss recovered quickly and moved on before his brother could pursue the subject. “Do you remember Honey and Gumbo, my collies? I bred Honey to Scooter last year, and we got five of the fattest, purdiest little puppies you ever saw. There’s farmers and ranchers all around Carson Valley just dyin’ for some Ponderosa collies, now that they’ve seen some of the work they do. I’m bein’ real careful about who I let have ’em, though. Don’t want ’em comin’ to bad ends.”

“No,” Adam said quietly, and Hoss wondered at Adam’s sudden silence.

Finally, Adam swallowed hard. “Hoss…I heard some doctors talking about Tilly in Glasgow. She didn’t tell me that she’d gone to see one. One of them was telling the other that her womb is tipped the wrong way, or something…she never told me about the visit, so I guess she didn’t want me to know. But I don’t think…a family’s waiting in store for us.”

“Aw, Adam….”

“It’s all right. It’s just…well, you know, I would’ve liked to have a couple of children someday, and Tilly always had her heart set on nine. She had three tries, but we’ll have to go to heaven to meet ’em.” He shrugged. “Don’t tell Pa or Joe, please. But it makes me even happier that you and Joe got married. Now you’ve both got women you love, and soon there’ll be Cartwright heirs, too. I’d hate to think of all the blood and sweat we put into this land being auctioned off in little parcels to a bunch of strangers.”

“Adam,” Hoss began again, and again fell silent. He swallowed. “You know, Adam, the good Lord has ways of workin’ things out that don’t make much sense to us, but sometimes, when you just ain’t expecting it, he’ll dump a blizzard of blessings right on your head. Maybe that’s what’s gonna happen here.”

“Well, we’ve had plenty of things dropped on our head the last few years, Hoss, but very few blessings. Maybe we’re due, at that.”

Hoss grinned. “You keep on thinkin’ that, Adam. You got home already, and that’s the biggest blessing anybody could want for a while. But I’ll tell ya, I just don’t think the Lord’s gonna stop there. There’ll be plenty more blessings waitin’, just as soon as you get out of this bed.”

 

Chapter 57

“Devil dog’s on my trail…”

 

Hoss and Joe took Tilly’s warning far more seriously than Ben had. They never left Adam for a minute. Ben, following his tenuous reconciliation with Tilly, still maintained that the idea of a grown man like Adam being unable to be alone for a few minutes was silly, but because he didn’t want Tilly upset, he resolved to stay with Adam unrelentingly when it was his “shift” again.

The thing he hadn’t counted on was Lady. Lady refused to leave Adam’s side for anyone except Audun. Not even Tilly could persuade her to go outside for her “necessaries.” How it was that Audun could control her, no one knew, until Hoss timidly voiced his opinion that Lady knew, with her peculiar dog sense, that Audun and Adam were father and son, and that once she accepted him, he was her substitute for Adam.

Unfortunately, Audun had to stay away—completely out of sight—whenever Adam was awake, and Adam’s waking and sleeping had been irregular all day and all evening long. As the evening wore into night, everyone assumed that Adam would go into a solid eight-hour sleep, but he didn’t. He maintained the nap-and-wake routine he had followed most of the afternoon, and every time he awoke, without fail, he confusedly asked where he was, and demanded to know where Tilly was even as he reached for Lady.

That side of the house was dim any time after noon anyway; now, with the exception of the lamplight, it was dark. Lady needed to go outside, but Audun wasn’t around, and Adam needed her, so she couldn’t leave.

Ben was dozing in the chair by the bed when the smell hit him. “Fire and brimstone,” he mumbled, looking at the dog who had caused most of his problems in life. “Blasted cur—the only reason I don’t shoot you right now is because I like your daughter.” He stepped out. Tilly was sound asleep on the settee again, and the way she’d been dragging all day, he imagined she probably didn’t need the interruption.

“Can I help?” Audun asked, as Ben wondered where the dickens he’d come from. The boy had carefully avoided Adam all day, but he never seemed to be far away.

“Get the blasted dog outside before she stinks up the whole house,” Ben replied quickly.

“I’ll clean up the mess when we get back,” Audun offered, but Ben shook his head.

“I’ll get it. Nothing smells worse than dog dirt.”

He hastily got the mess into the chamber pot and then decided he’d best empty that out, too. He grabbed the lamp and headed outside. He’d only be gone a minute.

**

“Tilly?” Adam called softly in the pitch blackness. His left hand reached for the gray fur he knew he’d find—but he didn’t find it. “Lady? Tilly?”

There was a bad smell in the place…and it was dark…and…he looked desperately at his hand, hoping for a flash of dull green, but seeing nothing.

“Oh, God,” he whispered. He’d dreamed again. When was he going to stop doing that? He knew better. He had dreamed everything, had constructed his whole life around dreams, when in truth there was only the reality of prison cell, bullwhip and thumbscrew…of Max and his games. Kane and his games…this was just another game. Let the prisoner think he’s gone home, and then…he shuddered, panting like a wild animal in a trap, and looking desperately for something on which to focus.

**

The screams tore through the massive framework of the Ponderosa ranch house, terrified shrieks that evoked the clanking shackles of Jacob Marley’s ghost and the tortured howls of Frankenstein’s monster. Tilly jumped off the couch, banging her knee into the coffee table and swearing a blue streak in Catalan as she ran for the guest room. It was empty but for Adam—and the jar of Dr. Kam’s medicine that narrowly missed her head. “Adam, I’m here!” she shouted, but she knew it would do no good.

“No more games! No more games!”

Hoss and Joe, rushing down the stairs, paused a moment to stare at each other, stunned. That was one they hadn’t heard in a while.

They hastened into the room just in time to catch Tilly before she fell. “He won’t know you,” she cried, one hand to her face. “Try not to hurt him, for God’s sake!”

Outside, Lady had heard the screams, and wasted no time being polite. She headed for the guest room window and plunged through in a hail of shattering glass and ripping fabric. Two men were threatening her master, and this was not the time to reflect on their former friendship—with a furious snarl she launched herself at Hoss, and would probably have ripped his throat out had Ben not sent the chamber pot whirling in her direction. With a muffled yip, she crashed to the floor. Hoss had managed to get his arms around Adam, who was still screaming and struggling, to immobilize him at the top, while Joe grabbed Adam’s wildly kicking legs, but there was no way they could hold him for long without hurting somebody. “Knock him out,” Tilly said weakly. “He’ll tear himself open again if you—”

And then Audun ran in with a glass syringe. “Hold him just a minute longer,” he shouted, and thrust the needle into Adam’s hip. Gradually the struggling weakened; the screaming lessened, and Hoss and Joe eased Adam back onto the bed, where Audun grabbed the lamp from his grandfather and looked carefully to see how bad the damage to Adam’s back had been.

Beth, Alice, and Veralyn, crowded in the doorway, gasped at the sight of Tilly. Her mouth and nose were bleeding, and her right eye would be a two-steak shiner by morning. She waved the women away impatiently. “It wasn’t his fault. He doesn’t recognize anybody when this happens. Audun, was that morphine?”

“Dr. Martin left it with me, just in case,” Audun replied with a nod. “It’s lucky we had it or he would be more hurt than he is.”

“Is Lady all right?” she asked next, and Ben gaped at her.

“What does that matter now?”

“You’ll find out if she’s not under his hand next time he wakes up,” she snapped, bending to check the dog. “She’s all right—Hoss, can you put her up on the bed? And Ben, just in case you wondered whether I’d be big about this, no. Take me at my word next time I tell you something.”

 

Chapter 58

“…sent through the US mail…”

 

People were giving Ben Cartwright the eye as he rode through Virginia City, and he could well imagine why. His oldest son had risen from the dead, after all. Hiram was full of “I told you so’s.” And the few people who remembered Adam were pulling out their tattered memories to reconstruct the man for the newcomers. Wasn’t he, after all, the one who’d taken on a professional gunfighter at one time—the one who’d dared an old-time racketeer to hang Ben Cartwright and see what happened next—the one who’d fought a duel over a saloon girl—the one who’d fathered a child with some Indian woman—the one who’d married a wicked tart of a schoolteacher and run off to a foreign country?

If anything, the whispers only made Ben hold his head higher as he rode. Come hell or high water, Adam was back, and if anybody thought they could hurt him, they’d have to go through Ben Cartwright to do it.

Except, of course, for Adam himself. His crazed behavior of the previous night was weighing heavily on Ben’s mind. He’d hurt Tilly; he could have killed her or anyone else. But neither Paul Martin nor Kam Lee had been able to answer Ben’s questions.

“We just don’t know what goes on in a man’s head, Ben,” Paul had said gently. “Remember Ross Marquette? I’m not saying Adam will end up that way, mind you—I’m just saying that there are a lot of dark places in a man’s mind, and given some of the things Adam’s been through, it’s not surprising that he falls into them from time to time. There’s always the hope that the longer he’s home, and the more real his current surroundings become to him, the more the bad memories will fade. You know what they say: time heals all wounds.”

“That’s a lie, Paul,” Ben replied. “Some wounds never heal, and all the time in the world won’t help.”

Kam Lee had likewise shaken his head. “From what Mrs. Adam has told me, your eldest was deprived of light, food, water, the company of other people, the sound of his own voice—even of sleep, for days at a time. This was mental torture, far worse than the physical torture he also received. The Chinese believe humans have twelve meridians to carry life energy through the body. A blockage in any of those meridians can bring about an imbalance. I realize you have many doubts about the kind of medicine I practice, but I must warn you…I believe Adam is in despair, and that is one of the hardest imbalances to cure. What your son needs…is hope.”

Ben was thinking about that as he rode to the post office. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Kam Lee. After all, the man had doctored Joe after he’d gotten shot, and done a good job. But that was patching up a bullet wound. There were other kinds of Chinese medical practices Ben had heard about, and some of them sounded closer to voodoo than to real medicine—complete as they were with sticking pins into people. He wondered how far he was prepared to go with his trust of Kam Lee—for that matter, how far Tilly would allow him to go, given that she was no more open to being ridden over roughshod than she’d ever been. But then, she was a lot more open to some things than Ben was, so maybe his concern was unnecessary. And how did you give a man hope? It didn’t come in beakers and pills, or pins and needles.

“Hey, Ben,” Howard greeted him. “I heard congratulations are in order!”

Howard hadn’t even been in Virginia City when Adam had left, so Ben wasn’t sure why he was so impressed with Adam’s return—unless he’d heard some of the juicier rumors. “Thanks, Howard. I appreciate it—can I just get my mail, please?”

“Sure thing,” Howard replied. “Oh, Ben, I want extra credit for this one. It was a hard one to figure.”

The envelope was battered; one corner was torn. It was addressed in carefully printed block letters.

Odin Gartrite

Le Pondrosa

Vierge City, Nevada

**

Audun looked silently at his grandfather, waiting.

“Do you have any pen friends, Audun?”

“I don’t know this word, ‘penfriend.’ So I guess I don’t.”

“Do you know anyone who would send you a letter?”

The boy kept quiet, refusing to look away from his grandfather’s commanding stare.

Ben removed the envelope from his jacket pocket. “This came for you today. I’d like to know what it is and who it’s from.”

Audun made no move for the envelope. “If it is for me, then is it not private?”

“Guardians have the right to know what underage children are doing, Audun.”

Audun gave him an almost catlike look. “My father is home. My new mother is with him. You are no longer my guardian.”

“He has you, Ben,” Tilly said from behind him—and there was Beth with her. He could fight either of them singly, but he’d already figured out they were deadly in combination.

He handed the letter to Tilly. “If there’s anything of importance in it, I’d like to know.”

Tilly gave a single nod of acknowledgement that Ben had learned simply meant “I hear you.” By no means could it be construed as an agreement.

**

Tilly signaled Audun, and he followed her out to the front porch. “I think your grandfather’s right about one thing,” she said, sitting down on a chair and tapping the frail envelope on the table. “If there’s anything in this that concerns your grandfather or father, I’d like you to talk to them about it when the time is right.”

“It does not matter.” Audun sat down on the opposite chair. “I only know one person who would write me—and he speaks a little French and less English. If the letter is from that person, it will be in French. I speak a little French. Most of the Nimiipuu can. But writing it and reading it—no. You speak French, and I think you probably read and write it, too. So you will read it to me, and if you think my grandfather…or my father…needs to know what it says, you will tell them yourself.”

Tilly looked at him for a while. “All right.” She opened the envelope carefully, and began to read, translating as she went.

“My son Little Thunder…” She looked up questioningly, and Audun, looking pale, nodded.

“Timothy called me his son,” he whispered. “Little Thunder is my name back there.”

“Timothy called you his son?”

“He loved my mother—and me,” Audun replied.

“Sarah Small Deer Dancing writes this for me as I can make the French tongue, but not the words on paper.

“I kept my word. Now the leaves fall from everything but the pines. The year you wanted is gone. I have not interfered. You have had the time you wanted to know these white people who call themselves your family, but who would not come until their own law made them do it.”  She looked at him again.

Audun sighed. “Timothy didn’t understand what a finalized estate meant. I don’t think I explained it very well.”

“You came here on a trial basis?” Tilly asked. “Did your grandfather know?”

“What purpose would it have served?” Audun responded. “If he had known, he would have spent the time trying to please me instead of being himself. I wanted to get to know the real man.” He smiled a little. “And I did.”

“Lord, Audun, remind me not to play poker with you,” Tilly muttered.

“Please finish the letter, wife of my father.”

“That’s a heck of a name. I hate it. Let’s see…own law made them do it. Now I need to know, and it must be soon. Do you want to come back to us? The blue legs…blue legs?”

“Soldiers,” Audun said softly, his eyes shut.

“The blue legs have come back, as many as the seeds from a forest of pine cones. We changed our summer hunting ground already, and now we have moved to a different winter ground. I am sending new maps. I drew them, and Small Deer put the words there. She is a good woman. The time of mourning for your mother is over. I will marry Small Deer soon, and she will be your mother. I hope you will join us soon, my son. You know my feelings for you. My soul longs for the day I will see you again. You are my heart. Timothy Silver Salmon.”

She refused to let Audun see the panic she suddenly felt as she handed the papers over to him. “Just offhand, I’d say that letter would be very important to your father and grandfather.”

Audun looked at her with troubled gray eyes. He swallowed, then, and looked down at the table. “It’s only important if I decide to go,” he replied. “And that…will depend.”

 

Chapter 59

“Yo te quiero conocer…”

 

It seemed all three Cartwrights had to hurt Adam. Hoss had provided the physical hurt in an accident of joy and good intentions. Ben had provided the spiritual hurt in a single moment of equally well-intentioned neglect. Now it was Joe’s turn.

It was three days after the morphine incident, and aside from Adam’s horrified questioning of Tilly about her black eye and bruised face (she replied that she’d tripped over a chamber pot), nothing had been said. Adam slept when he wanted to, woke when he wanted to, and talked with his family when he wanted to. And if he wondered about the name “Audun,” which occasionally crept into the conversations and was immediately dismissed again, he didn’t find it strange enough to question.

Until the day he overheard Joe and a vaguely familiar but unknown voice arguing outside.

“Audun, your intentions are good, but this is not the time to do it. Besides, it’s still the same schoolmaster, and he said he never wanted to see you in his class again—and it’s the same school board that said you were a menace to everybody!”

“Uncle, will you keep your voice down? He’ll hear you! I’ll never understand you white people. My grandfather spent a whole year practically beating me to go to school, and now that I want to go, now that I’m trying to be the Soyapo you think I should be, suddenly…”

Tilly, who was sitting with Adam, began to sing then, loudly, if in a faltering voice. It was “A La Una,” the haunting Sephardic tune that had made him really pay attention to her six years ago, and Adam turned to smile at her. She winked, singing, “Yo te quiero conocer,” and for a moment Adam forgot the retreating voices as he remembered his first clumsy attempt to flirt with her.

“I would like to get to know you,” he said. “Sometimes, even after six years, I’m not sure I do.”

“Well, I like being mysterious,” she chuckled, just as Joe shouted from outside, “How in blazes do you think you know what Adam wants? You’ve only known he’s alive for a couple of days, and he doesn’t know you exist! He’s my brother, and I’ve known him for 30 years. I’m telling you he won’t want you going to school until this whole mess is straightened out, and I swear to you, I’ll cut the hind tendons on every horse on the Ponderosa before I’ll let you go get yourself beat up by Jake Lafferty’s pals again. You broke his arm good and proper and it ain’t healed yet, in case you forgot!”

Adam lost all interest in the song. “Tilly, who’s Joe talking to?”

“Beats me,” Tilly replied faintly, looking around as if for rescue. “I wonder when Dr. Kam’s going to come by. He said you could sit up today if—”

“Stop it,” Adam said in a low voice. “Something’s going on here, and I’m not too weak to get out of this bed and go looking for answers if I have to.”

“You move and I’ll bean you with a skillet,” she replied with a trace of her old fire, but Adam shook his head.

“I keep hearing people say ‘Audun,’ and then I keep remembering a dream I had a few nights ago where I was talking to an Indian boy…and his name was Audun. But I didn’t dream him, did I, Tilly?”

She looked at her hands then, and clutched the folds of her skirt as if to keep it from flying away. “No, you didn’t. There’s a boy here named Audun. Ben’s his guardian.”

“But…Audun called him his grandfather,” Adam prompted.

“So? He calls Kam Lee ‘grandfather’, too.”

A long silence passed between them. “Six years,” Adam said. “And suddenly I don’t know you at all. Tilly, what are you trying to keep from me? Why is everyone trying to keep me from seeing or hearing Audun, and why do they keep talking about me as if I have something to do with him?”

Tilly raised one hand in a helpless gesture and grabbed her skirt again.

Adam began again. “I’ve put a lot of faith in you the last six…”

“He’s your son with Ruth,” Tilly said in a strangled voice, and suddenly there was such a silence in the room that Adam’s own breathing seemed thunderous to him.

Tilly raised her eyes to his, and he noticed, in a detached way, how intently she was looking at him. Just as he noticed, in an equally detached way, the potent broth he hadn’t drunk yet on the table, and the green flecks of herbs in the sludgy medicine jar, and the presence of his father in the doorway.

“Good morning,” Ben called out. “How are you feeling?”

Tilly turned to face him. “Ben…Adam’s ready for that letter now.”

Ben Cartwright went white as a sheet. “He’s not ready—”

“He’s as ready as he’ll ever be. Get the letter.”

A minute later he was back with an envelope. “Adam…please believe that we had only your best—”

“Ben,” Tilly cut in again, “he wants facts, not commentary. From either of us.”

Ben handed over the envelope and stood back in silence, shoving his hands in his pockets while Adam removed the letter and began to read. Still feeling as if his soul was somewhere outside his body, watching with great interest as the humans in the room did funny things, Adam read the entire letter, glanced at the maps, re-read the letter, then folded the pages into their creased segments again and carefully replaced them in the envelope. For some reason something in his throat kept moving upward, making it hard for him to swallow, and distantly he realized he was breathing very fast.

“I’d…like…to be alone…now,” he said, and his voice sounded strange, as if it belonged to someone else.

“Adam, please.” Tilly’s voice broke. “Please let me stay with you.”

“Get out!” he—or someone nearby—roared, and Tilly got up, turned quickly, and left with Ben right behind her. He was alone with Lady, and the door was shut, he noticed in an abstract sort of way, as he buried his face in the gray fur and began to sob.

**

They went out to the front yard, but could hear the gasping cries even from there. Tilly headed for the barn, where Audun was leading out a flashy leopard skin Appaloosa from the barn and Joe, with a grimly determined look she’d never seen before, was grabbing at the horse’s reins.

“Audun, I swear to God I’ll—”

“Audun, you can’t go anywhere,” Tilly announced. “Adam will want to talk to you in a few minutes.”

Audun’s mouth dropped open. “How do you know?”

“He just read your mother’s letter, that’s how I know.”

Beth suddenly ran from the house, pointing and gesturing. “He’s gone crazy in there, Ben! First he was crying, then he was shrieking, and now he’s throwing things. We were trying to fix breakfast and Alice was so shocked she dropped the bowl of eggs. Hop Sing’s threatening to go back to China and make us eat oatmeal forever. Even Lady’s cowering under the bed!”

“Let him throw things,” Ben said calmly. “There’s not that much to throw. I’ll clean everything up, if Hop Sing’s really mad.” He put his arm around Beth’s waist. “Sons. Guess a man’s just got to do something about ’em.”

**

“You’re not supposed to be sitting up until Kam says—”

“I won’t meet the boy lying on my stomach,” Adam said sharply.

“You already have,” Tilly replied, but she did open the linen armoire. “He sat with you the first night while I talked to your folks, and he said you talked to him. Besides, he’s been doing most of your doctoring. Kam and Paul are just consulting physicians. Audun’s been in to check on you almost every hour.”

“But only when I was asleep…because he thought I didn’t want to meet him.”

“No—because we all agreed it was best for you to get a little stronger before such a big surprise was sprung on you,” Tilly said, pulling pillows and rolled-up comforters from the armoire. Well, at least she wasn’t going to fight him on the sitting up issue. But what was going on in her head, Adam had no idea.

“Tilly…” He bit his lip. “Do you hate me?”

“Only when you get stubborn and mule-headed and don’t listen to what I tell you,” she said with a grin as she began to arrange the comforters and pillows behind him.

“Don’t joke. Not now. You know what I mean.”

She stopped and looked at him, her hands on her hips, for a moment, then went back to arranging. “That’s a dumb question for a smart man to ask. How can I hate you? You loved Ruth. I already knew that. Heck, Adam, from everything I’ve heard about her, I probably would’ve loved her too.”

“But…”

“Adam, Audun is a beautiful child. And he may well be the only one I’ll ever have, so don’t you go messin’ this up. If you’re worried I don’t want him around, get that thought out of your head.”

Adam cleared his throat. “Tilly…does he hate me?”

“He’s got some questions to ask…but I don’t think so. He apparently overheard some of those midnight conversations you had with your father, and is pretty worried about you. I also think he’s just as concerned about how you feel about him, though, as you’re concerned about how he feels about you.” Tilly thought for a minute. “That sounded pretty convoluted, didn’t it? Lean back now.”

“This situation is pretty convoluted.” He leaned back gingerly.

“Hurt much?”

“My back? I’ll live with it. The rest…” he shook his head. “Tilly, I failed Ruth even worse than I ever failed you. I can’t ask you to forgive or understand—how can I ask a child to?”

“Adam, I never thought you failed me—never. As for Ruth…didn’t you tell me you tried to find her?”

“I wore myself out trying to find her. But…” he waved the letter. “I wasn’t just looking in the wrong place; I was looking in the wrong direction. How could she leave the Shoshone and go to their sworn enemy? It doesn’t make sense.”

“True enough. Sounds like looking for a Prussian spy in the middle of Communards, doesn’t it? I’ll tell you something, Adam. That boy is way too smart for his age—he’s just shy of eleven, in case you forgot. He doesn’t miss a thing. You tell him the absolute truth, and I think he’ll get it. Unless, of course, you don’t want him to.”

He gaped at her. “What the devil does that mean?”

“Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t want him.”

“How can you say…how can you think that? Tilly, don’t you know me after six years?”

“Don’t be a goober. I knew what your answer would be before I asked. I only figured you needed to know it yourself. Now I’m going to send Audun in…you keep calm. Adam, he’ll love you in a heartbeat if you give him a chance. After all, I did, and I’m a lot tougher customer than a little boy.”

**

If what the grandmother had said was true, Audun thought, then his father was a good actor. He seemed very calm right now. Audun, on the other hand, was trembling from the tips of his toes to the tops of his black curls.

“You do look like Ruth,” Adam whispered as Audun walked in and stopped with his hand on the door.

Audun stiffened. “Everyone else says I look like you.”

“Everyone else didn’t know Ruth…will you sit down?” Adam asked, swallowing and gesturing to the chair by the bed. He was sitting up, braced with a lot of pillows Tilly had put there. Audun had seen her talking to Adam while she worked, and he wondered what she had said.

He shut the door carefully, and sat on the edge of the chair to make sure his feet would touch the floor.

“Tilly told me you’ve been doing most of my doctoring. I’d like to thank you.”

Audun shrugged. “I’m a healer. Like my mother.”

“She was a good one,” Adam said faintly. He held up an envelope. “Have you read her letter?”

“No.”

“I think you should. There are things in it we both needed to know. After we talk, I’ll give it to you.”

Audun nodded silently, fighting the urge to start swinging his legs. It was childish behavior.

“I learned some very important things from that letter,” Adam went on, his voice strained. “I learned that she was real…something I’d almost managed to stop believing. For years everyone told me she was no more than a dream, and I was too weak to keep arguing, especially when none of my searches turned her up. Of course, the letter also told me why I never found her.”

“Why couldn’t you find her…us?” Audun asked, his voice small.

Adam smiled bitterly. “I went the wrong way. She left with the Shoshone; I thought I’d find her with the Shoshone. So I looked on the Shoshone lands, to the north and east. It never occurred to me that she’d be with the Nez Perce in the west. She was raised by the Bannock of the Shoshone as a girl; she lived with the Shoshone as a grown woman. Both the Bannock and the other Shoshone hate the Nez Perce, and I’m pretty sure the feeling’s mutual.”

“It is. But never with her. She told me that a sick person is a sick person and must be treated, no matter what. The first person she found when she left the Shoshone was a Nimiipuu—what you call Nez Perce. She nursed him back to health; he took her to the tribe, and they adopted us both.”

Adam looked back at the letter and frowned. “Who was he? The man she nursed, I mean.”

Audun bit his lip. “He was a young brave named Timothy. Timothy Silver Salmon. He loved her…but she never returned his love. She waited for you. Even when she was sick and you were across the sea, she hoped you might come back in time to say goodbye.”

Adam blinked a few times, looking around the room. “Tilly said…you heard me talking to my father. I don’t know what I told him…I can’t remember things. But…do you know why I didn’t come back?”

“I know—here.” Audun touched his forehead. “Tell me here.” And he touched his chest.

Adam pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know how,” he said softly. “To this day I don’t know what I could do differently. I looked for Ruth, even though my family didn’t believe she was real. I looked for months. But even now I’m surprised to think she went to her enemy and found a haven with them. And I don’t know what I could have done differently in Paris. Tilly was sick—”

“Why do white people call pregnancy a disease?” Audun demanded. “It’s normal. Perfectly normal!”

“Yeah,” Adam muttered. “A friend of ours just a little older than you said the same thing a few years back. Well, I’ll tell you—for Tilly, it wasn’t normal. She conceived three times, and she lost all three. But given the same set of circumstances, I still would stay in Paris and keep her flat on her back, hoping against hope for a healthy child…and that means I still would have been arrested and deported, if not shot. And yet, knowing only what I knew then, I’d make the same decisions, Audun. I did the best I could for Ruth and Tilly. I looked for Ruth long after I should have given up, and mourned for her in the face of my own family’s disbelief.  I loved your mother, Audun, but I failed her, just as I failed Tilly. I failed you as well. I’ll take the responsibility for it. But I’m not smart enough to know what I could have done differently. Tilly says you’re more mature than any almost-eleven-year-old she ever met. Tell me, what would you have done in my place?”

“A warrior’s first responsibility is to his tribe,” Audun said slowly. “A husband’s first responsibility is to his wife. When a man is both a warrior and a husband, sometimes the responsibilities go against each other. Timothy, Shmoqula…and the chief the whites call Young Joseph—they always said that in those cases, the man must do his best and pray to the Creator for wisdom. Did you do that?”

Adam nodded, swallowing hard, but he did not reply.

“Then you did what was right,” Audun said. “It’s hard for me to say this thing. I was with my mother when she was sick and wanted you near—I was angry that you never came—but I know she never blamed you, and she was glad you found another wife. She is in the stars now, and she would say there is no blame, and nothing to regret. Maybe she even knows these children of your wife, and cares for them. It’s the kind of thing she would do. And if she’s not angry at you, and the Old Man in the Stars is not angry at you, I can’t be angry either, because no matter how mad I was, I always wanted to know you.” He found his face had gotten very hot, and he looked down. Suddenly his voice came from someone smaller, younger, and much farther away. “Do you…want to know me?”

The thin scar near his father’s ear was pulsing. “Audun, I’ve wanted to know you all my life,” Adam said softly…and then Audun wasn’t in his chair anymore; he had his arms around his father’s neck, and Adam Cartwright had his arms around his son, and at that moment, that was all either of them could ever want.

**

It seemed all three Cartwrights had to hurt Adam, Tilly thought as she turned away from the door she’d been listening through. But only then could he be healed.

Smiling, she went into the kitchen, where Ben was promising a raise to Hop Sing if he’d just forget about going back to Hong Kong and fix everyone some oatmeal. “Come on, I cleaned up the eggs myself,” he wheedled. Then he saw Tilly. “What do you think?” he asked.

“I think everything’s going to be fine now,” she said—and threw up.

 

Chapter 60

“In a circle where we’ve come to pray…”

 

The first real Cartwright family dinner after Adam and Tilly’s return was four days after Adam and Audun’s introduction. By then Adam was sitting up for hours at a time and staying awake all day, though a lot of the time was spent getting to know Audun. Audun was his physician and most insistent about handling Adam’s care; Ben and Tilly both found themselves shoved aside somewhat, but neither of them could really mind, because while hope didn’t come in beakers and pills or pins and needles, it could, apparently, come in the form of boys. Besides, Audun had designated himself their physician too, and while Ben was pronounced annoyingly healthy for a man of sixty, Tilly was told she was far too pale and tired, and she’d better get lots of rest. “And eat spinach,” Audun added. “Broccoli too.”

It was that first family dinner that let everyone know just where things stood—on everything. It wasn’t too surprising that Adam was using his fork left-handed; a great many people in Europe ate that way, and Tilly always had too, so Adam’s lack of a fully-functional right hand was not so noticeable.

Audun’s table manners had always been atrocious. The first few months after his arrival at the Ponderosa, he had eaten with his fingers and would not consider doing otherwise. After all, the Nimiipuu ate with their fingers. Joe had finally managed to persuade the boy to use his utensils, but Audun was still hopeless. Ben had taken Adam aside and warned him not to expect much from his son’s dinner performance. “He’s a real fumble-fingers, Adam. Fortunately, I don’t think he wants to be a surgeon.”

They sat down at the table; Ben offered up an impassioned grace. Audun had been seated directly across the table from Adam, and kept his eyes on his father’s hands throughout the meal. He picked up his fork with his left hand, as Adam did, and mirrored every move Adam made. Not a single kernel of corn rolled off his fork, and the only green beans that ended up under the table were the ones he and Adam sneaked to Lady and Ceirdwyn. And while Ben beamed with pride that all those lectures had finally taken effect, Joe grabbed Audun’s ear and yanked him around the corner. “You big fake,” he accused. “You’ve been leading my poor father a merry chase all this last year, haven’t you?”

Audun regarded him owlishly. “I tried to fulfill my grandfather’s expectations,” he finally said with a serene smile.

When dinner was over, they sat around the great room, and Tilly told them stories about the Kunie while Audun told tales of the Nez Perce. It was the first time he had spoken much at one of the gatherings, usually preferring to keep quiet and play checkers or chess, and at one point Beth made mention of this.

“You play chess?” Adam queried with a skeptical look.

“My grandfather says I’m a holy terror,” Audun replied hopefully, and the gauntlet had been dropped: the chess board was procured. The first game was over in twenty minutes, with Audun looking disappointed as he muttered, “It’s no fun if you let me win.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t do that again,” Adam said with an enigmatic look, and the real battle began. At first there was great excitement as everyone else gathered around the board to offer advice, suggestions, and consolations, but two hours later, the women—except Tilly—had gone to bed; by the time the third hour passed, Hoss and Joe were gone, and when, at one in the morning, Audun finally tipped over his own king, Ben and Tilly were both fast asleep on the settee, her head on his shoulder, and his head on top of hers.

“Why did you let me win that first game so easily?” Audun asked as they put the pieces away.

“Wanted to see what kind of player you were,” Adam shrugged.

“Did you find out?”

“Yeah. Next game I’ll mop up the floor with you.”

“If that means, ‘humiliate me in battle,’ I thought you just did.”

“Nope; I had to work for that one.”

“Work? The middle of the board looked like Gettysburg,” Audun muttered. He’d learned a lot of history with his grandfather.

“More like Tours,” Adam replied with a half-smile. “What do you think we should do with those two?”

Audun shook his head. “I don’t know what to call your wife, Father.”

“You don’t know what to call me, either. I’m your Pa.”

“I’ve heard my uncles use this word for your father…but I’d prefer to call you Father. I’ve thought of you that way my whole life.”

Adam shrugged disappointedly. “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose would, by any other name…be a cauliflower.”

“You say words that don’t make sense.”

“Get used to it, son; my own father’s been telling me that all my life and I haven’t quit doin’ it yet. Tilly understands my language. You can, too.”

“I still don’t know what to call her.”

“Well, you can always ask her. And you’d better learn to like her pretty quick—she’ll be handling your schooling until after the first of the year, and then we’ll get you into Virginia City’s school again. That school master’s going to learn the hard way that if he fights with one Cartwright, he’s fighting all of them—and there are a lot of Cartwrights, these days.”

“I already like your wife, in any case.” Audun looked over at Tilly again. “By the way, I think she’s pregnant. Sorry; I know you don’t like that word. But I won’t say she’s sick.”

“What?” Adam asked faintly.

“She’s very pale. She sleeps a lot—part of that is probably just being tired from taking care of you. Still, you’ve been here almost two weeks now, and she’s had help the whole time—and she’s still tired. Grandfather said she threw up the day you and I were introduced. That could have just been nerves, but she’s also thrown up a couple of times since. I’m pretty sure she’s pregnant. I’m also pretty sure she won’t let me push on her belly to see if the womb has gone soft, though, so either she’ll have to see one of the doctors or you can just wait. Pregnancy usually becomes unmistakable pretty fast.” He smiled, thinking he had done a good thing. Most men liked hearing about pregnancies—and just because a woman had miscarried before didn’t mean she was doomed to do so again.

Stunned, Adam got up, leaning heavily on the walking stick Liam had given him, and he crossed the room to wake up his wife and his father. Audun finished putting the chess pieces away, wondering what had happened to change his father’s mood—a scenario that would be repeated occasionally in years to come.

“We need to talk,” Adam told Tilly as he dragged her into the guest room and away from her usual bed on the couch, while Ben, who was to have taken the first shift with Adam that night, wondered awkwardly what he should do.

“Audun thinks you might be expecting,” Adam said as soon as the door was closed.

“Told you he was a good doctor,” Tilly replied with a smile. “I think so too.”

“Tilly, how?”

“I thought you understood all that stuff. Ranch work and all.”

“Don’t get smart with me now; I told you we had to be careful.”

“Adam, that was nearly two years ago and on an island halfway around the world!”

“But…what about the doctors in Glasgow?”

“Oh. You heard about that.”

“I heard a couple of the doctors talking about you. One of them said your womb was tipped wrong, and you probably wouldn’t ever carry to term—”

“I don’t think you heard everything that was said, Adam. What he said was, it would be difficult for me to carry to term, but if I ever managed it, my womb would probably be so weighted down by the baby that it would slip into the correct position so that future confinements would be normal. When I thought about it, it made sense—my mother had the same problem. I remember her telling me once that it took her five years to carry a baby to term. After that she had no difficulty.”

“But…what if you never do? What if….”

“Adam, I’m bound and determined to be a real wife, so you might as well get used to it.”

“What? When on earth did I ever say you weren’t—why—”

“Back on the island, when the men were getting restless, you told me to be a real wife. I thought I knew what you meant, Adam…I couldn’t be a real wife the way others were since every time I tried to have a baby I lost it, but—”

“Tilly,” Adam whispered, closing his eyes against the memory and the pain, “That was the last thing on my mind. I wanted you to obey me, just once in our marriage, since your own safety was at stake. I never blamed you for those babies—I blamed myself.”

“Well, I think Audun’s pretty good proof of your fathering capabilities, so you can quit worrying about that. It was me; I’m put together wrong. But if I can just do it once, maybe I’ll get it right from now on.”

“You were never put together wrong. You were perfect. I want to keep you perfect, too.”

“Well, then,” she said with a smile, “Let’s hope for a perfect baby. Audun’s going to need someone else to doctor once you get well, anyway.”

He sat down on the bed and gently pressed his head against her stomach, but neither felt nor heard anything new. “When do you think you’re due?”

Tilly laughed. “Well, due to the remarkable paucity of possible conception dates, I think probably around the end of April…sometime around Veralyn’s time, actually.”

“I’m kind of surprised there were any possible conception dates. Why don’t I remember this?”

“That sounds ominous. Well, trust me, you were there.”

“But wasn’t I in the hospital?”

“Oh, you certainly were! In fact, I pointed that out to you, and that despite the private room, I didn’t think it was a very good idea considering your circumstances. You said, ‘I may be a little under the weather, but I’m not dead yet, acushla.’ Sound familiar?”

“Oh, wait, I do remember that. Tilly….”

“Shhh. Trust me, Adam, I’ll be fine.”

“You’d better. I won’t get a decent night’s sleep until…although, good grief, I never get a decent night’s sleep anyway.” He still usually woke up in a panic, looking for Tilly and Lady.

“You’ll be all right. I’ll see to it.”

“Tilly…I am afraid sometimes. What if I had a nightmare and hurt you?”

She smiled. “I’m a Cartwright, Adam. You’d have to kill me to hurt me. Now hush.” She sat down next to him and put one hand on his knee. “I read something a couple of days ago while you were asleep. An interview with Victor Hugo…I put it aside for you, but hadn’t got around to showing you yet. He said something I think we both need to learn to apply.”

“And what was that?”

Tilly smiled. “He said, ‘Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.’ It won’t be easy for me either, but this one’s going to be the good Lord’s problem to resolve, not ours. He brought us here, so he’s apparently not done with us yet.”

**

When the lamp went down, but Tilly never re-emerged, Ben decided maybe he’d just sleep in his own bed for a nice change. Sleeping with one’s own wife was actually a pretty good thing, he thought, yawning as he climbed the stairs.

**

Alice gave birth to Bonnie Marie Cartwright two weeks before Christmas. By then Adam was up and around again, albeit relying heavily on Liam’s walking stick. He was also squeezing a silk bag full of flour throughout the day to strengthen his twisted fingers, and playing with a small portable abacus to increase their dexterity. They would probably never regain their full use, he knew, but they would not be useless, either, and at this point he had learned to be grateful for small blessings as well as large ones. Just exactly whether being able to use his fingers adroitly enough to change a diaper was a small blessing or a big one, Adam was uncertain, but he taught Joe how to do it all the same. “Lord knows I changed enough of your diapers,” he told Joe with a grin that could only be construed as smug.

“It’s okay,” Joe replied. “Fast as you’re goin’ into your dotage, I could be changing yours before long.”

“Yeah? Wanna arm wrestle?”

Tilly and Audun had both appeared, glowering, at that point, and Joe decided to bow out.

**

“Kinda scary,” Hoss remarked, putting down the newspaper.

“What?” Adam asked, and Audun looked up from the chessboard in mild irritation.

“President Grant’s called for more troops to fight the Indians.”

“Which ones?” Audun and Adam asked at the same time, and Hoss looked at them in amusement.

“Don’t say, specifically. Just says in the Dakotas there’s a lot of rumbling about the Black Hills, and in the Northwest there’s some tribes refusing to report to their new reservation.”

Audun looked quickly back at the chessboard, but not quite quickly enough. Adam said nothing, but his eyebrows came together, and he wondered again about the letter Ben had said Audun had received. Neither Tilly nor Audun had revealed its contents, and when asked about it, Tilly had said, “the deal was disclosure if it affected you. As of now, it’s not affecting you.”

He wondered how much longer he would be “unaffected.”

**

Christmas was on a Thursday that year, and the weekend after, they all determined to go to church together. Audun had only been once—to Joe’s wedding—and Alice figured little Bonnie probably needed to get introduced to the Lord and have a baptism scheduled. It was Adam’s first trip back into Virginia City since he’d arrived six weeks before, and he idly wondered if anyone there really remembered him anyway. Regardless, though, there were a lot of things to give thanks for…a lot of things to request the Lord’s help for…and this time of year seemed to be the right time to do it.

Of course they had to suffer through the preacher’s introduction of Adam and Tilly as ‘the miracle couple who had returned from the dead,’ but once that was over, the singing began. Both Adam and Tilly had always loved the singing part—and Audun, who had once admonished his uncles that singing was intended to honor the Creator, actually found himself smiling because here in this church they seemed to understand that.

“I just learned this from a traveling preacher and had to share it,” the choir master said enthusiastically. “If you’ve heard it, please join right in; if not, I’ve printed the words inside the hymnal cover.”

When the opening chords played, Hoss Cartwright smiled and looked expectantly at Adam.

“What a joyous tune,” Adam murmured in delight.

“I love the words,” Tilly observed as she read.

By the second verse they had figured out the harmony and were singing together, with Audun, in a low, tremulous alto, joining in.

 “…In sorrow He’s my comfort, in trouble He’s my stay;

He tells me every care on Him to roll.

He’s the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star,

He’s the fairest of ten thousand to my soul…”

Hoss Cartwright, listening to the three of them, thought back a ways, to the disquieted feeling he’d had at the San Francisco docks when he’d feared he wouldn’t see Adam for many years. He remembered the first time he’d heard the song, and how by then he’d never thought he’d see Adam again, never thought he’d hear Adam sing again…and he realized suddenly that harmony was, indeed, a precious thing.

Stay Tuned–the Lilies will return.

Next Story in The Lilies Series:

One Scarlet Lily
The Strawberry Roan

 

Tags:  Adam Cartwright, Family, SAS, torture, trapped