Summary: In this first of three short stories, we are able to see the healing properties that can be present in a simple hayloft.  In this first story, a deeply disappointed youngest Cartwright brother learns that even a bossy boots big brother can know just the right things to say… and not to say.

Rating: K/G (1,711 words)

The Loft Series:

The Loft #1
The Loft #2
The Loft #3

THE LOFT #1

Hoss always did say Adam was like a big, sly cat… ya never hear him sneak up on ya.  But t’be fair, I guess I was cryin’ hard enough that I wouldn’t’a heard him if he stomped right by my ear.

I know I sure didn’t hear the ladder to the loft creakin’ until whoever it was was right there at the top… not as much creakin’ or as loud as if it was Hoss, though, so it was either Pa, or Adam.

“Joe?”

Adam, then…

“Leave me alone.”

I don’t like to let Adam see me bawlin’… not since he turned up again from back East, anyhow.  It’s embarrassing.  With Hoss it isn’t such a big thing; him and me, we seen each other cry before, but Adam … Except for when Mama died, I’ve haven’t seen him cry in years.

Well, only that one time, just about two years before he left for college, when Pa tanned him somethin’ fierce for sassin’ him instead of answerin’ Pa plain when he demanded to know where Adam’d been and who he’d been with when he got home so late the night before.  Hoss and me kind of sidled into the barn afterwards, worried; Pa had still had steam comin’ out his ears when he stalked back out the barn door, threading his belt back through the loops of his pants. It ain’t like Pa to tan us when he’s that angry; in fact, he usually goes off for a bit to calm down first, so Adam must’ve really riled him bad.

We found Adam workin’ real fierce-like at muckin’ out the stalls with an awfully red face, those black brows of his just about joined into one.  He didn’t even really cry… I just could see the tears would leak out every now and again and he kept havin’ to angrily swipe at his eyes.  And every so often, if he accidentally moved just so, he’d flinch, sudden-like, and have to grit his teeth awful hard, but he never stopped workin’, not once.  Anyway, I ‘member Adam got real mad at Hoss and me, hollerin’ at us to let him be, when all we did was just ask him if he was all right. Right about then, Hoss downright spun me around and pushed me straight outta the barn, with me protesting all the way. Once outside, he said to me, real firm-like, that Adam needed some time to himself.

“How come’s he mad at me and you?” I remember askin’ Hoss. “Pa hurted him, not us!”

“He ain’t mad… well, not at us, anyhow.”

“Coulda fooled me!” I pouted.  I’m told that when I was almost five, I could pout with the best of ‘em…

“Now, Little Joe, you know full well that Adam don’t like to show nobody when he hurts, or when he’s real upset, and right now, he’s both them things,” Hoss said stoutly. “So, let’s just give him some room, all right?  Give him a little time and he’ll be all right in a bit.  We can try to help him feel better then.”

Now that I’m older, I understand what Hoss was gettin’ at.  The hurtin’ part I could well understand… when he’s of a mind to, Pa can make that belt o’ his bite with the sting of a whole swarm o’ hornets.

An’ I understand now that Hoss was sayin’ Adam was angry at Pa.  Now that I’m so much older (I am just two weeks away from twelve years old now, after all!), I know that it musta hurt Adam’s pride pretty bad to get a lickin’ at sixteen.  But, as Older Brother himself told us later that afternoon it was his own dumb fault (Hoss was right, by the way… an hour or so later, Adam was calmed down again and even apologized for snappin’ at us).  He told us he knew better than to be disrespectful and sass Pa – we all know Pa won’t stand for that! – and if it was gonna hurt like all get-out to sit at the supper table that night, well, he had no one to blame but himself.

But, anyhow, all that’s neither here nor there.  Right now, I  was the one that just wanted some room, and here was my bossy boots big brother stickin’ his nose in…

I heard him stop for a moment at the top of the ladder, then finish his way up and come onto the platform.  I shifted myself as far away from him as I could (without fallin’ off the edge, anyhow).

“I said leave me alone!”

“Not planning to harass you,” came his cool voice as I heard him lightly drop down to loft floor, ’bout four feet to my left. “Just sitting here, minding my own business.”

I heard his boots scrape on the loft’s floor boards; I lifted my face up enough from my crossed arms to peer blearily at him.  Ol’ Adam was just sitting there, calm as could be, chewing on a long piece o’ alfafa that had been mixed in the hay, sittin’ cross-legged like the Paiutes did, and starin’ off into space.

“I don’t want to talk!”

“Not sayin’ a word,” he responded, solemnly… still not looking at me.

It took a bit, but I slowly got myself settled some and finally pulled myself up from lying on my belly to sit, leaning up against the barn wall.  I still didn’t want to talk, but I had to grudgingly admit it… I was kinda glad my big brother was there, not lookin’ at me, not sayin’ anything, but just… well, just being there with me.

“I ’spose you heard,” I muttered.  When he didn’t say anything, I risked another glance at him.  He still wasn’t lookin’ at me, but I could see he’d heard me.

It was like he knew I peeked at him… he always told Hoss and me he had eyes in the back of his head and knew when we were plannin’ something. Wish I knew how he did that…

He nodded, then looked over at me… no cow eyes, neither, filled with pity the way Hoss woulda done.  Sometimes a fella can appreciate Hoss’ kind of supportin’ feelin’, but not now… not about something as important as this.

“Yeah, I heard,” he said, quietly.

“And I ‘spose you think Pa’s right,” I said bitterly.

“Isn’t up to me.”

I harrumphed.

After another few minutes of silence, I sighed.  “When is he gonna see I’m not a baby anymore, Adam?” I asked softly.

Almost as soon as the words were outta my mouth, I winced.  Pa’d likely say, gruff-like, that if I wasn’t still such a baby I wouldn’t be cryin’ my eyes out like this right now over being “disappointed”… disappointed?! I ask you!!…and I got mad all over again.

And ol’ Adam – bein’  Adam! – was probably gonna point that fact out to me in that annoying, superior way he’s sometimes got!

But he surprised me.  He didn’t say anythin’ like that.

He sat a moment, then pulled in this big, deep breath and let it out again. “It’s hard for him, Joe,” Adam said quietly, glancing at me almost apologetic-like. “Because, see… you are his baby.  Even when you’re old and gray yourself, he’ll still see you as his baby.”

Surprised, I looked at my big brother.

“He looks at all of us that way sometimes,” Adam continued with a small, sad smile, “but it’s harder for him with you… you’re his youngest child.  And that keeps you really close to his heart.”

I frowned, pulling my knees up and wrapping my arms around ‘em, resting my chin… then put my mind back to the issue at hand, and used the heel of my hand to scrub back the leftover tears from my face.

“You got to go on the drive when you were thirteen! Less than a year older’n me!” I accused him.

He nodded.  “Yes, I did.”

“You didn’t have to stay home and go to stupid school!” I ground out.

“No, I didn’t,” he agreed.  He leaned back, then, his palms flat on the loft floor.  “Of course, back then we only had Jake, José and Ed for drovers… a bit short-handed, you might say. Pa needed every horseman and pair of hands he could get. Hoss didn’t, either, by the way. Go on a drive at twelve or thirteen, I mean.”  Adam looked up at the ceiling, thinking.  “If I remember right, Hoss was fifteen before Pa allowed him to leave school and join the drive.”

I sniffed, shrugging.

We neither of us said nothin’ for a little bit.

“I’m also willing to bet he said the worst thing in the world to you, too, didn’t he?” Adam observed, glancing at me.

Frowning, I looked at him, questioning.

“ ‘There’ll be other drives,’ ” he intoned, making his voice deep and rumbly just like our Pa’s.

I couldn’t help it; I giggled.  Then the giggle faded, and I sadly sighed and nodded.  “He sure did,” I muttered.

Adam nodded. “Uh huh.”

We were quiet again for a few minutes.

Then without a word, my big brother’s right arm lifted… the arm that was facing toward my way. He didn’t look at me, just kept looking out over the rest of the barn with that big arm o’ his stickin’ out there.

And, also without a word, I slowly scooted my hind end over, and slipped under that arm, leaning against him just for a second, letting him give me a quick squeeze in comfort.  Then I, too, pulled my legs up and sat cross legged, glumly drawing circles in the hay dust on the loft floor, my chin propped dejectedly on my fist… his arm didn’t budge so much as an inch.

“I’m sorry, Joe,” was all he said, real quiet.  But I knew he understood.

I sighed.  ”…thanks, Adam,” I was finally able gruffly respond … without tears, and with my pride pretty much nailed back in place.

I thought to myself as we sat there together, me listening to his quiet steady breathing mingling with the other, everyday sounds of the barn animals, and the hands workin’ outside… well, I realized that not once in this whole conversation had he called me Little Joe.

It occurred to me that big brother Adam could usually find the right things to say to a fella to make him feel better about things.

But then there were those extra special times … when he just knew exactly what not to say, too.