Summary:  Brothers are always there for each other, no matter what the circumstances.
Rating:  G  (3,010 words)

ALWAYS THERE

Hoss Cartwright reined in his horse.  Here, way above the lake, it was beautiful; the sunlight made patterns through the trees and the lake sparkled way below him.  He was a big man and he sat tall in the saddle of his dark bay horse, surveying the land around him with obvious pleasure.  He lifted his head to the mountains where the snowcapped peak of Mount Tallac watched over the land below.  There was nowhere else on earth as beautiful, Hoss was sure of that.  He had finished his work up here and should really be heading into town to meet his father, but he had felt the need for a moment of peaceful contemplation and it was peaceful here.  Suddenly he shivered, as if one of the Washoe Zephyrs had struck.  He glanced around; it was high summer and the only wind was a soft, gentle, warm breeze, nothing to make him react as he had.  A dark cloud passed over the sun the sensation of cold came again.  Somehow he knew that something was wrong, somewhere a member of his family was in trouble.  He swung Chub in a circle and headed back down the slope towards Virginia City, pushing his horse harder than he would normally in these conditions.

There was a rumble deep in the earth and the buildings on ‘C’ street shook.  Folk above ground ignored it and went about their business.  It was a common occurrence: every time a new seam was opened or a new tunnel dug, the blasting would shake the foundations of Virginia City and newcomers would marvel that the buildings still stood.  The mountain was honeycombed with tunnels and shafts, each a testimony to the wealth below the city.

Ben Cartwright straightened up from the bank counter and listened; that had sounded like a mine near his own.  Hopefully, someone had found a new seam.  He was becoming anxious that the mine was draining the resources of the ranch without providing a return.  His oldest son had argued vehemently that it took time to establish a new mine and that more, not less, investment was needed, but despite his faith in Adam’s abilities he wasn’t entirely convinced.  He wanted more ore samples for assay to reassure him that he was not pouring good money after bad.

He had come into town today with various errands to run, including this one to the bank.  He planned to meet up with his sons for dinner this evening.  He had already collected the mail and had been disappointed to find that the letter he was expecting had not arrived.  When he had first set up home in the Washoe Valley, mail had taken months to arrive from the eastern cities, but since the advent of the railroad that delay had dropped to days.  That letter should have been here; it really was too bad.  He listened again, as another blast made the ground shudder and he hoped that it was a good sign.  A new seam being opened in his mine, or a neighboring one, would at least bring work to the city.

The next sound, however, struck terror into his heart – and into the hearts of all those who had friends and loved ones below ground.  From one of the mines to the north of the city came the unmistakable wail of the siren.  All heads turned and feet began to pound along the sidewalk towards the mine entrance.  An accident!  Was it a fire, a flood, a cave-in?  Or, a combination of these?  Every man, woman and child in the city wanted to know.

Six hundred feet below the street, they knew.  An inexperienced miner had set off a charge without allowing his supervisor to check it and the resulting blast had caused a massive cave-in.  Some 30 men were trapped, some perhaps killed; some were certainly injured.  In a tunnel off the main shaft, a group of miners clung together for support, checking and counting, trying to work out who was alive and who was dead.  Three dead, and three more unaccounted for – a terrible toll, even if the remaining group could be rescued alive.

The dust settled and one young man groaned and tried to move.  Panic…he couldn’t move, he was trapped under one of the beams.  A timber supplied by his family, a timber from the mighty Ponderosa ranch, was pinning him to the rock, slowly crushing him beneath its weight.  He took a deep breath and glanced around him.  There was nothing to see; the lamps and candles had been extinguished and the darkness was complete.  He tentatively moved one arm, then the other.  He felt a few bruises, but nothing broken.  His head hurt and he put up a hand to his temple; his fingers probed and came away sticky.  He was bleeding, but not profusely.  He sighed with relief – and felt the pain in his chest worsen.  He must have cracked some ribs.  His legs felt numb, but there was no real pain.

He tried to remember exactly where he had been when the cave-in occurred – and who had been with him – but his head hurt and it wasn’t clear.  He hated the mine, the closed-in feeling, the darkness.  When he was down here he was always impatient, longing to be back on top in the fresh air.  It irritated his older brother so much that he would often refuse Pa’s request to take him underground, but Pa insisted that all of them should understand all aspects of the business, not just their own.

It was all right for Adam.  He enjoyed mines and mining, he could handle the timber business and run the cattle empire and…Joe groaned…he could interfere in the horse breeding side, which was supposed to be Joe’s own responsibility.  It was hard being the youngest, always being treated as a kid, and Joe resented it.  He particularly resented his older brother giving him orders.  They argued often and then Pa would support Adam and Joe would feel even more resentful.

He lay in the darkness, trying to recall why he was in the mine.  Oh, yes, Pa wanted some ore samples for assay.  The new vein wasn’t as rich as they had expected and Pa was worried that it was wasting hard-earned resources.  Joe hoped it was true.  He would love to see the mine fail, partly because he hated the mining business, but also because it would be nice to see his older brother proved wrong for once.  He remembered now that they had come down here to the new tunnel to check it out.  The panic returned and Joe twisted a little, then groaned again in pain.  He had to know if anyone else was nearby.  As he moved, his hand touched something warm and he realized it was another hand.  He wasn’t alone.

He called softly, “Are you all right?”

There was no answer.  He reached further and then recoiled in shock.  Beyond the hand was a crushed arm and then rock.  Whoever it was must be buried and almost certainly dead.

“Adam!” he screamed.  “Adam!”

His voice echoed around the small chamber that held him prisoner.  Oh God, he was alone and his brother was dead.  He began to scream in fear, his voice rising as the panic overwhelmed him.  He had wanted to prove Adam wrong, he didn’t want him dead.

Then from the darkness somewhere behind him came a calm reassuring voice.

“It’s okay, Joe.  I’m here.  You’re gonna be fine.”

Joe almost sobbed in relief.  “Adam, are you really okay?  You’re not hurt?’

“No, I’m not hurt, but I can’t get to you right now.  You have to hang on until help comes.”  His older brother’s voice sound confident and it restored Joe’s courage.  Adam had always been there for him.  If he said it was going to be all right, it would be.

“Keep talking to me, Joe, that way I’ll know you’re still awake.  You must stay awake.  The rescue party will need to be able to talk to you.”

Joe relaxed a little until the pain in his chest returned.  “My chest hurts, it’s hard to breathe,” he moaned.

“The dust doesn’t help and I expect you’ve broken some ribs.  Just rest easy, help’s coming.”

Adam’s voice seemed to be slightly above him and to his left, but he could see nothing in the pitch darkness.

“I’m scared, Adam.  It’s so dark down here.”  Joe voiced his fears, knowing his older brother could be trusted never to tell anyone that he had been frightened.  He had always hated the dark and as a child had often run to his brother’s room in the middle of the night after a bad dream.  “You remember how I used to creep into your bed when I had a nightmare when I was a kid?”

“Yeah, I remember.  Sometimes there’d be all three of us in one bed, if there was a storm or if something had happened during the day that we wanted to talk about,” Adam replied.

“I remember the nightmares I had when Mama died and how you sat with me until I went to sleep,” Joe said quietly, his voice drifting away a little.

“Joe, Joe!”  The voice was urgent, demanding.  “You mustn’t go to sleep now.  Keep talking to me,” Adam ordered.  “Tell me about the horses you’re working with.  The black you’re so proud of, tell me about him, Joe.”

Joe began to describe the attributes of a black stallion he had captured and how he planned to break him, what a good addition he would make to the Ponderosa’s string of horses.  His voice began to waver again and he cleared his throat.

“I’m sure thirsty,” he called out.  “A nice cold beer would go down well right now.”

“Yeah. Remember when Hoss and I took you to a saloon for the first time?  Leastwise, we thought it was the first time.”

Despite the pain it caused, Joe chuckled.  “I didn’t like to tell you that I’d been going there for months with my friends, in case you told Pa.”

“Pa sure was mad at us,” Adam responded.  “He didn’t stop lecturing me for days.”

“Adam,” Joe said softly, “we are gonna get out of here, aren’t we?  I mean, it’s been an awful long time and I can’t hear anything.  Shouldn’t they be digging by now?”

Above ground the rescue party had formed and heads were being counted.  “There was 32 on that level, 14 of ‘em in the tunnel that’s gone,” one of the miners informed Ben Cartwright.  “Even if they survived the fall, it’s gonna take a while to get through to them.  We need to shore up as we go.”

Ben nodded, the shock of the accident registering on his pale face.  Much as he wanted to claw at the rock with his bare hands, he knew that slow and steady was the best way to ensure the safety of any survivors.

The first group trapped only by the broken lift, were soon free and able to give more information about their colleagues.  Ben searched their blackened faces.  He knew some by name, but most were just names on a payroll sheet.  His search told him that what he wanted to see was still below ground.  He took a deep breath and pushed all thought except the rescue from his mind.

Slowly the rock was cleared, new timbers were brought in and lowered to shore up the tunnel.  As soon as it was possible, Ben insisted on going down; this was his mine, his men, his… He couldn’t bring himself to say the word, even in his head.  He approached the rock fall with trepidation, terrified of what he would find behind it – or under it.

“We’ve heard tapping,” the supervisor informed him, “Eight survivors from the message.”

Ben bit his lip; that meant six dead or unaccounted for.  He tried to calculate the odds, but they were too poor to give him comfort.  Even one dead could be one too many.  He put his energies into digging until he was exhausted.

Hoss knew the moment he entered the main street that there had been an accident.  The usual bustle was absent, silent people moved along watching the mountain.  Around the mine entrance crowds had gathered, families and friends of those below.  A group of women and children stood apart from the others.  These were the women who would wait forever if that was what they were called on to do.  Their men were below and they would not budge until the mountain gave them up, alive or dead.

He pushed through the crowd and as soon as the miners saw him they backed away.  Hoss didn’t need anyone to tell him who was down there, he knew…

“Take me down,” he called to the winch man and his order was obeyed instantly.  Once into the darkness, Hoss’ reaction was much like his younger brother’s.  How did Adam stand this?  What was the fascination with mines and engineering that pushed him into dark holes in the ground?  Hoss preferred the clean, crisp air of the mountains and valleys around the ranch.

He joined his father at the rock face.  No words were exchanged, but his father’s look told him all.  With Hoss beside him, Ben renewed his attack on the barrier separating him from his goal.  Suddenly a chink opened in the wall and voices were heard from the other side.

“How many of you?” Ben called.

“Eight alive and three dead,” came back the reply.

Ben looked up at Hoss, neither daring to ask the next question; they simply bent to the task of enlarging the opening.  One by one the trapped men scrambled to safety and one by one Ben examined them until eight men stood in the narrow tunnel and he had to admit that his search was not yet done.

“Let me go first,” Hoss said gently, pushing his father aside.  If those bodies were what he was expecting, he wanted to spare his father the task of identifying them.

He enlarged the hole still further to allow his large frame an easier passage and then bent over each of the bodies.  Each time his sigh was one of relief.  He was sorry and shocked at the deaths of the miners and thought of those women waiting above, but his own grief was not yet confirmed.  There was still a chance.  As he looked at the next pile of rock blocking the tunnel, he realized it was a slim chance.

“It’s okay, Pa, you can come on through.  There’s another fall beyond this one.  The others must be further on.”

Joe had talked to Adam about anything and everything, telling stories of childhood pranks, girlfriends, school and his hopes and aspirations for the future.  His voice shook and his throat was dry, but Adam wouldn’t let up.  Every time Joe faltered, Adam’s strong voice was there, urging him to stay awake, to fight to survive.  Suddenly, to his joy, he heard the sound of pickaxes and faint voices.

“They’re coming, Adam, I can hear them,” he croaked.

“Yes, Joe, they’re coming – and soon you’ll be in the clean air again.  Hold on just a while longer,” he encouraged.

For hours the rescuers worked until, tired and exhausted, they exposed another chamber.  Three bodies – or, at least, parts of bodies – were found and the rescuers held their breath as Hoss checked each one, two dead and one barely alive.

It was some hours later that Joe began to regain consciousness.  He was aware of his father and brother by his bedside, but not too sure where he was.  Slowly the world came back into focus and he recognized Doc Martin’s office and the doctor himself standing nearby.  He tried to sit up, but Ben pushed him gently back onto the pillows.

“Take it easy, son.  You’ve cracked some ribs and you breathed in a lot of dust.  That cut on your head bled a lot and you need to rest.  You’ve got a lot of bruises and some crush injuries, but you’re going to be all right,” Ben said softly.

“The others?” Joe asked, his eyes begging his father to say they were all right, too.

Ben took his hand.  “You rest, son.  Don’t worry about anything just yet.”

Joe searched his father’s face.  “Adam?  He’s all right, isn’t he?”

Hoss leaned over his younger brother.  “Adam?” he queried.

Joe looked at Hoss as if he were an imbecile.  “Yes, Adam.  He was with me in the tunnel.  You got him out and he’s okay, right?”

Hoss and Ben exchanged a look.  “Son, I don’t understand.  Adam’s in Boston, he’s been there more than six months now.”

Joe looked at his father in amazement as his memory returned and he recalled seeing Adam off on the stage.  “He was there, Pa.  He talked to me, he made me stay awake.  He made me fight to live.”

Ben patted his son’s hand.  “I’m sure he was, son.”

Joe shrugged off the hand irritably as he tried to make his father understand.  “He was there, Pa.”

Paul Martin stepped forward.  “Something kept him going, Ben.  He’s lost a lot of blood and his lungs are full of dust.  If he’d allowed himself to sleep he might well have died.  Something – or someone – gave him the will to live and that helped him survive.”

Three thousand miles away in a Boston office, Adam Cartwright sighed and replaced the picture of his younger brother.  He had no idea why it had fallen from its usual spot on the corner of his desk or why he had felt the need to stare at it for so long.  Thoughts of Joe had filled his head for most of the afternoon.  Guiltily, he picked up his pen and began a letter to his father.  Maybe he would go home in the fall.

Joe was drifting off to sleep from the sedative Paul had given him and Ben had to bend close to him to hear his next sentence:

“Whenever I’ve needed him, he’s always been there for me…”