Summary: On a trip away from the Ponderosa, the Cartwright boys encounter some old friends and one old foe. Even though he has a grudge against Hoss, Joe becomes the target in his scheme for revenge. A What Happened (Much) Later for “The Ape,” featuring Leonard Nimoy as Freddy, and a What Happened (Long) Before for the “Quaker Girl” episode of Gunsmoke, featuring William Shatner as Fred Bateman.  No knowledge of Gunsmoke is necessary to read this story.

Rating: PG | Word Count: 22,322

The Journey Home

Part One: Wolf in the Fold

 

1.

If looks could kill, there would have been dead Cartwrights all over the floor of the saloon.  It was a particularly high-class establishment of its kind, with tables for drinks down on the ground floor, and a balcony with tables for card games wrapping around the upper level.  Sitting at a table on that upper level, Freddy Grayson shuffled and reshuffled a pack of cards.  And he glared down at the three men by the bar, who remained blissfully unaware of the venom being directed their way.

“What’s got you looking so dark and dour, Uncle Freddy?”  Young Fred Bateman, named for his mother’s brother, strolled up to the table.  He grabbed another chair, spinning it around and sitting down in it backwards, straddling the seat.  “No one interested in poker tonight?”

“It’s not that,” Uncle Freddy ground out, jaw tight and dark brows low on his narrow face.  “It’s them.”  He drew the spread of cards together again, gestured with the stack.  “Those three at the bar.  The Cartwrights.”

Young Fred tipped his chair that direction for a better view.  There were a scattering of saddle tramps and farmers down on the lower level, but only one group of three at the bar – a big man in a tall hat, another one all in black, and a third, smaller man in a green jacket.  He’d never seen the faces before, but the name was vaguely familiar.  He smoothed out the wisps of mustache he was trying to grow in an effort to get people – like his uncle – to stop treating him like a kid, and asked, “Don’t they own a ranch out Virginia City way?  Did you know them when you lived out there?”

“You could say that,” Uncle Freddy spat, and shuffled his cards again.  “They’re the reason I had to leave Virginia City.  And they’re the reason Sheribelle died.”

A name like that wasn’t hard to place.  “Your girl Sheribelle?”

“Yes, my girl Sheribelle!” his uncle said, glaring at him now.  “My partner.  The girl I was going to marry, if we ever got enough money together so she could quit the saloons.”

“All right, all right,” Young Fred said with an easy smile, lifting his hands innocently.  “You just never talk about her anymore, that’s all.  What’s it been – a couple years now?”

“Three.”  Uncle Freddy returned his glare to the men below.  “That big one in the middle – Hoss Cartwright.  It was his fault, but the whole family hangs together.  He had this friend – even bigger and dumber than he is, a real ape.  Just prime for Sheribelle and me to fleece, but Hoss Cartwright had to keep poking in on the business.  And then the big, dumb ape murdered Sheribelle.  She was only playing with him, but he couldn’t see it and one night he got mad and strangled her.  He nearly killed me when I tried to help her.”

Young Fred had some doubts about that part of the story – he knew his uncle, with his fancy clothes and his clever hands, and physical fighting wasn’t his strength – but he just nodded.  He gave the yellow bandana tied around his neck a little tug and asked, “Did they hang the ape?”  He liked to see a hanging of a Saturday morning.  Started the day off right.

“No – but I did help get him,” Uncle Freddy said, fanning the cards out on the table again.  “I rode with the posse, and when the monster tried to attack us, we shot him dead.  And he deserved every bullet, for what he’d done.  But then – Hoss Cartwright was so blasted sad about it, kept talking up how his friend never really wanted to hurt anyone.  As if he hadn’t murdered Sheribelle!  And pretty soon people in town all started saying what a shame it was, because once a Cartwright says a thing, that’s the way the whole wind blows.  And people were blaming me for Sheribelle getting involved with the big man – as if I wasn’t the victim in the whole thing!”

Young Fred reached out and plucked a card from the spread – six of diamonds.  Oh well, he’d never figured he’d make his way as a card shark anyway.

Uncle Freddy cast him a dark look, pulled out a card and held it up – ace of spades.  He flung the card back onto the table, turned his gaze back to the level below.  “If I could just pay them out somehow,” he muttered, “those high and mighty Cartwrights who think they’re so special.”

Young Fred grinned – finally, something exciting might be happening.  “So let’s do it.  Let’s get your revenge.  All we have to work out is how.”

And then, predictably, Uncle Freddy hesitated.  “I don’t know – the Cartwrights are powerful men…”

That was Uncle Freddy all over.  Talked big, but when the cards were down – well, actually, he did all right when actual cards were down, but anything with bigger stakes, anything more dangerous, he got twitchy.

“Sure, it’ll be a risk,” Young Fred said, leaning forward and stabbing one finger against the tabletop.  “But that ain’t a problem – risks are my business.  It’s all a matter of playing the odds.  You don’t get anywhere, in cards or in life, if you never take a gamble.  And those three down there – they deserve whatever we give ‘em, right?”

“Yes…” Uncle Freddy said slowly.

“And I bet there’s a whole lot we can get out of ‘em too – they’re rich men, aren’t they?”

“The biggest spread in Nevada.”

“There you go!  Revenge and money all around.  We just need to work out the details.”

Young Fred didn’t wait for his uncle’s agreement.  He just tipped his chair to the side again, studying the Cartwrights down below, thinking through possibilities.  Sure, Uncle Freddy seemed to have his main grudge against big Hoss Cartwright – but looking at the man’s sheer size, he wasn’t an appealing one to take on.  Definitely not someone Young Fred wanted to tackle alone – and he did have friends he could call in, but even so…why choose the hardest target?  The man in black, well, that clothing was calculated to say he was dangerous, and even if that was only for show – he was almost as tall as his bigger brother.  Not so easy to take down either.

But the last one.  The smallest one.  Young Fred grinned, and let a gleeful giggle escape his lips, even though he knew the high-pitched sound unnerved his uncle – and a lot of people.  That’s exactly why he liked it.  “All right,” he said, thunking his chair back onto all four legs and leaning over the table again.  “Here’s what we’re going to do.  They know you, so we can’t let them see you.  But they don’t know me.  That means I’ll be the one to make first contact.  I just need you to tell me more about them, so I’ll know how to approach them.”

“Seems logical,” Uncle Freddy said, nodding – and playing nervously with his cards still.  “Then what, after you make contact?”

“Then,” Young Fred said with relish, “we separate the little one from his big brothers.  And find out how much they’ll pay to get him back.”

 

Down at the bar, the Cartwrights were on their second round of beer, unaware that they were being observed by anyone at all.  Hoss was only thinking what a nice evening it was likely to be, as he took a long swallow of his drink and said, “You know, we ought to do this more often.  Taking trips together, I mean.”

Dark looks were returned to him from either side, both of his brothers appearing united in their opinion of the words.

“It rained the entire time we were in San Francisco,” Adam pointed out.

“And I lost every dime I had at poker,” Little Joe reminded him.

“Most of the saloon girls had colds, because of the weather,” Adam continued.

“And Adam wouldn’t let me get near even the ones who didn’t.”

Adam rolled his eyes.  “They just wanted to fleece you, Joe.”

Joe squinted at him.  “Yeah, I know, but after I lost all my money at the poker tables anyway…”

“At least no one got shanghaied this time,” Hoss broke in, determined to put a good face on things.

“I just think,” Joe continued with dogged determination, “that the Bull of the Woods could’ve picked a better week for a trip, that’s all.”

Adam shook his head.  “You’re the one who wanted a rest after we finished supplying all that timber.  Anyway,” he said, picking up his beer again, “at least it probably did Pa some good, running the ranch on his own for a while.  Remind him he can do it.”

That was just like older brother, thinking out every angle.  “Yeah,” Hoss said, as Joe nodded too.  It had been a rough go recently, with Pa giving up on running the Ponderosa after a timber accident.  Hoss didn’t know when he’d been more relieved, seeing Pa picking up the reins again.  “It’ll be good to get home too,” Hoss said after a moment, “and see Pa.”  If they left at a decent time tomorrow, they ought to be home by nightfall.

That finally got Little Joe and Adam both to nod in agreement with him, and then Joe gestured around the room with his beer.  “We should’ve just come here to begin with instead of going all the way to San Francisco.  This is a nice place.  Big for a town this small.”

“It’s a new build,” Adam said.  “The town’s been growing recently, ever since that drought broke a couple years back.”

“Hey, isn’t that the Cartwrights?” a voice called from behind them, and the three brothers turned as one.  Because those were the kind of words that could be the beginning of a pleasant conversation among friends, or the start of big trouble.

In this case, though, the dark-haired man approaching was smiling, and looked vaguely familiar.  Hoss had to hunt for the name – Bill…something.  Collins, maybe?  Hoss would have been hard-pressed to place him if he’d met him somewhere else, but considering where they were, he managed to dredge up the memory.  Bill owned a farm near here, was one of the people they’d met during that big drought, when they came out this way trying to help with Adam’s windmill idea.

That history made for a lot of good feeling and handshakes all around, and Bill waved another man over.  “Jimmy, come meet my friends the Cartwrights.  This is my cousin Jimmy.”

That would explain the strong resemblance between the two men, but it didn’t explain why Joe was suddenly straightening up, expression hard.  “We’ve met before, haven’t we, Jimmy?  I don’t think I got your name last time – before one of your friends hit me over the head.”

Hoss looked back and forth between them, trying to assess if there was about to be a fight and if he needed to step in.  He wasn’t sure what this piece of history was – Joe’d been hit over the head too many times for that detail to narrow things down much.

Jimmy didn’t look like a man itching to fight.  In fact, he looked downright anguished.  “I’m sorry about that.  There was nothing I could do, the way Colonel Chapin ran the town.  But that’s why I’m here now – I left, once I saw how bad it could really be.  I saw what kind of people we were all turning into, following the Colonel.”

The name was the tip-off – Joe’d tangled with Colonel Chapin’s men pretty recently, during those bad days when they’d thought somebody had bushwhacked Pa.

“It’s all in the past,” Bill spoke up, looking anxiously between faces.  “Jimmy’s all right, I promise you.”

Hoss looked at Joe, was relieved to see little brother relaxing.  “All right,” Joe said, not exactly warmly but not like he was squaring up to fight anymore either.  “I understand.  I’ve seen mob towns before.”

And Adam apparently saw that as the moment to intervene to smooth things down further.  “How about beers all around?  We’ll drink to better futures.  Bill, how’s your windmill?  Still drawing up water fine?”

Bill broke into a broad smile.  “It’s like a miracle, that is.  Jimmy, I told you about the Cartwrights, remember, and how they helped us with those windmills a few years back.  I never thought it would work, but it did.”

Hoss would’ve accepted that as a compliment and part of the general effort to get a good feeling going, but Adam smiled and said, in the tone that meant he’d launch into a long lecture if anyone gave him half a chance, “It was all based on perfectly sound principles.  There was nothing miraculous about it.  Anyone with the right knowledge could have done it.”

Bill laughed.  “Maybe so, but you were the folks with the knowledge.  Seems pretty impressive to me, even if you can’t break the laws of physics.”

 

2.

By the time he got to the bottom of his second mug of beer, Joe was convinced the evening was going downhill after all and was itching for a way to turn it around again.  It had begun well – this was a good saloon, and even if he and Adam were going to rib Hoss about their terrible trip, well, in a way all the misadventures just made it that much better that they’d be home tomorrow.  And tonight, he was in the mood for a good saloon with his brothers.

But then Jimmy from Colonel Chapin’s town had shown up unexpectedly, and even though he really did believe the man didn’t mean any harm – he’d never shown that much initiative before – it was still unsettling.  And then, much worse, Adam settled into an extended technical discussion with Bill and Jimmy about the physics of windmills; Joe was proud of the part he’d played in that during the drought, but that didn’t mean he wanted to talk about the details all night.  And Hoss, who he might have counted on as an ally, was sitting there looking rapt while Adam talked about water depths.

His own eyes were glazing over, so it wasn’t an entirely unwelcome interruption when someone jostled him from behind and said, “Sorry, friend, wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Joe turned, to see a man about his own age, with a wisp of mustache and a friendly grin.  “No harm done.”  He’d tipped his beer out, but it had been mostly empty anyway, and the bartender was already approaching with a rag for the spill.

“Let me buy you a new beer,” the stranger said, with a nod to the spill, then held up two fingers for the bartender.

“That’s all right,” Joe protested, hefting his empty mug.  “I drank most of this.”

“I insist.”  The stranger extended a hand.  “I’m Fred Bateman.”  His mouth twisted into a self-deprecating smile.  “Sometimes called Young Fred, but I’ve been trying to shed that recently.”

Now that was a coincidence.  Joe shook hands.  “Joe Cartwright, sometimes Little Joe.  Not much luck shedding that either.”

“Hey, now that’s funny,” Fred said, grinning again, and accepted a beer from the bartender.  He lifted it in salute.  “Here’s to convincing our relatives that we’re not kids anymore.”

Joe picked up the second mug, and hoisted it too.  “Let me know if you find a way.”

They both drank, and then Fred asked, “You new in town?”

“Just passing through.”

“Same here, only I can’t seem to scrape together the money to keep moving.”  He laughed, a surprisingly high-pitched note that made Joe grin too.  “Maybe if I stopped losing my wages at poker, you know?”

“Yeah, I’ve been there,” Joe admitted.  Losing at cards might not be the smartest way to spend an evening, but it beat talking about water levels and wind speed.

“In fact,” Fred said, leaning in closer as though imparting secrets, “I happen to know there’s a good game going upstairs.  I was just heading that way, if you want to join me.”

Pa had managed to drill some responsibility into him, so Joe hesitated and asked, “You sure that’s a good idea, if you’re trying to save money?”

Fred clapped him on the back.  “Hey, I’ve got good luck tonight – it’s not every day you meet someone who understands about unfortunate nicknames.”

Joe didn’t know if he’d go that far in describing his own nickname – though there had been days…

“And besides,” Fred continued with a wink, “what’s the next town got that’s better than here anyway?”

Well, it wasn’t his money to lose.  And, it belatedly occurred to Joe, he didn’t have his own money to lose.  “Sounds fine.  Let me just talk to my brother for a minute—”

The other man’s smile shifted into something more like a smirk.  “You need big brother’s permission?”

“Of course not,” Joe shot back – but he didn’t really want Fred to see what he did need.  “You go upstairs – I’ll catch up.”

The man shrugged but headed towards the stairs, and Joe turned to nudge Hoss’ arm.  “Hey, Hoss, loan me twenty bucks?”

“What?” Hoss said, straightening up and turning away from the deeply absorbing conversation about irrigation methods.  His eyes narrowed suspiciously.  “Why?”

“I just heard about this poker game—”

“Little Joe, you already lost a month’s wages—”

“It’s a new game, new players, this is how I can make up my losses,” Joe said with his most winning smile.  “Come on, I’ll pay you back.”

Hoss grumbled – but he reached into his wallet and handed over a few bills.

“Thanks, big brother,” Joe said, folding the money into his own pocket.  “You won’t regret it!”

He made for the stairs before Hoss could change his mind or Adam could catch on to the situation.  He went up the steps two at a time, and at the top found that the second level was much emptier than the room down below.  Fred was standing by the stairs, but the only other person up here was a dark-haired man sitting at a table way off in a back corner.  He was shuffling cards, sure, but this still wasn’t what Joe had expected.

“Hey,” he said to Fred, “I thought you said there was a poker game.”

“It’s right this way,” Fred said with a smile, putting a hand on his shoulder to guide him towards the one occupied table.

As they got closer, something seemed sort of familiar.  He’d seen the face of the man with the cards before, but he couldn’t place him.  The cards, though, maybe he’d seen him playing cards before…

“Hey, don’t I know you?” Joe asked.  “Did you ever live in—”

Pain crashed into the back of his skull, and he just barely managed to think that he shouldn’t have let Fred get behind him before he slumped down and the world went quietly away.

 

Little Joe Cartwright was heavier than Young Fred had expected.  Or maybe Uncle Freddy wasn’t that helpful trying to haul him towards a back room.  Not for the first time, he wished he had an uncle who was really good in a fistfight instead of at cards.

And who had a stronger stomach for this sort of thing.  “That was risky,” Uncle Freddy hissed, as they wrestled Little Joe through the doorway into the hall that ran along the back of the building.  “If he had gotten one yell off to warn his brothers—”

“But he didn’t,” Young Fred countered.  “And what’d I say about risks?  Relax, Uncle Freddy.  It’s all going perfect.  Everything you told me about him was just right to get him off his guard.”  That bit about the nickname had been genius.  Truth was, Young Fred didn’t actually mind his own nickname – he was young, and that was better than being old and scared like his uncle.  Even if there were only ten years between them, some people just thought old.  Though he did wish Uncle Freddy would stop treating him like a kid.  There was a difference.

They dumped Little Joe on the floor of a store room at the end of the hall.  It was no permanent solution, but it would work for now.

Young Fred pulled a roll of rope off the nearest shelf and set to work tying Little Joe’s hands.  “Once I’ve got him trussed up, you can keep an eye on him while I go get the boys.”

Uncle Freddy shifted, and here came the objections again.  “Do we have to involve them?  They’re such a rough crew…”

“We need back-up.  And I can handle them.”

Uncle Freddy never liked the friends Young Fred found.  They’d been knocking along together for almost a year, and it always followed the same pattern.  They hit a town, Uncle Freddy carved out a space at a poker table somewhere, and Young Fred worked out who the toughest cuss in town was.  Then he knocked him flat, and stepped into command of whatever gang he’d been running – and that type always had some group of hangers-on and underlings around them.  Fast guns, short-tempered drunks, the ones ladies crossed the street to avoid.  And all that suited Young Fred just fine.  He knew how to talk to that sort, to promise them big money and grand adventure, and to throw a punch where it was needed.  So Uncle Freddy earned whatever he could at poker, and Young Fred found a way to…pick up some money on the side.  And when things got too hot, the two of them headed for the next town and left the local boys behind to take the fall.  It was a nice system, all around, and maybe this was finally the town where he’d be able to parlay it into real money.

He finished tying off the last knot and stood up.  “You stay out of sight, keep him out of sight, and I’ll be back soon.”

He didn’t give Uncle Freddy time to object, just slipped out the storeroom door, loped down the hall and out a backdoor of the saloon.  Back stairs down to the street, cut through some alleys over to the livery stable, where the boys were sitting on hay bales, playing poker and drinking moonshine.  It always paid to get someone working at the livery stable in your gang – gave you easy access to horses when you needed them in a hurry.

The boys looked up at his approach, with grins and a lot of “hey, boss” and “give up on the fancy-dancy saloon?”

They were the same sort of disreputable group he gathered in every town, and he’d only bothered to learn half their names.  He always got his boys to wear red neckerchiefs.  Made them feel like they were a part of something, and it made it easier to keep straight who was on his side when a situation got heated.  After enough towns, all the faces started to blur together.

“The saloon was all right,” he said, sitting down on a haybale in the midst of the circle and straightening his own yellow neckerchief.  Red didn’t suit him.  “I’ve got a job for us.  Something real this time around.”

 

3.

It was a couple of hours before Hoss started to get the itch that something was wrong.  Or some time like that.  He’d sort of lost track.  He had figured, when he loaned Joe the twenty bucks, that little brother would come back pretty quick, empty-handed and full of excuses.  And meanwhile Hoss was trying to follow what Adam was talking about, about the windmills and the water, and then even though Bill was married, Jimmy wasn’t and even though he was new in town he’d already met all the saloon girls, and they moved to a table and bought a few of ‘em drinks and one of ‘em started singing and all in all, it was a good long while before Hoss realized that Little Joe ought to have turned up way before this.

“Hey,” Hoss said, nudging Adam, who was listening attentively to the saloon girl warbling about loves and doves, “you seen Little Joe lately?”  He knew Adam hadn’t seen him to talk to him, but maybe he’d noticed him across the room or something.

“No, not since he was with us at the bar,” Adam said, gaze not wavering from the singer.

“Yeah.  I’m gonna go look around,” Hoss said, picking up his hat from the table.  He’d seen Joe head for the stairs, so he’d start that way.  Maybe little brother was actually winning at poker.

Up on the second level, there were a couple of games of cards going on, but Joe wasn’t in any of them.  And none of the players had seen a man in a green jacket, even though most of them had been there for more than an hour.

Getting more worried by the minute, Hoss tried the only door up there, finding just an empty corridor beyond.  All the doors along there were locked, except one at the end that opened onto a store room.  It was empty.

Hoss turned and headed back the way he’d come, faster now, until he got back to Adam’s table.  “Adam, I can’t find Joe.  He’s not anywhere around here.”

That finally got Adam’s attention off the music – or maybe off the girl.  He looked at Hoss, frowning.  “He could have gone looking for entertainment somewhere else – or went back to the hotel.”

Hoss shook his head.  “Sure, if we were at The Silver Dollar, but in a strange town like this?  He would’ve told us first.”

“Yeah,” Adam said, frown deepening, “that’s what I think too.”

“He said he was joining a poker game, then he went upstairs.”  Hoss frowned, trying to think if he’d seen anything else.  “I think – he was maybe following somebody, but I didn’t see the face.”

“A female somebody?”

That could’ve explained a lot, but…  “No.  I saw that much at least.”

Adam stood up from the table, dropping a few coins next to his empty mug, and picked up his hat.  “We have to at least start at the hotel.  And then we search the rest of this town.”

Bill and Jimmy were at the bar again, Jimmy talking to one of the saloon girls, and the Cartwrights only gave them a nod as they headed out the door.  Hoss was already deep in ruminations on how he’d tear this place apart, if that’s what it took to find his little brother.

“How’re we going to explain to Pa that we lost Little Joe?” he muttered as they stepped outside.

“He’s an adult,” Adam said tersely, the tone that meant he was worried too.  “We can’t watch him all the time.”

“You watched him pretty tight in San Francisco.”  Which might be a sign that Joe had just decided to break loose now – but Hoss couldn’t shake a bad feeling about all this.

Adam exhaled loudly.  “I thought San Francisco was the more dangerous place!”

At least they could probably rule out the idea that Little Joe had been shanghaied.  Way too far from the coast for that.

They were only a couple buildings down from the saloon, the hotel still a block away, when a figure straightened up from leaning up against a wall and stepped into their path.  “You the Cartwrights?”  A young man, unfamiliar, looking pretty much like any of the dozens of farmers and cowhands back at the saloon.

“We are.  What about it?” Adam asked, tone cold.

“Fellow gave me a note for you,” the man said, handing over a folded sheet of paper.

For just a second, Hoss considered that the note could be from Joe.  But this wasn’t Joe’s style, and sure enough, the handwriting inside as Adam unfolded it was as unfamiliar as the man who’d given it to him.

And the message just made Hoss see red – as red as the bandana tied around the man’s neck.

If you want to see your little brother again, come to the old oak tree north of town at midnight. No law officers.

Hoss surged past Adam to shove the stranger back up against the nearest wall.  “Where’s my brother?  What’s happened to him?”  He grabbed that red bandana, clenched it in his fist.  “You start talking right now—”

“I don’t know anything!” the man squeaked, pushing ineffectually at Hoss’ hands.  “Somebody gave me the note – I just work at the livery stable!”

“Who?” Adam asked, re-folding the note.  “Who gave you the note?”

“I don’t know!  He didn’t give me a name, just a quarter for delivering it!”

“Yeah?” Hoss said, giving him his best glare.  “What’d he look like?”

“Young – mustache – I don’t know, he was a stranger!”

“Let him go, Hoss,” Adam said.  “It doesn’t do us or Joe any good to kill the messenger.”

Hoss grimaced, but released his grip on the man – who immediately slid away and started running.  It didn’t appear it would do much good to chase him.

Adam was scanning up and down the street.  “Come on, back to the saloon.  I don’t like how many shadows there are out here.”

Inside the saloon, there was noise and light and music, everybody talking and drinking just like the whole world hadn’t gone and turned upside down.

“What’re we gonna do, Adam?” Hoss asked urgently, as older brother slid into a seat at a corner table, a spot where he could watch the rest of the room.

“I’m thinking,” Adam said, frowning.  “And I think – we’d better go out to the oak tree.  We’ll have to find out where it is, but we have time; midnight’s about two hours from now.  How much money do you have on you?”

“Not much,” Hoss admitted.  He hadn’t lost all his money in San Francisco like Joe, but he’d spent plenty of it.  And he’d loaned twenty to Joe too.

“Me neither.  They probably expected that.  We’ll need to—”

“Thought you boys had left for the night.”

They both looked up to see Bill and Jimmy approaching, both still smiling like this was a perfectly nice evening they were all having.

“No, we’ve got us a problem,” Hoss said, and at Adam’s confirming nod, went on to explain the situation.

By the time they’d more or less got the story clear, Bill was shaking his head, not in disbelief but apparent horror.  “I can’t imagine – such a terrible thing.”  He hesitated, then said with apparent reluctance, “There have been reports of a group of Indians riding in the area the last few days…”

“I think the man from the livery would have mentioned that,” Adam said, “instead of a mustache.”

“Yes, of course,” Bill said quickly, “but why anyone would want to harm Little Joe…”

Hoss had his eye on Jimmy, who had sunk lower in his chair and was staring down at the tabletop.  “Hey,” Hoss said quietly, “you and Joe had some bad blood, yeah?  Some kind of history from Colonel Chapin’s town?”

Jimmy’s head jerked up, his face pale.  “I swear, I had nothing to do with this – I swear it!  I left the Colonel after your brother came to town.  I saw how he stood up to Colonel Chapin, and I realized how spineless we’d all become – how we’d let him push us into doing anything.  That’s when I knew I couldn’t stay there anymore, if I wanted to have any self-respect again.  I owe your brother for helping me see that.”

The man could be lying.  But Hoss thought he could hear the ring of truth in the protests – and while in some ways it would be easier, if they had one of the parties responsible right here, he didn’t think they did.  He looked at Adam, who nodded again, and Hoss grudgingly said, “All right then.”

“How can we help?” Bill asked quickly.  “What can we do?”

“What do you know about an old oak tree north of town?” Adam asked, tapping the note against the table.

“There’s a big dead oak,” Bill said, “maybe a mile out on the north road.  It died in the drought.  Only tree for miles around in that direction.”

“So no cover around there either?” Adam asked, and Bill shook his head.  Adam sighed.  “All right.  Hoss and I have an appointment there at midnight.  Somebody’s probably watching us, to make sure we don’t go to the law.  But it’s not likely they’re watching you.”

And pretty soon, they had at least the beginnings of a plan.

 

4.

Joe hated that he didn’t know where he was.  He hated that he’d been caught unawares, and now he’d have to admit that to Hoss and Adam – if he ever got the chance.  He hated that his head hurt and he was hungry, and he really hated that his captors had stolen his jacket.

He had only a vague recollection of being tied up in some kind of storeroom – maybe it was at the saloon, maybe it was somewhere else.  It had been pretty dim, and his head had hurt.  The fog had barely been starting to clear when somebody’d put a blindfold on him and he was dumped into a wagon – judging by the creaking and the movement and the bits of hay.  They’d gone – somewhere.  Maybe by daylight he could’ve made some guess at direction, even blindfolded, just by the way the sunlight felt, but at night, he had no idea.  All he knew was that they’d driven long enough to be somewhere away from town.

They’d pulled off the blindfold once they arrived and dumped him on the floor in a corner.  He felt better being able to see – even if he knew it wasn’t a good sign, in a situation like this.  Or maybe they just figured they didn’t have anything to hide, since he’d already seen their faces.  And they seemed to really want to rub the whole thing in.

“It wasn’t Hoss’ fault, what happened to Sheribelle,” he said, not for the first time this evening.  His gaze roamed around the small shelter for the hundredth time as he spoke, as though he’d finally spot an overlooked gun or opportunity for a signal fire that he’d missed before.  They were in some kind of way station or line shack, the kind that dotted big ranches and open stretches all through the territory.  It was too solid to crash through any walls, too dusty to expect the owners to be riding up any time soon.

Freddy Grayson, the poker player, the one whose name he just barely remembered from a few years back in Virginia City, glared at him from his spot in the shack’s one chair.  “It was his fault, him and his big dumb friend.”

“Hoss felt really bad about Sheribelle—”

“Not as bad as he felt about that ape who murdered her,” Freddy spat, “and he got the whole town thinking that way too.  No one cared about his victim.  She was just a saloon girl!”

One who’d provoked and bullied and meant to fleece poor Arnie – which wasn’t saying she deserved what had happened, only that Joe personally didn’t miss her at the saloon.  “Nobody was thinking that.  And it’s not like Hoss campaigned or something, he just—”

“Enough,” Young Fred Bateman broke in, rapping one hand against the table he was propped up against.  “You’ve been around these same circles with him five times, Uncle Freddy.  It’s not helping.”

Joe wouldn’t have pegged these two as relatives – no resemblance he could see.  But people never saw a resemblance between him and Hoss either, so anything was possible.

“Just accept it, Little Joe,” Bateman continued.  “He wants revenge, and I want money.  And you’re our ticket to both of them.  And speaking of that…”  He picked up the green jacket he’d tossed onto the table earlier, inspected it for a moment, then folded it over his arm.  “…we’ve got an appointment to keep with your big brothers.”

Joe dragged his gaze away from the green corduroy, focused on Bateman’s face.  “Shouldn’t you take me with you?  Prove you’ve actually got me to bargain with?”  And maybe open up some opportunity for escape.

Bateman shook his head.  “You know, you seemed smarter at the saloon.  The jacket proves we have you.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Joe said through gritted teeth.  He was almost sure that Freddy had left Virginia City before he’d bought the green jacket everyone knew him by now.  It was worth a gamble, anyway.  “But it’s just a jacket.  They might not even remember I was wearing it tonight.”

“Well…” Bateman drawled, and smoothed his mustache, “I guess if they don’t believe us, and don’t pay up for you – then I won’t get my money, but Uncle Freddy will definitely get his revenge.  And that’ll be fun too.”  Then he laughed his high-pitched giggle – and it sounded much eerier now than it had in the saloon.

“If you’re done playing,” Freddy said, looking unsettled too, “let’s go.  We told them to meet at midnight.”

“All right, all right.”  Bateman opened the shack’s single door, leaned out.  “Hey, Kyle, get in here.”

A thin young man stepped inside, red bandana bright around his neck.  “Yeah, boss?”

Bateman nodded at Joe.  “Keep an eye on him.  And you—”  He turned his gaze on Joe.  “—don’t try anything.  There’s three more men with guns on guard outside.”

“I liked you better,” Joe said sourly, “when you were just knocking over my beer.”

The giggle floated behind Bateman as he and Freddy walked out the door.  Joe eyed Kyle – and his gun – and settled in to wait for further developments.  It wasn’t the first seemingly hopeless position he’d been in.  Something could change any time, and if it did, he’d be ready.

 

Five horsemen were already waiting at the oak tree when Hoss and Adam rode up.  Their silhouettes stood out starkly against the starlit sky in this flat terrain, the twisted branches of the dead oak rustling eerily above them.  Hoss shivered, even though the night was warm.  He wasn’t prone to getting spooked, but this whole situation was all wrong every which way.

“Could be worse,” Adam muttered as they brought the horses closer, “could’ve been four horsemen.”

Hoss shot him a quizzical look.  “Why is it better to be more out-numbered?”

“It’s not, I meant the apocalyptic symbolism.  You know, the four horsemen of the…never mind.”

Hoss decided that maybe it all meant that older brother was uneasy too.  Which was not reassuring.

“All right, that’s close enough,” a voice called, when they were still beyond the shadow of the oak.

No one else had dismounted, so Hoss and Adam didn’t either.  “We’re here, like you said,” Adam said into the quiet.  “Where’s our brother?”

Hoss had already assessed the riders from a distance.  None of them were Little Joe.

“Not here,” the one in the lead said, the one who’d spoken before.  Youngish, a light-colored bandana around his neck.  He didn’t look familiar, not even now that they were up closer.  “And you aren’t going to see him until you rich Cartwrights hand over some good solid money for him.”

This was so expected that Hoss left it to Adam to deal with, scanning across the faces in front of him.  The first couple he looked at were complete strangers.  But that one – that was the one who’d brought them the message about meeting here.  Hoss’ fists tightened.  He’d had him, and he’d let him go, and he would have had something to say about this but his gaze caught on the next person, another familiar face but an even more surprising one…  He stared, squinted, scanned the fancy duds then looked at the face again to make sure, and finally, just as Adam was asking how much money they wanted, he blurted out, “Freddy?  Freddy Grayson?”

Heads, including Adam’s, swung his way, while Freddy, the fancy-dressed card player he hadn’t seen in at least a couple years, sneered at him.  “I wondered if you’d even remember me.”

“Sure I remember you…”  And Hoss left unsaid that he remembered Freddy as a nasty sorta snake, guilty of casual cruelty and low-down meanness.  “What’re you doing here?  What’ve you done with Little Joe?”

“Nothing as bad as what your friend did to Sheribelle,” Freddy spat.  “Or don’t you remember her?”

“Yeah, I remember her too,” Hoss said heavily.  One of the meanest saloon girls he’d ever met – and he still felt real bad about what had happened to her.  And then to Arnie.  “If this is about you and me and Sheribelle, you should’ve left Little Joe out of it.”

The first speaker let out a high-pitched giggle that did nothing to make the scene less uncanny.  Hoss might josh Joe about his hyena laugh, but it had a whole different tone than this.  “Little brother was easier to carry away,” the giggler explained, grinning widely, “and Uncle Freddy here was sure his big brothers would pay plenty for him.”

“How much,” Adam cut in, “do you want?”

“Fifty-thousand dollars,” the giggler – Freddy’s nephew, that was interesting – said at once.

“We aren’t carrying that kind of money,” Adam said evenly.  “We only have fifty dollars between us.”

Freddy let loose with a short laugh.  “Don’t you think your brother’s worth more than that?”

Hoss glared at him.  “You low-down, sneaking—”

“There’s a bank in this town,” the nephew interrupted.  “You be in there bright and early tomorrow morning, and you persuade them that the Cartwright name is good for a fifty-thousand dollar loan.  Because we want that money left here at the oak by noon tomorrow.  Once we have it, we let your kid brother go.  We don’t get it, well – the world’s short one Cartwright, and Uncle Freddy feels justice is done for his Sheribelle.”

“We’ll get the money,” Adam said.  “If you actually have Joe.  Because so far, you haven’t given us any proof of that.”

“We figured you’d say something like that,” the nephew said, and giggled again.  Then he reached behind him to get something tied onto his saddle, a crumpled bundle of cloth he threw towards Hoss.

Hoss caught it, and knew what it was as soon as he touched it.  It was hard to make out color in the dark night, but he’d know Little Joe’s green jacket anywhere.  His fingers clenched in the soft corduroy and he drew in a slow breath.  “Hey, Freddy?” he said, feeling a real deep mad boiling up inside.  “If you thought Arnie had a temper, you don’t want to see what I’m gonna do to you if you hurt Little Joe.”

 

6.

Kyle was a wonderful guard.  At least, from Joe’s perspective.  Fred Bateman surely wouldn’t agree, seeing as Kyle fell asleep in remarkably short order.  Joe watched him for a while before he took a chance on moving, but the man was either pulling a fake for no discernible reason, or fully out and snoring.

Joe wondered how good this group actually was at what they were doing.  Bateman, now – he had a sinister charm that made Joe suspect he was capable of far too many things.  But capable could mean willing and it could mean actually skillful, and the one didn’t necessarily follow the other.  All this letting him see them wasn’t very professional – and neither was tying his hands in front of him.

Once Kyle had been snoring for a solid five minutes, Joe lifted his bound wrists up to his mouth.  He’d already studied the knots, and had a pretty good idea which strand to get his teeth into and tug.  The hemp rope was dirty and completely nasty, but he managed to loosen the binding just enough to wriggle one hand free.  After that, it was simple to undo the ropes around his feet.  They weren’t bad knots – but they weren’t professional either.  His father had been a sailor, he knew about knots, and this all could have been harder.

He’d been listening for any sounds outside too, and ever since Bateman and his uncle had left, it had been silent out there.  He’d never known multiple men on a boring guard duty to not talk to each other, so either Bateman was lying about how many men he had outside, or they were very widely spaced.  Maybe far enough apart to slip past.

Anyway, it was a better shot than sitting here and waiting for Bateman to come back and kill him.  Because he knew it didn’t really matter whether Hoss and Adam came up with any money for him.  If it was up to his captors, he was dead at the end of this either way.  He’d seen their faces; Freddy wanted revenge, and Bateman found that idea far too much fun for Joe’s peace of mind.

Joe rose carefully to his feet, moved cautiously across the room.  The dirt floor was ideal, much better than creaky floorboards.  He got around behind Kyle, froze for an instant as the man shifted and then let out an even louder snore.  Joe judged angles and positions and then, finally, sprang.  He got one hand clamped around Kyle’s mouth and had his fingers on the grip of his gun before the other man was even awake enough to struggle.

But he did wake up, enough to thrash and strain and try to shout through Joe’s fingers, while Joe was still trying to get the gun out of the holster.  There was a brief wrestle, chair thumping too loudly, but Joe managed to yank the gun out, lift it, and bring it down against Kyle’s head.  The man slumped, and Joe barely hung onto him.  The last thing he needed was a loud crash as he fell over, bringing three more guards to the door.

Joe let go as soon as the chair, and the man unconscious across it, were steady again, whipping the gun up towards the door, just in case, and waited.  He was breathing hard, sure they’d made a huge racket – but the door stayed closed, with no one coming to investigate.

He didn’t open it either, because if there was even one real guard out there, he was sure to be in front of that door.

Fortunately, the back of the shack had an empty window, only a dirty old blanket hanging over it in imitation of a curtain.  Joe shifted the blanket aside, gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the darker night beyond, then scrambled up and through.  It was a tight fit – Hoss couldn’t have done it – but he made it.  After a pause to make sure no one had heard him thump down onto the ground, he shoved Kyle’s gun into his belt and set off as fast as stealth allowed.

He didn’t know where he was, so he didn’t know where he was going – but anywhere had to be better than here.

He stayed low as long as he could take it – flatland, there was hardly any cover here like there would have been with rocks and pines.  But once he felt far enough away, the shack a mere smudge in the distance, blending into the dark sky, he straightened up and tried to look for anything to tell him which way to go.  Nothing much in the way of landmarks, and he didn’t know this country well anyway.  It would help if he could see the town in the distance, but no.  It was too far, or he was going the wrong direction.

Well, when you only had one indicator to tell you direction, better just go with it.  Looking up to the night sky, Joe picked out the North Star.  All things being equal, at least keeping straight would get him away from where he’d started.  North was the easiest way to keep track of, so north he’d go.  And with any luck, he’d find something along the way.

 

Part Two: A Private Little War

7.

Nothing else went wrong on the ride back to the hotel, which Hoss didn’t find to be any particular comfort.  Enough had already gone wrong.

“We ain’t gonna be able to convince the bank to give us fifty-thousand dollars,” he said worriedly as they stepped into the hotel lobby.

“I know,” Adam said.

“We ain’t depositors in this bank, and just because we helped build some windmills—”

“I know.”  Adam started up the broad staircase to the hotel’s upper floor.

“Maybe we ought to telegraph Pa.  He’d want to know—”

“He can’t get here before that noon deadline they gave us, so what good would it do?”

Hoss sighed heavily as they turned the corner on the hotel hallway.  “I know.  I just – I don’t like any of this.”

“No, I wouldn’t think so,” Adam said dryly.  “Let’s at least find out more before we decide whether to upset Pa.”

“We were supposed to get home tomorrow.”  The prospect had never looked more appealing, now that it was vanishing in the distance.

Adam just nodded, and pushed open the door of their hotel room.

Two men were sitting inside, breaking off their conversation as the door opened.  But it was the right two men – Bill and a man wearing a sheriff’s badge.

“Anyone see you come in here?” Adam asked, and Bill shook his head.

“No, we circled around and came in by the back door.”  The sheriff’s office was just across the street from the hotel, but anybody could have seen them come that way.  It was better that they’d been cautious.

They – mostly Adam – had reasoned that there were strong odds Joe’s captors had somebody watching his brothers.  Making it too risky for Hoss and Adam to go to the law.  But it wasn’t so likely they were watching Bill.

The sheriff stood up, to shake hands with Adam and then Hoss in turn.  “Sheriff Rawlins.  You did the right thing getting me involved.”

Hoss wished they could have got Roy Coffee involved, but he was as far away as Pa and the Ponderosa right now.  He had to hope Rawlins would be competent.  He was an older, lean man, and if his tone was a little patronizing – well, hopefully nobody got to that age in this profession without knowing at least a few things.

“I don’t mind telling you, this is a bad business,” Rawlins said, shaking his head as he sat down again.  “Most times, abductions don’t come out well for anyone.”

“So let’s see about creating an exception,” Adam said, polite enough but Hoss could detect an edge in his voice.  “They’ve just given us a demand for fifty-thousand dollars, left at the old oak tree by noon tomorrow.”

Rawlins kept shaking his head.  “No, I don’t like that either, I don’t like that at all.  There’s nothing to stop them killing your brother as soon as you’ve handed the money over.”

“Which is why,” Adam said, “we have to hope Jimmy’s having some success with following them.”

“I’m not sure you should have taken a risk like that,” Rawlins said, “without getting the law involved.  He’s a civilian after all, and if they spot him—”

“He volunteered,” Hoss rumbled.  “And we had to do something.  Because we ain’t letting no low-down varmints kill Little Joe.”

 

Young Fred flung the chair across the shack, where it bounced against the wall and didn’t even have the decency to break.  “What do you mean he got away?”

Kyle was sitting on the floor, one hand pressed to the back of his head.  “I don’t know, he jumped me somehow—”

“He was tied-up.  You had a gun!”

Kyle cringed.  “I know, but – he just – it was…”

Kyle must have fallen asleep.  And Little Joe Cartwright had to be clever.

Young Fred glowered at the chair that had refused to shatter, and considering throwing it again.  But what would be the point?  It wasn’t to blame for anything.  Slapping Kyle around was tempting and might even be satisfying, but it wouldn’t solve anything either.

This was the problem with working with amateurs.  Someday, he wouldn’t be picking up local toughs in every new town.  He’d have a proper gang, professionals who knew what they were doing.  Ones he could rely on, who could keep track of prisoners or keep quiet about stolen loot – people who were in a different league than these kids he kept dealing with.

But for now, they were what he had.  “You didn’t see which way he went?” he demanded of Kyle, who winced and cringed some more.

“He already told you he didn’t,” Uncle Freddy spoke up, stepping into the shack’s narrow doorway.  “We should have left more men on guard.”

“I know that,” Young Fred said savagely.  They should have left anyone on guard outside the shack, but they only had the four men and he’d wanted to put on a good show for the Cartwrights.  He hadn’t figured on Joe Cartwright causing trouble.  And that was his mistake, not Kyle’s.

“This is bad,” Uncle Freddy said, walking into the shack and leaning on the rickety table.  “If the kid gets back to town, and finds his brothers or the sheriff—”

“He’s on foot, and he doesn’t know which direction the town is,” Young Fred countered.

Uncle Freddy’s eyebrows pulled together.  “We don’t know how well he knows this country—”

“He’s not from here, and this country is empty.  Nothing to tell him which way to go.  He’s wandering in the wilderness, so all we have to do is get out there and find him.  Quickly.”

“But it’s dark.  We can’t track in the dark.”

Young Fred wondered which rancher or mountain man Uncle Freddy had heard that from.  Probably while sitting in some saloon somewhere, playing his games of cards, because it wasn’t like Uncle Freddy would know how to track someone by daylight either.  “So we split up.  Flat land, anybody walking out there will be visible for a long way.  There’s six of us.  We can cover a lot of country.”

Uncle Freddy looked like he was going to object some more, so Young Fred walked past him and out the door of the shack.  Sometimes, the only way forward was to move fast enough to keep the other guy from having time to get in your way.

Outside, the rest of the gang was standing by the horses, looking worried, but Young Fred didn’t go talk to them right away either.  He took a deep breath of the still night air, looked around at the empty landscape and the stars overhead.

He couldn’t see any fleeing Cartwright on the horizon, but he was having a hunch.

North.  He’d send everybody to different points of the compass, and he was going to go north.

 

8.

Hoss’ patience broke at dawn.  The sun’s rays speared over the horizon, and revealed exactly what had already been clear for the past half-hour in the pre-dawn dim – a whole lot of stillness.  The shack Jimmy had led them to was deserted.  They’d left the horses behind and crept up to crouch behind the old wagon standing not far from the shack – him, Adam, the sheriff, Jimmy and Bill.  The waiting and the tension since then had gone on for just about as long as Hoss could stand.

“I say we move in,” Hoss said, and looked at Adam.

Adam gave a slight nod.  “I agree,” he said, and Hoss felt a small portion of his tension ease.  Because if Adam agreed, they’d do it.  Somehow.

“I don’t know,” the sheriff said, and scratched up under his hat.  “Could be risky.  Might be best if we wait until full light—”

“There’s no one there,” Hoss growled.  He had a new theory on how Sheriff Rawlins had survived to his older age in his dangerous profession – by taking no risks, ever.  “There’s no horses, no movement, nothing.  We go in now, and we try to figure out what happened.”

“And we’re sure it’s the right place?” the sheriff said, looking over his shoulder at Jimmy.

The other man nodded vigorously.  “I followed the riders from the oak, and they came here.”  His face twisted up.  “Maybe I should have waited, to see what they did next, but I thought I ought to get back to town as soon as possible…”

“You did fine,” Hoss rumbled, “and we appreciate it.  Now let’s go.”

“I’ll lead,” Adam said, standing up.

“Now, I don’t know…” Sheriff Rawlins said slowly, but Adam kept walking.

“We’ll handle this,” Adam said without looking back, and that was enough to tell Hoss that older brother was at least as exasperated with the local law enforcement as he was himself.

He didn’t comment on it, just stood up and moved to flank Adam, both of them with guns drawn.  Normally it wouldn’t be the smartest thing to charge into a potential outlaw stronghold by the front door – but the place was deserted, and there was no better way to approach anyway.

And Hoss for one couldn’t handle any more suspense about what they were going to find inside.

They split to either side of the door when they reached it, and waited a few more seconds to see if walking up was causing any reaction.  When there continued to be a whole lot of nothing, Adam nodded to Hoss.

Hoss gave the door a kick that sent it slamming open.  He was right behind the swinging door, gun ready.

Inside, there was a tumbled chair, a rickety old table – and absolutely no dead little brother, or anywhere somebody could have hidden him.  Also no one else.  Hoss let out a breath, leaning on the table, and holstered his gun.  This didn’t mean Little Joe was all right.  But at least he wasn’t lying dead in here.

“It’s all clear,” Adam called out the door, and Sheriff Rawlins came strolling in with Bill and Jimmy behind him.

“That was a very risky thing you just did,” the sheriff said, thumbs tucked into his belt as he surveyed the empty shack.

Hoss ignored that, already crouching to examine a couple lengths of rope he’d spotted lying in a corner.  One of them was still half-knotted, looped in a pattern suggesting it could have gone around wrists.  It hadn’t been cut, or untied properly – more like somebody’d managed to loosen one of the loops and yank the whole thing off.  Hoss held it up for Adam to see.  “Looks to me like they had Little Joe tied up.”

Adam took the tangle of rope, examined it too.  “They might have untied him.”

“They didn’t do a real good job of it then.  And why would they anyway?  They should’ve been waiting for us to bring the money.”  And you didn’t need to untie a man to kill him.  Or after you killed him.  “My bet’s on Joe escaping.”  Little brother was pretty clever about that sort of thing.

“That’s good, right?” Jimmy spoke up.  “If he got away from the outlaws.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Sheriff Rawlins said heavily.  “Because now he’s out there somewhere.”  He made a gesture towards the world outside the shack’s door.  “And the outlaws aren’t here.  Presumably they’re out there too, looking for him.”

“And there’s no reason to think they won’t kill him when they find him,” Adam said with a grimace.  “They have to figure this disrupts their plans for ransom, so they’re probably more interested in revenge now.”  He shook his head.  “Why couldn’t Joe sit tight and wait for us to get him out of this?”

Hoss snorted.  “Adam, have you met our little brother?”

That produced one of Adam’s very slight smiles.  “Come on, let’s see what kind of tracking we can do outside.”

The answer was, not very satisfying tracking.  There were too many and too few tracks out there.

“So at least five people on horseback scattered all different directions,” Hoss said, surveying the marks in the dirt.  “No telling if one of ‘em was Joe.  Or if none of ‘em were, no telling which way Joe did go.”  If he had been on foot, he’d managed it without leaving obvious signs, or the horses had obscured whatever signs there were.

“Possibly the outlaws decided it was best to abandon the plan and flee the scene,” Sheriff Rawlins said, thoughtfully stroking his chin.  “They may have scattered to stymie pursuit.”

“Or they didn’t know which way Joe went either, and they’re looking for him,” Adam said, squinting at the horizon.  “They left during the dark, when they couldn’t track effectively.”

“Either way, the best thing we can do now is to head back to town,” the sheriff pronounced.  “We’ll form up a posse – see who’s in town, send some people around to the nearby ranches – and do a proper search of the area.”

It wasn’t a bad plan.  Roy Coffee might’ve come up with a similar plan, Hoss had to grudgingly admit.  Only – it was going to take time to gather men together.  Time while Joe was out there, with the outlaws hours ahead of them, and anything could be happening.

Oldest brother must’ve been thinking something of the same kind.  “You do that,” Adam said.  “Hoss and I will start searching while you’re gathering more men.”

“Now, I don’t know about that,” the sheriff said.  “It’s the job of the law to round up outlaws and renegades—”

“It’s our little brother,” Adam said, in the tightly controlled voice that Hoss knew meant he was one more push away from doing something rash.  “That means it’s our job to get him out of whatever mess he’s in.”

Sheriff Rawlins nodded slowly.  Maybe he heard something in Adam’s tone too.  “All right then.  I ain’t saying I approve, but I ain’t going to stop you either, so—”

“Good enough,” Adam said, and waved a hand to beckon Hoss.  “Come on, let’s get the horses.”

“Be careful out there,” the sheriff added.  “It’s not just the outlaws.  There’s been reports of a group of Bannocks in the area too.”

“Are they causing trouble?” Adam asked.

The sheriff looked a little blank.  “Well…no.  But they’re in the area.”

“Right,” Adam said flatly, and turned towards the horses.  “We’ll keep that in mind too.”

“Which way are we going to search?” Hoss asked as he fell into step with Adam.  “Joe would have tried for town – if he knew which way town was.”

“Then we would have seen him on our way here.”  Adam frowned, squinting at the horizon.  “The Ganthers’ place is north of here, isn’t it?”

Hoss looked around, as though he was going to spot a landmark – there weren’t any – and shrugged.  “I think so.  So?”

“So, if Joe did have any idea where he was, he might’ve tried to reach friends by going there.  And even if he didn’t, we can get more help there.”

“So we head north?”

“No – we can cover more ground if we split up.”  Adam nodded once, decision made.  “You ride east, I’ll ride west, and we’ll circle around to the north and meet at the Ganthers’ place.  And we’ll try to round up whatever help we can at any place we pass along the way.”

 

By the time the sun was hitting the midpoint in the sky, Joe felt pretty certain that north had not been the right direction to choose.  The cool night had given way to hot, dry day hours ago, and he hadn’t encountered the town or a farmhouse or any water source since he started out.  He figured he’d trudged miles by now, though the empty landscape made it hard to shake the feeling that he was walking and walking and going nowhere.

He wished he’d aimed towards Virginia City.  Not because there was any reason to think the town – or anything else – was in that same direction, but because at least it would mean that every step brought him closer to home.  Home might as well be a thousand miles away, when he was on foot with no supplies – he wasn’t going to get there, definitely not through the country in between – but at least he’d know.

He and Hoss and Adam had planned to ride home today.  They could have done it by nightfall, with an early enough start.  But walking it – no, he wasn’t going to get as far as that, not like this.

Joe didn’t turn towards home now.  Changing directions on a whim, that was how a person ended up wandering in circles.  Besides, he was nothing if not hard-headed, and north he’d picked so north he’d go.

He’d been walking for a while with his gaze down, because squinting at the horizon all the time was both too bright and too depressing when it never changed.  So when he finally looked up again, it was a shock to actually see something.

That was assuming it wasn’t a mirage, because it was a mighty strange shape for a building.  His eyes or his mind were having trouble making sense of it – he’d been walking too long and he was too thirsty and he might be hard-headed but he did get hit over the head not too many hours ago and also he just really wanted to see something.  What was he seeing, it did look vaguely familiar but he couldn’t quite—

A sound behind him brought his attention abruptly away from the mystery, heart pounding as he turned to look for the source of hoofbeats.  This new arrival sharpened his mind in a way that the building hadn’t.  He could see the horseman, still distant but closing the gap rapidly.  Could be a stranger, who might help.  Could be an outlaw, who might kill him.  From this distance, all he could be sure of was that it wasn’t Hoss or Adam – he’d know his brothers from a long, long way off – and he wasn’t prepared to trust any other riders right now.

He turned, stumbled a few more steps.  Running was out of the question, he couldn’t outrun a horse, not even as far as the building up ahead and there was nowhere closer and no kind of cover.  He still had the gun he’d stolen when he escaped, but if he turned this into a shootout, he was a much easier target than a man on a moving horse.

This wasn’t the first time he’d wandered through a desert, though.  And one of those wanders had started with positions reversed – he’d been the one on horseback, and there’d been a man on foot with a gun.

He was running out of time.  Keeping his back to the rider, he got the gun out of his belt, stumbled a few more steps, then deliberately pitched forward and lay still in the dust – with the gun clutched in one hand, hidden under his body.

He waited, shoulder blades itching, anticipating a bullet right between them, because if it was an outlaw who wanted to just shoot him outright, it was all over.

But they’d been talkative outlaws, for the most part, and sure enough the hoofbeats came to a halt, there was the thud of someone dismounting, and then a voice saying, “Get up, Cartwright.”

He was nearly certain it was Bateman.  Which was just about how his luck had been going ever since he met the man.  Joe didn’t move, just gave a pretty genuine groan.  The way his throat felt, it didn’t take any faking.

There was an exasperated sigh, close enough to how Adam sometimes sounded to make Joe really miss his oldest brother, and then footsteps approaching.  A hand grabbed his shoulder, yanking him over, and Joe lifted the gun as he rolled.

Turned out this trick worked better when the other guy was a Good Samaritan trying to help, not an outlaw who’d approached with his gun drawn too.  Joe caught a glimpse of Bateman’s face and the barrel of the gun and then he was squeezing the trigger of his own gun even as he tried to use his other hand to knock Bateman’s gun away.  Two shots rang out in near unison.

Joe thought he probably missed.  He was distracted by the line of fire slicing across his right upper arm, because Bateman didn’t miss.

 

9.

Young Fred had to hand it to the kid – Joe Cartwright wasn’t going to go down easy.  Blood blooming up on his shirtsleeve and he was still fighting.  Young Fred had anticipated a trick, felt good about getting that first shot off and avoiding the one Joe fired, but then it all turned into chaos.  Both guns got knocked away and then it was bare-handed wrestling, rolling and punching and kicking across the dry dirt.

Young Fred managed to land on top and get his hands around Joe’s throat, but the kid was clawing at his eyes and trying to buck him off and it was real unclear whether he was going to go unconscious before he succeeded so this could still go either way—

And then the cocking of a rifle and the words, “All right, that’s enough,” made both men freeze.

Young Fred looked up to see a woman holding a rifle, sighting down on them.  He lifted his hands from Joe’s neck, held them up innocently.  The woman was older but not old, still dark-haired but with that tired look women got when their husbands ran farms that were none too successful.  A girl of maybe fourteen was looking out from behind her.

Two womenfolk, not a man in sight – he could work with that.  He could always be charming when he needed to be.

“I’m relieved to see you, ma’am,” Young Fred said, shifting off of Joe – but slowly; he didn’t know how trigger-itchy she might be.  “I work for the law a couple towns over and I’ve been trailing this outlaw, you see.  He tried to kill me when I caught up to him, so I’m glad you were here to intervene.”  And then he tried his best smile.

She didn’t so much as blink – but she shifted the rifle to keep it trained on him as he moved.  “Keep your hands where I can see them.”  Then to the girl, “Lindy, pick up the guns.  Little Joe, you all right down there?”

Wait, how did she…?

“I’ll live, Mrs. Ganther,” Joe said, sitting up and clutching his wounded arm.  It didn’t stop him from winking at the girl.  “Hiya, Pigtails.”

She stuck her tongue out at him as she picked up one of the pistols.  “I’ve been wearing my hair up for years.”

Young Fred looked wildly between the faces in front of him, because clearly he’d missed a trick somewhere.  “Wait a minute, wait – you know each other?  Cartwright’s not even from around here!”

“I helped the Ganthers build a windmill a couple years back,” Joe said, as though this made perfect sense.  “You’d think I’d recognize it when I saw it on the horizon, but I was so heat-dazed I half thought I was hallucinating.”

“What were you doing out here anyway?” Mrs. Ganther asked.  “And who’s he?”

Young Fred figured that meant him, and tried to intervene.  “Fred Bateman, ma’am.”  This whole situation was not good, but it might be improved if he continued to lay on enough charm.  “And I assure you this is all a big misunderstanding.”

“He captured me and tried to hold me for ransom, but I escaped last night,” Joe said bluntly.

Young Fred sighed.  “Well, if you’re going to put it in the worst way possible…”

“You just tried to convince her I was an outlaw!”

He considered trying to argue that Joe was merely picking up his tactic – but it wouldn’t do any good if the woman actually trusted Cartwright, which she appeared to do.  So he just shrugged.  “Would’ve worked if she hadn’t known you.”

Or if only he’d caught up to Joe sooner – Bateman had been riding back and forth, trying to cover as much ground in a generally northern direction as possible, and it had slowed him way down.  If he had caught him even a few minutes sooner, before they got close enough for this interfering woman to show up and take Joe’s side…

“I don’t like the look of that arm, Little Joe,” Mrs. Ganther said briskly.  “Let’s get inside where we can tend to it.  Lindy, help him up.  Mr. Bateman, start walking towards the house.”

“Like you say, ma’am,” Young Fred said, giving her the charming smile again.  It wasn’t like he thought it was going to work, but it couldn’t hurt.  “You sure you want to keep that rifle pointed all the time?  It makes me a little nervous, you know.”

Her expression was unimpressed.  “Perhaps you’ll feel more at ease once we tie you up then.”

This day was definitely going downhill.

 

Joe was just about ready to decide his luck had finally turned.  It had been bad luck all the way since San Francisco, from the bad weather to losing at poker, escalating with an abduction and being shot – but stumbling onto the Ganthers’ house, that was a definite turning.  By the time they got inside and Belle Ganther made him sit down at the table while she tied up Bateman – doing a more proper job of it than the outlaws had on Joe, by tying him to a chair – Joe was feeling pretty good about things.  Even with the pain in his arm, and the blood on his shirt, and the way his legs felt after all that walking.

Lindy plunked a cup of water down in front of him and then perched on another chair, studying him intently.  She looked older than she had a couple years ago, wearing a proper dress and her hair pinned up, but she hadn’t changed that much.  “Have you ever been shot before?  Does it hurt?  You’ve got a lot of blood on your shirt.”

“Lindy, don’t bother him,” Mrs. Ganther intervened before Joe could get a word in.  “Go find me some more cloths.”  Done with Bateman, she had picked up a basin of water and a few rags, which she set on the table next to Joe.

Lindy rolled her eyes.  “All right, Ma.”  She disappeared into the next room.

Mrs. Ganther ripped open Joe’s sleeve with practiced efficiency, and applied a wet cloth to the wound.  The cool cloth eased some of the fire in his arm.  He picked up the cup of water with his other hand, and downing that helped too.

Mrs. Ganther didn’t comment on the wound, so as Joe set the empty cup down he felt obliged to say, “It’s really not that bad.  I’ve been shot worse.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him, and Joe had the distinct impression that very little ruffled this woman.  “That’s as may be, but the bullet didn’t go all the way through, meaning it needs to come out.  I have just enough nursing experience to know that that is a fiddly business best done by a professional.”

“If you wrap it up, I can ride.  We’ll take Bateman into town and—”

She was shaking her head.  “We don’t have enough saddle horses.  It’s unfortunate you two spooked his into running off when you started firing guns.  Though at least it brought Lindy and me too.”  She cast a glance at Bateman, sitting silently in his chair at the other side of the room, but surely listening.  “And,” she said with some reluctance, “it’s unfortunate my husband is away.”

“Will he be back soon?” Joe asked, wondering if she’d lie and say yes, just because Bateman was listening.

“Well, that’s hard to say.  You see, he’s out looking for you.”  She smiled slightly.  “It wasn’t entirely surprising to see you today.  Your brothers came by a couple hours ago, searching for you and rounding up people to help.”

So Hoss and Adam were looking for him – Joe wished heartily that they’d actually found him.  They’d be on horseback, so they could cover a lot more ground than he’d been trudging.  They must have somehow worked out he’d got away from Bateman’s gang, but then missed him out there in the wilderness.  Flatland, but you still couldn’t see everything.  If they were here a couple hours ago, there was no telling if or when they’d circle back again.

“Never mind,” Mrs. Ganther said.  “I’ll send Lindy on the horse we have to town, to get the sheriff and the doctor, while I keep an eye on the both of you.  I wouldn’t fancy the idea of trying to keep track of either of you on horseback anyway.  He’s liable to run and you’re liable to fall off.”

Bateman let loose with one of his high-pitched giggles at that, which was maybe worse than a comment.  Joe grimaced.  “I’d have to be a lot more hurt than this to fall off a horse.”

As events continued to unfold, Joe found that Belle Ganther was not only difficult to ruffle, but once she made decisions, they happened.  She wrapped up his arm with so much confidence that he wondered if she had more nursing experience than she’d let on.  She dispatched Lindy off to town for the doctor and the sheriff, giving her one of the pistols and assuring Joe that the girl knew how to use it, and had made the trip many times.  She got out bread and more water for Joe, then untied one of Bateman’s hands and stood over him with the rifle while he ate his portion.

“Much obliged, ma’am,” he said, plainly trying to put on the charm again.  Joe’d done that too many times himself not to recognize it from someone else.

She was impervious to that too, only saying, “I don’t let anything starve.”

Once Bateman was tied up again, she finally showed her first hesitation.  “The stock needs to be watered and there’s no one else to do it – but I don’t like leaving you two alone in here…”

“I can watch him,” Joe said immediately.  He thought of offering to water the stock, but it would be all he’d need to collapse out there, the long night and long day and long walk catching up with him.  Besides, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t take him up on the offer.

“You sure you can handle it?” Bateman asked, with a trace of that blasted giggle again.  “I was winning that fight out there.”

Joe ignored him, and said, very much to Mrs. Ganther, “He’s tied up, and you can give me the other pistol.”

“But you’re wounded,” she protested.

He cracked a smile.  “Yeah, but I shoot with the other hand.”  And just as well for Bateman to remember that too.

She obviously didn’t like it, but she set the pistol on the table in front of Joe, then went outside with a promise not to take long.

Maybe that’s why Bateman didn’t waste time before starting to talk.  “You know, it really is too bad things have turned out this way.”

Joe weighed the benefits of ignoring him, but he’d probably keep talking anyway.  “For you, sure.”

Bateman shrugged, waggled his hands beyond where the ropes tied his arms to the chair.  “I don’t know.  You got shot.  My boys are still out there looking for you.  I don’t think we can say for sure whose day is going worse.  Anyway, I meant that it’s too bad the whole situation went this way.  Especially when it started with such a nice friendly chat back at the saloon.”

Joe snorted.  “Yeah, while you were trying to lure me off to be kidnapped.”

“It wasn’t all fake.  I do think we have a lot in common, you and me.”

“We have nothing in common,” Joe said flatly.

Bateman went on as if he hadn’t spoken.  “Youngest in our families, trying to prove ourselves.  Uncle Freddy told me a lot about you and your family, you know.  You’re always stuck in their shadow, aren’t you?”

“No.  I wouldn’t say that.”  All right, there were days when it got tough, with everyone always figuring Adam was the smart one and Hoss was the strong one and he, Joe, was the trouble-making kid.  But that had nothing to do with anything anyway.

“And here you are now,” Bateman continued smoothly, “sitting around waiting for your big brothers to come riding to the rescue.”

“I’m not waiting for anything, I escaped from you!”

“Sure, sure,” Bateman said, nodding.  “But as long as you’re sitting there with a bullet in your arm, they and everybody else are going to see it as them swooping in to help you.”

Maybe.  But he’d still be more than glad to see Hoss or Adam come knocking on the door.

“And then they get all the credit for getting you out of trouble one more time.  But you know,” Bateman said, voice dropping, “there’s another way this could go.”

Joe could see the bait, and he tried to resist.  He tapped his fingertips on the table next to the pistol, and didn’t look at Bateman, and sternly told himself that there was no reason he even needed to talk to the man.

“All right,” he snapped out, “how else could it go?”  Because Adam and Hoss probably would get all the credit for rescuing him, and he’d just look like the dumb kid who got himself abducted.

The grin spreading across Bateman’s face told Joe he should have kept his mouth shut.  “What if you and I work together?  You untie me, we meet up with my boys, we get the money out of your brothers, and then we split it.  You’ve got yourself a tidy little sum to start a whole new life somewhere where nobody’s even heard of your family.”

Joe stared at him for a beat, and then two – and then leaned back in his chair and laughed and laughed, until the sound fairly bounced off the walls of the small room.  “Oh – you almost had me going,” he managed, once he caught his breath again.  “I really thought you were going to suggest something tempting.”

Bateman had stopped smiling.  “We asked for fifty-thousand for you.  It’s a lot of money.”

Joe shook his head.  “If you think I’d seriously consider extorting my family and then abandoning them, your uncle didn’t tell you much about me after all.”

For just a moment, Bateman glared at him with pure poison – and then the man made a visible effort to relax, expression going neutral, and shrugged.  “All right.  Your loss.  Because I still say this could go either way.  It all depends on if my boys or your brothers find us first.”

 

10.

Freddy studied the torn-up dirt outside the old shack, frowning, and tried to look like he knew what he was doing.  “Fascinating,” he said, not because there was anything remotely fascinating about scuffed up earth, but because it might buy him another minute.

All of Young Fred’s boys were watching him, waiting, expecting some kind of pronouncement.  They’d reconvened here, and in the absence of Young Fred, he’d found himself the one everyone turned to for answers.  Which might be all right, if the questions were different.  He was a poker player, not a cowboy, not a trapper, not an Indian – not anybody who ought to know how to read tracks.  His one applicable skill here, really, was bluffing.

“There have been other people here,” he said at last, because it didn’t take any special tracking knowledge to figure that much out.  Somebody’d righted the chair inside the shack, and there’d been a lot of horses standing around in a different spot than where they’d been corralling their own horses.

“Do you think it was the sheriff?” one of the boys asked – Kyle, the one who’d let that blasted Joe Cartwright get away.  His was the only name Freddy could actually remember, which didn’t mean he felt more charitably toward him.  And what kind of fool question was that anyway?   Freddy didn’t know if there was any way to figure out what rider had been through based on a bunch of hoofprints.

“It’s possible,” Freddy said, carefully not committing himself.  “It’s likely the Cartwrights went to the sheriff.  I don’t see why anyone else would be out here.”

“This is bad,” Kyle muttered, rubbing the back of his head, “this just keeps getting worse.  Maybe we shouldn’t have tried kidnapping anybody.”

Freddy grimaced at the scattered earth.  He regretted involving Young Fred’s boys, and he also regretted the kidnapping.  They should have just shot a Cartwright – any Cartwright, that would tear up the rest of them – and run for the next county.  But no, Young Fred just had to get creative.  And then disappear when things got complicated!

“Which way do you think they went?” Kyle asked.  “How do we avoid them?”

There were tracks all over the place – their own group had been in and out more than once, whoever else had been here must have ridden in and then out again, everybody’d gone all sorts of directions – Freddy had literally no idea at all which direction the sheriff, if it was the sheriff, might have taken.

“That’s not the point,” he said firmly.  “What we’re going to do is, we’ll go north.  Young Fred went north, and we don’t know why he didn’t come back and meet us here.  Maybe he found Cartwright.  So we’ll go north after him.”  And let him figure out what to do with his boys, who were getting increasingly twitchy.

“What if we meet the sheriff?” another one, not Kyle, asked, nervously playing with his red bandana.

“Then we shoot him,” Freddy snapped, turning towards the horses.  “Honestly, it’s like you’ve never been an outlaw before!”

“But…I haven’t.”

“Then learn to improvise!”

 

Once Joe turned him down on a deal, Bateman didn’t have much more to say.  Mrs. Ganther came back in the house, but she also didn’t seem inclined to casual conversation.  So Joe just sat where he was, keeping an eye on Bateman, and waiting.  His arm was aching but he didn’t want to mention it where Bateman could hear, or to drink anything, whisky or medicine, that was going to dull his reflexes.  Just in case.

Lindy had gone for the sheriff, but it was a long ride, and Joe felt every minute go past, until finally there was the sound of hoofbeats outside.  More than one rider, but he couldn’t judge more precisely than that.

Joe started to rise to his feet, but Mrs. Ganther waved him down again.  “You watch him,” she said, picking up the rifle from near the door and moving to the window to look out, just peering past the edge.

After a moment, she relaxed.  “It’s Lindy – but she’s only brought one man back.”

The mystery didn’t last long.  Lindy burst in through the front door, announcing, “I brought the doctor, Ma.”

The doctor himself was only a few steps behind her, nodding to Mrs. Ganther as he entered.  “Good afternoon, Belle.  Lindy tells me I’m needed for a patient out here.”  His gaze swept past Bateman, without apparent concern for the sight of the man tied up, and landed on Joe.  “And you must be him.”

“I told you to bring the sheriff too,” Mrs. Ganther said, looking intently at Lindy.

The girl rolled her eyes dramatically, as though the situation should be obvious.  “He wasn’t in town.”  She jerked a thumb toward Joe.  “We left a message, but everyone’s out looking for him.”

In spite of himself, Joe felt a laugh rising up his throat.  When it escaped, everyone stared at him.  “What?” Joe protested, trying to swallow further chortles.  “It’s funny.  We’re looking for the sheriff, and he’s looking for me, and the outlaws are probably going around in circles…”  He could picture it, like one of those comedy plays where characters kept running across the stage, each chasing the other and never quite catching up.

The doctor frowned at him, lines creasing his craggy face.  “You don’t look feverish, but I’ll have to check.”

“I’m fine,” Joe said automatically.  “I mean, except for the bullet in my arm.”

“Yes, I understand that’s why I’m here,” the doctor said dryly, setting his bag on the table in front of Joe.  “I’m Dr. Michael Jons, by the way.”

“Joe Cartwright,” he said, trying to think where he’d heard that name before.  The man’s face wasn’t familiar, but he was sure he knew the name from somewhere.  “Thanks for coming all the way out here.”

“Just doing my duty,” Jons said, opening his bag.  “Besides – I would have been hanged a year back if not for your father.”

Joe snapped the fingers of his good hand.  “Jons – I remember now!  The way Pa tells the story, he owes you for saving Hoss’ life when a horse fell on him.”

“Oh, in that case, I’ll just pack up and go before those outlaws turn up,” Jons remarked, but his blue eyes glimmered with humor and he continued getting instruments out.

“How do you know everyone?” Bateman groaned from the other side of the room.  “What kind of nutty town is this?”

“It happens all over, actually,” Joe remarked.  “We’ve met a lot of people, and Pa’s got a lot of old friends.”

Bateman rolled his eyes and lapsed back into silence.  Which was helpful, since Jons was unwrapping the bandage around Joe’s arm and it hurt, the bandage pulling reluctantly away from the bloody skin.

Jons examined the wound and Joe gritted his teeth, conscious of having a big audience.  Lindy wandered over to sit on another chair, watching with apparently fascinated interest, while the doctor made those vague, unclear noises doctors make when they’re not committing to anything yet, good or bad.

“What do you think?” Joe asked finally.  “Will I live?”

“I expect so, as far as I can tell at this point,” Jons said.  “No sign of infection as yet.  This wound was cleaned very well.”

“Thank you, Michael,” Mrs. Ganther said from across the room near the stove.  “I did my best with it.  Lindy, come over here and watch this water I’m boiling.  Stop bothering the doctor.”

Lindy gave a big sigh, but went over to the stove.

The doctor made a few more noises, these sounding vaguely approving, and then he reached into his bag again for a small bottle of amber liquid.  “If I could get a cup for this?”

Joe frowned.  “Wait, is that brandy?”

“I carry some for medicinal purposes,” Jons said with a wry smile.  “That bullet needs to come out, and while I’d prefer to do that in my office with the aid of ether, I also want to do this as soon as possible to prevent the development of complications.  Under the circumstances, that necessitates some compromises for expediency.”

Joe shook his head.  “No, I don’t want it.”

The doctor cast a stern look at him.  “Young man, I’m a doctor, not a butcher, and I am not operating without any form of anesthetic when I have that option.”

“I have to watch him!” Joe said, jerking his head at Bateman.

“Belle and I will watch him,” Jons countered.  “Now drink the brandy.  Doctor’s orders.”

Joe didn’t like it.  But he also knew it wasn’t that smart to antagonize a man who was about to get a bullet out of his arm.  And he really would rather not be sitting here, still with the bullet in, when Hoss and Adam showed up.  Bateman wasn’t wrong about that much.

 

11.

Young Fred had to admit that the Cartwright kid had grit.  He didn’t yell while the doctor was hunting around for the bullet, even though his face went very white – right before his eyes rolled back and he slumped over.  The woman caught him, and the doctor shook his head.

“Probably for the best,” the doctor remarked.  “Now I can work a little more easily.”

“You could have given him a sedative, Michael,” the woman pointed out.

The doctor snorted.  “He wouldn’t have consented to that.  He didn’t even want us to move him to the couch, but I think we can do that now if we can manage to shift him.”

“I could help,” Young Fred spoke up, and grinned at them.

“You must think we’re fools,” the doctor said, shaking his head.

“Not really, even though it would be more convenient if you were.”

They didn’t untie him.  Young Fred waited while they got Cartwright over to the couch and the doctor got the bullet out and the woman started wrapping up his arm again.

And then he thought maybe it was time for one more try.  “You know,” he remarked, “it is pretty foolish to get yourself in the middle of this situation.  My boys should be looking for me by now, and it’s not going to be a pretty scene for you when they find me.”

“What do you propose?” the doctor asked, looking up from cleaning his instruments.  “We just walk away?”

“Could do that,” Young Fred said, nodding, “but I don’t figure you will.  However – there is a way this could go better for you.”  He leaned forward, as much as he could the way he was tied up, and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial tone.  “You know, doctor, we could use someone like you.  We could work together real nicely.  We get the money out of Cartwright’s big brothers, and you get a share.  Lot more money than you’re likely to see on a country doctor’s pay.”

At least this one didn’t laugh.  But he did drawl, “I may only be a simple country doctor, but I’d rather stay on this side of the law – and of my conscience.”

Bateman sighed, then looked at the woman and asked without much hope, “How about you, you want a share of the money?  Send your daughter to finishing school?  Looks like she needs it.”

“No, thank you,” the woman said composedly, while the girl stuck her tongue out at Young Fred – proving his point, in fact.

“I don’t get it,” Young Fred said to the room at large, slumping back in the chair.  “I’m making perfectly good offers here, and no one’s interested.  I sort of get the Cartwright kid not wanting to turn on his family, but you two – what reasons have you got to be this loyal to him?”

“His father saved my life last year,” the doctor said, “when I was standing on a gallows with a rope around my neck.”

“His family saved our farm and probably this whole community,” the woman said, “during a very bad drought.”

“I’m going to marry Little Joe when I grow up,” the kid chimed in.

Bateman grimaced.  “Well then,” he muttered, and shook his head, “glad I asked.”

He was still trying to think if he had any other options to try when hoofbeats sounded again outside.  The woman and the doctor looked at each other, then the woman said, “It’s my house.  Let me see who it is.”

She picked up the rifle propped near the door, then looked out the small window.  “One rider.  Well-dressed.  I don’t recognize him.”

“Could be an outlaw,” the doctor said, frowning deeply.

“He could also be from the posse, or just a rider passing through,” the woman said.

A knock at the door and, face set, the woman went to answer it, rifle gripped firmly in one hand.  She only opened the door a crack, holding the rifle where it was visible, and asked, “What is it?  Who are you?”

“I’m Freddy Grayson, ma’am,” the smooth voice came back, “and I was just hoping you might spare a cup of water?”

Uncle Freddy.  Young Fred knew he wasn’t visible where he was sitting – but he could let out a yell, or – he let loose with one of his high-pitched giggles.  Uncle Freddy would know who it was, and it had its usual uncanny effect.  Just enough that the woman made the fatal error of taking her eyes off of Uncle Freddy to look at Young Fred instead.  And Uncle Freddy wasn’t much use in a fight but he was fast with his hands, fast enough to make a grab for the rifle while she was looking away.

Which turned the tables nicely.

“About time you got here,” Young Fred complained.  “Where are the boys?”

“Back out of sight – thought we’d more likely get the door open if it was just me.”  Uncle Freddy gestured with the rifle.  “Both of you, over there by the couch with Cartwright.  You too, girl.”

All three moved as directed, united in expressions of hostility.  Well, let them be mad.  Didn’t matter now.

“It was only a lucky guess anyway that you might be here,” Uncle Freddy said, moving to the table where the two pistols were lying.  “These loaded?”

“Mine is,” Young Fred said, then clarified, “The one on the right,” when Uncle Freddy looked blank.  The man knew every card in the deck, from the front and the back, but couldn’t tell two guns apart.

“Right,” Uncle Freddy said, picked up the gun, then leaned out the still-open door to fire two shots into the air.  “That should bring the rest.”

“Good, now untie me.”

“You won’t get away with this,” the girl spoke up, glaring at the two of them.  “I already left a message for the sheriff to come out here, remember?”

Young Fred grinned at her.  “Kid, I’m counting on that.  What good are hostages if I’ve got no one to negotiate with?”

 

Part Three: Spectre of the Gun

12.

When Joe opened his eyes, he was not expecting to be lying on a couch, looking at a ceiling.  When he looked around, he found Lindy perched on the far arm of the couch beyond his feet, Mrs. Ganther and Dr. Jons sitting on the ground in front of the couch – and an untied Fred Bateman across the room, talking with the rest of the outlaws.

Joe let out an exasperated breath.  “I knew I shouldn’t drink that brandy.”

“You passed out, son,” Dr. Jons said.  “It wasn’t the brandy, and it wouldn’t have made much difference if you had been conscious.”

“I don’t know,” Joe said, unwilling to entirely give up his belief that he could have done something.  Anything.  He sat up, swung his legs around.  “Here, I don’t need the entire couch…”

The others got up from the floor to sit down again on the couch, and Dr. Jons remarked, “You may be interested to know I got the bullet out.  Not too bad, on the whole, and I think you’ll recover nicely.  Try not to use the arm too much until it’s had some time to heal.”

Joe cast him an incredulous look.  “Don’t you think we have bigger worries right now?”

Jons scowled at him.  “Young man, I’m a doctor.  I’m concerned about your recovery.”

Joe just hoped he’d live long enough to recover.  It seemed a chancy thing right now.  Out loud, though, he said the more hopeful, “My brothers should still be out looking for me.  And they’re pretty good at situations like this.”

Now it was Jons who looked incredulous.  “This happens to you often?”

“Well…” Joe hedged, “not often…”

“Mr. Cartwright,” Bateman called from across the room, “I see you’re back with us.”

Joe glared at him as Bateman strolled closer.  “When the law and my brothers catch up with you—”

“They’ll hopefully hand over a lot of money,” Bateman said, grinning.  “Especially now that I’ve got a lot more people to ransom.”

“Let the others go – your uncle has a problem with my family, not with them.”  And it was his fault they were in this mess now.

“Maybe, but they turned down an offer to come in on my side, so I think they’d better stay on your side.”  Bateman reached down, grabbed Joe by the arm – the one that hadn’t been shot, at least – and pulled him to his feet.  “But let’s go see how this’ll play out, because we’ve got riders coming in.  And I’m betting they’re real eager to see you.”

 

It was obvious even from a distance that there was going to be trouble at the Ganthers’ place.  Hoss squinted at the house and the windmill and especially the half-dozen horses milling around in the corral, and had a bad feeling about this.  A new bad feeling, to add to the overall bad feeling he’d been having ever since Little Joe disappeared at the saloon.

“Now you’re sure you weren’t expecting anybody to come by?” Sheriff Rawlins said to Jason Ganther.  They’d all brought their horses to a halt a distance from the house, studying the scene.  “No innocent reason all those horses could be there?”

“I already told you that,” Ganther said, with some pretty justified agitation.  “Sheriff, my wife and daughter are in there.  We have to find out what’s happening!”

“Stay calm, now,” Rawlins said, stroking his chin.  “Might be wisest all around to gather up more people before we attempt to approach.”

Hoss exchanged an exasperated look with Adam.  They’d rounded up a pretty big posse, but trying to cover as much territory as possible meant splitting up, and it was only the four of them who’d been together when a messenger caught up from town to report that Joe was at the Ganthers’ place.  Hoss could find it in him to wish they were one less, if that one missing could be the very reluctant sheriff.

“As far as we know, our brother is in there too,” Adam spoke up.  “And I don’t like the idea of leaving him or the Ganthers there for hours while we try to get more help together.”

Rawlins looked at him sternly.  “Now see here, I’m the law on this posse, and—”

“But it’s our families!” Ganther protested.  “We can’t just do nothing—”

“Hey, the front door’s opening,” Hoss interrupted, still watching the house.  Two figures appeared in the doorway, and while he couldn’t be sure of one of them from here, he’d know Little Joe anywhere.

He didn’t exactly tell Chub to start forward, but the horse must’ve got the message somehow, ambling towards the house at an easy walk.  Without discussing it further, the others rode alongside.

By the time they were within shouting distance, four more people had come outside, rifles in hand.  At this range, Hoss could see that one of them was Freddy, and the one holding onto Little Joe, pistol in his free hand, was that dad-blasted giggling nephew.

“All right, that’s far enough,” the nephew called, and raised the pistol to point at Joe’s head.  “Everybody stop and dismount, and nobody gets their hands near their guns.  Any trouble and there’s going to be a lot of Cartwright blood on my shirt.”

“All of you stay back there by the horses,” Freddy continued the orders, “and just Hoss walk up.  Leave your gun belt behind.”

Hoss looked at Adam, who gave a slight shrug.  Best to see how this was going to play out.  They stopped and dismounted, and Hoss unbuckled his belt to hang it on his saddle.  Then he walked up, nice and slow.

“All right, close enough,” Bateman said, when Hoss was still well out of arms-length.  Sometimes people misjudged how far arms-length actually was for Hoss, but not this time.

“Hey, Hoss,” Little Joe said, and offered up some imitation of his usual smile.  It was so far from the real thing that Hoss wished he hadn’t bothered.

“Hey, shortshanks.  You all right?” Hoss asked, even though he could already see that Joe didn’t look good.  He was pale, and his eyes and his stance both looked tired.  And that was clearly a bandage on his arm, visible beneath the ripped sleeve.

It was really a pointless question, because of course Joe only answered, “Sure, I’m fine.”

“Yeah?  So what happened to your arm?”

Joe glanced down as though he’d forgotten about it.  “Oh, that.  I got shot.  But it’ll be all right.”

Hoss’ hands curled into fists and his voice came out lower as he glared at Freddy, standing there next to his nephew and Joe.  “I warned you, if you hurt my brother—”

“Stop acting like you have some kind of control of this situation,” Freddy snapped, glowering at Hoss.  “You high and mighty Cartwrights always think you’re in charge and I’m sick of it!”

Hoss glowered right back.  “I’m sorry about Sheribelle, but that’s not Joe’s fault, or the Ganthers’ fault, and you didn’t need to shoot him—”

“Yes, I did,” the nephew interrupted, “he was trying to shoot me too.”

“Yeah, because you were trying to recapture me!” Joe countered.

“I don’t think it’s going to help anyone to start casting blame,” the nephew said.  “The question is what happens next.”

“The Ganthers all right?” Hoss asked.

“They’re fine,” the nephew said, in a dismissive tone that didn’t reassure Hoss.  But when he looked at Joe, he gave the nod too, so that was better.  “Can we focus on the important thing here?” the nephew continued.  “The money.  Where’s the fifty-thousand we asked you for?”

“Still in the bank,” Hoss muttered.  It had seemed so unnecessary when they thought Joe had escaped, but now…

“Not good, Mr. Cartwright,” the nephew said, shaking his head.  “I ought to put another bullet in little brother here just to make my point.”

Hoss couldn’t help a step forward, fist rising.  “If you try, I’ll—”

“Easy there, remember who has the guns,” the nephew said.  “And the hostages – little brother here, and the womenfolk from this place, and the local doctor who came to look at his arm.  Lot of people I don’t expect you want getting shot.  But don’t worry, I’m willing to negotiate.  You get another chance, but the price has gone up.  A hundred thousand, by sundown.”

“We can’t even get to town and back by sundown,” Hoss protested.

The nephew sighed.  “All right, all right.  By midnight, then.”  He glanced over at Freddy.  “Who’d have guessed outlawing involved such long hours, right?”

“Stop trying to be funny,” Freddy said, glaring at his nephew too.  “None of this is supposed to be fun.”

The nephew shook his head.  “Uncle Freddy, you take life too seriously.  You too, big man,” he said to Hoss.  “Everyone should just relax.  Now I’m going to take little brother back inside, you’re going back to your friends out there, and that Cartwright in black—”

“Adam,” Freddy interjected before Hoss could.

“Sure.  He’s going to town for the money.  All the rest of you stay right out there where I can see you.  And if he gets any ideas about rounding up more help, remember we can see horsemen coming from a long distance around here.”

Hoss had already considered that.  And he really missed pine trees and mountains right about now.  And home.  He really missed home.

“All right,” Hoss said, then looked at Joe again.  He really didn’t look all that good.  “And don’t worry, Little Joe.  It’s all gonna be all right.”

“Hey, when do I ever worry, big brother?” Joe asked, and winked.

Someone who didn’t know him would probably even have believed him.

 

13.

Joe had to look pretty hard right now to find a few positives in the situation.  At least Lindy and her mother weren’t the hysterical types.  At least the outlaws had shared the stew Mrs. Ganther had simmering on the back of the stove.  And he had seen more ruthless outlaws before.  That was something.  Maybe.

“You get the feeling most of them don’t really want to kill us?” he asked in a low voice from where he was sitting on the floor against the couch, watching the outlaws across the room.  They were sitting around the table playing cards, just distracted enough that they wouldn’t be listening to a quiet conversation.  Not so distracted that he could make a play for the door.  And he wouldn’t leave the others behind anyway.

“I suppose that’s some comfort,” Mrs. Ganther said, voice soft.  She was sitting on the couch, Lindy asleep with her head in her mother’s lap.  “I don’t like that Bateman though.  He wouldn’t mind killing us.”

Dr. Jons, sitting next to Joe, grunted an assent.  “A very unpleasant man.  Charming, which makes it worse.”

“Yeah,” Joe said, squinting at Bateman across the way.  “I knew his uncle a little, back in Virginia City.  Not violent, but mean.”

“Not likely to restrain his nephew then,” Jons said, and let out a slow breath.  “And if their leaders are willing to enact violence, I don’t see the rest of them holding back.”

“Or if things get too tight, they might panic and start firing anyway,” Joe concluded.  He drummed his fingers against his knee.  “With the law camped outside, they need us alive to get out of here, but that might not matter in a crisis.”

“So what do we do?” Jons asked.  “Wait for your brothers to come up with a rescue?”

That would have sat wrong with Joe any day, and even more after Bateman’s pointed comments about being the kid in his family’s shadow.  “There has to be a way to at least help the situation.  If I could just get a hold of a gun…”  There were plenty in the room, but they were all under strict outlaw custody.

Jons shook his head.  “Cowboys.  You always think guns are the only solution.  I have a better idea.”  Then he stood up, walked towards the outlaws.  “I need my medical bag,” he announced.  It was sitting next to Mrs. Ganther’s rifle, up against the wall, on the far side of the outlaws.

Half of them looked up from the card game, and Bateman asked, “What?  Why?”

“I have to check his arm,” Jons said, jerking a thumb towards Joe.

“Sit back down,” Bateman dismissed him.

“Gunshot wounds require ongoing treatment,” Jons insisted.  “I need to change bandages and check for infection, and furthermore, I don’t like his color or respiration rate.”

Bateman glanced at Joe, who felt suddenly conscious of his breathing, and said, “He looks fine.  Sit down.”

Jons’ eyebrows rose and his voice did too, into righteous indignation.  “Are you a doctor?  Have you completed medical school?  Do you have skilled expertise in the treating of injuries including but not limited to gunshot wounds?”

“No, but—”

“In that case, I am the only person here qualified to pronounce whether or not he looks fine, and I need my medical bag to enable me to properly evaluate the question!”

“Fine, just – someone get him the bag,” Bateman said with a wave of his hand, and threw a couple of cards down on the table.  “Deal me two.”

A couple of the outlaws nudged each other, and finally one of the observers not actually in the game went and picked up the bag.  He tossed it to Jons, who caught it easily.

“Thank you,” Jons said, and returned to sit next to Joe.  “Let me see that arm.”

“Why are we doing this?” Joe whispered.  “Is my respiration bad?”  It felt normal enough.

“No, you look fine,” Jons said, unwrapping the bandage.  “But it doesn’t hurt to check on the wound, and…”  He glanced toward the outlaws again.  “…people don’t often stop to think just what exactly doctors carry in their bags.”

By the time the doctor was done rebandaging Joe’s arm, he’d slipped Joe a narrow, very sharp scalpel, and slid a loaded syringe up his own sleeve.  They weren’t pistols, and Joe really didn’t see what Jons thought he was going to do with the tiny needle on the syringe, but the cold metal blade hidden under his thigh made him feel a little better.  At least it was something.

 

Hoss was watching the time pass with a lot of anxious attention, but Adam made it back well ahead of the midnight deadline.  He swung down from Sport, untying bags prominently stamped with the local bank’s logo from his saddle as everyone converged on him.

“You got the money then?” Sheriff Rawlins said, nodding approvingly.  “Probably the most prudent course available at this point.”

“No, I didn’t get the money,” Adam said with a weary sigh.  “I couldn’t talk the bank manager into taking me seriously, and I’m not sure he even had that much money in the vault anyway.”

“Then you just got decoy bags?” Hoss said, frowning.  He wasn’t exactly surprised by the results of Adam’s trip to town, but he didn’t see at all what they were going to do now.

“Bags – and a plan,” Adam said with a tight smile.  “I saw some smoke on my way back and followed it to a camp.  Thought maybe I could get some help.”

“I don’t suppose it turned out to be the United States cavalry?” Ganther asked in hopeless tones.

“No, but the closest we’re likely to get.  It turned out to be a familiar face – and he and his men are willing to help us.”

Hoss felt a distinct flash of hope and relief – of course Adam would have the situation under control, of course it was all going to be all right in the end, just like he’d said to Joe.  And then Adam told them who it was, and he had more doubts again.  “I dunno, Adam, he’s got some complicated feelings about us…”

“He respects Pa,” Adam said firmly, “and he doesn’t want Joe to get killed.”

“I doubt they can be trusted,” Rawlins said darkly.

“I say they can,” Adam countered.  “And they’re much better at stealth than a mounted troop of cavalry would be, which is what we need here.”

Maybe there would have been further arguing on the idea.  Maybe not.  But they ran out of time, because a voice called from the direction of the shack, “Enough discussion out there!  We saw the one in black ride back in.  Let’s settle this.”

Adam looked at Hoss, who nodded, then said, “My brother and I walk up there.  The two of you stay ready.”  The sheriff didn’t even comment, as if there’d been any doubt that Adam had taken charge of this whole business.

Adam hoisted the bank bags in one hand, bulging with something even if it wasn’t money, and Hoss fell into step next to him as they approached the house.  Freddy and his nephew were outside the house, this time pointing a gun at somebody who wasn’t Joe.  As they got closer, the bright full moon was plenty enough light for Hoss to recognize him too – Dr. Jons, and that made him almost as mad as if it was his little brother again.  Dr. Jons had saved his life a year back, and he was a real good, kind man.

Adam halted before the nephew told them to stop, said evenly, “I got the money, but I want to see every hostage out here before we hand anything over.”

“Why do you think you get to set terms?” Freddy spat, glaring at both of them.  “Cartwrights don’t run the world!”

“I have no guarantee the others are still alive,” Adam said without changing tone.  “I want to see them out here before you get the money.”

“Why not?” the nephew said with a shrug.  “It’s easier than arguing about it.”  He half-turned back towards the house.  “Hey, boys, bring out the rest!”

 

14.

Joe was about ready to climb the walls, trapped inside while his brothers were facing the outlaws outside, so it was a relief when they hustled him and the Ganthers outside too.  He wasn’t sure they were any safer out there – maybe Adam thought so, since he’d asked for this – but at least he could see what was happening.

Joe, Mrs. Ganther and Lindy ended up in the middle of a cluster of outlaws, but looking between them he could see Hoss and Adam standing there facing off with Bateman.  Adam was carrying big ol’ bank bags, so at first Joe thought they were planning to pay off.  That would never work.  Bateman was sure to insist on keeping the hostages until they’d ridden away with the money – and would probably kill them once they were well away.

But then Joe looked closer at how Adam was standing, and looked over to meet Hoss’ gaze.  Big brother’s eyes cut over to Adam, back to Joe, squinted a little.  Likely no one else noticed anything at all, but Joe knew his brothers well.  Adam had a plan.  Hoss was warning him to be ready.  It would help if he knew what to be ready for, but as it was he gripped the scalpel resting hidden against his palm a little tighter, shifted his position by half-a-step to be closer to the Ganthers, and waited.

“All right, you can see the hostages,” Bateman said, “now let us see the money.”

“Of course,” Adam said, hoisting the bundle of bank bags higher—

And then a gunshot went off, Joe caught the glimpse of a wisp of smoke coming from the bags – Adam must’ve had a pistol hidden between them – but he was already flinging himself at Lindy and Mrs. Ganther to knock them to the ground.  Nowhere was safe right now, but lower down was safer.  He was barely hitting the dirt before the night erupted with Indian war whoops, and as he rolled onto his back he could see buckskin-clad men converging from every direction, spears in hand, as though they’d leapt out of the earth itself.

Adam was firing openly with the pistol now and Hoss was setting in with his big fists and Joe slashed with the scalpel at the first outlaw who started to point a gun towards the Ganthers, slicing into the outlaw’s arm and making him drop the weapon.

“Shoot them!” Bateman hollered, firing twice with his own gun.  “Shoot them all, don’t be cowards!”

Then Bateman jerked, as Jons jabbed the syringe into his shoulder.  Joe still didn’t think that little needle was much of a weapon – but Jons must’ve known what he was doing, because Bateman’s eyes rolled back and he slumped down to the ground.  Must’ve been something impressive loaded into that syringe.

And after that, it was over fast.  Freddy threw down his gun and lifted his hands, and the other outlaws were either on the ground with spears at their throats or Hoss standing over them, and it was all, very quickly, finished.

Joe sat up and looked around.  He turned to check on the Ganthers first, but Mr. Ganther was already descending to do the same thing, so he tactfully looked away again.  Hoss and Adam would probably be on him any second, but right now Hoss was corralling outlaws into line for the sheriff and Adam was talking to – Joe blinked, looked again – yeah, that was definitely Matsou, chief of the Bannocks, one-time friend and sometime enemy.  He wouldn’t have predicted that.

He pushed himself up from the ground with his good arm, and turned to Dr. Jons, who was still next to the crumpled Fred Bateman, although his attention was on the outlaw whose arm Joe had slashed, tying a red handkerchief around the wound.

“What’d you hit him with?” Joe asked, jerking his head at Bateman.  “Some kind of poison?”

Jons looked up with an expression of deep indignation.  “Good God, man, I’m a doctor, not a murderer – just like your father helped prove.  I only used a sedative.  He’ll be out for a few hours, but then he’ll be fine.”

“You always carry around things that can knock people flat like that?”

Jons shrugged.  “You never know when you might need it.”  To the outlaw, he said, “You’ll be fine, and once I get my medbag I’ll do a proper job on this.”

Joe didn’t hear the outlaw’s response, because a big hand was grabbing his good shoulder and Hoss was asking, “You all right, little brother?”

“Yeah, yeah, told you I was fine,” Joe said, and tried his best for a devil-may-care grin but felt it going shaky around the edges.  “Thanks for coming after me.”

Hoss scoffed.  “Don’t be ridiculous.  How were we going to explain to Pa that we lost you?  You know his rule – if you can’t take care of a thing, you ain’t allowed to keep it…”

“Yeah, very funny,” Joe said, rolling his eyes but quietly grateful that Hoss was giving him cover to catch his breath from the relief overwhelming him.  “So what happened there?” he asked, nodding his head to Adam and Matsou.

“Oh, older brother came across the Bannocks’ camp – apparently they’ve been hunting in the area – and of course he managed to negotiate his way into some help.”

“Sounds like older brother,” Joe agreed.  Sometimes (often) Adam’s uncanny ability to successfully manage situations got on his nerves, but tonight he appreciated it.

They must’ve seen him and Hoss looking, because Adam and Matsou came over their way.  “You all right, Little Joe?” Adam asked, tone calm, but if he was using the nickname he must have been worried too.

“Sure, I’m fine,” Joe told him – he’d probably have to say it to Pa too, when they got home, but maybe then people would stop worrying about him.  “Hey, Mat.  Thanks for the rescue.”

The tall Bannock looked even more impassive than Adam, and Joe couldn’t tell as easily if it was a front or not.  He was growing his hair out longer, and between that and the buckskin, he looked different from the days when he’d tried his hand at ranching.  He merely inclined his head slightly in response to Joe.  “The Cartwrights were once friends, and I did not wish your death.”

“Well…I appreciate it,” Joe said, uncertain how to respond to these unenthusiastic words.  “I don’t know how you all managed to ambush the outlaws, with no cover anywhere around here.”

Matsou shrugged.  “Men wearing brown, moving on their stomachs through a brown landscape, in the dark – it’s not so difficult.”

“I couldn’t’ve done it,” Hoss said heartily, maybe trying to lighten the mood.

“No,” Matsou agreed with apparent sincerity.  “You couldn’t have.”  No one had come up with a response to that yet when Matsou’s gaze moved on to the cluster of outlaws under the sheriff’s watchful eye.  He paced a few steps closer and addressed Freddy.  “I remember you, from my days living near Virginia City.  The poker player, whose woman was killed.”

“Yeah, I remember you too,” Freddy said with a sneer.  “The Indian who tried to be a white man.”

Matsou’s expression didn’t even flicker.  “It was a mistake.  I, too, tried to take revenge on the Cartwrights once, when I blamed them for my woman’s death.  That was also a mistake.  My blood was very hot that day, and as they say, revenge is a dish best served cold.  When my blood cooled, I found out revenge would not help.”

“Would’ve helped me,” Freddy spat.

Matsou didn’t deign to respond, only turning away and speaking a few words in his own language that drew the Bannocks together.  He turned to Adam to say, “We will go now.  Tell Ben Cartwright, he owes a favor now to the Bannocks.”

“We’ll tell him,” Adam said.  “And thank you.”

Matsou merely nodded, then he and the other Bannocks were setting off across the landscape at a steady trot.  Joe had to guess they were heading to wherever they’d left their horses.

“Whew,” Joe said, shoulders sagging.  “Reckon Pa’ll have a lot more to say about this than that.”

“Suppose we’ll all get us an earful when he hears about this whole business,” Hoss agreed.

“Right now, if it means we’re going home…”  Joe grinned.  “Doesn’t sound so bad, actually.”

 

15.

While it was tempting to set out straight for home, it wasn’t practical.  It was the middle of the night, none of the Cartwrights had had any real sleep in two days, and Hoss and Adam insisted Dr. Jons should look at Joe’s arm again in the morning to clear him for travel.  Joe kicked about that last one, but as much as he wanted to get home, he couldn’t object too hard to a nice bed at the hotel.  All the fatigue hit him halfway up the hotel lobby’s big staircase, and while his vague memory on waking the next day suggested that Hoss had not carried him up to the room, it had been a near thing.

Hoss was still sound asleep and snoring in the next bed when Joe woke up, solidly asleep enough that it was no real trick for Joe to pick up his boots and slip out the door.  He didn’t put them on until he was well away from Adam’s door across the hall – oldest brother could be almost as uncanny as Pa at catching any kind of subterfuge – but the third Cartwright must have also been sleeping the sleep of the just and the tired.

Joe knew he was going to catch it good if they woke up before he got back, but he wanted to make this trip alone.  And he knew his brothers – after what had happened, and based on the way they’d been looking at him, they weren’t going to willingly let him out of strict custody again until they could hand him over to Pa back at home.

He didn’t have far to go, and there’d been no brotherly outcry behind him by the time he got across the street to the sheriff’s office.  Once inside, he greeted Sheriff Rawlins and accepted a welcome cup of very strong coffee.

“Can I talk to one of your prisoners?” Joe asked, once he’d gotten half a cup of coffee down.

“That gambler fellow you all knew back in Virginia City?” the sheriff asked, leaning back in his chair at his desk.

“No, the other one,” Joe said, before it occurred to him that there were, after all, four other outlaws who’d been arrested too.  But somehow it felt like only the two really mattered.

The sheriff didn’t ask for clarification, just nodded and said, “They’re in the same cell anyway.  Crowded place around here right now.”  He jerked a thumb toward the big double doors leading onto the cells.  “Right that way.  Leave your gun out here, and don’t get so close to the bars that I have to deal with somebody grabbing you for a hostage again.”

“Of course not,” Joe said, as witheringly as he could manage.  He wasn’t an idiot.  Sure, he’d been captured by the man before – twice – but it wasn’t happening now.

It was a decent-sized jail, with a cellblock of three cells.  Bateman and his uncle were in the cell the farthest to the right, farthest from the door, but no one in the other two cells looked up with anything more than mild interest as Joe walked past.

He stopped in front of the last cell, where the two men were stretched out on opposite bunks, but both awake.

Freddy spoke up first, with a sneer.  “Come to gloat, Cartwright?”

“No,” Joe said evenly, “just making sure about something.”

“That’s no way to address a guest,” Bateman said to his uncle, and rose from the bunk to approach the bars and smile at Joe, straightening his yellow bandana.  “Morning, Little Joe.  Had us a merry time, didn’t we?”

Joe was glad he’d stopped more than an arms’-length from the bars to begin with.  He wouldn’t want to back up now.  “No, I can’t say I enjoyed any of it.”

And there went that blasted giggle again.  “Oh well, I had a good time, anyway.  What’d you come to make sure of?  That we really are locked up?”

“Yeah, that,” Joe said, and hesitated.  Because there was something else itching at him, something that was the reason he’d come alone, and not with his brothers.  “And you were wrong, what you said.  We’re not alike.”

Bateman’s smile widened.  “Oh, Little Joe Cartwright, you and I are plenty alike.  We run through life on charm and speed, taking risks because we never really believe anything can ever catch up to us.”

That did all sound familiar – but still…  “We’re not alike in ways that matter.”

“Yeah?  You actually like your nickname then?”

“Sure.”  At the right time, from the right people.

Bateman winked.  “Me too.  And we’re not different because there’s something so special about the Cartwrights either.  The way Uncle Freddy talks, you’re some sort of big, anointed family back in Virginia City, but it looks to me like you’re just the same as everyone else.  We’d have won out over you easy, if you hadn’t called in so many friends to help.”

Joe felt some tension inside him release at the words because there, that was the answer.  “But that’s how you and me are different.  You know the most important thing, about being a Cartwright?  It’s not the money and it’s not the land.  It’s that we help each other, and anyone else who needs it.  Sometimes, those people help us too.”

Bateman snorted.  “Yeah, all right, I guess that makes us different.  Relying on other people, that’s not a risk I want to take.  I’d rather depend on myself and my gun.”

“Yeah – sure looks like that’s working out for you,” Joe said, and winked.  “See you around for the trial.”  He tugged his hat to a jauntier angle, and headed back out through the sheriff’s office.

He gave Sheriff Rawlins a nod as he passed, and stepped out onto the street outside.  He drew in one deep breath of the cool morning air before there was a shout from across the street.

“Little Joe! Dadburnit, when I catch up to you—!”

Joe looked up at the hotel, to the open window where the furious face of middle brother was glaring down at him.  Joe grinned, gave him a wave, and trotted across the street towards the hotel.  Time to face the consequences, eat breakfast, and head for home.  All in all, he sure was feeling good this morning.  He knew who he was, he knew where he was going, and as for the lambasting he was going to get from Hoss, Adam, and probably eventually Pa – well, after all, it was nice to know they cared.  It would be downright depressing if he snuck out and no one even worried about him.

 

Epilogue: The Undiscovered Country

It took a week of romancing the girl who brought food over to the jailhouse before she snuck Young Fred the key to the cell door.  He unlocked it late in the night when he could hear the deputy snoring in the next room – the deputy was as reliable a guard as Kyle, and had been snoring all night every night since they got here.  He slipped out and softly closed the door behind him.

Young Fred glanced once at Uncle Freddy, sound asleep on his bunk, but decided against waking him.  They’d rolled along together all right for a while, but in the end, Uncle Freddy was just going to slow him down.  He didn’t have the stomach for any real work.  Even when he’d been motivated by revenge, he’d only dragged the whole business down.  Young Fred was better off on his own, at least until he could find some really quality associates.

He didn’t even glance at the others.

He crept through the sheriff’s office, eased open the door, and closed it nice and quiet again behind him.  Then it was a quick nip into the alley alongside the jailhouse, and there was the girl waiting for him, leading a horse.

“Thanks, sweetheart, you’ve been perfect,” he said with a grin, taking the lead rope from her.

“You’re sure I can’t come with you?” she said wistfully.  “I could get another horse.”

If Uncle Freddy would slow him down, this idea was absolutely hopeless.  “No, I can’t let you risk yourself like that,” he said, gave her his best grin and a swift kiss.  “But I’ll never forget you, sweetheart.”  Nothing like pet names to cover it up when you couldn’t remember a girl’s actual name; she hadn’t caught on.

“You’ll write to me?”

“Sure, sure,” Young Fred said, and swung up into the saddle.  He waved his hat to her, and turned the horse towards the edge of town.

He considered his options anew as he threaded between the buildings, and by the time he was entering open country he’d only confirmed what he’d already been thinking.  He could head towards Virginia City and the Cartwrights, but the sheriff would guess that, and besides, it was Uncle Freddy who cared about revenge.  Young Fred figured they’d played a good game, he’d lost, and now he was on to the next prize.

He’d leave the Cartwrights alone, at least for now, and head east towards that big, open middle of the country where a fellow could lose himself real easy.  Get into a new area and a new jurisdiction he’d never been in before.  Maybe Oklahoma.  Maybe Kansas.

Kicking his horse up to a faster speed, Fred Bateman galloped off beneath the stars.

The End

 

Author’s Note: As you may have worked out by now, the challenge I set myself in this story was to bring together as many Bonanza guest characters played by Star Trek actors as I could – because there were so many! As noted at the top, Freddy (Leonard Nimoy/Spock) appeared in “The Ape.”  Bill Collins (James Doohan/Scotty) appeared in “The Gift of Water,” along with Belle Ganther (Majel Barret Roddenberry/Nurse Chapel).  Jimmy was actually an unnamed townsman in “The Legacy,” also played by James Doohan, so I gave him Doohan’s name and made Bill and Jimmy cousins. Dr. Jons (DeForrest Kelley/Dr. McCoy) appeared in “The Decision,” and Matsou (Ricardo Montalban/Khan) appeared in “Day of Reckoning.” 

Once I had all of those characters lined up, the absence of William Shatner (Captain Kirk) felt like a rather glaring hole.  He never appeared on Bonanza, so I searched his filmography to see if he was on any other Western from the same television era.  There he was on one episode of Gunsmoke, playing the charming, giggling, deal-making villain Fred Bateman.  Since Gunsmoke is set in roughly the 1870s and Bonanza is set in roughly the 1860s, I assumed that he was ten years younger in this story and treated it as a prequel.

In other episode references…the Cartwright boys wanted a vacation after the big timber contract in “The Prime of Life,” so this is loosely a What Happened Next, but mostly I just wanted to place it in time.  They had trouble with shanghaiing in San Francisco in…well, “San Francisco.”  Joe was ambushed in the desert by a man playing dead in “Twilight Town.”