Summary: Who would have thought that a pair of missing boots would propel the Cartwrights into the nightmare world of a madman? One morning Joe wakes up to find his boots gone and the mystery of how he lost them – and who is wearing them – leads to a series of events that could cost not only Joe’s life, but Adam and Hoss’ as well.

Rated PG-13 (58,335 words)

All known and public characters belong to those who created them.  All new characters belong to the author.  There is no intent to infringe on copyright and no money is being made – just friends and warm hearts hopefully!

 

Bootless Cries

ONE

“Joe.  What in the Sam Hill do you think you’re doin’?”

Hoss Cartwright paused just outside his youngest brother’s door.  It was open and he could see into the room.  Joe was in his dress clothes.  He was laying on his stomach on top of his bed, stretched out as far as he could be across it clean to the other side.  One socked foot was crooked around the post, anchoring him, and he was half-buried in the dust ruffle which he had raised over his head so he could look under the bed.  At his voice his little brother started guiltily.  Joe shifted the dust ruffle and looked out from under it with an expression something like a monk caught red-handed in the abbey.

“What?”

Hoss stepped into the room.  “What in Tarnation are you doin’?  Pa’s waitin’.”

“Well, I’ve got a little problem, Hoss,” Joe said as his foot began to lose its hold and he started to slip over the side.

“I can see that.”   Hoss moved quickly and caught Joe’s foot.  “Ain’t there an easier way of lookin’ under your bed?”

“Well, if I’d realized I’d be looking under my bed, I would have done it an easier way, but I didn’t realize I’d be looking under it until I did,” Joe replied, his voice muffled.

Hoss puzzled over that one for a minute.  It was his turn.

“What?”

“Just don’t let go.”

The big man stared at his hand, and then at his brother’s foot – and then let go.

Joe slipped over the side and hit the floor with a loud thud!

“Hey!”

Hoss rounded the bed.  His brother was sitting on the floor buried in candle wicking and cloth.  The dust ruffle had come plumb out of its moorings and half of it was wrapped around his skinny little frame like a toga.  Joe blinked as if a bit stunned and then plunged his head under the bed.

The big man’s hair was thin and he hesitated to hassle it, but his fingers made their way there and Hoss scratched his head anyway.  “Well, if that don’t beat all…”  When his brother failed to emerge within thirty seconds, Hoss knelt on the other side of the bed and lifted what remained of the dust ruffle and stared into the darkness.

He could see Joe’s eyes shining like a rabbit’s.

“You got a girl under here?” Hoss asked.

Joe snorted.  “Two.”

The sound of a throat being cleared made Hoss turn toward the door.  Adam was standing in it wearing that expression he so often wore when he was around the two of them – one of exasperation mixed with affection and peppered with amusement.

“Do I want to know?” he asked.

Joe’s curly brown head popped up over the other side of the bed.  “Know what?”

Hoss was still looking.  Dag blame it! if he didn’t think there was a gal or two under there.

“My guess would be hide and seek,” Adam drawled, closing the book he held,  “except I think you two are a little old for that.”

“You’re right, Adam,” Joe said as he stood.  Hoss could hear it.  He knew his little brother was wearing that maddening grin he had – the one that made you want to hug him and slap him all at one and the same time.  “I am playing hide and seek.”

“Really?” the black-haired man inquired.

Hoss was still looking for the filly under the bed.

“Really,” their youngest brother answered.  “Though it ain’t with Hoss, it’s with my boots.”

“Your boots?”

Joe shrugged.  “Yeah, my dress boots.  I can’t find them anywhere.”

Hoss poked his head up over the other side of the bed.  “So you ain’t got a girl under here?”

“Not unless she’s in my boots,” Joe replied, wrinkling his nose.

Adam shook his head.  He glanced at the clock in Joe’s room.  “I give it about ten seconds before –”

“Boys!”

Adam winced.  “Off by eight.”

Ben Cartwright’s bellow carried through the house.  “We have an appointment at the photographer’s at noon!  It is now past nine.  Are you coming down, or do I have to come up there and round you up like cattle?”

Adam turned toward the stair.  “On our way, Pa,” he shouted.  A second later the black-haired man turned back to Joe.  “We are, aren’t we?

Joe shrugged again.  “I can’t go without boots.”

“Don’t you have another pair?”

Their little brother paled.  “Good enough for Pa for having our likeness taken?  No….”

Adam sighed.  “The photographer’s not going to take the likeness of your feet, for goodness sake.”

“You tell that to Pa.  You remember that time I wore the wrong color socks to the widow Martin’s fiesta….”

“Boys!  I am running out of patience!”

“Joe….”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Joe asked.  “I’ve running out of boots!”

Adam sighed – again.  This time it was that sigh of resignation that martyrs have before they step into the fire.  “I’ll go get you a pair of my dress boots.”

“I can’t wear your boots, Adam!”  Joe protested.  “Your feet are too long.”

“Well, you can’t wear Hoss’s!” their older brother snapped back.  “Unless you want to put both feet in one!”

“Hey!” Hoss said, feeling left out.  Although mentioning his feet had brought him back into the conversation.

“Come now, you can’t pretend you don’t have big feet,” his older brother scolded.

“I ain’t denying my boots are large,” Hoss admitted,  “but two of Joe’s feet wouldn’t fit into them – all of him would!”

Joe rolled his eyes.

Adam snorted.

Ben bellowed again.  Really loud this time.

“Coming, Pa!” all three shouted in response.

In the end, Joe wore Adam’s boots.

He also fell down the stairs and had a nice shiner that was preserved for posterity in the ferrotype that was taken three hours later.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Since they were in their dress clothes, their Pa took them to the hotel in Carson City to eat.  ‘A civilized meal for the civilized man’, he said.

Joe Cartwright shifted down in his chair and stared at the china plate in front of him and the half-eaten steak on it.  For some reason, he didn’t have much of an appetite.  Of course, part of that reason had sprung from his father’s insistence on picking up another piece of civilization called a ‘newspaper’ and perusing it while they waited for their food.  In the beginning it was sort of interesting.  There was a front page article on the murder of a rich man in Upper State New York whose house had been broken into and the man found in the bathroom – his throat had been cut and he had been stabbed and strangled.  He read it while his father regaled them with information from the inside of the paper concerning the markets and the price of steers in Abalone, as well as a somewhat boring tale about an ancient gold crown that was on its way to the home of a wealthy man in Virginia City.  Just when he got to ‘continued on page nine’ his father snapped the paper and folded it and began to read again.  The older man had found a piece on page six detailing an article that Adah Menken had written for another newspaper about the 1860 election . Their pa started by praising Adah for tackling the subject. Then he declared Adah a marvel and said that she was a woman who was going to make waves.

Then he started over and read the whole thing out loud.

Joe stared hard at the current page of the paper facing him, searching for something to distract himself.  It didn’t work.  Even the ad for the circus coming to town that featured both a lizard man and a human caterpillar failed.  After a minute he glanced at Hoss.  The big man was happy as a dry pig in wet mud.  He was finishing a pile of potatoes that had started so high they reached right up to the sky and were now down to nothing but a mole hill.  Adam, as usual when anything their pa mentioned had to do with ‘culture’, was wearing that half-smile and leaning on his hand listening, absolutely fascinated.

He was…. Well, he….

He wanted to hide in a hole.

His pa and his brothers were good men.  They were good to him.  He knew they loved him, but they just didn’t understand.

They didn’t understand what it was like to be picked up like a sack of potatoes and thrown into an alley and then beaten to within an inch of dying and to have done….

Nothing.

Joe reached up, past the shiner, to his forehead.  It had been over a month, but the place where John C. Reagan’s fist had broken the skin just above his left eye still hadn’t healed.  It puckered, making his already uneven eyebrows even more uneven.  It bothered him, though Ellie Matthews had told him it gave him a ‘rakish air’ which had been kinda nice.

“Joe?” Hoss asked.

He started.  “What?”

His brother pointed toward his plate.  “You gonna eat that steak?”

Joe glanced at their Pa who would’ve made him, but who was still waxing eloquent over Adah Menken’s glories and paying no attention.

He shoved the plate over.  “You can have it.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

His brother’s fork came down so fast it was all he could do to get his fingers out of the way in time.

Hoss took a bite and chewed.  Apparently he was chewing over whatever was wrong with him too.  “You okay, Joe?” his brother asked a minute later.

Joe heard a snap as the paper was lowered and their father looked at them.  “Something wrong, you two?”

He shook his head.  “No.  You…you just keep reading, Pa.”

Their father stared at him for a moment and then, it seemed to dawn.  The paper dropped a bit.  “Joe, forgive me.  I didn’t think –”

“There’s nothing to think about, Pa.  Like I said, you just keep reading.”  Joe wiggled his fingers for him to go on.

“If mentioning Adah brings up painful memories….”

Even Adam winced at that one.  “Joe, you know, there was nothing you could have done,” his older brother said, knowing as usual precisely the wrong thing to say.  “John C. Reagan was twice as big as you and trained to kill.”

Joe’s whole frame tensed.  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Joe, Adam’s right,” their father began in that way he had when he was about to philosophize or lecture.  Joe steeled himself.  He could take it.  He could listen to them rationalize why John C. Reagan had been able to pick him up like a five year old and break him.  Why Reagan had been able to spit all kinds of vile things at him while he brutalized and walloped him and left him begging for mercy.  Why –

Joe exploded out of the chair.

“I don’t want to hear it!  I’m going outside!”  As every head in the hotel restaurant turned toward him, he slammed his hand down on the table so hard the silverware rattled.  “And don’t any of you dare follow me!”

The three of them looked at him in stunned silence as his chair shot back striking the table behind him and rattling the guests’ supper plates.  Tipping his hat he mumbled an apology to the two men.  Then, on his way out the door, he nearly bowled over two cowhands  – one dark and one light – who were leaning in the archway as if waiting for someone.  Once past them he ran down the street and ducked into an alley before his father and brothers had a chance to see what direction he had taken.  By the time Joe stopped he was shaking like a leaf in a strong wind.  Tears welled in his eyes but he refused to let them fall.  His pa never made fun of him for tears.  Neither did his brothers.  But they were another thing a man wasn’t supposed to have.

He’d had them that night.  John Reagan had made him cry.

And he was never gonna cry again.

Never.

Going as far into the alley as he could, Joe found a stack of boxes that were left over from a delivery to one of the nearby stores and pressed his slight form into the darkness behind them, curling up like he had when he was a child.  He fought with himself – fought the tears coming, fought the rage rising, fought the darkness that wanted to overwhelm him and drive him even further away from the men he loved who were hunting him right now.  He couldn’t let them see him like this.  He couldn’t let them….  If he did.  If he did….

Those things that Reagan said would be true.

At first the attack had been pure hate and hurt.  Reagan had pounded him like a rock he meant to shatter into a million pieces.  He’d been beaten before, but he’d never known such pain.  But then, as he lay there on the ground barely conscious, gasping for air and praying that it would stop, Reagan had pressed in and begun to whisper words…words…words so hurtful they made the bully’s fists seem like powder puffs.

‘Little boy’, he kept saying, ‘go ahead and cry little boy.’

Little Joe.

He’d wanted to die.

But he didn’t.  Joe shifted uncomfortably and tried to disappear even more completely into the shadows that lined the alley.  He remembered coming to the first time.  He could hear his pa’s voice demanding something, wanting something from him – blink, Pa said, blink.  At the time he had been so confused.  He hadn’t understood that his pa was worried about his eyesight.  At the time it had seemed like Pa just didn’t care that he was hurting so bad he wanted to die.  Then he had awakened again.

Alone.

Alone with no one but a strange doctor hovering over him and a crowd of strangers looking at him and all of them laughing and wondering who the baby was who had had the snot knocked out of him.

Who was no longer a man.

Joe heard something.  He looked around the barrel and saw the two cowhands who had been in the restaurant standing at the end of the alley.  They hesitated a moment and then moved on..  A second later they were followed by Hoss and Adam and his Pa.  As his family passed by something shifted in him and he realized that if they backtracked and found him here, curled in a ball like a baby, then they would think that too.

He couldn’t let them find him here.

Sniffing, Joe wiped his snotty nose on his good coat and then ran the back of the sleeve over his eyes.  A steely determination entered those green eyes as he stood.  He’d show them who was a little boy.  He’d show all of them that no one was going to do what John C. Reagan had done to him ever again.

He’d show them he was a man.

Determined to do just that. Joe Cartwright straightened his suit coat, ran a hand through his hair, and headed for trouble.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

“Where do you suppose Joe’s gone?” Ben Cartwright asked his oldest son as they stepped out onto the porch of the hotel.

Adam shrugged.  “You know Joe.  He’s got a burr in the saddle about something.  He’s liable  to be anywhere.”

“It’s not like your brother to react so violently, Adam.  I mean, yes, Joe’s temper gets the best of him at times.”  He paused.  “But this seemed….different.”

Hoss hesitated, trying to spare his feelings.  “You think it might’a had somethin’ to do with that there article about Adah Menken, Pa?”

Ben sighed.  “There are times, boys, when you have a fool for a father.  I should have thought better of mentioning Adah….”

“Pa, why would you?  It’s been over a month and Joe’s seemed fine.”  Adam frowned, obviously considering what had just occurred.  “ ‘Seemed’ being the operative word.”

“What do you think it is, Pa?” Hoss asked.

Ben thought a moment.  “Son, none of us know what your brother went through in that alley.  Mentioning Adah must have triggered something, brought it all back, though why that would have made your brother want to run away from us, I don’t understand.”

“Maybe Joe just needed time to think, Pa,” Adam suggested.  “If that’s the case, then we probably shouldn’t look for him.”

Ben pursed his lips and shook his head.  “Your brother’s behavior is inexcusable.  Joe is no longer a child.  Temper tantrums are not acceptable in a man.  He needs to –”

“What I think Joe needs to do, Pa, is blow off a little steam,” Hoss suggested.  “Adam’s right.  I think we need to leave him alone this time and let him figure it out for himself.”

Ben considered his sons’ wise words and agreed.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

He regretted his choice at five a.m. the next morning when Sheriff Coffee came knocking at their door.  Ben hadn’t been asleep for long. The knocking woke both him and Adam who followed him sleepily down the staircase.  When they opened the door they found Roy.  The sheriff had Joe in hand.

His shiner had a shiner and he had a split lip.

As Roy deposited his youngest son on the settee, the sheriff said, “I shoulda locked him up, Ben, for all the trouble he caused.  I didn’t ‘cause I know you’ll take care of things.  But I’m warning you, one more night like last night and I’ll lock Little Joe up good and tight and throw away the key!”

Ben’s eyes were on his youngest.  Joe’s head was down.  He refused to meet his gaze.

“What did he do?”

“Got drunk and got into a brawl with a stranger.  Busted out the window of a nearby store.  I told the store keep you’d pay for it.”

Ben nodded, his eyes still on Joe.  “Is that all?”

“He darn near took the other man’s head off.”  Ben could tell Roy was worried about Joe.  The look the sheriff gave him said way more than his words.  “Could ‘a killed him.”

The older man looked at his son’s fists.  They were raw and bloody.  He drew a breath and met Roy’s gaze.  “I’ll take care of it, Roy.  Thank you.”

Ben saw Roy glance at Adam as well.  The look they exchanged about said it all.

“Well, then, I’ll be goin’, Ben.  Good night, Adam.”  He paused.  “Night, Little Joe.”

Joe said nothing.  Every muscle in his body was primed like dynamite waiting to detonate.

“I’ll walk you to the door, Roy,” Ben offered.

As he stepped outside with the other man, Roy Coffee turned to him.  “Do you know what’s wrong with Joe, Ben?”

He shook his head.  Rethinking the entire episode, he couldn’t see how a simple newspaper article had set his son off.  “I’ve no idea.  Everything was fine when we came to town.  The boy just seemed to plunge off the deep end for no reason.”

“He was drinkin’ hard, Ben.  The barkeep tried to cut him off, but Joe wouldn’t have it.”  Roy shook his head.  “That was the first fight he got into.”

Ben opened his mouth to answer, but a crash from inside the house stopped him.  Looking at Roy, he frowned and then rushed to open the door.

Adam was standing beside a small table that had been overturned.  Joe was nowhere in sight.

“Where’s your brother?” he demanded.

His eldest bent down and righted the table.  “Sorry about the lamp, Pa,” he said, kicking at the broken remnants of glass.  “Joe’s upstairs.”

“What happened?”

Adam shrugged.  “I tried to talk to him.”

Ben’s own temper flared.  As he headed for the stairs, his voice rose in volume.  “I don’t care what bee that boy has in his bonnet, there is no excuse for this kind of behavior!  He and I are going to have a talk and then I might just take him over my knee like the spoiled child he is!”

“Er, Pa….”

Ben halted, rigid, and turned back to bellow at his eldest son, “What?”

Adam remained silent for a moment. Then, all he said was, “Point taken?”

It took a second.  Then he realized what his eldest meant.

“Pa, getting angry at Joe isn’t going to solve anything.  Let it go until morning.  Maybe he’ll have cooled down enough by then that we can get him to make sense.”

Roy Coffee was still there.  “I think Adam’s right, Ben.”

He had to physically restrain himself, but in the end Ben agreed.

But tomorrow morning the boy was going to talk – no matter what!

 

 

TWO

Ben Cartwright halted outside Joseph’s room with his hand raised to knock on the door.  Outside the sun was shining on another hot dry day.  There had been a hint of rain as they rode back to the ranch, but it had never materialized and they were looking at another long day of making sure the cattle and sheep and all their other livestock were watered enough to live.

Breakfast had ended and Joe had not made an appearance.

After what had happened the night before, he hadn’t pushed it.  He figured his youngest son was too shamed by his behavior to show his face at the table and to take the ribbing he would receive from his older brothers.   So he had dismissed Hoss and Adam to their chores and, after spending a moment with Hop Sing speaking about supplies, headed to Joe’s room .  From what Roy had said about Joe’s drinking the night before, he probably had a monumental headache – which, of course, served him right.  He might not even be out of bed yet.   Of all his boys, Joe was the one he worried about the most.  Of course, part of that was due to the fact that the boy was young.

But there was more.

While Adam and Hoss felt things just as deeply as Joe, his oldest’s analytical mind was able to take things and work them around until – on the whole – he came to a sound judgment.  With Hoss the turmoil was usually directed inward toward himself and in time he found his way out.

Joe’s exploded in everyone’s face.

Ben shook his head.  He’d have to head into town soon and find out which window his son had broken.

As he stood there, thinking, Ben heard the sound of someone stirring in the room.  He rapped on the door and opened it slowly, sticking his head in and saying. “Joseph.  It’s your father.  We need to – ”

“Joe ain’t here, Pa,” Hoss answered.

Ben stepped into the room.  Hoss was on his knees and had been looking under the bed.

“You didn’t think he was down there, did you?” Ben asked, a bit confused.

The big man laughed.  “Shucks, no, Pa.  I was looking for Joe’s boots.”

His father blinked.  “I sent you out to work and you came up here to look for your brother’s missing dress boots?”

“Well, Pa,” Hoss started haltingly, “it’s just that, well, after Joe went off half-cocked last night, it seemed to me that he needed something a little special. I thought if maybe I could find his boots….”  The big man paused.  “It’s silly, ain’t it?  He was just plumb upset that he couldn’t find those boots.”

Joe was, if anything, immaculate about his appearance and clothes.  “It is strange,” he admitted.

“Have you noticed, Pa,” his middle son began, “how Joe’s seemed kinda distracted lately?”

“Distracted?  No.”  Ben moved to sit on the edge of his youngest’s bed.  “What do you mean?”

“You don’t work alongside him as much as Adam and I do,” Hoss said.  “Joe’s been makin’ little mistakes, nothing too big, but the other day he headed off into the desert without a canteen.  Adam ran him down and took him one.”

Ben frowned.  “What did Joe say?”

The big man grinned.  “He told us he was thinking about a girl.”

“And you believed your brother because he’s always thinking about girls,” Ben said with a rueful smile.

“Yes, sir.”  Hoss thought a moment.  “It’s almost like, well, like he’s tired and don’t never get enough sleep.”

“Maybe he’s not well.”

“That’d be, Joe.  If he wasn’t feeling good, he wouldn’t tell you.”  The big man shrugged.  “He’d be worried about being less than perfect.”

That stabbed Ben a bit.  He was demanding with his boys, he knew, but he hoped none of them thought he expected them to be perfect. 

Hoss seemed to sense his distress.  “It’s just Joe, Pa.  It ain’t you.  It’s like he’s got this thing deep down inside him that he keeps holdin’ himself up to – kinda like a mirror we cain’t see – and sometimes he don’t like what he sees.”

“Ah, Hoss,” Ben sighed.  “Always the philosopher.”

His son stared at him a minute and then beamed.  “Me?  One of them there real smart men?”

Ben rose and placed a hand on his shoulder.  “Sometimes, Hoss, you are the smartest of us all.”  The older man looked around the room.  He noticed nothing out of the ordinary except the light gray shirt Joe had worn the night before, which had a trace of blood on the collar and, curiously enough, dried mud.  Turning back to his middle son, he asked, “Where is your brother?  You saw no sign of him when you came in?”

Hoss shook his head.

The older man double-checked.  Joe’s bed had been slept in.  As he turned back to Hoss, Ben caught the sight of himself in Joe’s dresser mirror.  And there were times when he wondered why his hair was nearly white!

“What’re you gonna do, Pa?”

“I’m not sure.  The ranch won’t run itself and, with this drought, we don’t have a hand to spare.  Your brother is being very irresponsible.  I can’t just let that go.”

“Pa….”

“Yes?”

“If you ask me – and I know you ain’t – this whole thing has got somethin’ to do with that there beatin’ Joe took last month.”

“Oh?”

“He just ain’t been the same since then.  Both Adam and me has seen it.”

And he hadn’t.  Ben was humbled.   “How is Joe different?”

“Well, like I said, he’s been kind of distracted.  Joe’s always hot-tempered, so that ain’t nothin’ new.  Any time the boy’s wranglin’ with somethin’ it’s best to get out of his way.”  Hoss grinned.  “You know, you kind of expect him to go for ya when he’s riled, but he ain’t been doin’ that.”

“What’s Joe been doing?”

The big man thought a moment.  “He’s quiet, Pa.  Real quiet.  And….”  Hoss hesitated.

Ben steeled himself.  What now?  “And?”

“We think he’s been drinking, Pa,” a new voice added.

The older man whirled to find his eldest son, Adam, standing in the doorway.  “Did I raise three sons who don’t know how to follow their father’s orders?” he growled.

Adam shrugged.  “I was waiting on Hoss.  When he didn’t show, I came back to the house and heard you talking, so I came upstairs.”  Adam looked at his brother.  “Joe’s gone?”

Hoss nodded.

“Drinking?” Ben demanded.  “You mean more than a few beers at the saloon?”

Adam’s eyes were haunted.  “Whiskey, Pa.  I smelled it on him…during the day.  I confronted him about it.  Joe denied it, of course.”

“Good God….”

“Pa, something’s eating at him.  I don’t know what it is for sure, but Hoss and I have talked and we think it has to do with what John C. Reagan did to him.”

“Am I always the last to know? “  Ben tried not to sound too wounded, but he was.

Adam came to stand before him.  “Pa, we didn’t want to worry you if it was nothing, but after last night….”  His hazel eyes flicked to Hoss.  “Well, I don’t think either of us think it is ‘nothing’ anymore.”

“That’s for sure enough true,” the big man agreed.  “Pa, I sure am worried about Joe.”

Ben Cartwright rose from his youngest’s bed and looked out the window, wondering where in all of the Ponderosa his troubled son had gone.

“Me too, Hoss.  Me too.”

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Joe paused to wipe the sweat out of his eyes.  He had risen early sicker than a dog; his mouth dry as the desert and his heart pounding.  The early morning light stabbed his eyes and set him to shaking.  He had barely gotten dressed and made it out of the house before everything he had eaten and drunk the night before came up and out of him.

He was miserable and he deserved every agonizing minute of it.

He’d gone back into the house and cleaned up, eaten a very light breakfast, and then, careful not to wake anyone, headed out early.  His pa had told him the day before that he wanted him to go mend some fences along one of the north pastures after they got back from the photographers.  He hadn’t done it, of course, and so he had headed there now to do just that, figuring he was at least good for picking up a sledgehammer and driving posts.

Hopefully he’d sweat out whatever was wrong with him.

Joe removed his shirt and used it to wipe his forehead. Then he tossed it over the rail.  Picking up the sledgehammer he swung it over his head again and brought it down with a satisfying whack on the wooden post, driving it an inch farther into the dry dirt.

There was going to be hell to pay when he went home and he knew it.  He could hear his Pa now – Joseph Francis Cartwright!  Do you know how irresponsible your behavior has been?  Do you know how you have let me down and let your brothers down by indulging your childish whims?  Are you aware that this ranch cannot function without you pulling your weight?

If you want us to think of you as a man then you better begin by behaving like a man! 

He’d tried to be a man last night.

He’d failed at that too.

Joe paused, breathing hard.  He leaned on the handle of the sledge and removed the leather glove on his left hand and then reached up to feel the place where John C. Reagan’s fist had split his skin.  It was pounding again.  His fingers came away bloody, causing him to sigh.

It seemed the wound might never heal.

Stepping back, Joe returned the glove to his hand and gripped the sledgehammer again.  His Pa had always told them that hard work was the cure for what ailed a man.   He just wished he knew for sure what was ailing him.  It had something to do with what had happened a month before – he wasn’t denying that.  Somehow what John C. Reagan had done to him was wrapped around all of the feelings he had of being the youngest and not being taken seriously and being treated like a child, but….

There was something more.  Something he couldn’t put his finger on.

Something…deep.

Joe’s eyes flicked to the saddlebag on Cochise.  The leather bulged, not quite big enough for the whiskey bottle it contained.  It was there.  His insurance – in case whatever was ‘deep’ tried to rise again.

Lifting the hammer, Joe swung it over his head once more and brought it down with a vengeance on the post.  A few splinters flew into the air.  He didn’t intend to use the bottle, but he’d found that when the deep rose in him it sucked the fire out of him and left him empty and he just had to fill that emptiness with something or he would die.

Just…die.

As he brought the hammer down again and the sound echoed across the drought-ridden land, Joe heard something.  Something not right. Wiping sweat from his lip with the back of his hand, he leaned on the hammer and listened.  This time he heard it clearly.

A woman’s scream.

Dropping the heavy tool where he stood, Joe caught hold of his shirt and threw it on as he headed for Cochise.  Just then the woman screamed again.  It was a shrill high disbelieving sound and it spooked his horse so that the Paint reared up and struck out with his hooves.  Deciding he didn’t have time to cope with calming the animal, the youngest Cartwright checked to make certain the tether was good and then took off at a sprint across the dry dusty field north of the broken fence.

At least the hard baked earth made running easier.

At the other end of the field Joe laid his hand to the rail fence and hopped it.  Panting, he halted on the other side and listened again.  The screaming had stopped.

It had been replaced by the mournful sound of someone sobbing.

As he stood there, breathing hard, Joe considered what it might be he was headed straight for.  He hadn’t heard any gunplay and had assumed it was a woman in trouble.  Now he wasn’t so sure.  And yet, even if he was right, blundering in like a train car cut loose on a steep grade wasn’t going to help anyone.  Slowing both his breathing and his passage through the trees, Joe drew his pistol from his holster and crept forward cautiously.  As he did the sobbing turned into a kind of wail.  It was a haunting sound that shivered through him from the top of his curly brown head to the bottom of his well-worn work boots.

Abruptly, through a break in the trees, Joe saw a lean-to where there shouldn’t have been a lean-to.

He halted.  The mournful sound was definitely coming from the area of the makeshift dwelling.   Joe couldn’t see anything yet, but he assumed whoever it was who had been screaming was crying now.  Knowing well how quickly the threat of death could spring from out of nowhere on the frontier, he circled the area that held the lean-to cautiously before entering it.  One time he thought he saw something – a hint of movement, a flash of color – but, after standing and listening, he decided it had to have been an animal and moved on.

The early morning light struck the figure of a woman kneeling beside a fallen man.  Whoever he was, the man had a slight build like him and looked to be in his late thirties.  He was laying face down, his torso halfway in and halfway out of the lean-to.  His coat was part ways off his shoulders  as if he had crawled forward from the interior, dragging his body to fall where he lay.  Joe shifted in the underbrush, uncertain of where to go from here.  The woman obviously needed help, but she was an Indian.  He hadn’t seen anyone else, but her men folk might be close and might misunderstand what he was trying to do if he stepped out into the open and offered her aid.  Still, the man lying on the ground might need help too – a doctor maybe – and every minute that he wasted was another one in which the wounded man, whoever he was, could die.

The problem was, he didn’t even know if the woman could speak English.  He might offer help and have the gesture completely misunderstood.  Still, as he stood there, her grief tore at him.  From the look of her, she was older than Adam but younger than his pa.  Maybe the man on the ground was her brother or husband.  Joe thought about what he would want if he found himself alone in the woods with his brother or someone he loved dying right in front of his eyes, and decided that even an unwelcome stranger might be welcome if it meant having someone to go for help.  He looked at his gun.  He couldn’t really come out of the trees with it drawn, not if he expected her to give him the least chance of helping.  Holstering it with a sigh, Joe parted the leaves in front of him and emerged into the clearing where the lean-to had been erected.

The woman didn’t see him.  At least, not at first.  But when she did, her reaction surprised him – she was afraid.

Terribly afraid.

“Ma’am,” Joe said tentatively.  “I’m not here to hurt you.  I’d like to help.”  He waited for the tone of his words to penetrate her fear.  “Ma’am?”

The woman glanced at the trees and then turned her face toward him.  Otherwise she did not move.

Joe took a tentative step forward, his hands outstretched to either side to show he held no weapon.  “I don’t know if I can help, Ma’am, but I’d like to try.  My name’s Cartwright.  Joe Cartwright.”

She nodded, like she knew the name.  Maybe she knew she was on his pa’s land and that was why she looked so scared.

“It’s okay,” Joe said, taking a step closer.  “Its’ not important now whether you should be here or not.”  He indicated the man with a nod.  “Your friend needs help.  I might be able to get it for you.”  All the while he advanced Joe was scanning the trees surrounding them.  Even though he had taken time to make sure no one was lurking in them, it wasn’t beyond some Indians to stage something like this just so they could take someone captive and either trade or sell them.

They could have been hiding.

Joe was within ten feet of the woman now.  He had been right about her age, though it was sometimes hard to tell with natives since their skin was burned dark and wrinkled early from living mostly outside under  the sun.  The man lying on the ground had coal black hair that was cut short around the ears and was wearing a brown suit coat of an average cloth with a vest over the top and a pair of gray trousers.

Eight feet now.  Five, and he stopped.  The woman continued to stare at him as if astonished that he existed.  Joe gestured toward the man on the ground.  “Can I take a look?” he asked.

Slowly, reluctantly, she nodded, so either she understood his words or the gesture.  He had no idea which.

“Okay,” he said as he crouched.  “Let’s see what….” Joe’s voice trailed off as the manner of the man’s death registered.  Not only had he been strangled, but he had a knife sticking out of his back.  His suit coat was stained with blood.

Joe winced.  Coupled with the pool of blood lying under the man, things did not look good.  He glanced at the woman and saw the resignation in her eyes.  She had known it before him.

The man was dead.

Rising to his feet, Joe looked around again and, again, he caught a sense of movement.  A glance at the woman told him it was not his imagination.  She was looking in the same direction.  Coming to a quick decision Joe began to run, ignoring her as she reached for him and shouted something even as he sprinted into the trees.  Hugging the shadows he followed whoever it was with caution, well aware that this could be the murderer.  Abruptly, through an opening in the leaves, he caught sight of a tall man’s form.  The stranger was blond.  He was dressed like a ranch hand and moved like greased lightning.  Joe watched as the man stepped to the side and disappeared.  Seconds later a horse burst out of the foliage.  As the man turned and looked his way, Joe ducked into the trees.  He caught a flash of a face – pale, determined, mean.

Then the man was gone.

There was no point in following.  Joe knew there was no way he could catch him on foot.  And to be honest, he didn’t know whether the stranger had anything to do with the murder of the man – though he would have laid money on it that he did.  Puzzled, Joe swung back and looked in the direction that he had come, contemplating his next move.  In the end, compassion won out over curiosity.

The woman back there needed him.

Joe emerged from the trees to find her waiting for him.  He started for the dead man only to have her stop him.  She grabbed his arm and pulled him in the other direction as if trying to speed him on his way.  He shook his head, pulled loose, and went to search the ground in front of the lean-to.  With a sigh, the woman followed him.

The first thing he noticed as he searched the area for clues was a trail of dried blood leading into the lean-to, indicating the man had crawled at least a short distance.  So he had been attacked elsewhere.  There were a few horse and boot tracks alongside the blood, but the earth was baked so hard they were difficult to make out.  Still, it was clear they had been left by white men and not Indians.  Joe looked at the man again.  Bending down, he took hold of him and began to haul him out of the makeshift structure.  The Indian woman glared at him as he did and then, with a resigned sigh, joined him in his effort.

As the man’s body came clear of the lean-to something caught Joe’s eye.  The murdered man was wearing a pair of highly polished, expensive-looking Western boots that didn’t fit with his citified clothing.  They were like the ones he’d lost and would have cost a small fortune.  The boots were covered with mud, which Joe bent down to brush off.  As he did, a chill snaked up his spin as he realized they didn’t ‘look’ like the boots he had lost – they were the ones he had lost.

The dead man was wearing his missing boots.

 

 

THREE

 

Adam Cartwright reached for the saddle horn in preparation for mounting Sport.  Placing his foot in the stirrup, he slung his leg over the horse’s back and settled comfortably in the saddle.

Physically comfortable at least.

Mentally, he was ill at ease.  Adam cast another glance at the dying sun.  It was setting in the west.  Soon it would be dark.

There was no sign of Joe.

Finally, after supper, their father had had to admit that there might be a reason to track their wayward brother down.  The older man’s resistance – in part – was due to his eternal hope that this was the day baby brother grew up.  Joe was well on the way to getting there.  Providence had just given Joe an uneven portion of ornery that was going to take a little longer to tame.  He’d seen it with horses.  The one’s with the most spirit, that threw the men trying to ride them the farthest, were the surest mounts in the end.

If Joe lived that long….

He had consulted with Hoss, who was finishing up Joe’s chores, before leaving the ranch and decided to try the fields north of the house.  One of the ranch hands told his brother that he had seen Joe head that way.  Their father had mentioned that day before that there were fences that needed mending and indicated Joe was the one to do it.  His brother was probably doing self-imposed penance.   Adam grinned.  Or maybe Joe had sensed that their pa had a list longer than his arm of hateful tasks for him to do upon his return to the house that included some intensive work with pigs.  Adam wrinkled his nose.  Unfortunately, that meant they had to live with their little brother’s…uh…bouquet until he got it done.

Adam had left the Ponderosa when the sun was midway down to the horizon and arrived at his destination about an hour back before it set.  He had found the broken fence and a sledgehammer tossed to the side on the ground nearby.  He’d also found Cochise tethered securely to a tree munching on some sweet grass and all of Joe’s tackle intact.  One saddlebag was open, but he thought from the looks of it that his brother had taken whatever was in it and not anyone else.  It didn’t look ransacked.  Deciding Joe had gone into the woods to relieve himself Adam settled in, started a small fire and – using his brother’s supplies – put on a pot of coffee.  He figured once Joe returned he’d try to talk to him.  Maybe here, away from their Pa, his little brother could tell him what was eating him.  He and Hoss still thought it had to do with the beating Joe had taken from John C. Reagan.  It had to have been humiliating, even though Joe couldn’t have done the least thing to stop it.  Even he would have had a hard time handling Reagan who had been a giant of a man whose hands were considered lethal weapons.  If not for the rage he felt, Adam wasn’t sure even Hoss could have done it.

But there had been rage – they had all felt it.  One more blow or one placed differently and Joe could have been dead.

Adam glanced at the coffee pot from where he sat anchored in the saddle.  The fire was out.  The coffee, cold.

It was time to find Joe.

Upon inspecting the ground around the fence Adam found two trails, both made by multiple people.  One headed to the north, while the other ran along the fence for a while and then entered a nearby stand of trees.  That one was easier to see since the taller grasses along the fence had been crushed underfoot.  It was hard to tell, since the ground was so hard, but he thought the second trail was the freshest and decided to follow it.  By the way it progressed it seemed whoever had left it might have been hanging onto the fence for support.  Here and there a rail was knocked out of place, though that might have happened before and been some of the damage the ranch hand had reported to their father.  It was hard to know.  Adam glanced at the sky again.  The sun was nearly gone.  It was going to be pitch-black soon, at least until the moon claimed the sky.

He would be forced to stop if he didn’t find Joe soon.

Adam reined in his horse and leaned on the saddle horn.  He looked in every direction at the giant hay stack of a meadowland in which he was trying to find one skinny needle-thin man, and sighed.  He seldom called on Providence for small things, but he was considering it when one of the last rays of the sun struck something lying close to the fence not too far ahead.  There was a pale patch of something where no pale patch had any right to be.

Adam sucked in air when he recognized the cast of the shoulders and that tousled head of brown curls.

It was Joe.

Jumping from his horse Adam dropped the reins and ran for all he was worth, covering the distance between them in a few seconds.  All sorts of things ran through his head.  Had his brother been shot?  Maybe Joe’d been robbed.   There had been word of Indians in the area, though they were said to be peaceable – had one of them attacked him?  Or maybe some irate father?

Dropping beside his brother Adam took hold of Joe’s shoulders and turned him over gently.  He bent down to see if he was breathing and then reeled back from the smell.

Joe had an empty whiskey bottle in his hand and he was dead drunk.

Adam pushed his black hat back and sighed.

It was a good thing he’d made that pot of coffee.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Ben Cartwright stood on the porch of the Ponderosa ranch house staring out into the night, wondering about his youngest boy.  Though he had protested and bellowed as he felt he had to do, he had been grateful to see Adam ignore him and – when he thought he wasn’t watching – take off in search of his brother.  There was a special bond between them, different from the one Joe shared with Hoss.  At thirteen Adam hadn’t been old enough to be Joe’s father, but he hadn’t been far off.  He’d known boys of sixteen who had married and started a life.  And so, in a way, Adam had acted as both older brother and a second father to Joe.  While Hoss was often Joe’s partner in crime, it was Adam who grounded him and made his youngest think.

Whatever Joe was facing now, maybe he would accept help from Adam when it was apparent he had no intention of taking it from him.

Ben leaned on one of the wooden posts that fronted the door and thought of Joe’s mother and how he wished she was here at his side.  These were the times when he felt the ache for Marie in his bones.  As tiny as he was, Joe and his mother had had a special bond too.  As the youngest boy, while he had trailed after his brothers, Joe had not been able to work at their side and so had spent much of his time with his mother while the rest of them were away forging and forming the empire that was the Ponderosa.  Though Joe had been barely old enough to understand what death was, the loss of his mother had devastated the boy.  What Adam had said earlier had reminded him.  Joe, who was usually free with tears, had grown stoic after Marie’s passing.  It wasn’t until the last sod of earth had been tossed on her coffin that the boy shed a tear, and even then he had fought to control it, his upper lip trembling and his little body shaking like a quake had hit.  It was almost as if Joe had been afraid to cry for fear he would.  The irony was, he had shed his tears in private for fear the sight of it would frighten Marie’s son.

Thinking back on it now that had been wrong.

Ben straightened up and turned as the door to the house opened.  Hoss saw him and then left the interior to join him.  “No sign of Adam or Little Joe?” he asked as he came to his side.

The older man shook his head.  “They’ve probably decided to camp for the night.”

“Yeah,” the big man said, “I’m sure you’re right.”  Hoss paused.  “You know, Pa, I sure wish I knew what was eatin’ Joe.  Usually he tells me.”

Ben could hear the hurt in his son’s tone.  He touched his shoulder.  “You two are close, I know that.”

“We sure are, Pa, which makes all of this such a puzzlement.”

The older man leaned his back against the wooden post.  “We never really know what drives a man, Hoss, even the ones we are the closest too.  Oh, we get to know someone and know what we expect of them, but there’s always a chance that there’s something deep down inside them that will change their course if something forces it to the surface.”

“You think that’s what it is with Joe?”

Ben pursed his lips and nodded.  “This drinking has me worried, though.  It’s a habit, once a man has picked it up, that’s hard to break.”

“I seen Joe put an awful lot of liquor down at once, Pa, with no real trouble.”  At his look, Hoss swallowed hard.  “In the saloon, you know.  Taking on a challenge and like.”

“That’s not what worries me, Hoss.  It’s not so much how much a man drinks as why he drinks.  If it’s for recreation, that’s one thing.  If it’s to numb himself until he can’t feel, well, that’s where the danger lies.”  Ben looked out again the way Adam had taken.  “I’m afraid that’s what Joe is doing.”

“Numb himself from what?  You think it’s what that scallywag Reagan did to him?”

“I think that’s a part of it,” Ben answered, pulling on his chin. “I’m not sure it’s all.”  After a moment, he touched Hoss’ shoulder.  “Come on, son.  We’re doing no one including ourselves any good standing out here.  I’m sure Adam has Joe well in hand.”

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

It hadn’t been pretty.

While Adam enjoyed a glass of fine whiskey from time to time, the smell of it stale on a man’s breath mixed with vomit was enough to put him off of it for the foreseeable future.  As Joe was so far out of it, he’d had to watch to make sure his brother didn’t choke and, once he had stopped being sick, continued to watch that he didn’t fall into some kind of a stupor and stop breathing.  From what he could tell his little brother must have downed the entire bottle of whiskey in one go.  Joe wasn’t a big man. What would have made Hoss or him ill could have easily killed him.

As he worked with Joe, Adam had been surprised by the rage that had grown within him that made him want to take his little brother and shake him until whatever was wrong with him fell out on its own.  He had grown so angry he caught himself  at one point just short of backhanding Joe with brutal force.  In a way Adam didn’t know that he had ever been faced with anything like this before.  They’d had plenty of people try to kill them.

This was the first time he’d had to deal with one of them trying to kill himself.

After he lost his temper, Adam had stepped away, leaving Joe lying on the ground.  His brother had moaned in pain and for a moment, he had been glad of it.  What a stupid thing to do!  What an absolute waste!  How dare Joe take for granted everything God had given him – including good looks and charm and a brilliant mind – and throw it on the rubbish heap!  From the few medical classes he sat in on at college, he knew Joe could have actually damaged himself by such a rapid consumption of alcohol.  The human body simply wasn’t made to handle it.

What the Hell was wrong with him?

Now, some time later, as he stood looking down at Joe, whose young face was covered with a sheen of sweat and who was shaking uncontrollably, the black-haired man felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness.  He could shoot the bad guy and beat up someone who threatened Joe, but what in the name of Heaven was he to do when it was Joe who threatened himself?

Adam remained where he was for a moment and then he crouched beside his brother and placed a hand on his chest.  A moment later he sat down and drew Joe’s quaking body into his arms and held him tighter than he had ever held him before.  As he did, a tear fell.

It struck Joe’s face and his brother’s long lashes fluttered.  Joe tried to open his eyes.  The moment he did, his entire body grew stiff and he heaved.  There was nothing more to come up, so the action made him groan.

“That’s what you get for being an idiot,” Adam snarled softly.

His baby brother’s eyes opened again. They rolled back in Joe’s head once and then remained open without focus.  He tried to speak but whatever came out was so slurred it could have been anything from ‘Help me up’ to ‘I hate your guts’.

“Take it easy, Joe.  You’re in no shape to do anything right now.”  Adam ran his fingers around his brother’s mouth clearing it of spittle as he had done when he was an infant so he wouldn’t choke.  “Just lay there and breathe.”

Instead of quieting Joe grew agitated, which was not exactly what Adam had hoped would happen.  He seemed to struggle for a moment as if caught in some alcohol-induced nightmare and then his eyes grew focused – just for a second – and out came a strangled, “Adam?”

Joe’s hand was grappling at the air.  Adam caught it and squeezed his fingers hard. “I’m here, Joe.  I’m not going anywhere.”

A slight smile lifted one side of his brother’s upper lip and then Joe coughed and heaved again.  Adam shifted his grip and held him until the fit passed by placing one hand on his forehead and wrapping the other around his middle. As his brother quieted all of Adam’s frustration came out in a sigh.

“For the love of God, Joe, why?”

In response Joe did something unexpected.  He shook his head.

What kind of a response was that?  No?  ‘No’ to what?

Joe’s eyes had closed again.  He felt like a louse, but Adam shook him, rousing him.  “No, what, Joe?  ‘No’, what?”

His brother’s fingers closed over his own and Joe turned his eyes toward his face.  They pleaded with him to understand.

“Not me….” Joe sighed and then fell silent.

Those two words stabbed Adam like a knife.  If not Joe….

Then who?

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Ben Cartwright awoke early the next morning to the sound of someone opening the front door.  He glanced at the clock and saw that it was a little after four.  Pulling on his robe and slipping on his slippers, he opened his bedroom door and went to the staircase –  quietly – so as not to wake his middle son.  The sun was still down so the great room was dark, but he could hear someone moving through it.  A match was struck and the small oil lamp on the side table filled with a gentle golden glow illuminating his eldest boy, Adam.  As he descended the stair Adam glanced up.

He looked unutterably weary.

“Pa,” his son said softly, “before you get angry, I think there’s more here than meets the eye.”

Ben tightened the belt of his robe as he descended the stair.  “Did you find your brother?”

“I found him.  Joe’s on the settee.”

The older man picked up the lamp on his way past.  He was not prepared for the wreck of a human being its light revealed.  Joe’s hair was matted and his clothing stained with the remnants of everything that had been in his stomach.  The mix of whiskey and vomit was stifling.

“Good God!” he exclaimed and a moment later added, “What kind of a fool idiot have I reared!”

Adam stepped forward.  “Pa, I’m not sure this is Joe’s fault.”

“And I suppose someone took a bottle of whiskey and opened his mouth and forced the liquor down his throat!”

His son pursed his lips.  “I’m beginning to think that’s exactly what happened.”

Ben crossed over to the cabinet they kept the liquor in and opened it.  He counted the bottles and then rounded on his eldest.  “There’s a bottle of whiskey missing.”

“That doesn’t mean Joe drank it deliberately, Pa.  It just means he took it with the intention of doing so.”

“Why are you defending him?”

Adam hesitated.  “I’m not sure, Pa.  At first I wanted to kill him myself, but….”  For a moment his eldest failed for words. “This just isn’t Joe, Pa.  You know that.  No matter how much he’s hurting.  Getting a little wild, being reckless, drinking a few too many?  Maybe.  But this?  This just isn’t Joe.”

Ben wanted to believe.  By God, he wanted to believe it so much.  Taking the lamp from Adam he went and sat by his youngest’s side.  Joe’s breathing was shallow and somewhat forced.  He was pale and cold to the touch.  “Get that throw over there, Adam,” he ordered as he put the lamp on the table by his son’s head.  “We need to cover him up.”

Adam nodded.  He returned a moment later with the throw.  As Ben tucked it over Joe’s shaking form, his eldest said matter-of-factly, “I think someone tried to kill him.”

The older man shot him a look.  “Why?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe he saw something.  He was out in the north pasture.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

Adam shook his head.

“Watch him for a moment, Adam,” Ben said, rising.  “I’m going to go get a basin of water.  I can’t stand to see him like this.”

When Ben returned a few moments later Adam was sitting at Joe’s side holding his brother’s hand.  He surrendered his seat but lingered close.  Taking the cloth he had brought, the older man dipped it in the water and washed some of the filth from Joe’s face and neck.  As he bathed him the first rays of dawn fell through the open window beyond the dining table and the light began to rise in the room.  When he was done he put the cloth in the basin and turned to face Adam.

“Tell me what makes you think this is not just your brother acting up.”

“Well, for one thing, Pa,” he said, looking thoughtful.  “There were two trails that led from where I found the broken fence and the sledge, one going north and the other one heading here, which is where I found Joe.  I have to admit that the way I found him, laying on his face with the empty bottle under him, made me think the same thing as you at first.”  Adam paused.  “Pa, when I asked him ‘why’,  he shook his head ‘no’.”

“Maybe he just didn’t want to tell you.”

“Maybe.  But then, when I pressed Joe, Pa, when I asked him, ‘No’, what?  His answer was ‘Not me’.”

Ben glanced at his son.  “That was it?  ‘Not me’?”

Adam nodded.  “I can’t explain it, Pa, but I believed him.  I don’t think he did this – I think someone did it to him.”

“It could just be a convenient way to get out of trouble.”  Ben knew it all too well.  Men who drank were wily.  He stood and looked down at his youngest.  “It doesn’t matter.  We won’t solve it until we can talk to Joe.”  The older man turned and placed a hand on Adam’s shoulder.  “You’re both home and safe now.  Let’s get your brother upstairs to his bed.”

“Let me do that, Pa.”

He and Adam both turned toward the stair.  “How long have you been there, Hoss?” Ben asked as his middle son joined them.

“Not long.  I heard you and Adam talking.”  He nodded toward Joe’s sleeping form.  “What’s little brother got hisself into this time?”

He and Adam exchanged looks.  “We’re not entirely sure,” the older man said.  “The only thing that’s certain is that Joe needs to rest.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ben moved out of the way so Hoss could move in.  The big man bent down and tenderly lifted his brother as if he was a child and bore him up the staircase to his room.

He and Adam stared after them for a moment and then his eldest turned to him.  With a nod toward the window, he said, “Sun’s up, Pa.  Time for the new day to begin.”

Ben looked.  So it was.

God alone knew what it would bring.

 

 

FOUR

Ben Cartwright reined his horse in outside of the ranch house and dismounted.  He was hot and sweaty and covered in dust and was looking forward to one of Hop Sing’s excellent meals and a bath.  It had been a long hard day of long hard work ranging from hauling water to burying the cattle that had died of thirst before they could get it to them.  As Ben wiped his brow with his shirt sleeve, the older man looked toward the house.  It didn’t help that they were one man down.  He’d been so desperate he’d taken on a couple of drifters the night before as temporary help even though he wasn’t too fond of the look of them. Still, until whatever was troubling Joseph was solved, he didn’t know that he could count on him.

And that was a hard pill to swallow.

Adam and Hoss were not too far behind him.  They had ridden back to the place where Adam had found Joe to see if they could discover anything that might enlighten them as to what had happened the night before.  It had been getting dark when he located his brother and his eldest had admitted it had been hard to see anything.  Hopefully they would return with something that would help to solve the puzzle of why his youngest seemed to have gone off  the deep end.

Leaving Buck to munch on some sweet grass Ben headed for the house.  Once inside he tossed his hat on the sideboard and then turned to find Joe parked on the edge of the hearth.  The boy had kindled a fire and was sitting there staring into it.  Apparently his son hadn’t heard him enter as he didn’t acknowledge his presence or move.  Ben observed him for a minute.  Joe was pale and sickly looking.  He had the throw wrapped around the shoulders of the black shirt he wore.  Beside him was an untouched bowl of soup and a mug brought, no doubt, by Hop Sing in an attempt to get Joe to eat something.

Remembering his own bouts with overindulgence, he doubted the boy could keep it down.

As he approached Joe stirred and looked at him.  Ben was surprised to find no contrition in his son’s eyes – just confusion.

“Joseph.”

His smile was sheepish and his voice, weak.  “Hey, Pa.”

Ben crossed to the other side of the settee table and perched on it.  Sitting there, he linked his hands together and said, “Son, we need to talk.”

“I’m sorry, Pa, about the other night.  I don’t know what got into me.  I’ll work to pay off that window I smashed.  I – ”

“I’m not talking about the other night, Joseph.  I am talking about last night.”

Joe’s face scrunched up as it had from the time he was a little boy, whenever he had something to say that he didn’t really want to say.  “There’s a problem with that, Pa.”

“And that would be?”

His son sighed.  “I don’t remember last night.  In fact, I don’t even know how I got home.  I was out mending fences – ”

“Adam brought you home.”

“Adam?”  He could see the wheels turning in his son’s head.  Joe was thinking furiously.  “I don’t remember Adam coming for me.”

In spite of his best effort, Ben failed to keep the anger or the implied censure out of his tone.  “You’d downed an entire bottle of whiskey in one go, it’s surprising you remember your own name.”

Joe’s green eyes met his.  “I…I did what?”

“When Adam found you, you were dead drunk.”

“Pa, no!”  His son was shaking his head.  “I didn’t….”

“Are you denying you took the bottle?”

Joe met his stare and then dropped his head.  “No.”

Ben continued to gaze at him for a moment.  He drew a deep breath and let it out a sigh.  “Why, Joseph?  Why?”

His son’s head snapped up, a bit of the fire that normally fueled him returning.  “Do you think if I knew that I wouldn’t tell you?  I don’t know, Pa!  I just don’t know.”

“Does it have to do with what John C. Reagan did to you?”

The question hung unanswered in the air a moment, during which time his son visibly squirmed.  When at last Joe replied it wasn’t with an answer, but with another question.

“Pa?”

“Yes, son?”

“What…  What is it makes a man a ‘man’?”

That question was as loaded as a revolver with all the chambers filled.  “What exactly do you mean, son?  You should know what I think.”

Joe’s restless excitement got the best of him.  He rose to his feet and began to pace.  “A man’s gotta be strong, right?  And able to take care of himself and his?  I mean, he can’t let other men step all over him or push him around.”

“That’s right,” Ben answered, sensing where this was going.  “But Joe, it’s not about being physically strong or able as much as it is about strength of character.  Any man can brutalize another.  That doesn’t mean he is strong.”

Joe stopped and looked at him but said nothing.

Ben drew another breath, steeling himself against the emotional tide he expected.

“Son, what happened in that alley?”

Joe’s expression went from surprise to chagrin and past that to shame and anger in about six seconds.  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he snapped.

“You’re going to have to, Joseph, or it will eat you up alive.  If it’s driven you to drink –”

“Pa, no!  I’m not….  I didn’t….”  His son sucked in air.  “It’s not because of that.”

It was Ben’s turn to be surprised.  “Then what is behind it?  A man doesn’t nearly drink himself to death over nothing.”

Joe seemed earnestly wounded.  “Pa, didn’t you hear me?  I didn’t do what you think.  I wouldn’t.”

“How do you know, Joe, if you can’t remember anything?”

The words were spoken quietly but they had a huge impact.  Joe paused in front of the hearth and then sat down heavily.  He ran a hand along his neck and then worked the muscles at the back as if seeking to ease the tension there.  Finally, sounding like a little boy, he said, “Help me, Pa.  Will you help me?”

Stabbed to the heart Ben rose and went to sit beside his boy.  Placing an arm around Joe’s shoulders he said, “Tell me, what do you remember about last night?”

The sheepish look returned.  “I wanted to tell you, Pa.  But you won’t like it.”

He stifled a sigh.  “More trouble?”

“Yeah,” Joe laughed weakly, “but not the kind you’re thinking of.”  His son paused.  “A man was murdered on our land last night.”

“What?”

Joe nodded.  “I was out mending the fences when I heard this woman screaming.  I went to see what the matter was and found a lean-to pitched just north of the fence.  The woman was Indian and she was bending over a man who had been strangled and had a knife in his back.”

“Good God!”

“I heard something and ran into the woods to see what it was.”  Joe hesitated.  “I couldn’t see much, just a man – moving on foot first and then on a horse.  There was nothing unusual about him except he had a mean look.”

Fear gripped him.  “Joe, did this man see you?”

His son shook his head.  “I don’t think so.”

“What happened after that?”

“I helped the woman bury the man and told her to leave everything pretty much in place.  She didn’t speak English, so I don’t know if she listened.”  He frowned, obviously coming to the place where things got hazy.  “I admit, Pa, I was shaking so much when I got back to the fence that I opened the whiskey and took a sip.  But just a sip.”

Ben ignored that.  “What did you do next?”

“I’m not sure.  It was getting dark.  I decided it was time to head home.  I remember opening the satchel to put the bottle back and then….”  Distress entered his son’s eyes.  “Honest, Pa, then there’s nothing until I woke up in bed about an hour ago.”

Ben sat there for a minute, weighing what he knew of his son’s character for the last eighteen years against the young scoundrel who had been dragged in bruised and bloodied by Roy Coffee the night before.  If it pleased God, Joe’s foolishness had been the aberration.

He had to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“All right, son.  I believe you,” he said while patting Joe on the leg.

Joseph’s whole body seemed to sigh. “Thanks, Pa.  And I am sorry about the other night.  I guess…I guess I was trying to prove I was the wrong kind of a man.”

“And you failed miserably, thank goodness!” Ben laughed.

As a smile broke on Joe’s face the door to the ranch house opened and his two dusty brothers walked in.  The relief was apparent on both their faces, but even more so on Adam’s.  After hanging his black hat on a peg, his eldest crossed quickly to them and asked, “How are you feeling, Joe?”

His brother favored him with a lop-sided grin.  “Like I been run over in a stampede.”

“You smelled worse than if you’d been under a load of cattle last night, little brother, I can tell you that,” Hoss said as he came to join them.

“I told Pa I don’t know what happened.”

Ben took a moment to explain everything Joe had told him, including about the man who had been murdered.  As he finished he noticed Adam frowning.

“What is it, son?”

Adam’s hazel eyes flicked to Joe.  They looked sympathetic.  “Joe, Hoss and I were just all over that area.  There’s no lean-to there, and I didn’t see any sign of a fresh grave.  How about you?” he asked, looking at the big man.

Hoss scratched the back of his head.  “Sorry to say, Joe, but I didn’t see nothing neither.”

Beside him Joe tensed.  “But it happened!  I know what I saw – the woman, the man, everything!”

“I’m not saying you didn’t, Joe,” Adam said quietly.  “I’m just saying there’s no evidence.”

“Adam’s the first one who believed you, Joe,” Ben told him.  “Your brother thinks you were forced to consume that whiskey.”

Joe burst from the hearth again.  He began to move but with no direction.  “I just wish I could remember!  Why can’t I remember?”

Again, Adam answered.  “You’ve seen it before, Joe, when someone drinks too much too fast.  They can be playing cards with you and when you ask them the next day about that winning hand, they don’t even remember being in the saloon.”  Ben watched as Adam crossed to Joe and placed a hand on his shoulder.  “That much alcohol that fast could have killed you.  It may have been meant to.  Joe, maybe you saw something someone didn’t want you to see.”

Ben nodded.  The fact that the lean-to was gone as well as any sight of the man’s grave went a long way toward backing that up.  Rising, the older man looked out the window.  It was late in the afternoon.  There were only a few hours of light left in the day.  “Can we make it there before dark, Adam?”

His eldest shook his head.  “No.  The road’s rough after that last storm.  It would be pitch-black by the time we got there.”

“Then we’ll just have to wait for tomorrow.  We’ll rise early and go to town and alert Sheriff Coffee, and then all of us can go and take a look before its time for the day’s chores to begin.  Does that suit you, Joseph?”

He nodded.  “I’d like to go now, Pa, but I understand.”

“Well then, the next order of business is some food for all of us – and that includes you, Joe,” he insisted as he watched his youngest go green.  “You’ve lost everything you had in you yesterday and most of it from the day before.”

“Yeah, and we cleaned it all up,” Hoss added, ending with a resounding, ‘Pee-yew!’

“I don’t know, Pa….” Joe protested.

“How about we ask Hop Sing to make you some nice tame soup?”  Ben moved to Joe and circled his shoulders with his arm.  “Now come on, we’ll go talk to him together.”

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Joe sat on the edge of his bed.  His father had sent him upstairs with another bowl of soup.  It sat untouched beside him on the nightstand.  He hadn’t been honest with the older man – with any of his family – at least not entirely.

There was still the matter of his boots.

He had gone over and over it, but Joe couldn’t remember when they had gone missing.  He knew he had them on Sunday since they’d gone to services and that he had noticed they were gone on Wednesday, but he had no idea which day exactly they had disappeared.  How they ended up on  the feet of a dead man in the middle of nowhere on Thursday afternoon he had no idea.  And they had been his dress boots, scuffed and coated with mud.  He’d checked them out when he buried the man – and left them on his feet.

He was the only one who knew.

So now, along with the canker that was John C. Reagan, he’d added a lie to gnaw away at his soul.  But no, he shouldn’t let it.  He’d known his pa to tell white lies when it served a greater purpose than the truth.  That’s what he was doing.  He knew he hadn’t killed anyone.  If he mentioned the boots, it would just throw suspicion on him and divert the law from looking for the right man.  He was actually doing Sheriff Coffee a favor, saving him all that wasted time and effort.

Wasn’t he?

Joe laid back in his bed and laced his hands behind his head. Everyone else was already asleep and the house was completely quiet.  In spite of the fact that he had slept most of the day, he was bone weary.  Sleep was tugging at his eyelids and pulling them down.  He fought it for a little while, unwilling to give up the puzzle, but eventually his muscles relaxed and his arms fell to his sides.  His breathing evened and his mind left the puzzle and headed for the land of dreams.

An hour or so later Joe sat up in the bed.  He swung his feet over the side and stepped into his work boots.  Rising, he walked to his door and, opening it, passed into the hall.  Once down the steps he opened the front door and moved out into the night and headed for the stable.  After saddling Cochise he led her into the area fronting the house, mounted, and rode away.

Joe returned some four hours later.  He dismounted, returned Cochise to the stable, entered the house and went back to his room and dropped in bed. Shortly after that his eyes began to move rapidly beneath his lids and he began to dream.

And knew nothing until morning.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Hoss exchanged glances with Adam as he passed him in the upstairs hall on his way to the breakfast table.  “Sleepy head not out of bed yet?” his brother tossed off on his way.

“I reckon not,” the big man replied as he raised his hand in preparation for knocking.  “Leastwise Joe ain’t downstairs.  Pa sent me to fetch him.”

Adam was already on the landing.  “Good luck,” he called back.

Waking Joe on a normal day was like wrasslin’ with a grizzly.  After what his little brother had been through the day before there weren’t no tellin’ what would happen.

Maybe only one of them would come out alive.

Grinning, Hoss brought his fist down on the door.  “Joe?  Joe, you awake?”  When he got no reply he tried the handle.  The door opened and the big man peeked inside.  He could see his brother’s brown head topping the blankets.  “Joe? Ain’t you up yet?”

Looked like it was going to be one of those mornings where it took a tug on the covers and a douse of yesterday’s wash water.

“Joe!” Hoss called louder as he headed for the bed.  “Time to get up!”

Not even a mumble came in response.

He hated to do it, but there was no choice.  Pa said to get Joe up now since they had to ride to town for the sheriff, go north, and then get back before the day’s work was really begun.  Gripping the coverlet and the blankets beneath, the big man pulled them off his brother and tossed them aside.

Joe was still dressed in the clothing he had worn the night before.

“Well, if that don’t beat all,” Hoss sighed.  He eyed the pitcher across the room but decided to try a gentler touch first.  Taking hold of his brother’s shoulder, he shook him.  “Joe.  Joe, wake up!”

This time he got a mumble but that was all.  It sounded something like ‘Go away’.

“Come on, Joe.  Pa’s gonna be mighty riled if you don’t get a move on it.”  The big man paused.  “Do I have to get the water?”

At that his brother’s eyelids fluttered.  Joe squinted and one brown brow headed for the mass of curls spilling onto his forehead.  “Water?  What water?”

“The pitcher of it that’s gonna be poured over your head if you don’t get that skinny little hiney of yours out of that bed by the time I count three.  One,” Hoss said as he crossed to the washstand.  “Two,” as he picked it up and headed back.

“Three!”

“Okay, okay,” Joe moaned and rolled over.  “You sure you ain’t moonlighting as a prison guard while we’re all sleeping?”

“That’s just what you need, little brother, a prison guard,” Hoss said as he placed the pitcher next to the bowl of soup Joe had left uneaten from the night before.  “Someone’s gotta keep you in line.”

“Hoss?”  Their father’s loud voice carried up the staircase.  “Is your brother up yet?”

Hoss looked at Joe.  ‘Up’ was not exactly the right word.  He crossed to the door to answer.  “He ain’t washed or dressed yet, Pa.  It’s gonna take a few minutes.”

Joe was sitting on the edge of the bed now watching him.  They exchanged glances as their father’s voice bellowed again.  “You tell that boy to hurry!  I’m going to take Adam and go into town and get Roy.  You two meet us where Joe was mending that fence yesterday.  We’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Sure thing, Pa,” he called before turning back to his brother.  He was gonna make another crack, but Joe looked so pitiful that he didn’t have the heart.  He had that look a man has when he’s worked twenty out of twenty-four hours and tossed for two of the four he had left for sleep.  “Joe, you okay?”

“Yeah, Hoss, I’m okay  I’m just….”

Joe’s voice had drifted off.  Hoss followed his gaze.  He was staring at the floor – or at his feet.

“What’s the matter, Joe?”

His little brother looked up at him, truly puzzled.  “It’s just that, well….”  Joe bent forward and caught his foot with his hand, which he in turn pushed out toward him.  “Look!”

Joe’s socked feet were covered with dried mud as were the cuffs of his pants.

“Dad burn it, if that don’t beat all!  Where’d you get that?”

His brother’s green eyes were wide.  “I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“I don’t know, but – I don’t know!”   Joe released his foot and watched it slide to the floor.  For a second he sat there, stunned.  Then he turned those eyes toward him again.  This time there was fear in them – real fear.  “Hoss, what’s happening to me?”

The big man shook his head.  “I wish I knew, Joe.  I’d sure like to help you, but I don’t know how.”

His brother was quiet a moment.  Then he shook his head.  “This is something I gotta figure out by myself, Hoss.  You know what I mean?”

He did, though he hesitated to admit it.  Whenever he had problems he always clammed up and rode off on his own, refusing to take any help or even talk to Joe or Adam or their Pa.  It weren’t so attractive when someone he loved was trying to do the same thing.

“I know what you mean,” he agreed at last.  “But I don’t know that it’s for the best.  It ain’t worked out too well for me before.”

Joe was on his feet, taking his black shirt off and then reaching to undo his pants.  “Just give me a head start – even an hour.  I need to look around where I was mending the fence.  See what I can find.  That way, I can save Sheriff Coffee some time.”

“How come you gotta do it alone?” Hoss asked suspiciously.

Joe was pulling on a pair of clean gray pants.  “I don’t have to.  I want to.  Humor me, okay?”

“What if it ain’t safe?  Pa will have my hide if I let you go and somethin’ happens.”

“What could happen?” Joe shot off as he began to button the light gray shirt he had donned.  At his look he amended that to, “I promise I’ll be careful, big brother.   You trust me, don’t you?”

Hoss winced.  “I can’t say as I do….”

Joe grabbed his blue corduroy jacket and then slapped him on the back in passing.  “That’s good enough for me,” he said as he moved around the room and then drew to a halt.

The big man watched him as he began a second circle.  “Joe, is something wrong?  Can I help you find something?”

His brother stopped and turned toward him.  Joe’s hands were on his hips and he had a puzzled look on his face.

“What do you know,” Joe proclaimed, his voice pitching higher.  “Now I can’t find my work boots!”

 

 

FIVE

Wearing his old work boots, which were two sizes too small, Joe canvassed the area around the fence he had been mending.  Someone had done a really good job of erasing any existence of the lean-to but, unlike Adam and Hoss, he had known where to look and had found enough evidence of it to assure himself that it he wasn’t delusional.  There were signs of branches driven into the earth, and he’d found some beads and other remnants of a native habitation.  It wasn’t a lot and he doubted it would convince Roy Coffee, but it was enough for him.  He also knew where the grave was and that had been the biggest surprise.  He’d helped the Indian woman bury the man near a wall of  rock.  Someone had gone to the top of the wall and caused a rock slide that had all but obliterated any trace of it.

All but.

Since he knew where to look he had found one side of the grave partially exposed.

Joe glanced at the sun and figured he had about a half hour remaining until Hoss showed up.  Kneeling, he searched the ground again and managed to find faint traces of several horses.  Alongside one was the track of a woman’s feet shod in something soft – most likely the native woman wearing moccasins.  It appeared that she had mounted one of the horses and ridden off, though whether by choice or by force he had no way of knowing.  Her prints were surrounded by those of at least three men.  Two were normal size, but one of them was a big man – bigger, maybe, than Hoss.

Joe thought a moment longer and then crossed to Cochise where he stood munching on grass.  He raised his foot in preparation of mounting but halted when a sound made him look over the animal’s back.  Two men were coming toward him from the south.  They checked their mounts about thirty feet out and rode up more slowly, probably to show him they offered no threat.  He didn’t think he knew either one of them.

The first one, a tallish man with sandy hair and a scrub of a beard drew his horse to a halt and asked, “Are you Little Joe Cartwright?”

“Who wants to know?”

The other man, who was dark as his companion was light, came alongside him. “Name’s Peyton Rule,” the first man said.  “This here is Rafe Wrenat.  We signed on with your pa day before yesterday.  Your brother Hoss sent us here to find you.”

Joe’s suspicions were instantly aroused.  “Why would Hoss do that?”

“He wanted us to let you know that he decided to stay at the ranch,” Rafe said.  “Seems Sheriff Coffee came out to see Mister Cartwright about somethin’ and somehow they missed each other on the road.  Your brother said the two of them – him and Coffee – would wait at the ranch house until Mister Cartwright and Adam showed up and then come this way.  We’re supposed to rendezvous with them across the field.”  The cowhand indicated a path that lay along that taken by the  man he had seen the day before.

Joe shook his head.  “I don’t feel like doing that.  I’ll wait here.”

Rafe leaned on his saddle horn and looked around.  “What makes this place so interesting, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I do mind,” Joe said.

“Well, now, you’re just downright unfriendly, aren’t you?” Peyton asked, his voice taking on an edge.

“Seems Mister high-and-mighty Joe Cartwright here doesn’t want to travel with no simple ranch hands,” Rafe scoffed.

“I don’t like ranch hands meddling in my business, is all,” Joe snapped.  “If you want to keep your jobs, you’ll mind your own and leave me to mine.”

“Yes, sir!” Peyton said, finishing with a mocking salute.  “So you want us to go on ahead across the field without you?  That right?”

“That’s right.”

“Here’s hoping the big fella takes it out on you and not on us,” Rafe snorted as he pressed his knee into his horse’s ribs and started forward.  “See you later, Cartwright!”

Seconds later both were gone.

Joe stood watching them for several heartbeats, until their forms disappeared into the trees.

What the Hell had that been about?

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Hoss Cartwright moaned and rolled over.  He pressed his fingers to his temple and frowned when they came away bloody.  With effort he pulled himself into a seated position and propped his back against the bole of a tree.  It took a minute for his mind to clear.  When it did, he remembered where he was and what had happened.  He’d been riding out to join Joe in the northern pasture.  Hoss glanced at his fingers again.

It seemed someone didn’t want him to make it.

He hadn’t seen anyone and suspected whoever the coward was, they had shot at him from some hiding place high above the road.  Hoss wondered if their aim had been good or bad – if they had meant to wing him or had just missed killing him.

Either way it didn’t look good for Joe.

Rising to his feet, the big man swayed before reaching out and steadying himself with a hand against the tree.   Then he looked around for his horse. Chubb had bolted when the shot came and he had fallen from the animal’s back.  He was hoping the horse was somewhere nearby.  With each passing minute the idea of his little brother being alone made him more and more nervous.  Fifteen minutes out on horseback was forty-five on foot and that was an awful long time.

Dad blame it!  Why’d he ever let the little cuss talk him into letting him set out alone?

When he was sure he was steady Hoss stepped away from the tree.  His head was throbbing, but he thought he could sit the horse once he found him.   “Chubb,” he called.  “Hey boy!  Where are you?”  After a second he heard an answering nicker not too far off.  “Listen to my voice, boy.  I’m comin’ to get you, you hear?”

The big man made his way through the underbrush, passing to the west until he found his horse.  Fortunately it appeared the animal hadn’t injured himself, though Chubb was at the bottom of a shallow gully and would have to be walked out.

All of which was going to take time.

Hoss turned and looked north.  “I’m comin’, Joe.  Hold on,” he breathed between gritted teeth.

Then he began to make his way down the hill.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Joe remained where he was, staring after the two strangers for a dozen heartbeats before he stirred and put his foot in the stirrup.  Once in the saddle he debated which direction to go.  He didn’t for a minute believe that Hoss wasn’t coming. That was, unless those two had done something to stop him.  He imagined his father, Adam, and Roy Coffee were on their way as well, but it would be hours yet before they arrived.  One choice was to go back and look for Hoss.  The other was to follow in the pair’s wake and see where they were going.

Joe hesitated, allowing Cochise to stamp and snort and turn one way and the other.  The horse sensed his confusion.  He was worried about his brother, but if he let the men get too far ahead of him, he would probably lose their trail in the tall grasses.  On the other hand, Peyton and Rafe could be laying in wait for him up ahead.  Though there was nothing to connect them to the crime of the night before, Rafe’s question had raised his hackles and that instinct he had – the one his pa respected but regretted because it often made him break the rules – was saying that they did.

“Come on, Cartwright,” he snarled.  “Make your mind up.”

In the end he decided to follow the men.  Hoss shouldn’t be too far behind.  It wouldn’t take his brother long to figure out where he had gone and that meant he would soon have backup.

Turning his horse’s nose to the north Joe began to move slowly forward, keeping an eye to the ground but his attention focused on the trees.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Peyton and Rafe had not gone far before leaving the path.  Concealed within a clump of Hemlock trees they watched Joe Cartwright as he mounted and rode their way.  Rafe, who was the younger of the two, pitched his voice low and asked, “How old you suppose he is?”

Peyton shook his head.  “Ain’t twenty yet.”

The black-haired man snorted.  “That’s a mighty short life for a man.”

His lighter compatriot straightened in the saddle.  “You know the Chief don’t want him dead.”

“That’s because Cartwright ain’t seen the Chief,” Rafe growled.  “He’s seen Tollie and you and me, and I say it’s him or us.  Tollie agrees.  A lot can happen to a man.  The Chief don’t have to know it was us what done it.”

“Tollie’s got baked earth for brains as he proved the other day,” Peyton snarled.  “You’re just lucky he didn’t kill that boy.”

“Why?  If he’d a’ died, it would have looked like the kid was stupid and did it to himself.”

The blond man sighed.  “Why?  Look what’s happened – old man Cartwright’s on our trail and he’s got the Sheriff with him now, and deputies.  All Tollie did was draw attention to us.  It’s due to him that the Chief had to change the schedule.”  Peyton shook his head.  “No, what Tollie did, he did because he liked doing it.  You know that.  Tollivar Bates don’t give a tinker’s damn whether he’s caught or not and that makes him dangerous.”

Rafe lifted a hand and called for silence.  They both watched Joe Cartwright ride past on his way to the field.

“Come on,” Peyton said, “We’ll circle around and take him when he reaches the other side.”

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Somewhere around twenty minutes after being attacked Hoss reached the fence where his brother had been working.  He dismounted and stood for a moment, letting his aching head adjust, and then looked around.

Just like he expected, Joe was nowhere to be seen.

Hanging onto Chubb’s reins the big man bent to the earth.  While horseshoes were pretty much alike, they did have variations and he was pretty sure the closest ones to him – the ones heading off to the north – belonged to Cochise.  While his brother was little, Joe’s horse was a good size and the way the tracks were dug in matched both his mount’s weight and a light rider.  Unfortunately Joe’s tracks weren’t the only ones he found.  There were two more fresh sets.  They’d come in like him from the south and halted a little ways out, as if the men that rode them had come to talk to his brother.  Then they’d gone past him to the north – the same way Joe was headed now.

Pulling Chubb after him Hoss followed the second set of tracks, curious to see what the two riders had done.  Their tracks went along on the well-beaten path for about twenty feet and then the pair veered off into the trees.  Once in the underbrush the trail was harder to follow, but it soon became clear from the evidence of snapped branches and crushed grass that the men had gone into a clump of Hemlocks and then stopped.  Most likely they were waiting for Joe to pass.  The important question, of course, was why?

The only answer he could think of was one he didn’t like to think about.

All he could come up with was that Joe had stumbled onto something that someone was trying to keep quiet.  From what his brother said, it probably had to do with the dead man he found.  If the big man had needed any further proof that Joe was telling the truth, he had it now, and that meant that whoever was behind the whole thing had already tried to kill his little brother once.

Whoever it was, was sure to do so again.

Hoss mounted his horse and looked to the north.  He was probably a good half hour behind Joe.  But then, most likely Joe was moving slowly, searching the land for tracks.  The only thing he was searching for was his brother and he knew him well enough to follow without much thinking.  That boy would be making a beeline straight for trouble.

He’d just have to find him before Joe found it.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

In a drought-ridden land it was an odd sound to hear.  Joe reined in Cochise and sat, listening.  It was definitely water – running water – and not too far away.  He was past their property line now and headed toward Washoe lake, and while he and his brothers had explored this area when they were boys, there were plenty of places he had never been. He had emerged into a wide open field of tall grasses.  At the end of the field, was the thick stand of trees the two men had mentioned.  Whatever he was hearing had to be behind them.

As he hesitated, Joe looked to the left and right.  He had lost the trail of the two cowhands, but thought they had veered off and gone west.  The question now was – should he follow them, or should he travel on and explore whatever lay beyond the trees?

Shifting in his saddle, Joe looked back the way he had come, wondering if Hoss was close.  It wasn’t that he was scared to go forward on his own – he was sure he could handle whatever happened – it was more that he wanted another set of eyes.  Though his pa had been supportive and had said he believed him, he had heard suspicion in the older man’s tone.  His pa wasn’t sure that if he was telling the truth or not.  Of course, with his behavior of late he’d given Pa plenty of reasons to doubt him.  If Hoss was along then he could confirm whatever it was they found.

Joe snorted.  Maybe they’d find his other pair of boots.

He sat there another five minutes with the wind rifling through his hair, watching the day dawn and the sun’s light paint the field before him a fiery orange.  Finally, losing patience, Joe turned Cochise’s nose to the north and pressed his heels into his side and took off, headed for the unknown.

Just as he did a shout called him to a halt.

“Joe!  Joe!  Wait for me!  Hey, Joe!”

A grin spread across his face as he turned back.  Hoss was mounted on Chubb and coming out of the trees.

The grin faded when he saw the bloody bandage on his brother’s head.  Urging Cochise back, he met his brother halfway.

Hoss was out of breath.  “You sure…are a sight for sore eyes…little brother,” the big man puffed.

Joe indicated his forehead with a nod.  “What happened to you?”

“Bushwhacked,” he said, frowning.  “Whoever done it came to pay you a visit, Joe.  I followed their tracks here.”

He nodded.  “That would be Rule and Wrenat.  I knew there was something wrong about them.”

“They didn’t try to hurt you, did they?”

Joe snorted.  “No, but there was plenty of unspoken threat.”  His eyes narrowed as he looked at the land Hoss had just left behind.  “I followed them but lost their trail in the trees.”

“That’s  ‘cause they waited and watched you ride past before they took off for parts unknown.”  His brother paused.  What he had expected to find was clear in his tone.  “I was a’feared they’d a had you by now.”

Joe shook his head.  “I don’t get it.  If they’re worried about something I saw, why let me go?  The same goes for the other night.  If someone tried to kill me then, then why let me live now?”

The big man sighed.  “We sure got a lot of questions and no answers.”

Joe’s gaze went to the trees across the field.  “What’s say we go find some.”

“What do you mean?”

“That man I followed – before whatever happened to me happened – he went this way too.”

Hoss’s eyes searched the field before them and then landed on the trees beyond.  “Ain’t nowhere out there for anyone to hide, Joe.”

“Yes, there is.”  He turned his horse so he and his brother were headed in the same direction.  “Listen.”

“I don’t hear nothin’, what….”  Joe saw it dawn on him.  “That there’s runnin’ water.”

“It has to be behind the trees.  Maybe that’s where these men have their hideout.”

“Joe.  We oughta wait for Pa.”

“Damn it, Hoss!  If we wait, they’ll get away.  I bet Rule and Wrenat are headed there now too.  They‘ve probably gone the long way ’round so we wouldn’t see them, and that means we have a chance to beat them if we go now.”

His brother eyed the field.  “I don’t know, Joe.”

“Well,” he announced, “I am going whether you come or not.  I’m not letting them get away.  Not only did one of them try to kill me, but they made my pa doubt me and I’m not taking to that.”

“Now, Joe, Pa ain’t –”

“They also killed a man, Hoss, and maybe kidnapped an Indian woman.  There’s a mystery here that needs to be solved and you and I are the ones who can do it.”

He didn’t, of course, mention the mystery of how his boots came to be on the dead man.  If that was ever found out, it would place him under suspicion and that made it more imperative than ever that he figure out what was going on before his pa and Roy Coffee arrived.

“Well,” Joe asked, “are you coming or not?”

Hoss screwed his face up.  “It don’t look like I got much of a choice, does it, little brother, if I want to keep your bacon out of the fire.”

“You know me, Hoss.  I like my bacon burnt!” Joe said with a grin as he put his heels to his horse’s flesh and darted forward into the field.

Hoss sighed.  He shook his head.

That’s what he was afraid of.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

On the other side of the field, in a depression down a long winding natural incline that led to a waterfall, a group of men huddled deep within a limestone cave, the entrance of which was normally masked by the cascading water.  The doorway was still hard to see, except at the brightest part of the day, but the drought had narrowed the water to a six foot band and one side of it stood exposed.  A sharp eye might find it so quickly that those inside would not have time to flee, and so a guard had been set.  Four men with rifles watched the passes in and out of the gorge that held it. The farthest of them was positioned beyond the trees, on the edge of the broad field that bordered it on the south.  He stood now with his Porro prism binoculars raised, watching the two men who were advancing across the field.  He had thought he recognized the one out to the front and was certain of it when he placed the man’s black and white horse as the one Bates had forced the bottle of whiskey on two nights before.  The Chief had given orders that none of the Cartwrights were to be harmed outright.  Tollie disagreed.  He said the kid was nosy and that he and his nose needed to disappear.  At the time they’d supposed the boy was just some ranch hand mending fences and no one was likely to care one way or the other.

Who’d a thought a rich man like Ben Cartwright would set one of his son’s to mending fences?

The Chief had been mighty mad when he found out.  Seemed he wanted to keep the Cartwrights out of it until the very last minute since bringing them in too early would put the law on their tail – among other things.  Ben Cartwright was a big man with big influence in these parts.  That’s why, in spite of what the kid might have seen, the Chief had decided to keep this one alive.  He’d decided he wanted to take him as a hostage instead and planned to use him to make Ben Cartwright do what he wanted.

The man with the binoculars frowned as he shifted the view to the other man on the black horse that rode beside Joe Cartwright.  He was a giant of a man with a beefy face and sandy blond hair.  There weren’t no resemblance between the two at all.  While he knew old man Cartwright had three boys, it seemed unlikely the big man was one of them.  Probably he was a hand sent to find Cartwright’s son and bring him home.

And that meant he was expendable.

Putting the binoculars down, the man with the rifle moved into a prearranged position.  He waited a moment and then hooted like an owl.  It took a second but only that, before the cry of a hawk answered him.  Raising his rifle, he waved it two times and then pointed at the approaching riders.  Pete was in a better place to take the shot than he was.

He only hoped the other man had understood which one of the men approaching he was supposed to kill.

 

 

SIX

It had been Roy who had spotted the blood on the ground.  Ben waited as his eldest son dismounted and went to take a look.  They were not too far out from where Joe had been attacked and, though it could have been an animal’s, anything like this was suspicious.  Adam had crouched at first, fingering the dark substance where it stained the grass under a tree, and then had plunged into the brush as if following a trail.  A few minutes later he returned.

“Someone was hit, Pa,” he said as he came to stand beside him.  “They fell down into the underbrush and then pulled themselves back up and sat under the tree for a while.  There’s plenty of hoof prints.”  Adam paused.  “Pa, I think it was Hoss.”

Ben stiffened.  “Why?”

“The tracks.  I know Chubb’s as well as I know Cochise’s.  They’re both here on the road, only Hoss’s were sidetracked.”

“How much blood?” Ben asked.

“Not a lot.  I think it must have been a glancing blow.  The tracks pick up again and head out toward where Joe was working the other day.”

The older man let out a sigh of relief.  Then his eyes went to the surrounding rocks and trees.  “You think the shooter is still out there?”

Adam looked too.  “Out there?  I hope so.  Otherwise, he’s probably got Joe and Hoss.”

Ben shook his head.  “Who are these men?  Why would they want to harm Joe?”

“They’re criminals, Ben,” Roy Coffee said, inching his mount in closer.  “That’s all you need to know.  They study greed and the need for power like you do the Good Book.”

On the way from town Roy had explained that there had been a rash of robberies in Virginia City of late, and while money had been taken that didn’t seem to be what the outlaws were looking for.  It was almost as if they were searching for something and when they didn’t find it they looted or burned down whatever place they’d robbed.  Twelve people barely made it out of the last place they had set fire to with their lives.

It was his fear that these were the men whose scheme Little Joe had stumbled onto.

Adam agreed.  “It’s the only thing that makes sense, Roy,” his eldest replied to something else the sheriff had said.  “This murder Joe told us about.  We’re thinking it had something to do with these men.”

“Coulda just been someone wanting to rob him, or….”  The sheriff looked uncomfortable.  “You sure Joe just didn’t drink too much again and make the whole thing up?”

Ben knew Roy liked Little Joe.  He wasn’t certain though, how much he approved of him.  Then again, Roy seldom saw Joe except when he was in trouble.

“I trust my youngest son,” he said matter-of-factly.

“That’s all well and good and makes you a mighty fine father, Ben, but it don’t prove nothing.  And I’m gonna hafta have some proof.”

“We’ll find it, Roy,” he answered.

“Adam?” the sheriff asked.

“What is it, Roy?”

“I thought you said you looked this whole area over and found nothing.  Now, I don’t want to think I am wasting my time out here when I could be back in Virginia City lookin’ for those men.”

“You’re not wasting your time, Roy,” Adam answered.  “The more I’ve thought about it, the more I believe Joe.  We’ll find something today, some kind of proof.  I know it.”

The sheriff’s gaze went from Adam to him.  “Family loyalty is all well and good, but it can blind a man.  It’ll take more than that to convince me.”

“And you’ll have it, Roy,” Ben assured him.  “Now, let’s get going.  We’ve wasted enough time.  Hoss and Joe could be in real trouble.”

As Adam mounted Sport, Roy lifted his hand and signaled the three deputies who were riding with him to move ahead.

“Well, Ben, let’s go see what we can find.”

Ben nodded.

Pray God, whatever it was, they would be in time.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Joe checked Cochise and dismounted as he and Hoss approached the line of trees. He glanced at his brother where he sat on the back of his horse, his blue eyes trained on the land before them.  Joe gave him a grin and then turned back to his horse and removed his rifle from its hitch on the saddle.  Cocking it once, he made sure it was primed and then turned his gaze as well to the forested area before them.  It was too much to hope that they had arrived sight-unseen.  There had been no way across the field except to cross it and unless this was the dumbest bunch of outlaws on the planet, there had to be men posted at the edge of the trees to keep watch.  Their best bet was to attract their attention one at a time and take them out the same way.  That was why he’d rode in bold as brass.  He wanted them to think he was the dumbest pampered son of a wealthy ranch owner that walked the planet, with Hoss a close second after him.  He expected an attack any minute.  In fact, he was surprised it hadn’t already happened.

“What do you think they’re waitin’ for, Joe?” Hoss asked quietly.

Joe shook his head.  “They gotta be there.”

“I agree,” the big man said as he dismounted and came to his side.  “You ‘spose they’re waitin’ for us to enter the trees?”

“I just hope whoever it is, that they’re so anxious to take us out they don’t take time to send a runner back to whoever is in charge.”

His brother grinned.  “You havin’ second thoughts, little brother?”

“Who?  Me?”  Joe shook his head.  “No.  I just prefer my outlaws to be predictable.”  As he concluded, he watched his brother’s eyes flick to a tumble of rocks high on the hillside to the right.  Joe’s fingers closed tightly on his rifle.  “You see something?”

“Think so.”

Joe looked from side to side.  “We are, uh, kind of sitting ducks here.”

“You just notice that?”

“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Joe squeaked.

Hoss’s blue eyes narrowed.  “There it is again,” he said.  “A glint of sun on metal.  Joe, someone’s got a gun up there.”

He glanced around.  It was about a hundred feet to the trees.  “You thinking what I’m thinking, Brother?”

“I’m thinkin’ I’d like to live ‘til tomorrow.”

“Me too.”  Joe looked in the direction of the glint and then shouted.  “Run!”

As they headed for their horses a bullet struck the dirt just by their feet, frightening their mounts and making both Chubb and Cochise bolt.  It hit square between them just as they began to run, so they couldn’t be sure who the target was – if it even mattered to whoever was shooting.  In size and speed Joe knew Hoss was no match for him, so he held back unwilling to leave his brother behind.

“Joe!” Hoss shouted, mad as a wet hen.  “You’re the one they tried to kill afore!  You get yourself out of here and into those trees!”

“But you’re hurt!”

“It’s my head…it ain’t my legs!” the big man said, huffing.  “You ain’t too big to wallop!  You do what I say!”

Joe was running backward now.  Another bullet flew past and struck, spitting earth.  This time it was closer to Hoss.  He glanced over his shoulder and then back.  “I think they’re aiming at you!”

“Whatever for?”

“I don’t know!” Joe shouted.  “Maybe ‘cause you’re a bigger target!”

“Run zigzag, Joe!  Don’t let ‘em guess which way you’re turnin’!”

As they both began to follow Hoss’ advice, the bullets came faster.  Joe swallowed hard.  Whoever it was, was definitely trying to take his brother out.  Looking back he yelled as he made an almost ninety degree turn to the left.  “Hoss, it’s you!  They’re aiming at you!  Hoss!”

The last one was a scream.  Joe watched as a bullet took his brother in the side, spun him around and laid him flat on the ground.  For a second time halted.  There was no field, no forest, no maniac trying to kill him, there was only Hoss and the pool of blood that was starting to form on the ground under his body.  Crossing back to his brother Joe dropped beside him and then looked up as he heard voices and the sound of horses’ hooves.

Three men were riding out of the trees, headed straight for them.

He’d lost his rifle as he ran, but his brother’s pistol lay beside him on the ground.  Grabbing it Joe aimed and fired.  The man on the left-hand horse jerked and fell from his saddle.  Joe took aim again and fired a second time, meaning to finish him off.  Nothing happened.  The chamber was empty.  A quick check told him  all the chambers were empty.

Hoss hadn’t reloaded his gun.

Desperate, Joe reached into his brother’s pocket and felt for the bullets that had to be there.  He had just locked his fingers around a pile when he heard something whiz past his head.  It took him a second to realize that it had been a bullet. That one missed him.

Unfortunately, the one that followed didn’t.

The impact of the bullet with his shoulder drove Joe back and away from his brother.  Even as he heard the shooter approaching, he crawled back into a seated position.  “Hoss….  Hoss, you gotta be okay!  Hoss?”

The sound of a trigger being cocked made him look up.  Both men were there.  One was looking down the barrel of his rifle at him.  The other had his hands on his hips and was just looking down.

Neither was Peyton and Wrenat.

“Well, lookee here who we’ve caught,” the man with the rifle said.  “Just what the Chief ordered.  Old man Cartwright’s son.”

Joe frowned.  He was weak.  Still he managed to stay upright as his fingers clutched his brother’s shirt.  “Hoss’s hurt,” he said, his voice robbed of strength.  “You gotta help him.”

“We don’t ‘gotta’ do anything, boy,” the shooter sneered.  “We’ll leave him here.  The Chief don’t care about no ranch hand.  Your friend ain’t dead.  It’s up to him if he survives.”

It dawned on Joe.  They didn’t know Hoss was his brother.  If they were looking for ‘old man Cartwright’s’ son’, that was a good thing – wasn’t it?

“Get him up!” the man with the rifle ordered.

The other man caught him under his good arm and lifted him up.  Joe staggered and almost lost his footing.

“The Chief ain’t gonna be happy you shot him, Pete,” the man holding him growled.

“He would ‘a shot me.  I didn’t have a choice.”  Pete stepped over to Joe and roughly pulled his shirt back.  Looking at the wound he said, “It’s clean.  Looks like it went straight through.”  The outlaw thrust the fabric back into place.  “He’ll live.”

“He better, or it will be our hides the Chief takes it out on!  This kid is our ticket out of Nevada.”  The shooter glared at him.  “Now, get up and get on that horse!”

It was all Joe could do to climb onto the animal’s back.  Once seated, Pete worked his way onto the saddle behind him.  With one hand the outlaw took the reins.  The other held the barrel of a pistol pressed tightly against his ribs.  As they rode away the man he had shot joined them, glaring hate at him.  In spite of the threat Joe dared a last glance at Hoss as they disappeared into the trees.  His brother hadn’t moved.

He wondered if he would ever see him alive again.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Adam stopped what he was doing and looked north.  He and the others had been exploring the site where Joe said he had seen the lean-to.  This time they found evidence of it, unearthed no doubt by his brother, and while what they found didn’t entirely convince Roy that his brother’s story was gospel, it went a long way to show the sheriff that at least there had been an Indian here – which was an unusual thing this far east and north.  He had been exploring along a rocky ledge where the ground looked like it had been disturbed since the last time he had been here when a sound caught his attention and stopped him.  Adam stood, listening.  It took a minute and then he heard it again.

Gunfire.

“Pa!” he shouted even as he raced for his horse.  “Pa!  Someone’s shooting up ahead!”

Adam watched his father’s head come up.  The older man had been crouched on the ground next to Roy examining the site of the lean-to.  “What?” his father called.

“Gunfire, Pa!  You catch up!  I’m going to see what’s happening!”  Even as he rode away Adam heard his father shouting for him to wait.

Fortunately he was far enough away he could pretend he hadn’t heard him.

Putting spurs to horseflesh Adam pushed Sport as hard as he could.  He broke out of the trees in less than five minutes and emerged into a wide field of tall grasses.  The sun was shining brightly now, illuminating it, and for as far as he could see it was empty.

No, wait.  There were two horses wandering in it.

One of them was a Paint.

His heart thudding in his chest Adam kicked his horse to full speed, covering the distance between them and him in seconds.  He slowed as he approached the skittish animals, not wanting to frighten them away.  Cochise was the one closest to him.  The black-haired man dismounted and caught the Paint’s reins and then, fighting back panic, led him across the grassy field to where Chubb stood nuzzling something on the ground.  Before he reached the black horse he heard a noise and turned back to look.  His father and Roy Coffee were hard on his heels.  It wouldn’t take them a minute to catch up.  While he was looking back, Adam’s foot struck something on the ground.  As his eyes dropped to the level of his boots a knot formed in his stomach.

It was Hoss, laying in a pool of blood.

Adam loosed Cochise and turned to wave down his pa and Roy.  “Pa!  It’s Hoss!  He’s been shot!”

The black-haired man saw the news strike his father like a fist.  The older man was off the horse and on the ground before the animal could stop completely.  As he knelt by Hoss, his father asked, “Any sign of Joe?”

“Just Cochise.”

The silver-haired man turned to the left and right.  “You better check around, son.  The grasses are so high, Joe might be….”

Adam nodded.

A few minutes later he returned.  It had been a grim search but had turned up nothing.  “No sign of Joe, Pa,” he said as he knelt by his father.  Adam noticed one of Roy’s men was working on Hoss’s side where the bullet had taken him and asked his father the question with his eyes.

“This is Luke Miller.  He’s studied medicine,” his father explained.

The deputy met Adam’s troubled stare.  “I’m not a doctor, but I’ve dealt with bullet wounds before.  Your brother’s size probably saved his life.  While the wound’s bled profusely, it actually hit him in a fleshy place just above the hip.  I’ve got the bleeding controlled now.”  Luke straightened up and smiled.  “It will hurt like Hell, but he should be okay.”

Adam nodded.  “Thanks.”

He stood then and went to his father who had crossed over to Cochise.  At his approach the older man said, “I shouldn’t have let Joe come ahead.”

“You think you could’ve stopped him?”

“I could have ordered him to wait!” he snapped.

“And I ask again, ‘Do you think you could have stopped him?’  Pa, this is Joe.  Especially with the mood he’s been in lately.”

The older man was silent a moment.  “Joseph has felt the need to prove himself.”

“How come, Pa?”

He shook his head .  “That’s for your brother to tell you.”

Adam sighed.  “Let’s just hope he gets the chance.”  He nodded toward the trees.  “Joe has to be in there somewhere.”

“Mr. Cartwright?”

It was Luke.  Adam watched his father turn and ask, “What is it?”

“You’re son’s coming to.”

They exchanged glances and then went to Hoss.  Luke had him propped on his good side now, easing the strain on the wound.  His brother blinked and winced.  “Fancy meetin’ you two like this,” he said weakly.

“What happened, Hoss?” the older man asked as he laid a hand on the his son’s shoulder.

“They took Joe, Pa.”

“They?  They who?”

Hoss shook his head.  “Three man.  They were…gunnin’ for us – well, for me .  They wanted Joe alive.”

“What for?” Adam asked.

“I don’t rightly…know.”  Hoss paused and drew a deep breath.  “I don’t remember much…but I think Joe was…hit too.”

“You mean your brother was shot?”

Hoss nodded.  “Them two was fightin’ about it…the two that attacked us.  One…kept talkin’ about someone he…called ‘the Chief’.  He said the Chief wouldn’t be happy…they’d shot him.”  Hoss winced.  “One of their names was  Pete.  He said Joe wasn’t…hurt bad.”

Luke’s voice intruded. “Mister Cartwright, it would be better if Hoss didn’t try to talk for a while.”

Adam saw his father nod.  “You heard him, son.  We’ll find Joe.  You get some rest.”

“Yes, sir.”

When Adam rose he came face to face with Sheriff Coffee.  It wasn’t until that moment that he realized the sheriff had been missing for some time.  Roy looked at the two of them.  “While you were busy, Ben, we went after them,” he said.

His father stiffened.  “If your rash action endangered Joe – ”

“Now hold on, Ben.  I’m only doing my duty.  These are dangerous men, especially if they’re the ones behind the burning and looting.”

The older man paused.  “Sorry, Roy.  I’m worried about Joe.”

“So am I, Ben.  So am I.”  The sheriff turned to one of his deputies.  “Bill, you got that paper?”

“Got it right here, Roy.”

The older man held out his hand.  Adam watched as one of Roy’s deputies dropped a ragged piece of paper into it.  The sheriff stared at it a moment and then turned toward them.  “When we got to the edge of the trees someone shouted.  They told us to keep back or they’d kill Joe.”

“Did you see my brother?” Adam asked.

“No.  No.  Didn’t hear him neither.”

“So how do you know they had him?”

The deputy answered.  “They showed us a blue corduroy coat.  Roy said it was Little Joe’s.”

“Little Joe has one, though I don’t know what he was wearing this morning.  Adam?”

He shrugged.  “The jacket’s kind of unique, Pa.  Odds are it’s his.”  He turned to face the sheriff.  “So what’s with the paper, Roy?”

The sheriff eyed his pa.  “Here, you take it Adam.  I’ll let you read it.”

Adam scanned the note.  His father must have seen him start or caught wind of his inhalation of surprise before he could stifle it entirely.

“What is it, Adam?  What does it say?”

He pursed his lips and bit the top one, hesitating.  Then, in a clear voice he read,

‘I have you son, Mister Cartwright.  At the moment he’s alive.  If you would like to keep him that way you will do exactly what I tell you to.  You will leave this place and return to the Ponderosa where you will wait for my instructions.  If you do not, your son’s life will be forfeit.  And if anyone tries to enter the trees again or seeks to find my hiding place, be sure I will see you before you see me and I will send your son out to meet you –

One piece at a time.’

It was signed simply ‘the Chief’.

 

 

SEVEN

Joe never lost consciousness entirely, but he did fall into a stupor and heavy sleep after one of the men who kidnapped him fed him a tin cup of whiskey and then set about probing his shoulder to make sure the bullet had gone through and not lodged in him where it could cause an infection.  By the time he became aware he had been gagged, bound hand and foot, and tossed unceremoniously into the back corner of a cave.  He could hear the same water running that he had heard earlier, though it was much closer now.  As he thought about the sound of the water echoing through the cavern, the image of a small meandering stream flashed before his eyes and he had the sensation of the ground shaking.

No, the ground wasn’t shaking.  He was.  Or rather, someone was shaking him.

Joe’s eyes popped open.

“He’s awake.  You can tell the Chief his prize ain’t dead.”  The outlaw toed him with his boot and then shoved hard.  “At least he ain’t dead yet,” he finished with a threat.

“Leave the kid alone, Tollie,” another man said, his softly accented voice coming from just beyond a tumble of rocks that blocked Joe’s view of the mouth of the cave.  “So what if he saw you the other night?  Malcolm will take care of it.”

Joe lifted his eyes to look at the man named Tollie who loomed as a great dark shadow over him.  By his accent, he was English.  Tollie was also a bully or a boxer or both as his visage bore the scars of countless fights.  At some point the man’s nose had been broken – maybe more than once – and had healed with a decided twist to the left.  The bruiser’s left eye also sloped down.  There appeared to be the remnants of recent stitches running along the bottom of it.

“Marks of honor, boy,” Tollie snarled when he caught him looking.

“Bates,” the other man warned again.  “You leave him alone.”

Bates answering snarl was not promising.

The Englishman didn’t move but continued to stare hate down at him.  Tollie Bates was a big, powerful man with a barrel chest and sledgehammers for hands.  Joe fought it, but just looking at him made him begin to shake.

Scenting his fear, the bruiser leaned in.   “What’s wrong, boy?  Do I make you want to  run away?”

“Bates, you know what the Chief said,” the unseen man warned.

Tollie Bates swung up and turned in one easy motion.  “He said I can’t kill him.  Nothin’ says I can’t send junior here back to his Pa with his tail between two broken legs.”

The other man finally appeared.  He was of medium build with a head of deep auburn hair.  Stepping around the fall of rocks he looked at them and then said, his accent as Scottish as it could get, “You’ve got problems, Bates.  You know that?”

“I been pounding things my whole life, Gordon.  Ain’t no call to stop now just ‘cause I ain’t on the docks anymore.”  Bates turned and looked at him.  “Pretty boy, here, offends me just by breathin’.”

“And here I thought you liked pretty boys.”

The insult hung in the air between them.  Joe watched as Bates tensed.  “If’n we didn’t need you, Gordon, I’d snap your neck like a twig.”

“Ah, but you do.”   The other man sneered.  “Unless you’ve learned to read old Gaelic in the last few days.”  Gordon’s hand went to his mouth in a fairly convincing imitation of a surprised school girl.  “Oh, wait.  I meant to say ‘unless you’ve learned to read.”

“Shut up!” Bates ordered.

“Sure,” Gordon answered.  Then he added, “Sorry.  That wasn’t shutting up, was it?”

“I’ll kill you, Dougall Gordon.  I swear I will.”

The other man laughed – a bit hysterically.  “Get in line, Bates.”

Bates’ massive form lost none of its tension as the other outlaw disappeared around the rock fall.  The bruiser remained where he was, breathing hard for several tense seconds and then swung back toward Joe.

In two steps he had him by the throat.

“You won’t know when it’s comin, pretty boy, but come it will.  I don’t care what the ‘Chief’ says.  You’ve seen too much.  I ain’t losin’ my life to keep the likes of you alive.  We can pull this thing off without our old man!”  Tollie loosed him and turned away and then, as if to emphasize his point, swung back and struck him with bone-jarring strength across the face.

Leaving Joe gasping.

“Tollie!”  It was Gordon again.  “Malcolm is here.  He’s called for a meeting.  You better move that great hulk of yours out of the cave pronto!”

“I’m comin’,” Bates  replied.  He started to move and then stopped and looked back.  “You ain’t seen the last of me, Cartwright.  Not yet.”  The man sneered.  “Sweet dreams.”

A second later he was alone.

Joe had managed to remain fairly calm while Bates threatened and struck him, but now that the man was gone he began to shake like a girl on the sideline of her first cotillion.  The image of John C. Reagan, so similar in size and type to Tollie Bates – coming toward him, reaching for him, bullying and brutalizing him – had flashed before his eyes as Bates leaned in breathing menace.  The power of that image threatened to unman him and the tears that had once been his friend threatened to fall.  Joe didn’t know what it was, but something that beating had awakened in him had taken away that release.  Now when he cried, it was uncontrollably.  It made him feel like a helpless child and not a man.

So he just didn’t cry.

Clenching his jaw, Joe filled his mind with obscene images – striking out, driving both Reagan and Bates back until they were bloody pulps and then pounding them into the ground, breaking their jaws and their bones, taking hold of their throats and squeezing until their eyes popped and their jaws went slack and –

Joe started, breathing hard.  Until he killed them with his bare hands.

Just like they had tried to do to him.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Dougall Gordon sat outside the hidden cave behind the waterfall on a flat-topped rock.  The Indian woman, Muha, who traveled with them was cooking nearby.  Beyond her, the Chief’s gang had gathered.  She was probably as amused as him, listening to the argument and heated debate that passed for conversation among the outlaws his friend Malcolm Gray had hired to obtain his ‘treasure’  for him.  There were not quite a dozen of them and they were a mixed lot.  Peyton and Rafe were cowhands gone bad.  Peyton Rule was the smarter of the two and easier to control.  Rafe Wrenat was a bottle of nitro waiting to be dropped.  There was the one they called ‘Doc’, though he had no idea if the man had even the tiniest smattering of medical knowledge or training.  For all he knew the Doc could’ve been a doctor of divinity.

That made him snort.

Then there was Tollivar Bates.  Bates had been born on the wrong end of London and grown up on the waterfront.  He was a bully and a bruiser and a generally handy man for an outlaw band to have around if you could keep him from killing those who offended him – which, unfortunately was just about everyone.  Bates had a special hatred for ‘pretty boys’ as he called them.  Rumor was Bates himself had been one once upon a time and suffered the same fate many pretty boys did, which left him with a need to remove anyone from his sight that reminded him of his own weakness.  On top of these four there were half a dozen others, culled from the ranks of the beggars, thieves, and cutthroats they had associated with as they made the journey west.

Dougall shook his head.  My, how he had come down in the world.

Unexpectedly, he felt a touch on his shoulder.  The auburn-haired man shifted on his perch and looked up to find Muha offering him a bowl of stew.  When he shook his head ‘no’, she nodded and moved on.  His eyes remained on her until she joined the others.  Muha was a curiosity to him.  She cooked and cleaned and kept their ‘house’, so to speak, even though her man had been killed sometime back by Bates in a fight.  The Indian woman never spoke.  He didn’t know if she could.  Still, the look out of her eyes more than made up for the lack of words.  He was fairly certain she disapproved of just about everything Malcolm did.  The fact that the Englishman sought her out when he was dying was pretty telling.  Malcolm had questioned her about it.  Since Muha was mute, her defense consisted mostly of shaking her head ‘no’ when asked if she had betrayed them or their location.  In the end Malcolm seemed satisfied that she was innocent of any kind of betrayal.

He wasn’t so sure.

Dougall turned back toward the cave, thinking of the boy huddled at its rear.  The Cartwright kid wasn’t much older than his own boy back in Glasgow.  It was too bad he ran into Muha when he did.  Combined with his actions of the night before it made him look guilty as hell.  Malcolm had been willing to give Cartwright the benefit of the doubt after he’d been spotted in the woods by Bates.  Now, he wasn’t so sure.  His friend had decided the boy was a risk.  He’d ordered Wrenat and Rule to take Cartwright and bring him to the hideout.  Malcolm meant to hold him in order to insure his father’s cooperation.  That decision – to hold instead of kill him – had caused Bates to raise holy hell.  Tollie didn’t want Cartwright taken, he wanted him dead and that was why the bruiser had gone against orders and forced all that liquor down the kid’s throat.  Bates had been among the men Joe Cartwright had seen that night, but that wasn’t why he had tried to murder him.  Plain and simple Tollivar Bates enjoyed killing. That was, after all, the reason Bates was with them.

It took a monster to kill a man the way Malcolm wanted it done.

Dougall Gordon shifted.  He turned from the cave and thoughts of the hapless boy held within it back toward his companions, noting that they had fallen silent.

The ‘Chief’, as they called him, had come.

When Malcolm noticed him looking, his friend acknowledged him with a nod.  Dougall returned it along with a wave as he watched the riff raff react to the presence of their leader.

It was as if a rattler had stepped into their circle.

They went back a long distance, him and the ‘Chief’ – all the way back to Edinburgh when the blond man was just plain old Malcolm Gray.  Decades before they’d matriculated together at the University there.  He’d planned on being a lawyer one day.  Malcolm had bigger plans, though he’d said little about them at the time.  His old friend was a man who dreamed big – maybe too big.  Malcolm had a way of making other men believe in his dreams instead of their own.  So he had forgotten about practicing the law and put himself and his talents at his friend’s disposal, and then followed Malcolm on his insane quest all the way across the pond to this Godforsaken land of deserts, drought, and death in search of the one thing he believed that he needed in order to make his dream happen.

The one thing that would prove Malcolm Gray was who he said he was.

Dougall straightened up.  Maybe tomorrow the letter and the package would surface and then, when they intercepted them and he translated the letter, his friend would be content.  Once they had both the crown and that piece of paper in their hands, they could return to their native land.  After that, well….  He didn’t really want to think about ‘after that’.  If all went well his friend would attempt to blackmail the royals into giving him everything he believed he was owed.

‘Scotland forever’, Dougall snorted.

That was the main reason he was along – that letter.  It was written in their country’s ancient tongue.  There were few who could read it, and fewer still who would be willing and able to present his friend’s case before the Lords of the land.  He was capable of both.  One benefit of his importance to the scheme was that he could pretty much do as he pleased – like challenging old Tollie back there – since no one would have anything if anything happened to him.  Dougall glanced once again at the cave.  He hoped he could keep the boy alive and send him back to his family.  It wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things – one young man’s life – but somehow the auburn-haired man felt that if he could do that then maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t as bad as all of the other bad men he had thrown his lot in with.

God was watching, after all.

As he turned back,  Malcolm signaled him over.  Rising from his seat, Dougall obeyed, though the pace he chose of sauntering was deliberate and meant to convey to the others that he was not a lackey but a friend of this man who was the mind behind their scheme.  Malcolm’s face was dour and his eyes hard as the stone of the mountain behind them.  The men in his employ, he said, were fools who would not set aside their own petty quarrels for the greater good of their people.  He told Bates he deserved to be drawn and quartered for alerting the law to their presence.  Still, Malcolm said, Providence had been with them in that they  had taken Cartwright’s son.  The boy was their insurance against the law’s interference now.  Looking directly at Bates his friend repeated that Joe Cartwright was not, under any circumstances, to be harmed. When Malcolm finished, one of the men who had been with Bates the night the boy had been spotted protested.  He said Cartwright had seen their faces and had to die.  With a twisted sneer Malcolm nodded as if he agreed.  Then he pulled his pocket pistol out and dropped the man in his tracks.  Dougall shook his head.

Malcolm was a crazy bastard, which of course, made him perfectly suited to be king.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Joe was miserable.  He sat huddled in a corner, hungry and hurting, his arms and legs bound so tightly he couldn’t do anything to work them loose.  He felt completely helpless, which made him feel hopeless, which made him want to curl up and die.  He felt guilty for what had happened to Hoss and wondered if his brother was still alive.  If not…if Hoss – died – then that would kill his pa and make Adam reckless and he’d probably get killed and it would all be his fault for being exactly what everyone told him he was –

An rash and impulsive little boy.

Joe sat there, breathing hard, puffing great puffs of air out of his nose, fighting the rage that rose in him, a rage that was directed at himself.  Everything he did was wrong .  When he meant to be confident, he was careless.  When he meant to be bold, he was brazen.  He sweet-talked the girls and made them want him, just so he could kiss them goodbye and move on to the next as if the chase was all of it and he never wanted to be caught.  As if he was running.  As if he was afraid of something he couldn’t name.

Closing his eyes, Joe leaned his head against the cavern wall and for just a moment surrendered to the needs of that little boy.  He longed for his pa’s arms around him, for his brothers’ strong voices in his ear, and for that touch that he had lost so long ago and wasn’t even sure he remembered for himself.

For Marie.

Soft fingers brushing his skin startled him and he jumped.  Joe’s eyes flew open.  It was so dark in the cave that, for a moment, he saw nothing.  Then he noticed a woman sitting beside him.  She was carrying a crude tray that held a wooden bowl with something hot in it and a mug of water.  She placed it on the floor beside her and then reached out to remove his gag.  Even though she was masked in shadows Joe could see her deeply tanned arms and caught a glimpse of the long straight black hair that framed her face and fell loosely about her shoulders.

It was the Indian woman from the lean-to.

The woman placed the gag on the floor and picked up the bowl and a spoon.  With her eyes and a gesture of the spoon she implored him to open his mouth and eat.  Joe shook his head.  He was hungry, but he had no appetite.  Besides, he hated being fed like a baby.

“No, thanks,” he said, finding his voice rough after so long a time without using it.  He remembered the tracks that told him the woman had been put on the back of a horse and taken away.  He wondered still if she was a part of their gang or a prisoner like him.  With a glance behind her to see if anyone else was coming, he asked, “Are you all right, Ma’am?  They haven’t hurt you?”

She made no sound or gesture to reply.  He had thought earlier that she might not know any English and her present behavior seemed to back that up.  As he continued to stare at her, she held the spoon out again offering the soup.

Joe shook his head again.  It was probably pointless, but he tried once more.  “Did one of these men murder that man you were with?”

“What’re ya doing over there, Muha?” a rough voice barked from the other side of the rock-fall.  “You get him fed and you get yourself out of there!”

Joe’s eyes went to the woman’s – to Muha’s face.  It was a kind face but distressed.  He had thought she was in her late thirties.  The look out of her eyes was much older.  It was wary and wise and scared all at one and the same time.

“You hear me, Muha?  Or do I hafta come over there?”

Joe shifted, drawing the woman’s attention.  He nodded toward the spoon.  She seemed to sense what he was asking – that they show whoever it was that came around that rock that she was feeding him and he was eating just like they were supposed to be doing.

A second later the man appeared.  It was the outlaw he had shot.  The man’s  shoulder was bandaged and his face drawn as if in pain.  The outlaw put the barrel of his rifle between them and aimed it at Little Joe’s chest.  “If you weren’t so nosey, Cartwright,” he said, “you wouldn’t be in this position.  You’re lucky the Chief has a use for you, else what you seen would have had you dead.”

Joe blinked.  He refused a spoonful of soup and said, “What are you talking about?  I’ve never seen any of you before today.”

The man snorted.  He moved the barrel and nudged Muha with it.  “You hear that, Muha?  He ain’t never seen us before – you or me, or Tollie.  Makes you wonder then, Cartwright, why you was attacked back there when you was mendin’ fences.”

He stiffened.  “That was you?”

“Hell no, not me.  It was Bates and some of the other boys.  They poured that whiskey down you like you was a dry well.  Bates was hopin’ it would kill you and he could tell the Chief that you was just a stupid kid who didn’t know how to hold his liquor.”  The man huffed.  “That night you spotted Bates was the dumbest one of your life.”

Joe’s head was reeling.  It was like he was caught in a nightmare from which he could not wake.  He had never been here before.  He didn’t know these men.  He’d looked at the man lying in the lean-to and had no recollection of ever having seen him before.  Joe’s eyes darted to Muha who sat beside him, servile, with her head lowered.  She was a stranger to him to.  They were all strangers to him.  He didn’t –

He drew a breath.  His gaze had gone past Muha to the outlaw, and then returned by way of his own legs stretched out before him – his legs and his boots.

His muddy boots.

The dress boots he’d left on the dead man had been muddy too – which wasn’t an easy thing to come by in a drought.  And then there had been that mud on his socks and pants the night after he had almost been killed.  Joe could hear the waterfall cascading outside the cavern, churning up the dust and dirt and turning it into mud in the basin it spilled into.

What in all that was holy was going on?

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

The man known as the Chief finished working his chew and spit it out.  It was a disgusting habit, but one he had gained while traveling in the west where a lit pipe with its resulting smoke was not always the wisest choice for a man.  He stood on the edge of a bluff looking down on the land south of his position – the land belonging to a man named Ben Cartwright.

He admired Cartwright.  The man had done here, in the New World, what he meant to do in the old – Cartwright had built a kingdom and was its absolute master.  The only difference was here, in America, a man could buy his way into it.  In the old world, where ninety-nine percent of the land was owned by one percent of the people, it was different.  Being a king depended not on who you were or what you could do or buy, but on who your father was and on which side of the blanket he had been born.  His had been born on the wrong side and what was due him had been denied.

Until now.

Unfortunately, to accomplish his purpose he had been forced to reduce himself to the level of the men who had stolen his birthright from him.  He wasn’t a cruel man.  Killing didn’t excite him or give him any joy.  But when it became necessary he did not flinch.  The bastard in New York had held the key to everything in his possession and had managed to send it on in a wrapped package before they were able to break into his house.  To this day he thought the boy had betrayed him.

The man spit again.  Well, if he had, he’d paid for it.

Now, here he was, near two thousand miles to the west still chasing that key and his dream.  Word in New York was that the package had been addressed to an important man in Virginia City.  A letter was traveling with it that would authenticate what it held.  He needed both the letter and what the package contained.  Once he had them in his hands there was no one who could stop him.

It would be his kingdom come.

Turning back toward the cave, Malcolm Gray sighed.  The ragtag bunch of scallywags and scoundrels he had culled from the alleys and saloons of this nascent land as they passed through it was beginning to chafe on him like too many hours in the saddle.  Obtaining the package called for a variety of ‘talent’.  Unfortunately most of the skills needed were not the kind a man employed to run a high-end hotel or mercantile possessed.  Malcolm smirked.  Peyton and Rafe came as cowhands, but were two of the best sneak thieves he’d ever met.  The Doc knew just about as much about the history of Scotland as he did and was handy with just about every weapon known to man.  The others – Jacob Bowman, Pete Landes, and the like – were in it for the money, plain and simple.  Then there was Tollivar Bates.  Tollivar was a sadist plain and simple, but that was something else he had to have.  The way the killing in New York had been done was meant to send a very clear message to those who dared to challenge his claim to the throne.

There wasn’t a man in all of the British Isles who wouldn’t know what it meant.

Then, of course, there was Dougall.  Dougall Gordon was here for him and he knew it.  Their friendship bound the other man to him and to his dream.  His friend wanted nothing for himself.  Malcolm sneered.  Dougall was a idealist and a dreamer and as such, sad to say, was also a danger.  He’d watched him for a few minutes with the Cartwright boy when Dougall didn’t know he was looking.  Gordon was thinking of his own kid and didn’t intend to let the boy die.  His old friend had no stomach for killing.

Like he’d had not stomach for it before his dream made every other man’s life expendable.

Even Dougall’s.

Malcolm Gray reached for his canteen, removed the cap, and took a sip.  He swished it in his mouth and spit out the water mixed with tobacco before taking a drink.  It was almost in his hand – everything he had been working for since he’d been a boy and first learned of his destiny.  They knew both the package and the letter would be coming into the Virginia City post office bound for  rich man’s house.  The original plan had been to hit the post office along with a couple of other places to make it look like no one and nothing in particular was targeted.  That was before Joe Cartwright had appeared in the woods and before Tollie’s actions brought them to the attention of the sheriff.  Now, instead of risking intercepting the package they would force Ben Cartwright to get it for them.  Malcolm Gray snorted.  How could anyone claim it was anything other than destiny?  What at first had seemed a threat had proved their salvation.  The elder Cartwright’s cooperation had been handed to him the moment his boy stumbled into their camp.

After the package and the letter were in his hands Dougall would translate the letter and authenticate the crown and then they would wrap this whole thing up and head back to Scotland where he would give the fat old queen a choice:  compensate him for his ancestral lands – or go to war.

And people said he was crazy.

Malcolm took another swig of water as he swung back to look at the cave where his men were holed up with their hostage.

He’d do that.  Yes, he would.

After he cleaned up all the loose ends.

 

 

EIGHT

Ben Cartwright closed the door gently behind him, careful lest he disturb Hoss who had finally fallen into a natural sleep.  After borrowing a wagon from a nearby farm, they had brought his middle son tossing and turning in pain back to the Ponderosa.  Luke Miller was tending to him.  On his way to the stair Ben paused to look at the open door at the end of the hall.  He could only wish that Joe’s room was occupied as well – though not if it meant his youngest was in the same condition as his older brother.

One son with a bullet in him was more than enough.

Whoever had shot Hoss meant to kill him.  Fortunately the extra weight he carried protected him and the bullet had passed through the flesh of his side without cutting a path through any major veins or arteries.  The doctor said it was simply the kind of wound that bled a lot.  Before Hoss fell asleep he had managed to ask him a few questions.  It seemed there was little to learn.  Joe had acted rashly and drawn them into a situation that had ended with him being shot and Joe being taken hostage.

Against what, he had no idea.

Crossing to Joe’s room Ben took hold of the door and pushed it all the way to the wall.  He did a brief walkthrough, noting the blue and white bottle that held his son’s hair oil and the comb that had been his mother’s sitting next to Marie’s portrait.  Crossing to the dresser, he picked up the frame and stared at the love he had lost.  It was hard for Joe.  Adam and Hoss had both lost their mothers before they knew them, and while they had found a mother’s love in the time they had with Inger and Marie, neither had been reared by their own.  Joe had for nearly five years and, in a way, he supposed it made the loss all the deeper.

Crossing back to the door Ben stepped out into the hall.  As he did there was a knock at the door.  The older man turned and looked at the clock in Joe’s room.  It was late – well past the time when travel would be safe – and he was surprised to hear it.  By the time he reached the bottom of the landing the pounding had become more insistent.  When he opened the door Ben found Sheriff Roy Coffee and a stranger standing outside.  It was dark, so he couldn’t see much of the man until the pair of them stepped into the great room.  The stranger was about as tall as Roy and had a head of  thick wavy black hair cut short.  A fringe of it swept over his forehead.  The hair at his temples was  shot through with silver.  It could have been from age – he appeared to be around forty – but could just as easily have been a frost generated by his intense ice blue eyes.  Ben could read a modicum of humor in them, but the main thing they held was an intense – perhaps, an almost too intense sense of purpose.

“Roy,” Ben said, falling back a step, “what brings you out so late?”

“I had an unexpected visitor waiting for me when I returned to Virginia City.  This here is – ”

The man stepped forward and offered his hand.  “Inspector Napier Beaton Shaw, Metropolitan Police Force, London.”

Shaw’s accent was English, but it definitely favored the north country.  Since his surname was Scottish, Ben surmised the Inspector came from either there or one of the northern counties, Northumberland, or Cumbria perhaps.

Taking his hand, the older man said, “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance Inspector.”

“Indeed, Mr. Cartwright?” Shaw asked as he moved into the great room and began to inspect it.  “Since I understand one of your sons has been taken hostage and other was nearly killed this afternoon, I would think you might look upon the sudden appearance of an Inspector of the Yard with trepidation instead of pleasure.”

Ben shot Roy a look.

The sheriff shrugged and rolled his eyes as if to say ‘He’s all yours now’.

When Ben turned back he found the inspector had halted beside the striped sofa.  “I see Roy has filled you in,” he said as he joined him.

Shaw turned his cold blue eyes on him.  “Sheriff Coffee has said more than I might have wished.  I would have preferred to hear the details from those directly involved in the incident.”

“And which ‘incident’ would that be, Inspector?”

There was that hint of amusement in those wolfish eyes.  “All of them.”  Shaw indicated the blue chair to the right of the hearth.  “May I?”

“Oh, yes.  I forget my manners.  Would you like some coffee, or tea, Inspector?”

The inspector closed his eyes briefly.  “It has been a swift and difficult journey.  My assistant, Braddock Wells and I rode through the night and only had a brief breakfast.”  This time Shaw actually smiled.  “I would appreciate the tea, and a bit of food if it would not be too much trouble.”

“It’s no trouble at all.”  Ben moved toward the kitchen and called, “Hop Sing!”

When their Chinese cook appeared he asked him to bring in a plate of cold meat, bread and cheese.   “The tea is Young Hyson,” Ben said as he returned.

Shaw was wearing an overcoat.  He removed it to reveal the dress of the day for a man from the city – a storm gray frock coat with straight black trousers, a short patterned wine waistcoat, and a pearl gray shirt with a high stiff collar.  As he took the tall hat from his head and placed it on the table by the sofa he said, “Perfect.  It will help to clear my mind.”  When the Inspector took his seat, he added, “I am afraid it is you who must forgive my ill manners, Mister Cartwright.  When I am on a case I tend to be single-minded.”

“Do you need me any longer, Inspector?” Roy asked from near the door.

“No.  You are free to pursue your own investigation, Sheriff.  My assistant Braddock will assist you until tomorrow when he rejoins me.”

Before leaving Roy asked, “How’s Hoss doin’, Ben?”

“Fine.  The doctor said he’ll be up in a few days.”

“And how about Joe?  Anything further?”

The older man shook his head.  “No.”

“Sorry to hear that.”  Roy reached up and tipped his hat.  “Be seein’  you, Ben.  Inspector.”

After the door closed behind Roy, Ben turned back to his guest just in time to see Hop Sing deliver his food.  The Inspector treated the Chinese man courteously and thanked him for the food, which raised Ben’s estimation of Shaw a notch.  As he reached for the tea, the inspector said, “If you don’t mind, Mister Cartwright, I will eat and then we can talk.  I prefer my mind be focused on one thing at a time.”

“I understand.”  Ben nodded toward his desk.  “I have some business to finish up.  Call me when you’re ready.”

“Thank you.”

As Ben worked he watched the man.  Shaw was very precise in all of his movements and conservative of the energy it took to accomplish a task, as if there was a need to hold any extra in reserve.  It took the Englishman about fifteen minutes to eat.  When he was done he folded the linen napkin Hop Sing had given him and placed in on top of the plate.  He used the cheese knife to anchor it.

“I am ready when you are, Mister Cartwright.  My thanks for the food.”

Ben rose from his desk and came over.  Once there he took the tray and returned it to the kitchen where he thanked Hop Sing and told him to go to bed.  Any work left could be accomplished in the morning.  When he returned the inspector was standing, looking at the gun rack with its myriad rifles.

“An impressive display of force,” he remarked quietly.

“You don’t approve?”

Shaw turned to face him.  “Quite the opposite.  When it comes to the criminal element a certain portion of intimidation is wise.  Though I imagine this serves another purpose when it comes to conducting business.”

“If you mean I do it at the end of a gun,” Ben remarked, “I can assure you that’s not the case.”

The inspector’s black brows winged up.  “Indeed?”  He turned then and said matter-of-factly, “You are a strong man with strong opinions, able to listen, but certain enough of your own convictions that advice is seldom taken – and not always welcome.  You have built your success with your hands and mean to hold onto it.”

Ben was speechless.

“Or, am I mistaken?”

Ben thought a moment.  Then he smiled.  “No.  No.  You are very close to the mark.  I’m sure my boys would agree with you on my unwillingness to take advice.”

“You have three sons, but no current wife.”

The man was beginning to unnerve him.  “Yes.  How did you …?”

“Simple observation, Mister Cartwright, something most men fail to do.  First of all, there is no sign of a woman’s touch – pillows, flowers, and other feminine sundries.  There are four chairs at the table and an equal amount of territory claimed within this room.”  He walked to the chair Adam normally occupied.  Picking up a book on the chair he turned it over and read the spine.  “This belongs to the thinker.”  He crossed to the other chair, where Hoss often sat, the one that faced the window.  “This one belongs to a big man with a hearty appetite and hearty love of life.”  The inspector fell silent.  He crossed to the hearth where Joe often roosted and looked at the stones.  They were actually worn down from his son’s frequent occupation.  That was something he hadn’t noticed before.  “This one is the dreamer.  Beside him, I believe, is your place.”  At that he looked up.  The smile was there but tight.  “Am I right?”

Ben nodded, impressed.  “Yes.”

“Tell me about this young one – the dreamer.  The one who is missing.”

“You mean Joseph?  Is that why you are here, Inspector, to help find Joe?”

Shaw held up a hand.  “First, answer my question.”

The older man almost balked, but then he remembered Roy had brought this man to him and left him.  He must have trusted him enough to do so.  Still….    “Before I do, may I see your credentials, Inspector?”

Again, that smile.  It barely lifted the corners of the  inspector’s lips but lit his eyes.  “Very good.”  Shaw removed a leather packet from inside his waistcoat and held it out.  “I could be anyone.”

The thought had crossed his mind.  Ben inspected the papers.  They seemed official.  As he handed them back he said, “Do you mind if I send my eldest son into town to wire for verification in the morning?”

“You will find Sheriff Coffee has already done so and received a satisfactory answer that put him at ease.”

That would be like Roy.  As Shaw replaced the packet inside his vest, Ben sat down.  “What do you want to know about Joseph?  He’s had a tough time these last few days.  I sent him out –”

“Pardon me, Mister Cartwright –”

“Ben.  Please.”

Shaw nodded.  “Ben.  I do not want to know what the boy has done or is doing.  Tell me about him.”

Ben was a bit stymied.  “Well, he’s my youngest.  There’s six years between him and Hoss, and around a dozen between him and Adam.”

“Go on.  Sheriff Coffee indicated the boy tends to get into trouble.”

Roy would say that.  “If you mean Joe attracts trouble, I’ll admit it happens.”  Ben sighed.  “My youngest is intelligent and fast on his feet.  Unfortunately, Joe is also high-spirited and quick tempered and prone to disobey orders if he feels there is a reason or just cause.”

Shaw nodded.  “It is that last part that concerns me.”  Again he shook his head when Ben inquired with a look what this was all about.  “Anything else?”

Ben thought a moment.  “Joe has a high sense of justice.  He is outraged when he sees something as unfair.  He sticks up for the underdog.”  The older man halted.  “What is this all about, Inspector?”

Shaw rose to his feet and began to pace.  “You and I have a common enemy, Mister Cartwright, or, at least, I believe we do.  The man I have pursued across the ocean and two thousand or more miles of your country is the same sort of man – a passionate, idealistic, dreamer with a high sense of justice.  Unfortunately, it is his kind of justice and has very little to do with reality.”  The inspector paused.  “I must ask you a hard question – could your son have run away and joined Gray willingly?”

“Joseph?  Never!  The boy’s heart is here.”

“I understand that is what you believe.  But is it true?”

Rage was boiling up in him.  “You will explain yourself, Inspector, or Metropolitan Police or not, I will take you by the collar and throw you out of my home!”

“Forgive me, Mister Cartwright.  Permit me to explain.  I am following a pattern here.”  Shaw’s eyes went to a stack of newspapers.  “You receive the paper?” he asked.

“Yes.  Several.  Why?”

“Have you perhaps read an account of a man who was found murdered in his home in New York, strangled and stabbed with his throat cut?”

It had a familiar ring.  It took a moment but then he recalled where he heard about that murder.  He had read it in the paper the night they had eaten in town.  The night all of this had begun.  “I read the article and dismissed it as sensationalism.”

Shaw pursed his lips.  “Unfortunately, it is my duty to inform you that it is not.”

“You mean someone actually did all of that to one man?”

The Englishman nodded.  “Yes.”

Ben winced.  “The article said the killer was unknown.  Is he still?”

“Unknown but suspected.”  Napier Shaw continued to pace.  “The situation in New York was not unlike what I find here – a single father, rearing several children alone, the youngest of which was a boy who tended toward idealism and had a rebellious nature.  An unprincipled man came along with a big dream and snatched the boy right out from under his father’s nose. The boy aided the criminals, making a way for them to enter the house.”  Shaw paused.  “This was not mentioned in the article, Mister Cartwright.  The boy was killed in the same way.”

“Shot, stabbed, and strangled?  Isn’t that….”

“Overkill? Yes.”  Shaw held his gaze.  “There is a reason.”

“How could there be a reason?”

“Your surname is English, so you know something of the dark times on that isle prior to the coming of the Christian creed?”

Ben nodded.  “It is fortunate man has gone beyond them.”

Shaw pursed his lips.  “Has he?”

“What do you mean?” Ben demanded.  “And what does this have to do with my son?”

“With your son?  If your son is innocent of duplicity with this man, then nothing but that it has put the boy in danger.”  The inspector drew a breath.  “In ancient times this manner of killing was known as ‘the triple death’ and was reserved for princes and kings. The man I am hunting employed it as a warning to the Royal family.  He believes their throne should be his own.”

“The throne of Britain?  What, is he mad?”

Shaw’s ice blue eyes fixed him. “Yes.  Quite.  This man is descended of a bastard line of Scottish kings, but in his demented mind he is the direct descendant of the king who once sat on England’s throne.”  Shaw paused.  “There may have been another article in that paper – about an ancient artifact bound for Virginia City?”

Ben nodded.

“The item this man seeks is the one the man in New York and his son died for.”  The inspector paused.  “I understand from Sheriff Coffee that your son stumbled upon a murder committed here and then was attacked by the men who perpetrated it.”

“So we presume.  But how could the two possibly be connected?”

“That, Mister Cartwright, is what I am here to find out.”  Napier Shaw ran a hand across his face and leaned back in the chair.  “The Queen is most anxious to have this matter cleared up,” he said wearily.

Ben sat heavily in the chair opposite the Englishman.  There were times in a man’s life when he realized that the rest of his life turned on a chance decision.  If he hadn’t insisted Joe mend those fences….

“Mister Cartwright, if it will bring you any peace,” Shaw said, “I am at your disposal.  Our interests are the same.  Finding your son will help me to find the man I am seeking.”

Ben nodded and then rose to his feet.  “I’m weary, Inspector Shaw.  I imagine you are too.  I think the best thing either of us can do is try to get a few hours rest before we begin again.”

Shaw was thoughtful for a moment.  “Before we retire, Mister Cartwright, there is another thing I should tell you.”

“Ben.  Please.”

Shaw considered it.  “All right.  Ben.

The older man’s eyebrows rose.  “Now, what is it you need to tell me?”

“You haven’t asked me about the destination of the package.”

The older man was confused.  “I assumed that was your business and not mine.”

Shaw’s lips twitched and he snorted.  “It is very much your business.  Consider this – if I know where the package is, or it ends up in my hands, would I be willing to trade the contents for your son’s life?”  The Englishman held up his hand.  “The answer is ‘yes.”  As Ben sighed with relief, the  inspector went on.  “If you remember, according to the note Sheriff Coffee received, you were to ‘wait for instructions’.  It is my belief that, in exchange for your son’s safe return, this man will demand you bring the letter and the package to him.”

“Me?  Why me?”

“He will assume, as a wealthy man, that you know the man of means to whom it is addressed.”  The inspector paused.  “And he is right, you do.”

Ben frowned.  He wondered who it was.  “So, you will make the arrangements for me to contact this man and obtain the package?”

The inspector’s cool eyes remained fixed on him.  “It is already done.”

“Already done?  What do you mean?  You mean you’ve already contacted the man that the package is addressed to?  Who is it?  I know most of the wealthy men in this area.”

“You certainly know this one,” Shaw said, his voice quiet.

“Inspector Shaw,” Ben warned, “I am in no mood for games.  I am very tired and very worried about my son.  Speak plainly if you are capable of it!”

The Englishman hesitated only a moment.  “The package is coming here,  to the Ponderosa.”

“What?”

“The article you read in the newspaper was planted in several publications with the intention of drawing this man out.  We have been working in cooperation with your government for some time to accomplish his capture, and when the Yard asked for someone in the Virginia City area who was completely trustworthy, your name was advanced.  I apologize for not contacting you before proceeding, but I knew the wire services were being watched and messages intercepted.”

Ben dropped into his chair.  “Wait, now.  What are you saying?”

“What I am saying, Ben, is that the package which this man wants in exchange for your son’s safe return is addressed to you and will be delivered to the Ponderosa the day after tomorrow.  We could not know, of course, when this decision was made that your son would be in the criminals’ hands.  It is most unfortunate as, once they become aware that you are the intended recipient, these men are likely to assume – “

“That Joseph was in the north pastures spying for me.”

“Yes.”

If a man’s heart could sink to his toes, his just had.

“There is, Ben, another slight difficulty to overcome.”

“Oh, and what is that?” he asked wearily.

Shaw stopped directly before him.  “The original letter and crown are not in the package that will arrive here.  They are already on a packet ship, headed back to Eng land.  What is coming here is a forgery.  Should it fall into the outlaws’ hands, it will not take their expert long to realize that is exactly what it is.

“In other words, there is no treasure to exchange for your son.”

 

 

NINE

Adam Cartwright leaned the shovel he was holding on a nearby rock and then reached up to wipe the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his black shirt.  He glanced at the sun where it was just topping the horizon and noted the way, even now –  so early in the morning that the birds were still sleeping – it painted the dry dusty land red.  Reaching for his canteen, he poured a handful of water in his palm and ran it along the back of his neck.  He’d been at it for hours.  He was hungry and bone-weary.

Still, there was no way he was going to give up.  Not until he found what he was looking for.

His morning had started at a time some still called night.  He’d returned to the Ponderosa late in the evening to find his father sitting in the blue velvet chair beside the fire lost in thought.  Apparently they had a guest – an inspector from England who worked for Scotland Yard.  Pa didn’t say much, but it was clear the man’s presence disturbed him and the reason had something to do with Joe.  When he questioned the older man, his pa said they would talk later.  He’d gone up to bed then and laid there, unable to sleep, his mind awhirl.  Something was going on here that they were all missing.  Something that had to do with that dead man Joe had found – the one someone else had tried to wipe out any sign of.

The one his brother had buried.

After a few restless and pointless hours of tossing and turning, he gave up and got out of bed.  He hadn’t changed his clothes before laying down, so when he made the decision, he was ready for the road.  Before heading for the stable  he had gone in to check on Hoss.  His middle brother’s breathing was even and he seemed to be sleeping naturally.  Content with that, he headed downstairs only to find his pa still in the big blue chair, only this time he was asleep.  Leaving him where he was, Adam put on his gun belt and hat and then quietly left by the front door.  Once in the stable he hitched Sport to one of their buckboards, filled it with the equipment he needed, and headed out.  He’d reached the place where Joe had seen the lean-to at about two-thirty.  It was now four-thirty and at least half of the rocks that had covered the dead man’s grave were laying to its side.  He’d exposed enough that he was able to dig down and thought he could locate and free the body.

It was a grim task but one that had to be done.  There had to be a clue here to what was going on – to why Joe seemed so distracted, to why someone had tried to kill his brother and make it look like an accident, to the identities of the men who had done it, to what had happened to who this man was and who had killed him and whether or not the men who perpetrated both crimes were one and the same….

To so many things.

Adam took a swig of water.  He capped the canteen and tossed it on the ground by the shovel, which he then picked up.  Pushing the tool’s head into the ground he continued to lift the dry dirt and throw it aside, scowling at the small mountain he’d created.  His little brother had thought enough of the stranger to bury him deep so the animals would not have an easy time of it if they decided to dig him up – just like he wasn’t having an easy time of it.

Of course, that said more about Joe than anything else.

A minute or two later he was rewarded – if that was the word for it – when his shovel struck something soft.  After tying a kerchief around his nose, the black-haired man dropped into the hole in the ground and used his fingers to clear the dirt away from a bit of brown cloth.  Feeling around it, he recognized the shape of a man’s arm.  Laying the shovel down, Adam began to work through the loose dry dirt, lifting and tossing it out by the handful, determined to clear enough away that he could examine the body.  Already the flesh was decaying, rotting and pulling back from the bones, but that wasn’t what he was interested in.  Oh, he wanted to see the man’s face – to make sure he didn’t know him – but more importantly he wanted to see if he could find anything on him like a money belt or any papers that might identify him.

It took nearly another hour before the body was fully exposed.  When he finished Adam rocked back on his heels and glanced at the sun again.  Those at the Ponderosa would be waking soon and heading out to begin the new work day.  His pa was going to miss him and he didn’t want to cause the older man any more grief than he had to.  He also needed to speak with ‘Inspector Shaw’ and see if he could figure out the man’s true motives.  Sometimes his father was too trusting.  Belief in the intrinsic goodness of man was an integral part of the older man’s nature.

It was not a part of his.

Leaning over the corpse, Adam took a good look at the man’s rotting face before beginning his search.  After a moment of contemplation that was worthy of the Bard, he decided he did not know him.  Taking a deep breath, he ran his hands along the corpse’s frame, patting him down, inspecting the inside of his shirt and checking every pocket.

All with no luck.

In the end he came to the man’s boots.  They surprised him in that they were expensively made and elegantly tooled and though the suit the man wore was well-made, it was definitely from back East and the boots were Western.  Adam pulled them off and set them aside as he continued his search, patting down the man’s legs and even removing his socks.  While he worked, his eyes kept returning to the boots.  As they were covered in mud, it was hard to see the design, but there was something familiar about the pair.  Distracted, Adam left off what he was doing and turned and picked them up.  As he stood he  lifted them up and out of the hole so the morning light could strike them.

And sucked in a sharp breath.  “Good God!”

They were Joe’s.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

When Adam returned to the Ponderosa several hours later he went to the ranch house fully expecting to find his father out looking for Joe.  Instead when he opened the door he found the older man deep in conversation with two strangers, one of which he presumed to be the inspector from the Yard.  Both men had a foreign cast to their features and clothes.  It was hard sometimes to say what exactly it was that marked a man as belonging anywhere but the West, but these two had it.  They weren’t city slickers, but they were definitely urban men from another quarter of the world.  The trio was sitting at the dining room table.  There were a smattering of items laying before them including several newspapers.  When his father saw him, the silver-haired man waved him over.  Adam nodded, but before he joined them he went to the settee and placed his saddle bag on it.  It contained Joe’s boots.

He was not about to mention finding them until he and his pa were alone.

“What are you up to, Pa?” Adam asked as he arrived at the table.

“Adam, this is Inspector Napier Shaw and his assistant, Braddock Wells.”

“Inspector.  Mister Wells,” he said, nodding to them in turn.  The inspector was a tall striking man, clean shaven with a somewhat hawkish look and wolfish blue eyes.  His assistant had brown hair and was a shorter and much stouter man with a well-groomed mustache and beard.  “What brings you to the Ponderosa?”

“The men who have Joe, son,” his Pa replied.  “They’re the same ones the Inspector has been trailing.”

Shaw stood and offered him his hand.  As Adam took it, he said, “I meet, I believe, the Thinker?”

Adam blinked.  “I beg your pardon?”

His father laughed.  “The inspector formed opinions of you and your brothers – and me – very quickly.”

“Seems an odd thing to do,” he countered, his eyes on Shaw.  “Don’t lawmen usually deal in facts?”

The inspector released his hand.  “Your father is mistaken in his term.  They are observations, not opinions.”  The Englishman’s gaze trailed the length of his dusty form.  “As I observe you have been digging in the dirt.  Were you looking for something in particular?”

“Fence post holes,” Adam said quickly.  “My brother Joe didn’t get a chance to finish repairing the fence before he was taken.”  His eyes shot to his father who appeared puzzled.  “You know, Pa.  We can’t afford to lose the stock in the north pasture.”

His father took up the lie without question.  “That’s right.  No matter how concerned we are for Joe, the work on a ranch never stops.  Adam went out this morning to see to some of it.”

Shaw’s piercing gaze went from the one of them to the other.  “I see.”

Unfortunately, Adam thought he probably did.  “So,” he said, shifting the subject, “Pa told me last night you have been tracking these men – the ones we believe took Joe.  What is this all about?”

His father’s face grew sober.  “It’s about a fanatic, Adam.  A fanatic who has your brother.”

“Sergeant Wells,” Inspector Shaw prompted.  “If you will, hand the file on our suspect to young Mister Cartwright here.  Read it.  After you do, I would be pleased if you would add your thoughts and voice to the conversation.”

“I’d like to change clothes and wash up first, if that’s all right,” Adam said, wrinkling his nose.

“It is more than ‘all right’.  I would advise it.”  The inspector’s nose twitched as well.  “There is a definite smell of death about you.”

His tone was as hard as his eyes.

“There’s a drought.  I found a dead steer and had to wrangle with it.”  Adam shrugged.  “Sorry if our ‘country’ air offends your city nose.”

Braddock Wells spoke for the first time.  His voice was as moderate as his superior’s was sharp.  “I think you’ll find, young man, that the only thing that offends the Inspector is deceitfulness.”

“Yes, well….  I’ll be sure to remember that,” he replied as he headed for the stair.

Ten minutes later Adam was back.  He found his father had moved to the window and was standing by it looking out – thinking of Joe, no doubt.  Adam accepted the folder from Braddock Wells and took it with him to the settee.  Sitting down beside his loaded saddle bag, he began to read.

It was quite a tale.

The man Shaw was looking for was named Malcolm Gray.  There was an ambrotype likeness of Gray in the file, which must have been taken back in the eighteen-fifties.  It showed a lean scarecrow of a man in a dark suit who had a long face, a bush of light hair, and a look out of his light eyes nearly as intense as the inspector’s.  The man reminded him a bit of Andrew Jackson in the popular military portrait of the former president, though Gray was obviously younger than the general had been at the time of that sitting.  After another thorough look at it, Adam put the likeness aside and continued reading.

Malcolm Gray had been born in Scotland and had a seemingly normal upbringing.  He had attended Edinburgh University, majoring in history and minoring in art, but instead of doing anything with his education had begun to drift around about the time he turned twenty – he was on the low side of forty now – and had traveled from one end of the British Isles to the other on some sort of personal quest.  Gray had written several papers for respected periodicals, one of which made mention of  a newly discovered document that declared null and void the divorce granted to King James I’s son, Charles I, more than a century before.  In this article Gray asserted that the throne of England was currently occupied by usurpers and in fact belonged to the descendants of Charles I’s much wronged queen, Charlotte Landgravine of Hesse-Kassel.  The file also mentioned a simple circlet or crown of gold set with pearls and diamonds that was said to have belonged to Charlotte and to have been passed down through the years and generations to the men who should have been king – of which Malcolm Gray was one.  Or so he claimed.  Apparently there was no proof that Gray’s line and Charlotte’s connected, though Gray was the name of a sept of the Stewart clan, which did lend his claim minor weight.

Adam’s dark brows peaked.  “The man who would be king?” he asked.  “Really?”

“Keep reading,” the inspector instructed.

What followed next was a detailed report of a half dozen crimes committed over the next dozen years in England of which Gray was suspected.  The first were petty – the theft of a manuscript from a library, a peer’s house broken into. Then they began to escalate.  Other libraries were broken into.  Some burned.  More houses were looted and then the corpses began to pile up.  Soon a pattern emerged – each  of these places was in some way connected with the legitimate line of Charles I through his second wife, Marie Luise, and each had in their possession at one time information on the letter and or the golden crown.

Adam glanced at his father who was still looking out the window and then at the newspapers on the table.  He remembered the one his father had been reading the night all of this began – the one that contained an article saying the crown was being sent to a prominent man in Virginia City.

“Good Lord,” he breathed as he let the folder fall to his lap.  His eyes went to the inspector.  “And you believe this is the man who has my brother?”

When Shaw remained quiet, his father approached.  “The inspector came here suspecting that your brother is in league with this man,” he said, his tone unyielding.  “I hope I have corrected that thinking.”

Adam was incredulous.  “You suspect Joe of working with Gray?”

Shaw held his ground.  “I have not entirely eliminated the possibility, though your father has attempted – with some success – to dissuade me from it.”

“The man in New York, Adam, the one in the paper, his son was working with Gray.  It’s how the man got into the house and why they were killed.”

His mind awhirl, Adam’s eyes flicked to the saddlebag.  He prayed Shaw didn’t notice.   Joe’s missing boots had been on the dead man’s feet.  That meant Joe had to have had contact with him before he died – didn’t it?  In spite of everything – in spite of what he thought he knew about his youngest brother….

Could it be true?

Adam swallowed over the fear welling up in him.  “So what now?  What do you intend to do?”

“As I told your father,” Napier Shaw replied, “if we find your brother, we will find the man I am seeking.  Therefore, I propose we concentrate on finding your brother.”

“We?”

Inspector Shaw came to rest before him.  “I sense in us something of a kindred spirit, Mister Cartwright.”

“Oh, you do, do you?”

The Englishman nodded.  “It is my proposition that you and I seek out your brother while your father remains here with Sergeant Braddock to await the arrival of the package.”

Adam was surprised.  “It’s coming here?” he asked as he looked at his Pa.

The older man answered wearily, “It’s a long story, Adam, but yes, it’s coming here.  I’ll explain later.”

“As I told your father, Mister Cartwright –”

“Adam, please.”

“Adam.  As I told your father, the items contained in the package are forgeries.  The main intent of the shipment was simply for it to be delivered and to draw Gray into our net.  We had planned to be waiting for him in town and would have taken him before he and his men rode out.  Your brother’s presence in the outlaws’ camp…complicates things.  Though my superiors might consider the sacrifice of one young man’s life worth catching this man, I do not.  You and I must rescue your brother tonight.  That way he will be safe and we will be able to proceed as we must.”

Adam was still thinking of those boots.  “I’d rather go alone.”

“I am sure you would.  You will not, however, be permitted to do so.”

“And who exactly is going to stop me?” Adam demanded.

He heard a click and turned to find Sergeant Braddock had produced a small gentleman’s pistol from his pocket.  The gun was in his hand and pointed directly at him.

“Braddock put that away,”  Shaw ordered.  As the man complied – slowly – the inspector went on.  “Not by might but by an order of your government, Adam, a copy of which you will find contained in that file.  This is my investigation and I am empowered to do what is necessary to take this man down.”  The English lawman drew closer and his keen eyes pinned him.  “If I must, I will have you trussed like one of your steers and hauled off to Virginia City where I will order Sheriff Coffee to lock you up!”  The next words he spoke were softer in tone.  “I would much prefer to have you at my side.  I imagine your brother would as well.”

His pa was nodding.  “Adam, Roy checked the inspector out.  He is who and what he says he is.  It’s our civic duty to cooperate.  This may be the only way to save your brother’s life.  If Gray gets the package and finds that what it contains is counterfeit while he still has Joe…..

The implication hung in the air.

“Okay, Pa,” Adam said, turning back to the inspector.  “When do we leave?”

“How far is it to the place where your brother is being held?”

Adam thought a moment.  “Two, maybe two and a half hours taking the road and riding at a normal pace.”

“Then we shall travel light and leave two hours before dark.”  Shaw crossed to the fire and stared at the flames.  When he spoke at last, his voice was distant.  “We must move quickly.  It is imperative that we return before the package arrives. Unfortunately, the path before us will be neither easy, nor is its outcome assured.”

“Which will be?” Adam asked.  “Are you planning to storm the place or do you have something else in mind?”

The inspector’s eyes lit with what, in another man, he might have called obsession.

“I have made Malcolm Gray my study.  I know how his mind works.”  Shaw pivoted sharply on his heel to look directly at him.  His words were steel.  “If there is no way, I will make one.”

Adam sighed as he watched the inspector gather up his assistant and head to the rooms his father had given them.

He decided he’d call it ‘obsession’ with Shaw too.

It was only a moment later that his father’s hand came down on his shoulder.  “Well, Adam, what do you think?”

He considered it.  “I don’t know, Pa.  There’s something about that man….”

“I’ll admit Shaw’s intense,” his father said as he lifted his hand and took a seat.  “But then again, if you had his job you probably would be too.  You know how Roy can be when he’s on the hunt.”

Yes, he did.

Adam sought his father’s gaze before speaking.  “I’m concerned that Joe will be caught between Shaw and the man he wants.”

His father nodded.  “So am I.  That’s why it’s important you go with him.”

Adam hesitated.  His father seemed to sense it.

“Son, is there something else?” the older man asked.  “Something you’re not telling me?”

He didn’t know how to say it.  “Pa, are you sure Joe couldn’t be involved with this man?”

If he’d struck his father with a sledgehammer he couldn’t have looked more stunned.  “What?  Adam…  What?”

“You know how Joe’s been behaving lately – not like himself.  And you know how impressionable he is.  If this man convinced him that his cause was just –”

“Adam!  Why would you even consider such a thing?”

“I don’t want to, Pa.  You know that.  It’s just….well….”  Adam hesitated again.  Then he  took hold of his saddlebag and drew it onto his lap.  Opening it, he pulled out the pair of boots.

His father took them.  After a quick examination he asked, “Aren’t these the boots your brother lost?  The ones Joe couldn’t find on Wednesday?”

Adam had held out the momentary hope that his father wouldn’t identify the boots as Joe’s – that, somehow, he was wrong.  Unable to answer, Adam nodded.

The older man ran his hand over the fine leather as if that touch might somehow connect him to his youngest boy and tell him what he was thinking.  A second later he looked at him.

“Adam, where did you find them?”

“Pa,” he said, drawing a deep breath, “you’re not going to like the answer….”

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Later that day as the sun was setting, just after Adam and Inspector Shaw took off, Ben Cartwright stepped outside his house and stood on the porch looking north.  He had dealt with the ranch hands, dispensing his son’s chores to other men, and then checked in on Hoss.  His middle son seemed to be mending nicely.  After that he had come outside hoping the fresh air would clear his mind of doubts.  He knew his sons – knew each one of them as well as he knew himself.  There was no way Joseph could have been drawn into Malcolm Gray’s scheme.  He was sure of it.

He had to be sure of it.

Crossing to the table on the porch, Ben perched on the edge of it and considered all he knew.  Several days before Joseph’s dress boots had gone missing.  Shortly after that the boy had gotten drunk and been in a brawl that resulted in Roy Coffee bringing him out to the Ponderosa.  The next day Joe had disappeared without permission and gone north.  There, he had found a man murdered and buried him.  That evening Adam found Joe dead drunk again, though his eldest had told him at the time that he believed his brother’s assertion that someone had done it to him.  Now, he sensed, Adam was not so sure.  After that Joe had been taken by these men and Hoss had been shot.  Next, the threat to kill Joe had been made and the demand issued that he return to the Ponderosa and await ‘instructions’.  All that remained was for the package Shaw had prepared to arrive before the operation to take Gray down would begin – an operation intended to stop Malcolm Gray from gaining access to the one thing that would turn him from an underdog into a king.

Joe was young.  Was it possible he could have fallen under the spell of such a charismatic man?  He’d seen the boy easily duped before by everything from pretty girls to con men, and seen Joe go out of his way to protect someone who in the end didn’t deserve it – someone who had been using him.  It seemed at times that his youngest was searching for something that was always just out of reach, something even Joe couldn’t identify.  He had been so vulnerable lately, so erratic and unpredictable.

Dear God!  What if it was true?

For a moment he let himself despair and then Ben straightened up and faced the facts.  To the inspector’s eyes they didn’t add up to his son’s innocence, but to his – to the eyes of the man who had looked on that boy with love from the day he had been born – the sum couldn’t came out wrong.  There was something here he didn’t understand but, with God as his witness, he would not doubt his son.

“Take care, Adam,” the silver-haired man whispered, feeling immensely old.  “And take care of Joe.”

 

 

TEN

Adam glanced to the side looking for the man he traveled with.  Inspector Shaw had borrowed some of his clothes so the two of them were both dressed in black, which made it nearly impossible to see him.  That, of course, would have been a good thing so far as remaining hidden from the outlaws – if he had trusted Shaw entirely.  He still didn’t and he didn’t know why.  Adam kept telling himself it was just the man’s attitude, which struck him as arrogant and snide and grated on his nerves.  Then again, he had to remind himself there was no law against being arrogant, unless maybe it was a law of nature.  It was just that he had a feeling a time was going to come when he was going to have to trust this stranger to watch his back and he wasn’t sure – when and if that happened – that Shaw was entirely on his side.  What he was sure of was that Shaw was entirely on his own side.

Unfortunately, with Joe’s life hanging in the balance that left him a bit nervous.

They’d reached the edge of their northern pastureland just as the sun fell behind the horizon and the dark descended.  It hadn’t taken them long to cross the field.  They had traveled slowly on their bellies a good part of the time in order to not be seen.  Once they arrived at the tree line they had slipped into the underbrush and begun to move in the direction of the sound of running water.  Unlike his younger brothers he knew this area well. He had visited it often when younger as one of his childhood friends, a lad named Billy Caldwell, had lived on the other side of the woods.  From what he remembered there were a number of caves including one behind the waterfall that were large enough for a party of men to hole up in.  With the drought, they would be plenty dry.  He and the inspector had agreed to take it slowly so their presence would present no threat to Joe.  The Englishman still harbored a suspicion that his little brother was here by his own choice and working in collusion with the man he hunted.  Adam admitted he’d had to wrestle with the idea himself.  He loved his youngest brother with a love that went deep as his soul, but he’d knocked heads enough times with Joe to know that once he got something in his head – right or wrong, sense or not – he would stick to it like glue and fight tooth and claw for what he believed.  If this man Gray had managed to convince him that he was in the right, there was nothing to say that Joe wouldn’t have defied them all to help him.

Nothing except his gut feeling that that was not what was going on.

“Inspector?” he called quietly.  “Shaw, are you there?”

A shadow shifted beside him, so close it startled him.  “Yes.”

“Who taught you to move like that?”

“Not ‘who’, but what.  Several tours of duty as a spy with Major General Sir James Outram on the southern coast of Persia during the last war,” Shaw answered, pitching his voice so low Adam could barely make out the words.  “I was searching ahead.  The outlaws lair is behind the fall of water.  I observed several men coming in and out.”

That wasn’t good.  If Joe was in the cave behind the fall then he was trapped.  “There’s no back way out of that cave, Inspector,” Adam said.  At his look he added, “I explored it as a boy.”

“And we both know a frontal assault is doomed to failure,” Shaw added.  He thought a moment.  “They would have to bring the boy – your brother out at times, unless they are making him sit in his own filth.”

Adam nodded.  Joe was young and not very big.  They probably didn’t consider him that much of a threat.   “You’re probably right.  But how can we know when?”

“We’ll have to keep watch.  If it isn’t now, it should be near dawn.”  The Englishman signaled with his hand.  “Let’s backtrack a bit to a safe location where we can make a plan.”  He looked up.  “Did you notice the sentries?”

He had.  “Yes.”

“Very good.”  Shaw sounded impressed.  “Now, come on.”

It took only a few minutes, but even those minutes going in the opposite direction grated on him.  He wanted to find his brother and make sure Joe was safe, and then he wanted to clear Joe’s name.  Shaw was remarkably cool.  He led them back to a small natural outcropping of rock that functioned as a sort of shelter and sat down.  Leaning his head back the inspector closed his eyes and drew in several deep breaths.

Adam was champing at the bit.  “Well?  Don’t we need a plan?”

“All in good time, Adam,” Shaw said as he opened his eyes.  “What good will it do your brother if we find him and have no strength to come to his rescue?”  He reached into a pocket and produced several pieces of jerky.  “From your cook,” he said.  “Eat while we talk.”

Adam took the dried meat and looked at it. With a sigh, he pulled a piece off and chewed it.  “So what’s your plan?” he asked after he swallowed.

“Tell me what you remember of the layout of the land surrounding the cave behind the waterfall.”

It had been years.  “Not much.  I remember there was a path down to it that ran along and then crossed over a shallow stream.  You had to go up to get to the base of the fall and then the cave was behind it.  Well, one of the caves was behind it.  There’s more than one.”

“So the outlaws could be in any of them, you think?  If it was you, Adam, which cave would you choose to hide in?”

“The one with the fall, of course, since it masks the entrance – though it might not now with the drought.”

“So, if we find the stream, we’ll find the way in?”

He nodded.  “Yes.  It’s probably no more than ankle-deep now and mostly mud.”

Adam hesitated.  Mud.  Like what had coated Joe’s boots – the boots that had been on the dead man.

He shook himself.  No.  Don’t go there.

“Precisely.”  Napier Shaw looked up.  The moon was rising.  In a short time there would be light to travel by.  “May I suggest we conserve our energy for the moment and then seek the water way once there is enough light?”

Adam pulled another bit of jerky through his teeth.  “Sounds like a plan.”  He chewed thoughtfully for a moment and then said, “Inspector?

“Yes?”

“Before I lead you anywhere, I want your guarantee that rescuing my brother comes before stopping this man Gray.”

Shaw swallowed and then washed the jerky down with a bit of water from his canteen.  “I am afraid I can’t swear to that, though I will do everything in my power to see your brother is out of the way before I take matters in hand.”

“That’s not good enough,” Adam said.  “If we don’t get Joe out of there, these men will kill him.  They’ve promised that.”

“Adam, I have brothers of my own and I know what I would do to protect them.”  Shaw paused.  “But Gray and his men are responsible for over  half-a-dozen crimes, including murder.  What if one of those deaths had been your brother’s?  What if it was the Ponderosa that had been broken into and ransacked?  Would you not then be urging me to take Gray and stop him no matter what the cost to someone else?”

Adam was silent a moment.  “I would hope I would not.”

“If so, you are a better man than most.  Most men, in the end, are out for their own skins and care little about anyone else’s.”  Shaw shifted and leaned his head back again.  “I anticipate another fifteen minutes before the moon will be ripe and we can see where we are going.  If you would be so kind, wake me then.”

Seconds later his breathing evened and the inspector was asleep.

Adam couldn’t sleep and he knew it.  Still, he leaned his head back as well and closed his eyes seeking some kind of rest for what was to come.  Instead of sleep a vision came to mind – one from many years before.  He had no idea why it came so swiftly and with so little warning.  He was young and standing in the hall outside of his father’s room at the Ponderosa, only then it had been his Pa and Marie’s room.  Marie’s cooling body lay beyond the closed door, composed and at peace with her hands folded over her chest.  He could hear the preacher and his father talking downstairs in the great room, but he heard another voice as well.  A small one, talking and talking.  Joe and Hoss were supposed to be in bed.  Their father had put them down together that night, hoping to give Joe some comfort.  His little brother was so small he didn’t really understand what had happened, that Marie was dead and not asleep, and that his mother would never touch or hold him again. Still, he knew Joe had sensed something.  Most likely it was their father’s grief.  Walking down the hall he opened the door to Hoss’s room and peered in.

Joe was missing.

Returning to his parents’ room, Adam pressed his ear against the door and then opened it slowly to find Joe standing at the side of the bed.  His mother’s hand was in his small one.  As the door struck the wall Joe jumped and then turned toward him, exhibiting one of the most grief-stricken faces he had ever seen.  It was as if, in spite of his lack of years, his little brother did understand and he was not all right with it.

It was the face of a man who had made a vow.

Adam  gasped and started.  He shook himself, surprised that he had fallen asleep after all.  He ran a hand over his face and then reached for the canteen, noting as he did how badly his hand was shaking.  Cupping it, he filled it with cold water and splashed it in his face.

“Bad dreams?” the inspector asked, startling him as he stirred.

“More a memory than a dream,” Adam replied after taking a drink.  “Of my brother, when he was little.”

“An omen then, perhaps.”

Adam frowned, somewhat surprised to find that an urbane man like the inspector would believe in omens.

“Well, if it was,” he said as they both rose to their feet, “let’s hope it’s a good one.”

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

He had to escape.  He just had to.

It was sunset of the second day since he had been taken and Joe was outside the cave.  The men who held him untied him and took him out once early in the morning and again late at night to relieve himself.  Most of the time it was Tollivar Bates who accompanied him along with one other man.  When Bates took him out, he always left his hands and feet unbound as if daring him to make an escape attempt.  Joe had the distinct impression that Bates wanted him to try so he could kill him and that the Chief sent the second man along to make sure the brute didn’t succeed.  This time the leader of the outlaws was away so the bully had brought him out alone, and things weren’t looking too good as they made their way into the trees that butted up against the small stream the falls poured into.

So, he’d decided to take Bates on.

Joe glanced at Tollivar Bates who walked to the left of him.  The Englishman was big as an ox and twice as powerful, but he knew from experience that could be worked to his advantage.  He’d had plenty of practice with Hoss.  If he went at his middle brother like he did anyone his own size, he lose every time.  Hoss could whip him without breaking a sweat.  So he’d learned not to use a direct approach like taking a swing.  Instead he ducked and rolled to begin with, knocking his brother’s feet out from under him or, after letting himself be hit, struck from a position on the ground.  After that he’d bolt faster than a jack rabbit and then come back in.  In other words he had learned to use his small size as an advantage against big men.  He’d had to.  Being one of the smallest boys at school had made him a target of bullies like Tollie Bates and John C. Reagan.  It had shamed him so much that Adam and Hoss had to do his fighting for him in the beginning, that he had worked to hone his own skills to the place where he could take care of himself – and he could take care of himself.

In a fair fight, that was.

Joe fought back a shudder.  Of course, the skills he’d learned had done him no good against John C. Reagan, but then again he’d told himself over and over that what happened with Reagan wasn’t a fair fight.  The former prizefighter hadn’t given him a chance.  He’d struck him without warning so hard on the back of the head that he hadn’t been able to do anything to defend himself or to stop the beating he had taken.

Looking at Bates again Joe decided there was no way he was going to allow that to happen again.

“Far enough, Cartwright,” the Englishman growled as they came to the edge of a tree line.  “Do your business.  You got two minutes.  If you ain’t headin’ out in one and a half, I’ll come in and get you.”  A slow sneer spread across Tollivar Bates pugnacious face as he pinned him with his beady eyes.  “All I gotta tell the Chief is that you tried to escape, pretty boy.”

Joe’s plan, simple and stupid as it was, was to goad Bates into trying to kill him.

“What makes you think a big dumb ox like you could catch me if I decided to run?  I’m twice as fast and twenty times smarter than you,” Joe boasted as he took a step toward the trees.  “Not to mention better looking.  I bet your mama took one look at you when you came out between her legs and wanted to throw you back!”

“You shut your mouth, Cartwright.”

“What if I don’t feel like shutting it?” he countered.  “What if I feel like telling everyone that you’re the dumbest thing I ever met and the ugliest to boot?”

Bates took a step toward him, his fists clenching and unclenching.  “Then I’ll shut it for you.”

Joe flashed him his most maddening smile.  “You gotta catch me first!”

With that, he began to run.  He knew where he was heading.  He’d scouted it out the other times the outlaws had brought him out to relieve himself.  There was a thick patch of trees not too far off, grown so tightly together Bates wouldn’t be able to get his bulk through them without really working at it.  That should slow the big man down enough to give him time to reach a rock fall some two hundred or so feet on.  He’d wiggle through one of the small openings in the rocks and then get into a position where he had the upper hand, so that by the time Bates rounded the rocks he could jump and hit him with his full weight and knock the wind out of him.

Then he’d pound him until he couldn’t stand.

Joe faltered just a second as he ran, troubled again by becoming what he loathed.  Then, with a glance back at the human locomotive barreling toward him, he put on an extra burst of speed and entered the trees.  Even he had to turn sideways from time to time to make it through.  Bursting out of the other side he made a beeline for the rocks, knowing he had to reach them before Bates cleared the trees because if he didn’t the man would have time to catch up to him and then –

Well then, it would all be over.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Adam preceded the inspector since he had some idea of where they were going. They had found the shallow stream and walked beside it now, drawing ever closer to the waterfall.  Once they had the cave opening in sight they would hunker down and wait and hope against hope that Joe was led out at some point.  If not – if the morning came and went and still no Joe – then they would be forced to take another tack as the arrival of the package with its forgeries at the Ponderosa would change the game entirely.

As they rounded a bend Adam reached out and caught the other man’s arm.  With a finger to his lips, he urged Shaw to silence.  Then he pointed.  There was a single gunman standing just in front of a moderate fall of water.  He was looking to the southeast as if expecting someone’s return.

It was Shaw’s turn to tap his shoulder.  The Englishman gestured to the right with a nod and then tapped his ear.  Adam listened.  Yes, he could hear it, someone was moving through the trees – someone who was making little effort to conceal where they were.

Puzzled, he frowned the question at Shaw.  Who?

Shaw shook his head.  Then he indicated with a gesture of it that they should split and approach the area from opposite sides.  Adam nodded and went left while the inspector went right.  Soon the Englishman was cut off from view.  With the waterfall on his right, Adam headed into the trees, passing quickly through a stand of young tightly spaced pines.  During his approach he heard voices.  That slowed him down as he had no idea what he would be up against when he came out on the other side of the pile of rocks that was blocking his view.  As he drew close there was a sudden cry such as a man makes when he’s been shot – sharp and disbelieving – only this one was prolonged.  It hung on the air chilling him.

Then the woods went silent.

Panting hard, Adam rounded the boulders.  He was stunned by what he found.  His brother Joe was standing over the battered body of a man at least twice his size.  Joe’s hands were clenched in fists, his knuckles raw and bleeding.  On his face were the marks of a battle hard won – a split lip, blackened eyes, and a bloody nose.  From the gash above the eye that John C. Reagan’s fist had opened a month before – the one that had threatened Joe’s sight – fresh blood flowed.

“Joe,” he called, moving forward with his hand outstretched.  “Joe, it’s me, Adam.  Joe!”

It took a moment before his baby brother blinked and looked at him.  A grin spread across the battlefield of his face.

“Hey, big brother,” Joe said.

Then he fell to the ground.

As Adam darted forward he saw Shaw break through the trees on the other side.  The Englishman made it to Joe first.  He knelt and pressed two fingers against the base of his brother’s throat.  A quick nod from the lawman told him Joe was alive.  Still, from the look of him there could be internal injuries.  The man his brother was laying half-scrawled across was broader and taller than Hoss and looked like he had been cast in iron.  As Shaw moved away, Adam assumed his place.  Kneeling, he took hold of Joe’s unconscious form and gently pulled him off the other man.  Neither made a sound.  Adam hesitated a moment, but then took time to secure the big man’s hands and feet in case he came around.  He gagged him as well with a dirty strip torn from his bloody shirt.

Then he turned his attentions to Joe.

His brother roused a bit when he touched him, moaning and then, inexplicably smiling.  “I got him…Adam,” he said, his voice quiet and without strength.  “I got…Reagan….”

Adam glanced at the other man.  It was definitely not John C. Reagan.  “Joe, what happened?  How’d you get away?”

Even as he asked it an alarum went up.  A shot was fired off and shouts rang out.  A second later the Inspector’s form shot out of the trees.  “They saw me.  A half dozen men will be on their way momentarily.”

Adam glanced at Joe.  Since he had no idea what damage had been done during the fight he hated to move him, but –

Reading his thoughts Shaw said, his voice tense, “You have no choice!  Pick him up now!  We must fly!”

“Where?”

“Anywhere but here! Come on!”

Shaw halted briefly, waiting until he had picked Joe up, and then began to run again.  The inspector chose the direction away from the Ponderosa as he would have done, as it was the one in which the outlaws would least expect them to fly.  Fortunately it put them on the path to the Caldwell’s homestead.  The family had left the area years before, but the cabin should still be there and it might be their one hope of shelter.

A short time later as they paused for him to catch his breath, Adam told the other man, “At the edge of the trees, we need to veer…to the left at a forty-five degree angle…and keep running.  We should run into a cabin…about ten minutes down the road.  If we can make it there…we can hold them off.”

Shaw abruptly halted.  “You go ahead.  I’ll lay down some fire.”

Adam didn’t argue.  He caught his brother’s arms and legs in a fierce hold and ran for all he was worth.  Behind him he heard both Shaw’s shots and returning gunfire.  Some ten or twelve minutes later, he breathed a sigh of relief as the Caldwell’s cabin came into view.  From the look of it, it was abandoned.  At least he hoped it was.  If not, the current occupants were about to be rudely awakened and thrust into a nightmare not of their choosing.

Still holding Joe and looking over his shoulder, Adam pounded on the door with his free hand.  When no one answered, he backed up and kicked it in.  The smell of dust and emptiness struck his nostrils as the wooden door swung inward.  Passing through he dropped Joe as carefully as the situation allowed on top of an old unused bed in a back room and then returned to the door.  There were one or two more pops and then the gunfire ceased.  Adam drew his gun and waited for Shaw’s figure to come flying down the lane outside.

Ten minutes later he was waiting still.

Adam closed the door and dropped the bar in place.  Then he leaned his head on it and sighed.  Several heartbeats later, having gathered a little strength, he returned to his brother’s side.  Sitting on the edge of the bed Adam examined him as best he could.  When he touched Joe’s lower body his brother moaned but didn’t jump.  That changed when he came to his right side.  Joe gasped and rolled in pain.  Cracked or broken ribs then.  Not a surprise considering the ox he had taken on.  The man had probably been freed by the other outlaws now and would be out for his brother’s blood.  Any bully that size bested by someone like Joe would have to kill him to prove he was still a man.  In spite of the wreck his brother was, Adam permitted himself a small satisfied smile.

“You’re right.  You got him, Joe,” he murmured.

Abruptly, there was a knock at the door.  Adam rose wearily and crossed over to it.  “Inspector Shaw, is that you?”

“It’s me, Adam,” the answer came.

“Hold on.”

Adam lifted the bar and stepped back. Then he opened the door.  Even as he did and he caught sight of what and who was outside, he tried to slam it shut again.  The man was too fast.  It only took a second for the battered brute to burst through the door, take hold of him, and pin him against the wall.  Adam began to black out from the choke hold.

“That’s quite enough, Tollivar.  Release him!” a sharp voice ordered.

The world was spinning, but it began to slow when the fingers left his neck.  Weak in the knees Adam caught the back of one of the dining chairs and looked up to see who it was that had spoken.

Inspector Napier Shaw stood framed in the open doorway, two steps behind the bully his brother had fought and two steps in front of several other men holding guns.  It took a second for Adam’s mind to accept what it was seeing.

“Inspector?” he asked, dumbstruck.

“I told you, Adam,” the Englishman said, “most men are out to save their own skins.”

 

 

ELEVEN

Adam winced as he heard Joe cry out.

He was sitting in a rough wooden chair by the Caldwell’s abandoned dining table with his back to the room Joe occupied, his hands and feet bound.  Shaw had sent one of the gunmen in to bind Joe as well and he imagined they were doing it none too gently.  At least the corrupt lawman had the sense not to send Tollivar Bates.  There had been a heated exchange of words between the two and the smaller of the pair had triumphed.  Apparently, since he was now a hostage, Bates wanted to kill Joe, arguing that they didn’t need him anymore.  Shaw reminded him that live hostages meant jail time while dead ones meant the noose and ordered the bully to guard the door.  Bates was there now, gun in hand, staring out the window and talking to himself.

Since he had been taken Adam had spent his time listening, even as he was listening now.  Outside the Caldwell’s cabin the light was rising.  Shaw and the others had conversed low and long into the night and then caught a few hours sleep before starting in again an hour or so before as the day dawned.  From what he overheard he now believed Shaw was not the man he claimed to be.  At first he thought the English inspector had turned coat for some reason.  Now, it seemed, this man – whoever he was –  had taken the inspector’s place.  Adam didn’t know if the man sent from the Yard was alive or dead, but from what he had heard he thought it was the latter.  These men were after Malcolm Gray, just like the real Shaw was, only for personal and not professional reasons.

Adam shifted.  After six or more hours in the chair, his back hurt and he was seeking to ease the tension in the muscles.  Tollivar Bates shot him a warning look.  As there was little he could do right now other than put the man on edge, he answered it with a tight smile.  Tollie, as Shaw called him, rose to the bait and came over and leaned in, shoving his ugly puss right up next to his.

“You got a problem, Cartwright?” he demanded.

“Yes.”

That took him aback.  “What?”

Adam drew a breath.  “You stink.  There’s a creek out there close by.  Why don’t you go jump in it – oh, and you might slip and fall while you’re there and break your neck and do the world some good.”

Wait for it….

Tollie Bates raised a hand and struck him so hard across the face the sound rang from the cabin walls like a church bell.  As he waited for his head to clear, Adam thought.  ‘Good.  Good.  Take some of that hate out on me.  Maybe then you’ll leave Joe alone.’

“I’m gonna kill you, mate,” Tollie growled, reaching for his throat.

“Bates!  Back off!”  The man who pretended to be Shaw ordered.

The brute whirled.  “Why should I?”

Adam heard the click of a trigger being cocked.  “Number one, because I say so.”  The man with the wolfish eyes said as he entered the main room.  “And, number two, because you are stupid enough not to realize he is baiting you.  Now go outside.  Relieve Pete and send him back to Gray.”

“I still say you’re stupid for keepin’ these two alive.”

“And I say you are stupid.  Period.”  He waved the gun.  “You are already a detriment to my campaign, Bates.   Don’t give me a reason.”

Bates snarled and snapped like a rabid wolf, but he did what he was told.  As the door closed behind him, the man he knew as Inspector Shaw turned toward Adam.

“You are a brilliant man, Mister Cartwright.”

He frowned.  “Thank you for the compliment.  I think.”

The other man eased one of the chairs out from under the table and sat on it.   “I knew when I met you that it would not take long for you to realize there was something more going on than what had been related.  It’s why I asked for you to join me.  Your father – intelligent as he is – has a less suspicious nature.”

Adam’s smile was tight. “That’s Pa.”

“And your younger  brother, I believe.”

“How is Joe?”

The fake Shaw glanced toward the bedroom.  “As any man would be after being imprudent enough to try to stop a locomotive single-handedly.”  He shook his head.  “The young fool.  We would have brought him out of there in one piece.”

“Since I imagine it’s your intention – in spite of what you told the lummox you just sent out the door – to kill both of us before this is over, I don’t really understand, Inspector, why you care.”

Shaw looked genuinely surprised.  “Why would you think that I intend to kill you?”

“Because we’ve seen you.”

“And what have you seen?  Your brother beaten?  Even if you had seen it happen – and if that was a crime, I had no part in it.”

“Well,” Adam hesitated and then went on, “what about the death of the real Inspector Shaw?”

“Ah, well.  That is a problem.”  It was the Englishman’s turn to frown.  “So you deduced I am not he, eh?  I had nothing to do with that either.  Bates was supposed to take Shaw and put him some place safe.  He made another choice.”  The man shook his head.  “If your brother hadn’t come nosing around that night, neither of you would be in danger.”

“Who?”  His gaze shot to the back room.  “Joe?”

His captor nodded.

Adam shook his head.  “Joe hasn’t been out at night for weeks.  None of us have.”

The other man shifted in his chair.  “I beg to differ.  Though I did not see him, Bates and several of my men did.  The boy had to have been with Inspector Shaw.  They were not together when Bates accosted Shaw, but your brother was spotted leaving the area shortly before the inspector was killed.  Bates assumed your brother was in hiding and saw him commit the murder.  That’s why Tollie stupidly tried to kill him the day he found him mending the fences.”

Adam was stunned.  “Is my brother involved with Malcolm Gray?”

“I have no idea.  Malcolm Gray is what I said he is – a sick man intent on causing trouble for the British crown.  Whether or not your brother is involved with Gray – well, that’s something you will have to ask him when he comes around.”

“And who are you?” Adam asked quietly.

The pretender to Shaw replied, “A concerned party.”

“Concerned about what – or who?” he demanded.  “Beyond your own skin, that is.”

The man let out a slow sigh.  “Regardless of what I said before, there are things that transcend a man’s need to take care of his own skin.”  His eyes darted to the back room again.  “Family is one.”

Family?

The other man stood.  “I will be taking Bates with me today and leaving another of my men to guard you and your brother.  The wisest thing for you to do, Adam, is to sit back and relax.  If all goes well my associate will intercept the package on its way to your house and bring it to me before Gray gets wind of its impending delivery.  If not, we will have to take both it and Malcolm as he attempts to steal it.  In either case, we will be gone before sundown and it will be as if all of this never happened.”  The pretender headed for the door.  “Once we are safe, I will send word to your father that you and your brother are here.  I am sure he will retrieve you post haste.”

“What if Joe needs a doctor now?”

The man hesitated with his hand on the door latch.  He answered without looking at him.  “I regret leaving you for the amount of time that is necessary.  Your brother is badly hurt.  We will have to hope his constitution is up to the challenge.”

“I thought you didn’t hold with murder,” Adam said without hesitation.

The other man turned to look at him.  “It is my hope that, one day, Mister Cartwright, you will understand.  Now, this is goodbye.  In time, perhaps, you will not think so harshly of me.”

With that the man who had claimed to be Napier Shaw was gone.

Adam leaned back in his chair.  He could hear the pretender’s voice outside the door giving instructions to the man he was leaving behind to guard them.  He seemed a different sort from the others – troubled and in trouble, in a way. What was he doing mixed up with the likes of Tollivar Bates and involved in murder and kidnapping?   And how was he connected to Malcolm Gray?

Adam twisted again to look back the way Joe lay.  He knew he would gladly give his own life to see his little brother safe and well.

What was it the false Shaw had said?

Family?

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Ben Cartwright opened his eyes slowly.  As the dawning light entered them, he blinked and tried to remember where he was.  The strong scent of bacon frying brought him back to himself and he remembered he had checked in on Hoss and then returned to the chair in front of the fireplace to read for a bit in an attempt to force his mind off of Joe and Adam and to allow his body to sleep.

Apparently it had worked.

Taking the book from his lap, he laid it on the table and then rose to his feet and stretched.  At that same moment Hop Sing appeared from the kitchen.

“Coffee, Mister Ben?” he asked.

The silver-haired man nodded.  “Yes.  Thank you, Hop Sing.”

“You sleep well?”

The older man smiled.  “As well as one can sleep in a chair.”

“Mister Ben should have gone to bed.  Not young anymore.”

He laughed.  “Thank you for reminding me.”

“That what Hop Sing for,” the Chinese man answered with a smile.  “He go get coffee now.”  He had gone about three steps when he turned back.  “Any word from Mister Adam?”

Ben shook his head. “No, nor from Shaw either.  But then, it is just morning.  I’m sure we’ll hear soon.”

“Maybe find Little Joe.  Have him with them when they come.”

“Let’s hope so.”

As his cook headed back to the kitchen, Ben crossed to the front door and opened it.  Stepping outside, he greeted the new day with the kind of trepidation a father feels when he has no idea where his child is – like the time Joe had climbed Eagle’s Nest when he had been a little boy.  He could remember the empty pit in the stomach feeling he had then, the sense of powerlessness – the fear.

It was no different now that they were men.

“Mister Ben?”

He turned to find Hop Sing had brought the coffee to him.  He accepted it with gratitude.  After taking a sip and complimenting the Chinese man, Ben said, “You didn’t know what you were taking on when you accepted the position here, did you?”

“Beg pardon?”

Ben’s laugh was gentle.  “The advertisement was for a cook.  That’s hardly what you are.”

“Hop Sing no understand, Mister Ben.  I cook.  I cook good.”

“And you care, Hop Sing.  How deeply you care.”  Ben placed the cup and saucer on the outdoor table and then laid his hand on the Chinese man’s shoulder.  “How many times have you stood here with me, waiting for one of the boys to come home?  How many times have you worried with me over them during sickness, or tended one of them with a wound, gunshot or otherwise?  I don’t stop often enough to say ‘thank you’.”

The Chinese man looked stricken.  “You no fair, Mister Ben.”

“Not fair?  How?”

“You make Hop Sing cry,” he said, ducking his head.  “I go check on Mister Hoss.  Okay?”

Ben squeezed his shoulder.  “Okay.  But Hop Sing – know I mean it when I say you are one of the family.”

Hop Sing ducked his dark head.  “Hop Sing know, Mister Ben,” he said softly, “and he loves all the Cartwrights too.”

A second later he was gone.

Ben was still standing there, outside the house, reflecting on life when he noticed a cloud of dust rising beyond the stable and heard the sound of a horse’s hooves striking the hard baked earth.  A moment later a rider appeared.  As he drew near Ben recognized him as the man who had tended Hoss in the field – Luke Miller, one of Roy Coffee’s men.

As Luke reined in his mount Ben went to meet him.  “Luke,” he said, “are you alone?”

The man nodded.  “Roy went out last night to check on a man who was found wandering along the road to Virginia City.  The Sheriff hasn’t returned yet.”

“Any word on Adam or Joe?”

Luke shook his head.  “Nothing.”

“Then what brings you here?”

Luke fished in the leather pouch attached to his saddle and drew out a small packet approximately twelve inches high and a little more than a foot wide.  “This came by way of the early stage from New York.  Roy left word someone was to bring it to you the moment it arrived, and that you were to be sure to see Inspector Shaw got it.”

Ben accepted the package with the hesitation of a man reaching for a rattler.  Even though the items it contained were false, the promise of what it held might cost him the lives of two of his sons.  “I’d say ‘thank you’, Luke, but I wouldn’t be sincere if I did,” Ben groused.  “Does anyone know you brought it out?”

He shrugged.  “I was careful, but there’s no knowing if someone was watching.  I can stay and be an extra gun, if you’d like, just in case.”

“No, you’d better go back to town.  Once the inspector and Adam return, we’ll have plenty of gun power.”

Luke was surprised.  “They’re gone?”

He nodded.  “They left last night to find my other son, hoping to free Joe before this arrived.”

“But you’ve not heard anything?”

“No.”

“So who do you have here?  Hoss can’t be up and about yet.”

“Hoss?  No.  I’m afraid at the moment there’s just Hop Sing and me.”  As Luke started to protest, Ben held up a hand to stop him.  “I’ll send him out for some of the men.  We have dozens.  There’s no need for you to stay.”

“Mister Cartwright, I’m a man of the West too, though I may look like a city slicker.”  Luke smiled.  “I know the code – a man looks after his own.  However, don’t you think it might be wise for me to take over tending your injured son so you and whoever else are free to do exactly that?”

“I don’t want to impose – ”

“You’re not,” the other man said as he swung his leg over and dismounted.  “Roy said it was all right if I stayed.  I’ve been wondering about my ‘patient’ anyhow.  It felt good to do some doctoring again, so you’ll actually be doing me a favor.”

“What made you leave medicine?”

Luke shrugged.  “Wanderlust.  I wanted to see the West.”  He sobered some.  “Well, I’ve seen it, and mostly what I’ve seen is that I am needed more as a doctor than as a ranch hand or lawman.”

“We can certainly use skilled men,” Ben agreed.  “All right, but if it comes to fighting, you let us do our own.”

The other man laughed.  “You’ll get no argument here.  I can hold a gun and I can shoot, but I prefer to heal.”

As Luke headed into the house, Ben looked at the package in his hands and then turned toward the north.  Joe and Adam were out there somewhere, hopefully together and headed home.  But if they weren’t – if something had gone wrong and Joe was still in Malcolm Gray’s hands – then the bundle he held might be the only hope his son had.  Napier Shaw knew it was due today and had indicated he meant to return in time to deal with any consequences resulting from its delivery.

He could only pray he was a man of his word.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

The man known as Napier Shaw crouched in the trees just outside Malcolm Gray’s hiding place.  Since leaving Adam Cartwright he, along with Bates and several others, had been watching the entry of the cave for a sign of the tall lean blond man.  From what he had learned, the parcel they were waiting for should arrive on the overnight or early morning stage and would soon be in Ben Cartwright’s hands.  In fact, it might already have arrived.  If that was the case, whoever Malcolm had watching the Ponderosa would arrive soon to tell him the news.  Obsessed as he was, it was a certainty the blond man would hastily form a party and head for the ranch.  It was his hope to intercept him before he got there.  He was sure once he met with Malcolm face to face that he could get him to listen to reason.  It pained him that he had been forced to bind Adam Cartwright, and even more so that he had had to leave Adam’s brother behind when he was so badly injured.  He had known the minute he met Ben Cartwright’s eldest son that it wouldn’t take the black-haired man long to figure out he was not the real Inspector Shaw and to make a mess of everything by interfering at the wrong time and in the wrong place.  So much hinged on everything happening on his agenda and no one else’s.

So much.

Shifting his weight, the man with the wolfish eyes let his gaze wander to his companions.  They’d been waiting in the woods and had put on quite a show as he and Adam fled.  Other than Tollivar Bates, they weren’t bad men.  The others that he had managed to woo away from Malcolm’s band were decent enough sorts who had gotten in trouble with the law once upon a time and now found it nearly impossible to make an honest living.  One night when he was meeting with a pair of them Bates had gotten nosy and followed.  The brute of an Englishman had barged in on their negotiations and then, of his own will – and for a handsome fee –become a part of the plan.  Bate’s muscle was needed, he admitted, but Tollie was a loose cannon – as his actions toward the Cartwright boy showed.  He had hoped to do this without any violence or killing.  After all, that’s why he was doing it, to prevent just such things from happening.  Unfortunately, Tollivar Bates had taken matters into his own hands and now, well….

Now, if they didn’t make it out of the country, they’d all hang.

“Gus,” a voice called from nearby.

Turning his head, he looked where Pete pointed.  The man known as Napier Shaw, whose real name was Angus but whose men called him Gus, recognized the man making his way hastily through the woods toward the cave behind the waterfall.  He belonged to Malcolm and was moving like a man with a mission.

The package must have arrived.

He had a good spot picked for the ambush.  It was about halfway back to the Ponderosa.  The place was surrounded by rock and had an easy way in and an almost impossible way out.  Gray’s men would have to travel single-file through it.  It was his intention to take Malcolm as he emerged.  Then, when he had him alone, he would make him a proposition.  Since Ben Cartwright had no idea he was not who he said he was, all he had to do was walk into the Ponderosa and the older man would hand him the package with the letter and crown and they could be on their way.  Of course, there was another reason he had to intercept the package – he knew what it contained was not real.  If Malcolm’s man Gordon got hold of it, it would all be over.

Looking back toward the cave, Angus noticed more activity at its mouth.  Gray had emerged at last.  He had his horse’s reins in his hand and was leading it down the short hill.  Once at the bottom Malcolm would mount and head straight for the Ponderosa.

Whispering an ancient prayer to every deity – pagan and God-fearing – that his family had ever called on, the man with the wolfish eyes prepared to move.  He signaled Tolliver Bates and the men who crouched beside him that it was time and together, they rode out.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Adam was still seated and still tied up.  The man who had been set to watch him had positioned himself on the opposite side of the table.  His gun was in his hand and he was asleep.  Adam had actually nodded off briefly himself before slept until something – he didn’t know what – had awakened him only a few moments before.  Disgusted as he was by the momentary weakness, the black-haired man actually did feel refreshed – which was probably a good thing considering all that might yet lay ahead.  From the look of the sunlight slanting through the cabin windows, he figured it must be near noon.  Adam winced as he straightened his spine.  He had been sitting in the chair half-slumped and the pain he incurred in doing so was just short of excruciating – which was also good.

It kept him sharp.

Then it came again.  The sound that had awakened him.  He glanced at his guard who seemed not to have heard it and then closed his eyes and fought a wave of despair.

It was Joe.  His brother was calling his name.

Quickly he assessed his situation.  Both his hands and feet were bound tightly with cords to the wooden chair that had been left behind by the Caldwells years before.  His hands were strapped to the chair back and his feet to the wooden  prop beneath.  He could feel the wood give when he wiggled.  All of the furniture in the cabin was old and dry.  It wouldn’t take much to break it – probably just flinging himself or it onto the floor – but, and it was a big ‘but’, that kind of action would make a big noise and it would wake the guard and then he would be no better off than he was now.  In fact, it might make matters worse if the guard became angry that he tried to escape and took it out on Joe, who was completely helpless.

So, what to do?

Adam thought a moment longer.  Then he shifted the chair a bit so he could bump the table with one pinioned arm.  The wooden top made contact with the guard and startled him awake.

Instantly the pistol was pointed at him.  “What are you tryin’ to do?” the man demanded.

Adam’s look was all innocence. “Sorry.  I must have fallen asleep and hit the table.”

“Right….”

“No.  Really.  I mean, what hope do I have of escaping?”  He pulled against the ropes.  “I’m not going anywhere.”

At that moment Joe called again.  The sound was so pitiful it stabbed him like a knife.

The other man was on his feet in a second.  “What’s he doing?”

“Waking up, I would imagine.”  Adam paused.  “You know, you should probably make sure he keeps quiet.  People pass this way all the time.  Someone might hear him.”

The man’s eyebrows shot up.  “You think I’m stupid or something?  That’s exactly what you’d want, so why are you tellin’ me?  You want to get me in that room for some reason?”

Adam shook his head.  “No.”

The man pinned him with a hostile stare.  “So…maybe you’re tryin’ to get me not to go in there.  Is that it?”

Joe cried out again – louder this time.

“That’s not it,” he said – too quickly.

The man’s fingers tightened on his gun.  “Hey, you!  Back there.  Be quiet!”

Joe’s response to the voice was even louder than before.

“You shut up, or I’ll shut you up!” the outlaw yelled, growing angry.

That was the only downside to his plan.  If the guard made it to Joe, he was liable to silence him – maybe permanently.

Adam drew a breath.  One more time, Joe.  Just one more time….

“Adam?  Adam, where are you?” his brother called out, lost, desperate.  “Adam?”

Each time his name was spoken, the guard had taken a step toward the other room.  One.  Two.  Three.  He was almost directly opposite his chair now.  Another step.  Four.  One more.

Just one more….

Adam pressed his feet against the floor boards as the man moved past.  Shoving hard, he slammed sideways into the outlaw, sending him sprawling and his gun flying.  When he hit the floor, the rotten chair splintered freeing his hands – but not his feet.  Scrambling desperately, Adam crawled over Shaw’s man, pinning him down with his body, reaching, reaching – reaching out to catch the weapon with his fingers. They had just locked on the handle when the man laying below him punched him in the stomach.  Gasping, Adam rolled over and off of the man who rose quickly to his feet.

Only to find himself staring down the barrel of his own gun.

“Now,” Adam huffed, taking very precise aim, “you will untie my feet and take me to my brother.”

 

 

TWELVE

It was mid to late afternoon and neither Adam nor Inspector Shaw had made an appearance.  Just after noon Shaw’s assistant Braddock Wells had come downstairs and told him he was going out to look for them.  Wells had invited him along, but Ben decided in the end that it was best if he stayed put.  Now that the much sought after package was in the house it could do nothing but draw trouble and, while he trusted Luke and knew Hop Sing could fight if called upon, he thought it best not to leave the would-be doctor and cook alone.

He was in Hoss’ room now.  He had been watching his son sleep up until a few moments before when his middle boy had wakened and asked for water.  After giving it to him, Ben sat back down and, in spite of Luke’s protests that he not tire his patient, filled Hoss in on what was happening.  He knew his sons.  If one of them was missing, the others would not rest until they knew all they could about it.

In spite of everything he said Hoss, of course, felt responsible for everything that had happened.

“Dag burn, it, Pa!” he said, his voice weaker than usual.  “I should ‘a knowed better than to let Joe talk me into crossin’ that field.  Sometimes he’s as loco as buck in spring.”

“There’s no point in looking back, son.  What’s done is done.”

“I know.  But I sure feel bad about it.  And now Adam’s out there too.”  His son winced as he shifted his large form and grasped the blanket that covered him as if he would toss it off and rise.  “You gotta let me outta bed, Pa.  I need to go find them.”

“You will do no such thing,” Ben said sternly.  “I had a hard enough time convincing Luke just to let me fill you in.  You try to get out of this bed and you’ll be an exile from everything until you’re healed.”

Hoss smiled.  “He’s gonna make a heck of a doctor one of these days, ain’t he, Pa?”

Ben glanced toward the hall where he knew Sheriff Coffee’s deputy waited.  “Yes.  Which is why you need to listen to what he says.”

His son scowled.  “Luke said it’d be okay for me to go downstairs and sit this evening.  Cain’t we just hurry it up a mite?  Leastwise, if’n I was downstairs, I’d feel like I was doin’ somethin’.”

“I don’t know….”

“It’s true, Mister Cartwright,” Luke said as he slipped into the room.  “I did tell Hoss he could go downstairs around supper time.”

Hoss smacked his lips.  “I been smellin’ that cookin’ of Hop Sing’s all day, Pa, and I am powerful hungry.”

“That’s a good sign, isn’t it?” Ben asked the young man.

“An appetite always is,” Luke said, smiling.  “Why don’t you let me check Hoss’s bandage again and, if there is no bleeding, I will free him from that exile you threatened.”

Ben stepped back to allow Roy’s man to take his place.  He waited while Luke checked the bandage and when he received an affirmative nod said, “I’ll go prepare a place by the fire.”

It could have been no more than fifteen minutes when Ben looked up to find Hoss coming down the stairs.  His son was leaning on Luke, who looked like he could use some help.  Though the would-be doctor was nearly six foot tall, he was a thin man and obviously bending under Hoss’s greater weight and need.

Ben joined them as they reached the landing and lent a hand.  They had Hoss situated in one of the red chairs within five minutes.  Once his son’s feet were propped up on a large ottoman and he had a blanket tucked around him, Luke excused himself and stepped outside for a bit of fresh air.

Ben took a seat opposite his son in the other red chair and asked, “Everything feel good?”

“Yeah, Pa, it sure does.  Thanks,” his son said, meaning it.  “I was mighty tired of looking at those four walls.”

“It’s good to have you here where you belong, son,” he replied.

Hoss’s blue eyes went to the empty settee.  “Still no word from Adam?”

“No.”  The silver-haired man glanced at the window.  The sun was beginning to drop toward the horizon.  “I’m growing concerned.  The Inspector, at least, should have returned long before this.  I –”

Unexpectedly, the front door flew open.  Luke stuck his head in and said, “Mister Cartwright, you need to come out here.”

Hoss was ready to jump to his feet.  “What is it, Luke?”

“You stay put, son,” Ben ordered as he rose and headed for the door.  “I’ll fill you in as soon as I know what’s happening.”  When he came abreast the other man he asked, “Luke?”

“Yes?”

He nodded toward his son.  “Keep him there.”

Luke glanced at Hoss and then at himself.  He shrugged.  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

As they crossed paths, Ben stepped outside.  He was surprised to find Roy Coffee seated on his horse. Next to him, on a separate animal, was a stranger.  The man was thin, in his late thirties or  early forties, with muddy brown hair and a ruddy complexion.  He wore an elegant if simple suit and a Derby Bowler hat and looked as if he had been ill-used.  There was a nasty bruise on the man’s chin and a partially healed cut above his left eye.  His coloring was off and he appeared weak.  As Ben watched, he swayed in the saddle.

His friend, Roy Coffee, didn’t look much better.  While Roy was not injured, but the older man looked sick.

“Roy?  Is something wrong?” he asked as he drew alongside them.

The sheriff shook his head slowly.  “I don’t know how I can tell you this, Ben, but I brought a viper into your nest.  Maybe two.”

Ben frowned.  “A viper?  What do you mean?”  He looked again at the other man sitting next to Roy.  “Who is this?”

Before Roy could answer, the man spoke.  “Permit me,” he said, his accent distinctively British.  “My name is Braddock Wells.”

“Braddock Wells?”  He turned his astonishment on Roy.  “From the Metropolitan police force?”

“It’s him, Ben.  The men I brought out to you, well, they were imposters.  I come here to arrest them and take them in.  If you’ll just –”

“They’re not here, Roy. Either of them.”

It was the sheriff’s turn to be surprised.  “Not here?  Then where are they?”

The sinking feeling returned – that pit of the stomach fear of a father.  “Shaw took off with Adam before daybreak, in search of Joe.  Braddock went after them.”

“Good God!”

From behind him, Ben heard Luke call.  He turned to find the would-be doctor standing in the doorway.  “Mister Cartwright, it’s about all I can do to keep your son in his chair,” Luke said.  “Could you move the discussion inside?”

Braddock Wells winced and took a deep breath and then slid gingerly from his saddle.  Once he had his footing, he walked toward him.  It was evident from the way the sergeant moved that there were bruises that did not show, most likely from a severe beating.  Reaching into his pocket, he produced a pack of papers.  “My credentials, sir.”

As he looked them over, Ben realized that though the man who identified himself as Inspector Shaw had offered his papers, the false Wells never had.  Maybe because the real one still had them.

After a moment the sergeant from the Yard said, “Mister Cartwright, I believe it is best to go inside as your man suggested.  Should these unprincipled men return unexpectedly and see me, they will know the game is up.  As it is, they think I am dead.  It would be best for all involved if we kept it that way.”

Ben nodded.  “After you, Sergeant.”

It didn’t take long for them to get situated.  He and Roy sat on the settee opposite Hoss while Luke took the chair next to him.  Braddock Wells did not sit but paced as he began to relate his tale.

“Part of what you were told is true, Mister Cartwright.  After all, a portion of the truth is always the best lie.  Inspector Shaw and I did arrive in New York a few weeks back and, after securing the assistance of your government, set about laying a trap for Malcolm Gray.  We knew Gray was after the Landgravine crown and the letter of provenance.  Permission was granted to send it to you as you were recommended as a man of honor and complete trust.  We were to arrive before the packet and to explain the entire matter to you.  If you balked, we had discretion to put a halt to the entire plan, or alter it in any way necessary.  We were also expressly ordered not to put you or your sons in any direct danger.”  Braddock Wells sighed.  “I regret deeply that this has happened.”

Ben remained silent a moment, contemplating how quickly things could go wrong.  “What about Joseph?  Do you really suspect him of being involved with this man, Gray?”

“When one chases criminals for a living, Mister Cartwright, one learns to look for patterns.  There is an established pattern with Malcolm Gray, one that could be repeated here, of a single man raising boys, the youngest of which would be the most likely susceptible to Gray’s idealistic insanity.”  He paused and an odd look entered his eyes.  “He is your son.  Do you think it is possible?”

The older man frowned.  Did he think Joe was involved?  No.  But anything was possible.

The silence was pregnant with meaning.

“I see,” Braddock said.  A moment later the Englishman wavered.  Even as Luke rose to offer support, he waved him off.  Taking a seat, the sergeant began to speak again.  “The Inspector and I arrived in Virginia City Tuesday last.  We were at the hotel the night you ate there with your sons, though at the time we had no idea it was you.  In fact, ours was the table your youngest son bumped into when he so hastily fled the room.  With our preparations complete, we followed two of Gray’s known associates out of the hotel that night and into the woods.  Their names were Peyton Rule and Rafe Wrenat.”

“Them’s the men that attacked me, Pa,” Hoss said, speaking for the first time.

Braddock nodded.  “A most despicable pair.  You are fortunate they left you alive.”  Returning to his tale the Englishman continued.  “As I said before, our intent was to contact you before the arrival of the package and inform you of everything.”  The sergeant sighed.  “Unfortunately, we were set upon in the woods before we made it to the lair.”

“By Rule and Wrenat?” Ben asked.

“No.  By Malcolm Gray’s brother and his men.”

Ben blinked.  “What?  Gray’s brother?”

“This is where the tale twists, Mister Cartwright, and where your young son enters in.  That is, if he is indeed the man we saw.”

“Joe?  You’re saying you met him that night?  Tuesday night?”

“Or early Wednesday morning.”

“That’s impossible, Pa,” Hoss said.  “Joe ain’t been out at night for weeks. Neither have Adam or I.”

Braddock thought a moment.  “Do you have a likeness of your son, Mister Cartwright?  Though I saw him that night at the hotel, the image in my mind is not clear.”

Yes, he did.  It had been taken the next day.  Rising, Ben went to his desk to retrieve the ferrotype from its place beside the images of his three deceased wives.  As he handed it to Braddock, he said, “Joseph is the youngest.  I am sure you can see by this that you are mistaken.”

The Englishman stared hard at the portrait.  At last he said with a sigh, “I am afraid I am not.  This is the young man I saw.”

“It can’t be.”

Braddock set the likeness down on the table.  “It is.  We encountered him deep in the woods.  It appeared he had been wandering for some time.  His clothing was disheveled and, curiously enough, he was bootless.  We thought it odd at the time as was his behavior.  We spoke to him, but I cannot say that he answered in return.  When he did speak it seemed to have nothing to do with what we had asked.”  Braddock Wells paused. “Is your son afflicted, Mister Cartwright?”

“If you mean is Joe simple or mentally impaired in some way, the answer is no.”

Wells shook his head.  “Odd.”

“What’d Joe say, Sergeant?” Hoss asked.  “I mean, if it was Joe.”

“He appeared to be searching for someone.  We asked him who but received no firm answer.  Napier had just decided to take him into custody when we were discovered.”

“Discovered?”

“A shout went up from Gray’s men.  The inspector indicated we should split and take opposite paths.  Napier took the boy in hand and disappeared with him into the trees.”  The sergeant sighed. “That was the last time I saw my friend.  Shortly after that I was accosted by a large brute and left for dead.”

Roy Coffee had remained by the door, listening.  He stepped forward at last. “One of my men found Braddock this morning, half-dead in a gully, Ben.  A settler took him in the night before and tended him.  When he remembered who he was, he went looking for the law but was too weak to make it to Virginia City.  Soon as he told me his story I brought him out here to you.”

Ben nodded.  Hard as it was to believe, it seemed he was being forced to admit that somehow Joe was mixed up in all of this.  “What about my son?  Did you see anything more of him?”

The Englishman shook his head.  “Sadly, no.  I understand he is with Malcolm Gray now, either by force or will.”

“In this country a man is innocent until proven guilty, Sergeant, not the other way around.”

“An ideology borrowed from Great Britain,” Wells countered.  “Do not misunderstand me, I offer no condemnation, Mister Cartwright.  I am only interested in the truth.”

That, at least, was some comfort.

“About this other man – Angus Gray?  What part does he play in this?”

“The Grays are landed gentry and as such accounted by some as nobility in England.  The family is respected and a few have the Queen’s ear.  Angus served as a clerk at the Yard up until a short time ago, which is why he was so competent at impersonating Napier.  Angus and Malcolm are brothers, with Angus being older by some two or three years.  It is our belief that he followed his younger brother to American to put a stop to Malcolm’s mad schemes.  Angus is a good man.  He is not a criminal, though the company he is keeping is likely to turn him into one.”

“I see.”

“I certainly hope you do, Mister Cartwright.  The crux of the matter is that the package both Grays seek is now in your possession along with the object it contains.  May I ask if it is in a safe place?”

Ben glanced toward his desk. “It’s in my safe.”

“Good.”  Braddock shifted as if to ease a pain in his back.  “Malcolm Gray in his madness believes what is in that package will make him King of England.  Angus knows better.  We believe the elder Gray has hopes of intercepting it and returning its contents to the rightful owner without involving the law.  Angus is a bit naive, but well-intentioned.   His only concern is for the brother he loves.  Unfortunately, Malcolm regards his older brother as an enemy and so Angus has had to take a rather roundabout route to save him, including hiring a band of thieves and a mountain of muscle to accomplish his goals.”  Braddock paused.  “Have you heard of Tollivar Bates?”

“No.”

“Count yourself among the lucky.  Bates has a much checkered past.  He has long been associated with crime and is known for employing his considerable skills as a pugilist to extract information from, and make his enemies pay.  As I said, he was working for Malcolm Gray, but Angus wooed him with the promise of a large sum of money once the crown and his wayward brother were in his hands.  Inspector Shaw believed Bates has been playing one brother against the other with the intention of coming out on top.”    The sergeant paused.  “It is Bates who nearly killed me after I split away from Napier and your son.”

Ben still couldn’t figure out how the man the lawmen saw could have been Joe, who should have been in his bed asleep.  “You never saw either of them after that?”

“No.  I knew little until this morning when my memory returned.  It is my belief, Mister Cartwright, that Napier is dead, killed by Tollivar Bates either on the order of Angus Gray or on his own, and that Angus assumed Shaw’s identity before coming here to you with the intent of intercepting the package.  One of his other associates must have posed as me.”

“He did a very good job,” Ben said with chagrin.

“You had no way of knowing either was false, nor did you, Sheriff,” Braddock said, addressing Roy.

“Doesn’t make a man feel any less of a fool,” Roy replied.

“No, it doesn’t,” Ben agreed.  He drew a breath and then asked the sergeant, “So where do we go from here?”

“Both Grays are going to come for that package.  I believe  upon his return that Angus will try to convince you to give it to him.  If we have to choose the lesser of two evils, that would be Angus.  If he genuinely wants to save his brother – which I believe he does – Angus may be willing to work with us.  If he is, then he may be the lynch pin that allows us not only to put an end to Malcolm’s mad crusade, but to rescue your son as well.”

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

An hour later Sheriff Coffee was gone, returned to Virginia City at the request of Sergeant Wells whose authority allowed him to demand that the entire matter be left in the hands of the Metropolitan police.  There was need, he said, to preserve the integrity of the investigation.  Braddock Wells was asleep in the guest bedroom, attempting to regain some of his strength but also remaining on guard should either one of the Grays show up in strength to take the package.  Hoss had asked to come outside and the two of them were sitting together in silence, contemplating all that they had seen and heard over the last few hours.  Most likely it would not be long before they were be thrust into the next part of the drama they had become unwilling players in, one with high stakes including the fate of his oldest and youngest sons.

“Pa?”

Ben turned to look at his son.  Hoss’ color was much better and his voice stronger than it had been before.

“What is it, son?”

Hoss was silent a moment.  “You really think this Braddock fella saw Joe that night, out there in the woods?”

“I don’t think the sergeant is lying, son, though he could be mistaken.”

“Even after looking at that there likeness we had taken?  Ain’t too many men look like Joe.”

Ben nodded. “I have to admit it’s not likely.”

Hoss remained silent for several heartbeats.  “You know, Pa?  Somehow, I think all of this has got to do with those boots of Joe’s that went missin’.”

His son’s words  startled him.  He had forgotten about the boots – the ones Adam found on the dead man that were now upstairs in Joe’s room.  He should have told Sergeant Braddock about them.  Should have, but wouldn’t, not until he understood.  At the moment the presence of those boots condemned his son.

“Pa?  What are you thinkin’?”

“There are mysteries wrapped in mysteries here, son,” the silver haired man said as he rose to his feet.  “Was it really your brother that Braddock and Shaw saw deep in the woods?  And if so, why and how was Joe there?  Why did he remove his boots in the first place and how did they end up on another man’s feet?  Do the answers to those questions have anything to do with everything that has happened?  Or is it all just coincidence?  I am afraid we won’t know until we can talk to Joe himself….”  His voice trailed off, his fear evident even to himself.

“Adam’s with him, Pa.  Joe will be all right.  You’ll see.  Adam won’t let nothin’ happen to him.”

Ben nodded.

Unless something happened to Adam.

 

 

THIRTEEN

It had been a hard choice.

Adam glanced at his brother where he lay curled on the ground beside him with his tan jacket tossed over him for warmth.  Joe’s brown head showed at the top, the mass of curls grown dull, their luster leeched by pain and the pounding he had taken at the hands of Tollivar Bates.  He had thought long and hard before leaving the Caldwell’s cabin – thought about the possibility of internal injuries and about the fact that his brother could barely walk, about the fact that they would be on foot while everyone else was mounted and the very real possibility that he was taking Joe into the middle of a fight between two uncompromising factions bent on the same objective.  In the end, he decided – for Joe’s sake – that they had to move.  His brother was hurting badly but more than that, they were vulnerable at the Caldwell place.  Bates knew where they were and, even though the bully was supposed to be with Angus Gray, there was no promise that he wouldn’t double back and try to take his revenge.  Also, there was a pressing need to get to the Ponderosa.  His father needed to know about the truth about the phony Inspector Shaw before he handed the package over to the wrong man.

It had been his intention to press straight through even if it meant carrying Joe on his back.  He’d taken time to bind his brother’s ribs as best he could before starting out.  Joe had been awake while he had done it, if confused.  He’d tried to talk to him, to find out how he had gotten mixed up in all of this, but in the end had given up.  Joe seemed just as much in the dark about it as he was.  He insisted he had no idea how his boots had ended up on the dead man and he believed him.  His youngest brother could be stubborn, ornery, cocky, and just plain wrong, but he wasn’t a liar.  Once he had Joe’s ribs secured, he had helped him up and the two of them had begun the long, hard walk back to the ranch.  They had to remain off the road for fear of being spotted and had also been forced to go around the clearing instead of through it, which made their progress even slower.  Joe wore out quickly.  They’d stopped a few times before for several minutes to allow him to gather strength.  Each time Adam had to insist they move on.

The last time Joe’s strength had given out.

It had been about an hour since they’d stopped.  Adam thought a moment more and then reached out and ruffled his brother’s unruly hair.

“Joe.  Joe.  Wake up.”  When he received no answer he shook him gently.  “Joe?”

This time, to his relief, he was rewarded with a moan.

“Joe, we have a decision to make.”

It took a moment, but his brother’s green eyes opened.  “Adam?”

“It’s me.  We’re on the road.  Do you remember?”

Joe’s gaze was without focus, which caused him to worry.  “Mmm…”  His brother licked his lips and swallowed before replying.  “I think so.”

Adam hesitated.  “I don’t think you can go on.  Actually, I don’t know if you should go on.”

Joe winced as he shifted and then curled up tighter.  “Just leave me here then….”

It was what he was considering doing, much as it pained him.

Adam looked toward the south.  They were almost on their own land.  The fence Joe had been mending was maybe another half hour ahead.  If he could get his brother there, he could hide him in the midst of the rocks that had been tumbled over the dead man’s grave and then come back for him as soon as possible.  As he was, Joe was a risk to both their lives.  His whole attention had to be on his brother, which was preventing him from doing anything to help their father.  He needed to reach the ranch to warn his Pa and Hoss that they were soon to be caught between the two men who wanted that package and that one of them was not who he said he was.  In order to do that, he needed to cut across country and to move like lightning.  If the man pretending to be Inspector Shaw had it his way, the whole thing could be over in a matter of minutes with no gunfire or loss of life.  But life seldom happened on the decent man’s schedule.  There was still Malcolm Gray – and Tollivar Bates – neither of whom he trusted.  Given half the chance they would rob the Ponderosa blind and leave everyone there dead.

Much as it went against his nature, he was going to have to trust and leave Joe in God’s hands.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in God – he wouldn’t have been his Pa’s son if he hadn’t – but he believed God helped the man who helped himself.  He wasn’t one for a prayer and a promise.  Not normally.

Today, he would have to be.

Reaching out, Adam pulled the jacket down that covered the upper portion of his brother’s slight form.  Joe’s position – curled up tight like he was expecting a blow – renewed all the fury he had felt when he had stood in the saloon holding his father back, looking at John C. Reagan and knowing the brute had just beaten his little brother to within an inch of his life and didn’t give a damn whether Joe lived or died.  His jaw tight, Adam took his brother’s hand in his own and made a vow.

No matter how long it took, Tollivar Bates would pay for what he had done.

At his touch Joe wakened again.

“Time to move on, brother,” Adam said gently as he slipped his arm under him.

“No….”

“Just a little farther, Joe, and then you can rest.  Now, come on.  Help me!”

His brother moved in response to the command tone as he knew he would.  Catching him around the waist Adam drew Joe to his feet and then waited while he found his balance.  After a moment his brother’s battered face lit with a shadow of its usual ornery grin.

“I sure did a number on that old Tollivar, didn’t I?”

While keeping a sound grip on him, Adam bent to retrieve his tan jacket.  “You sure did.”

“Bet he ain’t gonna do that to anyone else ever again.”

“No, he won’t,” Adam replied as they began to move, his jaw tight.

They walked a few minutes in silence before Joe spoke again.  “I wish I knew about my boots,” he sighed.

“It doesn’t matter.  You lost them, someone else found them, that’s all.”

“You think maybe I gave them to him?  The dead man, I mean?”

“I don’t know, Joe.  Like I said, it doesn’t matter,” Adam said as he steered his brother over an exposed root.  “All that matters is getting you to a place of safety.  Everything else will sort itself out in the end.”

Joe’s head fell forward in a weak imitation of a nod.  “I guess you’re right.”

Adam forced a grin.  “Of course, I’m right.  I’m oldest.”

His little brother laughed at that.  Then he gripped his side.  “It hurts, Adam.”

“Serves you right.  What were you thinking, taking on a big ox like Bates?”

Joe snorted.  “Guess I wasn’t.”

“What?”

“Thinking.”

Again they traveled in silence as Joe’s concentration narrowed to placing one foot in front of the other and continuing to move.  This time for fifteen minutes or more.  Up ahead, Adam could see the high rock wall that indicated the place where Joe had found the dead man’s body and all of this, seemingly, had begun.  By the time they reached it his brother was nearly dead on his feet.

Easing him down, Adam propped Joe against the rocks not far from where he had reburied the body of the man who had been wearing his boots. He cast about then and found the perfect place to conceal him.  It was behind the boulders that he had used the horse to move earlier.  There was a little dip in the land that was mostly covered by a bower of branches that almost touched the ground.   Since night was falling, it should render Joe nearly invisible.

If he stayed put, that was.

Half-lifting his brother, Adam steered him toward the spot he had chosen.  He laid him on the ground and pulled the heavy jacket over him again.  The black-haired man stared at his brother’s slight form for a moment and then reached out and shook his shoulder.  It took a moment, but finally he roused him.

“Joe?”

“Mmm?”

“You have to promise me that you will stay put.  You hear me?  Don’t move from here until I get back.”

Joe’s upper lip twitched.  “Got it, sarge….”

Adam rolled his eyes.  With any luck he would be unconscious soon and stay that way until morning.  “I mean it, Joe.”

His brother’s brown head moved up and down a few times and then fell still as his breathing evened and he passed into a natural sleep.

The black-haired man rocked back on his feet.  By now either Angus or Malcolm Gray or both could be over halfway to the Ponderosa.  Still, from what the man pretending to be Napier Shaw had said, he thought they might not be.  Angus had indicated he intended to meet with Malcolm Gray and that it was his hope to stop the madman from an outright attack on the ranch.  If that was the case and he cut across country on foot, there was a slim chance he would make it to the ranch house before either of them did.

Before he left Adam placed his gun in Joe’s hand.  He’d checked it and there was only one bullet remaining, but that was one chance his brother would have if something went wrong.  A second later he reached out and touched his brother’s head.  Then he rose and sprinted into the woods.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

A half an hour later, or maybe a little more, Joe Cartwright sat up.  His eyes were open but the landscape they looked on was not the one before him.  His brown head struck the bower of leaves as he rose with his brother’s gun in his hand and moved with unnatural ease out of the nest of safety Adam had created.  Unerringly, as if he could see in the dark – and heedless of his brother’s warning – Joe began to walk along the road, heading for the one constant in his life he knew whether awake or asleep.

Home.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Adam halted.  He placed his hands on his thighs and leaned forward and breathed deeply – not too quickly, but deeply – drawing great amounts of air into his lungs.

He was nearly spent.

When he thought about it, he hadn’t slept more than an hour or two in several days and his food consumption had been practically nil.  He’d had some jerky in his pocket, but he’d left that in the jacket he covered Joe with and so he’d had to make do with some squirrel and cow fodder he’d found along the way.

At the moment he thought if he could have caught a whiff of Hop Sing’s cooking, it would have borne him all the way to the Ponderosa.

From what he could tell, he was more than halfway there with maybe an hour to go.  Unfortunately, his pace was slowing.  Still, even if he arrived too late to stop whatever was going to happen from happening, at least he would be another hand to put a end to it.  So far he had pretty much succeeded at putting Joe out of his mind.  But the closer he drew to the house – and the closer he came to having to tell his Pa that he had made a conscious choice to leave his little brother behind and completely vulnerable – the more heavily the decision wore on him.  What if Joe didn’t stay put like he told him?  What if Malcolm Gray or worse, Tollivar Bates stumbled on him?

The only thing he could do was push on as hard as he was able and get home as fast as he could.  With a horse, he could come back for Joe in less than half the time.

As he straightened up, a twinge in his back made him wince.  Adam put a hand to it and stretched.  As he did, he heard a familiar sound.

That of a gun’s trigger being cocked.

“Put your hands over your head, Mister Cartwright.”

Adam thought he knew the voice.  As he complied, he said, “I take it things didn’t go as expected, Inspector?”

A moment later the man who had posed as Napier Shaw appeared before him.  From the looks of him he’d had a run-in with the same force of nature as Joe.  Angus’ face was blackened on one side from the brow to the jaw line and there were purple bruises in the shape of fingers on the exposed portion of his neck.

“I take it Tollivar Bates switched sides?”

Angus shrugged.  “I doubt he was ever on anyone’s side but his own.”

“What happened?  Where are your men?”

“With Malcolm.”  Angus shook his head.  “Whoever said the oldest is the wisest was a fool.”

“So Malcolm is your brother?”  He’d guessed as much.

“Yes.”  The other man paused.  “I think you know how it is, looking out for the youngest, hoping and praying that they live long enough to be a man.  I…I thought I could reason with him, stop him.  I was wrong.”

“You’re wrong again as long as you hold that gun on me.”

Angus’ smile was wary.  “Without it I doubt you would listen to what I have to say.”

“You’re probably right, since I know you to be associated with thieves and murderers.”

The man’s jaw tightened.  “I deserve that.”

“Well, we agree on one thing then.”

Angus Gray looked at the gun and then lowered it and placed it in the holster on his hip.

“So what happened?” Adam asked.

“When Malcolm came to America in search of the Landgravine Crown, he brought Tollie Bates with him.  In my brother’s madness he thought of Bates as a kind of…warrior knight.  As he was no such thing, I thought he had no loyalty to Malcolm and that I could buy him off to work within my brother’s organization for me.  Here, all along, Bates was just using me.  He had no intention of betraying my brother – at least not so I could stop him.  Malcolm promised him twice the money I had if he would string me along and inform him of my intentions.  So today, when we executed the plan and caught Malcolm coming out of the passage, my brother knew I was waiting.  Malcolm did the talking before he turned Bates loose on me for betraying the cause of the family.”  Angus held his jaw with his fingers and shifted it.  When he spoke, it was with painful defeat.  “My brother is quite mad.”

“How did you get away?” Adam asked, his tone skeptical.

“So you think this is a double double-cross?  Would that I was that smart,” Angus snorted.  “In the end Malcolm stopped Bates before he could finish me off.  I was laying there, nearly unconscious, when a foot shoved me over the edge of an embankment.”  His dark head shook.  “I don’t know if it was Malcolm or Bates.  Either way, one of them hoped I would split my skull when I hit the ground.  When I woke at the bottom, I began to walk.  I was headed for the Ponderosa.  I saw you, just now, and decided to make contact.”  Angus Gray glanced around.  “Where’s your brother?  You didn’t leave him at the cabin, did you?”

Adam shook his head. “Joe’s safe.”

The other man was visibly relieved.

“So what now?” he asked.

Angus drew a breath.  “You have no reason to trust me, but I would like to help to stop my brother.”

“What if it means Malcolm has to die?  Can I trust you to back me up if it comes to that?”

He thought a moment.  “Honestly?  I’m not sure.  I’ll know the answer to that question when and if  it comes.  And I’ll pray that it doesn’t.”

Adam thought of Joe.  What if he discovered that his brother had indeed taken sides with Malcolm Gray and that by his actions he had put them all in danger?  Could he look at Joe and pull the trigger ending his life – or would he do everything in his power to avoid it, to save his little brother and to give him another chance?

He nodded and then stepped forward and offered his hand.  “That’s good enough for me.”  As Angus took it, he asked, “Feel up to an invigorating run?”

“I took firsts in running at Cambridge, Mister Cartwright.  We’ll see if you can keep up.”

“Adam,” he said.

Angus’ ice blue eyes narrowed with gratitude.  “Adam.”

“Now come on, we have two kingdoms to save.”

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Malcolm Gray was not a happy man.  At the moment when it looked like his destiny was about to be fulfilled, he had been betrayed on so many sides. First Tollivar Bates had failed him when he let the Cartwright boy escape.  Then he found out that half of his men had been playing both sides against the middle.  And now – now his own brother had betrayed him, playing Mordred to his Arthur in an attempt to snatch his crown.  Angus, of course, had protested that he had no interest in the throne, but he knew better.  Whichever male Gray possessed that crown and the letter that went with it, possessed what it took to unseat Britain’s current half-German ruler and restore the right succession to a true son of Scotland.  It had felt good to watch Tollie Bates break him – Angus who was so sure of himself and who always knew better.  Angus who played the lord of the manor and was always telling him what to do.

Angus who had once been his greatest friend.

Malcolm sat on his horse now on a low rise overlooking the spread that was the Ponderosa ranch, waiting for the return of his men.  They had left the lair while the sun was still in the sky and it had sunk below the horizon as they arrived, bringing the darkness they would need to mount their attack.  Upon their arrival his scouts had spotted mounted men moving out from the ranch house in an ever-widening circle, as if they searched for something or someone.  One of them said he caught the glint of a tin badge on the vest of an older man who seemed to be in charge.  He had quickly dispersed a portion of his men to head into the trees and show themselves and draw the lawmen off.  He and Bates and the three they had with them, including Rule and Wrenat, would be more than enough to retrieve the package.

His intelligence told him there were only four men in the ranch house – an older one with white hair,  two younger ones – one of which was injured – and a Chinese cook.  It would have been easier if the Cartwright boy had not escaped.  Still, it was possible the old man in the house didn’t know he had, so he was going to play that hand at least until he knew he had to fold it.  Even so, he had to admit that planning and executing a raid on the ranch house was not only more exciting, but definitely more in keeping with the character of what would be expected from a man soon to be king than making an exchange.  As soon as it was completely dark he would move on the ranch house and take what was rightfully his.  If the Cartwrights played their cards right – if they acknowledged him king and offered him the obeisance  he deserved – he might let them live.

If not the war would begin here.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Adam’s side was hurting as much as his baby brother’s by the time he and Angus Gray reached the outskirts of the ranch.  They had just stopped to catch their breath when a noise drew his attention and he had ordered Angus into the underbrush.  After taking a moment to discern which direction the sound was coming from, Adam joined him and together they waited for whoever it was to appear.  It didn’t take long.  Adam recognized the man as the one Angus had left behind to watch him and Joe.  Apparently Malcolm Gray was fairly forgiving when it came to his ‘knights’ erring.  ‘Jacobs’, Angus mouthed, naming the man as he rode past, headed deeper into the woods and away from the ranch house.  They watched him go and were preparing to step out of the shadows when both of them heard it – another horse approaching.  This time the rider passed by at speed, as if chasing the other man.  Almost at the last moment Adam recognized him as a man he knew from Virginia City – a man Roy Coffee sometimes employed as a deputy.

Adam sighed.  It looked like Roy had set men to watch the house and that made him feel immensely better – though it concerned him that the man was going the wrong way.

“One of yours?” Angus asked quietly.

“No.  One of the sheriff’s.  Now come on.  The house is just across this field.”

It didn’t take them long to reach the first of the outbuildings and from there, to move on to the stable.  Approaching it from the back, Adam led them along the building’s side, making sure to keep down and hug the shadows.  As they came up behind a wall of hay set out to feed the horses, Angus caught his arm and pointed.

Silhouetted in the light that spilled out of the front door was the figure of a long lean man.  Backing him were four more, one of which – by his size and bulk – had to be Tollivar Bates.  Adam had a brief flash of his father’s startled face in the doorway and then the outlaws were in and the door slammed shut behind them.

They were too late.

 

 

FOURTEEN

Ben Cartwright raised his hands and backed up as five armed men advanced into the ranch house.  There had been a knock on the door and he had gone to answer it.  When he did, the man outside identified himself as Malcolm Gray and demanded entry.  As Gray took up a position near the striped settee, Ben’s gaze returned to the front door.  They were playing a dangerous game.  While Hoss and Luke were upstairs, Braddock Wells had concealed himself outside with several of Roy’s men.  The English sergeant only awaited a signal from him to make his move.   Unfortunately, he couldn’t give it until he was certain Adam had succeeded in freeing Joe, which meant allowing Gray to take up a position of power in the house.

He would have to play it close until he could discover the truth, and knew whether or not it was safe for Wells to act.

“What do you want?” Ben demanded.

Malcolm Gray’s eyes were busy taking in his surroundings, calculating the risks and devising stratagems.  “Only what’s mine,” he replied.

“This is my house.  I have nothing of yours.”

The lean blond man turned on him.  Gray’s eyes were the same pale shade of blue as his brother’s, but they were cold as a January morning.  “Well then, that’s where you and I differ, Mister Cartwright, because I have something of yours.  Something I imagine you would like back…intact.”

If only he knew whether the man was bluffing or in earnest.  “If you’ve harmed my son….”

“I haven’t harmed him,” Gray sneered.  “Now, Tollie, here, that’s another matter.  You taught the boy a lesson, didn’t you, Tollivar?”

The brute at the front window grunted but made no reply.

Was that sarcasm he had heard in Malcolm Gray’s tone?  “How do I know you have my son?  What proof do you offer?”

Gray shrugged.  “None.  You’ll have to take my word for that.”

“And why should I?” Ben bristled.

A slow smile spread across the madman’s lips.  “You can play it however you like, Cartwright, but if I do have your boy and I don’t walk away from this ranch with what I came for, his death is on your conscience not mine.  I told you what I would do and I’m a man of my word.  Can the same be said of you?”

“You’ll never get away with this.”

“You let me worry about that.”  Malcolm Gray signaled to two of the men standing beside him.  “Check upstairs, Rafe.  Peyton, you look back there.”  Gray indicated the walkway to the kitchen. “Find the other three.  Tollivar, you stay where you are.”

Bates turned into the room and growled his agreement and then stood there flexing his fingers into fists as if at any moment his contained anger would explode.  Ben noted the  skin on the bruiser’s knuckles was freshly bloodied.

Had Gray actually turned this monster loose on Joe?

The outlaw named Peyton returned shortly from the kitchen, shoving Hop Sing before him.  “This Chink here was the only one there.”

At that same moment the man Gray had called Rafe appeared at the top of the stair.  “There’s one wounded up here.  It’s the big one we shot in the field the other day.   There’s a doctor with him.”

Gray’s pale brows peaked.  He turned and looked at Ben.  “Another son, then?  And here we thought he was one of your hands.  We could have had two in hand.  They’re quite different, your boys, aren’t they?”

Ben didn’t dignify the question with an answer.

“Bring them both downstairs.”

“No!” Ben declared, moving forward.  “Hoss poses no threat to you – ”

A gun appeared in Gray’s hand, so quickly he didn’t see it happen.  “You’ll find when you are around me that sudden moves are bad for the health, Mister Cartwright.”  He waved the barrel of the gun toward the sofa.  “Why don’t you take a seat there with your cook.  Once we have you all settled, you can get the package for me.”  At his look, the madman added, “Oh, yes, I know it’s here.”  Malcolm Gray hesitated a moment and then walked over and stood directly before him, meeting him eye to eye.  “I want you to understand one thing, Ben Cartwright, I am here to take that package and if you refuse to give it to me, I will kill everyone in the house – before your eyes – and then I will take this place apart brick by brick until I find it, leaving you alive and with nothing.”

Wells had told him to put up a fight, but not to endanger anyone in the house by refusing to turn the counterfeit crown and letter over to this man.   The sergeant preferred that Gray be allowed to leave and that he – as the representative of Her Majesty’s law  – be allowed to capture him and his men when they were away from the Ponderosa.  Ben was to indicate by rubbing the back of his neck as he stepped out of the door that he knew Joe was out of danger, freeing Wells to act.

Ben seemed to think long and hard.  “That package was sent here in trust to me,” he replied at last.

The blond man cast a glance at the brute by the window.  “Is your integrity worth your son’s life?  If so, I’ll send Bates here out to tell him.”

Ben was about to reply, but as he opened the mouth a commotion on the stair commanded his attention.  The man Gray had named as Peyton was descending with Luke and Hoss in front of him.  His middle boy looked pale, but was moving on his own.

“Put them in the chairs,” Gray ordered, “and then bind their hands – all of them but old man Cartwright here.  He needs his hands free to work the combination on that safe.”

The older man exchanged glances with his son.  Hoss nodded, indicating he was all right.

At least he thought that was what his son indicated.  Hoss was still looking at him.  He rolled his eyes very deliberately toward the stair.  Ben looked, but there was nothing there.

“All right ,Cartwright.  Open the safe.”

“What makes you think I would give you the package before you offer me proof that my son is alive?  I care nothing about what’s in it, but I do care about my son and that package is the only insurance I have that I will ever see Joe alive again.”

Someone sneezed.  With a frown Ben turned and looked.  Hoss was wiggling his nose and sniffing.  “Sorry, Pa.  Must be that open window upstairs blowin’ in somethin’ mighty powerful.”

He caught the emphasis on ‘open window’.  The older man’s eyes flicked to Malcolm Gray.  It seemed he hadn’t.

“The last thing you need to do is take a chill, son.”  Ben swung back toward Gray, thinking furiously.  “The least you could do is let me toss the throw around his shoulders so I don’t lose two of my sons.”

“Don’t you worry about me, Pa – nor Joe neither.  We’re both going to be safe and sound.”

The way Hoss said it, he knew Joe was free.  Not how it had been done, but that it had happened.

The breath of relief Ben felt shuddered through him, but was tightly contained.

Malcolm Gray’s cold eyes went to Hoss and back, as if he suspected something but couldn’t put a finger on it.  “Open the safe, Cartwright,” he ordered, “or you will lose two of your sons.”

Ben pretended to hesitate.  He pursed his lips and then seemed to reluctantly give in.  “Very well.  I’ll get what you want and then you are to leave my house.  Is that understood?”

Gray waved the gun toward the safe.  “Shut up and get it.”

Ben crossed to the safe and knelt before it.  Everything stood at the moment on a knife’s edge.  He had five armed men in his home.  His son and their friend, Luke, were vulnerable.  Salvation was just beyond the door, but the door had to open for it to come in and someone could die before it did.  As the last of the tumblers clicked and fell into place and his fingers gripped the metal handle, his mind grappled for the answer to the puzzle of how he could make all of this come out all right.

Step one, he supposed, was to give Malcolm Gray the package with its counterfeit items and to see what he did.  As he stood with it in his hands and turned back toward the madman, Ben’s eyes went to Hoss again.  Step two was to trust his son and to act on the assumption that Joe was free.

“Here it is,” he said.

A change came over Gray as he looked at the package, wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with a heavy string.   The blond man became a bowstring pulled taut with the arrow in position and aimed for the heart.

“Open it,” he ordered.

Ben’s heart sank.  “What?  Now?  Shouldn’t you get away?”

“Open it.”  The point of Gray’s gun turned toward Hoss.  “Or I kill him.”

The silver haired man nodded.  He laid the package on the desk and began to work the string over one corner.  As he did, Gray spoke again, this time to the last man in their party, a man with auburn hair who stood watch by the dining room window.

“Gordon!  Over here.  Once Mister Cartwright has the package open, you take a look at it.  Tell me if it’s the real thing.”

Gray’s man came, but slowly, almost as if he regretted what he was doing.  Ben watched him closely, knowing that at any minute they might need allies – reluctant or not.

Gordon held out his hand.  “Give it to me, Mister Cartwright.”

As he did, Ben caught the man’s eye.  “I sure hope whatever is in this package is worth a young boy’s life,” he said quietly.

The outlaw’s jaw tightened but he didn’t respond.

“Take a seat, Cartwright,” Gray ordered tersely.  “By the fire.”

As he passed Hoss, his son indicated the stair again with his eyes.  ‘Adam,’ he mouthed wordlessly.

Ben didn’t look.  He just closed his eyes.

Now, if he could only keep anyone from dying in the crossfire.

The man Gray had called Gordon pulled a circular brass magnifier out of his pocket – the kind with three progressive lenses.   As he watched, he examined the crown with all three lenses and from every angle.  Then he closed the magnifier and looked up.

“It’s real,” Gordon said, saving untold lives in the lie.

Malcolm Gray’s reaction was to grow even quieter and colder.  “Bring it here, Dougall.”

Dougall Gordon threw a glance his way and then rose with the counterfeit crown in his hands. As he came close to Gray, he caught his foot on the rug in front of the tall case clock and the crown shot out of his hand.  Horrified, Malcolm Gray gasped and dropped his gun in an effort to catch it –

And all Hell broke loose.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Adam and Angus Gray were waiting, concealed in the upstairs hallway, on either side of the stair.  They had approached the house from the back.  Hoss’s window had been open, so they had chosen that one to enter by.  As they stepped into the room he had been grateful to find his brother and Luke there and that Hoss was doing well.  There was no time to tell Hoss much of anything, except that Joe was safe, before Gray’s man had come up the stairs to fetch them.  He and Angus had slipped into his own room and waited until the others had gone and then taken their places to either side of the head of the stairs to watch the drama unfold on the first floor.

Adam glanced at Angus.  The black-haired man was visibly shaken.  Apparently watching his brother in action was different from knowing what he planned to do.  With each threat uttered Angus grew more still and the look out of his eyes more determined.  He’d feared twice that the other man was going to dart down the steps and expose them, but Angus had held his ground.  He was looking at him now, anticipating the signal to act.  They had decided to wait until Malcolm had the package in his hands, knowing the fulfillment of the madman’s insane dreams would distract him and present their best opportunity to take him unawares.

It was happening now.

A man was approaching Malcolm Gray with the crown in his hands.  Adam’s fingers tightened on the grip of his pistol.  He was in the perfect position to take Malcolm out with one shot.  He had promised Angus that, unless someone was in direct threat, he would shoot not to kill but to lame.  Adam took aim and pulled the trigger.

Unexpectedly Gordon tripped, dropping the crown.  Malcolm Gray dove forward to catch it.

His shot missed.

Four things happened as Adam broke cover and dashed down the stairs – Hoss and Luke dove for cover, his father headed for his desk and the loaded gun he kept there, Gray’s men went for their guns and the front door burst open and an unknown man, along with not two but four others  – including Roy Coffee – burst into the room, weapons drawn.  Apparently it had been Roy’s men and not Gray’s who had done the chasing down.  Behind him he heard Angus call his brother’s name and watched as Malcolm swung about.  Seeing his brother acting on the side of his enemies, Gray dove for the pistol on the floor –

And went out in a blaze of gunfire fit for a rebel king.

In the end three men died – all Gray’s.  Both Rafe and Peyton paid for their past crimes.  Sadly, the man who had saved them, Dougall Gordon, did as well.  Adam found his pa kneeling beside him, hearing his last confession and telling him that he was a man who had died well.  Adam stood for a moment in silence and then his eyes shifted to the blond man who had caused so much pain.  Angus knelt beside his brother who was bleeding out.  Beside them both, in a pool of crimson, lay the hollow now forgotten crown.

Tollivar Bates and Gray’s other man stood by the door with five guns trained on them.

Adam blew out a sigh of relief.  “It’s over, Pa,” he said.

His father nodded as he rose.  “What a waste.”

“Adam, it sure is good to see you,” Hoss said.  He was rubbing his wrists, but seemed to be moving well.

“How are you?” Adam asked.

“Fit as a fiddle,” his brother replied, even though it was evident he was not.  “But it ain’t me I’m worried about.  Where’s Joe?”

“Yes, Adam.  Where is your brother?”

Adam looked at his father and mentally winced.  “I left him alone in the woods, Pa, about eight miles back.”

Their father’s dark eyes widened.  “What?”

“There wasn’t anything else to do.”  His gaze flicked to Bates, who was being led out the door.  “Joe was in bad shape.  He couldn’t keep up and I had to get here as quickly as I could.”

The older man’s form was rigid.  Each bitten off word held controlled anger.   “I’m asking you again, where is your brother?”

“I left Joe where I found him the other day, where he was mending the fence.  I hid him as well as I could and told him to stay put.”

“You told him to stay put.  Joseph?”

“I know, Pa, but he was practically unconscious.  Now that this is over, I’ll go get –”

“We’ll go get your brother.”  His father held up his hand.  “Not you, Hoss.  Luke, take him back to bed.”

“Ah, Pa, I’m….”  A look from their father changed the end of his brother’s sentence.  “…yes, sir.”

Roy and the others had moved out of the house and into the yard with the prisoners, so their way was clear.  As Adam walked to the door he said, “Joe was beaten badly by that man Bates.  I’m going to get a wagon so we can bring him – “

Gunfire derailed his train of thought.

Pistol drawn, Adam rushed out the door to find Roy’s men in chaos.  One of the deputies was down.  Several others were running past the stable.  Roy Coffee had one outlaw pinned against the side of the house while Gray’s remaining men – those who had been taken both in the house and out – were being ordered to the ground.  Adam looked at each man closely.  One was missing.

Tollivar Bates had escaped.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

As Adam and his father rode away from the ranch at a breakneck pace, he wondered if the folks in San Francisco had seen the fireworks go off when Roy Coffee tried to keep his pa and him from leaving.  The sheriff warned them that he had the area around the house cordoned off, that if they tried to break through one of his men might mistake them for outlaws and shoot them – that if they found Tollivar Bates and took the law into their own hands he would jail them both and throw away both sets of keys.

His Pa had, of course, ignored him.

In fact, it was just about all he could do to keep up with the older man as they rode north toward the spot where he left Joe.  Even with all the precautions he had taken, his own stomach was knotted and would remain so until he pushed back the branches and found his brother laying just where he had left him, safe and sound.  Adam kept telling himself there was nothing else he could have done and he knew it was true, but that made little difference when he thought about the chance he had taken.  Anyone could have stumbled across Joe lying there, practically defenseless.  The only consolation was that he didn’t have to worry about Bates.  Even though it appeared Bates had headed north, there was no way the bully could have outpaced them since he was on foot and they were mounted.

What it had taken him two hours to cover on foot, moving at top speed, took them little more than a half an hour.  As they pulled up to the still ramshackle fence Adam slid from his horse and began to run without bothering to tether Scout.  His father followed close behind him.  His heart racing, the black-haired man rounded the rocks and pushed back the branches and cursed.  His jacket was still laying on the ground, but Joe was gone.

“Damn!” he muttered as he crushed the tan fabric in his hands and then called out, “He’s not here, Pa!”

His father halted beside him.  The older man met his tentative gaze with no condemnation.  Instead he turned and shouted, “Joseph!  It’s your father!  Joseph!”

“Where do you suppose he would have gone, Pa?”

His father shook his head.  “Was Joe feverish when you left him?  Maybe he wandered off.”

“No.  There was no fever, though I suppose one could have come on.”  Adam frowned, thinking.  “Do you think he might have headed home?”

“I’m sure he did.  The question is, would Joe have known where home was?”  The older man braced his hands on his hips as his eyes surveyed trees surrounding them.  “We’ll have to split up.  Search the woods.”

Adam hesitated and then said, “In the shape he was in, he can’t have gone far.”

He’d seen the look in his father’s eyes many times before – from the nights spent at his little brothers’ bedsides when they were sick, to the days spent at his own side when he had taken a bullet for being bull-headed.

“Do you think Joe’s life was in danger?” the older man asked.

“I don’t think so.  The only visible damage was a split lip, bruised skin and a couple of broken ribs.  The trouble is, it’s like it was with John Reagan, Pa.  When a man’s been pounded with another man’s fists, there’s no knowing how badly he’s hurt on the inside.”  Adam paused.  “That’s part of why I didn’t want to move Joe anymore.”

His father’s hand fell on his shoulder.  “I understand, son.  You did what you thought you had to do.  It’s all a man – all any of us can do.”

“Thanks, Pa.”

He felt a little squeeze and his father lifted his hand.  Then the older man reached into his pocket and drew out a coin.  “Heads goes north.  Tails, to the south.  Call it.”

Adam sighed.  “Heads.”

His father flipped the coin, caught it, and then showed it to him.  “I’ll go north and west.  You head back to the house.  If you find Joe or a sign of him soon, fire off three rapid shots.  Since your brother was hurt, he’s likely not to have taken any precautions, so his trail should be easy to follow.”

Adam scowled.  Now there was a comforting thought.

 

 

FIFTEEN

Joe Cartwright was confused.

The last thing he remembered he had been traveling with Adam, putting one foot in front of the other and pressing toward home.  From the look of things, he was still headed in the right direction – at least the waxing moon was rising to his left – but his brother was nowhere in sight.  He’d called him and called him but there had been no reply, and he was beginning to worry that something might have happened to Adam.  He was also kind of worried about himself.  Night had fallen and the temperature was dropping.  He was cold, hurting, and his head was woozy.  All he wanted to do was find a warm place and lay down, which he knew from Doc Martin was a stupid thing for a man who’d taken blows to his head to do.  Much as he wanted to quit, he had to keep moving.  After all, home couldn’t be that far away.  He and Adam made it to the north pasture together.  He figured that he was a good two to three hours walk south of there now.  He recognized the area from when he was little.  The trees had suffered from a blight years before he was born and been left bent and twisted.

The problem was he couldn’t remember how he had gotten here.

Joe sighed.  He needed to sit down and think, even though thinking was about as taxing as walking.

Taking a seat on a round boulder he cast his mind back t o when he had hooked up with Adam.  The last thing he remembered before that was taking on Tollivar Bates.  The brute had come at him like a bull moose licking its lips, intent on tearing him apart.  The sight of the bruiser heading for him brought back everything – the confusion, the shame and guilt, the sense of helplessness – everything he had felt when John C. Reagan had brutalized him in that alley, and that caused something in him to churn and roil until it boiled over into an uncontrollable rage.  He’d gone for the man like he wanted to kill him.

Because he did want to kill him.

Once the rage subsided – when he found himself with his bloodied hands on Bate’s throat – he realized he didn’t feel triumphant but empty as if, as he had suspected, becoming what he hated took away a part of who he was.  For the first time since that day mending fences he ‘d wanted to numb himself with liquor.  As a result he had had to acknowledge that there was something driving him beside what Reagan had done – something deep.

He needed to find out what it was before he did something that got him or someone he loved killed.

Joe winced as he rose from his rocky seat.  He stood beside the boulder for a moment, breathing hard, and then began to limp toward the south.  There wasn’t a lot of strength left in him.  He just hoped it was enough to get him home.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Adam dismounted and knelt so he could read the signs on the ground better.  He thought he had identified Joe’s tracks about a half mile back, but wanted to make sure before he signaled his father.  The place he was in was familiar – he and his brothers had played here as boys – so it made sense Joe would have headed for it.  A blight had gone through the area some three decades before causing the trees to take on what appeared – to little boys with heads full of nonsense – terrible and wonderful shapes.  An old Indian had lived in the area at the time and he enjoyed spinning all kinds of tales about the trees coming to life and housing the spirits of men.  Once he and Hoss had taken Joe there near nightfall and pretended to leave him alone.  It had been fun for about five minutes, but then they had realized that their little brother was truly terrified.  That night they’d both ended up with tanned backsides and Joe had ended up sleeping in their father’s room.

The black-haired man rose to his feet.  Glancing at the trees, he sighed.  He hadn’t thought about it then.  Boys had different thoughts, of course, from men.  Joe would have been really vulnerable.  His mother had only been gone a few months.

They’d all suffered the same loss, of course – that of a mother.  He had never known his own.  As a child he had longed for her but, in a way, what a man never had he couldn’t really miss and his pa had been enough for him.  Hoss had been much the same until their pa married Marie.  Her loss had been hard for him, but his large brother had the largest heart of them all and, in a way, looking out for Joe had filled the void Marie’s death left.  Joe, well, Joe had been reared by his mother for nearly five years and most of the time it had been the two of them alone.  Adam took hold of his horse’s reins prior to mounting.  Sport wanted to nuzzle for a moment, so he let him.  As the horse’s warm breath caressed his cheek Adam closed his eyes and thought about his little brother and the loss he had suffered.  Once again the vision of Joe standing by his dead mother’s bed came to him.

Why?

Why did he keep thinking about Joe and Marie?  Was there something there, something  he had seen or something Joe had said?

Something deep no one knew but his brother?

Sport whinnied, drawing him out of his reverie.  Adam reached up to stroke his head.  “What is it, boy?  It is Joe?”  Moving a step away from the animal, Adam called out.  “Joe?  Are you there?  It’s Adam.  Joe?  Answer if you can hear me!”

There was a muffled sound off to his right.  Like someone in pain.

“Joe?”

Adam reached for his gun and then, remembering he had left it with Joe, headed empty-handed into the woods in the direction of the sound.  It had come from a clump of trees nearby with brush underneath them thick enough for an animal or a man to hide in.

“Joe, if that’s you, answer me!”

This time there was a word.

‘Help!’

Throwing caution to the wind, Adam darted forward.  He made it to the trees and pressed into the tall grasses, pushing them aside, seeking, hunting.  He found nothing.

Well, he ‘nothing’ until he spun around and came face to face with Tollivar Bates.  The Englishman snarled –

And then smashed his fist into his face.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Joe was working his way through the woods when he heard a sound that stopped him.  He recognized it because he’d been on the receiving end of it often enough.

It was the sound of a man being beaten.

He stood for a moment, wobbling, wondering what to do.  He knew he was in no shape to take anyone on in a fight.  He had a gun but he didn’t know if it was loaded and, even if it was, he wasn’t sure he could hold it steady enough to shoot.  He didn’t even have the energy to run.  As the sound of multiple blows landing on flesh echoed through the woods and resounded in his bones, fear urged him to turn his back and run away.

Somehow Joe knew, if he did, that would be it.  He would spend the rest of his life running.

Pulling the gun from behind his belt, Joe checked the chambers.  There was only one bullet, so he’d have to make it count.  As he walked through the trees he thought about the time his brothers had brought him here to prank him.  They’d wanted to scare him and they had.  Though the spirits of the dead men in the twisted trees he’d feared then weren’t real, the notion of being left all alone and helpless was.  It walked with him as he moved forward to face a real monster.

The sounds grew louder as he neared the battlefield.  Whoever the victim was, he was putting up quite a fight.  Joe gripped the gun, his knuckles white, as he advanced through the trees.  Above his head the moon had risen.  Fingers of a pale white light parted the trees to strike the ground.  Into one of these beams of light two figures stumbled.  One was slightly taller than the other, which was twice as wide.  Jaw tight, gun ready, Joe halted and watched as the two men fought.  The taller one was weakening.  He stumbled and the other man tackled him before he could rise.  The problem was, he had no way of knowing who was the attacker.  It could easily have been either of them.

He had no choice.  He had to go in closer.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Adam Cartwright stumbled back.  The longer he fought Tollivar Bates, the more he marveled that his little brother was alive.  Pound for pound and inch for inch he was a good match for the bully, even if the Englishman had more training and muscle.  Bates had to outweigh Joe by sixty pounds at the least.  As it was his lip was split and he was sure at least one rib was damaged.  The most aggravating injury, however, was the one he had taken to his leg when Bates had kicked him hard.  That was why he had gone done a moment before.  It had simply given out.  Rolling, he found his feet again and the two of them squared off.  Bates was breathing nearly as hard as he was.  He flattered himself for a moment, thinking it was from exhaustion.

It wasn’t.  It was with rage

“Bates,” he said, panting.  “Give it…up.  There’s no…point in this.”

“The point’s to stop you breathin’, mate,” the bully growled.  “You and yours ain’t caused me nothin’ but trouble.  I nearly killed that scrawny little pretty boy of a brother you have.  Now I am goin’ to kill you!”

“You’re a…small man, Bates, in spite of your size.”  Adam grinned and the pride he felt colored his words.  “Don’t forget… that ‘scrawny little pretty boy’ mopped…up the forest floor with you.”

Bates faltered just for a second.  “He went off his trolley,” the big man snarled.  “Like a raving lunatic.”

“I guess you…just know how to bring out…the best in a man.”

The look out of Bates’ eyes reminded him of the loco steer they had had a few years back.  The Englishman meant to kill him and would probably succeed.  As much as he hated to admit it, he was growing tired.  It was only a matter of time before he made a fatal mistake.

“Look, Bates, this is…getting us nowhere.  How about you…go your way and…I’ll go mine.”

“You’ll go to Hell!” the bully shouted as he lowered his head and charged like a bull.

Adam took the hit directly in the stomach and went down.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

It was Adam.

Dear God!  It was Adam.

Joe watched as Tollivar Bates rammed his brother in the stomach with his head, hard enough to drive Adam back several feet.  As Bates backed away Adam fell to his knees, stunned.  Joe saw the Englishman take a step back, as if assessing the situation, and then move in with his hands outstretched for the kill.

Keeping the gun close and hidden he moved forward.  “Bates!” Joe shouted as he stepped into one of the beams of light.  “Come on, Bates.  You don’t want Adam.  You want me!”

Adam had fallen forward and was balanced on one hand.  His brother looked at him, but he wasn’t sure he saw him – that was until Adam shouted, “Joe, no!”

Joe took another step.  “Come on, Bates.  You better kill me before I go back and tell everyone in Virginia City that I left you eating dirt.  You haven’t got anything else, Bates.  Once they know a skinny pretty boy licked you, you’ll be nothing.”

“You’ll be nothing,” the behemoth growled.  “Because you’ll be dead.”

Joe grinned that maddening grin – the one that made even him wonder sometimes if he wasn’t a little bit loco.

“Let’s see you try.”

Again, he heard Adam shout.  His brother tried to climb to his feet and then fell forward and remained still.  Joe held his ground as the massive mountain of muscle and murder barreled toward him.  He waited, waited…

At the last second, when he was sure he couldn’t miss, Joe lifted the gun and aimed for Bate’s heart.  He pulled the trigger about three seconds before the bruiser slammed into him.  The force carried both of them backward a good twenty feet.  When Joe landed, it was with Bates’ body on top of him.

He gasped, the wind driven out of him, and passed out.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Adam opened one eye and groaned.  For a second he couldn’t remember where he was.  Then it came back to him and he looked up.

“God!  Joe!”

Rising stiffly, feeling every punch he had taken, Adam looked for Joe.  What he found was a mountain of man with a pair of booted feet sticking out from under.  Holding his ribs, the black-haired man stumbled over to where his brother lay with Bates’ silent form on top of him.  It took just about everything that was left in him to shove Tollivar Bates corpse off of Joe.  After catching his breath, he leaned down and placed his ear on his brother’s chest.  Joe was white as a sheet but his heart was beating strongly.  Rocking back, he let out a sigh of relief.

“Hey…brother.”

Adam started and looked down.  “Joe.  Dear Lord, Joe, are you all right?”

His baby brother coughed and smiled weakly.  “It ain’t often I get to…rescue you…is it, big brother?”

He laughed.  “No.  No, it isn’t.”

Joe’s eyes closed.  It was several seconds before they opened again.  “Is Bates…dead?”

“Yes.  Quite.”

A shudder passed through Joe’s slight form, almost as if something had been let go.  “I beat him, Adam,” he said, his words growing slurred.  “I beat Reagan….”

Adam caught his brother’s hand in his own as Joe passed out and squeezed it.  “Yeah, Joe, you beat him.”

Rising gingerly, Adam crossed back over to where he had left his horse.  It took him a moment to find Sport, who had shied at the sound of the fight.  He removed his bed roll from the saddle and returned to Joe.  Taking the blanket from it, he spread it over his brother’s silent form.  Then he took hold of Tollivar Bates’ body and, with some difficulty, pulled the dead man away from him.  He had no tools to bury the dead man with, so he wedged the body between rocks and tossed branches and brush over it, hiding it as best he could.  After checking on Joe again, Adam went to his saddle and searched his saddlebags, hoping against hope that he had put a pot and coffee in there the last time he had packed.  God decided to be gracious and he found both.  Within a half hour he had a small fire going and coffee brewing.

The scent of both was healing.

Adam had just begun to examine his wounds when he heard Joe stir.  A moment later his brother sat straight up, not like a wounded man, but like a whole and hearty man who meant to rise.  Joe remained still a moment and then climbed to his feet and began to walk, his face turned slightly upward and his head cocked like someone hearkening to a voice.  Adam called him, but Joe didn’t respond.  Rising, he took a step after him and called again.  When his brother still didn’t stop, the black-haired man doused the fire with the coffee and set out after him.  It didn’t take him long to outpace him.  When he did, he halted just in front of Joe.  His brother nearly ran him over.  It was as if he hadn’t seen him.  Adam scowled.  He moved in front of Joe again and reached out to take hold of him.  Then it dawned on him what he was seeing and he stepped back.

Joe was sleepwalking.

Adam sighed.  Another memory.  Joe’ d walked in his sleep when he was a little boy – after his mother died.

It was as unnerving to watch now as it had been then.  Somehow, without being awake, his little brother managed to maneuver around trees and to miss roots and branches.  Joe walked in a beeline for a few minutes and then stopped abruptly.  He hung his head and then – then – he sat down and took off his boots!  Joe set them aside and began to walk again.  Adam palmed them as he walked by, trailing after him.

If only he could know what was going on in Joe’s head.

He had been fascinated by sleepwalking after he had seen Joe do it as a child and had read all kinds of literature, both scientific and sensational about it, in an effort to understand the phenomena.  The story he remembered the best was that of a somnambulism who had committed murders in his sleep, but retained no memory of committing them upon waking!  Sleepwalking was most common in children, though adults who were known to suffer from it as well.  In adults it was often triggered by some traumatic event –

Like the beating Joe had taken at John C. Reagan’s hands and the confusion that had come as a result of it.

Joe was walking along a footpath now, perilously close to the edge.  Adam put the boots down so both of his hands were free and quickened his pace.  From what he had read, most doctors thought it was dangerous to wake someone when they were sleepwalking.  It made sense.  He didn’t want to startle Joe.  ,

Maybe if he talked to him.

“Joe,” he said, gently.  “Joe.  It’s Adam.”

His brother faltered but didn’t stop.

“Where are you going, Joe?”  Adam thought a moment.  It seemed crazy, but there had to be a reason he kept thinking the thoughts he did.  “Marie wants to know.”

His brother halted on the path, his slender form wavering like a ghost.  Joe spoke but his words were mumbled and unclear.  It sounded something like, ‘I have to tell her.’

“Tell who, Joe?  Do you mean Marie?”

His brother’s eyes opened and closed slowly.   Emotions moved like light and cloud shadow across his battered face – shame, rage, fear.    Joe blinked again and a single tear fell as his hand reached out.

“Mama?”he asked, taking a step.

Adam tackled Joe a second before he would have gone over the edge.  As they hit the ground, his little brother came fully awake.  He looked around and then met his gaze.

“Adam.  What?” Joe asked, chagrinned.

“It’s okay, Joe.  Everything’s okay now.  I’ve got the answer to the mystery.”

His brother was obviously puzzled.  “What mystery, Adam?”

The black-haired man laughed.  “I know what happened to your boots.”

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

When they returned to the house his father tried to get him to rest.  He had for a few hours, but then had been roused by Doc Martin for an examination.  The physician pronounced him unfit for work but fit to sit downstairs.  Joe was in worse shape.  The Doc decided to give him a dose of laudanum and, for all intents and purposes, his little brother had passed out of the waking world.  Luke Miller had helped to settle him and Hoss in the great room and then had left to make the doc’s rounds with him.

Later as they sat around the fire licking their wounds, Adam offered his theory for what had happened from the time Joe’s boots had gone missing on Tuesday night until the time when he had realized his little brother had been sleepwalking.  Joe remained upstairs, which was probably for the best.  Some of what he had to say might prove difficult for his youngest brother to hear.

“I thought at first, Pa, that it all started that night in town at the hotel when you read the article about Adah Menken.  I was wrong.  Joe had been stewing over the beating Reagan had given him long before that.  So, don’t blame yourself.”

Their father was sitting in his usual chair, staring at the fire.  He was still coming to terms with the fact that he might have lost all three of them over the last week and all due to one man’s madness.

“Go on,” his father said.

“You remember Hoss and I told you we’d had noticed something was bothering Joe.  We thought it was the beating he took at John C. Reagan’s hands and we were right – but there was more.  There was something that beating triggered in Joe, something buried so far down even he wasn’t aware of it.”

“What’d you call it, Adam?” Hoss asked.  “What Joe’s been doin’?  Some-name-bulism?”

“Somnambulism.  Some call it Noctambulism.   It just means walking in your sleep.  If you remember, Joe did it briefly when he was little.  It means moving around and acting as if you’re awake when you’re not.  Some doctors think that, when there are things that go so deep a man can’t face them when he’s awake, he tries to do so when he sleeps.”

“And what is it you think you’re brother couldn’t face?” his father asked, uncrossing his legs and turning to look at him.

This was a hard one.  “Pa, I hate to ask it, but I need you to remember the day Marie died.”

He saw his father go rigid.  “Why?”

“Do you remember when you were downstairs with the preacher?  After you’d put Joe to bed with Hoss?”

“Yes.”

“I found Joe in your room with Marie.”

“What?”

“I found him in your room, standing by the bed, holding Marie’s hand.  Before you found us tonight and brought us home, I asked Joe about it.  He had forgotten about it until I reminded him.”

“Joe remembered that?  He couldn’t have been five years old.”

“Oh, he remembered.  You know how it is when you’re a kid.  It’s the bad things, the traumatic ones that stick.  When Joe remembered that, he remembered something else.”  Adam winced.  “Pa, I don’t want you to get upset about this next part.”

“Why would I get upset?” his father asked, his jaw tight.

“Joe said you took him in to see Marie before she died.”

He nodded.  “Yes, I did.  I left them alone for a few minutes.  I felt it was only right for the boy to be with his mother.”

“Apparently Marie told Joe to be strong.  She asked him….”  He hesitated.  “Pa, Marie asked him not to cry.”

“What are you gettin’ at, Adam?” Hoss asked, leaning forward.

“I’m not sure.  I think the beating Joe took at John C. Reagan’s hands triggered something in him.  Even though he didn’t consciously recall his mother’s request, subconsciously he did.  The memory made him think he wasn’t a man because he’d been afraid and Reagan made him cry.”  He shrugged.  “Of course, he said nothing to any of us.”

“Dag burned ornery, stubborn little cuss,” Hoss sighed with affection.

“I’m not sure it was orneriness, Hoss.  I’m sure Joe had no idea what was fueling his anger.”  Adam turned and looked up the stairs.  “He does now.”

His father was silent a moment, trapped in his own memories. Then he stirred and asked, “You still haven’t said, what does this have to do with Joe’s missing boots and all the madness that came after we discovered they were missing?”

Adam leaned back, considering what to say.  He’d had a long talk with Angus, who was in Virginia City now sorting out his part in the whole thing with Roy Coffee, and with Inspector Braddock in an attempt to piece it all together.

“Tuesday night,” he began, “the night before we went to have our likeness taken, Joe sleepwalked for the first time, or at least I think it was the first time.  He left the house, I believe, in search of Marie.  I think Joe he might have been headed for her grave, thinking she was there.”

“I’d sure hate to think of little brother sleepwalkin’ near that lake,” Hoss said, shaking his head.

Adam nodded.  “Braddock Wells and the real Inspector Shaw were in the woods that night, trailing after Malcolm Gray’s men and seeking the outlaws’ hideout.  They saw Joe in the woods, though they had no idea he was sleepwalking.  He was already missing his boots.”  Adam looked at his father.  “I watched Joe take them off last night, Pa, while he was asleep.  He hung his head and then sat down and took them off.  It was almost as if someone scolded him to do so.”  He paused, struck by the look on his father’s face.  “Pa?”

The silver-haired man drew a long breath.  He shook his head and smiled sadly.  “Don’t you remember, Adam?  Marie always made us take off our boots when we came into the house.  ‘I won’t have you men muddying my carpets,’ she’d say.”

Dear Lord.  He had forgotten.

Adam sank back in the chair.  Such a little thing – a child’s obedience to a loving voice – and yet it had made them doubt his brother.  Shamed, he continued, “Joe was with Shaw and Braddock when Tollivar Bates and Gray’s men spotted them.  That was before they parted company with Braddock going one way and Shaw, with Joe, the other.”  He sighed.  “I’m not sure we’ll ever know exactly what happened after that since Bates, Peyton, and Wrenat are all dead.  Angus believes Bates saw Joe wandering after he captured and killed Inspector Shaw, so he thought Joe had seen him.  Of course, they couldn’t have known he was asleep at the time.”

“Can someone be that deeply asleep?” his father asked.  “Wouldn’t all of that wake a man?”

“No one really knows, Pa, but there are stories of people committing murders while sleepwalking and then waking up with no knowledge that they have killed someone.  So for Joe to wander in the woods, even get on his horse and ride out….”  Adam shrugged.  “It’s possible.”

The older man shook his head.  “The mind is a wonder.”

“Adam, I don’t understand,” Hoss began, “if Bates saw Joe and was afraid he had seen him commit a murder, why didn’t he try to kill him then?”

“I imagine Joe disappeared quickly.  He moved like a wraith when I was trailing him.  Also, Bates was working for Malcolm Gray.  He did what he was ordered, or at least ‘appeared’ to.  Angus said Bates told him that his brother decided to watch Joe in order to see if he had really witnessed anything. When Joe said nothing and didn’t go to the law, Gray ordered Bates to leave him alone.”  Adam’s jaw tightened. “He didn’t, of course.  The next day Bates tried to kill Joe by forcing all that liquor down him.”

“That was after Joe found the inspector’s body with the Indian woman?” his father asked.

He nodded.  The Indian woman, Muha, was in Roy’s custody too, but as a material witness.  The sheriff had gone to the cave behind the waterfall after leaving the Ponderosa and found her hiding there.  He’d talked to Roy and it turned out, in the end, that she wasn’t mute but had made a vow not to speak until the man who killed her husband was taken or killed.  With Bates dead, she told them everything she knew.

“After her husband’s death, Muha had nowhere to go, so she stayed with Malcolm Gray.  She was out gathering berries when she ran into Shaw and Braddock who recruited her to watch and listen and report back to them.  Though she chose not to speak, she was trained to read and write in a white man’s school and communicated that way.  Before the inspector was killed, Muha sent word to him that she wanted to meet him at the lean-to on the edge of our property.  She had erected it as temporary shelter for the hunting trip she intended on making.  The inspector made the appointment, but died in her arms.  When Joe stumbled on her, she was considering what to do.  Muha was scared of Bates and Gray and feared if they found the inspector near the lean-to, they would figure out she had been helping him.  When she saw Joe she was frightened for him, but her fear of the others won out and she used Joe to help her bury the body.”

His father was scowling.  “I still don’t understand.  How did your brother’s boots end up on Shaw’s corpse?”

“Braddock had a theory about that too.  He and Shaw were being hunted.  Bates and the others were following their tracks.  Braddock thinks Shaw must have stumbled on Joe’s boots wherever he left them and exchanged them for his own, hoping to throw his pursuers off track.  He had no reason to believe they would be after Joe, even if he suspected they were Joe’s boots.”

His father leaned back and sighed.  “And all of this happened because one madman thought he was destined to be king of Great Britain.”

“Malcolm Gray had a claim, Pa, so he wasn’t completely mad.  Angus explained that they are descended of the first queen of Charles I, son of King James.  There are people who still believe the rightful line descends from Charlotte and not Marie Luise.  Unfortunately for Malcolm Gray, they are in the minority.”

“How is Angus?” his father asked.  “He seemed a decent sort.”

“I hope Roy will go easy on him.  Angus’ only crime was in the company he kept.  Mainly Tollivar Bates.”

His pa’s tone was stern.  “Bates almost killed your brother.  He could have killed you.”

“But he didn’t, Pa.  We’re both home, safe and sound.”  Adam winced as he shifted.  “If a little bit sore.”

“You should be in bed like your brother,” the older man said as he rose.  “We all should be.”

He nodded as his father passed him, headed for the stair with Hoss following close behind.

“I’ll be up in a minute, Pa.”

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Adam headed up about a half hour later.  When they finished talking, he realized he was famished and had gone to the kitchen for a cold supper.  Hop Sing came in while he was eating and they had talked for a while.  Before he could leave, the Chinese man insisted on fixing a plate for Joe.  He’d tried to explain that his brother might be out for a day, but Hop Sing insisted.  Recognizing the gesture for what it was – a man needing to do something for someone he loved who was hurting – he had waited and then taken the tray and headed up the stairs.

After placing the tray on the bedside table, Adam sat down and looked at his brother.  Joe was sleeping a drugged sleep and barely stirred when he laid his hand on his forehead, checking for fever.  Fortunately, he found none.  Doc Martin had said he thought there were no serious internal injuries, which was a relief, and while it would take some time for the broken bones to heal, Joe should be up and about in a week or two and able to leave the house in three.

Lifting his hand, Adam rose to leave.  As he did, his gaze fell on the portrait of Marie Joe kept beside his bed.  Picking it up, he looked at the woman he too had called ‘mother’ for nearly five years.  Marie was a beautiful, small-boned blonde woman with penetrating dark eyes.  He wondered, looking at her, if she had known what her words would do to her son, would she have spoken them?  No adult could predict a child’s reaction.  If this had taught him anything it was that, if he ever had a child, he would take care when he spoke to them.  Now that they knew what fueled Joe’s depression, they could deal with it.  One day soon his brother would be whole again and he could only hope that the ability to express himself with tears as well as smiles would return as well.

It was a gift.

Adam replaced the portrait.  He glanced at Joe and rose and left the room.  A minute later, after retrieving a book from his room, he returned to his bother’s bedside and sat down again.  Joe looked so small and lost, like that little boy who had turned a terrified face on him in the woods that night, that he couldn’t leave.   Settling back, Adam opened the book and began to read.

ooooooooooxxoooooooooo

Sometime later, as the cocks crowed in the yard beyond the house, Adam roused.  He drew a deep breath and shifted, feeling every bruise the pounding he had taken from Tollivar Bates had left him with.  He looked at the book in his hand and then at his little brother who appeared to be sleeping naturally now.  He didn’t know what had driven him to pick up Shakespeare the night before, or drawn him to the Sonnets, but his finger was still in the book at the place where he had left off.  Glancing at Joe, Adam opened it again and read the last words he had read before falling asleep.  They were from Sonnet twenty-nine.

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

(Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

 

Adam closed the book.

He was sure Joe would agree.

 

 

Tags:  Adam Cartwright, Ben Cartwright, Hoss Cartwright, Joe / Little Joe Cartwright, JPM, SJS