Summary:  A WHN for “A Far, Far Better Thing.”  In the quiet of a moonlit night, two brothers reflect on loyalty, loss, and the love that binds some people together.

Rated: K+ WC 1700

 

                                    Reflections on Killing His Friend

 

Hidden in the shadows, Hoss watched his brother.  In the past ten minutes, Joe hadn’t moved.  The moonlight flooded the yard like somebody’d set up a pair of torches, just lighting the edges of his hair and the tiny sliver of his face that Hoss could see from the back.  Even with most of Joe silhouetted by the moon, though, Hoss could see the tense set of his shoulders.

To say something or not to say something.  It wasn’t quite like what Adam read from that play by Mr. Shakespeare, but right then, it was what Hoss needed to know.  Leave Joe alone, or go out there and be with him.  Not that there was anything Hoss could do.  Sharp Tongue was dead, and Joe had killed him.  Being with his brother wasn’t going to change that.

Just as Hoss was about to go back inside, Joe sat down on the porch step and dropped his head into his hands.  That settled it.  Hoss closed the door behind him.  Moving quietly—at least, quietly for him—he sauntered over to Joe as though it was midday and there was nothing at all unusual about either of them being there.

“Hey,” was all he said, but Joe’s head snapped up like he’d been caught doing something wrong.

“What do you want?”  Anybody who hadn’t known Joe all his life would have thought he was being rude or nasty right then with that rough edge in his voice, but Hoss knew what was underneath.  He always knew.  He might not know the why of it, but he knew whether he was hearing tiredness or orneriness or something else, like grief that was too raw and deep to come out the regular way.

So, he settled himself on the step, close enough to reach out and touch his brother without being so close that Joe would get up and move away.  “Just wonderin’ how you’re doing,” he said.  Some men might have made up an excuse for being there, but that wasn’t the way things went with Hoss and Joe.  Adam would probably have eased into things by starting with some other subject and taking the long way around; even Pa did that on occasion.  Not Hoss, though.  It had never been his way, not with Little Joe, any more than Joe would have hidden his concern about Hoss.  They dealt straight with each other, even about the parts of life that most men didn’t talk about.

“He was my friend.”  Joe’s voice was husky, a little bit shaky.

Hoss grunted to let Joe know he’d heard and understood, but he didn’t say anything.  Joe was just talking at this point.  He wasn’t asking for Hoss’s thoughts.  Not yet.

“When we were in school—I never thought—”  Joe broke off, turning his face from Hoss.  Hoss waited, and finally Joe continued, “I never killed a friend before.”

“He didn’t give you a choice.”  The words seemed almost unnecessary.  They both knew it had come down to self-defense—either Sharp Tongue would kill Joe, or Joe would kill Sharp Tongue.  One way or another, somebody wasn’t going to walk away.

But Joe wasn’t quite ready for that.  He tried anyway, just like Hoss knew he would.  Just like he’d probably been doing from the moment the life seeped out of Sharp Tongue.  “Maybe I could have—I don’t know, maybe there was another way.  I could have just wounded him or something.  Stopped him without killing him.”

“Not likely.”  Hoss let the words sink in before he continued, “Remember who you’re talkin’ about.  Sharp Tongue was a mighty tough brave.  You really think he’d have given up if you just wounded him?”

Unexpectedly, Joe gave a small snort of derision, almost like he was mocking his own suggestion.  “No, I reckon not,” he admitted.  “He’d have kept coming after me as long as there was breath in his body.”

“Then there’s your answer.”  Hoss kept his tone as easy as possible.

“Yeah.”  The word was barely audible, but the pain came through loud and clear.

There was a lot more Hoss could have said.  He could have talked about how Sharp Tongue had grown and changed since their school days.  He could have reminded Joe how Tuck would undoubtedly have died if Joe hadn’t stepped in.  With that bad leg, Tuck could never have outrun Sharp Tongue.  He’d have been caught, and he’d have been killed.  And so Joe had taken Tuck’s place, running that desperate race where only the fastest man survived.  Lucy and her pa had called Joe a hero, and while Hoss didn’t disagree, he knew his brother well enough to know that Joe didn’t want to hear anything like that.  Not with his friend’s blood still staining his hands.

“You ever kill a friend?”  It was like Joe was trying to sound casual but something was caught in his throat.

“No,” Hoss said.  He almost wished that he could say yes.  “But Adam had to once.  Remember Ross Marquette?”

Joe nodded.  “Ross’d gone crazy, though.  He wasn’t himself by the time it happened.”

“Maybe not,” Hoss said.  “But I don’t recall that making much difference to Adam.  He still had a mighty rough time of it.”  He thought briefly of suggesting that Joe talk to Adam, but he discarded that notion almost as soon as it came into his head.  Joe knew where to find Adam if he wanted to hear about Ross.  That wasn’t what he needed right now.

The brothers sat without speaking for a long while.  Then, just like they hadn’t stopped talking, Joe said, “I wish he’d been crazy.”

It took Hoss a minute to get at what was underneath Joe’s words.  “’Cause then, it wouldn’t have been like he meant it?”

Joe nodded.  With a note in his voice that was almost like wonder, he said, “He really wanted to kill me.  All those years, all those times I stood up for him—it didn’t mean anything to him.  I was just another white man, and he was just another Indian.”

There wasn’t anything Hoss could say to that.  The lines between one world and another that were barely discernible in childhood had gotten hard and clear when the boys became men.  He didn’t mean to defend Sharp Tongue, but he could see how it would have happened.  Spending years among his own people, listening to the ones who spoke hatred about the white man—it wasn’t even close to surprising that Sharp Tongue could have turned on his boyhood friend.

But Joe would never see it like that.  If his little brother had a failing, it was that he expected more than some people could deliver—more strength, more character, more honor.  He believed that his friends were upright, good people.  It didn’t matter how often he was proved wrong—next time, he’d still be found standing with the people he cared about, right up until they turned and ran away.  His faith and loyalty were absolute, and somehow, he was always surprised when they turned out to be less than he’d believed.

Of course, he’d come by that honestly, Hoss reflected.  Truth be told, all the Cartwrights had the same flaw.  None of them could seem to get it through their thick skulls that other folks just weren’t as apt to stand by their principles or their friends.  As a result, all four of them had had times when they’d sat here just like Joe was doing now, trying to figure out how they hadn’t seen a bad end coming a mile down the road.

Joe ran his hand through his hair.  “It’s getting cold,” he said.  “I guess we should go in.”

“Probably ought to be gettin’ to bed,” Hoss said, but neither of them moved.

“Hoss—”  Joe’s voice broke, and Hoss slid over next to him, wrapping his strong arm around his brother’s shoulders.  As Joe begin to shake, Hoss felt the kind of pain that a man can only know when someone he truly loves is hurting so deep that he aches for not being able to make it better.

“I know,” he whispered as he drew Joe closer, letting the young man muffle his sobs against his big brother’s chest.  “I know.”  He stroked Joe’s curls, his own helplessness squeezing his heart even harder than Joe was clutching his arm.  He could feel his own tears welling up.

Come sunrise, the two would face the day just like normal.  No mention would be made of the night.  At some point, Hoss would likely catch Pa watching Joe for signs of upset about what had happened, and he would nod quietly to let Pa know that everything was all right, that they’d handled it.  It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.  It was just the way life was sometimes.

But that was small comfort now, as the brothers sat together on the porch steps, bathed in moonlight and grief.  The Bible promised that joy would come in the morning, but it also said that first, weeping would last for a night.  So Hoss held his brother close as they mourned for lost friends and desperate acts and choices that weren’t choices at all.  For boys who crossed bridges between worlds, only to turn into men who forgot that they once knew how not to hate.  For the love that some people stood firm on and others never understood, even when it was running right in front of them.

 

 

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