Summary:  Fifteen-year-old Little Joe Cartwright is in love and, as usual, it brings a world of trouble.  Can big brother Adam save the day or will he too be drawn in by the Painted Lady and lose not only his way, but maybe his life?

Rating:  PG

Word Count: 29,166

 

Chapter One

She was the most beautiful thing fifteen-year-old Joe Cartwright had ever seen.

And he had to see her, every time he could.  If his pa knew that over the last four days he hadn’t been out once to help the hands lay the new fence – or gone fishing with his friend Seth or stayed at the Devlins overnight – but had put heels to horseflesh and flown southeast to Genoa City in time to make one or both of the theatrical performances at Livingston’s Exchange, he wouldn’t be able to sit down for a month!  Maybe a whole year!!  But it didn’t matter.  All that mattered was seeing her.

His painted lady.

That was what she called herself, or actually what her act was called: The Painted Lady.  There was a sign out front of the elevated brick building that said so in letters nearly a foot high.  Onstage she wore a burnt-orange, brown, and black and white costume that fit her slender figure like a glove.  It had a flowing cape attached at the shoulders that alternately hid and highlighted her long shapely legs as she moved.  At times she would lift her arms and spread it wide and look just like the pretty butterfly she was named after.  Little Joe let out a sigh as he approached the steps that led up and into the Exchange’s saloon.  Yesterday morning he’d been in the settlement with Hoss.  He’d seen a net hanging on the wall of the mercantile and almost bought it just so he could catch her and keep her from flying away.  If she flew away, he didn’t know what he’d do.

Little Joe Cartwright was in love.

He’d decided it was fate and that was what made him bold.  After all, he shouldn’t even know she existed.  He wouldn’t have if one of Pa’s ranch hands hadn’t taken pity on him and brought him into Genoa about ten days back.  His pa had been watching him like a hawk of late on account of he’d been tossed from a horse and thrown into a fence.  He dusted himself off,  got right back up, and headed for the ornery nag – just like Adam or Hoss would have done – and that was when the fireworks went off.  JOSEPH FRANCIS CARTWRIGHT COME HERE THIS INSTANT!  Pa must have yelled loud enough for the folks to hear him in Hangtown.  That was the only explanation he could come up with for the fact that the doctor showed up lickety-split to take a look at him.  So what if he cracked a couple of ribs?  His brothers had done the same – and worse.  The doctor said he had a moderate concussion too and that sealed the deal.  He was sent to bed and hovered over for the next five days like he was on his deathbed or something.  One night when he was layin’ there sulking, Adam came in to talk.  Being cooped up like that had put him in a pretty foul mood, so he rolled over and ignored him.  Older brother stood at his bedside for a minute or two, sighed, and announced, ‘A horse killed your mama and Pa’s afraid a horse will kill you too’ just before he disappeared.

How did a man of the West live with that?

Anyhow, just when he thought he’d been liberated from ‘prison’, Pa told him he wasn’t allowed to ride.  He had to sit in the wagon for another whole week until he was completely ‘healed’.  That’s why he was with Angus McCreary in the first place.  He’d been pouring his heart out to the Scotsman when Angus suddenly decided Pa wouldn’t mind if they took a load of lumber into Genoa ahead of schedule.

So, it was really all Pa’s fault.

Unloading the lumber was hard work.  It was a hot day and both of them worked up a sweat and a powerful thirst.  As the sun passed its zenith, he asked Angus if they could get a drink somewhere before they headed home.   The Scot slapped him on the back and said he’d done a man’s day of work, so he deserved a man’s drink.

And took him to Livingston’s Exchange.

The patrons and hostesses looked at him mighty funny as they came through the saloon doors.  A burly man with a frown big as Hoss put his beer down on the counter and came over to bar their way.  Angus gave him a smile and pulled the bouncer aside and bent his ear for a couple of minutes.  When he returned, the Scot told him to stand up straight and look as ‘old’ as he could.

It didn’t help when Angus burst out laughing at his first attempt.

In the end everything turned out okay.  The stage at Livingston’s Exchange was hosting an international star for two weeks, so there were people of all ages and types came in the door not too long after them for the matinee performance.  By one o’clock, he was getting nervous.  That morning Pa made him promise to be home before dark and it took a good while to get there from Genoa.  When he told Angus he thought it was time to go, the Scot placed his boots on the chair next to him, pulled a passing hostess onto his lap, and ordered another whiskey.

Cassie was real pretty.  The hostess, that was.

It didn’t take Joe long to learn that Angus was a regular and knew most of the girls pretty well.  They kept coming over to the table to chat with him.  Soon enough they started talking to him too – laughing and smiling, even flirting a little bit – but most of the time running their fingers through his curls and giving him little pecks on the cheek.

Now, he wasn’t no innocent.  He’d been kissed before – plenty of times – in the church closet, in the tall grass behind the schoolhouse, and once even in a girl’s parlor when her ma stepped out to get him a slice of pie.  A kiss was more ‘intoxicating’ – that was one of big brother Adam’s words – than a glass of beer.  But there was something more he had yet to experience.  Something older men hinted at.  Something he knew Angus, and Adam and Hoss knew all about.  Pa too.  He had too, since he had them.

Amorous congress.

Little Joe blew out a breath.  He’d arrived just in time.  The bouncer saw him and waved a greeting.  As he waited in a line to enter, the teenager wondered briefly if he was going to Hell because he was fifteen and welcome at a saloon.  Not that it would have stopped him.

Nothing would have stopped him.

He had to see his painted lady.

When he was almost to the door Joe noticed a pair of well-dressed men standing to one side of the porch, smoking.  The taller one blew out a ring that came right at him.  It tickled his nose and made him sneeze.   A grizzled cowboy behind him snorted with laughter and shoved him in their direction so that he stumbled and almost ran into them.  As he righted himself, Joe heard the taller man say, “Don’t matter if he was dumber than a fence post.  Nobody deserved to be put down like that.  Stuck like a pig.”  The next moment someone caught his arm and pulled him toward the door and the shout went up, ‘Look who’s here, it’s Mr. Francis!’

About Francis?  Well, that was the first thing that came to mind.

Sad as it was.

He couldn’t use his real name, now could he?

The show had started by the time he walked in.  There were several acts and the Painted Lady’s was near the end.  The poster outside Livingston’s proclaimed that the current ‘engagement’ lasted only two weeks and today was day twelve.  Two more days and his painted lady was gonna fly away and he’d never see her again!  He’d been working up the courage over the last couple to ask the thin man with the thick mustache who escorted the singer to the stage each day if he could meet her.  Joe grinned.  Every time he saw the tall mustached man – who was really kind of odd – he’d remind himself of what his brother Hoss would say if he saw him.

‘That there feller’s so thin, little brother, if he closed one eye someone would mistake him for a needle and start sewin’!’.

One of Angus’ friends – and the Scot had lots of them at the Exchange – told him the thin man was ‘Professor Nether Blackfold’, a professional hypnotist and mesmerist with his own show who acted as the Painted Lady’s manager.  Joe glanced at the ramrod-straight man again.  When the professor was performing he wore a gold and blue turban and dressed like a sheik, just as he did in the illustration painted on the side of his wagon.  Other times – like now – he wore a plain black suit with a string tie and a fat bowler hat pitched forward on his thick black hair.  His pale blue eyes were always narrowed and he never smiled.  Once or twice that cold stare had landed on him and he’d felt like a bug pinned to a board.  Pa had a friend that was an entomologist and he’d done that when he visited the Ponderosa – gassed and then pinned bugs to a board, all the while exclaiming about how wonderful all the creepy-crawly things he’d found were.

The Professor was creepy-crawly.

Joe took his usual seat near the front just as the Painted Lady took the stage.  Not only was she the most beautiful thing he had ever seen; she had the voice of an angel!  Most of the songs were the bawdy kind Pa thought he’d never heard before, but toward the end there was one even older brother would have approved of.  When Adam asked him to sit down and listen to the same kind of thing – something he called an ‘aria’ – he’d shift and scoot and squirm and do just about anything to get out of it.

When the Painted Lady sang hers…it was different.

First thing, she’d cue the piano player.  Then, as the citified music filled the air, she’d say a few words, explaining how this was something she ‘had’ to do  and begging the audience’s ‘indulgence’.  Next she’d tell them the story of Lucia – the lady in the song – who went mad and stabbed her lover to death on the night of her honeymoon.  Just about then the yahoos who hadn’t seen her before would start booing and hissing.  Joe loved the Painter Lady’s smile, and it was then she would use it to hold their attention.   She’d lift one slender arm into the air and keep it there, while she used the other to free her lustrous black hair to fall about her white shoulders.  Then – and this was the part Pa would have had a cow about! – she’d undo the top laces of her corset and slowly and seductively pull out a bloody knife.

Then she’d begin to sing.

Sometimes that was all she did; remain on the stage and sing.  Other times, like tonight, the Painted Lady would descend the steps and spice up her performance by wandering through the crowd.  She’d act as if she was searching for someone and, eventually, stop at a table and single out one of the saloon’s patrons.

Little Joe Cartwright swallowed hard.

Tonight, it was his turn.

There were cat calls and hoots as the Painted Lady twisted her fingers in his curls and pulled his head back, and then placed the bloody knife against his throat.  Joe should have been afraid, but he wasn’t.  He was enthralled.

Pinned, just like one of the professor’s bugs.

When the aria ended, there was a gasp of silence, and then Livingston’s Exchange came alive with shouts and stomping.  The Painted Lady took a bow before favoring him with the most amazing smile.

“And for my ‘victim’ tonight,” she announced, ‘a kiss!”

Joe had to be honest.  He a melting moment right then and there and was sure glad there was a table between them.

As she turned to leave, Joe felt the singer’s hand brush his.  It wasn’t until she was back on the stage performing one last bawdy tune that he realized there was a folded piece of paper on the chair by his leg.  A couple of deep breaths gave him the courage to open it. This time they heard him holler all the way over there in Hangtown.

It was an invitation to her dressing room!

~~~~~~~~~~~

When Little Joe Cartwright stepped out of the bat-wing doors of Livingston’s Exchange he was strutting like a prize turkey at Thanksgiving.

And just as doomed.

As he emerged a hand gripped his collar, hauled him to one side, and a deep and unfortunately very familiar voice boomed, “So tell me, Mr. Francis, did you enjoy the show?”

Joe winced.  Then he gulped.  Then he managed to stutter, “Uh, hi, Adam.  What are…you…doing here?”

Older brother’s lips pursed as one ink-slash eyebrow leapt toward the brim of his gray felt hat.

“Me?” the teenager squeaked.  “You mean, you were looking for me?  I…I just came to see the show?”

He’d meant that last to come out forcefully, as the statement of a man who had a right to do as he pleased, but instead it squeaked out like a girl.

Adam’s hazel eyes narrowed.  “Did you now?”

The men who frequented Livingston’s were starting to stare.  Some of them even laughed.

Joe’s nostrils flared.  What did Adam think he was doing?!  Pa always told them a Cartwright had to have dignity and older brother sure  wasn’t helping his any!!

“Yeah, I did!  Doesn’t a feller have a right to do a thing he wants now and then?”

“You’re only fifteen, Joe,” Adam snarled, his voice pitched low.  “You don’t have a right to breathe unless Pa tells you to!”

He pulled himself up.  “Well, as a matter of fact Pa told me to….”

“Don’t try it!” older brother warned.   “Don’t you even try to tell me that Pa knows you’re here.  Adding another sin to the long list you’ve already accumulated isn’t going to help you any!”

“What long list?  Seein’ a show ain’t a sin!”

“Oh?”  Adam nodded toward it.  “I believe the sign over there clearly states that no one under seventeen is allowed to enter Livingston’s saloon.”

He had to admit, he had him there.

“Since you seem a bit confused about your transgressions of late, younger brother, permit me to spell them out for you.  Sin number one would be telling Pa you were going one place and going another instead.  Sin number two would be lying to cover up sin number one.  Number three would be coming to Genoa without permission.  Four, being underage and entering a saloon.”  Adam sighed.  “And five would be your despicable grammar….”

“Bad grammar ain’t…isn’t a sin!”

“It is in my book.  And six….”   Adam leaned in and sniffed.

“I haven’t had anything to drink!  I swear!”

His brother wrinkled his nose.  “Be sure to tell that to Cerberus when you reach the gates of Hades and perhaps he’ll use only one head to eat you.”

Joe was indignant.  Both at his overly educated older brother and the fact that he actually knew what the Yankee blockhead was talking about!

“I’m not going to Hell for sitting in a saloon and watching a lady sing!”

Adam’s gaze took in the ring of slightly intoxicated men surrounding them.  Several were quite amused, including one dressed in black who could have been his brother’s twin and a short, almost fat redhead with a bulbous nose.  Adam smiled politely at the onlookers and gave them a nod, and then took hold of his coat and pulled him into the lane that ran between the hotel and the stable.

“Look, Joe.  I get it.  You’re fifteen and fearless and you think you can handle anything.  The truth is you can’t.”  Adam held up a hand as he bristled.  “The truth is, I couldn’t either at your age and I had a lot more  life experience than you do.  This is the West –”

“For gosh sakes, Adam, I know it’s the West!  I’ve lived here my whole life!”

His brother’s jaw tightened and his eyes grew fierce.  “And do you know what that means?”

“Sure I do!  It can be dangerous.  But if you’re gonna tell me that everyone out here is an outlaw or a murderer….”

“No, Joe, I’m not going to tell you that.  What I am going to tell you is that some men – maybe a lot of men – who come West do it to escape something and that makes them dangerous.”

Joe thrust his chin out in defiance.  “So what was Pa escaping?  Tell me that?!”

Maybe he’d gone too far.  The muscle beneath Adam’s eye twitched and that was never a good sign.

Older brother sucked in a breath and held it a moment, obviously fighting to control his temper.  “Grief.  Despair.  Maybe himself,” he said.  “Pa’s strong.  He has his faith and it’s kept him going through a lot of trials.  There are other men who break.  Desperate men.  Men who will do just about anything to survive.”  Adam’s gaze shot to the street.  Joe’s followed.  The red-headed man with the fat nose had stopped to stare at them.  Adam glared back before pulling him farther into the darkness.  “Joe, you have no idea what happens in these cities.  They’re dangerous places for a boy like you.”

“I’m not a boy!”

“Yes.  You are!”

Joe was breathing fire, but he knew better than to press it.  Besides, he desperately needed to stay on his brother’s good side.

Adam saw his look.  “Don’t even ask.”

“Ah, come on, Adam.  Nothing happened.  Do you have to….?”

“Tell Pa where I found you?”  His brother pinned him with a stare.  “What do you think I should do?”

Joe put on his most winning smile.  “Let it go because you’re my brother and you love me?”

“Because…I…love…you.”  Adam shook his head.  “If I really loved you, Joe, I would spell the whole thing out to Pa in letters a mile high so you wouldn’t try it again.”

“But I won’t, Adam!  I promise, I won’t!  Please, please don’t tell Pa!”  Joe stopped.  He dropped his head and finished, meaning it, “He’ll be so disappointed in me.”

Adam’s lips twisted.  “Is that a glimmer of conscience I note?”

“I’m sorry.  I just….”  Joe glanced at his hand.  Clutched tightly in it was the note from the Painted Lady. “She’s just so beautiful.”

“She?  Oh?  The singer, you mean?”

Joe nodded.  “It wasn’t my fault, you know.  I never would have gone into the Exchange unless Angus took me.  You know they never would have let me in!”

“Would that be because you are a child?”

Joe swallowed his pride.  “I guess so.  It’s just that the first time I saw her….  Well, I just haven’t been able to think about anything else since –“

“Whoa.  Wait a minute.”  Adam blinked.  “Angus did what?!”

Joe winced.  “Promise you won’t tell Pa…that…either?”

His brother’s stern look told him that was exactly what he was going to do.  “Sorry.  You’ve used up all your ‘promises’ for one day, little brother.  Now, I need you to tell me one more thing before I let you go to your horse, wherever you have it hidden, and ride home.”

“One more thing?” he gulped.

His brother held out his hand.  “Give it here.”

“It?” Joe squeaked.

“Whatever it is you’re holding.”

“Oh.  This?”  He crushed the note in his fingers.  “This is…nothing.  Just a bill from the show.”

“Then you’ll have no trouble handing it over, now will you?”  Adam wiggled his fingers.  “Give it here.”

He took a step back.  “But it’s mine!”

“Yes, it is.  It’s also your choice as to whether I let this whole thing ride, or I tell Pa exactly where I found his fifteen-year-old son and exactly what he was up to when I found him.”

Joe gave in with a sigh.

Adam took the note, wrinkled his nose at its condition, and then opened it and read the contents.  As he did, his black brows shot up.

“Is this what I think it is?”

“Yeah.  It’s a note from the Painted Lady.”

“From the Painted Lady?  For you?”

“Sure, for me.”  Joe stood up as tall as he could.  “Why not for me?”

Adam read it again, thought for a moment, and then said, “Go on.  Get on home.”

“Why?” he asked defiantly.  “What are you gonna do?”

“What I am ‘gonna’ do is take my belt off and tan your backside if you don’t get going!” his brother growled. “Do you understand me?”

“Okay.  Okay.  I’m going.”  Joe raised his hands in surrender as he began to walk away.  He’d only taken a couple of steps when he turned back.  “Adam?”

“What?”

“Will you….  I mean, can you tell the Painted Lady I’m sorry I couldn’t make it and I –”

Adam’s hand shot out.  “GO!”

Sensing he’d pressed his luck just about as far as it would go, Joe turned tail and took off running.  As his brother’s angry face receded, he slowed to a more respectable pace and began to whistle as he made his way down the main street of town toward the alley beside the mercantile.  He even got a few “Good afternoon, Mr. Francis-es” along the way.  Joe was headed for the alley because that’s where he’d left Cochise.  She was a pretty noticeable horse and he’d thought it best to make sure no one would spot the mare.  The sun was sinking, so by the time he reached the passageway, it was a sea of shadows.  That didn’t bother him none.  He just plunged right in and began to ‘swim’.  He was about twenty steps in when he heard a noise – and then someone cried out.  The shadows shifted and there was a spark of light near the end – kind of like what you’d see if an armed warrior was laying in wait and the sun struck the barrel of his rifle.

Every instinct that was in him told Joe to high tail it out of there and find the sheriff.

Every instinct that was, that wasn’t pure Cartwright.

A second cry determined the teenager’s course and he took off at full tilt toward whatever danger awaited.  Joe saw a flash of a woman’s face – pale and terrified – and caught a glimpse of a large man with dark hair, wearing a gray felt hat.  There was another glint of sunlight on metal, closer this time.

Too close.

Joe pivoted on his heel and looked up just as something hard came down on his head.

And then there was nothing.

 

 

Chapter Two

Adam shook his head.  He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  The Bible said the sins of the father were visited upon the son.

It said nothing about the sins of the mother.

His stepmother had been a beautiful and brilliant light in their lives for a few short years.  Marie loved to laugh.  He could hear that laugh still at times – unique as it was – ringing from the rafters of the Ponderosa house.  Marie loved to sing and dance and would do both while accomplishing the most menial tasks.  One of his fondest memories was of his stepmother, Hop Sing, and little Joe all singing Frere Jacques at the same time – in three different languages – while straightening the kitchen.  Sadly, Marie had a dark side as well.  She kept it hidden from the younger boys, but he was older and only too aware.  The beautiful woman was often sad and could grow melancholy.  When threatened, her  defenses went up and her common sense went out the door.  Marie often said things she regretted later and, while quick to apologize, was just as quick to deflect.  Most dangerous of all, she kept secrets.

So did her son.

Marie’s sudden death left them all scarred.  There was no way around it.  Their father took over a year to come to terms with her loss, and during that time he was often more absent than present.  Sometime during that same year little brother learned a dangerous lesson.  If the five-year-old acted out – if he went missing or got into some kind of a scrape – that made Pa take notice.  Who could blame the kid?  Little Joe needed his father’s attention and was going to get it anyway he could.

Joe was still trying to get it anyway he could.

Or, at least, that was what the rancher’s eldest son thought.  It made sense.  After all, Joe was basically a good kid – a little spoiled, maybe a little lazy – but he was the baby and that was to be expected.  But this?  Stealing off to another town for an evening tryst with a painted lady over twice his age?

Adam glanced at the crumpled note in his hand and sighed.  He opened it and read the words again, searching for some other motive than a deliberate attempt to rob a young boy of his innocence.

“To Mr. Francis, an ardent admirer, an invitation.  The Painted Lady would be most pleased if you would come to her dressing room at the end of tonight’s performance in order to receive a token of her affection, in gratitude for your continued support.”

Adam ran a hand over his chin.  ‘Continued.’  Just how long had the kid been at this?

He’d known before about Angus Macready and the Scot’s ‘sudden’ trips to Genoa.  He’d chosen to pretend he didn’t since he had no proof the man was drinking and Angus always delivered at the end of the day.  Little Joe had gone with Macready once or twice and nothing untoward had happened.

Or, at least, nothing he knew about!

He’d thought this latest trip more of the same.  Angus whetting his whistle – and, perhaps, satisfying other appetites – while Little Joe slept in the back of the wagon after a hard day’s work.  Then he ran into Mitch Devlin’s father in the settlement and found out they hadn’t seen Joe at their place in nearly two weeks. That led him to the Pruitts.  Supposedly Joe had been fishing with Seth one night, but that turned out to be another lie.

Adam halted outside of Livingston’s Exchange and stared at the poster in front of it.  In large letters it proclaimed that ‘The Painted Lady & Company’ would be appearing for two weeks, starting a week ago Saturday.  That matched up pretty well with Joe’s wayward wanderings.  The black-haired man couldn’t help but stare at the somewhat provocative rendering of the star attraction that adorned the poster.  Her stage name was Calliope Abbadon.  According to the town gossips she’d once been a woman of some repute and a legitimate opera singer, before mysterious circumstances caused her to fall from grace.  Pa received several Eastern newspapers.  Calliope’s name had been in them.  There were hints of an affair with an older man – a patron – that had gone wrong, as well as rumors of an addiction to opium.  No one knew if they were true.  Still, the rumors explained why a talented singer who had toured the continent to great success was now making the circuit of Western theatres and high-class saloons like the one he had just stepped into.

Adam nodded a greeting to the big-armed bouncer and inquired of him where ‘Mr. Francis’ commonly sat, and then took the same seat near the front.  There were several acts before the Painted Lady made her appearance, including the current one that consisted of two young women in ruffled skirts with four performing dogs.  He watched for a while and then got up, ostensibly to get a drink, but really to get a better view.  With his gray felt hat pitched low over his eyes, the eldest son of Benjamin Cartwright leaned on the bar and surveyed the crowd.  It was made up of miners for the most part, though there were a few cowboys sprinkled here and there, including a one or two who had worked for them once upon a time.  At a table to the right of the stage there was a business contingent – five fat and overly-jolly men who had, no doubt, told their wives they had a late ‘board meeting’ to attend.  The ‘suit’ that intrigued him the most wasn’t among them.  He stood by himself to the side of the stage.  He was a fairly tall man, rail-thin, with an over-size mustache and a small face that hid behind it.  Beneath a tilted bowler hat, the man’s narrowed eyes searched the Livingston’s audience constantly as if looking for something.  More than once they settled on the chair he had vacated.

Trouble?  Maybe.

Or maybe one missing teenager.

Adam shivered.  He felt a sudden impulse to run out into the street, jump on his horse, and make certain his little brother was on the road home.

He shook that off.  He was being ridiculous.  Most likely the man worked for Livingston’s, or maybe for Miss Abbadon.

Yeah, that was it.

Adam pushed off the bar and returned to his seat as the act with the dogs exited the stage.  Two more relatively repugnant entertainments followed before it was time for the main act.  When the curtain parted and Calliope Abbadon took the stage, the room erupted into catcalls and whistles.

The lurid poster outside had not exaggerated.

The singer was one of the most stunning creatures he had ever seen, with her ebon hair and ivory skin.  She was rather tall; her form slender but full – in other words, round in all the right places.  Her waist was tightly corseted, forcing her ample breasts up and nearly out of their fabric cage.  Cupped as they were in a nest of brown lace, each resembled a sweet apple dumpling on display in the baker’s window.  Miss Abbadon’s costume was a unique blend of orange, black, brown and white, patterned after the markings of the common butterfly ‘vanessa cardui ‘.  Parts of it flowed from her shoulders like wings, while other parts hugged her supple form.  She remained still until the noise died down and then lifted one long leg onto a stool and began to sing in a beautiful, full-bodied coloratura soprano.

Just about the most ribald song he knew.

Adam ran a hand over his chin and blew out a short breath.  Oh well, Little Joe lived on a ranch, after all.  The boy knew about the birds and bees.  The black-haired man sank back in his chair and winced as the note he’d taken from his kid brother and tucked in his pants’ pocket crinkled.

Hopefully just not too much about them.

Adam’s gaze returned to the stage and to the painted lady in question.  Nah….  Calliope Abbadon was at least his age – maybe a bit older.  Though his brother would vehemently deny it, Joe was still a boy.  Perhaps the singer’s thought was to be kind to a love-struck teenager and to give him a moment to remember.  A kiss, maybe?  The rancher’s son straightened in his chair as his gaze returned to the thin man with the moustache who was staring straight at him.

Maybe a kiss with strings attached.

The mustached man gave him a nod before responding to someone behind the curtain and moving away.  Adam decided he had best do the same.   Just as he rose to his feet it came, halting him in his tracks; one of the most beautiful and mournful sounds he had ever heard.  Calliope had stopped singing a short time before and been talking.  He’d heard her words but been so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he’d paid little attention to their content.  Now, he realized it had been an apology aimed at the drunken buffoons in attendance – an apology for bringing a bit of culture into their dreary lives.

An apology from an angel.

Adam fell back into his chair, stunned, as his little brother’s Painted Lady transformed into Lucia di Lammermoor.  He’d heard the aria sung before, of course, more than once.   He’d even seen the entire piece performed on a business trip he took to San Francisco.  But never had he heard it like this.  It was as if Calliope Abbadon became the doomed woman.  Her rendition of the song was so true, so perfectly phrased, as to be exquisitely painful.  The rancher’s son sat mesmerized as the beautiful woman stepped off the stage and began to move through the crowd.  He noted with anger the carnal looks of the miners and ranch hands as she passed and watched as they touched her body in ways that suggested what they were thinking.  Didn’t they understand?  This went far beyond mere fleshy appetites.

This was art!

~~~~~~~~~~~

True to the role of an earthly goddess, nothing seemed to phase Calliope Abbadon.  She continued the aria unbroken, her rich voice rising in pitch as Lucia’s madness took hold.  She wandered for a moment more and  then, just as the crescendo of the piece was reached, took her knife and pointed it directly at him.  There were a few catcalls, but then the room fell silent as the exquisite creature crossed it and placed the tip of the blade under his chin.

Adam held his breath as she finished her song, and then lost it as she bent down and planted a kiss on his lips.  When she stood up, she held the knife aloft and called out, “What say you?  A round of applause for tonight’s chosen victim!”

Calliope smiled as the miners and cowboys burst into raucous shouts and ballyhoos, and then turned back to meet his gaze.  Her skin was white, her lips red, her expansive eyes violet as the sky at twilight.  She touched his cheek and turned to go but faltered and almost stumbled at the first step.  He was on his feet in an instant, and yet the tall mustached man was somehow there before him, propping her elbow with his hand.

“Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the show for tonight,” he said, his accent English and thick.  “Miss Abbadon is fatigued.  Please accept our invitation to attend a further performance at half-price – and see yourselves out the door.”

Calliope leaned over to the mustached man and whispered something in his ear.  When he nodded, she smiled again, and then moved to the stage under her own power and vanished behind the curtain.

Adam remained as a rock in the middle of a stream, unmoving as the men in the room flowed around and about him, and out the batwing doors.  There was a mystery here; one that needed solving – one that somehow, unwittingly, his little brother had become a part of.

His little brother….

Joe!

Terror and guilt struck him like shot as he realized what he had done.  He’d become so intrigued by Calliope that he’d left Little Joe to his own devices – which was never a good thing.  He should have seen the kid out of town.  Adam drew a breath, let it out, and shook himself.  It was okay.  If Joe was still in town, he would have been here – watching and lusting after his unobtainable Painted Lady.

“Excuse me.  Sir?”

Adam started.  The mustached man had come up beside him without him being aware.

“Yes?”

“A note from Miss Abbadon.”

Adam stared at the tinted stationary.  There was no name on it.

“Why?” he asked.

“’Why’ what?”

“Why is she sending me a note?”

The Englishman’s face was neutral.  “Perhaps if ‘sir’ were to open Miss Abbadon’s invitation?”

Adam took the note and turned it over in his hands before unfolding it and reading its contents…which were eerily similar to the one in his pocket that he’d taken from his kid brother.

“She’s invited me backstage,” he said.

“Indeed?  Sir must be a most special man.  It is not often the Painted Lady extends such an invitation.”

‘No?’, he thought sourly.  ‘Just two times in two days to two Cartwrights.’

“Oh?  Really?

“Miss Abbadon is very private.  Performances consume her.”  The man looked him up and down.  “Perhaps she noted that sir appears to be…of a higher cut than the common riff-raff who usually attend.”

The man’s voice was cultured.  His words carefully chosen.

”Shall I go now then?” he asked, indicating the curtain through which Calliope had disappeared.

“Oh, no, sir.  Madame must first take her rest.”

Adam nodded.  Good.  That would give him time to make certain Little Joe had left town.  “Where then?  And when?”

“There is a door on the right side of the hotel, across from the stable.  Be there at,” the man’s enigmatic eyes flicked to the clock on the wall near the bar, “precisely 7 o’clock.”

That gave him about an hour and a half.  As the strange man moved away, the rancher’s son glanced again at the note in his hand and then drew the one from his pocket belonging to his baby brother and held both in front of him.  Each was of a similar make and signed in a feminine hand, ‘The Painted Lady.”

“Painted lady,” Adam mused as he placed the papers in his jacket pocket and headed for the door.  Calliope Abbadon might well look like a butterfly and sing like an angel, but he had a funny feeling about her.

Sort of like the one the fly had when the spider invited him into its web.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Adam searched Genoa from one end to the other but found no Little Joe.  A man he asked admitted to seeing a young lad of Joe’s description heading in the direction of the mercantile late afternoon but had no recollection of whether or not he’d seen him ride out of town.  The woman who ran the store didn’t recognize Joe, but the moon-eyed look her daughter gave him told him that, yes, baby brother had been that way.  He went to the feed store next door but had no luck, and then checked at the sheriff’s office – just in case.

Still no Joe.

Satisfied that the kid had – for once – done what he was told, Adam stopped in the barber shop for a quick shave and shine, and then headed back to Livingston’s.

Only to be left standing.

He stood in the lane, waiting for the return of a young man with a hangdog look named Charlie.  Charlie appeared when he knocked, asked who he was and what he wanted, grunted something unintelligible, and then slammed the door in his face and disappeared.  He’d considered knocking again but doubted it would elicit any better response and so he waited.

And waited.

When the clock on the bell tower struck quarter til’, Adam decided no one was going to show.  Disappointed, he turned to leave just as the door opened to reveal not Charlie, but the mustached man, whom he had since learned was a mesmerist by the name of Nether Blackfold.  The mystic tipped his bowler hat before brushing by him and vanishing into the dark.  Even that brief encounter unnerved him.  He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something sinister about the man, though he knew the thought was patently unfair.  Still, a hard life and early experiences had taught him to be a keen judge of character, and everything that was in him told him this was a bad egg.

In some way.

A moment later the sullen boy reappeared.  Charlie said nothing but lifted a hand and indicated he should follow.

So he did.

“Please come in, Mister Cartwright,” a lush voice said as Charlie opened an inner door and then vanished.

Adam was a bit surprised by the room.  It was sparsely furnished and projected a sort of bygone elegance.  Apparently Livingston’s reserved the best for their paying customers.  His little brother’s Painted Lady was seated at a vanity undoing her hair.  She’d changed from her costume into a pale cream-colored ruffled gown.  From the geegaw that graced the top of the dressing table a line ran across the room to where it was tied off on one of the posts of the bedstead.  On it her brown, white, orange and black ‘wings’ fluttered.

“It appears you have me at a disadvantage,” Adam said, charmingly.  “You know my name and I have yet to learn yours.”

The singer looked at him over her shoulder.  Adam drew a breath.  She was magnificent!

“Calliope,” she said,

He smiled.  “I meant your real name.”

The Painted Lady rose and approached him.  Her hair – a glorious ebon mane, long and thick as a thoroughbred’s tail – lay spread across the shoulders of her diaphanous gown in a wave.  The garment fastened with a tie, though not well, and the translucent fabric did little to conceal what lay beneath.  For a heartbeat or three, Adam was overwhelmed by her beauty.  Then something else kicked in.  Not his sense of preservation, but another sense that was just as instinctual.

That of the older brother.

Would she have greeted fifteen-year-old Little Joe in the same way?

“Perhaps I’ll tell you once I know which Cartwright you are,” Calliope said as she moved to a well-worn chaise and took up a seductive pose.  The singer laughed at his expression.  “Oh, don’t look so surprised.  Everyone in Genoa knows about you.”

“And about Little Joe?”

“Little Joe?  Oh!  Mr. Francis, you mean?”  She smiled.  “I have to admit I noticed him the first day.  Such a handsome young man and a cut above the usual riffraff who frequent the establishments of the West.  Why, I think he even enjoyed ‘Lucia’!”

He raised an eyebrow.  “We are talking about my ‘Little Joe’, right?”

Calliope crossed her legs and casually tossed the fabric of her robe aside so they were revealed up to the thigh.  “He didn’t look so ‘little’ to me.”

“Joe’s fifteen,” he said stiffly as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the note his brother had handed him, and then crossed the room to stand in front of her.  “Normally I’d say the kid was a little old to be passing notes, but in this case….”  He tossed the folded paper onto the chaise.  “In this case, I think maybe he’s a little young.”

She looked at it and then at him.  “You’re the older brother, I take it?”

He nodded.

Calliope pouted prettily as she looked him up and down.   “Let’s see…Adam or Hoss.  Adam, I think?” When he said nothing, she went on.  “Don’t worry, older brother, I wasn’t going to seduce your sweet innocent young sibling, just….” The singer smiled.  “Just give the boy a little something to remember.”

Adam’s lips pursed as well.  “How about me?”

“How about you…what?”

He produced the other note and dropped it in her lap.  “Did you intend to give me ‘something to remember’ as well?”

The Painted Lady rose and approached him.  Her scent was that of orange blossoms and vanilla with a hint of cinnamon, and maybe even bourbon.  There was something on her skin that scintillated in the meager lantern light like dew on morning grass.  It was near white as snow; her lips rose red and her hair black as embers.

He chuckled.

Calliope looked puzzled.  “You find me amusing?”

“Not you,” he replied.  “I just realized my description of you would also fit Snow White.”

She came close enough to press her scantily clad form into his.  “Do you see any apples in this room?”

What Adam saw was a beautiful woman with a hidden agenda.  He didn’t know what it was and whether or not it was dangerous.  It might be that she’d sought the Cartwrights out to hurt them – perhaps to kidnap Little Joe and hold him for ransom, or ruin the kid and his reputation in an attempt to get back at Pa.  Such things had happened before.  On the other hand, it might be that Calliope was a woman in trouble and she knew she could come to them for help.

Whatever her secret was, the rancher’s son knew one thing for certain as he gripped the singer’s waist tightly and she moaned.

He was going to have a jolly good time figuring it out!

~~~~~~~~~~~

A sudden banging on the door brought Adam’s head up.  Calliope looked up as well and then scrambled to pull her robe closed before rearranging herself on the chaise.  He frowned as he buttoned his shirt and headed for the entry to the room.

No more than fifteen minutes had gone by and things were just getting interesting.

The rancher’s son ran a hand through his hair as he reached for the latch and opened the door.   Charlie stood outside, sullen as ever.  The boy’s dull gaze moved to the center of the room, bypassing him for Calliope.

“Sorry to interrupt, Ma’am.  I got a note.  The man said it was urgent.”

Calliope finished tying her robe and then stood up.  “Bring it here.”

The boy shook his head.   “Sorry, again, Ma’am.  It ain’t for you.  It’s for Mister Cartwright.”

“Me?” Adam blinked.  “But how?  No one knows I’m here.”

Charlie regarded him as if he was the idiot.  “I do.”

Point taken.

“Hand it over then,” he said.  When the boy appeared reticent, Adam fished in his pocket and produced a coin, which he dropped into Charlie’s outstretched hand.  Content, the unlikely messenger turned and disappeared into the shadows leaving him standing, staring at the envelope he’d been given.  It was addressed to ‘Adam’ only, in an elegant if hasty script.

“What is it?” Calliope asked as she came to him and draped her arms over his shoulders.

Her scent was intoxicating, bringing to mind just where they’d been headed when they were interrupted.  Adam blinked, dispelling both his expectation and desire, before shaking his head.  “I don’t know.  I haven’t opened it yet.”

“What are you waiting for?”

He continued to stare at the envelope as if, just by looking, he could somehow perceive its contents.  In spite of Calliope’s assertion that ‘everyone’ in Genoa knew who the Cartwrights were, there was only one person – who shouldn’t be in town any longer – who knew him well enough to call him ‘Adam’.

Calliope sighed.  “Do you want me to open it?”

He glanced at her.   “No.  Sorry.  I’m worried it’s from my little brother.”

“I thought you said you sent him home?”

Adam snorted.  “I did, but that doesn’t mean he went.”  He took a finger and slid it under the edge of the flap and lifted it, and then pulled out the piece of stationary.  It was plain but expensive.  His gaze flicked to the top where there was something printed.

Then his heart skipped a beat.

“It’s from Doc Creigh,” the singer said

“You know him?”

She shrugged.  “A bit.  He came to see me tonight before you did, because I almost fell.  He told me I need to rest.”

Adam read the note.  Then he read it again.

“I have to go,” he said as loosened her grip and headed for the chair where he’d left his coat and hat.

She followed in his wake.  “So soon?  You and I were just getting to know one another.”

He was shoving his arm into the sleeve.  A second later his hat was on his head and he was headed for the door.

“Adam?”

When he looked back he saw, not a seductive chanteuse, but a frustrated woman.  She’d been looking for something from him – something more than a moment of pleasure.

“I’ll come back if I can.”

“The engagement has been cut short,” she said abruptly.  “We leave tomorrow.”

Adam pursed his lips.  “Where?”

“For Sacramento.”

Pa was gonna kill him!

“Our spread, the Ponderosa, lies between here and there.  Ask anyone in the area and they’ll know it.  Tell Pa I told you it was okay to lay over there for a few days so you can…rest.  Once I do…what I need to do…that’s where I’ll head.”

He was out the door and down the hall when he heard Calliope call out to him. “Adam?  What is it?  What’s wrong?”

What was wrong?  His little brother was lying in the Doctor Creigh’s office with a cracked skull.

And not only that, the fifteen-year-old was accused of murder.

 

 

Chapter Three

 

Doctor Creigh, thank God, was not only a competent physician who had been educated in the East.

He was a father.

The older man looked at him over the edge of his wire-rim glasses and then back down at Little Joe who lay silent and still on his medical pallet.  Adam didn’t know why it shocked him so to see the kid there.  Little Joe never did what he was told.  Worse than that, if there was trouble to be found, his youngest brother would find it!  Perhaps it was the fact that Joe was silent and still.  If there was a definition of ‘commotion’, it was Little Joe Cartwright.  Or maybe it was the fact that the right-hand side of the kid’s head was covered in blood – over, on, and beneath the linen bandage that ringed it.  Adam’s jaw grew tight with rage.  No.  None of that was it.  What shocked him was the fact that something this brutal had happened to a child.

A fifteen-year-old child.

Teeth gritted, he demanded, “Do you know who did this?”

The doctor shifted his gaze to the open door that led into his office.  Outside of it a stood a man with soldier-straight posture.  A guard.

A sheriff’s deputy.

“No.  It seems your brother….”  He paused.  “Joseph?”

Adam recognized what the doctor was trying to do.  Give his wounded brother some dignity by naming him.  “Just Joe.”

“It seems Joe was found near the back of the alley beside the mercantile.”

How long ago, he wondered?  Had Joe been there with his head bashed in and lying in a pool of his own blood when he went in to talk to the merchant’s wife?  Or had someone moved him there later?

Adam reached out to touch his brother’s arm.  “In this condition?”

“Actually, I’ve cleaned him up a bit,” the doctor said softly.  “It’s the head wound that worries me.  So far I’ve not been able to staunch the bleeding.”

His stomach sickened.  His words, when they came out, were robbed of strength.  “Someone must have hit him hard.”

“Yes, and not with a fist.”  The doctor held his gaze.  “Your brother was struck full-on with a blunt object.”

“Good God!” Adam sucked in air.  “But, why?  He’s a boy!”

The doctor patted Joe’s hand and smiled.  “I imagine it’s a good thing Joe didn’t hear that.”

“How would you know?” he asked with suspicion.

“Your brother has been seen in town with some regularity of late.  I believe he told the man at the Exchange that he was seventeen?”  The older man smiled.  “It seems that ‘Mr. Francis’, has many acquaintances among Livingston’s patrons.  I hear he’s quite popular among the painted ladies too!”

Good God!  How was he going to tell Pa?

What was he going to tell Pa?

Adam stared at his brother, guilt and grief warring within him.  “Tell me straight, Doc.  Is Joe going to be all right?”

Doctor Creigh knew better.  “I can’t be certain until he comes around.  That was quite a knock on the head young Joe took.  Enough to scramble his brains for a while.”

“Is that an official diagnosis?” he snapped.

The doctor’s smile was understanding.  “I imagine your brother has a thick skull as do most boys his age.  My own son included.  The trouble comes with just ‘where’ the blow is struck.”  The older man tapped the front of his head.  “Here, not so bad.”  His fingers moved to the back of his skull.  “Here.  Not so good.”  The older man sighed.  “It is my professional opinion that whoever struck your brother meant to kill him.”

Adam shook as he turned and pointed to the silent figure outside the door.  “Then why the deputy?  And why is Joe accused of…murder…if someone tried to murder him?”

The doctor had begun to remove the soiled bandage on Joe’s head.  “As I understand it, the charge has to do with how he was found.”

“And how was that?”

“With an empty gun in his hand and a dead body at his side,” a new voice answered.

The rancher’s son spun toward the door.  The man framed in it wore a badge.  He was a typical Western sheriff, toughened as much by what he had seen and experienced as by the days and night he’d spent roaming the mountains and deserts in search of outlaws.  He was about their father’s age and had grizzled hair – curly like Joe’s but cut tight to his head; once black, now peppered gray and white.  His face was as tanned as his cowhide vest.  He had the look of a man who brooked no nonsense, and yet, when he saw Joe lying on the doctor’s pallet, small and still; pallid, with the first bloom of fever reddening his cheeks, it was like butter under the sun.

The man melted.

Thank God.

“I don’t understand,” Adam said upon his approach.  “Joe wouldn’t kill anyone.  And as far as a sidearm, he’s only fifteen.  He hasn’t even handled one yet!”

The sheriff’s eyes narrowed.  “He handled any ‘women’ yet?”

He was incensed by what the lawman insinuated.  “No.  I mean, he might have kissed a girl or two in the cloak room at church.”

The sheriff’s gaze returned to Joe.  “Mr. Francis here’s become a regular at Livingston’s.  Seems most of the fancy girls know him by name.”

“Joe’s a natural charmer,” he countered.  “He makes friends like the rest of us drink water.  Women love him.”  Adam cleared his throat and tried that again.  “You know, they think he’s cute.  They like to ruffle his curls and pinch his cheek.”

The sheriff raised an eyebrow.  “You sure that’s ‘all’ they like to pinch?”

Adam adjusted his stance, prepared to do battle.  “Look.  Let’s get this over with.  I want you to tell me exactly what it is Little Joe is accused of.”

The lawman looked him up and down.  “You his father?  You seem kind of young.”

“I’m his older brother, but I’m all you have.  Our father is back at the Ponderosa.”

The man’s grizzled brows lifted.  “You’re a Cartwright?”  He looked to Joe and back.  “Both of you are Cartwrights?”

“Yes!  What’s that got to do with anything?”  Realizing how exasperated he sounded, Adam apologized.  “Look.  I’m sorry.  I’m tired and my brother is hurt…. “

“John?”  The lawman waited for the doctor who had been sitting by, quietly working, to look up.  “I don’t know about these young’uns I got workin’ for me now.  Looks like I might have to skin a deputy or two who forgot to give me that little detail.  You be sure to cut some extra bandages, okay?”  The older man’s demeanor completely changed as he turned back.  “I’m sorry, son.  Let me explain.  What it’s got to do with, is that I’m more likely to believe you knowin’ who your Pa is.  Now, maybe that ain’t right – maybe it ain’t even legal – but it’s true.  I’m no stranger to where you come from.  Fact is, I got me a sister lives in the settlement.  Your Pa, he helped her out a few years back when her husband and son died of fever and she was left alone with five young girls.”

Adam thought a moment.  “Mrs. Baxter?”

The sheriff nodded.  “Now, that don’t mean I can play favorites, but it does put a different spin on things.  If you know what I mean.”

He felt hope rise within him for the first time.  “Such as?”

The older man went to Joe’s side where he exchanged a look with the doctor who had begun to wrap a fresh bandage around his brother’s head.  “How’s the boy doin’?” he asked.

John Creigh scowled.  “The man who hit him certainly didn’t do him any good.  I won’t know the extent of the damage until Joe wakes up.”

Adam heard the unspoken phrase that followed – ‘if he wakes up.’

The sheriff turned back to him.  “You asked me what knowin’ who you are tells me.  It’s this.  I know Ben Cartwright’s sons ain’t the kind to associate with the wrong kind of women and more than that, I know they ain’t the kind of men who would take advantage of a woman, let alone kill one.”

“A woman?”  Adam was startled.  “It’s a woman who’s dead?”

“One of the girls from the Exchange,” the doctor answered.  “A pretty young thing named Cassandra Middleton.  Not too much older than your brother here.”

Adam felt a hand on his arm.  “Son, you look a little pale,” the sheriff said as he guided him over to a chair.  “Maybe you better sit down.”

He swallowed hard as he did.  “Thank you, Sheriff…  I’m sorry.  I didn’t get your name?”

“On account of I didn’t give it to you yet.”  The older man held his hand out.  “Wells.  James T. Wells, but most around here just call me Sheriff Jim.”

Adam’s gaze returned to his brother.  He couldn’t believe it!  “So, Little Joe is…accused of murdering a painted lady?”

Sheriff Jim said nothing.  In fact, he said nothing for so long Adam began to get nervous.  Finally the lawman stirred.  He looked at Doctor Creigh, who nodded, before walking over to the door and  addressing the deputy outside.

“Pete, take a walk.  About twenty minutes long.”

The young man beamed.  “Mind if I whet my whistle while I walk?”

“So long as it’s sarsaparilla, not at all.”   As Pete left the office, the sheriff turned back to him.  “Adam Cartwright, right?

He nodded.

“I heard you’re a tight-lipped feller.  That true?”

Adam laughed out loud.  “Sorry,” he said.  “I guess I’m a bit overwrought.  Ask my family.  No one better.”

Sheriff Jim pulled up a chair and sat down.  “I don’t for one minute think your little brother there killed poor Cassie.”

His relief was palpable.

“But other’s do.”

“Okay.”  He drew a calming breath.  “Why?”

“Because your brother was found beside her dead body holding an empty gun.”  At his look, the older man continued.  “Jeb Pierce went to take a leak in the alley by the mercantile.  He spied somethin’ white near the back.  Turned out it was poor Cassie’s tail feathers…sorry…her unmentionables.  She’d been shot.”

His heart sank.  What had the kid got himself into?

“And Joe was holding the murder weapon?”

Sheriff Jim gave him a look worthy of Roy Coffee .  “Now, son, I didn’t say that.”

Adam thought back over their conversation.  “You said Joe was holding a gun.”

“I did.”

“But…not the murder weapon?”

The doctor pulled up a chair and joined them.  Before he could ask, the older man said, “The bleeding has slowed.  There’s no sign of consciousness yet.”

“You want to tell this young man what’s goin’ on, John, or should I?” Sheriff Jim asked.

Doctor Creigh nodded.  “I’ll do it.  You see, Adam, I’ve examined the bodies –”

He held up a hand.  “Bodies?  There’s been more than one murder?”

“Two in the last two weeks,” Sheriff Jim said.  “Both working girls.”

How did Little Joe do it?

His baby brother had been frequenting the town for those same two weeks.  Still – thankfully – it seemed neither the sheriff nor the doctor believed Joe had anything to do with the killings.

John Creigh went on.  “Both women left Livingston’s after telling someone that they were to meet a man and both turned up dead.  Both were shot, but not with the weapon left at the scene of the crime, which was a small caliber pistol.”

“So the empty gun was….”  He thought a moment.  “It’s a kind of message, isn’t it?”

“I knew you were a smart one,” Sheriff Jim said.  “We know there’s some meaning to that empty gun, but we don’t have any idea what it is.  Adam….”

“Yes?”

“No one knows about this but you, me, and the good doctor here, and I mean to keep it that way.”

Tight lips, and all that.

“You hope to identify the killer by their special knowledge,” he said.

Both men nodded.

Adam rose and went to his brother’s side.   Once there, he took the boy’s hand in his own.  Joe’s skin was warm to the touch, so there was fever, but as of yet it wasn’t too high.

“What about Little Joe?” he asked the sheriff.  “If you know he’s innocent, are you still going to hold him?  I understand that if you let him go, the killer may realize you know it’s not him.  Still….”  The idea of his wounded brother locked in a cold jail cell in his current condition sent shivers along his back.  “If you incarcerate him you’re likely to kill him!”

“We’re not going to put him in jail, son,” Sheriff Jim assured him.  “He’s a minor under suspicion, with a family that’s known from here to the Grand Tetons.  I’m gonna place him under house arrest and send him home.”

Relief washed through him, so much so that he nearly stumbled into a nearby chair.

Then it hit him.

“You’re using my brother as bait to draw out the killer!”  Adam snarled .  “You believe the killer thinks Joe can identify him and is going to come after him!  That’s despicable!  He’s a –”

“He’s a suspect in a murder, Mister Cartwright.  Maybe two murders.”  Sheriff Jim came to stand before him.  The man’s eyes were sad but determined.  “You want I should lock him up instead?”

~~~~~~~~~~~

It was well after midnight and Adam was wide awake.  He sat in the doctor’s office at his brother’s bedside, rehashing the choices he’d made over the last few days.  He’d known Joe was playing things fast and loose and yet he’d given him his head.  He was pretty sure Angus had taken Joe into Genoa more than once, but he was feeling sorry for the kid and let it slide.  Since the accident Pa had baby brother hobbled like a prize mare and he knew Joe was chomping at the bit.  It wasn’t until the kid failed to show up for the fourth day in a row to help lay fence that he began to worry.  A conversation with – and a few sly winks and nods from – some of the younger hands told him that Joe had managed to sweet-talk them into doing his work and saying nothing about it.  Joe told the men he was headed out to see his girl in the next town – a girl his pa wouldn’t approve of.

That was the understatement of the year!

So the next day when Joe rode out, he waited an hour or so and then followed him and ended up at Livingston’s Exchange in Genoa just as the matinee let out.  The dressing down that followed was obligatory, as was the command to his little brother to get on his horse and go straight home.  Up until then he’d done everything right.

After that, everything went wrong.

Adam ran a hand over his face.  He had to give the kid some leeway.  Sheriff Jim had found Cochise a block or so away from the alley; her reins broken as if she had panicked and run.

The sound of a bullet would do that.

So, apparently little brother had intended to go home.  Not so wisely, Joe had tethered the mare at the back of an alley to avoid detection.  No doubt in case one of them came looking.  The journey into that alley was what brought the kid into danger.

And close to death.

Doctor Creigh was getting worried.  Joe still hadn’t showed any signs of consciousness and it had been over eight hours.  He glanced at his brother again, noting the pristine white bandage around his head, over which spilled an abundance of dark brown curls.   At least the cut on Joe’s scalp had stopped bleeding.

That was one small consolation.

The rancher’s son sat up straight in his chair.  “Pa,” he said aloud, “I have something to tell you.  I sent Little Joe home alone and he managed to stumble on a murder.’  Adam winced.  “Pa,” he tried again, “I sent Joe home alone and, well, it looks like he met up with a prostitute in an alley right before someone killed her.’  The rancher’s son shifted in his chair.  “Pa, I admit it.  I sent Joe home alone.  Apparently he left Cochise in an alley and when he went there to fetch her, someone cracked his skull and left him for dead…beside a dead woman.”  He lifted a finger in the air.  “Oh, by the way she was a painted lady and Joe was holding an empty gun.”  Adam lowered his head into his hands.  No matter how he phrased it, it always came out in the same accusatory manner.

‘I left Little Joe alone.’     

Unable to contain his anger, Adam leapt to his feet and slammed his hand against the wall.

“Damn!”

A low moan returned his attention to his brother.  He quickly crossed to the bed.   “Joe?  Little Joe?  Can you hear me?”

His reply was a second moan, louder but no more intelligible.

Adam leaned in close to his brother’s lips.  “Joe?  What are you trying to say?”

The boy shifted slightly.  “Uh-nnn…hurts.”

He glanced at the bruising on the boy’s face.  He bet it did!

‘Don’t tell him anything if he wakes,” Doctor Creigh had cautioned before he went upstairs to catch a few hours’ sleep.  ‘See first if your brother remembers.’

“Joe, do you know who this is?”

Baby brother’s brows were as unruly as his curls.  They were thick and dark and swept in three different directions, making them both mobile and expressive.  The three parts rolled and came together in the middle to form a mountain of confusion.

“Who…?” Joe moaned.

“I need you to tell me.”  He tapped an undamaged spot on his brother’s cheek.  “Little Joe, open your eyes.  Look at me.  Tell me who I am.”

The boy swallowed and moaned again as he struggled to obey.  His thick lashes fluttered and both brows plunged.  “Hurts,” Joe said again, with a little more force.

“I know it does, buddy, but you need to do it.”

Joe’s lips were petulant as a girl’s.  “Don’t…want to,” he pouted.

“Do it!”

The big brother command succeeded where kindness had failed.  Little Joe’s eyes popped open, took him in, and then – with a cry – slammed shut again.

“God!  Adam…God…,” he sobbed.  “I can’t.  The light….  It hurts!!”

Adam.

The black-haired man closed his eyes, whispered a quick prayer of thanks, and then reached out to catch hold of his brother’s shoulders.  “Joe, it’s okay.  Joe!  Listen to me!  You need to calm down.  You’re concussed, that’s all.  It’s normal for the light to hurt your eyes.”

“I’m…hurt?”

The question was so absurd, he almost laughed.  “Yes, you’re hurt.  Don’t you remember?”

Joe tried to shake his head.  Instead he gasped and moaned.  “Noooo….”

That was to be expected too – if not hoped for.  Doctor Creigh said a blow like one his brother took was enough to knock the memory right out of a man.

“Don’t worry about it.  It’s not important.  What’s important is that you lie still and don’t cause yourself any more harm.”

“Adam….”

“Yeah?”

Joe licked his lips and swallowed.  “I think…I’m…gonna be…sick….”

And sick he was.  By the time the doctor returned a few hours later they were both exhausted – and reeking.

“Well, I can see you’ve had quite a night!” John Creigh remarked, way too cheerfully.  “I see my young patient awakened.”

Joe was sleeping now, completely worn out from retching.

Adam nodded.  “He knew who I was.”

“Excellent!” The doctor moved to his brother’s side and took hold of his wrist.  “Pulse is good.  Any memory of what happened?”

“No.”  He ran a hand over his face.  “The last thing Joe remembers is entering the alley and looking for Cochise.”

“Cochise?”

“His horse.”

“Oh.  Well, that’s to be expected.”  The doctor’s hand moved to Joe’s brow.  “Fever’s no higher, so we can assume it’s just his body fighting to recover.”  Creigh looked at him.  “I can tell you now, I was worried.  A good bit of dirt got into the wound when Joe fell and you know alleys.”

Yes, he did.  They were as filthy as he was now.

“Do you expect infection to set in?” he asked.

“Anticipate, not expect.  He’s young and healthy.  Even if it develops, he should be able to fight it off.”  The doctor peeked under the bandage around Joe’s head as he spoke.  “The fact that your brother was coherent when he woke speaks worlds toward a full recovery.”

“Can I take him home?” he asked suddenly.

The doctor frowned.  “Well, now, I think that’s a bit premature.  Let’s see how Joe is feeling when he wakes up the next time.  I know the road between here and the Ponderosa.  It’s a rough one and he’s going to have quite a headache.”

Adam rubbed his eyes.  “Joe complained about the light when he woke up.  He said it ‘hurt’.”

“Did he?  Well…that’s not unusual.”

There was something in the older man’s tone.  “Is it a bad sign?”

“It depends.”  Doctor Creigh straightened up.  “Let’s just wait and see how Joe is the next time he wakes, shall we?  There’s no rush.”

No rush, except for their mother-hen of a father who, most likely, was out of his mind by this time.

“Pa will be worried.  I set out around noon to find Little Joe and –”

“Adam, I‘m sure your father wouldn’t choose to jeopardize his young son’s health just to have him home.”

“You’re right,” a strong voice agreed.  “I wouldn’t.”

Adam pivoted on his heel.  His father was there, large as life, filling the open doorway.

He didn’t know whether to be consoled.

Or concerned.

 

 

Chapter Four

 

Ben Cartwright looked down at his youngest son.  Joseph’s head lay against his chest; his mutinous curls spilling over the top of the linen bandage that bound them.  He’d spoken at length with Doctor Creigh, whom he judged to be a well-educated and cautious man, before they left Genoa.  Together they had agreed the best remedy for the boy was to take him home.

Not least of all, for his own protection.

The elder Cartwright sat in the bed of a borrowed wagon; his back propped against a small mountain of feed sacks.  Joseph was in his arms and he was doing his best to protect him from the jolts and bumps of the road.  Of course, that meant he was taking the brunt of them and he knew he would feel it the next day.  It didn’t matter.  Nothing mattered but his son’s comfort.  Ben glanced to the side where his oldest boy rode guard, his head downcast.

And Adam’s consolation.

Adam was taking it hard, which was not a surprise.  If his eldest prized anything – perhaps, even more than his high intellect – it was his position as protector and defender of his younger brothers.  Hoss, who waited at the ranch house blissfully unaware of all that had transpired in Genoa, gave his elder brother little trouble.  The rancher smiled as his gaze returned to those curls.  This one, Marie’s boy….

Little Joe was as big a handful as his mother.

“How’s he doing, Pa?”

Ben smiled at his son.  An honest reply would have been, ‘As well as can be expected,’ but he said, “Fine.  Joseph is fine.  He’s sleeping.”

The boy frowned.  “You don’t think the doctor gave him too much laudanum, do you?”

They’d discussed that too.  He hated to drug his son, but Little Joe was experiencing a good deal of discomfort from the blow to his head.  Doctor Creigh suspected a hairline fracture from his symptoms, which included bruising under the eyes and a clear liquid seeping at times from his nose and one ear.  Joseph’s eyes were extremely sensitive.  Bright light caused him pain and brought on fits of retching.  Hence the need to keep them closed for the bulk of their daytime journey.

“I’m sure the good doctor knew what he was doing,” he replied.

“Mister Cartwright?  The horses need a rest.  You want I should pull over?”

Ben shifted to look at their driver, Dan Cray.  His first sight of the tall, handsome black-haired man had been a bit unnerving as Dan and Adam could have been twins.  There were differences, of course, like Dan’s light blue eyes, but the resemblance was uncanny.  He worked at Livingston’s Exchange and had come highly recommended.

“If you think it’s necessary,” Ben replied.  “I’d like to get Joseph home as soon as possible.”

“They just need a short break,”  Dan said. Then he grinned.  “I gotta admit it, Mister Cartwright, I need one too.  To take care of business – if you catch my meaning.”

He did indeed.

Dan climbed down from the drivers’ seat and disappeared into the trees shortly after they pulled into a shady grove and the wagon came to rest.  Adam offered to tend to the animals for him and did so before coming to their side.  His eldest’s eyes were haunted; the hazel orbs cradled in shadow, and he knew why.  Before leaving town the doctor introduced him to Sheriff Wells and the lawman had filled him in on everything.

He hadn’t slept much at all the night before either.

Adam leaned on the wagon’s side and stared at his brother for several heartbeats before speaking.  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that this happened, Pa.”

“You have told me,” he replied quietly.  “Several times.”

“I was such an idiot!,” his son declared as he straightened up.  “I don’t know why I let Joe wander off on his own like that!”

“From what you’ve told me, you did not let your brother ‘wander’ off.  You told Joseph to go straight home.”  As the rancher looked again at his youngest, who tossed and turned deep in a drugged sleep, his lips curled with an affectionate smile.  “For once he obeyed you.”

“And look where it got him!”  Adam swallowed hard.  “Pa, Joe could have been killed.”

Ben moved his hand to his boy’s head.  A few dark curls lay loose against Little Joe’s pallid cheek and he brushed them aside.  “But he wasn’t.   God was merciful.”

“Merciful?   A cracked skull?”

“He’s alive, Adam.  That’s all that matters.”

“But….”

“Yes?”

Adam’s jaw grew tight.  “I was just thinking how hard it might be to keep Joe alive.”

The last part troubled him, as it troubled his oldest son.  Although Little Joe could not recall the face of Cassandra Middleton’s killer, the man most certainly knew him.  Sheriff Wells had offered his protection. He was willing to send along a handful of men who would take up positions outside of the Ponderosa and keep watch.  He declined, telling the lawman he had twice that many at his command and could take care of his own.  The sheriff hesitated but agreed – on the condition that Little Joe remain on the Ponderosa until after he was officially cleared of charges.  The rancher didn’t like it one bit, but he liked the alternative even less – his youngest, in protective custody somewhere in Genoa.  Joseph needed to be home.  He needed his brother Hoss and Hop Sing to look after him.

Just as he needed to look after his son.

“We can hope that the man, whoever he is, chooses to run,” he replied.  “Why risk being caught by coming to the Ponderosa when no one knows who you are – including the witness to the act?”

Adam shook his head.  “Because Joe might remember.  You know as well as I do, Pa, that any man who has killed two painted ladies would have no trouble silencing a boy.”

Ben clutched his youngest tighter.  Yes, he knew it, and it chilled him.

“Pa…..”  Adam ran a hand along the back of his neck.  “Speaking of ‘painted ladies’, I might have forgotten to mention something.”

The rancher was instantly alert.  How many times had one of his boys used that phrase and disaster followed?  “Yes?”

“You remember the performer I mentioned, the one known as The Painted Lady?”  When he frowned Adam went on.  “The woman Little Joe ran away to see?”

‘Marie,’ he thought to himself as he adjusted his grip on the sleeping boy, ‘what am I going to do with this child? Going against my authority?  Falling for a painted lady?’

“Now, I do.”

His eldest seldom looked discomforted.  He did now.

“I might have…invited her to the Ponderosa.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

It came as no surprise to Adam that Calliope Abbadon’s carriage was parked out front of the house.  What did surprise him was the fact that it was accompanied by a mountebank’s wagon with the words ‘Professor Nether Blackfold, Prophet, Prince and Prestidigitator Extraordinaire’ emblazoned on its side.   Above the last word, which ran the length of the wagon’s lower edge, was the image of a mustached man wearing a blue turban decorated with an all-seeing eye.  The back door of the wagon opened as he approached and a short stocky man with red hair climbed down the ladder.  He waved a greeting as Adam dismounted and disappeared around the other side.  The rancher’s son scowled.  There was something familiar about the man.  He’d just about placed it when the thought was driven out of his head by a backslap that nearly knocked the wind from him.

“Bout time you got home!” a cheerful voice remarked.  “You got yourself some mighty peculiar friends, older brother.”

“Where…are they?” he asked once he had his breath back.

“Hop Sing’s got ‘em upstairs in two guest rooms.”  Hoss looked beyond him and frowned.  “Where’s Pa and Little Joe?  I figured the three of you would ride in together.”  The big man grinned.  “That is, if little brother can still sit a horse after Pa got done with him.”

He’d filled the family in before he left on baby brother’s hi-jinks.  Little Joe had been in enough trouble then.  The fact that Pa had a full night and day to build up a head of steam before he followed didn’t bode well for their little brother’s prospects or his posterior.

Of course, Hoss had no idea what had happened.  How could he?

Genoa didn’t have a telegraph line.

Keen to sense his mood as always, Hoss gripped his arm.  “Adam?  Is something wrong?  What ain’t you tellin’ me?  Where’s Little Joe?”

“Hoss, I…  I made a mistake and Joe got hurt.  Pa’s bringing him home in a wagon.  I came ahead to get Joe’s room ready and –”

His brother’s beefy fingers bit into his arm.  “What do you mean ‘a mistake’?  How bad’s Joe hurt?”

Adam sighed.  “Look, Hoss, it’s a long story.  I’ll tell it all to you when there’s time, but right now we to get things ready.”

“Just tell me how bad it is, Adam.  I mean, is Little Joe gonna be okay?”

The rancher’s son pursed his lips.  “The doctor seems to think so.  Someone hit Joe over the head with something hard.  Really hard.  He’s concussed and may have a skull fracture.  We –”

“Someone cold-cocked him?”  Hoss was horrified.  “Adam, Little Joe’s just a kid!  Who’d do a thing like that to a kid?”

“If I knew, don’t you think I’d tell you?!” he snapped and instantly regretted it.  “Sorry, Hoss.  Sorry.  I know you’re worried about Joe.  I just….  Well, I haven’t slept much for two days.  The first night it was touch and go, and then last night, with Pa….”

His brother looked contrite.  “Nah.  I’m the one who should be apologizin’.  I know whatever happened you done the best you could.  You look beat.  Why don’t you go sit down while I get little brother’s room ready?”

“I’ll rest after Joe’s settled.  I….”  Adam paused as the image of his baby bother lying on the doctor’s table – deathly pale – flashed before his eyes.  “I need to know he’s all right.”

The big man placed an arm around his shoulders.  “Well then, come on, older brother.  There’s no time like the present.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

They saw no sign of their guests as they mounted the steps and went to their younger brother’s room.  Hop Sing soon joined them and, together, the three of them made certain it was prepared.  The last thing Adam did was walk to the window to draw the curtains closed so the light wouldn’t hurt Joe’s eyes.  When he reached it, he noticed the wagon containing his family rolling into the yard.  He turned to tell Hoss, but the big man must have seen it too because he was already on his way out the door with Hop Sing close on his heels.  Adam waited until the pair appeared below to draw the curtains and then turned to follow.

Only to find his way blocked.

“Calliope,” he said.

“How’s the little cutie?” the singer asked.

“Joe will be okay,” he said forcefully in an attempt to make himself believe it.  Then he changed the subject.  “I have to admit I’m a bit surprised to see you.  I didn’t think you’d take me up on my offer.”

She shrugged.  “We agreed.  What better remedy could there be than a day or two spent in the bosom of a loving family?”

“We being Nether and you?”’

“Adam Cartwright, I think you’re jealous.”  When he said nothing more, she continued, “Nether is always with me.  He’s my manager.”

“Is that all he is?”

Calliope frowned.  “What difference does it make?”

“I don’t know.  I’m sorry.”  Adam ran a hand over his eyes.  “That was rude of me.  It’s really none of my business.”

The singer moved into the room.  Her scent was just as intoxicating as it had been that first night; the sight of her, enthralling.

“Would you like it to be?” she asked as she ran a finger along his chin.

He caught it and held it captive.  “Calliope, you’re a beautiful woman, but….”

“But you’re worried about your brother and it’s selfish to think of your own pleasure at this time?’

“Well, yes.  That and – “

Before he could finish his thought, the ravishing woman had raised up on her toes and kissed him.

A second later his father’s voice – strident, commanding – called out, “Adam!  Adam, I need you!”

Calliope kissed him again – this time nipping his lip with her teeth.  “Go to your family.  They need you more than I do.”

“Just like that?” he asked, slightly shaken.

“Just like that,” she said, and stepped out of his way.

“Adam?  You comin’?”  It was Hoss this time.

“I have to go.”

“I know.”

“Can I see you?  Later?  Will he…Nether…?”

“Nether is a powerful man, but he has no power over me,” the singer said.  “I do as I want.  Take care of your little brother first.  I can wait.”

Adam watched her go with longing and a deep burning in his loins.

And wondered if he could.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ben  nodded to his middle son as Hoss took a seat beside his injured brother, and then walked to the window and pulled the drape aside so he could look out on the yard.  His eldest was there, leaning on the fence, looking out toward the horizon.  He had three sons.  People thought Marie’s boy the most sensitive of them.  He begged to differ.  In his mind, Adam won hands down.  While Joseph was vociferous, his oldest boy suffered in silence.  Heaven help the lad, with both parents coming of New England stock!  Joseph’s emotions were his outlet.  When he was happy, he laughed.  When he was sad, he cried.  When he was angry, everyone knew it.

With Adam, it was like shaking a bottle.  One wondered which would happen first – the cork pop or the glass explode?

He was so deep in thought it took Ben a moment to sense the familiar presence at his side.  Hoss had his hands thrust deep into his pockets and was chewing his lower lip.

The rancher was immediately afraid.

“Joseph?”

The big man shook his head.  “Punkin’s fine, Pa.  He’s sleepin’.”

The childhood nickname tickled a smile from his lips.  “How can I help you, then?”

Hoss’ fingers dug in deeper.  “I know it ain’t important, Pa, but I was kind of wonderin’ if you could tell me what happened?  I mean, how’d Little Joe end up like this?  Adam said someone cold-cocked him?  Gol-darn-it, he’s just a kid!”  His son frowned.  “Was Little Joe mouthin’ off or somethin’?”

He barely understood it himself, though he’s had ample opportunity while in Genoa to discuss the matter with both Sheriff Wells and Doctor Creigh.  There had been two killings in less than two weeks.  Each time the victim was a hostess or painted lady.  Both young women had been lured to a remote location, shot, and then abandoned like so much trash.

The older man shuddered.

It could have been Little Joe.

“I assure you, son, that your brother committed no greater transgression than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  He scowled.  “That is, other than disobeying a direct order to stay on the Ponderosa.  Adam found Joe at Livingston’s and ordered him to ride home.  It seems that was what Joseph was doing when he was attacked.  He’d gone to fetch Cochise, whom he’d tether at the end of an alley.  No one knows for certain what happened next.  Shortly after that, a man found Little Joe lying near its end.”  Ben hesitated, momentarily overwhelmed by the image of his young son lying in a pool of his own blood.  “There was a dead saloon girl beside him and an empty gun.”

Hoss paled.  “Gosh, Pa!  Adam mentioned someone died, but he didn’t say it was a woman.”

“She was one of the girls from Livingston’s exchange.  She wasn’t much older than your brother.”

“I guess….”  The big man turned to look at the still, small figure on the bed.  “I guess we’re lucky, aren’t we, Pa?  I mean…whoever it was, they could have killed Little Joe too.”

Ben returned to his injured son’s side and sat down.

“Not lucky, son,” he said as he took hold of the boy’s feverish hand.  “Blessed.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

There was a fly on his hand.

Joe wanted to brush it off, but it seemed like too much trouble.  He was sick again and felt as churned up and wasted as the mud under a herd of steers’ hooves.  He didn’t think he could manage to open his eyes even if Mary Jane Miller told him she’d let him kiss her if he did.

He liked Mary Jane.  She was real pretty and he really wanted to kiss her.

But not that much.

Someone’s fingers brushed his forehead.  They were cool, so he wondered if they’d been pressed against the windowpane or maybe been holding a glass before they touched him.  It had to be winter, ‘cause just a while back he’d been so cold he was like to die.  Then Hop Sing must have lit the fire.  Now he was so hot, he wanted to throw off all his clothes and run buck naked out into the snow.

Or he would have, if he’d had the energy.

But he didn’t.  He didn’t even have the energy to throw off the coverlet.  Right now, he was so tired all he wanted to do was lie in bed and sleep while everyone else took care of everything else in the world.  One upshot of bein’ sick was getting to do that.  Pa didn’t give them many days off.  When he wasn’t in school, he was usually knee-deep in muck, cleanin’ out stalls, or high up on a ladder fixing shingles, or maybe – if he was lucky – preppin’ a fierce wild horse so brother Adam could mount and ride it until it was tame.

Adam.

There was something about…Adam.

What was it?

Dang!  He wasn’t going to be able to sleep until he figured it out.

Adam was angry.  He could hear older brother yelling about something.  He’d been mighty angry too.  That must be it.  They’d gotten into a fight.  He stormed off and headed for the alley where he’d left Cochise and then…  Then he saw something.  A flash of white.  A woman.

And then a man.

Adam.

How did older brother do it?  How did he beat him to the alley?

Here it came!  Another lecture about being irresponsible and trying to get away with murder.

Joe moaned and tossed his head.

Murder.

Someone got away with….

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ben’s head came up from the book he was reading.  He’d sent Hoss to get something to eat and taken up the vigil at his youngest son’s side.  It had been more than an hour since the big man departed and in all that time the room had remained eerily quiet.  Just now, he thought he’d heard something.  The rancher waited.  No one knocked or entered in the room.  Could it have been…?

Ben looked at his son.

Joseph’s thick black lashes fluttered…once…twice…and then the boy groaned.

Hallelujah!

Ben put the book on the bedside table and leaned in to grip his son’s arm.  “Joseph?  Little Joe, it’s Pa.  I’d really like to see those big green eyes of yours.  Can you open them for me?”

The boy’s lips parted and his tongue licked out in an attempt to wet them.

The much-relieved father was on his feet in a second and back with a basin and cloth in less than thirty.  He wet the cloth, rung it out a bit, and then applied it to his son’s parched lips.  Next he turned it end for end, dipped it again, and ran the edge of it along the boy’s forehead.

His reward was the tiniest smile and a word.

“Good.”

“I bet it feels good,” Ben said, his voice somewhat shaky.  “You’re pretty hot, young man.  We need to see what we can do about bringing down that fever.”  Sadly, as the doctor had feared, a mild infection had set into the wound.  Joe’s fever was under control, but he’d be happier when it was gone.

“Covers,” Joe said as his fingers feebly pushed at them.  “…off.”

Ben pulled them right back up.  “Let’s just leave them where they are, shall we?  We wouldn’t want you to take a chill.”  When the boy failed to respond, he hesitated and then shook him gently. “Joseph?”

It took a second.  “Sorry….”

“What do you mean, son?  You have nothing to be sorry about.”

His boy’s precious face, so battered and bruised, wrinkled with pain.  “…Adam…no….”

“What’s he talking about, Pa?” a concerned voice asked.

Ben looked up.  “How long have you been there?” he asked his eldest.

“Just a minute.”  Adam advanced into the room.  “Do you know what…?”

“No.  Your brother is awake but he’s not aware.”  Turning back to the sick boy, Ben said, “Adam’s here, Joseph.  Do you want to talk to him?”

The reaction he got was not the one he expected.  Joe eyes shot open, his body became rigid….

And he screamed.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Hoss Cartwright had tried his best to rest like his pa told him to – really, he had – but rest just wouldn’t come.   All he could see when he closed his eyes was his little brother walkin’ into that alley and bein’ hit over the head.  Joe was such a little thing – no bigger than a minnow wigglin’ on a line – and it hurt him bad to think of someone doin’ that to him.

Hurt him and made him right angry.

He’d gone to get somethin’ to eat like he was told.  While he was waitin’ on Hop Sing to rustle up a plate with all the fixin’s, he’d started pacin’.  Then he started stompin’.  And then he started bangin’ pots and slammin’ lids until Hop Sing done tossed him out – food and all!  Seein’ the little man go red in the face was kind of funny, but he’d managed to keep from laughin’.

At least until Hop Sing went back inside.

After that he headed to the barn.  He had some chores to do and thought bein’ busy might help him keep his thoughts where they belonged, but that didn’t work either.  He’d wrap his fingers around the  handle of the rake and all of a sudden realize that his knuckles was white, ‘cause he was imaginin’ it to be the throat of that there varmint what hurt his little brother.  So, finally, he decided to take a ride.  He’d let the foreman know where he was goin’ so’s Pa wouldn’t be worried, and then headed out southwest toward the lake.

Little Joe weren’t the only one who came up here to talk to Mama.

Upon his arrival the big man dismounted and tethered his horse to a tree.  The walk to the grave was a short one.  Little brother’d done thrown a fit around a week before and come flyin’ up here, so it was nice and clean.  Joe’d cleared all the weeds away and there was a bunch of faded flowers pressed up against the stone.  The big man knelt and removed them, gently laying the bouquet to the side, and put the fresh batch he’d brought in their place.  Then he stood back and took his hat off in respect.

“How ya doin’, Mama?  I hope you’re enjoyin’ Heaven.  I’m sure it’s a sight better than this world.”  The big man looked around and up at the tall grasses, the whispering pines, and the myriad stars in the sky.  “Though, I’m thinkin’ it must look an awful lot like this ‘cause there ain’t nothin’ more beautiful.”  Hoss sighed as his eyes returned to the grave.  “Well, that ain’t quite right, ‘cause there weren’t nothin’ more beautiful than you.”

Hoss knelt down and traced the words written on the stone with a finger.  ‘Marie Cartwright, beloved wife of Benjamin Cartwright and mother to three sons.  Gone, but never forgotten.’

‘Pa got it right when he wrote those words’, he said aloud.

He’d been a little tyke when his stepmother passed, just ten years old, but his memories of Marie were crystal clear as the waters of Lake Beigler behind him.  The first time he saw her, stepping out of the carriage and takin’ Pa’s hand, he’d knew he loved her.  It was like one of those times you were in the forest and you was afraid on account of it was pitch-black, and then all of a sudden a beam of light would slip through the cover of leaves above your head to remind you the sun was up there and everythin’ was right in the world.  From day one she’d treated him like he was her own.   Brother Adam had been shy around Mama, but not him.  It weren’t no time before they was laughin’ and dancin’ and singin’ French songs whether they was workin’ or playin’.  Mama loved to make things with her hands, ‘specially at Christmas, like popcorn strings and paper chains and tinsel stars.   Of course, none of them was the best thing she made.

That was Little Joe.

Hoss drew in a breath, held it, and let it out with regret.  “I came to tell you I’m sorry, Mama.  I let you down.  Little Joe, well, he got hurt pretty bad, and I wasn’t there to stop it.  I shouldn’t ought to have let him go off with Angus to Genoa.  Now, I know you’d say I couldn’t have done nothin’ to stop it, but that ain’t true.  I knew what he was up to.  I knew he was makin’ up stories to cover somethin’ and he wasn’t with Mitch and Seth, or even Mary Jane.  I thought….  Well, I don’t know what I thought, but I should have known better.”  He smiled a bit.  “Now don’t take this the wrong way, Mama, but Little Joe’s a lot like you.  He gets a notion in that curly head of his and, well, there’s not much a man can do but let him see it out and try to make sure he don’t get hurt while he’s doin’ it.”  The image of his baby brother lying in his bed, battered and bruised, rose before his eyes.  “I swear I ain’t ever gonna let that little scamp out of my sight again.”

Except he knew he would, just as he knew it would never be enough.

It wasn’t enough with Mama.

The big man rose.  He stood for a moment longer, head bent, and then placed his hat on his head.  “Well, Mama, I best get goin’.  I got me chores to do and I want to see how little brother’s doin’.  I’m hopin’ to high Heaven he’s woke up by now.”  With one shift of his fresh bouquet to make certain it was perfect, Hoss turned and headed for his horse.  Chubb was there waitin’ patiently.  He patted his black nose and said a few words, and had just lifted his boot to mount, when he heard something.  A voice, he thought, maybe two.  The big man dropped his foot, drew his gun, and stepped away from his horse and into a clump of tall grasses just as two shadowy figures emerged from the trees on the opposite side of Marie’s grave.

“This is as far as I go,” the taller of the pair said.

Hoss squinted against the encroaching darkness.  There was something funny about the man’s voice.  It was almost as if he had an accent he was hiding.  The way he held himself was familiar too.  Tall and all dignified-like.  Maybe they’d been introduced once or shared a drink at the bar.

Or maybe he was imagining it.

“I aim to go a lot farther if you don’t pay up,” the second, shorter man replied.  “Now, where’s my money?”

“There is no need for threats of violence.”  The first man reached into the pocket of his overcoat and pulled out what looked to be an envelope.  “I have it here.”

The other man snatched it and opened it.

“I assure you it is all there.”

There was a laugh.  Short.  Derisive.  “Like I’d believe you.”

Hoss shifted in an attempt to get a better look.  The last of the sun’s rays were low over the mountains and there was very little he could see.

“I told you that you have nothing to fear.  Your secret is safe.”

“Some secret.  I was seen.”

“True, and while I agree it is impossible for two to keep a secret, in this case it doesn’t matter.  The boy remembers nothing.”

Hoss went rigid.  ‘The boy.’

What?

“Now.  It doesn’t mean he won’t remember later.”

“A flash of a face in the dark?”  The tall man sniffed.  “Perhaps the unfortunate smell of cheap tobacco and sweat?  Both might indicate any one of a thousand men in this territory.  Besides, with the money in your hand, you can go anywhere; put half the country between him and you.”

“Me and his family, you mean.  I ain’t scared of any kid.”

“Perhaps.”  The tall man turned away.  “I am leaving.  I suggest you do the same.  It would be wise for you to be on your way. Otherwise I might have a change of heart and decide that it is impracticable for ‘three’ to keep a secret.”

Hoss shifted forward in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the man’s face.  It was useless.  The light was gone.

“Won’t it look suspicious if I just up and leave?”

The tall man turned back.  “I’ll tell them you were called to town.  No one will suspect anything.”

“Okay.  Yeah.”  The second man moved in the opposite direction but halted at the edge of the tree line.  “What about her?  What if it happens again?”

“Be assured it won’t.”  He tipped his hat.  “Now, good day.  And may I add, I hope to never see the likes of you again.”

Seconds later they disappeared into the shadows.

Hoss stepped out of the tall grass and looked in both directions.  It was obvious the two men were party to something no good and it sounded like it might have to do with what happened to Little Joe.  Still, neither had mentioned a name or place connected with ‘the boy’.  It could have nothing to do with his brother.

Hoss sighed deeply, unsure of what to do.  Should he go home and get his pa and Adam or go after one of the men, and if he did, which one?  It could be one of them was headed to the Ponderosa since it was the closest homestead.

If they was, what did that mean?

Hoss stood for a moment with the wind whistling through the trees.  In it he heard a voice.  He knew it for what it was – Mama’s – and he understood what she was saying.

The man with the money was the one who hurt ‘the boy’.

And he wasn’t about to let him get away with it.

 

Chapter Five

 

“Little Joe!  Joseph!  Son, listen to me!  You’re safe!”

The words might as well have been shouted through water for all the good they did his boy who was drowning in a nightmare world of disorientation and pain.

Joseph had come awake with a start and immediately been sick, which set his wounded head to pounding and made him sick again.  On top of that he seemed to be caught in the throes of a night terror from which he could not wake.  Doctor Creigh had warned him there could be residual effects from the heavy dose of laudanum used to soften the journey home and Ben was afraid he was seeing them now.  Most mysterious of all, whatever horror the boy was experiencing, it seemed his older brother was at the heart of it.  Joseph kept crying out to Adam over and over again.

Begging him not to hurt him.

“Pa?”

Adam turned his grief-stricken face toward him.  His eldest was sitting on the side of the bed, physically restraining his brother.  All three of them were soaked in vomit and sweat and reeked.  It didn’t matter.  Nothing mattered but getting through to Little Joe.

“Try again, Adam,” he urged.  “It’s you Joseph needs to know is here.”

Adam shifted his grip from his brother’s wrists to his upper arms.  Little Joe might be slender, maybe even slight, but he was strong and had come close to escaping from the bed several times.

“Joe!,” his eldest said, his tone firm and almost scolding.  “Joe!  It’s Adam.  I’m here.  Open your eyes!”

Joe’s head thrashed from side to side.  “Noooooo!”

“Please.”   A gentle voice spoke, startling them.  “Let me try.”

Ben didn’t know when she had arrived, but Genoa’s Painted Lady stood on the threshold of the room.  He watched as she moved to Adam and placed a hand on his shoulder.  His eldest shook his head, but Calliope gently insisted, taking him by the shoulders and moving him out of the way.  She smiled at him and then sat down and took Joseph’s hand in hers.

“Mr. Francis, how lovely of you to accept my invitation.”

Ben’s brows shot toward his graying hair as he eyed his oldest boy.  Adam ducked his head in response.

Apparently he hadn’t all of the story yet.

“Mr. Francis?” the singer repeated.

At first it seemed Joseph took no note of her presence.  He continued to toss and turn and moan.  When she spoke again, he grew still.  A moment later his thick brows drew together and he frowned.

Calliope kept her voice even, her tone pleasant.  “I’m so glad you came.  I have so looked forward to meeting such an ardent admirer.”

Joseph’s lips formed a word.  For a moment it chilled Ben to think it was ‘mama’, but then he realized it was ‘ma’am.”

Dear Joseph.  Ever polite!

The beautiful woman leaned forward and laid her hand alongside his poor boy’s bruised cheek.

And then, she began to sing.

Ben had heard human nightingales before, chief among them Jenny Lind, whom he’d the pleasure to see on a trip to New Orleans to settle his late wife’s affairs.  It was said of Lind that ‘The extreme burst of her voice in the upper portion of its register is far beyond the ordinary range of sopranos, and she has acquired the power of molding the higher notes entirely at her will. By this she is enabled to produce some of the most astonishing effects upon the listener.’  Calliope Abbadon was no different.  The spell her rich voice wove took in not only his agitated son, but him and Adam as well.  A sense of tranquility descended on the room.  Joseph stopped struggling, his tense muscles eased, and soon he was fast asleep.

As he shifted out from under the boy and carefully laid him down, Ben heard his eldest say, “Thank you.”

“I heard your brother crying out,” Calliope replied.  “It nearly broke my heart.”

“Do you have any children of your own?” the rancher asked as he eased the blanket up and over his son’s shoulders.

The beautiful woman turned to face him.  “No.  I chose a life on the road.  It is no place for a child.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”  He smiled.  “I think Adam turned out all right.”

Calliope cocked her head and looked at his son.  “Your road?”

“The trail West,” Adam answered.  “It was just Pa and me.  If I turned out ‘all right’, I’ve got him to thank.”

“Thank you for coming in,” Ben said with an inclination of his head that took them into the hall.  As he pulled the door to, leaving a small gap, he added, “I wish I knew why Joseph became so agitated.”

“I heard him calling for Adam.  That’s what brought me in.”  Calliope favored them with a brilliant smile.   “I must admit I was heading down for a snack.”  Leaning in, she added with a wink, “Don’t tell Nether.  He thinks I snack too much.”

Adam missed the smile.  He was too deep in thought.  “The thing is, Joe wasn’t so much calling for me as yelling at me.  It almost seems as if he’s afraid of me.”

“Your brother took a bad blow to the head Adam.  I imagine the last thing he recalls clearly is arguing with you.”  He paused.  “You have to remember what Doctor Creigh said before we left Genoa.”

“That Joe’s brain might be scrambled?”  Adam snorted.  “Yeah, I remember.  How could I forget?”

Ben ignored his disrespectful tone.  His son was overwrought.  “While I might disagree with the good doctor’s choice of words, son, the man’s right.  I’ve seen men badly concussed before.  Sometimes they don’t know their family, or even themselves.  Joseph will come along all right, you’ll see.”

“Does Little Joe recall anything of the attack?” Calliope asked.

“No,” Ben replied.  “The last thing Joseph told me before we started for home was that he remembered stepping into the alley and then a flash of white, and then nothing.”

“He’s so young,” she breathed.  “It’s such a shame.”

Yes.  He agreed.

“I thank you again, Calliope for your assistance,” Ben said as he reached for the latch.  “I’m going to go back in and sit with Little Joe.  Adam, why don’t you take our guest outside for a walk?  I’m sure Calliope would enjoy a nighttime tour of the Ponderosa.”

“Pa.  Don’t you think I should….?”

His hand came down on Adam’s shoulder.  “Son, what I think you should do is take a break.  Hopefully the next time your brother wakes, his head will be clearer.”

“You’ll call me when he does?”

“Of course, I will.  Now, you two young people go and get a breath of fresh air.”  The rancher grinned.  “And that’s an order!”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Calliope was dressed quite simply now, in a semi-sheer white-on-white striped dress with black glass buttons and applied braid.  For a splash of color, she’d thrown a vivid red Chantilly lace shawl over her shoulders.  Her long black hair flowed free, reaching almost to her waist, with just a portion held in place above each ear by a pearl and gold tortoise shell comb.

She was, in a word, splendid.

They reached the end of the first field to the northwest just as the sun breathed its last gasp and slipped behind the mountains.  There was, perhaps, fifteen or twenty minutes of light left.  Calliope leaned on the fence, her chin on her fist, deep in thought.  He’d watched in awe as the last burst of sunlight played over her slender form, painting her white dress rose-red and transforming her black hair into molten bronze.   The image was worthy of the artistry of Alexandre Cabanel.

She was a goddess.

“A penny for your thoughts,” she said.

He turned to find her watching him.  “That’s not enough,” he replied.  “The view is worth millions.”

Calliope lifted her eyes to the tips of the mountains; their perpetual crest of snow still burning like fire.  “Yes, it is.  I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.  Not even in Paris or Madrid.”

He smiled.  “I wasn’t talking about the Ponderosa.”

The singer laughed.

“You’ve traveled the world then?”

“Oh, yes.”  She turned and leaned her back against the fence.  “I started performing at fairs when I was a teenager.  My first real break came when a professor of music was in attendance.  He liked what he heard and took me under his wing.”

“Was that Nether?”

She giggled this time.  “Oh, dear!  Nether is many things, but a master of music he is not.  No, this was an older man who recognized my talent.”  She paused.  “He taught me many things about music – and life.”

Adam sensed something in her tone.  “Some of it not so good?”

She shrugged.  “Someone once said, ‘Nothing is free. Everything has to be paid for.  For every profit in one thing; payment in some other thing. For every life, a death.”

“That’s a rather world-weary sentiment for someone as young as you.”

“Is it?  Oh well, I’ve found it to be true.”  Calliope pushed off from the fence.  She offered her hand and, together, they began to walk across the field toward the house.  “When I was performing in New York, the same man who booked Jenny Lind’s world tour contracted me to sing for him.  That’s when Nether became my manager.”

“Jenny Lind’s agent also represented a street mountebank?”

She stopped and looked at him. “Is that what you think he is?”

“Well, yes.”

“Silly man.  All you have to do is look into Nether’s eyes and you can see.”

He held her hand while she stepped over a fallen branch.  “See what?”

“Mystical matters.  Dark things that don’t exist in the light.  Knowledge that glows faintly in a forgotten corner.”  She looked directly at him, her violet eyes wide.  “The secrets of souls.”

He scoffed.  “Do you really believe that?”

She pulled on his hand and began to walk again.  They did so in silence for a minute or so before she asked, “Shall I tell you a secret, Adam Cartwright?”

“If you like.”

“Nether and I were never lovers.”

He faltered in his steps.  “Oh?”

Calliope laughed.  “It seems we’ve known each other forever.  He loves me, but…well, you know?”  She laughed.  “He takes care of me.”

“You said he was your manager.”

“Yes, and my publicist and producer, and even my make-up artist at times.  I would be lost without him.”

They were drawing near the Ponderosa.  The house lights shone like paper lanterns on the horizon.  Calliope stopped and waited for him to do the same.

“Ask your question,” she said suddenly.

Adam’s black brows peaked.  “Are you certain I have one?”

“Of course, I am.”

He thought a moment, and then shook his head.  “No, I don’t think I do.”

She tilted her head.  “Silly.  You’re wondering why I told you about Nether.”

It was true.  He was.

Adam halted.  “All right.  Why did you?”

The singer reached out to catch his other hand. “Because I wanted you to know how things stood between us.  And because I didn’t want you to think me a hussy for doing this.”  Calliope raised up on tiptoe and kissed him, first teasingly, and then again with passion.  Her slender form pressed into his and he felt himself moved, deeply, not only by her beauty but by the sadness he sensed within her.

“On the breeze will come to you my ardent sighs,’ she whispered near his ear.  “You will hear in the murmuring sea, the echo of my laments.”

The words were from Lucia di Lammermoor.  Lucia was speaking to Edgardo, the man she betrayed by pledging herself to another.

“Kill me, and bridesman to the marriage shall be the sacrifice of a betrayed heart”, he responded as he caught her fingers in his, kissed them and grinned.  “Is this where I am supposed to fall on my sword?”

“Silly man, that comes in the next act!”  Calliope playfully pushed him away.  One black eyebrow arched.  “Come to me later, after everyone else is abed, and we will unsheathe that sword together.”

He had to admit it was the most poetic proposition he’d ever had.

“Calliope….”

She pressed a finger to his lips.  “Go in.  Make sure your little brother is all right, and then make your excuses.  Come midnight, I’ll be waiting by the fence.”

Calliope left him and made her way across the field, swinging her skirts and singing ‘Il Dolce Suono’ or ‘The Sweet Sound’ from Lucia as she went.  Adam watched her until her haunting voice was all that left.

“Lovely, isn’t she?”

He started and turned toward the source of the unexpected voice.  There was a sudden burst of light as a match flared and the man lit his cigar.  Adam recognized him just before his thin mustached face disappeared into the night.

“Nether,” he said, quickly masking his surprise.  “I didn’t see you there.”

“I didn’t intend that you should.”

The rancher’s son hesitated.  How exactly did you reply to that?

“Were you taking a walk?”

“A ride,” the odd man replied.  “I find the night air invigorating.”

‘Like the ghoul you are,’ he thought, but said, “Unless you’re used to the West, you had best take care.  The night is full of danger.”

Nether’s eyes glowed above the cigar.  There was something disturbing about them, as well as about the man himself.  Several heartbeats passed before he responded, “Indeed.”  A nod of his head indicated the house.  “Shall we go?”

As a matter of course, Adam liked silence.  It let a man think.  Yet, as they walked, it became oppressive and he felt compelled to speak.  “Calliope told me how you met.  She said you look out for her.”

They’d reached the porch.  Before he could move to the door, Nether blocked his way.  “Mister Cartwright, I know I am a stranger to you, but may I offer you a word of advice?”

He shrugged.

“Calliope is a rare creature, beautiful and tragic as the name she has claimed, ‘vanessa cardui’, the Painted Lady.  The butterfly is a whore in many ways, caring not who it mates with or when or where, so long as it fulfills the purpose for which it was created.  It mates, lives a moment, and then dies.”

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked, his tone irritated.

“We will be leaving in the morning.  It would be….” Nether smiled – if you could call it that.  “Let us just say that it would be well if you remained indoors tonight.”

“What I do tonight is none of your business!” he snapped.

Professor Blackfold’s strange eyes fixed on him even as a fresh puff of smoke left his lips and floated heavenward.

“Let us hope not.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Joe Cartwright sucked in a breath, held it, and slowly opened his eyes.  His first experiment at doing so had been a failure, so he was more careful this time.  He couldn’t remember what happened before, but both his head and sides felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to them.  Whatever it was, he must have scared his poor father half to death, because the older man was sound asleep sitting up in the chair beside his bed.  Pa’s cheeks were stubbly and he looked like Hell.

Heck.

Joe drew another breath, held it a little longer, and then moved his fingers.  Nothing exploded, no stars circled his head and he didn’t puke, so he figured maybe he could dare to shift the whole hand.  Ever so slowly his fingers crept along the top of the coverlet until they made contact with his father’s.  Joe puffed out a sigh when they did.

Up until that moment he hadn’t been sure the older man was real.

His head had begun to pound, so Joe closed his eyes again and lay still with his fingers contacting his father’s.  It was obvious he’d been sick –  was sick – but he couldn’t quite recall with what or for how long.  He remembered Adam coming into the room and yelling at him – him, yelling at Adam, that was, not the other way around.  And Hoss.  Gosh, Hoss looked so lost he thought maybe he was dying.

Joe moaned softly.  The way his head hurt, he’d like to die.

He steeled himself and tried again, prying each eyelid up, but separately this time.  The room was dark, which was a blessing ‘cause the light hurt his eyes.  Even the lamp on the bedside table was turned down low.  His neck hurt too.  Come to think about it, so did his chest and back and just about everything else.  Did he fall off his horse?  Gosh, he hoped not!  That would have scared Pa worse than anything.  The injured boy shifted his gaze back to his father who kind of looked like one of Mrs. Hoffmeister’s pretzels, all twisted up in the chair.  Maybe he had, and maybe that was why Pa looked so bad.

Maybe he should let him know he was okay.

So, experiment number three – talking.  Joe braced himself.

“Pa…?”  The sound was so feeble he would have laughed if it wouldn’t have made his head hurt even worse.  Warily, he cleared his throat.  “…Pa?”

The older man stirred but didn’t wake.

This was hard work!

Joe blew out a breath and tried again.

“PA?”

His father started and looked around.  Joe wanted to wave and shout, ‘over here!” but that last ‘pa’ had about done him in.  The older man frowned and then looked at him.  When he saw he was awake, Pa’s smile lit up the room – in a good way that didn’t hurt his eyes.  His father’s fingers gripped his.  A hand rested on his cheek.  Then that voice, the one he longed for – hungered for – the one that gave him life asked, “Joseph, how are you boy?”

He tried to answer, really he did, but all that came were tears.

“Oh, Joseph!”  Pa shifted onto the bed and laid a hand on his arm.  “Son, it’s so good to see you awake.  How do you feel?”

Joe sniffed – and smiled.  It was something they did and he couldn’t let his pa down.

“Fine,” he lied.

Pa’s dark eyes went wide and he laughed.  Then he called out, loud enough for the world to hear.  “Adam!  Hoss!  Come quickly!  Your brother’s awake!!”

They must have been right outside the door ‘cause his brothers were in the room before he could draw a breath to tell Pa to keep it down.

He must have been sicker than he thought.

“Hey, Little Joe,” Hoss said, coming close and laying a hand on his other arm.  “How you feelin’?”

“Your brother’s ‘fine’,” Pa answered for him.

“Joe?”

“I’m okay,” he said, forcing a smile.

It died as his gaze shifted to his older brother.  Joe swallowed hard and forced it out.  “Hey, Adam.”

Adam came close.  “You were pretty upset with me before, Joe.  Do you know why?”

It made his head hurt to think about it, but he had to, for Adam.  Older brother looked like he’d lost his best friend.  He couldn’t explain it.  There was a sort of ‘jolt’ when he saw him.  Sure, the Yankee blockhead yelled at him, even threw a punch now and then, but he knew Adam would never hurt him.

So why did seeing Adam fill him with fear?

“Joseph, if this is too much for you, it can wait….”

That was Pa.  The older man was worried about him.

Joe blew out a breath.  He was worried about ‘him’ too!  There was something….  Something important he couldn’t remember and he needed to.

He looked at Adam and asked, “What happened?”

His brother blinked.  “In Genoa, you mean?”

“I guess.  Whatever it was caused me to end up here.”

“The doctor said it would be best if you remember what happened yourself, son,” Pa suggested gently.

“Well, I can’t remember!” he shouted, his temper flaring.

And instantly regretted it.

“Joseph, I’m going to have your brothers leave –”

Both his eyes and his mouth were watering, but he wasn’t going to give in!  Joe’s fingers gripped his father’s sleeve.  “No, Pa.  This is…important.”  He looked straight at his brother.  “Adam, tell me what happened.”

Older brother turned to their father.  Pa hesitated, and then nodded.   “Go ahead.  Little Joe seems competent enough.”

Adam chuckled but sobered quickly.  “I followed you to Genoa, you little scamp, and found you at Livingston’s Exchange.  You’d gone there to see the Painted Lady.”

He remembered that.  He was in love, or at least he thought he was.  It didn’t seem so important now.

“And?”

“I told you to go home – ordered you to go home – and stayed behind to talk to Calliope.  While I was talking to her, a man came by with a message that you had been hurt.”

Joe closed his eyes.  He could see it.  He’d left Adam at the saloon and headed for the alley and….

His eyes shot open.  “Cochise?”

“She’s fine,” Hoss said.  “I got her in the barn and been treatin’ her like a queen.”

“Okay.”  Joe’s head was throbbing now along with his stomach.  With each new pulse of pain an image formed.  Cochise at the end of the alley.  Movement, in the dark.  A flash of white.  A woman’s frightened face.

Adam, staring back at him.

Joe swallowed hard.  “Pa, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

It was Adam who held his head with one hand and the basin with the other as he retched – and retched.  He’d had nothing to eat, so by the time he was done Joe was gasping with pain.  Pa was saying something and older brother tried to pull free, but he held on tight and stared at him.  The face in the alley.  Was it Adam?  Could it be his brother?  Joe clamped his eyes shut and forced the horror he had buried to the surface.  The woman was young.  Cassie?  Yeah, Cassie was terrified.  The man who held her struck her and told her to shut up and then looked straight at him.  He had black hair and wore a gray felt hat.  His face was strong. His eyes….

Joe nearly fainted.

His eyes were blue.

It wasn’t Adam.

“It…wasn’t you,” he gasped as he let his brother go.

Adam frowned.  “What wasn’t me?”

Joe began to shake as he reached for the bucket.  “The man who killed Cassie.”

 

Chapter Six

 

Hoss Cartwright was flying south and east, back to the Ponderosa as fast as his tired horse could take him.  It hadn’t taken long to catch up to the man with the money and, once he did, he knew he had to get home.  He’d taken the bad man by surprise and then been surprised to find he knew him.  It was Dan Gentry, the stagehand from Livingston’s Exchange who’d driven the wagon that brought little brother home.

It boiled his blood to think that Dan had a part in puttin’ the boy there.

Gentry was about Adam’s size and looked just like older brother, ‘cept for those blue eyes of his that was cold as ice.  Even so, there was no contest when it came to takin’ him down.  Like most cowards who do their dirty work in the dark, Dan would have run like a rabbit if he could.

Course, that wasn’t bein’ fair to the rabbit!

He’d caught the villain unawares when he stopped to refresh his canteen in a stream and after dunkin’ him in it a few times, got the truth out of him.  Or at least as much of the truth as Dan was willin’ to give up.  Seems that perfessor  feller, name of Blackfold , hired him to beat up one of the girls who worked at Livingston’s.  Dan said Little Joe showin’ up when he did made it go wrong and the girl got killed by accident, but he didn’t believe that for one minute.  The man was a no-good, lyin’, snivelin’ killer and he’d told him so right before he gave him a good lickin’ and then tied him up to a big old Ponderosa pine.  He would have left him there too if it hadn’t been for the sheriff from Genoa showin’ up with one of his boys.  Sheriff Jim told him that, right after they left, one of the saloon girls done ratted Dan out for usin’ her and not payin’ his bill.  Dan was wanted in a couple of states for a long list of crimes rangin’ all the way from bank robbery to murder.

Sheriff Jim said it was a wonder Little Joe was alive.

Hoss sighed and looked down.  Chubby’s sides were heavin’ beneath his legs.  He was gonna haf’ta stop and let him rest for a few minutes.  It about killed him to do it.  Sheriff Jim talked to Dan – well, threatened him actually – and that there bad man admitted there was another man workin’ with him.  Before they left to take Dan back to Genoa, Sheriff Jim told him who it was.  That was why he was pushin’ Chubby so hard.  He had to get home.

The man’s name was Colm McConnell.  He was the redhead who’d ridden in with Professor Blackfold.

The big man reined in his horse and dismounted.  He patted the black’s nose and spoke a few encouraging words before catching up his canteen and heading for the stream.  He took his time since him speedin’ up wasn’t gonna speed up Chubby catchin’ his breath.  Before he left, he grabbed a piece of jerky from his saddlebag.  It was a mite old but he ate it anyway, sitting on a rock beside the stream and thinkin’ about what he was gonna do when he got home.

No matter what, that perfessor was in the middle of things.  Dan might have lied to save his own hide, but he didn’t care one whit about savin’ anyone else’s.  The outlaw told Sheriff Jim that Nether Blackfold paid him money to keep him quiet and then gave him more so’s he could run away to Mexico and disappear.  Blackfold was gonna do the same with McConnell.  The lawman offered to send his deputy on ahead to the Ponderosa, but he told him they’d take care of it themselves – and promised they’d do it all legal-like.

Sheriff Jim eyed him a long time before agreeing, but he did in the end.

Hoss took another bite of jerky and chewed it, considering.  If he was smart, the first thing he’d do when he got home was find his Pa and tell him what he knew, so Pa could go to that perfessor feller and confront him.  He wanted to do it, but he was afraid of what he might do if he did.  Then, they’d go to Adam and the three of them would make things right.

After all, that’s what Cartwrights did.

Chubby snorted, indicatin’ he was ready, so the big man tossed the tough tail-end of the jerky into the stream and rose to his feet.  Two minutes later he was mounted and riding fast.

Heading home to make things right.

~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a discouraged Adam Cartwright who returned to his little brother’s bedroom to relieve his father.  He’d gone to confront Dan Gentry and found the man had fled.  It galled him to think the rat had gotten away scot-free, but there was little that could be done.  In the end he sent one of the hands to the settlement to let Robert Olin and Roy Coffee know, asking that they forward a description to the lawmen in the towns and settlements nearby.

Before heading to his own room to get some rest, his father had filled him in.  Little Joe awakened long enough to get some liquid into him but had quickly fallen back to sleep.  It troubled the rancher’s son still that his face – or, rather, the face of a man who looked exactly like him – was the last thing his baby brother had seen before being struck.  With a sigh, Adam turned back to the window.  He’d been looking out on the yard.  The lanterns were lit and the final tasks of the day complete so, for the most part, it was empty.  A few minutes before he’d seen Nether Blackfold  leave the house and cross to the barn to talk to the stocky red-headed man who drove his wagon.  His name was Colm McConnell.  Blackfold handed the Irishman an envelope and remained until McConnell mounted and took off.  The black-haired man supposed it had something to do with their preparations for departure the next morning.

His painted lady was about to fly away.

Adam ran a hand along the back of his neck and then flexed the muscles of his back.  They were aching from sitting upright in an uncomfortable chair next to his brother’s bed.  Joe’s fever had finally broken.  His pallor had decreased and his skin taken on a more normal tone – except for the right-hand side of his face and under his eyes.  Both were livid with bruises purple as wine.   Paul Martin, who had come by to examine little brother late the night before, agreed with the Genoa doctor that the bruising was the sign of a cracked skull.

Little Joe was lucky to be alive.

Adam’s gaze returned to the window and the yard below.  He was surprised to find Nether Blackfold  still there.  The mystic was leaning on the corral fence, a lit cigar in his hand.  Almost as if sensing his gaze, Nether shifted and looked up – directly at him.  Blackfold remained in that position for several heartbeats before pushing off the fence.  Seconds later the front door opened and closed.  There were footsteps on the stair.  Another door closed.

Then, there was silence.

Adam let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d drawn before returning to the chair beside his brother’s bed.   Doctor Martin had suggested – well, ordered really – that they rouse Joe every few hours.  First to make sure they could, and secondly, to try to get some sustenance into him.  The first time he’d done it, things hadn’t gone so well.  Joe knew now that he wasn’t the man he’d seen at the end of the alley.  He was just his older brother.

So he ignored him.

Adam chuckled as he leaned forward to place a hand on his brother’s arm.  “Joe.  Come on, Joe.  Time to wake up.”

Baby brother groaned and turned his head away from him.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said as his hand moved to Joe’s chin and gently forced it back.  “Come on.  Hop Sing brought up some fresh beef broth.  I need to get some of it into you.”

“G-way.”

“I will if you eat something.”

One green eye opened and focused on him – sort of.   “Adam?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Little Joe yawned, winced, and then gingerly righted himself.  “Oh, no…” he breathed.

Adam was instantly on the alert.  “What is it?  Are you going to be sick?”

“Yeah,” Joe said as he placed a hand over his eyes.  “There’s two of you!  What am I gonna do with two Yankee blockheads!”

The hand lowered and he grinned.

“I see that knock on the head has done nothing to improve your sense of beauty,” he replied as he reached for the bowl and spoon on the nightstand.   As he handed both to his brother, he asked, “Are you really seeing double?”

Joe closed one eye and then opened the other.  “Yep.  One Adam for each eye.”

“Do you have a headache?”

His brother took one spoonful – frowned – and held the bowl out.

“All of it,” he said.

With a sigh, Joe began spooning in the liquid.  The bowl was about a third full when he handed back, but Adam decided it was enough.  As he placed it on the bedside table, his little brother asked, “When’s Pa coming back?”

“You think he’ll be any easier on you than I am?”

Joe closed his eyes and leaned back on the pillow.  “Just so long as it isn’t Hop Sing.  I swear I’m gonna bust a gut!  That’s the third bowl of soup he’s brought up!  Who does he think I am?  Hoss?”  When he didn’t respond, his brother opened one eye.  “What?”

“What, ‘what’?”

Joe shifted up on the pillows.  “What are you looking at?!”

He shrugged.  “You.”

His brother’s mobile eyebrows rolled toward the center.  “Why?”

Adam drew a breath and let it out slowly.  “Joe, look.  I’m sorry.  I could have gotten you killed.  The fact that you weren’t was – ”

“Providence.”

He blinked.  “What?”

“That’s what Pa would say.  It was Providence.  And you know what that means?”

Adam leaned back and crossed his arms.  “I suppose you’re going to tell me.”

“Sure, I am.  It means it ain’t all up to brother Adam!”

God, how he loved that cheeky smile!

“You know, Joe,” the black-haired man said as he rose to his feet.  “I’m thinking maybe that blow to the head you took did some good after all.”

Joe frowned.  “Huh?”

“It knocked some sense into you.”  Adam reached out to touch his brother’s shoulder.  “Thanks, Joe.”

“Am I interrupting something?” their father asked as he made an appearance.

“Sure are,” Joe replied before he could.  “Adam just admitted I was right!”

“Oh?”

“I did no such thing.  I just said….”  He grinned.  “Yeah, I just admitted the kid was right.”

“Yes!” Joe declared and thrust his hands into the air.  A second later they were wrapped around his head and he was moaning.

“That’s quite enough for now,” Pa said as he took a seat on the bed and gathered little brother in his arms.  “I think it’s time for another dose of the medicine the doctor left, don’t you?”

Joe was leaning on Pa’s shoulder.  “I don’t want to sleep anymore, Pa.  I’m tired of being in bed.”  He reared back to look at the older man.  “Can’t I come down and lay on the settee?  Please?  Just ‘til everyone goes to bed?”

Adam glanced at the clock.  It was around ten.  When his gaze returned to the pair, Pa was forcing Joe down to the sheets.  A second later the older man reached for a glass and the packet of powder beside it.

“Not tonight, young man.  Maybe tomorrow.”

Joe wrinkled his nose at the medicine but he took it.  “Are you gonna stay?”

Pa ran his hand over Joe’s forehead, pushing the kid’s wayward curls aside.  “Yes.  All night.”  Their father looked up at him then.  “Adam, why don’t you get something to eat and go to bed?  You look all in, son.”

“Adam?”

He looked at his brother.  “Yes?”

“Thanks for taking care of me, now, and in Genoa.”

As he was exiting the room, the black-haired man heard his father speak.

“About Genoa, young man….”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Hoss Cartwright seldom cursed.  He did now as he drew his horse to a halt once more and dismounted.  Chubby was plum worn out.  He knew he could push him, but he was afraid of what would happen if he did.

It wasn’t fair to his friend and he knew it.

Like it or not, he was gonna have to walk for a while.  His best guess put him near three hours out from the house on foot, or about nine miles.  On Chubby it would have taken him maybe one and a half.  Still, he had to remind himself – and he’d done it about a dozen times – that there really was no reason to hurry.  By the time he got home it would be midnight and everybody would be asleep.  He could talk to his Pa and Adam in the morning.  They’d confront that perfessor before he left.  It wouldn’t make no difference when he got there.  Yeah, that’s what he told himself.

But he didn’t believe it.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Adam was still chuckling when he reached the bottom of the stairs.  He’d gone to his room to refresh himself, splashing water on his face and running a comb through his hair, and then put on a new shirt and headed for the kitchen.  When he turned into the great room, he was surprised to find Nether Blackfold  occupying his father’s chair.  The mystic lowered the book he was reading at the sound of his approach and rose to his feet.  Adam stopped to stare.  He knew it was rude, but it was just something you did when confronted by the odd man.  There was some ‘thing’ about Professor Blackfold  that gave you pause.  It was just as Calliope said.  It was as if Blackfold’s  eyes could see into the corners of your soul – the corners where deep things lurked, waiting to be exposed, even to yourself.

“Heading outside?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Adam answered.  He had yet to decide if he would take Calliope up on her invitation.  The singer would be gone in the morning and he was really not the kind of man for one-night stands.  “At the moment I’m heading to the kitchen for a snack.”

Nether nodded as if he had said something profound.  “I have found that the night is a time of shadows; a time when a man’s appetite may overcome his best intentions.”

“If you’re trying to tell me it’s bad to eat before bed, my father beat you to that years ago,” he said in an attempt to lighten the mood.

God, the man was strange!

“Nevertheless, you intend to go.”

“Yes, I intend to go.  Is there something wrong with that?”

“No.  Of course not.”  Blackfold’s sudden smile was unnerving.  “Bon appétit.”

With that, the professor turned and walked up the stairs.

Adam stood for the longest time, staring after him.  Then he shook off his uneasiness and made his way to the kitchen.  Hop Sing had gone to bed, but the Asian man usually left some cold cuts in the ice box, so he headed there and was rewarded by a platter of beef and cheese.  The black-haired man fixed a plate and returned with it and a glass of milk to the great room.  Once there he took a seat – in the blue chair.  While he ate, he considered the last few days which, if he was honest, felt like a bad dream.

Of course, the evidence to the contrary was lying upstairs, sleeping a drugged sleep under his father’s watchful eye.

It had started when he realized Little Joe was absent even more than usual.  The questions that engendered eventually led to his trip to Genoa to drag the wayward scamp home.  Instead, he found himself enthralled as much – if not more so – than his little brother by the opera singer turned saloon performer known as Calliope Abbadon.  The note Calliope gave to his little brother lay in a box in his room upstairs.  Next to it was the one that had taken him to her dressing room.  She’d been quite flirtatious and things might have gone too far if not for the fact that the doctor had sent another note telling him Little Joe had been attacked and left for dead next to a murdered prostitute.

Adam sighed.  Only Joe.

He’d gone to the doctor’s office immediately and found his brother severely injured, with a cracked skull and a decent prognosis for recovery.  Their father arrived shortly after that and they’d decided to bring Joe home.

So far so good.

The complications that ensued were his own fault and arose when, on impulse, he’d asked Calliope to come to the Ponderosa.  He had a couple of reasons for doing so.  First of all, he’d been attracted to her beauty, but even more than that, he’d sensed there was something she needed from him.  Help, perhaps.  He would never forget his first encounter with Professor Nether Blackfold across the crowded room at Livingston’s Exchange.  He’d known at that moment there was more to the man than it appeared.  He had to admit he’d seen himself rescuing Calliope from Blackfold  – setting the Painted Lady free to fly, so to speak.  Of course, he didn’t know if she needed rescuing.

And he never would if he didn’t meet her tonight.

Adam’s gaze went to the tall clock by the front door.  It was about to strike half past eleven.

He had about twenty minutes to decide.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ben Cartwright stood and stretched.  He glanced at his youngest, who was sleeping peacefully thanks to the doctor’s remedy, and then walked to the window and pulled the curtain aside.  As he did, the tall case clock downstairs struck three-quarters past the hour.  A new day was about to begin.

He could only pray it would prove better than the last few.

The rancher opened the drapes a bit more and then pulled the chair from his son’s desk over to the window and sat down.  Hop Sing had done a wonderful job of cleaning up after Joe was ill, but as with any sick room, there was a stale scent that lingered and would until it could be aired out properly.  As he’d promised Joe, he would take him downstairs to the settee in the morning and then they could see to it.  For tonight, he would sit here and breathe in the clean night air and the scent of the pines and thank his lucky stars – and his great God above – that Joseph was alive and on the mend.

A smile curled the older man’s lips as he recalled the discussion he’d had with his boy before he fell asleep.  Joseph was rightly repentant about his behavior and not entirely sure why he had done what he had.  Though he’d played dumb, the amused father understood it well enough.  Calliope Abbadon – with her captivating looks and mesmerizing voice – was a siren, no different from the ones that had called to him when he was a seaman, not much older than his youngest boy.  He’d lost his heart more than once to such a beauty and would have drowned if older and wiser heads had not taught him how to steer his course toward a more wholesome harbor.  He hated to admit it – and he could hear Marie laughing in Heaven – but of all his sons, Joseph was the one most like him.  Hoss was a man of constancy and sense.  Adam, so like his dear Boston-born mother, was constant, steady, and most of all level-headed.

Adam, who was at this moment crossing the yard.

Ben rose to his feet and drew closer to the glass.  Yes, that was Adam.  He’d know his son’s upright figure anywhere, even in the dark.  His eldest was moving at a good clip and would soon pass the gate and enter the northwest field beyond the house.  Ben glanced at the clock in Joe’s room.  It was almost midnight.

Whatever for?

He let the curtain drop and stood there, considering.  Should he follow him?  Adam was a grown man, after all.  What his eldest did was his business and not his father’s.  Ben’s thumb and forefinger worked his chin.  He knew he was an over-protective parent.  He’d even been accused of mollycoddling and pampering his boys.  His friends told him this was the West, he’d best make them tough and teach them to stand on their own.

He agreed.

It was just that his way of toughening the young men God had given him was by holding them close and loving them before he let them fly.

Ben glanced out the window and saw that Adam had disappeared.   At the same moment Little Joe stirred.  A pale hand reached out and his youngest son’s lips parted to call out to him.

“Pa?”

The rancher closed his eyes for a moment, committing his oldest to the One who had created him, and then went to his fledgling’s bedside and sat down.  In doing so, he missed the subtle movement in the shadows by the barn and the slender feminine figure that followed in his eldest’s footsteps.

“Pa’s here, boy,” he whispered as he sat at Joe’s side. “Everything is all right.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

A moonlit assignation with a beautiful woman was not a new thing for him.  He’d has his share of dalliances in Boston and, though there’d been fewer since returning to the West, he’d learned while secrecy might be titillating, it could also prove dangerous.  The fact that Calliope wanted to meet him at the fence, in the dark and well away from the house, most likely had more to do with her need to avoid Blackfold than any desire for privacy.  After all, the door to her dressing room could have opened at any moment and she’d been more than ready to engage in amorous congress there.  While he’d enjoyed such brief encounters, he had a natural reticence about them.  First, there were the Puritan values instilled into him by his faith-driven father.  Second, was common sense.  He had yet to decide whether or not he wanted to be a father and so took every precaution not to become one.  Third, there was respect for the woman, even one such as Calliope who seemed not to respect herself.  Women were not a thing to be used for one’s pleasure and discarded.  That was why he didn’t frequent the painted ladies of the settlement or anywhere else.  Disease, of course, was another threat.

Yes, there was much to lose.

That was not to say that he’d not had his fun or found pleasure in a woman’s arms.  One or two he’d cared for deeply and they’d consummated their love before the woman moved or, sadly, passed on.  Most…well…there were ways to enjoy oneself without the actual act and he’d become an expert at them.  He’d made a vow to himself as he headed out of the house that tonight would be such a night.  Calliope was a mystery wrapped in an enigma.  He sensed in her deep, troubled waters.  She had a need, much as her namesake, the Painted Lady, to draw men to her, to conquer them, and then to fly away.

Thank God he’d stepped in before she wrapped her orange and black wings around his fifteen-year-old brother!

The fence stood before him.  For as far as he could see, the wooden rails were empty.  Of course, Calliope could be playing coy; hiding somewhere in order to step out and surprise him.  With a nonchalance he did not feel, Adam walked to the fence and leaned his back against it.

And waited.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Hoss topped the rise, pulled Chubby up short, and let out a relieved sigh.  In the distance he could see the lights of the ranch house standing in stark opposition to the ocean of darkness that sought to swallow them.  He loved the West’s wide-open spaces, but there was just something about coming back to a place where you knew you were safe, secure, and loved.  God had blessed him with a family like no other.  Oh, they had their squabbles and half the time he wanted to knock heads – Little Joe’s or Adam’s, mostly – together.  But most of the time the sight of home meant supper waiting on the table, good conversation, a game of checkers before bed, and a big old down mattress with his name on it waitin’ to take him off to slumberland.

He was a lucky man indeed.

Before the big man lay a series of wide-open fields where they pastured horses and cattle.  Most of them were empty now as animals had been moved in preparation for winter or sold to the highest bidder.  There were three fences between him and home, the last one about a half-mile out from the house.

He was counting on seein’ that one, cause that one meant he was almost there.

~~~~~~~~~~~

It was near pitch-black in the field.  There were a few stars, but mostly the sky was cloud-covered.  Even the moon had hidden its face.  Due to this, the night had a melancholy air.  What struck him most was the stillness.  There was the occasional chirp of an insect or the sound of a bird winging overhead, but other than that it was as quiet as a tomb.

And then into it, came magic.

Her voice pealed like a bell, rising and lowering in pitch.  At first the lyrics of her song were obscured by the distance, but then Adam recognized the tune as ‘Il Dolce Suono’ from Lucia di Lammermoor.  This time Calliope sang it in its original Italian.  He knew the words, of course, but even more he knew the tune.  One of his grandfather’s friends in Boston played the violin.  How often he’d sat enraptured, listening to the strains of Donizetti’s newest opera!  His favorite piece was the one she sang; the one in which Lucia appears – blood streaked, with knife in hand – just after she has killed the man she was to marry.  The song had been haunting in Abel Stoddard’s parlor but was even more so now as the notes drifted on the breeze across an empty field.  Calliope wore her stage costume.  He could tell by the way the folds of fabric surrounded her, opening and closing like the wings of her doomed namesake.

Adam pushed off the fence and went to meet her.  “Calliope,” he said.

“Lucia,” she softly corrected, “my Edgardo.”

Edgardo was Lucia’s lover.  The man she would marry, Arturo.  In the end she murdered both.  Arturo with a knife, and Edgardo, when he chose to kill himself because of her betrayal.

Adam smiled.  “I’m sorry.  I seem to have forgotten my sword.”

Calliope was a tall woman, but still a good four or five inches shorter than him.  Her eyes, bright and black in the starlight, fixed him with a kind of mad intensity and for the first time he felt unnerved in her presence.  He thought to take a step back, but she moved in before he could and locked her arms around his waist.

“Oh, Edgardo,” she sighed.  “How I have waited for tonight!”

“You barely know me,” he replied.

“No.  There you are wrong.  You are a poet and sage, and a man of deep convictions.  You are Romeo and Troilus, Anthony, and Othello!”

All great lovers and all, tragic figures.

Adam pulled back until he could cup her face in his hand.  “Calliope, you are a beautiful woman and I desire you, but you have to understand this: I am none of those men.  I am me.  Adam Cartwright.”  He paused.  “If you’re looking for something else, we might as well head back to the house.”

The singer blinked and, for a moment, her eyes clouded like the sky.  Then she laughed.  “Of course, you are!  Handsome, stalwart Adam.  Trustworthy and honest.  Not Edgardo, but my Arturo.”

He opened his mouth to proclaim again that he was neither man but failed to do so as her lips met his.  The singer’s kisses were light and playful at first, and then grew in intensity as she pressed her body into his and forced him back against the fence.  Adam was used to being the aggressor, so this was something new and shamefully, he found he liked it.  Calliope’s hands worked the buttons on his shirt and then moved to his belt, unfastening it and letting it fall away so she had access to the buttons there as well.  Curiously, in the middle of it all, it was the words of Thomas Jefferson that came to mind.  Jefferson had fallen for a married woman.  She’d left him and he was devastated.  He tried to reconcile the needs of the body against the knowledge of a mind that knew better, calling it a debate between heart and head.  For Jefferson, it was the head that proved the victor.

Tonight, for him, it was the heart.

 

Chapter Seven

 

Ben Cartwright came back to consciousness slowly.

Worn out, he’d fallen asleep in the chair beside his youngest boy’s bed and roused to the sound of the boy’s restless tossing and turning.  The rancher glanced at the clock on his son’s mantle, noted it was half past midnight, and then turned back to the boy.  Joseph murmured as he pitched from side to side, speaking words that made sense to him alone.  Ben caught the name ‘Dan’ and knew his son was reliving what had happened in Genoa.

“Pa….” Joe wailed.  “Pa….  Adam!  No…..”

Ben placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder and leaned in.  “Joseph.  It’s your pa.  Wake up, son.  You’re dreaming.”

Little Joe frowned and moaned again.  “Adam….”

This fixation with his older brother came, he was sure, from the fact that the two men looked so much alike.  Side by side you would have had no trouble telling them apart, but in a dark alley it would have been hard to distinguish one from the other.

“Your brother is safe in bed.  So are you.  Little Joe, open your eyes and look at me.”

Joseph winced again and grew still, and then his eyes flew open.  His son stared at him, and then at the door; then he tossed his covers aside and tried to rise.

Ben caught him just in time.  “Joseph!” he said sharply.

Little Joe looked around wildly and then his son’s wide and terrified eyes settled on his face.  “Pa?” he mouthed.

“Yes, son.  It’s me.”

Joe looked sheepish.  “I was…dreaming?”

He nodded.  “You know, boy, if there was one thing I wish you had not inherited from your mother, it would be night terrors.”

Marie had them too.  Doctor Martin said it was the sign of a hysterical constitution.

His youngest wet his lips.  His voice was small.  “Sorry, if I scared you, Pa.  I was back in the alley.  I…”

“You what?”

“I saw him, Pa.”

“Who?”

“The man who hit me.”

This was new.  Whoever had hit Little Joe had come up from behind without warning.

“You saw him?”

His son was shaking.  “Yeah.  I think….  I think I passed out when I fell, Pa.  Then, for just a second, I came to.  That’s when I saw him.”

“Do you know who it was?”

Little Joe swallowed hard.  “I sure do, Pa.  He’s the man who drives the wagon for Professor Blackfold.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

The head and the heart.

And the body.

Two out of those three could get a man in deep trouble.

Calliope lay in his arms, her corset partially undone so her creamy white breasts lay free against the tanned skin of his chest.  Her fingers were at play, toying with the curling black hair that covered it. They lay together in a patch of thick grass that tickled his back where his shirt had ridden up to expose it.  The moon had finally emerged and it cast its beams on the barren field and the woman he had – in spite of his best intentions – taken as a lover.

Adam’s lips curled at the corners.  So maybe he was both Edgardo and Arturo.

“What are you smiling at?” Calliope asked.

Her face hung above his.  The singer was, in a word, ‘extraordinary’ with her white skin, black hair, and the diaphanous wings of the Painted Lady hanging about her; the silken fabric grown transparent in the moonlight.  He’d seldom seen a creature as beautiful in the flesh, marble, or paint.  Calliope embodied the cool self-possessed splendor of Aphrodite or Venus, and yet he sensed it was a sham.  There was a fire within her.

One that had yet to catch fire.

“I’m smiling at you,” he replied.  “You, who hang as a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear.”

“A beauty too rich for use, for Earth, too dear,” she replied, supplying the end of the quote.  Her lips brushed his and she whispered close to his ear.  “Shall I our quietus make with a bare bodkin?”

He was a bit puzzled by the mixed references – Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet.

“I don’t understand.”

Calliope rose above him like Aurora at dawn.  “Men.  You never do.  You think women have been created for your pleasure when, in truth, it’s the other way around.  We are the vessels of life.  We take your seed and move on.”  Her violet eyes had grown purple, taking on a wild intensity.  “In the end, we are always the victors.”

Adam tried to move, but she was straddling him, pinning his body down.

“Are you frightened?” she asked.

The black-haired man swallowed over a rising fear.  “Should I be?”

He no more than blinked and there was a knife in her hand.  He had no idea where it came from, but it must have been concealed in the multiple layers of her costume.  Calliope pressed the tip into the tender skin beneath his jaw.

“Don’t do this,” he said, his throat tight.

“Enrico!” she called out unexpectedly.  “Are you there?”

The man he knew as Nether Blackfold stepped out of the trees.  “Yes, Lucia,” he said.

“Did you bring it?” she asked.

“Of course, I did.”

Adam was breathing hard, his heart pounding.  He was stronger than Calliope, but the knife she held was close to his jugular and one misstep would see it slice through the vein.  His eyes tracked Blackfold as the mystic professor came to Calliope’s side.  He was holding a pistol.

The same caliber of pistol that had been found by the side of Cassandra Middleton.

“It’s empty,” she said. “Do you want to know why?”

Adam made a sound low in his throat.  “Do I have a choice?”

She laughed and the sound of it, while somewhat hysterical, was also profoundly sad.  “Once upon a time there was a little girl who was not allowed to be a little girl.  At an age where other children were chasing hoops and attending school, she was performing on the stage.  There, she met a man.  He took her as his lover and gave her his seed.”

“You?”

“No.  I was his seed.  I watched as my mother was used and abused until all joy left her and her voice – the voice of an angel – grew still.  He beat her for that, you know.  For her silence.”  Calliope’s smile was that of a mad woman’s.  “Then she silenced him.”

His gaze flicked to Nether Blackfold and what he held.

“She shot him?”

“One.  Two.  Three.  Four.  Five times!  Five times she emptied bullets into him but kept one for herself.  Six!”  The blade pierced his skin, drawing blood.  “Mama dropped the empty gun beside her dead lover as she died.  As I will do to you, lover, when you die.”

“Would you….”  He cleared his throat.  “Would you have done this to Little Joe?”

It was Nether who replied.  “Lucia cares not what age a man is, if he makes love to her, he dies.”

Calliope – Lucia – bent down to kiss his lips.  “Goodbye,” she whispered as the pressure on the knife increased.

Adam closed his eyes and prepared for the end.

“Ma’am, I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you don’t move away from my brother.”

The familiar voice came from out of nowhere like a welcome breeze of salvation.  He couldn’t look – couldn’t move because of the blade – but Adam knew who it was.

Nether leveled the gun at his brother Hoss.

“It’s emp –” Adam began but was cut off as the knife dug deeper into his skin and he felt a fresh trickle of blood.

“Enrico,” Calliope said, as calmly as if she were ordering a hat, “you will have to kill that one as well.  Just like those girls.  He’s seen too much.”

Adam concentrated.  It was hard to remember the English translation of an Italian opera libretto when you were at the point of death, but he gave it a go.  What had Edgardo said to Lucia in the final act?

“Lucia…”  He paused to strengthen his voice.  “Lucia! You have betrayed Heaven and love.  Accursed be the moment when I fell in love with you.”  The singer was looking at him now, an odd light in her eyes.  “…evil, abominable brood.  I should have fled from you.  Abominable accursed!  I should have fled from you….”

“Ah!” Calliope replied and raised her hand to her throat, just as Lucia did.  It was involuntary – the action of an actress on the stage.

It was now or never.

“Ah!” Adam cried as he placed his hands on her breasts and shoved.  “May God destroy you!”

What happened next would remain a blur until the day he died.  Hoss told him later that when Nether dropped the empty gun and charged him, he’d pulled the trigger, hitting the man square in the chest and killing him instantly.  Calliope, seeing Nether fall, grew even more insane.  She lifted the knife for one last fatal plunge.  Adam managed to catch hold of her hand. They struggled and everything went black.

When he woke,  Hoss was leaning over him, shaking his shoulder, and calling his name.

“Adam!  Adam!!  Answer me!”

He groaned as he fought to right himself.  “Calliope?”

“You just stay where you are, Adam.  That little girl stuck you good.  I gotta get the bleedin’ stopped.”

“Where…is she?”

If his skin was red with blood, Hoss’ had gone white with horror.  His brother inclined his head to one side and stepped away.  Adam looked.  The Painted Lady, the beauty who had possessed his head and heart for a one brief glorious moment, lay dead with the knife of Lucia di Lammermoor embedded in her chest.

Beside her lay the empty gun.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Pa was there when they dragged into the yard, saddled up and ready to ride even though the night was black as pitch.  A dozen hands stood with him, guns and torches in hand.  From the window above Hop Sing’s pale face shone like a round moon, keeping watch over those below and the one above.   He’d managed to sit Hoss’ horse and stay in the saddle for the short ride home, though he wasn’t really sure how.

When he saw his father, Adam lost the fight to remain strong and fainted dead away.

The sunlight woke him.  It shone through the brocade curtains in his bedroom, red as blood.  The black-haired man lifted a hand to his bandaged throat and groaned and was startled when someone pressed a glass of water up against his parched lips.

He was even more surprised to find it that it was Little Joe.

When he caught the kid’s eye, his fifteen-year-old brother put a finger to his lips and hushed him.

“What….”  Adam swallowed over the pain and tried again.  “What are you doing here?”

“I’m not.  Here, that is.  I’m in bed asleep.”  Joe winked.  “At least that’s what Pa thinks.”

“What makes you think….”  He gasped as he eased himself up.  Everything hurt like hell!  “What makes you think I won’t give you away?”

Joe’s mobile brows dipped.  “Why?  Because we’re brothers and brothers look out for one another.”

They did indeed!

“How are you feeling?” he asked.  Joe looked wrung out, though some of the color had come back into his cheeks.

The kid shrugged.  “Kind of stupid, I guess.”

“Stupid?”

“The Painted Lady, I thought she was.  But she….”  Little Joe grew solemn as an undertaker.  “She almost killed you.”

“She almost killed you too,” he said softly.

Joe’s lips twisted.  “Only because I got in the way.”

“Nevertheless….”

“Hoss told me how she hired those two men to murder Cassie and her friend.”  Joe’s curly head shook.  “It’s hard to believe.  She was so pretty.  Just like the butterfly.”

“I don’t think Calliope really wanted to kill anyone, Joe.”  He considered all he had seen and heard.  “There were things that happened to her when she was a girl – things she couldn’t survive.”

“Hoss said….”  Joe hesitated.  “Hoss said he overheard her tell you how she saw her mother die.”

The black-haired man knew that resonated with his brother.  He too had seen his mother die.   Adam studied him a moment.  Joe was so young and still so innocent, that it was hard for him to understand.  Things came to you in life – hard things, often bad, sometimes awful.  It was what you made of them that made you who you were.  At Joe’s age appearance was paramount.  It was difficult to understand how someone as charming and beautiful as Calliope Abbadon could be evil.

No.  Not evil.

Lost.

“And?” he prompted.

Joe swallowed hard.  “I watched Mama…die…but it didn’t make me hate horses or want to kill them or anything.  What made Calliope want to kill men she loved?”

“Eh…hmm.”

Both of them turned toward the door.  Pa was there, standing with his arms crossed over his chest and occupying it like he owned it.

“And just who gave you permission to be out of bed, young man?” he asked, his eyes fixed on Little Joe.

“You said I could get up when I felt better.”

“After Doctor Martin had checked you out and given permission.  Isn’t that right?”

Joe’s face wrinkled.  “Maybe I slept through that part?”

“Maybe you slept….”  Pa looked stern and then burst out laughing.  He walked over to Joe, gave him a hug, and said, “Now, you young scamp, you get out of here!  I better find you in your bed when I come in to check later.  If not –”

“I’ll be there, Pa, I swear!” Joe promised as he slipped past.

But not without a swat on his skinny little hiney.

Their father watched him go and then sank into the chair Joe had occupied.  He shook his head.  “What am I going to do with that boy?”

“Hug him,” Adam said soberly.  “Love him.  Be grateful.”

Pa laid a hand on his arm.  “I am grateful for you both, and to God for the fact that you are here and alive.”

Adam held his father’s gaze for a moment and then, with a sigh, sank back wearily into the pillows.  “I can’t believe I was so naïve as to be drawn into Calliope’s web.”

“You’re not the first,” Pa said softly.

“What?”

“Sheriff Jim came by last night,” the older man said as he leaned back in his chair.  “Apparently Dan Gentry decided to talk in the hope that he could avoid the noose by offering to testify against both Miss Abbadon and Nether Blackfold.  Of course, he had no way of knowing neither one of them would ever stand trial.”

Because both were dead.

“What did he say?”

“You knew Calliope was once a respected opera singer?”

He nodded.  “World-renowned.”

“Yes.  It seems there was some trouble back East.  An ardent admirer of hers ended up dead…with his throat slit.”  Pa’s gaze was fixed on him.  “There was suspicion that Miss Abbadon was involved, but nothing was ever proved.  She moved on…and then it happened again in the next town.”

“Two men?”

Pa nodded.  “After it happened, Calliope disappeared for over a year.  Blackfold, acting as her manager, said she was ‘indisposed’ and that, due to the tragic nature of the deaths, was taking an extended leave from performing.”

He thought a moment.  “The papers said her Western tour began about six months ago.  Is that when she reappeared?”

“Hale and hearty, or so it seemed,” Pa said with a sigh.  “There were rumors, of course, but no one believed such a beautiful, talented woman could be behind the killings.  And, for a time, there were no more.”

“For a time?”  His brows peaked.  “Was there another one?”

“In the town where Calliope appeared before coming to Genoa.  Sheriff Jim remembers seeing your little brother on the porch at Livingston’s the day he was discussing it with a deputy.  A man had been found in Reno with his throat slit – a man who had been seen the night before with Miss Abbadon.”   His father paused.  “There’s something else.”

“What?”

“Each time the dead man was found with an empty gun beside him.”

“Empty?  You mean, like the one they found in the alley with Joe and Cassie?”

“A gun of the same make and caliber.  The curious thing is, the girls were shot while the men were stabbed, but in each case the empty gun was left at their side – almost like a calling card.  Sheriff Jim is trying to figure out why.”

Adam considered it for a moment.  “I think I know why Pa,” he said at last.

“You do?”

Adam closed his eyes.  Behind them the image of the beautiful, but mad Calliope Abbadon lingered.  “Calliope saw her mother empty five bullets into her father, and then use the last bullet to kill herself.”  He looked at his father.  “Don’t you see, Pa?”

“See what, son?”

“That empty gun.  It came to symbolize both loss and victory – victory over her persecutor and the loss of her mother.”

“Then why leave it by those poor young women?”

He puffed out a breath.  “I imagine she saw them as obstacles.  Maybe they knew what she had done and had to be eliminated and, in her madness, Calliope judged their deaths as justified.”

“And your brother?”

The singer’s interest in Little Joe still puzzled him.  Joe was a boy – a child, really.  Would she really have taken his brother in her painted wings and made him her lover, and then killed him?

He guessed they would never know.

Adam remained silent for a moment, and then he asked, “What about Nether?  Did Sheriff Jim tell you who he was?”

“It was actually Colm McConnell who cleared that up.”

“They caught him?”

“Dan Gentry betrayed him and revealed the place they were to meet.  Apparently Colm and Gentry ere of long acquaintance.”  Pa adjusted his seat before continuing.  “Tell me, did Calliope mention any other relatives?  Other than her mother and father?  Or tell you her real name?”

He shook his head.  “It wasn’t…?”

“Blackfold, yes.  Nether was her father’s son from an earlier marriage.  According to McConnell, Nether loved her, but his love was unrequited.  He could not bear to be apart from her and so he became her manager and partner.  There was a point where he could have stopped her, but he chose instead of join in her madness.  Sheriff Jim believes he was jealous of the men she made her lovers and secretly relished each of their deaths.”

One of which had almost been his own.

“You’re tired, son.  I should go and let you get some rest.”

His eyes had closed.  He opened them and looked at his father again.   “Thanks, Pa.”

“For what?”

“For being who you are.  For loving us like you do.  There aren’t many who are so lucky or blessed.”

Pa opened his mouth to reply, but before he could there was a knock at the door and Hoss peeked his head in.

“Hey, Pa.  Adam.  Sorry to interrupt, but did you tell Little Joe he could come downstairs?”

He saw his father roll back through the conversation with Little Joe and noted the lifted eyebrows when the older man caught the loophole.   Between ‘you get out of here’ and ‘I better find you in bed when’ there was a lot of room for interpretation.

“That little scamp!” Pa shouted as he leapt to his feet. “You just wait until I get hold of him!  Once I do, he won’t be…able to sit…a horse…for…a…week….”

Pa’s voice trailed off as he stomped down the stairs.

Hoss had turned to follow but pivoted on his heel to look back in the room.

“You okay, Adam?” he asked.

Was he?

Did he know?

Adam closed his eyes.  After a moment, Hoss must have assumed he had fallen asleep because he tip-toed out and quietly closed the door.  The black-haired man lay there for some time, thinking, and then he began to softly hum a passage from the first act of Donizetti’s ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’.  As he did, a wind arose, stirring the curtains so they billowed into the room, mimicking the wings of a butterfly.

Ah!…on the breeze

will come to you my ardent sighs,

you will hear in the murmuring sea

the echo of my laments.

When you think of me

living on tears and grief,

then shed a bitter tear.

 

And he did.  Shed a tear for what was lost.

For his Painted Lady.

 

The End

Author’s Note:

Written for the 2021 Ponderosa Paddlewheel Poker Tournament.   The game was Five Card Draw and the words and/or phrases I was dealt were:

Lover
Painted Ladies
Empty Gun
Professor
Lose