The stagecoach still shook his bones as vigorously as a farmer would shake the wheat from the chaff. The seat was still as hard and unforgiving as a bigot in a blizzard. The only advantages he could glean from his riding ‘shotgun’ instead of in the cramped, fetid carriage. Was, he had the warm sun on his face and the good Lord’s clean, refreshing air circling his body and nostrils. It wasn’t as if any one person was to blame. He half expected there would be extra passengers to board at the last Way Station, and there were. He had hoped that maybe some of the passengers were not going all the way to Virginia City. He didn’t know. He hadn’t stayed inside the carriage long enough to find out. It was obvious that unless he wanted to sit, packed, tight as a pea in a pod. He had no other option than to take the drivers invite to ride ‘up top’.

He surmised the man was a recent employee. He knew most of the drivers on the Sacramento to Virginia City stage line. He took a side long glance at the driver. Strange, he thought how they all, young or old. Had the same one thing in common. They all chewed endlessly on wads of tobacco. The juice of which was spat out at regular intervals. At least this fella, with whom he was sharing the bouncing seat with, didn’t aim for the horses rears. The man had perfected a side mouth action. Slipping his lower lip to the side of his face. Then spewing a stream of dark reddish, brown spit from the corner of his mouth. Fortunately for Ben Cartwright the driver favoured his left side. Ben put it down to the loneliness of the job. Hours at a time spent controlling six horses with not another human being to talk to. Ben had tried making conversation with the bearded man. But what with the mouthful of baccy and his heavy Texan drawl. It was almost impossible for him to understand a single word.

He fell upon his recollections of the last days he had just spent in San Fransisco. Barney’s gut had been right all along. Trouble had come quick and fast. Neither man being aware and ready. Although in hindsight it had become clear to Ben that Barney had been more than prepared. Even so he was unable to keep himself out of harms way. Barney, as if with second sight had realised what the outcome might or could have been. He had set himself ready to expect the worst. Unfortunately the man got the worst. The worst that could happen to any man. Barney’s letter was still in it’s envelope. Safely tucked into the inside pocket of Ben’s jacket. He patted his chest as if to convince himself that the document was still there. He had read the letter a number of times. He couldn’t believe Barney’s words. He would though honour them.

Ben cast his eyes toward the horizon. The Ponderosa Pines stood erect on the foothills of the Sierra’s. They almost seemed near enough for Ben to touch them. Yet they still were many miles away. Another two more Way Stations stops after the next one and they would be on the Virginia City trail and home.

Candy’s wire, Ben supposed had been sent to ease his mind. It hadn’t. He had no doubt what-so-ever that everything was running smooth and even on the Ponderosa. Candy, Ben’s foreman’s organisational and managerial skills were beyond reproach.

What though had delayed his boys. Candy didn’t expect them back for another week. Even if they had bought the bull that Hoss had been talking about. It wouldn’t have taken them up to two months to get home. Even if they had picked up the blasted beast and walked home carrying it on their backs. The sight of his three son’s struggling to tote the weighty animal, cracked a wide smile on the man’s craggy, handsome face. Bringing too, a memory of another troublesome bull.

‘Don’t borrow trouble’ he recited his middle son’s favoured words of wisdom. Never the less he could feel a gnawing in his gut. A gnawing that had nothing to do with hunger. The smile fell from his lips. Now he sounded like the fated Barney Fuller.

The coach trundled and lumbered on. A wheel bouncing in and out of a deep rut brought a guttural roar from the driver and sent Ben’s hands grabbing and hanging on to the seat rail for dear life.

Again the driver spewed a spittle stream from his mouth, followed by a number of loud and profane curses, which he directed at the rumps of the six horses. His fears now for his own safety. The cramped, sour smelling inside of the carriage took on a more inviting appearance. Ben’s thought uppermost in his mind was just to be able to place his two feet onto something firm, solid and immovable. Baring that he would opt for his own reliable, four legged friend and comfortable saddle. A painful dig in his ribs courtesy of the man beside him turned Ben’s head. Screwing up his eyes in an effort to fathom out the man’s unintelligible words. Ben could only assume that the garbling, bearded Texan was pointing out the Way Station that they were fast approaching.

Giving up the battle to try and figure out the driver’s ‘gobbled de goop’, Ben turned his eyes back to the countryside. The view being rather more pleasant than that of the streaked, stained, hairy chin of the driver. Ben realised now that he had been wrong in thinking that the man had been born a red head. It wasn’t because the man who had introduced himself as Isiah, or Isaac, or some other name beginning with an I, Scroggs, but call me Red, he had said, everyone does. It was the stomach turning discolouration on one side of the man’s grey beard. Where the wind had blown back the drool from the mans mouth. It then, after being soaked into the long, straggly whiskers turned the hairs a tincture of dark ginger. It left the appearance of a permanent bleed from the man’s mouth. The only thing that was pleasing to Ben Cartwright was that he was drawing ever nearer his beloved Ponderosa and home.