“Pssst! Hoss! Over here!”

“Little Joe, where you been? I been lookin’ all over town for you! Why’re you hidin’ in the alley?”

“Shh!”

“Look at you, Boy, you’re a mess! You let Hop Sing see that shirt and you’ll never hear the end of it. And what happened to your hat?”

 “Not so loud!”

“What’d you do to your hand? That looks like Doc Martin’s handiwork.” 

“Can’t you keep your voice down? Do you have to bellow at me like a hog-caller hungry for bacon?”

“OK, OK. How’d you hurt your hand? I swear, I can’t let you oughta my sight for more’n five minutes and you’re makin’ another visit to the doc.”

“It’s not my fault!” 

“Oh, ain’t it?”

“Well, not really.”

“Just whose fault is it? What happened after I dropped you off at the livery?”

“We-ell, Mr. Peabody had this new horse for sale-“

“The blue roan I saw tied up outside the livery? That’s one flashy lookin’ animal!”

“That’s what I said! Oww!”

“Little brother, you better take it easy with your hand-wavin’ for a while. Wait a minute-you didn’t get into an argument with some yahoo over whether that blue roan was a good horse?”

“Not really, Hoss-I just said I thought the horse might be a little hard to handle.”

“How does that get you a bandaged hand?”

“Well, it wasn’t really the horse that did it-“

“Then what was it?”

“Cecil Jenkins happened to be standin’ nearby when I said it, and-“

“And I’ll just bet that contrary old curmudgeon said you couldn’t ride him-“

“Well, yeah, and you know that there hasn’t been a horse born that I can’t ride-“

“-Or a dare that you won’t take.” 

“What’d you say, Hoss?”

“Never mind. So you come off the horse-that how you hurt your hand?”

“Not really. I mean, I did ride the horse, and I did come off-“

“Little Brother, you should’ve known Harry wouldn’t been sellin’ that horse if’n it was any good.”

“But I couldn’t NOT ride, not with all the bettin’ goin’ on-“

“When are you gonna learn? So you come off the horse and broke your hand and lost all your money?”

“Well, I did come off the horse-“

“Joseph, if you don’t have the dad-blamedest luck of anyone I ever saw-“

“Not really. Because if I hadn’t fallen off that horse, I never would have seen the twenty dollar gold piece laying on the ground right where I fell.”

“Heh-that sure was lucky!”

“Not really. Because when I picked up the gold piece a miner accused me of stealing from his assay money. And he hit me right in the mouth and took the gold piece right outa my hand.”

“That sure was unlucky.”

“Not really, ’cause I fell backwards again on the ground, and wouldn’t you know but Mary Sue Hickenbottom was passing by and lit into that miner for hitting me.”

“That girl’s always been sweet on you. That’s good-ain’t it?”

“Not really. ‘Cause when she started hitting him with her parasol, she stepped right on my hand with her brand new shiny-heeled shoes, and she crunched a bone in my hand.”

“Ouch! That’s bad, Little Brother!”

“Well, not really. With a broken hand I knew I’d have to stay home from that buying trip to Carson with Adam-and that meant I wouldn’t miss the Spring Dance after all. After Mary Sue chased that miner away-well, being the quick thinker that I am, I asked her to the dance.”

“You sure are one to make lemonade out of lemons. So you’re takin’ Mary Sue to the dance?”

“Not really. When I told her-in the nicest possible way, I swear!-that it was lucky for us that she wasn’t too careful where she stepped in her new shoes, she hit me with her parasol and said she wouldn’t go to any dance with me. I had to make my way over to Doc Martin’s all by myself.”

“That’s too b-bad!”

“It ain’t funny! And it wasn’t bad either, Hoss, not really, because on my way over to Doc’s I ran into Billie Jo Parker, who was so upset to see that I’d been hurt that she walked over with me and I asked her to go to the dance with me.”

“That’s real good thinkin’, Joe.”

“Not really, ’cause comin’ out of Doc’s we bumped right into her big brother Bobby Ray by the back of the Jenkins’s place. He was carrying a big sack, and when he heard her say she was going with me-“

“No, don’t say it. I already know. That varmint Bobby Ray thinks his sister is too good for any man.”

“Yup. Especially me. At least that’s what he told me while he was trying to beat the stuffing out of me.”

“And you with a bad hand! Is that how you got the black eye?”

“No, that was Mary Sue.”

“Heh-heh-mm-did you get any licks in on Bobby Ray yourself?”

“Not really. I just sorta dodged and generally tried to stay out of his way.”

“You ain’t had nothin’ but bad luck.”

“We-ell-I wouldn’t say that exactly. Turns out, sheriff’s been after Bobby Ray for stealin’ chickens. When he started the fight with me, he dropped his sack, and sure enough, that sack had two chickens in it. Bobby Ray’s hollerin’ drew so much notice that the sheriff caught up with him and hauled him off to jail.”

“You done a good deed after all, Joe. That’s one happy smile you’ve got on your face.”

“I surely did.” Pause. “Cecilia Jenkins was so happy her chicken thief had been caught, that she kissed me right there in the alley.”

“Cecilia Jenkins? Ain’t she the one with the great big-“

Sigh. “She surely is.”

“Any man on earth’d be wishing he was in your boots! Whooee! Kissin’ Cecilia Jenkins! I hoped you kinda leaned close into her-“

“Hoss! What do you take me for? Keep your voice down!”

“Sorry-“

“-of course I leaned into her! What man wouldn’t? I was so close I could taste her perfume-French, I’ll bet-and she has the tiniest mole right on her-“

“Joe, I can’t believe you was kissin’ the most vi-o-lup-tu-lous woman in all of Virginia City! Was it-nice?”

Silence.

“Joe? Come on-you can tell me! You gotta tell me! Was it the best kiss you ever had?”

“Not really.”

“Not really? Joe, you’re gonna stand there and tell me that Cecelia Jenkins, who used to work in one of them-them fancy houses in San Francisco, Cecelia, the Belle of the Barbary Coast, whose blond curls and blue eyes are downright legendary, second only to her big, soft-“

“Hoss!”

“-heart-you mean to tell me that you was kissed by the most beautiful woman you’re ever likely to see and it wasn’t even ‘nice’?”

“Not really.”

“Joseph, you say that one more time and I’m gonna thump you good! How could being kissed by Cecelia Jenkins not be a good thing?”

“You’re forgettin’, Hoss. It’s MRS. Cecilia Jenkins.”

“Oh.” Pause. “Cecil saw her kissin’ you, did he?”

Nod. 

“C’mere, let me look at you-hold still, yeah, now turn around. Aside from your eye and your hand, I don’t see no damage. Did he hurt ya? If’n I’d known you were in trouble, I’d a-“

“No, he didn’t hurt me.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Joe, I swear, talking with you is like trying to get information outa a dadblamed brick wall! Let me look at that eye.”

“Don’t you think it’s funny that a man named Cecil, a man like him, ends up married to a woman named Cecilia-a woman like that?”

“There’s no accountin’ for taste, as Adam always says. Here, hold this wet kerchief on your eye ’til we get home. Maybe he’s got some-advantages-that we can’t see.”

“Ha ha.”

“Don’t snort at me, Little Brother. Who chooses to marry who ain’t the issue here. Dadburn it Joe, what’d Cecil do? And why are your clothes all wet?”

“Hoss-“

“Joe, he-he didn’t-huh-d-did he toss you in the h-horse tr-trough?”

“Shut up! It ain’t funny!”

“He d-did, didn’t he? That’s wh-why you’re all wet! An’ th-that’s why you’re s-skulking around here in the alley instead of m-meeting me at the wagon!”

“Quit your laughin’ and keep your voice down! He’s still looking for me! You know he’s got a temper a mile wide and seven years long! He’ll keep after me until-“

“Now Little Joe, don’t you worry, Ol’ Hoss is here. You don’t think I’d let that ornery galoot hurt my little brother, do you?”

“Thanks, Hoss.”

“Let’s head home. You’ve had about all the socializin’ I can stand. The wagon’s right down here.”

“Hoss?” 

“You need help climbing up here, Joe?” 

“No-I’ve got it. Hoss-“

“Giddup there, Mouse! Giddup there, Smoke!”

“Hoss-you meant what you said about not letting anyone hurt me, didn’t you?”

“Why, sure I did, Joe, you know I’d help you out anytime.”

“In that case, Hoss, you won’t say anything about all this to Pa, will you? Or to Adam? ‘Cause I’ll never hear the end of it if you do. I can count on you, can’t I, Brother, to keep this just between us? Can’t I?”

“Not really, Little Brother. Not really.”

The End

June 2008

Special thanks to pjb for diligent and helpful editing! You really made this story!