PART FOUR & EPILOGUE

 

THIRTEEN

 

“There’s someone up there all right,” Roy Coffee said as he arrived back at the spot in the frosty underbrush where Hop Sing was waitin’.  They were just outside the Paiute graveyard, lookin’ up the hill at the entry of a cave set halfway along its side.  He’d just returned from checkin’ it out.  Rowse knew the area from his time with the Indians, so he’d thought the outlaw might have considered makin’ it his headquarters.

And he’d be danged if he hadn’t!

“You see Little Joe in cave?” the China man asked.

Roy shook his head.  “Couldn’t see inside.  I saw one man come out and look around.  From the size of him, I’d say it was the one I saw gettin’ off the stage with Elizabeth and that preacher man.  Name of Runyon.”

“Fat man come with skinny holy man.  Help take Little Joe.”

Roy glanced at the cave again.  Ben’s boy could be in there.  There was no tellin’.  They was just gonna hafta find a way to take a look inside.  Before he could suggest a plan, Hop Sing was on his feet and headed for his horse.

“Hop Sing go find number three son now!” he proclaimed.

The lawman caught his companion’s arm and pulled him back.  Lifting a finger, he wagged it in front of his face.  “Now, you just hold onto them there Chinese dragons of yours what are wantin’ to take off with you, you hear?  We go rushin’ in, it could cost the boy his life.”  Roy scowled. “We gotta be subtle-like.”

“Hop Sing be subtle.”  Ben’s cook scowled.  “Sneak in quiet.  Carry big stick.”

Well, that was something.  At least he wasn’t plannin’ on takin’ that there butcher knife he had.

“Ain’t no way, Hop Sing.  You and I gotta stick together.  One of us needs to distract that man, draw him out of the cave, so the other one can go in.”

“Hop Sing go in look for Little Joe?” he asked hopefully.

He was thinkin’ that way.  They’d sneak up to the cave and he’d make some kind of ruckus to  draw whoever was in there outside.  He’d make up some excuse to keep them there a few minutes while the China man went inside and looked for Ben’s boy.

“You’ll have to go in and get out quick,” he explained.  “If you find Joe, you gotta leave him until we can come up with a plan.  There could be three of them – maybe more – all armed to the teeth.  We got us one gun and a knife.”  He shook his head.  “Them ain’t even odds by anybody’s account.”

The nod came slowly, but it came at last. “Hop Sing understand.  Only hope Little Joe understand as well,” he said, his voice full of hurt.

“Now Hop Sing, you gotta understand.  Joe’s hurt, for one thing.  He probably ain’t movin’ too fast.  If you free the boy and the two of you come out of that cave and there’s three bad hombres there armed with guns and only me standin’ against them….”

The China man nodded.  “Hop Sing understand.”

Roy looked at him.  The man was ready to give his life to save Little Joe.  There was somethin’ so admirable about that it near made him weep.  He laid a hand on the cook’s shoulder and then crossed over to Hop Sing’s horse.  Once there, he opened the pack strapped on the back of the saddle and took out the mean-looking weapon he had concealed there.  Crossing back to Hop Sing, he held it out.

“Sheriff Roy want Hop Sing take knife?”

He shrugged.  “It ain’t exactly that I ‘want’ you to take it, but I think you need to.”  He held the cook’s black-eyed gaze.  “Now, you listen here, I’m trustin’ you with this.  Its to defend yourself and Little Joe and maybe cut him loose.  No killin’, you hear, not unless absolutely necessary.”

Hop Sing took the knife and anchored it behind his belt.  “Hop Sing understand.  Men who kill should not be killed because one believes death will lead to protection of many others.”

Roy thought that through and then nodded.  “I gotta remember that.  That’s a mighty fine way to put it.”

“Honorable grandfather wise man.  Teach Hop Sing much.”

The sheriff smiled.  “You know, Hop Sing, I ain’t particular to the way you and me got to spend some time together, but I sure am glad we did.  You’re a good man to have at my side.”

“Sheriff good man too.  Love Cartwrights near as much as Hop Sing.”

Roy didn’t have an answer to that.  For the most part, he tried to steer clear of emotion.  Ever since his wife had died, it ran in such a torrent just underneath the surface that he’d had to build a dam of objectivity just to hold it back.

It just wouldn’t do for the sheriff of a rough and tumble Wild West town to be teary-eyed all the time.

But he knew – like Hop Sing knew – that the Cartwrights were special.  And out of all of them it was that dang foolhardy, headstrong youngest son of Ben’s that had wheedled his way into his heart.

“Little Joe’s gonna be okay,” he said at last.

Hop Sing nodded.

And they were gone.

 

For how long he didn’t know, all Joe had been able to do was concentrate on puttin’ one foot in front of the other.  His world had narrowed down to that – to the movement of one pointed boot toe and then the other.  He didn’t look up.  He didn’t look around.  He only looked down, watching his steps progress, feeling somehow comforted by that fact alone – that his feet were moving and, because of that, he was moving too.

Sadly, it all came to a painful stop when one of his toes hit a snow-covered rock and he fell, and then tumbled down a low rise and rolled onto the frozen surface of the creek at its bottom.  And stopping wasn’t proving to be a good thing for him ‘cause now that he had time to think, he realized just how rotten he felt.  He still had those thin woolen blankets wrapped around his lean frame, only now they were as covered with snow as he was and doin’ little to warm him.  His teeth were chatterin’ and he couldn’t hold still.  But worse, even though bein’ cold as the north side of January and shakin’ like someone was siftin’ him for gold was pretty bad, he could feel a steady heat radiating from his shoulder wound.  The last time he’d looked at the cut, it’d grown in size and was wearin’ a ring of red.   It was seriously infected.

Laying there on his back, with snowflakes settling on his thick eyelashes and kissing his lips, Joe pondered idly which it would be better to die from.  Infection or the cold?  He decided in the end that freezin’ to death was a better choice and if it looked like his fever was gonna go high enough that he’d be screamin’ out of his head, he’d just take all his clothes off and lie down in the snow and die.

He could do it now.

If he did it now, it would all be over.

He wouldn’t have to try to crawl back up that hill, or walk on frozen feet to the Ponderosa.

He wouldn’t have to worry about Fleet Rowse catchin’ him anymore, or about what the outlaw would do when he did catch him.

He’d just go to sleep and it would all be over.

Joe closed his eyes and listened to the sound of his heartbeat.  It seemed to echo off the hard sheet of ice beneath him.  The beat sounded fast and wrong and that meant his fever was rising.  All too soon he’d be beyond walking, beyond even getting up to try – beyond choosing.

It was funny when you were dyin’ – or close to it – the things you thought about.  Silly things, really, like mama brushing her hair.  She always brushed it at night and then braided it.  Sometimes she’d let him brush it.  He loved to do it ‘cause her hair had been like spun gold and soft as the fur on a kitten.  His pa would come over while he was doing it and kiss Mama on the nape of her neck.  Joe’d kissed her there too.  Mama’s skin had been soft as her hair and smelled of lavender soap.  Adam told him once that lavender represented refinement, grace, and elegance, and was the flower of femininity.

Joe snorted.  Adam always did like to use big words.  Older brother could have just said it smelled like a girl.

That girl Adam liked when he was little smelled like lavender.  Her name was Adelaide.  He remembered smellin’ her as she walked by and thinking she must have taken a bath with his mama. That was the first time he had ever seen Adam cry.  One minute Addie had been standing by the hitchin’ rail with big brother and the next, she was gone.  Seeing Adam so sad made him sad too.  Hoss had found him crying later in the barn and when he told him why, middle brother said they had to do somethin’ to cheer older brother up.  Being boys, they thought pullin’ a joke and makin’ him laugh was a good way to do it.  Joe’d found Adam on the far side of the house chopping wood.  He’d taken older brother’s hand and led him to the barn, telling him he wanted to see the horses.  When they got there Hoss dumped a big pile of hay on his head and then the two of them started poundin’ him.  Adam got mad – really mad.  Pretty soon he started poundin’ back.  When they were all covered with cuts and bruises, he sat back and looked at them and shook his head, and then started to laugh and laugh.

Joe sure wished he felt like laughing.

Oh, he knew he had a laugh like a hyena, or maybe a high-spirited girl.  There wasn’t anything he could do about it.  It didn’t come from practice or nothin’.  It just bubbled up inside him and overflowed like water in a pitcher you weren’t paying attention to while you filled it.  When he was little – maybe eight or nine – one of the hands had made fun of his laugh and he’d stopped for two whole weeks.  His pa’d come up to him one day and asked him what he’d done wrong.  Well, that puzzled him.  When he asked the older man what he meant, Pa said he had to have done something wrong because he was being punished.  ‘How are you bein’ punished, Pa?’ he’d asked him.  Pa said ‘Joseph, your laughter is a gift and since you’re withholding it, something must be wrong.  I can’t live without your laughter.’

Imagine that.  His giggly, girly, silly laugh, a gift.

Joe shifted his shoulder, easing the ache in it.  Pa told him then that he and his brothers were gifts too.  Gifts from God, and he couldn’t live without any of them either.  Couldn’t live without him.

Well, if that didn’t beat all.

Little Joe Cartwright drew a strengthening breath and rolled over onto his side.  A second later he let it out as he sat up and waited for the world to right itself.  At this moment he didn’t give a damn if he lived or died, but he sure enough didn’t want Pa to die, and that meant he needed to get back on his feet and start to put one foot in front of the other again and to do it until he reached home.

Figuring the ice was no place to try standing, Joe pulled his body forward and off of it using his hands.  Once he reached the shore he just kept crawling.  He’d hunkered his fingers down under the blanket for the most part to keep them from freezing, but now he used them to grab handfuls of the icy underbrush that lined the hill.  Slowly, painfully, he worked his way to the top until his head crested above it.

There, in the distance, was a rider.  Whoever it was, was coming toward him, riding slow, looking to the left and right and calling out ‘Joe!  Joe Cartwright!’.  He couldn’t see the man clearly since he was bundled like a baby in a heavy winter coat, with a thick scarf tied around his face and hat, and warm, leather gloves covering his hands.  Still, he knew who it was.

Who else would come out into the middle of a snowstorm looking for him?

Throwing his body forward, Joe reached out toward the ghostlike figure and cried out feebly, “Pa.  Pa, I’m here….  Pa….”

The horse came to a stop.  Boots crunched the frozen grass and then appeared beside his head.  After a moment the man crouched and took hold of a handful of his frozen curls and lifted up his head.

“Why if it ain’t Joe Cartwright,” he breathed, blowing out vapor that quickly dissipated on the wind.

Confused, Joe tried again.  “Pa?  Am I home, Pa…?”

The fingers tightened in his hair as the cold icy nose of a revolver was applied to his temple.

“Sure you’re home, kid.  You’re in my home,” the man sneered.

“Welcome to Hell.”

 

It had already been a long hard ride and they were still hours away from home.  Ben Cartwright pitched his hat lower to stave off the biting wind and ducked his head as a particularly strong gust struck him where he sat on Buck’s back.  The snow it blew with it had a bite now.  The temperature must be hovering between freezing and a degree or two above.  All in all it was simply miserable and he would have given anything to be home sitting in his chair in the great room by the hearth, surrounded by his sons and sipping a brandy.

Glancing at his middle boy, who rode by his side, Ben knew Hoss felt the same.  No one in their right mind would be out in this.  It was a mark of Hoss’ devotion that he continued on in spite of weather that would have made most anyone else pitch a camp, light a fire, and settle in for the duration.

After all, they didn’t really know anything was wrong.

Beside him, his son checked his horse and then sat up in the saddle, listening.

“What is it?” Ben asked as he did the same.  “Did you hear something?”

“I ain’t sure, Pa.”  The big man sat back down.  “Might of been my imagination.  I thought I heard a couple of horses whinnying.”

Ben patted his horse’s neck and gave him an encouraging word.  The animal was uneasy and ready to move on.  The buckskin’s answering snort made him smile.  Buck was probably as cold and miserable as he was!

After listening a few seconds, he said, “I don’t hear anything.”

“Me neither.”  Hoss frowned.  “But I sure do think I did before.”  He eyed the trees to the right of the road.  “You think we ought to check it out?”

“We’re near one of the line shacks, aren’t we?” the older man asked.  Ben thought he recognized the area.  Farther along the road somewhere – probably visible from here on another day – was a tall stacks of rocks that marked the trail to the shack. The natural tower lay to the east of the road, while the sound had come from the west.

“It’s a mile or so to the shack yet,” Hoss answered.  “If I was Adam or Joe and I was out in this, I’d sure enough head there.”

“But the sound came from the opposite side?”

The big man nodded.  “Yes, sir.”

Ben shifted in his seat and drew his collar up, dislodging small chips of ice and snowflakes as he did.  “It will only take a short time to check it out.  I don’t think we dare risk going on without doing so.  Even if its not one of your brothers, whoever it is might need our help.”

“I ‘spect you’re right.”

As he turned Buck’s nose west, the older man heard it too.  Only this time the distant horse squealed, indicating someone was attempting to get it to do something it didn’t want to do.

“Sounds pretty far away this time.”

Hoss was working to calm Chubb who had been upset by the animal’s cry.  “Not so far away, Pa. I think its just up in the hills,” he said as he shifted his grip.  “You know that old cave is up there.  The one Joe and me used to play in while you’d was visitin’ with whoever was working out of the shack.”

He had a vision of it, though he’d spent little time there.  The longest he had been in that cave was the time it took to pull his young sons out of it.  As boys he had a hard time convincing them that such caves were rarely unoccupied.

The same might prove true now.

“A cave would be a good place to get out of the cold,” he said at last.

His son grinned.  “Just what I was thinkin’, Pa.”

“Let’s – ”

Ben pulled up short.

There had been a shot.

Hoss nodded even before he could ask if he had heard it.

Seconds later, they both moved into the trees.

 

Roy had taken out Noyes Runyon’s gun at the last second.  Danged if that city feller’s fancy little cut-down pistol with a snub nose hadn’t made enough noise to wake the dead, goin’ off like it did inside the cave!  He glanced at Hop Sing who was holding the man at bay with the kitchen knife to his throat.  Noyes had almost got the China man.

It had been close.

They’d come up slow and easy on the cave ‘cause about a half-mile out they’d heard horses nickerin’ and snortin’.  Hop Sing knew the best way to reach it unseen.  He said Ben had sent him up here to find Hoss and Joe one time when they’d been visitin’ the ranch hand workin’ the line.  When the boys failed to listen to him, he’d done gone back to their pa and he guessed the fireworks that had gone off that day rivaled anythin’ the Fourth of July could deliver.  Just as they’d arrived, a man had stepped out – a big fat man wearin’ a suit.  It was Runyon, of course.  He stood for a minute lookin’ south, and then went back inside.

At that point it’d been all he could do to hold Hop Sing back in spite of what they’d agreed to earlier.  Finally, he convinced the China man by remindin’ him that they had to take it real slow so’s nothin’ happened to Little Joe if he was inside.  They’d mounted the hill by the cook’s back way and then stood one to each side of the entryway of the cave, listenin’.  The echoes made it hard to be sure, but he thought from the sound that only Runyon was inside.  Even so, he decided to stick with the first plan with only one variation – it’d be Hop Sing who would draw the man out, so’s he could take him the minute he did.

Movin’ into position, he’d signaled Hop Sing and waited.

It took a minute but Noyes finally came out.  Still, like he sensed somethin’, the businessman stayed just within the cave.  He and Hop Sing talked a while and then that fool China man followed him inside like he was one of them fearless dragons he was always talkin’ about!  Roy knew it wouldn’t take long – and it didn’t.  Within two minutes they was hollerin’ at each other.  Throwin’ caution to the wind, he’d stepped into the cave only to find Ben’s cook backed up against the wall and Runyon pullin’ his sorry excuse for a pistol out of his inner coat pocket.

Noyes looked mean as a rattler gone too long without his supper.

He’d had his own gun in his hand as he entered.  The two men was awful close, but he thought he had a clear shot.  The lawman watched amazement dawn on the China man’s face as the bullet whizzed close  by his chin and took Noyes in the hand, throwing that there little pistol of his wide and makin’ him let loose his grip.  Hop Sing had his knife out in seconds and had switched places, backing the city slicker up against the cave wall before he had time to make it all the way inside.

Maybe keepin’ him as a deputy would be a right smart idea.

“Let me go, you Oriental miscreant!” Noyes Runyon snarled.  “If you so much as nick my skin with that cleaver, I’ll have my lawyer take you and your employer for every cent you have!”

Roy loped over and sized him up.  Runyon’s face was livid, pert near as red as a blistered backside.  He was sweatin’ like pig iron and tremblin’ to boot.

“Now, you see here, Mister Runyon,” Roy drawled.  “Hop Sing’s been duly sworn in and deputized.  Now, I’ll agree, a kitchen knife ain’t the usual weapon of choice for a lawman, but it’s all nice and legal-like, if you take my meanin’.”

“Says the country bumpkin!” the fat man snorted.

Roy pursed his lips and shook his head.  “Looks like this here country bumpkin and Oriental miscreant got the upper hand on you mighty fast.   And afore you try to tell us you done nothin’ wrong, we got three eye-ball witnesses says you did – Hop Sing here bein’ one of them.”  He paused for effect.  “You know what the penalty is for attempted robbery, kidnappin’ a boy, and attempted murder here in Nevada?”

Noyes Runyon’s jaw went tight.  His lips might of said nothing, but his eyes weren’t as good at keepin’ quiet.

“This is how I see it, Noyes,” he said, using the man’s first name.  “You can either be one of three tried for all those crimes – and maybe the only one if we don’t catch that preacher man or Fleet Rowse – or you can be the one who falls on the mercy of the court ‘cause he done helped the law rescue Little Joe Cartwright.”

Noyes wouldn’t meet his gaze and that sent a chill through him had nothing to do with the temperature.

Hop Sing saw it to and his pressed the knife into one of the fleshy rolls under the fat man’s chin.  “What you do to Little Joe?!” he demanded.

Roy let him go.  He didn’t think the China man would kill Runyon and puttin’ the scare into him just might help.

“I did nothing!” the man snarled.  “It was Rowse!  First he stabbed the boy and then he did nothing to care for the wound, so it festered.”  Runyon drew a breath.  “Atticus betrayed us and freed the boy.  They took off together several hours ago.  Fleet went after them.”  Roy saw his eyes go to Hop Sing; watched Runyon brace himself.  “I doubt he’s alive by now.”

“Lord Almighty,” Roy breathed out in a prayer.

Hop Sing was looking at him.  “We need go look for Little Joe.  Leave man alone here to freeze!”

It was temptin’, he had to admit it.

The lawman shook his head.  “‘Fraid we cain’t do that, Hop Sing.  Say Fleet Rowse finds Joe and brings him back here?  We cain’t take a chance on missin’ him.”

“Cannot stay here when Little Joe out in snow, maybe dying!” he protested.

“I told you the boy’s already dead,” Runyon growled.

“You just shut your yap.  Ain’t no one interested in your opinion!” he snapped.  A second later, the lawman added, “The way I see it, Noyes, you’re under arrest for attempted murder, and that means you ain’t got any right to an opinion until you got yourself a lawyer.”  Roy removed the scarf from his neck and wrapped it around the businessman’s mouth, silencing him. “Take him to the back, Hop Sing, and tie him up tight.”

The China man was smilin’.  “Hop Sing tie up bad man like Sunday roast.  He not get away.”

Roy was about to answer when he heard a noise.  It was small and hardly there at all, but he recognized it.

Someone was sneakin’ up on the cave.

After signaling Hop Sing to keep goin’, the lawman moved forward.  Roy hugged the shadows, moving with caution, ready for anything.

The figure of a man dressed in a heavy coat with pistol drawn appeared suddenly, framed by the cave maw.  It was quickly followed by another – a great big man with a rifle in his hand, wearin’ a ten gallon hat.

Roy Coffee let out one big sigh of relief.

It was Ben and Hoss Cartwright.

 

Ben Cartwright stood outside of the cave, staring off toward the south, willing his vision to penetrate the snow and the ice and the growing dark.  His son, Joseph, was out there somewhere ill, perhaps freezing to death.

Perhaps already dead.

It had been a pleasant surprise at first to find Roy Coffee in the cave.  He had no idea what the lawman would be doing out in the snow, but assumed it had something to do with him being sheriff.  Then he had seen Hop Sing and the world had tilted sideways.  Hoss’ strong grip on his elbow had steadied him until the wave of disbelief turned to one of slowly mounting terror.  There was no reason for Hop Sing to be here unless something had happened to Joe – something that involved the law and the man trussed up in the back of the cave.  When he asked what had happened Roy had turned to Hop Sing.

The man from China couldn’t look at him.

Slowly the horrific tale had unraveled.  The man they had welcomed into their home, Atticus Godfrey, was working with the outlaw Fleet Rowse and another man.  Atticus had let Rowse in so he could steal the payroll money, and when the outlaw found out there was nothing in the safe, he had kidnapped Joseph.  A ransom note had been received the next day instructing him – Ben Cartwright – to take ten thousand dollars to the Paiute graveyard.  It was to have been delivered by dawn – at least eight hours ago – or Joseph would be….killed.  Thankfully, the threat had not been carried out.

Atticus Godfrey had helped Joseph escape.

God alone knew why.  Perhaps the man had a change of heart, or maybe he’d been pretending all along, but for whatever reason the reverend had freed Little Joe and gone along with him, disappearing into the snow and the cold.  Godfrey was a slender reed of a man, not very strong or powerful.  Joseph, from what he understood, was wounded as well as worn.  In ideal circumstances it would have been hard for the pair to make the Ponderosa.  And the circumstances here were far from ideal.

Noyes told them.  An hour or two later, Fleet Rowse had set out to find them.

Ben closed his eyes against the gulf of premature grief that opened before him.  He’d been in this place before – with Adam and with Joe, where they’d been held captive – and both had survived.  The older man’s near-black eyes flicked to the surrounding wilderness.  But never like this.  Never in the midst of an untimely winter that had struck the land with killing force.

Never with Joseph being pursued by a madman.

He felt his middle son come up behind him before he spoke.   Hop Sing followed close behind.  “Pa?”

Ben turned.  “Yes, Hoss?”

“We’re about ready to go.”

It had been decided that Roy would remain behind with Noyes Runyon, both to keep track of the outlaw and to be there in case Rowse returned with Joseph.  He, Hoss, and Hop Sing were going to head south in search of Joe and Atticus.  He’d hesitated to leave Roy alone, but found he couldn’t leave the man from China behind.  Hop Sing still would not look him in the eye.  He felt a personal responsibility for what happened and it was killing him.

‘Mistah Ben leave Hop Sing in charge,’ he had said.  ‘Hop Sing fail Little Joe.  Fail father and brothers.  Hop Sing no deserve to live.’

No amount of arguing could change his mind.  In the end the best thing he could think of was to let Hop Sing help in the search for Joe and hope that his cook and friend could find some peace in the resolution of their current dilemma.

God willing it was the one they desired.

“Good,” he responded.  “Your…brother needs us.”

The slight hesitation made Hoss ask, “You still worried about Adam too?”

Roy had told them about the note.  While he was glad to find his eldest son was also on the hunt for Joseph, he was astonished to know that Elizabeth Carnaby was with him.

She was one amazing girl!

Ben drew a breath and held it a moment before letting it out in a cloud of white.  “I just can’t shake that dream, son.  The image of your brothers laying together, slowly being buried in snow.”

His own pain was reflected in his son’s sky-blue eyes.  “I’d wager that intuition of yours, Pa, against a hand held by the best card sharp in Virginia City.  If you say they’re both in trouble, then I ain’t doubtin’ you.”

Intuition.  Was that what it was?  Webster’s called that ‘the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference.’  Direct knowledge.  Yes, it was that.  Direct knowledge of the heart.  His boys were bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.  They were a part of him, and when a part of him was threatened or in danger, he knew it.

As he knew it now.

He called it God-given insight.

“Mistah Ben, Mistah Hoss, horses ready,” Hop Sing said, his voice a bare whisper above the whistling wind.

The older man turned toward the man people called his ‘cook’, who was in reality his friend, confidant, and advisor, as well as a surrogate parent to his children.  Walking over to him, Ben placed a hand on his shoulder.  He refused to lift it until the man from China looked up.

“This is not your fault,” Ben said, repeating again the words he had spoken a dozen times that day.  “It is the fault of a madman whose lust for easy money and desire to bring pain will drive him to any lengths.”

Hop Sing hung his head.  “Should not have been walking outside,” he answered quietly, “looking at stars while bad men come in house and hurt Little Joe.”

“And I shouldn’t have been riding to a round-up when my home was overrun.”  He paused.  “Hop Sing, neither of us had any way of knowing what was about to happen.  We’re neither seers nor sages.”

His friend lifted his head.  His black eyes shining.  “Mistah Ben try make Hop Sing feel better.”  Hop Sing struck his chest with his fist.  “No can feel better while heart is broken.”

Ben choked back tears.

No can feel better while heart is broken.

Finding Joseph and Adam alive and well was the only way any of them would mend.

 

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

FOURTEEN

 

Pain.

Pain and cold.

Cold and…pain.

Such were the boundaries of Joe Cartwright’s world.

Joe sucked in a blast of icy air as the toe of Fleet Rowse’s boot made contact with his ribs again.  After finding him, the outlaw had lifted him up bodily and slung him over the saddle in front of him and started to ride.  Every step the horse took was torture.  The only good thing about the position he was in, where his inflamed shoulder struck the leather saddle each time the horse’s foot contacted the frozen earth, was that it kept him awake.

Awake and thinking.

He knew what awaited him at the end of the journey.  No matter what, Rowse would kill him.  The only reason the outlaw was keeping him alive was to show him as living proof to his pa so he could get the ransom.  A man like Rowse wouldn’t hesitate to break his word.  He’d shoot him on the spot and run, or take off with him and abandon him somewhere along the way where he would die alone.  Of course, escaping meant he might face that same thing – dying with no one there – but it would on his own terms.

Somehow that made the thought of it…well…tolerable, at least.

As they moved along and the afternoon passed toward evening, the outlaw’s head began to nod.  Rowse had been on the run for days without sleep and it was finally catchin’ up to him.  Joe felt the grip on his belt loosen and the reins fall slack against his back.  He waited until the horse had drawn to a stop and then eased himself backward until the half of him that hung right of the saddle outweighed the half hanging to the left.

Joe slid off, caught his breath, and was up and running in ten seconds.

Rowse was after him in thirty.

At first he thought God was surely with him as he began to outdistance the outlaw.  Slippin’ and slidin’, he headed away from the setting sun, knowing that direction was toward the open road.  If he could just find somebody – some fool out travelin’ in a storm – he could yell for help.  While a stranger might not believe him, they’d have no reason to believe Rowse either.  They’d hold them both, take them back to town to Roy.

Or if he was lucky, home to whoever was there.

Then, it happened.  His feet hit a crusted-over spot on the bank of a creek that was partially thawed and he fell face forward into the icy water with a cry.  Joe managed to struggle back up out of it, but when he turned, it was to find Rowse standin’ there, staring at him, looking mean as a snake.  The outlaw grabbed him by the collar and drug him over to his horse and threw him to the ground at its feet.  Then he bent down and pressed the nose of his gun into the mass of his matted curls.

“I should kill you now, Cartwright.  The money ain’t worth the fuss!” he hissed.

Joe knew he shouldn’t say it.

He did anyhow.

“Then why don’t you?” he growled between chattering teeth.  “You’re gonna kill me later anyway!”

After all, a bullet would be quicker than freezing to death or dying alone, raving from a fever.

Rowse stared at him.  Slowly, the outlaw’s finger retreated from the trigger. He sneered.

“Because, Cartwright, you want it so much!”

And then Rowse began to kick him again.

 

It was seldom Adam Cartwright didn’t know what to do.  ‘Think, plan, execute’ were the watch words of his well-ordered life.

Now was one of those times where ‘order’ was only a word.

Adam shielded Elizabeth Carnaby with his body in an attempt to keep her from witnessing evil at its finest.  He could feel the little girl pressed up against the back of his legs; her fingers clutching the cloth.  Felt it each time she winced and a tremor ran the length of her small body.

Each wince occasioned by one of Little Joe’s screams.

They’d been heading north toward the cave.  He’d decided at the last minute to cut a bit west to save some time.  As they traveled, a few animals had run past as if fleeing something.  Adam licked his lips and sighted along his gun, aiming for the man who was standing above his brother’s curled-up form, kicking him in the side as Joe cried out.  He really didn’t want to kill a man in front of Elizabeth, but the way things were going it seemed he was going to have little choice.  If he didn’t do something soon, Rowse could inflict permanent damage.

If he hadn’t already done so.

Just as his finger tightened on the trigger, the outlaw dropped to his knees beside Joe.  Adam watched as Rowse took hold of his brother’s curly hair and lifted him up.  A second later he scooted in behind Joe and began to lift him.

He’d missed his chance.

“Damn!”

“Are you gonna kill the bad man?” a small voice squeaked from behind him.

“I don’t want to,” he answered, his eyes never leaving the scene before him.  The outlaw was carrying Joe, who was limp in his arms, toward his horse.  “But I may have no choice.  If Rowse gets away with Little Joe….”

“You..you can leave me if you gotta,” the girl said.

Adam glanced at her.  The child was remarkable!  She’d shown significant courage months before when she helped his brother.  Now here she was, doing it again by offering to remain behind alone in the snow while he went to help Joe.  Adam turned to Scout.  His faithful horse stood nearby.  If he mounted and flew after Rowse, he was sure he could overcome him and rescue his brother.  But not with Elizabeth riding in front of him.

“I don’t want to do that,” he admitted between gritted teeth.

Rowse had Joe in place before him.  His arm was around Joe’s middle and he was getting ready to ride.

The black-haired man felt Elizabeth’s fingers release his pants legs.  “Go on!” she ordered, her whisper fierce as the night.  “You go save little brother!  I’ll be fine!”

No, she wouldn’t.  But he was quickly coming to realize there was really little choice.

“You won’t move?” he asked.  “You’ll stay right where you are?  Promise?”

The little girl crossed her heart.  “Hope to die.”

He winced at that.  Then, to lighten the moment as much for himself as her, Adam asked, “You don’t have your fingers crossed behind your back like Little Joe always does, do you?”

Elizabeth showed him both hands.  “No, sir.”

Rowse was nudging his skittish horse with his knees, readying to move.

Adam’s hazel eyes bored into her.  “You stay right here until I come back.  You hear me?  Elizabeth, don’t move for anything.  If you do, I might never find you again.”

The child’s jaw clenched.  She straightened her spine and nodded.

A second later Adam Cartwright was on his horse speeding after Little Joe and the man who had taken him.

Unfortunately the ground was irregular, covered as it was with ice and crusted snow.  Unfortunately, as well, Fleet Rowse became aware of him all too quickly since there was no way to mask the sound of his approach.  The outlaw threw a sharp look at him – one that could easily have killed – and then put his heels to his horse’s side and began to pull away.

Adam had his gun in his hand.  He hesitated to use it for fear the shot would spook Rowse’s horse and the animal might stumble and fall, crushing Joe.  But then, what choice did he have?  If Rowse got away with his brother, Joe would be as disposable to the villain as trash.

In spite of the freezing temperatures, sweat dripped into Adam’s eyes as he rode.  It was hard to take aim on a running horse anyhow, and that made it worse.  As Rowse disappeared into a puff of snow and then reappeared again, the black-haired man still hesitated.  Even if the horse didn’t stumble, he  might hit Joe instead of Rowse or the bullet might pass through Rowse and into Joe.

And yet….he was going to lose Little Joe if he didn’t do something and do it soon!

Sending a prayer heavenward that his aim would be true, Adam aimed and pulled the trigger.  Rowse jerked forward.

Time slowed.

Fleet Rowse straightened up.

He took hold of Joe.

The outlaw twisted in the saddle to look at him and then, grunting, cast his brother off.

Joe fell.

His little brother hit the ground and rolled.

Over and over Little Joe rolled until he disappeared, falling into the ravine and the pit of darkness below.

Finally, Rowse met his horrified stare, his own Devil’s face filled with obscene delight.

As time sped up again, Adam reined in Scout.  He stared at the darkness to his left for several long heartbeats and then turned back to look at Rowse.  The outlaw had paused several yards away.  The villain sat there unmoving, looking like a ghoul.  He wanted to go after him.  Oh God, how much he wanted to go after that outlaw!  But, in the end, he couldn’t do it.

It was Joe who mattered.  Joe who – wounded, most likely fevered and sick – was laying at the bottom of the ravine buried in snow

Adam dismounted and ran to the edge and peered down.  Below was a sea of blue shadows.  As he dropped to his knees, searching it with his eyes, he had two thoughts.

One, it was a long way down.  Joe might already be dead.

Two, he was incredibly stupid.

Rowse probably had a gun.

Even as the sound of the shot reverberated through the late afternoon air Adam reacted, throwing himself  over the edge and into the ravine after his brother.  As he did, he felt something red-hot sear his flesh.  Pain exploded as he slid down the snow-covered bank and rolled to a stop.

On top of Joe.

“Damn!” Adam whispered as a shaking hand went to his wounded side.

And then everything went black.

 

Elizabeth Carnaby stood still as the snow fell around her and the howling wind took hold of it and swept it away.  She hugged her arms around her trembling body and wondered what she should do.  Mister Adam had said to stay put ‘til he came back so he could find her, but he hadn’t told her what to do if he didn’t come back.  It was hard to tell time out here, but she knew he’d been gone too long.  If Adam’d caught the bad man and got Little Joe, they would have been back by now.  Besides, she’d heard a gun shot and that couldn’t be good.  She knew the sound from when her pa had taken her hunting.  There was a click and a flash of light and smoke and a boom, all at one and the same time.

And then silence.

The little girl looked down.  Scout’s tracks were visible in the snow.  It was late and getting dark, but she could still see them.  If she waited any longer she wouldn’t be able to and then she’d have to stay right where she was until someone found her.  She didn’t know all that much about how long a person could stay out in the snow, but she thought overnight was probably pushin’ it.

Coming to a decision, Elizabeth began to walk.

As she did, the little girl thought back over the things her pa had told her that time they’d gone huntin’ in the winter.  Ma never liked it when he took her huntin’, but Pa insisted she learn.  He said if somethin’ ever happened to him – especially when it was cold and they couldn’t expect help from anybody else –  someone needed to know how to bring home meat for the table.  With her bein’ the oldest and Ma bein’ so busy with Jack, it fell to her.

Elizabeth snickered.  She couldn’t help it.  The image in her mind of her little brother Jack wearin a diaper and holdin’ a rifle was awful funny.

She and her pa had been trackin’ a deer.  They’d walked for hours.  She’d been awful cold by the time they stopped to make a camp and said so.  While they ate their food and drank warmed cider,  Pa had told her what to do if she was ever caught out in the snow by herself.  ‘Find shelter’, he said.  ‘Build a fire.  Melt some snow and drink it, and then hunker down and wait.’  Pa’d explained that wanderin’ around didn’t do a person a lot of good ‘cause when people came lookin’, they’d find the place you’d been but might not find the place you were.

The snow was knee-deep to her, which meant it was probably shin-high to Mister Adam.  The wind had pushed it around so much it had left places that were clear, and other places where it was piled near high as her waist.  Elizabeth shivered and let out a sigh.  She liked snow, or at least she always had before.  She liked it when she was all wrapped up in a blanket and warm in her house and she could sit and look out the window and watch it falling.  She liked it too when she and Jack went into the front yard to make snow angels. It looked so pretty, sparklin’ like stars in the sky.  Turning her eyes on the vast expanse of white before her, she shook her head.  The snow didn’t look so pretty now.

It just looked, well…unfriendly.

A minute or two later the little girl came to a place where the snow was all messed it.  There were a lot of boot and hoof prints, and it looked all churned up like there’d been some kind of a fight.  As she stared at the ground, wonderin’ what it all meant, she heard a sound.  A soft sound, kind of like a horse snortin’.  Turning, she saw Scout.  She’d missed him because he was standin’ in shadows, masked by fallin’ snow.   Quickly turning in every direction, she looked for Adam.

She couldn’t find him.

Growing frightened, she called out, “Adam!  Mister Adam!  Are you here?”

For a moment there was nothing but the wind.  Then she heard a voice.  It sounded like Adam, but he wasn’t talkin’ to her.  He kept  callin’, ‘Joe!’, over and over again.

The voice was comin’ from the shadows to her left.

She’d been lookin’ at the ravine as she walked.  Trees paraded down its side, getting smaller and smaller as they went, looking like the white capped toy soldiers Uncle Pete had given Jack marchin’ off to war.  Dropping to her knees where the snow was all stirred up, Elizabeth crawled forward and looked over the edge.  There was a sea of blue shadows in front of her; blue shadows with rocks and the tips of some of those snow-covered trees poking out.  Not really knowing what else to do, she cupped her gloved hands around her mouth and hollered even as the cry of ‘Joe’ went up again toward Heaven.

“Mister Adam, is that you?”

Her voice echoed.  She waited and then tried again.  At first there was nothin’.

Then….

“Elizabeth?  Elizabeth, is…that…you?”

She was worried he’d be mad, so she said, “Yes, sir.”

“Good…girl.  Thanks.”  There was a pause.   “Do you see Scout?”

Adam’s voice was awful quiet.  It was hard to hear him.

She called back, “Yes.”

“I….”  Big brother stopped, coughed, and then started again.  “Elizabeth, I need you to…be brave.  Take Scout.  Find the road.  Go home.”  After another longer pause, he added. “Get help.”

Elizabeth was leanin’ over the edge, probably farther than she should have been, looking down, trying to find him.

“Did you find little brother?” she yelled.

Again, a pause.  “Yes.  Joe’s here….  He’s alive.”

She thought maybe – just maybe – she could see the two of them.  At least there were two dark spots at the bottom of the ravine that didn’t look like bushes or rocks.

“I can’t leave you here!” she shouted back.

“Bring someone.  Mark…your path well so…you can find us…again.  Hurry!  Joe’s…bad off.  He’s….”

The night went silent.

“Mister Adam!  Hey, Mister Adam!”

The wind howled in response, kicking snow into her face, but Adam made no reply.

Elizabeth waited a few seconds and then stood up.  She figured Adam must have gone to sleep or passed out.  Standing there, with the cold wind whipping her hair and biting her cheeks, she considered what she should do.  They’d left that note in the shack on Freckles’ collar for Sheriff Roy and Hop Sing to find.  They were sure to have followed her and, if they’d headed for the cave like the note told them to, findin’ them would be faster than goin’ back to the Ponderosa.  The little girl looked again at the blue shadow sea.  Mister Adam didn’t sound so good and he’d said Joe was bad off.  She didn’t know how much time they had, but she was sure it wasn’t much.  They needed help and they needed it now.  Her Pa’d told her that a man could freeze within a couple of hours if he was really tired or injured in some other way.  Little brother was hurt, sure enough, and she was pretty sure big brother was too.

There had been that shot….

Edging a little farther over, she called down, not knowing if anyone heard her.  “I’m gonna go get Sheriff Roy and Hop Sing!  You hang on!  I’ll bring back help, I promise.  Mister Adam, do you hear me?!”

Elizabeth waited several heartbeats and then hung her head and turned away.  Crossing to Scout, she took the nervous animal’s reins in one hand and, while petting his nose with the other, started to speak real soft and slow to him.

“Mister Adam’s hurt, Scout.  Him and little brother.  Now, I know you don’t know me much, but I’m askin’ you to help me help them.”  Her blue eyes held the horse’s moist black eyes.  “You gotta help!”

Scout blew air out of his nose and gently nuzzled her cheek, as if to say, ‘It’s okay.  I know you’re a friend.’

Encouraged, she grinned.  “I’m gonna get on your back, okay?,” she asked, still holding his gaze.  “We need to go find Sheriff Roy and Hop Sing.  We gotta bring them back here.”

The horse struck the ground with its hoof and nickered.  It kind of seemed like he was tellin’ her to stop talkin’ and hurry up.

Elizabeth put her foot in the stirrup and mounted Mister Adam’s big horse.  With a prayer on her lips, she turned Scout’s nose north.  Then, with one last glance at the ravine, she started to ride, leaving her two best friends in that big old sea of cold blue shadows.

 

The world about him was hushed; silent except for the howl of the unending wind and the sound of someone drumming far away.

Curious, Joe Cartwright opened his eyes.

He shivered, but even as he did, realized he was not as cold as he’d been before, which was kind of strange.  He was laying on snow-covered ground after all.  When he shifted his gaze and looked down, he saw that he was still wearin’ the thin blankets the outlaws had wrapped ‘round him the day before, but there was something else on top of them.  Whatever it was, it was heavy.  The weight was pressing down on his chest and making it hard for him to breath.  Joe’s thick eyebrows met in the middle as he frowned and considered what it might be.

Thick.  Gold in color.  Kind of lumpy.

There was something else too – something round and black.  Joe scrunched up his nose as he considered it.

A hat.  It was a hat!

Now, what the heck was a hat doin’ layin’ in the middle of his chest?

Joe blinked as best he could, breaking the crust of ice that coated his eyelashes, and looked again.  The hat reminded him of the one his oldest brother wore.  It had the same kind of band.  While he was still puzzlin’ it out, he heard something.  It sounded like someone breathing low and slow.  Come to think of it, that drumming he’d heard earlier?  He could feel it as well.  It was someone’s steady heartbeat echoin’ through his thin frame.

Someone was laying on top of him.  That’s why he felt warm.

He wanted to take a look, but it was hard to move.  It wasn’t just that he was near froze solid.  He hurt like heck from head to toe.  Still, with effort, Joe managed to shift his right arm so he could touch the hat, and then the thick, well-oiled wavy hair beneath it.

“Adam?” he said, his voice a hoarse croak.  “…Adam?”

“Nnnhhh….  What…?”

Not quite an answer, but it would do.

As he let his hand flop back to the cold earth, Joe asked, “Ain’t you…got…better things to do…than takin’…a nap with me at…the…bottom of a hill…older brother?”

Adam stirred and lifted his head.  His eyes focused and he studied him for a moment.  Then, he grinned.  “Love is…insanity,” Adam answered.  “The…Greeks knew it.”

With his brother’s warmth missing, Joe felt suddenly cold.  He shivered uncontrollably.  “They got snow…in Greece?” he asked through chattering teeth.

Older brother snorted.  “It’s rare as you are, Joe.”  Adam grunted as he sat up and moved to sit beside him.  A moment later his hand snaked out and landed on his forehead.  His brother cursed and then said, “You’re burning up, Joe.”

He managed a smile – a really weak one.

“Shame…I can’t…feel it.”

Adam’s fingers moved to his hair.  They lingered there a moment and then his brother caressed his curls, cooing as he’d done when he was little and sick.  “You’re gonna be all right Joe.  I’m here now.”

Adam was here.  He wasn’t gonna die alone.

At that thought something broke in him.  He’d had to stay strong – had to fight to survive on his own.  Adam was here now.  He didn’t need to fight anymore.

He could sleep.

“Joe.  Joe!”  His brother’s voice was insistent – and irritating.  “Joe!  Stay awake!  Come on.”

He didn’t want to.  He hurt like the Devil and he was so tired.  He didn’t need to stay awake.  What he needed to do was sleep.

Adam’s palm striking his cheek put a end to that.

Joe didn’t have much fight left in him, but what he had he gave to his brother, taking hold of Adam’s gloved hand and shoving it away.

“What’d you…go and do…that for?” he growled.  “I’ve been…knifed…and kicked…in the ribs…and tossed away like…a sack of…bad potatoes!  Can’t..a feller…sleep?”

Adam’s voice was soft.  Like Pa’s.

Pa.

“No, Joe,” his brother said, his voice stern.  “I’m sorry.  You can’t.”  He heard Adam suck in air.  A moment later, he said, his voice shaking, “I have to get you up.  We need to look for shelter.”

It took a minute.

Maybe two.

Joe thought hard.  He remembered Adam’s heartbeat had been strong in his ear, but that his brother’s breathing had sounded funny.  All thin and reedy.  He glanced at him and noticed the thin sheen of sweat on his haggard face.

“Are…you hurt?” Joe asked between shivers.

“It’s nothing,” Adam said as he bent over and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.  “Come on.  See if you can sit up,” he coached.

Joe shook his head feebly as he pushed him away even more feebly.  “Not ‘til…you tell me…what’s wrong.”

Adam rolled his eyes.  “Like you have a choice.  I could pick you up and carry you.”

“Then…why don’t you?” he countered sharply.  After drawing a breath against the pain, Joe managed to add, “Come…on, Adam, I’m not some…kid…you have to baby.”

“Joe, I….”  His brother sighed.  “Okay, Rowse got off a shot.  The bullet took me in the side.  It’s nothing.”

His eyes went to his brother’s shirt.  It was dark, but Adam’s coat was fairly light.

Or should have been.

“You’re…bleedin’.”

“Always one to state the obvious, aren’t you?” his brother snarled.  “You know flesh wounds.  They bleed tremendously.  It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Means you’re hurt.”

Joe met his brother’s gaze.  It was settled somewhere between fear and grief.  Older brother just didn’t look like that.

The fact that he did now scared him.

Adam ran a hand over his eyes before speaking.  “Joe.  Look.  Yes, I’m hurt, but I’m not dying.  You have to think about your own survival!”

The words were out before he could stop them.  Joe could see that his brother instantly regretted them.  “Joe, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have….”

Joe was kind of surprised that he was surprised.  After all, he sorta knew he was dying.  Maybe it was just that he hadn’t admitted it yet.  His shoulder wound was screaming and he was freezing cold, even though the snowflakes were meltin’ on his skin.  The world around him looked kind of like the water in that painting of the sailin’ ship he had on his wall, washy and uncertain.  And all the time he felt delirium lick at the edge of his senses.

His fingers gripped his brother’s coat sleeve.  He needed to reassure him.  “It’s…all right, Adam….”

“No, it isn’t!” his brother exploded.  “It is not ‘all right!’  Joe, I have to get you somewhere warm, somewhere safe….”  Adam’s voice broke.  “God, Joe, don’t die on me….”

He managed a little smile.  It took almost all of his remaining energy, but he knew it would help Adam with what was coming.

“It’s okay…big brother.  Really.  The only…thing I was..scared of was….”  Joe sucked in air as a wave of pain struck him like a pail of ice water.  “…was dyin’ alone.”

Whatever sound Adam made, he didn’t like it.

“Hold on, Joe,” he said a second later.  “Atticus went for help.  Pa will find us.  I promise.”

Joe thought that part about Atticus was funny.  The preacher wouldn’t be here lookin’ for him.  He was on his way to the ranch house.  Still, that didn’t matter.  Adam had said the magic word.

Pa.

Pa was on his way.

He could see the older man now, talkin’ to middle brother, tellin’ him ‘everything will be all right’.  Pa was always makin’ promises he couldn’t keep and that was one of them.  He’d make it even though he knew things weren’t right and might never be right again.  But then Pa wasn’t thinking of things bein’ ‘all right’ in this world.  He was thinkin’ of the next one.  The Good Book said, ‘And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.’  His pa believed that, and he’d kept on believin’ it even at the grave side of three wives.

He’d believe it too at the graveside of one son.

Joe’s fingers explored the soft wide wale of his brother’s corduroy coat.  He tugged at the fabric and managed another feebler grin as Adam looked down at him.

“It’s okay…older brother. Everything will…be all..right….”

 

Joe had lost the battle.  His little brother was unconscious.

Adam shivered more from fear than from the cold as Joe’s grip slackened and his hand fell away.  He caught it and then, using what strength he had, pulled his brother’s silent form into his arms and hugged him like a bear, lending him what warmth he had.  He’d give it all to him if he could have.  But God hadn’t made man that way.  No matter how much you wanted to die so someone else would live, it just didn’t work that way.  You had to survive too.

Or survive the loss.

His little brother had lost weight since he’d seen him last.  He could tell by the elbow bone sticking into his chest and by how gaunt Joe’s cheeks appeared.  His brother was poorly dressed for being out in the cold.  The clothes were okay, but there was little underneath.  The coat he had on was one meant for chilly weather, not for when it froze.  How the kid had survived this long, he had no idea.

Adam snorted.  No, that wasn’t true.  He did know how.

God, and the sheer force of his father’s will.

Shifting his grip, the black-haired man pulled the sides of his own coat around his brother.  The kid was intensely hot.  At a guess, he’d put Joe’s body temperature somewhere around one hundred and one degrees. With what he’d suffered and a knife wound that remained unclean, in all reality it should have been higher.  Adam glanced at their surroundings, at the ice and snow everywhere.  The cold weather was probably keeping it down.  Like someone fevered, packed in ice.

Adam’s full lips quirked.  One had to look on the bright side of things in order not to go mad.

Their pa had taught them as boys that the first thing to do when caught in the wilderness during a snowstorm was to seek shelter.  At this point, in the dark, with no idea what direction he faced, there was no point in moving since he had no idea of the lay of the land.  Unless it was to find better shelter.  The banks of the ravine they were in might be solid, but they could be dotted with depressions.  Maybe even have a shallow cave.  The trouble was, he couldn’t leave Joe to look for one or take him with him.

It was obvious from his brother’s extended silence that Joe was going nowhere.

Adam moved to brace his back on the snowy outcropping of rock behind him.  Fortunately, Joe had hit a patch of thick brush that slowed his headlong rush down the ravine’s side or he would have crashed into it and God alone knew what damage that would have done.  Shifting so his shoulders were pressed into the rock, the black-haired man pulled his kid brother in close and wrapped him as best he could in his arms.  Once in position Adam looked down at the boy he had helped to become a man.  They had their differences, Joe and him – ‘lollapaloozas’ as Hoss liked to call them – but in the end they were blood.  There was nothing on the face of the Earth that called out to a man like blood.  He loved Joe fiercely; as fiercely as he loved his pa and middle brother.

Adam snorted.

Well, maybe he loved Joe just a little bit more, just because the kid was such a pain.

Joe shifted slightly as they settled into place and moaned, calling out their father’s name.  The sound of his brother’s voice brought Adam unmeasured pleasure.  It meant he was still alive.

“Hang on kid,” he whispered close to Joe’s ear.  “Pa’s on his way, and he’ll be mad as the vexed sea if you go ahead of him.  You hear me, Joe?  You have to hang on!”

His brother moaned again.  Maybe it was an answer, he couldn’t tell.  Then he fell silent again.

After brushing his brother’s hot forehead with his lips, Adam leaned back and closed his eyes.

“Yeah, Pa will be mad as the vexing sea if you don’t make it,” he breathed.  “Me?

“I’ll just be lost at it.”

 

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

FIFTEEN

 

It was heartbreaking.  There were three of them – three able men, well-trained in survival skills, with the ability to track even the faintest signs – and they were lost.  Not lost in where they were, but lost as to where to go.  All about them the world was silent.  Night was falling.  The moon was risen and its beams turned the white snow to silver and diamonds.  It was breathtakingly beautiful.

And inordinately deadly.

“What do we do, Pa?”

Hoss’ voice was strained; his question, painful.  They knew the facts now.  Hop Sing and Roy had told them.  They knew now that, not only was Joseph injured, but most likely he was in the hands of a madman who would kill as soon as look at him.  Elizabeth and Adam were out there in that deadly white world too.

Somewhere.

Ben closed his eyes and fought the vision from his dream of two of his boys dead or dying; their pale faces swallowed in a wash of white flakes.  He wondered about Elizabeth’s fate.  Had there been a little girl in that nightmare as well, already buried beneath the snow?

The older man shook his head.  “I don’t know, Hoss.  If Adam and Elizabeth were headed for the cave, something must have diverted them.  Roy said Little Joe would most likely be riding south.  We can’t know if that’s south and west to escape, or south and east toward the road.”  He sighed.  “Whatever choice we make, it’s little more than a guess.”

“Mister Adam and Missy Elizabeth look for Little Joe.  Be where Little Joe is,” Hop Sing offered.  “Look for all at once.”

It made sense.  But then life seldom did.

He gave his old friend a nod.  “We can only pray it’s so.”

“Pa.”

Ben turned toward his middle son.  Hoss was sitting straight in the saddle and looking south.  He turned and looked too.  He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw something coming; a man, walking through the waves of snow.

“Who do you suppose it is?” Hoss asked.

“Hop Sing know him,” the man from China responded, his tone dark.  “This man say he man of God, but then he take Little Joe.”

Ben looked again.  Hop Sing was right.

It was Atticus Godfrey.

Spurring his horse forward, Ben went to meet him.  “Where is my son?” he demanded the moment Atticus came within hearing.

The rail-thin man started and then relief washed over his tall frame, nearly toppling him.  “Mister Cartwright, thank God….”

The older man glanced at his long time friend.  Hop Sing looked puzzled.

“Is this the man who was at the house?” he asked him.

“I was.”  Atticus answered.  “I was a part of the scheme to rob your house, Mister Cartwright, I admit it.  I took part in kidnapping your son.  An act for which I shall be ever deeply ashamed.”  He drew a steadying breath.  “God chose to show me the errors of my ways.  That enabled me to help your son escape.”

“Where is he then?” Hoss demanded.  “Where’s Little Joe?”

“Regrettably, I was forced to leave him behind,” the reverend admitted as his gaze shifted to the big man.  “Your brother was too ill to travel.  I left him in a sheltered place and marked the path as best I could so I could return.”

“Then you can lead us to Joseph?”  Bens heart leapt as hope dawned for the first time in days.  “You know where he is?”

“I know where I left him,” Atticus said.  “I pray God he stayed there.”

“And you can take us to him?” Hoss said.

“I certainly hope so.”  The reverend looked at the sky, at the snow falling and darkness descending.  “God willing there is enough time.”

God willing.

“We go now!”  Hop Sing insisted.  “Go now!   Find Little Joe!”

Ben nodded.

God willing, they would find Adam and Elizabeth too.

 

Elizabeth fought to keep Scout’s feet from slipping as they made their way up a low rise.  She’d meant to head for the cave, but since the sun had set, she wasn’t sure which way she was going.  The sky was cloud-covered now, the big old moon was hiding, and there were very few stars so there was no way to gauge whether she was going north, south, east, or west.  Scout had nickered a little while back, making her think he’d spotted somethin’ he knew.  Usually when a horse nickered it meant somethin’ like ‘Good to see you!’ or ‘I’m your friend.’  She hoped it meant that she and Mister Adam had traveled this way before, though she wasn’t sure if that would help since they’d never made it to the cave.

She wasn’t sure of much of anything any more.

In fact she was cold and lonely and hungry and so tired it was about all she could do not to fall off the horse.  She hadn’t traveled very far and she felt pretty bad about that, but it slowed her down to leave a trail.  The skirt of the fancy teal-green dress that Mister Ben had bought her and the white petticoats underneath it were ruined.  She’d spent the last hour or so tearin’ off strips of both and tying them high in bushes and low in the trees.  She figured it was just about the only sign the snowstorm couldn’t blow away or bury.  Her pa had taught her to do that too.  Pa was an awful smart man.

She wished he was here.

Hunkerin’ down over Scout’s shoulders, Elizabeth faced into the cutting wind and pressed on.  When they topped the rise, she drew to a halt and sat there, fighting back tears.  All there was up here was more bushes and more trees and even more ice and more snow, and she had no better idea of what lay in any direction than she’d had before.  The only direction she was sure of was back along the way she’d come.

Little and big brother were layin’ back.  They were expectin’ her to bring help.

Nearly overcome with exhaustion, Elizabeth pressed her heels into Scout’s sides and urged him forward.  She’d made a promise.  She was gonna rescue Mister Adam and Little Joe.

Even if it killed her.

 

It was Hop Sing with his sharp eyes who spotted it first.  A speck on the field of white moving ever so slowly toward them.  As Ben watched, the speck grew and then stopped.  When he turned to Hoss to ask him what he thought it was, his question was cut off by Hop Sing’s shout.  Ben turned and looked again just in time to see part of the speck fall to the ground.

“Pa,” Hoss said, his voice robbed of strength by fear, “I’m thinkin’ that’s Scout.”

In an instant the well-known brown and black thoroughbred came into focus.  It was the one belonging to his beloved eldest son.  The animal had its nose down.  It nudged the figure on the ground, seeming to urge it to rise.

Ben drew in a sharp breath.  It had to be Adam.  He must have come looking for them.  But where was Elizabeth?

And what about Little Joe?

His moment of stunned surprise was short, but it was long enough for Hop Sing to be on the move.  His friend and cook was halfway to Scout before Ben got Buck moving, and was off his horse and on the ground by the time he and Hoss arrived with Atticus Godfrey in tow.

Hop Sing turned a distressed face toward them.  “It is Missy Elizabeth!”

Elizabeth?

Ben dismounted quickly and knelt by the child’s side.  As he lifted her small form from its snowy bed he noticed she was shivering.  That was a good sign.

“Here, Pa, let me take her,” Hoss offered as he and the reverend came alongside him.  Hoss was a big man, but there was one thing even bigger – his winter coat!

Hoss undid the buttons before he scooped up the little girl.  Picking her up, he nestled her against his warm chest even as Hop Sing wrapped the loose ends of the warm garment around her and tucked it in as best he could.  “There,” his son said, nodding toward a depression in the ravine wall not too far away, “I’m gonna take her over there.”

Ben followed along with the other two men, numbed by the child’s discovery.  Elizabeth was supposed to have been with Adam.

The shadow of his nightmare arose and nearly unmanned him.

By the time he and Atticus arrived at the shelter, Hoss was already seated and Hop Sing was bent, working to build a fire.  His son held the child close, continuing to warm her.  Ben bent and reached out to touch her.  As he did, Elizabeth stirred and opened her eyes.  She looked up at Hoss, around at Hop Sing, and then finally those wide blue eyes came back at him.

A second later she started to cry.

“Come on now, Miss Elizabeth,” his giant of a son gently chided, his own eyes tearing.  “You’ll have me cryin’ next.”

“Am I dreaming?” the girl asked as her little hand found Hoss’ face.

Ben took her other hand.  “No.  No, sweetheart, we’re real.  We’re all here – Hoss, Hop Sing, even Atticus, and me.  You’re safe now.”

The child smiled a little smile and then sank back toward sleep. Ben hesitated.  He wanted to wake her, but felt guilty at doing so.  He needed to know about his sons.  Whether they were hurt or waited somewhere….

Elizabeth shot up with a start.  “You gotta go save Adam and Little Joe!” she exclaimed.

Ben’s heart nearly stopped.  Squeezing her tiny fingers, he asked, “Elizabeth, do you know where they are?”

To his everlasting joy, she nodded and pointed west.  “Back there.”

He looked at Hoss.  They both knew it.  ‘There’, could be anywhere.  Night was falling.  They were running out of time.  They needed direction.

Feeling like a louse, Ben asked the worn-out child, “Can you take us there?”

Tears streamed down her cheeks.  “I don’t know.  I’m awful tired.  I…think I’d just fall off the horse again.”  Her eyes locked with his.  “I left a trail like Pa told me to, Mister Ben.  Maybe you could follow that.”  She caught hold of the hem of her skirts.  He noticed now that they were ragged. “I used my petticoats most of the time,” the child said, sounding too grown-up.  “They’re easier to see ‘cause of them bein’ white.  There’s green ones in-between.”

“Scout can help, Pa,” Hoss suggested.  “He’ll know his way back to Adam.”

Ben nodded.  “We’ll go, sweetheart.  Hoss and Hop Sing and me.  You can stay here with the reverend.”  At her wide-eyed look, he added with a smile, “It’s okay.  He’s made things right with God.”

Elizabeth turned to look at Atticus.  “Really?”

“Really,” the reformed man responded as his gaze shifted to her.

The smile the child gave him had the power to light up the night.

Before he rose Ben asked Elizabeth, though he feared the answer, “Were Little Joe and Adam all right when you left them?”

Her little face pinched with worry.  “Mister Adam was talkin’.  I think he’s hurt.  I think….  I think that bad man shot him.”

Ben steadied himself.  Adam was talking.  His oldest son had been conscious and coherent.

Count your blessings, Ben.

“And Joseph?”

She shook her head.  “He didn’t say nothin’, and I couldn’t see him on account of his bein’ at the bottom of the ravine.”

His gaze flicked to his middle son.

“We gotta get movin’, Pa,” Hoss said as he rose with Elizabeth in his arms and turned her over to the reverend.  “They ain’t got much time if they’re hurt.”

“Need go now,” Hop Sing agreed, his voice hushed.

Yes, they needed to go and go now.  Back along the trail Elizabeth left.

Dead or alive, he had to find his sons.

 

Adam cursed himself for twenty times a fool.  He couldn’t believe he’d fallen asleep!

When he opened his eyes on the dark night, fear gripped him.  He’d been out for hours and Joe was so quiet in his arms.  He’d pressed an ear to his brother’s chest and nearly fainted away when he heard his brother’s heart beating.  The pulse was too fast, though, and thready.  He could feel the heat radiating off of him.  In spite of the cold, Joe was on fire.  Adam chuckled.  There was an irony to that, worthy of an epic poem.

They were trapped in a world of snow and ice and his brother was going to burn to death.

Adam shifted forward to survey the domain they occupied.  While he’d slept, the snow had continued to fall.  It lay on the shoulders and arms of his coat and perched on the rim of his hat.  Where it touched his brother’s exposed skin, it melted away, but the greater portion – what lay on top of the blanket covering Joe – was nearly half-an-inch thick.

They were slowly and silently being entombed.

The black-haired man leaned his head against the cold stone behind him and shifted, wincing with the pain of his wound as he did.  He pulled Joe closer as his lips twisted with another irony.  At that moment, he was grateful to Fleet Rowse.  Really, he was.  If the outlaw hadn’t shot him and he’d been able to go on alone….  If he’d had to make the choice to abandon Joe to his fate in order to keep himself alive….

He swallowed bile.

No.  No.  Not even to save himself.  He couldn’t have left his brother behind.  He’d told Pa years ago that Joe was his responsibility, that he’d take care of him; that he wouldn’t leave him until the kid was old enough and mature enough to make it on his own.

Adam snorted.

Talk about a lifetime commitment!

As he sat there thinking, Joe began to stir.  His brother shifted and moaned and then, unexpectedly, began to thrash from side to side.  Joe clawed at his hands, trying to break free.  He cried out that he was burning up, that he needed to get the blankets – his clothes – off.  That he had to get away.  He ignored him, of course, and clamped his arms even tighter around his middle.  Normally Joe was a spitfire and strong as an ox.  The kid was weaker now, but the delirium more than made up for anything his fever had taken away.  It was a struggle just to hold him still.

Speaking not loudly but clearly and calmly, Adam explained to the restless boy where they were and what they had to do to stay alive.

“Joe!  Listen to me.  We’re both wounded and lost in the snow.  You can’t go anywhere!”  One hand found his brother’s head and turned his face toward him.  Joe’s eyes were wild.  Adam wasn’t sure he was still in this world.  “Joe,” he pleaded, “we have to stay here.  We have to wait for Pa to find us.  Joe, you have to stop fighting me. Joe!”

His brother didn’t hear him.  Joe’s fingers clutched and pulled at the thin blankets that covered him in an attempt to thrust them off.  “Adam?  Adam, no!  …can’t stay!  Have to….”  Joe’s back arched as she continued to struggle, almost freeing himself.  “Get them off me!  I’m on fire!”

In the end he had to strike Joe on the chin and knock him out.

There were tears in his eyes as he did it.

Breathing hard, Adam clutched his brother’s now silent form close and leaned back against the rock wall.

It wasn’t going to be long.

 

“Did you hear that?” Hoss asked as he turned toward his father.  “Did you hear it?”

The older man was frowning.  He nodded.  “I heard something.”

Hoss peered into the darkness as though somehow he could pierce it.  His little brother had a particular high-pitched voice when he started shoutin’.  It was mighty hard to miss.  Hoss was sure that was what he had just heard.

“I swear it was Little Joe, Pa!”

“Hop Sing?” his father asked, turning toward the China man.

Hoss winced at their cook’s expression, which was somewhere between pained and promisin’.  He knew how close Hop Sing was with Little Joe.  He’d chased the boy down often enough and found him hidin’ out in the kitchen, spillin’ out his little heart.

“Hop Sing hear it too,” he agreed.  “But how we know where?”

His father ran a hand over his face.  His dark eyes surveyed the cold, silent landscape before them.  “Hop Sing’s right.  They could be anywhere.”

It had gotten dark enough they was havin’ trouble findin’ Miss Elizabeth’s markers.  They’d followed the little strips of cloth a good two miles so far, heading just about due west.  They was comin’ up on the area of the ravine, and they all knew that was about as far as they could go tonight without puttin’ their own lives in danger.

“What do we do, Pa?” he asked.

“We keep going, as long and as far as we can,” his father answered even as he nudged Buck forward.  “God grant we find your brothers before we’re forced to stop for the night.”

They’d brought everythin’ with them they thought they might need.  His back jockey was stacked with blankets and his saddlebags loaded with dry wood, as well as matches to light both a fire and the lanterns they carried.  He glanced at the tin lights dangling from the horn.  They hadn’t lit one yet.  They’d agreed to save the oil for when they found Joe and Adam, figuring they’d need it to rescue them and treat any  wounds they had.  Hoss scowled at that thought.  They already knew Joe was wounded.  It’d been near two full days since Rowse had stuck him with his knife and they doubted any one had tended to him in that time.  Hop Sing had packed some herbs for healing and dried meat as well in his pack, so he could make a thin soup, and there was plenty of coffee.  Pa was carryin’ extra water which, frozen as it was, they could heat once the fire was made.

Now, all they had to do was find his brothers.

 

Adam opened his eyes, more slowly this time, slightly amazed that he still had the capacity to wake.  He shifted, easing the pain in his wounded side, and glanced at his brother.

A thin trail of mist coming from his lips told him Joe was still alive.

The black-haired man reached down and pulled one of the pitiful excuses for a blanket his brother was swaddled in up close about Joe’s pale face.  Then he settled back and thought about the dream he’d had.  He supposed wishful thinking had played a part in it.  It had been about a warm, lazy spring day some ten years past.  He’d been around twenty-one and at school.  There was this particular girl he was courting – a blonde beauty with hair the color of ripened wheat and the widest brown eyes.  She’d had a cute little mole at the end of her lips too that jumped when she smiled.  Her father had been one of his professors and he’d named her Phaedra after the daughter of Minos in the Greek myths.  He called her Faye – which made her laugh – because that’s what she was, ‘fey’.  She was a wisp of a girl and it seemed each time he tried to catch her, she would slip from his grasp like a faerie creature.  They’d spent a few grand weeks together and then her father had resigned over a dispute in the department.  Within a week, she was gone.  They’d exchanged letters for a few months, but then, even those had stopped; vanished just as she had into the mists of time.

Though the dream had dissipated, the mist remained.  It hung before him, white instead of a sparkling gray.  The hushed, snow-covered landscape really was beautiful.  Everything was painted in shades of blue.  As it had earlier, the rolling waves of snow once again put him in mind of the sea.  His pa had sailed the seas and he longed to follow.  He couldn’t explain it, but there was something about the sad, silent swells that called to him.  Hoss told him once that he was gonna sink beneath those swells.

He thought he might be doing that right now.

Adam checked his brother again.  Joe had remained silent since he punched him and that had him worried.  Still, he couldn’t let him go running off into the frigid night stripping off his clothes.  The black-haired man shuddered.  He’d seen it happen before.  When he was a young man, he and his pa had come upon one of their hands bare-naked and curled up like a baby in the snow.  It happened to a man as he began to freeze to death.  It felt like he was on fire.

Joe was on fire.

Brushing away snow, he placed his hand over his brother’s heart.  He could still feel it beating; could feel the warm touch of his brother’s breath on his fingers.  Still, Joe was weakening.

He was weakening.

They’d never last the night, and it looked now like no one was going to find them before morning.

The snow had covered him again too.  It lay in a thin layer on the shoulders of his golden goat and crusted in his hair.  He thought about shaking it off, but decided the effort was useless.

All effort was useless.

They were going to die.

Adam touched Joe’s ice-crusted curls and smiled.  The sight of his brother, cradled in his arms, peeled back the years.  When Joe was a toddler, he’d often run to his room rather than to their parents’ when a sudden storm arose or he heard a bump in the night.  He’d hold the little boy close until the terror passed and sometimes – when Joe’s small form refused to stop shaking – he’d sing him to sleep.  The soothing sound calmed the little boy and made him forget what he feared.

Joe feared death.  He knew it.  He was so full of life that the thought of being still terrified him.

Maybe if he went to it hearing him sing, he wouldn’t be so scared.

Leaning his head back, Adam searched through the file in his head that held all of the tunes he knew.  He passed the gay ones, circled around the ones about courting and pretty girls, and finally settled on a sad one he had learned from his father.  It was called the ‘Sailor’s Song’.

Adam cleared his throat and began.

Our barque was far, far from the land

When the fairest of our gallant band

Grew deadly pale, and pined away

Like the twilight dawn of an autumn day.

 

We watched him through long hours of pain.

Our fears were great, our hopes in vain.

Death’s call he heard; made no alarm.

He smiled and died in his messmate’s arms.

 

We had no costly winding sheet.

We placed two round shot at his feet

And in his hammock, snug and sound:

A kingly shroud like marble bound.

 

We proudly decked his funeral vest

With a starry flag upon his breast.

We gave him this as a badge so brave,

Then he was fit for a sailor’s grave.

 

Our voices broke, our hearts turned weak

And tears were seen on the brownest cheek.

A quiver played on the lip of pride

As we lowered him down our ship’s dark side.

 

A splash, a plunge and our task was o’er

And the billows rolled as they rolled before,

And many a prayer said to the wave

That lowered him in a sailor’s grave….   

 

Adam choked.  Tears trailed down his cheek.

Stupid song.

Taking hold of Joe, he pulled him in so tightly until they practically became one.

And closed his eyes again.

 

It was the sound of the angels.

Mounted on Buck, Ben turned toward Hoss.  There were tears in his eyes.  “You heard?”

Hoss had no words.  He nodded.

Adam, at least, was alive!  They’d heard him singing.  There was no mistaking his melodious voice or the tune, which was a mournful one he’d taught him as a boy.  The sound brought them to the edge of the ravine.  Hop Sing was still holding the strip of Elizabeth’s petticoat they’d found tied to a nearby tree branch.  It had shone like a beacon against the endless sea of shadows.   Ben was hoping he would find his sons huddled together at the top of the gully but, so far, he hadn’t spotted them.  Turning his face toward the black drop-off before them, he frowned.

Hoss obviously knew the same fear.

“You think they’re down there like Elizabeth said, Pa?  Down in the ravine?”

It was the only thing that made sense.

As Ben swung out of the saddle, he told his son, “Get my gear.  I’m going down.”

Hoss caught his arm.  “Pa, you oughta let me –”

He knew why Hoss wanted to go first.  Adam had fallen silent.  The boy was afraid of what he would find.

Ben covered his son’s big hand with his own.  “Your brothers are not alone.  God is with them.  His angels will have kept them safe for us.”

He said it.  He meant it.

But God help him, he didn’t believe it.

Closing his eyes, Ben Cartwright mouthed words spoken by another father nearly two thousand years before.  The man’s child had been demon possessed; the story told in the gospel of Mark.  ‘Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.’ 

A moment later he was slipping and sliding down the side of the ravine.

As his feet touched bottom Ben heard Hoss shout.  He looked up and saw a light appear above.  Hop Sing had lit one of the lanterns and was already descending.  A slight smile touched the older man’s lips as he watched his friend negotiate the snowy bank, his arms laden with blankets and who knew what else.

Hop Sing, at least, had decided the search was over.

Hoss and Hop Sing hit the bottom at the same time and took off in opposite directions, walking the line of the frozen creek, calling out Joe and Adam’s names.  As they did, Ben lit another of the lanterns and began his own search, crossing over the creek and moving to the far bank of the ravine.  At first he found nothing and his heart sank.  Then, as the light reached out even farther, he recognized something.

The landscape of his dreams.

In the night terror where Adam and Joe were being buried, he’d noticed the boys were slightly sheltered.  His eldest son’s back had been pressed against a rock wall.  Before him, masked in shadows, was just such an outcropping of rock.  He would have missed it without the lantern’s light and his prior knowledge of what to look for.  Even as he heard Hop Sing and Hoss calling out again to Little Joe and Adam, the silver-haired man made his way over to it and found his nightmare come to life.

Only now he recognized that nightmare as an answer to prayer.

“Here!” the older man called even as he knelt and began to brush snow away from the pale faces of his sons.

“Here!  I’ve found them!”

 

Adam felt a touch on his cheek – a warm caress – and heard a desperate voice calling his name over and over.  He wanted to respond, but he couldn’t muster the energy.  He was so tired, so cold, so….

What?

Someone had touched his arm.  A hand was prying at his fingers.  Joe was slipping away.

“No!”

Adam sat bolt upright.  He clamped his arms around Joe’s quiet form and held on for dear life.  In his mind’s eye death had come.  The specter loomed over him, trying to wrench his baby brother from his grasp; seeking to take Joe to that shore from which no one returned.

“No!  I won’t…let…you…have him!”

“Adam.  Adam, son,” a tightly-controlled voice said as the hand returned to his face.  “Look at me, boy, it’s your father.  It’s Pa.”

He blinked and did as he was told.  The specter was still faceless, but it had shrunk in size and had silver-white hair.

“No…” he moaned, not giving in.

The man spoke again.  “Son, you have to release your brother.  Hop Sing has a fire built in a shallow cave.  Hoss needs to take Joe there as quickly as possible to warm him.  Adam, you have to let him go!”

He clutched tighter and shook his head.  Death was gone now, but the sailors had come.  They were standing at attention, waiting for his brother’s body to be lowered into the cold dark swells that lapped mournfully against the hull of the ship.

“NO!  I won’t let him go!  You won’t…toss Joe overboard like trash.  I won’t let you!”

There was a confused muddle of conversation.  Good, he thought.  Good!  Let them fight.  He’d get away.  He’d take Joe’s body home to Pa.  Pa would never forgive him if he couldn’t touch Joe one last time.

Pa would never forgive him.

Adam began to sob.

He felt hands on his face – two big ones this time.

“Adam?  Older brother, you hear me?  It’s Hoss.  Adam, look at me.”  The hands moved to his shoulders and shook him gently.  “Adam, look at me!”

Adam looked up.  He blinked and a big beefy face came into focus.  When he recognized his middle brother, he choked.

“Hoss.  God.   Joe….  I lost Joe.”

“No, you didn’t, brother.  You and Miss Elizabeth saved him.  You got him right there in your arms.”

Hoss’ voice was firm and certain.  It gave him hope.

“Alive?” he asked.

“Yes, son,” another voice said.  “You’re brother’s alive, but we need to get him to shelter.  We need to get both of you to shelter.  Do you understand?”

His gaze shifted to the man who was speaking.  Slowly, the mist cleared from his eyes and Adam saw another large face, this one filled with compassion; its near-black eyes moist with tears.

“Pa?”

His father nodded and smiled a tight-lipped smile.  “Yes, Adam.  Its me.  Now, listen to me, son, you have to let Hoss take Joseph.  Your brother’s worse off than you.  There’s no time to waste.  We have to get him warm and see to that wound.”

Adam shifted and looked down at the precious bundle in his arms.  Surrendering Joe would be tantamount to surrendering his soul.

“I’ll take him,” he said as he started to rise.

Those big hands stopped him.  “Adam, there’s a right big puddle of red next to your left side.  You’re hurt and you ain’t got the strength.  Let me take him.”  Hoss paused and then said, not in jealousy but in way of explanation, “Little Joe’s my brother too.”

“It’s all right, son,” his father said.  “You’ve done your job.  Joseph is safe.  You saved him.”

It was almost more than Adam could do, but at last he gave in.  As Hoss took Joe’s slender form from his arms and started to walk away, he turned to look at his father.  The older man smiled.

“Do you remember how you got here?”

He nodded.  “Rowse threw Joe over the edge of the ravine.  I came after him.”  Adam paused.  Elizabeth had followed him.  The last thing he remembered was her yelling down that she was going for help.

Panicked, he asked, “Elizabeth?”

“She’s safe as well, Adam, and probably back at the house by now.  Her courage is what brought us to you and your brother.”  His father smiled again. “That and your singing.”

Adam managed a weary smile as well.

And then, accepting that Joe was safe at last and his duty discharged, he passed out.

 

Ben Cartwright rocked back on his heels; worry chiseled into his handsome features.  Adam had lost consciousness.  He needed to get his son up and out of the cold, but he knew he couldn’t do it by himself.  He had to be patient.  Hoss would return in a moment and together they would move Adam to shelter and safety.

His oldest boy needed tending too.

Shifting, the older man sat beside his son and drew him in close, circling his arm around him and lending Adam his warmth until his brother’s return.  As he sat there, holding him as he had when he was a little boy, Ben started to hum the song Adam had been singing.  He remembered it fondly and not because of the words or tune, which were mournful at best, but because it conjured up images of Inger.  They’d had words over it.  His beautiful second wife had not approved of him teaching a seaman’s lament to the small boy his son had been at the time.  While it was true the thrust of the song was one of loss and bereavement, still, it had woven into its lyrics hope as well.  It spoke of men’s love for one another and trust in the reality of the afterlife; both things he hoped to instill in his child.

We watched him through long hours of pain.

Our fears were great, our hopes in vain.

Death’s call he heard; made no alarm.

He smiled and died in his messmate’s arms.

 

‘Death’s call he heard, made no alarm.’

He hoped those words had given Adam some small comfort as he sat here in the dark, in the rising snow, holding his younger brother’s fevered form, waiting to die.

It was there for all of them.  That call.

Lifting his face to the heavens, Ben thanked his loving Father that now had not been his sons’ time to answer.

 

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

SIXTEEN

 

Hushed voices awakened him.  That and the sound of skirts swishing as several someones moved about his room.  Joe laid there a moment, a half-smile on his lips.  He recalled that sound with fondness.  It reminded him of his mother.

The conversation moved to directly above him.

“Is he awake?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Should we get his father?”

Someone touched his forehead.  The touch of the hand was cool, which was a blessed relief.

“His fever’s down.”

“Thank the Lord!  I feared it would never break.”

He really wanted to open his eyes and see who was talkin’, but for some reason they didn’t want to cooperate.  What he was hearin’ was mighty puzzling.  He didn’t remember that many women around the Ponderosa.  The only thing he could come up with was that Pa’d gone off and got himself married again while he’d been asleep.

But then, why would there be two of them?

One of the swishers sat on the edge of the bed and reached for him.  The bed linens shifted as they did, brushing against his fevered skin.  Joe sucked in air.

“There!  Did you see that?  Go get Ben.  I’m sure he’s waking up.”

There was more swishing of skirts.  A door opened.  It closed.  Whoever was sitting beside him shifted again and this time placed a cool cloth on his forehead.

His eyes liked that.  They opened.

He heard a little catch of breath, and then his name.  “Joe?”

Yep.  That was his name.

“Joseph, look at me.”

Wasn’t he?

Shifting his eyes was as near as painful as moving his body, but he managed it.  He looked at her.

He had no idea who she was.

“Good.  Now can you say something?”

Sure he could if he wanted to.  He just didn’t want to.  He wanted to go back to sleep.

So he did.

Only those ladies wouldn’t let him stay asleep.  One of them was fluffin’ his pillows and the other one pullin’ up his covers.  He remembered then.  That was why they didn’t have women at the Ponderosa.

They fussed too much.

The hands that were on the blanket froze.

“Mary, he’s awake!”

Joe clamped his eyes shut.  No, he wasn’t.

Not if they were goin’ to fuss.

“Ben,” he heard one of them call as the skirts swished again.  “Ben, come back!  Joe’s awake.”

He’d been ponderin’ whether or not he should know Mary, when they threw that other name at him.  ‘Ben’.  He thought he should know that one for some reason.

Ben….

Someone sat beside him.  He figured it was Ben because the bed went down.  It hadn’t done that with the swisher.  The man said something and then…then…a hand touched his face.  It was followed by a soft kiss on the forehead and gentle words.

“Son.  Joseph?  Boy, can you hear me?”

Son.

That meant Ben was….

Joe’s eyes opened wide to take in a familiar and much loved face.  He lifted his hand and reached toward it.

“Pa?”

The older man glanced at the skirt swishers and smiled.  “He’s awake!  Go tell Adam and Hoss.”  His father turned back to him then.  “Joseph, how do you feel?”

He hadn’t thought about it.  He discovered when he did, that he shouldn’t have – thought about it, that was.

Joe swallowed hard.  It took a couple of tries, but he managed to croak, “…did…Cochise land…on me?”

“Who’s Cochise?” one of the ladies asked.

It was a good question.

“Joseph’s horse.”  The hand touched his hair.  “Cochise is fine son.  He’s been here the whole time you’ve been away.”

Had he been away?  Joe frowned – even though it hurt – and tried to concentrate.

That hurt too.

“Sleep now, son. Shh,” his father cooed.  “Don’t worry about it.  It will all come back in time.”

He remembered his pa liked giving orders.  He liked them to be obeyed even better.

“Yes…sir…” he mumbled.

And did as he was told.

 

The next time he opened his eyes Joe noticed the skirt swishers were gone – that, or they were standing still, which wasn’t likely considering they were women.  There was something about a man who was injured that seemed to set them into a kind of frenzy.  Men would sit beside you so you knew they cared, but they’d leave you to your healin’ and bother you only to make sure you were still breathin’.

Like the man beside him was doing now.

The light was different in the room, so he guessed some time had passed.  It looked like later afternoon.  He wondered what day it was and how long he’d been lyin’ in this bed.

Maybe he should call back one of those chatty women.

Whoever was sitting beside him was leaning sideways in their chair.  One elbow was propped on the chair arm and their head was resting on their fist.  The other arm was bound in a sling.  A closed book lay in the man’s lap, marked by a finger.  Joe frowned when he found his visitor’s face out of focus.  He was too young to need glasses.

What was goin’ on?

With a mighty effort, he narrowed his eyes and squinted.  He must have grunted too ‘cause the man jerked awake.

He could see his face now.  A smile lit it.

“How are you feeling, Joe?” Adam asked.  “And don’t tell me like Cochise fell on you,” he added with a grin.

“How about a mountain?” he answered with a little smile of his own.   “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” his brother remarked, tight-lipped.  Adam put the book down then and leaned forward to place his open palm on his forehead.  “You’re much cooler. The fever’s almost gone.”

That was good news, but he was still puzzlin’ about why he had a fever.  “What happened?”

“What do you remember?”

A question for a question – ever the perpetual teacher.

Joe scrunched up his nose and twisted his lips and thought hard.  “I remember bein’ awful cold, but hot at the same time.  I remember you shouting at me.”

Adam held up a finger.  “You’ve got that wrong.  You were definitely shouting at me.”

“I was?  What about?”

A funny look came across his brother’s face.  He shook his head.  “What else do you remember?”

There was no use pushin’ it.  Adam was about as immovable as that mountain that fell on him.

Joe thought again.  There had to be a reason they were out in the cold.  An image formed.  Him, lyin’ on the ground.  A man kicking him in the ribs; holding a gun to his head.

Rowse.

Joe started to shiver.

Adam was on his feet and on the bed in a second.  He slipped in behind him and circled him with his good arm.  His brother’s touch felt good and it hurt like hell.

Rowse’s knife.  In his shoulder.

That’s where this whole thing had begun.

 

Adam held his brother’s trembling body close.  He knew what Joe’s next question would be.

He didn’t want to answer it.

After their pa and the others found them, they stayed in the shallow cave for the better part of a day.  Hoss and the preacher took off the next morning to get a wagon.  Hop Sing tended to Joe, heating blankets by placing hot stones on them and then wrapping them around his brother as well as forcing small sips of soup between his chattering lips.  It didn’t take too long to raise his body temperature, but that was the least of their worries.  The man from China had been too slow to hide the look of concern on his face when he first examined Joe’s wound.  Two days of inattention had marked his brother’s flesh with blood trails.  The wound was deeply infected.

Joe had screamed and his father been forced to hold him down as Hop Sing cleaned the knife cut as best he could and put on fresh bandages.  Then Joe went from hot to cold and from cold to hot more times than he could remember, alternately raving and falling completely still.

All he could do was watch.

His own wound was clean and there was no infection in it, but it and the stress of the last few days kept him rooted to the spot he occupied.  He’d tried to get up once when no one was looking and found the empirical data from the experiment told him it was best to stay put.  In other words, he passed out, and only his father turning at the right moment and sprinting across the cave kept him from hitting the floor face first.

Hoss and Atticus returned later in the day with the wagon and four other men.  It was an arduous task, getting him and Joe up the side of the ravine, but they managed it without complaint.  Joe was quiet for most of the ride back to the Ponderosa.  He slept for the greater part of it.

In fact, he didn’t wake up until he was in his own bed.

Adam had been several days healing.  Joe had been a week so far.  In that time Elizabeth’s parents had arrived and Aurora Guthrie returned.  And Roy, well, Roy had come by tonight to give them the bad news.  He was downstairs with his father and Atticus Godfrey right now.

Sheriff Roy Coffee had come in his official capacity to tell them that Fleet Rowse had escaped.

Adam looked down at his brother.  Joe was very quiet, almost like he sensed the answer to his unspoken question.

“We’ll get him, Joe,” he said quietly.  It was a promise.

Joe didn’t look at him.  “Rowse?”

He nodded.  “Yeah.  Rowse.”

Roy had been in to question Joe a few days before, hoping something his brother remembered could help in the hunt.  Even though Joe had had a lucid moment then and given him a few answers, it hadn’t helped.  Aurora Guthrie had been little help as well.  The poor woman had been so distraught she’d returned as soon as the snow let up and was waiting for them when they arrived.  It was a good thing too.  Hop Sing had needed all the help he could get.  It had been augmented when Elizabeth’s parents arrived and her mother took up nearly full-time residence in his brother’s bedroom as well.

Since Joe had awakened both women were enjoying some much needed and well merited rest.

Elizabeth’s father had joined Roy, Luke, Pa and Hoss in the hunt for Fleet Rowse.  Levi was downstairs too.  The last he’d seen of the homesteader, the brown-haired man had been sitting in Pa’s red chair with his daughter curled up on his lap. Both were fast asleep.

Adam smiled.

She was quite the little woman, that little girl.

He shifted his grip so he was sitting beside Joe more than holding him, sensing his little brother had had about enough of being babied. Heat still radiated from Joe’s wound, but it was not nearly so bad as before.  He was healing.

They were all healing.

“Adam?”

“Yes, Joe?”

“Did I hear someone say Atticus Godfrey is here?”

So, Joe was done with Rowse – at least with talking about him.  “Yes, you heard right.  Actually, Roy is here to take him into custody.  He let him stay until we knew you’d be all right.  Pa’s vouched for him.  He’ll probably get a light sentence.”

His brother swallowed.  “Can I talk to him before he goes?”

Adam looked down.  Joe was pale and there was a sheen of sweat on his lip and brow.  “Are you up to it?”

He nodded.  “I wanted to…thank him.  If he hadn’t turned on Rowse when he did, I….”

The sentence ended in an unspeakable impossibility.

They had slowly pulled the truth from Atticus Godfrey as to what he had don; how he had at first aided Rowse and then realized the error of, not only his ways but his choice of business partners.  Something Joe had said had triggered reform in the man and he had risked his life to set little brother free.  Nevermind that it took others to accomplish it.  The man had been willing to die for Joe.

“I’ll send him up when I go down.”

“Thanks, Adam.”

He sat there a minute longer.  Then, he asked, “You okay, kid?”

Joe thought a long time before he answered.  When he did, it was honest.

“I’m gettin’ there.”

So were they all.

 

In spite of his best efforts, Joe couldn’t stay awake.  Adam left him sleeping with Hop Sing watching over him and went downstairs to join the other men.  The first thing he noticed was that Elizabeth and her father were gone.  Pa told him when he asked that Mister Carnaby had taken her up to bed.  So that left him, Hoss and Pa, Atticus, Luke and Roy in the room.  For six grown men, it was awfully quiet.

That was because another man was missing.

Fleet Rowse.

Roy leaned on the mantel, watching the fire.  He stared into it a few minutes before he spoke.

“That mean hombre just up and vanished, Ben,” the lawman said.  “Once Rowse left Little Joe to freeze to death, he didn’t go back to the cave like we’d hoped.  He deserted Noyes Runyon.  Left that fat businessman sittin’ there pretty as a jaybird and lookin’ at takin’ all the responsibility for the attempted robbery and kidnappin’ Little Joe.  I can tell you, Runyon started singin’ one he realized what the coward had done.”   He sighed.  “It just weren’t the tune we wanted to hear.”

“What did Noyes have to say, Roy?” Adam asked as he settled in.

The lawman’s words were harsh as his feelings.  “Only that Rowse was a bastard and a loose cannon, and there was no way of knowin’ where he’d went.”

“What about Aurora?  Did you talk to her again?”

The sheriff nodded.  “Pretty gal, that one.  Smart too.  Brightest thing she ever done was distance herself from that renegade brother of hers.”  Roy picked up the poker and used it to shove the embers around.  “Sorry to say, she don’t know nothin’ that’ll make any difference.”

“Fleet Rowse is probably on his way out of the country by now,” his father said, his tone grim.

Adam pursed his lips.  “If Rowse can’t be brought to justice, perhaps that’s for the best,” he grudgingly admitted.

The older man looked up the stairs and then back at him.  “Are you going to tell Joseph that or am I?”

Joe had been hurt before, but they’d always caught the man who’d done it.  This was new territory for him.

New territory for them all.

“We ain’t gonna quit lookin’, Ben,” Roy assured him.  “I just cain’t put all my manpower on it.  The sheriff’s office is shorthanded as it is.  We – ”

His father moved to place a hand on the lawman’s shoulder.  “We know, Roy.  We know you’ll do your best.  It’s all anyone can ask.”

Adam looked at his brother.  Hoss was sitting in the other red chair, looking down, with his fingers linked between his knees.

“Hoss, you haven’t said much.”

The big man started and then looked up.  His troubled gaze flicked to their father and then to him.  “It just don’t seem fair.  That man almost killed Little Joe and he’s gonna get away scot free!”

“No man who embraces evil without restraint gets off free, son,” their father said. “There is such a thing as Divine justice.  It will find Fleet Rowse when no man can.”

“I guess you’re right, Pa,” middle brother admitted.  “But I’d sure like to see it happen, if you know what I mean.”

“I hope not,” the older man countered.  “I pray that man never darkens Nevada soil again.”

Roy Coffee nodded to Luke and then headed for the door.  On his way, he caught Atticus Godfrey by the arm.  “Come on, Padre.  It’s time we headed to Virginia City.”

Atticus had been perusing one of their father’s books.  He nodded and put it down.

“Roy,” Adam said as he rose.  “Can it wait a minute?  Joe asked to see the reverend.”

The rail-thin man was startled.  “What for?” Atticus asked.

He knew, but he was going to leave it to Joe to put it into words.  “He just asked me to have you come up before you left.”

Roy eyed the stairs.  “You think Joe’s awake up there?”

Adam shrugged.  “If he isn’t, he’ll wake up.  You know Joe, once he’s made his mind up there’s no stopping him.  If you don’t let Atticus see him, Roy, Doc Martin will be banging on your door tomorrow morning blaming you for Joe getting out of bed and reopening his wound.”

The sheriff threw his hands in the air.  “Fine!  Keep it short as you can, preacher.  I want to make town before dark.”

 

Atticus Godfrey paused outside of Joe Cartwright’s room, stricken with remorse.  The last time he had been here was when he had cased the house the night before Rowse arrived.  It was his fault the villain had gotten in.  His fault this boy had been torn from his home and almost died.  That a little girl had been dragged through the cold where she might have frozen to death.  That Joe’s brother Adam had been shot.  The rail-thin man blew out a breath.  So many sins.

How could he ever be forgiven?

As he stood there, unsure that he should enter, the door opened and Hop Sing stepped out.  The Cartwright’s cook sized him up and then said, “Little Joe ask for you again.  You go inside.”

He cleared his throat.  “Do you know what he wants?”

“Little Joe know.  You go ask him.”

He didn’t really understand it, but Ben Cartwright and Joe’s brothers seemed to be able to overlook the bad he had done and see only the good.  Not so this small man with the dark intense eyes.  Hop Sing held him accountable for the choices he had made.

He found that a relief.

Atticus nodded.  “Very well.”  Then he stepped inside.

The boy was sitting up in the bed, looking toward the window.  He looked better than the last time he had seen him.  Of course, that had been on the long road back to the Ponderosa when Joe had still been fevered and out of his head.  He was pale and his cheeks sunken in, but his color was much better.

Joe turned when he saw him and he did something surprising.

He smiled.

“Hey, Atticus.  Or should I call you ‘Reverend’.”

He went to the chair beside the bed and sat down.  “I’m not officially a man of God anymore.  Atticus will do.”

“Pa says we’re all men of God,” Joe countered.

“Well, yes, in that sense.”  He paused.  “What I mean is, I abandoned the cloth when I took up a life of crime.”

The boy’s piercing green eyes held his.  “Did it abandon you?”

He blinked.  “What do you mean”

“You’re still wearing it,” Joe said as he nodded toward his frock coat and collar.

He was.  “Out of habit, nothing more.”

Little Joe was silent a minute.  Then he said, his voice serious.  “I don’t believe that.”

“What do you mean?”

The boy leaned his head back as if the conversation was wearying him.  “Some things a man does without thinkin’.  Out of habit.  Others he does out of choice.”

“You mean how I chose to throw my lot in with Fleet Rowse?”

Pain clouded the boy’s eyes for a minute.  Then he said, “I mean like helping me to live.”

“I…I needed to get away.  Rowse was unhinged.  I knew – ”

“I sure hope a man can’t go to Hell for rough talking, cause I’m here to tell you that’s a load of horse crap!”  Joe’s lips twisted with a weak smile.  “You were willin’ to risk dyin’ so you could make sure I lived and I wanted to thank you for it.”

He was humbled.  Almost to the point of losing the power of speech.  With tears in his eyes, Atticus Godfrey lifted his head and met the young man’s gaze.

“I need to thank you too.”

Joe blinked.  “Me?  What for?”

What about God’s grace?   That’s what the boy had asked him.  The thought brought a smile to the thin man’s face.

Out of the mouths of babes.

“Let’s just say you reminded me of who I was – and of who God is.   I didn’t save you, Joe, you saved yourself by saving me.”

The young man’s dark brows peaked.  “You’re hurtin’ my head, Reverend.”

A knock on the door turned them both toward it.  A second later Roy Coffee appeared. “Well, Little Joe, you’re lookin’ a sight better than the last time I saw you.”

Joe nodded.  “I feel a sight better to.”

“You about done with this here preacher man?  It’s time for him to help that former partner of his come to God.”

Atticus rose. “I shall endeavor to make Noyes see the error of his ways, but I am afraid it would take a miracle to make him change.”

The sheriff’s eyes were resting on the boy on the bed.  “We seen a couple of those around here lately.  Could be we’re due for one more.”

Before he left, the right reverend Atticus Godfrey held out his hand.  When Joe Cartwright took it, he simply said, “Thank you.”

Joe nodded and winked.  “You’re welcome too.”

 

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

EPILOGUE

 

When Joe woke the next time there was no swishing going on. He didn’t hear one hushed conversation or concerned ‘tick’ of someone’s tongue.  It was dark, so he figured it was the middle of the night and he must be well enough that he’d finally been left alone.  There was nothing like knowin’ the people around you loved you and wanted to make sure you were okay, but all that fussin’ did wear on a body after a while.  Sometimes you just needed to be left alone with –

He heard a sigh.

Dang it!  Someone was there.  Hiding in the shadows.

Joe debated on whether or not to open his eyes and see who it was.  He’d had just about all the caring he could take.  If Aurora Guthrie or Mary Carnaby tucked him in one more time….

Whoever it was sighed again.

Well, there was nothing for it.  That was gonna keep him away for a month of Sundays.

Joe opened his eyes and looked at the chair that was usually occupied by a worry-faced Pa or Hoss or Adam.

It was empty.

He frowned and looked around the room and then finally he saw her, standing by the window looking out.

Elizabeth.

“Hey, Bella,” he said, surprised by how weak his voice sounded.

Her head came up and she turned and stepped into a beam of moonlight.  Standing there – for just a second – he saw the woman she would become.  That made him sigh.  The feelin’ was funny, kind of proud and sad and empty at one and the same time.  He supposed it was the way parents felt when they knew their little girl or boy would be grown soon and wouldn’t need them anymore.

He’d have to remember to give Pa a hug when he saw him.

She came to his side and stood there looking down at him, but she didn’t say anything.  He could see her wide blue eyes sparkling in the dark.

She’d been crying.

Lifting a hand, he reached out to her.  When she took it, he asked, “Hey, Bella.  What’s wrong?”

Her little mouth opened and then clamped shut.  Her blonde curls bounced as she shook her head.

She must be worried that she was gonna get in trouble for being out of bed in the middle of the night.  Or maybe for being in his room.

Joe managed a grin.  “I won’t tell anyone you’re here.  Fact is, I’ll cover for – ”

“That ain’t it!” she snapped and then sniffed.  A tear escaped to trail down her cheek.  “I don’t care if Ma or Pa get angry.  I had to….”

“Had to what?”   His brown brows peaked.

Her voice was small.  “See that you were really okay.”  Elizabeth drew in a great gulp of air.  “I saw you when they brought you in.  I was in the house with the Reverend.”  Her hand crept out to touch his face.  He felt her shudder.  “I thought…I thought you were dead.”

Joe was puzzled.  “You ain’t seen me since then?”

She shook her head.  “First Doctor Martin said I couldn’t.  He said I was too tired and you were too tired.  Then, when I wasn’t tired anymore, he said he needed everyone to leave him alone, only that didn’t count for anyone but me since I saw them all comin’ in and out of your room day and night.”

“Didn’t your Ma tell you I was mending?” he asked.

She shrugged.  “Grown-ups lie to little kids when they think they ain’t old enough to understand somethin’.”

Joe shifted and pulled himself up painfully into a seated position.  The knife wound was still pounding at times.  He sucked in air and swallowed the moan and then smiled at her.  “Well, here I am, sittin’ up and lookin’ pretty.”  Joe held her pensive gaze.  “I’m fine.  Really.”

Elizabeth blinked.  She nodded.

And then she dissolved into tears.

“Hey, hey.  Hey!”  Now he had another apology to make to Pa.  How did his father stand it when he did the same thing?  “Come on.  Don’t cry.”

She drew in seven or eight small breaths through her nose and wailed, “I…can’t…help…it!”

It took about everything that was in him, but Joe sat up and reached out and took hold of both her arms and pulled her onto the bed, rolling her over his legs so she was lodged up against his right side.  For a few minutes he just held her, feeling her little body shake; feeling her tears wet his nightshirt.  Again, it put him in mind of his Pa and brothers doing to same thing for him on, oh, so many nights.

When the storm had subsided, he asked quietly, “Now, you gonna tell me what this is all about?”

She shuddered again and drew in closer, wrapping her arms around his middle.  “I thought…I thought I killed you.”

Joe was so stunned, he didn’t know what to say.  “Killed…killed me?”

Her blonde head nodded against him.

He thought furiously.  How?  Why?  There wasn’t anything she’d done.

“Bella – now, I ain’t makin’ fun of you – but that’s silly. You didn’t hurt me – ”

She sat straight up.  “Yes, I did!”

It was amazing how quickly her sadness turned to cute little belligerent anger.  Joe hid his smile.  She really was like him!

“Now just how’d you do that?” he asked.  “If I recollect rightly, it was that man,” – he wouldn’t say the outlaw’s name, couldn’t yet – “that put a knife in my shoulder and then dragged me out into the snow that almost killed me.”  His voice fell as fear gripped his stomach.  “He could’ve killed you too,” he added softly.

“But that’s just it!  If I hadn’t been here – if I hadn’t come to visit – then you would have just taken that bad man out and he wouldn’t never have taken you!”

He was havin’ to hide an awful lot of smiles.  “Oh.  Is that right?”

The little girl scowled and crossed her arms.  “Yes!”

“Well, let’s see, as I recall that night you and me and Hop Sing and Aurora were all here, right?”

“So….”

“So…. Hop Sing had been taken captive and Aurora was in trouble before I even came downstairs. And you were in bed?  Right?”

She nodded.  Reluctantly.

He held her tear-filled gaze; his own as serious as he could manage.  “So, you’re sayin’ I wouldn’t have done the same thing for either of them?  Given myself up, I mean?”

He watched that information work its way through her brain.

“Well…no….” she sniffed.

“No.”  He gave her his best ‘Pa’ face.  “So now, let’s forget this nonsense, shall we?”

Elizabeth pursed her lips, trying to fight a smile.

“Shall we?” she asked.

He frowned. “What?  You think I don’t know fancy words like ‘shall’?”  Truth was he knew it, but didn’t use it.  Pa and Adam did.  “I know others ones too.”  He pinned her with his green eyes.  “Now, we shan’t go on behaving like our best friend has just passed.  That would be….”  He thought a second.  “That would be quite improvident, now wouldn’t it?”

She lost the battle.

For a moment, the little girl just sat there grinning.  “You’re awful funny, little brother.”  She fell silent for a moment and then, she surprised him again as tears started flowing down her cheeks once more.

“I thought ‘funny’ was good,” he said, completely at a loss.  “Isn’t it?”

Elizabeth nodded.  Then she reached out to ever so gently touch his face.  “There’s no one like you, little brother.”

Her jaw was tight.  Her eyes red-rimmed and puffy.  There was snot drippin’ from her nose and tears running down her cheeks.

She was about the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Joe put his hand over hers.

“There’s no one like you either, Bella.  Thanks for takin’ care of me.”

 

In the end Elizabeth and her parents remained at the Ponderosa throughout the winter.  The Carnabys and the Cartwrights had a wonderful and riotous time.  They celebrated Christmas and brought in the New Year together, enjoying both Elizabeth and little Jack’s wonder and joy.  The weeks after that flew quickly and soon it was March and time for them all to go home.

Joe Cartwright tilted his hat back and looked at the sky as he rubbed his shoulder, easing the grip of the healed muscles there.  The day had dawned bright and sunny.  Spring was on its way.  It was March and already there were small bits of happy green poking through the brown woes of winter.  It was midday.  The Carnabys had intended to leave in the morning but Jack had managed to get away from them, and all of them – him, Hoss, Adam, Levi, Mary, and Elizabeth had spent several hours searching the ranch house and the surrounding area over with no luck.  Finally, it was Hoss who found the little boy.  His middle brother had picked up a stray pup out on the trail and Jack was hiding with it inside of a turned-over barrel.  His parents didn’t have to scold him.  The little boy got a tongue-lashing from his older sister that would have had him high-tailing it for that wagon.

The little boy was in place now – so was the pup – and Pa was saying goodbye to Levi.  It had been plain fun to watch the two older men together.  Joe grinned.  Pa had turned to him once and told him that, if he ever became a father, he expected him to be a lot like Levi.

That was a compliment!

Joe turned and looked toward door  They were waiting for Elizabeth to appear.  As he stood there, he couldn’t help but consider the events that swept in with her arrival.  Some were settled now.  Others were not.  Pa had paid Aurora for the time he had hired her, even though she hadn’t got to work it all out.  She’d protested, but Pa insisted.  The pretty lady took that money and went back East to live where her people were.  Atticus Godfrey had served a month in Roy’s jail and been released.  Pa’d seen to it and Roy hadn’t protested since the good Atticus had done – saving his life – had outdone the wrong choices he’d made.  He was gonna go back to bein’ a preacher.

He’d make a good one.

Noyes Runyon was sent off to prison on his testimony alone, since he was the only one who knew for sure that Noyes was as guilty as….

Joe swallowed.  He could say the name now, but it still wasn’t easy.

As Fleet Rowse.

Roy’d been out a couple of days before. The last word was that a sheriff friend of his thought he’d seen Rowse with some men in his town.  When he questioned them later, they said they were heading for Mexico.

“Good riddance,” Joe snorted.

And almost meant it.

“Joseph?”

He looked up.  “Yeah Pa?”

“Why don’t you go see what is keeping Elizabeth?”

“Sure thing.”

He found the little girl in the great room, sitting on the settee.

Elizabeth was dressed in her going-away outfit.  He’d taken her into town and bought it for her a few days back.  As he sat there, watching the dress lady fuss over her, he couldn’t help but notice how much she had grown.  Elizabeth had turned twelve during her stay and he thought she was about an inch taller.  Her face was a little thinner, her arms and legs longer, and her chest puffed out her dress bodice just a little bit more.  It wouldn’t be long and she would be a woman.

Joe shook his head and blew out a breath, letting her know he was there.

“Hey, Bella,” he said, his tone light and his heart heavy, “your ma and pa are waiting.”

Her blonde head bobbed.

She was sniffin’ again.

Joe crossed to stand in front of her and then crouched before the settee.  “Hey,” he said again as he reached out and lifted her chin to look into her tearful eyes, “don’t be so sad.  I’m comin’ to visit you at the end of the summer.”

“That’s a long time away,” she said.

He didn’t deny it.  “I know.  Its just I got an awful lot of things to do between now and then.  Roping, riding, cattle drives, and all.”

She chewed her lower lip as her giant blue eyes found his.  “I wish I could stay with you.”

Joe got up and sat beside her on the settee.  He took her hand in his.  “Well, now, Bella, I’d like that too, but it just ain’t possible.”

“Hop Sing could look after me.”

He nodded.  “He could.  But who’d look after Jack?”

She sniffed again.  “Jack’s got Ma and Pa.”

“Okay.  But you know, even though I haven’t got a ma, I do have a pa.  Still, I need my big brothers.”  He sure hoped Adam or Hoss weren’t listenin’ at the door, they’d never let him live this down.  “I need them to keep me in line, to make sure I do what I’m told to,” he paused, “and to whup me good when I don’t.”  He didn’t look at her, but went on. “And you gotta think about Jack, leavin’ him all alone with your ma and pa without anyone to, well,”  Joe winced, “back him up when he needs backin’ up, and hide him out ‘til they cool off.”

“He’s got Scamp now.”

That was Hoss’ pup.  Hoss said he’d named him after him.

“You think Jack can look out for Scamp when he gets in trouble?”

“I ‘spose not.”

“Well, you ‘spose right.  You’re  the best big sister a feller could ever have.”  He paused.  “Bella, look at me.”

She hadn’t been looking at him.  She did now.

Joe raised a hand and laid it alongside her face.  “You saved my life.”  He grinned. “Twice!”

“The first time didn’t count, ” she said, scrunching up her nose.

“Even if I give you that,” he replied, “once is more than enough, don’t you think?”

Elizabeth looked down again, at her fingers which were entwined and laying on the lap of her sapphire blue dress.

“What?” he asked.

“But…”  She drew in a breath and looked right at him.  “That’s the problem!  You need me more than Jack.  You get into more trouble!”

The snickering told him he’d been had.  Hoss and Adam were listening at the door.

As if on cue, the two of them entered.

Joe sighed.

“Hey there, Elizabeth, your ma and pa are anxious to get on their way.  They figured you just might run off with little brother here, so they sent us in to get you afore you could,” Hoss said with a wink.

“That’s right,” Adam remarked, his lips quirking.  “Pa sent us in for you too, Little Joe.”

He stood up.  “For me?  What’d I do?”

“Amazing, isn’t it?” his older brother asked.  “How he always assumes he’s done something wrong?”

“That’s because he usually has,” Hoss smirked.

“Hey, you two!  Stop pickin’ on me in front of my best girl,” Joe snapped.

That put a gag in their mouths for sure.

Joe turned to Elizabeth.  “You see?  Look at the two of them.  I’m in…”  He glanced at his brothers who looked way too much like turkeys with their breasts puffed out.  “…I’m in good hands until I see you again.”

“We ain’t gonna let nothin’ happen to little brother,” Hoss assured her as the door opened and their father joined them.  The older man waited by it.

Adam nodded his agreement and then added, “Jack’s asking for you, Elizabeth.  He needs help with Scamp.”

Elizabeth looked at them and then back to Joe.  “You’re really comin’ at the end of the summer?”

“Sure am,” he grinned.

“And you mean it?  I am your best girl?”

Joe saw his father’s wary look.  He met it with a smile.  He knew what his pa wanted him to say, but he had to be true to himself and to Elizabeth.  Taking her hands in his, he held her cobalt stare.

“You’re my best one, Bella, hands down, no question.”

She cocked her head.  “You still gonna wait for me to grow up so I can marry you?”

Joe placed his hand on her head.  “Well, now, how about we check back on that in four or five years.  Who knows, by then you might have another feller.”  At her dubious look, he added, “You know what, Bella, it’s nice to have a best girl you’re courtin’, but its a whole lot better to have one who’s your best friend.”

Joe knelt and she fell into his arms.

“I love you, Little Joe,” she whispered in his ear.

So low no one could hear it but her, he confessed, “Bella, I love you too.”

 

Next Story in the Wet Bottom, Warm Heart Series:

In the Light as in the Darkness
Doubt that the Stars are Fire
An Unspeakable Dawn

 

 

Tags:  Adam Cartwright, Angst, Ben Cartwright, Hoss Cartwright, JAM, Joe / Little Joe Cartwright, JPM, kidnap, SJS