SUMMARY: Adam’s heart is set on attending a performance by actor Edwin Booth at a production of Hamlet at San Francisco’s Adelphi Theatre. As his departure date nears, he can feel himself coming down with a cold.  He knows the moment he sneezes, Ben and Hop Sing will have him confined to bed. Can he manage to hold his illness at bay long enough to not miss something he wants so very, very badly to experience?  And how much is he willing to risk in order to do so?
Rating:  K+
Word Count: 17,156

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I’m FINE!

 

“Personally, I’d rather go to Piper’s and see a pretty gal singing,” observed Joe, spooning a good portion of mashed potatoes onto his plate and passing the bowl down to his father.  “But Shakespeare?!”  His machine-gun giggle managed to clearly state his viewpoint on the matter.  “Older Brother, you truly need to learn how to live.”

Ben chuckled to himself, accepting the bowl and serving himself.

“And you are more than welcome to do so, Joe,” nodded Adam, gesturing with his butter knife, “but I, personally, am excited as all get-out to see Edwin Booth play the Melancholy Dane.”

Hoss paused with a forkful of roast beef half-way to his mouth, and looked at his older brother, frowning.  “What’s a Great Dane, melancholy or any other kind, got t’do with anythin’?”

Even Hop Sing, the Cartwright factotum, stopped at that one, mouth open, and stared, a basket of fresh biscuits halfway to the table.  Joe took advantage of the pause to lift a couple before Hop Sing managed to continue getting the basket down beside the vegetables.

Adam sighed as Ben laughed.  “Not a dog,” he grumbled, also snagging one of Hop Sing’s good biscuits and putting his butter knife to its best purpose.  “Thanks, Hop Sing, these look good!   Hamlet… the Melancholy Dane.”

Hoss studied his older brother, and just shook his head, giving up, causing Ben and Joe both to chuckle.  Hoss grinned good-naturedly.  “Now, Joseph, if Older Brother here chooses to sit in a stagecoach for four days, turnin’ his brains inta scrambled eggs, that’s his business.”

“Sure is, Hoss,” giggled Joe in agreement.

“No stagecoach line for me, brothers,” declared Adam, leaning back in his chair. “I’m going to ride Sport overland and take my time.”

“Oh sure,” Joe complained, setting down his coffee cup. “Haying starts in a couple of days and you’re taking off for three or four weeks!”

“All right, all right,” chuckled Ben, giving his oldest son a mildly stern glance when the twenty-nine-year-old raised a mocking eyebrow at his disgruntled baby brother. “Adam’s done more than his share of hard work over the summer, and you know it.”  Ben smiled at the young man and winked. “Even if spending eight to ten days on horseback each way just to enjoy a couple of hours of a play seems a little crazy to me, he deserves some time off.”

“We all do,” grumbled Joe, cutting his meat.

“Joe sure ain’t wrong, Pa,” Hoss sighed, downcast.  “This summer we bin so all-fired short-handed, we’ve all been busier’n a blind hound dog in a chuck wagon.”

“ ‘O! beware, my lord, of jealousy!’ ” quoted Adam, striking a pose – remarkably well done consider he was still seated, with a forkful of roast beef in his hand. “ ’It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the Meat it feeds on.’ ” He glanced at his fork, grinned and took his bite. And winked at the green-eyed monster sitting across from him.

Hoss chuckled.  “Green-eyed monster, hey?” gesturing with a meaty pointer finger at his own blue orbs then pointing, snorting with laughter, at the emerald-eyed seventeen-year-old across the table.

“Hardy har har,” sneered Joe.

Ben rolled his own dark chocolate eyes and reached for the coffee pot. “Now, now, enough of that foolishness, the three of you,” he chuckled, his laughter belying the firm words.  “You had your getaway in the Spring, Hoss, and Joseph, you’re a little bit too young to be kicking up your heels alone in a place like San Francisco, anyway.  At least too young for my liking.” He eyed his youngest son meaningfully.

Joe grunted in disdain, making Adam’s mouth twist in a smirk. But the smirk twisted further, as he felt an odd tickle in the back of his throat as he sprinkled pepper on his potatoes.  A sudden, explosive sneeze erupted.

Ben looked up, eyebrows raised, then narrowing his eyes. “Bless you.  Are you coming down with something?”

Adam made a face. “No, of course not!  I just must have inhaled some pepper, that’s all,” he replied, laughing.

Hop Sing poked his head out from the kitchen, eyeing Adam keenly, making Hoss and Joe grin at each other.

“I’m fine,” Adam insisted, irritated.  “Hoss, would you pass the string beans, please?”

 

 

By about nine that evening, Adam knew it wasn’t the pepper.

Over the course of the evening, he’d noticed his throat growing scratchy and sore, and had retired early, saying he wanted to read.  Normally disgustingly healthy, Adam had one Achilles heel: his lungs.  On the rare times he caught a cold, it seemed to settle in his chest and almost invariably turn into bronchitis.  So invariably, in fact, that it had become de rigeur at the first sign of a sniffle for Hop Sing and Pa to have him slapped into bed with a mustard plaster on his chest faster than Joe could rope a calf and have its four hooves tied.

Adam groaned to himself… no no no!!  He tossed his book on the bed beside him, frustrated.  Could he manage to hold them off long enough to take off a day early, maybe, and be on his way to San Francisco before they cottoned to his illness?

Wearily, the young man lay back on his pillows, propped up enough to help him breathe…thinking…

 

 

Boots gripped in one hand, packed saddlebags over his shoulder, Adam slowly made his way down the stairs in the near dark, carefully avoiding the center of the treads, knowing from old experience how several of them squeaked like mad. It was awkward, to say the least, to make his way down, legs splayed wide on either side of the carpet, but he managed it. And all the while, stifling a nagging urge to cough.

Safely on the ground floor, he glanced around the room and listened.  Silence. No pots quietly clinking, no sound of the pump working to fill a coffee pot.  Hop Sing wasn’t up yet.  Adam decided he’d been wise to avoid the back stairs that went over the Chinese man’s room.  He almost breathed out a sigh of relief until remembering doing so would probably bring on a coughing fit.

Quietly, Adam padded in his stockinged feet to the gun cabinet and slipped his rifle from its position on the rack, palming a box of shells as well, and carried them over to the credenza, gently laying them down. He pulled on his boots, stifling both a cough and a yawn, now, and set an envelope flat on the credenza’s polished top.

After thinking last night – and burying his face in a pillow whenever he had to cough – Adam realized the only way he’d make it to San Francisco to see the play was if he hightailed it out before dawn, before anyone could hear his wheezing breath.  All evening, his thoughts had danced back and forth between dismay, thinking of his father worrying himself to distraction about his oldest son becoming ill on the trail and dropping dead somewhere, and the potential fury of having to pass up a performance by the man many called the greatest dramatic actor of the day.

He realized he missed it!  He deeply missed the intellectual stimulation of a performance of a great playwright’s work.  He missed the emotional connection that a performance of a brilliant operatic singer gave to him, or that of a live reading by the author of evocative and beautifully crafted poetry.   More than that, he missed the ability to just talk after a performance with others who found it brilliant, too.

All of these inner conflicts and churnings brought on one of the rarest of occurrences in Ben Cartwright’s serious, reliable eldest boy.

In a completely atypical flash of pure selfishness (and cussedness, if he was honest with himself), Adam stubbornly chose to please himself at the expense of people he loved, and who loved him. He knew he’d pay for it, eventually, even if that cost might only be finding himself sick in a San Francisco hotel bed for a week. But, knowing his father as he did, Adam was under no illusion that his tab for this little escapade would really rack up to being anything so minor.

However, his bull-headed obstinacy had totally engaged.  Come hell or high water, he was going to be in that seat at the Adelphi Theatre watching Edwin Booth dramatically spout the  time-honored lines he’d read in pleasure these last nearly twenty years.

Coat on, gun belt strapped around his hips, Adam gathered his belongings and reached for his hat.  He glanced again at the letter, with just the word “Pa” across the front, and wavered, hesitating.  But when another tickle in his throat threatened to erupt, the young man’s dark brows knitted together, his lips firmed in resolve, and he turned.  Jamming his hat on his head, he quickly slipped out, pulling the door shut almost silently.

 

~o0o~

 

Dear Pa,

I know you will not be best pleased with this news, but I have decided
to head on out to San Francisco a day early. 

Attending this performance means a great deal to me.  It is a chance
for a taste of culture that I frankly haven’t been truly able to enjoy
since I returned home from Boston.  Oh, I know we have been to plays
in San Francisco, but no one of the caliber of Booth, and not a
company as illustrious as this one producing Shakespeare’s Hamlet. 

I’m afraid that I just wasn’t willing to allow anything to risk my missing
it.   As you know, almost anything can happen, and on the Ponderosa,
‘anything’ usually does. Somehow, something always seems to come
between me and whatever I want badly to do.  Well, I’ve decided.
Not this time.

I’m sorry if this upsets you, but please know that I mean no
disrespect.  I am simply following my own mind and heart.

I’ll be home in a month, five weeks at the outside. I know that saying
this  will be a waste of ink, but please don’t worry.  I’m fine.

Adam

 

~o0o~

 

“… means no disrespect!” Ben growled as he tossed the letter, read for the fifth or sixth time since coming across it that morning, onto his pile of correspondence on the dining room table next to his barely touched breakfast.

Joe and Hoss, cautiously glancing at each other, kept their heads down and focused on their own plates.

 

“Sorry for holding up breakfast, Hop Sing.  Looks like I overslept.  Adam down yet?” asked Ben Cartwright, buttoning his shirt sleeves as he came into the kitchen, an eyebrow raised as he glanced around the kitchen, as if expect his oldest son to pop out of one of the cupboards.

The Chinese man looked up in surprise from his using his spatula to lift light, fluffy biscuits off the hot baking tray and into the napkin-lined basket.  “No see Numbah One son since last night,” he frowned.  He glanced at the window and noticed the height of the sun. “Usually up by now. Not out in barn?”

Ben smiled and nodded. “I’ll bet you’re right.  He’s probably gone out to start the morning chores,” he agreed and head back toward the front of the house. “I just wanted to check on him and see if his cold is any worse.  You know how he is.  He’ll work until he drops.”

“You heah coughing in night, too?” asked Hop Sing, standing up straight and looking directly at his employer.  Number One Son not good at taking care of self, always take care ev’y’one else; must have honorable father and Hop Sing do it for him…

Cartwright turned at the door and nodded. “I certainly did,” he declared meaningfully, raising a dark brow, and continued out toward the front door.

But Adam wasn’t in the barn. What’s more, Sport wasn’t in the barn, either.  Ben’s brows had just knitted together into one long angry black line when he whirled on his heel and nearly plowed down Hoss and Joe talking together as they headed in the barn door.

“Pa!” Joe flattened himself against the door as his father stormed past him.

“What is it? What’s wrong, Pa?” demanded Hoss.

Neither got an answer, and Joe turned to his older brother in shocked surprise. “What the heck – ?”

But Hoss was looking at an empty stall and whirled to the sawhorse and wall hooks that usually held Sport’s saddle and tack.  Hoss scowl quickly matched their father’s as he, too, stormed past Joe.

Back in the house the younger brothers were just re-entering the front door as they saw their father stomping back downstairs. 

“… of all the reckless, stump-brained… “ Ben sputtered as he stalked down the steps.  He spied his younger sons.  “Did he say anything to you?!” he demanded.

Joe’s eyes were wide.  “N-no, sir.”

“Gone, ain’t he?” snorted Hoss, angrily, his big hands on his hips in a remarkably good imitation of his father.

“Well, he’s not in his room and there’s enough of his belongings gone to indicate he’s not home!” snapped Ben.  At that point, Joe turned to look at the hat rack, as if expecting to see Adam’s black gambler’s Stetson resting there in its usual place, and his eyes narrowed as he spied the envelope on the credenza.  He picked it up and, reading the name, quickly held it up for his father’s eyes.

Ben crossed the great room in no time flat, and ripped open the envelope, reading the missive within.  His younger sons watched his face grow redder by the moment.

 

Chinese mutterings could be heard as Hop Sing slammed shut the oven door. How the small man was able to stomp and sound like a herd of bison while wearing his soft felt slippers was beyond Hoss and Joe, but he was pulling it off with gusto.  The muttering continued as he stalked toward the table with a platter of ham.

Joe tried to spear a piece on his way by, but Hop Sing charged past him to bring the platter to Ben’s side. “You eat. Go hungry, no can help Number one Son.”

“Hmph!  What ‘Number One Son’ needs is a good – “ began Ben furiously.

“Need bed!  Need Hop Sing med’cine!  Need rest!” The platter slapped down on the table and the Chinese man stalked back to the kitchen, still expostulating in Cantonese.

Wincing slightly, Hoss’ fork tentatively inched toward the ham platter.  He caught Ben’s eye, and his fork receded.

Irritated, Ben shoved the platter toward him.  “Go ahead.  I’m not hungry.” The older man sighed and leaned back in his chair.  “What the devil was he thinking?” he muttered, rubbing his forehead.

“Kinda seems like he was thinkin’ that he wanted to see this actor more than anything he’s wanted in a real long time,” offered Joe, softly.

Ben glared at him. “At the risk of his health?!”

“At the risk of just about anything,” Joe said with a slight shrug.  “There isn’t much that Adam’s that … that… I dunno… passionate about, is there?”  Joe exchanged glances with his older brother and father, and shrugged, a little helplessly. “I guess this is one of ‘em.”

“It was a reckless, foolhardy, bone-headed…” But Ben’s anger began to sputter out as he really registered what Joe said.  The man gazed at his youngest son, cradling his chin on his fist as he pushed his food around his plate.  Sighing, Ben shook his head and managed a small smile, then reached over and patted the youngster’s forearm, making him look up in surprise.  “You’re a good brother, Joe.”

Joe smiled then and winked at his father. “He’ll be all right, Pa, you’ll see,” Joe reassured him confidently, attacking his breakfast again with gusto.

But Ben wasn’t so sure.  He could remember the lung ailments Adam seemed to be plagued with.  Hearing the muttering from the kitchen, he knew Hop Sing remembered them as well.  And they weren’t the only ones, apparently.

“Yeah, well,” grunted Hoss, still peeved, “passion or not, if’n he ends up with pneumonia – ‘cos mark my words, them clouds in the west show storms fixin’ to burst between here and the California side! – he ain’t gonna be able to enjoy no play while he’s sick in bed!  And he’ll be the one what’s melancholy!”

Ben tried to smile, but sighed and leaned back in his chair, placing his napkin beside his barely touched plate, giving up any pretense of eating.

“You want me to hitch up the wagon, load it up with some supplies and go after ‘im, Pa?” asked Hoss, as he sawed at his ham.

But Ben firmed his lips and shook his head.  “No, your brother’s right, Hoss.  Adam wants this trip more than anything.  And as your older brother also regularly points out to me, he’s a grown man.  So, no.  We won’t be going after him.”  Sighing, Ben got to his feet and gathered up his correspondence.  “I’ll be working on the ledgers today.  You boys get to those last fence repairs before haying starts, clear?”

“Yessir, Pa.”

“You got it, Pa.”

Both brothers watched, dismayed, as their father walked toward his desk, head bowed.

 

~o0o~

 

For the first two days of his trip, Adam had been able to shove to the back of his awareness of his growing physical discomfort.  Yes, the tightness in his chest was annoying and uncomfortable.  Yes, he found the persistent pressure when he tried to breathe worried him some.  But it wasn’t until his second night under the stars that he had severe second thoughts about this benighted endeavor.  Mostly, because he didn’t seem to be under the stars; the clouds overhead were so plentiful that even the brightest stars were obscured.

In the middle of the night, a fierce cannonade of rolling thunder woke him from a restless sleep, just as the heavens opened up over his head and rain dumped over him as though the angels were wielding ever-filling buckets.

He looked around desperately to find shelter, but none was to be had.  Huddling under his slicker – at least he’d had the good sense to bundle it under his bedroll, in easy reach! – was the best he could do.  Even his fire fizzled and spat in refusal to remain strong for him.  By morning, he was exhausted and could feel his fever rising to a noticeable level.

He studied his surroundings as best he could, and, as he sighed in frustrated acceptance, realized he had only one sensible route open to him: turn around and go home.

“Pa’s gonna roast me – cough! – like Christmas chestnuts,” he muttered hoarsely to Sport, untethered and nibbling away at the grass nearby the stream when Adam had found – in his fevered state – the best likely place to camp for the night.  The gelding raised his head for a moment and seemed to share a commiserating glance at his boy, nickered, and then resumed his breakfast.  Adam chuckled, until the laugh turned into a tight, painful bout of coughing. “You’ve got the right – cough! – idea there with breakfast, boy…”

He glanced wearily around himself and burrowed in his pack for the coffeepot he’d packed, and a sack of ground coffee.  Chuckling slightly, his hand found a carrot he’d tossed into his pack for the horse.  He walked over to Sport and fed him, patting his neck and hoarsely talking to him.  When the horse finished chomping, Adam slipped Sport’s bridle over the big gelding’s head and picked up the coffeepot.

He was damp, cold and sick, yes. But he was grateful, too.  In this spot he’d chosen, he had access to fresh water for himself and his horse via the nearby stream, there was plenty of downed wood nearby to try to coax into flame for a campfire, as well as good grazing for Sport. Things could be worse.

Reluctantly, Adam made up his mind that he had to accept the truth. He really couldn’t continue this foolish exercise any further.  He could feel the chest cold taking hold.  Sick as he was, he realized that even if he had the good fortune to reach to his destination – which he was beginning to seriously doubt – he’d likely end up in a hospital rather than a box seat at the Adelphi anyway.

Irritably, he turned abruptly to head to the stream, and was hammered with vertigo. He squeezed shut his eyes, putting his hands out for a moment for balance as the world tilted a little and spun.

“… Dammit…” he muttered, grinding his teeth together as he fought for his equilibrium to stabilize.  Finally, the world righted itself.  Sweating and panting, he slowly and carefully made his way to the stream bank to fill the coffee pot.

What had last night just been an easy-going current in the river was now a riffling torrent, cluttered with debris and carrying along a great deal of sediment and downed branches.  Blearily, he knew that should mean something to him but shook his head to try to clear it when nothing came to mind.

He leaned over, using his long reach to try to dip the pot into the water to fill it, when he felt the sponginess underfoot.  And suddenly the meaning of that amount of sediment made sense… the streambank was being undercut by the fast-moving water.

Alarmed, he tried to step back but felt the stream’s edge completely buckle under his weight, plummeting him headfirst into the fast-moving current.

Desperately, Adam struggled to find purchase, a handhold, a foothold, anything that would slow the dizzying pace as he was swept along by the storm-swollen creek. Painfully bruised by banging into rocks and debris, wrenching his ankle as he tried to jam his bootheels into the creek bed when he found himself in a shallow enough area… but nothing worked.  Nothing slowed his progress.

Tumbling over and over in the water to the point of having trouble figuring out which way was up, he could feel himself struggling to find the surface, to grab what breath he could, especially since breathing was a challenge beforehand. And he began to get scared… to really worry if he was going to die out here in the middle of nowhere, all because he’d wanted so very badly to see a performance of a Shakespearean play…

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wiseman knows himself to be a fool…

Now, doesn’t it just figure a quote from “As You Like It’ would come to me at a time like this!?

Finally, after what seemed like forever, he felt the pace of the water slack off… he’d been swept into a larger bend in the swollen creek and tossed into a shallower area.  Nearly worn out with attempts to try to slow himself, he gave one last burst of effort and successfully got his arms around a log rigidly jammed between two boulders in the current.

Panting and choking, coughing up both water and mucus, he sagged against the log, hanging onto branches with everything he had left, trying to regain some strength and wind.

Finally, after perhaps five minutes, he hauled himself around, shivering with cold and exhaustion, and painstakingly, hand over hand, made his way to the stream bed.  Dragging himself out of the water, he collapsed on the creek bank, dazed and grateful just to be alive.

 

~o0o~

 

The big man made his way downstairs just as the sun’s first rays began to streak through the dining room window, giving the great room a pink and orange glow.  As Hoss rolled up his shirt sleeves and turned at the bend in the landing he stopped short and sighed.

Seated in his red leather chair before the fireplace, its embers mostly cold now in the hearth, Ben’s cheek rested on his fist, his elbow propped up on the arm of the chair, quietly snoring.  Just as quietly Hoss continued down the steps, not wishing to wake his father.

He, too, had heard the crashes of thunder and seen the bright flashes of lightning in the night.  But he hadn’t heard Pa come downstairs.  Pa can be sneakier’n Joe or Adam ever thought o’ bein’, Hoss thought to himself with a sad smile.

Hop Sing padded out of the kitchen with place settings for breakfast and nodded at the big man.  Hoss carefully and very gently laid the knitted throw from the settee over his father’s lap, without the older man budging an inch, and followed the Chinese houseman back into the kitchen.

“Him there, all night,” whispered Hop Sing as he poured coffee into the coffeepot, and shaking his head.

“Yeah, I figured.”

“He worry ’bout Number One Son, out in rain.”

Hoss frowned, firming his mouth.  “I figured that too.  Dadburn that older brother o’ mine…” he groused, still quietly, not wanting to awaken his father. He reached for a mug and poured himself a cup.

“Mistah Hoss… it time go find Mistah Adam,” said Hop Sing, his stubborn chin raised.

“Hop Sing, Pa done made it real clear.  Adam’s a big boy, and if he doesn’t wantin’ anybody to follow him, then we ain’t gonna.”

“How you know him no want?  Could be sick!  Could be .. be… “ and the Chinese man slipped into rapid Cantonese, turning his back on the big man, angrily stirring scrambled eggs.

Hoss sighed, and taking his coffee into the dining room, saw his father start suddenly, and lift his head.

“You’ve bin up all night, ain’t you, Pa.”  It wasn’t a question.

Ben sighed and rubbed his eyes.

“I tell you what, when that older brother o’ mine gits back, him and me, we’re gonna have words.”  Rarely did Hoss get this irritated, and rarer still with his older brother.

Ben waved a hand.  “Hoss, Adam is a seasoned outdoorsman.  He knows what to do when weather is bad.”

Hoss harrumphed and handed his cup of coffee to his father, then walked over to the fire and using a poker stirred the embers.  The great room had a chill after the night’s weather.  As the fire caught once more, a cheerful blaze began to warm the hearth area.

Ben smiled gently at his middle son and sipped his coffee, and his face quickly settled into a worried frown.  “Hoss… “

The big man, looked back at him, inquiringly.

“Has your brother shared with you anything… oh, I don’t know, anything that might be bothering him?”

Hoss frowned.  “Pa, I bin trying to think about that ever since he left,” he sighed, sticking his hands in his pockets and looking down at his father, a little helplessly. “No, sir, he ain’t said nothing to me.  Joe, neither.”

Ben sighed. “Well, thankfully, it looks like the weather turned and should hold well the next few days,” he said, trying to get his worries back under control.  “I’m going to go up, shave and change.  I’ll be down for breakfast in just a few minutes.”

Hoss watched him go, feeling helpless to see his father’s steps drag wearily.

 

~o0o~

 

Adam wrung out his clothes as much as was possible, knowing that remaining in them dripping wet would make him sicker than he already was.  The barn coat was just going to have to slowly dry out, no way around it. When he’d finally achieved an upright status after lying down, exhausted, in the sun to rest following his dunk in the river, he was finally able to muster enough energy to try to assess where he was.

He honestly wasn’t able to pin down how long he might have been swept along by the torrent, but it couldn’t have been as long as it had felt like. Based upon the position of the sun in the sky, it was still mid-morning. And cold.

He prayed that by the time the sun was fully overhead, its heat would burn out the chills and shivering he was experiencing. He tried to pinpoint his whereabouts from landmarks around him and was disheartened to realize he had to have been swept along at least three or four miles from where he’d left Sport… Good God, my poor horse! This ridiculous situation just keeps getting better and better…

Soaked to the skin, sick.  No horse. No food.  No shelter. No water… well, unless one counted the dirty water of the churned up creek, though if push came to shove he’d drink it if he had to.  I was willing to make coffee with it, after all… He vigorously rubbed his face, trying to clear the feverish cobwebs that were keeping his thinking from its usual ordered status.

 No help for it.  I’d better start walking.  But… which way?

He’d got badly turned around during his unexpected swim, and his weakened state wasn’t making his perception any better. Seeing the direction the water flowed, he could at least see in which direction he’d come and figured the first thing he needed to do was get back to Sport.  But he’d taken no more than ten or fifteen steps, when he was overcome with a bout of coughing.  He sank down to the ground to rest – knowing if he didn’t sit down of his own volition, he’d simply fall down. He was appalled by how weak he felt, and leaned forward, dreadfully dizzy.  He set his forehead on his arms, resting a moment.  I’ll never make three or four miles.  What on earth am I going to do?

“Y’know, God… I could use a little help here,” he rasped, not truly realizing he’d spoken aloud.  “It’d really upset Pa badly if I died out here…”

Once his breathing calmed down a little and the wheezing rattle eased up slightly, he could hear it.  Hoofbeats.  Startled he raised his head, and his jaw dropped, his eyes wide.

There was Sport, ambling toward him.   How in the hell… My God, am I dreaming this?  Is this a fever hallucination?

 “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”  

Suddenly, a vivid memory flooded his awareness, seeming sharper, his father’s voice clearer and crisper, than usual…

“It was one of your mother’s favorite phrases… ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,’ she’d say,” his father smiled at him. 

 He’d been about fourteen, and they were talking about an unexpected stroke of amazing luck that allowed Ben to purchase a good-sized chunk of a neighboring rancher’s spread when he died unexpectedly.  

 “Adam, your mother never let anything get her down and always saw the bright side of a situation.  Oh, that’s not to say she couldn’t let her temper rip now and again.  But she understood gratitude, and she had such faith…If you do nothing else to emulate her, son, be like her in that way. And you’ll do fine.”

As Sport came up beside his master, nuzzling around his ear, convincing him that he was, indeed, very real, Adam’s eyes watered a little, and he drew in a shaky breath, chuckling a little hysterically.  He shook himself, his fever making him feel as though drunk, his thoughts wild and disconnected.  He didn’t know if it was his mother, or Marie or Inger, or God, or maybe just plain dumb luck that had made his horse follow along the riverbank, but he decided he simply wasn’t up to puzzling it out at the moment.

“Well, all right then,” he rasped, getting shakily to his feet.  It took more effort than he’d expected, but he managed to mount Sport, bareback, and looking around, decided to follow the river.  Surely, there had to be a settlement somewhere nearby along the running water.

And they set off.

 

 

…hot… how can I be shivering and yet feel so hot?

But of course… he knew why.

Wearily, he squinted up at the sun, all the while feeling a constant need to try to cough up whatever kept him from being able to breathe easily.

During the first two or three days of his illness he’d had what Doc Martin used to call a “productive cough.”  Now, he felt as though concrete had been poured down his gullet.  Expanding his lungs enough to get a chest full of air was well nigh impossible.

He’d felt this progression before and knew it didn’t bode well.  He was sick… sicker than he wanted to admit.  His fever was worse.  It was easily feeling like his usual bronchitis. What was it Paul always drummed into him during these bouts…

“Plenty of water, tea, coffee… anything that will help your body thin out the mucus in your chest, Adam.  Stay away from alcohol, though.  Drink, drink, drink.  And REST!  That doesn’t mean on the back of a horse!  That means in bed. Clear?”

As he winced at the ache in his chest and back as he tried, futilely, to loosen the phlegm in his chest, Adam swore he’d obey Paul’s orders to the letter… provided he could ever again find somewhere to lie down.

He leaned over a little, gripping Sport’s mane, and hoarsely crooned, “We gotta find – cough! – someplace to stop, boy.”  Though God alone knows who’d be willing to take me in, the state I’m in.

 

 

Dobbs Brackett leaned against the porch upright in front of his office, smoking his cigar and scanning the town around him.  Waverly was a good-sized little town, not too big, not too small.  Not too noisy, but not boring, either.  And Brackett was pleased to have served as its sheriff for the last eleven years.

Waverly wasn’t really on the way to anywhere, so rarely did he have to deal with major crime.  Some petty thefts, some drunk and disorderlies.  A few young’uns that needed a firm hand, and once or twice a couple of break-ins.  But in general, Sheriff Dobbs Brackett had a quiet time of it.  He didn’t make a load of money, but he was happy just to do his job, protect his citizens, and not have to work so hard that he didn’t have the time to raise his young’uns since their Mama died five years back, only a year after his daughter was born.  Eleven-year-old Hank and little Melissa were good children, and with his housekeeper, Mrs. Denning, seeing to their needs when he had to work, it was a good life; all he needed, anyhow.

He smiled at the matrons coming out of the mercantile next door with their shopping, touching the brim of his hat.  He walked along the wooden walkway along the main street of town on his twice-daily patrol, chatting the shopkeepers and the blacksmith, talking with little boys excitedly sharing a peek at their treasures – everything from a prized new marble to a harmless garter snake (“You’d best find that fella a new home before you give your poor ma the vapors, Harvey, y’hear?”).

As he walked along, Brackett contentedly surveyed windows, looked to see where repairs might need to be made that a busy shop owner might not have noticed.  But he stopped dead when his eye caught a wavering, dark blur on the outer edge of town.  He narrowed his eyes.

It was a man, on a handsome, good-sized sorrel with three white socks.  And the fella looked like hell, even at this distance.  Dobbs glanced around him and noticed most residents were away from the street anyway, so he stepped down from the planking into the middle of the street.  His sharp eyes saw the man was riding bareback… no saddlebags, no tack on the horse other than a handsome bridle. Something ain’t right here…

The man himself was rumpled and dirty. Looked like he’d been dragged backwards through a knothole.

“Can I do somethin’ for you, stranger?” he said, a certain amount of command in his voice, and yet a measure of compassion as well.

The man, a big fellow, easily six feet tall or a smidge more perhaps, with very dark hair, was probably about five or six years shy of Dobbs’ own age.  He’d been riding hunched up into himself, as though he was trying to keep himself from flying apart, and at Brackett’s question, wearily lifted his head. His bleary, reddened eyes took in the man in front of him, and his badge.

“Hope so,” came a voice so raspy that it hurt Brackett just to listen to him.  “Need – cough! – help…”

Dobbs leapt forward in the nick of time to catch all two hundred pounds of the big man’s dead weight as he pitched forward over the sorrel’s withers.  The sheriff was dismayed at the amount of heat rolling off him in waves.  “Hey!  You, there, Dusty!!  Go fetch Doc! NOW!”

 

 

“So, what do you make of him, Doc?”

Dr. Jonas Ridgemont washed his hands with soap and water at the basin by the door, where he’d insisted Sheriff Brackett wait while he examined his patient.

He raised a grizzled salt and pepper eyebrow and peered at the Sheriff over the tops of his spectacles as he dried his hands on a linen towel. “Make of him?  I make of him that he’s sick as hell, Dobbs.  But I think you’d already guessed that.”

“Y’know, Jonas, you’re nowhere near as humorous as you believe yourself t’be,” sighed Brackett, leaning up against the door jamb, and opened his mouth to ask more pointed questions, but the middle-aged doctor chuckled and patted the air between them placatingly, and turned back to eye the figure in the bed.

“He’s got a bad case of bronchitis that’s just next door to pneumonia, but we’re going to do everything we can to keep that from happening.  He’s also dehydrated and exhausted, which is why he’s out like a snuffed candle right now.  Otherwise, he’s young, obviously used to an active, physical life, based upon his weight and muscle tone.  He’s strong, too.  That’s in his favor.  But that fever is pretty high.  I’ve asked Dusty to go fetch some ice from the saloon, see if we can’t cool him down a bit.”  The older man placed his hands on his hips and studied the young man in bed, stripped down now to his underclothes and cleaned up a bit, tucked into one of the doc’s spare rooms, warm blankets and fresh, clean sheets around him.  “From the condition of his clothes, I think he was caught in the rain that hit a couple days back.  That, or he took an unexpected swim in the river.”

“Contagious?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. C’mon in.”

Brackett picked up and examined the black pants and shirt, the still very damp yellow barn coat.  “You’re right, Doc.  Coat’s still damp.”  The Sheriff studied the clothing carefully. “These duds aren’t cheap. Working clothes, to be sure, but good quality.  Not somethin’ just any saddle bum would wear.”  He glanced at the doctor. “And that sorrel he rode in on is a thoroughbred… the bridle on ‘im cost a pretty penny, I’ll tell ya.”

“I think what we’ve got here is a young man of substance who accidentally landed himself in some trouble… that, or he had someone help him into it,” the doctor shrugged.  “But for right now I just want to get that fever under control so we can find out who he is.”

“He’s not some tramp,” observed the Sheriff, thoughtfully.

“… Cart…wright…”

Startled, the two men looked at one another, each of them thinking the hoarse speech had come from the other. Then realization dawned and both whirled to the bed.

The dark man’s eyes were open… glassy with fever, but aware.

“Well, hello there,” smiled Dr. Ridgemont, coming over to his side and gently picking up his wrist, checking his pulse.  “Welcome back.”

The young man licked his lips, his brow furrowed.  “… Where…”  But his question devolved into a coughing fit that forced the doctor to have to help him sit up a bit to try to catch his breath.

“Easy, son, don’t try to talk just yet,” soothed the doctor.  He glanced at the Sheriff. “Dobbs, grab me all the pillows off the bed in the next room, will you?”  When the sheriff left the room, he eased the young man to a seated position, supporting his trembling body.  “You’re in pretty rough shape, young man, so you’re going to have to be patient while we get you back on your feet.  Just nod or shake your head.  You’ve been sick for… what, about four or five days?”

The man, his dark complexion unnaturally flushed from the coughing fit, nodded, trying to wheeze in air.

The doctor nodded.  “You have a good case of bronchitis,” said the doctor quietly, raising an eyebrow when he saw the man nod. “Ah… not your first rodeo, hm?”

The man shook his head, gritting his teeth.

“Prone to it, are you?”

Another nod, and a hand with beautiful, long fingers almost angrily tapped at his chest.  Ridgemont frowned trying to understand, and his face cleared suddenly.  “Pneumonia… You’ve had that before, too?”

Grateful to not have to speak, the man looked up and nodded; he looked so, so tired.  By this time, the sheriff was back with three large pillows and the doctor swiftly had them arranged behind his patient. He gently eased him back and the man relaxed, gratefully.

“All right, then, we know we need to get a mustard plaster on you as quickly as possible, then,” he mused, and chuckled to see the expression of discouraged distaste on the young man’s face.

“Take your time, mister, but do you think you can spit out your name without coughing up a lung?” asked Sheriff Dobbs with a droll smile.

The dark young man’s own mouth turned up a little at the corners, and he whispered, “Adam… Cartwright… Pon… dero…sa….” But fell into another bout of coughing.

Brackett’s eyes widened in surprise.  “Ponderosa… down in Nevada Territory?  One of those Cartwrights?”

The man panted and nodded, wincing.

“All right, Dobbs, we’ve got a name.  We can get more later, but right now what he needs is rest,” insisted Ridgemont, firmly shooing the lawman out the door.

 

~o0o~

 

Joe carried two cups of coffee out onto the front porch, pausing a moment to watch his father lean against the porch upright and stare off into the distance… and in the direction Adam would have traveled in.

“Here, Pa,” he said quietly, not wanting to startle him.  “Hop Sing thought you might like some coffee.”

Ben turned, settling his expression from the frown of concern he’d worn to a blander one, seemingly at peace. “Why, thank you, Joseph, I appreciate that,” he replied, warmly, taking his cup and having a sip of the rich, hot dark drink.

Joe smiled and nodded, and turned to return to the house, not wanting to disturb his father from his thoughts.

“Joe…”

Surprised, the boy turned and looked respectfully at his pa. “Yes, sir?”

“The other morning… what you said…”  Ben sighed, and sat down at the wooden table, gesturing Joe to the opposite bench.  “Can I ask you something?

“ ‘Course, Pa. Anything.”  Joe slid onto the bench opposite.

“What made you think of that?  That Adam was … passionate, I think was the word you used, about seeing this actor in San Francisco.”

Joe frowned a little while he thought. “Well… I mean…” He shrugged helplessly. “You know how Adam is.  The things that are important to him are the things he won’t talk that much about, mostly ‘cos he knows …”  Joe scratched his head and looked a little shamefaced. “Well, he knows we don’t give a rap about most of ‘em,” he admitted, blushing.  “I guess… well, I guess he just stopped talkin’ about stuff he loves, either so’s Hoss and me wouldn’t tease him, or ‘cos he didn’t want to see the bored expressions on our faces.”

Ben winced and sipped his coffee.  Sadly, he knew exactly what Joe meant.

“Older Brother, he’s got so much packed inside that head of his, and most of it is stuff that I’ve never heard of.  Or that I can’t see a reason for being interested in myself,” said Joe apologetically, then studied the wooden tabletop. “Sayin’ that out loud makes me realize how that’s kinda mean.  Just because I ain’t interested, doesn’t mean he isn’t.  Not … very fair, I guess.”

“No, but you’re not alone, Joseph,” replied Ben, gently.  “When your brother clams up, nothing short of a blasting cap and powder will jar information loose.  And, as you say, if he senses that people feel his ideas and interests aren’t worth listening to, then yes… he clams up.  But I’m as guilty of making him feel that way as anybody.”

Joe shrugged. “Hoss kind of explained it to me,” he mused, sipping his coffee.  “It isn’t that we’re stupid, or anything.  It’s just that our minds work different than Adam’s does.  Hoss says that Adam can’t look at anything without trying to figure out how it works… how something happened…or how to keep something happening, if that makes any sense?  Hoss and me…” he shrugged a little helplessly. “Our brains just don’t work like that.”

Ben chuckled and nodded.  “Nor mine, Joseph.  Nor mine.”

Joe sighed. “So, it isn’t surprising he gets lonesome sometimes…. When nobody else’s brain works the way yours does, it’s gotta be.   And when something happens that does make that crazy brain of his kick into action… well, he just can’t turn it off.”  Joe shifted excitedly, thinking of something. “You remember when he first got back from college, and he kept trying to explain to you why it was so important to spend the money for the parts for that pump he designed?  It wasn’t that you didn’t believe him, just that there was too much goin’ on for you to really see it the way he did, right?  You were so busy and just couldn’t take the time just then to imagine it.”

Ben blushed a little himself, then.  The man remembered the hot argument he and his oldest son had got into.  He recalled Adam stalking off after he had said something that shut down the conversation absolutely, too tired and concerned about a major contract for horses for the Army to spare one iota of energy thinking about one of his oldest son’s “daydreams.” He vividly remembered his anger as the boy – no! the young man!  – had slammed the front door in a way that a few years earlier would have earned him an unpleasant session with Ben’s belt.

“So ol’ Adam, he just went ahead and built the darned thing.  Once you were able to see it in action, you understood.  Everythin’ Adam said about how it would save a lot of work and ultimately a lot of money, made sense to ya.  But he just couldn’t let it go until you did.”  Joe spread his hands in a grin that was both exasperated and proud.  “That’s Adam.  Mind like a steel bear-trap.”

Ben pursed his lips, thinking.

“It does make him prickly to be around sometimes, though…” Joe sighed.

Ben chuckled.  “Maybe he needs to learn a little about enjoying life from you,” he teased.

“Well, if I thought he’d pay me the least mind, I’d be glad to give him the benefit of my experience!” Joe grinned.

Ben laughed and leaned over, gripping his youngest son’s forearm. “I wish he would, Joe.  I wish he would.”

Long after Joseph had returned inside, leaving Ben to watch the sun set and the stars begin to sparkle overhead, Ben thought about that conversation… and wondered.  Was this crazy trip of his just Adam needing, once again, to show him something so clearly that there was no way he’d misunderstand?

 

~o0o~

 

Dr. Ridgemont frowned while his ear rested against one end of a rolled-up piece of parchment, the other end against Adam’s chest.  He moved the end of the paper to various positions on the man’s chest and finally leaned back, tapping his chin.  “When you fell into the river, can I safely assume you swallowed a good amount of water?”

Cartwright nodded, wincing and shifting restlessly in bed.  He ached badly all over; if at all possible, he felt sicker now than he had when he’d first been brought in.

Ridgemont sighed. “Yes… I can hear it.  Here, sip some of this,” he directed, easing Adam up with one strong arm and directing a small glass of water to his mouth with the other.

Annoyed at having to be helped, but realizing he had no other choice, Adam did as he was bid and had one or two swallows.

“Feel… weak… as water…” he grumbled, irritated, panting as he tried to get his breath.  He brought a hand up to rub at his aching temples, irritably pushing aside the excess fabric of a sleeve that flopped into his face. Yesterday, the doctor had been able to unearth a few nightshirts he kept on hand to try to find one his size, but being such a big man only one came even close to fitting him.  And that one would have been even a little roomy on Hoss, Adam decided as he’d shakily buttoned the top of an over-large number that swam on him. Seeing how it barely reached his knees, Adam concluded the previous owner must have been about 5’5″… in every direction.

The doctor smiled sadly. “I know it’s frustrating, but your body is working hard trying to kill that infection in your lungs.  That’s where all your energy is going.  On top of the fact that you pushed yourself for several days before arriving here in town, didn’t get enough water or other liquids down your gullet, and didn’t rest… end result?  Weak as water.”  The doctor set his rolled-up parchment to the side and hesitated just slightly, eyeing the young man.  “Son…wouldn’t you like me to contact your family in… Virginia City area, isn’t it?”

Adam shook his head. “I don’t… want – cough! – to worry … them,” he wheezed.

Ridgemont studied him, shook his head and sighed.  “Good Lord, but you’re a stubborn cuss!” he declared, raising an eyebrow.

Adam snorted slightly with laughter, and closed his eyes wearily, leaning back against the mound of pillows, both shivering with chills and uncomfortably hot.  “So… I’ve been… told…” He frowned; he very much wished he knew what went into some of the teas that Hop Sing always concocted for him when he had a bad chest cold, so that he could tell Dr. Ridgemont… that was assuming the good doctor would even listen.  God knows if they even have any Oriental physicians around here…

“Well, perhaps I’ll give it another couple of days, but if you’re not any better soon, I’m going to overrule you.”  The old man pulled out his pocket watch and nodded, then turned to the bedside table, picking up the dark brown bottle and spoon resting there on a napkin.  “Here.  Time for another dose of cough medicine, then in 40 minutes or so, I’ll bring in another mustard plaster.  We’ll keep giving them a try.  Perhaps by tomorrow you’ll get some cumulative relief.”  After dosing his patient, who grimaced at the bitter taste of the elixir, he rose to his feet and drew the bedclothes up to the young man’s chin. “In the meantime, I want you to close your eyes and try to nap.  Stay covered, you hear me?”

Adam stifled another round of coughing and nodded, closing his eyes.  Ridgemont paused at the door, studying his patient, biting his lip as he thought and shook his head, frustrated.  He didn’t like the way this illness was progressing, not one bit.

 

 

After a couple of days of treating the young man, Dr. Jonas Ridgemont had been able to glean a little more information from him.  Including the rather benighted reason for why he was out on the road alone, as well as the fact – rather shamefacedly admitted – that the young fella knew he was under the weather and made the decision to continue on anyway.

“So, in VERY few words,” the doctor eyed the young man meaningfully but with a smile, “can you tell me what on earth possessed you to embark on a trip like this when you knew you were feeling ill? Keep taking sips of that.”

Adam sighed, trying with a very shaking hand to put aside the cup of broth he’d been sipping.  “…not…hungry…”

“Ah ah ah, no sir,” the doctor shook his head firmly, tapping the young man’s hand and gesturing to him to take another sip, “I want that finished.  You need nourishment, young man, or your body simply won’t have any fuel to fight with.”

When the man continued to balk, the doctor chuckled.  “Son, in your condition there are two ways to introduce liquids and nutrients into the human body.” He tapped the cup again. “Trust me when I tell you that this way – orally –  is easier on you.  The other you’ll find much less comfortable, besides being a lot messier for both of us.  However, one is just as effective as the other, so I’m content with using either method. Your choice.”  He raised an eyebrow meaningfully.

Adam’s eyes widened in alarm.  Grimly, he glanced down at the cup, then narrowed his eyes at the doctor.

“And if you think I won’t do whatever I have to do in order to keep you alive… well, you just don’t know me very well yet,” the doctor told him very seriously.

Adam grunted and forced himself to take another sip. I wonder if it’s a class they have to take in medical school… Introduction to Patient Browbeating or something like that… Paul’s good at it, too…

The doctor nodded, a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth.  “Wise choice, youngster.  So, then… why?”

Embarrassed, Adam swallowed.  “A play,” he admitted, his voice raspy and raw.

Ridgemont’s eyes widened.  “A… a play?!”

“Not just – cough! – any play,” Adam tried to make him understand.  “Edwin… Booth… as Hamlet… San … Francisco…”

Ridgemont studied him, then tapped his hand again.

Rolling his eyes, Adam took another sip.

“I hear a touch of East Coast in your speech,” said the doctor quietly.  “You were educated in the East?”

Adam nodded.

“College?”

He nodded again and sipped once more at the doctor’s gesture.

“Where?”

“… Harvard…”

Jonas Ridgemont blinked in surprise.  Well, that explains a lot…  “You studied the Classics?”

Adam smiled slightly, remembering. “I studied them… but my course … was… engi – cough! –  engineering…”

Ridgemont studied the enigmatic young man in front of him with interest.  For the next twenty minutes or so, he slowly, gently talked with the young fellow as he examined him, gave him another dose of cough elixir, coaxed him to drink and skillfully extracted from him details about his life in Nevada, about his family.  What the doctor was able to glean was a combination of pride in his family and their accomplishments, self-deprecation when it came to his own achievements, and a softly veiled sense of cultural deprivation.  It didn’t take a great mind to make the intellectual leap. The doctor could easily understand how hearing the news that the great Edwin Booth was doing a limited tour in a production of Hamlet could have pushed all normal common sense out of  this young man, and the vacuum left  behind making him give in to his desire to experience that performance.

“You felt… if you didn’t see him now, you might never get to do so,” said the doctor with gentle understanding.

Eyes closed and worn out, Adam nodded and sighed.  “If it’s any – cough! – consolation, I realized I had to – cough! – turn around and head back home – cough! – before I fell in the river…”

Ridgemont took the cup, empty now, from the young man’s hot hand and placed it on the bedside table.  The doctor’s fingers skillfully found his pulse and was satisfied with the rate he felt.  He slipped the young man’s hand back under the covers, tucking them firmly around him.

“You get some sleep,” he said softly, seeing that Adam had nearly nodded off already, his stomach warm and full.

The doctor paused at the door and turned back, thoughtful.  A most intriguing personality… loving culture the way he does, what brought him back here after Boston, I wonder?

 

 

By midnight, the young man’s fever had suddenly spiked dangerously and Dr. Ridgemont had roused his hired man, sending him over to the Sheriff’s home.

No more than ten minutes later, the young Sheriff arrived rubbing his face vigorously to try to wake up.  “What’s up, Jonas?”

“He’s much worse, Dobbs,” the doctor sighed, rubbing his own eyes.  “I was able to bring the fever down a little by constantly wiping him down with ice water, but… “ He looked sadly at the other man. “Even though he didn’t want me to, I think we need to contact his family.  What do you think… what’ll be the best way to reach them?  Just a general inquiry to Virginia City?”

Brackett had been studying the restless, fever-wracked figure in the bed, then shook his head and looked over at the doctor.  “I’ll send a wire to the Sheriff in Virginia City and ask that word be sent to the Cartwrights. That’s the biggest spread in the territory.  Chances are that name’ll carry some weight, and goin’ through the law might speed the process up a little bit.”  He looked back again, sorrowfully, at the handsome young man fighting so hard to breathe.  “He isn’t gonna make it, is he, Joe?”

Ridgemont hesitated, then grew fiercely determined.  “We’re going to give him every chance we can.  I think having someone near him who cares even more about him than we do might help give him the extra fight he needs.”

The Sheriff nodded abruptly and turned to go.  “I’ll go roust Clarence out of bed and get that wire sent right away, Doc.”

Ridgemont slowly walked back over to the bed and placed a gentle hand on the young man’s hot cheek, then pressed lightly on his chest, feeling his heart pounding, working so hard.

“C’mon, Adam,” he whispered.  “You can do this.  You keep on fighting.  We’re gonna get someone here that loves you, you hear me? You just hang on.”

But the doctor received no answer beyond labored, wheezing breaths.

 

~o0o~

 

Hoss lugged the 50-lb sack of flour over to the wagon and tossed it in as though it weighed no more than Hop Sing’s settee cushions.  He whistled as he dusted off his hands and headed back to the other two sacks waiting for him, stopping briefly to tip his hat politely as a middle-aged lady exiting the general store with her arms full.

“You need any help with that, Miz Harrison?”

The woman smiled at him. “Oh, no, Hoss, these aren’t heavy but thank you so much for asking!  Give your pa my best, will you?”

“I shore will, ma’am,” he smiled, nodding at her, and continuing on to his own supplies.

“Hey, Hoss!”

The big man looked in surprise at the sound of Roy Coffee’s voice and smiled broadly. “Well, howdy, Roy.  How ya doin’?”

“Well, I’m doin’ just fine, but it ‘pears you got a brother who ain’t,” the older man said, his face very serious, a telegram in his hands that he tapped. “I was just about to head out to the Ponderosa to see yer pa when I saw ya here.”

Hoss’ face grew grave.  Adam, has to be… “What’re ya talkin’ about, Roy?”

“Well, sir, I got me a telegram from the Sheriff in Waverly, California that Adam’s there, sick with…” the sheriff frowned and consulted the telegram again, “lung fever, he says. Been there the last couple’a days.  You know anythin’ about this?”

Hoss frowned. “Yeah… Adam headed out overland for San Francisco about a week ago, a vacation, sort of,” he replied, taking the telegram and reading it for himself.  “Waverly… never heard of it.  You got any idee where that is?”

Coffee shrugged. “Me, neither, but we could check it out on a map in my office.”

“You know this… Brackett feller?”

“Nope, never heard of the town or o’ him.”

“Hang on just a sec,” nodded Hoss, poking his head in the door of the store and asking Bill Jenkins to have one of his boys finish loading up the supplies and to bring the wagon down to the Sheriff’s office, that one of his brothers appeared to be in some kind of difficulty.

“Let’s go,” said Hoss, firmly, gesturing to the lawman, a no-nonsense tone to his voice.

 

“You boys make sure that hay gets in before the rains hit again, all right?” ordered Ben, firmly, as he watched his valise and another with things for Adam get hoisted onto the stage.

“Pa, yer sure you don’t want one of us goin’ with you?” asked Hoss, uneasily.

“Hoss, if Adam is that seriously ill, it isn’t going to help any of us to have you or your younger brother cooling your heels in this town he’s at, watching him sleep,” said Ben seriously, patting his arm.  But he understood Hoss’ ambivalence.  He smiled at him. “Besides, you know Adam.  He’ll have seven fits just knowing I’m there, all the while insisting he’s ‘fine’,” Ben chuckled, trying hard to ease the big man’s fears.

“Yeah, I guess so, Pa,” his middle boy sighed.

Joe nodded and offered a hand to his father. “Don’t worry about anything, Pa,” he said solemnly, his green eyes mirroring his older brother’s worry but trying manfully to disguise it. “Hoss and me’ll make sure everything is taken care of.  You just… you just make that big brother of ours do whatever he’s told to so’s he can get well.”

Ben took the hand and then pulled his youngest boy into a quick embrace.  That worry he’d seen the boy try so hard to hide manifested now as Joe – usually loath to have these kinds of scenes in public – hugged him back tightly, if very briefly.

“I promise, I’ll wire Adam’s condition as soon as I know anything, boys,” Ben promised as he took his seat, and the stage driver closed the door, climbing up top and gathering the reins.

“We’ll be waitin’, Pa,” Hoss nodded, his blue eyes boring into his father’s dark ones.

Joe nervously glanced up at Hoss as the stage departed in clouds of dust.

“Adam’ll be all right, Hoss… won’t he?” he asked in a small voice.

Hoss started to try to reassure him but looked at the boy and sighed, making his little brother swallow hard. “I don’t know, Short Shanks.  We’ll just have to pray that he will.  Best thing we can do right now for ol’ Adam – and Pa! – is ta get the jobs done that need doin’ and do ’em in a way they’d be proud of. Hey?” He very gently punched the boy in the upper arm, making at least a small smile surface on Joe’s face.  “C’mon, we’d best head back and get started.”

 

~o0o~

 

Sheriff Brackett shuffled through the broadsheets that had been delivered through the mail this morning and selected a few that would be worthwhile posting up on his soft-wood tack board.  Just as he was using a small tack hammer to hang the last sheet, his door opened behind him.

“Howdy, Pa!”

Brackett turned with a grin toward the infectiously cheerful boyish voice. “Hank!” he smiled at his son. “You done somethin’ naughty enough that Mr. Bridges decided you needed to be in a cell?” he teased.

“’Course not,” scoffed the boy, swinging his schoolbooks tethered firmly in a buckled strap over his shoulder. “Teacher just let us out early today.  He’s gotta go to someplace.  Said there’s some kinda family gatherin’ or somethin’.  So, we got extra homework,” the boy sighed.

Brackett chuckled at Hank’s expression regarding the homework.  He noticed an envelope in the boy’s hand.  “Your teacher send you home with a note?” he asked, frowning as he set his tack hammer down.

The boy looked blank for a moment, then awareness hit and, startled, he blushed.  “Gosh, I forgot.  This here’s a telegram.  Mr. Bennett, he said it come in just a few minutes ago and asked me to run it over to you,” said the boy, abashed. “Sorry, Pa.”

Brackett gave his son a stern look, shook his head and took the proffered envelope.  Sure enough, it was a response from an Erik Cartwright in Virginia City, saying that his father (so this Erik was Adam’s brother, then) was already on the stage on his way to Waverly.  Should be there within three days if the weather held and the roads were good.

“Next time, lead with this, all right, son?” suggested Brackett wryly, lifting the envelope.  “Your feelin’s about extra homework can wait.” He softened the reprimand with a grin and tousle of his son’s light brown hair.  Lord, Ellen… it’s just like looking at you.  Miss you, Girl…

“Yes, sir,” agreed Hank, smiling back.  “Bad news?”

“Nope,” smiled his father, folding up the telegram and returning it to the envelope.  “Just a message for the Doc and that feller who came into town a few days back.”

The boy brightened.  This dark and mysterious man who’d arrived sick was an ‘excitement’… something different to break up the boredom of normalcy that was the usual rhythm and routine that was life in Waverly.   “You gonna bring it over to Doc Ridgemont’s?”

“Yup,” nodded his father.  “Then we can head home for some lunch. Sound good to you?”

“Sure does, Pa!” agreed Hank, enthusiastically.  Having Pa home for lunch would be a real treat!

Together, the two headed out, Brackett locking the door after hanging out the sign “At home, catch me there,” then walked together to the doctor’s big, two-story clapboard house.

 

 

“Well, that’s three for three,” sighed Ridgemont, tipping his over his king, signaling defeat.  “I liked you better when you were comatose.”

Adam chuckled, leaning back against his pillows to rest.  He still found himself growing dizzy when he moved too quickly.

“Still some lightheadedness?”  The doctor came over and gently used his rolled parchment to listen to Adam’s lungs.

“Some.”  The word erupted in a wet, wracking cough.  The doctor left him alone and merely observed as Adam hacked, growing breathless and red in the face, then finally spat up a nasty glob of phlegm into the basin Ridgemont stuck under his nose. “Good job!” praised the doctor, causing Adam to roll his eyes at him as he panted.

“Odd reason … for accolades,” he sighed, exhausted.

“Not odd for someone who just managed to kick pneumonia by the skin of his teeth,” observed Ridgemont sternly as Adam got his breath back and gave the room time to stop spinning around.  “That’s enough trouncing for a bit,” he chuckled picking up the chessboard and moving it to the dresser.  “I want you to nap for an hour or so before we do another steam treatment.  It seems to be helping quite a bit.”

“It seems like – cough! – all I do is sleep,” complained Adam as the doctor drew the curtains to darken the room.

“Nonsense,” observed Dr. Ridgemont with a grin. “Over the last two days you’ve kicked my tail at chess regularly, we’ve discussed Shakespeare’s depiction of Richard III until you were blue in the lips – ”

“Ha.  Ha.  Ha.”

“Oh, true, you were blue in the lips from the pneumonia,” chuckled the doctor. “Ah, well, details, details.  We’ve debated the merits of Dante vs. Chaucer.  We’ve argued the finer points surrounding projective geometry’s premise of duality.  And, just today at lunchtime, you’ve finally managed to chew your way through half of a small steak.  What possible reason could you have to be bored?”

Adam snorted but smiled.

It had been a long, miserable day after the longer, miserable night when his fever spiked into dangerously high territory, causing the doctor and Sheriff Brackett to send out the alarm to Roy Coffee to alert Pa to his illness.  The following day, Brackett heard back and exchanged some wires with Adam’s younger brother, who informed them their father, Ben Cartwright, was already on a stage headed for Waverly.

Adam spent that first day mostly drifting in and out of awareness, coughing, being dosed with ipecac and vomiting; it was a day he’d been mightily happy to see the back of.  His chest muscles had been sore, his stomach muscles had been sore, his throat had been sore. But he was slowly, if surely, finding it easier to breathe.

Now, a few days later, he was feeling much better, though still weaker than he wanted to be.  But what gave him pause more than anything else was the knowledge that Ben Cartwright was due anytime that afternoon.  That definitely had him feeling queasy.

Ridgemont smiled and patted his shoulder.  “Adam… trust me,” he said gently.  “He’s your father. He’ll understand.”

“Oh, I know he’ll understand,” Adam sighed, clearing his throat in annoyance.  “He’ll just first treat me – cough! – to a lecture that will make me wish I was – cough! –  still having febrile seizures.”

“No less than you deserve,” observed the doctor firmly.  “Now, lay back, close your eyes and take a nap.”  He stopped at the door and smiled at his young patient.  “Doctor’s orders,” he finished in mock severity.

 

 

The stagecoach door swung open allowing a tall, very tired-looking silver haired man in a rather limp white shirt, buff vest and string tie to emerge, then turn to assist two ladies down from the coach.  He touched his hat brim to them, distractedly, and looked around.

Sheriff Brackett studied him and noted the deep tan on his face and hands.  Someone used to working outdoors, then.  Since Dobbs knew everyone else who’d lighted from the coach, he pushed away from the porch upright and walked to the man, who was taking the two valises being handed down to him

“Mr. Cartwright?”

The man spun, his face suddenly a bit paler.  And Dobbs realized why.  He’d been traveling for four days without having any idea of his son’s condition.

“He’s much better, sir,” reassured the Sheriff, quickly and kindly.  He watched the older man sag slightly, then firm his mouth and get control of himself once more.  Brackett leaned over and picked up one of the valises.  “He’s over at Doc Ridgemont’s.  C’mon, sir, I’ll take you.”

“Thank you,” the man said, his voice a deep, rich bass that seemed to emanate from his toes.  “We didn’t … I mean, I had no way…”

The Sheriff smiled at him and nodded. “Yessir.  That’s why I made it my point t’greet you, sir.  Your boy’s doin’ real well.  Doc feels he’s out of danger.”

The man smiled in relief, then grew stern. “Well, at least until I get my hands on him,” he noted grimly, making the Sheriff chuckle. Guess a Pa’s always gonna be a Pa, no matter how old your young’un gets…

“Yeah, I have to admit even the doc was a might squiggle-eyed at yer boy’s choices,” he agreed.  Brackett gestured up the steps of the Doc’s house with a grin.

 

 

“So, once we got the infection loosened a bit and made that cough more productive, he started to respond right away to treatment, sir,” Ridgemont was telling him as he offered the tired man a cup of fresh coffee.  “I would have taken you in to see him first thing, but he’s asleep right at the moment and I figured you’d want to know his condition.”

“Thank you, Dr. Ridgemont, truly,” sighed Ben, relaxing finally, taking a sip of his coffee and leaning back, crossing his legs finally in a chair large enough to fit his big frame.  “The fever?  Still going?”

“Yes, but it’s low grade now.  More of a nuisance than anything else.  We keep pouring liquids down his throat and have him on a regular regimen of steam with peppermint oil to loosen up the mucus, as well as lathering him with mustard plasters, and making him swallow down juice of onion… seems to do well to reduce the inflammation and mucus build-up in his lungs.  He’s responding very well.”  The doctor smiled at the tired and worried man across from him.  “Really, Mr. Cartwright.  He’s doing extremely well, I promise you, considering how ill he was four days ago.”

Ben rubbed his eyes, wearily.  “I just wish… he’s always tended toward issues with his lungs… ever since he had  pneumonia as a little shaver, just three years old.  It’s really the only thing that ever seems to knock him down hard enough to put him in bed.  He’s usually healthy as a horse,” Ben sighed.  “He knows better… he knows better!”

Ben angrily slapped the arm of the overstuffed chair he sat in.  “He could have died out there, if he hadn’t had the devil’s own luck and got here in time for you to treat him!” The man placed a hand over his eyes, massaging his forehead.

The doctor silently allowed the overwrought father to vent his anxiety, knowing it had been a long and stressful four days cooped up in the stagecoach and at way stations overnight.

“He knows that, too,” said the Doctor quietly, “now.”  He leaned forward. “He knows he’s disappointed you.”

Ben’s head came up sharply.  “Disappointed me?! He hasn’t disappointed me, he scared me!”  Ben looked searchingly at the doctor.  “Why… why on earth would he think I was disappointed in him?”

The doctor leaned back and crossed his legs.  “Well, I might be wrong, but I got the feeling he sees himself as having a job to fulfill… that of being the ‘dutiful son’.  And with this little … aberration… ” chuckled Ridgemont, “his halo’s slipped a bit.”

“Oh, that’s just…” But then Ben stopped and gazed seriously at the doctor. “Did he say that?”

“No, he didn’t have to.” The doctor shook his head and sipped his coffee, thinking over his next words carefully.  “Mr. Cartwright, a good doctor needs to do an assessment not just of a patient’s physical condition, but his state of mind as well.”  He looked to the man in front him to see if he understood his meaning.

Ben’s mouth firmed, and he nodded, shortly.  He’d heard Paul Martin say much the same thing over the years.

Dr. Ridgemont set his coffee cup down and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, looking at the tired father directly.  “This is a bright young fella who graduated from Harvard College… a good degree in engineering, apparently.  A mathematics scholar.”

“How do you… “ Bewildered, Ben tried to follow.  “He’s been so sick… how can you know all this?”

“Because in between sharing with me his pride in the ranch you all have built, and the kindness of one younger brother and the love of life of the littlest one, as well as his respect for you, all he can talk about are the arts…  the plays of Shakespeare… the poetry of Dante and Chaucer.  The writings of Samuel Johnson, John Rawls and Thomas Paine. The mathematical conundrum of duality.”  The doctor spread his hands helplessly.  “I graduated from Yale, Mr. Cartwright.  But all I ever wanted to do was practice medicine.  It didn’t matter to me where I was, as long as I could help people.  Your son has a sharp mind, a mind that was thoroughly educated in Boston, a town overflowing with culture. This boy… thinks.”

Ben stared at the doctor, his heart beginning to sink.

“And it made me wonder… does he get those joys and ideas fed enough now?  Could that be why he was desperate… desperate to the point of risking his fool head and his health… in order to see the greatest dramatic actor of our age perform?” said the doctor gently.

Ben Cartwright looked pale and startled at first.  And then troubled.

The doctor rose to his feet and gestured toward the door. As the big man came abreast him, he gently touched the man’s arm.  “Mr. Cartwright… go easy on him.  He’s had a rough time.”

 

 

Ben stepped into the room quietly behind the doctor, who quickly made note of Adam’s breathing, touched a hand to his cheek very lightly, and nodded, winking, back at him.  “Fever’s much lower. He should be waking soon,” Dr. Ridgemont whispered.  He gestured to the overstuffed chair by the bed and left the room.

Ben crossed to the chair and sank into it, swallowing hard as he studied the gaunt, too-thin face, the eyes so darkly circled they almost looked bruised.  How, in one short week, could he go from vibrantly healthy, to this?!  Oh, Adam…

Very quietly, he drew the chair up closer and glanced down at the hand that had slipped free from the bedclothes, half-on and half-off the bed.  Smiling sadly to himself, Ben tenderly studied it: the graceful, long fingers that could pick notes out on a guitar or draft complex architectural designs as capably they could wield an axe or farrier’s tools.  Doing his best not to allow the emotion to overwhelm him, Ben drew in a shaky breath and gently clasped that hand.

Not too hot, thank God.  Oh, son, if I’ve… I’ve let you down, I’m so sorry…

Still clasping his son’s hand, Ben used his other hand to rub at his temples, trying to think back over the last few years.  Adam had been home from college for six years, now.  The first flush of excitement of all he’d learned during his four years in Boston had faded, Ben realized now.  Oh, to be sure, the applied mechanics and engineering he’d learned had been of tremendous help as they continued to build the Ponderosa, but Ben realized that the boy had to be… lonely, to a certain degree.

“So, it isn’t surprising he gets lonesome sometimes…. When nobody else’s brain works the way yours does, it’s gotta be.”  Joe’s words came back to Ben, and he sighed.

Oh, it was true that Adam had friends.  Good ones, in fact.  But there were few with whom he could truly converse about those things the doctor mentioned.

Literature, for example.  While Ben enjoyed reading, he leaned heavily on the Bible, or histories.  Hoss wasn’t a big reader at all, unless the subject matter was the natural world, and Joe still preferred dime novels.  Ben couldn’t remember the last time he had read Milton beyond the passage of Paradise Lost that held the most common memory for himself and Liz.

And what was that other thing Ridgemont had mentioned … ‘the conundrum of duality’?  What in all perdition was that when it was at home?!  Ben sighed.  Just because he’d been so busy or tired creating his own empire – or because he didn’t understand the advanced mathematics, he humbly admitted to himself – he’d done the equivalent of patting the boy on the head, as though he’d brought home a prize at school instead of acknowledging the man his son had become.  The educated, capable man in his own right.

Adam’s nose twitched slightly, and he frowned… leather.. bay rum…

Pa?

His weary eyes fluttered open, and his heart caught painfully in his chest, though that pang had nothing to do with his illness.  The young man was riddled with remorse to see how pale and worn his father looked.  Truly, his father looked years older than he had just a week ago.  How much of that is due to my stupid lack of judgement? Oh, Pa… I’m so, so sorry…

Adam remained still not wanting to disturb his father, but his damned chest had other notions, and he found himself coughing despite his best efforts.

Startled, Ben’s eyes flew open, and he stared down at his son.

“Well, well… awake, are we?” he smiled, tenderly.

Flushed from coughing, Adam leaned back again on his pillows, his breathing slowly coming back under control.

“I seem… to sleep… more than… anything… else…”

Ben winced slightly to hear the struggle for normal breath.  He shook his head and sighed, releasing the warm hand and sitting up straighter. Oh, Adam, what’ve you done to yourself this time?  He reached out and smoothed a wayward black wave off the young man’s forehead and lingered there a moment.  He smiled. “Your fever’s nearly gone, the doctor says.”

Adam nodded, sighing.  “I’m …much better,” he murmured looking down.  “Sorry… for worrying you.” He peered up through thick black lashes, making Ben’s heart ache at the familiarity of the expression. God, Liz, but he’s just like you!

Ben raised an eyebrow, thinking of what the Ridgemont had said.  “Adam… while I’m upset with you for having put yourself at risk…” He tipped his head to one side and raised an eyebrow.

Adam swallowed hard, and sighed, nodding.

“… I’m more upset with myself.”

Startled, Adam’s head came up, his eyes wide.  “What for?”

Ben leaned forward, looking directly into his son’s hazel eyes. “For you feeling you couldn’t talk to me.”

Adam chuckled. “I know I could’ve talked to you.  And I – cough! – I know exactly what you’d … have said.”  He cleared his throat, irritably, shaking his head in frustration.  “And you’d – cough! – have … been right.”

Ben smiled at him. “That wouldn’t have changed the way you felt, though, would it?”

Adam leaned back and closed his eyes.  “Moot point.  The performance – cough! – was last night,” he shrugged, despondent.  “All – cough! – for nothing. I promise, Pa… I won’t… let my – cough! – feelings… overtake me… like that… again.”

Ben leaned back, a severe look on his face.  “If anything, young man, I think you should allow it far more often.”

Adam’s eyes popped open wide in surprise.

“Adam, do you have some belief that I expect you to be… I don’t know… “  Ben waved his hand helplessly.  “Someone other than who you are?

“I.. I don’t under – cough! – stand.”

“I mean, son, that when you need to … scratch some creative itch you have,” smiled Ben gently, “stop burying it.”

“There’s work that has to be done – “ began Adam, in frustration.

“And it will be there when you return,” nodded Ben seriously.  “Or better yet, it’s work that your brothers can start to learn to handle.  You don’t have to do it all.  You need time to enjoy the things you love, son.  Hoss gets out to enjoy the wildlife and nature that he loves.  Joseph wouldn’t give up something he loved if my life depended on it!” Ben declared, eyebrows raised though his tone was light.  He leaned over and gripped his son’s forearm.  “Why do you think you have no right to do the same?”

Troubled, Adam licked his lips and shrugged.  “The things… I love… well, there’s… not a … “ but a bad coughing fit over came him, and it took several minutes to get his breathing back under control.  Alarmed, Ben stood, crossing to the washstand to pour a glass of water.  He sat down on the bed beside his son, supporting him, helping him remain upright.

It was so bad that the doctor came in, took one look at him and reached toward a small, brown bottle on the bureau and the large spoon.

“I think you’ve been talking quite enough for the time being,” he said firmly.  “Time to rest.”

Irritably, Adam shook his head, his lips thinned.

“I need to go send a wire to your brothers and let them know you’re on the mend, and to find a room,” said Ben, rising to his feet. He recognized that obstinate look on his oldest son’s face, imagining it wasn’t the first time Adam had balked at having to swallow down some medicine.  However, Ben also figured that Dr. Ridgemont had handled him pretty well so far and certainly didn’t need any help from him. “So, you can rest while I’m out.”

“Mr. Cartwright, I’m sure you’d like to stay close to your son, so I’ve had my housekeeper prepare a room for you down the hall,” the doctor smiled.

Surprised, the rancher looked at him. “That’s very generous, Doctor.”

“Not a bit,” assured Dr. Ridgemont. “It’ll do my patient good to have someone who cares so much about his welfare nearby.”  He grinned. “Besides, he’s been beating me too regularly at chess.  My ego needs a break!”

Ben chuckled.  He headed for the door. “Adam.”

The young man’s tired eyes looked up, troubled, at his father.

“The things you love… it’s time to start figuring out how to make room for them in your life.  So do some thinking.  We can talk more about it later.”  He nodded firmly, and headed out the door, leaving his surprised son open-mouthed, staring after him.

Jonas Ridgemont smiled and gestured to the young man.  “You need to rest.  And to do as your father tells you!  But first….”  He held up the bottle of ipecac in one hand, the large spoon braced against its neck and the basin in his other hand.  Adam sagged, unhappily, making a ‘face’ as the doctor advanced.

 

 

Adam closed his eyes and allowed the fragrance of the medicinal tea, doctored with a healthy dollop of honey, to fill his nose and sinuses.  The comforting memories that scent evoked did as much to make him feel loved, nurtured and cared for as his father’s soothing back rub with the lavender salve that had accompanied this tea.  It brought to mind many times over the years that the gentle, comforting hands of Hop Sing had patted his shoulder while handing him a cup of tea or dosed him with a cough elixir made with many Chinese herbs, but a good amount of whiskey and lemon as well. That lavender salve had eased the muscle aches that accompanied days of coughing as well as other aches and pains for many years, now.  He and Joe particularly appreciated it after a long day of bronc busting.

Dr. Ridgemont had been deeply curious about what went into the medicinals, and Ben had gladly shared the Chinese man’s recipes.  That curiosity turned to respect when he saw his previously restless, uncomfortable patient doze off for the first truly decent night’s sleep he’d had since tumbling off his horse more than a week earlier.

“I can’t – cough! – believe Hop Sing… had you … bring these,” he said, smiling tiredly at his father, sniffing the jar of salve.

“I think he’d have climbed into my luggage if he could,” replied Ben, grinning as he set Adam’s supper tray on the night table.  “He was convinced you couldn’t possibly be cared for by anyone else as well as he could.”

Adam snorted, then looked a little tiredly at the tray. “I’m not really very hungry,” he said apologetically.

“Dr. Ridgemont thought you might not be. He said to remind you to think of it as medicine, rather than a meal…apparently, just as he’s had to do the last few times you didn’t want to eat,” Ben said with a meaningful look at his son.  That little ruse doesn’t work any better on the doctor than it does on me, does it?

Adam rolled his eyes, and gave in, sitting up to allow the tray on his lap.

While he picked at his stew with a marked lack of interest, Ben chatted away, giving him the news of the Ponderosa, of their friends and neighbors.  Finally, when Ben good-naturedly threatened to spoon feed him if he didn’t finish his meal, the young man sighed, buckled down and finished all but two or three bites.

“Good.  Now you – “

“Need to rest,” Adam finished glumly.

“Exactly right,” agreed Ben, both eyebrows raised and an amused expression on his face, as he drew the curtains closed, and pulled his son’s bedclothes up around him.

“It’s been a number of years since you’ve – cough! – needed to tuck me in,” Adam grumbled, annoyed.

“A father’s privilege,” said Ben, tenderly.

 

 

As Adam continued to improve – and grow more and more irritable at being restricted to bed rest – Ben continued to grin inwardly, but made it sternly clear he would brook no nonsense about his son disobeying the doctor’s orders.  “The man spent most of a week laboring to keep you alive.  I raised you to be a lot more grateful than that,” he reminded the young man.

“I’m going to go stark, staring – cough! –  mad if I have to stay stuck in this bed – cough! –  much longer!”  Adam tossed his book onto the other side of the bed, frustrated.

Ben chuckled. “Well, you might, but you’ll be warm, covered up and lying down while you do it,” he said calmly, peering at Adam’s empty lunch plate.  Thankfully, he didn’t have to fight with him about that today. “Have you given any more thought to what we talked about?”

Adam stared out the window, his black brows knitted together.  “Pa, the things that – cough! –  interest me don’t interest – cough! –  most folk.  You know that.  For heavens’ sake – cough! –  oh, damn this cough to hell!… – cough! –  they don’t even interest my own family!”

“Mind your language.”  Ben shrugged. “No one said they had to.  But you have friends who like the same things you do.  You have an interest in history; so do a lot of people in both Virginia City and Carson.  Why not get together with several friends and organize some historical lectures?  Or some poetry readings.  Now that Sacramento, San Francisco and Los Angeles are within a week of Carson City and Virginia City, there’s no reason why poets, writers and other interesting speakers couldn’t be invited to do some speaking engagements.”  Ben fought to keep his lips steady as he watched his normally sensible, articulate and witty son regress into a surly adolescent version of himself, achieving a truly monumental pout.

“Of course, you CAN be as cantankerous and miserable as you want,” he said seriously.  “But the person you’re hurting most is you.”  He got to his feet and headed for the door.  “Close your eyes and rest.  A nap always improved your crankiness when you were small.”

And with that, he carried Adam’s lunch tray out of the room and down the hall to the kitchen, smirking at the soft growl he heard behind him.

 

 

Just as he reached the main parlor, the doctor’s surgery door opened and Ridgemont gestured a young matron and small boy, with a tear-streaked face and a bandage on his hand, out cheerfully.  “Now, you do your best to keep that cut clean, Bobby, all right?” he said gently. “I really didn’t like having to hurt you with those stitches. Not keeping it clean could make it get infected and hurt more. That would make me sad.  Do as your mama says, all right?”

The little fellow nodded, tears still very close to the surface.

“Good boy.” The doctor reached over to his bookshelf and drew down a large bowl of penny candies and smiled at the little fellow.  “Maybe one or two of these will help cheer you up a little, hm?”

The youngster looked to his mother, who smiled at him and nodded.  He helped himself and looked up at the doctor. “Thank you, Doctor Jonas,” he said softly.

“You’re welcome, Bobby.”  He turned to the young mother. “Now don’t you worry. If you follow my instructions, his hand should heal very nicely within 10 days to two weeks…”

Ben smiled, and continued into the kitchen, wondering if a couple of candies might sweeten his “little boy’s” disposition…

“How’s our patient?”

Ben glanced up as he soaped the stew bowl and spoon in the dishpan. “Grumpy,” he sighed. “Once he gets past the ‘I think I’m gonna die’ stage, Adam is absolutely the world’s worst patient.”

“Good!” chuckled the doctor.  “Means he’s feeling better.”

Ben raised an eyebrow, and his baleful expression indicated just what he thought of the doctor’s comment, but Ridgemont just laughed. “You know, at the rate he’s improving, you should be able to start home in a week or so.”

Cartwright wiped his hands on the kitchen towel and looked brighter. “Really?  Hearing that would improve his mood!”

“Well, let’s give it until tomorrow morning,” nodded Ridgemont, thoughtfully.  “If he’s still doing as well then as he has been these last two days, we can start letting him get out of bed for a little bit each day to start to regain his strength.  Then I think you two could start heading home on a week from Saturday’s stage.”

“Hmm,” said Ben thoughtfully.  “He’s – God willing – having a nap.  Would it be all right if I stepped out for an hour or so?’

“Certainly,” nodded the doctor, as he snagged an apple and took a bite.  “Something you need? Can I send out my man for you?”

“No, just an idea I have,” Ben mused.  He smiled at the doctor.  “I should be back in no more than two hours.”

 

 

For the nine days between the time Dr. Ridgemont first released Adam from total bedrest – “that means a little while at first, youngster! No more than half an hour out of bed on the first day. Don’t go getting any ideas that you’re getting dressed and walking around town!” – until he and Ben were packed and ready to leave, Adam and his father had had some time for serious talking.  Given this time to themselves, without ranch business distracting him or deflecting the necessity of the message he wanted to impart, Ben tried to impress on his oldest son that while it was true he leaned on him a great deal for the ranch to be a success, his son needed to learn a little ‘balance’ in his life.

“All work and no play makes Adam a dull boy,” teased his father gently one afternoon as they were seated in the doctor’s parlor, Adam still in a robe and slippers, but at least out of the confinement of the room in which he’d been convalescing.

“If I’d said that to you fifteen years ago, I’d have been marched to the barn,” smirked Adam, his voice and expression droll.

At that Ben sighed, and sobered.  “I know, and I’m sorry about that,” he said humbly.  “You had it harder than your younger brothers.  There was just so much work to do, so little time to just … oh, I don’t know, just be a boy.  Our circumstances made you have to grow up far too fast.”

Adam grew pensive as he studied his father’s face and leaned over, gripping the man’s forearm. “Pa… I understood,” he said gently.  “Believe me.”

“I do,” nodded Ben, his own big, broad hand covered his son’s graceful, artistic one.  “But that doesn’t change the reality, son.  From babyhood, your character was forged in work, deprivation and loneliness for so many years.  Our lives are a bit different now,” he said wryly, raising an eyebrow at his son.

“There’s still a lot of work needing to be done on a ranch,” reminded Adam, leaning back and closing his eyes, as though trying to distance himself from having to really dig into this subject.

“No denying it.  And a man needs to have work to do.  But he also needs enjoyment… time to allow himself the things he loves to do.  So… think on that, all right?”  Ben glanced at the grandfather clock across the room.  “I’m going to go get some coffee. You have about ten minutes left before you have to get back to bed.”

“Oh, Pa…”

Ben chuckled. “Now, that sounds like your youngest brother.”

He rose to his feet, looking down at his son. While he was undeniably better, Adam was still pale and weakened, and on impulse, Ben leaned over and kissed his son’s dark head, startling him.

“What was that for?”

Ben shrugged and patted the young man’s shoulder. “Sometimes, I think you didn’t get enough of that as a youngster.  I’m taking advantage of your weakened condition.”

 

 

That conversation opened the door to many others over the course of that week.  Plans Adam wanted to see enacted on the ranch – some of which Ben struggled with but still listened to –, ideas that Ben wanted to see take hold – some of which Adam felt were counter-productive and lacking progressive thinking but still listened to.  Memories were shared, some with great emotion, and others with just as much laughter.  The bottom line, however?  They talked. Truly talked for the first time in far too long.

It was something both men had badly needed in order to find, once again, that amazing strength-filled bond they shared.  It wasn’t that Ben loved one son more than another.  It was that he had a special connection with each one, each particular to that son. And with this oldest boy of his it was the incredible closeness they’d shared, forged in having only had each other to lean on for so many, many years.

Ben knew that as terrified as he’d been for Adam, this period of their lives had been an unparalleled gift.  For too long, the two had allowed the activity and never-ending work of the ranch to supersede the importance of their relationship with each other.  This time, alone together in sleepy little Waverly, had given them back that connection.

 

~o0o~

 

Arrangements were made for Sport to be ridden back to the Ponderosa by someone at the livery.  Chances were good he’d be home before they were.  The trip home was wearying, but uneventful.  Ben made sure Adam obeyed the doctor’s orders and took it easy.  And to be honest, his energy was still depleted enough that though he made a good show of annoyance at his father’s admonitions, he was just too tired to buck him much, anyway.  The funny part was that both he and his father knew it and allowed the little charade.  It reminded both of times as a child on the wagon train west when he’d pouted at not being allowed to take part in some of the ‘men’s work,’ while secretly grateful he was too small to really participate.

When the stage finally pulled into Virginia City, Adam thought he’d never been so happy to see his younger brothers’ faces anxiously awaiting as he and his father climbed down.  Hoss embraced him in a bear hug that took him right off his feet, making him laugh and bat at the big man’s sugarloaf hat, demanding to be set down.

“I’m gonna give you a few days to rest up,” said Hoss sternly, “then you and me, we’re gonna have us a talk.”

Adam chuckled, and blushed. “I know, Hoss.  Pa’s made it clear. Sorry I worried you.”

“Yeah, well, no matter what ‘Pa said’, when you get home you’ll be lucky if Hop Sing don’t take a wooden spoon to you,” Hoss declared, making Adam wince a little, remembering several memorable occasions when Hop Sing’s wooden spoon had been put to good use.

He turned to his baby brother. Joe started with a handshake, but Adam pulled him into a brotherly hug, which was returned. “I said you’d do anything you could to get outta hayin’!” Joe declared, his eyes damp. “Good to have you home, older brother.”

Adam put a hand on the back of his brother’s neck and smiled into his eyes. “Grateful to be home, Joe, believe me.”

Ben was greeted as well, and Adam noticed an odd pair of grins on his brother’s faces.

“What’s going on?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Nothin’,” replied Hoss, with that overly innocent look he had that was utterly useless, making his guilt obvious.  Adam frowned, but they said nothing more.

“Figured older brother would appreciate a soft ride, so I threw a couple pillows in the back o’ the wagon,” teased Hoss. “It’s yonder, over by Piper’s.  I’ll get your bags Pa, if you want to go ahead and get settled.”  Hoss winked at Joe as he grabbed their bags.

Tiredly, Adam made his way toward the opera house – wondering why in the world Hoss had left the wagon all the way over there – then he stopped short, his jaw dropped.

“You’d best shut your mouth, son,” said Ben softly, with a small smile.  “Flies are terrible this time of year.”

Adam turned his head in amazement at his father, then back at the sandwich board sign outside the theatre.

 

 

SPECIAL ENGAGEMENT

MONDAY  NIGHT, 7 PM

DRAMATIC READINGS BY THE

GREAT EDWIN BOOTH!

 

 

“But… how… when…“ sputtered Adam, turning in shocked amazement to his father.

Ben chuckled, nudging his son up into the wagon seat, then following him, gathering the reins.  “As I said, you’re not the only one in the area with an interest in the arts.  I wired Mrs. Duffy at the Virginia City Literary Society, and she agreed that if I could make it worth Mr. Booth’s while and his schedule permitted it, we’d arrange for him to do a side trip here.”  He gripped his son’s forearm. “It won’t be the full production, I’m afraid, but he’s going to be doing soliloquys from Hamlet, as well as Henry V, Richard III, Tristan and Isolde… and some works by other playwrights.”

Adam had a good idea what “worth his while” would probably calculate up to be, and even with all ticket sale proceeds going to Booth as well as perhaps a small amount kicked in by the Literary Society, he knew that his father was footing most of this bill… which would be huge.  Had he been at full health, he probably could have held onto his composure, but…

Ben grew alarmed to see Adam’s lips tremble slightly and his hazel eyes blink hard, welling up. “Son…”

Adam shook his head and swallowed. “No, Pa, it’s all right.  I just… “ Helplessly, he waved a hand at the sign and looked with deep love and gratitude to his father. “Thank you.  Thank you so very much.”

Joe and Hoss came up alongside the wagon, and Joe became alarmed at the obvious emotion on his older brother’s face.  “Adam! You alright?  We all thought you be pleased!”

“I am, Joe,” Adam sniffed and smiled. “Really, I’m – “

“Yeah, we know,” snorted Hoss. glancing at his father and brother.

“You’re fine!” chorused Joe, Ben and Hoss together sarcastically, then burst into laughter and sheepishly, Adam chuckled as well.

THE END

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Author’s Notes: 

1. This short story kind of negates the plot premise in “The Actress” that Adam and Edwin Booth knew each other. Apologies to episode writers Norman Lessing, Fred Hamilton and David Dortort.
2. Historically, Virginia City’s Piper’s Theatre wasn’t built until the mid-1860s, so at 17 Joe wouldn’t have been able to see a ‘pretty gal singing’… but since it was there in “A Rose for Lotta” (snort!) I’m content to thumb my nose at history, too…
3. My thanks to the lovely Bonanza Brand members who so kindly gave me feedback, comments and encouragement through a very different process for me!!  🙂