Summary:   Adam Cartwright sits at the dining table while the logs glow red in the nearby fireplace. He taps a pencil on the tabletop as memories surround him. Something inside him must record these memories. He eases the pencil to the blank page of a new journal. This is what he writes.
Rating:  PG   Words:  98,500

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The Brandsters acknowledge that the authors are the owners of their stories.  Should an author included in the project reach out to us and indicate they do not wish their work to be archived in the Bonanza Brand Fanfiction Library, we will remove their stories.

 

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Thank you to Mr. Dortort who created the Cartwrights and the Ponderosa and shared them. And thank you to Ms. Sullivan who gave them new life. This story is purely for entertainment and is not intended to infringe on their rights or the rights of anyone else involved in these marvelous shows.

Author’s Notes:

I used “Bonanza” tie-ins where possible but this is a “Ponderosa” story. If you are a strict adherent to the “Bonanza” canon – skip this. The author begs forgiveness for any historical or hysterical errors.

“A Visit From St. Nicholas” (which we know as “The Night Before Christmas”) was written in 1822.

The Panic of 1837 is one of the reasons Ben heads south to New Orleans. The Panic was caused in part by land speculation in the West and lasted four years.

Yep, parts of Bourbon Street had mansions.

While Adam lived in the city, many merchants moved their businesses to Canal Street.

Adam’s description of the hurricane is what was referred to at the time as a “gale.” It hit New Orleans on October 5 and 6, 1837. The “gale” was caused by Racer’s Storm which made landfall at Matamoros and then traveled east on the Gulf Coast before also striking parts of Louisiana and North Carolina.

Adam’s reference to the Natchez (Mississippi) tornado is based on one that moved up the Mississippi River on May 7, 1840 and struck Natchez at 1:45 p.m. Death toll estimates were more than 40 in the city and more than 260 on the Mississippi River because of the river traffic.

Independence, Missouri was the “jumping off point” for more than 300,000 pioneers who followed the Oregon Trail and cut-offs to other locations. Another major “jumping off point” was St. Joe, Missouri.

 

Treasures of the Heart

 

Part 1

Pa’s second wife – and the only mother I could remember – died from an arrow wound during an Indian raid west of the Missouri. Inger’s death plummeted Pa into the dark despair of grief. I think all that saved him was my half-brother Erik and me.

After we buried Inger, we traveled a short distance back east. Mrs. Klement – who had lost her husband and two youngest children during the same battle – turned back, too, and was kind enough to help us with Erik until we reached a small town where we went our separate ways. Then, when Erik was approaching two years old, Pa decided it was time to resume our quest to reach California.

Pa and I spent years crossing the country from the eastern seaboard to the Missouri. I had a good sense of direction for a six-year-old so I was confused when Pa headed back east a bit and then south along the Mississippi River. I didn’t understand how going that way would get us out West where Pa said our future was. Who cared if there was talk about trouble in some place called Texas and other areas I’d never heard of? But I knew you only challenged Ben Cartwright when you had proof to back your opinion. And at six years old I was inclined toward feelings instead of logic. To someone as analytical as Pa feelings weren’t too convincing.

We stopped every so often so Pa could work. We reached New Orleans just a couple of months after my Erik turned four. I was the mature age of eight.

As I look back I realize how many problems Pa was having. He’d lost my mother and then Inger. He had two young boys to take care of and he didn’t have help from schools – the people of New Orleans didn’t advocate public education when we first arrived. Pa couldn’t hire a tutor or send us to a private school. He couldn’t even afford to have someone watch us during the day. I suppose he could have paid for one of the slaves who rented out but that went against his upbringing. He often came home with an odd smell on his breath that I later recognized as whisky. But I don’t remember him ever being drunk.

There were times when he was the happy pa I remembered from most of our travels. There were more times when the slightest wisecrack, or if I rolled my eyes, or hesitated when he gave an order qualified me for a roaring scolding. Erik went quiet at times like that. He held my dog Thaddeus around the neck or patted him and reassured Thaddeus everything would be all right. Even now if you push Pa hard enough that anger flies out of him. His temper has led to more than one man’s discomfort.

Being Pa, he located a small place for us to live almost as soon as we arrived. Also being Pa, he found work on the river and, a few months later, in a shop.

Mrs. de Ville, who lived across the street in a home slightly larger than ours, was the closest Erik and I ever came to having a grandmother. She served pastries filled with cream, taught us silly songs and funny tongue twisters, and told us wonderful stories. She expected us to be at her house every morning after Pa left for work so I could spend time reading and Erik could work on the alphabet and numbers. I still remember one of the tongue twisters she taught us: “The skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk – but the stump thunk the skunk stunk.”

We had been in New Orleans forever it seemed to me, but it was probably only a matter of weeks, when our daily life took an unexpected turn. For nearly a week, we stayed with Mrs. de Ville. She allowed us to go home to play with and take care of Thaddeus and for me to do chores. But we were not allowed to roam the streets as we were accustomed to doing and I was not allowed to read the newspaper. I thought it curious that we didn’t hear from Pa and when I finally said something about it she assured me he had gone “upriver” to attend to business. When you’re a child, you learn not to ask many questions. Especially when you sense the answers won’t be forthcoming. So I accepted her explanation even though I didn’t believe it. And when I heard what people said later I dismissed it because my Pa would never kill someone.

When Pa returned, and life went back to normal, I took care of Erik. That was nothing new: though I never would have admitted it at the time, Erik was fun to be with. He was a happy little boy who loved to have me read to him and flattered my ego by asking me what Pa’s and my “big words” meant.

I didn’t want Pa to know about all my activities because he was strict and his hand was hard when it struck my behind. I tried to explain to Erik that Pa didn’t need to know when we tossed dirt clods into the closed courtyards but I didn’t make my point until I threatened to not take him with me. The poor little fella hadn’t known a day in his life without me so he learned early how to keep secrets. Erik never knew I wouldn’t have been able to sit for dinner if I’d left him alone.

I accept full blame for all the questionable behavior Erik learned during the following year or so. We went as close to the boats on the river as we dared and imitated the bad words the men said. Pa had been a sailor and I wondered if he ever used those words. I knew one thing – he didn’t want us saying them.

Even then Erik loved animals. My dog Thaddeus was no exception. By the time we reached New Orleans they were bosom buddies. Erik also loved every animal he saw on the streets so we saved most of our lunch to share with dogs and cats. And it wasn’t too long before we found one home where the people didn’t have a good latch on their horse stable. Thank heaven the animal was docile because Erik and I rode him bareback with a headstall and reins. We never kept him out very long because we didn’t want to stretch our luck.

“We need to take him back,” I said over Erik’s shoulder one day. I always insisted he ride in front of me so I could grab him in case of an emergency.

“A – dam.” He pronounced my name with a long “a” so if you didn’t know better you would think my little brother was talking about a dam. “A – dam, how you knows he’s a boy?”

“The horse?” All right, I admit it: I was stalling for time.

“Uh huh,” came the innocent answer.

I closed my eyes a minute and prayed he wouldn’t ask many more questions. “You know what we use to pee? He has one, too.”

“Oh.” He thought a minute. “So girls horses don’ts has one like girl girls don’t?”

I was about six before I found out about girls. Some friends and I had planned to go skinny-dipping in a creek. I had nearly pulled my trousers down when I’d noticed the girls were missing something. I’d run back to the wagons, pulled Pa aside and told him with all the earnestness a six-year-old can muster that the girls had lost “theirs”. I’ll never know how Pa kept a straight face but he had used the opportunity to tell me about mares and stallions and women and men. Of course women and men only did it when they were married and in love. I couldn’t believe Pa had done it twice – once to get me and later to get Erik. Armed with my new knowledge I had gathered my buddies and told them all about women and men. Not one of them had believed me.

I was more than a little amazed that Erik knew at four what I hadn’t discovered until I had been six. “Erik?” I asked as we rode the horse toward the stable. “How do you know about girls?”

“Pa and me talks. We was on the porch one nights and Mrs. Kemp’s shadow’s on the curtain.”

Thank heavens. I ducked that bullet. Or so I thought. More of Erik’s curiosity was triggered months later but I’m getting ahead of myself.

We returned the horse, gave him some oats without ever thinking the owner would notice the lowering supply, and set off for more adventures.

The house where we lived was like many others in that area. It was built of brick and masonry and had two stories. The ground floor, which we never used because of the high water table, fronted on the street but there was a passageway by the side of the house that led to a secluded courtyard. The kitchen was across the courtyard from the house and there was also a woodshed. When we first moved there I thought it was just for keeping wood dry from the frequent rains but I developed different feelings toward it later on. Plants grew inside the courtyard with the lush abandon I still associate with New Orleans. Erik and I always left Thaddeus in the courtyard when we went on our adventures because we didn’t want him to get hurt on the busy streets and Pa was the only one who could hold him on a lead.

Don’t ask me why but there was one particular green plant Erik and I decided we disliked. What the vine had ever done to us I don’t know. We discovered a great way to get back at it and slowly kill it. We emptied our chamber pot on the soil – but only when there was liquid in it because we didn’t want Pa to catch wind of what we were doing so to speak.

I also have no explanation for why we did what we did that warm winter day other than we were boys. When we entered the courtyard our eyes glanced at the hated vine and we had the same idea at the same time.

That is what we were doing when our future mother saw us for the first time.

The gate opened and Erik and I looked to our right. Pa stepped into the courtyard with a beautiful dark-haired lady. And there we stood with our trousers unbuttoned as we contributed to the plant’s demise. To my knowledge, none of the men or boys in New Orleans wore drawers. I couldn’t tell you about the women and girls. Erik still had trouble hanging on to his trousers while the front flap was unbuttoned so he stood with his long shirttail showing and it wasn’t hard to see his behind through that.

Pa whipped off his hat, which was never a good sign, and his wide smile disappeared. The lady with him cupped her hands over her face and quickly turned around.

“In the house,” Pa ordered as he pointed to the door. “And don’t bother to button up.”

Without a word he put me across his knees – he always spanked me first – gave me five swats, and then made me wait in the other room while he punished Erik. I was buttoning my trousers when I heard him give Erik three light swats. My little brother was crushed and cried so much Pa finally had to hold him and pat his back to quiet him down.

“Now,” Pa said as he put Erik on his feet. “You will both come with me and apologize to Mrs. de Marigny.” He pronounced her name “mare-in-knee” and that’s the way I thought it was spelled until much later.

“Who dat?” Erik asked as he wiped at his nose.

“The lady who was with me in the courtyard.” Pa put one of his big hands behind each of our shoulders and directed us outside. Mrs. de Marigny turned from admiring the flowers Pa said were hibiscus and her face was pinker than I remembered.

Erik went right to the point. He sniffled once and said, “I ‘pologize, Mrs. – ” He looked up to Pa for help.

“de Marigny,” Pa pronounced.

“What’s he say,” Erik murmured and she smiled so much her eyes twinkled.

I was next and since I knew she had probably heard Pa punish us I was flushing from embarrassment. For the first time in my life I stammered. The more I tried to gain control the worse it got and when I couldn’t stop Pa leaned down and looked at me in concern. I took jerky breaths and tried again. The second time I kept saying, “I – I – I.” If I’d had a stick I would have broken it out of frustration.

Mrs. de Marigny put her gloved hand on one of mine and I looked into mischievous eyes I would later see mirrored in my youngest brother. “Perhaps we can talk later, yes?” she suggested in an accent that blended Creole and French. I knew nodding was a breach of good manners but that’s what I did. She smiled at me as she had Erik. “And now you will accompany us to the café?”

Pa never allowed me to leave the house right after he spanked me so I knew there was no chance of going with them.

But Pa’s grin went from one side of his face to the other and there was no hint of the stern father who had spanked me. “Come on, boys.”

My pa had not been that happy since we had arrived in New Orleans. This was the pa I had known as we had traveled before Inger’s death.

Erik was also back to his normal self because he skipped on the brick sidewalk. By the time we arrived at the outdoor café I could sit. I told myself that walking worked out the soreness. But I knew Pa hadn’t spanked me very hard.

 

Even though Mrs. de Marigny was kind to us that afternoon I was determined not to like her and I looked for any reason to add to my feelings. She was wearing one of the fancy hats I’d seen in the shops and a dress that showed more than it should have. She didn’t have paint on her face but I was sure she was one of “those” women I had heard talk about. Two boys I knew had peeked in the windows and had actually sneaked into “sporting houses,” Growing up on the plains gave me a sheltered childhood but I more than caught up in New Orleans.

I wish I had never heard about sporting houses because mouthing off about them got me into big trouble later.

Mrs. de Marigny was after Pa to marry him plain and simple. What other explanation was there for the two of them walking arm in arm? It never occurred to me to wonder how Pa met her – he has always been too principled a man for the kind of companionship offered in business establishments. But I knew as sure as I was breathing that Mrs. de Marigny pretended to like Erik and me. One of my friends said as soon as Pa and she were married she would ship us back East or across the ocean to some of her relatives. Although I would like to travel more now, I wasn’t keen on the idea back then. So I was determined to keep her away from Pa.

What did Pa need a wife for anyhow? Erik and I didn’t need a mother. Pa and I were partners and lots of times he asked my opinion about something or what I thought we ought to do. We sat and talked man-to-man and then he patted my leg and said, “I think your reasoning is good, Adam. That’s what we’ll do.” A youngster can forget a lot of correction when his pa praises him like that.

The last thing I wanted was for some woman to interfere in our lives. We were doing just fine.

I promised myself I would bring out the worst in her and Pa could finally see her for what she was.

The problem was she wasn’t pretending. Much to my chagrin she was a beautiful lady, inside and out, with just enough spunk and humor to make her hard to predict and always more than a match for Pa. Even now I can hear her saying “Benjamin” as she scolded him for something he had said and then immediately laughing with him.

“Boys,” Pa would say with a wink, “don’t ever let a woman tell you what to do.” And then he would look at Ma and ask, “Now what did you want me to do, Marie?”

Life would have been so much easier if I hadn’t kicked and balked like an untrained colt. But I was determined not to like her. And during the next few years I proved one thing: I am my father’s son when it comes to being stubborn.

 

 

“I gots a question,” Erik announced one night as Pa tucked us into our small beds in the room Erik and I shared. “Mrs. is a married lady?”

Pa knew where my brother’s question was headed. ” You have a question, Erik,” he corrected. “And yes. Sometimes a Mrs. is married and sometimes she is a widow.”

“A window?”

I laughed and Pa gave me a ‘you were young once, too’ look. “The word is widow, son. It is a woman whose husband died.”

“Who’s Mrs. D’Mar – D’Mary?”

Pa’s brows shot up and his smile filled his lower face. “Accompanying another man’s wife around town can get you into serious trouble. Her husband died.”

Erik played with the button on Pa’s right sleeve. “Dat’s whys you cans be with her?”

I giggled because I had learned a different meaning for the term “be with” from the same friends who had spied on the sporting houses. Before Pa could give me a look I turned my back to him and buried my head in my pillow. Of course I didn’t stop giggling.

Erik’s voice brightened. “I like Mrs. D’Mary, Pa. She pwetty and she let me eats dessert befores real foods.”

“Oh she does.” I could hear the humor in Pa’s voice.

“Not’s enough so’s I doesn’t eats but just some’s,” Erik assured, afraid Pa was going to scold him.

The bed creaked as Pa stood.

“Pa?” Erik had something else to say. “When’s you be wit her agains?”

My giggles squealed into spasms of laughter and I gagged my mouth with the corner of my pillow.

“As a matter of fact,” Pa said and I could tell from the sound of his voice he was near me, “she asked us to her home tomorrow evening.”

I stopped cold and rolled over to find Pa looking down at me. “Do we have to go?” I asked.

Erik sat up. “I wanna’s go!” he said emphatically.

Pa gave me a warning look I pretended not to understand. “You will go and you will be on your best behavior.”

“Okay, Pa.” Erik nodded his head as if Pa had been speaking to him. Pa and I knew he’d been directing his orders at me. “Pa, you tink I eats some desserts first?” Erik asked in excitement.

Pa clapped his hands together in play. “You lay back down.”

Erik giggled and pulled his sheet over his head.

I turned onto my stomach and went into a full pout.

 

 

Sometimes I look back at what I did as a boy and wonder what I was thinking. Occasionally I have to accept the fact that I wasn’t thinking, or I didn’t care what the consequences of my actions were, or I convinced myself I didn’t care about the consequences.

I learned about consequences while Pa and I were traveling. But in New Orleans I tested my pa’s orders, pushed his patience against the wall, and pressed to see how much he would tolerate from me. You would think by the time I was eight-years-old I would have figured most of those things out. But remember what I said about how stubborn I was? I honed that trait until it was as sharp as a carving knife.

 

 

Erik and I each had one set of nice clothes – the set we called our Sunday clothes. I hated them more than I hated getting up early on Sunday to go to church. Most of all I hated the tie that I had to wear with the suit and I fussed with it and got more and more aggravated that afternoon before we went to Mrs. de Marigny’s for dinner. I finally threw it to the floor and ground my boot into it.

Pa, who was helping a chattering Erik, looked over at me and pointed to the floor. “Pick that up, clean it off, and put it on without another word, please.”

I declared I wouldn’t because I wasn’t going to wear it.

Pa stood up, picked up the tie, and cleaned it off with the clothes brush. Then he sat on my bed, told me to lower my trousers, and laid me across his knees. The three licks on my bare bottom with the wooden part of the clothes brush took my breath. “Do we understand each other?” he asked.

I understood and I glared into the mirror once I was back on my feet. If he thought he could boss me around he was wrong. Just wait until we got to Mrs. de Marigny’s. I’d show him good.

“We gonna walks, Pa?” Erik asked as we went out the courtyard door.

“I believe so, yes. It’s a nice afternoon and if we need to we can take a carriage home.”

“Thinks my legs’ll last?” Erik asked. For some reason he had the idea that if he walked too far his legs would get shorter and shorter until he didn’t have any left. I don’t know why he thought that. I could already tell he was going to be a tall boy in a couple of years. He was as stout as I was slender.

Pa laughed and lifted Erik to ride on his shoulders. “Well, let’s rest them for a while just in case.”

He turned and looked my way. I was lagging behind, my hands stuffed in the side pockets of my trousers as I kicked a rock. Pa asked me to come up beside him and I pretended I didn’t hear. I thought maybe if I behaved badly enough he’d tell me to stay home and then I could sneak off with my friends.

“A– dam,” Erik said hopefully. “Pa says for you to comes up here so you don’t gets runned over by horses or nothing.”

Pa amended my brother’s statement. “Come here before I take you back to the house.”

I squinted at him and tilted my head. “Can I stay home then?”

Ooohh, I don’t know what I was thinking. Like I said, maybe I wasn’t. He lifted Erik off his shoulders, grabbed my right arm, and hauled me back toward our courtyard with Erik running after us. Pa picked up a slat lying beside a shutter he needed to repair and as soon as the courtyard door closed behind me I knew I was in for it. He bent me over his right knee and swatted me with that slat until I sagged. Then he asked if he had made himself clear. I managed to tell him I would behave.

Pa wasn’t sympathetic about my plight but Erik was. His sky blue eyes were full of tears. “Ya shouldn’t of talk to Pa dat way, A– dam,” he reminded.

Pa lifted Erik back onto his shoulders and held the courtyard door open. “Adam,” he said as he motioned. My feelings and bottom hurt so much I was convinced I would die before we arrived at Mrs. de Marigny’s. Pa didn’t cut me any slack either: he walked at his normal pace and I was worried not to keep up so I had to take about three or four quick steps to his one.

I was walking – well half-running – with my head down when Pa’s right arm smacked against my chest. I looked up at him in what I’m sure was panic that he was going to spank me again but instead he told me to be careful as a delivery wagon went right in front of me. My hands felt so cold, despite the warm afternoon, that I put them in my pockets. Pa asked if I was all right and I murmured that I was. He walked more slowly and put his right arm around my shoulders.

The courtyard of Mrs. de Marigny’s home was the prettiest one I had ever seen. It was obvious from the flowers growing over flowers and the blooming vines topping the brick wall that she didn’t have any boys relieving themselves outside. Her home was small like ours but when she welcomed us inside I stopped in the entrance as I saw the furniture.

Even to my young eyes the wood was beautifully carved and the architectural details of the ceiling and frieze in the parlor were amazing. I can’t say that I noticed the fabrics that afternoon, although I did later, but I walked toward one of the chairs as if it were a siren calling a sailor. Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard Pa start to say my name and then I heard Mrs. de Marigny say, “No, no, he will not hurt it.” I reached out to the ornate carving along the top of the chair and slid my fingertips along it, tracing the design. Then I slowly looked around and a table caught my eye. It stood as tall as the arm of a nearby chair and I walked to it and then leaned down to see the carving on the single post and the three feet. They looked like the lion’s paws I had seen drawings of in one of my books.

“It is a candle table.” Mrs. de Marigny’s light green skirt rustled as she stepped up beside me. “I can read by it at night or on the cloudy days. It is also good for when I do the needlework.”

Not knowing how to respond I said, “Yes, ma’am” and looked longingly at the books on a nearby shelf.

“Your father tells me you are a most voracious reader,” she said.

I had no idea what that meant but I figured if Pa had said it then it was true.

“Many of them are in French but if there is an English one you would enjoy to read you are welcome to borrow it.”

I looked to Pa and he nodded his approval. Then I glanced back at the books and finally returned my attention to Mrs. de Marigny. “Thank you, ma’am.”

I told myself I didn’t like her, I was determined to turn Pa against her and I was adamant that she would not become more important to Pa than Erik and I were. But there were all those books. Books just waiting to be held and read. Books that offered new places to explore and adventures I could act out as I drifted to sleep. Books to curl up with on rainy days and lose all track of time. My resolve weakened.

“And now for the meal. Are you ready, Erik?” She held out her hand and he quickly took it.

“Desserts first?” he asked as we walked to the dining room.

She bent down and motioned to a place at the table where a small bowl was set. “Only un peu so you do not lose the taste for dinner.”

I started to tell her she didn’t need to worry about Erik losing his appetite but I sensed Pa was not in the mood for my wisecracks.

Knowing the tabletop would be too high for Erik, Mrs. de Marigny had tied several pillows together with a wide ribbon and then she had tied the set to the back of the chair. Pa lifted Erik to the top of the pillows and my younger brother laughed as he bounced on them. Pa grinned at Mrs. de Marigny.

“I know you are much taller, Adam, so I did not know if you required a pillow aussi,” she said.

Before I could answer Pa said, “He might need just one, Marie.” We both knew it had nothing to do with reaching the tabletop.

My decision to ruin the meal had diminished with each word of Pa’s lecture and I tried too hard to be perfect. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed but the harder you try to do everything correctly the more you do incorrectly. I was perfect all right – a perfect study in awkwardness. I turned over my glass; dropped several globs of rice on the floor which thankfully was wood; when I started to pass the meat dish to Pa I tipped one of the candle sticks and only his quick hand kept me from setting the tablecloth on fire; and then when I was cutting my slice of meat it sailed off my plate and onto Erik’s. He looked up in surprise, not knowing who his benefactor was, and said, “Tank you.”

By then I was completely demoralized. I quickly excused myself and before Pa could say a thing I went out the backdoor to the courtyard. I leaned against the wall, with my left arm protecting my forehead from the rough brick, and I gave in to all the tears of the day. I was pounding the side of my right fist against the wall when I felt Pa’s big hand around it and he gently stopped the action. His touch enveloped me.

He led me from the wall and, after he sat on one of the courtyard chairs, he pulled me into his lap. Not only did I consider myself too old for that kind of thing but my bottom was in no condition to rest on his leg. I started to get up but he tugged me. I inched my thighs onto his leg. He patted my back and I turned and cried into his shoulder.

He didn’t tell me not to cry. In fact, he didn’t say anything. Eventually, I felt better and there were no more tears. I sat up to wipe at my face and pretend I hadn’t fallen apart. He put me on my feet, gave me a handkerchief so I could blow my nose and – when I started to return it to him – suggested I keep it.

When we entered the dining room Mrs. de Marigny and Erik were giggling and she was gracious enough not to remark on my abrupt departure. I sat down at the table and Pa gave me a reassuring smile.

“Pa?” Erik said. “Mrs. D’Mary tolded me a funny riddle.”

All I remember about the funny riddle that Mrs. D’Mary tolded Erik was that it was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard up to that time. But I gave Erik a grin and set about eating my dinner again. I didn’t upset another thing at the table and then I guess I was acting so grown up that Mrs. de Marigny convinced Pa to let me have a little watered-down wine with dessert. It tasted awful to my unsophisticated taste buds but I wouldn’t have let anyone know for the world. I drank the entire glass down like a thirsty man would welcome water and as soon as we left the table I promptly fell asleep sprawled on my stomach on the parlor rug. I didn’t stir until I woke up disoriented but on my stomach in my own bed and Pa was calling us to breakfast.

I was a little fatigued that morning – whether from the crying or the swats Pa had given me or the wine or some combination of the three I wouldn’t venture to guess. So as soon as Pa left for work I went back to my bed, even though I was fully dressed, and lay on my stomach again.

“You sick?” Erik asked worriedly.

“I don’t know,” I answered into my pillow. “I don’t feel good.”

My little brother nodded and sat down between our beds. He pulled out a box that contained several different shapes of wood Pa had made for him. “I stay rights here and I gets you anything.”

I smiled and reached down to pat his blonde hair. “Thanks, brother.”

About that time Thaddeus came into the room, licked my hand and lay down in front of Erik. A bit later I heard Erik giggle beside me and then I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

I woke up with my heart in my throat and the gut-wrenching fear that Erik had wandered off. But a quick look revealed him beside my bed. Both Thaddeus and he had fallen asleep with the wooden shapes scattered all around them. I lay back down, relieved and trying to catch my breath, and then Pa’s voice came from behind me.

“Aren’t you boys hungry for lunch?” he asked.

He was in the doorway with his hands in fists so his knuckles were on either side of his waist and his fingers pointed outwards. I guess it was a carryover from his sailing days. He stood with his legs spread back then, too. And I’m sure that came from his days at sea. He’d taught me early that the best way to fall in a moving wagon was to have your feet too close together.

Pa never came home for lunch – which was one of the reasons we ran the streets like a pair of urchins after we visited with Mrs. de Ville each morning. He didn’t expect us to stay home all day, but if he asked we had to tell him where we’d been and with whom. He asked each of us separately – and if our stories didn’t match it was spanking time again. Well, it was a spanking for me. Erik got three gentle little baby swats. The best I can recall he only received two real spankings from Pa.

Erik and I hadn’t developed the talent we had later on of telling Pa just enough of the truth that it sounded like we were relating the same story. By the time our youngest brother turned 11 we had trained him how to do it, too. Pa would frown because he would know something was afoot but he couldn’t pin it on us.

Consequently my brothers and I had become great allies by the end of our journey west. Not that we didn’t argue amongst ourselves from time to time but the minute our rivalries looked like they were getting out of hand and Pa stopped whatever he was doing we would assure him we had just been kidding and we’d get out of his sight as quickly as we could. We might adjourn to the barn where we’d pick up our dispute or back behind the corral or bunkhouse. But we made sure Pa couldn’t see us. And it never came to blows because there would have been no way to hide the results from Pa.

I’m getting ahead of myself again.

Pa looked from me to Erik. “Are you ill?” His face filled with concern. I never understood why he worried so much about either one of us. We were two of the healthiest boys ever born if you didn’t count a few childhood illnesses. I had no knowledge then of the fevers the New Orleans area was known for, especially the yellow fever, or the fact that Pa dreaded an outbreak of cholera because his mother had died from it. We had known people who developed the grippe and lung fever up north in the colder climates but Pa had always insisted we wear plenty of clothes, sometimes all the clothes we owned, and we had managed just fine.

“No, Pa,” I answered. “We were just kind of tired. Uh Pa?”

“Yes?” He walked toward Erik to wake him. Thaddeus looked up and thumped his tail.

“What’re you doing home?”

He shook Erik gently. “Mrs. de Ville stopped by to tell me she hadn’t seen you all morning and there was no answer when she knocked at the door.”

Erik’s eyes opened and he smiled sleepily. “A-dam don’t feel goods. I watch hims.”

Pa picked up my little brother. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better caretaker. Now let’s get some food in the two of you.”

We ate lunch with Pa, which Erik thought was a real treat, and then we walked Pa part of the way back to work until he told us we needed to head back home. I wanted to walk by the shops but he lifted an eyebrow and we dropped the conversation.

Erik and I played some games of hide and seek in a couple of the neighbors’ yards and then we found a big enough rock to kick back and forth to each other. And then we got bored. God help the bored boy.

We drifted back to the house talking about all the things we’d buy if we found buried treasure somewhere because you didn’t live in New Orleans for long and not hear all manner of stories about pirates and hidden gold. Wouldn’t Pa be proud of us if we found a pile of gold? We could head west again and Pa wouldn’t have to work until we got to California and we had a ranch. Somehow we had the idea there could be buried treasure in our courtyard. Don’t ask – I have no idea.

It didn’t take us anytime to retrieve two large spoons from the pantry. I should explain that the majority of the items in the rented house came with the house and did not belong to us. The flatware was one of those items. And the two large spoons were part of the flatware. We ran out to the courtyard with Thaddeus hot on our heels and for about ten minutes we debated on the best place to bury treasure. Then we agreed it would probably be the space between the house and the wall, on the side by the street. I slipped into the back of the area so I faced the courtyard and Erik had his back to the courtyard. The soil was soft and in no time we were working with a sizeable hole. It must have been at least three inches deep. Thaddeus thought what we were doing looked like fun so he squeezed in beside Erik. His flying paws threw dirt all over the courtyard behind him.

You guessed it. We were deep in our endeavor, so to speak, when the courtyard door opened and Pa stepped in with Mrs. de Marigny. She didn’t even cover her face with her gloved hands – she burst into laughter. I had been on my knees but I quickly sat on my behind so Pa couldn’t get to it. Erik heard Mrs. de Marigny’s laugh and stood up full of excitement. He was absolutely filthy.

“We finding golds.” He ran to Pa but Pa held him at arm’s length in an attempt to keep his trousers clean.

“Gold,” Pa repeated and looked at me. “And where did you get the idea there’s gold buried in this courtyard?”

Erik frowned. “There gold ever’where.”

“Oh there is.” Pa’s eyes were still on me. “And who told you that?”

I closed my eyes because I knew what was coming.

“A-dam tolded me, Pa.”

“Adam,” Pa said and I opened my eyes. “Fill in that hole please and then I want to speak to you.”

“Yes, Pa.”

Pa took Erik’s hand. “Let’s get you clean in the meantime.”

Erik stopped in his tracks. “I don’t likes mean times, Pa. I only likes nice time.”

“All right,” Pa humored him. “We’ll get you clean in the nice time.”

I started filling in the hole, slowly I’ll admit, but Thaddeus was sabotaging my efforts. Mrs. de Marigny sat on a courtyard chair and called him to her. She rubbed behind one of his ears and he immediately fell in love with her. Before I had all the dirt in the hole, Pa’s shadow fell over me.

“Need help?”

“No, Pa.” I put a little more devotion into the job and finished up looking worriedly at the dirt Thaddeus had kicked onto the courtyard bricks. “Uh, I’ll get a broom or something.”

“No, you’ll bring over some buckets of water tomorrow to wash it. Right now I want to talk to you inside.”

I was all on my own. Thaddeus and Erik were showering all their attention on Mrs. de Marigny and she was laughing softly with them and telling Erik how handsome he looked with a clean face and combed hair.

Pa held the door open for me and we walked up the three steps to Erik’s and my room. He sat on my bed. “Would you tell me what you were thinking?”

Although I knew better, I shrugged my shoulders. What did it matter? He was going to spank me anyhow.

“You don’t really believe there is gold buried somewhere in that courtyard, do you?”

I shrugged again. He could only spank me so hard before I started screaming and then Mrs. de Ville would come running to see what was wrong. Then again maybe she wouldn’t. I wasn’t sure if she was home.

Pa reached to unbutton my trousers and I panicked. I didn’t want him to spank me and I really didn’t want him to see my bare front, even through my shirttail, so I grabbed at his hands and he looked up in surprise. “We need to get you cleaned up,” he explained.

I shook my head. “I’ll get me clean.” For the first time in my life I couldn’t read his eyes.

He tilted his head and folded his hands between his legs. “Did you think I was ready to spank you?”

Trying to act like I didn’t care I said, “Maybe.” I was impressed by my bravado.

Pa leaned forward and put his big hands around my waist. “I believe when I spank you you’re the one who lowers your trousers, not me.”

I completely misunderstood him and thought he meant when he spanked me I had to take down my trousers but he didn’t have to take down his trousers. I stared at him in stunned disbelief and my mouth fell open. Pa with his trousers down? My cheeks heated up and Pa leaned even closer.

His blue eyes were readable then – they were full of amusement. “Are you embarrassed?”

Well, you know what I thought of then, right? My friends and I used all kinds of words for “behind” when we weren’t around our parents. And I didn’t hear the “em” in that word Pa used – only the next two syllables. My cheeks felt hotter, if that was possible.

Pa laughed in his deep, rich way and his hands tightened around my waist. “Your face is as red as an apple.” He shook his head and motioned to my clean set of clothes. “All right, you clean you up. What did you do with the spoons?”

“They’re in the tub in the kitchen,” I answered and hoped my cheeks would cool down.

Just as he reached the door Pa looked back at me “You’re taking words a bit too literally.”

I didn’t want to ask him what that meant but on my way to the front door I stopped at the dictionary Pa always kept in the parlor and looked up the word “literally”. I found out it meant to “interpret words according to their actual denotation”. I had a larger vocabulary than the average boy my age but the word “denotation” set me back even more than “literally” had. When I finally found it in the dictionary and figured out what it all meant together I raised my eyes and there stood Pa, smiling.

He’d known everything I was thinking all along. My cheeks flushed again and he laughed. “Come on you little scamp,” he said and he gave me a swat on the behind. But it was a real light one.

 

Erik and I had been brought up not to ask for things so Pa was safe from harassment as we strolled past shops or visited the park to watch a music presentation or a puppet show or something exciting like that. And though we never asked for anything, we loved to look in the windows and admire all the pretty, sparkling things inside. Erik liked all of it. I was attracted to wooden boxes.

When the weather wasn’t too hot, or rainy, or sticky, or chilly, or a hundred other things it could be in New Orleans, Pa, Erik and I walked through some of the neighborhoods. That was the greatest gift in the world to me. The city had suffered several fires so most of the houses built by the time I was there, and Louisiana was part of the United States, were brick or masonry with tile or slate. The Vieux Carre, or French Quarter, was the most active, acceptable area because of the businesses there that centered on sugar, cotton, and river traffic. The street I loved to walk along, with my head tilted so far back it’s a wonder I didn’t break my neck, was Bourbon Street. Some of the most elegant homes I had ever seen were there.

“I’m gonna build houses like that,” I announced as we strolled one day.

“That’s an excellent idea,” Pa agreed. “What do you think you’d have to do before you could build one like that?”

I thought about it long and hard and stopped to look one over. “You’d have to get some hammers and nails and wood and –”

“Before that.” Pa crossed his arms.

Again I gave it some thought and then I smiled at him triumphantly. “The place to build it. You’d have to have the place to build it.”

“Very good,” Pa praised. “And how about before that?” He leaned back on a tree trunk.

Glory but I was stumped then. It seemed to me all you needed was a place and then the tools and the wood and bricks.

“Wouldn’t you need some other people to help you? Like the builders we’ve seen around the city? And the men who do special work like carving and painting.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed in understanding. “Well sure.”

Pa took a moment to call to Erik – who was wandering – and my brother came running back as fast as his little legs could bring him. “What have I told you about that, young man?” Pa asked.

Erik nodded. “Not to.”

Pa sat on his heels and Erik’s neck looked more comfortable. “Did you think I didn’t mean it?”

He shook his head. “I knowed you mean it.”

“Then why did you do it?” Pa always had a little trouble keeping a straight face with Erik.

“My rock wents there.”

“Your rock.”

Erik nodded and his wavy blond hair blew in the breeze. “I has this rock, Pa? And I was kickin’ it likes me and A-dam do. And I has to go theres and gets it or it could’ve been hurts by a horse or somethin’.”

Pa looked down for a minute and then lifted Erik’s chin. “Next time ask me before you go after your rock.”

“But you was talking and you says to say nothing when somebody’s talking.”

I smiled and looked down. Erik had Pa dead to rights.

Pa held up his left hand near Erik’s leg. “Next time ask me before you go after your rock.”

Erik eyed the big, calloused hand. “Pa? Dat could hurts my leg.”

“Yes, it could.”

“It make dat leg shorters dan dis one?”

I was red from trying not to laugh.

“No.” Pa lowered his hand. “It will not make one leg shorter than the other. It will make it sting, though.”

Erik nodded. “I knows that, Pa. It makes my bottom sting.”

Pa picked him up and returned his attention to me. “So, you would need people to help you and to build special things for the house. How would you tell them what you wanted?”

That seemed simple. “Tell ‘em.”

“What if you couldn’t be there all the time?” Pa was sure making building a house more complicated that it needed to be. He motioned to the pretty trim around the top of one house and the carving at the top of three columns. “How would you be sure the men who were working on that did what you wanted? How could you help them see what you saw?”

“Draws it!” Erik piped up from where he hugged Pa’s side.

Pa and I looked at him like he’d turned into a horse. “That’s right,” Pa answered and then laughed.

“But how?” I asked in despair.

“I’ll show you tomorrow.” Pa patted me on the head.

“I want to know now,” I pleaded.

“A-dam,” Erik said and I swear he sounded like he was scolding me. “Pa mean it.”

I threw my arms in the air and resigned myself to my fate.

 

 

Pa was as good as his word – he always has been whether you want him to be or not – and the next night he opened the trunk he kept in his room. Erik and I watched from a respectful distance. We might have been mischievous but Pa had made sure we knew to never disturb what belonged to someone else. Neither one of us had seen what was inside the trunk. The curiosity caused me to dance from one foot to the other.

It took him forever – and I wonder now if he did it on purpose – but Pa produced a roll of strange looking paper, some flat wooden sticks with black marks on them, and pencils. Real, honest-to-gosh pencils.

We were so excited he only had to tell us once to follow him into the dining room. He sat in a chair and I scooted chairs on either side for Erik and me. We both kneeled in our chairs and leaned to see what magic Pa would show us.

“Now let’s see,” he said as he tore a section of the paper off the roll. It was thin and yellowish – not like any paper I had ever seen but then I hadn’t seen much except the New Orleans newspaper. “Say you want to draw a column.” Pa took the flat piece of wood and slid the pencil beside it. When he moved the wooden piece he had a straight line. “That’s one side.” He did the same thing again a short distance away. “And there’s the other side. Now for the top –”

“Draws a horse,” Erik said, a bit bored with the straight lines.

Pa laughed and shook his head. “I don’t think I can do that.” He held the pencil in the air.

Erik folded his arms in a perfect imitation of Pa and repeated an oft-heard Pa phrase. “You never knows until you try.”

I laughed and Pa looked my way. “What is this? An insurrection?”

“Would you tell me or do I have to look it up?” I didn’t want to leave the table or what Pa was showing me. “Does it start with a ‘n’ or an ‘e’?”

Pa tapped me on the top of the head with the wooden stick. “It starts with an ‘i’ and it means an uprising, a rebellion.”

“A war?” I asked worriedly.

Pa rested his forearms on the table. “Do you think you could win a war with me?”

I shook my head. “I never fought a war. Did you?”

“Pretty close,” he answered and then returned his attention to the piece of paper. “A horse,” he muttered and started drawing on one corner.

When Erik finally saw Pa’s artwork he fell back in the chair, holding his tummy as he laughed.

Pa tilted his head. “I think it’s a fine-looking horse.” I heard just a little bit of discomfort in his voice.

“It’s not that bad.” I tried to be diplomatic but then I looked at the sketch again, folded my arms on the tabletop, and put my head down – laughing so hard I couldn’t have stopped for anything. I slapped my left hand on the tabletop, too.

“It’s better than either one of you can do,” Pa declared.

The challenge was issued and we Cartwrights never back down from a challenge. Erik drew on another corner of the paper and his horse bore a striking resemblance to Pa’s horse.

“Mine pwettier,” Erik announced.

“No it isn’t,” Pa argued as he handed me the pencil. He growled at Erik who giggled and grabbed Pa’s hair.

“I wrestles the lion,” Erik giggled and Pa buried his head in Erik’s middle.

They were so busy playing they didn’t pay any attention to me – which was just fine. The only thing I had drawn with before was chalk on a slate. The pencil was the most miraculous thing I’d ever held. I sketched quickly, allowing the lines to flow the way I remembered a horse looking and I sat back, pleased with my work.

“Wook, Pa.” Erik held out a short index finger and Pa turned from their wrestling to examine my artwork.

That was the exact moment when something magical happened. It was the first time I did anything better than Pa. He studied my drawing for a long time and then tapped the column. “Draw the top of that the way you want it.” I reached for the flat piece of wood and he stopped my hand. “Don’t use a tool. Use your hand the way you did for the horse.”

I obeyed and, although I’m sure it would look crude if I saw it today, the capital on that column was pretty impressive back then.

“Hey, A-dam.” Erik bounded over with energy. “Draws a rock. A real pretty rock.”

“Rocks are all the same,” I said with all the wisdom of an eight-year-old.

“No dey not.” Erik scrambled from his chair and charged toward our room. He shouted over his shoulder, “I gonna show you.”

Pa grinned at me. “He gonna show you.” Then he patted my back. “Adam, you have a wonderful gift. I’ll do everything I can to help you use it some day.”

I looked up into his blue eyes and felt a kinship I had never felt before – I probably glowed like a candle.

“See.” Erik placed three small rocks in front of me. “Dey all different. Dis one smiles and dis one has da moon on it and dis one have a great big hole.” He looked up at Pa. “You tink dat rock use dat hole to –”

“No, I do not,” Pa interrupted before Erik could send me into a fit of laughter.

Erik held his arms up and Pa lifted him into his lap. “What dat hole for?”

I held the rock up to my left eye and looked through the opening. I leaned close to Erik and in my scariest voice said, “To watch you while you sleep and one night all the other rocks will come and steal you away.”

“No!” Erik yelled and hit the rock with the side of his fist.

That is how I got my first black eye.

 

 

“What the Zeus were you thinking?” Pa asked me two days later when my eye looked like a ripe plum. “Adam, sometimes I wonder if you have a brain up there.”

“If I don’t it’s your fault,” I shot back and he frowned at me. “You helped make me, didn’t you? Maybe you forgot something.”

Pa removed the wet rag from my eye. “You’re going to forget what it feels like to sit if you talk back again. Now, put on your tie and we’ll meet Mrs. de Marigny.”

Wouldn’t you think I had learned my lesson about that tie? We were meeting Mrs. de Marigny for a free musical presentation and I could think of nothing more boring. The concerts were kind of interesting when Erik, Pa, and I went but it sounded like a slow death if she went along.

I sat on my bed and glanced at the shuttered window to my right. An idea urged me into mischief. I’d hide the tie and tell Pa I couldn’t find it and then I’d have to stay home because he wouldn’t want me to go out not dressed properly. I knew he’d search the room, or more likely make me search while he watched.

It was an idea that led to all kinds of trouble in the future.

A wrought iron rail was outside our shuttered window. Not all the homes had the decorative rails and I hadn’t given ours much attention except to swing on it when I was really, really bored. One time Pa found me walking along the top of it. He pulled me down, threw me over one hip, and spanked me until I was sure he’d split my trousers. Anyhow, I knew that iron rail could hold my weight so I climbed up on it. At first I intended to throw the tie on the roof but then an even better idea was born. I carefully climbed to the steep roof, balanced my weight, and stuffed the tie behind a flowering vine that covered the better part of that side of the house. I quickly slid off the roof, stepped onto the rail, and then went back into our room.

When Pa appeared in my doorway I made a great show of searching for my tie.

“Where did you put it when you took it off?” he asked.

“With my suit like you told me.”

Pa stepped into the room. “Obviously you didn’t.” He leaned his hips against the foot of my bed and watched me continue to look everywhere in an exaggerated frenzy, even under our pillows. “Adam.” I turned and he motioned with his right hand for me to come to him. I obeyed. When I stood in front of him he very slowly turned me by my shoulders and pulled my shirttail out of the back of my trousers. My heart pounded because I knew that he knew I was lying.

He slapped my upper leg.

“But I can’t find it,” I protested about the tie.

I jerked to get free of his left hand and his right hand cracked across my upper leg again.

“Pa!” I cried out.

He delivered another swat and after he gave me one more I quickly positioned my hands to protect what mattered to me more than anything else at the moment. “Tuck your shirttail in,” he instructed.

I was beginning to associate Mrs. de Marigny with acute backside distress.

Pa pointed his right index finger straight at me and his eyes squinted. “You will be obedient. And if you cannot be cheerful you will be polite. Do I make myself clear?”

After a gulp or two I answered, “Yes, Pa.”

“And you will find that tie before Sunday or I will give you a half dozen swats.”

Six? I rubbed at my leg and nodded.

Walking to meet Mrs. de Marigny I grew increasingly upset over my situation. Pa was always in his worst moods when we were with her and I for sure got swats every time she showed up. Pa had told me to be obedient and polite. Well, I’d be that but I wouldn’t be anything else.

“Oh, Erik, Adam how good it is to see you.” Mrs. de Marigny smiled when we met her in her courtyard. “How lucky I am to be accompanied by the three most handsome men in the city.”

Pa held out his arm but Erik took her hand. “I walks her this time.”

Mrs. de Marigny chuckled and said she would be honored. Erik struggled with the courtyard gate but he held it open for her and then released it without a thought in front of Pa and me. Pa laughed under his breath. If I’d done that he would have lectured me.

“Adam, your father tells me you are quite the artist,” she said as the four of us walked abreast.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Have you been to the houses they are building on the other side of Canal Street?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Perhaps we can arrange for him to see them, Benjamin? I am sure they would be of great interest to Adam.” She looked up at Pa and tilted her head. I noticed she was not wearing a hat. And her hair was down like a girl’s, pulled back only at the sides. Why the heck did Pa insist on us dressing properly when she obviously wasn’t? “Oh,” she said excitedly. “We will have the outdoor lunch. Would that not be enjoyable?”

Oh great. More time with her. I decided there was nothing Erik, Pa and Mrs. de Marigny could talk about that interested me so I stuck my hands in my side pockets and ignored them. Instead I watched the people we walked past, the carriages and who was in them and what the horses looked like: when a streetlight wasn’t working I wondered why – in other words I did everything to avoid participating in the evening. My sulking ended abruptly when Pa grasped my arm and led me into an alleyway.

He was furious. His mouth was straight and his eyebrows angled toward his nose. “What did I tell you in your bedroom this afternoon, young man?”

I backed against the brick wall. I hadn’t seen him like this since I had disobeyed him on the prairie one day and had nearly been killed by a wagon when it tipped over. I had learned then that when Pa called to me or gave me an order I was to respond immediately.

He squeezed my arm so tightly my eyes filled with tears. “Well?” His anger built in front of my frightened eyes.

“You said to obey, Pa.”

“What else, Adam?” His voice lowered but that was not a good sign. When I didn’t answer, he almost whispered, “What else, Adam?”

Honest to gosh I had visions of myself hanging on a meat hook like I had seen in the markets. “Polite. To be polite.”

The arm that didn’t have a numbing grip on mine shot out and he pointed in the general direction of where Mrs. de Marigny and Erik had their backs to us as they looked at the stars. “And would you tell me what is polite about ignoring someone when she speaks to you?” Pa’s blue eyes are by nature bright and non-threatening. But they filled with fire that evening. “Do it again and I promise you one deuce of a spanking. Do I make myself clear?”

I had no idea what a deuce was but it didn’t sound very good the way he said it so I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“You will change your behavior now.” He released my arm and put his hand on my left shoulder, gripping it tightly. When we crossed the street and joined Erik and Mrs. de Marigny, Pa was all smiles again.

“Guess what, Pa?” Erik said. “I tolded Mrs. de Marigny the name of that star.”

“You are a very intelligent young man,” Mrs. de Marigny praised. She looked my way. “I think perhaps all the Cartwrights are very intelligent.”

I gave her a smile I really didn’t feel and walked on the other side of Erik, as far away from Pa as I could get. That is where I remained all evening. When we sat for the concert – and I assure you it was no easy matter for me to sit without scooting – we were in the same order: Pa, Mrs. de Marigny, Erik and me.

“Do you enjoy the music, Adam?” She smiled at me and ran her fingers through the right side of her wavy hair to ease it behind her ear.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed with delight. She thought she had found a fellow music-lover and I was anything but that at the time. “What is your favorite instrument?”

I sucked in a deep breath and looked at the people playing the music. I didn’t know the name of one of those things they were blowing through or sawing on. I quickly came up with the only instrument I could name besides a harmonica. “The guitar, ma’am.”

Pa leaned around her and looked at me with raised eyebrows. Oh glory what had I done now? I pulled in my shoulders and put my clasped hands between my legs.

Mrs. de Marigny was totally unaware of my concern about Pa. “The guitar is the most wonderful instrument when played well,” she agreed. “I once knew someone who could bring so many sounds from it: weeping or laughing or dancing or even the giggle of water in a stream. Have you heard this?”

I kept my eyes straight ahead. “No, ma’am. I guess the guitars I’ve heard haven’t been very good.”

“No, no.” she reached in front of Erik and patted my right arm. “It is the player not the guitar. As in all things, it is the person and not the object.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I didn’t have any idea what she was talking about.

Some time after our conversation, Erik dozed off and felt no qualms at all about resting his feet on my legs and his head in Mrs. de Marigny’s lap.

“Marie.” Pa held out his arms. “I can take him.”

“No.” She ran a gloved hand over his hair. “He is sleeping peacefully.” She smiled at him and then murmured. “He is the sweetest child, Benjamin.”

When he’s not into mischief, I thought.

“He’s a good boy,” Pa agreed.

I couldn’t remember the last time Pa had said that about me.

That night after we returned home I lay on my stomach on my bed and tried to bury my face in the pillow. All I wanted was to escape the mixed-up way I felt.

“A-dam?”

I looked to my left and there stood Erik. Not wide-awake but pretty close. He patted my left check with a chubby hand. “I helps you look for your tie, okay? Pa won’t gives you buncha swats Sunday.”

That was all I needed to end such a miserable day: Erik had heard Pa spanking me that afternoon.

“Pa swatted you’s four times for the tie,” Erik said softly in the deepest of confidence. He knew how to count to ten and was up to ‘m’ in the alphabet. “You’s don’t cry,” he added in amazement. “You’s holler out’s but you’s don’t cry.” That fact was amazing to my little brother who broke into sobs when Pa said “Erik” sternly. “I helps you looks for your tie.”

I rolled onto my right side so I could see him better. “I know where it is.”

“Uh oh” Erik grabbed the side of my bed.

“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I’ll get it first thing in the morning.”

“Uh oh.” Erik repeated and raised his right arm to point at the doorway behind me.

I knew who was there before I sat up. Pa leaned on the doorframe with his arms crossed. “So you’ve remembered where the tie is?” he asked.

Pulling my pillow in front of me and also pulling up my knees I wondered how many swats he would give me. I could sit at the moment but there was an aching reminder from our earlier encounter. “Yes, Pa.”

“And where is that?” He didn’t take his eyes off me. I felt Erik back toward his own bed.

“Sir?” I stalled.

He didn’t repeat his question. He just stayed there, leaning in the doorway. That was fine with me. If he took one step my way I knew I would shake. I couldn’t face anymore of his anger.

“It’s – ” I paused. He didn’t have to know it was on the roof because I wouldn’t be getting it down until after he left for work in the morning. On the other hand, if I told him it was somewhere in the house he’d make me retrieve it while he watched.

“Adam.” I looked up. “It takes longer to make up a lie than it does to tell the truth.”

Before I could answer Erik said, “Da truth get spanked, Pa.”

“Very rarely.”

“What dat mean?”

“Adam, why don’t you tell him?” Pa shifted on his feet.

“It means not very often.” I squeezed my pillow.

“Well, why you not say dat?” Erik asked.

Pa pointed. “In your bed now, young man.”

“All right, Pa. Don’t gets in a lather.”

I buried my face in my pillow. Erik had heard one of my friends who had sneaked into a horse race use that expression. My younger brother loved new words. Most of the time he had no idea what they meant but every so often he hit the nail on the head.

Pa straightened slowly and stared at his four-year-old. He knew what that expression referred to in our area and was suspicious we had been frequenting the racetracks. “Excuse me?”

Normally when one of us said, “excuse me” we were apologizing for something – like belching at the table. So Erik asked, “What you do?”

I could feel my life ticking away and Erik wasn’t helping much. “What did you just say?” Pa asked.

Erik climbed on his bed and gave Pa a peculiar look. “I say ‘what you do?’”

“What did you say before that?”

Erik held his arms in the air. “Pa, you shouldn’t oughta picks on someone littler than you’s. Dat’s what you’s all da times say.” If I hadn’t been so worried about my future I would have laughed into my pillow.

“You told me not to get in a lather.”

“Uh huh.”

“Should you care when I am speaking to Adam?”

Erik’s brow wrinkled. “I care’s whole bunches, Pa. He my brother.”

Pa wasn’t winning and there was little chance he would. He turned his attention to me and I felt something go through me like I would later when we were traveling toward California and lightning struck not far from our wagon.

“Where is your tie?” He stepped out of the doorframe to lean his hands on the foot of my bed.

I was learning to respect those hands more than I ever had. I scooted as far toward the head of the bed as I could. “On the roof, Pa.”

“On the roof.”

“Yes, Pa.”

He leaned his head back and looked at me from the bottoms of his eyes. “And how did your tie get on the roof?”

“I threw it.”

“And how do you plan to get it down?”

Oh no. I’d for sure be hanging on a meat hook in the market in the morning. “I can climb up and get it.”

“You can.”

I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see Pa’s face or anything else about him. “Yes, Pa.”

“How do you know you can climb and get it?”

“That’s how it got there.”

“You climbed onto the roof.”

“Yes, Pa.”

“And how did you get to the roof?”

“The rail.”

“The rail.”

He was making this so bad. All I could figure was he didn’t want to kill me in front of Erik. He would take me out to the courtyard to do it. But he’d have to lock Thaddeus in the house because Thaddeus was protective of Erik and me.

“Adam?”

“Yes, Pa?”

“Open your eyes.”

I had a hard time obeying and tears burned my eyes. But I was determined Pa would not ever see me cry again. I wouldn’t let him know how much it hurt to be spanked or not to be told I was good or to have him pay attention to Mrs. de Marigny or any of it. He walked to the side of my bed and looked straight down at me.

“Do not climb on the roof. When I get home we will use the ladder. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Pa.”

He ran his right hand through my hair. “Good night.”

I muttered a goodnight and immediately rolled to my left side so my back would be to him. I heard him tell Erik goodnight and then whisper something in Erik’s ear. My brother’s giggle filled the air. Once again I felt left out – but I was beginning to care less and less.

 

 

When Erik and I weren’t commandeering someone else’s horse, or destroying the neighbors’ gardens with our hide and seek games, or climbing in the trees and breaking small limbs, we were engaged in more exciting mischief with our friends. My group of pals was Henri, who was two years my senior; Etienne, who was about a year older than me; and then Dieter and Gus who were just a little younger than me. Our hierarchy was based totally on age and had nothing to do with intelligence. Henri, Dieter and Gus had younger brothers with whom Erik enjoyed playing games. More than once we left them in the care of one of the dark-skinned nurses and took off for adventures more mature boys had like leap frog, hoops, and marbles.

I have to confess here that I thought all dark-skinned women were called “nurses” just the way Henri, Gus, Dieter and Etienne were Creole, and I was Cartwright. And I am embarrassed to admit it but I had no idea about free people of color in New Orleans or anything about slavery until I was much older – and then it shocked me.

I wish I could remember Gus, Henri and Dieter’s brothers’ names but I can’t. It is enough to remember Erik’s chatter all the way home when he had been with them. They played with puzzles and if they were lucky they could swing or play hopscotch. Some of the boys had toys like he had seen in the shop windows and he was greatly impressed by that and wanted to know how they had gotten them.

“They bought them,” I explained as we trudged home one day. I was weary to my bones because Henri, Dieter and I had been out by the swamps seeing how close we could get to the alligators before they snapped off a big twig. Heavens we wore out many a guardian angel.

“They boughts them?” Erik asked of the toys. “How?”

I looked down at his upturned face and tried to wipe away a smudge on his right cheek. “With money, Erik.”

“Money.” He rolled the word around in his mouth.

“Like what Pa uses when we get food and stuff,” I explained.

“Does you and me has money?” He was eager-eyed and I knew he wanted to buy a toy.

“No, Erik, we don’t have anything.”

“How comes not?”

That was a good question. I mulled it over a while. “Well, we can’t work and we don’t have anything to sell.”

Erik thought so long and hard on that he was quiet all the time I did my late afternoon chores. Pa placed a lot of trust in me by letting me anywhere near the kitchen even if it was detached from the house. At the time it seemed perfectly normal to work there, especially since it was my chore to chop kindling and store it in the woodshed and get the kitchen fire going before Pa returned home in the evening. Many times I was also expected to have vegetables peeled or bread in the warming oven to the side of the fireplace.

With the benefit of hindsight I realize that Pa’s spankings were never as hard as I thought they were at the time. That didn’t keep me from taking them to heart. In addition I never recovered quickly from reprimands. Erik was lucky – he cried and received Pa’s reassurance that the world was not going to end. I kept the hurt deep inside and refused to let him see it. Or so I thought.

My way to get along with him as he became more serious about Mrs. de Marigny was to avoid him. As soon as dinner was over I went to my room. When Pa asked if I would like to read the newspaper for Erik and him I told him I was kind of tired because I’d had a busy day. When he asked about my busy day I told him it was nothing he would be interested in, just the usual things like London Bridge. When I mentioned London Bridge he asked if I knew he had been to England. I replied respectfully that yes, he had told me. He noticed I wasn’t using the paper and pencils and asked me why. I told him it was something you had to feel right about doing. I did not speak of swamp adventures. And then I excused myself.

Many nights after Pa was asleep I sat on the floor in Erik’s and my room with my knees pulled up and stared at the stars. I couldn’t see many of them in New Orleans, probably because of the streetlights. Then again nothing could compare to the stars on the prairies and plains. So many nights I had lain on my bedding beside Pa looking up into a sky that felt like a thick protective blanket. And there in the darkness were my friends the stars. They had names and stories and guided me from one to the next. Pa taught me how to know directions by them and how they changed during the year. I missed the prairie, the sound of wagon wheels, the blowing of horses, the shouting of men, the crack and pop of a campfire, the whisper of a breeze, the unmistakable smell of rain on dry grass – and the dark, comforting sky with the bright points of light. Every night I prayed the next day would be our last in New Orleans but I knew better than to ask Pa when we were leaving.

I was clearing the dinner table one evening when I noticed Pa walking out to the courtyard carrying the blankets and other bedding we had used in our wagon. We sure as heck didn’t need them in New Orleans so I thought maybe he was storing them in one of the buildings out back. I didn’t dare believe it meant we were leaving. I stood looking at the clean tabletop as I tried to decide how I would pass the short time before bed when Pa lifted me. At six feet tall, he has a definite physical ability to take care of himself and a reserve of strength that has caught more than one opponent – and son – by surprise. When he lifted me that night he held me in the crook of his right elbow with his forearm under my bottom but I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist to keep from falling.

Pa laughed and patted my right thigh with his left hand. “I haven’t dropped you yet, have I?”

“No, Pa,” I answered softly.

Erik tugged impatiently at Pa’s left trouser leg. “Come on, Pa, hurry ‘fore they go’s out.”

Pa winked at me and turned to walk to the courtyard with Erik running ahead of us. “He’s convinced the stars will burn out,” he said in a low voice.

I grinned at the thought.

“Adam?” Pa kept his voice soft, as if he were telling me a secret. His strides weren’t as wide as they usually were so my ride in his arms was as gentle as his voice.

“Yes, Pa?”

He walked even more slowly and held me closer than he needed to. “I couldn’t keep our family together without you by my side, son.”

My throat tightened and went hotter than my cheeks had ever been.

“Are you still my partner?”

I leaned into his shoulder. “I’m still your partner.” His shirt muffled my answer.

He patted my right cheek with his left hand and said something that showed immense intuition. “Don’t hold so much in, Adam. It’s not good for either one of us.”

Pa is direct when he thinks it’s necessary yet he can also be subtler than anyone I know. On the surface he was asking me not to hold in my emotions. But I understood the unspoken message: he knew how I felt about the changes in my life. And even though he spent more time with Mrs. de Marigny, I was still important to him – he still needed me. Just knowing that eased my sadness.

He stopped in the doorway and I raised my head.

“What’re we doing, Pa?”

He smiled at me as Erik all but danced a jig on the quilts laid out on the courtyard bricks. “We are going to stretch out and teach your little brother some more about the stars.”

Erik and I fell asleep that night under the stars on either side of our pa.

 

As the weather warmed, which didn’t take long in New Orleans, Pa was more strident about where we played and what we did. Neither one of us was too inclined to test his patience but one place he had specifically warned us not to go near was the swamp. He didn’t have to repeat himself with Erik. I had already convinced the little guy that alligators roamed our streets at night and that’s why we couldn’t go outside after a certain time. But my buddies and I thought the fringes of the swamp area were the scariest and hence the most enticing places we had ever known. In their own way, they are hauntingly beautiful. Trees with trunks that swell out at the bottom; gray spiraling clumps of Spanish moss hanging from massive limbs and often reaching so close you have to push them away; birds you are not likely to see or hear anywhere else; and the slow glide of the boat as you paddle through the water.

The only bothersome thing is the mosquitoes and their vicious bites. Well, maybe the mosquitoes and the alligators. If you haven’t seen an alligator you would not believe how long they are and how wide their mouths open. When you’re an eight-year-old boy you can easily imagine one of the reptiles swallowing you whole and then burping out your hair and teeth. They would ease into the water and we would get away as quickly as possible. We never had one in the water, floating like a log, attack us and I don’t know if that was fortune or a satiated alligator. They also roared. Even though, despite what I had told Erik, they did not show up in our neighborhood at night we could hear them roar and often we could hear the frightening sounds of a dispute. We never knew who won. We decided they would keep on fighting and then there would only be one remaining alligator and he would be the biggest and meanest ever born.

If we didn’t always use our heads about some things, Dieter, Etienne, Gus, Henri, and I were smart in one way: we never took one of the cute baby alligators home. My judicious behavior was not based on the fact that the little darling would grow into a ferocious meat-eater. No, it was based solely on the fact that when our Pa found it – and there was no doubt he would find it – he would know I had been at the swamps.

My buddies didn’t worry as much as I did because their fathers were Creole. They didn’t argue with their fathers’ decisions but by the same token their fathers tended to spoil them.

If Pa ever spoiled me like my friends’ fathers spoiled them I blinked and missed it. I know there were times, especially before he married Inger, when he went without while I didn’t. I always had what I absolutely required. He expected me to not ask for things. Even more importantly I learned to be grateful for gifts and considerations. I was always grateful except for one time recently when Pa and I had a falling out on my birthday. I understand now what he was trying to teach me – but I didn’t agree with him for a while. When I was growing up, the idea that someone could disobey their father and then receive a pony or a new set of clothes or the toy they’d been asking for was as foreign to me as some of the languages I heard spoken on the streets.

I don’t want to give the impression Pa isn’t a loving father. He teases; pulls stunts like cheating at checkers; starts water fights; dumps hay all over us and then holds his arms up and pleads innocence; will explain things to the best of his ability and if he needs to know more he looks for the information with us; he challenges me to a horse race and if I win he reaches across, pulls my hat down over my eyes, and puts his horse into a full gallop. And perhaps most importantly, despite all the hard times he has faced, he has a positive outlook on life and a strong belief in family.

I can also talk to him about anything – even when it’s something he doesn’t approve of. He listens with reassuring attentiveness. And then he guides me through my decision: what did you base it on; was I influenced by what someone said or did or by something I read or saw; did it seem like a bad decision from the beginning or with hindsight. His questions continue until he asks the last one: given the same circumstances and the same knowledge would I do it again or would I strive to learn more before I acted? He expects his sons to be obedient and respectful but he also wants us to have a mind of our own.

I was using that mind of my own when I went to the swamps after he’d warned me not to. Heaven knows I wasn’t using that brain he kept asking me about. Given the same circumstances and the same knowledge I would not do it again and I wish I had known more before I acted. When you’re eight-years-old, though, nothing can happen to you. Nothing at all. But it can happen to your best friend.

 

One day after we indulged in our usual small adventures – including a ride on the horse we had named Good Boy – Erik and I decided to meet Pa when he came home from work. I told Erik we would wait at the corner where Pa always made us stop when we walked him to work. But Erik was developing a mind of his own, too. I watched in shock as he ran down the brick sidewalk. Then I went after him like a dog chasing a rabbit. I was close enough to grab his collar when he squealed out, “Pa!” and vaulted into our surprised father’s arms. Mrs. de Marigny was walking beside Pa and I stepped back a bit. I suppose it looked courteous but believe me it was out of total self-interest. As I said before, I had noticed a direct relationship between being around Mrs. de Marigny and getting swats from Pa.

“Ma’am,” I said politely.

“Well this is certainly a surprise.” Pa looked at me.

I wasn’t about to tell him that Erik had gotten away from me. That would get me in trouble. And if I told him Erik had gone running off that would get my brother in trouble.

“Did you start the stew?” Pa shifted Erik to the hip opposite Mrs. de Marigny.

“Yes, Pa. And the bread’s warming and the table’s set.”

He turned his head and smiled at Mrs. de Marigny. “We’ll need one more place at the table. Marie is joining us.”

I knew if I rolled my eyes he’d put Erik on his feet and throw me over his hip to do damage then and there, so instead I told Mrs. de Marigny it would be nice to have her for dinner. Then I realized that sounded like we were eating her for dinner and I corrected myself. “It will be nice to have you join us,” I said.

When we finally settled at the table, Mrs. de Marigny praised my stew and actually had a second serving – probably because her first had been small.

“I helped,” Erik said. I wondered why sometimes he said “I help” and other times he said, “I helped.” It was one of those unfathomable things about him at that age. Come to think of it, he can still be unpredictable.

“Your father is very fortunate to have such fine cooks,” she responded. “I am sure it is a good thing for him to return home to such trustworthy sons and welcoming food.”

Well, we had her fooled even after all our encounters. I don’t think Pa would have called us trustworthy – mischievous might have been a better adjective. I must have grinned when I looked down because she spoke lightly. “You do not think the food is welcoming or you do not think the sons are trustworthy?” she asked.

My head jerked up and I looked at her worriedly. “No, ma’am. I mean, yes, ma’am.” Heck, I didn’t know what I meant.

Pa gave Mrs. de Marigny a nod. “The food is always welcome. I’m not sure how trustworthy the two scamps are sometimes.”

“Oh, Benjamin, but you should thank the saints they are so healthy.”

Now what did healthy saints have to do with anything? And exactly what were saints? I’d heard Pa say “Saints above!” more than once so I knew they were somewhere up there.

She put down her spoon and broke a piece of crusty French bread from the larger slice on her plate. I never did discover a way to eat it without leaving crumbs everywhere. “Is there no way you can leave the city?”

Leave the city? Did that mean we might head out on the trail again for California? I sat very still, hoping they would forget Erik and I were at the table and continue their adult conversation.

Pa frowned and slid his spoon around in his bowl but he didn’t raise it to his mouth. “We’ll talk about it later, Marie.”

Intent on discussing it then, she leaned forward and focused all her attention on him. “You must listen, Benjamin. The fevers, the illnesses, they begin in July. We lose so many of the babies, so many children. The heart breaks when a child is lost.”

The conversation had turned serious and Erik was wide-eyed. “How come they lose’s their childs? They don’t listens when their pa say not to wa – what that word, Pa?”

His innocence broke the tension in the air. “Wander, Erik”

“That’s how dey lose babies and boys and girls? Dey don’t knows not to wa – wadner?” This was coming from the boy who ran away from me on a busy New Orleans street.

Mrs. de Marigny rubbed at her forehead and then she smiled gently. “Your father he has told me I should speak frankly with each of you.”

Erik’s lips puckered and he threw his hands into the air. “I don’t un’erstand nuthin’.”

She nodded sympathetically. “To speak frankly is to speak with the true words – not to speak with the sweet words that make it more easy to hear. It is hard to say some words, Erik.”

He nodded, wide-eyed, thinking he understood. “I knows it. Dere’s whole bunches of words Pa and A-dam says and dey hard fer me.”

She reached at an angle and rested her small hand on his. “Erik, when I say these people they have lost babies and children – when I say this I mean the babies and children have died.”

Erik and I learned early in our lives about death. My mother died hours after I was born. Erik’s mother died when he was only a few months old. I encountered people dying from frightening illnesses during Pa’s and my travels. Erik and I knew what it meant when we killed an animal for food. The first time I saw Pa shoot an animal I couldn’t force myself to eat. By the time we were close to New Orleans I, too, had become a good hunter. I enjoyed shooting Pa’s rifle.

And then came my day of reckoning. We heard something stalking alongside us in the brush. When we caught brief glimpses of it, it looked like a large cat. Pa raised the rifle and as his finger eased on the trigger my stomach heaved. Not because of the panther or Pa’s aim – which I knew was true. I had forgotten to reload the rifle when I had used it earlier in the day.

Pa pulled on the trigger and nothing happened. Well, not nothing. He turned on me in white-hot fury and yelled, “What in Zeus were you thinking?”

I swear it was his roar that sent the cat running because it left in a hurry.

First Pa made me load the rifle and put it in the wagon and then he grabbed my arm and just about carried me to the rear of the wagon where Erik wouldn’t see what happened. Not that it mattered much because he sure heard. Pa had a belt he had worn as a sailor. Because he usually wore suspenders, the belt was in the wagon so he could put it around his waist to hold up his trousers when we were caught in rain or got soaked crossing a stream. He kept a grip on my arm and that belt came flying out of the wagon in his right hand. He bent me over and laid it across the seat of my pants again and again until my knees gave way and I begged him to stop. He threw the belt back in the wagon and motioned for me to go around to the front. I couldn’t hide my tears from Erik, or the slow, pained way I moved. I asked Pa if I could walk and got an intimidating frown in answer. So I obeyed and managed to climb up to the wagon seat. Then I leaned over and wailed so loudly that Erik started crying.

“Get in the back,” Pa ordered. “And not another sound.”

I climbed to the wagon bed, which had empty space because we were close to New Orleans and had less supplies. I stretched out on the blankets and continued to whimper.

“Adam, I’ll give you another one if you don’t stop,” Pa snapped.

I buried my head, bit into the quilt, and sobbed as quietly as I could. I shook violently until I quit crying. And I never forgot to reload a weapon again.

Erik pulled me back to the present when he asked, “They die, Mrs. D’Mary? Somebody shoots dem?” Alarm grew in his sky blue eyes and Pa lifted him into his lap.

“No, son, nobody shot them. They died from fever.”

“You gets real hot,” Erik nodded that he understood.

Pa stroked my brother’s hair back from his forehead but he spoke to Mrs. de Marigny. “I think it’s the swamps, Marie. Something about that water in the warm weather. That’s why my boys aren’t going near them.”

Ut oh. I directed all my concentration to my stew.

“Mais non. It is not only those who live near the swamps, Benjamin,” she argued. “We have lost many here in the city. Those who can afford to, they leave. There are the storms and the fever and the deaths.”

Pa wrapped his arms around Erik and looked her straight in the eyes. “Why don’t you leave?”

She sat back in her chair and frowned at him. “You know this is not something I can do.”

“It isn’t something I can do either.”

Mrs. de Marigny raised her chin. “Then I will pray to the saints.”

 

 

New Orleans society had as many rules as a pine tree has needles. There was no understanding the people. They went to church but they had one of the biggest entertainment areas I have ever heard about. The men went to that part of the city to drink, play cards, and enjoy themselves with other women while their wives stayed home. In the beginning they looked down on Americans as being crude and yet they were the bawdiest people I knew until the 1849 gold rush. Some of the Creole and American families owned slaves. In addition there were free people of color engaged in businesses and real estate and some were quite wealthy. Believe it or not, it was not unusual for them to own slaves. I couldn’t make sense of it when I was eight and I’m not sure I can now.

I didn’t know much about Mrs. de Marigny other than that Pa said she was a widow. Henri, who knew something about everyone, said she wasn’t really a widow – her husband left her and took everything they owned. It wasn’t exactly a topic I felt comfortable discussing with Pa.

Henri was also the one who first hinted that something bad was going on between Mrs. de Marigny and my father.

“They are not,” I said defensively when it was just the two of us playing marbles behind his house.

He smiled and leaned his head back. “A woman does not allow herself to be alone with a man.” He sounded like he was quoting something he had heard.

I pretty much understood what he was saying. “They aren’t alone. We’re there.”

Henri walked away from the marble game and grabbed a rope we swung on. He twirled around on it. “That isn’t what people whisper.”

Like I said, Henri knew a little about everyone. “What people?”

He smirked and ignored my question. “Your pa and Mrs. de Marigny are doing what folks do in the sporting houses.”

Even then I wanted facts. “Who says that?”

“Your Pa and Mrs. de Marigny don’t have a chaperone. And there’s only one reason for not having a chaperone – you’re doing something you shouldn’t.”

Where Henri was getting his information I have no idea unless he was overhearing his parents.

I charged home with Erik in tow and went straight to the dictionary. I was standing there, struggling to figure out what letter chaperone started with and where to go then, when Pa came in the door. I looked up at him in disbelief because in my quest for knowledge I had completely forgotten my afternoon chores. At a time like that, when you will be punished anyhow, the truth is always the best course of action.

Erik was lying on his stomach playing some game he had invented. He looked up, said hello to Pa, and went right back to what he was doing. The fact that he didn’t run to Pa for a hug showed how absorbed he was.

I looked up and took a deep breath. “Pa, I didn’t get my chores – I didn’t do the afternoon ones.”

He said something he had never said before. “We’ll discuss it later.” He motioned to our bedroom and he looked bothered. “I need to talk to both of you.”

Erik sat up and his eyes went wide. “Pa, we didn’t do’s nothin’. We been good’s. Mrs. Ville’ll tell ya.”

“Why do you think you’re in trouble?”

” ‘Cause we usually are,” I answered without controlling the sarcasm in my voice.

Pa leaned down and looked me in the eyes. “I haven’t forgotten about those neglected chores – ” And then he stopped as if he’d hit a brick wall. He stared behind me and finally motioned with his left hand. “Now, boys.”

My brother looked longingly back at the rug. “I be back,” he said to his game. Then he craned his neck. “Right, Pa?”

“You’ll be back.”

Erik smiled in relief.

In our room Pa told Erik and me to sit on Erik’s bed facing him and he sat on mine. More on the edge of it than anything, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees and his hands clasped. “Boys you know I love you.”

“Uh huh,” Erik nodded so strongly his hair bounced a bit.

This was it. He was ready to tell us Mrs. de Marigny and he were getting married. Pa’s voice softened but it wasn’t with anger. “I have reasons for giving orders.”

Wait a minute. Where was this headed?

“Just as I had a reason for ordering you not to go near the swamp.”

Ut oh.

Erik slid off the bed and went straight to Pa. “I didn’t go dere. Alley-gadors eats you up fast.”

Pa put his right hand behind Erik’s neck. “Yes there are alligators. But I have a feeling there are other things to worry about.” His eyes settled on me. “Have you stayed away from the swamp, Adam?”

I mustered all the courage an eight-year-old can have. “No, Pa. We went there.”

“We?”

“Henri and Etienne and Dieter and Gus and me.”

His tanned face went pale. I thought he was disappointed in me for disobeying him. He motioned for me to walk to him.

“Adam.” His voice was gentle like it was the night he carried me outside to see the stars. He put his arms around me and hugged me so close I heard his heartbeat and felt his warmth through his shirt. “Son, Dieter died today.”

I quit breathing and then I started slipping, but I didn’t know where. “Head down, Adam,” Pa instructed.

Erik started crying and the bed moved as he climbed up beside us. “Dieter like a dead birdie?”

Pa moaned and whispered something he couldn’t bring himself to say aloud. “Are you better Adam?” I nodded as I slowly straightened my back. “Come here, Erik.” He held out his left arm and my brother obeyed without reservation, eager for the reassurance Pa’s strong body offered. “Erik, Dieter’s brother died from the fever, too.”

“He – he like me, Pa,” Erik protested. “He didn’ go’s near da swamp.”

Pa stayed quiet for the longest time. “No, he didn’t go near the swamp. It may be that the fever spreads from one person to another. We don’t know anything about it except that the people who leave for the summer don’t get it.”

“What we do, Pa?” Erik asked. He rubbed at his eyes until they were pink.

“We’ll see,” Pa answered. “I think we’ll leave for a while and come back when summer is over.” His voice held a sound I had never heard before. It was partially the determination I was accustomed to – but there was an element of doubt as well. I couldn’t imagine what Pa would be doubtful about.

Erik didn’t want to sleep alone that night so I let him climb into my bed. He sniffled and cuddled near me but finally fell asleep on his back. I tossed and turned, cried, wondered if Dieter had known he was dying and if it had hurt, and I wondered if there was really a Jesus and if he would take care of Dieter and help him not be scared. I’d never known Pa to be wrong and if he thought there was something about the swamp that had made Dieter sick would Gus and Henri and Etienne and I be next? Would we lay there with fever burning us to our deaths? I was miserable for hours and I heard the clock in Pa’s room strike twice.

I lay on my stomach, crying, and then Pa’s hands held my shoulders and turned me over. “Son, here, have a sip.” He held a small glass to my lips and I recognized it as the mixture he gave us when our throats were sore.

“My throat isn’t – ” I started but he shook his head.

“Drink it down, Adam.”

I obeyed and wondered how the liquid warmed my stomach when it was cool in the glass.

“Pa?”

He pulled down my shirt because it had not fared well during all my tossing. Then he reached across my face and hand-combed my hair. Finally he raised his chin and looked at me from the bottoms of his eyes – determined to take my mind off Dieter. “Tell me why you didn’t do your evening chores.”

My tears made my eyelashes heavy and hard to see through so I rubbed at my eyes. “I can’t, Pa.”

“Did you forget why you didn’t do them?”

“No, Pa. I can’t tell you.”

“Adam we’ve never kept secrets before. Let’s not start now.”

I don’t know how long he sat there waiting on me but eventually the warm liquid made me sleepy. And when I’m sleepy I have a bad habit of not paying attention to what I say. “How do you spell chaperone?”

He spelled it out slowly. “How did you hear it used?” he whispered and I realized he was trying not to wake Erik.

“Henri.” I felt dozy for a moment. “Henri said when you don’t have a chaperone it’s – ” another swirl of sleepiness “– it’s ‘cause you want to do something you shouldn’t. And, and,” I paused to yawn as big as an alligator. “He said Mrs. de Marigny and you didn’t have a – a – chaperone and you were doing – ” I drifted for a moment. “You were doing what – people – do in – those – sporting houses.”

“Would you like to tell me how you know about sporting houses, young man?” Pa’s voice had a definite edge to it.

“They told me – ” My world tipped and all I wanted was sleep.

“Your friends told you?” Pa asked. I realized the warmth on my back was his hand rubbing it but I couldn’t remember rolling over. “You’ve never been near one?”

He must have smiled when I said, “My pa won’t – he won’t let me past the market. If he – if he found out he’d spank me ‘til – ‘til my bottom’s red as a apple.” My grammar was sliding downhill as much as I was.

His hand continued to rub my back and then right before I drifted to sleep he gave me one of those gentle pats on my bottom. I struggled to come to the surface and tell him goodnight but my neck was too weak and my tongue was too tired.

 

I woke up the next morning to the mellow voices of adults. I always found it easy to fall asleep to the same sound. I recognized both of the people: Mrs. de Ville and Pa. I suppose it was a measure of how close I felt to Mrs. de Ville that I padded barefoot and wearing only my shirt into the room that had our dining area at one end and the parlor at the other. They were in the parlor. Pa leaned back in the chair Erik and I had come to think of as his with his right ankle crossed to his left knee. The moment he saw me he lowered his leg and patted it for me to sit in his lap. It seemed I was doing that a lot lately even though I still considered myself too old for it. I decided it was all right as long as my friends didn’t see. At the thought of friends, and Dieter, a sharp pain shot through me.

Pa looked terrible. His eyes had swollen and he hadn’t shaved. He raised a cup of coffee to his lips and looked over it and the top of my head at Mrs. de Ville. “So you don’t think it would be wise?” he asked after a sip.

She was impeccably dressed, as always, and sitting on the settee. Many a time I wondered how anyone sat with her back as straight as she did and still managed to cross her feet. At least I inferred from the toes of her shoes that her feet were crossed.

“I think it would be most unwise. It starts like this, slowly. And then – ” she shook her head. “The crowds must be avoided. And most certainly a family that has suffered the fever. I will send a card of condolence. Will you wish to sign it also?”

“Yes, ma’am, please.” Pa placed his coffee cup on the table beside us.

“Benjamin, have you considered leaving? Your sons are at great risk.”

He leaned his head back. “I want to leave, Mrs. de Ville. But there’s the matter of work – of steady work.”

She thought several moments and then stood so abruptly that Pa almost didn’t get me out of his lap to stand. “I must think on this,” she announced. And then she looked at me. “And you are not to go out except to come to my house. You understand this?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said sleepily.

I was in my shirt, munching on some cheese and bread after having checked on Erik to be sure he was still alive, when there was a gentle knock at the front door. Pa sat in his chair and stared and it took a minute before he realized we had a visitor. He ran his hand through his hair, slid his suspenders over his shoulders, and slowly walked to the heavy door Erik and I had so much trouble opening.

“Bonjour, mon aimee,” declared a joyful woman’s voice. “Or whatever the blazes it is they say around here. If you wanted to live in a foreign country why in heaven’s name didn’t you go to Italy?”

A small, light-haired woman stepped through the doorway and Pa pulled her to him, holding her longer than I’d ever seen him hold any woman with the exception of Inger. I stopped eating my cheese and watched closely.

“My God it’s good to see you.” Pa’s voice broke as he said it. He stroked the back of her hair and then pulled her close again.

She stepped back and looked up at him because she was not very tall. “You look like something the wharf rats wouldn’t be seen with.”

“It’s a long story.” He ran his hand through his hair again.

“You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.” She suddenly became serious. “I need your help, Ben. More than I ever have.” Raising her skirt until I saw a scandalous amount of her ankle and lower leg, she collapsed on the settee Mrs. de Ville had just vacated. She slumped in a way Pa was always scolded Erik and me for doing. “What’s the stiffest drink you have?”

“Whisky.”

“For heaven’s sake don’t dilute it.”

Pa laughed. “Or you’ll what?”

“I’ll twist your nose like I used to do. And if I can’t reach that -“

She caught sight of me and straightened with a huge smile on her face. A smile that was exactly like Pa’s. “Saints above! You must be Adam!”

“Yes – yes, ma’am.” I put down my cheese and started to walk to her but then I remembered I was in only my shirt.

“Oh honey, don’t be shy.” She laughed so easily I liked her instantly. “I had four brothers. They ran around in shirts. One of their favorite games was to – “

“Barbara.” Pa shook his head at her as he poured her drink.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” she muttered. “Since when did you become such a Puritan? You used to do it with John all the time.” She leaned toward me, her eyes bright with mischief. “Haven’t you and your little brother run through the house trying to flip up the back of each other’s shirts so you can swat each other’s behinds?”

Erik and I thought we’d invented that game. We only played it after Pa left for work and more often than not rolled on the floor in laughter when we finished. Pa had chased his brother John that way? I was still having trouble believing Pa had ever been a little boy.

Pa handed her a small glass filled halfway with the liquid he kept in a pretty glass bottle in the dining room. He had ordered Erik and me not to tamper with it for any reason and it was one of the few times we never disobeyed him by letting our curiosity get the better of us.

She sipped from the glass and closed her eyes, obviously enjoying her drink. Then she held out her hand to me. “Since your father seems to have forgotten any vestige of manners in his trek west I will introduce myself. I am Barbara Cartwright, your father’s cousin.”

Good behavior dictated that I approach her, long shirt and socks or not. I politely shook her hand. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

“Adam.” Pa’s strong voice entered my awareness and he motioned toward my bedroom. “Please get dressed and wake your brother.”

I really wanted to stay with the interesting lady but Pa had asked me to do something so I answered, “Yes, Pa,” and walked down the hall.

“Oh, Ben,” Barbara said. “He’s an absolute delight. And he has the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen.”

“Yes,” Pa answered. He sounded like he was picking up a Southern drawl in his speech. “He’s a boy to be proud of.”

I skipped in my sock feet all the way to Erik’s and my room.

 

Barbara was one of the best things to happen to me in New Orleans. She helped me learn again that when you lose someone, however much you cared for him or her, life goes on.

Barbara understood death as strongly as I had since I watched Inger’s life bleed away while Pa was unable to help her. I was going through the grief of Dieter’s death – and anyone who has experienced it can tell you how unpredictable grief is. One moment you laugh and then the giggles melt into tears. You are angry but don’t know why and then you want to be alone and stare into a deep, dark hole hoping it will swallow you.

The afternoon she arrived, Barbara took me by the hand and, much to Pa’s consternation, we walked to the street vendors. I was uncomfortable doing something Pa didn’t care for but he didn’t absolutely say “no” and I caught the slightest smile when he told Barbara to take care of me. After we bought something to eat we sat on a bench by the park and talked.

It didn’t take long for my repetition of “ma’am” to get on her nerves.

“We simply must talk about this, Adam,” she insisted. “Why don’t you call me Barbara?”

“No, ma’am. I can’t do that. Pa’d spank me.”

Her lips curved up and two dimples appeared, one in each cheek. “Then how about Miss Barbara.”

“Would you maybe check with Pa?” I thought he might come closer to accepting the idea if she proposed it.

“All right. I will speak to Benjamin.” She studied the architecture of the Cathedral across from us. “You are fortunate, Adam. This is a beautiful city. It’s too bad about the fevers and storms.”

I looked down for a moment, thinking of Dieter and his brother.

“May I tell you something?” she asked. And she waited until I looked back at her, noticing she had the same color of blue eyes as Pa. “Your father and I are close. He is like an older brother to me. The reason I am here is because I need his help. And the reason I need his help, and understand how you feel about losing Dieter, is because my father died recently.”

My concern about how I felt transferred to Barbara. “From fever?”

“No.” She took a deep breath. “From the same thing that killed your father’s mother.”

“Chol-era,” I said slowly because the word still gave me trouble. “I’m sorry about your pa, ma’am.” I remembered how she had laughed when she had told me about her brothers running around the house in their shirts and asked if they could help her.

To this day I have never seen a face sadden as quickly. “They are all gone.”

“Gone?” I leaned closer to her and I’m sure my eyes were twice their normal size. “Where?”

She patted the hand I had resting on my thigh. Normally I would have been uncomfortable with such close contact from anyone except Pa but there was something about Barbara that made me feel she had known me from the day I’d been born. “I lost one brother in a shipwreck. One was killed in a hunting accident. Another fell to his death.”

“What about the last one?” I prompted.

Now it was Barbara’s turn to look down. “He drank too much alcohol and he liked to frequent pubs – and he never learned to control his temper. He shot a man and the man’s friend shot him.”

I thought Pa and I had been through hard times with my ma and then Inger dying. Barbara had lost her entire family.

Since we had both finished our food, she took me by the hand and we walked toward the house. “The flowers here are so colorful,” she said. And then she sat on her heels and looked straight into my eyes. Her next words burned into my soul. “What we must do, Adam, is enjoy our lives and celebrate theirs in our memory. Do you understand what I am telling you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She stood up and her serious nature evaporated into teasing. “I have to speak to Benjamin about this ‘ma’am’ situation immediately or I shall go absolutely berserk.”

Berserk. Glory but I liked the sound of that word. I rolled it around in my mouth, even though I had no idea what it meant. But it couldn’t be a bad word because a lady had said it. Well, Barbara had said it. Sometimes my cousin was anything but a lady. But she understood me as few people did. When thoughts of Dieter closed around me and she saw me staring at nothing she hugged me from behind or held my hand. She didn’t say a word but she was there.

During Barbara’s visit I saw a side of Pa that I had never experienced. It wasn’t that he hadn’t teased Erik and me but he became uncommonly playful. I had no idea, until later, that his behavior had to do with his growing love for Mrs. de Marigny as she slowly eased him out of his past. Since Barbara was around, and staying with Mrs. de Marigny, I rarely saw one without the other and decided with eight-year-old logic that Barbara was the reason for what I was experiencing. After all it couldn’t be Mrs. de Marigny for whom I was trying to cultivate a growing dislike. Kind words and sweet smiles were not going to fool me.

There is no doubt about one thing – Barbara and I had more adventures than I ever had with my friends. I am not about to list them all, mainly because I can’t remember them. I’m sure given enough time Barbara and I, especially without Pa around because there is a bit of me that is still intimidated by him, could remember more than a dozen escapades. So here are the ones I recall, a few with Barbara’s help when she visited our ranch recently.

By the time Barbara arrived, despite Pa’s warnings not to climb on the roof, I had become so adept I could jump from one building to the next. Of course you have to understand there was not a great distance between the houses but often enough there was a difference in the pitch of the roof that caught me by surprise. More than once I rolled down a roof and grabbed the first thing I could – anything from a rail to the corner of the roof. When, in the deepest of confidence, I shared my skill with Barbara she nodded knowingly.

“Me, too,” she said in the parlor one afternoon. “I’m about as good at it as you can be.”

I gulped. “You are?” She could have been telling me she was a crack shot like Pa I was so surprised.

Her next statement almost knocked me off my feet. “Your father taught me.”

“Pa!” I yelped and she quickly held her finger to her lips and glanced around. Then her face filled with mischief. “Want to look for ghosts tonight?”

I was eight-years-old. Why would I not want to look for ghosts?

Waiting for Erik and then Pa to fall asleep was excruciating. But finally I heard the clock strike one. Barbara and I had agreed to meet at the street corner a little after one so I slipped out the window and onto the roof.

How she did it I don’t know, but my cousin learned more about New Orleans in a few days than some natives ever knew. One thing she learned about was a small alleyway, kind of like Pirate’s Alley, which ghosts were supposed to frequent. So we huddled into a narrow doorway and kept our eyes open. Suffice it to say we didn’t see any ghosts – I mean you didn’t think we were going to, did you? But I received a little more education than I think even Barbara had counted on that night. That alleyway, it turned out, was a favorite of men escorting women who probably had never seen the light of day. Some of the women strolled along and almost looked respectable. Some of the couples stopped to kiss and then take a few steps and then kiss some more. And then there was one couple that caused me to flatten against Barbara’s skirt. The lady, well, woman, leaned back against the brick wall and the man kissed her neck and then a little farther down. When his hand slid under the hem of her dress, Barbara yanked on my hand and we ran in the opposite direction.

I caught my breath before I asked. “Were – were they married?” I knew from the look on Barbara’s face that the man and woman were not. “But Pa said the only people who make babies are the ones who are married and they do it because they’re in love. Were they gonna make a baby?”

Irony filled her tone of voice. “I hope to heaven they weren’t.”

Okay, I admit it. I was totally confused. I was pretty sure I knew what that man and woman were interested in. But they weren’t married, they weren’t in love, and they weren’t going to make a baby? Had Pa told me a whopper or was there something more I didn’t know? I had a feeling it was the latter.

“Adam.” Barbara squeezed my hand as we walked. “I think it would be better if you didn’t ask your father anything more about marriage and making babies for a while. At least until I’m gone, all right?”

I told her I wouldn’t and we returned to our respective houses. As far as I was concerned all those people using the alleyway had scared away the ghosts. I asked Barbara if she thought there was some night when there weren’t so many people going back and forth and she said she doubted it.

We met again and went to Pirate’s Alley. Looking back that was a stupid thing to do. I don’t mean that there were pirates around – well at least none you would recognize as pirates. But smugglers used that narrow alleyway on occasion. Luckily it was an off night when we once again hid in a doorway.

Then we decided to have a daytime adventure that was more perilous than roof climbing and nighttime adventures. Despite Pa’s repeated warnings – and since I was a youngster it was probably because of them, too – I took Barbara to the swamps. I expected her to find them scary like my friends did but she thought, like I did, that they were beautiful in their own slightly threatening way. All right, they were threatening as all get out.

The first time Barbara saw an alligator I swear she clapped her hands in open delight. When she did it she reminded me of Erik who was obediently staying with Mrs. de Ville. I don’t think Pa had any idea what Barbara and I got into during the day, much less at night.

Well, he caught me one time.

Barbara and I agreed the first night that we would only wait for the other person for a quarter of an hour, which we could determine by the tones of one of the bells in the city. After that we would consider the night’s adventure cancelled. One time my night was cancelled before it even began. I waited until Erik and Pa were asleep – or so I thought – and then I started to crawl out of bed. I was ready to put my left foot on the floor when my shirt flipped back and Pa’s strong hand hit my bare behind with a crack. I dropped on my stomach on my mattress but I was defenseless. Believe me, at that time of year in New Orleans we didn’t use even a sheet over us, much less a blanket. I quickly rolled over but his left hand turned me on my stomach.

“What do you think you are doing?” he asked, holding my left shoulder down.

“I was getting up to use the pot,” I lied and he knew. Another pop stung my bottom. I quickly decided I didn’t like the way the early morning was turning out.

“Do you want to tell me what you were really doing?”

I ask you, was that any time to smart-mouth Pa? Wouldn’t you think even a halfway intelligent child would have been respectful? Not me. “No, Pa, I don’t want to tell you what I was doing.” Third swat.

“Let’s try that again.” Pa’s voice was not amused. When I didn’t answer fast enough for him his tone went threatening. “Adam.”

All right, this was the end. He would put me across his knees and spank me until I wilted when I told him what I had been planning to do.

“I can’t talk with my face in the pillow,” I said and then cringed when I thought he might consider it more back talk. Luckily he didn’t and he allowed me to roll over. I knew he wasn’t going to ask me the question again so I answered. “I was going to climb on the roof, Pa.”

He sat down on the side of my bed and in the moonlight I could see him studying my face intently. “And why were you going to climb on the roof?”

It was the first and only time I lied without hesitation. “I wanted to look at the stars.”

“Look at the stars.”

“Yes, Pa.”

“You can see the stars from the courtyard, son.”

“Yes, Pa.”

“I suggest you confine your stargazing to the courtyard and before bedtime.”

“Yes, Pa.”

He left the room, slowly shaking his head and then I heard him undressing in his room.

“A-dam?” Erik whispered.

Oh no. What now?

“I didn’t tells him.”

“I know,” I whispered in return. “Thank you.”

“You crying?”

“Nah.” The swats were stingers but the hurt wouldn’t last long – I hoped.

“A-dam?”

I rolled onto my stomach. “Erik, would you go to sleep?”

“I gots to asks you somethin’.”

I smiled in spite of my run-in with Pa. “What you gots to ask me?”

“Would you’s take me up dere?”

My heart didn’t stop beating but it came close. “Erik, promise me you won’t try.”

Promises have never been something we Cartwright sons take lightly. Erik moaned. “A-dam, dat not fair.”

“Promise me. I’ll show you when you’re older.”

“How older?”

“Ten.”

“Ten!” Erik exclaimed.

Pa’s bed creaked and I threw my pillow across my behind.

“Get to sleep,” Pa ordered from the doorway.

I kept my pillow in protective position but I propped my chin on my crossed arms. From the sides of my eyes I saw Erik sit up. “But Pa, A-dam say he won’t teach’s me hows to be on da roof ‘til I’m ten. Dat not fair.”

“I was teasing,” I quickly added.

“Was not. You makes me promise not to do’s it now.”

Pa had heard enough. He put his hands on either side of his shirt. “Do you two remember what is hanging beside my chair in my room?”

“Your bell,” Erik answered without reservation. I continued to watch him, astounded at how open he was with Pa at a time of impending death.

“Belt, Erik,” Pa corrected. “Do you remember the time Adam forgot to reload the rifle and I used that belt on him?”

I broke into cold chills despite the warm night.

Erik nodded and pulled up his knees. “Its was sad, Pa.”

I don’t know what I expected him to say but it wasn’t that. I think he caught Pa by surprise, too, because I tilted my head and saw Pa slide his left hand over his face. “Yes, Erik, it was sad.”

“A-dam were sad and I were sad and you were most saddest,” Erik continued.

I lifted my head. No way Pa had been sadder than me with my blistered behind.

“You pulls me close and kind of sort of lets me hold da horses.”

Pa’s and my eyes met in the moonlight. I had been in the back of the wagon that day as I had cried my heart out until I had fallen into a troubled sleep. I had never given a second thought to what Erik or Pa had been doing.

Erik was so far off topic Pa had that look on his face like he did when we caused him to forget what he was originally discussing – which we did a lot without intending to. Then he remembered and he looked at Erik instead of me. “Please go to sleep so I won’t have to use my belt on you.”

My little brother was not intimidated like I would have been at his age. I never could reconcile that behavior with the same little brother who fell apart when Pa said his name sternly. All I could figure out was he felt he’d been dealt a huge injustice – all three of Pa’s sons tend to get our fur up about injustice. Erik squinted his eyes, slid off his bed, and padded over to Pa. His little arms swung like a parading soldier. “Dat belt you don’t hits someone littler than you. Dat’s picking on and you all the time say’s not to do dat.” Those words became one of Erik’s routine lectures to Pa. And then he added a few more words. “You use dat belt ‘cause A-dam done real bad when he not do dat rifle. But I hasn’t done real bad. And ‘sides you don’t likes dat belt ‘cause dat belt makes A-dam cry so you cry.”

I eased my face off my crossed arms and into my mattress. What was Erik talking about now?

I knew what Pa did without looking. After all, I’d known him for eight years. He leaned from the waist with his hands still on his hips and looked Erik straight in the eyes. “Erik, get into bed now or I will put you across my knees and spank your bare behind.”

“Fer what?” Erik demanded.

Oh glory! I don’t care how cute you are, you don’t talk to Pa that way.

Did I want to lift my head and watch or not? Could a short, upset four-year-old triumph over a man who’d fought the perils of the open sea and crossed no small amount of the country? Would Erik follow Pa’s orders or would I hear Pa’s strong hand smack Erik’s little backside?

“Fer – ” Pa corrected his speech “For what?”

“I ask you first,” Erik pointed out.

All right, I didn’t resist. I propped myself on my right elbow and watched with utter amazement.

Erik pointed his left index finger at Pa and Pa pointed his right index finger at Erik. I laughed out loud and Pa’s head snapped my way. “You will not get involved in this.”

I held up my left hand with my palm spread as an indication of truce.

Poor Pa forgot the subject again. But Erik didn’t. “What’s you spanks me fer?” he demanded in the most incensed way I had ever seen. “I says ‘ma’am’ and ‘sir’, I don’t do’s nothing bad. I do’s what you says, and I eats what you says, and I counts to fifteen, and I reads all da way to ‘r’, and what else I suppose ta do?”

I fell on my backside – which didn’t hurt at all – held my stomach, and laughed until tears streamed down my face and dripped onto my shirt.

Over my gales of giggles I heard Pa scold, “Adam”. But I was way past stopping.

Pa resumed his role as the adult in the room. “You will get in your bed now, Erik, or I will spank you.”

“You not in your bed.”

“Don’t start it, young man.”

I rolled to my side just in time to see Erik stomp back to his bed. “Sometimes you’s no fair.”

Pa followed him and lifted him onto the bed. “Does that mean sometimes I am fair?”

Erik plopped his head back onto his pillow. “You maybe is sometimes.”

Pa laughed deeply. “I maybe is most of the time, you scamp.”

Erik wrapped his arms around Pa’s neck. “You really spanks me for not being in bed?”

Pa looked at me meaningfully. “Why don’t you ask Adam about that?” He held up a warning finger. “But in the morning.”

“Yes, Pa,” we said in unison.

Pa was no more out of the room than Erik whispered. “He pretty good pa.”

“Yeah,” I whispered back.

“Get to sleep, you two,” Pa called.

I turned into my pillow, still surprised that my bottom didn’t hurt.

 

 

Because of Barbara’s and my adventures I didn’t pay much attention to what was happening in the rest of the family or even with my friends. I caught up quickly one night when Mrs. de Marigny and Barbara were our guests for dinner and then Barbara went across the street to visit with Mrs. de Ville. You’d have to spend a lot of time finding two women more different than proper, respectable, old money Mrs. de Ville and bouncy, devil-may-care, spend money now because you can’t take it with you Barbara. But the two women enjoyed each other so much that very few days went by when Barbara didn’t make time for a visit.

Pa had put Erik and me to bed but I wasn’t the least bit sleepy, as I often wasn’t that early in the evening, so I listened to the sounds of Erik’s deep slumber thinking that might lull me off. It only made me more aware that I wasn’t asleep. It was almost impossible to speak with a normal voice in the house and not be overheard because of the open design and the few number of doors. So in the same way I had heard Mrs. de Ville and Pa talking the morning after Dieter had died, I heard Mrs. de Marigny and Pa speak while I couldn’t fall asleep.

Pa sounded earnest and mentioned something about “away” and “upriver.” I heard mention of Mrs. de Ville more than once. It was high time to eavesdrop. I tiptoed to the doorframe between Pa’s room and the dining room and parlor, and stayed flat against the wall.

I don’t know if you’ve ever eavesdropped, or if you would admit it if you have, but I tend to look down at the floor. Somehow that helps me hear better. Not that I eavesdrop any more, you understand.

When I was plastered against the wall so to speak, I heard Mrs. de Marigny and Pa’s voices as if I were in the room with them. I’d thought they sounded serious while I’d listened to them from my bed, which was in the other room, but I didn’t know the half of it. Their tone was solemn.

“Benjamin,” Mrs. de Marigny said softly. “The boys, they need more time. You should tell them and then allow them to express how they feel.”

“My sons don’t tell me what to do,” Pa said. He was bent forward with his forearms on his thighs. I could tell it from his voice.

There were footsteps as Mrs. de Marigny paced. “Of course they do not tell you what to do. You are the father. Nevertheless – ” a brief pause “– they must not feel they have been put to the side, Benjamin. This could cause much trouble.” More footsteps. “There is more. I live in the house and enjoy the furnishings only because of my aunt and uncle. They could not have me fall into desperation because of how it would look for the family.”

“I’ve told you before that doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me, Benjamin.”

Pa’s boot falls indicated he had stood. He was probably walking to her. “Marie, that is the old way. We have love and that will see us through.”

“But love has so little to do with it in this city.”

“Love has everything to do with it.”

“The others will not ever accept you, Benjamin.”

There was a long quiet time and I decided he was either holding her or kissing her or maybe both. They tried to be discreet as he courted her but when you have two boys running around it’s hard to get a kiss in edgewise.

“Now have I convinced you?” Pa laughed softly. “We could do that whenever we wanted. We would wake up warm beside each other. We would – “

“Ssh, Benjamin.” Mrs. de Marigny laughed as he had. “And we will hope the boys they sleep soundly.”

My ears heated up. I’d never heard Pa speak like that. Not even with Inger. But they had made Erik so they must have talked some time.

“All right,” she said after a moment. “We will marry.”

Marry! My sock feet chose that exact moment to slide on the wood floor and I landed hard on my bottom. I scampered up and made a run for my bed, where I landed on my stomach. The bed fell to the floor with a crash and Erik, who hated lightning and thunder, jolted awake. “Pa, dere storm!”

There wasn’t yet but there was about to be. Insane as it was, I stayed on my bed even though the foot of it wasn’t supported and the head was almost at a 45 -degree angle.

Pa lighted our lantern and surveyed the room. Erik rubbed his eyes, his blonde hair tousled by his sleep, and he looked around in confusion. “Where storm go, Pa?” Then he frowned at my bed. “Dat look pretty funny.”

“Do you want to tell me how it got that way?” Pa asked me. It happened again. I couldn’t read his eyes to save my life. And I desperately wanted to save my life.

“Uh, I don’t know. I was just asleep and it moved and then it creaked and then – “

“Adam.”

“Yes, Pa?”

“You are the worst liar God ever put on this earth.”

Ut oh.

Mrs. de Marigny stepped to Pa’s side and exclaimed, “Mon Dieu! You are all right, Adam?”

Pa leaned against the doorframe. “He is for the moment.”

Embarrassed beyond words that Mrs. de Marigny saw me in my shirt, I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them. But then I felt a coolness on my bottom and quickly put my legs out straight.

“Mrs. D’Mary. You makin’ breakfast?” Erik asked as he lay back down on his pillow.

“No, it is still evening.”

“You makes breakfast tomorrow?”

Her faced turned pink. “Not tomorrow. But soon perhaps?”

“All right’s.”

“Get to sleep, Erik. Adam – ” Pa motioned for me to follow them into the parlor. I did so with great trepidation. If he spanked me in front of Mrs. de Marigny I would run away from home. That was all there was to it. No one was going to spank me in front of a lady, not even Pa.

In the parlor he and I sat on the settee and she sat in one of the small chairs Erik and I kept trying not to tip over when we ran through the house. Pa turned sideways so he could see me. But I looked down and traced one of my big toes on the pattern in the carpet.

“Son, you know I’ve been with Mrs. de Marigny quite a bit lately.”

I wasn’t sure which was worse: worrying about a spanking or knowing Pa was about to tell me he was getting married again. I was in such an uncertain mood I found no humor in the words “been with.”

“I like her whole bunches,” Erik piped up from the doorway.

Pa was taken aback. “When did you quit obeying me?”

“Pa, I good,” Erik said. “But I not extra good.”

Mrs. de Marigny exchanged a look with Pa. He resembled a sinking ship.

“I am glad you like me, Erik. I like you and Adam, too,” Mrs. de Marigny said. “I will be your mother.”

My little brother frowned. “How’s you do’s that?”

“Well,” Pa thought a couple of moments, “there will be a – ” He simplified his language for Erik. “There will be a group of people who all come together. Mrs. de Marigny and I will promise to love each other forever. And then we will be what is known as married.”

Erik laughed. “Mrs. D’Mary married.” He liked the sound of it and repeated it several times.

“No, son. When she and I are married she will be the wife and I will be the husband. And her name will be Cartwright like ours is.”

That confused the devil out of Erik. “She like that?” he asked suspiciously. “Cartwrights always boys.”

“Your mother was a Cartwright.”

The new knowledge astounded my brother. “Her was?” He thought long and hard. “Mrs. D’Mary be Mrs. Cartwright?”

“That’s right.”

“But, Pa, I wanna call’s her Ma.”

Pa’s eyes slid to Mrs. de Marigny as he answered Erik. “She would like it if you would call her Ma, son.”

Erik clapped his hands. “A-dam, we got’s a ma!”

The fact that I didn’t respond told Pa all he needed to know. We were in for trouble.

 

The trouble wasn’t Mrs. de Marigny’s fault – it was completely mine. She was a pretty woman with dark hair, lips that always smiled, and the gentlest voice I have ever heard. Her cooking spoiled me. She encouraged me to read, shared my love of poetry, praised my drawings, and after months of sharing the same house I came to understand that she was watching out for me and not trying to control my life. In short it was not who she was but what she was. As far as I was concerned, Pa was replacing Inger – the only mother I remembered. And since I found it impossible to take out my anger on him I directed every morsel of it at the person who least deserved it. Her forgiveness is a measure of how wonderful she was.

I could not accept what was happening at home so I spent more time with Barbara. I went out on the roof and told myself I didn’t care if Pa caught me. I didn’t care about anything anymore. My attitude changed substantially when he caught me one night and gave me a reprimand that caused me to cry. But the next night I was out again and that was Barbara’s and my big night – the night we walked all the way to the gambling boat.

I need to amend that. I don’t know if the men were supposed to be gambling on that boat or not but they were. I had a pretty good feeling that Barbara had no business being there but she persuaded them to let her on board. Then, slick as you please, she got me on board, too. The men were playing dice in one area under the deck and cards in another. Fear shot up my spine as I thought of what Pa would do to me if he knew I’d been around dice. Memories of that belt hanging in his bedroom almost blocked my vision.

One of the men at the table looked up and smiled at Barbara. “You thinkin’ you’ll sit in for a hand, honey?”

“Just one,” Barbara said. To my disbelieving eyes a man stood up and pulled out a chair for her. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass you gentlemen,” she said with a wink. They passed a bottle her way but she declined.

And then they were into the poker game. I understood nothing about it but I was pretty sure the person who pulled everything in the middle of the table toward them was the winner. The men laughed and talked with Barbara and encouraged her to stay for another hand.

Over at the dice game the men drank from a bottle and did not get along as well as the poker players. There might have been some relationship between the bottle and the fighting. I was meandering around, wondering what all the things I saw were used for, when a fight erupted and two knives appeared from nowhere. The men slashed at each other, jumped back and held both hands in the air, until one man gave his leg a swing and the other fell on his back with a crash. His knife skidded to a stop in front of my boots. The other man straddled him and held his knife close to the unarmed man’s throat.

“Aw come on, Robert,” a burly man at the dice game said. “How’re we goin’ ta win his money if he’s dead?”

“We can take it off him,” Robert growled through his beard.

“Now man! Even I have my limits.”

Slowly but surely Robert stood and then he held out a hand to help the other man to his feet. I didn’t know whether to pick up the knife at the toe of my boot to offer it back and hope the man didn’t think I wanted to fight or whether to just leave it alone. My answer came when Robert motioned. “Well, give the man his knife, boy.”

I have never moved so carefully in all my life.

Encouraged by Robert’s acknowledgement of my presence, I stepped closer to watch the dice game and learn how to play it.

Well, I tried. All I could determine was that the men were in a type of semi-circle sometimes and they called out bets that were unfathomable to me. The next thing I knew they sat on their heels in a circle and there was something magic about rolling a three at one time and then a seven at another time. My brain hurt from trying to figure out what on earth they were doing. I finally decided I would ask Henri about the game since he seemed to know as much about everything as he knew about everyone. The game Henri taught me was simpler but a quick-fire way to lose your favorite marbles.

Finally Barbara said she had to leave and the men grumbled. When she pushed the money back to the middle of the table instead of keeping it they all laughed. “If you can’t remember what you bet then just divide it evenly,” she said. I noticed she didn’t take any of the money for herself even though I knew she had played with some.

Most of the men stood when she did and one asked, “Don’t you need someone to walk you home?”

There wasn’t a one of them I’d have trusted to walk me topside much less home but I kept my opinion to myself.

Barbara seemed to consider the offer a moment and then she shook her head. “No, I don’t imagine there’s much my guard here and I can’t handle.” She motioned to me and then pulled open her purse. “And then there’s this.” She laid a knife on the table. “And this.” I swear to heaven it was a small pistol like I had never seen before.

Another man nodded as she re-armed herself. “I’d say you’re ready for just about anything.”

A third man grinned widely. “Been a pleasure, Miss.”

Barbara tilted her head. “Now how do you know I’m not married?”

“If you were you would’ve brought your husband.”

Everyone in the room laughed. I was more than ready to get out of there.

Barbara was extraordinary as far as I was concerned. I was convinced we were ready to get our throats cut in that boat and then those men would have tossed us into the river and no one would have ever found us. But she stepped out to the street and swung her purse in one hand while she held mine with the other. I still wonder how we ever got to our “meeting-corner” without being attacked.

“Adam,” she said but didn’t wait for one of my “yes ma’ams” that were slowly, immeasurably driving her insane. “I want to talk to you about your father’s marriage.”

“I’m not talking,” I said and even I could hear the sulk in my voice.

“I know you aren’t. You’re listening because I am talking. Your father has given up a large part of his life to be sure you have what you need and to be with you as much as he can be. He has also done what he can to see that you are happy and safe. And now he has found happiness and love. I think the least you can do is want him to be happy.”

I stuck my hands in my pockets. “It doesn’t matter what I want. He’s happy.”

“It would mean a great deal to him if you could tell him you are glad he is happy.”

I stopped and looked at her. Anger not unlike some I’d witnessed in Pa flew out of me. “That would be a lie because I’m not glad! She’ll get rid of us, you just watch.”

Barbara frowned at me and then shock whitened her face. “For heaven’s sake, why do you think she’ll get rid of you?”

” ‘Cause Gus said so.” My chin jutted as I defended my beliefs.

“I don’t know who this Gus is but he could not be more wrong and you are a silly child for believing such nonsense.”

Glory she knew how to hit a guy where it hurt. Being called a silly child was about as insulting as you could get with a worldly eight-year-old.

I decided I didn’t like Barbara, either, and I didn’t say another word to her during the walk home. I didn’t say goodnight to her when we went our separate ways and I didn’t say good morning to her when Mrs. de Marigny and she joined us for breakfast. When she approached me later to see if I wanted to go out that night I told her I didn’t. She went over to see Mrs. de Ville the way she always did and took Erik with her. Pa and Mrs. de Marigny left the house and I curled up on my bed and read.

After a while, Mrs. de Marigny and Pa returned to our home and excitement filled her voice. “I am so pleased that they will meet you and the boys. It will be especially delightful to see the boys’ reaction, non?”

“That it will,” Pa agreed. Then he chuckled deeply.

Oh no. It sounded like we were going to visit someone soon. That meant my dumb good clothes and that stupid tie. While we were eating dinner Pa informed us we were going to Mrs. de Marigny’s aunt and uncle’s home the next day to meet them before the wedding. Erik was all excited and asked if they maybe had candy. I would have gone into a pout if Pa hadn’t been watching me like a hawk on a mouse.

Even though I had no plans to meet Barbara, I climbed to the roof that night and walked to one of the parks and back. I had no trouble seeing thanks to the streetlights and I had been so many places with Barbara I felt as safe outside as I did in my own home. Except that home proved a little risky.

As I backed through our bedroom window and a hand bent me over a knee. My bottom exploded in a pain I remembered only too well. Pa quit after ten licks and I was crying like I had the day I forgot to reload the rifle – although thankfully he hadn’t given me as many licks this time as he had that time. When I finally stood up and looked at Pa I was a bawling, belligerent son. For once I was smart enough to keep the belligerence unspoken. Pa grabbed my chin and held it firmly, “If you ever disobey me again, I will use this belt on you with your trousers down. Do I make myself clear?”

I cried, “Yes, Pa” and he released me to crawl onto my bed.

“Adam,” he warned from the doorway. “Get quiet or I’ll use it again.”

He had no idea what that threat did to me. I shook and breathed in short gasps. The shaking was uncontrollable – as if I were freezing. And the gasps made me light headed and my chest hurt until my fingers went numb.

“Pa,” Erik’s heartbroken voice came from the darkness. “Please don’t hurts him no more.”

But Pa’s voice held no sympathy. “If Adam doesn’t want to hurt he knows how to avoid it. Get to sleep.”

Erik’s sniffles stopped only a few minutes before mine did.

 

The next day Pa gave Erik and me a stern lecture – come to think of it that’s the only kind of lecture he gives – about not being outside. We could go to Mrs. de Ville’s or we could stay home. The fever was spreading. Then he informed us we would be meeting Mrs. de Marigny’s aunt and uncle that afternoon.

“How we do dat and not go’s outside?” Erik didn’t understand and he frowned.

Pa walked to the front door to leave for work. “They are sending their carriage.”

Erik’s arms spread as far as they could. “Dat big?”

Pa pinched Erik’s nose. “Probably even bigger.”

“You gonna helps me wid da good clothes?”

“Yes, I’ll help you get dressed.” Pa reached for the door handle.

“Pa?” Erik grabbed a trouser leg and tugged. “I got a question. Why it called dress when it trasers?”

Pa tilted his head. “I don’t know. That might be a good thing to find out at Mrs. de Ville’s today. Good bye, boys.”

“Bye, Pa.” Erik’s cheerfulness was almost overwhelming.

I nodded and softly said, “Pa,” and then returned to my room to sleep. Whenever the world was more than I could take I found sleep to be the best way of hiding. But Erik wouldn’t leave me alone.

“A-dam.” He shook my bed and me. “You gotta gets up. We gotta see Mrs. Ville.”

“You go see Mrs. Ville,” I said sullenly.

Sudden worry was in the bright voice and he climbed up beside me to pat my back. “Pa hurts you bad, huh?”

“Bad enough.” I shifted and closed my eyes. I didn’t know how to tell Erik there was more hurt inside than outside.

“A-dam, alls you gotta do is do’s like he says. How comes you don’t?”

How comes you don’t? Not for the first time I recalled how I’d immediately obeyed his orders when we’d been traveling. Was my disobedience a way of getting back at him for abandoning our goal to reach California and have a ranch? As far as I was concerned if he hadn’t kept his promise to me then I didn’t owe him any respect or obedience. The only problem was Pa didn’t see it that way – and he never would. Respect, obedience and honesty are not only expected they are required. The sooner you accept that the sooner you stay on Pa’s good side.

That afternoon Erik was his usual chattering self as Pa helped him dress. He told Pa about our day with Mrs. Ville and some special pastries that had dark cream in them and were really good. And then he told Pa the funny story they had read about a chicken and how he’d picked out a bunch of the letters. Pa laughed with him and then Erik announced, “I go watch and I stays in.” He ran to the door with the soles of his shoes slamming on the floor.

I dressed in my suit and tie without any fuss and decided to wait in our room, dreading the afternoon ahead. Finally Erik called out, “Dere here!” and I walked to the living room as I fought a sick stomach.

Mrs. de Marigny waited for us in the carriage. She wore a beautiful soft coral dress and she welcomed us with a kind smile. Erik was beside himself with excitement and Pa had to keep telling him to sit down. Finally Pa realized warnings wouldn’t work so he made Erik sit in his lap and Erik loved that because he could see out.

I had my back to the front of the carriage and sat on the seat edge because my bottom was still recovering from its encounter with Pa’s belt. So at first I didn’t see what Erik did. I knew the streets and neighborhood looked familiar and then Erik went very still and gave me one of those looks only brothers understand. We were in trouble. I wrinkled my brow, wondering what it could possibly be and Erik slid from Pa’s lap to sit beside me. He leaned over, put his hand around my ear and whispered, “We’s close to Good Boy’s house.”

I shrugged and told him not to worry. We’d just act like we’d never seen the place as the carriage went by.

The problem was that the carriage didn’t go by. It stopped right in front of Good Boy’s house. I don’t know who nearly peed first – Erik or me. Pa helped Mrs. de Marigny out of the carriage and then Erik and me. As he put me on my feet Good Boy neighed in recognition.

“Isn’t that something,” Pa said. “He acts like he knows you.”

Good Boy neighed again and I nearly ran up the walkway to the front porch. “Adam,” Pa called. “There’s no reason for bad manners, son.”

“I – I was just thinking about what you said about not being outside because of the fever.” I danced from one foot to the other, anxious to get inside but not because of any concern about the fever. I was afraid Good Boy was going to point to us and ask why we were ignoring him.

Mrs. de Marigny and Pa took forever to negotiate the brick walkway. They admired the flowers and laughed about one or two things I couldn’t understand. Erik stood beside me and looked up at me with worried blue eyes.

“You tink Pa gonna spank me, A-dam?”

“Not if we don’t tell him,” I said.

“Won’t dat be a lie?”

I bent down and pretended I was tucking in his shirt. “No.”

Except for a fleeting time in his life, Erik has always been a stickler for rules. “It sound like a lie.”

“It’s not telling everything.”

“I don’ un’erstand,” he said in frustration.

I pretended to dust his trousers. “Don’t worry.”

“It sound likes Pa spank me eder way.”

“Just let me handle it, all right?”

Erik’s hands went to the sides of his waist. “You da one got Pa’s bell yesterday night.”

I stood up with anger rising. “Fine, Erik, you go ahead and tell him the whole story and you’ll wish to gosh you hadn’t when he gets through with you.”

Erik and I never fought and when Mrs. de Marigny and Pa stepped onto the porch Pa looked at us with raised eyebrows. “What’s this?” he demanded.

“Nothing, Pa,” we both answered.

He continued to study us a moment and then the front door opened like magic and a dark-skinned man asked us to step inside.

We may have been a handful at home but my brother and I behaved as we’d been taught when we visited. Especially when we were in the huge hallway that ran the entire length of the house. At the other end, through large doors with glass in them, I saw gardens that seemed to stretch for miles.

“Tante Ailene and Oncle Denis may I introduce my fiancé Benjamin Cartwright and his two sons Adam and Erik. Benjamin, my aunt and uncle, Ailene and Denis Dubois.”

Erik and I waited politely as the adults shook hands and Pa kissed Mrs. Dubois’ hand. And then the attention shifted to us. Pa had stressed with us that we should look adults in the eyes without realizing how hard that was with the really tall ones like him. Mr. Dubois was even taller.

“We meet at last,” Mrs. de Marigny’s uncle said. His slow smile scared me and I guess I pressed back against Pa’s leg because his hand went to my shoulder. “My horse was quite accustomed to the daily exercise. He has missed you since the fever has become so bad. You have missed him, too?”

Have you ever felt the earth opening up at your feet as it prepares to swallow you whole? I felt it opening and it couldn’t swallow me fast enough.

Erik was speechless – which was either a sign he was holding his breath or had died standing up.

“I hear from Mrs. de Marigny you have become pretty good horsemen.” Pa spoke from behind us.

When Erik finally spoke his soft observation was an amazing understatement. “We be in bad twuble, A-dam.”

Pa leaned down and spoke to us softly. “You might want to reconsider borrowing someone’s horse without their permission. Out west they call it horse theft and they hang a man for it.”

Out west? So he hadn’t forgotten!

“Shall we?” Mrs. Dubois’ hand swooped past the skirt of her dress as she directed us into a parlor that scared me to death. Mrs. de Ville’s house was fancy but comfortable. That room was full of shiny woods that met at all kinds of angles and every piece of furniture had gold on it. The fabrics looked like they would tear if you sat on them wrong. Erik and I looked up at Pa, awaiting instructions, and he suggested we sit on a settee. I helped Erik up and then sat down myself. My legs swung. Both of us perched on the very edge of the piece of furniture. I did so because of my hurting bottom. If Erik sat back his legs stuck straight out. I wondered if he was as ready as I was for the visit to end.

A dark-skinned lady – a nurse as far as I was concerned – silently entered the room and set a tray of fancy cups and saucers as well as a pitcher of coffee on the table between Mrs. de Marigny and Pa and Mr. and Mrs. Dubois. The same lady appeared again, just as quietly, and set out a tray of bread, cheese and desserts. Mrs. de Marigny and Pa sipped coffee and enjoyed the desserts while they spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Dubois about the wedding – that I learned was two days away. Erik and I didn’t have anything to eat or drink. Truth told we were scared to move because the house and Mrs. de Marigny’s aunt and uncle were overpowering and uncomfortable to be around.

Despite everything Pa taught us about behaving when we were with a lady we both fell against the back of the carriage seat when we started home. Erik’s sigh of relief was almost comical.

“So what do you think of my aunt and uncle?” Mrs. de Marigny asked. I assumed she was speaking to Pa until he cleared his throat.

“Ma’am?” I sat up and wondered what the polite answer was.

“You are not very comfortable with them, this is true?” Her eyes slid up and down me.

“Uh,” I stammered. “I never met them before, ma’am.”

She gave me a knowing smile. “Adam, as your father says, you are the worst liar God ever put on this earth.”

Pa laughed and put his arm around her shoulder. She leaned forward and patted my knee. “Do not worry. They have saved me from destitution. You know this word?”

I looked down at her hand and then up. “No, ma’am.”

“It means poverty. You know this word?”

Only too well at times. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Because of how I was left to live they helped me. The place I live belongs to them.”

I was interested in only one thing. “The books too?”

“Oui, the books, aussi.” Mrs. de Marigny clasped her gloved hands in her lap. “I look forward to becoming a part of your family and not depending so much on them. You understand?”

I understood only too well. I didn’t want to share any more time with them than I had to even if they were kind to her.

“Mrs. D’Mary?” Erik leaned forward and spoke softly. “When’s I call you Ma?”

She laughed and Pa grinned. “As soon as the marriage is complete, little one.”

He straightened. “I not so little, Mrs. D’Mary.”

Her head tipped as she apologized. “I meant no harm, Erik. It is only that you are smaller than me.”

“I be taller soon,” he challenged and Pa’s eyes widened.

But Mrs. de Marigny held her own and without heat. “But of course you will. This is as it should be. The young men should always be taller.” Then she leaned across the aisle in the carriage and moved her left index finger ever so slightly. “But they should always be courteous, too, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am. Or dey get spanked.”

Her eyes filled with delight and she looked over and up at Pa. “It is good motivation, n’est pas?”

Pa winked at her. “I’ve found it keeps them on the straight and narrow.”

We returned home where Erik and Mrs. de Marigny became involved in something in the parlor that involved giggles. Since Pa told us to remain in our good clothes I took a breather in our bedroom. I was standing at the window tapping on the glass when Pa walked up beside me and put his right hand on my left shoulder. “You sure are quiet. What are you doing?”

“Thinking.”

He stepped around and leaned his hips on the window ledge. He crossed his arms and looked at me. “Thinking about what?”

I continued to stare at the wall of the house outside our courtyard. “Nothing.”

“Nothing, hum. How do you think about nothing?” I heard the playfulness in his voice but I couldn’t respond – I was too tired inside.

“You look at something,” I answered. “And you keep looking at it and then you don’t see it, and you don’t hear anything, and you don’t think.” He put his hand over mine to stop the rapping of my fingers.

“Adam?”

After I took a deep breath I made my announcement. “I won’t disobey you anymore, Pa. I’m tired of hurting.”

He pulled back slightly and his smile faded into a straight line

I just knew he was going to lecture me about riding Good Boy, or about not being nicer to Mrs. de Marigny, or about almost being rude at the Dubois’ home. I walked over to my bed and lay down on my back, hoping he would take the hint and leave me alone. That was not going to happen. He patted my right leg in a silent request to sit next to me and I scooted a little.

“Adam.” He hesitated and took a deep breath the way I usually do when I have to discuss something difficult. “Son, I need to be sure you understand why I used my belt last night.”

Talk about the last subject I wanted to discuss.

“Walking on the roof is dangerous.”

“You did it.” See what I mean about talking back?

Pa was surprised that I knew about his youthful escapades but he didn’t let me have the upper hand. Erik might get away with it but I was the oldest and I was subject to stricter rules. I knew that and Pa knew that. “What I did or did not do when I was your age is not what we are discussing, young man.” Notice he didn’t say he hadn’t?

I put my hands behind my head in an act of extreme bravery – or complete stupidity considering he had a bit of access to my upper leg and could easily roll me over for complete annihilation of my bottom. He squinted his eyes a moment and continued. “I used my belt because my warnings and spankings haven’t stopped you from disobeying me.”

Any version of the word “disobey” always gives me a cold sensation inside and that day was no different. Something must have changed about my face or eyes because he waved his right hand and spoke in aggravation. “What do you think it is when I tell you not to go up on the roof and you wander around New Orleans until late at night? Son, that’s disobedience.”

He sat up straight and ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know how Erik and you get me off the subject as fast as you do.”

Well if that wasn’t what he wanted to talk about what was? I didn’t recall saying much to distract him.

He took another breath. “What you said about how you’re tired of hurting – ” He paused and leaned forward, his hands clasped between his spread knees. “The Bible tells me to guide you now so you will be a man people can trust and admire. I understand that my disapproval hurt you on the inside just as much as my belt hurt you on the outside.” His shoulders gave way slightly. “I remember wanting to hear my father tell me how proud he was of me. I didn’t hear it often enough, Adam. And I’m sorry if I’m repeating his mistake.”

Not knowing what to do, I followed my heart. I eased to my knees and struggled until I sat across his lap. Then I wrapped my arms around his neck and we remained silent for a long time – Pa with his chin propped on the top of my head.

When he spoke his voice was husky. “I sometimes get upset about what you do, Adam. But I have always loved you. And I have always been proud of you.”

I gave him a little back talk – I think to lighten the mood. “I get upset with what you do, too, Pa.”

He laughed so strongly I shook in his lap and then he popped me lightly on the side of my leg. “Someday that mouth of yours will get you in a lot of trouble, youngster.”

“But you’ll be there to help me, won’t ya?”

He gave me an affectionate chuck under the chin. “I’m probably the one you’ll be in a lot of trouble with.”

 

As strange as it sounds, I enjoyed the day Mrs. de Marigny and Pa exchanged wedding vows. I found out later it was not a large wedding by New Orleans standards and did not follow Creole traditions. But it was just right for a boy struggling to understand the uncertainties in his life.

We returned to the Dubois home for the ceremony and, after Mrs. de Marigny and Pa were married, the house filled with laughter, dancing, and good food. Erik called Mrs. de Marigny “Ma” but I couldn’t do it. Inger had been “Ma” and to call anyone else that was to deny she ever existed. I got by for a long time by saying “ma’am”. Longer than I should have. In my thoughts she was still Mrs. de Marigny.

Mr. and Mrs. Dubois hosted the wedding that was attended by Mrs. de Marigny’s sister Jeanette and her husband, Mrs. de Ville, a gray-haired gentleman who had known Mrs. de Marigny since she had been a child and Barbara – who wouldn’t have missed it for anything. I wondered why none of my friends’ parents or my friends attended but, when I asked, Pa explained it was because of the fever.

The night of the wedding Erik and I had the fun of sleeping at Mrs. de Ville’s on the tallest, biggest bed either one of us had ever seen. There were two huge carved posts at the foot of it and a headboard that almost touched the ceiling. The bed had a set of small steps we climbed up and then we plopped on the bed and marveled at how soft it was.

I don’t know whether Erik was pretending to be my age or I had lowered myself to his age but we tossed pillows and wrestled on our knees and giggled until Erik had the hiccoughs.

“What is this?” Mrs. de Ville asked as she entered the room. Even though she looked as if she were scolding us we knew her well enough to see the slight smile on her lips.

We quickly sat down, making sure our shirts didn’t leave anything private on view, and tried to be still but our giggles took over.

“It is usually the people who married who have the chiavari but it seems you two are having your own.”

“Chiavari,” I repeated. “What’s that, ma’am?”

She sat in the chair beside out bed and rocked it back and forth as she rearranged a shawl around her shoulders. “The friends they come to the house and they make noise of all kinds until the wife and husband invite them inside.”

Erik was confused. “Why dey do dat?”

“For wine. Then the friends leave the wife and husband alone.”

My little brother shook his head and tugged at his shirt hem. “Dat silly.”

I had a funny feeling all of a sudden. We were at Mrs. de Ville’s while Mrs. de Marigny and Pa were at our house. Glory, what if they were making a baby!

At first I didn’t mind the idea of another brother – the possibility that it might be a girl never occurred to me – because it would keep Mrs. de Marigny busy and I would have more of Pa’s time. But then that more natural feeling took over: what if Pa loved the baby more than he loved me?

“So,” Mrs. de Ville said, “since you are not sleepy I shall bring you a treat. And then you will be quiet, yes?”

Erik loved surprises. “Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. de Ville was quizzical. “Adam, you will share in our treat?”

I snapped out of my reverie. “Oh, yes, ma’am.”

The very second she was out of the room Erik rose to his knees and looked at me. “What you thinking, A-dam?”

Should I tell him? He might know about boy horses but there was no need to worry him about the possibility of another Cartwright boy. I gave him a smile and pushed him back and wrestled him to the mattress until he said “uncle.”

 

I wondered if we would spend the next night with Mrs. de Ville but we spent the morning with her and then returned home where the smell of something good drifted to us from the kitchen. When we stepped inside Mrs. de Marigny turned and smiled at us as if she had always been there.

She asked how we were and Erik ran to where she worked with dough on the table. He scrambled up a stool and excitedly told her all about the bed and the late night treats and how he’d beaten me at arm wrestling and then all of a sudden he stopped and asked, “Where Pa?”

“He is in the city,” she answered. “Hiring the men.”

I have never been shy when it comes to wanting to know what adults are doing. “Hiring men for what?”

She stuck out her lower lip and blew some stray hair off her forehead. Erik thought it was funny and imitated her. The only problem was that his hair wasn’t that long. The front of mine sure was. Even though she hadn’t answered my question I tried her trick and Erik laughed again. “You looks funny.” He pointed at me.

I lifted him from the stool and swung him around. “It runs in the family.”

I should have known better. The moment he was back on the stool he said, “What run?”

How to explain that one? “It means everybody in the family tends to have it. So when you said I looked funny I was saying everyone in the family does.”

Erik held onto the top of the stool and leaned my way. “Pa look funniest.”

The fact that Mrs. de Marigny watched us in amusement as she worked didn’t escape my notice. It was strange to have someone there when it had usually been just Erik and me. “Better not let Pa hear you say that.”

“How comes not? He make funny faces when he tell stories.”

Erik was right. After dinner Pa told us stories about people he had known and silly things he had done. He made all the faces for the people and pretended to be offended by our gales of laughter. Sometimes we screamed so loud as we rolled on the floor that he nudged us with the toe of his boot and told us if we didn’t quiet down we’d be arrested. And just when we were hopelessly out of control he got this really serious look and said, “Adam. Erik. Why can’t you behave yourselves like civilized young men?” We knew he was teasing but we did our best to look scolded. We were terrible at it. Then, despite our pleas for more stories, he would announce it was bedtime and chase us into our room. If we washed up and took off our trousers without any complaining he sat on Erik’s bed and told us a more quiet story about somewhere he had visited when he had sailed – leaving us to dream about exotic places.

“Who’s that saying I make funny faces?” Pa stood in the doorway to the kitchen, a mock frown creasing his forehead.

Erik’s left arm shot out in my direction. “A-dam, Pa. He says you look funniest.”

I felt my eyes get round. “I did not!”

The next thing I knew Pa lifted me off my feet, his forearms under my bottom. “So you think I make the funniest faces?”

“Pa!” I yelped. “Erik’s telling a fib as big as he is.”

“Um hum.” Once my heart slowed down I heard the humor in Pa’s voice. He turned on his heels, holding me close. “Marie? Who said I have the funniest face?”

“Oh, but Benjamin, I concentrate so hard on the pastry I do not pay attention.” She looked from the tops of her eyes and gave him a smile that would melt mountain ice in January.

Pa shook his head. “I guess I’ll have to throw you both in the river.”

“Pa!” I yelped again. Although he had insisted each of us learn to swim almost as soon as we had learned to walk he never let us do so in rapid streams. The thought of him tossing us in the Mississippi was ludicrous.

“Pa,” Erik pleaded our case. “We don’ts do nothing bad. We laughin’s all.”

“Laughing at your pa?” His voice was even more playful. “I never laugh at you.”

Erik got off the stool and did his soldier march to Pa. He obviously didn’t realize Pa was teasing. “You laughs at us all da times.”

Pa’s grin spread. “I laughs at you?”

My little brother nodded once for emphasis. “All da times.”

I glanced over at Mrs. de Marigny. I had never seen her smile so wide. She had a dimple in one cheek.

“Pa?” Erik’s hands went to his waist and he frowned in concern. “You needs ta talk better.”

“Why does I needs ta do dat?”

I turned into Pa’s chest to hide my laughter.

” ‘Cause you is growed up.”

Pa nodded solemnly. “You’re right. Now, we need to discuss throwing you in the river.”

Erik squinted. “You’s laughin’ ‘bout dat.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, Pa. ‘Cause it don’t evers take you dis long ta do’s somethin’.”

I shook so hard against Pa he tightened his grip so he wouldn’t drop me.

“Do you two scamps have your chores done?”

I wiped my eyes as he put me on my feet. “No, Pa. I go do’s them now.” I fought for a deep breath.

“A-dam,” Erik scolded.

Pa gave me a mock serious look. “You shouldn’t oughta make funs of your brother.”

Erik and I were nearly clear of the deep doorway, certainly out of sight, when Mrs. de Marigny said, “Oh, Benjamin, they are such a delight. They make me so happy.”

“They’re good boys,” Pa agreed and then he caught sight of us looking at him from the doorway. He gave us a knowing wink and bit into an apple.

I smiled back at him and ran to do my chores.

 

Living with Mrs. de Marigny required a lot of adjustment on my part – more than it did for Erik. Dinner was definitely better that night than when Pa cooked. And Mrs. de Marigny’s and Pa’s conversation was interesting. Eating my soup and staying very quiet I figured out Pa was hiring men to work on a house Mrs. de Ville had in the country. We would be leaving after my birthday to stay there until late September or early October and by then the fever season would be over.

“You gonna hammer and saw?” Erik asked when he was about to burst with questions.

Pa tore some bread from the loaf. “Yes, Erik.”

“Could I maybe hammer?”

There was a pause while Pa chewed his bread. “May I hammer,” he corrected and I knew we were headed downhill.

“I thoughts you said you was gonna.” Erik rested his elbows on the table.

Pa laid down his spoon and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands and making a tent of his index fingers. “Erik, you said ‘could I maybe hammer’ and I corrected you. Instead of asking if you could or can do something you should ask ‘may’ or ‘might.’ “

Poor Erik. He thought about what Pa had said, looked down at the tabletop and said more to himself than to any of us. “Dere’s so much ya gotta learns to be growed up.”

Mrs. de Marigny was sympathetic. “I will help you a little each day while we are in the country. Would this be good?” She motioned. “You are growing so fast people they will think you are older than you are.”

“You tink I get big?” Erik’s chest swelled.

“Ah, Erik, you grow every day. Look at how tall you become to Adam.”

I didn’t think she needed to call attention to what I was already noticing. The way I figured it I had maybe four more years on him and then we would be even in height. The fact that he would be ten at the most and I would be maybe fourteen was not helping my pride one bit.

“You help me sound old, Ma?” Erik requested.

“Please,” Pa added.

And of course my brother added earnestly, “Pa wants I should sound older, too, Ma.”

Mrs. de Marigny looked as serious as possible, despite Pa’s sigh of defeat. “Then we shall do as your father requests, yes?”

Erik leaned toward her, as he often did with me, in the strictest of confidence. “Ma? I do’s what’s Pa say. He not’s happy when I’s don’t.”

“A wise young man.”

Why was it Erik couldn’t see the brightness in her eyes and the quiet laughter between Pa and her?

That evening, as was our custom, we sat on the rug and Pa told us more of his outrageous stories. Now that I’m older I doubt he could have met so many people if he had been at sea all his life. But as always his stories, voices, and faces brought out giggles, then chuckles, and finally the uncontrollable laughter he had been leading us toward from the beginning. There was a slight change in our routine that night. Mrs. de Marigny sat in a chair as she sewed on a pale fabric with colored thread and when Erik and I scrambled off the rug she smiled at us. Erik immediately ran to her and hugged her around the neck. A second later he looked around the parlor and asked, “Where you sleeps, Ma?”

I was an old hand at this. After all, I’d traveled with Inger and Pa and I’d never known them not to sleep beside each other.

Pa was standing next to me but he leaned back. “Erik, once a woman and man are married they sleep together.”

He considered Pa’s revelation with his arms crossed. “But what if we needs you Pa? What if Ma asleep?”

I shook my head. “Erik, what do we ever need Pa for?”

“Him’s has ta tell us ta get quiet and get to sleep.” Erik was not only growing his answers were coming faster.

Pa sat on his heels and studied Erik. “I better not have to wake up in the middle of the night to tell you that.”

“No, Pa. I means in da beginnin’ of da night,” Erik assured. “When you says dat about da bell.”

“Belt,” I corrected and caught the alarm on Mrs. de Marigny’s face.

“Belt?” she asked in immediate and deep concern.

My brother walked back to her. “Pa has dis bell and he’ll use if’s you don’ do what he says.”

“Erik.” Pa stood slowly. “I have never used that belt on you.”

Erik’s blonde curls bounced as he shook his finger at Pa. “You says you would.”

“I said I would spank your bare bottom.”

“Pa!” Erik looked back at Mrs. de Marigny as he apologized for what he viewed as Pa’s breech of good manners. “Pa shouldn’t oughta talk dat way in front of a lady.” He turned back. “You hurt Adam wit’ it.”

We didn’t really need to be discussing my punishments in front of Mrs. de Marigny as far as I was concerned. Especially since her eyes were widening in concern. Pa agreed with me and clapped his hands. “No more of this. Into bed. And don’t forget to wash up.” He chased us as he always did and, because we got ready for bed without a fuss, he told us one of his quiet stories.

I was peacefully drifting to sleep when I heard Mrs. de Marigny softly say, “Benjamin, Adam he is too small that you should use such a thing as a belt. He has a deep heart, that one. He is much like a beautiful young horse. You must be tres careful of his spirit.”

Maybe I liked her a little more than I thought.

The smell of Pa’s pipe tobacco eased into our room. “I used it on him when we were on the trail and his forgetfulness endangered us. And I used it when my warnings and spankings didn’t stop his roof climbing.”

“Climbing on the roof!” She laughed. “I did the same thing.”

She what?

“So did I. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous.” Yep, that was Pa. Sticking by his rules.

“Oh Benjamin, we did not become hurt and neither will he,” she coaxed.

“He will if he continues to disobey me,” Pa vowed.

Mrs. de Marigny changed the subject in the blink of an eye. “Barbara comes to visit tomorrow. And the day after she leaves for St. Louis.” She pronounced St. Louis the way the French do and I practiced it in a whisper because I liked the way it sounded.

“I wish she would come with us to the country.” I heard Pa’s chair rock.

“And why is this?” Mrs. de Marigny teased. “So you can – how do you say – keep an eye on her?”

Pa laughed softly. “I was thinking more of some short reins.” He rocked a few times. “Talk about someone who’s like a young horse and has a lot of spirit. I wasn’t tame when I was her age but I’m a man. She scares the devil out of me sometimes.”

“C’est bon,” she teased. “That leaves only room for the goodness.” Then her voice lowered. “Do you think the boys they sleep yet?”

“I think the boys will be asleep soon,” Pa answered.

Sure enough, he was right.

 

“So what’s this I hear about you going to the country?” Barbara asked as we sat on the rug the next morning.

I was relieved that we were on good terms again, though I wasn’t sure how it had come about.

“Pa’s hired a bunch of men and they’re going to fix up Mrs. de Ville’s house.” I was proud of my adult knowledge.

“Will you be helping them?” She shoved at my hand and made me cause a mess with the wooden shapes I had been building with. “Oops, how clumsy of me.”

I shot her a “you meant to do that” look and resumed my efforts. “I figure I’ll help them if they pay me.”

She leaned her back against the settee and laughed loudly. “Is that so? I think if your father orders you to work you’ll do it quick as a wink.”

Feeling particularly cocky I told her maybe I would and maybe I wouldn’t.

“Give them enough rope and they hang themselves every time,” she said as she looked over my shoulder.

I didn’t understand at all. “Ma’am?”

Then there he was. Pa appeared out or nowhere and sat on the settee. He rested his right ankle on his left knee.

“I was just teasing with her.” Even I could hear the sickly sound in my voice.

Pa nodded. “Barbara always has been a troublemaker.”

She twisted her neck and popped him on the knee. “You ought to be able to recognize one given all you did, Benjamin.”

His grin was all that eased his next sentence. “I’ll put you across my knees yet.”

Barbara was about as intimidated as a grizzly bear. “I’ll pull all your hair out while you’re asleep.”

He pursed his lips together. “I’ll put pepper in your tea.”

She was not to be outdone. “I’ll put mustard on your shaving brush.”

Then Pa started it and I couldn’t believe my ears. “Oh yeah?”

Barbara turned toward him as she kneeled. “Yeah.”

Pa’s voice got a little louder. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!” she shouted.

A look I’d never seen passed across his face and in the next instant he had her by her waist and laid her across his knees. I froze in shock and fully expected Pa to raise his hand and start swatting her. I’d never in all my life known him to put someone across his knees unless he meant business. Barbara must have felt the same way because her hands flew back to protect her bottom. But to my further astonishment Pa loosened his grip and let Barbara twist off his lap just as quickly as he’d upended her.

I’m sure you could have knocked me over with the touch of a leaf.

They both laughed and Pa said, “Something you’re afraid of?”

“You don’t scare me,” she said from where she knelt on the floor.

For the first time it occurred to me that I had no idea how old Barbara was. Age doesn’t really matter to most children except when you’re determining who leads your group of friends. I’d heard Pa say something about being twenty-nine or something and I was amazed at what he could still do for being that old. But sudden curiosity got the better of me and I forgot my manners.

“Ma’am? How old are you?”

“Adam.” There was unmistakable rebuke in Pa’s response.

Barbara, however, gave me a wink. “I’ll give you a clue: I’m younger than your father.”

“Gee, ma’am, everybody’s younger than Pa.”

She howled in laughter and Pa said, “Excuse me?”

“Well, I mean not everybody.” I tried to save myself. “There are lots of men with gray hair at the market and I bet they’re older than you.”

Barbara leaned forward holding her stomach.

“Saints above, Adam, you make it sound like I’m older than dirt.” Pa moaned.

Older than dirt. I liked that. I’d have to use it to impress my friends.

By that time, Barbara had regained enough composure to say, “I am ten years younger than your father. Do you know how to take ten away from twenty-nine?”

It took me some time, and a little bit of finger counting, but I finally came up with a timid answer. “Nineteen, ma’am?”

“Almost twenty.” She winked at Pa and I was pretty sure that meant he would soon be thirty.

“Glory!” I was in complete awe. “Think I’ll ever be twenty?”

She tapped me on the nose. “I can guarantee it. And you’ll still have the prettiest blue eyes God ever made.”

I shook my head. “Ma and Pa made me, ma’am.”

I couldn’t understand why that statement caused Pa to grin and sent Barbara into more laughter.

 

Saying goodbye has never been easy for me, perhaps because I learned at an early age how unpredictable life is and that you may never see that person again. Even now, when Pa leaves for a few days of hunting or a short trip to another town, I can get through the days because I’m busy. But when night surrounds me, and the house grows quiet, and the fire burns low, and I remember the past, I am always surprised at the remnants of the little boy inside me. The man in me knows Pa is capable of taking care of himself – after all he has taken care of me all my life – but that small touch of boy inside me is fearful. I have never told Pa because I don’t think he would understand. But then he has a never-ending ability to surprise me. Maybe he knows without my telling him.

My dislike of saying goodbye made my separation from Barbara one of the most difficult things in my life. In an odd way it was harder than losing my mothers because they did not choose to leave.

But Barbara could have changed her plans. She could have gone to Mrs. de Ville’s country house with us. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t and I stood in front of her, full of frustration, crying and ashamed of my crying at the same time. The best I remember I even stomped my foot – something I hadn’t done since I had been Erik’s age and Inger had spanked my bottom soundly for such a display of temper.

Barbara reached for me and I turned away, my arms crossed and my mind made up that I didn’t like her anymore.

“You are without a doubt the most stubborn Cartwright in a long line of stubborn Cartwrights,” she said. “Why don’t you want me to travel?”

My tears became so hot that I shoved them away with my hand. “You won’t ever come back,” I sobbed.

“Of course I’ll come back. Why do you think I won’t?” She walked to me and looked down with a frown indicating she did not understand.

I swiped at my eyes and then at my nose. “You don’t have anyone like Pa to protect you.”

At last she understood. She sat on her heels as she had on the street that day and took my hands in hers. “I promise you I will be careful if you promise me you will be.”

I was not to be consoled. “But awful things happen.”

Barbara has always spoken truthfully, even when you don’t want to hear it. “Yes, Adam, awful things happen. But wonderful things happen, too. And we mustn’t be so afraid of the awful things that we lock ourselves away and lose the chance to enjoy the wonderful things.”

Despite her reassuring words, or maybe because of them, I threw my arms around her neck and probably wouldn’t have released her except that Pa tapped my shoulder and said, “We need to get Barb to the boat.” When I stepped back he looked down at me. “Do you want to go, Adam?”

I shook my head. “I’ll stay here, Pa.”

Barbara turned at the front doorway and blew me a kiss. I didn’t see her again for thirteen years.

 

Part 2

Usually Pa gave us a gift for our birthdays – Erik’s is in late June and mine is in late July – but we didn’t have a celebration. After Mrs. de Marigny’s and Pa’s wedding we observed my birthday and a late one for Erik. Pa made a toy drum for Erik to beat outside, and a wooden toy like one Pa had seen overseas. Erik put his fingers in either end, pulled, and then when he pushed them back toward each other he couldn’t free them. He had to turn one end a certain way and then the other – and he had to turn them in the correct order. Erik was beside himself with joy and wanted to run out to show his friends. Pa put a firm “no” on that idea. I received a jump rope and pick-up sticks and was convinced the day couldn’t be any better. I spent the afternoon trying to teach Erik how to play pick-up sticks. He was better than most boys his age probably would have been but he was no match for me. Then I played Pa and I’m pretty sure he let me win.

I was in such a good mood nothing could spoil my day and it was probably the first time I was around Mrs. de Marigny without reservation. My reward was a relaxing dinner. Once we finished the meal, and cleared the table, Mrs. de Marigny waved a finger.

“Oh, non, non. The birthday is not over yet.” She left the house and walked across the courtyard to the kitchen.

“What Ma doing?” Erik asked, craning his neck as if he could see her and nearly falling off his stack of pillows.

“I imagine she has a surprise,” Pa answered. He stood and walked over to secure the pillows tied to Erik’s chair seat. “Quit wiggling, son.”

“What’s a wiggle?”

“It’s what your bottom’s doing.” Pa sat down.

Erik looked sideways toward his hips. “I don’t see nothin’.”

“Not even your butt?” I asked. Pa instantly frowned at me and I motioned toward Erik with an open hand. “He said he couldn’t see anything.”

“Pa,” Erik sounded worried. “What you did with my butt?”

Pa gave me a look reminding me my little brother was a parrot. “Let’s say ‘behind’ instead, please.”

Erik twisted all the more and lifted up slightly. “Where it is?”

“Trust me it’s there. You’re sitting on it. Can’t you feel it?”

“A-dam said not to feel your behind.”

I rolled my eyes. “He had a rash one day and was scratching so I told him to quit and just take off his trousers and we stayed home.”

Pa nodded at my answer and his lips turned up a little at the edges.

My little brother squinted at Pa as if he were a conman, which there were plenty of in New Orleans – although Erik couldn’t have known about them. “You’s sure I’m sittin’ on my behind?”

“Look across the table. Isn’t Adam sitting on his?”

I grinned and looked down.

“Is you, A-dam?”

I couldn’t resist. “Is I what?”

“Is you sitting on your butt – ” a quick look at Pa “– behind?”

“It’s all I know to sit on, Erik.”

“Well,” he said slowly as if he didn’t believe either one of us, “I wanna see it.”

He could send me into spasms of laughter more quickly at that age than he ever could later on. “Tell you what,” I said between gasps, “we’ll get a mirror and you can look at it in another mirror.”

His face wrinkled in a grand frown. “That don’t make sense. How you see in one mirror when you look in tha other?”

I wiped my eyes. “I’ll show you.”

“Like you did after Pa spank you dat time,” Erik said.

Pa leaned his elbow on the tabletop and his hand curved around his chin. “Did you think you had lost your behind, Adam?”

“No, Pa,” I said with a shake of my head. “It ached too bad.”

I was looking at Pa and saw his eyes go past me and above me. I turned to see what had his attention and yelped, “Glory!”

“You like it?” Mrs. de Marigny smiled and put the tray on the tabletop. Centered on a plate was a sweet cake with candies around it.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Would you like to do the honors?” She passed a knife to me.

I looked at her in confusion. “Ma’am?”

“Since you are the oldest I thought perhaps you should cut the dessert.”

“Pa, be sure dey the same,” Erik instructed quickly, before I could begin slicing. “My tummy hungry.”

“Hungry!” I exclaimed. “Erik, we just finished eating.”

“You don’t has room?”

I sighed. “I has room.” I sliced the dessert. The layers of pastry were as light as anything I had ever seen.

“Pa?” Erik looked from the tops of his eyes the way he always did when he wanted something. My youngest brother adopted the same action years later and we called it his “puppy dog” look because it rarely failed with Pa. “Can I have a candy?”

Pa motioned across the table. “I think that’s for your mother to answer.”

Erik gave her the same look. “Ma, could I have a candy?”

“May I have a candy,” Pa corrected.

Erik missed the point. “Pa want one, too.” I continued to slice the cake though my hand shook as I tried not to laugh.

“Please,” Pa added, trying to hold on to some semblance of politeness.

My brother’s look became earnest. “Pa wants it pwetty bad when’s he says please, Ma.”

“I thought we might all have one,” she answered. “I received them at the market.”

“Ah.” Pa nodded. “Lagniappe.”

Erik had learned that word early on. “That’s when they gives you free something when you buy.”

Mrs. de Marigny continued to smile at my brother. “You have learned very much in a short time, Erik.”

“Uh huh,” he nodded. “I can say behind in Frenches and German.”

“But we aren’t going to,” Pa instructed.

Erik turned on him disapprovingly. “Pa, we not gonna say butt, ‘member?”

Once again, Pa knew when he was licked. I watched Mrs. de Marigny and Pa exchange a look and I knew they were talking without words

 

The day after our birthday celebration we left New Orleans for the summer. Mrs. de Ville, Mrs. de Marigny, Erik and I rode in a carriage at the front of the entourage. Erik thought it was grand but I wanted to ride on the first work wagon with Pa and Thaddeus – and made my wishes known at the outset. Pa was developing that “look” of his and every time he used it it was a little more intimidating. By the time we headed for Mrs. de Ville’s country house, Pa’s “look” had matured to the point that he no longer had to say that slow, “Adam” very often. I asked once to please be allowed to ride with Thaddeus and him, he silently looked at me, and I trudged to the carriage making a point of kicking at the sidewalk.

When I stepped into the carriage, Erik was so excited he scampered from the doorway window to the seat window, to the other side of the seat. He stuck his head out the window opening and waved and shouted, “Hi, Pa! We going to da countries!”

Pa laughed and told Erik to pull his head back in before one of the gators ate it. Erik plopped down beside me, his legs sticking straight out in front of him, and asked, “We going to’s alley-gators, A-dam?”

I stretched my arm behind him. “Nah, we’re headed to dry ground, Erik. No gators and no fever. Nothing to be afraid of.”

” ‘Cept if you don’t do’s what Pa say,” my brother corrected.

“That’s not really something to be afraid of.”

Erik’s eyes went as big as I’d seen them. “You tell Pa dat?”

I turned toward him and bent my left knee. “Tell Pa what?”

“Dat you not ‘fraid’s of him when you do’s bad?” Erik whispered.

Pausing to think about the best way to explain the concept to Erik, I appreciated how every time Pa spoke to us he was facing boys four years apart in age. He had to be sure Erik understood and no misconceptions occurred and at the same time he had to be careful not to talk down to me because nothing made me angry faster than to be treated like a child.

I leaned down so my face was closer to Erik’s. “I don’t like it when he shouts or gets upset or lectures me. And I sure as heck don’t like it when he spanks me. But he’s not going to hurt me. Does that make sense?”

Erik shook his head. “He hurt you bad wit his belt.”

“I disobeyed him.”

One of my brother’s small hands rested on my bent knee. “Disobey not goods,” he said slowly.

I tousled his hair but I could tell he didn’t understand what I meant about Pa never really hurting me. After all, he cried when Pa gave him a cross look.

Erik leaned back against the carriage seat and imitated the way I often put my hands in the air. “Shoot, Pa makes sure we knows not to disobey when we babies.”

Shoot? I’d never heard him say that before and I wondered where he had picked up the expression. We must have inherited our love of words from Pa. But while my appreciation of them directed me to books, newspapers, and even extended to maps so I could wonder what other countries were like, Erik’s delight in them led him to repeat some of the all-time funniest expressions – many of which he invented himself. Whenever those gathered around the Cartwright dinner table are reduced to tears as they howl in laughter it is almost invariably triggered by Erik’s playful sense of humor and his creative use of the English language.

After Erik’s and my serious talk we became aware of Mrs. de Ville and Mrs. de Marigny. Their presence caused me to pull in – but not Erik. He started his visit from window to window again and Pa caught on quickly when he saw that blonde head peek out one side and the other too frequently.

“Erik!” His voice carried over all the noise of the carriage and wagons. “Sit or I’ll see to it you can’t!”

My brother immediately scampered to sit beside me and even put his hands in his lap – the perfect picture of obedience. I leaned my head against the carriage wall and he looked up at me. “A-dam, you tell Pa I do’s like he say?”

I patted his shoulder. “Sure.”

“Tank you.”

In a matter of minutes his head rested across my legs and he was sound asleep.

 

 

Mrs. de Ville’s country house was impressive from the moment we saw it after we turned off the main road. We approached it through an alleyway of the tallest trees I had seen. As we drew closer even the peeling paint here and there, the lattice work that need repairing, the unattended gardens that held such promise once they were pruned, and the scattering of shallow reflecting pools with statuary in their centers – none of the signs of neglect diminished the beauty of the two-story house or its perfect setting with a river behind it. The river was not wide but Mrs. de Ville cautioned us that it was deep and we were only to play on the dock under an adult’s supervision.

The first time Erik and I entered the house we both stopped and gaped. Because of her long absence, Mrs. de Ville had covered everything in cotton fabric. Erik and I couldn’t confine our curiosity so we crawled under a cloth in the main hall. It didn’t take us long to realize we were beneath a huge round table. The next instant Mrs. de Marigny rolled the cotton back and our presence caused her to scream before she realized what she had found. Of course Pa came to her aid and saw the cause of her distress.

“You two need to come out here and tend to chores,” he announced and we eased around Mrs. de Marigny.

Just because we were visiting didn’t release us from duties and they started immediately. Pa had Erik and me unload the tools that weren’t too heavy for us to lift from the wagons. That led to a good amount of speculation on our parts about what the purpose was for different items. We watched in awe as the men carried large pieces of lumber and containers of paint. Finally, after a long time, a man led the horses to the largest stables I’d been in. Pa gave Erik and me the job of tending the horses, getting water from a nearby pump, and feeding them. I’d learned all those skills on the trail because most of the time I had had to take care of the horses while Pa had built the campfire or had cooked dinner or had gone out to shoot dinner. Erik, too, had helped with horses since he had been little. Everybody had to do their share, and sometimes more, and we never thought of complaining – not that it would have done any good. The morning after we arrived at the country house we had to water the horses and clean out the stables. The chore became much hated but never argued about.

After our daily chores – mine included chopping kindling and helping in the house with whatever Mrs. de Ville or Mrs. de Marigny needed – Pa allowed us to roam the country within certain well-defined boundaries. We were not to walk to the road, past a tree line on our left, a field on our right, and we were not to go anywhere near the river. Pa made each of us repeat our boundaries and then released us to have fun. If he ever checked on us, I didn’t see him. Sometimes our free time was cut short because the men needed us to hold nails, or pass tools back and forth, or fetch things for them from the wagons. But none of that bothered us because, after all, only men got to do that kind of work.

Despite all Pa’s years of training us, which were kindly reinforced by Mrs. de Marigny, Erik and I sat down at the dining table and ate like ravenous wolf pups while we were in the country. I finished second servings and Erik, who had always had a healthy appetite, cleared his plate of third helpings. I don’t think Pa was too surprised by Erik’s appetite because my brother’s growth was becoming obvious to everyone. But I had always been a light eater – not picky because Pa didn’t tolerate that kind of behavior but I was never prone to an appetite like Erik’s. There in the country I looked up more that once and saw him studying me with a smile on his face. I smiled back and then resumed filling my stomach.

Erik and I had more fun in the country than we ever did in the city. We played any game you can imagine – hopscotch, hide and seek, and blind man’s bluff – and a number of games you would never recognize because they were elaborate Cartwright concoctions. In-between we climbed small trees, had footraces that I sometimes let Erik win, wrestled and tumbled on the trimmed part of the grass, tried to catch crickets, and many nights – with Pa’s permission – we spread a quilt on the grass near the porch and tried to count the stars. That last activity was a lost cause because one of us always giggled and the other always lost count. Then we argued about who had made whom lose track. Pa and Mrs. de Marigny usually sat in rocking chairs on the porch and his voice entered our world when our disputes increased in volume. “Boys, settle it now or go to bed.” Glory! Sleeping was the last thing we wanted to do so we slugged each other on the arm, because Pa couldn’t see us doing that, and then started to count again.

I had a definite propensity toward horse theft at that time in my life and it surfaced again in early August. A distinguished-looking man rode up to visit Mrs. de Ville and while the two of them talked in the parlor, and Erik helped Mrs. de Marigny make pastry in the kitchen, I ambled over to the visitor’s horse and began to stroke and pet her. Then, as if in a dream, I unsaddled her. The saddle nearly knocked me off my feet. It was an odd one I later learned was English-style. I took the reins and led her to the steps that the women used to enter and exit the carriage.

I had more riding experience than Erik’s and my easy strolls with Good Boy. During Pa’s and my travels I mounted bareback horses more than once and raced with friends. I was fully aware that Pa would at the least dress me down as if I were an impudent sailor and more than likely swat my bottom until I yelped – which didn’t take long given his strength. I knew as surely as I was breathing the consequences for what I did that day. It didn’t stop me for a moment.

Getting used to the mare, and more importantly her sensing I was comfortable on her back, took no time at all. We made the circuit within my established boundaries a few times and then I could feel it in her muscles: she wanted to run as much as I wanted her to. There I was a slender nine-year-old riding without a saddle atop a full-grown, fast horse. Not that I knew she was fast at the time. But I found out.

I gave her the signal that I was ready and then I was part of the wind, climbing to the clouds. No telling who was enjoying the run more. Her gait was so smooth I wanted to release the reins, lean back and scream for joy. I knew better because I believe she could have taken me back to New Orleans without breaking into a lather.

We were so absorbed in our pleasure, repeatedly making that circuit, we didn’t notice the audience we drew. Well, maybe she did but I didn’t until I slowed her to end the run and we passed the men gathered by the outbuildings. I twisted my neck and there stood Mrs. de Ville and the horse’s owner. Mrs. de Marigny and Erik were on the front porch. I had no idea where Pa was and didn’t much care if I found him.

I slid off the horse’s back, lifted the saddle, and adjusted it to the best of my ability considering my height.

“My Lord, boy!” Mrs. de Ville’s visitor exclaimed behind me. “Where do you race? New Orleans?”

The thought of racing, and Pa’s disapproval, scared me to the bottom of my boots. I turned and made eye contact. “No, sir. I don’t race.”

The man hooked his thumbs in his vest pockets. “Well then, boy, you were born in the saddle.”

“No, sir. I was born in Boston.”

He laughed and turned toward Mrs. de Ville. “Who does this boy belong to?”

“He’s my son,” Pa answered from behind me and his strong hands rested on my shoulders. “I’m not sure they aren’t going to hang him for horse theft when we get to California.” He popped me gently on the bottom. “Return Mr. Alexander’s horse to him, Adam.”

I passed the reins to Mr. Alexander and explained that the saddle was not as secure as it needed to be. He smiled down at me.

“I’m on my way to Natchez but I’ll be back in New Orleans in November.” He tightened the saddle. “How would you like to exercise her for me?”

Had I heard him right? I gulped and hoped he couldn’t see my heart slamming to get out. “Exercise her? Yes, sir.”

He tipped his hat to Mrs. de Ville. “I will see you then, Daphne.” He rode off with a wave to the rest of us.

Daphne? Mrs. de Ville had a first name?

Surprises were falling around me like the snowflakes I’d seen once on the prairie. They didn’t stop.

Pa released my shoulders and walked around me. He sat on his heels so he could look at my face. “You promise me you haven’t been at the racetracks?”

I shook my head so strongly the front of my hair fell onto my forehead. “No, Pa. I mean, yes, Pa. I mean I haven’t been at the racetracks.”

He laughed and hugged me. “That ride was beautiful.” He held up his index finger in warning. “But if you ever ride without my permission again I’ll spank your bottom”

I nodded that I understood. I decided then and there that, as soon as I could, I would get a horse.

 

At a slow, easy pace that seemed to mirror the river and the way of life, the repairs became noticeable and Erik and I began to know the workmen. They all introduced themselves by their first names but we explained repeatedly that we weren’t allowed to address grown-ups that way. So we knew them as men like Mr. Dierdorf, whose carpentry work I could have watched all day if there hadn’t been so much else to do; Mr. Fleming, who was the only man I knew who could drive a nail with one swing from a hammer the way Pa did; and Mr. Zeiger, who sanded wood until it was so smooth it felt like cloth. They were just a few of the men who slept in the quarters away from the house. Mrs. de Marigny cooked three meals a day for them but they made their own coffee because they claimed there hadn’t been a woman born who could make good coffee. Mrs. de Marigny just smiled and took it in stride.

Speaking of sleeping arrangements, Mrs. de Marigny and Pa did not want Erik and me going up and down the substantial staircase to reach the second floor so our room was on the first floor. We shared a bed that, although it wasn’t as large as the one in Mrs. de Ville’s New Orleans house, was just as soft. Next to the bed was a tall window and if we raised the lower section we could walk out to the front porch clean as a whistle. It was too much of a temptation for two boys like Erik and me. I think it was during the first week of our visit, certainly not much later, that we waited until everyone was asleep and slid the already-opened window up high enough to walk out to the porch. We thought we had gotten away with something and that was more fun than being outside. We each sat down in a rocking chair and rocked – well I had to keep giving Erik’s chair nudges. Then after a while we tiptoed back into our room and ran to jump onto the bed.

What we didn’t know, because we had been outside our room, was that Pa lay on the bed waiting for us to return. When we fell from the air, all bony elbows and knees, we landed on Pa and knocked the air out of him. I nearly peed on the bed because of our unexpected visitor.

Erik screamed and scrambled off the bed but Pa’s unmistakable laugh broke loose and I heard Erik swat at him.

“Dat not funny, Pa,” he scolded.

“Erik?” Even in the darkness I could tell Pa was frowning. “Did you wet the bed?”

“Maybe just a wittle,” came the embarrassed response.

“Glory, Pa. What are you doing in here?” I sat cross-legged.

Erik sounded like he thought I’d lost my brain. “Shoot, him’s here ta scare us.”

“Shoot?” Pa inquired.

My brother’s voice lowered. “Dat not a bad word, Pa. I ask Ma.”

Pa was silhouetted in the dim moonlight. He sat up slowly and held a hand against his right side. “So you two discovered how to go out the window?”

Erik sat in Pa’s lap, as carefree as a robin in spring. It was not as warm in the country as in New Orleans, for one thing there was more breeze, and usually if we ran through the grass first thing in the morning dew twinkled like diamonds on our bare feet. So Pa, too, was in a cotton shirt and I could see his strong arms through the sleeves. He patted Erik’s back.

“Don’t go out the window again,” he said softly.

I answered “yes, Pa” but Erik did a quarter turn and asked, “How come’s not?”

Pa answered that they hadn’t worked on our window yet.

“What’s dat mean?” Erik continued.

“It means,” he explained as he finger-combed Erik’s curly hair, “that it could slide down and hurt you or it could slide down and break all the glass.”

Erik shook his head. “You spanks us fer sure’s den.”

I wasn’t thinking about spankings. I was thinking about what Pa was – flying, shattered glass slicing into skin. But if worry about a spanking would keep Erik away from the window then so be it.

“Pa?” I could see Erik snuggle up to Pa’s chest. “You tell’s a quiet story?”

Pa chuckled ever so slightly and then held his side again. “I already told you your quiet story for tonight.”

“But den you scares me and I needs anudder quiet story.”

“All right,” Pa agreed. “But it needs to be a short one.” Heavens but Erik could get just about anything he wanted out of Pa.

“Adam.” Even in the soft light of the sliver of a moon I saw Pa point to the pillow. I crawled on my knees and did as he ordered. “Lay down, Erik.”

“Moves over, A-dam.” Erik pushed at my right arm with his hands.

“Moves – move over! You’ve got your half of the bed.”

“Well – but – dere’s a wittle bit dat’s wet.”

I sat up. “That’s your problem. I didn’t wet it.”

Erik crossed his arms and his hair looked like down against the moonlight. “Den I not’s gonna sleep wit’ you.”

“Fine by me.”

I was a nine-year-old arguing with a five-year-old. There was no way on Earth I had a chance of winning.

“A-dam,” Erik pleaded. “You got’s to let me sleep wif you.”

“I don’t got’s – I don’t have to do nothing – anything.”

“I can’t sleeps if I don’t has you.”

“I think if you boys will put your pillow at the foot of the bed you’ll find you can each have your half and the wittle – little wet place won’t bother you.” I heard the humor in Pa’s voice.

Erik pulled at my arm. “Wet’s twy it, A-dam.”

“If you pee again you sleep on the floor.” I slammed the pillow down near the foot of the bed.

Erik’s temper flared, too. “Da onlyest reason I pee is ‘cause Pa scare me. You knows I don’t pee in da bed and you’s being mean.”

“If you don’t get quiet I’m going to stuff a boot in your mouth,” I warned.

“If you do’s dat, Pa spanks your butt,” Erik challenged.

“Behind,” Pa reminded from the darkness.

Erik was a little too angry and he forgot who he was talking to. “I say’s behind!” he snapped.

Pa entered the conversation and there was growing aggravation in his voice. “I distinctly heard you say butt, young man.”

I hid my face in the pillow. If Erik didn’t come around really fast, Pa was going to skewer him good.

“You shouldn’t oughta talk when I talking to A-dam,” Erik reminded. “I not talkin’ ta you.”

Oooh, this was getting so bad I inched away from him. If Pa reached for a bottom I didn’t want him to find mine by mistake.

“I distinctly heard you say butt, and you will do well to hush, young man. Put your head on that pillow.”

“Pa!” Erik protested. “I not stinky say.”

I went up on my elbows, wondering what he was talking about and Pa was as puzzled as I was. I could just imagine his forehead wrinkling as he asked, “What?”

“You say’s you hear me stinky say and I not stinky say.”

Pa caught on sooner than I did and, despite Erik’s disrespect, he broke into his roaring, contagious laugh that he couldn’t stop if you held a pistol on him. Every time he tried to control himself he wiped his eyes and then laughed again. Finally he let his head hang down as he gasped for air.

Erik’s anger rose again. “I hope’s you’s through laughin’ at me’s.”

Pa motioned to the pillow. “Settle down, son, and I’ll tell you a quiet story.”

“No. I want’s to know why’s you say I stinky say.”

I was kind of curious myself.

Poor man. Pa was lost in laughter again. Erik slid down from the bed and stomped back and forth across the room. “You’s being mean.” He did what I was recognizing as his soldier walk and then he waved his index finger in front of Pa. “You’s tell me what dis stinky talk is or I’s – ” Right about then he remembered he was talking to Pa and he spoke about as sweetly as a boy can. “Please, Pa? Tell’s me?”

Pa coughed and cleared his throat and then coughed again. “Distinctly is another word for clearly. I clearly heard you say something.”

Oh, that was it.

“What you hear’s me say?” Erik was more confused.

“What?”

“What you hear’s me say?”

“Oh no you don’t.” Pa lifted Erik by the waist and put him beside me. “No more night wandering, boys.”

I managed a “yes, Pa” and Erik repeated my response although he sounded extremely perplexed.

“On your tummies now,” Pa instructed. After we obeyed he rubbed our backs and told us a quiet story. Neither one of us heard the end of it.

Other than watering and feeding the horses, cleaning out the stables, chopping kindling, helping in the kitchen, sweeping our room, taking care of our chamber pot, being sure our clothes were available to be washed and then properly taken care of once they were clean, and helping with errands for Mrs. de Marigny or Pa, there wasn’t much asked of us as the weeks passed at Mrs. de Ville’s country home.

Sometimes when Erik and I were played out, or had a few extra minutes before we set the table or helped prepare for the meals in some other way, we sat on the grass – far enough from where the men worked – and silently watched. They were all strong like Pa and didn’t say much except when they needed extra hands to help lift or hold something in place, or had a question for Pa or one another. Despite their austerity, they always smiled at Erik or me and never failed to say “good morning” or “good evening.” Several times they remarked about how good a cook Mrs. de Marigny was or how the work was coming along. Nearly every time Pa caught sight of us sitting and watching he walked over and asked how our day had been. Erik told him every detail while I sat quietly wondering if Pa was getting the wrong impression of some of our adventures.

Even though I usually didn’t say a word Pa smiled and touched my hair and teased about cutting it before it got as long as a horse’s mane. The way he looked at me was different from all the years before when he had reached to brush my hair aside and I had seen a deep sadness in his eyes. After he married Mrs. de Marigny his eyes rarely showed unhappiness.

After Pa’s prank of scaring us in our bed I worried that Mrs. de Marigny might not appreciate our Cartwright mischief or our ability to turn just about any serious situation into giggles and shaking shoulders. I shouldn’t have been concerned.

My first solid clue of her sense of humor came when I learned that Mrs. de Marigny couldn’t skip. I walked out of the kitchen one morning and saw Erik very patiently trying to teach her. His approach, his tone of voice, even his movements were so much like Pa’s with us that I leaned on one of the back porch columns and watched.

“But I can not do this,” Mrs. de Marigny protested. She held her cotton skirt up so she could see her shoes.

Erik shook his head. “Ma, you never knows until you tries.”

“I have been trying since breakfast.” She tossed her head and the green ribbon that held her hair at the back of her neck bounced. “How long does this skipping take?”

At first I thought she was humoring Erik. But then I watched and, I swear, she couldn’t skip.

“A-dam.” Erik waved to me when he turned around and saw me. “Ma can’t skips. Dis is bad.”

For a boy who skipped just about everywhere he went, including down the occasional church aisle, her lack of the skill was a disaster.

“We got’s to helps her. What’s if Pa find out?”

Behind him Mrs. de Marigny smiled at me and I shyly returned the smile. “All right. Let me show her.”

We must have tried to teach her for an hour with no results. Eventually the three of us sat on the back porch steps and laughed until our sides hurt. I was amazed she understood we were not laughing at her but at her infirmity. Pa walked around the corner of the house looking up at the columns and then his eyes shot down to us.

“Pa,” Erik said with an emphatic shake of his head. “Ma can’t skips but we keeps her anyhow?”

Pa licked his upper lip and leaned on a piece of wood he was carrying. “Oh, I think we can cut her some slack.”

Erik frowned and Mrs. de Marigny and I rolled our eyes at each other.

“What you cuts?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

My little brother was happy again. “Pa say not to worry,” he informed Mrs. de Marigny as if she hadn’t been able to hear the conversation.

“I have it on pretty good authority that she can jump rope,” Pa added. He grinned at her and winked.

“Benjamin,” she scolded.

Erik and I didn’t need any more encouragement; after all we were boys accustomed to activity from dawn to nightfall. We ran for the jump rope and came out of the house in exuberant expectation. Since Erik was shorter than me, Pa took the opposite end of the rope and we swung it. Mrs. de Marigny watched, got the rhythm, and then she was in there – jumping like I hadn’t seen anyone do. She kept jumping, never tripped or lost her concentration, and didn’t even have to stop to catch her breath. Finally she jumped out of the loop we were making with the rope. “You think this is good?” she asked a spellbound Erik.

“You teaches me dat?” he requested.

She patted his shoulder. “Tomorrow. Now I must make to cook the lunch. You will roll out the dough?”

Erik had developed a big interest in rolling out anything that involved lots of flour so he could, as he put it, “look likes a man of snow.” The only way he could have known about a snowman was from the stories Pa told us and that was a testament to how vivid Pa’s tales were. Come to think of it, except for one or two stories I had read, it was the only way I knew about snowmen, too, at the time.

Glory did I learn about that white stuff after we established our ranch!

 

As I said, Erik’s and my boundaries were large and we did not challenge Pa about them. I realize now that he never told us what would happen if we disobeyed him – which, believe me, is not Pa’s typical approach. You listen carefully to his orders and if you’re smart you listen even more carefully to the consequences for not following them.

Erik and I separated one morning – Erik helped Mrs. de Marigny clean up the flowerbeds while I explored the edge of the grass field – and after a while Pa called to me. I ran to him and breathlessly assured him I hadn’t gone too far and he answered he was sure I hadn’t.

Only then did I notice the rifle and other hunting gear in his hand. He asked me if I thought I could bring in a couple of rabbits for dinner and, buoyed by his trust, I assured him I could bring in a dozen. He grinned at me and said he thought a dozen was more than Mrs. de Marigny needed and suggested I might stop with five or six. I asked him how far I might venture and he pointed to the east and said no more than a mile and under no condition near the river. I said a quick “Yes, Pa”, checked the rifle, and set out by myself.

I don’t know if people who grow up in cities develop a sense of distance and direction but if you don’t in the country you can get into a lot of trouble faster than you think possible. From the time I’d been old enough to sit beside him, Pa had pointed out a landmark and told me how far away it was. In the beginning I didn’t understand numbers. But as I attended schools along the way, and as Inger and Pa added to that education, I became so good at approximating distances that Pa often relied on me. The same was never true when it came to direction, though. I am good but I’m convinced you could tie a bandana over Pa’s eyes, turn him around until he is dizzy, and the minute you quit turning him he could point due north. I take solace in the fact that Pa’s horse drawings still resemble the ones Erik did when he was four-years-old in New Orleans.

About a quarter of a mile into my hunting trip I wished I had brought Thaddeus with me. But given the choice between digging and flushing game – well, that was just no choice as far as he was concerned. As I walked along, a covey of birds flew up in my face. If you’ve ever had that happen and your liver didn’t shoot out your throat you are dead. I thought about trying for one of them but knew I was not that good a shot. Pa was but I wasn’t.

After a few more yards I found a rabbit and took the first step in putting it on the dinner table. I reloaded the rifle and set out again.

I have always loved hunting – more for the chance to be by myself than to put an end to any creature’s existence. There is satisfaction in knowing your efforts will feed your family, don’t get me wrong. But when I’m out, whether it be on the flat prairies or climbing in rocky country shaded by towering pine trees, time slows and I can think things through and sometimes see problems with a different perspective. A quiet voice speaks to you if you listen. You begin to recognize the beauty and variety of wildlife, plants, skies, and even the air. Every time I am out like that, especially if I stay overnight and doze by a campfire, I can hear Pa reading my favorite Psalm to us: “Fret not thyself because of the ungodly neither be though envious against the evil doers – Delight thou in the Lord, and He shall give thee thy heart’s desire.” My heart’s desire is there in the out-of-doors and I have been fortunate to always have it near.

That day when I went hunting I had new territory to explore – territory that had been forbidden to me before Pa had approached with the rifle and gear. I wanted to prove his trust in me was well founded. I knew I had to stay alert to certain movements that could indicate a predator. But at the same time I pretended to fly with a hawk and envied him his amazing vision that could spot a mouse from far away. I whistled to a bird in the top of a tree and danced a jig Pa had taught me when it sang back to me. I sat on my heels and stuck a twig in an ant mound just to upset them. And I froze when I saw a snake in a clearing – at least until a quick observation of the shape of his head, his color, the slit in his eye and any pattern on his back assured me he was harmless. Then I wondered why I always considered all snakes male.

I won’t say I made quick work of my hunting expedition but as my stomach told me it was time for the mid-day meal I turned back toward the house proudly carrying five rabbits. Pa met me at the fringe of the high grass and between laughs and slaps on the back led me to one of the outbuildings, telling me he thought it would be better if I took care of the preparation away from Erik’s eyes. Even though my brother knew we had to have meat for survival when we left the area east of the Missouri and traveled to New Orleans, Erik cried if he saw Pa or me skin and prepare an animal. More times than not I wondered if he’d ever be able to hunt.

After the meal, and after I had the rabbits ready for the kitchen, I carried them into the large brick building. Mrs. de Marigny looked up at me from storing bread and wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. Her eyes must have darted from the rabbits to me four or five times.

“I offer you the apology,” she said softly.

I laid the rabbits on the cutting area of a big table. “Ma’am?”

“Benjamin told me you were good with the rifle but – ” She smiled and her face flushed pink. “I worried for you going out alone. It is a great responsibility and there are many dangers.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I felt awkward with her attention directed my way. “But Pa taught me and he’s real good.”

She handed me a large, sharp knife. “Would you perhaps help me?”

I was not accustomed to saying “no” to an adult. I told her I would help before I knew what she needed.

“You would cut the rabbit as it should be? You know how to do this?” She stepped closer – ready to instruct if I did not.

“Yes, ma’am. Pa taught me that, too.” I looked down at the knife. I had never seen one so big. I figured it could slice off a finger before I felt it.

“Oh, how I am not thoughtful,” Mrs. de Marigny threw a hand in the air as she scolded herself. “You can not work if you do not have the correct knife.” She took the one she had handed me and replaced it with an equally sharp but smaller one. “This,” she said as she brandished the first knife, “it is for the large meats. The cattle, the hams, this sort of thing.” She leaned across the table and her face filled with a mischief I had never witnessed. “Sometimes there are the people in New Orleans I would like to dispatch with this knife but,” she paused and shrugged her shoulders, “quel dommage, it is against the law.”

I laughed with her, knowing as she did that she would never do such a thing.

“What you do’s?” Erik entered the kitchen demanding to be included.

I motioned to the stool across from me. “Sit down and be quiet and I’ll show you how to get a rabbit ready for cooking.”

“A-dam,” he lamented as he made his way to the seat. “You kill’s them?”

I started to make a crack about it being better than cooking them while they were alive but I knew that would send my little brother into horror-stricken tears.

He motioned to my hand. “Dat knife pwetty big’s.”

I tapped his nose. “That’s why you won’t get near it, right?”

He bounced a little and declared, “I likes da countries.”

Mrs. de Marigny wrapped the bread in a cloth and tilted her head. “Moi, aussi, Erik.”

My brother wiggled his head back and forth and held his chin up. “I knows what’s dat mean. It mean ‘me, too.’ “

I was embarrassed and, I admit it, jealous. There was that little half-pint of a boy who couldn’t even speak proper English learning French while I had only given it an occasional thought even when Mrs. de Ville had taught us.

“Dere’s fleur and dat’s a flower. And chien dat’s a dog. And – and – dere’s frere. Dat sound pwetty funny, huh? But dat’s what we are. We brothers.”

No matter what other word he slaughtered, and he could destroy words on a massive scale, Erik never mispronounced brother. Neither did our youngest brother when he started talking. I’ve always wondered if there’s significance in that fact or if it’s just an easy word to say.

Mrs. de Marigny spoke as she wiped her hands on her apron. “Your French improves each day, Erik.”

On the spur of the moment I asked if she would teach Pa and me French, too.

“But of course,” she answered. “We start tonight.”

I only thought I had laughed before.

 

All right, Erik loved French words and was like he always had been – a parrot. He picked them up so easily that Pa and I got frustrated because of our slow pace. We could sort of understand them in context when Mrs. de Marigny spoke – Pa more so than me because he had spent more time with her – but when we tried to say the words Mrs. de Marigny, Mrs. de Ville, and even Erik fought to hide their smiles and giggles. At first I thought Pa was acting miserable at it to make me feel better but I quickly learned that was not the case. He could say madame and monsieur passably well and a few words he had learned at work like merci for thank you. But the more we struggled the less successful we were. Finally we gave in to laughter at how ridiculous we sounded – and once Pa and I get started laughing it’s hard for us to stop.

“I make a suggestion,” Mrs. de Marigny said after Pa and I had settled. “I teach you three words each night. This will work?”

“Pray to God,” Pa responded, shaking his head.

Erik walked to Pa, rested his little hands on Pa’s thighs, and frowned. “God can’t help’s wit dis. Ya got’s ta do it all by’s yerself.”

He was lecturing Pa. I broke into laughter again.

Pa teasingly gave Erik his own frown back. “Are you telling me what to do?”

Erik straightened up. “You need’s somebody to do’s it.” He yelped and struggled as Pa picked him up, laid him on his back across Pa’s knees and tickled him until he hiccupped.

“I guess that means you don’t want a story tonight,” Pa said.

Erik scrambled off Pa’s knees to the floor to sit beside me and assured Pa he was all ready and asked him to make it one about the sea. Pa looked at the ceiling as he thought and then he told us about an adventure he had with a man named Angus. He stretched the truth so far I didn’t believe him. At least not until I later met Angus and then I conceded that probably everything Pa told us was true.

When the story ended we went to our room, washed up, and got ready for bed. Then we decided to play pirates. I, of course, was the captain. We were below deck, or under the bed if you choose to be more accurate, when Pa entered the room. There was only one way in and out of our room since we had been instructed not to use the window and we watched his boots walk around the room. Finally he stood in front of our bed, we nodded at each other and each pulled on one.

I don’t know what we thought would happen. I’m not sure we even thought. Pa’s feet went out from under him, he fell on his back on the rug, Mrs. de Marigny and Mrs. de Ville ran into the room, and Erik and I pushed as far as we could go against the back wall as we tried to disappear.

“Oh, mon Dieu, you are all right, Benjamin?” Mrs. de Marigny asked.

“I’m fine, Marie. Why don’t you go on up to bed? I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

It was Mrs. de Ville’s turn to ask if he was sure he was not hurt.

“I tripped on the rug,” he answered.

Mrs. de Marigny sounded suspicious. “Where are the boys?”

A look must have passed between them because the two women left the room and Pa stood. I doubt there were ever two more meek sinners to show their faces. We peeked from under the bad and Pa silently crooked his finger for us to come to him. We did so with our hands protectively covering our bottoms.

“Do you want to tell me what you were thinking?” Pa sat in the chair by our small dressing table and waited patiently.

When we both mutely looked down Pa continued. “Do you understand you can hurt someone doing that?”

I answered “yes, Pa” for both of us because Erik was orphaned in his grief.

I walked slowly to the bed – embarrassed that Pa had corrected me, however mildly. Erik ran, threw himself beside me on the bed, and sobbed inconsolably into the pillow.

Pa muttered and walked to us. I put my back against the wall because I wasn’t sure what he was about to do.

Erik had no such reservations. He looked up at Pa with tears running down his cheeks. “You still wuv me?”

Pa’s voice softened and he patted Erik’s back. “I shout and scold and even spank you sometimes but there has never been a day in your life when I didn’t love you. Can you understand that?”

“Den you tells me quiet story?” Erik requested. He sniffled and wiped at his nose. If he’d been a little older I would have thought he was a pretty good actor.

Pa raised his eyebrow and sat on our bed beside Erik. “Alright, a quiet story. Come closer so I can rub your back, Adam.”

He motioned when I looked at him suspiciously. “Come on, son.”

I rested my head on the pillow and listened to the quiet story. As soon as Erik fell asleep, Pa stopped. He reached over Erik and touched my face. “You know there hasn’t been a day of your life when I haven’t loved you, don’t you?”

The words restored my soul. Half asleep, I nodded and then pushed deeper into the pillow. “What’s the rest of the story?”

Pa kept his hand on my face and I never heard the end of that story, either.

 

A few nights later, Pa told us exciting news. He had set aside the next day for the three of us to do anything we wanted. He grinned at us and then kissed us good night. The minute he closed the door Erik and I sat up in the dark and planned adventures like climbing trees and having footraces and building with the scraps of lumber the workmen had given us and having a picnic. What started out as whispered chatter soon grew louder and a soft light appeared in the space under our door. Pa stepped in, holding a lantern in his left hand. He didn’t have a grin on his face but he wasn’t frowning. I later learned it was his poker face and, trust me, even those who know him best can’t read it.

Erik and I worriedly waited. But the scolding never came.

“If you two boys don’t get to sleep you’ll be too tired for tomorrow.”

“No we won’ts, Pa.”

I looked down and shook my head.

“How about you, Adam? How much later do you think you can stay up before you’ll be too tired to do your chores in the morning?”

I raised my head. “I probably ought to get to sleep.”

That’s when he smiled and nodded. “You probably should. Good night, boys.”

We told him good night and lay down as he closed the door. We were quiet for about three seconds before we started whispering again.

“Boys.” Pa stretched out the word for added emphasis.

In the moonlight we made mock big eyes at each other and then slapped our hands over our mouths as we giggled.

The light remained at the bottom of our door and we heard Pa say with a hint of laughter in his voice, “Lord help me.”

We giggled some more and then rolled over to go to sleep.

 

Some days stand out in my memory so clearly I can feel the air, hear the sounds, and see everything happening as if I were there again. That day we shared with Pa in the country is one of those memories. The sky was the color of a bluebird’s feathers. The air was warm and unusually dry for Louisiana so it felt good as it blew through my hair and touched my skin. There were so many different smells – summer grass, the heavy perfume of flowering vines, the fertile smell of the river beyond the levees on which the house was built, the slightly musty scent under ageless trees where the soil hadn’t seen daylight for years, the tease of wood smoke from the kitchen chimney, and the unmistakable pungency of the new paint on the house and shutters.

Erik and I had planned at least fifty things for our day with Pa. We only did a few of them – footraces, hide and seek, and a picnic. The rest of the day was spontaneous. Pa started a dirt clod fight that would have filled Mrs. de Marigny with horror if she had seen it. Above the neck was off limits – and a certain distance below the waist. But everything else was vulnerable. Erik and I were gentle with Pa at first but after he bombarded us we screamed and yelled like Indians with every dirt clod we threw. It was the closest thing to war I’ve ever known. Erik found a small mud hole and that inspired us to build little mud houses – which quickly deteriorated into smearing mud on each other’s faces. We had to wrestle Pa to the ground to reach his face but he was a good sport about it. The gooey stuff dried and cracked in no time so most of it flaked off. It was necessary to encourage it out of our hair though. We were walking under the oaks, looking for a place to have our picnic, when I spotted a huge dried vine hanging from a tree. I ran toward it with the full intention of swinging on it but Pa told me to stop. I frowned at him but obeyed. He handed me the woven basket that held our lunch and then wrapped his large hands around the vine and pulled it so hard his arm muscles bulged under his shirtsleeves.

“If it can hold me it can hold you,” he said. Which was his way of giving me permission.

I couldn’t return the basket to him fast enough. I ran, grabbed the vine with my hands and swung as far as I could. I wrapped my shins around it and climbed several feet up then kicked against the tree trunk and yelled “Ahoy there, mates!”

Pa sketched a salute and beside him Erik peered up at me and shouted, “Is you’s a pirate?”

“I am at that, laddie. And when I climb down this rope and get you I’m going to feed you to the alligators.”

Erik screamed and ran two trees away from me. His grin was just like Pa’s.

I jumped to the ground and stalked toward Erik with my arms outstretched. “Come here, little boy. Let me help you swing on the vine.”

Erik screamed again and dashed ahead of me. I followed him at a slow, scary pace. He giggled and yelped and then I allowed him to sprint past me so he could run to Pa’s legs. “You got’s to help me’s, Pa! He gonna gives me to the alley-gators.”

Pa was grown up but there was still some boy in him. He picked up a good-sized branch that lay by the tree and threw me another. “I’ll defend you, laddie,” he said to Erik.

I gripped the branch and Pa and I charged into one heck of a sword fight. Well, it was a sword fight until I made a strong swing and Pa jerked up his sword. My sword hit him so hard on the side of his thigh he flinched. I went as straight as a board and dropped my stick as if it were hot metal.

Pa’s expression turned from pained to dangerously mischievous. He bent forward and waved his sword in front of me. And then he laughed before saying, “I’ve been waiting for this.”

I didn’t have time to bend to retrieve my sword and I wasn’t much inclined to. Instead I ran around to the other side the tree trunk.

“You can’t escape,” Pa said in a singsong voice. I knew he was teasing – well, I was pretty sure he was teasing.

“Get’s A-dam, Pa!” Erik cheered.

My own brother was cheering for Pa against me?

I eased around the enormous trunk, keenly listening to Pa’s steps as he followed me. When I was at the front again, thinking I was safe, I reached down with my left hand for the branch I had dropped. I should have known better. Pa popped my bottom and cackled in victory.

I jerked up with my hand on the seat of my pants. The pop burned like fire.

Pa leaned his right shoulder against the tree trunk and tossed the branch from his left hand.

“You did that left-handed?” I gaped.

He tilted his head back and looked at me from the bottoms of his eyes. “Well, I didn’t want to hurt you.”

I threw my branch aside and ran toward him to knock him off his feet. But Pa was faster than I was. He lifted me under the arms and swung me around. I thought I was pretty big until then. When he finished swinging me he held me close to him with his right arm and put his left palm on the top of my head. “You’re growing too fast.”

“I’ll be as tall as you are in no time,” I bragged.

He put me on my feet and patted my stinging bottom. “We’ll see.”

“I will.” I looked up at him as we walked side-by-side toward Erik. “I’ll be even taller than you.”

He bowed at me. “Whatever you say, Sir Adam.” He clapped his hands toward Erik. “Think you can carry that basket?”

Erik was affronted and said he could carry anything Pa could. He hauled the basket in front of him with both hands and nearly stumbled over it before we found a grassy area near a small tree. I know some people take a quilt to sit on but we were men – green grass was all we needed. Pa rested his back against the tree trunk and Erik and I sat on either side of him. We discussed anything that occurred to us while we ate and for once Pa didn’t scold us for talking with our mouths full. Erik got so tickled about a joke Pa told that his drink of water spewed out his nose. I fell on my back as I laughed at my little brother’s response. I think Pa tried not to laugh but his shoulders shook and he quickly looked down.

Every picnic has to end with wrestling. Erik and I started it and then we both fell onto Pa. He put up a good fight but we soundly defeated him.

I knew what would happen next. It never failed. His tummy full, played out, and a breeze blowing on him as he sat beside Pa – Erik’s head nodded and he nearly fell over. Pa lifted Erik into his lap. He leaned my brother’s head against his chest and Erik was out like a lantern. Pa ran his hand through Erik’s golden hair. “He’s growing as much as you are.”

What worried me was that he was closing the gap faster than I wanted.

“Pa?” I asked softly.

“Um?” He turned his attention to me as he stroked Erik’s hair.

“Why doesn’t Mrs. de Ville live out here? It’s a lot better than New Orleans.”

“What makes you say that?”

I shrugged. “It’s not crowded or noisy and it’s sure not as damp.” I came up with a great idea. “Maybe we could move out here.”

Pa laughed deep in his throat. “Who would you play with?”

That was obvious. I answered him, wondering if he was tired and not thinking. “Erik.”

“You don’t think Erik and you would get tired of each other?” He tilted his head and watched me.

I threw the last of my sandwich as far as I could so a bird could finish it off. “We haven’t gotten tired of each other yet, have we?”

“You’re getting sassy.” Pa put his warm left hand around my neck.

I squinted my right eye as I looked up at him. “Is that new?”

He laughed deeply and guided my head to his left thigh, alongside Erik. “Your eyes are fighting to stay open.”

No way I was as sleepy as a little kid. I pulled against Pa’s hand but he was stronger and I was soon resting my head alongside Erik’s legs.

“He kicks in his sleep, Pa. He’s liable to knock my teeth out,” I warned. And then no matter how hard I tried not to, I yawned.

Pa’s left hand patted my chest. “I’ll see to it he doesn’t.”

When I finally woke up, I raised my eyes toward Pa’s face. He was sound asleep. I wasn’t accustomed to sleeping in the middle of the day so it took me a while to pull out of my grogginess. I rubbed at my eyes and then sat up slowly so I wouldn’t wake up Pa. I stood up, stretched, and decided I’d do a little exploring.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

I whirled. Pa looked at me with his left eye and motioned beside him. “Adam.”

“Pa,” I whined. “I’m tired of sitting around.”

His right eye opened. “Stay where I can see you.”

“Yes, Pa.” I ran as fast as I could and stopped. With my hands on my hips I cockily asked, “Can you still see me?”

“You’re in for the tickling of your life when your brother wakes up,” he warned.

He wasn’t kidding. After Erik finally joined the living, and Pa led him toward some privacy so he could relieve himself, Pa raced after me. He was as fast as a deer and he swept me off my feet. I hollered out, “No, Pa!” I may as well have saved my breath. He sat on the ground, laid me across his knees, and tickled until I gasped that I was going to wet my trousers.

Pa released me and winked. “Need me to go with you?”

I gave him what I hoped was a withering look. “Stars above, Pa. I’m not some little boy like Erik.”

“Who’s you call a little boy?” Erik challenged. He walked straight to me. “I won’t be’s little soon’s and – and – “

I leaned down until my face was even with his. “Yes?”

He stuck out his chin and declared, “And then’s I be bigger’s than you’s.”

“Yeah? Well I’ll always be oldest.”

“Ut uh.”

“Uh huh.”

“Oh yeah’s?”

“Yeah. Just ask Pa.” I needed to find some privacy quickly.

“Pa?” Erik asked as I walked away. “Is dat true’s? A-dam always be’s oldest?”

“Yes, Erik.”

“Dat’s not fair.”

“There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Bet der is. Bet you’s don’t wants to.”

“When did you start saying ‘bet’?”

“A-dam say it all’s the times.”

“I do not!” I yelled over my shoulder as I stood near some bushes.

“Well, den, maybe’s I hear it somewheres else.”

“Maybe you did,” Pa agreed. “Who’ve you been around that bets?”

“Pa.” Erik sounded like he was speaking to a slow-witted child. “A-dam and me bets all the times on things.”

“We do not!” I once again yelled over my shoulder. He was about to get us both hung by our necks.

“Do’s too!” he shouted. “We bet’s on games and races and – “

Glory he was going to have Pa thinking the worst before I could button my trousers. “Wait a minute, Pa. I’ll tell you what he’s talking about.”

“I’ll be interested to hear.”

I ran back to them. Pa was stretched out on the grass, propped up on his right elbow with his left leg bent at the knee. Erik sat cross-legged on Pa’s right side. I kneeled beside Erik and then sat back on my boot heels. Before I could say anything, Pa passed me a napkin he had poured water on and motioned for me to wipe my hands.

“We bet when we’re playing games but we don’t bet.” I thought that would explain everything.

Pa’s face was a study in confusion. “You bet but you don’t bet?”

“Yes, Pa.”

He shook his head. “How do you do that?”

“You know.” I waved a hand. “I say I bet him he can’t do something and he says he bets me he can and he either does or he doesn’t and if he does he wins and if he doesn’t then I win. And if he wins he gets to say he bets I can’t do something and if I win –” I stopped when Pa held his left hand up with his palm facing me.

“As long as you aren’t betting anything.”

“You mean like money or something like that?” I ventured.

“Or something like that.”

“Pa, we don’t have any money to bet with.”

He blinked and gave me the funniest look.

“I mean not that we would if we did.”

“I would hope not.”

“If I had’s money, I get’s candy.” Erik rubbed his tummy.

Pa grinned and then asked me what I would do if I had money.

“How much?”

“How much?” Pa repeated.

“What I can do depends on how much money it is.”

He shook his head. “Adam – “

“Yes, Pa.”

“It’s pretend.”

“I know. But even in pretend you need to know how much you’re pretending about.”

“You’s no fun, A-dam,” Erik decreed with his arms folded across his chest.

“It makes a difference, Erik.”

He leaned toward me. “It’s only pretend’s. Don’t you’s understands?”

Pa’s left hand slid across his mouth.

“I’m telling you even in pretend you have to know how much money you’re talking about.”

Erik rolled his eyes and spread his arms as far as they would go. “This much.”

“You count money. You don’t show it with your arms.”

“You’s no fun for sure’s.”

“Boys,” Pa said gently.

I turned to him. “But it does make a difference, Pa.”

“It does to you but not to Erik.”

My brother gave an affirmative nod. “I knows how’s to pretends but you’s too real.”

Pa’s shoulders shook but I didn’t hear him laugh.

“I pretend all the time with you,” I argued.

“Not the ways I do. You pretends for real. I pretends for pretends.”

I did not understand him sometimes no matter how hard I tried. I pushed my hair off my forehead and tried to think clearly.

“That’s enough for today, boys. Let’s gather up our things and head back to the house.”

“Now?!” Erik wailed as he stood. “We don’t go’s now.”

“Son, we have to get back and do chores before dinner.”

“I stays here.” Erik spread his legs and stuck out his chin.

Pa leaned down and put his hands on his knees. “No you’s doesn’t.”

“I big’s enough.”

I grinned as I watched them.

“You’re so little a good-sized hawk could swoop down and snatch you before you knew it.” Pa tried not to smile.

“Could not’s.”

Pa spread his arms like a bird’s wings. “He’d come out of nowhere and he’d swoop you right up.” With that, he grabbed Erik and held him in the air.

Erik giggled. “I likes it ups here. Think that hawks would lets me ride on’s his back?”

“Probably.” Pa swung Erik onto his shoulders and Erik wrapped his arms around Pa’s forehead. He waited until Pa took a few steps before he did exactly what I used to do. He slid his hands over Pa’s eyes and giggled as if he’d done something no boy ever had.

Pa pushed up one of Erik’s hands and gave me a wink. Erik tired of the game and decided Pa needed both of his eyes. We walked back to the house with Erik riding on Pa’s shoulders and Pa’s arm resting on my shoulders.

 

The day before we left, I was helping Pa load tools on one of the work wagons when Erik came around the corner of the house, crying and screaming that Thaddeus was in the river. Since we had been forbidden to go near it this was horrible to Erik.

Pa tried to assure my little brother that Thaddeus knew how to swim but Erik was scared and kept pulling at Pa’s wrist with both of his hands. After laying aside the articles we’d been loading, Pa and I followed Erik. We walked to the back of the house, past the kitchen and to the gardens. On the left side of the gardens the land sloped gently down to the riverbank and on the right side of the gardens the wooden walkway that served as a landing stretched into the river. By the time we made our way through the garden, Thaddeus was already on the riverbank – having wisely been swimming in the shallow, quiet water. Then he decided to roll in the newly turned soil. After that he went running off for a new adventure.

Erik stood with his mouth open and his hands on his waist. Finally he asked Pa when Thaddeus had learned how to swim and poor Pa tried to explain that Thaddeus had always known – finally comparing it to the way Erik had always known how to breathe.

I don’t know if it was in an effort to distract Erik or just a desire to rest a few minutes but Pa held our hands and we walked to the end of the landing. We sat on the newly sanded wood and watched the late afternoon sun play hide-and-seek behind the trees across the river. Its glow turned the water a rich copper color and at times almost fooled you into thinking you could see through the surface. When Erik asked Pa how he could tell the water was deep Pa got a faraway look in his eyes like he was thinking of another time and place. Then he told Erik what he had told me a long time ago: “Still water runs deep.” This time when he said it a suspicion gnawed at the edge of my thoughts – he was talking about more than water. He had all kinds of sayings that had double meaning and this was one of them. I looked up at him in sudden realization and he smiled down at me and patted my back. We sat there for fifteen or twenty minutes and then we had to get back to work. As Pa put it, the wagons weren’t going to load themselves. We walked back toward the house with no idea about what we would face in the days ahead.

Even though he gave me “the look” when I asked if I might ride with him on the wagon when we left New Orleans, I built up the courage to ask Pa if I might ride on his wagon for the return trip to New Orleans. To my relief, he nodded and I climbed on board before he could change his mind. We headed out, staying a good distance behind the carriage so we didn’t eat anymore dust than we had to, and most of the way we didn’t say much except to share an off-hand observation or two. We had done the same during our other travels – not said much but not been uneasy about the quiet either. Sometimes when the road was straight and as even as any road ever is Pa let me take the reins. Given that four horses were pulling the wagon I had a bit of trouble holding all that leather. I was delighted with the trust he showed in me.

We were on the outskirts of the city when Pa scanned the sky and his forehead wrinkled. He looked up again and stopped the wagon – noting the trees and the birds and the way the breeze was blowing from the west. He even took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Then he considered the sky again and I saw fear on his face. He muttered that we should have stayed in the country a few more days and I wondered if he was considering turning back. The trip took a full day which meant rising before dawn and arriving at sunset. If we did turn around we would need to camp out. Mrs. de Ville’s idea of sleeping outdoors sleep with the window open. I wasn’t sure about Mrs. de Marigny but I thought she might enjoy the adventure.

Mrs. de Marigny and Erik were waiting at the house when Pa unloaded Thaddeus and me. As my feet hit the ground he ordered me to stay at home. I wanted to share stories with my friends but his tone of voice was not to be argued with so I went inside and Erik and I unpacked our clothing. We were in the courtyard playing with Thaddeus while Mrs. de Marigny sat on a nearby iron bench when Pa returned. He walked more quickly than usual then stopped again to study the sky. But this time he did it with his legs spread and his hands at his waist.

Something was wrong with Pa. Mrs. de Marigny sensed it, too. She laid a ribbon across a page to mark her place in her book and then dropped the book on the bench. A moment later she was on her feet. She looked up at Pa’s face as she rested her hands on his chest and asked him why he was so worried.

His words were simple. He said the air indicated a gale was about to hit. Erik and I were familiar with the word because of his stories but neither of us had lived through one. Pa, on the other hand, had and he did not look forward to his family experiencing such a storm.

I’ve often wondered if every man who travels on the sea learns to read the sky and the water and the wind and the sun and the moon the way Pa did. When I was no more than four or five he taught me the saying “Red sky at morning, sailor take warning; red sky at night, sailor’s delight.” As we traveled we discovered how to adapt that rhyme to the weather we encountered. New Orleans was humid, hot, chilly, dank, rainy, sometimes breezy, and on rare days just about perfect with turquoise skies and vivid flowers. Because of its constantly changing conditions we had found no rhyme to make up about it.

As far as I knew, gales only struck at sea. Since New Orleans is located in a curve of the Mississippi River, not on the Gulf of Mexico, how could a gale hit that far inland?

Erik quickly protested, as if what he wanted could change everything. “I don’t like storms.”

Pa was pre-occupied. “Adam, bring in enough firewood for a week. Don’t forget the kindling. Then we need provisions from the kitchen and more candles and oil. Be sure the other firewood in the shed is as high as it can be on the shelf. Bring in the quilts, too. And keep Thaddeus close at hand. We need pots and pans from the kitchen, knives, anything we would ordinarily use out there.”

He had said it all before Erik could stand. “You wemember that?” Erik asked me.

My little brother had no idea how many orders Pa could issue at one time. That list had been short compared to some he’d given me.

Erik grabbed Pa’s right leg. “Pa? Where you go’s?”

Pa gave every indication he had no time for such nonsense, even to the point of prying Erik’s hands from his leg. “I have to lock down the shutters.”

Mrs. de Marigny took Erik’s hand and smiled gently at him. “I need the big, strong boy to help bring in the kitchen things. You can do this?”

It didn’t take much to distract Erik at that age. Sometimes it still doesn’t take much to distract him. He grinned and said, “I helps you better den anybody’s.”

Her look at me over Erik’s head was full of concern.

 

I didn’t have all Pa’s orders completed, but I was pretty far along, when he showed up beside me in the kitchen to help carry the heavier items. I appreciated his help. We worked silently, purposefully, crossing the courtyard repeatedly while Mrs. de Marigny kept Erik busy in the house asking him where he thought they should store the food, the candles, the lanterns, the quilts, and where he thought Thaddeus would be most comfortable. One of the last things Pa instructed me to do was to fill every pitcher and any other container I could use with water from the well. He held several large bowls while I pumped the water and it looked to me like they were heavy even for him to carry. I ran ahead and held the door open and Pa glanced down, not for the first time, at the basement.

When we returned to the inside of the house, Mrs. de Marigny put a hand on Pa’s arm and said she should go talk to Mrs. de Ville. Pa told her that Mrs. de Ville would not leave her home but Mrs. de Marigny crossed the street and we saw Mrs. de Ville’s servant open the door.

Our home was dark because the shutters were locked over the windows and for me at least it brought back too many memories of ghost stories my friends and I had shared. Erik asked what we should do next and Pa said all we could do was wait. My little brother never has been good at being patient and he obviously considered the entire thing a new adventure. He asked how long it would be, not noticing how Pa paced the parlor rug and looked at the clock on the mantel. I grew uneasier with each moment and then I felt the air change – it raised goose bumps on my arms.

Pa opened the door and Mrs. de Marigny ran in, holding her skirt down. “It has grown windy.” She took a deep breath and leaned back on the door after Pa closed it. “It is as you say, Benjamin. She tells me she has been in many storms and this will be no different.”

What could Pa do? Kidnap the woman? He shook his head indicating he did not agree with her opinion and then he sat down in his chair. A moment later he snapped the fingers on his right hand and I looked his way, thinking he wanted me. But he was already on his feet. He opened the front door and closed the protective outside door we never used. He slid the wooden board across the inside door and the final sound of that piece falling into place combined with the odd tingling sensation down my back and in my hands created a feeling of impending doom. We were eating dinner when the first strong blast hit and by our usual bedtime the screaming wind reduced Erik to tears. His crying did nothing to calm me.

Glory the rain! No prairie storm ever prepared me for the downpour we endured. Combined with the fierce wind it shook our house more than once and the well-anchored shutters sounded as if they would rip free of the iron that secured them. Thaddeus whined and finally settled under the table by Pa’s chair. But he wasn’t consoled he was just settled. Erik cried until I would have sworn there was no liquid left in him. Mrs. de Marigny, Pa, and I took turns holding him, patting his back, and trying to tell him stories but whenever the wind howled or screamed – which it did with greater frequency – we could not stop Erik’s shrieks. Each time he wailed I shook.

The only time I was distracted was when I looked at Pa as he watched the fireplace wall. What was he watching?

How had he endured something like this on a ship? I asked him if he had gone on deck during storms and he nodded as he smoked his pipe. He said that on occasions when they knew a gale was coming he helped with the sails. At times like that they needed every hand on deck. If they had the luxury they maintained rank. If they had to move quickly just about everyone except the captain, who was busy giving orders, scrambled to ready the ship. And then, he said, they rode it out.

Pa finally got Erik to be quiet. I wrapped my arms around my knees – and before my disbelieving eyes the chimney wall looked like it was breathing.

“Adam!” Pa shouted and I jumped as I always did when he raised his voice like that. “Get off the floor now!” Naturally his yell set Erik into a new series of yells and sobs.

I retreated to the dining room and sat with my legs underneath me in the armchair Pa usually used. I put my head down on the tabletop and Pa ordered me to go sleep in my bed. I told him I couldn’t sleep and he said I had to. It was one of the rare times in my life when I told him “no”. All that saved me was I added “sir” to it. I saved “sir” for indications of deepest respect – that way the word didn’t wear out from too much usage and my bottom didn’t wear out from too many spankings.

“Benjamin,” Mrs. de Marigny spoke softly and I was surprised we could hear her over the howling wind and beating rain. “It is the first time the boys have been through this, yes? May we not excuse them their fears?” That said she went to one of the kettles. “I think perhaps the soothing tea would help us?” She touched Erik’s cheek. “And perhaps a taste of the chocolate candy we have been hiding?”

Erik sat up in Pa’s lap. His eyes were so swollen there was no distinguishing their color. His nose was scarlet red and his cheeks were splotched. “Dat candy is a secwet, Ma.” He wiped at his nose.

“Yes, but I think perhaps Adam would enjoy some. You will be kind and share with him?”

Pa and I exchanged astonished looks when Erik slid from Pa’s lap and walked to me. He patted my hand and reassured, “We takes care’s of you, A-dam. Pa not let’s nothin’ happen. Maybe you like’s a candy’s? But’s only one on ‘count it’s Ma and my’s secwet.”

His conditional generosity was overwhelmingly funny. When I smiled he considered himself a success and turned to Mrs. de Marigny, who had just placed the kettle near the fire and stepped far away from the chimney wall. “I do’s it, Ma.”

She put her hands together in front of her skirt and leaned down slightly. “Tres bien, you make me so proud! I never doubt you can do this thing.”

 

The storm raged through the night with only sporadic calm. When there was any break in the rampage, we partially opened the window in Erik’s and my room – the one that faced the wall of the house next door – and allowed fresh, damp air into the house to replace the stale, dry air. Many times I thought the onslaught was over, that surely there was no wind left anywhere on the Earth. Then the gale caused me to think twice when it tortured us most of the next day. Pa is well aware of how my acceptable behavior declines in direct proportion to my fatigue so when exhaustion made me dizzy he ordered me to curl up in a couple of quilts beside his chair. Every time I woke up Pa sat with his head titled back. His eyes were bloodshot and he needed to shave. Mrs. de Marigny slept on the settee. Erik was nestled on the hem of her skirt.

In addition to the nerve-wracking rain and the screaming wind we heard things flying around. Naturally Pa wouldn’t let us near the windows so we could peek out through the shutter slats but that didn’t stop us from inventing our own game. Erik and I guessed about what we heard. At first it sounded like tree limbs and pieces of wood. But then I began to worry again because to me the items were distinctly metal, larger sections of trees, lumber, brick, and then to my disbelieving ears there was lapping water like along a riverbank. Because the sounds frightened me so much I started a silly game with Erik – naming such things as elves, sweet cakes, that vine we both still hated in the courtyard, a flying alligator, a horse with wings that was sailing in the clouds – anything I could think of to keep him laughing because every time he gave in to tears I wanted to start myself.

Mrs. de Marigny asked Erik to help her set the table and Pa put his hand on my shoulder and directed me toward his bedroom. He sat down on the bed, looked me straight in the eyes, and thanked me for my concern for Erik. Pa was so proud of me I didn’t have the heart to tell him I had been doing it for my own good as well as Erik’s.

The storm had eased to a light rain by then and I looked forward to opening the house to fresh air as soon as we could. My eyes went down to my feet and then shot up to Pa’s face in panic. The slightest bit of water, it looked more like a glaze, was on the wood. Pa held his index finger to his lips and leaned close to me to tell me the basement was probably filled with water. Once again fear shot through me but this time Pa hugged me. He stood, held my hand, and we walked to the backdoor. I had never seen him unlock anything so slowly in all my life. When he opened it, I learned the reason for his hesitation. I grabbed as much of his waist as I could and looked out at a courtyard filled with four feet of water. Pa ran his hand through his hair and said at least we were still in one piece.

After Pa opened the front door I recognized tiles from our roof and even some awnings that should have been attached to buildings in town. I had been right about the sections of metal – it was wrought iron from balconies. Tree branches floated as if they were on a river and indeed they were because our street was even deeper under water than our courtyard. This, I understood, was the reason for bringing in the food, the water, and all the provisions Pa had ordered so quickly. There was no safe way to reach the kitchen and even if there had been the water would have been deep enough to ruin many things. I was going to be chopping a lot of wood once our part of New Orleans dried out because the lower shelf in the woodshed was not high enough to protect my previous work.

The sky was an intense blue after the storm passed and everything was eerily quiet

In the days that followed, as the water receded, we were even more grateful for how lucky we had been. Mrs. de Ville’s beautiful house stood but it was heavily damaged from the huge trees that fell around it. Small debris from the high water mark darkened the house’s white exterior.

Mrs. de Marigny, Erik, and I spent days cleaning off the courtyard and reclaiming the kitchen after the water subsided. Pa worked on our roof and, to tell the truth, I was glad there was no dry wood to chop yet. We were kept so busy with chores we didn’t dare neglect that I didn’t have much time to wonder what had happened to Henri, Gus, and Etienne. Besides, it seemed every spare moment I had I spent trying to keep Thaddeus from digging in the soil the gale had left behind everywhere in the courtyard.

A few days after the storm Pa returned home early one afternoon. He dropped into his chair – he didn’t sit down easily, he literally dropped, pulled his knees up instead of stretching his long legs, and then he rubbed his hands over his face. Erik and I watched from the dining room where we were setting the table for dinner. Pa looked so upset that Erik didn’t even run to him for a hug.

“Benjamin?” Mrs. de Marigny sat on her heels in front of him and took his hands in hers. Her dress spread around her like an upside-down morning-glory bloom. “What is this that troubles you?”

He had that distant look in his eyes of a person who has seen something too terrible to discuss – a look I remembered from the day Inger had died. But this time there was no death of anyone we knew. There was, however, the destruction of something we had seen on more than one occasion. “They’re gone,” he answered.

“What is gone?” Her voice was gentle. She looked into his eyes and laid her hand on his cheek.

“The wharves.”

It was her turn to be shocked. “Which of them?”

He shook his head. “They’re all gone, Marie. And as far as they can account for all the boats were lost, too.”

I lowered the plates I had been holding to the tabletop. What he said couldn’t be true.

Pa took a deep breath and leaned back. “The sugarcane and cotton crops are probably lost.” He waved his hand as he said the next sentence. “And buildings just floated away.”

Mrs. de Marigny stood and shook her head. “But this can not be. We have had these storms before. We have the high water under the houses and in the streets but the houses do not swim away and certainly not the wharves.”

Any other time Pa would have smiled at her description of the houses swimming away. But I’m not sure he even caught it that afternoon. She turned toward the fireplace. Then she spun so quickly that her skirt had trouble keeping up with her. “Jeanette!” she exclaimed.

Pa nodded. “I asked about her this morning. They’re fine. Jeanette went to see your aunt and uncle. They’re alright.”

Erik walked into the parlor. “What abou’ Good Boy?”

Pa put his left hand around Erik’s neck and smiled gently. “Good Boy is alright, too.”

I didn’t want to assail him with the list of my friends. He didn’t look like he could take it. I sat down at the table and stared. The wharves gone? Ships lost? Buildings floating away? How could that be?”

As if reading my thoughts, Pa said to Mrs. de Marigny, “Pontchartrain flooded.”

Pontchartrain is a big lake near New Orleans. It’s not nearly as large as I understand the Great Lakes to be but it was huge enough for me when I was nine years old. As far as I was concerned the ocean couldn’t be more immense. Pa, of course, knew better. He also knew enough about gales to understand how a wall of water could come down on a city. I not only didn’t understand but I didn’t want to. The thought was far too frightening.

Finally Pa held up his warning finger to Erik and me. “Neither of you is to be anywhere but here until I say otherwise. Do I make myself clear?”

Erik was scared another storm would strike at any moment so he said, “Yes, Pa” quickly.

I said, “Yes, Pa.” But my fingers were crossed behind my back.

 

My chance to explore finally came about a week later. I considered it a gift from God and didn’t question it. I waved as Mrs. de Marigny and Erik rode off in her sister Jeanette’s carriage to have lunch and then I, who had pled a sickly stomach, ran in the other direction.

I had to be careful to avoid the area where Pa worked but that was no problem. There was plenty to explore. Well, there had been plenty. The more I walked around the more I understood the destruction the storm had brought to New Orleans and how fortunate we had been. Many houses had lost their chimneys and some of those awnings I had seen by our home were indeed from the city. Several of my landmarks were gone. The ones that were not were so damaged I knew they would probably be replaced.

“I’ve never seen anything like it, have you?”

I turned toward the voice. A red-haired boy with brown eyes smiled at me and extended his hand, “Martin Colby.”

Not many boys my age shook hands with each other. I was surprised by his firm grip. “Adam Cartwright.”

He nodded and looked back toward the scenery, shaking his head. “Father said they had these storms in Charleston and Boston on occasion but this was the most fierce he has ever witnessed.”

Father? On occasion? Witnessed? Alright, this boy – who looked about my age and was about my height – had me intrigued.

He put his hands in his side pockets and I noticed he was dressed as I was. Then he tilted his head. “Have you lived in New Orleans a long time, Adam?”

I shook my head as I answered. “About a year.”

Martin smiled and looked down. “I take it from your tone you are ready to depart?”

How could I resist? I smiled, too. “I want to be back on the trail to California.”

That peaked his interest. “California! I wish Father would be interested in that.”

Not ever thinking that I might be prying, mainly because nine-year-olds rarely stop to consider such things, I asked what his father was interested in.

He took a deep breath and looked as unhappy as I felt at times. “Politics.”

That sounded exciting. “Politics!”

“We’ve lived in Virginia, near the Capitol in Washington, in Tennessee, and now here. I wish Father could have done something worthwhile like join the Corps of Discovery or help push the frontier west of Tennessee. Instead he and Mother attend parties, entertain people in the parlor, talk politics at the dinner table, and expect me to be quiet and not disruptive. It is absolutely dreadful.”

“It can’t be too dreadful,” I reminded him. “You’re here looking at the city after the storm.”

His grin was full of mischief. “Nobody knows.”

I felt an immediate kinship. “Nobody knows about me, either.”

Martin’s life had been a lot more interesting than mine. He was named for Martin Van Buren who was, at the time, none other than President of the United States. His father was from Charleston, had worked for some kind of political party in New York where he met Mr. Van Buren, then he wound up for a time in Tennessee with Andrew Jackson before he helped Mr. Van Buren get elected President. I didn’t understand all of it but I comprehended one thing – and I stopped in my tracks when Martin said it – my newfound friend had shaken hands with the President.

“No.” I did not believe him.

He shrugged. “I’ve met all kinds of politicians.” He rattled off names – some I had heard Pa speak about but most of the names were new to me.

Finally he asked if my family had turned toward New Orleans because of the Panic or because of the trouble in Texas. “You know that’s settled now, of course.”

Was he talking about the Panic or Texas? I soon had my answer. “Well, it’s temporarily settled,” he continued. “Mexico still hasn’t recognized Texas’ independence. Father says the entire affair will lead to another war.”

By then we were sitting on a sidewalk bench in one of the neighborhoods. I knew what a panic was. But the way he had said it had made the word sound like a proper name. I asked him what the Panic was and he thought a long time before he explained partly it was banks failing because of speculation with western lands.

Was there anyone Martin hadn’t met? Or anything he didn’t know? I resolved then and there to read the newspaper with a more discerning eye or Martin would grow tired of me pretty darn fast.

A nearby clock bell rang and Martin shot to his feet. For the first time that afternoon he sounded like a normal kid. “I have to get home,” he explained. “If my father finds out I’ll get a tanning.”

Until then I had never heard the expression and I guess I gave him a bewildered look because he leaned forward and blinked in disbelief. “Don’t tell me your father never tans you!”

I shrugged and explained I wasn’t sure what that meant.

“Mine uses a belt on my backside,” Martin explained.

“Oh, yeah. He’s done that. Feels like it’s stripping the hide off of you,” I said casually. Pa had never called it anything except using his belt and I wondered if he knew the word “tanning.”

“My father hits so hard it takes my breath away,” Martin bragged. “Sometimes the belt even leaves welts.”

What followed next was insane. We tried to outdo each other about how hard our fathers hit with a belt. When we finally went our separate ways after agreeing to meet again the next day I didn’t believe half of what Martin said about his father and belts. If he believed me he was pretty dumb. And if there was one thing I sensed about Martin it was that he wasn’t dumb.

 

Martin and I explored the storm damage whenever we could both sneak away from our families. Part of me was elated with the fact that I was doing something Ma and Pa didn’t know about. And of course the part Pa had trained felt guilty. Not guilty enough to confess, you understand, but guilty enough to be extra-cooperative at home. Tell me what else could arouse a parent’s suspicions more quickly. But Ma and Pa didn’t seem concerned at all.

One night after dinner I noticed something that quickly took my mind off the storm damage: Mrs. de Marigny was definitely with child. She was shorter than Inger had been and was much smaller-boned so she showed a lot earlier. I was not the least bit embarrassed by how she looked. But the fact that Pa, who I considered pretty old, had done it one more time to make another baby surprised me. I idly wondered when the baby would arrive. I felt Pa’s eyes on me and slid mine his way. His were getting harder to read at times and that worried me. He didn’t respond with a smile or a frown and for a guilt-ridden moment I wondered if he knew about my disobedience.

As usual, we sat on the rug for a story. Pa made it a story especially for Erik and told about a hero in a country where there was a lot of ice and his name was Erik. He sailed the oceans and explored unknown lands. Pa almost finished the story before I recognized it as the one Inger had told me about Erik the Red.

Our little Erik had a bit of trouble quieting down for sleep that night. Pa sat on Erik’s bed, telling the quiet story, and Erik interrupted on average about every three sentences. Pa finally stood up and left the room. Erik called out to Pa that he hadn’t finished the quiet story and Pa called back, “That’s right. Good night, Erik.”

Erik pounded his pillow with his fist to make a comfortable place for his head. “Shoot, him’s in a bad’s mood.”

I giggled and was rewarded by Pa’s voice from the parlor. “Adam, you know better.”

“Yes, Pa. Good night.”

I heard the smile in his voice. “Good night, son.”

By what I reckoned to be the sixth month, Mrs. de Marigny was so obviously with child that Erik started giving her odd looks. Ever aware of our slightest unspoken questions, Pa asked us to sit with him one night in the parlor. I sat on the rug at his feet, following part of the design with a pick-up stick. Erik sat on Pa’s knees.

Pa was always as direct as he judged our ages could understand when he told us about how a woman and man made a baby. I had heard the entire story before and considered myself an expert but Erik, who thought he had known everything years earlier when Pa and he had talked about girl horses and boy horses, was a lot more curious and discerning than he had been back then. He made a number of faces as Pa talked and said, “Pa, you’s teasin’.” When Pa maintained he was not, Erik shook his head and muttered, “Dat don’t sound likes as fun’s as pwaying hide and seeks.”

Pa looked down and grinned.

I saw the light in Erik’s eyes a half-second before Pa did and we both braced ourselves. “Pa,” Erik’s voice held disbelief when he leaned forward. “You do’s dat baby-making?”

Biting my cheek to keep from laughing, I wondered what Pa would say. “Yes, your mother and I did the baby-making, Erik.”

Erik shook his head. “Aw, Pa,” he said with disgust. “You oughts to pway hide and seeks. We don’t needs mores boys.”

Pa answered Erik but he looked at me. “It could be a girl, son – and there’s plenty of love to go around.”

“Nope,” Erik declared. “He’s a boys.”

I knew without a doubt that Pa would have more time for Mrs. de Marigny’s and his child than he had been able to give me at the same age. The belief that Mrs. de Marigny and Pa would love their own child better than Erik or me led me straight down the path to jealousy of an unborn baby. It was yet another reason for me not to like her.

 

Three months before my tenth birthday my youngest brother was born and it is no exaggeration to say he changed our family forever. Mrs. de Marigny and Pa named him Joseph Francis. The Joseph part was fine but Erik and I collapsed in laughter on the settee when Pa told us the “Francis” part. He maintained it was a perfectly fine name but Erik and I knew it wasn’t. We couldn’t imagine any of our buddies finding out someone was named Francis even if they had names like Henri, Etienne, and Erik’s best friend Jonah.

Erik and I were almost witnesses to Joe’s birth. In the middle of a particularly dark night Pa shook my shoulders to pull me from a sound sleep.

“Adam.” His voice held worry. “Get dressed. Take Erik to Mrs. de Ville’s and tell her your mother is having the baby. She’ll know what to do. Come on son, get dressed.”

If I had a dollar for every time he has sent me on an errand in the middle of the night – well, I’d have a lot of money.

Erik and I plodded across the dark street and finally a sleepy-eyed servant opened the door. I relayed Pa’s message for Mrs. de Ville and his eyes widened. Without being invited, or even taking off our clothes, Erik and I dragged our feet to the bedroom we considered ours and collapsed on the mattress like two felled tree trunks.

When we were finally allowed to see our new brother nearly a week later I was struck instantly by how small he was. Maybe Erik had just been a particularly large baby. Joe had all the petite qualities of Mrs. de Marigny and her coloring as well. By the time he was a year old we would find out he also had her energy and fire.

I was a seasoned veteran at having a baby around – although it was nice to have Mrs. de Marigny taking care of him – but every aspect of Joe’s daily life mesmerized Erik. I lost count of how many times he asked Mrs. de Marigny or Pa, “What you do’s wit him?” or “Dat don’t hurts him?” He treasured the times when he was allowed to sit in Pa’s chair and hold Joe. And he was so careful – always looking to Mrs. de Marigny or Pa to be sure he was doing it correctly.

I will never forget the morning he charged into Mrs. de Marigny’s and Pa’s bedroom and saw Mrs. de Marigny nursing Joe. He came back up the couple of steps to our room and had the strangest look on his face – mostly he was baffled. “A-dam,” he whispered to me as I buttoned my trousers. “What Joe doing ta Ma?”

“He’s drinking milk.” I thought my explanation made sense but I could tell from his unchanged expression that he didn’t understand. “You’ve seen puppies getting milk from their mothers. And calves. It’s the same thing.” Like I said, I was a veteran when it came to information about babies.

He sat on his bed, still stunned. “Ma gives Joe da milk’s?” I nodded and then he twisted his lips. “How?”

I was busy brushing my hair and didn’t catch on at first.

“A-dam,” he persisted. “How milk get’s inside Ma?”

I froze in panic. Explaining how a woman provided sustenance for her baby was something I considered way beyond brotherly responsibility. “Pa!” I yelled. “Erik’s got a question!” and I darted out the backdoor as fast as I could.

 

Once I knew Joe, little as he was, was going to be okay I started a silent game with Pa. I’d catch his eye and then speculatively count my fingers. I’d count from one to eight then tilt my head as if I had counted wrong and start over again. Finally one day out in the courtyard when we were trimming some flowering vines, Pa stood and wiped his forehead.

“I’m glad you can count so well. Are you having trouble getting past eight?”

I can’t begin to explain how wide his grin was.

Shrugging, I pretended it was none of my business. “Well, it’s just that you got married in July and here it is early March and – “

Pa bent toward me from the waist. His eyes twinkled like the cut glass in the shops downtown. “Your brother was born early, Adam.”

I tilted my head back as if I didn’t believe him. “Oh.” A second later, Pa lifted me, threw me over his shoulder like a sack, and gave me a play swat on the bottom. I laughed as we whirled around until I was dizzy. “You win!” I shouted.

“Did you say something?”

“You win! I’m gonna throw up on the back of your shirt.”

“Oh no you aren’t.” He put me on my feet and his strong hands held my shoulders. “I’ve never seen that before,” he said.

“What?”

“Your left eye is going around like a clock’s hands and your right eye is going the opposite way.”

I leaned my hands on his waist. “Pa, that isn’t funny.”

“You could make a lot of money in the circus doing that, Adam.”

“Pa –” I warned.

He lifted me and held me in his arms but this time he rested my head against his shoulder. I made the most of it and didn’t tell him for a long time that I was better.

Let’s see. How to explain this? Joe was either so sound asleep cannon fire wouldn’t have scared him or he was wide-awake. And when he was wide-awake so was everyone else in the house. He behaved in ways I didn’t recall Erik doing. He gurgled a lot, which I remembered, but he made squeaking, bubble-blowing and – I swear – giggling sounds. It should come as no surprise if you know him that he learned to walk when he was ten months old. Erik aided that skill because he worked with Joe long and hard in the parlor. He didn’t like our youngest brother crawling around like a dog. He wanted Joe to stand up so they could chase each other. It also won’t surprise anyone who knows him that Joe talked before his first birthday. I don’t mean long, complex sentences but enough to communicate. Sentences like “Joe want Adam apple.” That one always sent Pa into uncontrolled laughter because it sounded like Joe wanted someone’s Adam’s apple. I didn’t think it was funny.

There was an unspoken understanding between Pa and me that I was to help Mrs. de Marigny care for Joe. So I enjoyed the same delightful experiences. I lifted Joe from his bath and received a straight stream of pee on my shirt. I carried him outside for fresh air in the courtyard and he spit up all over me even though he hadn’t eaten for hours. When Joe was teething, I was asleep on my bunk bed with my left arm hanging down and he bit into my thumb so hard that there’s still a faint scar. I can’t remember what he hit me in the stomach with in the parlor one night but it was my turn to throw up then. After he became mobile my life grew increasingly dangerous when I was inside the house. Joe was liable to jump out from a hiding place, run and smash into my legs from behind which buckled my knees and sent me falling onto everything from the dining table to Pa sitting in his chair. During one of those falls my forehead hit the corner of the wall. That small scar is still there, too. I seriously considered running away and living with Henri but his mother had a baby, too, and we commiserated whenever we saw each other.

After I fell and hit my forehead, Pa had a talk with Joe. During that talk Pa made a funny mistake. We didn’t realize it was funny at the time but it provided amusement for all the family for several years. During the course of the scolding Pa told Joe, “Joseph, you could kill someone doing that.” Somehow my littlest brother got it in his mind that any sort of injury was “killing.” When he apologized for hitting my legs – aided by a behavior-altering pop on the bottom – he said, “Sowwy I kill Adam.”

I didn’t understand what he meant for the longest time. Pa, Erik, and Mrs. de Marigny were way ahead of me. By the time I caught on they had been laughing about it for weeks.

To this day you won’t convince me it was Pa’s hand pops on Joe’s bottom that stopped him from misbehaving. But I’ve yet to see a kid who hates to apologize as much as he does.

Because of Joe’s presence, Erik and I enjoyed being alone with each other more than ever. I don’t think it was based on exclusivity as much as the fact that we understood without having to speak, we had the same sense of humor, and most importantly we knew when we were getting too close to the line. After all, we also had the same pa to answer to.

 

Joe was about a year old when Erik and I located an abandoned building that was probably ten by ten feet in size and constructed of masonry. The floor was dirt and I wouldn’t be surprised if the floods of the gale had moved the building to its isolated spot. The windows were broken so even when we closed the ramshackle door there was plenty of ventilation. Inside those walls was a world all our own. We played shopkeepers to imaginary people, we sold each other our boots, like every boy in New Orleans we played pirates, we pretended to be tailors, when we found interesting rocks they transformed into buried treasure, and the desserts we “baked” were culinary masterpieces. The words “play like” were in almost every sentence.

Then came the most magical day in a long time for Erik and me. With me holding a makeshift halter around Thaddeus’ chest, we led him to our hideout. Erik and I were peeking from the windows, shooting imaginary grizzly bears, when we became aware that Thaddeus was just about digging us to the center of the Earth in one corner. Erik shouted at him to stop but I put a hand to Erik’s chest.

“He’s got the scent of something,” I explained.

“Da sense of what?” Erik asked.

“Not the sense, brother. The scent. The smell of something.”

“He smells like Taddeus to me.”

There was no way I was going to allow the conversation to head any farther downhill so I didn’t respond.

Then I gave a cry of discovery and dropped to my knees beside my dog.

“It’s nobody’s dead, is it?” Erik was worried.

“It’s a bunch of bottles.” I held up one of the small, colored treasures. “Look, Erik!”

He was as excited as I was. Before Thaddeus sat down – satisfied with a good afternoon’s work – he had unearthed fourteen bottles of varying size, color, and shape. We were beside ourselves with excitement. We arranged them according to color. Then we arranged them according to size. We pretended they held magic potions – or dreaded medicines for things like sore throats and upset stomachs. After a serious discussion we reached the conclusion that neither Pa nor Mrs. de Marigny would allow us to keep them so we decided they would be our secret. The fact that no one else knew about our discovery made it all the more fun.

We lost track of time that day, in spite of the chiming clocks around the city, and arrived home so late we had no hope of completing our afternoon chores. Scurrying into the courtyard, breathless and covered in dirt, we both flinched when Pa raised his head from chopping wood. He gave us a thorough going-over, switched his attention to Thaddeus, and then looked me square in the eyes. His gentle blue ones held soft amusement. “Just tell me you weren’t looking for buried treasure in someone else’s courtyard.”

“No, Pa,” we assured.

He nodded. “Don’t forget your chores tomorrow, boys.”

“No, Pa,” we assured again.

He motioned toward the house with his left hand. “Go clean up for dinner.”

We didn’t have to be told twice. We said, “Yes, Pa” and ran into the house before he changed his mind.

 

When Martin and I managed to meet we had an even better time than I had with Barbara. Well, not better. We didn’t get into the same kind of mischief. Well, not a lot anyhow.

Because Martin’s father was involved in politics – I did not understand how because I did not see his name in the newspaper – we had access to buildings and offices I’d never seen. Some of them were beautiful and filled with fine furniture. Some of them were so old they had cracks in the walls and I worried they might fall in on us. Men in silk vests who wore gold watch chains passed us in hallways and several nodded to Martin after he said, “Good day, sir.” If the weather was pretty we sat on a bench and enjoyed the newspapers Martin’s father received from different cities. Since he had to sit still during so many boring dinners, Martin knew a lot of the men quoted in the paper and he knew how they spoke. He reduced me to tearful laughter when he lowered his voice and made himself sound preposterously important as he quoted them. Reading from the paper, and imitating different politicians, became a game for us. We sounded out words we’d never seen before and guessed their meaning from their use in the sentence.

Martin brought a primer we were both too old for and we substituted words. We also concocted elaborate math problems. I presented him with one and he pretended to solve it without even needing a pencil and he did the same for me. We were two of the most easily amused boys in the city. One afternoon we sat near the park and invented short songs about the people we observed. The more scandalous the songs were, and the more we could lean over and giggle, the better.

Martin and I didn’t do anything we would have been in trouble for. But Mrs. de Marigny continued to ask where I’d been, what I had been doing, who I’d been with – and I didn’t consider any of it her business. If Pa wanted to ask me then I would tell him. In the meantime she bothered me and smothered me so I finally told her I was with Henri. She checked with Henri’s mother and discovered I was not spending time with Henri. Then she confronted me with the truth and explained to me, not for the first time, that there were places I must not go and things I must not do.

Mrs. de Marigny told me that by continuing to go where she did not want me to I was disobeying her. By the autumn after I turned eleven, my resentment came to a boil. After all, Pa had trusted me with Erik and we had never gotten into trouble. She treated me like a child. I yelled at her that she wasn’t my mother and I didn’t intend to obey her. After my anger eased, I worried she would tell Pa what I had said. When she didn’t tell him, I took her silence as an indication that she knew everything I had said was true and I lorded it over her even more. She continued to keep a close eye on me, too, and our silent war raged on. I knew there was no way Henri and I could go to the river the way we wanted to in our quest for new adventures. I was determined to reclaim my freedom despite her warnings.

My mistake was that I didn’t talk to Martin. He would have proposed a discussion and compromise between Mrs. de Marigny and me. Instead, I talked to Henri. His mother told him scary stories all the time hoping they would make him behave. He remembered the tales long enough to share them with me so we could laugh. Henri came up with the way to force Mrs. de Marigny to leave me alone for a few days – voodoo.

Pa made me wish I’d never heard the word. He only used his belt on me a few times and one of those times was when I was eleven years old. The fact that I deserved it didn’t make it any easier to experience. But it ultimately led me to peace with Mrs. de Marigny.

The first step in Henri’s and my elaborate plan was to go to the voodoo lady’s home immediately after sunset. That time of day was when we had our best chance of slipping away from our homes. Pa had devised a way to keep our bedroom window from being raised more than a few inches because of Joe’s adventurous nature so I had no hope of sneaking out my old way. Instead I stepped very slowly and carefully to the backdoor and then ran like a thief from the courtyard. I met Henri at our agreed corner and we set out to buy a voodoo doll.

As I’ve said before, Henri knew everyone and until I met Martin I thought Henri also knew everything. I did not question how he knew about the voodoo lady and I hoped the few coins I had were enough to buy what I needed. Her house was away from town on the other side of a cemetery. Because of the high water table, all the graves are above ground in New Orleans. The crypts – some elaborate and some strikingly plain, some tall and some short, some with statues atop them – contribute to the feeling of a city of the dead with buildings crammed together. Because of the difficulty in seeing around corners people were sometimes the victims of robbers. But lawbreakers were the least of Henri’s and my concerns. It’s funny how you don’t believe in ghosts when the sun is shining and how quickly you can believe in them when the stars are shining. As I told Joe years later, my mouth was so dry I couldn’t have spit to save my life.

Finally we approached the voodoo lady’s house. It was a small, wooden cabin but there was nothing unusual about it – no owls hooting from the trees, no disembodied screams, and none of what I expected. I wondered if Henri knew what he was talking about. We argued a bit about who should knock at the door and finally Henri pointed out that, since it was my voodoo doll we had come for, I should have the honor.

The woman who came to the door was dark-skinned with large almond-shaped eyes and a knowing smile on her red colored lips. She wore big gold earrings and so many necklaces I wouldn’t have tried to count them. Her purple, yellow, and red dress was tied in a knot at her right shoulder. She asked, in an accent I had never heard before, what we searched for. Henri didn’t say a word so I spoke in such a soft voice she leaned down to hear me.

“I want a doll to make a lady sick.”

She pulled back and crossed her arms, putting each hand inside the opposite sleeve. “And for how long do you wish this lady sick?”

“Not – not long,” I stammered. “Three days?”

“Three days,” she repeated. She turned. “Come with me.”

I jerked Henri’s arm to make him follow me because he seemed to be perfectly willing to wait in the first room.

The room she led us to was lighted by candles instead of lanterns like in the first room. She motioned for us to sit at a small wooden table and opened a metal box. I don’t know what I thought the doll would look like but what she placed in front of me wasn’t it. For one thing it was not much longer than my thumb. It had on a scarf like hers but the rest of it was a brownish fabric. And the doll was naked. She asked me where I wished for the lady to be ill and I said the stomach and I winced when she jabbed a small feather where the stomach would be. Then she wrapped it in a strip of cloth that held in a piece of wood with a few more feathers and a small bead that made a jingling noise. As her final preparation of the doll, she held it over one of the candles and the smoke discolored it slightly. “And the name of your lady?” she asked.

I wasn’t about to tell her it was Pa’s wife so I answered, “Marie.”

She smiled, said a few words that didn’t make any sense, and then laid the doll before me. “You must put it near her or in something which belongs to her.”

I reached in my pocket and displayed the coins in the palm of my hand. “Is this enough?”

She plucked a few coins from my palm and nodded that we should leave.

Time has helped me understand she knew exactly what she was dealing with – two boys on an adventure and nowhere near the true believers we thought we were.

My good luck continued. A sliver of kindling I had slipped between the backdoor and the doorframe was still there. I took off my boots and opened the door then padded to our room. For once Joe was sound asleep and so was Erik. I eased out of my trousers and crawled into my bed. I slept with a much clearer conscience than I should have.

The next morning, Mrs. de Marigny, Erik, and Joe paraded to the kitchen and I once again slipped around the house. I went into Mrs. de Marigny’s and Pa’s room and decided the best place to hide my new ally against her was in a back corner of their armoire.

Most furniture in New Orleans is on a massive scale – especially for an eleven year old. I had to extend myself on tiptoe to reach the key that locked the doors and then I had to crawl on my stomach to place the doll in the far right corner of the tall cabinet. There was no way Mrs. de Marigny or Pa would see my treasure. I closed the doors, locked them, and waited for the magic to start.

Fulfillment came quickly. We had no more cleared the table after lunch than Mrs. de Marigny put her left arm in front of her stomach and stopped in her tracks.

“Mama?” Joe tugged at her skirt, sensing something was wrong.

Erik turned around when he heard Joe. “Ma?”

She waved her right hand and slowly sat on one of the dining chairs. “I have a little ache. You clean the dishes, please?”

When Joe said he would help, Erik’s eyes widened in panic. Mrs. de Marigny came to the rescue. “Joseph, you could stay with me, perhaps, in case I require you?”

Joe swelled with importance and strutted to her side.

Except for an occasional word or two Erik had left behind his baby talk by the time he was seven – as far as I was concerned it was another way Mrs. de Marigny had intruded where she shouldn’t have. He repeated words he’d heard Jonah say and he had even learned to pronounce my name correctly. “Adam? What do you figure’s wrong with Ma?”

I shook my head. “Maybe she has a stomach upset.”

“She looked like it hurt more than that.” His worry deepened. “You don’t figure she’s got the fever, do ya?”

“It’s too late for the fever,” I reassured. “I’m telling you, it’s just a stomach upset. She’ll be fine.”

Erik got quiet and I knew from his expression he didn’t believe me.

I considered myself pretty smart for my age. Mrs. de Marigny and Mrs. de Ville could never find something too hard for me to read. On a rare occasion Pa would have to correct me on a math problem or with geography or what I later learned was science. But I got a tablespoon-and-more dose of humility during the next few days when my plan blew up in my face like badly fused dynamite.

The first thing I hadn’t taken into account was that, with Mrs. de Marigny ill in bed, I was expected to stay home and take care of Erik and Joe. I protested to Pa, pointing out that when I had been Erik’s age I had taken care of him so now Erik could take care of Joe. My argument was to no avail and I grumbled around the house all day. There went my planned adventures to the river.

The second day Tante Jeanette came to the house to tend to Mrs. de Marigny. She was convinced the illness was contagious and made us drink herbal teas that had us peeing all day. I didn’t know that Pa stayed up with Mrs. de Marigny the night before until I saw him when he came in from work. He looked like he was carrying a heavy load on his back and he could fall down at any moment. That was when I remembered he lost his mother to cholera and always worried when one of us was ill.

Voodoo, I decided, was way too strong. I had to do something to get my family back to normal so I had a better chance of sneaking off to have adventures. As I saw it, my answer was to take the doll back to the voodoo lady and ask her to remove the spell. I didn’t cross too many bridges ahead of time – like how I planned to get it back to her or whether I was brave enough to venture through that cemetery again. All I knew was that Pa looked worse and Mrs. de Marigny was very quiet. And it was all because of me.

Late the next afternoon, Tante Jeanette and Erik and Joe were setting the table for dinner. Mrs. de Marigny lay in her bed with that unusual silence around her. The fear that she might die stabbed me. Once again, I tiptoed to reach the key in the armoire lock, opened the doors, stretched on my stomach to retrieve the doll, and just as my right hand closed around the cause of all my troubles Pa grabbed me by the back of my collar and the back of my trousers’ waist band. He put me on my feet and his puzzled eyes fell on the evidence in my hand. I cringed. He called to Tante Jeanette for them to start dinner without us. Then he took the doll in one hand and removed his belt from the nail on the wall with the other hand. He motioned and I numbed my thoughts as I silently walked ahead of him out the backdoor, across the courtyard, and into the kitchen where we could be alone.

He continued to hold the doll in his left hand and his belt in his right. “Would you like to tell me what this is?” He knew but he wanted to hear it from me.

“A voodoo doll.” I swallowed and licked my lower lip. “It makes people sick.”

I expected him to be as angry as he had been the day he had taken his belt to me for not reloading the rifle. But he was controlled. “Where did you get it?”

“From a voodoo lady.”

“Where?” That was when I knew he would make me tell him every detail. My insides knotted and my knees started shaking. I backed up against the worktable for support.

“I went to her house.”

He leaned from the waist. “You went to her house.”

“Yes, Pa.” My eyes couldn’t quit gravitating to the belt in his right hand. Hot, uncontrolled tears stung my cheeks.

He placed the doll on the tabletop behind me and rested his left hand on the side of his waist. His right arm still hung beside him with his hand gripping the belt.

“Where is her house?”

“I don’t know, Pa. It’s past the cemetery.” I swiped the back of my hand at the tears. It did no good. More tears took their place.

“Past the cemetery. Who gave you permission to go there?”

He had started repeating everything I said when I was in trouble a long time ago and I still didn’t like it any more than I had the first time he’d done it. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe me – he wanted to be sure I understood what I had done.

“No one, Pa.”

There were still no signs of the anger I had known in the past. Nevertheless, I knew what was coming. “Are you supposed to go near the cemetery?” he asked.

Shaking my head, and fighting the silent tears, I said that I wasn’t.

He gave me no mercy. He asked what time of the day I had gone to her house, how I had left our house and how I had gotten back in, how I knew about her, who I had gone with, what I had asked her to do – the questions seemed like they would never end. And when they did I wished they hadn’t. I felt myself crumbling.

“You were disobedient and dishonest,” he summarized. He pointed in the general vicinity of the doll. “And you were disrespectful to your mother.”

He confirmed my punishment with his next words. “Turn around, Adam. Take down your trousers.”

I turned around and through the film of tears I saw the doll. Memories of how much his belt had hurt when I’d forgotten to reload the rifle assailed me. And that had been with my trousers on.

“Now.”

My fingers fumbled with the buttons. The tears came more heavily. I slowly pushed down the back of my trousers and held the front with my right hand and then grabbed at the table edge with my left hand for support. It was just a little lower than my shoulders – Pa never made me bend over very far. When Pa flipped back my shirttail I whimpered and squeezed my eyes closed. For the first time I felt Pa’s belt hit my bare bottom and it was everything I had dreaded.

 

No one knew what had passed between Pa and me. He left for work the next morning, reassured because Mrs. de Marigny’s fever had broken. Erik later told me I was so sound asleep Pa hadn’t been able to wake me to tell me goodbye.

I woke with a scream when Joe jumped on my back, intending to play “horsey” and leaned back on my bottom. I grabbed his arm and slammed him to the mattress. “Stay away from me!” I shouted.

His usually smiling lips went as straight as Pa’s could. He was off the bed in a breath and Erik, who had witnessed my temper, looked as if he was seeing through me to the wall. He slowly turned and left the room.

When I stood I was aware of every movement. I had no idea what had happened to the voodoo doll and did not remember getting undressed and going to bed. I had a vague memory, as you do sometimes from dreams, of Pa holding me around my shoulders while I shook and cried until I felt ill. The only thing I was sure of was that when I gingerly touched my bottom through my shirt it let me know something bad had happened to it.

I almost never got dressed. Although my shirttail kept my trousers from directly rubbing my bottom, any contact – however brief – brought me up short. I couldn’t sit on the bed to pull on my socks and boots so I had to devise a way to lean against the wall.

Since I had slept late I took a hunk of bread and caught up on my chores. Even that took longer because every time I bent I ached. There was one thing I knew I couldn’t do. Mr. Alexander had returned to New Orleans the spring that Joe was born and good as his word he asked me to exercise his horse. It was a chore I looked forward to several days a week. At least I considered it a chore until, at the end of 1838, he presented me with a bag full of coins. I protested that I could not accept money but he insisted and I went home worried about what Pa would say. Then I hit on a great idea – I would give it to Pa toward our savings for heading west. Pa said I had earned the money and it was mine but I assured him that I didn’t want it. Well, maybe a little. Maybe enough to buy gifts for everyone. And some candy for me. I asked Pa how much he thought the items would cost and he helped me estimate it on a piece of paper. Then I counted out enough coins for my purchases and gave him the remainder, telling him if he needed the money for something else I didn’t mind him spending it.

The morning after Pa used his belt on me I told Tante Jeanette I needed to explain to the stable hand that I wouldn’t be able to exercise Mr. Alexander’s horse, Temptation, for a few days. In spite of her confusion she gave her consent. She also allowed Erik to go with me.

My brother and I never said a word but he knew something was wrong. He walked silently beside me, looking at what was happening on the street and waving to his friends. The walk was less pleasurable for me. The stable hand said he was sure Mr. Alexander would understand and, after a glance at Erik, said he hoped everything was all right at home. I guess he thought something was amiss and I had to take care of Erik. I didn’t tell him otherwise.

As we followed the sidewalk toward home, Erik suddenly kicked a rock in front of me and when I looked over at him he gave me that lop-sided grin he still has. I kicked the rock back to him, he kicked it far ahead, I kicked it even farther and then sucked in a quick breath when my bottom didn’t like the move – we kept the rock our prisoner until we were home. Then Erik picked it up and looked it over. “I think I’ll put this with my other magic rocks,” he announced.

I grabbed him behind the neck and tousled his hair. He reached up and made a mess out of my hair and then I chased him into the courtyard. I had to let him win that day because my bottom chafed like a case of heat rash.

I was slower doing my evening chores – and then what I had worried about all day happened. None of us was excused from the evening meal unless we were ill. I can’t begin to express how sore I was when I sat in the chair that evening for dinner. I was nervous because I was sitting next to Pa, who watched for any sign of the sulking he didn’t tolerate. I kept losing concentration on the meal and conversation and was the last one to finish. Only when I asked to be excused did I notice that Tante Jeanette was gone and Mrs. de Marigny was sitting at the table.

After Pa excused me, my bottom and I didn’t want to hear the story in the parlor. I crawled onto the bunk bed and told myself tomorrow would be better.

“Adam?” Erik rested his right hand on my shoulder and spoke softly. “Adam?”

I looked up at him from where I was sprawled on my stomach. There was no light coming in the window.

“Pa wants to talk to you.” The sky blue eyes hugged me in a way Erik’s arms couldn’t at the moment.

“Is – is it late?” I rubbed at my eyes.

He shook his head, baffled by my confusion about the time. “We just finished dessert. Ma and Joe and me are gonna wash the dishes.”

I crawled from the bed. Erik walked to the backdoor and looked over his shoulder and paused. Then he was out the door, crossing the courtyard toward the kitchen.

I didn’t intend to but I took a long time to negotiate my way to the doorway into the parlor. Pa sat leaning his elbow on the chair arm as he stared at the empty fireplace. He looked up at me when I leaned on the doorframe.

“Come in the room, please?”

I walked to the rug and as I did so his eyes went from the top of my head to my bare feet and back to my face. “Adam, your punishment is over,” Pa said softly.

For him maybe but not for me.

“Son, you left me no choice.”

I knew that. I had been disrespectful by wanting Mrs. de Marigny ill; I had been disobedient, and deceitful. Those were Pa’s three “D’s.” Committing one was grounds for physical punishment. I had managed to break all of them in one fell swoop.

He motioned with his fingers and I obeyed.

“Your mother had an influenza and the voodoo doll had nothing to do with her illness.” He kept his voice soft. He explained to me that some people considered voodoo a religion and that was their right – but he did not believe in it. He took my hands in his. “Why did you want your mother ill?”

The resentment had grown inside me for so long you would think I was glad for the chance to tell him. What I wanted to tell him more than anything was to quit calling Mrs. de Marigny my mother.

He released one of my hands and ran his right hand through my hair. Waiting patiently, he stroked my left cheek and then he slid his thumb down my nose. I expected him to say, as he often did, that I reminded him of my mother. He didn’t. Instead, he held his arms wide. All my hurt pride wanted me to stay away; my need for reassurance of his love responded. I leaned into his chest and he rubbed my back. Even during our worst times, when I had been younger and Pa had terrified me with his anger, after he had calmed down he had held me that way and had told me he loved me. He never once apologized, though. As far as he is concerned there will always be consequences for disobedience.

I took Pa’s reprimands and punishments particularly hard because I wanted to show him how much he could trust me, how proud he could be of me, how little correction I needed, and how much I valued his approval. Understanding those things at the age of eleven, I finally stood back from our hug and looked into the eyes of the man I so relied on.

And I answered his question about why I had wanted Mrs. de Marigny ill. I told him I liked it better when it was just Erik, him, and me – not intending, of course, to leave out Joe. Mrs. de Marigny always told me what to do and treated me like a child.

Pa rested his hands on my shoulders. “Your mother knows how important you are to me so she wants to take care of you. She also watches over you because she loves you. She has been lived in New Orleans longer than we have and when she tells you not to go certain places she is doing it because that place is dangerous, not because she is treating you like a child.”

His next words brought tears to my eyes because I knew he was right. He asked me to open my heart a little. “Adam, you need to understand there are times when I can give more attention to Erik or Joseph just as there are times when I can give you more attention. I’ve always been proud of the way Erik and you love each other and I’d be even more proud of you than I already am if you would try a little harder to care for someone else who is important to me. Would you do that for me? Would you please treat her with courtesy – like a gentleman?”

I rested my head against him. Although I told myself I only listened to them because Erik still liked them I asked, “Tell me a quiet story, Pa?”

Pa’s strong arms closed around my back. He rubbed between my shoulders with his right hand and kept his left hand above my waist as if he expected me to fall backwards. Then he spoke, deeply and softly. I felt his heart beat and noted the rise and fall of his chest. When I lifted my head from the pillow the next morning I was on my stomach and wearing only my shirt. A note in Pa’s strong handwriting waited for me, held in place by one of my books that lay flat on the shelf. “You fell asleep before the end of the story,” it read. “I’ll finish it tonight after Erik and Joe are asleep.” And then he had written as an afterthought because the ink was lighter, “Run Joe around today? I want him to sleep when the rest of us do.”

 

Pa allowed me to accompany him to the market the next day. We walked, with him quizzing me on math problems and me pointing out objects and asking him to guess distances.

“Pa?” I finally asked as he took his usual long, distance-eating strides. “Can you slow up a bit, please? My bottom’s still sore from the tanning.”

Pa frowned and put his hand on my back. “The what?” His tone was one of astonishment.

I stuck out my chin and put my hands in my side pockets. I knew a word that Pa didn’t know. I mocked his voice as I replied. “You’ve heard of a tanning, haven’t you?”

“I’ve heard of tanning animal hides, yes.”

“There’s more than one meaning for that word, Pa.” I milked my superiority for every drop I could get out of it.

“Other than tanning animal hides what other kind of tanning is there?” Pa was beside himself because for the moment at least I was smarter than he was.

“My friend Martin said when his father uses a belt on him they call it a tanning,” I explained.

“Where the devil is this friend of yours from?”

I kicked up the fronts of my boots a bit, pleased that Pa didn’t know everything about me. “He’s lived a bunch of places – Tennessee, Virginia, Washington.”

“And he calls a father using a belt a tanning?” He was incredulous and something of his proper New England upbringing surfaced. “Adam, tanning an animal’s hide is not a good comparison.”

That was when the wonderful word I had heard Barbara use slipped out of my mouth. “Glory, Pa, don’t go berserk.”

Pa came to a complete stop. His hands went to either side of his waist. “Where did you hear the word ‘berserk’?”

It hadn’t occurred to me that it might be one of those cuss words that Pa didn’t allow us to say. I mean how bad could it be if Barbara had used it? I leaned toward him and quietly asked, “It’s not a bad word, is it Pa?”

He twisted his lips and turned his head. “You heard it from Barbara, didn’t you?”

“Is it a bad word, Pa?” I repeated worriedly.

“An unusual one.” He ran his left hand through his hair. “Do you do this on purpose, son?”

“Do what, Pa?”

“Somehow we have gone from math and distance problems to talking about the word ‘berserk.’”

I shrugged. “I won’t talk about anything anymore.”

He laughed and rested his right arm around my shoulder. “The sun will stop rising before Adam Cartwright doesn’t discuss anything.”

I heard the pride in his voice and looked down at the sidewalk. He was teasing me by kicking up the fronts of his boots like I was.

As the days passed Pa’s words tumbled in my mind. Open my heart to Mrs. de Marigny. She no longer had to ask me to do things I knew to do. I made a practice of asking her for permission to go somewhere or do something – and I actually did what I had asked permission for. We exchanged smiles a lot more often. She welcomed all my efforts, however small.

Many afternoons I stretched out on my stomach in the parlor and read. Joe sometimes begged me to tell him a story but even the simplest ones that had held Erik spellbound soon bored him and he was off to bigger adventures. I told myself it was because he was just a little more than a year old but even then I suspected he was not as easily amused as Erik and I had been and still were. Joe was going to need to be constantly on the move and into everything. But at the same time one of the best things about him was how everything rolled off him. The day after I had been so fierce with him he gave me a big hug in the morning and told me to come see because he had helped make breakfast. I suspected Mrs. de Marigny had more to do with the cooking than Joe but he was so proud that Erik and I bragged on his talent.

A broken plate brought Mrs. de Marigny and me together finally. I don’t know why it took me until I reached the kitchen to drop the thing. The beautiful gold rimmed platter with a French scene painted on it was one of the few items of her own she had.

I had already slipped on a place on the dining room floor where someone had dropped part of his meal. As soon as Erik saw me nearly fall on my behind, he guiltily wiped up the potatoes.

And we always had to watch out for Joe on the back steps. He did not go down them one step at a time like a normal child – not even after Pa constructed a low handrail for him. Instead he walked to the edge of the porch, then turned his little bottom toward the foot of the steps and went down them backwards on his hands and knees. Years passed before we recognized his inborn fear of heights was manifesting itself even at that young age.

I nearly tripped over Joe on the steps, causing him to look up at me and yell, “Adam kill Joe, Pa!”

“There’s a problem with that – ” Pa pointed out from where he was chopping kindling. “If Adam killed you then you wouldn’t be able to tell me he had done it.”

“You talkin’ back ta Joe, Pa?”

I rolled my eyes. My bottom would have been red if I’d talked to Pa that way. But Joe was about as precocious as they come. His speech was good and his reasoning was even better.

Pa put down the axe and clapped his hands together. “When I catch you I’m gonna tickle you.”

Joe squealed and ran around the courtyard.

You would think having survived all those close calls the rest of the trip to the kitchen would have been easy. And to this day I don’t know how I did it because I had been in and out of that kitchen countless times. I’ve often wondered if it was because I was growing and my feet were longer. Probably I was looking up and not paying attention. At any rate, the results were the same. I tripped and my arms fluttered like a bird’s wings. Both of my arms. Which meant there was nothing in either hand. The precious porcelain platter splintered after it hit the brick floor.

I suppose you could call what flooded my body dismay but that is such a mild word for such a sickening feeling. Mrs. de Marigny and I were getting along so well and I understood her and was growing fond of her as I made life less hard on both of us.

She was the one who told me love was not like a pie with a limited number of slices. Instead, she said, love was like a snowball. “You have seen these, yes?” she asked. “You know then when you roll one it grows ever larger? So it is with love. You take a small amount and start rolling it and you take in more people and your love grows, it does not diminish. This makes sense?”

Of course it did.

Now I was in the kitchen, staring at the platter I was responsible for breaking. I slowly went to my knees and tried to pick up the pieces. I don’t know what I thought I would do with them. Somewhere along the way, probably when the shock of what I had done hit me, I started crying. I had been doing a lot of that lately and I was as frustrated with myself for what I thought of as a childish behavior as I was for destroying something of such value.

Mrs. de Marigny sat on her heels and grabbed my wrists. “No, Adam, you must not touch. These pieces are like the glass and they will cut you.”

“Can – can you get another one if I ask Pa for my money?” I was desperate to let her know I accepted the blame.

She touched the side of my face so gently it was as if a butterfly had landed on my cheek. “Adam, the only important thing is you.” The fact that I knew she meant it brought the same short breaths that Pa’s threats sometimes did. My heart pounded and I cried as I never had. Harder than when Pa tanned me for not reloading the rifle and longer than when he tanned me after I told him about the voodoo doll. I covered my face and wailed, probably sounding like a lost soul. Mrs. de Marigny raised me to my feet by placing her hands under my elbows but I was too embarrassed to cry on the top of her shoulder. It was the first time I had allowed myself to be so close to her and I noticed that I was a little bit taller than she was. But my break in crying was fleeting and when the tears came again I cried into her shoulder while she held one hand against the back of my neck.

“I’m sorry,” I gulped.

She knew instinctively I was no longer referring to the destroyed platter at the kitchen doorway.

“Adam,” she said softly. “You listen?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said hoarsely. I remained nestled into the top of her shoulder.

“When someone loves you in the depth of the heart you are the treasure. The treasure that is kept in the heart, it cannot be broken like the dish. You understand this, yes?”

I took a step back and rubbed at what I am sure were red eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”

“So,” she waved her left hand into the air. “We will now throw away this thing of the past. You will hold the bucket and I will dispose of the dish?”

I lifted the bucket handle and smiled at her – fully aware she, like Pa, said a lot of things that had double meaning.

In less than a week I was calling her Ma.

 

One day between Joe’s second birthday and my twelfth, Martin and I were sitting by the park laughing at an editorial in the paper when a shadow fell on us and we looked up. Pa. Martin beat me to a standing position by the blink of an eye.

Pa’s hands were in his side pockets and he smiled genially at both of us. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” He took his right hand from his pocket and extended it toward Martin. “Ben Cartwright, Adam’s father.”

“Martin Colby, sir.” An unmistakable awe showed from Martin’s large brown eyes to his open mouth. I’d never considered how tall Martin’s father might be and wondered if Pa’s height was overpowering to my friend.

“I understand you boys have been together quite a bit lately. Your parents and I have talked at several parties, Martin,” he explained. “I thought you might have dinner with us this week while your father entertains the delegation from Tennessee.”

Martin was breathless and he nodded more than once. “Yes, sir. Thank you for your invitation, Mr. Cartwright.”

“I’ll speak to your father tomorrow, then,” Pa answered. His blue eyes settled on me. “And now if you’ll excuse us I believe Adam has chores to do.”

We were no more than a block away from the park when Pa spoke again. “Do you have your mother’s permission to be with Martin?”

“Yes, Pa.”

He took a few steps and his tone eased as he looked at me from the sides of his eyes. Did I see the hint of a grin? “Break any laws?”

My jaw nearly tripped me. “No, Pa.”

A few steps more. “Back talk anyone?” I finally was sure of the humor in his voice.

I grinned and looked down at my boots. “No, Pa.”

The steps stopped. I looked up at him and his left brow went up as his eyes sparkled. We both knew it was an unusual day when I didn’t get a little smart with someone. Despite the warnings Pa usually gave me about such behavior, he recognized it as something he would never break me of. “Adam.”

Playing along with his good mood I said, “Maybe a couple of times.”

“Um hum.” We started walking again.

“Pa?”

“Um?”

I felt a need to restate my situation just so there wasn’t any misunderstanding. “I asked Ma. I’m not in trouble.”

“No, you’re not in trouble if you asked your mother’s permission,” he agreed. “But if you did sneak out and you’re lying to me we’ll take a trip to the woodshed for a necessary talking to.”

I stuffed my hands in my pockets and even though this, too, was a serious subject I gave him just a bit of back talk. “You mean a necessary talking to or a necessary talking to?”

He rested his right arm around my shoulders. “I mean a necessary talking to. Apparently you and your friend Martin call it a tanning.”

I nodded to indicate I understood. “I figured that’s what you meant.”

 

I never gave a thought to the way things were at our dinner table until two things happened. The first was when Martin ate at our house and the second was when we dined at Tante Jeanette’s home.

Martin was delivered to our house on Thursday afternoon by a grand carriage that made him look about two feet tall when he stepped from it. I knew when I saw his clothes that we were in trouble. He was dressed formally and even wore a vest and hat the way Pa did when he had business to conduct. Erik’s eyebrows rose in disbelief when Martin kissed Ma’s hand and thanked her for inviting him to dinner.

“Uh, Martin – ” Pa sounded uncomfortable. “Why don’t you take off your coat and vest? It would probably be a good idea to let Adam take your tie into the other room, too.”

Martin followed me up the three steps to the room I shared with Erik and Joe. He studied every inch of it. Erik’s and Joe’s toys paraded across a chest between our beds. My books stood and leaned on a shelf Pa had made for me. A slender coat rack held an extra shirt for each of us. I hung his vest, coat and tie over my shirt and motioned that we needed to go to the dinner table.

The entire evening was one shock after another for my friend. He watched Erik and me set the table and then couldn’t believe it when Joe was allowed to bring in a basketful of Ma’s fresh croissants. Erik and I went out to the kitchen to retrieve the other food and when we returned everyone waited for Ma to sit down and then we sat. We aren’t one of those families that hold hands while we say grace but we do fold our hands. Erik got the giggles during the prayer and Pa asked if he needed a talk to remind him how to behave. Erik assured Pa he didn’t.

From that point on, though, we joked, imitated one another, swapped riddles, tried to make up a story more outlandish than the last brother had told, asked for seconds, discussed articles in the newspaper, defended our opinions, and argued with Pa about whether potatoes knew they were going to die when they were dug from the garden.

Martin didn’t move for five minutes and when he did he was so quiet you would have been convinced he didn’t have a voice. I wondered if he couldn’t get a word in edgewise and then I recalled him telling me how he was expected to sit still while his parents and their guests discussed business and politics. He was probably expecting Ma and Pa to ask him about where he had lived and whom he had met and what he thought about land speculation. But he’d underestimated them. They treated him like one of us and when he finally quit looking at Pa like he expected my father to eat him alive along with the meal he started to enjoy himself.

Ma and Pa didn’t talk down to us and they always took into account that we were boys. There was no great sin involved when Erik accidentally tipped over his glass and I had so much trouble getting a section of fish to stay on my fork that it finally splattered on the floor. Erik burped loudly causing Joe to jump in surprise. He apologized right before I accidentally kicked Ma under the table. Then Erik and I bent over in laughing fits when Joe sneezed and splattered Pa with rice. Pa pretended to be angry and sent Joe into squeals of delight as he “westled the lion” just as Erik had when he was small.

Erik and Ma cleared the table because it was their turn and then Ma teasingly asked if we were too full for dessert. We shouted, “No!”

She shook her head and said she thought perhaps we simply did not wish to hurt her feelings and again we shouted but this time it was, “Dessert!”

After the table was cleared, we settled in the parlor and played pick-up sticks, our usual hand shadows, and riddles. Finally it was time for one of Pa’s stories. He held Joe on his lap and warned him that he would brook no disturbance. “Joe listen fow Pa,” came the promise.

Pa’s ability to keep making up stories was amazing. I never heard him tell the same one twice. But it wasn’t Pa’s ability to tell stories that had Martin spellbound; it was the fact that he shared them with us. More than once Martin’s eyes roved around the room – to Ma sewing on her latest project, to Pa leaning back in his chair and holding a sleepy, nodding Joe, to a spellbound Erik who hung on Pa’s every word.

Martin was astonished.

“They’re nice,” Martin said when we returned to my room to fetch his vest and other clothing. “You mother is kind and your father is – well, he isn’t nearly as – well – “

I had never known Martin to be at a loss for words.

His thank you to Ma and Pa was heartfelt and made me feel sorry for him in a way I can’t express. Something about our friendship changed. I didn’t know what it was until months later – he had been many places and had met all kinds of interesting people but I had a real family.

 

That weekend we visited Tante Jeanette. Since we’d been with her several times before, Erik and I were looking forward to it about as much as having a splinter pulled. When we first met her Tante Jeanette was nice enough and I had the feeling she and Ma were close. But Tante Jeanette married into an acceptable, old money family and she was about as formal a woman as I’d ever met. I sure couldn’t imagine her playing marbles with Pa, Erik, and me in the parlor the way Ma did.

That was another thing – us using the term “ma” came close to ruining Tante Jeanette’s nerves. “Can they not be taught to say maman and papa ?” she asked. “It is a small thing, yes?” I wondered why, if it was a small thing, it bothered her but I knew that kind of back talk would put me on Pa’s bad side – and ever since I’d felt his belt on my backside I’d been careful to stay on his good side.

She was also one of the least easy people around boys I have ever known. We were on our best behavior and obeyed the silent signals from Pa about when and where to sit. A slight shake of his head indicated we should remain quiet. But all the same she put her hand to her cheek or looked at Ma wide-eyed and asked how Ma and Pa could control all three of us at once. By the time dinner was served her tense nerves were affecting everyone. When two-year-old Joe tasted something he didn’t like and let it roll off his tongue back to his plate Pa scolded him. He dropped his arms to his sides in defeat and sobbed. Pa excused himself and Joe. He picked up my little brother and patted him on the back as Joe hugged into him. “Joe do wong, Pa?” he whimpered.

“Joe is doing just fine,” Pa comforted. By then they were in the hallway and I heard Pa’s boot falls head for the front porch where he could sit in a rocker and let Joe drift to sleep in his arms. I wished I were with them.

The food was fair. I dabbled at mine – it wasn’t near as good as Ma’s even on a bad day – and then I decided I’d better make a better show of not wasting food in case Pa came back in to check on us. I sat up as straight as I could, dabbed the corners of my mouth with my napkin, declined politely when the servant offered seconds, and prayed the executioner would appear and put me out of my misery.

Pa finally reappeared. Joe was sound asleep and hung limply over Pa’s shoulder. As I said before, cannon fire couldn’t have stirred him. Pa laid Joe on a settee in the dining room and Tante Jeanette’s eyes widened. I started to tell her not to worry because Joe no longer wet the bed but I knew what would strike me as funny would not be amusing to her. Pa returned to his place at the table to eat his cold meal and, once again, Tante Jeanette expressed displeasure.

“Surely you do not allow Joseph to disturb your meals so?” she asked Pa.

Since Pa had just bitten into a cold shrimp, Ma answered. “The hour is later than when Joseph is accustomed to eating, Jeanette. He was fatigued.”

“Then perhaps the children should eat earlier and allow Benjamin and you to eat at a decent time?”

I was getting a little tired of Tante Jeanette’s meddling into my family’s life.

Ma saw me tense and held up her right palm ever so slightly above the tabletop. “We enjoy our meals with our sons, Jeanette. We would have it no other way.”

Her sister shook her head and observed that no one ate as early as children.

As if the dinner hadn’t been torture enough, we “adjourned” to the parlor for entertainment. Erik and I considered hand shadows, jokes, drawing, singing silly songs with Ma, Pa’s stories, learning French from Ma, and guessing games as entertainment. Tante Jeanette’s entertainment was a hired white-haired short woman playing a small instrument that looked like the result of breeding a piano with a harp.

I just thought the dinner had been dreadful. We were expected to sit as silently as the adults. We couldn’t even have an after-dinner drink as Ma and Pa did to lull us into a stupor. The entertainment, I decided, was punishment for every bad thing I had ever done in my life. It was even worse than Pa’s belt on my bare bottom. Well – no, it wasn’t worse because surely it wouldn’t hurt as long. Would it?

In danger of falling over the precipice into eternal numbness, I couldn’t believe my good fortune when the music ended and the adults stood to say good night. I thanked Tante Jeanette for the meal and the evening and, renewed, raced Erik to the carriage Pa had arranged for us to ride in. We forgot all our manners and vaulted in before Pa, carrying Joe on his shoulder, could help Ma up the steps. As soon as the carriage had pulled away from the house the same idea occurred to Erik as it hit me. Out of relief from all the strain we had experienced we wailed what we could remember of the last song in a horrible off-key version that should have sent every dog in the neighborhood into a howling fit. Then we fell against each other and held our stomachs as we laughed. The result of all our boyish roughhousing was that I tumbled to the carriage floor and fell on my back. Something about that sent us into gales of laughter.

Pa nudged my right ribs with the toe of his boot. “Can’t I take you anywhere you little upstart?”

My heart stopped as I realized we might be offending Ma. I slowly sat up, my backside foremost in my thoughts.

“The next time they misbehave,” she said to Pa and her lips turned up at the edges, “we tell them we bring them to Jeanette’s and they will how-you-say straighten up tout de suite.”

Erik frowned and leaned over me. His speech had improved but he still had that hysterical way of thinking. “Why are you talking about tooting, Ma?”

Pa rolled his eyes. “Don’t let him start, Marie. It’ll never end.”

Did she heed his advice? Nope. “Tout de suite. It means – um – a bit like quickly, all at once.”

“Like magic?” Erik asked.

“I do not understand,” Ma answered. Heaven help her she was trying to make sense of the conversation.

“Things disappear all at once in magic. Adam and me saw this man at the square and he made one of Adam’s coins disappear all at once and it never did come back. Not quick or all at once or anything.”

Why did Erik have to tell them about that? He never told them about the smart things I did – only the stupid ones.

Pa looked down at me and raised his left eyebrow. “Learn your lesson?”

I nodded because I was too embarrassed to say anything.

Ma shook her head, mystified. “How is it that we come from tout de suite to Adam losing a coin?”

“I’m warning you,” Pa said. “Stop while you’re ahead.”

“Pa, she’s more than a head. She’s got arms and legs and – what?” Erik stopped in mid-sentence when Pa frowned at him.

“Not another word.”

Erik was confused – which signaled even more problems. “Pa?”

“Erik.”

“I didn’t say a cuss word or anything bad, Pa. And I was real good at Auntie Jeanette’s and I ate the food even if it wasn’t as good as Ma’s and I said ‘ma’am’ and ‘sir’ and I did what you said. What’d I do wrong that I can’t talk?” Something about his argument sounded vaguely familiar.

“You better get quiet or he’s gonna stuff his boot down your throat,” I warned. Something about my threat sounded familiar, too.

Erik’s chest swelled with confrontation. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Pa passed Joe to Ma and grabbed Erik’s left arm and my right one. We quickly jumped back, sat down, and watched him like two little sparrows keeping nervous eyes on an eagle. When he leaned forward I closed my eyes. The next thing I knew Pa’s strong right hand was over my ribs, tickling me until I wiggled all over the seat. I could hear Erik’s high-pitched giggle beside me.

“I can’t take you two scamps anywhere,” he said when he quit horsing around with us.

Ma winked at him. “They are much like their father.”

Pa grinned until his eyes sparkled like Erik’s did sometimes. I would have given anything to know what she meant by that.

 

Erik didn’t think it was fair that our little brother didn’t have to go to school when the public system was established in New Orleans. But I was thirteen and cherished the idea of education from someone other than Ma, Pa, and Mrs. de Ville. Not that they weren’t good teachers but – well – they could only spend so much time with me and this way I could have the better part of a day in a classroom. Despite the warnings I often received at home for talking back I never was in trouble in school. I think that fact surprised Pa a little.

Even more surprising for Pa was the way mild-mannered Erik changed. He was seeing how close he could get to that invisible line we knew Pa had drawn and I kept warning him it didn’t pay to tangle with Pa. I tried to protect my Erik. He was tall for his age and wound up in fights with someone who was picking on boys he considered underdogs. I warned Erik and he just rolled his eyes and told me to mind my own perfect-son business. Erik’s attitude, my fear for his behind if he didn’t straighten up, and the temper we had inherited from Pa boiled over into shouting matches between the two of us that the neighbors probably heard. Ma sure did. She would come into our room with a scowl on her pretty face and tell us to stop fighting and to shake hands immediately.

Then the problems started. I mean the real problems. After dinner one evening, Ma asked Erik to help clear the table and he told her he would do it when he could. Pa’s shoulders tensed.

“Erik, your mother asked you to do something. You are expected to obey her.”

My brother let out a deep sigh and I witnessed something I hadn’t in years. He stalked over to Pa, swinging his arms like he owned the world, and said, “I can’t do everything, Pa. I don’t give you any trouble about going to school; I do my chores; I say ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ to grown-ups; I eat what’s put in front of me; I help take care of Joe; I’ve set the table and done the dishes enough to last me the rest of my life; and I visit Mrs. de Ville because you tell me I have to. What else am I supposed to do?”

I don’t know where Ma’s and Pa’s patience sprang from. Pa never had much of a source when I was young.

Erik stiffened just as Pa did. “I can’t obey Ma ‘cause I have to finish the chores you gave me.”

“You should have explained that to your mother.”

My brother rolled his eyes. “If I spent all my time explaining around here I’d never get anything done.” Declaration delivered, he turned on his heels and left the room.

Dark clouds built on the Cartwright horizon. Luckily Ma and Joe were at the market so they didn’t witness when the storm broke wide open on a Saturday afternoon. I was enjoying myself as I worked on math problems at the dining table. Pa sat across from me, studying business papers and making entries in an accounting book. It was one of those comfortable quite times we often shared. But it didn’t last long.

Erik wandered in from the courtyard and I could tell from the set of his jaw that he was looking for trouble. “I’m going to Jonah’s,” he announced. Jonah was the friend he had learned “shoot” and “ain’t” from. He had also learned some bad habits and choice words that I had warned him about.

I had never told Pa I was going somewhere. I said, “I’d like to go to Martin’s if you don’t have anything else for me to do” or “May I go over to Henri’s, Pa?” But to flat out announce I was going somewhere – no, I wanted to live a long, productive life.

Pa closed his account book and thumped his pencil on the tabletop. “Who gave you permission to go to Jonah’s?” I heard the patience in Pa’s voice thinning and wondered why Erik didn’t. Leaving the room was not an option for me because my brother blocked my only way out. So I concentrated on my math – or tried to.

“I don’t need permission.”

Ut oh. This was not getting any better.

“You’ll do well to watch your attitude.” Pa’s blue eyes darkened. “Now.”

Life was going to be bad if my middle brother didn’t snap to attention.

“I don’t want to watch my attitude,” Erik challenged. I clasped my fingers behind my neck. Erik stepped right up to the table.

Pa didn’t say a word. That aggravated the devil out of Erik. “Dammittohell, Pa, you ain’t being fair!”

My ears popped in the silence that followed. I spared a look at Pa. His stunned expression quickly gave way to seething anger. Erik, who stayed upset about as long as a flea hop, backed away. He paled with the realization of what he had said.

“I’m sorry, Pa.” He reached toward Pa in a supplicating way I wouldn’t have had the nerve to do. In response, Pa grabbed the upper part of his right arm. “Pa, I’m sorry,” came the broken-hearted plea.

He should have saved the effort. He begged all the way out of the house. I knew Pa was taking him to the woodshed and I was glad for two things: Pa didn’t take his belt off the wall and I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t tell you I was happy it wasn’t me Pa had a hold of.

I didn’t know what had happened out in the woodshed when I ventured up the steps to our room. I climbed a few rungs on the ladder nailed to our bunk beds. Just as he had when we had been little, Erik had thrown himself on his bed and had cried into his pillow until I was sure he would make himself sick. Finally he rolled his head toward where I stood on the ladder. I wondered what, if anything, I should say to him.

He indulged in another round of wailing and then slowly, with an occasional whimper, came to a stop.

“If you want to stay on Pa’s good side, you better not use cuss words,” I told him not for the first time. Finally he listened.

Erik managed to sob, “I ain’t g– gonna anymore, Adam.”

“Use dagnabit or dadgumit or some of those other ones Jonah says.”

“Those won’t get me in trouble?”

“Nope.”

“Good ’cause I don’t ever want to go to the woodshed with Pa again. It was
so bad, Adam. Pa talked me to – to death and then he nearly spanked me to
death, too.”

Erik had been disrespectful to Pa and all Pa had done was spank him?

I narrowed my eyes and leaned almost in his face. “He didn’t use a shutter slat? He just used his hand?”

Erik wiped at his eyes. “His hand hurts something fierce, Adam.”

“Oh quit your bawling!” I shouted as I jumped from the ladder to the floor. “It’s not like he broke your legs or something!”

“I’m impressed by your compassion,” Pa said from the doorway to our room. He stood with a boot on the bottom step and a hand on each side of the doorframe. Once again I was bothered by the fact that I couldn’t read his eyes. “That wood won’t chop itself, Adam.” He lowered his left hand so I could walk past him.

Just as I reached the steps, feeling I’d been dealt a walloping amount of injustice, I muttered, “It isn’t fair.”

Pa chose to give me some rein even though he understood exactly what I was protesting. “The three of us take our turn at the chore, son.”

I looked at him and noticed how I was closer to height when I stood on the top step. “I’m not talking about chopping wood, Pa.”

He tilted his head and I could read his eyes then. “Oh yes you are,” he warned, giving me my last chance.

I had a feeling Erik’s spanking had warmed up Pa’s arm and Pa was ready to take a shutter slat to my bottom. I went outside to obey orders.

Erik’s behavior improved remarkably following that spanking and the talk he had with Pa after I left the room. He was much more like his usual easygoing self. Erik may not have done as well as me in school but you better believe he’s a fast learner. I noticed that he started saying mostly “Yes, sir” instead of “Yes, Pa” after that, and he rushed to obey any time Pa or Ma delivered an order. And I’m pretty sure I haven’t heard him swear since.

 

Martin and his family had taken a trip and he finally returned about a week after Erik learned his lesson from Pa. He never said where he’d been and I never asked. We were young and that kind of thing didn’t matter. We were just happy to be reunited. Martin was kind and allowed Erik to tag along with the two of us although I sensed more than once that we bored Erik. At least until we made an amazing discovery a bit farther down the square than we had ventured before. It was the food of the gods, cool and sweet and guaranteed to make you forget all your problems. We discovered the joy of iced cream.

My worldly friend told me how it was made and the way people had to dig deep icehouses to store it. Knowing New Orleans’ water table I didn’t believe a word of what he said. It didn’t occur to me that ice could be imported packed in straw and other insulating materials. The first time we ate the confection I had a headache that convinced me I would die. Erik froze his throat. After that we slowed down and approached iced cream with respect.

Our secret was closely guarded until Pa found us one day. I looked up at him guiltily and swiped at my mouth with my shirtsleeve. I was afraid he would scold us for wasting our money or for eating something that wasn’t what Ma and he called “good food.” But Pa always has surprised me. He reminded us not to ruin our appetite for dinner and then walked away to buy a pecan and sugar candy. I laughed but Erik was a little baffled.

“He’s not mad?” my brother asked.

How could I explain that sometimes our pa was as much a boy as we were?

Erik was a bit more activity oriented than Martin and I. For fun we ambled out to some property Martin’s father owned, saddled two horses, and enjoyed a couple of races while Martin timing us. Erik was nowhere near the horseman I was but he enjoyed every minute of the rides and when we reached our destinations he always tried to catch me off balance and throw me from the horse.

In October of that year, Martin met me at one of the benches in a residential area. His eyes were more red than brown and his face was pale. When I asked him what was wrong he didn’t answer.

There was only one thing I could imagine that could cause such a reaction. “Are you in trouble?” I ventured.

He shook his head.

I was mystified. If he wasn’t in trouble then what was wrong?

“We’re leaving.”

I knew what he meant but I chose not to understand it. “What do you mean leaving? Like to go away for a while?”

Martin took a deep breath. “We’re moving back to Virginia.”

There it was again. Just when I felt close to someone they were gone – Inger, Dieter, Barbara, and now Martin. I could identify with the moving around Martin’s family did; I’d grown up on the trail until we had settled in New Orleans.

But I wanted to leave people behind on my terms.

I sought any way to continue our friendship. “There’s a mail route, isn’t there?”

Martin was more realistic than I was. He smiled ever so slightly. “We can try it.”

We sat on the bench until Martin decided it was time to go home. He stood and held out his hand as he had the day we’d met. He sounded too old for our age when he said, “Best of luck, Adam. Get to California for both of us?”

I couldn’t return home crying the way I was so I leaned against a tree and finally got my emotions under control. I managed to walk, although my throat was tight and hot and my face felt burned.

Each summer, when it was time for the fever, my family left town; we could afford to by then because Pa and a partner had gone into the steamboat supply business. Most of the time we went upriver or to Mississippi. Mrs. de Ville was no longer visiting her country home and one time when we passed on the road near it I noticed a name on a plaque beside the gates.

“Why did Mrs. de Ville do that?” I asked from the back of the wagon.

Ma gave Pa what I had come to recognize as the “You must be truthful” look.

Pa motioned for me to climb up front and sit between Ma and him. I did so a little gingerly, wondering if was planning to stop the wagon and put me across his knees – although for once my conscience was clean as the air after a rain.

He asked me if I remembered when we spent the summer at Mrs. de Ville’s country home. “I didn’t know it at the time, son, but she was selling it.”

Sell? How could she give up such a beautiful home?

Pa didn’t wait for any more questions. “She sold it to a wealthy planter. He grows cotton.”

I knew what cotton was and how important it was to New Orleans’ economy and I was beginning to have an idea what the human cost was to grow and pick the crop.

“How could she do that?” I finally asked aloud and with hindsight I recognize it was one of the few times Pa misunderstood me. I had meant how could she part with the house – Pa thought I meant how could she sell to someone who owned slaves. “Sometimes our friends disappoint us, Adam. But hopefully it never comes to a point where we can’t agree on everything – friends are an important part of life.”

My thoughts turned to Martin and the fact that there had been no mail from Virginia.

 

Part 3

The summer I turned fourteen and Erik turned ten he was as tall as I was. It didn’t take much of a brain to figure out that when he was full-grown he would be Pa’s height and maybe taller as well as heavier set than Joe or I. Because Erik and I were the same size – well, height – Ma and Pa no longer forbid us from wrestling, knocking each other over, dunking each other in the clear ponds, pretend boxing, and all the other things we’d been doing behind their backs.

All of Erik’s and my adventures couldn’t begin to compare to Joe’s escapades when he turned four years old. Because Ma and Pa were attending more dances and civic functions they left me in charge at home and I would have loved to let the responsibility pass to Erik. I can’t recall the half of what Joe got into – I purposely blocked it from my memory. A few, however, stand out in my mind: the time he found one of my pencils and drew a picture of our family on the parlor wall and then showed great talent by decorating the wall behind Ma’s and Pa’s bed with an anatomically correct dog. I guess he was paying more attention to Thaddeus than I’d thought. Following in his older brothers’ footsteps he delighted in peeing in the courtyard – except he liked to hit the bricks and, well, you can imagine it from there. We washed him off regularly. He climbed the iron gate and then called for one of us to come get him. We threatened to leave him but Joe said he’d tell Pa and we relented.

My little brother enjoyed climbing and probably would have been better on roofs than I was except for one problem: he had a fear of heights that grew in direct proportion to his years. Erik or I rescued him on such a regular basis that we took turns. Except for the time Joe climbed the tree in the courtyard, got way up where a huge limb branched off the main trunk, and then yelled for us. We started with the ladder. That got me nowhere near him. I coaxed, begged, ordered, and even offered candy but he would not climb down to me. The only thing left was for me to climb to him since I was lighter-weight than Erik. I wasn’t sure the same limbs that had held Joe would hold me. They bounced and creaked. Finally I grabbed a screaming Joe by his trousers, propped him on one hip, and prayed to God that Ma and Pa wouldn’t lose both of us. When we were safely standing on the bricks of the courtyard, Joe dusted his hands and declared, “Joe wasn’t afwaid.” He would have done well to be afraid of me.

All the time I was thirteen and into my fourteenth year life was fine at home and school except for an occasional bout of back talk on my part that elicited a warning look and stern talk from Pa. Even though everything on the surface was smooth something was festering deep inside me. Now I know it for what it was – something every boy that age needs to be on guard against. It was unexplainable rebellion.

 

Erik learned his lesson about crossing Pa and you would think I had learned from my various experiences. But I needed to test the limit. Ma and Pa didn’t worry about me because they were wearing themselves out keeping up with Joe. Besides, I continued to do well at school. Then I received a bit too much education. Henri and the rest of us fell in with two boys I wish to this day I had never met – Jeremiah and Solomon. Their names were the only holy things about them. Like Pa has always told us, a person can’t make you do something you don’t want to do. I maintain, though, they can give you a mighty big shove down the path.

Jeremiah and Solomon were not the brightest students but in the interest of being fair they were not the worst. They did the minimum they could get by with at school and spent the rest of their time thinking up pranks and dares for after school. I had early chores at home on the mornings I didn’t exercise Temptation so I was wide-awake by the time I arrived at school. Jeremiah and Solomon were less aware and I was a little slow in understanding why their eyes were so bloodshot. I didn’t like them but something about them fascinated me. I learned a big lesson because of that.

The trouble started on a small scale. I left home early to meet them and smoke cigarettes and quickly advanced to cigars. I declined the bourbon. When I arrived home after dark one too many times and couldn’t offer a suitable explanation – actually I didn’t want to offer a suitable explanation because I wanted to see just how far I could push him – Pa took me out to the woodshed for an unpleasant experience. Since we knew that Joe was afraid of falling, Pa removed the nails that kept our window from being raised above a certain height and I roof walked again. I delighted in doing something Pa knew nothing about, more than once thinking how stupid he was to not catch on to my old trick. I went out with Gus, Henri, Jeremiah, and Solomon. At first my conscience chewed at me but then the sheer danger of what we wanted to do hushed my training. Along with my cohorts, I gathered up rocks and damaged several shop windows along Canal Street. Having gotten away with so much by then, and feeling remarkably invincible, we worked on improving our aim and shattered three stained glass windows in newly built homes. Pa caught me sneaking back in the window that night and demanded an accounting for my disobedience. When I tossed my head back and insolently told him I didn’t owe him anything he hauled me to the woodshed again. He hadn’t gone back to using his belt but the swats he delivered with the shutter slat would have stopped a less stubborn boy. My determination to get away with my offenses was outdone only by the strength of Pa’s swing. Every time he hit my behind the swats got harder. I didn’t even yelp because I was determined I would win the battle even if I had no idea why I was fighting him.

Then I did the most witless thing of my life. There is no way I could ever top it if I live to be a hundred. Glory how I wish Martin had been there to talk to.

The most witless thing I ever did started with the words “I bet you.” Always be wary when someone beyond the age of nine says those words. They will lead to trouble as sure as a lightning strike in dry weather will produce a wildfire.

The five of us friends were wandering around the square, killing time when I should have been home doing my after school chores. Henri, Gus and Jeremiah were wealthy; Solomon was about like me – not wealthy but not at poverty’s doorstep. Jeremiah stopped and twisted his lips and we all knew he was thinking. He stuck his hands in his pockets, threw out his chest as he tried to look imminently important, and grinned in a way that made my neck hairs stand.

For reasons I still don’t fully understand – since he was one of the wealthy kids – he announced, “I bet you no one can steal a loaf of bread.” His voice was full of brag. The rest of us looked at him in confusion so he continued. “Four of us can distract folks and the fifth one can steal a loaf of bread.”

I asked why and he said just for the fun of doing it. It didn’t sound like much fun to me but the longer we talked about it, and the more we plotted the diversion, the deeper I got until I was up to my neck and couldn’t swim out. I was elected the first one to try to steal the loaf of bread because of my innocent face. Innocent face? I’d been breaking windows, sneaking out at night, smoking cigars, and I had an innocent face? I was afraid to ask what a criminal looked like.

Strolling along by the open-air shops, I pretended I was looking for something for my mother – at least that was the impression I hoped I was giving. Suddenly Gus yelled out and my friends pretended that Henri had stolen money from Jeremiah. The noise and running caught everyone’s attention and I grabbed the loaf of bread.

We’d overlooked one important thing in our brainy plot: I had no place to hide the bread. A strong hand locked around my wrist and I fearfully raised my eyes to the most no-nonsense policeman I had seen. “Aren’t you one of the Cartwright boys?” he asked in a gruff voice. I considered telling him I was an orphan and had only taken the bread because I was starving. But one look at me showed a well-fed fourteen-year-old. “Let’s go,” he said and I just knew I was headed for a lifetime in prison. Actually a worse fate awaited me. He walked beside me to Pa’s business and made me stand there while he told Pa what I had done in the market. And then I lost my breath when he told Pa that I fit the description of one of the boys who had been seen throwing rocks at the shop windows. It was another one of those times I wished the floor would open up and gulp me down.

I just thought I had seen Pa angry before. The way he looked at me made the time he’d taken me to task in the alleyway for being rude to Ma seem like a friendly conversation. He slammed down the book he was working with, told his partner he was leaving for the day, put his hand to my back, and all but pushed me out the front door. We walked home in icy silence. We made a quick pass through the house where he took his belt off the wall and I knew what was coming all the way to the woodshed.

“Would you like to tell me what you were thinking?” I knew the words were not a request but a hard-edged order.

All my previous bluster disappeared as I watched the belt. It was time for a “sir.” I looked him in the eyes and said, “Yes, sir, Pa.”

He motioned with his left hand. “Well?”

As I told him about what I had done in the market and how I had sneaked out of the house to damage the shop windows I began to suspect he would find out about my other “adventures.” In fact I was sure of it and I didn’t want to feel his belt ever again after this time. So I told him about everything, even the fact that I had declined the bourbon since it was the only action in my favor.

Pa stared as if he didn’t know me and I guess he felt like he didn’t. There I stood – his oldest and most responsible son; the one with whom he had shared all the difficult times; the one who had until recently performed chores without direction; the one who loved school and never gave his teachers a moment of trouble; and, truth told, the one most like Pa – and I had confessed to weeks of crime.

“You will apologize to the people whose homes you damaged,” he said after a long, uncomfortable delay. “You will apologize to the shop owners whose windows you broke and if they request it you will work for them after school until you have repaid them for the damage.” His left hand came up and he pointed at me as if he held a pistol. “And if you ever climb on that roof again I will have your hide. Do I make myself clear?”

I assured him that he did, all the time looking at his belt.

There was no more discussion. He turned me by my shoulders and ordered me to take down my trousers. It was the worst tanning of my life.

 

When Ma called us to dinner I walked slowly, dreading sitting on my bottom. I eased into my chair and as I straightened, sucking air through clenched teeth, Erik did the same thing. I raised my eyebrows at him and he shook his head. Somehow we both managed to eat. But Erik didn’t have his usual appetite – in fact he left food on his plate. We both politely declined dessert and asked to be excused.

As soon as we were in our room, I turned toward my brother. “What happened to you?”

“I’m guessin’ the same thing that happened to you,” he said morosely.

“I hope not.” I plopped on my bunk bed – on my stomach.

Erik leaned on the windowsill and looked down at his boots. “The way I hear it we all crossed Pa today.”

I raised my head. “Joe?”

Erik nodded. “Pa spanked him so hard he cried pretty much until dinner.”

I rose on my elbows. “Joe cried?”

“Everywhere he went. He’d rub his hands into his eyes and stop a minute and then he’d start crying again.”

“Pa didn’t get mad?”

Erik pushed away from the windowsill. “I think he started to but then he saw how miserable Joe was and he eased back.”

I didn’t believe what I had heard. “He never would have done that with me.”

“Me, either.” Erik climbed the ladder and fell on to his bunk – on his stomach. “I’m going to sleep.”

“Take off your boots,” I reminded. First one and then the other dropped past me and hit the floor. “By the way, Erik. When you were little you’d cry and Pa would hold you and pat your back until you were better.”

“He don’t anymore. He ain’t done it in a long, long time.”

I didn’t let him know I heard his sniffles start. Instead I told him good night. He answered back. And then we both fell into silence.

As he always did, Pa told me my punishment was over after he tanned me. When I apologized to the home and shop owners I found only one who took me to task and he was known to be impossible for anyone to get along with. How he stayed in business was a mystery to me. I exercised Temptation when my behind was better and worked so hard at school that my teacher advanced me to the next level. But things weren’t the same. Despite what he had said about my punishment being over I experienced a concern I had never felt before: that I had irrevocably disappointed the man I most admired – why else would Pa have physically hurt me more than he ever had – and that Pa loved me out of a feeling of obligation and not out of the wellspring of his heart.

Did it occur to me that Pa was pre-occupied with the trouble his partner and he had keeping good workers? Did I ever think he was devoting more time to balancing the ledgers? Of course not. I was so absorbed in feeling sorry for myself I didn’t notice he was unable to give any of the family much of his time.

I should have known Pa would drop everything when one of us needed him. He had done it all my life and he didn’t fail me when, a week after my tanning, I returned home from school and walked to the kitchen to ask Ma what chores Pa had told her to have me to do. She turned from the oven with tears in her eyes and I could tell from the damp spots on her apron they were not the first she had cried. It took a lot to make fun-loving Ma cry and I walked to her to hold her shoulders. Darkness closed around me as she told me Thaddeus had died. In his sleep, she added, as if that would help. I bit my lower lip, told myself I wouldn’t cry, convinced myself he had lived a long life, and then I grabbed her and shook in grief.

When my knees were strong enough, and my voice returned, I asked her where he was. She led me across the street and through the iron gate to Mrs. de Ville’s backyard. The water table was too high for underground graves, and anyhow there were laws against them, but Mrs. de Ville had found a way of getting around the regulations – as she always did. Two of her men were putting the finishing touches on a brick and masonry raised tomb for Thaddeus that everyone else would think served as the base for a statue she had brought back from Italy.

I couldn’t breathe and I gasped for air, my lips quivered as I felt myself slipping into that familiar dark hole. I cried for Dieter, lost years ago; for Martin, lost when I most needed him; and for Thaddeus, who had shared so much of my life. Ma had never heard my breathing stop, had never been helpless as I gasped for air, and had never seen me slide into the black hole. I heard the beginning of her screaming my name. I did not hear the end.

Pa revived me almost the same way he had after bringing the news of Dieter’s death. I was older though and taller, so he couldn’t rest me completely across his knees as he sat on the bed. Instead he bent me across one knee, pushed my head down, and held a cool rag to my throat. Ma handed him a small bottle and said, “I do not know if they still work, Benjamin.” Whatever they were the smell shot into my nose. I could taste the odor in the back of my mouth and fought Pa to release me. He popped my behind and told me to keep my head down until I was breathing the way I should. When I finally settled into shallow but even breaths everyone except Pa left the room. He pulled off my boots and socks, unbuttoned my trousers, hung them on the clothes tree, and – with his arms under mine – helped me into bed. I idly wondered how I had gotten to my room. Pa stayed with me until I fell into a sound sleep. How could any boy think his father didn’t care after that?

I wasn’t myself for weeks following Thaddeus’ death. I did school work on my bed and sought no help from either parent. I stared blankly at the fireplace as Pa told his stories. I quietly answered, “Yes, Pa” when he gave me an order. I didn’t participate in conversations at the table because my heart wasn’t in it. I pretended to be asleep when Ma and Pa came up to our room to tell us good night. The day Ma gave me a new book I thanked her and put it on my shelf without looking at it. I even quit working with Temptation.

One night when I couldn’t sleep, I wandered to the door from our bedroom but stopped short when Ma’s voice came to me in the stillness. “It is not a faint, Benjamin. I have seen this with the foolish women who would be stylish.”

Pa’s voice was soft and rich. “It’s only happened twice, Marie, when he couldn’t face something sad.”

She made a disapproving sound. “He was sad when Erik’s mother died, yes?”

“Well,” Pa hesitated and the bed creaked. “Yes, but he was young.”

“It does not matter. He does not do this because he cannot as you say ‘face something sad.’ He does it because of the air.”

No one could have mistaken the surprised tone as Pa whispered, “Marie, you’re too intelligent to believe that the graveyard – “

Some people believed that the graveyard air was tainted and once you had gone through it at night, as I had years before, you could become ill or have trouble breathing.

“I speak not of the graveyard.” Her interruption was adamant. “I speak of this air. It is too wet and it is not always easy to breathe. Adam takes hurt to heart – and this and the air brings the short breaths.”

Pa was quiet a long time. “We can’t keep him away from hurt. Life is full of it.”

Ma was irritated. “But do you not see? If we leave here as you have hoped, if we follow the way to California, he will breathe good there.”

I stood absolutely still. California? Ma was talking about California! She couldn’t foresee that when we reached Eagle Station, and then when we started our ranch, I would have a red nose, sniffles, and itchy eyes for three months of the year. I think it’s something about the pines.

My joy threatened to dissolve when Pa didn’t speak. But finally he said, “Well, the business climate is better. I’ll speak to Franklin. I would need to sell my partnership.”

We were doing it – thanks to Ma we were heading to California!

“It will take time.” Pa’s voice grew mischievous. “What do you think we can do while we wait?”

Ma’s low giggle caused me to blush and I tiptoed back to our bedroom.

 

We were headed to California! I never had so much trouble keeping a secret in all my life. I grinned like an idiot every day. Pa gave me puzzled looks and Ma leaned back several times with her head to one side as she tried to read my mind.

“Come on, Adam,” Erik begged as we were carrying wood to the shed. “You’re up to something.”

“Nope.”

“I’m gonna tell Pa and he’ll make you tell.”

I stared Erik in the eyes. You understand that meant I had to look up. “Even Pa can’t make me tell,” I bragged.

“Even Pa can’t make you tell what?” Pa smiled as he held one of Joe’s wooden toys he was sanding yet again. Our littlest brother was hard on possessions.

I drew myself to my full height. Among Pa, Erik, and me I was by far the shortest. “It’s a secret and I’m not telling.”

Pa nodded. “As long as it won’t get you or one of your brothers hurt I think a man keeping a secret is his own business.”

“Aw, Pa!” Erik wailed.

“When you’ve finished with that wood, Erik, your mother has a chore or two for you in the kitchen. I think one involves flour.”

Erik grinned. He still liked to get the stuff all over Joe and himself.

No matter what changed around us – friends moved away, we lost Thaddeus, Erik occasionally gave Jonah a wide berth, and I didn’t even see Jeremiah and Solomon except when I couldn’t avoid them at school – Ma kept our family traditions alive. Birthdays were always celebrated with a wonderful confection and candy for whoever had turned a year older.

Pa’s stories after dinner grew progressively outlandish and Ma’s ability to skip didn’t improve any. Erik and I reasoned that since we were older she had to be, too. We had become more skilled at things like jumping rope so surely she could now skip. But some people are doomed to failure. We worked with her almost every afternoon. Even four-year-old Joe got the hang of it. Pa tried to teach her in the back courtyard because he wasn’t about to be seen indulging in a child’s activity out front. Our efforts were to no avail.

When the weather was rainy or downright unpleasant, about two hundred days out of the year, we continued our habit of gathering in the parlor after dinner. I perfected pick-up sticks until no one could beat me. Ma taught me how to play chess. I watched closely, decided it was a game of math and logic, and soon no one would play with me. Erik and Joe wrestled with Pa on the rug but I considered myself too old for such horseplay. I read.

Joe kept Ma occupied at home so Erik and I had time for several rounds of mischief. One afternoon, despite Pa forbidding us, we made our way to the graveyard. It was just as spooky during the day as it had been at night. Well, maybe not just as spooky but close. We kicked rocks along the sidewalk in a residential area and then decided to see how high we could kick them. One went sailing over a fence, hit a horse that was hitched to a carriage, and the horse careened down the drive. We had heard that a pair of eyeglasses could start a fire so we used a newspaper, crouched behind our old hideout, and held the glasses over the paper. Just about the time we were ready to give up, a slender snake of smoke appeared. I blew on it gently the way Pa taught me to start a campfire. The next thing we knew we had an honest-to-gosh fire on our hands. Well, more on our boots. We stomped the thing out and pretended we had no idea when Ma and Pa kept asking us at the dinner table why our clothes smelled like smoke.

Poor Pa was miserable each year when Christmas arrived – even though he tried not to show it. We asked him to tell us about what Christmas had been like when he was a boy and it didn’t take long to understand what he missed: snow, sleigh rides, parties, visiting with friends he hadn’t seen all year, dances, and even church. That last item caused no small amount of consternation in Erik and me. Erik and I thought it was the snow Pa missed most of all. But one day when the three of us boys were gathered with Ma in the kitchen she explained how Pa missed many other things.

“He misses the evergreens and the mistletoe and the many drinks in the big bowls. He reads to you of the visit from St. Nicholas and he gives you the little books and the coins. But he misses many things.”

Erik and I, in our turn, argued that we had parties. Well, they had parties. Young people weren’t invited. But leave it to Joe to ask about mistletoe, holly, and evergreens. He completely misunderstood about the type of evergreens Pa missed.

“We have all kinds of evewygweens, Ma,” he bragged. His English was perfect and sometimes I wondered if pronouncing “r” like “w” came from the blending of Ma’s accent, ours, and the deep Southern accents of many people we knew. “Thewe’s some in the cowtyawd.” Erik and I frowned a while before we realized he was talking about ferns.

“And this mistletoe you’we talking about,” Joe climbed onto the stool where Erik and I used to sit. “Joe thinks he’s seen that in some of the twees. Adam could get it down, Ma.”

She looked at me from the tops of her eyes as she cut biscuits. “It is not wise to volunteer others to do these things, Joseph.”

Our littlest brother leaned his elbows on the part of the work table where Ma had not spread flour and clasped his hands under his chin in a perfect imitation of Pa. “Alwight, we have two wowds hewe, Ma. What’s this wise – Pa uses it but he hasn’t told Joe what it means yet – and what’s this volunteew?”

It was times like that when Erik and I understood why Ma and Pa enjoyed our little brother so much.

Pa may have missed the Christmases he had known years before but Ma introduced him to a different celebration. Where she had come from in France they celebrated the Epiphany season for a month after Christmas. One of the traditions Erik, Joe, and I enjoyed was what Ma called the Gateau des Rois for the three kings who visited the manger when Jesus was born. Those of us who still couldn’t speak French very well called it the Kings’ Cake. In addition to the fact that the round pastry was delicious and filled with almond paste or some other mouth-watering delight there was the excitement of wondering who would get the figurine hidden in the cake. Each year the order of receiving a slice varied but somehow Erik or Joe or I always found it in our slice of cake. Because the figurine was about the size of a bean, and we didn’t want to swallow it, the King’s Cake slowed us down and we actually chewed our food – a marvelous thing as far as Ma was concerned. I decided that Ma somehow manipulated the cake so either Joe or Erik or I found the figurine. And then the unexpected happened.

Pa, too, was counting on one of his sons to find the figurine so he wasn’t being cautious at all as he ate his slice of cake. Erik, Joe and I were disappointed that we weren’t finding a surprise in our first few bites – at least until Pa was chewing and a look of surprise washed across his face. To our unbelieving eyes, our pa – who insisted on good table manners – leaned forward and spit out something.

You can imagine the havoc his breach of manners caused in the three of us. Our forks crashed to our plates. Joe pointed at Pa, laughed, and held his tummy the way Erik had when he was little. Erik used one of his new phrases, “Well I’ll be goldanged.” I, the most mature of the lot, slapped the tabletop with my hand in beat with my laughter. We tried to quiet down, we really did. For a minute we snuffled and wiped our noses and caught our breath. And then Pa held the figurine up to look at it, we remembered him spitting it out, and we were one huge lost cause. Ma had lost all semblance of decorum by then, too. She laughed almost as loudly as we did.

Pa gave us one of his fake menacing looks and he fought not to smile. Every year after that he was extremely cautious when he ate his serving of the Kings’ Cake.

 

One of those days when Joe was keeping Ma extra busy Erik and I were in the market area, debating on buying iced cream or candy. It was a nice day until Henri swaggered up to us. He was unpopular by then because he’d given everyone he knew a strong push down the wrong path.

He greeted me with a calculating grin and then asked if my parents were still married.

Since that was not the kind of question one boy ordinarily asked another, I wondered what he was hinting at. He sat down on a bench and looked away from me as if he were studying the busy thoroughfare. “She’s a pretty woman, you mother.”

Something told me his compliment was not sincere. His voice held venom as dangerous as a rattlesnake’s.

“She’s attended a lot of parties with your father. But then she’s always been good at entertaining men, hasn’t she?” I knew what he meant by that. He was insinuating that Ma had worked in one of the sporting houses. My fists knotted by the sides of my legs.

He smiled at me again. “Of course we Creoles love to have parties.” He stuck his hands in his pockets – that would prove to be his undoing. “We love music, good food, dancing. We love to have fun.”

Now he was referring to the women who were paid by the hour to accompany men to social affairs. My fists tightened even more.

Erik nudged me that he didn’t understand what Henri was talking about. It was just as well that he didn’t.

“You do know, don’t you, that we overlook it when a man indulges himself with a sporting woman?” He twisted his thin lips into a sneer.

Pa would never go to one of those places. Never.

“We are, however, disappointed when a woman is unfaithful to her husband.”

Now he was calling Ma unfaithful to Pa? My body was hot. If he didn’t stop I would make him regret he had ever even hinted that Ma was a bad woman.

“If nothing else, it brings up questions about a child’s sire.”

He was saying Joe wasn’t Pa’s son! Henri had to be listening to his parents. There was no other explanation for the way he used words. But why would his parents say such terrible things about Ma?

“I thought a sire was a horse,” Erik said and it was my turn to elbow him. Despite my anger I wanted to hear what else Henri had to say.

“Sometimes a man is unable to face his wife’s unfaithfulness.” He squinted at me and grinned slowly.

He lost me there. First he said Ma was unfaithful to Pa. What was he saying about Pa?

“Sometimes an unfaithful woman’s husband leaves her and all she can do is depend on her family to keep her from begging or from turning to one of the sporting houses. Sometimes, though, she works in a house until she finds one of you Americans – one who doesn’t care about her past.”

I was confused at first. Then memories surfaced. He had repeated what I has said years earlier when my family had attended the wedding of one of Ma’s distant cousins near Natchez. While we had been visiting for the wedding, I had decided to impress a group of older boys – and having only the most vague of ideas of what I was talking about I had told them Pa had met Ma in a New Orleans “sporting house.” The minute the news had gone from sons to fathers to mothers I had brought a bunch of trouble on myself. Tante Jeanette had finally determined I had started the lie and I had paid dearly for the transgression. It was one thing for me to start a rumor out of innocence – quite another to listen to Henri’s malicious gossip.

Henri didn’t pick up a clue from my frown or how tense I was. Instead he said the words he would regret, if not forever, at least for several days. “Is your mother still having trouble being faithful? You know her first husband left her because she slept with another – “

He never finished the sentence. I whirled, pulled him up from the bench because he still had his hands in his pockets, and threw him to the ground. I don’t know how much Erik understood of what Henri said. But he understood one thing – he knew my temper. He took off in a panicked run. Henri pulled at my leg and I fell on top of him. I grabbed his hair and banged his head against the dirt. If that area of the market had been paved I probably would have killed him at that point. Henri’s fist connected with my jaw. I flew back, unable to focus my eyes for a moment, and while I was down I felt a searing pain in my side. I grabbed at his boot, flipped him to the ground, straddled him, and pummeled him with one fist after the other. We were not silent during all this – words came out of my mouth that Pa would have busted my britches for. Henri broke my hold. I put a fist into his left ear and sent him howling as he rolled to his side.

I don’t know how long the fight would have continued if Pa hadn’t come up behind me and lifted me off my feet – kicking, yelling, and trying to lay more hits on Henri. Pa threw me over his left shoulder like a sack and said if I didn’t calm down he’d swat me all the way home. I was so mad I slapped his back and he delivered a bottom-numbing swat. Erik, who was walking beside Pa, hunched his shoulders at the sound. After that I stayed still and when my temper subsided I meekly asked him if I could please walk home. He said I most certainly could not and I hid my face in his back, hoping no one I knew would see me.

When we arrived home, Pa put me on my feet by the dining table. He told Erik to ask Ma to come in with some wet cloths and then requested that Erik take care of Joe out in the courtyard. Erik’s sky blue eyes were huge as he looked at me and then he scampered to obey Pa.

Pa said what he pretty much always did. “Would you like to tell me what happened?”

I sat in a chair although Pa hadn’t given me permission to and held the side Henri had kicked. I stated the obvious. “I got in a fight, Pa.”

“I can see that.”

I put my elbow on the tabletop and leaned my pounding forehead on the palm of my hand. “Pa, can we discuss this later?”

“What makes you think there will be any discussion?” he demanded. “Fighting never solves anything.”

“No, Pa.” Then I considered what he had said. “I mean yes, Pa.” I gingerly touched my jaw and a pain shot through it.

Pa sat in the chair across from me. “What started the fight?”

I didn’t answer.

“Oh, mon Dieu!” Ma lifted my face by the chin and then released it. “Who would do this thing so terrible?”

Pa leaned back in his chair. “What started the fight, Adam?” His patience, if there was any, was shorter.

Again I didn’t answer.

“What in the deuce started the fight?” I winced at as Pa slapped the table.

Ma shook her finger at me as I recoiled. “You will be still.”

“It hurts,” I pleaded.

“Of course. Your face it is half bloody.”

“Stand up,” Pa ordered, doing so as I did. Then his voice made my ears ring. “What started the fight?”

I folded my arms and Pa folded his and we both knew what that meant – we were in for a match of stubbornness.

Pa was close to releasing an anger I knew could be formidable. “I want to hear your explanation for brawling in the middle of town!”

To my surprise, Ma walked to Pa and spread her hands on his chest. “Benjamin, this loud voice does no good.”

No matter how angry Pa was I had no intention of answering him about what had started the fight because that would lead to me telling him what Henri had said. I stuck out my chin in continued challenge.

Pa shot into full fury then. He pointed to Ma’s and his room and ordered me to get his belt. I knew what that meant and there was no way I would obey, especially since all I had done was stand up for Ma. “No, I won’t,” I said. Even I couldn’t believe the words had come out of my mouth.

“Adam,” Pa stretched out my name. “Now!”

That was an order I never disobeyed and I was scared to my bones. Scared of the horrible tanning I knew Pa could deliver when he was that angry and fearful that if he hurt me badly enough I might tell him what Henri had said. By that time only a few steps separated us and I folded into him, holding him as I begged him not to tan me. Pa held my head close to his chest.

Ma’s voice reached Pa and me again. “Benjamin, we must talk.” I turned to her but not before noting I had soaked an area of Pa’s shirt with tears and a few dabs of blood. The love in Ma’s eyes was calm and accepting – and supportive.

I looked up at Pa and said I would tell him but I couldn’t tell Ma. Pa held me by my shoulders at arm’s length and said we had no secrets in our family and my temper flared again. I said Ma and he had kept a huge one from me.

The hush that settled over the room was worse than when Erik had cussed at Pa.

Ma motioned to the parlor and, since I knew she would sit on the settee and Pa would sit in his chair, I sat between them on the rug. She smoothed her skirt – an unconscious habit – and leaned forward slightly toward me. Her approach to finding out what secret I had referred to was to come at it from a non-direct way. The very opposite of Pa. “First you tell me who started this fight?”

“Both of us.”

“You are not one to fight. Who is this boy?”

I didn’t answer. I knew where it might lead and how I might hurt her.

“Adam,” Ma scolded.

I closed my eyes in prayer. “Henri.”

She understood everything then without me telling her. Just because I hadn’t known the rumors and the gossip that had plagued her for most of her adult life didn’t mean she hadn’t. Her dark eyes drilled into mine when I opened them. “Henri’s parents they have the garconniere? He entertains the girls there?”

Many of the homes in New Orleans had separate buildings that served as residences for their sons when they were no longer children. The sons also spent time there with women they would never be allowed to marry. But Henri was only sixteen. Was he already using that building? Had he heard about Ma from those girls instead of from his parents? What kind of gossip was he spreading?

“I don’t know, Ma.” Even though she had lived in New Orleans longer than I had I was embarrassed that she knew about the buildings out back.

Her voice filled with fire. I had new respect for what Pa sometimes faced when she was irritated. “You have enjoyed this garconniere?”

I was fourteen for gosh sakes. “No ma’am!”

“What is this secret Henri tells you, Adam?” She wanted to determine what I had been told.

I wished from the bottom of my heart to save her from hurt.

She rephrased her question. “What is this secret so huge you say your father and I have kept from you?”

“You could have told me,” I pleaded as I looked up at Ma.

She placed her hand gently on the top of my head. “What is it Henri says?”

I rested the non-hurting side of my face on her lap and confessed everything.

“So,” she summarized, “you fight for my honor?”

“He had no right to say – “

Ma placed her right hand gently on my lips. “You will listen as a man.”

I chilled inside and out.

She said I was old enough now to know – but I had not been before. “I was married before I married your father, you know this. My first husband and I married quickly and when we returned to his family they do not approve. I have no dowry. I do not bring any of the prestige to the name. We are married but a short time and I do not bring a child to the family.”

Pa had walked to the brandy bottle and poured a small glassful for each of them. He reached over my head to hand Ma one small glass. She sipped twice, held it in her lap, and then continued to speak. Pa did not keep the other glass as I had expected but handed it to me. I recognized it immediately – diluted it was Pa’s magic formula for everything from sore throats to helping a grieving young boy sleep.

“There is another woman,” Ma continued. “A woman who is partly of color. They have a baby and it can be white it is so pale. He says it will be ours and when I do not agree he takes everything, including this woman and baby. I do not know where they go. His family does not know where they go. He takes everything and I have nothing. I hear he goes west and sells furs and he is killed gambling. Then I receive the written notice that I am a widow. I do not know what becomes of the woman and child. My family gives me the house I had when you met me and they help me or I would have starved.”

She smiled ever so slightly. “I never worked as a woman who caters to men, Adam. I do not believe your father would enjoy one.”

If I didn’t blush scarlet it was a miracle. Pa sat beside her and crossed his right ankle to his left knee, his left arm stretched behind her.

“It is a noble thing you do,” Ma praised. She held up a warning finger. “But you never say ‘No, I won’t’ to your father or me. You understand this?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Despite how serious my transgression had been, I
smiled and then flinched with the pain it brought to my jaw.

She motioned with the hand that did not hold her sherry and said to Pa,
“See, Adam is returned.”

Pa remarked that I was a bit bruised and he hoped a bit wiser, too. “Tell your brothers they can come back in now,” he instructed.

I placed the glass on the table beside the settee and walked down the passageway. My brothers were peeking around the doorway. Their faces were full of concern.

“Did you tell him what started the fight?” Erik asked even though he hadn’t understood everything.

“Were you naughty, Adam?” Joe added.

When I assured my littlest brother I had not been naughty, he ran to the parlor and flew into Pa’s arms. “Joe wants to know how to fight like Adam!” he declared.

Erik shook his head. “Don’t he beat all?”

I nodded. Yes, he did.

 

It’s an embarrassing fact that Joe proved himself to be a ladies’ man at a much younger age than Erik or I did. Joe had just celebrated his fifth birthday when he fell in love for the first time.

All the clues were there but none of us saw them. As Erik would say: shoot, no one was even watching for clues. Luckily, Joe fell in love with the girl next door. The trouble was it wasn’t just one girl. They were twins. I think they played one of those “he can’t tell the difference between us” jokes until they both became jealous and wanted him for themselves.

But before that happened, Joe was a lovesick puppy. He finished his chores quickly and more efficiently than he ever had. That should have been clue number one. He didn’t complain when he was asked to do extra chores. That should have been clue number two. I found him tossing small pebbles at the courtyard wall – clue number three but I was too busy silently praying he wasn’t following in his big brother’s footsteps and breaking windows. Clue number four was the most telling one of all – whenever he had free time he went to our room and quietly read. Joe? No way. Ma was suspicious of that one from the minute it started. The thing was I noticed something, Ma caught another behavior, Pa wondered about yet something else, and Erik went around with a lot of quizzical looks on his face.

Joe always had trouble getting quiet enough to sleep and he protested every night that it wasn’t fair that I got to stay up late. Joe was supposed to go to bed first, then half an hour later Erik climbed to his berth on the bunk beds Pa and I had built. He passed out immediately after his head hit the pillow. Many times Erik went to bed an hour or so early. Ma said it was because he was growing. Glory was she right. I had the privilege of being the last one to close my eyes and that gave me a chance to read in bed for a little while.

The bedtime system by age that Ma and Pa established did not impress Joe. He found many a reason to take a long time to obey. Most of the time Ma or Pa talked to him and stuck with him until he finally gave up. One night Joe ran into our room, vaulted into his bed the way Erik used to, lay on his back with his hands behind his bottom, and went as rigid as a tree.

The reason for his fright came up the steps in the person of Pa. To put it mildly, he was not amused.

“No, Pa,” Joe protested with a shake of his head. “Joe’s too little fow a spanking.”

I don’t think so. Not when you’re five years old.

Pa lifted a kicking Joe from the bed. He put the half-pint across one knee and slapped fire into Joe’s bottom. When he returned Joe to his bed Pa frowned and pointed his right finger. “You might want to re-think that, young man.”

When Pa turned his back, Joe twisted his lips and just as Pa started down the steps Joe wagged his finger at Pa’s back in a perfect imitation of our father.

I suppose you would call my inability to take my eyes off my brother staring. Pa had swatted him good and he hadn’t shed a tear. In fact, he rolled to his back and started very softly humming and playing finger games. That done, he got on his knees and crawled back and forth on his bed as he softly barked. I closed my worried eyes but nothing happened to him. He returned to his back and softly hummed again.

How did Pa’s disapproval roll off Joe? I would have cried myself to sleep if Pa had done the same thing to me when I’d been Joe’s age. I would have known how disappointed he was in me and I would have been embarrassed that he had corrected me.

If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I never would have believed Pa had even punished Joe. And that started me wondering if maybe Ma and Pa weren’t as indulgent of my littlest brother as I thought. Maybe they had administered more correction than I knew about and Joe had reacted the same way every time.

It sure was a good thing Joe bounced back so quickly – he was bottom up across Pa’s knees many times after that.

My point is that Joe was known for wandering around at night – at least until a leg-swat from Pa forced him into bed. So at first I didn’t think much about it when I awoke to hear him whispering and laughing. I squinted and then frowned in the moonlight as I rose on my right elbow. The scamp was leaning out our window. What was he pretending now?

“Joe.” I tried to sound like I had authority as the oldest brother. “Get quiet and in bed.”

He jumped and turned to face me and I knew right away I’d caught him at something big.

I sat on the side of my bed, as suspicious as I’d ever been. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

Uh huh. “Who were you talking to?”

Joe put his hands behind him and twisted on his bare feet trying to be the picture of innocence. He hadn’t been innocent since he’d learned how to eat solid food.

I played my full deck. “I guess I’ll have to call Pa.”

“No.” Joe ran across the room and climbed onto his bed. “Joe’ll go to sleep wite now, Adam. See?”

I didn’t believe he hadn’t been up to something but I was willing to take his quiet on any terms.

Another time he said he was going to our room to read for a while. I didn’t have any intention of spying on him. All I wanted to do was return a book to the shelf so it wouldn’t get lost. But as I walked up the steps I saw Joe looking out our window and this time I folded my arms, leaned on the doorframe, and watched. He tossed a pebble or two and the shutters across the courtyard wall opened. A cute little brunette about his age appeared at the window opening and smiled so widely I knew she would be a heart-breaker in a couple of years.

“Joe, remember what I told you about the pony?” Obviously they’d talked on more than one occasion. “Papa has it at the stable. Want to come with me?”

My brother thought a few minutes. “Joe’d have to figuwe out a way without my ma or pa finding out.”

The girl waved her hand breezily. “We’ll lay our ladder across to your window.”

They were going to do what? I watched Joe’s profile. At first his face was full of excitement. And then it grew thoughtful. “Joe doesn’t know,” he said slowly. He peered out the window to the ground below. Ah, the fear of heights. “That sounds dangewous, ” he observed. He bit his lower lip. I knew what he was thinking. He only bit his lip when he was nervous about being in trouble with Pa.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It hadn’t sounded like the best of ideas to me either.

“Nobody hawdly evew watches the fwont doow,” he observed. “Joe’ll go out that way. When?”

“Let’s go now.”

Good sense surfaced in Joe. But only for a short time. “That way we’ll be back befowe suppew.”

I closed my eyes and then stepped back to Ma’s and Pa’s room. Joe was headed into trouble – and a girlfriend was leading him.

No more than an hour later, Pa approached me as I threw water from a bucket onto the courtyard bricks to wash them. Pa jokingly called it “swabbing the deck.” I didn’t find one single thing about the chore funny. “Have you seen Joe?” he asked.

“No, sir.” Which was the truth.

Pa’s right eyebrow shot up. I’d said “sir.” I saved those for terrible conditions. Neither Pa nor I had been born yesterday and he knew me inside out, up and down. He asked a different question. “Do you know where he is?”

Answering that one took a little more creativity. What could I say that wouldn’t involve a lie? “Uh, he’s not here,” I volunteered.

“I know that.” Pa took the bucket and forced me to stop working. I slid my hands up and down the legs of my trousers. “You haven’t seen Joe and you know he’s not here,” he repeated my responses. Then he set down the bucket and leaned toward me. “I’ll ask you again: do you know where he is?” He held up that right index finger in warning. “And if I receive the same answer you will have extra chores for a week.”

No brother was worth that. “He’s gone with a girl to see a pony.”

Pa’s face went from upset to – well, he wasn’t sure he understood me. “He went with a girl to see a pony?”

“Yes, Pa.”

He turned a little away from me for a few heartbeats and then toward me. All the while he ran his hand through his hair. It didn’t take a scholar to recognize that Pa felt he’d met his match. “A girl to see a pony – ” he said once again. He raised his hands to the sky. “I suppose all we can do is wait until he gets home to find out what’s going on.”

“I suppose.”

Pa shook his head and walked toward the kitchen. I heard him say, “A girl to see a pony” one more time.

Dinnertime rolled around and Joe raced in at the last minute like he always did those days. He splashed the minimum amount of water on his face and gave his hair the once through with a brush. Long after the blessing was finished he clasped his hands and kept his head bowed. That boy was in trouble.

Acting like he didn’t know a thing out of the ordinary, Pa asked Erik how his day had been. Erik and his buddies had found a shallow, non-treacherous offshoot of the river where they fished. But now they were building a raft and Pa gave Erik an unmistakable warning look.

“Don’t worry,” my brother assured. “We’ll let you be sure it’ll float.”

Ma smiled at the “let” in Erik’s sentence but said nothing.

Then, ready to catch Joe like honey does a fly, Pa asked about my littlest brother’s day. The poor little guy had been pushing his food around on his plate with his left hand as he leaned on his right palm.

“Aw, Pa, Joe has so many pwoblems.” He was a miserable human being. Ma leaned toward him and put down her flatware.

“Yes, you do.” Pa, too, put down his flatware. He clasped his hands and leaned his elbows on the table. “Who gave you permission to leave the house alone?”

“Nobody, Pa.”

“You understand there are consequences for that behavior.”

“Yes, Pa. You have to spank Joe.”

Erik and I raised our eyebrows at each other. We’d been spanked, sure, but we’d never said Pa had to do it.

“We’ll take care of it after dinner,” Pa continued.

“Yes, Pa.” Joe still hadn’t looked up. “Pa, can you help Joe? Joe has girl pwoblems.”

“But surely you are too young for the girl!” Ma exclaimed.

He shook his head as he finally looked up. “Joe can handle one girl just fine, Ma. But this is two. Joe didn’t know until we went to see the pony. Then both of them were there and it was tewwible. They fought, Ma. Joe didn’t know giwls fought like that. They pulled haiw and kicked and – ” a glance Pa’s way ” – they said things Pa’d blistew me fow.” He waved his right hand in the air. “Joe’s finished with giwls,” he announced. I decided I’d remember that last part and repeat it to him when he turned fifteen.

“What are their names?” Pa asked out of curiosity.

“Joe’s not weal suwe, Pa,” our littlest brother hedged. Pa didn’t believe him and it showed. “Maybe Joe knows theiw names. Maybe he fowgot fow a minute.”

Ma and Pa fought hard not to grin and when Joe told us the girls’ names dinner fell apart.

“What are their names?” Pa repeated.

Hearing him say them one time had been ridiculous enough. I exploded in laughter when Joe said the names again. “Wachel and Webecca.”

Erik couldn’t save himself. He leaned back in his chair until it fell. Ma hid her face with her hand and laughed softly.

“This is a sewious pwoblem,” Joe muttered. “Why’s evewbody laughing?”

Pa wiped his eyes. “I’ll see what I can do to help.”

Joe’s face brightened. “Weally, Pa?”

“Yes.”

“Pa, Joe loves you.”

Pa motioned to Joe’s dish. “Finish your dinner.”

I won’t say I forgot about Joe’s problem with Pa but it wasn’t much on my mind as I sat on the floor reading a funny rhyme to Erik. We liked it so much we decided to memorize it and recite it to our friends. Ma sat sideways on the settee with her legs straight out in front of her. She leaned her back on one of the arms and wrote a letter with the aid of her lap desk. We didn’t think she was listening until we paused for a moment and she recited the poem without skipping a word. It was one time when the fact that she didn’t skip impressed us.

“How’d you do that?” Erik asked.

She tapped her head with her left fingers. “It is the hearing it again and again. Just as you know the names of all the reindeer.”

Okay, she’d lost us. We frowned at each other until she began, “On Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen! – “

Now we were with her! All three of us took up the list from our favorite Christmas poem.

“On, Comet! On Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!

Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

We burst into full laughter and didn’t notice Pa standing in the doorway that led to the back of the house until Ma and I wiped our eyes.

He held up his right palm and I noticed it was a bit pink. “I’m not asking.” He grinned and picked up the newspaper.

“We practice for Christmas,” Ma explained, her arm across her letter.

Pa tilted his head back. “You know that poem from beginning to end. We haven’t had to read it in years.”

“Yeah but ya gotta practice every so often,” Erik defended. “Kind of like the teacher makes us write the alphabet over and over. Ya’d think she’d figure that we know it by now.”

After sitting in his chair, Pa explained they wrote the alphabet “over and over” to improve the way they wrote – not to be sure they knew it. And then he shot himself in the foot. “That’s so you’ll have a good hand.”

Erik’s brow wrinkled. “They’re both good, Pa.”

Pa was reading the newspaper. “What?”

“You said we do the alphabet so I’ll have a good hand and I’ve got two of ‘em right here. Well, I mean one of ‘em’s my right one and one of ‘em’s my left one but –”

Pa lowered his paper. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, you can’t have two right hands. Can ya?”

It was about then Pa realized he was dealing with Erik. “No,” he said slowly. His eyes drifted to me and then to Ma. She was looking down and giggling.

Erik leaned forward from the pick-up sticks he’d been playing with while he and I were learning the rhyme in the paper. “I guess I understand why you need two good hands on account of it’d be hard to do a lot of stuff if you just had one good hand left. Or the right one. But I’ve got a left one and a right one. What’s the alphabet got to do with having a good hand? I’ve got two good ones and if something happens to one I’ve gotta learn to write with the other one anyhow. So why teach me how to write with my right hand when something might happen and I’d have to write with my left hand. Why waste all that time?”

“If you don’t become a barrister my heart will stop,” Pa moaned.

Erik’s voice lowered to a whisper. “Do those barristers get to hunt ‘em?”

I don’t know why Pa didn’t just give up. “Hunt what, Erik?”

“Bears,” came the simple reply.

“Why would they hunt – ” Pa almost collapsed. “No, son, they don’t hunt bears.”

“Oh.” My brother thought a minute. “What part do they make bare?”

“Stop now,” Pa warned.

“You’re always telling us the only way to learn is to ask questions,” Erik defended.

“I’m making a new rule. No questions while I’m reading the paper.”

Erik returned to the sticks. “That’s the dumbest rule I ever heard.”

Pa stiffened. “Excuse me?”

It was the set-up I remembered from years ago. “What’d ya do?” Erik asked.

I moaned.

“What do you mean what did I do?”

Now Erik was indignant. “You said ‘excuse me’, Pa. And all I asked was what you did.”

Pa leaned forward and only a fool wouldn’t have known his patience was on its last leg. “You said that was the dumbest rule you’d ever heard. What do you think I meant when I said ‘excuse me’?”

Enlightenment arrived quickly. “Oh.” He licked his lip. “I oughta be the one saying excuse me, huh Pa?”

“It would be a good idea.”

“Excuse me, sir. I didn’t mean any disrespect, Pa.” He stood, ready to leave the room, but Pa grabbed his arm and pulled him into a hug.

“Aw, Pa, I’m too big for that kinda stuff.”

A sniffle caught my ear and I looked over my right shoulder. Joe walked across the room. His eyes were a bit red but he had a big smile on his face. That was when I remembered Pa and he had had a session in the woodshed. It was also when I remembered noticing the palm of Pa’s right hand was a bit pink. “Hey Erik!” Joe said brightly. “Wanna play hide and seek?”

My middle brother didn’t consider himself too big for that. “Only the house and courtyard.”

Joe grinned at Pa. “Joe’s not going out that fwont doow fowevew.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Pa smiled at Joe.

Then my littlest brother walked straight to Pa and put his hands on Pa’s knees. You could have knocked me over with a pick-up stick as Joe told Pa, “We’ll let you play with us if you want to.”

I watched Pa consider Joe’s proposal. “You better hide,” he said. “If I find you I’ll feed you to the alligators.”

Joe screamed in delight. Erik and he ran as Pa stood from his chair. “Want to play?” he asked me.

“I’d rather you just fed me to the alligators if it’s all the same.”

Pa laughed. Then he lowered his voice until it was scary and stomped toward the bedrooms. “Here I come, gator food.”

There was a yelp of anticipation from Joe followed by Erik’s distinctive, “Aw get quiet or he’ll find us, Joe.”

Ma and I laughed. She returned to her letter and I picked up the paper so I could learn that rhyme.

 

“Adam,” Pa called to me as I chopped wood in the courtyard and Ma worked in the far flowerbed. He walked to me and leaned on the side of the woodshed. “We’re taking a business trip to Natchez in the morning. When you finish this chore you need to get your gear together.”

I asked him if the family was going and he said no, just the two of us.

The responsibility of being the eldest son was always just a thought away. “I need to stay here and take care of things, Pa.”

The smile didn’t disappear. He said he thought Ma could take care of Erik and Joe.

“Well – I mean – how are we getting there?”

After a soft laugh and a shake of his head he said he planned for us to take a steamboat. He must have seen the excitement in my eyes because he teased, “Maybe you should stay home after all.”

“Benjamin.” Ma stood from where she had been working and dusted her gloves. “The boats they are so dangerous. They go into explosions and they make fire. Many are hurt and die this way. Is there no other way?”

Pa was in a particularly devilish mood. “There are all kinds of ways to get hurt and die. Want me to name a few?”

She tossed her head and her dark hair bounced at her shoulders. “This is not something to make silly. I worry.”

He pushed away from the woodshed wall and held her close. “You worry when I go to work and when Adam rides Temptation.”

Her small hands went to either side of her waist. She didn’t realize she was imitating Pa. “You say I worry always?”

Pa leaned down and placed his lips to her forehead. “You don’t seem to worry in your sleep.”

“Ah!” she said in mock disgust. “You are impossible.”

“So are you,” he reminded. She didn’t want to but she smiled.

He motioned to the firewood and used a phrase I was hearing more often from him. “That wood won’t chop itself.”

“Those bags won’t pack themselves, either,” I called after him as he walked across the courtyard.

He paused with his right hand on the backdoor and considered me a moment. Then he shook his head and climbed the steps into the house.

 

Ma wasn’t as much a worrier as Pa pretended. No small number of riverboats blew up as they urged the Mississippi water to part. We had no such adventure as we voyaged toward Natchez but I had adventures of a different sort. I couldn’t believe how many people Pa knew and to my delight he always introduced me as his son Adam. Not his eldest son, just his son. Then he added that I helped his company with its accounting books. He didn’t mention that I had only started the job a few months earlier and did it after chores, exercising Temptation, and completing schoolwork.

Riding the steamboat up the river was my first experience traveling on the water. I loved every minute of it and spent as much time as possible leaning over the wooden rail watching the ripples, the sun, listening to the men working on the lower deck, startling every time one of the big pipes at the very top of the boat blew as it released steam, and almost hypnotizing myself by staring at the paddles that went around and around and around on the side paddle steamboat. I think Pa caught me once or twice around the waist as I almost tipped over the side. The rest of the time I tried to be suave and worldly like the men Pa knew.

Whenever Pa saw me leaning on the rail as I watched the water he smiled at me with open affection. “So you like the water?” he asked the first time.

“Is this what it’s like to sail?” The river looked big to me.

Pa stood with his legs spread, his arms folded, and looked at the water but I knew he was seeing something from long ago. “A bit,” he said to humor me.

“It isn’t,” I corrected.

And he shook his head. “You aren’t afraid of the river?”

I looked over the rail edge. “Should I be?”

“You should always respect it.”

Frowning at him, I admitted I had no idea what he was talking about so he drew my attention to the way the men kept measuring the depth of the water with long poles. He also told me about sandbars that could disappear and then reappear – not forgiving of the unaware. Then, much to his amusement, I asked if there were alligators. He told me that he didn’t think so but there were treacherous currents.

The steamboat had several decks and in front was a gangway as wide as the boat. The crew kept the gangway pulled up at the bow of the boat until the boat reached a landing. Wooden rails guarded the sides of most of the decks and they were supported by cutout flat pieces of wood. The levels of the boat were not unlike the layers of a fancy cake and some were even painted with interesting designs. I heard that later some of the boats had calliopes that played music but I never enjoyed such a thing myself.

I had never seen anything like the Under the Hill section when we put in at Natchez. The area was aptly named because it was at the bottom of the sandy bluffs on which Natchez thrived. You couldn’t really see the area from town but by golly you could hear it if you were close enough. It was a rough and tumble area, about four or five streets wide, and if it didn’t have the sin of your choice all you had to do was wait a minute and someone would find a way to cater to you. A lot of the river men and boat workers spent time and money alongside some of Natchez’s finest gentlemen. I heard once that entire pieces of land and plantations were won and lost in the gambling dens there. And the opposite happened, too. A man of little means could make his fortune, although I always wondered if he was accepted in what they called polite society after that. I walked the streets, listening to the raw laughter of rowdy men and rough women. Gambling, drinking, women. It probably should have had the allure of the forbidden for a curious fifteen-year-old but the area made me nervous and a little sad. Pa and I didn’t linger but I wondered how many places like that he had encountered in his travels.

He carried his bag in one hand and rested a strong hand on my back. “Adam, I don’t want you coming down here.”

He needn’t have worried about me wandering down to the gambling dens and houses of ill repute. If I’d been interested in that I had a big area in New Orleans to explore.

Before Inger had died we had been traveling and even though I’d been ordered to stay in the wagon in one of the small towns I had crept out and sneaked to the local saloon. All I had wanted was to peek inside to see what it was Inger disapproved of so much. I had gotten an eyeful and had run all the way back to the wagon with the painting I had seen behind the bar burned into my mind. A naked lady! I mean she hadn’t had on anything except a necklace and that hadn’t hidden anything. She’d had the necklace across her lips like she was sucking on it. For a week, I was sure that God was going to strike me dead and when he didn’t I was sure Pa was going to find out and make me wish God had stuck me dead. But neither one of them found out until recently when I felt relatively safe in confessing my sin

After we walked up the road and climbed a small hill Natchez stretched before us. The only other time I had been near the city was after their tornado of 1840 when we’d attended Ma’s cousin’s wedding. Going up the river three years later when I was fifteen, I noticed the absence of trees. Many of the ones left standing were stripped of their bark. I mentioned my observation to Pa and when he shared it several people onboard the riverboat told us that the damage was the result of the tornado that whirled up the Mississippi before slamming into Natchez. I had read about the storm in the New Orleans’ paper but seeing the results of a mile-wide tornado years later caused me to slow my steps as we reached the top of the bluffs. Our hurricane and gale winds seemed weak in comparison to what had happened here – maybe because the tornado had been so concentrated. Pa, too, looked around and shook his head slowly.

Of course, as with most traumatic events in life and with the passage of time, I had forgotten how damaging our storm in New Orleans had been. We experienced rain and wind for two days. A black, whirling cloud heavy with debris had stuck Natchez an hour or so after noon and mercifully lifted the same day.

After we had a small meal at a tavern on the bluff away from the Under the Hill area we walked to a boarding house. I was a bit set back when, as we stood downstairs, I saw signs stating things like “No more than five to a bed.” I didn’t know about anyone else but the only person I felt safe sharing a bed with was Erik – and maybe Pa if my conscience was clean. After a few minutes of talking to the owner, Pa turned to me and following my eyes to one of the signs he grinned at me. “We have our own room,” he said. “But you have to share the bed with me.” I examined my conscience, found it not needy of correction, and followed him upstairs.

Inside our room, Pa evolved back into my father. He warned me again not to go under the hill and said he would only allow me to tour the city on my own if I stayed within certain boundaries. I studiously watched as he sketched them and wondered when he had been to Natchez before that he knew all the street names.

With Pa’s rough map of my boundaries in hand I set out to do what I had planned from the moment he had said the word “Natchez.” Despite all the damage it was one of the richest cities in the country and the homes reflected almost every architectural style. I had packed my pencils and paper and I sat or stood for hours studying and sketching the fine homes. Some had tall columns and wide porches with fan shaped windows centered high above the front door. A few homes were low and reminded me of some of the Creole cottages back home. One was built on a slope and a person would have had to climb what looked like at least fifty steps to reach the front door. But every house, however different from its neighbor, was meticulously tended and exuded an air of Southern gentility. One time a servant came out of a house to see what I was doing. He smiled, his white teeth almost glowing against his dark skin, and told me there was an even prettier view from the street on the east side. He was right. Between the architecture and the free form plantings the place resembled a palace.

Only when the sun lowered on the horizon did I realize how late I was and I ran with everything I had in me back to the boarding house. I burst into our room. Pa turned from a tall, tilted mirror where he was making the last adjustments to his tie.

“Sorry, Pa.” I pushed my hair away from my forehead. “Are you going somewhere?”

“We are.”

He sat down in a chair and tipped it back to lean against the wall. “I heard about a young man with dark hair sketching houses. Was that you?”

I washed my face and hurriedly dried it. “Yes, Pa.”

“What did you think of them?”

“The whole town is about the prettiest place I’ve ever seen.” I was full of enthusiasm.

He tapped the fingers of his left hand on his thigh. “We’re going to an impressive house out in the country for dinner.” He motioned to the armoire where our clothes hung.

I pulled on a dressier shirt and trousers and then reached for my tie. I had it halfway tied when I sensed something from Pa. He was still leaning back in his chair but he was grinning at me and his fingers were forming a tent under his jaw. “Sure glad you didn’t grind that into the floor with your boot.”

At first I didn’t understand and then I felt my face flush. “You gave me three licks with the back of a clothes brush.”

He frowned and lowered the chair to all four legs. “I don’t remember that.”

“I do.”

As he stood, Pa shrugged his left shoulder. “I guess you’re the one who should.” He stopped in front of me and reached down to my tie. “You need a bit of help here, young man.”

My eyes shot to his. He’d called me “young man” before but there was something different in the way he’d said it. After he had my tie looking right he took a few steps away and frowned again. “Are you sure I used a clothes brush on you?”

“On my bare behind,” I added and he flinched.

“It’s a wonder one of your legs isn’t shorter than the other.” We laughed as we remembered Erik’s old concern. “The way he’s growing it’s a good thing you were nice to him when you were boys.”

Since Erik was only eleven I felt compelled to say, “He’s not grown up, Pa.”

His strong right hand rested behind my neck. “I didn’t say he was.”

I was sure of what he was telling me then.

 

Thanks to Ma and Pa’s training, more Ma’s than Pa’s, I knew how to use every piece of flatware on the table when we joined some of Pa’s business associates for dinner that night at a home a few miles outside of town. I had never seen flatware so ornate or so silver before. Unfettered wealth was evident in everything from porcelains on display in glass and gilt cabinets, to the antique furniture on which people sat, to the women’s dresses and jewelry, to the men’s clothing. The windows at this particular house went from floor to ceiling and that was impressive because they were high ceilings. Across the tops of some of the windows were decorative gold gilt cornices. Across the tops of other windows heavy velvet draped and fell about halfway down the side of the window frame. Floors in one room were marble and in the next room they were highly polished wood. And most impressive to me was the hand-painted silk wallpaper in the enormous entryway. It portrayed something I had only read about – the Orient and its incredible birds and mountains. Nothing in New Orleans had prepared me for what I witnessed and was a part of that night. After all, I had not been allowed to visit such homes when I was a child.

I was mostly a quiet, overwhelmed observer – speaking only when addressed directly and each time sliding a look at Pa for his silent directions. When the gentlemen retired to the library for after dinner drinks I started to wave mine away but Pa told the servant that I would appreciate one. I sipped it carefully and Pa grinned at me like a schoolboy encouraging a friend to drink homemade liquor behind a stable. Not that I know about that kind of thing directly. When the servant offered me a cigar Pa watched as closely as he had when I had seated a lady at dinner and I quickly declined.

By the time we were riding in the carriage toward our boarding house I was so sleepy my head was swimming. I wasn’t accustomed to the late hours people kept in Natchez and I really wasn’t used to the brandy. Pa leaned back in self-satisfaction but I kept dozing until my head drooped forward and I woke up with a start.

“Full day,” Pa stated softly.

“Yes, Pa.” I think my speech was slurred. It sounded that way to me.

“What do you plan to do tomorrow?” he asked.

“Um?” I never would have spoken to him like that if I hadn’t been nearly asleep. Alarms went off in my head but I couldn’t do anything about them.

“Plan to draw some more?”

“Um hum.”

“Don’t fall asleep on me. I think you’re too big for me to – “

I woke up when he was trying to steer me up the walkway to the boarding house. He had my left arm around his shoulders and was holding my left hand while his right arm braced my back. “You look like a tottering drunk,” he laughed softly.

I giggled as I bumped into him, then staggered, then bumped into him again. Something about the entire thing struck me as funny and I launched into a raucous laugh that culminated in a boot-rattling belch. That sent Pa into laughter. He finally eased his right arm from behind me and held his index finger to his lips. “Ssh,” he warned. “We can’t wake up the other boarders.”

“Sure we can,” I challenged. “Watch this.”

I took a deep breath, ready to yell at the top of my lungs, and he slapped his right hand over my mouth. “Ssh,” he said softly. “How would it look in the New Orleans’ papers if they reported two Cartwrights arrested in Natchez?”

Then so help me the giggles grabbed me again. “Can’t you see Ma lighting into you?”

“Her lectures are more than enough.” Pa’s tone was serious.

“She’s what Jonah calls feisty,” I informed him.

“Shoot, you think so?” Pa used Erik’s favorite word.

“Ain’t no doubt,” I answered, using another of Jonah’s words.

“Aw dagnabit, they’ve locked the door,” Pa lamented.

“Dadburnit, what are we gonna do?” I asked.

Pa grinned and pulled a slender piece of metal from the side of his boot. In the dim light cast by a quarter moon, I couldn’t tell if it was a small knife or a tool. He played around with the door lock a moment and it clicked open. Luckily there was no crossbar inside.

I stared up at him. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

He slapped me on the back. “I’ll tell you the story tomorrow as long as you promise not to tell your brothers.”

We “sshed” each other all the way up the stairs. I fell on my bed in my good clothes but Pa managed to remove my tie and boots for me.

 

“Adam?” Pa’s voice penetrated my warm sleep. He sounded as if he had been awake for hours and he probably already had conducted business.

I snuggled into the pillow. The next thing I knew, Pa pulled the sheet off me and my eyes flew open. I knew he wouldn’t swat my behind but I rolled over on it out of instinctive protection.

His wide, amused grin told me his hands at his hips did not indicate displeasure. “You’ll miss the mid-day meal if you don’t force yourself out of bed soon.” Motioning to my trousers he laughed and said something about how much I could sleep when given the opportunity.

I ran my hand through my hair, wondering if that would pass for brushing it and knowing Pa wouldn’t let me get away with it.

Tilting his head to one side, he handed me my brush. “After we eat, meet me at four. Can you manage that or do you plan to sleep all afternoon?” He laughed when I twisted my lips.

“You’re getting on my bad side,” I teasingly warned, looking down as I tucked in my shirt.

“I’d chase you out of this room if you were dressed.”

I declared that having two brothers had stripped me of all modesty and opened the door. I guess Pa thought I’d really step outside with my trousers half buttoned because he grabbed me around the waist with his left arm and slammed the door closed with his right hand. That move set us off balance and I landed on top of him

After I scampered to my feet I offered a quick apology.

He used the side of the bed to help himself stand. Once on his feet he leaned his head back and looked at me from the bottoms of his eyes. He thought a long time and then shook his head. The minute he spoke I knew he was teasing about ways to get rid of me. “No. Your mother would never believe you tripped in front of a carriage. Although – ” he paused. “She might believe you slept until you starved to death.”

He grinned and slapped me on the back. “If we’re late for the meal you pay.”

I buttoned my trousers faster than I ever had.

 

“Are you an artist?”

I looked up from the bench situated on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi and quickly shot to my feet.

She was the prettiest girl I had seen. Of course she was one of the few girls I had seen because chaperones, fathers, nuns, and high walls closely guarded the girls in New Orleans. Her hair was light and she wore a lavender bonnet that shaded her face and matched her lavender dress. Best of all, she looked like she was my age.

“I – uh – like to draw.”

“Then,” she laughed, “you are an artist.” Her mood changed suddenly and she motioned across the river. The land was low and flat and filled with cotton plants, sugar cane, and slave labor. “The riches are spent here but I am afraid they are created there.” Then her mood changed again. She returned her attention to me and extended her hand.

Did you shake hands with a young lady or did you press your lips to her glove? I had seen Pa do both. I’d never asked him the difference. Given that she looked formal I pressed my lips to her glove and she immediately motioned, as she had to the land across the river, to the bench.

“May I join you?” Her smile was radiant.

“Please do.” I sat and turned sideways to look at her, stretching my right arm on the top of the bench back. That was when my eyes drifted behind her to a woman on the bench next to ours. She was watching us as if her life depended on it.

My new acquaintance lowered her glance but not before I saw the wide smile. “Her name is Esmerelda.”

I blinked and the prettiest girl I’d ever met looked up at me. “Esmerelda,” I repeated. “What does Esmerelda – I mean why is she staring at us?

She smoothed her skirt and then spoke softly. “She is with me all the time.” When she leaned closer she even smelled of lavender. “When I was seven I escaped her for a few hours. Father found it amusing but mother was furious. Unfortunately mother rules the house and father was forced to punish me.”

I had reached the age of fifteen and never considered that girls could be punished. My dismay must have shown because she laughed.

We talked for a few more minutes and with what I took as genuine regret in her voice she announced she must leave. A quiver of excitement shot through me when I stood quickly and held her hand as she rose to her feet.

“Will you be here tomorrow?” she said.

I assured her I would be and decided to argue with Pa about any plans he might have for us.

“Perhaps I will see you then?” Her eyes sparkled and she turned to walk with Esmerelda. Only when they were out of sight did I realize I had never asked her name or given her mine.

As I had the day before I ran all the way back to the boarding house and practically ripped the door off its hinges when I opened it. Pa sat in the chair, tilted back against the wall, and I quickly choked out a “Sorry, Pa” before I filled a glass from the water pitcher.

“I’m glad you’re finding Natchez so interesting. What did you draw today?”

There was something of concern in his tone and he reached for my sketchpad.

I turned toward him and paused with the glass in my hand. “Mostly the low land on the other side of the river. There are a lot of flatboats and steamboats down on the water.”

He flipped through the drawings. “You didn’t see any of them closer than this?”

Did I understand him or his concern that I’d gone to Natchez Under the Hill? No. I reached in my pocket and unfolded the map he had given me. I walked to him and pointed to it. “I was – it’s okay to be here. See?”

He returned my sketchpad and indicated once again his impressive ability to distinguish even the subtlest scent. “You have lavender on you.”

“Say, Pa?” I sat on the edge of the bed, not concerned about the implications of what he had been saying. “How do you know when to kiss a lady’s hand and when to shake it?”

I swear he smiled at me the way he hadn’t since he used to call me “scamp”. Then he pursed his lips as if he’d bitten into something sour. “Generally you kiss a lady’s hand if she extends it with a limp wrist and you shake it if she’s holding it sideways the way a man does.”

Well, that was simple. I’d done the right thing.

“Is that why you smell like lavender?” His smile spread into a wide grin. “I suggest you wash up before we go to this business meeting.”

“Do I have to go?” Even I heard the six-year-old tone in my voice.

Pa read me like a map. “More than likely she’s at home having tea or getting ready for dinner.” He motioned to the washbasin. I set my glass beside it and splashed a bit of water on my face. “Your neck, too,” Pa instructed. As I dried with the towel he put his chair on all fours. “Did you arrange to meet tomorrow?”

I licked my lip. “Yes, Pa.”

“We need to tend to a different sort of business for the next few hours.” We were halfway down the steps when he paused. “Adam, remember: only a gentleman attracts a lady.”

I reminded him he had told me that many times in the past.

“It’s important to remember now more than ever.” His hand behind my shoulder guided me down the stairs.

“Pa?” I asked as we walked the sidewalk. “Is there anyway to get rid of Esmerelda?”

He gave me a disbelieving look. “Who the devil is Esmerelda?”

“She’s with her all the time. Do you think somebody could distract her?”

“Do you want to tell me what you are thinking?”

“No, Pa.”

He shook his head. “Don’t do it. Do I make myself clear?”

“Just for a couple of minutes, Pa? I wouldn’t do anything you wouldn’t do.”

Glory was I in for a shock. Pa grinned at me and then looked down at the ground. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” He paused for a moment. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression, son. There have only been three women in my life.” He was walking kind of funny and I looked down. He was kicking up the toes of his boots like I was. “What’s this beautiful girl’s name?”

“I – uh – well, I forgot to ask.”

My confession sent him into roars of laughter.

“I just forgot,” I defended.

Once again he slapped me on the back. “And to think I was worried about your intentions. Jumping Jehoshaphat you have a lot to learn about courting.”

 

Expecting the meeting to be in another of the stately mansions of Natchez, I was surprised when instead it was in what Pa later explained to me was a taproom. A table about eight feet long had chairs on either side. Behind one side of the table was the reason for the room’s name – a tap where a man pulled large handles to fill mugs with ales and assorted other drinks. A low fire burned in the fireplace at the far end of the room and to say the walls were sparse in decoration would be to understate.

After Pa and I shook hands with four other men we sat and the men settled in for bread, cheese, and ale. I munched on the bread and cheese but even if Pa had signaled me that a mug of ale was allowed, my experience with brandy had dulled my interest in alcohol for a while.

You know how horses and dogs can determine who is the leader early in their relationships? Something indefinable in three of the men indicated the one whose last name was Chambers was the most important among them. Pa was an equal of Chambers. The three other men were slender and so nondescript they could have passed by their own wives and not been recognized. Chambers, however, was a heavier than his companions and considered himself significant based on the way he kept his head tilted back to the way – when he wasn’t drinking – he looped his thumbs behind the armholes of his vest and swelled his chest.

At first my eyes roved around the room because I was much more interested in its architecture, which bespoke an old building possibly from the 1700s, than the conversation. But then Pa did something he hadn’t done in years. His right elbow was on the table as he held his mug but his left hand was under the table. He reached over and pinched fire into my thigh. I slid my right hand over his left, trying to pull it free, but the pinch intensified. In danger of falling off my chair into a destroyed heap of young manhood, I looked at him in watery-eyed dismay. When I did so, he released my thigh and said something to Chambers. He was slick as river mud because not a man at the table suspected anything. Probably the most they thought was a bit of smoke from the fireplace had reddened my eyes.

Rubbing a part of my leg that I was convinced would be bruised for a month I tried to understand why Pa had grabbed my attention that way. I was so preoccupied with my injury that I didn’t listen at all to what the men were discussing. When I felt Pa’s left hand hovering over my thigh again I admit, fifteen or not, I tensed. But this time he tapped lower on my thigh and traced a line toward my knee. If he squeezed my knee I’d be lame the rest of –

Wait a minute. I kept my head lowered and slid my eyes his way. He traced the line from thigh to the same spot on my knee and then I understood. Listen to what Chambers is saying. And listen closely. I raised my head, put my elbows on the table like the other men, and looked straight into Chambers’ green eyes. Something about me suddenly studying him unnerved him a bit but he soon concentrated on speaking to Pa. In the back of my memory I recalled that Chambers had been doing all the talking since we had sat down and every moment of it had been about steamboat supplies.

Once I paid attention, he leaned toward Pa and listed off the number of steamboats and other forms of commerce and transportation that relied on the river’s docks, landing places, and supplies. He was a shrewd man and I didn’t like him a bit. When he finally gave Pa a business proposal, Pa said it was interesting but he needed to discuss it with his partner in New Orleans.

Chambers leaned on the tabletop toward Pa. “Why not make the decision now and inform your partner of it when you return to New Orleans?”

Pa smiled but it was not a happy smile – it was a knowing smile. “We discuss everything of importance. It is a partnership, Chambers.”

“Yes, yes, well of course.” Chambers backed down from Pa as if he were a hissing snake. “I shall look forward to word from you soon, then.”

Pa stood as everyone else did and shook hands first with Chambers and then with the other men.

“It’s been a pleasure, Cartwright,” Chambers concluded.

I noticed that Pa nodded but did not return the compliment.

We were quiet on our walk until I couldn’t hold in my thoughts anymore. “Mr. Chambers’ eyes are too close together.”

Pa pulled his hands from his pockets and came to an abrupt stop. “What?”

I looked into his astonished blue eyes and held my ground. “Mr. Chambers’ eyes are too close together.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Taking the lead, I started walking and Pa stepped up beside me. “Adam, what does that have to do with anything?”

It was my turn to stop. “I don’t like him and I don’t trust him.”

Pa tilted his head back the way he always does when he’s thinking about something. “So you’re letting your emotions get in the way of a business opportunity?” His tone held neither praise nor disapproval.

Pa is a man who expects facts to back arguments or opinions. He was training me and I, who thought I knew everything about him, didn’t sense anything.

So how did I explain my argument to Pa as we resumed walking? “He’s the leader of all of them.”

“And you know this because – ?”

“He’s the one who did all the talking.”

“Maybe he was their spokesman.” Pa’s eyes scanned my face. Then he rested his right arm around my shoulders. “Go on.”

“He wasn’t their spokesman. They all deferred to him.”

Even though I couldn’t see his face I knew Pa was smiling. “Deferred, hum?”

My argument began to have legs, even if they wobbled a little. “He changed the subject.”

“Is that so?” Pa’s voice was calculating and I half-wondered if I was walking into a logic trap. “When did you notice that?”

Embarrassment kept me quiet a moment. “When you pinched the deuce out of my thigh.”

“Is that when you noticed he had changed the subject or when you started listening?”

I shrugged. The warmth of his arm on my shoulders felt good as the cool damp evening air closed in on me. “I was listening at first. But then I got bored.”

“And then I grabbed your attention,” Pa summed up.

“You could call it that.” We waited for two carriages to pass in front of us. When the road was clear we resumed our walk. “I finally realized why you were drawing that line from my thigh to my knee. It was to tell me to watch him and listen to him. When you came here it was to sell your share of the partnership but then he proposed that you sell the business.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

I looked up at him, wondering if he really didn’t know. “Because Mr. Perin doesn’t want to sell his share of the partnership. He wants to keep the business and stay in New Orleans. He told me.”

“Chambers made a generous offer. One that Franklin might not be willing to turn down.”

That was when my argument’s legs reached full strength. “Mr. Perin shouldn’t sell to Mr. Chambers because there’d be no one to compete with Chambers from here to New Orleans.” Pa didn’t say a thing about me dropping the “Mr.”

We reached the building where we planned to have dinner. Pa rested his hand on the rail beside the steps that led to the front door. “There would be no one to compete with him from here to New Orleans?”

“No, Pa. And that means Chambers could set prices and do anything he damn well pleased.”

Oops. Where had that word come from? Pa’s right brow arched significantly and the next thing out of his mouth was exactly what I had thought. “Where did that word come from?”

I swallowed hard and even though I was fifteen I felt about seven years old and definitely in for a talking to. “I don’t know.” My answer was soft and honest.

“Try that sentence again,” he suggested.

“I don’t know?” I asked in confusion.

The hand that wasn’t holding the rail went to the side of Pa’s waist. “The one before that.”

I cleared my throat and tried twice. Finally, when I looked away from Pa, I croaked, “He could set prices and do what he pleased.”

A callused hand raised my chin. Pa was smiling! “It doesn’t have the impact of the first sentence but it’s less offensive, don’t you think?” Then he patted me on the back to urge me to the step where he stood. “And by the way, you have a sound argument. That’s why neither Franklin nor I will be selling out to him.”

I forgot to ask him about the tool he’d used on the boarding house door the night before. Young man or not, I basked in his approval all during the meal and into my dreams that night.

 

As we had arranged, the prettiest girl I’d ever met joined me on the same bench the next day. And on the bench beside ours sat the ever-dedicated Esmerelda. Before I forgot I went straight to business and told her my name. I was quickly rewarded: her name was Gabrielle Stewart. “My mother has French background and my father’s full blood Scot,” she said as if I needed an explanation. “What is your background?”

I had never given it much thought. Most of the time I just considered myself a Cartwright. I said as much to her and she tossed her head back as she laughed. “That is the most refreshing thing I’ve heard. Everyone in mother’s circle knows exactly what their lineage is and is sure that you do, too.” She leaned close as if she were ready to share a secret and behind her I saw Esmerelda tense. “Of course, some of them don’t have a lineage they want anyone to know about.” And she winked at me. Honest to gosh she winked!

From that subject we turned to horses, which seemed logical since we had been discussing lineage. And from horses we went to races – from races to betting – from betting to card games – and from card games to the ones our parents allowed and the ones we were better off not sharing with our parents. She was more full of mischief than Joe.

“So what games do you play?” she asked.

I wasn’t about to admit to pick-up sticks. Instead I told her about checkers and chess – and dice.

She coughed when I said dice. “Do your parents know?” She wiped at her eyes.

Well, not exactly I admitted. When she asked where I had learned I told her about Barbara’s and my experience on the boat in New Orleans. She was fascinated and wanted to know every detail – especially about my ability to roof climb. She touched my thigh and all kinds of things happened to me. “That’s it,” she whispered. “Don’t you see? That’s how I can get away for a while.”

“Away from what?” I asked supidly, wondering when my body would settle down and behave.

“From home.”

I shook my head, wishing I had never told her. “Don’t do that, Gabrielle. It’s not safe for a girl to be out at night.”

She tilted her head. “It would be if you were my escort.”

Do I need to tell you how tempting that plan was? I didn’t think so. Then – much to my regret – the more logical part of my brain took over. First of all she could be badly hurt depending on the pitch of her home’s roof. There was the consideration of her reputation if word got out about what she’d done. And no matter how big a city is, when it comes to gossip it is always a small town. The thing that nailed my conscience in place, though, was the thought of standing in front of Pa while he demanded, “Do you want to tell me what you were thinking?” He hadn’t laid his belt across my backside in a while, and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t now that he considered me a man, but golly he could deliver a gut-wrenching reprimand – and helping Gabrielle roof climb would probably be a good way to make him reconsider my maturity level.

I was silent a long time and finally Gabrielle folded her arms and looked away in an obvious pout. “What are your afraid of?”

No way I was going to tell her I was mostly concerned about facing up to Pa so I said I would never forgive myself if she fell and was hurt. She turned with affection in her eyes and told me that was such a sweet thing to say.

It was my turn to lean toward her. “Pa and I are leaving tomorrow. May I write you?”

She said she would miss me terribly and yes, please write. “But you mustn’t send letters to me directly,” she warned and I wondered why. She wrote on the corner of my sketchpad as she spoke. “Send the letters to my cousin and she will be sure I receive them.” Her quick smile assured me she had meant it when she’d said she would miss me. “Will you be returning?” she asked.

“My family usually comes to Mississippi during the fever time at home. I imagine I can ride up here to visit.” I bragged even though I knew I would have to fight Ma until I didn’t have any air in my lungs. Pa – well he might let me do it. Sometimes he surprised me.

She stood, I kissed her hand, Esmerelda stood, and the two of them walked away. But at the last minute, when Esmerelda was watching the road ahead, Gabrielle turned her head and winked at me again. I winked back and then fell back on the bench hopelessly in love.

Pa stared at me as if he’d never seen me before when I returned to our boarding house. At first I thought it was because I was early for dinner but then his face brightened. “So what’s her name?”

I sat beside him on the edge of the bed. “Gabrielle.”

“Did you happen to get around to telling each other last names?”

“Uh – Stewart.”

“Gabrielle Stewart – ” he repeated. Then his tone of voice changed. “Does she live in the city or in the country?”

Is that something a love-smitten guy would ask? Of course not. “Who cares?” I answered. “Does it make any difference?”

“Probably not.” His answer was vague. “Well, time for us to dress for dinner. Another formal one.” He patted me on the knee.

My thoughts were so far from those of lesser humans that I didn’t remember dressing – and probably received no small amount of help from Pa – I didn’t notice much about the carriage in which we rode and I didn’t pay a moment’s attention to our surroundings. All I could see and all I could hear was Gabrielle.

“Adam,” Pa said and shook my left shoulder to break me from my reverie. “Adam wake up.” His voice was full of good humor and I followed him out of the carriage and then beside him along a walkway toward a house. All I wanted was for the evening to be over so I could dream of my beautiful Gabrielle.

But when a servant opened the entry door there stood a well-dressed couple who looked about Pa’s age and, alongside them in a gorgeous soft yellow silk dress, Gabrielle. My desire for the evening to end evaporated. I started to walk straight to her, but she gently shook her head “no” and then winked.

Suddenly all my senses were on full alert and extremely attuned to the real world. Formal introductions were made, although I noticed Mr. Stewart called Pa “Ben” as we slowly walked to the dining room. Mrs. Stewart held her husband’s arm and I didn’t know whether to offer mine to Gabrielle or not. Deciding discretion was the best course I simply nodded to her and walked beside her. When we were seated her father was at one end of the table, Pa was at the other end, I was to Pa’s left, and Mrs. Stewart and Gabrielle were to her father’s left. What luck! She and I were across from each other!

She was a great actress. When the adult conversation eased from time to time she asked my opinion of Natchez, what my business was, what my plans for the future might be, and if I had enjoyed the riverboat ride.

I have no idea what our meal was or what the adults discussed or whether the windows were open or even if we had dessert. Whenever we weren’t speaking directly to each other I looked at her from the tops of my eyes and she did the same.

My hopes that we would all retire to the parlor were crushed. Only Mr. Stewart, Pa, and I adjourned to the depressing room. I declined both the after-dinner drink and cigar and sat destroyed until the time to leave arrived. Mrs. Stewart wished us good night but Gabrielle was nowhere in sight. If it hadn’t been a huge breech of good manners – which Pa stressed almost as much as respect, obedience, and telling the truth – I would have searched every room to find her.

The carriage had no more than lurched forward for our return to the boarding house than I leaned toward Pa as he sat across from me. “You knew,” I accused.

He held his hands up with his palms toward me. “All I knew was that Sean’s last name was Stewart and so was your sweetheart’s.”

I crossed my arms. I wanted to say I didn’t believe him but that would have been a bit too close to calling him a liar.

“You don’t believe me,” he said for me.

I remained quiet since I had no intention of being lured into a dressing down.

“Adam.” He leaned across the coach toward me and raised my chin with little effort. “Pouting takes a lot out of your good looks.”

I hadn’t been expecting that and I couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d spoken to me in German. Me? Good looking? Since when?

“You’re not a child anymore. Don’t force me to discipline you as if you were.” His voice was as soft as when he used to reassure me when I was little.

Still staring at him, I nodded without saying a word and he smiled slowly. Then he patted my knee and leaned back to his side of the carriage. “When do you plan to write her?”

“Soon as I get back home.”

“How do you plan to get the letters to her?”

Let’s see. Let me pick a different language. I looked at him as if he’d spoken Italian.

“You do know her mother will never allow her to receive the letters,” Pa continued.

I told him she had given me the address of a cousin who would make sure Gabrielle was able to read them.

Pa smirked and crossed his arms. “Bravery. Always have admired that in a man.”

“Sir?”

He tilted his head. “The odds are against you.”

Odds. Was there any way to use that word other than in gambling? Did I tip my hand or play innocent? I went for the latter. “That means something about an advantage, doesn’t it? I’ve heard some men say that.”

Pa was wise to my ploy. “I’m sure you have.”

I quickly looked away, sent thanks to God, and wondered when Pa was going to call in the debt I owed him for not telling the whole truth. He and I both knew there’d be a day when he did – we just didn’t know when.

 

 

I wrote my first and astoundingly stupid letter to Gabrielle on the boat ride home and posted it as soon as we reached New Orleans. If I was an awkward suitor, though, there was one thing I knew everything about: horses. It was just as well that I had written to Gabrielle because she was second in my fickle thoughts once Beauty came into my life.

When we reached home there were the usual greetings – everyone hugged and talked at the same time. Erik asked me excitedly about the steamboat and Joe pulled at Pa’s trouser leg until Pa lifted him for a tickle. For a brief moment everyone paused and Ma took full advantage of the silence.

“Adam, I have the most magnificent news,” she announced. Her eyes were as bright as a child’s.

I turned toward her, curious but a bit tired. “Yes, Ma?”

“Monsieur Alexander, he is selling the horse you call Beauty.”

Suddenly I wasn’t tired at all. And then I was. “He probably wants a lot for her.”

Ma turned her head a bit to one side. “Perhaps not as much as you think. I remind him that she is not a young horse. He reminds me that when you ride her she is very quick. I remind him it is the rider as much as the horse.”

With each of her sentences, Pa’s smiled widened. “And when did he give in?”

She shrugged her right shoulder. “I talk a bit more but I have convinced him that he should allow Adam to consider her first.”

Pa asked the price and Ma immediately answered.

I felt even more tired. “I can’t pay that,” I said. “I don’t have that much money.”

“But of course you do,” Ma said.

“No I don’t, Ma.”

Then Pa stepped in. “Yes you do, son.” The authority in his voice was not to be argued with. Of course that didn’t stop me. I held up my arms and said I maybe had enough to buy two books.

“There’s the money you’ve been saving,” he said.

Saving? What was he talking about? The way I figured it I didn’t have much money because I’d told Pa to use it. If Ma had told me we could buy another platter the day I broke hers I would have been in a bind.

“Remember the money you’ve given us each year from what you’ve earned for exercising Temptation? It’s amounted to a nice sum.”

“But – but I told you to use it for things we needed.”

Ma smiled almost as wide as Pa did and put her hands together in front of her skirt. “Luckily we had no need for anything.”

I looked from Ma to Pa and back to Ma. My fatigue was as forgotten as a boring Bible lesson. “I want to go talk to him now.”

Ma nodded. “You will be back for dinner.”

I danced on one foot, ready to run. “Yes, Ma.”

“And you will be careful.”

“Yes, Ma.”

She waved her left hand. “Then you may go.”

I shot out of the house and was at the stables faster than I had ever been. I didn’t even have the good sense to slow down and I wound up spooking two of the horses in their stalls. They snorted their disapproval at me and then I stopped. Why had I run all the way? Mr. Alexander wouldn’t be here.

Just as I whirled around Jesse called out to me. Since he ran the stables I turned back to face him.

“Guess you’ve come to look over Beauty?” he teased.

“I want to buy her from Mr. Alexander.”

“It’s not a good horse trader who doesn’t look over what he’s buying.”

Considering that I rode Beauty every day for pure enjoyment after I exercised Temptation I didn’t see any sense in Jesse’s observation. “Is she any different than she was when I left for Natchez?”

He leaned on the fence that surrounded the exercise yard. “Nope.”

“Then I’m buying her,” I yelled over my shoulder as I ran again.

I knocked so loudly and impatiently at Mr. Alexander’s house that he opened the door – I’m sure he thought there was an emergency. I didn’t even wait for the common courtesy of asking him how he was or if he was busy or if I had interrupted anything. “I want to buy Beauty,” I blurted out, gasping for air.

Looking down at me, he nodded. “I thought you might. Come inside for some lemonade and we’ll take care of the papers.”

I stopped. I should have brought Pa. There was no way I was old enough to sign a contract.

At that age you can’t believe anyone besides your parents knows how you feel or really much cares but Mr. Alexander understood me better than I thought. He was a man who loved horses, too. “What we will do,” he said after we had both finished our glasses of lemonade, “is I will sign my portion of the bill of sale. You can take it home and have Benjamin sign it and then I will meet him at his shop tomorrow for the payment. Is that agreeable?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He handed me the folded piece of paper. “I hope this doesn’t mean I am losing the man who exercises Temptation.”

I looked up through my lashes. “No, sir.”

He leaned back in his chair. “I thought, Adam, that instead of my paying you in the future we might consider a business deal of sorts. You exercise Temptation for the usual wage and I will credit it to Beauty’s upkeep.”

Given that I hadn’t even considered what I would do with Beauty now that I had her, the deal sounded good to me. I told Mr. Alexander I thought that was fair and he did all he could to fight a smile. He slapped both of his knees and stood so quickly I couldn’t keep up with him. By the time I was on my feet he had extended his hand. “You are a good man to do business with, Adam Cartwright.”

I stammered some sort of response and strolled down his sidewalk. As soon as I was clear of the house, I ran all the way home.

How my family put up with my excited chatter at the dinner table that night I will never know. More than once Ma motioned to my plate. I took a small bite and then started talking with food still in my mouth, trying to ignore the unhappy look from Ma.

Pa knew how to slow me down though. He reached for his cup of coffee and casually asked, “Did you get a saddle with her?”

I didn’t even pretend to eat then. I placed my fork in the middle of my plate and turned my head to one side as I answered, “I don’t think so, Pa.”

Pa reached to a small serving table to his left and closed his hand around the bill of sale. “This will tell you.”

How many ways were there to be a fool? No equipment whatsoever. Just the horse and the deal I had worked out about her upkeep with Mr. Alexander. “How much does a good saddle cost, Pa?”

He looked at the ceiling and considered my question. Then he caused everyone to stop eating – except for Erik. “I suppose that would depend on whether you wanted a leisure saddle or one built for the trail, son.”

I whirled to look at Ma and she was smiling at Pa, glad he had finally shared the secret. Now for me to pretend I hadn’t known about the plans.

“A trail saddle, Pa?”

He slid his tongue across his teeth and those blue eyes weighed me to the ounce. “I believe you’ve known for a while, haven’t you?”

Erik pointed his fork at me. “That’s the secret you wouldn’t tell me – and Pa wouldn’t make you tell.”

“Maybe I guessed,” I said.

“Aw Adam,” Erik moaned. “Ain’t you ever gonna learn what a terrible liar you are?”

“Pa?” Joe leaned sideways, trying to get around Erik. “What’s a twail saddle?”

“It’s one made for heavy use. Trails aren’t easy on the horse or the rider.”

“But,” Joe went on as he pushed at Erik to lean back so he could see Pa, “what is a twail?”

“It’s what we’ll follow to California,” Erik said as he shoved Joe back to his proper place.

Joe continued his questions. “What’s this Califownia?”

“It is a place,” Ma answered. “Far way. I will show you on the map. We are going to travel there. But first you must eat.”

“Why?” he challenged. “Nobody else is.”

Ma’s knowing eyes settled on each of us in turn and we all got the hint. Before he put his fork to his lips Pa told me how much he thought a good trail saddle would cost and then he quickly obeyed Ma.

Part 4

Buying the trail saddle was the easiest part of my life during the next month. Pa showed special interest in how I rode and handled Beauty. I was puzzled because I’d always been a good rider. I didn’t realize at the time what he was doing – he was readying Beauty and me for the trail. He waved a cloth near her face and watched with a critical eye as I brought her under control. We’d done that before with other horses. Eventually she wasn’t as skittish around the fluttering fabric. He gathered brush and worked with Beauty and mostly me until we could have jumped it with our eyes closed. That was something new. He drilled me on getting into and out of the saddle as quickly as I could until my legs ached at night. Together we helped Beauty adjust to the feel of a rifle scabbard. When she didn’t react to that, Pa instructed me to acquaint her with the rifle by letting her smell it, see it, and watch me holding it. After all of that, he told me the difficult part was ahead. Pa popped a short whip far away from her until the cracking of it caused her to turn her head or pin back her ears – but she didn’t run.

Finally it was time for the important test. We rode out in the country, he dismounted and tied his horse far away from us, and then before Beauty or I were ready he fired a rifle toward a distant log. Despite all her training, Beauty made a run for it and for the first time in my life it was all I could do to stay in the saddle. I finally pulled her up and I walked her back toward Pa ready to draw blood.

“What the devil was that?” I didn’t care if he was my pa. He’d scared my horse!

I expected him to correct my disrespect immediately but instead he asked, “You think that won’t happen on the trail?”

“I sure as deuce don’t plan on shooting that close to her, no.” I was as hot from anger as I was from the ride.

“What if someone else does?”

“I’ll shoot them,” I snapped.

Pa was unreadable. “You’re going to have time to pull your rifle?”

“Why would I need to – ” I stopped in mid-sentence. The vision of Inger dying with an arrow in her chest while I held a crying baby Erik froze me in place. “Are we going through Indian territory?”

I saw the regret in Pa’s face for breathing life into the memories. “From what I hear, they aren’t a big threat where we’re headed. I’m concerned about thieves on the way to Independence. On the trail the problems have more to do with illness, finding food –” he looked meaningfully at my rifle “- and accidents with firearms.”

My dreams of going to California had been innocent. Why I’ll never know. Pa and I had rough times east of the Missouri before we lost Inger just west of it. I looked down at him as I understood our partnership was more important than ever. The responsibility of getting to New Orleans safely had been Pa’s. As we headed to California it would be Pa’s again– and mine.

He stood with the rifle in his right hand. Beauty snorted at the lingering smell of gunpowder and I absentmindedly reassured her. After he’d placed his left hand on my knee as I sat in the saddle, Pa said, “You and I are the only ones who know trail life. Erik was too young. Joseph’s never known anything but New Orleans and Mississippi. Your mother crossed the ocean but I’m not sure even she is ready for this.”

I cooled down with the combination of his words and the breeze.

He continued to speak man-to-man. “You know to obey immediately, Adam.” His tone lightened. “We’ve gotten to know each other inside out these past fifteen years.” Then he was serious again. “But I can guarantee when you have to tell your brothers what to do or snap an order at them they’re going to balk until they learn they should obey you. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

I answered that I did.

He patted Beauty’s neck. “You’re up to it or I wouldn’t ask you.”

“I know, Pa. I’ve known since we went to Natchez.”

He smiled at me in surprise. “You have, have you?”

I looked down at my gloves as I held the reins. “It was the first time you treated me like a man.” He held up that cautioning finger and I gave him a smile. “A young man.”

He untied his horse and swung into the saddle with the ease I remembered from years ago. After turning the horse around he looked at me from the bottoms of his eyes. “By the way, I’m selling my half of the partnership to Sean Stewart.”

It was the first time I’d thought of Gabrielle since I’d bought Beauty. I should have known Pa would read my mind.

“Heard anything from her yet?” he asked as our horses walked side by side.

“It’s only been a few weeks.” Then I asked what I’d been wondering for a while. “Pa? Why do I have to send letters to her cousin? Why did she want to pretend I didn’t know her when we had dinner at their house?”

He didn’t answer immediately. “Some people control their children.”

“Ma and you do us,” I said.

Pa grinned as he looked ahead. “We don’t make every decision for you. We allow you to make mistakes. We only punish when we have to. And even you have to admit we don’t do a lot of it.”

“Even me?” I asked before I thought.

He was more serious than I’d seen him in a long time. “I know I was hardest on you.” He gave me a significant look. “And I’ve been easiest on Joseph.”

Okay, he’d read me like a book. So what? He was Pa. I decided to return to his answer. “What do you mean some people control their children?”

“They decide where their children will go and who with.”

He should have said ‘with whom’ but I wasn’t about to correct him.

“Most of the time they arrange marriages. The children can only be seen with the right people and at the right events. And many of the parents send their son back east for school because it gives him status. Sometimes they send them overseas. They also send their daughters east for finishing school so they’ll learn how to be hostesses, do needlepoint, and be worthless.”

Pa wasn’t a cynical person so the sudden observation caused a burst of laughter from me. He flushed at my reaction. “If you tell anybody I said that – “

“Yes?” I tilted my head.

Then he showed me that he hadn’t forgotten as much about my childhood as he sometimes pretended. “I’ll have your hide.”

I stuck my chin out. “That threat doesn’t work anymore.”

“Is that a fact?”

Nodding at him I said, “Yes, Pa.”

His eyes softened and then filled with mischief. “Whoever loses the race chops wood for a week.” With that he set his horse into a full run.

And do you know he never complained after he lost the race. That’s because he paid Erik to chop the wood for him.

 

I suppose it was Pa’s talk to me that day about how the two of us who were the only ones accustomed to traveling on the trail that caused me to start paying more attention to Erik and Joe. Maybe it would have happened anyway, I don’t know. I knew Erik would either have to walk or ride as we headed west so I decided it was in his best interest to know how to ride. I didn’t ask him his opinion. Instead I took him to the stables every other day. We’d run horses a couple of times when Martin had been around. But Erik had been younger then, the horses we had ridden had been docile, and I wanted him to be as trail ready as possible. For most of his life Erik had been one of those kids who ambled through life, enjoying it and not thinking overly much about the next day. I can tell you from personal experience that you’d better pay attention every moment you’re on a horse.

I worked Erik on the gentlest horse in the stable. Slowly I introduced him to riding other horses and I was glad to see that early in his training he understood he didn’t need so much to learn to control the horse as he needed to respect it. I didn’t dare put him on the back of a horse like Beauty and to this day he’s never beaten me in a horse race though Lord knows he’s tried. From the time he was ten, he tried to wrestle me to the floor at home and he’d never had much success. He couldn’t understand why: he was, after all, as tall as me and heavier. But while he concentrated on strength I concentrated on him, learned his tendencies, and usually brought him down pretty quickly. He was absolutely amazed and would turn to Pa asking, “How’d he do that?” Pa would just grin at me and tell Erik he had no idea. So I guess it was a natural extension for Erik to try to wrestle me off my horse when we were side by side. You guessed it. I used the same strategy and he still hasn’t been able to knock me out of the saddle – but then I haven’t been able to do the same to him, either.

When Erik was about as proud of himself as he could be and doing something that was not characteristic of him – bragging – he insisted that the family watch him ride. Ma and Pa obliged with delight in their eyes. Pa held Joe on the top rail of the training area and I knew from the look on my littlest brother’s face that he loved horses as much as I did. The only problem was that I also knew his reckless tendencies. The two were not going to mix well.

Erik and I are so close in age that I always think of him as my “younger” brother. There is almost ten years’ difference in Joe’s and my ages and that, combined with how small he is, has led me to consider him my “littlest” brother. It may not sound like a substantial difference in outlook to you but it is and I’ve come to understand it causes some interesting behavior on my part.

After Erik had successfully exhibited his talents, and headed to the stable to tend the horse, Joe begged and begged and begged until Pa gave him permission to ride – with the warning that he listen to everything I told him. Ma shot me a knowing look and we understood each other; Joe was going to do something risky as sure as the moon rises.

I put him on a plodder of a pony and rested my hand on Joe’s thigh as we walked along. Joe looked about as small as a newborn pup in the saddle and at first he listened intently. Then, as he tends to do, he figured he knew all that could be taught and he signaled the pony to run. I was ready for him and I had the reins in my hand so quickly Joe barely had time to blink. I yanked him off the saddle, whirled him around, and smacked his bottom a couple of times. He turned on me, rubbing his behind and shouted, “Joe’s gonna tell Pa!”

I held out my right hand toward Pa in open invitation. Our father was frowning as he crooked his finger at Joe. My brother suddenly considered me less of a problem. “Maybe Joe won’t tell Pa aftew all.”

Pa crooked his finger again and I leaned down behind the left side of Joe’s face. “I recommend that you don’t make him walk over here after you.”

Joe slowly dragged his feet as he walked toward Pa and continued to rub his behind. After Joe crawled between two of the fence rails Pa sat on his heels. I couldn’t hear what he said but I knew it was stern because of the concern in Ma’s expression. Joe nodded his head and I read his lips as he said, “Yes, Pa.” I wondered what Pa would have to say to me when we were alone.

As he often did, he surprised me. He grabbed my elbow when we entered the courtyard and held me back while everyone else went into the house. “How’s your hand?”

I shifted on my feet. “Uh – all right.”

He held out his right hand and shaped it as he instructed. “Be sure to hold your hand like this. If you swat any other way you can do a lot of damage to a child’s bottom.” He paused. “You can also get a blood blister for your trouble.” He grinned at me. “I learned about the blood blister when I swatted you the first time.”

My mouth fell open and despite my best intentions I was overtaken with what can only be described as giggles. There’s no way on earth you could have convinced me in my childhood that one day I’d be standing there laughing with Pa about him swatting my behind.

When I’d settled down his eyes met mine. “You’re not a bad horseman.”

I stuck my hands in my pockets and probably squared my shoulders. “Yeah.”

Young man or not, I received that eyebrow lift all his sons know to respect and I corrected myself. “Thank you.”

He put his arm around my shoulders and we walked toward the house. “Don’t swat him unless you know I would,” he said gently.

I looked up at him from the tops of my eyes. “I won’t swat him again, Pa. I only did it because he wasn’t thinking and he could have been hurt.”

Pa nodded his head.

I eased back so he could go up the steps into the house first and immediately understood the subtle message Pa had sent me. I had hit Joe while I was angry – not a good thing to do. I’d learned that lesson when Pa had vented his temper on me back when we’d both been younger. Back before he’d learned better.

Pa turned to face me. “Plan to join us for dinner?”

I took the steps two at a time and held the door open so he could enter the house.

 

Erik and I were so compatible that we could not understand the constant arguments and fistfights our friends had with their siblings. On rare occasions we got into “oh yeah?” “yeah!” situations that caused Pa to raise an eyebrow and us to quiet down and agree to do something less volatile. We never came to blows until one hot, muggy, stifling day.

Erik and I were cantankerous from the time we woke up. Stupid things about each other bothered us. I snapped at Erik for saying, “ain’t.” He yelled that I tried to make him fall down the back steps when all I did was accidentally bump him. We argued over whose turn it was to do what chore. Joe observed us from time to time with disbelief all over his freckled face.

Ma separated us and made me sit in the living room without a book to read and she told Erik to sit in our bedroom without anything to play with for an hour. We were no sooner released from our imprisonment than we were at it again.

I walked to the bedroom to get a book. I swear I didn’t realize Erik was lying up there on his bed – I thought he’d gone outside as soon as Ma had said he could. When I found the book on my bed, and turned with it in my hands, I was unaware that Erik was climbing down the ladder. My shoulder hit the lower part of his left leg and he grabbed a ladder rung to keep from falling to the floor.

Even though I hadn’t intended to set him off balance I started to apologize. But Erik cut me off. “You did that on purpose!” he shouted.

I rolled my eyes and walked to the parlor. As my right foot stepped on the parlor rug, Erik grabbed my shoulder and whirled me around.

“I’m talking to you, Adam!”

“No you aren’t – you’re yelling.”

He pushed his hands against my shoulders and I stumbled backwards. “You ain’t the only one who can push and shove around here.”

I went hot with anger. “I said I was sorry. Or at least I tried to before you – “

“That’s right, Mr. Perfect Son,” he taunted. “Trying to apologize when you don’t mean it.”

I balled my fists at the sides of my legs the way I had before I’d nearly beaten Henri into the dirt. “Stop it, Erik.”

Erik leaned until his face was maybe six inches from mine. “You gonna make me?”

“No, but Pa will.” What was I saying? I sounded like a child!

“Go ahead.” Erik jerked his chin and his eyes widened. “Tell him. He’ll have your hide.”

“No, he won’t. I’m too old. But he’ll sure tan yours.” I was full of bluster. Behind me the mantel clock chimed seven times. If I had given it more than a moment’s notice I would have stopped our argument then and there. But I didn’t heed the clock’s warning that Pa was nearly home and I didn’t stop our battle.

Erik pushed me again and my book flew from my hand as I fell to the floor. The next thing I knew we were rolling across the parlor rug – grunting, wrestling, and hitting each other on the shoulders and in the mid-section. I’d been waiting all day to plow into Erik. His fist connected with my left cheek and his knee jabbed into my shin. I landed a blow on his nose – then his lip. Erik’s punch to my nose was as strong as the one with which Henri had nearly broken my jaw.

“Adam! Erik!” Pa’s voice echoed off the parlor walls. But we were out for blood – literally. Erik pinned me to the floor, I heaved with all my strength, and he fell to the floor. I straddled his chest and –

“No, Benjamin!” Ma yelled.

Ma never yelled like that. I turned my head to see what was happening. Pa was holding a water pitcher with his right hand and Ma was grasping his arm to stop him from emptying it on the rug – and us.

While I was distracted Erik squeezed my throat.

Pa’s strong hand grasped my shirt collar and pulled me to my feet. Now I was choking for a different reason. He bent at the waist, grabbed Erik by the side of his collar, jerked his arm, and Erik gagged as he staggered to his feet.

I whirled on Pa and yelled, “He started it!”

Pa glared at me. “You are the oldest,” he reminded as he continued to hold us by our collars.

“But he started it,” I accused. A whack across my bottom – a pain that brought tears to my eyes – caused me to yelp. Ma drew tears from my brother, too, when she slammed the shutter slat across Erik’s behind. I’d never known Ma was so strong but my stinging bottom assured me I hadn’t imagined anything.

Pa was as surprised by her actions as Erik and I were. It was one of the few times I’ve seen him with his mouth open and no words coming out. Finally he found his voice – and settled “the look” on Erik and me. “Find a corner,” he ordered.

A corner! I was fifteen! I started to say something but I caught sight of Ma standing beside Pa. Her left hand was at her waist. But her right hand still held that shutter slat. Burning with humiliation, I walked to a corner and faced it. I was only there a few minutes but it was long enough for me to realize my nose was bleeding – and so was my lip. I wiped at them with my shirtsleeve and then Ma said, “Adam.” I’ll admit it. I startled. “Use this,” she instructed as she handed me a damp cloth.

“Thank you, ma’am.” I pressed it against my lip and moaned. My lip didn’t hurt nearly as bad as my nose though.

Pa was still angry. “Come here. Now,” he said curtly. When I turned around Pa was sitting in his chair with Joe settled on his lap. Pa pointed in front of him. When he’s angry he does a lot of pointing. Erik and I obeyed and stood side by side. We lowered our heads, still holding the cloths to our noses.

“I don’t care what started that fight and I don’t care who started it. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Pa.”

“Yes, Pa.”

“Joe didn’t fight, Pa.”

“Nevertheless, you will listen,” Pa instructed. “I don’t tolerate fighting and you boys know it. Look at me when I’m speaking to you.”

Erik and I obeyed – but it wasn’t easy. I was mortified that he was lecturing me in front of Erik and Joe.

Once again he gave Erik and me “the look.”

“Do you understand why I don’t tolerate fighting?”

Joe shook his head. “Joe didn’t fight, Pa.” My little brother hunched his shoulders when Pa frowned at him. “Joe didn’t,” he whimpered.

Pa looked at each of us and told us we had been given an important gift. God had chosen us to be brothers. And it was His intention that we should love one another and help one another. When we fought as Erik and I had we were treating God with disrespect.

Given that I had been taught from an early age to obey God, Pa’s words shamed me.

“You have a special bond,” Pa stressed. “A bond that will not be broken by time, or where you go, or what you do. You have memories that no one can take from you.” His voice softened. “The three of you are like strong, billowing sails. As long as you work together you can go anywhere.” His eyes lost their harsh glare. “Think of yourselves as a rope. When you fight, you cut that rope – and then it can’t be there when you need to hold on to it for help.” He stood, holding Joe with his left arm. Pa touched my cheek and then Erik’s. “You hurt more than your bodies when you fight.”

I took an unsteady breath. I was fifteen. Too old for crying. So why couldn’t I control myself? Why couldn’t I stop the tears? I lowered my head and wiped at my cheeks, wincing as I touched a skinned spot.

Beside me, Erik sniffled and swiped at his nose. I summoned the courage to raise my head. Joe shifted to study Pa’s face. “Joe’ll be a strong sail and Joe’ll be a good wope.”

I smiled at the simplicity and innocence of his statement. Erik looked up and said he would be a strong sail and a solid rope.

Pa’s eyes settled on me. “And you?”

“Adam’s the wind,” Joe replied proudly.

Erik looked at me from the sides of his eyes. “Nah, he’s a sail and he’s full of wind.”

We playfully shoved at each other and then both sucked in air through our teeth as our bruises protested the close contact. I leaned to get a good look at Erik’s face and repeated what Barbara had said to Pa years before. “You look like something the wharf rats wouldn’t be seen with.”

Erik touched his cheek gingerly. “Yeah? Well you ain’t real pretty yourself.” He grinned at me. “We sure could make someone wish they’d never tangled with us, huh?”

Pa slid his right hand over his face.

“Not that we would, Pa,” Erik assured. “Would we, Adam?”

“Never,” I agreed.

After Pa excused us, Erik and I walked out to the well and tended each other’s scrapes. Joe tagged along and made faces as we flinched and moaned.

 

 

Because of the trip we were planning, my brothers wanted to hear about Pa’s and my travel from the time we’d left the eastern seaboard. They wanted to hear every detail. Except for a few experiences that were a bit too embarrassing to share with my younger brothers, Pa or I told them what we could recall. The stories were cooperative ventures where Pa would say something and then pause as he couldn’t remember and I would fill in for him. Our varying memories of certain occurrences inevitably led to differences in opinions and we argued stubbornly.

One night Pa told them about a town we stopped in not too long before we arrived in New Orleans. I was almost eight at the time so I remembered it clearly. Erik was almost four but he had no memory of the incident. Three days before we left the town a small amount of excitement broke out because of a land dispute between two brothers.

“The older brother rode into town with a dozen men,” Pa said.

“Five, ” I corrected.

“It was a dozen, Adam.”

“Pa, I’m telling you it was five.”

He shrugged and continued. “Anyhow, they rode straight to his brother’s house at the end of Main Street.”

I rolled my eyes and wondered why he was suddenly having memory problems. “His brother was the doctor, Pa. He lived off Main Street in that house that had all the flowers out front.”

Pa tilted his head. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Anyhow –” Pa looked at me from the sides of his eyes and shifted in his chair. “The doctor’s brother rode straight to the doctor’s house –”

I sighed deeply. “They stopped at the saloon first.”

“Who did?”

“The doctor’s brother and his five friends.”

“The doctor’s five friends?”

I did a double take. Was he pulling an Erik? I leaned toward him from where I sat on the rug and said very slowly, “The – doctor’s – brother – and – the – doctor’s – brother’s – five – friends – stopped – at – the – saloon – first.”

Ma laughed softly as she sat on the settee behind me. Erik and Joe, who were sprawled on the stomachs, swung their heads from Pa to me to Pa.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Pa didn’t speak for a few seconds. “So, the doctor’s brother and his friends stopped at the saloon. And then they rode up to the doctor’s house -“

“Aw, Pa,” I moaned. “If you’re gonna tell the story at least tell it the right way.”

Erik’s and Joe’s mouths dropped open.

“I am telling it the right way.”

“You haven’t told anything the right way since you started.”

Pa leaned his forearms on his knees and frowned at me. “Maybe we don’t remember it the same way.”

“Are you saying I’m wrong?” I challenged.

“I’m saying you might be.”

I straightened my back. “I haven’t ever been wrong.”

Pa’s eyes got huge and his brows went as far up on his forehead as I’d ever seen. “I beg your pardon?”

“I haven’t ever been wrong. You’re the one who can’t remember it. They went to the saloon and they got liquored up and then they went into the back room for some poker and that’s where the doctor’s brother shot the fella who was cheating.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He shot the fella who was cheating and two men carried him to the doctor –”

“The doctor’s brother?”

“No, Pa. The man the doctor’s brother shot. Why would they carry the doctor’s brother to the doctor? He wasn’t hurt. Well, not yet.”

Pa tilted his head. “When did he get hurt?”

Wasn’t he listening? “The cheater got hurt at the poker game.”

“I mean the doctor’s brother.”

Ma had laughed so much by then she gasped for air.

“The doctor’s brother was shot when the brother of the fella who was cheating found out the doctor’s brother had shot his brother –”

Pa was incredulous. “The doctor’s brother shot his own brother?”

“Pa,” I wailed. “The brother of the fella who was cheating shot the doctor’s brother.”

“Oohh.” Pa nodded slowly. “The way I remember it the doctor shot the fella who shot his brother.”

Glory, would he never get the story right? I took a deep breath. “Pa, the doctor didn’t have any cause to shoot the brother of the fella who was cheating who shot his brother because the doctor and his brother were the ones fighting over the land.”

Pa shook his head twice as if to clear his thoughts. “Let me get this straight.”

Erik and Joe moaned loudly and lowered their heads.

“The doctor and the doctor’s brother were fighting over a piece of land,” Pa said.

“Yes.”

“The doctor’s brother shot the cheater.”

“Yes.”

“The cheater’s brother shot the doctor’s brother.”

“Yes.”

“Well who shot the doctor?”

“Nobody shot the doctor.”

“He was dead as a fence post the next morning.”

“The doctor!” I exclaimed.

“Yes.”

“Pa, the doctor was fine the next morning. The doctor’s brother was dead and the cheater was dead. But the doctor and the cheater’s brother were fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not the way I remember it. The way I remember it one of the doctor’s brother’s friends and the brother of the cheater –”

Erik and Joe threw their arms in the air and stood from the rug.

“We’we playing checkews,” Joe said in disgust.

Pa couldn’t believe what my brother had said. “You don’t want to hear the rest of the story?”

Erik twisted his lips. “Far as I’m concerned we ain’t heard the beginnin’.”

“Haven’t,” Pa and I corrected.

“Haven’t what?” Erik asked.

I had the good sense to leave the room at that point. But from where I sat on the back steps I heard Erik and Pa at it for a full three minutes.

 

Much to my surprise, and probably to Ma and Pa’s disbelief, Joe went straight to bed when told to that night. That didn’t mean he fell asleep, though. And neither did Erik. The minute I entered the room they conducted their own version of the Inquisition – starting with how I could argue with Pa and get away with it and then meandering into every question imaginable about what Pa or I had told them in previous stories. Sometimes their inquiries were so comical I shared them with Pa when he and I were at the shop. Joe wanted to know if we would tie the outhouse behind the wagon. Erik was concerned about whether the steams and rivers we crossed would have shrimp and crayfish. He’d developed an Epicurean appreciation for good food in New Orleans. He was in for a big surprise.

Erik said he didn’t think it was fair that the horses had to pull the wagon all the way to Missouri. I decided not to tell him that, if we couldn’t buy oxen, those horses and a few more might be taking us to California. Instead I asked him what we could do instead of having the horses pull the wagon. I am always fascinated by the way my brother’s brain works.

“We could rig the wagon with a sail like on those ships Pa’s told us about.” He swelled with importance.

“A sail – “I repeated. “What if there isn’t any wind?”

“What did they do with those ships if there wasn’t any wind?” Erik asked.

“They were dead in the water.”

He looked down. “Oh.” Then his face lit up. “You know what’d be best? If we could put the kind of thing those riverboats use on it.”

I did not believe my ears. “Erik, the boilers on those boats are bigger than our wagon. ” If they weren’t the paddle wheel was for sure.

There was nothing from him for the longest time and then he spoke slowly and deliberately. “Seems to me there oughta be some way to make that wagon move by itself.”

“Move by itself. How would you control the thing?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet, Adam!”

“Well, until you do we’re using horses.”

I didn’t have even a moment of relief before Joe asked if we would stop in a different city each night for dinner. I told him we’d be going through one city and maybe a town or two but that was it. He folded his arms and demanded to know where he was supposed to get candy. Just to get him to hush I told him it fell out of the sky. He might have believed that when he was three but there was no fooling him when we was a much wiser five-year-old.

Some of their questions were driven by fear. Because we had lost Erik’s mother, they were concerned about Ma’s safety. And because we always considered Pa our protector they worried equally about Pa’s welfare. When I assuaged those anxieties as much as possible an entire new crop grew in their fertile imaginations: outlaws, Indians, floods, and broken wagon axles among others. They crossed a hundred bridges before it was necessary. Hopefully before it was never necessary. I didn’t think it was unusual for Erik to consider the future on the trail but I wasn’t sure that Joe should be doing it. I was convinced Erik had influenced him and it would develop into blood-curdling nightmares that would jolt us all out of deep sleep. But Joe slept as soundly as he had as a baby – when we could finally get him to settle down.

 

Other than the times when I told trail stories with Pa, or when Erik and he asked me all their questions in the bedroom, Joe gave me the widest berth I’d ever witnessed. I was baffled by Joe’s daily reaction to me when we were alone and then I figured out what had caused it: the couple of swats I had given him when he’d misbehaved with the pony. Wanting to reassure him, I took him aside more than once to talk to him and the entire time those eyes were round and he nodded mutely. It hurt to have him react that way and I didn’t know how I could repair the damage.

My answer came in the form of two of his “friends” on a warm afternoon. I was walking home from work and had almost reached our house when I heard Joe yelling for help. How you can distinguish your brothers’ voices from other voices I’m not sure but you can from the moment they’re born. I called, trying to find him, because there was terror in his yells. Insane as it was, I wondered if one of those alligators I used to tease Erik about had actually wandered into our neighborhood. Then I was afraid some rabid dog had him penned. It was going to be a whole lot better for me to just find the boy instead of imagining the cause of his distress.

I called out to him a second time and he heard me. He was sobbing as he returned my call by repeating my name three or four times. I finally located him. And what I found sent my temper spewing like a volcano. My littlest brother was sitting on the mansard style roof of a house with his eyes closed. Whoever had left him alone on top of that house was going to answer to me.

A mansard roof has a lower steeper slope roof that then angles into a less steep upper slope. That upper slope is almost impossible to see from street level and if he’d been there finding him would have been a lot more difficult. Luckily for me he was sitting where the steeper level met the less steep. I had never dared climb one of those style roofs and decided I’d have a serious talk with Joe – as soon as I rescued him.

“Joe – ” I held up my hand hoping to calm him. “Don’t move, brother. All right?” What a stupid thing to say to a five-year-old who was terrified of falling.

He sniffled that he understood. I made him promise me that he wouldn’t move and he screamed when I turned my back. Only when I told him I had to get the ladder did he understand I was coming back for him.

Erik wasn’t at home and neither was Ma. I didn’t have time to go back to Pa’s shop so Joe’s rescue was up to me. I leaned the ladder against the house and paused. How the heck had Joe gotten up to where he was? I forgot to explain that the roof is the same on all four sides so there was no way to jump to the peak of the roof or use any of my other tricks.

“Quit crying,” I instructed. “Pay attention.” He flew into new yells. “Joe, if you don’t get quiet I can’t help you. You have to help yourself a little on this and I know you can do it.” I paused for a breath and to give Joe a chance to nod his head. “How’d you get up there?” I asked.

“We – we used that wall and then they pulled me up.”

“That wall?” I motioned to a tall masonry courtyard wall beside the house.

“Uh huh,” came the simple answer. I moved the ladder and reached the top of the wall. There I was – even with the point where the two slopes met. I studied it a long time. No way I could climb over there and carry Joe on my back.

“Can you do something for me? Think you can crawl over here to me?” I held out my hands.

“Ut uh.” He still had his eyes closed and my heart went out to him.

“Tell you what I’ll do, all right? I’ll crawl over there to you and then you’ll hold on to my trousers and crawl over here behind me.”

“Can I do that?” Joe asked. He now had his hands over his eyes.

“Sure.” I sounded a lot braver than I felt.

Knowing he could set me off-balance I prayed to God as I never had before – not for me but for Joe. I crawled my way along the point where the two roofs met and finally reached Joe. After a deep breath I slowly eased around so I was facing the courtyard wall again. Following my coaxing and constant reassurances, Joe finally uncovered his eyes, reached over and grabbed my trouser legs, and got ready to crawl behind me.

If anyone doubts that boy’s bravery they’d better think twice.

He took a deep breath that I could feel. “You’we the best brother evew.”

I decided to relax him. “Don’t tell Erik that.”

“Awe you teasing Joe?”

“Yeah, I’m teasing you. Ready to get down from here?” What a stupid question. I sent up another prayer to heaven – this time that my trousers would stay on as Joe gripped them between my ankles and knees.

I had to devote total concentration to the next effort so I asked God to keep an eye on us for a few more minutes. I had never walked on a roof carrying extra weight, must less crawled while I half-pulled someone, so to describe me as tentative is to understate my feelings. I’m not sure Joe breathed although common sense tells me he had to. After an eternity I was back at the courtyard wall. I asked Joe to sit on the roof while I stepped onto the wall. He whimpered and I told him we had to do it. I stepped onto the top of the courtyard wall and told him to get on my back like when we played horse. My right boot eased to the top rung of the ladder and a voice I had known all my life stopped me.

“Adam?”

“Yes, Pa?”

“What are Joseph and you doing?” he inquired.

“Pa!” Joe blurted.

The ladder almost tipped and probably would have if Pa hadn’t grabbed it.

“Pa,” Joe said again. “Adam saved Joe fwom the woof.”

At that point Pa didn’t ask any questions – he became my helper. “Take three more steps down, Adam, so I can reach your brother.”

I obeyed and then the weight of Joe, which I had always considered light until that afternoon, came off my shoulders. I heard a delighted Joe and I stepped down the ladder and jumped from the last two rungs.

Pa hugged Joe close. Over my brother’s head Pa frowned that he didn’t understand. I mouthed the word “Later” and he nodded. With that, I lifted the ladder and we walked home.

By dinnertime Joe forgot all his fears. Instead he sat at the table and told everyone the entire process of how I’d rescued him from the “woof.” At first Ma thought he was talking about a “wolf” and you’d never believe a person could be so pale. But as Joe continued his saga I explained it had been a “roof” and she shakily reached for her wine glass. I was relieved when no one asked him how he’d gotten into the trouble in the first place. There was one time when Pa looked like he was going to do just that and I quickly said something about how brave Joe had been. Pa gave me what Erik and I had taken to calling “the look” but he sensed not to ask the question and Ma turned the subject to dessert.

I sent Pa a silent signal not to ask Joe about the roof adventure right away. But he didn’t send me a silent signal in return. Later when I told Ma and him goodnight he said since I knew the whole story he expected me to deal with it. I knew from past experience to use Ma’s approach with Joe. As I said before, but it bears repeating, Pa always asked things directly but Ma came at the information slowly and from the side.

On the third day after his “woof” adventure, Joe and I walked around the neighborhood. He swung his hand as it grasped mine. From out of nowhere he blurted that he and his friends had decided to have a rooftop race. The game had sounded like fun to Joe. He’d gone as far as he was when I found him. That was where he made the mistake of looking down and triggered his fear of heights.

Finally he told me the names of the boys who had left him sitting there – John, Samuel, and Jesse. John and Jesse were the younger brothers of Erik’s sometime friend Jonah. Samuel was the youngest brother of my friend Garrett. They were all two to three years older than Joe and they must have known he was frightened. They hadn’t cared at all about someone else’s distress but I had every intention of changing that.

I located the trio in front of Garrett’s house. I must have looked as angry as I felt because they started to scatter and I told them to stay in place or I’d bust their britches. I don’t know if they’d heard the phrase before but they sensed what I meant. As they stood side by side in front of me, I put the fear of Adam Cartwright into every bone in their bodies. I purposely carried Pa’s belt with me, never intending to use it – but they didn’t know that. I lectured them as sternly as Pa ever had spoken to me. When I told them they were excused to go home they ran like rabbits. I hurried back home and hung Pa’s belt up before he discovered it was missing and started asking questions.

Joe was concerned about reprisals. He didn’t know the word but said the other boys would “get back” at him. I assured him if they even mentioned such a thing they would regret it. I wasn’t sure if my reprimand worked on his friends but if they ever “got back” at my brother I never heard about it.

A few days after I’d confronted Jesse, John, and Garrett, I told Joe we needed to talk. He stiffened a bit but he sat down beside me on the courtyard bench without balking. I didn’t want to discourage him from having fun like any other boy his age but I felt I needed to make a point with him. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s fun and what you shouldn’t do, isn’t it?”

He nodded while he looked down and swung his feet back and forth.

“You know how I can tell the difference?”

That got him to look up at me.

I leaned toward him as if I were sharing some big secret. “I think about whether it is something I can tell Pa.”

“And if it isn’t what do you do?” he asked.

Did I tell the truth or lie? He has the same nose for a lie as Pa does. “Sometimes I go ahead and do it. But then Pa finds out and punishes me.”

Joe licked his lips and leaned toward me. I noticed more freckles were scattered across his nose than the year before. “What does he do when he punishes you?”

I closed my eyes. “He tans me with his belt.” I opened my eyes and Joe’s mouth was wide open.

“His belt?” he asked after gulping.

“The first time he used it on me I wasn’t much older than you are. And a couple of years later, Joe, I had to take down my trousers when he used that belt.”

Joe stopped swinging his feet. He shifted and knelt on the bench seat. “Adam, does Pa’s belt huwt bad?”

“Yes it does. That’s one of the reasons I try not to do something he’ll punish me for.”

After tousling his hair, I smiled. “But you’re not going to do anything to get Pa’s belt, right?”

“Huh uh.” He sat down again and swung his feet.

We didn’t talk for a while and then I took him into my confidence. “Joe? Don’t tell Pa what I did today. He wouldn’t like the way I took his belt to scare those boys. When Pa takes down his belt you can bet he’s going to use it.”

“Joe won’t,” he assured. “Brothers got to stay togethew.”

I leaned back and laughed and then he did the same. When I pulled him into my lap he yelped in anticipation of the tickles I delivered. Then he climbed on my back for a game of horse after which we remembered we hadn’t done our afternoon chores and we hurried to complete them.

That night at dinner Joe kept giving me conspiratorial looks that puzzled Ma and Erik but didn’t fool Pa. As we followed the family into the parlor Pa asked in a low voice, “Want to tell me what you did?”

“Not particularly.”

“Something to do with the friends who left Joe on the ‘woof’?”

“Maybe.”

“You didn’t tan those boys, did you?”

Okay, how’d he figure all this out?

“You forgot to hang my belt the way I do – with the buckle turned toward the room and not toward the wall.”

I paused as surprise rippled through me. Then, as he often did, he put his arm on my shoulders and if I hadn’t been so close to him I never would have heard his soft chuckle.

The next week, Pa stopped wearing New Orleans style clothing and dressed in the fuller shirts and more durable trousers suitable for the trail. There was another major change in his clothes: Pa wore his belt every day – and glory did that temporarily improve behavior in the Cartwright house.

 

I enjoyed helping Erik refine his horse riding abilities. The time together renewed all kinds of memories of when we’d been younger and had played together and had believed in things like magical rocks. We also laughed over the “big sins” we had kept from Pa like when we had chunked dirt clods into courtyards as we had passed them. And as I watched him improve it furthered my resolve about what I wanted to give him for his twelfth birthday.

“You what?” Pa asked when I told Ma and him out in the kitchen a few days later.

“I want to buy Erik a horse,” I said. “Do I have enough money?”

Ma and Pa exchanged glances that still held surprise. “I suppose so,” Pa said.

“I need to know for sure.” I wondered if he would tell me I’d gotten a little too big for my britches but instead he cocked his head.

“Yes, you do have enough money,” he said.

I exclaimed that was great and turned to leave.

“Adam,” Ma said and I faced her. “You do not have the money for the saddle.”

My solution was quick. “I’ll buy him the horse now and the saddle later.”

“With what?” Pa asked, reminding me that I no longer received money for exercising Temptation. And I tended to spend what I earned at the store as soon as I received it.

All right. I had a problem on my hands. I looked down as I thought and that ever-bothersome lock of hair fell across my forehead. After I raised my head and hand combed my hair I made a meek suggestion to my parents that maybe they could buy him one.

Pa crossed his arms at his chest and Ma clasped her hands in front of her dress.

Ut oh. Maybe I should have minded my own business.

“What about the horse’s feed and upkeep?”

“Maybe he could work there, too?”

Ma raised her chin. “Do you know this for a fact?”

I admitted that I didn’t.

Then it was Pa’s turn to speak. They were working on me like the team they were. “I suggest you find out about that and then we’ll discuss this idea of yours.”

I wasn’t about to let reality crush my plan. I told him I would do as he asked. I did. And a couple of days later Erik had a horse and saddle. He was as excited as I’d ever seen him and kept telling me “Thanks” until I threatened to return the horse if he didn’t stop. Seeing him that enthusiastic about something was worth the fact that buying his gift had taken every last bit of money I had.

By the time of Erik’s birthday Gabrielle and I had exchanged three letters. Mine were awkward but hers were full of news. She told me about horseback rides in the country and about dances and parties. She recounted how visitors arrived and, in the best of Southern traditions, stayed weeks at a time. In her third letter she excitedly told me about the possibility of going back east to school. I remembered Pa’s remark about girls who learned to be hostesses, do needlework, and be generally worthless. The thought of pretty Gabrielle turning into one of those women saddened me.

I was sitting at the dining table, involved with my fourth boring letter to Gabrielle, when Erik came in from the courtyard and sat down across from me. He watched silently until I finally gave him my attention.

“Well?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Come on, Erik. What do you want?”

He slid his finger on the tabletop, invisibly writing something I couldn’t figure out. “Adam?”

“Hum?”

“You’re gonna go to California aren’t ya?”

I put down my pencil. “What kind of question is that?”

His sky blue eyes met mine. “Are ya?”

“What makes you think I’m not?”

He pointed to the letter. “You ain’t getting married or nothin’ are ya?”

“Erik.” I tried to be patient. “I won’t be sixteen for another month. What makes you think Ma and Pa would let me?”

“Lots of people get married when they’re sixteen.”

I shook my head. “Not in this family.”

He pursed his lips. “How old was Pa when he got married?”

“Not sixteen.”

Those blue eyes squinted. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

“How old was he do ya think?”

“Maybe nineteen or so.”

“That’s not much older than you are now,” Erik observed.

With startling insight I realized Pa had only been a few years older than I was at that time. He’d taken on a wife and, a short time later, a baby. I couldn’t imagine doing the same thing. Truth told, I didn’t want to. I knew I wasn’t ready to take care of a child – having two younger brothers had driven that conviction into me.

“How come –” Erik paused. “Well I mean why’re you writing to her if you’re not gonna marry her?”

I put my elbows on the table. “Because we’re friends.”

Erik shook his head. “No way boys and girls are just friends.”

Even though I didn’t mean to, I smiled at his statement. “Is that so?”

“Sure. Just look around. I mean the boy wants to be just friends but the girl gets all – oh I don’t know. They get all fussy and asking the boy to do this and do that. It’s embarrassing.”

“Being with – ” I remembered what that term meant to a lot of people and wasn’t sure how Erik understood it so I changed my wording. “Sharing time with a girl doesn’t mean you want to marry her. When someone talks about courting a girl that means they want to get married.”

He looked at me shyly. “Are you courting her?” He pointed again to the letter.

“I’m going to California.”

“Are you taking her with us?”

“I’m not planning on it.”

He leaned back and sighed deeply. “Good. We can’t get to California without ya, Adam. ‘Sides, I wouldn’t want to go if you didn’t come.”

I reached across the table and genially slugged him in the arm with my fist. He tried to do the same to me but I was faster than he was. I swung to one side and his fist sailed past me. When he pulled in his arm to jab at me again I held up my hand. “Only one try. You know the rules.”

Erik rolled his eyes as he stood up. “Rules, rules, rules.”

Pa walked into the room. “What’s the matter with rules?” He must have been listening from just outside the doorway. He wasn’t serious but Erik didn’t know that.

“Well it’s just that – what I mean is – well, Pa, rules get in the way of having fun and they’re a whole buncha trouble when you break them.”

Pa put his right hand over his mouth as if he were considering Erik’s remarks – but I knew the hand hid a huge grin.

“I was just talking, Pa. I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

“Anything,” Pa and I corrected at the same time.

“What?” Erik was confused and that was never a good thing.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Pa repeated.

“You didn’t? By what?”

I crossed my arms on the tabletop and rested my head on them. Stop, Pa. Please stop.

“You said you didn’t mean nothing by it. I said you didn’t mean anything by it.”

“So? All it means is we agree.”

“I was correcting your speech, Erik.”

“What?”

Pa moaned softly. “You said “nothing.”

I could imagine Erik’s face screwed up in a frown. “No I didn’t, Pa. I told you I was just talking.”

“Never mind,” Pa said in defeat.

Erik was incredulous. “Never mind you, Pa??”

I raised my head. “He means forget what you two are talking about not that you should never mind him.”

Erik shook his head. “That’s not what he said.”

Exasperation filled my tone of voice. “But that’s what he meant, brother.”

“Why didn’t he say that?”

I fought the impulse to scream. “He did. And if you halfway listened you’d understand.”

Erik leaned toward me with anger in his eyes. “I listen to Pa better than you ever have.”

That was an out and out insult. “What??”

“Both of you stop.” Pa’s order was short and firm.

Did we listen to him? Hardly. We were into a matter of honor about who listened to him better.

I slammed my hand on the tabletop and stood. I can’t tell you how disconcerting it was to look up to my younger brother at a time like that. “You have never listened to Pa as well as I have a day in your life.”

“Boys – ” Pa’s voice promised danger. But we didn’t listen because we were busy arguing about who listened to him.

“I’ve always done what Pa said but you haven’t.” Erik’s accusation stung. “You’ve got Pa convinced you’re Mister Perfect so when you do something wrong he let’s you get away with it.”

“Adam. Erik. Stop this. Now.” Pa might as well have been at the shop for all he was accomplishing with us.

I couldn’t believe my ears. Get away with it? “I’ve never gotten away with anything in my whole life!” Well, a few things but Erik didn’t know about them and, thankfully, neither did Pa.

Our father’s voice sort of entered my consciousness. “Now.”

We ignored Pa completely.

“Oh yeah?” Erik challenged.

I pointed at him and squinted my eyes. “You name one time I’ve gotten away with something. Just one.”

Erik thought. “Well – “

Slapping the tabletop again I claimed he had proven my point.

Not a second later Pa grabbed my head and Erik’s and he held us dangerously close to each other. “I’m about to split your heads open to see if either one of you has any brains.”

Pa had never said anything as ludicrous as that to us. I can’t begin to tell you how funny it sounded although I’m pretty sure Pa hadn’t meant it that way. Erik and I slid looks at each other from the corners of our eyes and laughed until we shook. Pa released us and stared. Our laughter was so strong we leaned into each other for support as tears streamed down our faces.

Pa knew when he was licked. He muttered and left us in our howling state. It was the only time we disobeyed him when he said “now.” But he never said something as unbelievable as banging our heads together to us again.

 

Pa had been right when he told me that Erik and Joe would balk anytime I gave them an order. Since he was busy finishing up the legal work involved in selling his half of the partnership, Pa left me list after list of things to be done before we left for Independence. When I relayed those orders to my brothers they made stubborn mules look compliant. More than once I was tempted to smack Joe’s backside but I had told Pa I would never do it again and I intended to keep my word. What I couldn’t understand was why they didn’t obey. They were just as eager to get to California as I was.

“They don’t have any idea of the work involved,” Pa said when I collapsed on the settee to ask his advice one night after the sources of my aggravation were in bed. “I told you about this, remember?”

“Couldn’t you give them orders?” I requested. “They don’t disobey you.”

He rocked in his chair and worried with his pipe a moment. “We’re partners, Adam. You need to learn how to make them obey you, too.”

“Could you at least talk to them?”

“Yes. But I’m warning you, you have a tough time ahead of you and only half of it is getting to California.” When I gave him a weary look he reassured me. “They’ll learn how to pull along with you instead of against you. The three of you will learn to work as an effective team. Just be patient.”

I answered that I understood. But his words ran thin by the next afternoon. To my utter dismay I found myself yelling at them both. “Do you want to go to California or not!”

What do you think they did? They yelled right back. “Since when are you the boss?” Erik demanded. “You can’t make me,” Joe challenged. I threw my hands in the air and stormed away. That night I told Pa I didn’t want to be in charge of Erik and Joe anymore. He informed me that I had no choice.

I was so aggravated with my brothers that I escaped reality by dreaming about going to Natchez and marrying Gabrielle – it was pure escape because I knew traveling to California was more important to me than any girl. Besides, all entertainment of that idea fell from the heights when I received a letter from her. It began, “Oh, Adam, I have the most exciting news. I am engaged.” I didn’t even bother to read the rest of it. I quickly sent her a letter of congratulations and told her we were headed for California. That’s the way I cast “the prettiest girl I’d ever seen” aside.

The next morning Joe woke me by putting his hand on my shoulder. After pretending I was asleep only got me a firm pat on the shoulder, I slowly opened my eyes and acknowledged the imp.

“Adam?” He had an expression on his face that I’d never seen before and there was hesitancy in his voice. “Adam?”

I lifted up on my right elbow. “What’s up, Little Brother?”

The hesitancy didn’t go away. He even bit at his lip a moment before he took a deep breath in preparation. “Adam? Joe pwomises to do whatevew you say and Joe won’t do anything Joe shouldn’t if – if you’ll show Joe how to wide a howse.”

I suggested we needed to ask Ma and Pa about his proposal. He said he would ask them if I promised to teach him. After long consideration of what I was committing myself to, I said I would but I wanted to be present when he asked permission.

His smile drove the hesitancy from his face. “Joe’ll ask them now.”

“You’re going to let me get dressed, right?”

He ran to the clothes tree and stood on his tiptoes to reach my trousers. He almost tripped over them as he brought them to me. “You don’t need your boots, Adam. We’we just going to the kitchen.”

How could you not smile at him? I stood up, pulled on my trousers, and walked behind him to the kitchen. I’d known he was brave after he’d come off the roof, and I knew Pa never frightened him, but I’d never noticed how he’d inherited Pa’s direct way. In the kitchen he marched to where Pa was pouring a cup of coffee and went straight to the point. “Adam says he’ll teach Joe how to wide a howse if Joe pwomises to do what he says and he said Joe has to ask youw pewmission and he has to see Joe do it. So may Joe?”

Ma leaned against the work counter considering Joe’s request but I think she was also seeing something in her son she hadn’t seen before – he was pretty sure of himself for a six-year-old. The trait has stayed with him as he has grown and has been misunderstood more than once as cockiness.

Pa considered Joe’s request without surprise. He sat on his heels and asked Joe to come to him. My brother did so without hesitation.

“The first time Adam tells us you’ve disobeyed him you lose the privilege. Do I make myself clear, Joseph?”

Joe was as serious as Pa was. “Yes, Pa.”

Pa waved his left hand. “You have my permission.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Joe walked over to Ma. “May Joe, please?”

She sent a beseeching look to Pa and then studied Joe. “Do you not think you are too young for this?”

“No, ma’am. In those stowies they’ve been telling about twaveling, Pa said Adam was widing when he was my age.”

“That’s true, Ma.” I stood beside him.

She placed her hands on Joe’s shoulders. “You will be careful?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He bit his lower lip until she answered.

“Then I, too, give my permission.”

All the tension came out of Joe’s body. He hugged Ma tightly and smiled when she leaned down so he could give her a kiss on the cheek. Turning to face Pa, Joe thanked him too, with a grin just like Pa’s.

I was the subject of his attention next. “They said Joe could wide, Adam. Will you teach Joe now?”

I picked him up and tousled his hair. “Remember what I told you.”

“Joe does. Joe’ll be the best you evew saw.” His excitement was as contagious as his smile. When he hugged me I knew what was coming next. “You’we the best brother evew.”

I winked at him. “Don’t tell Erik that.”

He squinted those big eyes. “Awe you teasing Joe?” And we both laughed.

I started training Joe on a horse the next day. Erik had a suggestion or two based on how I’d taught him so pretty soon he, too, was involved in teaching Joe how to ride a horse. Erik helped Joe as I had helped Erik. He never yelled at Joe and he never told Joe he wasn’t capable of doing something. When Joe didn’t seem ready for the next step, Erik and I worked with him until he gained more control of himself and the horse. I had been right in my evaluation of him the day Erik had asked the family to watch him ride: Joe loved horses as much as I did. He enjoyed riding them, watching them, petting them, grooming them, feeding them – and Erik and I muttered our surprise to each other when the boy didn’t complain about cleaning up after the horse he had ridden. Adding to our bewilderment was the fact that out brother quit referring to himself as “Joe” and learned how to pronounce “r” about two weeks after he started riding a horse.

Joe was as good as his word. He never once disobeyed Erik or me. And while I won’t kid you by saying he was overly cautious he didn’t take any risks. Erik and I softly exchanged worries that someone may have kidnapped our original brother and replaced him with a new one.

On the days when Joe wasn’t due to ride, Erik and I indulged in our favorite sport. We lined up our horses side by side and then we raced down a straightaway yards from the training area. Determining who enjoyed the exercise more, the horses or Erik and me, would have been a difficult task. Our mounts knew what we were preparing to do the minute we trotted them to the scene and the winner tossed his head at the other horse as if to say, “Beat ya.”

Pa didn’t know about our indulgence until Erik and I raced one day when he came to the stables looking for Joe. After we turned our horses to cool them down Pa gave us “the look” as he straightened from where he leaned against the training area fence. We flinched.

“Ut oh,” Erik muttered.

“Act like nothing’s wrong,” I advised.

Erik thought I was crazy. “Adam, Pa’s mad.”

“Angry,” I corrected.

“What’s the difference?”

“I’ll tell you later.” I tried to look meek as we stopped our horses near Pa. Erik had no problem – he was meek.

Pa considered Erik. “How long have you been racing?”

“We thought it would be fun,” Erik answered. Which was the truth.

Pa never has been easy to fool. He knew it was not our first race by the way we rode and controlled our mounts.

I heard what I always dread – that slow, “Adam.”

After I reset my hat and leaned my hands on the saddle horn I answered, “Yes, Pa?”

He called in my debt for when I hadn’t told him the whole truth in Natchez. “Don’t make me ask the question again.”

“We’ve been racing a long time.”

“Where?” His voice deepened.

The implied threat surprised me. “Sir?”

He rarely repeats himself but he did that day. “Where, Adam?”

I motioned behind me. “Here. On the straightaway.”

“Not the racetrack?”

The racetrack! Pa would have had our hides if he had thought we’d been at the racetrack – particularly if he had thought we’d been betting. Erik and I realized what he was thinking at the same time and we said, “No, Pa” as one.

“I saw ‘em, Pa,” Joe piped in after he seemingly appeared out of nowhere. “Here at the stables.”

I blinked and leaned toward him. “We only did it the days you weren’t here.”

He looked down at the soft dirt. “Maybe I came to watch sometimes.”

The big brother in me shot to the surface. “You walked from home to the stables by yourself?”

He frowned at me and waved his arms. “I’m six years old, Adam!”

“You need to be older to do that,” I challenged.

Joe always has been quick with a comeback. He thrust his chin out and folded his arms. “I did it, didn’t I?”

Pa had his back to my littlest brother so Joe couldn’t see the smirk on Pa’s face.

“Besides,” Joe pointed out, “you’re not my pa.”

I leaned forward in the saddle. “Nope but I’m your big brother and you have to do what I tell you.”

His face reddened with aggravation. “Pa, did you hear that?”

Pa studied me and I saw admiration in his eyes as he answered, “Yes.”

“Are you gonna let him say that?” Joe was incensed.

“Yes,” Pa said again.

But Joe wasn’t having any of my warning. “He’s not my pa and he won’t ever be.”

Pa turned his back to Erik and me so he could face Joe. “As Adam said – he’s you’re big brother. You’ll do well to obey him from now on or you will answer to me.” He looked at Erik to indicate the directive was meant for him too.

I could only imagine Joe’s reaction but I didn’t have to imagine Erik’s. He whirled at me. “You ain’t giving me any orders!”

“Aren’t,” I corrected.

“And quit doing that,” he snapped.

Pa turned his attention to Erik. “Young man – “

Erik puffed up like a cold bird but he had the acquired wisdom to know when to hush around Pa.

I didn’t throw my weight around with them very much when we were on the trail. And the fact that I didn’t push them meant they listened when I gave them an order. Well, they listened maybe fifty percent of the time. After all, they are Cartwrights.

Erik and Joe developed into good riders. Joe showed signs of being an instinctive horseman – underlying his talent though was that basic recklessness. I always worried when he mounted up because I knew how badly he could be hurt while riding.

After several delays we were almost outfitted for the trip to Independence, Missouri, to join a wagon train. That was when Tante Jeanette came to our house and pleaded with Ma not to go.

“There are so many dangers,” she said. “And you are so frail, Marie. It is not the life for you.”

Frail? Ma? She’d had Joe hadn’t she? And more astounding as far as I was concerned she’d kept up with him for six years! Added to that was the fact that she was mother to Erik and me – and even I’ll admit we’re not easy to handle at times. She managed to keep her sense of humor, tease us, and accept all of our individual traits. Ma worked as hard at home as Pa did in town. In fact the only thing she was unable to do that I was aware of was skip. I cast a disbelieving eye at Pa and the look he threw back at me warned no matter how old I was he’d tan me if I said a word. I became uncommonly humble.

Getting through that night without saying anything was one of the greatest challenges of my life. Luckily, Tante Jeanette’s words were to no avail and our date of departure remained unchanged.

I had a lot to take care of during the days before we left. I thanked Mr. Alexander for all his help, and for selling Beauty and Erik’s horse to me. He shook my hand and wished my family the best of luck. Telling my friends goodbye was a little harder. We promised to write just as Martin and I had promised. I knew we wouldn’t or the mail would never reach us.

Mrs. de Ville was the person I found it hardest to leave behind. Whenever I had the time I visited with her and we reminisced about everything that had happened since Erik and I had first met her – including the time Thaddeus had gotten inside and damaged the best draperies in her house. I had been scared at the time and sure I could never repay her for my dog’s trespass but Mrs. de Ville had been as gracious as always. As I sat with her when we were ready to leave I came to understand Pa’s lesson about how I might not always agree with someone but it would be a shame if I couldn’t find common ground on a few things. Mrs. de Ville and I agreed on most things – except the fact that she’d sold her country house to a man who owned slaves. I never said a thing to her about it though. It wasn’t my place. Besides I would never have done anything to hurt the woman who was my grandmother in all but blood.

Ma and Pa sold the items we didn’t plan to take with us. Pa bought a wagon to get us to Independence, where we’d exchange it for a bigger one. The trip from New Orleans to Missouri wasn’t as long so we needed fewer provisions.

For the first time I felt sentimental not only about the people we would leave behind but about the city. I treasured New Orleans and all its idiosyncrasies. I would miss the seafood, breads and pastries. I would miss the church bells and the busy sounds around the square. I would miss the architecture and watching the steamboats pull in and then leave again with their excited passengers aboard. I would miss the fine carriages and the equally fine horses – the women in their fancy dresses and the men in their finest suits. I would miss riding the St. Charles streetcar and admiring the new homes that were springing up like wildflowers. I would miss the luxuriant growth of vines and even the moss that grew on the bricks. But most of all I would miss iced cream. I nearly cried when I thought about leaving it behind.

One night when I was reading in bed, one unusual night when Joe and Erik were asleep, Ma’s and Pa’s voices drifted to me. They sounded as if they were at the dining table. I returned to my book and then started eavesdropping – even though I knew better.

Pa told Ma how much money we had and how much he had determined joining a wagon train and outfitting a new wagon in Independence would cost. “There’s one problem,” he said. “Selling the partnership and preparing for the trip took longer than I planned. We’ll reach Independence after May so we’ll have to wait for the wagon train next spring.”

My parents were silent a while and then Ma spoke, her soft accent unusually thick. “I see the money you have listed that we have. But there is more, Benjamin.”

For once someone surprised Pa. “More, Marie?”

She told him how much more there was and it was such a substantial amount that I concentrated all the more on their conversation.

“I don’t understand,” Pa said uncertainly.

“I sold the jewelry.”

“The pieces I’ve given you wouldn’t bring that much.”

“The others did.”

Pa sighed and I knew he was trying to hold his temper. “What other jewelry?”

“They are what my first husband gave me,” Ma confessed. “I have kept them that I might use them. This was the time.”

“Where did you keep – My stars, Marie! Why didn’t you sell them before?”

“As I say to you, Benjamin, I save them for the future.”

“You endured everything after he left when you could have sold that jewelry?”

“It was not such a hard time,” she assured and then directed the conversation in the direction she wanted. “My family is precious – not the gifts given without the love. Such things belong to the past. We leave for the future, yes?”

Pa’s voice went husky and I wondered if he was crying. “Is it possible to love someone more every day?”

Ma laughed slightly. “Surely. It is how I love the boys and you.”

I blew out the lantern by my bunk bed and thanked God for Ma.

 

We said our final goodbyes in New Orleans and then struck out for Missouri. Oddly enough I no longer felt any attachment to the place we had lived for eight years. We left with more than we had when we arrived: a loving mother and wife – and a handful of a brother and son.

I turned in the saddle and looked back once at New Orleans. I never looked back again. I’d brought along all the important things – my family and my memories. No matter what, they are always with me.

 

The End.