8

Adam figured the fever had probably been inevitable. He’d noticed hours earlier that the splinters in Joe’s back were already surrounded by the fiery, red haloes of infection. They would need to be removed, but Adam had not been willing to do it out there in the desert. Joe had needed a doctor, or at the very least clean bandages, and preferably some medicine as well. At the station, Joe had all three. Even so, his temperature had also climbed.

“Fever’s mild and holding steady,” Doc Harding said after Joe settled into a reasonably calm sleep. “I don’t expect it to get any worse. He should be fine in a few days.”

“What about the numbness?”

Harding glanced at him. Without answering, he turned away and reached deep into his black bag, pulling out a flask and taking a quick swig. “That’s a good question,” he said after a loud swallow. “One I don’t have an answer for. It’ll go away or it’ll get worse. Only time will tell.”

Adam pulled his arms across his chest, his eyes locked on the flask. It was a struggle to hold himself back. He wanted to knock the thing from the man’s grip. Yet now that Joe had been treated and was resting in some degree of comfort, there was no point to denying the doctor his vice. Adam watched Harding ease his heavy frame into a chair by the fire before setting his attention where it really mattered: on Joe. He found himself another chair, pulled it beside the cot and sat down to wait. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was waiting for—the feel of Joe’s skin to cool, his uneven and too quick breaths to soften, or his eyes to open and his smile to widen as he jumps out of bed, eager for a ride on Cochise.

Adam grinned despite his concerns. Joe had been thrown from enough wild stallions to make Adam believe his brother’s back had been forged of steel. One stagecoach wreck couldn’t do what a dozen horses failed to accomplish. Joe would be fine in a few days. The swelling would subside, and Joe would be back to the impetuous little brother he had always been—admittedly thanks in large part to the ministrations of a doctor Adam had been hard-pressed to trust.

Doc Harding was certainly not the best doctor Adam had ever encountered. He wasn’t the worst, either. In fact, there were far worse doctors in the west, men Adam wouldn’t depend on to remove a splinter from his finger, let alone the flecks of wood that had been embedded in Joe’s back. While Harding had worked on his brother, Adam had clenched his hands into rock-hard fists yet somehow had managed to speak calmly, talking about the children and the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Andersen, hoping Joe would believe Adam had enough faith in the doctor’s skills to allow his attention to wander.

Surprisingly—fortunately—the doctor proved to have a cautious, meticulous touch. He might even have been a fine surgeon in his younger days—before the drinking, before whatever had driven him to find solace in a bottle.

XxXxX

“Harding?” Ben’s shouting could be heard well beyond Dr. Martin’s office in Virginia City.

Hoss heard it the instant he rounded the corner. The volume alone made him want to turn right back again. When Pa was that angry, the best place to be was wherever he wasn’t. But considering what was going on with Joe and all that Hansen business, he figured the doc might need a little help. Besides, Hoss wanted to tell Pa what Gunnar Andersen had said. However much he wanted to turn back, instead he quickened his pace.

“Why, I wouldn’t let that drunkard near any of my sons,” Ben went on. “Or any of my livestock, for that matter! He’s completely—”

“Ben, please!” Paul Martin cut in. “You have to understand, the stage line sent in the closest, most available doctor on the route. I would have gone, had I been in town when they asked.”

“Then go now! Come with me. We’ll ride out there together.”

“Be reasonable, Ben. Think about what you’re saying. It would take hours to get there, and the same coming back. I can’t leave Virginia City unattended for so long when there’s clearly no critical reason to do so.”

“No critical reason? No critical reason! Little Joe’s neck might be broken!”

“Fractured, Ben. There’s a difference. Regardless, there’s nothing more I could do now that Dr. Harding hasn’t done already. Whether you trust his skills or not, he is absolutely correct to say there is nothing to do now but wait and see.”

“Well….” Ben turned toward the door just as Hoss hurried in; but instead of greeting his middle son, he swiveled back to Paul. “I’ll go myself, then! I am not going to—”

“Pa!” Hoss tried to interrupt.

“—stand idly by and wait to find out—”

“Pa!”

“—whether my youngest son is going to—”

“Pa!”

“WHAT IS IT, HOSS?” Ben shouted louder still.

“Pa, I come to tell you that Mr. Andersen, Mrs. Hansen’s brother? Turns out, he’s a lawyer, Pa. He says he might have found a way to get that money back from Mr. Gainsby—some kind of loophole or somethin’.”

“And why on Earth should that concern me?” Ben continued to holler. “It’s Little Joe I’m worried about!”

“I know, Pa. I am, too. But it’s like the doc said. There’s nothing we can do for him right now. But…you see…. Well, it’s that money that caused this whole mess in the first place. Don’t you think if we can help Mrs. Hansen get that money back…well, don’t you think in a way we’d be helping Joe, too?”

“I can’t….” Ben’s voice started to soften. “I won’t let….” He turned from Hoss to Paul, and then back to Hoss again. His shoulders started to sag. He closed his eyes briefly, and then gazed out the window beside him.

“What is it this Mr. Andersen needs for us to do?” Ben asked quietly.

“He just wants us to help him sort through some details, Pa. If you could just maybe talk with him for a bit?”

Ben took a deep breath before returning his attention to Hoss. “Fine. We’ll talk.”

As he began following Hoss out the door, he turned back to Dr. Martin. “But then I am riding to Peter’s Station!” He added as loudly as he could.

XxXxX

As evening settled in, Slim found the doctor gazing deep into the fire while Adam was attempting to tune an old guitar he’d found tucked away in a corner of the station.

“Next stage is comin’ in early,” Slim said.

Harding, lost in the flames, seemed not to have heard him.

“Doc?”

The doctor blinked. He turned toward the station manager. “Huh?”

“I said the next stage. It’ll be comin’ in early. You can take it back to Carson City tomorrow, if you like.”

“Oh. Yes. Thank you.” Harding returned his attention to the fire as Slim walked away shaking his head and muttering indecipherable words under his breath.

“I appreciate your coming out here, Doc,” Adam said then.

Doc Harding gazed his way, seeming confused.

“I’d like to thank you for helping Little Joe the way you did.”

Harding shook his head. “I’m just … just a tool.” He looked back toward the fire.

“A tool?”

“It’s God….” Harding sighed. “He does what he does…makes me…do what I do. It’s out of my hands. Always out of my hands.”

Adam studied him for a long while as the fire crackled through the silence. The man’s eyes reflected the flames as though they were embers trapped behind glass—as though Harding himself was trapped. But behind what?

“You know,” Harding sighed heavily, his chest expanding and then deflating so much he seemed to sink in on himself. “A doctor…he never can pull down his shingle.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Just can’t…can’t stop doctoring.”

“You’ve tried?”

“Can’t.”

“Maybe that’s because you don’t want to stop. Maybe it’s because you care too much to stop.”

The doctor sat silent for a long moment and then turned his head toward Adam. “Caring’s got nothing to do with it.” His gaze was almost pleading.

“To do with what?”

“It’s God who saves them. Or takes them. I’m just a tool. It doesn’t matter what I do. It…doesn’t matter how well I do it. It’s always…always…out of my hands.”

Harding lifted his right hand from the chair arm and began staring at his palm. He curled his fingers and stretched them out, apparently mesmerized by his ability to do so.

“Who was it?” Adam asked.

“What?”

“Someone you couldn’t save.”

The doctor’s lip turned upward into a small, lopsided smile. “Not just one. If it had been just one….” He chuckled. An instant later his smile died, his eyebrows lifted and his gaze grew glassy and hopeless once more. “No. There’s just too many.”

“I was right, wasn’t I? You care too much to stop.”

“I’m a tool. I’ll do what I do until God himself makes me stop. It’s…out of my hands.”

An ember popped, pulling Doc Harding’s eyes back to the flames. Adam watched as those eyes began to fill, the fire glistening in each gathering drop. In those drops Adam discovered something he’d been hoping to find since he’d learned about the accident: he suddenly had complete faith in Little Joe’s recovery.

XxXxX

Two days.

Ben had to delay his trip to Peter’s Station by two full days to help Mr. Andersen sort through the details surrounding Gainsby’s claim on the Hansen’s money. Still, he grudgingly accepted that those two days were worth every ounce of his own anxiety. He knew far too well that worrying never accomplished anything. Hovering over Joe would do nothing to impact whether Joe’s neck was fractured or merely bruised. Hoss was right. Dr. Martin was right. Everyone was right. There was nothing Ben could do for Joe except to maybe ease his youngest son’s fears—if in fact Joe had fears. Ben probably had more fear in him for Joe than Joe had for himself.

Joe had faced many battles in his young life, and Ben had experienced fear—real, palpable fear—with each and every one of them, or at least with each and every one that Ben had known about. He had no doubt Joe had kept some battles from him, whether to protect Ben from further worrying, or to protect Joe from Ben’s wrath, or perhaps even for the fact that it hadn’t crossed Joe’s mind that his father might need to or deserve to or simply want to know.

Ben had to remind himself Joe was a man now. He was no longer a child in need of his father’s constant, watchful eye. He was a man, yes, but a young man. Joe was young enough to still believe in his own invincibility. That fact alone gave Ben more reason to fear. It was that sense of invincibility that caused Joe to jump into fights that weren’t his—and to rescue people who needed rescuing, people like Mrs. Hansen and her children. Ben wondered if Joe would ever recognize that sometimes his pa needed rescuing from his youngest son’s sense of invincibility.

Yes, Ben was afraid. He was afraid of Doc Harding’s reputation for drinking, though Ben had been encouraged by both Paul Martin and his own son, Hoss, to recognize the man’s reputation as a physician had never been wanting. In fact, Ben had come to realize he was more afraid of what the stagecoach accident had done to Joe’s neck than he was of Doc Harding’s drinking, despite the unsteady hand such drinking could cause. But Ben had to admit in all likelihood Joe was not afraid—or at least not nearly as afraid as his father. Nor was Joe alone. Adam was there. And Adam had been almost as much of a father to Joe as Ben had himself.

Ben needn’t worry about Joe being afraid. It was more for Ben’s own well-being that he wanted to be at Joe’s side. Yet for the past two days he’d needed to put his own selfishness aside and focus on the well-being of someone else, someone he’d barely known a week ago, but who had suddenly—through his young, invincible son’s rash decision to jump into a fight that wasn’t his—become almost an extended part of the Cartwright family. He’d had to help Gunnar Andersen in his investigation. While at first Ben did it for Joe, at Hoss’s insistence, it wasn’t long before he realized it was simply something he needed to do—because it was the right thing to do. Joe had known that in a heartbeat all those days ago at the bank. Why had it taken so long for Ben to see it himself?

Now, finally, worn from the long journey and the fear in his heart, Ben’s gaze landed on Peter’s Station. He nearly collapsed with relief when he saw Joe sitting on the porch watching Adam hard at work, chopping wood.

XxXxX

Joe was laughing. Hoss couldn’t hear it yet, but Joe’s face lit up so much Hoss could see it even from a distance. It was good to see; but it was strange, too. It didn’t…well, it didn’t bust Joe up the way it usually did whenever he laughed like that. He should be wrapping his arms around his belly, pulling his knees up tight and maybe even rolling right on out of that chair. But he wasn’t doing none of that. He was just laughing, plain and simple.

From the set of Adam’s shoulders and the exaggerated way he was swinging that ax, Hoss figured Adam was the cause of Joe’s laughter. It probably wasn’t so much Adam being funny. More likely it was Joe prodding Adam. Maybe that was a good thing. Joe was bored. And if Joe was bored enough to start laughing at Adam, that meant he wasn’t angry. And if he wasn’t angry, that meant he wasn’t near as worried about maybe having a fractured bone in his neck as Hoss and his pa had been all this time. And if he wasn’t worried, then maybe that meant there was nothing to be worried about.

“You…just watch…Little Joe!” Hoss caught the sound of Adam’s voice on the wind as they rode in closer. “You…catching up…when we get back home!”

Then finally Hoss heard it: Joe’s familiar, annoying and right then wonderful, gut-busting laugh.

Grinning, Hoss looked to his pa. Pa was smiling too.

“Hey, Pa!” Joe hollered out then. “Hoss!”

Hoss raised his hand to wave. It struck him as odd when only Adam waved back. He also would have expected Joe to jump up and come meeting them at a run, especially when Joe saw Hoss was guiding Cochise. That boy was always a wild bundle of energy. And that horse of his seemed to share it, too. Whenever those two would ride out ahead of Hoss, he wouldn’t see either one of ’em again until he caught up, sometimes hours later. Even Joe by himself never seemed to slow down; he would simply stop, falling into a dead sleep at the end of each day.

Yet right then on that porch at that way station, Joe just sat plain still.

Hoss’s grin faded. He tightened his grip on Cochise’s reins, wondering for the first time since they’d left the Ponderosa whether he was right to bring Joe’s horse along. He’d been so darned sure Joe wouldn’t want to ride a stage back to Virginia City, not after that accident. Or maybe it was Hoss himself who didn’t want Joe taking another stage just yet. But what if Joe couldn’t ride yet? What if…what if he couldn’t ride ever again?

Hoss felt sick by the time he dismounted. He felt like his lunch, his breakfast and anything else his stomach could find to get rid of was going to come right back up on him, all on account of the fears his thoughts stirred around, deep inside. Of course, he tried to ignore it. After he shook Adam’s hand he turned to greet Little Joe, but Joe’s eyes weren’t aimed at him at all. That boy had his focus set on Cochise.

Little Joe’s wide grin faded. He gripped the arms of that chair so hard Hoss could see his brother’s knuckles go white. And then something happened that made Hoss about as close to crying as he’d ever admit. Joe pushed himself slowly to his feet.

“Need a hand there, old-timer?” Adam quipped, seeming unafraid and even somewhat callous.

Joe ignored him. Staring at Cochise, he shuffled forward with the gait of a ninety-year-old, and then raised his arm, clearly intending to stroke the horse’s muzzle. Trouble was, he couldn’t seem to raise his arm high enough. Hoss noticed him wince. An instant later Joe lowered his aim, settling for the horse’s neck.

“You brought him.” Joe seemed more surprised to see Cochise than he was to see Hoss and his pa, as though he’d somehow known they were coming but hadn’t dared to expect they ‘d bring the pinto.

“‘Course I did,” Hoss answered through the lump that had formed in his throat. “How else you expect to get home?”

Joe looked to him, smiling. “Thank you.”

Hoss nodded. “I suppose it’ll be a few more days afore you’re ready for him. But I can sure tell he’s ready for you.”

Cochise raised his foreleg, scraping at the ground with his right hoof, seeming anxious for a run. When the pinto tried nuzzling up against Joe, Hoss expected his little brother to start laughing again. Instead Joe stiffened, cringing and sucking air in through his teeth.

Pa noticed too. He reached over, gently laying his hand on Joe’s shoulder. Though that might have helped Pa feel better, Hoss could see it made Joe feel worse. Joe’s eyes widened and he clamped down on his teeth, making his jaw bulge out rock-hard.

“I told you, Joe,” Adam said in a soothing voice as he lightly pushed Pa’s hand away. “Sitting in that hard chair for too long will make you stiffen right up. Come on.” He wrapped his arm around Joe’s waist and started to pull Joe away from the pinto. “Let’s get you back inside.”

Hoss started feeling sick again. But when he met Adam’s gaze, his older brother winked at him, like he knew Joe really was going to be just fine. That wink was enough to make Hoss breathe easier. He even smiled again. If Adam believed Joe was going to be fine, Hoss figured it had to be true.

XxXxX

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