*****

Prologue – 1860

Joe rode his horse along the lake’s pebbled shore. The sun was quickly slipping behind the western ridge, and the final glints of sunset were mirrored on the water. The lake was obviously showing off, preening like it was sparking a suitor. Deep indigo in the center was courting with oranges and reds along the edges. It was a marriage made of ice and of fire. He’d seen his share of pretty sunsets, but Joe suddenly thought that this particular glimpse of the lake was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen, maybe even the prettiest thing he’d ever see.

He was on his way to find Adam, before his older brother could make good on his vow to leave the Ponderosa. He’d promised his father that he would catch up with him. Joe had been following his brother’s trail for over an hour. It wasn’t all that hard to track. Adam’s horse had meandered along the edge of the lake for miles, kicking up dirt and pebbles, almost like he’d been hoping to be found. Joe thought Adam would’ve been further along by then, but he understood why his brother might be tempted to linger a while. Pa had always said that a man could travel the world and never see as jaw-dropping a sight as the lake in that last hour before twilight.

Joe wouldn’t know. At seventeen years old, he’d certainly never traveled the world. He’d hardly been farther away than San Francisco or Monterey. His life had always been rooted on the Ponderosa with his father and his brothers. 

It bothered him, more than he’d ever let his father know. For the past year or so, a curiosity had been eating away at him. News from the trouble between the North and the South only made it worse. Sure, Fredrick Kyle had stoked that curiosity and kindled it. But, there was more to his curiosity than trouble stirred up by a passing stranger. 

Joe was seventeen years old, not a boy anymore. At seventeen, Adam had been back east, studying at a university. His father had been sailing the wide-open seas and had engaged in adventures that Joe could hardly imagine. Hoss had stayed at home at age seventeen, it was true, but everyone knew that his middle brother loved nothing more than the Ponderosa and had no desire to ever leave. 

That left Joe Cartwright, trailing the perimeter of the lake he had known his entire life, following after his big brother to try to bring him home. The words his father had spoken still taunted him.

“Son,” his father had said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “A tree has many roots, but it only has one taproot. Yours is here, on the Ponderosa.”

At the time, Joe had been inclined to agree with his father; he’d wanted to agree. He certainly acted like he had. After all, he’d seen Fredrick Kyle for what he really was, a Southern sympathizer and an instigator who was willing to sacrifice his wife and son for the “the cause.” What cause could drive a man to sacrifice everything for it? Pa had called it a waste. A useless, damnable waste. But Joe wasn’t so sure. He certainly didn’t approve of Kyle’s methods. But he wasn’t so terribly certain that Kyle’s cause wasn’t justified, despite the way the man chose to fight his battle.

Brother against brother, father against son. Joe had never known a cause that he would be willing to sacrifice everything to follow. He was still a boy, after all. His understanding of such things was limited to his own experience. At least, that’s what everyone kept telling him.

Joe lingered for a moment. He reached up and plucked a pine needle from a branch and worried it between his fingers. He was pretty sure that he knew where Adam would be heading. As a family, they were almost too familiar with each other’s ways. Adam loved a small, curved ridge that served as a crossroad, overlooking the prettiest view of the lake. From the shore, his brother would have ridden up that way before heading toward the road that would take him to the high desert on the way to Salt Lake City. He would bet that his older brother would have stopped for one last look before heading on. Adam always said that the Ponderosa got under his skin there, like no other place he’d been. 

As he began to rein towards that ridge, another longing came over him. It had been weeks since he’d visited his mother’s grave. He had promised his father to bring Adam home, but surely he could find a moment for his mother. 

As he rode towards the spot by the lake that she had always loved, Joe grew even more restless. He could hardly explain it. What with the trouble between the states, it seemed like his life was reining him in like an ill-fitting bridle. He thought of his lively mother and the stories he’d always been told about her. Marie Cartwright had been the most beautiful woman anyone in the territory had ever seen. She had thrown in her lot with Ben Cartwright and left New Orleans on a whim and a prayer that life might be better in a land she had never seen. His mother had left the life she had known and had followed the road to adventure. Marie had been dead for more than a decade, but Joe shared her restless blood, and he could feel the same call to adventure coursing through him. What would his mother say to her seventeen year old son who had never been away from home?

As he dismounted and approached her grave, Joe considered the South, which had been his mother’s birthplace, the world of her childhood. The trouble between the states was endangering its sovereignty. Could Joe keep living his comfortable life and sit by as New Orleans was ripped apart and not do anything about it? He’d always wanted to visit New Orleans. He’d felt the city calling to him, much like the sea had called to his father and a life of books and lecture halls had once lured away Adam. He knew all about his father’s feelings on the matter. But, what would his mother have him to do? 

Joe put his hat back on, and said a quick prayer for his mother. He’d made his father a promise to bring Adam home, and he intended to try and keep it. After running his hand along the edge of her headstone, Joe made his mother a promise as well.

“I’ll go someday,” he whispered. “But, I’ll be back.”

He rode to Adam’s hideaway. He’d spent longer than he intended at his mother’s grave. The sun was already dipping behind the western range by the time he got there. He’d lost time already. By the time he reached his destination, the little spot overlooking the lake was deserted. Adam had been there all right. There were fresh hoof prints everywhere, and Joe could see the remains of Adam’s supper underneath the canopy of pines. 

But, his brother was already gone.

Joe reined away from the lake and towards the road that led away from the Ponderosa. He told himself he was looking for his brother, that he would probably be back before another day had passed. Adam couldn’t have gotten that far ahead of him. After all, he had made a promise to his father. However, he’d made a promise to his mother as well. 

As he rode hard towards the dividing line between the Ponderosa and the rest of the world, he felt the joy of the fast horse underneath him and the intrigue of the unknown road ahead. After all, what was life anyway, if not an adventure? Joe felt the possibilities for his life stretch out before him, as vast and limitless as the cathedral of stars over his head. He felt like he could ride forever. He told himself that he wouldn’t be gone for long. Hoss and Pa would hardly miss him. He would follow after Adam.

And Joe veered off the familiar road, leaving his boyhood behind him.

**********

1865

Ben Cartwright watched, as his oldest son applied the grease to the axle. Adam was dressed in his familiar black shirt and trousers and had sweat dripping down his face into his collar. With a shrug, he motioned to Hoss.

“That’s it,” he said, pointing down. “Lower it.”

Ben watched as Hoss grunted and lowered the frame that he had been holding in place, so his older brother could reach an inaccessible part of the axle. The two nodded at each other, as they regarded their shared work. The buckboard looked like it was fixed all right, good as new. Adam had pinpointed the problem with typical accuracy. Ben stood back and watched the way his oldest son stretched out his back. Even though Adam had been home from the war for almost six months, Ben could hardly take his eyes off him. 

It was remarkable really, the way the three of them had fallen back into the old routines. Sometimes, it was hard to believe that life had ever been any different. But the past five years had been very different. Very, very different and so terrible and sad that Ben could not shrug them off that easily. It had been six months, since Adam had come home, but sometimes it felt like just yesterday. Other times, it felt like a lifetime ago.

Ben remembered that afternoon in late spring when Hoss rode to the house like the devil was on his tail, whooping and hollering and waving the telegram over his head like it was a banner. 

“He’s coming home,” he shouted. “Adam’s coming home, he’s coming home!”

Ben and Hop Sing had run out to the porch when they heard the ruckus and had stood there frozen in place, not yet understanding what Hoss was trying to tell them.

“Pa, he’s coming home,” Hoss repeated joyously, almost vaulting out of his saddle like little brother used to do. Hoss reached them in a few steps and grasped his father’s shoulders firmly. “Adam’s coming home, Pa. He’s almost here. This here telegram says just that.”

Ben’s hands hadn’t been nearly as steady as his son’s, as he reached for that crumpled piece of paper. He read the words haltingly as though they had been transcribed in a different language, but there they were. Finally, the words rearranged themselves in a way that made some sense. His oldest son was coming home at last.

There was hardly time to get ready. Adam, always one to think ahead, had waited until he was in Salt Lake City to send the telegram in case there had been any delay. Hop Sing wanted to prepare a feast for the homecoming, but as it turned out, there was scarcely time to air out his room, which had been unused for so long. Hoss wanted to have a celebration and invite half of Virginia City, but Ben held off on that. There was something about the spare wording of Adam’s telegram that led Ben to believe that he was not going to be grateful for any parties for some time to come. Besides, there was a part of Ben that would only believe that his oldest son was home when he saw his son’s face in front of him. So many years had already passed them by…

But Adam was true to his word, and the stage was right on schedule. Adam Cartwright, lost to them for five long years, stepped off the stage and into his father’s arms. When Ben stepped back and allowed Hoss to make a grab for Adam, his heart lurched as he thought, my God, he looks exactly the same! Adam seemed to be thinking the same thing. He aimed a crooked smile at Hoss and a tender one at his father.

He said quietly, “It’s good to be home, Pa.”

Sitting beside his son in the buggy on the ride home, Ben took his time appraising his long lost son. Surprisingly, little about Adam’s appearance had changed during the time he’d been gone. He was thinner than when he’d left, but that was to be expected. Unlike Little Joe, he had been a faithful letter writer throughout the long years of the war, and they had learned much about his activities. Desperately missing his brothers, Hoss timed his visits to Virginia City to the days when Adam’s letters typically arrived. When a letter was late, Hoss would be frantic until it finally arrived.

From his letters, they knew that he had traveled first to Kansas and had become involved in the political fight to end slavery in the state. When war broke out shortly thereafter, Adam had joined the Army Corps of Engineers, surveying and developing maps for the Union forces. He didn’t tell them much, but from his letters, it was clear that he’d spent much time in the field with the regular regiments. Responding to his father’s repeated inquiries, Adam had finally written back, admitting that he’d seen his fair share of battles.

It was a father’s right to worry; a life on that bloody road would have taken its toll on any man. Adam looked thinner and weary around the eyes. Yet, as he quietly inspected the son next to him, Ben allowed himself to hope that he had returned home, much the same as when he’d left. After all, he looked the same. He still used the same calm voice as he described the jolting tedium of the stage ride. He certainly knew his own mind. He had even insisted on carrying his paltry belongings into the house himself. 

Adam looked the same, sounded the same, and moved with the same decisiveness that had carried him away from the Ponderosa in the first place. But soon enough, the truth became achingly apparent.

In many ways, Adam Cartwright had returned to the Ponderosa a stranger.

It took a while for his father to understand how much his oldest son had changed. Not all the differences were obvious at first. Adam had always been quiet and had kept his emotions under control. Yet the son who returned from the war was different than quiet. He was more like a polite traveler exchanging pleasantries while waiting for his train to arrive. Ben longed to talk to his son, to ask him about the years he had been away from them. But he had lived so long without this oldest son the thought of pushing him away was absolutely terrifying. If Adam didn’t want to talk, then so be it. At least he was alive and had come home. That was a blessing that Ben wasn’t about to turn away.

There were small glimpses of the young man who had left the Ponderosa so many years before. The night he returned, after a fine supper, Adam had planted himself at the hearth, stoking the last of the embers. 

Ben and Hoss had sat down to a game of checkers, just like they had during their many evenings alone. They’d tried not to stare at Adam like he was the hired entertainment, but it was so hard to look away when he had been gone so long.

Finally without looking away from the fire, Adam asked, “Any news from Little Joe?”

It was a heartbreaker of a question.

Ben watched Hoss’ face crumple into the old grief and knew his own face would look the same. He didn’t trust his voice to work just then. Hoss had learned to know when his father was overwhelmed. For the past several years, it had been just the two of them, and Hoss had always stepped in when he was needed. 

So Hoss answered for his father. “Nothing. Not for the last two years.”

Adam nodded and looked away. He didn’t need anyone to tell him the rest of the story, and that was the last they’d spoken of it. Ben liked to think that there would come a time when they could all laugh and share memories of his youngest son. Joe would have wanted it that way. But their grief was still settling, and they hadn’t yet set their hopes aside.

When Adam had left the Ponderosa, he’d had no idea that Joe had followed him that chilly spring evening. He’d been completely unaware that Joe had learned of Fredrick Kyle’s plans and had tried to bring him home. When Ben’s letters finally chased him down in Lawrence, Kansas, Adam had written back, expressing his shock and dismay that Little Joe had left home after him. In his dispatch, he promised his father that he would keep looking for Joe and would bring him home himself if he found him. But the country was too big for a seventeen-year old boy to just show up on his brother’s doorstep. As it soon became evident, Little Joe Cartwright had other things in mind besides following in his big brother’s footsteps.

Joe eventually wrote them from New Orleans, the city that had been his mother’s home and had been a siren call to him since he was a child. During that first year, Joe wrote frequently. His tall tales of the city made Hoss collapse in such long spells of laughter that he could hardly hear Ben’s voice as he read them out loud. Hoss loved to receive those letters in the beginning. 

However, when the city fell to Union control the following year, Joe joined up with the Confederate forces in Mississippi. Unlike Adam, the youngest Cartwright had never been much of a letter writer. The letters became less and less frequent as the war waged on, and eventually they stopped altogether.

Now, standing in front of the ranch house, Ben watched as Adam took a long draw from the ladle and passed it to his brother. There was no question about it. It was a blessing to have this long lost son, living and breathing, standing in front of him. Although no one would say it, having Adam home was probably the single blessing that was coming to them. After all, two years had passed since they’d heard from Joe, and the war had already been over for six months. 

After the surrender, Ben had sent letters to every influential politician and military leader he knew across the country. He pulled every string that he had, even bribed powerful men with promises of prime Ponderosa timber in exchange for information about his youngest son. As a result, snatches of information had drifted back over the months. They learned that three years ago, Joe had been promoted to corporal over his division. He had fought bravely and heroically in several battles. One year ago, he had checked into a field hospital with a serious injury. After that, his trail faded into the scores of nameless wounded and dead boys who had vanished off the face of the earth, whose bodies probably lay in unmarked graves across the South. 

“Older brother,” Hoss was saying, as he took his turn from the ladle. “You ain’t lost your usefulness, yet. I’d have thought you’d have forgotten all about things like fixing wagon wheels, what with that fancy job you had in the army.

Ben and Adam both smiled. Hoss was the only one who brought up Adam’s military service on a regular basis. It was almost as if by bringing up those missing years, Hoss figured he could finagle his way back into his brother’s life. He was the one who wanted to hear the story behind the diamond shaped scar on Adam’s shoulder. Hoss wondered aloud about the saddleback full of journals that Adam kept secreted under his bed and was bothered by the long silences in front of the fire at night, his older brother holding a book on his lap but not really reading. Hoss had never gotten used to being the one left behind. The original shock of it had faded over the years, but it had never really gone away.

Their first Christmas alone had been the worst. 

The two of them had received multiple offers to have Christmas dinner with families around the territory, but they had declined every one. No, it felt right to have Christmas at home, just like they always had. The two of them soldiered their way through the day, but Ben couldn’t remember feeling so lonely in all his life. He had told Adam that he wouldn’t watch his family come apart like rust on a wheel. And yet it had come to pass, despite all his brave pronouncements. The house was so quiet. Ben had failed to keep his family together.

Ben would never forget the ache in his chest, when he first came downstairs and saw the empty chairs around the dining table. Hop Sing had tried to fill the table with extra platters of food, enough to feed an army. If Little Joe had seen it, he would have joked that Hop Sing was trying to get him to grow as big as Hoss. His middle son’s face had fallen as well, but they put up a brave front for each other and proceeded with the supper, each raving about the dinner, but neither tasting a thing. Both one of them would have preferred Adam and Little Joe ready to pound each other over politics or bickering about the way the Christmas goose was carved, instead of the sad peace that hung over the table. At the time of that first Christmas, neither Adam nor Little Joe had enlisted. Ben hadn’t given up hope that they would come bursting through the door as a last minute yuletide surprise.

But that surprise homecoming never happened. Ben and Hoss returned to the running of their ranch, and the years wore on. They found themselves busier than ever with Adam and Joe gone. It was easy to throw themselves into Ponderosa business and save their worry and grief for the terrible news stories that were being published in the North. Ben paid for subscriptions to every periodical willing to ship their newspaper out west. The war was paying a terrible price on hundreds of thousands of families across the nation. And yet the Ponderosa had never been more profitable. The government was paying top dollar for timber, and Ben found himself wealthier than ever in every way that didn’t matter at all.

Ben forced himself back into the present. There was still work to do, and Hoss was still talking to Adam, who regarded his large brother with a wry smile. 

Encouraged by Adam’s reaction, Hoss was saying, “I’d have thought with you being so busy drawing up all those maps for the Army, you’d have forgotten all about how to slather grease on a wheel.”

To Ben’s surprise, Adam leaned against the wagon and actually answered Hoss. “Don’t you think they had wagons in the Army, younger brother? I’ll tell you, for over three years I don’t think I passed a day without hearing someone shouting out about a busted wagon or a broken axle. The roads were so terrible that most soldiers spent half their time marching, and the other half fixing wagons. I bet you never thought my enlistment would come in so handy for chores on the Ponderosa, did you?”

Ben came to stand closer to his oldest. He wanted to ask him something, anything about his time in the war, but Adam was already crouching by the wagon, inspecting the shaft again. His face had returned to a look that clearly declared that the time for sharing secrets was over. Even though he had come back to them, Adam was still a long, long way from home.

It could have been worse.

Everyone knew about Charlie Monroe’s oldest boy. The nineteen year old had returned from the war in ‘63, with his skull battered and occupied by demons that seemed to have taken over his mind and his soul. He spent his days crouching on the front porch of the homestead, chortling and trying to bash chickens with a twisted stick that he called his “bayonet”. There were other young men, scattered across the territory, who came back from the war different or a little “touched in the head.” That was the way polite folks described it to each other, but everyone knew what it meant.

There wasn’t any way that Ben Cartwright was going to complain about a quiet son coming back from the war even quieter. There were far worse things that could happen to a man or a family.

Hoss cleared his throat. 

“Well, I don’t know about the two of you, but right now I’m smelling one of Hop Sing’s pot roasts. And if my nose still works the way it used to, it’s gonna be cold if we don’t hurry! I’m getting washed up for supper.”

Ben smiled and said that he expected his son was right. He smelled supper too, and he and Adam turned to clean up the rest of the tools.

Just then, a flock of puddle ducks flew in formation overhead. No doubt they were flying south for the winter. Ben could already feel the chill hanging in the air. He tilted his head to the sky and closed his eyes, just for a minute. It had been a long time since he had thought to pay attention to the good mountain air. He paused and inhaled deeply, taking in the heady perfume of pine and cedar. He loved this land. It had proved the ideal place to raise strong sons, who had grown up knowing the fruits of hard work and abundance. He’d allowed himself the hope that his sons would love the land like he did and that he would face his dwindling years with the three of them at his side.

Ben opened his eyes. He could see the first scattering of sunset across the western sky. It was going to be a beauty of a sight. When he was a boy, Adam once said that sunsets happened when God had cracked open Heaven and spilled it across the sky. It was such a whimsical thing for his serious young son to have said that Ben never forgot it. Adam was right. Even in the face of profound grief, Ben had to admit that God kept throwing his glories around. He had no business feeling sorry for himself. 

He turned back to his remaining two sons, when suddenly Hoss stiffened next to him.

“I hear something,” he said.

“The ducks,” Ben said softly. “They’re already flying south…”

“No, that ain’t it,” Hoss insisted. “It’s something else.”

Ben started to argue again, but Adam was standing now, next to Hoss. His face suddenly lost all its diffidence. He looked alert and maybe even curious.

“Pa, I hear it too,” he insisted, almost eagerly. “Someone’s riding on the road.”

Together, they turned toward the ranch road and waited, none of them the least bit sure what they were waiting for, until the moment was upon them. 

Much later, Ben would marvel at the moment, at the brisk edge in the autumn air that hinted at winter, the trees silhouetted by the dusk. The unhurried plodding of the swaybacked mare coming around the bend. The skeletal frame in tattered rags, barely sitting upright in the saddle, almost unrecognizable if not for the fact that all three had known him since he was born. The ghost of a boy’s smile on a man’s face. The man’s voice, cracked with thirst and starvation, but remarkably still the same as the day he had left the Ponderosa.

“Hi, Pa,” Joseph Cartwright said and immediately dropped from the saddle. 

Three pairs of arms caught him, before his body had a chance to touch the ground.

**********

Adam sat in the jaundiced light of the room and watched his youngest brother sleep.

The storm outside had been gathering since morning. They hadn’t seen much sunshine for the past few days. Just long stretches of overcast grey skies that caused one day to fade into the next, with only the darkness of night marking time. Adam reached forward to touch the forehead underneath the wild tangle of curls. Still no fever. He had to remind himself that the boy was just sleeping. He had been sleeping for the three days, since he rode onto the Ponderosa.

Doctor Martin had been to the house several times, since Joe had collapsed from the saddle. Hoss had gathered him easily and carried him upstairs. Later, he said it was like carrying a young child. Joe had weighed a whole lot more when he had left even as a skinny seventeen year old. Grimly, they had removed every shred of grey woolens from the boy’s body and handed the pile to Hop Sing to be burned. 

The doctor shook his head in disgust, as he surveyed the damage to Joe’s right leg.

“Using boys as canon fodder,” he muttered, before looking up and seeing Ben and Hoss’ stricken expressions. “I’m sorry, Ben, but that leg’s never going to be the same.”

“He hasn’t woke up since he rode in,” Adam said calmly. “Can you tell us what’s wrong?”

“He’s starving to death,” Doc Martin replied, as he neatly arranged his instruments in the bag. “That’s why he’s sleeping so much. His body is conserving every bit of energy to hang onto life. I believe that he had kept riding another day or two, his organs would have started to shut down.”

“How did he keep riding in that kind of condition?” Ben gasped. “He must have ridden for weeks to get here.”

“He wanted to get home,” Hoss sadly, patting his little brother’s shoulder. “You know how Little Joe gets, when his mind gets stuck on something.”

“I think Hoss is right, Ben,” the doctor said. “Determination can drive a man further than he has any right to go. And we all knew the kind of man Little Joe was going to grow into. Personally, I wouldn’t have expected any less from him.”

“Was it for nothing?” Adam asked. “Is he going to make it?”

“You made it, didn’t you, Adam?” the doctor asked, regarding him coolly. “I’d expect you’d be the best one in this room to answer that question.” 

“Doc, we’ve been trying to get him to eat something,” Hoss said. His face had crinkled with something close to panic over how close he’d come to never seeing his little brother alive again. “We can’t wake him up enough to get him to open his mouth.”

“Well, that’s probably for the best for now,” the doctor said. “A man’s stomach shrinks to nothing, it takes time to learn how to eat regular food again. Little Joe’s not going to be eating more than broth for some time. Adam, I expect you’ve seen men in this condition from your experiences.”

Adam met the doctor’s eyes and nodded. Indeed he had, up and down the blood soaked battlefields he had traversed for the last year of the war. Both sides had suffered badly from malnutrition and disease during that final winter, but there was no question that the blockade had done its worst damage to the young men of the Confederacy. Adam had seen hundreds of boys wasting away in the final throes of starvation. It was a miracle that Joe had made it home starving and with a leg that didn’t look like it could bear his weight. Adam had seen injuries like that many times. Usually, they were on arms and legs that had already been amputated and left to rot in a pile, not on limbs still attached to human bodies.

“What about his leg?” Adam asked.

“Can’t imagine how he managed to avoid amputation,” the doctor said quietly, almost as if Adam had spoken his thoughts out loud. “With a wound that severe, I can’t imagine how he was allowed to keep that leg. It’s obviously been doctored, and he’ll be able to use it, but I expect it’ll always give him some trouble.”

“He’s alive. That’s what’s important,” Ben protested, reaching for Joe’s hand. Adam noted that his father had hardly broken physical contact with his brother, since he had ridden up to the house.

“He’s alive right now,” Doctor Martin conceded, looking sternly at his old friend. “That may well be the miracle that God’s given you in all this, Ben. A chance to say a proper goodbye. Thousands of families never get that chance, and you need to be grateful for that, if nothing else.”

“Are you saying that my brother rode all this way to die?” Adam asked.

“I’m saying that I’ve known your little brother all his life,” the doctor replied. “And I’d be the first to state that while I’ve known him, he’s been one of the two most stubborn young men on God’s good earth. You, young man, are the other one. He got it in his mind to come home, and he did that. I’d expect that if he chooses to live, he’ll carry that through as well.”

“Then why do you think he might die?” Hoss asked, baffled. He rested his hand on his little brother’s shoulder, as if to reassure himself that Joe was still living. “Why wouldn’t he choose to live?”

“With what he’s been through, sometimes those decisions don’t come so easy. Ask Adam, and he’ll tell you what I mean.”

Doctor Martin left the room, and Hoss and Hop Sing went downstairs to get more supplies. Adam and his father alone sat by Joe’s bedside.

“Well son,” Ben began. “The doctor seems to think you know all about this. Do you want to tell me about the choices men make when it comes to living and dying?”

For the first time since he had returned, Adam heard a hint of anger in his father’s voice. He acknowledged that it was his father’s right to be angry. He wondered if Ben Cartwright blamed him, on some level, not only for his own decision to join the war, but for his brother’s decision as well. After all, Joe had followed him away from the Ponderosa. Would Joe have ever joined the Confederacy if it weren’t for Adam’s decision to leave? He shook his head. He would never know, and there was more at stake now than questioning the past. 

“He kept himself alive,” Adam said at last. “He came a long way to make it home. That’s got to stand for something.”

His father nodded and said, “I know you’re right. I am just so tired of waiting for my sons to come back to me.”

Adam watched his father walk away. He knew he should follow and help Hoss with another basin of hot water. 

But before he left the room, Adam leaned in close and whispered, “You’re going to live, brother, and you’re going to walk just fine.”

He turned, suddenly feeling ridiculous for saying such a statement out loud, but his father was gone, and he was still alone. He looked back at the bed again, and this time he could swear that Joe was smirking at him in his sleep.

Three days passed. To the Cartwrights, time seemed to be divvied up only by the long nights and by the hourly dispensation of Hop Sing’s good broth. They had all gotten better at maneuvering the small spoonfuls into Joe’s mouth and praying that at least some of it stayed down. 

Adam had taken the last shift of the afternoon, when it happened. He was gazing out the window at the graying sky over the mountains, when he heard a sound so faint that he thought he might have imagined it. But he was sure he heard whistling. For a moment, he wondered if the sound was coming from a chickadee on a branch outside the window. Of course that would have been impossible, unless that chickadee knew the refrain to “Dixie”… 

Adam whirled around and looked right in the eyes of his little brother who was faintly whistling the second stanza of the old battle song. Joe met his gaze with the cockiest, most insouciant grin that Adam had ever seen. He knew it matched his own smile perfectly.

Joe stopped whistling and managed a half-hearted salute. 

“Good to see you, older brother,” he croaked in a dry voice that had been unused for too long. “Even if you did turn out to be a damn Yankee, after all.”

Adam fought the urge to collapse to his knees and to rush to his brother and shake him. Over the past five years, he had carried out his duties while searching every battlefield for the dead body of his kid brother. Seeing Joe smiling at him somehow brought it all back, the feeling of knowing that he was creating maps that made it easier for the Union to kill his own brother.

Joe continued. “You always did say I was the rebel in the family. Ain’t you gonna salute me, big brother? I did make corporal. I’m sure you were promoted higher than me. You always said I was the underachiever in the family…”

“Pa!” Adam found his voice at last and put it to good use. “Pa! Hoss! Joe’s awake!”

He could hear the commotion downstairs raised by his shouting. At most, he’d have a minute left alone with his brother. He steeled himself to use it well.

“Hey Johnny Reb,” Adam said in a soft voice, that belied his words. He came and calmly sat on the edge of bed, like they had spent the last five years attending to the business of the Ponderosa together, not fighting on opposite sides of a war. “You sure weren’t an underachiever this time. I never knew you to go to such ends to prove me wrong, before.” 

“I’m glad you’re all right, Adam,” Joe whispered, his cheeky smile suddenly gone. “I prayed for you every day.”

Adam didn’t trust himself to speak, but he didn’t need to. The door slammed open and against the wall, leaving a hole in the plaster that would remain for years before anyone got around to fixing it. Hoss plunged into the room, followed by his father. Adam stood and moved back, allowing the two of them to pass him by.

Ben perched on the edge of the bed and pushed back the wild mat of hair away from his son’s face. Hop Sing had shaved off months of whiskers and had made an attempt to hack away at some of his mop of hair, but Joe still looked decidedly untamed. Adam figured that folks in Virginia City probably wouldn’t recognize the good looking Cartwright kid in the gaunt veteran who lay in that bed.

“Hello, young man,” his father said with mock severity, his trembling hand revealing his emotions. “It’s about time you decided to wake up.”

“Hi Pa,” Joe whispered, reaching for his father’s hand and holding it tightly. “Pa, I’m so sorry. I tried so hard to come home.”

Joe’s voice broke then, and then he was crying, just a little, succumbing to exhaustion and pain and God knows what else. His father remained dry eyed for only a moment, before his lined face crumpled as well. 

When Adam first got out of the stage in Virginia City, his first thought upon seeing his father was that Ben Cartwright had aged more than just the five years he had been gone. Now, watching him with Joe, he began to understand what their decisions had cost their father. He wasn’t sure there was enough air left in the room for him to breathe. He made his way towards the door.

Adam staggered out of the room past Hoss, who was obviously struggling to keep himself together. He pushed open the door and almost collided into Hop Sing, who had rushed from the kitchen with the rest. Adam held the door open for him and closed it into place. Only then, did he sink, soundlessly and absolutely spent, onto his knees. He had been fairly sure that he was going to die many times over the past several years. He had readied himself for the coming death, and when it skipped over him, he was grateful but figured he was just lucky. It was ridiculous to believe that Joe had been equally as lucky. He had traveled over enough battlefields to realize how few Southern boys were going to make it home to their families. There had been too many ways to die during the war to expect that death was going to pass by two members of one family.

Safe at home on the Ponderosa, Adam listened to his family’s voices mingling behind the door, and he realized how absurd it was that it had turned out this way. It was so implausible it might as well be called impossible. Since he was in a reckless mood, he was tempted to call it a miracle.

On the landing outside his brother’s bedroom, Adam Cartwright leaned his head against the door and gave thanks for absurdities, no matter how miraculous or how small.

**********

Joe was awake, and it was a miracle, but even miracles had to get out of the way for all the things that needed to be done. The doctor had to be sent for again, more broth had to be prepared in the kitchen, and reassurances had to be exchanged over and over again that yes, the four Cartwrights were back together again. It was all rather exhausting. Joe had fallen back to sleep after that, and the three of them had huddled around his bed keeping a much more cheerful vigil than they had before. 

When Joe finally woke up again, he immediately reached for his father’s arm.

“Pa,” he said. “I need to talk to Adam alone. I have something that I need him to help me with.”

“What do you need him to do?” Hoss asked. He had contented himself with sitting on the foot of the bed and bouncing it every now and again, a kid waiting to open presents at Christmas. “I can help you, Little Joe.”

“I just need him,” Joe stated. “I need some help writing a letter.”

“Well, Joseph, I’d be happy to help you with that,” Ben said, patting his son’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Pa, but I really need Adam for this,” Joe said.

“All right, Joe,” his father said. Adam couldn’t help but notice the slightly hurt look on their faces, but Hoss quietly shut the door behind them.

Alone in the room with his brother, Joe asked, “You still know how to use a pen, brother?”

“It might come back to me,” Adam said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He retrieved paper and pen from the secretary and sat in the wingback chair by Joe’s bed, waiting. 

“No questions,” Joe said quietly.

Adam looked intently at his brother, but his face was shadowed in seriousness. The days were getting shorter. Already, the small room was growing darker in the waning light from the window. Adam leaned over and lit the lamp near the table. Then he nodded and dipped the quill in the ink, as his kid brother began narrating his brief letter.

Later, when Adam held the letter in his hand, he understood why he had to be the one to write it. He tucked away the words in his memory, until Joe was ready to share them with anybody else. Adam had been a good choice to write it. He had always been good at keeping secrets.

The letter began…

Dear Southern Lady,

I looked for you. I rode for miles and miles and asked every soul that I passed where I could find you, but no one had seen you. I looked for you until my body wasted away to nothing but bones, and there was no other choice than to go back to my own home.

If you still love me, write to me, and I’ll come to you. I’ll come to you and bring you and the baby back home with me. Pretty Annalisa, just send word and the gates of hell wouldn’t keep me from coming back to you.

Adam had stopped writing at that and stared at his brother, but Joe shook his head.

“No questions,” he repeated. “That’s why it had to be you, Adam.”

So Adam had transcribed the rest of the words, and with a hand that could barely hold a pen, Joe signed it. 

“Thanks, brother,” Joe said and closed his eyes. He was clearly exhausted.

Adam was glad Pa and Hoss weren’t downstairs, when he left Joe’s bedroom. There were so many secrets he had kept from them, some life changing, others inconsequential. This would be one more secret that the war had wedged into his heart. As he headed out to the barn to saddle his horse, Adam wondered at the urgency that had cast him from this place five years earlier. Back then, he had been so stubborn in his convictions and so had Joe. Adam could tell from the hollowness of the young man’s eyes that Joe had seen far more than hunger during the war they had shared. 

Adam sighed, and tightened the cinch of his saddle. If he had it to do all over again, he would fight in the war again, but he would never have left home with so much anger. He truly believed in the Northern victory. Slavery was evil, and he was proud to play a part in ending it.

Yet, his mind kept drifting to the burned out and plundered plantations of the old South. He thought about the sights his brother must have come across in his search for the pretty Annalisa. In his mind, he followed his starving brother through blood filled cow ponds and impromptu graveyards filled with boys who weren’t old enough to pack a razor in their haversack. He drifted with his brother through endless battlefields and saw again the thousands of boys who died where they fell. 

When the war ended, he had wanted only to make it home again. Once back home, Adam had come to understand that nothing was going to be the same as it was before. The lines had shifted; the front no longer had to do with the battlefield. The new dividing line that separated him had nothing to do with politics or geography. The new front he faced was the dividing line that lay inside his own heart.

Adam shook himself out of his grim reverie and mounted his horse. In the field, he had lived from day to day, and that would have to be good enough for his life after the war. He reined towards the main road. He would mail the letter to Joe’s best guess at an address. He would keep Joe’s secrets, as he somehow knew that Joe would keep his own. The war was over. A different kind of battle was only just beginning, and he wasn’t sure that this time that his side would have the common sense to win.

**********

Exhausted, Joe tilted his head back on the settee and rubbed his eyes. His family had left the room to walk the last of the callers out to their rig. It had been his first full afternoon of entertaining visitors, and he had felt like it would never end. Of course, nobody would know it had been anything but a pleasure by listening to him. He was very, very good at getting by. Nobody seemed to question that he was having anything but a fine time.

Only Adam, oddly enough, had leaned over and whispered, “Just say the word, and I’ll get rid of them.” 

Joe had stared at his older brother, amazed that his real feelings were so transparent, but then Adam sat back in his seat by the window, staring out the fog streaked glass at the falling snow outside. Winter had arrived so early this year…

His father was delighted by Joe’s willingness to talk and socialize with their visitors. His youngest son had always been outgoing and had sought out the company of others. Joe hadn’t disappointed anyone with his performance that afternoon. He had even mustered up a war story or two, much to the delight of those who were eager to hear the exploits of a real Confederate soldier. 

Once, Joe caught Adam’s attention during the peak of one of his tall tales and rolled his eyes, when no one else was looking. Adam cracked a smile, before looking away. Joe knew that he wasn’t fooling his older brother, not by a long shot. In his story, he had stripped the battlefield of its pain and gore, leaving it occupied only by valiant young men, who rushed the field towards glorious victory.

Joe Cartwright wasn’t any kind of a poet, but he was a good storyteller all the same. Adam would give him that. Adam had never learned the art of lying just a little. Give folks what they’re looking for, and they’ll leave you alone in all the ways that really matter. For Adam, it was the truth or nothing. He couldn’t tell people the truth about what he had seen, and to be quite honest, most folks weren’t interested in hearing it. So Adam said nothing, nothing at all. Joe had immediately noticed the long, anxious looks that his father had directed at his quiet, oldest son. Joe figured the two of them had already done enough to worry his father. His pa looked decades older than when they had left, just five years earlier. If a sanitized war story or two reassured his father that his youngest son was on the road to recovery, then Joe figured that it was the least he could do.

Hoss’ enormous laugh preceded his entrance through the front door. 

“That Seth sure is a good natured fellow,” he was saying. “Little brother, you missed a boot-stomping good party when Seth and Sarah got married last month. Just about everyone was there. They talked the whole time about how much they missed you. Sarah never got over the way that you left so quick-like. She never had a chance to say goodbye.”

Ben nodded in agreement and sat down beside his youngest son. 

He patted Joe’s good leg affectionately and said, “We weren’t sure there was going to be a wedding, after Sarah’s father died in that mining accident. Seth was the one who found him. It was a terrible shock all around. Sarah took a long time to recover from that. I did hear her say a few times how much she wished you were here to see her through it, Joseph.”

Joe nodded and absently picked at the brocade arm of the settee. There had been something in Sarah’s eyes that had made him uneasy. And there were the strange words she’d whispered to him, as she leaned over to kiss him goodbye.

“You’ll have to find your own way, Little Joe,” she had whispered. “You have to do it alone. That’s what I found out for myself.”

Strange words for a new bride to say to her old childhood friend, but when he made a grab for her hand, Sarah Pruitt was already following after her new husband. Joe had tried to shake off her words and wished fervently that he had been around to help her through her grief over her father’s unexpected death. She had been one of his oldest and closest friends. 

But, there was no time for “should have beens”. His boyhood was behind him, as it should be. He had seen too many fields stacked with the bodies of dead boys who had once been his friends to believe that wishing for something made any kind of a difference in the way things turned out.

Without realizing it, he’d closed his eyes. He was always so tired and cold; the small portions of food he had been eating both filled him and repulsed him at the same time. It was hard to gain strength from the amount of food that would barely feed a child. His family was watching, and they would be worried. He knew he shouldn’t fall asleep yet, and he forced himself to open his eyes.

“Long day?” Adam asked.

“About as long as they come,” he replied, and the two smiled knowingly at each other.

“I know everyone was very glad to see you, son,” Ben said. “It must have been hard on you, but there were a lot of prayers said for you over the past five years. It’s good of you to let these people see that their prayers were answered.”

His father accidentally leaned against Joe’s bad leg and grimaced, as the young man seemed to jump out of his skin. “Sorry, Joe! I didn’t mean to hurt you!”

“It’s all right, Pa,” Joe managed through gritted teeth. “It always acts up when the weather turns.”

“Hey little brother,” Hoss said, coming to sit on the table in front of him. “How’d you hurt that leg, anyhow? Did it happen in one of those battles you was talkin’ about?”

Joe looked into the wide eyes of his concerned brother. How he had missed Hoss over the past years, with his love of life and his willingness to back him up, come hell or high water! Five years had been a long time to be away from a brother he’d spent every day with, before he left for the South. 

He’d never known what it felt like to actually be alone before he’d left home. How many long nights had he spent on the battlefield while the thunder of artillery rattled his bones, simply longing for the good company of the man who was both his big brother and his best friend. But Joe wasn’t selfish. He’d have sacrificed both his life and his sanity to spare Hoss what he’d experienced. 

“Naw, that was a different battle,” he said, trying not to look at Adam. Joe hadn’t stopped talking all afternoon while trying to keep their visitors happy and well entertained. Adam had barely spoken a word, but just sat in the corner, his thoughts hidden behind shadowed eyes. “You know, I am awfully tired.”

It was the truth, and even Adam recognized it as such. Immediately, the three of them stood and helped Joe to his feet. His bad leg buckled at first as it always did, when he hadn’t used it for a while. It had caused him no end of difficulties during the past year, but here at home, there were three pairs of arms ready to support him, while he steadied himself enough to walk. Before he left home, he would have bristled under such help and demanded that he be allowed to help himself. Joe knew now to be grateful for help when it came to him. He wasn’t a kid any longer. He didn’t have anything to prove to anyone.

“Thanks,” he said, and leaned heavily on his father, as he helped him up the stairs.

Once in bed, after struggling to keep down some toast and broth, Joe listened to his family’s voices downstairs. It felt good to be alone; they’d even stuck around to watch him eat. He appreciated their worry, but it was exhausting. 

“Little brother,” Hoss had exclaimed during the tedious battle with the broth. “I don’t know how a little ol’ bit of soup can give you so much trouble! When you left, you was going through that growing spell, and you was fixin’ to out-eat me back then!”

Joe remembered that and smiled. It seemed like a lifetime ago. He could hardly remember the all consuming hunger of being seventeen. Back then he felt like he could devour the whole world, and it still wouldn’t be enough. Now he knew the truth. When was seventeen, he didn’t know a thing about hunger. 

“Little Joe, I reckon you grew while you was gone,” Hoss added.

Joe knew for certain that he had grown. His last growth spell had caused him more trouble than he would ever describe to his family. How could he tell his family that he had once yanked boots off the feet of a dead boy to avoid marching barefoot another mile? His toes had curled at the ends of the boots he’d left home in. Besides, those boots had been crafted for riding horses, not marching for hundreds of miles on end. He hadn’t wasted much time feeling guilty about his new boots. Everyone had plundered the belongings of the dead. They did it to survive and would have expected the same to happen to them, if they were the ones to fall next. But, he would never share that with Hoss or his pa.

“Well, you have to remember,” Joe said, trying to lighten things between them. “For the past couple weeks before I made it home, I was down to eating mesquite beans and lizards. Hop Sing’s broth takes some getting used to.”

His father smiled, but it was a sad smile that didn’t make it to his eyes. 

He patted his son’s shoulder and said, “We should let you get some rest.”

Joe had nodded and buried himself in the unbelievable luxury of a good bed. He was so used to sleeping wherever he could. Adam was the only one who wasn’t surprised to find him sleeping on the floor near the bed during the first week he was home. He quietly confided to Joe that he had done the same thing. It was almost disturbing to sleep without feeling the ground solid underneath you. Those first few days, all he’d been able to do was sleep, but now he found only troubled snatches of rest. Disturbing memories laced his dreams like arsenic.

Downstairs, his family’s voices carried clearly in the quiet of the evening. He was glad he’d never confessed as a kid that he was able to hear just about every word that they said from behind the door of his bedroom. He rolled onto his side so he could listen better, taking the pressure off his leg that never stopped aching.

He heard Hoss saying, “I’m just sure of it. That leg bothers him more than he’s letting on. I see him rubbing at it when he thinks nobody’s looking.”

“I wish he’d tell us how it happened,” Pa replied. “I’m sure the doctor could find a better treatment, if he had more information. Adam, he seems to talk to you more than the rest of us. Why don’t you ask him about his leg?”

Joe wished he could see his oldest brother’s expression. What a strange turn of events, but he supposed that Pa was right. Before the war, he and Adam had spent much more time fighting than confiding in each other. After all, Adam was twelve years older than him, and Joe sometimes had an awfully big chip on his shoulder. Spoiling for a fight, that’s how Adam often described his little brother, and he was right.

That last fight over the stage wreckage of Fredrick Kyle’s wife, before they both left the Ponderosa, now seemed like it happened in another lifetime. He remembered the boy he had been, wildly emotional and full of big dreams. He wished he could take that boy and urge him down a different road. But, there was no point in meandering over what had already happened. He’d chosen his road, and God help him, he’d have to live with it.

Adam was responding in his calm, level voice, “Pa, I’d expect if Joe hasn’t told us what happened, he’s got his reasons. From the look of that leg, it’s an absolute miracle that he’s got it at all!”

“What do you mean by that, Adam?” Hoss asked. 

“I mean that I’ve seen plenty of injuries like that,” Adam replied. “Only none of them were on limbs that were still attached to a body. I can make a pretty good guess how his leg got wounded. What I want to know is how he managed to keep it!”

Joe smiled a little at that. He could almost imagine their horrified expressions at Adam’s reasonable words. Of course, Adam was absolutely right. The wonder of his leg was not that it was almost blown off his body. He’d seen that happen a thousand times in a day. Very few men were allowed to keep a limb in such condition. On the other hand, very few men were as stubborn as Joseph Cartwright, the unlikely cowboy from Nevada territory turned Confederate soldier.

Joe remembered all too well how he had managed to keep that leg. He closed his eyes, and the memory hummed in the descending darkness. It turned out he was ready to go to sleep after all…

**********

It had been one hell of a battle. Balls whistled all around him, and men ducked behind bodies that had been stacked along the outskirts, for shelter. It should have been his turn to die. That was his last thought, as the shell had exploded in front of him. He had closed his eyes to a shimmering of red smoke and body parts flying through the air. Hell on earth – that was how his commanding officer had described the horrors of battle. Joe felt the shell punch into his leg. He groped for the hole it left, and he knew it was bad. His hand came away streaked red, as if it had been painted that way. He felt no pain just a detached feeling of curiosity that it should end this way. He heard men keening and moaning for loved ones all around him, but strangely he wasn’t afraid. He thought of his father and brothers, and a profound feeling of sorrow and regret cut him to the very marrow of his bones. He couldn’t imagine what this would do to his father.

“I’m sorry, Pa,” he whispered and closed his eyes to the descending darkness.

He woke in a makeshift hospital, the shell of a fine old manor that had been appropriated to try to save men who had lived long enough to be deposited there. Joe had closed his eyes to death and opened them to life. The air smelled sour with illness and decay, and dust swirled in the sunlight through a lovely paned window that dominated the room. Joe’s reprieve from pain had ended. He awoke to such a riot of absolute agony that he could hardly help from crying out through his gritted teeth.

A doctor, with old, tired eyes, turned from another young man to look him over. His lips puckered, when he took a look at Joe’s leg. He didn’t look terribly disturbed by what he was looking at. He had seen it all, many times before.

“Easy soldier,” he said. “We’ll fix you up. It’s not your turn, yet. Young private over there’s bleeding out. We’ll take care of him first and take yours off afterward.”

Joe fought for clarity. His mind rearranged the words in every possible order, but they still didn’t make much sense. His eyes narrowed on the bloodied front of the man’s tunic.

“Don’t understand,” he mumbled. “Take what off?”

“No way to save the leg,” the doctor replied, casually. “Once infection sets in, it’s going to travel right up your leg. You’d be dead by the next morning. You’re very fortunate, young man. There’s only one ahead of you. Often times, it takes days to wait your turn. By then, gangrene can set in, and there’s not much to be done about things. I’ll be right back, and I’ll see to you then.”

In his disordered mind, Joe became aware of screaming coming from another room. Someone groaned nearby, and he turned his head to see a boy next him, swinging his head back and forth insensibly. Joe shivered, and forced himself to look directly at the boy’s injury. What had once been a leg was now a stump, covered with isinglass plaster and bandaged tightly.

Joe clenched his jaw. Amputation was so common during the war it had become routine. Joe had marched past many piles of sawed off limbs, discarded like kindling on the edges of a battleground. Young men, barely out of their teens, made due with a single arm or learned to hobble on a post cut to match the other leg.

Joe knew the doctor was offering him life; it just wasn’t a life that Joe was willing to settle for.

The doctor left the room accompanied by two women that Joe took to be nurses. He’d witnessed amputations on the field and knew it generally took several people to hold the screaming man down. The whole operation could take under ten minutes. Most field doctors had already performed it hundreds of times. Joe knew full well that the overworked doctors never took no for an answer, when the demand came from a dying man. Joe wasn’t dying yet, but he would be soon, if his leg wasn’t cared for. If he stuck around to wait for that care, he wouldn’t be able to stop them from sawing off his leg. This might be his only chance to make that decision for himself.

Biting back a moan of pain, Joe pushed himself to the edge of the bed. That pain lodged deep in his throat, and he willed it to settle there as long as it didn’t give him away. He glanced down at the wound. The soft bullets used by the Federals did a great deal of damage to bone and muscle. Joe had seen men with limbs blow clean away by a single bullet. His injury was serious and would probably kill him, but Joe didn’t detect any sign of blood poisoning. He was no fool. Without care, the wound would begin to rot. He could already feel the onset of decay. If fleeing the hospital meant his life was at its end, then that was a decision he was willing to make.

Joe was going to walk into his own death like a man.

Clutching at every source of support he could find, he reeled across the room, almost dragging his wounded leg behind him. He thought of his family back home and Adam somewhere in Kansas, and he willed himself to keep moving. If nothing else, he prayed for an opportunity to write them and send them his goodbyes. It was an endless source of grief that he had never told his father that he was leaving.

On the road, he’d kept telling himself that he was trailing Adam. If he’d been honest with himself, he’d long since made the decision to go. By the time he reached Salt Lake City, he had stopped kidding himself that he was going to find his older brother. It was a big country, passionate and angry, and tottering on the brink of war. The further south he traveled, the less he understood about his beliefs. He aimed to find out for himself which side was right and which was wrong. All his life he’d followed in the footsteps of his father and brothers. For once Joseph Cartwright was deciding things for himself.

Joe couldn’t help but shake his head as he made his way out of the makeshift hospital. He was still up to his own tricks, deciding things for himself. If only his pa could see him now! He shook his head. If Pa could see him now, he’d have his hide for the mess he’d gotten himself into. There weren’t many good ways this could end. Joe had seen at least a dozen men die from blood poisoning, before a surgeon could reach them. It was an ugly death, but as far as he was concerned, it was better than the living death he faced if he stayed in that hospital.

“Going somewhere, soldier?”

The voice caught him as much by surprise as the hand on his shoulder. Joe almost collapsed. A strong arm caught him and kept him from falling. Joe looked first at the gore-streaked shirt of the man that clearly marked him as a medical officer, before gazing up at the man’s face. To his astonishment, this doctor bore a startling resemblance to Adam.

Seeing his chance for escape slipping away, Joe pleaded with the man. “Please, sir, you have to let me go. I can’t go back.”

“Son, there is a surgeon in there who can save you,” the doctor said. He looked into Joe’s eyes. “You’re in no shape to go anywhere but back in that bed. You can’t be much older than eighteen. You’ve got more life ahead of you. I took a look at you earlier. That leg’s not bad enough to kill you yet. If they take it, you might live.”

“No thank you, sir,” Joe said. “I’m twenty, sir. I look young for my age, and I’ve had more than my share of life already. I’m not willing to spend the rest of it on one leg.”

“You’d choose death over a leg?” the doctor asked, incredulously. “What in blazes for? I’ve watched hundreds of men do just fine on one leg. Hell, half of them end up back on the battlefield before the month is over. You look brave enough. I’d imagine you’d recover soon without much ado.”

“Sir,” Joe pleaded. “I can’t ride a horse with one leg. I’m supposed to be a rancher, when I go home to my pa and brothers. I work with horses, cattle. That’s my real life. You’ve got to understand.”

The doctor relaxed his hold on Joe’s arm and stood back, looking bemused despite the circumstances.

“Where’s home, son?” he asked.

“Nevada territory,” Joe answered, eying a nearby horse that stood grazing near the barn. The animal wasn’t saddled, but if Joe could manage to mount it he’d be able to save himself from the clutches of all the well-meaning doctors who wanted to save him. Of course, he’d be soon arrested for horse stealing and desertion, but Joe preferred hanging to amputation. Besides, he figured he’d never live long enough to see a trial.

The doctor laughed out loud. “What on earth is a cowboy from Nevada doing in Mississippi fighting for the Southern cause?”

Joe looked at the doctor squarely in the face. It was amazing how much the man reminded him of Adam. Joe would have given about anything, maybe even his leg, to be able to see his oldest brother again.

He considered the medical officer’s question and truthfully answered, “Hell if I know. Sir.”

The doctor laughed again and let go of Joe’s arm.

“Tell you what, cowboy,” he said. “I’m supposed to be getting some sleep. I have a little time left to myself. Let’s see what we can do about that leg.”

“No one’s taking my leg,” Joe said fiercely, backing away. He felt so light-headed and ill from pain he didn’t think he’d be able to sit a horse. But he’d rather die trying than have his leg tossed in a growing pile of limbs to be burned or buried by the next morning.

“I wouldn’t try to take it from you,” the doctor said, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I can’t promise I’ll save you, cowboy, but I’ll sure as hell try. Come inside, and I’ll do what I can.”

Joe stared at the doctor through suspicious eyes. “Why would you try to save my leg? What does it matter to you, if I live or die?”

The doctor shrugged diffidently and rubbed his tired eyes.

“Quite honestly, I can’t say for certain,” the doctor admitted and smiled a little. “But you remind me of my youngest brother. He died at Gettysburg. He was eighteen and a good soldier. He would have fought like hell to keep his leg too.”

Joe cracked a smile and decided to trust him. He couldn’t get over how much this Southern doctor reminded him of his Yankee brother…

**********

“Joe? Joe!” A different voice reached into the dream and hauled him out of it. “Joe, are you all right? I heard you talking.”

Joe rolled over looked at the slant of light from the open door. Adam peered into the darkened bedroom, holding a lit candle stub. 

“I’m all right,” Joe mumbled and instinctively reached for his leg. It was still there, more or less intact, even though it throbbed, day and night, and still gave way when he wasn’t expecting it. But it was attached to the rest of his body, and he was alive. In comparison with many of the men Joe served with, he was a very lucky man.

To his surprise, Adam didn’t go back to his room but walked in and sat on the chair by the window. 

He placed the candle on the table and leaned into the chair wearily like a man who hadn’t slept for years. Joe wondered if his brother wanted to talk, but Adam didn’t say anything. He just stared out the window at the darkness beyond. 

Joe didn’t ask Adam what he was looking at. He didn’t need to. He’d already been told that Adam traveled with the infantry. Whatever Joe had seen, Adam had seen it as well, even if it was from a loftier vantage point. 

Between the two of them, they’d likely seen enough darkness to last a dozen lifetimes.

**********

Adam followed his brothers into the Bucket of Blood. It had been a while since he’d been in town. Winter had worn out its welcome and an especially heavy blanket of snow still covered the road, making travel difficult. Hoss had managed the weekly trip for supplies by driving the sleigh into town. Each time Hoss returned, Joe eagerly asked if there had been mail. However, the letter he’d been waiting for never arrived. 

They had spent so much time at the ranch that they were all eager to get to Virginia City. An early warming spell had melted some of the snow at the lower elevations and made it more practical to drive a wagon over the roads. Hop Sing needed supplies, and Joe longed to be outside and away from the confines of the ranch. His impatience was so typically “Joe” it was almost reassuring. Joe had changed in so many ways that his father and Hoss were glad to have the old, frustrated Joe back with them.

That morning, Adam heard Pa say to Hoss when he thought that they were alone, “Joe grew up while he was gone. I’m not complaining, but I’m not sure I know who he is anymore.”

“Aw, Pa,” Hoss had responded. “You just need to give him time. Little Joe’s been through a whole heap of trouble, and he’s still settling back in. He’ll come around. They both will.”

Adam slipped into the kitchen, as the two of them passed by. He felt foolish, like a kid spying on the grown ups, but he didn’t want them to know that he’d heard them. Although his father was talking about Joe, Adam knew he was talking about him as well. He could sense his father’s concern every time he answered a question with too short an answer, every time his thoughts drifted away at dinner. Every time, he seemed a thousand miles away…

Joe was much the same way; he was just a lot better at hiding it. It was a funny thing. Before he’d left, all of Joe’s feelings and thoughts were on constant display. Now, Joe was the more skillful of the two at covering his tracks. He was much better at distracting them all from realizing that he never really talked about anything of much importance. He spun endless tales of bloodless battles that Adam was well aware had never happened. He told stories of haunted Southern cemeteries that made Hoss shiver and the rest of them smile. He sang every fighting song that he knew, entertaining them with the off-color ones after Ben Cartwright left the room.

But he kept his heart as carefully guarded as Adam kept his own. He considered it an irony that it had taken a war to come between them for Adam to finally understand his little brother.

He watched Joe, as he made his way into the saloon. The limp was much better, but it would probably stick around for the rest of his life. Somehow, Joe made it work for him, turned it into a part of his charm. Adam’s own war wound didn’t feel particularly charming. It ached in the cold and hurt like hell in the heat of the summer. Fortunately, it was something he could keep hidden. Unlike Joe’s leg, Adam’s war wounds were only visible to himself.

Folks around the saloon nodded at Adam and tipped their hats to him. Word around town had it that the oldest Cartwright boy came back from the war even more high and mighty than he’d been before he left. That was fine with Adam. Unlike his little brother, he couldn’t even pretend to tell a good story. His stories were lengthy and tedious and tragic. More than anything else, talking about the war made Adam sad.

He found himself a chair in the corner of the saloon, where he could be alone and still keep an eye on his younger brothers. He shook his head ruefully. Like a giant of a man and a war veteran needed his protections, but old habits were hard to break. Adam smiled at the scene across the saloon. Folks were clapping Little Joe on the back, buying him beers, and demanding new stories. Everyone wanted to hear from the Southern war veteran. Rumor around town had it that Joe was some kind of a hero, although he had done nothing to spin that particular tale. 

Hoss stood next to Joe, his own personal sentry. While he’d served in the army, it had bothered Adam to no end that his little brother had been alone in the other side of the war. He’d been such a kid when he left, barely turned seventeen, and part of Adam wished that Hoss had tagged along to keep an eye on him. Hoss caught Adam watching him. He shook his head and smiled, a small gesture, but Adam caught it and held onto it, all the same. There was something in Hoss’ expression that gave Adam a strange feeling of reassurance. 

Hoss understands, Adam realized with a start, that Joe’s stories aren’t real. He doesn’t know what happened to us in the war, but he knows that whatever happened was real. This is not. 

Adam didn’t know why Hoss’ understanding mattered so much, but it settled him inside and made him feel a little less alone. He felt like his mind could rest easier, just by having that little bit of understanding. 

He had gotten used to being alone. Solitude had always been comfortable for him, and his work for the army had fed right into that predisposition. Battles had raged all around him, while he diligently helped create maps for Army’s Corps of Engineers. It was an odd position that he found himself in. He witnessed all the brutal destruction and aftermath of many skirmishes, large and small, yet he didn’t fight in them. He was always on the front lines, but never in the battle. Of course, he had still been in the path of danger. The hole in his shoulder was proof of that.

As part of the team that performed surveys and reconnaissance, he traveled with the infantry but wasn’t a part of a regiment. Sometimes, he felt that the soldiers in the trenches had an advantage over him. In their struggle to survive, they had little time to ask questions and to wonder if all the bloodshed and horror could possibly be worth it. Adam had time to consider such things, and he had come to the grim conclusion that in war, both sides were capable of atrocities he’d never imagined. He’d spent so much time surveying death that it no longer held any mystery for him. The only problem was that life had lost much of its mystery as well.

Adam looked up and realized that Joe was watching him. He was still laughing and slapping backs and working the crowd, but his eyes weren’t in it. His eyes were on Adam, and he looked like he had seen better days. 

My God, Adam thought, when did the kid get so old?

They’d both been so young, when the whole thing began. He felt his mind drifting away again, and he started to remember what it had been like …

When Adam first arrived in Kansas, his heart had been filled with righteous fervor. He’d quickly abandoned his plan to go back East. He wanted to be the center of things, just like Fredrick Kyle. However, he wanted to be on the other side. To him, the struggle between the states was about the battle between right and wrong. The anti-slavery movement was justified; the effort to hold the Union together was a noble one, well worth dying for. And besides, he wanted to prove that he was right in all his beliefs about Kyle. As the center of the uproar over slavery, Kansas was the perfect place to see for himself what the conflict was all about.

Even after all that he had witnessed, Adam had not deviated from his basic beliefs. He still believed that slavery was a terrible evil, and he rejoiced when it ended. He believed that the Union had to stay together to survive, and he’d worked hard to assure a Federal victory. He felt a quiet satisfaction in hearing the news about the surrender at Appomattox, unlike the fools who got drunk in the street. They were the same ones who looted and plundered half-deserted towns and forced themselves on Southern ladies they’d found hiding in the shells of once gracious homes.

Yet most everything else had changed. He no longer believed it was a simple matter of right and wrong. The War Between the States had shaken all his previous assumptions. He’d seen each side commit acts that he would never speak of to another human being.

He had joined the Union forces shortly after his arrival in Kansas. Those in command had quickly taken note of his engineering background and put him to work creating maps for the army. The Federals had to push southward through hostile and unfamiliar territory, and good maps were essential to their success.

Adam would never forget one particular battle. The Federal forces had won the skirmish but had sacrificed many young men for that bitter victory. The field that he was surveying had been so crowded with bodies from both sides that Adam could hardly walk across it, without stepping on an arm or leg. It had rained through the night, and dying boys lay in a sea of mud. Most were dead, but some were still alive, moaning and calling for their mothers. Adam wished he could help them all, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t help but wonder if Little Joe was lying in a similar field somewhere, dying and longing for his family to be near him.

He had plotted all the topographical features of the field, marked off the pleasant little pond and the rail fence that bordered in. There was a small hill in the middle of it all. Gentle and sloping, it would have made a perfect hill for sledding. Instead, it had been the vantage point that the Federals had used to fire down upon the Southern lines. Adam noted it in his drawing. On the map he was drawing, the field was no longer a scene of slaughter. It was simply a field with a pond and a hill.

Just then, one boy caught his attention, a young Confederate soldier, barely out of his teens. He was propped against the rail fence, bleeding copiously from a stomach wound. He wasn’t being attended to by any of the field surgeons; there was no point. They were trying to save the soldiers with wounds to their extremities. Gut wounds were always fatal. The boy must have been in pain, but he kept looking at Adam like he knew him. And the odd thing was that the boy looked strangely familiar. He couldn’t place him at first, until it came to him. This boy reminded him so much of Little Joe. It wasn’t about his features; they looked nothing alike. It was more in the stubbornness of his expression. The boy was daring death to take him.

Adam crouched beside him.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.

The boy looked at him through gritted teeth and shrugged like nothing could surprise him any more. “Reach into my pocket.”

Adam didn’t understand, but he reached into the boy’s pocket and pulled out a small wrapped square of tobacco.

Holding it out, Adam asked, “Is this what you wanted?”

The boy nodded and said, “Take it with you. If my body makes it back to my ma, I don’t want her to find out I was smoking.”

Adam fought back tears and nodded. He didn’t know why this one boy, out of the thousands, had gotten to him. While he couldn’t possibly care about hundreds of thousands of dying boys, he could care about this one. He started to pat the boy on his shoulder, but then he realized the young soldier was already dead. Remembering the packet of tobacco, he took it and flung it as far from the body as he could.

Adam stood in the middle of that field and wished more than anything that he had never left home in the first place. War was not glorious and noble. It was terrible and wasteful and he didn’t think it would ever end.

He wondered how anyone managed to live through such terrible days, even if they managed to survive…

The crash of a chair startled him out of his memory. He was no longer standing in a bloody field but was sitting and staring in the saloon, still hanging onto his beer. But there was another battle starting up, and he had no idea what it was about. Just like old times, his brothers seemed to be at the center of it. A man named Nate Higgins stood in front of them, and he seemed to be spitting mad at Joe.

Higgins was a Union sympathizer, but he’d never served. He’d spent the years of the war storing up bile and offering up his opinions to anyone who hung around long enough to listen. Adam had no use for such a man, but folks around town seemed to set store by his opinion. An ugly rumble welled up in the room, and Adam strained to listen to what the man said.

“Damn Grey Back,” Higgins was swearing at his brother. “Why don’t you go back where you belong? We don’t need no traitors round these parts. Don’t you know that Virginia City stayed loyal to the Union? You betrayed your own country, you yellow – “

Adam came to stand next to his brothers. He knew Hoss would protect Little Joe, but Adam felt rage stirring inside of him, all the same. It was the strongest emotion he’d experienced since he returned from the war, and it surprised him as much as it surprised his brothers.

“You weren’t there,” he hissed. “How dare you talk like that to my brother? We called men like you “parlor soldiers”. You have no right, no right at all! My brother was there. He fought and had more grit than you’d have in a lifetime of wars!”

Adam’s fists were clenched, and his voice was shaking. He’d blown his emotional cover, but he didn’t care. For some reason, Higgins’ words had triggered anger he didn’t even know that he had. The man hadn’t been there. None of them had been there. None of them could know what it had been like…

A hand came to rest on his taut shoulder. He looked down at Joe who stared up at him with complete sympathy.

“It’s not worth it, Adam,” he said. “Blowhards like that won’t ever understand. You’ve got to put it away from you.”

Adam felt tears threatening, but his rage began to subside. Joe kept his hand on his shoulder, and he felt Hoss come alongside. Higgins looked a little ruffled by the shift of mood in the saloon. Nobody was rallying to his side. They looked faintly amused, wondering what he would do next. Would he really take on the three Cartwright brothers? Truth be told, they probably didn’t care much one way or the other.

“He ain’t worth it, Adam.” Hoss echoed Joe’s words. “Besides, Joe ain’t up for this fight. Let it go. Let’s get on home.”

Adam looked at them. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to let it go. But he let out the breath he’d been holding and followed his brothers to the door. He was surprised to see his father standing there. He wondered how long he’d been watching. Ben reached out and placed his hand on his oldest son’s arm.

“Good for you, son,” was all he said.

**********

Ben watched his three sons, as they finished up loading the wagon. He’d watched the whole confrontation in the saloon and had been ready to intervene if necessary. Joseph was in no condition for a barroom brawl. But his sons had handled it just fine without him. 

A long time ago, he and Hoss had discussed Abraham Lincoln’s famous speech that asserted that a house divided couldn’t stand. Well, he had been wrong to compare that house to his sons. The nation had stood after being violently divided and so had his sons. They were grown men and a whole lot stronger than he tended to give them credit for.

When Ben was being honest with himself, he could admit that he’d been angry over the decisions his sons made. When they left the Ponderosa, they’d left him behind as well. He knew they didn’t intend it that way, but that was the way he took it. He had to remind himself that he’d left his own father behind to head for the allure of the open sea. Later, he headed west, looking for adventure and opportunity; unlike his own sons, he’d never looked back. Had the war broken out when he was young, he would probably have gone chasing it just like his boys did. 

Still, he often felt like he’d been cheated out of his place in his grown sons’ lives. With Joseph especially, he’d have given anything to have been able to watch him grow from a boy into a man. It seemed like a great waste of the years between them. It had been such a shock to him when Joe actually left the Ponderosa. Ben had told him that his taproot was here with all of them, and he had expected the boy to automatically agree and obey. Joe had been the son who had been the most generous with his emotions. It was more than a little bit difficult for him to acknowledge that his youngest boy now had experiences that had nothing to do with him. Giving up that control took some getting used to.

He’d been angry with Adam as well. His oldest son had been so reserved since coming home and hadn’t shared much with the father who had waited so long for him to return. Yet, as he watched his oldest son’s outrage in the saloon, Ben had actually sighed in relief. What a fool he had been to believe his oldest son was a stranger. It was true he had changed, but watching him defend his younger brother, Ben realized that Adam was the same person he’d always been. It was just hard for a strong-willed father to let go of equally strong-willed sons.

His sons had returned to him, but they had changed in ways that he couldn’t begin to understand. Yet oddly enough, his two very different sons seemed to understand each other. 

That had to count for something.

Ben pulled himself up and sat next to Joe on the wagon seat. Without a word, he put his arm around his youngest son’s shoulder and squeezed it hard. Joe looked surprised but didn’t pull away. Instead, he flashed a grin at him, and Ben smiled back. Adam tipped his hat to both of them and started riding ahead.

Hoss hollered after him, “Be careful, Adam! There’s plenty of ice on the ground. It ain’t gonna be easy to get home.”

Ben flicked the reins, and the team jolted into motion. Hoss was absolutely right. They were a long way from home, and it was liable to be a rough ride. He directed the team to follow the path his oldest two were forging in the snow. There was no shortage of dangers ahead of them, and he kept his eyes on the road. Next to him, Joe looked off in the distance and started to whistle under his breath.

His father wasn’t sure, but it sounded a lot like “Dixie.” He sighed and hurried the team along. It was going to be an interesting ride.

*********

Epilogue – 1866

Joe reined up the hill that led to the ridge overlooking the lake. It was a perfect spring day. Snow still clung to the hills and high places, but down in the valleys and meadows, wildflowers were blooming in joyful abandon. The soft light of dusk was golden on his face, and he paused for a moment, taking pleasure in the horse underneath him and the beautiful sight before him.

It was good to sit in a saddle again. He had left his horse in Carson City, when he had first headed after Adam, with instructions for the livery to wire his family to come retrieve the animal. Somehow, Joe had known then that he wasn’t coming home any time soon. He was glad he’d thought ahead. It made him very happy to have his old horse back again. His leg still ached after more than an hour in a saddle, but he wasn’t about to admit that to his family or even to himself. 

Joe leaned forward and rubbed the pinto’s neck. “Come on, Cochise. Pa says we need to bring Adam home for supper.”

He was pretty sure he knew where to find Adam. Everyone knew Adam liked to ride alone to the ridge at the end of the day and take in the loveliest glimpse of the sunset that the Ponderosa had to offer. Joe didn’t blame him one bit. On this particular evening, the sky exploded with color. Reds and pinks were bleeding into cool blues and grays. It was almost violently beautiful. Joe had seen many beautiful sunsets in the South, usually coming right after the most terrible battles. His buddies said that it was the gunpowder that did it. All that smoke and dust rose up in the air and got stuck there, creating some of the most beautiful sunsets he’d ever seen. Joe had once wondered if there were other places in the world that were as beautiful as the Ponderosa. He’d found his answer, but there’d been a terrible price paid for that beauty!

He rode up the slope and through a copse of trees. Just as he expected, Adam’s horse was ground tied at the bottom of the ridge. Joe left his own pinto to graze alongside and made his way up the short incline. His leg still didn’t work right. It ached and buckled and left him with a limp that ruffled his pride. But strangely enough, he was proud of his leg. He’d had to fight to keep it, and in some ways it was his badge of honor. He’d survived, he hadn’t given up, and more than that, he’d grown up and become a man. As far as he was concerned, that stood for something.

Joe found Adam perched on the edge of a large boulder, looking down at the sunset reflecting on the water. Joe struggled to climb alongside his brother, and Adam reached down to give him a hand. They sat for a spell, easy together. 

Then, Joe said, “Pa sent me to get you, Adam. It’s time for dinner. We’re late.”

Adam replied with a faint smile, “We’ll get there. You ever see a sight like that way down in Dixie?” 

Joe didn’t tell him about the glorious sunsets after the worst battles but shook his head instead. 

“It sure gets under your skin.” Joe said, hesitating before adding, “I came up here looking for you that day you left the Ponderosa.”

Adam regarded him skeptically. “You must not have looked too hard. I was here for a long time that day.” 

“I didn’t look too hard,” Joe admitted. “But I did look. It’s funny. I followed you for a long time. I didn’t really think I’d find you, but I had a whole speech prepared in case I did. I don’t even know what it meant. It was all about how you used to get all the privileges like getting to stay up longer with Pa. I’m not sure what I was getting at. Kid stuff, I guess.”

“You were seventeen,” Adam said gently. “You were a kid.”

It was true, and they were quiet for a while after that, watching as the jewel -like colors were washed away by the gray onset of dusk. Adam turned back to his brother. He could hardly see him in the fading light. 

“Joe,” he said, hesitantly. “Your leg was wounded a while before the war ended. What happened to you after that?”

“I was captured. I spent the rest of the war in prison,” Joe replied and met his stare directly. “Don’t look at me like that, Adam. You know what Yankee prisons were like. I don’t think you need me to paint a picture for you.”

“Want to talk about it?” Adam asked, absently tracing patterns on the boulder. “About what happened to you?”

“Not now,” Joe said, after hesitating for a minute. “That’s not a story I’m ready to tell. How about you, older brother? You ready to talk about that hole in your shoulder?”

Adam smiled and replied, “Not yet. I suppose that there will be a right time for that story too, but not right now. But Joe, there’s one thing I need to know. The girl… your Southern lady and the baby…?”

“I loved her, Adam,” Joe said, tipping his hat so low that Adam couldn’t see his eyes. “I met her after I was wounded. I loved her, and when the war was over, she was gone. She hasn’t answered my letter, and I don’t know where she is. I don’t even know if she’s alive or dead. What do you want me to say? It’s a sad story, but I reckon just about every soldier on both sides has a story that’s just as sad as mine.”

Adam said, “I’d expect that’s true enough. But all these stories are going to have to wait. You and I should be heading home. Pa and Hoss have waited long enough for the two of us.”

Joe let out a low whistle. “I reckon you’re right, Adam. I didn’t think we’d be gone so long. The sun’s already down.”

He accepted his older brother’s outstretched hand and slid down the rock, careful not to jar his leg. Pulling his jacket around his shoulders against the chill of the evening, Joe tried not to start shivering. He’d gained quite a bit of weight since he’d been home, but he still got cold easily. It took time to heal. Joe reminded himself to be patient. There was time for healing and time for telling the stories that really mattered.

“Follow me,” Adam said. “I’ll lead you down,”

Like the blind leading the blind, Joe thought ruefully to himself, but he didn’t say it out loud. He smiled instead. And he followed his brother down the hill and into the gathering dark.

The End

 

Next in the Dividing Line Series:

 The Telling
 Peace Offering
 The Quickening