PART THREE

NINE

“Now calm down, Hop Sing, I cain’t understand a word you’re sayin’!”

Roy took the Cartwright’s cook by the arm and directed him toward the settee.  Hop Sing’s face was red as the coals in the fire.

Gol-darn it if that China man wasn’t the most excitable thing he’d seen this side of Joe Cartwright!

“No have time make nice-nice.”  Hop Sing said, jabbing a finger at him.  “Hop Sing tell sheriff we have trouble.  Mighty big trouble!  Missy Elizabeth missing too!”

It still hadn’t registered.  “What do you mean the girl’s missin’?”

“What else ‘missing’ mean?”  The China man looked like him like there was nothin’ between his ears but rocks.  “Missy Elizabeth’s coat, hat, scarf, boots – all gone!  She gone!  She go look for Little Joe!”

Roy’s eyes strayed to the staircase and the landing above.  “Why, that little imp!  She must of overheard what we were sayin’ last night.”  He shook his head.  “How long you figure she’s been gone?”

Hop Sing looked at the clock by the door.  “Take Missy Elizabeth tea for tummy at 7:30 this morning.  Now, 10:30!  No way know if she be gone three minutes or three hours!  Hop Sing need go after her!”

“Now hold your horses, Hop Sing,” the lawman said, raising his hands.  “You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“Sheriff go off lonesome, fight off three bad men and look for Little Joe and Missy Elizabeth all at one time?”

It did seem like kind of a big order.

“Now, I can’t just have a civilian go chargin’ off after bad men, Hop Sing, you know that.  It just wouldn’t be right.”  He shook his graying head.  “I’ve got the citizens of Virginia City to answer to, not to mention Ben Cartwright – ”

“Mistah Ben want Hop Sing go look for Little Joe.  No one else here.  Note come, we not answer, Little Joe get hurt.”  The Chinese man’s dark eyes pleaded with him.  “Sheriff make Hop Sing deputy!  Hurry.  Chop chop!”

Roy hesitated.  He knew he should go back to town and get Luke, or one of his other men.  But the time it would take him to get there would make it near impossible for him to rescue Little Joe.  There was no way he could make it to Virginia City, recruit men, and make it to the Paiute graveyard in time.  ‘Specially not in this weather.   Still….  The lawman cast a glance at the agitated man before him.  He knew from what Ben had told him that Hop Sing was a good man to have on your side.  He was just concerned his worry over Little Joe and the girl would make him reckless.

“You gonna swear to me that you’ll follow my orders and not go off half-cocked?”

The China man nodded.  “Hop Sing obey Sheriff Roy.  Not think on own.”

“Well, now, that ain’t exactly what I’m sayin’.”  Roy half-chuckled as he ran a hand across his stubbled chin.  “That Rowse feller is one mean hombre. We’re gonna hafta play it close.”

The Cartwright’s cook nodded.  “The less power man has, the more man likes to use it.”

Now that was right smart.

“You got it.  From what I can tell this here Rowse won’t hesitate to kill Little Joe if he feels threatened.  So we gotta make sure he don’t!  We’ll have to ride right careful.  We’ll follow those tracks on horseback for a while, but sooner or later we’re gonna hafta walk through the snow.  You ready for that?”

“Just because men not like cold, Heaven not stop winter,” he answered with a shrug.

That one made him laugh.  Roy eyed his unlikely deputy and asked, “Tell me.  You got a little book up there in that brain of yours with all them sayin’s written in it?”

“Hop Sing no need book.  Hop Sing learn at honorable grandfather’s knee.  Honorable grandfather very wise.”  The little China man finished with a grin – a sorta tight one that didn’t quite reach his eyes.  Now Roy’d heard that kind of grin called ‘inscrutable’.

It didn’t exactly put him at ease.

Still, he had little choice.  He had two youngsters out in the cold and at the mercy of a trio of bad men and no time to find anyone else to help in the search.

“All right.  You get your gear together and meet me here in a half hour.  I’m gonna see if I can find any of those hands Ben left to watch the place close by.  You and me can use all the help we can get.”

Hop Sing shook his head as he watched Roy Coffee head out the door and into the night.  “Waste time,” he muttered as he headed to the kitchen to pack food and drink for the two of them.  “Distant water not help put out fire at hand.”  When he reached his domain he began to bustle about it, gathering bread, jam, meat and other food that would serve them on the hunt as well as coffee and tea.  As he reached into the cupboard where he kept the tea, the Chinese man stopped.  He looked from it to the big block table in the middle of the room and suddenly saw a little boy with curly brown hair sitting there, his booted feet marking a staccato beat against the already abused wood.

‘Little Joe no kick Hop Sing’s table!’

 The boy scowled at him, looking out from under a fringe of golden-brown curls.  ‘It ain’t your table.  It’s Pa’s and I can kick it if I want.’

Little Joe had been five and his mother dead for no more than a few months.  The boy was sad, but even more, he was angry.

‘Little Joe right.  Table belong to Mistah Ben, but also belong to Hop Sing.’

The boy scrunched up his nose.  ‘Huh?’

‘Mistah Ben own table, but Hop Sing use it.  Belong to Hop Sing too.’

Little Joe seemed to think that over.  ‘You mean two people can own one thing?’

He’d been busy getting tea out of the cupboard and had turned away.  As he reached for a can on a high shelf he nodded.  “Yes.  One thing belong to two.  Both love.’

‘Like I belonged to pa and ma?’ the little voice asked, suddenly more sad than mad. 

His back was to the boy.  Hop Sing blinked away a tear before he turned to look at him.  ‘Little Joe’s ma and pa both love him much.  He belong to both.’

‘So now that my ma’s…gone…who’s gonna love me her half?’  The boy was thinking it through. ‘Or am I gonna be only half-loved from now on?’

‘You have Mistahs Adam and Hoss.  Boy much loved.’

‘But Ma’s part is missin’.’  Little Joe turned a grief and tear-stricken face on him.  He sniffed.  ‘I ain’t ever gonna be whole again, am I?’

The Chinese man put the container of tea down and walked over to the child. Gently, he placed a hand on the sorrowful boy’s cheek.  ‘Little Joe have Hop Sing.  Not ma, but will do all he can to fill hole left in boy’s heart.”

Those beautiful long black lashes blinked.  Tears glistened on them like sunlit ice on a wrought-iron post.  ‘You want to be my mama?’ Little Joe asked, puzzled.

“Cannot be mama.  Can be friend.  Hop Sing here for you when no one else around.  Here, any time you need him.  Care for you.  Protect you.”  He held those wide soulful green eyes.  ‘Little Joe understand?’

Joe wiped the moisture from his nose with his sleeve.  ‘Pa says a man with friends has a great treasure.’

The Chinese man gathered the small boy into his arms and held him close. ‘As honorable grandfather say,’ he told the lost little boy, ‘a good friend is nearest relation.’

Hop Sing stood there, looking at the block table that still bore the scars left by the heels of that little boy’s boots.  Walking with deliberation, he went to the table and reached for one of the butcher knives he had anchored in its worn surface and placed it in the kit along with the food.

If bad men hurt Little Joe.

Hop Sing hurt bad men.

Elizabeth was frightened.  She’d followed the man with the bow for about two hours when it began to snow again.  It wasn’t that the snow was bad or thick or anything, but it made it hard to see and she’d accidentally taken her pony farther into the woods than she meant to and gotten turned around.  Overhead the sky was as white as the snow beneath her feet and she couldn’t see the sun or tell where it was, and so she had no idea what time it was or where she was, and so she was….

Well, there was nothin’ for it.

She was cryin’.

The blonde girl remembered asking Mister Adam one time if big brothers cried and he said ‘all the time’, but she didn’t think he meant they did it when they were afraid.  He’d been smilin’ and lookin’ at Little Joe at the time.  She kind of understood, because there were an awful lot of times that Jack made her want to cry, and scream, and well, pick up a switch and put it to his backside.  For a second she wondered what Little Joe had looked like when he was Jack’s age.  Did he have that curly hair and was it brown?  He sure must of been a cute little boy with those big green eyes and that smile. With a sigh, Elizabeth’s thoughts turned back to the wide and wild world around her.  She wasn’t smiling.  She was shivering and scared and, though she hated to admit it –

She was lost.

As she stood there, turning in every direction and not knowing what to do, her pony, Freckles, came up and nudged her cheek.  He was a gray with black spots sprinkled all over his nose.  Little Joe said he had named him ‘Freckles’ since he thought it was better than ‘Measles’ when it came to a horse havin’ spots.  Freckles was hers for as long as she stayed with the Cartwrights.  When he nudged her like he was doing now, it reminded her of their cat back home.  His name was Southpaw ‘cause his left front foot had a brown sock on it.  Otherwise he was all black.  When Southpaw was unsure about somethin’, he’d come and sit on her shoulder and rub his whiskers against her cheek just like Freckles was doin’ now, so the pony must be unsure too.

Maybe he needed her to be strong for him.

“It’ll be all right, boy,” Elizabeth said as she patted his warm nose.  “Someone will come along or we’ll find our way.  You’ll see.”

The pony fixed her with his big dark eyes.  He whinnied and then nudged her again as if trying to tell her somethin’.  A second later Freckles lowered his long head as he lifted his foreleg and then struck the ground with it.

It took her a minute of puzzlin’, but she figured it out.  Pa always told her animals knew better than people when it came to important things.  They had ‘insight,’ he said, ‘something God gave them.’  He told her God gave it to people too, but they ignored it most of the time ‘cause they thought they knew better.

Freckles was remindin’ her to pray.

Elizabeth stared at the snowy ground and thought about how cold it was.  Pa’d taught her it was best to kneel when you prayed.  She’d asked him ‘why’ one time since it seemed that standin’ up put you closer to Heaven.  Pa told her that God liked a ‘humble’ and a ‘contrite’ heart and that by kneeling, you were showin’ God you knew who was boss.  ‘Sides, he’d told her with a smile, when you were on your knees you couldn’t run away.  You had to stay put and wait for God to answer.

With a big sigh, the little girl cleared a small piece of ground and then knelt.  She was wearing thick leggings so it wasn’t too bad, even though they were wool and they were gonna itch like the dickens when they got wet.  Clasping her gloved hands together, Elizabeth closed her eyes and dropped her chin to her chest.

“God,” she said after a second, “I really need your help to find little brother.  Those bad men are gonna hurt Little Joe and I gotta stop them!  I thought I could find him by myself, but I just got lost.  Freckles and me, well, we can’t do it alone like I thought.  Please, you gotta send someone to help us and send them soon.”  Her eyes popped open for  a second as a fresh snowflake settled on her nose, quickly followed by another.  It sure was pretty, but she knew well enough that where there was one or two snowflakes, there was gonna be a million.  “It’s awful cold, God.  Please keep Little Joe safe and warm and us too and, well, as far as those bad men….”  Elizabeth drew in a breath of the cold crisp air and exhaled slowly.  “Well, you can just dump them in a lake and let them freeze!  Amen.”

The little girl frowned as she stood and dusted the snow off her knees.  Her ma said the Good Book told them  to love their enemies and do good to those who prosecuted them, so she probably shouldn’t be asking God to hurt the men who took her little brother.  But then again, King David did an awful lot of praying about smiting bad men, so it must be okay since David was one of God’s favorites.  In Psalm seventeen he asked God to arise and bring them low and to deliver his soul from the wicked with a sword.

That sure was a lot worse than wishin’ someone would turn into an icicle!

Crossing over to Freckles, Elizabeth took the reins in her hand and climbed onto the pony’s back.  She had no idea where to go, but she knew that sittin’ still wasn’t smart.  She needed to find some place where she could get in out of the cold.  Before taking off, she kneed the gray over to a tall standing bush.  Tearing a strip off of one of the fine petticoats Mister Ben had bought her, she tied it to a wither-high branch.  Pa’d taught her how to leave a trail so someone could find her if she ever got ‘misplaced’ as he put it.

Elizabeth sat straight in the saddle and sucked in tears as her lower lip trembled.

She sure wished Pa was here.

Joe leaned against the wall of the line shack with his eyes closed, pretending to sleep.  Well, maybe, he was actually pretending to be awake.  It seemed the sleepin’ part was easier to manage at the moment.  His wounded shoulder was on fire, but the rest of him was cold as the snow piling up on the shack’s window sill.  He still had the old ratty blanket wrapped around him, but the thin rag of a thing wasn’t doing much good.

It sure was a sorry excuse for a blanket.

Still, Joe thought as he adjusted and pulled the covering close up around his neck, the blanket wouldn’t have done him any good even if it had been thick as Hoss’ waist.  Most of his shivering and shaking had nothing to do with the weather.  He’d been at this point often enough with an injury to recognize the signs of a mounting fever.  Since Fleet Rowse had cut him the night before no one had bothered to do anything much about his wound.  Oh, Atticus Godfrey rinsed it with water and put a fresh wad of cloth against the cut now and then, but that was it.  It hadn’t been cleaned properly in over half a day.  Coupled with the cold and the ‘state – as Pa would put it – that he was in, well….

He was sure up the creek without a paddle.

Through his lidded eyes, Joe watched the former reverend interact with his partner.  If they hadn’t been threatenin’ to kill him, he’d of thought they were kind of comical.  Atticus Godfrey was tall as a pine and a skinny sick one at that, while his partner was fat as a hog fit for the table.  The preacher was all nervous energy and jumped at the slightest noise.  Noyes Runyon, well, you could of shot a cannon off next to his head and he wouldn’t have budged.  Atticus was right nervous.  He would clear his throat first and then make a statement or ask a question.  Noyes would bark an answer – usually having nothing to do with the subject or the question – and the skinny parson would shake from head to toe and back away.  It was kind of like watchin’ a pack of wild dogs workin’ through their pecking order.  Noyes Runyon was the lead dog and Atticus Godfrey was following behind with his tail between his long stick legs, waiting for whatever scrap the fat man threw him.

Atticus was the weak link here and he had to find a way to use that.

The tall thin man picked up a pitcher of water and poured some into a glass.  Joe licked his cracked lips as he did, wonderin’ if he could stand to watch the other man drink it.  Then, to his surprise, the reverend headed his way.  Atticus took a seat in the chair next to the lame excuse for a bed the shack had and said, “If you lean forward, I’ll give you some.”

Joe knew better than to let the outlaws think he had any strength left.  “Don’t think I can do that, Reverend,” he mumbled.  He hoped that, by using the former minister’s title, he might bring back something of what the man must once have been.  “I just ain’t got any muscle.”

Atticus leaned forward to touch his forehead.  He sucked in air as his hand made contact.  “Dear Lord!” he said softly. “You have quite a fever!”

Sheesh…just go and tell a feller how bad off he is, why don’t ya?!

He’d had fevers before and they’d never stopped him from doing needed done.

Well, hardly ever.

While Atticus was still leaning in, Joe whispered, his words fierce as the fire trying to claim him,  “Reverend, you gotta get me out of here.  Rowse and Runyon are gonna kill me, and you’ll be just as guilty as they are when they do!”

Atticus held the glass to his lips.  As Joe took a sip and the tepid water slid down his throat like an avalanche of snow, the thin man said, “There’s nothing I can do.  Noyes always gets what he wants and Rowse….”

He said no more.

“Has Noyes ever wanted you to kill a man before?” Joe shot back.

The reverend shook his head.

Of course not.  Adam always said he had the Devil’s own luck.

Which meant it was bad.

“Look, Reverend, you’re a man of God,” he continued.  “You know – even if they don’t hang you – that, in the end, you gotta face God alone and pay for what you’ve done.”

Atticus was checking his wound now.  His pale eyes shot up to lock with Joe’s green ones.  “There is one sin and one sin only that God will not forgive, Mister Cartwright, and that is blaspheming the Spirit.  God has abandoned me because I first abandoned him.”

“What’re you two nattering about over there?”  The short abrupt question came from Noyes Runyon who, having finished his breakfast, was looking their way with suspicion. “Atticus, get back over here!  Rowse is due any minute and we need to begin to gather our things.  Fleet said we’d leave as soon as he returned.  We’ll have to make good time if we want to be at be in place at the graveyard before Ben Cartwright shows up.”

Joe locked eyes with the tall thin man.  “Reverend, you know better,” he said quickly, “there ain’t no sin God won’t forgive.  You just have to ask.”

Atticus Godfrey blinked and then straightened up.  When the preacher turned toward his companion it seemed – or maybe he just imagined it – that he stood a little bit taller.

“The boy has a fever,” he answered.  “I was just discussing his condition with him.  For a man who is so sure of what he is doing, Noyes, you seem rather jumpy.”

“Fever, schmee-ver,” the fat man chortled.  “The lad’s going to be dead in less than twenty-four hours. I don’t know why you bother to tend him.”

“He has to live long enough to go with us to the graveyard, doesn’t he?” the thin man replied, his tone even. “Or are you planning on killing him and leaving his body here for his father to find before he reaches Paiute land with the money?”

Noyes Runyon was not a happy man.  He was barking and the preacher was biting back.

“You will not talk to me like that!” Runyon snapped.

“Like what?” Atticus countered sharply.  “Like I might have a thought of my own?”

It took a second – maybe two.  Runyon moved so fast Joe missed it.  The fat man had the reverend by the collar and was pressing the barrel of his tiny gun against the man’s protruding Adam’s apple.

“You’ll live longer, Atticus, if you don’t!”  Noyes hissed.  “This is the big one, you fool!  This can be our last job.  You mess it up and I’ll –”

“Kill me?  Like you intend to kill this boy?”

“Why would I want to put you out of your misery, you sniveling coward?” Runyon asked with a sneer.  “No.  I’ll just take you to the closest sheriff and tell him who you are, and then help him look up the wanted poster that bears your tepid face!  There won’t be a rope at the end, but there will be a decade or more in prison.  Is that what you want – reverend?”

The preacher’s shoulders sagged.  “No,” he said quietly.

Noyes Runyon released his grip on the Godfrey’s collar.  Then he made a pretense of dusting the thin man’s shoulders off.  “That’s right, Atticus.  You just do as your told and when this is over, you will have enough money to retreat to one of those ruinous castles in Scotland you’re always going on about, where no United States lawman or anyone else can touch you.”  The fat man’s gaze shifted to him and Joe moved involuntarily back.  “If the cost of that is the life of one boy that you didn’t know existed a month ago, is that too much to ask?”

The preacher’s shoulders rose and fell.  Joe saw him turn and look his way, and then close his eyes.

The next word he spoke pronounced his doom.

“No.”

Adam Cartwright rose to his feet from where he had been sitting by his campfire and looked up.  A fall of fragile half-formed snowflakes took the opportunity to land on his nose and make it tickle.  Sniffing, he batted them away and then gazed down the long road toward home.  It should have been a relatively short one, of course, and would have been without the snow and now sleet and the rising wind driving both.  Adam’s full lips quirked at both ends.  Of course, he really had nothing to complain about.  He’d make it home by dark and then he would be forced – yes, forced – to eat Hop Sing’s supper and spend the evening in Pa’s chair by the roaring fire with his feet up, reading a book.

Why, he might even feel compelled to open one of the decanters and take a stiff drink – just to brace himself for the return journey, of course.

“Ah, the drawbacks of being a rancher,” he said to no one in particular.

He’d taken a moment to stop and let Sport rest.  Plowing through the snow was hard work for the animal.  The worst thing were the drifts.  Depending on the bend in the road, the white stuff could be piled up several feet high.  They’d just gone through a rough patch and, on the other side of the snow drift, he’d wanted nothing as much in the world as a hot cup of coffee.

Not even seeing that world.

Reaching down, Adam lifted the remains of the delectable concoction and passed the cup that contained it under his nose.

“Ambrosia,” he breathed, and then finished it.

After tossing the grounds into the snow, the black-haired man watched them sizzle their way down toward the frozen earth before picking up his pack.  Then he returned the tin mug to it.  Crossing over to where Sport was waiting, he removed the warm woolen blanket covering him and tied the pack to the rear Dee of his saddle.  Rolling the blanket up, he secured it on the back jockey.  After taking his seat, Adam pulled his coat close about his throat and his hat down over his eyes before kneeing his horse into action.  As they began to move, his smile returned and he chuckled.  If there was one thing he was looking forward to even more than Hop Sing’s supper or that glass of brandy, it was the look of surprise on his little brother’s face when he opened the door and stepped inside.

Adam laughed.  Hopefully he’d catch the little scamp up to no good.

There was nothing warmed a person up like a good fight.

Roy Coffee stamped his feet and blew vapor out of his nose.  If his temper had been enough to keep him warm, he wouldn’t have needed the heavy winter coat, thick wool scarf, and gloves that was hamperin’ his movements! ‘Course, if his movements hadn’t been hampered, Ben Cartwright might just be puttin’ an ad in the Territorial Enterprise right now for a new cook.

That little China man was gonna drive him plumb out of his mind!

Here they was, in the middle of huntin’ Little Joe – who just might be in the hands of a ruthless killer – and Hop Sing was spreadin’ a blanket out on the snow and layin’ out sandwiches, insistin’ they needed their strength if they was gonna be of any help to Elizabeth or Little Joe when they found them.  Now, he didn’t argue with that, but a quick cup of coffee and a strip of jerky on horseback had always done for him.

Irritated as he was, he’d managed to hide a smile when Ben’s cook apologized for not bringin’ any china plates.

He didn’t, however, forget the china cups.

“Sheriff Roy come sit down!,” the China man called.  “Chop.  Chop.  Need hurry.”

Wasn’t that what he had just been sayin’?

Hop Sing turned from what he was doin’ and focused on him when he didn’t move.  He planted his fists on his hips and declared, “A fool in hurry drinks tea with fork!  Sheriff Roy waste time.  Come!  Eat!”

He was wasting time?

“Now, you listen here, Hop Sing, I ain’t wastin’ time!  It’s you are wastin’ it.  We could be on the road right now – ”

Hop Sing scowled.  “Sheriff Roy no more yak-yak, be on road five minutes ago and have food in stomach!”

Roy twisted his lips and chewed the inside of his cheek.

The China man had a point.

Crossing over to where the thick blanket was spread out, Roy took a seat and reached for a sandwich.

Hop Sing batted his hand away.  “Sheriff no serve.  Hop Sing’s job!”

“Now, lookee here, Hop Sing,” he growled, “I ain’t Ben Cartwright and I don’t need no man’s man  doin’ for me what I been doin’ for myself for nigh-on fifty year!  If you let me do it, it’ll be done.  Ain’t no other way we’re gonna find that little girl and keep Little Joe alive….”

Roy closed his mouth.  There was somethin’ in the China man’s eyes that stopped him in his tracks.  He wasn’t sure exactly what it was.  The silence hung between them until Hop Sing lifted a sandwich from the blanket, placed it on a cloth napkin, and handed it to him along with a china cup full of steaming coffee.

They ate in silence.

Ten minutes later, his belly full and his aging bones warmed by the progress of the hot liquid down his gullet, Roy pursed his lips and shook his head.  With a sigh, he admitted, “You was right, Hop Sing.  I feel mighty good right now.”

The China man looked at him.  His lips were tight, but there was a smile in his black eyes.  “Sheriff Roy apologize Hop Sing?”

Roy finished his coffee and tossed the grounds into the snow.  “Sheriff Roy apologize,” he replied as he stood.

“Hop Sing clean up.  Go save Little Joe.”

The cook’s voice trembled on the boy’s name.

“You two are right close, ain’t ya?” Roy asked, his voice hushed.  “I mean, I know you’re close with all the Cartwrights, but there’s somethin’ special with Little Joe, ain’t there?”

Hop Sing had returned the food to the pack he carried and was cleaning out the inside of the coffee pot with snow and a rag.  He stopped what he was doin’ and looked his way.

“Little Joe special.”  The China man put the lid on the pot and put it in the pack as well, shifting aside something in order to make it fit.  “Little Joe like Pulao.”

“Poo-lauw-oh?  What’s that?”

“Fourth of dragon’s sons,” Hop Sing answered as he turned back, a slight smile touching his lips.  “Pulao small but strong.  Have roar mighty enough to shake the heavens and earth.  Sometimes roar turn to tears.”

The lawman snorted.  That sure enough described Ben’s third boy.

“Many years ago Hop Sing tell Mistah Cartwright’s number three son tales of Dragon’s nine sons.  Tell Little Joe he like Pulao.  Tell him,” he paused, “that when mighty roar turn to tears he come see Hop Sing.”

Roy hadn’t really thought about it much.  Joe, being the youngest and having so many years between him and his brothers, would have spent an awful lot of his childhood in that big house without Ben and the boys.  He would have been alone with the China man while his Pa and Adam saw to the ranch and Hoss was out learning a man’s skills.  The boy’d been no more than five years old when his mama died.  The lawman looked at Hop Sing, who had moved to his horse and was climbing into the saddle, and shook his head.  Now he knew what that look was for – the one the China man had given him when he said they needed to move ‘If we’re gonna keep Little Joe alive.’

It was that word ‘we’.

Ben’s cook didn’t like it.  Maybe he didn’t even hear it.  Now that his duty was done and their meal was over, Hop Sing was lookin’ to take off after Elizabeth right enough, but it was Ben’s missin’ son that was uppermost in his mind.  They’d had an understandin’, the two of them, since they’d left Ben’s house.  He was a lawman and his first duty was to bring in Fleet Rowse, even if that meant leavin’ searchin’ for the girl and Joe ‘til after it was done.  Roy scratched his chin and eye-balled the man on the horse.  Even though he’d made the China man a sort of unofficial deputy, he’d told him not to bring any weapon.  If it came to shootin’, he’d be the one to do it.  He studied Hop Sing’s compact taut frame now, every muscle strainin’ forward.  Then he looked at the pack firmly situated on the back jockey of the man’s saddle – the one the China man had been fussin’ with earlier.

Danged, if he didn’t wonder now just what else was in it!

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

TEN

Hoss Cartwright shivered.  He tugged at his buttons to make sure his coat was fastened tight and then shifted the fur lined collar up around his ears.  They’d worked hard that day searchin’ for stray cattle and bringin’ them back into the herd in preparation for moving on to the place where the animals would  weather the winter.  He wasn’t sure, but he thought this was one of only a handful of years where they had done the early part of it in the snow.  With a glance at the sky he confirmed the current day’s mix of sleet and snow had stopped.  The sun was almost down and the temperature was droppin’.  A crisp clear cold was settin’ in with the night.

The big man sighed.  Winter was champin’ at the bit near as much as his little brother lookin’ forward to a night in town.

The thought of Little Joe did two things to the big man – it made him smile and turned his attention to his father.  The older man was standing at the edge of the camp lookin’ back the way they’d come.  The moon was full and Pa was a black silhouette against its bright face.  Hoss shook his head and blew out a breath of vapor.  There were times when their pa’s seemin’ inability to think of him and his brothers as all growed-up and able to take care of themselves chaffed like new rope on bare hands.  Adam in particular got mighty sore when they’d come in and find him sittin’ in front of the fire waitin’ on them to show.  Somehow – when they three of them was together – that seemed to say to Adam that Pa didn’t trust him enough to look after them, which set hard with older brother.  Him?  He didn’t mind so much.  Pa was just…well…Pa.  Little brother was the worst when it came down to resentin’ it, though.  Joe’d howl and spit like a wild cat when he thought Pa was babyin’ him and go on to say that he was a man now and didn’t need no one lookin’ after him.

‘Course, truth was, Joe was the only one who did.

Hoss looked at his pa again standin’ there lookin’ south, as if by sheer will alone he could see across the miles and find out what was right or wrong at home.  Nope, it didn’t bother him much.  Pa’d had more than his share of tragedy and it seemed like, well, he was always waitin’ on the next one to come – waitin’ on life to drop the other boot, so to speak.  It weren’t that Pa didn’t trust God.  He did more than any other man he knew.  But Pa told him once that just ‘cause you trust God don’t mean everythin’ is gonna go your way.  Pa believed God sent hardships into men’s lives to hone them to be more like His son.  He said God promised not to give a man more than he could take.

The big man sighed.  If God was thinkin’ of lettin’ somethin’ happen to Little Joe, well, then, he and the man upstairs needed to have a nice long talk about what he could and couldn’t take.  He was strong – Pa’d made him that way.

But he wasn’t sure he was that strong.

As he tugged his leather gloves up inside the cuffs of his thick winter coat, Hoss crossed to the lone figure and said, “Pa, supper’s about ready.  You comin’?”

At first the older man didn’t answer.  Then he started and blinked, as if drawin’ himself back from somewhere far  away.  Lookin’ at him, his father answered, “Hoss.  Son, I’m sorry.  You said something?”

“I guess your mind ain’t on your stomach like mine, Pa,” he answered with a grin.  “You thinkin’ about Adam and Little Joe?”

His father’s smile was chagrinned.  “Am I so predictable?”

“Well, Pa, I figure you’ve had about thirty years of practice worryin’.  Odds are you’re right good at it by now.”

His father’s smile faded.  “You know, if I had chosen to marry and remain in the East and God had granted the three of you to me, I think….  No, I know I would not have worried so much.”  His father turned toward him.  “Oh, there are plenty of ways a young man can find trouble in the east, but few of them are life-threatening.”  The older man’s near-black eyes shifted to the road again.  “There are just so many dangers that can befall a man here – even a well-trained, cautious man like your older brother.  Uncertain roads, ending up adrift in the snow with no hope of rescue, wild animals and,” he hesitated, “wilder men.”  His father approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder.  “I hope you boys understand that it is not you I don’t trust.”

Hoss smiled.  “Ah, shucks, Pa, we know that.”  He waited a moment and then added with a wink, “At least Adam and me do.”

“Ah, yes.  Your younger brother.”

“Little Joe was sure he could lick every mountain cat and outlaw in the territory before he was five.”  The big man snorted.  “And wasn’t half wrong.  Short-shanks can hold his own pa.  You gotta learn to trust him too.”

“I do trust Joseph.”  The older man smiled.  “I trust him to find trouble where there is no trouble to be found.”

Hoss pursed his lips and nodded.   “He’s kind of like a magnet, ain’t he?”

“Mister Cartwright, Hoss!” a voice called.  When they turned they saw the camp cook walking toward them.  “Supper’s ready!”

His pa raised a hand.  “Be right there, Al!”

Hoss looked at the cook and then at him.  “Well, as Hop Sing likes to put it, Pa, you cain’t stop the birds of worry from flyin’ over your head, but you sure-as-shootin’ can stop them from buildin’ a nest in your hair.”

The older man laughed.  “How were we ever lucky enough to be blessed with Hop Sing?  And the poor man so unlucky as to be cursed with the four of us!”

His crystal-blue eyes danced.  “Like you always say, Pa, God moves in mysterious ways.”

“His wonders to perform.”  With a clap on his shoulder, his pa said, “Come on, son, let’s go get some grub.”

As he followed behind his pa, Hoss was grateful for the smile on the older man’s face.  Trouble was, it didn’t reach his eyes.  That’s ‘cause Pa’s eyes weren’t lookin’ toward the chuck wagon.

They was trained like they always was on home.

Her Pa would have said it was dark as the inside of whale.

She’s asked him once how he knew how dark a whale’s innards were and he’d told her he knew because of the three days he’d spent inside one.  She’d reminded him, of course, that that was Jonah and he was bein’ silly.

‘Just ask your mother if I’m bein’ silly’ had been Pa’s reply.

Elizabeth was sitting on Freckles at the side of the road debatin’ what to do.  She’d managed to find it and by that big old moon that was shinin’ in the sky, she’d figured out she was on the west side of it. In one direction lay safety in the form of the Ponderosa ranch house and a warm fire and bed.  In the other lay her little brother.  Little Joe was out there somewhere, bein’ held by bad men, probably cold and lonely as she was right now.

And she was awful cold and lonely.

She’d bundled up well when she left, but her clothes were covered in snow now and wet on account of the fact that she’d done that kneelin’ and fallen one or two times before gettin’ up to start out again.  She knew she needed to dry off and get somethin’ in her stomach, and for that she was gonna need a dry place to do it in.  She closed her eyes and tried to remember.  When Little Joe and her had gone out in the sleigh they’d glided for miles and miles before bein’ attacked by the snow in that great big old pine tree.  On the way there he’d taken her past a place with a little shack that he said was there for their men to use when they was out workin’ the line.  They’d traveled beside the road and then struck off into the trees at a place where the rocks were stacked like building blocks with the topmost one hangin’ over the path.  When she squinted her eyes, she thought she could make out that same set of rocks in the distance.  If she could make it to the shack – given the fact that she’d find matches there – she could light the stove and settle in for the night.  Her Ma had taught her how to do that safely.

The little girl chewed her lower lip and looked south again.  Sheriff Roy and Hop Sing were probably mighty worried about her.  They might even be out lookin’ for her. If they found her, they sure-as-shootin’ would make her go back  to the ranch house while they went on to look for Little Joe and the bad men who took him.  That meant she had two choices – ride back to meet them or go forward on her own.  Maybe if she went to the shack they wouldn’t find her.

Maybe they’d just go back home.

A shiver shook her and she almost dropped the reins.  Freckles snorted and looked up at her with concern in his big black-brown eyes as they slapped his side.  She had to think of him too.  Her pa always told her to see to her animal first.  Her horse’s life depended on her as much as her life depended on him.

Freckles was mighty cold too and it was a long way back to the ranch house.

Coming to a decision, Elizabeth used her knees to direct the gray.  Moving him onto the road, she headed for the big pile of rocks and the shack that lay close behind them.  As she did, she frowned.

Freckles was awful big.

How was she gonna get him through the door?

The former reverend Atticus Godfrey grimaced as he watched Fleet Rowse take the Cartwright boy from his horse and toss him to the ground like a sack of flour.  The boy ‘oomphed’ as he struck and then fell silent, making not so much as a sound as the outlaw took him by the collar and dragged him over to the base of a tree where he left him laying on the cold, snowy ground.  The young man everyone knew as ‘Little Joe’ was weakening.  In spite of his efforts, the boy’s shoulder wound had become infected.  Even in the best of circumstances, the outlook for his health would have been uncertain.

And these were hardly the ‘best’ of circumstances.

As Atticus headed over to check on Little Joe, Rowse growled and spat.  A quick reminder of their needs from Noyes silenced the outlaw – for the moment.  There was always the chance that Ben Cartwright would demand to see that his son alive before he would surrender the money.  Even though the rancher was supposed to leave it and go, there was some doubt he would do so without an assurance that the boy still lived.  After all, he was Little Joe’s father, he loved him dearly as all father’s loved their sons.

Sadly, not as all sons loved their fathers.

The former preacher knelt at the boy’s side and placed a hand on his uninjured shoulder.  Before leaving the line shack he had dressed the young man in a warm flannel shirt, jeans, boots, and a short winter coat with lamb’s fur lining he had found there.  Probably left behind by some worker.  Little Joe was shivering in spite of the extra clothing and the two thin blankets wrapped around his slender frame.  The boy was feeling the cold ground beneath him but, even more, he was feeling the heat within.  Rocking back on his heels, Atticus considered the young face, so familiar with its boyish good looks and soft tangle of brown curls.  He’d been struck by the similarity the first time he saw Joseph Cartwright, in that moment when he stepped off the Virginia City stage.

Jacob had looked much the same.

Rising, the thin man crossed to his horse.  Opening his pack, he drew out his spare frock coat.  Going back to the boy, he spread it over him.  As he did Little Joe’s eyes opened and he looked at him without focus.  His full lips parted.

“Why…?”

Then he was gone again.

The rail-thin man rose to his feet and returned to the place where he’d spread his bedroll.  Noyes and Fleet were seated by the fire and were deep in discussion. They’d left the line shack about midday and traveled onto a portion of land formerly occupied by the Paiutes.  Rowse had spent time here as a boy.  The Paiute graveyard was just to their north and east.  He could see the crossed spears that marked its entrance cast in silhouette against the moonlit sky.  Fleet Rowse was a man without conscience or faith.  He had no fear of the place.  No dread.

No respect.

Laying down, Atticus covered up as best he could.  He had no desire to sit by the fire and listen to the other two men scheme and so had told them he was going to nap until they were ready to move.  In truth, he wanted to be alone with his thoughts.  There was something about this whole thing – about taking the Cartwright boy – that deeply disturbed him.

Who would have thought that he – a man of God, leader of the church, father and husband to a wonderful woman – would have ended up in the company of murders?

Of course, there had been no mention of murder when this whole thing began.  In fact, in the beginning, his motives for coming out west – while they might have been selfish – were uncontaminated by greed and desire.  It was only after he met Noyes Runyon and joined him in his illegitimate ‘business’ that things had begun to spiral out of control.

He’d started life in Ohio, born to a hard-working mother and father; one of ten children, only six of which reached maturity.  He was the second oldest son and as such was not expected to take over the family farm.  Instead, his mother insisted he have an education.  Atticus turned over with a sigh.  All of his life he had been drawn to the things of God, astounded by His works and world, and grateful for the blessings the good Lord granted him.  When his parents asked, he said he wanted to go to Divinity school.  Saving pennies and working long hours at neighboring farms, he – along with his parents – had managed to scrape together enough to afford it.  He had gone to a school in Pennsylvania and returned a reverend.  Shortly after he had found his flock.  He spent his well-content days shepherding them through not only everyday occurrences, but a flood of troubles like the coming of a tornado that wiped over half of the congregation’s crops out.  People admired him.  Looked up to him.  Especially one young beauty with hair the color of freshly-turned earth and eyes like black diamonds.  Her name was Ginny, and they married within a month of meeting.  Within two years they had a son.  They named him Jacob, after the father of their faith.

Sadly, they forgot what Jacob had been before he became Israel.

As the child grew, it became apparent there would be no others.  The doctors could give them no reason.  Perhaps that infection Ginny suffered after the boy’s birth?  He didn’t doubt God then, but believed Jacob was meant for special things, that was why he was the only one, so they could shower him with all their attention and give him all they had.

It didn’t take long.  While he was away looking after his flock, Jacob’s mother began to spoil him.  Soon the child was a terror and, when he would discipline him, the boy would fly to Ginny’s arms.  Using his God-given charm Jacob began to build a wall between them, intent on getting his own way.  If he even so much as dared to mention the boy needed a thrashing, Ginny would grow wild and unhinged.  In the end, he left them alone and turned to his work to keep him sane.

Reverends, after all, were not allowed to divorce.

Daily, he prayed.  Daily, he asked for God’s guidance.  And daily he watched Jacob grow more and more like his namesake – a cheat, a liar, and someone who would do anything to get what he wanted.

Inevitably the day came when the knock on his door brought the news he had dreaded but expected.  Jacob, while drunk, had gotten into a brawl which led to a gun fight in the street.  His son was slower on the draw.  His beautiful brown-haired boy was shot in the gut and died.

Jacob was only sixteen.

Though he sought to comfort Ginny, she would not be comforted.  Ten months after their son’s death, he was forced to commit her to an asylum where she died two years later.  The day the telegram arrived telling him of her death, he had just buried a child of five who had been killed when he got too close to the kickin end of his father’s horse.

The day the telegram arrived he had stopped believing in a good and loving God.

Oh, he continued on in his ministry for another year – mouthing words he no longer accepted as true – just long enough to have an affair with the wife of one of the elders, and to use his influence over her to empty the church coiffeurs.

In the dark of the night and his soul, he had run.

After that he had gone from town to town living riotously in one and then pretending to pastor in the next.  He never ceased believing in God, but it was the God of Jacob’s father, Isaac – the harsh, punishing God of the Old Testament he knew.  Each day when he woke he knew there was no hope – God could never forgive him – and so he did the worst he could do, hoping to call down a thunderbolt and end it all.

Then he met Noyes Runyon.  The obese businessman was looking for a partner to run scams on wealthy individuals.  Noyes could have cared less what his past was.  He just saw the opportunity of traveling with a ‘man of God’.  The businessman said it leant him an ‘air of respectability’.  For his part,  he got a third of the take of Noyes’ schemes while the fat man took the rest.  That suited him fine.  It gave him enough money to fill his belly and that was all he needed.

One day they had been talking and he had mentioned his brother, Leander.  They were traveling to Nevada as the pickings there were lush due to the recent discovery of silver, when he remembered his brother mentioning he had an old friend who had settled there and done quite well.  Noyes eyes had lit with avarice when he said the friend’s name was Benjamin Cartwright.  The Cartwright spread was the largest in Nevada.  A rancher like that would keep large amounts of money in their safe.  It shouldn’t be too hard to relieve him of some of it either through a scam or by breaking into it.

And so the scheme to rob the Ponderosa had begun.

Atticus sighed and shifted again, laying on his back and looking at the hard, brilliant stars.  Everything would have gone according to plan if Noyes hadn’t decided – at the last minute – that they needed some muscle with them.  They’d done it before, hired some gunslinger to come along for the ride to protect them.  Usually they were fairly desperate men, in need of money, and all too happy to cooperate. Noyes had been off by himself, in a saloon in Reno, when he met Fleet Rowse.  They’d struck up a deal and Rowse joined them as they headed to Virginia City.  It didn’t take long to realize that Rowse was cut from a different cloth.  He didn’t take orders. He gave them.  He also spent a good part of the day polishing his various weapons from a wicked looking knife to a handgun with a dozen notches cut into its handle.

But worse than that – worse than Rowse being a murderer – he was deranged.

He’d realized it first when he found the occasional animal butchered near the place they had camped as they readied to go.  The animals had not been killed for food, but for pleasure.  The truth of his assumption crystallized one day when it was a man he had stumbled over, killed in the same way – his throat slit and unspeakable acts committed on his corpse.  He knew then that Rowse could not be trusted and had done all he could to get Noyes to listen to him and to leave the man behind.  To no avail.

In fact, Noyes seemed fascinated by Rowse’s evil.

Atticus turned over again and then sat up.  Sleep was not going to come, so he rose and went to check the Cartwright boy again.  As he knelt at they boy’s side, he cast another glance at Noyes and Rowse where they lay now by the fire.  The three of them stood on the edge of a knife.  So far – at least for him and Noyes – no killings could be laid at their feet.  If they were caught, it would mean prison, but only prison.  If Fleet had his way and he killed Little Joe, they would be hanged.

The rail-thin man swallowed hard as he looked at Ben Cartwright’s precious son who lay tossing and turning, lost in a fevered world.

He had to find a way to help the boy escape.

The clear night had helped Adam travel quickly.  He was more almost halfway home.  It was growing late and though the moon would have allowed him to continue, he felt in his heart there was no real need to rush.  Pa was having his usual reaction to a long separation from Joe.  He and Hoss had talked about it.  Right after Marie died their pa had driven himself mercilessly, working from dawn to dusk and often staying away from the house for days, or even weeks at a time.  They both understood that Pa couldn’t stand the thought of Marie not being there.  The problem was, a part of their stepmother remained behind and it – or he – spent most of his time crying, heartsick for the loss of both his parents.  Joe was inconsolable.

There’d come a day when Pa saw what he was doing.  It had involved Little Joe running away in search of his mama.  Some days Joe understood Marie was dead – well, understood as well as a five year old could that his mother was not coming back.  But then there were other days, days when Little Joe was sure she’d just gone away and he needed to find her and tell her how much they all needed her to return.  By the time their Pa rolled in he and Hoss had been frantic.  They’d looked everywhere.  There were so many perils – so many things in the West that could take the life of a little boy wandering lost.  It was their pa who finally came upon the simple answer.  None of them had thought Joe could remember the way.  They were wrong.

Pa found Little Joe asleep on his mother’s grave.

It was then their father realized that the cord between him and Little Joe had nearly severed, and he’d determined upon the spot that it never would.

After that, it had been hard to tear Pa from Joe’s side.  To his little brother’s chargin, even as a little boy he felt smothered at times.  Pa had to know where Joe was going, when he would get back, whether he was in or out…sometimes the older man was even waiting for him when he came back from the necessary!  Pa had taken hold of the reins and Joe bucked, and kicked, and screamed like a frustrated stallion trying to throw its rider.  Adam snorted.

Pa, of course, kept his seat.

As he paused in the middle of the road, again considering the ride to the ranch, Adam squinted and imagined the cord that had been formed that day stretching all the way from his father rounding up cattle in the north, to his little brother in the south.  His little brother who was, no doubt, safe and secure and seated in front of the hearth playing checkers with their young houseguest.

“Well, Scout,” the black-haired man said with a yawn, “what Pa doesn’t know won’t hurt him.  Let’s you and me find somewhere warm to bed down for the night.”

Fleet Rowse stood at the edge of the Paiute graveyard, staring up at the crossed spears that marked the place of no return.  He’d sent Noyes and Atticus along with the rich kid up to a cave in the hills.  It overlooked this place and from it he’d be able to see whether or not Ben Cartwright showed with the money in the morning.  If he didn’t, he’d have to decide what to do.  With the snowstorm and the changes to the terrain, the rancher could easily be held up.  Or, he might have been away from his ranch and not gotten the note his son had written into his hands until hours after it was delivered.  Rowse spit tobacco juice and sneered.  He could be generous.  He’d give Ben Cartwright  until nightfall before killing the kid and cutting his losses.  Any longer than that would be too dangerous.  That note could just as easily have ended up in the hands of Virginia City sheriff and the law could be on his tail right now.  The outlaw scowled as he continued to stare at the crossed spears.  He didn’t need the law on his tail.  He’d left a trail of an awful lot of dead men in his wake.

Rowse snorted and spit again.  Probably made no nevermind anyhow.  You could only hang a man once.

Moving closer to the spears, Rowse toed the earth just beyond them.  It was probably stupid, him takin’ this job, working with two conmen who didn’t have a brain between them.  Normally, he would have traveled with them a day or two, let them work their ‘magic’, and then killed them both and taken off with the cash.  He would have this time too if it hadn’t been for that name – Cartwright.  He had a special hate in his heart for the Cartwrights, especially the old man.  He’d worked that ranch for nigh onto a year and gotten fired out of hand for drinkin’ and cussin’ too much on a drive one time.  When Noyes said he and the preacher were gonna fleece the Ponderosa, he decided one ‘good’ turn deserved another.

It was a bonus that he was gonna get to kill one of Ben Cartwright’s kids.

Their plan had been formed when he got to town and found out his kid sister – whom he hadn’t seen in years – was stayin’ with the Cartwrights.  He figured he’d just pay Rory a visit and see if he couldn’t get her to help them and maybe, well, maybe come away with him.  Since his wanted poster was plastered around Virginia City, they decided it would be best if Atticus went to the ranch house first, got himself invited in, and then – when he had a chance – left one of the upstairs windows open.  Of course his high-and-mighty widowed sister had to go and listen to Ben Cartwright’s lies about him and tell him to go to Hell.  Fleet snorted.  Blood will out.

Yeah, right.

Blood had done nothin’ but turn on him since he’d been old enough to know it.  His backside had been red as his adopted father’s skin from his and Rory’s old man beating him for bein’ wayward and disobedient.  He’d wandered out in the woods to get away from the bastard when the Paiutes found him.  They’d lost one of their own in a raid the night before and took him to fill the boy’s place.  Turned out it had been a son of Red Pony.  At first, Pony’s woman took to him, but the Indian chief didn’t.  When he was little, he couldn’t see past the color of his skin.  But as he grew and began to take on the role of a Paiute ‘man’ – ridin’ hard and leavin’ plenty of white corpses behind – it didn’t the warrior long to discover that his adopted son was more like him than either of the two ‘blood’ sons he had left.  Neither one of them came close to him for bloodlust.

Neither enjoyed the killing like Pony and him did.

Anyhow, they’d gone after white men, killing as many as they could, and that’s when Ben Cartwright had sealed the fate of that boy laying up there in the cave on the hill.  The rancher took exception to them killing and burning out some of his neighbors.  Him and that older boy of his shot down several of his Indian brothers and wounded Red Pony.  As he sat in the healer’s tent at his Indian father’s side, not knowin’ whether or not the warrior would live, he’d made a vow.   He swore then and there that – one day – he’d do somethin’ to make things even.

It seemed that day had come.

Fleet Rowse turned and looked toward the cave.  Hell, you couldn’t walk through Virginia City without hearing how proud Ben Cartwright was of those boys of his.  There wasn’t a thing on the earth the old man could lose that would even come close to hurtin’ him as much as one of his sons.  The rich rancher’d  give up his thousand acres and all the land, timber, and money he had, just to save one of them.  Some would call that a father’s love.

He called it a father’s weakness.

As his gaze returned to the raised spears, Fleet considered stepping past them.  He didn’t believe the hogwash the Paiutes did about the spirits of the dead lingerin’ there.  The dead were dead.  There weren’t no Heaven.  No, there was nothing but Hell and it was here on earth.  Still, Red Pony believed it and if there was a single man on the earth he respected, it was the Paiute chief.

Backing away from the entry to the graveyard, Fleet Rowse turned and headed for his horse.

He’d have to pay the old man a visit and let him know what he’d done.

Atticus Godfrey glanced at Little Joe Cartwright where lay curled up in a far corner of the cave.  After arriving, Noyes had deposited the wounded boy there and then gone to the opposite corner and lit a fire.  Laying down by it, his partner in crime had fallen asleep after issuing a sharp order that he be awakened when Rowse turned up.

If there was a chance, it was now.

Crossing over to where their captive lay, Atticus crouched beside him and touched the side of his neck.  The boy moaned and shifted, but didn’t wake.  Most likely because the fever was raging in him.  The preacher let out a long sigh.  It was doubtful Little Joe would survive what it would take to make an escape attempt.

It was definite, however, that he would not survive Rowse’s lust for blood.

Atticus removed his hand and glanced at the cave’s mouth.  Their ‘hired gun’ was a vindictive, angry, and dangerous man and it seemed he had something personal against the Cartwrights.  He wasn’t sure now that Rowse hadn’t intended to kill one or all of the four men from the very start.  Fleet seemed to delight in this young man’s worsening condition.  The outlaw meant for Little Joe to suffer as much as possible before he killed him.

As he reached out again to take the young man’s good shoulder in his fingers, Atticus reminded himself that this boy’s impending fate was just one more proof there was no such thing as a kind and loving God.

Clamping his other hand over the boy’s mouth, he shook him gently.

“Little Joe, wake up,” the thin man said, his voice hushed and urgent, “You need to wake up.  Now!”

He was rewarded with a moan.  A few seconds later the boy stirred and his eyes opened wide with puzzlement.

“Keep quiet!”  Atticus glanced at Noyes, who was oblivious.  “I’ve thought about what you said.  I’m going to help you get away.”

Joe’s brow wrinkled.  He shook his head.

“I know you’re weak.  But taking a chance out there is better than remaining here where you have no chance.”  As he spoke, he removed his hand and began to work on the ropes binding Little Joe’s wrists.  After finishing with them, he moved to the boy’s feet.  In a minute Ben Cartwright’s son was free.

“Can you stand?” he asked as his hand went to the young man’s elbow.

“No,” Little Joe said softly.

Atticus looked at Noyes again before asking, “What do you mean ‘no’? Are you too weak to stand?”

The boy shook his head.  “Never…make it.  Not worth…the…risk to you,” he said as he pushed his hand away.

A knife to the heart would have been kinder than those words.

The rail-thin man stuttered.  “Don’t…don’t worry about me.  I’ve made my…my choices and they’ve sealed my fate.”

Joe snorted softly and his lips curled up at one end.  His response was breathy.  “Pa says that’s…arrogance speakin’.”

“Arrogance?”  Atticus shook his head.  “It’s the truth!  God’s done with me.  I know His rules, boy, and I have broken every one of them.”

Joe Cartwright’s feverish eyes locked on his face.  “You…know His rules.  What about…God’s grace?”

Atticus Godfrey could feel the fire running through the boy’s body; felt it shudder through him, causing his weakened frame to shiver.  Little Joe was far from home, alone, and in the company of desperate men; wounded and looking death in the face.

And he was talking about grace?

“I won’t leave you behind,” was all he managed to say.

“Well, then…I’d best go…with you,” Little Joe said as he found his feet.  As he looped the boy’s good  arm over his shoulder, the young man turned a pale and perspiring face on him.  “Atticus, someone…needs to keep…you out of trouble,” he grinned.

A minute later, as Noyes snored away, he and Little Joe left the cave with its ominous future behind and headed out into the blistering cold night. Sitting Little Joe on a tree stump, Atticus quietly freed the horses and then – still holding onto the boy – led his and Noyes’ mounts a little ways into the wood where he helped Joe Cartwright to mount.  The way the boy swayed in the saddle frightened him.  It was obvious it was all he could do to sit the horse.

Still, there was nothing to do but try.

Atticus gave his companion a tight smile and then climbed into the saddle on his own animal.  Catching the boy’s eye, he nodded encouragingly as he caught its reins and led horse and rider into the trees.  It would be hard going, but they dare not take the road.  He was hoping a new fall of snow would cover their tracks before Rowse began to hunt them.  The former preacher knew he was beyond God’s grace, so he did not pray for himself.  But for this boy – so young and yet so wise – he did lift a prayer as they set off, asking for God’s grace and mercy.

If he was lucky, maybe a little bit of it would overflow.

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ELEVEN

Adam Cartwright halted just behind the tall rock tower.  He spent a moment blinking both fatigue and snow from his eyes – yes, it was falling again – and then took another look.  The line shack lay below, nestled in a small depression in the land, just as he expected.

What he didn’t expect was to see a thin trail of smoke rising from its chimney.

He ran his mind back through the orders he’d issued over the last few weeks.  He was sure that no one was supposed to be in residence.  Almost all the men were on the drive.  Of course, it wasn’t unheard of for some passing wayfarer in need to shelter to pass the night in one of the shacks.  That’s part of why they left them stocked with both food and clothes.  Still, there was no horse tethered out front, which begged the question of how anyone could have gotten there.  Obviously, if someone was traveling on a night like tonight without a horse they were either a fool or desperate.  Dismounting, he caught Sports’ reins in his hand and began to walk.  When he was about a hundred feet out from the shack, he tied them to a high branch in an ice-covered bush and left the horse behind. Moving silently on foot he hoped to catch whoever was inside unawares.

Behind him, Sport snorted and whinnied, not liking the idea of being left behind.

“Quiet, boy.  I’ll be right back,” he said softly.  “Maybe I’ll bring you a treat.”

Sport shook himself as if he considered that unlikely, but settled down.

When Adam turned back to the shack, he saw a shadow pass before the window to the left of the door.  Someone was definitely in there. As he walked, he undid the strap that held his gun in place and palmed the weapon.  When he was about a dozen feet out, he paused again to assess the situation.  There was a bar on the door inside and most likely it was down.  His only hope of entering unawares was the window in the back as it had a broken lock that had not yet been fixed.  Rounding the house, he kept an eye to the door, ready in case it flew open.  When he reached the back, the black-haired man holstered his gun and put his hand to the window.  It was unlocked and opened easily.  Then he ducked and waited.  When no one shouted or fire a gun, Adam eased himself in and put his foot on the floor.  As his other boot landed beside it, he lost his balance and slid sideways.  There was a snap!  Puzzled, he looked down.

He’d come that close to stepping in a bear trap!

Even as the absurdity of that registered on his tired brain, Adam felt something slam into him.

A second later a cloud of white dust rose into the air to swirl about him and a young female voice proclaimed, “I got you covered, mister.  You just stay right where you are!”

If he had been in the middle of the snowstorm, his vision couldn’t have been any worse.

“Now, wait a minute,” Adam began, raising a hand, “who are you and what are you doing in –”

“You just put that other hand up too!” the girl ordered.  “I told you, I got you covered!”

He could vaguely make out a small figure holding something out in front of it.  Slowly, Adam raised his other hand.

“I know this looks bad, but I can explain….”

“Like my Pa always says, ‘the more you explain it, the less I understand it.’

Adam blinked.  Such sage wisdom from a little girl who was on the attack and quoting her even more sagacious pa.  It could only mean one thing.

“Elizabeth?”

There was a pause.  “Who are you” she asked.

Obviously the white flour curtain blinded both ways.

“Elizabeth, its me – Adam Cartwright.”

He heard a short ‘oh’, then a sniff, and then the little girl barreled out of the flour dust cloud like a mule spotting home. They both fell on top of the bear trap.

Fortunately, it was sprung.

He sat there holding her for a minute, feeling her small body tremble and listening to her heartfelt sobs before reality set in.

If Elizabeth was here, where was Joe?

Dear God, his father had been right.

It was as if he was sitting on needles.  Ben Cartwright had tried to sleep – he really had – but something gnawed at him and surprisingly, it wasn’t worry for Joe as much as for Adam.  He’d been so concerned for his youngest son that he’d sent his eldest off alone to check on the youngster without considering that he might be endangering Adam as well.  The weather was not only wicked but had proved itself treacherously changeable.  They had gone from snow to sleet and, with the descent of darkness, back to snow.  The ride home would be even more hazardous than the ride out had been.  He should have sent someone else with Adam – one of the men.  After all, they had more than enough to spare.

Troubled, Ben had risen, gathered his gear, and was standing next to Buck, trying to make up his mind about what to do.  It was the middle of the night, but the moon was full.  It made it nearly as bright as the day.  It would be risky, venturing out at night in the snow, but he felt – somehow – if he waited until morning it would be too late.

For what he didn’t know.

He knew he was being foolish.  Most likely Adam was home or nearly there.  His oldest would have a good supper, sip some brandy, and then most likely bed down on the settee rather than risk waking his brother or their guest.  Adam would start back in the morning.   He’d arrive safe and sound by the following night.

Or so he told himself.

A hand on his shoulder startled him.  Ben recognized the grip and turned sheepishly to face his middle son.

“Pa, you ain’t still worried about Little Joe, is you?”

How did he explain it?  Yes, the worry for Joe was still there, but it was Adam’s well-being that was uppermost in his mind at the moment.

“I’m worried for both your brothers, Hoss,” he said at last.

“Adam?  What’re you goin’ and worryin’ about older brother for?  You know Adam can take care of hisself.”

He nodded.   “Yes, I know…under ordinary circumstances.”

“Its winter, Pa, there’s ice and snow.”  His son was puzzled.  “What ain’t ordinary about that?”

The older man shook his head.  There were no words.

“Heck, Pa, you know what?  We got us a sight more men here workin’ this round-up than we figured.  I wouldn’t be agin headin’ back home.  A hot toddy and a warm bed sound awful good right now.”  He chuckled.  “Though it ain’t gonna make the ones we leave behind none too happy.”

He shook his head. “No, no.  It’s just an old man’s fears – ”

“Pa, you look at me.”  When he complied, the big man went on.  “First of all, you ain’t no old man.  And second of all, you ain’t afraid of nothin’!”  Hoss’ eyes went to the road.  “And third, Pa, I’ve been feelin’ somethin’ too.  Somethin’ like you do afore a storm blows in.”

A storm.  Yes.  That was what he felt too.

With his oldest and youngest at its center.

Joe was doing his best to escape, which wasn’t saying much.  Sad to say, his ‘best’ right now was hanging onto the saddle horn for dear life and not falling of the horse and flat onto his face.  All track of where they had been or were was lost in a haze of fever and fatigue.  With the night fallin’ and the moon shinin’ so bright, he couldn’t get his bearings.  Which was silly, really, since he knew that if the moon was risin’ to his right, then he was pointed north and, vice versa, if it was on his left then he was heading south.  The problem was, the minute he looked up at it waves of dizziness washed over him and he forgot where he was!

Atticus’ horse was directly in front of his.  The former preacher was a lean shadow in the falling snow.  The amount of snow had increased as they traveled and it fell like a screen between them.  All around him the world was silent and white.  Well, white tinged with the sort of electric-blue haze.  At first he’d thought the snow just had a lot of ice in it and that was what the moonlight was catching. Then, he’d realized that wasn’t it.  Moonlight sparklin’ on ice didn’t run along the white snow drifts like lightning riding a stormy sky.  He was seeing things.

Which meant his fever was growing dangerously high.

Still, there was no going back, only going forward.  Behind him lay Fleet Rowse, aware of their escape by now and mad as a meat ax.  Going back meant dyin’ slowly in that maniac’s hands.  Out here, he’d just freeze.  He’d always heard dyin’ of the cold wasn’t so bad.  You got real cold, then real warm.

And then everything went dark.

“You’re lagging, Little Joe,” Atticus’ voice came from out of the white wall ahead of him.  “We need to find a ranch or homestead, somewhere with help.  Rowse will be on out trail the minute he discovers we’re gone.”

Joe smirked.  He wasn’t stupid.  He knew that.  After all, hadn’t he just said….

No, he’d just been thinkin’, not talkin’.

Hadn’t he?

Atticus had ended up being all right after all.  Men made mistakes, that’s what pa always said, what mattered was that they made it right by the end.  ‘A man can be forgiven most anything, Joseph,’ he’d told him.  ‘Anything other than giving up.’

Joe straightened in the saddle and shifted his feet.  He was so numb he found it near impossible to do, but he managed to tighten his knees and lean into the animal, urging more speed.  The horse turned and looked at him, clearly confused.  When he wondered why, he realized it was because, even though he’d told the horse to move, he was gettin’ off.

As his face hit the snow Joe Cartwright sighed, wonderin’ if he was gonna burn in Hell for all eternity.

And gave up.

Elizabeth looked up through her sniffs and tears and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Mister Adam.”

“About what?” he asked

Her head went down.  She nuzzled her cheek against his chest.  There were more sniffs, more tears, and then she blurted out one word.

“Everything!”

For a moment he said nothing,  Then, “Perhaps if you could tell me just ‘what’ everything….”

The little girl looked up again.  Her face was smeared with moisture and mud; her spiraling blond hair, thick with bracken and leaves.  Her blue eyes were wide as the sky.

He drew a breath even as she did.

“Oh, Mister Adam, I tried, I really did.  You told me I had to look after my little brother, and I tried so hard!  I didn’t mean for Little Joe’s foot to get run over by that carriage wheel, you know that, and for him to end up limpin’ so bad.  And when we went out sleighing and all that snow fell on top of him, I dug Little Joe out, really I did, and made sure he got back to the house.  I kept that old lady from flirting with him and him from makin’ a ‘fool out of himself’ as Ma would say, but then I had to go to bed!  I was so tired.  What’s an older sister to do when they have to go to sleep and someone sneaks into the house and does something bad to their little brother?”

His head was reeling by the time she let breath out.

“Whoa, slow down, Elizabeth,” Adam said.  He’d followed most of her dialogue, figuring out that the ‘old lady’ was Aurora Guthrie – the beautiful woman he’d warned Pa about putting in charge of his…well…rather passionate younger brother – and even though he didn’t know about the incident in the snow, it didn’t surprise or worry him.  It was the last statement that someone had ‘done something bad’ to little brother that made him sit up and pay attention.

“Someone hurt Little Joe?” he asked, forgetting to soften his tone.

It was more of a wail than an answer.  “Yeeeesssssssss!”

She was terrified and he needed to find out why.  He also knew terrifying her even more wasn’t going to get him anywhere.  So, swallowing his fear and his urgency to know, Adam said quite evenly, “How about we get you something to eat?  I bet you haven’t had anything in a long time.  Am I right?”

How in the world the child had ended up out here in the line shack alone, he had no idea.

“Elizabeth?”

She sniffed again.  “Not since I left the ranch house.”

He smiled.  “And how long ago was that?”

The child shrugged.  “It was light outside.  Sheriff Roy and Hop Sing were arguin’ and not payin’ any attention, and I left ‘cause I knew they’d stop me if I told them I was going to look for Joe and the bad men who took him.”

Bad ‘men’.  So there was more than one.

“And why was Sheriff Coffee at the house?”

She looked at him like he was an idiot.  “Because of the bad men.”

“…right.”  Adam drew a calming breath.  “And which bad men would that be?”

“I don’t know ‘cause I was sleepin’.”  Elizabeth paused.  The fear deepened in her eyes.  “But Sheriff Roy was talkin’ to Hop Sing about them and Hop Sing was crying.”

Dear Lord!  Adam swallowed hard.  “Why?”

“Hop Sing felt guilty.  He said that he was outside takin’ a walk and looking at the stars when one of the bad men hit him over the head.  When he woke up he was in the house and saw Little Joe laying on the floor with another one of the bad men standing over him.”  She scowled.  “He said they took little brother out into the cold without even a coat or hat even though he was hurt!”

So, Joe could be freezing to death as they spoke.

“Go on.”

“Hop Sing said little brother had been hit on the head, but Mrs. Guthrie said it was worse.”

When she failed to go on, he asked, “Worse…how?”

Elizabeth shivered.  “She said the bad man stuck him with a knife.”

Freezing and bleeding to death.

What next?

Forcing a smile he said, “You know little brothers.  They can get into a mess of trouble, but they always know we big brothers and sisters will find and rescue them.”

Adam knew in the child’s experience it was true.  Come to think of it, so was it in his.

That gave him some small hope.

Elizabeth sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve.  A second later she gave him a little smile.

His mind awhirl, Adam took her hand and said, “Now, let’s go get that food.  We have to think hard about what we’re going to do next.”  After all, he couldn’t leave her alone here in the line shack.  Then again, he couldn’t really take her with him if he went off to look for ‘bad men’ who had his brother.  As she nodded and they started for the door, a sound in the outer room made him freeze.

Someone was out there!

“Elizabeth, get behind me!” Adam ordered as he drew his gun from its holster.  “Someone’s in the other room.”

She frowned and then giggled.  “Oh, that’s just Freckles.”

It was his turn to frown.  “Freckles?”  Why did the name seem familiar?

Freckles….

Adam threw the door open to a whinny and a snort.

“Oh, right….  Freckles. ”

In the end, at first light, after a few hours sleep and then filling the child’s belly with food and making sure she was bundled up like an Inuit, Adam took Elizabeth with him.  His fear for Joe – occasioned by the few words the little girl had overheard and related to him – overcame his fear for her.  She was a courageous child.  She’d proven that by what she’d done the first time they’d met her, taking care of Joe after her family rescued him from a fire, and by what she had done today – riding off into what amounted to an early blizzard to save his brother from the bad men who meant to hurt him.

So here they were, mounted on one horse in order to conserve body heat, heading toward the Ponderosa in the hope that somehow God would give him a sign and he wouldn’t ride past his little brother’s corpse buried under a silent blanket of snow.

As they began to move, a smile tickled Adam’s lips.  They’d left Freckles in the line shack with a note attached to his collar stating what they were doing in case someone came out to check it.

He wished he could be there to see the face of the man who did.

Atticus looked over his shoulder at the young man he’d left behind and sighed.  He’d pulled Joe Cartwright’s unconscious form into a sheltered depression in a rock-face and covered him with everything he had from his woolen scarf to the thin moth-ridden blankets Noyes had provided long ago in the slim hope of protecting him from the elements.  Snow was falling again and the wind had picked up.  Inside the depression it was, perhaps, ten degrees warmer.  Enough, he hoped, to keep the boy from freezing to death.

At the moment Little Joe was eerily still.  As he’d settled him in the boy had grown restless, calling out for his father and fighting against him.  The wound in his shoulder had festered and his fever spiked.  There were small trails of red now running along his chest from the knife cut toward his heart.  Atticus’ fists clenched.  He had to get help. This was his fault.  If he’d fought Noyes and made his opinion clear when he’d insisted on hiring Rowse, this would never have happened.  They would have found the safe empty and been on their way, ready for the next challenge.  But he’d been too weak, too pathetic to object.  He’d remained silent, and now that silence was going to cost a young man his life.

Lifting the knife he had brought with him, the former preacher marked the tree by his horse’s head, chipping away at it until its tender white flesh showed.  He was going for help.  He didn’t know where he’d find it, but that’s where he was headed.  Once he found it he’d need the marked trees to bring him back to this place, to the boy whom he was abandoning to the arms of a God he feared but no longer knew.

After sheathing the knife, the rail-thin man stood still and let the snow cascade around him.  The frigid wind chaffed his exposed skin, drying his lips and making his eyes burn.  As he stood there, mired in self-loathing, a scripture from Isaiah – the word of God he thought lost to him – sounded in his ear.

‘And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.’

Grace.

How he forgotten?

Atticus looked at Joe Cartwright in wonder. Was this why God had sent the horror that was Fleet Rowse into his life?  Did He know what it would take to make him remember – one wounded and dying boy, showing mercy and unwarranted grace to the man who had kidnapped him?

Atticus Godfrey fell to his knees and lifted his hands to the sky.  Tears streamed down his cheeks, quickly turning to ice, as he lifted his face as well and cried out in King David’s words, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.  Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.”  His head bowed as he continued, overwhelmed by shame and remorse.  “Against thee and thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.”

The snow didn’t stop falling nor the wind grow calm.  No angel appeared to point the way out of the trees, or burning bush appear to melt the snow.  Still, Atticus Godfrey knew God had heard him for the weight of his sin that he had carried sine his son died was suddenly, mercifully, and with a grace surpassing human understanding, lifted.

He was free.

Worn out by the cold and worry, Ben Cartwright and his middle son, Hoss, had finally been forced to stop.  Dropping where they stood, they’d both tried to catch a few hours of sleep.  It had proved to be an exercise in futility.  Each time Ben woke – and there were many – he became aware of his son tossing and moaning.  When Hoss work, it was the same.  The dream that had plagued the father of the three young Cartwrights before – the one where Joseph lay buried in snow – had come back to haunt him, only this time it was worse.

This time his elder brother lay beside him.

It was impossible for Ben to tell if it was night or day because he walked in the midst of a blizzard.  There world was white and there was an all-over diffused light that could have been cast by the moon or the sun.  In the distance he could hear men calling out his sons’ names.  They were searching as he was searching, only they had not found them.

He had.

Ben found them together, laying as if asleep.  Adam’s arm encircled his brother’s shoulders protectively.  Joseph’s gaunt face was turned into his brother’s coat.  The world around them was quiet as the grave.  As the older man stood there facing the truth that – this time – there was to be no answer to his desperate prayer, the snow continued to fall, rising, ever rising until it obscured his sons’ cold, stiff bodies, leaving only their pale faces revealed.

And then, those too vanished.

“No!”  Ben sat up gasping for air.  His heart was racing so fast it was hard to catch a breath.  “No!”

Hoss was at his side in a minute.  The big man placed a hand on his back and asked,  half-frantic, “Pa!  What is it?”

How did he answer?  What had it been?  A dream?

Or a premonition?

The older man shook his head.  “Give…me a…minute,” he managed.

“You okay, Pa?  You ain’t sick or nothin’?”

He shook his head.  Only sick with fear.

“Is there…any water?” Ben asked.

“Sure thing, Pa.  I kept the canteen right by the fire.”  His giant-size son could move with incredible speed when he wanted to.  Hoss returned to his side in seconds.

Ben took the warm metal object in his hands.  He opened it and poured some of the tepid water down his throat.  Then he nodded.

“Thanks.”

Hoss took it and capped it, but his eyes never left him.  “What’s wrong, Pa?”

“A dream…no, a nightmare,” he answered as he swallowed.  “Your brothers were in danger.  They were laying together in a snowbank.  They….”

“You dreamed they was together?”

He nodded.

“What’d Little Joe be doin’ out in the middle of this big old snow?  He’s got Miss Elizabeth to look after.  Joe wouldn’t bring a little thing like her out into this.”

No, he wouldn’t.  Not unless he had to.

Hoss paused and then asked, his voice hushed.  “Is this one of them there special dreams you have, Pa?  The kind that most often ring true?”

He patted the young man’s arm to reassure him.  “There’s only one thing I know for certain, son.  We need to get home.”  He rose to his feet.  “We need to get home now.”

“Yes, sir.  I’ll saddle up the horses.  You feel good enough to break the camp?”

His nod was enough to send the big man flying.  Hoss was worried too.  He had been since they’d left the cattle and the hands behind.  Something was wrong and they both knew it.

Something was terribly wrong.

Little Joe slipped quietly down the stairs of the ranch house.  He was headed for the kitchen.  Tomorrow was his big brother Hoss’s 15^th birthday.  When he’d gone into the kitchen earlier to tell Hop Sing that his pa wanted to talk to him, he’d run smack-dab into the middle of a dream.  There was a cake on the table big enough to feed all the hands on the Ponderosa, plus lots of other sweet things coated with icing and dotted with fruit.  In the middle of the same table was a big old bird cooked to perfection, smelling of butter and salt that would be sliced, cold, and eaten the next day.  But most impressive of all was the stack of melt-in-your-mouth chocolate truffles by the ice box.  Made with dark chocolate, butter, and sweet cream, and dotted with nuts and toasted coconut, they were one of Hoss’s favorite.  Trouble was, they were his very favorite.  When he lingered a minute too long by the plate, Hop Sing gave him a scolding and shooed him out of the kitchen with a warning that one of his Chinese dragons would come and carry him off if he so much as breathed on those truffles.  The confections, the man from China said, were a present for his brother and if he wanted one, he would have to ask for it.

Right.   Like he’d have given up one if Hoss had asked him.

So, he’d waited until the house settled down and then headed for the kitchen.

He was just gonna take one.  Only one.  Hoss would never know that it was missing, and unless Hop Sing counted them before Hoss dove in, which was doubtful, he wouldn’t know it either.

Crossing to the ice box, Joe opened the door and stared at the marvels inside.  It only took a second to spot the tray of little dark mounds near the back.  As he reached in to pinch one, he heard the sound of footsteps in the yard.  Terrified that he was about to be discovered, he looked around, searching for a place to hide.  Finding none, he crossed to the door and, lifting the latch, slipped outside.

Snow was falling.  It was pretty as anything, but it was also cold and all he was wearing was his nightshirt.  Lifting up on his toes, he peered back inside and saw Pa rummaging around the kitchen.  The older man had a crystal glass in his hand and Joe supposed it held brandy.  Sometimes his pa had trouble sleeping.  He’d come down in the middle of the night and read, usually with a drink and a snack at his side.  Joe crouched as his father came to the door and looked out, and then breathed a sigh of relief as the older man extinguished the lantern he’d lit in the kitchen and returned to the  great room.

Joe let out an audible sigh of relief as he reached with a shaking hand for the door, and then panicked when the door wouldn’t open.  The latch must have fallen into place.

He was locked outside!

He thought about going in through the front door, but his pa was there and he’d get the thrashing of his life for trying to steal Hoss’ treats and then being stupid enough to get locked outside.  Wrapping his arms around his nightshirt, Joe looked up at the porch roof.  He could climb up there, but it wouldn’t do him any good.  All the windows were locked and sealed for the winter.  Shivering and shaking, he rounded the house, walking along the tree line.  As he did the snow began to fall in earnest.  A big wind blew up and sent it flying, so fast and so thick he couldn’t see what he was doing or where he was going.

Before he knew it he was lost.

Joe shuddered.  He knew the house couldn’t be that far away but, no matter what way he went, it seemed to be the wrong one  He walked and walked until his bare feet were frozen, until his nose and fingers were numb; until his eyes grew heavy and he felt like he couldn’t walk another step – until he felt like walking was a harder thing than roping or steering or cutting timber.  Finally, unable to continue, Joe dropped to the ground and lay there shivering until the wind pulled a snowy blanket up to cover him and he started to feel warm.  As his eyes closed and he lost consciousness, a small smile lifted the corners of his lips.  Pa was gonna be mighty angry when he died because of being stupid.

As the cold gave way to a numbing warmth, Little Joe Cartwright snorted.

And all on account of a truffle.

When Joe at last pried open his eyes, he was surprised to find that he wasn’t dead.  He wasn’t eight years old either, and under the blanket of snow that covered him were two other warmer blankets made of cloth and several other garments.  As he shifted his position and winced with pain as he propped his wounded shoulder against the rock-face behind him, he had to chuckle.  Sad to say, the rest of it was real enough.

There was a snowstorm ragin’ and, sure enough, he was out in it alone.

As he looked around, Joe noted the shallow depression he was in and the remnants of a burned out fire beside him.  He was sure he hadn’t possessed the strength to build it, so that meant someone else was with him or had been with him. Clear as his thinking was at the moment – and as surprising as that was considerin’ the fever he had – he just couldn’t remember who.

“Maybe Hoss came lookin’ for his lost truffle,” he snorted.

Joe turned his eyes to the white world that surrounded him.  He’d been out in the snow before, not really lost, but lost enough to know how to survive.  There’d been times on the winter drive when he and his pa and brothers had been separated.  Once, he and Adam had to weather a whole day without any real shelter.  The fact that it was snowing meant it wasn’t too unbearably cold, but then again, that howling wind meant thirty-two degrees could feel like ten.  His pa had taught them all that the first thing they needed to do was find a place to hunker down in.  The second thing was to find water.  It was funny how water was all around you in a snowstorm – feet deep at times – but there was nothin’ to drink.  Joe looked at the fire again.

If only he could rekindle it somehow.

He had to face it.  Lookin’ at it clearly, his options were few – either remain where he was and wait for help, or get up and go look for it.  While the depression he was in was serving to protect him from the wind at the moment he knew, when night came, that the lower temperatures – added to his weakened state – would probably be the end.  And of course, being Joe Cartwright, sittin’ and waitin’ never set too well with him anyhow.  Still, he was relatively warm under his snow-covered woolen blankets and it would be sheer cussedness to start out with no end in sight.

Then again, his pa often told him – with a sigh and a roll of his near-black eyes – that it was that ‘sheer cussedness’ that kept him alive.

Figurin’ it was all or nothing, Joe rose to his feet by scooting his back up the wall.  He remained still once he had managed it, knowing full well that if he moved too fast he’d just end up pitching over and lyin’ face down in the snow.  He’d probably stay there too, until someone found his bones during the spring thaw and took them back to lay beside his mama.  Joe reached down and caught the mass of cloth covering him with his fingers and tossed it off.  Instantly, he began to shake.  Drawing a deep breath, he rose slowly and then reached down and grabbed the top blanket.  With effort Joe worked it around his shoulders and then followed it as quickly as possible with the other thin blanket.  Exhausted, he leaned against the wall gathering strength and looked down.  There was a black coat lyin’ on the snow that had been in the mix, but he was too tired to drop the blankets and shinny into it, so he left it lyin’ on the ground along with a few other pieces of cloth he couldn’t identify.

The sun was rising. That meant, in spite of the current fall of snow, which was fairly thick, he was able to tell directions.  He was facing east now.  Home lay to the south.  Fleet Rowse and the others had brought him to Paiute land, but he had no idea where he was on it.  He could be east or west of the main road.

Thinking of Rowse brought Atticus Godfrey to mind.  It also made him recall that it was the former reverend who had freed him, so it must have been him who left him in the shallow depression with a fire to keep him warm.  Joe could only assume the preacher had gone for help.  The curly-headed youth looked around.  He had no knife to mark a tree with, but knew he needed to leave Atticus a sign of where he’d gone.  Catching one of the pieces of cloth up, Joe walked over to a tree and, with nearly frozen fingers, ripped off a piece and tied it to a low-lying branch.

Then, he began to walk.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

TWELVE

Fleet Rowse pounded his fist into the palm of his glove and then slammed it into the trunk of the snow-covered tree, bringing a shower of white down to settle on his hat and the shoulders of his thick winter coat.  With a curse he brushed the fluffy stuff away, and then reached out and touched the place where the tree had been stripped by a knife.  They’d been here.

Atticus and that cursed boy had been here and he’d missed them!

The snow was fallin’ steadily, so he doubted he was going to find much of a trail from here on out.  There’d been two horses moving at a fairly quick clip.  One of them had headed east an hour or two back and then veered south.  He figured if the horse tracks did belong to Atticus and the Cartwright kid, that the preacher was doing the backtrackin’. At that thought, the outlaw sneered.  The knife cut in the kid’s shoulder would be festerin’ by now.

Joe Cartwright was definitely in no shape to sit a horse for long.

Leaving the marked tree behind, Fleet continued in the direction the hoof prints had been leading him.  It came to an end at a rock wall with a shallow depression in it. When he searched the hollow he found it contained the remains of a fire and a few tossed-off pieces of clothing.  He recognized one of them as a frock coat Atticus Godfrey carried and had added to the layers covering Ben Cartwright’s son.

As he dropped the coat to the ground, Fleet turned and looked toward the horizon.  The sun was up. If old man Cartwright was gonna show today with the money, he’d be at the graveyard by now.  He’d left Noyes to negotiate with the rancher in case he made an appearance.  Noyes was to tell Cartwright to leave the money between the spears and, once they’d made sure it was all there, to go home and wait.  They’d take his son to a nearby town, the business man would say, and leave him there.  That way the boy could wire and, in the time it took his father to get to him, they’d move on.

It was a given that the rancher would ask to see his son alive before he’d be willin’ to go.  He’d ordered Noyes to refuse and to tell the old man that the boy would have a bullet in his skull if he didn’t get moving in ‘three, two, one.’

The outlaw ran a hand over his stubbled chin.  He might just let Noyes Runyon live after all.  The fat man had changed.  He was gettin’ real good at enjoying what he was doin’ and takin’ it to the end no matter what.

Atticus Godfrey, on the other hand, was a dead man.

Still, the right reverend Godfrey was gonna hafta wait until he found Joe Cartwright.  There were boot tracks leading away from the depression and even though they vanished about a dozen feet out, they were headed south toward the kid’s home.  From the look of them, Cartwright was already staggering.  Every once in a while there was a spot of red, so his wound was open and bleedin’.

Most likely what he was going to find at the end of his hunt was a frozen corpse.  Thoughtful, Rowse chewed the inside of his cheek.

Then again, he might just get lucky.

Roy Coffee was tired and saddle sore and about as cold as a man could be.  He was gettin’ too old to sleep out under the stars with a pack of snow for a pillow.  Even inside the shallow cave where they’d spent the night, with a fire and five layers of clothing – and blankets piled on top of that – he knew what them fishes in the ice house felt like!  With a sneeze and a shiver he turned to scowl at his companion.

He’d be danged if the China man didn’t look like he’d just woke up on a May morning!

‘Course, that might have somethin’ to do with the fact that they was lookin’ at the line shack that lay along the route Elizabeth Carnaby’s horse had taken – plus the fact that there was a near non-existent trail of smoke risin’ from its chimney.

“Maybe missy Elizabeth and Little Joe in shack,” the China man said, soundin’ awful happy.  “Maybe get away from bad men.”

Roy nodded.  “Could be.  Or it could be Rowse and the other two are in there with them.”

Hop Sing’s face fell.  “No horses outside.  What bad men ride?  How they get here?”

That lack of horses was peculiar-strange to say the least.  The snow was fallin’ hard enough there were no tracks left to tell how many might have ridden up to the shack.  Elizabeth had ridin’ when she left the house, so where was her horse?

“Maybe them bad men are right smart,” he ventured.  “Maybe they took them horses up into the hills and tied them off so no one would think they was here.”

The China man shook his head.  “Then what build fire for?”

Hop Sing was right.  No matter what way you twisted it, it just didn’t add up.

Roy drew his gun.  He nodded to the other man.  “Come on then.  Let’s find out.”

The two of them approached the shack with caution, one from each side, well aware that any false move might cost the girl and Little Joe their lives if they were inside.  Roy’d checked the front window first, but the curtains were drawn.  All he could tell was that, as he suspected, the fire was pretty much done since only a pale orange glow lit the interior of the main room.  At the back of the small building he almost ran into Hop Sing.  The China man was all excited and sayin’ somethin’ in that gibberish he called a language.

The lawman held a finger to his lips.  “Now, Hop Sing, we gotta go quiet and slow-like.  What’s got you jumpin’ like a cat in a kettle of fish?”

“Window on other side of shack open into bedroom.  Tracks at base of window.”

“Could you tell if it was someone goin’ in or comin’ out?”

He nodded.  “Man go inside.”

Hmm.

“Well, I guess there’s nothin’ for it then but to mosey on inside and see what we come up with,” Roy answered.  “Follow me, Hop Sing!”

It only took a few seconds to arrive at the open window.  Roy made the China man stand back while he worked his way through the small openin’ and then stood and waited as Hop Sing did the same.  The door to the bedroom was closed.  A pale peach light reached under it from the other room.  Roy insisted on goin’ first.  Once they reached the door, he stopped and listened.  Then, countin’ down from three to one on his fingers, he shouldered it open and burst into the common room with his gun drawn.

The gray pony that looked at him was just about as surprised as he was.

As he scrunched up his nose at the proof that the horse had been trapped in the house for a while, the China man exclaimed, “What Freckles do in shack?!  Where missy Elizabeth and where Little Joe?”

Roy had to admit.  It was the answer to that first question that was ticklin’ his fancy at the moment.

“You s’pose Freckles left them and decided to set up house on his own?” he asked.

Hop Sing was hoppin’ mad.  “No time for joke!  Horse here, missy Elizabeth, Little Joe not.  Why?”

“Well, now, I don’t rightly know.”  He swallowed a snicker.  “You might try askin’ Freckles.”

He always loved it when the China man threw his hands in the air.

“Sheriff have no sense!  Horse cannot talk!” Hop Sing exclaimed as he crossed to the pony.  Freckles was lookin’ at Ben’s cook with just about the same amount of surprise as he was lookin’ at him.  “Horse no tell Hop Sing who here and who not, who come and who – ”

The tirade abruptly stopped.

“What is it, Hop Sing?” Roy sobered as he moved to join him.

Hop Sing had turned.  He was holdin’ somethin’  in his hand.  It was a note.

Apparently even though Freckles couldn’t speak, he could write.

“It from Mistah Adam,” the China man said, his voice hushed.

Roy took the scrap of paper that was folded over and opened it.  He quickly perused the words written there.  The first part of the message made him limp with relief.  The second?  Well, at least the girl wasn’t out in all of this alone.

“What number one son have to say?”

Roy handed the paper to him.  “It says that Adam came by the cabin like we did and found Elizabeth and Freckles here.  Now, Adam, well, he had to make a choice – take the girl back to the Ponderosa or take her with him to look for Little Joe.”  The lawman sighed.  He understood the boy’s choice, but he didn’t agree.  “He chose the latter.”

Hop Sing nodded.  “Mistah Adam have big worry for little brother.”

Roy read the note again and sighed.  Adam wasn’t the only one.

At least now that the girl was in Ben’s eldest son’s care, he could concentrate on his first objective – findin’ the outlaws who took Little Joe, and bringin’ the boy home and them to justice. Since he’d been wounded back at the ranch house, the odds were Little Joe wasn’t in too good of shape.  He needed to find him quickly.  Roy went to the front window, pushed the curtain back, and looked outside.

The dawn was breakin’.

Hop Sing followed him.  “Bad men say kill Little Joe at dawn if money not there,”  he said quietly.  “It dawn now.”

Roy turned to look at him.  “Now, don’t you go worryin’ about that too much, Hop Sing.  Those men want that there ten thousand dollars they’re expectin’.  They know with the storm Ben might not have been able to make it to town, to the bank, and back in time.  I’m bettin’ they’ll give him until midnight tonight at least.  Maybe tomorrow mornin’.”

He didn’t look convinced.  “Hop Sing hope so….”

Roy had headed for the door.  Something in the China man’s voice made him turn back just as he finished speakin’.

“…for bad men’s sake.”

It was stated so simply, so quietly, he almost missed it.

Almost.

“Now what are you thinkin’, Hop Sing?  Don’t you go gettin’ no idea about some kind of vigilante justice.”  He pointed to his badge.  “I’m the law here, not you.”

“Laws useless when men are pure.  Unenforceable when men are corrupt,” Ben’s cook replied, his black eyes blazin’ like coals in a stove.

“Now see here, you just get that notion right out of your head!  Do you want me to leave you behind in this here shack with Freckles?”  Roy frowned as he said it, realizin’ how plumb loco that sounded.  “‘Cause I will if I feel I cain’t trust you!”

The other man crossed his arms defiantly.  “Sheriff Roy trust Hop Sing do what best for Mistah Cartwright’s number three son.”

If that wasn’t about the most side-steppin’ answer he’d ever got out of a man.

“And supposin’, just supposin’, Roy countered, “you think takin’ the law into your own hands is best for Little Joe, what then?”

The China man’s jaw was set.  “Then Hop Sing go to jail.  If action save Little Joe, Hop Sing be happy to hang!”

Now just what did you say to that?

Roy ran a stubbled hand across his chin.  All he wanted right now was to find these men and get this over, to deliver Ben’s youngest boy back to him, and then to go home to a warm meal and a warm bed and about twelve hours of lazin’ in it. He didn’t need no obstinate, mule-headed China man arguing with him ‘til the cows came home.

Hop Sing was watchin’ him.  Lookin’ for weakness, no doubt.

“Sheriff Roy forget.”

“What’d I forget?” he asked, wary.

“Make Hop Sing deputy.”

He had forgotten that.  Still, he didn’t  need no temporary deputy goin’ off half-cocked either.  In fact, it would make it a whole lot worse for him if someone in his employ was suspected of murder.

“So?  That still don’t make killin’ right.”

“Hop Sing not kill unless Little Joe in danger.”  He made a quick gesture.  “Cross heart, hope to die.”

Roy shook his head.  “Now, we don’t need no hopin’ for that….”  He eyed the China man.  It was always a hard call, havin’ someone in a posse or ridin’ with him whose family member was at risk.  Made them reckless.  Foolish, even.  “If I take you at your word, I expect you to keep it,” he demanded.

“Hop Sing keep word to Sheriff Roy.”

The lawman sighed.  “All right.  I give in.  We’ll both go.  These are desperate men.  You’re gonna need a weapon.”  He smiled slyly.  “How about that gun you got hidden away in that pack of your’n?”

He shook his head.  “Hop Sing no have gun.”

Roy scowled.  “Well, what have you got in there then?  I seen you fussin’ with it the other night.”  He wagged a finger.  “And don’t you go tellin’ me ‘nothin’.”

“Hop Sing have knife.”

The lawman’s brows arched.  “A knife.  What kind of knife?”

“Knife from kitchen.”

“You mean a butcher knife?”  Roy sighed.  “Now why ever would you bring along a butcher knife?”

The China man’s black eyes were unreadable.  “Does not your Good Book say ‘an eye for an eye?” he asked.

At first he was gonna balk.  Then he thought about Fleet Rowse and what he’d done to Little Joe, driving a knife in the boy’s shoulder just for the sick fun of it.  Maybe God did have a hand in Hop Sing comin’ along.  Maybe Fleet Rowse was finally gonna get his comeuppance.

All legal-like, of course.

“Tell you what, Hop Sing,” he said as he placed a hand on the other man’s shoulder . “You keep that there knife of yours hidden away as back-up, you hear?  Let me take ‘em on first, but if somethin’ happens and I cain’t finish what I begun, you got my permission to take it out and use it.  Agree?”

Ben’s cook nodded.  “Hop Sing agree.”

He glanced out the window again.  The sun was risin’, castin’ pink-orange fingers across the blue-gray snow.   “All right then, let’s get goin’ – ”

Roy stopped.  Freckles was lookin’ him in the eye, like he was waitin’ on him to notice.

“What we do with missy Elizabeth’s pony?” Hop Sing asked.

The sheriff eyed the door.  It was mighty slim.

“If that girl got him in, we can get him out.  We’ll take him along.

“After all, the more the merrier.”

Atticus Godfrey was on foot, looking at his horse.  The animal was standing on three feet instead of four, with the fourth limb raised above the snowy ground.  He wasn’t a horseman and he really had no idea what it meant other than the fact that the animal could go no farther until something changed.

Closing his eyes, he fought against the wave of desolation that washed over him, threatening to pull him under.  Old habits died hard.  A few hours ago, he would have seen this development as Divine punishment.  Now, he tried to see it as Divine intervention – tried to believe there was some reason his good intentions had been altered.

He had been heading due south, hoping to travel off-road until he came to the area of the Cartwright’s ranch house, knowing that was his best chance to rescue the boy.  All the while he traveled, he kept one eye out for Rowse and Noyes.  They certainly had to know by now the choice he had made.  Due to his horse going lame he was going to have to head east instead, on foot, in the hopes of finding the main road.  His last and best hope lay in finding someone along the way who could give him a ride.  At the pace he would be forced to travel, it would take the better part of a day to reach the house on foot.

Atticus lifted his face toward the heavens.  The snow was falling, heavier now, and the wind, rising.

Little Joe didn’t have long.

Adam Cartwright’s lips curled up at one end as he looked down at the child seated in front of him.  Elizabeth was settled on his saddle and nestled close against his chest.  The plucky girl was well-suited to be his little brother’s ‘older’ sister.  She had to be exhausted, weary and worn, sleepy, and hungry to boot, and yet she never complained.  Every time he asked how she was doing, she said she was ‘fine’.  Each time he suggested stopping to rest, she shook his curly blonde head and said ‘no’.  Elizabeth’s whole being was focused on one thing and one thing only – finding Little Joe and making sure he was safe.

He only wished she had been ten years older.

Scout was moving at a decent clip, as fast as the weather and the weight of two riders would allow.  There’d been more than one time he’d wished he was riding Chubb, since their combined weight would have been a light load compared to his giant-size brother.  Still, things were what they were and he had learned long ago that God had them, as his father once said, ‘in His pocket.’  If he pushed the animal too hard it could cost its life and they still wouldn’t have his brother.

At first Elizabeth had been chatty, rambling on about the things she and Joe had done while he’d been away, telling him with excitement about their excursion in the snow.  Then she’d grown quiet, and slowly the story of the attempted robbery of their home and Joe’s kidnapping had come out.  It seemed when Fleet Rowse discovered the safe was empty, he had switched tactics and taken Joe.  It probably took less than a minute for the outlaw to realize that taking his brother would net a bigger profit anyhow.  The trouble was, none of them had been home to receive a ransom note if it had been sent.  That is, no one but Hop Sing.

If the outlaws had set a time limit for the ransom money to be delivered….

Adam shivered.

Elizabeth’s small face, swaddled by and nearly hidden in a thick wool scarf and knitted hood, turned up toward him.  “Do you need to rest, Mister Adam?”

He swallowed his smile.  “I am a bit cold and weary, but I think I can go on for a while yet.”  He paused.  “How about you?”

“I’m fine.”

The chuckle escaped this time.  “You know, that’s what Joe always says.  He can be standing there with bruises and cuts all over him, or sniffing back tears, but his answer is always the same.  “I’m fine.”  Adam held her gaze.  “And Joe’s never ‘fine’.”

Elizabeth turned and settled back against him again.  She was silent a moment.  “Being a big brother or sister ain’t easy, is it?” she asked, her tone wistful.

“Oh, I don’t know.  Most of the time it is.  Most days it just means being there when they need you and making sure they don’t stub their toe.  Sometimes, its even fun.”

“Fun?”

“You get to be a conspirator.  You’ll see when Jack gets bigger,” he laughed.

“But what about now?  What about when…things happen?  Bad things?”

Adam drew a breath.  “There’s a kind of balance to life, Elizabeth.  God gives us good things, but He also sends bad things to in order to teach us lessons.”

“How’s Joe bein’ taken by bad men teachin’ us a lesson?” she asked, genuinely puzzled.

Ah.  How did one discuss the finer points of theology with a child?

“Sometimes – more often than I want to admit – I get mad at Joe.  Do you ever get mad at Jack?”

She nodded.

“Have you ever wished Jack would just go away?”

The little girl said nothing for a moment.  Then she glanced at him.  “Have you ever wished Little Joe would go away?”

Adam felt shame rise to color his ears as he answered.  “Yes.”

She let out a sigh.  “Me too.”

“The last time I felt that way – and there’s been more than one, believe me – Joe wanted a wild horse that I knew he shouldn’t have.  I told him so.  He went behind my back to Pa and got it anyhow.”

A black horse was his brother’s weakness.  This one had been a beauty, but he was one of those wild horses that you somehow knew would never be tamed.  Joe had been sure he could do it without getting his neck broken.  He’d disagreed.

“So you were mad at him, huh?”

“Mad?”  He laughed.  “I was furious!  We got into an argument, and then a fight.  I walked away from the barn bleeding and bruised, not wishing that Joe would just go away, but that he’d never been born!”

“So what happened?” she asked.

Adam paused, remembering the moment when Hoss had come running up to the house to get him less than an hour later.  Joe had been working the horse.  It had thrown him into the fence, knocking him out, and then broken through and disappeared into the night.  They never found it.

“What happened?  The horse threw Joe off its back and he got hurt and I realized at that moment that he could have been gone.  In a second.  Gone.”  He drew a breath.  “So you see, even though it was bad for Joe to fall off the horse and get hurt, it taught me something.  It taught me how much I loved him and would miss him if something happened.”

“So…” Elizabeth began, “Joe bein’ taken by the bad men is remindin’ us of how much we love him, so we’ll remember not to get mad at him so easy?”

That wasn’t exactly what he was aiming for, but it was close enough.

“Soooooo,” she went on, “maybe if we love little brother a whole bunch and don’t never get mad again at him again, when we get Little Joe back, then God will keep him safe ‘cause He won’t think He needs to teach us nothin’ anymore.”

A child’s logic.  Simple and devastating at one and the same time.

“Amen to that,” he breathed.

As he spoke, Adam drew Sport to a halt.  There was a lone figure walking along the road in front of them, headed south like they were.  The man’s shoulders were bent and he walked as if almost spent.  He was very tall and very thin and…slightly familiar.

“Elizabeth, you said that the reverend who came into town with you on the coach had something to do with Joe being taken, didn’t you?”

Her curly head bobbed against his chest.  “Mrs. Guthrie said he unlocked a window so the bad men could get in.”

He’d met the man and, though their acquaintance had been brief, his mind retained the image of the preacher’s very distinct figure.

He was sure it was him on the road in front of them.

A thousand thoughts whirled through his head at once – if it was Godfrey, why was he on the road alone?  Was he alone?  Maybe Rowse and the other man who traveled with him were watching from the tree line waiting to strike.  And why was the reverend walking?  Where was his horse?  And if he had been with the men who had taken Joe, where was Joe?  Did Godfrey know?

Adam sucked in a deep breath and held it.

He had to know.

For a moment, the black-haired man considered leaving Elizabeth behind, but then he realized that might be exactly what the outlaws wanted so that she too could become a hostage against him.  Transferring the reins to his left hand, he drew his pistol and leveled it at the lone figure walking slowly through the snow and began to advance.

As they came alongside the reverend, Adam called out, “Godfrey, stop where you are!  Turn and face me!”

It took a moment.  The reverend’s reactions were slow.  When Adam saw the condition the man was in and his face, he returned his gun to its holster.  Atticus Godfrey was exhausted and his lean face the image of regret and remorse.

“Mister…Mister Cartwright?” he stammered.

Adam dismounted, leaving Elizabeth in the saddle.  “Yes.  I’m Adam.  And you’re Atticus Godfrey.”

The reverend nodded.  Then he sank to his knees, right there, in the middle of the road.  “Thank God….”

Adam dropped beside him and took the preacher’s shoulders in his hands.  Angrily, he shook him.  “Where is my brother?!  Tell me!  Where’s Joe?  Is he all right?”

Atticus looked up, meeting his fierce gaze without flinching.  “Rowse intended to kill your brother, no matter whether the money was paid or not.  I couldn’t….  I wouldn’t let that happen.  I helped Joe to escape, but he was so weak….”  The reverend drew a breath before continuing and then next words he spoke were a knife to Adam’s heart.  “Little Joe was so weak from fever and blood loss, I was forced to leave him behind in order to seek help.  I left him in a shallow depression a mile or so back, covered with everything warm I had.  If Joe remains there – and Rowse doesn’t find him – he has a chance.”

Adam released his grip.  The man kneeling before him had helped to kidnap his brother, it was true.  But it seemed he had been the one to rescue him as well.

His anger turning quickly to fear, he asked, “Where is Joe?”

The thin man swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.  “Do you know where the old Paiute graveyard is?”

Yes, he did.   “Joe’s there?”

Atticus shook his head.  “Not there.  There’s a cave high above the graveyard. Do you know it?”  When he nodded, the man went on.  “ Rowse was holding Little Joe there, waiting for the ransom money.  Your brother and I left it and traveled due south about two hours before he began to grow too weak to continue.  That’s where he is now.”

He looked back the way the reverend had come.  “And how long did you say you’ve been traveling since you left Joe?”

The rail-thin man shook his head.  “I can’t be sure.  Two, maybe three hours.”

In good weather a man could cover three or four miles an hour on flat terrain.  But it wasn’t good weather and Atticus had been on foot, so make that one or one and a half.  That put Joe at some one to two miles east of where they were now.

“How far off the road?”

“A quarter, maybe half a mile.”

Adam stood and began to pace.  He had to find Joe.  That meant he needed to take off at top speed now.  But there was the preacher and Elizabeth to think of.  He considered leaving the girl with Atticus, but quickly decided against it.  He was headed into the unknown looking for Joe while Atticus was a known danger.  Even if he felt he could trust the preacher, Rowse and Noyes might be tracking him.  And as far as all of them going, Scout simply couldn’t carry three people.   It was as simple as that.  Still, he hated to abandon the man to a lengthy walk alone through the snow and the cold.

As if reading his mind, the reverend said, “Don’t worry about me.  Go!  Go save your brother.”

Adam’s lips were tight.  “You may well freeze before you reach the house.”

The rail-thin man reached out.  Taking his offered hand, he rose to his feet.  As their gazes locked, a smile touched Atticus’ eyes.  “I have made my peace with God, Mister Cartwright.  What was lost is found, and mostly due to your brother.  If I die, I die at peace.  I wish I could care for the girl as you go into battle, but she is safer with you,” he said as he released his hand.  “Go now, both of you, and go with God!”

Adam glanced at Elizabeth where she sat on the horse.  It was true, still…

He nodded.  “God be with you, reverend.”

Atticus did a strange thing then.  He grinned.

“For the first time in a long time, Mister Cartwright, I know He is.”

Fleet Rowse knelt on the ground, looking at the signs of his prey’s passage that were quickly vanishing in the snow.  Someone had fallen, gotten up, and then fallen again.  They’d laid there a while in-between.  Finally, whoever it was clawed their way up the side of a tree and started walking again.

The outlaw fingered a frozen bead of blood.

It had to be Joe Cartwright.

Rising, Rowse dusted the snow off his knees and then stared in the direction the tracks were leading.  The kid was headed south.  He probably thought he was on the path to home.  What Cartwright didn’t seem to realize was that he was about a quarter mile to the west of the main road, while the ranch lay on the east  and the way he was goin’, he’d most likely pass by it.

If he lived than long.

Returning to his horse, Fleet  Rowse mounted.  There was still time to salvage the situation.  He’d no doubt have either the Cartwright kid or his corpse in hand in the next hour.  He’d take him back to Paiute land and see if the ransom had been delivered.  If Ben Cartwright was there and demanded to see his son, he’d show him, and then leave the kid behind in the cave either dead from the cold or because he’d killed him.  If Noyes had been loyal and was still there, they’d head out together.  If not, well, he’d cut his losses and fly.  He’d have the money and Ben Cartwright would be on a wild goose chase to the next town.  That much money would let him lay low for a long time.

Long enough for the law to forget him even if Cartwright and his remaining sons never did.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo