PART THREE

NINE

It was six o’clock before Ben saw his son Joseph again.

Apparently whatever had passed between Joseph and Jamie had worn them both out.  Leaving Bella and her young brother with their unexpected guest, he’d gone upstairs and found Joseph asleep in the chair by the boy’s bed.  Waking him, he had gently – and adamantly – suggested he return to his current room.  For once his son had not fought him and, after depositing Joseph on the feather tick and tucking him in like he had when he was a child, Ben had sat by his bed for a short while and they’d talked.

Joe insisted on apologizing for just about everything he’d done and said in the last seven months.  He hid it to some extent, but his son felt deep shame for his erratic and at times unkind behavior.  He said he’d had time to think about it and he thought Doc Martin was right about the pills.  Joseph had gone to Doctor Brandon in order to hide the fact that he was going to anyone, knowing neither he nor anyone else at the Ponderosa would have any knowledge of the Carson City physician’s actions.  Joe said Doctor Brandon was a kind man and had helped him.  For a time they had just talked during his appointments, but when the deep melancholia had refused to lift, the doctor had prescribed the Blue Mass pills.  Joseph said that, at first, they seemed to help.  He wasn’t so miserable or cheerless.  But then the anger began.  He’d been able to control it for the most part until the month before when the doctor had doubled the dose.

Joe said he had never felt so out of control, not even on the night Alice died.

They had brushed on the subject of Bella’s visit briefly.  Joe commented that he was happy to see her, but he hoped she didn’t think they could take up where they had left off eight years before.  He said he was through with that.  He confirmed that he was going to stay a bachelor for the rest of his life.

In other words his fearless, daring, devil-may-care son was scared.  Scared to love again.  Scared to lose again.

Fortunately, that was something Ben knew all about.  What his son needed was a helping hand in the right direction.

Well, maybe a push.

Ben shifted in his seat and looked down the table at the figures arrayed on either side.  To his left sat Bella.  Firmly planted between her and Rafe Ashton, who held the place of honor opposite him, was her brother Benjamin.  He really liked the boy and hoped to spend more time with him.  In many ways Benjamin reminded him of Levi Carnaby.  Life had dealt a hard hand to that Carnabys when their father was laid low.  He’d been talking to Benjamin about it and they had a plan.  He was going to try to talk the family into returning to Virginia City.  That way Bella would be near, and he and the boys could lend Levi and Mary a hand.  From what Benjamin said Bella’s father was better.  It was his hope the man could do enough to satisfy his pride while still accepting their help.

Ben shifted back in his seat.  His eyes went to his son Joseph where he was seated to his right as he had been for more than thirty years now.  Joseph had made the slow descent down the stairs to join them for the first time since the accident.  Doctor Martin arrived late in the day and had gone up to see both his boys.  The physician put Joe’s left arm in a sling, more to remind him to protect his injured shoulder than for any other reason.  Joseph looked brighter than he had for some time, but he was still far from himself.  His son was quiet.  Very quiet.  Now and again his eyes would flick to Bella who sat opposite him, but they never lingered long.  Joseph didn’t enter into the conversation.  In truth, he couldn’t really blame him.

Rafe Ashton seemed to be the only one talking and it was mostly about himself.

A smile tickled Ben’s lips.  He remembered his foreman’s keen assessment of the man.  Candy had used a single word.

Jackass.

Not exactly a polite description but, from what he had observed so far, completely apropos.

Up until now the most amusing moment of the evening had come when Hop Sing emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray of steaming food intended for Jamie.  Rafe had made a remark, not exactly disparaging, but it was obvious the man from the city had a dislike for the Chinese.  Hop Sing bowed deeply as he passed their guest and let loose a long string of Cantonese ending with, ‘Special blessing for honored guest.’  He heard Joseph snicker.  The youngest of his three, of course, knew more Chinese than the rest of them and so he had leaned in and asked Joe what it meant.

“Old Chinese proverb, Pa,” Joseph had whispered.  “Arguing with a fool is like playing chess with a pigeon.  No matter how good you are, the bird is going to take a crap on the board and strut around like it won anyway.”

He nearly blew soup out of his nose.

Ben listened a moment to their guest as Rafe regaled his captive audience once again, making sure to point up his wealth and attributes.  When the man from the city came up for air, he managed to get in.  “I’ve asked Hop Sing to hold the dessert until a little later.  Why don’t we retire to the great room for a brandy?”

As he awaited his answer, Ben’s eyes locked with Bella’s.  She had that look – the one a drowning woman has when she’s about to go under for the last time.

Ben put his napkin down.  As he rose, he remarked quite casually, “Joe, I’ve missed your expert advice.  I have some concerns about which of the shipping lines we should employ to use to move our timber for the army job.  Perhaps you could take a look at it.”

Joseph gave him about as blank a look as he had ever seen.  “Sure, Pa….”

“Mister Cartwright.”

Ah, here it came.

With a slightly puzzled look, Ben turned to Rafe.  “Yes?”

Rafe stood tall, his back erect; his spine stiff.  He wondered for a moment if the man had army training, but then decided if he had it must have been at some boy’s school as there was no hint of the common sense of a soldier about him.  Bella’s brother-in-law had changed his clothes – insisting they burn the ruined ones – and was now wearing an elegant black dots on gray velvet smoking jacket with a wine-colored satin puff tie and a pair of black trousers.  Everything about the man dripped self-conceit – or maybe more accurately, self-doubt.  It puzzled him.  Both Michael and Maynard Ashton had been, from what he remembered, pleasant secure men.  Perhaps it was because Rafe was the youngest.

He knew from his own son just how hard it was for the one at the tail end to prove himself.

“As I have a great deal of experience in the shipping business, perhaps I could lend you hand,”

Rafe suggested.

Joseph was still sitting at the table.  Rafe’s back was to him.   As his son realized what he was doing, his eyebrows danced and he smiled.  Ben smiled too.

The curly-haired man rose slowly and came to stand beside him.  “You know,” Joe said, facing Rafe, “facts and figures have never been my strong suit.  I’m sure Pa would benefit from your expertise.”

If it was possible for Rafe’s chest to puff out any farther, it did.  Ben was sure, at last, that it had reached its limits.

Joseph ran a hand through his hair, trying to tame the tangled silver-gray mass and failing.  “I think I’ll just go out to the barn, Pa.  I’d like to see Cochise.  He’s an old friend and I’ve been neglecting him.”

A sign of life, he thought.

At last.

“You go ahead.  Rafe and I will spend a half hour or so on the books and then we’ll have desert.”

Bella was watching the three of them and frowning.  He could tell she knew he was up to something.  Ben cleared his throat, scratched his chin, and inclined his head toward Joseph who was struggling to pull his coat on over his wounded shoulder.  For a moment, her frown deepened.  Then Bella grinned and nodded.

Hop Sing reappeared at the precise moment he needed him – as usual.  The Chinese man had been observing their interaction.  After glancing at Joseph who was walking out the door, Hop Sing went to Bella and asked, “Missy Bella go with Hop Sing into kitchen?  Help get dessert ready?”

Bella’s eyes were still on him.  Ben nodded, imperceptibly.

When he had first met her, Bella Carnaby had been a little girl with imps in her eyes.

They were back.

“I would love to, Hop Sing!” she exclaimed.  “You two take your time, Mister Ben.  I am sure you will be amazed by the knowledge Rafe possesses.”

He’d been wrong.  The man was capable of puffing his chest out even further.

As Ben turned toward his desk, he breathed a sigh of relief.  For a moment there, he’d thought Bella wasn’t going to figure it out.

Apparently she had forgotten the kitchen had its own door.

Joe was still grumbling as he entered the barn.  Just pulling his coat on had about done him in.  He was kind of surprised his pa had even let him attempt it – and didn’t rush over to help!  Joe’s lips twisted in a wry grin.  Probably because that fancy Dan was in the room.

Pa would have known he wouldn’t have wanted to appear weak in front of Rafe.

The smile didn’t fade as he thought of his father.  It didn’t matter whether it was Jamie at seventeen or him, over thirty, Pa still ruled the Ponderosa roost.  He gave the orders and all of them jumped. Maybe it was some kind of character flaw in him that he didn’t exert himself more and insist on his own way.  When he thought back to Adam at his age, he remembered a man who’d always had his own opinion and locked horns with Pa more often that not.  It was why Adam had gone away, he was sure – to be his own man.  Hoss hadn’t balked at Pa’s command or his care.  His giant of a brother had been possessed of a quiet simple way of doing things when and where he wanted to and, for the most part, Pa seemed to take that in stride.  With him, it had always been, well, like Pa thought he needed to be both his pa and his ma.  Pa’d kept him roped in, and though he’d champed at the bit for more years than he could remember, here he was still in the corral.  Truth to tell, he could have set off on his own at any time.  Pa wouldn’t have stopped him.  But that was the problem.

He didn’t want to be on his own.

When Joe thought about it, he’d never been alone.  There had always been someone else there.  At first it was his ma and when she died, Hop Sing, along with his pa and brothers.  When Adam left, there had still been Pa and Hoss, and then Candy had moseyed along and become almost another brother.  Then there was Jamie.  When he’d finally chosen to strike out on his own – to marry and build his own house – there had been Alice.

Joe halted just inside the barn.  He wondered if he was capable of living on his own.  What would he do if there was no one to talk to?  Nothing to do?

He snorted.  Go stir crazy probably.

Maybe that’s why he was crazy.

Cochise shifted in response to his entry and nickered a greeting as he approached.  His old friend was getting on in years, just like he was.  They’d been through a lot together and these days he often chose other animals when it came to the hard and fast riding.  Still, there was a bond between them that went almost past reason.  Joe patted his friend’s neck and began to brush him using his right hand.  He’d been at it about ten minutes when his energy suddenly gave out and he found he needed to sit down.  Parking the brush where it belonged, Joe moved into the center of the barn and sank down on a bale of hay.  He closed his eyes and dropped his head into his hands.  He felt old as dirt.  Pa might have thirty or more years on him, but he still had a spark in his eye and a spring in his step.  His were gone.

Just…gone.

He’d been sitting there sometime when he heard it – that swishing that reminded him of his ma.

Joe didn’t know how he missed it.  She must have moved quiet as an Apache.  It wasn’t a second later he felt Bella’s hand on his shoulder.  She stood silently by for a moment and then sat on the bale to his right and laid her head on his good shoulder.

He almost choked, but he managed to ask, “You mean Rafe let you out of his sight?”

Joe hadn’t missed the other man’s attentions to her.  Rafe possessed a lot of things – money, status, ships, and a fair dose of conceit.  It was obvious he wanted to possess Bella as well.

She drew in a long breath and let it out in a sigh.  “He thinks he loves me.”

Joe thought a moment.  It seemed an odd thing to say, but he knew it was true.  “I imagine he does.”

Her head jerked up.  She glared at him.  “Joe Cartwright!  If you think for one minute that I would have anything to do with that – that popinjay! – then you have another think coming!  That man is one of the most irritating, obnoxious, idiotic asses I have ever –”

She stopped suddenly.  He was laughing.

Bella’s jaw was tight.  Her eyes teared.  “You’re making fun of me!”

As she stood up to flee, he caught her hand.  “Bella, you didn’t hear me right.”

When she turned back, her jaw was set.  Her deep blue eyes were narrowed and her nostrils flaring.  She looked kind of like a bull ready to make a killing charge.

“I said Rafe was in love with you, not that you were in love with him.”  Joe paused.  “How could any man know you and not be in love with you?”

She blinked back tears but didn’t move.

After a moment he asked, “Will you please sit down?  It’s making my shoulder hurt to keep you roped.”

Bella’s eyes went wide.  “Oh, Joe!  I’m sorry!”

“Don’t be sorry, just sit down.”

As she did as he asked, Joe shifted on the bale so he was facing her.  He studied her for a moment.  The last time he’d seen Bella, other than in a ferrotype, she’d been eighteen and innocent.  Life hadn’t levied its punishment yet for making it through the years.  She’d been like a spring morning, fine-looking, vivacious, and full of a restive energy that bubbled over with chatter and a childlike joy.  She was slightly heavier now.  Her thin boyish frame had added the pounds in just the right places.  The spring morning was there, but it was giving way to summer.  She’d matured like a rosebud that had opened to reveal the full color and splendor of what it was to become.

“How are you, Bella?” he asked quietly.

She hesitated.  “How are you?”

Joe shook his head.  “You first.”

Bella’s lips twisted as they had when she was a little girl holding that rifle on him and staring at him along its sight.  She puffed out a little breath.  Finally, she said, “Miserable.”

He blinked.  It wasn’t the answer he had expected.  “Miserable?”

She looked at her hands.  “I was a fool.”

Joe caught her chin in his fingers and lifted her head.  When her eyes finally met his, he said, “You could never be a fool.”

Bella’s small hand covered his.  “Yes, I was.  I ran.  I ran from you, Joe.  I was so afraid I would lose you that I was afraid to have you – to commit to loving you!”  Her fingers moved to his face.  “I have regretted it every hour, every second since then.”

He was growing uncomfortable.  “Bella, I can’t….  I can’t love you in that way.  Not after….”  He sucked in air.  “Not after what happened.”

She batted her lashes.  Tears rolled down her cheeks.  “Why?  Because you’re afraid?”  She took his hands in her own and pressed them hard.  “Joe, if I have learned one thing, it is that we have to take the moment we are given.  We can’t base what we do on what may be, only on what is.”  She held his gaze.  “If someone said to you, I can take away your pain, but you won’t remember the happiness you had, would you do it?  Would you choose to erase Alice from your memory?  To forget all that you had together?”

At first he meant to say ‘yes’, but then images began to flood his mind, not images of Alice dying or of the child he had lost, but of that shy smile his wife had, of the way she looked at him; of the joy she had felt when she told him she was with child.  He remembered sitting by her in the meadow, talking about their future and her past, knowing that he was rescuing her, bringing joy to her by loving her, and that she was rescuing him too from a life alone.

He didn’t want to be alone.

Slowly, he admitted.  “No.  No, I wouldn’t want to forget her, even if it meant there would be no more pain.”

She nodded.  “It’s the same with Michael. Oh, I didn’t love him like I love you.”  Bella beamed.  “And I do love you.  But I loved him, I guess, like a second father.  Michael took care of me and my family.  I was truly sad when he died.”  She paused.  An odd look flickered across her face.  “Can I tell you something?”

“Anything,” he said.

“Once, after Michael and I made love….”  Her eyes flicked to him to make certain it was all right to go on.  He nodded.  “I was laying in his arms and he said, ‘Tell me about him.’ ”  Bella bit her lip.  “I said, ‘About who?’  And you know what he said, Joe?”

He did, but he said he didn’t.

“Michael said, ‘Tell me, child, about the man you love.’ ”  She smiled at him through her tears.  “And so I told him.  I told him about handsome Joe Cartwright with his chestnut-brown hair and emerald eyes, with his high-pitched giggle and fiery temper.  Joe Cartwright whom I had met when my parents pulled him bound and beaten out of that burning building.  I told him about Joe Cartwright who was my one true love – who had to be since Josie and the moon and that yellow flower said so.  I told Michael about coming to visit you and knowing I was going to marry you, and then….”  She swallowed. “Then I told him about Fleet Rowse and how scared I was that you were going to die, and how I ran….”

Joe said nothing for a moment.  “I’m sorry I never met him,” he said at last.  “He sounds like a good man.  I’m glad he found you and you found him.”

Bella was holding his hands tightly.  She looked into his eyes.  “On his deathbed Michael told me to find you.  He told me….”  She straightened up.  “He told me I would be a fool if I let you go again, and you would be a bigger fool if you let me go.”

Joe knew when he was beaten.

He laughed and shook his head.  “Bella, you know what?  You’re a force of nature.  There’s no stopping you.”

Bella scooted in closer to him.  “So,” she asked softly, “do I go in the house and tell Rafe Ashton that Joe Cartwright is a fool?”

Joe hesitated only a moment.  He shifted slightly, easing the pain in his back, and then drew her into his arms. And then, with a passion he thought lost, a fire that he thought had been consumed and gone out forever, he kissed her.

Joe ran his hand along her face and stared into those wide dark blue eyes.

“I love you, Bella,” he said.  Then he added, with a smile, “It’s been four or five years.  Did you ever find that other feller?”

She shook her head.  “Nope.”

“So,” he asked with a shy grin, “you think you might want to marry me some day?”

Bella drew in a breath.  “Well, I’d have to think about it.”

She caught him off guard.  “You…what?”

Her laughter was a balm to his soul.

“Idiot.”

Then she kissed him back.

Ben had just stepped out onto the porch to look for his son when he saw Bella and Joe coming hand in hand from the barn.  A sense of movement in the shadows behind them caught his attention, but he put it down to the autumn wind that was rising, to a branch shifting and casting odd shadows.  It looked as if winter might, after all, be on its way.

‘No’, he thought, a smile breaking on his face as he turned his attention to the pair.  Life was beginning again.

It must be spring.

Ben glanced behind and shook his head.  He’d finally managed to free himself from Rafe Ashton and his ideas.  Well, no, that wasn’t the right word for it either.  He’d been rescued.  Rafe had headed for the kitchen looking for Bella, remarking as he went that he had never known it to take anyone so long to prepare dessert.  The last half hour had been one of the most tiring and exasperating he had ever spent.   Though, from the looks of the pair approaching him, it had been worth it.  He’d waited from the man from the city to return but instead it had been Hop Sing.

“’Mister Rafe busy.”  The man from China made a shooing motion.  “You go find Little Joe and Missy Bella.”

When Hop Sing told him what he’d done, Ben had bellowed until the rafters shook.

Before he could say anything to Joe or Bella, the door behind him opened.  It was with relief that he saw Bella’s young brother standing there.

“Is everything in order?” the older man asked with a wry smile.

“I don’t know, Mister Cartwright,” Benjamin said with a shake of his head.  “I don’t think your larder’s ever gonna be the same.

Hop Sing had Rafe trapped in the kitchen.  Their cook had played into Ashton’s prejudice by pretending he was too stupid to open the lock on the larder.  When Rafe did it for him, he asked the man from the city to get something for him from a tall shelf he couldn’t reach and then, after he stepped in, locked the door behind him.

Benjamin came to a halt beside him.  “You think those two are going to be okay?” he asked, his concern for his sister obvious.

The older man shot him a look.  “What do you think?”

The boy shifted uncomfortably.  He shrugged and then a grin broke across his face.  “I don’t want to lose my sister, but you know what?  I think she’s home at last.”

Ben nodded as he turned back to face his son.  Joseph was pale.  He was leaning heavily on Bella.  Letting him out of the house had been dubious wisdom at best.  Still, there was something about him – about the way Joseph held his body, about the look out of his eyes, that said – at last – he had chosen to live.

“And what have you two been up to?” Ben asked, hiding his smile.

Joe glanced at Bella and then met his gaze.  “Just catchin’ up, Pa.”

“Catching up?”  He kept his tone stern.

“Yeah.”  Joe pulled Bella a little closer.  Her arms went around his waist.  She was smiling.  “Seems Bella never really found herself another feller.  You taught me right, Pa.  I made her a promise and I’ve gotta keep it.”

He remembered that day so long ago when his young son, charmed by the endless chatter and enthusiasm of an eleven-year-old Bella Carnaby, had promised her that one day they would marry.  He’d warned him then that, to her, it was a solemn promise and that, if he didn’t mean to keep it, he needed to make that clear to her.  Joseph had tried and failed.  Bella had been in love with his son from the moment they met.  His son had fallen for her on her second visit, but then it had been Bella who, terrified by events, had put an end to it.  Bella who had run.

Bella Carnaby Ashton, who had come back.

A lot stood between them.  Bella was no longer that little mischievous girl.  She had married for all the wrong reasons and had buried the man who took her in and loved her even though he knew she didn’t love him.  Joseph had lost his brother, Alice and his child, and been tortured by William Tanner.  There was a lot of healing to do, but it would happen now.

It would happen because neither one of them was alone.

As they reached the porch, Bella kissed his son on the cheek and then looked at him.  “I have something I need to do, Mister Ben.  Can you watch Joe for me?”

His son scowled.  “I don’t need watching.”

The blonde woman turned, hands on hips, and faced him.  “I know you, Joe Cartwright.  You’re about to fall down and you’re just too stubborn to admit it!  You need to go inside by the fire and get warm.”

Joe favored him with a look.  “Pa, aren’t you going to rescue me?”

Ben shook his head.  “I think you are in quite capable hands.”

Joe had taken hold of the rail and was stepping onto the porch.  As Bella passed him, aimed at the door, she paused to listen.

“What’s that?” she asked.

A long string of Cantonese.  A high-pitched whine and a string of words that would have made a sailor blush.

“I think Rafe and Hop Sing are getting to know one another,” he said dryly.

Bella giggled.  She looked at his son and smiled.  “Back in a second!”

As Bella disappeared into the house, Ben moved forward to take hold of  Joseph’s good arm.  His son glanced at him, defiant, and then relented and let him lead him into the house and to the settee where he practically fell into its soft embrace.

Bella was nowhere to be seen.

“Where do you suppose she went?” Joe asked, truly puzzled.

The older man shrugged.  “You have a lot to learn about women if you expect to know.”

Joe was silent a minute.  “Well,” he said at last, his voice soft, “I guess being a confirmed bachelor ain’t in my future.”

“Isn’t.”

His son looked at him.  Then he laughed.  “Ain’t.”

At that moment Bella reappeared.  She came down the stairs slowly, her eyes on Joe, and then went to sit beside him on the settee.  Ben felt like he was intruding.

“Perhaps I should go rescue Rafe,” he suggested.

“It’s okay, Pa,” Joe said, his eyes on Bella.  “We’re family.”

Bella drew a breath.  She hesitated and then started to speak.  “Someone is missing.  Someone I wish could have shared this with us.”

Ben frowned.  He glanced at Joe.  Neither of them had any idea where she was going with this.

Bella held her hand out and opened it.  In it was a small ring made of silver paper.  It was tarnished and rumpled, but he knew what it was.  When Bella had come to the Ponderosa some eight years before, Hoss had been alive.  It was he who had opened the envelope telling them that Bella was on her way to see them.  It was Hoss who had pocketed the small silver ring meant for Joe that had fallen out of the envelope and kept it until Fleet Rowse was captured and no longer a threat to the pair before him.  Hoss who had returned it to Bella before she left.  Apparently, she’d kept it all these years.

Tears fell down her cheeks as she held the ring out to his son.  Joseph took it.  He slipped it on her finger and asked, “Bella Carnaby, will you marry me?”

Ben turned away with tears in his eyes as the pair kissed and went to free what he knew was going to be one irate city slicker.

Outside the Ponderosa ranch house a figure stirred.  The tall powerful man left area of the porch and returned to the shadows beside the barn.  Joe Cartwright and his woman had been so busy looking at each other as the walked across the yard that they’d failed to see him.  Ben Cartwright had missed him too.

The old man was going to regret that.

You see, he’d been listening.  It looked like Joe Cartwright’s life was going to go on bein’ charmed.  He’d lost his woman, but now he had another even prettier one.  In spite of everything the golden boy was going to have his golden life with everything he wanted.

In a pig’s eye.

The man drew a breath and held it as he looked around the yard.  He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he was going to do something.  Something big.  Since his life had been ruined, he sure as Hell was going to ruin the life of the man who had done it to him.

He’d already tried once and failed.  He’d thought Joe Cartwright was on that cattle drive when he fired his pistol and sent the steers running.  He’d hoped they’d run over him and crush the life out of him like Cartwright had crushed his hopes when he got him fired.  He wasn’t a coward.  He’d have been just as happy to snap the man’s spine with his bare hands, but snapping a man’s spine meant a noose around your neck.

A stampede.  An accident at a logging camp.  A fall from a horse or maybe, just maybe, a house burning down.  No one could blame you for that.  It was just bad luck.

Joe Cartwright seemed to have that in spades as well.

TEN

Rafe Ashton decided to stay for the wedding.

It had come as a surprise to them all. He had been quite subdued since his initial outburst of anger when he heard Joe and Bella would marry.  It was as if he had finally been told ‘no’ and he was having to come to grips with the fact that wealth and power and things were not always enough to assure that one got what one wanted.  That there were things more important – humility, sacrifice.

Love.

This morning Rafe had set out with Benjamin and Jamie on a less than grand tour of the ranch.  Jamie had been confined to the house for the two weeks that had passed since Joe had asked Bella to marry him and the boy was fairly bucking at the rail to get back to his normal life.  During the last fourteen days he and Benjamin had struck up a friendship.  He was sure they would have rather gone alone, but the pair had been gracious enough to include Rafe.

Maybe the fresh air and the sight of the land would lift the poor man’s spirits.

The two young people in the house who had no need of their spirits being lifted sat at the breakfast table side by side talking quietly.  Joe’s wounds were almost healed – well, nearly all of them.  Doc Martin had examined him the night before and declared his left arm had been compromised by the damage the wire had done to the nerves in his shoulder.  It seemed Joe’s days as one of the fastest draws in the West were over.

Ben sighed.  Thank God!

There had been great debate over when to set the wedding.  Once he had decided he no longer wanted to be a bachelor, Joe had been eager to take the plunge.  Bella had been too, but she wanted to share her happiness with her parents and so the two had agreed to wait a month.  By that time it would be mid-December.  So far the snows had held off, but they were soon to come.  The Carnabys – Levi and Mary, Sophie and even Jack, home from college for the holidays – were all on their way.  It was his hope to persuade them to stay.  He had a small house in town, bought as an investment on a whim, that he thought would be just right for Bella’s family.  He’d mentioned it to her and she agreed she would do everything she could to get her father to agree.

Meaning, she was going to get her mother to persuade him.

Ben smiled at the thought and then approached the table.

“And what are you two up to?” he asked.

“Details,” Joe replied.

He said the word like it was one that should get his mouth washed out with soap.

“Details?” the older man repeated, hiding his smile. “Wedding details?”

His son gave him a helpless look.  “Are there any other kind?”

Poor Joe. Growing up in a household with five men and no women.  Even though he had had time with Alice, he still had a lot to learn.  Alice had been a simple girl and their wedding a simple affair.  Bella reminded him of Joe’s mother in that she loved beauty.  The young woman loved floral arrangements and piano throws and Battenberg lace anamacasters on the chairs.  In the two weeks she had had reign Bella had transformed the ranch house from the sober but welcoming castle he had created into the home he remembered.

The one he remembered from when Joe had been a little boy.

Ben glanced at his soon-to be daughter-in-law.  One thing Bella had was taste.  She was dressed today in a stunning royal blue walking suit with a small back bustle to the skirt and jacket.  The color matched her eyes.  Her ladies boater hat and fan lay on the table beside her.  Once the, er, details they were discussing were ironed out, Joe was going to drive her to town to the dressmaker’s for a fitting.

The older man leaned over his son’s shoulder.  He smiled as he saw a way to rescue him.

“You’re working on the food to be served?” Ben asked.  He was still astonished that Hop Sing had allowed Bella to set the menu.  It was a mark of his affection for the young woman.  In fact, Hop Sing’s affections had even gone so far as to allow her to cook in his kitchen.

Would wonders never cease?

Bella nodded.  She was chewing on a pencil and looking at a long list.  “Hop Sing said he would be picking up the supplies tomorrow.  He insists on getting them on his own or we could do it today.”  She glanced at his son.  “Joe, we need to finish this before we leave so he knows how much to buy.”

“You’re just working on the numbers?” Ben asked.

“What she’s working on is driving me crazy,” Joe grumbled, though his smile was loving.  “I tried to get Bella to go to the justice of the peace with me and forget all this nonsense.  You know what she told me Pa?”

He shook his head.

“Nonsense makes the world go ‘round.”

She was right.

“Why don’t you let me take care of this?” Ben asked.  “I’ve been working with numbers for longer than either of you have been alive.”  He winced.  “Maybe longer than the two of you added together.”

For a second he thought she was going to argue.  Bella was nothing if not stubborn.  Almost as stubborn as Joe.

Theirs was going to be an interesting marriage.

Joe wrapped his arm around Bella’s shoulders.  “I’ve got work to do in the stable later, so we need to head back right after your fitting.  If we go now, we’d have time to eat lunch at the International House.”

The blonde woman smiled.  “I’d like that.”

“I would too,” his son said as he gave Bella a little squeeze.  “I haven’t had many opportunities to show you off and, pardon me Pa, but you look damn fine today!”

“Pardoned but not absolved,” Ben deadpanned.

Joe glanced at him and then, he giggled.

‘Oh, Lord’, thank you,’ the older man thought as the couple rose from their chairs and Joe headed for Bella’s coat that hung on the coat rack by the tall case clock. They’d been forced to bring it downstairs in to accommodate her voluminous outerwear.  ‘Thank you.  Thank you for this woman.  Thank You for saving my son.’

“You need anything in town, Pa?” Joe asked as he donned his own heavy coat.

“No,” he replied.  “No, son, there isn’t.”

He had everything he needed here.

Joe winced at the look Bella shot his way.  He had shifted his shoulder, trying to ease the pain in it.  Even though near four weeks had passed since he’d injured it, there were times it still hurt like the dickens.  He tried to hide it from her and managed it most of the time.  The curly-haired man’s lips twisted with pleasure.  It was a little hard to do when he had his shirt off and Bella’s arms were wrapped around his back.  They hadn’t made love yet.  Somehow, they both knew that was for their wedding night.  But it hadn’t stopped them from, well, enjoying each other’s company.  When they did, Bella had a tendency to kiss his scars.  He thought it was a little odd, but then again, that was what he had come to expect.

Women were a whole different country.

“Are you in pain?” Bella asked as her hand went to his shoulder and she started to rub it with a circular motion.

“Stiff more than sore,” he answered.  Which was kind of the truth.  When Paul told him about his shoulder and arm, he’d been upset.  He’d prided himself for more than half of his life about being fast with a gun.  Then he’d thought about the life he had planned with Alice – marrying, building his own place, having children.  ‘God moves in mysterious ways,’ he remembered singing in church.  Maybe this was God’s way of telling him one life was over and another begun.

Joe glanced at his hip.  He wasn’t wearing his handgun.  It had been a conscious choice to bring a rifle instead.  A rifle was for protection.  A handgun, well, it was too, but it sent a message that offered a challenge.  Turning his eyes to the precious cargo beside him, he knew he wanted nothing to do with anything that might bring Bella harm.

His days of flying off the handle and leaping before he looked were over.

“Joe.”

He glanced at Bella and then followed her gaze.  There was a tree fallen on the road.  Since they were in a buggy, they couldn’t go around it.

“Now what do we do?” she asked.

He looked at the sky.  The sun was shining down.  They were only about an hour from the ranch house.  It was early morning still and the day was crisp and cold.  Winter had arrived, but fortunately, so far, there had been little precipitation.  The branches of the trees were bare and the grass was brown.  In fact, Pa had said just the night before he hoped it either rained or snowed soon.  He was worried about someone being careless and something sparking amidst the dead things and starting a fire.

With a smile, he leaned in and kissed his wife-to-be’s pouting lips.  “After thirty-plus years of living out west, I wouldn’t be worth my salt if I didn’t come prepared.”  He laughed at her expression.  “I got an axe in the back.  It won’t take much time to clear it.”

“Be careful.”

As Joe climbed out of the buggy and headed for the back, he sighed. He had a feeling he was going to hear that phrase for the rest of his life.

After palming the axe, he stopped by the buggy seat to drop his heavy coat onto it.  A cold wind hit him, chilling him to the bone, but he knew the moment he started chopping he would be too hot.  The coat was bulky too and would encumber him.

“You just sit there looking pretty,” he told Bella.

She nodded, but said nothing.

Joe frowned. “Is something wrong?”

This time she shook her head. “I just want to get to town.”

“Me too,” he replied with a smile.  “There’s a great big steak at the International House with my name on it.”

Joe rolled up his sleeves and then headed for the tree.  He began by stripping some of the smaller branches off so he had a clear place to put the axe and then began to hack the small tree trunk in two.  He worked himself into a rhythm, raising the axe, bringing it down, striking the wood, and then raising it again.  As he worked, he began to hum.  It was an old tune Hoss had taught him called ‘Sky Ball Paint’.  His giant of a brother had loved to sing it while they worked.  He’d join in and the two of them would add extra verses and then shout to the heavens the chorus of ‘Singin’ hi ho, whoopee ti yo. Ride him high and down you go, sons of the western soil.’

Still thinking of Hoss, Joe paused to run a sleeve over his forehead. As he did, he glanced at the buggy to see if Bella was watching him.

She was gone.

He puzzled a moment and then decided she had probably felt the call of nature.  He knew from experience it took women a heck of a long time to do what needed to be done, so he turned back to his work and began this time to sing.

So I swore, by heck, I’d break his neck

for the jolt he gave my pride.

I threw my noose on that old cayuse

And once more took a ride.

He turned around and soon I found

his head where his tail should be

So I sez, sez I, perhaps he’s shy

Or he just don’t care for me.

 Singin’ hi ho, whoopee ti yo,

Ride him high and down you go,

Sons of the western soil.

Joe heard it a second before it happened.  The sound of a bullet being levered into a rifle’s chamber.  Before he could turn, a searing pain ripped through his shoulder and he fell face-first onto the tree and then rolled off of it to the ground.  As he lay there on his back, breathing hard, a shadow covered him, cast by a monster of a man he knew all too well.

Abel Ramsey.   The man who’d near beaten him to death.  The man Pa’d fired because of it.

The man who was going to kill him.

The rifle barrel rested against his forehead.  Joe kept his eyes open and glared every bit of hate he had in him at the man.  At least Bella got away, he told himself.  She must have, otherwise Ramsey would be parading her before him.  He was that kind of a man.  He’d want to hurt him as much as he could before he took his life.

Yeah, Bella was safe.  She had to be safe.

Of course, he knew she wasn’t.

There was no way in Hell she would have left him.

Ramsey was enjoying every minute of it.  “I bet you’re wondering where your pretty little friend is,” he said.

“If you’ve hurt her….” Joe growled.

“You’ll do what, Cartwright?  You ain’t got a hope in Hell of stopping me.”  Abel’s lips curled in a sneer.  “If you wonderin’, I ain’t killed her.”  As Joe sighed, the monster added, “Just like I ain’t gonna kill you.”

Joe swallowed.  “Somehow that barrel resting on my head says different.”

“The way I figure it, Cartwright, someone came along and shot you.  Your woman left you to go find help.  Ended up she went the wrong way.”

He was on the road .  If Ramsey left him, he could make it.  He could go back home for help.

“Trouble is,” Ramsey said as he shifted the rifle away from his head and  toward his chest, “you tried to follow her and somewhere along the way, you bled out.  Get up, Cartwright, time to get movin’.”

As he struggled to his knees, Joe asked, “Where’s Bella?”

Abel nodded toward the woods.  “Got her on my horse, thrown over the saddle.”  His grin was evil. “Ain’t the most proper way for a lady to travel, but it’ll do.”

“What do you mean to do with her?” he demanded.

Ramsey’s smile became lascivious.  “Now, I ain’t rightly decided.  Maybe show her what a real man is before I kill her.”  The rifle returned to the level of his head.  “I see it in your eyes, Cartwright.  You want me dead.  Trouble is, I got your gun.”

The bullet had passed from the back to the front and through his right shoulder.  He was bleeding from both sides.  His heavy coat was in the buggy and he was covered with sweat.  Already the sum total of those things were beginning to tell.

Joe felt exhausted.

“Get moving, Cartwright, or I might just change my mind about my timing and put you two lovers in the same grave.”

The afternoon was ending and still Joe and Bella had not appeared.  Ben stood on the porch looking toward town.  He knew his son had wanted to deal with the mess the tackle in the stable was in before supper.  Joe had told him a few pieces needed to be mended before the men went out again.  He could have turned it over to one of the hands, but Joe was very particular about the tools of his trade and preferred to do it himself.

Benjamin and Jamie, along with a weary and saddle-sore Rafe Ashton, had returned midday. Candy had come to check on things and he had agreed to join the others for an early supper as they were all starved.  The four of them were inside now.  He and Hop Sing had eaten a late lunch alone just about an hour before.

It was interesting to watch the change in the young man from the city.  Like one of those winds that arose suddenly with killing force and then petered away to nothing, the bluster had gone out of him.  He’d know men like that before, so unsure of what they knew that all they could do was pronounce loudly that they knew everything.  More and more he was beginning to see that Rafe had felt less a man than his father and brother; perhaps had even had such high expectations put on him as a boy that he felt he could never measure up.  Rafe had actually been listening instead of talking as Candy and the others explained to him the finer points of running a ranch.

Apparently the wonders were just going to keep  coming.

Ben heard the door open behind him and watched as Jamie stepped out onto the porch. The boy still bore the scars of his battle with the barbed wire, but mostly he was mended.  It did his heart good to know that things were mended between the redhead and his older brother as well.

“No sign of Joe?” Jamie asked as he stopped at his side.

Ben shook his head.  “No, and I am beginning to worry.”

At this point Adam would have scolded him, telling him his little brother could take care of himself.  Hoss would have looked worried, but agreed.  They would have told him he was a worry-wart and he had to remember that Joe was a man now and not a boy like the one who stood beside him.

“Do you want me to saddle the horses?” that boy said.

No argument.  No scolding.  Just a deep love and concern for his big brother.  Sadly, like him, Jamie’s life had been marked by tragedy.

Ben placed a hand on Jamie’s shoulder.  “They could have decided to spend the night in town.  There’s probably nothing to worry about.”

“But you don’t think so.”  The redhead paused and then added, “Joe told me he wanted me here to work on the tackle today, like it was real important.”

Implying that something, indeed, had gone wrong.

Ben looked at the sky.  There were, perhaps, three, maybe four hours of light left.  Long enough to track the buggy’s progress and make sure Joe and Bella had been on their way to town, if not enough to follow and find them.  He would feel mighty foolish if he and Jamie rode into Virginia City and found the pair enjoying a leisurely late meal at the International House.

As he hesitated, the door opened and Candy, followed by Benjamin Carnaby stepped out.  Candy was instantly on the alert.

“Something wrong?” his foreman asked.

The older man shook his head. “Joe and Bella are late returning.”

“Pa’s worried something’s happened,” Jamie blurted out, spilling his secret.

Candy’s smile was a tolerant and knowing one.  “I was thinking about taking Benjamin and Rafe to town and sitting in on that poker game that’s been going on now for a week non-stop.  Things will just be getting going around midnight.”  As he spoke, Ashton too appeared.  “Rafe here says he plays a mean hand of poker.”

Ben’s eyes went to Bella’s brother.  He was either very old or Benjamin was very young.

Probably both.

Candy knew what he was thinking.  “Little Ben’s just gonna watch.  Aren’t you?”

“Little Ben?”

Bella’s brother shrugged.  “They decided they had to have some way to tell whether people were talking about you or me.”  He paused and then grinned.  “It’s okay.  It’s a good name.”

Big Ben looked at the four eager faces before him.  They didn’t fool him for a minute.  They were  all just as worried about Bella and Joe as he was.

“All right,” he said at last.  “Saddle the horses.  I’ll have Hop Sing pack some grub.”  Ben glanced over his shoulder at both the dying light and the path leading out of the yard. “If nothing else, we’ll make camp and enjoy ourselves.”

Joe opened his eyes and groaned.  For a moment he had no idea where he was and then he remembered – he remembered Abel Ramsey’s rifle in the hollow of his back.  He remembered Bella’s desperate stare as she lifted her head from the horse’s side and watched him trudge along, half out of his head from dehydration and loss of blood.  He had no idea how many hours they’d walked.  It had been morning when he’d stopped to chop the tree that blocked the road and it was growing dark rapidly, so he was guessing somewhere around eight hours.  He’d fallen several times, even losing consciousness once or twice.  The last time he’d just wanted to lay there and die.  But Ramsey would have none of it.  He’d slapped his face and forced him to his feet and told him to start walking again, threatening to kill Bella if he didn’t.

So he walked.

At this point he knew he was done.  His only hope was to rescue Bella, so she could live.  All the time he’d walked, he’d been thinking of what he could do, though lately his head was so muddled it was hard.  He’d talked with God during the long march, coming close to cursing Him.  How much could one man be expected to take?  Why the Hell had He let this happen?  In the end he’d fallen just short of curses, but he’d made sure God knew he was gonna be well and done with Him if he let anything happen to Bella.

God had let Alice die.  He couldn’t let it happen again.

Joe glanced up at Abel Ramsey.  The man was riding behind Bella.  One hand held her waistband and the other, the rifle that was pointed at him.  Bella had tried to escape once.  Ramsey’s answer had been to fire a bullet so close to his head that he’d felt the heat of it sear his skin.

She’d been real quiet after that.

He wondered where they were going and why.  About halfway through the day Ramsey had bandaged his shoulder so the bleeding would stop and he would be able to keep his feet longer.  Joe’s jaw tightened.  He had a sick feeling about it.  As much as Ramsey wanted to kill him, he wanted to hurt him even more.

He was afraid Ramsey was going to kill Bella and make him watch.

Tired of the game, Joe called out to the madman who held them.  His voice cracked from fatigue and lack of water.  “Where are you taking us?” he demanded.

Ramsey’s grin was evil.  “I got me an idea after I seen you with your woman.  I hear tell you’re gettin’ married.  I figure the two of you need a home since your other one burned down.”  He inclined his head.  “There’s one right ahead.”

Joe scowled.  They’d been traveling north, he could tell by the sun.  The only thing that lay in that direction was the old line shack where, once upon a time, Bella had spent a few nights with a pony named Freckles.

“The line shack,” he said.

“I’m gonna take your woman inside, Cartwright, and light a fire and make it nice and toasty warm.”  The monster’s eyes gleamed.  “Real toasty warm.”

The nightmare returned.  Only this time it was Bella’s face at the window, screaming for him to save her as her pale white skin blackened and peeled away and her hair turned to flame.

Joe wasn’t sure what he could do to free her, but he knew full well he wasn’t going to be able to do anything under the threat of Ramsey’s gun.  He looked at Bella only to find she was watching him.  Those big blue eyes of hers amazed him. There was no fear in them.

Only trust.

Joe drew a breath.  He knew this land as well as the back of his hand since he and Hoss had played here as boys.  He was hoping Ramsey didn’t.  Behind him there was a slope running down to a creek.  A little ways along the creek was a big old tree with roots reaching out over the water where he could hole up until Ramsey stopped looking for him.

He’d have to swim for it.  It was a gamble whether he could make it or not.  Odds were he couldn’t – not alone.

Between gritted teeth Joe whispered a prayer.  Well, maybe it was less saying a prayer than issuing a demand.

“God you keep me goin’ until she’s safe.  You get me to that shack in time.”

Joe looked skyward as if waiting for an answer.

Then he dropped, rolled, and plummeted over the side.

Not a day went by when he didn’t miss Hoss, but at times like these – when they needed the best of trackers – Ben was reminded of another gaping hole his middle son’s death had left in their lives.  Not that Candy wasn’t good.  He was.  And Candy loved his son, he knew it.

But no one, not even him, had loved Joe like Hoss.

They’d found the buggy abandoned by the road.  Neither  Joe or Bella was in sight.  A large dark stain on the ground boded nothing but ill.  Unfortunately, the light was fading and soon they would not be able to make out anything.  If they went on, he knew, it would be on a wing and a prayer.

They were going to go on.

“Anything?” he asked, his jaw tight.

Candy was stooping on the ground.  He fingered something and then rose.  With a sigh, he admitted, “There’s a trail of blood heading north.  Joe’s on foot.”

There was something in his foreman’s tone that told him that was not all of it.

“And?”

“There’s a rider.  The horse is heavy, so I’m thinking there’s two.  There’s something odd about the way the hooves have dug in.”  Candy scratched his head.  “I’m thinking one rider and someone who’s bein’ carried.”

“Against their will?” he asked.

Candy winced and shot a look toward the two men and the boy who hovered nearby.  Rafe was ashen white.  Benjamin had barely any more color.  Jamie, well, Jamie was scared but he was also determined.

“Do you think it’s Bella?” his adopted son asked, his voice hushed by concern.

“It makes sense,” Ben admitted.  “What I don’t understand is that, even if some man wanted to take Bella, for whatever reason, why make Joe walk?  Especially if he is wounded.  That’s the act of a madman.”

“Or someone who really hates Joe,” Candy said.

Ben looked at his foreman.  His pallor beat Little Ben’s and Rafe’s.

“Candy?  What are you thinking?”

The brown-haired man ran a hand across his cheek.  He shrugged.  “I ain’t got any proof.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I was in the saloon the other night. There was this guy, blowin’ off about gettin’ even with Joe.”     His foreman’s blue eyes fastened on his.  “It was Abel Ramsey.”  Candy looked sick.  “I didn’t have time to tell Joe about it yet since I didn’t see him today.”

Ramsey.  The ranch hand he had shamed in front of all the men . The one he had fired for trying to kill his son.

“Good God.”  Ben drew a breath.  It shook as it was expelled.  “You said they are heading north.  Why?  There’s nothing there.”

“What about that shack we saw when we rode through?” Little Ben asked.  “That’s something, isn’t it?”

He and Candy exchanged a look.  The line shack was such a part of their lives that the considered it almost part of the landscape.  Bella’s brother, fortunately, saw things differently.

“Yes…” he replied.  If Ramsey was headed for the shack, they had a chance.  He could find it in the dark and so could his foreman.  But it meant abandoning any tracks that might be there and heading blindly into the dark that was fast encroaching.

“It’s going to be rough,” the older man said at last, looking at Rafe and Benjamin.  “You two are not used to the country.  Perhaps you should turn back.  Jamie can take you back to the ranch.”

Jamie bristled, but he saw the boy would be obedient.  Still, he knew the men’s answer before they gave it.  Rafe, so much changed, said it for them.  “You’d have to bind our hands and feet to keep us from following.”

“All right.  Mount up then.”  Ben looked at Candy.  “I’ll lead the way.  You bring up the rear.”

The brown-haired man nodded and headed for his horse.

Ben turned to look at the imposing forested land before them.  If Joe had fallen by the wayside, they would ride right past him.  By the time they doubled back his wound coupled with the exposure to the cold would, most likely, have taken his life.

The older man’s eyes lifted to the sky.  It was all in His plan.  He knew it.  He had told his boys that for years. There was some reason this stain of evil had come into the fabric of the beautiful life he had envisioned for his boy and Bella Carnaby.

Before the night was over, he hoped he knew what it was.

ELEVEN

“Hey, Joe.  You gotta wake up.”

Joe moaned.  He was both too hot and too cold.  His shoulder was on fire and his legs were like ice and he just wished he had the energy to tell whoever it was that was trying to wake him to go to Hell.

Moaning again, he curled into a ball and whimpered instead.

“Go…way….”

“Dang it!  If you ain’t the laziest thing this side of Reno!  What do I got to do, come down there and drag your sorry hiney out of trouble?”

Down…there.

Where?

Where was…down there?

“Joe, you gotta move.”  Worry colored the voice as whoever had spoken came closer.  A second later Joe felt fingers comb through his muddy hair and then land lightly on his injured shoulder.  “I know you’re hurtin’, boy, but there ain’t much time.  Joe, come on.  Bella needs you.  She needs you real bad.”

Bella.

Needs.

Me.

With a groan, Joe forced open his eyes.  There was a man – a big man bending over him making a ‘tsking’ sound with his tongue.  The bulk of his massive form blocked out the blinding light that bathed the forest all around them.  Joe scowled.  Abel Ramsey was big, but this wasn’t Ramsey.  If it had been, the man wouldn’t have been trying to get him to his feet.  He’d be looking down the barrel of a gun instead of into a beefy face framed in concern.

A familiar beefy face.

An impossibly familiar beefy face.

Maybe he was dead.

But then, if he was, all the preachers he’d ever heard had lied.  They all said the Good Book promised there’d be no more pain when you got to Heaven and he was in a heck of a lot of pain.

“You c…can’t be real…” he finally managed to stutter.

The big man snorted.  “If you ain’t the orneriest cuss, little brother.  You can see me.  You can hear me.  How is it I cain’t be real?”

Joe swallowed over a grief not yet a year old.  “Because you’re…dead.”

His brother Hoss shifted back on his haunches.  The big man lifted the white ten gallon hat on his head and pushed it back, revealing his thinning hairline.  He looked much the same, but younger.  Or maybe it was healthier – more vital.

“Well, now, there’s dead and there’s dead, little brother.  I just ain’t dead like you understand the word.”

Joe’s head was swimming. What other way was there to understand the word?

“You see, to me, Little Joe, you’re the one who ain’t quite livin’ yet.  You’re down here on Earth where things are pretty uncertain.  Where you get a just about a day of happiness for every year of sufferin’.”  Hoss paused and then he chuckled.  “Course you always got more than your fair share.”

Joe pulled himself up a bit so he could look directly at the man addressing him.  It had to be Hoss.  No one else had that cherubic face holding a pair of crisp blue eyes bright as the sky.  No one could look so damned content no matter the fact that it was numbingly cold and he was kneeling on a muddy bank knee-deep in wet grass.

“How?” Joe rasped.

He was kneeling too – well, lying was more like it, except he was only half on the bank.  The other half was immersed in icy water.  He’d plunged into the creek and made it to the tree and hidden among its roots for nearly a half-hour while Abel Ramsey searched the area.  Once the man had disappeared over the top, he’d managed to swim the few feet to the bank, but that was as far as he got.  He’d laid there looking up – giving up – even though he knew he had to make it up the side of the hill.  A prayer had escaped his lips, but it seemed to no avail.  God, he’d pleaded, I have to find the strength.  I have to follow Ramsey!  I’ve gotta get Bella away from that madman before he kills her or….

The horrific scene he hadn’t witnessed but could not forget flashed before Joe’s eyes.  Alice fighting off the men who killed her as they had their way with her.  Her body had been burnt beyond recognition, so there had been no way to tell, but he knew….  Joe sucked in air, suddenly feeling like he might drown.

Even though she was pregnant, he knew what they had done.

“Joe.  Joe!”

Blinking his eyes to free his lashes of tears and mud, Joe looked up.  “Yeah?”

“There’s somethin’ you gotta learn little brother.  And you gotta learn it quick.”  Hoss paused.  “You gotta stop over-thinkin’ things like Adam.”

That was not what he had expected to hear.

“Somewhere’s along the way, Joe, you started thinkin’ like our big brother.  Broodin’, you might say.  It don’t suit you.”

“What?  …what?”

“The Man upstairs, Joe, Him and me have had some talks about you.  He’s got somethin’ mighty special in mind for you and yours. That’s why you’re the one still with Pa.”  Hoss let out a sigh. “But Joe, you gotta make the choice to grab that future.  You gotta make it now!”  The big man thought a moment.  “Remember how you was when we was kids? There was no holdin’ you back, boy! You’d find a way when the rest of us had decided there wasn’t any – maybe just ‘cause we decided it.”  Hoss reached down.  His big hand cupped his face.  “You gotta make a way now, Joe.  No one else will come in time.  You gotta save Bella.”

“I…can’t….”  His shoulder was throbbing and his head was pounding like he’d just awakened from a deep sleep.  He felt sick.  “Hoss, I don’t think I can…”

“That’s your problem, Joe.  You need to stop thinkin’.  Sure you can.  You can do anythin’ you put your mind too.”  His brother leaned in so close he could smell him – smell the scent of hay and horse, of tiny animals cuddled to his massive chest, of leather and sweat.  “Just keep your eyes on the prize, little brother.  I promise you, there’s a rest at the end.  You hear me?  Now you get up and you take my hand and you get goin’ and save that little gal.”

It took everything Joe had in him to do as his brother demanded.  As he moved, a tidal wave of pain crashed over his tired and sore body and he felt a deep yearning to sink back into the mud and be swallowed by darkness.  Denying it, he lifted his upper torso and caught his brother’s hand.  As he did, Joe felt strength pass from Hoss into him.

A strength that got him to his feet.

A strength that took him up the hill from the creek to flat land.

A strength that sent him running when he saw the flames rising into the night, consuming the small wooden line shack that stood silhouetted against the trees.

A strength that turned him to steel as he heard Bella scream.

They were lost.

He couldn’t believe it, but they were.  Between him and Candy Ben had been sure they could find their way through the woods in the dark.  Inopportunely, the moon had decided to retreat behind the clouds, taking the stars with it, and there was no way to anchor themselves and know exactly where they were.  A creek ran at the bottom of the bank to the left side of them.  They’d used its voice to continue on through the dark after the light was gone.  The ribbon of water ran near the old line shack on the north end of their property.  He’d thought about tearing that old shack down, but it held such memories, he’d let it be.  It was there Adam had found Elizabeth Carnaby, and from there the two of them had gone on to rescue Little Joe from Fleet Rowse.  Somehow he’d known that line shack had a part to play in their lives that was yet to come.

He couldn’t imagine what it was.

“Pa?”

There was fear in the boy’s voice.  Crossing over to Jamie quickly, the older man asked, “What is it, son?”

Before the boy could reply, Ben knew.  He could see it in the faces of the two men who stood beside him.  In fact, the answer to his question was written in the fact that he could see them.

There was a light burning brightly, shining through the trees ahead of them.

The older man’s heart sank.

God.

No.

“It’s the shack!” Candy shouted.  “It’s on fire!”

Ben regretted now that they had dismounted.  It had been impossible to direct the horses through the woods in the pitch dark, but he would have cherished their speed now.  From what he remembered, they were still a good half-mile from the shack.  On foot, it would take them at least fifteen minutes to get there – if not longer.

More than enough time for everything Joe had dreamed of to go up in smoke.

Bella crouched against the back wall of the shack, making her body as small as she could and keeping low to the ground where the air was cleaner.  When Abel Ramsey had forced her into the line shack, she had known what he intended and she wasn’t about to let him have what he meant to take.  She’d feigned weakness and slumped to the floor, forcing him to bend down over her, and then she’d kicked him for all she was worth where it counted most.  Unfortunately, while she knocked the wind out of him and caused him to stumble back, he knocked into the table that held the coal oil lamp he had placed there.  The lamp fell to the floor, shattered, and spread oil everywhere, setting everything on fire – including Abel Ramsey whose clothes and hair went up like a torch as he ran screaming for the door.

He didn’t make it.

She’d tried to get out, but Ramsey’s flaming corpse had blocked the doorway and she’d been forced to retreat into the back room where once, many years before, she had found Adam Cartwright crawling in the window and knocked him silly using a sack of flour.

Sadly, in the intervening years, someone had fixed the window.  She couldn’t get it open.

She hoped it hadn’t been Joe.

So here she was, coughing and breathing hard, leaning against lower portion of the wall, watching the smoke creep under the closed door and listening to the crack of the flames as they gnawed at the slender wooden barrier that was all that separated her from a horrible death, and all she could think of was the man she loved.

Joe wouldn’t survive this.

The fire would kill them both.

Joe had managed to keep upright and on his feet.  He didn’t know how, but he wasn’t going to question it.  As he staggered out of the trees and into the yard, he realized he was on the back side of the line shack.  Involuntarily, his eyes went to the window Adam had used to climb into it all those years ago.  What he saw there made his heart stop.

Bella.

In the window.

Calling his name.

As he ran toward the burning building, Joe looked around for something to use to free her.  For the most part the yard was empty since no one was living in the shack right now.  Even as he began to lose hope that he would be able to find something, he spotted it.  Someone had been negligent, God bless them!  There was an axe struck into the stump of a tree beside which lay a pile of ruined kindling.  In one movement Joe caught the axe in his hand, finished his run to the shack, and swung it hard.  Bella had seen him coming and shifted back.  He lost sight of her as the bubbled glass shattered and the bars of wood that had held it in place flew into his face or hit the ground.  He could only hope the rush of air wouldn’t suck the flames toward her.  He could see the bedroom door was closed.  There was time.

God, there had to be time!

“Bella!” he screamed.  “Bella!  Jump!”

She appeared again.  Her face was ghostly pale, but not blackened. Her hair was not on fire.

She was alive.

Joe reached through the broken window as she approached and pulled her out, mindless of his wounded shoulder and the glass that cut into his skin and hers.  Her skirts caught on the jagged edges of the wood, halting them briefly.  He ripped her free with an almost supernatural strength and they both fell to the ground.  At that second there was a sound deep within the structure – a crack! – and the roof fell in.  The reenergized flames exploded through the door that had kept Bella safe and raced into the room where she had been.  As the fire continued on, consuming everything in their path, streaking across the burning floor and toward the window, Joe felt Bella’s arms circle his waist, lending him strength.  He gave her a weak smile and then leaned heavily on her as she led them away from the ruin.  Together they made it to the other side of the shack, upwind of the flames that were now dancing among the dry grasses and leaves.  As they stood staring at the devastation one sick man had wrought, Joe’s knees buckled and he dropped to the hard earth.  Bella followed him.  She circled him with her arms and drew him into her embrace and the two of them sat there, together, both horrified and amazed.

They were alive.

Ben Cartwright plunged through the trees, heedless of the stinging bare branches that struck him and cut his exposed skin.  Candy and Jamie were shouting for him to stop, that it was too dangerous to get any closer. Telling him he was risking his life needlessly.

‘Nothing’, his foreman had said, Candy’s own grief choking the word as he stared at the flames licking high into the night.  ‘Nothing in that shack could have survived.’

He had faced many hard things in his life – Elizabeth’s death, facing his small son as they traveled and having to tell Adam that they had no money or food; that he had no idea where their next meal would come from.  The wagon train west.  Inger with an arrow jutting from her breast.  Marie and that damned horse.

Forty years of his son’s illnesses and injuries and all the times Doc Martin had told him in a solemn voice, ‘It’s up to God.”

If he died going too close to that burning shack.  Well, that was up to God too!

Candy and Jamie were still yelling.  Ben could hear Little Ben too and he thought Rafe as well.  He’d outpaced them all by minutes, driven by a strength that was not his own to arrive in time, and so he was alone when he broke through the edge of the trees and came upon a scene straight out of Dante’s Inferno.  The autumn wind was brisk.  It had caught the flames that consumed the line shack and fanned them out, setting the forest on fire.  The only blessing was that it would find very little fuel there.  Most of the leaves and brush had been driven to the east by the strong wind. The fire would be hot and it would leave nothing but blackened matchsticks trees and brush behind, but it was likely to burn out just as quickly as it had arisen.

Ben’s bleary tear-filled eyes scanned the barren land surrounding the shack, desperate, hopeful.

Afraid.

It took a moment.  Then he realized there was another blessing.

The sight of two wretched figures huddled together on the side of the shack, away from the fire.

Candy shouted again and then Jamie too.  They were close and would be upon them any moment.  The sound of their voices freed Ben’s legs and he began to move.  He covered the ground between them in record time and then dropped to the earth beside the two weary, battered, and bloodied children he loved.  Reaching out, Ben drew them into his arms.  He planted a kiss first on his son’s sooty hair and then on Bella’s.

Joe was nearly unconscious, but he stirred at the familiar touch.  His son’s lips curled slightly, he coughed, and then managed to rasp out a few words.

“You…don’t have…to ask me…how we are…Pa.”  Those green eyes slid sideways to the woman he loved.   Joe reached out and took her hand.

“Bella and…me.  We’re…fine.”

‘Fine’, Ben found, in the next few days, was a relative word.

Getting Bella and Joe back to the Ponderosa had been an ordeal as they’d had to make certain they steered clear of the advancing fire, which kept changing directions with the wind.  In the end it blew back in on itself, which proved another blessing.  On the way back to the house they ran into a group of ranchers with a crew of men.  They’d grabbed shovels and other tools and were headed into the woods to create fire breaks and contain the blaze.  Candy and Rafe – who was proving to the surprise of everyone to have the Ashton mettle – stayed to help.

More and more he was amazed by the young man from the city whom he had thought all but worthless less than a month before.

In the end he helped his son into the saddle and carried Joe before him on his horse.  Bella was able to sit one of the extra mounts they’d brought.  Jamie and Benjamin returned to the ranch house with them and stayed until Joseph and Bella were settled.  Then, after the pair had eaten and rested briefly, the boys insisted on going out to gather as many of the ranch hands as they could  in order to aid of the other ranchers in putting out the fire.  He sent his regrets that he couldn’t join them.

Ben knew he was needed at home.

Joseph had been through the mill over the last two days.  Not only did he have a ragged and ill-tended bullet hole through his shoulder, he’d lost a lot of blood and was completely exhausted.  From what he’d been able to glean from Joe’s fevered ramblings, he knew his son had lain in a creek, crawled up a hill, and then walked several miles before he reached the shack.  What he had faced there was beyond ken.  Bella was in better shape, though her lungs had been effected by the smoke and she had little strength.  She was in the room next to Joseph’s sleeping and gathering strength.  He knew, once she was awake, that nothing on Earth would stop her from being at Joe’s side and so, selfishly, he relished the time he had sitting with his sleeping son.  It would soon pass as all things must pass.  He would diminish and Bella increase in Joseph’s life, as she should.

That was, if Joe still intended to marry her.

He simply couldn’t understand how the Good Lord had allowed this to happen.  How He allowed something as horrible as this to come to pass at a time when it seemed Joseph had made peace with his grief at last.  He wondered if that fear his son had known – the fear that any woman he married might end up as Alice had – would be rekindled by Abel Ramsey’s mad act.

As Ben sat there, holding one of his son’s bandaged hands, the past became all too present and he wondered if Joseph had it in him to begin again.

As if in answer, Joe stirred.  The older man leaned forward and ran his hand along his son’s silver locks as he gently called his name.

“Joseph?  Joe, can you hear me?”

His answer was a weak smile.

“You…came back,” Joe said.

The older man frowned.  “I didn’t go anywhere, Joseph.  That was you.  You were searching for Bella and you found her.  She’s here.  She’s safe.”

His son’s eyes rolled behind the lids, but didn’t open.  “I got up,” he said, clear as a bell.

Ben felt Joe’s forehead.  It was hot, but not as hot as it had been before the doctor had come and given him some medicine to bring it down.  He didn’t think he was delirious.

“What was that, Joseph?”

“I got…up,” he repeated, more slowly this time and with less strength, “…no…holding back.”

Ben wondered if he should get Paul since this was the first time Joseph had been able to link more than two words together.  The doctor was downstairs getting some much needed rest.  He’d been detained along the way to the Ponderosa by several burn victims and had only arrived at daybreak today.  Paul had brought word with him that the fire was finally out.

Coming to a decision, Ben laid his son’s hand down gently and pulled the cover over it and  then rose to his feet.  As he turned to leave, Joseph spoke again.  Once more his voice was clear.

“Guess I showed you, middle brother.”

Ben spun to look at his son, but Joseph was unconscious again.  As he stood there, wondering, the older man shivered.  There was a nip in the air.  No, a tingle.  Like the aftermath of a shock.  He stood puzzling it over for a moment and then went to the door and headed down the stairs.

As Ben’s footsteps fell silent, the shadows in the room shifted.  For a moment it seemed they coalesced into a giant form that hovered over the sick bed and then, with a wind that kissed Joe Cartwright’s sleeping form, was gone.

Bella stepped out into the hallway of the Ponderosa ranch house.  Her gaze went to the stair and then so did she, watching as Joe’s father headed over to the table to talk with Doctor Martin who was sitting, reading a newspaper.  It was the second day since she and Joe had been rescued and borne away from the fire.  Mister Ben had allowed her to make her feeble way to Joe’s room the first night to see that he was all right, but then had promptly marched her back to her room and told her to remain in bed – her own bed.

Only Ben’s impressing upon her just how much Joe needed his rest had kept her away.

Until today.

She just couldn’t stand it any longer.

Creeping back from the stair, Bella put her hand to the door of Joe’s room and pushed it in.  She found him sleeping, which was no surprise.  Once she understood what he’d done to save her – deliberately rolling down that hill into icy water, laying on a muddy bank half-frozen, and then walking several miles to the shack with a gaping hole in his shoulder – not to mention pulling her out of a house on fire – she marveled that he was alive.

She marveled that they were both alive.

Taking a seat on the chair that was pulled up beside the bed, Bella reached out and took hold of one of Joe’s bandaged hands.  He’d cut them both pulling her through the window.  His poor hands bore the scars of the two times he had faced death in order to save the woman he loved.  The first time he had failed and that failure had nearly killed him.  This time he had won.  Still, she wondered if he knew he had.  Would the Joe Cartwright who woke up be the man he was meant to be, or would he instead be the man he had almost become?  A man afraid of life, afraid to take a chance on love.

Afraid to love her.

Bella sniffed.  A tear fell on the white bandage.

“Hey,” a soft voice said.

She looked and was surprised to find Joe watching her.  His green eyes were dulled by pain but seemed clear and focused.

“Hey,” she answered back.

His lips curled in a wry smile.  “…gotta stop…meeting…like this.”

She reached out and brushed a lock of sweat-soaked hair from his forehead.  “I talked to Doctor Martin about training to be a nurse.  Seems I’m going to have need of it.”

Joe laughed and then winced.

“Oh, I’m sorry!  Should I get –”

He’d squeezed her hand.  “No.  Stay.”  He licked his lips and swallowed.  “You’ll be chased out…soon…enough, I figure.”

She raised up and kissed him on the lips and then sat back down.

“Good….” Joe murmured as his eyes closed.

He seemed to be weakening.  Bella was suddenly scared that she had done something wrong by coming to his room.  “Do you need me to get the doctor?  Or maybe your Pa?  I can come back.”

There was a motion, like he was shaking his head.  He drew in a breath.  When he began again, his voice was stronger.

“I…need to tell…you something, Bella.”

“It can wait,” she said with a frown as she watched him shift, painfully pulling his sore body up onto the pillows so he could look at her.

“No, it can’t,” he said.  “You…need to understand.  The fire…was…well…a gift.”

For a moment she thought he was out of his head.  When she placed a hand on his skin to check his temperature, Joe laughed.

“I ain’t crazy.”

Her lips quirked.  “You could have fooled me.”

“Bella, for so long…all I could see….  Didn’t matter if…my eyes were open…or not.  All I could see was Alice in that window with the flames behind her.”  Joe’s eyes closed.  “Alice…burning.  My child….”

Tears spilled down her cheeks.  What happened at the shack had given her a deeper understanding of what he had been through.

“I’m sorry, Joe, that you had to go through it again.”

“No!”  His voice softened as he opened his eyes and took hold of her hand.  “No.  It was God’s gift.  I…I couldn’t save Alice.”  Tears rolled down his cheeks.  “I couldn’t save her, but I saved you.”

She lifted her other hand to brush a tear away.  “Yes, you did.”

Joe slid down a bit.  His head sank back into the pillow.

“It’s over,” he breathed.  Seconds later, he was asleep.

“Well,” a stern male voice declared from close behind her, “I hesitate to think what those grandchildren of yours are going to be like Ben.  Neither Bella nor Joe seem to know the meaning of the word ‘no’.”

Bella turned to smile at Paul Martin and Joe’s father and then she looked back at the man she loved.  There wasn’t a ‘no’ left in her life now.

From now on, for both of them, it was only ‘yes’.

TWELVE

Ben Cartwright was waiting on his son to finish dressing.  As Joe pulled on the formal charcoal-gray cutaway sack coat he had purchased for today’s event, Ben took the opportunity to wander over to his son’s cherry wood dresser.  A warm winter light was streaming in the window.  It struck the set of photos Joe had propped there, turning their silver frames to gold.  The first was of his mother; ever, always, and forever the young Marie he had met in New Orleans and brought home to be his bride.

The second was of Hoss.

Ben sucked in emotion that threatened to choke him.

This day, in every way, was bittersweet.

The older man felt a hand on his shoulder.

“You okay, Pa?” Joe asked, his tone soft and understanding.

Ben sniffed and wiped one eye.  Then he nodded.  “I just wish your brother could be here.”

Joe moved past him to pick up the image of Hoss.  It was one from a year or two before his middle son died so tragically.  The big man had on his dress suit with satin vest and was holding a bowler hat.  Hoss was grinning from ear to ear.  At first it had surprised him when, out of all the ferrotypes they had, Joe had chosen this one to remember his middle brother by.  The reason, of course, was the curly-headed man, also in his Sunday best, standing beside his giant of a brother, fighting to contain his laughter.

The portrait wasn’t just a likeness of Hoss, it was the picture of all the two brothers had been.

Joe stared at the photo a moment and then returned it to its spot.  When he turned to look at him, there were tears in his boy’s eyes.  Not unshed like his, but streaming down his cheeks.

“I saw him, Pa,” Joe said quietly.

Ben blinked.  The statement made no sense.  Of course, Joe had seen his brother nearly every day until he’d passed.  And, of course, he could not have seen him recently.

“I don’t understand what you mean, Joseph.  When did you see your brother?”

Joe turned to look out the window.  It had snowed the night before, just enough to coat the barren trees and brown grass so they glistened.  Luckily, it had not been enough to keep their guests away.  Ben waited as his son fought for words.  When he spoke Joe didn’t turn, but continued to gaze at the crisp blue sky.

“I saw Hoss the day Abel Ramsey shot me and took Bella,” he said, his voice hushed with the memory. “The day of the fire.”

That horrible day.

It hadn’t been quite a month since then.  In some ways, the events of that day felt as present as if they had happened yesterday.  He could have lost them both.

Almost lost them both.

“You saw your brother that day?  You mean in a dream?”  Joe had been very ill.  He had lain unconscious for some time and had probably been delirious.

Joe turned to look at him.  “I’m not sure, Pa, but I think I really saw him.  I was laying half in and half out of that creek, soaking to the skin, so cold and so tired I just couldn’t go on.  Ramsey had Bella.”  Joe’s jaw tightened still at the thought.  “I knew he’d kill her and that he might…before….”

He touched his son’s arm.  “Joseph, there’s no need to rehash this today of all days.”

“But there is, Pa!”  Joe sucked in air and quieted his voice.  “There is.  I was laying there and all of a sudden, Hoss was there too.  He was looking down at me.”  Joe glanced out the window again. “The forest was bright with a golden light and he was right in the middle of it.”  His son’s lips curled with amusement as he turned back.  “Hoss told me I’d become too much like Adam for my own good.”

They’d hoped Adam could make it today.  He’d sent his best wishes, but unfortunately the ship he had booked passage on had run aground on its way to England.  A package had arrived from him the day before addressed to Joe and Bella.  Everyone was guessing what it might contain.

Ben took a moment, trying to understand what his son was telling him.  “You spoke to Hoss?”

“Just like I’m talkin’ to you, Pa.  He told me to stop lookin’ back and start lookin’ forward, and to remember who I was.”

The older man’s lips curled a bit at that.  “And who are you?”

Joe laughed this time.  “I think the words ‘orneriest little cuss’ were a part of the description.”

Ben’s hand fell to his son’s shoulder.  For a moment they just stood there, saying nothing.

“I think Hoss is here today, Pa,” Joe said softly at last. “I just…feel he is.”

The older man drew in a breath and then he nodded.

He felt it too.

A second later there was a rap at the door.  “Joe, you better hurry up,” a strong male voice called.  “You take any more time makin’ yourself pretty and I’m gonna use it to run off with that little gal you’re marryin’.”

Joe placed a hand over his and held it there a moment before heading for the door.  When it opened, it revealed Candy Canaday standing outside.  The brown-haired man was just about as ‘gussied-up’ as he had ever seen him.  Candy had a brown sack-coat on with darker brown Callahan dress trousers.  His unruly curls had been tamed by a healthy dose of pomade.  Ben’s eyes flicked to his son.  Joseph’s hair was down to his collar.  His curls were natural and about as wild as a day in the Hebrides.

The older man sighed.

On his wedding day, he chose to look like a riverboat gambler.

“You can have her,” Joe said with a wink as Candy stepped into the room.  “I’m warning you though.  If you do, life as you know it is over.  You think I’m willful and mulish!”

“Joseph!”

His son laughed.  “It’s okay, Pa.  Those are the words Bella used to describe herself when she told me what I was gettin’ myself into.”

It was so good to see his son smiling and laughing again.  The last year had been a journey from purgatory to his own private hell for the youngest of his original three.  All of that sorrow and pain seemed buried at last.  Joe would never forget Hoss or Alice, nor completely dismiss the evil William Tanner had done him, but he was alive and he had chosen to live and to move on.  He and Bella had initiated a little ceremony of their own the night before.  They had come to the upstairs hall and hung a likeness of Joe and Alice near the end of it by the window – right next to one of Bella and Michael Ashton.  The love and loss they had known had made them the people they were today and they had chosen to honor that rather than to ignore it.

He’d watched them as they came back down the staircase and went to sit before the fire. And then he had left them alone.

That word ‘alone’ returned the smile to the older man’s lips.  Being ‘alone’ in the Ponderosa ranch house right now was quite a chore.  The house was filled to the rafters with family.  The week before the Carnabys had arrived – Levi, Mary, Sophie, and Jack.  Benjamin, of course, had been with them already.  Little Ben, as they called him, and Jamie had grown thick as thieves and there were times he wondered if Jamie might not move out of the house and in with Bella’s family.  Rafe Ashton remained as well.  The young man had undergone quite a change and was interested in learning all he could about the mining and timber industry so he could expand the family business to the frontier.  It seemed that, once he decided to leave the pampered life of the city behind, Rafe found what he had been looking for – a chance to make a place and a name for himself.  The older man chuckled.  He had nearly split his pants laughing the day before when Rafe and Candy had ridden into the yard.  The once elegant man from the city was wearing chaps and had been covered from head to foot in dirt and muck.  Where before the scent of Rafe’s expensive cologne had arrived at least a minute before him, now he had the distinct smell of  ‘odour de horse’.

Rafe had tried his hand at busting a bronco.

It seemed that wonders didn’t ever cease.

Ben’s eyes returned to his son, Joseph, who stood trading jibes with his friend as Candy straightened his string tie.  If someone had told him six months before that he would see his son happy, content, and at peace, he wouldn’t have believed them.

God was good.

“We’re heading down, Pa.  You coming?” Joe asked.

“In a minute.  I have to see your bride.”

Joseph cocked his head and grinned.  “You’re not thinkin’ of running off with her?”

Ben dismissed his son with a wave of his hand.  The only place he was going to take that girl was to the great room where their guests and the preacher were waiting.

As he stepped into the hall, Ben turned back to look into his son, Joseph’s, room.  The light outside the window was dazzling and it filled the area just beyond the bed.  He could almost make out a shape in it.  A large broad form.  Or so it seemed before it vanished.

The older man smiled as he closed the door behind him.

“Thank you, son.”

“Will you keep still?” her mother pleaded, not for the first time.  “Veils don’t pin themselves in place, you know!”

Bella drew a breath, tightened her muscles, and tried to hold still.

And failed.

As she continued to wiggle, Bella apologized.  “I’m sorry, Ma.  I just can’t hold still!  I’m, well, all excited and thrilled and kind of scared and sort of…terrified…and…everything all at once.”

The older woman looked at her over her spectacles.  She pulled two hairpins from her lips and sighed.  “It’s called being in love.”

Bella’s blue eyes narrowed. “But you’re in love and you aren’t all scared and nervous and…well...crazy all the time!”

Ma’s eyes sparkled.  “Who says I’m not?”

Bella’s hair was a pile of pinned curls.  Her brother Jack had brought her a set of gold-edged ivory combs back from the city, and her Ma had used them to pull up the sides of her hair and trap most of her spiraling curls.  A few had escaped and a few she had arranged in soft tendrils that framed her face.  Sophie had worked paper flowers and pearls into them.  The little veil that would fall down the back was the last thing to go on and, so far, it just didn’t want to.

Go on, that was.

Her sister Sophie made a huffing noise and crossed over to where they stood. She’d been fussing with her own hair, trying to make herself ‘gorgeous’ and ‘dazzling’ as she said, so that Rafe Ashton would notice her.  Sophie didn’t need to worry.  When she’d come into the Cartwright house with the rest of the family with her nose and cheeks all pink from the cold, and her nicely plumped breasts showing over the neckline of the green dress she wore, Rafe had definitely noticed.  Sophie had begged their mother and Ma had agreed to let Rafe sit with the family since he had none of his own to be with today.

Sophie, of course, had already claimed the chair beside him.

The Cartwright’s great room had been set up for the ceremony, with the groom’s family and friends on one side and hers on the other.  Hop Sing had helped her choose the decorations and prepare the menu.  Since it was almost Christmas, she had wanted holly and berries and ivy and pine greens.  The man from China had hung the greens and then dusted them with a fake snow and dripped tinsel from the boughs, transforming the room into a wonderland.

A wonderland in which she was going to become Mrs. Joseph Cartwright!

“Here, let me,” Sophie said as she took the veil and pins.  Her sister stared at her a moment and then commanded in a stern tone, “Stand still!”  Bella blinked and froze.  That was all it took for Sophie to swoop in and pin the veil to her head.

“I’ve just got the touch,” her sister smirked as she returned to the mirror and her primping.

“Well,” Ma said as she stood back to admire her.  “I may be your mother, but I’m telling you the truth when I say I have never seen a more beautiful bride!”

She had chosen a simple two piece gown of cream-colored silk gauze trimmed with silk-embroidered net lace.  The sleeves of the bodice were flared and it had a ‘V’ neck that plunged down to reveal the top of her breasts.  The bustle-back underskirt was made of the same fabric and edged with three flounces of lace.  The whole ensemble was decorated with tiny satin bows and there was one great big bow above the bustle, which was attached to the belt around her waist.

Her mother took her by the shoulders and turned her around so she could look in the floor-length mirror Mister Ben had moved into her room.  Bella took one look at herself and burst into tears.

A second later she was smothered in loving arms.

Bella struggled to keep the tears from falling as she considered all God had given her.  Her father was waiting for her downstairs.  Though he would never fully recover from the fit of apoplexy he had suffered, her pa was here and he was alive and he was going to give her away!  She’d been so happy to see her family.  She had missed them so much.  Her only sadness was at the thought that they would leave her soon.  But she needn’t have worried.  Unbeknownst to her, Joe’s father had been corresponding with hers.  Today, as the two older men sat side by side, grinning from ear to ear, Mister Ben told her that he had sold a property he owned in town to her ma and pa and the entire Carnaby Family was moving out Nevada.  She’d been so thrilled, she’d thrown her arms around Mister Ben and kissed him.  Joe’s father had winked at her and told her she had to be sure to give Rafe a kiss too.  Michael’s brother had been in on it and had signed the Oregon  property and the house her folks were currently living in over to them so they had the money for the move.

The Carnabys were coming to Virginia City!

A soft knock on the door made them break apart.  As they all wiped away tears, her ma called out, “Yes?”

“It’s Ben, Mary.  Is Bella ready?”

Mister Ben was going to walk her down the stairs and then turn her over to her pa.

Her mother went to open the door.  “Take a look for yourself, Ben,” she said as she opened it and stepped back.

The older man moved into the room.  He was silent for a moment and then he said, “I don’t believe I have ever seen a young woman look more beautiful.”

Bella beamed.

“Come, Sophie,” her mother said as she headed out the door, “it’s time we joined your father and brothers.”

Joe’s father continued to stare at her.  “Elizabeth Carnaby,” he said with a smile and a shake of his head.  “Oh, how I remember the first time we met.”

“Me too.  I was eating jam and you were sitting on your horse looking so sad.”

“I thought I had lost my son,” he said.

Little Joe had gone missing.  His pa and brothers had just about given up hope of finding him alive and with good cause.  They had almost lost Joe to some evil men who had hurt him and then abandoned him, leaving him in a burning cabin to die.  Her parents had rescued Joe and then left him in her care.  She’d only been eleven at the time.

She’d known then she was going to marry him one day.

Joe’s father came to stand before her and took hold of both her hands.  “I have you to thank that I didn’t,” he said.

She shifted, a little uncomfortable.  “It was ma and pa pulled Joe from that burning cabin –”

The older man reached up and cupped her cheek in his big hand.  “I’m not talking about the time when you were eleven, or even when you were eighteen and you saved him from Fleet Rowse.  Bella, Joseph was as lost as a man could be when you came here a few months back.  I know….  I know…without you…I would have lost him for good.”

She blinked and sniffed, and then burst into tears anew.

“Oh, now, look what I have gone and done.”  He smiled.  “That shows you what I know about women.”

She sucked in a small sob.  “Mister Ben….”

The older man laughed.  “You’re going to be my daughter-in-law, Bella, don’t you think we can drop the ‘mister’ now?”

Her lips twisted.  She winced.

“Ben….”

At that moment there was a knock on the door.

“Well, Bella,” Ben said, “this is it.  Are you ready?”

She’d been ready since that night of the full moon when she’d been eleven years old and had leaned over the water and rubbed a posy beneath her chin and seen the face of her true love.  She saw it again five minutes later as she descended the stairs and Joe turned to watch her come down.  His eyes held the same love, the same joy, and the same desire as hers.

Twenty minutes later they were man and wife.

There had never been such a celebration at the Ponderosa.

Oh, they’d had parties over the years – plenty of them – but this was one that celebrated not only a wedding but a new lease on life for the man who held his beautiful wife in his arms and waltzed her around the dance floor.  Candy had tried to cut in a few minutes earlier and they had both flatly refused him.  His friend insisted with a wink that as the best man it was his right and then proceeded to warn Joe that he was going to take what was his before the night was over – even if he had to deck him to do so.  At the moment their foreman was dancing with one of the many neighbors who had been invited to the wedding.  She was a married woman and the pair were having fun teasing her husband by dancing close to where he stood.  The man watched them with a look somewhere between amusement and annoyance.  Joe looked over his shoulder and spotted his father taking a turn around the floor with Bella’s mother.  Even Jamie was dancing with one of the girls he had known at school.  Rafe Ashton and Sophie Carnaby had been dancing but had disappeared outside.

Big brother Jack and little brother Benjamin were already on their way out the door.

Hop Sing, of course, was king of the kitchen and prince of the Ponderosa, shouting out orders and keeping everything running as smoothly as it possibly could.  There were an awful lot of people in the house and the punch was flowing.  It was spiked, of course.

Joe had done it himself in honor of his two missing brothers.

After the wedding they’d all gathered to share champagne and cake and what presents had been brought were opened.  He saved Adam’s for last and was touched to find his brother had sent them a beautiful punch bowl and glasses.  In it was a note saying his real present to them was a house.  He would design it to their specifications and come home to supervise the building of it.  Joe thought about it long and hard, and he hoped Adam wasn’t too disappointed, but he’d decided that he and Bella – and any children to come – would live in the ranch house with Pa.  He knew he would feel better having Bella in the house with Hop Sing when he was gone and, besides, Pa deserved the happiness of having a house full of boisterous boys again.

Joe grinned.  And maybe a girl or two!

And so it was, when the day finally ended and the last glass of champagne had been drained, Joe headed up the stairs to the room they were to share.  Pa had bid them goodnight, and then he and Jamie had headed into town.  For the next few nights the older man was going to stay at Paul Martin’s house.  Jamie – willingly – had been farmed out to the Carnabys.

It seemed funny to turn toward a different room.  Pa’d insisted they take his as it was the largest upstairs.  For near a month now the door to the bedroom had been sealed.  His father had opened it just today to show him what had been done.  Along with Jamie and Hop Sing, the newly refurbished room was the family’s present to the two of them.  It was stocked with new furniture, including a large, heavily-carved four poster bed made of walnut, and a copper bath tub.  Pa was going to sleep in the downstairs bedroom for now, and Jamie had shifted his room to the end of the hall to give them what privacy the small space could afford.  As soon as he had time, he was going to write to Adam to thank him for his present and ask him if he would design a new wing for the ranch house instead.  Pa was sure older brother would agree.

Joe stopped with his hand on the latch.  He’d carried Bella up the stairs and over the threshold a short time before.  He’d kissed her and then turned her over to her mother so the older woman could help her change.  Her sister Sophie had been there too.  Seemed it took three women to get one woman out of her fancy clothes!  He’d passed them in the hall a short time before.  Bella’s ma had touched his arm and smiled at him as she said that she hoped they slept well.  Sophie had blushed red.

He’d been kind of surprised when he blushed red as well.

Joe stood just outside the door, thinking.  It was near impossible for him to believe it had been almost fifteen years since he and Bella met.  She’d been his ornery twin in female form, all pigtails and pluck.  Over the years he had watched her grow into a beauty.  He chuckled still when he thought of himself at twenty-two, all confused by the fact that the pigtails were gone and the bloom was on the rose.  They’d almost made love then.  They’d come darn close to it – close enough Pa would have had his hide if he had known!  They could have been with each other over the last few weeks.  He imagined his pa thought they had been.  But something held them back.  Oh, they’d necked and had a good time exploring one another’s bodies, but they had not yet consummated their love.  Both of them, he thought, somehow knew that the moment would be a special thing and it was too precious to rush.  Oh, they’d make love plenty of times in the years ahead.  Joe grinned.  If it was up to him, probably more than once a night.  But that first time, well….

It was something neither one of them had expected to ever see.

It was a gift from God.

Smiling, Joe rapped on the door.

Like he needed to.

“Are you ready, Mrs. Cartwright?” he asked.

At Joe’s knock Bella drew a breath.  She turned quickly and looked in the bureau mirror.  Her hair was loose and it fell in a cascade of golden curls to her shoulders.  Her elegant wedding gown had been removed and carefully packed away.  She was attired now in the fine hand-embroidered muslin chemise she had worn beneath it, her wedding corset, and pantalettes.  Her mother had told her to leave the pantalettes and corset on, insisting with a smile that men needed to earn what they got.  She’d blushed as her mother said it and was blushing now.  For some reason she felt awkward and shy.  Though they had caressed and kissed and come close to ecstasy, this would be their first time making love.

Everything that was in her hungered for it.

And yet….

She loved Joe so much and she knew what it was to face losing him.  She’d seen him sick; near death before.  The future opened suddenly before her with all of its joys and sorrows, triumphs and tragedies – with all of the possible outcomes of a life lived together in an uncertain world.

And she was afraid.

Tears formed in her eyes and fell silently as the door opened in.  Joe was still dressed, but only in his trousers and shirt.  He’d removed his tie, and the white shirt he had worn had been pulled out of his pants and lay open, revealing his well-muscled chest.  She’d found over the last few weeks how strong he had grown and been amazed by the gentle power in his hands.  He was no longer the slender, willowy boy she had fallen in love with, but had matured into a potent, powerful man.

Joe closed the doors and walked over to her.  He took her hand and simply stood, looking at her for a moment.  Finally, he reached out and touched her cheek.

“Tears?” he asked.

She sniffed and nodded.

“Of joy, or of something else?”

Bella’s jaw tightened.  She wouldn’t lie to him. That was no way to begin their marriage.

“I’m afraid.”

His green eyes held hers.  He didn’t dismiss what she said.

“Can you tell me about it?”

She slipped her hands inside his shirt and, with the strength of her fear, held him tightly.  Bella laid her head against Joe’s smooth chest and sniffed again as his fingers ran through her hair.  She thought a moment and then, with a little puff of breath, said, “Life, I guess.”

“Oh,” he said in that way he had, making it a statement and a question at one time.  “You mean ‘life’ in general, or living it?”

She realized how ridiculous she sounded.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “I’m being silly.  Forget –”

His hands caught her face and turned it up toward him.  “No.  I won’t forget it and you’re not bein’ silly.  We’ve both been through a lot.  Most would think it was more than a man or woman could bear.”

She held his gaze.  “But not you?”

Joe’s smile was wistful.  “I did once.  I thought I’d never take that chance – never love again.  But then someone wise told me I was over-thinkin’ things.”

Bella frowned.  “Over-thinking?”

He pulled her close, so her head was against his chest again.  “It’s today that matters, Bella.  Not yesterday or tomorrow.  Pa used to say the Good Book told a man to let the days worries be sufficient for the day.”  He planted a kiss on her hair. “Now, I don’t know about you, but I think the man upstairs knows a sight more than you or me.”

“So God told you?” she asked, looking up at him.

Joe snorted.  “That wasn’t the ‘man’ upstairs I was thinkin’ about.”

“Joe….”

A finger on her lips stilled her question.  The kiss that followed took her breath away.  Joe pulled back and looked at her.  A smile curled the ends of his mouth as he noticed her corset was still on.  Moving behind her, he pressed his lower body into hers as he began – slowly, deliberately – to undo her corset strings.  She’d laced it properly, so he had to begin at the bottom.  With each cord he loosened, the garment shifted, allowing a little more play.  When he was done, Joe ran his hands inside it and pulled out, lengthening the cords and allowing the stiff, multilayered garment to fall to the ground.  Her husband took hold of her arms then and backed her toward the window.  The moonlight was streaming in and it bathed her figure. Through the thin muslin he could see the curve of her breasts, her waist; the shape of her thighs.

They were all his as she was all his.  Come death, come life.

Come love.

Joe reached under her gown and loosened the tie on her pantalettes and let them fall to the polished wood floor, and then he bent down and caught her in his arms and bore her to the bed.  Bella lay there on the feather tick breathless, enjoying his enjoyment of her.  She ran her fingers through his sabled-silver curls as he lifted her gown above her waist and then reached up and removed his shirt, revealing his tanned skin and tightly-muscled chest with all of those scars she knew and loved.

Then he waited.

Bella frowned, unsure for a moment of what she was to do.  Then she realized he was giving her a chance at the pleasure he’d enjoyed.

Curling her form toward his, Bella caught the button of the waistband of Joe’s trousers and unbuttoned it, and then moved on to the ones that went down the front.  When she’d finished, she ran her hands inside the soft cloth, brushing his hips with her fingers, and pulled his trousers down.  When his naked body was revealed, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around his powerfully built form.  As she did, she felt him shiver.  He leaned in, pressing his damp, gleaming body against and into her own.  Joe’s mouth sought hers and found it even as his hand moved to caress her breasts.  She made a little noise and he answered it.  Her arms went around his back, her fingers digging into his flesh as she urged him enter her, to take her – to move her beyond this world and to a height she had never known.

Instead, he pulled back.

Bella frowned, startled, all but dismayed.  Had she done something wrong?

Was Joe displeased with her?

Then she saw his smile.  He kissed her lips as his hand dropped below her waistline.  Her husband had known other women, she knew it.  Not only Alice, but others like Julia Bulette.  He was the handsome young cowboy every woman wanted to possess both body and soul.  Now she understood why.  He wanted her.  His well-developed form was tensed like a spring waiting to be sprung.  But he chose to deny himself for the moment.

Though he wanted that pleasure, he wanted her to have pleasure too.

With the fingers of one hand, Joe caressed her in her most private places.  The other he used to explore her breasts.  His lips sought one breast’s center and he kissed her there.  Then with a wicked grin, he used his teeth to nip her flesh.

Bella cried out in pleasure.  Her back arched and she moaned.  Joe touched her face.  He kissed her again.

And then he took her.

Body and soul.

EPILOGUE

The door to the Ponderosa ranch house slammed shut behind the handsome curly-headed youngster that had just entered.  “Pa!” he shouted.  “Pa!”

A man’s form appeared at the top of the stairs.  His hair was white; the expression on his face one of long indulgence.

“Isn’t it about time you learned to enter the house without raising the dead?” the man asked as he caught the rail and headed down the stairs.

The boy’s curly blond head ducked.  When he looked up, his face wore a sheepish grin.  “Don’t you think the dead need raisin’ now and again?” he asked innocently.

The white-haired man sighed.  Now he understood.  No matter what he said to this child of his, it made no difference.  The boy’s enthusiasm for life was unrestrained, as was his penchant for getting into scrapes from which he had to be rescued – frequently.

“Eric,” Joe Cartwright sighed.  “What am I going to do with you, boy?”

“Well, you can’t toss me out with the bath water ‘cause I’m the oldest,” Eric grinned as he headed for the table in front of the hearth and the bowl of apples waiting there.

Joe continued down the stairs.  “And as oldest, you know, you should set an example for your younger brothers and sisters.”

As he spoke, the door flew open and the rest of the troop blew in.

All nine of them.

Eric was seventeen.  His youngest was just under two.  He was just shy of fifty, and their sainted mother was forty-one.

And every bit as beautiful as the day he had married her.

Bella came in last on the arm of his father.

Ben Cartwright was over eighty and still ruled the roost – or at least Pa thought he did.

Joe finished his descent.  He steeled himself for the onslaught he knew was coming.  They had quite a crew.  The most unexpected thing was that the girls outnumbered the boys.  There were five of them and he swore every single one of them took after his mother for spit and fire.

Or more probably his wife.

There was Marie and Elizabeth and Inger, and then Laura and Alice.  The boys were Eric Joseph, Levi Carnaby, Adam Martin, and Benjamin Coffee Cartwright.  Ben was the baby Bella was carrying in her arms.  Life was a circle, he decided.

His pa was nearing the end of his time on earth and his youngest son’s life had only begun.

His family had been away for two weeks.  Bella had taken them all to her mother’s house in Virginia City.  Her Pa had passed within the year and she’d wanted to visit to cheer her mother up.  All the other Carnaby kids were out of the house and married.  Sophie had managed to rope Rafe Ashton.  He’d sold his share of the eastern shipping business to his sister Mary and they’d settled in San Francisco.  Jack had gone to Europe and met up with brother Adam, who had given him a job.  They were there somewhere still, booting around the continent together.  Little Ben, as they’d all called Bella’s youngest brother for years now, was hardly ‘little’.  He was twenty-eight and was the foreman of the Ponderosa.  Ben hadn’t married yet and sometimes they questioned just how old he was as he and Eric – their youngest – had been known to tear up the town.

Joe had meant to join them to see Bella’s ma before they returned, but the business of the ranch had kept him bound to the Ponderosa.  His pa had built an empire to leave to his sons and, since he was the only one remaining, he’d made damn sure to keep it in good stead in order to pass it on to Benjamin Cartwright’s grandchildren.  Like his pa, he made his boys work the land.  Eric was a bit of a dreamer.  In some ways he reminded him of his giant of a brother.  Even though Eric was small like him and his mother, he had a heart as great as Hoss’ and liked nothing more than a day sitting on the edge of the lake fishing and enjoying the beauty of God’s creation.  Adam Martin took after his namesake.  He was a thinker.  At twelve Adam was already coming up with plans to improve the ranch and move it into the next century.  So far Benjamin did little but cry and gurgle, but it seemed to him that he took after his aged grandfather and one day would be a man among men

His girls worked hard too, though he had to admit, he was softer on them.  Bella chided him all the time for it.  Of course, she more than made up for any indulgences he gave them.  It was his girls now, running the kitchen and cooking for Hop Sing who was still living and in his seventies.  They took care of the Chinese man who had taken care of him, even though their former cook spent most of his time yelling in Cantonese and then translating it so they’d understand what they were doing wrong.

Five girls in chorus shouting ‘Pa!’ broke him out of his reverie and let Joe know he was in for it.

Little Alice was the first one to plow into him.  Joe caught her and lifted her in an embrace.  As she ringed his neck with her tiny arms, the second wave came.  This time it was Laura and Inger.  Marie was the oldest and she held back.  Elizabeth, who wanted nothing more than to be like her older sister, stayed with her, though he could tell she was dying to jump into the melee.

Joe caught his pa’s eye as the older man made for his red chair, which was still butted up against the hearth.  Pa lowered himself carefully into it and then shot him a look that said, ‘And I thought raising three boys was a challenge!’

Life had been good to them.  Oh, they’d had sickness and their share of scares.  Bella had almost died when Adam was born.  She’d ended up with an infection and for a week he thought he’d lose her.  She told him his love had called her back.  He’d been frightened after that to be with her, for fear she’d get with child and he’d have to face it all again.  Joe smiled as he sat on the step and let his youngest girls crawl all over him.  In the end it had been Eric who had reminded him he had to live for the day.  Just like Hoss, his oldest son told him he had to stop looking back and instead look forward.

Joe smiled.

That boy didn’t even know what ‘back’ meant.

Bella had taken off her coat and hat.  She stood with her hands on her hips, assessing the damage her homecoming had caused.  Her blue eyes met his, asking if he needed rescuing.  Joe smiled, pinched his nose, and went down under the tidal wave of women.

To the sound of his pa’s laughter.

Later that night, when the brood was in bed, he and his pa sat before the fire.  It was autumn.  His birthday was passed and Bella’s was on the horizon, which meant their wedding anniversary was just around the corner.  Pa was reading a letter from Jamie.  His little brother had gone off to veterinary school like he’d wanted.  He’d had every intention of returning to the Ponderosa, but a pretty little filly with hair as red as his had put a stop to that.  They weren’t too far away.  Just in Sacramento.  Jamie had opened a practice there and was doing well.

“You look tired, Pa,” he said as his father let the letter fall to his lap.  “Would you like me to help you to bed?”

The older man’s room was permanently on the ground floor now.  No one slept in the rooms he and his brothers had occupied.  Adam had  jumped at the idea of designing the new wing and had come home for a year to supervise it as he promised.  Since then he and his family had occupied it.  But they’d always shared their meals in the old dining room and their evenings together in the great room with his father.  The older man was not only the heart of the Ponderosa, but the biggest part of his heart.

He didn’t know how he would survive it when he had to let him go.

His father stirred.  “I was thinking about Bella,” he said.

Joe grinned.  Bella and his pa were best friends.  It had been a joy to see a little of the emptiness the older man felt at the loss of the women he had loved filled with by her joyous presence.

“What about her?”

“You know, Joe, if it hadn’t been for those men who tried to kill you, we never would have met Bella.”

Cora Violetta Gertner’s ne’er-do-well brothers had been out rustling cattle when, at seventeen, he’d stumbled on them.  They’d been bound and determined he wouldn’t tell anyone and had beat him and left him for dead in a burning cabin.  Bella’s folks had pulled him out of it, and then she had spent the next week or so looking after him.

Joe nodded as he stretched out a hand to touch the older man’s sleeve. “It’s like you always told us, Pa.  God makes good out of bad.”

His father smiled. “You have a fine family, Joe.  Although I can honestly say, I had no idea what to do with those girls when they came along!”

“I don’t have any idea what to do with those girls now!” he laughed.  “They’re an undiscovered country.”

His pa nodded and then fell silent.  The flames cracked and popped.

“I saw your brother,” Pa said out of the blue.

Adam stayed in touch.  It had been more than three months since they’d heard from his far-wandering brother, though.  His father was probably confused.

“Adam, you mean?”

Pa shook his head.  “Hoss.”

Joe swallowed over a lump in his throat.  “Pa, Hoss’ been gone almost twenty years.”

The older man lifted a trembling hand and touched his heart.  “He’s never gone.  Your brother is here.”

His pa was old, he told himself.  He was probably just having one of his ‘moments’.  “So what’d big brother have to say?” Joe asked as nonchalantly as he could.

“He’s proud of you.”

“Me?  What have I done?”

Ben Cartwright’s lips curled with amusement.  “Learned that you’re not Adam.”

He loved his older brother, but Adam was a stick-in-the-mud who wouldn’t take a step forward without considering two behind and two ahead of it.

“Nine kids doesn’t leave a man much time to brood,” he snorted.

“They’re beautiful children.”

“Thanks, Pa.”

“Your brother is watching out for them.”  His father made a ‘tsking’ sound. “Especially that oldest one.”  The older man’s black eyes danced and his lips curled as he looked at him. “I think they call that ‘karma’ nowadays.”

Joe supposed that was better than calling it ‘payback’.

They sat in silence a time after that.  Finally, as the clock struck ten, Joe said, “It’s late, Pa.  Don’t you think you should be getting to bed?”

His father nodded.  Then he looked straight at him.  “ Have I told you lately, Joseph, that I love you?”

His fingers brushed the older man’s hand.  “All the time, Pa.”

“Tell your children.”

“I do, Pa.  Every day just like you taught me.”

Twenty minutes later, after he had seen his father to bed, Joe sat by the fire with a book in hand, staring at the embers as they flashed a pale orange, pink, and blue.  He was near fifty, an age a lot of men didn’t live to see.  He’d had a long and eventful life, and God had been gracious enough to see him through it to an end he could never have imagined.  As a young man, all he had longed for was to measure up to the shadow his pa had cast.  To be as good and as strong and as loyal and honest a man as Ben Cartwright.  It was hard for him to admit, but he thought he’d done it.  He had five beautiful girls, four sons, a wonderful wife, and a life that seemed at times to be something out of a dream.  The Ponderosa was thriving.  There would be plenty and to spare for all of their children when they came into their own.  Like Job out of the Bible, he’d lost a lot – his oldest brother’s presence, his middle brother, Alice and the child she carried – but like Job, it had all been restored.

A hundred-fold.

“Are you coming up to bed?” a soft voice asked him.  Joe recognized his wife’s touch as she wrapped her arm around his waist and sat beside him.

“Just thinkin’,” he said.

Bella indicated the book in his hands.  “What’s that?”

It was one of Adam’s.  His brother’s namesake had been reading it and left it on the table by the hearth.

“Hamlet,” he replied.

“Hamlet?”  Bella’s eyes widened. “Since when, Joe Cartwright, do you read Shakespeare?”

He shrugged.  “Well, I gotta be able to talk to the boy about something.”

He’d read Hamlet, of course, years ago.  It was one of the few plays by that Shakespeare fellow he actually liked.  It was sad in some ways, but there was a lot of truth in it.

“What passage was Adam Martin on?”

Joe looked at her and then he slipped his finger into the book, opening it to the place that had been marked by a gold-edged leather strip.  “Let’s see,” he said, “Act two, scene two.”

Bella frowned.  “Polonius and the king?”

Hamlet was pretending to be crazy so he could find out if his uncle murdered his father or not.  His uncle, who was now king, was talking to his councilor, Polonius, who had found a letter Hamlet had written to his daughter Ophelia.  The puffed-out old man thought the reason for the prince’s madness was his unrequited love for the girl.  He’d found a letter Hamlet had written and read it to the king.  ‘Doubt thou the stars are fire,’ it said.  ‘Doubt that the sun doth move.  Doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.’

Joe looked at his beautiful wife.  He closed the book and replaced it on the table and then turned to her and took her face in his hands.

“I ain’t no liar,” he said, with a bit of his boyish charm.  “Bella Annabelle Carnaby Cartwright, I love you.’

She snuggled up against him.  “Joseph Francis Cartwright, I love you too, Joe.”

And they lived happily ever after.

Forever.

Next Story in the Wet Bottom, Warm Heart Series:

An Unspeakable Dawn

Tags:  Ben Cartwright, Candy Canaday, Hoss Cartwright, Jamie Hunter Cartwright, Joe / Little Joe Cartwright, JPM, SJS