Chapter 15

Crossing Bridges

Back in the saddle, hallelujah! Joe spurred his horse into a short gallop, just for the sake of it, just for the feel of not being restrained, just for a few minutes of revelling in that glorious sense of freedom only a good lope brought—or perhaps a stolen kiss behind the sheriff’s office. Doctor Martin wouldn’t exactly be happy if he could see him right now, and with good reason. Joe’s newly healed side hurt like nobody’s business whenever Cochise misstepped and he had to follow the horse’s movements to balance himself. Spending the day sitting either on horseback or on a hard wooden chair in Billy-Bob Colston’s jail cell and wandering down A Street to the telegraph office hadn’t helped ease the soreness, either. And so Joe allowed himself only a short spurt and reined his horse in before he could actually aggravate his side. Pa kept an ever-vigilant eye on him, and Joe knew that at any sign of discomfort he’d be confined to another round of nerve-grating staying-at-the-ranch-doing-nothing.

And, honestly, Joe had read enough dime novels, cleaned enough rifles and repaired enough cinches and halters. Had squandered enough time on that danged old settee. He needed to be outside, to be at the fresh air, to see people and places, to do things. To do things and maybe forget—

No, he wouldn’t. Wouldn’t forget. Not with those dreams about a haunted and lost-looking Adam he still had nearly every night; not with Pa’s face looking older, more tired, more lined each day—ever since two weeks ago, Hoss’s telegram had arrived with the grave news about Juliet and her baby.

He’d almost forgotten it all while he’d talked to Billy-Bob. The man had been a sorry sight: unwashed and with dirty clothes like most long-term jailbirds, he had the shaking hands and the gaunt look of someone who’d been deprived of his usual intake of alcohol for a long period of time and now suffered from the resulting inability to keep food inside. Sitting on his cot with slumped shoulders and his head hanging, his whole demeanour spoke of misery and resignation.

Billy-Bob had confirmed what Joe had heard from the sheriff already: the miner had lost his job at the Ophir Mine; and even though Joe was determined to talk to Mr. Hamish, the mine’s foreman, or perhaps even ask Pa to do that, he didn’t think it would help much. Maybe Pa would find another way to make sure Billy-Bob would be able to earn his living after having been acquitted of charges. A small patch of land at the outskirts of the Ponderosa, perhaps…

It hadn’t been easy to convince Billy-Bob that pressing charge against him and then hiring Hiram Wood as defence lawyer was the best choice of action. With Joe testifying for Billy-Bob and Hiram’s well-known ability to make juries see things his way, a non-guilty verdict was as good as guaranteed—but Billy-Bob had not seen it that way. In fact, he considered it another act of “Cartwright high- and mightiness” at first.

“Yer thinking y’can jest lock me away ferever, ain’t ya?” he had yelled and leapt up, but Joe stopped him with a dark glance.

“Sit,” he said. It did come out more sharply then intended, and was enhanced by Roy’s hollering from the office to “keep it down” or he wouldn’t allow Billy-Bob any more visitors—and it made Billy-Bob collapse down onto his cot instantly when what little gumption he’d had left just dissipated.

He remained sitting there for the rest of Joe’s stay, motionless but for an occasional shrugging of his shoulders and faint flutter of his arms, which might have looked almost comical had it not reminded Joe of a beetle impaled alive on a display needle.

“Billy-Bob,” Joe tried “it’s not what you think. I don’t want you to go to prison.”

“Then why’re you pressin’ charges?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do. Otherwise…people would think it fishy if we just drop charges. This way it’ll all be fair and square; and you’ll be officially cleared.”

Digesting this, Billy-Bob chewed the inside of his mouth and considered Joe through narrowed eyes for quite a while before he said, “And why’re ya doin’ this fer me, huh?”

“I…” Joe sighed and fidgeted on the hard stool, partly to find a more comfortable position, partly to stall for time to find out what exactly had made him do it. ‘Adam would do it that way’ was a valid motivation in Joe’s world, but he knew that others wouldn’t necessarily see it that way. “It’s…the whole thing…I mean, somehow I started it when I smacked you back then and I…I shouldn’t have…I’m sorry I did it, really.”

“Yeah,” Billy-Bob said. “And I’m sorry, too, I reckon. ’Bout the things I done said then, and ’bout…well, ’bout shootin’ at ya.” And then he shrugged and flapped his arms and finally looked Joe square in the eye. “I jest wanted to scare ya a little, not—Joe, I’d never hurt a lady.”

Joe had nodded, and then he and Billy-Bob had sat in mutual silence and watched dust particles dance in the small ray of sun coming through the cell’s tiny window.

Eventually Roy had come and said that Joe had stayed long enough, and that his jail wasn’t a meeting hall. Joe, who’d known he’d been stalling, had left only reluctantly and promised Billy-Bob to stop by again soon. And then he’d dragged himself to the telegraph office like he’d promised Pa—even though he didn’t agree with his father about the content of the telegram he’d been made to send.

Pa had been devastated by Hoss’s telegram. They both had been shaken by the news, but Pa…Pa had seemed more affected, more struck. He’d blamed himself that he’d not noticed Juliet’s delicate condition, that he’d not held her back—ignoring Joe’s reminder that he couldn’t have held her back because she’d left the house in the wee hours of morning, unseen by anyone.

Mourning the child that would never live and fearing for the mother, they’d included prayers for both, Juliet and her child, in the blessing before supper every day, but somehow it hadn’t given Pa any peace—not the way it used to. He’d aged visibly in only a few days, sleeping badly if at all, eating too little and thinking too much. Far too much.

One night, around midnight, Joe had caught him sitting motionless in Adam’s blue chair which he’d moved to stand before the fireplace, staring unseeingly into the embers. He’d hesitated, but just for a spell, and then he’d silently gone and squatted down next to the chair and put an arm around Pa’s shoulders.

“You gotta move on, you know,” he’d said softly. “Brooding won’t help you any. We have to keep—”

“Yes, exactly,” Pa had interrupted him. He hadn’t averted his eyes from the dying fire, as if he’d seen things in there Joe couldn’t. “Life goes on. What happened, happened; and there’s no way we can change it. We can only change what lies ahead.”

“What…?”

“This…insanity has to stop. Right now.”

“Which insan—I don’t know what you mean, Pa.”

“I’m calling them home, Joe. This family has made enough sacrifices.”

“But—”

“Juliet has lost her baby, she’s nearly lost her life—and all for a fruitless search. I won’t allow her to endanger herself more after she’s recuperated. She has to come home and find peace.”

“Pa, you can’t …Adam is out there somewhere, they have to find him!”

“Son, we have to accept that Adam might not—” He bit his lip, then squeezed out, “…be there anymore.”

“But Pa…”

“And if he’s out there, he will come back on his own eventually. After all those weeks, how good a chance do you think they have to find him?”

“You want them to give up on him?”

“I want them to stay safe. I want Henry to have a mother, I want Juliet to pick up her life again, I want Hoss to be relieved of the burden to carry them all; I want them to be whole and I want them to be at home, where we can support each other.”

Joe slowed Cochise down to a leisurely walk. No need to hurry, why not prolong being out for a spell? It seemed easier to think out here, as if the open range gave his thoughts wings. Perhaps that was what Adam had meant whenever he’d said he needed to clear his mind and then had ridden away and been gone for days.

Joe’s thoughts flew back to that night Pa had set his mind. He understood him, but he still disagreed. No matter if Pa said otherwise, abandoning the search for Adam seemed like acknowledging the fact that he was dead, like giving up, like betrayal.

And even though he’d done what he’d reluctantly promised and sent the telegram as his father had worded it, he fervently hoped that for once Hoss would not obey the words that admitted Pa’s defeat.

***

“NO MORE SACRIFICES STOP COME HOME IMMEDIATELY STOP PA”

Hoss rescued the telegram from Henry’s wet grip and managed to fold it in half and put it back onto the nightstand before the boy could make another attempt at grabbing it again. Henry had obviously developed a taste for paper over the last few days. He crumpled up every piece he could get a hold of, be it a page from a book or a letter, and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing happily on it as if it were the most toothsome thing he knew.

Securing the baby on his lap with one hand Hoss reached down to the floor to where Henry’s newest toy had fallen moments ago, giving him a reason to look for something else to abuse. Ever since he’d discovered that other things than his own hands and feet could be toys, too, Henry had made it his habit to grab everything he could reach and then pick and prod at it, pinch and pluck—before he’d inevitably stuff it into his mouth. Mrs. Milward had finally made him a rag doll, to keep his hands from cups and saucers, silver spoons and, yes, papers.

Hoss plucked the doll up and handed it to Henry, who snatched it from him with a happy crowing and immediately began to pick at the thick blue zigzag stitches that marked the doll’s overalls before he diverted his attention to its face.

“Da,” he said, prodding one green eye. Then, looking up at Hoss’s face, he repeated, “Da.”

“Yeah, that’s his eye, ainnit?” Hoss said with a smile.

“Da.” Henry pointed to the other eye.

“Well, that’d be the other eye then, little feller.”

“Da, da, da, da ,da,” Henry cooed cheerfully.

“Shh.” Hoss glanced to the bed beside him. “Yer mother is sleeping.”

Henry considered him for a moment, then leaned back on Hoss’s arm and said very softly, “Da, da, da.” The doll went into his mouth and he chewed upon it with much enthusiasm, making little munching sounds.

“Atta boy,” Hoss chuckled.

His eyes went back to the bed where Juliet lay, pale and unmoving, but finally sleeping naturally and peacefully. He’d been keeping vigil over her for long days and nights, watching her fight for her life still and silent, in her own trademark containment. Countless times he’d held his hand under her nose to see if she was still breathing or if she’d gone already, quiet and dignified. Unnoticed.

Her stillness had perturbed Hoss. From his brothers’ sick beds he was used to flailing limbs, to head throwing and to speaking in the sleep. He’d calmed them after nightmares, held them down when delusions misled them into action and soothed them when they’d talked nonsense. He’d seen them writhe and squirm, and heard them groan and cry.

Juliet had done none of that. She’d lain there, completely motionless, the rise and fall of her chest too soft to be noticed, and even her breath so shallow that it couldn’t be heard. The doctor had said she was too weak to move, the blood loss too severe, that her body needed every ounce of strength to simply survive. But Hoss had suspected that that wasn’t the only thing that kept her silent: that she didn’t let herself go because a lady just didn’t do that.

Only once had she woken out of her stupor, and it had scared Hoss nearly to death. It had been in the early hours of morning, shortly before sunrise, and he’d just relieved Mrs. Milward from her night watch when Juliet had suddenly sat up. Her eyes wide, she’d stared into nowhere, her gaze focused, that much Hoss had seen, but on what? And then she’d stretched her arms out, as if she’d been trying to reach what ever she’d seen, and said, “Help me, Adam. I need you.”

After that, she’d never woken again. She’d worsened throughout the next few days, constantly getting weaker. They’d thought they’d lost her, not once but several times; and the doctor’s grave prognosis had fuelled their fears: they’d prepared for the worst.

Taking turns at Juliet’s bedside, they’d made sure she’d never been alone. And so Hoss had been on his own when a kind reverend had spoken a benediction over a tiny mound of earth at the Evergreen Cemetery. It had been difficult enough to find a man of God who was willing to do this small service. To his utter disgust, Hoss had learnt that the contains of the tiny bundle of cloth, that what should have been Juliet’s and Adam’s second child, was not considered a person, not someone with a soul by most people to whom he’d spoken. A clergyman from the Lutheran Seminary finally had shown mercy, and rendered the child the last service. It had given Hoss some peace of mind, and he’d tried to memorise everything of the short ceremony in the hopes that a rendering of his memories would help Juliet to find peace, too.

It had been Henry who’d made the difference, who’d brought a change in Juliet’s condition—about that Hoss was certain. Mrs. Milward had brought him into the bedroom one day, declaring that he needed to be nursed to maintain the milk supply—and from that day on, Juliet seemed to, well, not really improve, but not longer worsen, either.

The final breakthrough had come when Henry had made it very clear that he wanted to stay with his mother, and they’d let him sit on Juliet’s bed and play with the rag doll or sleep where he’d wriggled himself into the crook of his mother’s arm. Juliet had finally woken up every once in a while, had been lucid and responsive, and been able to stay awake longer at each time.

“Da,” Henry said again, and held the rag doll on his outstretched arm up to Hoss face.

“No, thanks,” Hoss grinned. “I ain’t hungry, right now. Funny as it seems.”

Then Henry turned around and held the doll out to the bed—and suddenly his face lit up into one of his fat, toothless smiles. “Da,” he cried. “Da, da!”

Hoss had no doubt as to why Henry was so happy. He looked to the bed, and saw Juliet, awake and smiling, her face still showing a sickly pallor but also reflecting the light of Henry’s smile. Hoss helped her sit up propped against a mountain of pillows he placed behind her back, then seated Henry next to her. Henry, obviously happy with himself and the world, waved the doll at his mother and excitedly babbled his “da, da, da” in never ending succession.

Being able to sit and to stay awake for a longer period of time was an achievement of the past two days, as was Juliet’s ability to eat nourishing food and actually keep it down. And the recovery of her unique talent to jump into uncomfortable conversations without a forewarning at any odd time.

“Have you sent back a telegram already?” she asked without preamble, while carefully removing the rag doll from the immediate proximity of her face. Then she turned her attention to Henry and, holding his hands and the doll down, said softly, “Mummy isn’t up to digesting rags yet.”

As always, Henry listened intently to his mother’s words, then he leaned forward and reached for her face. She laughed, took his hand and kissed the palm, which made Henry giggle. It didn’t distract her from her inquiry, though.

“Have you?”

“No. I’m not sure…”

“Not sure? We’ve talked about that, Hoss.”

Hoss looked down at his lap where he was kneading his hands. “I’m jest not sure…” He scratched at the back of his neck. “Perhaps we better go home.”

“I’m in no condition to travel anyway. And when I’ve recovered we’re going to continue looking for Adam.” She looked sharply at Hoss. Her eyes bright from the lingering fever but vivacious, they were a sparkling contrast to her tired face. “Or perhaps I will continue searching for Adam. I will not give up.”

He cringed. “This ain’t about giving up. But…I think Pa’s right, we’ve made enough sacrifices. You’ve made enough sacrifices. I don’t want you to hurt no more.”

“Going home won’t stop making us hurt, Hoss.” She held her hand up to stop him from replying when he opened his mouth. “And don’t tell me you are not hurting. I know you are. I’m sorry I poured this…” she made a vague gesture “…upon you. And yet I am so very glad you’re here with me…and Henry. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

He fidgeted on his chair. “It’s all right…”

“And I’d be very grateful if you stayed with me. But I’d understand if you’d rather listen to your Pa and go home.”

He stared at her. Her face was guileless, and yet…

And then she winced and her eye grew wide. “Good gracious, Hoss, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply…. It’s just, I can’t…I can’t go back. I can’t stop searching. I know Adam’s out there, and he’s trying to come back…I know that, Hoss. I don’t know why, I just feel it. And I can’t…just go and leave him alone. He trusts me to wait for him.”

“You can’t know that,” Hoss almost whispered. “He don’t even know you’re here.”

“But if he knew he’d trust me to stay.”

Hoss head spun. What Juliet said was plain loco, delusional, absurd—and yet, it made sense, in some twisted way.

“Are you doing this for Adam or for yerself, Juliet?”

She wrapped her arms around herself, pulled her shoulders up, seemed to practically shrink into herself. “For us both,” she whispered eventually. “For Adam and for me.”

“Then it’s decided.” He pried her hands from her shoulders, encompassed them in his hands, her small, pale hands in his big, tanned; and squeezed tenderly. “We ain’t givin’ up.”

She smiled, just a trace of a smile, and nodded. “No, we…ain’t givin’ up.”

__________
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

***

 The words given were: dissipated, impaled, benediction, toothsome, zigzag.