PART TWO

 

SEVEN

Hoss Cartwright let out a heartfelt sigh as he walked the corridor from one bedroom to the next on the second floor of the Ponderosa ranch house.  It’d been  three full days and a little bit of another since he’d found Miss Bella and his little brother in that low cavern in the rocks.  Even though he’d thought at the time it might be a foolhardy thing to do, he’d taken his pistol from the holster and fired off three shots.  It was a poor way for a son to wake his father, but he figured – once Pa knew why he’d done it – he’d be forgiven.

Weren’t no way he could carry the two of them to the bottom alone.

Miss Bella, well, she’d cried and cried.  In the end he had to leave her sitting there with her back against a rock, sobbing, while he went to check on his brother.  He was too big to crawl into the space and so, with a mumbled apology, he’d grabbed Little Joe by the feet and hauled the boy out into the growing light.  His brother was awful pale and his head and shoulders was covered with blood.  Fortunately, Miss Bella had told him about the scalp wound, so the sight of it didn’t upset him too much.   She’d told him too about the other wound too and so he’d gently lifted Joe up to check the back of his head and found a sizeable knot forming there.  With a muttered prayer, he’d let his fingers drop to the base of his baby brother’s neck and felt for a pulse.  It took a second but he found it.

Poor little Bella, she’d been worried Little Joe’s heart had stopped.

Hoss sighed again.

That girl’s worry pert near stopped his too!

After working a little bit of water between Joe’s lips, he’d shinnied out of his coat and wrapped it around the boy and then carried him over to where Miss Bella was still weeping.  Kneeling down, he touched her shoulder and waited until she looked up to see him holding Joe.

“Little brother’s alive, Bella.  He’s just plumb worn out like you.  You can stop that cryin’ now.”

Danged, if that didn’t make it worse!

As soon as he’d put Little Joe down beside her, Bella’s arms done shot out.  She pulled Joe close, planted a kiss on his forehead, and then laid her head on his chest.  Hoss stood there a moment considerin’ what he was seein’, and then turned away to give the girl her privacy.

It weren’t five minutes later he heard three shots.  Climbin’ up on the rocks, Hoss searched for and spotted the party of three men at the bottom of the hill.  He fired another answerin’ shot and when he had their attention, waved them up.  It didn’t matter none that Pa was the oldest of the bunch.  He reached the top first.  Right after him came Adam and Nathan Eastwind.

His father’s eyes fastened on Little Joe where he lay in Bella’s arms  The girl was still cryin’ a river.

“Joe?” he asked, expressin’ everythin’ in that one word.

He answered with one too.  “Alive.”

Truth to tell, he didn’t know much more.

After that things moved fast as one of those steam locomotives that were headed their way.  Pa was on his knees, running his hands through Little Joe’s hair, brushing away some of the dried blood, feeling that there knot on the back of his head.  Nathan went straight to Bella.  He pronounced her ‘unharmed’, but that didn’t fool him none.  All that meant was that she didn’t have no bullet or arrow holes in her.  The poor little thing had been through just about more than a body could take.  For all of their lack of women at the Ponderosa, he’d been around more than his fair share.  Durin’ a crisis it was like they was made out of steel.  While a man might give up, they’d draw on some deep well of strength and keep on goin’ in spite of everythin’.  But when it was over?   Well then, most often they shattered like one of those pretty figurines dropped on a stone hearth.

Joe was another matter.  Pa got up as Nathan moved over to see to little brother.  The Indian scout ran his hands over all of him first and then checked the boy’s head.  Last of all, he gently opened Joe’s eyes.  The good news was little brother didn’t have any bullet or arrow holes in him either.  The bad news was he had a concussion and it was a severe one, and due to all the other ‘extenuatin’ circumstances as the soldier put it – meanin’ the shock of the attack, a day without water, a night of exposure – he was in pretty rough  shape.

They’d had to be mighty careful gettin’ the pair of them down that rocky slope.  Nathan told them things would go from bad to worse if Joe hit his head again.  So there was a lot of holdin’ tight and slippin’ and slidin’, but finally they made it down the hill.  Most of the soldiers had returned by the time they got to the camp, though Roy and the other men weren’t there yet.  The soldiers had a wagon and they loaded both Little Joe and Bella on it.  Pa was gonna take Joe home come hell or the army doctor.  The medic climbed in and took a look at them.  He weren’t right happy about the idea of the wagon bumpin’ all over the road with a man what had taken a bad knock to his head, but he agreed.  Between the heat of the day and the cold of the night, he said, they’d be better to get Joe somewhere safe and warm.  They made a stop overnight at Yank’s, just to let everyone rest, and then headed home.

Hoss ran a hand over his face and let out a sigh as he looked at the next door along the corridor.  He’d just left Miss Bella’s room after checkin’ on her.  Hop Sing was with her and that was just about the best hands she could be in.  He was headin’ for Little Joe’s room now.  For one thing he wanted to check on his brother, but there was another reason.  To fetch Pa.  Roy Coffee, all caked mud and sweat, was waitin’ in the great room to talk to him. Roy wanted him to come back down and hear what he had to say too.  Adam was already there.  Hoss shook his head.  That’d mean Pa leavin’ Little Joe alone and he just didn’t know if the older man was ready for that yet.

For a time, they’d thought little brother wouldn’t make it.

It was only the night before Joe’s fever had broken and he’d taken a little broth.  Doc Martin told them that meant he was on the mend, but the road was gonna be rocky – especially considerin’ which Cartwright it was they needed to keep in his bed.

Especially when Little Joe found out about Bella.

Hoss’ hand hovered above the latch as he considered the twists and turns of life, and then he entered Joe’s room to find his father sittin’ just where he’d left him, to the right of his brother’s bed.  Pa was holdin’ one of Joe’s hands while brushing those thick curls back with his other and speakin’ so low only the angels could hear.

“Pa?”

His father’s weary eyes found him.  Pa done looked all in.  He and Adam had taken a couple of turns, but for the most part Pa’d been at Joe’s side since they found him.

‘Your brother was awake a little while ago.”

Hoss brightened.  “Well, now, that sure is the best news I heard in days!”

“It wasn’t for long, but he seemed to know who he was and to recognize that he was in his room.”  His father paused.  His fingers continued to stroke the boy’s hair.  “He thinks Elizabeth is dead.”

That there smile he had turned upside-down.  “What’d you tell him, Pa?”

“That she was in the room down the hall and that she was all right.”  The older man sighed.  “I didn’t think he was strong enough for the truth.”

It was a hard one, that truth.  Just like little brother’d had done, battlin’ that fever, Miss Bella was fightin’ for her life.

The funny thing was, she thought Joe was dead too.

Hoss waited a moment and then he cleared his throat.  “Pa, Roy Coffee’s downstairs.  Said he wants to talk to us.”

Those near-black eyes didn’t miss anything.  “Us?”

“Yeah, all of us . You, me, and Adam.”

“I can’t leave Joseph.”

The big man waited a moment before saying, “Hop Sing can – ”

“Hop Sing has his hands full with Elizabeth.”

There it was, that tone that left no room for discussion.

Hoss frowned.  He hadn’t wanted to mention the outlaw, just in case little brother could hear, but he was gonna have to.  “Pa, it’s about Fleet Rowse and Miss Aurora.”

It wasn’t often his pa hated anyone, but he hated that man.  The name came out as a growl.  “Rowse.”

“Yeah.  Roy’s got news.”

His father cast one last look at Joe where he lay silent on the bed and then reluctantly rose to his feet.  “I’ll instruct Hop Sing to check in on him in a quarter of an hour or so.  Joseph is going to need fresh cold water and some linens by then.”  As the older man came alongside him, he said, “A half hour.  That’s all I’m giving it.  After that Roy can tell the two of you.”

Hoss knew that his pa goin’ downstairs and leavin’ Joe was a hard thing for him to do.   He briefly rested his hand on the older man’s shoulder.

“Joe’ll be all right, Pa.”  Then he added with a little wink, “Punkin’ ain’t strong enough yet to get up out of that bed and go off and get hisself into trouble.”

His father covered his hand with his own and nodded.  Then he passed through the door and into the hall.

Hoss hesitated before followin’ him.  “You hear that, little brother, don’t you move.  You ain’t well enough yet.  Fact is, we’re all just a mite surprised you ain’t dead.”

 

He wasn’t dead, not by a long shot, but he wasn’t so sure about Bella.

Joe had been half-awake when Hoss stepped into the room, and had pretended to be unconscious while the two men spoke.  While his spirits had soared to learn that Bella was alive and only a door away from him, they had crashed at the guarded way the two men spoke.

He thinks Elizabeth is dead.

What’d you tell him, Pa?

That she was in the room down the hall and that she was all right.  I didn’t think he was strong enough for the truth.

After they left, he laid there, counting off the minutes and waiting for Hop Sing to come.  Joe hated what he was about to do, but it was something that had to be done.  When the man from China came in he moaned and acted like he was fighting to open his eyes.

The hand, almost as familiar as Pa’s, that landed on his forehead made him groan at the fact that he was gonna make Hop Sing feel real bad when he found out what he was up to.

‘Little Joe awake?’

He fought a moment more before opening his eyes.  Real feebly, he reached up and said, “Hop Sing?  Is that you?”

“Sure it me.  How Little Joe feel?”

He blinked a couple of times and then focused on the Chinese man’s face.  “Okay, I guess,” he said and then licked his cracked lips.  “Kind of hungry.”

Hop Sing’s eyes lit with delight as he’d known they would.  “Little Joe want food?  Hop Sing get it!  Have broth in kitchen.  Only take minute to heat up.”

As the little man bustled toward the door, Joe called out to him.  When Hop Sing swung back, he said, “I heard Pa and Hoss talkin’.  Roy’s got somethin’ real important to tell them.  Don’t…don’t let Pa know I’m awake ‘til they’re…done, okay?”  He smiled that smile – the one that melted women’s hearts and seemed to be able to make men forget what they were about.  “You know, Pa, he’ll…drop everything just to come up here and…watch me eat.”

For a moment Hop Sing wavered between his loyalty to him and what he owed to the older man downstairs.  Finally, he nodded.  “Hop Sing get soup.  Not tell father.  You stay put!”

“Sure thing, Hop Sing,” he said.

Their cook was eying him suspiciously.  “Number three son promise?”

Dang it!  He’d have to ask that, wouldn’t he?  Joe frowned.  Normally he’d just make a promise that meant nothing but sounded like it meant something.  Then he could do what needed to be done with a clear conscious.  But today his head was pounding like Adam was takin’ a blacksmith’s hammer to it and he couldn’t think clear.

So he lied.

With a smile and a nod, Joe said, “I promise.”

As soon as Hop Sing was out of the room Joe struggled to free himself from the myriad of blankets that covered him.  When he was finally free, he sat up and threw his legs over the edge of the bed.  He figured he had, maybe, fifteen minutes before Hop Sing returned.  He really couldn’t afford to waste two or three clearing his head.  Still, he knew if he stood up too fast the odds were he’d end up on the floor.  His pa would hear the ‘thump!’ and that would be the end of it.  Joe snorted as he worked his way slowly to his feet and then stood there, clinging onto the bedpost and waiting for a dizzy spell to pass.  Pa’d probably tie him down when he found out what he’d done.  But that’d be okay.

Just so long as he got to see Bella.

Joe still couldn’t quite believe she was alive.  He’d been so sure the burned body of the blonde girl by the coach had been hers.  And yet, from what his pa had said, even though Bella was here at the ranch house, she still wasn’t safe.  Maybe she’d been hit by an arrow or – Joe swallowed over his fear – shot.  Maybe she was fighting a fever like he’d been.  A rueful smile curled his lips.  Even though she was all grown up, Bella was still about one of the tiniest things he’d ever seen.  Standing tall, he doubted she would come up to his chin.  What she’d witnessed out there in the hills would have been more than enough to lay someone bigger and stronger low, let alone the fact that she’d been exposed to extreme temperatures and like him, gone without food or water for nearly a day.  Women were awful strong when it came to carrying on for others, but he’d found that – sometimes – they just didn’t have the strength to do it for themselves.

Since he’d been standing for a minute, he decided to try walking.  He ended up staggering like a sailor on dry land, but managed to make it to the door.  With his ear to the crack Joe listened.  He could hear Roy and the others talking below.  The discussion sounded heated.  There was a part of him that wanted to go listen since he knew his father and brothers would hide things from him, but that part didn’t win.  The part that wanted to see Bella did.

He’d already lost near five minutes.

Opening the door quietly, Joe stepped into the corridor, shivering as a light breeze hit him.  It wasn’t until that moment that he looked down and realized he wasn’t wearing anything but a thin night shirt.  He puzzled about it a second and then went on, his bare feet making little or no sound on the floor.  It wasn’t a proper way to be dressed to see a young lady, but then, Bella wasn’t just any young lady.

She was his big sister and friend.

At the door to her room, Joe hesitated.  Then he tripped the latch and went it.  The curtains were drawn just like they’d been in his room, so he had a hard time seeing anything other than her profile as it was cast by the single oil lamp sitting on the bedside table.  Drawing a breath against what he would find, Joe moved through the room, using the furniture to prop him as he went.  Once he reached the bed, he sank into the chair beside it.  Reaching over, he turned up the wick and looked.

A single tear ran down his cheek.

Bella’s  face was pale as the bed linens.  Her chest rose and fell fast.  Under the lids, her eyes moved rapidly, like they was being chased.  Joe reached out and place a hand alongside her cheek, almost pulling back when he felt the heat radiating from her.  Like me, he thought, she’s got a fever.  Unlike him, though, Bella’s hadn’t broken but was spiking.

It seemed the crisis was at hand.

Leaving the chair, Joe sat on the bed beside her and lifted her up into his arms.  He ran his fingers through the tangled mass of her golden curls and then bent his head and whispered in her ear.

“Bella, it’s Little Joe.  Bella, you gotta hear me.  I’m okay.  I’m here.”

A little moan escaped her.

He cupped her face in his hand and turned it toward him.  Then he brushed her forehead with his lips.

“Bella, come on.  You’re scarin’ me.  Wake up.  Please, wake up.”

Another little moan and this time, her eyes opened.   They were fevered, but as they focused on his face, he thought she knew who he was.

“Bella,” he said, catching the hand she was lifting toward him and kissing it.  “Bella, it’s me –”

“Little…Joe?”

His tears were flowing freely now.  “Yeah, its me.”

Those wide blue eyes she had, round as the moon and deep as a well, fastened on his face.  “You’re…not dead?”

“Dead?  Heck, no.  You and I got…too much to do for that.  You remember all the things we talked about?”  His head was spinning and throbbing…and pounding.  He hoped he could remember.  “I told you we’d go to town, so I could show you off.  And I’d take you to the dress shop and buy you a new hat.  Bella?”

Her eyes were closed again.

“Bella?”

In spite of his own fatigue, Joe gathered her silent form into his arms and sat there rocking her, speaking words in her ear, hoping against hope that they were getting through.

“You gotta fight, Bella.  You gotta fight!  You can’t….”  Joe drew in a deep breath.  “I can’t….”  He paused, gathering strength and breath before finishing.

“I don’t think I can live without you.”

 

“We’ve been at this for fifteen minutes, Roy, and you’ve told us next to nothing!”  Ben Cartwright shouted, forgetting to lower his voice for the sake of the two convalescents upstairs.  “My son needs me.  Now either you tell me what is going on with Fleet Rowse or I am heading back up there!”

“Now hold them horses of your’n, Ben.  I’m gettin’ to it.”

Adam really doubted that.

Sitting in the blue velvet chair by the hearth, Adam had his cheek propped on his hand.  Roy had spent the last ten minutes – not fifteen – detailing the hunt he and the posse had made for the Indians and Fleet Rowse.  They were sure Rowse was behind the raid and had made off, not only with the gold the stage had been carrying, but with his sister.  The lawman had spent the last day in town trying to calm down Aurora’s new husband, Robert Clark, before heading out here to let them know the progress of the investigation.

Which was nil.

“Getting to it!  Good Lord!  If it had taken the men who started this great country of ours that long to ‘get to’ dealing with the British, we’d be drinking tea and eating scones at four everyday!”

Adam’s amused hazel eyes flicked to his brother, Hoss, who was standing by the hearth next to their father’s vacated chair.  They might not have tea and scones at four, but they certainly had the English china and silver to serve it!

“Did you or did you not locate Fleet Rowse?” his father demanded.

“It ain’t that easy, Ben.”

“Why isn’t it that easy?  You either know where he is or you don’t.”

“Well, as of today we don’t, but we thought we did.  No, we was sure we did.”

“We?” Hoss asked.

“Me and them army men.  Followed him right up into the hills.”

“How do you know it was Rowse you were following?” Adam asked as he straightened up.

‘Cause of that redheaded woman ridin’ on the back of his horse.  Had to be Mrs. Clark.”

“So you followed Rowse.  You, your deputies, and over a dozen horse soldiers.  But you lost him?”

His father’s tone was harsh.  It was the one he used with them when he was just about pushed beyond the limit of patience.

Roy shook his head.  “He’s a mean one, and slippery than a snake shedding its skin.  We was sure we had him cornered, Ben.  We seen him and the woman going into this cave.  Some of the army men circled round while me and my boys made a frontal attack.”  Roy pursed his lips and shook his head.  “We dang near fell over each other when we met in the middle!”

“So Rowse had an exit out of the cave somewhere between the front and the back?” Adam asked for clarification.

“Must have, but we couldn’t find it.  It was like that there outlaw just vanished into thin air and took Mrs. Clark with him.”

“What about the Indians?” Hoss asked.  “Was they there too?”

“We killed about half a dozen on the way there.  The rest, well, they vanished too.  That don’t surprise me none.  Them Indians know those hills better than any white man.”

“Maybe not better than Rowse,” Adam said quietly.  “Remember Roy, he was one of them once upon a time.”

The sheriff nodded.  “That’s why I was hopin’ that Captain Eastwind would still be here.  He ran with them once.  Might of known where to look.”

“Nathaniel had to report back to the fort,” his father said with a sigh.  “He said he’d return as soon as he was granted permission.  I know the Colonel there and sent a letter requesting it.  It shouldn’t be too long.”

Roy was watching their father, concern etched into every craggy feature.  “How is Joe doin’ and the little gal?”

“Joseph’s fever broke last night.  He should mend soon so long as he behaves.  Elizabeth,” the older man paused, “she’s still fighting.”

“What’s the Doc say, Ben?”

“What does Paul always say?” Pa answered, his tone short and slightly put out.  “They’re both young and strong.  He’s done all he can.  It’s up to each of them and God now.”  The older man returned to his chair and sat heavily in it.  “So what you are telling me is that that villain – that murderer – is still out there somewhere.”

“Now, Ben, Rowse’s got his sister and her money.  I’m bettin’ he high-tailed it back to Mexico.  Ain’t nothin’ keepin’ him here where the law’s gonna be on his tail night and day.”

“Nothing but my son.”

“We don’t know as Rowse was lookin’ for Little Joe or anyone else in particular.  Could have been a coincidence.  Weren’t no way he could know the boy was riding shotgun on that stage.”

“Unless he was the one askin questions in town the night before the stage left.”  Adam met his father’s stare.  “Nel, a girl at the saloon I know, described a drifter that fit Rowse’s description.  He was asking about the time the stage was taking off, where it was going, and so on.”

“So he could have known Joseph was on it,” the older man said, not looking at him but at Roy.

Roy nodded his acceptance.  “Could have been lookin’ to kill two or three birds  with one stone, I suppose.”  At their father’s look, he said, “Sorry, Ben.  Just thinkin’ out loud.”

At that moment Hop Sing came bustling in carrying a tray laden with a bowl of soup and a cup.  Both were steaming.

“Who’s that for, Hop Sing?” Hoss asked.  “Is little brother awake?”

Their cook halted at the bottom of the stairs.  He paused and then stammered out.  “Not…not wake yet, but Hop Sing see signs.  Take food up so ready when Little Joe is.”

“What signs?” Ben demanded as he rose to his feet.

“Eyes move under lids.  Make small sounds.  I go up now and see.  Call you if Little Joe awake.  Okay?”

“I just got one more thing, Ben, and then you can go too,” Roy said.

His father scowled.  The older man dismissed Hop Sing with a wave and a short ‘thank you’ as he turned back to the lawman. “Well?”

“Just wanted to know if you wanted me to leave any men posted on your land?  I got a good dozen deputized from that there posse.  If you’re worried about Rowse….”

“Thank you, Roy, but we’ll be fine.  We’ve of plenty of hands to patrol the ranch area.  Let those men go home to their families.  It seems there’s nothing else they can do.”  As the sheriff moved toward the door, his father called him back. “Oh, and Roy….”

“Yes, Ben?”

“Tell them thanks and that we appreciate them lending a hand in the search for Joseph.”

The lawman grinned. “Most everyone loves that youngest boy of your’n, Ben, even if they do want to punch him half the time.”

“Mistah Ben!  Mistah Ben!” Hop Sing’s voice rang out, high-pitched and panicked.  A second later the Chinese man appeared at the top of the stairs, the tray still in his hands. “Little Joe no in his room!”

Even as his father exclaimed, “Good God!”, Adam was on his feet and moving.  He made it up the stairs before everyone else and raced down to Joe’s room.  Sure enough, the bed was empty.  Several pieces of furniture in the room were out of place, as though Joe had used them to make his way to the door.  But why?  Where would he have gone?  Adam stood there for a moment thinking hard.  Where?  

Where?

His fingers snapped.  Bella!

Joe must have been awake earlier when Pa and Hoss talked in his room.  It was the only thing that made sense.

Meeting Pa, who was closely followed by Hoss and Roy, in the hallway Adam held out a hand.  He  indicated the door next to Joe’s with a roll of his eyes.  The man in  black waited for his father’s nod and then slowly opened the door to Bella’s room and stepped in.

Joe was there.  Dressed only his night shirt, he lay on the bed next to Bella, one arm thrown protectively over her small form.  His brother was asleep.  So was Bella – and it seemed, peacefully at last.

“Well, if that ain’t a sight,” Roy whistled softly.

“I guess Joe just had to see for hisself that the little gal was still with us,” Hoss said.

“Boy lie, but not for self,” Hop Sing agreed.

Their father had crossed to the bedside where he stood looking down at the pair.

“What do you want us to do, Pa?” Adam asked, sensing his father’s distress at what he considered an impropriety.

The older man didn’t hesitate  “Get another blanket.  Cover your brother up.  He’s shivering.  Joseph is going to get sick again if he doesn’t keep warm.”

Hoss looked about as surprised as he felt.  ‘Sure thing, Pa,” he said and got to it.

After the blanket was in place and the oil lamp turned down, they all stepped into the hall.  Roy Coffee bid them goodbye, Hoss went to see the lawman to the door, and Hop Sing went back to the kitchen with his tray.

That left him and his pa alone.

“You going to leave Joe there?” he asked, indicating Bella’s room.

His father favored him with a half-smile.  “Not all day, just for a little while.  I think… I think maybe those two waking up and seeing each other will prove half the cure.”

Adam was silent a moment.  “Pa.  Joe and Elizabeth.  You don’t think….”

His father’s hand came down on his shoulder.  “I’m trying not too.  Now come on downstairs, Adam, it’s time we got some breakfast and the ranch returned to normal.”

Adam laughed as he followed his father down the stairs.

He wondered what that looked like!

EIGHT

Bella blinked as she opened her eyes.  She felt weak and tired and just a little bit surprised to find that she was alive.

More than a little, really.

The blonde woman looked around, noting the familiar – if long forgotten – details of a room she had occupied once before.  Little had changed in the five years she’d been gone.  The same beautiful wooden dresser was pushed up against the far wall.  The bedstead was the same too, though both seemed much smaller.  The silk curtains were pulled back and the window opened to an early spring day of warmth and sun.  She could hear birds chirping happily in the trees outside.

They didn’t know.

They didn’t know the world had ended the moment Little Joe died.

Tears flooded her eyes and ran down her cheeks.  Little brother’s pa and his brothers were certain to have buried him by now.  They wouldn’t have waited for her to wake up.  After all, life had to go on.

Or so she was certain everyone would tell her.

Turning over in the bed, Bella shoved her face into the covers and pulled them up over her eyes and ears, wishing she could return to the oblivion of unconsciousness.  At least there little brother was alive.  When her fever was high, she’d been there with him, sitting and playing checkers before the fire, enjoying Adam reading out loud, and listening to Ben Cartwright’s tales of the sea.  When she grew chilled and began to tremble, Little Joe was there too in the cold, bundling her in furs and holding her tightly in the sleigh, shaking the reins so the bells jingled; driving it a little too fast over the mounds of snow.

Here, now, in the reality she occupied, there was nothing.

Her face still buried, Bella gave way to her grief.  Silent sobs wracked her small frame.  She cried until she was exhausted and then she lay there, wondering how she could possibly go on.

Then she heard them.  Low voices, just outside her door.  Men’s voices.  Two of them, maybe three.

“I told you rest was paramount.  What was he doing out of bed?”

“He’s stubborn as a mule, you know that, Doc.”

Hoss, that was Hoss talking.  The other one was probably Doc Martin.  The older man had moved in and out of her fever dreams as well.

“You know as well as I do, Hoss, that in the face of an obstacle which is impossible to overcome, ‘stubbornness’ is simply another word for stupidity!.”

“My brother ain’t stupid, Doc.”

Hoss was angry.

So was the doctor.

“Oh?  And I suppose leaving his bed, wearing himself out, and falling back into a fevered state was a brilliant strategy?  That young man’s actions have put everything I did for him in jeopardy – as well as his life!”

Bella was sitting up now.  She swung her bare feet over the edge of the bed and headed for the door, careful to hold on as she went and not to make a sound.  Once there she placed an ear to the crack.

“Paul, I understand your anger.  I’m angry too.  But, he’s only a boy.”

“At twenty-four, Ben, you had a child of your own and were headed across the country to build a better life for Adam and yourself.  Youth is no excuse!”

“I don’t think it was that, Doc,” Hoss said quietly.   “Little brother just had to see that Miss Bella was doin’ all right.”

Bella felt her chest tighten.  Little brother?  Hoss only had one little brother, didn’t he?  Did that mean that Little Joe –

“Joseph has been sheltered, Paul,” Ben Cartwright said.  “Perhaps it is my fault.  Perhaps….  Perhaps it is why he fights so hard to be thought of as a man.”

Her head was spinning.  Little brother was alive?

“That’s not all he’ll be fighting for, Ben.  That boy is sick.  Keep him in bed this time and be sure to work on getting that fever down as quickly as possible. This relapse may be due to exhaustion, but it could just as easily be a sign of an underlying infection.  Now, I have to go.  Susan Carter is due to have her baby any time and I promised I would be there.”

As the three men’s footsteps began to move down the hall toward the stair, Bella turned her back to the door and slid to the floor.  Tears came again, but this time they were tears of joy.  Little Joe.  Her beloved Little Joe was alive!  Still, her joy was tempered by the doctor’s words.  Little brother was sick. He was hurting.

She had to see him!

Bella wiped the tears from her cheeks and rose to her feet.  She was wobbly, but that wasn’t going to stop her!  She crossed to the bed first and tossed a wrap around the shoulders of her nightgown and then returned to the door.  She stood for a moment with her hand on the latch and then carefully opened it and padded over to the rail.  Once there, she peeked around the corner and saw Adam, Hoss, and Mister Ben following the doctor out the door.  There were sounds from the kitchen as well – the banging and clanging of pans – so she assumed Hop Sing was busy.

It was now or never!

The walk was a short one, only a few feet from door to door, but by the time she reached Little Joe’s room, Bella was winded.  She stood outside it for a moment, resting her head on the smooth wood, and then turned tripped the latch and went inside.  The room was hot and stuffy and the curtains were drawn.  Even though it was the middle of the day, a large fire blazed in the heart, kindled no doubt to keep little brother warm and help break his fever.  Bella closed the door behind her and stood just inside it . She was terrified that she was still sick herself, still deep in the throes of a fevered nightmare, and that this was not really happening – that if she moved she would wake up to the reality that Little Joe was dead as she had feared.

Then she heard a sound.  A small one, like a little puppy whimpering for its ma.  As she drew a deep breath, Bella moved forward, reaching out with a hand and catching the board at the foot of the bed.  At first she couldn’t see him. All she could see was a pile of blankets heaped up in the middle of the bed.  Then, she saw his curls – Little Joe’s glorious riot of dark brown curls – peeking out from under the blankets.  Walking as if the carpet was made of egg shells, she hesitantly crossed to the side of the bed and looked down.  Little brother was breathing hard and every so often, he’d make that sound.  Much as she wanted to touch him, she was afraid to.

She was terrified that she’d wake up and find this wasn’t real.

Bella drew a steadying breath.  Her pa had told her once that courage didn’t mean you weren’t afraid.  It was a choice – a choice that something else was more important than your fear.

Releasing the breath slowly, the blonde woman eased onto the side of the bed and reached out to pull back the covers. She gave a little gasp as the form beneath them was revealed.  Little Joe was wearing  a night shirt.  It was opened down to his waist, revealing a well-muscled chest that rose and fell rapidly as if he had just finished running a race.  His skin gleamed golden in the fire’s light, lit by the fire within and without.  Bella chewed her lip for a moment and then reached out to touch him – tentatively, hesitantly.  As her fingers found his flesh, she sucked in air.

His fever was shocking.

Rising, Bella went to the washstand.  Several white cloths hung on its side racks.  Picking one up, she dipped it in the tepid water and then returned to Little Joe’s side.  Ever so gently, she ran it over his chest and arms.  He sucked in air when it touched him, but then seemed to sigh as the water cooled his skin.  Bella repeated the action several more times and then, with tears streaming down her cheeks,  just sat there, staring at him.  After a moment she reached out and touched his face and then bent down and kissed him on the forehead.

“I’m here, little brother,” she breathed.  “I’ll take care of you.”

As she spoke Little Joe turned his head into the pillow.  He frowned and made that little sound again and then seemed to struggle with something only he could see.  She caught his hand with her free one and squeezed his fingers.

“Little Joe?  Little Joe, it’s – ”

She gasped.

His eyes were open.

Joe looked past her at first, as though he was trying to understand where he was.  But then those eyes – green as the pines and brilliant as a Ponderosa day – shifted to her face.  He made a little sound, this one a tiny laugh, as his full lips curled in a pale imitation of his usual smile.  She felt his fingers tighten on her own.

“Bella….”

The tears flowed freely as her hand moved to his hair, touching the sodden curls that lay in a tangle across his forehead.  She loved little brother’s hair.  It had so many colors in it – a deep sable brown, gold like sunlight through a storm, and slender silver streaks like lightning.

“It’s me, little brother,” she said softly.

“…thank you,” Joe breathed.

“For what?” she asked, wrinkling her nose and frowning.

“For…saving me.”

Bella shook her head.  “I didn’t.  I –”

“Yes…did.”  Little Joe’s eyelids were heavy.  Like curtains they closed over his beautiful green eyes; the  thick black lashes startling against the pallor of his cheeks.   “…safe.”

“Yes,” she agreed while stroking his hot brow, “you’re safe, little brother.  Thank God, you’re safe.”

He blinked.  His eyes opened again and he looked right at her.  Then he shook his head ever so slightly.  “No.  Thank God you’re safe.  You’re….”  For a second she thought he had fallen unconscious, but then she felt his hand tug at hers.  “Don’t leave….”

He was pulling her toward him.  Bella glanced at the door, sure that Mister Ben would be none too happy to find her here.  But then she decided, that didn’t matter.

All that mattered was Little Joe.

Bella shifted slightly and lay her head on his chest, listening to that heartbeat that she had thought was stopped forever.  As she lay there, Little Joe’s hand found her hair and his fingers worked their way into it.

“Love…you, Bella,” he breathed before falling silent.

She raised up and glanced at him sleeping peacefully now, and then she returned her head to his chest.

“Little Joe,” she whispered, “I love you too.”

And she didn’t think she meant as her little brother.

 

Many miles away, in an abandoned cabin at the edge of Ponderosa land, Aurora Guthrie Clark gripped the edge of the window frame, her knuckles going white.  She’d kept count of the days since Fleet had brought her here, marking the wall with a lead pencil she’d found in a drawer.  This was the fourth day since the coaches had been attacked and all of those people murdered.

All because of her.

There were moments when she thought she couldn’t bear it.  When she wanted to run out the door, down the hill, and into the nearby river and drown.  The only thing that saved her was the knowledge that Bella Carnaby had gotten away.  She’d promised Fleet she would stay with him – leave her husband and her home – if only he let the girl live.  Unfortunately, there was no way to get word to Robert.  Fleet had threatened to kill her husband if she contacted him.  Her brother knew the law was smart enough to figure out that the renegade Indians hadn’t acted alone.  Someone had to have had a white man’s knowledge of both stage coaches and their routes.  He said Robert would believe she’d died in the raid.  She had to accept that.

The consequences of crossing her depraved brother were simply too terrible to consider.

About an hour after she and Fleet arrived at the cabin, the Indians came carrying the Treasure Box from the stage.  On the way to this place Fleet had explained that the inherited fortune was his and not hers.  In a way, he was right.  He was oldest.  She’d offered to let him have all the gold and not to press charges or contact the law if he would only let her return to Robert.  Her brother’s answer had been that this was not only about the money.

It was about family.   Their family.

And revenge.

A shudder passed through her.  Aurora wrapped her arms around the light blouse she wore and looked down the overgrown path before the cabin, wondering when Fleet would appear.  The place looked to have been abandoned for a year or two.  Most likely it had belonged to a family who’d not been able to make it and returned east.  ‘Family’, she mused.  It was hard for her to apply that word to her relationship with her brother.  Still, she had to remember, Fleet had not asked to be taken by the Indians as a youth and turned into a killer.  He had, however, chosen to remain with Red Pony when he could have left.  When she asked him why, he’d said he wasn’t made for four walls and a way of life that was confined by rules.  With the Indians, he was free.

Free.

Free to burn, to loot and destroy, and to commit murder.

Aurora closed her eyes and turned so her back was to the window.  She had been terrified when the Indians arrived at the cabin.  The older one, Thinks Twice , was frightening looking, but seemed to have some notion of honor.  He actually sided with her, urging Fleet to keep the money, but to let her go.  The young warrior who accompanied the older Indian, Shadow Walker, was another matter.  He was just plain terrifying.  She could see it in his eyes.  The warrior hated whites, all whites – with the apparent exception of Fleet who was his brother in blood.

Pushing off the window, she went to the cabin’s hearth where she had left a pot of coffee banked against the coals.  She‘d made it for Fleet who was due back anytime.  Filling a cup, she went to the table and sat down with it.  She took a sip and then stared at the hand that held the cup, which was trembling.  It had been five years since she had seen her brother, five years where she dared to hope she might never see him again.  Fleet had had his way until he took on the Cartwright family, kidnapping Ben’s youngest son in an attempt to collect a ransom.  He’d almost killed Joseph – and Adam too – before the law caught up with him and he was forced to flee to Mexico.  The lawmen were hot to capture Fleet and hang him.  She’d received a few letters from him early on, which she had passed on to the authorities.   Years had gone by with no contact.  Then, just a few weeks back, she’d received a note from her brother saying only, ‘See you soon.  Fleet.’

She should have let the law know the minute it arrived, but never in her wildest dreams she had imagined that he would make such a bold and daring move.  She had been so sure there was no way he could have heard of the inheritance.  After all, he was in Mexico!  The only person she mentioned anything about the note too was her husband.  That was why Robert insisted on hiring Mr. Smith to be her companion and bodyguard.  Aurora felt sick.  She placed the cup on the table and cradled her head in her hands.  Poor Mister Smith!  He had done his duty and perished.

Dear Lord!  All those people….

Aurora drew a shuddering sigh and straightened up.  With a hand she struck the tears away, knowing she dare not show any weakness before her brother or the evil men he was with.  Fleet had gleefully informed her that he’d subscribed to the Territorial Enterprise just so he could keep up with her.  The paper took a while to get it to Mexico, but it got there.  He’d read the article about her coming into their uncle’s fortune and the others about her trip.  Fleet was shrewd.  He read between the lines and figured out that the information given in them was only a portion of the truth.  He’d high-tailed it to Virginia City as fast as he could and laid low for a few days asking questions, mostly in the more disreputable saloons.  That was how he found out that the stage that carried the gold would leave at midday and not in the morning, and on a day and at a time other than the ones stated in print.  Fleet said there’d been a tall blonde saloon girl named Nel had who watched him closely – so closely he figured she was suspicious.  He meant to kill her, but had been distracted when the Cartwrights showed up in town.

Fleet had learned from the drunk and loquacious patrons of the saloon about not only the gold, but about Joseph riding shotgun messenger on the same stage.  And while killing the young man had not been his chief reason for attacking the stage line – she was – Fleet told her it was fate that made it that way.  When Joseph survived the attack and escaped, her brother sent Shadow Walker and the others to find him and finish the job.

Thank God the army got in the way!

Still, it wasn’t over.

Fleet meant to find and kill Joseph Cartwright and maybe the other Cartwright sons as well.  She’d spent the better part of the last day trying to talk him out of it.  She reminded him that he was wealthy beyond belief now and could go anywhere and do anything.  The atrocities he’d committed were horrible, but in time the law would forget.  But if he killed any of Ben Cartwright’s sons, that would be the end of it.  The rancher would hunt him down and bring him to justice if it took the rest of his life.

To which Fleet replied, ‘Then, I’ll just kill him too.’

She knew he would.

Aurora glanced at the window, wondering what was keeping her brother.  Shadow Walker had shown up at the cabin late the night before and, after a few words with Fleet, the two of them had mounted up and ridden away.  All night long she’d tossed and turned as her conscience pricked her, wondering if her brother had gone to kill Joseph Cartwright.  She should have gone for help, but she just couldn’t.  She knew what her brother was capable of.  Every time she closed her eyes the image of childhood home going up in flames rose up her.  Fleet knew where Robert was.  He would slit his throat in a second and do the same to their house.  Her brother was a killer  He had become a killer after being kidnapped and indoctrinated into that way of life by the savage renegades who took him.  The redhead reached up and struck away a tear that was shed, not for her brother, but the innocent son of the Parrishes.  Thom Parrish was alive.  Thinks Twice had taken the boy during the raid on the stagecoach to replace his own son whose death he blamed on white men.  Thom was just about the age Fleet had been when he was kidnapped.  Would he – would Thom one day also come to be a willing participant in such violent acts?

With a trembling hand Aurora lifted her cold coffee and took a sip.  It wasn’t easy, but she’d forced herself  to eat and drink in order to keep up her strength.  For the time being she would play along with her brother in order to keep her husband safe.  But if Fleet went back on his word – if she even got wind that he might hurt Robert –she intended to run fast and hard for the law.  It might be the only way to save the man she loved.

And she might just save the Cartwrights too.

As she downed the last of the coffee, the redhead heard the sound of hoof beats approaching.  She walked to the window again and looked out.

Shadow Walker was alone.

A moment later the latch lifted.  As the door opened, Aurora stepped back, placing the table between her and the young warrior.

“You will come with me,” he announced.

“Why should I?  Where’s Fleet?”

“You will come.”

Her fingers gripped the chair-back.  “I will not if you don’t answer me!”

Shadow Walker studied her a moment.  She saw it in his eyes .  He would as soon kill her as do whatever her brother had asked.

Finally, he said, “Many Kills wishes to conceal the gold.  You are needed.”

She blinked.  “Why doesn’t he have you or one of the other Indians help him do that?”

The warrior scoffed.  “Even though we have no desire for the white man’s gold, Many Kills does not trust us.”

Aurora masked her pleasure.  Was it possible these evil men might fall out among themselves?

“Will I be coming back here?” she asked.  “I have some things –”

“I do not know.  I do not care about such things,” the Indian replied.  “Take with you what you would not leave behind.”

She nodded.  “All right.  Give me five minutes.”

“I give you two.”

 

“Well, dad-blame it, if that don’t beat all!” Hoss Cartwright said softly as he scratched his head at the scene before him.  “Didn’t I just cart that boy out of Miss Bella’s room!”

Doctor Martin was standing beside him, medical bag in hand.  “Quite the tenacious pair, those two.”

It was early evenin’.   Pa’d meant to come up to check on Little Joe sooner, but Paul had returned and they’d got to talkin’.  Then Adam came in with news about the horses they were gettin’ ready for the army.  Before he was done, Hop Sing announced supper was on the table.  The Doc hadn’t eat all day, so Pa invited him and Paul sat down with them and they started to eat….

It was about an hour later that they realized no one had checked on Little Joe all afternoon.

He’d volunteered right quick to do it, even though there was a big, juicy roast pig sittin’ on a platter in the center of  the table eyin’ him.  He’d had to be right fast to beat Pa to it, but he’d managed it.

After all, Pa looked like he needed that pork more than he did.

The Doc had followed him, anxious about his patients.  He said he wanted to check both of them before he returned to the table.

Hoss snickered.  Well, he weren’t gonna have much trouble doin’ that since here they both was in the same bed!

“I see your father’s house rules have grown somewhat lax,” the older man said with a smile.

The big man eyed him.  “You just be glad it’s me found them instead of Pa.  Once was sure-as-shootin’ more than enough!”

Pickin’ his big feet up and puttin’ them down as gently as he could, Hoss made his way over to the bed.  It looked like Miss Bella had been sittin’ on Pa’s chair, and then the side of the bed, and then just put her head down and fell asleep.  Hoss’ gaze went to his baby brother and he smiled.  Joe was sleepin’ peacefully for the first time in a long time.  That was the way little brother was, he didn’t like bein’ alone.  Since his mama died, he always thought when he was alone, he was gonna stay that was for some reason.  Leanin’ over, Hoss put his hand on Little Joe’s forehead.

“Fever’s broke,” he said softly, lookin’ at the Doc.

“Thank God!” Paul replied.

At the sound of their voices, Miss Bella stirred.  She made one of those cute little female noises and then lifted her head and blinked.

“Hoss?”

“Yes, m,” he replied.

Her giant blue eyes blinked away sleep.  Then she looked down and said, “Little Joe!”

“He seems okay,” Hoss assured her.  “You been watchin’ over him, huh?”

The girl’s cheeks went apple red as she looked from him to the Doc and back.   “I…  When I woke up, I thought Little Joe was…dead.  Then I heard Doctor Martin and you all talking.”  She chewed her lower lip for a second.  “I just had to see that it was true.  That he was alive.”

“Joe was done worried about the same thing with you.  Do you remember him bein’ in your room yesterday?”

She looked puzzled, and then shook her head. “No.

“Well he was, layin’ right on top of you like you was on him….”

Now it was his cheeks that went red.

“Not meanin’ anythin’ by that.  I…er….”

He heard the doctor chuckle. “Hoss, why don’t you return the young lady to her room while I check your brother over.  If the fever’s gone for good this time, Joe should mend fairly quickly.  And you, young lady, I will come see you next,” he added, his tone mock stern.  “Make sure you are in your own room when I get there.”

Miss Bella had hold of one of Joe’s hands.  It was all she could do to let it go.  Finally, she surrendered it with a quiet, “Yes, sir.”

“You want me to carry you, Miss Bella?” Hoss asked.

She smiled at him as he moved to her side.  “Just ‘Bella’, Hoss.  Call me Bella.  And no, I can walk.”  She smiled up at him.  “You are so sweet.”

“Gosh darn it, Miss…Bella, now you gone and made me blush again.”

Bella laughed.

They entered her room and Bella crossed to the chair by the fire.  Once she was seated, she frowned a little frown.  “I….  I know what that looked like….”  She drew a deep breath. “Well, I…we….”

“I won’t go tellin’ Pa, if that’s what you’re afeared of.”

Bella let out a small sigh of relief as tears welled in her big blue eyes.  “I just had to see that Little Joe was alive.  Hoss, I was sure he was dead.  I saw that Indian hit him with that awful club and watched him fall…and then get up and get hit again.  When that man picked him up and they disappeared into the smoke, I couldn’t find him!  I couldn’t find him!”  Her tears were flowin’ freely now.  “I got him up into the rocks and then put him under the ledge and when I checked for his heartbeat that last time, I couldn’t find it.  I couldn’t find it!  I was just sure he had died!  I was never so scared in all my life.  I don’t know what I would have done if little brother was dead, I think….  I think I just would have just died too!”

Now that was the Elizabeth he remembered!

Hoss walked over to her and knelt in front of her chair.  Taking her birdlike hands in his own, he held them tightly.  “It’s over, Bella.  You’re safe and Joe’s safe and that’s only thanks to you.”  He felt a pit open up in his stomach as he said it, but it was the gospel truth.  “If you hadn’t sheltered him and kept him warm, Little Joe wouldn’t be breathin’ no more and we’d both be shy one little brother.”

She swallowed over the emotion that had silenced her.  “Were there…were there any other survivors?”

He knew his pa and Roy were wonderin’ the same thing.  “I don’t know, Bella.  My pa was hopin’ to talk to you about that.”

She closed her eyes, as if tryin’ to shut out what she had seen.  “Aurora,” she said softly.  “And I think Thom Parrish.  The Indians took him.  His parents and his sister…died….  There was another man.  He tried to help Little Joe, but he didn’t make it.”

That would have been Jeri Carlisle.  They knew now from Little Joe that Carlisle had been a Pinkerton detective.  It said somethin’ for the men with Fleet Rowse that they’d killed an experienced lawman like him.

Nothin’ good.

“Now, you just stop thinkin’ on it,” he said, chasing a tear from her cheek.  “You’re just mended and you need your rest.”

“Yes, she does,” a stern voice – not pretendin’ now – said from close behind him.  “There will be time enough for questions tomorrow,” Paul Martin said as he stepped in the room.  “Hoss?”

He was in for a tongue lickin’ for sure.  “What, Doc?”

“Little Joe’s awake.  He’d like to see you.”

“Little brother’s awake?”  A big grin split his face.  “You ain’t joshin’ me?”

The doctor smiled.  “He’s awake.  Now, mind you, don’t tire him out.  Just a few minutes and then go tell your father.”

Hoss nodded as he walked Bella to the bed and then headed for the door.  Once there, he turned back.  “Thanks, Doc!”

“Don’t thank me,” Paul said as he took hold of the blonde girl’s wrist and pulled out his watch.  “You can thank my nurse here.”

The big man smiled.  “I ain’t never gonna stop doin’ that, Doc.”

A few steps took him to his brother’s room.  The curtains were open now and the late afternoon light was streamin’ into the darkened room.  Joe was propped up against a mountain of pillows and looked just about as white as their linen covers.

“Gosh, it sure is good to see you sittin’ up with your eyes open, short shanks,” Hoss said as he sat in the chair by the bed.

Joe gave him a weak grin.  “Guess I’m back among the living.”

His baby brother’s voice was quiet.  Haunted.

Hoss frowned.  “Now don’t you go blamin’ yourself for what happened, Joe.  You couldn’t –“

Hot as the fire that had consumed him before, Joe’s temper flared. “I was ridin’ shotgun!  I was supposed to protect those people!  I….”  He choked.  “I…failed.”

“You tried, Joe.  We all know you did.  You was outnumbered.”

Little Joe leaned his head back.  He winced and sucked in air as the pillow encountered his wound.  He looked right at him, but didn’t say nothin’.  It was like he had somethin’ important to say, but just couldn’t do it.

Finally, it came out.  “Hoss, all those…people….  I…killed them….”

He fell silent again.

“Joe, you look at me.”

His brother sniffed and did as he was told.

“Those men who attacked them two stages meant to kill everybody.  They wasn’t interested in lettin’ anyone go.  It’s God’s own miracle that you and Bella are still alive, and Mrs. Clark.”

Joe’s eyes brightened.  “Aurora?  She’s alive too?  Is she here?”

He didn’t know how much to tell his brother.  He thought maybe Pa ought to be the one to mention Rowse bein’ back.  They wasn’t sure if Joe knew it was him that done the killin’.

“She ain’t here, Joe.  She’s mendin’ elsewheres.”

That seemed to relieve him.  His brother remained silent a moment and then said, “I was afraid her brother got her.”

Hoss fought a sigh.

So he did know.

The big man decided to let it go even though he knew Little Joe’d give him an earful later for doin’ it.  “Mrs. Clark’s safe, little brother, and so are you.”

Joe’s jaw tightened.  His lips quivered as his fingers curled into fists.  Hoss could tell he was fightin’ back tears .

“Hoss….”  This time Joe’s voice did break.  “I thought it was…Bella.”

“Thought what was Bella?” he asked.

“The girl with the golden curls.”

It took a second. Then he remembered the single grave with the cross.  “The one you buried?”  At his look, the big man added, “We knew it was you.”

A tear ran down his brother’s cheek.  “I got everybody killed!” he all but shouted.  “I insisted on taking time to bury her.  I couldn’t….”  A shudder ran the whole length of his body.  “I couldn’t leave her lyin’ there.”

They was fairly certain Joe would have buried any young girl what had been used like that, but they’d suspected her thought it was Bella.

Hoss’ hand reached out to take hold of his brother’s wrist. “I’m sorry, Joe.  That had to be hard on you.”

“She was lyin’ there, Hoss.   On her back, looking at the sky.  Her face was…gone.”  Little Joe gasped with the memory.  “Everything from the waist up was burned so bad.  Her dress was ripped.  Her legs….  God, Hoss, her legs were spread apart and the burned cloth was flappin’ in the wind, and – ”

Hoss was on the bed and had his little brother in his arms faster than a comet.  As Joe sobbed, he ran a hand through his brother’s curly hair, careful to avoid where the club had struck.

“Now, you listen here, little brother, you done been through more than most men could bear.  You got a sorrow in you that could eat a man alive.  You gotta let that out afore it does.”

“Hoss, I can’t –”

“Yes, you can!  God didn’t save you out of all them people for no reason, Little Joe.  He’s got somethin’ right special waitin’ for you and Bella, ‘cause of he saved her too.  If you give up, little brother, then you’re lettin’ those outlaws win and all those people done died for nothin’.”

Joe had quieted enough to listen.  His brother’s face was turned into his shirt.  The cloth was soaked through.  As he sat there, cradlin’ him, Hoss’ own tears began to fall, wettin’ that mass of brown curls that was free now of mud and blood.

“You gotta believe it, boy.  You just gotta.”

Little Joe’s body went slack against him.  “Thanks, Hoss,” he sniffed.

“Boy, you’re done tuckered out,” the big man said, putting him at arms’ length and lookin’ at him.  “You need to get some rest.”

“I was about to say the same thing.”

Hoss turned to find their father standin’ in the doorway.  “It’s Pa, short shanks,” he said quietly.  “Pa’s done come to see you.”

Joe turned slightly, smiled sweetly at the older man, and then went limp in his arms.  Hoss placed his baby brother down carefully and pulled the cover up to his chin. After that, he went over to their father.

“He’s plumb wore out, Pa.  And it ain’t only his body.  Joe’s carryin’ a heap of guilt about them people who died.”

The older man laid a hand on his shoulder.  “That’s Marie’s boy,” he said softly, his eyes on Joe.

“You think he’s gonna be all right?”

It was a loaded question and Hoss knew it, but like he’d reassured Little Joe, he found he was in need of some reassurin’ too.

“Time heals most everything, son, but you have to give time time.”  His father looked at him.  “Thank you,” he said.

“Shucks, it ain’t nothing, Pa.”

“Well, it may be nothing, but you most definitely are something.”   His father placed an arm around his shoulder.  “Now, let’s go let Adam finish that tale about the horses….”

 

NINE

Adam reached up and batted one of the Chinese lanterns that hung from the ceiling rafters and watched it sway back and forth as he walked through the great room.  The house was decked in finery and that included flowers and streamers, as well as the brightly colored paper orbs.

The Cartwrights were throwing a party.

It had been three weeks since the raid on the stage coach line in which Bella and Joe had almost been killed.  Their father wanted to do something to celebrate the pair’s rescue from the jaws of death.  It was also Bella’s birthday.  Today she turned eighteen and officially became a woman.

He wondered if that was the problem.

Paul had granted Bella permission to get up and move about long before he did Joe.  Baby brother’s lungs had become inflamed and there was fear of pneumonia, so the doctor confined him to his room.  For the majority of those next weeks, whenever Bella went missing, that was where they’d find her – in Joe’s room.  The blonde woman insisted on nursing Joe back to health.  In the beginning his kid brother had eaten up the attention, but as the days turned to weeks, something changed.  He’d go to the room to check on Joe and find him pretending to sleep while Bella was there.  He could tell, of course, since Joe had pulled that routine on him and Hoss more times than he could count.  Joe would snuggle down under his covers until only the top of his curly head showed.  Every once in a while he’d make a little noise, shift, and then grip the pillows with his fingers.  Adam ran a hand along the back of his neck as he glanced at the stairs.  He didn’t think Bella had caught on.  She always seemed cheerful when he came in.  But there was something definitely bothering his brother.

Joe had literally gone green when he heard about the party.

He and Hoss had discussed what it all meant.  Joe was still having a hard time overcoming what happened and was, in his opinion, suffering from depression.  He blamed himself for the deaths of the people who were on the stage he was supposed to have been protecting.  It didn’t matter what anyone said – him, Hoss, Hop Sing, Bella, or Pa – Joe just wouldn’t let it go.  He felt responsible which, on one hand, was a sign of manhood, but on the other hand went a long way to show that Joe was still a child.  The hardest day had been the one where Aurora Clark’s husband had come to the ranch house to question him and Bella.  Joe had been so distraught after Robert left, that he’d actually suffered a setback.  It took a lot for them to keep Pa from sending one of the hands for Doctor Martin.  In the end, the older man said he’d give it a day.  When Joe heard that, little brother had come down to breakfast the next morning with a smile on his face, seemingly fit as a fiddle.

Seemingly.

Joe had seemed all right.  The truth was, he was far from it, as his nightmare that night attested.

Today was the last Wednesday in November.  Thanksgiving was past and Christmas on its way.  Unlike the time before when Bella had stayed with them and they’d all ended up running around in a blizzard, the weather this year was temperate.  Winter was definitely on the horizon, but so far the snow had held off.  Hence the decision to go ahead and hold a party.  The roads were clear and everyone was in a holiday mood.  Bella was turning eighteen, and his little brother needed something to take his mind off of what had happened.

“And a good time will be had by all!” Adam declared with a roll of his eyes as he headed into the kitchen.  Hop Sing was there, putting the finishing touches on just about the largest cake he had ever seen.  It was covered with pink roses and other flowers made of marzipan with  ‘Happy Birthday Bella’  emblazoned on the top.

“I think you’ve outdone yourself, Hop Sing.  That cake’s bigger than Bella,” Adam teased as he walked to the Chinese man’ side.

“Bella little.  Cake maybe not big enough for twenty people,” the cook replied.

Pa had invited most of the neighbors, plus Doctor Martin and Roy.  “If Hoss sees it first, that’s a given,” he replied as he stuck his finger into the icing on the side opposite the name.

Hop Sing’s eyes went wide as the plates on the wall.  “Mistah Adam not make hole in cake!”

Adam grinned as he licked his finger.  “My expert opinion is that you need to ladle a little icing into that wound before it festers.”

Hop Sing was making a shooing motion with his hands.  “Mistah Adam go away!  Find someone else to bother!”

He shrugged.  “Hoss is hanging the banner outside.  Joe’s pretending to sleep.  Bella’s watching Joe, and Pa’s watching both of them.   I’m open to suggestions.”

The Chinese man repaired the hole in the cake and then squeezed some icing into a deep spoon and handed it to him.  Adam smiled and accepted it and then shoveled the heaping portion into his mouth.

“Little Joe sad,” Hop Sing said, his voice tempered with concern.  “Why he no better?”

How did he answer that?  Physically, Joe was improving.  But  emotionally – spiritually?  That was another matter.

“It’s said time heals all wounds, Hop Sing.  I’m not so sure it does.  In time the mind builds up enough scar tissue to protect itself and the pain lessens, but the wounds are never truly gone.”  He drew a breath and let it out in a sigh.  “You know Little Joe.  He feels things deeply.  It’s going to take him some time to get over this.”

Hop Sing nodded.  “Missy Bella help.  Good she here.”

Was it?  Adam wondered.   From what he had seen, it seemed Joe found Bella almost too painful a reminder of what had happened.

Adam ambled over to the side table in the kitchen where a plate of chocolate and cream dessert rolls lay.  “You’ve really outdone yourself today, Hop Sing.  Éclairs?”  They were one of Joe’s favorites, which always amused him.  The self-proclaimed bronco buster who wanted nothing to do with culture, enjoying a French delicacy.  Adam glanced at the ice box.  “What else have you got in store for us?”

Hop Sing came over and snatched the plate out from under his wandering fingers.  “You find out tonight at party with everyone else!  Mistah Adam go away.  No food left if he stay!”

He raised his hands in surrender – and then snatched one of the éclairs from the tray.  Adam exited the kitchen to a barrage of Hop Sing’s mock protests.  As he took a bite, he headed back into the great room and arrived just as Hoss came in the door.

“Banner’s up and blowin’ in the wind!” the big man proclaimed as he hung his ten gallon hat on the wall rack.

“Wind?  Oh no.  Don’t tell me it’s going to storm.”

Hoss nodded.  “I think it’ll be after the party.  Around sunrise. Maybe sooner.”

As warm as it was, it would most likely be rain.  “That’s good.  That way everyone will be home before it hits.”

His middle brother cast a glance at the stairs.  “You seen short-shanks yet today?”

It was almost noon.  Paul had told Pa to let Joe sleep as much as he wanted for at least a month, in order to build up stamina and strength.  The fact that Joe was being obedient was another indication that something was wrong.  Normally, any hint that he was not pulling his weight was enough to get him on his feet and out the door no matter how tired he was.  He couldn’t count the times the kid had come close to working himself to death.

“No.  I assume he’s sleeping.”

“What about Bella?”

Adam snorted.  “She’s watching Joe sleep.”

“That little gal sure does have it bad.”

Leave it to Hoss to state the obvious.  “So you’ve seen it too?”

Hoss’d reddish-blond brows popped toward his receding hairline.  “You’d have to be blind as five bats not too.”

The black-haired shrugged.  “Then it appears little brother is blind.”

“I’ve been thinkin’ maybe that’s what’s got him down, you know?  Well, that along with everything else.  You remember how hard it was for him to tell her they was just friends all those years ago?”

Joe saw Bella as that child, that was for certain.  After all, he had just turned twenty-four and Bella was just eighteen.  Seven years made a lot of difference where maturity was concerned.

Adam’s lips quirked.

Bella was definitely more mature than Joe.

“Could be.  I know Joe would fight tooth and claw not to hurt her feelings.”

“You remember how she thought the two of them was gonna get married?” his brother asked.

He certainly did.  It had been cute at the time, but Pa had made it clear to Joe five years before that if he didn’t make it clear to Bella that it wasn’t going to happen, then he’d hurt her twice over.

“I guess that day Pa warned about has finally come,” he replied.

Hoss’ nod turned into an inclination.  Adam turned to see Joe coming down the stairs, yawning and running a hand through his unruly curls, trying to tame them.

“Well, if it ain’t sleeping beauty,” the big man jibed.

Joe looked slightly puzzled as he came to rest at the bottom of the steps.  “Huh?”

“If you’re lookin’ for breakfast, you ain’t gonna find it.  Hop Sing’s just about to put lunch on the table.”

Joe shrugged.  “I’m not hungry.  I’m gonna go out and saddle Cooch and take a ride.  I thought I’d check out that fence Pa said needed mending.”

Pa and Joe had had it out a few days back.  After the relapse, their father had limited what Joe was allowed to do until Paul’s return at the end of the week.  Joe had abided by his edict for a few days and then boldly declared that he was twenty-four and Pa couldn’t tell him what he could and couldn’t do.  Their father had responded that if he had one wit of sense in that curly head of his, he’d let him make his own decisions, but since most of them seemed to be imprudent, this time – where his health was concerned – he was laying down the law.

Adam sighed.  Nothing new there.  It wasn’t all that unusual for Joe to end up on the wrong side of the law.

“Pa won’t like it,” he said.

Joe’s temper flared.  “Pa can just take it and –”   He caught himself before he said something he was going to regret.  He stood there a moment, roping in his anger, and then announced, “I’m not going to do any work.  I’m just gonna ride out and see where it needs done.”

“You want me to come along, Joe?” Hoss offered.  “Since we got that party tonight, it’ll go quicker with the two of us.”

Adam knew what Hoss was doing.  Giving Joe an ‘out’.  That was something else Pa had argued about with Joe – going out alone.

It was always there.  The possibility that Fleet Rowse might still be in the area.

Roy was checking almost daily with the sheriffs in all the nearby towns.  So far there had been no reports of the outlaw being seen.  But Rowse had lived with Indians and like them, knew how to move silently and unseen.  It was a constant fear they all had – Joe being out somewhere alone and Fleet finding him.

Joe stood there, nostrils flaring, chin jutted out; his whole lithe form rigid.  Then, he nodded.  “Come if you want.  Makes no difference to me.”

And that was about as gracious an invitation as he had ever heard.

As Joe put his hand to the door latch, Hoss said, “I’ll be out in a minute.  I got somethin’ to get from my room.”

Their little brother’s glare showed that he saw  through that ruse too.   “Just don’t take too long talkin’ about me,” he grunted and slammed the door behind him.

“Whoo-ee!  That was just about as much fun as handlin’ a fumin’ rattler,” Hoss proclaimed.

He nodded.  “Seems he got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning – afternoon.”

“He didn’t say nothin’ about Bella.  You suppose….”

Adam followed his middle brother’s gaze.  The object of that sentence was coming down the stairs.  Bella had been with them for breakfast.  She’d come to the table wearing a  simple day dress, with her hair pulled back in a tail.  She’d talked and chattered and simply been that little girl who had  saved his brother’s life and come to be their friend.

The woman descending the stairs right now was quite a different story.  Pa had taken her to town the day before to the ladies’ dress shop and told her to pick out what she wanted for the party.   She’d chosen a deep crimson bustle style gown made of watermarked silk that shimmered as she moved.  It had a square neckline and three-quarter sleeves.  It wasn’t a fancy dress, but an elegant one, and its plain nature emphasized the beauty of the one who wore it.

Bella didn’t wear make-up of any kind.  She didn’t need it.  Her complexion was a natural warm ivory with blush that pinked her cheeks and delightfully tinted the end of her upturned nose.  She had her hair down now.  It was the color of tupelo honey; golden with undertones of amber.  She had it pulled up on both sides and caught it in a set of ivory combs, causing a small cascade of curls to fall across her forehead and a larger wave that lay across her shoulders.  A simple gold chain with a tiny cross adorned her neck and petite gold nugget earrings glinted in the lobes of her ears.

As Hoss let out a low whistle, Adam applauded.

“Beauty itself doth of itself persuade the eyes of men without an orator,” he said. “Bella, you look stunning!”

“You sure that’s Bella, Adam?” Hoss asked with a wink.  “I think someone done stole that little gal away last night and left a perfect rose in her place.”

He glanced at his brother with a smile, wondering if the big man knew he was waxing poetic.  Bella for her part….  Well, that blush-pink tint on her cheeks was now as deep as the color of her gown.

“Do you like it?” she asked, taking a little spin, allowing the gores to open and fan out about her tiny waist like the petals of that rose unfolding.

“It’s perfect,” he answered.  “Don’t you think it’s perfect, Hoss?”

“Mm-mm, it sure is!  You’re gonna have every feller at that dance tonight wantin’ to put his name on your card.  Fact is, you’ll probably run out of room!”

Bella smiled.  She hesitated a second and then asked, “Do you think Little Joe will think I’m pretty?”

“Well, if he doesn’t,” Adam said softly, “something has definitely gone wrong with his eyes.”  As he opened  his mouth to ask her if she would like to be escorted to the table Hop Sing was busy setting, the door opened wide and the object of the lovely lady’s question stomped in.

“Forgot my daggone hat,” Joe growled as he headed for the stairs, only to pull up short at the angelic presence standing by the newell post.

It was at that moment that Adam realized that Bella had a power no one else possessed.  She’d stopped Joe in his tracks.

Behind him, Hoss chuckled quietly.  Adam turned and gave him a wink.

Bella was standing there, staring at Joe, a perplexed look on her beautiful face.  “Well?” she said at last.

“I…well…I….”  Joe stammered.  “I…forgot my hat…I left it…upstairs on the dresser.”

Her rose-petal lips quirked.  “I bet the dresser looks quite rakish wearing it.”

Joe was pulling at his collar now and the color of his ears matched Bella’s cheeks.   “Rakish?  My…what?”

She twirled in a little circle, those crimson Moiré panels spiraling out again to accentuate her tiny waist.  “Do you like it?”

Hoss was dying behind him.  Adam gave him a swift elbow in the ribs and a stern look worthy of Pa.  Any sign of the situation being amusing to the two of them and Joe’s temper would flare.  Their kid brother hated being made fun of – at least when there was truth at the bottom of the jab.

Joe still hadn’t moved.  His back was stiff as a board.  “…like it?”

“My gown for the party tonight, silly.”  Bella stopped whirling and looked at him.  “Are you feeling poorly, little brother?” she asked as she stepped up and placed her hand on his forehead.  Joe had his head down.  Probably not a good thing.

That crimson Moiré bustle-back gown had quite the low neckline.

Yep.  That did it.

Joe reared back like a wild mustang spying a saddle.

“I’m fine!” he all but yelled, offering his usual mantra that let you know he was anything but.  “If I’m feelin’ poorly, it’s only because people won’t stop treating me like an invalid!”  He drew a breath, almost but not quite able to realize what his words would do to the sweet young thing standing before him.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta get my hat and get to work!”

With that Joe almost literally flew up the stairs.

Bella stood there for a moment as if stunned and then she ran past them and out the door, slamming it behind her.

Adam pursed his lips and sighed.

“Should be a wonderful party.”

 

It was a wonderful party.  Hop Sing had outdone himself.  Ben Cartwright stood by the staircase, leaning against the newel post, a glass of punch in one hand and a beautiful woman on his arm.  Catherine Begg was one of Virginia City’s finest catches.  She was the proprietress of her own business and widowed for three years and had only recently come back into society.  They had met at her establishment when he took Elizabeth to town to find a gown for her to wear tonight.  Kate, as she liked to be called, had suggested the crimson Moiré the girl was wearing.

The choice was perfect.

As he took a sip of his brandy, Ben looked over the rim at his youngest son who, uncharacteristically, was standing on the sidelines watching instead of dancing.  A number of young beauties had come up to him, but after accepting the first one, Joseph had turned all the others down.  If the boy wasn’t twenty-four years old, he would have said he was pouting.

“Do you think we’re in for a temper tantrum next, Pa?” Adam asked as he walked past, not bothering to wait for an answer as he headed for the young lady he was currently sparking.

“Your sons are delightful, Ben!” Kate remarked with a smile.  “Alike in so many ways and yet, so different.”

As different as the women who bore them.

“They keep me on my toes, especially that youngest one.”

“Joseph, you mean?”  She leaned in closer.  “If I was twenty years younger, that young man would be in trouble!”

Ben smiled at her and patted her hand.  “I guess you’ll just have to settle for the older version.”

She went on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.  “Like a fine wine, men only get better with age.”

“Looks like you’re havin’ a good time, Pa,” Hoss remarked as he walked past carrying a plate of food.

The older man nodded.  “Time of my life.  I just wish your younger brother was enjoying himself.”

“Well, it ain’t spoilin’ Bella’s time none.  Look at that girl dance!”

Hoss was right.  At first Bella had asked Joseph to dance and they had taken one turn around the dance floor.  After that, it seemed Joseph always had something else to do – help Hop Sing carry in the food, go for more wood; check that funny noise he’d heard outside.  After the girl had spent half an hour waiting for him, looking miserable, Adam had gone up to Bella and asked her to be his partner in a Virginia Reel.  It took a few minutes, but soon she was smiling and laughing and Adam was giving way to a young man who had asked to cut in, and then that one gave way to the next.  And the next….

Bella was blooming right before their eyes.

“He’s jealous, you know,” Kate said softly as his middle son moved away.

“Who?  Hoss?”

She sighed and rolled her large brown eyes. “Men.  Blind as a noon day owl!  No, Joseph.”

“Of what?”  He looked again, noting his youngest’s eyes were locked on Bella’s twirling form.  “Of Bella dancing with other young men, you mean?  Nonsense.  They’re just friends.”

“Oh.  Just friends.”  Kate ran a hand along the side of her face, pushing back a few errant strands of chestnut hair streaked with silver.  “Then why, may I ask, is he scowling instead of smiling?”

Ben looked again.  She was right.  “Joseph probably feels protective of her.”

“Oh, he has feelings for her all right,” the older woman replied.  “Protective might be one of them.  Ben, I was a young woman at one time, believe it or not, and I’ve seen that look before.  I admit, there is something in it of an older brother – an older brother who would tear apart any man who so much as dared to look at that charming young creature in the way he’s looking at her now.”

He hadn’t considered it.  Joseph had known Bella since she was eleven years old, and though his son had promised to marry her when she grew up, they had all known he was just humoring a little girl who had a crush on him.

A little girl….

“Oh,” he said.

“And the penny drops,” Kate laughed.

Good Lord.  It all made sense now.  Joseph heading out of the house before Bella was up, asking for – no demanding extra work that would keep him away from the ranch.  Finding him in the barn brushing and brushing Cochise’s patchwork coat until they all feared the poor horse would end up hairless.  Joe’s silence at meals.

The look he was wearing now.

Even though he didn’t know it, Joseph was in love with Bella.

Ben’s eyes flicked to the beautiful young woman who was taking a second turn on the dance floor with the handsome and charming son of Bill Curtis, a distant neighbor.  As his gaze returned to his youngest, his eyes met Adam’s.  An unspoken understanding passed between them in that instant.

“Those boys,” he growled under his breath.

“The parents are always the last to know,” Kate chuckled.  “Now, Mister Benjamin Cartwright, if you are done with your brandy, this old lady would like to show the young ones how it’s done.”

Ben laughed.  “Forgive me.  All I’ve been talking about is my sons.”

She shrugged.  “Every woman in the territory knows that comes with catching the eye of the handsomest man in the state.  Never apologize for love.”

As he took Kate’s hand and moved her onto the dance floor, Ben shot another look at Joseph.

He hoped his son would come to understand that same thing.

 

Joe knew he was sulking, but he didn’t know what else he could do. Every time Bella took the hand of one of his friends and danced with them, smiling and laughing, he wanted to do two things – be happy for her and deck them.  He didn’t know what was wrong.  He loved Bella with all his heart but, well, he was her ‘little brother’ as she called him.  It was like they were…family.  He knew he should be pleased that she was having such a grand time, but he wasn’t.  He guessed this was what big brothers felt like when their little sisters got old enough to have beaus.  From the look of her, she’d gotten over thinking she was gonna marry him.  Bella was hanging onto Geoff Curtis right now like she feared she’d plunge off a hill if she didn’t.  Geoff was leaning in, whispering something in her ear that made her laugh.

He wanted to take that smile on Geoff’s face and wipe the floor with it!

“Having fun, Joe?”

Adam.

Of course, it was Adam.

“What’s it to you?” he growled.

“Whoa.  Down, boy.”

“Don’t call me a ‘boy’.”

“I wouldn’t have to call you one if you’d stop acting like one,” Adam retorted.   “You’re spoiling Bella’s party and that is the act of a self-centered child.”

He had a comeback, but it stuck to his tongue like nut butter.  He’d seen it.  Every once in a while Bella would look over his way.  When she did there was a smile on her lips, but not in her eyes.

Joe shrugged as he didn’t know what to say.

“Why don’t you go dance with her?”

Why didn’t he?  Why?

Why he didn’t was too embarrassing to admit to anyone.  He’d touched Bella plenty of times.  Back when she was eleven, he’d caught her by the waist and swung her around like on of those whirling dervishes in that Arabian Tales book he used to read to her from.  Back when her ‘little brother’ had tucked her in at night and planted a kiss on her forehead.  But today, when he took hold of the tiny corseted waist wrapped in soft crimson cloth, there’d been a bunch of feelings wash over him that had nothing to do with being a little brother.

And it wasn’t her forehead he wanted to kiss.

“I guess I just ain’t feelin’ up to it, Adam,” he answered with a kind of half-truth.

“You feeling weak again?” his brother asked with sudden concern.

“Yeah. Weak.”  That wasn’t a lie either.  “I think I’ll just go outside for some fresh air.  You go have some fun, Adam.  Valerie’s lookin’ for you.”

He had almost made it to the door when a small crimson form stopped him.  “Joe?”

Trapped as he was, Joe turned and looked down at Bella.  She’d been dancing hard and her chest was heaving, making her little breasts rise and fall.

Flustered he looked away.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked in a little hurt voice.

That made him feel about two inches tall.  “Its not you, Bella.  Its me.  I’m…just tired.”

She reached for his face, touching his cheek.

That touch was electric.

“You don’t seem to have any fever.”

Joe stumbled back.  “Bella, you can’t keep….  You can’t keep touching me like that.  You’re eighteen now.  People will wonder.”

“People?” she snapped.  “What people?”  She turned to look at the crowd.  “No one is even paying attention to us.”

“Bella, you’re livin’ here.  It just….  It just ain’t right.”

“Oh?  It isn’t ‘right’?   Well, what is right?  Treating me like I have the plague?”

People were looking now ‘cause she was almost shouting.

“Bella, keep it down.”

“I will not ‘keep it down’!  I can tell you that you are the one with your mind in the gutter, Joseph Cartwright!  You and I are just friends and –”

Geoff Curtis had come up behind her.  “Do you need help, Bella?” he asked.

“No.  Just having a word with my ‘little brother’,” she said, her tone somewhere between hurt and wanting to hurt.

“‘Little brother’, that’s…cute,” Geoff said.

Boy, how he wanted to punch him in the nose, but he held back knowing Pa would be right upset if he got blood on the floor.

“You want to make something out of it?” Joe snarled.

Of course, if it was Geoff who took the first swing

Bill Curtis’ son looked a lot like him, except that he was taller and had curly  black hair.  He wore it long and it made him look kind of like a sheep that needed shorn.  His eyes might have been called green, but there was a lot of brown in them too so he would have called it hazel.  Geoff was a year or two younger than him, though they’d gone to school together.  He’d been to college like Adam and had just come home that summer.

Geoff held up his hands.  “I’m not a brute.  I don’t settle things with fisticuffs, Cartwright.”

Joe scowled.  If I push you hard enough, you just might.

“Joseph, is there a problem?”

His father was standing behind Geoff with two full punch glasses in his hands.

Joe’s eyes went from Bella to the other man.  “No, sir.”

“…that’s good.  Say, Geoff, I heard you have asked Bella to go to town with you.”  The older man paused.  “Joseph, its not polite to stare with your mouth open.”

He closed it.  He turned to Bella.  “You’re going out with him?”

Bella nodded.  “Since I had nothing else to do and no one else to take me to town to see a show, Geoff kindly said he would.”

“Show?  What show?”

“There’s a troupe of actors in town, Cartwright.  They’re performing tomorrow night at the Palace.”  Geoff sniffed.  “It’s culture.  Not the sort of thing a cowboy would be interested.”

“Who says I  ain’t interested in culture?” Joe countered quickly.  “I’ve seen culture before.”

He hated it, but he’d seen it.

“Well, I’ve already asked Bella –”

“Did you say ‘yes’?” he asked her.

Bella had that look, the one he remembered from when she was eleven.  It’d put the fear of God in any man.

She placed a finger beside her pale pink lips.  “Now let me think.  I don’t seem to recall.  I think I was about to.”

“Well, if you ain’t – you haven’t said ‘yes’ yet, then I call first dibs.”

Bella’s blue eyes widened.  “You want to take me to the show?”

Sure he did.

Well, he thought he did.

Just so long as he could put a seat between them.

“Of course, I do.  What are we seein’?”

“The Abduction from the Seraglio,” Geoff said, his tone dry.

“The Abduction of the who?”

“Not ‘who’, Cartwright, ‘what’.  The Seraglio is a place.”

He pulled at his collar.  “I knew that.”

“It can be my birthday present!” Bella exclaimed, clapping like a little girl.  Turning to Geoff, she said, “I hope you don’t mind.  Little Joe’s been so busy, we’ve hardly seen each other in a week.  Maybe you and I can do something later on?”

Geoff took her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed it.  “I await my lady’s pleasure.  Is it all right if I come back out in a few days and take you for a ride in my carriage?”

No.

Bella glanced at him.  She was sure enjoying this.

“Of course, it is.  I’m sure little brother will be too busy working to pay me any attention.”

“Well, that just proves what they say,” the black-haired man remarked.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Geoff snorted.  “That Joe Cartwright is an idiot.”  With a nod, he added, “See you around, Cartwright.”

As Geoff moved off, Bella turned back to him.  Joe saw it coming but with the door at his back there was no escape.  She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly, pressing against him so he could feel every curve.

“Oh, Little Joe, you’ve made me so happy!  We’ll have so much fun.”

“Have fun doing what?” Adam stopped and asked.

“Joe’s going to take me to the Abduction from the Seraglio at the Palace tomorrow night!”

Joe didn’t think he’d ever seen his older brother’s black brows leap higher.  “Oh?  Really?  Well, that’s…wonderful.”

“I’m going to go tell Sally!”

Sally was the daughter of another neighbor.  She and Bella seemed to have become bosom friends over the course of the party.  As Joe watched her go, Adam held out one of the punch cups.

“Here.  Drink this down.”  His brother’s hazel eyes danced.  “It’s spiked by the way.”

Joe took it.  “Why?”

“Do you know what The Abduction from the Seraglio is?”

He shrugged.  “Some kind of play?”

“Oh, yes,” Adam said with a smile.  “It’s a kind of a play.  Have you ever heard of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?”

Of course, he had.  He was one of those dead guys whose music his brother liked.  Seemed mighty funny to him, all those little notes repeating over and over again and never getting anywhere.  It was enough to give a man a headache.

“Sure,” he shrugged.

Adam leaned in.  “Well, The Abduction from the Seraglio is by Mozart, Joe.  It’s an opera.  That means people sing.  Three hours of singing, Joe.”

Joe looked at Adam and pulled a face, frowning as his eyebrows ran toward the center.  Then he looked at the cup.  Downing the punch in one gulp, he headed for more.

He had a feeling he’d better get good and drunk before he took that ride into town.

 

 

TEN

He’d lied to Rory.

Well, not lied, really, but left out the biggest part of the truth.  He had needed her to help him hide the gold.  He didn’t trust the Indians he rode with any more than they trusted him.  But there was more to it than that.  He’d made some contacts in Bolivia and that’s where they were gonna head, but before they went he had some unfinished business to attend to.

Fleet Rowse put the match he’d lit out with his thumb, tossed it in the dirt, and used the toe of his boot to grind it into the ground.  Then he looked at the hide tent before him.  It was one of three pitched along the hillside near the Paiute graveyard.  Rory was in there.  Thinks Twice’s woman, Spotted Deer, was gonna take care of his sister, making sure she didn’t do anything stupid once she realized what he was about.

As he took a drag on his freshly rolled cheroot, Fleet glanced at the sky.  If he rode hard he could be in Virginia City in three hours, just about the time the men in the saloons were hitting their saturation point.  He was looking for information and it was easiest to get when the ranch hands were out of control.  He’d been in town once or twice before and found out that Joe Cartwright had survived the raid on the stages along with that pretty little filly Rory had begged him to spare.  The kid had been seen in town with his Pa getting supplies at the mercantile.  Rumor was the brat almost died from his injuries.

Now, that would have been a shame.

The outlaw snorted.  Revenge might be a dish best served up cold, but he was sure as Hell gonna turn the heat up on that boy before he left the country.  Might be, he’d reacquaint the kid with his knife.

That there pretty boy probably had a scar left from the last time they’d met.

Fleet snorted and took another drag.  He’d thought about burning the whole lot of them out, but decided that wouldn’t do either.  There wasn’t any pleasure in killing when you couldn’t look a man in the eye.

From the talk in the town it was Joe Cartwright the old man prized the most, being the baby in the family and all.  The kid escaping from him the last time they met was a blot on an otherwise clean record of killing and he wasn’t about to let it stand.  When men came to hear that a snot-nosed coddled rich kid had got away from him, why, he’d lose his reputation.  Wouldn’t no one be afraid of him.  No, Joe Cartwright had to die and, if he could orchestrate it, die in such a way that that oldest Cartwright son – the one who’d rescued the kid and taken him from him – went with him.

As Fleet stood there, taking a third drag, his sister Rory came out of the tent with Spotted Deer in tow.  Thinks Twice’s woman was a handsome Shoshone, taken in a raid by the Paiutes two decades before. Handsome, but hard as nails.  Right behind the pair came the little kid the Indian had taken during the raid.  Name of Thom.  ‘Bout thirteen years old.  The boy’d cried so long and so hard when they first got to camp that Spotted Deer’d finally struck him.  After that, he’d gone silent.  It seemed at first that the kid had given up.  That he had no fire in him.  Now, he wasn’t so sure.  He’d seen hate quickly masked in the boy’s eyes when he stepped out of the tent.

Might make a good warrior after all.

“Fleet,” Rory said as she drew close. “Take the boy with you.  Take Thom back to Virginia City.”

He shook his head.  “He ain’t mine to choose what to do with.  Belongs to Thinks Twice.”

“Thom doesn’t belong to anyone!  Fleet, please.  I’m sure he has relatives.”  She paused as if unsure she should speak the next words.  “You were about his age when you were taken.  Don’t make him go through what you had to.”

“The Indians done right by me,” he said after a second.

Rory held his gaze.  “Really?   Did they?”

“Still alive.”

There were tears in her eyes.  “No.  No, you’re not.  My brother died the moment he decided to go back to the savages who enslaved and used him.”

His eyes flicked to Spotted Deer. The Indian woman was standing with her head down, but he could tell by her rigid stance how angry she was.  Spotted Deer’s English might be broken, but she understood it well enough.  Rory had better watch her back once he was gone.

“Is that any way to speak of your hosts?” he asked, his tone ironic.

“How long do you intend to leave me here?”

There was fear in her voice.

Good.

“Long as needs be for me to take care of business.”

“What business,  Fleet?  Not another robbery?  We have more money than we can possibly use in a lifetime!”

“I just got me some ends to tie up before we leave Nevada.  Ain’t no concern of yours what they are.”

She paled.  “You’re going after Joseph Cartwright.”

He flipped the cheroot into the grass.  “Maybe.  Maybe not.”

“Fleet, he’s so young.   Is there no compassion in you at –”

He had her by the front of her blouse.  As he pulled her in close, he said, “No, there ain’t.  And don’t you forget it. That husband of yours is there in Virginia City.  I got me the address.  Might be if I can’t find Joe Cartwright, I’ll just look him up.”

His sister stared at him long and hard.  “You’re a monster,” she breathed at last.

Fleet snorted.  “That’s why I gotta kill Joe Cartwright and maybe all the rest of the Cartwrights.  I got me a reputation to protect.”

At that moment Thinks Twice arrived. The Indian warrior dismounted and came to their side.  He greeted his wife and then turned to him.  “The one you are hunting has left the white man’s house and is headed for the city.”

Stupid kid.  He wasn’t even gonna have to look for him.  “How long ago?”

“I rode as the wind.  Perhaps two of the white man’s hours.”

Fleet nodded.  If Joe Cartwright was in for a night on the town, he’d probably be there until ten o’clock or later.  With a fresh horse and a spare, they could make it there by that time if not a little sooner.

“Is Shadow Walker waiting?”

Thinks Twice nodded.  “You have considered what will happen if you take the boy.”

The outlaw sneered.  His old friend had sure earned his name.  The warrior did nothing without thinking it over half a dozen times.   “Just what I want to happen,” he replied.

“And what is it you want?” Rory snapped.  “What is it really?  Revenge?  Some sort of sick satisfaction?”

He glanced at the boy behind her, who was staring daggers at the natives, and the his eyes returned to his sister.  “It ain’t about money, Rory.  Its about justice.  That snotty rich kid took something from me and I aim to get it back.”  At her dumbfounded look, he finished, “A man’s got his pride.”

“A killer has no pride!” she countered sharply.

Fleet’s lips curled with a sneer.  “You ask old Thom there if that’s the truth.  You’d kill to get back what was taken from you, wouldn’t you, boy?”

“I’d slit the throats of everyone in this camp,” Thom shot back.

He looked at Thinks Twice.  “See, I told you he’s got the makin’s of a warrior, didn’t I?”

The Indian nodded.  “Soon, the boy will ride with me.”

“I’ll never ride with you!  You killed my parents and my sister!”  Thom lashed out, shoving the Indian woman aside and going for the older man.  “I’ll kill you!  I’ll kill you all!”

The warrior wrapped an arm around the boy and held him as he thrashed and screamed.  When Thom’s strength was spent, he picked him up and headed for the tent.

“I will join you soon,” Thinks Twice said as he ducked inside, dutifully followed by his wife.

A moment later the Indian woman returned and took Rory by the arm.  “The boy needs you.”

Smart woman, Spotted Deer.  She knew his sister couldn’t resist.

Defeated, Rory walked with slumped shoulders toward the tent.  At the door she turned back.  “Please, Fleet.  Try to remember who you were.  Remember that there is such a thing as mercy.”

Mercy, he scoffed as his sister disappeared.  He knew all about mercy.

It was up to God to have it on his enemies.

 

Joe Cartwright pulled at the black tie Adam had wound around his throat in a failed attempt to choke him.  No one else seemed to be sweating, but he thought it was awful close in the Palace auditorium.  Then again, that might of been due to the fact that Bella was awful close to him, leaning over and holding onto his arm.

He’d lost the battle to keep that seat between them.

They were in the box Pa sometimes rented up by the stage.  Turns out big brother Adam had tickets too, only he didn’t bother to tell him.  Adam was across the way with Valerie Counts, in her parent’s private box.  Valerie’s pa was a banker and he paid for it all the time even if no one was going.  Older brother had his hand in the air, keeping time with the singing.  Turns out the opera wasn’t quite as bad as he’d thought it would be, though it was kind of like watching one of those pantomimes, but with a bunch of people singing .  Since nobody was singin’ English, he had to figure out the plot from what they were doing.  Seems this English woman and her maid were taken by Turks and the woman was gonna be forced to marry the pasha.  She already loved this other feller, who was trying to break her out of the pasha’s place.  He and a friend were goin’ to risk bein’ beheaded and maybe boiled in oil if they got caught.

Seemed to him they had a mighty fair shake of it since they stood around singing for ten minutes at a time instead of doin’ something about it.  If it had been him, he’d of had that girl and been hopping that tall fence even if he had to put his hand over her mouth to keep her from singin’.

Act one had gone by quick enough.  During intermission – the first one, he was later to find out – he and Bella went out into the lobby to have some punch.  At first he had to stifle a laugh at the looks he got.  Joe Cartwright, at the opera!  But then he started to get mad.  He could be cultured if he wanted to!  He just didn’t want to.  Well, not normally.  Tonight was different.

Tonight was for Bella.

He’d glared that message at every dandy who snickered when he turned his back.

Bella for her part seemed right at home. That kind of surprised him as she’d never said anything about liking all that screechin’ and caterwauling before.  She told him her pa was real musical and that when they got to Oregon, he’d bought a piano.  She said they all stood around it and sang the kind of music pa liked, which turned out be the same kind of music older brother Adam liked.

It wasn’t Sweet Betsy from Pike, he was here to tell you.

When the bell rang, they went back in and took their seats.  In the second act, this fellow Pedrillo and the girl who had the funny name of Blonde – funny ‘cause she was a redhead – came out and started singing.  It was kind of amusing at first since she was tellin’ him off and makin’ him chase after her.  But then….  Well, then….  Joe swallowed over the lump in his throat.  He’d had an idea what this place was supposed to be all about – the pasha’s palace – but so far there hadn’t been anythin’ to tell him if he was right and wrong.  Well, Blonde jumped right up behind that there Pedrillo feller and took his hands and put them right on her….

Breasts.

It was then Bella leaned in closer, her own bosom heaving, and whispered in his ear.  “Isn’t it romantic?”

Romantic?

It was downright scandalous!

He’d tried to make her leave during the second intermission, real afraid of what was comin’ in Act Three, but she wouldn’t hear of it.  Catching Adam on the way past, he’d asked him if it was gonna get any…well…more heated.  Adam told him, of course Turkey was hot, but the opera was set  at midnight so it had cooled down.

Then Adam eyed him from head to toe, ending up staring at the part below his belt.   Older brother had lifted one eyebrow and said, before escorting Valerie back to their box.  “Maybe you better cool down too, little brother.”

He was gonna kill him!

To his relief the last part of the opera was all about the pasha showing mercy to the lovers, though Pedrillo and Blonde still had a hard time keeping their hands off each other.  It kind of confused him.  The pasha kept shoutin’ about boiling in oil and cutting fingers off and all kinds of torture, and then all of a sudden he just up and let them go!  The dime novels he liked made more sense than that!  Turns out the fellow named Belmonte was the son of a man who had fought the pasha and destroyed just about everything he owned and the pasha just let him go.

Talk about fiction.

Anyhow, by the time the opera was over his ears were hurtin’ and his bottom was tired of sittin’ and his head was poundin’ from all the lights and noise.  He’d thought about takin’ Elizabeth over to the International House for a late supper, but was real grateful when she said she just wanted to go home.  It was almost midnight, and though he wasn’t about to admit to the way he felt, he could tell he still wasn’t top notch.  It had been near a month since the raids on the stagecoaches and sometimes he went whole days without thinking about how he’d failed all those people.

And about that other girl with the blonde curls.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Bella said.

She was seated beside him in the fringed rig.  They were on their way back to the Ponderosa.  Adam had taken off right before them, only he wasn’t headed home.  He and Valerie were gonna have that late supper and he said he’d see him in the morning.

Joe looked at her.  He managed a grin.  “It’ll take two.”

“I have a nickel.  Can I get a conversation for that?”

He wrinkled his nose and apologized.  “I’m sorry, Bella.”

She was looking right at him.  “Sorry for what?  Not liking me anymore?”

Joe pulled back on the reins and halted the surrey.  “What?”

“I know you don’t like to be around me anymore.”  She blinked and her eyes shone in the moonlight.  There were tears in them.  “I just remind you of what…happened.”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

“About the raid!” she snapped as she turned away.  “I remind you of all those people who died.  Well, I’m sorry I survived!”

He was stunned.  Joe turned toward her on the buggy seat.  “Bella, you look at me.  You look me in the eye.”

She hesitated but then did as he said, turning a tear-streaked face toward him.  The moon was high and its light stole under the rig’s canopy to alight in her hair like fireflies settling in dewy grass.  She had a cloak on, but it was partially open and her breasts were showing, pushed tightly together by the corset he knew she was wearing underneath her crimson dress.  For a moment he saw that little girl looking at him, the one who had chewed his ear off and been his partner in crime.  The little girl who had risked her life to save him not once, but twice.  The little girl who, even though she called him ‘little brother’, he’d thought of for all these years like the little sister he never had.

And that was the problem.

Joe reached out and took her hand.  It was trembling.

“Bella, that ain’t it.  Sure, when I see you I think of that raid.  But I don’t think about the people who died, I just think of how my prayers were answered when I found out that girl I buried wasn’t you.  I….  I don’t know what I’d have done if it had been you.”

Her lower lip was trembling too.  “Then why have you been avoiding me?  And don’t deny you have been.”

Joe pursed his lips and blew out a breath.  “You’re right.  I have been.”

“Why?”

There was a whole gully washer of emotion packed in that single word.

He took her other hand as well.  “Bella, there’s nothing wrong with you.  It’s…me.”

She frowned.  “What do you mean it’s you?  You aren’t making any sense, Little Joe Cartwright.  My ma always said a man has to work his way around a thing with a hundred words before one that makes sense can come out.”

He laughed and then, at her look, said, “You just sounded like that little girl I met while sitting on my butt in a creek.  Always answerin’ a question with a question and talkin’ about what her ma and pa said.”  Joe shifted in his seat suddenly uncomfortable.  “That’s the problem, Bella.”

She sniffed.  “What?”

She was gonna make him spell it out, wasn’t she?  “It’s just ,well, I don’t look at you the same way I did and I feel…guilty about that.  I mean, all I can think about is that little girl coming up and hugging me, telling me about all the crazy things she thought and did – about well, my little sister.”

That made her smile – a little bit.

“I thought I was your ‘older’ sister.”

“Well, you are now, and that’s the problem.”  He hesitated, not sure what to say.  “You know, that opera we just saw?”

She nodded.

He released her hands.  Mostly because his were sweating.  As he rubbed one on his dress pants, he asked, “You remember when Blonde and Pedrillo were, well, sparkin’?”

A little smile tickled the edge of her lips.  It kind of bothered him.

“Yes.  I remember.”

“Well, you know what he was thinking.  That she was beautiful and he…”  God!  How did he get himself into these things?  “And that he…wanted her?”

She was looking right at him.

He winced.  She was gonna hate him.  “Well, that’s the way I…feel about you.  But I can’t keep from seeing that little girl – my little sister – and it feels…wrong.”  His frown deepened.  “I mean, it is wrong.  I mean…”  Joe sighed.  “I don’t know what I mean.”

She was still staring at him.

A moment later Bella reached out and took his hand.  She leaned closer, letting the light play on her exposed skin.

“You know what my Ma always says, Little Joe Cartwright?” she asked, her eyes smiling.

“No, what?”

Bella reached up and ran her fingers through his hair.  “Behind every great woman is an tomfool.”

Then she kissed him.

 

Adam was on his way home.  He’d left Sport in the Counts stable during the opera and driven Valerie to the theater in the family’s rig.  After returning her to her parent’s’ house and bidding her goodnight, he’d mounted his trusted friend and headed off at a steady trot for the Ponderosa.  It was well past two in the morning.  With the opera ending so close to midnight, both he and Joe were going to get in late.  Knowing their pa, the older man would be in the red chair by the fire having fallen asleep there ‘reading’.

As the opera came to mind, Adam couldn’t help but smile.  He’d watched his little brother all the way through it as their boxes were directly across from each other.  Joe had laughed, looked puzzled, then mortified, and finally bored out of his mind.  In spite of what Joe thought, at two and a half hours, Mozart’s Abduction was one of his shorter works.

It was a sure bet the poor kid would never have survived Don Giovanni!

It had been interesting to observe Joe with Bella.  He’d actually had some sympathy for him.  It couldn’t be easy falling in love with someone who’d been in pigtails and a pinafore the first time you met them.  When you were eighteen and eleven, seven years seemed like a lifetime, but he knew plenty of men who were married to women that much younger – and more.  Joe’s own mother, Marie, had been a good deal younger than their father.  So, at eighteen and twenty-five, there was no reason Joe and Bella shouldn’t have feelings for each other.

Except that his little brother just couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around the fact that Bella was no longer that little girl who had held a rifle on him while he was sitting in the creek by her house.

Sport snorted, suddenly bringing Adam’s attention back to the road.  It was unlikely he would run into any trouble on his way home, but one could never know that for sure.  The black-haired man patted the animal’s neck as he kept moving, his attention focused now where it should be – on the road ahead instead of his lovesick little brother’s woes.

Adam hadn’t gone a half -mile when Sport shied again, snorting nervously this time as if sensing danger.  The man in black drew his pistol as he continued on, wondering what it was he would find when he turned the next bend.

Unfortunately, it was the fringed surrey his brother had been driving.

Careful to keep his eye to the dark trees lining both sides of the road, Adam dismounted and approached the empty rig.  There didn’t seem to be any signs of a struggle.  He peered into the surrey, seeking to penetrate the dark shadows filling it.  One thing was odd.  It was completely empty.  There were no blankets inside.  He was certain Joe would have brought plenty with them to keep Bella warm on the chilly ride back to the house.  With a frown, Adam hopped down from the running board and started into the trees.  He was walking briskly when something happened that made him run.

A woman screamed.

As he broke through the leaves and dangling branches, a horrific scene unfolded before his eyes, glimpsed as it was through the darkness of a cloudy night. The woman was Bella and she was shrieking.  Her hands were formed into fists and she was pummeling a tall man with them.  He was hard to see as he was dressed all in black and had a bandana mask covering half his face.

Joe lay unmoving at her feet.

Adam watched the man become aware of his presence.  Instantly, the outlaw caught Bella by the wrists and twisted her arms, driving her to the ground.  It was a show of the man’s utter and complete control over the situation.

‘I can kill her anytime,’  his stare seemed to say.  ‘Just like I killed your brother.’

Like he might have killed his brother.

Adam drew a steadying breath as Joe moaned and his fingers moved, clutching at the grass.

Thank God!

“Let them go!” Adam demanded as he moved into the clearing, his gun pointed at the man’s chest.

The outlaw lifted Bella and swung her in front of him like a shield.

“Shoot me, shoot her,” he snarled.

Adam frowned.  There was something familiar about the highway robber – about the way he moved – but he just couldn’t place it.  “Let her go!” he repeated.  “And get away from my brother!”

“Sure thing, Cartwright.  This is just a warning.  Any time, anywhere, I can take him.  And I will.”  The man scoffed.  “I’ll just let you stew on it a bit first.  You and that pa of yours.”

“Who are you?” he demanded, beginning to fear that he knew only too well.

“Ask your little brother when and if he wakes up.”  The man shoved Joe with his boot as he spoke.  “Sorry about that second knock on the head the kid took.  I’ve heard that can cause real damage.  Make a man an idiot, some say.  Though I’d say this one was already halfway there.”

Adam was breathing hard.  Anger pumped through his veins like a white-hot fire.

“Rowse,” he breathed.

“The devil you thought you’d defeated,” the villain sneered.  “Well, here’s new for you. When Lucifer fell, he just became stronger.  Got himself a whole planet and millions of souls to damn to Hell.”  Fleet Rowse began to back up, dragging Bella with him.  She was looking at him, her eyes opened wide and showing over the outlaw’s hand that was wrapped around her mouth.

“Let her go!  Rowse, I swear if you hurt her….”

“Maybe I will.  Maybe I won’t.”  The outlaw sneered.  “I’d advise you see to your little brother first, Cartwright.  He’s bleedin’ out.”

Joe hadn’t moved since that first time.  It was possible what Rowse said was true.  Adam’s eyes had adjusted and he could see a little better, but it was impossible to tell what darkened Joe’s suit coat – shadows or blood.

“If my brother dies you will be hunted down, Rowse, and strung from the highest tree.  I’ll personally see to it!”

“You won’t need to hunt me down.  If that molly-coddled pup lives, you’ll be seeing me again – when I come to take him.”   Rowse snorted.  “Kind of hope he does.  It’s too easy this way.”

The outlaw began to back away, taking Bella with him.  Adam watched impotently.  There was nothing he could do.  If he shot at Rowse, he was likely to hit her.

Besides, his brother could be dying.

“Bella!” Adam called as the pair disappeared.  “We’ll find you!  Take heart!  Bella!”

The only thing that answered him was silence.

The black-haired man took a step toward his brother and was stopped as a bullet struck the ground near his boot.

“Anywhere, Cartwright.  Any time!” Fleet Rowse called out from the darkness.  “You can’t be with him every minute of the night and day.”

Adam waited and then took another step forward.  When no new bullets flew, he knelt beside his brother.  Taking hold of Joe’s shoulder, he rolled him over

And gasped.

There was a thin dark line drawn in blood across Joe’s throat.  It was dripping and there was a sizeable pool forming beneath him.  Terrified, Adam pulled the tie from the neck of his dress shirt and wrapped it around his brother’s throat, hoping to staunch the flow.  He couldn’t tell in this light how deep the cut was, or if it was that which had made the pool underneath Joe. There could be other cuts.

Probably were other cuts.

As he lifted his brother up, preparing to carry him back to the rig, Adam’s eyes alighted on the missing blankets from the rig.  They were spread underneath a tree.  On them was the impression of two bodies.  Apparently Joe and Bella had come to an understanding about their feelings for one another.

Just in time to have a madman take it all away.

 

ELEVEN

Ben Cartwright stirred in his chair by the fire.  He turned around and looked and only them realized that Hop Sing must have sneaked in before going to bed to tend it.  It was nothing more than embers now, but still gave off a good amount of heat.  As the older man sat there, thinking about his friend and cook and all Hop Sing had done for him over the years, the tall case clock by the door chimed the hour.

It was four.

Ben scowled.  He hadn’t heard Adam or Joe and Bella come in, though that didn’t mean they hadn’t.  They could have tiptoed in and left him sleeping.  Hoss had wanted to stay up with him, but he had declined.  The big man commented before he went that he was sorry he wouldn’t get to see his little brother’s face when he and Bella came in from their night at the opera.

‘Joe’ll probably have that look.  You know, Pa?  The one a deer gets when you got it in your sights?’

He’d laughed, of course, and then taken a seat by the fire and picked up the book Kate had given him.  It was called ‘Sylvia’s Lovers’ and was a love story set in a small coastal town against the broad background of the Napoleonic wars.  While not a sea-faring novel, the sea and the men who sailed it played a large part in it and she had thought he would enjoy it.  Kate was somewhat fascinated by his years at sea and, though she tended to color it with a little bit more romance than it deserved, he found it charming that she was trying to understand him.  She was a handsome woman, about ten years younger than him, with sparkling eyes and a deep throaty laugh.  She was unlike any of his wives and he found that intriguing, even going so far as to wonder what her son would have looked like.

Rising from his chair, Ben laid the book down and then straightened and yawned.  He wondered if the boys had decided to stay in town for the night.  He knew both Adam and Joe had talked of taking the young ladies they were escorting to the International House for a late supper after the opera.  Maybe it had been so late they had rented rooms.

One for the ladies and one for themselves – he hoped.

As he stood there, considering the daunting task of raising three healthy young men to responsible adulthood, the older man realized he was peckish.  There was no point in waiting up any longer, so he might as well go get a snack and then follow Hoss to bed.  Stepping into the kitchen, Ben went to the ice box.  There was plenty of food left from the party the night before, so much so he had offered to let Hop Sing have a few  days off.  The man from China had thanked him politely and refused.  Hop Sing said with the winter almost come and Christmas so near, he had more than enough to do.  He had smiled and nodded his head, but he thought he knew the truth.  Hop Sing was very fond of Bella and he didn’t want to miss a day while she was here.

The older man smiled as he reached for the cheese.  Bella certainly was a lovely young woman.  Her parents had taught her well.  She was polite and well-mannered, but full of life and spunk at the same time and, really, a perfect match for Joe.  It worried him though, that their feelings for each other might have been intensified by the ordeal they had passed through together.  Bella was still quite young.  As Ben placed the cheese plate on the table, he thought about his son at eighteen.  That was the year Joe had fallen in love with Julia Bulette, who had been near his mother’s age.  While he had challenged his youngest’s choice, in the end he had come to see that what the pair felt for each other was real.

As real as what Bella felt for Joe, who was seven years her senior.

The older man had just closed the ice box door and turned to the larder to retrieve a loaf of bread when he heard horse’s hooves striking the hard packed earth of the yard.  Two horses at least, so it must be the rig.  Putting the bread down beside the cheese on the block table, Ben opened the side door and stepped out – just in time to see Adam kick in the front door and carry something, or someone, into the great room.

The older man rounded quickly.  He made his way through the kitchen and back into the great room, and emerged onto a scene of pure chaos.  Adam was shouting ‘Pa!” at the top of his lungs as he made a beeline for the settee.  Hoss was standing at the top of the stairs, his hair and night shirt askew, running a sleepy hand over his stubbled chin, muttering some kind of a reply.  And from behind him – from Hop Sing’s room – there came a long string of emotionally charged Cantonese.  No doubt their cook wanted to know what was going on.

So did he.

“Adam!  What is this?  Son, what has –”

The fire’s light was low, but it was enough for him to see that his eldest son’s dress suit was soaked with blood.

Adam’s young face was grim.  “It was Fleet Rowse, Pa.  He attacked Joe and Bella on the road.  Bella’s…been taken.”  He swallowed hard.  “Joe.  Joe’s….”

Ben’s eyes went to the silent figure on the settee and then came back to land on Adam’s coat.  “Is that blood your brother’s?” he asked, breathless.

“Lord Almighty!” Hoss exclaimed as he came alongside Joe.  Looking down, he asked, “Is he still breathin’?”

Another time he might have chided his middle son for taking the Lord’s name in vain, but this time he didn’t.  It wasn’t being taken in vain.

It was uttered as a prayer.

Sinking to his knees beside the settee, Ben pulled the black tie away that circled Joe’s throat, revealing the long cut beneath.  Some scabbing had occurred, but blood was still forming along the edge.

“Is this where all the blood is from?” he asked, indicating Joe’s clothes, as he tossed the sodden cloth aside.

“I honestly don’t know, Pa.”  Adam hesitated as Hop Sing came into the room.  One look was all it took and the man from China was out of it again, headed to the kitchen for water and bandages.  “I couldn’t see.  It was too dark.”  His eldest paused and then headed for the door. “You take care of him, Pa.  I’ll go get Doc Martin.”

“You ain’t doin’ any such thing, older brother,” Hoss said forcefully as he strode across the room and caught Adam by the shoulder.  “You’re all done in.  You let me go.”

Adam shook his head.  “You need to raise the hands.  Someone has to go after Bella.”  His son visibly paled.  “There’s no telling what that monster is capable of.”

Bella’s name must have registered somewhere deep within Joseph’s subconscious mind for his son began to writhe, calling out the girl’s name.  Ben rose and sat down at his side.  Gripping Joe’s arms with his hands, he spoke clearly and evenly.  “Joseph!  It’s your pa.  Listen to me.  You need to calm down.  You’re hurt, boy.  We don’t know how bad.  If you move about, you’ll only lose more blood.  Joseph!”

Joe’s movements lessened.  His eyes opened without focus and whispered, “Pa?”

Ben caught the hand he raised.  “I’m here, boy.”

“Pa…it was…Rowse.  He’s…”  Joe began to thrash again and the blood on his throat flowed anew.  “He’s…got Bella.”

There was fear in that voice and a deep sense of helplessness, both so unlike his son.  “We’ll find her, Joe, I promise.”

“Pa?”

It was Hoss.  He was standing behind the settee, waiting.  “What do you want me to do?”

“Get dressed, son.  Go to town and find Paul.  Send him on and then locate Roy if you can.  Check his office first.  By the time you get there, he’ll probably be up and at work.  Bring him here.”  Ben turned to look at his son again.  Joseph was writhing, lost in a netherworld of pain and despair.  Turning to his eldest, he said, “Adam, I know you want to go after Bella, but I need you here.  Your brother….”  The older man choked.  “Joe needs us both.”

Adam’s dark brows knit together in the middle as he considered his request.  A few seconds later, his son nodded.  “Sure thing, Pa.  Do you want to leave Joe on the settee or get him up to his room?”

At that moment Hop Sing returned, carrying a steaming basin of water.  There were towels and strips of linen thrown over the arm of his silk shirt.  Ben stood up to give him room.

“I think we better put Joe in the guest room for now.  I’m afraid to move him too much until we know the full extent of his injuries.”

Hop Sing was already opening the door.  “I get room ready,” he said quietly as he disappeared.

It was a sad thing that, when disaster struck, that they were able to fall into this kind of well-practiced rhythm so quickly.  It was a simple truth that the West was a harsh mistress who cared little whom she hurt or discarded.  All of his boys had been injured, and more than once.  Sometimes it had been serious.  But this?  Ben’s eyes returned to the cut on his young son’s throat, which Hop Sing was cleaning.

Adam had been wrong.

‘Monster’ was too good a word for Fleet Rowse.

 

Adam Cartwright, dressed once again in his black on black day clothes, paced the carpeted area in front of the hearth like a caged mountain lion.  Hoss had come back with Paul Martin in tow and the news that Roy was not far behind.  The sheriff had been in his office as their father predicted and when he’d heard that they’d had contact with Fleet Rowse, the lawman was up and on the move.  Roy said he was going to find a half-dozen men willing to be deputized and then he, along with those men, would head their way.  Upon his return Hoss had followed a jabbering Hop Sing into the kitchen and returned shortly with a plate of sandwiches and a pot of coffee.  The big man was seated in the blue velvet chair by the fire now, staring at the front door.

The coffee was gone, but the sandwiches remained untouched.

“When do you s’pose the Doc’s gonna get here, Adam?” he asked.

Adam shrugged.  “There’s no telling.  Someone else could have caught up to Paul before he left town.  Maybe with a…more dire need.”

It was hard to imagine just what that might be.

While it appeared all the cuts – and there were a good dozen – that Joe had were superficial, they had been done in such a way as to let as much blood as possible.  Under normal circumstances, while he would hurt like the Dickens, Joe could have been up and around tomorrow, albeit having to take it easy since he would be weak.  But these weren’t normal circumstances.  Joe had just recovered from severe dehydration and a blow to the head.  He was already weak.

Adam’s lips pursed.  Not that that was going to stop him.

Bella was missing.

The man in black’s eyes went to the guest room.  The door was closed.  Behind it, a heated argument was going on.

Adam winced at their father’s  voice, which was raised in anger.  “Paul better hurry,” he said as he looked at his brother.  “Pa might just kill Joe before he gets here.”

It was a lame joke, but he was too tired for a better one.

“You s’pose little brother’s tryin’ to get out of bed?” the big man asked.

“Do you suppose he isn’t?”

Hoss nodded as he drew in a breath of air and released it very slowly.  “I hate to think of that little gal bein’ out there alone with a skunk like Rowse.  It’s about all I can do to sit still, even knowin’ Roy’s on his way.” He looked toward the door of the guest room as well.  “I cain’t even imagine what Little Joe’s feelin’.”

Hoss hadn’t seen the blanket spread out under the tree.  He didn’t know the half of it.

Adam ran a hand along the back of his neck.  “You know, short of hogtying Joe, there is no way Pa’s going to keep him from riding with that posse.”

“Or followin’ it.”

He nodded.  Somehow they were going to have to convince their father to let their brother go.  Joe riding with the posse – weak as he was – was bad enough, but Joe riding out after Fleet Rowse alone was even worse.

“What do you think Rowse took Bella for?”

He’d wondered that at the time.  She would certainly be a detriment to him moving with ease.  He was afraid the reason was only too clear.

She was bait.

Bait for Joe.

At that moment the door to guest room opened.  Their father slammed it behind him and stormed into the room.

“Your younger brother is the most stubborn, immovable, and inflexible creature the Good Lord ever created!” he proclaimed as he stomped over to his chair and threw himself into it.  “That boy is going to kill himself!”

Adam shot Hoss a look.  “Pa?”  When his father looked up, Adam held up both hands.  “Promise to hear me out?”

Those near-black eyes, ringed with weariness and frustration, fastened on him.  “I suppose you are going to tell me that you agree with your brother?  That you think I should let Joseph go with Roy?”

He blinked. “Well, yes.”

The older man flung his arm out and pointed toward the downstairs bedroom.  “Your brother is lying in there was an four inch cut across his throat, not to mention more small nick and cuts on his body than I could count, and you are trying to tell me that I should let him mount a horse and ride off  into danger when he can barely stand on his feet?”  he growled.   “Of all the hair-brained, foolhardy ideas I have ever –”

Adam waved a finger.  “Uh, Pa….”

“WHAT?”

He stood and walked over to where his father was seated and took a seat on the table in front of him.  After a moment, he said, “Pa, I need that promise.”

The older man was sitting with his hands knit together before him and his fingers pressed against his lips.  “What promise?” he demanded.

“To hear me out – without interrupting.”

Hoss cleared hi s throat.  “Pa, Adam’s got somethin’ important to say.  You need to listen to him.”

Pa’s dark eyes went from the big man to him.  Then he leaned back with a sigh.  “It seems I am outnumbered.”

“It ain’t that we’re tryin’ to gang up on you, Pa,” his middle brother said.  “We’re as worried about Little Joe as you are.”

“I know that, son, and I appreciate it.”  His father turned to him then.  “All right, Adam, speak your piece.”

Ah, yes.  And just how to go about that?

“First of all, Pa, I completely agree with you.”

“About”

“Joe is stubborn, immovable, and inflexible, but he’s usually only that way when he knows he’s right.”

His father forehead was furrowed.  “And?”

“And Joe is right, Pa, when he says he’s responsible for Bella.  You have to admit it.  Not only was he escorting her home when she was taken, but most likely Rowse wouldn’t have taken her if not for Joe.  You know how Joe is when he thinks there’s been an injustice, or if he knows someone he loves is in danger.  There’s just no stopping him.”

His father’s eyes flicked to the closed door.  “Your brother is barely well enough to get out of bed, let alone go traipsing off with a posse –”

“Better with a posse then alone, and you know that’s just what he’ll do – sneak out and go off alone. Unless you are willing to actually tie him to the bed, it’s going to happen the minute your back is turned.”  Adam’s gaze moved to the door behind which his brother lay.  Worry plowed lines in his brow.

No.

Joe wouldn’t.  Would he?

Not this soon.

Returning to the case he was laying out, the man in black said, “At least if Joe’s with Roy – and we go along – we can protect him.”

Adam knew that the older man saw the wisdom in his words, even though Pa’s scowl hadn’t lifted.  Then, it did and – this was the biggest surprise – his father laughed.

“Did I say something funny?”

The older man shook his head.  “You sound like your mother, only she was talking about another young hothead.”

Hoss leaned forward.  He loved family stories.  “Was that you, Pa?” the big man asked with a smile.

Ben nodded.  “There was this man.  He was a friend.  Someone accused him of embezzling from the company he worked for.  He challenged them and was beaten for it – soundly.  I was angry at the injustice.”  He smiled.  “No, I was incensed.  I headed out the door, intending to take the men who had accused him down, and ended up being escorted home myself by the constabulary, barely able to walk.  The next day I was ready to set out again on my own, regardless of my injuries. Your mother, Adam, God bless her, encouraged me to go.”

His black brows popped up. “She did what?”

The older man chuckled.  “She told me to go and that I was right – I would be so much better off if I went alone.  After all, she said, what did I need the law for?  The constable and his men would only get in my way with their guns and clubs and the might of the state of Massachusetts behind them.  She kept talking and talking until she convinced me that I would be better off joining with them instead of trying to work against them.”  He paused, and his voice choked a little.  “She probably saved my life.”

It was sad.  His mother wasn’t even a distant memory for him.

Just a void.

“So, you understand what I’m saying then, Pa?”

“You’re saying that it would be better to let your brother go with Roy and have someone to watch out for him, than to deny him going and force him to sneak off on his own.”  He paused.  “Point conceded.”

Well, that had gone better than he could have hoped.

“I’ll tell Joe.”  Adam rose.  Just as he did, Hop Sing came around the corner bearing a loaded tray.  He was headed for Joe’s temporary room.

“Little Joe no have supper, breakfast, or dinner,” the Chinese man announced.  “Number three son too skinny as is.  Take him soup.  Make him eat.”

Adam smiled.  “I was just going in to talk to him, Hop Sing, but I think you’re right.”  He glanced at his father.  “Joe needs to keep up his strength.  You tell him I’ll be in to get the tray in a few minutes, all right?”

Hop Sing nodded as he reached for the door latch.  A moment later he stepped inside the spare room, closing the door behind him.  Adam had barely had enough time to turn back toward their father when the door flew open again to admit the Chinese man into the room.  He was shouting in high-pitched Cantonese.

Their father was on his feet immediately.  “English, Hop Sing.  English, please!”

Hop Sing’s eyes were round as the bowl on the tray.  “Window open!  Little Joe’s clothes gone.  Little Joe gone!”

The three men stared at one another.

“Good God!” their father said at last.  “It’s my fault.  I told him there was nothing on God’s green earth that could persuade me to let him go with the posse.”

“And Joe bein’ Joe, he just had to leap before lookin’,” Hoss sighed as he stood up.  “I’ll go saddle up the horses.”

“Adam?”

“Yes, Pa?”

“You go with Hoss.  I’ll wait here for Roy.”

“Yes, sir.”  He turned to go, but his father caught his arm.  In the older man’s eyes was real fear.  “Adam, find Joe.  Find him quickly and bring him home.  Bring them both home.”

“I’ll do my best, Pa,” he said.

He just hoped his ‘best’ was enough.

 

Joe hadn’t left the area of the ranch house yet.  He’d slipped out of the window and gone to the stable.  Taking Cochise out, he’d tethered him a little ways off in the trees where no one could see him.  Then he crossed over to the bunkhouse and disappeared into its cast shadow.  He was waiting for his brothers, and maybe his father, to leave the house and go looking for him.  He figured they would figure that he was gonna take his horse and light out for where Adam found him.  Most likely, the three of them would head straight for that patch of land without even looking for tracks.  Joe wrinkled his nose and pursed his lips.  Skippin’ out had been kind of bold and kind of stupid.  He knew if he was lucky that he would gain – maybe – a few hours lead at most, and knew as well with the way he was feeling, that his pa and brothers would probably catch that up right quick.  Still, that hour or two would given him time to find Fleet Rowse first.  The outlaw had taunted him as he cut him, telling him his plans for Bella.  Rowse said he was gonna give her to someone named Shadow Walker to be his woman.  Joe was pretty sure the outlaw was headed for the area of the old Paiute graveyard.  That was where he’d said his sister was.  Along with the boy stolen from the stage.

He’d told him so he would come after him.

Joe swallowed and ran the back of his sleeve over his forehead, driving the sweat back from his eyes.  Fleet Rowse knew him all too well.  The outlaw knew there was nothing that would stop him from following.  It was just a game to Rowse, making him suffer more before he took him out.  The curly-haired man also knew, weak as he was from blood loss, that if he met Fleet on his own terms, it would be the end of both him and Bella.  He had to take the man by surprise somehow.  And much as he might want his pa and his brothers by his side, he was glad they weren’t here.  One hostage to fate was more than enough.  He wasn’t going to chance them getting captured or killed.

And he couldn’t leave Rowse alive to carry out his threats.

Joe eased back into the shadows as the door to the ranch house opened and the three men stepped out.  Adam and Hoss had their gear in hand and were headed for the barn.  His pa walked slowly behind them, as if he had a ball and chain dragging on his leg, weighing him down.   While his brothers went in to saddle their horses, Joe watched his father walk over to the hitching rail.  The older man placed a shaking hand on it and stared toward town.  Then his chin dropped to his chest.

Pa was praying.  Praying for him.

It was almost enough to make Joe step out of the shadows and show himself.

Almost.

But, he couldn’t.  He knew, if he did, pa would never let him go.  Pa would say, and probably rightly too, that he was too weak to take on someone like Rowse no matter how or why he felt driven to do it.  But he couldn’t let it go.  Bella was his responsibility and he couldn’t leave her in the hands of that madman one more minute than was absolutely necessary.  Joe leaned against the side of the bunkhouse and closed his eyes as he listened to the thunder of his brothers’ horses taking off.  To the tune of that familiar nose, dark images flashed through his mind – Rowse bending over him with the knife in his hand, slowly dragging it across his throat, his arms, his chest, using the shining blade to slice his flesh in a dozen different places.  He heard Bella scream and saw her hammering on the fiend’s back with her fists, shouting that he had to ‘stop!’  Then he watched helplessly as Rowse backhanded her, sending her flying.  Her saw her hit the ground.  There was a little ‘oomph’ and Bella lay there, unmoving.  He’d been so angry that even bleedin’ his life out, he’d found the strength to leapt at Rowse, his fists flying.

That was when the villain pistol-whipped him.

And it was over.

Peering around the corner of the bunkhouse again, Joe saw his father heading back inside.  He knew the older man would pace the floor and worry – not only about him, but about all of them – bringing more white hairs to that head of his.  Hop Sing would try to talk to him and Pa would probably bite the cook’s head off and then apologize and accept some food.  Pa would sit there stewin’ until the wee hours of the morning and then fall asleep in the chair.

Joe sighed.  No matter how many times that scene played out, and no matter how bad it made him feel to know he’d caused his pa to worry and fret, there was that moment when you came in the door – when Pa looked like he was ready to tan your hide and hang you out to dry – that was one of the most precious things he knew in his life.  His pa would stomp over and stare at him, and then take hold of him in the fiercest grip – all of the raw power and energy of the man channeled into the arms that were wrapped around him.

There was no safer place in the world.

Joe sniffed and ran the back of his hand under his nose.  That was for later.  Now it was time to saddle up Cooch and get movin’.  He’d ride east first and then straight up to the Paiute graveyard, stayin’ away from the road.  Fleet Rowse would be there, he knew, waitin’ for him.

God willing, he would find Rowse before Rowse found him.

 

Several hours had passed since Adam and Hoss headed out in pursuit of their headstrong youngest brother during which time Ben Cartwright had paced the floor in front of the hearth, yelled at Hop Sing and apologized, eaten a bite of food and then, to his cook’s displeasure, begun to pace again.  He supposed a man should consider the consequence of the type of woman he fell in love with.  When the blood ran hot, thinking was about the last thing he did.  It was all about impulse, about how that woman made you feel and how much you wanted to possess her, and not about the kind of child she might produce.  He’d known when he met Marie that she was, to say the lest, spirited.  When she was angry, she smoldered like a match dropped in slightly damp brush, only to explode unexpectedly as if there had been a hidden charge deep buried within it.  The New Orleans’ beauty seldom stopped to think, but reacted as if she had been thinking for a week or more and knew that instantaneous choice was the only one she could make.  When Marie was confronted – old there was another way and it was wiser – she’d shout and argue and insist she knew best.  All together, she was a most difficult woman and he had loved her more than his own life.

Just as he loved her son.

Ben walked to the front door and opened it.  He went to sit on the table in front of the office window and gazed out the way his older sons had gone.  Adam, God bless him, was like his mother – steady and reliable.  A good man who thought things out and acted on them in a reasonable amount of time.  Hoss, like Inger, was a gentle soul, always looking on the bright side, always trying to be helpful.

Joseph Francis Cartwright was another matter all together.

Everything he had loved in Marie was there – the boy’s smile, the mischievous spark in his green eyes; his ebullient, unbreakable spirit.  And that laugh!  There was nothing like that boy’s laugh.  But there was a dark side to Joe.  He’d seen it even before his mother had died in his youngest’s obstinate nature, in the temper tantrums he threw; in that lower lip that jutted out as the little boy’s body went rigid.  ‘Stubborn’, he had called him just that night.  ‘Unmovable’.

“As the mountains,” Ben muttered to himself.

He’d promised Joseph’s mother on her deathbed that he would take care of their boy and rear him up to be a superior man.  He’d succeeded in part.  Joseph was a superior man.  It was the ‘taking care of’ part he was worried about.

It worried him that Joseph was so much like his mother that he too wouldn’t live to see the high side of thirty.

“Mistah Ben need come in out of cold,” Hop Sing said softly.

Ben turned to find his old friend standing in the open doorway.

“I’ll be in shortly, Hop Sing.”

“Staring into distance not make sons come home sooner.”

He snorted. “I know that.  Somehow, though, it makes me feel closer to them.”

“Little Joe bad boy.”

Ben smiled.  They both still thought of Joe as a ‘boy’.  As ‘little’ Joe.  His youngest was twenty-four now and far from being a boy – though his hasty actions often belied that fact.  The truth was Joseph didn’t need his permission for anything anymore.  It was a sign of his three sons’ respect, that they deferred to him as often as they did.

The older man rose to his feet.  “You and I have to stop thinking of that young man as a ‘boy’, Hop Sing. Hard as it is.  Joe’s a very capable man now and while I despair at times, he has learned to think things through before….”

Ben’s voice trailed off.

Terror gripped him.

“Mistah Ben sick?” his cook asked, concerned.

Joe did think things through now.  Obviously, he would have known that his brothers would take off after him the moment they discovered he was missing.

Good God!

Joseph had been here all along, listening and watching as they left the house and his brothers took off – while he moped and brooded and paced the floor.  Joe hadn’t gone back to where Fleet Rowse had attacked the rig, but gone some other way – perhaps to some place the villain had told him during the prior attack that he would be.

“Hop Sing, saddle Buck!” he shouted as he headed for the house.

“What about Sheriff Roy?  You no be here when he come?”

“I can’t wait.  Joseph didn’t head back toward town.”

Hop Sing was following a few steps behind him like a duckling.  “Where boy go then?  Where you go?”

Ben halted in midstride and they almost collided.  Where was he going to go?  He thought a moment.  The last time Fleet Rowse had darkened their door step, kidnapping Joe and demanding a ransom, the man had set the Paiute graveyard as a meeting place.

It was as good a place to start as any.

“The Paiute graveyard, Hop Sing.  Tell Roy to send half the men after Adam and Hoss and the other half after me.  Joe’s too weak to stop Rowse on his own.  We have to find him before its too late.”

The man from China nodded and headed for the barn to do as he asked.  As he did, Ben strode toward the house where his gear and gun were.  At the door he stopped and looked up toward the sky.

“I promised you, Marie, that I would take care of our son and I will, but… if you can give me a little help I would appreciate it.

“Just like you, my love, that son of yours is a handful and a half!”

 

TWELVE

Fleet Rowse had entered the tent and was staring hard at the feisty gal who’d parked herself between him and his sister and the Parrish boy.  It had taken a moment, but he’d recognized the little hellion as the child who had thwarted him five years before; the one who led Adam Cartwright through the snow to rescue his little brother.   He’d thought she was just some pretty thing Joe Cartwright was sparkin’, but now he knew she was so much more – just as he knew her presence in Thinks Twice’s tent meant he had even greater control over the hotheaded young man he was hell-bent to make pay for what his cussedness had cost him.

“You’re not taking Thom anywhere!” she declared.

Fleet rolled the match he was chewing from one side of his mouth to the other.  She’d amused him at first.  Now she was gettin’ plain tirin’.

“You’re gonna get out of my way, or you’ll regret it, sister,” he threatened.

He had to admit she was handsome as a wild filly, with hair the color of ripe wheat and pert little breasts that heaved above the corset line.  He liked her spirit too.  Seemed she weren’t afraid of nothin’.

Of course, that was mighty stupid when it came to him.

“He’s terrified,” she countered, “can’t you see?  Leave Thom alone.  He’s just a boy!”

Fleet snorted.  Just like he’d been a boy when Red Pony’s men had come along and snatched him from his folks.

Best thing that could have happened to him.

The outlaw moved forward until he towered over the petite girl.  She weren’t no bigger than a minute – if that.

“This is the way I see it.  You can move aside and let me take Thom here to his new Pa, or I can move you aside and do the same thing.”  He let his words dangle for a few seconds.  “Gonna be easier the first way.”

The girl stiffened her back.  “I am not going to – ”

“Bella.”  Fleet’s eyes flicked to Rory.  His sister had moved forward and placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder.  “It’s not worth it,” she said softly.  “You can’t stop him.”

His lips curled in a sneer.  “I’d listen to your elders if I was you.”

Joe Cartwright’s girlfriend scowled.  He had to keep himself from chucklin’ at her.  She was a match for that one all right, just as stubborn and just as stupid.

“Are you going to bring Thom back?” she countered sharply.

He shrugged.  “Maybe.  Maybe not.  The boy ain’t mine.  He belongs to Thinks Twice.”

“I don’t belong to anyone!”   The ‘boy’ in question, who had been standing by silently, had grown a pair and shouted.  “And certainly not to any filthy savage!”

He was a cute kid.  With pale hair and skin and the look of an overprotected son.

That was all about to end.

“You ain’t got no choice, boy,” Fleet growled.  “You go with Thinks Twice or I’ll shoot you on the spot.”  To emphasize the threat, he drew his gun.

“That would be murder!” Bella declared.

Fleet tipped his hat.  “Yes, ma’am.”

Bella seemed shaken by his response.  Her voice trembled as she spoke and lost some of its fire.  “Don’t…don’t you have a conscience?  Don’t you care that you will go to Hell?”

He scoffed.  “Heaven ain’t for the likes of me.  I ain’t bowed me before no man and I don’t intend to bow before no God.”

“Then you’re damned,” she breathed.

Fleet gave her a little bow.  “And damn proud of it.”

“There’s nothing we can do to stop him,” Rory said.

“I’ll stop him,” Thom growled, showing more grit.

He eyeballed the boy.  Maybe there was something to him more than a milquetoast city slicker.  If so, Thinks Twice would have to break and rebuild that spirit, just like Red Pony had done with him.  As his eyes returned to the blonde girl, Fleet noted Bella was holding the boy’s hand.  It seemed she’d had come to like Thom in the short time they’d been cooped up together.

He wondered if Cartwright would be jealous.

“Here’s what I’ll do,” the outlaw drawled, hiding a sneer.  “If you help me kill Joe Cartwright, I’ll let Thom go.  How’s that sound?  Fair enough?”

The spitfire’s golden brows knit together in the middle.  “I won’t help you do any such thing!”

“Your choice,” he shrugged.  A second later that slow savage smile crept across his thin lips.  “’Course I’m gonna kill Cartwright anyhow.  But if you lead him to me, I’ll let the boy go.”

“I would never do that!” Bella stated flatly.

“That’s what I figured,” he sighed as he took a step toward her.

“Fleet,” his sister breathed, “what are you going to do?”

“First thing, I’m gonna take this here boy to Thinks Twice so he can start Thom’s ‘education’.  Then….”  He turned to Bella and fixed her with his cold stare.  “I’m gonna set me a trap.  Joe Cartwright’s bound to be on my trail by now and I’m bettin’ that older brother of his is on his trail.  I’m gonna give ‘em somethin’ worth fightin’ for.”

“Fleet, why?” Rory protested.  “You have me.  You have the money.  We can go to South America and the law can’t touch you.  Why remain here?  Why take the chance?”

Fleet shook his head.  Rory just didn’t understand.  It wasn’t about money or a fine place to live.  And what would he do with a life spent not lookin’ over his shoulder for the law?  It was about makin’ things right.  About settin’ the record straight.  About provin’ to the people in these parts that he was top of the totem pole, not some scrawny featherweight pampered son of a rich man who had made a fool of him and forced him to flee the country.

It was about makin’ the Cartwrights pay and pay dearly for what they done.

The only question was whether he killed one or all of them.

Fleet said nothing.  His eyes met hers and his sister backed away.  A second later he shifted his gaze to the little blonde filly in front of him who was blocking access to the boy.

“Well?”

Bella shot a glance at Thom.  To give the kid credit, he stepped past her and said, “I’ll go with you.  Just don’t hurt the women.”

For a split second Fleet hesitated as the past he had tried hard to forget dashed before his eyes like a herd of wild mustangs.  He saw himself being snatched from his home and heard his own voice – high and tense like this kid’s – screamin’ for his pa and brothers.  He saw himself crouchin’ in his own filth, huddled in a skin tent away from light and water and food, slowly starvin’ and dyin’ of thirst and being told the only thing that would bring relief would be to do as he was told.  And last of all, he felt the dirt and stones cuttin’ into his hands and knees as he crawled out of that hellhole into the waitin’ arms of Red Pony who became his whole world when he fed and washed him and gave him water.

When the old Indian chief made him his son.

That’s what Thom was in for.

Fleet sniffed.  He spit the chawed matchstick out of his mouth.  As the boy passed him, he put a hand on his shoulder and directed him out of the hide tent.  Thinks Twice and his woman were waitin’ outside for their ‘son’.

Hell had a new inmate.

 

Joe’s head jerked up and he caught himself just before he fell out of the saddle.  Cooch was looking back at him, his black eyes wide with a question.  Leaning forward, the curly-haired man patted his old friend’s neck.  “I’m okay, Cooch.  Just takin’ a little rest.”

His horse snorted and stamped his foot, not fooled in the slightest.

He’d passed the line shack a ways back and was getting close to the Paiute graveyard.  A few minutes before he had spotted the signs of at least one fire, maybe two.  Since Rowse traveled in the company of Indians, it made sense the outlaw would be camped out with some of them.  There was strength in numbers.

Something he should have considered before taking off on his own.

Joe was torn.  If it was Rowse up ahead, then he wanted more than anything to sneak into the camp, find Bella and Aurora, and free them.  However, if the outlaw did have Indians with him – even one or two – then chances were he would fail in the attempt and get both of them killed.  The smartest thing would be to turn around and head back to the ranch house for help.  Roy was probably there by now with a posse.  Maybe Adam and Hoss too if they’d realized he’d fooled them and turned around.  And Pa….

Joe closed his eyes.  Pa.

Pa was gonna be so mad.

He could hear the older man now.  ‘Much as you may want to think you are, young man, you are not a one man army!’

Joe put a hand to his neck and felt the bandana he had wound about his throat.  The cloth was wet with blood.  All the other cuts he’d suffered were smartin’ to beat the band and several of them felt hot, as if infection might be setting in.

“What am I doin’ out here, Cooch?” he pleaded.  “I ain’t got the strength to blow a feather off a hen.”

At that moment Joe heard a sound.  Unsure of what it was, he dismounted and quickly led his horse into a thicket of trees.  They’d been through a lot together and sometimes he thought Cochise really could read his mind.

“Quiet, boy,” Joe warned, placing a hand over his horse’s velvet-soft muzzle.  “Don’t make a sound.”

It was Fleet Rowse.  The outlaw was leading a boy through the trees, headed west. Joe’s jaw tightened when he saw the blond-headed youth.  It had to be Thom Parrish, the son of the people Rowse and his Indians had murdered when they raided the coach Bella was riding; the one whose sister he had mistaken for Bella and buried.  As Joe watched a tall Indian – an older one – met Rowse and the three of them continued on.

This was his chance.

“Looks like God’s smilin’ on fools today, Cooch,” Joe whispered as he tethered his horse’s reins to one of the trees.  “You stay here.  I’ll be back shortly with Bella and Aurora.”

Cooch backed up and shied.  He blew air through his nose as if trying to warn him.

Joe gave his old friend one last pat.  “It’ll be okay, boy.  You’ll see.  I’ll be back quicker than Mooney’s goose.”

Leaving Cochise behind, Joe moved quickly through the trees, driven by hope and a healthy dose of adrenaline.  He moved as stealthily as possible, knowing Indians had a knack for hearing and seeing things a white man would miss.  When he reached the camp, Joe saw it consisted of three hide tents erected near the entry to the old Paiute graveyard.  Smoke was rising from one of them.  As Joe crouched there and watched, an older Indian woman came out of the tent.  She was carrying food and drink and took it into another one.  She stayed inside a few minutes and then stepped out again with nothing in her hands and took up a position out front.  He could see movement through the open tent flap.  Joe caught a glimpse of a tall woman with red hair.

It had to be Aurora.  That meant Bella was in there too.

“Dear God, I promise to be good for a month of Sundays if you’ll just let her be okay,” Joe whispered.

And he meant it!

With an eye to the third tent, unsure of whether or not it was occupied, Joe headed in the opposite direction, rounding the one that held the women.  As he passed it and caught a whiff of the food the woman had delivered, his mouth watered and his stomach growled.  Clenching it with his hand, Joe stopped, breathing hard.  He was two times a fool for taking off without eating.

Not only was his head woozy, but now his stomach was trying to give him away!

“God keep Cooch and my belly quiet,” Joe whispered as he began to move again.

As he neared the back of the tent the women occupied, Joe crept in closer.  He leaned his ear against the hide and listened.  He could hear them talking.  Two women.  One was Aurora and the other….  Joe held his breath and focused, shutting out all other sounds.

It was Bella.

Long ago his pa had told him his tears were a strength; that they meant he was compassionate and felt things deeply.  That he cared.  They fell unbidden now, trailing down his cheeks and wetting his bloody collar before soaking into the equally ruined fabric of his tan shirt.

Bella was alive!

Reaching along his belt, Joe unfastened the knife he’d stowed there.  He placed his hand on the hide tent and began to slice through it.  When he finished and opened the slit to peer inside, there were two pale white faces looking back at him.  He put a finger to his lips before either of the women could say anything and motioned that they should slip out.  Rory came first and then Bella.  She had twigs and bracken in her hair and her face was covered in mud and a little bit of blood.  Her beautiful dress was in tatters and she had no shoes on her feet.

She was magnificent!

Joe wanted so to take her and draw her close to him, to touch her hair, to kiss her on the lips and tell her everything was going to be all right, but he couldn’t.  He didn’t know that yet.  He had to get them away from this place and he still didn’t know if the Indian woman was the only one in camp.  In fact, he doubted she was.  She had to have a husband.  Maybe a son or two.

Still, if God was with them….

Joe held out his hand and Bella slipped hers into his.  He squeezed her fingers and then nodded to Aurora and the three of them began to move, circling back the way he had come, headed for Cochise and safety.  He’d have to let the two women travel on the horse  and walk.  His thinking had been muddled when he left.  He should have brought a second horse.

Joe held his breath as they continued to navigate the underbrush undisturbed.

It couldn’t be this simple.

Could it?

The answer to that question came about thirty seconds later when he reached the trees to find Cochise was gone.

“Lookin’ for somethin’, Cartwright?” a steely voice asked.

Before he could react, Joe felt Bella’s hand slip from his own.  She called out his name as she was torn away and then struck and driven to the ground.  Aurora bent to help her just as the redhead’s hellish brother moved out of a thick patch of leaves leading Cochise, his eyes blazing like a demon unleashed.  With him came the older Indian he had seen before.  Thom Parrish wasn’t there, but there was another man – a young tattooed warrior whose chest was covered in war paint.  Joe thought he looked familiar, but couldn’t place him until the native sneered and raised his war club.

It was the Indian who had struck on the head, almost killing him the day the stagecoach was attacked.

Rowse handed Cochise off to the warrior and sidled toward him.  Aurora’s brother was a tall man, about Adam’s height, and his presence was made even larger by the sinister shadow he cast – a shadow of unspeakable evil.  As Rowse approached the warrior moved as well, taking his place behind Bella and Aurora.  Joe knew what that meant.  It was a warning that – should he try anything – it was they who would pay the price.

“You touch either of them and you’ll live to regret it,” Joe growled.

The warrior held his gaze and then deliberately stepped forward to cup Bella’s breasts in his hands.

Joe heard her shout ‘No!” even as he moved.  He knew Shadow Walker was baiting him, but he couldn’t stop himself.  Bella was his friend – his little sister – and maybe a whole lot more.

He was gonna kill him.

There was a sense of movement behind him.  Joe spun and found Fleet Rowse standing there.

“Thanks, Cartwright,” the outlaw said.

Joe’s green eyes shot from one renegade to the other.  “For what?” he demanded, his chin thrust out and his eyes blazing.

“For bein’ so stupid.”

At that moment Joe saw a shadow cast on the ground.  He knew what it was before it hit him.

Shadow Walker’s club.

 

“What do you mean Ben ain’t here?” Roy Coffee demanded.

Adam sighed.  It was what?  The third time he’d answered that question?  “I told you, Roy.  Several times,” he said patiently.  “Pa set off after Joe once he realized he’d sneaked out.”

“Well, what’s that fool brother of your’n doin’ goin’ off chasin’ after that devil on his lonesome anyhow?”

He’d lost count on how many times the sheriff had asked that one.

“Roy, we’re wastin’ time standin’ here goin’ over how stupid you done think Pa and Joe are,” Hoss interjected.  “We gotta get after them!”

Adam eyed his giant of a brother.  He had to hide a smile.  Hoss had that look – like he wanted to take one of his fists and hammer Roy into the ground like a post.

“Now, you see here, Hoss,” the lawman countered.  “My men ain’t here yet and we ain’t settin’ out ‘til they are!”

“But time’s a wastin’, Roy!” the big man protested.  “Joe and Pa could be in real danger!”

“And we could put them in even more danger by bargin’ in afore we’re ready!” Roy shouted back.

“Roy.  Roy.” Adam spread his hands wide in a show of peace.  “All Hoss and I are suggesting is that you allow us to…scout ahead.”

It was lame, but it was worth a try.

The older man was no more fooled than their father would have been.  One grizzled eyebrow shot toward his weather-beaten hat.  “And what do you take me for,  Adam Cartwright, a bigger fool than your Pa!”

“Now, you just wait there a minute, Roy….”

Here it came.  Hoss was going to pound the lawman into the dirt.

Stepping between the two of them, Adam suggested, “How about this, Roy?  You let Hoss and I go ahead and we promise,” he crossed his heart, “solemnly, on our mother’s graves….”  Adam shot his brother a look that said, ‘keep your mouth shut’.  “We promise we will not charge Fleet Rowse’s camp on our own.  One of us will stay to keep watch and the other will come back to find you and the posse.”  Adam’s black brows lifted and his lips quirked at the ends in some kind of a smile.  “Deal?”

The lawman looked at him like a father looked at a little boy who promised he was just going to the river to fish and had no intention of jumping in.

“Now, boy,” Roy said, jabbing a finger into his chest, “you’re a Cartwright and you know what a Cartwright’s word means.”

Damn him.

Adam cleared his throat.  “Yes.”

Roy eyed the clouds.  “And your mama’s up there watchin’, seein’ everythin’ you do.”

“My sainted mother, yes,” he nodded.

“W…e…l…l…”

He’d never heard a man drag a word out so long.

“…I guess as it would be all right.”

“I’ll get the horses!” Hoss declared and was gone.

A few minutes later Roy watched them carefully as they mounted, fully aware that their horses had already been saddled and that they had been dressed for travel when he arrived.  As he took Sport’s reins in hand, the older man came over to him.

“You keep your word, son,” Roy said, anchoring him to the Ponderosa with a hand on his saddle.  “Buryin’ one Cartwright would be plain Hell enough, let alone it bein’ four.”

“We will, Roy.  You can count on us.”

“Yes, sir, you can,” Hoss echoed.

The sheriff hesitated and then removed his hand.  “We’ll be right behind you.  Soon as Clem gets here with the rest of the men.  It’s a darn shame we was all out to the Curtis’ fightin’ that barn fire when your Pa’s hand came lookin’ for me.”

Adam tipped his hat in a signal to Hoss that it was time to move.

“Later, Roy.”

About a half-mile down the road, Hoss reined Chubb in and put out a hand to stop him.  “What’re you gonna do, Adam, if we find Pa or Joe bein’ held captive by Rowse?  Head back like you promised Roy?”

“I gave my word,” the man in black said quietly, “and Roy was right about the word of a Cartwright.”

Hoss hung his head.  “I suppose he was.”

Adam let out a sigh.  “Still, there’s one thing Roy doesn’t know.”

His brother looked at him.  “What’s that, Adam?”

“I gave my word to Joe first when I found him with his throat cut.  I promised him nothing would stop me from making Fleet Rowse pay.  Nothing.  Not my word given to Roy.”  His grin was lopsided.  “Not even a promise made on me sainted mother’s grave.”

“So we’re goin’ in?” Hoss asked, his crystal blue eyes narrowed and hard as ice.

Adam gave Scout’s reins a jingle.

“We’re going in.”

 

Joe thought he’d known what torment was.

He’d been wrong.

Tears streamed down his face, mingling with the dribbles of blood that ran down his bare chest from the myriad thin cuts there.  It had taken him a moment when he regained consciousness to realize where he was.  He’d expected to wake up trussed and tossed in a heap at the back of one of the tents.  Instead he was outside.  He’d been stripped to the waist and bound to a framework of poles about ten feet long, set about five feet apart.  A crosspiece was tied close to two feet off the ground and another one about five feet above it, forming a square frame.  His wrists and ankles were bound with rawhide to the four corners.  The frame was set firmly in the ground just outside the entrance to the old Paiute graveyard.  Spotted Deer – the Indian woman who’d been ordered to watch Bella and Aurora – was the first to come at him.  She’d lost face and took great joy in beating him about the chest with a strip of rawhide ‘til his skin split and bled.  Once the long braided piece hit his neck where it was already cut and he’d blessedly passed out.

But only for a moment.

Fleet Rowse doused him with cold water, startling him back to consciousness and the torment began again.

Now it was Shadow Walker’s turn.  The young warrior stood close by, heating the stone tips of a half-dozen arrows over a small fire.  Joe knew what was coming.  He’d heard of it before.

Rowse’s companion was gonna press those red hot arrowheads against his skin and brand him.

Joe closed his eyes for a second, shutting out the horrific vision of his future.  He’d grown up out west.  He knew what hostile Indians did to their captives.  He’d heard the tales from those who’d seen and experienced it themselves.  He knew how they stripped men naked and shot them through with arrows, or beat them with clubs ‘til they were senseless; how they fed them afterwards and gave them water just so the torment could last longer….

A sound attracted his attention.  Joe opened his eyes to find the Indian woman had gone back to guard the tent where the women were.  He could hear Bella screaming his name over and over again.  It shamed him to hear her calling out like that for him.  It shamed him because he’d failed her.  He was gonna die and Shadow Walker was gonna take her for his own and Bella’s life would be nothing but one day after the next in Hell until she died.  And all because of him.

All because he thought he could save her on his own.

The scent of smoldering rawhide brought Joe’s attention back to his tormentor.  Shadow Walker stood right in front of him now, holding a burning-hot arrowhead just under his nose.  Joe swallowed and lifted his head.  He learned another thing from those people who’d been tortured.  The worst thing you could do with an Indian warrior was show fear.  So, while denying his tears, Joe swallowed, drew what little spit he had forward, and let it fly in the warrior’s face.  Shadow Walker did not flinch.  Nor did he hesitate to press the red hot arrowhead into his skin.

But there was respect in his eyes as he did it.

Joe screamed.

 

Hoss’s meaty hand shot out to grip the reins of his brother’s horse and draw him back.  What’s he’d just heard had chilled him to the bone.

“You hear that, Adam?  That’s Little Joe!  I’d know his voice anywhere!”

His brother was pale as morning mist.  Adam nodded once and inclined his head to the east.  “It came from over there, near the place where the Paiute bury their dead.”

“That’s where Rowse was afore!  We gotta go, Adam.  Now –”

This time it was Adam who reached out and caught his arm.  “Hoss, think!  What we have to do is go, but cautiously.  Getting ourselves killed is not going to help Joe.”

Another scream brought both their heads around.  It was weaker but longer this time, lasting several heartbeats.

Tears entered the big man’s eyes.  “I can’t stand it, Adam!  It sounds like Joe’s dyin’!”

“Rowse knows that.”  Adam’s jaw was taut.  His fingers lingered just above his gun.  As he watched, the man in black flexed them and returned them to the reins.  “That fiend is using Joe as…bait.”

“Bait?  I thought it was Joe be wanted.”

“Oh, he wants Joe, but he wants me too.  And you and Pa.  We Cartwrights may not have brought him to justice, but we thwarted his plans and we beat him.  Rowse didn’t get his sister.  He didn’t get the money.  He didn’t get to kill Joe and he had to run.  Fleet Rowse is not the kind of man to take being beaten lightly.  He’s like a mad dog.  It doesn’t matter if the meat is ripped to shreds and trampled in the dirt, he’s got to be the one to eat first.”

There was yet another cry.   Longer.  Louder.

Then it was cut short.

A second later a familiar voice rang out.  “Cartwright!  Cartwright, answer me!  I know you’re out there!”

The two brothers exchanged a look.

“Should we answer him?” Hoss asked.

Adam held up a hand.  “Let me think….”

But Rowse wasn’t going to let them think.

“Cartwright.  You got three seconds before I let Shadow Walker have his way with young Joseph.  One.  Two….”

Adam opened his mouth, but it was their father’s voice that answered.

“I’m here,” the brothers heard the older man cry out.  “Let my son go!”

 

THIRTEEN

“Drop your gun, old man,” Fleet Rowse ordered as the villain moved between him and the ghastly vision of his youngest boy stretched out on a wooden rack.  “Now.”

His eyes never leaving Joe, Ben hastened to comply.  He could see his son’s chest rising and falling in ragged breaths, so at least he knew he was alive.  But dear God!  The boy had been tortured!  Joseph’s shirt was gone.  He still had his pants, but they were rent and covered with blood as were his chest and face.  It was obvious he had been beaten.  Probably by the fierce-looking Indian woman who was standing guard before a nearby tent, a bloody rawhide whip in her hand.  A young warrior, ferocious, cruel, stood beside his son.  The man’s black eyes were unforgiving.  There was an arrow in his hand and a fire burning at his feet.

The imprint of the arrow’s head was burned into Joe’s tanned flesh.

“Why…why have you done his to my son?” Ben stammered as tears entered his eyes.

“You should of done a better job of parentin’, old man,” Fleet Rowse declared.  “This one’s right mouthy.  Figured lettin’ Shadow Walker have a go at him would take the spunk right out of him.”   Rowse cast a glance over his shoulder at Little Joe where his son hung limp between the poles.  The corner of the villain’s lips lifted in a sneer.  “Looks like I was right.”

“Cut him down!” the older man demanded.

“Now, why should I?”  The outlaws black eyebrows peaked toward the progression of black waves on his forehead.  “The way I look at it, Joe owes me.”  Rowse’s gun pointed directly at him.  “Just like all you Cartwrights owe me.”

Ben drew a breath.  His eyes remained fastened on his son.  “Let Joseph go, Rowse.  You can do whatever you please with me.  Just – ”

One word.  Only one.

“No.”

Ben tore his eyes away to look at Rowse.  “Why?  Why do you hate Joseph so?  You got away –”

“Only after that skinny-assed mollycoddled rich kid beat me at my own game!” Rowse snarled.  “Him and that older brother of his, they owe me!”

Good God.

Ben understood it then.  Though Rowse would be happy to see them all dead, the trap had not been set for him, but for Adam.  Ben steeled himself not to look around.  The odds were his other sons were nearby.  They knew their youngest brother as well as he did – if not better.  They would know which direction Joseph had taken.  He had to count on Adam.  His eldest had a cool level head.  He had to trust the boy would think things through before taking action.

The older man’s eyes shot to his youngest son, hanging on the rack like a slab of beef.

If it was possible to think things through in the face of such a sight.

 

“What’re we gonna do, Adam?”

The man in black could hear the panic in Hoss’ voice.  He didn’t blame him.  Their baby brother had obviously been tortured, and maybe to death.  Their father was standing in plain sight with a gun trained on him – and the man holding the gun was a maniac.

Adam closed his eyes.  There was a solution to this equation.

He just had to find it.

The simplest solution was, of course, to reveal himself.  He knew it wasn’t their father Rowse wanted but him.   He’d been the one to get Joe away from the outlaw – even if Joe rolling over the edge of a ravine and him following close behind had kept him from bringing the villain to justice.  He’d plead with Rowse to release their father and at least save the older man’s life – and maybe even his youngest brother’s.

Right.

Adam sighed.  Unfortunately, he knew what type of man Rowse was.  He would break any bargain made and kill him and Joe and his father just out of spite – and probably kill Hoss and burn the Ponderosa to the ground as well.  The man in black’s hazel eyes flicked to the tent behind Rowse where the Indian woman stood.  He’d seen movement within it.  Most likely Aurora Clark and Bella.  He had to consider them too.  From the tent, Adam’s eyes moved to the warrior standing beside Joe, and then to the other two tents.  So far he had counted only two men, Rowse and the young warrior standing by Joe.  Two against two.

Or was it three?

Adam closed his eyes.  He swallowed down bile.  So far he had avoided it – fearful of what he would find.

Now he looked directly at Joe.

The kid looked awful.  Joe’s chin was on his chest and he was either unconscious or dead.  His body was covered in a network of cuts much like the ones Rowse had inflicted several days before.  Adam recognized the pattern now and understood why the fiend had done that to Joe – it was a form of Indian torture.  Because Rowse was a white man they tended to forget that his heart – by choice – was red.  Not red like an Indian’s skin, but the red of a monster evermore on the warpath. A man with murder in his heart.

Adam’s jaw tightened with something very close to hate.

There was nothing to do but put him down like the dog he was.

“Adam?”

He had almost forgotten his middle brother was there and that he had asked a question.  ‘What were they going to do?’

Their second choice was to go in with guns blazing and hope they could pick off Rowse and whoever else was with him with the least amount of casualties possible.  That choice meant almost certain death for Little Joe, if he was still alive.  And most likely for their father.

They might get the women out alive, but….

“Adam.”

It was Hoss again, pestering him to come up with a solution, like a buzzing insect that needed swatting.

“Give me time to think!” he snapped and then regretted it.

Hoss wasn’t alone.  There was a tall Indian behind him.

He had a knife to his brother’s throat.

 

She’d seen him.  Dragged in front of the tent opening, barely conscious; his beautiful skin covered with dirt and blood.  At first the sight had given Bella a small amount of consolation.  She’d feared Rowse had killed Little Joe when he took her prisoner – in fact, the villain had told her that he had.  She didn’t believe him – well, not really – but the doubt kept creeping up on her until she had pretty well convinced herself that Joe was dead and it was all her fault for not being faster and stronger and…

‘Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble’, her Pa used to tell her.

In spite of everything, Bella smiled.  She always thought her pa was so smart – and he was – but he was also well-read.

George Washington had said that one first.

A noise drew her attention to the front of the tent.  Aurora was standing between her and the opening.  She saw the other woman stiffen.  The redhead backed up and stepped aside as a man was thrust in.  His hands and feet were bound and his face was bloody, as if he had been roughly handled.

It was Ben Cartwright.

As the older man hit the dirt floor, Aurora’s brother followed.  He glared at the two of them.  “You leave him be as he is,” he growled. “I come in here and find him untied, that boyfriend of yours will be minus an ear – or somethin’ more important.  You hear me?!”

Bella’s breath caught.

Little Joe was still alive!

“I…won’t try to…get away,” the older man’s breath had been knocked from him.  “Just don’t hurt…my son anymore.”

Fleet’s dark eyes lit with an unholy mirth.  “You got my promise, Cartwright.”  He held the older man’s gaze for a moment before adding. “Seems I can’t speak for Shadow Walker though.  You know how it is with savages….”

Laughing, Rowse left the tent.

The older man’s jaw was tight.  “Dear God!” he breathed.  “To be so close and be able to do nothing!”

Aurora bent beside him and asked softly, “What about Adam and Hoss?  Are they here?”

Bella’s eyes shot to the door.  She could see the back of Spotted Deer’s legs.  A finger to her lip and a quick shake of her head cautioned that any answer be kept nearly inaudible.

Ben Cartwright nodded, but said, just loud enough to be heard, “My sons are…waiting at the ranch house for…Roy and the posse.  I figured out that Joseph had fooled us and came ahead alone.”

Bella stared at him a moment and then went to get a bowl of water and a cloth.  Sitting beside the older man, she began to clean the cuts on his face.

“That’s not necessary,” he grunted.

She bit back tears and sniffed.  “Yes, it is.  I can’t do it for Little Joe….”

Ben’s dark eyes met hers.  He gave her a little smile and then fell silent.

Aurora watched them, her face a mask.  Bella knew the older woman felt responsible for everything that had happened five years before and for what was happening now.  Suddenly, she turned toward the opening.  Inching closer, the redhead peered outside.

“What’s happening?” Ben asked.

Aurora held up a hand.  “Someone has come into camp.  It’s Thinks Twice.  He has someone –”  She gasped and turned toward them.

“It’s Adam!”

 

Adam Cartwright stood with a rope around his neck and another looped around his wrists.  The Indian warrior who had come upon him and Hoss held the ends of both.  His face was covered with mud and a bit of blood and his black clothing was ripped and shredded from rolling around on the ground.  There were tears on his cheeks too.  Tears of anger and of rage.

And of sorrow.

Thinks Twice drew back hard on the rope that circled his throat, halting him.  The warrior opened his mouth to call to his companions, but Fleet Rowse chose that moment to appear so it wasn’t necessary in the end.  Shadow Walker struck Joe hard across the face, drawing blood, before following.

Joe didn’t make a sound.

Adam glared at the pair, merciless and savage as the land that had given them birth, as they halted before him.  Again, he questioned his choice to remain here, so far from the civilized society that he loved.  But then, civilized society lacked the one thing that kept him here.

His father and brothers.

“Where’s the big one?” Rowse demanded.

Adam stiffened.  It would be hard to hear.

“Dead,” Thinks Twice said.

Shadow Walker seemed unconvinced.  “How did you overcome the mountain of a man?”

The older Indian sneered.  “You know only your club and how to inflict pain.  You have no honor, nor do you honor the one you fight.”  He paused.  “The kill was clean.”

Rowse snorted.  As the villain strode over to him, Adam braced himself for the blow he knew was coming.

He wasn’t disappointed.  It made his nose run red.

“So much for the mighty Cartwrights!” he mocked.  “Your baby brother’s half-dead.”  He chortled.  “Maybe all dead.  Your Pa’s beaten, and the one you probably thought no one could take down fell like one of your Ponderosa pines.  And you – high-falutin’, fancy talkin’, college educated Adam Cartwright….”  Rowse drew his pistol and placed the tip of the barrel against his heart.  “You’re dead too.”

“Is that how it’s to be Rowse” Adam snarled.  “A shot and its done?  I’d call that a coward’s way out.”

Rowse pulled back on the trigger.  “Maybe.  Maybe I am a coward.  You ever consider that, Adam Cartwright?  Maybe I like the easy path.”

“You’re a warrior, or so you keep insisting,” he countered quickly, his hazel eyes flicking, not to Thinks Twice, but to Shadow Walker.  “If you were a coward, you wouldn’t be alive.”

There was a second, and then Fleet released the trigger.  “You got me there, Cartwright.”

“Fight me.”

The outlaw scowled.  “For what?”

“My father and brother’s lives.”

“You ain’t worth that much,” Rowse replied.  Then, his black eyes blazing, he said, “I’m feelin’ generous today.  You win, you can pick one.  Other two of you dies.”

If it was up to Joe or his father, he knew neither one of them would want to survive alone.

But life was life.

“Agreed.”

Rowse bellowed . “You got a trick up your sleeve, Cartwright?”

Adam’s eyes went to his bound wrists.  “I don’t have any sleeve,” he countered dryly.

Fleet was working his way out of his coat.  Adam gestured with a nod to Thinks Twice.  He felt the noose on his neck loosen as the Indian warrior released the cords he held.  The man in black glanced at his baby brother where he hung on the rack, noted Shadow Walker’s close proximity, and said a quick prayer before nodding again.

Then all hell broke loose.

 

Ben Cartwright glanced back at Hoss who barreled out of the tent right behind him.  He had never been so surprised as when his middle son poked his head through the slit Joseph had cut in the hide tent earlier.  He had overheard the conversation between Adam and Rowse and, for a moment, feared his gentle giant of a son was dead.  Hoss didn’t have time to explain what was happening and he didn’t question it.  All he could figure was that, for some reason, Thinks Twice had turned on Rowse.

As Hoss headed for the painted warrior who stood near Joe, Ben tackled the Indian woman who had turned to face them the moment they exited the tent.  She put up little resistance as he caught her arms and drew them up behind her and secured then with the long piece of rawhide she held.  Once she was subdued and he’d placed her inside the tent, Ben turned back.  He found his attention divided.  Adam and Rowse were squared off against each other.  Both had their guns out.  All he could think was that the older Indian must have carried Adam’s, hidden somewhere on his person.  On his other side Hoss was struggling with Shadow Walker whose fierce war cries pierced the early afternoon.  Even though the Indian was little more than half his son’s size, he was putting up a ferocious fight.

Through it all, Joseph hung there, unmoving.

“Pa!  Duck!”  Adam’s strident voice rang out.

Reacting instantly, the older man dropped to the ground just as a bullet streaked over his head.   Adam had tried to take the outlaw’s gun away and it had gone off.  His son was breathing hard.  Adam was tiring.

Fleet Rowse fought like the demon he was.

Behind him Ben heard a grunt and then a thud.  He spun to find Shadow Walker on the ground with Hoss standing over him.  The big man was bleeding from various cuts, but he was on his feet and favored him with a grim grin before turning to his quiescent brother.  Ben wanted to run to his side, but there was still Adam to think about.  His near-black eyes went to the older Indian first.  The man was standing at the edge of the clearing, his arms folded, doing nothing.  The rancher glanced around for a suitable weapon and, finding Shadow Walker’s abandoned club on the ground, picked it up and headed into the fray.  Adam’s eyes grew wide when he saw what he was doing, but that didn’t deter him.

This man – this monster – had hurt all three of his sons and he was going to see that he paid!

Adam backed away, breathing hard, just as the outlaw realized he was there.  For several seconds, time froze.  Rowse had a gun pointed at him.  Adam had a gun pointed Rowse.  Ben was armed with the war club, ready and willing to bash the villain’s brains in if necessary.

In the end it was another weapon that took Fleet Rowse down.

Ben felt the rush of air as the arrow flew past him to lodge in the villain’s shoulder, causing Rowse to drop his gun.

The bow it flew out of was in Hoss’ hands.

Adam was on Rowse in a second.  Straddling the outlaw’s body, his son wrenched the man’s arms back – with a little more force than was necessary – and quickly bound them behind his back.  As Adam shoved Rowse face down in the dirt and planted a knee on his back, a familiar voice rang out.

“So this is what you Cartwrights mean when you give your word!”

Ben pivoted to find Roy Coffee and half-dozen men standing in a loose semi-circle around the clearing.  As he did, he saw Thinks Twice sprint away into the trees.  Ben made to follow him, but Adam caught his arm and shook his head.

“Let him go, Pa,” he said.  “If not for him, we’d all be dead.”

The older man stared hard at his boy.  He knew the tall Indian had been there when the stage was overrun and all those people died.  He’d kidnapped the Parrish boy.   “Adam, no….”

“Leave it to God, Pa.  Go look after Joe.”

Joe.

The name stabbed Ben like a knife.

Even as he turned, he saw Hoss cutting the last of the rawhide strips that bound his brother to the wooden structure.  When Joe’s limp form fell against him, the big man gently lowered his unconscious form to the ground.  As he started toward them Ben heard a woman gasp.  Bella was standing just outside the tent she and Aurora had been quartered in.  She was white as the mainsail and shaking like a mast in the wind.  Ben went to her and took her by the arm.

“Bella?”

Her gaze was fixed on the tableau at the bottom of the rack.

“Little Joe?” she whispered, her voice robbed of strength.  “Is he….”

Ben steeled himself.  Then, with the same question in his black eyes, he looked at his middle son.

“Joe’s alive, Pa,” Hoss answered, though his voice shook and broke with emotion as he did.  “Barely.”

 

“How is he?” Adam asked his father as he emerged from the smoke-filled tent where his little brother was fighting for his life.

The older man said nothing.  He simply shook his head.

In the end they let Spotted Deer go to join her husband, even though they were fairly sure some of Joe’s torture had been at her hands.  In a way, it was a ‘thank you’ to the older Indian.  Thinks Twice had been true to his name and, after considerable consideration, had decided that Fleet Rowse was a maniac and had to be stopped.  Taking revenge on someone who had hurt or shamed you was part and parcel of the native heart, but Thinks Twice did not think Joe’s ‘crimes’ validated such harsh treatment.  When he came upon them he told them so, and together they put in place the scheme to free their brother and father.  At first, Spotted Deer had been restrained.  As they carried Joe into the tent she asked permission to go to one of the other structures and returned with a handful of herbs and a pouch filled with tiny pots of unguent.  While they looked on, she built the fire up and tossed the sweet-smelling herbs on it.  As smoke filled the tent she opened the jars and, with a finger, began to smear different salves over the burns and cuts on Joe’s flesh.  When she was done, she told them there would be little scarring.

Should he live.

The next day, as Roy and his men scoured the area to make certain none of Rowse’s cohorts remained, Spotted Deer taught Bella how to administer the salve.  Bella hadn’t left Joe’s side since he’d been placed in the tent.  Pa’d fought it at first, insisting she needed to rest as well, but finally, the older man had recognized her need for absolution and turned most of Joe’s care over to her.  Hoss left the night before to ride to Virginia City to fetch Doc Martin and a wagon.  They’d drawn straws and the big man lost.

None of them wanted to go, each fearing Joe might be gone before they could make it back.

“No improvement then?” Adam asked.

“We’ve said it before,” his father answered with a weary smile.  “Something is terribly wrong with the world when your youngest brother is still.”  His father looked toward the horizon where the sun was beginning to set.  “He’s still.  Very still.”

“Bella is with him?”

The older man’s smile grew genuine.  “With her whole being bent on making him well.”

Adam wondered how she would stand it if – if the unthinkable happened.

“Still blaming herself?”

The older man nodded and then he grinned – a small, self-effacing grin.  “You’d think she was a Cartwright.”

Adam glanced toward the tent.  “Would you be happy if she was?”

His father looked puzzled.  “What?  I don’t….”  Then he did.  “You think they are that serious?”

The man in black shrugged.  “It’s just a feeling.  I just think, well, if – when Joe recovers, I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear wedding bells.”  He was surprised when his father looked unhappy.  “Pa?  I thought you liked Bella.”

His father started.  “I don’t like that girl, Adam, I love her.  Still….”  He pulled at his chin.  “Adversity and danger make poor arrows for Cupid’s quiver.”

Adam nodded.  “You think they might just ‘think’ they’re in love?”

His father reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder.  “There’s a long road ahead of your brother before he can even think of such a thing.  Let’s get him home and well before we borrow any trouble, eh?”  His father had just lifted his hand when they heard the rattle of wagon wheels.

The older man beamed.  “It’s Hoss!  God grant he has Paul with him!”

 

It near killed him to step inside that tent with the Doc.  Hoss was a big man and it wasn’t easy for him to fit, but his Pa wanted them all there to hear what the doctor had to say.  Joe’s biggest enemy, it turned out, wasn’t the blood loss or the beatin’, or even bein’ strung up like a piece of meat and exposed to the elements.  It was that thing that no one could see and was near impossible to beat.

Infection.

Paul didn’t like the conditions Joe was in.  He said, since the Ponderosa ranch house wasn’t that far away, he wanted to take a chance and wagon little brother home as soon as possible.  At the house there would be better sanitation and they’d have ice to cool Little Joe’s fever if it spiked.  The Doc thanked Elizabeth and told her she done a good job takin’ care of Little Joe, but it was plain as the nose on your face that she was all wore down herself and like to faint.  They’d listened with faces longer than a hound dog’s to the Doc’s prognosis for Joe’s recovery – which weren’t very chipper – and then set about gettin’ ready to go.  He’d noticed when they did that Spotted Deer was gone and had asked Adam about it.  Big brother said he and Pa’d decided to let her go.  The big man wasn’t right sure about that.  She’d done hurt Joe bad and he was mighty angry about that.

‘As you forgive, so are you forgiven,’ his pa had reminded him grim-faced, the words as much for himself as for his hurting son.

Shortly after that Roy and the posse returned.  Roy went straight to the tent where they had Fleet Rowse and that other Indian, Shadow Walker, trussed up.  The lawman left two men to guard the tent.  Aurora had fixed some grub and took it in to her brother and the other man.  That Mrs. Clark, she was a right determined lady.   She’d anchored her brother’s gun around the hips of her dress and assured them all she would not hesitate to use it.

After Roy and his men and the Doc had a bite to eat, Paul Martin said it was time to go.  The doctor called on him to pick up Little Joe and carry him to the wagon that had been loaded down with blankets and pillows to ease the long ride home.  As he lifted Joe’s unconscious form, tears gathered in his eyes.  It reminded him of the first time Marie’d let him hold his new baby brother.  His hands had been so big and Joe had been so little, he’d been afraid he’d snap him right in two.  Truth was, he was afraid he might snap him in two right now if he was too rough.  Joe felt near as tiny in his arms as that little baby had so long ago, and just as fragile.  The only difference was, this time, Little Joe wasn’t all balled up and squealing.

He was pale and ever so still.

As Hoss placed his brother in the wagon, Bella climbed in and sat beside him.  Paul and his pa exchanged a glance.  Pa shook his head, and then the doctor climbed in on the other side.  The Doc asked Bella to help him make Joe comfortable and then told her to lie down beside him.

It weren’t two minutes later she was fast asleep.

Adam mounted Sport and he offered Chubb to Aurora.  Pa had Buck and he was gonna drive.  Roy and his men, surrounding Rowse and Shadow Walker, were riding with them, but goin’ on to town to take them two bad men to the jail.  Since Fleet was an escaped prisoner, the authorities would have to be told.  Most like, he’d end up turned over to the army or the state.  Roy hated to admit it, but they was probably gonna hang onto Shadow Walker so’s they could exchange him for some Indian prisoner.

Maybe Thom Parrish if they was lucky.

Hoss glanced over his shoulder at his little brother and then sniffed and struck a tear away.

A second later, his father’s hand descended on his shoulder.   “Have faith, son.”

He nodded.  “Sure, Pa.”

The older man looked at him.  “Hoss.  What is it?”

“Well, it’s that ‘faith’, Pa.  I believe in God.  But….”

“But?”

“It sure does seem the Man upstairs has got it in for little brother sometimes,” he said with a shake of his head.  “I mean, you know, Joe’s well…little.  Seems someone’s always pickin’ on him ‘bout somethin’.”

“And your brother’s behavior has nothin’ to do with this?”

“Well, Little Joe can be a hothead,” he admitted.  “And, you know, the boy does leap before he looks sometimes, but Pa, seems one of these times well….”  He sniffed again and his voice lost its strength.  “Well, maybe he just ain’t gonna make it.”

The older man nodded solemnly.  After a moment, he asked, “Do you remember that prize fighter – the one who nearly killed Little Joe, and whom you had a tough time taking down?”

He nodded.  How could he forget?

“Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist, son.  It reduces him to his fighting weight.  Yes, your brother is small-built and impulsive.”   His father’s smile was gentle.  “All the more reason God has seen fit to train him so well.”

“You two ready to go?” Adam asked as he came alongside them.

Their father glanced at the wagon back.  “Paul, are you ready?”

The doctor nodded.  “As we can be.”

Reassuring as always, that was Doc Martin.

His pa looked at his older brother, and then at him.

“Sons,” he said, “let’s go home.”

 

END OF PART TWO