SUMMARY:  It’s December of 1864 and Joe is conscripted, but Adam goes in his place.  It is a tumultuous ten months and that scripture reading that seemed so ominous seems to come true.  Chapter 1 is my NaNoWriMo novel, Revelations, for 2015 and just barely made the minimum number of words at 53,434 and that’s why there’s that little romance at the end. It’s a little lightness too in a story that has a lot of darkness in it.  The second chapter is the sequel, Love Never Ends, with the emphasis on Adam’s adjustment to being at home and being in a romantic relationship that has to develop amid turmoil and threats to his life.

Rating = T  (72,932 words)

Revelations

Chapter 1

Sitting in the front row of the church, Ben looked at his sons seated beside him and prayed he wouldn’t ever have to face what the family mourning this day had already faced twice. James Morgenthau and his wife Hortense had lost their oldest son Cornelius in the first year of the War. He had been one of those young men who had thought war was a glorious adventure and had gone off to defeat the South and return home a hero. He had returned home in a casket, a casualty of the rout of Union forces at Bull Run. The Confederate forces had been exhilarated by the surprising victory over their enemy who had all the material advantages. The Morgenthau family had moved from their New England home to Nevada Territory to escape the War and its cruel heritage. But then Nevada had been granted statehood and Congress passed an enrollment act in eighteen sixty-three. Every family in Virginia City hoped that it would never have an impact so far away from the fighting and the first two draft acts based on it had not. The third had made a difference. Young Davis Morgenthau had been drafted and lived less than a week in the military when he was sent with his unit to police some hostile Indian forces who grew more bold as they realized that the military in the west was severely weakened by the War the whites fought so many miles away.

“And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him.”

Startled at how the minister’s words and his thoughts had suddenly become intertwined together, Ben moved so much that Adam turned to him to ask him if he was all right. He murmured that he was, but he wasn’t. He had heard the day before that there was likely to be a call up of men under the December draft law that Congress had passed and this time there were going to be a list of men called in Nevada to deal with Confederate incursions into the west. He knew that Adam and Sam Clemens joked about such things thinking they were the result of overactive imaginations, but even if they were, the drafting of men was not going to be imaginary. One son could be called from a family so Ben worried about all three of his sons. The Morgenthaus had recently received word that their other son had been killed in the War in the eastern front and now had no sons left as their youngest son had died working in the mines. Three sons and three graves were all they had of the three boys they had hoped would be their heirs. Ben knew that was his greatest nightmare.

Seated beside Ben, Adam’s greatest nightmare was that one of them would have to go to war. He knew that Joe still had some beliefs that war was a time of valor and glory when men fought for ideals and honor. Adam thought that war was a failure of humanity and was all that was wrong with the world in a microcosm of horrible acts and deplorable living conditions of both soldiers and the civilians caught in the path of military destruction.

“And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.”

Like his father, Adam shuddered a bit as he heard the minister’s words, but his shudders were internal as he pictured in his mind the results of battle that he had seen in the Paiute War and in other military skirmishes. He had not seen a full-fledged battle like those he had read about that had occurred in the War and prayed he never would. The drawings that he had seen in the magazines and newspapers had been horrific enough, but when photographers had begun documenting the war, those images had been seared into his mind shaking his once certain belief that he ought to go fight in the Union Army because the cause was just. Ending slavery once and for all was something for which a sacrifice was worthy, but he had not been able to push himself to do it. He still carried a bit of guilt over that. Like his father, he too wondered if he or one of his brothers would get a draft notice. The War couldn’t last much longer so it was unlikely that any one of them would be drawn into major fighting in the eastern theatre of the War, but there was still danger even if all they did was patrol the west looking for these phantom raiders that panicky settlers claimed they had seen on dark nights with no moon.

After the service, there was a somber mood outside the church as many offered condolences to the Morgenthaus who left a short time after the service with their two daughters riding in their carriage with them. Watching them drive away, Ben stood with his sons as they listened to the talk turn to the upcoming draft and how it was likely to be conducted. Based on the law, all three Cartwright sons would have their names in the drawing but if one of them was chosen, then the other two would be exempt. Joe opposed the draft and made his feelings clear.

“I don’t know why they need more soldiers. Older brother, you said the War was nearly over anyway.”

“It is. The problem is convincing the South to accept its defeat. At this point, the Union Army is battering them and advancing on all sides. It has been one loss after another since the loss at Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg. Once they lost those battles, they had no way to win. Blockaded and with armies advancing from the west and from the north, they should surrender.”

“And give up their beliefs and everything they fought for. That means that everything all those men died for would be gone.”

“Joe, it’s already gone. How does letting more men die bring any more honor to those already dead?”

“You’re just happy because your side won.”

“At this point, I don’t think that anyone has won or will win. The only good thing is that slavery is no more.”

“But what will all those people do now that they have no place to work?”

“They’ll do what everyone else does. They’ll choose where to go, what to do, and who to marry. They’ll lead more normal lives like other people do. I know there will be problems. After a couple hundred years of not doing that, it’s going to take time, but don’t underestimate the desire of people to have their dreams.”

Hoss stepped in to the discussion then with his more practical nature coming to the forefront. “Dreams are fine but what’s gonna fill their bellies is what worries me. If the south is all busted up like you say, what are any of them people gonna do?”

Ben thought it was time to call a halt to the conversation before it became contentious. “Let’s be thankful it never reached here to do that kind of damage. Now, let’s get on home. It’s cold and we need to get back before the roads ice up. It feels like we might have a storm blowing in. What do you think, Hoss?”

Adam smiled at his father’s adept change in the conversation. Hoss’ answer that he didn’t smell any snow got Joe jabbering away about that and the mood shifted noticeably. Ben noted Adam looking at him with that smile and shrugged. He thought it was his prerogative to do exactly what he had done. He wished he had the same power a week later when a draft notice was delivered to Little Joe Cartwright ordering him to report in one week’s time to Carson City for deployment. Hoss questioned that immediately.

“Deployment? Aren’t they even gonna give ’em any training?”

Adam took the letter from Joe’s hands to look it over as the others talked about Hoss’ question. “It says the Nevada Regiment and it appears that it is going to be doing tracking and neutralization of Confederate forays into Union held territory. It seems that they have accepted the wild stories that have been circulating and are going to be chasing phantoms. Sam Clemens wrote that article over two years ago already when there were rumors of Confederate units operating in this area. At the time they said it was a company five hundred strong. If there were that many, they would have been seen and not on dark nights sneaking around farms.”

“Adam, dontcha think that if the rumors have been around for that long that there’s gotta be some truth to them?”

“Hoss, the only truth is that people keep repeating the rumors and even Sam’s story probably fed the rumors because some people didn’t understand the sarcasm of what he said. If there were that many here, don’t you think we would have found at least one by now?”

“Well, didn’t they say that two of them deserted and went to the governor and told him about the others?”

“Yes, and wouldn’t Governor Nye have mentioned that sometime in the last two years or at the very least, called up the militia to do something about it. His silence on the issue and lack of action would suggest that no one ever went to him with any information.”

“Hmm, I suppose you’re right about that. I never thought on it that way.”

“Hoss, our older brother thinks you can solve anything with logic. If you could, he would be married now and have six kids already.” As soon as Joe said it, he knew he shouldn’t have. It had only been the previous year that Adam had been planning to marry Laura only to have her have an affair with their cousin Will behind his back while that back was recovering from a devastating injury. Adam had told them all that he was all right with what had happened and that he wished Laura and Will the best, but Joe doubted him. The look on Adam’s face that he hastily shed was all the more proof to Joe that Adam was still hurting from that encounter and likely would at least until he admitted the pain. “I’m sorry, Adam. I didn’t mean to bring up anything that would hurt you. I was kidding around and didn’t think before I said that. You know how I am saying things like that without thinking first.”

“There’s no problem, Joe. It didn’t hurt. You’re right. If logic could find me a suitable wife, I would have one already. Now, I think we ought to think about your predicament and what we’re going to do.”

“There’s not much we can do, is there? I mean, I have a week to report. I’m not one of those kind of men to skedaddle, so I guess I report. I’m not happy about it, but I won’t do anything that would reflect badly on my father or this family. I still think Pa would make a good governor someday.”

“Joseph, that is not what should be of paramount importance at this stage. If I could think of a way to get this draft deferred, I would, and if it meant that I would never be governor, it wouldn’t matter at all. I don’t like the whole idea of a draft. It doesn’t sit well with me. Politicians created this war, but then they draw everyone into it whether they want to be part of it or not. I wanted Nevada, our friends and neighbors, and especially my family not to be drawn into this conflict, and now it seems we have no choice.”

“We do have some choice, Pa. Someone can go in Joe’s place. All across the country, more people go in the place of the men drafted than the men actually drafted.”

“I will not pay a man to take my place, Adam. That’s cowardly. I won’t do it.”

“I wasn’t thinking of paying someone, Joe. I was thinking of a volunteer.”

“Well, what fool would voluntarily go in my place and take a chance at getting his head shot off and do all that for only thirty dollars a month?”

But Ben got a sudden chill and knew exactly what Adam was going to say next before he said it. Ben was saying no softly even as Adam said what Ben knew he would say.

“I’ll go in your place, Joe. I’m that fool.”

Surprised into silence for only a moment, Joe’s objection came out forcefully. “Oh, no you’re not going in my place. You’re not going to play the hero and let me be the little brother you saved again.”

Less forcefully, Ben added his argument to back up Joe’s opposition. “Adam, it doesn’t help to have one son go instead of another.”

“Listen, Pa, I think it does, and Joe, I’m not playing the hero. I have reasons for saying what I said. I’ve been thinking about it since we were in church on Sunday and talking about the draft. Joe, it would tear you up inside to have to serve in the Union Army even if they never find a Confederate soldier, and I very seriously doubt they ever will find one within five hundred miles of here now. You aren’t suited to Army life either. Getting up early, following orders, keeping everything orderly and clean, making plans and following them. Now who does that sound like when you think of the three of us?”

Joe didn’t want to give in on any of it, but the logic of Adam’s argument was poking through his anger as well as their father’s dismay. Hoss simply couldn’t bear the thought of either brother being thrust into harm’s way and wanted to escape the whole conversation but knew he had to stay.

“For years, you have all known that I favored the Union cause if not their methods and the horrendous destruction the War has brought. Of the four of us here, I’m the one most suited to be in the Union Army. I know the territory better than Joe and I have better tracking skills than he does as well. If there are any Confederate soldiers, I can help them find them. The sooner they’re found, if they exist at all, the sooner this whole expedition is over and we get billeted some place until the next wild rumor starts floating around or the War is over. That shouldn’t take more than another three to six months at the pace it’s going now.”

“And with your college education, you can go in with an officer’s rank and be treated far better than Joseph who would have a private’s rank.” It was the only benefit that Ben could see in the switch, but Adam dashed that hope before it could grow.

“I won’t accept that. If I do, I could find myself in the Army when the War is concluded. An officer’s commission is not automatically rescinded the way an ordinary private’s rank would be at the conclusion of the conflict. I have no desire to remain in the Army any longer than necessary.”

“We have a week to think about this and to talk about this. We don’t have to make a decision now.”

“Pa, how is thinking about it or talking about it going to change anything?”

Ben shook his head but remained silent. He had no words for what was in his heart at that moment. Without a word, Joe walked stiffly out the door closing it softly behind him. Hoss had tears in his eyes and couldn’t speak. Adam stood and put a hand on Hoss’ shoulder and squeezed. Then as he passed his father, he did the same pausing briefly before he followed Joe out the door.

“Pa, why didn’t Adam say anything about me going? Joe never said nothing neither.”

“Hoss, we all know that you could never kill someone because you were ordered to do it. Of the four of us, you would be the one most likely to die if you went into the Army. We know that.”

“But Joe and Adam would have a terrible time doing that too.”

“Of course they would, and that’s my great fear. Adam thinks that he can follow orders, but I’m afraid that he may find himself in a situation where he will get an order that he won’t be able to follow. His morality will get in the way, and then what will become of him?”

“So you think it’s Adam who’ll be going?”

“He’s right. Everything he said was right. Of the two of them, he is the better one to go, but it’s like being given that terrible choice in which both options can lead to something too awful to even think about.”

“Joe ain’t gonna want to let him be the one to go.”

“I know but your older brother can be quite persuasive. I should know. He’s been talking me into things since he was about six years old and told me that you should be Hoss instead of Eric.”

“Pa, I’m glad he did.” After a moment of silence, Hoss spoke with a tremor in his voice. “I don’t want him to go. I don’t want Joe to go neither, but I’m afraid if Adam goes, I ain’t never gonna see him again. I got a terrible feeling in my gut about all this, a real terrible feeling.”

“I know what you mean. I feel like the way I felt the first time I was at sea and weathered a hurricane. I was sick and weak in the knees and felt like I would faint if I wasn’t sitting down. I feel that way now only the storm isn’t even here yet.”

Outside, Joe was leaning on the corral fence looking at the horses and of course not seeing them as his mind was thinking about what he should do. Adam walked up beside him and said nothing but crossed his arms on the fence and leaned as well. They stood that way for a time as Adam waited for Joe to talk. He knew he would because Joe would become impatient with Adam not talking. Not sure of how Joe was going to react, Adam wanted to hear how he was going to talk so he would get some idea of how his brother was feeling. Joe’s emotions could be so tumultuous that they defied anyone who tried to predict his reactions.

“I’m not going to let you take my place. I got drafted, and I’m going.”

“There’s one part of the argument you haven’t heard yet. It’s something I couldn’t say in front of Pa, but I think I can trust you with it.”

That intrigued Joe enough to make him turn to Adam. “What is it that you couldn’t tell Pa but you would tell me?”

“It’s part of a larger picture. All of you know that I would likely leave here some day.”

“But not like this.”

“No, not like this, but the point is that you knew I would leave especially after the last two years. I’ve been more and more unhappy with my life here. You and Hoss can handle the ranch with Pa. I’m not needed any more.”

“You could walk away from us just like that?”

“No, if it was that easy, I would be gone already. It’s terribly difficult to even consider doing it, but I knew that the longer I stayed, the more unhappy I would become. Pa’s been getting ready for me to leave. He won’t like it, but it won’t shock him. Joe, if you leave, it would tear Pa’s heart out especially if you never come back.”

“But he would feel the same about you.”

Looking out over the Ponderosa that stretched as far as they could see and beyond, Adam sighed and looked back to Joe. “No, Joe, he wouldn’t, and you know that as well as I do. He’s known that I would leave, and because he’s known that, he’s also known that the possibility exists that I won’t come back. You and Hoss will never leave. He knows that too. For me to go now is having something happen sooner than it would have happened, but it’s the more natural way of things. For Pa’s sake, you should let me go.”

“You’re saying that you’re not doing it for me so much as you’re doing it for Pa? I find that a little hard to believe after everything you said in there.”

“I believe everything I said in the house too. I do care for you, and I believe I’m doing the right thing for you too. I do think I’m a better fit for military service. I don’t think that I’ll like it, but it probably won’t be for more than six months or maybe a bit longer.”

“How can you know that?”

“Joe, the latest news we’ve heard is that there are Union armies advancing across Tennessee and across Georgia. They’re got the Mississippi as well as the coast. There are no offensive campaigns by the Confederacy which is running out of everything. Winter is coming and they have no food. How can they keep going?”

“I suppose that makes you happy.”

“No, none of it makes me happy. It was a horrible waste of life and resources, and none of it can ever be recovered. Half a million men or more will be dead by the time it’s over. That’s what they’re saying now. How could anyone be happy about that?”

“It’s a real mess, isn’t it?”

Adam could only nod. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his arms until he felt Joe’s hand on his shoulder. He looked over at Joe. “Pa was right to keep us out of this, Joe, but now it reached out to drag us in whether we wanted to go or not.”

“I need some time to think about all of this.”

“I figured you would. I wanted to get everything out today so you could.”

“There’s one thing that you haven’t told me.” With an arched eyebrow, Adam looked at Joe but said nothing. “You haven’t ever told me why you have to leave. Why can’t you stay here and be happy? What is there out there that you can’t find here?”

“I’m not sure I can explain it completely. I guess it’s because I think more like Pa did when he was young. I dream of doing things I haven’t done, of seeing things I haven’t seen, and of going places I haven’t gone. I want to build something that I can put my name on like Pa built the Ponderosa.”

“He built it for us, and we helped build it. You helped build it more than any of us.”

“Yes, but it’s Pa’s accomplishment, not mine. Maybe I won’t build anything. Maybe I won’t do those things I dream about, but I have to make the attempt.”

“Aren’t you afraid to leave here and be alone?”

“I guess to me a if I had a dream that didn’t make me afraid, I would think I wasn’t dreaming big enough.”

“Sometimes I wonder how we could be brothers.”

“Sometimes I wonder too, but one thing I know all the time, Joe.”

“What’s that?”

“I know you are my brother and you always will be and I will never forget you and I will always care for you as much as I always have. That will never change. No matter where I go or what I do, I’ll carry my family in my heart.”

The unexpected raw emotion of Adam’s words and the glistening tears in his eyes affected Joe even more than the words did. He wrapped his arms around his brother. “I wish there was some other way that we could do this so that neither one of us had to go in a week.”

“I’ve been thinking that ever since I heard there was going to be a draft call here in the county. I’ve thought about it from every angle I could imagine, and I can’t think of any other way. I guessed that one of us would be called. I was hoping that I would get the call and that would have made it all simpler, but I still think it needs to work out that way.”

“Do you think we ought to talk to Pa or Hoss about this any more?”

With his lips pursed, Adam didn’t answer for a short time. He pulled out of the unaccustomed hug. Looking at Joe, he finally said only a short sentence but it carried a lot of impact because it put them in a shared responsibility. “Do you think we ought to do that to them?”

Joe frowned and then understood. They couldn’t ask their father or brother to help with the decision because if they did, and the brother who left was hurt or killed, the guilt would eat them up. It would be best if Adam and Joe came to this decision between them.

“No, we should decide. We can talk again tomorrow. I don’t think I’m going to get much sleep tonight.”

“I don’t suppose any of us will sleep easy tonight or perhaps for the next few months.”

For the next several days, there was no conversation about the decision as the whole family went about their business as if everything was normal. The dark circles developing under their eyes and the lack of appetite at meals was evidence that it wasn’t true. After three nights, Adam was trying to read and failing when he heard a knock on his door and Joe walked in to his bedroom.

“Can we talk?”

“Of course. Have you made your decision, or do you want to talk about it more?”

“I’ve decided. I think I may hate myself for it someday, but you’re right. I’ve thought about everything you said, and you’re right as usual.” Adam nodded. “Were you that sure that you would get your way?”

“No, I was that sure that you were smart and that once you had a chance to look at it form every angle, you would see what I had seen. There is always the hope of a miracle and the Confederate leaders will surrender before there is any more loss of life, but that is highly unlikely, so I assumed you would draw the next most reasonable conclusion. It seems you did.”

“I suppose we should tell Pa tomorrow.”

“Whatever you want to do. The weather looks like it’s turning bad, so I was thinking of heading to Carson a day or two early.”

“I want to ride in with you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know.”

As it turned out, Ben and Hoss wanted to ride with them too. They spent an extra day in Carson talking, having lunch, visiting with friends, and then relaxing in a saloon that night. The next morning, Adam reported to the mustering station and signed in as a volunteer in place of Joe. There was a sense of adventure it seemed among many of the men who seemed to think that a regular job and thirty dollars a month was fine. Most of them didn’t realize that they wouldn’t see that money for many months as their pay records would have to be submitted to Washington and then the money would have to be allocated and then shipped off to them. The odds were that they would not see their first salary for at least four months. Meanwhile they were ready to do some fighting. There were reporters there to record the event. Adam bid his family goodbye and waited to head out with the rest of the draftees from the county to meet up with the rest of the Nevada regiment. As he rode away, Ben had that same terrible feeling that Hoss had that he might never see him again. When Adam turned and waved, the dust of the riders created an eerie sight obscuring him enough that he looked more like an apparition than a man. It sent chills up and down Ben’s spine, and when he glanced at his two younger sons, it appeared they had the same reaction. The ride home was a somber one.

 

Chapter 2

Once Adam rode away from Carson City with the men who were going to be in the regiment with him, he tried to get in the spirit of the group but couldn’t. They acted like they were on some grand adventure and were going to be returning as heroes. He suspected that more than a few had been drinking before they left and looked forward to the Army discipline that would curb that behavior. He was dismayed and then disappointed when they arrived at the assembly point. There were only two men there in complete uniforms. One was an Army colonel and the other was his aide. There were a few others who wore bits and pieces of uniforms mostly hats and coats, but most of the men wore civilian clothing. The men were directed to a line of tents that had been hastily set up and were told to put their gear inside and then to take their horses and put them in a temporary corral that had been made with a few posts and rope. At that point, Adam was even more relieved that he had not ridden Sport into this mess for it appeared that the men would not necessarily be assigned a particular mount. Once they had accomplished that, they were ordered to assemble in a line and were addressed one by one as they passed through the line. The questions were about their backgrounds and what they could do and what they knew about the area. Adam answered truthfully and as expected was offered an officer’s commission.

“No, thank you. I have no desire to make the Army a career. I’ll serve the time I must, and then I’ll take my leave.”

“You’d rather take orders from one of those?” The man at the table who was doing the questioning pointed at the men milling about in the camp.

“I would rather not be here at all, but I will do my duty to the best of my ability.”

“Very well, Private Cartwright, you are hereby receiving a field commission as a lieutenant. Don’t look so worried. It will expire the moment we are not in the field in active pursuit of the enemy. You can go back to being a plain private again. Does that suit you well enough?”

“It suits me well enough, sir.”

“Good.” Turning to one of the men behind him, the man ordered him to find at least a uniform jacket and hat for Adam and to take him through the rudimentary requirements for being an Army officer. Turning back to Adam, he had little left to say. “I’m Major John Turnbull. Since you have no interest in an Army career, what you learn from Bennett there ought to be enough for the next few months. We need to get this ragtag outfit in enough shape to round up some scraggly Confederates, and then we’ll pacify the redskins who’ve been helping them. Soon as that’s done, you can go back home and say you’ve done your duty and served your country.”

It wasn’t difficult to note the sarcasm and derision in the man’s voice, but Adam didn’t react. He stood to gain nothing by doing that and could lose a lot. Both Turnbull and Bennett seemed to give him a bit of respect for his restraint at least. He followed Bennett from the line and around to the supply tents. He was worried though about what Turnbull had said about taking on some Indians. He had no idea that they had been conscripted to fight an Indian war, but it sounded very much like that was what they were about to do. He had seen what happened when undisciplined and untrained men went up against Indian warriors in battle and feared what would happen with this unit although they would have a sizeable numerical advantage from the looks of the camp they had already assembled.

“Bennett, what’s your rank?”

“Same as yours except mine is legitimate.”

Detecting a note of anger in the man’s reply, Adam knew he had to tread lightly. “I’m sorry if I have stepped on any toes around here. I’m new at this. I may be quite a bit older than you, but I think that you have a lot to teach me, so if you don’t mind, I would like to ask some questions.”

Accepting that Adam was deferring to his experience even though he was probably a dozen years older and stood at least six inches taller and looked as intimidating as any man the young lieutenant had ever seen, Bennett agreed. For the next half hour, they discussed the rudimentary aspects of being a lieutenant in the Army. They were missing some of the ranks normally associated with a regiment so they would be assuming more duties than a lieutenant normally did but their regiment would also be smaller than the usual with only three companies of soldiers in it.

“We’ve got three companies of about seventy men each. That’s small for a regiment but we’re only looking for about fifty men so we have a four to one advantage. We only have one sergeant with experience and no corporals so we’ll have to assign field ranks as we see men who appear to have some aptitude for what they’re doing. The other lieutenant in the regiment has experience but he hasn’t served for at least ten years.”

“Bennett, I don’t mean to pry into your personal life, but you seem very knowledgeable and skilled to be involved in this rather amateurish operation. I guess I’m surprised to find someone like you here. You and Major Turnbull are the only professional soldiers here although I can’t speak to the colonel and his aide who stood there and said nothing.”

“Oh, Colonel Watt is only here to authorize us and to observe. He’ll be leaving tomorrow. As to your other observation, Major Turnbull is my stepfather. He didn’t feel that he was being granted the field commissions he was deserved on the front lines in the eastern front. When I graduated from West Point and was commissioned, he requested me as his aide and requested a posting in the west. I believe my mother and her family may have had something to do with it.”

“Parents do have a way of interfering in what you want to do with your life.”

“Surely that is not a problem with you.”

Shaking his head, Adam had to smile. “You may find that age has nothing to do with a parent’s desire to direct their son’s life. I’ll tell you about it sometime when we have nothing better to do.”

“Maybe you could tell me more about this country. We’ve only been here a short time. Most of our time has been up in Washington and Oregon. This country is very different from there.”

“I’ll be happy to share whatever I know. We’re all in this together for the next few months.”

The next few days were very busy with training, organizing, and planning. Colonel Watt and his aide left to return to their usual billet leaving Turnbull to handle the rest of the organization of his unit and then the pursuit of the supposed hostile forces operating in the area. Neither man was at all interested in Adam’s questions about whether the stories were true. With the maps out, they planned a campaign to sweep to the east and north to cover the likeliest places for such a force to be hiding especially if they were getting assistance from the Southern Paiute. Adam’s contention that those tribal groups were the least likely to be able and willing to help any such force were met with even more of a negative response from Turnbull.

“Have you some sympathy for the Indian, Mr. Cartwright? You seem at every turn to try to turn us from our orders and protect these savages.”

“No, in fact, I have had little contact with the Southern Paiute, but what little I have had has shown me that they are weak and disorganized. The loss of their lands and their traditional way of life as well as devastating losses from diseases they caught from the white man has left them in small bands nearly unable to care for themselves. They are hardly in any position to help anyone else.”

“Out reports are that the Confederate unit has been hiding out with them and that they have been cooperating in raids to secure supplies and horses.”

“Except no one has actually seen a Confederate soldier who can give any kind of accurate description. None have been caught and none have been killed despite the persistent rumors that they have been in this area for nearly three years now, and to what purpose have they been here?”

“It is not your place to question orders of the United States Army. Your background as a rancher in one small part of one state hardly qualifies you to make policy decisions. You will here on out refrain from making any comments on planning and strategy and hold your comments to questions submitted to you.”

So Adam held back his retorts and comments though he was sorely tempted on many occasions to say what he was thinking. Each time it reinforced his earlier contention that he was a better choice to be here than his younger brother who would have chafed equally under the command of Major Turnbull but would have been unlikely to hold his temper with the martinet’s attitude and dismissive comments. As expected, they spent weeks and then nearly two months sweeping back and forth over the areas marked in grids on the map, and they never found any sign whatsoever of any kind of military outfit in the area. Turnbull became more and more shrill in his commentary and short-tempered in general. The men too were becoming ill tempered. There were frequent disagreements that turned into minor fights that had to be ended and the participants disciplined. That led of course to resentment of the officers who decreed the punishments that were often digging latrines for encampments and doing kitchen duty. Riding, camping, doing camp duties, and the repeating of those chores made for very unhappy soldiers among men who had expected glory and excitement. Adam suspected that the small bands of Southern Paiute saw the large force approaching, and because of their experience with whites up to this point, moved off and hid in the desert lands where none of them would be found except by experienced trackers. Turnbull never asked Adam to do any tracking, and after his experiences with the major, he didn’t volunteer.

The men continued to look for some kind of encounter with the enemy so they could see some action, but unfortunately that action came when they came in contact with a Shoshone hunting party instead of any of the parties for which they were searching. Cries of Injun were yelled up and down the column before dozens of men broke rank and chased the hunting party who had not thought to flee at first because they had done nothing wrong and usually had a working relationship with the Army scouting for them and often fighting beside them against common enemies. Many shots were fired after the fleeing men and several found their mark. One Shoshone man fell and it appeared several others might have been wounded by the way they slumped over their mounts and others urged their horses to run. Perhaps a dozen men surrounded the fallen man clubbing him with rifle butts until he was dead and then fell on him with knives taking souvenirs. Adam rode up and ordered them away firing his pistol in the air until the men finally stepped back leaving the grisly result behind. Adam shook his head and stared at the ground upset that he was with men who could act like such savages. Turnbull rode up beside him.

“Why are you so squeamish? It’s one less savage to kill women and children. Surely you know they do that? We were sent out here to hunt them down. It’s a start.”

“This is not a Southern Paiute. This was a hunting party of Shoshone. Surely you know that they work with the Army and have never made war on Americans except when they have been attacked. They will defend themselves.”

“We haven’t seen any other Indians out here. How could we know? How did you know?”

“I live here. I can tell a Shoshone from a Paiute.”

“Well then where are these Southern Paiute? Based on the map, we should have found them by now.”

“I’m sure they can see this column coming at least a day before we get there. All they have to do is go to one of these high points and they can see us. They pack up and move to another spot brushing out their tracks and any evidence of their camp.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“You told me to only answer questions put to me, sir. I’m doing that now, sir.”

“You are the most impertinent man. I should give you lashes for what you’ve done.”

“What military rule have I broken, sir?” Sensing that Turnbull was on the edge, Adam was careful to use proper military etiquette so there would be no excuse. He knew he was on thin ice with the Major who would probably like to do nothing better than to have him take some lashes. He was frustrated, and from what Adam could tell, the reason he had not gotten field promotions in the War was because he was generally inept as an officer.

“Clean up this mess, and get your men in order. We’ll go as far as that grove up ahead and set up camp for the night.” The clipped words let Adam know that Turnbull was still very angry. He would be looking for a way to punish Adam for his perceived impertinence and because Turnbull needed to blame someone for his own failures.

“You don’t have to push him so. You’re likely to get the lash at the pace you’re setting.” Bennett liked Adam and much preferred his company to that of his stepfather. As they got the men organized and moved to the site for that night’s camp, they were able to talk.

“This whole campaign should be ended. There are no Confederates. The Southern Paiute are not helping anyone. It was all a huge rumor that got bigger with every retelling.”

“After what you told him, I’m afraid he’ll do something, but I doubt it will be to call it off. He doesn’t give up that easily. He’s like a bulldog with a bone. He’ll worry it until there’s nothing left.”

“I suppose we’re destined to ride around out here then for several more months.”

Turnbull’s voice could be heard calling for Bennett then. “Watch your back, my friend. Those months could be very uncomfortable for you if you don’t.”

As they rode on the next morning, several Shoshone men showed up on a hill to their left. Many of the men wanted to ride after them as they raised their backsides at the column and taunted them. Major Turnbull ordered a halt and ordered the men to hold their ranks. Thinking to put Adam in his place, he ordered him forward and told him to pick some men and ride after the two men on the hill.

“Respectfully, sir, no. It’s a trap. It’s a method that they use to lure men in. On the other side of that hill, they’ll have their men waiting. If we pursue those two, they will ride up and over the crest, and when we follow, as we clear the crest, we’ll ride into a hail of bullets and be in a completely defenseless position.”

“That’s poppycock. You expect me to believe savages like that can carry out advanced military strategy?”

“They can and do.”

“It’s too late now anyway.” Bennett pointed up the hill. The two men had tired of the game and had retreated. Apparently they had thought they had failed to entice the soldiers into a chase so had given up.

“Tomorrow, you will help us track those men, Mister Cartwright, or I will have you up on charges. Is that clear?”

“Very clear, sir.”

The next morning, Adam led the column and did his best to follow the tracks of the hunting party that was moving slowly. It was clear to Adam that they probably had two wounded men with them. It was hard to find the trail though in the sand because of the wind so they moved as slowly as the men they were following. Turnbull was incessantly impatient, but even he could see that the tracks were faint and difficult to see. It took them several days of tracking to find the Shoshone camps and that included one day of sitting and waiting while Adam rode back and forth across a wide expanse of sand and rock until he found the trail that he had lost. That put the Shoshone a full day at least ahead of them and made Turnbull even edgier. It also meant that the Shoshone were unaware that they were being pursued. The men reached their home camp, got the wounded men settled in, and set out again to hunt because the foray into the desert country had been unsuccessful and the loss of one man and the wounding of two others meant they had to return home without hunting any longer. They left the camp in mourning for the man who had been killed, but there would be far more mourning if they did not bring back food for their hungry families. It was that camp that the regiment finally found. Adam expected that they would ride in and demand the surrender of the men they were pursuing. Instead, Turnbull organized a charge.

“You can’t. There are women and children in there. From what I could see of the camp, most of the men are gone. All you have to do is ride up to them and order the men to come out.”

“I’ve told you before not to interfere. You’re on report, Mister. Now stand aside.”

As Turnbull turned away, Adam drew his pistol and fired three times in the air before the shocked soldiers next to him dragged him from his horse and clubbed him into submission on Turnbull’s orders. People in the camp turned and saw a few white men begin to emerge into view. Many grabbed children and fled to their ponies and rode away. Turnbull hurriedly ordered the charge into the defenseless camp and his men killed all who were there and but could not pursue those who had fled. Most got away but probably a dozen were killed including the two wounded men from the previous encounter. Most of the dead were women and children. Bayonets had been thrust through the bodies of two children killing them. The camp was trashed and burned and the Indian ponies that were still there were slaughtered. The bodies were mutilated as the first man had been and many of the soldiers walked away with bloody souvenirs. A furious Turnbull rode back to where Adam waited and ordered the men to put him under arrest.

“You have been disrespectful and impertinent. You refused to follow a direct order when I told you to pursue those men on that hill. You delayed our pursuit of these Indians. Then you warned them so that many escaped which is the worst offense of all. You will be court martialed.”

“I welcome a court martial. I would enjoy the opportunity to explain each and every one of those charges and the murder of the people here today and the murder of that man previously. By the time I’m done explaining, your career will be in shreds.”

“Take him away and keep him tied up.”

Turnbull was furious. The last thing that he wanted was for Adam to start talking especially to superior officers. There was always the chance that he would be believed, and even if he wasn’t, there would always be some doubt about Turnbull’s record. It would hound him just like all the other marks against him had hounded him in the past. He ordered them to set up a camp and had Bennett and the other lieutenant take charge of that. He sat in his tent for an hour thinking about what he could do finally emerging with a small smile. Bennett came up to his stepfather. He had not taken part in the raid on the camp and had held his men back as well. The other lieutenant had followed his lead. Their men had been in the way of pursuit and that was one of the reasons so many of the Indians escaped. Turnbull looked at him and decided to question him about that first.

“Too squeamish to fight in battle, boy?”

“I will not make war on women and children, sir. That is not what I was taught at West Point.”

“That Cartwright has been a bad influence on you.”

“On the contrary, I believe he has been a very good influence. I’m putting in a request for transfer, sir. I want to be in a different command, any command, as long as it is not with you. I suggest we should head back to Carson City, sir. There are no Confederates out here and there never were. We have done enough damage. We should go back before we start an Indian War.”

Turnbull surprised his stepson by mostly agreeing with that assessment. “You can take the men back who refused to fight today, but Cartwright is my problem. He stays with me and with the company of soldiers who were brave enough to follow me today.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I can’t court martial him here because I don’t have three senior officers, but I can rescind his field commission, and he’s just Private Cartwright again. He can be punished on my orders then, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“His father is an important man in this state. You can’t kill him.”

“I’m not going to kill him. I’m going to put him out of commission for a while so I can tell my story first. By the time he’s able to tell his version of events, no one will care.”

“What will you do to him?”

“He’ll get ten lashes. Then I’ll take him back to that hostile missionary woman we passed two days ago. I’ll leave him with her. She won’t like having him there, but she’ll make sure he lives. We can honestly report that he was in no condition to make the long hard ride back with us. Once he’s healed up, it will take some time for him to work his way back home. By then, this will all have blown over.”

“That’s a very harsh way of dealing with him.”

“Do you have a better suggestion, and remember that I am keeping him alive. My first inclination was to have him shot. Keep that in mind. It is a war, and mutiny is punishable by firing squad.”

“I guess it is an acceptable solution. He’ll recover, and nothing can bring those people back to life.”

“None of them would have gotten away if you had used your men in pursuit.”

Bennett said nothing because there was nothing to say to that. He went to talk to Adam then to tell him what was going to happen.

“Well at least he isn’t going to have me shot. I had considered that as a possibility.”

“Adam, I have never met a braver man than you, but no one more foolish either. You take such great chances.”

“I see what has to be done, and I do it. It didn’t do much good though. Those people were still murdered.”

“Most got away.”

“You saw them?”

“Yes. I held my men back. I wouldn’t participate in something like that. It was shameful. But I couldn’t stop them.”

“Sometimes all you can do is to what you can do. Sometimes you can’t stop the evil that other men do no matter how much you would like to try.”

“I think if you ever run for President, I would vote for you. I’ll be leaving in the morning. When I get back, I’m asking for a transfer. My stepfather doesn’t know it yet, but I’ll be filing a complete report of what happened out here. By the time he gets back, he’ll have some questions to answer. I’ve been writing things down every night. I saw you do the same. May I take those notes you made? I’ll turn them in with my own.”

“Please do. I’m sure if they find my journal in my belongings, they’ll destroy it.”

“That was my thought too. Adam, I hope we can still be friends if we meet again.”

Nodding, Adam had nothing left to say. The next morning, stiff and sore, he leaned against the tree to which he was tied and watched most of the men ride out with Bennett leading them. In less than a week, they would be home and mustered out and he had to hope that the true story of what had happened out here would be in official hands and hopefully in the newspapers as well. However Adam knew he would not get to savor that victory. Men came and untied the ropes holding him to the tree, stripped his shirt from him, turned him around and tied his arms around the tree. The next sound he heard chilled him even in the hot desert morning. The sound of a whip snapping was painful even when it wasn’t striking your bare back. He steeled himself for the first blow and it wasn’t as bad as he expected. The second was worse as whomever was wielding the whip crossed the first stripe with the second and then crossed both with the third. By the tenth stripe, Adam could barely stand with the blow as pain was radiating from his back throughout his body it seemed. He had not screamed holding himself as rigid as possible to avoid that. The man with the whip must have seen him relax somewhat with the tenth blow and with a sadistic streak swung the whip an eleventh time. Adam did scream with the unexpected lash that splashed blood when it landed. He rocked back and forth as far as the ropes allowed as the agony was overwhelming. He never felt them release the ropes binding his arms nor the hands that pressed bandages to his back to stop the bleeding. He was given some water to drink but retched and was given no more. It was the last water he would have for the next day and a half. At some point, he was put up on a horse and his hands were tied to the saddle horn. He had a hat on his head. Pain was his constant companion, and by that evening, he had a fever as well. The following afternoon, they reached the missionary’s home. A dozen Indians lived around her house and small stable and corral but they kept well out of sight when the soldiers were there. They had heard what had happened at the Shoshone camp. Adam was taken from his horse and carried to her house.

“I don’t want him here.”

“He’s hurt. He can’t ride any more. If you don’t take him, he’ll die. You’re a religious woman. You can’t say no.”

Priscilla Stowe wanted to say that she could say no, but she couldn’t. She tried to say that she didn’t have enough supplies to care for him, but Major Turnbull said he would leave extra supplies. She said she didn’t have a horse for him to ride, and Turnbull laughed heartily at that.

“That will be his problem when he heals up. By then, he’ll be a civilian again. This unit is being disbanded.”

“You’ve done your dirty deeds and now you go home, is that it?”

“We did our duty, and now we go home as befits the soldier. I will file my reports, and then I will ride with my men to Carson City. We have done our duty.”

The men were standing in front of her with Adam then. She reluctantly moved aside so they could carry him into her house. She pointed to a cot in the front room near her fireplace and they laid him there. Priscilla followed the men out and stood on her porch. Turnbull tossed a coin on the porch of her home. She ignored it.

“Payment for your services to the United States Army.”

“I don’t want it.”

“We pay for services rendered. What you do with it is none of our concern. His name is Adam Cartwright in case he dies and you have to put a marker on his grave.”

With a smirk, Turnbull wheeled his horse to lead his men away. Priscilla watched the column ride away dismayed to have one of them in her home but not seeing a way out of her dilemma. She turned to go inside and heard Adam moaning. She went to him and pressed her hand on his forehead finding that he had a high fever. She wondered at what kind of injury he had for the story she had heard of the attack was that none of the soldiers had been attacked or injured in any way. Yet he had some severe bruising on his chest and abdomen that she saw when she began stripping his clothing from him. She stopped when she unbuttoned his shirt and pulled the shirttails from his pants exposing the bandages on his back. Pulling up the corners of the bandages because she could see the ends of the stripes left by the whip, she took a look under the blood soaked cotton bandages. The red marks extended beyond the bandages and were angry looking red welts but not nearly as awful as the oozing and infected open wounds she saw under the bandages.

“Now why would they whip you out here and then leave you with me?”

 

Chapter 3

It took Priscilla nearly an hour to get Adam undressed. In his fever induced delirium, he struggled against her much of the time so that she had to work to get his clothing removed, but she couldn’t assess his condition without seeing why he was so feverish. She could hardly care for him well and take care of his needs if he was fully dressed on the cot. Although she had objected when Turnbull had deposited him in her home, he was correct in his assumption that she would care for him. She knew she would care for the devil himself if he was on her doorstep in pain and needing help. At this point, she didn’t see much difference between a soldier and the devil either. She knew that she was being too rough with him but could not get the story of what she had heard out of her mind. Babies bayoneted, women disemboweled, and then bodies mutilated with not only scalps taken but private parts and fingers cut away and taken as souvenirs. She had heard that luckily someone had sounded a warning or the whole camp would have been slaughtered. She wished she knew who had led them to that camp that was so well hidden away in the hills that no Army unit should have been able to find them. Although the Shoshone worked with the Army very often, they were still careful and took care to keep their camps in defensive positions. Whoever had led the unit to the camp, she was sure it was not that Turnbull. It was someone with some knowledge of the area and the ability to track. She thought that if she ever met that man, she might be willing to kill him herself. Adam’s moans brought her back to her task which let her wipe her mind of the terrible thoughts at least for a time as she cleaned him up and did her best to push the angry looking wounds on his back into a semblance of order so that the edges could heal together. She applied a poultice of pinon, prickly pear cactus, honey, and osha. The Southern Paiute, among whom she had worked for nearly a decade, had taught her a great deal about the healing properties of a number of plants, and she hoped that she could use these now to help heal the dark haired man who was suffering so even if she thought that his suffering was a deserved punishment for what the soldiers had done. Once she finished with that, she placed a bandage over the wounds and wrapped strips of cloth around him to keep the large poultice in place. Adam was calmer by that point either through exhaustion or perhaps because he had less pain. She supposed that it could have been both. He even seemed to cooperate somewhat as she worked the cloth strips around his chest. As she got a bottle filled with water to give him a drink, she was surprised to see him looking at her.

“You should drink some water.” He nodded almost imperceptibly unwilling to move too much and cause any pain. She held the bottle to his lips, and he drank well. She continued to give him sips of the water until the bottle was empty. It was fairly clear that he had not had enough water which had probably contributed to his fever by making him weaker. She asked if he needed to relieve himself.

In a very weak voice, he managed to answer. “No, I haven’t had anything since it happened.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Yesterday morning, I think.”

She knew then that it was the morning after the slaughter at the Shoshone camp. It made her angry again just to think about that. “Why? Didn’t you murder enough women and children? Didn’t you ravage them enough? Mutilate and destroy enough to satisfy your commanding officer?”

“No, I didn’t.”

He said it softly and with no emotion in his voice. She didn’t know what to make of his answer. Was he feeling remorse? Was it guilt? Anger? She couldn’t tell. She knew she shouldn’t talk to him about this. He was her patient and needed to rest. Her best option at this time was to leave the house and give herself time to burn away some of the anger before she did something she would regret. She stood and walked out without saying anything more. When she walked out the door, Adam closed his eyes, but he couldn’t shut down the visions in his mind. As he had repeatedly since it had happened, he saw the attack on the camp and the murder of a dozen defenseless Shoshone. He knew he had saved lives by his action, but he also felt responsible because he had led the Army unit to the camp. If he had not tracked the hunting party, Turnbull would never have found them. When he lost the tracks in the desert, he thought he should have told Turnbull that he couldn’t find them again. When he had found those tracks again, he had sealed the fate of those dozen people. He felt overwhelming guilt for what had happened. His act of heroism to him was the desperate act of a man trying to right a wrong and failing. He succumbed to his weakness then and fell into an exhausted sleep not waking again until the morning when he heard the woman stirring about the small house. He presumed that she had a bedroom, but he had not asked. She was wearing a different dress than the day before. She was working in the kitchen area of the small house not more than a dozen feet from where he lay. He needed to relieve himself but was reluctant to ask for her help after the hostility of the day before but realized very quickly that he couldn’t delay much longer.

“Could you help me?”

She dropped the spoon she had been using and jumped back almost startled as if she had forgotten that there was man resting on the cot in her front room. She had spent much of the night sitting at his side wondering what she should do, but now confronted with the conscious man, she was brought out of her thoughts and thrust into reality. Embarrassed by her reaction, she reacted again with hostility to him.

“Can’t you wait until I finish here?”

“I’m afraid that I can’t. I would have waited if I thought I could or I would have tried to get up by myself if I thought I could manage that, but the room seems to be a bit unsteady. My conclusion is that it is more likely me.”

Priscilla wiped her hands on a towel and approached Adam who was struggling to move his legs to the side of the cot. She moved the blanket and grabbed his ankles to swing his legs around and heard him exclaim. Looking up, she saw the grimace and how he pursed his lips to hold back any more exclamations. She did feel badly about that and was more gentle then helping him to wrap the blanket around himself for some modesty. Once he had done that, she sat beside him and put his arm around her shoulders.

“I’ll stand. Do your best to get up with me because I don’t think I can do this by myself. Then we’ll stand for a moment until you get your bearings. Once you do, we’ll go out the door and to the right. At the end of the porch, there’s a small area for cleaning up. I’ve set a bucket there for your use. There’s a pitcher of water, soap, and a towel there for you to clean up afterwards.”

Adam was too much in pain and too weak to say anything so he nodded in response. It worked as Priscilla said except it took quite a bit longer to get him there than she anticipated, and she was unprepared for the reaction she got being so close to him. She had to admit to herself that he was very masculine, and that he impressed her very much that way, but she forcefully reminded herself that he was one of the soldiers who had been at the Shoshone camp. That helped her keep her emotional distance even as there was no physical separation. The wash area had a small half door. She pulled it closed once Adam was there and turned her back returning to the house to finish preparing their breakfast telling Adam she would return to help him walk back inside. He asked for his pants and she said she would bring them. She had washed them the night before and they were drying next to the fireplace. He needed to shave, but they had neglected to leave his saddlebags with him so he didn’t have a shaving kit or any of his personal possessions. Luckily there was a stool there because Adam found that he couldn’t stand for more than a few seconds without swaying and that risked a fall each time. He managed to clean himself fairly well although it took quite some time. Then laboriously, he managed to get his pants on. Priscilla had come back and hung them over the half door. He supposed that she could have seen him naked, but she had already seen him naked the day before when she undressed him and covered him with a sheet and a blanket after cleaning the wounds on his back and applying the poultice. His back was still very painful but it was not the hot searing pain he had felt previously. Her ministrations had helped him and he assumed that he was beginning to heal. He was thinking about that when he was startled a bit by her voice for he had not heard her approaching. More observant this time, he noted that she wore moccasins instead of shoes or boots as she helped him back into the small house. He was barefoot and was careful to lift his feet as he walked so that he would not get any splinters.

“I cleaned up your boots too, but your socks need darning. They didn’t leave any extra clothing for you so you’ll have to wait until I have time to darn those socks.”

“I didn’t mean to seem ungrateful. I didn’t want to get any splinters so I was being careful. I am very appreciative of all that you’ve done for me already. Thank you.”

“No need for that. Now, sit at the table here, and I’ll serve up our breakfast. It’s simple fare. Eggs and potatoes. Unless one of the Paiute bring in some game to trade, we’ll likely have about the same for lunch and for dinner. I may bake some beans if I have time to soak them.”

“Whatever you fix is fine with me. Could I have more water to drink though? I’m very thirsty.” Once Priscilla had refilled Adam’s glass, he drained it and waited for her to fill it again. “Will you tell me your name?”

That caused Priscilla to pause. Although she knew Adam’s name, she hadn’t used it because names implied more of a personal relationship than she wanted to have with this man, and yet she had cared for his wounds, helped him to the wash area, and seen him naked. She didn’t suppose that sharing names would add that much more of a personal nature to their relationship than what had already occurred. “My name is Priscilla Stowe. I already know your name is Adam Cartwright. They told me when they dropped you off here yesterday. I was surprised that they punished you out here and didn’t take you back to face discipline or a court martial.”

“You don’t think that Major Turnbull wants an official inquiry relating to anything that happened out here, do you? The less that is said about it, the better as far as he’s concerned. He wanted me out of the way.”
“What did you do?”

“Quite a few things actually. He said I didn’t follow orders and that I was impertinent and disrespectful.”

“Were you?”

“Not nearly as much as I should have been.”

Not much was said then for quite a while as they ate their breakfast. When Adam asked for another glass of water, Priscilla asked one question that she guessed he might be able to answer. “Who led them to the Shoshone? Who knew the area well enough and could track well enough to find that camp?”

Setting his fork down on his plate because his appetite had disappeared, Adam felt nauseated once more. He steeled himself and looked across the table at Priscilla who was already anticipating his answer. “I did.”

“You’re responsible then for all those deaths. I wish I hadn’t helped you at all. I wish you had died.” She stood and walked from the house. Adam didn’t see her the rest of the day. He cleaned up the breakfast dishes and pans. He drank water and sat on the chair or rested on the cot at the side of the room. He supposed that he would have to leave soon but had no idea where he would go or how he would be able to leave.

That answer came in the late afternoon. A Shoshone man arrived with Adam’s horse. Adam heard the horses outside the house, struggled to his feet, and made his way to the small porch. He could speak reasonably well in the Paiute language, but his Shoshone was limited to mostly some common nouns. At first he managed to understand most of those that the man used. The man seemed to know that Adam didn’t know much of what he was saying and used quite a few hand gestures and pantomimes as well. When he said wa’ipi, baha’, and waazi-, then Adam knew that the Shoshone were aware that he had been the one to fire the warning shots that had allowed so many, especially the women and children, to escape the attack on the village and to hide from the soldiers. Adam understood the words dosabite and antapittseh but didn’t understand what the man said about what had happened to that white enemy. Priscilla came back then and translated what the man said in that part of the conversation.

“Your soldiers rode into a trap and were killed. Decoys went out and they chased them up and over a hill into the guns of the others who were waiting for them. All were killed and they were mutilated in the exact same way as the bodies of their victims had been mutilated. Their possessions were destroyed as they had destroyed the possessions of their victims, but their horses were not killed. They were taken to replace the ones that had been killed. Yours they give back to you.” Priscilla was very confused by that. The young man did not explain. Adam knew why and the young man knew why. The young man looked at Priscilla and used one of the few English words that he knew when he pointed at Adam. He said good and then dainah. Why he called Adam a good man further confused Priscilla but again she received no explanation. The young man left then.

Adam knew that he was too weak to lead that horse across the yard to the stable and to unsaddle him, groom him, and feed and water him. “Can you take care of the horse or ask someone to do that? He shouldn’t suffer because I’m too weak to care for him today.”

“I’ll take care of him. You can sleep on the cot again.”

Priscilla didn’t ask if he was hungry or needed anything, but at least she wasn’t kicking him out to the stable or out altogether. Adam said a simple thank you and retreated to the cot as instructed. He fell asleep almost as soon as he lay down on his side. He didn’t hear Priscilla return and didn’t know that she stood and stared at him for quite a long time. He was an enigma to her. She wanted to work out the answers to the puzzle of the dark haired man who had led the soldiers to the Shoshone but who received a horse and saddle from the same Shoshone as if he was being rewarded for something. She didn’t understand how those two things could possibly make sense and yet both were true. Finally she retired to her bedroom but found sleep did not come easily. The next morning she had many questions but started with the first one that she had the evening before and hoped to move on to the more complicated ones.

“You didn’t seem surprised that Major Turnbull and the others were killed in that ambush. Why not?”

With a wry smile and a shake of his head, Adam took a sip of his drink first before answering her. “It was one of those things that earned me these lashes. The Shoshone tried that trick on him before. I refused to follow his order and chase after the decoys. He was furious. He accused me of trying to save Indian lives. He didn’t understand that instead I was trying to save soldiers’ lives. He often accused me of having sympathy for the Indians.”

“I doubt that you have any sympathy for Indians.” As soon as she said it, Priscilla knew that she had ruined her chances of learning more from him at that moment. His face became hard and closed to her. He sipped his drink and ate his meal with no indication that he even noticed her sitting there across the small table. When they finished their meal, he offered to help clean up. “No, it will take me only a few minutes. Then I want to remove the bandages from your back and see the condition of those lashes you got. If you would turn and sit backwards in the chair, that would be the easiest way for me to take care of you.”

Silently Adam complied, and after a few minutes, Priscilla untied the cloths that held the poultice in place. The wounds were healing and there was little drainage. She used soap and water only to clean the whole area of his back as he remained silent reacting not at all to what she was doing. Then she applied some salve made from the same ingredients that had been in the poultice before wrapping a light bandage over his back and wrapping cotton bandages around his chest and up and over his shoulders to hold it all in place. It was still quite warm so he didn’t need his shirt, but she was becoming uncomfortable with his naked chest especially as he became healthier. She handed him his freshly laundered shirt.

“Don’t tuck it in. Just let it hand loose so it doesn’t chafe or pull against any of the bandages. I’ve darned your socks and they’re clean and dry now too if you would like to wear your boots.”

Once he was dressed and even with only the short heels of his boots, Adam was even more imposing than he had been before and seemed to fill her small house. She took a deep breath and suggested he ought to see if he was strong enough to go to the stable to feed and water his horse.

“I can stay then?”

“Of course you can stay. You’re not in any condition to travel yet.” But Priscilla had to turn away a bit embarrassed because she knew that the day before she had been ready to send him on his way even though he would surely have died. Even now, he might succumb to the elements if she made him leave. Then she knew that she needed to apologize for her bad behavior of the day before. “I’m sorry for what I said yesterday. It was harsh and I should never have said that you should have died. No one should die. I was upset, and I let my mouth say cruel things. I am sorry and hope that you can forgive me.” Adam nodded but said nothing. She supposed that he was thinking that she felt the way she had the day before even if she had apologized for the words because she had not been very specific in saying that she did not hold him responsible for the deaths of those Shoshone killed by the soldiers. Even as she thought about it again, she felt her anger rise. She listened as he walked outside, and then was shocked to hear the Paiute women greet him by name and heard him answer in their language. She simply could not understand this situation at all, and Adam did not seem inclined to want to talk about it nor explain any of it to her although she had to admit that her quick condemnation of him and sharp remarks had probably built that invisible wall between them.

The next few days passed much the same way with no meaningful conversation until news arrived with a trader moving through. He brought a newspaper with him, and there was an account of the expedition on the front page. In the article, the story had been written of the supposedly successful assault on the Indians who helped the Confederates, but that there was the story too of what was portrayed as a tragic massacre of one of the Army units after that. Lieutenant Bennett had been shipped east and the information for the article was from the official report written by Major Turnbull but turned in by the third lieutenant of the regiment, Morgan, who had done little but apparently was willing to say whatever they wanted him to say. The truth had been buried. The Army had sent a patrol out and they had collected the personal possessions or what was left of them and there was a list in the paper of the men who had been killed. Adam had been reported as among the dead because no one could identify what was left of the dead on the battlefield and they were buried where they were found. Adam read that and realized that his family would have gotten word that he had died.

“I have to leave now. I have to get somewhere where I can send a telegram or a letter. I have to let them know that I’m alive.”

“You have no money.”

“I’ll have to find a way. I may have to sell something I have, but I will send it.”

“I have the coin that Turnbull threw down. I told him I didn’t want it. It’s a twenty dollar gold piece. You take it. At least it will do some good that way, and I never have to touch it again.”

“Thank you for that, and for everything. I’ll come back when I can and bring something to help you with your work here as payment for all you did for me.”

“When you come back, will you tell me what happened and how you will live with yourself after what happened?”

“I can live with myself just fine. I did what I had to do, and I had no way of knowing what others would do, and I can’t be responsible for what other men do. The dreams I have at night and the memories that haunt my days are what I find hard to live with. I can never forget what I saw.”

Priscilla wondered at his enigmatic answer but knew she would get no more from him. Her father had told her over and over when she was growing up that she needed to govern her tongue, but she had not learned that lesson. Too often she blurted out the first thought in her head. With this man, she had done that several times. She knew now that he was a thoughtful man, and she could not reconcile the man she had come to know with the knowledge that he had helped lead the expedition that had murdered Shoshone women, children, and wounded men. As he rode away, she walked to the wickiups of some of the Paiute who lived there with her. They knew that they were safe from the Army as long as they lived on the mission property and professed to be Christian. Priscilla was well aware that they were Christian but also practiced their cultural beliefs. It was the best she could do for now so she had learned to accept it. She greeted some of the women and asked after their children. Finally, her curiosity got the best of her and she had to ask the women why they had been so friendly with Adam after what had happened to the Shoshone.

“His father and Chief Winnemucca are friends. Adam and Chief Winnemucca are friends. Adam fired his gun to warn the Shoshone. That is why the soldiers hurt him. The Shoshone watched the camp all night. They wanted to try to get in to the camp to rescue him. He was guarded too well. They could not. They followed the soldiers. They knew he was here. They followed the soldiers from here. You know what they did.”

“So that’s why they brought a horse here for him.”

“Yes, horses are very valuable. By giving his horse back, they pay him back. It is even now.”

Priscilla knew that by white man’s law, that made no sense because Adam owned the horse all along, but by their logic, he had lost his horse so they had given him a horse. Adam had accepted it too so he had accepted their logic too. She knew now that she had underestimated him as well as unfairly condemned him when she should have thanked him for what he had done. She was feeling very guilty, and she knew too that he was not in good condition to travel and someone should have gone with him besides the trader. She hoped the man would help Adam if he needed it. She need not have worried. The trader had recognized Adam’s name and knew that he would get paid well for his services. He did everything he could to be sure that payment would be forthcoming when he got Adam to the nearest town with a telegraph wire. They had to go north and east which was away from the Ponderosa, but it would get them to the nearest town much faster than heading to the west or south. They had to spend two nights camping out, and Adam found that he missed that short hard little cot when he had to spread a bedroll on the ground and pull a blanket around his shoulders. His back still hurt and pulled whenever he tried to do too much reminding him that he was still healing. The trader was as helpful as he could be and Adam was grateful for that. He knew the man was doing it for money, but at this point, he didn’t care what the reason was that made him help. He couldn’t make the trip yet on his own. When they arrived in the little town on the proposed rail line, the telegraph lines were there as the trader had promised. Adam went directly to the telegraph office and composed a message. The cost of a telegram was based on words so he had to make it short with the few dollars he had.

“Death report was error. Life equals hope. Letter soon. Adam.”

 

Chapter 4

The next stop for Adam after the telegraph office was the bank where he asked them to send for confirmation of his identity so that he could draw funds on his name from his accounts in Virginia City. They said it would take a few days so he had to stretch what was left of his twenty dollars. He paid the trader five with a promise of more when he got funds from the bank, put his horse in the livery stable, bought a clean shirt and some socks, got himself a room paying fifty cents extra for a bath, and then had three dollars left. He guessed if he was careful, he had enough to eat for a few days until the bank got authorization to give him some money. The trader had asked if he could expect payment for the food he had fed him and the bedroll he had used. Adam said that he would have to wait the two or three days until the bank got authorization to give him funds. The trader said he would be back in three days and headed out to try to sell some goods in the meantime. Adam asked around and found that there was a school and they had the only small library in town. The next day when he saw the children leaving the schoolhouse, he headed there to see if he could borrow a book to read. The schoolteacher seemed suspicious of his request as much as she had been surprised to look up at the knock on the schoolhouse door to find a tall dark cowboy standing there with his hat in hand.

“I’ve never had a cowboy come in requesting a book before. There are books for sale in the store. You might find something more to your liking there.”

“No, I’m afraid I did not. Dime novels are not my idea of enjoyable reading. If you would rather not share a book, that’s fine. I have a couple of days to wait here, and I thought to spend the time reading.”

“What were you interested in borrowing then?” She was beginning to be curious about what he might want.

“I hoped for Shakespeare or any book of poetry, but Emerson or any essayist would be fine as well or anything similar.”

“Now I am amazed. I do have a book by Emerson but I use it in my lessons. However at the boardinghouse where I stay, I have a collection of Shakespeare’s works. You would be welcome to borrow that if you could wait a short time and walk there with me. I am to stay at the schoolhouse until four each day if anyone wants to see me. I have another twenty minutes of that time before I am free to leave.”

“I’ll wait for you outside.” He stepped outside and dropped to the top step to sit and wait. It was a nice day to sit in the sun. He was carrying his jacket but didn’t need it. He watched people going about their daily lives and reflected on how ordinary everything seemed. He wished he could feel ordinary again, but every night he awakened with nightmares. The previous night, whoever was in the room next to his had pounded on the adjoining wall and yelled for him to be quiet so that the other guests could sleep. He had gotten up and sat in a chair staring out the window at the empty street until the light of dawn appeared. He had gone back to bed then and fallen into an exhausted sleep with no nightmares, but he was tired now as a result. He leaned against the porch post and closed his eyes. A slight tap on his back a short time later had the dual impact of startling him and sending a sharp pain radiating through him. He lurched to his feet and forward grasping the railing of the stairs for support and gasping a bit.

“I’m sorry to have startled you, but did I hurt you as well?”

After a couple of deep breaths, Adam pushed down the pain and spoke deliberately. “No, well, perhaps a little. I’m recovering from an injury so you couldn’t have known. Please do not feel uncomfortable about that.”

“Were you hurt on a cattle drive?”

“No, I was doing something else. Now, which way to your boardinghouse?”

Clearly Adam didn’t want to talk about it, so she switched topics too. “We haven’t been introduced, so my name is Helen Morgenthau.”

“Pleased to meet you, Helen. My name is Adam Cartwright.”

“Adam Cartwright. I’m sure that I’ve heard that name recently.”

“Perhaps in the list of dead from the Nevada Regiment. I can assure you that was in error. I was injured and was left in the care of a missionary. I have learned that the others were killed. I am in the process of having the error corrected.”

“So you’re not a cowboy, you’re a soldier.”

“No, I am a cowboy more than I’m anything else. I was conscripted into the regiment, and now that it is disbanded, I am no longer a soldier.”

“They say that the War is about over now that General Lee has surrendered.”

“General Lee surrendered?”

“Yes, you haven’t heard. Just two days ago. It was in the paper here. The paper said that all the other units must all surrender now that he has. The War should be over soon.”

“Do you still have a copy of that newspaper? I would like to read that too.”

“I’m sure that I do. You are a voracious reader, aren’t you? Well here is the boardinghouse. I’m afraid that you cannot come inside. It is for women only, but if you wait here, I’ll bring the book and the newspaper out to you.”

The young woman walked inside and Adam realized that he found her to be quite attractive. He wondered why she was teaching school instead of being married. With so few attractive and available women in the west, usually it didn’t take long for women like her to be wooed by any number of bachelors intent on winning a bride. He expected that he would be in this little town for perhaps a week so he might have a chance to satisfy his curiosity on that score. For the time being though, being low on funds, he couldn’t even suggest that they have dinner together. He was quite surprised then when Helen suggested that they have dinner together, but he was embarrassed a bit too which didn’t escape her notice.

“Is there a reason why you would not want to be seen with me at dinner?”

“It is not that at all. I would be delighted to have dinner with you except that I am low on funds at the moment, and I’m afraid that I can hardly afford to pay for even a meager meal for myself much less to pay for a meal for another.”

“Do not presume that you are paying for my meal. I only asked if you wished to have dinner with me not that you would be paying for my dinner. I pay my own way, and I have done so for quite a long time.” Helen was perturbed by his attitude. He noted that but wasn’t sure what he had said that had bothered her so much.

“I’m sorry. I have obviously offended you in some way, and I did not mean to do so. Could we try this over again? I would be delighted to have my dinner with you this evening. If you would be so kind as to have your dinner at a place that was economical, I would appreciate that very much seeing as how my funds are quite limited at the moment.”

Amused at his attempt to defuse her temper, Helen was gracious. “You have probably discovered already that there are only two places to get a meal in this town, and I would recommend only one. If you have a reasonable intelligence and I presume that you do, you know which one that is already. Yes, I will have my dinner there with you. I think that we could have an interesting conversation.”

Dinner was basic meat and bread with coffee. Adam didn’t mind because conversation with Helen was so invigorating that it was like he was at a banquet. She had traveled a bit, was well read, and had a keen business mind. They talked over a number of topics and the conversation only stalled when they got to what had brought Adam to her small town. That made him uncomfortable, but he knew he would likely have to explain it many more times so he decided that he would try out the story on Helen. He told her what had happened to get him conscripted and then told the tale of the months of tracking a Confederate unit that did not exist until they found a Shoshone hunting party and later tracked them to their village that was attacked.

“But you were supposed to be after Southern Paiute. Surely this major could tell the difference?”

“No, he couldn’t. I think he thought like many do that Indians are Indians. I did what I could to warn the people in the camp and most of them escaped before they could be massacred, but there were women and children who were slaughtered. I saw them die and couldn’t do anything about it.”

“How did you warn them?”

“I fired shots in the air. They knew there was trouble and they ran. Some weren’t fast enough.”

“What did the major do to your for that?” Then Helen remembered his grimace when she had touched his shoulder. “Were you lashed?”

“Ten, or eleven. I thought it was ten but then there was another one. I miscounted or the man with the whip decided I needed one more.”

“I saw you react with pain when I touched your shoulder. How long ago did this happen?”

“Well over a week ago now. I don’t remember those first few days very well. I had a fever. They left me with a missionary woman and she cared for me although not very willingly.”

“Yes, I presume that would be Priscilla. She can be a bit prickly. She comes here for supplies on occasion. She is very protective of her Paiute charges, but why would she be upset with you if you were the one who warned the Shoshone of the attack?”

“I was one of the soldiers who was there, and I was the one who tracked them there. When I did so, I had no idea that he would attack women and children. I thought he would try to arrest the men, but what happened was so far outside my experience that I wasn’t ready for it. I like to plan and think ahead, but I didn’t foresee that.”

“Regardless, your back shouldn’t be hurting so much yet. You should let me take a look at it. We don’t have a doctor in town except for one who comes here once a week from Wells if he has time. Any serious cases have to make the two or three day trip there or make do with what I can do here. I’ve done some nursing so I can handle most minor things.” Helen stood up to leave then, but Adam reminded her that they had not paid for their dinners. “It’s on the house. I eat here several times a week when I tire of what the cook at the boardinghouse likes to make for dinner. She’s very traditional too, but at least here it’s a different style of traditional. I’m going to have to get a cook who knows how to cook in a different style entirely.” At Adam’s look, Helen decided to come clean. “I own the restaurant and the boardinghouse. I own the general store and the hotel too. I don’t own the bank, the livery stable, the telegraph office, or the sheriff among other things.”

It made a great deal of sense to Adam as he recalled the name of the town. “Helena makes more sense now. I had not thought to put the two together before. But you’re teaching school?”

“I like to teach school, and who’s going to tell me I can’t?” Helen laughed then with an infectious laugh that had Adam joining in. “The census form came around five years ago and only had one line for me to list occupations. None of the choices for women seemed to apply so I left it blank.”

“What were the choices?”

“Oh, housekeeper, seamstress, schoolteacher, and things like that.”

“What choices did you want?”

“Town builder, entrepreneur extraordinaire, things like that.”

Adam threw back his head and roared with laughter. It actually made his back hurt but letting loose about something funny actually felt so good that he didn’t mind. Helen steered him toward the hotel. At the desk, she picked up a bag from the clerk and pointed Adam in the direction of his room. Once they were there, she told him to remove his shirt and sit backwards in a chair by the window so that she could see his back more clearly. He felt her cool hands softly probing the lash marks on his back. Mostly it didn’t hurt although his back was tender until she reached the spot on his shoulder that she had touched that afternoon.

“It’s not too bad except for this spot on your shoulder. There’s an abscess that needs to be cleaned out. I would think a rancher would know better than to leave a small infection to grow like this. You could have been in serious trouble within a week or less.”

Very carefully, Helen opened and cleaned the abscess that had not gone any deeper than the skin level. That was reassuring to her. Then she cleaned the rest of Adam’s back and applied salve to it. He noticeably relaxed as she did that. “If you stay here for the next week, I can put salve on your back in the morning and at night. It will help your back heal, and it will be much more comfortable for you too. Now I don’t mean to be insulting, but your clothing could use some washing.”

Somewhat embarrassed, Adam had to admit the truth. “I lost my extra clothing. I only have one extra shirt and no other extra clothing so I only have these until I can get some money from the bank.”

“For now, give me your clothing and I’ll have them laundered and back to you by morning.” Adam looked a bit chagrined at the prospect of undressing in front of her. “Oh for goodness sake, I’ll turn my back and you can slip into the bed when you’ve dropped your pants. Will that take care of your modesty?”

“Lady, you certainly don’t pull any punches. All right, if you’ll turn your back.”

Helen turned away, and Adam sat to pull off his boots. He stood and slipped his belt from his pants and then unbuttoned the fly. He dropped his pants, but as he stepped to the bed to slide in, Helen turned around with a big grin. Adam hurriedly got into the bed and pulled the covers up to his waist shaking his head at her but unable to hide his own grin at her audacity. She picked up his pants and socks and took his shirt rolling the clothing into a bundle that she set on the chair. She walked to the bed and sat beside him placing a hand on his chest.

“I’ll be back in the morning. Now, you try to get some sleep, and try not to have any nightmares. The other guests have been complaining.” At Adam’s frown, she had to explain. “When I picked up my bag, Jeremy whispered to me that you were the one the others had been complaining about. I told him you are a friend of mine, and to tell the others you had a good reason for having nightmares.” Helen reached for the newspaper and the book he had borrowed and gave those to him. “These can keep you company if you can’t sleep.” Then she leaned forward and kissed him lightly before she stood, gathered his laundry and her bag, and left the room without another word or even a backwards glance. Adam knew he would sleep better having finally been able to tell his story to someone, but he knew too that he would feel even lonelier than he had felt before. He looked at the closed door and wished that she had not gone.

 

Chapter 5

On the Ponderosa, Ben slept better than he had in over a week as well. He had gotten Adam’s telegram and knew his son was alive. All the sorrow that had torn at his heart and depressed his spirit had dissipated as the sun burned away the fog. That telegram sat on his desk as valuable to him as the Holy Grail. Joe had been confused about the wording asking why Adam had included the words about life equaling hope.

“It’s so that I would know it was no hoax. He has to know that there could be people out there who might try to trick us with news that he was alive. He included that because he knows that I’ve said that where there’s life, there’s hope. Someone who didn’t know us well wouldn’t know that. Now it took some time for this telegram to get here having to go to California and around to come back to us. He doesn’t say where he is. I’m anxious to get his letter. I want to know when he’s coming home. If I can, I want to go to him. I want to see him.”

Hoss had been the one to ride home at a breakneck pace to bring the telegram that had arrived while he was in town. The telegraph operator had brought it to him wondering if someone was playing a cruel joke on them or some one trying to get money from them by pretending to be Adam, but like Ben, Hoss had realized what those words had meant. Adam was alive. He couldn’t wait to ride home to tell his father and Joe. Both had been moping around for a week since they had gotten the news. Hoss had told them he didn’t believe it. He said that there was no possible way that Adam would have let himself be drawn into such an ambush. One way or another, Hoss was sure that somehow Adam wasn’t there or had found a way to survive. He couldn’t believe that his older brother had died and that he would never see him again even if that was the greatest fear he had carried ever since he watched Adam ride away all those months ago in Carson City. Joe had been unable to stop the tears many times because he felt not only great sorrow but great guilt believing that he was somehow responsible for Adam’s death because Adam had taken his place. However neither he nor Joe had felt the blow like their father had. He and Adam had been together for thirty-five years, and Ben felt the loss as if part of himself had died. Adam was wrong when he thought that his father had prepared himself for Adam being gone because there is no possible way for a parent to prepare for the loss of a child whether they move away or are lost forever. Ben had tried to prepare himself, but as with any parent, he found that the task was impossible. To know now that Adam was alive make him feel whole again. He found himself touching his other two sons more to reassure himself that they were there and fine even as he wondered at how Adam was doing and especially where he was. They got some of that news the day after the telegram arrived. David Williams, an associate at the bank, arrived in his carriage with an urgent message for Ben.

“Mister Cartwright, we received a most unusual request from Helena, Nevada. It is in the far northeast corner of the state. We had to look on a map to even find it. Someone there is claiming to be your son Adam and is requesting access to his accounts. I thought you should know. We take our protection of your accounts very seriously and wanted you to know that we have sent word to that town that this imposter is to be dealt with immediately.”

“David, I want you to turn this rig around and hurry back to town as fast as you can go and rescind that request. I want you to forward any funds to Adam that he needs. My son is alive and he needs some money. I expect that you will do everything you can to help him. Is that clear?”

Startled at the response, Williams nodded and then agreed he would. He turned the carriage and headed back to town as Ben looked to Joe and Hoss. “We know where he is now. That’s a long way from home.”

“Pa, Joe was gonna be delivering some horses up to Ruby. I’m thinking maybe I oughta go with him, you know, to help him out, and then maybe we could ride on a ways further to see if Adam needed any company or help riding home.”

“Hoss, I was thinking the same thing except I was thinking that there’s a lot of tough terrain between here and Ruby and then those mountains too. Perhaps I ought to go along as well, and then we could all ride on to see if Adam wanted some company or some help riding back home.”

“What if we miss him along the way?”

“Joe, unless he decides he wants to ride through the desert with no water or tried to cross them mountains on his own, there’s really only one way to go. Ifn he’s coming this way, we can’t miss him, I don’t think.”

“Pa, you’ve been that way. Is Hoss right?”

“I don’t think that there’s any way to miss him if he sticks to the road. There’s only one main road. Anything else is wilderness.”

“Well, we know Adam sometimes heads out on his own into places like that. Gets himself into trouble that way too.” Joe remembered a few years earlier when Adam wanted to go hunting and was supposed to meet him at Signal Rock. Hoss and Ben remembered that too.

Ben had a solution. “I’ll go into town tomorrow and send a telegram to him telling him that we’re on our way and to watch for us on the road. That should help.” Storms blew through the Sierras though that night taking down the telegraph lines. No more messages could be sent for several days until the lines could be repaired. By the time the message arrived in Helena, Adam had already left. He had nearly been jailed until the second message had come through from the bank in Virginia City rescinding the previous message and authorizing a release of funds to him. He had purchased clothing, a pistol and rifle, gear for the trail, supplies, a packhorse, and then he had purchased a number of things that he thought Priscilla could use at her mission. His planned to make that his first stop, and he planned to tell her too all that had happened. For some reason, he not only wanted to repay her for her help, he wanted her to believe that he was a good man who had not done any of the terrible things that she seemed to think that he had. Before he left Helena, though, he and Helen had several days together. The morning after she had cared for the wounds on his back, she knocked lightly on his door in the morning and then opened it to find Adam sitting in the bed reading.

“Were you hoping to catch me unawares again?”

“No, I think I saw it all already. I have your clothing, and I took the liberty of stopping at the general store and picking up some undergarments for you. I’ll leave them here and you can dress. First though, if you lean forward just a bit, I can put some salve on your back and take a quick look at that sore spot.” It took only a few minutes for Helen to take care of that. “It looks much better this morning. We’ll keep it clean, and everything should heal well. Now, if you like, you can meet me downstairs in the lobby and we can have breakfast together.”

“Don’t you have to teach today?”

“You must have lost all track of time, Adam. Today is Saturday. The children will not be in school today nor tomorrow. The ladies will be using the schoolhouse for a quilting bee today, there’s a social there tonight, and tomorrow morning, church services will be held there. It’s the biggest hall in town except for the saloon so it’s our town hall for everything. If there’s a trial or an election, that’s held there too.”

“Weddings and funerals too then?’

“Yes, you get the picture. In a small town like this, a public building has to serve many purposes. The sheriff is also the mayor by the way, and owns the livery stable too.”

“I’ll meet you in the lobby in ten minutes then.”

“Do you ever trim that beard of yours? You’re starting to look like a mountain man instead of a cowboy.”

“I don’t know how to trim a beard. I never had one before. I only have one now because I lost my shaving kit and can’t afford to buy a new one yet.”

“Hmm, I think I might like to see what’s under those whiskers. I’ll give you credit at the store for a shaving kit too. You can shave after breakfast and start looking more like a civilized man.”

Adam reached for her hand and held it tenderly in his. “Helen, thank you, for everything you’re doing for me.” His voice became a bit hoarse as he talked to her. She heard the change and knew that he was holding back great emotion. She felt it too.

“It’s a pleasure, Adam. This has been the most interesting thing to happen in this town for a long time. I’ll see you downstairs in ten minutes.” She was reluctant though to pull her hand away and he seemed equally reluctant to release it. “Adam, for now, let’s go have breakfast. We can see what happens later. We’re both old enough to control our emotions and make a decision that’s right for both of us.” Adam let his fingers relax slightly and she slowly pulled her hand from his. “Not that I’m not flattered by the implied possibilities, but I would rather have some time to think about it.” She wanted to lean down and kiss him again as she had the night before, but this time she was fairly certain that it wouldn’t stop with a light kiss on his lips. He wouldn’t be satisfied with that and neither would she. It was as if he could read her mind.

“If you kiss me, nothing you’ve said is going to make any difference at all, is it?”

“No, I’m afraid it wouldn’t so I will have to forego that pleasure and meet you downstairs in ten minutes.” Helen took a deep breath then and turned to walk away but Adam called to her to remind her to pick up her bag before she left. He had thoroughly rattled her, and it was very rare that any person could do that to her. She rather looked forward to what he might do next. It certainly had gotten much more interesting since he had stepped into her schoolhouse the day before and asked to borrow a book. They had breakfast and made plans for the day. They planned a ride in the country which would give them time to talk and privacy, but first Helen suggested he could go to the store to get a shaving kit and shave while she asked the restaurant to pack them a lunch and she would get the livery stable to hitch up her carriage. An hour later, she was waiting at her carriage when a clean-shaven Adam walked up to her. He was carrying his jacket and was dressed in his clean clothing. She was impressed with him even more, and loved the cleft chin and the dimples when he smiled at her. The overall impact was quite pleasing to her which caused her to stare.

“Did I miss some shaving lather or miss some whiskers?”

“No, you shaved very well.”

“Then is there something wrong with my face?”

“No, there’s nothing at all wrong with your face.”

“Well, you were staring at it so intently that I thought there might be a problem.”

“No, nothing like a problem. You do know that you are quite handsome, don’t you? Certainly women must have stared at you in the past.”

“Usually they stare at my younger brother with his curly hair and cuteness.”

“I’ve never been attracted to cute. I like my men to be all manly. You fit the bill quite nicely.” Unaccustomed to such open flattery of his looks, Adam didn’t know what to say. “Aw, you’re embarrassed. Now that is kind of cute though. Why don’t you drive the carriage. I’ll relax and tell you where we’re going.”

Several miles out of town, Helen directed Adam to turn the carriage from the road and head to a grove of trees. When they got there, there was green grass and a small spring fed pond as well as a natural shelter of trees all around the pond. The sun reflected off the pond making it sparkle. It was one of those settings that were found in paintings and only rarely in nature. They walked along the perimeter of the pond watching small frogs jump into the pond with splashes as they neared them. Adam reached for Helen’s hand and she found she liked his gentle approach to her that was so unlike most men she had met. Occasionally something larger scurried through the grass to get away from their approach. He squeezed her hand lightly each time to reassure her that there was no danger. Birds were singing in the trees and squirrels were chattering away. It was a peaceful and serene setting. After completing a circuit of the pond, they had their picnic next to the carriage on a blanket that Helen had brought along.

“Would you like to skip some rocks? I saw some a little way along the side of the pond that would be perfect for skipping.”

“I don’t know how to skip rocks.”

“Did you ever try?”

“No, it was something that boys got to do. Girls in my family weren’t allowed to do those things.”

“I bet they never thought a girl could grow up to be a town builder or entrepreneur extraordinaire either.” She saw the slight smile that grew into a grin and had to match them and then heard the laughter that started as a low rumble and grew into a deep laugh as he enjoyed his own joke and the look that she had given him when he said it. “You looked like you were going to be mad at me at first and then you couldn’t help it. You were proud of yourself. You are so smart and you are beautiful too.” Adam took her hand and tugged just a little. She yielded this time and he kissed her softly before releasing her.

“That was very, ah, chaste.”

“If I kissed you the way I would like to kiss you, I don’t think that I could stop.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t want you to stop.”

“Then when you want me to kiss you like that, you tell me. Until then, I will be a gentleman. Deal?”

“Deal. Now how about that lesson in skipping stones?”

For the next half hour, they skipped stones like children laughing and competing and searching for the best stones to skip until they had used up all the fun they could with that. They walked back toward the carriage hand-in-hand.

“Adam, would you kiss me with every thing you’ve got?”

“Are you sure?”

“Adam, I was married. He died many years ago, but I know what happens. I’ve been with men before. Yes, I’m sure. I know you won’t be staying, and you know I won’t leave here, but today, for the next few hours, we can have some pleasure with each other and take some comfort from each other.”

“That may be the best invitation I have ever had.” Adam wrapped his arms around Helen then and kissed her softly but increased the passion of the kiss until they were kissing deeply and sensuously. His hands moved across her body and caressed her softly and then more insistently until they dropped down onto the blanket. He slowly undressed her kissing and touching her lovingly until she pleaded with him to make love with her. He did then and when they were finished, he pulled her to him as he worked to catch his breath. Her head was resting on his chest and she could hear and feel his heart pounding. She knew hers was doing the same.

“I’m very grateful that you shaved.”

“That’s the first thing you have to say to me?”

“Well, considering all the kisses, if you hadn’t, I think everyone in town would know we had made love and then I would have to tell them that you are the best lover I could imagine. I do think that you’ve ruined me for any other man. After that, I don’t think any other man’s ordinary act is going to be very desirable. Wherever did you learn to love a woman like that?”

“I’ve paid attention to what women like, and then I try to do as much of that as I can.”

“Well, I love how you make love. You may not be lonely in that bed of yours while you’re in town. I may not be able to resist temptation.”

“Won’t people talk?”

“It’s my hotel. I have a key to the back door.”

She heard and felt the rumble of the chuckle deep in his chest then. It made her smile too. After a short time, they straightened up their clothing and pulled everything back into place and buttoned everything up helping each other with a cursory examination to be sure that there was nothing amiss that would lead anyone to have an outright suspicion of what they had done. When they finished doing that, Adam pulled her into another embrace and kissed her deeply again and gently stroked her back as he did so.

“You’re a very special woman. I’m very lucky to have met you.”

When they got back to town, Adam found that he had been lucky to be with Helen for the day too. It saved him from spending much of the day in jail. The sheriff came up to them as they left the livery stable which he owned.

“Got a telegram from Virginia City saying you was a fraud and we oughta lock you up.” At Adam’s outraged expression, the sheriff raised his hands to stop any argument. “Nothing to worry about. Got a second telegram about three, four hours later saying to ignore the first one which was a mistake, and that you was the real deal. The bank has some money for ya if ya want to go there and get it.”

With Helen by his side, Adam went to the bank that had stayed open in order to give him the money he needed. Then he went to the general store to pay his account and to buy several items. He bought a pistol and holster, a pair of pants, another shirt, more socks, some paper, ink, a pen, a journal, saddlebags, and some oilskin. He promised he would be back in a few days to buy supplies and gear for the road. Helen had mixed feelings about that. She was glad for him in that he was finally able to take care of himself for she knew that was important to him, but it meant too that he would be leaving in a few days. Adam saw the look.

“You knew I would be leaving.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t make it any easier. You’re the best man I may have ever met. It’s a shame that we could never make it work.”

“But you know we couldn’t. You said it. You would never leave here, and I would never stay here so it could never work out. It is sad, but I hope that if I’m ever passing through here again that I can see you again.”

“Mister, you’re not gone yet. We still have some time. Let’s not waste it.”

They spent the weekend together, and then Adam decided that’s he would stay a bit longer, but on the following Monday while Helen taught school, Adam bought a bedroll and other supplies, packed up, and headed out of town although with a melancholy feeling and a backwards glance with a thought that he ought to find a way to stay and knowing that there was no way. He had posted a long letter to his family before he left. He hoped it would travel faster than he would, but mail delivery was not reliable. He sent another telegram too because he wasn’t sure they had gotten the first one. In the schoolhouse, the students noted that their teacher seemed unusually distracted, and that afternoon, she told them that they could go home early because she wasn’t feeling well. She had never had a broken heart before and wasn’t familiar with the symptoms. Her first marriage had been arranged by her parents. She had no choice and although the man had been nice to her, she had not loved him, and had found that she did not mourn his death for long because of the freedom it gave her. With Adam, she had started to fall in love for the first time in her life. It made her question some of the choices she had made.

The telegraph lines in the far off mountains had been repaired and telegrams were once more being sent and relayed down the line. Adam missed the arrival of the telegram with the news of Lincoln’s assassination as well as the telegram informing him that his family was on their way to meet him.

 

Chapter 6

Following directions he had received in Helena, Adam rode toward Priscilla Stowe’s mission. He intended to bring her supplies that she could use in her work, and he intended to explain to her the whole story of what had happened. At least he would if she was willing to listen. His back was healed now even if it was still tender in some spots. Helen had given him some of the salve telling him that whenever he had someone to spread it, he should have them put it on his back. She had told him that only half of the lashes had broken the skin and that the other marks would likely fade away to nothing, but that the scars could be minimized by the salve which would keep them from growing too thick and stiff. The morning before he left, she had spread some of the salve on his back. On the second day, he noticed the difference with no salve and hoped that Priscilla might be willing to help him with that if he got to her mission that evening as he hoped he would. However late that afternoon as Adam neared the mission complex, he saw columns of black smoke. It was an ominous sign and required that he proceed with great caution. He saw no indication that there had been an attack of any kind though he approached very slowly and carefully. When he neared the buildings, he saw very little movement and no damage, but there were several large fires burning. He wondered what could be the reason for that but needed to ride in closer to find out. He did that and saw Priscilla walking toward one of the fires. She carried what appeared to be clothing or a blanket on the end of a long pole. She threw whatever it was onto the fire causing more smoke to rise for a time before the fire came roaring back to full flame once more. Adam got a heavy feeling in his belly when he saw that for he knew of only one reason to do it. It was the usual way to deal with blankets and clothing left when someone perished from smallpox. He rode closer and the signs of sickness and death were all around. He had been gone only a week, but tragedy had struck in his absence. He wasn’t afraid because he had been inoculated against smallpox when he was in college. Some people refused the lifesaving procedure, and Adam could never understand why. He had seen the devastating effects before and rode slowly in to the mission again not wanting to cause any alarm among people already probably frightened enough by the illness that was threatening all that they had.

“Priscilla, I’m here to help in any way that I can.” Adam had come up behind her, dismounted, and walked to her, but she seemed unaware of his presence. He had gently touched her on the shoulder to get her attention. She turned to him shocking him with her appearance. She was obviously exhausted and the fires had left sooty marks on her skin, but the worst surprise of all to Adam was that she had some of the pustules on her face indicating that she was also infected. “You’ve got it too.”

“I do, but I’m not as sick as all the others. Someone has to bring them food and water, or they’ll all die. So many have died already. Oh, Adam, I’ve done all that I can and they keep dying. If you’ll help me, maybe we can save some of them.”

“I’m not helping you.” Her whole body seemed to sag with that news. “I’m taking over. You’re going to bed. You can’t help anyone if you get any sicker than you are.” Adam reached for the pole that she had and pried her fingers from it for it seemed that she wasn’t even aware any more that she held it. He led her to her house and inside to her bedroom stripping her filthy dress from her and getting her to lie on her bed. He got a basin of water and sponged her arms, hands, and face to get her clean and cool her somewhat. He didn’t pull any covers over her because she was already warm enough. He poured a glass of water and held her up to drink it. She slurred her words as she thanked him, closed her eyes, and fell into an exhausted sleep in his arms. Adam lay her head back on the pillow. He looked around her kitchen area at the mess that was there and decided to clean that up later. First he needed to make the rounds of the homes of the Paiute there to see what he was facing. He had only a few hours of light to do that. He left his horses tied up but watered them before he set off on what he guessed would be a grisly task. He found several dead that he rolled up in blankets and removed from their wickiups to get them away from those who had not yet succumbed. He brought water to all those who were still alive, he helped them to drink, and sponged each one to cool them. He found a pot of soup cooking and brought cups of that to each person who was willing to eat helping each one as much as he could. As darkness neared, he knew that he had to care for his horses yet, clean up her kitchen area, and get some food for himself. After his recent experience, his endurance was low, and he was exhausted by the day’s travel and the physical labor and emotional toll of what he had found at the mission. Once he did those tasks too, he checked on Priscilla and found her still sleeping. He tried to rouse her to get her to drink but couldn’t. He went out to the front of her home and fell asleep on the cot waking at just before dawn to her cries for help.

“What’s wrong? What can I do?”

“I can’t open my eyes. Help me open my eyes.”

With a wet cloth, Adam very gently wiped the gunk from her eyes and helped her see. He was dismayed though to see more pustules on her face and neck. Her fever had risen as well but she looked less exhausted.

“Why did you come back?”

“I told you that I would. I keep my promises. Whatever you may think of me, I am a man of honor and principles. I came back to bring you some things that I thought would help you in your work. I had no idea that the people here would be sick or that you would be ill too. I’m so sorry.”

“I’ve got it?” It seemed that Priscilla did not realize it, and she was shocked at Adam’s words. She had forgotten what she had known the day before. He was sorry then that he had been so blunt, but he had thought she knew. Now he realized that she was so emotionally distraught, physically exhausted, and feverish that her mind was not wholly coherent. She probably didn’t understand much of what he said was probably far more ill than he had thought. She stood although she was unsteady and made her way to her bureau where she picked up a mirror and looked at her face putting a hand to the telltale signs of smallpox that marked her cheeks and around her nose and chin with a few by her eyes. “Oh, my God, I’m going to die too.”

“Not if I can help it. I’m here to take care of you. Many people do survive smallpox. I’ll do the work. You rest in bed and you’ll have a chance.”

“But all the people out there will die.”

“I did what I could for them last night. I’ll help today too, but for most of them, it looks like it’s too late already. None of them had the strength to walk or keep themselves clean. I’ll bring them food and water, and I’ll take away anything that needs to be burned. I thought that I would try to bury those who have died, but it may be more than I can handle.”

“I should help you.”

“What I need help doing is digging, and you are not capable of that. You rest. I’ll bring some water and food to you. Then I’ll go tend to those who are still alive and see what I can do to comfort them. There’s not much more to do for most of them any more. A few of the women may make it.” He took her by the arm then and led her back to the bed. She seemed unaware that she was dressed in only her undergarments. She lay on the bed and closed her eyes. When Adam came back with water and food, she was asleep. He left those things on the bedside table, and went to take care of what he had to do before he went to see to the needs of the stricken. He found that two more had died during the night. He rolled those bodies in blankets and took them out to where he had brought the others. He again brought water to those still alive and by his estimation, they seemed weaker than they had the night before and most were becoming delirious. He doubted that any would be alive after the next day or two but there were two women who were at least aware of what he was doing. That was the only positive sign. The dozen who lived there to be safe might all succumb to the white man’s dreaded smallpox. He wondered how it had started. He got his answer later that day when Priscilla awakened and wanted to talk. She was more lucid than she had been earlier and explained then what had happened as well as she could determine.

“The trader who left with you to go to Helena. When he was here, he sold some goods to the Paiute very cheaply. He said they were used so he could sell them for a low price. They were happy to get the items so they didn’t question him about the source not that he would likely have told them, but I suspect he got them from a family who died from smallpox. He had clothing, blankets, and kitchen pots and utensils. All were used. Soon after he left, people started getting sick. He never even washed those items and the people here didn’t realize they should have. Even that might not have been enough. Just handling all those soiled items was all it took probably to get the disease started, and once it started, it spread like a wildfire through the people here. They’re all so close. They took all their meals together. All the children played together. No one was safe.”

“I am so sorry. I came back to help, and now I’m only here to bury the dead.”

“They told me that you were the one to warn the Shoshone. I am so sorry too. I was mean to you for no cause. I should have treated you so much better, but I didn’t know, and because I was so upset about all those people being murdered.”

“I was very upset too, and I didn’t think you would believe me if I told you the truth. Now I know I should have tried though. I owed you that much. I have a tendency to be very stubborn though so when you unfairly accused me, it kind of got my back up.”

“Yes, I could see that, and each time I should have apologized because I knew I was being cruel, but I wanted to strike out for what was done and you were the only one in range. That was so unfair, and I am sorry that I behaved so badly. I can be rather prickly at times.”

“That’s what Helen said when I was in her town. She knows you.”

“She ought to. We were sister wives at one point.” At Adam’s shocked expression, she had to smile. “Oh, I doubted that she told you that so I had to. We came out here as Mormons and were married to the same man. He died many years ago freeing both of us. He had done missionary work and I chose to continue his work here, but Helen grabbed her freedom and made the most of it. Neither of us had any children so there were no complications.”

“Are you still a Mormon?”

“I suppose that technically I still am seeing as how I never renounced it as Helen did, but I see myself as a simple Christian and I teach only the Bible so I suppose in reality I am not.”

“Each of those who have died here professed to be a Christian?”

“They did, but I’m not sure how much was belief and how much was practical so that they could live here and be safe. Regardless, I would like you to say some Christian words over them as you bury them.” She saw Adam’s look of dismay then. “Do you have a problem saying Christian words over their graves?”

“No, but Priscilla, I’m not sure I have the strength to dig that many graves. There are seven bodies there already and they need to be buried today.”

“I believe they would not mind being buried together if you could manage to dig even one or two graves. They lived together so they would not mind resting eternally together. But the Christian words and a Christian marker please.”

“Thank you. I’ll do my best.”

By the end of the day, an exhausted Adam dragged seven bodies to a large pit and carefully lowered them in. He pushed in enough dirt to cover them but couldn’t finish the job that day. It would have to be a job he continued the next day. Caring for the sick had taken most of his energy, and he had been digging in between taking food and water to the ill, removing fouled bedding and clothing, and doing his best to keep them clean and comfortable. No one had died that day, but he had little hope for those who were still sick. None seemed to have the energy to help themselves in any way. When he brought some food to Priscilla, she told him she was too nauseated to eat. He tried to coax her to drink some broth but she refused and lay back to sleep again. He was very worried about her. Her spirit seemed to be broken as much as her body was being ravaged by the disease. Over the next day, she grew even more lethargic and then slipped into a coma as did three of the other women. Nothing Adam did seemed to help. He held Priscilla’s hand and talked to her trying to bring her out of her darkness but it seemed she slipped away from him hour by hour. He realized in the very early morning that her hand seemed very cool. Scared, he reached to place a hand on her forehead and that was cool too. He placed a hand on her chest and it was cool and there was no heartbeat. Tears began to roll down his cheeks. He had tried so hard to do the right thing, but death seemed to follow him. First there was death by the sword and now death by pestilence. It seemed that Death rode its pale horse and followed him wherever he went. He sat by her side until dawn brought light and necessary chores. He pulled a sheet up over her face so he wouldn’t have to see the pustules and could try to remember her without them. As he left the house, he was shocked to see one of the women standing by the house.

“Did her spirit leave us last night?”

Unable to speak, all Adam could do was to bow his head at her query. She knew though and turned to return to her wickiup. She stopped though and looked back to him.
“Only one other lives. I think she will be like me. We will prepare the others.”

“I put the others in a grave, but it I not finished yet.”

“I saw. It is not our way, but we cannot do anything else.”

“I’ll bury the others too. I’ll do my best but I cannot do much more.”

“I know. We will burn this place and leave. Our homes are far to the south. Will you help us to pack and go there?”

“I will do what I can when you are strong enough.”

“Will you bury her with ours? I think she would want it.”

Adam had thought to dig a separate grave for Priscilla but at the woman’s request knew she was right. Priscilla had chosen to live here and would have chosen to stay here. He would do as the woman suggested and put them all together. He walked back inside to prepare her for burial as the woman went to prepare the others. The two of them spent most of the day finishing just that task. The woman was understandably very weak, but Adam wasn’t at full strength yet either, and this was back breaking work carrying, digging, filling, and then carrying rocks to cover the whole expanse of the large grave. He helped the two women who survived move into the house after he stripped the bedding from Priscilla’s bed and replaced it with clean blankets he found in a chest. Once he had the two women inside, he burned the wickiups and everything contained in them until all that was left of the encampment were black circles on the earth, ashes, and some charred wood and melted items that were unidentifiable. Inside the house over the next day, he showed the two women how to use the stove and the fireplace hooks, where the wash area was, and where food was stored. He gave them most of the supplies that he had brought with him, and made sure there was plenty of water in jugs for them. He constructed eleven wooden crosses and placed them on the large grave. Once he was sure that the two women were well supplied and able to care for themselves, he began to pack his things and prepared to leave.

“You will find the trader?”

The woman who had the best English spoke with him often. It seemed that she was very intelligent and could read his mind sometimes.

“Yes, I plan to try. You’re not strong enough to travel yet. When you are, take the two carriage horses and ride due south.” Adam pointed in the direction they should go. “You should find some of your people fairly soon in that direction or you’ll find Shoshone and they’ll help you. I’m leaving my packhorse for you to take as much as you can with you.”

“You are a good man, Adam Cartwright. I will tell my people what you have done for us. Some of our people say that all white men are evil. I know they are not. You are good. I am proud to call you my friend. If you ever need help, the Paiute will be there to help you.”

“No matter what I do though, evil seems to keep winning.”

“It is all we can do to keep fighting. I kept fighting, and that is why I am alive. Some gave up, and that is why they did not live. I saw you bring them water and food, and they refused it. I wanted to say no too. My stomach said to say no, but my head said I needed those things to live so I took them. We do what we have to do or we lose the war.”

“It is a war, isn’t it? It’s a never-ending war against the evil in the world. I thought when the War in the east was over that there would be peace, but now I realize that was only a part of the whole. The struggle goes on and on.”

“Good can only win if good does not give up in the struggle. Do not lose hope. You have done good things. You have saved lives. If you did not warn the Shoshone, all would have been killed. If you did not come here, all would have died. I would not have lived without your help. Lives have been saved because you helped. Do not forget what you have done because of what you see that you have failed to do.”

“You are a very wise woman.”

“Not so wise or I would not have bought those blankets from that trader. I should have been wise enough to know that something was wrong with them for him to sell them so cheaply to us. I let my good sense get fooled by my greed, and it led to the death of my friends and family.” Adam was surprised and showed it. “Yes, it is my fault. I bought the blankets that brought the sickness. How could I know that it was that? For a moment, I did wonder if he had stolen them and that is why he was willing to part with them for such a low price. Now I know that he did steal them but from the dead. And then he sold them to us knowing we would die soon. I wonder if he planned to come back to get them and sell them again.”

Adam doubted that the trader would be so bold as to do that, but he hoped he was confident enough that he hadn’t moved on too fast. The trader had waited around Helena long enough to get the promised payment from Adam for his help and then left for Wells and on to Ruby he had said. Adam planned to go to Wells first and then follow him to Ruby if necessary. The trader typically didn’t take a direct route as he stopped off in small towns, ranches, farmsteads, and other settlements along the way. Even though Adam had stayed longer in Helena and made the side trip to the mission and stayed there, if he traveled a direct route, he probably wouldn’t be too far behind the trader. He bid the two Paiute farewell and set out on his quest. The first night out on the trail camping alone, he didn’t even make a fire. He stood and looked out over the hills and mountains and wondered at the lives that were being lived out there and how those people were faring. He had not seen anyone all day as he rode cross-country and had not expected to see anyone. The ride had been difficult and required all of his concentration. He liked that because he didn’t have time to think. As he stood there that evening and darkness grew, he had lots of time to think and his thoughts were dark until he remembered what the Paiute woman had told him. He had to smile at her wisdom amidst tragedy. Her resilience and her stoicism appealed to him. He had to respect that in her as he would in anyone. His horse was calm so he believed that there was no danger nearby. He had to trust the animal to be his warning system while he slept. He kept his rifle and pistol handy and slept with his back to a large boulder. In the morning, he was stiff but rested. His horse was grazing a short distance from him. He spent two more nights like that before he arrived in Wells and asked around for the trader.

About a week later, Ben Cartwright rode into Wells with Hoss and Joe. They had delivered the horses to Ruby in record time and then had ridden hard for Wells hoping to see Adam along the way. Every time they met someone on the road, they asked if they had seen anyone matching his description. They had asked about him in every town too. No one had seen anyone who looked like him and no one had heard that name. In Wells, their luck changed. When they went into the saloon for a drink and a sandwich, Ben asked the question.

“Bartender, three beers and three of those sandwiches you’ve got listed on that menu. And if you have any information on Adam Cartwright, I’d like to know that too.”

“Here’s your beer and the sandwiches will be coming right up. Sadie, go tell the cook next door that we need three sandwiches. Now, information on that Cartwright feller you better get from the sheriff. All I did was tell him what I saw and what I heard. The rest was up to the judge.”

Hoss was draining his beer and Joe had started. Ben never picked his up. “He was here?”

“He was right about where you’re standing when he hit that man. Broke his jaw with one punch. Knocked the man clean out too.”

“He was in a fight?”

“Not a fight really. He was talking with this man here, kind of a loudmouth he was, and he didn’t like what the man said. He hit him. The sheriff come over and arrested him. Two days later the judge fined him. I don’t know where he went then.”

“When was this?”

“Well, let me see, it was on a Tuesday when he hit him, and it’s Tuesday again, so it was a week ago. Judge comes in here on Thursday usually and then leaves on Friday.”

“Where’s the sheriff’s office?”

“Down the street and take a left. It’s about a block further down that way. The sign out front ain’t that big but it sticks out so you can’t miss it.”

Without a backwards glance, Ben headed for the door. Hoss finished his beer and took a big drink of his father’s as Joe gulped as much of his as he could.

“Hey, who’s paying for these beers? And what about those sandwiches?”

Hoss dropped some money on the bar. “Here’s the money for the beer and the sandwiches. Send the sandwiches over to the sheriff’s office. We’ll be expecting them there.” He walked out then following Joe who was rushing to catch up to their father.

At the sheriff’s office, Ben walked right in because the door was open. The sheriff stood at his desk unsure of what the three men rushing in wanted from him. Ben realized how threatening they must have looked and quickly adopted a pleasant demeanor.

“Sheriff, I’m Ben Cartwright, and these are my sons Eric and Joe. We’re looking for my other son.”

“Adam Cartwright. Yep, I had him here. He broke a man’s jaw. Sucker punched him and laid him out cold. Refused to pay the man’s medical bills too or I might have let him go with fines for disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace.”

“Do you have any idea why he hit the man?”

“Well, seems the man sold some blankets to some Indians and the blankets had smallpox on ’em. The Indians mostly all got sick and died. Now I ain’t one to cry too many tears over something like that and not too many in town would either, but they was living at a mission run by a white woman and she got sick and died too. That didn’t set right with lots of us here. That trader did what he did and risked her life by doing it. She’s dead cause of what he did. Now he didn’t break no laws as far as I could tell or even the judge could tell so we just told him to get out of town and not come back. The judge told your son about the same thing. Said he could pay his fines and go and he didn’t have to pay for breaking the man’s jaw. The trader had to pay the doctor himself.”

“Was he all right? Adam, I mean, was he all right?”

“Far as I could tell. He looked all right. He got upset when I give him the old newspapers to read and he found out that President Lincoln got shot. He hadn’t heard that. But that was all. Otherwise he was fine.”

“Do you know which way he went when he left?”

“I’m not sure. I saw him talking with Old Tom, and the two of them rode out of town together. I don’t know if they stayed together or just happened to be riding out at the same time.”

“Who’s Old Tom?”

“He’s an old mountain man who comes into town a few times a year to trade in some furs, some turquoise, and maybe some gold nuggets he’s found and to get ammunition and tobacco and a few other things.”

“Which way did they head out?”

“They took the road toward Ruby. Old Tom usually heads up into the mountains south of here. That would be the road he would take.”

Hoss turned to his father. “Pa, we never met Adam on that road. If he was traveling along that road, we would have seen him.”

Ben was discouraged. They were so close but now had no idea where Adam could be. At least they knew he was in good condition when he left Wells. That was all that they knew.

 

Chapter 7

Just ten miles away, Adam was camping with Old Tom. The two had hit it off almost immediately even thought the first words weren’t the friendliest. Old Tom had been getting his horses from the livery at the same time as Adam was getting his, and Old Tom told him that he appreciated what he had done and how he had handled the situation.

“I like you, boy.”

The word rankled as it did when his father called him that. At nearly thirty-five years of age, he didn’t like being called a boy. “I’m not a boy.”

“Now don’t be getting all riled by it. I didn’t mean no offense. I was old when you was born. Everybody’s a boy to men lessen they’re wearing a skirt and then they’s a girl. Now you ain’t a girl, so you’re a boy. Course I could call ya something else. I coulda said, I like you, ya damn sourpuss. Or maybe I shoulda said, I like you, you crabby cuss. You like any of them better?”

“No, you can call me Adam if you like. My name’s Adam Cartwright.”

“Well, I know that. Everybody in town knows that after the last few days. You the best story in town. Laid that damn loud-mouthed trader out with one punch. Knocked him clean off his feet and near two feet in the air and ten feet back ifn the stories ain’t been stretched too much.”

“Ah, they might have been stretched some. He had it coming and a lot more, but he isn’t worth the gallows.”

“No, I don’t suppose he is. How’s the hand, by the way?”

“Hurts?”

“Smart enough to use the one you don’t need?”

With a shake of his head and a wry smile, Adam had to admit he wasn’t that smart. “No, I hit him with my right hand. I won’t be using my pistol much any time soon. I can still shoot it, but drawing it fast won’t work very well.”

“You want to come hunt with me a bit? I plan to get me some meat and roast it over a fire and breathe in some fresh mountain air to clean out the stench of these towns and some of the nasty people likes to live in ’em.”

“Actually, that sounds like a fine plan. I like to hunt when it’s for food. I’ve never hunted in these mountains. It would be a pleasure to hunt them with someone who knows their way around.”

“You take the measure of a man real quick like, dontcha?”

“I do sometimes.”

“Ever been wrong.”

“I have.”

“Regrets?”

“Some, but not enough to unbalance the scales.”

“Good way to look at it. Can’t let one or two mistakes take away the rest of your life. Some folks do and you can never get it back. It’s gone and lost forever.”

There was something that seemed autobiographical in those words, but Adam didn’t know him well enough yet to ask him to explain. Eventually though he hoped to revisit that topic and find what it was that Old Tom had in mind when he said that. For the time being, they could talk about other things. Old Tom wanted to know more about why he had hit the trader so he told him that story in more detail.

“Now how were you at that mission in the first place? Seems an odd place for a man like you to be if you don’t mind my saying so.” Seeing how Adam looked when he asked that question, Old Tom tried to backtrack. “Oh oh, seems I may have overstepped with that one. Sorry, I wasn’t meaning to pry into anything private. If you’re not a mind to answer my question, I understand. I’ve spent years not answering folks’ questions who been prying into my life.”

After taking a deep breath and expelling it, Adam turned to Old Tom. “How about we do some hunting, and when we’re sitting at that campfire with some fresh roasted meat and breathing in some of that fresh mountain air, I’ll tell you the whole story. It could take a while.”

“Now that’s something to look forward to. I ain’t got all that many things to look forward to no more, but that is one. Thank you for that. Now, you’re right. Let’s get a move on. One night of camping, and then we should be at my cabin by afternoon tomorrow.”

“Your cabin?”

“Course my cabin? You didn’t think I lived out here like some savage running around with no place to call my home, now didja?” Old Tom laughed at the look Adam had then. “Of course ya did. All folks think that of mountain men. Think we can live without any of the comforts of home. Now we do like people to think that so don’t you be going and giving away my secrets, but I’ve got a nice snug cabin built into the side of a mountain. It’s cool on hot days, and warm and cozy when it gets mighty cold.”

“You’ve lived up here alone all this time?”

“Had a partner once. He took a knife when he tried to steal from an Indian. He shoulda known better. Had a Shoshone wife once too. She up and died on me. That was about twenty-five years ago by my reckoning. We never had no young’uns. She was older when she came to me. Probably too old to have babies any more. I didn’t care none. She was kindly to me and we got along fine. I been alone since they died. Ifn I die now, no one gonna know except that I don’t show up in town to buy my supplies in six months time.”

“How old are you, Old Tom?”

“Now what year is it?”

“It’s eighteen sixty-five.”

“Well, I’ll be. Ifn I make it to next year, I’ll be sixty years old. That would be something, wouldn’t it? I might even take a bath to celebrate.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you took one now to get ready.”

Old Tom laughed heartily at that. They talked more as they rode until they were miles out of town and approaching a mountain meadow. “Boy, you got a wicked sense of humor, I’m thinking. We’re getting on fine. Now, we oughta be a mite quieter as we ride here. This meadow coming up usually is good for deer at the end of the day, and I’m thinking you wouldn’t mind roasting some venison over the fire this evening with me?”

About a half hour later, Old Tom directed Adam with hand gestures to dismount and move off to the left. Tom went right doing the same. Soon Adam saw why. There were several deer in the meadow. He looked back and Tom signaled to him to take a shot if he had one. He moved slowly until he had a large doe in his sights and fired. She dropped and the others took off. He gathered the reins of his horse and walked to where the deer had fallen. Tom was already there.

“Darn good shooting. I wouldn’t have tried a headshot like that. With my eyes, I woulda just scared ’em all off. Saves the meat if you can do it. You shoot real well.”

“Not much of a challenge that close, and it was only a deer. She was standing still too.”

Looking up at him, Old Tom pursed his lips and nodded. “I’m thinking that trader was lucky he didn’t wear a gun. You woulda called him out, wouldn’t you? He’d be dead now.”

The answer was obvious and needed no confirmation. Adam simply knelt down to help gut out the deer and prepare it for them to take to a campsite. Tom told him they would camp about a mile further on where there was good cover, water, and wood for a fire.

“Plus it gets us away from this bloody mess which will bring out the predators.”

“Boy, I can tell you’ve hunted before. Around here, we need to watch for the big cats. They come down from these hills, and they’re the most dangerous beast a man could ever face.”

There was one beast that Adam could mention that was worse, but he thought he would keep that philosophical discussion inside his head for the time being. Instead he concentrated his thoughts and his preparations on being safe from the four-legged beasts that Old Tom had mentioned. By that evening, they had a comfortable camp with a large overhang for protection from the elements, a stream nearby for water, grass for their horses, and had a nice fire going as they roasted up a generous portion of the venison. Tom cut other pieces and had them smoking a little further away from the heat. Tom leaned back against his saddle and filled his pipe with tobacco reminding Adam of his father. The next thing he did reminded him even more.

“What’s on your mind? You’ve looked troubled ever since I mentioned why you was at that mission.”

No matter how he had schooled his emotions and done his best to hide any reactions, his father had always picked up on the little telltale hints when Adam was troubled by something, and then usually waited until moments like these when there was no easy escape to ask him quite respectfully and with care if he wanted to open up about what was troubling him. It was uncanny too that they both pulled out their pipes and loaded up their tobacco as a prelude to asking that question. Tom noted his small smile and asked about that too.

“You remind me quite a lot of my father. There are enough similarities even if there are some great differences between you.”

“Did he notice too how you evade answering questions?”

“I haven’t tried to evade answering your question. If I did, I wouldn’t answer it, and I intend to tell you what happened. I told you I would, and I keep my word.”

“Didn’t mean to insult you, boy, I’m just out of practice talking with folks about important stuff, I guess. Sorry. Now, what happened?”

For the next hour, Adam told the story from the draft notice to his return to the mission to find the smallpox tragedy and how it ended. He left out most of what happened in Helena as not pertinent to what Old Tom had asked. The older man noticed that as well as the change in Adam’s voice when he spoke of Helena and he correctly assumed that the time Adam spent there had been the only pleasant time he had had in quite a long time.

“I’m glad I asked you up here. You needed this time more than anyone I know. We’ll have a good time, and there aren’t any soldiers, no smallpox, and no traders that I know of. We might run into an occasional hunting party as the Shoshone, Paiute, or even other bands move through here, but we’ll steer clear of ’em. Ifn we don’t bother ’em, they ain’t likely to bother us. So many white men don’t understand that the Indians don’t see boundaries and borders like we do. They’ve got several kinds and they move. They got the land that they claim in winter, and the land they claim as their own in summer, and the land they usually hunt on or fish from, but they know others do the same on those. As long as they ain’t both there at the same time, they don’t mind, and sometimes they are there at the same time, and that don’t matter either. Heck, those Bannock act like Shoshone sometimes and like Paiute another.” A little embarrassed to have gone off on a long-winded tirade like that, Tom had shrugged. “Sorry about that, but it makes me mad how white folks come out here to Indian lands and try to make ’em fit into white man’s rules and definitions of how they ought to live and be, and then they condemn ’em when they don’t fit the mold.”

“Maybe you need this time too. Seems to me that you have a lot to say, and you haven’t had anyone to say it to for quite a long time perhaps.”

“Yes, a very long time. Not since I had a partner, and that was before I had a wife here. I came out here almost thirty years ago. I had a grown son then and two younger ones. My wife was not sad to see me go off to make a fortune. I did too. I sent lots of money back to them. Got a few letters now and then. They seemed right happy with the arrangement.”

“You never went back to see them?”

“I did once. They didn’t seem happy to see me. They had moved on up in the world with the money I sent. A western mountain man didn’t fit in with their standing no more. I never went back again, but I sent them the money they wanted. I heard that I had a son that come west and settled somewhere out here and made a good life for himself. I tried to check up on him once to make sure but I couldn’t find out nothing about him. I didn’t want to embarrass him by showing up on his doorstep anyway. I ain’t sent money nor a letter since forty-six and the my troubles with the Army.”

“What kind of troubles could you have had with the Army here?”

“Well, it weren’t here. I used to roam over a lot of territory like most of the mountain men. I knew my way around, and when they wanted that land from Mexico, they signed me up to guide ’em. Like a darn fool, I signed that paper. It’s like signing your soul to the devil. Well, I don’t have to impress that on you. After being with ’em for a while and seeing some of what they did, I wanted out. They said I was in for the duration, so I left. They sent me out to scout for them and I just kept on a going. I figured there wasn’t a one of them in Old Rough and Ready’s outfit could find me. Course if they did, that old bastard like to have me shot for desertion, but here I am. I been hiding out for all these years though I suppose they stopped caring about that a while ago.”

“How old would your sons be by now?”

“Well the oldest would be in his early forties. I had him when I first got married and I married young. The next one would be a few years younger, and I expect the youngest would be about your age by now. He was about ten the last time I saw him. I expect he has children of his own now.”

“Any idea where they live?”

“None at all. I lost track of all of ’em. They got my same last name: McDermott. I don’t suppose any would want to see me.”

“My family lives in Virginia City, and I do know of a McDermott in Carson City, but he’s about my age so it can’t be him because he’s been there since he was a boy. He’s a carpenter too not someone who came west with any money. He’s got a shop in Carson City. You can’t miss it when you ride into town. He has a big sign out front that says McDermott and Son.”

“He move there with his pa?” Old Tom seemed very interested in the young man.

“No, I asked him about that once because I never knew him to have a father. He lived with another family there as far as I knew. He told me his father was dead but that he had been a carpenter among other things so he wanted to be one just like his father. Sean has a bad arm. He can’t straighten his right elbow at all.”

“So he was an orphan boy and a cripple.” Adam noted how attentive Old Tom was to this information and wondered about that. Perhaps the old man was curious if he was related to Sean in some way.

“He’s a good man. I wish the world had more good men like him. I’ve been traveling too much and seeing too many who aren’t. At some point I guess I need to go home.”

“You got to stop wandering, boy. You need a destination or you’ll end up like me. I’m a tree with no roots, I bear no fruit. I’m dead wood. You need to plant yourself somewhere and let your branches reach out and bear fruit. Travel but don’t wander. It ain’t good for a man to wander. When you wander, you just keep wandering until you lose your way completely. Go on home. You need your family now after what you been through. You need to heal up with them, and get your roots firmly set again.” Seeing Adam seemingly a bit restless as he sat there, he asked if there was something wrong.

“The lash marks on my back still itch. I’ve got some salve but no way to put it on.”

“Well, pull off your coat and shirt. I’ll do it. Up here, we take care of ourselves. I done took care of many a wounded man and many over the years helped me when I needed it. You need it, you only need to say it.”

That night, Adam slept well. He had been able to tell his story to a man who neither judged nor condemned and rather enjoyed what he had done to the trader. His back was healing and the salve made the itchiness go away. He had made a decision too. He was going back home, but first he was going to do some hunting and try to persuade Old Tom to go with him. He wanted some good to come out of his wandering around the state. They got to Old Tom’s cabin the next day, and it was as he had said. It was warm and cozy with all that they needed. Adam ran his hands over the posts and planks on the inside of the cabin. Each had been planed to a smooth finish probably over winters with little else to do. He remarked on that to Old Tom who claimed that it hadn’t been too much work at all.

“Did your partner help with this?”

“Maybe some, but this is my cabin so the work was mine to do.”

For several weeks, they hunted and talked, but Old Tom balked at the idea of looking for his son although gradually it seemed he was warming to the idea. Adam was curious about the trunks in the cabin, and Old Tom told him to go ahead and satisfy his curiosity. He found stacks of journals and collections of turquoise and Indian artifacts. There were leather wrapped bundles of drawings and maps. He leaned back and stared at Old Tom.

“You’ve got a treasure chest here.”

“It’s just journals and such. I wrote stuff down when I had no one to talk with.”

“May I read them and look through these drawings and maps.”

“Help yourself. It’s just an old man’s doodles and drabbles.”

Over the next few weeks, when they weren’t hunting, Adam would sit outside the cabin and pour through the journals, maps, and drawings. Finally, he told Old Tom that they ought to take the whole chest to Ruby.

“Now why would I want to do that?”

“Because your family doesn’t know you, but you’re in those journals, and your history is in those journals and so is the history of this part of Nevada. It shouldn’t be lost. You don’t want the history to be written by the likes of men who called that massacre of women and children a battle, do you? And there are newspapers and magazine publishers, and even book publishers who would pay for these. With all of this, you might get thousands of dollars. I know some people in the publishing business. I could see about getting you in touch with someone who could make you an offer. If you came with me to Virginia City, I bet Dan DeQuille at the Territorial Enterprise would be willing to write a book based on this material. There are lots of others who would be willing too. You could hold out for the best offer.”

“Thousands of dollars?”

“Yes, you wouldn’t believe what the people out east would pay to read something like this from an authentic mountain man.”

Looking a bit suspicious, Old Tom had to ask. “What would you get out of it?”

“I don’t need to get anything out of it. My family has plenty of money already. I was planning to go to the bank in Ruby and get some money to buy a new rifle and pistol anyway. The ones I bought in Helena aren’t very good. I think I can find better ones in Ruby.”

“Well, I guess I could think about it. I been living here so long though. I don’t know ifn I want to take a chance on leaving.”

Finally one morning, Tom got up and looked at Adam who was stretching in his bedroll.

“Well, you gonna lay there all day. It’s a long ride to Carson City. We best get started soon ifn we’re gonna get there while I can still ride a horse.”

“Are we taking the journals to sell?”

“Of course.”

“Then we should go to Virginia City.”

“Oh, that’s what I meant.”

“First stop, Ruby. I’ll get some money there, and maybe you can get a bath.”

“You’re sure funny about wanting people to take baths. All right, maybe I will. Now ifn they’re gonna write my story with these journals, you could write that story you got to tell too, you know.”

“I could, but my journal is lost as was Bennett’s as far as I know. I have no record of what happened except my word, and that isn’t likely to be believed now with the official record showing something else. If I had those journals, at least then I would have something to back up what I wrote.”

“Ain’t your word good enough?”

“My word is good enough for some things, but for that, I would need some proof, something else to give it some credibility. If Bennett would say the same, that would help. Having a witness always helps.”

“Yeah, a witness.”

“Yes, like you’re a witness, old man.”

“Don’t you call me old man, boy.” Then the two of them laughed and packed up much of what was in the cabin. Old Tom wasn’t sure he would ever come back. He got his packs carefully sealed and then looked to Adam. “Well, we best be on our way then.”

After the weeks together, the two had worked out a routine for travel in the mountains. Old Tom led the way because he knew the area so much better, but Adam had better vision so he watched for hazards and dangers and Old Tom stopped and consulted with him before each bend in the trail or each hill to climb or descend to be sure that all was well. After a few days of travel, Adam called a halt.

“What do you see?”

“Nothing. It’s what I hear. Don’t you hear it? There’s a party of horses on the other side of that hill.”

Once they stopped, Old Tom could hear them too. They dismounted and moved up to take a look. It was a group of men who appeared to be hunting. For what wasn’t clear, but they looked ordinary enough. Old Tom and Adam went back for their horses and rode to the men to find out why they were in the mountains hunting especially with such a large contingent. They surprised the men who turned out to be mostly farmers and a few small ranchers from the area around Ruby. The news they brought was grim.

“Mountain lion killed two children. One was mauled while the family watched from the house unable to do anything. The mother and her other children didn’t have a gun in the house to use. Their yelling brought the father home but too late to stop the animal from killing and eating part of his boy. ”

“When was that?”

“Four days ago. We thought it was an isolated attack, and we tried to track it but couldn’t find it.”

“But it happened again?”

“Just yesterday, in broad daylight, it killed another child. A little girl. Her mama ran out and tried to beat it off with a broom. The animal hurt her bad and then dragged the little one off. We ain’t even found her body. Damn beast probably ate her. The father is sitting by his wife’s side waiting to see if she’ll live or die.”

“Why are you up here?”

“We tracked it for a while, and it headed in this direction. We figured it’s holed up here somewhere, and it’ll come back when it’s hungry again.”

Unfortunately to Old Tom, that sounded about right. He looked at Adam. “You know that thing you was saying about that rider on the pale horse and the sword and the pestilence and such. I think we just run up against them wild beasts. I hope I ain’t around you when you get to famine. I enjoy eating way too much.”

“You want to hunt that cat then?”

“You do too. I could see the way you looked when they said it killed two children.”

The men asked what they could do. Old Tom looked over to Adam who nodded in agreement and started talking. “The best thing you could do is to ride down lower and keep moving around so the cat doesn’t want to go that way. Keep it up here. We’ve got a better chance of seeing it if it doesn’t have all that brush and long grass down below to use for cover. To be safe, send two men back and have them warn everyone to not let children outside to play and adults should always be armed and not go out at night.”

“Why two?”

“A cat won’t attack two men, but it might stalk one. If it got by you and is already down below, it could go after a lone rider, but it would be rare for it to go after two. They prefer to attack one victim at a time and from ambush.”

Old Tom had more to add. “We’ll look for signs of one up here. You look for signs of one down there. We may have to set out some bait to see if we can lure him in so don’t come running if you hear some shooting. It might only be us shooting a deer or something to leave for him.”

“Why would you two do this for us? You don’t know us? You look like you’re just passing through.”

“Why wouldn’t we do it? We know how, we know children have been killed, and we have the time.” Adam’s simple logic seemed to be all the men needed to hear. They turned to ride and follow the instructions they had been given.

“You know, boy, you coulda had a career in the Army. Men just naturally seem to do what you tell ’em to do.”

“There’s one problem with that though.”

“Oh, what’s the problem?”

“I don’t naturally do what I’m told to do.”

“Oh, yeah, I kinda forgot about that. That could be kind of a problem in the Army. Guess it already was for you. Guess you weren’t as suited to Army life as you told your younger brother you were.”

“Yes, guess that was another mistake I made. He’ll probably enjoy hearing that part of the story.”

“Well, let’s not make any mistakes with this cat. I’d like to ride on outta here in one healthy piece. Now I ain’t seen no sign of a cat. How about you?”

“Nothing. We may need to ride lower to look around.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. More dangerous the lower we go.”

“Yes, it is. Putting out bait is looking like a better and better idea. Let’s go with that. We can have something set up before dark and hope to draw him in, but he may not be hungry enough yet.”

“Tomorrow and the next day are better bets.”

They were. Adam and Old Tom shot a deer and set up the carcass as bait. They posted themselves in positions with clear shots and waited all night but there was no sign. In the morning, they were stiff and sore with nothing gained. They took turns sleeping that day and did the same thing that night with no sign of the cat. Two men from the hunting party came up to check on their progress and were disappointed. Old Tom told them to give him and Adam two more days. The next night, the horses were skittish. There was every indication that there was some large predator in the area but they saw nothing. It made both men nervous. They tied the horses and set up a large campfire to keep them in plain sight. Then they took their positions to watch for the big cat. Old Tom was tired from the two previous nights and as the night dragged on with no sighting, he dozed off. Adam didn’t see the cat approaching Tom’s position until it was too late. He heard the man’s cries and rushed there to fire at the cat wounding it. He knew that he would have to track it when it got light. He went to Old Tom in the darkness and found him injured but alive.

“Old man, you scared me half to death. What the hell! You’re supposed to be the experienced hunter. How could you let it sneak up on you like that?”

“I got a little secret for you, Adam. I haven’t hunted a cat or a bear in a lot of years. They got to be too much for me. I only went after this one cause you were here. I thought I could handle it with your help. Dang thing tried to kill me. I only felt it coming for me at the last minute. I smelled it before I heard it. It must have been wounded even before you shot it. It smells real bad. That would explain why it took to hunting people. It probably can’t catch nothing else.”

“Let me get you to camp and see how bad you’re hurt.”

As it turned out, most of the wounds were superficial. Adam used some of his salve on them after he cleaned them up, and then he bandaged them tightly. He kept the fire burning big and bright. In the morning, Old Tom had a slight fever but was otherwise was doing all right. Over his objections, Adam got him up on his horse and tied a lead rope to his packhorse to send him down the mountain.

“I’ll follow the blood trail and finish him off if he didn’t die already. If he was already wounded, the second wound might have been enough. Have the men take you into town to see a doctor. I’ll meet you there.”

“I’m sending two of them up here to help you. You shouldn’t go after that cat alone.”

“I’ll be careful. If I don’t find it today, I’ll come down. I won’t stay up here alone with a wounded cat in the dark.”

There was no problem though. Adam was able to track the cat by the blood trail. He found it too weak to continue. It snarled at him and tried to get up to fight but had no energy left. Adam was startled though when a small cat tried to defend the big cat. It was then that he realized it was a female and she had a cub. She must have caught one leg in a trap or been shot. Her right rear leg was swollen and discolored and leaking foul pus. She wouldn’t have lived much longer anyway. Adam shot her and put her out of her misery. He felt somewhat badly about shooting the cub, but it would have died slowly of starvation otherwise. It was already very thin, an obviously malnourished cub of a very sick female. He rode down the mountain with the news that the settlers and ranchers would be pleased to hear. He was happy to find that Old Tom was at the doctor’s office resting comfortably.

“Doc says no charge for anything either. You two done us a big favor. We’re in your debt. You got a place to stay and food to eat until you’re ready to move on.”

Old Tom and Adam spent a week resting in town as Old Tom recovered from his wounds. Adam purchased more paper and spent quite a bit of time writing the details of his weeks in the mountains and what had happened with the big cat. He told his father in the letter that he was heading home, but would be taking a side trip to Carson City first. He didn’t know how long it would take to get home, but assured his father that he had every intention of being there by fall. He planned to send the letter and another telegram as soon as he got to Ruby. Then he found time too to walk, to read, and to visit with the people there. By the end of the week, Old Tom pronounced himself well enough to ride so he and Adam moved on to Ruby. When they got there, Adam posted his letter and sent a few telegrams. When Old Tom went to the store to buy some tobacco and to the saloon for a drink, Adam went to the bank to arrange for a bank draft to be cashed and then to the hotel to get a room before he ran an errand. When Old Tom walked out of the saloon it was to walk directly into the path of the sheriff who had a shotgun pointed at his middle.

“You’re under arrest for the murder of Tom McDermott.”

Old Tom looked at Adam who was standing behind the sheriff. He shook his head. “Boy, how did you know?”

“Tom McDermott was left handed. It was clear in the journals. The work that was done on the cabin was done by a skilled carpenter who planed everything with his left hand. All the marks were clearly from a left-handed man. Nothing was written in those journals for the last twenty-five years. They were done by someone else. All the drawings had a TM in the corner so they were done by the same man. It wasn’t you. You’re right-handed. Sean told me about the drifter who showed up at his family’s cabin. His father kindly took him on as a partner but got a knife for his troubles and Sean was injured trying to help him. You took his mother by force. He didn’t know what happened to her because you sold him to a wagon train as an indentured servant and told him you’d kill his mother if he told the truth. By the time he was old enough to know better, he didn’t know where to even begin looking for her and for you.”

“What can anybody do about any of this now?”

“The sheriff is going to send you to Carson City for trial. Sean will be a witness against you. You’re going to hang for murder. It took a while to happen, but justice will be served, and Sean will get the journals and other treasures his father left behind.”

“It’s pretty expensive to send somebody clear across the state. Who’s gonna pay for it?”

The sheriff answered that one. “Mr. Cartwright has generously agreed to pay the entire cost of a deputy taking you there by stage and coming back. I could hardly say no to that.”

“I shoulda slit your throat that first night and taken your horses and gear. I thought about it.”

“I know you did. I watched you checking out the horses and my packs while you thought I was sleeping. It was the first clue that I had that something wasn’t quite right about you. I kept a pistol in hand every night that I slept knowing that you might change your mind.”

“I thought your hand was bothering you and that’s why you kept it tucked in like that.”

“No, I had a pistol tucked away in case I needed to shoot you.”

“All these years, and I made this one mistake. I was so careful until now.”

Old Tom sighed and bent down as if in resignation. Adam drew his pistol.

“Don’t try it.”

But the old man came up with a knife in one hand and a small pistol in the other. Adam’s warning had alerted the sheriff who fired the shotgun directly into Old Tom’s chest. He flew back into the wall of the saloon never to trouble anyone ever again.

“That’s going to make a heck of a story for the paper. You willing to sit down and say it all again for me and for the newspaper man?”

“I will, sheriff. It’s a story that needs to be told. I’m glad you heard him admit it. It seals it up for Sean. He’ll know now that his father’s murderer has been punished.”

“Do you think he killed the woman too?”

“No way of knowing. He probably did or she escaped and went back to her people. If he had lived, he might have told us, but he could have lied about it too.” Two days later, Adam rode out of Ruby leading his packhorse he had purchased in Wells and Old Tom’s horses. He planned to deliver the journals and other items to Sean McDermott.

 

Chapter 8

Ready to ride out of town two days later, Adam saw several wagons roll into town with weary drivers. What made them stand out was that the men driving the wagons and the women and boys walking beside the wagons were black. There were few blacks in the west especially in Nevada at that time so Adam was curious. He wondered what their story was and where they were going. Their wagons didn’t look like they were likely going to make it much further without repairs and their horses looked exhausted. The men climbed down from the wagons and asked where they could get directions. That was an ominous sign. People traveling west especially heading toward the Sierras should have a guide. These people apparently were going to try to make the difficult trek on their own. The most likely result was that they would die. When Adam saw the heads of small children show from inside the wagons, he knew in his heart that his plans to head home were going to be delayed once again. He left his horses tied to the rail and walked to where the men were standing and getting no help. When he got close enough, he saw the momentary fear that his presence caused. He supposed that the gun at his side and his dark clothing did little to reassure them that he meant no harm so he raised his hand in greeting and smiled.

“I don’t know the area around here that well myself, but I do know that you seem to be lost. Perhaps I can be of assistance. Where are you headed?”

“We was planning to take the northern California Trail but somehow we seem to have missed the turnoff for it. We ain’t used to reading maps that don’t have signs and crossroads to give a body a clear point for knowing where to turn.”

“Excuse me for asking, but how did you get this far without a guide or a scout?”

“Oh, we had one. We was part of a larger wagon train, and we paid our money to be guided all the way. They said they would anyhow. But when we got to Salt Lake City and couldn’t afford all the supplies they said we had to buy and the new horses they said we had to buy, then they said we broke the contract. They said that they didn’t have to guide us the rest of the way. They give us this map and said we was on our own.”

With a frown, Adam sighed and then responded. “It’s happened to others. There are men who profit from those heading west. They make an example of some to make the others pay extra. When they sent you on your way with no help, you can bet everyone else bought all those extra supplies they didn’t need and horses they probably didn’t need too. Those men have a deal with the trading posts and horse dealers to get a cut of the profits.”

“What do we do now?”

“You’ve got a rough stretch up ahead. You’ve been pushing your horses too hard. I can see that. You need to stop for a while and let them build up their strength. It wouldn’t hurt for all of you to do that. Your wagons need to be repaired so that they’re in the best of condition too before you try to make the run from here to the Sierras. Are any of you skilled enough to fix up your wagons?”

“We are, but I’m not sure we can afford any more material to fix ’em if we don’t have it already.”

“Let’s get you settled somewhere outside of town, and I’ll help you take a good look at your wagons. Then we’ll see what has to be done.”

“Mister, why you helping us?”

With a chuckle, Adam had to answer with the only answer he had. “Because I’m here, and you need me to help you.”

“Well, we don’t accept help from strangers so we best be introducing ourselves, friend. My name is Noah Lincoln. This is my brother Moses Lincoln. This is my cousin Linus Lincoln and his friend David Lincoln. Sitting up there looking real important like he runs the whole show is my daddy, Israel Lincoln. Back yonder looking real suspicious is a couple of men who joined up with us in Illinois: Andrew Lincoln is the tall one and that’s Robert Lincoln, the shorter one. We’ll introduce the ladies and the children once we get settled outside of town like you said.”

“I’m Adam Cartwright. I’m pleased to meet all of you. You’re all named Lincoln though?”

“We all give up the masters’ names we had, and only had one name each, but when we heard the President got shot, we decided we’d all be keeping him alive in our family names so we all took that name as our own, and we’re keeping it.”

“A good plan and a respectful thing to do. All right, I’ll get my horses and ride ahead to find a decent spot to put the wagons.” It took most of the day to find a spot and then to get the wagons situated properly. Adam had them empty and clean out their water barrels and then remove them from the wagons. “You won’t need them while you’re camped here. Tomorrow, we’re going to empty the wagons, remove anything that’s too heavy for your horses to pull, and then check every inch of your wagons to see what needs to be repaired.”

“That’s a lot of work.”

“Your horses need at least a week of rest and grazing here. We have that week to work on the wagons. It should be enough time. Luckily it’s early enough in the season that you shouldn’t have any trouble getting through the mountains especially on the northern trail.”

“Wouldn’t the southern trail be the easier one when it comes to snow?”

“No, the southern trail goes through higher mountains and the snows can come earlier. The northern trail goes through lower mountains so even though it seems odd, there’s less early snow further north in the mountains. Where are you headed?”

“Some of us worked in the Carolina pine barrens. We got experience working in logging and lumbering. We heard there was work in northern California for loggers and lumbermen and if we can’t find work there, there’s supposed to be work like that in Oregon and Washington.”

“There’s work like that further south too. My family does some logging and lumbering in the Sierras by Virginia City. If you ever get down that way, we hire men all the time.”

“You ever hire any black men?”

“No, can’t say that we ever did, but can’t say that I ever recall seeing a black man looking for work there either. I know there are some black men in California. There just aren’t many black men in Nevada.”

“I suppose this is a long way to come.”

“Yes, I’ve never seen or heard of a black wagon train before. I know that there aren’t many of you, but it’s still a first for me and I bet for a lot of people.”

“Yeah, we been getting a lot of stares. At first out here, it made us nervous cause if we was getting stared at that much where we come from, we was in trouble. Gradual like we come to know that people is mainly just curious. Seems you ain’t the only one never seen so many black people before.”

“Oh, I saw black people before. I went to school in the east, but it’s that I never saw many black people here before. That’s the surprise, and for people who haven’t been east, it is very much a new thing for them.”

For several days, Adam directed the men to work on the wagons showing them how to reinforce them using parts of the wagon that were nonessential to fix the parts that were essential. They removed all the wheels and greased the hubs before replacing the wheels and then making sure the wheels were secure. Adam checked every one of the wagon tongues for any cracks and those were repaired even if they were small because he knew the stress of the trail would make them grow dangerously large very quickly. Then he started going through the possessions they were carrying and suggesting that they get rid of some of them. There were objections, but he told them that they were going to be throwing some of those things out by necessity.

“It would be better if you took them into town and tried to sell them. Otherwise, you’re going to find yourself throwing them out and getting nothing for them. There are a few things that you could use the money to buy to make your trip a better bet. You could buy extra harness, a spare wheel, and replace some of the parts we used to make repairs. You could probably use some extra canvas too as well as to add some basic food such as dried beans and some grain for your horses. You can replace that furniture. You can’t replace any lives that are lost if you have to delay your crossing because you have a wagon break down. I can get you on the right trail and I can point you in the right direction, but when I get you going, you’re looking at a week of the hardest travel you can imagine and a couple of days that are going to be the roughest you will ever face. The lighter those wagons are, the faster you can go, and the better you will do.”

“We’ll talk it over and decide. The womenfolk aren’t at all happy with the idea. We’ll all have to come to a decision on it.”

Unlike the other nights when Adam had spent the night singing with them learning new songs and teaching them songs of the west, he spent that night alone for most of the evening. He leaned back on his saddle and looked at the stars wondering what his father and brothers were thinking and what they were doing. He had been thinking more and more lately about his family. He wanted to be home but had found so many things he thought he needed to do before he headed back there. Once he got these people on their way, he would finally be headed toward home, but he had one more stop to make although it wouldn’t take long. He still had all of Tom McDermott’s property and wanted to deliver all of it to Sean and tell him all that he knew before he went home. He was thinking about that when Noah and Moses came to talk with him.

“Well, the ladies have agreed that we can sell the furniture except for the rocking chairs. They said those have rocked the bodies of too many generations of our family and they can’t be replaced. The other furniture holds clothes and dishes and such so they’re willing to part with that. Even the beds never touched the bodies the way those chairs did. Will it be enough?”

“Actually, that’s better than I expected. You did well. Tomorrow, we’ll load up one of the wagons and take all that furniture to town to sell it. We probably won’t get much for it and don’t feel insulted when that happens. Most people probably have most of the furniture they need, and they also probably will know that you need to sell it. Remember that any money you get is money you would not have gotten if you had to throw the furniture away later because your loads were too heavy and you needed to make them lighter.”

“You looked very serious when we came this way. What was on your mind?”

“Quite a few things actually. I was thinking of what I needed to do yet before I could go home.”

“It must be nice to have a home.”

“I’m sorry. I always forget that what I take for granted, you don’t have.”

“It’s all right. We’re gonna have it now. We ran away from slavery and then we found we were free. Lincoln done freed us. Now we are free people, free to live our own lives, marry up with who we want, raise up our own children, have our own money, make our own decisions. It feels good to have all that. We were starving before, and now our spirits are filled like our stomachs are after a hearty stew like we had for dinner. Thank you again for hunting and bringing us that fresh meat. That was a real nice thing ya done.”

“I got a home cooked meal out of it. I think it was a fair trade, or maybe I came out ahead on that one. You haven’t had to eat my cooking, and I have so I know what I’m talking about there. I never thought about a famine of the spirit before. That’s an interesting concept. It reminds me of what I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately.”

“What’s that?”

“Before I left home, before the draft and all of that, I was sitting in church, and the minister talked about death riding a pale horse and killing with sword and pestilence, and with wild beasts and with famine. Now I rode with the Army and they killed those Shoshone with the sword in a manner of speaking. Then smallpox killed those Paiute and the missionary, Priscilla, who was trying to help them. Then the mountain lion that was hurt killed two children and mauled a woman. I was wondering if I would find some people dying of famine before I got home. It seemed like it was destiny that I would.”

“Adam, there’s more than one kind of famine. We needed to feed our souls and our hearts and minds. We were denied all of that. I can tell how you like to learn. How would you like to live where it was a crime for you to learn to read and write? We couldn’t hold a religious service without getting punished. They were always afraid that we were planning some kind of rebellion. They were so afraid of us because they knew what they did was wrong, and that we might rise up against it some time. But because they were afraid and lived in fear of us, they made us live in fear of them. We never knew when we would face the lash, when we might get sold down the river, or when we might get beat for something we did or it was imagined we did. It was a famine of nourishment that we needed and never got. Now we got it though and we aim to keep it.”

At that point, Adam heard riders coming in hard. He reached for his rifle and stepped toward the tree and told Moses and Noah to take cover. “I have no idea who this is, but it doesn’t sound like a friendly entrance. Yell to everybody to take cover.” A group of about twelve men rode into the camp then. The light of the campfires illuminated them and reflected from the sheriff’s badge.

“You people come out now. I want to talk with you.”

Adam stepped out into the light of the campfires. “I’m here. What seems to be the problem?”

“Where are all the people that were with these wagons?”

“They’re here, but sheriff, you and the others didn’t exactly ride in here in a friendly manner. They’re hiding. If it was your families in a situation like this, they would be hiding too.”

“There’s a girl from town and she’s missing.”

“She’s not here.”

“Well, maybe one or more of these men took her.”

“Sheriff, I have been here all day working with these men as I have been for the last several days. None of them left today, and they’re all here now. You can see that line of horses there. My horses are there, and all the horses they brought with them are there. Count them if you want.”

Some of the men did just that and then came back to the sheriff to tell him that what Adam had said was true. “You’ll swear they were all here all day and this evening?”

“I will.”

“All right. You make sure none of them leave tonight. I don’t think it would be safe for them to leave here tonight.”

“We’ll stay in camp tonight. We did plan to be in town tomorrow.”

“Might not be a good idea unless we find that girl tonight.”

“Sheriff, can I talk with you privately?”

“Anything you got to say, you can say in front of these men. None of them are her family.”

“Is this young lady you’re looking for about as tall as my shoulder with brown hair tied back in a long braid and a bit, shall we say, overly generously rounded in all the right places?”

“You could describe her that way.”

“When I was getting my horses from the livery stable, a young woman who fit that description was climbing down from the loft there. I’m wondering if you might want to check that loft.”

With no apology but no further antagonistic comments, the sheriff and his posse left. The people gradually emerged from their hiding places. The anger was palpable, and Adam wondered what would have happened if he had not been there. Moses said it. “It’s still the same in some ways. We still gots to be afraid all the time. We still hungry in our hearts and souls for being treated like real people get treated.”

Noah added a depressing postscript. “It took hundreds of years for them to build up to this point. Maybe it’s gonna take another hundred or two for them to get over it.”

“I hope not.” But Adam feared that they might be right. His experience with the Indians and how white settlers treated them and how the government dealt with them made him wonder how the government would handle another group of people who weren’t white although in every other way they were as American as any of the white citizens.

The next morning, Adam and Moses ventured into town wary of trouble but no one paid much attention to them as they drove the wagon down the main road of the town and stopped by the general store. Adam went inside and as expected found there was little demand for furniture, but the proprietor came out and took a look anyway.

“That’s pretty good stuff. I’d be willing to take if off your hands. I’d give you twenty dollars for the lot and you could put it in my back room. It might stay there a while before I could sell any of it.”

“You must have someone in mind at least for some of it to make an offer so quickly. It seems that one hundred dollars would be a fair offer.”

“I could probably go to twenty-five but no more.”

“That’s not enough. We can make more selling the pieces individually. That’s what I should tell them to do.”

“How about forty then?”

“Make it seventy and we have a deal.”

“I can do fifty, but that has to be my top offer. I need to make some profit on this too, and yes some may sell right away, but the rest may sit in my storeroom for a long time.”

“All right, you should make the offer to Moses then. He’s the one who actually owns the property.” Adam called to Moses that the shopkeeper had an offer for him. When Moses arrived, he saw Adam’s look. When the offer was made, he looked reluctant. “You may have to sweeten that pie just a bit more. I would have taken fifty, but Moses is a bit harder to convince.”

“I could do fifty-five, I guess.”

“I’ll take it.” Moses was jubilant. That seemed like a lot of money. It was far more than he had expected to get too.

However Adam was disappointed. When the shopkeeper went back inside to get the money to finish the deal, Adam turned to Moses. “If you had been a bit more stubborn, he would have offered more.” Moses was surprised, and Adam didn’t want to dampen his spirits especially because nothing could be changed anyway. “You did well enough though. Your family should be very pleased with fifty-five dollars. You can get a lot of things with that and have some money left over.”

Moses did some shopping then after they unloaded the wagon. Before they left town, Adam sought out the sheriff and asked about the missing young woman.

“After what you said, we searched the loft at the livery stable. No one was there, but it was clear that it had been used the way you suspected. There was a blanket there and well, items of clothing and such. We went to the farm to see the boy she’s been with most often, and he’s gone too. His family figured that he run off, and they weren’t worried and hadn’t said anything. We still don’t know where she is, but now we think the two of them are together. Her family checked, and a lot of her clothes are missing too so she packed before she left.”

“You could apologize to Moses and the others for accusing them.”

“I didn’t accuse them. I only asked questions. I was doing my job. Good day to you, and I hope you have a safe trip home.”

After the sheriff left, Moses looked at Adam. “It’s the way of things, Adam. It’s how we’re used to being treated. It shouldn’t be, but as long as we come out of it all right, I guess we move on and pray things are better down the road. Lots of black folk thinking we ought to form our own communities so we can have our own governments, our own sheriffs, and such as that so things like this don’t happen so much. I’m afraid that if we do though, it just gonna happen later rather than sooner. I don’t think anything good can come from living separated no matter who the idea comes from cause it still puts us on the outside looking in mostly.”

“I think you’re right on that score, but I don’t know what anyone can do about it. Well, one thing I can do is to tell you that tomorrow, if you’re ready, we can head out toward the California Trail and get you headed in the right direction.”

It worked out as Adam hoped. He got them moving early the next morning, and within a week had them back at the trail where they were supposed to be. He showed them where they were on their map. Pointed out the direction they had to go, and sent them on their way wishing them godspeed. He watched their wagons trundle off and more than once, children poked their heads out of the backs of wagons and waved to him or the older children who were walking turned and did the same. He had made friends with all of them and hoped that someday he might see them again. Then once more, he turned his horses and began the long ride toward home. One stop at Carson City and he could head to the Ponderosa, but he still had hundreds of miles to travel first.

 

Chapter 9

There was one problem Adam had not encountered much in the months he had been gone. Overall the weather had been mild. That changed dramatically as he was riding home. There were windstorms and thunderstorms. He had to take shelter repeatedly costing him time again and again. One evening as he sought shelter once more from an approaching storm, he looked up to the sky that was becoming dark purple and blue.

“Death rides a pale horse and uses the sword, pestilence, wild beasts, and famine. I’ve seen all of those. Nowhere in there does it mention storms. You could ease up on me, don’t you think?” He laughed then at the ridiculousness of his situation. At least the storms kept him from worrying about predators of the wild beast kind or the human kind. Neither was out in this kind of weather. There was something cleansing about storms even if they were windstorms. They made him think of how things were blown clean in front of him where there were no tracks of anything or anyone who had gone before him as if he was the first making this journey. Of course, he was the first making this journey for no one had made it before he had. He thought then on all that he had done in the previous year. It seemed like much more than eight months had passed. Somehow it seemed like years must have gone by, but it had only been the previous December when they had been in church listening to that sermon and then later talking about the draft notices that were supposed to be issued. Then weeks later, he was in the Army and then sweeping through eastern Nevada looking for Confederates who never were there and beginning his whole fateful journey. He realized that without leaving the state, he had experienced a tremendous amount of diverse events. He had done some good in all of it. He thought about those things and then he thought about Helen. He tried not to think about Helen so much, because it made his body ache for her and his heart longed for the love that he knew she could give, but she was committed to her life in Helena. But when he had to huddle like this against a storm’s buffeting winds and rain, he longed for the comfort of her arms and the sound of her voice. He told himself to stop torturing himself with the memory of a woman he could never have, but the memories of her wouldn’t let him go. Finally after weeks of difficult travel, he saw the buildings of Carson City ahead. His pace picked up because once this errand was completed, he could finally go home.

McDermott’s storefront was easy to find as he had told Old Tom. He wondered now what the old man’s name actually was. The drifter had assumed Tom McDermott’s identity and his property leaving no clues as to whom he actually was. Sean smiled when he saw Adam walk through the door but then the smile faded because he remembered why Adam was calling on him.

“Hello, Adam. I got your telegrams. I was shocked by the first one, and then just about as shocked by the second. I wanted to see him, and I wanted to see him hang. Then I thought about it, and I guess it was better this way. But did he ever say anything about what happened to my mother?”

“No, nothing.” Adam didn’t want to say what the man had said. It likely wasn’t true and would needlessly cause Sean pain. “He never gave any indication of what happened to her other than to say that she died about twenty-five years ago. There was no grave there that I ever saw though so I don’t know if that was the truth. I like to think that perhaps she got away and went back to her people.”

“I guess I’d like to think that too. After he sent me away with that wagon train, I never thought I would ever hear anything about her again, so it’s about what I expected. Now you said you had some things from my father?”

So Adam took him outside and they unloaded all the treasures from the old man’s packhorse and took them inside stacking them on one of Sean’s work tables. The most valuable in Adam’s estimation were the journals. He had been most careful with them making sure that they stayed dry for the trip. There were the leather wrapped bundles of drawings too as well as bags of turquoise that had been collected. There were dried plant specimens that could have been prepared by either Sean’s mother or father. There were some Indian artifacts as well including small drawings and carvings.

“I drew a map as well as I could to show you where that cabin is if you ever want to travel up there to see it. There isn’t much there any more. There is the furniture and the kitchen utensils and such, but not much more than that.”

“Tell me how you knew it was him.”

“It was when we were still kids and you lived with that family in Virginia City then. You told me about your arm. You had that bad arm. It was worse then than it is now. I asked what happened to it, and you told me about the drifter who killed your father and sold you as a worker to a wagon train. I had no idea that someone could do something like that, but I remembered you saying that because your right elbow wouldn’t straighten out like it should and probably never would, you would have to learn to be left-handed like your father. I saw that those journals were written by a left-handed man. The drawings were signed by him. The old man claiming to be him was right-handed and never in the weeks I was with him did he ever do anything important with his left hand. He said he had written in those journals when he was alone, but it was clear no one had written anything in them for decades. It’s amazing to me that he even kept them.”

“Yes, I wonder why he did. I wonder why he stayed there too.”

“He said he was a deserter. I think he may have done things that were a lot worse than that. He murdered your father and attacked your mother. Who knows what else he may have done over the years. That cozy cabin was a safe place for him. No one was likely to ever find him there. He said he was reluctant to leave. I think he was afraid that he might be recognized.”

“Why did he leave then?”

“Greed. I convinced him that those journals were worth a lot of money. They are, of course, but I bet they’re worth more than money to you.” Sean agreed with that. “I told him I was going to the bank to get money too. I wanted to sweeten the pot for him. I think he was planning to kill me and then come here to kill you to eliminate the witness he thought he got rid of years ago. Then he would be free to sell those journals and live well on the proceeds.”

“You set him up.”

“It couldn’t have worked better, except for the sheriff showing up with a shotgun. When he resisted arrest, that shotgun eliminated any chance of him explaining any more of what happened. He did say enough to the sheriff to verify what I had told him.”

“What did he say?”

“He looked at me and asked how I knew. Then he said a few things about it that confirmed the story before he pulled a knife and a pistol. He knew it was hopeless. He didn’t want to hang.”

“Adam, thank you so much for doing this. I’m going to read these journals and then I’m going to tell my children about their grandfather. I haven’t been able to tell them that much. It’s hard to remember much from when you were ten years old, but now I have these. I’ll make frames for the drawings too. Adam, when you get married, you come here, and I’ll make some furniture for you. I’ll do it up special, and I’ll give you the best price I can give you.”

“Thank you, Sean. You don’t have to do that. I did what I did because we’re friends.”

“And I will do what I will do because we are friends, and you are a good man. I am proud to call you my friend.”

“Even after those stories you read about my Army service?”

“I didn’t believe those stories. I know you. You would never have done what they said. Now I will wait for you to tell your story so I will know what the truth is.”

“It’s a long story.”

“When you are ready to tell it, I will be ready to listen.”

“Thank you. I can only hope that other people feel the same way.”

“Your friends know the truth. You may have some trouble with other people especially the ignorant ones.”

Adam knew that was a warning and thanked Sean for it. Dusty and dirty after weeks in the saddle and with a scruffy beard as well, it was unlikely that anyone in Carson City recognized him. He decided that the best course of action at this point was to ride for home bypassing Virginia City and going directly toward the Ponderosa. He left Sean’s place and headed out of town without attracting any attention. It was late enough in the day that he knew he couldn’t get home until the next day. That was a bit disappointing but it would give him a chance to clean up a bit and shave. He decided to camp near water and see about taking a swim if the water wasn’t too cold. He found it to be cold and was shivering by the time he left the water, but he felt clean at least and his beard was soaked. He had to get dry and clothed before he could shave though. He wet his beard again after he did that and shaved. He looked at his hair in the mirror and could imagine his father’s comments when he saw it. There wasn’t too much he could do about that though except comb it back. He brushed his hat and thought that would at least cover the hair issue at first. He wished that he had some fresh meat or some fish for dinner, but it was too late to worry about that. It was then that he smelled smoke and realized he wasn’t alone camping in that vicinity. Unsure of who might be nearby, he climbed the ridge behind his camp and looked down about a mile to see a campfire in the distance. What he saw made him smile. He walked back down the hill carefully but in a hurry, got his horse saddled again, packed up the others, and rode out with only a minimum of light for travel. It was getting almost too dark to move as he neared the other camp. He stopped a short distance away when he assumed they could hear him coming.

“Yo. Hallow. In the camp, any crispy bacon and hot coffee for a hungry man?”

Adam dismounted and heard the crashing through the brush of two men rushing toward him and was soon engulfed in a double hug. It was almost difficult to breathe with Hoss hugging him from the front and Joe from the back and both trying to slap his shoulders and do whatever else they could to make sure it was really him.

“Doggone it, Adam, why didn’t you tell us you were coming?’

“Yeah, dadburnit, older brother, you could a given me a heart attack or something calling out to us like that. As it was I dropped my dinner. Now come on back to camp with us. Dadgummit, it shur is good to see you. How’d you ever find us anyhow?”

“I was camped over that ridge. I took a swim and shaved.”

“You went swimming? It’s cold enough to think about warming up rocks to keep my feet warm tonight, and you went swimming?”

“Joe, after a few weeks on the trail, I needed to clean up. I was only in the water a short time. Yes, it was cold but I needed it. I shaved too. Now, you have dinner ready?”

“We only have some rabbit, and some bacon and beans.”

“Sounds wonderful. Lead on.”

“Pa’s gonna be shocked when we ride in with you tomorrow. He’s been watching out that window or across those meadows every day wondering when you’d ride in. We got your telegrams a couple of times saying you were on your way back, and then something always seemed to come up and you weren’t.”

“Hoss, I know, and I’m sorry about that. I’ll tell you all about everything, but right now I am hungry.”

So they helped Adam with his horses before settling in for some dinner. Adam asked how they were doing and how their father was doing. It was a way to get to know that but to buy some time to for the more difficult task of telling his brothers some of what had happened. He correctly guessed that they wanted to know what had happened with the Shoshone not believing the story that they had read and having only the barest bones of the story from the letter that Adam had written to their father. Joe had noticed that he had a different pistol and rifle.

“So the Shoshone have your old pistol and rifle?”

“That would be my best guess. I got the horse and saddle back from them but not the firearms. They probably wouldn’t have known which ones were mine anyway. I lost my saddlebags and everything I had with me too. I was keeping a journal but that’s gone. Turnbull took my things. I have no idea where it ended up.”

“Adam, you told Pa in the letter that you weren’t with Turnbull when the Shoshone attacked him. You was at a mission, but why weren’t you with him?”

“Hoss, because I fired the shots that warned the village and for a few other reasons, I was punished. I needed to recuperate from that and couldn’t travel. He didn’t want me to travel anyway. He didn’t want me to tell my side of the story then. He was going to court martial me, and I said I welcomed a court martial. I should have kept my mouth shut about that. He reconsidered then and took matters into his own hands.”

Both Hoss and Joe got a sick feeling about that punishment and the fact that Adam hadn’t yet said what it was. Joe had to ask. “Adam, what did they do to you?”

“I got ten lashes, or eleven. I lost count or the man with the whip decided to be nasty. I couldn’t see him because I was tied up to a tree like a pig for slaughter. Afterwards, I wasn’t paying much attention to anything. I got a fever too. By the time I was aware of what was going on, I was laying on a cot at the mission and Turnbull was gone. I remember bits and pieces of what happened, but I’m missing the details of those couple of days.”

There was silence then because Hoss and Joe didn’t know what to say. The idea of their brother carrying scars on his back from being whipped was a bit difficult to accept. After a few minutes, Hoss broke the quiet tension.

“Does your back still bother you?”

“A little. It itches at times, and sometimes it feels tight and pulls. It doesn’t hurt though if that’s what you mean. I can ride and work without any problem. I met some freedmen a short time ago. We talked about it. They said that was why slaves got whipped on the back. It hurts like hell, it’s a visible reminder to everyone else about what happens when you don’t follow the rules, but it doesn’t interfere with your working once you heal up.”

“Freedmen? Out here?”

“Yes, but that’s a good part of my story. It’s late though and I’m exhausted. Can we take a break and get some sleep?”

“Sorry, I forgot that you been riding a long ways. We only delivered some horses and then couldn’t make it all the way back. We’ll let you get some rest. You’re home now so you can take all the time you need to tell us all about what happened while you was gone.”

When Adam pulled his bedroll out next to the campfire, Joe put his right beside him. Adam had to smile when Hoss moved his to his other side. A brother on each side, he slept well that night for the first time in quite a while not feeling lonely. In the morning, he realized that he had not felt that comfortable sleeping since he had been with Helen. Then he did his best to banish that thought because it hurt to think about her.

Breakfast was convivial as his brothers were so genuinely happy to have him home. He helped with the camp chores and they had some breakfast but not much. They were all anxious to ride knowing that their father would want to see them and would be overjoyed in fact to see them. Excitement grew as they neared the house in the early afternoon. They had skipped stopping for lunch only giving the horses a break a few times before pushing on again. They rode in with a few whoops to be sure to bring their father outside which worked. He came out to see what all the commotion was and froze in place for a moment when he saw three instead of two sons approaching. Then he grinned as much as he could possibly grin and rushed toward them grabbing Adam in a great bear hug as soon as he dismounted.

“Adam, I have been dreaming of this day. It is so wonderful to have you home finally because I was afraid that it might never happen.”

“Pa, I said I was coming home. I always keep my word.”

“But so many things were happening to stop you. I worried about what would happen next. We were so close to you in Wells and missed you there.”

“You were in Wells?”

“Yes, just after you broke that man’s jaw and spent a few days in jail. We had some horses to deliver to Ruby so we continued on to Wells hoping to intercept you, but you went off in another direction and we had no idea where to look.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were anywhere near where I was. That ended up being another adventure.”

“Yes, and apparently it all worked out, but you were in danger again there. That’s why I worried so. Now come inside. You’re so thin. Hop Sing is going to want to serve up some late lunch for you once he gets a look at you.”

“Pa, I’m mighty hungry too. We ain’t had hardly nothing to eat today trying to get ole Adam home as fast as we could.”

Ben didn’t want to let go of Adam, so he kept his arm around his shoulders and guided him into the house while reassuring Hoss that Hop Sing undoubtedly would prepare plenty of food for all of them. Hop Sing was delighted of course to have the oldest son back home and did exactly as Ben had predicted. The old friends knew each other well. As Adam sat at the table and enjoyed a sumptuous meal, he began to fill his family in on all that had happened to him. He didn’t mention the lashes to his father not wanting to dampen the spirits of the moment. He knew there would be plenty of time to talk about the negative parts of his experiences. He tried to focus on the good parts of the story for this first session which continued through the evening until he had to call a halt. He was exhausted emotionally not realizing how draining it would be to talk about all of those things in such a short time even with his supportive family. He looked around for his things and found that they had already been taken to his room. When he got up to his room, he found that Hop Sing had been there already. There was a fire burning in the fireplace so the room was warmed, and everything was fresh and clean. He stripped off his clothing and slid between the crisp clean sheets and fell asleep faster than he had probably fallen asleep in years.

The next morning, Ben rose early as he always did. When he walked down the hall, he couldn’t help himself and had to look in to see Adam was home and sleeping in his bed. What he saw made him sad but didn’t surprise him much. He had had heard the hesitation in Adam’s voice when he talked of the aftermath of the attack on the Shoshone and he had rushed over the part of the story when he was left at the mission with a fever not explaining any reason for the fever. Ben had suspected that he had been punished and as he stood in the doorway and the morning light illuminated the room, he saw the scars revealed as Adam lay on his side with the covers pulled up and tucked under his arms as he was prone to do since he was a boy. It left the upper quadrant of his back exposed and some of the scarring was quite evident. Ben knew there were more scars under the covers, but now he knew how Adam must have suffered for that courageous act. He had saved lives but paid a penalty and would carry the evidence of it for the rest of his life. Ben’s eyes were glistening with tears as he pulled the door closed. Hoss was leaving his room and saw his father there. Ben wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

“You musta seen something bad then?”

“Did you know they whipped him?”

“He told us. I don’t think he wanted to say it last night cause we was all feeling so happy about everything. He woulda told ya.”

“I guess so. It’s a terrible thing to see on your son.”

“It’s a terrible thing to do to any man. I think the Shoshone done us all a big favor.”

“Except for all the other men who had to die with him. And the innocents who died before that. It’s a terrible story and most people still don’t know the truth of it.”

“Now that Adam is back, do you think he’s gonna try to tell people the truth of what happened?”

“I think he’s going to try. That frightens me a bit too. You know the kinds of things people were saying just after it happened. That’s calmed down, but it could all start up again now that he’s back. I’m worried about the first time he goes to town.”

“I am too. Pa, I think he knows too. He took the long way around coming home. We would never have seen him if he came by road and through Virginia City. He came across country to avoid town so I think he knows it could be a problem.”

“Well, we’re going to be darn sure he doesn’t face it alone. He’s been alone enough. We need to be sure he doesn’t go anywhere alone until we know how people are going to react.”

“Me and Joe kinda talked about that already. We’re thinking the same way on that. We’ll make sure to have one of us with him or maybe both whenever he’s away from the house here. Pa, there’s the harvest dance Saturday night. He might want to go. Lots of his old friends will be there. It could be a pretty tough night for him.”

“I know. I was thinking about that. Maybe I’ll go to the dance too.”

“He’s gonna know then why you’re going.”

“It’s a father’s prerogative. I’m sure he knows that by now.”

“All right. I’ll let you talk that one over with him.”

That conversation and the constant monitoring went better than any of them expected. In fact, lots of little things that normally would have irritated Adam seemed not to bother him at all. He didn’t seem to care if there was a towel left of the floor of the washroom. He picked it up, and cleaned up the area before and after he used it. He smiled when Joe cheated at games with Hoss and even when he tried it with him. Ben was even more surprised than his younger sons at the change in demeanor of his eldest son but wasn’t complaining. Hoss was worried that it was building up to a big blowup but when he broached that subject to Adam, he was surprised by the answer.

“I used to let those things be a fuse for other things that had built up inside of me. Now I’ve learned to separate those things out. I’ve gotten better at picking my battles, and some things aren’t worth the effort of being upset. It’s so much easier to simply pick up that towel or close that door and move on. I can use my energy for what matters then. I have more important things on my mind.”

“Like what’s gonna happen when you head to town with us tonight?”

“That would be one of them, yes, but I want to find a way to tell the truth about so many of the things that happen out here. So much happens that people don’t know the truth. They know what politicians say happened. Or they hear what the Army reports as having happened. For so many years, Hoss, people told us that slaves were happy being slaves and couldn’t do anything else. Well, I talked with those freedmen a lot. Those were lies told over and over and over again until so many people believed them. I worked with those men for a week. They could do everything that any white man could do. They were every bit the man that any man would want to be, and yet so many refuse to believe they’re equal. So many people look at Indians as savages because they won’t live like we live, but if they try to live like we live, they still won’t accept them because they won’t trust them. When you look at things like that, what’s a dropped towel or an open door?”

“That’s all well and good, but tonight you better be thinking a bit more on how to avoid a poke in the nose and a night in jail cause there’s a real possibility we’ll be facing some of those kinds of things.”

“Yes, and I’m wondering if I should go. I’ll be making trouble for all of you when this is my fight.”

“Now you listen here. Unless you done decided to pull out of this family, then this is still our fight. We know you didn’t do what they said you done. We know what you did and we agree with what you did. It’s about time people around here find out the truth and tonight might just be the beginning of that, you hear me?”

“Thank you. Sometimes I get to feeling too big for my britches, and you’re the right man to bring me down a notch and remind me of where I stand.”

“You remember you stand with us, and you’ll do fine.”

 

Chapter 10

For most of the night, the dance went better than expected for Adam. There were no comments made although there were some who didn’t talk to him or acknowledge his attempt to greet them. There were others who greeted him with enthusiasm and welcomed him back home. He had several ladies who turned away at his approach but others who accepted his offers of a dance with a smile. It seemed the night would end peacefully until some of the less friendly men who had imbibed alcohol at a local saloon decided to return to the dance and were intent on teaching Adam a lesson for his supposed traitorous acts or so they saw them in the campaign against the Shoshone. One of them pulled him around by the shoulder as a dance ended and made that accusation. Adam did his best to defuse the situation but truth wasn’t what they wanted to hear.

“It wasn’t a campaign against the Shoshone. We were chasing after Confederates who were rumored to be out there and never were and were getting help from Southern Paiute who of course couldn’t be helping them because they weren’t there in the first place. Turnbull ordered an attack on a Shoshone hunting party and they retaliated later. Then he has us track them down except he didn’t go to arrest the men from the hunting party. He attacked women and children.”

“That’s a lie. My brother was with that outfit and died out there. He would never have done anything like that. You’re a damned liar. You can’t keep saying things like that because they’re damned lies. You can’t prove any of it, can you?”

“There were others there who can tell you if your brother murdered women and children. I can tell you that from what I saw, he participated in the massacre of innocent women and children.”

Ben, Hoss, and Joe had come through the crowd to try to get to Adam’s side before any trouble started and heard what he said. They knew that a full-scale brawl was going to happen as soon as they heard those words. It did. An hour later, they were sitting in Roy’s office trying to explain that all Adam did was to answer the man’s question.

“Roy, those men had been drinking. They accosted Adam and backed him into a corner. You couldn’t expect him to lie. You and I both know he wouldn’t lie in a situation like that no matter what was going to happen. He didn’t throw the first punches. In fact, I’m not sure he threw any punches at all.”

“Maybe he didn’t, Ben. I ain’t even thinking of charging him causes there ain’t nobody saying he hit anybody. He’s over at the Doc’s now getting patched up from getting hit, but you hit people from everything I heard. You threw a lot of punches and so did Hoss and Joe here. Now that’s against the law in this town. It’s a fine or a few nights in jail. It’s your choice.”

“That’s not fair. We were rescuing Adam from being attacked by several men. Self-defense includes defending others when they can’t defend themselves.”

“All right, then, but what about them punches I seen you throw after I know that Hoss and Joe had Adam out of that there hall and were on the way to the Doc’s with him?”

Hoss was doing his best to examine Roy’s ceiling at that point, and Joe seemed to find the papers on Roy’s desk immensely fascinating. Neither of them wanted to look at their father or Roy at that point because their father was fuming and would want their support which they could not give, and Roy was enjoying the moment way too much and they did not dare even show the hint of a smile. Ben harrumphed finally and dug out his wallet and slapped the bills down on Roy’s desk.

“What do Hoss and Joe owe?”

“Why Ben, I’m not fining either of your fine upstanding sons there. You yourself done gave a wonderful argument explaining why I shouldn’t. They got self-defense as their reason for what they done so they don’t owe a cent. They was protecting Adam cause he couldn’t protect himself. Now you all can head on over to the Doc’s to see if Adam is ready to head on home with you. Good night to ya, and Ben, Virginia City does thank you for the generous donation to the sheriff’s office fund.”

On his way out, Ben came very close to having to pay for a new door for the sheriff’s office. Roy chuckled. He was going to have a good time needling his old friend about this one for a few weeks. There would probably be a few others in town who might ruffle Ben’s feathers a bit with it too. Adam wasn’t seriously injured so there was no reason to be overly concerned. Roy did worry about what a few others might do if Adam said any more about what some of the Virginia City men had done out there the day of that massacre, but the truth had a way of coming out one way or another anyhow. He would keep an eye on some of the troublemakers to be sure that nothing too serious happened.

When Ben, Hoss, and Joe arrived at Doctor Martin’s office, Adam was disputing the doctor’s advice. Paul asked Hoss to go outside and break a live small branch about a foot long from the tree and bring it back inside. When he did, Paul twisted the branch to break it.

“Now, what you have is what we call a green stick fracture. Based on what you told me of what happened, it probably broke when those three men wrestled you to the floor and you said your leg was twisted back under you and hurt quite badly.” Paul twisted the branch for all of them to see. “This is what happened to the smaller bone in your lower left leg. It twisted until it couldn’t take the pressure and snapped like this twig did. Now when you’re lying there on that table with that splint on your leg, it probably feels fine. It’s like the broken twig I have here in my hands.” Paul showed them the small branch that actually looked fairly undamaged when he laid it across his palm. “However if I do this, it separates and causes all sorts of problems including pain. It will not heal if this happens repeatedly.” Paul stood the branch up and pushed on one end of the branch and it opened up in many spots showing all the breaks and tears in it. Hoss grimaced and Joe couldn’t even bear to look at it thinking that Adam’s leg looked like that on the inside. Adam simply frowned.

“Paul, what are you suggesting that Adam do that he doesn’t want to do?”

“No riding for a few weeks. No walking for a few days except with a crutch to carry most of his weight and keep it off that leg. He needs to spend most of his time sitting and keeping that leg elevated. After a week, he can take the splints off and use a cane, but still no more walking than necessary for another week. At two weeks, he could gradually increase his activity but on a very limited scale. In three weeks, he could ride again but again gradually at first to let that bone get stronger first and still use the cane to help keep the weight off the leg when he’s walking.”

“What about his other injuries?”

“He has lots of bruises but nothing serious. The good news about men who are drunk is that often they can’t land a solid punch.”

“Felt solid enough at the time.”

“I think you wouldn’t be talking to me right now if those five or six men had been sober. You would probably be in that surgery needing repairs done. Now do you want to sleep here tonight and wait for your family to bring back a wagon or carriage for you, or do you want to get a room at the hotel?”

“Ah, thank you, Paul, but my sons and I will get a room. Hoss and Joe will you see to the horses? Paul, do you have some crutches that Adam could use?”

After Paul got the crutches, Adam hobbled to the hotel with his father. They took a room on the first floor, and Ben got another room for Hoss and Joe upstairs. Paul had said that Adam could take the splints off to sleep. It was more comfortable that way except he forgot when he needed to use the chamberpot, and woke his father with his exclamations and some profanity. Ben didn’t need to point out to him that the experience proved Paul’s point. Adam nodded after Ben helped him lay back in the bed and wiped the sweat from his brow.

“I know. You don’t have to say it.”

In the morning, Ben had breakfast delivered to the room. When Hoss and Joe came looking for them, they found the two of them enjoying their coffee. Adam sat on a chair with the splinted leg propped up on another chair. Adam said he would be willing to sit in the lobby and read while they went home for a wagon or carriage to give him a ride. While he waited there, several people came up and talked to him briefly, but one sat down for a serious conversation. It was one of the men who had been in Bennett’s unit.

“I heard you were back. I wanted to know if you were going to tell what really happened out there?”

“Have you told people?”

“I’ve tried. No one wants to listen to me. They say I don’t understand what was going on. But you’re an educated man. You were a lieutenant out there. You saw it all. They would listen to you. There are others here who don’t like the story that got told. We didn’t do what some did, and we wish we could have stopped it, but even Lieutenant Bennett said he didn’t know what we could do except not let any of them ride through us.”

“What do you mean?”

“We rode to one side and any Indians that ran that way, we didn’t do anything. The Lieutenant said that no one was riding through us to chase any of them. It was all we could do.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I guess you couldn’t see that from where you were. Somebody needs to tell that story. If you did, then more of us could say our side too, and then maybe somebody would believe us.”

“What’s your name? I don’t think I know you even if you look familiar.”

“My name’s Vissers. I haven’t lived here that long, but it was long enough to get drafted. I’ll never forget what I saw that day, and until the truth gets told, I don’t think I can stop having those dreams either. Will you think about it?”

“I’ve been thinking about it. I wish I had some proof other than my word, but Turnbull took my journal, and Bennett got sent away.”

“He died, you know.”

“Bennett?”

“Yeah, one of the other men in town came back from the war and Bennett was in his unit at the end. He showed up with only weeks left. They had those Rebs who didn’t want to believe the war was over. Well one of them shot Bennett in the belly. I guess he was in pain for months before he died. It wasn’t that long ago. He had one of them abscesses in his belly. They couldn’t do anything about it and then he died. I guess that’s an awful way to go. Seems that some of the men kept in touch with him and his family too and that’s how they knew.”

Bowing his head genuinely sad that Bennett was dead, Adam was also dismayed that he would have no help from the young man. He had hoped that perhaps he could contact Bennett for help with publishing the true story of what had happened.

“You wanted Bennett to help, didn’t you?”

“I had hoped to write to him about this to see if there was some way that he could help. I knew it might be a problem for a career Army officer, but I had no idea that he had died. He left here so late in the War that I assumed he was fine.”

“Well, if you find a way to bring out the truth, know that you got others here like me who’ll back you up with everything we got. It was wrong what was done. I ain’t no Injun lover, but those did nothing wrong, and women and children should never be hurt. It was wrong in every way. It should be told what was done.”

“It should be told. Vissers, I will find a way. It may take some time, but the truth will come out.”

“Thank you. I knew you were the kind of man who wouldn’t let them get away with covering up that nasty business by calling it some kind of glorious thing. Well, good day to you. I’m sorry you got hurt. There are gonna be people in town watching out for you now too with those loudmouths looking to hurt you. They better watch themselves. We aren’t going to put up with any more of that behavior. We just aren’t.”

Adam didn’t know what to do except to thank the man. Shortly after Vissers left, Dan DeQuille stopped by to ask pretty much the same questions, but he asked with an entirely different motive for asking. He thought it would make a good story and sell more newspapers.

“Dan, if I decide at some point to give you this story, it won’t be because you asked. It will be because it is the best way to get it to the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time. I’ll let you know when and if that is ever true. Now I have a book I would like to read if you don’t mind.”

Dan left but Adam didn’t read although the book remained open in his hands. He sat for quite a while thinking about what he should do but reaching no more of a resolution than he had before he had talked with Vissers or with Dan. The lack of some tangible evidence other than his testimony and that of other men was a stumbling block when Turnbull’s official report was so different from what he would say. He needed something to give some credence to his version of the story and couldn’t think of any way to do that. When Hoss arrived with the carriage, he still had no answer. He used the crutches to hobble out to the carriage, and Hoss helped him get up in the seat. He and Hoss had a pleasant enough ride and conversation but by the time he got home, his leg was stiff and swollen. He struggled to get down from the carriage and into the house, and it was a relief to raise his leg up on the pillows that his father positioned on the table in front of the blue chair. He ate his dinner there and sat there until it was time to go upstairs to bed. That night, Ben left his bedroom door open and insisted that Adam do the same so that if he needed assistance, he could be heard. They did that for a couple of nights until the worst of the discomfort passed, and Adam could manage things for himself.

Every day, Adam made his way downstairs and had breakfast at the table with his leg propped up on a stool. Then he sat in the blue chair with his leg up on the table and did as much of the paper work as he could manage in that position. Ben enjoyed having him there to do that and to be able to talk with him. They talked about many topics and did talk about most of what had happened to Adam in the time that he had been gone with Adam able to share more details of each of those experiences. Ben asked if Adam’s wanderlust was satisfied or only temporarily abated.

“It’s different now. I know what’s important. I still want to travel, but I think perhaps a few trips during the winter months will suffice. When the railroad gets built, I can see a lot in those three or four months or so. I can take a ship from San Francisco to see the Sandwich Islands. I know where I want to be, and home is the most important place.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that son. It was very difficult for me to have you gone for so long and not knowing what was happening to you. It will be difficult to see you leave on trips, but knowing you will return in three or four months will make it tolerable.”

“I have what I need here. I’ll come back home.”

“What about the woman you met?” For a time, Adam said nothing. “I can tell by the way you mention her name that she is special. But yet you don’t talk about her. Isn’t there any hope of a relationship there?”

“No, there isn’t. She won’t leave Helena, and I won’t go live there. She owns a good part of the town and likes that. My family is here. There doesn’t seem to be a way to reconcile those differences.”

Ben couldn’t see a way either. “I’m sorry. Sometimes things don’t work out at all.”

Overall though, the conversations were lighter than that and the two re-established their working relationship. Ben had to take some contracts to town after about a week, and when he returned, he handed a small package to Adam. “I picked up the mail and that was there for you. I don’t recognize the name.”

“Coretta May Remington. I don’t recognize the name either.” Adam opened the package and found a letter atop two journals.

“Dear Adam,

I don’t know if you have heard, but I am dying. I took a minie ball to the belly trying to get some reluctant Rebels to surrender in Florida. It has been a long and painful time. The doctors say that there is an abscess growing in my abdomen. It will burst and give me a most horrendous death. Even now I spend much of my time unaware of my surroundings as I am taking large doses of morphine so that I do not scream with pain and disturb the neighbors and the rest of the family. Today I imposed upon my mother to withhold the dose so that I could write this letter to you. For months I have wanted to send these to you. My stepfather kept your journal. He liked to take trophies from his victims. That was his trophy from his victory over you. He had it with his personal possessions so when they cleaned up the site where he died, it was sent to us with his things. I have my journal of course. I am asking my mother to send both to you because I trust that you will use them well.

Your friend,

Bennett”

With his head bowed, Adam couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. When Ben was concerned and sat on the settee next to him, Adam passed the letter to him. Ben read it, reached over, and put his hand on Adam’s arm. “I’m sorry, son. I know he was your friend.”

“He’s given me a great gift and a great responsibility, Pa. I have to tell the story now, but now I have the evidence that will back it up. How do I do it though? I don’t want to make trouble, but I want the truth to be told.”

“I trust you, son. Now that you have the means to do it, I know that you will find the right way to get it done.”

A week and a half later, Adam said he was taking the carriage to town and spending the weekend there. He didn’t want to explain what he was doing but he took a supply of paper and pens and ink with him. Ben had a suspicion but didn’t question him. On Sunday morning, Roy asked Ben what Adam was up to.

“Why, Roy?”

“Well, he’s been meeting with men in the hotel and at the restaurant there. They talk real quiet like, and he’s always writing away.”

“Has there been any trouble?”

“No, of course not. The men he’s been seeing have been right upstanding men. It’s just that I like to know what’s going on in my town.”

“Roy, I can tell you that I don’t think it has to do with anything that has happened or will happen in your town.”

Roy frowned and then seemed to understand. “I think I know then what it is. I hope it all works out then. It gonna go on much longer cause I’m not the only curious one?”

“As far as I know, Adam is planning to come home today.”

Late on Sunday afternoon, Adam arrived home. He had a leather folio that seemed to be bulging. He carried it under his arm and used a cane to walk. He told them that he had returned the crutches to Doctor Martin who had approved him using the cane instead. That evening, he asked Joe if he could speak with him privately. The two walked outside and sat on the porch.

“Joe, I have my journal from the expedition and I have Lieutenant Bennett’s too. I have the statements of over twenty-five men who were there and they back up what is in those journals. Innocent women and children and two wounded men were murdered by Major Turnbull and some Nevada soldiers. Other soldiers from Nevada refused to participate or did what they could to see that no more died that day. Several days later, the Shoshone retaliated and killed the men who committed those murders. I have a list of the men who were innocent of any wrongdoing and I have a list of the men who participated in the murders.”

For a time, the two brothers were silent. Then Joe had to ask.

“Adam, why are you telling me this and not Pa or Hoss?”

“With the work you do with the horses for the Army, you have gotten to know some of the mid rank officers. I want to know if you would approach one or two of them and tell them what I told you. Have them unofficially move that information up the ranks and give the Army the chance to correct the record itself. It would be the quietest, least troublesome way to do it.”

“What if they don’t want to do it that way?”

“That’s why I’m telling you and not Pa or Hoss. You are the best that I know at wheedling and schmoozing when you’re negotiating. I’m confident that you can quietly get them to turn their thinking around if they’re stubborn. You have a way of getting people to see things your way. I’m counting on you to use that skill here.”

“You think Pa couldn’t do this better?”

“Pa has a strong sense of morality and ethics. He would expect them to do the right thing because it was the right thing and would be offended if they didn’t. He would have a difficult time hiding that and not letting it affect his negotiations.”

“And Hoss?” Adam smiled at that, and Joe had to respond in kind. All Hoss wanted to do with those people was to knock their heads together and tell them to do it right. “Yeah, you and I are more alike than either of us like to admit. We’ll work the room to get it done. What’s the hammer though if they balk and I can’t get them to move in the direction I need them to move?”

“If I have to take what I have to the newspapers, it’s going to go all across the country and make headlines. The Army doesn’t need that kind of story now. The truth needs to be told but there doesn’t have to be more turmoil. Those who committed the atrocity are dead.”

“They could come here and confiscate everything.”

“There are copies of everything. And I no longer have the journals. They’ve been placed in safekeeping somewhere.”

With a smile, Joe nodded. “I should have known you would have worked that all out already. Thank you for trusting me with this. They’ll appreciate the favor, and I’ll probably be able to get more business for the Ponderosa in the long run.” He saw Adam about to object. “I know it’s not why you did it, but I have to tell you that I do see the extra benefits. I think it’s a good plan too. It takes care of everything and doesn’t hurt anyone. Thank you. Do I understand that you don’t want me to tell Pa or Hoss?”

“Not yet. Let’s wait to see if it works. If the Army shows up to arrest me, then we’ll have to tell them.”

“I don’t think they’ll do that. You’ve given them a way to save face. They can say they’ve recently found evidence that Turnbull’s report was not true, and the real report should have said what really happened and then they can say it. Do you have copies of what happened with names and so forth that I can give them?”

“Yes, there are copies for them to have.”

Three weeks later, somewhat inconspicuously, the Army issued a report on the Turnbull incident as they had taken to calling it. It said that the earlier report had been in error because Major Turnbull had tried to cover up a major error in judgment in which many innocent Shoshone Indians were killed when their village was erroneously targeted. Names of the soldiers who had refused to participate were published. Adam’s name was prominent among them. The killing of Turnbull and his soldiers was reported as retaliation for that attack and stated that those killed were the ones who had mistakenly attacked the wrong village and killed innocent Shoshone. It wasn’t the full story that Adam had wanted, but it was close enough to satisfy him and the others who had witnessed the massacre. It closed the book on it and closed the mouths of those who had been slandering Adam and others. There was no more talk about it except by the men who were there who occasionally talked with each other about it because they found it so hard to forget.

 

Chapter 11

For Adam, those three weeks were filled with turmoil though. Only days after that weekend of collecting information and statements and enlisting Joe’s help, another letter arrived and upset his world but in another way entirely. He was relaxing in his blue chair having heard from Joe that the message had been given and received rather well. He was hoping that all would go well and he could close the book on the past year. Joe handed him a letter then that he had picked up in town when he got the mail.

“Looks like a woman’s handwriting, Adam. You must be holding out on us. You have a secret admirer in someplace called Helena. I never heard of that. Where’s Helena?”

With a smile, Adam grabbed the letter. “None of your business. Now shoo. I have a letter to read.” Adam had never been able to get Helen out of his mind. It rather pleased him to know that apparently she hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind either.

“Dearest Adam,

When you left, my heart was breaking. I don’t think I ever knew what love was until I met you, and that love was not destined to grow. I was very sad for weeks after you were gone and threw myself into my work with everything that I had. Then as the months went on, I became ill. I had never felt this way. I never thought I would ever feel this way. Adam, this is not news that should ever arrive this way, but a man has a right to know. I don’t expect anything from you. This letter is not for that reason. It is only to tell you that you are going to be a father. I will raise our baby here in Helena. I know that when you were with me I told you that I could not have children. I was with my husband for years and was barren. I thought that I could not bear children. Now I know that he was at fault and not me although he called me barren and I believed him. Someday, I hope you will meet your child. I will give him or her your name if you desire, or if you don’t, the child will take my name. As you know, I have the means to care for the child. Do not think that this is a request for anything. I struggled with the idea of whether I should write or keep the secret, but I knew that keeping the secret was wrong. You will have a child and you have the right to know that. I will remember you always with fondness and love.

Helen”

Stunned, Adam sat in the chair staring at nothing. Joe tried to ask him what was in the letter but he refused to answer. He folded the letter and put it in his pocket. After a short time, he picked up his cane and slowly walked outside. Ben came downstairs as Adam walked out the door and asked Joe where he was going.

“I don’t know. He got a letter from a woman in some place called Helena. He looked like he got hit in the head with a hammer, and he walked outside without saying a word. I asked him what was in the letter but he wouldn’t say anything.”

Walking outside, Ben found Adam standing at the corral. “You’re not supposed to put weight on that leg yet. You’re going to pay for that later.”

Quiet at first, Adam looked up at the sky before answering. “It seems that there are a lot of things that you end up paying for later.”

“The letter was from the woman you met?”

“Yes.”

“The news was that upsetting?”

“You’ve probably guessed what it is then.”

“I have counseled you to be careful. This was always a risk.”

“She told me she couldn’t have babies. She thought she couldn’t. She had been married and had not had children, and, well, I wasn’t the first man she had been with since then.”

“What will you do?”

“I don’t know. I can’t leave here now with what is going on, but then I think I have to go see her. I can’t have this discussion by letter. I need to see her.”

“Do you think it will do any good? I mean you told me she owns a sizeable portion of the town and wants to stay there, that she enjoys that life. You want to live here. I don’t see a solution in there for you and for her.”

“And the child. The child ought to be important to this discussion now. That’s why I need to go see her. We need to talk this all the way through and see if there is something that we can work out. I don’t see a solution either, but I need to see her.”

“I could go with you.”

“Thank you, but this isn’t something that a man want’s his father along when he goes to see her. If you don’t mind too much, I’d like to ask Hoss if he would go with me when this thing with the Army gets settled.”

“That sounds like a good idea. I’m sure he would be happy to go with you. Would you take a carriage or a wagon because you can’t ride yet especially that far?”

“Maybe we should go by stage.”

“Yes, you might make better time that way, but I don’t think you and Hoss would be comfortable traveling that far that way.”

“We’ll talk about it then. We have some time to work that out.” It took only three weeks for the Army to work out and issue a new report on the Turnbull incident, but those three weeks dragged by interminably for Adam. He and Hoss had a travel plan and only waited for a resolution of one problem so that Adam could address his more personal issue. Finally when the report was issued, Hoss told Adam that they could leave the next day.

“I got the wagon all ready. I got a mattress in the back for sleeping. I got a couple of boxes set up for food and gear. I got the canvas on it so we don’t have to worry about the weather. We’ll use a team of four horses so we can go further each day. We’ll be there nearly as fast as a stage would get us there and a bit more comfortably. I put a back on the seat so the driver can lean back when he’s driving.”

“Thank you, Hoss, and not just for getting the wagon ready but for agreeing to go with me and help me.”

“Kinda surprised me that you would let anyone go with ya, but I’m glad ya asked me. It will make Pa sleep better at night knowing you’re not alone.”

“But now he’s got two of us to worry about.”

“Somehow, he worries less when there’s two of us out here together. I guess cause he knows better than most what it’s like to be on your own with no family to watch your back. It’s a whole lot safer when there’s two no matter what.” After a pause, Hoss quietly asked the question that the rest of the family wondered about as well. “You decide what you’re going to ask her to do?”

“No, I haven’t. That’s all I can say. I keep coming back to what I want, and that isn’t fair. I’ll tell her that, but she has to tell me what she wants, and then we’ll see if there’s any kind of way to work something out. Hoss, at this point, I don’t see a compromise so all I can do is pray.”

“I know we’ll all be praying for it too. You really do like this one, dontcha?”

“I do. It was hard to ride away, but she told me she would never leave what she has built there. I don’t know if this has changed her mind about that at all, but I’m afraid it may only make her more committed to keeping all that she has built. She’s an important woman there.”

“I always figured on you needing to find yourself a strong woman like that. Women who needed you too much always seemed to be wrong for you.” Hoss was thinking about Laura especially but didn’t want to say anything specifically about her. “You need a woman who stands beside you kinda adding to you, not one who leans on you and takes away from you. I hope you can work something out with this one cause she sounds like the right kind of woman for you.”

“The biggest problem I see is that there is no way for me to stay in Helena. There’s nothing for me to do there.”

“Could she come to Virginia City? I mean, we got businesses here too. Couldn’t she run a business here as well as she does there?”

“It’s the only thought that makes any kind of solution at all possible, but then she wouldn’t be the powerful woman she is now. I don’t know if she would be willing to do it.”

“I guess you’re doing the right thing then. All you can do is to ask her.”

“I’m not sure if I will ask her. I think I have to let her take the lead on this. She’s the one carrying the baby. She’s got all the pressure on her.”

“Well, you do what you think is right, and I’ll help any way I can.”

The next morning, Ben was sad to see them go, but at the same time couldn’t keep the hope from showing that Adam might come home with a bride and a child on the way. It was his fervent hope that all his sons would marry and have children, but he had been disappointed so far in that none of them had found a wife they found suitable. He did think that Adam would be the one who would be the most unlikely to marry so for him to have found a woman that he apparently liked so much was a hopeful sign. Adam noted his expression even if his words didn’t convey his thoughts.

“Don’t get your hopes up too much, Pa. This is still probably one of those situations where I’m jousting at windmills.”

“But we do have some windmills on the Ponderosa now and they do work. I have confidence in you that somehow you’ll make the best of this, son.”

“Then pray as hard as you can while I’m gone because I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

“If she’s the woman you think she is, maybe it won’t be as difficult as you think.”

“I have to expect the worst, Pa. I have to be ready for it.”

“I know. I’ll be waiting for your return. Be safe. Hoss, you take care too, now.”

“Shur will, Pa. Until we run out of Hop Sing’s cooking that is. Then I’m not sure how I’ll do. It’s gonna be mighty hard to keep going if I hafta eat Adam’s cooking.”

“By then we should be near Ruby and then it’s Wells and then Helena. We can get food at restaurants. I have no great desire to eat my cooking either and I certainly don’t want to eat yours.”

Ben and Joe could hear the two bantering about that as the wagon pulled away.

“Adam seems more like his old self, doesn’t he, Pa?”

“Yes, he does. I hope that this doesn’t set him back. Things were starting to look up for him. I hope that this works out well. I’m going to pray that it does. You were a big part of helping him too. The work you did with the Army was inspired. I heard from Colonel Bradley. He said they should have had you up at the treaty negotiations. They wouldn’t have taken so long. Adam made a good choice when he asked you to intercede for him.”

“I was happy to do it. I was kind of surprised too. Then I said that the two of us were a lot alike, and he didn’t disagree with me. I don’t know what made me say that. It kind of popped out of my mouth before I really thought about it. I do that a lot. But he nodded and said that was so. I never realized that Adam thought we were so much alike.”

“Fiery temper, stubborn, skilled with words, quick to give your heart away to a woman, gentlemanly with the ladies and always appreciative of a pretty woman, as quick with a firearm as you are talented with horses, a soft heart for the underdog, hmm, let me see, did I miss anything.”

“Handsomest men in Nevada and with a smile to die for?”

Ben laughed and nodded. “Although Adam wouldn’t have said anything like that. Yes, the two of you have quite a bit in common. He knew that I would have gotten angry with the Army if they balked at the compromise. All I would have seen in my mind were those scars on Adam’s back and that would have reminded me of all that he suffered. You were able to focus on the task he set for you. He has that kind of single mindedness too when he has a goal in mind. I hope it works for him in Helena.”

“I do too. I’m going to be an uncle, and I’d like to be able to do that in person and not from hundreds of miles away.” Joe saw the sad look his father had. “And it has to be even harder knowing you’re going to be a grandfather and you might never see your grandchild.”

“Yes, that would be very hard to bear. Well, let’s get to work. We’ve got to do the work of four while they’re gone. At least it’s late in the season so there’s not so much to do.”

The late fall weather was cooperative for Adam and Hoss. It was cool for their trip but without storms or strong winds so they made very good time. They pulled into Helena on a Saturday about noon. The school was closed of course so Adam wasn’t sure where he would find Helen. He asked Hoss to take the horses to the livery stable and then to take their gear to the hotel while he checked around town to find her. His first stop was the general store. He guessed that if she wasn’t there, she would be at the boardinghouse for lunch or at the restaurant next to the hotel. He walked into the general store and was as nervous as he had been the first time he had asked a girl to dance more than twenty years earlier. His stomach was in worse shape than it had been then. He hadn’t been able to eat that morning and even coffee had been hard to swallow. At that moment, he was glad he hadn’t eaten anything because he was rather sure he would throw it up if he had. He was actually a bit surprised at himself. He had faced rustlers and gunslingers, been in battles, and been through blizzards, stampedes, and a near disaster with an avalanche once. None of those things had made him sweat like this nor made him want to spew his stomach contents. They all had a lot to do with his future so he wasn’t sure why this situation was so different, but it was.

As he stepped inside the store, several people turned to look at him and the store clerk recognized him immediately. He pointed to the back room. With a deep breath and an exhalation, Adam headed through the open double doors into the combination storeroom and office of the general store. She was there leaning against the desk with a ledger in her hands. She must have heard him step into the room and turned toward him. For a moment neither of them moved but looked at each other in surprise. She was fuller of figure than he remembered but of course he realized why that was happening. She was shocked to see him there. She had never expected him to arrive there after she sent the letter informing him that she was carrying his child, but as she thought she knew that she should have expected it. He was that kind of man. She very deliberately set the ledger on the desk, but her hands were shaking. He saw that and stepped closer to her without saying anything. He put out his arms to comfort her, and she rushed into them, but not for comfort. She kissed him surprising him with that but not for long. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him delighted to have such an enthusiastic welcome. It gave him more hope than he had had on the entire trip.

At the hotel, Hoss got two rooms. Something told him that they might need them, and he knew Adam would sleep better anyway without having to endure hearing him snore. Plus, if there was a saloon and he knew there would be one, Hoss planned to spend some time there and that would make the snoring that much louder. Once he had taken care of all of that, he headed out to see if Adam had found his lady yet. He had said he was starting at the general store so Hoss headed there first. When he got there, there was a group of people staring into the back room. Hoss guessed correctly that Adam was probably part of what they were staring at. He pushed through and saw Adam kissing a woman. Hoss stepped forward and pulled the double doors closed.

“Show’s over for today, folks. I’m guessing you got better things to do with your time.”

No one was about to question a man of Hoss’ stature on an issue like that. They moved on. In the storeroom, Adam and Helen broke their kiss once more as they had a few times before but only to profess their love for each other and how much they had missed each other.

“That must have been your brother.”

“It was. He watches out for me.”

“Adam, what are we going to do now?”

“That’s why I’m here. I want to talk with you about that. I know you said you never would leave Helena, and I can’t live here. There’s nothing for me to do here. I don’t know what the answer could be.”

“I don’t think I ever loved anyone before you. I’m not sure what love is, but I’m sure that what I feel for you must be love. I don’t think my parents loved me. They had so many children because they said the Bible said they had to do that. Then they hired us out to work as soon as we were old enough that someone would take us on, and for the girls, married us off as quickly as they could. My husband didn’t love me although he was kind to me. But you were different. When you left, I felt that I lost something. It hurt. I never knew something could hurt like that. Now I’m going to have a baby and I love this baby already too.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that the ideas I had before are not as carved in stone as I thought they were. But, Adam, I can’t go live on a ranch and watch over a house and take care of children. I’ve always needed more than that, and I don’t think that will ever change.”

“I wouldn’t mind being married to a businesswoman, an entrepreneur.”

“But how could that work? You’re a rancher.”

“There are many businesses in Virginia City, and in fact, the Ponderosa is involved in a number of businesses. We could expand, or you could have your own businesses.”

“How could I run businesses in town if we live on a ranch?”

“You have people here now who run things for you when you’re not there. Couldn’t you do the same?”

“But that would take time. I would need to find people I trusted and train them to do things the way I want them done.” She saw the grin starting to build and the chuckle growing in his chest and the rumble of the laugh as it grew. She couldn’t help it and laughed too. She knew what he was going to say.

“An entrepreneur extraordinaire would likely look at that as a challenge.”

“You think you’ve convinced me already, don’t you?”

“I hope I’ve given you something to seriously consider.”

“Wait a minute. Back up there a bit. Did you say married there a while back? Do you want to marry me? Because you don’t have to marry me. Just because we’re having a baby doesn’t mean we have to be married.”

“That is not the only reason that I want to marry you. I missed you terribly, and I thought there was no way to ever convince you to leave here so there was no possible way that you would ever marry me. You are the woman who has been in my dreams. My body has ached for you. I tried to forget you, and I couldn’t. I tried not to talk about you, but just the mention of you gave me away. My father picked up on it. He asked me about you. He said that he could tell you were special by the way I looked when I said anything about you. So no, I’m not offering marriage because you’re carrying my child. I’m using that as an opportunity to see if there is any way you would say yes because you are carrying our child. It does change things and I am hoping and I have been praying that it changes things enough that you would consent to marrying me.”

“Adam, you say I can run my own businesses. You say I can be an entrepreneur. How do I know that if I marry you, that will still be true? The laws all favor the husband. You could forbid me to do any of that, and I would have no recourse.”

“Love and trust. Two sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other. You love me and trust me so you say yes, or you don’t. There is nothing that I can do to show you the future other than to show you my past. If you can’t trust me based on what you know of me, then there is no love either.”

“What will you do if I don’t marry you?”

“I will be in your life as much as you will allow me and I will be a father to my child. That is something I will find a way to do.”

“It’s so much to talk about and think about. I’m hungry. Can I meet your brother and perhaps have lunch and talk about little things for a while?”

“Of course, we can. I never thought we would talk so seriously so quickly. I admit that I was surprised by your greeting. Not that I minded at all only that it was a surprise.”

“Those things you said. That’s how I felt too. When I saw you standing there, it was a dream and a prayer come true. Then after I kissed you and you kissed back, for quite a while, I might add.”

“There was a lot of time to make up for.”

“Well, after all that, I had to tell you what was in my heart and how I was feeling. Now you know and we can see what we can work out.”

“Now when you meet my brother, Hoss, don’t be intimidated by his size. His heart is as big as he is. Of course so is his appetite but you’ll see that soon enough.” Adam offered his arm, and Helen took it. They walked out of the storeroom together and of course there were many watching and trying to tell what was going on. There were many who had suspected that she might be with child as they saw the changes and that she had taken to wearing wrap dresses exclusively. The appearance of Adam Cartwright here after so many months only added to their suspicions, but they weren’t going to get any information out of either of them so their gossip was as baseless as it had been before. Hoss was leaning on the hitching rail in front of the general store. Adam walked out with Helen and stopped beside him introducing Helen to Hoss.

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am. I knew it was gonna be a right impressive woman to make my older brother fall in love. I hope the two of you can work things out, but right now I’m about to faint dead away from hunger. Is there a nice restaurant you could recommend?”

“We were going to lunch. I hope you will join us.”

“Ah, smart and friendly too. Adam, you better not let this one get away. You ain’t getting no younger. Now, ma’am, which way to that restaurant?”

Lunch was a light-hearted time with Hoss delighting Helen with stories about the Ponderosa, about Joe, but especially about Adam. He tried to get Hoss to stop but she encouraged him to continue. With a sly look at Adam, he kept on telling the stories adding more and more of them about Adam until well over three hours had gone by. Helen needed to get back to the store to finish one small task, but Adam asked if he could have dinner with her and spend the evening with her.

“I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t asked. But what of Hoss? What will you do, Hoss?”

“Ma’am, I was hoping to spend some time in a saloon. It’s a Saturday night so I was thinking it would be a lively place. Adam was in such an all fired hurry to get here, we never had one night in a saloon the whole way here. I’m a mite thirsty, you might say.”

“Well, Hoss, you tell Corky that you’re my special guest, and he’ll see that you get only the best tonight. You have a room at the hotel?”

“Yes, ma’am, I got a separate one from Adam cause I was thinking that I might be coming in a bit late and not in the best of condition ifn you know what I mean. He’s not one to appreciate that kind of thing.”

“Thank you for all your wonderful stories. And tomorrow, we will have lunch again, I hope.”

“Ma’am, it would be my pleasure. Now, I think I got a date with a bathtub coming up and then with about a dozen glasses of beer, a big ole thick juicy steak, and a friendly gal ifn there’s one in that saloon who don’t mind a big old cowboy like me.”

“A big steak? But we just had a huge lunch.”

“Helen, for Hoss, that was just the appetizer. Now he’s ready for the main course.”

“Oh, no wonder you have such a big ranch. I guess you need it.”

Hoss threw back his head and laughed before turning to leave and waving as he went.

“Your brother is delightfully charming. Is the rest of your family so sweet?”

“My father is a strong, proud man, but he is as gentle and kind as Hoss to family and friends, and my little brother is a fun-loving scamp sometimes, but you can’t help but like him. They will love you too.”

“You are making a convincing case.”

“I hope so. It means so much to me.”

“Dinner here at six?”

“I’ll be here, or should I call on you at the boardinghouse and escort you here?”

“I’ll meet you here. There have been enough people staring at me today. I think I would like to minimize that if possible. Now I do have to go.” Before she turned to leave, Helen reached up and caressed Adam’s chin lightly. “Thank you for shaving this morning.”

Then she smiled and was gone. He watched her walk across the street before he went to the hotel and waited for Hoss to finish in the washroom so that he could order a bath too. Bathed and freshly shaved, he sat at the window in his room and watched the people move on the street below and he thought about what had happened so far that day. He hoped that somehow he could convince her to make the move he believed that she wanted to make. He thought she was afraid and he didn’t know how to reassure her any more than he already had. He felt the ring in his vest pocket, and hoped again that he might be able to use it.

 

Chapter 12

At ten minutes before six, Adam walked down the steps to the lobby, down the wooden sidewalk, and into the restaurant again. The proprietor escorted him to a back room that he did not know existed. There was a single table there set for two with elegant crystal, candles already lit, and a bottle of wine chilling. The back door of the room opened and Helen walked in.

“Now we have privacy. This is my private dining room. No one knows we’re having dinner except my staff, and they won’t tell.”

“You are full of surprises.”

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all. I love your surprises. This is a wonderful surprise.” Adam reached for her as she came close and pulled her to him. He kissed her gently but her passion was as great as his so the kiss deepened quickly. He pulled back though.

“Why did you stop?”

“Your staff could step in here at any time.”

“No, they will only enter when one of us pulls that cord.” Helen pointed to a thick cord by the door. “It’s attached to a bell in the kitchen. They will bring the first course when we pull it, and the next after that and so on but only when we pull the cord to let them know we’re ready. That’s the whole idea of a private dining room.”

“Well, then, do you want to kiss?”

“No, well, yes, I do, but we need to talk too, and when I’m kissing you, all coherent thought seems to vanish. So pull the cord and they will bring the first course and we can talk.”

The conversation followed the pattern of the afternoon. There seemed to be little more that they could say. Adam said it best when he said that what they needed was not more talk but more thought and then a decision. Helen agreed. They finished dinner and sat quietly sipping their wine.

“Now what?”

“Helen, it’s your call. I came here to try to convince you, but knowing that I would accept whatever decision you made. If you choose to stay here, it will be difficult for me, but I will find a way to make it work. I have no idea now what that will be, but there has to be a way. I would be ecstatic if you would consent to be my wife, but I know how difficult a transition that would be for you. I wait for your decision. I’ll stay here a couple of weeks if necessary to give you time. I don’t know what else I can do.”

“If you could do what was in your heart right now, what would you do?”

“Are you sure you want to know that?” Helen nodded. “I would take you in my arms and kiss you. I would tell you how I feel. Then I would ask you to marry me and come with me to the Ponderosa to live. I would ask you to trust me and know that I would help you to start up a business there and be all that you could be. I would hope that you would know that I would be a good husband, father, and your friend and companion for the rest of our lives. I would tell you that I am proud of you and the woman that you are, and that our child will be the luckiest child to have a mother who is so much more than any other woman that I know. I would tell you that I don’t have words enough to express what’s in my heart, but if you give me the chance, I will show you how much I love you each and every day that we have together.”

With tears glistening in her eyes, Helen had a question. “What’s in your vest pocket? I’ve seen you touch that little pocket several times tonight.”

Reaching into the pocket, Adam pulled out a small velvet pouch and handed it to her. Helen opened the small drawstring and upended the pouch dropping a ring into her palm. It was a gold ring with a diamond and an emerald.

“Adam, it’s a beautiful ring.”

“If you said yes to marrying me, then it was the ring I was going to give to you. It’s got the diamond because you are the best, and the emerald for me because I come from the Ponderosa.”

“If I didn’t say yes.”

“Then I was going to give it to you as a promise ring when I left. It would be a promise that I would come back to support and help you any way that I could and that I would be a father to our child.”

Carefully, she put the ring back into the small bag and handed it to him. “Adam, let’s go to your room.”

Surprised again, Adam could only smile wanly at her request. He had hoped for more of a reaction to him opening his heart to her, but for now, he was willing to accept her desire to be with him. It was a start at least, and he could hope that perhaps intimacy would bring her closer to him. He could only try to show her his physical love of her, and he could impress upon her that he had deep emotional feelings as well. They left the dining room by the back door, and walked in near darkness to the hotel. Adam kept his hand on the small of her back as she leaned into him. Neither seemed to want to break the physical connection. Helen had the key to the hotel in her small purse and used it to gain access to the hotel through the back door there. She and Adam walked up the stairs together though so if anyone had seen them, there would have been no question as to their intent.

In his room, it took all of Adam’s self control to take things slowly when what he wanted most of all was to be wildly passionate. He had to show her his love though and he couldn’t do that with wild passion so he was attentive to her needs and made her wait too building her passion until she pleaded with him to make love with her again and he did. Afterwards, she asked him why he had been so calm and generous.

“I thought after what you said that you would take me in a mad passionate act.”

“I wanted to do exactly that so much, but what I needed to do tonight was to show you that I love you. Any man and woman can show passion, but it takes love to give pleasure to the other and delay your own gratification.”

“Hmm, where’s that ring you showed me?’

Leaning to the side and reaching to the floor, Adam snagged his vest and pulled it to the bed slipping the small velvet bag from its safe place in the little chest pocket of his vest. Helen opened the bag again and dropped the ring on his chest as he lay back on the pillows. Then she slipped the ring on her left ring finger and rested that hand on his chest. Even in only the moonlight that illuminated the room, he could see it clearly. He wondered what it meant.

“We can see the minister after church tomorrow if that’s all right with you.”

Adam rolled her over and looked down into her eyes glistening in the moonlight. She smiled up at him.

“You’ve convinced me.”

They didn’t get much sleep that night as the passion in both was unleashed. In the morning, a bit bleary eyed, they smiled and dressed. Adam realized that she had planned well. Her black dress without the fancy shawl looked demure enough for Sunday wear. She left the shawl as well as her gloves and purse in his room. He put on clean shirt but wore the same clothing otherwise simply brushing it to make it presentable. He helped her with her hair and when they looked ready for church services, she left by the back entrance to meet him at the restaurant, and he left by the front entrance. Hoss of course was still sleeping. Adam told the desk clerk to wake Hoss in two hours and send him to the church.

“The church, sir?”

“Yes, the church which Miss Helen and I will be attending.”

With that detail done, Adam went to have breakfast with his fiancée and soon to be wife. As they ate breakfast, he asked her if there was one thing that had helped her make her decision.

“Yes, the ring did it. You said you were going to give it to me either way. You weren’t overconfident. You weren’t so sure you could win my hand, but you were confident that you were going to be there for us either way. That loyalty, that kind of devotion won me over. That told me more about you than a lot of other things could have. Oh, and those stories that Hoss told helped too. I got a much better picture of you as a person when I could see you through your brother’s eyes. He loves you very much. He wanted me to say yes and he was doing everything he could do to help even if it embarrassed you a little. He knew that, but he knew I needed to know more about you, and you don’t open up that easily.”

“I opened up to you a lot yesterday.”

“I know you did, and that helped too. You trusted me. That did help me to trust you. Now I need to sell what I have here and decide what I want to take with me. Have you got a plan for where we’re going to live when you take me back home?”

“At first, I guess we’ll live on the Ponderosa. Then we can talk about what we want to do. We can build a place or we could rent a place in town. We’ll check out the options and decide. I want you to see the whole area before we make a decision. It might be easier for you to have a business in Carson City too. There are many options for us to explore. It’s going to be fun.”

“I like that.”

“What?”

“When you talk about making decisions, you say we and us. I like that.”

“There might be times I forget, and you can remind me. I can be difficult at times. We’re not always going to agree on things, but we are going to work things out. We’ll find a way.”

“There may be a few things that you find about me that you don’t like. We’re both older and a bit set in our ways, but yes, we’ll work things out.”

In church later, Helen got another surprise. She had no idea that Adam had such a gorgeous voice. When he began singing, a number of people stopped singing and listened until the minister gave them a look to get their attention, and they joined in again. Helen had to smile. After church, she and Adam approached the minister with their request. He thought it was short notice, but Helen mentioned the reason and said she would be traveling with Adam within the week. Under those circumstances, he agreed. Word quickly spread among the people standing outside the church that there was going to be an impromptu wedding. By the time Hoss got there, the church was full again, but as Adam signaled to him, he pointed to the spot next to him that was open.

“I hope you’ll stand with me, big brother, on the most important day of my life?”

“You bet I will, but Pa is gonna be upset he missed this.”

“Oh, we’ll do it again for Pa when we get home.”

One of Helen’s employees stood with her. She caught Hoss’ eye at one point and Hoss smiled back. After the ceremony, he asked if that young lady was traveling with them. Helen said she had not asked her, but would ask if she was interested in relocating to Virginia City. She was, but her parents said not until she was eighteen. Hoss had not realized she was that young and gulped as Adam chuckled.

During the next week, Helen sold her properties. The sheriff bought the hotel with a loan against his livery stable and another against his house as well as an advance on his salary. The manager of the restaurant made a down payment on the restaurant and took a loan at the bank. Helen was going to stay a half owner until he could pay off that loan, and then he would get another loan to pay her the balance. Two residents of the boardinghouse and the cook there pooled their resources and bought the boardinghouse for cash. The clerk at the general store was going to be a partner and begin sending payments, and made a large down payment. By Friday when the bank was set to close, Helen withdrew her funds and had a sizeable fortune in bank drafts. Adam suggested they mail some ahead so that they didn’t have to carry all of the bank drafts with them. They sent some by mail from Helena, some from Wells, and then some from Ruby so that if anything happened to any of them, the rest would likely get through. They bought another wagon too and loaded it with the things she wanted to take with her and put some things in the wagon that Adam and Hoss had brought from the Ponderosa. She had wondered at the wagon and if Adam had been overconfident, but Hoss told her the story of the broken leg even if Adam didn’t want him to tell. His leg still bothered him in the morning when it was cold.

“Well, it’s a good thing Hoss told me. I thought you were getting old when I saw you limping in the morning when you got out of bed.”

“I’m not old. I’m only thirty-five.”

“Oh.” Something about the way she looked made Adam curious. He questioned her and found that she had turned thirty-six only two weeks earlier. He laughed about marrying an older woman which made her relax. She had assumed that he was older and had never thought to ask him his age. Over the week in Helena and then the weeks of travel, they got to learn a number of other things about each other. Helen wasn’t much of a cook as it turned out, and Adam ended up doing most of the cooking on the trail. He said that if they got a house, he was hiring a cook. Helen said she hoped that the person he hired could clean and sew too because she didn’t have much aptitude for either of those although she could get by in a pinch. Hoss was curious as to what she did do. Adam laughed and said she made money, and Hoss said that she and Adam were a good pair then because he was good at that too.

As they neared the Ponderosa ranch house, Adam slowed the wagon to show more of the ranch to Helen. Hoss was anxious to get home and pulled far ahead of them. Adam used the opportunity to kiss her and that used quite a bit of time before she asked him if he was delaying their arrival, and he said he wasn’t except when he started kissing her all other thoughts seemed to disappear. She smiled because she felt the same way usually, but she was feeling a bit of anxiety about meeting his family and wanted to get there to get it over with. Hoss was already there and Ben was trying to get a straight answer from him.

“Hoss, where’s Adam?”

“Oh, he stopped down the road a piece.”

“Why would he stop ‘down the road a piece’ instead of coming here with you?”

“I think he wanted to look around some. Maybe have some privacy too.”

“Now why would he want ‘to look around some and maybe have some privacy too’?”

“Well, Pa, ifn you was him, wouldn’t you?”

“Why would I? And why would I want to walk here when I could ride? It’s cold out and it’s snowing.”

“He ain’t walking, Pa. He’s in the other wagon.”

“What ‘other wagon’?”

“You know, the other wagon I told you about?”

“You haven’t told me about any other wagon. You only mentioned a second wagon now.”

“You know. In the telegram I sent. I said we bought a second wagon.”

“We didn’t get a telegram. The lines have been down for weeks. No stages have come through and no telegrams. The snows have been early and heavy up in the mountains.”

“Oh, then you don’t know.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you. I didn’t know about the second wagon.”

“No, you don’t know about the other thing.”

“What ‘other thing’?”

About that time, Adam drove into the yard in the second wagon. Helen was beside him and had her arm through his in affection and also for support. Adam could tell she was nervous and the look on his father’s face didn’t help. Ben looked perturbed, but he looked to Hoss and then he looked back to Adam before breaking out in a huge grin. Adam didn’t know what it all meant, but the grin was welcome. Relieved, he smiled and climbed down helping Helen down.

“Pa, here she is. Helen Cartwright, your first daughter-in-law.”

Ben warmly welcomed Helen but thought they all ought to go in the house quickly as the snow was beginning to fall more heavily. As soon as they could, they unloaded the wagons and got everything inside the house. It was disorderly, but it was inside. They had lots of time to get things put away, and then several months later, Bennett Adam Cartwright joined the family making Ben a proud grandfather. Adam and Helen had a lot to do, but for the winter months and the early spring, they had a chance to let their love grow and welcome their son into their family. What came next is another story.