Quickening: Noun. The process of showing signs of life…

I. Summer, 1866

From their hoard of shared light, the two brothers glanced up as she made her way down the stairs. It was something that took getting used to, the presence of a woman in a house full of men. Although Annalisa had arrived nearly a month earlier, she still took them by surprise. 

Annalisa took the last few steps two at a time like a schoolgirl, making Joe smile and reach for her. The shot of whiskey he’d been drinking didn’t hold a candle to the simple pleasure of feeling her against him. It was almost too good to be true. He’d imagined being with her for so long that the reality of it felt like muddling through a waking dream. It was something he knew about – dreams and what they could do to a man.

“Sorry, sweetheart, did we wake you?” Joe asked, drawing her in, feeling her fit against him in the leather chair like she had no business being anywhere else. No matter that it was well past midnight, he knew she didn’t hold the hour against him. Annalisa Cartwright knew enough not to take nightmares lightly.

“You should have woke me up,” she answered, the Southern inflection always making her sound softer than she really was. “It didn’t feel right, lying in our bed without you.”

Caught up in shared yearnings, they were closer to each other than they should have been, forgetting themselves. Then Adam cleared his throat, and they glanced sheepishly at him. It wasn’t the first time they’d forgotten to be discreet. Their history together had been a private one and rather selfish at that. It was sometimes hard to share. Adam’s lips quirked into a knowing smile, and he handed over a third glass, not bothering to ask if it was wanted.

“Pa’s finest,” Adam said. “It’s gotten Little Brother and me through many a long night.”

“Oh be joyful,” she said with a sly smile. Joe laughed at his brother’s confused expression, even as he was remembering.

He explained to Adam, “The Rebs called whiskey, ‘O Be Joyful.’ They also called it other things but nothing you’d care to tell a lady.”

“We’re a world away from my days as a lady,” Annalisa reminded him, taking a brave sip as if to prove her point. “I’m afraid my ladyship potential is as doomed as the dear, old South.”

“Not true!” Joe exclaimed with indignant gallantry. The liquor was obviously making its own impression, loosening his previous gloom and killing the pain in his leg as well. A few more shots and Joe might have been willing to defend the Confederate Cause all over again if only to reinstate Annalisa in the ranks of Southern ladies. “You’re every bit of one – the closest I’ll come to the social register anyways.”

“The Cartwrights are not exactly rabble, Joe,” she said mildly, gesturing around at the finely appointed room. 

“New money,” Adam said, pouring himself another. “Not nearly as interesting.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,” Annalisa said, shaking her head. “Old money is very dull. There’s no adventure in it, and now that old money is kindling anyway. My lovely ball gowns are now likely quilt squares for some Yankee carpetbagger’s wife. I’m afraid that Confederate homespun is all that I have left of that life.”

Earnestly, Joe leaned forward. “Let’s spend some money. We’ll go to San Francisco and buy you a dress fit for a belle.”

She leaned back against Joe’s shoulder and took a long look at Adam, still considering him. “I was never a belle,” she reminded her own husband. “The war began when I was fourteen. After that, my family’s one indulgence was hospitality. And that, only during the first years, while my father was still alive.”

“You’d hardly begun,” Joe agreed, looking sadly into the shadows. Melancholy seemed to be settling back in, the usual rhythm of their late nights. 

Adam leaned toward them suddenly, lifting his glass. “Here’s to the Rebels,” he said with a grin that was more impish than he was generally known for. “What’s a little defeat among family?”

He touched glasses with the two of them, and Annalisa punctuated it with the old Confederate toast, “Drink it down, boys, drink it down!”

Her cultured drawl made them laugh out loud, and Joe shook his head affectionately. “Not very lady-like Anna.”

Annalisa leaned against him until there were no space between their bodies, no difference between them, not at all.

“I’m an old soldier like the two of you,” she retorted with some passion. “Of all people, you should know that, Joe.”

Adam looked at his brother’s young wife, her wide brown eyes and blond curls making her look like anything but an old soldier. And yet the scar on her neck said otherwise. It was as fierce a battle scar as any he’d seen. Adam knew enough to understand that appearances could be completely deceiving. And they were quiet then, all three of them, huddling around the old lamp and drinking companionably and purposefully. The light held around them like a circle in the air.

They didn’t see him. He was being very quiet, careful not to disturb them. From the top of the stairs, Ben Cartwright stood in darkness. He’d almost chosen to join them, but had decided not to, given the conversation. It was just as well. They needed time to themselves, and he needed the moment to indulge in the kind of bitterness he never allowed himself during the light of day. Once, Ben had believed that Annalisa would bring some relief for his family, and she had. But nothing was that simple. He’d learned that much the hard way. 

Back in his room, Ben closed the door gently behind him. Behind it, he could hear muffled strains of laughter. He was glad they found things to laugh about together, even if their humor ran dark for his tastes. Occasionally, he’d heard snatches of banter from Adam and Joe when they thought they were alone; their conversation was very different than what they shared with the rest of them. If previous nights were any indication, his sons would stay up for another hour or so until the liquor kicked in to allow them to sleep the rest of the night. It appeared that Joe’s lovely young wife was fitting right into the Cartwright family’s little band of survivors. She’d appeared fragile and wounded when she’d arrived from her difficult journey, but the reality was a lot more complicated. 

They all had their scars. The terrible scar that extended from Annalisa’s neck to her collarbone was the pale pink of exotic coral. Adam hardly stretched out his wounded shoulder any more, but if he slept on it wrong, they all could tell at breakfast. And yet Adam didn’t cringe anymore when someone bumped into him, and more importantly didn’t shrug out from underneath his father’s hesitant embrace like he had for so many months after returning from the War. Emotionally, Adam seemed to be doing better, since he had forgiven the major who had shot him in the shoulder to keep him from interfering with the destruction of that Southern town. Ben would never go so far as to say he was back to normal, but his oldest son had been peaceful lately, easier with himself and with others. Daily, Ben prayed that Adam had learned to forgive himself as well. Adam had been home for over a year and had yet to connect with anyone outside the family. In his son’s way of thinking, that was sufficient. For Ben, it wasn’t nearly enough. Watching others live wasn’t much of a life at all.

Joe’s recovery had also been fraught with setbacks. He still favored his one strong leg and limped heavily by the end of the day. Joseph’s nightmares alone let them know that his healing was far from over. And yet Annalisa had made him happy, which tended to lighten the mood of the entire household. He laughed often, something they rarely heard during the difficult months after his return from the war.

Yet the thing Ben had been praying for – the restoration of the life they’d known before the War Between the States – had not yet happened. The life they had once known, like Annalisa’s “dear, old South,” might well be best mourned as history. Stepping up to the new life required fortitude and a bracing measure of old-fashioned faith.

Back on his own bed, he heard Joseph’s laugh rise up in the darkness. Ben’s throat ached at the sound, and he tried to view simple blessings as sufficient. At the moment, his youngest boy was in love and his oldest was coming back to himself. It wasn’t enough, not by a long shot. But it was a long way from where they’d started. 

Ben closed his eyes and willed himself to go to sleep. The whiskey would need to be restocked in the morning…

 

II. September, 1866

Hoss stepped out from the dimly lit church and squinted into the sun. It had been a sleepy message, even though he’d fought to pay attention for the new reverend’s sake, he hadn’t been too successful. Drowsiness still washed over him, and he yawned pleasantly. Joe hadn’t fared much better during the long sermon, and for once Hoss was glad he didn’t have a little gal kicking him every time he started to doze off. Annalisa was a pretty little thing though, a good foil to his little brother. She made Joe happy, and that was enough for Hoss. Just thinking of it made him smile. Just then, Adam came up behind him and clapped a startling hand on his large brother’s shoulder.

“Try to keep your mouth partially closed when you’re sleeping,” Adam advised in a deadpan voice. “It keeps the snore from echoing that way.”

Behind them, Joe laughed and Hoss turned sheepishly to catch his pa’s disapproving scowl. Now that he thought about it, the middle of the sermon did go by pretty quickly…

“‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ was the message you two seem to have missed,” Ben intoned. “I don’t think it would have hurt any of you boys to have listened a little more closely.”

While they were talking, Annalisa had stepped across the brick path to embrace a dark-haired woman that Hoss couldn’t place, even though she looked vaguely familiar. Virginia City had been practically overflowing with newcomers seeking their fortunes out West, although most weren’t the churchgoing sort. This woman had the weary, haunted look that Hoss had come to associate with refugees from the War. Glaring at the lot of them, stood a small boy who was hanging on fiercely to her leg.

Then, Annalisa was leading the woman and child towards them, biting her lip with an intensity that they had already learned could be dangerous. For once, Joe was the quickest to react, and he managed to duck out from underneath his father’s arm, slipping back into the church to discuss peacemaking with the reverend. Curious, Ben followed him in.

“What a lovely afternoon it’s turning out to be,” Annlisa said, pleasantly enough, although obviously wanting to storm into the church after her wayward husband. “Adam and Hoss, I’d like you to meet Sarah Mitchell. She rode the stage with me on the last leg of our trip. And this is Jacob, her little boy. Adam, I thought you and Jacob might have some things in common.”

The little boy stared at the dark stranger impassively and said, “I know everything.”

Hoss guffawed, despite having not introduced himself yet, and Annalisa covered her smile with her hand.

“Oh dear,” she said. “That’s not what I meant about having a lot in common. I was talking about the fact that Jacob also enjoys building things and is very interested in geography.”

“It’s real nice to meet you, Ma’am,” Hoss said, still grinning widely. “And young fellow, you have a lot to teach me, cause I reckon I don’t know much at all.”

Adam stared uncomfortably at his new sister-in-law, clearly ruing the day he’d thought it was a good idea that Joe had gotten himself married.

“It’s very nice to meet you both,” he said, as politely as he knew how.

Sarah said, “Please disregard my son. He’s only four and is going through a phase that I truly pray will pass soon. It’s nice to meet both of you. Mr. Cartwright, Annalisa has told me that you were in Kansas for a time before joining the Army Corps.”

“That’s correct. I was,” said Adam cautiously. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about, the days he spent in bloody, restless Kansas, before he enlisted in the war. 

“My husband served in the First Kansas Regiment,” the woman said, seemingly not noticing his discomfiture. “Lieutenant Thomas Mitchell. I wondered if you might have known him.”

“I’m sorry.” He could now see the grief in her eyes. Smiling more sympathetically at her son, Adam let himself relax a little. “I worked mostly with the abolitionists in the early years of the war.”

“Poor Kansas,” she said softly. “I imagine it attracted everyone in the entire country who was looking for a fight over slavery. My husband died at Goodrich’s Landing, during General Grant’s campaign against Vicksburg. It’s already a few years since he’s been gone. Strange, how the war ended only a year ago, and yet out here, it feels a lifetime away.”

“Do you have family in Virginia City?” Adam asked politely, although feeling rather irritated when Annalisa nodded at him, encouragingly.

“No,” Mrs. Mitchell said with a smile at Annalisa, and Adam realized it was a prettier smile than he’d first given her credit for. “I’m afraid it’s just Jacob and I, having something of an adventure. He’s a bit of a handful but good company. I have a job with Paula Totten, the seamstress. Even though the mines have slowed down, it seems that there’s still plenty of work repairing britches.”

Annalisa laughed at that. “Wartime or peace, that’s something that doesn’t change.”

Even though he hadn’t seemed to be listening, Jacob asked, “Why sew them? They’ll just rip again. If they used their imagination, they could pretend their britches had no holes.”

“Yes dear, but then I’d be out of a job. But, who am I to say? He knows everything,” Mrs. Mitchell said with a perfectly straight face. With that she nodded politely to them before strolling down the path, holding her little boy’s hand.

Annalisa turned to Adam expectantly. Hardly having time to become acquainted with his own sister in law, let alone all her traveling acquaintances, Adam tried not to glower too much. Instead, he took her arm and strolled her to the gazebo where the summer roses were still blooming in fragrant abandon. Hoss followed closely behind, and Joe peeked out from inside the church and rejoined the rest of them. Even Ben couldn’t resist hearing what Adam wanted to say and followed. 

Clearly struggling to sound agreeable, Adam told Annalisa, “Mrs. Mitchell seems like a nice woman, and her son is… interesting… but I am not looking… I do not want… All right, was there a reason you felt it necessary to introduce me to her?”

The sunlight glittered off Annlisa’s face, exaggerating the scar that ran down the side of her neck. Joe saw it too and moved closer, as if his shadow might make it go away.

Ben cleared his throat. “It seems to me, Son, that Annalisa was only being polite and introducing her friend to her family. Why should that be an inconvenience to you?”

Adam stared at his father directly. “My life is complicated enough, Pa.”

“I’m not sure about that, Adam,” Ben said, mildly. “It seems to me that your life may not be complicated enough.”

“What exactly do you mean?” Adam demanded, but Ben was already frowning at his youngest son.

“Joseph, we are in a churchyard!” he admonished.

Joe had his face nestled in his wife’s neck and was whispering things that were making her blush. Not quite so subject to his father’s authority any more, Joe looked up and grinned.

“We could go behind the hedge…”

“Joseph!”

As Annalisa bit back her smile and held off her husband, Adam looked more carefully at the departing figure of Mrs. Mitchell and her young son. If there were possibilities there, he was determined not to be interested. He’d spent so much of the past year mourning for the life and self he’d lost during the war, it had honestly never occurred to him that he might have been left anything to give. 

Better that way, he thought, and might have said it out loud but for the way his father was watching him.

Adam looked back almost guiltily, but Ben was shaking his head at Joe and Annalisa, who were indeed heading toward the hedge that bordered the churchyard. There was no question about it. Spring couldn’t come too soon, and that little house in the valley was going to have to be built. Adam had already started the blueprints, but the truth was that Ben had put if off for the season, reasoning to the others that Joe needed more time to heal first before trying to establish a homestead alone through the winter. 

“And we thought marriage would settle him down,” Ben muttered, hearing laughter coming from behind the hedge.

Adam had to smile. “Settled is not always better, Pa.”

“Son, I couldn’t have said it better myself!” Ben slapped his son on the back.

With that, he walked away to join Hoss at the table where the reverend’s wife was laying out the picnic lunch for the church social. Adam could have sworn his pa winked at him first, but of course he knew better. 

III. Autumn

Joe found himself sleeping again. His body didn’t seem to be working well enough to pull him out of it, but his mind was a tangle of memories and blood-stained regrets. He could feel himself slipping away from all of them… 

He was going back and forth in time, back to the days before he met her, when he was a boy again. Sometimes, he was seventeen and still working the Ponderosa with his pa and brothers. His healthy young body worked just fine, thank you very much, and Joe reveled in the glory of it, even knowing that it wasn’t real, that the dream was borrowed time.

In one dream, Hoss asked him, “Little Brother, why do you got to go running every where? I swear you’re part jackrabbit after all!”

Joe had replied, “Why would God give us legs, Big Brother, if he didn’t want us to use them?”

And he’d taken off running away from all of them, in the dream, just to show that he could. They’d never catch up. But then it was over, and the next dream usually took him back to the war as if to rub it in that he wasn’t the man he once was. It was more or less the same dream, even though there were always surprises at the end…

It had been a grueling battle, worse than the others he’d fought since joining the Confederate army. Although the Rebels had been holding their position, the Yankees had been unrelenting in their advance. Joe’s arm had started aching from working the ramrod for so long, and yet he had no choice but keep it up. The Federals kept coming. He’d killed more of them than he could remember . Some had gotten so close, he swore he could have counted the freckles on their sunburned noses. They looked like boys he’d have rather met over a shared bottle of whiskey and a game of cards, if only they’d signed up for the Cause instead of the Union.

It wasn’t what he’d left home for. Nobody had told him that war was all about killing, and yet he realized he should have known. Ben Cartwright hadn’t raised fools for sons, and yet look what his life had come to! Now, it was too late to change his mind. Clean shaven, he was still a boy and yet had taken on the seasoned countenance of a man. Would his family have even recognized him? How could they? Every single thing in his life had changed, from his soul all the way down to his toes. Ironically, he’d finally gotten around to growing after all. His boots had stopped fitting a month ago. He was a growing boy still, and it caused him a great deal of aggravation. Having to go barefoot, he had lost his footing more than once and slipped in the blood-slick mud, standing up feeling more like a ghoul than a man. Why didn’t the Yankees stop coming? There were so many of them, dutiful boys really, prodded into death by officers who were determined to take the Confederate line regardless of the cost.

He heard it before he felt it. A bullet grazed his temple, and his own warm blood sprayed crazily into his eyes, effectively blinding him. Hot-blooded. How many times had his pa called him that, and it was true after all! He stumbled around, frantically trying to wipe away all the blood. Joe refused to die in such a ridiculous predicament, blinded by his own blood. He’d likely run into a tree and die of a head injury. He hated the idea of his family back home receiving a such a pathetic report of his death. So Joe sat down in the middle of the mud, ripping his kerchief in half to try and mop up the blood if not stop it. Balls whistled past him, most of them falling harmlessly nearby. He could always tell by the dull thump when they actually made contact with a body, and Joe looked over to see his good friend Samuel, lying among the dead. His friend’s mouth was open, as if astonished that his life was already at its end.

Joe couldn’t spare a moment to say goodbye. He needed to find a better position. Behind him, the Rebels had trenched along a low, stone wall and Joe back-stepped until he reached it, reloading and firing all the while. His own blood was drying quickly, and Joe could feel it stiff and tacky on his face. He was a sight, but so were they all. Their faces were coated with gunpowder, leaving only their eyes, bewildered at staying alive so long.

“Cartwright,” one called, and Joe struggled to make out the face of his good friend, Jimmy. “You’re hit?”

“I’m fine. Just a scratch. Sam’s dead.”

“They’re all dead,” someone said, and there was no disputing it.

The gunfire was dying with the sun, and Joe risked a look over the wall to see what was left. It was a field of death, his father’s prophecy of hell on Earth coming to pass. There were more bodies visible than mud-clod ground. Some had been stacked as makeshift shelters.

Jimmy, a red-haired farm boy from Tennessee, was standing over him. “Come on, Joe,” he urged. “While it’s still light.”

Confused, Joe tried to think beyond the pain of his head. He was beginning to feel lightheaded and dim but tried to focus.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

Without a word, Jimmy pointed at Joe’s bare feet. Dirt-caked and blistered to the bone, they looked less than human. If only Pa could see me, Joe thought distantly. Boy, would he have at me for putting my feet on the furniture in this state! Ironically, most of his growing had seemed to center in his feet which had quickly grown out of the boots he’d left home with. He’d been barefoot for weeks, along with many of the other poorer boys who’d left home with much less than he did, not to mention the fine-tooled leather boots he’d received as a gift on his seventeenth birthday.

“We’re going on a hunt for boots,” Jimmy proclaimed with a grin. “Yours and mine, Buddy.”

Without fully understanding what he was doing, Joe followed his friend and thus joined the other Rebel soldiers, sifting through the legions of the newly dead.

“Cartwright, here’s one for you!”

He felt numb, deadened. Joe looked up to see his buddy standing over the prone body of a Federal.

“This one’s your size.”

Joe slogged through the mud, feeling it cold between his toes, and tried to step around the tangle of bodies until he made his way over. He came to the body that had been pointed out to him and took off his hat as much out of habit as respect. Sure enough, the Federal soldier was just about his size if not his age. Somehow, he looked a hell of a lot younger, but Joe suspected anyone would say the same about him. Joe didn’t feel young any more. He felt ancient, ironic for a boy who’d taken so long to grow up. If he’d stayed on the Ponderosa, he suspected they’d have referred to him as “Little Joe” until he’d outlived them all…

“Go on, take them,” his friend ordered. “I already have mine.”

As if in a fugue, Joe couldn’t bring himself to bend over and yank the boots off. The Yankee boy’s eyes were open, as if he’d been about to call the whole thing off before he died.

“Damn it, Cartwright!” Jimmy swore, bent, and pulled off the boots himself. “What’s the matter with you?”

He shoved them into Joe’s arms and walked away. Holding the dead boy’s boots, Joe felt like he should say something. Thanks. Sorry. May God have mercy on your soul. Anything. But nothing came, and after a while he hunkered down and tugged the boots onto his own filthy feet. He had no choice, really. Winter would be coming, and he wouldn’t do much soldiering on amputated stumps, if he lost his feet to frostbite. Yet below him, the bare-footed, dead Yankee was still waiting for his eulogy.

Finally, Joe kneeled beside him and gently closed the soldier’s eyes. In a field of dead boys, Joe closed his own eyes and said a short prayer for just this one.

Then he looked down and whispered with real conviction, “It shouldn’t be like this. You should have stayed home…”

“Joe? Joe! You have to wake up. The doctor needs you to take more medicine.” 

Joe’s eyes opened wearily, blearily, into the morning sun and into Annalisa’s worried face looking down at him. Her expression made him smile, and he reached up and touched her face, caressing her cheek first and trailing his hand down her neck. He let his touch linger on her scar. She caught his hand and held it. His arm felt like a downed log, and his head was so achy, it felt like someone had held him down and stuffed him full of cotton ticking. Joe was cold and shivering and wondered why nobody had thought to light a fire in the stove.

“Your neck…” he mumbled sadly. “It hurts. Should have been me…”

“Enough of that!” she said, frowning at him. “Don’t pity me, Joseph Cartwright, and I won’t pity you.”

Then, Annalisa turned and looked over her shoulder, asking hopefully, “He looks a little better today, don’t you think?”

Joe strained to see behind her and realized she was talking to his father. The forms in the distance looked grainy and out of focus but he figured the biggest one was his brother, Hoss, the leaner one, Adam. None of it made sense. A rattle in his chest broke loose then, and he began coughing violently, drawing up blood. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. There was movement on either side, and his brothers were bracing him until it was over, his father pounding him on the back. Bruised, Joe was exhausted again. He slept a little longer…

… he managed to open his eyes again despite the candlelight that seemed glaringly bright. This time, only his pa sat beside his bed. Joe wasn’t sure what happened, but he was sorry for it – really and truly sorry – all the same. 

“I don’t know if I closed the gate to the corral,” Joe confessed with real feeling. He could see the gate blowing hard in the wind, squealing on its rusty hinges. That was the last thing he remembered. He’d been tired and achy all day, his head pounding something fierce. Adam had sent him to look after the herd and he’d been swearing at himself all that day, unable to get the simplest things right. Heading toward the gate, he’d struggled to stay standing, while the world started spinning around him. When the ground came up to meet him, it was something of a surprise.

Ben soothed, “Don’t worry about the gate, Joseph. Your brothers closed it for you.”

“Did the calves get out?” Joe felt like the question had been strained through cheesecloth, so odd did it sound coming from his lips. Suddenly, another idea came to him. “Is somebody sick?” 

Ben looked away, and Joe wondered at the peculiar look on his father’s face. 

“Yes, someone’s sick,” Ben said quietly. 

“Pa,” Joe whispered so weakly that Ben had to lean over to hear him. “Tell Annalisa that I don’t feel sorry for her. And tell Adam I never wanted to take those boots from that Yankee.”

“Still delirious?” Hearing voices, Hoss had come into the room and was standing by Ben’s side.

“Maybe. I don’t know.” His pa didn’t sound so sure.

“Hey there, Little Brother,” Hoss said, tousling Joe’s hair, affectionately. “Hop Sing’s been making you supper for ‘bout a week. How ‘bout making him real happy and having some?” 

“Hoss?” Try as he might, Joe couldn’t get any louder. 

“What is it, Shortshanks?”

“You were right,” he said with real assurance. “I should have stayed home.”

If they had an answer for that, Joe wasn’t awake to hear it. He was asleep, his lips asking for forgiveness for reasons his family didn’t understand, and dreaming of dead Yankees who wore the same sized boot as his own.

**********

Fall was passing through with a vengeance. Soon, the season would be over, and they were behind in getting ready for winter. All afternoon, Ben worked beside Adam putting up the hay while they still had time. Already the stack was high enough to reach Hoss so he didn’t have to use the pulley to pitch it into the loft. Through the barn’s open doors, Ben could see storm clouds over the mountains, gray and grim reminders that the snow would be coming soon. They’d lost much time during Joseph’s unexpected illness and hadn’t the luxury of any more disasters. They couldn’t afford to lose more time. Normally, the hay would have been safely stored before any threat of wet weather. The last thing they needed was an early storm.

Feeling his age, Ben needed a moment to catch his breath. He walked outside, inhaling the cool, mountain air like it was a tonic. Two weeks had passed since Joe had taken ill, and yet it had happened so quickly, Ben still felt the shock of it. It reminded him that life could be over very quickly. A young man could be healthy at breakfast and dying by day’s end.

The memory of the day that Joseph fell sick still haunted him. The morning had passed by uneventfully. Ben and Annalisa had been sitting at the table, having an amusing conversation about the humidity in the South, comparing it to various blights and plagues. She was a funny girl, Joe’s Annalisa. He’d still been chuckling over some of her wild analogies, when suddenly they’d heard a horse riding in at a break-neck speed into the yard. Ben had been ready to march out and scold his youngest son, until he remembered that Joe didn’t ride that way anymore. Instead, Adam was in the yard, swinging down from his lathered horse and barking out orders to the bewildered hands. In the confusion, Ben heard the words “sick” and “doctor” and “hurry.” He struggled to make sense of what Adam was saying and grabbed his son’s arm.

“Tell me,” he said.

Adam turned angrily to his father like he could hardly spare the moment, before remembering himself and answering gently, “Joe’s sick, Pa. We found him at the North Pasture, out by the corral. We don’t know what’s wrong with him. Hoss is bringing him back to the house.”

Ben had stared at Adam, astonished. Certainly Joe couldn’t be that bad off. After all, he’d been fine just that morning! He hadn’t eaten that much at breakfast, but that was hardly unusual. It made no sense that life could change that quickly. Ben whirled in place and almost collided with Annalisa. 

“I’ll get things ready.” She had heard the whole thing. Annalisa was pale but collected, and set off for the house.

Soon Hoss came riding into the yard with Joe leaning back in his strong arms. Without a word, the three Cartwrights helped get him into the house.

The illness had been as violent as it was unexpected. The doctor couldn’t explain its quick onset. Said a few cases of a similar illness had been showing up around the mines and among the recent settlers, although Joe seemed to have it the worst case he’d seen. Blankets, fluids, and prayers were all he could recommend. When Hoss looked like he might throttle better news out of him, the doctor simply shook his head.

“Hoss, I’m afraid that medical science is sometimes wanting,” he said. “On the other hand, Joe’s a fighter. I’m not a gambling man, but give your brother a chance to prove me wrong, and I wager he’ll find his way out of this.”

It had been the longest two weeks they’d known, and there had been nights when none of them thought he’d make it until morning. Exhausted and haggard, Adam and Hoss had tried to assign responsibilities to the hands, but they were getting further and further behind. Ben struggled with it, the sickening feeling that he was going to lose this one. Other than sitting at Joe’s side, there was little he could do if it was his son’s time to go. They all had been on this road before, and it had left them very, very tired, like the waiting had worn off years from their lives.

Only Annalisa held up just fine. Ben had to admit it. He wouldn’t have expected it of the slight Southern lady his son had fallen in love with. She reminded him of a weeping willow, leaning daringly with the wind but never giving in. 

Early on in Joe’s illness, Annalisa surprised them all by admitting that she didn’t have the faintest idea of what to do for someone who was so sick.

“Teach me what to do,” she’d said softly, watching him sleep.

“I don’t mean to be rude, Anna,” Hoss said, “but don’t you already know? Didn’t your mama teach you all that?”

She smiled, like she was sharing a joke with herself. “While my mother was alive, there were always servants to do that. After she died, there wasn’t anyone who cared to teach me, and my father could never bear to ask anything of me. After he was dead, I was more worried about surviving than learning the right way to do things. I’m sorry to say Hoss that I was raised to be decorative, not useful.”

“And you do that very well,” Adam said, smiling. Ben looked at his oldest son sharply, thinking it an improper comment, but Annalisa was smiling back and clearly amused. For a Yankee and a Confederate belle, the two of them seemed to get along surprisingly well.

Hoss persisted. “But what about when you met Little Joe? He’s done told us that you kept him alive when his leg was so bad off.”

She laughed at that. “He kept himself alive, stubborn thing that he was! I only brought him what food I could find and water when he asked for it. I’m afraid I didn’t do much to save him. I didn’t know how. But I would like to learn. It’s about time I learn to be useful.”

To her credit, Annalisa learned well and never gave up, even when things were not looking good. Yet, the thing that impressed Ben the most was the way she held steady through the worst of his nightmares. Ben could not say the same about himself.

Joseph’s fever had been high, terribly high at times, and it had ushered in dreams that were terrifying in their intensity. Caught in delirium, Joe whispered and sometimes shouted out things that Ben had never heard coming out of the mouth of his boy. Several times, Adam tried to divert his father out of the room during the worst of it, until Ben practically had to shout at him to stop.

“For Heaven’s sake, Adam, I’m his father!” he snapped and shrugged off Adam’s hand, during one particularly grueling session while Joe begged forgiveness from a dead soldier from whom he’d apparently appropriated a pair of boots. “The least I can do is sit with him!”

Annalisa sat calmly at the other side of the bed, saying things like, “It’s all right, Joseph” and “you had no choice.” Every now and then she ordered him out of a particular terror, telling him he was a soldier in the Confederate army and needed to hold the line. “Be brave, Joe. Don’t stop fighting.”

That seemed to work as much as anything, the call back to duty. More than anything else, she ordered him not to leave her again. As if they were alone in the room, she talked to him about their child, about the dead baby boy who apparently died in the spring of ’65. The other three Cartwrights always stepped in when they heard her talking, almost afraid to breathe lest she stop. It was as if they knew it might be the only time they learned about the child they all had lost. Although she never looked at them, Annalisa seemed to know they needed to hear it too. During the days when Joe was burning up with fever, they learned that the baby’s eyes had been blue at birth but were turning brown like hers. His hair was wild and curly even for such a tiny thing. The baby boy had been a handful, just like his daddy. That’s what Annalisa told her young husband and his family, during those desperately long hours. 

Then, as abruptly and inexplicably as he got ill, Joe started to get better. His lungs began to clear and his cough eased up as well. “Consumption” was a word they stopped avoiding, as it seemed less and less likely. Joe’s fever came down, and he stayed lucid for longer periods of time. He stopped seeing dead Union soldiers in the dark. 

As Hoss liked to put it, “a miss was as good as a mile,” and that was good enough for the Cartwrights.

They had almost lost him. And yet there was work that needed to be done, once the crisis was diminished. The branding needed to be finished before the cattle could be put out to pasture. The hay needed to be put up before the rains came in. Hop Sing’s storehouse needed to be stocked before the blizzards hit, and most of all, they needed to keep as busy as possible to help them forget how fleeting life could be. And it was almost winter.

Ben turned and almost collided with Adam, who’d come out of the barn to see what his father was up to.

“Pa, why don’t you go in the house and get something to eat?” Adam suggested. “Hoss and I’ll finish things up out here. Go see to Joe. He seemed kind of down this morning. I bet he could use the company.”

“Tell Little Brother I’ll be up to see him before supper,” Hoss called from the loft. Ben and Adam smiled. For Hoss to be willing to come calling before his belly was filled was the greatest compliment he could pay his little brother. 

“I’m all right,” Ben said. “Don’t start coddling me, boy. Let me help you finish – “

“Pa, I know better.” Adam was a stubborn and broad-shouldered man. He stood in the middle of the barn entrance, effectively blocking his father’s path. “You can’t help us if you get sick because you’re not eating. You can’t help Joe either, working yourself to the bone. Pa, Joe will be fine. He’ll get strong again. Think about what he’s already been through. For years, he’s been through worse and lived to see another day.”

“So I gather,” Ben said dryly.

With curiosity, Adam looked at his father and crossed his arms. “Something on your mind?”

Ben sighed. There was nothing new under the sun, and yet he didn’t know how any of them got through a day. He thought back to the days before Fredrick Kyle had ridden into Virginia City, looking for Little Joe. His youngest son had been seventeen years old – the baby of the family – and so irrepressible that Adam used to joke that Joe would go so far as to arrange a spectacular death for himself just so he could brag about it at the Bucket of Blood over a round of beers. As it turned out, his son had known a lifetime of adventures during the years he was gone, and ironically enough bragged to no one. He didn’t even talk about the war, except his wife and oldest brother. Only Adam and Annalisa had been impervious to the things Joe said during his delirium.

Of course, Ben could demand that Adam tell him everything he knew, but Ben realized that knowing about it wouldn’t change anything. He couldn’t protect either of his sons from what they’d already been through. All he could do was do was help them find their way in the here and now. The blind leading the blind, he thought, and bit back a laugh.

Instead, Ben decided to change the subject to something a little more within his control. “Son, are you going into town?”

“Tomorrow morning. Why do you ask?”

“Annalisa wanted to have a dress made. She was hoping you would take the fabric to the dressmaker. She says that she doesn’t want to leave Joe for the day to take it herself.”

Adam couldn’t help but smile. “And of course she will only consider employing the same dressmaker who is currently employing Annalisa’s friend, Mrs. Mitchell.”

“I believe that was the seamstress she mentioned,” Ben said mildly.

Shaking his head, Adam sighed and leaned against the threshold. “That girl’s just as obstinate as Joe. I have no intention of getting myself involved – “

“With anyone?” Ben interjected.

“Well, at least not now,” Adam allowed. “Pa, I admire Joe for what he has with Annalisa, but you don’t know how difficult a relationship would be right now.”

“Oh, I do know,” Ben said and would have said more, but Adam continued.

“She’s still mourning her husband, for Heaven’s sake! And her little boy! Hoss and I could hear him hollering all the way from the saloon last week. He’s a handful, she said. I have a feeling he’s a whole lot more! Talk about a complication…”

“It would definitely make life more complicated,” Ben agreed.

“But he’s real cute,” Hoss called down from the loft. “He’s a funny, little fellow. Looks at you like he’s all grown up but then takes to screaming like that.”

“Funny?” Adam asked indignantly. “Don’t you see, Pa, that it makes no logical sense for me to get involved with a widowed woman and her child at this time in my life? It would be ridiculous.”

“It would be ridiculous.” An experienced father, Ben rested a gentling hand on his son’s taut shoulder. “But it would be interesting.”

Adam glared at his father. 

“Fine,” he snapped. “I’ll go to the dressmaker. I will deliver the bolt of fabric. Are you satisfied?”

“Yes. I am,” Ben said and to his surprise, realized it was true. He was satisfied. “In fact, I think I’ll take you up on your offer, Son, and go and visit a while with Joe. And Adam?”

“Yes, Pa?”

“Don’t hurry back from town. Try to have some fun. This is the only life you’re going to have, Son. Try not to waste it.”

Ben didn’t stay to see his oldest son’s expression. Stepping into the dusk, he saw that the sky overhead had remained clear. Ben breathed deeply and looked above the treeline to the mountains. The clouds were moving north and away from them. It looked like the rain would stay away for the night at least, hopefully long enough for them to finish with the hay.

Unlikely as it was, it seemed the Cartwrights had dodged another storm.

**********

Adam carried the bolt of cotton under his arm like it was a sack of grain. Pale pink flowers did little to invigorate his reputation, but fortunately he had nothing to prove to his Virginia City neighbors. Even so, Adam nodded curtly to Michael McGuire, a passing cowhand, who grinned appreciatively at his burden.

“Nice, Cartwright!” he quipped. “Roses, is it now? You Cartwrights have gone through a lot of changes lately!”

“You have no idea,” Adam muttered from the steps of the dressmaker before plunging resolutely through the door.

Mrs. Mitchell was working at a table in the small shop, while her little son sat in the corner of the room, building a tremendous edifice out of spools and boxes.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Cartwright,” Mrs. Mitchell said pleasantly, as if she wasn’t the least bit surprised to see him standing there. “Annalisa’s sent you on a mission, I expect. How is Joe? We heard that he’d fallen ill but was getting better.”

“Definitely getting better,” Adam said, and it was true. “Beat Hoss and me both at cards last night, so he can’t be too bad off. Unfortunately, the doctor says it might be some time until he’s fully recovered.”

“What a shame,” said Mrs. Mitchel, sympathetically. “We saw it so often in the last years of the war. Soldiers would come back from the battlefield and succumb weeks later to a simple flu. I’m sure he will be fine. Annalisa says he’s very strong, and she would be one to know. Let me take the fabric from you. Same pattern as last time for your sister in law?”

“She didn’t say,” Adam replied. Still holding the fabric, he crouched down to take a better look at the little boy’s tower. “Well now, that’s some building. Impressive. You knew to put in support beams. That’s good engineering.”

Jacob stared impassively at the intruder. 

“I know everything,” he said.

“So you said earlier,” Adam said dryly. “Good luck with that…”

He straightened and tried to think of anything else his presumptuous sister in law might have wanted him to say. Before the war, he’d never have had trouble thinking of how to make conversation. It wasn’t like he’d ever been as outgoing as Joe or as easygoing as Hoss, but he’d always been able to come up with the things that people wanted to hear. Since the war, it seemed like the exact opposite was true. He had learned firsthand how ephemeral life really was and had found himself incapable of filling it up with small talk.

“Mr. Cartwright?”

Adam snapped to attention. “Yes?”

“The fabric? I would imagine you have other things to do with your day.”

Sheepishly, he handed over the fabric he’d been clutching so tightly and wondered if he was blushing. Nobody had ever accused him of blushing before, and he wasn’t sure he was capable of it, but his face suddenly felt rather warm. Sarah smiled at him, and he noted that she really was quite attractive. Her eyes were wide and well spaced, and her dark curls lit up in the sunlight that slanted across the small shop. He was being unreasonable. He knew that. Sarah Mitchell was a complication, not to mention her odd little boy, but Adam remembered his father’s words. Complications could make a life interesting. For the first time in a long time, Adam decided to do something interesting with his day.

Sarah was unfolding the fabric on the counter and measuring it into sections. “Please tell Annalisa I can have the dress finished by week’s end. I’d imagine she’ll want it in time for the barn dance. I don’t know if your brother will be well enough to attend, but – “

“Will you go with me?” Adam immediately condemned himself for the terrible delivery, not to mention the fact that he’d interrupted her.

“Pardon?”

“I mean, would you consider accompanying me to the dance? Jacob can come too, of course.”

Adam tried to smile at the little boy who stared back, unimpressed.

“My life is all ruined,” Jacob said.

Trying not to roll his eyes, Adam wondered how he could hand off that particular little “complication” to his father during the dance, if by any miracle, Sarah agreed to accompany him. Remembering his manners, he stood back and waited for her response. For a moment, she had paused over her work, as if waiting for the proper answer to simply come.

“I don’t know,” Sarah said softly.

“That’s all right,” he said a little too quickly. “I’m sure Annalisa will be contacting you about the dress. Good day, Mrs. Mitchell.”

“No. Stay,” Sarah said and touched his arm, staying his departure. “It’s soon. And complicated. My life has not turned out the way I wanted.”

“I understand,” Adam said, and he really did.

“Grayson was a fine man. A good, thinking man. Before the war, we thought we had the rest of our lives together. I met him when I was only ten.”

“The war took more than its share of good, thinking men,” Adam said quietly.

“Yes, it did.” Sarah Mitchell seemed to fortify herself. Bravely, she said with a little nod, “I’ll do it. I’ll attend the dance with you, Mr. Cartwright.”

Despite himself, Adam felt happy. The curious thrill of courtship came back him. It had been so long, he’d forgotten what it was like. For the past few years, he’d believed himself incapable of feeling that way again.

Adam came back to himself then. Mrs. Mitchell and young Jacob both seemed to be waiting for his reply.

“Good, good,” he said and silently accused himself of answering like he’d received a satisfactory report from his ranch foreman. “I’ll be looking forward to it then.”

“And I,” she said, truly smiling at his formality. “Good afternoon, Mr. Cartwright. And give my warm regards to your family.”

She gently closed the door behind him. Then, Adam was standing in sunshine that was almost blinding. The street was bustling with its business, and yet irrationally it seemed to Adam that like everyone walking by was pleased with him. A cold gust of wind lifted his hat from his head, sending him on a chase after it, down the dusty main street. 

Even as he ran after it, he muttered to himself, “What have I gotten myself into?”

Just as he was about to grab hold of it, a strong gust blew it directly in the opposite direction. Adam shook his head at a day that had become so unpredictable. Gamely, he smiled. And Adam gave in to the thrill of pursuit, following the wind wherever it might take him.

**********

IV. Winter, 1866

Joe sat by the window and watched the snow fall. He was so damn tired of staring after the seasons. He looked at the door to his room, still half open from the last person who’d left. While Joe wanted to get up and close it, he just couldn’t find the strength. He’d throw his slipper across the room just to close the door, if it would have made any difference. All it would do would bring them up to him, fussing and asking if he wanted anything.

As a matter of fact he did want something. He wanted his life back, thank you very much! Corporal Joseph Cartwright was not a happy man.

It wasn’t just that he’d been sick for months and was so slowly getting better. It wasn’t even that he was stuck in his room. For weeks, he’d been able to get around the house, but he tired so easily. He’d spend hours getting up the energy to make it downstairs only to be ready for a nap as soon as he got there. His body was exhausted, but his mind was ready to get on with it.

The only good that had come from his illness was the fact that he and Annalisa had plenty of time for uninterrupted conversation. In some ways, it was a mixed blessing. At long last, he’d learned everything she was willing to tell him. Some of it he wished he could give back. He finally understood the helplessness his pa must feel. He could understand the anger he’d seen in Hoss. For so long, he’d wanted to know about the scar across her neck. About the baby. About whatever hell she’d made it through to come back to him again.

Be careful what you wish for. It was something he should have already learned during his short but difficult life. There were things better left unsaid, but that wasn’t the way it was between them. Joe hated the things she told him, but even more, feared the things that she kept to herself. Dear God, he wondered, was there any hope for any of them? If you knew the worst that the world had to offer, how could you simply accept it and go on with your life? Annalisa told him some things about the scar. He doubted she’d told him everything. Her eyes bore into his own when she told him, and she practically ordered him to put it aside. 

“I’m a soldier like you are,” Annalisa said. “We’ve both suffered. And now we let it go.”

How the devil could a fighting man let it go? God help him if he knew, but Joe realized one thing. He’d sell his soul for a drink right now. Joe tried talk himself into making it to the door. He was tired, bone tired, and Dr. Martin said a week ago that he’d be that way until he got better.

“What kind of prognosis is that?” his father had roared, but the doctor had shrugged.

“Ask your son,” he said.

Joe understood what the doctor meant. The illness had stirred things up. Before, he’d coped by simply keeping busy. He didn’t have that option anymore.

Annalisa seemed to realize it too. There were other things they had to put aside before he could get better. Annalisa had finally told him how their child had died. While he didn’t kid himself that she’d told him the full story about her scar, he was pretty sure she had told him the truth about their baby. 

Joe had been haunted by the little ones who had died alone. Joe himself had once held a two year old in the moments before he died, his mother already killed during one of Sherman’s raids. The child had died, feverish and confused, asking for his mama. Why had he died? Dysentery, probably, but who was to know? They’d all suffered multiple ailments in the camps. The way they’d lived, there was no avoiding it. Weeks came where more Rebels died of dysentery than from battles. It was one thing for soldiers to die of such things, but it was another for infants and children. It was a reality that had always hit Joe hard and he’d never gotten over it. As soon as Joe knew his own infant son had died, he’d worried himself absolutely sick that the baby had died alone. But Annalisa told him differently. In doing so, she introduced him to their son, one Joseph Benjamin Cartwright, the name they had decided on together if the baby had turned out to be a boy.

It happened during the spring, and Annalisa had survived a hard winter after her home was burned to the ground by the marauding Federals. She’d made her way across the plundered countryside, seeking shelter and sustenance wherever she could get it. Finally, she’d given birth to their baby in the back room of a farmhouse, owned by a kind woman who had taken in other Southern refugees as well. The baby had been small and red-faced, but a fighter all the same. He lived long enough for her to know a lot about him.

“He hated being a baby,” she’d told him with a sad smile. “Screamed his little heart out. One of the other women told me, ‘Oh, you’ve got quite a handful here!'”

“If only someone had said the same to my father when I was born,” Joe said, smiling through his tears. “Might have saved him the grief of finding out on his own.”

“He screamed whenever his eyes were open,” Annalisa had continued. “He was bored and frustrated and wanted everything at once. They said it was a good thing. It meant he was healthy, but all I wanted was you there to hold him. I figured you would have known what he was after. He wasn’t like other babies. His eyes could track a person all the way across the room. The other women said he was as bright as they come. I held him all the time.”

Joe nodded. It was a good thing, that their short time together had been intense and close. Joseph Benjamin Cartwright had made his presence known, in a very brief period of time.

The way Annalisa told it, the baby cried for twelve weeks. During the thirteenth week, he stopped crying. Two days after he stopped crying, the fever came on him. Not long after that, he died. In his whole life, he was never alone. And for that, Joe was grateful. He thanked his wife for loving their son so much. And he cried and cried.

“He was your son,” she had told him. “He looked like you, acted like you, but he fought like me.”

Joe hadn’t asked her what that meant. It was something they had agreed on. They never asked each other anything that wasn’t offered first. All things had to come out in their own time. 

Thinking of it made Joe want to get out of bed. It was time to get well again. He’d been sick for too long. The rest of his life was still waiting. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and tried to remember what to do next. Already, he was tired. Just then, the door creaked open a little further. Adam peered inside and smiled to see Joe up and awake.

“Thought you were asleep,” he said.

Joe shrugged. “Too tired to sleep and too bored. I’m feeling better today. Was about to come down. You want to sit a minute?”

“I suppose I can.” Adam also shrugged and sat down on the corner of Joe’s bed. He traced the pattern on the raised coverlet. Despite himself, Joe had to smile. His older brother always resorted to nervous habits when he had something on his mind.

“Been to town lately?” Joe asked nonchalantly, although the question was anything but casual. To drive a team to Virginia City in waist-deep snowdrifts took recklessness he didn’t often associate with his older brother. In Joe’s way of thinking, if his big brother had made the trip to town in that kind of weather, it was as close to a courtship as Adam could get, without actually going through the formal machinations. 

“I went yesterday,” Adam replied and punched his little brother on the arm harder than he intended, when Joe unexpectedly burst out laughing. “Cut that out! I took the sleigh. What is so funny? Hop Sing needed supplies, and Hoss was busy driving hay to the herd at the North Pasture!”

“And Annalisa needed a dress made…” Joe appended, rubbing his sore arm and still grinning. 

“Well, yes. Since you’re so little help lately, somebody had to take her,” Adam retorted, but then he grinned too. “Besides, Jacob’s driving Sarah out of her mind, cooped up inside that shop. I took him for a ride around town. He really is a smart little boy. He knows the names of every kind of rig, even every saddle. I figure we can teach him to ride come spring.”

Joe smiled at the way his big brother had won the little boy over. Jacob was a different boy, but apparently he’d taken to Adam just like Annalisa said he would. It had been a different form of sparking – first the child and then the mother – but apparently it worked. The way they told it to Joe, just before the first snow came in, Hoss and Adam had taken the little boy to their favorite cove to go fishing. Jacob, all the while protesting that he already knew everything about fishing, actually learned a little bit about casting and caught the first two trout of the day by himself. According to Hoss, when they got back to town, Adam had practically fallen all over himself with praise about how quickly the little boy had caught on. Hoss reckoned that was what did it, the way Adam held up the trout that Jacob had caught and explained every technique that had made the catch so impressive. Hoss said he found it downright boring, but he could tell by her smile that Jacob’s mother thought differently. Sarah Mitchell took a long look at Adam that day and decided she might have a spot in her heart for another good, thinking man after all.

So much had happened while Joe was trying to get better: the work getting ready for winter, Annalisa finding her way around the ranch and her new way of life, Adam going and intentionally complicating his life. 

Joe didn’t let his smile fade. He was happy for Adam and only a little sad that he didn’t have his own little one to teach to sit a horse. Yet, Joe always had a generous heart, and he pushed aside his own regrets. The loss of a child was not one that would ever go away. It would track him down to his grave, but Joe wouldn’t turn away a living child out of deference to his grief. He had never been that sort of man.

“Have you gotten Hoss to choose a pony for him?” Joe asked. “It wouldn’t hurt getting one gentled for a little saddle. That way, when the snow melts, we could start teaching him right away.”

“Think you’ll be out of bed by then?” Adam teased, tossing his slippers onto his lap. 

“I’m well enough now, if everyone would stop fussing over me,” Joe grumbled. “Help me up, will you?”

From just outside Joe’s bedroom door, Ben quietly went down the stairs. He’d been eavesdropping again, a sin he’d condemned in his sons but one he’d been strangely susceptible to in recent months. The truth was that he’d been on his way to fetch Joseph himself. The doctor had told them that it was time to get Joe out of his room and back into his life again. It had been a long, hard recovery from his sudden illness. Ben was grateful for his boy’s recovery, all the same. Dozens across the territory had succumbed to the virulent fever. In Joe’s condition, he could easily have been one of them. Ben reminded himself time and time again to be grateful for blessings, wherever they could find them.

From the hearth, Hoss looked up at his father, a funny half smile on his face.

“Learn anything new?” he asked, grinning.

Ben scowled. The worst thing about winter was the fact that everyone knew your business almost before you did. 

Eyebrows knit together, Ben retorted, “No, I did not. And I suggest you tend to your own affairs, young man!”

“Just like you was, Pa?”

“Now, that is enough!”

Hoss’ eyes twinkled but he went back to cleaning out his rifle. He’d been hoping that Adam would accompany him on a short hunting trip the next morning. Venison sounded mighty good to all of them, and Hop Sing had been laying out hints about how he would prepare it for Christmas dinner that year.

Ben asked in a gentler voice, “Where is Annalisa?”

Hoss chuckled. “In the kitchen with Hop Sing. She wanted to learn how to make a cake. Said she didn’t wasn’t interested in plucking a chicken but reckoned she should be able to make a cake in case of emergency.”

They both chuckled. She’d been trying to learn to keep a house, no doubt about it, but the domestic arts did not seem to be her particular gift. How the girl managed to keep herself alive, mostly on her own, after her parents died, Ben couldn’t even begin to imagine. Never doubt the power of an ornery Southern rebel. That’s the way Joe explained it, and Ben had to assume he was right.

Tramping on the stairs let him know that his other two sons were coming down as well. Adam was very purposefully not helping Joe down but was one step in front of him to break his fall, in case the leg didn’t hold. The lengthy convalescence hadn’t helped him regain strength in his injured leg. Three steps forward, ten steps back. That’s how it had been for Joe. Ben sighed, sorry for it, but that was the way of things. His boys were laughing on the stairs at something. Trials and blessings twined together. Ben was no fool that he said, “no thank you” to such offerings. 

Masking his gratitude with a scowl, Ben called out, “It’s about time you two came down! Your brother and I shouldn’t have to do everything around here.” 

Joe feigned a long-suffering sigh, while Adam looked his shoulder and winked at his kid brother. They finally made it down. From the kitchen drifted the distinctive smell of burning sugar, and they could hear Hop Sing letting loose with a long string of Chinese epitaphs. Annalisa was laughing…

**********

It was Christmas. All morning, Hop Sing had been roasting the venison that Adam and Hoss brought back from their hunting trip. Ben inhaled the scent of it, grateful to have a full house for Christmas again. Annalisa and Sarah were practically sitting cheek to cheek on the settee, whispering over circumstances they found terribly amusing. Hoss was trying to whittle a deer out of cedar for little Jacob who was watching him with unnerving intensity. Adam leaned against the hearth, his arms crossed tightly. He didn’t like the idea of demonstrating for an unusually bright child how to use an unusually sharp knife, but Hoss had pushed him away good-naturedly. Joe was laughing with Hop Sing in the kitchen, over who knows what. Only Joe could make their cook laugh like that, when Hop Sing didn’t know anyone was listening.

They were all healing, each in their own way. Joe was regaining more and more strength each day. Ben even allowed himself to imagine that the nightmares were fading as well. Surely, he hadn’t been replenishing the liquor supply nearly as often. Adam, Joe, Annalisa, and possibly now Sarah. The list of war survivors in his household was steadily growing. North and South. Confederate and Union. Both sides were now almost evenly represented. As long as they didn’t divide his family, Ben was almost willing to remain neutral territory.

Adam joined Sarah on the settee, preserving a respectable space between them. Although he was clearly sparking her and had been for some time, Adam was very careful to maintain decorum. Ben was glad for it. He liked Sarah, and he especially liked her little boy. He reminded Ben of another serious, little boy he’d once known…

Joe was still grinning as he walked over to the other side of the hearth, to stand alongside Annalisa. Too close really, for propriety’s sake, he was running his hand through her hair. Laughing, she took his hand and held it, wrinkling her nose as he kissed every finger. Annalisa was a girl who loved having fun. Surely, she would have been quite the belle with all the beaus, if the war hadn’t had other plans for her.

Filled with sudden compassion, Ben couldn’t help himself. He walked over to the two of them and placed a hand on her shoulder. With a curious expression on her face, she dimpled at his concern. Uncharacteristically, Ben’s eyes were filling up with tears. Annalisa had saved his youngest son, many times over. He owed her a great deal. The scar that ran down her neck would never fade away. Not really. It was terrible and startling, proud in its own way. Ben didn’t even know that he was going to ask the question, before the words quietly left his mouth, shocking Joe and surprising himself.

“My dear child,” Ben said in a voice that only the three of them could hear. “How did you get your scar? Can you tell me?”

Exchanging a look with Joe, Annalisa only hesitated a moment. She looked into Ben’s eyes and saw kindness there. She bit her lip. And then Annalisa answered, tossing the three words out almost defiantly.

“I fought back,” was all she said.

**********

V. Spring, 1867

Sunlight streamed over their bare feet through curtains of the bedroom window. They were lazy to be in bed at such an hour. 

“Sinfully lazy,” Annalisa said drowsily and reached for his hand. The very next morning, they would be waking up in their own home, alone together for the first time since they’d shared the grand old plantation house back in Mississippi. After months of planning and hard work, the small wood-frame house had finally been finished. Adam had spent the winter drawing up the plans, and at the first suggestion of thawing, the three brothers had worked side by side every afternoon to build it. 

It was no manor like the one of Annalisa’s childhood or nearly as imposing as the ranch house Joe’s father built so many years before. They’d known better, yet, they’d both known far worse, and they yearned for the little house like it was a lost relation. It had been a long time in the waiting.

Joe lifted his hand into the light, appreciating the shadow it cast upon her own. It was like a miracle, lying in bed next to Annalisa, watching his own shadow on her hand. They worked so well together – sunshine and shadow. Darkness and light. It wasn’t like anything had really changed. Make of it what you will. The war had happened and had kept taking from them until they had nothing left but each other. It made all the difference. Love. Hers and his family’s. It wasn’t something he knew to be grateful for until he’d seen the worst that life had to offer.

“Do you think they’ll wait until summer?” Annalisa had been talking to him, but he hadn’t realized it.

Joe grinned, half-afraid to let her know he hadn’t been listening. “Do I think who’ll wait?” he asked.

“Adam and Sarah, of course! Land sakes, Joe, why do you let me go on talking if you’re going to ignore everything I say? I asked if you think they’ll get married during the spring.”

“They only just got engaged last month,” Joe protested, as she playfully pushed him away. “Let’s give them a little time, love. Adam says he needs to get things ready.”

“I think they have had quite enough time,” Annalisa declared. “Your brother will be downright old, before things are ready enough to suit his purposes.”

“Patience,” Joe said, smiling at the idea of his crotchety old brother finally getting his plans together in the twilight of his life, but Annalisa was right. He hoped Sarah would be bold enough to insist on a wedding by summer’s end.

And yet he was proud of his big brother and proud of himself. Joe knew where they’d come from. He thought back to the valley by the little creek and could picture the red house he’d built with his brothers. It was a lifetime away from the bloody fields of dying boys, from the grief and agony that had led them there. His future was waiting, and Joe wasn’t afraid to meet it head-on. He’d always been daring that way. Joe certainly hoped Adam would work up the same courage for life that he’d showed during the war.

“Oh!” Annalisa cried out, pulling her hand away from his, and Joe sat up quickly. 

He was afraid. She smiled to reassure him and ducked her head, looking down. Joe also turned his gaze to the small swelling that she cradled with both her hands. 

“I’m sure I felt it move that time,” she said.

So, Joe leaned over her and the secret that they’d been keeping from the others. Whether out of superstition or disbelief, it seemed too wonderful to be true, and yet it was more real than any dream. Resting his hand beside hers, Joe waited patiently for life and warmth and endless possibilities. He felt a flutter. Movement. The process of daring to give life another try.

Call it the quickening.

The End