Part Four

He’d been riding for days, but the time still wasn’t right.  He’d thought at first that the parcel would be food, but when he found it tucked in the bottom of his bag, he knew it wasn’t.  Wrapped in sprigged calico and tied with a ribbon, it was soft and lumpy.  Clearly not food, and just as clearly not a diary or anything like that.  Not that he’d ever known Carrie to keep a diary, but the way Edie had talked, he’d had the strange thought that she was giving him something that just might explain what had happened.  A diary would have done that.  Something that would tell him, in plain, clear terms, how it was that the woman who said she loved him could have destroyed both their lives.

He hadn’t known where he was going, but his horse must have known.  Late one afternoon, just as the sun was going down, he realized with a jolt that he was on the Ponderosa.  He reined in the pinto more roughly than he should have.  He couldn’t go back to the house.  He couldn’t face them.  Not like this, with more questions than answers.  They’d want to know how he was, and he didn’t know.  Pa would be searching his face for some sign than he was better, but he wasn’t.  If anything, he was worse now than ever.  Before, he’d only hated himself.  Now, he hated her.

He hated her.

“No!”  The word echoed in the clear, cold dusk.  He didn’t hate her.  He was angry with her—angrier than he’d ever been with another person.  But he didn’t hate her.  He was sure of it, even now.

But it could happen.  It wasn’t impossible.  It wouldn’t even be difficult, not now.  He was teetering on the very edge of that ravine, barely balanced above a perilous sheer drop.  If he gave in—if he let himself hate her—it would be like throwing himself into the depths where the jagged rocks would batter his soul until the last drop of love seeped out, leaving him a mere husk of a man.  He would be as dead as she was, even if his heart kept beating.

Abruptly, he jerked the reins, heading away from the direction of the house, up toward another house.  It was farther than he’d remembered, but finally, in the light of a full moon, he found himself standing in front of their home.

Deliberately, not letting himself think, he led the pinto into the barn.  Nothing had changed.  He didn’t have to think about where to find the lantern; it was right where he’d left it all those months ago.  He lit it and hung it on its nail, and then he unsaddled his horse.  Careful to keep his attention on the tasks at hand, he curried and brushed his horse.  He found a pile of hay just where he’d left it the last time he was here, and he forked it into the stall.  The tin-lined oat bin was half-full, but it was enough for tonight.  He scooped out a bucket of feed; if it was stale, the horse didn’t let on.  Then, he went out to the well to fill a water pail by moonlight, and he brought that back in and set it in the stall, too.

When there was nothing left to do in the barn, he blew out the lantern.  Then, he took his saddlebags and walked out into the yard.  His shadow on the snow was long and thin and gray-blue.  The snow squeaked under his boots, a sure sign that it had been melting by day and refreezing by night.  He crossed the yard as if he did it all the time.  When he reached the front door, he paused.  Then, he squared his shoulders, lifted the latch, and stepped inside.

At once, his senses prickled.  Something wasn’t right.  He dropped his saddlebags on the floor, the thump announcing his presence.  He wished he’d brought the lantern in from the barn.  As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he caught the slight glint of the moonlight on the lamp in the middle of the table.  He crossed the room and lit the lamp, raising it to look around.

It wasn’t a big house.  There were only two rooms, the main room and the bedroom.  The main room was both parlor and kitchen, and that was fine with Carrie.  She’d always been happy to have Joe in the room as she cooked supper or washed dishes.  After a long day’s work, he’d settled in his overstuffed armchair by the fire while she fussed over the stove and chattered about all sorts of things that had happened while he was gone.  She’d had an amazing gift for finding magic in the mundane; she could be just as excited about the first violets of spring as about a trip to San Francisco.  She’d made a braided rug for over by the fireplace, between Joe’s armchair and her rocking chair, and she’d made another for the bedroom.  She was working on a third one to put by the pump counter when she—

“No,” he said aloud.  This was his house.  He could make the rules.  Rule number one:  no talk about that day.

The lamplight revealed no uninvited visitors.  No squatter snored in his chair or sprawled in his bed.  No one else was in the house.  He was alone.  He held up the lantern as if it would reveal something, but the house was every bit as neat and tidy as when he’d left that note and gone to Pa’s.  Better than he’d left it the last time he’d been here after she—afterward, when all he did was stumble around and drink.  Adam and Hoss must have come up here one more time after Pa made him come home.  It hadn’t occurred to Joe to ask.

All at once, he was as tired as if somebody had drained all the blood out of him.  He went into the bedroom and set the lamp on the bedside table.  He turned the flame down and without even pulling off his boots, he lay down on the bed and fell asleep.

The next morning, he was awakened by sunlight streaming in the window.  It took him a minute to remember where he was.  He sat up, blinking.  As he looked around, he felt again that niggling sensation that something wasn’t right, that someone had been here.  He swung his legs over the side of the bed, noticing that his boots had left dirty wet marks on the floor and the quilt.

Then, he realized what he’d sensed without understanding.

The house was clean.  Freshly clean.  As if somebody had come through just yesterday to sweep and dust.

Memories slammed into him then:  Carrie, mopping and cleaning, singing as she made their home as spotless and orderly as she could.  She had loved this house.  Their home.  Their life together.  Him.

She’d loved him.

And yet, she’d done to him the worst thing one person can do to another.

He didn’t know how long he sat on the bed, turning those two thoughts over and over.  He didn’t know how to make them fit together.  He didn’t know if they could.  How could somebody who loved him do such a thing?

The sound of a wagon out front startled him.  He wanted to rise, to go and meet whoever was coming, but he sat still, waiting.  The door opened, and a small, slight figure wearing a wool coat and carrying a basket and a pail came in, carefully closing the door behind him.  Joe watched as he set down the basket and pail and hung the coat carefully on the hook on the wall.

At last, the visitor saw him.  For an instant, he looked startled; then, he stood still.  The two men looked at each other.  Finally, the smaller one spoke.

“Miss Carrie like her house clean.”

Joe nodded to acknowledge this truth.  “How long have been you been doing this?”

The little man shrugged slightly.  “All time.”

“Not before—”

He shook his head, pigtail swinging.  “Miss Carrie do own house.  Hop Sing not come up until after.”  He regarded Joe for a minute.  Then, he set to work pumping water into a pail Joe hadn’t noticed in the corner.  As Joe watched, Hop Sing washed away the muddy footprints Joe had left the night before, working his way from the front room into the bedroom.

When he reached the bed and saw the dirty footprints on the quilt, Hop Sing looked for an instant like he was about to scold Joe the way he always had.  Then, he said, “Hop Sing wash.”

Joe shook his head.  “It’s okay.”

“No,” said the little man firmly.  “Hop Sing wash blanket.”

“You don’t need to,” said Joe.  “It doesn’t matter.”

“Miss Carrie like house clean,” said the little man stubbornly.

“Miss Carrie isn’t here,” said Joe.  “It doesn’t matter what she liked.  She’ll never know the difference.”

Hop Sing looked as shocked as if Joe had slapped him.  “Miss Carrie good girl,” he said.  “Have much pain, much hurt in heart.  Nobody know.”

“Maybe if she’d said something, maybe she wouldn’t have had such a hurt in her heart,” said Joe.  “And maybe she wouldn’t have caused everybody else so much pain.”

“She hurt,” said Hop Sing.

“I don’t care,” said Joe.  “In fact, I don’t care what happens to this house.  I don’t want you to clean here anymore.  Go back home.”

“Hop Sing clean Miss Carrie’s house—”

“It’s not her house!  It’s mine, and I said get out!”  Joe was on his feet without realizing it.  “I mean it!  And don’t you dare tell anybody I’m here!”

“Li’l Joe not come home?”  Hop Sing looked even more stunned.

“I am home,” said Joe.  “This is my home.”

“But Mistah Ben want to know—”

“No!  I mean it!  Don’t you dare tell anybody I’m here!  If you do, I’ll—I’ll—I’ll leave again.  For good this time, and I’ll go so far nobody’ll ever find me!”  He slammed his fist into the wall and yowled with the unexpected pain.  “No!  Don’t try to fix it!  Just go home!” he shouted, jerking his hand away as Hop Sing tried to take it to examine it.  He snatched up Hop Sing’s pail with his good hand and stormed out the front door, tossing the water into the snow.  Then, he stood by the door, holding the bucket, until Hop Sing came out and, with one last unreadable look, climbed into the wagon and drove off.  Only after the little man was gone from sight did Joe scoop up a bucketful of snow and go back inside to plunge his swollen hand into the cold.  With perverse pleasure, he noted that he had tracked more dirty snow into the house.  He sat at the table, his hand in the bucket, and vowed not to clean it up.

Even though he’d told Hop Sing not to say anything, he half-expected his father and brothers to come riding up.  As night fell, he felt a curious sense of almost-disappointment that the little man had done as he demanded.  It had been a quiet day, considering its start.  After Joe had bound up his hand, he spent the time alternating between naps and little chores like hauling in the firewood that had been sitting out for months after the last time he’d split it.  As darkness enveloped the house, he dumped out his saddlebags on the table to see whether there was any food.  Some coffee spilled out of the paper sack, and it was gritty underfoot.  He flung the calico package onto the mantle, but it fell off, and he left it where it fell.  He found some old jerky and some beans.  He didn’t feel like cooking, so he gnawed on the jerky until the edge of hunger had softened, and then he went to bed again.

When he awoke the next morning, the first thing he noticed was the sharp smell of soap.  “I said, go home!” he shouted, but there was no answer.  He threw back the blanket, only dimly realizing that the quilt was gone.  The spilled coffee had been cleaned up.  The calico package sat in Carrie’s rocker by the fireplace, where a fire burned which warmed the chilly house.  A small iron pot sat on the stove, and even with the lid on, the aroma of beef stew permeated the house.

Joe was about to shout again when he realized two things.  First, Hop Sing had clearly already left.  Second, he was too hungry to complain about the intrusion.  Grumpily, he spooned some stew into a bowl and ate it standing over the stove.  It was so good—chunks of tender beef in rich brown gravy, steaming hot and luscious.  He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed Hop Sing’s cooking.  It tasted like home.  He refilled his bowl; this time, he sat down in his armchair by the fire.  When he finished eating, he set the bowl down on the floor by the chair, put his head back, and fell asleep.

The next morning, Joe was awake when the door opened and Hop Sing slipped inside, carrying the freshly-laundered quilt.  Their eyes met, but neither spoke at first.  Then, Joe reached for the quilt.  “Thanks,” was all he said, but Hop Sing nodded ever so slightly.

For more than a week, Joe stayed in his house, with Hop Sing his only visitor.  They rarely spoke except for when Joe thanked him for bringing food.  It was hard to know whether Hop Sing felt he’d already said his piece or whether he was waiting for Joe to say something.  But the truth was that it was oddly relaxing to have a familiar beloved presence in the house and yet not have to do more than utter a handful of words.  It was almost like being an invalid.  While he knew this way of living couldn’t last, there was something so comforting about the little man’s quiet, undemanding way of being there that he didn’t want to speak for fear of having it drift away like woodsmoke on the late winter air.

*******

Days fell into a pattern which, if not precisely logical, was nonetheless comfortable and familiar.  Chores were simple.  The only animal on the place was Joe’s pinto; the others had been moved to the main house long ago.  So, with no eggs to gather, cows to milk, or pigs to slop, morning tasks took practically no time at all.  He tended his horse, and then he tended to himself.  He built up the fire in the stove and put on the coffee pot and the soup kettle to heat the water.  He was sure there was a wash kettle around somewhere, but it wasn’t in the house and he wasn’t going to look for it anywhere else.

All his washing-up took place at the kitchen sink; he never went into the bathhouse.  There were times—usually when he’d had a few drinks—that he thought of burning the bathhouse down, or maybe just ripping it apart board by board.  One night, he stood shivering in the moonlight, a crowbar in one hand and a bottle in the other, ready to tear it to splinters, but when he braced the crowbar against the wood, he couldn’t see it through.  He flung the crowbar away from him, into the night, and stalked back inside the house where he wrapped the quilt around himself and sat in his chair, staring into the embers of the fire.  In spite of everything, he couldn’t destroy it.  In a peculiar way, the bathhouse was at once sacred and profane.  Sacred, because it was the last place on earth where she’d been alive.  Profane, because it was the site of the act which was the bloodiest, the most violent of which any human was capable.

Sometimes, he found himself thinking about what Hop Sing had said.  Miss Carrie have hurt in heart.  Not just hurt.  Anguish.  Anger.  Despair.  Rage.  Terror.  Hatred.

Wait—hatred?  Whose?

Some days, he was convinced that she must have hated him to do such a thing.  Other days, he was just as convinced that she had given no thought at all to how he would feel, that her sole intention was to put an end to her own pain and that this urge had so consumed her that she had not thought about what would come afterward.

By day, he tended to basic life needs.  He hunted for game.  He chopped firewood.  He repaired the latch on the barn door.  He cleaned the one stall that was used.  He let simple tasks become his focus, and he did his best not to think.

One day, he awoke with an urge to ride with purpose.  He couldn’t have said why, or even what the purpose was.  But after breakfast, he saddled his horse, got a lasso, and headed out to look for stray calves.  It was the right time of year.  Probably the Ponderosa ranch hands could use the help.

For the next three days, Joe rose at dawn and rode until dusk.  When he found a stray, he was careful to take it only far enough to be sure it would rejoin the herd.  He didn’t know why it was important to him not to be seen, but he did his best to avoid contact with anyone.

It was only a matter of time, of course.  A man on a black and white pinto couldn’t hope to remain unnoticed forever.  Especially on the Ponderosa, where only one man rode such a horse.  So, it came as no surprise when, late on the fifth day, Joe saw two familiar horses, with even more familiar riders, heading in his direction.  For a fleeting instant, he felt an almost overwhelming urge to turn and run; his pinto was much faster than his brothers’ mounts, and he could easily have gotten away.  But he reined in his horse and sat still, waiting for them to reach him.

The grin on Hoss’s face was so wide it threatened to split the round cheeks.  “Hey, Little Brother!  When’d you get back?”

Adam’s smile was quieter, but no less intense.  “It’s good to see you,” he said.

Joe nodded.  “It’s good to see you, too.”  And it was, though not in the exuberant way he once would have meant.

“You just get back?” Hoss pressed.  “Can’t believe Pa made you come right out to work.”

“He didn’t.”

Adam looked for a moment as if he were working a puzzle.  Then, the furrow in his brow relaxed.  “How long have you been around?”  Hoss looked startled, but Joe held Adam’s gaze steadily.

“A couple weeks,” was all he said, but Hoss stared in disbelief.

“You didn’t just get back?” the big man demanded.

“Take it easy,” said Adam.  To Joe, he said, “Where’ve you been staying?”

“At my house.”  The words were a challenge, a gauntlet flung to the ground.

“Does Pa know you’re back?” Hoss asked.

“No.”  Joe sat straight and defiant.  “And I don’t want him to.  Not yet.”

“Why not?” Hoss looked flabbergasted.

It was a question Joe had been asking himself ever since the first morning he woke in his home, but still he had no answer.  “I’m not ready,” he said at last.  “I’m not back the way you mean—the way Pa would want.  I don’t know if I’m ever going to be back that way.  I’m just—I can’t—I’m not ready to be back.  I’m not back.”

Hoss looked like he wanted to reach over and grab his brother’s ear and drag him all the way back to the main house, but Adam put a restraining hand on Hoss’s arm.  “If you say so,” he said.  He gathered his reins, adding, “Check down in the draw.  I saw a couple head over that way earlier in the week.  I think one of them calved last month.”

“Okay.”  Joe nudged the pinto and rode off.

When he was out of earshot, Hoss turned to Adam.  “What d’you make of that?”

“What do you mean?”

“If he ain’t ready to be back, then why’s he comin’ out here where he knows he’s gonna run into us?”

“That would be the question, wouldn’t it?  Let’s get going.  We’ve only got another hour of daylight.”

As they rode back down the hill, Hoss said, “You think we should tell Pa?”

“No,” said Adam.  “That’s not our decision.  It’s up to Joe.”

“And he says he ain’t ready to be back.”

Adam grinned.  Up the hill from them, the black and white horse loped along the horizon with all the grace and freedom of a wild mustang.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “I have a feeling our little brother may be closer to ‘back’ than he thinks.”

*******

That night, Joe was half-relieved and half-disappointed when no visitors arrived.  He knew that Adam would keep his secret, at least for now, and Adam would likewise keep Hoss in line.  Still, he found himself expecting a knock on the door and a deep voice saying, “Hello, son.”

But the evening passed quietly.  Joe prepared and ate his solitary supper.  He covered the leftovers, setting the bowl on the counter.  Then, he took up his pencil and settled himself at the table.

He didn’t know why he’d started writing to her.  Maybe because it felt familiar, reminding him of the early days of their courtship when everything was new and innocent and thrilling.  All those days when he’d been laid up, when letters as their only means of conversing.  Somehow, writing had heightened the excitement precisely because he’d had no way of seeing her face, hearing her voice, touching her hand.  All he’d had were her words on the page, graceful script as shy and lovely as Carrie herself.  He’d done his best to respond, and though his words often felt clumsy and coarse, sheer practice made it easier to relay his thoughts and feelings on paper.  He found himself saying things he might not have had the courage to say to her face, like the kind of poetic stuff that Adam probably said to girls all the time.  Sometimes, he wondered whether Carrie might be doing the same, saying things in her letters that she didn’t have the nerve to say in person.

Even after he was recovered and they were together, they’d kept on writing to each other.  If they had a disagreement, she seemed to prefer working it out by writing to him instead of talking.  It was almost as if she felt protected by the distance of the written word.  She never liked discord of any kind, and she seemed almost panicked if Joe was annoyed or irritated about anything.  “It’s okay,” he’d said more than once.  “I’m not going anywhere.  I love you.  Everything’s okay.”  But arguments seemed to frighten her, and Joe learned that this fear was best comforted by a letter reminding her how much he loved her.  It was almost as though seeing the words in writing made them more permanent, more real for her.

Once they were married, he’d still written her little notes, leaving them on her pillow or propped against the sugar bowl or somewhere else where she could happen upon them.  He’d liked the notion that while he was out working, she would find something from him to remind her how much he loved her.  Even better was finding love notes from her tucked in his saddlebags or his jacket pocket.  It was like an unexpected kiss.

But then had come his last note to her, so cold and angry.  And hers to him, filled with such pain that he’d only been able to read it once.  He hadn’t written anything for a long, long time after that.

Now it was a one-sided conversation.  Even so, he wrote every night, carefully stacking the letters on the table as though she might come in and see them.  As though there were some way that his words might reach her.

It was ridiculous.  Nonsensical.  Yet night after night, he sat at the table, writing to his dead wife about what he thought and how he felt.  Sometimes he wrote love letters.  Other times, he told her about funny things he’d thought or seen, or just day-to-day life around the ranch.  Still other times, he poured out such vitriol, such fury and contempt, that the words fairly seared the page.  The first time he wrote such a letter, he woke the next morning with every intention of burning it, but he didn’t.  He wasn’t sure why, except that he’d been honest and somehow, that meant something.  Besides, he told himself, she was beyond being hurt by him.  So, he uncrumpled the sheet of paper, smoothed it out, and placed it on the stack with the other pages.

Night after night, the stack grew.  Night after night, he told her everything, the good and the bad, and then he went to bed and dreamed of her answers.

He licked the tip of the pencil.  “Dearest Carrie,” he began.

I saw Adam and Hoss today.  I guess I expected to at some point, but not this soon.  I could tell that Hoss was real disappointed that I wasn’t coming back to the house or at least visiting Pa.  I think Adam understood, though.  At least, he didn’t start telling me what I should be doing, and you know Adam.  If there’s a way to boss me around, he’ll find it.

 It feels strange to be here alone after work.  You were always here when I came home at night.  I’d come in from a long day, and you always looked so happy to see me.  Now I wonder how happy you were.  Were you really that glad to see me, or did you just want to be?  Did you worry all the time about me finding out?  Was there ever a time when you just relaxed and enjoyed us being together, or were you always afraid?

He paused.  Was it just wishful thinking, or was there the slightest breath by his ear, as if she was leaning over his shoulder to see what he was writing?  Finally, he continued:

I hope you weren’t always afraid.  I hope there were times when you were happy.  I loved you so much.  I’d have done anything to make things right.  I wish you’d told me the truth right off.  I’d still have loved you. I could never not have loved you.  You’re in my heart forever.  You’re a part of my soul.

He closed his eyes.  His own words echoed:  You’re in my heart forever.  You’re a part of my soul.  “Was I ever in your heart?” he whispered aloud, and again he felt the shadow of a breath by his ear.

As if she was whispering something.

 *******

Ben Cartwright had spent more than thirty years keeping ahead of his sons.  He knew, of course, that there had been things he’d missed.  For all the times he’d caught Adam reading after bedtime or Hoss tending a sick animal instead of doing homework or Joe sneaking in late, there had undoubtedly been dozens more times that they’d successfully pulled the wool over their pa’s eyes.

Still, by this time Ben knew what to look for.  And so, when Adam and Hoss were unnaturally talkative over supper, Ben knew that something was up.  Hoss kept glancing over at Adam, almost as if for reassurance.  For his part, Adam was intent on his meal, the table, his father—in other words, everything except his brother.

Yes, something was definitely up.

As his sons chattered, Ben smiled and nodded and listened for clues.  The conversation moved from Matt Clausen’s new mare to the social next Saturday to whether they would be outbid by Barney Fuller on that new contract to supply timber for the Diamondhead Mine.  Only once did Adam’s eyes cut over to Hoss, and that was when Hoss said that they’d rounded up nearly two dozen stray calves in only four days.

But why would Adam care if Hoss talked about strays?  Could there be something about the calves that wasn’t right?  Hoss suddenly looked nervous, as though he’d revealed a secret, but that made no sense.

“How many more strays do you figure are out there?” Ben asked, less because he cared than because he wanted to take the temperature of this particular topic.

“Hard to say,” said Adam.  “With any luck, we’ll have all the usual spots checked by week’s end.”  He looked downright bored.  A sure sign that something was afoot.

Ben nodded.  “Let me know if you need more men.”  Hoss’s eyes cut over to Adam, who glared at his brother.  Ben laid down his fork.  “All right, you two.  What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” said Adam with a meaningful stare at Hoss.

“Hoss?  What’s going on?”  His middle son was practically squirming.  Hoss had always been the weak link in his brothers’ schemes.  He just couldn’t bluff worth a damn.

The big man opened his mouth, but Adam snapped, “No.”

“But, Adam—”

“No.”  The elder brother’s glare was so fierce that Ben was startled.  He watched as the two brothers held a silent conversation, Hoss pleading and Adam threatening.  Finally, Hoss turned to his father.  His blue eyes were dark with remorse and regret and something else Ben couldn’t identify.  If he’d had to guess, he’d have said it was pity.

“I’m sorry, Pa, but I can’t tell you,” Hoss said.

So, there was something to tell.  Ben started to speak, but Hoss held up his hand.  “Don’t ask, Pa.  Please.”  His voice sounded sad, but resolute.

Ben regarded his sons.  Whatever was going on, it was serious.  “Fine,” he said after a minute.  “I won’t ask for details, but you boys have to tell me this.  Are you all right?”

“Yes, sir,” said Hoss.

“Yes, Pa,” said Adam.

They looked relieved.  He’d guessed wrong.  But he had to trust them.  He had to believe that if there was something he needed to know, they’d tell him.

He rose from the table and headed to his desk.  The mail he’d picked up in town lay unopened where he’d left it.  He flipped through it slowly, because he already knew what he wouldn’t find.  Without looking up from the papers in his hand, he said, “It’s been a long time since we heard from Little Joe.”  He tossed the unopened mail on the desk and reached behind himself for the chair.

Which was why he didn’t see the guilty looks his sons exchanged.

*******

The calico package had been sitting in Carrie’s chair for more than three weeks the night Joe decided to open it.  He’d picked it up and put it down dozens of times.  The night after he encountered Hoss and Adam, he’d dreamed that Carrie was holding the package out as if it was a gift for him.  He woke before he could open it, but when he walked into the front room that morning, there it sat as if beckoning him.  He was tempted to open it right then, but something inside him didn’t dare.  Not now.  Not right before he had to ride out and possibly run into his brothers again.

That evening, as he ate his solitary supper, he watched the package closely, as if it were about to jump up and run around.  It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t make its presence any less nerve-wracking.  Finally, he pushed his plate away and rose.

“All right, let’s see it,” he announced as though someone else were watching.  He strode over to the package and picked it up.  It was slightly heavier than it looked.  He hesitated.  Once he opened it, that was it.  He would know what it contained, and he could never again not know.  His heart pounded.  All at once, it was that April morning and he was walking toward the bathhouse, about to push open the door.

“No!” he commanded himself.  Whatever the package contained, it was nothing compared to what he’d found behind that door.  Nothing could hurt him anymore.  Defiantly, he pulled at the ribbon that bound the top, and the sprigged cloth fell away.

That it was a doll was not a surprise; that much he’d half-suspected from his handling of it.  What stole his breath was how perfectly the little rag doll resembled Carrie.  The same wispy blond hair, big brown eyes, sweet smile.  The artist—and the person who had made this clearly was an artist—had even caught her dimples, the one in the right cheek slightly deeper than the one in the left.  The dress looked so familiar that he went, doll in hand, to the clothes press where her dresses still hung.  Sure enough, her favorite dress—the pink one with the little white flowers—was hanging in front of him, and the same dress, right down to the embroidered collar, was also on the miniature Carrie.  Questions swirled through his mind like leaves in an autumn wind.  When had she gotten that dress?  Had she had it when they met?  Had she gotten it since?  Had she made it?  Because whoever made the doll knew about the dress, made it to match.  It must have been Carrie.  But when?  Why?  Why would she make a doll of herself?  For a daughter she would never have?

Joe couldn’t have said how long he stood in the darkening room, holding the doll.  Nor could he have said when the tears started to roll down his cheeks.  Eventually, he shuffled back to the front room and sat down in her rocking chair, clutching the doll.

The next thing he knew, sunlight was edging into the room.  He rolled his head to relieve the stiffness in his neck.  Hop Sing hadn’t been here; the house was cold.  He came only once or twice a week now, just enough to make sure the house was clean and Joe was eating.  He hadn’t actually said so, but Joe sensed that he disapproved of the fact that Number Three Son hadn’t gone to see his father, hadn’t even let on that he was near.

The sight of the doll in his lap startled him almost as much as it had the night before.  He rose, stretching, and set it on the counter next to the pump.  After he’d gone out to the barn to tend the pinto, he came inside to wash.  He could almost feel the doll watching him the way Carrie used to when he was shaving.  She’d slip up silently behind him and put her arms around his bare torso, kissing the back of his neck.  “You’re a mighty handsome man, Mr. Cartwright,” she murmur, and when he turned to her, his face covered in shaving lather, she’d giggle and pretend to squirm away as he held her and kissed her.  He smiled, remembering, but his smile faded as he recalled the time he’d tried to get her to go back to bed and she never would.  Not in daylight.  He never understood it back then.

He splashed water on his face and groped for the towel.  A slight splash surprised him, and he opened his eyes to see the doll lying in the water.

“Damn!”  He rescued it, but the dress was wet.  Carrie’s dress.  Instinctively, he turned the doll over.  Unsurprisingly, the doll’s dress had small white buttons down the back, just like Carrie’s.  He unbuttoned the dress and removed it, laying it on the table to dry.  Then, he picked up the doll and turned it face up, and—

“Oh, God!”

Stitched onto the doll’s torso were two things.  A red heart occupied the space on the left side of the chest.  But it was the other stitching that made his stomach pitch like a ship at stormy sea.

The fabric on the doll’s lower abdomen had been slit vertically.  The edges of the fabric were held together by a series of small red stitches.

“Oh, God.  Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.”  He stumbled to the rocking chair and collapsed into it, clutching the doll.

So this was how she’d seen herself—a loving heart, but scarred.  Even in something as sweet, as innocent as a child’s toy, the scar had permeated her thoughts, demanding its prominence in this image of her.  She might know that she was lovely, might even create a likeness that reflected this, but in the end, she could never escape the scar.  Everything else about her—her artistry, her humor, her delight in small things, her passion, her love for him, her longing for happily-ever-after—in the end, all of it fell victim to the scar.

Darkness was falling by the time Joe rose from the chair, but he didn’t hesitate now.  He stuffed the doll back into its dress, pulled on his jacket and tucked the doll inside, next to his heart.  Then, he headed out to the barn and with grim determination, he saddled his horse.  By the light of the rising moon, he rode out in search of the one person who could give him answers.

*******

Joe noted with satisfaction that when she opened the door and saw him, Ruth Gillam turned pale  He touched the brim of his hat.  “Evening, Mrs. Gillam.  Can I come in?”  His tone made it clear that this was no social call.  He sounded like a sheriff who has come to arrest a thief.  At her uncertain expression, he knew that she heard the same note in his voice.

The large woman stepped aside to let him enter.  “I didn’t know you were back.”

“Edie wrote you that I left.”  It was a guess, but a good one:  she nodded.  “Did she tell you what she gave me?”  Before she could answer, he reached into his jacket and took out the doll, holding it up so that she could see its face.  “Carrie made this, didn’t she?”

Ruth Gillam nodded.  She led the way into the parlor and gestured for Joe to sit on one end of the settee as she sat on the other.  “May I?” she asked.  Without waiting for an answer, she reached over and took the doll.  Speaking almost to herself, she said, “She was so talented.  She could have been an artist.”

“You’ve seen this before.”  It wasn’t a question, but Ruth nodded.  “Look under the skirt,” Joe ordered.  The older woman looked startled, but the intensity of his stare convinced her, and she lifted the skirt.  She caught her breath, and for a moment, her small eyes glistened.  Slowly, she lowered the skirt, smoothing it into place as if to protect the doll’s privacy.  Then, she lifted her head and regarded Joe for a long minute.

“Wait here,” she said.  She set the doll on the settee between them and left the room. Joe listened to the loud tick of the grandfather clock for what seemed like hours before she returned, her hands full of more dolls.

“I only sent the one to Edie,” she said.  “It was part of a set.”  She set the others on the settee, and this time, it was Joe who caught his breath.

The first doll was a boy with curly brown hair, green eyes and a green jacket.  It wore tan pants and a left-handed holster with a tiny toy gun.

But it was the other two dolls that forced him to close his eyes.  They were much smaller—clearly, children of the larger dolls.  One of the dolls, a girl, had brown eyes and a pink dress, but she wore a white pinafore and the wispy blond hair was in pigtails.  The other doll was a boy with curly brown hair, green eyes and schoolboy knickers.

“She made these when you were courting,” Ruth said.  “This was her dream.  More than anything else in the world, this is what she wanted.”

Joe pressed his fist against his mouth.  He would not cry.  Not here.  Not in front of Ruth Gillam.

But Ruth was still talking.  “I was afraid for her,” she said.  “Carrie loved you so much, and she was so fragile.  I didn’t want you to break her heart.”

“So you told her not to tell me.”  His voice refused to go above a whisper.

“No,” said Ruth.  “I talked to her about it.  I said you should know.  I told her she’d find out then what kind of boy you were.”  She reached over to place one plump hand on Joe’s.  “I couldn’t imagine you walking away like that other boy did.  I was sure you loved her more than that, and if you didn’t, then she deserved to know.  But she wouldn’t take the chance.  She was terrified of losing you.  She loved you so much.”

Joe forced himself to look straight at her.  He had to ask.  “The other time—was that why?  Because that boy left?”

“What other time?”  Ruth seemed genuinely confused for a few moments.  Then, grim comprehension dropped over her like a noose.

“No,” she said.  “That was before she even met him.  It was after the operation.  After Edie told her what the doctor had said.”  She sat back, reflecting.  “All Carrie ever wanted was to find a wonderful man and raise a great big family.  When she found out she’d never be able to have children, she ran off.  Russ found her at the old tree by the edge of town where they did all the hangings.  She had the rope up over the branch and was making the loop.  A few minutes later, he might have been too late.”

“I never knew,” Joe whispered.

“We thought maybe it was just the shock,” said Ruth.  “But when Jonathan proposed, Edie told her she should tell him.”

“Great advice that turned out to be,” Joe muttered.

“It was,” said Ruth.  “It kept Carrie from making a dreadful mistake.”

“And that’s why she wouldn’t tell me?”

Ruth sighed.  “If you want my opinion, I don’t think she loved Jonathan Walzer all that much.  Certainly she was upset when he broke off the engagement, but any girl would be.  But you—you were something else again.  You worried me, because I could see she’d fallen in love with you for real, and I was not about to let you break her heart.”

“So you told her to tell me?  You figured that would get rid of me?”

Ruth shook her head.  “I wanted her to tell you, but not because I thought you’d leave,” she reminded him.  “I wanted to protect her.  If you knew and you stayed, the two of you could face it together.”  She regarded Joe with enormous sadness.  “How did you finally find out?”

“I walked in on her in the bathhouse, and I saw the scar.”  For a searing instant, he could see her again—naked, on her knees, sobbing as she begged his forgiveness.  “She’d talked so much about our children, the family we’d have.  She kept saying—”  He broke off.  When he’d composed himself, he met her eyes.  “It wasn’t that she was barren.  That wasn’t what got to me.  It was the lies.”

For a long time, they sat in silence.  Then, Ruth spoke.  “I know it doesn’t help anything, but to her, they weren’t lies.  They were dreams.  Dreams of the life she wanted more than anything.  The two of you, and the family you would have together.  That was all she ever wanted, from the day she met you.”  A tear trickled down her cheek as she rose.  She gestured to the dolls.  “You can have them if you want.”

Numbly, Joe nodded.  As he got to his feet, Ruth left the room, returning with a small sack.  She tucked all the dolls into it, the Carrie doll too, and she handed Joe the sack.  Then, she surprised him by enfolding him in her soft arms.

“I was never able to have children either,” she said.  “Neither could Edie.  Marianne was the only one of the three of us who ever had a baby.  She always said Carrie was our daughter, too.”  She kissed Joe’s cheek.  “You made our girl happy—at least, as happy as she could be.”

“Did I?” he whispered.

Ruth nodded.  “As much as anybody ever could,” she said.  “Thank you for that.”

His throat felt closed; he couldn’t speak.  He touched the brim of his hat and ducked out, clutching the sack that held Carrie’s dreams.

*******

He didn’t go out looking for strays the next day or the day after, or the day after that.  Daylight crept into the front room each morning, soaring at midday and fading back out as evening approached.  Joe sat in Carrie’s rocking chair, studying the four dolls lined up on the table as the sun’s rays landed on each in its turn.

He imagined Carrie’s face as she stitched them, as she gave shape to her dreams.  She would have loved doing this—taking scraps of cloth and thread and turning them into beings with faces and bodies and personalities.  He remembered her hands, so delicate and sure as she sewed and knitted, as she kneaded bread and smoothed the quilt on their bed.  She scrubbed and swept and straightened, and the work that turned other women old before their time had energized her, delighted her.  She’d moved with such grace that she seemed almost to be dancing with the broom.  More than once, he’d caught her doing exactly that, and she’d blushed, but she hadn’t stopped.

Miss Carrie like her house clean.  Miss Carrie good girl.  Have much pain, much hurt in heart.  Nobody know.

Finally, one night he lit the lamp and took out one more piece of paper.  He sat at the table, studying each doll in turn.  Then, he wrote:

My beloved Carrie,

It was my dream, too.

I will always love you.

Your husband,

Joe

Deliberately, he walked to the corner of the counter where the other letters sat.  He placed this one on top of the stack.  Then, he bundled them with the ribbon that had held the calico package closed.  He placed the dolls back in Ruth Gillam’s sack, and  then he put in the letters.

He took the lamp in one hand and the sack in the other and went into the bedroom.  Carefully, he set the lamp on the nightstand and the sack on the bed.  Then, he went to the clothes press and took out her dresses, smoothing them as he laid them on the bed.  He removed her other clothes from the bureau drawer and set them gently beside the dresses.  For a moment, he wondered where her shoes were; then, he realized that Nathaniel Greene had probably put them on her.  Until that moment, Joe hadn’t remembered that he never saw her in the casket.  He looked at the dresses on the bed, but he couldn’t have said which one was missing.  Which one she’d been buried in.  He wondered briefly who had made the choice.

He stood still, lost in the memory of that day, that time.  Then, he shook his head and knelt to open the small trunk in which they moved her belongings from the Gillams’ home to their own.  With infinite care, he folded each garment and laid it in the trunk.  He went to the kitchen and took down the yellow curtains with the ribbon border, and he placed those on top of the clothes.  He ran his hand over them, smoothing out any wrinkles.  Finally, he set the sack of dolls and letters on top of the curtains, took a deep breath, and closed the trunk, fastening its latches.

He sat on the bed, contemplating the trunk.  He didn’t know what he would do with it.  One day, he would probably take it to Pa’s house and put it in the attic there.  Or maybe not.  He’d see when the time came.  Either way, Pa would understand.

Pa.  The word made him smile.

In the days since he’d encountered Adam and Hoss, Joe had sometimes wondered whether Pa would be angry or hurt that he’d been so close and yet stayed away.  After all, everyone else knew he was here.  It would only be natural for Pa to want him to come back, at least to visit.  And yet somehow, he had complete faith that Pa would understand what he was doing now.  Pa wouldn’t hold anything against him.  After all, here was a man who had walked this selfsame road not just once, but three times.  His had had different curves and hills and dips, but in the ways that mattered most, it was the same.  Pa knew that there were no rules for something like this.

Occasionally, Joe had mused about whether Pa had been angry with his mother for riding that horse.  Even though he would never ask, his own soul-searching over these long months made him certain that the answer would be yes.  Pa had undoubtedly blamed her for riding the horse, and he’d just as undoubtedly blamed himself for letting her.  Likely he’d even blamed the horse and the hole it had stepped in.  Anyone would.  It was the simple, human response.  Casting blame allowed a man to be furious instead of powerless, self-righteous instead of heartbroken, a warrior instead of a victim.  Judgment and condemnation, with their hard, unswerving edges, were much simpler than grace, far less painful than mercy, and infinitely easier than forgiveness.

But there in the night, as he sat on the bed he’d once shared with his wife, Joe could almost hear Pa’s deep voice:  You need to forgive her, Joseph. Not because forgiving was the simple, human response; far from it.  Forgiveness was hard—sometimes the hardest thing in the world.  It demanded more courage than riding into a thousand battles.  The struggle to forgive fully and completely could take months, years, a lifetime.

The reasons for not forgiving her were legion.  No one would have faulted him if he said he couldn’t.  Practically everybody would have said that she didn’t deserve to be forgiven.  They might well have said the same about him, too.

Except that forgiveness wasn’t about deserving.

In the past year, Joe Cartwright had ridden miles upon miles of roads.  He wept oceans of tears, and he raged like the fiercest storms.  He lashed out in fury, and he remained still as a snowfall.  He wrestled with angels and demons alike.  He unearthed secrets no man should have to know.  His heart had been broken beyond anything he could have imagined.  He learned lessons he’d never wanted to learn, and he recalled truths he thought he’d forgotten.

Now, here he stood, in the wreckage of the life they’d tried to build, to face the most daunting challenge of all.

Seventy times seven.  It wasn’t even a question.

He rested his hand on the pillow where she had laid her head.  His fingers caressed the hem where she had embroidered their initials.  In the quiet of the night, he surrendered at last to what his heart had long known.

When all was said and done, there was only one reason to forgive her.

Love.

If you loved, you forgave.  It sounded so simple.  Maybe for some people, some wrongs, it was.  Other times, forgiveness was the destination at the top of the mountain, and climbing that mountain took everything a man had.  But if he loved her enough, maybe he could find courage, strength and faith enough to begin.

“I do,” Joe whispered.  “I love you.”  An echo of the words he had said to her so long ago.  Now, as then, a promise.

Pa knew what his youngest son was going through, maybe better than Joe did himself.  So Joe rested in the absolute certainty that Pa wouldn’t fault him for needing to be here on his own a while longer.  He might be disappointed, but there would be no judgment, no criticism.  When Joe finally went back, he’d be welcomed with open arms.

When.  He smiled slightly.  It wasn’t a question any more.  It was just a matter of time.  The realization felt like a hug.

Then, something occurred to him.  He knelt before the trunk and unsnapped the latches, With far less ceremony than he’d closed it, he opened the trunk and took out the sack.  He pulled out the Carrie doll and lifted the pink skirt to examine the scar.  Then, he took out the Joe doll—such a happy smile on that one—and then the children, who looked just like them.

He sat down heavily on the floor as the realization flooded over him.  In the only way she could, Carrie had given him children.  Here, in her dreams, she defeated the scar and all it meant.  She included it—there was no turning back time, no pretending it didn’t exist—but she refused to let it rule these, her creation.  In his hands, he held proof of the hope she had cherished even in the face of all that would destroy it.  In life, the scar had meant fear and hiding and tragedy, but in the world she had made, love triumphed over the impossible.

His hands trembled as he replaced the dolls, first the children and then the Joe doll.  His rough fingers caressed the Carrie doll once last time.  “I will always love you,” he whispered to it.  He wanted to say that he forgave her, but that was still somewhere ahead of him, farther up the mountain.  He kissed the doll’s pale cheek as gently, as tenderly as he had once kissed his wife.  Then, he tucked the doll into the sack, closed the trunk lid, and snapped the latches shut tight.

*******

The family was just sitting down to breakfast when the front door opened.  All three of them looked around to see who would have just walked in without knocking, but Ben’s heart, suddenly pounding, knew even before his mind did.

“Hey, Pa,” called Joe as he came around the corner.  “Looks like I’m just in time.”

“Joseph!”  Ben was on his feet and embracing his son, not even realizing that he still held a piece of toast.  “Let me look at you, son.”  He held Joe at arm’s length to survey the young man he hadn’t seen in so long, and he felt a small shock.  For an instant, it was as though he was looking in a mirror, but a mirror from long ago.  Because in his son’s eyes, he saw the same sense of quiet acceptance, of healing, of the redemption of spirit that he’d eventually found three times in his own life.  With the slightest furrowing of his brow, he asked, and his son nodded slightly, understanding.

Ben laid his hand on the young man’s stubbled cheek.  The crooked half-grin might have looked the same to most, but a father knew.  This was no longer the carefree smile of boyish innocence.  It was deeper now, reflecting struggle and searching and anguish and something more.  A corner turned.  A sunrise glimpsed at the edge of the horizon.  A trace of something almost like hope, or forgiveness, or love.  The journey had clearly been arduous, and it might never truly be finished, but the young man before him had come far.  He would never be the same, but in the depths of his heart, Ben Cartwright knew a deep, abiding certainty that his son would do more than merely survive.  He would live, in every sense of the word.  And someday, the time would even come when Joseph would love again.  Ben’s eyes glistened in gratitude.

Hoss and Adam were on their feet, thumping their brother’s back and welcoming him.  There was something in the manner that gave Ben pause, almost as though they weren’t surprised to see him, but he would deal with that later.  Instead, he said to Joe, “You look good, son.  When did you come back?”

Joe glanced at his brothers.  Ever so slightly, Adam nodded.  Hoss winked.  Joe’s grin widened.  He flung his arms around his father so unexpectedly that he almost threw the older man off-balance.  But a father’s reflexes are swift, and it took but an instant for Ben to wrap his arms around his son again, holding him tightly.

“When did I come back?”  Joe Cartwright whispered.  “Just now, Pa.  Right now.”

The End

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.