The knock at the door was a welcome interruption.  Gratefully, Ben abandoned the columns of figures that refused to add up to the same total twice.

His gratitude faded when he opened the door and he saw his caller.  Ed Barnes, owner of one of the dry goods stores in town.  Widowed father of two sons and a daughter who was the apple of his eye.  Sally Barnes, the girl who accused Little Joe.  Ben was suddenly glad that the boys were up toward the north pasture, looking for strays.

“Ed,” nodded Ben.  “Won’t you come in?”

“This ain’t a social call,” said Ed.  “I just came to tell you that if your boy comes anywhere near my Sally, my boys and I’ll blow his head off with a shotgun.”

Ben felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.  This man wasn’t exaggerating, not even a little bit.  Ben Cartwright had heard plenty of idle threats in his time, as well as lots of puffed-up talk.  This statement, delivered in a dead monotone, had the ring of truth.

“Little Joe has no intention of going anywhere near Sally,” said Ben.  “And I’m going to let you ride out of here because you’re a father and so am I, and I understand that you’re upset.  But hear me good, Ed.  You ever say anything like that again, or you or your boys do anything to make good on that threat, and I’ll have the sheriff on you before you take your next breath.  My boy’s innocent.  The Nevada Supreme Court said so.  I’m sorry you can’t believe that Sally was mistaken, but Little Joe never laid a hand on her.”

Ed sneered.  “How much does a judge cost these days, Ben?  Five thousand?  Ten?  And with three judges on that panel—must have been mighty pricey to get your boy turned loose.  But like you say, we’re both fathers.  I’d have done the same if it was one of mine and I had the money.”

“There was no money,” said Ben.  He was holding his temper only by a great effort.  “The court said my boy’s innocent, whether you believe it or not.”

“Oh, no, they didn’t,” said Ed.  “I may not be a rich rancher, but I know the difference between ‘innocent’ and ‘not guilty.’  ‘Innocent’ would mean he didn’t do it; ‘not guilty’ just means they couldn’t prove he was guilty.  That court said the jury didn’t have enough evidence to find your boy guilty.  They never said he was innocent.”

“Get off my property,” said Ben.  His fists were clenched and itching to slam Ed Barnes in his arrogant mouth.  “And don’t ever threaten my son again, or you’ll find out what the inside of a cell looks like.”

“’Twasn’t a threat, just a warning,” said Ed, turning to leave.  “More than your boy gave my Sally.  She thought he was her friend.  Even now, she’s begging me to forget all about it, let bygones be bygones.”  He spat into the dust and swung into his saddle.  “Like hell,” he said, and galloped out of the yard.

It took half an hour and two large brandies before Ben was calm enough to return to work.  Even then, Ed Barnes’ words kept running through his head:  That court said the jury didn’t have enough evidence to find your boy guilty.  They never said he was innocent.

Ed Barnes was a shopkeeper, not a lawyer.  He would never have figured out this distinction on his own.  Somebody, somewhere, was talking.  The prosecutor, maybe.

Dear God, he thought.  Hasn’t Joe been through enough without people still questioning his innocence?

The sound of a buggy startled him.  Now who? he thought.  His mind raced, trying to think of who else might be coming to threaten Little Joe.

Seeing Doc Martin alighting from the buggy was an enormous relief.  “Doc!” Ben called a bit too heartily.  “It’s good to see you!”  He shook the doctor’s hand vigorously.

“Ben, are you all right?”  His oldest friend peered at him.

“I just had a visit from Ed Barnes,” Ben explained, and the doctor nodded, understanding.

“As bad as you’d expect?” he asked sympathetically.

“Worse,” said Ben.  “What brings you out here?  Not that I’m not glad for a friendly face, but you’re a long way from your office.”

“I was out at the Tremaine place, and I thought I’d stop in on the way back for a cup of coffee and maybe a quick look at my favorite patient,” said the doctor.

Ben smiled.  “Joe’s up in the north pasture with Adam and Hoss,” said Ben.  “They’re fixing fences.  But Hop Sing’s got the coffeepot on.”

A few minutes later, they were comfortably ensconced, Ben at his desk and the doctor at the chair on the other side.  “So, how’s he doing?” asked the doctor.

Ben listened for a moment.  He thought he’d heard a horse, but no one came to the door.  Probably my imagination, he chastised himself.  Ed Barnes has already said his piece.  He’s not going to come back here.  “Joe’s doing well,” he said, forcing himself to focus on the doctor.  “Surprisingly so, considering those first few days.”

“But?” the doctor encouraged.

“Well—it’s almost—it’s like he’s not himself.”  It was the first time Ben had said it aloud.  He’d seen it almost from the beginning, and he was certain Adam and Hoss had, too.  Several times, he’d even caught Hop Sing staring at Joe, brow furrowed, but no one said anything.  It seemed—well, ungrateful.

The doctor nodded as if he understood.  “How is he ‘not himself’?”

“Well—you know, Joe’s never been one to hold anything back,” he said.  “Hot-tempered, speaks before he thinks, gets excited about things.  Since we’ve been home, I haven’t seen any of that.  It’s as if he’s keeping everything inside now—almost as if he’s afraid he’s going to slip again.”

“I wouldn’t blame him for worrying about that,” the doctor said.  At Ben’s skeptical nod, he prodded, “What else?”

“This is going to sound silly, but—you know that when he’s upset about something, he often has nightmares.  And not just quiet bad dreams—I can’t tell you how many times in his life I’ve been wakened by his calling out in the middle of the night.  And yet, even with everything he’s been through, there haven’t been any nightmares.  Not even that first night, when he couldn’t sleep in that bed.  That’s unusual for Joe.”

The doctor considered this.  “What else?” he asked after a minute.

Ben was silent.  Finally, he said, “I haven’t seen him cry once since he’s been out.”

“Well, he is older now,” said Doc gently.

Ben shook his head.  “I don’t think that’s it,” he said.  “Doc, he’s just not himself.  He almost reminds me of Adam at this age, except much more so—he’s keeping such tight control of himself.  That’s just not like Joe.”

Outside the window, Joe shook his head.  First, they were worried because he was upset; now, they were worried because he wasn’t upset enough.

He remembered the last time he cried. . . .

It was his third night in prison.  The first night, he’d cried himself to sleep like a kid, but he’d done it silently.  He had to—there were five other men in the cell with him, and he was damned if they’d hear him cry.  He was already scared out of his mind.  No point in giving them ammunition.

The guards had already come through for the night when one of his cellmates, Larry, whispered in the dark, “The kid’s cute.”

Joe froze.  His heart pounded so hard that it felt like it would come right out of his chest.  They had to be able to hear it.  But he stayed quiet, just in case it might make a difference to them if they thought he was sleeping.

Carlton snorted.  “He’s just a baby,” he said.  “Is that what you like, Larry?  Little boys?”

“This’un’s grown up enough,” said Larry.  “I can tell.  How old’re you, sonny?  Fifteen?  Sixteen?”  When Joe didn’t respond, Larry came over to where Joe lay on the floor, blanket tucked around him, and he kicked him in the ribs.  “Answer nice when I talk to you, hear?  How old’re you?”

Joe glared at him for all he was worth.  Larry probably outweighed him by fifty pounds, but it didn’t look like much of that was muscle.  “Old enough to know better than to listen to the likes of you,” he spat out.

Immediately, Larry grabbed Joe’s hair and slammed his head against the stone floor.  For a minute, all Joe could see were flashing white lights in the darkness.  Eventually, the ringing in his ears faded enough for him to hear Larry.  “Now, I’m gonna ask you again, and you’re gonna answer.  How old are you?” Larry demanded, still holding Joe’s hair as he knelt on Joe’s chest.  He slammed Joe’s head on the floor again for good measure.

Even in the dim light, he could see the glint in Larry’s eye.  This wasn’t like the Bucket of Blood, where everybody knew the unspoken rules about how to fight.  There were no holds barred here.  These people would kill him if he gave them half a reason.

“Nineteen,” Joe managed.  If he was going to get killed in here, it should be for something more important than his age.

“There, now, you see that?  I told you he was a big boy!”  Larry laughed.  “Come on, Big Boy, let’s see what you got.”

Joe didn’t know how long it went on.  He fought as hard and as dirty as he could, with every trick his brothers had ever taught him, but there were five of them and only one of him.  He started to scream for help, but Carlton backhanded his face so hard he thought his neck was broken. 

“You bring the guards, and you won’t live to see morning,” he hissed.  “And believe me, you’ll want to be dead a long time before you finally are.”  He straightened up.  “Let me go first,” he said.  “I’ll break him in.”  He stripped Joe’s shirt off and gagged the boy with it.  “Let’s hear you scream now,” Carlton laughed, as if he was enjoying himself.

Afterward, they left Joe to crawl back to his blanket.  He hurt so badly he could barely move.  If he’d had any strength, he would have screamed for the guards, just so somebody would kill him and it would all be over.  Better death than this agonizing hell.  He drew his blanket around him and curled up as tightly as he could, silently begging for Pa as if he were a little kid, and hiding his face in the threadbare blanket so that they wouldn’t hear him crying. . . .

“Hear anything good?”

Joe whirled around to see Adam and Hoss standing behind him, slightly more than arm’s-length away.  They knew enough by now not to sneak right up on him.

Joe held a finger to his lips and beckoned them away from the window.  “Pa’s talking to Doc,” he said.  The pain of memory lingered in his eyes, and Hoss had to fight the urge to reach for his brother.

“Didn’t we teach you it’s not polite to eavesdrop?” chided Adam, one eyebrow raised.  He’d seen the look in his brother’s eyes, too.  Lightening the moment seemed the thing to do.

“You taught me fine, elegant manners,” said Joe, not quite matching Adam’s teasing inflection.  He resisted the urge to add, And I had to forget them in order to survive.

“Apparently, we didn’t do a good enough job,” said Adam.  He cast around for an innocuous topic.  Then, he grinned at Hoss.  “Maybe we need to teach this boy some other skills.  Hoss, I think maybe our little brother needs a refresher lesson in how to clean out a chicken coop.  What do you think?”

“I think that sounds like a fine idea, Older Brother,” chuckled Hoss.  “An’ the best way to learn is by doin’.  Once he’s got all them smelly old chicken droppings scraped out of the coop, I reckon he’ll be ready for bigger jobs—like the horse manure in the barn.”

“My sentiments exactly,” drawled Adam.

“Very funny, you two,” said Joe, trying to get into the spirit of the teasing.  In the old days, banter like this would have quickly turned into a wrestling match, but his brothers seemed to understand that wasn’t a good idea, even if they didn’t know why.  But Joe knew.  The truth was that he didn’t trust himself to remember where the boundary lines were.  It had been too long since he’d fought just for fun.  He only knew how to fight for survival now.

Just then, the front door opened, and Pa and Doc came out.  “I didn’t hear you boys ride in,” said Ben.  “Fences all finished?”

“Every last one,” said Hoss.  “Shortshanks here ain’t lost his touch.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Ben, smiling at his youngest son.

“Doc, what’re you doing out this way?” asked Adam too casually.  He didn’t have to look to know that Joe was giving him a grateful look.

“Just stopped by on my way back into town,” said the doctor.  “As long as I’m here—Joe, do you have a minute?”

Joe resisted the urge to roll his eyes.  “Sure, Doc,” he said.  It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if the doctor felt safe alone with him, but he knew that the question wouldn’t sound funny or lighthearted—it would sound nervous, and maybe a little bit bitter.  Without a word or a backward glance at his brothers, Joe followed the doctor back into the house.

Maybe it was the memories, or maybe it was being alone with Doc, but that night, Joe woke up with another of the nightmares his family never knew about.  He’d had them almost every night, sometimes two or three times.  He’d waken, heart pounding, lying frozen in the same position, lest someone hear, just as he had so many times in his cell.

This was one of the familiar nightmares.  People he’d known all his life, standing in a tight circle around him, pointing at him, shouting accusations and obscenities, and then they pulled out their guns and started shooting at him from all directions at once.  Whenever he woke from this one, his mind inevitably returned to the same question:  how could Sally Barnes have made such a mistake?

She hadn’t been at the trial; they didn’t make women stand up in public and talk about those things.  But her father was there, and he told the jury everything she’d said.  Yes, he’d confirmed, she and Little Joe Cartwright had known each other all their lives.  Even though it was dark when she was attacked, she knew who’d done it.  She’d begged him not to touch her, but he’d forced himself on this innocent girl, and then he’d left her make her way back to town alone.  No question who’d done it.  Sally said it was Little Joe, and she would know.  After all, he was her childhood friend.

Her childhood friend.  When Ed Barnes said that, he glared at Little Joe with more contempt than Joe had ever seen on a man’s face.  And when Joe looked up, he saw the jurymen all looking at him the same way, and he knew he was going to prison.

Now, as he lay in the dark, his breathing slowly returning to normal, he reflected on the irony that his father was worried because he thought Joe wasn’t having nightmares. If he only knew, Joe thought.  His whole life, waking and sleeping, was a nightmare.  Not that he would ever say so.  Better Pa should worry because he thought Joe was recovering too well.

Soundlessly, he slipped from the bed and opened his desk drawer.  The bottle and the glass were tucked at the back of the drawer; even if someone came into his room looking for something, they’d never find the bottle.  If Pa had noticed the absence of one bottle of whiskey from the back of the liquor cabinet, he hadn’t said anything.  Joe mused that one thing he’d quickly recovered from was his concerns about alcohol.  In the dark terrors of the night, whiskey was his new best friend.

He replaced the bottle and glass and slid the drawer shut.  Warmed by the whiskey, he climbed back into bed and lay still, waiting for sleep to reclaim him, praying that the nightmares would somehow remain at bay.

* * * * * * * * * *

Ben stopped himself outside the door to the room in Doc’s clinic, trying to contain himself.  He would not yell.  He’d already heard most of it from Roy Coffee.  His sons undoubtedly had an explanation for being there in the first place, and he would wait for it.

And then, he’d lay into those three in a way they wouldn’t soon forget.

He opened the door.  Hoss sat on the foot of the bed, Adam in the bedside chair.  Joe was in the bed, propped up by pillows.  His right wrist was bandaged, and the lump on his right temple was developing glorious color.  It’s nothing serious, Ben reminded himself firmly.  Doc had said it was just a mild concussion and a sprained wrist.  He’d commented, though, that the boy was fortunate to have landed first on the wrist; otherwise, if his head had hit the table full force, things could have been bad.

As he stepped into the room, the conversation ceased.  For a second, he almost laughed at their expressions, which were the same wary, guilty looks they’d worn as children.

He turned first to his youngest son.  “Doc says you’re going to be fine,” he announced.  “He doesn’t even think you need to stay here overnight.”  It had taken a couple hours before Joe regained consciousness, but Paul Martin had reassured Ben that the young man seemed to be coming around just fine.  A few days of bedrest, and maybe something for the headaches and dizziness, and all would be well.

“He told me,” said Joe.  He shot a quick look at Adam, who nodded reassuringly.

“So.”  Ben glared at each son in turn.  “Two hundred dollars,” he said, drawing the words out.

“Two hundred dollars?” Hoss repeated.

“Two hundred dollars,” said Ben.  “Sam’s dividing the damage between you three and the Barnes boys.”  He saw quick glances exchanged at you three.

“But, Pa, it wasn’t our fault,” protested Adam.  “Tommy Barnes took a swing at Joe.  What were we supposed to do?”  He didn’t say that he’d been impressed—and slightly unnerved—by Joe’s reflexes and the cold, brutal way that he fought now, observing no rule except that of survival at all costs.  If Tommy hadn’t been nearly Hoss’ size, Joe probably could have taken him.

“Tommy Barnes took a swing at Joe.”  Ben had a way of repeating reasonable explanations that made them sound like the most ludicrous of excuses.  “Would one of you mind telling me what the devil you were doing in that saloon in the first place?”

“It was my idea,” said Little Joe.  Something in his tone almost challenged his father to criticize him.

“Your idea.”  It sounded absurd when Ben said it.  “I don’t suppose any of you had the idea to do as you were told, which was to get the supplies and come back to the ranch!”  The sentence ended in a roar.

“I just thought it might be nice to stop in for a drink.”  Somewhat uncharacteristically, Joe was defending his position.  It used to be that, when Ben was in this kind of a mood, Joe would just duck and wait for the storm to blow over.  Curiously, he did not appear to be nearly as impressed as he once would have been by his father’s temper.

Ben heaved a mighty sigh to show how patient he was being with his half-witted sons.  “Did we not talk about this before you left this morning?” he began.  At Joe’s reluctant nod, he continued, “And did I not say that you were to pick up the supplies and come straight back?”

“Yes, sir, but—” began Hoss.

“And did I not tell you that I needed the three of you back by noon so that you could get started with the branding?”  Again, the glare.

This time, even Joe looked slightly sheepish.  “Yes, sir.”  It was slightly more than a mumble.

“And is it not now past four o’clock, which means there’s been no branding done today, and now Joseph won’t be able to help with that for the rest of the week, at least!”

Adam raised his hand.  “Permission to speak, Major?”  At his father’s glare, he dropped his eyes for a second in a show of respect.  He knew that a fair bit of this performance was bluster, but he also knew that Pa had been genuinely worried.  Little Joe had been settling in on the ranch over the past few weeks, but Virginia City was a different subject altogether, and Pa had been antsy about that for days.

Joe had picked up with the ranch chores as if he’d never left.  Occasional quiet reminders from his brothers were all he needed.  The work wasn’t the problem.  The men, on the other hand—he never knew what to expect from them, and it made him feel off-balance and irritable.  A fair number of the hands on the Ponderosa were new to the area since Joe had gone to prison.  The truth was that they didn’t care one way or the other why Joe had been away or why he was back.  A few of them had discussed it when Joe first arrived home, but in the ensuing weeks, the novelty had faded.

The older hands were another story.  They knew the Barneses, and they knew the Cartwrights, but none of them knew what had really happened the night Sally was attacked.  Some of them were convinced that Joe had done it, figuring he’d get away with it because his name was Cartwright; others held fast to the belief that Little Joe Cartwright was incapable of such a thing.  To a man, they watched Joe closely, trying to discern whether he was an innocent man who’d been wrongly convicted or a guilty man whose connections had finally sprung him.

Joe being Joe, the notion of just letting them talk was unacceptable, despite his father’s counsel to do just that.  At first, he’d tried to win back their respect by working as hard as he could.  When he was thrown from his first bronc, he was up out of the dirt and ready to climb back on before the horse had stopped prancing.  Where his brothers used to have to drag him out of bed, he was now up before the sun, the first out to work and the last back in.  When this failed to quiet the talk, he resorted to fighting, but he chose his opponent carefully.  Slim Taylor, who was a friend of Tommy Barnes’, had the loudest mouth.  Joe waited until they were surrounded by a number of hands—and his father was safely back at the house—before challenging Slim to defend his remarks.  A scant few minutes later, as Slim lay unconscious in the dust, Joe glared at the others.  “Anybody else got anything they want to say to me?” he demanded.  When there was no response, he dusted himself off and snapped, “Then get back to work.”

But Virginia City was something else again.  For a start, those people didn’t work for the Cartwrights.  Some were on Joe’s side, and others weren’t.  The Barneses, of course, but there were others, too.  The men who had made up that jury all lived in or around town, and they hadn’t taken kindly to a court telling them that they were wrong.  Even more than the Barneses and their friends, the jury members insisted that Little Joe was walking the streets as a free man solely because his name was Cartwright and his father had money.

The day came, as Ben knew it would, when Joe wanted to head into town.  At first, the young man had had his hands full, just dealing with life on the ranch.  After a few weeks, though, he began to chafe at Ben’s various excuses for keeping him on the Ponderosa.  The truth was that Ben was afraid of what would happen.  He had no problem picturing Tommy or Ned Barnes challenging Joe to a gunfight, and he knew that Joe would never back down if he were challenged.  So, Ben tried to manage Joe’s inaugural trip to Virginia City so that it would be as brief and inconspicuous as possible.  Just pick up the supplies and come right back to do the branding, he’d said.  He hadn’t thought he needed to tell his two older sons to stay away from the saloon.  He figured that they had enough sense to know that.

Apparently, he’d been wrong.

“Well?” demanded Ben.  “What did you want to say?”

“Only that—well, we went to the saloon because we hadn’t done anything like that together in a long time.  We were just going to have a quick drink and be on our way.  We didn’t know the Barneses would be coming in.”  Always the voice of reason, Adam met his father’s gaze levelly.  He knew that, more than their ignorance of the Barneses’ activities, Ben’s attention would be caught by oh-so-casual comment about not having gone to the saloon together for a long time.

The truth was that Adam knew the saloon was a bad idea before they ever went in.  As the morning had progressed, Joe had been developing a quite a chip on his shoulder.  Some folks had been genuinely glad to see him.  When he’d dropped by Doc Martin’s office to apologize to Mrs. Martin and Bernard, Rose Martin gave him a big hug and Bernard grinned as he shook his hand.  Others hadn’t known quite what to make of Little Joe’s sudden reappearance; Laurie Ann Miller of the mercantile had looked shocked when Joe walked in, although the Ponderosa’s business was important enough that she immediately recovered herself and assumed a wide, almost-sincere smile. Some folks stared openly, and still others, including young ladies who were friends of Sally Barnes’s, refused to acknowledge the Cartwright brothers, and a few actually crossed the street to avoid them.

So, by the time Joe suggested a drink, all three brothers were irritated and feeling that they quite deserved a cold beer before setting off for an afternoon of branding.  Even Adam, whose common sense urged him to get his brothers back to the ranch, felt entitled to a brief respite before an afternoon of sweating over the branding fire.  Sam, the bartender, acted as if he’d just seen Joe last week.  For a few minutes, it was like the old days.

But Harry Arnold had darted out of the saloon as soon as the Cartwrights came in, and Adam knew in his gut that he had gone to fetch Tommy and Ned.  He should have gotten his brothers out of there right then, but he’d thought there was time to finish their beers.  He was wrong.  The Barnes brothers strolled in minutes later, and the next thing anybody knew, it was a free-for-all.  When the dust cleared, Roy Coffee announced that he was going to throw the Barneses and the Cartwrights into a couple of cells to cool down.  That was when everybody noticed that Little Joe seemed to be missing.  He was found under a table, out cold, with a lump already rising on his temple and his right hand swelling.  The Barnes boys raised hue and cry at the notion that they would be going to jail while Adam and Hoss took Joe over to the doctor’s, but Roy told them to pipe down before he knocked their heads together so that they’d need the doctor, too.

After many years of handling his father, Adam not only knew how to tell a story, but he knew when, and this wasn’t the time.  He’d wait until they were home and their father had calmed down.  He knew that Pa would want to hear it everything, just the way he knew that Pa would fret himself to a shadow the next time Little Joe went into town.  It was the nature of the beast, and there was nothing to be done about it.  But for now, there were distractions available, and Adam intended to use them.  So, he rose and stretched, saying, “What do you think, Little Brother?  You ready to go?”

“I’ve been ready all afternoon,” grumbled Little Joe.  He swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood up a little too fast, grabbing Adam’s arm as he swayed.  “Okay, I’m fine,” he said a moment later.  He pretended not to see his father frowning as Hoss took Joe’s other arm, careful not to disturb the bandaged wrist.

“Let’s go,” said Ben, one last impatient glare masking his worry as he led the way out of the clinic to where the buckboard waited.  As he started down the hall, muttering about his mutton-headed sons, he heard an unexpected giggle behind him.  He stopped and turned, eyebrows raised at his youngest son’s boldness.

“Now, I know I’m home,” grinned Little Joe, winking at his father.

“You just watch yourself, young man,” said Ben.  He tried to keep his grumpy tone, but all his anger had melted in the instant of that wink.  His sons were indeed home—all three of them.

Whatever problems lay ahead, they could handle them, because they were together.