***********

NINE

It was afternoon and Doctor Martin had come and gone, completing his second visit of the day.  Adam smiled as he thought of the physician’s face when they led him into their pa’s room.  Paul had been torn between joy, hope, anger, and exasperation.  After grumbling something about the fact that ‘at least’ the pair were in bed, he set about examining both Joe and Pa.  Joe’s fever was up and Pa’s was down, but neither were in a range that was life-threatening.  Three days after the horrific scene he had come home to, it seemed life had a chance of returning to some semblance of normalcy.

Except, of course, that the man who had tried to kill his entire family was still on the loose and both Greg Webb and Rosey O’Rourke were missing. Sheriff Olin had organized a posse and they were on their trail.  It chafed at him and Hoss that they had been forced to inaction by circumstances.  Still, neither one of them had been willing to leave until they knew their father and brother were out of danger.  The others in the house were similarly effected.  Ming-hua was beside herself.  The young woman from China did little but cry.  Hop Sing, who was battling his own demons of fear and fatigue, managed to keep her busy during the day.  Still, he’d heard her at night, weeping into the early morning hours until exhaustion compelled her to rest, terrified for the woman she had come to think of as a mother.

Since neither his pa nor his brother had been very forthcoming yet about what happened, he assumed Greg Webb was also a prisoner and was innocent in all of this.  Monty had said something when he’d stopped in briefly before that indicated the young man would not have gone with Finch willingly.  Adam had no idea what the family’s dynamics were, but from what little he knew of Greg, and what Hoss had been able to tell him about Finch, he doubted the boy had taken part in what the outlaw had done.  It made him wonder if there was more to Monty and Greg leaving the cattle drive early than either one of them had admitted.

He guessed he’d find out when the cowboy returned.

Adam leaned into the blue velvet chair and rested his head against its high back.  He was weary to the bone.  There had been so much going on – so many things to do – he hadn’t really processed the fact that he could have lost his entire family in one night.  This morning, sitting there, looking at Pa and Joe, it had hit him like a punch in the gut.  Wasn’t that, after all, what he’d intended to do – ride away and leave them all, perhaps never to see them again?  The concept had become a cold hard reality.  He had comforted himself with the fact that he would write and they would write back.  Somehow, he would manage to remain a part of their lives even though he had chosen to be apart.  The last few days had taught him there would be no going back.  It would be as if Pa and Hoss and Little Joe were dead to him.

And he didn’t think he could live with that.

No, he knew he couldn’t.

“Mistah Adam want some cake?” Hop Sing asked after appearing at his side as like a genie out of a bottle.  “Number one son not eat supper.”

“I ate, Hop Sing,” he countered.  “You were there.”

“Hop Sing there to carry plate away with enough food on it to feed pack of wolves outside!” the man from China snapped, a bit of his annoyance breaking through the concern.

“Forgive me,” he said with a smile.  “I promise I will do better tomorrow.”

“You could have given me ol’ Adam’s leftovers instead of them wolves,” Hoss quipped as he descended into the room.  “I could eat a whole ‘nother meal after findin’ Pa and Joe together lookin’ good and happy as two peas in a pod.”

“Little Joe better in own bed,” their cook pronounced.  “Boy not know how to lay still.  Keep father awake.”

It was true.  Pa would probably wake up with Joe’s fist in his face and a long skinny leg draped across his own.

Adam met Hop Sing’s anxious gaze.  “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones,” he said softly, quoting Proverbs.

“You need to run that one by Doc Martin, Adam,” Hoss said with a snort.  “He didn’t look like he was none too merry when he found Joe in Pa’s bed.”

No, he hadn’t.  Fortunately, there were four of them and only one of Doc Martin.  Little Joe had stayed put.

“Doctor say Mistah Ben much better.”  It was a statement, but still a question.

“Yes, “ Adam replied as he rose to his feet.  “Pa’s fever is down and there seems to be no infection in the wound.  It will be quite a while before his strength is back, but Paul is certain it will return.”

“Little Joe better too?”

He nodded.  “Yes, he’s better too.”

It was true Joe was better, but his fever was still a problem.  Baby brother just couldn’t seem to throw it off.  Still Paul was optimistic.  He thought that – now that Joe had accepted the fact that he wasn’t responsible for shooting their father – he would quickly regain strength and might be up in a day or two.  His broken rib was another matter.  Joe still had weeks of healing ahead of him on that account.

Which left him with a problem, and that was the promise he had made to his little brother that they wouldn’t go after the man who’d shot Pa without him.

Seemingly satisfied by an answer that would have left him questioning more, Hop Sing nodded and returned to the kitchen.  At that same moment a knock sounded at the front door.  Hoss was closer, so he went to get it.  After he opened the door, the big teen stepped back to allow a dusty and exhausted-looking Monty Webb to step into the room.  He’d been in a little earlier to tell them he was back, but this was the first time they would have a chance to talk.

“The posse ain’t given up, has they?” Hoss asked.

Monty removed his hat and slapped it against his thigh before hanging it on the rack.  “Sorry about all the dirt,” he said as his eyes darted about the room, settling on the area of the settee.

The cowboy seemed nervous.  Adam had a sense that he had something he wanted to say, but was having a hard time finding a way to begin.

“Would you like a brandy, or maybe a shot of whiskey?” Adam asked.  “You look like you could use it.”

“I’ll take some coffin varnish, thanks.”  As Adam mused over what his father would think of his twenty dollar bottle of double barrel whiskey being called such a thing, Monty advanced into the room, saying, “No, the posse ain’t quit.  They’ve moved on, following a trail they found.”

Adam brought the drink to him.  “But you don’t think it’s Finch’s trail.”

Monty downed the whiskey in one gulp and handed the glass back.  He looked him in the eye.  “Don’t think nothin’.  I know it ain’t.”

“And you didn’t tell them?”  Hoss was outraged.  “What was you thinkin’?”

Adam held the other man’s gaze.  He recognized something in it.  Something he knew Monty saw in his own.

“This is about family.  Isn’t it?” the black-haired man asked.

Hoss scowled.  “What you talkin’ about, Adam?”

He held a hand up.  “I think Monty has the answer to that question.  How about you, Monty?”

The cowboy nodded and then went to the settee and sat down.  He shook his head when Hoss offered another drink.

Adam sat across from him while Hoss anchored an arm on the mantle.  “Tell us,” he said.

Monty drew a long breath and let it out slowly.  Then he began.

“Me and Finch, we was born in Idaho.  Our family was one of the first to travel west.  They tried farming and then panning for gold, and then finally opened up a saloon.  We lived upstairs over the main room.  Finch was born before that, while the panning was goin’ on.  There were five between me and him.  None of the girls made it past five and the younger brother we had died when he tried to swim a crick that was runnin’ too fast.”  Monty sighed as he thought about it, as if that brother’s death had hit him hardest of all.  “Ma tried to teach us, but you know boys.  By the time I was old enough to squat over a pot Finch was leadin’ me into all kinds of trouble.”  He snorted.  “How much older are you than Little Joe, Adam?”

“Twelve years.”

“Then you know what it’s like.”

“’Cept with us Cartwrights it’s the other way round,” Hoss said, affection softening his tone.  “That little brother of ours, he’s the one what leads’ us into trouble!”

Monty nodded.  “Greg was like that too.  Dang kid.  I told him not to try crossin’ that creek.”

For a moment Adam’s mind was filled with the image of Joe doing just that same thing.  Then he realized what Monty had said.

“Was?”

The blond man licked his lips and nodded.  “My brother Greg drowned when he was twelve.”

Adam’s brows peaked.  “Would you care to explain then, how we met him a few days ago?”

“No, wait,” Hoss said, taking a seat on the hearth.  “I seem to remember Greg shoutin’ somethin’ at Finch while I was lyin’ on the floor.  I was half out of my head.”  He frowned, reaching for it.  “I think Greg yelled somethin’ about hatin’ Finch and him not bein’ his brother?”

“He’s not.  He’s not mine either.  Not by blood.”  Monty  sighed.  “But he sure is in every other way.”

Adam leaned forward, wrapping his fingers around each other and dangling them between his knees.

“Go on.”

The tale was long and twisted.  Finch Webb, it seemed, had from the very beginning been a bad egg.  He broke every rule and then, because he got away with it, broke them again and again.  Their father died when Monty was six and Finch, seventeen.  For a time their mother ran the saloon, but her heart wasn’t in it and one day she simply disappeared, leaving her two surviving children to fend for themselves.

Finch lived on the edge and craved excitement, and so he soon gravitated to crime.  Within a few months he was using Monty to swindle away widow’s and little old ladies’ savings.  He went through money like water, so they were always at it and always on the move, it being too dangerous for him to remain in any one town for long.  Eventually, as age and hard living caught up to him, Finch decided it was time to settle down and get a ‘proper’ job.

That was when he went to work at the Square Deal Saloon, one of the first establishments of its kind in the small gathering of houses and businesses that would soon come to be known as San Francisco.  Finch had been in his mid-thirties, handsome, strong and able, and more than capable of turning the head of the female owner of the Square Deal with his sweet talk and winning smile.  In time he just about ran the place, though his official role was that of bouncer.

Trouble was, some of the men Finch ‘bounced’ ended up dead.

It was only then that Monty began to suspect his older brother might be more than a cheat and a bully.  That maybe, he was a killer too.

Monty had paused then and his look darkened.  There was a woman who worked in the saloon that Finch became obsessed with.  She was a sad, dark-haired beauty who went by the working name of Silks, due to the expensive silk dresses she wore.  One day Silks tried to kill herself.  A new doctor in the town was called – a doctor who was willing to enter such an establishment and treat ‘soiled doves’.   He saved her life and then they fell in love.  Shortly after that they were married and Silks went away, leaving behind the sordid life she’d lived.

But she couldn’t leave behind Finch.

It was at this point Adam had stopped Monty’s narrative with a question.  “Do you know her real name?”

Monty bit his lip and nodded.  “Found it out, but only after…what happened.”

Hoss looked sick.  “It was Miss Rosey, wasn’t it?”

The cowboy nodded.  “It took me a while to recognize her.  She looks different.  Older.  Tougher.  But it’s her.”

“So your brother Finch was the man who killed Rosey’s husband and son?  And you stayed with him?”  Adam’s tone was accusatory.

Monty shrugged.  “Finch was all I had, and you gotta remember, Finch was all I knew.  I was aware that some of the things he did was crooked as a snake fence and he shoulda been in jail, but at the time – I was only twenty or so – it all seemed like a kind of lark.”  Monty paled.  “Until the O’Rourkes.”

“Did you know he killed them?”

“Only later.”  The blond man paused.  “And he didn’t kill ‘them’.  Finch only killed Patrick O’Rourke.”

“Then what happened to Rory?” Hoss asked, mystified.

It was like a brick wall falling.

“Greg,” Adam breathed. “Greg is Rosey’s son.”

Rosey caught the ripped bodice of her dress in her hand and held it up so it covered the exposed skin and underpinnings beneath.  This was the first they had stopped in their mad dash to avoid the Cartwrights and the law, and the first time the man she had once known as Sten had tried to take advantage of her.  She’d spat in his face and fought like a wildcat, raking fingernails down his cheeks like claws.  She knew this man and knew if she made him mad enough he would lose his lust in another more overriding emotion – rage.

Fifteen years had passed since she’d found herself in this position.  Fifteen years that had seen the life and death of the man she loved and their son, as well as the baby daughter whom this monster denied breath.  He had taken away everything and everyone she loved.  They were all dead.

Or dying.

“Ben,” she sobbed as tears ran down her cheeks.

Finch had been reaching for her.  He stopped when he heard her speak the rancher’s name.  It was at that moment that the rage overcame him.  Rosey could tell he wanted to throttle her.  A myriad of emotions flashed in those cold callous eyes.  There was anger, but even more there was fear.  If he lost control and killed her then he’d lose, because she’d be dead and free.

And Finch couldn’t stand to lose.

Just before his hands would have circled her throat, the former bouncer turned and picked up a chair and slammed it into the wall, sending wooden missiles flying through the room.  It made quite a racket.  Unfortunately, even if anyone heard, no one would care.  They were in a back alley behind a dive of a saloon in a small village called Harriman, just outside of Reno.  Finch planned on robbing the town’s bank.  He’d already gambled away almost all of the money he’d stolen from the Cartwright’s safe and what he’d got from selling their things.  Apparently in the years he had been on the run, cattle rustling and robbery had become his vocation.  Sadly, Finch had pulled his younger brothers into it including the young man with the thick wavy brown hair who lay unconscious at her feet.

Greg had tried to protect her.

“Ain’t no use your worryin’ about that dead rancher.  He’s long gone and the Devil’s welcome to him!” Finch snarled.

“You’re the only devil I know!” she countered sharply as she knelt beside the young man.  “What’s wrong with you?  You may have killed your own brother!”

“Greg ain’t dead,” the villain sneered, and then finished enigmatically, “Couldn’t kill him.  Then or now.”

The young man moaned at her touch.  “He needs a doctor,” she said.

Finch spat.  “Seems to me, Silks, you should of learned enough, havin’ a medical man between your legs.  You take care of him.”

Ignoring the taunt, Rosey turned her attention to the young man’s injuries.  There was a deep gash behind Greg’s left ear where Finch had hit him with the butt of his gun.  It had been at least ten minutes and this was the first the boy had shown any sign of consciousness.

“He may have a concussion.”

“Don’t matter to me what’s wrong with him so long as he’s up and movin’ by the time Simms and me get back.”  The villain crossed to the door and opened it.  He turned and showed her the key.  “You know these places.  Ain’t but one way out and I got the key, so you just settle back and wait.”

Yes, she knew these ‘places’.  This backwater town had two saloons and Finch had taken up residence in the most sordid one.  He’d rented one of the cribs out back of the ramshackle building and forced her into it, intending to have his way with her.  He would have too, if Greg had not barged in and tried to stop him.

She felt an inexpressible moment of relief as the door closed behind him.

Brushing the dark hair back from Greg’s forehead, she pressed her hand to his skin.  It was clammy.  She was frightened for him.  From the moment Finch had grabbed her and forced her out of Ben’s ranch house and into the wagon that took them away, Greg had remained close by her, as if – by his very presence – he could protect her somehow from his brother’s madness.

Much like Patrick had done.

In fact, the boy reminded her of her husband, though Pat had been a good deal older when they met.  Still, Greg had the same sensitive mouth; the same caring eyes.  Even the shape of his face was similar.  But it was there the comparison stopped.  Patrick would never have been a party to the things this boy had – robbery, rustling.

Maybe murder.

Greg would have been a boy when her husband and son were murdered, so she was fairly certain he had not taken part in that horrific crime.  Still, from the things she’d heard along the way, his hands were not entirely clean.  Finch’s man, Abel Simms, had made a remark about him holding the horses during an earlier robbery.

Even that could be enough to get a man hanged.

A second moan from the young man drew her attention back to him.  He was trying to sit up.

“Here,” she said, taking hold of his arm.  “Let me help you.”

Greg glanced at her and then shied away. “Why would you?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” she said, refusing to yield.  “And would be even if you hadn’t tried to help me.”

He had a shy grin and favored her with it now.  “Fat lot of good I was.”

“You were a good deal of help.  You stopped him.”  Rosey glanced at her torn gown.  She didn’t elaborate.  She didn’t need to.  “Thank you.”

The young man nodded and then turned a pale shade of green as sweat broke out on his forehead.  “I think I’m going to be sick.”

She’d expected it.  In his rage, Finch had broken not only the chair but a small table and knocked the basin it held to the floor.  She reached for it now and held it as Greg retched.  After propping him back against the wall, she rose and went to get the pitcher that rested on a shabby bureau.  Returning with it, she sat it down and then proceeded to rip lengths of cloth from her petticoats.  Balling them up, she dipped them in the water and used one to bathe his face.

She smiled as she wiped the blood away.  “I’ve got you, sweet boy,” she said.  “You’ll be just fine.”

Greg watched her, a strange look on his face.

“Are you going to be sick again?” she asked.

He shook his head.  Carefully.  “Can I ask you to do something?” he asked, his voice catching.

Her fingers were on his chin.  She was running the cloth over his face again.  As she did, for some reason, a chill ran along her spine.

“Of course,” she said, hiding her discomfort.

“Say that again.”  At her puzzled look, he added,  “What you just said, about being ‘fine’.”

She noticed he closed his eyes as she spoke.  “I’ve got you, sweet boy?  You’ll be just fine.”

His brow wrinkled.  A tear escaped his eye.  “My…ma called me that.”

“How old were you when she died?” she asked.

“I don’t know.  I don’t…remember.  Finch said I was about twelve.”  Greg drew a deep breath and opened his eyes.  “My pa’s dead too.  We were at some woman’s home when these bad men came.  They killed my pa.  I…I tried to save him.  I was shot.  One bullet took me in the side and another along the head, that’s how come I’ve forgot a lot.”  He licked his lips as he rested his head on the crib wall.  “When I woke up I was with Finch.  He told me the men had hit several homes in the valley including ours, killing everyone, and since I was a witness, I couldn’t go back – not even for the funeral.”  He shrugged.  “I was just a kid.  There wasn’t anything I could do about it.”

She was wringing out the cloth, watching the boy’s blood color the water.  “What happened then?”

“Finch adopted me.  Started telling people we were brothers and that was all right with me.  After all, I didn’t have anyone else.  We traveled north into Oregon Territory and that’s where I met Monty.”  Greg smiled.  “Me and Monty hit it off.  He’s a good man.”

Even though Monty too had taken part in robberies and Heaven only knew what else.

“Did you ever think of running away?  Of trying to find your people?” she asked as she picked up a new cloth and began to fasten a binding for his head.

Greg was silent a moment.  “Monty and me, well, that’s what we were doing.  All three of us were working this big cattle drive.  We figured we could get away and Finch wouldn’t be able to track us due to all the steers moving through and trampling any prints.  We heard we could get work in Nevada, hopefully with the Cartwrights since they pay better than anyone else and they had such a big spread.  When we made enough, we were gonna head to San Francisco.”

She was tying the band around his head.  Again, there was an electric thrill, as if someone had stepped on her grave.

“Why San Francisco?”

He shrugged.  “You know how it is.  Even though I lost most of my memories before that night, I still have a few impressions.  I remember being in San Francisco with my pa.  I think he might have been a doctor.  I thought maybe someone there would remember me.”

Rosey’s hands froze in the midst of fashioning a knot.

“A…doctor?”

He nodded.  “I think I went out with him sometimes, to see his patients.”  He frowned with remembered pain.  “I think that’s why we were at that lady’s house.  To help her.”

Her heart was beating fast, pounding in her chest.  “Do you remember your father’s name?”

He shook his head.  “No”

“Your mother?”

Another shake of the head.  “No.  Not hers either.  I just called them ‘ma’ and ‘pa’.” He paused.  “But I do remember my own name.  Well, my Christian name.”

“What?  It’s not Greg?”

“That was the name of Finch’s kid brother that died.  He made me use it.  Said it was close enough to mine but different, and I needed to hide because of the outlaws who had killed my folks and would be gunning for me.”

She felt as if she might faint.  It couldn’t be.  It just couldn’t.  Not after all these years.

“And…your real name is?”

He had a little smile on his face.

“Rory.”

Adam Cartwright sat at the side of the bed that held his sleeping father and brother.  His mind was awhirl.  He had come up here to find some peace.  He’d needed to be alone and yet, strangely, needed just as much to be with someone.  He loved Hoss, but his brother had a tendency to work through family problems by hashing them out with words.  He just didn’t have it in him to talk right now, and so he’d sent Hoss out to ride the line and check in with the men.  He was probably furious with him.  It didn’t matter.

All that mattered was what he was going to do next.

Near the end of their talk Monty admitted that he had deliberately mislead Sheriff Olin and his  posse.  It wasn’t that he intended to let Finch get away.  What he did intend was to be the one to take his brother in.  His main concern was Greg.  Correction.  Rory.

Greg-ory.

How could they have been so blind?

Monty knew that, if Olin and went in with guns blazing, it was likely Greg would be killed.  Posse’s that contained civilians were notoriously indiscriminate when it came to the take-down, often going off half-cocked.  They were also hard to control.  Lynchings happened.  During the night the cowboy had laid a false trail for the lawman to follow and then returned to the Ponderosa.

The sheriff was going to be royally pissed when he figured it out.

Monty went on to explain that he knew his older brother’s haunts and was fairly certain where Finch had gone.  He’d returned because he was sure that he and Hoss would want to go with him when he went to confront his brother.  He was right.  He did.  So did Hoss.

So did Little Joe.

Looking at his baby brother now, Adam didn’t know how he could take him along.  Joe was still recovering.  A few hours before the fever had finally left him and he was sleeping normally for the first time, his arm wrapped around Pa’s middle.  Pa had made it through the woods too.  Paul Martin had grumbled and growled and then admitted with a smile that the Cartwright miracle machine was in place.  He said before he left that, barring anything unforeseen happening, their father would make a full recovery.

And therein lay the rub.

If he and Hoss rode out and left Little Joe behind, and Joe knew that their pa was out of danger, it would take nothing short of an act of God to keep their baby brother from following them.  Oh, they could try to hide their intent from him, but it was bound to slip out.  There were simply too many men; too many chances for Joe to find out what they were up to.  They could put Ming-hua and Hop Sing in charge of him, but Joe had a way of wrapping the man from China around his finger and Ming-hua, well, she was simply too distressed about Rosey to be of much help.

They could, of course, always take Joe into Eagle Station and let the sheriff  lock him in a cell!

Adam ran a hand over his face.  But that wouldn’t be fair to Joe.  He was a Cartwright too.  It was his father who had nearly been killed.  It was his right to see justice done as much as it was theirs – maybe even more for what Finch had forced him to do.

Rising, Adam went to the other side of the bed and sat down.  He sighed and then, reaching out, placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder.  Here he was, at the same point he’d been several days before.  He knew what his father would say and yet, knew as well that Joe needed this.  Little Joe had felt so helpless since the whole debacle with Wade Bosh and now, dear God, now he felt responsible for Pa being shot.  Joe needed something.

Something to hang onto.

His brother shifted and moaned and a little smile twisted the edges of his full lips. A moment later the kid reached up in his sleep and covered Adam’s hand with his own.

The black-haired man sighed again and then snorted.  He seemed to do that a lot when the kid was around.

Still, a promise was a promise.

Adam only hoped he didn’t live to regret making it.

************

TEN

“You’re gonna what?”

Hoss Cartwright shook his head.  He couldn’t have heard Adam right.

Could he?

They were standing in the stable. Adam had asked him to follow him outdoors, makin’ up some story about there bein’ a horse he needed to take a look at.  It’d been three days since Joe’s fever broke, and little brother was downstairs for the first time, sittin’ in the blue chair by the fire.  He’d watched them go like he knew they was plannin’ somethin’.  The thing was, he wasn’t

Adam was.

“Hear me out,” his older brother said.

“Hear you out?  You’re plumb crazy, Adam, if you think Pa’s gonna let you take Little Joe anywhere near Finch Webb!”

“That’s why I don’t intend to tell him.”

“You’re gonna lie to Pa?”

Older brother’s nose wrinkled until it was right up next to his eyes.  “No.  Not exactly.  I’m going to tell him the truth – just not all of it.”

Adam was right smart.  A sight smarter than he was.  But right now, well, he seemed thick as a brick.

“So let me get this straight,” the big teen began, “you’re gonna tell Pa that Doc Martin ain’t comin’ back for a few days…”

“Which is true,” his brother agreed.

“And that he asked you to bring Little Joe in to see him in town since he ain’t?”

Older brother gave a curt nod.  “That’s right.”

Hoss shook his head.  “I didn’t hear the Doc say nothin’ like that.”

“You weren’t in on the conversation.”

He planted his hands on his hips.  “And just when did this here conversation happen to happen?”

Adam was unruffled.  “You were in the kitchen, remember?  Talking Hop Sing into allowing you to raid the ice box.”

Hoss scowled.  “I weren’t in there that long.”

“Long enough.”

And people said the Chinese were inscrutable.

Hoss ran a hand through his reddish-blond hair and then clamped it on the back of his neck.  “What makes you so all-fired sure Little Joe’s ready to make this trip?”

Adam puffed out a breath of air.  “He’s not.”

“Then what in Tarnation do you think you’re thinkin’?”

Older brother was silent for a moment, then he said, “All right.  You tell me what you would do.”

“About what?”

“Pa is out of danger, right?”

Hoss nodded.  So the Doc had said before he left.

“So you and I are free to take off with Monty to hunt Finch Webb down.”

His brother’s jaw tightened.  “Dang right!”

“And Little Joe is just going to stay home knitting socks.”

Hoss frowned.  “What?”

“You and I and Monty are going to hunt down the man who forced Joe to pull the trigger on his own father, and baby brother is going to meekly accept the fact that he can’t go along and stay home engaging in some harmless activity.”

Meek?  Little Joe?

“Well, no….”

“No.”  Adam’s lips were pursed.  His hazel eyes narrowed.  “So, what do you suppose Joe is going to do?”

Hoss scratched his head.  “Foller us?”

“Yes, er…’foller’ us.  Precisely.  Placing himself and probably us in danger.”

“Hop Sing could watch him.”

“Hop Sing.”  Adam’s lips pursed.  He let out a little sigh like an exasperated school marm dealing with a particularly dull-witted student.  “This would be the same Hop Sing who watched Little Joe after Marie’s accident.  The same Hop Sing whose only job was to keep a five year old with him in the house until Pa put that horse down.  And the same Hop Sing who felt so sorry for Joe that he went to fix him a special treat while little brother used the opportunity to follow Pa out of the house and into the corral and almost got trampled?”

The big man blew out a breath.  “Yeah, that’d be the same one,” he admitted with defeat.  He thought a moment.  “What about Ming-hua?”

Adam rolled his eyes.  “What about Ming-hua?”

That little gal was a bigger mess than little brother makin’ mudpies.

“Yeah….”

Adam’s gaze went to the house.  “Face it, Hoss.  If we go, we have to take Joe with us.  It’s the only way to keep him safe.”

“By puttin’ him in danger….”

His brother nodded.  “Yes.”

Hoss thought about it a moment and then shook his head.  “Is that what you college-educated types call logical thinkin’?”

Adam’s hazel eyes twinkled.  “A wise man once said that logic is the art of going wrong with confidence.”

The big man considered it for a minute – everythin’, that was – Doc Martin’s words, Pa’s condition, Little Joe’s ornery spirit, his own confusion, and Adam’s, well, Adam’s confidence.

He sure was a slick one, that older brother of his.

“Pa’s gonna take a belt to you, older brother, I don’t care how grow’d up you are.”

“By the time he’s able to, he’ll have cooled off.  Think about it Hoss.  Most likely we’ll ride out with Monty, find Finch, and be back within a day or two.  Monty thinks he’s holed up somewhere pretty close.  Pa’s only awake a few hours of the day.  He doesn’t have to know.”

Hoss pinned his brother with his ice-blue eyes.  “But he will.  You know he will.  He’s…Pa.”

Older brother was silent for a moment.  “You know I was thinking of leaving.”

It was a statement.  Coming out of the blue like it was, it was like a punch in the gut.

“Yeah.”

“So, I’ll leave.”

He shook his head.  “You ain’t leavin’, Adam.  You never was.”

Anger crept into his brother’s tone.  “Oh, so you know what I’m thinking now?”

“Sure do.”  At Adam’s look, he went on.  “You’re thinkin’ it’s all your fault this happened since you was thinkin’ of leavin’ and went up to that mining camp ‘cause you got a burr under your saddle about Pa not trustin’ you due to what happened with Joe and Butch.  You’re all-fired sure if you’d been at the house Little Joe would never have been taken out of his bed and Pa wouldn’t have been shot and we’d all be dressin’ in our Sunday best now, headed for services lookin’ pretty as jaybirds.”

Adam scowled.  “No, I’m not.”

Meaning, yes, he was.

“Adam, if you think takin’ Joe to hunt for Finch is gonna keep you from feelin’ guilty somehow about –”

Older brother looked startled.  He didn’t say a word for a minute, as if he was considerin’ what he’d just said.  Then, “I don’t, Hoss.   Honestly, this isn’t about me.  It’s about Little Joe.  He feels responsible for what happened to Pa.  This is about…absolution.”

There he went with one of them ten dollar words.  “Ab-so what?”

“Pardon.  Release.”  Adam’s gaze returned to the house.  It was almost like he was lookin’ through the door and seein’ Joe.  “Baby brother needs to forgive himself.”

“So you’re thinkin’,” he began, remembering what Adam had said earlier, “that we need to go wrong with confidence.”

Older brother’s cheek twitched.  “In a big way.”

Hoss thought a moment and then blew out a sigh.  “So when are you gonna tell Pa?”

“I’m not,” Adam shot back.  “You are.”

“Now wait just a goldarned minute!”

“Think about it,” he said.  “Pa will suspect something if I tell him.  He knows you’re trustworthy.”

“I ain’t gonna be so trustworthy when he finds out I lied to him!”

“Left out part of the truth,” Adam corrected.

The big man remained silent for several heartbeats and then said, “You missed your callin’, older brother, you know that?”

The twitch settled into a half-smile.  “You mean I should have been a lawyer?”

“I mean you should’ve been a snake oil salesman.”

His brother’s hazel eyes twinkled.  “A noble calling, after all.”

There just was no winnin’ with him.

Joe felt like a snot-nosed wet-behind-the-ears kid all bundled up in his heavy coat and half the blankets the ranch house had.  Pa’d been none to happy to hear that his older brothers were gonna take him to town, even if it was on doctor’s orders, and had insisted Adam and Hoss make sure he didn’t catch a chill.  He’d been excited about it at first.  Though he’d told no one, his side still hurt like heck and he had to be careful when he moved, but once the fever broke and he’d been able to eat, he’d gained strength back fast enough and was champing a the bit to do something.

‘Course the something he really wanted to do no one was gonna let him do, which was go after Finch Webb.

He’d shouted ‘til he was hoarse – and Pa had sent Hop Sing down from his room to issue a warning – about how no one was doing anything to look for that bad man and they all ought to be ashamed!  What were they doin’ in the house baby-sittin’ him?  Why weren’t they out with Deputy Coffee or the sheriff, tracking down Rosey and Greg?

Why didn’t they go away so he could do the same thing?

He’d had it all planned out.  He was still kind of weak and his side was sore as a boil, so he knew he’d have to be careful.  He was gonna take Cadfan out shortly after everyone else fell asleep and go to town.  There was a man named Harry who always hung out in front of the saloon.  He was a ‘malicious witness’, as Pa put it.  In other words, he liked to gossip.  He figured that if anyone would know anything about Finch Webb, it would be Harry.  The old man sat on the porch of the saloon most of the day asking questions and dispensin’ what Adam liked to call his ‘dubious wisdom’.  Joe shifted, pulling at the collar of his winter coat, which was itching.  He knew the sheriff talked to the old man, so if anyone was likely to know what was goin’ on with the posse that had been sent after Finch, it would be him.

He’d been sittin’ in the blue chair in the great room last night plottin’ and planning, when his brothers had come back into the house and announced that, in the morning, they were gonna take him exactly where he wanted to go!

God must be rewarding him for doing something right that he didn’t know nothing about.

“You doing all right back there, Little Joe?” Hoss called back to where he was sitting in the wagon’s bed.

“I’m dying of the heat!” he shouted back.  The spring day was chilly, but not chilly enough to be bundled up like a baby on a winter sleigh ride.  “Can’t you stop this thing so I can peel off a few layers?”

“Now, Joe.  You know we promised Pa we’d keep you all toasty warm.”

“You’re burning the toast!” he groused.

Both of his brothers laughed.  It should have made him angry.  But he was so happy to be out of the house, he found it hard to work up a lather.

‘Sides, if he did, they’d just rewrap him even tighter.

Joe closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the feed sack Hoss had placed in the wagon’s bed.  He left his eyes open and stared at the crisp blue sky, thinking about God up there in His heaven.  So much had happened in the last week or so that it was hard to take it in.  He’d been so sick – Pa’d been so sick – he’d hardly had time to think about the fact that he could have lost both Pa and Hoss – and maybe Adam too.  Hoss made nothing of it, but that blow he’d taken to the head had been a mean one.  And while Adam wasn’t there when Pa was…shot…he came home right after.  If he’d been a few minutes earlier, he would have walked right in on Finch Webb and could have been shot too.

Would have been shot.

Scooting down a little further, Joe let his eyes drift closed.  When he was little, sometimes his Pa would read him stories from the Bible before he went to sleep.  He liked the ones with battles and kings the most, because they were exciting.  His favorite king was David.  He kind of identified with him since David was sort of small for his age when he was a boy.  There was that fight with Goliath.  Nobody thought David could beat that giant, but he did.  He won that battle and all the other battles he fought in order to gain his kingdom.  But there were other stories about David.  Ones that weren’t as much fun.  Right now he was thinking about how the king’s own son turned on him and  tried to take his kingdom.  David had to run.  He had to hide.  He lost everything.

And yet, he was a man after God’s heart.

He’d wondered then and, truth be told, wondered now why God let all those bad things happen to someone He loved, some said, more than anyone else.  Joe’s lips curled in a smile when he remembered what Pa had said when he’d asked him just that.

‘There are three kinds of storms, Joseph, that God lets into our lives.  The first is for correction, when we’ve lost our way.  The second is a protective one, to guard and to guide us.  And the third, son,’ he’d smiled then, ‘is for perfection.’[1]

As he drifted off to sleep, Joe wondered which kind of storm he was in the midst of now.

Ben Cartwright shifted, easing the pain in his lower torso, and turned away from the window.  Doctor Martin had told him to begin sitting up for an hour or so several times a day to stave off any threat of pneumonia.  He’d had Hop Sing help him to the chair by the window so he could look out and watch his sons depart.  He was still not entirely at peace with Joseph going into town with his brothers.  It struck him as odd that Paul would want the boy bumping around in the back of a wagon or riding a horse so soon.  Hoss had explained that Paul said that Joe’s rib had knitted nicely and the physician thought it was high time for Little Joe to be up and about just like him.  Being a young sprout, Paul said, he thought a trip into town would do the boy a world of good.  It made sense.

So why did he feel so troubled?

“You’re an old fool, that’s why,” the older man grumbled.

Sometimes he felt too old to be raising a high-spirited boy like Joseph.  At times he wondered what God was thinking.  If Joe had been his first, when he too had the energy and vitality of youth, it would have been so much easier.  Rearing a quiet studious boy like Adam at forty-five would have been a joy, where, plain and simple there were times when raising up a mop-headed maverick like Joseph was nearly impossible.  Still, the joy Joseph brought into his later life with his unbridled enthusiasm and mercurial nature was of a different kind.  Little Joe didn’t have a word for ‘can’t’ in his vocabulary.  He saw each and every day as a challenge and lived each one to the fullest.  His youngest son made him see things in a different light, as if the world had just begun and all that lay before him were endless possibilities.

Yes, he loved that boy.

“Mister Cartwright?” a delicate voice intruded.   “All right for Ming-hua to come in?”

Ben shifted his eyes without moving his torso.  The young Chinese girl stood in the doorway of his room.  She was carrying a fresh pitcher of water.

“Of course,” he said.

“I did not want to disturb you,” she said as she moved toward the bedside table.  “Perhaps you were communing with the ancestors?”

Ben’s lip twitched.  With the oldest Ancestor of all, perhaps.

“How are you today?” he asked, wincing as he turned further.

The girl was pale.  She looked like she’d lost weight and might blow away if a strong breeze came along.  Her head hung down.

“Ming-hua worry for Miss Rosey.”

He was concerned about Miss Rosey too.  It galled him that he had to sit here, useless, while others went out to rescue her from that villain, Finch Webb.  The doctor had warned him that, though the wound had been far less dangerous than he had first supposed, if he resumed any sort of normal activity too soon he might well tear the stitches loose and begin to bleed again.

In other words, no getting out of bed alone or getting on a horse.

“Why don’t you sit down for a moment?” he asked, indicating the chair by the bed that had been occupied by his sons until a short time ago.

“Hop Sing has much for Ming-hua to do.”

“Well, Hop Sing works for me,” he said with a smile, “so I don’t think a minute or two would be out of order.”

With a small nod, she did as he asked.

Ben studied her.  She was a beautiful girl. His heart went out to her for the way she had risked her safety and left everything behind to save Joseph’s life.  If not for Ming-hua, he fully believed Wade Bosh would have had the time to get Little Joe on the Sun Princess and sail away with him, perhaps forever.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked.

Her small fingers were entwined and moved on the lap of her silk dress like she was working dough.  “There is nothing to do.  Nothing Ming-hua can do!” she added with a bit of fire.

Guilt.  Oh, he knew all about that.

“You feel you should have been able to stop those men from taking Rosey?”

“I did not even try!”

“As I understand it, you were tied up in the kitchen.”  As Ben straightened up and reached for her hand, he stifled a groan.  “Child, there was nothing you could do to prevent it.”   He paused to regain his breath and then added, softly, “There was nothing either of us could have done .”

The girl was still looking at her hands.  She nodded and then lifted her tear-streaked face.  “Ming-hua fears bad man will hurt Miss Rosey.”

It was Ben’s fear as well.  He knew what Finch wanted from the beautiful woman and he knew she would choose death before she gave it to him.  It was galling not to know what was going on with the search.  He’d asked Adam to stop by the sheriff’s office while they were in town to see what he could find out.  His son doubted the lawman would be there, but he said he’d try.

He took her small fingers in his and squeezed them tightly.  “We have to have faith, you and I.  In our friends but, most of all, in God.”

She sniffed.  “God is all wise.  Knows everything.  He will take care of Miss Rosey.”  Ben felt a return of pressure on his fingers.  Ming-hua smiled.  “Take care of Mister Cartwright’s sons as well.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

Ben nodded, fighting his own tears.  “Do you think,” he asked, “that you could ask Hop Sing to prepare some of that chamomile tea he keeps in the kitchen and bring it up?”  At her look he added, though he hated to admit it, “I’m feeling a little tired.  I think perhaps it would be best if I go back to bed for a while.”

As the young woman exited the room, Ben gingerly turned his body and his attention to the window.  Adam had said that, if Joseph grew too weary, they might stay over at the hotel in Eagle Station for the night.  Paul Martin had given him permission – if he felt up to it – to go down to the great room for an hour or so tonight.  He’d thought about it, but there seemed to be little point.  All that would come of sitting in that big empty room was to remind him that his sons were gone and he was alone.

A chill snaked down his spine at the thought, a reminder that the unthinkable almost had happened.

Ben sighed.

His sleep, if and when it came tonight, would not be restful.

Adam had wondered if he was making a mistake when he hatched the scheme to bring Little Joe along on the hunt for Finch.

Now he knew it was a mistake.

“Calm down, Joe, or I swear I will have Hoss turn this wagon around and take you straight back to the Ponderosa!” he snapped.

His baby brother looked anything but contrite.

“You can’t do that, Adam!  I got just as much right to be here as you and Hoss!”

He was right.  He was also a very sick young man.

“You listen to Adam, Little Joe.  You ain’t listenin’,” Hoss warned.  “You’re the only one got the power to put yourself on the sideline and you know it.”

Adam nodded.  “I didn’t say you had no right to be here.  After all I’m the one who lied to Pa so you could be here!”

Hoss rolled his eyes over to him.

He shrugged.  After all, it was the truth.

“But you just said….”  Joe sucked in a breath.  Adam saw his brother’s hand go toward his ribcage, but he stopped just short of touching it.  “You just said I had to stay with the wagon.”

He walked over to Joe and took him by the shoulders.  He was so young.  Compared to him, he’d lived only half a lifetime.  Joe tried to shrug him off, but he held on tight.

“Joe, I’m going to let you make that decision.”  As his brother opened his mouth, he held up a finger.  “After you hear me out.  Finch Webb is a dangerous and desperate man.  He probably thinks Pa’s dead, which means he has nothing to lose.  He’s holding Rosey and possibly Greg and he will think nothing of using them as human shields.”

“I know all that – ”

“So, do you think – when we take him on – that we have to be top notch?”

Little Joe scowled.  “Of course.  What kind of an idiot do you take me for?”

He ignored that question.

“If Hoss and I are worried about you, will we be top notch?”

Joe’s jaw tightened as he knew it would.  “No one needs to worry about me.  I can take care of myself.”

This was the delicate part.

“I know you can.”  At Joe’s hopeful look, he added, “Under normal circumstances.  But Joe, you’re far from normal.”  His lips quirked with an affectionate smile.  “Oh, you hide it well.  I doubt even Hop Sing noticed.  But you’re in a lot of pain.”

“I’m fine.”

Adam looked at him.  Joe’s color was better, but it was far from the normal hale and hearty shade one would expect with a thirteen year old boy.  There were dark circles under his eyes and his cheek color was still high, foreboding another bought with fever.  The black-haired man drew in a long breath.  He hated to do it, but with Joe one picture was worth a thousand words.

He reached out and tapped his brother on his left side.

Joe sucked in air like a grounded fish.

“Hey!  What’d…you do…that for?”

The tears in his little brother’s eyes only added to Adam’s concern.  Maybe he should just take him back.

“Joe, you’re sick.”

Little Joe’s jaw was tight.  His nostrils flared.  Adam expected a fight to end all finds.  So it was to his consternation and hesitant delight when Joe admitted he was right.

“I’m right?” he blinked.

“If that big old ox of a brother of mine had driven that wagon a little better, I’d be fine.”  Little Joe struck away a tear that had escaped his eye to travel down his cheek.  “Like being flung around in a chicken coop,” he growled.

Hoss was no dummy.  He took it up right there.  “Well, now, little brother, I apologize.  I know you could’a taken on that old Finch Webb all on your lonesome if I hadn’t of been so clumsy.”

Gratitude shone out of Joe’s eyes.  “Dang right, you big lump!”

Adam stepped forward to place a hand on his baby brother’s shoulder.  “Look, Joe. I want you to be as much a part of this as you can.  I know…  I know you have a special score to settle with Finch.  That’s why I let you come along.  But from here on out you have to do what I tell you.  Do you understand?  And if that means staying with the wagon, then you stay with the wagon.”  When Joe failed to respond he added, “You don’t want to be responsible for Hoss or me, or maybe Rosey getting killed because your rib gave out on you at just the wrong moment.  Now do you?”

Joe was looking at the ground, scuffing it with his boot.  “I guess not.”

“Good.  Now let’s get back in the wagon.  We’re supposed to meet Monty at the line shack.”  Adam sized up his brother’s condition and decided to ask.  “Do you need any help getting in the wagon?”

Joe shook his hand off.  Then, instead of heading for the wagon, he stood there, breathing in and out slowly.  Adam thought he was angry.

He was wrong.

“I guess maybe you could give me a hand,” the boy said, his tone defeated.

Dear Lord.

They were in trouble.

***********

ELEVEN

Rosey glanced at Rory where he crouched behind her, hidden in the early morning shadows that filled the small sordid crib.  He gave her a nod and a quick smile. They’d come to be friends over the last six hours or so, but she had yet to reveal that they were so much more.  She knew the emotional turmoil that was churning within her and didn’t think it would do either of them any good for him to be caught up in the same storm.  Once they got away – once Finch Webb was no longer a threat – then she would tell him.  He was a good man from what she could tell, in spite of the things he’d been led into.  He’d risked his life to save her when he thought she was a stranger.  If he knew she was his mother….

She couldn’t chance losing her son after just finding him.

Her son!

Rosey eyed the shadows and the figure concealed there again and smiled.  She could see the boy in him whom she had lost, but also the man his father had been.  This adult Rory had her coloring, but he favored Pat in just about everything else. His face and features.  His build.  And, sadly, in other ways.  Pat had sometimes been too introspective – he thought too much.  There was a melancholy about Rory.  She suspected it came from having nowhere to belong.  Finch’s brother, Monty, it seemed, had done all he could do take her lost son under his wing.  She would have to thank him for that.

If they all came out of this alive.

“Do you see anyone yet?” Rory asked, his voice quieted to almost a whisper.

She looked out the window.   “No, not yet.  But it should be soon.”

Rosey glanced down at what was left of her elegant dress.  She’d spent some time the night before tearing bits off, tucking it here and there; transforming it into the kind of thing she would have worn when she went by the name of Silks.  It plunged down, revealing her ample cleavage, and had been hitched up to reveal one of her shapely legs.  Rory had looked away while she made the adjustments and was still uncomfortable with her putting herself on display.  She was grateful to see his still had his innocence.

The man who would come soon to clean the cribs would have lost his long ago.

She’d worked these places before and she knew the routine.  Every morning a man came to empty the piss pots and supply the poor women who lived in them with fresh water and a smidgen of food.  She hoped Finch had not made any special sort of arrangements where she was concerned.  She doubted it, since he was trying to remain anonymous among the many men who frequented the establishment.  After all, as he said, he had the only key.

Only he didn’t.

A bang on the door made her jump.  Rory slipped back further into the shadows.

“Out of the way!” a rough voice called.

Rosey moved to the door and stood so the light spilling in the narrow window would play across her exposed breasts.

“There’s been a terrible mistake,” she breathed, making sure they heaved.  “Please, help me.  I shouldn’t be in here.”

“That’s what they all say,” the man growled.  “Now get away from the door!  And don’t you try nothin’.  I’m armed.”

Rosey stepped back into the crib as the man entered.  He was a surly and sorry sight, around forty, not tall and rather broad, with missing hair and teeth.  He went straight to the pot and tossed its contents into the larger one that he carried.  Passing her again, he placed it outside and then returned with a water bucket and tray. As he turned to leave, she reached out and caught his shirt sleeve.  He started to strike her away and then paused, really seeing her for the first time.

“You’re new,” he grunted, his eyes growing bright.

“Yes.  I told you I don’t belong here.”  She stepped into the light that entered the open door.  Careful to appear vulnerable, she used a meek tone.  “Look at me.  Can’t you see I’m telling the truth?”

The truth was, sadly, that the poor creatures who usually occupied the cribs were wasted and often diseased.  They had given up hope long before they were incarcerated.  The men they serviced didn’t even look at their faces.

This man was looking at hers now and seeing something he liked.

“You’re a handsome one, you are,” he remarked. “What’d you do to end up here with the whores?”

“I made someone mad,” she said as she sidled up to him.  Her hands knew where to go and she used everything she knew.  “But I can make you happy if you get me out of here.”

He was panting now.  One hand gripped her arm with force as the other circled her waist.  Rosey held her breath against the sight and smell of him as he pulled her in and pressed his lips against hers.

“Make me happy now and maybe I will,” he growled as he pulled back.

“Excuse me.”

Rosey froze at the voice and the sight of a finger tapping the man’s shoulder.

“I believe this is my dance.”

A second later the man was on the floor.  Rory glanced down at him, shoved him with his foot to make sure he was out cold, and then tossed aside the broken chair leg he had used to crack him over the head.

Rosey clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter.  Tears entered her eyes a moment later as she  reached out to place a hand alongside Rory’s cheek.  He looked at her oddly, as if the touch had awakened something in him.

Disengaging her hand quickly, Rosey knelt beside the man.  She handed his gun to Rory and then began to check his pockets.  A moment’s search turned up a ring of multiple keys.

“Aha!” she said when she found it.

“What do we need those for?” Rory asked.  “The door is already open.”

Rosey stepped into the alley after him and looked down the long row of cribs.

“To open more doors.”

Morning dawned and with it came a deeper and more disturbing sense that something was wrong.  In spite of Paul’s warnings, Ben had gotten himself up and dressed and was now making his way cautiously down the staircase.  He was sick to death of his room and determined to spend most of the day between the great room and his office where he could be in the thick of things.  There was no doubt the paperwork had piled up over the last week.  Adam told him he had devoted a few hours to it here and there, but he’d had a hard time concentrating.

He doubted he would fair much better but he was determined to try.

As his boots hit the floor, Ben reached out to catch the newel post to steady himself.  He was tempted to sit down right there and then on the bottom step and might have if Hop Sing had not chosen that exact moment to appear from out of the kitchen.  It took a moment for the man from China to spot him.

He knew full well what would happen when he did.

“What Mistah Ben do out of bed?!  Make doctor velly velly unhappy!” Hop Sing shouted all the way to his side.  Once there, he wagged a finger at him.  “All the Cartwrights time not listen!   Not know better, Hop Sing think you Little Joe!”

Ouch.

“I’m fine, Hop Sing.  Paul told me to start getting out of bed – ”

“Not by self.  Say with help.  Hop Sing help. Why you no call him?”

“Because I –”

“Because you stubborn as number three son and both more stubborn that mules!  All time yell at youngest.  You do same thing.”  This time that finger jabbed him in the chest.  “Why not yell at self?!”

He had a point.

“You come down to eat breakfast?” the man from China asked, making his head spin with the sudden transition.

He knew better than to say ‘no’.  “Of course, I smelled that bacon frying and, well, I just couldn’t stop myself from coming down.  I’m afraid my desire to sample your fine cooking overrode Doctor Marin’s orders.”

What had he told the boys about white lies?

His cook and friend beamed.  “Good!  Velly good!  You hungry.  Velly velly good!  You go sit down.  Hop Sing bring you coffee until food ready.”

He was about dead on his feet.  “Thank you, Hop Sing. That would be lovely.”

The man from China looked him up and down.  “It early in morning, but Hop Sing think Mistah Ben like little something extra in his cup?”

He chuckled and nodded.  “That would be lovely too.”

It was all he could do not to ask Hop Sing to help him to the chair, but he decided if he did where he would get helped to instead was his bed.  Moving slowly, the rancher made his way across the room and dropped into the blue one because it was the closest.

As he sat there gazing around the room, noting all the beloved items in it, Ben suddenly remembered.  This was the first time he had been in the great room since that horrible night over a week before.  He could see Hoss lying by the door, his head bleeding, so very still on the floor.  And see that madman standing over him, threatening him with a gun.  And Joseph, dear God!  He could see his youngest fighting with that man, who was at least twice his size, struggling to take the gun away from him, reaching…his finger on the trigger….

“Mistah Ben all right?” a soft voice asked.

He looked up to find Hop Sing holding a china cup filled with steaming liquid. “Yes,” he lied again.  “Thank you.”

Hop Sing did something then he rarely did.  He laid his hand briefly on his shoulder.  “Mistah Ben’s sons okay.  Mistah Ben okay too.  God answer Hop Sing’s prayers.  He watch out for them.  Keep all safe.”

Ben nodded, too choked up for words.  He managed to mumble another ‘thank you’ before the man from China moved away.  When he’d regained enough composure to, he took a sip of the brandy-laced coffee.  Relishing its warmth, he leaned back to rest his head against the chair.

At that moment there was a knock on the door.

“Too early for company!” Hop Sing groused as he made a detour and headed for it.  When he opened it, he added, “What you do here so early?!  Twenty miles from town.  You no wash up and eat breakfast before coming?”

A deep voice answered.  “I’ve been on the trail, Hop Sing.  Is Ben at home?”

A moment later a moderate-sized man with black hair, wearing gray and a silver star on his chest, appeared in the doorway.  He removed his hat as he stepped into the room and then held a hand out to keep him from rising.

“I was hoping to be able to see you, Ben,” Sheriff Bill Olin said as he noticed him.  “But, from what the Doc said, I wasn’t expecting to see you downstairs, at least not yet.”

“Mistah Cartwright no listen to Hop Sing,” his cook said as he closed the door.  “He no listen to doctor.  Maybe he listen to you.  You got badge!”

Bill looked like he didn’t quite know what to say.

“Thank you, Hop Sing.  That will be enough.” Ben waited as his cook snorted and headed for the kitchen muttering in Cantonese before looking at the sheriff.  “Why don’t you join me for breakfast, Bill?  With the boys gone, there will be more than enough.”

“Your boys aren’t here?” the dark-haired man asked.

“No.”  There it was – that chill down the spine, for no apparent reason other than the sheriff had asked a question.  “They went into town last night.  Joseph was supposed to see Doc Martin this morning.  I asked Adam to check in with you last night.  You didn’t see them?”

“No.”  Bill took a seat on the settee.  He looked right at him.  “Neither did Doc Martin.  He’s out of town for a few days.”

Ben stiffened.  “He’s…what?”

The sheriff shook his head.  A slow grin spread across his face.  “I think you’ve been bamboozled by those boys of yours.”

“But what for?  Joseph is unwell.  They can’t mean to….”  As Ben’s eyes lit on the place where Joseph had laid, struggling with Finch, desperate to protect him, a pit opened up in his stomach.  “No.  They wouldn’t.”

Bill’s smile was gone.  “I don’t know if they did or they didn’t, Ben, but what I do know is that man you hired – the one named Monty – isn’t all that he seems.”  The sheriff reached into his pocket and pulled out a wanted poster.  “That’s him.  There’s one for the younger boy as well.”

“Greg?” he asked as he focused on the likeness on the poster.

“Not for murder, just aiding and abetting a robbery.  Still carries time.”

Adam had mentioned that they were going to meet up with Monty on the way to town and travel together.  From what he knew of the young man, he trusted him.  He’d been honest and above board with them.  So had his younger brother.

“Are you sure it’s them?”

“Pretty sure.  That sketch could be Monty.  There isn’t a likeness of the younger boy, just a description.  But if it’s one of them, it’s both.”  The sheriff paused.  “Ben, what’s wrong?”

Fear gripped him.  “What about the posse?”

“That’s what I came out here to tell you,” Bill replied.  “Seems these two have been working things for years with that older brother of theirs.  He’s the bad one, wanted for murder several times over.  The posse was all for giving up until a rider came in early this morning. Seems the bank was robbed in that little village outside Reno late last night.  Eyewitnesses place Finch Webb at the scene.”  The lawman paused and determination entered his eyes.  “We mean to take him.  A bank teller and a woman were killed.”

Ben’s jaw tightened.  “What about his brothers?”

“Not there.  At least, no one saw them.  I’m on my way to join Roy and the other men.  We should have them soon.”  Olin paused.  “You don’t seem too happy about it.”

“It’s not that.”  Ben made sure the sheriff was looking at him.  “Bill, are you aware that Finch has a hostage?  When he attacked the ranch house, he kidnapped Rosey O’Rourke.”

Bill thought a moment.  “That lady just opened the millinery in town with that sweet little Chinese girl?”

“Yes.”  Ben’s fingers gripped the arms of his chair.  “And there’s something else.”

After a moment the sheriff prodded, “Well?  What is it?”

“I think my sons have gone after Finch Webb.”

Hoss Cartwright removed his hat and ran a hand through his hair.  He was looking at Adam and Monty who were standing at the edge of the camp, keeping their conversation out of range of Little Joe’s ears.  Not that’d matter much.  Joe’d fallen asleep in the back of the wagon the minute they stopped the night before and here the sun was up and heading toward noon and the little scamp was still sleepin’.  They were about a mile out of that good-for-nothin’ village name of Harriman that butted up against Reno like a boil on the backside.  Monty’d been holdin’ out on them.  Back on the trail he told them he thought he knew where Finch would be.  Here, there was no thinkin’ about it – he knew.  He’d ridden out to talk to Finch that night after everythin’ went wrong and made his brother believe he was still one of the gang.  He told that bad man he was gonna join with them when the job went down, only he didn’t.  He rode back to them instead.

Monty’d been in on casin’ the bank to begin with, back before they all went on that cattle drive.  It was a little bank but there were one or two big men in that good-for-nothin’ town that kept their money there.  Since there were only a few people in the town, the sheriff worked at the bank as well and was there late at night, since that was the only time he had.  Also let him keep a night watch.  Weren’t no deputies to be had.  Finch had gone in and felt the situation out.  That’s why they’d decided to wait until after the drive. One of them bigwigs in the town had a huge deal goin’ down and that bad man knew when they got back, they’d be able to steal enough to set them up, Finch said, maybe for life.

Monty’d snorted when he said that.  Apparently Finch Webb went through money like water.

It had been on the cattle drive that Monty had decided he’d had enough.  He was watchin’ Greg bein’ dragged into Finch’s web of crimes more and more.  This time, Finch meant to force the younger man to be a part of the robbery, rather than lettin’ him watch the horses.  Up until now, Greg’s hands had been pretty clean.

Finch was hopin’ he’d come out of this one with them covered in blood.

So, Monty had told Greg his thinkin’ and Greg had been quick to agree.  He was a good kid, Hoss thought to himself, kind of quiet and what Adam called in-tro-spective at times, but a good kid.

Rosey’s kid.

Hoss anchored his hat back on his head.  Imagine that.  Greg being that that young’un of hers what Rosey thought had been killed all those years ago.

He wondered – wherever she was right now – if she knew.

When Hoss stopped thinkin’ and paid attention again to what was goin’ on around him, he realized Adam was standin’ beside the wagon lookin’ at Joe.  Older brother reached out a hand and then shook his head.

A second later he was headed for him.

“I made quite a mistake this time,” Adam admitted, turning back to glance at the wagon, “and Joe’s paying the price for it.”

“Ain’t he just sleepin’?”

“Oh, he’s asleep, all right.  Didn’t stir when I touched him.”

That statement said a lot.  “Fever back?”

Adam nodded.  “He’s really pale.  Breathing kind of hard too.”

Hoss considered the situation for a moment.  “That ain’t gonna stop him.”

His brother snorted.  “I know.  That’s why I brought him along.  I was afraid this would happen and he’d end up out there somewhere in the woods by himself with a killer on the loose.”

And they both knew what that would have meant.

“Then it weren’t a mistake you made, was it?” he asked softly.

Adam’s body was tense.  It relaxed – a little bit.  “I guess not.”  He paused.  “You know he can’t go with us after Finch.”

He knew it.  And he knew what ‘it’ meant.  “ ‘Us’ bein’ you and Monty?”

His brother looked truly sorry.  “I hate to leave you behind.  I could use you, and I know you need to be there when Finch is brought to justice just as much as I do.  As Little Joe does.”

“Yeah, but there’s somethin’ I need even more.”

Adam’s black eyebrows asked the question.

“I need to see that little scallywag safe.  Much as I want to catch Finch Webb, it ain’t worth Joe’s life.”

His brother’s lips turned up at the end in a half-smile.  “You may have to sit on him to keep him from following.”

“Nah.  The boy cain’t do with no more broken bones.  Puny as he is, he ain’t gonna out wrassle or out run me.”

“You could head back home.”

He thought about it a moment.  “I could, but I don’t think that’s fair to Little Joe.  It took a lot for him to pull himself together and come with us.  Seems only right he sees it through to the end.”   The big teen’s eyes flicked to the wagon and back.  “Still worried about that fever though.”

“It’s not too high right now and, really there’s not much more could be done at home than we can do for him here.”  Adam thought a moment.  “Maybe Harriman has a doctor.  I’ll see if I can find one and send him out before we follow Finch’s trail.”

“You want we should stay right here?”

Older brother frowned.  He was thinkin’.  “Why don’t you go back a few miles along the road.  If I remember right, there was a cluster of rocks to the side of the road, with a chink just about as deep as a cave.  Do you remember it?”

Sure did.  They had one along the road to Eagle Station it reminded him of.

“You’ll be sheltered there.  Plus it will be…easier to defend should the need arise.”  Adam turned and started to walk away.  He stopped abruptly and pivoted on his heel to face him.  “Hoss….”

He nodded.  “I know.”

This might be the last time they saw one another alive.

“Watch out for Joe,” older brother said, not needin’ to say no more.

“You watch out for yourself,” he replied, breaking the unwritten code.

Adam nodded, and then he went to join Monty.  A moment later the two of them rode away.

Hoss watched them go and then went over to the wagon to check on Little Joe.  By the time he got there, baby brother was tossin’ and moanin’ in his sleep.  He hated to wake him ‘cause he knew he was plumb wore out, but he couldn’t just let him go on sleepin’ either.  It was plain as the nose on his face from what the boy was mumblin’ that Joe was scared out of his wits.

Curious thing was, it weren’t of Finch Webb.

“No,” Joe wailed.  “No, don’t…leave me.  Rats….  Rats will..eat me.  Pa!  Please Pa, help me!”

It’d been more than a year since Pa had rescued him, but for Joe it seemed like what he’d gone through’d never ended.  There’d been other nightmares before, just like this one, where he was back on that there ship – back in that rat-infested hell where Wade Bosh left him.

“Pa, no….”  Joe’s brow furrowed.  Tears ran down his cheeks.  “Not…Pa.  Never….  Save Pa.  Have to save…”

Baby brother groaned and sucked in air.  That could mean only one thing.

He was ready to let out a soul deep scream.

Quick as a lick, the big teen hopped up in the wagon and placed a gentle hand over his brother’s mouth to silence him.

“Joe.  Little Joe!  It’s Hoss.  You gotta wake up, boy.”

Joe stiffened and then, as he’d feared, began to struggle harder.  “Llt..mm..ggg!” his brother cried into his hand and then…

He’d be danged, if the little son of a gun didn’t bite him!

Ignoring the sting, he shook him again.  A little less gently this time.  “Joe!  Now don’t you shout out!  It just ain’t safe.  I promise, ain’t no one gonna hurt you.  It’s old Hoss’ got you.  Old Hoss’ll make everythin’ okay.”

His brother struggled a moment longer and then seemed to slump.  Joe blinked several times as his wide glassy eyes rolled over and fixed on him.

“Hoss…?”

Hoss released the breath he didn’t realize he’d drawn.  “Yeah, it’s me, punkin.”

He placed a hand on his brother’s forehead as he spoke to check for fever.  He’d expected Joe to buck like a bronco to get away from him.  When he didn’t, it told him all he needed to know.

“Where’s…Adam?” little brother asked.

“He’s with Monty.  They’re scoutin’ ahead.”  Hoss winced at what his Pa would call a ‘white’ lie.  “You just rest.  You gotta build up your strength up if you’re gonna see this through.”

“Scoutin’…?”

“Yeah.  They’ll be back soon.”

Little Joe seemed to calm at that.  He blinked those large green eyes several times.  Each time the seconds between openin’ and closin’ them grew longer, until at last they remained closed.  Finally, sure the little scamp was asleep, Hoss rocked back on his heels and tipped his hat back and let out a long, low sigh.

As he did, Joe stirred one final time.  “Hoss…?”

He touched his brother’s arm to let him know he was there.  “Yeah, Little Joe?”

“Thanks.”

“Shucks, you know I wouldn’t let nothin’ happen to you, little brother.”

“No….”  Joe let out a sigh of his own.  “Thanks for…being my brother.”

And then he was out like a light.

Hoss remained there, crouched in the wagon bed for several heartbeats, and then he hopped down and stood at its side.  With a last look at Little Joe to make sure he was sleepin’, the big teen moved off and began to tear down their camp.  If God was good, there’d be only one more camp to make.  Adam and Monty would catch that bad man lickety-split and they’d be on their way home afore nightfall.  It was a fair bet they’d run into Sheriff Olin’s posse on the way back.  If they did, he or Deputy Roy could take charge of Finch Webb and whatever other outlaws was with him and take them on to Eagle Station while they headed home.  There was gonna be hell to pay once Pa realized what they’d done.  That older brother of his was slicker than a buttered gut when he wanted to be, but he wasn’t sure even Adam could talk his way out of this one.

They’d probably be mucking out stalls and cleaning out cisterns until the steers came home.

The next spring.

Between thinkin’ and packin, Hoss was so busy he forgot to pay attention.  That’s how he missed the movement in the trees.  In fact he was completely unaware that they had company until he heard it.

The cocking of a hammer and a shout to raise his hands over his head.

***********

TWELVE

It was hard to believe, but Hop Sing managed to continue to unroll a string of Chinese curses and epithets long enough to reach from where they were on the road all the way back to the Ponderosa.  Ben had no idea whether the Chinese man was complaining about the weather – which had turned cold for early June – or the sun in the sky – which was intense – or about the fact that he was sitting in the back of the wagon disturbing the order of the plethora of food, water, blankets, pillows, medicine bottles and bandages he had so neatly stored there.  Both his cook and Sheriff Olin, who rode ahead of them with several deputized men, had tried to dissuade him from coming along in pursuit of Finch Webb.  The truth was, while he was concerned about Webb and wanted the outlaw to be captured, his focus had to be  his sons.

Once he knew they were all right, he would be able to turn his attention to finding Rosey and bringing the villain to justice.

When they hit a particularly large bump in the road and the wagon lurched and he cried out, Hop Sing pivoted in the driver’s seat to shake a finger at him.

“You no complain!  Mistah Ben should be home in bed.  Fool does what he cannot avoid.  Wise man avoid what he cannot do!”

The word stung.  ‘Fool’.  How many times had he called himself that?  ‘Fools make poor fathers,’ he’d said often enough.

Ben knew Hop Sing was right.  He knew it was foolish to have gone downstairs in the first place, let alone to be traveling over rough roads at a good clip in the back of a supply wagon.  There was a very real danger his stitches would tear open.  Paul Martin had chided him that he wasn’t a young whippersnapper any more and if he didn’t mind his manners, he’d end up with a return of the infection and maybe a killing fever.  Hop Sing was rightly worried that he might begin to bleed again and had told him so in no uncertain terms before they set out.  Ben leaned his head back against the piled up sacks the man from China had used to create a kind of chair for him.  He’d tried to explain to his cook and friend that there was no ‘might’ about it.  He was already bleeding – in his heart, for his sons.  At first he’d been angry with them – especially Adam who was old enough to know better – and when he found them, he would make a good show that he still was.  But beyond the anger there was a deep pride in these three young men whom he had reared as best he could without their mothers.  Three brave young men who saw a duty that needed done and had moved heaven and earth to do it.

Caught between anger with and admiration for his boys, the rancher let out a deep sigh.

“Mistah Ben not fool,” Hop Sing said softly.  “He wise man.”

Ben peered over his shoulder at the other man.  “Oh?”

The man from China nodded.  “A fool thinks himself to be wise.  Only wise man knows he is a fool.”

Ben snorted.  “Which Chinese ancestor said that?”

Hop Sing shifted his grip on the reins.  Without looking back, he deadpanned, “Shakespeare Sing.”

A moment later Ben gripped his side.

It felt good, but it hurt to laugh.

Frustrated, Adam kicked a clod of dirt and sent it flying along the dusty all-but deserted main street of Harriman. Since the robbery the night before the good citizens of the town – all two hundred or so of them – had rolled up the streets, pulled down the blinds, and gone into hiding.  It had taken several hours of rapping on doors – and a good bit of yelling – to get anyone to respond, and when they did respond the results were less than satisfying.

Slowly, he’d been able to piece together what had happened.

The town had turned in for the night as usual around midnight. Apparently carousing until dawn was not a common event in Harriman since there were no big spreads or mines to open the flood gates and let lose in a tide of hungry, thirsty, and more than a little bit bored men.  In fact, the woman who ran the only saloon in town looked like a school marm. She’d been the one to finally take pity on them and invite them in and give them a bit of a midday meal as well as some useful information.

The sheriff in Harriman was a man by the name of Roman Wild.  He’d scratched his head over that one as Prissy – yes, that was her name – the prim and proper madame, led them to a table and then ordered her cook to make up some sandwiches and bring a pot of coffee.  As Prissy talked he began to suspect that there was something more than friendship between her and Roman.  That went a long way to explain the tremble in her voice and the way she wrung her hands as she told them that the sheriff had been shot and was at the doctor’s office.  Adam made a mental note of that.  There was a doctor in town.  He was pleased as well to hear it was only a flesh wound since, willing or not, he was going to make that doctor ride out and take care of Little Joe.

The only witness said the robbers rode into town just after midnight.  Sadly, the only witness was a drunk who slept on the saloon’s porch most nights.  He said there had been four of them.  From the inebriate’s description of the leader, Adam was sure it was Finch Webb.  Another one sounded like his chief henchman, Abel Simms. The men went straight to the bank and began pounding on the door like they had some important business to conduct.  Now, having a sheriff as a bank employee is a good thing.  After all, who could keep the bank safer?  At least, it would have been a good thing if the sheriff wasn’t fairly young and more than a little bit cocky and so sure that no one could rob a bank while he was in it that he’d open the door to strangers after midnight.

Adam smashed another clod of dirt with his toe.

A fool and his money….

At first the robbery went off without a hitch.  The shades had already been drawn and no passerby – if there had been any – would have wondered at a light inside since Roman might be doing some late night work.  The problem came when Wild’s young wife – and, yes, he had a wife in spite of the marm of a madame – came to bring him an after-midnight snack.  The witness said the sheriff convinced Finch they needed to let her in.  Roman told them she was a hellcat and if they didn’t, she’d break the door down suspecting that he had someone else in there with him.

Like Miss Prissy.

So Mrs. Wild ended up inside the bank where she apparently lived up to her name, managing to crack Finch over the head with a lamp before attempting to escape.

A bullet in her back stopped her.

The prim and proper madame sniffed at this and expressed her condolences – all the while failing to keep the lustful twinkle out of her eyes.

The sheriff’s wound was not as serious  The bullet went in and out of his shoulder clean.  Finch and his crew packed up all the cash they had managed to gather and high-tailed it out of town, killing another man along the way just because he was standing in the middle of the street.

Adam glanced at the sheriff’s office, wondering whether or not it was time to go in.  Roman  Wilds was not in, but he’d seen one of the deputized citizens go in there shortly after dawn.  A small band of men had taken off immediately after the robbery in pursuit of the outlaws, but had no luck.  They’d returned about the same time and were over at the saloon having a bite to eat before heading out again.  They were a ragtag collection of farmers, businessmen, and boys.  He doubted anything would come of their search.

And so he was here, waiting on the so-called deputy to let him into the office so he could verify the sheriff’s mistress’ tale before he and Monty set off in pursuit of what was probably one of the most dangerous men in all of the Nevada territory.

A dangerous man who not only held a grudge against his little brother, but also against the woman Adam was pretty sure his father was falling in love with.

And then there was Rory….

“Oh, what a tangled web,” the classicist sighed.

“Mister Cartwright?”

Surprised, Adam pivoted on his heel to find a pretty young thing standing behind him.  She was about chin-high to him, with wavy dark brown hair and clear blue eyes.  She hardly looked older than Joe, though from the costume she wore – a teal dress wrapped like a second skin around her slender figure – he guessed she was.

He certainly hoped she was.

“How can I help you, miss?” he asked.

She smiled at the title.  “Prissy sent me to find you.”

“Oh?  May I ask why?”

“That man that robbed the bank,” she began without preamble.  “Miss Prissy remembered she’d seen him before.  He came into town a few days back and rented a room at the saloon and one of the cribs.”

Odd, since renting a room meant a long stay and renting a crib meant, well, something else entirely.

“That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?  To rent both?”

The girl’s head bobbed.  He kept looking for the school girl braids, but they weren’t there.

“That’s why Prissy remembered it.  She said he was mean as a polecat and, well, you know, not the right type.  She felt sorry for the woman he put in the crib.”

“He put a woman in the crib?  He didn’t….”  Then he had it.  Rosey.  “Go on.”

“She was a real pretty lady, not the kind you find in them places.”  The girl shivered as she wrapped her arms around her shoulders.  “No one wants to work one of them.”  The girl paused.  “There was a young man put in there with her.”

Adam scowled.  The ‘young man’ had to be Greg.

“Why do you suppose he put both a woman and a young man in the crib?” he asked.

The girl’s pert nose wrinkled.  “Mister, you’re younger than you look if you can’t figure that one out.”

Adam looked at her and wondered at that moment just how old this girl’s soul had grown in the seventeen or eighteen years she’d walked the earth.  If it had been that many.

“What’s your name?”

“Why do you want to know?” she asked, suddenly defensive.  “You ain’t gonna report me or nothing?”

He gave her his warmest smile.  “Well, I can’t keep thinking of you as ‘girl’, now can I?”

“Lacey.”

“Well, Lacey, first of all thank you for talking to me.  Second, I have one last question.”

She looked wary.  “What’s that?”

“Did you see either the woman or the young man up close?”

Her jaw set.  This was dangerous talk.  Finally, she nodded.

“Can you tell me what they looked like?”

Lacey shrugged.  “I only saw them once, when they was being taken out back.  The woman was real pretty.  Refined, you know?  She had dark hair and was wearing a fancy dress that would have cost me six month’s salary.  The young man looked kind of like her, only not.  He had brown hair too.  It was real wavy and thick.”

The last was reported with a sigh.

It had to be them.

“Can you take me to them?” Adam asked, trying but failing to mask his excitement.

“No.”

Adam blinked.  “No.  Why not?”

“Because they ain’t there anymore.”  Lacey’s blue eyes darted toward the establishment where she worked and her lips curled at the ends – just a bit.  “Ain’t any of them there anymore.”

“Them?”

She smiled this time – broadly.  “That woman, she tricked that old Rusty who empties the piss pots.  She took his keys and before she left, she opened all the cribs!”

Adam nodded.

“That would be Rosey.”

“Miss Rosey, danged if you didn’t just about make my skin crawl right up over me!” Hoss Cartwright proclaimed as he lowered his hands.  Relief didn’t begin to say what he felt when he saw that pretty brown-haired lady in her tattered dress step right out of the trees with Greg Webb followin’ close behind.  He’d been the one who’d called out – and was the one holdin’ a gun.  “It sure is good to see you two!”

Rosey looked equally as relieved.  “We heard something and were afraid it was Finch,” she said, her tone makin’ it clear what she thought of that weasel.

“You okay?” he asked as he looked closer.  Both Rosey and Greg had cuts on their exposed skin, most likely from moving too fast through the trees, but Miss Rosey’s dress, well, the way it was tore told a story all in itself and it weren’t a good one.

She noted where he was lookin’.

“I’m all right, Hoss,” she said.  “Greg will tell you I did most of this myself.  It…aided in our escape.”

Greg.  He noticed she was still using her son’s other name.  Hoss glanced at the young man.  Greg looked protective but not, well, possessive, he guessed.

Maybe she hadn’t told him.

“You two look limp as worn out fiddle strings,” he said.  “Why don’t you sit yourself down and I’ll rustle you up some grub.”

Rosey was shaking her head before he finished.  “No.  Finch is on the loose.  By now, he’s been to the saloon and discovered we’re gone.  He’s bound to be on our trail.”

“Even though he’s got the money from the robbery?”

“Oh, yes.  Finch Webb is not a man to accept defeat, much less at the hands of a woman.  He won’t leave me be until one of us is dead.”  She paused and then added softly, her face wrinkling with concern.  “The same goes for a boy.”

A cold hand gripped and twisted his innards.  She was talkin’ about Little Joe.

Little Joe who was sick and sleepin’ not twenty feet away.

“Damn,” he sighed.

Rosey glanced at Greg and then back to him.  Whatever that thing was they called ‘women’s intuition’ Miss Rosey had it in spades.

“Oh no, don’t tell me Joseph’s here!” she exclaimed.

As if on cue, little brother’s curly head crested over the side of the wagon.  “Somebody…call me?” his asked, his tone laced with sleep and pain.

Hoss swallowed hard.  Rosey was pinnin’ him with a fiery stare while Greg headed off to check on Little Joe.

“What were you thinking?”

The big man wrinkled his lips and pushed his hat back on his head.  “Well, Miss Rosey, Adam and me, we was thinkin’ that’s Joe’s just about as stubborn as they come and if we went off to hunt that there bad guy without him, he’d come right after us.  What with his bein’ hurt and all, we was afraid he’d put hisself in danger….”

“So you decided to thrust him into it instead?” she snapped.  “Of all of the idiotic, hair-brained….  Leave it to a man to think that putting a sick boy in danger is the way to keep him out of danger.”  Rosey’s hands went to her hips.  “The whole lot of you were missing from the line the day God handed out brains!”

Hoss was smiling.

Rosey wasn’t. She was scowlin’.

“Did I say something funny?”

He cleared his throat.  “Sorry, Miss Rosey, it’s just…for a minute there…you reminded me of my mama.”

He’d always heard a woman could melt, but he’d be danged if this wasn’t the first time he’d seen it happen!

Tears flooded her eyes and she turned away quickly.  The motion drew his attention to Greg, who was helping Little Joe down and out of the wagon.  A second later Joe took off into the trees like a shot.  Rosey’s long lost son followed close behind him.

Knowin’ little brother he’d refused any help.

When Rosey swung back, all the color had drained out of her cheeks.  She looked miserable.  “I’m sorry, Hoss.  I shouldn’t have….”  The older woman drew a breath.  “I’m not your mother.”

He indicated the trees with a nod.  “But you are Greg’s.”

That startled her.  “How do you…?”

“Brother Adam.  Don’t much get by him,” he said with a wink.  “I take it you ain’t told him yet.”

She shook her head.

“Well, it ain’t any of my business, but if you don’t mind my askin’, why not?”

The older woman stared at the spot where Little Joe and Greg had disappeared.  “I’m being selfish.”

He scowled.  “What do you mean?”

“It’s still….”  She drew herself up.  “It’s still not…real.  I see him, but I cant believe he’s real.  It’s been enough of a shock for me.  I don’t want to….”  Rosey sighed.  “I want time to talk, to listen and to explain.  Time to…feel both the pain and the joy.”

“And you cain’t do that out here on the run.”

She sighed.  “See what I mean?  I’m being selfish.”

Thinkin’ about his mama and what he’d say to her if she just up and walked back into his life, Hoss thought he understood a little of what she was goin’ through.

“Now, I don’t like to contradict a woman, but Miss Rosey, you got it all wrong.”

“Oh?”

“It ain’t only yourself you’re thinkin’ of, it’s Greg too.”

“Rory.”

“Pardon me?”

“I keep forgetting.  He…wants to be called Rory.”  Rosey’s smile was sad.  “Oh, he doesn’t remember me or his father, but he does remember that the name he had before Finch took him was Rory.  He’s using it now.”

Pa always told him there were blessings in the storm.  This was sure one of them.

Rosey’s hand touched his arm.  She nodded toward the trees.  “They’re coming back.  What are we going to do about Joseph?”

He’d seen it too.  Little brother had barely been on his feet when he went to relieve himself.  Weren’t no way he was doin’ anythin’ but goin’ back into that wagon.

“I ain’t right sure, Rosey.  That little brother of mine, the more you tell him ‘no’, the more he’s sure he’s got to do a thing – especially if he thinks somethin’s wrong and needs righted, or someone he loves is in danger.”

“Hmmm.”

He wasn’t sure he liked the look on her face.

“Hmmm?”

“Perhaps Joseph could be persuaded that I need to be taken back to the Ponderosa and he is just the young gentleman to do it.”  She pulled a bit of the tattered cloth folded around her neckline out and put on a weary face.  “Most young men are pushovers for a damsel in distress.”

Hoss snorted.  “And here I thought older brother was sneaky.”

“Give him time,” she replied as she turned to face the pair who approached them.  “I’ve got at least twenty years on Adam.”

“Hey, big brother,” Little Joe called as he approached.  “How’s it goin’?”

Joe was puttin’ on a show, holdin’ himself straight and pretendin’ it didn’t feel like a mountain cat was clawin’ at those damaged ribs of his.  But his eyes told the truth.  They was fevered and carryin’ their own saddlebags.

Fact was, it didn’t look like it’d take much more than a breath to make him fold up like a purse.

“Hey there, Joe,” the big teen responded, careful to keep his tone playful.  “Did I miss that cat?”

His brother looked puzzled.  “Huh?  What cat?”

“The one that done drug you in, boy,” he said with a smile.

“Now is that anyway to greet a feller?  Pickin’ on him as soon as you see the whites of his eyes?” Joe huffed.  “You oughta be grateful I’m here to keep you in line.”  Joe paused.  He looked around.

Here it came.

“Where’s Adam?”

Hoss drew a deep breath and let it out with words.  “He and Monty went on ahead to look for Finch.”

“They…what?”

Little Joe’s hackles went up faster than just about anyone he knew.  “They’s plannin’ on comin’ back tonight,” he lied.  “Should be sometime soon.”

Joe’s thick eyebrows were wrinkled.  He was workin’ on whether or not he was takin’ him up the pike.  The boy glanced at Rory, who shrugged, before turning back to him.

“Adam promised!” he challenged.  “Adam promised I could be there when he took Finch down.”

“Well, I ain’t there either, little brother, so I don’t think you got nothin’ to worry about.”

Joe’s breathing became more rapid.  He sucked in air through his nose and let it out the same way.  “I gotta be there, Hoss,” he insisted.  “You know I do.  What I did….  Pa….”

Rosey was standing beside Joe.  She’d been listenin’ and actin’ like everythin’ was right as rain.  All of a sudden she swayed  and liked to fall down.   Joe saw her out of the corner of his eyes and reached out.  After catchin’ her, he managed to make it look like he was lowerin’ her to the ground.

Actually the two of them kind of sat down together.

Little Joe was so cute.  He took off his neckerchief and started fannin’ her with it.  “Are you all right, Miss Rosey?” his little brother asked.

Rory had gone to get his ma a cup of water.  Hoss didn’t know if he was aware that she was play actin’.  He sure hoped he didn’t worry too much.

Rosey took a sip of water and then smiled t Joe.  “I’ll be fine.  It’s just, well, it’s all a bit much for a woman, you know – all this danger and excitement?  I’m fair worn out.”

“You could take a rest in the back of the wagon,” Joe said.  “It’s not much, but there’s a big sack of grain you can lay your head on and some blankets.”

“Thank you, Joseph,” the older woman said.  Joe staggered a couple of steps forward as she accepted his hand.  Hoss didn’t miss Joe’s quick glance toward him to see if he’d noticed.

He pretended he hadn’t.

“I’m sorry.  I…think I am a bit overwhelmed,” Rosey said as she leaned into Joe’s strength.  A second later she added, “Young man, could I ask you a huge favor?”

Little Joe squared his shoulders as if readying to accept whatever load she wanted to place on them.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Might I prevail upon you to take me back to the Ponderosa in that wagon of yours?  This is all too much for me.”

Hoss could see the wheels workin’ in them green eyes of Joe’s.  Little brother was weighin’ his need to be there when they took Finch Webb out against what their Pa had taught them about bein’ a gentleman with women.

Finally, Joe looked at him, his eyes wide and those thick brows of his wigglin’.

Hoss let out a sigh.  “I don’t know, Miss Rosey.  I mean, Adam and me, we really need Joe.  He held his own against Finch before and – ”

She shuddered at the name.  “That monster!  He…well…he wasn’t a gentleman.  I can’t bear to think of him finding me and holding me again.  I – “

“I’ll get you home, Ma’am,” Joe said firmly.  “You can trust me to make sure you’re safe from that outlaw.”

“Are you certain?” she asked.  “I mean, if your brothers need you –”

“I’ll help,” Rory said, havin’ caught on and aidin’ and abettin’ their plan.  “I’ll go with Hoss.  You can follow, Joe, once you get Rosey back to the ranch house.”

Joe was starin’ at the wagon with an expression on his face that seemed to say climbin’ up into that seat might just be too much for him at the moment.

Shakin’ off his fatigue, Joe said, “I’ll see you to the Ponderosa and leave you with my pa, ma’am.  Hoss, I’ll head back as..soon as I can.”

Rosey caught Joe’s hand in hers and leaned forward to plant a kiss on his cheek.  “Thank you, Joseph.  You have no idea how safe it makes me feel to know that I have a Cartwright man escorting me.”

Joe’s chest puffed out like a peacock’s.  “You can count on me, Miss Rosey.”

Hoss sized up Joe.  Baby brother was doin’ a good job of pretendin’, but the boy looked about as limp as a neck-wrung rooster.  He had a feeling – by the end of the trip – that it might be Miss Rosey escortin’ Little Joe to the house.  Pa’d be right happy when he seen him come in that door, and happier still when Rosey followed.  Pa had a soft spot for that gal.

Truth be told, so did he.

Clappin’ Joe on the shoulder, Hoss said, “Let’s make sure you got everythin’ you need to travel, little brother.  We sure don’t want no surprises along the way.”

If wishes were horses….

[1] Greg Laurie