October, 1861

Jeffrey Stanton wasn’t looking forward to the rest of his ill-advised stint in Virginia City. 

Granted, it was his own fault he was stuck here. A year ago it had occurred to him that, as a young, unattached male in his prime, his life in Philadelphia as a medical student held relatively little excitement. Adventure, that’s what he needed. And what better place to find adventure than on the frontier? So it was that, as part of his medical internship, he had allowed his services to be volunteered to whichever community out west was deemed to be in the greatest need.

He scowled at the dusty street before him. Too late he had realized his idea of adventure in the west had actually been more along the lines of San Francisco, not this cluster of brutish humanity that rested somewhere between hell and the edges of the earth.

Sighing, he strode down the wood-planked walk. Ah, well. Nothing to do for it now. He was committed. Besides, the situation wasn’t permanent, thank God. He had already survived more than three of his pledged twelve weeks. Just as he’d promised, he would stoically put in two more months alongside Dr. Paul Martin—a nice enough man but one who was undoubtedly far adrift of the latest medical techniques. Once those two months were finished, though, Jeffrey would immediately pack his bags and move on to San Francisco, where he had ideas of eventually establishing a practice of his own.

It wasn’t that he didn’t have work here. The occasional gunshot wound, a mine collapse, a mishap with an axe, a breech birth, and broken bones from a wagon accident were among the incidents that had kept him and Dr. Martin quite busy. But none of it was anything out of the ordinary. Certainly there was nothing that even Dr. Martin’s basic skills could not handle. Busy or not, Jeffrey couldn’t help but feel his talents were being wasted.

Straightening his shoulders, he shook his head. No matter; he was resigned to sticking it out. There was no other recourse. He was a Stanton, and Stantons were not quitters. Determinedly, he jutted his jaw forward as he continued toward his destination. The last few days had been uneventful, even duller than usual. He might have no choice in where he spent the next several weeks, but for now he was going to take Dr. Martin’s advice and head to the Silver Dollar for a beer—or rather, Jeffrey thought grumpily, a glass of swill that dared to claim the name. He had suspicions that the bartender watered it down.

He reached for the batwing doors of the saloon. No sooner had he begun to push through them than a score of gunshots exploded from inside.

He stumbled back, sucking in a harsh breath and pressing himself tightly against the rough plank wall of the saloon. Which way to run? Panic made his breath come in harsh pants. More gunshots sounded from within the saloon, along with the sounds of splintering wood, breaking glass, and shouting men.

Then silence, sudden and heavy.

Jeffrey’s instinctual inclination was to beat a hasty retreat away from the saloon, but the Stanton dedication to helping the sick wouldn’t let him. After a few moments of cautious hesitation, he crept carefully back to the swinging doors and peeked over the top of them. There was no doubt his services would be needed; somebody was bound to be badly hurt after the disturbance he had just heard.

Still, he hesitated. He would start administering medical care while someone else ran for Dr. Martin, but first he wanted to make sure the coast was clear. He wasn’t keen on getting himself shot, not even in the interest of medicine.

His gaze moved over the smoke-hazed room. Just as he expected, there was a body lying on the floor. The person’s identity was indiscernible due to the crowd milling around him, but Jeffrey did recognize one of the fellows bending over him; Adam Cartwright.

He had had the pleasure of making Adam Cartwright’s acquaintance soon after his arrival in Virginia City. Jeffrey had generally considered him a breath of fresh air in the midst of the muck that made up a large portion of the population of this vast territory; the man was educated, civilized. More refined than the majority of the men he had met here.

Conversely, Adam Cartwright could be tough. Jeffrey had personally witnessed that aspect of his character during a brawl in this very saloon. Fisticuffs seemed to be an important skill for a man to have in the Nevada Territory, and from what Jeffrey had chanced to see, Adam possessed a sufficient amount of that skill to hold his own. Even so, he didn’t seem to be quick to use his fists; his anger seemed to get the better of him only with much provocation. Usually he was exceedingly calm and thoughtful. When someone annoyed him, he was given more to using cutting words than knuckles.

If Jeffrey did not already know these things about Adam, he might not have been so surprised at the man’s reaction when Adam whirled around and saw him. Before Jeffrey could move or speak, Adam had crossed the room and jerked him—quite rudely, Jeffrey thought—through the doors and into the saloon.

His expression was not the same pleasant, introspective one Jeffrey had grown accustomed to. It was frightened and angry, with a wild light making his eyes more amber than usual. The look on his face made Jeffrey instinctively want to put his arms up in an effort to shield himself. But he couldn’t do that even if he wanted to, for Adam had his collar crushed in both fists. The frantic thought passed through Jeffrey’s mind that he was surely about to have his nose bloodied.

“My brother…” Adam rasped out. “You’ve got to help him.”

Goodness, the man’s chest was heaving. He wasn’t angry—he was afraid. No, terrified. Scared to the bone. That was what had caused the transformation in his normal countenance. His brother, then, was the wounded man on the floor.

Jeffrey sighed inwardly. Adam had mentioned upon their first introduction that he had two brothers—Joseph and . . . Bull? Moose? Something to that effect—but Jeffrey hadn’t yet had the opportunity to meet either of them.

“Well, of course, I’ll see what I can do—” He wasn’t able to get the words fully out because rather than releasing him, Adam was shoving him forward. He stumbled along, having the distinct impression that if he didn’t move fast enough he was in danger of being hurled in the direction Adam obviously wanted him to go. Once at the injured man’s side, he hurried to kneel down beside him.

Immediately he was struck by how young this Cartwright was. Not even a man, really. Just a boy, no older than nineteen or twenty.

He was losing more blood than any one man had to give, young or otherwise.

“Towels!” Jeffrey shouted, not taking his eyes off his patient. “Bring me towels. Lots of them.”

The boy was still conscious, but that was no blessing. Pain made him writhe slowly on the floor, his knees drawing up as he kept trying to curl into himself.

“Stay still, son,” Jeffrey murmured, laying a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Green eyes flickered and latched onto his as though onto a lifeline; even in his hurry Jeffrey was startled by the intensity in them, glazed though they were with pain. He shot a glance at Adam, taking in the brooding, dark gaze. They were vastly different, these brothers, and yet . . .  Had he had more time to dwell on it, he might have tried to figure out exactly what it was in Adam Cartwright’s spirit that also showed itself in the eyes of his younger brother. Family resemblances often showed themselves in the most unexpected ways.

But he had no time for dwelling on anything but the emergency at hand.

The boy groaned. His hands clutched at his middle, his fingers drenched with blood his shirt could no longer absorb. Gently but firmly, Jeffrey moved the hands aside. The kid put them back. Jeffrey murmured a request for assistance, and those clenched, red-stained hands were quickly restrained. Adam held one of them and a very large man kneeling at the boy’s other side held the other. Trying to ignore the boy’s whimpers, Jeffrey grasped the front of his ruined shirt and jerked it apart with one violent motion. Buttons tore loose and rolled across the floor, and the shirt’s fabric fell aside to reveal the boy’s ravaged abdomen. Jeffrey bent forward to get his first look at the wound.

He instantly fell back in dismay. It was no good. No good, no good.

“Dear Lord,” he whispered before he could catch himself, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Adam glance sharply at him.

He did not return the glance. Adam’s brother was not going to survive. Jeffrey knew that as certainly as he knew his own name. The wound was too severe and in one of the body’s most vulnerable areas. There was too much blood, too much damage. The boy had been involved in the last bar fight he’d ever see.

But Jeffrey was a doctor; he had to go through the motions. His mind numb, he took the bar towels that were passed to him and pressed them hard against the wound. He still could not look at Adam.

“Adam, I’m sorry . . . ” the kid whispered, and Adam’s hand, the one that still held tightly to his brother’s blood-stained fingers, jerked. Jeffrey looked up into the older Cartwright’s face then. But although Adam’s lips parted, it was the big man who held the kid’s other hand who spoke.

“Nobody’s blamin’ you, Joseph. It weren’t your fault. Hush now.”

“But, Hoss, I didn’t—”

“Hush. It don’t matter, you hear me? You just don’t worry about it none.”

Hoss. The big man was the third Cartwright brother, then. Still thinking about the intangible similarities he’d sensed between first two brothers, Jeffrey found himself sneaking a glance at the big man even as he continued to press hard against the boy’s stomach.

But no, whatever sameness glimmered between Adam and his youngest brother wasn’t present in Hoss. Cornflower blue eyes here, clear as the sky reflected in the waters of Lake Tahoe, though red-rimmed with emotion at the moment. Where his brothers showed some—some indefinable, passionate, volatile something—this one instead seemed to have a . . . gentleness. A purity of spirit.

The discovery was somewhat surprising to Jeffrey, given that Hoss was such a very large, imposing sort of individual. Interesting people, these Cartwrights. He felt regret he hadn’t been able to meet them all before their numbers had been cut down. Certainly there would be no getting to know young Joseph. Not anymore.

A flurry of activity registered the arrival of Dr. Martin, and Jeffrey let out a silent breath of relief. Helping family members deal with death was something he didn’t think he’d ever get used to. He was thankful he wouldn’t have to deal with it this time. Dr. Martin had mentioned in passing that he had been a friend of the Cartwright family for many years. Better for them to receive the bad news from someone they had an attachment to.

The next few minutes were a rush of blurred action.

“You two!” Dr. Martin jabbed a finger at a couple of gaping bystanders as he sailed into the saloon, black bag in hand. “Run down to my office, pick up a stretcher and get it back here. Make it quick. You!” He pointed at another onlooker. “I saw Ben Cartwright walking into the bank not five minutes ago. Get him over to my surgery. If he’s not at the bank, find him.”

All three hurried to do his bidding, gone before he joined Jeffrey beside the poor dying kid on the floor. He brushed Jeffrey’s hands out of the way and bent over him, tsking softly and hushing Adam when he tried to explain what had happened. He ran gnarled fingers across the hole in the boy’s abdomen for just a moment before motioning to Jeffrey to reapply pressure. Then he leaned over and began to talk to the kid, who had now begun to shiver.

“It’s all right, Little Joe,” he said, his voice low and soothing. “We’ve got you. Your brothers are here, and somebody’s gone for your pa. You’re going to be fine, you hear me? Just hang on now.”

If Jeffrey had been a betting man—which he was, upon occasion—he would’ve placed high odds against that boy’s father reaching him before it was too late.

A few minutes later he watched, shaking his head, as the kid was loaded carefully onto a litter and rushed down the street to Dr. Martin’s office. Jeffrey trotted along behind, fully expecting the patient to expire before they got there.

But they arrived at the surgery with the kid still breathing. Pale, shivering, teeth clenched, but still breathing. Dr. Martin shooed everyone out, Cartwrights and bystanders alike, shutting the door firmly behind them. Then he began to grab up instruments with a speed that surprised Jeffrey. With the kid’s family no longer present, there was no reason to continue any pretense for the purpose of sparing their feelings. Surely the older doctor knew that this was a lost cause . . .

“Dr. Stanton!”

Jeffrey jumped.

“I’ve got another pair of clamps just like this one on that bottom shelf in the second cabinet,” Dr. Martin barked at him. “Get them. Mrs. Murphy! I need you in here with that ether! Now!”

Despite his certainty that they were working on a dead man, Jeffrey did as he was told. So did Mrs. Murphy, Dr. Martin’s housekeeper and sometime-nurse. A few short moments later, Joe Cartwright was out and breathing deeply.

For what seemed like hours they stood, tying off veins that insisted on pumping out more blood even when Jeffrey was sure they must be bled dry. They clamped and stitched and swabbed until Jeffrey’s back and neck burned with fatigue. Perspiration seeped into his burning, weary eyes, making him blink to clear his vision. Every now and then Mrs. Murphy would place the ether mask on the boy’s face for a few more seconds.

All the while Jeffrey wondered at the effort the doctor insisted on spending on a life that couldn’t possibly be saved.

At last Dr. Martin proclaimed them finished.

“We’ll sit here and wait for a few minutes, make sure we’ve got it all, and then we’ll talk to his family,” Dr. Martin sighed, rolling his neck around to work out the kinks. He glanced at his patient and shook his head. “He’ll be recuperating for quite some time.”

Jeffrey couldn’t stand it any longer. He couldn’t keep quiet. “Doctor, this—”  This what? What could he call it? ‘This exercise in futility?’ ‘This monumental waste of time?’ He settled on, “This surgery.” He shook his head, waving a hand at the sleeping patient. The soon-to-be-deceased patient. “You do realize it was all for nothing, don’t you?”

Dr. Martin looked at him and with surprise. “Why do you say that, Dr. Stanton?”

Jeffrey stared at him. Surely he wasn’t serious. “A belly wound of that magnitude—for heaven’s sakes, Doctor, he’ll never make it through the night.”

“Perhaps not,” Dr. Martin said grimly, and then sighed. “But we’re going to give it our best shot. Aren’t we, Joe?” He directed a fond glance toward his unconscious patient and chuckled tiredly. “One thing I’ve learned over the past thirty-some odd years, Dr. Stanton. Never make assumptions about life and death. And when you’re talking about a Cartwright—well, they just seem to have a little extra luck going for them. That one in particular.”

It really was too much. Jeffrey snorted. “That’s preposterous. Luck will help a man draw an inside straight. It won’t help keep him from bleeding to death. You know as well as I do that that boy’s chances of living to see the sun rise are slim to none.”

Dr. Martin smiled. “Thirty years ago I would’ve said the same thing, Dr. Stanton. But thirty years ago I didn’t know the Cartwrights. That boy there has swung on slim chances his whole life. I’ve patched him up more times than I can count, and somehow he always pulls through. It’s a funny thing—the first time I laid eyes on him I didn’t give him a snowball’s chance in hell of making it to live another day. He and God proved me wrong then, and they’ve been doing it ever since.”

Jeffrey rubbed a hand over his face and sat down in a chair against the wall. He leaned his elbows on his knees and stared up at Dr. Martin. The older doctor might not be aware of all the latest medical techniques, but he certainly had optimism. An overabundance of it, Jeffrey thought.

But in this case, it was misdirected optimism. The kid lying in the surgery was a lost cause. It simply was not humanly possible to save him.

But Jeffrey was weary. Too weary to argue. He wondered if anyone had been able to locate the father. He thought of cool, calm Adam Cartwright, whom he had witnessed being on the brink of falling apart, and once again he found himself wishing he had met the rest of the family before fate had plucked one of them away.

He watched Dr. Martin rinse blood off his hands. Scarlet water lapped at the brim of the wash basin, liquid proof of too much damage to a human body.

Suddenly he didn’t want to think about it any longer. Didn’t want to think about the futility of the last few hours of work. Didn’t want to think about the news they would certainly be delivering to the Cartwright kid’s family in the very near future. Didn’t want to think about how he and Dr. Martin were only prolonging agony and postponing the inevitable.

Instead, while he watched Mrs. Murphy whisk the bowl out of the room, he thought about those three brothers, wishing once again that he could’ve met them all when they were hale and hearty and whole.

Curiosity niggled at him. “Doctor,” he said suddenly, “tell me about that first time.”

“Excuse me?”

“The first time this kid proved you wrong. I’m assuming he has been somewhat prone to getting hurt?”

Dr. Martin laughed. “That’s putting it mildly. I told his father years ago that he needed to keep that kid locked in a padded box until he was grown, just for his own protection.” He dried his hands on a towel, shaking his head and chuckling softly. “Falls, fires, fights—you name it, if it was within a hundred miles, Little Joe Cartwright could find it and put himself square in the middle of it.”

“And the first time—what happened then?”

Cocking his head, Dr. Martin raised an eyebrow. “You really interested in hearing that story?”

“I am.” And he was. He wasn’t sure why, but he was.

“I suppose we have a few minutes. Can’t let the family in just yet, not until we’re sure we won’t have to go back in.” He leaned over Joe Cartwright’s still form once more and listened through his stethoscope. After a moment, he straightened. His gaze moved toward the window, but Jeffrey could tell he wasn’t really looking at anything out there. “It was in 1843—no, 1842,” Dr. Martin said softly. “It was in the fall—”

The surgery door rattled and burst open. Adam Cartwright stood framed in the doorway, looking every bit as wild as he had back in the saloon; the desire to get up and run took hold of Jeffrey much as it had earlier in the day. Fortunately, he was able to squelch the impulse, and instead of running, he slowly stood up to stand beside Dr. Martin.

“Adam, you know darned well you have no business in here until I call you,” Dr. Martin snapped. “You might have interrupted the surgery.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I cornered Mrs. Murphy and made sure you were done.” Adam’s tone was clipped and hard. “I’ve sent my father and brother down to the International House to get some coffee and a bite to eat. At least, that’s what I convinced them that they needed to do. Paul, I have to know how my brother is. If I need to start preparing my father—” He looked past them toward Joe, and pushed past them to stand next to the surgery table.

His eyes raked over the clean bandages and the sheet drawn up to Joe’s chest. Then he pinned Dr. Martin with a stare. “Is he—will he—”

“Will he live? I think so, no thanks to idiots barging in where they don’t belong,” Dr. Marting grumbled. Then he looked at Adam’s colorless face and sighed, placing a hand on his back. “He’s still got a hard fight ahead of him. But I believe he’ll be able to pull through, Adam.”

Adam swallowed. The expression he gave Dr. Martin was pleading.

“I swear, son. I think he’s going to be all right,” the doctor repeated.

Adam’s throat worked. The emotions roiling beneath the surface were clear to see.

“Thank you, Paul,” Adam said hoarsely. He reached one hand out and rested it against the boy’s forehead. “Damn fool,” he whispered. “I told him to back off that miner. I should’ve slung him over my shoulder and thrown him on his pony and headed for home. I could’ve stopped it. I should’ve—”

“Stop that. Raking yourself over the coals isn’t going to help that boy one bit. Come on, come sit down.” Dr. Martin tugged at Adam’s arm. At first Jeffrey didn’t think Adam was going to move from his brother’s side, but he allowed himself to be pushed down into a chair.

“I need to tell Pa—”

“No,” Dr. Martin said decisively. “If I know Ben, he’ll be glued to Little Joe’s bed for the next several days. Let him get that food and coffee inside him first. He’s going to need it.” He narrowed his eyes at Adam’s pale face. “You could use some yourself, son. Mrs. Murphy! Bring coffee!”

Jeffrey eyed Adam cautiously. He appeared more dazed now than angry. Jeffrey found he was glad to see the anger gone. Anger in Adam Cartwright was a rather frightening thing to witness.

Jeffrey watched him rub a hand hard over his eyes and mouth.

“Dr. Martin was just telling me that your younger brother is quite the lucky individual,” Jeffrey offered, and was rewarded by a small smile.

“Lucky? Yeah, I guess a lot of folks might see it that way,” Adam murmured. “Sometimes I think it’s the other way around, what with all the fixes he manages to get himself hung up in.”

“Dr. Stanton wants to hear about the night Joseph was born,” Dr. Martin said.

Adam glanced at Jeffrey, one brow raised. “Really? Why?”

Jeffrey smiled. Why indeed? “Simple idle curiosity, I suppose. I’d truly like to hear the story. If you don’t mind, that is.”

“Go on, tell him. It’ll keep you busy while we wait for your pa and Hoss to get back,” Dr. Martin told him. “I want to wait for a few more minutes before we talk to them anyway—we need to make sure he’s not still bleeding somewhere, that sort of thing.”

Adam shook his head and stared at Joe. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Paul, but I’m not up to talking at the moment. I’ll just sit here with you if you don’t mind.”

Dr. Martin harrumphed. “Fine, but I’m not going to let you sit there and torment yourself, either. Come now, sitting here moping isn’t going to do you or Joe any good. Keep your mind occupied by telling Dr. Stanton his little story. I was going to tell it myself, but you know what happened better than I do.”

Adam shook his head. “I was just a kid. I don’t remember that much.”

“Then, please, just tell what you remember,” Jeffrey urged. His curiosity was growing.

Adam looked at him with an indecipherable expression, then sighed and sat back. He turned his gaze once more upon his brother’s still face, and then he shrugged. “All right. No harm in it, I don’t suppose.” He kept his eyes on Joseph and began to talk in a slow, soft voice, hesitating every few seconds as if the memories resisted being dredged up.

“Winter came early that year . . .”

October, 1842

The breeze had a harsh bite to it, but it wasn’t only the cold wind that sent a shiver up Adam’s spine. He sat, Hoss scrunched up close beside him, on the porch in front of the house, and he tried desperately not to think about what was going on inside.

“How much longer, Adam?” Hoss whispered. Adam sighed. He couldn’t count how many times his little brother had already asked the exact same question. But even in the cold moonlight he could see the misery and fear etched on Hoss’s face. It wouldn’t help to be impatient with him.

Adam answered just as he had all the times before. “I don’t know, Hoss. Nobody knows. It takes as long as it takes, that’s all.”

“Somebody knows.”

“What?” Distracted and worried, Adam felt another small wave of irritation flare up. He squashed it back down. “No, nobody knows.”

But Hoss nodded vigorously. “Yes, they do. God knows.”

Couldn’t argue with that. “Well . . . yes. God knows.”

For several minutes they sat in silence, watching the full moon drift in and out of fast-moving clouds.

“Pa says it took a long time for you to be born, Adam.”

Adam shifted uncomfortably on the porch, but didn’t answer. He knew where this was going.

Hoss was scared. He was only six, but he was well aware of the dangers involved. Women died in childbirth all the time. They both had more than one friend who had lost a mother or sibling that way. And of course there was Adam’s own mother . . .

“Do you want to go back inside the house, Hoss?” he asked abruptly. “It’s getting really cold out here.”

But Hoss shook his head adamantly and shrugged deeper into his coat.

Adam couldn’t blame his brother’s resistance. Going inside meant hearing more of Marie’s painful cries. The noise was muffled by the closed door upstairs, but it was still disturbing to Adam, so he knew it was even worse for his younger brother. It had been Adam’s idea to wait outside, but that had been hours ago.

“Pa says it took a long time for you to be born,” Hoss repeated. “He says your mama worked really hard to get you born because she loved you so much.” Adam kept his gaze on the pine boughs swaying in the wind overhead, but he could feel Hoss’s eyes on him as the little boy tried to work out the worries he had on his mind. “I asked Pa if he thought your mama would’ve gone ahead and had a baby if she’d known it was gonna be so hard. So hard that she would die from tryin’.”

Startled, Adam looked at him. Could Hoss possibly realize how many times that very question had haunted him? No, of course not. Adam himself had never dared to put such a thought into words. Not to his pa or even to himself, and certainly not to Hoss.

“What did Pa say when you asked that?” Adam’s voice threatened to skip out on him. He had to clear his throat.

Hoss shrugged, obviously unaware of the importance of his answer. “He said she would’ve done it a thousand times over. Even more. ‘Cause she loved you so much.” His tone was matter-of-fact, but he was quiet for a few minutes after that. When he finally spoke up again, it was with, “Mama loves her baby, too. Even with it still in her belly, she loves it.”

Adam didn’t know what to say. Sometimes his little brother astounded him with what he noticed.

Hoss bent over and began to idly sift dirt through his fingers. “I don’t see how somebody can love somebody they’ve never even met, do you?” he asked.

Love was a confusing thing for Adam all the way around, especially during the past several months. He knew his pa had loved Inger with all his heart, so he’d been confused, angry even, when Pa had fallen in love with Marie. After all, if your heart belonged to one person, how could it be given to another?

Pa had told him it was like loving him and Hoss; he loved them both so much he thought his heart would explode with it. Loving more people only meant there was more love packed inside your heart.

“A heart that could hold only enough love for one person would be a sorry little thing,” Pa had told him, and Adam supposed it was true. They had all loved Inger; it didn’t mean they couldn’t love Marie, too. It had taken awhile, but eventually he had no longer felt guilty about liking her so much.

“Adam? How can somebody love somebody they’ve never even met?” Hoss persisted.

He didn’t know the answer to that and said so.

Hoss frowned. “I don’t know if I’ll love this baby. Jess Pruitt has a new baby brother, and he’s awful loud. And sometimes he smells worse than the barn stalls when they need cleanin’. I wouldn’t even want to sit next to him, much less love him.” He picked up another handful of dirt and watched it flow out of his hand and onto his boot. “Pa says I’ll love our baby, though. He says we’ll all love him because our hearts already know him even if we haven’t got to talk to him yet.” He looked up at Adam. “Is that true?”

If Pa had said it, far be it from him to argue. “Yeah, Hoss, I reckon it’s true.”

“Did your heart already know me when I was born?”

Adam grinned. “Yeah, Hoss. My heart has always known you.” He knew it was true, even though it didn’t make much sense.

Hoss smiled, and dug in the dirt some more. For a long time they were both quiet. When Hoss finally spoke up again, he kept his eyes on the toes of his scuffed boots. “God knows how long it will take for the baby to be born. He knows if Mama is going to die, too, doesn’t He?”

“She’s not going to die.”

Hoss looked up at him then, and the desperation in his eyes made Adam’s insides twinge.

“You don’t know that,” Hoss said. “You don’t know it for sure.”

“She’s not going to die,” Adam insisted, but he couldn’t hold his brother’s gaze. Hoss was right; he knew no such thing.

For a few minutes, neither of them said anything. The only sound was the mournful whisper of wind in the pines standing sentinel over the house. Then Hoss said in a low voice, “If Mama dies tryin’ to get this baby born, it’s gonna be awful hard for me to love him.”

Adam stared at him. “Hoss, whatever happens isn’t the baby’s fault. You know that.” When he was younger, he had whispered the same thing to himself, over and over, when he thought of his own mother. It had taken a long time before he’d actually believed it.

Hoss nodded miserably and dropped his head. “Yeah. I know.”

For a long time neither of them said anything more. Then, over the wind, an odd, shrill, animal-like keening drifted down to them, a sharp sound filled with anguish.

“Is that Mama?” Hoss whispered, and his blue eyes were as big and round as Adam had ever seen them.

For a brief instant, Adam considered lying. He could tell Hoss the sound must’ve come from a red-tailed hawk circling high overhead, but he knew Hoss was too astute to ever fall for that.

They both stared up at the lantern-lit window that marked their parents’ room, the glass strong enough to hold out the cold wind but not thick enough to keep muffled sounds of agony from slipping past.

“I wish Pa would come down and sit with us,” Hoss said miserably. “Or at least Hop Sing.”

“You know Hop Sing is helping Doc Martin,” Adam whispered, his eyes still on the window, “and so is Pa.” He didn’t add that before he and Hoss had escaped to the porch, he had peeked into Pa’s room just in time to hear him refuse the doctor’s orders to leave.

“You’ll only be in the way, Ben,” Doc Martin had snapped as he rushed around getting things ready. “Just wait downstairs. We’ll call you when the time comes.”

“No! Ben! Please don’t leave me!” Marie had sounded so terrified that Adam had wanted to panic too. The way alarm washed his pa’s face free of color didn’t make him feel any better.

“I’m going nowhere, Marie,” Ben had soothed, and sat down beside her, holding tightly to her hand. Adam had crept away to the sounds of his stepmother gasping and his father murmuring reassurances. Then the bedroom door closed. He hadn’t seen either of them since.

Another pain-filled cry wafted down into the yard, making him shudder and grit his teeth.

Apparently the sound was all Hoss could take; he shot to his feet and took off. Adam called to him, but the little boy was headed for the barn as though the devil himself was at his heels. The barn door banged open as Hoss flew through it.

Adam hurried behind him, yet another piercing cry at his back. He wanted to put his hands over his ears to keep it out.

He closed the barn door firmly behind him, and the interior fell into darkness.

“Hoss? Where’d you go?”

A muffled sniffle along with a horse’s soft nicker gave Adam his answer. He took the lantern from its place on a hook near the door and lit it, then carefully hung it back up.

Soft yellow light pushed the darkness back into the corners of the barn. In one of the stalls, under the benevolent eye of a large bay mare, stood Hoss. He rubbed the velvety nose of a tiny foal standing beside the mare. He did not look at Adam. Adam decided to pretend he didn’t notice the tears staining his cheeks.

It was warmer here out of the wind. Quieter, too. Distance and wind and plank walls thankfully kept the agonizing sounds of childbirth at bay. Adam wondered why he hadn’t had the sense to take advantage of the barn’s protective confines earlier.

Well, if he hadn’t been thinking clearly, neither had anyone else. The entire household was rattled. Pa and Hop Sing rushing about, Marie turning her face into her pillow to hide her pain, Doc Martin shouting orders—and fear, hard and cold, filtered over everything.

For the baby was coming early. Far too early.

“That . . . sound. I ain’t never heard anyone sound like that,” Hoss whispered. He ran a hand down the mare’s sleek neck, over and over, staring at her rather than looking at Adam. “Why does Mama sound like that, Adam?”

Adam picked up a brush and moved to stand beside Hoss. “She’s hurting, Hoss.” He moved the brush over the mare’s side in rhythmic motions, knowing the task was more to soothe himself than because the horse needed grooming.

“Did my mama sound like that when I was born?”

Adam’s hand stilled for a moment as he looked down at his brother, remembering. “No. Inger was quiet through the whole thing.”

Hoss’s brow furrowed. “So not all ladies holler so terrible when a baby’s comin’?”

Adam rubbed the soft neck of Lucy’s foal and thought about it. He had plenty of personal experience to draw from; several babies had been born on the trail when he and Pa and Inger had been with the wagon train. The canvas walls of the wagons hadn’t afforded anyone much privacy for anything, not even birth and death. Some women were quieter than others. He wondered if it was because some could take more pain than others, or because some births were just harder. He suspected it was probably a little bit of both, although Marie didn’t strike him as someone who couldn’t stand up under pain. He knew birthing could be a long, arduous process, though.

Out on the trail with the wagon train, a couple of babies had been born too early. Neither one had survived, and one of the mothers had died as well.

He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. He didn’t want to think about it, either.

“Stop asking so many questions, will you?” he said gruffly. He gently nudged the foal aside and moved to the mare’s other side, where he continued to flick the brush across the dark, shining hide.

Hoss ducked his face under the horse’s neck and stared at him with big, round eyes. “Are you scared, Adam?”

Was he scared? Yeah, he was scared. Scared for the new baby, and scared that his pretty stepmother, whom he had only recently begun to warm up to, would be gone before the night was done. Scared that his pa would once again walk around with that awful, lost look on his face the way he had done after Inger had died.

He tried to swallow the knot growing in his throat. “Yeah, I’m scared.”

Hoss nodded and patted the mare’s neck. “Me too.” He looked at the foal and then back at its mother. “Lucy didn’t make sounds like that when she had her baby. Just a few grunts and groans, and her baby just sort of slapped out onto the ground, all wet and messy—”

“Marie’s not a horse. It’s different.”

“Why, Adam?”

“Why? What do you mean, ‘why’?”

“Why is it different for animals? Don’t mama animals hurt when they’re tryin’ to get their babies born?”

“Well, yes, I imagine that it does hurt them, but—”

“Then why don’t they holler?”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Oh, for Pete sakes, Hoss, have you ever heard a horse holler?”

“I sure dadgum have.”

Adam’s eyes snapped to Hoss’s face. “What?”

“Remember last winter when that chestnut gelding stepped in a hole and broke his leg? That horse screamed when it went down. It was awful.”

Adam gulped at the remembrance. It had been awful. “Yeah, well . . . that’s different.”

“A horse with a broke leg is different than one that’s tryin’ to have a baby?”

“Yeah. It’s different.”

“Why? They both hurt, don’t they? Why would they sometimes holler when they go down with a broke leg but not when they’re havin’ a baby? Why is it different?”

Adam sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I don’t know why. It’s just different, that’s all. Here, brush on Lucy for a while. It’ll give you something to do.” He handed the brush to him and leaned against the wall, peering out the smudged window of the barn to the house. Much as he didn’t want to hear Marie’s cries, he was desperate to know what was happening in there.

Obediently, Hoss brushed. “I’m glad animals don’t holler when their babies come. You know why?”

Adam gave a long-suffering sigh and shook his head. “No, why?”

“Well, you know how the calves mostly hit the ground pretty much at the same time at the end of winter, mostly all within a few weeks? Just think how much racket there’d be if all those cows were screamin’ at the top of their lungs. We wouldn’t be able to hear ourselves think.”

Adam had to smile at the ridiculous vision his brother had painted. “I reckon you’re right about that. It would be a heck of a racket.”

Hoss stopped brushing and stood still. Watching Lucy’s foal as it settled down into the straw, its long legs tucking themselves underneath its body, he said softly, “Adam, you remember what happened to Lucy’s foal last year?”

Poor Hoss. At that moment, Adam knew his younger brother fully understood the particular dangers to which Marie and her baby could very possibly succumb.

Adam watched his face. “Yes, I remember.”

“Pa said the foal came too early. That’s why she died,” Hoss whispered. “Our baby isn’t s’posed to get here ‘til Thanksgivin’. That’s a whole month off. It’s goin’ to die, ain’t it?” His voice was small and shaky.

Adam had no easy answer. Hoss’s fear could very easily become fact. He eased off the wall and moved around to put an arm across Hoss’s shoulders. “Doc Martin is doing everything he can. You know that.”

Hoss nodded. “I know, but . . .  Mama is scared. I saw her face. I know she’s cryin’ some because of how she’s hurtin’, but some it is because she’s so scared.”

Lying, either to himself or Hoss, would serve no purpose. “Yes. She’s scared.” Marie was scared. Pa was scared. All of them were scared.

“I think maybe it’s my fault, Adam.” Hoss’s bottom lip quivered. “I feel like maybe God knows I’m not sure I can love somebody what smells like manure. Maybe God’s decided to bring the baby early so He can send him back and give him to another family, ‘cause I don’t love the baby already like Mama does.”

All right, this was really too much. Despite himself, Adam rolled his eyes. “Come on, Hoss, there ain’t no truth in that at all. You’re talkin’ nonsense. You know that, don’t you?”

Hoss shrugged. “Yeah. I reckon.” But he looked unconvinced.

Adam shook his head and turned to a wooden chest sitting just outside the stall. He withdrew several horse blankets from the chest and crooked his finger at his brother. “Come on. Unless you want to go back to the house we might as well make ourselves comfortable, since we don’t know how much longer it’ll be. Could take all night. Sometimes it does.”

They settled themselves into the straw beside Lucy’s foal. Adam tucked the blankets in around them.

For a few minutes there was silence. Then, “I’m hungry, Adam. Hop Sing forgot all about supper.”

Adam sighed and tried to ignore the rumblings of his own belly. “I know. He’s awful busy. We’ll get something to eat later, all right?”

Hoss grumbled a rather petulant agreement and squirmed around for several minutes before he finally sat up again, rubbing his nose. “These blankets are itchy.”

Adam didn’t bother to answer. The blankets were itchy. But they were warm, and he quickly grew drowsy despite the itchiness and his worry.

“Adam?”

“Hmm?”

“You didn’t like Mama when she first came.”

Adam turned his head to see his younger brother watching him. “It wasn’t that I didn’t like her. It was just . . . ” He let out a frustrated huff of air. “It’s complicated. You’re too young to understand.”

“But you didn’t like her. You said she was like a claim jumper. You said she was—”

“I said a lot of things,” Adam interrupted. “People say things they don’t mean sometimes when they’re scared.”

“You were scared of Mama? How could you be scared of her? She ain’t even that big. You’re already taller than her. How—”

“I didn’t say that I was afraid of her!” he protested, and he was aware that his voice had risen a little higher than he had intended.

“Yes, you did. You just said being scared made you say things you didn’t mean—”

“I didn’t say I was scared of her,” he said. “For Pete’s sakes, Hoss, just lie down and go to sleep, will you?”

Hoss frowned. “If you weren’t afraid of her, what were you afraid of?”

What had he been afraid of?

Lots of things, that’s what. Mostly that his father, obviously smitten with his new wife, would devote more and more time to her and less to him and Hoss. That his life was changing yet again, and he could do nothing to stop it, and his father’s love for Marie was at the center of that change. That she would change their family forever.

But Adam hadn’t realized then what he knew now. That love spread wasn’t diminished. It was multiplied.

“I guess I was afraid she’d change things,” Adam said quietly. “I liked our family the way it was—you, me, Pa. Hop Sing. I didn’t think we needed anyone else.”

Hoss nodded and lay back down, seemingly satisfied. “But we did need Mama, didn’t we?”

It was true. Adam had learned that just because you didn’t always know you needed something didn’t mean you didn’t need it. “Yeah,” he whispered, and this time his eyes stayed wide open as he stared into the rafters overhead, his worried thoughts drifting back to what was happening in Marie’s bedroom. “Yeah, we needed her.”

They still did.

**********

“Adam, it’s mornin’. Adam? Adam!”

Hoss’s insistent voice brought him out of a dream he was only too happy to leave. He had been riding on the seat of a covered wagon with Pa and Hoss. Nobody else was around; no other wagons, no people, no horses. A cold, heavy mist swirled around them, and they couldn’t see where they had been or where they were headed . . .

“Adam, I’m awful hungry. Powerful hungry.”

Adam struggled into a sitting position and rubbed his knuckles against his eyes, determinedly clearing away the last vestiges of sleep and dreams as Hoss stood up and dusted bits of straw off his trousers. It was colder inside the barn. The temperature had dropped.

No one had come for them, and that wasn’t a good sign. Either Marie was still in labor, or . . . or something worse.

The realization had him scrambling to his feet.

When he pushed the barn door open, a sharp wind cut across his cheeks. The sun wasn’t yet over the mountains, and even when it came it wouldn’t bring much warmth; the heavy mantle of blue-gray clouds would see to that. It looked like winter was getting ready to bully its way into an early appearance.

They hurried across the yard toward the house, but once there they both stopped, unwilling to go further, despite the cold. They stared at the upstairs window.

Hoss bit his lip. “I don’t hear anything, do you?”

“No. Sure you want to go in?” Adam wasn’t sure himself.

“I gotta. My belly’s cavin’ in clear to my backbone.”

Exaggeration or not, Adam could appreciate the sentiment. He was hungry too.

“All right. Let’s go in the side door. We’ll get you some breakfast.” And they could escape quickly out of the same door if Marie’s cries started back up, Adam thought, but he didn’t say it.

The kitchen was strangely empty and quiet. Usually Hop Sing was busy in here before dawn, bustling around as he readied breakfast and kneaded dough for the day’s bread. On a normal day, the clatter of dishes and cutlery along with Hop Sing’s sharp reprimands toward anyone foolish enough to enter his domain mingled together in a cacophony of hectic activity. For the past year, Marie’s ringing laughter had joined in with the noise as she and Hop Sing prepared meals together.

But not this morning. There was no bread baking. No laughter. The dishes sat untouched in their cupboards. Only the stove was performing its usual task, sending up shimmering waves of heat from the embers within. On its top sat a kettle full of steaming water, and on the back of a nearby chair hung several towels. Adam didn’t know what it meant that boiled towels were still needed, but apparently someone had at least kept the fire going in the stove.

He surveyed the kitchen. Along one wall sat a long, low wooden table, one of Hop Sing’s favorite work spaces. Various tins and bowls rested there, including a crockery bowl filled with what was left of yesterday’s eggs.

“We’ll have breakfast in no time, Hoss.”

He picked up the bowl of eggs, and a couple of tiny, square objects came into view.

“Mama’s dice,” Hoss said matter-of-factly.

Yes, Marie’s dice. Adam was well aware of the dice that stayed hidden in the corner behind the egg bowl. Once, before things had eased between him and Marie, he’d even confronted her about those dice after walking in on her and Hop Sing while they were engaged in a game of craps—what they had apparently both felt a hilariously funny game of craps. They’d both been laughing and hooting at one another like drunken miners. Worse, Hoss had been rolling the dice and laughing hysterically too.

Adam had felt a short, sharp pang of jealousy because he hadn’t been among them, giggling and joking. Instead of joining in, however, he’d said accusingly, “You know Pa don’t hold with gamblin’.” Hoss had flushed and shot him an anxious look. Hop Sing had taken one look at the glower on his face and then had very quickly risen and busied himself at the stove, mumbling in Chinese under his breath.

But Marie hadn’t been shamed at all. She’d stopped laughing, but a smile still hovered at the edges of her mouth as she looked him straight in the eye. “We’re not gambling. We’re playing a game. There’s a difference, Adam. It’s just a way for Hop Sing and me to enjoy passing our time while we wait for water to boil or meat to brown. Just a game, that’s all.”

He’d narrowed his eyes at her. “You don’t play when Pa is around.”

Her smile had faltered and something uneasy had flashed across her eyes. “No, because I know it bothers him. He’s afraid of . . . he’s worried that I . . . ” She’d given her head a slight shake and put her smile firmly back in place. “It makes him uncomfortable, so I choose not to do it when he is present.”

He’d looked at the dice lying on the table and then back at her, and then he’d tilted his chin up and said in the coldest manner he knew how to employ, “Ladies—real ladies—don’t touch dice.”

She’d winced and sucked in a breath. Sharp words had crossed between them before, but this time he had the impression that perhaps he’d crossed the line. Part of him had wanted to take the words back. He’d known it was a cruel thing to say. The other part of him, though, the part that didn’t want to like or trust his pa’s new wife, was glad he’d managed to draw blood.

But Marie wasn’t an easy target. Slowly, she had stood and moved to stand directly in front of him, drawing herself to her full height and raising her chin to look him as squarely in the face as she could. He’d had to fight to keep from taking a step back from the fire flashing in her eyes.

When she spoke, her voice was cool but soft. “I’m likely as close to a real lady now as I ever will be, Adam. I’m sorry if it isn’t close enough to suit you, but I set my life’s course long ago. You, however, still have time to choose your own paths. And if one of those paths includes becoming a real gentleman, you’d do well to remember that true gentlemen treat every woman they meet with deference and respect, whether that woman is a countess or a saloon girl—or even your father’s wife.”

With that, she’d gathered her skirts and left the kitchen, her head held high, leaving him standing shamefaced in the silent kitchen.

Adam touched one of the dice now, its bone surface smooth and cool under his fingers, and his lips twitched up in a tiny smile. He had apologized to Marie later—much later. But he’d been sincere in his regret, just as she had been sincere in her acceptance of it. The dice games hadn’t stopped, and although he’d never joined in on them, neither had he spoken of them to Pa. He sometimes even watched for a few minutes. He had decided the issue was none of his business. If playing dice was truly a bad thing, his father would discover the games and ban them soon enough without Adam’s interference. There wasn’t much on the Ponderosa that went on for long without Ben Cartwright’s knowledge.

Carefully, he pushed the dice back under cover behind a tin of flour.

“Come on, Hoss, let’s scramble up these eggs.”

He let Hoss help him crack the shells, even though he knew it meant they’d be biting into crunchy bits later. Within a few minutes they were both tucking into plates of fluffy yellow eggs, their bellies soothed with the warmth of comforting food even if their minds were still tense with worry. So far they had seen neither hide nor hair of anyone else. It was as if they were the only ones home.

“Good eggs,” Hoss mumbled around a mouthful, and Adam nodded even as he picked a piece of shell out of his mouth.

At that moment a single, long, horrible cry, worse than all the ones they had heard last night, resounded down the stairs and throughout the house.

Startled, Hoss jerked back, accidentally knocking his plate off the table. Scrambled eggs scattered and bounced across the plank floor.

“Good thing we didn’t use Mama’s china,” Hoss said mournfully as the tin plate bounced and rolled into a corner. It rattled noisily to a stop and Hoss stared into Adam’s face as they both waited, tense and on edge, for another cry.

It never came.

Minutes went by. Adam gave his own eggs to Hoss as he got down on his knees to clean up the mess on the floor, but he noticed that Hoss only picked at the food. He couldn’t blame him. His own appetite had disappeared.

When footsteps sounded on the stairs, both of them jerked their faces in the direction of the sound. Adam froze in the middle of wiping the eggs up off the floor. Was it over? Was someone coming to tell them that the baby was here, and that Marie was fine—or . . . or . . . He shook himself. No. He wouldn’t consider the alternative.

Within moments, Hop Sing appeared in the doorway, circles under his eyes and lines of exhaustion marking his face. He hardly glanced at either of them, but the fact that he didn’t seem to notice the eggs marring his floor was what really made Adam’s heart stutter in fear. Normally the cook would’ve loudly chastised them for dirtying his kitchen, but he said not a word.

Something awful had happened. Only something truly bad would distract Hop Sing this way from the care of his kitchen.

Taking up a pair of tongs, Hop Sing began to dip clean towels into the steaming water. Adam got up off the floor, leaving the eggs where they lay.

“Hop Sing,” he said hoarsely. “Marie?”

Hop Sing turned his head and blinked as though surprised to see him.

“Mister Adam. You and Mister Hoss up early. I get breakfast soon. First take towels up to Doc Martin, then cook.” He turned back to the stove, and Adam put a hand on his arm, staring at his uncharacteristically expressionless face.

“How is she?” Part of him didn’t want to hear the answer. What if the worst had happened? He wanted to bolt out the kitchen door before Hop Sing had a chance to tell him that Marie was gone, that springtime was once again only a season and not a feeling, that months of grieving were all any of them had to look forward to.

But Hop Sing gave him a small smile and nodded. “Missy be fine. Must rest now. Birthing hard work. All done now.”

All done now. All done! Adam let out a deep breath. He wanted to collapse with the relief of Hop Sing’s news. Hot tears stung his eyes even as he smiled.

Hoss, silent and still until now, jumped out of his chair. “The baby is here?”

The baby. Heaven help him, he’d been so frightened for Marie he hadn’t even thought to ask about the baby.

Hop Sing nodded at Hoss. “Yes, baby here. Fine son for Mister Ben. Fine brother for you.” Hop Sing’s smile stumbled, though, and there was a note of sadness in his voice that sent cold foreboding shuddering through Adam.

Hoss, always perceptive, caught the undertones as well. His face instantly crumpled. Tears welled up in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. He shook his head sadly at Adam. “I told you our baby was gonna die! Not s’posed to come ‘til Thanksgivin’. Not s’posed to—”

Hop Sing cut him off. “Stop foolishment. Baby still here. Not die.” He dropped more towels into the water.

Adam pushed determinedly for more information. “Hop Sing, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Hop Sing interrupted his towel heating to look at Adam, and he sighed. “Baby very small, Mister Adam. Not good be so small.” Then he shook his head and went back to work. “You leave Hop Sing alone now. Doctor waiting.” He scurried out with a basketful of steaming towels.

Not good be so small. No, it was never good to be born too early and too small. Adam chewed his bottom lip, his initial glad relief dampened by his burgeoning despair for a tiny person he didn’t even know.

Our hearts already know him.

Hoss’s chin jutted out. “I want to see Mama,” he proclaimed, and he sounded so determined that Adam knew there would be no arguing with him. Hoss was rarely disagreeable, but once he had his heart set on something, it was impossible to dissuade him.

Besides, he wanted to see Mama—Marie—too.

“All right, but you have to promise you’ll be quiet,” he ordered, and Hoss nodded vigorously.

“I’ll whisper,” he promised. Adam wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Hoss didn’t realize his voice was as big as the rest of him, and what he thought came out as a whisper could be heard across a large room.

“All right, but if Marie and the baby are sleeping, just don’t say anything at all, okay? Not even a whisper.”

They crept upstairs. Together they stood in the open doorway of Marie’s bedroom, hesitant and afraid. There was a roaring fire in the hearth, making the room feel stuffy and overly warm even with the cold wind beating against the windows. The lamps were still lit. A pile of crumpled sheets rested in one corner of the room, ostensibly waiting for Hop Sing’s removal.

In the bed, Marie lay propped up against several down pillows, her hair in disarray such as Adam had never seen. She was always very careful about arranging her hair just so, but not today. Her skin was pale, and there was a smudge of purple beneath her eyes. She looked awfully tired.

Pa, too, looked exhausted. He stood beside the bed, his hand gripping Marie’s.

Neither of them glanced at Hoss or Adam. Both of them had all their attention riveted upon Doc Martin as he bent intently over a small, wrapped bundle lying on the bed beside Marie.

Hoss’s hand edged into Adam’s; Adam grasped the boy’s stout fingers and held on tightly.

The doctor’s back was to them, and Adam couldn’t see what he was doing to their baby, but whatever he was doing, he wasn’t talking about it. Pa and Marie were also silent.

In fact, silence pervaded the room in a thick, black wave, and Adam suddenly realized that the baby wasn’t crying. Fear sank hard and cold into his belly. New babies always cried, or at least whimpered. The only ones he’d ever seen that were silent like this were . . . were babies that had died. Or going to die.

“Doc?” Pa’s voice was shaky, and the sound of it made Adam’s insides tremble.

Doc Martin straightened then, and heaved a loud sigh. “He’s fighting, Ben.” He shook his head. “But I feel it would be wrong of me to give you false hope. He’s just so early . . . ” He bent his head and shook it again. “It would be wrong of me not to give you the truth. His odds aren’t good. Not good at all.”

As he watched Pa and Marie grow even paler, Adam slowly became aware of pain in his hand; Hoss was squeezing it for all he was worth.

“No!” Hoss blurted. “He can’t die!”

The adults looked up, startled, aware for the first time of their presence. Hoss ran to the bed and threw himself face down onto the quilt covering Marie’s legs.

Marie placed a hand on his head. “Hoss, it is all right. Do not worry. Your brother will be fine.” She shot Doc Martin a defiant look as if daring him to argue. Doc, though, only dropped his gaze to the floor and said nothing.

Pa stepped forward and grasped Doc Martin’s shoulder. “Please, Paul, surely there’s something we can do. Anything . . .  ”

Doc Martin stared at him, and the pity in his face made Pa drop his hand and step back as though he’d been burned.

“I’m sorry, Ben. It’s his lungs, you see. When a baby is born too early, sometimes the lungs are not developed enough to cope with the task of taking in oxygen. And his size . . .  He’s a fighter, or he’d be gone already, but he’s weak. That’s why he’s not crying. He’s just so small.” Again Doc shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ben,” he repeated. “If there was anything I could do . . . ”

For a moment, Adam watched as his father’s face took on the same broken, devastated look he had worn in the weeks following Inger’s death. But then he straightened and set his shoulders back.

“My boy will not die,” he said, jutting out his chin.

“Ben, I know how you feel, but—”

“My boy will not die,” he said again. He looked back at Marie, at Hoss staring up at him with wide blue eyes, at Adam still standing in the doorway. “He will strengthen, and he will live. The four of us will see to it.”

Marie set up straight. Along with tears, there was something shining in her eyes that Adam could not quite put a name to—desperation? Gratitude? Determination?

“My husband is right, Doctor. The four of us—” She looked around, her gaze lighting upon each of them in turn, and took a deep breath. “—the four of us, as Ben has said, will ensure this baby’s survival.” She picked the baby up and put her face close to his.

“There, you see, my son?” She was whispering, but Adam could hear what she said from where he stood. “Four. A ‘Little Joe.’ One of the most difficult rolls of the dice to make, and you already have it in your hand. You will not lose.”

A Little Joe. A dicing term meaning a roll of four. Adam had heard Marie shout it out more than once during those secret games of chance. “A Little Joe, Hoss! That is what you must roll to win! You need four! A Little Joe!”

“You are already lucky, my son,” Marie whispered. “You will beat the odds.”

“Little Joe.” Hoss said. He leaned toward the baby. “Little Joe, Little Joe, Little Joe,” he chanted. He had grasped onto Marie’s optimism with all his might. “You’ve got a Little Joe, baby. You’re going to win! Little Joe, Little Joe, Little Joe—” His voice rose a little with each chant.

“Hoss, that’s enough, son,” Pa said, and he looked slightly alarmed. But Hoss paid him no mind. Instead he reached for the baby’s hand and held it in his.

“A Little Joe, baby. That’s what you’ve got. Me, Adam, Mama and Pa. You can’t lose.”

“Hoss, come down off the bed,” Ben ordered, and reached for him.

Hoss evaded his grasp. It was the only time Adam could ever remember Hoss deliberately disobeying their father.

And now he was shouting, and even Adam was concerned. He moved forward.

“Hoss, stop!” he cried.

“Little Joe!” Hoss shouted at the top of his lungs. “Little Joe, Little Joe, Little Joe!”

His voice echoed against the walls of the room, and still he shouted. Pa was pulling at him now, trying to get him away from the baby, and Doc Martin watched him as though gazing upon a terrifying new species of insect. Marie was staring at him with an open mouth even as she tried to cover the infant’s ears with her hands.

It was too late. The startled baby’s eyes, shut before, were now wide open, and fixed on Hoss’s face. He gave a big shudder, opened his tiny mouth, sucked in a huge breath of air . . . and let out the most unearthly squall Adam had ever heard. The noise drowned out even Hoss’s shouts.

Surprised, Hoss shut his mouth.

The baby did not.

Escalating in volume, his screams went on.

And on.

October, 1861

For several long moments after finishing the story, Adam sat quietly. Jeffrey watched him, somehow disappointed that the story seemed to be at an end. He wanted to hear more.

“So the four Cartwrights became five?” he pushed.

An old sorrow lay was layered beneath Adam’s smile. “Only for a little while,” he said. “Marie died in a riding accident when Joe was still very young.” He stood and moved to stand near his brother again. “It’s been just the four of us ever since,” he said softly.

“A fact frequently bemoaned by the mamas of all the eligible young ladies in Virginia City,” Dr. Martin commented wryly, and Jeffrey had to laugh.

Adam laughed too, but his gaze was on Joe.

“You stay here, Adam,” Dr. Martin said quietly. “Dr. Stanton and I will go collect your pa and Hoss. They’ve waited for news long enough. We’ll be right back.”

Eyes still on his brother, Adam barely acknowledged their departure as they left the surgery.

Jeffrey was thoughtful as he walked beside Dr. Martin toward the International House. “I had assumed the nickname “Little Joe” came from the boy’s build and from being the younger brother,” he said.

Dr. Martin grinned. “That’s what most people assume,” he said. “But as you just heard, that’s not how it happened. His nickname came from his good fortune—the ability to roll a four, a Little Joe, first rattle out of the box.”

Jeffrey frowned at him. “That’s absurd. Surely you don’t really think there’s something special about the number four. It’s just a dicing term.”

Dr. Martin drew himself up as though offended. “Of course not! I’m a man of science, not superstitious gobbledy-gook.” Then he spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “It’s just that—well, this is a family that—I don’t know, that draws its strength from one another. Always has. That’s more where their good fortune lies. In each other.”

They walked for a moment in silence.

“Are you a gambling man, Mr. Stanton?” Dr. Martin asked suddenly.

He looked at Dr. Martin and shrugged. “I like a card game every now and then. Just for pleasure.”

“Dice?”

“Sometimes.”

“A four is hard to get. A Little Joe,” Dr. Martin said matter-of-factly.

Jeffrey nodded. “Yes, it is. One of the lowest odds you can get.”

“Want to lay odds that four Cartwrights will be riding back to the Ponderosa? Oh, not in the next several days, certainly, but eventually. I’m willing to put down a considerable wager—”

“Wager?” Jeffrey frowned. “On whether or not the kid survives? Is that ethical?”

Dr. Martin laughed. “Hell, son, we’ve done the surgery already! It’s up to that boy and God now. Nothing you or I do is going to change what happens.”

Jeffrey considered, and thought again about the kid lying on the table in the surgery with his brother standing over him. Half an hour ago he would’ve considered that bet a sure thing. But now . . .

Something told him he’d be losing his money.

“Well, son?” Dr. Martin pressed. “What do you say? Do we have a bet?”

Jeffrey shook his head, smiling.

“What kind of fool would I be,” he said, “to bet against a kid who has a habit of rolling fours every time he tosses the dice?”

Dr. Martin grinned back at him, and then opened the doors to the International House. “Come on, Doctor. We’ve got news to deliver. The rest of that boy’s family is waiting.”

The End

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