**This story is rated M for adult situations and themes including sexual assault, strong sexual innuendo , abusive behavior, violence and brutality.  It contains mild adult language.  WARNING: This story may not be appropriate for younger or more sensitive readers.**

PART THREE

NINE

“Mr. Cartwright?”

Ben Cartwright stirred and looked up from the bill of sale he had read at least a half dozen times.  It was about an hour before supper.  Adam and Hoss were still on the range.  He had come home early troubled by the brief conversation he had had with his youngest son that morning.  When he had gone up to talk to Joe, the boy had been so much on edge that he had only asked him one or two questions and then left.  He’d met Phoebe in the hall and she said she would look after him.  Tonight, when he returned, Joe was asleep and Phoebe was in her room, so he had come downstairs to catch up on paper work.

It was Phoebe who’d called him.  The redhead stood with her hand on the lower newel post.  She hesitated on the steps as if awaiting his permission to descend into the Great Room.

Ben put the paper down on the table before him.  “Phoebe, please.  Join me.”  As the young woman responded, he asked, “Would you like me to have Hop Sing fix you some tea, or maybe something to eat?”

She shook her head.  “Though it’s most kind of you to ask.”

Phoebe Howath was dressed today in a gown cut from a lovely pale blue fabric with a deeper blue pattern worked over it.  She had her hair in a ponytail.  Golden-red curls cascaded from the ribbon that held it in place.  As she took a seat opposite him on the settee, she spread her skirts wide.  Then, as though nervous, her fingers began to pick at the folds of cloth and to arrange them in a pattern.

When she said nothing, Ben asked, “Is there something else I can do for you?”

The redhead straightened one more fold, pressing it on top of another, and then looked up.  “I’d like to talk to you about Little Joe.  I know it’s presumptuous – ”

He cut her off.  “Nonsense. Your presence at the Ponderosa has been the one ray of light in this dark matter.  May I ask?  Are you planning on leaving us?”

Phoebe blinked.  “Do you want me to?”

“No.  But Joe is mending and I thought perhaps you had come to tell me you would like to get back to your own life.”

Her face pinched.  “That’s part of why I wanted to talk to you.”  The young woman drew a deep, long breath.  “Mr. Cartwright –”

“Ben , please.”

“Ben.  What do you think of me?”

He shrugged.  “You’re a beautiful compassionate young woman who has freely given of her time and talents to take care of my son.  What do you think I think of you?”

Phoebe knitted her fingers together on top of her blue skirt.  “You know what I am.”

“I just said what you are.”

Her mouth drew into a line.  “You do know what I do for a living.  Don’t you?”

He considered being vague, working his way around it and so on, but in the end decided to be honest.  “Yes, I know what you do.”

“Upstairs as well as downstairs at the Bucket?”

“Yes.  Phoebe, what is this?”

The young woman rose and walked to the hearth where she stood looking at the fire.  “I was very young when I began to work at the saloon.  Just over sixteen.  At first I ran errands and helped with the upkeep.  Sometimes I would deliver drinks to the tables.”  She looked back at him.  “That all changed when I became nineteen.  That’s when I began to…pleasure men.”

Why was she telling him this?

“Go on,” Ben said.

“It’s been two years and, in that time, I have known many terrible things…have seen many terrible things.  A girl like me, there’s no right to say ‘no’ to anything a man wants.”  She glanced at him from under lidded eyes.  “It didn’t seem so bad at the Bucket since, well, I’d been in the same position before.  There was a man back where I came from – a rich man.  I worked for him and he took a liking to me.  At first, the attention was flattering but then, as the days went on and he grew more and more demanding, I began to be frightened of him.  I ran, but only after he struck me and told me that was my one ‘warning’.”

“You were beaten?”

She looked up. “Yes.  When I recovered, I told him I never wanted to see him again.  When he didn’t listen, I ran.  He followed me from town to town and finally caught me.”  Phoebe wrapped her arms around her chest.  Her voice grew still.  “This time he did more than beat me.”

The fire behind her cracked, the sound startling in the silence that followed her last statement.  Ben was at a loss for words.

Phoebe crossed over to him and took a seat on the table in front of the settee.  “It’s that I wanted to talk to you about.”

“I thought you wanted to talk about Joe.”

“Mister Cartwright, I know this is going to be hard to hear, but I know what happened to Joe.”  When he started, she added, “I’ve seen it before.”

“Seen it?”

“And experienced it as I said.  That man, the rich one who couldn’t get me to give him what he wanted?”  Phoebe looked down.  “He took it by force.  He beat me and had his way with me and left me for dead.”

“Good Lord!” Ben sighed.

“So, you see.  I know what happened to Joe.”  The redhead paused.  “And I know what it will do to him if he remembers, because I know what it did to me.”

The older man sank back in his chair.  “And what did it do to you?”

The redhead’s fingers returned to working the fabric of her dress.  Again, she didn’t look at him.  Ben noticed, as she recalled her terrible journey, that Phoebe’s body language changed – she seemed to wither.

“At first I just couldn’t believe it happened.  There had been other men, some of them cruel, but this was…different.  I couldn’t talk about it, even to the other girls.  I tried to go on normally, but then,” her eyes flicked to his face, ‘then I began to have nightmares and as I relived what happened, I began to blame myself.  I shouldn’t have looked so pretty that night. I should have been able to get away.  Everything became my fault and not his and that made me sad and then guilty.  I felt helpless, powerless, and that made me angry, and since there was no one to be angry with other than myself, I fell into a very dark place.”

Ben had his elbow on the chair arm.  His chin was on his hand.  He looked over his fingers at her.  “Why are you telling me this?”

Phoebe moved to sit beside him on the settee.  “Ben, what happened to Joe had nothing to do with pleasure.  It was about power and control.  The man who did this wants to own Joe, just like the man who took advantage of me wants to own me.”  She paused.  “I am telling you this for two reasons.  First of all, the man who assaulted me is still making threats.  He intends to finish what he began.”

“And you’re worried it might be the same with Joseph.”

“Yes.”

“You said two reasons.”

“Ben, you have no reason to trust me.  I’m practically a stranger.  But, well, I think I can help Little Joe.”  She hesitated, as if unsure of her words.  “Maybe I can help him when none of you can.  Partly because I am a stranger, but mostly because I have felt everything he is feeling.”

“And because you are a woman.  That’s why Paul wanted you here.”

Her smile was wan.  “That too.”

Ben sighed again.  “I know, Joe.  It won’t be easy to get him to take help from anyone.”

“That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about too.  If Little Joe thinks I am here just for him, he’ll turn me away.  I was wondering….”

“Yes?”

“Maybe you could hire me, temporarily?  To help in the kitchen or some such thing?  That way I could remain, but Joe wouldn’t think it was for him.”

He nodded.  “There’s a cattle drive coming up and I was going to send Hop Sing with the men.”

The young woman struggled to hide her surprise.  “You’re thinking of it?”

The older man straightened up.  He took her by the hand.  “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because of what I am!” she blurted out.  The redhead looked down.  “I’m unclean, Ben.  I don’t deserve to be around your son.  I just hoped….  Well, maybe I could help.”

Ben took a finger and raised her chin.  “That’s not what you are.”

She sniffed and a tear trailed down her cheek.  “No?”

“No.  Let me tell you what you are, Phoebe Howath.  You are a beautiful and intelligent young woman who has had more thrown at her than most and you have survived.”  When she started to protest, he said, “You listen to me, you are not a victim – you are a survivor.”

Ben smiled.

“And the perfect teacher for my son.”

Joe wasn’t supposed to be up and out of bed, but he was.  He’d actually thought of locking the door to his room to keep everyone out but decided against it, as he knew it would only make his father and brothers all the more determined to come in and that was the last thing he wanted them to do.  He was standing, staring at his bedside table and the objects on it, his knuckles white on the table’s edge.  He didn’t want to see anybody.  Joe stirred and then turned and looked across the room, noting his blurred reflection in the dresser mirror.

He didn’t even want to see himself.

Outside it was dark and that suited his mood, since it was dark too.  As the night masked the harsh realities of the day, the darkness within him was hard at work at the same thing – trying to swallow whatever it was that had happened to him and failing.  He still didn’t know exactly what it was.  He’d been hit over the head and they said he’d been robbed.  He didn’t remember the robbery.  He really didn’t remember much.  But what he did remember….

Joe swallowed hard over a lump in his throat the size of Nevada.

What he did remember was disturbing.

Joe crossed over to his bed and sat on its edge.  Up until the time Roy Coffee had come, everything had been a blank.  He’d tried so hard to remember – to see what had happened.  He’d never thought about using his other senses, scent and sound and…touch. When the Sheriff’s question awakened them he’d been flooded with all kinds of impressions – the smell of whiskey mixed with sweat, the pressure on his backside, rough fingers on his throat…  But worst of all were the words.  They echoed in his mind, repeating, never stopping, never going away.

‘I want you, pretty boy.’

Joe shuddered. ‘Pretty boy’.

No.  He…couldn’t go there. Not now.

Maybe not ever.

Rising, Joe began to pace the room, seeking in the confined space to escape his thoughts.  He walked it from one end to the other a dozen times counting the paces, filling his brain with numbers, driving out the ‘maybes’ and the ‘could have beens, as well as the ‘No way in Hells!’  His wandering took him to the other side of the room where his dresser was.  He stopped and looked at his reflection.  He hardly recognized himself.  His skin was pale from lack of sun and his cheeks were hollow, sunken from days of pain and lack of food.  But it was his eyes that bothered him the most.

They were haunted by a kind of dread.

A knock on the door jolted him and Joe jumped.  A second later a voice asked, “Joe, can I come in?”

It was Adam.

Joe drew a deep breath and held it.  Maybe if he kept quiet Adam would go away.

“Joe?”

But no, that wouldn’t work.  Adam would come in to check on him and he’d be forced to talk.  It took only a second for him to decide that retreat was the wisest course.  Flying across the room, Joe dove into his bed and pulled the sheets up to his chin, wincing as he landed.  Slamming his eyes shut, he pretended to sleep.

A second later the door opened.  “Joe, are you awake?”

No, I’m not, he thought.  Not if it means I have to talk to you.

Joe heard Adam’s intake of breath, followed by the release of it in a sigh. Seconds later he felt his eldest brother’s presence beside him. Then, to his chagrin, Adam sat on the side of the bed and reached out and touched his shoulder.

“Joe?”

He had to choose – face his brother or pretend to sleep.

He chose the latter.

Adam sighed again.  He didn’t lift his hand.  Speaking quietly, his brother began to talk as if he could hear him – not knowing, of course, that he did.

“Joe,” he said softly, “I know you can’t hear me, but maybe somehow you’ll know what I say.  I wanted to….  I’m sorry for not being there for you the last few days.  It’s hard to explain.”

Joe winced.  He felt like a lout.

“I know we’re brothers, but, well, I’ve always felt, in a way, that you were my kid as much as Pa’s.  Those first years, when Hoss was little and Pa was away all the time, it was my job to keep both of you safe.  Hoss was big as me by five but you, Joe, you were like your mother, small-boned and, I thought, fragile.”  His brother laughed.  “You proved me wrong on that one fast enough.”  Adam shifted and lifted his hand.  “I don’t know what I’m trying to tell you, Joe.  I guess it’s just that most of the time when you think I don’t trust you, when you think I think of you as a child and won’t give you responsibility or accept the fact that you can take it, I’m really, well, afraid that something will happen to you and it will be my fault.”  He heard his brother draw in a deep breath.  “Like it is now.”

Joe was caught in a strange place.  He knew he should shift, moan, do something to indicate to Adam that he was awake or waking, so his brother wouldn’t say something he would regret.  But, at the same time, he wanted to stay still.

He wanted this window into Adam’s soul.

Adam shifted and then fell silent.  Joe cracked one eyelid to see if he could tell what he was doing.  His brother remained on the bed.  Adam had his head in his hands.

Just as he decided he should say something, Adam turned and looked at him again.

“I’m so sorry, Joe. I’m sorry for not being strong enough to say ‘no’.  For not ordering you to come home that night.  You know, sometimes you think when you love someone that means you should give in to what they want.  Pa never does.  He’s got it right.  I gave in and look” – his brother’s voice broke – “look what I’ve done.”  Adam got suddenly to his feet.  Joe peeked again and saw him walk over to the window.  Once there, his brother leaned on the sash and looked out.  A few seconds later, to his astonishment, he watched Adam strike away a tear.

Still a coward, Joe closed his eyes again as his brother returned to the side of the bed.

“One thing more, Joe, and then I’ll go,” Adam said, his voice shaking with emotion.  “I swear on the love I bear you that – no matter how long it takes – I will find the man who did this to you and I will break him.  If I have to, I will end his life with my bare hands.”  His brother paused.  “I know that won’t undo the damage, but maybe, just maybe, it will bring you peace.

“Something I doubt I will ever know again.”

Seconds later Joe heard the door close.  He waited a few more and then rolled over.  A heartbeat later he climbed out of bed and went to the door where he listened before opening it. Stepping out into the hall he listened again.  He heard Adam and Pa exchange a few words and then the front door of the house open and close.

Returning to his bed, Joe sat on the side of it again.  He was not quite certain what to make of his brother’s words.  He understood that Adam was nearly bent in half under the weight of what had happened to him, but he still wasn’t sure exactly why.  He’d been beaten badly, but he’d been beaten before and Adam knew he’d be fine.  What else could it be?  Joe closed his eyes and concentrated on the memories Roy’s questions had evoked.  He smelled the whiskey mixed with sweat again, felt the pressure on his backside, began to choke with the fingers on his throat, and heard the words.  Those damn words.

‘I want you, pretty boy’.

Joe grew still as the words collided with the smell and the sound and the touch and he was propelled back to that night.

He was in the dark, circling Pointer’s Arch.  He saw Beck’s pale face flash in the darkness and the moon glint off the barrel of the gun his friend carried.  With a nod he entered the space between the towering rocks.  It was even blacker than the night.  There was a sound – a sigh, a shifting in the dark, and then something hard came down on the back of his neck.  Consciousness fled and he fell prone to the ground.

That should have been all he could remember.  It was all he had been able to remember for a week now.

But there was more.

Joe remembered swimming up out of the darkness and clawing at wakefulness, though it was hard.  His head pounded and rang like someone was laying on the front porch bell, pulling the string over and over and over again.  The world around him was a watercolor blur that wouldn’t keep still and kept winking in and out like a shuttered light on a stormy night.  He tried to lift his body up but couldn’t.  That was when he became aware of two men.  One was standing before him.  The  other was behind and on top of him.  A hand found his neck and pressed his head down, making him eat dirt.  Then, whoever it was, leaned in.  He felt the brush of whiskers on his cheek and then he heard those words.

‘I want you, pretty boy.’

Joe’s knuckles were white where they gripped the bedclothes, twisting the fabric like it was the man’s neck.  In the stillness of the room he could hear his heartbeat.  It was rapid. He was breathing hard, like he was in the middle of a fight.  His body tensed, awaiting the next blow.

The hand that held his neck shifted to his arm.  Another one joined it.  Together they took hold of his sleeve and roughly peeled off his suit coat.  Next the hands caught hold of his dress shirt and ripped it in half, leaving the remnants lying beneath him.  He’d winked out again then, but when he woke up he could feel the wind on his backside and knew he was near naked. Close by one of the men was pacing, walking back and forth, muttering under his breath.  He heard the sound of a man’s fist slapping his palm and then, once again, the stink of whiskey and sweat, the pressure on his back, and the words….

Only they were different this time.

‘Don’t worry, Joe, everything’s gonna be all right.’   

Joe gasped and began to shake uncontrollably.  He knew what had been done to him, but worse than that.

It had been done by someone he knew.

Phoebe stepped outside after her conversation with Ben.  She’d forgotten a shawl so she sat on the porch with her arms wrapped tightly around her body, trying to keep warm.  She hadn’t been there ten minutes when the front door opened and Adam Cartwright stepped out.  Even though Adam was the one who had suggested she come to the Ponderosa, of all of the Cartwrights he was the one she had had the least dealings with since her arrival.  The handsome black-haired man was often away, but more than that, seemed to have no interest in conversing with her the few times he had come home.

As he came abreast her, Ben’s oldest son paused.  “Aren’t you cold?” he asked.

She stifled a shiver.  “I’m all right.”

Phoebe had noticed that Adam had a funny little thing he did with his lips, where the ends pulled up like a bow.  He’d tilt his head then and raise one eyebrow as if whatever it was he looked at puzzled him.

He was doing it now.

“I’ll go get you a wrap,” he said, surprising her.  A moment later when he returned with a small throw and draped it around her shoulders, Ben’s eldest said, “Now we can’t have the nurse needing nursing, can we?”

She caught the throw in her fingers and pulled it tightly about her throat.  The warmth was wonderful.  “No, I guess not,” she said.  “Thank you.”

Adam nodded and then stepped off of the porch.  Instead of walking on, he turned his face up and looked at the stars.  “One pay-off for a frosty November day is a clear night sky.  Look at those stars.”

They were beautiful and brilliant, but stars had always seemed cold to her – distant and dispassionate.  It seemed they looked on humanity with its triumphs and tragedies with indifference.  “They are amazing to look at out here,” she admitted.  “When I was little I lived in a city.  You couldn’t see them there like you can here.”

“I know,” Adam said, surprising her with the conversation.  “When I went to school back East, it was one of the things I missed.”

Emboldened, Phoebe echoed, “One of the things?”

“That, and Hop Sing’s cooking,” he quipped.

The redhead laughed.  “Well, Hop Sing’s cooking is remarkable.”

Adam went to the table and took a seat.  “Pa just told me you will be filling in for Hop Sing in a few days when the hands hit the trail.”

“Little Joe is getting better.  I don’t think it will be very long before he doesn’t need me.  I’ve only been  checking in on him a few times a day as it is.”  She met that curious gaze.  “It’s time I pulled my weight around here or went back home.”

“And you don’t want to go home?”

Phoebe ducked her head.  “Adam, to be truthful, I have no home.  The Bucket is certainly not that, and my mother, well, she doesn’t want me living with her and my younger sister and brother.  Not…not with what I do for a living.”

“You mean, being a saloon girl?”

She looked at her hands.  “And all that goes with it,” Phoebe said quietly.

Adam remained silent a moment.  “You know, Phoebe, when you first offered to come here, I wondered about your motives.  It’s pretty obvious what your feelings are for Joe.”

“And you worried I hoped to make him dependent on me by making him grateful for what I had done?”

Adam shrugged.  “I considered it.”

“Well, Joe’s big brother, you needn’t worry,” she said softly as she rose.  “Even if Joe cared for me in that way, I know I would never be accepted as a Cartwright, and after what I have seen – experienced here, there is no way I would do anything to drive a wedge between Joe and his family.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going inside.”

The man in black stopped her with a hand on her arm.  “What do you mean, ‘never be accepted as a Cartwright’?”

She met his puzzled gaze.  “Oh, Adam, don’t be naive.  You know what I am.”

“No,” he said, “tell me what you are.”

The skin around Phoebe’s blue eyes pinched.  “You’re being cruel.”

“No, I’m not.  You know, slapping a label on something limits its possibilities.  If I pick up a bottle and its labeled ‘rot gut’, I know I’m not getting champagne.  However, if the bottle has no label, well then, I have to test it to know what it’s made of.”  Adam paused.  “You’ve been tested this past week, Phoebe, and we know what you’re made of.”

Tears filled her eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks.  The oldest of the Cartwright boys looked nonplussed.

“What did I say?” he asked.

Phoebe lifted a hand, struck the tears away, and shook her head.

Adam waited until she looked up at him.  “Thank you,” he said simply.  “Thank you for what you have done for Joe.  I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am for everything.”

She shook her head.  “It’s nothing.  Joe was kind to me – ”

“Even though you didn’t deserve it?”

There was an edge to his voice.  Startled, she looked at him. Then she realized what Adam was doing.  He was giving word to her thoughts.

“Yes,” she answered.

Adam withdrew his hand.  “Phoebe, a wise friend once told me that we cannot achieve more in life than what we believe in our heart of hearts we deserve to have.  You’ll never escape that saloon, or the life you’ve led, until you believe that you can.”

Another tear fell.  “Why are you being so kind?”

He caught her chin in his fingers and lifted her head so she could look at him.  “Because, after the care you have given my brother, expecting nothing in return, you do deserve it.”

Behind them the door opened.  As the interior light spilled out into the night, Ben Cartwright’s tall broad form filled the door.  Phoebe turned toward him and immediately knew something was wrong.

“Adam,” Ben asked, “is your brother with you?”

“You mean Hoss?  You know he’s still out on the range, Pa.”

The silver-haired man shook his head.  “Not Hoss.  Joe.”

Phoebe watched the man in black go rigid.  “Joe’s not in his room?”

Ben shook his head. “I just went up to check in on him.  Joseph’s not in his bed and he’s not anywhere else in the house.  I was hoping he was out here with you.”

“Sorry to say it, Pa, but he’s not.”

The older man sighed.  “I should never have let Roy question him.”

“You couldn’t have stopped it. Roy’s the law.”

“And I am Joe’s father.”  The older man turned and, building up a head of steam, headed for the house.  “Adam, saddle our horses. We’re going after him.”  Ben threw his hands up in the air.  “By God!  What am I going to do with that boy?”

“Pa, I think we should leave Joe alone.”

Ben spun back.  Phoebe felt his fear and fury as he demanded, “You what?”

“If this has to do with Roy questioning Joe, Pa – if Joe’s remembered something more – then he may need to be alone.”

“Your brother needs his family around him.”

When Adam saw he was not going to persuade his father, he changed tactics.  “All right then, let me go.  Alone.”

“Adam, no – ”

“Pa, listen to me, if one of us goes, I think it should be me. You know how Joe is, he’ll talk to Hoss or me before he does you.”  At his father’s look, he added with a shrug, “It’s just the way we are.”

The older man considered it.  “All right.”  Lifting a finger, he pointed it at the man in black.  “But if you are not back here – with your brother – in four hours time, I am coming to find you both.  Do you understand?”

Adam nodded.

After his father had gone back inside, Phoebe asked, “Where do you think Joe went?”

The man in black turned toward her.  “I don’t think, I know,” he said.  “Just like Pa knows, because it’s where we would have gone.”

“And where is that?”

He looked to the north.

“Back to the scene of the crime.”

TEN

Joe was exhausted by the time he reached Pointer’s Arch.  Not only was he plain worn out, but each step Cochise took was a jolt of agony to a body that had had too much.

Everything hurt.

But he wasn’t going to let that stop him.  It was there – close – like a word on the tip of his tongue, the memory of all that had happened.  He knew now that he had to find the monster who had done this to him before his brother did – before Adam peered into the darkness so long that it looked back into him.  He had never heard such words come out of his cool, calm brother.  Adam was a man of action, but it was well-thought out action.  Unlike him, Adam didn’t act on impulse.

Or at least he never had before.

Joe shivered and pulled the collar of his nightshirt closer about his throat.  What his brother had expressed tonight when he thought he was asleep was pure raw emotion.  It frightened him, not for himself, but for Adam.  He realized now that his older brother was hurting nearly as much as he was.  Adam was bent under a load of guilt bigger than a man could bear.  He blamed himself.

Now Joe knew for what.

A wave of nausea washed over him as he carefully dismounted and tethered Cochise to a tree.  Joe stood for a moment, leaning his head on the saddle, and then turned to face what lay before him.  There, silhouetted against the risen moon, was the Arch.  It’s piled stones loomed over him like the tower in the Brothers’ Grimm fairy tale his brother Hoss used to read him, the one called, ‘The Pink’, in which a woman, unjustly accused, is imprisoned in a high stone tower where neither sun nor moon could be seen.  The space within the stones of Pointer’s Arch was like that.  It was black as the Devil’s heart.

It both terrified and called to him.

Joe steeled himself.  If he was going to free his brother from deep guilt and himself from the deeper, rising tide of shame and disgrace that threatened to overwhelm him – if he was ever going to be able to call himself a ‘man’ again, ever to look at his brothers and his father without feeling that same shame, then this was something he had to do.

He had to face the monster head-on.

Drawing a deep breath, the man with the curly brown hair held it and then let it out slowly.

Then Joe stepped into the Arch.

Adam saddled Sport and flew out of the ranch, pushing both the horse and himself as hard as he could. Though he still believed it would have been better to give Joe some room, he knew his father meant what he said and the older man would follow hard on his heels as soon as the four hour limit had expired.  As he galloped toward Virginia City and Pointer’s Arch, the man in black considered what he would do when he got there if that was indeed where his little brother had gone.  If Joe’s memory had returned, what would he say to him?  How would he help him?

How could he make Joe understand it made no difference?

Pointer’s Arch was about four miles outside of town, so he knew – pushing Sport as he was – that he could make it in under an hour.  That would give him an hour or so to find and talk to his brother before they would need to head back.  Considering the subject, that was probably far too little or far too much time in which to do so.  He wondered now, since Joe had left the house so soon after his visit, if his little brother had been awake for a part of it.  Maybe, as he’d feared, something he’d said in that unguarded moment had served as a trigger, bringing back more detail of that horrible night.  Adam’s jaw clenched and tightened as he swallowed over a wave of nausea.  A man never truly knew what he was made of until he was taken to the end of his mental and spiritual rope, and then driven to the place where his hands reached for it, but found nothing.

Nothing but what was already in him.

Joe was in the Arch.  It was completely dark where he stood but that didn’t mean the darkness was empty.  It was filled with hazy indistinguishable shadows that moved with a life of their own.  The shadows shifted, moving around him, leaning in, towering over him like whoever it had been who had straddled him and ridden him like an animal.  Again he smelled that scent – whiskey and sweat – and heard the hateful words ring in his ears.  Closing his eyes, Joe listened this time, searching for something in the voice – a certain accent, a turn of phrase, anything that might lead him to recognize who the man was.

‘I want you, pretty boy.’

‘Don’t worry, Joe, everything’s gonna be all right.’

Whoever it was knew him by name.  That meant the attack hadn’t been a random act or one of opportunity, but had been well thought out and planned.

Joe sickened.  He thought he was going to vomit.  Planned.

Who planned on destroying a man?

As he continued to press for more, as he went over and over and over the attack again in his mind, Joe’s heart began to pound fast and hard as a spooked herd dashing across the baked earth of the desert.  It pounded so hard and rushed so fast he was afraid it might just burst out of his chest.  Lightheaded, he dropped to his knees.  His knuckles went white where he gripped the grass and for a moment he was overwhelmed by the deepest, most desperate rage he had ever known.  All too quickly, though, the rage betrayed him.  Like a sudden storm it passed, leaving guilt and grief and shame and despair – oh, God, the despair! – in its wake.  He fought it, but he lost.

The tears flowed.

Adam spotted Cochise tethered to a tree before he got to Pointer’s Arch.  He halted where he was and dismounted.  Leaving Sport behind, the man in black continued forward on foot.

The night was black.  The stars he and Phoebe had been looking at had winked out, hidden by clouds that hinted at an approaching storm.  The air was chill and there was a touch of rain in it – a cold wet rain that was enough to darken a man’s thoughts, even if he had no other provocation.  Pulling his coat up around his throat, Adam squared his shoulders and moved into it.

Joe hadn’t moved.  He sat hunched over, still gripping the grass, his fingers numb.  Sobs wracked his slender frame, making him feel even less of a man and even more the rightful victim of someone who was stronger than him both in determination and daring.  Had he done something to give this man – whoever he was – the wrong impression?  He knew there were men who liked men.  He’d been around enough drifters and ranch hands and miners to be aware of it.  There’d been a boy who had hung around him in school.  He thought he was a friend until one day he realized the boy was interested in more than that.  He’d decked him with a single punch.

Still, this was different.  There was something this monster, whoever he was, had taken from him that had nothing to do with the man’s sick desire or need for pleasure –  and everything to do with breaking him, with stealing his strength and confidence – with having power over him.

He’d come to Pointer’s Rock to slay the dragon and, in the end, it was him who ended up burned.

Joe stifled a sob.  Stop crying, he ordered himself.  Stop.  Crying.  As another wave of despair washed over him, he held his breath.  His only reward was a heaving chest and the feeling that he was going to pass out.  Dropping his head between his hands where they still clutched the grass, he tried to prevent it.  He didn’t want to pass out – not here – not where it happened.

Abruptly, Joe straightened up.  The man could still be here.  Watching. Waiting.  His head turned from side to side rapidly examining the shadows, sniffing for that scent and listening for that voice – that unfamiliar familiar voice that he should have known – had to know.

Needed to know.

He’d put on his gun before he left the house.  Rising quickly, Joe palmed it and cocked the trigger, ready to shoot at the first thing that moved.

Adam was making his way toward the Arch.  From within its dark recesses came the sound of heartbreaking cries and he supposed it was Little Joe. That presented him with a dilemma.  He didn’t want to embarrass his brother, but at the same time, if Joe was in pain then he needed him and he couldn’t retreat.  The man in black halted just within a circle of trees that surrounded the tall stack of rocks and listened again.  The sounds were those of a soul on the edge of being lost.

Damning sense and reason to Hell, he ran toward the Arch.

Joe turned in a circle like a caged animal.  He’d heard a noise – the whinny of a horse nearby – and knew someone was coming.  His pa had always taught him to shout out a warning if he wasn’t sure, but if this was the fiend who had assaulted him before he didn’t deserve a warning.

He deserved to die.

As the sound grew closer Joe stepped out of the arch.  His finger closed on the trigger and he fired.

Adam saw Joe, standing like a pale white fury with a gun in his hand about three seconds before the gunpowder ignited, lighting his little brother’s terrified face before propelling the metal cylinder down the scored barrel and out at a speed it would be hard to avoid at this distance.  The man in black twisted violently and reared back almost in time.

But not quite.

Seconds later the bullet struck the flesh of Adam’s forehead, spinning him and dropping him to the ground.

Hoss returned to find his father seated outside in the chair Joe had occupied the night before.  The older man was so quiet he almost missed him.  It wasn’t until he stepped onto the porch and opened the front door to go in, allowing the light to escape, that he saw him.

He hadn’t seen his pa look that way since Marie died.

“Pa?”

The older man didn’t move.  “Yes, son?”

“How come you’re sitting out here in the dark?”

“I’m waiting on your brothers,” he answered.

It took a second. “Brothers?  You mean ‘two’?”

His father stirred.  “Yes.  I discovered Joe was gone. Adam went to find him.”

“Gone?  Joe?”  Hoss closed the door and went to his father’s side.  “Little brother ain’t well enough to be running around.”

“No.  No, he’s not.” The older man rose to his feet.  He pulled a pocket watch out and checked it.  “Fifteen minutes more and I go after them.”

Hoss puzzled over it for a minute.  “How will you know where to go?”

“I think Adam thought the same as me, that your brother would be headed for…for the place where all of this began.”

“Pa, we gotta go help him!”

“I gave your older brother four hours.  It’s not up yet.”

“Why’d Adam want to go alone?”

Hoss didn’t realize how much his question would hurt the older man.  “Adam thought Joe would talk to him.”  That implied, of course, that Joe would not talk to him.

“Pa, you know how it is,” he tried.  “You had a brother.  You can tell your brother things you just…well..that you couldn’t tell your pa.”

His father nodded.  “I know that, son, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.  You boys, you’re,” the older man’s voice cracked under the strain, “you’re my life.”

“Joe knows that Pa,” the big man said softly.  “So does Adam.”

The older man nodded.  He looked at his watch again and then snapped the gold case shut with a click.  “Saddle Buck for me, son.  I’ll let Phoebe know what we’re doing, and then we’re going to find your brothers.”

Adam frowned.  He shifted and moaned and then blinked, trying to find a focus.  It ended up being the very concerned and contrite face of his little brother.

“Hey, big brother,” Joe said sheepishly.  “I thought I killed you.”

“No such luck.”

“Adam, don’t josh about such a thing.”

He could hear both the concern and guilt in his brother’s voice.  After another groan, the man in black reached up and touched his head.  It was bandaged, but he could feel warm blood staining the rags.

“I got you good,” Joe winced.

“You certainly did.”  He reached out then.  “Joe, help me sit up.”

“Do you think you should?”

Adam scowled.  “Well, I’m going to whether I should or not. You can help me or sit and watch me fall on my face.”

Instantly, Joe’s arm was around his shoulders.  Once he was in position, his little brother caught a canteen up from the ground and offered it to him.  “You want some water?”

He took the canteen even as he nodded.  Once he was finished, he let Joe take it and put it to the side.  Leaning back against the large stone his brother had propped him against, Adam fought nausea and dizziness to focus on the kid who sat beside him.

“How are you?”

Joe blinked.  “You’re the one who got shot.  Shouldn’t I be asking you?”

Adam sighed.  “I’m fine.  How are you?”

His little brother screwed up his face in that way he had since he was a little boy.  It was something like the look you gave a parent when they found your hand in the jar of sweets.  “I’m okay for a man who nearly killed his brother.”

“Joe, you’re avoiding the question.”  Adam hesitated, but then went on.  “I heard you as I was walking up to the Arch.  Do you need me to spell out what I heard?”  As Joe ducked his head, he asked again.  “How are you?”

His brother sighed.  “I don’t know.”

“How don’t you know?  Tell me.”  Adam waited.  After a second he added, “You have to tell someone.”

His head remained down.  “I don’t know that I can, Adam.  Not you.”

He stared at Joe, thinking.  “You were awake the other night when I came into your room, weren’t you?”

Joe said nothing, but he nodded.

Adam tried to remember everything he had said.  He was being honest – probably more honest than he should have been if he had known Joe could hear him.  “I meant what I said.”

Joe’s curly brown head came up. The look out of his green eyes was intense.  “I know that, Adam.  That’s why I can’t tell you.”

A short silence fell between them.

“Is it so bad?” he asked softly.

A shudder ran the length of his baby brother’s slender frame.  “It’s my fault,” he said at last.

“What’s your fault?”

Joe’s eyes flicked to his face and then away again.  When he spoke, the word was as small as his voice.  “Everything.”

“Joe, what happened to you – “

His brother’s anger broke like waves crashing on the shore.  “Adam, you know I’m right!  If I’d a listened to you, if I hadn’t insisted on staying for the poker game – if I hadn’t had so much to drink – it never would’ve happened!”

“You don’t know that,” he said firmly.

Joe jumped to his feet and began to pace.  “Yes, I do!  I had so much to drink that my head wasn’t straight.  I could’ve been faster, could’ve stopped him from…what he did.”

‘What he did’ hung between them as an unspoken horror for which neither of them had words.

“Even if you had been completely sober, that blow to the head would have incapacitated you,” Adam said in his most calm, most rational voice, even though the voice in his head was screaming that, for the bastard who had done this to his brother, death was too good a fate. Confident Joe.  Cocky Joe.  Ornery-to-the-bone and so-sure-of-himself you wanted to smack him Joe.

How dare that monster turn his brother into this?

“I don’t know Adam.  I – ”

“I do.”

Joe looked at him.  For a moment, his expression didn’t change. Then he half-smiled. “That’s a lot of confidence in me coming from a man I just nearly killed by accident.”

A little smile quirked the edges of his lips.  “Thank God you couldn’t hit a bucket sitting on a fence at two feet.”

Joe’s nose wrinkled.  “You just try me,” he said quietly.

Adam held his gaze.  “I mean to.”

“What?”

Adam reached up and touched his forehead.  “I’d say we’re even now, wouldn’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

He winced as his fingers came away bloody. “I did something stupid by letting you stay in town for that poker game, and you did something stupid by nearly killing me.  I’d say that makes us square.”

Joe scratched his head.  “Sorry about that.”

He held his brother’s gaze.  “I’m sorry too.”

His little brother stared at him a moment longer and then, taking a seat beside him, leaned his head back against the wall of stone.  “I don’t blame you, big brother.”

“Don’t blame yourself either.”

Joe leaned forward and rested his locked hands on his raised knee.  “Adam, why do things like this happen?  I mean…we go to church most Sundays and the Good Book promises God will watch over us….”  Joe’s face grew haunted.  “I don’t….  I can’t….”  His brother’s voice trailed off to next to nothing.  “…why?”

Adam drew  deep breath and looked at the sky.  Really, he thought, really?

Straightening up, the man in black reached out and placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. Joe was trembling.  It was only then that he noted how poorly he was dressed.  Joe was still in his nightshirt and had simply pulled on a pair of boots and pants and tucked the tail of the thin garment into it.  Adam hesitated and then he shifted and placed his arm around his brother’s shoulders.  He felt Joe tense and then relax in the embrace.

“I’m going to be honest with you, Joe.  Since what…happened, I’ve asked the same questions and I can’t say I’ve been entirely content with the answers.”  Adam shifted and drew his brother in a little closer, seeking to warm him.  “When Marie – when your mother died – I watched Pa struggle with it.  I was about to go East to school, Hoss was barely old enough to be on his own, and you were just a little boy.  It seemed to me that Pa should break.  He’d lost my mother, Inger, and now yours.  But Pa never wavered.  He never doubted God.  He told me one time that life was like a woman’s needlework.  If you looked at it from the underside, it was a tangled mess, but when you turned it over and you realized the time and the skill and the knowledge that went into making the beautiful art you saw there, you had to know the one making it knew what she was doing.  Pa said, ‘Adam, it’s like that with God.  You have to trust the Maker’s hand.’”

Joe’s slender form slumped against his even as a soft rain began to fall outside the Arch.  His brother’s words were slurred with fatigue.  “Do you, Adam?” he asked.  “Do you trust the Maker’s hand?”

Adam sat there, feeling the weight and the warmth of his brother’s form against his own.  Joe could have been dead, but he wasn’t.  He was here.  In his arms.

Safe.

Adam settled back and braced his head on the stone as well.

“Yes, Joe.  I do.”

“Pa!  I see Sport!”  Hoss said in a tense whisper.

“And there’s Cochise,” the older man breathed as he checked his horse’s progress, obviously relieved.

Hoss turned Chubb’s nose toward him.  “Where do you suppose Adam and Joe are?”

His father nodded toward Pointer’s Arch.  “I imagine we’ll find them in there.”

The big man frowned.  “Why do you suppose Joe’d want to come here of all places?”

“You know your brother,” he said.  “Joe’s a scrapper.  I’ve never known him to run from a fight.”  His father’s face set in sadness.  “Even when the fight is with himself.”

Hoss looked toward the Arch, trying, but trying not to think about what happened there near a week before.  “You think Joe’s gonna be all right?”

The older man nodded.  “He’s not alone.  A man can survive anything if he’s surrounded by those he loves.  Come on.”

The two of them nudged their mounts forward.  When they came abreast Adam’s horse, they tethered their own and dismounted and continued on foot.

He was the one who spotted them, sitting together within the Arch.  Adam had his arm wrapped protectively around Joe.  Joe’s head rested on Adam’s chest.

Both were asleep.

“Hoss.”  His father caught his arm and held him back.  Then he indicated with a nod that they should retreat.

The big man was puzzled.  “Pa, didn’t you see Adam’s head?  He’s hurt.”

“I know, but it seems to be under control.  I think, Hoss, that maybe it’s important we let the two of them come home on their own rather than waking them and dragging them there.”  The older man sighed.  “There seems to be no danger and your older brother is just as much in need of healing as your younger one.”

“I know Adam sure does blame himself for what happened to Joe,” Hoss acknowledged quietly. “But I don’t feel right leavin’ them out here, with both of them hurting.”

“I understand that, son.”  His father thought a moment. “Why don’t you keep watch during the night, and then ride out before they become aware that you’re here?”

Hoss nodded his thanks.  “I can do that, Pa.  What’re you goin’ to do?”

“ I think, since we’ve come so far, that I am going to ride into town and see if Roy has found out anything new about Joe’s attack or about that other tragic young man who was killed.”

The big man looked at the sleeping pair again.  “We was lucky, weren’t we?  We coulda lost Joe.”

His father nodded.  “Lucky, and blessed.”

Hoss removed his hat and scratched his head.  “God’s ways sure are mysterious, ain’t they, Pa?”

“As above ours as ours are above an ant’s.”

“Why’d you suppose God would have let somethin’ like this happen to Joe?”

The older man shook his head.  “Why did God let your mother die?  Why Elizabeth, or Marie?  The Good Book doesn’t promise Heaven here, son, just that there is something better after this life, and that Heaven is real.”

The big man nodded.  “Well, if you ask me, God’s gotta have a special spot for Little Joe.  He done rescued him enough times already for a man twice his age.”

“I think, no, I know God has a special path for your brother – for each of you.  The trials we face are what make us the men we become.  God tries those hardest whom He loves the most.”

Hoss snorted.  “Well, then, he sure does love Little Joe!”

It was good to hear his father laugh.

Joe was weak and shivering when they woke up.  Adam wrapped his coat around him and placed his brother before him on Sport and then, with Cochise tethered behind, started for home just as the sun broke over the horizon and the world began to wake.  As they rode Joe’s head lulled and from that point on he was in and out of consciousness until they reached the house.  In spite of everything Adam had to smile as they began their journey.  He’d awakened and gone to fill the canteen he’d brought before they did so.  Hoss had done his best to disappear into the foliage, but he caught a glimpse of him.  As he returned to Joe, he’d heard his middle brother ride away.  Hoss would be there on the porch waiting to greet them with arms wide open and no questions asked.

As he had said to their father earlier, it was how they were.

Joe moaned and shifted beneath his arm.  Adam drew him in more tightly to his chest.  He didn’t think his brother was sick, just worn out.  The strain of facing what had happened to him would have been more than enough, let alone the ride to Pointer’s Arch when Joe had barely been able to walk on his own two days before and now, the ride back.  He could only hope this night would bring a kind of new beginning and that they both could let go of their guilt and move on.

It would be harder for Joe, he knew.  Somewhere out there was a man who had taken terrible advantage of him.  The fact that he had, and that the man remained free, was bound to leave scars.  But, hopefully, now that they all knew and could all pull together, the love that they shared would be enough to bring his brother through.

As they entered the yard and he called on Sport to slow, Joe stirred beneath his hand and looked up.  “Adam,” he murmured dreamily.  “Where are we?”

On the porch Adam saw someone shift and rise from the chair.  A moment later Hoss stepped off the deck and headed for them.  Behind him, Hop Sing emerged from the house to watch.  Phoebe was there too, and though there was no sign of their Pa, Adam knew he was there in spirit.

“I’ll tell you where we are, Joe,” he said, giving his brother a little squeeze.

“We’re home.”

ELEVEN

Ben Cartwright crossed his arms and leaned on the top of the fence beside the stable.  He was watching his youngest work.  Another week had passed and, physically, Joe seemed to be recovering nicely.  Hop Sing had been forcing extra portions on Joseph at supper to help him regain the bulk he had lost, and he had set his youngest to easy chores like the painting he was doing now.  Joe was urging him to allow him to take on more.  So far he had refused.  It wasn’t only that his son didn’t have the stamina – Joe lacked the mental acumen as well.

Since the night he and Adam had ridden into the yard after their short excursion in the woods, Joe had not been himself.  He’d often found his youngest sitting in the Great Room or in the chair on the porch, just staring.  Though he had been given leave to go into Virginia City with his brothers, he’d chosen not to and had stayed close to home – as if the memories of a certain journey on that road were more than he could bear.  Joe’s temper had grown shorter than ever.  It took very little to set him off.  Sometimes it seemed he was angry with himself.  Other times, at God and the world.  Ben suspected it had something to do with the fear that had followed in the wake of realizing what had happened that night.  Joseph was fearless – or he had been.  The fact that he hadn’t taken off  again – without permission – on his own to solve the mystery of what happened to him said a great deal.  The older man looked at his boy, working hard and breaking a sweat.  He was so serious.  That was another thing, Joe rarely smiled and was less prone to laugh.

Dear Lord!  How he missed that laugh.

But these were not the things that troubled him most.  His son had a lot to process.  He knew that.  The thing that bothered him the most was that Joe had withdrawn.  He and the boys would end the day, go in and eat their supper, and then Joe would excuse himself and go up to his room.  Words were the key that unlocked a man’s soul.  Without words – without communication – it was nearly impossible to tell what someone was feeling.

That night, when Joe bolted and Adam went to find him, he had ridden in to talk to Roy Coffee.  The Sheriff hadn’t been in upon his arrival and so he had taken a seat and waited on him.  Roy came in later.  He and his deputy had been out following a lead on the Fitzgerald boy’s murder, but it had come to naught.  Someone thought they had seen Alec leave the saloon in the company of an older, well-dressed man.  Roy had gone to question the witness, to see if they knew anything more, but was disappointed in the end.  He and the sheriff sat for a while talking, and then Ben had left to see if he could find Doc Martin at home.   Since Adam had designed their house with a large common area and an open stair, it was hard to talk and be certain no one would hear.  Most of the time that was fine as he had no secrets to hide, but now – with this – he didn’t want his youngest to hear some of the questions he would be forced to ask the doctor.

Ben watched as Joe stopped to take a drink, and then dipped a rag in the water and used it to wipe the sweat from his face. The weather had taken a sudden turn and today felt more like September than November.  He noticed his son had tossed on an extra layer in the form of a loose fitting flannel shirt.  By its size, it could’ve been one of Adam’s.  It was definitely not in keeping with Joe’s usual dapper, form-fitting, attention-grabbing style. His son was a handsome and fit man and he liked to show it off.

The fact that he wasn’t was another thing that troubled him.

After leaving Roy’s office he’d crossed to the doctor’s on the off-chance the older man would be working and was fortunate to find him there.  When the door opened to his knock, Doc Martin’s weary face appeared.  He had just returned from a visit to a farm south of the city where he had delivered a set of twins, only one of whom had survived.  Even though he knew he had done all he could, the loss weighed heavily on the doctor’s conscience.  As they began to speak about it, the conversation turned naturally to guilt and the tools needed for coping with it.  That took them to Joe and – though his eldest son would have decried the need – Adam.

He remembered the conversation like it had been written down.

After asking how Joe was doing and being told that he had remembered more and as a consequence run away, the doctor had leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers together and looked over them at him.

“You’re worried about Joe, Ben, and concerned how you can meet his needs – I mean, more than the physical ones.”

He’d admitted that he was.

The doctor had risen then and gone to a small cupboard across the room where he palmed a bottle of Brandy and returned to his desk with it and two crystal glasses.  Ben listened as the liquid reached the point where the sound of it being poured went silent.  The Doc returned the stopper to the bottle, picked his glass up, and downed half of his glass in one swig.

“Well, Ben, you have every right to be,” Paul said a heartbeat later. “People who experience this sort of trauma go through stages as they begin to cope.  It starts with a denial of what happened and a need to separate themselves from life, and quickly moves through rage to melancholia to one of two conclusions – acceptance or complete denial, which means – in a way – that they have buried it and themselves.”

Ben stiffened.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean they die – in some way.  Oh, their heartbeat may not stop, but they stop living.” The doctor took another sip.  “I hate to tell you, Ben, but there have been victims of this kind of attack who, when they find they cannot escape what happened, choose to take their own lives.  Worse than that, though, is the individual who withdraws permanently from normal society by becoming abusive themselves, by drinking too much or inciting anger in order to provoke a confrontation, or by completely withdrawing.  Often all of these go hand-in-hand.”

How well he remembered Thomas Slade’s case.  He had watched the man disintegrate before his eyes.

“Joe’s a strong boy, Ben,” Paul Martin finished, “but in the end, he’s only human.”

Ben shifted his position on the fence, moving a little to the southeast so he could continue to keep Joe in his line of sight.  The boy was working again, lifting a large brush and applying paint to the side of the stable.  Paul had gone on then to tell him what signs to watch for – disturbed sleep, recurrent nightmares or flashbacks, or an inability to remain asleep.  Those who had been abused often lost interest in the things they had once found fascinating.  Some felt ‘on guard’, as if they had to watch for constant danger.  These were the signs that led to the doctor’s conclusion – acceptance or denial.

At some point, in the last two weeks, Joe had evidenced all of them.

The silver-haired man straightened up.  Putting a hand to his aching back, he stretched toward the sky.  He would never put it this way to Joe, but it was like having a small child again.  With them completely dependent on you, you found you had to give up your independence.  He checked in on Joe at least twice a night, which was wrecking havoc with his daytime energy.  Since Hop Sing was gone there were more things to do at home, though Phoebe’s return tonight would lessen that burden by taking most of the responsibility for the ranch house chores off his and Joe’s brothers’ shoulders.  The redhead had left the Ponderosa shortly after Joe’s escape.  They’d planned on her staying away for a few days and then returning at his request to exchange her position as caregiver and house guest for a paying job as temporary cook and housekeep.  He hoped having Phoebe back would be healing for his son.  She was a beautiful young lady and, through her own misfortune, had an understanding of what Joe had been through that they lacked.

She was expected any time.

Ben came out of his reverie to find Joe watching him.  The big brush he held at his side was bleeding brown-red paint on the ground.  His son raised a hand and shielded his eyes and then called out.

“Hey, Pa!  Do you need something?”

“Just enjoying the warm day, Joseph.  How are you doing?”

“This side’s almost done.”

“Not with the building, son, how are you?”

Joe dropped the paint brush and came over to the fence.  When he stopped, he wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve before saying, “I’m okay, Pa.  Really.”

There was lot packed into that final word.

Ben remained silent for a moment.  “You know I can’t help but worry, son.”

Joe shrugged.   “Guess I can’t stop you.”

“Are you tired yet?  Do you need to rest?”

“And have Hoss and Adam accuse me of dodging my chores?  No thank you!” Joe replied with a tight smile.  “Really, I’m fine other than the fact that I’d like to get back to what I do best – working on the range, busting broncos, and such.”

“I know what Doc Martin would say to busting broncos, and so do you,” Ben said, his tone slightly stern.  “But, if you promise to take it easy until the end of the week, we’ll see what we can do about finding you something a little more to your liking on Monday.”

Joe’s lips curled up and one eye winked.  “’Bout time too.”

The silver-haired man was just about to respond when the sound of horse’s hooves striking the packed earth made them both turn toward the yard.  Moments later a lone horse appeared. 

It was Roy Coffee.

Instantly his youngest’s demeanor changed.  Joe’s eyes narrowed and he began to breathe more heavily.  “I’m gonna get back to painting, Pa,” he said, and quickly turned to do so.

“Joe,” Ben said softly, halting him.  “I imagine Roy is here to talk to you.”

His son turned back, every muscle rigid.  “Well, I don’t want to talk to him,” he said between gritted teeth.

Before Joe could make his escape the Sheriff was at their side.

“Ben.  Joe,” he said, nodding to them in turn.  “I’m glad I found at least one Cartwright at home.”

“What is it, Roy?”  Ben’s eyes flicked to his son and back to the sheriff.  “Is this something to do with the investigation?

“I don’t rightly know, Ben.  Seem’s as it might, but there’s no way of knowin’ for sure until the young lady can answer questions.”

Joe had been looking at the ground.  His head came up.  “Young lady?”

“That saloon girl that was stayin’ with you, Phoebe Howath.  One of the other girls found her in her room this morning beat to within an inch of her life.”

Ben watched the news strike his youngest like a blow.  “Phoebe?” Joe repeated. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Doc Martin’s with her now.  Even beat as she is, she stayed awake long enough to make sure someone come out and told you.  I guess you was expecting her?”  The tone of Roy’s voice showed that he didn’t exactly understand why.

“She was going to fill in for Hop Sing for a week or two,” Ben replied, telling half the truth.  “What happened?  Do you know?”

The sheriff shook his head.  “She ain’t talked much.  Probably won’t for a few days.”

“Pa, you gotta let me go to town.”

Ben turned to look at his son.  Joe’s lean form was straight as a spike awaiting the hammer.  “Joe,” he said softly, “no, I don’t.”

“I…owe her, Pa.  I need to go.”  Joe swallowed hard.  “Pa, please.”

His son hadn’t said much about the two weeks that Phoebe had tended him.  He probably found the whole thing a little embarrassing.  But it was obvious from Joe’s reaction to the news that he had deep feelings for the young woman.  Whether they were of a romantic nature or not, he had no idea.

Ben considered it, weighing the danger against the spark of life in Joe’s eyes.  “All right,” he said at last, “but not alone.  Hoss is due back soon.  You can go if you take him with you.”

Anger crinkled the edges of his son’s green eyes.  Since his memory had begun to return anything that seemed to suggest he had any kind of weakness had been a catalyst for disaster.  Ben watched Joe draw several steadying breaths before he nodded.

The silver-haired man turned back to the Sheriff.  “Where is the girl?”

“She’s at the Bucket of Blood in her room.  Like I said, I left the Doc with her.  I’ll ride back before you, Little Joe, and meet you and Hoss on the trail if there’s any change.”

“Thank you, Roy.”  Ben Cartwright watched the sheriff mount and take off, and then turned back to his son.  “Joe, while you’re in town – ”

“I know!” his youngest exploded. “Don’t go anywhere by yourself.  Don’t look at anyone.  Don’t talk to anyone!  Don’t breath!”  Joe slammed through the gate and headed for the house.  “Don’t live!”

“Son!” he called after him, but it was too late.  Joe was beyond his reach.

‘I’m okay, Pa.  Really.’

That was another thing that troubled him, his son seemed to have learned how to lie.

Hoss looked over his beer at his little brother.  Joe was sitting halfway slunk down the wooden chair, his fingers wrapped around his untouched mug.  It was the first time Joe had been to town since the attack and the first time he had returned to the Bucket of Blood.  It was also the first time he had seen his little brother off of the Ponderosa since they’d taken him home half-dead and it startled him to see the change.  Joe had lost weight.  His usually tanned skin was pale.  There was a pinched look about him, especially around the eyes, and his body was tense as if he was pulled in and hunkered down and spoiling for a fight.

All the laughter seemed to have gone out of him.

“I’m going to go upstairs and see what’s taking so long,” Joe announced as he scooted back his chair and started to rise.

“Now, Joe, you know you cain’t do that.  The Doc’s with Miss Phoebe. You just sit yourself down and take a sip of that beer.  It’ll calm you nerves.”

“I’m not nervous!” Joe snapped back.

“Well, if you ain’t nervous then you’re just plumb mean ‘cause you’ve about took my head off a dozen times now.”

Joe’s jaw tightened.  He sat back down.  “Sorry.”

“I know you’re worried about that gal up there, Joe.  We all are.  But you just can’t go bustin’ in while the Doc’s with her.  You know that.”  Hoss shoved the mug closer to him.  “You just take a drink of that while you wait.”

Joe looked at the mug and shoved it back toward him.  “I don’t want any.”

Hoss shook his head.  He finished his drink off and then said, “I never knew a blow to the head to take the love of liquor out of man.  Someone should – ”

The big man stopped.  His brother’s tense form had gone rigid.

He felt like an idiot.

“Sorry, Joe, sorry.  I shouldn’t have – ”

Joe slammed his hand down on the well-beaten tabletop, upsetting his mug and most of the patrons around them.  “I’m tired of everyone treating me like an unweaned pup and feeling like they have to pussyfoot around me!“

Hoss’s temper was flaring too.  His fingers gripped the opposite side of the table.  “Well’n, if you didn’t act like one, we wouldn’t have to treat you that way!”

“You just get up out of that chair, big brother, and you come for me!  I’ve had it!”

Suddenly, Hoss realized he was acting like a child too.  “Now, you know I cain’t do that, little brother.  You ain’t well.”

“I’m well enough to do this!”

Before he knew it Joe had stepped on his chair and was flying over the table.  His brother was little compared to him, but the force of his weight striking hard knocked him down.  The people at the tables around them scattered – but not too far.  It was too much of an entertainment to watch the Cartwright boys have a go at each other.

Some of them were probably already placing bets.

As his brother began to wail on him Hoss steeled himself to take it.  He was sure enough gonna hurt in the morning, but it seemed to him that Joe needed to let it all out.  When he failed to respond, his little brother quieted and looked at him – and then landed a punch on his chin that drove his head to the ground.

“Dad-blame it!” Hoss snorted.  “That there does it!”

Like a monstrous tide the big man rose to his feet.  Hoss waited for Joe to throw another punch and then caught his arms and lifted him up and spun him around and pinned him to his chest.  Joe began to thrash, doing everything he could to get away.  The folks in the saloon who knew them best and had seen them spar since they were little boys, began to laugh affectionately.  ‘Course there were a few others laughing as well who were just plain being cruel.

When the sound reached Joe’s ears he went quiet as death.

“Come on, Joe.  Let’s get you out of here.  Why don’t we go up and see if the Doc is done with Miss Phoebe?”

Joe said nothing when he released him, he just stood there swaying.

Hoss started for the stair.  “You comin’, Joe?”

It was almost as if his brother had to pull himself back from somewhere.  Joe blinked and nodded and then followed him like a lost puppy.  When they got to the top of the staircase Joe dropped into a chair at the end of the poorly lit hall and stayed there while he went to knock on the door.

Doc Martin opened it.  “Oh, Hoss.  It’s good to see you.  Is Joe – ”

He nodded to where his brother sat down the hall in the darkness. “Joe insisted on seein’ Miss Phoebe.”

The older man lowered his voice.  “Looks like I’ve got two patients here.”

“How bad is the little gal?”

The doctor glanced back into the room.  “It’s bad, but it could have been worse.  She’s in a lot of pain.  I’ve given her a dose of laudanum.  She’ll sleep soon.”

“Who in Tarnation would do such a thing?” he sighed.

Doc Martin was silent a moment.  “Does it remind you of anything – or anyone else?”

The big man frowned.  Then his eyes shot to this brother.  “You ain’t thinkin’?

“To be honest, Hoss, I don’t know what I’m thinking.  A bully is a bully.  And someone who wants to inflict pain as a method of control probably doesn’t care if it’s a man or a woman he does it to.”  The doctor stepped out of the doorway.  “Their injuries are very similar.  That said, I don’t know anything for sure.  We may know more when Phoebe talks.”

He nodded.  “That’s why we’re here.  The sheriff done come out and told us.”

The older man thought a minute.  “What was the ruckus I heard a while back?”

“That was just Joe blowin’ off steam.”  Hoss took hold of his jaw and worked it from side to side.  “Little brother walloped me good.”

“There’s some bruising,” the doctor said.  “I can give you some ointment for that.”

“Pshaw.  It ain’t nothin’, Doc,” he answered, wincing a bit.  “Me and my chin are well acquainted with Joe’s fist.”

“Whatever you say.”  Doc Martin paused.  “Do you think your brother is up to seeing Phoebe?  She’s awake.”

Hoss stewed for a minute.  “Well, he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer when Pa said he shouldn’t come.  Why don’t you go ask him?”  The big man grinned.  “I don’t think little brother will take a swing at you!”

He watched as the doctor moved down the hall and stopped in front of Joe.  In spite of his brother’s protests, the Doc bent and examined his neck and shoulder.  The bruises there were nearly gone.

Sad to say the ones on Joe’ soul seemed more lasting.

A moment later Joe brushed past him.  His brother paused outside the door to glance at him and then, in little brother fashion, nodded with just a hint of a wink and went inside.

Joe paused just inside the door of Phoebe’s room.  It was still and dark, lit only by the light spilling in through the window and one small oil lamp on the bedside table. Into the stillness came the sound of someone drawing painful, ragged breaths.  He’d been there not that long ago and the sound – like the trip to town – brought back a wagonload of painful memories he’d really rather not deal with.

Still, he couldn’t let Phoebe down.  She’d been….

She meant too much to him.

Glancing back, Joe saw Hoss and Doc Martin quietly conversing in the hall.  He was sure it was about him and that made his temper flare again, but he beat it down.  It didn’t matter.  All that mattered was the woman who had devoted herself to taking care of him who was lying in the bed working hard to breathe.

It was funny.  He’d seen Phoebe first a year or so back, shortly after she began to work the floor at the Bucket.  There had been something about her.  She didn’t look like the other saloon girls who were pretty but hard as diamonds.  Phoebe was pretty all right, with that curly golden-red hair, those sapphire blue eyes and peach pink skin, with her tiny waist, long slender legs and tight little breasts, but there was something more – something that told him, in spite of the front she put on, that the redhead didn’t belong in a place like this, selling herself to men to bring them a few minutes of pleasure.  He’d struck up a conversation with her and she’d flirted and worked him like anyone else, trying to get him to buy her drinks or take her upstairs.  It became a practice with them.  He’d show up, she’d do the routine, he’d buy her a drink and give her a kiss, and that was that.

Then, a month or so back, things had changed.  She’d grown, well, kind of desperate. That night – the night it happened – she’d hung on him and pressed into him like the other girls – like she was on some kind of an edge and if she went over it, she knew she’d never come back.

He’d wanted to take her away from it all that night.  He had to admit it.  He loved Phoebe.

Just not in the way she wanted.

A little moan told him she was awake.  Joe steeled himself before turning to look at her, knowing what he found would be far different from the picture in his mind.  As he took her hand she turned her head away, sensing someone was there but, probably, not knowing it was him.  Reaching out, he ever so gently caught her chin with his fingers and turned her head back.

What he saw took his breath away.

There were deep bruises on her neck and exposed shoulder, just like there had been on his.  She’s been struck across the face, hard, and more than one time.  One eye was swollen shut and both of her cheeks showed deep bruising, the skin pushing up under her eyes.

Joe drew a steadying breath as a violent torrent of emotion worked to sweep him away.  “Phoebe, it’s Joe. Joe Cartwright.  You don’t have to hide from me.  There isn’t anything that could make you any less beautiful to me.”

Her black eyelashes fluttered against those swollen cheeks.  Slowly, Phoebe’s eyes opened, but they were without focus.  She couldn’t see him.  He remembered that too. After the beating he had taken, everything had been a blur.

“I’m here.”  Joe squeezed her hand as he ran his own across her soft golden-red hair.  “I’m gonna take care of you just like you took care of me.”

Phoebe shifted and grew agitated.  She muttered something that sound like “No.”

“Hey.  What do you mean ‘no’?” he asked, a smile in his voice that was not reflected on his face.  “I figure I owe you at least two weeks of good nursing.”

The redhead moaned again.  A single tear ran down her cheek.  Again, she said, “No.”

He could tell from where his fingers gripped her wrist that her heart had begun to race.  Phoebe moaned another time and her breath became fast and shallow as if, within whatever nightmare world she occupied, she was fighting for her life.

Fear for her made him rise.  “I’ll go get Doc Martin.”

The redhead’s fingers clutched his, refusing to let go.  Joe halted and looked at her.  “Phoebe?”

Her eyes opened and shut.  Once.  Twice.  This time when she looked at him, she saw him.
“Joe….”

He returned to sitting on the bed.  “Yeah, it’s me.  How are you – ”

“No…time.  Get out…of town.”  She drew a shuddering breath.  “Vickery….”

Joe leaned in.  “Phoebe.  Who’s Vickery?”

She shifted uneasily.  “Did…this….”

Vickery must be someone from Phoebe’s past.  Maybe the rich man she’d mentioned running from.  Joe’s rising rage galvanized him.

He’d kill him for what he’d done to her.

“Can you tell me Vickery’s first name?”

Her head slowly lolled from one side to the other.  “Don’t….”

“Phoebe, you gotta tell me!  He’s gotta pay!”

“Young man, what are you doing?” a voice asked.

Joe pivoted to find Doc Martin standing in the open doorway.  He swallowed hard.  “Hi, Doc.”

The older man frowned.  “I can imagine what you are feeling, Joe, but now is not the time to press for answers.  Phoebe needs her rest, just like you do.  Whatever you have to say can wait.”

He knew the Doc was right.  But it was so important.

“Nothing is more important than her recovery,” the older man finished, as if he had read his mind.  “Hoss is waiting for you outside.”

He’d never seen his little brother’s jaw set so firmly.  Sitting on his horse, as they headed back to the Ponderosa, Joe might as well have been an arrow set to the bowstring waiting to fly.  He tried talking to him, but Joe’s teeth was gritted so hard there weren’t no room for words.  When they got back to the ranch house, Joe took the reins of both their horses and said he’d stable them. When he offered to help him, he said plain and blunt that he wanted to be left alone.

Hoss sighed.  He just didn’t have any energy left to argue.

After entering the house and hanging his hat on the rack by the door, the big man turned to find their father rising from one of the chairs by the fire.  He knew what the first question would be.

“Where’s Joseph?”

He pointed over his shoulder.  “He’s out in the stable, Pa, bedding down Chubb and Cochise.”  The older man’s expression questioned the wisdom of leaving his little brother alone.  “Pa, I know what you’re gonna say, but sometimes a man just needs a minute to hisself.”

“I am concerned that you brother will use that minute to climb right back up onto Cochise and ride off hell-bent for leather toward some new trouble.”

Hoss nodded.  “And well he may, Pa.  Maybe Joe needs that too.”

“Maybe?” his father sighed.  “I’ll remind you of that when you have sons and see if you still consider it wisdom.”  The older man stretched and headed for the dining room table.  A pot of coffee remained on the checked tablecloth.  His father felt the outside of the graniteware pot to see if it was still hot and then poured himself a cup.  “Tell me,” he said after taking a sip, “how is Phoebe?”

Hoss went to the hearth and took a seat on the edge of it, relishing the warmth.  With the night, the air had grown chill again.  “She’s right bad off, Pa, but I talked to the Doc and he thinks she’s gonna be all right.  She’s gonna need lookin’ after, though, for some time.”

“When the girl is well enough we’ll bring her back here.  It’s the least we can do to thank her for all she did for Joe.”

Hoss hung his hands between his knees.  “I think that’s why Joe’s out in the stable, Pa.  He was right upset when he came out from seein’ her.  Didn’t say nary a word on the way home.  I think he’s…composin’ hisself.”

Ben nodded, thoughtful.  He returned to his chair and, after taking a few sips, said, “Was Phoebe able to tell Roy anything?”

The big man shook his head.  “Joe’s the first one she talked to.”

“There is a special bond between them now.  One that will always remain no matter where life takes them.”

“You think he’s sweet on her?”

“Joseph?  When is he not sweet on a girl?”  The older man’s laugh was gentle.  “I have no idea.  Time will tell.”

Hoss paused.  “How do you suppose a kind little gal like her ended up in the Bucket of Blood doing…what she does.”

“I’m sure it was a matter of circumstances – a hard life, missed opportunities, bad choices, or maybe, no choices at all.”  His father put his cup down.  “There was a man in her past, an older man that she got involved with.  It ended badly.”

“Oh.”

Hoss heard the sound of the door opening behind him.  He didn’t need to look.  The visible relief that flooded through his father’s frame told him who it was.

The older man rose.  “Joe.  How are you, son?”

The big man winced, waiting for the explosion.

Joe’s voice had a ragged edge.  “I’m tired, Pa.  Really tired.”

Hoss looked at him and saw it.  Joe’s coloring was off.  He was all sort of gray like a thing seen through a mist.  His brother’s usually straight shoulders were slumped.  He had stopped by the sideboard and had one hand on it, propping himself up.

In two seconds their father was by his side.  He caught Joe’s arm and said, “You’re pushing yourself too hard, son.  You know what Paul said, too much too quickly and you will be back in a sick bed.  I’m sure you don’t want that.”

Joe looked up with that echo of his usual smile, which was all they seemed to get these days.  “No, Pa.  I don’t want that.”

“Have you had any food?”

Joe shook his head.

Turning to him, their father said, “Hoss, you take Joe up to bed.  I’ll see what Hop Sing can rustle up in the kitchen and come up shortly with a tray.”

“Ah, Pa,” Joe moaned, “you don’t need to fuss….”

“It’s not fussing, son,” the older man said softly, “it’s loving.  Now, can you stand on your own?”

Hoss was there in an instant. Joe didn’t fight as he took his father’s place and caught his arm.  “I got him, Pa.”

His little brother scowled.  “You two act like I’m gonna….”  Joe closed his eyes and shook himself.  Then he slipped under his hand.

“You are ‘gonna’, little brother if’n you don’t get to bed!”  Hoss put his arm around his brother’s waist and directed him toward the stair.  When they got to his room he sat Joe on the end of his bed and began to undress him, removing his boots and helping him out of his gray coat.

As he started to unbutton Joe’s shirt, his brother caught his hand.  Shyly, almost sheepishly, he asked him a question.

“Hoss, will you do something for me?”

“Anything, little brother,” he said as he pulled Joe’s arm out of the sleeve.

“I need you to ask around.  See if anybody’s ever heard of a man who goes by the name of Vickery.”

His other arm was out.  “What for?”

One side of Joe’s mouth turned up.  “For me?”

Crossing the room, Hoss went to retrieve Joe’s nightshirt.  “I’m gonna need a little more than that, Joe.  Right now I ain’t so sure you’re thinkin’ straight.”

His baby brother was silent a moment.  “Phoebe mentioned him.”

Hoss closed the drawer and turned back.  For just a moment – looking at his little brother sitting there on the edge of the bed, with his feet dangling and that tousled brown head hanging down to his chest like he’d just been through a whipping – he saw not the man, but the little boy.  The little boy he had a danged hard time saying ‘no’ too.

After drawing a breath and letting it out slowly, he crossed back to Joe and held the nightshirt out.  “I think I should go to Roy.”

“Hoss, there isn’t anything to go to Roy about, at least not yet,” Joe protested.  “Just a name.”

“You think Vickery’s the man what done beat Phoebe up?”

Joe shrugged.  “Like I said, it’s just a name.”

The big man contemplated the request.  With another sigh, he said, “All right.  I’ll ask around.”  He pointed a finger at his brother’s chest.  “But if’n we find out anything, we go to Roy about it – deal?”

Joe yawned mightily.  He ran a hand through his hair, disturbing those brown curls, and then nodded.  “Sure.”

“You mean it, Joe?  You ain’t gonna go off half-cocked?”

His shirtless brother pitched over onto his pillows.  “I ain’t going off anywhere….”

Hoss picked up the nightshirt.  He caught his shoulder.  “Joe, here, you gotta….”

Too late.  He was already asleep.

With a shake of his head the big man took hold of the covers that were free and pulled them up and over his brother’s sleeping form.  He crossed the room then and found two more and laid them on top of him, making up for the ones that were trapped beneath.  Joe was sure a handful – bullheaded and bound for trouble – but he was the little brother that he loved and he weren’t going to let no one do what they had done to him and get away with it.

What was done to him that sure enough looked a powerful lot like what was done to Miss Phoebe.

“Vickery, eh?  Sure, Joe, I’ll find out where Vickery is.”  A determined look on his face, the big man finished, “But that don’t mean I’m gonna tell you.”

TWELVE

The man was tall, with dark brown hair turning to silver at the temples and cold, piercing gray eyes.  He wore his expensive suit and arrogant attitude like he’d bought them together.  He wasn’t fifty, but he hadn’t quite made it to sixty, and his life had been spent out-fighting, out-doing, conquering, controlling, and – with a great amount of satisfaction – destroying others. He occupied the shadows of the hotel porch at the moment and stared at the doors of the Virginia City saloon with the apropos name of ‘The Bucket of Blood’.  It was late in the day, near sundown, and it had turned out to be another bitter one, with a slicing wind that carried with it a hint of the winter storms to come.  The man’s lip curled as another man raced by, hat held down and collar pulled up against the chill.  He wasn’t wearing a coat.

Griggs Vickery didn’t feel a thing.

Vickery shifted and straightened up.  He took a step to his right and looked past the post at the saloon doors.  Business was picking up. It was the end of the day and what was more, the end of the week, and all of the ranch hands, miners, and cattle drivers in the area would have their pay in their pockets and trouble in mind when they rode into town. He’d watched one particular man go into the establishment about a half an hour earlier.  Hoss Cartwright was a big man, with sandy blond hair that was thinning on top, and the muscles of an ox.  Vickery sneered.  That was one he would like to take on himself.  Power over such a man would increase his quota.

He’d never figure a man like the one he had taken under his wing that went for the ‘pretty’ boys.

His friend’s ‘bent’ was different from his own.  His tastes ran to boys, while Griggs Vickery was all man and his only interest was in beautiful women.

One beautiful woman in particular.

Another man passed with his wife.  He was a sociable fellow who dipped his hat to acknowledge his presence as they met eye to eye.

Worms.  All of them.  Worms.

Not even worth a smile.

Vickery stepped of the hotel porch and headed for The Bucket of Blood.  His friend was supposed to meet him there in about an hour.  It was not to talk.  He didn’t talk.  He told and the other man did exactly what he said or he would beat him and leave him broken like he had that whore and the boy.  He would leave them to die in the dust.

Griggs snorted.  Now that was what he called being ‘sociable’.

In the meantime, as he waited for the other man, he would keep an eye on this big Cartwright fellow and listen in if he talked to anyone in the saloon.  There was no knowing what Phoebe would say.  He’d told her that night when she’d been laying on the carpet and he had looked down his bloody fist at her, that he would come back and finish the job if she said anything to anyone – and he’d make it long and tortuous if it was the Cartwright kid.  Griggs closed his eyes, imagining the two of them together, seeing their bodies entwined up in that room in the bed that should have been his.

Vickery laughed, long and low and mean.

Well, he’d fixed that kid.  No woman would want him after word of what happened got around and he’d see that it did.

Oh, yes, he’d see that it did.

Griggs Vickery halted outside the saloon doors to feed on the noise and clamor within.  Deep down inside him there was something that was never satisfied.  It fed on chaos, and so chaos was what he created everywhere he went.

It was time to generate more.

Hoss had been circulating around the Bucket, twisting arms and asking questions no one seemed to want to answer.  He noticed whenever he left, people fell to talking quiet-like behind his back.  ‘Course, that was nothing new.  The Cartwrights were always a topic of conversation.  Folks either loved them or hated them.  The problem was, he was worried that what they was talking about was not the Cartwrights, but one particular Cartwright.  He’d caught a snatch here and there.  He wasn’t sure but it seemed someone was talking about Joe, hinting at what had happened, and making it sound like it was his fault.

If he ever caught one of them at it, he’d break them in two.

So far no one knew who this man named Vickery was.  One of the saloon gals – one shy of pretty by a few years – told him she’d heard the name but couldn’t remember where.  He’d asked her if it had come from Phoebe and she’d admitted that it might of, but that was all he’d got.  He’d waited up for Adam the night before and when their older brother came in, told him about Joe’s request.  Adam wasn’t a man to say much, but the way his lips tightened and the steely look that entered his eyes was enough to tell him he felt the same as he did.  Once they got back from church and their pa had taken off for a neighbor’s house to do some helpful chores, carting a sullen Little Joe with him, they’d mounted their horses and ridden together to town.

Sidling up to the bar, the big man ordered a drink. When he had it in hand, Hoss swung around to watch the door.  The trade was picking up, bringing in working men of every kind. There were a few too that looked like they might not know what hard work was.  One of them was a tall man dressed in a fancy vest and pure white shirt over a pair of black trousers, with brown hair turning gray and a highfaluting attitude that put him in mind of a thoroughbred in a stall of mules.

Behind the man was Adam.

When his brother saw him, he inclined his head and then moved through the crowd to his side.  “Let’s get a table in the back,” Adam said.

“Sounds good to me.  What’re you drinking?”

Adam ‘s lips pressed tightly together – a sure sign of something being up.  “Double whiskey.  Straight up.”

In other words, nitro.

Hoss waited on the whiskey and then took it and another beer for himself to the table in the far corner where Adam had settled.  His brother had tossed his hat on the table and anchored his spurs on one of the beaten chairs beneath it.  His brother said nothing as he sat down.  Adam’s eyes were narrowed as he looked out on the flotsam and jetsam floating through the Bucket.

“What’s troubling you, Adam?”

“Other than the general run of humanity?” his older brother snorted as he reached for the whiskey.

“Who you been talking to?”

“Derelicts.  Stable hands.  Back alley brawlers.”  Adam took a sip.  He didn’t kick his foot in reaction to it, but his eyebrows did a dance. “Good whiskey.  Unusual for this place.”

“How come you was talking to the likes of them?”

Adam shrugged.  “When you’re looking for scum, you talk to scum.”

“Vickery?  You find out somethin’ about him?”

Adam took another savoring sip.  “First you.”

Hoss shook his head.  “One of the gals here heard about him, most likely from Phoebe.”

A dark light entered his brother’s eyes.  “How is she?”

“Doc says she’ll be all right, but it will take more time than it took with Joe for her to get well.”

“Pa told me last night he wants her to come back to the Ponderosa.”

“That’s right.”  Hoss took another swig.  “He thinks it will be good for her, and Little Joe too.”

“I can see that.  It would give Joe someone to think about other than himself.”

“And keep him from lookin’ for this here Vickery?”

Adam downed half the whiskey remaining in the glass.  “That too.”

Hoss couldn’t wait any longer.  “So what did you find out?”

Adam’s fingers turned the glass on the top of the battered table.  “I found out his name is Griggs Vickery and that he’s been seen in Virginia City.  I also got a vague description of him – about sixty, tall, mean looking, with grayish hair.  He stabled his horse at the livery two nights back.”

“The night Miss Phoebe was hurt.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anything else?”

Adam leaned back.  “Yes, and it disturbs me.”

“What is it, Adam?”

“Vickery has been seen in the company of Jude Lowery.”

Hoss blinked.  “Jude?  You ain’t kiddin’ me?”

“Nope.”

The big man’s sandy eyebrows met in the middle.  “You think this here Griggs Vickery had anything to do with what happened to Joe?”

“It’s hard to say.  Obviously, if Vickery is the one who attacked Phoebe, then he’s interested in women.  Still,” Adam emptied the glass, “power is power and its always been said that men who do these things do it because they want to dominate and control the one they attack.”

“You sound like you heard of this before,” Hoss said with a frown.

Adam shrugged.  “Pa had the sea.  I went to college.”

“Makes me feel a mite stupid, if you know what I mean.”

“You and Joe aren’t stupid, Hoss, you’re…lucky.  Living on the Ponderosa, with Pa’s iron grip on it and your lives, has kept you protected from many things.  Don’t think you need to join the club.”

He thought about it a moment.  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.  Though me and…Joe, we ain’t so lucky no more.”  The big man gestured to one of the girls walking by, asking for another beer.  “So what are we gonna do now?”

“Make sure we find this Vickery before baby brother does.”

“That ain’t gonna be easy.  We cain’t watch Joe every minute of the day and night.  Once he gets wind that this here man’s been seen in Virginia City – ”

“Then we’ll just have to make certain Joe doesn’t get wind of it.”

“How we gonna do that?  You know Joe.  He ain’t gonna stay put less we hog-tie him.”

Adam’s shrugged.  “It’s a thought.”

They both laughed.

“I think we need to tell Pa what’s going on and then get Phoebe to the house,” Adam said.  “It will be best for her and Joe.  You know little brother, he feels things deeply.  He has quite an obligation to that young lady.  That should keep him housebound for at least a few days.”

“What if she talks to him and tells him more?”

“That could be a problem.  Let’s hope Phoebe’s recovered enough that we can talk to her and ask her to give us some time before she does.  Maybe she can tell us more instead of Joe.”

Hoss thought it over. It could work and probably would work if baby brother wasn’t so gosh-darned unpredictable.

“What if Joe finds out anyway?”

“There’s always locking him in his room. “  Adam sighed as he stood.  “Now come on, let’s go talk to Doc Martin and see if Phoebe is well enough to be moved.”

Since they were at the back of the Bucket, getting out was like swimming upstream against a strong current.  Night had fallen and the place was roaring like a lion on a chain.  As Adam was smaller than him, he managed to ford the stream a mite more gracefully.  No matter how hard he tried he kept jostling elbows and stepping on toes.  As they neared the door he downright nearly ran into the tall man in the vest.

“Sorry, Mister,” Hoss apologized while tipping his hat.

“No offense meant and none taken,” the man replied, his voice slick as a mirror.

“If’n I was you, I’d watch myself in there.  Ain’t been no fights yet, and I ain’t never seen a Sunday night pass by without one.”

“Thank you for the advice, friend, but no need to worry,” the man replied as he took a step forward.  “I can take care of myself.”

With that, he was gone.

As Hoss stepped out the door he took a deep breath of the air.  It was scented with grass and pine and dirt and had nothing in it of whiskey, sweat, and smoke.  He couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to live in a big city surrounded by tall buildings and men, with only a choked vision of the sky, when they could have this. Couldn’t understand it at all. But then, that was why he liked to spend time with the animals and often walked alone under the stars.  He had a feeling for people, but there was also times when he just had to leave them behind.  His pa said he was feeding the coal furnace, building up steam that would carry him through until he had to stop again and breathe in new life.

He liked that.

“Hoss, the Doc’s in,” Adam said. “I can see a light in the office.  Are you coming?”

The big man took one more look at the sky, letting it put his troubles into perspective.

“On my way.”

Ben Cartwright closed the door on the guest bedroom downstairs with care.  Phoebe had arrived, courtesy of Doc Martin and his two older sons and he had just settled her into her room. As he moved away, he mused on the curves life could throw you.  When he’d ridden away a few weeks before, how could he have possible conceived of what would happen to his son, to their family?  And now, looking at the pitiful wreck of the young woman who had given that son so much, it struck him again.  He’d lived a long life and seen a lot of sorrow and somehow had managed to hold onto his faith in man.  The terror that had come upon them was testing it.

If he hadn’t sent Phoebe back to that dreadful place, even for a few days….

“Pa?”

Joseph was seated in the Great Room.  It was another chilly day. The morning had brought a dusting of snow, and winter was on its way.  His son was bundled in a blanket and seated by the fire.  It seemed that Joe just couldn’t get warm.  He’d been asleep when Adam and Hoss arrived with Phoebe in the back of a hired wagon.  A few minutes running about had prepared her room and wakened his youngest.  Joe dressed and descended and then stood by while Adam carried the girl in and placed her in her bed.  He sent Joe to have Hop Sing prepare the medicine the doctor had prescribed while they got her settled.  After that, he had expected Joe to follow him in.

He hadn’t.

“Yes, son?” he replied.

“How is Phoebe doing?”

He crossed over to him.  “Why don’t you go in and see for yourself?”

“I will, Pa,” Joe said in a small voice.  “Soon.”

“What is it, Joe?”

His boy was looking at his hands.  When he looked up, there were tears in his eyes.  “Do you think….  Pa, do you think this is because of me?”

Ben frowned, surprised by the leap.  “No, Joe.  This has to do with Phoebe’s past.  Why would you think that?”

“It’s something she said once while she was taking care of me.”

Ben sat on the settee table close to his son.  “And what was that?”

“About a man who wanted to own her, who was so jealous he said he’d…destroy her if she looked at any other man.”  Joe’s voice was hollow.  “What if he found out how she feels about me?”

“Then you know?”

“That she’s in love with me?”  He nodded.

“Are you in love with her?”

His son frowned.  “Right now, Pa, I don’t know how I feel about much of anything,” Joe answered honestly, his voice ragged.  “There’s times when I feel like taking everything I can get my hands on and breaking it, and other times when I want to scream and never stop.  And then there’s the times that…scare me.”

“When is that, Joseph?” he asked quietly.

“When I want to stop.”

Ben studied his son.  Joe was better, but he had a long way to go.  Rising, he went to his side and sat down on the hearth.  He placed his hand on his leg and said simply, “Tell me.”

Joe drew a shuddering breath.  “I don’t know if I can, Pa.”

“Try.”

The boy thought a moment.  “It’s like…well…if I don’t keep on fanning the flames – keep pushing and fighting and raising Cain – the fire will go out.  There’s moments when that darkness looks good, when I want to sink into it and sleep and – never wake up.”

“We all have times like that, Joseph.  It’s part of being human.”

He didn’t look up.  “Pa, did you ever think about…letting the fire go out?”

Ben tried to hide the fact that he was scared.  “No, Joe.  I never did.”  He drew a breath.  “Have you?”

His son nodded, reluctantly.  After a second Joe reached under the blanket and into the pocket of his shirt and produced a small bottle.  It took Ben a moment to recognize it for what it was.  When he did, it took the breath from him.

“The night, Pa, after Adam and I got back from Pointer’s Arch….  After I remembered what….”  Joe drew a deep breath.  “I found it on the stand by the bed.  It’s – ”

How could he have been so foolish as to overlook it?  “The laudanum Doc Martin left for you.”

Joe glanced at him, his green eyes sad and soulful and shamed.  “I thought about drinking all of it, Pa.  I really did.”

“But you didn’t,” he said immediately.  Thank God!

“I knew I was feeling sorry for myself and, you know me, Pa, if there’s anything I hate it’s someone doing that.  I don’t know how many friends I’ve called cowards for doing so.”  Joe’s lips curled with chagrin.  “I guess I need to apologize to them.  I just… Well, I didn’t think there was anything could happen to me that I couldn’t fight my way out of.”

He squeezed his son’s shoulder.  “You can win this fight too, Joseph.  I believe in you.”

“I hope so.”

“I know so, son.  One thing that will help you is to remember that you are not the only one who has suffered.”  He gestured toward the guest room.  “That young girl needs your help, just like you needed hers. In a way, I think it’s something only you can do.”

Joe hesitated only a moment.  “You’re right, Pa.  I’ll go in and see Phoebe.”

As his son started across the room, Ben called him back.  “Joseph.”

“Yeah, Pa.”

He held his hand out.  “The bottle.”

Joe was still holding it.  He looked at it and then at him.  “I’d like to keep it, Pa.”  When he saw his frown, he added, “It’s one victory in all of this.”

Ben went to him and closed his son’s hand over the bottle.  “Yes.  Yes it, is.  And it will lead to others, Joseph.  You’ll see.”

Adam Cartwright had gone to the ranch where Jude Lowery was employed.  He was told that Jude was in Virginia City so he had ridden back out, dismounted, and settled in to wait a little ways down the road toward town.  As it was cold, he lit a fire and had a pot of steaming coffee ready as well as a pot of stew.

There was nothing like coffee and the offer of a warm meal to encourage a man riding on a cold night to let down his guard.

It was about an hour later that Jude appeared, riding slowly toward the ranch.  Adam remained seated on the ground, not wanting to appear anxious, and pretended not to notice until the other man was nearly on top of him.

Affecting amazement, the man in black rose to his feet.  “Jude Lowery, what are you doing out on a night like this?”

“Must be stupid as you, Adam,” Jude said, shaking his hand.  “How come you’re camped here?”

“Pa sent me to talk to the man at the ranch south of yours.  You know, the one where Bexley works.  I got this far and decided it was time to thaw.”  He indicated the food and drink.  “Would you like to join me?”

Jude hesitated.  “I don’t know.  I should be gettin’ back.”

“Maybe just coffee then?”

The other man shivered and hunched up his shoulders as he dismounted.  “Well, I guess so.  It sure is cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey out here.”

“Looks like we’re in for a harsh winter, that’s for certain,” Adam agreed, holding out a steaming cup.

“Sure does.”  Jude took a sip, obviously savoring the warmth sliding down him as he took a seat on a flat-topped rock.  “That’s good.  Thanks.  Did you see Beck?”

“No.  He’s out on the drive with most of Hansford’s men.”

“Right.  I forgot about that.”

Since they were close to one another, Adam took a moment to examine the other man.  What he found surprised him.   “Say, what happened to you?”

Lowery looked puzzled.

Adam pointed toward his own eye.  “The shiner.”

Jude reached up.  “That?  It’s nothin’.  Me and Beck went at it afore he left.  We had a little…disagreement.”

“Well, I certainly know all about disagreements between men and how they’re settled,” Adam laughed.  “What were you doing in town anyway, Jude?” he asked as casually as he could.

“Nothing important.  Picking up supplies.”

“Hoss and I were there around supper time.  Surprising we didn’t see you.”

“It’s a big town.”

“Yes, it is.”

Adam sipped his coffee and let the silence do the talking for him.  It wasn’t long before Jude began to shift uncomfortably.  A moment later he asked, “How’s Joe?”

“Better.”  That was about as non-committal as you could get.

“It’s a terrible thing that happened to him.”

“You mean the beating?”

Jude’s eyes shot to his face as if looking to read it.  “What else would I mean?”

Did he sense something in the other man’s tone?

“Well, you could have been talking about the robbery.”

“Oh.  Yeah.  Right.  I forgot about that.  Has the sheriff got any leads on either one?”

Interesting.  “Do you think they might have been individual crimes committed by, maybe, more than one man?”

“Say, what is this Adam?  Did you come out here to grill me?”

“No.”  Adam reached out and took hold of the pot and poured another cup.  “It’s just I heard some rumors in the town.”

It was hard to tell, but he thought Jude paled.  “About what?”

“About a man named Griggs Vickery.  You ever hear of him?”

Jude’s frown deepened. “That’s a funny sort of name.”

“Well, he’s not a funny sort of guy.  Seems he likes to beat people up.”

“You think he beat Joe?”

Adam shrugged. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”  He took another sip and then cast the rest of the liquid aside.  Then he looked straight at the other man.  “Do you know anything about it Jude?”

“Me?  Why would I?”

“Because the man at the livery stable said he’d seen you and Vickery together.”

Jude jumped to his feet.  “I don’t have to listen to this.”

“No, you don’t, but if you leave – and leave in a hurry – I’m going to think that I was right about you and you did have something to do with what happened to Joe.”  Adam rose to his feet.  His tone darkened.  “And hear me, Jude, if I do – if I do find that out, then there is nothing in Heaven or Hell or anywhere in-between that will keep me from finding you and snapping your neck.”

Jude Lowery’s reaction was telling.  He’d seen it happen in animals and in more than a few men.  One second they were cowering in a corner, all doe-eyed and frightened, and the next, they’d bared their teeth, ready for a fight.

“You just go ahead and do that, Cartwright,” Lowery spat. “Then, when you’re dangling from the end of a rope for murder, that high-and-mighty father of yours will realize that money can’t buy everything.”

“Oh, it won’t be murder,” Adam responded as cool as the other man was hot.  “It will be justice.”

Jude started to snap back, but seemed to think better of it.  He drew a breath and let it out like steam released from a pot about to explode.  “Adam, Little Joe….  Well, I like him a lot.  Why would I do anything to hurt him?

He didn’t know.  It didn’t make sense.  But then again, nothing that had happened since that night made sense.

“For the moment I’ll take you at your word, Jude.  But if I find out you’ve lied to me and you do know this man Vickery and have any idea of what happened to Joe, I will hunt you down.  Do you understand me?”

The other Jude surfaced again, so quickly it startled him.  Lowery’s blue eyes grew cold and his lip curled in a sneer.

“Happy huntin’, Cartwright.”

Joe jolted awake when he heard his name called.  He blinked away the sleep that he didn’t know he was getting and looked around.  For a moment he was confused.  He thought he was in his bed in his own room. Then, slowly, he recognized the trappings of the guest room and knew he had fallen asleep in the chair beside Phoebe’s.

Her hand was reaching for him.  “Little Joe….”

Leaning forward, he caught her small soft fingers in his own.  “I’m here, Phoebe.”

She blinked and a tear fell.

He wanted to wipe it away, but was afraid he would hurt her if he did.  Her face was swollen just like his had been and, like his, marked with the crimson print of the back of a man’s hand.  His pa had told him once that it said in the Bible God put your tears in a bottle they were so precious to Him.  Phoebe’s tears were precious.

Phoebe was precious.

“Hey,” he said, reaching out and gently brushing the golden-red curls back from her forehead instead.  “It’s great to see those pretty blue eye wide open.”

She raised her other hand. With it, she touched his cheek.  “You’re…all right….”

“I’m fine,” he said, hoping God would know the heart behind the lie.  “How are you?”

She shifted and winced.  “I’ve…been better.”  Without moving, she looked around.  “I’m…at the…Ponderosa?”

“Yeah, and we expect you up and raring to cook that grub in a few days.”

Her lips curled in a tiny smile.  “Obviously you’ve…never tasted…my cooking.”

Joe laughed but sobered quickly when she moaned again.  His grip tightened on her fingers.  “I know,” he said softly, “you know that I know.  Phoebe?”

She didn’t look at him.  “Um-hm?”

“Can I ask you a question, or are you too tired?”

Her eyes sought his face.  He read fear in them.  “About…Vickery?”

He didn’t know why, but just the name chilled him.  Joe nodded.  “Yes.”

“If…you promise…” she replied.

“Promise what?”

Another tear slid down her cheek.  “Not to go…after him…alone.”

His jaw tightened.  “Then Vickery did this to you?  Why, Phoebe?  Why?  Was it…”  He drew a breath.  “Was it because of me?”

She answered ‘no’, but he knew she was lying.

“Who is Vickery, Phoebe?  The man you told pa and me about before?”

“A…mistake.”  The redhead drew a breath and shuddered.  “Made…long ago.”

“That’s why you came here to Virginia City?  To get away from him?”

She nodded.

Joe squeezed her hand.  “Phoebe, you gotta tell me more.  Tell me what he looks like so I can find him and make him pay for what he did to you.”

“Us,” she said softly.

Joe frowned.  “Us?”

“Griggs wanted…to…send you..a message.  Stay…away from…me.  Wanted to…ruin you.”

He felt his face flush red clean up to his ears.  “Vickery did…that to me?”

She nodded and then, shook her head.  “Yes.  No….  Someone else….”

He gripped her hand so hard the redhead made a tiny little sound of discomfort.  “Who?  Phoebe, who?”

She turned her face away.  “I…don’t know.”

It was the middle of the night.  Adam was still out, though Hoss had returned and after checking on their guest and his little brother – who he said was sound asleep in the chair by Phoebe’s bed – had gone up to his room.  Ben sat for a while reading and then followed his middle son upstairs.  The evening’s events had been chilling – seeing Phoebe as she was, talking to Joe.  He couldn’t help but kick himself for not taking the bottle of laudanum away from his wounded son and for more than one reason.  Of course, he was worried Joe would falter, that in some dark pit where his son found himself its promised release might prove too much of a temptation in spite of what he said.

It also meant there was no way on God’s earth he was going to find anything coming close to a peaceful rest for any time to come.

The silver-haired man had just lit the oil lamp in his room and reached for a book when he heard a noise downstairs.  Pulling on his robe, Ben opened the door and headed for the steps. Most likely it was Adam coming in late.  Surprisingly, when he reached the bottom of the steps he found the house completely dark.  If it was Adam, surely he would have lit a lamp, or he would have passed him on the stairs as his eldest headed straight for bed.

Puzzled the older man crossed to the table by the settee and felt for the light.  Striking a match, he lit it and turned the thumb wheel so its soft golden glow filled the room.

Illuminating a still small form on the floor.

“Phoebe!”

Ben crossed to the young woman and knelt beside her, lifting her up and into his arms where he cradled her like a child.  The redhead’s face shone with tears.

As her fingers brushed his face, she asked, “Ben?”

He caught them in his own. “Yes, Phoebe. What are you doing out of bed?  You may have injured yourself.”

“Had to…tell you.  Little Joe….”

His heart skipped a beat.  “What about Joe?”

She shuddered and curled up tightly against him like a lost and frightened child.

“He’s …gone after…Vickery.”