Sheriff Roy Coffee trudged heavily up the hospital steps, hoping he could get this final obligation out of the way in time to catch the day’s last stagecoach east. He was desperate to get out of the sooty, smoke-filled air of Sacramento, where every breath reminded him of his losses. If the young lady at the town hall hadn’t been so persistent…but she had been, and he’d promised, and it wasn’t as if he would be hurrying home with welcome news for anyone.

They’d been nothing but kind to him here, despite the confusion and damage the big fire had caused; it was just that there’d been nothing good for them to say. The Cartwrights had checked in to their hotel the afternoon before the fire—the day clerk, who’d survived, was very sure of that. In any case several of the other timber suppliers gathered for the next day’s meeting had shared a friendly drink with Hoss Cartwright that evening. He’d joked that their rooms were right over the hotel kitchen, and if habit didn’t wake them early in the morning the smell of bacon frying would surely do it for them. Roy could almost hear the big man’s laughter as he imagined the scene.

It hadn’t worked out that way. As close as anyone could make out, it seemed the fire had started in that very kitchen, and probably smoldered for quite a while before it really took off. The only people who’d survived from that hotel had been sleeping on the other side of the building from the kitchen. Most likely smoke had killed the Cartwrights long before their room collapsed into the flames below, and they’d never felt a thing, one of the doctors pointed out, shaking his head. It was small consolation for the loss of such fine men. No consolation at all for those left behind to mourn them.

There likely wouldn’t even be much to bury, they’d told him. All that remained in the embers of the hotel would be nothing more than a handful of ashes and some teeth—with a very good chance those wouldn’t even be Cartwright teeth. There had, after all, been servants asleep in the kitchen who, like the hotel guests, had been cremated without ceremony by the fire that killed them. Knowing he’d never be able to pay his last respects to his old friends made Roy feel emptier than ever.

Given all that, Roy wasn’t about to refuse to spare a few minutes for trying to recognize a man no one in Sacramento could identify. From what the young lady had said, the stranger’d arrived on the steamer from San Francisco at the height of the fire and rushed up from the wharf to join in fighting it. He had helped create the firebreak which finally brought the fire under control, and then made a desperate attempt to get through the lines into what was still ablaze. The other firefighters had finally subdued him by force and carried him to the hospital, with burns so bad it was hard to believe he’d had strength enough left to fight anyone. No one really expected him to recover, but, as they’d said at the town hall, at least they could find out what name to put on his tombstone.

Somehow the hospital was even more disheartening than the rest of what Sheriff Coffee had seen. Anyone with money was being cared for somewhere more comfortable, of course, but there were plenty of injured servants and stable boys and day-laborers to crowd the wards and wear out the nurses. Before the sheriff even got through the door he could tell from the moaning that the doctors had long ago run out of everything that might ease their patients’ pain, and the greasy, charred stench was worse than he’d smelled in the burned-out buildings themselves. To his horror, he found himself thinking it really might have been a mercy the Cartwrights had died in their sleep. At least they’d been spared the lingering, painful death that awaited too many of these unfortunates.

The mystery patient was in a corner by himself, swathed with enough bandages to remind Roy of the mummies Napoleon’s soldiers had found in Egypt, and seemingly almost as lifeless. He didn’t protest as the nurse turned him away from the wall and uncovered him for his visitor to see. What must once have been a well-muscled shoulder was only bone covered with a slack layer of skin, unhealthily sallow where its natural tan had faded. A few dark hairs remained on chest and arm, and the stubble covering his left cheek was densely black. That and the eyes—shadowed by the swollen flesh around them—were all Roy could see of his face. It was hard to guess what the man might have looked like before the fire. Roy sucked in his breath thoughtfully, and the nurse said with an air of self-defense, “We can’t feed him—he won’t drink. Just wants to lie there and wait.”

Dull, dry eyes flicked towards her for a moment, then up towards the sheriff. “Roy,” the injured man croaked, without welcome or interest, before closing his eyes again as, with obvious effort, he rolled himself back towards the wall.

“He knew you!” the nurse exclaimed. “He hasn’t spoken to anyone before. Who is he?”

“I…I’ll be back in a few minutes—I have to send some telegrams,” the sheriff stammered, and bolted for the door. He only slowed down when he was back on the street again, and even then his mind was still racing, still trying to subdue the turmoil of his thoughts. I should have come sooner…I should have guessed at once….

I should have known the man would be Adam Cartwright.

It wasn’t really Clem Foster’s fault Hop Sing never got the sheriff’s telegram, even though Clem certainly had a hand in the proceedings. The deputy sheriff still hadn’t recovered from hearing the news from Sacramento, or forgiven himself for how it had reached the only remaining member of the Cartwright family. Two days after Joe Cartwright had seen his father and brother off to California, he’d been involved in a drunken brawl at the Silver Dollar. Not much of a fight, as these things went, but enough of one Clem had decided to make the boy spend the night in the Virginia City jail, in the hopes of teaching him a lesson. Sheriff Coffee had laughed at Joe learning anything from a night in jail, but he hadn’t set Joe free, either. And early the next day, as the two lawmen read the morning newspaper in horror, a pair of the town’s worst gossips had walked past the window of Joe’s cell, too absorbed in their conversation to care who else might hear them. “Such fine, fine men…and to think how that young varmint Little Joe used language like a drunken miner’s to his brother the last time they saw each other, not to mention carrying on with a no-account hussy like Julia Bulette while his father and his brothers were burning to a crisp…what a terrible, terrible thing. I just hope he’s thoroughly ashamed of himself!”

So instead of breaking the news to Little Joe gently and tactfully, Sheriff Coffee and his deputy had been obliged to confront a stricken young man, hands clenched white-knuckled around the bars of his cell, and confirm that yes, there’d been a fire in Sacramento, and yes, it was thought his family had died in it. All things considered, Joe had taken the news surprisingly well…but Clem didn’t think he’d been stone cold sober very often since. He hadn’t spent a night on the ranch after that either; somehow when evening rolled around, Clem had always found a reason to put Joe back in the jail where friends could keep watch over him. It seemed better to do that than to leave him looking for trouble on the streets of Virginia City or to send him back to a near-empty house that could no longer be much of a home. Truth to tell, Clem Foster had forgotten about Hop Sing, not to mention the rest of the Ponderosa’s hired hands. Even if he’d been reminded it was doubtful Clem would have cared. He was a kind enough man, and a pretty good deputy, but he wasn’t much given to profound analysis.

Joe hadn’t forgotten Hop Sing or the ranch hands, though. Hadn’t forgotten that payday came on a regular schedule, whatever else came unstuck about a man’s life, either. The day the telegram came he’d slept off the meagre excesses of the night before and reminded Clem in the morning that being an orphan, or even being unhappy, wasn’t an imprisonable offense. He’d gone straight from the jail to the bank to pick up enough cash to meet the payroll, and when, on his way back to the livery stable to collect his horse, he’d paused at the Silver Dollar, that wasn’t against the law either. Maybe he wasn’t really old enough to drink what Sam poured out for him there, but it was a little late to be worrying about that, and he was walking steadily enough when he came out again and passed by the telegraph office.

Delivering telegrams to the Ponderosa was a constant headache for the staff of that telegraph office; mail could wait decently for someone to come collect it, but telegrams had an urgency about them that demanded more attention. It was perfectly natural that, seeing Joe Cartwright on the street outside, the telegrapher had rushed out to give him the telegram for Hop Sing. It was just as natural that Joe would open the packet to see what its message was. The first words made Joe forget that the Ponderosa’s hands expected payment for their past week’s work, forget even that the telegram hadn’t been meant for him.

“Adam alive stop come at once….”

And Little Joe Cartwright had abandoned everything in his rush to catch the Sacramento stagecoach.

Sheriff Coffee was eating dinner across the street from the Overland’s Sacramento office late the next afternoon, when the stagecoach from Virginia City came in. He’d chosen to eat there not because he expected anyone from the Ponderosa to be on board, but because good habits die hard, and checking out the newcomers to town on every stagecoach was…well, stronger than a habit. More a part of his life, and, like his gun, not something to lay aside just because he was in another sheriff’s territory.

When Joe Cartwright came tumbling down from next to the driver—breathless, disheveled and apparently without luggage of any kind—Roy wondered briefly how long the driver had resisted the kid’s plea to be allowed a turn with the reins. In the next moment, as the sheriff realized Joe had come entirely on his own, amusement gave way to annoyance. He’d addressed his telegram to Hop Sing after careful thought, trying to avoid just such a result. Adam needed careful nursing by someone willing to put everything else aside for as long as necessary, whether the outcome was good or bad. It wasn’t that Joe wouldn’t try, of course, but “try” wasn’t good enough, and it wasn’t just Adam who would suffer if Joe failed. The boy had enough to bear already; better, Roy had decided, that he stay on the ranch while Hop Sing’s proven skills were devoted to the injured survivor. Evidently, like so many of the best-laid plans, this one had been wasted effort. The sheriff sighed and pushed himself up from the table, feeling even older than usual.

Roy got to Joe’s side about the time the boy reached the office’s ticket window, and the sight of a familiar face brought hope into the youngster’s expression like a lamp being turned up full. “Where’ve they got Adam?” he said without preamble. “I came as soon as I could—figured I’d get whatever I needed here once I saw him.”

“They won’t let you see him right away, so you may’s well get some dinner into you,” the sheriff said gruffly. He steered the boy back across the street and saw him settled in front of a decent plateful of food before saying anything more.

Joe ate without seeming to look at his dinner, asking questions between every mouthful. Roy responded as best he could, trying to keep a decent balance between honesty and hopefulness. He still had no answer for the questions to which Joe kept returning with increasing anxiety. Why had Adam been in San Francisco instead of with his father and brother? Why had he been so frantic to rejoin them?

Roy knew little more than Joe about Adam’s journey to Sacramento. He’d left the Ponderosa a week before the others, escorting a string of newly broken horses for the Army. Since Joe did a lot of the horse-breaking, he’d been supposed to go with Adam so he could learn more about the business end of such transactions. Adam hadn’t been best pleased when Joe wiggled out of the obligation; plenty of people had heard their loud “discussion” about it at the Bucket of Blood the day before Adam left, and news of the argument had obviously spread rapidly through Virginia City, even reaching people who would have been prostrated by the vapours at the mere idea of entering a saloon.

Despite this inauspicious beginning, Adam’s trip had apparently gone well; he had, in fact, checked into the Sacramento hotel a day before the others, and put a military letter-of-credit into the hotel safe. No one seemed to remember what he had done after that or had seen him leaving the hotel. Adam himself had been unwilling, or more likely unable, to offer any explanations after Roy had recognized him. Roy considered mentioning the burns on Adam’s face that made speech so hard for him, but laid it aside. Joe would have to come to terms with that—and worse—soon enough. No sense rushing things.

Even on a ranch as well-run as the Ponderosa, cattle managed to get stuck in bogs, and sometimes—more often than Joe liked—one was too young or too small or stuck too long to survive. They were never left there, though, no matter how much work getting them out might be. It might be a weakling could still make it through, though in all the years Joe had ridden herd he’d not misjudged that once…but really, it just felt wrong to abandon any of them. All the other explanations Joe had ever heard for spending muddy hours in rescue attempts were nothing but ways to avoid sounding sentimental.

Joe knew the look the hands got when they believed a calf was doomed, and he recognized it on the faces at the hospital long before he reached his brother’s side. It might have made him angry, knowing the doctors felt that way, except he’d caught a brief glimpse of it earlier still from Sheriff Coffee, and the way the old man had tried to keep sounding hopeful left Joe unable to be angry with anyone.

At least Joe had been well enough prepared that he could keep his eyes on Adam’s ravaged face, which meant he didn’t miss how it transformed on catching sight of him. Even though the brilliant half-smile shattered into a wince almost at once, it was still the most beautiful thing Joe had seen in almost a week. He also didn’t miss the nurse’s look of surprise when Adam put a hand out and slurred, “N’ more laudanum. Want…talk t’ my…brother.” She glanced at the doctor long enough to catch his nod of agreement before taking away the pitcher of water at Adam’s bedside and bringing back a fresh one, still cool enough to be sweating in the hospital’s humid stillness. The doctor finished his examination, gave Joe a few brief instructions and an unpleasantly sympathetic glance, then moved on, taking the nurse with him.

Despite Adam’s request, he didn’t seem to have anything to say to Joe at first. They sat in silence for quite some time before Joe ventured, “Adam—why?”

“Why what?”

“Why…all this. Trying to get to the hotel, once the fire stopped spreading.”

“I thought you were there too, Joe…and when I saw….” Adam fell silent, trying to lick his lips, and Joe raised the glass of water to them. Once he’d moistened his mouth Adam went on, “All that mattered was getting to you three. Almost did it, too….”

“Always were too stubborn for your own good,” Joe mumbled.

“Joe….” Adam’s left hand came up to scrabble at Joe’s sleeve. “I’m sorry, Joe…I don’t think I can get back again.”

“Then you just stay put where you are and I’ll come for you…don’t wear yourself out, just hold on.” The soothing words were nonsense talk, Joe knew perfectly well.

Probably Adam did too, but he gave a soft sigh, quirked the left side of his face into another brief smile, and closed his eyes. A few minutes later, eyes still closed, he said with unexpected strength and clarity, “It’s not like a calf in quicksand, Joe.”

Joe had to clear his throat before he could find a reply. “Then what is it like?”

There was a pause; Joe couldn’t tell whether Adam was groping for words or for the energy to say them. Finally he heard a whispered, “Like weighing anchor in the fog…gap to the dock getting wider…someone waving to you that you wanted to tell something…and didn’t….” Adam opened his eyes again and seemed to want to sit up. “But at least you can wave back…I’m glad you came, Joe. Roy said you were alive, but…wasn’t sure I could believe him.”

“Sheriff Coffee wouldn’t lie to you, Adam!” Joe squawked in astonishment. Adam only raised one eyebrow in his infuriating, painfully familiar assertion of superiority. If he’d added a smart comeback to the gesture It might have developed into an argument, but instead he’d settled back into the pillows with only a tiny sigh.

It was Adam who broke that next awkward silence, but not with a question. “You didn’t…come with them.”

Joe shook his head, then remembered Adam might not be able to see that. “I wanted to—to be able to go see Julia. I thought she was more important…getting to the Palace mattered more than…Adam, I was with her the night they died, and now I wish I’d never seen her in my life! Just knowing what I did….”

“Joe!” Adam wheezed loudly enough to get his brother’s attention back, though he had to spend several moments catching his breath again afterwards. “The fire wasn’t Julia’s fault, Joe…certainly not yours. If she’s why you stayed behind, then…I’m grateful to her. Don’t blame yourself…you have to go on….”

“Why?” Joe spat back. “You didn’t feel you had to—you went and played the tragic hero instead. If you’d just stayed with the other firemen….”

“I know.” Adam’s whisper was raw with pain. “I told you…just wanted to get to you three.” He struggled for breath again. “I wasn’t thinking clearly…and if it happened the same way again I’d…I’d likely do the same, but you…it’s different for you.”

“Why?” Joe repeated, just as unforgivingly as before. “How’m I supposed to face it if you couldn’t?”

“Because you weren’t there! You didn’t have to watch…everyone that mattered to you…burning…for heaven’s sake, Joe, be grateful for that mercy. It was mercy…at least you got some…and I’m glad….”

The voice was harsh and rasping now; belatedly, Joe remembered he was supposed to be making Adam drink as often as he could. “Hush…here. Have some more of this….” As Joe brought the glass to his brother’s lips, he forced himself to breathe slowly, to move calmly. Adam swallowed a mouthful or two, and also seemed to relax a little. Watching him, Joe remembered something else, something almost as important as the doctor’s orders. “It wasn’t fire that killed them, Adam; it was smoke. Sheriff Coffee told me. He said no one could have prevented it.”

Adam managed a tiny shake of the head. “They were tired, but I…sleep light. If I’d smelled something…woke up and smelled it….”

“There’s smoke in the air all the time when we’re camping. It never wakes us up, Adam. You’d just have…look, be honest. It wasn’t your fault you lived. Now, if I’d been with you the way I should have been….”

Adam’s lips lifted upwards slightly. “If you’d been with me…wouldn’t have known ’bout the opera…or gone to ‘Frisco at all…it was Così fan Tutte. God, I never want to hear Mozart again….”

It occurred to Joe, with heart-stopping clarity, that it was quite possible Adam would be granted that wish. “I’ll stop playing ‘what-if’ if you will,” he said firmly.

There was a long pause before Adam let his breath out slowly and whispered, “Fine.” Again he almost seemed to smile, but this time without bitterness.

The nurse arrived with some fresh-made broth just as Joe was finally sure his brother had fallen asleep. She quietly set the bowl down next to the pitcher of water and looked over Joe’s shoulder for a long moment before saying in a low voice, “At least he’s peaceful now.”

“Will the sleep help him?”

“It won’t hurt,” the nurse said carefully. “And it’s more’n he ever managed before you came.”

She had that same “it’s-better-for-a calf-to-die-warm-and-with-its-mother-than-cold-and-alone” look they all did; but it wasn’t really like that. Adam had said so, and Adam never lied. Joe clutched at that conviction with everything he could.

By midafternoon Joe had gotten a pitcher and a half of water and most of the broth into Adam. The doctor, on his second rounds for the day, had looked his patient over approvingly, if not hopefully, and Adam himself seemed to be drifting back towards sustained wakefulness after several hours of lightly interrupted sleep.  Joe braced himself for what likely would come next.

Once, after a very successful cattle drive a few years back, Adam had talked Joe into accompanying him to something called a “recital.” He’d spent quite a bit of time explaining about “chamber music” and the various instruments there’d be that weren’t commonplace elsewhere (fiddles, of course, Joe knew about, and littler versions of the piano that sat tinkling in saloons), but nothing had prepared the boy for the sight of a gargantuan violin wedged upright between a man’s splayed legs. One glimpse had Joe fighting down a bad case of the giggles. He’d managed to make it through the first half of the concert without getting them both thrown out, and at the intermission they’d left before anyone could ask them to go. Adam had never invited Joe to a musical event again.

But Joe still treasured one discovery he’d made about that polished, swollen instrument and its immodest player; the ‘cello had sung with Adam’s voice. All it had lacked was words.

Now what was left of that voice conjured up splintered wood and twisted strings. He couldn’t escape it, either; ears weren’t like eyes. They couldn’t blink, or be closed at will. Joe could only pray that for once his reactions weren’t printed plainly on his face, or at least that Adam couldn’t see clearly enough to read them there.

If Joe, instead of sneaking off to Julia Bulette’s, had done what he’d been supposed to and gone with Adam to sell those horses to the army, Adam wouldn’t have gone to the opera in San Francisco. They’d have all been in Sacramento for the fire, and they’d probably—Joe’s common sense was quite clear on this point—have all died.

What sort of lesson did that parable teach? Joe shook his head in irritation, and Adam did see the motion. “You all right, Joe?” he croaked.

Sometimes a broken thing still kept fragments of remembered beauty….

“Finer than frog’s hair,” Joe answered, smiling as widely as he could manage. “Have a drink?” There was lemonade in the pitcher now; Joe doubted anyone else in the hospital was being offered any. The nurses were still looking out for their mysterious hero.

“Been thinking,” Adam said after he’d pushed the glass away gently.

Joe grinned. “You do too much of that, brother.”

“I know,” came back with the not-quite-smile that felt like a punch in Joe’s stomach. “You’ve…said so often ’nuff.” Adam shifted slightly, with a not-quite-stretch; he was definitely coming more awake now. “Thinking about John…Donne. Poet. Remember anything I…told you ’bout him?”

Joe closed his eyes and pretended to think hard, although in fact he knew he remembered every word. “Wasn’t he the one wrote, ‘Death be not proud though some have called thee mighty and dreadful?’ I remember that poem. You copied it out when you were in college and sent it to Pa, and he put it in his Bible next to the Twenty-Third Psalm. He really liked it. We all did.”

“Thought so,” Adam managed. “Why I…sent it.”

“And I remember you told me he gave you hope I wasn’t a lost cause.”

Adam’s head tilted in a fractional nod. “Story is he was a…wild young man, but died…Dean of St. Paul’s…why I never give up on you….”

He’d written that in one of the few letters that had come from Harvard especially for Joe. Even though Joe hadn’t understood all of it, he had read and reread that letter so often he could still recite most of it by heart. “Didn’t you say there was some poem of his about love being like getting flea-bit? I never could figure how anyone could think that!”

“Book’s in my room, Joe; go…borrow it. Just don’t show it to….” Adam’s voice broke off suddenly, and he twisted his head away.

Joe swallowed hard but forced the conversation forward. “Don’t reckon Pa would have liked the flea poem as much, no.”

“Lots of them he wouldn’t have liked….” Adam turned back again. “Bad influence. Shouldn’t have told you ’bout ‘m….”

“Too late!” Suddenly they were both grinning.

Adam’s smile ebbed away slowly as he went on, “The one I liked best’s one of his last…later’n the one I sent Pa, even. A Hymne To God The Father. It…helps, now….”

“Good,” Joe said softly, hoping Adam might recite some of those helpful bits—and in fact Adam’s lips still moved for a short while after he closed his eyes, but Joe wasn’t able to make out any words.

“You been getting some good talking done with Adam?” Sheriff Coffee asked Joe that night. After they’d made him leave the hospital, Joe’d found the sheriff waiting in their hotel lobby to force him into the restaurant, which should have closed hours earlier. He’d even kept one of the cooks up to be sure there was hot food still available, and stayed to be sure it was eaten.

Poetry, ships in the fog, broken ‘cellos and bog-stuck calves—how could Joe explain them, even to the family’s old friend? “Just…little things,” he mumbled around a tasteless mouthful. “Stuff we needed to say….”

It seemed the sheriff understood; anyway, he didn’t press his question. “I can manage another day here, if you’d like me to stay on. After that I’ve really got to get back to Virginia City.”

He’d said that the night before, as well. Joe wondered how many more days he’d go on saying it…or what the doctors might have told him. The sheriff knew how to get blunt, honest answers from people who usually preferred to be vague or evasive. Joe knew, with a sudden twist in his gut, what it was the man so carefully wasn’t saying. Don’t want you to have to go home alone, boy.

Well, he didn’t want to either—and it was kind of the old man to care, when he’d been so short with him. “Yessir, I’d like that…thank you,” Joe said aloud, and tried to smile. Sheriff Coffee nodded, and dropped a hand to his shoulder. It felt like something Pa would do, but Joe didn’t shake it off.

It wasn’t until the next morning Joe realized there was something odd in the sheriff’s behavior. They’d known each other a good ten years—Joe’d eaten cookies Mary Coffee baked back when the Coffees opened their store in Placerville—but until last night Sheriff Coffee had still treated him like the cookie-wheedler of old. It had always been Adam that the sheriff leaned on like the son he’d never had; Adam, even more than their father, he’d consulted in stressful times or maneuvered to add to an untrustworthy posse. And it was Adam the sheriff was avoiding now, in favor of—well, Joe wasn’t quite sure. Arrangements Joe hadn’t wanted to face, most likely, but which were also keeping Sheriff Coffee safely away from the hospital, as if…as if he didn’t want to see Adam. Which, in a man who’d made so much time to be with his dying wife….

“You should go visit Adam,” Joe said aloud at that point. “I know he’d like to see you.”

For a moment, something Joe couldn’t read showed in the sheriff’s eyes. It flickered and vanished again just as quickly when the older man shook his head. “I’m not taking his time away from you, Joe. I just ain’t that important to him.”

There was also something not quite right about the way he said that last sentence, Joe thought, but he was almost too tired to pursue it. He hadn’t slept either long or well, and he wanted to be at the hospital doors the moment he’d be allowed beyond them. It was only when the sense of those words slowly penetrated that Joe roused himself to say more. All too often he’d snapped out something like that himself, giving Adam sass in the heat of an argument, and all too often afterwards he’d regretted his sharp tongue. It wasn’t like Sheriff Coffee to make such a mistake, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t—and he’d certainly regret it later, Joe knew. “Won’t you want to have seen him, sir? Later…don’t you think?”

And the sheriff’s eyes had cleared, and blinked. “Reckon so,” he said wearily. “Reckon you’re right.” There was another long pause before he went on, “I’ll go by the hospital tonight a bit before they clear everyone out, and we can get dinner together afterwards.” Another pause, then, even more quietly, “Your Pa was a good friend to me when my Mary was dying. Don’t remember ever thanking him for all he done, so…thank you, son. I’ll do that.”

There was a small knot of people hovering at Adam’s bedside as Joe approached. One of the nurses split off from the others to intercept him before he could reach it. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here. He’s been asking for you, and…do you think you can convince him he shouldn’t be drinking coffee? That seems to be all he wants now, but the doctor says no….”

Joe couldn’t help giggling, and laughed even harder at her offended glower. “No, ma’am, he don’t want it to drink…that’s the name of our sheriff. Roy Coffee knows Pa…knew Pa….” Suddenly nothing seemed funny any more. “And he’s a good friend of Adam’s too,” he finished up lamely. “He says he’ll be coming back again this evening to see Adam.”

“Good, good,” the nurse said in a distracted voice, with a glance over her shoulder at the patient’s bed. “The doctor’s almost through with your brother now…give them just a minute more and you can go sit with him.”

“How is he?”

“More or less as you’d expect…there won’t be any sudden changes now. The miracle’s he made it this far,” the nurse said briskly. “Now if we could have gotten more liquids in him that first day…but he wouldn’t swallow much then. Couldn’t, most likely, the poor lad. It’s almost a blessing to hear him asking for things.”

Joe chewed that over a moment. “Then he wasn’t like this before…before Sheriff Coffee came and found him?”

The nurse tipped her head to one side as she thought back. “No, ‘t wasn’t like now at all. He knew what he wanted this morning, knew how to ask for it. Anxious he was, but not…when he first come in, y’ see, there was nothing we could do to settle him. Not even laudanum—and we kept all we had for him. He fought with himself, seemed like. Even when he wouldn’t move at all, we could see he wasn’t easeful…and he never asked for anyone; never tried to talk. He was…angry.” The touch of surprise in her voice suggested she hadn’t recognized that before.

Angry, that was it. Sheriff Coffee had been angry, too. One of the seven deadly sins, Joe remembered from his Catholic early childhood. Not a comfortable thought.

The nurse’s nudge brought his attention back to Adam’s bedside, where the doctor and other nurses had moved on. Joe swung a chair over and sat backwards on it; the spokes and slats of its back gave his restless hands something to occupy them. “Hey, Adam, they finally let me in. I hear you were wanting me?”

“Ask Roy…come again?” Adam’s voice was thin but urgent. “I was rude…need to tell him…sorry….”

“He’s still in town,” Joe said as soothingly as he could manage. “He’ll be here this evening; he promised he’d come.”

“Sooner,” Adam muttered, shifting his head restlessly. “Go…ask…now.”

“Only just got here and you’re sending me away again? Geesh, Adam, you’re gonna make me think you don’t want me around!”

Adam tried to smile. “Want you, but…need t’see Roy…maybe…send someone? Find him…please….”

There was an edge to his rasping whisper sharp enough Joe heaved himself off the chair at that to go looking for a nurse. It took him some time to find one who wasn’t too busy to talk to, and another fair while for her to find a ragged boy she promised would be a reliable messenger. Joe knew, as he headed back to Adam, it might take the rest of the morning—or even longer—before the boy could track down the Virginia City sheriff and convince him to come to the hospital right away. Joe only hoped Adam would be willing to realize that and stop fretting.

He needn’t have worried; Adam was sleeping when he got back, and looked almost peaceful. A sniff at the drug-laced pitcher of water told Joe why. Briefly he wondered if Adam would even be awake when Roy arrived, but when he set the pitcher, rather heavily, back on its stand Adam’s eyes fluttered open again. “Knew you’d…manage….” he said muzzily.

“I sent a boy out to find him, but it may take a while,” Joe warned his brother.

Adam nodded and closed his eyes. He wasn’t really asleep again, though; a few moments later he gestured for something to drink. Joe poured out a glass of water but said doubtfully, “It’s got laudanum, Adam. Still want some?”

“Only keeps things…tol’rable. Not gonna…put me ‘sleep, Joe. ‘S all right.”

After Adam had finished the water, he tried to sit up, and Joe carefully mounded all the pillows he could find behind his brother. Having gotten everything the way he wanted it, he ventured to ask, “What should I do when Sheriff Coffee comes?”

“Your choice…can’t tell y’…wha’ t’do ‘nymore….” The words might have seemed bitter, but there was enough lilt in the whisper and smile on his lips to make it clear Adam intended them as a joke.

What do you want? Joe felt like asking, but realized he knew the answer perfectly well. Knew what Sheriff Coffee would prefer as well, which fortunately was the same thing. Somehow that made it easier to stand up when the sheriff’s tall figure came into view at the far side of the room, greet the man briefly and make it clear that, now another person had come to see his brother, he thought he’d get something to eat.

He left Adam and Sheriff Coffee to what privacy they could manage in the crowded ward and headed towards the front door, but was intercepted long before he reached it by the nurse he’d spoken to before, who quickly found work for him collecting soiled bedlinens and remaking the handful of empty beds. Some patients had died in the night and some recovered enough to be sent home, but in a city as busy as Sacramento it was certain the beds would be needed again soon. Joe wasn’t really hungry and was glad enough to make himself useful; it was as good a way as any to spend his time away from Adam.

It didn’t seem very long before Joe saw the sheriff coming back through the hospital. Joe finished his last bed in a slapdash way and went to meet him, wondering what he should say. Almost before they reached each other the sheriff settled the matter when he reached out to shake Joe’s hand and muttered hoarsely, “Want to thank you again for what you said this morning. It was good you set me right.”

The sheriff wasn’t acting like Pa any longer; the sheriff was acting like Joe was Pa instead. Acting, moreover, like the man Joe remembered from those long-ago days when Mary was dying, Adam was away at college, and Pa’d seemed to be the only person he would listen to. It was an unsteadying recollection. Joe took a deep breath to brace himself before asking, “I’ll…I’ll see you at the hotel, then, sir? Sometime tonight?”

“Call me Roy, Joe,” the sheriff said heavily, and nodded. “Take all the time you need; I’ll be waiting for you.”

He looked very old walking away, and very sad, but at least he was no longer angry.

Adam seemed beyond tired, but appeared to have the exhausted satisfaction a hard day’s work had always given him. “Less’n half a day from the holding pens, older brother?” Joe inquired softly as he poured out a glass of water.

“That’s right,” Adam murmured, catching the reference and smiling faintly. To Joe’s relief, he drank the glass almost empty before asking Joe to ease the pillows out from behind him so he could lie down flat again.

“You get your rest,” Joe said encouragingly. “I’ll take this watch, eh?”

Although Adam seemed more than half asleep already, he managed a nod. Joe propped one elbow on the table beside the bed and thought back on the last nights of cattle drives, on the sense of achievement that ran through the camp when everyone knew the next day would see their charges safely into someone else’s hands. After that all the hard work rested on the man who’d negotiate the terms of sale. Ben had usually done that whenever he’d been on the drive, though Adam and even Hoss had plenty of experience and could also be expected to get top dollar for the herd. Joe’d done it himself for the first time, with pretty good success, only a few weeks before.

He’d thought himself all grown up until his brothers, every bit as pleased over the news as he had been, had suggested a visit to Julia’s palace. Then he’d seen Julia, and she’d seen him…and not so many days later he’d thought he was all grown up, again.

It felt like a lifetime ago now, of course.

There were no clocks that Joe could see in the hospital, and he had no watch of his own, so it was hard for him to judge how swiftly time was passing. All the same, he was fairly sure he’d never in his life before been this quiet for this long. He’d never possessed a gift for stillness until now, as he sat watching Adam’s slow and shallow breathing. Adam was right—this vigil wasn’t like trying to deal with a calf in quicksand. More like being holed up in a line shack during a blizzard; a bubble of calm and warmth in a cold world…and like all bubbles, it would finally burst. Not yet, though, not yet…and at the end, not because of him. Silently he thanked whatever was providing him this new-found patience.

As the afternoon crawled on he dozed occasionally, and knew it; the light on the buildings outside sometimes moved in jerks instead of sliding as it should have. He was sure he hadn’t missed even one of Adam’s movements, though—the blinked requests for water, the small twitches of the unbandaged hand, the occasional heavier sigh. The precious moments when he turned his head to look for Joe, and smiled on seeing him.

It was nearly dark, and Joe was wondering whether he should light the bedside lamp, before Adam spoke again. “Remember that day at the Bucket of Blood, when you took on all comers at arm-wrestling?”

“Yes,” Joe said, frowning slightly. He’d always been a little suspicious of his success that day, wonderful as it had been.

“Good.” Adam closed his eyes, but gave Joe’s hand a squeeze. There was a flicker of mischief in the tilt of his lips.

“Why d’you ask?” Joe ventured after a moment.

Adam gestured weakly at the pitcher, and let Joe support him while he drank a few swallows. He didn’t forget Joe’s question, though; once he was settled into his pillows again he looked up and said, “Just remember your brothers will always back you up.”

Joe felt his face grow warm, and hoped Adam couldn’t see him blushing. “I miss Hoss—and Pa, and….” He couldn’t find the courage to finish the thought.

Adam fumbled blindly for Joe’s hand again, and closed his fingers around it. “Sure you do,” he whispered. “But ‘s all right…you’ll be fine.” He somehow managed to pull the left corner of his mouth into a broader smile. “Remember that….”

Then the grip on Joe’s hand went slack, and the air was still. He laid his brother’s arm down across the bandaged chest as gently as if Adam could still feel its pain, and looked out at the sunset, and trusted in the dawn.

*  *  *

I have a sinne of feare, that when I’have spunne
My last thred, I shall perish on the shore;
Swear by thy selfe, that at my death thy sonne
Shall shine as he shines now, and theretofore;
And, having done that, Thou haste done,
I feare no more.

John Donne