PART ONE

1864

2269

 

ONE

 

Joe Cartwright shed his green jacket, flinging it over the back of one of the big red chairs, and hung his tan hat on the rack by the door.  Removing his gun belt, he placed it along with his pearl-handled pistol on the sideboard and then crossed to the large bowl of fruit that served as both parlor decoration and snack and grabbed a big, red, juicy-looking apple.  He took a bite, savored the sweet sensation, and then dropped onto the striped settee in the great room and anchored his boots on the table.

Life was good and he was tired.

It was October and the year was winding down.  There was an awful lot to do to get ready to weather it.  This year it seemed Pa had decided, since the Ponderosa was nearly as old as he was, it was time to shore up the house and outbuildings and make sure they were as air tight as they could be.  Apparently while he was considered ‘young’ at twenty-two, the buildings at an age somewhere over that were as old and decrepit as a man over eighty.  At least you would have thought so from all of the stripping, chinking, hammering, and painting going on.  Adam had got a burr up his saddle to make a few changes since they were at it and Pa had agreed, all of which meant he had spent the day hauling and lifting boards, carting paint cans and buckets of nails, and wielding a paint brush like a big fat unwieldy épée.  When he’d danced a little épée ‘jig’ to keep himself warm, big brother Adam had rolled his eyes, called him an ‘idiot’, and then joined in before going back to his plans.

Joe took another bite and chewed on it as he chewed on that image of Adam.  There was something ‘up’ with big brother.  He wasn’t sure what it was.  Adam was his usual cool, collected self, but he seemed, well, distracted.  Of course, he’d be distracted too with all those facts and figures and measurements swimming around in his head.  Big brother was always dreaming – dreaming of what he could tear down or build up, of where he could go and what he might see.  Sometimes it bothered him because it seemed Adam wasn’t happy.  He wanted him to be happy.

But he sure didn’t want big brother to leave.

Joe shifted so he was more comfortable and took another bite of the apple.  He’d talked it over with Hoss on the way back to the ranch and middle brother had agreed that something was up.  Adam was sneaky, he said.  Sneaky like a fox.  You never knew what he was thinking until he let you know.  Joe turned and looked toward the door.  Hoss had headed to the barn to check on one of the horses that had chewed its leg up on a barbed-wired fence the day before.  He should be back any minute.  Adam was due back too.  In fact, so was Pa.  It was almost suppertime and  Hop Sing would be hopping mad if any or all of them failed to show.  Joe drew in a breath of the aromas floating on the air from out of the kitchen.  There was beef, and onions too, and maybe a hint of yams with sugar on them.  Coffee was brewing and he thought – yes – there was apple pie.  One thing about winter coming was they could always count on a good, hot, stick-to-your-ribs, fill-you-up-from-top-to-toe meal.

As if on cue, their Chinese cook appeared at the end of the dining table.  Hop Sing was wearing a soiled apron and an exasperated expression.

“Where your family, Little Joe?”

Lifting his feet from the table, the man with the curly brown hair sat up.  “Keepin’ late hours it seems,” he said with a half-grin.

“Why Mister Ben and Mister Adam want to tear up house and barns?  House and barns fine as they are!”

“I’m with you, Hop Sing,” Joe said as he rose and walked to the door.  Opening it, he tossed the apple core outside.  “If it ain’t broke, don’t –”

“Joseph!”

Joe looked out the door and then swallowed hard as Ben Cartwright, king of the Ponderosa, timber baron and owner of half the state of Nevada, stepped in the door wiping apple mush off his face.

He winced.  “Sorry, Pa.”

“Mister Ben no need eat raw apple,” Hop Sing groused.  “Have cooked pie in stove!”

Joe looked at his father.  The older man was not amused.

Twisting his face and raising his eyebrows, Joe tried to change the subject.  “Where’s Adam?  Ain’t he with you?”

“No, he isn’t.”  His father drew a deep breath and shook his head.  “Sometimes Joseph I think you were raised in a barn!”

“That’s probably why it needs so many repairs.  The kid bucks at everything like a bronco that won’t be tamed,” his oldest brother said, startling them both as he stepped in the door and anchored his hat on the rack.  “Sorry, Pa,” Adam said with a grin.  “Must be the black clothes.  I was right behind you.”

Joe didn’t know whether to be insulted or not.   He opened his mouth to make a comeback, but couldn’t think of anything to say.

“You better shut that mouth of your’n, little brother,” Hoss said as he too entered.  “Next thing you know, you’ll be catchin’ flies.”

“Only flies in ranch house on Hop Sing’s pie!” the Chinese man shouted.  “Cartwrights sit down and eat soon or Hop Sing give it all to bugs!”

“Hold on there, Hop Sing,” Hoss countered, halting the cook in his tracks.  “I done just got here.  It was the smell of that apple pie that drew me in like a pig with a ring through its nose.  I could smell it all the way out there in the barn.”

His father had deposited his coat on the back of the settee and accepted a napkin from Hop Sing with which he wiped his face clean.  Joe squirmed beneath his pa’s firm stare and then watched as it slid from him to the hearth and the wood box beside it.

“Did you remember to bring in the wood, Joseph, before you sat down to partake of your apple?” he asked.

He thought about it, screwing up his face like his pa had just asked him to do a six figure sum.

“Joseph?”  The older man waited five seconds.  “I take that as a ‘no’?”

He hung his head.  “Sorry, Pa.”

“You want us all to treat you like you are a responsible adult, don’t you?  Well, that would mean taking responsibility, now wouldn’t it?”

Joe took a step back.  The thunder was rumbling, just like his stomach.  The storm was gonna break any minute.  “Yes…sir.”

His father’s arm shot out like Zeus aiming a thunderbolt.  “You march outside, young man, and you bring in that wood.  Then, you can eat!”

Adam was standing with his arms crossed, a self-satisfied almost feline smile twisting his lips up at both ends.

Hoss was looking at his toes.

“Yes, sir.”  He said it, but didn’t move.

“Now, Joseph!”

He almost saluted.  “Yes, sir!”  And with that, the brown-haired man caught his coat from the chair beside the settee, tossed it on, and headed out the door.

Once outside Joe let out a long sigh.  No matter what he did, it was always wrong and it always marked him as a green-horn kid who still needed his father and brothers to wipe snot from his nose and keep his nether region clean.  Gathering in air and letting it out in another mighty sigh, he headed for the wood pile only to discover that there wasn’t a wood pile.

He was going to have to chop it.

With one last longing sniff of the meal that was lost to him, Joe headed toward the barn and the pile of short logs laying beside it.  He’d have to split them before he could take the wood inside.  It was going to take a long time.  He could only hope Hoss left something for him to eat.

Though he knew it was a vain hope at best.

With a sigh Joe bent to retrieve one of the logs but stopped when he heard a noise he couldn’t quite identify.  It was almost musical and came from within the barn.  Leaving the wood behind, he moved to the door and opened it and peered inside.  At first he couldn’t see anything other than their mounts which had been housed for the night along with the wounded horse.  Then he noticed a vague sort of light toward the back – almost like a star had come to visit and moved on leaving a trail of silver dust in its wake.  He walked over to the area that contained a table and tall cupboard and reached out for the light just as it vanished – twinkling and then disappearing like that same starlight dragged down and sunk in a black sea of sky.

In its wake, it left a man.

Joe stumbled back, surprised, and – he hated to admit it – terrified.

“Who…who…are you?” he asked as the man turned to face him.  He was of moderate height and age.  One, maybe two inches taller than him.  With a lean build and a head of grizzled hair. He was dressed in a black suit and stared at him with just about as much surprise as he’d shown a minute before.

“Who are you?” Joe demanded this time.  “Where’d you come from?”

The man took a step toward him.  “I’m sorry, son.”

Joe blinked.  “Sorry about what?”

The stranger stared at him a moment longer and then lifted his hand.  Joe’s went for his gun, only to remember it was laying on the sideboard in the house.

The man’s cool blue eyes locked on his.  “I don’t mean you any harm.  It’s not a weapon.”  He paused and an amused light entered those eyes.  “Well, not really.”

Joe eyed the strange thing the man held in his hand.  It was silver and long.  In fact, it looked like the handle of a pistol with no barrel or chamber for bullets.

“What’s that?” he breathed.

A second later there was a hissing sound and a cloud of vapor or smoke drifted his way.  As Joe breathed it in, the world began to fade.

He felt an arm catch him around the shoulders.  “Sorry, son.  Though I imagine at your age a good long nap is something you’d rather have than not.”

He opened his mouth to say he wasn’t a baby and he didn’t need a nap, but just then that fading world went black.

 

Doctor Leonard McCoy shook the young man gently, making certain he was unconscious.  Then, opening his recalibrated medical tricorder, he ran a quick sweep to ascertain that he had not been harmed by the tranquilizer he’d released into the air.  After a moment, satisfied, he rose to his feet.  The next thing the doctor did was to run his hands over his own lean frame and citified Western suit in order to establish that everything he owned had come through that damned transporter process with him.  Satisfied at last that it had, he left the boy laying on the floor and returned to the area where he had materialized and waited.

And waited.

“Come on, Jim,” he breathed.  “Come on, you were right behind me.”

When his friend continued in absentia, McCoy crossed to the partially opened barn door and looked outside.  The house he had seen in the holos was there – a large one composed of hewn wood planks with white chinking between the boards such as his ancestors would have erected in Georgia – if on a less grand scale.  The owner of the ranch house was Benjamin Cartwright.  He had three sons.  McCoy turned and looked at the handsome young fellow spread out on the barn floor.  Undoubtedly, this was one of them.  Probably the youngest.  Name of…Joe?  Yes, Joseph Francis Cartwright, approximate age twenty-two in late eighteen-hundred and sixty-four A.D. by the old calendar.  There were two other sons – Adam and Eric – both older.  The Enterprise’s physician frowned.  Time travel was always difficult because the briefing included knowledge not only the births but the deaths of those they might encounter.  This one had experienced a fairly long life for the time, living well into his sixties.  His brother Eric had died young, and Adam – well – Adam Cartwright had simply vanished without a trace.

“Bones in the desert,” McCoy muttered, “or buried at sea, most likely.”

He’d not had any sons.  Unlike Benjamin Cartwright who had lost three wives to death, his had simply left him taking their daughter along.  Sometimes he wondered why he married himself to Starfleet instead of to another woman who might have given him more children.  He loved children, but then again, that’s why he hadn’t had any more.  Creating them and then leaving them behind for five years at a time seemed cruel at best.  The nineteenth century equivalent would have been to sail off to sea, which the elder Cartwright had done as a young man – but before he had his three boys. Ben Cartwright had exchanged the wide ocean for the vast forested reaches of Nevada and had, according to all accounts, died a happy man.

Except for that missing son.

The country doctor, known best as Bones to the man he was waiting on, turned back into the barn intending to search the whole thing just in case Jim had materialized somehow before him and was laying somewhere unconscious, when he heard a noise.  Well, not a noise, a voice.

“Little Joe!  Hey, Little Joe!  What you doin’ out there?”

Bones stepped back behind the door.  He glanced at the young man on the floor.  There was nothing to do but leave him there.  His brother knew he was in the barn.  If he moved him or tried to hide him, that would prove more suspicious than just leaving him where he was.  Moving quickly, McCoy ducked into the small room off the stalls and began to look for another way out.

 

“Dag-blame it, Little Joe!  You get your skinny little hiney up to the house, you hear me?  Pa’s blowin’ steam out his nostrils.” Hoss Cartwright paused just outside the partially open barn door.  “ Joe!  You hear me?”

He waited.  When his only response was silence, the big man’s irritation turned into concern.  “Hey, Joe!” he said as he gripped the door and pulled it open.  “You in here, little brother?”

He was there all right, laid out flat on the floor.

“Joe!”

The big man rushed to his brother’s side and knelt beside him, anchoring his knees in the fetid straw and dirt Joe was eating.  He hesitated a moment and then placed a hand on his brother’s back, checking for a heartbeat.

It was strong.

Joe stirred slightly at his touch.  He didn’t say anything, but he moaned.

Sitting and slipping in beside him, Joe cradled his brother’s curly head in his lap and placed a hand on his forehead.

“Hey, boy.  You hear me?” he asked softly.

Joe moaned again.  His eyeballs rolled behind the lids and those eyelashes he had, so long and black a girl would ‘a wished for them, fluttered.

“Hoss….”

“What happened to you, little brother?”

Joe licked his lips and struggled.  It was like he was swimming up out of some dark sea.  “Man,” he said, “in…the barn.”

Damn!  He’d been so plumb worried about Joe he hadn’t thought to check.

Hoss’ eyes roamed the barn’s interior.  There wasn’t nothin’ to see but their horses – and that little pony he’d been workin’ on.  The pony was snortin’ and stampin’ his feet.

Kinda nervouslike.

Torn between what had happened to his brother and what might happen next, Hoss was never so happy to hear his father’s irate bellow sound as he was at that moment.

“Joe!  Hoss!  What are you two doing in there?  Playing checkers?”

“Pa!” he answered back, curbin’ the worry in his tone.  “Pa, it’s Joe.  He’s been hurt!”

Their father barreled in the door a second later, his eyes wide and wild as he searched for them.  There was nothing like their pa.  He was like a mean old she-bear and a pappy bear all rolled into one when it came to his cubs.

“What happened?” the older man asked as he dropped to the barn floor beside him.

“I sure as shootin’ don’t know, Pa.  I opened the door and found him here –”  Hoss stopped.  Joe was clawin’ at their pa’s arm.

He watched as his father caught his brother’s hand and squeezed it.  “What is it, Joe?” he asked.

“Man…  Pa….  There was…a man.”  Joe drew in air like someone just breaking the surface.  “Looked like…a…city slicker.”

Their father’s eyes moved to him.  “You see anything, Hoss?”

“No, sir.”  He nodded toward the wounded animal.  “But the pony’s skittish.”

Rising to his feet, the older man drew his gun and turned in a slow circle before shouting, “All right.  Whoever you are, wherever you’re hiding, come out!  Come out now!”

 

Leonard McCoy swallowed over the lump in his throat and pulled at the black ribbon wound around his high-stand collar. He had a phaser on him, but was forbidden by regulations to draw it.  It had been against Jim’s orders to bring it along at all, but his motto had always been ‘better safe than sorry’.  The doctor was sure security wouldn’t check his medical kit before the transporter room blasted his atoms into oblivion and reformed them in nineteenth century Nevada and he’d been right.

His hand reached for the weapon now.  He knew what a bullet from a handgun could to do to a man.  In a way, the damage was worse than what a phaser would do as the metal missile tore through flesh and bone, ripping and wrecking havoc along the way.  Infection was the main concern in early American medicine, infection and controlling it.  There were few treatments available.  Most were native plants, some of which were efficacious and others, useless.  Fortunately, he had brought along the hypo-spray and a plethora of medicines – once again, against regulations.

A slow smile curled Bone’s lips as he watched the three Cartwright men through a crack in the barn wall.  Maybe he did belong in the Wild West.  It seemed he had a stubborn streak and a penchant for independence that bordered on the insubordinate.

“I’m a doctor, not a soldier,” he growled.

“I said, come out now!” Ben Cartwright pronounced from the other side of the wall.

McCoy had explored the portion of the barn he was in, which seemed to be some sort of an office.  There was a door to the back of it that emptied into another portion of the barn.  The problem was, it was locked.  He’d rummaged briefly for a key, but had failed to find one, and now it looked like – if he didn’t go – he was sure to be caught and questioned.  Weighing the trouble using the phaser might cause against what the discovery of a twenty-third century man in a nineteenth century barn might do to the timeline, he decided the phaser was the lesser of two evils.  With his eye to the Cartwrights Bones slipped the weapon out of his pouch, set it on a tight beam, and sliced right through the padlock.  Careful not to burn himself, he knocked the remnants off with his elbow and slipped into the darkened corridor beyond, quickly making his way to the door at the other end which, fortunately, was not locked.  As he stepped out and under the star-flecked sky, Bones sighed, satisfied that he had managed to guard not only their mission but the integrity of the past.

That was until he heard the distinctive click of a gun’s hammer being cocked.

Raising his hands into the air, McCoy turned toward the man who held it.

“Adam Cartwright, I presume?”

 

 

TWO

 

James T. Kirk came to a hard stop against the bole of a particularly knotty pine tree, the breath knocked out of him.  He rested on his hands and knees for a moment and then forced himself to his feet.  One minute he had been standing on the transporter platform of the Enterprise and the next – instead of materializing in the Cartwright’s barn alongside Bones where he was supposed to be – he found himself suspended in mid-air and then, plummeting to the ground.  Landing with an ‘oomph’ on a patch of rocky soil, he had rolled down the side of a steep hill until that pine tree reached out and slapped him hard, halting his descent.

Probably saving his life.

Anchoring his hands on his hips, the captain of the Enterprise took a moment to catch his breath and then looked down, noting that the hill continued on for another hundred or so feet until it bottomed out in a pile of rocks bordered by a meandering stream.  He might have survived the fall, but he was glad he didn’t have to test that particular theory.  Glancing about Kirk looked for any sign of local inhabitants.  Seeing none he opened his communicator, aimed the signal at the invisible starship that floated above, and spoke into it.

“Mister Scott, are you there?  Scotty?”

“Aye, sir,” came the almost immediate reply.  “I hope your trip was a bonny one.”

The blond man scowled at the bracken covered rocky ground beneath his feet.

Brutal, more like.

“Not exactly, Scotty.  I’m….”  Jim glanced about.  “I’m on the side of a steep hill…somewhere.  Bones is nowhere in sight.”

“You mean you’re not at the Ponderosa?”

How did he answer that?  The ‘Ponderosa’ was the name collectively given to Benjamin Cartwright’s vast holdings in Nevada.  According to the records of the time, its approximate size was a thousand square miles or six hundred thousand acres.  So, technically he was on the Ponderosa even though he wasn’t at it.

“Let’s put it this way, Scotty.  I’m not at the ranch house.”

“Well, it wasn’t me wee bairns whot caused the trouble, Captain, you can be sure of that!” the engineer said, his Scottish accent growing even as his indignation rose.  “Now, you or Doctor McCoy didn’t fiddle with the coordinates, did ye?”

Kirk suppressed a sigh. No matter what, Mister Scott’s beloved machines couldn’t be at fault.  “Neither the doctor or I had anything to do with setting the coordinates, Scotty.  I left that to Kyle.”  He didn’t add, but thought, ‘After all, that’s his job.’

“Just a moment, Captain….”

The channel went dead.

Kirk waited a minute and then began to twist and turn the knobs on the communicator.  “Scotty?  What’s wrong?”   He drew a breath and held it.  There were in the nineteenth century, for God’s sake!  What could be happening on the Enterprise?  “Scotty!”

The communicator chirped back to life several seconds later.  “Sorry, sir.  I wanted to check in with Kyle.  I had the lad take a look at the log and he says there was a wee variance in the transporter signal at the moment you beamed down.”  The engineer paused.  “Still, as it didn’t affect the coordinates, it should have had nae effect.  It makes noo sense that you and Doctor McCoy ended up in different places.”

Kirk chewed that over for a moment.  He hesitated and then asked, “Is there anyone else within earshot, Mister Scott?”

“Tis the night watch, Captain.  Just Uhura, Sulu, and me.”

Good.  What he had to say wouldn’t be influenced by the presence of his senior officers.  “Is this a secured channel?”

“Absolutely, Captain, as per your orders.”

It was a ridiculous precaution considering the era he had landed in.  Still…. “Is there any word on Mister Spock’s location yet?”

He sensed more than heard Montgomery Scott’s sigh.  “Nae, sir.  Not a bleep or blink.”

Kirk frowned.  “You haven’t found a signature for the artifact either?”

“Strange as may be, Captain, nae, I have not.  But then we know very little of its properties.  It’s possible the wee thing only gives off a signal when in use.”

It was a good thing they were not on Earth anymore.  The professor who had discovered the missing artifact – Campbell Beckett – had raised the temperature of the planet to Vulcan norm when he discovered what Spock had done.  Campbell had immediately contacted the big brass at Starfleet and they had contacted him and….

Kirk sighed again.

It had all started about a week before when they had gone home for a short R&R on Earth before heading out into deep space to continue their five year mission.  While planet-side, Spock had made the acquaintance of Professor Campbell Beckett who had told him about a recent find that had been made in California on land that had once been a state park known as the Bodie Ghost Town.  Bodie had been a small mining town with no claim to fame until, due to the freak collapse of the mine, gold was found there in eighteen-seventy-six.  The town boomed and busted within the space of twenty years.  The empty buildings remained standing for nearly two centuries as a ghost town and tourist attraction before giving way to the advance of civilization and humanity’s constant need to expand.  The professor had been digging in the ruins of the original mine when he found a curious artifact that he believed might be of alien origin.  He invited Spock to supper and then to his lab so the Vulcan scientist could take a look at it.

Kirk ran a hand over his chin and sighed.  He should have realized something was wrong when Spock returned that night to go over their current mission plans.  The tall lean Vulcan had said little.  In fact – for a Vulcan – he’d seemed preoccupied.  When McCoy joined them several hours later with a bottle of Kentucky bourbon and three glasses in hand, Spock had declined the offer and risen from his chair.  He wished them both good night before returning to his room.

The next morning both Spock and the artifact were gone.

Kirk hesitated.  It felt like treason even to ask. “Did you remember to calibrate the instruments to detect any Gateway emissions?”

“Aye, sir.  ‘Twas nothing on the surface.” Scotty paused.  “But then you know Mister Spock.  If he doesn’t want to be found, the odds are long he won’t be.”

Kirk pursed his lips.  “Well, we’ll just have to do something to shorten those odds in our favor.  Keep at it, Mister Scott.  I’ll check back in an hour or two if I am able.  Kirk out.”

The blond man replaced the communicator in the leather satchel he wore anchored over his shoulder.  Somehow it had miraculously remained with him during the fall.  He looked around again, scanning the forested area, his mind firing as rapidly as photon torpedoes during a surprise attack.  At first he’d thought, as unlikely as it was, that Spock had simply removed the alien object from the lab to study it more closely.  But then when, during the professor’s tirade, Campbell had used words all too familiar to anyone who had been on the Guardian’s planet, his stomach had sunk to his toes and he had felt a real rush of fear for his friend.  Campbell Beckett said that Spock had mentioned a place called ‘Gateway’ as a possible origin for the artifact.

Gateway, the home of the Guardian of Forever – one of only two planets in the Federation that were quarantined.

Professor Beckett had heard of Gateway, of course.  He was just being cagey.  As an archaeologist Kirk could have expected no less.  Rumors abounded about the Guardian’s planet, of course, though there was little real knowledge out there.  He had managed to put the archaeologist off using Starfleet’s standard lie…er…cover story that the living machine the planet held was a simple repository of knowledge.  But he knew – he knew the truth.  The Guardian was not only a repository, it was itself the gateway to all of time and space. No one knew much of its creators.  They remained hidden in a past the Guardian refused to show.  It was thought two races had occupied the planet, the ones who created the Guardian – known as the Originators – and the earlier ones who had created the planet itself.

Once they knew Spock had gone, he and Scotty had moved as quickly as possible to find the fading signature of their particular Vulcan-Human hybrid.  Along with Spock’s, they found another familiar pattern.  It matched the one in the sealed records they carried on the Enterprise – the records of the only Federation starship to visit Gateway, and of the crew who had set foot on its surface – including him, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, and Scotty.  After their mission the planet had been closed to any and all traffic.  Jim closed his eyes and sighed, seeing once again a beautiful female face with large dark eyes, surrounded by a fluff of even darker brown hair.  He felt again the touch of her lips on his and then watched as a speeding car struck her and took her life while he looked on unable to do anything to prevent it.  They had experienced then firsthand what interference with the past could do.  McCoy, crazed from an overdose of cordrazine, had prevented Edith’s Keeler’s death and, due to her successful peace movement, America and its allies lost the Second World War.  Perseverance and a lot of luck – and maybe a wag or two of God’s finger – had saved them and the time stream that time.

Kirk’s hazel eyes opened, taking in his surroundings once again, hoping against hope for some movement that might indicate the location of his friend.  What could Spock have been thinking?  If the Vulcan suspected the artifact came from Gateway, then why dare to take it?  Could it be he was attempting to protect it, to hide it away from someone?  If so, why had Spock not come to him?  The blond man frowned.  Professor Beckett had informed him as well that Spock had suspicions that the artifact contained random elements – unstable elements.  Might those elements have effected Spock due to his unusual physiology?

Was he even in his right mind?

A thorough investigation of Spock’s quarters had given them their first clue as to where he had gone.  There were notes laying on Spock’s desk, written in his immaculate Vulcan hand, and they were able to tap into information he had brought up on the computer concerning the nineteenth century and the Nevada Territory.  All of it pertained to a family by the name of Cartwright.  He’d held  a briefing with his officers to discuss their options – and to get their permission in a way – and then had given the order.

Though there would be Hell to pay later, without Starfleet’s permission, he had ordered Scotty to slingshot the ship around a nearby sun and take them into the past.

Kirk’s frown deepened as he dusted off the knees and the backside of his brown striped trousers and then unfastened the buttons and rolled down the sleeves of the deep blue work shirt he wore in order to stave off the growing chill.  Night was coming.  He really needed to move.

As he did, he considered what had happened.  He knew his Vulcan friend – knew him well.  If Spock had considered all options and decided this bold move had to be made, there had to be a valid reason.  He knew as well, since that move had to do with Gateway and the Guardian, that Spock would be hell-bent to take whatever chance it was by himself so no one else would have to face Starfleet’s fire.  Well, damn him!  He was just as determined that Spock not face it alone.  And so he and McCoy had kitted up and stepped onto the transporter platform and, while Bones complained yet again about his atoms being scattered from the Enterprise to eternity, he’d watched Kyle move the levers and the Enterprise disappear and then –

He’d landed here and McCoy was…well…somewhere.

Kirk looked up.  He used the rising moon to get his bearings, and then headed off in the direction he thought Ben Cartwright’s spread lay.

After all, no matter what, moving was always better than standing still.

 

“I’m waiting.”

Ben Cartwright stood beside the striped settee where his youngest lay unmoving, his brother Hoss by his side.  Joe seemed to be sleeping, but there was nothing any one of them could do to rouse him.  There wasn’t a mark on him other than a scrape on his forehead that had probably resulted from him striking the barn floor when he fell.  There was no sign of any attack, nothing to indicate violence.

He just wouldn’t – or couldn’t wake up.

The man standing before him with his hands raised in the black city slicker suit looked to be a little younger than him.  Perhaps in his mid-forties.  He was well-spoken and obviously well-educated and claimed to be a doctor named Leonard McCoy.  So far he hadn’t let him near Joe.  Before he did, he needed to understand what had happened in the barn.

So far the man’s answers had been vague at best.

“Er, well, yes…”  McCoy cleared his throat.  “You see, I was headed this way when my horse threw a shoe.  I saw a light in your barn and went inside to see if I could find someone to help.  I heard your son come in, but by the time I found him, he was just about out.  I have no idea what happened.”  He started to lower his hand toward his vest.  “If you’d just let me….”

“Keep ‘em up,” a low voice warned.  “Until we tell you to put them down.”

Ben looked at his son, Adam.  It was Joe’s gun he held in his hand.  He’d found it lying beside his brother when he marched the stranger back into the barn to make him face the music and discovered Joseph had fallen unconscious.

Somehow, there was something poetic about that.

McCoy lifted his hand above his head again.  “Certainly.  It’s just…  Well…I’d like to help.  I have proof in my pocket that I am a physician.”

Ben gestured with a hand to his middle son.  “Hoss, come here and take whatever it is he has.”  As his son obeyed, he demanded, “Now, tell me again just why you’re in the area.”

“As I said, I’m looking for a missing friend. The last thing he said was that he intended to head for the Ponderosa.”  The man looked down as Hoss reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin leather wallet.  Then the stranger’s blue eyes, lighter and clearer than his middle son’s, returned to him.  “I need to find him.”

Ben took the wallet from his son and opened it.  Inside there was a letter to Paul Martin from a State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia recommending Doctor Leonard McCoy and stating that McCoy was headed for California.  The white-haired man frowned as he perused it.  Milledgeville was not a regular hospital.  It was an asylum for the lunatic, idiot, and epileptic.

“Is this man you are seeking an escaped patient?” Ben asked as he closed the wallet.

Leonard McCoy sighed.  “I’ve treated him before, but more than anything else he’s my friend.”

“Adam,” he said after a moment’s thought, “lower your gun.”

“Pa, we know nothing about this man,” his eldest son protested.  “That letter could be a forgery, or he could have taken it from someone else, or –”

“Or he could be telling the truth.  We’ll know for certain when your brother wakes up.”  Ben turned to look at Joe.  Worry stabbed him once more when he saw his youngest had not shifted or stirred in the slightest.

Hoss was at Joe’s side again.  He was brushing his brother’s brown curls back from his forehead.  “What do you think’s wrong with him, Pa?” he asked, his eyes wide with worry.

“If I may….” the doctor from Georgia began.

Ben turned toward him.  McCoy was wagging his hands over his head.

“Oh, yes. Put your hands down.”   He paused as his eldest challenged him.  The gun was still out.  Adam was too old to order, so he said only, “Son,  please.”

Reluctantly, Adam obeyed.  Ben noticed his son kept the gun, placing it behind his belt, instead of returning it to the sideboard where Joe’s holster lay.

Doctor McCoy indicated the pouch at his side.  “I have some smelling salts in here.  I think they might do the trick.  If it’s all right….”

Ben nodded slowly, still uncertain whether or not he could trust the man.  When the doctor moved to Joe’s side, he went with him.  So did Adam.  Hoss, of course, was already there.

His middle son rose from his position beside his brother as the doctor drew near in order to give him room.  McCoy rested one hip on the settee beside Joe.  First, he checked the boy’s eyes and then took Joe’s pulse.  After a moment, the stranger reached into his pouch and drew out a small paper twisted at both ends.  Holding it close to Joe’s nose, he snapped it.

The scent of something like perfume filled the air.  It didn’t smell like any salts he knew.

It took a second but Joe grimaced, then he moaned, and finally, coughed.

“Well, if that don’t just beat all!” Hoss exclaimed and slapped his thigh.

As if reading his mind, the stranger stood and moved out of the way, allowing Ben to drop to the settee beside his son.

“Joe.  Joseph, can you hear me?”

His son’s long black eyelashes fluttered.  A second later the hazel-green eyes behind them appeared, dazed and confused.  “Pa…?”

Ben laid his hand along Joe’s cheek, like he had done when he was a little boy – but for just a second, since his youngest was no longer a boy but a man.  Removing it, the white-haired man held it out and said, “Can you sit up, son?”

Joe blinked.  “I think so.”

Doctor McCoy turned to Adam.  “I’d advise getting him some juice if you have it.”

His eldest frowned.  Clearly the doctor’s suggestion set off some alarm.  “Juice?  Not brandy?  Doc Martin usually gives that or coffee.”

“Medical advances,” the stranger said, cocking one grizzled eyebrow.  “Juice is better.”

“Hoss, go see if Hop Sing has any juice left from this morning,” Ben ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

As McCoy moved to sit beside Joe again and began to examine him, Ben signaled Adam to his side.  Walking with his eldest to the door, he said, “Adam, I think you should check the barn and the surrounding yard.  Make sure there’s no one else here.  If the doctor is telling the truth, there may be someone else who attacked Joe.”

Adam looked confused.  “I thought you believed him.  You let him treat Joe.”

“I know about smelling salts.  They couldn’t do your brother any harm.  As to Doctor McCoy, I’m inclined to believe him – but not entirely convinced yet.  Once your brother recovers we’ll see what he has to say.”  He caught his son’s arm.  “In the morning, why don’t you ride into town and see if Paul has ever heard of this hospital in Georgia.”  He looked at the stranger who was tenderly cleaning the scrape on Joe’s forehead and speaking softly to him.  “Or this man.”

“Sure thing, Pa.”  With that Adam headed out the door.

As it closed behind him, the man stood up and looked his way.  “You can talk to your son now, Mister Cartwright.”

Ben crossed immediately to Joe.  The boy was sitting up with a blanket tucked around him that the doctor had magicked from somewhere.  Leonard McCoy gave him a smile that told him he too was a father and understood his need as he shifted out of the way.

“How are you son?” Ben asked as he sat down.

“I’m fine, Pa,” Joe said in that way he had when he was determined to deny any weakness.  “You don’t need to fuss.”

“I’m not fussing, Joe, just doing what fathers do.”  He touched his son’s forehead near the scrape.  “Do you remember how you got this?”

“When I fell, I think.”  Joe frowned.  “I’m not really sure.  I can’t remember….”

Ben glanced up at the stranger.  “Do you remember meeting Doctor McCoy?”

Joe looked to where the doctor was standing.  He frowned again, thinking hard.  Finally he shook his head.  “Nope.”

That agreed with the doctor’s story.  “Did you see anyone else?”

Again, he thought.  “I don’t think so.  I was chopping wood and heard a noise in the barn.  I remember going in, but that’s it.”

Ben had a sudden thought.  He looked at McCoy.  “Could this man you’re searching for have – ”

The doctor shook his head.  “He’s not violent.  Just…lost.”

“Maybe I just tripped, Pa.  Fell and hit my head.”  Joe hesitated and then smiled that self-effacing smile he had.  “I was pretty riled about chopping that wood and wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“Here you go, little brother,” Hoss announced as he came into the room with juice in hand and Hop Sing in tow.

“Mistah Joe okay?” the Chinese man asked, clearly concerned.  “Not scramble brains like eggs?”

As Joe laughed, Hoss replied,  “You know’d Joe since he was a baby, Hop Sing.  Ain’t nobody got a harder head than baby brother here.”

Ben smiled at the banter, grateful to see the color returning to his youngest son’s face.  “Hoss, help your brother upstairs.”

That youngest scowled.  “Pa, I’m fine.  I don’t need to lie down.”

The white-haired man looked at Leonard McCoy who was standing to the side, listening to their exchange.  “What do you think, Doctor?”

The stranger jumped a bit, as if his mind had been very far away.  His eyes went to Joe.  With a smile, he said, “Rest wouldn’t hurt, young man.”

“Ah, Doc….”

“You heard him, son.”  Ben’s gaze went to Hoss.  The concern his middle boy felt for his baby brother but was masking, shone out of his son’s eyes.  “Hoss, take your brother to his bed and make sure he stays there.”

Before Hoss could reach him, Joe tossed off the blanket and stood – too quickly.  As gracefully as he could, which was none to, his youngest caught the edge of the settee to balance himself.  From how green he looked it appeared the world was swimming around him and he was about to pass out, but bound and determined as Joseph was, the older man knew there was no point in trying to help.  Joe would have to come to that conclusion by himself.  Resolute,  Joe took the first few steps.  Hoss caught him before he could fall and, supporting his brother by one arm, maneuvered him muttering protests up the stairs and toward his room.

“He’ll be fine,” McCoy said softly a second after they’d reached the top.  “I’m thinking Joe struck his head as he fell.  There are no signs of concussion, so a good night’s sleep should set him right.”

Ben turned toward the stranger.  “Thank you, Doctor McCoy.  I’m sorry I doubted you.  It’s just that –”

“No apology is necessary, Mister Cartwright.”  The look out of his eyes was as soft as his voice. “I have a daughter.”

“Just one?”

The stranger nodded.  “She lives with her mother.”

The white-haired man drew a deep breath.  He didn’t know why, but he trusted this man.  He had no reason to – the way they had met was certainly suspicious – but he sensed he was a man to whom all life was sacred.

Instinctively he knew McCoy would not have harmed Joe on purpose.

“You look tired,” Ben said at last.  “The least we can do is provide you with a room for the night.”

“No, no.  I need to move on.  My friend – ”

“You said he was headed here, and you can’t travel by night,” Ben insisted.  “Why don’t you get some sleep and then set out in the morning to look for him?  I’ll send one of the boys with you.  You’ll only make mistakes tonight, and the wilderness is no place for a man to do that.  She’s as unforgiving as she is beautiful.”

The stranger said nothing for several moments.  He seemed to be considering his options, weighing what he knew was best against his desire to help the man he was seeking and obviously loved.  Finally, he sighed.  “I guess you’re right.  I am weary.  I thank you for your hospitality – and your trust.  You have no reason to extend either to a poor Georgia boy far from home.”

“Humanity is my reason, Doctor McCoy,” Ben said.

The doctor  held out his hand.  As Ben took it, he said, “I feel privileged to have met you, Mister Cartwright.”

“Ben.”

The doctor’s pale blue eyes lit with a smile.  “Ben.  Please, call me Leonard.”

Ben looked up.  Hoss was coming down the stairs.  “Did you get your brother settled?”

“I hog-tied him with the sheets,” Hoss said with a shake of his head.  “That oughta keep him down ‘til mornin’ at least.”

Leonard laughed.  “That youngest one of yours reminds me of another friend of mine.  There is no such word as ‘can’t’.”

“You got that right,” Hoss declared.

At that moment the front door opened and Adam stepped in.  He tossed his hat on the sideboard as he entered the room and finally relinquished Joseph’s firearm.  “All clear, Pa,” he said.  “There’s no sign of anyone other than the doctor here.”

“The doctor is going to spend the night.  Hoss was about to show him up to a room.”

His eldest held his feelings close.  Ben wasn’t really sure what he thought of that.  Still Adam stepped forward and extended his hand.

“Welcome to our home, Doctor McCoy,” he said, his lips pursed in that certain way he had.

Ben relaxed visibly.  Really, he need have no worries.

Brother Adam was on watch.

 

 

THREE

 

About twenty miles away from the Ponderosa, in Virginia City, a stunningly beautiful and young saloon girl wrapped in shimmering copper cloth sashayed across the floor carrying a tray with two drinks while humming a soft tune in her soft, husky voice.  She was barely tall enough to call ‘short’, coming in at five feet one inch.  Her curves were sharper than the hotel banister’s; her corseted waist barely the span of a man’s open hands, while both her bust and hips were ample.  She moved with a surety that turned every head in the Bucket of Blood.  Of course, that might also have been due to her picture perfect face, deep green eyes, and the mass of blue-black hair that fell to her shoulders in a wave of unruly curls.  There was just something about her.  It made the hard-bitten miners and the saddle-weary ranch hands rise from their seats when she passed through, scrambling for their hats to see who would be the first to tip one.  When she was gone a stupefied smile lingered on their lips as if they had just been handed – free – a bottle of the Bucket’s finest aged Kentucky whiskey or, maybe, won an immense pot in a poker game.  Her name was Medora MacNamar and even though she’d been at the Bucket for less than a week, she was pulling in tips one hundred times higher than the regulars.

Which made the other girls a mite sore.

When she reached a table situated in the far corner of the establishment, Medora deposited the tray she was carrying on its rough surface and then  lifted two drinks from the battered surface.  After sliding them toward the two men who occupied the table’s chairs, she planted her ample rear on the arm of one and proceeded to run her hand’s through that man’s thick chestnut hair.

Leaning down, Medora nipped his ear, kissed it, and then said, “Abdon, is that something in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?”

Abdon Walls, a tall man with pale blond hair and odd glass-green eyes, did not glance up.  He lifted the whiskey and sipped it.  “Primitive, but acceptable for a stimulant,” he said, his tone absently clinical.

“Ease up, Doc,” Medora said, the words dripping from her plump lips like honey.

“You will cease to address me by that wretched appellation,” he growled.

She shrugged.  “When in Orion’s belt, Doc….”

The man in the other chair stirred.  “Medora’s right, Abdon.  Repulsive as these clothes and the altered skin we wear are, we are in need of them to accomplish the mission.”

A superior sniff was his only reply.

Medora shifted then and moved to Orlo Bond’s chair, casually and deliberately releasing a strong burst of pheromones as she went.  Of course Orlo was no more his real name than hers was Medora, or the Doc’s, Abdon.  They had used the onboard computer on their Orion star freighter to generate three Wild West names.  She was particularly smitten with her own and thought she might keep it once they returned to their ship.

It could only make her more mysterious.

Grinning, Medora took two fingers and reached inside and drew from her tightly corseted copper bodice, with its dripping black lace and jet beads, several folded bills amounting to nearly two hundred dollars.

“Today’s take?” Orlo asked as he fingered the printed paper.

“This morning’s,” she snorted, and not daintily.  Human males were a weak and gullible lot!  “It’s more than enough to buy the last of the supplies.”

Orlo, a rail thin man with slicked-back gray hair, dressed as a wealthy and landed Westerner in a black frock coat, gold canvas trousers with black braces, a black hat and ivory shirt, permitted a smirk to lift the corner of one of his genetically altered lips. “Then we can make our move tonight.”

“What about the anomaly?” Abdon groused.  “Someone else is here.”

Medora watched Orlo’s pale blue eyes drop to the gun-metal gray device peeking out from under the sleeve of his frock coat.  They each wore one.

“Undefined and troubling, but not enough to stop the mission.”

Abdon’s lips quirked with an unpleasant sneer.  “Captain’s orders?”

Orlo pushed his chair back and started to rise.  “You might say so.”

His rising dislodged Medora from her perch.  “My shift ends at nine,” she said.

The gray-haired man nodded.  “It’s best we operate under cover of darkness.  The target must be taken and soon, and with no intervention from the other biological units in the household.  Once we have eliminated him in fulfillment of the contract, we can set about mining the silver.”

“What difference does it make if he’s alone?” Abdon shifted his long charcoal gray rifle frock coat back as he too rose to his full height, which was one foot taller than Medora.  “Why not take them all out?”

“For one thing, it’s in the contract,” Orlo replied.  “Curb your thirst for blood, doctor.  You know better.  A delicate incision effects the desired result.”

Abdon Wells’ face lit with a wicked smile.

“Just be sure I’m the one to make it.”

 

Adam Cartwright had returned early from town. He’d gone to talk to Paul Martin who told him that, while he had not heard of Leonard McCoy, the name and signature on the letter were as authentic as the Georgia asylum the stranger said he came from.  At that point, there was little they could do but go by that letter and the man himself.  He seemed honest enough and had taken care of Joe.

After reporting what he had found to his father, he’d set about doing his little brother’s chores including chopping the wood in the woodpile Joe had abandoned the night before when he went into the barn and, well, whatever happened, happened.  Joe was fully capable of doing it – and he’d said so in a very loud, very clear voice that morning at the table – but Pa as usual was being overprotective of Marie’s boy and forbid it, telling him he needed to stay close to the house and rest.  Joe had argued and cajoled and worked his way with Pa as he usually did, and wrung from him a slow leave to travel into town instead to fetch some supplies they needed in order to begin mending the north fences the next morning.  Even so, Pa had insisted he take a wagon and one of their hands with him, a new man by the name of Theron Vance who had signed on just the week before.  They’d left about a half hour ago.  Vance, who was about Joe’s age, was an albino.  He had white hair and pallid near-white skin.  Theron seemed a nice enough man – and Pa was  fine with him – but there was something about the newcomer that raised the hackles on the back of Adam’s neck.  He told himself the man’s condition had nothing to do it.  At least, he hoped it didn’t.  Vance was way too quiet for one, and had a way of looking at you with his crimson eyes that reminded Adam of a banker watching someone else count out his money.  He wasn’t sure he would have sent Little Joe out alone with Vance this soon, but then – as the sages put it – father knows best.

Adam had just paused to wipe the sweat out of his eyes and then raised the axe again, aiming to split the next piece of firewood, when someone cleared their throat, attracting his attention.  He turned to find a hardy-looking blond man of medium stature dressed in brown striped trousers and a blue work shirt watching him.  He glanced behind the man and saw no horse.

His suspicions instantly raised, the black-haired man dropped the axe to his side but didn’t  let it go, and turned to greet him.  “Can I help you, stranger?”

The man smiled – a sincere, winning smile that lit his hazel eyes.  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” he said.

Adam ran his sleeve over his brow as he eyed the wood pile.  “You’re offering to chop wood?  I take it that means you’ve been out in the sun too long.”

The stranger laughed.  “Could be, or could be I’m looking for work.”

The eldest of Ben Cartwright’s boys weighed his initial reaction against his growing acceptance of the man.  “Well,” he said, anchoring the axe in the stump he used as a chopping bench, “we have more than enough of that to go around here.”

The smile grew broader.  “Great.  I heard Ben Cartwright could always use hands and that he’s a fair man.”

Adam nodded.  “That he is.”  He held out his hand.  “Adam Cartwright.  And you might be?”

The man took it.  His handshake was as firm as the confidence that exuded from him.  “Jim.  Jim Kirk.”

“Where do you hail from, Jim?”

“Riverside, Iowa.”

He whistled.  Nearly two thousand miles away.  “You’re a long way from home, Jim.  What brings you west?”

Jim was sharp.  He knew he was fishing.  “Nothing in particular.  I guess I wanted to see the wider world.”  He turned in a half-circle, indicating the tall Ponderosa pines surrounding them.  “There’s nothing like this in Iowa.”

“Nothing to hold you either?  No family?”

Jim shook his head.  “I had a brother, but he’s gone.  My father too, and my mother has her own life.”

Adam’s eyes strayed to the house.  He couldn’t imagine burying either Joe or Hoss, though he had been forced to face the possibility before.  “I’m sorry.  About your father and brother.”

It was Jim’s turn to poke.  “You’re a close family, aren’t you?  That’s what everyone says.”

“Everyone?”

“The people in town – and the young man and his unusual companion I crossed paths with a mile or so back who were headed into the town.”  Jim Kirk smiled.  “I take it the one with the curly brown hair was your brother?”

“How could you tell?  Did Joe tell you so?”

He shook his head.  “Family resemblance.”

Adam’s black brows peaked toward his hair.  “That’s something I don’t hear too often.”

“It’s there,” Kirk said, growing serious.  “Around the eyes and in the set of your jaw.  You’re both determined men.”

“If there’s one thing we Cartwrights are, its determined – to take care of our own,” Adam answered, half in truth and more in threat.  The black-haired man wiped the sweat and dirt from his hands on his trouser legs and then indicated the house.  “Let’s go in and talk to Pa.”

As they approached the house, the door opened and Doctor McCoy stepped out.  For just a moment the doctor’s step faltered and his eyes narrowed as if the presence of Jim Kirk had surprised him. Then he was on his way again.

Adam looked from one stranger to the other.  There it was again, that ‘pinch’ of suspicion.

“I was just coming to find you, Adam,” the Georgia doctor drawled.

“Well, here I am. What can I do for you?” he replied as both he and Kirk halted about ten feet from the door.

The doctor hesitated.

“Oh, this is Jim Kirk,” Adam said, correcting his omission.  “He’s here looking for work.”

McCoy inclined his head.  “Mister Kirk.”

Jim actually laughed.  “That was my father’s name.  Just Jim.”

The doctor returned his smile.  “Jim, then.”  He held out his hand.  “I’m Leonard.”  The older man’s light blue eyes left the newcomer and fixed on him.  “Seems your house has become a bit of a way station, doesn’t it?”

Adam’s answer was tight.  “It’s not unusual.  There’s nothing else around for miles.”

At that moment the door to the house opened again and his father stepped out, a questioning look in his eyes.  “Adam, I saw you had someone with you.  Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

Before Adam could say anything, Jim Kirk stepped between him and the older man and offered his hand.  “James T. Kirk, Mister Cartwright, and though neither your son or you are my friends – yet – those who know me call me ‘Jim’.”  As his father shook the stranger’s hand, Kirk added, “I came here looking for work.”

The older man’s eyes went to the yard.  “Where’s your horse?  You didn’t walk, did you?”

“Yes, sir, I did.  As to where my horse is,” Jim patted his belly, “a man’s got to eat.”

His pa’s white eyebrows shot up.  “You ate your horse?”

Kirk laughed. “No, I sold him to buy food.”

His father laughed as well. “Oh, oh…well, that’s better.”  Adam watched as the white-haired man clapped the stranger on the shoulder and directed him toward the open door.  Once they’d reached it, he turned back.  Concern lit his father’s dark brown eyes as he asked, “Did Joe and Vance get off all right?”

Adam nodded.  “Yes, sir.  Jim ran into them on his way in.”

“I see.”  The older man turned to the stranger.  “Did the boy look, well, all right?”

Jim Kirk nodded.  “Seemed healthy, and happy to be heading into town.  Why?  Was there some trouble?”

It was Doctor McCoy who answered.  “The young man suffered a fall last night and was unconscious for some time.”

“This is Doctor McCoy,” his father said.  “Have you been introduced?”

“Unofficially,” the blond man replied.  “I didn’t know he was a doctor.”

“Thank you again, Doctor, for what you did for Joe last night,” his father said.  “I understand you intend to leave us tomorrow?”

McCoy nodded.  “Most likely.”

“Please be sure to see me before you leave.”  Turning back to Kirk, the older man said, “Now, young man, if you will come with me.”  And with that they disappeared into the house.

Young man.  Kirk looked like he was in his mid-thirties.  At least Pa didn’t call him ‘boy’.

Doctor McCoy noted the smile on his lips.  “Something funny?”

Adam shook his head.  “Just Pa.  I don’t think he will ever believe any of us are old enough to pull up our own boots, let alone make all of our own decisions.”

The stranger hesitated.  “You sound a little…frustrated.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Adam said as he returned to the axe and the woodpile.  “I couldn’t have a better father.  It’s just…well….”  He looked up at the broad expanse of sky above him.  “There’s more.  Somehow, I know there’s more.”

“You’re discontent.”

Was he?  “I suppose so, though I have everything I could hope to have and more – a loving father, two brothers whom I couldn’t be closer to, and an inheritance to rival any prince in Europe.”

“But it’s not enough.”

Adam looked at the older man and grinned.  “Are you a philosopher as well, Doctor McCoy?”

“Leonard, please. And yes, it is my belief that all who practice medicine are that.”

“A doctor for the soul as well as the body.”

He nodded.

Adam stood with his hand on the axe handle.  “Look, Doctor…Leonard, I’m sorry I doubted you last night – ”

“Don’t be.  There need be no apology for vigilance.” The older man’s eyes went to those same trees, but wore a wary look.  “There are very big, very bad things out there, Adam, that seem to be drawn to good men like you and your father and brothers, as if the darkness needs to blot out the light in order to make itself complete.”

His words sent a chill up Adam’s spine.  “You sound like you have experience.”

The doctor’s pale eyes reflected other places and times.  “I do, Adam.  I do.  Too much of it.  More than enough to last several lifetimes.”  When he saw his look, he added, “It’s what happens when you sail off to see what ‘more’ there is.”

“You’re a navy man?”

Again, the stranger’s face had an odd look.  Finally he nodded.  “I’ve spent my adult life sailing the seas.”

“You’ll have to let Pa know.  He was first mate on a ship when I was born.”

“Yes, I know,” the doctor said softly.

The black-haired man frowned, his trust shaken.  “How would you know?”

Leonard McCoy smiled.  “Once a sailor, always a sailor.  I can see it in the way he holds himself, in his easy sense of command – and a little bit in the way he walks.”

It made sense, so why wouldn’t that hint of suspicion go away?

The older man nodded toward the wood pile.  “Doing your brother’s chores?”

“Yes,” he said, forcing himself to shake off the sense of unease.  “Joe went into town for supplies.  Pa thought that would be easier on his rock-hard head than jarring it by taking blows with an axe.”

“He’s a pistol, that young one.  Isn’t he?”

Adam took a swing and split the first piece of firewood.  “That’s Joe.  Bullheaded, obstinate, and brave at times to the point of stupidity.”  He tossed the wood onto the pile and then added with a grin, “You know Pa’s hair wasn’t always white.”

Leonard ran a hand through his own grizzled hair.  “I know the feeling, only with me it’s a couple of friends.”

“The one you said was missing?”

The doctor let out a long, breathy sigh.  “Talk about bull-headed and obstinate, on that point Spock would give your brother a run for his money.”

Adam had put another piece of wood on the stump.  “Spock?”

“He’s…part Russian.  His father was Tartar and his mother, Mongolian.” McCoy grinned.  “Makes for an unusual mix.”

Adam brought the axe down again.  “What happened to him?”

The doctor hesitated just a moment, as if recalling the right words – or making them up on the spot.  “He was injured.  They gave him morphine.  I’m afraid he may have become…addicted.”

He’d seen morphine addiction.  It wasn’t pretty.  “I’m sorry.”

Leonard’s lips curled in a sad smile.  “So am I.  Spock’s absolutely brilliant. I’d hate to think of anything happening to that mind of his.”  He seemed to drift away and then come back.  “Now, don’t you go tellin’ him I said that,” he drawled even as he sought his gaze.

“Sounds like me and my little brother.  Joe’s bright, even though he doesn’t think so.  It has nothing to do with book learning, it’s all instinct.  I admit I push him as hard as I can to get him to think, to slow down and make choices before he leaps into trouble.”

McCoy laughed.  He slapped the leather pouch he wore.  “You know who I carry this for?”

Adam couldn’t help but smile.  “Spock?”

“Yep.”

The black-haired man glanced over his shoulder in the direction Joe had gone.

“Let’s just hope, in that respect, Joe and Spock are not alike.”

 

Joe Cartwright reined in the horses pulling the wagon filled with timber for mending fences and glanced at his companion who had chosen to sit in the back with the wood.  Theron Vance was dangling his feet over the cart’s tail-gate, staring back toward Virginia City.  Their new hand wore a light-colored shirt and matching trousers, which covered almost all of his skin, and a large wide-brimmed hat to shade his face.  He’d explained that his skin condition made him more susceptible to the sun than others and that his eyes were weak and the bright light made them even weaker.  When he’d asked Theron why he didn’t stay back East, the newcomer said he came from Vermont and that there were too many people there.  Too many people to stare and laugh and call him names.  He’d hoped by coming to the West to escape that, but had found out all too quickly that men were the same everywhere.  Vance was small like him in build and just about the same height.  Joe knew what that had meant for him – constant fights to prove himself.  Theron was a scrapper.  He’d seen that in town today when some of the local thugs had tried to take both of them on.  Joe shifted his bruised jaw from side to side.  Pa wouldn’t be happy that he’d gotten into a fight, especially after taking that blow to the head the night before when he fell, but like Vance he was stronger than he looked and they’d both come out fine.

Joe looked up.  It was late afternoon and the light was fleeing.  They were heading into autumn and the sun settled in about seven o’clock.  They would have been home sooner, but the tussle in town slowed them down.  Pa’d be pacing that path in the worn grass out front of the house, making it even deeper.  Joe shook his head.  He had a hard time getting his father to remember that he was nearly twenty-three and was a full-fledged man now.

Of course, Pa still treated Adam like he was eighteen, so what hope did he have?

When he laughed, Vance swiveled toward him.  Joe nodded in return and patted the wooden seat beside him.

“Why don’t you come up here, Theron?” he asked.  “Ain’t you tired of watching the world go by backwards?”

The Albino gave him an odd look.  “I’m keeping watch,” he said.

The curly-headed man frowned.  “Whatever for?”

His pale-skinned friend turned and raised a hand and pointed toward a cloud of dust that was fast approaching.

“That.”

One word.  It was one word and it sent the chill of winter through him.  Joe was instantly on the alert.  He met Theron’s crimson eyes and realized for the first time that Vance was neither a ranch hand or a friend.

He was the enemy.

“What have you done?” he asked, his voice robbed of strength by a growing fear.

Vance jumped from the wagon and amazingly kept his feet.  Standing in the middle of the road, he replied, “What had to be done.”

Joe eyed the dust cloud.  It was large so it had to hold several men, and was maybe two  minutes shy of reaching them.  He looked at Vance and then at the reins in his hands.  Before the other man could react, Joe slapped the lengths of leather against both horses’ rumps and shouted, ‘Hee-ya!” sending them forward in a frenzied burst of speed.

“Joe,” he heard Vance call from behind him, his voice cold as a machine.  “You cannot escape.”

Damned if he couldn’t!

Careening wildly, the supply wagon bumped and jolted over every rock and stone in its path, depositing lumber beside the road as it went.  Joe bumped and jolted with it, reawakening the pain in his head.  He ignored it.  Locking his fingers tightly around the reins, he held his seat, shifting only to take a look behind.

To find the cloud was following him.

Home, Joe thought.  Home was not that far away.  He could make it.  He’d raced wagons before, using more speed than was safe or sensible.  With every shed piece of timber, the one he was driving grew lighter and went faster.  With any luck, he could outpace whoever it was Theron Vance was in cahoots with.  He’d get his brothers and then they’d all come back and –

Joe blinked.  The light was dying and he wasn’t sure.  No…

Yes.

There was someone standing in the middle of the road.

Shouting for all he was worth, Joe called out, “Get out of the way!  Mister!  I can’t stop!  Get out of the way!”

The man didn’t move.  Joe had a split-second choice to make – kill a perfect stranger or himself.

With great regret he chose the path his father had taught him to take and turned the wagon.

A split second later Ben Cartwright’s youngest son felt the right-hand wheels leave the road.  Joe heard the horses’ shriek.  He felt himself catapulted out of the seat and into the trees where he struck one hard, slid down it, and fell into darkness.

 

Consciousness faded in and out with pain.  Joe blinked and moaned, coming awake for the third time.  Something wasn’t right.  Something….  He just didn’t know what.  Whatever it was made him gasp and fade out for a few seconds whenever he tried to move.  As he lay there, breathing hard, fighting to stay conscious, he heard a noise.  Sucking in air, he held it as his mind fought to identify the sound.  Footsteps.

Someone was coming.

Someone out of a cloud, wasn’t that it?  Someone who had descended from the sky to hunt him.  He’d run, hadn’t he?  But he hadn’t gotten away.  They were going to take him, just as easily as he would round up a young green calf.  Tears entered his eyes unbidden, partly from pain but more from shame.  They were gonna use him somehow, maybe to demand money from his pa, or to make Pa sign over his land, or….

Joe let that breath of air out and tightened his jaw.

No…they…weren’t!

Even as his pa’s voice inside his head scolded him for not staying put and waiting for the doctor, Joe raised himself up on one elbow.  After the forest stopped whirling, he tried to use the other one to steady himself.  It was then he discovered what was wrong.  That arm was broken just as sure as the trees branches that lay snapped beneath him. Sucking in the pain, he leaned back on the other arm and used it to push himself into a seated position.  Then he tried to stand.

Tried.

The world rocked like the deck of that ship his Pa had taken him on once.  It had been anchored in the harbor, but the sails had been unfurled and there had been a strong wind that day.  It had shifted from side to side like a bucking bronco.  At the time he’d wondered, because of the motion, how his pa had been able to walk the deck without being sick.

It was sure making him sick.

Rolling over, Joe dropped his head and lost the lunch he’d eaten in town with Vance a few hours before.  Once everything was wretched out of him, he began to shake like autumn leaves.  Still determined, he fought to regain his feet but was stopped and held down by a pair of strong, unforgiving arms.

They’d caught him!  Whoever it was, they had him and they would use him against Pa!  And –

“You will do yourself further damage if you attempt to rise,” a soft voice, sounding nothing like he expected said.  “Logic dictates you remain quiescent until the bones you have broken are set.”

Joe blinked away tears and looked.  His vision was blurry so it was hard to make out the features of the man who held him.  He thought there was something unusual about them, but then he decided it didn’t matter.  Nothing mattered.

Nothing but warning his pa and his brothers.

“Men…” he managed to mutter.  “Men…after…me.  Don’t….”  Joe drew a deep breath as his hand shot out to take hold of the man’s coat, “don’t let them…take me.  Pa….”

The stranger gently pried his fingers free and stood.  For a moment, everything went silent.  Then he crouched at his side again.  “A party of four men is headed this way.  I trust these are the ones of whom you speak?”

Joe blinked.  The stranger sure talked funny.  Fearful that admitting he didn’t know might cause him to lose the only help he had, he nodded.  “Yes.  I think…they want to…use me or…maybe…kill me…” he said between breaths.

“Therefore, in either case, the logical conclusion is that it would be expeditious to remove you from their path.”

The word was so big it made his brain hurt when he tried to wrap it around it.  “Expe…what?”

There was a small sigh.  “Wise.”

Joe nodded, regretted it, and then began to push himself up again.

The hands returned.  “You cannot walk.  Your leg is injured as well.”

Dang it!  That’s why he fell.  “I sure as Hell can try!” he growled, fighting the man’s hold.

The stranger paused.  “I fail to see what the ancient Earth myth of an abode of eternal punishment has to do with whether or not you are able to rise.”

“What?”  Joe blinked again, trying to clear his eyes.  Even as the stranger began to come into focus, he felt the man’s hands move, one sliding under his knees and the other supporting his shoulders.  A second later he picked him up.  “Hey!  What are you doing?  You can’t carry me!”

The man’s eyes were almond-shaped and black as his pa’s, but the look out of them reminded him of Adam – even to the way one eyebrow arched and his lips twitched at the ends.

“Your statement is illogical as that is precisely the task I have accomplished.  I would advise you save your energy for what is to come.  We shall be forced to move with great rapidity and you are likely to suffer.”

And Joe thought Doc Hickman had a bad bedside manner!

“Who are you?” he asked at last.

An odd light entered the stranger’s eyes.  He hesitated, almost as if unsure of what to say.  “They are almost upon us.  Do you prefer I answer your inquiry or begin to run?”

Joe heard them.  Crashing through the trees not all that far away.

“Hell if I care,” Joe braced himself for action.  “Run!”

 

 

FOUR

 

Jim Kirk stepped out of the Cartwright bunkhouse and stretched his arms toward the sky.  It was late and he was tired.  Still, sleep eluded him.

When Ben Cartwright had agreed to let him work for them, the older man had meant just that.  He’d been sent out immediately with one of the older hands to meet up with Cartwright’s middle son, Hoss, to complete the work of mending fences on the western range.  He had to be honest, it had felt good to do something with his hands.  He loved what he did, sailing the stars and seeking out new life and new civilizations, but at the same time there was something to be said for putting down roots and working a piece of land, for taming it and turning it into something to be prized and passed on to the next generation.  His life was, well, complicated.  There was a simplicity about ranching that called to him.

Kirk smiled.  It probably went back to his roots as an Iowa farm boy.

Stepping away from the bunkhouse, the blond man turned his face upward.  The stars were dazzling, clear as diamonds and just as brilliant.  They winked at him, challenging his wish for a bit of earth of his own to settle down on.  It was tempting – the scent of pine and moss, the rush of a raging river in the distance, the ground beneath his feet.  Still, he knew it was only a dream.  He was a sailor as sure as Benjamin Cartwright had been once upon a time.  It amazed him that the older man had been able to put it all behind him – that spirit of adventure, of sailing the seas and never knowing what was around the next bend.  But then, he had never married and had not had sons.  If he had, it might have been different.

Would he ever, he wondered?

Kirk had just turned back toward the bunkhouse when something stirred.  Instantly on the alert, he pivoted on his heel in time to see a shift in the shadows near the house.  He’d left the gun Adam gave him in the bunkhouse.  That had been another thing – the feel of a finely made and handmade instrument in his hand.  It had brought a smile to the face of the boy he had been who had loved the old adventure stories of the Wild West.  Uncertain what to do, Kirk decided a challenge would have to suffice.

“Who’s there?” he called as he took a step forward.  “Answer me!”

The shadow of a man appeared.  It quickly turned into Ben Cartwright.

Kirk stood down.  “Sorry, sir.  I didn’t know it was you.”

“Are you keeping watch?” the older man asked.

He shook his head.  “I couldn’t sleep.  I just stepped out for a breath of air.  You?”

Ben Cartwright approached him.  When he stopped at his side, he looked up at the panoply of stars above their heads.  “Breathtaking, isn’t it?”

Kirk smiled.  “It certainly is.”

“The sky reminds me of the sea,” Ben said softly.  “Ebon swells glinting with starlight.”

Kirk nodded.  “It’s none of my business, sir, but –”

“Ben.  Please,” the older man said with a smile.  “We don’t stand on formality here.”

“Ben.”

“Well?” the rancher asked.   When he frowned, he added, “Your question?”

“Oh.  How did you give it up?”

It was Ben’s turn to be confused.  “It?”

Kirk indicated the black expanse above them, punctuated by the light of those diamond stars.  “Sailing the seas.”

The older man remained silent a moment.  When he spoke at last there was a longing in his voice, like the cry of a sea mew sounding over still water.  “When I was young, I thought only of myself and what I desired.  I had a deep yearning within me to see the world.”  Ben paused.  When he spoke again, his tone was tinged with regret.  “It’s a legacy I have given to my oldest boy.”

“Adam?”

“Yes.  I’ve tried to make him understand.”  Ben pursed his lips.  “The world calls to a man like a beautiful courtesan.  It’s splendor is seductive.  It promises everything he desires and whispers in his ear that it will bring him pleasures unimagined and, in the end, happiness.”  The older man smiled sadly.  “There’s a reason for the legends of the sirens, Jim.  They’re real, but they’re not sitting on a rock somewhere singing songs and combing their long hair.  They are here,” he pointed to his head and then his heart, “and here.  They call to a man to abandon everything but his need to feed the hunger inside.”  He laughed then, a short bark.  “In the end those desires consume the man.”

“But you weren’t consumed.”

“No, no.  I wasn’t.”

“What saved you?”

There was a pause.  “The love of a good woman.”  The older man turned toward him.  “You didn’t say.  Do you have a wife or children, Jim?”

Kirk shook his head.  “There’s been no time.”

Ben Cartwright’s hand came down on his shoulder.  “Make time, son.  It’s home and family that complete a man.”

He knew from the records that the elder Cartwright had been married three times, each wife dying tragically at a young age and leaving him a son.  He’d suffered so much loss, but it was obvious the older man would not think for one second of doubting the choices he had made.

“I got to know Hoss a little today,” Kirk said.  “He’s a good man and so is Adam.  I look forward to spending some time with your youngest as well.”  He hesitated a moment.  “Both of your older sons told me I remind them of their younger brother.”  He grinned.  “I’m not entirely sure it was in a good way.”

Ben Cartwright’s near-black eyes turned away from the sky to settle on him.  Kirk experienced something in that moment that was not unheard of, but was rare.  He sensed a nearly primordial force in the man – a power of command that matched, or maybe, exceeded his own.  The land baron was rock solid as the ancient mountain ranges that populated his lands; his strength and belief in himself and his sons as deeply rooted as the pines that covered the mountain’s rocky face.  Here was a man who never wavered, never doubted a decision once it was made.  And yet, at this moment, in those unassailable black eyes, Kirk saw something he would never have expected.

Fear.

“Ben,” he asked.  “Is something wrong?”

The older man started, as if his thoughts had been far away. “No.  No.  At least, I don’t think so.”  His smile was chagrined.  “Adam and Hoss tell me I’m like an old mother grizzly.”

Kirk made a leap. The last he knew the youngest Cartwright had not returned and he had heard no wagon come into the yard.

“You’re worried about Joe.”

Ben crossed his arms and rested a thumb against his lips. “He should have been back long ago.”

“Would he have stayed in town?”  The ship’s archives were rife with the exploits of Ben’s third son.  While he didn’t exactly raise Hell, Joseph Francis Cartwright raised enough Cain to land him in the history books.

The older man shook his head.  “Not without permission, and not after what happened last night.”

Kirk nodded, accepting that.  “Would you like me to go look for him?”

Ben dark eyes reflected his gratitude.  “Not now.  It would be pointless.  We’ll look at first light.”  The older man stirred.  “Most likely something delayed them and Joe and Vance made camp for the night.  I’m sure they’ll ride in in the morning, right as rain.”  The older man placed a hand on his shoulder.  “Thank you for offering.  Now, you should get some rest, young man.”

“If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, you should too.”

The older man laughed as he lifted his hand.  Then he did a strange thing.  He saluted.  “Yes, sir!”

It appeared Ben Cartwright sensed they were kindred spirits as well.

 

Still later that night, after the Cartwright household had settled and all of the men in the bunkhouse were asleep, Jim Kirk left his bed again. A low almost inaudible chirping had alerted him to the fact that someone from the Enterprise was attempting to reach him.  Unsure of whether it was McCoy, who was quartered in the ranch house, or Scotty calling from the ship, he had risen and gone outside.  Once he was certain there was no one posted who would notice his movements, Kirk moved away from the house and opened his communicator.  Tuning it to the signal he had received, he waited for a voice on the other end.

“Jim, is that you?” he heard McCoy whisper.

“Yes.  Where are you?”

“In the house.  Do you think it’s safe for us to meet?  I had a few things I wanted to go over with you.”

Kirk didn’t like the sound of that.  It reminded him of the time on the Enterprise after they had left Sigma Iotia II when Bones reluctantly informed him that he might have left his phaser behind on the planet, possibly contaminating an entire culture.[1]  “Bones…what did you do?”

There was a moment of silence.  “Probably nothing.”

“‘Probably’ nothing,” he echoed.  “But possibly something?”  When the doctor said nothing more, Kirk agreed.  “All right, Bones.  Where do you want to meet?”

“You’re the farm boy.  Where do you suggest?”

Not the stable, he thought, or the barn.  The animals might react to the presence of strangers. “Somewhere away from the house.”  Kirk glanced up.  “How are you at navigating by the stars?”

“As good as any land lubber,” came the doctor’s gruff reply.

Kirk sighed.  “How about I set a homing signal on my communicator and you follow it?”

McCoy’s tone brightened.  “Now, that I can do!  See you shortly.”

The blond man initiated the signal and then closed his communicator and moved into the woods, glancing behind as he did to make certain there was no movement at front of the house. When he was satisfied, James T. Kirk turned face forward and set out to select a meeting place.

 

Hoss Cartwright never understood why he got so powerful hungry in the middle of the night.  He’d get himself a big scrumptious snack before headin’ up to bed – near big as Little Joe hisself – and then he’d lay himself down to sleep and, dang it! if his stomach didn’t decide to up and start talkin’ to him every time about four or five hours later.

The big man heard the tall clock strike three as he descended the stair.  He’d peeked in Little Joe’s room on his way down and found his brother was still missin’.  He sure hoped Joe and that odd fellow Theron Vance had bedded down for the night somewhere and not run into trouble on the way back from Virginia City.  Pa had come up at about two in the mornin’ and must have fallen asleep.  The older man would be up bright and early lookin’ for baby brother and if he didn’t find him, that’d be the end of sleepin’ for all of them.  If it came to that he might think of things differently.  He might hope Joe had run into a mess of trouble cause if he hadn’t, then it was gonna find him when he had to face down their pa.

Hoss’ stomach rumbled like to wake the dead.

“Hold on there, fella,” he said, a smile curlin’ the edge of his lip.  “Grub’s a comin’.”

The big man knew there was some of that apple pie Hop Sing had fixed for supper the night before left, and he’d spied a cold side of beef with his name on it when he’d eaten his before-bed snack.  Both were callin’ to him now.  He made his way to the kitchen and placed his hand on the larder door, glancin’ out the window that opened onto the porch as he did, and froze.

That there stranger – the one who said he was a doctor – was movin’ past the front of the house and headin’ into the woods.

Now what was that feller from Georgia up to?

Hoss glanced down.  He was in his night shirt, but he’d left his trousers on expectin’ that early mornin’ call from Pa to go lookin’ for Little Joe.  He always kept a spare pair of boots in the mud room.  The big man glanced up the stairs, but decided he’d lose the trail if he took time to get a fresh shirt.  So, instead he tucked the ends of his night shirt into his trousers and then headed for his boots.  In two shakes of a lamb’s tail he was headed out the door.  Well, maybe three.  He’d grabbed some of that there roasted beef before leavin’ the house.

After all, if his stomach decided to strike up a conversation, it might just give him away.

 

Jim Kirk was pacing, wearing a path into the sparse grass, when Leonard McCoy found him.  His friend did not look happy.  The physician supposed it was because Kirk had been mulling over all the things that could have gone wrong since he hadn’t told him what it was that had.  Not that it was anything bad.  He’d only made a couple of compromises.

Just a couple.

Stopping just without Kirk’s circle, McCoy cleared his throat.

“What took you so long?” Jim snapped as he halted and turned toward him.

McCoy shrugged.  “I had to work my way through the woods.  I’m a doctor not a frontiersman.”

Jim stared at him in that way that he had, the one where his whole body was a challenge.  “So?”

He swallowed.  “So?”

“So, what did you do?”

McCoy pulled at the black necktie holding up his collar.  “You make it sound like I committed a crime.”

Kirk was taken aback.  “Did you?”

“No, I just…well…I brought a few things with me that were not on the requisition list.”

“Not on the….”  His captain paled.  “Tell me you didn’t bring a phaser.”

McCoy pursed his lips and rocked on his heels.

Jim’s hands flew in the air.  “You did!  What were you –  Wait, did you use it?”

The physician shook his head.  Then he shrugged.  “Not really.”

“How can you use a phaser ‘not really’?  Bones, what did you do?  Tell me!”

“I used it to open a lock.”

Kirk blinked.  “A lock.”

“Yep.

“Couldn’t you just pick it?”

McCoy straightened his back.  “I’m a doctor not a –”

The blond man finished it for him.  “…a lock-pick, I know.”  Kirk ran a hand over his chin.  “And where did you pick this lock?”

“In the Cartwright’s barn.”

“The Cartwright’s barn.”  He drew a steadying breath.  “Did anyone see you?”

“No. Well,” his frown deepened, “at least I don’t think so.”

“You…don’t…think so.”

“I’d finished and put it away before I stepped out of the barn and found Adam Cartwright waiting for me.”  His grizzled eyebrows leapt with hope.  “He didn’t say anything.”

Kirk was drawing long, slow breaths.  “Things.  You said, ‘things’.  Plural.  What else did you bring with you?”

“Well,” he grinned, “you know Spock.  Odds are when we find him he’ll need patching up.  I brought some medical supplies, a hypo-spray, and a few other items.”

“And since we haven’t found Spock yet, have they all stayed in your pouch since your arrival?” Jim asked, his look indicating he knew they had not.

“All but one.”

“Which one?”

“The Cartwright boy surprised me, the one called Little Joe.  I had just materialized and there he was, staring at me and asking questions I couldn’t answer, so I….”

“You…?”

“Put him to sleep.”

Kirk’s anger had been building.  It exploded in a barely controlled, “What?”

“I was going to revive him, but then his brother showed up – and his father – and they took him into the house.”  He took a step toward him.  “Jim, you know how it is.  The longer someone is under the more likely they are to suffer consequences.”

“And Joe Cartwright was under how long?”

He gulped.  “A couple of hours.”

“Good God, Bones!  That young man isn’t a father yet.  Do you realize what you’ve done?  You may have altered the time stream.  We have no idea what contributions his descendants play.  One of them could have invented the warp drive!”

He frowned.  “We know who invented the warp-drive, Jim.”

“Yes, but do we know who his great-great-great-great grandfather was?”

Point taken.

His infuriated friend took in several deep breaths to calm himself.  “Can you tell if there will be any lasting effects from this hypo-spray that you brought with you and used even though you were ordered specifically not to?”

“I can if I can examine Joe again,” McCoy stated plainly.  “I tried to before, but the family is so close I couldn’t manage any time alone with him.  I thought since he was still out here somewhere, maybe you and I could find him and we could – ”

“You stop what you’re sayin’ right there, Mister, and both of you put your hands up!”

He and Jim pivoted toward whomever had spoken.  They exchanged glances when they realized the big man with the big rifle emerging from the trees was none other than Hoss Cartwright – the very irate brother of the man they had just been discussing.

Kirk moved forward a step, waggling a raised finger.  “I can explain….”

“You can do your explainin’ to my pa,” Hoss growled.  “Adam was right about you, after all,” he said, aiming his comment at him.  “You ain’t no doctor.”

“Oh, yes, I am.”

“Doctor’s don’t hurt no one.  I heard you talkin’ about hurtin’ Little Joe.”

McCoy exchanged a look with Jim.  His captain sighed and nodded his head ever so slightly.

“If I may,” he said in his best southern drawl, “I’ll just reach into this pouch and show you what I used on your brother.  It’s harmless as a shot of whiskey.”

“Then why was you talkin’ about ‘consequences’?”

“There are consequences when a man drinks too much, aren’t there?” he said as two fingers located the hypo-spray.  “Some can be long term as well.”  He waited.  “If I may?”

The big man glared at him over the rifle.  “You’re sayin’ whatever you got in that little pouch at your waist is what knocked Joe out?”

“May I show it to you?”

The rifle was lowered – ever so slightly.  “Go ahead.”

McCoy withdrew the instrument. He held it out, allowing the starlight to catch on its silver case and make it glint enticingly  “Now does that look so dangerous?”  Noting the man’s puzzled expression, the physician offered it to him.  “Here.  Take a look.”

Hoss moved forward like he was facing off a mountain lion.  Slowly, step by step, he grew closer.  At the last he reached out and snatched the instrument away.

“What is it?” the big man asked, eying the medical tool as if it was a snake ready to bite him.

McCoy smiled.  “It emits a dust that can put a man to sleep.  Something like laudanum.  Its empty now, of course, but you dispense it by pressing that button at the back.”

Ben Cartwright’s middle son shifted his finger to the right.  “This one here…?”

It took both of them to catch him when he fell.

Once they had deposited Hoss Cartwright on the ground, he turned to Jim and said, “See?  I told you it would come in handy.”

Kirk’s look could have fried duranium.  “Now what?” he demanded.

“We find Joe Cartwright and check him out?”

Jim nodded toward Hoss’ recumbent form.  “And what do we do with sleeping beauty here?”

“I’ll administer the antidote before we go and he’ll wake up in about fifteen minutes.  He’ll have a headache and his memory will be foggy, but that’s about it.”

“We should put him back in his bed.”

McCoy blinked. “Why?”

“That way when he wakes up he’ll think it was a dream and our cover won’t be blown.”

The physician scratched his head.  “And, considering his size, just how do you propose we do that?”

Kirk pursed his lips and then turned his hazel eyes on him.

“You don’t happen to have a repulsor-lift folded up and tucked in that bag of yours, do you, Bones?”

 

In the end they had to leave sleeping beauty lie on his bed of grass.  Kirk regretted it as it meant both he and McCoy would now be suspect in Ben Cartwright’s eyes, but there was nothing to be done about it.  Even if they could have lifted the big man and carried him back to the Ponderosa, getting Hoss into the house and up the stairs without rousing those who were sleeping would have been impossible. They’d decided the risk was not worth it and, after returning to the ranch to pilfer two horses, headed out to locate the other Cartwright son who had traveled to Virginia City and still not returned.  Kirk hoped they would find Joe as his father expected, camped somewhere along the trail to town, whole, and sleeping peacefully.

Still, knowing how his luck had been going so far, the blond man seriously doubted that was going to be the case.

 

Ben Cartwright woke again about four in the morning.  He went first to Joe’s room to check and see if his youngest had returned.  Finding it empty, he moved to the head of the stairs and descended.  The scent of coffee brewing filled the air.  Hop Sing was already up and at work, preparing a fine breakfast to sustain them all for the day to come.  As he entered the great room Ben considered what that day might hold.  He wondered if Joe was just being Joe – carefree and perhaps a bit careless – or if something had occurred that had delayed his son.

Something that entailed some sort of threat or risk to him and maybe to the Ponderosa as well.

Passing into the kitchen he greeted his surprised friend and cook.  While he intended to leave with a pot of coffee and a cup, Hop Sing shoved a fresh breakfast roll and some fruit into his hands as well. Sitting down at the empty table to eat, the older man was struck by a sudden premonition – a fear, really, that for some unspeakable reason it might soon be this way – just him, alone at the table, without his sons.  As he sipped his coffee, he tried to throw off the feeling of dread, but failed miserably.  Coming to a decision at last, Ben rose, intending to go upstairs and rouse both of his older boys and go out to look for Joe, but before he could the front door opened and Hoss stumbled in still wearing his night shirt and looking like something the cat would have refused to drag in.

“Hoss!  Son!”  Ben crossed swiftly to his side and took his arm.  “What were you doing outside?”

His middle boy looked at him, his face almost comically screwed up with confusion.  “I don’t rightly know, Pa.  One minute I was openin’ the larder and the next thing I remember I woke up in the woods.”

Ben led him to the settee and settled him there.  Going to the table he poured a cup of coffee and returned with it.  While Hoss sipped the strong brew, Ben waited.  When it seemed his son had calmed, he asked him again.

“What were you doing outside?”

Hoss puzzled it over a minute.  “I think it had somethin’ to do with Joe, Pa.  And maybe with that new man name of Kirk.”  He took another sip and shook his head.  “Then again, maybe I was just dreamin’.”

“You think you were sleepwalking?”  Joe had done it before, but not Hoss.  Maybe worry for his brother?

Hoss shook his head.  “I don’t rightly know, Pa.  But I cain’t shake the feelin’ that somethin’s wrong.”

“What’s wrong?” a strong voice asked from the stair.

Ben looked up to find Adam already dressed in his usual black and descending.  “It seems your middle brother was sleepwalking,” he replied.

Adam’s brow did a little dance.  “In his nightshirt and boots?”

The older man looked.  Hoss did have his boots on, and trousers.  Would a sleepwalker take time to stop and dress?

“I checked Joe’s room.  I assume he’s still not back,” his eldest said as he came to rest beside them.

Ben shook his head.  “No, and frankly, I’m worried.”

Adam frowned.  “For once I agree, Pa.  There’s been too many things happening around here for this to be coincidence.”

“You mean the strangers?”

He nodded.  “I checked McCoy’s room.  He’s gone too.  And I bet if we check the bunkhouse, Kirk’s with him.  There was something….”  His son met his troubled gaze.  “I think they know each other.”

Ben’s scowl deepened.  He seldom so misjudged a man’s character.  “You’re sure?”

“No.  But I’d lay a bet on it.”  Adam walked over to the sideboard.  Once there, he picked up his father’s holster and gun and held them out.  “What’s say we ride and find out what is going on?”

“Hoss,” the older man asked, “are you able to sit a horse?”

His son finished his coffee and stood up.  “Just let me get a proper shirt, Pa.  Then I’ll be ready.”

Ben looked from one son to the other, feeling pride – pride and a kind of fear.  He’d reared them to be bold and courageous, to look danger in the face and not fold or fall back.  Did that mean he had also reared them to take chances, to court risk and perhaps, invite death?

“Pa?” Adam asked, clearly concerned.  “Is something wrong?”

“No, son,” he said, accepting his gun belt and fastening it around his hips.

“Get your gear ready.  We’ll eat first and then ride to find your brother.”

 

 

FIVE

 

Joe was in complete darkness.  There was not one jot of light.

He was walking forward, his hand resting on a cold surface.  He could smell as much as feel that it was a rocky wall, so he figured he must be in a cave.  Pressing on in spite of a growing fear, he lifted leaden feet and continued to move forward.  Thirty, maybe forty minutes later his boots struck something hard and manmade.  Crouching, he explored the floor with his hand.  When his fingers touched a long cold metal rail, he realized that he was not in a cave.

He was in a mine.

At that point panic set in.

The lack of light told him he was deep in the earth.  It also gave him no direction to shoot for.  If he continued on, he might reach the surface, but just as easily he could be working his way down, deeper into the mine’s bowels where he would be lost and no one would find anything left of him but his bones.

Joe paused, panting hard.  Inaction was not a part of him.  It rankled like the stink of a corpse in his nose.  Leaning back against the dripping wall, he fought for the memory of how he had come to be here.  But there was nothing.  Nothing but the blackness, the stale air, and the sound of water dripping, forming stalactites and stalagmites as it had for thousands of years before his birth and would continue to do long after his death.

There was a peace in that.  One he could almost surrender to – if he had not heard someone calling his name.

Joe.

He knew the voice, though he couldn’t identify it.  I’m here.  Here!  Where are you?

I am beside you.

Joe looked.  Of course, he couldn’t see anything, so he reached out and found – empty air.

No, you’re not.

Yes.  I am.  You will not find me with the senses you are accustomed to.  Do not try.  Simply follow my voice.

I don’t know where its coming from, he protested. 

Reach out with your mind.  You will.

For once, Joe did as he was told, though he wasn’t exactly sure how to ‘reach out with his mind’.  He closed his eyes, even though the action was pointless, and concentrated.  Surprisingly as he did, far in the distance, a pale glow appeared.

Yes.  That is I.

You?  Who are you?

The answer is not pertinent to the moment.  Seek out my presence, Joseph Cartwright, as you have done before.  

Before?  When had he done it before?

Also not pertinent.  Focus on the light.  Reach it.  Reach me.

For some reason Joe was more frightened than he had ever been in his life – frightened of the dark, but, in a way, even more so of the light that beckoned to him.  He hated to admit it, but….

I’m afraid.

Understandable.  You have been confronted with a concept your primitive mind cannot conceive.  Therefore, the logical thing to do is to accept the superiority – in this case – of one who does.  Go to the light.

Isn’t that what you did when you die?

No.

He sensed more than heard a sigh.

Very well then.  I shall have to come to you.

Suddenly the light was on him.  He caught, at the edges of the cool silver glow, a hint of a world he would never – and should never know.  It was all metal, cold and hard.  There were no trees, no mountain streams, no cattle or sheep grazing, there was only a vacuum of sound and air.

He couldn’t breathe.

You are not there.  You are here with me.  Here….

“With me.”

Joe gasped as if coming up for air from too long beneath the water’s surface.  He coughed and wretched again, though his empty stomach refused to give up anything but bile.  The same strong hands held him. When he’d finished they released him and the man who owned them stood up and took a step back.

“It is regrettable that Doctor McCoy is not here.”

The brown-haired man blinked and tried to focus on the speaker.  Joe frowned as he noted the man’s long lanky form clothed all in black, his shaggy chin-length hair of the same color, and the slightly occidental turn to his eyes and skin. It all seemed familiar – but not.

“What…happened?” he asked.

“During the incident in which your wagon departed the road, you were thrown out and struck your head engendering a concussion.  I regret I did not note this before moving you.  My concern was for your more evident physical injuries and for the even greater need to remove you from your present circumstances in order to prevent your seizure.”

Joe’s highly active brows did a little dance.  “Are you a professor…or something?  You sound like a professor….”

The man’s expression remained flat.  “Such associations are also not pertinent to our current state of affairs.”

Joe bristled.  “Would you just…speak English!” he shouted and then instantly regretted it.  His voice sounded through his head like it was an empty hollow, causing pain each time it struck the side of his skull.  He put a hand to his head.  “Please….”

The man sighed.  “It is not wise to waste energy, Joseph Cartwright, when there are men tracking you who do not wish you well.”

He blinked.  “How do you know who I am?”  The pain in his chest was getting a little easier to take.  At least he’d put seven words together without drawing a breath.  “And, who are you?”

“Also unimportant, but knowing humans….”  He paused.  “I am called Spock.”

“Called?  It ain’t your name?”

One ink-slash eyebrow peaked.  “It is my name.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?” Joe challenged.

Spock’s mouth quirked at the end.  “I am beginning to regret reviving you.”

Joe shifted.  It hurt like Hell, but he had to do something.  “What do you mean, reviving me?”

The quirk turned down into a frown.  “Mister Cartwright, in the past forty-five-point-two seconds you have asked nine questions.  Is this behavior apt to continue?”

“Forty-five-point-two?”  He frowned.  “You got a stopwatch hidden somewhere?”

Spock sighed.  “Alter that to eleven in fifty-one.”

“Sorry, it’s just…  I wake up to find some stranger who doesn’t quite feel like a stranger bending over me and then, somehow, entering into my dreams….”  Joe scrunched up his nose.  “Well, a man’s almost duty bound to ask questions, don’t you think?”

Spock’s lean form was ramrod straight. “For the record then, I was walking along the road when I saw a wagon being driven with dangerous rapidity.  I watched until the wagon drew close and noted one young man driving it and four other men on horseback in pursuit following hard upon it.  It was immediately apparent that the young man attempted to escape those behind.  I meant to offer assistance, but instead was perceived as a threat by the young man who then turned the wagon and was ejected from its seat into the trees as it crashed.  I hastened down the hill to render assistance. While noting the man’s injuries, I became aware of the continued pursuit of the party of four and made a judgment to lift him and carry him away.  Upon reaching a place of relative safety, I found he was unconscious and administered the necessary treatment to waken him.”

Joe was glassy-eyed.  “The young man being me?”

He could see it in the other man’s eyes.  That made twelve.

“Yes,” he replied, this time stifling the sigh.

The brown-haired man thought a moment.  “How’d you get in my head?”

Spock’s look was stoic.  “It is impossible to ‘get’ in someone’s head.”

“You know what I mean.  I…heard you.  Talking to me while I was out.”

The man cocked his head.  “Perhaps your injury was more severe than first diagnosed.  If you were ‘out’, as you put it, you could not have heard my voice.  Is this not true?”

He supposed it was.

Shifting to ease the pain in his arm, Joe glanced around.  “Where are we?”

“On the Ponderosa.”

He snorted.  “I know that.  Where on the Ponderosa?”

“Approximately eleven-point-two-three miles from the ranch house.”

“Are you a math professor?”

“I am a scientist.”  Spock eyed him closely.  “Unfortunately, I am not a physician and it appears you are in need of one.”

Joe frowned.  “How do you know that?”

Spock bent.  He gripped his bloodied sleeve and ripped the tough cloth of his green jacket and the shirt beneath with the ease of a knife slicing through warm butter, exposing the broken bone that stuck out of his flesh.

“That will have to be set.”

This time Joe didn’t ask a question – he already knew the answer.

 

The Vulcan-human hybrid known simply as Spock to his companions in Starfleet, crossed the short space between himself and Benjamin Cartwright’s youngest son to check on the young man’s condition.  They had traveled a good portion of the day, reaching the top of a high hill, and so far Joseph was without fever, though he tossed and turned as if one already claimed him.  Regrettably, the Vulcan was sure it was to come as the break was an open fracture on an oblique line and parts of the bone was protruding through the skin.  Without his tricorder he did not dare use any of the local plants to render the young man less susceptible to pain as he administered the necessary remedy of realigning the bone, the end result of which was that his patient passed out.

His own experience with Doctor McCoy’s dubious administrations had shown that this was often the case.

He had been impressed by the young man’s fortitude.  When informed that no sedative was available, he had nodded his head and told him, ‘do what you have to do.’  Ever aware of his Vulcan strength and the vulnerability of human bones in comparison, after cleaning the wound as best as possible under such primitive conditions and securing it with a clean cloth, Spock had taken his arm in both hands and snapped the bone back into place in one quick movement.

Pain at last silenced Joseph Cartwright’s endless questions.

Before turning to the small fire he had kindled and placed the young man close by, Spock made a circuit of their camp.  He had carried Joseph high up into the hills hoping to elude detection.  A fire was imprudent, but necessary.  He knew this young man’s history.  He did not die in eighteen-sixty four before and so, he could not now.

After all, that was what he was here for, was it not?  To preserve Joseph Cartwright’s timeline?

A slow smile, so closely guarded it was hardly unnoticeable, quirked the ends of the Vulcan’s lips.

It was contagious.  Two questions in barely less than four seconds.

Satisfied at last that the men who had been pursuing Benjamin Cartwright’s youngest son were nowhere in the vicinity, Spock returned to the fire and sat, hugging it close for warmth.  It was autumn in Nevada and while the daytime temperatures were tolerable, those at night – dropping to a range between forty-five and fifty-five degrees – were not only uncomfortable for him but, at times, debilitating.  Wishing was illogical but acceptable in a case where no real action was possible, and so he wished again that he had packed a kit including medical supplies before leaving the Enterprise.  Due to the clandestine nature of his departure and his mission he had opted to leave all  technology behind.  His concern had been that any of these devices – a phaser and certainly a communicator – could be manipulated by those remaining aboard the Enterprise and used to home in on his position. Spock drew a breath and held it for a moment before releasing it along with a bit of human tension.  Unfortunately, he had not counted on human intuition proving more effectual.  He’d sensed it when he went into the light healing trance in order to pull Joseph Cartwright back to consciousness.

Jim, as usual, had blazed his own trail.  His captain was here.

No doubt seeking him.

Sighing was an irritating trait he had inherited from his human mother.  Amanda had always smiled whenever he had done it as a boy, though, in truth, most of the time the sigh had come as a result of her exercising her seemingly mystic ability to ‘get under his skin’ as she put it.  He suppressed another one as he thought of his captain’s dogged pursuit.  Jim had no idea that, by his very presence, he was putting everything he held sacred in jeopardy.  The balance of time was precarious at best and even more so now that it rested on the shoulders of one very young and wounded young man named Joseph Francis Cartwright.

This was not their first meeting, though Joseph could not know it.  Their paths had first crossed in eighteen-seventy six.  Spock struggled to keep a scowl from turning his lips down.  It had not gone well.  Due to his actions – or inactions – a tragedy had occurred that had not occurred before, altering the time stream and allowing Professor Campbell Beckett to discover, in twenty-two sixty-nine, an alien artifact attached to the wrist of a skeleton buried deep in the ruins of the Bodie mine, which had collapsed three hundred and ninety-three-point-five years in the past.

Spock’s eyes went to the young man at his side who slept the sleep of intense pain.  A skeleton clothed in the tatters of a brown shirt, gray pants, and a brilliant green leather coat.

The Vulcan closed his eyes.  He could still see it.  This young man, so vital and alive, died in the collapse of the Bodie mine in eighteen-seventy-six instead of living to the date the history cards indicated.  What he had come back to prevent, he had instead caused, the result of which had been galactic destruction.

He was here, now, to gain the knowledge – and the ally – he needed to set it right.

When Professor Campbell first approached him, he had been intrigued by the offer of extending his scientific knowledge.  He’d followed the man to the Starfleet lab where Campbell housed his most recent find.  At first glance it appeared to be nothing more than a circlet formed of an unusual metal resembling Earth’s hematite.  The professor had smiled when he handed it to him, expecting the admiration of a colleague.  He had done his best to leave Campbell with the perception that he had succeeded.  It was a prevarication.  The instant his fingers contacted the alien metal he had become aware of its intelligence and its purpose.

As well as his own.

During the meeting later with Jim, one portion of his mind had remained on the artifact, turning over the information it provided.  He had quickly come to the conclusion that radical action was needed.  Fortunately Doctor McCoy’s entrance with his ever-present bottle of Bourbon whiskey offered a legitimate reason to depart.  Excusing himself, he’d told his friends he was retiring to his quarters.

Which he did, for one-point-two-five hours during which time he did not sleep but searched the ship’s records, following the descendant trail of one particular man in Earth’s nineteenth century.  The alien presence within the bracelet had explained that one of the Originators – those who, in the far past, had used but did not create the time portal – had grown weary of the non-interference policy of his race.  His desire was not for order, but for chaos to reign in the galaxy.  He’d used the Guardian of Forever to seek a fixed point upon which this future turned and had located it on nineteenth century Earth on a piece of land in Nevada known as the Ponderosa.  In order to carry out his plans, the rogue Originator had stolen a significant number of the bracelets –  the time manipulators – and placed them in the hands of unscrupulous beings whose ‘price’ was to do his bidding.  One such group was here, now, and he suspected they were the ones who had driven Joseph Cartwright off the road in an attempt to end his life.

Of course, it would not succeed.  Not unless time was already out of joint.  The information contained in the visions the Guardian shared with him through the telepathic touch of the bracelet had showed two deaths for the youngest son of Benjamin Cartwright, neither of which occurred in eighteen-sixty four – one of old age in the nineteen-hundreds, and the other crushed and buried under a ton of rock deep within the bowels of a mine in Bodie, California.  This occurred in eighteen-seventy-six.  That had been his first stop.  He had met Joseph Cartwright then as an older man, though still young at thirty-four.  In what proved to be a very unwise move, he had enlisted Joseph’s aid to try to stop the men procured by the rogue Originator.  It had been a mistake.

And had led to his death.

Spock pulled back the sleeve of his black duster and gazed at the time manipulator.  Placing his fingers on its highly polished surface, he closed his eyes and listened.  Again, his old friend – for so he thought of the Guardian – warned him that he must not hold this course too long.  Sadness rippled through his mind.  He answered, lying, and assuring it that he would take no unnecessary chances.

The bracelets were attuned to the Originators’ genetic code.  Anyone else employing the technology was summarily warned that they should not.  On the inside of the device there was a series of nearly invisible needlelike projections. These tiny pinpoints were impregnated with venom from one of Gateway’s long extinct creatures that acted as a poison.  Five warnings would be given. So far he had used it two times, first to travel to eighteen-seventy six and then to come to this time.  He would have to use it at least once more time to return to the twenty-third century where he belonged.  By the fourth use, the voice of the Guardian warned, the wearer’ mind would be affected.

Before the sixth, he would be dead.

The latter threat did not concern him.  The first, however, did.  Death held no fear for him.  He would either continue in another form or cease to exist.  But the thought of losing his mind….

Behind him he heard a noise.  Joseph Cartwright was stirring.

“Pa,” the youth muttered as his eyes rolled behind the lids.  “Pa….”

Unaware of the content of the human’s dreams, Spock knelt beside him and placed a hand on his right shoulder.  He was discomforted to find it felt near normal – for him – which meant the young man had developed a fever.  Apparently there had been contamination in the wound, which his meager skills as a surgeon had not been able to eradicate.

All of which did not bode well for Earth’s future.

“Joseph,” he said, his voice pitched low.  “It is time you wake.  We must get you to  doctor.  I am no longer able to see to your needs.  It will require someone with greater skill.”  He paused.  “Joseph.”

The young man’s expressive brows knit together in the middle.   He drew in a breath and opened his eyes.  When they had focused, he pronounced, “You’re not Pa.”

Ah, a statement at last.

“No, I am not.  I am Spock.”

Joe’s eyes opened and closed in rapid succession several times.  At last, he seemed to remember. “Spock.  Right.  The man who saved me.”

The Vulcan rose to his feet.  He would have welcomed an inquiry at the end of that statement.

“We shall see.”

 

“Here, Pa.  Look.”  It was morning and Adam Cartwright was crouched on the ground beside a large tree.  Relief flooded through him.  This was the first sign they had found since…well, since the busted and twisted wreck of the supply wagon had been located halfway down the side of a hill wrapped around a tree.

Even as he finished, his father appeared at his side. “What is it?  Something of Joe’s?”

He shook his head.  “Footprints.  Two pair.  There, look,” he pointed at the smaller of them, “that’s Joe.  I’d know the print anywhere.  He nicked his heel a month or so back.  There, you can see it.”

The older man nodded, the tension in his form easing but not disappearing.  His near-black eyes went to the other set of prints.  Before asking, he glanced up the hill to where some of the hands were conducting searches.  “Do they belong to Theron Vance?”

Adam shook his head.  “No.  Vance is about Joe’s size and weight.  This man is a little heavier and definitely taller.  I’d say around six feet.”

His father crossed his arms and pulled at his chin with one hand.  He looked across to where another man was kneeling, picking in the grass.

“What do you think of Vance’s story?”

Theron Vance had arrived that morning on horseback just as they were saddling up to ride.  He said Joe had been pulled into a poker game and, as he had no interest in gambling, he had left him behind and headed back to the Ponderosa on foot, arriving around dawn and going straight to the bunkhouse.  When he saw Cochise wasn’t in the barn, he’d decided Joe had stayed in town for the night.  There was a new saloon girl at the Bucket who was wowing all the men.  She’d been eyeing Joe all night, he said.

It sounded like his brother.  Still….

At first his father had accepted Vance’s story, asking only one or two questions to clarify it.  But then, as the sun rose and headed toward noon, the older man had grown agitated – angry at first and then, as though the anger had gone cold with the passage of time, afraid. At one o’clock he ordered them to saddle up and ride out with him to look for their brother’s trail.  They’d found it soon enough, here on the road to Virginia City at the edge of a hill, mingled with the wooden remnants of the supply wagon and the corpse of one of the horses that had pulled it.

“Pa!  Adam!  Come here!”

It was Hoss who called this time.  He was farther down the hill.  Middle brother was still a bit shaky from whatever had happened to him the night before, but the blood tie that bound him to Joe was keeping him on his feet.

He and his father exchanged glances and then headed down the hill.  At the bottom they found Hoss – and Joe’s hat.

Its brim was tinged with red.

“What do you think, Pa?” the big man asked, his blue eyes wide with concern.  “Joe…ain’t here.  You think he up and walked away?”

Adam took the hat.  It was a tangible tie to his lost brother and as such, brought a lump to his throat.  “We found some tracks about halfway down.  There was someone else here.  It looks like they carried Joe away.”

Hoss nodded.  He pointed to a single set of tracks near the place where he had found Joe’s hat.  “I thought that was one mighty heavy man.”

Adam was kneeling again, feeling the grass.  When he lifted his hand, the fingers came away coated with blood.  “Someone is injured,” he stated as calmly as he could.

“It has to be your brother,” their father said, his voice breaking on the last word.  “He couldn’t carry a man that size.”

“I don’t know, Pa,” Adam said, standing.  “Joe carried me when Cochise’s man shot me.  Remember?”

His father closed his eyes briefly.  “How could I forget?  Still, the boots look like the longer ones we noted up the hill.  That wouldn’t be Joe.”

He had to admit the older man was right.

“It’s a good sign, ain’t it?” Hoss asked, hope lighting his voice and his eyes.  “Looks like someone’s helping him.”

Adam nodded absently, his eyes locked on his father’s.  They had found other tracks on the road above – horses’ tracks – at least four of them.  Someone had been chasing Joe.  He’d been fleeing for his life.  That’s why the wagon had crashed, throwing their little brother into the trees.  It was possible whoever had been following Joe had him, though the tracks they’d found lower on the hill had been made by only one man.

“Until we know otherwise,” his father answered at last, “that’s the scenario we will go with.  Call in the other men and send them back to the ranch,” he added, thoughtful.  “I think its best we complete the tracking on our own.”

Adam scowled as he looked up and noticed Vance had risen and was watching them.  “What about Theron?”

His father reconsidered.  “You’re right.  It’s best we keep him in sight.  Tell Vance he’ll be joining us and Adam….”

“Yes,” he said, turning back from his proscribed path.

“Keep what we’ve found close.”  He turned.  “You too, Hoss.  I’d like to hear Theron’s opinions on the subject as we proceed.”

Adam exchanged glances with Hoss and then nodded.

That was something he wanted to hear too.

 

 

 

SIX

 

Leonard McCoy was anchored on the top of a flat rock with one foot on his knee.  He’d removed his shoe and was massaging his blistered foot.

“Damned dude boots!” he groused.

Jim Kirk turned to look at him, a slow smile spreading across his face.  “That’s what you get for picking a dude’s duds rather than a ranch hand’s.”  Jim indicated his feet.  “Plain old leather work boots with low heels.  Great for rocky terrain.”

“Well, first of all, I wasn’t planning on scaling any damn rocky terrain and, secondly, any respectable physician of the time wouldn’t be caught dead in anything less than a pair of Congress Gators!”

Kirk hid his smile.  It wouldn’t do to let McCoy know he was amused.

They’d traveled part of the night and, after making camp and catching a few hours of sleep, into the new day without finding a sign of Joe Cartwright or his companion. They had been following the road, but had left it when they heard a large group of horses approaching.  From the shelter of the underbrush they had watched Ben Cartwright, his elder sons, and about a half-dozen ranch hands thunder by.  Cautiously, they’d followed them and watched as they discovered the ruined wagon and started the desperate search for its missing occupant, first searching the flat ground and then moving into the hilly country where they were now camped.  That’s what he’d been doing when McCoy started complaining – watching the Cartwrights undo their bed rolls and settle in for the night.

Bones put his shoe back on and limped to his side.

”I’d sure like to know what they found.  That boy has to be hurt.  He’s gonna need a doctor.”

Jim nodded.  “But he has to survive, right?  Joe dies in….  Well, after nineteen hundred, doesn’t he?”

“Sometime in the teens, I think,” his friend said, his tone not entirely convincing.

“What’s wrong?”

“Besides my little faux pas?”  The doctor shrugged, chagrinned.  “Spock.  He’s here.  Maybe….  Well, maybe something’s changed.”

The nightmare Bone’s interference had caused in Earth’s nineteen-forties haunted them both, but it was worse for McCoy.  Instead of saving her, the physician had been forced to play a part in Edith Keeler’s death.  He didn’t know if he could be forced to do such a thing again.

Kirk laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder.  “It wasn’t your fault, Bones, you know that,” he said softly.

The doctor pursed his lips.  “Maybe not.  At least this time we’re working to keep a young man alive, not to….’

Jim had raised a finger to his lips.  With his other hand, he indicated McCoy should get down.  The sound came from behind them.

Someone was scaling the hill.

Crooking the same finger, he drew his friend into the trees – just in time.  Almost before they had time to settle two men appeared.  Both were long and lean.  One had pale blond hair; the other, gray.  It was the younger man who exuded threat.  He was wound tight like a spring ready to explode.

“This is pointless!” he spat, anxiously fingering the weapon on his hip.  “Let me take the unknown element out of the equation.  Then we can move in and claim the target.”

The older man disagreed.  “We need to know more about him first.  There’s something….”

“A man bleeds.  He dies.  That’s all there is to it,” the blond remarked, his tone chilling as a winter’s night without a fire.  “What do we care who he is?  Time is running out and we need to eliminate the target if we are to acquire the information we must have to complete our task.”

“You’re too much like Medora,” the other man chided.  “How did you come to be a physician, Abdon, when you enjoy killing so much?”

Abdon’s lip turned up with a sneer.  “You know, Orlo, that you can’t dissect a thing and find out how it ticks if it’s alive.”

Jim glanced at Bones.  His friend had gone pale.

Orlo, who appeared to be the superior in the situation, turned to confront the other man.  “You will do nothing to the target.  His death is proscribed in a certain place, at a certain time –”

“What difference does it make?” the other man challenged.  “Dead is dead.  All that beauty buried under a tone of rock.  What a waste.  Let me take him apart first and then we can plant the corpse there.”

The gray-haired man paled nearly as much as Bones.  “He is barely more than a boy.”

Abdon shrugged.  “A specimen is a specimen.”

Kirk was frowning.  There was something about the two men, about the way they held themselves and especially about their speech, that didn’t ring true for the nineteenth century.  He glanced at Bones again.  He had sensed it as well.

Aliens? the physician mouthed.

Kirk nodded.  Was this why Spock had used the professor’s artifact to come back into Nevada’s past?  Had he found out somehow that an alien race had come to the Earth and was interfering with its timeline?

Had Spock come back to stop them?

Gesturing to McCoy, Kirk indicated they should back away.  While he knew their welcome would be less than cordial, he felt the need to warn Ben Cartwright that his missing son was in greater peril than he could imagine.  It didn’t take much of a leap to recognize who the target was they spoke of.  Obviously, these two had been among the four who had chased Joe Cartwright off the road.

A finger tapping on his shoulder brought him out of his reverie.  He glanced at McCoy, slightly aggravated at his timing.  Bones had a funny look on his face, like he’d taken a shot of whiskey gone bad.  As their eyes met, the doctor pointed at something he couldn’t see over his shoulder.  Kirk pivoted to find a petite ebon-haired woman wearing a skin tight knee-length satin gown cut from a shimmering copper cloth holding a Derringer.

It’s snub barrel was aimed directly at the doctor.

 

It was dusk and it seemed they were no closer to finding Joe than they had been at sunrise.  Glancing at Theron and Hoss who were both asleep, Adam stretched and rose from his position by the fire they’d kindled.  He picked up the torch he’d fashioned earlier and lit it.  As he did, his father turned toward him from the position he had taken on the ground.

“Adam, you have to be exhausted.  Get some sleep.  We’ll set out in an hour or two, once Hoss is rested.”

He looked at his brother again.  The big man had been unstoppable until about an hour back when he’d stumbled and nearly toppled over.  Hoss, who had awakened in the forest, unconscious without any known cause, seemed to be finding it almost as hard to regain his strength as Joe had.

Joe.

“I can’t sleep. Pa.  I’m going to make one more circuit of the area to look for prints.”

“By torchlight?”

Adam shrugged.  “It’s all I’ve got.”

His father started to toss off the light blanket that covered his legs.  “I’ll come with –”

“Pa, no.  Get some rest.  One crazy Cartwright is enough.  Tomorrow when I’m stumbling tired you can tell me, ‘I told you so’.”  His lips turned up at the ends in a half-smile.  “I’ll call out if I find anything.”

“Where are you going to look?”

His eyebrows mirrored his lips.  “Wherever my feet take me.”

As Adam moved into the dark, he considered their progress so far.  They’d followed the trail of the heavy man for most of the day until it reached ground so sparse and dry there was no track.  From there it had been educated guesses which had brought them to the foot of another even larger hill than the one the wagon had tumbled down.  His father had called it a night at that point, as scaling it in the dark was not a particularly attractive – or effective – option.  Still, something called to him from that hilltop.  He didn’t know if it was his brother, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that time was of the essence, and if he waited until morning whoever was up there would be gone – and most likely beyond his reach.

Crouching, Adam examined the ground.  The flickering light of the torch cast shadows on the dry grass, revealing indentations the daylight had hidden.  He pushed his fingers into one of them, noting it was deep enough to confirm one man was carrying another.  The black-haired man glanced up then.  The tracks led straight up the hill.  After considering it a moment, Adam turned the torch upside-down and drove its burning head into a patch of barren ground, extinguishing it.  There was nothing more the light could reveal and its presence would surely give him away.  Whoever had Joe had taken great pains to move as far away from the site of the crash as possible. He had to hope that meant they were on their side.  When he reached the top, Adam halted.  The underbrush was scarce and scattered far and wide, offering a limited chance for concealment.  He noted a brace of trees and just as quickly realized that the plot of land beneath them was occupied.  There was a tall man dressed in black with dark hair standing, staring at the stars.  Another man lay on the ground in a crumpled heap.

Was it – could it be Joe?

Palming his pistol, Adam shifted forward, intent on making a sprint for the shadows.  As he did two things happened – the man who had been staring at the stars turned and looked at a narrow channel of pine trees that ran like a gauntlet down the southern side of the hill, and a party of five stepped out of those trees.  It was obvious two of the five were prisoners as their hands were tied behind their backs and they moved only when prodded by a hand or the barrel of a gun between their shoulder blades.  Of the other three, one was a short well-built woman.  The other two, as tall as she was not, seemed almost cadaver-like they were so thin.

Adam shifted forward to hear what they had to say.

 

Spock was looking at him, one ink slash eyebrow cocked.  “Captain.  I would prefer it if circumstances allowed me to express approval of your appearance.  They do not.  And while I welcome your concern, history would have been served better if you had remained on the Enterprise. ”

“Nice to see you too, Spock,” McCoy snarled from beside him.

“Bones.”  Kirk warned as gaze went to the petite woman who continued to point the derringer at Bones as if she sensed he could be better controlled by threatening the life of his friend than his own.  The blond man scowled.  For some reason she commanded his attention even more than the two men who accompanied her.  While they were a threat, she was….what?  There was something about her.  Whatever it was made him giddy and almost unable to think straight.

“Jim,” he heard McCoy say softly.  “The boy.  I need to get to him.”

Ever the physician.

Kirk lowered his eyes to the crumpled form on the ground behind Spock.  He recognized the boots and gray pants.  It was Ben Cartwright’s youngest boy and he was obviously injured.  No surprise considering the fall he had taken.

Turning to the gray-haired man who seemed to be in charge, at least officially, and ignoring the woman as best he could, Kirk made a leap.  “It will do you no good if the target dies.”

Orlo frowned.  Good.  He’d struck a nerve.

“What do you know of the target?” he asked.

“I know that’s him, laying there on the ground.  And I know he’s hurt.”  He indicated Bones with a nod.  “Let my friend see to him.  He’s a physician.”

That pronouncement elicited a response from the stick-thin blond man.  He walked over to where Bones stood and stared down at him.  “You are a healer?”

“I am.”

“Would you find it efficacious to save a man only to have his neck stretched?”

He watched McCoy bristle.  “He’s just a boy, damn you!”

“Man or boy, its means nothing.  He is to be disposed of.”  Abdon’s thin lips lifted in a sneer.  “As are you and your companion.”

“Who are you?” Kirk demanded.

“I believe you will find they are Orion pirates, Captain.”

Kirk glanced at the woman.  That explained it.  She must be an Orion Slave Girl like Marta, altered like the Andorian had been who had come on the ship to commit murder during their journey to the Babel conference.

No wonder his head was muddled!

He addressed Orlo again.  “What is it you want?  Why are you here in the past, on Ponderosa land?”

“For the silver,” the woman replied.

Orions, mining minerals, imagine that.

Kirk remembered that Ben Cartwright had found silver on his land and had several mines.  They were small compared to Henry Comstock’s load and would be easier by far to pillage than the lodes that had made it into newspapers.  While silver had always been precious, so much had been mined by the twenty-third century that its value had multiplied a thousand-fold.  If these people were Orions – and he doubted Spock was mistaken – then it all made sense.  They had somehow managed to obtain the time manipulators in order to travel throughout Earth’s – and maybe other planets’ – history to mine precious metals and sell them on the intergalactic black market.

It was a scheme as audacious as it was dangerous.

He nodded toward Joe where he lay unmoving on the ground.  “What does Joe Cartwright have to do with this?  Why him?  Why not his father, or one of his brothers?”

“Yes,” a voice asked out of the darkness, “why not one of his brothers?”  Adam Cartwright followed hard upon his words.  He held a gun at the ready.  It was trained on the woman, creating a stand-off.  “I wouldn’t if I were you,” he growled as both Abdon and Orlo went for their own weapons.

“You can’t shoot all three of us,” Abdon stated, his voice quiet and sure as a snake slithering through grass.

“Maybe not,” Adam replied, his aim shifting to the vile blond-haired man.  “But I can assure you that you’ll be first.”

 

Joe thought he heard his brother’s voice, but he couldn’t have – could he?

Adam wasn’t here.  There was only the curious stranger with the dark almond-shaped eyes that looked right through him, the one who had set his arm and tended him through the night as he raved.  Fire licked at his senses.  Sometimes he could see it rising in red-orange licks of flame around him, threatening to burn not only him but the whole world.  At other times it seemed the fire was within, threatening to consume him from the inside-out.  In lucid moments Joe recognized that he was fevered and that infection must have set in as a result of the break in his arm.  In his not-so-lucid moments he thought he was surrounded by a pack of wolves with fire for fur.  They snapped at him with their slavering jaws and, where their spittle dripped, his skin grew charred, turned black, and fell off.

It was then he’d screamed.

Keeping his eyes closed, Joe lay still now and listened to the conversations whirling around him.

Someone laughed; a thin nasal laugh that chilled the blood.  “Primitive, do you think I fear you or that inefficient weapon?”

It was Adam who replied.  It had to be Adam.  His tone was cool, unruffled.  “Inefficient or not, it will still put a hole through your scarecrow-thin chest.”

“Now what would you want to go and put a hole in Abdon for?” someone asked.  It was a woman.  Joe could tell.  Though he couldn’t see her, he could taste her in her words.  “Seems to me a handsome man like you has better things to do with the barrel of his gun.”

“What are you…talking….”  Adam went silent.

Joe struggled for all he was worth just to open his eyelids a crack.  What he saw when he managed it puzzled him.  The woman – that new saloon girl at the Bucket – was pressed up against his brother.  She had her hand on his hand, on the one that held the gun.  Unbelievably, as he watched, Adam surrendered the weapon.

Joe wanted to shout, to scream, ‘Adam, no!’, but try as he might nothing came out of his mouth but a low moan.

“For God’s sake, let me tend that boy!” someone with a southern accent demanded, each word bitten off like he was tearing open a cartridge.  “I don’t care what you are going to do later!  He’s going to die here and now if you don’t!”

“Joe,” he heard his brother say, but Adam’s tone was distant.  “I…Joe….”  There was a pause and then, “…Medora.”

“Let him go,” someone said.

Were they going to release Adam?  Adam…  Adam would live to go back to Pa.  Pa would be so happy….

A moment later Joe felt tender fingers touch his face and arm.  He wanted it to be Pa, but he knew it couldn’t be Pa, not out here amongst the burning wolves.

One of the hands landed on his forehead.  “For God’s sake!  He’s burning up.”

“You are a physician.  Treat him.”

“With what?  Powdered plants and water?  I need my kit.”

Joe felt the man rise to his feet.  After a second he said, “Thank you.”

A grunt was his only reply.

“Spock, help me hold him down,” the kind man commanded a second later.

Ten pounding heartbeats later another pair of hands joined the first.  In the distance Joe could hear other men talking, and the woman, the woman kept speaking Adam’s name.  But those voices were like a dream.  The two near him were real and clear as eyes opened on a new day.  They spoke in hushed whispers.

“Doctor, do you have your communicator?”

“It’s in the kit.”  There was a pause.  Then, louder, the doctor said.  “I’ll need to reopen that wound and clean it out.”

The second man – he thought it was Spock – did as he was told, pressing down on him, holding him firmly to the ground.  Joe wanted to scream, did scream.

No one could hear him.

“Time is of the essence, Doctor,” Spock breathed through gritted teeth.

Joe heard shuffling.  Something was dropped and then picked up again.  “Damn!” the doctor cursed.  “I have it now.”

Again Joe fought to open his eyes.  He needed to see Adam, to find out what that woman was doing with him.  He needed to look into the eyes of the two men bending over him to make sure they were what they said they were and that they didn’t pose any harm to his Pa or his brothers.

“He’s…fighting like…a…la matya,” Spock said as the pressure on his arm and leg increased.  “Now…would be…a good…time…Doctor….”

There was a pause.  “Jim’s gonna kill me for this.”

Then Joe saw it again, the light he’d seen in the barn – a silver, shimmering glow like he’d always imagined would surround an angel.  This time it was accompanied by a high-pitched whine that worked its way into his head until he was sure it was going to explode.

Then, suddenly the ground beneath him changed.  It felt hard as metal.  Joe coughed and wretched even as he heard Adam ask, “What?” and then go silent again.

A moment later Doctor McCoy’s kind face appeared above him.  “Sorry, son,” he said.

Then there was nothing.

 

Jim Kirk dropped heavily into the briefing room chair and lowered his head into his hands.  God, he was weary!  When he’d opted to stop on Earth to give his crew some much-needed R&R, he had never expected to end up where he was now in eighteen-sixty-four, without permission, with an illicit artifact in storage, four Orion pirates in his brig – including one who had to be put in quarantine to stop the effects of the pheromones she gave off as easily as breathing – and two nineteenth century brothers in his sickbay.  One of them most likely dying.  Regrettably, he had to agree with Bones that there had been no choice but to bring them to the ship.  Joe Cartwright had been out of his mind when they reached the Enterprise, so he would pose no threat to the time stream – that was if he survived.  It was questionable.  They’d try to sedate the older brother the second he’d materialized on the transporter platform, but Kirk had seen the elder Cartwright’s eyes widen and his mouth gape and he knew – he knew Adam Cartwright had seen something.

Something that could alter Adam’s own timeline and maybe his world’s.

The brothers were located in two cordoned off rooms joined by a corridor close by the sickbay.  They’d used the computer to replicate their own bedrooms and the hall outside of them at the Ponderosa.  Unfortunately, they couldn’t replicate their father or missing brother.  Joe kept calling for both, especially his ‘Pa’.  Though he was not a father it pained Jim to think that the young man might die here in space, and his father – a man he respected deeply – might never learn the truth of his fate.

Kirk shifted and looked up as the doors to the briefing room opened.  He straightened up when Spock walked in and presented himself formerly.

“Lieutenant Commander Spock reporting for disciplinary action, sir!” the Vulcan said in his most formal tone.

Kirk wearily waved him toward a chair.  “Sit down, Spock.  I don’t want to court martial you.  I just want to understand.”

One black eyebrow peaked toward the Vulcan’s once again perfect bangs.  He noted his First Officer’s hair was still long, covering his ears, as if whatever he felt he had to do was still left undone.

“What is it you wish to understand, Captain?”

He leaned back in his chair.  “Why?”

“Why?”

“Why did you feel you had to steal an artifact and go into the past without consulting me?”

Spock’s lips were tight.  “I cannot tell you that, Captain.”

Kirk blinked.  “Why not?”

“I cannot tell you that either, Captain.”  His first officer paused and added, as if it explained everything.  “It would not be in the best interests of all concerned.”

Sometimes his Vulcan friend’s reticence provided an intriguing enigma.  At other times, like this, it was just plain exasperating.  “But it’s over, Spock.  The Orions are in custody.  We have the time manipulators including the one you took from Campbell under lock and key, so to speak.”  The bracelets were actually being guarded by not only a squad of security officers, but by both sonic and laser beams so no one could steal them and wreck further havoc.  Scotty had tracked down the anomaly that had separated him and McCoy when they had beamed down.  It had been caused by the manipulator’s emanations. “Once the youngest Cartwright heals we will return him and his brother to their place in the time stream.”  Kirk studied his friend.  There was a tightness to Spock’s dark eyes and a slight tension at the edges of his lips.  “What aren’t you telling me?”

His first officer’s lean form lost its rigidity.  Spock drew a breath and let it out slowly, as if somehow that would make what he had to say easier.

“Captain, you have to let me go back.  You must give me one of the bracelets.”

“What?”  He sat straight up.  “Absolutely, not.  Not only is it against regulations and the express orders of High Command, but – ”

“Captain…”  He cleared his throat.  “Jim.  I need you to trust me.”

Kirk knew what it cost his friend to call him by his familiar name while on duty.  He opened his hands wide, almost begging.  “Spock, what is this all about?”

The Vulcan paused, as if considering his next words carefully.  “You know of the Guardian of Forever and of the consequences of employing its gifts?”

“How could I forget?” he replied as a vision of Edith swam before his eyes.

“These bracelets.  They are not simple manipulators of time, they are a part of the Guardian itself.  When I made contact with the one Professor Beckett discovered, I was put into instant telepathic contact with the Guardian.  It showed me…future events.  Ones I am sworn not to reveal.”

Kirk frowned.  “Go on.”

“It is necessary for one of the time manipulators to be buried in the cave-in of a mine in Bodie, California  in eighteen-seventy-six that will expose a valuable body of gold.  It is also necessary that I be there – along with Joseph Cartwright.”

His head was hurting.  “What?”

Spock actually looked apologetic.  “I am afraid I can say no more, Captain, without betraying the Guardian’s trust.”

He considered it.  Then he shook his head.  “No.  I can’t risk it.  I’m giving you an order, Spock.”  He met his friend’s dark stare.  “Stay put.”

Spock blinked as if surprised by what he had heard.  “Are you then willing to risk the destruction of all you know?”

Kirk stared at him hard.  When he spoke, his tone was menacing. “Why is this so damned important?”

“I cannot – ”

“You ‘cannot say’.”  He huffed in frustration.  “I could order you to sickbay and have McCoy administer an injection of Sodium Pentathol.”

“Truth serums are known to be remarkably ineffective with Vulcans.”

“But you’re half-human.”

His lips pursed.  “It has proven to be a detriment before, but not in such cases.”

“Spock, I –”  Kirk broke off what he had been about to say as his communicator went off.  Flipping it open, he snapped, “Kirk here.”

“It’s Bones, Jim.  The Cartwright boy’s reached a crisis.  His brother’s in his room, but he’s suspicious.  He can’t figure out where their father is.”

“On my way.”  He looked at his friend.  “Are you coming?”

Spock rose.  He gave him an odd look.  “Let me go, Jim.  In the end, I may be the only one who can save him.”

 

 

SEVEN

 

Adam sat by Joe’s bed, holding his brother’s hand.  Outside the night was falling.  He could hear the rush of the wind and see the stars twinkling in the sky, but all the same, he knew something was wrong.  His suspicions had been roused when, despite his questions, neither their pa or Hoss could be found.  Pa was certain to have been on the road.  Even if he thought he could take care of himself, he still thought of Joe as a boy who needed looking after.

Nothing short of death would have kept their father from his youngest son’s side.

The sense of something amiss had been compounded by the fact that the door to Joe’s room had been locked behind him.  Earlier when he had stepped out of his own room and into the corridor it had been dim and, even though the proper things were there – the pictures on the wall and Pa’s elegant wood table with the vase of flowers, there was something…

Wrong.

He looked now around Joe’s room.  Everything was there.  The washstand.  Joe’s dresser.  The picture of the Indian chief and his favorite blue and white glass bottle of Bay Rum.  But something was also missing.  He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

The closest he could come to it was that this simply was not home.

With a sigh, Adam reached out to touch his brother’s burning hot forehead.  They were in the eye of the storm.  Only a few minutes before Joe had been raving.  Doctor McCoy had been with him then.  He had pronounced that he had done all he could do and the rest was up to Joe.  Joe, the little brother whom he had held minutes after he had been born, proud as if he had been his own son.  Joe, whose snotty nose he’d wiped and skinned knees he’d bandaged time and again when, as a toddler, they began to understand the stuff the boy was made of.  Tears and grit.  That was Joseph Francis Cartwright.

The brother he loved and now faced losing.

Adam heard a sound behind him and turned to find Spock had entered the room.  He had shed his long black coat and wore only a black shirt and trousers.  For a long time he said nothing.  He just stood to the side with his eyes shut.  When he opened them there was something new in them.  It matched the fierce determination he had seen in their father’s eyes when it had become clear that day that Sam Walton was pursuing little Joe with the intent to torture and kill him. Nothing short of God himself could have stopped the older man from going after him.

“Adam Cartwright,” he said, “what are you willing to endure in order for your brother to live?”

Adam frowned.  He opened his mouth to protest, but then said, “Anything.  Everything.”

“I imagine you have deduced that you are not in your home.”

Adam looked again.  If he wasn’t home, then where was he?  “Yes….”

Spock approached and stood down looking at Joe.  “The infection was rampant when your brother was brought aboard the ship.  His system was weakened by the transporter.  Joseph has retreated beyond Doctor McCoy’s reach.  He does not expect him to live.”

Adam could feel the fire in Joe and it scared him.  That fear was almost enough to block out Spock’s words.  Almost.

Ship.  Transporter.

“Where are we?” he asked, breathless.

Spock moved to the window.  He stood for a moment looking out and then he touched the wall next to the windblown curtains.  A second later the images behind them disappeared and in their place was a portal that showed a sea of stars.

Spock turned toward him.  “I would have spared you this if I could, but circumstances must dictate our actions.  Your brother does not trust me, nor does he have any cause to.  I need you to speak with him.”  The tall lean man drew closer.  “I am asking you to join with me in order to save him.  While I have the ability to shield one mind, I cannot shield two.  What you will see within the link….it will contain images that could affect your mind and your ability to reason.”

He loosed Joe’s hand and rose to his feet.  “What do you mean ‘link’?”

“It is a common practice among my people, the joining of minds for pleasure and for the sharing of information.”  He looked at Joe.  “As well as for healing.”

Adam frowned. “Your ‘people’?”

Spock cocked his head as he lifted a hand.  Tapering fingers caught hold of a thick lock of his ebon hair and pushed it back, revealing an elegantly pointed ear.

“I am not human.”

Adam sat back down.  Hard.  “Not…human?”

“Your world is limited, Mister Cartwright, though you have seen great changes within your lifetime, have you not?  Trains, the combustion engine…airships.  Is it possible for you to conceive that one day man will fly?”

He nodded.  Major Cayley’s air balloon had shown him that.

“And that even farther into the future, he will sail the stars?”

Adam looked at the portal again.  “Is that what this is – a star ship?”

Spock nodded and then looked toward the bed.  “Your brother is weakening.  We must act now.”

He looked at Joe.  To him, nothing had changed.  He was still lying there, unresponsive, murmuring words only he could understand.  “How do you know?”

“We are…already linked.  It is a part of what I was talking about before.”  Spock paused.  “Your brother’s life is inextricably tied to the fate of your planet.  We must save him, you and I, and then he must return to your father’s home and grow to be a man.”

Adam sensed something unspoken.  “Joe must return.  What about me?”

Spock came to stand beside him.  “First, we must call your brother back to the land of the living and then, I will explain.”

 

Roy Coffee squinted one eye, eager to fight off the headache that was forming behind it.  It came from watching Ben Cartwright pace like a caged lion from one end of the great room in his ranch house to the other.  It didn’t help when Ben stopped to ram his fist into his hand with a slap!

“Where are they, Roy?  How can two young men simply disappear?”

“Now, Ben, you just calm down.  I’ve got two dozen men out there scourin’ them hills, lookin’ for Adam and Little Joe. They’re sure to –”

“Calm down!  Calm down?  How can I calm down when half my family is missing!”  Ben threw his hands in the air.  “For God’s sake, Roy.  It’s been a week!”

“I know.  I know. And Ben, I cain’t blame you for bein’ worried.  But those boys of your’n are grown men.  Sometimes you forget they can look out for their selves.”

“Joe was injured, and Adam simply disappears in the middle of the night while looking for him?  Roy, they didn’t just head into town for a poker game and forget to come home.  Something is terribly wrong.”  His old friend moved to the blue velvet chair that had become a staple in the Cartwright home and was nearly as old as Adam.  Dropping wearily into it, Ben leaned his head back and closed his eyes.  “Roy, for the first time, I’m afraid neither one of them is ever coming back.”

He felt it too.  Something in the air that smacked of change.

Hoss was in the room too.  Since his brothers had disappeared, Hoss had grown quiet.  Real quiet.  At first he was ready to tear into the world to find them brothers of his, but then, when there weren’t no more world to tear into, it seemed the stuffin’ had been pulled out of him.

In the end, Ben might lose all three boys.

“Pa,” he said, speaking up at last.

Ben opened his eyes and looked.  “Yes, son.”

“You don’t figure they’re…well, they’re both dead, do you?”

It was the first time it had been put into words so far as he knew and the sound of those words made Ben Cartwright – the strongest man he knew – crumble.  A single tear trailed the length of his cheek.

“God willing, son,” he said, “no.”

“But Pa, God let His own son die.”

“That was different, Hoss,” Ben replied, his words quiet.  “That was for all of us.”

“I reckon that’s what I’m gettin’ at, Pa.”  The big man rose and came to his father’s side.  “What if there’s some purpose – somethin’ we cain’t see – somethin’ so important God’s gotta take them both away?”

Roy watched Ben closely.  He could see the man’s faith battling his fear.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,” the older man quoted, speaking words written on his heart, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you…hope….”

The room fell uncomfortably silent and remained that way until someone banged on the door.  When no one moved, the banging continued.  The second time it was accompanied by a voice.

“Pa!  Pa, it’s Adam.  Open up!”

Dumbfounded, the three men stared at each other, all of them riveted to the spot.

“Pa?”

The spell over Ben broke the soonest.  Seconds later he was on his feet and racing to the door that had been bolted for the night.  Roy moved in behind him and watched as it opened to reveal not only Adam, but Joe.

Ben’s eldest held his brother in his arms.  Joe looked pert near spent, but he was breathin’.

“Adam!” the older man declared.  “How?  Where?”

“It doesn’t matter, Pa.  We need to get Joe to his bed.  Hoss?”

Roy had been watching Hoss.  He looked like he weren’t sure any of this was real.

“Hoss?”

The big man said nothing.  He moved forward slowly and when he got to Adam’s side, reached out tentatively to touch both of his brothers.

Then the tears flowed.

“I need you to ride into town,” Adam said.  “Joe’s not completely out of danger yet.  We need medicine and a doctor.”

“Where have you been, Adam?” Hoss asked.

Roy watched Ben’s oldest closely, waitin’ to hear just the same thing.  “Was it them outlaws what took ya?” he asked.

Adam nodded.  “We just got away.  I’ll explain everything later.  First, I need to see to Joe.”

Roy watched as Adam, followed close behind by his pa, headed up the stairs.  Joe seemed a light burden, like the boy’d lost weight.  The lawman watched until they disappeared and then turned back to find Hoss doin’ the same thing.

“I’m headin’ back to town.  You want to ride with me, son?” Roy offered.

Hoss was shakin’ his head.  “I just cain’t believe it’s real, Roy.  Not after all this time.”  The stunned look the big man had worn for nigh on seven days suddenly disappeared, only to be replaced by the biggest, brightest smile the sheriff had ever seen.  “I got my brothers back!”

“That you do, son.  That you do.  Now come on.  We gotta get on the road so you can get back with that doctor.”

Hoss nodded.  “You go ahead, Roy.  I’ll be there in a minute.  I gotta let Hop Sing know.”

He’d seen the Chinese cook.  He was mournin’ as hard as Joe and Adam’s blood kin.

“You do that.  I’ll be outside.”

Roy walked to the door and opened it.  Night was upon them, but the ride into Virginia City from the Ponderosa was one he had done so many times, he knew he could navigate it blindfolded.  On top of that, the lightness in his heart might just be enough to light up their way.

The lawman crossed to the Cartwright’s barn where he’d stabled his horse.  He’d intended to spend the night and then head out again at first light.  He’d never been so happy as to have a need disappear like that one.  Too many times the end of a search like this had been bad, ending with a corpse instead of a comin’ home.  Yep, this just might make bein’ a lawman worth it, seein’ a lovin’ father reunited with his missin’ sons.

Roy paused.  Noting the hand workin’ at the back of the stable, he called out.  “Son, can you give me hand saddlin’ up my horse?”

The young man pivoted, startling him at first, until he remembered it was that odd young’un about Joe’s age.  The one with the funny name whose hair and skin were white as snow.

Theron Vance approached him with a smile.

“I’ll be happy to, Sheriff.”

 

Spock sat in his darkened room aboard the Enterprise relishing the heat he was soon to abandon.  It had been a risk, telling Adam Cartwright the entire truth.  Still, in the end it was his world and his brother who were threatened.  He had suspected Adam was a man of unusual mettle.  This had been confirmed when they joined in the link.  He had made contact with the black-haired man before turning his attention to his young brother, revealing a part of himself so that the shock would not overwhelm him when his attention needed to be focused on saving Joseph’s life.  At first the nineteenth century man had reacted with terror, his mind unable to grasp what it was seeing.  Then slowly, but quicker than he had expected, that terror had transmuted into wonder.  When he released his grip on Adam Cartwright’s face and opened his eyes he had expected see a sense of displacement, as if everything the man had ever known was altered, changed.

Instead, Adam had been smiling.

Moving to the bed, he had taken a seat to the right of Joseph and indicated Adam should do the same on the left.  He’d placed the tips of his fingers on the elder Cartwright’s face and they had both reached for Joe.

And the battle had been joined.

What passed as a smile lit the Vulcan’s usually stoic face, touching his near-black eyes and crinkling them at the edges.  He’d fought them.  Though small in stature Adam Cartwright’s young brother’s mind was a force to be reckoned with, his strength drawn from an invigorating mix of chaos and order.  There was a strong sense of his father there – it almost overwhelmed his own personality in much the same way Sarek’s had done to him when he had been young.  It was this that provided balance and order.  Joseph was like him in another way.  The element of chaos came from his vibrant emotive mother.  She even looked like Amanda.  Spock saw her with Joseph as a child – laughing and dancing with delight, pouting and scolding his father to get her way;  her love radiating as a beacon, surrounding the young man, protecting him heart, soul, and mind.

It was this he wished to surrender to.

Spock shifted in his chair and steepled his fingers.  Each time he entered a meld with a human he learned something about himself.  Joseph’s desire to join with his mother had been echoed before in his own life, when another incident involving time had transported him, along with Jim and McCoy, even further into Earth’s past history.  He had been dying and the closeness of death had brought him to a place of peace.  A place of running water filled with his mother’s laughter.

His safe place.[2]

It had taken Adam Cartwright’s stubbornness to draw his brother back to a world of pain.

At one point, he thought they had lost him.  He could sense the young man weakening, felt his spirit sigh and wish to depart.  It was then Adam had taken over, his ebbing strength growing taller and stronger than the Ponderosa pines that populated the land surrounding his Nevada home.  Adam had refused to relinquish Joseph to Marie.  She was there, waiting.  Spock could see her.  She stood with her arms extended.

Thanks to Adam, she waited still.

In the end, when he had broken the link, it was to find Adam Cartwright spent, his body splayed out across his brother’s as though he would protect him until the end of time.

The smile faded.

Which was precisely what he had asked Adam to do.

 

Ben Cartwright closed the door of the ranch house behind him.  He looked around, finally spotting Adam sitting on the table on the porch, his face turned toward the sky.  A week had passed since he and Joe had returned and he could sense that something was wrong.  Well, maybe not wrong, but different.  Adam was not himself, or at least not the Adam he had come to know.  There was a distance between them, as if Adam was withdrawing, preparing himself for….

What?

“Son, we missed you at supper.”

His eldest gave him that shy smile he loved so much, the one that quirked the ends of both lips.  “Sorry, Pa.  I have a lot on my mind.”

“Joe’s going to be fine, you know,” he said as he rested his hip on the table.  “Doc Martin checked him out and said all he needs is time.”

Adam’s hazel eyes flicked to his face.  “Time.”

Ben reached out and covered his hand with his own.  “Adam, is something wrong?”

He ducked his head.  “I don’t know how to say it, Pa.  Nothing is wrong exactly….”

“But nothing is right.”

He shrugged.  “I guess.”

“You’re thinking of leaving.”  There.  It was out.

His son’s black brows danced.  “How did you know?”

“Oh, I was young once.  Of course, I hadn’t seen all of this yet.”  He indicated the pines and the land.  “But I thought there had to be more, so I went off to find it.”

“There is more, Pa.  So much more.”

His intensity surprised him.  “Does this have to do with what happened while you and Joe were being held?”  His sons had not been the same since then – neither of them.  Joe was slowly coming back to himself, but Adam….  Well, Adam it seemed, had left the day they returned.

“In a way.  I guess looking death in the face made me think.”  He smiled this time, creating dimples in his cheeks.  “I’m not all that young myself, Pa.  If I want to see the world, I had better do it now.”

“Your brothers will miss you.”

He hadn’t meant it to hurt him, but it did.

“I know.  I’ll…miss them too.  But I’ll come back, Pa.  I won’t be gone all that long.”  He looked at the pines, the earth, the sky above.  “How could I stay away?”

Ben drew a deep breath.  He could argue with him, but it would be pointless.  He could remind Adam of his responsibilities as oldest, make him feel guilty for thinking of himself.  But Joe and Hoss were men now.  While they would miss their older brother, they did not need him in the same way they had before.

“When will you tell them?”

He looked down.  “I’ve talked to Joe already.  I’ll tell Hoss tonight.”

Ben fought back tears as he slapped him on the leg.  “The least we can do is give you a send off party.  We’ll invite – ”

“No, Pa.  I don’t want any party.  I just want to enjoy the time I have left with you and Joe and Hoss.”

Ben frowned.  “The time you have left?”

Adam’s smile broadened.  “Poor choice of words, Pa.  Sorry.”

 

It was with a heavy heart that Adam saddled Sport for the last time in his father’s barn.  Another week had passed and he was leaving.  They’d all been home together the night before.  Joe had been permitted to leave his bed behind for the settee and Joe, along with Hoss and Pa, had listened while he played his guitar and sang cheerful tunes.

They had done nothing to dispel the almost funereal atmosphere.

He’d risen early unwilling and unable to say another goodbye.  His heart was heavy in his chest, but he was determined to follow the course that had been charted for him.  He had to go away to save them – to save Joe.  He’d been asked not all that long before what he would be willing to do to protect them.  Anything, he had answered, everything.

He meant it.

Adam paused in what he was doing and turned toward the house.  Hop Sing would be up, preparing breakfast.  Joe was no doubt sound asleep.  Hoss was probably snoring.  And Pa?  He looked up.  Though he couldn’t see him, he suspected Pa was standing in the window looking out.

“Adam?”

He closed his eyes.  He had been wrong on one account.  It was Joe.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Adam asked, his tone sharp.  Was this one last attempt to make him change his mind?  “You’ll make yourself sick.”

“I had to know,” his kid brother started.  “Are you leaving because of me?”

Adam pulled on the saddle strap to make sure it was secure.  “Whatever would make you think that?”

Joe’s young face was screwed up.  His limber brows dipped down in the center while his full lips twisted up to one side.  “I don’t know.  I just think you are.”

“It’s not because of you, Joe,” he lied.

“Is it because of what’s…out there?”

He looked over Sport’s back at his younger brother.  What did Joe remember?  “Out there?”

Joe was frowning so hard it made his head hurt.  “I can almost see it, that…place.  The one with the colors I don’t have a name for.  Is that where you’re going?”

Adam moved around Sport to lay his hand on Joe’s shoulder – the good one.  “I’m going to sail an ebon sea with swells that glint like diamonds,” he said, forcing a smile. “But just for a while.  I’ll be back.”

“I….”  Joe hesitated.  Whatever it was, it was hard for him to say.  “I need you, Adam.”

He shook his head.  “No, you don’t.  You’re a man now, Joe.  You don’t need a big brother looking over your shoulder all the time.”

His brother wobbled.  “I wish I was as sure as you.”

“Joseph!”

So Pa had been looking out that window.  “Uh oh,” he said.

As their father approached, Joe reached out and grasped his arm, so hard it hurt.  “Don’t go, Adam.”

His eyes grew moist, not from Joe’s grip but with another kind of pain.  He placed his hand over his brother’s.  It was trembling.

“I have to go, Joe.  It’s…something I have to do.  But I promise I’ll be back.  You hear me?  You look for me every year, in the autumn,  in October just as the leaves are turning.”  A tear escaped to trail down his cheek.  “One day you’ll see me.”

“Joseph,” their father said more softly as he came alongside them.  “Come back to bed.”

Joe’s shoulders slumped.  Their father took him in hand and began to direct him back to the house.  Uncharacteristically, Joe surrendered without a fight.  By the time they reached the door, he had mounted Sport and had his nose turned toward Virginia City.  His father paused to look at him one last time and then disappeared inside.

 

Adam didn’t go to Virginia City.  He wasn’t bound for the stage coach as he had told his father, nor did he intend to sail Earth’s seas.  He had returned to the place where he and Joe – along with five other beings, three of which were not human – had been transformed into starlight and taken up to ride the waves of Heaven.  A lone figure awaited him; a tall lean man who was also something other than human.  A man with almond-shaped eyes dark as his father’s and long black hair that hid his ink-slash eyebrows and the tips of his pointed ears.

“You understand that what we are undertaking is a crime,” he said without preamble.

“So you said.”

“And that the punishment, should we be caught, will be harsh.”

Adam nodded.  “Let’s get on with it.”

Spock hesitated only a moment longer.  Then he stepped forward and held out his hand.  In it was an odd metal bracelet that shone like the finely polished barrel of gun.  He took it from the other man and stared at it.  “What is this?”

“It is a method of transportation far more sophisticated than your mount.”

“I see,” Adam said as he snapped the bracelet around his wrist.  “Where will it take us?”

The Vulcan’s eyes shone with a kind of frenzied determination.

“Into time.”

 

As the two men disappeared, a shadow stirred within the trees.  Seconds later a man appeared.  A smile lit his pale face as he watched the manipulator’s energy swirl around the pair, and then consume them.  The Vulcan was living dangerously.  This was his third use of the Originators’ ‘magick’.  Soon that logical mind would begin to shatter.

Theron Vance’s lip curled in a sneer.

He wondered if Adam Cartwright had any idea what he was in for.

 

 

End of Part One

[1] A Piece of the Action

[2] The Shadow that Passeth Away, Marla Fair