Summary:  A long-lost son contemplates returning home.
Rating:  G  (2,450 words)

“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.”

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The Road that Leads Me Home

This verse of Coleridge’s poem had never seemed more apt.   I close the book of poetry I have been reading and watch the horizon.  Why I do not know, for there was nothing to see except endless miles of the Pacific Ocean.  The sun has barely risen but I will not leave my post until I see my goal. I reflect on the contradiction of the concept of time; when we wish it to pass slowly it flies by, when we are anxious for it to advance, it hangs heavy.  The captain assures me that we are within a day of San Francisco, if the wind is favorable. Indeed, any wind would be favorable right now, but there is not a breath.

One more day of sailing, a day and a half on board a paddle steamer to Sacramento and a day on a fast horse home.  Or should I take the train and then a horse from Reno?  Which would be quicker?  I fish in my shirt pocket for my brother’s letter, a letter which has followed me around the world, finally catching up with me in Australia.  Would it matter?  Was I already too late!

I open the grubby envelope and read the stark words for the hundredth time:  Pa is sick, he is asking for you.  Paul says you should come home.  There was more but those few words said it all.  It seemed a lifetime ago that I had left Nevada to travel and see the world.  My restless soul had needed something more than the routine of running a ranch.  No, make that helping to run a ranch and thereby was the rub.  I was never my own man.  I was always in the shadow of my invincible father, or so it seemed.  I was one quarter of a whole, sharing the responsibility with my father and brothers.  At best I was second-in-command, my decisions questioned, my work checked.  I wanted to be the King, not the Prince.  Looking back, I can see it was not as bad as I painted it.  My father rarely challenged by decisions; he trusted me, but at the time I felt repressed and unfulfilled.

When I expressed my wish to leave, to travel, to find myself, to make it on my own, he cautioned me to think it through but he never once tried to tell me I was wrong or foolhardy.  As he had always done throughout my thirty-five years, he gave advice and allowed me to make my own decision.  All three Cartwright sons learned from Pa’s wisdom if they took the time to listen, and from their own mistakes if they didn’t, and, boy, did we make some.

So I traveled.  I have seen many countries and met many new people.  I have worked in a variety of jobs with varying success.  At times I have been happy and fulfilled, but there have been as many times when I have been depressed and disillusioned.  I would not change my decision with hindsight but I know now that wherever I have been and whatever I have done there has always been a missing ingredient.  Happiness is only perfect when you have someone to share it and depression can only be lifted when there is someone who cares.  For the first thirty-five years of my life that someone was my father.

I draw my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them as I stare out to sea.  I was born by the sea.  My father and grandfather were sailors. It is in my blood.  Maybe that is why I am never satisfied if I stay in one place for too long.  The first eight years of my life were spent traveling, but on land.  My first memory is of a cramped wagon swaying as it trundled along a dusty road. My father driving the horse with one hand and holding on to me with the other so that I don’t fall.  I feel safe and secure.  I remember being alone and afraid when he left me to work, sometimes on farms and once in what I now know to be the Pennsylvania coal mines but to a frightened four-year-old it was a place of darkness and danger.

My fear of losing my father never diminished, in fact it increased with every loss I suffered.  I kept those fears to myself, as I learned to do with all my feelings.  My father went without food so that I could eat; he worked his fingers to the bone so that I would have clothes to wear and a roof, or at least a wagon canvas, over my head. He did not need the irrational fears and insignificant illnesses of a small boy to worry him.  I learned to stand alone, or thought I did.  Now I’m wiser and I know that I was never alone, he was always there for me.

My brother Hoss came along and for a time we were a family and my fears abated a little until I suffered another loss.  My father taught me not to fear or hate the Indians because of the manner of her death.  He taught me that one should not condemn a whole race for the deeds of a few.  He saw the best in all men. I’m not sure I ever fully learned that lesson.  Sometimes, I still find it hard to forgive.  My brother Hoss learned it well; I have never met a man who cares for his fellows or indeed for any of God’s creatures as he does.

I feel a breeze on my cheek; the sails, which previously hung limp and lifeless, are filling slowly.  We are moving a step nearer to home.  Home… the place we found in Nevada; that beautiful lake and those magnificent trees.  We knew the moment we saw it that nothing would ever compare and although my travels have taken me to some wondrous places none approaches the beauty of home.

I remember the fun we had as children, hunting, fishing, riding, and wild and free.  Well, as free as Pa and our chores would allow.  Sometimes he would join us, but he never let us forget our duties.  We were taught early that hard work never hurt anyone and even when the ranch became successful enough to employ a large number of men, we were always expected to do our share.

My brothers are still there doing their share of the work and now shouldering this latest burden.  Did I run away from responsibility or did I run toward my future?  I have never been really sure.  All I know is that I need to be there now.  The person I love more than any other may be dying and I am not there to support him when he needs me most.  He gave me unconditional love; a love that I tested more than once and it never came up wanting.

I remember my stepmother, Marie, and how my jealousy caused so much pain.  First the jealous feelings of a child whose father loves another, an interloper, came between us when we needed no one else.  Then a different kind of jealousy as, in my adolescence, I fell in love with her beauty just as he had done and resented his presence.  How well I recall those strange feelings as I changed from boy to man and her understanding as she saw how I felt.  I recall the moment we finally became a family of five, because my youngest brother was born. I loved him from the first time I saw him, so small and vulnerable. He brought an unquenchable spirit into the family.  Joe knows how to live life to the fullest.  How I’ve wished at times that I was more like him, able to shake off my cares and relax.  He tried to teach me and maybe I learned too well.  I took off to follow my own dreams and left him with the responsibility.  I know from Pa’s letters that he grew into that role, the strength he had once I was no longer there to diminish it.

And Marie… how short was that time before she was taken from us.  I remember my sorrow and frustration at her death and my father’s inability to cope.  My strong father, no longer the rock I leaned upon.  How hurt he was and how impotent I was to assuage that hurt.  The only time in my life when he was not there for me and I could repay him with my support.

Is it that way now?  Does he look for my face, listen for my voice?  I have failed him.  I am not there in this darkest hour.  My brothers are with him and yet he asks for me. Does he search for his eldest son and feel disappointed?  Please let me look upon his face just once more, let me hear his voice say my name.

There is a smudge of gray in the distance, a faint line on the horizon.  Is it a cloud, or is it land?  The land of my birth, my homeland.  I stand and watch that distant smudge as it grows darker and takes shape.  Soon the hills are clearer and beyond them mountains, or is that my imagination playing tricks?  Am I seeing the snow-capped mountains of my youth with my eyes or in my head? Mountains I’ve climbed, roads I have traveled, people who mean so much to me, more than I knew when I left them so long ago.

The land grows clearer for a while then a sea mist begins to roll over us and we are enveloped in fog.  The ship sounds its foghorn, a mournful sound echoing back at us as we glide silently toward safe harbor.  Is that sound an omen of things to come?  At the end of my journey will I be mourning the loss of a father and a friend?

I’m still in pensive mood as I disembark and arrange for my luggage to be sent on by the next available carrier.  With only a carpetbag in my hand, I hurry through the darkening streets to the nearest livery stable to hire or buy a horse.  I settle for buying; who knows when I will return?  The sorrel mare reminds me a little of my old mount, Beauty, and I wonder if she is still living out her time in the pasture.  Everything ages and life moves on.  I doubt I will recognize many of the people and places from my past.

It is only after I have traveled outside the city and the darkness has closed around me that I realize I have no supplies and only the canteen of water supplied by the livery.  I am not accustomed to being away from stores or fresh water.  The knowledge that I have become a city dweller hits me hard.  For the next few miles I slowly try to adjust my mind and my senses to this hostile environment, at least hostile to the man I am now.  The man and boy that I was would know how to survive.  My father taught me, as he taught me so many things, with love and discipline, example and patience.  His words and teachings echo in my head and I am amazed at how quickly the skills of the trail come back to me. I push the horse hard but not so hard that she fails me.  As dawn breaks I find water and game and after a few spectacular misses I manage to get my hunter’s eye and an unwary rabbit is mine.

Breakfast is good.  I haven’t forgotten how to make a campfire nor do I forget to douse it and make it safe.  I am maybe a day and a half from my destination.  I have never been a very religious man, despite my father’s teachings, but I offer up a prayer that he is waiting for me.  I doze off in the saddle and almost fall. I am reminded of the times that my father reprimanded me for reading while riding.  I laugh softly as I recall the times my brothers and I slept in the saddle after a raucous night in town, with the soberest one, usually Hoss, being guard for the other two.  Pa never knew about that.  Yes, I guess maybe he did.  There wasn’t much he missed even if he didn’t always feel obliged to comment on it.

Stopping to rest the mare frustrates me but I have no other mount and if she founders then I will be afoot in the mountains and, even at this time of year, I know that is not a welcome prospect.  Eventually, as the afternoon softens to evening, I reach the trail that leads down from the pass and below I catch a glimpse of that beautiful blue that tells me I am almost home.  An hour passes and I am surprised to find that I have slowed my horse to a walk.  Surely I should be hurrying.  In less than a mile I will be able to see the house, my goal in sight.  Still I tarry.  I have traveled for a long time; the letter was sent many weeks before that.  I do not want to face my fears.  While I do not know, I can imagine he is still standing on the porch yelling orders.  I can picture him as he was when I left, gray-haired, yes, but fit and healthy.

The house comes into view; it has not changed.  Smoke from the kitchen chimney drifts on the evening breeze.  The roses over the porch are closing up for night and the horses in the corral mill around a little at my approach.  Near the barn I see my brother Hoss raise his head at the sound of hooves and my youngest brother Joe closes the corral gate and looks up at me.

The moment is at hand; I am not yet near enough to see their expressions and my fear grows until it overwhelms me.  I cannot look and I ride the last few yards with my head down.  I only know that whatever is ahead I will never leave this place again.

Inspired by the Hoyt Axton’s song  from ‘Dead and Gone’, which Adam and Howard sing together.  This was the last episode Pernell Roberts filmed marking his departure, and with him the character of Adam, from the series.