SUMMARY:  In the second of three short stories, a frustrated father, an ornery, half-grown son, and a small(ish) sentinel guarding his elder brother’s privacy as he licks his wounds all need the Cartwright barn’s hayloft to work its magic.

RATING: T – for mature language (5,777 words)

The Loft Series:

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

THE LOFT – #2

“Pa, you can’t be serious!”

“Do I sound as though I’m joking?!”

“But that’s not… You can’t … No!”

“What did you just say to me?!”

“I’m – I’m sorry, Pa, I apologize, but – ”

At the top of the steps, two worried little brothers looked at each other as they hid just around the edge of the hallway at the top of the staircase.  Their Pa and their eldest brother, Adam, just three months shy of his seventeenth birthday, were having a terrible argument down near Pa’s desk.

At four and a half, Little Joe was a little in admiring awe of Adam; nobody, not even the grown-up men on the ranch, talked back to Pa like his big brother did!

Eleven-year-old Hoss, on the other hand, was upset by the escalating argument downstairs.  It always upset Hoss when there was dissension in the family… and to be frank, about the only times that happened were between Pa and Adam. Most times, Hoss believed his beloved big brother had more nerve than sense, since it seemed like he almost always argued or sassed himself right into a worse punishment than he started out with.

“I’m not a little kid anymore! You can’t do that!”

“Oh, I can’t, hm?!  Watch me!”

“But Saturday’s the social and – ”

“There will be no social for you, young man! You sacrificed that little taste of freedom when you chose to disobey and try to deceive me. I meant what I said, Adam!  For the next two weeks, you’re confined to the house and yard.”

“But – ”

“Two weeks! And I’m warning you, if you so much as set the toe of your boot outside of those parameters, you’ll see just exactly how serious I am!  Oh, and one more thing, boy!  Don’t you ever tell me I ‘can’t’! ”

Both younger boys jumped when they felt gentle hands on their shoulders. “Come, mes petits,” said Ma, softly.  “It is not polite, the eavesdropping… you both know this.”

“It can’t be eavesdroppin’, Mama, when ever’one from here all the way down to the brandin’ pen could hear ’em yellin’,” Hoss responded, unhappily.

Marie had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from smiling. For it was true; Adam’s temper matched his father’s and they were, truly, raising the roof down there.  “Even so,” she said decidedly, turning both boys back down the hallway.

“You’re being unfair!”

“One more word out of you – one single word, Adam! – and I’ll turn that two weeks into a month, spent in your room!”

“Mama, Pa’s real mad,” Joe confided, worriedly, taking one of her hands as they walked back toward Little Joe’s room. Hoss had both of his hands jammed into his pockets as he trudged along, Marie’s other hand still comfortingly on his shoulder.

“Oui, mon petit, this is true.”

“An’ he said Adam’s gotta stay home for an awful long time,” Joe shared, his eyes wide.  “That ain’t fair, is it, Mama?”

“Well, I  don’t think it’s fair,” Hoss muttered, darkly.

“Ah, you think not?” asked Marie, trying not to smile.  “But, ton grand frère, he has earned himself this punishment for the disobedience, did he not?” she said gently.  “You understand this, non?”

“But Adam’s a grown up, now!” Hoss protested, his lower lip dangerously close to a pout.

“Ahhh, je comprends,” she said, nodding, with a small smile, gently stroking his hair.  “However, I think the grown up, he obeys the rules, oui? And he admits when he is at fault and does not try to hide the wrong doing. I think there is, perhaps, a little more of the growing up that our Adam needs to do?”

“I guess,” Hoss murmured, troubled, to his stepmother.

Little Joe, feeling a bit lost with this conversation, glanced back  over his shoulder toward the staircase when he heard the front door shut… not quite a slam, but not far off…

“Do not be so sad, my Hoss,” Marie said gently.  “Your Papa will calm down and Adam, he will calm down, and perhaps then they can finally talk together. Oui?”  She leaned over and kissed the older boy’s forehead tenderly.  “Until they learn to listen to each other, very little will change, mon fils,” she said, shaking her head as she listened to the echoing silence downstairs.

It was a lovely, lazy, late August afternoon.  With all of his work done, it should have been a day to enjoy fishing at the lake, or swimming in the pond.  It could have been an afternoon in Eagle Station or Mormon Station  or riding with his buddies. The very last place Adam Cartwright expected to find himself on a sunny, glorious summer afternoon was in the hayloft of the big barn.

Adam lay sprawled on his stomach in the soft mound of hay he’d built up between the line of hay bales he’d constructed and the upper loft’s wall, a snug little eyrie that had been his refuge many, many times over the last five or six years.  During haying, and afterward when the hands would send the bales up to the loft to stack, Adam always made sure he worked up here on the loft platform, in order to be able to construct that little bit of a gap between bales and the loft wall, just enough of a space for him to slip behind them with a book, or his sketchbook and pencils, or sometimes nothing at all but his active imagination.  It offered him one of the few places he could disappear to where little brothers or his father – especially his father! he thought bitterly – were unlikely to track him down.

A couple of the hands had cottoned to what he was up to and kindly offered to make sure there was always that gap up there if they were stacking bales… especially old Slim, who was fond of the hard-working boy.  “A feller needs to know he’s got a bolt hole he can retreat to,” Slim had assured him way back when he was twelve, patting his shoulder.  “Don’t you worry none, Pug. Donnie’n me… we’ll make sure your place is safe.”

It was where he’d swigged his first whiskey a couple of years back – he’d have been astounded to know that the ranch’s foreman, Jake Weber, knew exactly what was going on up there, but the old wrangler had kept his counsel and not told the boss, instead deciding to keep his own weather eye on young Adam.  Jake found Ben Cartwright to be a top-notch boss, fair and no nonsense, and a loving, if very firm father.  But the old wrangler felt there were times a boy needed to have an ally, someone to kinda serve as a buffer between an inquisitive young’un and a stern pa.

Not long after the barn was first built, but a whole year before construction started on the big ranch house, this place was also where a ten-year-old Adam had bitterly wept in unhappy betrayal when his father returned after months away from his boys in New Orleans… accompanied by a new wife.

Once he and Marie had come to terms with each other – well, Adam sighed fairly, once he came to terms with himself, for Marie had never been anything but loving and courteous to him – this hideaway also became his place to come to dream.  Where he’d built castles in the air, imagining countries he’d visit, sketched structures he wanted to build, pondered books he’d read and maybe would even write, and pretty girls he’d spark.

But, more often in the last few years, it was where he’d retreated to in order lick his wounds after a blistering lecture or a tanning from his father. Angry and resentful, Adam felt as though every time he tried to spread his wings just the least little bit, Pa’d clamp down all the harder and put salt on his tail.  And lately, Adam had felt that salt burn as though it had been sprinkled into an open wound.  When is Pa gonna stop treating me like I’m ten years old?! Why is he being such a… a damn tyrant?!

It wasn’t like he meant to make Pa so angry all the time; he surely didn’t enjoy being in Pa’s bad books. It seemed as though lately, every time his father would ask for an accounting of whatever had happened, the youngster would start out trying to explain. But his explanations, so carefully planned out to be calm, sensible and controlled always fell apart, somehow.  Somewhere along the way, both father and son would become frustrated and angry.  Inevitably, the situation seemed to prompt a sullen, surly or sarcastic comment on Adam’s part that escalated into a full-blown argument, always seeming to end with a stern scolding (or worse) on Pa’s, with Adam ending up in more trouble than when he’d started.

Today, the fury Adam had felt that morning was finally – after three long hours at that blasted woodpile – beginning to slowly burn itself out and be replaced with melancholy.  The youngster missed how it used to be, when he and his Pa could talk about anything… anything!  He remembered when he was very small, when it was just Pa and himself traveling west, how they talked about all kinds of things.  How Pa used to have the special, funny smile he’d get when a small Adam would say, “Pa, I got a question…”  About the only thing that Pa had trouble talking about was Adam’s Ma, Elizabeth, and the boy understood that now.  It was hard for Adam to talk about the things that hurt him, too.

But now?  Well, that feeling that his father heard him, that his father understood him, that they could talk about anything and everything felt farther away than the moon.

All he’d wanted yesterday was the chance to just get away from the never-ending chores, and little brothers, a demanding father and just ride, hell-bent for leather, with his friends… clear his head a little and release the feeling of pent-up steam that the youth had been dealing with for weeks.  Sometimes he felt like if he didn’t raise a little hell he’d explode!

Any other day, he now realized, Pa’s edict that he couldn’t go off on his own until he got that woodpile cleared wouldn’t have upset him so much.  Adam knew the rules; had known them all of his life.  Free time came after chores, not before.  If the boys got their work done, Pa had no problem with them having fun.

But yesterday, somehow… it was like somebody else had packed their bags and moved into his head for those ten or fifteen minutes, shoving his normal good sense right into a closet and locking the door.  One moment he was swinging his axe, mentally bemoaning that there’d be no real time left to have any fun at all if he had to wait until this woodpile was done, and then next found him angrily sinking the axe into the stump, stalking to the barn and saddling Sport.  Once out by the stream with Ross and Cal, he thought briefly about how mad Pa’d be, but … well, the deed was done. No way to change it now…  Besides, he remembered thinking confidently, I can get the wood done in the morning. Pa’ll never even know…

Boy, was I wrong on that account!  Adam winced as he remembered how dangerously close he’d come this morning to spending the next month staring at the four walls of his bedroom, managing to clamp his mouth shut before making an unforgivable comment just in the nick of time.  The youngster groaned softly, screwed his eyes shut and shook his head, then unhappily rolled onto his back, staring at the barn rafters.  For someone who’s supposed to be reasonably intelligent, Cartwright, you sure can be such an infernal idiot sometimes…

Adam heard the house’s front door close and tensed slightly… until he recognized the shorter, skipping gait of his baby brother approaching the barn, and relaxed …

“Whatcha doin?”

“Nothin’.”

Joe studied his bigger brother, sittin’ on a sawhorse outside the barn’s big doors, working on plaiting something made of leather. “No, you ain’t,” the little fellow said, decidedly. “You are, too, doin’ somethin’.  You’re braidin’.”

Hoss looked up then, and a small gap-toothed grin creased his face. “Why, so I am, Short Shanks, I guess you’re right.”

Joe smiled then, too, and cheerfully struggled to clamber up to perch beside his brother on the sawhorse. Hoss chuckled and leaned down a broad hand to offer a small bottom a bit of a boost up.

The little fellow wiggled into a comfortable position and watched his older brother’s hands skillfully plait the leather strips, then looked up at the barn.  “How come you’re doin’ it here, Hoss?”

Hoss shrugged, flushing a little. “Just because.”

“You bin here a long, long time.”

Hoss smiled to himself as he worked. “I have?”

“Yup.  Hours an’ hours,” Joe told him earnestly. “You was out here afore Mama maked me take a nap and you’re still here now.”

“Hmmm… how ‘bout that.”

Up in the loft, Adam chuckled slightly despite his mood as he listened to his little brothers’ conversation wafting up through the open loft doors.  Hours and hours… Hoss would do that sometimes, sit as a guard on the barn door, to make sure Adam had some peace.  It always astonished the older boy how acutely sensitive and aware his little brother could be of everyone’s moods… everyone’s needs…

A pity Pa isn’t, he groused to himself, draping an arm over his eyes, not quite ready to let go of his bad mood, and yet feeling the peace of the hayloft start to wick it away despite his best efforts to hang onto it.  Of course, he thought grumpily, all I’d have to do to get it goin’ again is remember Pa sentencing me to life in prison.

He closed his eyes again, then, trying to block out the image of Sarah Dayton, the pretty little redhead who’d accepted his invitation to escort her to the social on Saturday.  Now he’d not only have to rescind his invitation, but likely have to admit why, and that galled the young man to no end, imagining the near-fatal wounds his pride would have to suffer.  At his brothers’ next words, he stopped, however, his eyes popping open and his ears almost swiveling to attention…

Joe looked up at him and got serious.  “Pa’s mad again,” he confided in Hoss.

Hoss glanced at his little brother.  “He is?” he asked, frowning. “What fer?”

“’Cos he can’t find Adam.”

Hoss closed his eyes in frustration.  Dang…

“Uh oh.”

“What?”

Surprised, Hoss opened his eyes again and looked at Joe, and, alarmed by the expression on the little boy’s face, turned to follow his gaze.

Uh oh.

Pa was approaching, those dark brows knitted together. “Hoss, have you seen your brother?”  Pa didn’t sound quite as angry as he’d been earlier, but he wasn’t ‘zactly bubblin’ with happiness, neither.

Hoss swallowed hard, then smiled brightly… too brightly.  “Um, sure thing, Pa, he’s right here!” Hoss nodded, gesturing toward Little Joe.

Ben Cartwright did a mild double-take, then offered a stern expression to his middle boy, bookended by both fists planted on his hips.  “… Hoss?”

Pa’s warning voice managed to string out his name to last all the way into next week.  “No, sir, Pa, I ain’t seen him,” Hoss answered hastily.  Honestly, too.   He hadn’t seen Adam.  He knew exactly where he was, but he hadn’t actually seen him.

Ben’s eyes narrowed, and Hoss gulped slightly, putting his full attention back to his harness.  His face grew first a little paler then a lot pinker as silence dragged for ten seconds… twenty…

“Joseph.”

“Yes, Pa?”

“Go on into the house to your mother, please.”

Glancing at his older brother sympathetically, Joe slid down off the sawhorse. “Yes, Pa,” he said softly.  He trudged toward the ranch house, dragging his feet and glancing back periodically.  Pa said nothing until the front door closed and the cute little fellow with big green eyes, big brown curls, and big ears was behind it, unable to hear the next bits of conversation.

Hoss focused on that piece of harness in his hands as if his very life depended on it.

“Erik.”

Hoss winced and froze, then slowly raised his eyes nervously. “Yes, sir?”

“Have… you seen… your older… brother.” A flat, stern statement.

Hoss wilted.  He could tell Pa’s patience was hangin’ on by the thinnest thread possible. There was no way in God’s green earth he was gonna deliberately stick his head into that lion’s mouth by tellin’ Pa a lie.

“No, sir, I ain’t seen him, honest… but…”

Hoss watched his father begin to puff up, as though he was a dandelion about to blow fluff all over creation.

Adam grimaced and wearily started to sit up. Well, so much for hiding out for a bit.  But I’m not gonna let poor Hoss take the heat for Pa not being able to track me down.  Then he stopped at his brother’s next words.

Hastily, Hoss set the piece of braided leather down. “Please, Pa, Adam ain’t disobeyed you, honest he ain’t.  He ain’t left the yard, just like you ordered,” he told his father earnestly.

One of Ben’s dark eyebrows raised as he studied the boy in front of him.  And then he realized… that boy’s been sitting out here for probably close to two, two and a half hours now…  He looked at the barn door, where this small sentry had sat, guarding the battlements from invasion.  And his heart melted a little.

“I see,” he said, more quietly.  Ben scratched an ear, then gestured to his boy to slide over just a little.   There was just enough room for the two of them to sit on that sawhorse together.

Downcast, the youngster did as he was bid, worriedly peering up at his father’s face… he was heartened to see Pa didn’t look nowhere near as exasperated as he’d been a minute ago.

“So… up in the hayloft, is he?”

Adam groaned to himself, softly, crossing both his arms over his face…

Hoss’ kind heart quailed a little. The boy stoutly drew in a deep breath and addressing some point in front of their boots, said quietly.  “Pa, he done what you said. He ain’t disobeyed.  He just… he just needed some time to hisself, is all.”

Ben smiled a little, and glancing up at the loft’s open doors, considered his words carefully.  He gazed down at the woeful demeanor of his gentle middle boy and draped a comforting arm around his shoulders.  “Hoss, I know your brother’s upset, but Adam wouldn’t be so unhappy right now if he’d just obeyed the rules.”

The youngster’s face screwed up in thought.  “Yessir, I s’pose that’s so, Pa, but … well, maybe you need to shift ‘em a little.”

Ben blinked.  “’ Shift ‘em?’ ” he echoed, bewildered.  Shift what?

“I mean…” Hoss shrugged. “I mean, the rules shouldn’t be the same for Adam as what they are for Joe and me, should they?  He’s ‘most seventeen years old.  A man.”

Adam couldn’t help it; he shook his head with a smile.  You never cease to amaze me, little brother…  though his father’s next words made him roll his eyes.

Ben fought to keep his lips from quivering.  “While I admit Adam is more grown up than you or your baby brother, he’s still a long way from being a grown man, Hoss.  He won’t legally be that for more than four years.”

“Yes, sir, I know,” Hoss said, thinking how to put into words what he was feeling.  Finally, the youngster raised his gentle blue eyes up to his father’s face.  “But ain’t it true what Jake says ‘bout broncs… the harder and tighter you try to rein ‘em in, the more they’re gonna buck ya?”

Startled, Ben opened his mouth to answer and frowned in consternation.  He scratched an ear, thinking again about those loft doors. “Well, yes, son, I suppose to a degree that’s true,” he admitted, considering his proud, feisty oldest son, then grimly firming his mouth.  “But you do a good horse no favors by letting him run wild, either, Hoss.”

“Ain’t there some way in between to handle ‘im?” asked Hoss, hopefully.  “A way that ain’t gonna break the horse’s spirit an’ make ‘im mean?”

Ben couldn’t help but smile down at his sweet-tempered middle boy.  Bless him… ever the peace maker.  He gently reached out and put a hand under Hoss’ chin, cupping his cheek.  “Son, I want you to pay attention to what I’m about to say, because it holds true for how I handle you and Joseph as well as that mule-stubborn older brother of yours, all right?”

Hoss nodded solemnly.

Adam remained still, listening intently as well… he’d give a lot to understand why… why his father was so very, very hard on him.

“I know it’s hard for you and your brothers to accept sometimes, but as your father, it’s not my job to be your pal, or to give you whatever you want.  One part of my job is, of course, to make sure you have a roof over your heads, food to eat, and clothes to keep you warm.  But the most important part of my job as your father involves teaching you right from wrong.  Teaching you the value of hard work in order to achieve your goals. Teaching you how to grow up to be good, decent men, and showing you the skills you need to know… how to get on in the world and survive. Most important, it’s to teach you how to use the brains God gave you, to listen to your conscience and to make good choices. And the reason for that is…well, because I’m not always going to be around.”

Hoss’ face grew troubled at this.  He’d lost his own Mama, and Adam had lost two.  They both knew full well it was true enough that sometimes boys had to grow up without a Ma or a Pa.

“As you grow older, you and your brothers will have to face challenging situations, or some mighty strong temptations, and will have to make choices without me being around to help… and also without me there to get you out of trouble when you make the wrong decisions.”  Ben sighed, then, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees.  Memories of his own foolish boyhood mistakes, some damned near disastrous but for the grace of God or the intervention of a wise adult, swam through his mind.  “It’s so easy to make a mistake, son, so very, very easy to make a wrong choice that could haunt you for the rest of your life.  So that’s the reason why I… well, why I set the rules I do and why I enforce them.”

A quick side-eyed peek at Hoss’ slightly extended lower lip made it clear that the boy wasn’t yet convinced that his beloved big brother wasn’t currently being cruelly abused by his brutal father, Ben realized with a small smile.  And if I was a betting man, I’d be willing to wager the lower lip on that face up in the hayloft is jutting out just as far…

“No matter what you might believe, I don’t come down hard on you three when you’ve done wrong because I enjoy it, or because I like to make you unhappy.  I do it to teach you that bad choices have consequences. So that when I’m not around, you’ll have learned to make the right choices without having me over your shoulder.”

Hoss listened, frowning at that one.

Ben smiled a little at his expression.  It made him wonder what battles may have been waged recently between the good and bad angels resting on the boy’s shoulders.  The man also sensed the frustration his boy was feeling; Hoss adored his older brother.  And most of the time – when he has his head screwed on straight, anyway! the father thought grimly – Adam was a fine boy, an exemplary son and a truly wonderful big brother.  Ben knew it upset Hoss at those times when, as a father, he needed to enforce the rules or mete out necessary penalties for misbehavior.  Ben raised his eyes slightly, glancing again toward the loft doors, and firmed his lips, continuing.

“See, Hoss, I’d rather have you boys mad at me for a bit than to see you have to face much bigger trouble, outside the family.  That’s my job. I can handle your anger when I have to take away your freedom for bit or saddle you with some extra chores to keep you out of mischief.”

Ben shifted slightly on the sawhorse and gazed down at his boy, tapping Hoss gently on the knee, making him look up, his blue eyes wide. “Or on those occasions when I have to get your attention by seeing to it that every time you try to sit down for a day or two you’re reminded in no uncertain terms of the penalty for poor choices.”

Pa tipped his head meaningfully, raising an eyebrow, but Hoss could see those dark eyes were smiling.  Hoss ducked his head a little, blushing, and smiled a little bashfully, too.

Ben chuckled then, ruffling his hair and finally putting his arm once more over the boy’s shoulders, giving him a little hug.  “The goal is for you boys to learn that the consequence suffered isn’t worth repeating the mistake. Understand?”

“Yessir, Pa.” Hoss bit his lip, thinking, and nodded, then bravely tried one final salvo. “But… well, di’n’t ya tell Mama that makin’ mistakes is how we learn?”

Ben nearly groaned to himself.  Judas Priest, and I thought Adam was the debater of these three!   Choosing his words carefully, Ben nodded at his middle boy, meeting his earnest gaze.  “Yes, that’s true. But we only learn from our mistakes when we have to face the consequences of having made them, not if we try to avoid being caught.” He tipped his head to the side and gestured toward the open loft doors above them. “You know what your brother did to earn this, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” Hoss said uneasily, feeling a little disloyal, guiltily hoping his brother understood that he had to answer Pa honestly.  “You told ‘im to finish up his chores before he went out with his friends, and he didn’t.”

“Hmm… that’s partially right. The key phrase in there is ‘and he didn’t.’ ”

“But, Pa, he was workin’ at gettin’ ’em done this mornin’, and – ”

“Now, hold it right there, Erik,” Ben said sternly. “You know perfectly well that isn’t an accurate description of what happened this morning.”

Hoss frowned down at the ground at his feet, having an idea of what was coming.

“Your older brother not only disobeyed me; he tried to cover it up.  He gambled – unsuccessfully, I might add… ”

Hoss glanced up at Pa, who was looking at him seriously, one of his eyebrows raised… ain’t much gets by Pa, Hoss thought, glumly.

Pa continued, “…he gambled that I wouldn’t know he hadn’t done as he was told and tried to rush though those chores this morning so that he wouldn’t have to admit his wrongdoing to me.  You see the difference, there, don’t you, and what Adam did wrong?”

Hoss thought for a moment.  A part of him thought it seemed more like self-preservation than wrongdoing, but he was pretty sure Pa didn’t feel that way…

“Hoss?  Answer me, son.”

Hoss sighed; Pa wasn’t gonna let it go.  “Well… I guess, if he did try to cover it up it was kinda like a lie… mebbe.” Uneasily, the boy picked at a loose thread in the side seam of his pants.

“Not ‘kinda like,’ Hoss.  It was a lie,” Ben said firmly.  “Now, if he had just come to me this morning, admitted that he’d done wrong, apologized and said he’d do his best to make it right, he wouldn’t be in nearly as bad a fix as he’s in now.  You know full well the consequences for lying in this family, don’t you.”  It wasn’t a question, that last sentence.

Hoss winced. I sure do…Hoss was sure he’d never forget that tanning.

Ben nodded, seeing his boy’s expression and squeezed his shoulders.  “That’s right. And Adam knows it, too.  This time, though, he calculated the odds and banked on not getting caught.  Unfortunately, he lost that gamble and now he has to accept the consequences… and frankly, he’s getting off lightly since in this instance my belt never left my waist.”

And, thought the man sternly, remembering their argument that morning, the only reason it didn’t is because that pig-headed elder brother of yours wasn’t so addle-brained as to dare tell me a bold-faced lie right to my face; he did own up to his misbehavior without a lot of prompting.  As it was, that smart mouth of his still came perilously close to earning him the tanning of his young life…  But Ben shook himself and put his mind back to the lesson at hand.

“Hoss.” Ben leaned over, and his dark eyes looked meaningfully into his middle son’s wide blue ones, so much like his mother, Inger’s. “I want to always feel proud of my boys… to know all three of my sons are honest, decent young men, not liars or deceivers.”

Adam frowned as his father’s calm and yet serious words wafted up to the loft from below.  Troubled, the sixteen-year-old stared up at the barn ceiling, his fingers laced behind his head as he thought all this through. He sighed, closing his eyes, his natural sense of justice finally kicking in.

“Aw, hell…” he muttered, the anger and resentment he’d been nursing finally shifting into remorse and shame.

About ten minutes later, Adam heard the barn doors squeal open and slow footsteps head toward the loft ladder.  The ladder squeaked under the weight of the big man coming up, and Adam swallowed a lump in his throat.  Here it comes… “Punishment, Chapter Two…”

“Adam.”

Slowly the young man sat up behind the hay bales, sighed and got to his feet.  Feeling at once foolish, frustrated, and a little ashamed, the youngster forced himself to turn and respectfully face his father, dusting the hay off himself and doing his level best not to mutter.  “Yes, sir.”

Ben Cartwright tipped his head to the side, hearing his middle boy’s question again… …Ain’t there some way in between to handle ‘im?

He studied his firstborn, forcing himself to truly look at him and was startled to not see the boy he fully expected to see, but instead a sturdy, strong, almost-a-man standing there before him, so tall, with such broad shoulders. He needs a shave, Ben thought, in surprise and wonder, as he gazed at the youngster’s lean, handsome face wearing such a wary expression.  Ben heaved a sad, inward sigh, mourning the loss all parents feel when they finally face the fact that their baby is truly gone and someone new has taken their place. While Adam would always be his child, he couldn’t be called a child any longer.

Ben realized he had to be honest with himself; Hoss was right, too.  Like it or not, it was time for him to face the fact that he had to make some changes.  He had to learn how to provide any necessary discipline for a young man, now, not for a boy.  To find ways to step back and let Adam, as safely as possible, make his mistakes and navigate resolving the issues himself, without his father holding his hand. Ben knew he could never compromise when it came to telling the truth; the unpleasant bit of discipline he’d handed down this morning would stand, and he was willing to shoulder the brunt of Adam’s anger and resentment until the boy accepted his own role in bringing it on himself.  But perhaps when it came to some of the other rules for his oldest, it was time to loosen his tight hold on the reins… to ‘shift ‘em a little,’ as his wise middle son had pointed out.

Making sure to keep his expression mild, Ben glanced at the couple of hay bales resting just to the side of the loft doors, a gentle, comfortable late afternoon breeze wafting in and ruffling the grain on their surfaces.  He nodded at Adam and gestured to them, seating himself on one, sitting up straight, hands on his knees.  “So… do you think you and I might be able to talk to each other without either one of us losing our tempers?” Ben asked, gently, tipping his head to one side, looking up at his oldest son.

Adam chewed on his lower lip and sat down, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees.  He studied his clasped hands for a moment, then with his head still lowered, he sighed and peered up at his father through his thick, dark lashes.  “Yes, sir, I think so,” he agreed at last, his voice soft.  And the young man pulled in a deep breath, closing his eyes a moment.  Then, as if he’d made a decision of some kind, he squared his shoulders and gazed respectfully into his father’s eyes for the first time in a long, long time, humbly adding, “At least… I’d like to try, Pa.”

Ben smiled at him warmly. He was so happy to see once again the spirit of the boy he’d missed so much these last difficult weeks of growing pains shining out from this newly minted young man before him.  Ben wasn’t so foolish as to think they wouldn’t have to go through more of these moments in the days to come; God knows he’d given Captain Stoddard fits on board the Wanderer until he understood himself, who he was as a man. He and Adam were both stubborn Cartwrights, after all, and they were both …well, men of conviction, he thought to himself with an inward grin.  But he felt greatly heartened that they’d eventually figure it out. They’d be all right as long as the son he’d known and loved for sixteen years kept shining back at him from those beautiful dark hazel eyes… Elizabeth’s eyes.

Outside, Hoss nodded and smiled to himself, and picking up his piece of harness, decided that Pa and Adam could probably take it from here without him.  He headed inside to look for a few well-deserved cookies.

~-oo0oo-~