Summary:  WHN for My Brother’s Keeper.  After the accident in which Adam shot Joe, Adam suffers guilt that affects every aspect of his life until Joe comes up with a way to fix that.
Rating:  PG   Word count:  1,680

Atonement

It had been fun for a while. In fact, Joe had felt it was justified at first. When Adam volunteered to do his chores for him, he accepted, and his father and middle brother seemed to think it was a good idea too at first. Still sore after being shot, Adam’s crude surgery, and all that had to be done after that, Joe’s shoulder needed some rest. His brother, Adam, was in need of some task that made him feel that he was making reparations for his lapse in good judgment. So many times he had lectured Joe to know his field of fire before shooting. Then he had failed miserably to follow his own advice with Joe paying for it. Frankly, Joe thought it was fair that Adam was feeling terribly guilty even if Joe knew he was at fault too for the accident. He should never have gone after that wolf in heavy brush like that, and he might likely have died if Adam hadn’t come to his aid.

However, in the process, his brother had shot him before killing the wolf. Joe forgave Adam because he understood it was an accident, and he did accept that he was as much responsible as his brother. There was still a little part of him that thought he had paid a higher price for that accident than his brother had because he had never witnessed the torment his brother suffered while he lay unconscious. To Joe, it seemed fair that Adam do some work for Joe to help even up those scales of justice. Because Joe knew how Adam liked to keep things fair, he felt he was actually doing a good thing. It was only as the weeks turned into a full month that he began to realize that perhaps there was a greater penalty in the way Adam was punishing himself. The haunted look, the way he took on every onerous task like a penance, and the lack of active participation in any family discussion or activity began to worry him. It did seem that perhaps Adam’s nights as well as days were being held hostage to that one mistake.

His father and brother, Hoss, had been worried for some time, but Joe dismissed their observations at first. He thought they were overly concerned about his serious brother. Dismissing those issues, he had thought Adam would snap out of it after he got a chance to think about it especially as he saw his younger brother heal up and get back to doing normal things. But as Joe took on those duties and showed no lasting ill effects, the same could not be said for his oldest brother. Adam stayed as dour and depressed as he had been in the immediate aftermath of the whole mess. Ben pulled Joe aside for a private discussion when Adam and Hoss left to cut some timber for fence posts.

“Don’t you think it’s about time you eased up on your oldest brother?”

“Pa, he likes doing all those extra jobs. It makes him feel like he’s a better person again. I’m actually helping him out by letting him do my chores.”

Although Joe no longer was sure that had any truth to it, he didn’t know how to express his doubts. He fell back into his normal bravado.

“Joe, if it was only that simple, I wouldn’t be talking to you about it. By having him do all these tasks for you, you are, in effect, telling him he isn’t a good person. You’re making him work to be accepted as if he isn’t worthy to be part of this family unless he works harder and longer than the rest of us. He has to prove himself again and again every day waiting for you to say it’s enough and he’s forgiven.”

“That’s not what I wanted. I was only letting him do some things so he could feel like he had made things even between us, you know, evened the score, more or less. I already told him I forgave him.”

“If evening the score was even necessary, that’s not what is happening. You may have told him you forgave him, but you’re reinforcing the guilt he feels by telling him by your actions that there was a reason for that guilt. Your brother has a tendency to blame himself for things that go wrong. Yes, he acted impulsively and the result could have been far worse, but you have wounded him as seriously now as he wounded you.”

Unwilling to accept those concepts at first, Joe started to pay more attention to Adam and how he was acting. He did look a little gaunt and like he still wasn’t sleeping well with dark circles under his eyes. When Joe could, he opened up a frank conversation with his oldest brother.

“Adam, I’ve had a lot of time to think in the last month or so, and I know you weren’t responsible for what had happened to me any more than I was. It was an accident. Can we put that behind us and move forward again. I can do my own chores. Heck, I’m doing all my regular work on the ranch now.”

“All right, Joe, if that’s what you want.”

The response was more neutral than he had expected to get. There didn’t seem to be any change in Adam either. However, Joe wasn’t sure what he could do about the situation because he knew no one could ever tell Adam what to think. So he began to scheme and came up with a plan. What he hoped would work was that if he set himself up so Adam could save him, that would be the atonement that his brother needed. It didn’t quite work out as he planned though because Adam was more mad than grateful when it happened.

“Thanks for saving my butt. I thought I might have done something that was going to get me killed back there.”

“What kind of fool stunt was that?”

“I thanked you. You could say something to that.”

“How about you acting stupid? Any greenhorn should know you don’t get off your horse in the middle of a bunch of cattle. At least you don’t do it without a couple of other hands there to protect you. Doing it all by yourself was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen you do.”

“Are you saying I’m stupid?”

“No, I said you acted that way.”

“Well, I’m not stupid, and you’re arrogant to even say that. I saw you were close and I knew you could help me if I needed it. That’s not stupid, that’s smart.”

“I’m not arrogant. I’m the brother who had to save you from yourself again. All you had to do was let me know what you were going to do and wait for me to get over by you. You took too big a chance doing it without telling me. That’s not arrogance, by the way, that’s common sense.”

With a sneer to match his sarcasm, Joe answered in the same tone as Adam was using forgetting entirely that he had wanted to help his brother. “Well, that’s what I do. I’m just here to make you feel good about yourself.”

“I don’t need you to make me feel good about myself.”

“I guess not. You seem to feel awfully good about yourself without any help from me. You don’t seem to mind telling me how smart you are either.”

Hearing the exchange, Hoss and Ben looked at each other. Hoss was the first to speak. “Lordy, seems like things are finally back to normal.”

Ben shrugged in agreement. “It was bound to happen. They’ve been holding back for too long. It was building to the bursting point.”

“They need one of them valves like a steam engine’s got that you can pull a cord and let the extra steam out.”

Ben had to laugh then at the image of steam coming out of Adam’s head and then the picture of the same happening with Joe. Hoss asked why he was laughing so he told him and had company in the mirth. Adam and Joe didn’t notice as they continued to trade insults for a while until they ran out of things to say. Adam was the first to break looking at Joe who had pursed his lips and frowned as he tried to think of a good insult for Adam that he hadn’t used yet. Adam waited, and the longer he waited, the more the humor of the situation began to affect him.

“Maybe I should go get my dictionary so we could look up more words to call each other.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“So is this, little brother. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. It near killed me after I did. I don’t want to do that.”

“Aw, none of this hurt. This was a challenge. You got some good ones in there, but I got you with a few good ones too. Mine might have even been a little sharper. I think you’re a little behind in your practice, so I did better than the usual.”

“Yes, you did. How about we head to town and celebrate with a beer?”

“Or two or three.”

“Sounds good.” Looking over to where their father stood with Hoss, Adam called out to him. “Pa, Joe and I are going to town. We’ll be back late. Don’t hold dinner.”

Hoss wasn’t to be denied though. “Hey, wait for me. I like going to town too.”

“What about me? You automatically ignore your father when there’s fun to be had?”

All four rode to town for a few beers, and they rode back later singing a few bawdy songs. Adam had learned some in San Francisco and Ben knew quite a few from his time at sea. Both thought it about time to teach the younger two. Rolling into his bed that night, Ben thought atonement had been achieved all around.

Tags:  Adam Cartwright, Ben Cartwright, Joe / Little Joe Cartwright