SIX

Ben ran a hand across his grimy forehead.  He had reached Hoss and together they had managed to lift the  boulder that was trapping Adam just enough that they were able to drag him out from under it.  Then, after making sure his eldest son’s condition was stable and that he was as comfortable as possible, he and his middle son had set off into the night.  He’d decided they would make their way back together to where he had left the Stanley brothers.  He was going to need help if he was going to get Adam out and he didn’t want to wait for Hoss to do it.  They needed the doctor pronto.  Adam was severely injured and he was worried his son would go into shock. Earl Stanley would fight him, but he was fairly certain he could persuade the outlaw to help.  The promise of a word spoken to the sheriff that would commute his sentence from death to prison time would certainly be enough.

Ben was vastly disappointed when they arrived and found Virgil Stanley alone.

“Damn!” he muttered.

Hoss looked at him sideways.  “You gonna wash your own mouth out with soap, Pa?”

“Forgive me, Hoss.  There are times when simple words just aren’t enough,” he grumbled.  “What was I thinking?  I shouldn’t have left Earl Stanley alone.”

“What was you gonna do?  You couldn’t drag him kickin’ and fightin’ all the way to the cave.  ‘Sides, he might have overpowered you.”

Ben nodded.  At least he had had the foresight to gather up all the weapons and ammunition and toss what he couldn’t carry into the lake.  Stanley had no weapon.  He’d hidden the gold as well, intending to retrieve it later and return it to its proper owner.

“He’s unarmed,” he agreed.  “And probably on the run.”

“What about this one?” Hoss indicated Virgil who was laying on the ground gagged and tied and staring at them.

“His right arm is useless.  I’ll have to go back and take care of Adam myself.”  Ben looked along the trail that had brought him here.  “Buck is tethered back about a half mile.  Take him and ride to town.  Bring Paul as quickly as you can.  Look for us on the road first.  If I can, I’ll rig a travois and we’ll meet you.”

Hoss hesitated.

Ben placed a hand on his son’s shoulder.  “I know you’re worried about Little Joe,” he said quietly.  “I am too.  But we have to see to Adam’s needs first.”

“Sure thing, Pa.”  The boy started to move away, but then swung back.  “Pa, I think there’s somethin’ might help find Joe.”

“What is it, son?”

“The cave.  Its the one Joe and I used to play in.”

“So?”

“One time, we found this back way in.  A natural shaft cut into the earth.  It went down about fifteen feet and then there was a short drop.”  There was hope in his voice.  “Maybe Little Joe found it.  If he could reach the shaft, he’s small enough to climb out.”

Ben nodded, suddenly hopeful himself.  “It’s possible.”

“You want me to go back and show you where it comes out, Pa?  I think I can find it.”

“No, I’ll send Rogue to look for your brother.  If Joseph is there, he’ll sniff him out.”

Hoss grinned.  “I didn’t think of that.  I sure do love that dog.”

Ben nodded.

He was beginning to love that shaggy fur rug himself.

It took everything that was in him, but Joe managed to climb to the top of the pile of rocks that looked like a king’s chair.  He was filthy and covered with bruises and scratches, but he was perched on it now, looking up.  The starlight that slid down the shaft hurt his eyes and made them water.  Still, in his mind’s eye he could Hoss boosting him up so he could take hold of its edge, and the two of them flying out of here fast as jack rabbits..

Little Joe’s gaze shifted to the darkened corner of the cave where the skeletons of the woman and boy lay; to where he’d seen the woman’s ghost.  He sniffed and wiped the arm of his sleeve across his soiled face as tears streamed down it.  He wondered how they had ended up dead and buried so deep in the earth, and if anyone had missed them.  It didn’t take much to guess that the woman and boy had been murdered and their bodies left here so no one would find them.

A crime had been committed and no one knew about it and that scared Joe just about as much as being alone in the dark, seven feet from rescue and barely able to see.

Turning his attention again to the platform he stood on, Joe examined the top of the rocky structure.  It was mostly flat, but there was one precarious pile of rocks that would put him high enough to get his fingers on the edge of the shaft and maybe pull himself in.  The trouble was, it was unstable and so was he.  Hoss had been big enough to put him on his shoulders and let him scramble up, and then strong enough to pull himself after him.  He was neither.  The only way he was gonna get out was to climb that small pile of rocks and then push off them and catch hold.

Which would make the rocks fall.

He had one chance.  Just one.

Joe looked over the edge of the tower he stood on.  There was only a pool of darkness.

And a long way down.

Ben knelt on the ground.  Upon his arrival back at the cave he’d hunted the area in front of it and had come across some of his boy’s belongings.  He’d found a bundle of Adam’s things abandoned on the ground.  Then Hoss’s rifle where it had fallen next to the entry to the cave.  Last of all was this.  The rancher dusted off the small black object as he rose to his feet.

Joseph’s hat.

At his feet Rogue milled, weaving in and out of his legs, whining in sympathy.

He’d gone in to check on Adam first.  The boy had stirred when he spoke to him, which was a good sign, but his fever was rising and he wasn’t entirely making sense.  Rogue had been guarding him and had done a good job.

Now he had another one for him to do.

Ben leaned down and let the dog sniff his son’s hat.

“Little Joe, boy.  Find Little Joe.”

A pair of liquid eyes looked up at him – giant black eyes shining out of a nest of unruly curls as thick as his missing son’s.  The animal hesitated a moment and then he barked, sharp and loud.

“Good, boy.  Go!  Find Joe and bring him here.  Go.  Go, now!”

With another bark and a shake of his shaggy mane, Rogue was off.

It took everything that was in him not to follow.  Ben closed his eyes and whispered a quick prayer.  Wherever Joseph was, he had to believe he was safe and well and that God would hold him until he could put his arms around him again.

A second later Ben Cartwright walked into the trees and began to look for branches strong enough to construct a frame to hold his injured son.

Joe had climbed up onto the smaller tower and was balanced there, terrified.  The boulder he was standing on wobbled every time he breathed.  Well, not when he breathed really, but every time he shifted or moved his arms or did just about anything. He’d been brave enough to reach up one time and his fingers had brushed the edge of the bottom of the shaft.  Inches.  It was just inches away.

It might as well have been a mile.

In order  to reach it he was gonna have to kick off, and in order to kick off, he was gonna move the rocks and plain and simple, he was going to die.

Joe glanced at the area that held the bones again and swallowed hard.

Turning back and lifting his face into the light that rained down the shaft, he told himself to go for it.  Just…do it.  He didn’t have any food or water and he was already feeling woozy.  If he didn’t get out soon…if nobody found him, he was going to die anyway.  A man could only go three or four days without water, and maybe a week or two without food.  When Pa did come, he was gonna be worried about Adam.  He and Hoss would have to take care of big brother first.

They might not even start to look for him for three or four days.

Poised there, literally on the brink of death, the twelve-year-old thought about the one he loved who had gone before.  It’d been seven years since he’d seen his mama and already her face was like something out of a dream.  If Pa hadn’t given him that picture that he had on his dresser, he wasn’t sure he’d even remember what she looked like.  Sometimes, in his dreams, she spoke to him.  But when he woke, he couldn’t remember her voice either.  It was like, well, like she’d never existed.  Like Mama was a thing of smoke just like that ghost that he couldn’t quite catch hold of – one that would elude him until he met her again on the other side.

Joe’s jaw tightened.  Either way, if he made it or if he didn’t, someone he loved was waiting for him.

As he steeled himself to jump, he heard a familiar sound.  It was faint at first and then grew louder as it traveled down the shaft above him.  Joe looked up, blinking, and saw a bushy brown face with big black eyes looking down at him.

“Rogue!”

The dog yelped and barked and pranced in the small space.  Then it lost its footing and slid down toward the edge.

“Hey!  Boy!  You stay still!  Don’t you try to jump down here!”

Rogue’s toes were perched on the edge of the shaft.  A small trickle of earth fell and struck Joe on the cheek.

Suddenly, he was terrified the animal would fall.  He didn’t want Rogue’s bones left down here with the others any more than he wanted his own.

“Don’t you move, boy!  I’ll….”  Joe gulped.  “I’ll come up to you!”

As his words echoed around him, Joe made his decision and jumped.

“Adam.  Can you hear me, son?”

Adam blinked and licked his lips.  Then he frowned.  He’d been sitting in a hall at Harvard, working on a diagram, when one of his professors had come over and told him he had it all wrong.  The man had gone red in the face as he screamed at him over and over again how brainless he was and how he’d never make a life for himself outside of being a malodorous cowboy covered with filth, reeking of bovine urine and blood.  He’d risen to his feet and shouted back, but it seemed the man couldn’t hear him.  He’d shouted until his throat was hoarse, but it did not good.  The professor just turned away.  Furious, he’d run after him and caught him by the shoulder and turned him around only to find that it wasn’t his professor at all.

It was his father.

“Pa…?”

“Thank God,” the older man whispered.  “I was afraid I did you harm by getting you out of that horrid place.”

Adam blinked again to clear his eyes of tears and grime. It took a moment, but he realized he was outside the cave.

“Are you in pain?”

Was he?  He hadn’t thought about it.  When he did, he realized just how much pain he was in.

“Is Henry Comstock…rich?” he managed with a weak grin.

His father squeezed his fingers.  “Good.   Well, not ‘good’, but you know what I mean.  It’s good you can feel.”

He’d been worried about that too.  Waking up and being paralyzed, maybe for life.

“Hoss?”

“Your brother has gone to fetch the Doctor.  I built this contraption so we can meet them on the road.”

Adam’s eyes wandered down his dusty frame.  He was on some kind of a litter.  It was hitched to Sport.  His father must have found his horse grazing somewhere.

“Little Joe?” he asked.

There was a pause.  “Still missing.”

“How…long?”

His father rose to his feet and looked back at the cave.  “It’s been a full day and a bit more, Adam.”

“Joe’s…strong, Pa.  He’ll…be okay.”

The older man said nothing as the same scenarios played through his mind that Adam was imagining – Joe laying somewhere in the darkness unable to go on; a second blow to the head having dropped him.  Little Joe, walking, falling without warning over the edge of some unseen cliff into a chasm only to disappear forever.  Little Joe dragging his body forward, slowly dying of thirst, ranting, out of his head, believing they had abandoned him.

“Joseph is in God’s hands,” his father said at last.  A moment later he added, “I sent Rogue to look for him.”

Adam thought he remembered the dog being there.  He’d awakened a couple of times to find him licking his face.  Apparently Rogue didn’t like being alone either.

“He’ll…find him.  You…know a boy…and his dog.”

A slight smile curled his father’s lips.  “I certainly do now,” he said softly.

Adam was frowning.  “Pa.  Listen.”

“What do you….”  The older man cocked his head.

“Pa, it’s…Rogue.”

Joe dropped onto the earth and kissed it.  Then he kissed his dog.

They were out!

For all his exhilaration, he was exhausted and he started to shake the minute the cold night air hit him.  Rogue bounded over and landed on top of him and while the dog barked, Joe laughed and cried and then laughed some more as the his dog’s prickly tongue cleaned his face like one of Hop Sing’s loofah sponges.

Joe caught Rogue’s spiraling fur in his fingers.  Holding him back, he said, “Hey.  Hey, boy!  Cut it out.  You’ll lick my face off!”

Rogue didn’t care, he just kept on licking.

Exhausted, Joe lay back in the grass, his hands buried in Rogue’s long fur.  He had no idea where he was.  From what he remembered – and it wasn’t much – the shaft in the side of the hill that he and Hoss had found so long ago had been a short ways from the entry to the cave.  Somewhere back there his brothers were still trapped.  Adam was hurt.

He had to get up and get moving and get them help!

It hurt to climb to his feet.  More than he expected.  But he did it anyway.

“Come on, boy.  We gotta go –”

“You ain’t goin’ anywhere, you little brat, but to Hell!” a rough voice snarled.

Joe looked up into the face of his nightmares.

It was Earl Stanley.

Stanley reached out and caught him by the collar and shook him hard.  As he did Rogue let off a series of low growls and leapt for the outlaw.  Stanley kicked the dog hard and sent him flying before turning back to him.  The man’s eyes were wild.  Blood matted his hair and was crusted on one side of his face and he was trembling like someone who had had too much to drink.

“What’d you see down there, boy!  You tell me!  You tell me now!” the outlaw demanded as he shook him again, hard enough to rattle his teeth.

“Nothing!  I didn’t see nothing!” Joe shouted back.

“You’re lyin’ boy!  You saw her, didn’t you?  Her and that prissy whining brat of hers.  He fought hard just like you, boy.  He fought hard when I took her, but he lost.  I took him out.”  Earl Stanley’s hands went to his neck.  His fingers began to tighten.  “Just like I’m gonna take you out!”

“Release my son!”

The outlaw froze, his hands still wrapped around his neck.  Joe was barely breathing.  Blackness had risen before his eyes, but now there was something else there – a vision of his salvation.

His pa!

“I said, let the boy go.”

Pa had Hoss’ rifle and it was aimed at the madman who held him.

“I can snap this boy’s neck before you get off a shot, Cartwright,” Earl Stanley snarled, his voice low and menacing.  “And you know it.  Maybe he won’t die, but if he lives, he won’t be good for nothin’.”

Joe stiffened.  He hadn’t thought of that.

“Pa…”

“Keep quiet, Joseph,” his father ordered.  “All right, Earl, what is it you want?”

“A horse.  Safe passage out of here.”  The outlaw moved, whirling so fast he couldn’t follow it.  A second later Joe found himself trapped in the man’s arms.  The bad man was using him as a shield!  “This one’s comin’ with me.”

“No!”

“Yes!”  Stanley’s hands had moved. One was behind his head now and the other on his throat.  “All it takes is one twist, Cartwright.”  He chuckled, a maniacal sound.  “You think I wouldn’t do it?  I killed a kid with my bare hands before.  He’s in there.”  The outlaw indicated the cave.  “If you listen real close, you can hear him crying.”  Stanley’s voice grew hollow.  “I hear him.  Every night….”

“Killing Joseph won’t clear your conscience,” his father said.

“What makes you think I got one?” the outlaw countered quickly.

Ben Cartwright shook his head.  “What you just said, Stanley.”

Joe felt the man’s fingers tighten on his throat.  “Well then, since I’m already damned, one more death won’t matter, will it?”

Slowly, Joe’s fear was galvanizing into anger.  That poor woman and boy laying down there all these years with no one knowin’ what happened to them – this man had done it!  Bolstered by the rage running through him, Joe started to struggle.

“Joseph, no!  Stay still!” his pa shouted.

“But Pa,” he managed before Stanley’s grip increased, choking off the words and his air.

Unbidden Joe’s hands went to the outlaw’s fingers and began to claw at them.  Beside him, he heard something stir and then a low threatening growl.  At that same instant there was a voice – not his pa’s, but another blessed voice.

“Pa! Get down!  Now!”

The older man didn’t hesitate.  Joe’s eyes followed his father as he dropped to his knees and then rose to see his brother Adam stepping out of the darkness.  Adam’s eyes fixed on his.  Trust me, they said.

There was a shot.

And everything went black.

When Joe woke up he was on his back and the world was moving under him.

“Welcome back,” a wry voice said.

He blinked and looked toward the voice.  His eyes were all but useless, but he recognized the head of sleek black hair.

“Adam?

That single word cost Joe more than a whole day playing hooky.  His hand shot to his throat.  Adam caught it and pulled it back and placed it at his side.

“Don’t try to…talk.  Doc Martin said your…throat is injured, little brother.  It may be weeks before you can ask your endless…questions again.”

That just wasn’t fair!  He had so many.  Where was Pa?  Where was Rogue?  Adam had mentioned Doc Martin, so that meant Hoss had made it to town and back okay.  What had happened to the bad man who tried to kill him?  Was he dead?   He didn’t remember much, just Adam rising like a ghost out of the dark with a gun in his hand and a shot.   What about the other ghost?  Who was she?  Who had she been?  Was she the same lady whose body was laying in the cave with that boy?  Who was the boy?

And what about Mystery?

Adam laughed and then winced.  “I can see this is going to be torture for both of us.”

Joe swallowed.  Then he disobeyed.  “Are…you…okay?”  His voice had the sound of panning for gold and using it was like a smelting fire.

His brother’s hand settled on his chest.  “Well, I didn’t do myself…any good getting up and…moving.  The Doc thinks I may be,” he paused, “I may be in a wheelchair for a while.”

Joe’s eyes danced at first with the image of his brother on wheels, and then filled with tears when he realized what Adam had done for him.  He squeezed his fingers back.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.  It’s done.  It wasn’t you, it was…the cave.”  Adam looked away.  “Can’t blame…a cave.”

“Hoss?”

“Riding ahead with the Doc.”

Joe swallowed again over agony.  “Pa?”

“Didn’t I…say no questions?”

He pulled a face.

“You’re hopeless.  Once he knew you were all right…Pa went ahead of us to take…Earl Stanley’s brother to the sheriff…and Earl to the undertaker.”

His eyes asked the next question.  Am I all right?

Adam got it.  “Paul thinks you did pretty good…though he said he was…tempted to brain you a third time for reinjuring your head.  You have a…long convalescence ahead of you, little brother.”

Joe closed his eyes.  All those questions that had been spinning around in his head seemed less important now.  He was tired.  He just wanted to sleep.

A hand shook him.  “Sorry.  The Doc said if you woke up I was to…keep you awake if I could.”

“Then,” the fire came again as he spoke, “tell him…you…couldn’t….”

Adam laughed.  “How about if I sing?”

Joe scowled.  That would only put him to sleep.

“You…ain’t got…a…guitar.”

His older brother smiled.  “Oh, I have something…much better.”  Adam cleared his throat and began to sing.  It was a soft sound, made even softer than usual by his lack of breath and fatigue.  Joe felt himself drifting off – until Adam’s accompaniment started.

The shaggy mound of fur beside him shifted and lifted its head.  It looked at him and then at Adam and then began to howl to beat the band.

It hurt to laugh – for both of them.

But they did it anyhow.