Summary: The ending of the pilot episode of Bonanza has always bothered me. Would Alphaeus Troy and the mine owners really have given up that easily?  What if the fight in Chinatown had ended differently and Little Joe never made that dinner date with Lotta Crabtree…?

Rated: PG-13 for Western violence and brutality

Word Count: 21,226

PROLOGUE

Seventeen-year-old Little Joe Cartwright paused on the porch of Hop Lings’ Chinese laundry to wipe a sooty hand across his sootier brow as he stared at a city on fire.  Well, not the whole of the city, but the part of it that was called ‘China Town’ by the white men who lived, worked, drank and whored in the growing metropolis that had only recently come to be called ‘Virginia City’.  Everywhere around him there were Chinese men and women shouting and running and carrying buckets of water;  fighting to save what was left of their lives and livelihoods.  He’d been helping out, but had run out of energy and taken a break.

It had been quite a day.

A slight smile curled Little Joe’s lips.  The day had started out well enough with Miss Lotta Crabtree plowing a course along the tall grasses of the Ponderosa in her fine carriage.  Pa’d put on his best ‘I’ll kill you if you trespass on my land’ performance, scarin’ the pants off of the little weasel of a man driving it.  His Pa had killed before, when he had to, but unless there  was a threat that couldn’t be handled by what was called the ‘local constabulary’ – which was really a couple of men volunteering to try to keep the law in a lawless town – his Pa was really a pretty peaceable man.  Ben Cartwright would listen, weigh the facts, and then take ‘appropriate’ action.  Unless, of course, he or his brothers were threatened and then, well, no man would want to cross his pa’s path.

No man would and live.

Joe shifted so his shoulder was braced by the slightly singed pole holding up the roof on Hop Ling’s place.  He hadn’t realized what was goin’ on until Lotta ran for the door of her hotel room and locked it.  After that, it hadn’t taken him very long to figure out that she hadn’t invited him up to her rooms for supper and a little light-hearted romance.  She kept asking him questions, like she was searching for something.  Then, when she asked about the trees, well, he’d known his number was up.

It was well-known by just about every one settled east of the Truckee that Alpheus Troy and his mining cronies had it out for them.   Pa owned near every seed, sapling, and tree in the territory of Nevada.  Little Joe snorted.   Well, maybe not every one, but it was close.  Workin’ side by side with Adam, when older brother was barely knee-high to a grasshopper, Pa had forged an empire and owned six hundred thousand acres of land.

He should know, he’d had to make the grand swing with Pa a few years back.  It had taken his backside about a month to be comfortable in a chair again.

A sense of movement at his elbow caused Joe to pivot.  Hop Sing’s pa was standing there with a pitcher of water in one hand and a full glass in the other.

“Little Joe drink.  Breathe much smoke.  Not good for boy’s lungs.”

Joe shook his head as his eyes returned to the tents and domiciles still on fire.  “You better save that.  There’s others who need it more.  Thank you anyway, Hop Ling, I’m fine.”  And then, just to prove his point, he coughed.

“Boy not know what best for him.  You drink!”

The curly-haired young man knew how far arguing would get him with Hop Ling – exactly nowhere – so he took the glass and sipped the cool water in it.

“Thank you,. That does feel good.”

They stood there for a moment in companionable silence and then the older man asked, “Little Joe take rose earlier.  No have time to ask if lady like it.”

Joe’ lips pursed with chagrin.  Lotta had liked it all right.  Right up until the time she’d betrayed him.

“She thought it was right pretty,” he said, not wanting to say more.

Hop Ling set the pitcher and glass on a small table pressed up against the store front.   “You drink more.  All you can.”  As he nodded, the older man went on, “Bad men chase Little Joe.  Want to hurt him.  Little Joe know why?”

He was pretty sure he did.  From what Lotta asked, this was about the trees and the mine owners need for timber – which his father was not willing to sell.  The area the greedy men had picked out was pretty new.  The trees weren’t ready.   On top of that, cutting them down would affect the watershed and that was just something his pa wouldn’t do.

Besides, Pa detested Alpheus Troy and with good reason.

It hadn’t been all that long ago that Troy had organized a bunch of yahoos to come out to the Ponderosa and try to shoot and burn them out.  Oh, no one could pin it on the wealthy man, but a little investigating by older brother Adam – and money from Pa to buy a few rounds of drinks and loosen tongues at the Bucket of Blood – had pretty much sealed the deal.  Apparently Troy had no idea how many men were on Pa’s payroll and how loyal they were to him.  It had taken them no time to raise their own army of nearly a hundred and send Troy’s yellow-bellied goons back home with their tales between their legs!

Joe snorted, which made Hop Ling ask, “What Little Joe find funny?”

Seein’ as he was looking at the destruction of just about everything Hop Ling and Hop Sing held dear, he supposed it was a right callous thing to do.

“Sorry, Hop Ling.  I was just thinking how funny it was that that city slicker of a mine owner, Alpheus Troy, thought he could make my pa give up that timber.”

“Trees important.  Number One son say so.”

He was sure he had!  Hop Sing wasn’t a servant as most of the town’s people called him.  He was no one’s Chink or Coolie or Ching-Chong.   He was a member of their family.  Hop Sing was always there for them, and especially for him.  Since his ma died when he was so young, Hop Sing had stepped in to fill her shoes in a lot of ways.

Joe sniffed and ran a finger casually under his eye. “Must have got some soot in it,” he said, slightly embarrassed at how easily he was moved to emotion.

“With true friends, even water drunk together is sweet enough,” the older man said softly.

Joe’s lips curled up at one end as he nodded.  “It sure is.”

“Little Joe should go find father and brothers.  They look for him all day.”

“I guess I should, but first I gotta stop over at Robert Olin’s office.  He wants to talk to me about that pair your cousins took over to him.”

Olin acted as their sheriff.  It was a pretty new thing.  Before that, anyone who lived in the area and had a wrong done to them had just taken the law into their own hands – including Pa.  Pa said Virginia City was beginning to grow civilized.  He said that there were wives and children comin’ from the East  and settling in now,  and that one day it would be a proper place to live and raise a family.  Joe eyed the destruction again, caused by the greed of unscrupulous men whose chief desire was to own the city and everything surrounding it.

Seemed to him that was gonna be a long time in coming.

“Boy go alone to office?” Hop Ling asked, worry in his tone.

Little Joe smiled.  “It ain’t all that far away.   Seems like, if I outran and out-thought that pair of toughs Troy hired, I should be able to make it to the other side of town.”  The grin broadened.  “ ‘Sides, I might stop by the International on the way and see if Miss Crabtree would still like to have supper.”

Hop Ling was frowning.  “Boy remember, a fall into a ditch make you wiser.”

He laughed this time.  “Well, I’m not planning on fallin’ into no ditches.  Seems to me that’s what a feller would call going to a ‘school of hard knocks!’”

The older man touched his arm.  “Boy have hard head, but maybe not hard enough when it come to man like Troy.”

Joe brushed his finger’s over those of Hop Sing’s pa and then stepped into the street.  “I promise I’ll be careful.   But you know, I already paid for that supper and I’m thinking I need to grab Miss Crabtree and go.  I’m thinking I’ve got time for a whirl around the floor with an beautiful older woman before my Pa finds me.”  He winked and finished with, “Now that’s what I call an education!”

Hop Ling was still shaking his head as he walked away.  He felt sorry for the older man – and for all the inhabitants of China town.  He was gonna ask his pa if he could come back into town tomorrow to help with the clean-up.  Once Hop Sing heard, he’d want to come too.  Together they could put his pa’s shop back to rights so he could get back to business.

There was gonna be plenty of clothing to clean after tonight!

As Little Joe Cartwright started down the street, headed for the main part of town where Robert Olin had set up what he called his ‘office’, he began to whistle.  In spite of everything, it had been a good day.  He’d gotten to escort a beautiful mature woman to the house and then to town.  He’d watched her perform that ‘wicked’ dance.  He’d been wined – well, champagne’d – and dined in her room at the hotel , and he’d outsmarted a couple of thugs who had been hired to work him over in an attempt to threaten his pa.  He still couldn’t believe Miss Crabtree drank that stuff.  It was pretty weak and he had yet to feel the ‘kick’ she’d said it would have in time.  Whoo-ee!  Fifty dollars a bottle!

Hell, he could buy a saddle and tack – probably with the horse thrown in – for that amount!  If he lived to be one hundred, he’d never understand women.  The settee in their house had been his ma’s idea and he’d be the first to know that it wasn’t the most comfortable or serviceable thing.

He’d spent enough hours lying on it after gettin’ in a fight, or when he was sick.

Pa kept it, of course, ‘cause his ma had ordered it and loved it.  Still, it was a funny thing to have in a household of all men.

As he left Chinatown and headed into the main part of Virginia City, Joe began to keep an eye out for his family.  Most likely they would have found Cooch by now and be hauling the paint along with them, so it shouldn’t be hard.  There weren’t too many paints in the area since most people thought of them as Indian ponies, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.  Cochise was as much his friend as Mitch or Seth or any of the other young bucks he ran around with.  His pa had gotten Cooch for him when he was a kid and his brothers teased him all the time that he wasn’t ever gonna have a girl since none of them could live up to his first love.

So far, they’d been right.

Joe laughed at his own joke, stuck his hands in the pockets of his slightly soiled suit coat, and picked up his pace.  He could see there was a light in the window of Olin’s office, so someone was there.  There was a make-shift jail cell in the back and he figured that’s where Troy’s goons were being held.

A half a minute later, he knew for sure that he was wrong.

Marcus McCutcheon and Jake Ferrell, the two men who worked for Aaron Hooper’s Yellow Jacket Mine and were the ones that had been sent to beat him up, were standin’ in the middle of the street blocking his way.

“Surprised to see us?” McCutcheon asked.

Joe tried not to look surprised.  “I imagine the stink of you was too much for Sheriff Olin to take,” he replied as he affected a casual air, when in reality he was tensed and ready to move.  “Probably needs to fumigate.”

Ferrell started for him, but McCutcheon – the older of the two – held him back.  Both were of medium height, but thicker and broader than him even if Ferrell was skinny as a wet rat.  The trouble was, they also had way more muscle than him.

That’s what happened to a man when he spent his days in a mine.

“Bet you’re wonderin’ how we got out so quick.”

He had been, but then it dawned on him.  “Troy paid the bail.”

“Yeah,” Ferrell replied.  “Seems all we was accused of was disturbin’ the peace.  Weren’t enough to keep us behind bars for long.”

Since he hadn’t given a statement yet, Olin didn’t know any better.  Of course, neither did he.  He just assumed these two had been sent to rough him up and send a message to his father about what would happen if he didn’t cave to the mine owner’s demands.   Lotta had said something about them killing him, but he’d put that down to an over-excited woman.

Troy couldn’t be that stupid.

“You know how it is, pretty boy,” McCutcheon said.   “Money buys everything, even a sheriff.”

He knew Robert Olin and he knew that was a lie.  “Okay, so ‘daddy’ sprung you from jail,” he replied.  “That’s got nothin’ to do with me.  Why don’t you two just get out of my way and we can all go about our business.”

The two men exchanged a glance before Ferrell said,” Sorry.”

Joe’s mobile brows leapt toward the curls dangling down on his forehead.  “Sorry?  About what?”

From within his coat McCutcheon produced a service revolver.  It was pointed straight at his middle.

“You are our business.”

ONE

Lotta Crabtree was still shaking.  The events of the evening had left her…unsettled…to put it mildly.  As she’d told Little Joe Cartwright, money was what was important to her.  She supposed it might be due to the fact that she had been used as a money-making machine from the age of six.  When Lola Montez – an actress and singer herself – had spotted her while she and her parents were living in Grass Valley, she had encouraged her mother and father to groom her for show business.  Her first professional appearance had been in a tavern, and from there she’d begun to tour California and the Nevada Territory, making a name for herself as a dancer, singer, and banjo player in the mining camps.  As she grew, her act changed – of course – and she was known now as ‘Miss’ Lotta, the San Francisco Favorite’.  If the truth were known, she was becoming a little tired of it all, and that was why, when Alpheus Troy’s letter came with its unusual proposal, she’d considered it.

After all, what harm could there be in romancing one of Ben Cartwright’s sons and getting him to bring her to town?

Of course, at the time she’d had no inkling of who the Cartwrights were.  She’d done a little research before leaving San Francisco and found out that Benjamin and his three sons were well-known there – especially the oldest; the dark and brooding, handsome Adam Cartwright.  It had been a tough choice earlier when he’d taken her by the arm, demanding to know what her part was in the scheme to kidnap and perhaps harm his little brother.

She hadn’t known whether to strike him or kiss him.

Now that she knew and understood that the Cartwrights were outsiders – a band of strong, honest men who held themselves aloof, who cared deeply for one another and for the land they were shepherding – she felt a twinge of guilt at what she’d done.  Sadly, she was jaded enough that it was just a twinge.  After all, she’d done what she’d agreed to do and that first ten thousand dollars was already in her bank account in San Francisco.  With ten thousand dollars she could retire if she wanted to.

Lotta laughed.  At least for a few years!

With a sigh the beautiful actress turned and looked around her room.  Though she’d righted a few chairs and tidied a bit, it was still a mess from what had happened.  She really should call room service and have them put it to rights!  She had one more day to stay before moving on to Carson City for several performances, and then it would be another long stage ride to her next engagement since this backwater excuse for a territory didn’t have the railroad yet.   With a sigh, Lotta walked to the window and looked out, imagining again the determined faces of the two men she’d seen who were headed for her rooms and Ben Cartwright’s youngest son.  She’d been a long way from them but, as an actress, she had learned to read faces, and in spite of Troy’s assurances that no harm would come to Little Joe, she had known better.

The pair had had murder in their eyes.

Bending, she retrieved the umbrella from where it had fallen to the floor.  In her mind’s eye she could see the Cartwright boy wielding it like an épée.  Considering he had been born and bred on a ranch, she had to wonder where that skill had come from.  Joe said his mother died before he was five, so it couldn’t have been from her.  Perhaps, just perhaps, it was simply the boy’s nature.

What a shame he’d had to go.  Little Joe just might have had a chance on the stage.

A sharp rap on her door turned her back into the room.  With what had happened, it also set her heart to pounding.  When it came again, she advanced a few steps.

“Who is it?” she called out.

“Miss Crabtree, it’s Adam Cartwright.  I’d like to speak with you.”

That rapid heartbeat increased two-fold.

“After our…last encounter, Mister Cartwright, I am not sure I should let you in.”  She was near the door now with every intention of opening it.  “It seems your father failed to teach you how to properly treat a lady.”

There was a pause.  She imagined he was struggling with some contemptible comment like, ‘If there was a lady here, then I would have behaved differently’ or some such thing.

“Miss Crabtree, I…apologize for my outburst earlier.  I was…am worried about my brother.”  Another pause.  “Will you please open the door so I can speak to you?”

A second later, he was standing on the threshold of her suite.  Lotta drew in a breath as she looked at Adam Cartwright – really looked at him.  The time before was a bit of a blur with all the chaos and uncertainty.   Adam was a tall man, around six feet, and well-muscled from the work he did.  She’d heard Ben Cartwright made his boys work and paid them wages and she believed it now.  This was no pampered son of wealth, but a self-assured man.   His hair was black as the jet beads on her dress and glistened blue in the lamp light.  His eyes weren’t green, but they weren’t brown either.  The centers were the color of whiskey, while their surrounds were the color of ocean waves.  And he was handsome. So handsome it nearly took her breath away.

Nearly.

“Did I hear you right?” she asked with trepidation.  “You’re still worried about Little Joe?  You mean you haven’t located him yet?”

Adam’s lips were pursed.  She could see he was fighting with himself to remain cordial. “…no.  His horse was in the stable, but so far there is no sign of Little Joe.   I was thinking…hoping, actually, that Joe might have said something to you that would give us a clue to his whereabouts.”  He paused.  “After all, you are the last one who saw him.”

There was a lot written into those last ten words.

Lotta drew in a breath and put on the charm.  “You have to be tired after all your…searching.  Would you care to sit down and have a glass of champagne while I tell you what I…saw?”

He thought it over.  Then he nodded.  “I’ll sit, but no champagne.  I need my wits about me.”

“Very well,” she said as she turned her back on him and went over to sit on the chair his little brother had vacated only hours before.

“First of all,” Adam said as he took a seat, “tell me…”  He paused and rephrased, obviously concerned he would antagonize her.  “…would you tell me what Alpheus Troy hired you to do in the first place.”

Always the actress, she repeated what she had told him before.  “For a lark.”

Those hazel eyes bored into her.  “The truth.  Please.”

“It is the truth,” she insisted.  “I can show you the letter.  I was hired to charm one of Ben Cartwright’s sons and get them to bring me to town.  End of story.”

“And you didn’t think to ask why?” he all but snapped.

“I didn’t care to.  As an actress I am hired to play a part,” she replied, a bit defensively.  “This was no different.”

“I see.  It never occurred to you that there could be a…less than decent reason for this request?”

“Oh, Heavens, no!   Adam – may I call you ‘Adam’?”  At his nod, she continued, “Adam, in nearly thirty years of performing, I have been paid to do many things.  I simply take the money and do what is asked.”

“So it was for the money?” he asked quickly.

Oops.  She’d forgotten she’d told him different before.  “Not ‘for’ the money, but I was paid,” she admitted.  “As I am paid for all my performances.  It’s in the contract.”

She could see the wheels turning behind those enchanting eyes.  “Did your ‘contract’ include getting my kid brother to come up to your rooms so Troy’s men could take him?” he asked, a trace of anger coming into his tone.

“No.”   And she wasn’t lying.  The first contract had definitely not contained that and she had never signed a second – just agreed to it and that was something Adam Cartwright never need know.

The handsome man leaned back in his chair and tipped his hat back so more of the waves showed.  “I can believe that.  Little Joe has an…eye for older woman.  I’m not surprised he would have come here, probably with an invitation to dinner.”

“Oh?  He’s so very young.”

The anger made it to his eyes.  “Yes, he is. Little Joe’s only seventeen.”

“Seventeen!  Good Lord!” she declared and meant it.  “I had no idea. I knew he was a boy, but….”

“You have to realize Little Joe’s grown up with the three of us – Pa, Hoss and me.  Hoss is six years older. I’m twelve.  Joe’s wanted to be a man since he could say the word.  Add to that the fact that he has his mother’s…spirit…and you have a recipe for trouble.”

She could see that in the way the boy just sat there waiting for Troy’s hooligan’s to break in – almost like he was looking forward to the fight.

“Look, Adam, I’ll be honest with you.  I should have asked questions.  I didn’t.  But even if I had, Alpheus Troy and his friends lied to me.  They promised no harm would come to Little Joe, or whichever of you brought me to town.  Then, suddenly, everything changed.”  She rose and went to the window.  “I didn’t realize until I saw those two men in the street who were headed this way, that they meant to harm him.”

He followed her.  “Two men?  Can you describe them?”

“Let me think.  Yes.”  She could see them in her mind’s eye.  “One wore a light hat and the other a dark.  One was beefier than the other, with  jowly face.  He had a wine-colored shirt on and light colored pants.  The other man, well, he was the one who, frankly, scared me.  He had a gangrel look about him and was slender.  He held his body taut as a bowstring.”

She could see him thinking.  “Sounds like a couple of Aaron Hooper’s boys from the Yellow Jacket we’ve had trouble with before.”

“Miners?”  She considered it.  “They were rather pale and looked well-muscled.”

Adam looked right at her.  “That’s quite a description for a second or two sighting.”

“You forget I’m an actress,” she replied.  “Studying people and figuring out what makes them tick is my profession.”

Without warning, his hand caught her arm again – gently, this time.  “And what do you think makes me tick?” Adam asked.

She looked at him and thought of everything she had observed so far.  “Family.  But there’s something else.  While Little Joe is spontaneous – like a wild colt set free – you are…cautious.  You never act without thinking it through, perhaps more than once.  But when you come to a decision, there is no going back.”

Adam blinked.  A slight smile curled his lips.  “Anything else?”

“You’re a bit of a peacock,” she replied, smiling as well.  “Meticulous about your appearance and, I might say, quite aware of its effect on women.”

This time he laughed.  Then he did what she’d been waiting for – Adam Cartwright crushed her to his chest and kissed her on the mouth –

And took her breath away.

As he released her, he tipped his hat.  “Thank you for the information, Miss Crabtree.  If you happen to think of anything else, please let us know.  You can leave word with the barkeep here at the International or Robert Olin.”  Taking a step toward the door, the handsome man added, “I have to get back to looking for my little brother.”

When he reached the door, she halted him by calling his name.  “Adam?”

His hand was on the knob.  “Yes?”

“Will I…see you again?”

His lips curled up again and this time a pair of dimples popped out.   “I’ll be sure to come by and tell you that we’ve found him.  And then, I just might take you up on that glass of champagne.”

He hurt everywhere.

Joe groaned as he righted himself and opened his eyes onto darkness.   He’d started walking like McCutcheon and Ferrell had ordered, but then he’d bolted, knowing he was faster and had outrun them before.  He’d counted too on the fact that if they shot their guns off within the town limits, it would bring half of the city down on them.

What he hadn’t counted on was the fact that one of them had a knife and was willing to use it.

He couldn’t see it, but he could feel the wound in his leg just above the leather rim of his all-but-ruined dress boot.   It was his left leg and the knife had sliced into the flesh causing him to stumble and then fall.  He’d gotten back up.  Fear had driven him to his feet.  But wounded, he was no match for the two men who worked in Hooper’s mine and were tough as the rock they picked the ore out of.  And when they caught him, well, they’d let him know they were none too happy with him by beatin’ the living daylights out of him.

Like he thought before – everything he had hurt.

He’d passed out, of course, and just woke up here – wherever ‘here’ was.  It was dark and cold and smelled of earth.  He could hear water dripping and, far in the distance, the rumble of carts rolling down tracks.  Considering all of that, he figured he was in one of the mines of the men who wanted his pa’s timber – either the Golden Curry, the Diablo, or the Yellow Jacket.  Odds were, with McCutcheon and Ferrell involved, that it was the Yellow Jacket, but then again, that’d be pretty obvious.  He might not be in any of them, but in some other mine owned by one of the lesser of Virginia City’s mining barons.

That was what he would have done anyhow, if he was gonna kidnap and hold someone hostage.

He hated that.  It had happened before.  After all, Pa was just  about as rich as the mine owners and everyone knew it.    They knew too that he had sons he loved and they knew he was the youngest and – Joe winced – most vulnerable.  It was part of the reason he’d worked so hard to learn to fight so well.  After the first time he’d been beaten, when he was a little kid, Adam and Hoss had taken him out to the barn and told him that – ‘cause he was ‘little’ Joe – he was gonna have to learn to fight big.  Virginia City was over two-thirds men and most of them were tough as nails and about as righteous as a red light gal.  They’d warned him too that there were men who didn’t care where they found their pleasure and if there wasn’t a woman within a mile, well….

He’d learned to deck his older, bigger brothers right quick.

And so it shamed him that the Yellow Jacket boys had got the best of him.  Here he was like some damsel in one of the Grimm Brothers’ stories all tied up and waitin’ for some knight to come rescue him.  Well, he’d be damned if he let that happen!  He was gonna escape and go into town and tell the sheriff, and then find his pa and brothers and set them on Troy and Hooper and…..

Joe pulled on the ropes binding his wrists and felt his feet move as well.  He was trussed up like a prize steer with the ropes around his hands being tied to the ones around his feet – and the one circling his neck.

He  was gonna escape if he could get free.  And right now that wasn’t lookin’ too promising.

“Cartwright!”

Joe’s head turned in every direction.  There was no light and his name was bouncing off the walls like the cave liked the sound of it.  A second later a lamp was unshuttered and the light that spilled out of it struck his eyes, making him gasp.

A snort alerted him to the fact that whoever it was had moved closer.

“Not movin’ so fast now, are you, Little Joe?”

He sure wished his mama had never called him that.

“Untie these ropes,” he growled, his voice sounding ragged to his own ears.  “And I’ll…show you how fast I can run.”

“Now, now,” the man said as he came even closer, “that wouldn’t be right.  One of Ben Cartwright’s sons is my guest and I intend to make him feel quite at home.”

He recognized that fancy, well-clipped city-slicker tone.  “Alpheus Troy,” Joe snarled.

“At your service, young Cartwright.”  The mining lamp’s shutter opened wider and he was able to see the thin white-haired man.  Troy was attired in a San Francisco suit cut of an expensive cloth with a white shirt and black string tie.  Kind of like his suit, only it came out of Carson City and, at the moment, was more brown and black than gray.

And blood-red, at least on the pants’ leg.

“I trust my men have made you…comfortable,” the mine owner sneered.

Joe tried his hands again.  The rope choked his throat this time.  “I ain’t complainin’,” he managed to rasp out.

“Good.  Because you are going to be here for some time.”  Troy paused.  “Perhaps forever.”

Joe’s body went rigid with fear.  He’d supposed he was being held against his father providing timber for the mines, but that sounded more like he’d been taken and might be…killed…instead.   After all, Pa still had two more sons.

“You kill me and my pa will be sure to return the favor,” Joe said with forced bravado.

Alpheus Troy knelt before him.  In the orange-red glow of the mining lamp, with the darkness all around them, the mine owner looked like a creature from the pit of Dante’s hellish vision.  With his free hand, Troy reached out and caught his chin, pinching it between his fingers.

“You know what, boy?  This isn’t just about that timber, this is about hate.  I hate that bastard you call ‘Pa’ nearly as much as I hate the fact that Benjamin Cartwright – that uncouth, arrogant excuse for a businessman – owns nearly half the territory of Nevada and everything it contains.”  The mine owner’s fingers pressed in, bruising his skin, and then Troy snapped his head free, causing the back of it to strike the rough rock wall.  “Your father controls me and Alpheus Troy is not a man to be controlled!”

Joe shrank back in the face of his hate.  “And…how’s killin’ me gonna make that any different?”

“Why, you young scallywag, don’t you see?  Your father thinks he is the master of everything.  I’m…going to educate  him.  I’m going to take you apart piece by piece and send Ben Cartwright a parcel.  He’ll soon know what it is to want something you can’t have.”

As Troy spoke, Joe heard the sound of other men approaching.  More lamps were opened and he saw McCutcheon and Ferrell, and two other men whose names he didn’t know.

The mine owner rose and stepped back.  He pointed a finger.

“Strip him down to his long-johns, boys, and bring me his suit.  We have a delivery to make.”

TWO

“You did what!??”  Ben demanded, striking his hand down on the well-worn desk situated against the wall of what served as Virginia City’s jail.  “You let them go??”

Robert Olin, a slender, shrewd man with a slender ration of patience, looked at him and sighed.  “What was I supposed to do, Ben?  They were accused of disturbing the peace, which carried a bond of $20.  Aaron Hooper paid it.  You know I don’t have space to hold onto troublemakers until the circuit judge shows up in a month, if at all.”

“Troublemakers!  Those men were sent to kill my boy!” the rancher thundered.

“f you have proof of that, Ben,” Olin said evenly, “then I’ll put on a badge and go after them.”

Ben sputtered.  “Well, of course, I don’t have any proof.  I just have….”  He whirled to look at his eldest who had accompanied him to the makeshift jail.  Hoss was still out searching for Little Joe.  “I have Adam’s word that Miss Crabtree said so.”

“Second hand hearsay, that’s what the judge will tell you.  You know that, Ben.”

Adam moved forward.  “I told you this was pointless, Pa,” his son said.  When Robert started to protest, Adam held up a hand.  “Nothing against you, Robert, but this time we will have to take things into our hands.”

Olin was sizing them both up.  “I have an empty cell and there’s room for two in it, you remember that.”

Ben sucked in his temper and tried to speak in a normal tone.  “Robert, you have a son.  What would you do if someone took him and held him against you?”

Olin’s son was a teen, just like Joe, but a little younger.   The lawman shook his head.  “I suppose I wouldn’t know until it happened.  Regardless of that, Ben, I can’t let you take the law into your own hands.  If you kill those men –”

“Who said anything about killing?” Adam asked, all innocence.  “We’re just going to…talk to them.”

“With your fists, I suppose?”

Adam shrugged.  His fingers caressed the handle of his gun.  “That, and other things.”

Robert Olin ran a hand over his face.  “Look, Ben…Adam…I know most of it is talk – you threatening to kill those who come on your land or do you wrong.   You’re both good men.  So are Hoss and Little Joe, though that boy’s got a bit of growing to do.  I know as well that, before there was a representative of the law here, you’ve enacted your own justice.  The time for that is over.  If McCutcheon or Ferrell come in telling me you threatened them bodily harm or worse, did them bodily harm, you’ll be waiting for a chance to talk to the circuit judge yourselves.”

Ben returned to the desk and leaned on it, placing his face close to Robert’s.  “I will be happy to do that.  More than happy.  I will tell that judge how Alpheus Troy schemed to take my son and hold him against me in order to force my hand into selling him that timber.  I will tell him how he hired a gunfighter to go up against us.”  The rancher straightened up, every inch of him shrieking righteous indignation.  “I will tell the judge what Miss Crabtree told my son Adam, that Troy wasn’t going to stop there – that he means to murder my youngest as a threat and if…”  The silver-haired man drew a deep breath.  “…if that happens, then I will take justice into my own hands and you can put me in your cell or damn me to Hell!  Either way Alpheus Troy and his cronies will pay!”

Adam’s hand was on his arm.  “Come on, Pa,” he said softly.  “We need to go.  There’s things to tend to at the ranch before tomorrow.”

Ben nodded.  He drew a shuddering breath and held it for a full five seconds before addressing the lawman again.   “We’ll be back in town tomorrow morning as the sun breaks to begin the search again.  We’ll check in with you first thing and I expect you to tell me if you know anything new.”

Robert’s face held a mixture of anger and sympathy.  “Ben, I’d do that as a friend even if I wasn’t the law in town.  I’m as worried about Little Joe as you are and will do everything I can to find him.  I just want…ask you and your boys to keep within the limits of the law.  Ending up in prison would be a sad way of honoring your son’s memory.”

The words took Ben off-guard, as if it were all in the past and Little Joe was dead and buried.   The rancher opened his mouth again, but no words came out.  With a nod, he headed for the door.

“Thank you, Robert,” Adam said for him and then he followed him out into the street.

The ride home was long and silent and pregnant with what they might face the next day.  Every so often, he’d turn back and look at his pa.  The older man was trailing behind them, lost in his own world of silent fear.

“You think Pa’s all right?” Hoss asked him as he pulled his black alongside.  “I mean, as ‘all right’ as he can be given….”

Given that Little Joe might be dead.

“You and I both know that Joe is half of Pa’s heart.  Maybe more than half,” Adam replied.  It was true.  Though their pa loved them equally, Little Joe was the baby and, as such, closer in a lot of ways to Pa.  While the two of them had had to grow up and assume a man’s role at a very young age, Joe reaped the benefits of all their hard work.  Oh, little brother worked hard too, but being the youngest, it was just naturally easier for their father to excuse Joe’s boyish indiscretions and indulge his…excesses.  It didn’t really bother either of them that much, though he and Joe had a tendency to knock heads more often than their even-tempered middle brother.

Well, if he was truthful, with regularity.

Adam let out a sigh, which brought the question.  “Somethin’ wrong, Adam?”

He shrugged.  “I was just thinking.  You know, when Marie…died, how Pa nearly didn’t make it.”

“Adam!”  Hoss was horrified.  “You don’t think Little Joe is…dead?  Do you?”

He didn’t want to, but Lotta Crabtree’s words had left little room for doubt as to the mine owners’ intentions.

“I’m holding out hope that Joe is okay, Hoss.  I have to.  But….”   Adam glanced at their father again who was riding with his head down.   “I’m not sure that – if the worst happens – Pa can take it.  He’s not that young, you know.”

Hoss was looking back too.  The light of the setting sun struck his brother, setting off the red highlights in his dark blond hair.  Hoss hung his head to for a minute before speaking.   “You know, Adam, I ain’t so sure I could ‘take’ it.”

Little Joe’s death could be the ruin of their family.  They all knew it.

He and Hoss were riding close enough that he could reach out and touch the other man’s shoulder.  Adam did so as he said, “Hoss, we don’t even know that Joe’s been taken, though we have pretty good reason to think it.  We may find him at home playing around with that épée again.”  The black-haired man forced a smile.  “Probably with Hop Sing screaming in Chinese that he get his boots off the furniture.”

Hoss smiled as he’d hoped he would.  “Yeah, I can see it – and just about hear it!”

Suddenly, their father was at their side.  He’d been so preoccupied he hadn’t heard the older man’s approach.  “I can see the house, boys,” Pa  announced.  “Let’s get there and get done what needs to be done so we can head out at first light tomorrow to find your brother.”

“Pa,” Hoss said.  “Adam here thinks we might find little brother at home.  Maybe Little Joe just up and left town after all the trouble.”

There was no hope in their father’s eyes, but the older man went along with it.   “Well, if he is, I can tell you that after I hug that boy hard enough to take away his breath, he and I will have a ‘little talk’ and he won’t be able to sit down for a month of Sundays!”  Their father paused.   Joe was too old, of course, to be thrashed, but it was an old joke.  “And no bringing the young scamp pillows!”

“Yes, sir,” Hoss said, but his heart wasn’t in it anymore than Pa’s or his was.

Their hearts were back in Virginia City with Joe.

“Come on, sons,” the older man said as he put his knees to Buck’s sides and pressed in, demanding more speed.  “Let’s get home.”

It only took a couple of minutes.  Pa dismounted quickly and headed straight inside, yelling for Hop Sing.  It would be his duty to tell their cook and friend that the number three son the Chinese man had raised and loved so well was missing and in danger.  Both he and Hoss waited, but when they heard nothing else they knew their hopes were dashed and Joe hadn’t come home.

Hoss let out a sigh as he looped Chubby’ reins over the rail.  “I’m gonna go inside for a minute ‘fore puttin’ Chubb up, Adam.  You comin’?”

“I’ll take him in along with the others.”  Adam’s eyes flicked to the paint who had been trailing behind their pa, his lead tied to Pa’s saddle horn.  “Cochise looks like he needs a little extra special treatment, so I’ll take him first.”

His giant of a brother eyed the paint.  “He’s pinin’ for Joe.  Ol’ Cooch knows there’s somethin’ wrong.”

The pair were tied at the…cinch strap, so to speak.  “I imagine he does.  I’ll bed him down and then come back for Chubb and Sport.”

“You sure you want to do that, Adam?”

He nodded.  Unlike Hoss who needed companionship, his need was solitude.  “I’m sure.  I’ll be in, in a half-hour or so.”

His brother stared at him before placing his hand on his shoulder for a moment.  Then Hoss turned on his boot heel s and went inside without a word.

Adam caressed Cochise’s neck and spoke a few soothing words. Then he turned toward the stable.

That was when he saw it.  Out of the corner of his eye.  They kept a wood box on the porch, to the right of the main door and between it and the entry to the kitchen.  There was something on top of the box – a package wrapped in a pale paper or cloth.  After returning Cochise to the rail and tying his reins off, the black-haired man  headed for it.  As he got closer he could see that the exterior wrapping was indeed cloth – a fine light, blue-gray cloth.

Adam’s stomach sank to his toes.

Without moving or touching the bundle, he shouted, “Pa!  Hoss!  Come out here!  Come out here now!”

A second later the door opened and Hoss stepped out.  He must have been close by.  His father and a distraught looking Hop Sing followed close on his heels.

“What is it, boy?” the older man demanded.  “Is it your brother?”  His pa looked beyond him to the yard.  “Did Little Joe come home?”

Adam shook his head and then lifted a hand and pointed.

“What’s that?” his father asked, taking a step toward the parcel and then stopping.  “Good Lord!” he exclaimed softly.

“What is it, Pa?” middle brother asked as the older man picked up the folded cloth tied with a string.

“It’s Joe’s jacket, isn’t it?” Adam asked just as softly.

Their father had undone the knot and was staring at the open bundle.   “It’s Little Joe’s,” he said, the agony on his face registering in his voice and nearly choking it.  “But it’s not just his jacket.  His shirt and pants are here too, and Adam….”

There was no mistaking it.

Joe’s pants leg was covered in blood.

It was early morning, barely dawn really.  Lotta Crabtree had arisen and begun to pack her belongings.  The sooner she saw the backside of Virginia City the better!  She was to take the stage tonight, but had sent one if the hotel’s boys to see if she could take an earlier coach.  While she hesitated to leave before learning of the youngest Cartwright’s fate, her own part in his disappearance was gnawing at her.  She’d had a hand in it, there was no denying that.  If she’d refused the boy’s advances and told him in no uncertain terms to go home where he belonged, Joe would have been safe in the bosom of his overly-protective family.   But that other ten thousand dollars had wooed her as sure as a slick lover.   She knew when she stood at that door and said she would help – when the mine owners promised Joe would not be harmed – that it was a lie.  She’d known they meant the boy no good.  She’d just… fooled herself …in order to soothe her own conscience and absolve herself of any guilt in the matter.

It hadn’t worked.

Maybe getting away would.  She was sure as soon as she put this backwater hovel behind her, she would forget Little Joe Cartwright and his handsome brother; forget that cherubic face that had looked at her so innocently and trustingly.  Forget his older brother’s scowl of disapproval and…Adam’s kiss.

Lotta touched her lips with the tips of her fingers.  That last one was a tall order.

A knock on the door brought her back to the present.  She glanced at her trunks and cases and then went to the door.  She had sent for a bell hop to take them down to the main floor in anticipation of leaving.

And so, she was surprised when the door opened on an older man with silver hair turning white, who was dressed in a black shirt and gray pants with a heavy leather coat tossed over both.  His near-black eyes took in the luggage behind her, and then returned to her face with an intensity that caused her to take a step back.  As she did, she saw Adam Cartwright standing in the hallway with another…large…man.

“Are you going somewhere, Miss Crabtree?” the older man, whom she assumed to be the legendary Benjamin Cartwright, asked.

She straightened her back and lifted her chin.  “As a matter of fact, I am, if it is any business of yours.  I have an engagement in Carson City tomorrow.”

“That’s true, Pa,” Adam said, cementing the man’s identity.

“Mister Cartwright, is it?” she inquired.

“Yes,” he rumbled.

Lotta put on a smile.  “Is there…something you wanted?”

The older man removed his gray felt hat.  “May I come in, Miss Crabtree?  I’d like to ask you a few questions concerning my youngest son.”

Her eyes flicked to the hallway.  Was the large young man another son, she wondered?  She knew this man had three; though three sons such as Adam, Little Joe, and this one were such as she had never seen before.

“I’ve already told Adam all I know,” she replied.

“I see,” the rancher said, although his eyes said something else entirely.  “Still, I would like to hear it for myself.  You see, there’s been a new development overnight.”  The older man turned and held out his hand.  “Hoss.”

So  this was the other son.  She knew his name.  And then she remembered Joe’s kidding that his brother Hoss had ‘weighed in at fifty pounds at just a couple of months old’.

She wasn’t so sure she didn’t believe it now!

The big man stepped forward and held out a bundle.  There was pain in his eyes – so deep it made her ache for him.

“Here, you go, Pa,” Hoss said, reluctantly releasing the odd collection.

“I think you know these,” the older man added, holding the clothing out.

At first she didn’t.  Then a little moan escaped her lips a she recognized the tailored suit the youngest Cartwright had been wearing the night before.

“Where…?” she breathed.

Adam stepped forward.  “Show her, Pa,” the handsome man said, his tone solemn and slightly accusatory.

Ben Cartwright’s hand trembled as he turned the suit over.  A pants leg flapped down, loose, and – as it did – she saw it.

Blood.

“Miss Crabtree,” the rancher said.  “I don’t know if this means my son is alive or dead, but I do know that you had a hand in whatever has happened to him.”

“I…I didn’t….”  She swallowed hard.  “I’m…sorry.  I never meant Little Joe any harm.  Those men, they….”

“May I come in?” Ben Cartwright asked again.

She nodded and made room for the three of them to enter.  Then she went to a chair and sat down and indicated they should do the same.

Once the older man had taken a seat, he said, “Miss Crabtree – ”

“Lotta,” she replied, and then added, “please.”

He thought a minute and then nodded.  “Lotta.  I have known Alpheus Troy for as many years as my youngest has walked the earth.   Troy came here when silver was discovered and made it a point to possess every mine he could.”

“Every mine?  I understood he had only one.”

“His one was once many,”  the rancher continued.  “Troy came to town and began to strong-arm the merchants in the settlement.  His men threatened to burn them out if they sold to the owners of several of the lesser mines that were struggling to get on their feet.”  The older man settled back into the chair.  “When they failed, Troy bought them out.”

“He bought his wealth on the back of broken families,” Adam added as he sat as well.  Hoss remained standing.

“I’m sorry.  I had no idea.”

“Not the kind of ‘research’ you do as an actress, eh?” the eldest Cartwright son queried, his tone pointed.

“Well, no, not really,” she admitted.  “Look, Mister Cartwright, I’m an actress, as Adam said.  I don’t ask where the money comes from, I just do my job and take the pay.”

Ben Cartwright nodded.  “I accept that as truth, but this time that…indifference…has a high price.”  The older man ran his hand along the blood-stained pants leg.  “It may have cost my boy his life.”

Her jaw grew tight.  “That’s not my fault – if it has happened.”

“Pa we’re wastin’ our time,” the big man said.  “She’ colder than hell on a stoker’s holiday.”

The rancher turned toward his son.  “Hoss, I will not have you disrespecting a woman – no matter what she has done.”

Hoss hung his head.  “Sorry, Ma’am,” he mumbled.

“That’s all right,” she said.  Then she looked Ben Cartwright square in the face.  “You came here for some reason.  I assume there is something you want of me?”

“Actually,” Adam said, “we came here because of something we thought we could offer you.”

She looked from one man to the other. They looked less than…altruistic.

“Which is?” she asked, wary.

This time it was Adam who faced her down.

“Absolution.”

THREE

She had to have lost her mind and yet, as she continued to remind herself, she was an actress and one of long standing.

She could pull this off.

Lotta drew in a deep breath, put on her most charming smile, and brought her hand down on the expensive garishly carved wooden door that was the entryway to Alpheus Troy’s elegant and slightly vulgar three story frame home.

The door opened five seconds later and a young Chinese woman said, “Mister Troy not home.”

She knew otherwise.  She’d been watching the home and seen Troy enter.

“Oh, I see.  Well, then, may I come in and wait for him?”

“Mister Troy not see anyone today.  You come back tomorrow,” the girl replied as she began to close the door.

Lotta put the toe of her silk boot in the gap that remained.   “I’m sure Mister Troy would make an exception for me.  I’m an…associate.”  The girl was staring at her.  Trying to figure out if she had seen her before, she imagined.  She opened her matching silk reticule and pulled out a carte-de-visite with her likeness and name on it and said, “Please take this to Mister Troy.  He’ll know me and…my business.”

“Mister Troy not home.  He say….”  The girl stopped as she saw what she held out, which was Little Joe Cartwright’s bloody suit pants.

“Take this along with the card.  I’m sure he’ll be home once he sees it.”

And with that, she removed her boot.

The door closed – with a little more vigor than was needed – and the wait began.  It lasted several minutes and then the door opened again to show the same Chinese girl.

Who looked decidedly upset.

“Mister Troy come in back door.  He home and will see you now.”  The girl moved aside.  Careful to keep her head bowed and her eyes averted, she said, “Please come this way, Miss Crabtree.”

“Thank you,” she replied.

As she stepped into the house, Lotta nearly stopped.  She had expected elegance – after all Alpheus Troy was the owner of one of the biggest mines, if not the biggest mine, in the Virginia City area – but she had not expected opulence.  She had never seen so many leaded glass crystals, fine Chinese textiles, and silver and gilt pieces in one place in her life.   And that was saying a lot considering where all she’d been!

Everything, well, dripped.

“Ah!  Miss Crabtree,” Troy said as he entered the front hall, coming in from a side room she assumed to be his office.  “I apologize for the confusion. I – ”

“Came in the back door.  Yes.  Your girl told me.”

“I had just returned from a…business…meeting and was a bit peckish and went straight into the kitchen.

She noted the slight hesitation – just like she noted the mud on his shoes and the cuffs of his high-priced trousers.  Where, she wondered, had that ‘business’ meeting taken place?  In a mud hole, perhaps?

It was, after all, where a man like Troy belonged.

“By all means, finish your supper,” she said in pretend politeness.  “I can wait.”

“No, no.  No.  I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I kept a lady – especially one of your standing – waiting.  Please, come into my office.”

So, she had been right.  Chalk another one up to an actress’ powers of observation.  She’d have to remember to rub Adam Cartwright’s nose in that one – if she ever saw him again.

Troy indicated she should sit in the chair opposite his just-as-garish mahogany desk and then took a seat behind it.  Linking his fingers together on its top, he asked, “And to what do I owe this…pleasure?”

“I imagine you know,” she said, sure to use a smug tone.

“Oh, these?” he said, indicating Little Joe’s pants, which were on his desk top.  “Should I know to whom they belong?”

Lotta drew in a breath and launched into it.  “Look, Mister Troy, both you and I know to whom those pants belong.  I assume by the bloodstains that you have what you want.  I’m here for my money – and due to certain…circumstances….”  Her eyes went to the pants.  “I think you might include a…sizeable bonus?”

His face had changed.  It had the look of a caged animal – a dangerous one.  “How did you come by them?”

She laughed.  “They were  present from Benjamin Cartwright.”

“Cartwright?  Why would Benjamin Cartwright show these to you?”

“I assume by that statement that you knew he had them?” she asked, all innocence.

Suspicion crept into that look, changing it from wary to warning.  “Are you implying that I had something to do with…this?”

“I am ‘implying’ no such thing,” she said sweetly.  Then she added, pitching her voice low, “I’m telling you that I know you did.  You had me lure that poor boy to his death and now Benjamin Cartwright holds me to blame.”

“What did he say when he came to see you?”

The question was quick – too quick – showing his fear.

“That he found this bundle waiting for him when he got home.  That he knew you and the other mine owners had his son and intended it as a warning.”  She paused dramatically.  “And that he would tear you limb from limb the next time he saw you.”

“Cartwright won’t risk the law,” he countered.

“Oh?” she chuckled.  “Apparently you don’t know Ben Cartwright as well as you think.  Accept it, Alpheus,” she said, using his first name for effect, “you crossed over the line.  If you had just held the boy, maybe hurt him a little, and then let him go after his father capitulated….  But to kill him –”

“He’s not dead!” he blurted out..  She noted how he instantly regretted it.  Troy took a moment to compose himself before speaking again.  “At least he wasn’t when I left him.”

Lotta’s slight form had gone rigid.  “What do you mean – when you left him?”

“All right,” the mine owner said, rising to his feet.  “I admit we took the boy.  Serves that old man right with his high-handed ways!  We were going to hold him for as long as it took to get Ben Cartwright to sign over the rights to cut that timber!”

“What about the blood?”

Troy’s eyes went to the sullied pants where they lay on his desk.  “The boy was, shall we say, less than cooperative?”

‘Good for you, Joe!’, Lotta thought, but then thought better of it as she remembered the two evil men she had seen on the street, advancing on the hotel.

“You didn’t answer my question.  What did you mean by ‘when I left him’?”

Troy lit a cigar.  He puffed on it a few times before answering.  “I left McCutcheon and Ferrell in charge of him.  They have, shall we say, a limited amount of patience?”

“So if the boy dies, it will be their fault and not yours?”  Lotta paused and then added in a sultry tone. “Clever.”

Troy’s white eyebrows popped.  “You approve?”

“Oh, I don’t know if I approve, but I do applaud your audacity.”  She folded her hands over her reticule and then met his stare.  “Now, about the remainder of my pay…?”

“Oh, the ten thousand,” he said, rounding his desk.

“Twenty.”

“Twenty?  What?  Madame, that’s highway robbery!”

“Oh, I don’t know.  It seems a cheap price compared to what you would pay at the end of a rope.”

He scowled.  “I told you the boy is alive!”

“And I should believe you because of your sterling character and inability to tell a falsehood?” she asked while batting her lashes.

The mine owner growled.  “You’ll just have to take my word.”

“Mister Troy,” she said as she rose to her feet.  “I am only an actress and have, well, perhaps a tenth of your business savvy, but I can tell you that I have learned to look a gift horse in the mouth.  You show me the boy is alive and we’ll settle on, say, fifteen thousand?  If not, well, my little feet will just carry me across the street to Sheriff Olin’s office and I’ll let him decide if you’re telling the truth.”

“Why are you doing this?” he demanded.

“Because, Mister Troy, I have done some things in my life that I am not proud of, but I have never – and I repeat never – brought harm to another human being and especially not a child!”  She was breathing hard and it was not an act.  “Unlike you, that is not something I could live with on my conscience.”

He was looking at her, weighing it out.  Perhaps he thought she was in on this with the Cartwrights.

Wouldn’t he like to know?

“All right,” he said with a sigh.  “But not until dark.  I know Ben Cartwright is in town looking for the boy.  I’ll have my men keep watch.  Once Cartwright leaves town we’ll go and I’ll show you your precious ‘child’.”

“Alive,” she said.

Troy’s eyes went to the pants.  He picked them up and fingered the area with the blood stain and then looked at her.

“As much as it is in my power – yes.”

“Look at him, Ferrell.  He ain’t so high-and-mighty now, is he?”

Joe roused at the voice and instantly regretted it as pain pounded through his leg and then radiated out to every inch of his battered frame.  Alpheus Troy had left, he didn’t know how many hours back, hurling over his shoulder the dubious instruction to ‘take care of him, boys’.

They’d taken care of him all right.

He’d been beaten before, of course, most times at his own choosing.  Adam and Hoss had trained him to come out on top and sometimes, well, he just felt like usin’ that education.  Then there were the times when he got into fights because of the things men said about his pa – and his mama.  Those were the worst ones ‘cause he saw red and, just like when he used to bury his head in his ma’s crimson skirts, he was blinded to just about everything else – including the fact that he could die.

He wanted to die now.

You’d think McCutcheon, since he was the big one, would have been the man to fear, but he stood by while Ferrell attacked with what his pa would have called ‘military precision’, making tactical strikes at the soft places where there was no bone to protect what was underneath.  Since he was in his long-johns – and there wasn’t much left of them – his middle was exposed.  Even in the dim light of the lantern his tormentor carried, he could see the dark bruise spreading across his abdomen.  He’d been in enough fights and chastised by Pa’s friend Paul Martin enough to know what that meant.  Most likely, internal bleeding.   A man could survive it, but it could also kill him.

He really didn’t want to die here, in the dark, alone, with no one but the men who had killed him.

‘Please, God….’

Joe closed his eyes as he waited on the next punch or kick that would come out of the dark and come unexpected.  His  ma and pa had taught him to pray and he prayed near every day of his life.  He’d learned though, that terrible day when his mama fell from her horse, that even if God answered prayers, sometimes the answer was ‘no’.  He remembered sittin’ on the settee beside Hoss, his little hands linked, whispering over and over, “Please God, don’t let my mama die.  I need her.  Please don’t let her die.  Please….”

Mama died anyway.

And then Pa went away too and Adam grew mad and Hoss sad and he had no one but Hop Sing who cried when he was cuttin’ carrots and potatoes, and he’d decided right there and then that even if God was in control of everything and that meant everything was for his good, he didn’t like it.  God was like Pa only he didn’t listen.  God did what He wanted and he didn’t care what one little boy wanted or needed and so – and he’d never ever told Pa this – he decided he didn’t care about God.

Of course, he was older now and understood better, but there was still a little of that little boy in him and it came out at times like this.

Maybe this was it.  Maybe God was gonna let him die no matter how much his pa or Adam or Hoss pleaded that he wouldn’t.

Just like mama.

The kick came, just over his kidneys, bringing Joe sharply back to the reality he was in.

“Look’at the cry baby.”  McCutcheon, the noisy one, knelt before him and took hold of his hair and lifted his head up so he had to look into his eyes.   “How old are you, boy?” he snickered.  “You been breeched yet?  I don’t see no pants!”

Unwisely, Joe spit in his eye.

That turned the terror loose.  Ferrell moved in and by the time the beating was over, he was laying on the floor in a pool of his own blood.  It ran from his nose and a cut on his head, but from the knife wound in his leg as well, which a well-placed kick had reopened.

“You’re just beggin’ to die, aren’t you, Cartwright?”

Joe tried to snort and failed.

He just might at that.

McCutcheon moved back in and took hold of his hair again.  The knife was back.  “It’s been twelve hours, cry baby.  The boss said to send a new ‘parcel’.   I’m thinkin’ a nice portion of that thick curly hair of yours and…maybe the tip of an ear?”

Joe closed his eyes as he felt the cold steel touch his scalp.  This was it.

He was gonna die.

“McCutcheon!”  A sharp voice cut though the dank air of the mine and echoed from its walls.  “You down here?”

The bully growled as he let go – letting his head slam into the floor – and  turned toward the voice.  “Yeah.  Who wants to know?”

A light appeared, its pale yellow glow stretching out across the uneven stone floor.  “It’s Williams.  Got word from the boss.  He’s comin’ to see the kid and bringin’ someone with him.”

“Who?”

“How the hell should I know?  The boss don’t explain things to me, he just gives me orders.”

Joe heard McCutcheon sigh.  “He ain’t much to look at.  I thought the boss wanted the kid dead.”

“I thought so too, but now it seems otherwise.  Rudy told me some dame came to Troy’s house.  Maybe it’s her.”

“You think it could be that actress, Mac?  The one who helped Troy take the kid?” Ferrell asked.

Joe moaned.  He’d suspected she was involved somehow, but hearing it said out loud was hard to take.

He really liked Lotta.

“Maybe.  I heard Troy never paid her the other money – you know, for gettin’ the kid to her rooms.”  There was a pause and a snicker.  “Baby boy here probably panicked.  That’s why he was runnin’.”

They all had a good laugh at that.

Joe didn’t care.  At the moment all he could think about was that the stone floor, which had chilled him to the bone a few minutes before when he was sitting upright, but now felt so good on his battered cheek that he thought he could go to sleep.

That ended when someone grabbed his head and jerked it up.

“Old Ben Cartwright should have gone himself.  Why send a boy to do a man’s job?”

They were still laughing – and the steel was touching his skin again.

“What’re you doin’, McCutcheon.  The boss wants him alive.  You got that, ain’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah, but the boss said he wanted a little reminder sent to Ben Cartwright too.  We gotta follow orders, ain’t we?”

A length of hair on the side of his head was pulled so taut the skin went with it.  Joe cracked one swollen eye open just in time to see the glint of steel as the blade swept down toward his head.

And then he screamed.

“What do you think, Pa?” Adam asked as they watched Lotta Crabtree leave Alpheus Troy’s home arm in arm with the man they were certain had taken Little Joe.

“I think everything is going according to plan,” his father replied.

“Women,” Hoss sighed even as the pair stepped into a closed carriage.  “You never know about them.”

“At least not a woman of Miss Crabtree’s…ilk,” the rancher agreed.   Ben ran a hand over his face.  It had been a  risk – leaving Little Joe’s clothing with Lotta Crabtree.  There would be one of two outcomes.  Her conscience would speak to her and she would take the necessary steps to find out what the consequence of her actions had been – hopefully leading them to Little Joe – or she would take the money and run, fearful of becoming ‘involved’ and perhaps facing charges for kidnapping.

Or worse.

As the carriage rolled away, he had no way of knowing which it was.

“All right, boys, you know the plan,” he said, rising from his position behind some crates in the alley opposite Alpheus Troy’s home.

“You’ll follow Troy and the woman,” his eldest said.  “Hoss and I will get Sheriff Olin and round up any of our men that we can find, and follow in an hour.  Pa….”

He knew what was coming.  “Yes, Adam?”

“I still think you should let the two of us come with you.  We can send word to Robert –”

His hand came down on his son’s shoulder.  “No, Adam, no.  It will be dangerous enough for one of us to trail them.  If Troy realizes he’s being followed – and your brother is still alive – he might choose to cut his losses and run.”

“Where do you think that bad man’s got Joe holed up, Pa?” Hoss asked.  His middle son’s voice was tense with anger and worry.

“Probably in one of the mines.”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit obvious?” his eldest asked.

“Maybe, but I don’t think its the Diablo or the Yellow Jacket, or even his own.  There are a number of mines  Troy bought up in the beginning that are now abandoned.”  Ben looked toward the edge of town where the dust was blowing in the wind, tossing sand and scrub.  “It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack to check them all.”

They’d seen one of Troy’s men leave earlier, riding his horse hell-bent for leather.  He’d almost followed him, but there was no way of telling where the man was going with so many of Troy’s various enterprises located close by.   No, it had been safer to wait for Lotta Crabtree to make her move.

Hoss was staring at the landscape too, as if by sheer will he could determine where his baby brother was.  “I sure hope Miss Crabtree leads us to Joe.  I’m….”  His middle son turned his crisp blue eyes on him.  “I’m right worried about Joe, Pa.  I got me a feelin’.”

The veracity of Hoss’ ‘feelin’s’ was well-documented.   He was seldom wrong, and even less so when it came to his little brother.

The truth was, he had that ‘feeling’ too – like they were running out of time.

His middle boy was silent for a moment, and then he added, his voice hushed.  “You think, maybe – well, maybe – God would take Little Joe…home?”

It was his fear – for all his sons – that God would take one of them ‘home’ before he himself had walked through the Pearly Gates.

The rancher put his hand on his son’s shoulder.  “Hoss, we have to have faith.  I think we are all agreed that we believe Joseph is still alive?”

The big man nodded without hesitation.   Adam, a little more slowly.

“So, all we can do is pray and do our best as men to find and save him.”  Ben turned and looked in the direction the carriage had gone.  “And get to it now!”

FOUR

Lotta’s hand went to her heart as a shrill scream echoed up along the dank corridor they were walking down.   As an actress, her throat had produced such a sound – usually when she was making a pretense of being murdered.   In the light of the lanterns the miners escorting them carried, she saw Alpheus Troy abruptly halt.

The mine owner blanched near white and then continued walking.

Looking to the left and right as they progressed, the beautiful woman noted the myriad crystals that dotted the walls, sometimes in bands, but more often alone.  They sparkled in the torchlight as it proceeded them, marking their path into the abyss.  Who knew?  If they continued on long enough, perhaps they would reach the center of the Earth.   In ancient times man believed he would find a path to the underworld there.

Noting the point where the darkness swallowed the light, Lotta thought – perhaps – the ancients knew best.

“Is it a lot farther?” she asked in a soft tone.  The constant echo of her own words from the wet walls  unnerved her for some reason.

“Not far,” Troy said.  “I told the boys to bring Cartwright up a few levels.”  He glanced back at her.  “I imagined a woman of your…delicate nature…would prefer not to go down too far into the mine.”

Lotta blinked.  They were not ‘far down’ in the mines now? 

Good Lord!

“Thank you,” she forced out.  “That was most…considerate of you.”

“Always the gentleman,” he said with a bit of a sneer.   “Ah!  We have arrived.”

How he knew she had no idea.  The chamber they’d entered looked like every chamber they’d left behind.  She peered into its shadows.

“I don’t see him,” she said.

“My men are bringing the boy.  There.  You hear that?  They’re coming.”

She did indeed hear it.  There were men walking and there was also another sound – like something was being dragged.  A moment later light poured into the chamber from an opening on the other side and three men appeared, all of them obviously miners.  One was in the front with the lantern.  The pair behind him bore something between them.   Lotta let out a little gasp as she recognized the latter as the toughs who had been outside her window and realized just what it was they held between them.  Or who.

He was barely recognizable as a human being.

As the miners callously dropped Joe Cartwright’s bloodied and battered body to the floor, the image of the handsome young man standing in her hotel room – dressed to the nines, smelling of bay rum and scented pomade; a smile on his angelic face – flashed in her mind’s eye.

She rounded on Troy.  “You’ve killed him!” she declared.

“He ain’t dead,” one of the two men said, and to prove it he kicked Little Joe with his boot.  As the boy moaned, he added with a sneer, “Just mostly.”

Troy looked nearly as shocked as she felt.  “I told you to take care of him!” he declared.

The bigger man looked at the thin, rat-like creature beside him.  “That’s what we did, ain’t it, Ferrell?”  She saw him wink at the mine owner.  “We took ‘care’ of Cartwright just like you ordered.”

She had been stunned into inaction.  Now, with a look of horror that had nothing of acting in it, she moved to Little Joe’s  side and knelt beside him.  Reaching out, she sought for a place to touch him that might not hurt and finally settled on his left shoulder.  It was about the only part of him that was not muddied or bloodied.

“Joe!  Little Joe, can you hear me?” Lotta asked and then waited.

For a moment there was nothing.  Then the boy stirred and one eye opened.  He saw her – or at least she thought he did – because a moment later his hand reached toward her.

And then Joe tore out her heart.

“Maman…?” he breathed before falling unconscious.

Lotta choked and dissolved into tears.

Troy lingered close behind her.  She heard him turn to the larger of the two men and ask with an almost detached air, “Where’s all the blood coming from?”

It was in Joe’s hair and on his face, neck, and shoulders.  It seemed to be pooled on the one side more than the other.  Reaching out, she took hold of the poor boy’s face and turned it into the light – and let out a startled little cry.

Above his ear on that side, his glorious curls were missing.

She whirled as the vile man chuckled.  He was holding something out.  With horror, Lotta realized it was a muddy, bloody portion of Little Joe’s hair.

She was on her feet before she knew it.

“Alpheus Troy, you are the most vile creature that has ever walked God’s earth!  There isn’t enough silver in all of your mines to buy my silence!  When I get finished with you, I will – ”

“Must I remind you, Miss Crabtree that this,” he gestured toward Joe, “is as much your doing as mine?”

“I am not responsible –”

“Oh, but you are,” he insisted, going in for the kill.  “It was you who trespassed on Cartwright land and lured this poor ‘child’ into town.  You, a woman of mature years, taking advantage of a young man who couldn’t possibly know better.  And it was you who took money for keeping him there when you knew McCutcheon and Ferrell were coming to kidnap him and….”  The mine owner paused.  “…kill him.”  Troy sneered.  “If I hang, Miss Crabtree, it will be your pretty neck that is stretched beside me!”

Her hand went to her throat.  “I did no such thing!”

“Perhaps not, but then who will believe an actress?  A woman of…dubious reputation.  And up against such sterling men as myself, Hooper, and Garvey.”  Troy paused to let that sink in.  “And even Benjamin Cartwright.  From what I understand he and his…remaining…sons know what you have done.”

He had her.  She hated to admit it, but he had her.

“Now, Miss Crabtree,” the mine owner said as he reached into his pocket, “before we left, I had my man draw out a note.  You may take this to any bank in Carson City and it will be honored – which I suggest you do post-haste before one of my men decides to take things into his own hands.”  As she glanced at Ferrell and McCutcheon, he finished.  “You see, they don’t trust you as I do and, well, the truth is, if you weren’t so well known I might have let them have their way.”

“Which is?” she squeaked.

“Well, let’s just say it would have been your greatest performance.  Juliet and…Little Joe!”

His laugh was chilling.

Lotta glared at him and then she snatched the envelope from his hand.  “I said it once and I will say it again, Alpheus Troy, you are a vile monster!”  She looked at Little Joe Cartwright where he lay silent on the floor and then deliberately turned away from the sight of his suffering.  “Now, if one of your…men…would care to escort me out?”

“But, of course, my dear.  Rudy!”

The man with the lantern took a step forward.  “Yes, sir?”

“Escort Miss Crabtree to the coach and wait for me there.”  At her look he added, “It’s not that I don’t trust you, my dear, but I don’t trust you!”

“You have nothing to worry about, you snake!” she snarled.  “That young man’s life is important to me, but not as important as my own.”

“Well spoken, my dear.  And you just remember that when you read in the papers of the demise of Ben Cartwright’s youngest in a terrible mining accident.  It seems the boy’s curiosity got the best of him and he went into a mine long abandoned and, well, the walls chose a most inopportune time to come down.”

She went as pale as chalk.  “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, yes, I most certainly would, just as you will read in that same paper how Miss Lotta Crabtree lured the young man to his death – should you betray me.”

Lotta’s jaw locked in revulsion.  “Get me out of here,” she ordered through clenched teeth.

“Rudy, show the lady out.”

As she walked away, she heard Alpheus Troy’s order.  “Boys, take him deep into the mine and set the charges.  We’ve no time to lose.”

As she followed Rudy to the surface, Lotta started laughing.  The man in front of her glanced over his shoulder, shrugged, and then continued on.  She was sure he wondered why.  It was the irony of the whole thing.  Here, she had played her greatest role and no one would ever know about it.

Lotta Crabtree, murderess.

Ben Cartwright had sequestered himself behind a tumble of rocks dotted by gorse in order to watch the comings and goings at the cave mouth of the old abandoned ‘Lucky Sucker’ mine.  The man who had staked the claim had proved more the latter than the first when Alpheus Troy had tricked him into selling what was, for a time, a profitable mine.  The silver streak in it had petered out quickly and it had been abandoned near the time his missing son had been born.

Now, he wondered if it was going to be Little Joe’s tomb.

It had been hard, but he’d gritted his teeth and done nothing as Alpheus Troy’s man had met the mine owner and Miss Crabtree as they debarked from the carriage.  They’d entered the mine with her hanging on his arm.  At this moment he had no idea who the real Lotta was – the woman who seemed so penitent and anxious to help them find Joseph, or this woman, the one who had been complicit in his capture.  Lotta was, after all, an actress and had been practicing and honing her craft for thirty-odd years.  He had no doubt she could make a man believe anything she wanted him to believe.

A man, yes, but not a father.

In truth, he thought she was a woman on the edge, straddling right and wrong and desperately sorry to have been caught in the middle.  She seemed genuinely moved by Little Joe’s plight, but then again, it was her choice to take Troy’s money and to lead his boy into the danger that now threatened him.   Rocking back on his heels, the rancher pulled his watch from his pocket and checked the time.  In approximately fifteen minutes his sons would leave Virginia City and begin to follow his trail, bringing the law with them.  They would arrive in a few hours.  He had to get to Joseph before that.  The boy could be caught in the cross-fire or, worse, Troy might order his son killed so there were no witnesses.   The best way to do that was to talk to Lotta Crabtree.

She was leaving the mine now.

If she got back into the carriage, it would make his task more difficult.  He’d have to follow her back toward town and try to stop her – somehow.  He needed to catch her now, before she got on board, but he had no idea how he was going to do it.

Until he saw her step off into the brush.

With a toss of his eyes to Heaven and a quick whispered prayer of thanks on his lips, Ben began  to move through the tall grasses and trees in order to intercept her before her return.  Troy’s man had remained with the carriage, which was another blessing.  Ben had almost come abreast the place where he’d seen the actress enter the woods when a thought struck him and he halted.

What if the woman was…well…about her personal business?

It didn’t matter, he told himself.  He’d apologize later if he caught her in an…indiscreet position.  Little Joe’s life was more important than a woman’s modesty or a man’s propriety.

In the end he found he needn’t have worried.  Lotta Crabtree – San Francisco’s Favorite and the toast of several continents – was sitting on a rock with her head in her hands, sobbing like a baby.  She heard him coming a moment before he arrived and looked up; her face the picture of despair.   When she realized who he was, she rose to her feet and ran toward him.  He almost went down  as she gripped his coat and fell into his arms.

“They’re…going to…kill him!” she sobbed.  “Oh, God, what…have I done!?”

He pulled her back.  “Joseph?  Little Joe?  Then he’s alive?”

Her head nodded, the once finely coiffed brunette hair falling free and masking her eyes.  “They’ve….”  She drew in a great gulp of air. “They’ve beaten him badly, Ben.  So…badly….”

As her voice trailed off, he shook her.  “Where?  Where is he?  Where’s my boy?”

Lotta blinked and seemed to come to herself.  She sniffed and drew up to her full height.  “I don’t know.  As I left, Troy ordered his men to take him deeper into the mine.”

“Troy?  So it was him all along.”

“Mister Cartwright, if you had just let him have those trees,” she said, shaking her head.  “None of this would have happened.”

“And if you hadn’t been so greedy, my boy’s life would not be in danger!” he snapped back.

She paled and suddenly, all bravado was gone.  “You’re right,” she said.  “I told your son that money was all that mattered to me.”

He glared at her.  “Then I feel sorrier for you than I do for Alpheus Troy.  At least his greed has a noble purpose – to build and not to destroy.”

She placed her head in her hands again.  “I’m the monster,” she breathed softly.  “It’s me.”

Taking her by the shoulders, he commanded her attention.  “Lotta, I need you to tell me all you can.  How many men did you see?”

She blinked as if slightly stunned.  “Three…no, four.  Troy, Rudy – who is by the carriage – McCutcheon and that nasty thin man, Ferrell.”

He’d just seen Troy coming out of the mine and heading for the carriage.  That left only two within, if Lotta was right.

“Listen to me, I need you to get in that carriage and go back to town with Troy and act as if nothing is wrong.  Do you hear me?”

She was shaking her head.  “I can’t…ride with that monster and make nice.”

“You’re an actress.  Yes, you can!” He reached out to cup her cheek in his hand.  “Do it for Joseph.  You owe him at least that much.”

It took a moment, but she nodded.   He handed her his handkerchief and watched as she wiped her face and then transformed how she looked with just a thought.  Lotta smiled at him and then turned to go, but before she did, she reached into her reticule and pulled out an envelope and handed it to him.

“No need to open it.  Just…hold it for me,” she said.

“What is it?” he asked as he tucked it into his coat pocket.

Lotta gave him an odd look.  Then she said….

“Thirty pieces of silver.”

It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last.

They’d disobeyed their father.

As he finished checking his cinch and gave it a tug, Adam looked over his horse’s back at his middle brother.  Hoss was fit to be tied.  About five miles out of the city, the big man’s patience had run out.  When Robert Olin had suggested they make camp and wait for the men he had deputized to catch up, it had been all he could do to keep Hoss from taking off the lawman’s head.  In the end, they had come to a decision.  He was sure Olin wasn’t happy with it.

He and Hoss deserted him.

Adam turned and looked back the way they had come.  If the men arrived when Robert expected, the posse would be a good forty-five minutes behind them, which suited him fine.  He’d been in enough posses to know that untrained citizens given the right to shoot anyone in sight tended to do that – often targeting the wrong men.  The last thing they needed, if Joe was alive, was for him to be killed in a firefight between overly zealous townspeople and the criminals who held him.  With any luck, Pa had already found Joe and freed him.

Right.   And lilacs bloomed in the desert in summertime.

“How far do you think it is?” Hoss asked as he took a drink from his canteen.

They’d discussed it and, from the tracks, decided Joe had been taken to the old Lucky Sucker mine.  It belonged to Troy and was just far enough out of town – and out of mind – that it would make a good place to hold a hostage.  They’d traveled about ten miles, so, “Another half hour, I’d guess.  We’ll have to go slow, though, from here on.  Troy might have sentinels posted.”

“Let me at ‘em,” Hoss growled as he slammed the lid back onto the canteen.  “I’ll tear them apart with my own two hands if they done hurt Little Joe!”

He’d had to stop him with Robert.  This time, well….

“Pa keeps telling me civilization will come to the West one day,” Adam replied.  As he mounted his horse and settled in, he added with a wry grin, “Good thing it hasn’t yet.”

He wanted to tear those bastards apart with his two hands as well.

Hoss had done the same.  From atop Chubb, he said, “Let’s ride, older brother.”

And they did.

FIVE

Ben had sneaked up to the mine entrance.  He watched Lotta emerge from the  trees and smile as Alpheus Troy offered her a hand into the carriage.   The man, Rudy, watched them go and then moved off into the woods leaving the mouth of the cave unguarded.

He didn’t know whether to worry or to see it as the hand of God.

Choosing the latter, the rancher shifted and then darted into the cave’s entryway.  Once inside he hugged the shadows and waited.  When no one came and he heard nothing, he looked around for a lantern.  Finding one, he used the matches he always carried in his pocket to light it and then shuttered it so that only a thin beam of light bit into the ebony darkness before him.

And then he began the plunge into the earth.

As he walked, Ben’s trained eye went by habit to the beams over his head and the struts holding up the tunnel he traversed.  They were shoddy.  Some of the struts were cracked and the beams overhead rained down sawdust on him as he walked, suggesting they were infested with termites or some other such boring insect.  It was definitely not a safe place to be, and yet it was where he needed to be if he was going to save his son.  Lotta had haltingly told him to be prepared for what he found.  Joseph, she said, had been beaten to within an inch of his life.  His young son had a slight build, but he was well-muscled and well-trained by his older brothers.  In a fair fight, he’d seen him take down men near twice his size.  But Lotta said this had been far from a fair fight.  Joseph was bound hand and foot.  The men had kicked him and…hurt him as she watched.

He wanted to kill them.

He’d told Troy he would and he’d meant it and, if it came to it, he would.  But not out of vengeance or a need to be God – out of a need for justice and to rescue his poor boy.

A sudden noise not too far in front of him made Ben halt and close the lantern, plunging both him and the tunnel into darkness.  Then, almost as quickly, the light grew.  It came from the opening in front of him.  Hugging the wall, he advanced slowly, until he was close enough to make out men’s voices.

“Maybe we should be merciful.  Put a bullet in his head and put him out of his misery, you know?” one said.

“He’ll be out of his misery soon enough when ten ton of rock comes down on him,” the other replied with a snort.  Then he went on.  “How the mighty have fallen.  You ain’t so pretty now, pretty boy.  Ain’t no woman gonna want you lookin’ like you do.”

Ben’s blood was boiling.  He took another step forward and was startled when his boot encountered something soft and completely out of place.   He knelt and had just put his fingers on it when the first man spoke again.

“Shame we ain’t gonna get to send Old Man Cartwright his present.  What I wouldn’t have given to be there when he opened it up!”

To the accompaniment of their whoops and hollers, Ben palmed the item and rose to his feet.  It puzzled him at first and then he nearly lost his lunch as he realized what it was.

A mass of blood-soaked curly brown hair.

How dare they!

“Looks like he’s been scalped, don’t he?”

“Come on.  Rudy’s bound to have those charges set by now.”

There was a pause and then the first man said, “We’re okay.  We got fifteen minutes yet.”

“Cartwright’s done.  There’s no need to watch him.  I say we go now.”

The scum who was with him replied,  “Guess you’re right.”  There was a sound, a sort of thumping and then, God be praised, Ben heard his son moan!  “NIghty night, cry baby.  Say hello to Hell for me when you get there!”

The two walked past laughing and snorting; taking an unholy joy in his son’s suffering.  Ben melted into the shadows.  He waited until they were beyond him; then he drew his gun and stepped into the meager light that remained.

“That’s far enough!” he declared.

Both men froze in their tracks.  The heavier of the pair – McCutcheon, he thought – turned to look first.

“Well, if the baby’s papa ain’t come to take him home.”  The man sneered.  “You better hurry, Cartwright, ‘fore God beats you to it.”

Fear for Joe clutched the rancher’s entrails and twisted hard, but he couldn’t be distracted.  He had to neutralize these two first.  “Give me your guns,” he ordered, eyeing the weapons on their hips.

“Sure, Cartwright,” the second man – Ferrell said.  And then he made a choice he would regret.  The bone-thin man threw the weapon and dove to the side as McCutcheon drew his.

Actually, they both came to regret it.

Ben took McCutcheon out with a single shot to the belly.  Ferrell played dirty.  While he was dealing with Troy’s other man, the little weasel slipped past him and headed straight for Joe, no doubt intending to use his son as a human shield.

A quick look at McCutcheon showed he was still alive, but the only place he would be going was to Hell.

Pivoting where he stood, Ben launched himself at Ferrell, catching the man around the legs and taking him down within sight of his son.  He caught a quick glance of Little Joe before the fight began in earnest.  He had to block the picture from his mind in order to continue.  Joe was so pale, so…still….

It was hard to believe his son was still alive.

Ferrell was a younger man and fierce as any mountain lion.  He fought hard and he fought dirty, but in the end – by the grace of God – Ben prevailed.  His hand had landed on a stone planted in just the right place and he’d struck the other man’s head with it.

Perhaps a bit too hard.

Gasping, out of breath and almost spent, the rancher dragged himself to Little Joe’s side.  The only light in the chamber was a miner’s lamp, which was laying on the floor and only half-open.   The light it cast made everything look ghastly, including his young, beautiful, brilliant, feisty and independent son.

He didn’t know where to touch him.

Finally, with trepidation, the older man placed his hand on his son’s bare chest just over his heart.  Ben held his breath as he waited.  Then, he felt it.  Joe’s heart beating.  Slowly…

Much too slowly.

Leaning down, he whispered in his ear, “Hang on, son.  You hang on for your Pa.  You hear me?”   The boy didn’t have a place on him that wasn’t bruised.  No matter how he took hold of him, it was going to hurt.   “Joseph, I have to get you out of here.   This is gonna hurt, boy, but there’s no other way.”

Even from deep within the delirium that claimed him, Little Joe felt it as he lifted him into his arms.  The boy cried out, tearing his heart in two, but Ben steeled himself to the sound and began to move, bearing the boy up and out of the dank dark hole that Alpheus Troy had meant to be his tomb.

They’d gone about a half mile when Ben heard a sound that caused him to pause, and then to begin to run.  He was exhausted from the fight and, though Joseph was light-weight, it was almost more than he could do to carry him.  As he ran, the rancher glanced back over his shoulder, looking for the spark that would signal a charge had been lit.  Unfortunately, he did it one too many times.  His foot caught on an upturned rock and both he and Joe went sprawling.  As they hit the ground the rancher heard a series of explosions begin to  go off deep, down in the precarious depths of the mine where Joe had been held.  True to character, Alpheus Troy had lied.  It had been, perhaps, ten minutes.

The crooked mine owner had meant for Ferrell and McCutcheon to die along with his son.

Beyond exhaustion, Ben staggered to his feet and headed for Joe where the boy lay a few feet in front of him.  He had to get them out.  They had, perhaps a minute – maybe two – before the whole place came down on their heads.   As he reached a trembling hand toward his son, fingers caught his arm.

“Leave Little Joe to me, Pa.  Adam, you get Pa.”

Ben looked up to find Hoss looking down at him.

He had never seen anything so beautiful as his big, brawny boy.

Even as the rancher opened his mouth to ask ‘how’, he felt his eldest son’s strong arm slip about his waist.

“Time for questions later, Pa,” Adam said as he glanced over his shoulder.  “Hoss, get Joe out – now!”

They emerged just as the force of the blasts ripped through the mine.

The power of the explosions threw the four of them free of the mountain of rock just as it came crashing down, sealing the Lucky Sucker off forever.  Adam Cartwright glanced at his father where he lay beside him.  The older man had a gash on his forehead and was out cold.  Adam checked his pa’s pulse and found it steady and figured, from the look of the site of impact, that he’d awaken in a few minutes.

Pa was okay.  He had to see to his brothers.

Peering through the dust that billowed out of the mine’s entryway, Adam spotted Hoss and began to make his way over to him.  Middle brother was seated on the ground, bent over something.  His hands were moving furiously.

“Dagnabit, Joseph,” Hoss commanded, “you breathe!  You hear me, boy!  Breathe!”

Fear clutched his entrails as he came alongside them.  “Hoss?”

“He ain’t breathin’, Adam.  Little Joe ain’t breathin’!”

His giant of a brother – all two hundred and fifty plus pounds of him – was sobbing like a little boy over a bird he’d accidentally hit with a rock from his sling.

“Move aside,” he ordered.

Hoss stared at him and then did as he said, though he didn’t let go.  He continued to hold Joe’s hand.

His little brother’s lips were turning blue.  Joe’s skin was cold and clammy to the touch.  Adam reached out and lifted one eyelid and winced at what he found.

“Do somethin’, Adam.  You gotta do somethin’!”

Hoss said it like he was God.

As he sat there, staring at his kid brother who was dying, Adam’s mind rolled back through all the medical journals he’d borrowed from Doctor Martin.  There had been a technique – used as early as the 17^th century.  It had been meant for people near drowned.  He fought to bring the information up before his eyes.  He had a quick mind that was able to do that – when he wasn’t completely overwrought as he was now.

“Adam….”

He held a hand up.  “Quiet.  I..have to think.”  The black-haired man looked down at his little brother.  Joe was practically naked; what was left of his long-johns in shreds.  “Get one of the blankets off the horses – or both.  We need to warm him up.”

Hoss was gone before he could repeat his instructions.

What else?  What else had there been?

Apply manual pressure to the abdomen.  Yes, he remembered that.  It was the first step.  Adam looked at his brother’s bruised and battered flesh and winced.  The bruising was bad around his stomach.

Still, excruciating pain was better than dying – and Little Joe probably wouldn’t feel it anyhow.

At least, not until later.

The blanket dropped over Joe just as he began to apply pressure.

“What’re you doin’, Adam?  You’re hurtin’ him.  Look!”

He did.  Joe was moaning and beginning to move.  There was a tear trailing down his cheek.

Good!

“Tickle his throat, Hoss, and then…kiss him.”

His brother’s blue eyes went wide.  “What?”

“Like you would a girl.  Breathe air into his mouth.”

“Are you crazy?”

A shaken voice spoke from behind them.  “Do as he says, Hoss.”

Adam looked up to find his father watching him.  “Pa?”

The older man nodded.  “I’ve seen it before.  In England, when I sailed the seas. “ Their pa crouched down beside Little Joe and took his other hand.  “Son, you can’t hurt him and you might just save him.”

The other things the book had recommended they couldn’t do, partly because Joe wasn’t half-drowned, and partly because they didn’t have the tools.

Hoss came up for air.  He turned pleading eyes on their father.  “It ain’t doin’ nothin’. Pa.  He’s slippin’ away from us.  I can feel it.”

Tears were streaming down the big man’s face – down all their faces.  “Come on, Joe,” Adam told his oh-oh-still brother as he continued to work his lower muscles like a pump, “fight!  Damn you, fight!”

It was, perhaps a minute later, that he felt his father’s hand on his.  He looked up into a face so stricken that it had the power to stop his own heart.

“Let him go, Adam.  God’s will be done.”

Of course, Little Joe – ornery cuss that he was – waited until they had lost all hope and fallen into despair  to draw in a great big gulp of air and start coughing.

He saw his father look up toward Heaven and then turn to give Hoss a slap on the back even as the big man lifted Joe into his arms and cradled him like a baby.

“Now, isn’t this a charming sight?” a snide voice remarked from out of nowhere.  “What is it with you Cartwrights that you just won’t die?”

Pa was on his feet first, placing himself between Alpheus Troy and the three of them.   Troy was a sight.  He looked like he’d taken a dive out of a coach, rolled down a hill into the mud, and then run half a mile.

Which was probably just what he’d done.

“Where’s Lotta?” Pa demanded.  “What have you done with her?”

“She’s safe with Sheriff Olin and on her way back to Virginia City.”  Troy waved the gun in their direction.  “They were following your boys.  We ran into them on the road.”

“What lie did you tell them?” Hoss asked as he pulled Joe even closer into the circle of his arms.

“It seems Miss Crabtree had a slight…accident.  She hit her head when we were so rudely halted by the sheriff and his men.  I convinced the sheriff that it would be prudent to take her to the doctor.  I told him I would check on the three….”  His gaze went to Little Joe and there was hatred in it.   “…the four of you.”

“He let you come alone?” Pa asked, his tone incredulous.

“Not exactly.”  Troy glanced at his pistol.  “But I’m alone now.  Luckily I pocketed some spare bullets before leaving home.  I thought, under the circumstances, I might need them.”

“You can’t kill all of us, Alpheus Troy,” their pa snarled.

“From the looks of the boy, all I have to do is leave him where he is and he’ll do the dying on his own.  As to the rest of you, everyone in town knows how volatile you are.  You came upon me trying to help the boy and jumped to the wrong conclusion.  I had to kill you in self-defense.”

Adam stood up beside his father.   “There’s three of us on our feet and one of you, and we still have our…”  His voice trailed off as his fingers brushed an empty holster.  He must have lost his gun in the wake of the explosion.  Pa’s had been left behind in the cave and was buried under a ton of rock.

That left Hoss.

“Go for it, boy,” Troy snarled, “and your old man will be the first to go.”  As Hoss’ hand moved away from his side, the mine owner said, “Now, take your weapon out of the holster and toss it to the ground.  Then put the boy down and come over here and join your family.”

“I cain’t leave Joe by his lonesome.  He ain’t well!” his middle son protested.

“I can shoot him now and put him out of his misery if you prefer,” Troy said, his eyes and words cold as the belly of a snake.

Hoss locked eyes with their father who nodded.  He tenderly lowered Joe to the ground, cupping their brother’s bloody head in his hand and easing it down, and then rose to his feet and joined them.

It was ludicrous.  No wonder a gun was thought of as the great equalizer.  There were three of them – all strong, able men – and there was nothing they could do against a piece of metal loaded with death.

“Troy,’ their father said, “you’ll hang for this.”

The mine owner shrugged.  “Most likely, but I will have the satisfaction of watching you die before I do.”

Adam winced at the sound of a trigger being pulled.  Then, he realized Troy hadn’t moved.

“Drop it, Troy,” an unsteady but familiar voice said.

As one they turned to look.  Joe was still on the ground.  He’d lifted himself up on one elbow and had Hoss’ pistol in his hand.

“I said, drop it!”

His gaze went to his brother’s hand.  Joe was just back from the dead and he was shaking like a leaf in a nor’easter.   It was doubtful he could hit his target.

But then, Alpheus Troy couldn’t be sure.

The mine owner stared at Joe for what felt like a full minute before he sighed and reached out as if offering his gun.

‘ As if’ being the operative phrase.

“Joe, look out!” Pa shouted as the horror of what was happening dawned on them all.

Troy intended to shoot Little Joe.

A shot went off, freezing them in their tracks.  Adam braced himself before he looked, expecting to see a crimson stain blossoming on his baby brother’s bare chest.   When he did, he met Joe’s eyes, which were as wide as his own.  His gaze dropped.

There was no smoke coming from the weapon his baby brother held.

Adam glanced at his father, who was as mystified as he was, and then back to Alpheus Troy – just in time to see the mine owner fall to his knees and pitch over onto his face.   Blood blossomed on the back of his fine European-cut suit coat.

As one, all four of them looked beyond the fallen man.

Lotta Crabtree was standing there with a small snub-nosed derringer in her hand.  She blew the smoke away and then lifted her skirts and placed the gun in the garter that circled her slender leg.

“If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times, boys,” she quipped.  “Never underestimate a woman.”

 SIX

It took them a while to sort out just exactly what had happened.  Of course, the fact that Joe lapsed back into unconsciousness and the fever that he was sporting leapt incredibly high had a lot to do with it.  By the time they got him back to Virginia City, they were fearing for his life again.  While Pa and Hoss stayed with Joe, he took Lotta to the sheriff’s office so she could make a statement.

And what a statement it was!

It seemed that, once in the carriage, Alpheus Troy had lost all sense of reality.  He had begun to babble about how he was going to kill all of them and take over the Ponderosa and cut down every ‘damn’ tree on the land to build a mining empire.  He said he had plans to do away with both Hooper and Garvey and take over their mines as well, so that – in the end – he would control all of the silver.  Having been around delusional men before – after all, Lotta was an actress – she played along with him, fanning his ego and feeding his manic dreams.  They’d been at it about an hour when they ran into the posse.  It was true the carriage had come to an abrupt halt.  Lotta had pretended to hit her head and pass out.  She’d listened while Troy spun his yarn and then watched as the crazed mine owner took off with several men.   Sheriff Olin had been quite insistent that she accompany him back to town.  Being an actress, and having just about every plot known to men in her head, she’d woven her own tale of how she and Troy had had a lover’s spat and she had to go after him – alone.  She reminded Olin that Troy – and other men like him – almost single-handedly funded the city’s coffers, and warned that she would make a public spectacle of it should he drag her back to town.   In the end between her acting ability and her womanly charms, she won the day.  Olin gave her a horse and provisions and wished her good luck.

And most likely, whispered ‘good riddance’ as well.

That had been about an hour back.  Lotta had gone to the telegraph office afterward to send a note to the promoter in Carson City, telling him  she would be late, and then had ‘retired’ as she put it to her hotel room to rest.  He’d returned to Paul Martin’s newly furbished office to check on his family.  Paul wasn’t the official doctor in Virginia City yet, but he was their family doctor.  He’d brought Little Joe into the world and Paul had vowed that, sure as Hell, he wasn’t going to be the one to see him out of it.

The first thing Adam saw when he came into the office was his pa sitting in the waiting room with his head in his hands.

The sight chilled him to the bone.

“Pa?”

It took a moment for the older man’s head to come up.  “Son,” he said, “it’s good to see you.  Did you get Lotta settled?”

A casual question.  That was a good sign.

Still….

“Yes,” he said.  “How’s Little Joe?”

His father sighed as he straightened up and stretched.  “Your brother is holding his own.”

“But not out of danger?”

The older man pursed his lips and shook his head.  “No.  Paul says it’s touch and go.”

He took off his hat, hung it on the peg by the door, and then dropped into the seat beside his father.  After a moment, he chuckled.  “You know, the Ladies Aid Society was against Lotta Crabtree coming to town.”

His father snorted.  “Remind me to listen to them the next time.”  Pa paused and looked toward the room where his baby brother lay, fighting for his life.  “If there is a next time….”

The two of them fell silent for a few heartbeats, then he asked, “Where’s Hoss?”

“In with your brother.  Paul will only allow one of us in there at a time.  Hoss, well, he needed it to be him.”

“Is he feeling guilty?”

“Maybe.”

Adam rose and walked over to the door of the surgery.  It had a clouded window in it.  He could see Hoss’ giant form sitting right beside the medical bed.  He watched him a second and then turned back into the room.

“There’s nothing he could have done to prevent this,” he said.

“There’s nothing you could have done either, son,” his father replied as he too rose to his feet.  He came to his side and placed a hand on his shoulder.  “I imagine your brother feels the same as you.  You both have to let it go – whatever happens.  You’ve done a good job looking out for your baby brother.  Some things are just…beyond our control.”

Adam glanced back at the room before saying, “Pa, I mean no disrespect, but sometimes, well, it’s hard to see God’s hand in this kind of thing.”

His father gave him a startled look.  His reply startled him even more.  “Hard?  It’s impossible!?

“Pa, you’re not…doubting….”

His father lifted his hand and went to take a seat again.  This time he perched on the edge of the small desk in the room.  “No, son, but as the Good Book says God’s ways are not our ways.  Just as the sky is higher than the earth, so His deeds and plans are superior to ours.”

“Even when that plan may include a seventeen-year-old boy dying?” he asked and then instantly regretted it.  “Sorry, Pa.  I’m tired.  I didn’t mean it.”

“It’s all right, son.  God can take your questions.”  His father fell silent for a moment.   “When I was young, Adam, and your mother died, I questioned God’s providence – even His existence.  How could a loving God allow such a thing to happen?  I was alone, with a baby boy, and no wife.   I….”  The older man paused.  “I’m ashamed to admit this now, but I thought of running away; of leaving you with some loving family who could care for you as your mother would have wanted.  I thought about going back to sea….”

When his father fell silent, he asked into the stillness, “Why didn’t you?”

Pa rose and went to the door and opened it.  He stood there, staring out at the stars.  “It was a night like this, crystal clear with diamond hard stars glinting in the sky.  I stood under those stars cursing my fate when suddenly, the world shifted.”

He followed him to the door.  “What happened?”

“I’m still not sure.  Not completely.  It was as if I had been looking at the back of my hand – or the underneath of a tapestry – and, suddenly, I was gazing at the other side.  Suddenly I became aware of how all things intertwine, both the good and the bad, and of the fact that God is sovereign  over all.   I don’t know,” Pa choked, cleared his throat, and continued, “I don’t know how I will survive it if your brother dies, but I will survive.”   The older man reached out to cup his face with his hand, a simple but intimate gesture that he knew made him uncomfortable.  “Son, we all will.”

“Pa.”

They both turned.  Hoss was in the doorway.

“The doc’d like to see you.”

His brother’s face was so solemn, Adam feared the worst.  “Little Joe?  Hoss?”

Hoss inclined his head toward the surgery,  “You better come inside.”

Together, mentally and spiritually holding each other up, he and his father entered the room fully expecting to see the sheet pulled up over Little Joe’s face.

Instead that face was smiling at them.

“Hey, Pa.  Hey, Adam….”

For a moment, they were both speechless.  Not surprisingly his father beat him both to words and to Little Joe’s side.

“Son!” the older man said as he clasped Joe’s hand in his and with the free one brushed the boy’s ravaged curls off his forehead.  “Joseph….”

“You little scamp,” Adam said, failing to mask the relief in his voice, “what do you mean scaring us like that?”

His father had turned to Paul Martin, “Paul, how is he?”

The physician’ answer was guarded.  “There are a few trees to go yet.  By morning we’ll know whether or not he’s made it out of the woods.”

“You sure…know how to….make a fellow feel…worse,” Joe cracked.

“Well, I will go so far as to say that I can find no internal bleeding, though how the boy escaped it with all the abuse he took, I can’t imagine.”

“You should know by now, Doc,” Adam said, hiding his smile.  “My head may be made out of granite, but that’s Little Joe all over!”

“It sure is, doc.  That there boy is tough as nails,” Hoss exclaimed and then joined in the laughter.

Adam crossed over to the big man.   He anchored his hands on his hips and a scowl on his lips.  “And what about you and that stunt you just pulled?”

Hoss looked in no way repentant.  “I’m sorry, Adam.  I was just so happy when Joe opened his eyes –”

“That you felt it necessary to scare Pa and me out of ten years of life?”

“Don’t…blame him.  I…wanted to surprise you too,” Joe said, his voice as feeble as a colt newly born.

Adam stared at his little brother and then moved to Joe’s side.  Reaching out, he fingered the boy’s shorn locks.  “You did, Joe.  You do, in so many ways.”

“Can anyone join this party, or is it a private affair?” a female voice asked, turning all their heads toward the door.   Adam didn’t know why it surprised him, but it did.  Lotta Crabtree, wearing her deep green velvet traveling coat and hat, was standing in the open door.

He sensed his pa’s ambivalence, so he went to greet her.  “I’m not sure how to answer that,” Adam said.  “After all you are the woman who saved us….”

“After putting you all in danger.”  She looked past him.  “And Little Joe most of all.”  Her gaze went to his father.  “May I?  Speak to Joe for a minute, that is?  Alone?”

They all looked at his father and his father looked at the doctor.  “Paul?”

“For a minute or two.  No longer.  The boy’s tiring.”

Adam checked.  It was true.  Joe was aware of what was going on around him, but obviously drifting.

He caught her arm.  “Paul says Joe’s not out of danger yet.  Don’t upset him.”

She cocked her head.  “I have no intention of upsetting that fine young man.  It’s just that I’m…I’m leaving town and I wanted to tell him something before I left.”

“Joseph,” their father said in his commanding voice.  “Is that all right with you, boy?”

Little Joe blinked as if he was unsure of what the question pertained to.  Then he smiled.  “You know me, Pa.  I’ve…never been one to…turn away a pretty lady.”

“Isn’t that the truth!” Paul exclaimed so quickly it set them all to laughing once more.

“Five minutes and no more,” Pa said as he pushed past.  “I’m watching the clock.”

“As an actress I have had to learn, among other things, to be punctual, Mister Cartwright.  I shall make my exit at four minutes and fifty-five seconds, if not sooner.  Will that suffice?”

There was something about her.  In spite of all she had done.

“You want one of us to stay, Joe,” the black-haired man asked his brother.

Joe smiled weakly.  “Never…needed a..chaperone either.”

“Your young man will be quite safe with me, I promise,” Lotta said as she moved to Little Joe’s side and sat in the chair beside his bed.

“Dang,” Joe whispered, setting them all off again.

As he reached the door, Adam turned back into the room.  “Lotta?”

She looked up.  “Yes?”

“I’ll be waiting outside.”

Lotta remained in the seat for a moment and then stood up and perched with one hip on Joe Cartwright’s bed.   She reached toward him and then drew back, as if unsure of what he would think.

“And how are you, young man?” she asked.

Joe coughed and then answered, “Well, according to the doc…I won’t be…taking you to dinner anytime soon.”

“Perhaps on my next visit to Virginia City then.”

“You’re comin’ back?” he asked, brightening slightly.

“Oh, one never knows where the winds will blow this old ship,” she replied.  It was a good thing she was such a consummate actress.  Just looking at the boy was painful.  Before her lay the consequences of her avarice, wrapped in the battered and bruised form of one young man whose life had almost been lost at the cost of her folly.

“You look…kind of sad,” he said.  “Don’t you want…to come back?”

“Oh, my dear Joseph, I would return if only to take a spin on the dance floor with you.”  She forced herself to look into the washed-out face that had only a few day before been so robust and full of life.  Control was a way of life with her, and she mastered  her shame and grief.   Leaning in close to his ear, she whispered, “Don’t tell anyone, but I happen to like younger men.”

“You mean…you like me better than…older brother?”

“Adam?” she asked.  “Well, he is handsome….”  As the boy’s face fell, she finished, “But not half so handsome as you.  Now you listen to me, Little Joe.”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

She smiled.  ‘Ma’am’.

“If you promise to get better, I’ll swing back this way after my Nevada engagements are through – in say, about a month?  And then you and I can sneak out to that French restaurant and have that dinner and dance.  How does that sound?”

“Like Heaven, Ma’am,” he breathed as his eyes began to close.

She leaned in again. “Little Joe?”

Those long dark lashes, thick as any girl’s, fluttered, revealing a pair of sleepy emerald-green eyes.  “Mm-hm?”

“Don’t tell Adam,” she whispered and then she kissed him on the lips.

That, and a smile, remained on Little Joe’s lips as he fell asleep.

Adam was waiting for her.  Lotta used up her four minutes and fifty-five seconds and emerged as the town clock struck nine.  It had been a long day and he was weary to the bone.  Pa had gone back in to be with Joe and Hoss was bedded down in one of the spare rooms of Paul Martin’s house.  Though Joe wasn’t completely out of danger, they were all optimistic.

It would take more than one deranged mine owner to take the Cartwrights down.

And more than one beautiful woman.

“Lotta,” he said as she appeared.

“So now it’s ‘Lotta’, is it?” that beautiful woman said as she came to his side.  “What happened to ‘Miss Crabtree’?  Didn’t your father teach you manners?”

“My father taught me a lot of things,” he said as he caught her wrist in his fingers.

“Good things, I hope?” she asked, her voice betraying just a hint of fear.

“I’m sorry for before, when I manhandled you,” he said and meant it.  “I was so worried about Little Joe, I –”

Her finger touched his lips.  “You men of the West, there’s something about you.  You’re rough and a bit uncouth….”

He blinked.  “I beg your pardon.  I’ll have you know I could perform just about any scene in Shakespeare with you.”

She paused and then said, “How about Juliet and…Adam Cartwright?”

He wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but it didn’t really matter.   He reached out to touch her silken brown hair.  “Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright.  It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear’.  A beauty to rich for use, for Earth to dear.”

She reached out to cup his cheek with her hand.  “Did my heart love ‘til now, forswear it sight, for I ne’er knew true beauty ‘til this night.”

“Hey,” he laughed, “that’s my line.”

“Oh dear,” Lotta said.  “I must be slipping.” She paused and a pained look overtook her lovely face.  “Adam, I hope you all know.  I never wanted to hurt Little Joe – or any of you.”

“Pa showed me that envelope you gave him.  The one with Troy’s bank note.”

“Blood money,” she said with disgust.

“And, you already have ten thousand in the bank.”

She batted her eyelashes.  “Oh.  I do.  Silly me, I forgot all about it.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

Lotta  smiled sweetly.  “It’s in the contract.”  Then she added, “Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say goodnight until it be morrow.”

“I shall forget thee to have thee still standing there, remembering how I love your company,” he quoted in reply, and, in many ways meant it.  “I’ll miss you Lotta, even though you’ve been nothing but trouble.”

She stood on tip-toe and planted a kiss on his lips.   “What’s a girl for if not to bring a little trouble into a man’s life?” she asked coyly.

“This,” Adam replied as he crushed her to him and kissed her with the power to take her breath away.

At that moment someone cleared their throat.  “Adam, sorry to…intrude, but Joe’s awake and he’s askin’ for you.”

It was Hoss,  Adam turned and waved at him.  “Coming,” he said.

When he turned back, Lotta was gone.

“A rose by any other name,” he sighed and then followed his brother inside.

Tags:  Adam Cartwright, Ben Cartwright, Family, Hoss Cartwright, Joe / Little Joe Cartwright, kidnap, Lotta Crabtree, Paul Martin, revenge, SJS