PART THREE

 

FOURTEEN

Ben Cartwright laid his paper down on the dining room table and leaned back in his chair.  He ran a hand over his face as he looked expectantly toward the stair.  Three weeks had passed since they had found Joseph, freed Aurora and Bella, and captured Fleet Rowse and his Indian partner.  This was the first day his youngest was due at the breakfast table.  Joe had certainly been through the wringer.  His fever had lingered for nearly a week as Paul Martin fought the infections that continued to arise as a result of dirt and other matter getting into the various cuts Rowse and his cohort had inflicted.  The one on Joseph’s throat had become quite inflamed as had another under his ribs.  The fever had raged and ravaged his boy until he had grown to be but a shell of himself.  His youngest had lost weight and stamina, which he was only now beginning to regain.  At two weeks Paul had let him out of bed and Joseph had begun to take supervised walks around the upstairs.

Always with Bella as a prop.

They were deep into February now and the young lady would be with them throughout the rest of the winter.  There was no way she could leave, and no way any of them would want her to try.  The snow had finally flown and its feet-deep drifts confined them to the small world that was the ranch house and its surrounding yard.  After the first night he had found Bella asleep in Joe’s room, just as he had months before, he had had a stern talk with her.  After all, a young lady’s reputation was hard won and so easily lost.  And even though Ben understood, finding the girl in his son’s bedroom was simply not something he could let stand.  After that Bella had gone to sitting with Joseph for several hours after supper and would then retreat to her room.

He’d hear her crying as he passed by on his way to bed.

It tore at his heart as he stood there, listening, night after night in the hall.  The sound of Bella’s tears brought Joe’s mother to mind.  Marie had been as mercurial as her son.  It took little to bring her to laughter and even less to send her into gales of tears.  When she was angry with him – which was frequently  – she would go into one of the spare bedrooms and lock the door.  No amount of pleading would bring her out until she was ready.

On one occasion it had been a full day before she showed her pale, tear-strained face.

Last night, it had become more than he could bear.  The poor girl had been sobbing.  Taking courage in hand, he’d knocked gently on her door and, upon receiving something that sounded like a welcome, opened it and went inside.  Bella was sitting on the bed looking very much like that little girl whom he had first seen in her parents’ house keeping watch over his injured son.

“May I?” he’d asked her, indicating the bed.  When she nodded, he took a seat beside her and then reached out and took her hand.  “Joseph will be all right,” he’d said quietly.  The doctor had assured him just that morning that it was true.  His son’s last fever had broken.

Bella’s eyes lit with joy.  “You’re sure?  You’re not just telling me….”

He’d assured her it was true.  After a moment, he had dared to ask, “Bella, are you in love with Joseph?”

She looked at her hands and not at him as she answered.  “Of course, I love Little Joe.”

He remembered catching her chin and lifting her head, so she had to meet his stare.  “That’s not what I asked.  I asked if you are in love with him.”

Her eyes filled with tears.  It was almost as if she was afraid to answer.

“Tell me the truth.”

She had fallen against him then, her tears wetting the fabric of his shirt.  Her voice when she answered was that of a child, though she was anything but.

“Yes….”

Ben tried to remember – how old had his dear Elizabeth been when he met her?  When she first knew she loved him?  Not much older than this child he’d circled with his arm.  He couldn’t dismiss Bella’s feelings.  They were real.

“May I ask something of you?” he’d inquired softly.

She’d nodded; her pale golden ringlets bobbing against the shoulders of the white gown she wore.

“Take it slowly.”  Ben had smiled then, recalling his own youth and how hot his ardor had been.  “You two have been through a great deal.  You are bound to feel connected to one another.”  As she started to protest, he continued.  “I am not saying your feelings are not real, but you have been Little Joe’s ‘big’ sister for so long, you both may have trouble sorting out your feelings for one another.  Do you understand?”

She nodded that she did, and he knew that, no, she didn’t.

Standing, he had kissed her on the head.  “Bella, I would love to have a daughter-in-law like you.  I would welcome it.  But I don’t want you and Joseph to make a mistake by rushing into anything.  That’s all I’m saying.”

He’d left her then to stand outside the door again and listen to her cry.

“Well, if that don’t beat all!  Pa, look what the cat done dragged in!”

His middle son’s jovial statement brought Ben out of his reverie.  Hoss had entered the house, placed his hat on the hat rack and turned toward the dining room, only to stop and gape at the stairs.

Joseph was at the top, leaning on Bella.  He was pale and very thin, but he was on his feet and smiling.

“I was about to say the same thing,” Joe replied.  “Only I decided what I was lookin’ at was so pitiful the cat would have thrown it back.”

“I see that fever ain’t burned any of the orneriness out of you, little brother,” the big man snapped, pretending to be upset.

“Just fired it up, middle brother,” his youngest replied as he came down the stairs by himself.  Bella had moved a step away, but was watching Joseph closely.  “That and my appetite.  What’s for breakfast?” Joe said as he made his way to the table.

Ben grinned from ear to ear.  “You hear that, Hop Sing?  Joseph wants to know what’s for breakfast?”

A second later their Chinese cook appeared, babbling in Cantonese.  “What number three son do downstairs?  Doctor say wait for him to say okay before coming to table!”

Joe was slipping into his seat.  “Since when have you known me to listen to Doc Martin?” he asked as he reached for a piece of bacon.

Hop Sing slapped his fingers.  “You wait for Mistah Adam to come!”

“It’s okay, Hop Sing,” Ben laughed.  “I don’t think Adam will mind if Joseph starts first –or if he eats the whole plate of bacon for that matter.”

“Well, I’ll dang sure mind!” Hoss said as he sat down and reached for the plate.

“You no sick!  You leave bacon alone!” the Chinese man ordered as he smacked Hoss’ fingers.

Hoss wiggled them.  “Dang it!  Where is older brother anyhow?”

“Right here.”

They all turned in time to see Adam remove his coat and hang it and his hat on one of the pegs.  As he approached the table, he asked, “Now what difficulty is it so early on this fine morning that you need my natural charm and ability to mediate?”  As his eldest sat down, he shot his youngest brother a grin.  “Good to see you at the table, Joe.”

Joe was hoarding the plate and munching on the bacon, looking like a cat with a fat mouse.  “I don’t think middle brother agrees.”

Adam’s dark gaze shot to Hoss.  “Oh?”

“It ain’t fair,” the big man groused.  “Joe’ll get fat eating all that bacon by hisself.”

Ben reached out and touched his youngest’s arm.

“Let’s hope so.”

Breakfast, after that, continued in its usual vein with jibes and pokes and – Heaven help him! – even a food fight in which Joe and Hoss tossed whole wheat rolls at one another.  He let it go on for a while, enjoying his youngest son’s delight.  Hop Sing got into it in the end, yelling that he would never make rolls again if the boys were going to use them to play Cuju with – and then catching one in midair and lobbing it over to Adam who neatly dunked it in one of Marie’s porcelain vases.  The only one who seemed to half-heartedly join in was Bella.  She was very subdued and he feared it had to do with their talk.

Still, it had to be said.

After the meal was completed, they retired with coffee and tea to the great room where Bella took Adam’s accustomed chair by the fire and Joseph sat on the settee with his feet up and a blanket wrapped around his thin shoulders.  The boy shivered entirely too much and had lost weight.  Though from the look of things his youngest’s appetite had at last returned and that would soon be remedied.  Joseph’s older brothers planned to head into town shortly and the conversation quickly turned to what supplies they needed and so on.  The weather had broken the night before and, in spite of the cold, the crisp clear morning sky seemed to promise that spring indeed was on its was and so they had decided to venture into town.  In truth the pair, like the rest of them, was feeling housebound.

Joseph was disappointed that he couldn’t go with his brothers.  He said he was tired of being cooped up and asked if he could take on a few simple chores.  He’d hesitated, of course, to grant the request due to the boy’s lack of stamina, but had at last given in.  For the moment, the most strenuous chore he agreed to was Joe chopping wood and bringing it in to keep the fire in the great room supplied.

Watching his son, he noted a restlessness about him.  Almost like a caged animal.

Ben’s gaze went to Bella.  He knew the source.  There was a different kind of fire in his youngest’s eyes when they lighted on the beautiful young blonde woman who sat gazing into the fire.

Ben sighed deeply.

“Something wrong, Pa?” Adam asked.

Ben could hear the wry smile in the tone.  Adam knew full well what was wrong.

“No, son.  Just glad to sit for a moment.”

“Well,” his oldest said as he rose to his feet, “I, for one, am ready to be on the move.  Hoss and I had better get to it or the sun will be down before we reach town.  Hop Sing!”

The Chinese man was clearing the table.  “Yes, Mistah Adam?”

“You keep little brother eating.  He looks like, if a strong wind blew in, it would take him right with it.”

“Hop Sing cook plenty for too skinny number three son.”

“Hey!” Joe protested – meekly.

“And you, Little brother, I want a promise from you as well.”

Those big green eyes went wide.  Joe pointed to his chest.  “Who me?  What do you want from me?”

Adam’s eyes flicked to Bella and back.  “Make sure you don’t let yourself get too hungry.  There’s such a thing as overindulgence, if you know what I mean.”

Joseph’s ears always gave him away.

They turned brick red.

This time it wasn’t a whole wheat roll that flew through the air toward his oldest.  It was a pillow, and it barely missed knocking over the ginger jar on the credenza.

“Boys!” Ben roared –  because he knew he was supposed to.

“Sorry, Pa,” came those three precious voices.

Bella giggled.

“And what’re you laughing at?” Joe demanded, mock-serious.

Her lashes were lowered.  She looked at him out from under them.  “The only funny thing in the room.”

His youngest frowned.  Then he realized she meant him.

“I ain’t funny!” he protested.

“You’re ‘not’,” Ben sighed.

Joe flashed a look at him.  “Not what?”

“Not funny.”

Joe triumphantly crossed his arms and glared at her.  “See!  Pa agrees.”

Ben was blinking now.  “What did I agree to?”

“That I ain’t funny!”

Hoss was dying and Adam was close to rolling on the floor.  The only thing that rescued Joseph was a knock on the door.

His eldest’s brows shot up.  “Who do you suppose that is in this weather?”

In answer, a gruff voice called out, “Mister Cartwright, it’s Jim Appleby.”

Adam and Hoss exchanged a look.  “Ain’t he the man we got watching the team to the north?”

They’d corralled a good many horses before the snow hit in one of the northern pastures and had taken them there to wait out the winter.  Ben was on his feet in a moment and headed for the door.  He gestured to his eldest as he went.

“Let him in.”

Jim blew in with a blast of cold air that set them all shivering.  He removed his hat.  After running a hand through his unruly shock of brown hair to straighten it, he said, “Mister Cartwright.  Boys.”

Jim Appleby was an older man close to his own age and had known his sons since they were barely old enough to ride.  The three of them looked on him like a kindly uncle.

“What’s wrong, Jim?”

“It’s that blasted wind we had, Ben.  It took out one of the older trees along with about thirty yards of fence.  We caught some of the horses, but more than a dozen are running wild.  I came to see if the boys would be willing to track them down.  There’s no one better than Hoss at tracking.”  Jim grinned and replaced his hat.  “Sorry ‘bout that, Adam.”

Adam mock sighed.  “I know my place.  I’m the brains and Hoss is, well, everything else.”

“So what am I?” Joe asked.

“Beautiful.”

The word was out before Elizabeth thought better of it.  Ben turned to look at her and saw her hand go to her mouth as she blushed red as Joseph’s ears.  A second later she was on her feet and headed up the stairs.

He went to Joseph then and placed a hand on his shoulder.  The boy was fighting to keep his composure.  Leaning in close he said, “Let her be, son.  You can check on her later.  I think Bella needs some time alone.”

His youngest looked puzzled but he accepted his word.   “Okay, Pa.”

The older man turned back to Jim who was trying his best to hide his smile.  Jim had three girls, one of which was married and two he was sitting on.  He was quite amused.

“Adam, Hoss, I guess you’ll have to forget your trip to town.  We need those horses captured quickly.”

“Sure thing, Pa,” Hoss said as he pulled his heavy winter coat on and headed for the door.  “I’ll get Chubb and Sport ready.”

“And I’ll go and politely ask Hop Sing to pack several days rations.  I imagine it will take us a few to find and bring in the strays.”  His son’s hazel eyes flicked to the back of Joseph’s head.  “You think you’ll be all right here alone, Pa?”

“Hey!” Little Joe protested.

“Well, you’re not quite up to speed, little brother.  No offense.”

“We’ll be fine,” Ben replied.  “Leave one of the older men in the bunkhouse, Jim.  Maybe Andy.  He can help around the house until the boys get back.”  He held up a hand to stifle his youngest’s protests before they were begun.  “You can’t be outside in that weather for long, Joseph, not until you’re healed.  Someone has to look after the horses and keep up with the harder chores.”

The boy grumbled but said nothing more.

 

A half an hour later the door to the house closed, leaving Joe and his pa alone.

Joe was still on the settee.  He enjoyed the fire.  It seemed to him that the only time he felt completely warm was when he was near the giant hearth.  The fire in his own room was large enough, but somehow the cold seemed to creep in to chill him even when he was under the covers.  The only other time he felt completely warm and safe was when Bella snuck into his room and laid beside him.  He knew Pa’d banished her from it.  She’d said as much without really saying it.  So she’d taken to waiting until his pa was asleep to come to his room and slip under the covers and nestle in close to him.  So far nothing had happened – other than sleeping that was.  She’d wake with the morning light and be gone, often before he opened his eyes.  He’d lay there then, touching the place where she’d been, thinking about the only other time he’d felt this way.

That was with Laura.

Oh, he’d loved Julia Bulette, but that was in a defiant sort of way, like he knew what he felt and was damned determined to have his way since the world and his father saw it different.  And he’d cared deeply for Amy, but that had been a little bit the same.  They were like Romeo and Juliet with their feuding families and there was something – Pa’d shoot him for usin’ the word – forbidden about loving Amy that made it all the more intense.

Laura White he had simply loved.

It was Laura he had made a home for.  Laura, whom Adam had carved that cradle for to hold their first child.  Laura he had wanted to protect and cherish and had felt almost shy about touching, as if that touch might break whatever wondrous spell he found himself caught in.  He’d thought he would never feel that way again.

He felt that way about Bella.

It was hard.  In many ways he couldn’t get past her bein’ that little twelve year old girl who had taken care of him after her parents pulled him out of a burning building.  He’d loved her since the day he’d awakened in her house and been charmed to find she thought of him as her little brother.  He’d thought of her as his little sister, of course, without letting her know.  Right then and there he’d sworn to protect her and he’d done that, right up until the time she saved his life.  It was Bella that led Adam to him when Fleet Rowse left him to die in the cold.  She’d protected him again, in the Sierra, when Rowse reappeared and slaughtered the people on the stage he was riding shotgun for.  They’d clung to one another and cried over that, and over the loss of the people they’d traveled with.  There was no one else who understood.  No one else who could.

No one like Bella.

“A penny  for your thoughts, Joseph,” his father’s deep voice said.

Joe started and looked toward the red chair his father occupied.  He grinned self-consciously.  “You’d go broke, Pa.”

“I thought from the look of you, I might end up a millionaire.”  His father paused.  “Would you like to talk about it, son?”

Joe looked at the fire.  “I don’t know, Pa.  It’s kind of personal.”

“I see.”

He swallowed.  From the tone of his voice, he knew his father really did see.

Joe was silent for some time.  Finally, he asked, “How’d you know, Pa?  How’d you know mama was the right one for you?  I mean….”  He paused.  Words didn’t come easy, which was unusual for him.  “I mean you’d loved other women before.  Did it feel the same?”

“Each time a man loves, it is as different as the woman he loves,” the older man said quietly.

Joe swung around so he was sitting up.  He waved his father’s hand off and pulled the cover up around his shoulders himself.   “I know you don’t like to talk about Julia, Pa….”

The older man was silent a moment.  “You loved her.  It matters little whether I approved.”

He smiled shyly.  “Thanks, Pa.”  Joe paused again.  “You know with Julia, it was all about…well….  It was like I was on fire.  I wanted to…possess her.”  His green eyes flicked to his father’s face, which was masked.  “I know she wasn’t perfect, but I needed her.  Do you understand what I mean?”

“I said, ‘I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit. May your breasts be like clusters of grapes on the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples,” his father quoted softly.

“What’s that from, Pa?” Joe asked, his voice surprised.

His father’s lips twitched.  “The Song of Solomon.”

Joe felt his cheeks turning red.  “That’s in the Bible?”

“Yes, son.  Marriage is sacred to God, as I hope I have taught you boys.  God wants you to love, to take a wife, and to find pleasure in each other.  Your mother and I had a passage read from the Song of Songs when we married.”  His pa leaned back and closed his eyes.  “‘Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame’.”

He wasn’t quite sure what to say to that.

“Joseph, do you think you love Bella?”

“No.”  He was silent a moment.  “I know I do.”

The older man nodded.  “Are you sure what kind of love it is?  Are you sure it’s not just  deep affection for a young girl whom you think of as your sister?”

Joe’s blushes deepened.  He was pretty sure his feelings had nothing to do with Bella being his sister.

“I want to marry her, Pa.”

Ben pursed his lips.  “So this is different than with Julia?”

Joe rose to his feet and began to pace.  “It’s different, Pa.  I only felt this one time before.”

“With Laura?”

He pivoted to look at the older man.  “How’d you know?”

“You were deeply in love with Laura, Joseph, and not that long ago.”

“It’s been three years, Pa.”

His father unclasped his fingers and straightened up in the chair.  “All right, given I accept that you are older and mature enough to know what you want, what about Bella?  She’s barely eighteen, and from what she says I don’t think she’s ever had a beau.”

Joe scowled.  Thanks, Pa, he thought.  He had enough trouble thinking of Bella as a woman without his father reminding him he’d met her when she was eleven years old.

“She knows what she wants, Pa,” he said, his tone slightly defensive.

His father looked at him.  “I hope so, Joseph.  I truly do.”

It was kind of like his pa’s words pulled the plug and let all the air out of him.  Suddenly tired, Joe said, “Can I go upstairs, Pa?  I think I’d like to lay down.”

“Are you feeling all right?”  Before he could stop him, his pa was on his feet and had his hand on his brow.  “You seem a little feverish.”

“It comes back when I get tired.  I just need a nap.”

The older man’s eyes went to the stairs and then back to him.

“See you take it alone.”

At first his pa’s words had taken him aback.  He knew how he was supposed to treat ladies and he’d never do anything to Bella that would hurt her or her reputation.  Then he thought about the night before when she’d been laying up against him, sharing her body warmth.  He’d felt her legs through the thin gown she wore and even though she still had her corset on, the tops of her breasts had pressed into the tender flesh of his back.  Her smooth arms had circled his waist and he had wanted more than anything to roll over and take her in his arms and….

But he didn’t.

Instead he’d taken hold of her hands and pressed them in his own.  He’d kissed them and the two of them had fallen asleep.

He wondered if she came tonight if he’d have the willpower to do the same.

 

Bella Carnaby lay in her bed looking at the ceiling of the room the Cartwrights had given her.  It was a beautiful room.  One she had occupied twice now.  She remembered when she was a little girl and had come to visit Little Joe at the Ponderosa, it had seemed the biggest bedroom in the world – bigger than her whole house and Pa’s barn put together.

She missed her pa and maybe even a little bit more, her ma.  As she’d grown older, she’d come to see how right her ma was about men.  Her ma loved her pa with a love as ferocious as a grizzly bear’s hug, but she knew him for what he was – a philosopher and dreamer.  It was really Ma who kept their place going.  Oh, Pa worked hard – really hard – but it was her ma, she’d come to realize, who was the glue that held everything together.  When she was little, she’d thought she’d wanted to be just like Pa when she grew up.  Now, she wanted to be like her ma.  Of course, that wasn’t anything unusual.  After all, Ma was a woman too.

That was something Pa was just never gonna understand.

The last year or so, with her living in town and working at the dress shop, she’d come to find she really missed her Ma.  When she was little, she thought the older woman was stern and needed to live it up a little.  Ma was always saying she had work to do when Pa took time to sit with her under the stars or to go chasing down invisible ponies or something like that.  She realized now that had been her Ma’s gift to her as a child – time with her father.

It was funny, now she was grown, all she longed for was the place she had neglected the most when she was little – sitting at her mother’s feet.

Bella sighed and sat up.  It was only midday and she was going to have to go back downstairs.  She’d asked Hop Sing if she could help him prepare a cake for supper and the Chinese man had agreed.  She knew from Little Joe that their cook rarely let others in his kitchen.  But they’d become friends when she was little and they were friends still.

Just like her and Little Joe.

Not sure what else to do, Bella crossed over to the window and looked out.  She’d been waiting for Adam and Hoss to leave.  She felt like a fool for what she’d said.  It had just come out on its own.  She’d been sitting there, pretending to stare at the fire, but really staring at Little Joe.  Even though he’d lost weight and muscle, she thought he was the handsomest thing there ever was.  The firelight had caught in his hair, highlighting the tiny little streaks of silver that shot through it like lightning.  The curls cascaded down onto his forehead, forming a little pile just above his upturned nose.  He had the cutest little nose . She’d told Little Joe once it looked like an elf’s and he hadn’t been impressed.  She’d tried to explain what she meant, but she knew he didn’t understand.  She wasn’t talking about the kind of elves he and Hoss had seen once, who had turned out to be tiny little men.  She was talking about the elves of old – the ones like Oberon in Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream – elves who were the perfect form of men.

Little Joe was the perfect form of a man.

Bella drew a breath and held it.  She wanted so to be with him.  She couldn’t help it.  She knew what men and women did when they loved each other – it was hard in a three room house where three siblings had been conceived not too.  Her body ached for his touch.  It was all she could do when she laid down beside him not to kiss his neck, to caress the small of his back and to run her hands along his beautiful form.

She’d talked to her Ma about how to handle her feelings, asking her about the time before she and pa were married.  She’d counted up the days once and it seemed there was just enough time for her to have been conceived after they married, but she’d wondered.  Her ma had caught her drift quick enough and told her she’d most likely been made on their wedding night.  Ma swore she was a virgin when she married and she believed her.

Ma’d looked at her then and said something that still astounded her.  ‘Elizabeth,’ she’d said, ‘you’re nearly a woman.  You are going to meet a young man one day and you are going to want to be with him.  God says you have to wait until you marry, even if it’s the man you’ll spend your life with.”  Her mother’s lips had tweaked a bit at the end as she continued.  “But He never said there weren’t things you could do to pleasure one another.”

Her mouth had gaped and she’d listened to every word.

Still, she wondered if little Joe felt the same way about her. After all, so far he’d been a perfect gentleman.  Maybe that meant he still thought of her as a child.  Though the kisses they’d shared in the woods before Fleet Rowse interrupted them had seemed to promise more.  Bella sighed as she turned away from the window and crossed the room, ready to head downstairs.  Maybe she’d always be that child dressed in a pinafore to Little Joe – his dear friend and little sister.

Bella opened the door and stepped out into the hall.

The problem, was, she wanted to be so much more.

FIFTEEN

Hoss Cartwright stood in the blowin’ wind, makin’ a face and hangin’ onto his tall ten gallon hat with his leather glove.  The sun was shining.  What little sleet remained on the grass was melting away, and he was starin’ down a long line of damaged fencing.  Where it hadn’t been twisted up and out of the earth by the fallin’ tree, the fence lay smashed and tangled beneath its thousand branches.  It was an old tree, probably near one hundred years, and its corpse stretched out nearly seventy feet.  Its upturned roots were taller than him and Adam put together.

Jim Appleby’s face looked as sour as his.  “You can see the tracks there,” he said pointing.  “At least a dozen, maybe more.”

He could see them for sure – the tracks of the horses they had spent a week bringin’ to this pasture with its hills and hidin’ places not all that long before.  It was as sheltered as it got and would have kept them safe and warm – if they’d of been smart enough to stay put.

“You know them wild things.  They’d as soon die as be cooped up,” the big man sighed.

“And that’s what they’ll do.  Die,” Adam said as he joined them.  “Unless we can round them up quickly.  Have you looked at the sky lately?”

“Daggone it!” Hoss exclaimed.  The sky to the west was growing dark and the clouds hung like full teats above the land.  As warm as it was, it promised a wicked late winter storm.  “When did that move in?”

“Just now.  It’s traveling fast,” his older brother said.  “The storm will hit before we have time to make it home.”

“Looks like we’ll have to take shelter in the line shack,” Jim suggested.

It was Adam’s turn to scowl.  They were north and the ‘line shack’ Jim was talking about was the one that had figured in their dealings with Fleet Rowse five years back.

They tended to avoid it.

Adam objected, citing the time Freckles the pony spent there.

“I imagine the smell is gone by now, older brother,” Hoss said, not hiding a little smile.

“I’m more worried about being greeted by a sack of flour in the face,” his brother replied, smiling himself.

“Hard to believe that pretty gal back at the ranch house is the same at that youngin’ what smacked you.”

Adam looked thoughtful.  “Yes, it is.”

“What’re you thinkin’, Adam?” the big man asked as Jim walked away and began to collect their belongings.

His brother looked surprised.  “Me?  Nothing.”

“Come on now, older brother, you ain’t foolin’ me.  You’re worried about somethin’.”

Adam shrugged.  “I guess I am.”

“What is it?”

“Not what.  Who.”  Adam looked away, toward the ranch.  “I’m worried that Joe’s going to get hurt.”

Hoss had the same fear.  “You worried like me that mean cuss Rowse might get away from those men comin’ to take him back to prison?”

“Thanks for reminding me.”  His brother frowned.  “But no, I wasn’t thinking about that.  I was thinking about our little brother’s heart being broken.”

Hoss was stumped for a moment.  “Bella, you mean?”

Adam nodded.  “I think Joe thinks he’s in love with her.”

“She’s an awful sweet little thing.  I could see her and Joe bein’ happy together.”  Hoss shook his head.  “He’s had an awful hard time at love.  I mean, look at what he’s lost and he’s barely twenty-five.”

“I think that’s what troubles me.  What if what Joe feels for Bella is, well, a protectiveness?  Like she’s his responsibility?”

Hoss shrugged.  “Ain’t that a part of marriage?”

“A part,” Adam acknowledged, “but not ‘the’ part.  Love is…complicated.”

Big brother should know after what happened with cousin Will and Laura Dayton.  He’d known it too, when Marjorie Owens fell in love with Mark Connors and all them false things that shyster promised her.

“We cain’t put our own troubles on little brother, Adam.  It just ain’t fair.”

Adam glanced at him.  “I suppose you’re right,” he said with a smile, “but you know, after twenty-four years, it’s hard to stop protecting him.”

“Feels like fifty, don’t it?”

As they both laughed, Adam tightened his collar.  “The wind’s picking up.  Let’s get out of it and in for the night.”

“That little brother of ours, how come he always knows when its smart to get laid up?”  It was a standing joke with them.  Somehow Joe always seemed to get injured at the ranch’s busiest times.   “He’s the one loves horses.   Oughta be him freezing his hiney off out here.  ‘Stead of that he’s probably sittin’ by the fire sippin’ a toddy and smooching with that pretty little gal while Pa ain’t lookin’.”

Adam shot him a look as he took up Scout’s reins and swung into the saddle.  “Haven’t you learned yet, Hoss?”

“Learned what?” the big man asked as he did the same.

“Pa’s always looking.”

 

Supper went smoothly.  Or at least as smoothly as it could when two out of the three people at the table appeared not to be talking to each other.  Ben stifled a sigh and leaned back in his chair.  He and Hop Sing had exchanged several glances as their cook brought food to Bella and Joseph and then carried it away again practically untouched.  The last thing Hop Sing brought out was a lovely chocolate cake decorated with chocolate roses.  Apparently Bella had helped to bake it, knowing chocolate was one of Joseph’s favorites.  Ben had watched over folded hands as the cake was placed in the center of the table, and then as Hop Sing cut it and dished it out, and then – with wonder and not a little bemusement – as his chocolate-loving youngest son pushed away from the table without touching his piece, announcing he was tired and going to bed.

Something was definitely up.

Ben had tried to draw Bella out once Joseph had gone, but she’d simply sat there staring at the cake, sniffing.  Being the father of three boys, he really had no idea how to bring her out of her shell.  He tried complimenting her on her dress and then on her hair, and then, reaching far back into his memory, asked her if something had upset her.  If he remembered right, Marie had always complained that he didn’t listen to her or take her feelings seriously, and had been quite charmed when he had done that.

Apparently he didn’t remember right.

Bella turned red-rimmed eyes on him, sniffed again, and then excused herself and flew up the stairs.

Leaving him alone with Hop Sing and a most splendid chocolate cake.

His cook and friend had come in from the kitchen in time to see the girl’s flight.  “What wrong with Missy Bella?” Hop Sing asked.

Ben threw his hands in the air.  “God alone knows!”

“God very wise,” the man with the queue remarked with a shake of his head.  “Maybe not wise enough to understand woman.”

“Maybe not.,” the older man snorted.  “Say, what are you doing, Hop Sing?”

Hop Sing had returned the untouched piece of cake to the main tray and was heading for the kitchen.

“Mistah Joe no eat cake.  Put away for tomorrow.”

Ben slapped the tabletop.  “You put that cake right back down and get yourself a plate and fork.  If Joseph wants to sulk, that’s his business.

“You and I are going to have dessert!”

 

Bella stood with her ear pressed against the crack in the door as she had done so often before.  It was past one in the morning and Joe’s father had just come up.  If she was going to go to Little Joe’s room, she would have to do it now.  She’d considering staying in her own room tonight.  Little Joe was getting better and didn’t really need her anymore.  In fact, he had barely looked at her at dinner, as if he was upset with her.

Perhaps she had been too forward.

With a little sigh, the blonde woman leaned her head against the door, wishing – for just a moment – that she was that little curly-headed girl again, the one Little Joe had been so at ease with.  Her lips curled in a smile as she remembered their exploits, lingering on the time he’d missed a throw and hit a tall pine tree and the shower of snow had nearly buried them.  She remembered his hands on her as he pulled her out of a deep drift – so strong and so gentle at the same time.

Bella shivered – and it wasn’t with the cold.

Returning to the area of the bed, she caught her shawl from the chair next to it and tossed it around her shoulders.  She’d made her mind up.  She wouldn’t visit Little Joe tonight.  She’d just poke her head in and make sure he was sleeping normally.  He was still subject to mild fevers.  Doc Martin said they might not clear up until the summer when the warm sun could bake what was left of the infection out of him.  Spring was just around the corner, so that wouldn’t be too long.  The thought of green grass and flowers made her smile.

The thought of leaving the Ponderosa made her cry.

Spring meant it would be time to go home.  She’d leave and who knew if she would ever see Little Joe again.  Sniffing, Bella made her way back to the door and opened it.  Stepping out into the hall, she  headed for her best friend’s room.  Quiet as a mouse, she moved along the corridor and then stopped in front of his door.  Pushing against the heavy wood, she opened it just enough to step in.

And discovered Little Joe’s bed was empty.

Panic gripped her for a moment as she feared he had been kidnapped, but then common sense took over.  The threat Fleet Rowse posed was over and there was no one else who wanted to do Joe harm.  Today was the day when a small troop of soldiers were to arrive to escort the villain back to prison, ending his five year reign of terror over them. This time, for the act of savagery he had committed on the stage coaches, Rowse wasn’t being imprisoned.

He was going to be hanged.

Stepping back into the hall, Bella closed the door and leaned against it.  A little smile curled her lips when she thought of her friend, Aurora, who too would be freed from fear.  After what happened Aurora and her husband had decided to relocate in Sacramento.  They’d bought a beautiful house there with the money she’d inherited and had left a few days before to start their new life.  It had been hard to say goodbye, but she understood the older woman’s need to get away.  Aurora had asked her to visit one day and she hoped to do so.  She’d like to do it with Little Joe….

Bella frowned.

Where was he?

With a little shrug, she decided it wasn’t her business.  After all, he could have gone out to the privy, though why he would have chosen to do so on such a damp wet night she didn’t know.  As she stood there, thinking, her stomach growled once and then growled again.  Loud enough it seemed to rouse the house!  Bella’s lips curled in a smile.  Her supper had consisted of three bites of meat and about as many of potatoes.

She was starved!

Pulling the shawl closer against the chill, the blonde woman headed downstairs for the kitchen and a big piece of chocolate cake with her name on it.

The great room was quiet.  The fire still burned, but it was low.  Its final gasps provided just enough light for her to move across the large area without bumping into anything.  Once she reached the kitchen, she found she was hungrier than she’d thought and opted for some cold beef, bread, and milk rather than the sugary dessert.

A half-hour later, she returned to the great room with a cup of chamomile tea in hand.  She wasn’t sleepy, so she’d decided to remain downstairs to drink it.  Since it was chilly, she made her was to the hearth and sat on the stones.  As she did, the tall case clock struck three.  Outside, there was a flicker of distant lightning and rain began to pelt the windowpanes.  Bella closed her eyes and listened to the wind.  The night had grown wild and there was a small part of her that longed to be out in it.

“You’re like a May morning,” a soft voice said, startling her.

After she’d recovered her composure, Bella cursed herself for a fool.  How could she have missed him?

“How long have you been there?” she asked.

The slight figure on the settee sat up.  The firelight struck his tousled curls and glinted in his large green eyes.

“I was here before you came down.”

Bella noticed a plate on the table.  “Were you hungry too?”

His head shook.  “Pa must have left it.”

“Then why are you down here?  Couldn’t you sleep?”

Little Joe was silent for a moment.   “No.”

Bella rose and went to stand beside him.  The storm light coming in the window made his large eyes look hollow – haunted, even.  She knew Little Joe was prone to nightmares and she wondered if that was what had driven him from his bed.  As she looked at him, sitting there one the settee, she recalled the day five years before when the time had come for her to leave.  She’d been sitting on the same cushion crying her eyes out.  Little Joe had come into comfort her.

Tucking her shawl tightly about her shivering form, she took a seat beside him.  After a few seconds, she leaned her head on his shoulder.

He didn’t pull away.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

He shrugged.

Bella took his hand in hers.  “Maybe it will help?  Telling someone?”

Joe let out a little sigh.  “I had a nightmare.  Rowse was in it.”

She snuggled in a little closer.

“I was back in the snowstorm, tied to the saddle and dangling head and foot off his horse.  I tried to get loose, but nothin’ worked.”  Little Joe’s breathing was becoming labored, as if he was reliving that horrible night.  “I heard Adam calling me.  I heard….”  He turned toward her.  She could see his profile in the pale light – the upturned nose, the dimpled chin; his long lashes fluttering against his pallid skin.  “I heard you, Bella.  You were shouting my name.”

“I did, you know,” she said.  “I shouted and shouted until I didn’t have any voice left.  I was lucky Adam found me.”

“He didn’t.”

“What?”  She sat up and looked at him.  “Yes, he did.”

“Not in my dream.”  Little Joe drew in a long breath.  “Rowse threw me over that cliff and then he found you and he….”  The muscles of his jaw tightened.  “He threw you down and into the ravine.  I broke your fall when you hit me.  You just laid there and didn’t move.  Bella, I – ”

“Little Joe.”  Her fingers went to his lips.  “I’m here.  I’m safe.”

He hesitated and then took hold of her hand, looking at it as it if it was something new and wondrous.  Then he dipped his head and kissed her knuckles.  Bella felt the brush of his lips on her fingers; the touch of his soft brown curls against her skin.

It was electric.

“Are you cold?” he asked as she shivered.

She smiled.  “A little.”

Little Joe shifted.  He was wrapped in several blankets.  He opened his arms and drew her in so her body rested against his, lending her his warmth.   Her hand went to his chest.  Beneath the thin nightshirt he wore she could feel the rapid beat of his heart . The cloth was slightly damp, as though he had awakened in a sweat – that, or he actually was a bit feverish.

Slowly, almost of their own volition, Little Joe’s fingers found her face.  They traced her cheek through her hair.  One lingered on her lips.

“Bella,” he said, his voice soft as slippers on a satinwood floor.

“Yes?”

“Do you remember what you said the last time we were sittin’ here alone together?”

She nodded.  “I asked you if you were still going to wait for me to grow up so I could marry you.”

He kissed the tip of her nose.  It tickled.

“And what did I say?” Joe asked as his hand slipped lower, tracing a pattern on the part of her breasts that were exposed.

“You told me we’d have to check back in four or five years, that I might have found another fellow,” she answered, near breathless.

Little Joe cupped her breasts in his hands and pushed them together.  Then he planted a kiss in the hollow between them.

“It’s been five years.  Have you?” he inquired, his mouth against her flesh.

Her head was spinning.  “What…?  Have I what?”

The fire gave its last gasp, flooding the room with a burst of golden light.  Little Joe’s green eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Found another fellow?”

Bella shifted so she was lying back on the settee.  She lifted his shirt up and worked her hands under it, wrapping him tightly in her arms; pulling him so close their hearts beat as one.  As Joe lowered his weight onto her she giggled.

The handsome fellow she loved snorted.  “Now, that ain’t exactly the reaction a man wants from his girl.”

She reared up and nipped his ear, and then whispered in it.  “Josie was right, you know?”

Bella felt his body go rigid at her touch.  Joe gave a little gasp and then asked in a dreamy voice as he kissed the hollow of her throat.

“Who’s Josie?”

Bella’s hands were in his hair now, combing through those long, spiraling curls; tugging on them as his body moved against hers, gently, sweetly, not intruding, but bringing her pleasure.

“She…”  Bella’s fingers curled into a fist as a spasm of joy rocked her.  Breathless, she replied, “Daisies….  Daisies…under the chin, remember?”

She’d been eleven when she first saw Joseph Francis Cartwright.  The night before he came into her life, she had leaned over the creek as her friend Josie instructed and rubbed a daisy against her chin.  The full moon overhead shining on the water was supposed to reveal the face of her true love and it had.

It had shown her him.

 

Bella woke sometime later on the floor in a tangle of blankets, arms, and curls.  She remembered sliding off the settee as sensations she had never known overwhelmed her.  Her mother had told her what to expect, but the reality was the difference between poking a toe in the lake and plunging in.  She lay there half under Joe’s weight, listening to his heavy breathing, delighting in the touch of her skin against his and, curiously, stifling laughter.  Her mother had warned her about that too before she left home – almost as if she had seen this coming.

Surprised by joy, she called it.

Birdsong caused Bella to shift and look up.  Outside the morning light was dawning.  As she lay there, combing her fingers through Joe’s hair, the tall case clock by the door struck half past four.

If she had been Cinderella, it would have been the stroke of midnight.

Bella looked at the Joe where he lay sleeping.  She hated to wake him, but she knew his father was often up before five and if they didn’t want to be discovered –

A string of startled Cantonese told her it was too late.

“What you doing on floor, Missy Bella?” Hop Sing chided as he moved toward her.  “Fire out.  You cold.  You catch death….”

It was the first time she’d ever seen Hop Sing at a loss for words.

Joe was stirring, rubbing his hand through his curls and sitting up.  He winced, looked at her and grinned, and then kissed her on the lips.

Hop Sing was on him in a heartbeat.  Bella stifled a laugh as the man from China boxed Joe’s ear.

“You no do that!  Pull nightshirt down and stand up!  Number three son in enough trouble lay on floor with pretty girl without kissing her!”

Joe grinned.  “But she’s too pretty not to kiss!”

The man from China was shaking his head.  “Sun not up yet.  Too early make Hop Sing’s head hurt.  You get up off floor!”  One hand went to his hip while he used the other to jab a finger into Joe’s chest.  “Honorable father find you, honorable Cartwright family have one…less…son!”

At the mention of his father, Joe paled.  He glanced up the stairs and then back.  “Hop Sing, you…you ain’t gonna tell him….  Are you?”

Hop Sing’s black eyes narrowed.  “That depend.”

Joe glanced at her.  He swallowed hard and then looked back.  “Depends on what?”

At the sound of a door opening upstairs, the man from China grinned.

“That for Hop Sing to know and you to find out.”

Joe had come to her and was attempting to smooth her hair down.  It was a worse tangle than his.  Giving up, he backed her up to the blue chair Adam usually occupied and sat her down and then wrapped her shawl tightly about her, adjusting it a little bit where her open chemise showed.  Then he handed her a book.

“What boy do about self?” Hop Sing asked, his tone wry.

Joe looked down at his nightshirt and gasped.  As his father’s footsteps sounded on the stair Joe picked up a blanket, wrapped it around his lower quarters, and then dove for the settee.  As he settled in he turned his head and looked at her.

“For gosh sakes, Bella, at least look like you’re reading!”

She opened the book Joe had handed her as Ben Cartwright’s boots struck the great room floor.  “Good morning, everyone!” the older man declared.  He looked from one of them to the other and then asked with a grin.  “What’s going on here?  Since when am I the last man down?”

“The birds woke me up early,” Bella replied.  “I was hungry so I came down for a snack and found Joe sleeping on the settee.  I wasn’t sleepy, so I decided to read so I wouldn’t disturb him.”

Joe was yawning mightily.  His father eyed him and then headed for the steaming pot of coffee Hop Sing had just placed on the table.

“From the look of those twisted covers, son, you had a wild night,” Ben remarked as he turned back, cup in hand.

Bella ducked behind the book and pressed her lips together as Joe flushed red.  A second later he was fanning himself.

“I guess I still got fever,” he said meekly.

“Number three son velly hot last night,” Hop Sing remarked deadpan.  “Throw off covers and most of clothes.”

If looks could have killed….

Joe stood up, holding the blanket around his middle and legs.  “I think I’ll go upstairs and change, Pa.”

His father eyed him over the rim of his cup, taking in his disheveled appearance.  “You could use a haircut, Joseph.  That hair of yours makes you look like a soaked river rat when its wet.”

“First thing Adam comes back, I’ll have him cut it, Pa,” Joe said as he backed toward the staircase.  “I know how you hate it when its long.”

The Cartwright’s cook chimed in perfectly.  “Hop Sing think Missy Bella like Little Joe long.”

That did it.

She was going to die.

Bella grabbed her cup of tea and sipped it as Ben turned toward her.  “Are you all right, Bella?”

She pretended to choke.  Wagging a finger toward her throat, she finally replied.  “Went down the wrong way.”

The older man stared at her.

“Indeed.”

As she picked the book up again and pretended to read it, Joe’s father took two steps toward him where he lingered halfway up the stair.

“Is there something else you would like to tell me, Joseph?”

Joe pursed his lips and shook his head.  “Who me?  Tell you?  Heck, I ain’t….  I mean, no sir.  I’ve been sleepin’, remember?”

The older man’s eyes didn’t move, but she felt them on her anyhow.  “Alone, I presume?”

If angels walked the earth, they had to look like Joseph Francis Cartwright at that moment – a halo of golden-brown hair, wide innocent eyes, and a cherubic countenance that seemed to say its owner was incapable of sin.

“Just me and the fire, Pa.  And Hop Sing, of course.  Good old Hop Sing.”  He popped his eyebrows.  “Ain’t that right, Hop Sing?”

“Hop Sing come down find Little Joe sleeping.  Missy Bella sitting beside him.”

“I see.”

The look on Joe’s face seemed to say he was afraid his father really did see.

“Can I go now, Pa?”

“Very well.”  The older man turned to their cook. “Hop Sing, how long until breakfast?”

“Half an hour, Mistah Ben.”

“Make yourself presentable by that time, Joseph.”

“Yes, sir.”  Joe took two more steps and then turned back.  “Bella, you coming up?”

She looked up coyly.  “This book is so fascinating, I want to finish this chapter first.”

“Okay.  See you at the table.”

She’d never seen him run so fast.

Joe’s father stood staring after his son for a moment and then came to her side.  “So, you find the book interesting?”

“Yes, I do.”

Dear God – what if he should ask her the title?

Ben made a clucking noise.  “It must be fascinating,” he said as he reached out and took the book from her.  Turning it over and  around, he handed it back.

“Otherwise I imagine you would have a hard time reading it upside-down.”

 

It was morning and they’d already been at it for hours, slogging through mud that had once held horse tracks, looking for fresh ones.  The pounding rain of the night before had just about washed everything away.  The temperature had dropped with the rising of the sun and a chill wind cut through their heavy winter gear as they made their way further north, drawing near the hated Paiute graveyard.  A gelatinous fog had fallen overnight, lacing the tree branches and underbrush with a thin coating of ice which the sun had yet to burn away.  If it hadn’t been so aggravating, it would have been beautiful.

Adam thought about waxing poetic, but decided he was just too damn cold.

“You think Pa’d be mad if we just let them horses go?” Hoss asked, his tone hopeful.

“I think Pa would take the value of them out of our pay for the next two years,” he replied, chafing his hands together.

At that moment Jim Appleby reappeared.  He looked fresh as a day in summer.  “What’s the matter with you two?  It ain’t cold.  It’s bracing!”

“Where’d you grow up, Jim?” Hoss snarked.  “The arctic?”

Jim’s laugh echoed over the frozen land.  “You two need to be home sippin’ toddies.  That younger brother of yours fair thrives on cold.”

That had been true of Joe, though Adam had noticed – since the time they had nearly died together in a snow bank – his little brother seemed to have less enthusiasm for it now.

“Little Joe don’t need no toddy.  He’s got Bella to keep him warm,” Hoss said with a wink.

“She sure is a pretty thing,” Jim agreed.  “Reminds me of that other girl – the one Joe was going to marry a few years back.  Just plain sweet as sugar pie.”  The older man snorted.  “What she wants with an ornery cuss like him,  it’s hard to figure.”

“Joe’s got his charms,” Adam remarked quietly.  While not highly schooled, his brother was quite intelligent.  He also had a personality that wouldn’t quit.  And he was a gentleman when it came to the ladies.

Of course, looking like a young Adonis didn’t hurt either.

“Hey, Adam.  You hear that?”

He turned toward his brother.  “Hear what?”

Hoss held up a hand.  “That.  Ain’t that –”

“Gun shots.”  Adam drew his gun.  “It sounds like its coming from the graveyard, or near it.”

“Damn that place!” Hoss growled.  “Ain’t we ever gonna be done with it?”

It seemed not.

Jim had his rifle at the ready.  “Sounds like a fire fight.”

Shots were being fired – and returned.  They had grown closer at first and then moved farther away.  The three of them went shoulder to shoulder, guns at the ready, and moved toward the sound.  The trouble was they really had no idea what to do.  It was hard to step into a gunfight when you had no idea which side was which.  Sometimes all you could do was try to stop it before someone was killed.

Including you.

“Adam, there’s movement over there!” Hoss said in a terse whisper, pointing to the right toward a clump of underbrush.

He saw it.  A flash of blue and gold cloth.

Voices were raised in the distance and more shots fired.  The man they had spotted rose up and returned fire.  Then he jerked as if hit.  A moment later he staggered out of the bushes, making it about five feet before he fell flat on his feet.

As Hoss and Jim rushed past, Adam knelt at the man’s side.  He was a soldier.  That’s what the flash of blue and gold had meant.  This man was a lieutenant in the United States Army.

Looking at him, Adam’s heart went cold.

“God, no….” he moaned.

The man opened his eyes.  He reached up and caught Adam’s sleeve.  “Who…?” he asked.

“Adam Cartwright of the Ponderosa,” he replied.

“Cartwright…was…looking for you.”  The man drew a shuddering breath.  His lower half was bathed in blood.  Whoever shot him had known where a bullet tearing into flesh would do the most damage. “Message for…your father.  Tell him….”

Adam leaned in.  He held his breath, knowing before he heard the words what they would be.

“Tell him…Fleet Rowse…escaped.”

 

SIXTEEN

Ben Cartwright stood outside the house, pulling on his work gloves.  Since Adam and Hoss were away and Joseph was still not up to full strength, he was headed out to do something he had not done in a long time – chop wood!  Hop Sing insisted he could do it, but he had insisted more firmly that the man from China had more than enough to do and he was quite capable of splitting wood – thank you!  Of course, a bit of it was bravado, with maybe a little touch of pride.  After all, he was heading toward sixty and he knew what kind of price his back would pay.

Then again, there was always a glass of brandy to take away the pain and an comfortable chair to ease into when he was done.

Joseph had argued even more strenuously that he could do the chopping and hauling.  His youngest was right – he could have done it.   He just didn’t want him to.  After the…interesting…beginning to the day, and after eating barely enough to keep a sparrow alive at breakfast, Joseph had gone out to the barn to do some simple chores.  The boy had come in about four in the afternoon, pale and shaking.  He’d brushed the curls aside on his son’s forehead and laid a hand on his skin.  To his relief, he found no trace of fever.  Joseph had mumbled something about how maybe he was pushing himself too hard and then gone up to lay down.

It was six o’clock and he still hadn’t seen him.

Which was why he had decided to chop the wood.

The older man crossed quickly to the wood pile.  Lifting a hefty piece, he placed it on the tree stump, careful to balance it so it would not fall.  Then he walked over to where Joseph kept the ax and palmed the tool.  Before starting, he raised the collar of his coat and buttoned it at the neck to stave off the chill.  He’d bundled up, but had dressed in layers knowing all too well how quickly a man could build up a sweat while chopping.

Ben brought the ax down and its head sunk into the wood about two inches.  Shifting it, he withdrew the ax and brought it down again and again, splitting his first piece.  As he reached for another, Ben shook his head.  That youngest boy of his!   What was he going to do with him?  And with Bella, for that matter?  It was quite apparent what had transpired the night before in front of the fireplace.  Joseph was a gentleman and he was sure that Bella had not been compromised.  Still, he was just as sure that the two had taken their relationship up a step or two and it was going to take everything he had in him to keep it from reaching the top of the stair!  He just wished he could really know the depth of their feelings.  Joseph was twenty-four and had been in love before.  Most likely his son knew what he was about.  But Bella….

In many ways Bella was still a child.

Girls married, of course, at eighteen and even younger.  It was just that Bella had led a fairly sheltered life.  She didn’t appear to be very worldly wise, which, of course, was part of her charm.  She’d been in love with his son since she was eleven years old.  It was hard to know now if she was simply in love with the idea of love, or if her feelings for Joseph were deep and true enough to sustain a lasting relationship that would – as was the course of all human relationships – be filled not only with love and joy, but with hardships and even tragedies.  Ben brought the ax down on the second piece of wood a second time.  In some ways, he hoped he was wrong and Joseph and Bella were right.  She would make a darling, lovable daughter-in-law, a beautiful and caring wife for joy, and a wonderful mother for his grandchildren.

Ah yes, someday there would be grandchildren.

Ben tossed the wood aside and reached for a third piece.  It was ironic that his youngest might be the first to marry and have children.  Though Adam said little, he knew the loss of two mothers had marked his eldest and wondered if he would ever marry.  He was sure Hoss would, but it would take a special woman to see just how special his middle son was.

The older man leaned the ax against the stump.  He took off his hat and ran the back of his coat sleeve over his forehead.  Glancing at the sky, which was darkening with the approach of yet another storm, he decided he would keep at it a half hour or so before he quit.  Twilight had a grip on the land.  It wouldn’t be too long before it was dark.

Ben took a moment to unbutton his collar and shinny out of his heavy coat.  He laid it aside and then turned to face north, wondering how Hoss and Adam were doing.  He’d hate to lose those horses.  Still, there were things a man simply couldn’t control like a tree falling and taking out a portion of fence.  Like two young people falling in love.

Like the barrel of a gun pressed into his flesh.

“Hands up, old man!” a man growled, his voice deliberately distorted.

Ben’s eyes went to the ax sitting on the ground beside him.  He’d left the house without a gun.  The ax might be his only chance….

“Don’t even think about it,” the man said as he kicked the tool out of reach.

“Who are you?” Ben asked as he started to turn.

“No looking, Cartwright!  Face forward!”

As the tip of the weapon pressed against his ribs, Ben did as he was told.

“What is it you want?” he asked.

The man scoffed.  “From you?  Nothing.  I have a proposition to make your sons.”

The older man’s form grew rigid.  “My sons?  What do you want with my sons?”  Ben’s mind raced.  Who was this man?  If he was altering his voice, he must know him.  “Who are you?”

“Don’t you pay that no nevermind.  It don’t matter who I am, just what they owe me.”  The man jabbed his ribs with the gun barrel to emphasize his next statement.  “Now, let’s me and you get goin’.”

“I’m not going anywhere!”

“Suits me.  I can just pull this here trigger, or even better, tie you up and leave you outside here in the cold so you can freeze, while I go inside and sit by your warm fire and sip your brandy.  Then I’ll just head upstairs.”  Again, a pause.  When the man continued, his voice grew in menace.  “That’s where his room is.  I remember.  Upstairs.”

His room?

Whose….

Ben drew in a sharp breath.  No.  It couldn’t be!

But it was.

The name came out as a curse.   “Rowse.”

The outlaw snorted.  “Bet you didn’t think you’d be hearin’ from me again so soon.”

He’d hope to never hear from him again.  He hoped the man would hang.

“Now, this is the deal, Benjamin.  Either you go with me without makin’ a fuss or a break for it, or I go into that house and find me that boy and press the barrel of this gun against his head and pull the trigger.”  Rowse paused.  “Your choice.”

Either way, Ben knew Rowse had a plan that would end with the death of his youngest, and maybe his eldest son as well.  Rowse meant to kidnap him.  Take him to use him as bait – for leverage over his sons.  He would have to do something to stop it, but not now, not here.  He didn’t fear what would happen to him, but there were three other lives at stake – Bella’s, Hop Sing’s, and Joseph’s.

“I’m gettin’ tired of waitin’, old man.”

That was it.  He would attempt an escape, but he would wait to do it until he and Rowse were well away from the house.  Ben had an idea of where the man was taking him.  The former Indian captive seemed to have an almost lurid attraction to the graveyard where the Paiute buried their dead.  Once he got away, he could take refuge in the line shack.  The boys would check it.  He was sure of it.

“Should I get my horse?” he asked at last.

“I got one for you to ride.  I ain’t havin’ you on no animal that knows you.”  Rowse spit again.  “Besides, I already took yours and tied it up a ways from here, so’s it would look like you left on your own.”

As he nodded his acquiescence, Ben heard a loud voice coming from inside the house.  He wasn’t sure, but he thought it was Joseph, awake at last and headed out to finish his chores.

If the boy opened that door and looked this way….

“I’m ready,” he said.

Rowse heard it too. “I could just shoot him now and save myself some time,” he breathed, close to his ear.  “But that wouldn’t be any fun.”

Ben felt the outlaw’s fingers lock on his arm.  Fleet Rowse pulled him back into the shadows and began to bind his hands even as Joseph opened the door.  The boy was looking back into the house.  He had a piece of bread in his hand and was waving it at the same time he shouted something out in Cantonese.

“You just hold your horses, Hop Sing!” followed in English.  “Pa ain’t at the table, so it ain’t gonna matter if I take care of Cooch first.”

In spite of the danger, Ben smiled as his son shoved the bread into the pocket of his coat before adjusting his collar so the thick plaid fabric would stave off the cold.

“Yeah.  It’s be so easy to pick him off right now,” Rowse whispered in his ear.

His blood ran just as cold as the night.  Death was here in the shadows.  At any moment, it could strike like a rattler, taking his boy’s life.

“I said I’m ready to go.”

A bandana whipped around his head was pulled between his teeth, silencing him.  As Rowse knotted it at the back, he laughed.  “Don’t worry, old man, I ain’t gonna kill you.  I’m just gonna let you see how much those boys of yours love you before I kill them.  And guess what, Cartwright?”

He didn’t want to guess.  He didn’t need to, really.  He already knew what the fiend was going to say.

“You get to watch.”

 

As Joe stepped out of the barn, munching on the tail end of the piece of bread he’d pilfered from the kitchen, he couldn’t help but laugh.  Hop Sing was probably hopping mad and cursing him in four different dialects of Cantonese.  Supper had been headed for the table when he left the house.  Still, Pa always said livestock came first and he’d felt he had to take care of Cochise before he could enjoy it.  He’d meant to do it before, but all of a sudden the lack of sleep from the night before had caught up to him and he’d just about dropped where he stood.  It took everything he had in him just to make it into the house and up the stairs.  It was when his head hit his pillow that he remembered he’d left his horse saddled and without any supper.

Which was what he’d come out to fix.

Joe closed the barn door behind him and then leaned against it.  Of course, it was more than just lack of sleep.  Much as he liked to have pretended he was over what Fleet Rowse and his Indian ‘friends’ had done to him, he wasn’t.  What he’d told Bella when she found him on the settee had been a half-truth.  He had dreamed of her being hurt and lost in the snow, but before that there had been other dreams – nightmares of him bein’ back up on that rack, of Spotted Deer drawing blood with her rawhide whip; of Shadow Walker heating those arrowheads and pressing them against his skin.  He’d awakened covered in sweat and shaking.  That was when he went downstairs to sit before the fire.

Since he’d been little, sittin’ or layin’ on that settee when he was troubled seemed to be a cure for what ailed him.  His earliest memory of doing it was with his mama.  She’d hear him yelling and come to his room and scoop him up in her arms.  Then she’d carry him downstairs so they could watch the fire.  As the flames jumped and cracked, she’d tighten those arms around him and draw him in close and whisper in his ear.

‘There is nothing to fear, mon petit Joseph.  It is only a night terror.  Shh, my little one.  You are safe here with me.’

Yep, that old settee had seen a lot of his troubles.  When his mama died, it was usually Adam who’d come get him and carry him down the stairs and sit there with him.  Older brother Adam who – smellin’ of bay rum and hair oil instead of lavender and milk –would draw him into the circle of his arms and tell him he was safe.

Joe grinned as he pushed off the barn door and headed for the house.  Poor Adam!  Until their father sorted out his grief over losing Mama, he’d had to be both Ma and Pa to him.

After Pa found his way back, well, things were different.  Adam went to college and it was Pa who’d come rescue him.  Sometimes they’d go down to the settee, but more often Pa would sit on the side of his bed and talk to him.  Pa would place a hand on his arm, or maybe run it over his hair, and tell him in that deep commanding voice that he was safe.

And he knew he was safe.

Joe was almost to the door.  As his foot hit the porch, he paused and looked to the right.  There was a small pile of wood by the stump.  He’d kind of expected to see Pa still at it when he came out of the house earlier.  When he didn’t, he figured he was in the barn.  When got to the barn, there was another puzzle.  Pa wasn’t there and neither was Buck.  Joe scratched his head, wondering where his father had gone and why.  Then he shrugged.  Pa’d probably told Hop Sing what he was doing.   Most likely he’d find out when he got inside.

When he got inside where Bella was.

The curly-haired young man anchored a hip on the porch table and stared out at the yard, thinking about the pretty girl waiting for him inside.  He’d found a different kind of love on that old settee the night before – a deep hungry love that was only satisfied when Bella was in his arms.  He didn’t think they’d fooled Pa by much.  The older man might have thought they’d been sittin’ there holdin’ hands and kissing and not doing much more, but he knew they were doin’ something.  He could still feel her little body under him, feel her hands inside his night shirt; her soft lips pressed against his.  He’d wanted to possess her, to call her his own – to have her.

But he’d never do that to her.  Not until they were married.  And that’s what he was gonna do tonight.  After supper, after all the chores were done, after Pa and Hop Sing were  in bed, he was gonna ask her to marry him .

Maybe he’d even take her out to that piece of land Pa had given him, the one with the house he and his brothers had fixed up for Laura.  The cabin was still there.  It had fallen back into disrepair, but it wouldn’t take much to fix it up.  He’d put so much of himself into that place – so much love, so many hopes and dreams – it seemed a shame to let it all disappear.  Laura had wanted him to love again.

Maybe she’d was lookin’ down and smilin’.

Joe rose and headed for the front door.  As he reached for the latch, the door opened to reveal one very irate Chinese cook.

“Food cold if you not come in!  Missy Bella waiting for you.  Not eat ‘til number three son come.  You come in now!”

“You know, Hop Sing…I had that piece of bread.”  He rubbed his stomach.  “Not sure I can stuff anything more in there!”

“Plenty more for Mister Ben when he come in then!” the Chinese man huffed as he turned back into the house.

Joe caught his shoulder.  “You mean when Pa gets back, don’t you?”

“Get back from where?”

“I figured Pa told you where he was going.”  Joe frowned.  “He did, didn’t he?”

Hop Sing shook his head.  “Last Hop Sing know, Mistah Ben chop wood since boy sick and should not do it.”

He’d argued with Pa about that.  That’s why he’d been surprised when he didn’t find the older man at the stump splitting wood.  “Pa’s not chopping wood and Buck’s not in his stall.”  Joe paused, truly confused.  “Are you sure Pa didn’t tell you where he was going?”

“Maybe Mistah Ben ride out to check on Mistahs Adam and Hoss,” the other man suggested.

Joe ran a hand along the back of his neck.  “Without tellin’ anyone?  I don’t think Pa would…”  His voice trailed off at the sound of hooves striking earth.  Relief flooded through him.  “There he is now.”

“Listen.  Not one.  Two horses,” Hop Sing said.

“Joe, what’s wrong?” Bella asked as she appeared in the doorway.

He drew a breath at the sight of her and let it out slowly, fighting down the passion the sight of her aroused.  “Its seems,” he swallowed. “it seems Pa went out for a joy ride without tellin’ anyone.  I think that’s him comin’ right –”

Only it wasn’t Pa.  It was Adam and Hoss and they looked like they’d been ridin’ hell-bent for leather for hours.

Adam fairly leapt from his saddle.  “Where’s Pa?” he asked.

Joe glanced at Hop Sing and then turned back.  “I thought he was chopping wood.”  At Adam’s look. He added, “It’s a long story.  I’ll tell you later.  Anyhow, I came out to take care of Cochise and found Buck and Pa gone.  I thought maybe he’d ridden out your way?”  Joe laughed nervously.  “You know Pa, he probably figured you needed help wiping your noses.”

His older brother shot his middle brother a look.  It was grim.

“Damn!” he said.

That single word drove all the mischief out of him.  “Adam, what’s wrong?”

Adam glanced at Bella where she lingered near the door and then his eyes returned to him.

“There’s no way to soften this, Joe.  Fleet Rowse has escaped.”

Joe went pale.  He felt sick.  “Escaped?”

“Sure enough, little brother,” Hoss said as he joined them.  “Somehow that scoundrel broke free and got hold of one of the soldiers’ guns.  There was a firefight….”

“Several of the soldiers are dead.  The others are out canvassing the area to find him.”  Adam held his gaze.  “You know who he’s coming after.”

Before Joe could say anything, a large hand came down on older brother’s shoulder.  “And you know, Adam, who Rowse’ll be after, after that,” Hoss said.

Adam dismissed their brother’s concern with a gesture of his hand.  “That fiend didn’t take me and tie me up to a rack and torture me.”

Joe’s jaw set against the memory of the pain and humiliation he’d suffered at Rowse’s hands.   “No, he didn’t torture you.  He tortured me to bait you into comin’ after him.  Adam, he hates both of us.  He thinks we beat him.”

His older brother pursed his lips.  Then he smiled.

“Well, we did.”

As they all shared a wary grin, Bella came to his side.  Joe didn’t stop her from slipping her arm around his waist.  If he was gonna marry her, his brothers were gonna have to know!  He caught her fingers and squeezed them, and then circled her with his arm.  She was shaking.

But then, so was he.

Looking at each of his brothers in turn, he asked, “You don’t think that Pa…  Well, I mean, he wouldn’t have gone after Rowse on his own.  Would he?”

“Pa has more sense that that,” Adam responded, and then added, deadpan.  “Besides, he knew you were safe at home.”

“Hey, I’m not a kid!”

That black-haired head shook.   “Yes, you are, Joe.  You always will be.  At least until you have a kid of your own.”   Adam shot Bella a look, then his eyes came back to him.  “Maybe then Hoss and I will consider you grown up.”

Bella giggled.  He drew her in even closer.

Hop Sing had been listening to them talk.  The Chinese man had said nothing more, but Joe could tell he was bustin’ to say something.

“What do you think, Hop Sing?” he asked.

He shook his head.  “Still wonder where Mistah Ben is.  Not like father to ride away without telling Hop Sing where he go.”

“Well, since he is the patriarch of the clan, I guess Pa can head out if he wants without reporting to one of us,” Adam sighed.

Joe wasn’t convinced.  “He can, but he never does, Adam.  You know that.”

Hoss was wrinkling his nose and sniffing.

“You catch cold, brother?” Joe asked.

The big man sniffed again.  “Say, Hop Sing, is that roast pork I’m smellin’?  And maybe sweet po –ta-toes?”

“Hop Sing serve supper half hour ago.  No one eat.  Should throw away.”

“You ain’t gonna throw no roast pig away, Hop Sing!”  Hoss was horrified.  “I’m here now and I don’t care if that pork’s colder than snow.  You just let me at it!”

“Hoss is right,” Adam said.  “Pa knows what he’s doing.  We should go in and eat.  He’ll be back soon or he’ll send word when he can, one or the other.”  His older brother shrugged.  “It’s not like Pa can’t look out for himself.”

Joe stared down the path that led from the yard.  “I guess you’re right.  It’s just….  Well, I….”

Adam’s hand came down on his shoulder.  When he looked up into his brother’s hazel eyes, Joe saw it.

He was remembering those nights on the settee too.

A second later Adam used his hands as a wedge and drove them between him and Bella.  As he was about to protest, his big brother circled them both with an arm.

“Come on, you two lovebirds,” he said as he aimed them for the door, “you’ve got to eat something.  You can’t live on love alone.”

Joe’s ears went red as Bella coughed.

He didn’t know why not.

It was every bit as good as roast pork.

 

Supper was over and it was going on eight o’clock.  Pa still hadn’t showed.  They were all sitting in the great room except for Hop Sing who was in the kitchen.  He’d apparently decided that tanning the hind ends of his pots and pans would ease his mind, ‘cause he was makin’ quite a ruckus.  Bella was playing checkers with Hoss and beatin’ the pants off of middle brother.  Adam was reading a book.

And he, well, he was pacing.

“Joe,” Adam called without looking up from his book, “Pa’s a big boy now.”

He could tell it amused his big brother no end that the boot was, so to speak, on the other foot.  It was usually his pa pacing a rut into the floor, worrying about him.

“I just can’t shake the feelin’ something’s wrong, Adam.”

“Ah, the famous Cartwright intuition,” his brother said as he placed the book on the table by his chair.  “It’s odd that yours is the only one working right now.”

“Adam.”

They both turned toward Hoss.  He’d finished his game with Bella and was looking right at them.

“It ain’t only Joe.  I’ve got that feelin’ about Pa too.”

Their elder brother scowled.  “Come now.  How many times has Pa gotten himself into some kind of trouble that he couldn’t get himself out of?”

“There was that time he got shanghaied in San Francisco,” Hoss said.

“And the time Sam Bryant kidnapped him,” Joe chimed in.

His middle brother nodded.  “And then there was that day that poacher shot him and we all thought he was dead.”

Joe was warming up to the subject now.  “And the time not all that long back when Pa got held hostage in that mine.”

Adam threw his hands into the air.  “All right! All right!  I surrender!  Good grief!  It would be nice if your memories were that clear when it came to doing your chores.”

“So what are we gonna do?” the big man asked as he rose to his feet.

“Yeah, Adam.  What do you think?”

They were both looking to Adam.  It probably wasn’t fair.  Just because he was older, they expected him to have all the answers.  That had to get old.

Big brother glanced out the window.  “It’s dark now.  There’s not much we can do until morning.”

That wasn’t the answer he wanted.  “If Pa is in trouble, that’s a whole lot of hours for him to be out there on his own.  I say we go after him now.”

Joe saw Hoss glance at Bella.  She hadn’t said anything, like she felt it wasn’t right to enter their family discussion.

Family.

Soon she’d be family too.

That was, if he ever got to ask her if she wanted to be.

“You know,” Hoss said as he came to stand beside him, “with Adam and me ridin’ in and supper bein’ ready, we never took a look around the yard and all.”

“Pa’s horse is gone,” Joe countered.  “He had to have ridden off.”

His giant of a brother scratched his head.  “Maybe Buck broke lose and Pa went lookin’ for him…”

“And something happened?”  Joe nodded.  “Maybe.”

“All right,” Adam said.  “Let’s get moving.”  The minute older brother made up his mind, he was on the move.  “Hoss, gets some lanterns and then you take a look at the barn and outbuildings.  I’ll check the surrounding yard and then we’ll fan out.”

“Hey!  What about me?” Joe demanded.

Adam shot him a look.  Then his eyes rolled over to Bella.  “We need you to hold the fort, Joe.  In case Pa comes back here.”

Joe glanced at her.  What was Adam…?   Then he realized.

She was scared.

Looking at her, standing there with her arms wrapped around her chest; her big blue eyes fixed on him and asking him to make it better, it hit him hard.  Suddenly, he knew what Pa meant when he told him to take it slow.  Bella was his responsibility now and when he married her, she’d be his responsibility forever.  Her welfare would have to come before that of his brothers and his pa.  And women weren’t like men.

They needed a whole lot more upkeep.

“Joe?”

He shook himself.  “Sure thing, Adam.  I’ll hold the fort, like you said.”

His brother reached out and gently slapped his face.  Adam mouthed ‘thanks’ to him and then headed for the peg rack where their coats and hats hung.  Once they were both bundled up, his brothers headed out the door.

Joe turned back to Bella.  For a moment neither of them said anything, then they both spoke at once.

“Bella, I’m sorry….”

“Joe, I’m sorry….”

He laughed.  She already sounded like a Cartwright.

Crossing over to where she stood by the hearth, he took her hand in his. “What are you apologizing for?  You haven’t got anything to be sorry about.”

A single tear slid down her cheek.  “If not for me, you’d be out looking for your father.  I know you want to.”

“Sure, I want to,” he said, reaching up and chasing the tear away.  “But I want to be here with you even more.”

“Do you mean that?” she sniffed.  “I’m not a burden?”

He kissed her on the lips and then he drew her into his arms.  “You couldn’t ever be a burden, Bella.  I love you.”

She was softly sobbing into his shirt.  He could feel the warmth of her tears on his skin.  “I love you too, Joe.  So much.”

“Hey,” he said, suddenly realizing something, “what happened to the ‘little’?”

She looked up at him, puzzled.

“Little Joe, remember?” he said.  “You’re callin’ me just ‘Joe’ now.”

He felt her arms circle his waist.   She smiled a little teasing smile and then nestled against him.  Her hand touched his inner thigh.

“There’s nothing little about you.”

He couldn’t help it.  He felt his body responding.  In a panic to escape before he embarrassed himself again, Joe looked around for some avenue of escape.  He found it in the dying fire.

“Will you look at that?  The fire’s about out.  Pa never did bring in that wood.”  He kissed her quick on the forehead as he pulled away and headed for the door.  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he shouted over his shoulder as he stepped outside.  “You just hold that thought!”

Outside the night air was cold and crisp.  Above him the sky was a black piece of cloth punctured with white stars.  Their light rained down and lit the yard enough that he could see.  As he stepped off the porch and moved toward the wood pile, he breathed in deeply.  After a minute or two, the combination of the cold night and the fresh air had the desired effect and he was able to think about something other than Bella and her tiny waist and soft little breasts.  He was able to remember that the woman he loved was probably just as cold as he was with no fire.  Joe shook himself and turned to pick up some of the wood his father had split earlier.  As he did, he froze.

There was a piece of paper on the stump, driven part way into it by the ax head.  He could just make out some scratchy writing on the paper.

With trembling hands Joe took hold of the ax and pulled it out.  The paper came with it and fluttered to the ground in two pieces before he could catch it.  Bending over, Joe picked them up and walked to the porch where the brightness spilling through his father’s office window provided enough light to read them.

Joe Cartwright.

I bet you’ve been lookin’ for your Pa.  You ain’t gonna find him less I want you to, so you’d best do as I say.  Don’t tell no one else about this.  You do and your pa is dead.  You and that high and mighty older brother of yours  need to find some excuse to leave the house.  Follow the trail I’m leavin’.  You’ll find your pa at the end of it.  If you want to find him alive, you’d  best do it by sundown tomorrow.  Come with no guns or bullets, or a bullet is what he’s gonna get.

You know I say what I mean.

Rowse

Joe stared at the paper, horrified.   He knew something was wrong.  He just knew it!  But not this.  Not…Fleet Rowse kidnapping his father!

“Joe?”

The curly-haired man looked up to find his middle brother approaching.  Hoss was carrying a lantern and its light cast stripes of shadow and light on the hard frozen earth.

“What you got there?” Hoss asked as he neared the porch.

He folded the note and placed it in his pocket.

“You done checking the buildings?” Joe asked.

His brother nodded.  “Yeah.  Ain’t no sign of Pa.”.

“Adam ought to be back anytime.  Maybe he’ll have better luck.”

“Maybe.”

Joe hesitated. “Well, I better get this wood in.  Bella’s probably turned into an icicle by now.”

His brother watched as he loaded an armful of wood and then said, “You never told me what was in that there letter you was holdin’.”

He shrugged.  “It’s from Bella.  You know girls.”

Hoss was eying him suspiciously.  “You sure about that.”

“Of course, I’m sure.  What do you think?  I don’t know my own girl’s handwriting?”

“Maybe not as well as I know my youngest brother.  You willin’ to swear to me that note ain’t got anythin’ to do with Pa disappearin’?”

Joe swallowed hard.  “I promise you it ain’t.”

And so, the lying began.

 

SEVENTEEN

He’d been right.

For whatever reason, Fleet Rowse had a strange obsession with the Paiute graveyard and once again that was where Ben found himself.  It was here Rowse had told him to leave the ransom money five years before when he took Joseph.  And here just recently where the villain had tied his youngest to a rack and tortured him.  He had no illusions about what the man who held him was capable of, or what the outlaw’s intentions were now.  Fleet Rowse had taken him in order to force Joe’s hand – to draw his youngest into some sort of a showdown.  He’d seen Rowse leave the note on the stump.  The outlaw had told him what it said.  First and foremost, the villain hated Joseph.  Adam came in a close second.  He, he imagined, was third in line since he’d been with the posse Roy had raised the day they had taken him down.

Hoss, it seemed, was the only one who might be safe from the villain’s need for revenge.

The note instructed Adam and Joseph to come to the graveyard alone in order to secure his freedom.  His boys knew as well as he did that this was a trap.  Rowse would take and kill them, and then kill him.  At least, he hoped he meant to kill him.

If he had to witness the death of two of his sons, he wasn’t sure he would have the ability…or the faith…to go on.

Ben shifted to ease the pain in his back.  Rowse had tied him to one of the two crossed poles that had been driven into the ground at the far eastern  edge of the graveyard to give warning no one should venture farther.  He’d tried to rock it without success.  He’d attempted to loosen the ropes that bound his hands as well, but to no avail.  Rowse’s gag was still in his mouth.  His hat was missing as was his coat.  Sitting there, exposed to the dropping temperatures and pelted by the sporadic showers of sleet, he was quickly growing miserable.  The fifty-plus years he’d walked the earth had made him less able to withstand the elements.  Still, he was determined to find a way to escape.  He had too.

He had to do it for his boys.

“Enjoyin’ the view, Cartwright?” Rowse asked.  The man was sitting close to the fire.

Of course, he couldn’t answer.

The outlaw looked up.  “Ain’t too long ‘til nightfall.  Them boys of yours should be arrivin’ any time.”

God willing, they hadn’t even found the note.

Fleet Rowse rose to his feet and came over to stand beside him.  “You got yourself a right good seat there.  Front row, so you can see everything.”

Ben’s jaw was tight.  Even though he couldn’t speak, he expressed his repulsion and rage with his eyes.

“You hate me, don’t you?  Well, that’s all right. I like bein’ hated.”  The villain sneered as he leaned down and undid the knot.  The bandana that had silenced him fell to his shoulders and then to the ground.  “You Cartwrights ain’t like that – are you?  You want people to think right well of you, to think you’re good men.  Shows what they know.”

“My sons are good men,” Ben shot back.  His throat was raw and his voice rough.  “But then you wouldn’t know if a thing was good or decent, would you?”

Rowse stared at him for a moment.  Then he snorted. “I see where that young one of yours gets his mouth.”

He was not about to discuss Joseph with a man who wanted him dead.

“You know this will never work,” he said instead.  “My sons will find a way to free me without surrendering to your plan.”

“Will they now?”  Rowse sat on a rock close by him.  “You and me, we’ve known each other, what?  Five years now?  That youngest boy of yours, he’s a pistol.  Loudmouthed and just buckin’ to be taken down.  The way I figure it, there’s only one thing on the earth that would make him docile like a lamb led to the slaughter and that’s the fact that I got you. “Thought about takin’ that little gal of his too, but I decided she’d be too much trouble.”   The villain spit.  “Women.  They’re fit for only one thing.”

Odious.  That was the only word he could think of.  Fleet Rowse was an odious man.

Thank God his misogyny had kept Bella out of this.

“Then there’s that oldest son of yours.  He’s a lot like you too, only in a cold calculatin’ kind of way.  I ain’t forgiven him for makin’ me shed myself of that meal ticket.”

The ‘meal ticket’ being Joseph.

“I have money, Rowse.  I will give you all I have, and my promise not to hunt you down.  You can – ”

“You’re forgettin’, old man.  I got me more money than I know what to do with.  This ain’t about money.  It’s about….”  The villain’s smile was mocking.  “Justice.”

Fleet Rowse lived in a world turned upside-down from his own, one in which he was God, as well as judge, jury, and executioner.  A world of malevolence and hatred.  A world in which the only people who had a right to live were the ones who pleased him, and if they angered him, then they were his to dispose of.

Just as he meant to dispose of Adam and Joe.

Rowse rose slowly and crossed back to the fire.  “I’m gonna grab me some grub and bring you a plate too.  I’d advise you eat it.”  The outlaw snorted.  “Last meal and all, you know?”

After that, he knew the gag would go back in.  Rowse couldn’t afford to let him shout a warning to his sons.  Unless he could break free, Joseph and Adam would have to face this monster on their own.

Like Goliath, he could only pray that his Davids slew him.

 

Adam glanced at his younger brother.  Joe rode at his side, silent and grim-faced.  They were flying like the wind and it was all Sport could do to keep up with Cochise.  His mount had given him several frantic pleading looks, but he’d urged the horse on.

Desperation was a word he understood all too well at that moment.

He’d ridden back into the yard just in time to see the front door close behind whoever had stepped in.  He was grateful they hadn’t been there to greet him as he had Buck in tow.  They would know what that meant.  This way, he’d reasoned, he’d be able to ease the pain the revelation would bring.  Pa’d obviously had been kidnapped and he was fairly certain he knew who had done the deed.

He’d stabled both horses first and then walked to the house.  To his surprise, Joe met him on the porch.  The second his hazel eyes caught the look out of his brother’s green ones, he knew something was horribly wrong.  Joe didn’t say a word, but held out two slips of paper.  He’d taken them with a puzzled look and quickly perused the writing on them by the light that fell out of the open door.  He felt the color drain out of him until his face resembled that of his younger brother.

“When?” he asked.

“I found it shortly after you left,” Joe replied.

“Have you told anyone else?”

His brother shook his head.  “What are we going to do, Adam?”

What could they do, except capitulate?

And so here they were, after having told a mountain of lies to Bella and Hoss in order to escape, riding from hell to breakfast toward the far side of the Paiute graveyard where their father was being held, desperate to make it before sundown.  The clues Rowse had left – Pa’s kerchief pinned by a knife to the north side of a tall pine, a pair of Indian feathers tucked in the crevice of a tombstone-shaped rock, pointing east – had told them where they would find him.  They’d both suspected it would be there.  There must have been something in Rowse’s past that tied him to that place.  An outlaw seldom returned to the scene of his former crimes.  Of course, Fleet might have figured on that.  The law would think he would steer clear of it and so, that was why he was there.

The law.

They had not gone to Roy and Adam knew the older man would be mad as spit on a griddle that they hadn’t.  Roy Coffee was a very old and very dear friend of their father.  It was because of that, that they had agreed not to alert him.  Roy was too close to the situation to think it through clearly and would be on their tales the minute he knew.  He might even outpace them.  Instead, they had sent a note via one of their hands to Nathan Eastwind.  He and Hoss had found out from the soldiers the day before that Eastwind had been dispatched to track down Rowse, to bring him back into custody, and then escort him to the fort’s prison.  The army men had been deployed to search the hills for the outlaw, thinking he would head to whatever hideout he had used there after the stage robbery.  Once the note reached Nathan, it would take him half a day to make his way to this area – far enough behind them that it would seem they had not violated Rowse’s terms, and hopefully in time to help.

They were riding as fast as they could and had passed the line shack an hour or so before.  Uncharacteristically, Joe had remained silent for most of the ride.  He was taking it hard.  Joe knew that he, most of all, was the one Rowse wanted.  Because of that, he was taking all the responsibility for their father’s capture on his shoulders.  It was strange, this reversal of things.  Usually he was riding beside Pa, setting out to locate his lost and injured youngest brother.  It had happened so many times that it was like an oft-rehearsed play where everyone knew their lines and what was expected of them.

This time he didn’t know what was expected of him.

He’s young, Pa.  Even if he’s injured, he’ll make it, don’t worry. 

You know little brother, he’ll find a way to free himself and get away.  He’s strong.  He can make it through.

He can survive the inclement weather. 

This was a man in his late fifties they were talking about and, while Pa was no slouch, he just wasn’t going to be able to take what either of them could.  The weather was worsening.  Sleet was falling and it was abysmally cold.  They had to find Pa and find him fast.

Which meant they had to face Rowse.

Adam glanced at Joe again.  His brother wasn’t happy with the plan he had come up with, but in the end, he had given in.

He was going to walk into the camp and offer himself in exchange for their father.

Joe would hang back while he negotiated with the outlaw and wait until Pa was free.  Their horses were worn out, but Joe would tell Pa to mount Scout and head out in search of Nathan and his regiment.  He’d tried to get his brother to promise to go with Pa, but Joe had flatly refused.  He said he would see Pa off and then come back and, together, the two of them would find someway to defeat Rowse.

There were two variables to this plan, of course.  Rowse and their father.

Plan A was to send Pa after Nathan.  Plan B was unthinkable.  He and Joe had agreed that, if he had to, Joe would overpower Pa and tie him up and leave him somewhere safe until it was all over.

Adam’s lips pursed.

Maybe he should have let Joe go in to negotiate with Rowse.  After all, there was no guarantee the one hundred and forty pound kid could overpower their father.  But then, what Joe lacked in stature and weight, he more than made up for in grit and willpower.

The other variable, of course, was Rowse himself.  He was banking on the fact that the man liked to play games.  The dangers were twofold.  The outlaw might be able to overcome him, thus making both him and his father hostages against Joe, or – and from past experience he did not expect this – just shoot him.

Adam’s lips pursed.

He didn’t like either choice.  Not one bit.

Still, there was little else they could do.  Any idea of attacking the camp had faded in the reality of the vision of Rowse’s first bullet going into their father’s head.  Bringing in the law would have done the same thing.  As would taking their own guns in when they went to meet him.

No, this was as good as it got.

And it was time.

Joe had reined in Cochise.  He pulled Scout to a halt beside him as his brother raised up in his stirrups and pointed.  Adam saw the thin trail of smoke too, rising in a spiral toward the sky.  Rowse was a confident bastard.  He wasn’t even trying to hide.  He knew them too well.   He knew they would come and it would be on time.

He knew they would do nothing to risk losing their pa.

“You want to go in closer?” Joe asked.

The man in black nodded and then dismounted. “Let’s tie the horses here and go the rest of the way on foot.”

His little brother slipped from his own saddle, not as lithely as he should have.  He had to remember that Joe was still hurting, not only from the physical torture he had suffered at the hands of Rowse’s Indian cohorts, but from what they had done to him psychologically.

“Are you okay, buddy?” he asked, falling back into the name he had called his youngest brother as a child.

Joe started and then smiled.  “I bet you wish as much as I do that we were sittin’ on that settee after one of my nightmares instead of bein’ out here, in reality.”

Joe was a man.  He hadn’t really expected him to admit anything, though, in a way, he had.

“It would be great if a warm glass of milk and a blazing fire would make this all go away,” he replied with a wry smile.

Joe nodded, grateful to him for not ‘going there’.  Then his brother inclined his head toward the smoke.

“Ready?”

Adam drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Let’s get on with the show.”

 

Bella paced the floor in front of the hearth.  There was something not quite ‘right’, but she couldn’t put a finger to it.  She’d known Joe for more than seven years now and she knew he’d been lying when he said he and Adam were riding to town to alert Sheriff Coffee to the fact that their father was missing. When she’d asked why it took the two of them, Joe had glanced at his brother and then replied that it wasn’t safe for either of them to travel alone.  His answer to her when she questioned him as to why Hoss was not going with Adam was that he could travel lighter and faster.  Worst of all, when she demanded to know if there was any danger, Joe had laughed and kissed her and told her not to be a nervous Nellie.

He hadn’t answered any of her questions.

Not really.

She was alone now in the great room.  Hoss had stepped outside to see if anyone was coming.  He’d done it every hour on the hour since Joe and Adam had left, and that was three times now.  Each time the big man opened the door, a blast of cold air blew in.  She hated to think of Joe out in it.  He wasn’t well.  He was good at hiding it from everyone else, but not from her.  What that horrid man let those Indians do to him had hurt him badly.  When her hands had run along his chest, she’d felt the scars from the burns.  Hop Sing’s medicines had softened them and Joe said in time they would disappear.  But they were there now.

The memory of his torture was burned into his flesh.

She had a feeling there were other scars – ones Hop Sing couldn’t tend – that would be with the man she loved for a long time.

Bella turned as she heard the door open and Hoss stepped in.

“Anything?” she asked, already knowing what the answer would be.

“Nope.  Nary a sight or sound.”

“We have to go after them!” she insisted.  “You know as well as I do that they were both lying.  They knew something.”  Her jaw grew tight.  “And I think you know it too!”

“Honest, Miss Bella, I don’t know nothin’.  I….”

Her eyes were rimmed with tears.  “They’re in danger. Aren’t they?  Hoss, what is it?  Who….”  Bella paled.  She remembered Joe and Adam’s grim faces as they rode away, looking for all the world like they were riding out to face Hell itself.  Suddenly, it made sense.  “It’s Fleet Rowse, isn’t it?  He’s escaped and taken your pa.”

The big man looked surprised, and then stricken.  “Damn them two!” he exclaimed, and then apologized.

“You have to go after them!” she exclaimed.  “I’ll get Hop Sing and go to town and get Roy….”  She stopped at his look.  “You’re not going?  Why don’t you go after them?”

The big man’s crisp blue eyes fastened on hers.  The look out of them was apologetic but firm.  “Little Joe made me promise him I’d take care of you.  I can’t do that if I’m gallavantin’ all over the country tryin’ to track the pair of them down.”

“I’ll go with you then!  That way you can look…after…me….”  Her voice dropped off.  Hoss was shaking his head.  “Joe made you promise you wouldn’t let me follow him too, didn’t he?” she asked with a sigh.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Frustration threatened to make her do something stupid – like throw a hissy fit and fall to the ground kicking and screaming like a petulant child.

“I hate being a woman!” she declared.

Hoss’ smile was rueful but heartfelt. “I think little brother’s right glad you are.”

Bella paused before saying, “Thank you.”

He looked surprised.  “For what?”

“For accepting Joe and me.”

“Accepting you for what?”

“Well, you know…the two of us…together.”

Hoss came to her side.  He was so tall – more than a foot taller than her.  She understood when he circled her in his arm what Joe felt.  His gentle giant of a brother was a tower of strength.

“You know, Bella, I remember you from when you weren’t no bigger than knee-high to a grasshopper,” he began.  “I think that first time I saw you sittin’ at little brother’s side when he was ailin’, that I knew there was something special there.  You was cute as a bug in a rug back then, all pigtails and piss.  Made me think of that kid Joe might have been if he’d been a girl.  Heck, I think you’ve done been in trouble as many times as little brother since I met you.”

Was that a compliment, or….?

Hoss gave her a little squeeze.  “Little brother knows it too.  He knew you’d go flyin’ out of this place like a house on fire the minute you knew what he was walkin’ into.  That’s why he asked me to keep watch over you.”  He looked down at her.  “I made him a promise that you’d stay here, Bella, and its one I mean to keep.”

“What is Joe ‘walking into’?” she asked, her voice hushed with fear.

The big man shook his head. “I don’t rightly know.  Them two brothers of mine has got lips that lock tighter than any six tumbler safe.  I think they know where Pa is and they’re goin’ to get him.”  He paused, obviously pained that he had been left behind.  “If you ask me, I agree with what your thinkin’.  It’s Rowse what took him.”

“God, no….”

Hoss took her hand in his.  “You know why I was willin’ to make that promise to Little Joe, Bella?”

She shook her head.

“I’ve got faith in those two brothers of mine.  You gotta have faith too, ‘specially in Joe.  I know what it’s like, lovin’ that little cuss, and it ain’t easy.  He surefire finds his way into trouble faster than Moody’s goose.  Joe’s got a good head on his shoulders.  He just don’t use it much.  It ain’t what moves him first.”

“What does?” she asked.

“His heart.  More often than not Joe’s heart gets in the way of his head and he don’t think, he just does, and then he gets hurt.”  The big man sighed.   “Lovin’ him ain’t easy.  It takes a toll on a person.”  Hoss paused.  “You gotta take that into account if you mean to marry him.”

She paled a bit.  “You know then?”

“It’s plain as the nose on your face how you two feel about each other,” he replied.

“I suppose it is.  Are you….”  She looked up at him, “Are you happy about it?”

“Miss Bella, I sure as shootin’ would love havin’ you for a sister-in-law and truth to tell, you two would make the cutest babies.”  At her blushes, he grew serious.  “But you gotta understand that livin’ with Little Joe ain’t gonna be easy and,” he hesitated, “there’s a good chance you’re gonna go through more than your fair share of pain.”

She nodded.  Tonight had shown her that more than any other thing she had been through.

“Do you often get…left behind to worry?” she asked.

“Sometimes.  Don’t matter if I’m here or on the trail, I’m still worryin’.  Ain’t no other way with that boy.”

“Maybe being married would….”  She stopped.  What?  Change Joe?  Did she want him to change?  If she did, then did that mean she didn’t love him for who he was?

“Nothin’ is gonna change that boy,” Hoss insisted.  “Not love.  Not marryin’.  He is who he is.  What you gotta decide, Bella, is whether or not you’re willin’ to go along for the ride.”

As she opened her mouth to reply, there was a sharp rap on the door.  For a moment, she hoped it was Joe, but then she told herself she was being silly.

He wouldn’t knock.

Hoss shot her a look as he headed for the door.  He picked up his gun before he called out, “Who’s there?”

“It’s Captain Eastwind.”

Hoss blew out his relief.  Hers came out in tears.

The big man opened the door.  “Come on in, Nathan.  We sure are glad to see you.”

The soldier removed his hat and ran a hand through his brown hair to straighten it.  “I wish I could say the same.  I understand Joe and Adam are in danger.”

Hoss shot her a look and then nodded.  “We think its Rowse.  Is it?”

The soldier hesitated, then nodded.  “Fleet escaped.  It seems he has taken your father and your brothers have gone to bring him back.  I had a note from Adam.”

Hoss sighed.  “Dang, them two!  I knew they was up to somethin’!”  The big man stepped back, making way.  “Come on in, Nathan.  Take a chair.”

Captain Eastwind inclined his head in thanks.  Bella watched him cross to the fire to warm himself.

“You hungry?” Hoss asked.  “We got lots left in the kitchen.”

The soldier shook his head.  “No, thank you.  Time is of the essence.  Tell me what is going on.”

“First off, you tell me how you done got here so hard on the heels of this.”

Nathan shrugged.  “I was on my way here with a few of my best men to see your father when a courier stopped me and delivered your brother’s note.”  He paused.  “My commander believes Rowse has returned to the hills.  I do not.  It took some persuading, but I finally managed to prevail upon the major and he agreed to let me search this area.”

“Where do you think Rowse is?” Bella asked.

“The Paiute graveyard,” he said without hesitation.

That puzzled her.  “Wouldn’t that horrid man fear that would be the first place the law would look?” she asked.

Nathan remained silent for a moment.  Then he said, “I will tell you, but first, might I have a drink?”

“Sure thing,” Hoss said.  “Hop Sing’s in the kitchen.  What would you like?”

“Some of that wonderful Pu-erh tea he has, hot, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Don’t mind at all.”

Bella eyed both men.  There was something – something she couldn’t put her finger on.  It made her dreadfully uneasy and suddenly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what the captain had to say.

Springing to her feet, she said, “I’ll go.”

Hoss frowned at her.  “I don’t mind fetchin’ it, Bella.  You sure you don’t want to hear what the captain has to say?”

Yes, she was sure.

Even though she didn’t know why.

 

Nathan Eastwind watched the young woman go, seeing in his mind’s eye another beautiful petite creature with long spiraling golden hair and soulful blue eyes.  The image pained him and he closed his own eyes for a moment to gain strength before facing Hoss.

“The Great Spirit put it in her heart to go,” the soldier sighed.  “The words I have to speak are not for the ears of an innocent.”

Ben Cartwright’s middle son frowned.  “You want me to tell Bella to stay in the kitchen?”

His eyes flicked that way.  “I believe she will stay until she is called.”

The big man looked worried.  “Has this got to do with any of my family what’s missin’?”

“In a way.  But only in that Fleet Rowse has darkened your doorstep.”

Hoss indicated the red chair next to the hearth.  Nathan took it and waited as the big man sat in the blue one across from it.

Then he drew a steadying breath and began.

“Have you never wondered why Fleet is drawn to the place where the Paiute bury their dead?”

Hoss nodded and then asked, “Is that where you think he’s holdin’ Pa?”

“I am sure of it.  It is why I faced my commander’s ire and a possible courts martial to come here.”

The big man snorted.  “The major was that mad, huh?”

Nathan’s lips quirked at the end.  “You might say so.  You did not answer my question.”

“Yeah, we talked about him and that graveyard, Adam and me.”  The big man shifted into a more comfortable position.  “You gonna tell me why?”

Nathan turned to look at the fire.  The flickering flames took him back to a boyhood he would rather forget.  “You recall that Fleet was taken by Red Pony and made his son when he was in his early teens?”  As Hoss nodded, he went on.  “Later, he participated in the raid on his birth family’s home.”

“Aurora said he killed them all.”

“So she thought.  Aurora was away when it happened.  Not all were killed.  There was one other survivor.  Another sister.”

Hoss was startled.  “Does Mrs. Clark know?  Is she still alive?  Is…?”

He held up a hand.  “I will tell you.”  Nathan rose and began to pace.  “The girl was not in the house when it was set on fire.  She arrived home as the flames died to embers.  By that time we….”  He paused – yes, he had been there to his everlasting regret.  “…we had dispersed.  Some had gone into the woods.  Those who were with me were in the barn, taking what we could use.  Fleet…Many Kills…was with Red Pony.  They were hidden in the leaves.  Watching.”

“Watching for what?”

“For Torie.  My white brother knew she had not been among those killed.  There were five children in the Rowse family, two boys and three girls.  Aurora was the eldest, then Victoria or Torie as the family called her, and finally Bethia.  As Torie was not within the house, Many Kills waited for her.  He captured her and took her to Red Pony’s camp.”

“How old was she then?”

“Sixteen at the time of the attack.  Seventeen when I married her.”  Nathan drew a breath as Torie’s fresh face appeared in his mind’s eye.  “And nineteen when she died.”

He knew it would take a second for what he’d said to register.

Hoss blinked.  “You…you married Rowse’s sister?”

Nathan looked toward the kitchen.  “She was much like Bella.  Small.  Blonde.  Sweet and lovely and…innocent.”

“How’d she die?”

The soldier’s jaw tightened as he denied the tears that threatened to fall.  “I am sure you noticed that Many Kill’s interest in Aurora seemed, at times, more than brotherly.”

Hoss nodded but said nothing.

“It was the same with Torie.  Rowse loved her, but in a depraved way.  He saw me, not as a brother but as a rival, and was angry when Red Pony agreed to our marriage.  By that time, I was drawing away from my red father.  Perhaps he thought I would go live in the white world if I married to a white woman and he would be rid of me.”  Nathan drew in a breath and let it out in a sigh.  “I was blessed for nearly two years.”

The room was hushed.  It took a few seconds before Hoss spoke.

“What happened to her?”

The soldier returned to his seat.  He looked to the window and the world outside.  “We had just found out Torie was with child.  Our joy brought new rage in the man I called my brother.  While I was away with Red Pony, Many Kills came to her and told her they were leaving – that she was to go with him and together, they would raise her child.  She fought him.  He…”  Nathan sucked in air as the memory of what he had found upon his return came back to haunt him.  “Fleet took her neck in his hands and broke it, and then left her body on our lodge floor for me to find.”

“My God,” Hoss breathed.

Nathan looked at the other man.  “Torie is buried in the Paiute graveyard, on the east side near its edge.  I put her there, in the ground as a white woman would have desired.  She told me she did not want to be burned if she died, because of what had happened to her family, and I honored that.  The next day I left my father’s people and never looked back.”

“You didn’t go after Rowse?”

He shook his head.  “There was no proof that it was he.  Red Pony would not listen to my words.  I could have killed him as he killed her – murdered him – but that was not my way.  I went away to school and then became a soldier.  I knew that, one day, I would be sent to find him and deliver him up to justice.”  The soldier glanced at the big man.  “That day is now.”

“That’s quite a story,” Hoss said quietly.

“Yes, it is.”

Nathan pivoted in his seat.  The Great Spirit had permitted the woman’s return.  He had no idea how long she had been listening.

“I regret you had to hear that,” he said flatly.

Bella put his cup of tea on the table.  Then she rested a hand on his shoulder.  “I’m not.  I know now what it feels to love a man more than your own life.  Torie would not have traded those two years with you, Nathan, no matter how it ended.”

Her touch nearly unmanned him.  With a sniff, he forced a sad smile.  “You are much like her.”

“So you think, ‘cause Rowse is tied to that graveyard, that’s where he took Pa, and where Joe and Adam is?”

“His guilt binds him to it.  Yes, I believe that is where he and your father are.”  Nathan rose to his feet. “How long ago did your brothers leave?”

The big man glanced at the clock by the door.  “Three, four hours.”

The soldier walked briskly toward the door.  “It is time we go after them.”

“Nathan,” Hoss called.

“What?” he asked without turning, his hand on the latch.

“Rowse done said if we brung in the law he’d kill Pa.”

Nathan closed his eyes and sighed, sorry that he had not killed his white brother all those long years ago.  So much pain – such great evil could have been avoided.

Turning to look at Ben Cartwright’s middle son, he said, “First of all, Many Kills will take your father’s life whether the law comes or not – after he makes Ben watch your brothers die.  And secondly,” he opened the door and stepped onto the porch.

“I am not a lawman.  I am the hand of God.”

 

EIGHTEEN

Ben Cartwright shifted to ease the pain in his arms and hands.  He doubted he had ever felt so wretched in his life before.  Oh, he’d found himself in some tight spots – being held in a dank cave was one of them – but he’d never been so wet and so cold and so, well….

Terrified.

Adam had just emerged from the tree line to the south of Fleet Rowse’s camp.

Just Adam.

Fear pricked him.

Where was Joseph?

His eldest raised his hands as he approached.  Adam wasn’t wearing a gun, just as Rowse had demanded in the note he’d left pinned to the stump for his boys to find.  Ben’s eyes quickly scanned the trees his son had left behind, wondering if there were others there, watching and waiting and looking out for an advantageous moment to strike.  Maybe that’s where Joseph was, along with Roy Coffee and a half dozen deputies.  Or perhaps with a regiment of army men.  He wanted to believe that his two sons had not honored Fleet Rowse’s request and come alone.

Even though he knew in his heart of hearts, they had.

“Keep your hands up, Cartwright,” Rowse ordered as his son drew near.

“I’m unarmed,” Adam replied as coolly as if he was ordering a drink.  “You can check.”

“Damn right, I will,” the outlaw growled as he quickly covered the distance between them.  Rowse patted Adam down and then in one swift, unexpected motion, struck him savagely in the side of the head with his pistol.

Adam collapsed like a Chinese lantern.

Fleet Rowse placed his foot on Adam’s side and leaned down to anchor the end of his pistol in his son’s black hair.  “I know you’re out there, Jo-seph.  I’d come out now if you don’t want your brother’s brains splattered from here to eternity.”

Ben’s eyes went to the trees.  Please Lord, he pleaded silently, if Joseph is there, give him some sense.  Keep him away.  He’ll sacrifice himself for nothing.  This madman will kill Adam and me whether he shows himself or not.

As his youngest stepped into the clearing, Ben closed his eyes.  Knowing Joseph, he had charmed God into letting him do what he thought was right.

“Let Pa go,” Joe said as he approached, hands up and empty.  “Let Adam go too.  You know its me you want.”

The outlaw straightened up.  He pointed his weapon at his youngest boy.  “I got all three of you and I got me the upper hand, now why on earth would I let any of you go?”

“I know you’re gonna kill me, Rowse,” Joseph said, his jaw tight, “and I know you want it to hurt.  You let them go and you can do whatever you want to me – take as long as you like.  If you don’t, I’ll use everything I’ve got to make it quick.”

The outlaw hesitated.  “Maybe I want it to be quick.  Maybe I just want you dead.”

Joseph was only a few yards from him.  Ben could see his son’s eyes.  The look out of them was resolute.  Even if he could have shouted, the older man knew there was no way he could have diverted the boy from the course he had chosen.

“No, you don’t, Rowse.  Killing ain’t good enough for you.”  His son’s nostrils flared.  “It’s the suffering that gives you a thrill.  You’re not a man, Rowse.  You’re not even an animal.  You’re a devil.”

The villain snorted as he lifted his boot from Adam’s supine body.  “You got that right.”

Rowse moved to Joseph and loomed over him.  The outlaw was several inches taller and at least a third heavier than his son.  He was also in excellent health.  It was apparent now, looking at his boy, that Joseph had been fooling them for some time.  His body trembled and sweat beaded on his forehead.

Nevermind him looking pale as a ghost.

“You know what I got in mind for you, Jo-seph?  Where we’re gonna go and what I’m gonna do with you?”

Joe’s smile was thin-edged. “Sorry, my dance card’s full.”

Rowse looked puzzled, and then he roared.  When his maniacal laughter stopped, he snorted.  “It’s too bad I gotta kill you, kid.  You’re mighty entertainin’.”

“What about my proposal, Rowse?” his son demanded.  “You let Adam and Pa go or I’ll come at you right now with fists flying.”

Ben bit his tongue.  Words might make it worse.

“Them fists of yours ain’t gonna do much against this,” Rowse replied, indicating his gun.

“You won’t shoot me.  You want to cause me pain – to own my pain.  You shoot me and its over.”  Joe’s lips echoed his tormentor’s for sheer deviltry.  “Now where would be the fun in that?”

“So what are you proposin’?  Besides me lettin’ these two here go.”

“I know how the game is played.  Give me the length of an arrow shot.”  Joseph removed his coat.  “I ain’t got a gun and now, I ain’t got an extra skin.  All I got is two feet and a lot of grit.  I’ll make it a chase you won’t forget.”

Ben was struggling against his bonds, straining against the ropes.  Unable to stand it any longer he shouted, “Joseph, no!”

His son turned toward him.  Joseph’s eyes were misty.  “It’s the only way, Pa.  If one of us has to die, I’d rather it was me.  I can’t live with your death on my conscience.”  His eyes went to his eldest brother where he lay on the ground.  “Promise you won’t tell Adam, but I feel the same about him.”

“Like a lamb to the slaughter, eh?” the outlaw sneered.

Joe held his head high.  “You want to hear my conditions?”

Rowse snorted.  “I’ll be damned if you ain’t the orneriest cuss I ever met.  What are they?”

Joseph’s eyes went to his brother and then to him.  “You let them both go.  Now, when I can see you do it.”

“Can’t do that.  You know they ain’t gonna leave all polite-like.  They’ll just come after us.”

He could see the wheels turning in his son’s head.  “All right.  Leave them tied up here then.  I’ll send Scout and Cochise back home so Hoss will know to come and find them.”

The outlaw thought a moment.  “Done.”  A sneer curled his lip up.  “What else?”

“If I last until morning, you let me go and you leave the territory.”

“If you last ‘til morning, Cartwright, there’s somethin’ ain’t right with the world.”  Rowse drew out a rope as he moved back toward Adam and prepared to bind him.  “You’ll be dead before sunrise.”

“Or you will,” Joe snarled.

Adam stirred as Rowse took hold of his hands and bound them behind his back.  He blinked, obviously dazed, and looked up at Joe.   “Never considered…there would..be..an option three,” his eldest muttered  just before the outlaw shoved a gag in his mouth and silenced him.

 

Joe met his brother’s gaze and smiled.  Really smiled.  He was trying hard to tell Adam it was all right.  That he’d be fine, no matter what.

In fact, Joe felt strangely free, as if nothing could touch him.  His pa and his brother would survive.  That was all that mattered.  He’d lead Rowse as far away as fast as he could.  Certainly by now someone was on their trail – Roy and his deputies, Hoss and some of the hands, or maybe even the army.  After all, Fleet Rowse was a wanted man.  They’d find Pa and Adam and set them loose.  They’d have to go back home then, since they wouldn’t have any idea where he was.  He had no intention of leaving a trail.  Pa and Adam would go home to the ranch house, to Hoss, to Hop Sing and his grousing, and to….

Bella.

God, this was going to kill her.

Joe shook himself.  No, he couldn’t think that way.  With God as his witness, he was going to survive.  He was going to beat Rowse at his own game.  He’d find some way to double-back, get behind the devil and take him down, and then he’d go back to her.  Bella had been through an awful lot in her short life, and most of it because of him.  He loved her, but he didn’t know if she knew what loving him might cost her.  If – when – he got back to the Ponderosa they were gonna have to talk long and hard about what they felt and where they wanted to go with it.

“I love you, Bella,” he whispered between chattering teeth.

“What’s that, Jo-seph?” Rowse asked as he came to his side.

“I said, ‘Hell, what’s takin’ you so long?”

“I set them animals loose.  The way they were meandering along the road, you ain’t got much chance of anyone bein’ here before noon tomorrow.”  Rowse held his gaze.  It was like looking into the face of evil.  “Still want to go through with this?”

Joe nodded.  It was his only chance.  In some ways, he was astounded Rowse had agreed to it. Then again, the outlaw was certain he would catch, torture, and kill him.  Since Pa and Adam would be gone, he probably meant to go to the Ponderosa and burn it down once he was dead.  So, he couldn’t be dead.  He had to win.

He had to.

Rowse stared at him and then took hold of his hands and started binding them in front of him.

“He! What are you doing?  That ain’t…”

The villain’s dark eyes met his.  “Ain’t fair, you say?”  Rowse snorted.  “Never said I was.”

With his hands bound, he would have a harder time running, and it would be almost impossible to cover his tracks.

“I thought you were a warrior,” Joe countered.  “What kind of honor is there in tracking and killing a man who can’t defend himself?”

Rowse spit on the ground.  “I ain’t got any pride, boy.  Call me a ‘coward’.  See if I care.”

Joe cast another glance in his father and brother’s direction.  They were laying side by side, looking at him.

He could hardly stand to see the terror in their eyes.

“Let’s get it over then.  Let me start.”

The outlaw stepped back.  He pulled a pocket watch out of the slit in his threadbare vest.  “Tell you what, Jo-seph, I’ll be generous.  I’ll give you five minutes before I start out after you.”  The outlaw stepped back.  “Better than a bow shot.”

It was at that.

“When?” Joe asked, ignoring the plea in his family’s eyes.

Rowse snapped the watch shut.

“Now.”

 

In the end Hoss brought Bella with them.  He turned in his saddle and looked behind to where she was riding with Nathan’s men.  He’d told Joe he would watch out for her and he couldn’t do that if she was at the Ponderosa and he was on the road.  Since they’d left the house, the little gal had been strangely quiet.  Bella was usually a bundle of energy and ideas that never quit.  She rode now in silence, her head down a little; her shoulders rising and falling regular as the tide with sighs.  She was hurtin’, for herself, but more so for Little Joe.  Bella knew what kind of man Fleet  Rowse was.  She knew, like he did, that the likelihood was Little Joe was already dead.

Joe, and his pa and his brother.

Hoss steadied himself by puttin’ those gloomy thoughts where they belonged – where the sun didn’t shine.  Their father always told them not to borrow trouble, like the Good Book said.  He could hear Pa’s deep voice now, rumblin’ as he read that passage.  ‘Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Nathan Eastwind’s dappled gray horse came alongside him.  They’d been riding fast and, since it was the army, had been able to switch horses near every ten miles.  Nathan had two other horses trailin’ behind him – a handsome thoroughbred and a pinto.

A certain handsome thoroughbred and pinto.

“Where’d you find them?” he asked, his stomach lurching.

“One of the men came across them while scouting ahead.”  Nathan gave him a sympathetic look.  “Like I thought, they were in the area of the graveyard.  It looked like they’d been set free, but had stopped to eat supper.”

“So you think Pa and my brothers are there?”

The soldier nodded.  “Privates James and McIntire went ahead to see what they could find.  I told them we would follow,” he glanced at Bella, “slowly.  Just in case.”

“How far you think it is?”

“There is a thin trail of smoke.  About a mile ahead by the look of it.”

Hoss stared at the line of soldiers behind them.  “You goin’ in with them?”

Nathan shook his head.  “We’ll wait until the scouts return and then they, and you and me, will approach the camp with caution.  The rest of the men will stay here.  They’ll guard Miss Carnaby.”

“You think Rowse’ll go…into the graveyard?”

The soldier nodded.  “Many Kills does not believe the Paiute dead inhabit that place.  There is only one spirit there he claims.  She is why he always comes back.”

“You mean Torie?”

Nathan nodded.

“You think he’s hopin’ she’ll forgive him?”

The soldier looked almost startled by the thought.  “For what he did, there can be no forgiveness, no absolution.  If that is what he desires, then he will be sorely disappointed.  While a woman might forgive a man who treated her ill, a mother will not when the one who is hurt is her child.”

Hoss pursed his lips and nodded.

“I guess you’re right there.”

 

Ben had no idea how long it had been since  Fleet Rowse took off, gun in hand, in pursuit of Joseph.  The day was waning, so he guessed it to be six hours or more.  And still He and Adam sat trussed up like two prime pigs awaiting slaughter.  The older man glanced at his eldest son.  It was hard to make out Adam’s black-clad form in the growing darkness, but he could just see him.  He was working furiously to free his hands.

Working, but not succeeding.

It was no surprise that Rowse could tie one damn fine knot.  After all, he’d lived with the Indians for decades and that was among their specialties.  Ben closed his eyes as he remembered his youngest bound hand and foot to the native’s rack.  It had taken Hoss several different knives and more than one attempt to free the boy from the knotted rawhide strips that had been used to suspend him there.  This would be no different.  Still, Adam was young.  Fighting against impossible odds was simply part and partial of who and what he was.  He, on the other hand, wasn’t young anymore.

In fact, at the moment, he felt downright ancient.

Adam grunted and he turned toward him.  His eldest’s son’s head was bathed in blood on the left side, the result of the blow he had taken from Rowse’s gun.  Adam inclined his head toward the edge of the clearing.  Ben followed his gaze and saw it too – a flicker of something shiny in the trees.  For the first time he wondered if Rowse had accomplices that he had left behind to guard them.   Thinks Twice was still free for one, and though the tall Indian had turned coat on his chief’s adopted son, that didn’t presuppose that he might not join Rowse again.  Indians were like that.  Practical.  Expedient.

And when they wanted to be, deadly.

He was afraid for Hoss.  By now the big man had to be on their trail.  Hoss was the only one of them who was not in jeopardy and his prayer was that the Almighty would keep it that way.  Hopefully his middle son had run into Roy Coffee or maybe an army unit along the way and, together, they were riding to their rescue.  Ben looked at the sky.  It was still dark.  Any hope of finding Joseph would have wait for morning.

He had no idea how many hours that would be.

As his spirits sank, Ben felt someone touch his wrists and then he heard a blessed voice.

“Pa, it’s me.  Is Rowse around?  We can’t see him.”

We.  Hoss was not alone.

Thank God!

“Use your head to let me know, Pa.”

He shook it strongly.  No.

The big man stepped out of the leaves.  “Nathan,” he called, “come on out!  Rowse ain’t here.”

At that moment Ben understood what he had seen before – soldiers, moving through the thick leaves. The flickers of light had come from the moonlight striking their guns and uniforms.

“I got you, Pa,” Hoss said as his gag came loose.

Ben licked his lips.  The word came out as a croak. “Adam?”

Hoss had already moved to his older brother.  He had Adam’s chin in his hand.  “He’s half out of it, Pa.  Looks like he took a right hard hit to the head.”

“Medic?” he asked.  Clearing his throat, Ben tried again.  “Did you bring a medic?”

“Yes, we did, Ben,” Nathan Eastwind answered as he too stepped out of the trees.  “John is right behind me.”

The older man slumped with relief as the army doctor appeared.  There were two men behind him, bearing a hastily rigged travois.

Adam’s gag was out now too.  Typically, he was dissenting.  “I’m…fine, Pa.  I can ride….”

He pinned him with a dark stare.  “No, son.  No, you’re not.”

Adam wet his lips and winced as he tasted blood.  “Joe?  Hoss, where’s Joe?”

“I was about to ask that myself, big brother.”  The big man looked around.  When he didn’t see any sign of his youngest sibling, Hoss turned to him.  “Pa?”

It was a long story – too long for his sore throat and weary body to relate.  Ben fought a wave of dizziness as he replied.

“Lost.”

 

Rowse was playing cat and mouse with him.  Joe was sure of it.  The outlaw was fitter and faster than him.  He was just takin’ his time and wearin’ him down.  Already he suffered from several injuries.  A bullet had clipped the left side of his forehead.  He’d twisted his ankle when he slid down a muddy slope and it was swelling.  Worst of all, his arms were bleeding badly.  He’d had to use them instead of his hands to take hold of branches and pull himself up the ridge before him.  He was near the top of now.  Below him lay a sea of green, softly undulating with the wind that was blowin’ from the north.  Trees shifted and creaked in that cold wind, sounding like the masts of tall ships in a storm.

Joe didn’t know how long the pursuit had lasted so far.  At a guess he would have said six hours.  It had been late afternoon when he’d taken off running and he figured it was after midnight now.  The temperature had dropped with the setting of the sun and the late season sleet had turned into late season snow.  It was cold as blue blazes and he didn’t have anything between him and it but a lightweight shirt, a pair of trousers, and his boots.  He thought about his Pa and his brother tied to those two poles and hoped someone had found them.  Pa’d been putting up a good front, but the older man had looked like he was near the end of his rope.  He just hoped he didn’t get pneumonia from being exposed for so long.

Adam hadn’t looked good either.  His face was covered in blood and he’d been pale as paper.  Hoss needed to show up and take them home.

Joe closed his eyes.

Home.

He’d never see it again.

Never see his family.

Never see Bella again.

It made him sad to think of her grieving for him like he’d grieved for Laura.  He really didn’t want to put her through that kind of pain.  Still, Pa’d told him often enough that that was the price of love.  If you loved, you were bound to know pain and loss.  You, or the one you loved.

And he did love her.

Tears entered his eyes as Bella appeared before him, looking like an angel in the silver moonlight.  He watched as she reached out to him – saw her hand coming close to his own.  It vanished when he tried to catch it like dew on morning grass to reveal another figure standing there, looking down on him like he was God.

Rowse probably thought he was God.

Joe winced as the barrel of a rifle contacted his head.

Well, Mama, he thought.  Here I come.

 

“Little Joe’s gone and done what?” Hoss Cartwright demanded.

Nathan Eastwind turned toward him.  “He challenged my white brother.  It is the Indian way.”

“That don’t make no nevermind.  My little brother ain’t no Indian!”

“No, but Joseph understands the ways of the native.  He knew Many Kills would not be able to resist.  Your brother is a good runner, and able to cover his tracks?”

“He can cover his tracks, if Rowse plays fair.  As to how fast he could run, well, normally Little Joe could outrun a bee-stung stallion, but he ain’t exactly in the best shape.”

The soldier nodded.  “So we should expect to find him in Rowse’s hands.”

“I didn’t say that!”

Nathan met Hoss’ crystal blue stare.  “It is best to look at things as they are and not as we wish them to be.  Rowse will not kill your brother in a hurried fashion.  He will want to see him suffer.”  When the big man flinched, he added quickly, “You have to think of it in this way.  Joseph’s mistreatment will buy us time to rescue him.”

He knew from his Indian brothers that Ben Cartwright’s middle son was a gentle giant who cared for wounded and lost animals.  A man who could not bear to see others suffer.

Perhaps….

“Perhaps it would be best if you stay here and care for your brother and father while I seek Joseph.  Adam needs to be taken to a regular doctor for care, and from what I understand, it would be best to do the same with your father.”

Hoss shook his head.  “Bella’s taking care of that.  She’s helpin’ your Doc.”

“She does not insist on seeking the one she loves?” he asked, somewhat dubious.

“Nah.  She was right calm when she told me she’d stay with Pa and Adam.”

Nathan’s mind returned to Torie.  He had been missing once, after a battle, and she had been forbidden to seek him.  It did not stop her from doing so.

“How long is it since you’ve seen her?”

“Five minutes.  Maybe ten.  She said she needed her privacy and you know, well…”  The big man  looked embarrassed.  “…she’s a girl.”

Nathan stifled a sigh.  The Cartwrights, for all their combined knowledge, their multiple business dealings, and their social standing in Virginia City, sorely lacked in one detail.

Understanding women.

After asking Hoss to check the camp, the soldier took off at a clip, covering the ground between them and the doctor’s hastily pitched tent within seconds.  As he pulled the flap  aside, the regiment’s physician looked up at him.

“How are they?” Nathan asked, looking from one patient to the other.

The medic rose and came to the tent door.  Stepping out with him, he said, “Mister Cartwright is showing signs of pneumonia.  His son has taken a bad blow to the head.  Both men need to be out of this cold and in a warm place where they can recover, and they need to be there now.”

“Where is the young lady that was assisting you, John?”

“She said she had business to attend to,” the medic replied.

“Business?”

“Yes, I assumed it was something private.  She didn’t seem prone to explain.”

And being a gentleman John, of course, hadn’t pressed her.

As Hoss returned the big man asked him,  “Did you find her?”

Nathan shook his head.  “You?”

“No.”  Hoss frowned.  “You ain’t thinkin’ she went after Rowse and Joe?”

“That is exactly what I am thinking,” the soldier replied as he headed for his horse.

“How’d she know where to go?” he asked as he followed.

Nathan had mounted his horse.  He thought a moment before he replied.  “‘And though she be but little, she is fierce’,” he said.

Hoss was headed for his horse.  “What’s that?  You quotin’ someone?”

The soldier nodded.  “Shakespeare.  Never underestimate a woman in love.  Bella will lead us to the man she loves.  It is up to you and me to find her before she does something foolish.”

 

Joe groaned his way back to consciousness.   As he became aware, he tried to shift in order to ease the pain in his back, arms, and legs, but found he couldn’t.  He couldn’t stop the pain and he couldn’t move.

Not at all.

It took about everything that was in him to force his eyes open.  They were crusted with dirt and leftover tears, so he had to squint and blink several times to clear them.  What he saw puzzled him.  Sky.  Nothing but sky.  Black as onyx, still as a day without wind, with an overblown moon and brilliant diamond-white stars.  From the position of the moon he figured it was heading toward morning but, as of yet, there was no sign of the new day.

He had to be lying on his back.

Why was he lying on his back?

His answer came a moment later when that placid sky was disturbed like a lake is when a stone hits its still surface.  A face appeared above him, leering like one of those gargoyles on the castles in England he’d seen in his childhood picture books.

“So, sleepin’ beauty decided to wake up at last,” a familiar voice mocked.  “Sorry there wasn’t anyone to wake you with a kiss.”

Reality slammed into him.

He was lying on the ground.  His arms and legs were stretched as far as they could go and were fastened by leather thongs to pins driven into the dirt.  Joe lifted his head what little he could and looked along his body.  He had his lower long johns on, but that was it.  His chest was bare and his boots and socks were gone.

Come to think of it, he was freezing!

Rowse crouched beside him.  “You know, Cartwright, Red Pony and his Indians got it right.  Just shootin’ a man don’t do nothin’ for the one pullin’ the trigger, or the one gettin’ cut down.  This way we both get to see what you’re made of before you go.”

Joe opened his mouth to shout something back.  It was only then he realized he was gagged.

“You got a right smart mouth, boy.  I ain’t in a mood to listen to it.”  Rowse pulled at the strap on his wrist, making sure it was secure.  ‘Sides, we can’t have you callin’ out and lettin’ anyone know where we are.”

Where were they, he wondered?  He’d run so fast and so hard, he’d barely paid attention to the direction.  Joe turned his head as much to the left and right as the rope around his neck allowed.  Shadows loomed above him.  Raised platforms with long legs made of tree branches, holding up woven litters of leaves and bark.  Dangling from the litters were bits of old cloth, strips of weathered leather, feathers, and strands of beads.

And the occasional skeletal arm.

Rowse had doubled-back – or he had without knowing it.  They were somewhere in the Paiute graveyard.

What was it with the outlaw and this place?

“You know anythin’ about Indian torture, Cartwright?” Rowse asked as he checked the thong binding his leg on that side.  He spoke as casually as if he was inquiring whether he had read the latest edition of the Times.

Joe’s jaw grew tight.  He couldn’t answer, of course.

“Well, let me tell you then.  They’ve got it honed to a fine art.”  His captor rose from his side and went to stand at his feet.  He pointed down.  “You see this here fire?”

He looked.  Yes, he saw the fire, or rather, the beginnings of one.  Several pieces of wood had been tee-peed close to his right foot.

“You know what’s that for?” the outlaw asked.

What was this?  The man who meant to kill him, carryin’ on a one-sided conversation as if they were friends?  Joe wished more than anything he could tell the fiend to go to Hell.

Rowse produced a match and a piece of paper from his pocket.  He struck the match on a nearby rock and then set the paper on fire.  After that, he shoved the burning paper into the dry leaves and bracken beneath the wood and kindled the fire.

Immediately his bare foot felt warm.

“I figured your toes were gettin’ a might cold,” Rowse said. “Though I’d warm them up a bit for you.”

With a snort, the villain walked away.

For a moment, Joe wasn’t sure what was going on.  Then, as his foot grew warmer – and warmer – and his the bare skin of his sole rippled and tightened, he understood.  He’d heard of this torture before.  The Indians would bind a man spread-eagled and build a fire at one foot and let it burn until the captive lost all feeling in it.  Then they’d do it to the next foot, and then each of his hands, and then, when he was all but out of his head and screamin’ for someone to put him out of his misery….

Joe swallowed.

They’d build one on his naked chest and give him what he wanted.

A single tear ran down his cheek.  It wasn’t so much that he feared dyin’.  After all, he knew where he was goin’ and he knew his mama was waiting  there for him.  No, it wasn’t that.  It was the idea of his Pa and brothers finding what was left of him and livin’ the rest of their lives with the fact that they’d let it happen.

And for Bella who’d have to live with the memory of what they might have had.

Of what would now, never be.

NINETEEN

Bella knelt on the ground, her horse’s reins in her hand.  Her pa had taught her how to track and it hadn’t taken her long to pick up Joe’s trail.  In her minds’ eye she could see him running and running; his chest heaving hard as those muscled legs drove him forward.  Then he’d fall.  Then he’d get back up and run some more.  And always there was another set of boot prints laying over his.  Slow.  Steady.  Sure that the quarry they tracked wouldn’t get away.   She’d followed both sets up and into the hills.  She stooped on top of a rise now, her fingers tracing the indentations in the earth that told her Joe had fallen and not gotten back up.

Closing her eyes, she fought back tears and then stood.

At the edge of the rise, she found something new.  She knew Fleet Rowse had a horse.  He’d gotten on and off of it every so often to check the ground just like she was doing.  Now, he was riding it and had gone down the  hill.  The poor thing’s hoof prints were driven deeply into the soft earth.  It was carrying a lot of weight.

Carrying the outlaw and Joe.

Bella stood for a moment, allowing the cold breeze to stir her hair and drive it back from her face.  Mister Cartwright and the others were going to be furious with her.  Joe would be furious with her when she found him.  It didn’t matter.  She wasn’t going to wait in the army camp and worry and wonder when she could be on her feet and doing something.  The blonde woman closed her eyes against the image that rose before them of Rowse’s former treatment of Joe.  The outlaw’s hate had become the driving force in his life.  Nevermind he had enough money to go anywhere in the world he wanted.  He was here, on or near Ponderosa land, his single-minded goal to make Joe suffer and maybe kill him and his entire family as well.  Opening her eyes, Bella gazed down the hill that led back to the Paiute graveyard.

That was something she was not about to allow to happen.

On her way out of the camp she had ‘acquired’ a holstered pistol belonging to one of the soldiers.  The leather belt hung low on her hip, fastened over her dress.  She had never killed anyone – never even contemplated doing so – but if she had to….  If Rowse forced her….  Nothing would stop her from pulling the trigger to save Joe.

She loved him so much.

When she was little she had lost a friend.  Jennie had been swimming in the creek on day and drowned.  She’d asked her ma why God would let such a thing happen, and Ma’d told her that everything that happened was in God’s hands and intended for the good of those who loved him.  Jesus promised suffering for those who followed Him, and pain and grief were used to hone and refine those who belonged to Him.  From that time forward she’d looked over her shoulder, trusting God, but not trusting what He would do to make that plan work.  If God’s plan was for Joe Cartwright to die today, well….

Bella struck away tears.

Well, she’d better die too.

Moments later, returning to her horse, the blonde woman mounted and began to make her way down the hill, following the tracks Fleet Rowse’s heavily laden horse had left.

 

It was all Joe could do not to cry out.  It felt like the fire was eating away at his foot.  He knew in his head that the flames weren’t touchin’ him, but that didn’t matter.

He thought his skin was gonna split.

The thongs on his wrists and ankles held him so tightly he could barely move, but still he tried to writhe away from the blaze.  Underneath him the rocks cut into his bare back.  His neck muscles were cramped.  He felt like Hell.

But he refused to make a sound.

He refused to give the bastard who was torturing him any satisfaction.

“Bout done, Cartwright?” a sneering voice asked, breaking into the rhythm of breathing Joe was keepin’ up to deal with the pain.  A second later something struck his burned foot.  Pain shot through him, sucking that breath away and turning it – in spite of his best efforts – into a scream.

A long, blood-curdling, gag-muffled scream.

“Yep,” Rowse snorted.  “Think you’re done on that side.”

Joe nearly lost consciousness.  In fact, he wished he had.  He was panting now.  There were stars before his eyes.

He didn’t know how much he could bear.

As he felt the skin of his other foot start to warm, Joe realized he was about to find out.

 

Bella reined in her horse.  A chill ran through her.  There had been a sound – a horrible, inhuman noise.  It had come from the east.  She was in the graveyard now, on the far side opposite where the army camp was.  The wind was rushing, breathing cold down her back.  She figured the graveyard must have spanned at least a mile.  There was a chance the soldiers had heard it, but it was a slim one.  The sound had been a strange one, curiously muffled and not very loud.  As she dismounted and tethered her horse to a low tree branch, Bella listened, wondering if she would hear it again.  Instead, there was a voice.  Someone was speaking.  The voice was low and hard to hear, but she was pretty sure that’s what it was.

Drawing the pistol from her ‘borrowed’ holster, the blonde woman checked it to make sure it was loaded and then began to advance through the trees.  Her pa had taught her how to shoot well in spite of her ma’s protests.  She’d bagged deer before.  Bella swallowed hard.  Shooting a man couldn’t be that much different.

Could it?

 

Nathan Eastwind held out his hand, drawing Hoss Cartwright to a halt.  They were at the bottom of a hill.  Bella’s tracks, as well as Joseph’s and those of Many Kills, led up the hill.  They had been just about to climb it when he heard a sound.  It was nothing the soldier could distinguish.

He knew only that it did not belong.

The way they had come was the one Ben’s youngest had chosen in a desperate attempt to escape.  Joseph had run a straight line and then begun to dart left and right, most likely in a vain effort to throw the madman who pursued him off.  Many Kills would not be deterred.  His quarry was weak.  All he had to do was wait until that weakness wore him down and Joseph grew tired or careless or both.

Nathan wondered now if they should follow the tracks.  Where they led was not the path Many Kills desired, but the way Joseph had chosen.  If Hoss’ brother had been captured, his own white brother would have taken the young man where he willed, and he was certain that would be into the Paiute graveyard and to the place where Torie lay.

“What is it?” Hoss asked, his voice hushed.

“Did you hear that?” Nathan asked.

The big man shook his head.  “No.  Nothin’.”

Had he heard it then?  He was certain he had.

“You heard no sound of a creature in pain?  Low.  Muffled as if it came from an enclosure.”

“Or may someone with a gag in their mouth?”  Hoss narrowed his brilliant blue eyes and he growled.  “If Rowse’s done hurt that boy again, I’ll break him in half with my bare hands.”

Nathan nodded.

He had no problem with that.

“Did you hear anythin’ more?” Hoss asked.

The soldier shook his head.  “I would guess it to have come from the east.  The wind carried the sound away and not to my ears.”  He looked up the hill and then at Joseph’s brother.  “We have a choice to make.  Do we follow these tracks or head into that direction?”

The big man thought a moment. “You think Rowse’s got Joe in that graveyard, don’t ya?”

His dark eyes echoed the concern in his tone.  “Yes.”

Hoss nodded as he turned his horse’s nose back down the hill.

“Then what are we waitin’ for?”

 

Adam Cartwright was a very confused man.  He’d awakened in a tent to find his father next to him, pitching and tossing with fever.  At first he had thought there were at one of the camps and Pa must have taken ill.  Outside the tent he could hear the soft sound of men talking as if they didn’t want to wake anyone.  He wondered if that was Hoss and Joe, but then he remembered that Hoss was home and that he and Joe had set out to do….

Something stupid.

The black-haired man put a hand to his forehead and encountered a linen bandage.  It was wound around his head.  He frowned, which brought pain, and then he had a sudden burst of memory that brought pain so intense he wasn’t sure he could bear it.

Rowse.  That devil Rowse.

He had Joe!

Adam rose to his feet, thrust the tent flap back, and charged out of the tent.  He stopped for a moment, getting his bearings and then looked around the army camp.  It was full of soldiers some sleeping, others playing cards or resting.  To the left of where he stood were trees and open land.  To the right, about one hundred feet away, a sentinel leaned against a tree, watching for anyone trying to get into the camp.

Not for anyone trying to get out of it.

The man in black placed a hand to his head.  It was throbbing and his vision wasn’t quite clear.  He felt torn.  Behind him lay his father, obviously ill and in need of his attention.  But somewhere out there was his baby brother – the child he had practically reared – who was in the clutches of a madman bent on his destruction.

The only problem was, he didn’t know where.

Adam stepped back into the tent.  From its shadowy interior, he surveyed the camp.  He was near where the horses were tethered and, even though Scout and Buck were there, Chubb was not.  That meant his middle brother was on the move, seeking their youngest.  And if the army had come, he was guessing – though he had no clear memory of it – that Nathan Eastwind was with him.  Adam glanced again at his father.  The older man was softly moaning.  His exposed skin was bathed in sweat.  Though it was just about all he could bear accept, Adam came to the conclusion that he could do more good here.  Taking off into the night with no path to follow was sheer folly.  He’d probably end up hurting himself.  If someone had to come looking for him, that meant they couldn’t be looking for Joe.

Moving into the interior of the tent, Adam gingerly lowered himself to the ground beside his father’s sick bed.  There was a basin of water and a cloth on a low table.  He picked the cloth up, wet it, and placed it on his father’s forehead in an attempt to lower his rising fever.  As he did, he had a flash of someone doing the same thing to him.  Someone with small, gentle hands.  Someone who brushed his hair back and whispered that he would be all right.  A woman….

What was a woman doing in an army camp?

Adam sucked in air.

Dead God!

Bella.

 

No other sound had come, which worried her.  If the cry had been Joe’s, why was he silent now?

Bella took several deep breaths to calm herself.  Her Pa’d like to say that the Good Book told you not to borrow trouble.  ‘Let the days worries be enough for the day,’ he’d tell her whenever she got to worryin’ and frettin’ about those things she thought God might let happen.

Right now, she was terrified that the Almighty had let something happen to Joe.

The hand that held the army pistol shook.  She knew she had to keep control of it so she could shoot straight if it came to that.  Clenching her jaw, Bella concentrated on controlling her fear and stopping the shivers that shook her from head to toe as she advanced through the underbrush. The landscape before her was eerie.  The moon was full, and both high and bright.  Its silver light turned the forest’s browns and greens to a myriad shades of blue.  Underneath the trees were tall scaffolds made of branches and boughs, which were the resting places of the Paiute dead.  Here and there spears with feathers had been stuck into the ground.  There were cast-off possessions, left for the dead to use along there way – weathered drums and broken down looms, boards for carrying children, and other everyday items.  At the far end of the graveyard, near a tumbled pile of rocks, there was something else.

Light.

Bella sucked in air and held her breath as she moved forward.  The light flickered, so she assumed it was a fire.  A small one.  It did little to banish the darkness and wouldn’t have served to cook a meal, so she wondered what it was.  The blonde woman paid attention as her footsteps took her closer.  She couldn’t see anyone in the camp.  No one was standing or sitting by the fire.  Bella narrowed her eyes.  Maybe someone was laying on the ground.  Someone who was sleeping?  Someone…

She gasped.

It was Joe!

Holstering her gun, she made her way quickly to his side.  What she found when she knelt by him made her go cold.  Joe was half-naked and bound to the earth hand and foot by thongs tied to wooden pins that had been driven into the ground.  But worse than that, the fire she had seen had been built next to his left foot, which was bare.

She could smell flesh roasting.

Horrified, Bella struck out with her left hand, heedless of what the fire would do to it, and shoved the embers away from Joe’s foot.  As she did, she caught a glimpse of his other foot and realized the damage had already been done there.  Tears streamed down her face as she turned back to him.  Joe hadn’t moved.  He had in no way acknowledged she was there.  Steeling herself, she laid her throbbing hand on his chest.  His skin was so cold!  When she felt nothing, she lowered her head and placed her ear over his heart and listened.

It was beating.  Thin. Thready.

But there.

“Now ain’t that just about the sweetest thing I ever saw,” a man said, his tone laced with irony and menace.

Bella was on her feet in an instant.  A second later the gun was in her good hand.

“You get away from him, you bastard!” she shouted.

Fleet Rowse, the devil from her nightmares, sneered.  “You ain’t gonna shoot me, little lady. You ain’t got it in you.”

“Just you try me,” she replied, her jaw tense.

Rowse raised his hands.  “I ain’t armed.  Is shootin’ me and savin’ your boyfriend here, worth bein’ convicted of murder?”

With her injured hand, she steadied the gun.  Her finger was on the trigger.  Still, she hesitated.  Would it be murder?  Her eyes flicked to Joe and back.

If it was, it would be worth it.

“Like I said,” she answered, her tone matching his, “you just try me.”

Rowse stared at her a moment.  “You remind me of someone, you know?”

She shook her head.  “I don’t care.”

He turned toward a knee-high stone.  At first she thought it was natural, but then she realized it was a tombstone.  A white man’s tombstone in an Indian’s cemetery.

“That’s Torie,” he said.  “My little sister.  She had spunk just like you.”

“And you killed her for it,” she said, knowing it was true.

Rowse turned and faced her and what she saw was not a man but a demon.

“Yeah.  Just like I’m going to kill you.”

He’d lied.  He had on of those long coats on – the kind with a hole in the pocket and a pocket with a shotgun in it.  His hand was coming out, drawing the weapon, she had to….  Had to….

Bella’s finger closed on the trigger.  The gun went off.

Fleet Rowse went down.

 

Sometime later – she had no idea how long – strong hands fell on her shoulders, gripping her and turning her into the man’s embrace.  At the same time she felt a large presence push past her.  Whoever it was kicked the fallen gun from Fleet Rowse’s hand and then knelt to check his pulse.

“Is…is he…dead?” she asked, her voice as shaken as she was.

Hoss Cartwright rose to his feet.  “He’s roastin’ in Hell, just like he deserves,” the big man replied as he knelt at his brother’s side and tenderly cupped one of Joe’s blistered feet in his hands.

“Divine justice,” the man holding her said.

She looked up and realized it was Nathan Eastwind.  At the sight of the man, she burst into tears and began to shake uncontrollably.

“Hush.  You are safe,” he said.  “Your love for Joseph brought us here in time.”

Guilt racked her.  Joe…  Little Joe…  He should be the only thing that mattered.  But she couldn’t forget what she had done.

“I…killed him,” she sobbed into the soldier’s blue shirt.

“No,” Nathan said, cupping her chin in his hand and making her look up.  “My white brother died the day Red Pony took him as his son.  If peace is possible for Many Kills, you have brought it to him.”

Bella blinked back tears and looked at the ground.  Hoss was cutting the last of the rawhide strips that bound Joe to the earth – the one around his neck.  Joe’s flesh was raw beneath it.

“Joe…?” she asked.

Hoss was drawing off his coat.  He looked up at her.  His tear-streaked face echoed her own.

“Alive, Miss Bella.  That bastard done it again.”

She looked up at Nathan and he released her, knowing – somehow – what it was she needed to do.  She stepped over to Hoss and using the big man’s shoulder as an anchor, slipped to the ground beside him.  Once there she placed her good hand on Joe’s face and leaned in, softly calling him.

“Joe?  Joe, can you hear me?”  Her lips brushed his forehead.  “Joe?  It’s Bella.”

Hoss gently took hold of her shoulders and shifted her aside so he could reach his brother.  Gingerly, he  lifted Joe up and wrapped him in his huge warm coat.  Then he drew him into his arms and rose to his feet.

Again, Joe made no sound.  No moan or whimper escaped his lips.

Nathan had gone to his horse.  He returned with a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders.  She gave him a little smile.

“Thank you.”

“I’m takin’ Joe back to the camp.  That there medic of yours need to look at him right quick.”

The soldier nodded.  “You take my horse, Bella.  I will follow on foot.”

Her eyes flicked to Fleet Rowse where he lay on the ground.  She expected him to sit up at any minute.  She couldn’t believe that he was dead.

Or that she had killed him.

“Are you sure you will be all right alone?” she asked the half-blood soldier.

Nathan had turned away and was looking toward the white tombstone.

When he turned back to her, it was with tears streaming down his cheeks.

“I will not be alone.”

 

Adam ducked and left the hide tent his father lay within.  He, like the soldiers in the camp, had heard a shot.  The army men were standing at the far end of the camp.  Several will debating what they should do.  The wind was strong and it had been impossible to tell what direction the gunshot had come from.  It would be foolishness to set off into the night with no clear direction or purpose.

And yet everything that was within him longed to do just that.

Haltingly, still hampered by his own head wound, Adam made his way over to them.

“Mister Cartwright,” the most senior among them, a lieutenant named David, said.  “I trust you are feeling better.”

“Yes.”

The man’s eyes went to the tent.  “And your father?”

He sighed.  “About the same.  No better. The fever is fairly high.”  Adam paused, almost afraid to ask. “My brother?”

Davis nodded.  “Hoss went with Nathan to seek your youngest brother.  Of him, there is no word yet.”

“Lieutenant.”

It was one of the other men.  He was pointing.

Adam strained to see what it was the soldier had seen.  The night was brilliantly lit by the risen moon, but that bright light also cast deep shadows.  He saw movement.  Then he saw two horses..

Then he realized one was Chubb.

Adam moved forward, drawn by a force that knew no stopping.  Hoss wasn’t alone.  Before him, held in the circle of the big man’s arm, was a pitiful creature.  It was Joe – bare-chested beneath his middle brother’s big coat, his skin ashen; his dark curls a tangle of sweat and bracken from the forest floor.

Bella followed close behind.

As he reached the horse, Hoss looked down at him.  His middle brother’s face was a mask.  “You strong enough to take him, Adam?”  he asked.

The man in black nodded and then steeled himself.

He didn’t know if it was a live man or a corpse his brother had borne back to the camp.  As soon as Joe dropped into his arms, he had his answer.

He could feel his brother’s heart beating against his own.

“Good to see you up, older brother,” the big man said as his eyes went to the medic’s tent.  “Pa?”

He failed to hide his scowl.  “Sick.  Probably pneumonia.  We’ve got two wounded.”

The big man slid from his saddle.  As he moved toward Bella, he inclined his head toward their little brother, “You best put Joe in with Pa.”

“What did Rowse do to him?” he asked, looking down at Joe’s pale countenance.

Hoss gave a small shake of his head.  He had his arms around Bella’s waist and was lowering her to the ground.  As her feet touched, he shifted his hands to her shoulders and held her up.

“How are you doin’, Bella?  You okay to walk?”

The blonde woman looked at him, then she looked at Joe, and then she crumpled.  Hoss caught her before she hit the ground.

As he lifted her up into his arms, the big man said, “Looks like we gotta make that three.”

 

Nathan Eastwind stood in the Paiute’s holy place, his head bowed and his hat in his hands.  Before him lay the grave of Fleet Rowse’s little sister and his wife.  Buried with her, was the child he had never known.  The soldier stood a moment with the wind blowing his hair, and then knelt and placed his hand on the cold hard rock.  Behind him the corpse of Torie’s killer lay growing stiff and cold.  If not for the fact that they would need to prove Rowse dead, he would leave it there to be desecrated by the creatures who walked the wild night.  The madman who had been his white brother deserved no better.

And yet….

Many years ago Fleet Rowse had been an innocent boy, like Thom Parrish, who was still missing.  A teenage boy abruptly taken from his family and the life he had known, proselytized and indoctrinated into one where life had little worth – turned into a monster by another monster who thrived on the death of the white men he claimed had come to conquer and destroy.

An eye for an eye.  A tooth for a tooth.

Where did it end?

Nathan sighed as he fell to his knees before the stone, wracked with grief not only for the loss of his beloved and the baby she’d carried, but for the brother he might have had but never knew.  He wondered what Red Pony would feel when he found out.  From the little he had seen, he would spit on the memory of the man he had called ‘son’, just as he spit on the memory of the one who was his son.  Fleet had been beaten.  A warrior was never beaten.

There was no excuse.  But there were reasons.

Nathan remained with a hand anchored to the stone for some time, remembering his wife’s gentle touch and her loving smile, and then he rose to his feet and turned his back.

He would never come here again.

 

He and Adam had been shooed out of the medic’s tent.  Hoss had tried to fight it, but only ‘cause he felt he had too.  He knew he wouldn’t win.  He’d been through this too many times with Doc Martin.  Next to God, a doctor was the only one had the power to get things done the way he wanted.  You were always afeared that if you didn’t do as he said, then you’d be responsible when someone…

Died.

A hand on his shoulder made him look up.  When his eyes met those of his big brother’s, Hoss felt a little better.  Adam was here.  Adam was the oldest.

It wasn’t all on him.

“How’s short shanks doin’?” he asked, almost afraid of the answer.

“The medic said Joe is holding his own.”  Adam made a face.  “He bandaged his feet.  There wasn’t much else he could do other than put a salve on them.”  Older brother’s jaw grew tight.  “What kind of an animal –”

“That ain’t fair to animals, Adam.  Rowse is – was, a man.  It’s men what are evil.”

His brother nodded.

“What about Pa?”

“About the same.  Holding his own.  He’s…pretty sick.  The doctor wants to get them both back to the housee as soon as possible.  Bella too.”

“How’s that little gal holdin’ up?  How’s her hand?”

His brother looked toward the tent.  “The hand is bandaged and as to how she is doing, I would say as well as can be expected.  She won’t leave Joe’s side.  She’s….”

“What?”

“Quiet.”  Adam sighed.  “Too quiet.”

“What’s that mean?”

His brother met his gaze, his own troubled.  “Bella killed a man.  No matter who or what Rowse was – or what he had done – you know as well as I do, that does something to one’s soul.”

The big man nodded.  “You talked to her?”

“I tried.  She wouldn’t listen.  She’s hell-bent on taking care of Joe and Pa and I guess we should let her. There will be time later to deal with her wounds.”

Hoss rose to his feet.  He nodded toward the east and watched as his brother turned.  Nathan Eastwind had just entered the camp.  The big man waited until the soldier was at their side to speak.

“Did you bring Rowse’s body in?” he asked.

Nathan nodded.  “Yes.  It is slung over my horse.”

“I’m sorry,” Adam said, expressing it for both of them.  “He was evil, but I know he was your brother.”

The soldier glanced at the horse on which the body was tethered.  “Many Kills died many years ago.  I honor the boy he was as much as I dishonor the man he became.”

“Will you take him back to Red Pony?” Hoss asked.

“There are other crimes than this for which Many Kills owes.  My men and I will take him to the fort where they may be accounted for by his death.”  Nathan was thoughtful for a moment.  “But first we must see your family home.  Does the doctor say they are well enough to travel?”

“He’s not happy about it,” Adam answered, “but he wants Joe and Pa out of the cold and he wants Doc Martin to see them as soon as possible.”

“We will start at dawn then.  I will talk to John and see what is needed for transport.”

Hoss caught the soldier’s arm.  “Is there anything we can do for you?”

The native’s lips curled in a sad smile.

“You can mourn for what might have been.”

 

TWENTY

Ben Cartwright shifted and opened his eyes.  He couldn’t remember ever feeling quite as weak as he felt now.   The morning light was streaming in the window, which was cracked to let in the fresh air.  The room was hot and smelled of sickness.

It took him a moment to realize it was he who had been sick.

As his mind cleared, the older man became aware of the fact that he was lying in bed and his nightclothes were soaked through.  He could hear voices outside the room.  Someone was yelling out something in a foreign language.  Hop Sing.  That would be Hop Sing.

He must be home.

After blinking several times to clear his vision, Ben shifted again, this time turning toward the window.  A woman’s slight form was silhouetted there, her profile cast against the rising light.  As she shifted he saw that she had golden-blond hair, which was swept up high on her head, and was dressed in a pale blue gown.

He raised a hand – or at least he tried to – and called out, “Marie?”

The woman started at the sound.  She hurried over to his side and caught his hand in her own.  “Ben.  You’re awake!”

The name was right, but the voice was wrong.  He frowned.  “Marie?”

She shook her head.  “No.  It’s Bella.”

Bella.

Joe’s Bella.

His heartbeat quickened.  Joe.  There was something about Joe.  The older man fought hard against the fog that enveloped him.  Joe.  What about Joe?   Why was it thinking about his youngest son brought him pain?

He tried to get up – and failed miserably.  As Bella placed a hand on his chest to keep him down, he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper, “Joseph?”

“Joe’s alive,” Bella said softly as she wrung out a cloth and placed it on his forehead.  “He’s in his room.”

He swallowed.  His throat was dry.  So were his lips.  “All…right?”

The young woman tried to hide her concern, but she failed miserably.

“He’s getting better.  Joe’s been sick, just like you.”

“Better.”

“Yes.”  Her hand  brushed his cheek.  “Your fever’s broken at last.  You need to get some rest.”

“No,” he breathed.  “Need to see Joe.”

Bella’s white teeth gnawed her lip.  “I know.  I wish I could let you, but Doctor Martin –”

“Doctor Martin says ‘no.’”

Ben turned his head slightly.  A familiar form filled the open doorway.

“Good to see you awake, old friend,” Paul said as he came to the bed and took a seat beside him.  “You gave us all quite a scare.”

He wet his lips.  “Sorry.”

The doctor laughed.  “You Cartwrights.  You have plenty to apologize for, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why you think being sick is one of them!”

“How is Joe?” Bella asked.  “Can I go sit with him?”

Paul nodded.  “I’m done in there for the moment.  He’s sleeping – normally at last.  See to it you don’t wake him.”

The girl nodded and then hastened out of the room.  As soon as she did, Paul pulled back his covers and opened his shirt to reveal his chest.  Then he placed a stethoscope against it.  After a moment, the doctor sat back with a satisfied smile.

“The congestion is breaking up at last.”  His friend shook his head.  “You’ve been a sick man, Ben.  You should thank the Almighty that you are still with us.”

He remembered very little.  Going outside to cut wood.  Being taken by Rowse.  Adam coming to get him.  Joseph.

Joseph.

“Paul….?”

“Save your breath, Ben.  I know what you want me to say and you know I can’t say it.  Joe is a strong young man, but he has been pushed to the limit.  First the hold-up on the stage, and then the continual torment Fleet Rowse inflicted on him.”

“How…bad?”

“Standard for your youngest,” he answered with a small smile.  “Let’s just be grateful Joe’s better and let it go at that for now.”

He seemed to remember his oldest son being hurt as well, but wasn’t sure.  “Adam?”

“I’m fine, Pa.”

Ben turned to find his first son standing just inside the room.  He raised a hand.  As Adam came to take it, the man in black asked the doctor, “How is he, Paul?”

“On the road to recovery.”

“Hop Sing has some fresh coffee in the kitchen.  You look like you could use it,” Adam said as he came to stand beside the other man.  “I’ll take over here for a while.  Bella’s with Joe.”

“That young lady!” the doctor remarked with a shake of his head.  “She should be in bed as well.”

His son snorted.  “She’s about as easy to direct as a wild mustang.”

“Don’t I know it!”  Paul said as he headed for the door.  “She’s a good match for Joe, Ben.  Piss and vinegar. That’s what they’re both made of.”

For the first time since he’d awakened, Ben relaxed.

Paul expected Joe to make it.

As the door closed behind the doctor, Adam took the cloth from his forehead.  He dipped it in the cool water and rang it out, and then returned it to its former place.

“How are you feeling, Pa?”

“I could use…some water.”

“Of course!”  Adam poured it for him and helped him drink before settling back in the chair.  “Sorry.”

He wearily shook his head.  “Nothing to…apologize for.”  Ben drew in a breath and coughed.  The action hurt his sides.  “Tell me…what happened.”

Adam nodded.  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Rowse…hitting you.”

His son reached for his head.  There was no bandage, but Ben could see an angry red line running down his boy’s forehead from his scalp.

“Joe ran the gauntlet, so to speak.  He thought it was the only way he might escape Rowse.  After they took off, the army found you and me.  We were both wounded, so their medic cared for us.”

“Joseph?”

“Rowse…tortured him, Pa.  Joe’s feet are badly burned.  We’re lucky Hoss and Nathan got there when they did.  His hands would have been next.”

Ben closed his eyes against the image of his beautiful boy being roasted like a piece of meat.

“All right?”

“Paul says he will be…in time.”

The older man thought of the woman who had wakened him. “Bella?”

His son pursed his lips and paused, as if choosing what to say.  “She killed Rowse, Pa.  Bella saved Joe’s life.”

“Killed him?”

Adam nodded.  “I’m afraid so.”

“Is she…all right?”

Again, his son hesitated.  “I’m sure she will be.”

Ben remembered the first time he had been forced to take the life of another.  It had been self-defense.  In a way he carried the man with him still.

“Sorry….”  He was growing fatigued.  The words were coming harder.

“She’ll heal, Pa,” Adam said as he squeezed his arm.  “We just have to give time, time.”

Ben nodded.  His own words.

And then he went to sleep.

 

Joe heard the door open and close.  He’d only just awakened and found the room empty.  He’d been in and out for some time, aware of the birdsong outside his window and the breeze making his curtains billow; conscious of the sunshine streamin’ in that told him not only was it late morning, but that spring had finally come.  The wind, when it struck him, was warm.  It eased the chill he felt without banishing it.  He knew the feeling.  He’d just come out of a fever, and probably a bad one.

One more time Joseph Frances Cartwright had beat the odds.

The first time he’d wakened it had been to the sound of Adam’s voice, and then Doc Martin’s.  He’d pretended to be asleep while the doctor examined him, not feeling up to answerin’ any questions.  And then he’d really fallen asleep.  This time when he woke up, someone was moving around the room.  He could hear her skirts swishing.  He knew that earlier – while he’d been sick – he’d thought that she was his ma.  But it wasn’t his ma.

It was Bella.

She was with him and she was alive.

Bella was alive!

“Hey, sleepy head,” her beloved voice said as the swishing grew closer.  Bella’s lithe form leaned over him and he felt her lips, warm, on his cool forehead.  As she sat down beside him, she said, “Your fever’s gone.  Let’s hope it’s for good this time.”

Something in her voice told him.  “I’ve….”  He cleared his throat.  “I’ve had more than one, haven’t I?”

That little nod of her head told him a lot.  “Yes.  Three.  Every time one broke, we thought that was the end.  Then it would come again.  The infection….”  She stopped as if she had said too much.

“Infection?”

Bella sucked in a little breath and let it out.  “Your feet.  The burns….”

And it all came back.  Fleet Rowse pursuing him.  That devil catching him.  Being struck with a rifle butt and slung over the outlaw’s saddle half-dead.  Feeling Rowse’s hands pulling him off it and tossing him to the ground like a sack of meal.  Having his hands and feet and neck strapped to pins driven in the ground.  And the fires….

God, the fires!

Bella’s hands were on his chest.  “Doctor Martin said you mustn’t become agitated.  I shouldn’t have said anything.”

He was breathing hard.  Sweat beaded on his brow.  “My feet?  Are they….?”

“Burned.  Badly.  But they’ll be all right in time,” she assured him.  “They’ll heal.  Joe, they’ll heal!”

He’d sat up.  He leaned back against the pillows now, slightly ashamed.  “I’m sorry.   I just….”  Joe scowled, not sure of what to say.  “I just didn’t want to spend my life…lamed.”

She reached out and pushed an errant curl away from his eyes.  “I know.”

Joe looked at her.  Bella’s eyes were ringed in dark shadows.  Her color was pale and she seemed…sad?  He noticed her bandaged hand and wondered what had happened.  Gripping the fingers of her other one, he asked, “How are you?  Really.”

Her lips quirked at the ends.  “I’m fine,” she said with a little shrug.

“Oh, dear, it’s catching,” someone said.  They both turned to find Adam standing in the doorway.  His brother looked pale, but otherwise okay.  “Pa’s asleep.  Paul wants you to get some rest too, Bella.”  When she started to protest, he added softly, “Doctor’s orders.”

He saw her resist, think about fighting, and then give in.

“I could use some coffee,” she said.  “I smelled it brewing.”

“You go.  I’ll stay.”

Bella smiled at him.  “Is that okay with you, Joe?”

He nodded.  “Go. Get some rest.  I’ll be here when you come back.”

She stood and then leaned over and kissed him again, this time on the lips.  “I’ll be back soon.”

He and Adam watched her leave and then he asked his older brother. “What’s wrong with her?”

Adam pursed his lips.  “Bella killed Rowse, Joe.  She shot him.”

His eyebrows peeked toward the tangled curls on his forehead.  “She what?”

“She shot him.  Bella saved your life, Joe.”

He was silent for a moment.  “Again,” he said.

Adam laughed.  “You seem to need it about once a month.”

It was a joke, but it fell flat.  In many ways it was true.

“You think she’s sorry she did it?” he asked at last.

“No.  She certainly doesn’t regret saving you.  But,” his brother paused, considering his words, “I think Bella is having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that she took a life.”

Joe nodded.  He remembered the first time he had to kill a man.  Even when it was to save your own life, it was hard.  It changed you.

Forever.

“You think she’s gonna be all right?”

Adam reached over and squeezed his arm.  “Give her some room, Joe.  She’ll come to acceptance of it in her own time.”

Joe leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes.

He wondered just how long that would take.

 

It had been three days since he’d wakened and Ben was downstairs and in his favorite chair for the first time.  Hoss had helped him to make it down the stairs and Paul said he could sit there for a few hours – and a few hours only.  Hop Sing had run to bring him everything he needed – a glass of brandy, a footstool, his pipe – and he had stoked the fire to keep him from catching a chill.  Bella had come down a few minutes before, stating that Joseph was finally asleep.  His son was mending, but it was tricky going with his feet.  Joe’s pain had intensified as they began to heal to such a point Paul had been forced to prescribe Laudanum.  Bella rarely left his son’s side, so it was a surprise that she had chosen to sit with him now in the great room.  She’d been reading, but slowly had lowered the book to her lap.  Abandoning any pretense at the past time, she had given up and was staring into the fire.

The poor girl looked worn out.

Resting his hand on the book he’d been reading, Ben asked, “How are you, Bella?”

She turned a pale face to him and smiled.  “I’m fine.  It makes me happy to see you out of bed.”

He heard the unspoken end to that sentence.  “It won’t be long until Joseph can leave his bed too,” he said softly.

Paul had told them to keep Joseph confined until the end of the week, which was three days away.

They might make it.

“Fine,” he repeated.  “And what exactly does that mean?”

The girl frowned.  “What do you mean, ‘what does that mean’?”

“Well, lets see,” he replied.  “Joseph’s ‘fine’ has covered everything from emotional trauma to him being wounded and not telling anyone.  I hope you are not hiding anything.”

Her frown deepened.  Then, she came out with it.  “Have you ever killed anyone, Ben?”

He nodded.  “Yes.  Regrettably.”

Bella’s jaw was tight and so were her fingers.  They formed small fists.  “That man was so evil.  He deserved to die!  Why can’t I….  Why can’t I accept that?  Why do I feel….”  Bella stopped.  Tears rolled down her cheeks.  “Why do I feel I am no better than him?”

Ben wanted to rise.  He really didn’t have the strength and so he beckoned her over to his side.  When she arrived, her drew her close and indicated she should sit on the footstool Adam had drawn up to the chair for him to use.

“Bella, do you trust me?” the older man asked.

She nodded.

“Do you think what you did was murder?”

The girl shivered.  Tears entered her eyes as she nodded.  “I killed him.  I…shot him before he could get his gun out.  I….”

“He had a gun.”

“Yes.  But….”

“Bella, what you did was in self-defense.  Any judge or jury would rule it that.”  Ben paused, thinking of what else to say .  “Do you believe in what the Bible says?”

She nodded – and sniffed.

“In Luke, the Bible tells us, ‘When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace.’  Yes?”

Her blue eyes were fastened on his face.  “Yes.”

“You saved Joseph’s life, and most likely the lives of countless others that monster would have killed if he had lived.”

Bella remained silent.

“Do you understand?”

After a moment she nodded.  Then she asked, “How did your wife…?”

“How did my wife what?”  He assumed she meant Joe’s mother.

“How did she…stand it?  Ma and Pa and I, we’ve been living in a city. Things are hard, but not like….”  She drew a deep breath.  “Not like it is here.”

“On the frontier, you mean?”

She nodded.

Ben leaned forward and took her hands in his own.  “I know, Bella.  At times it seems that everything that is not you that is here, is out to kill you.  The West is a harsh mistress.  It is raw and rough and barely formed, but it is also beautiful.  If you give to it, it gives back –often a hundred fold.”

She was looking at her hands.  “It’s very demanding.”

“Yes, it is.”  He paused.  “Is this about Joseph?”

The girl started as if guilty.  “Ben, I love him so much….”

“But?”

“I’m afraid….  I don’t know….”  Bella looked up at him, tears in her eyes.  “I don’t know if I am strong enough to love him when….”

“When any moment, any day, he might be hurt – or die.”

She nodded.  “I know life is uncertain, but, well, here, it seems so much more so.”

He reached out to cup her face in his hand.  Looking at her, he realized just how young she was.  “Have you talked this over with Joe?”

Bella shook her head.  “He’s not well….”

“He’s well enough.”  He released her.  “Talk to him.  Tell him how you feel.”  Ben paused.  “Only the two of you can deal with this.”

The girl’s giant blue eyes fastened on him.  “I do love him.”

Ben nodded.  He knew she did.

But sometimes, love was simply not enough.

 

Bella sat at the side of Joe’s sickbed, looking at him.  The noon light was streaming in the open window and it gloried in the spiraling curls of his hair, turning them from brown to gold.  He was sleeping and his long black eyelashes lay on his cheeks in stark contrast to his too-pale skin.  It had been nearly two weeks and his feet were healing, as were the other wounds he had suffered at Fleet Rowse’s hands.  She’d traced the path of Rowse’s anger as it was written on his wrists and ankles with her finger and as she did, was so overwhelmed with emotion that she wanted to run from the room.

She felt like a coward.

As she rose to leave, she felt fingers touch her hand.

Joe licked his lips and then asked, “Where…you going?”

Bella smiled.  “Nowhere.”

To her surprise, he shifted and righted himself against the pillows.  “For now,” he said.  “But you are going.  Aren’t you?”

She hung her head.  How could she explain why when she didn’t know herself?

“It’s all right.  I understand.”

“How can you?” she snapped.  “When I don’t?”

Joe’s fingers found hers.  His precious lips curled in a slight smile.  “Now, I don’t want you to take my head off.  Okay?”

Her jaw was tight.  Of course, that’s because she was fighting back tears.  “Okay.”

“You’re awful young, you know?  It’s all right to be scared.”

“I’m not scared –”

“Yes, you are.”  He paused.  “You forget I was eighteen once too.”

“And you are ancient now, I suppose?”

His head pressed back into the pillows.  “There are times I feel like it.”  Joe looked at her and then he asked, “Is it okay if I tell you something that might hurt you?”

She had to think about it.  Finally, she nodded.

“There was this woman.  I loved her.”  Joe paused.  “I was only eighteen and she was in her thirties.  Her name was Julia.”

Bella frowned.  She supposed she knew he’d loved other women, but it did hurt to hear Joe say it.  “And?”

“She died.”  He drew in a breath.  “Julia was murdered.”

Tears entered her eyes.  “Oh, how awful!”

He nodded.  “Yeah, it was awful all right.”  Joe squeezed her fingers.  “After she died, I vowed I would never love again.  It was…too hard.  Loving and losing.”

“I don’t know what you mean –”

“Come on now, Bella.  We don’t lie to each other.  You’re feelin’ the same way, aren’t you?  That you can’t stand to love me because you might lose me?”  He grinned.  “Heck knows how close I’ve come to dyin’ and how many times since I met you.”

Her lips quirked.  “You are kind of accident prone.”

He snorted.  “Kind of?  Just ask my brothers.”

Bella looked down.  She began to pick at her dress like she was looking at the fabric in an attempt to hide her tears.

She failed.

“You want to go home, don’t you?”

Home.

Contained in that one word was sanctuary and security.

When she didn’t answer, Joe prompted.  “Bella?”

As tears slipped from her eyes, she asked him. “Do you hate me?”  When he said nothing, she looked up, terrified of what she would see in his eyes.

All she saw was love.

“Heck no.  I love you Bella.  I always will.  And whether it’s as the woman I want to marry or as my best friend and little sister, it’s enough.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She was so torn.  She wanted to be with him but, she was afraid to be with him.  She was afraid of her feelings – of loving someone so much that she knew she would die if something happened to him.

As more tears fell, she said, “Oh, Joe, what are we going to do?”

He waited a moment and then said, “Go over to my dresser.  You see that little box there.  Will you bring it to me?”

She looked and saw it, and then looked back at him. “Why?”

“Just do it.  Okay?”

Puzzled, she rose and went to get it.  Upon returning to his bedside, she went to hand it to him, but he refused.

“You open it.  Show me what’s inside.”

Bella frowned but did as she was told.  When she saw what was in it, she gave a little gasp.

It was the silver paper ring she had sent him in her last letter.

“Hoss kept it for me,” he explained.  “Your letter got torn and he read it.  He put the ring in his pocket when they took off to find out what had happened to the stage coach.  He found it there later and tucked it away in the drawer of the table in his room.”

She was staring at it. “When did he give it to you?”

“Last night.”  Joe smiled as he took the ring from her.  “I think he thought we might be needing to pledge somethin’ to each other.”

Bella blinked back tears.  “Like what?”

Joe reached out and slid the ring on her finger.  “Well, now, how about in four or five years we check back in on how we feel?”  That smile that she loved so much lit his face, bringing life and color back into it.  “Who knows?  By then, you  might have another feller.”

She didn’t know what to say.  She didn’t know how to let him go, but she did know that she wasn’t ready to marry him and to commit to the life she would lead if she was Mrs. Joseph Cartwright.

Reaching out, Bella touched his face.  Her fingers slipped into his hair.

“I love you, little brother,” she whispered.

He caught her hand and drew her onto the bed next to him where he circled her with his arms.

“Big sister,” he said as he laid his chin on top of her head.  “I love you too.”

 

———END———

 

Next Story in the Wet Bottom, Warm Heart Series:

Doubt that the Stars are Fire
An Unspeakable Dawn

 

Tags:  Ben Cartwright, Family, Hop Sing, Hoss Cartwright, JAM, Joe / Little Joe Cartwright, JPM, revenge, Roy Coffee, SJS