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16

Hoss’s relief when his family returned fell quickly to dread. Adam’s shirt was wet and sticky with drying blood, and Joe’s neck…. Good lord, Joe’s neck was raw and red, bearing the clear signs of a rope burn under his chin. Cursing his own infirmity, Hoss hated having to watch as Hank and his men ferried both of his brothers upstairs and out of sight.

Hours later, after Doc Martin had come and gone and the house settled in to a dark, quiet night, Hoss lay awake in his bed, wishing his thoughts could go as quiet as the house. He struggled against the images conjured by Pa’s guarded words and the ramblings of both of his brothers as the doc’s medicines began to go to work. And it wasn’t just his own imaginings that horrified him; it was what he had seen in their eyes, and the set of Pa’s tight jaw when he’d said they’d found Joe hanging by his neck.

By his neck!

Hoss felt sick and sad and angry. But his pa and Adam…well, what Hoss saw in their eyes made him think it was like they were being haunted every bit as much as Joe had been these past days. Of course, Joe’s ghost proved to be a man, after all. But what was haunting Pa and Adam might be even worse than a ghost. It wasn’t something imagined or fleeting. It was something real, something they saw and weren’t likely ever to forget.

Little Joe hanging by his neck….

Dadburnit! Hoss just couldn’t stop imagining it, no matter how hard he tried. Maybe Hoss was being haunted now, too. He knew he ought to be sleeping like Doc said; but how could he?

With his head throbbing and his belly churning, Hoss counted off the chimes as the clock downstairs struck the hour. He wasn’t surprised to discover it was midnight. The witching hour. That’s what some folks called it. The witching hour…a time for ghosts and goblins and other ne’er-do-wells.

Yeah, Hoss was being haunted, all right. Here it was the witching hour and he couldn’t stop seeing his little brother twitching at the end of a rope. Stifling a shiver, he realized he was as helpless against what was haunting him as Joe had been when that Fisher fella’ came calling today. Or…yesterday, Hoss corrected in his mind, seeing as how it was midnight already.

Dadburnit! How do you fight a ghost that ain’t even a ghost, let alone a flesh and blood man?

Maybe…maybe if he looked in on Little Joe. If Hoss could see his little brother sleeping in his own bed, maybe then that sight would chase away that dangblasted image he wished he’d never been able to imagine at all.

Yep. That’s what he would do. He would check in on Little Joe. Of course, he had to move slow and cautious, since his balance was all a-kilter.

“You’re a lucky man,” Doc had said after he’d already seen to Little Joe and Adam. “If he’d have struck you any harder, you’d likely be dealing with a skull fracture. In fact, you’ve all been pretty fortunate today.”

“Angels,” Joe had said earlier. “It was angels protected me.”

Maybe there were some angels helping them all out yesterday–or spirits, as Adam and Pa said that Indian had claimed. Whatever it was, Hoss would have been happier if they’d have focused more on Little Joe and less on him, if that would have kept Joe from being hung half to death.

The clock struck the quarter hour by the time Hoss reached his brother’s threshold. The eerie sound of the chimes drew his eye nervously toward the pale moonlight spilling in through the open window. And then he got nervous for a whole different reason. Why was that window open? There was a chill in the air that sure wouldn’t do Joe any good.

Distracted by his determination to reach the window without stumbling, Hoss nearly toppled when Adam called out his name in a ghostly whisper. “Hoss?”

After grabbing hold of Joe’s desk to steady himself, he whispered right back. “What in tarnation are you doin’ out of bed?”

But his attention wavered when he saw Adam seated in the bedside chair. Pa had left that chair vacant only because Hop Sing had cajoled him out of it with complaints about having enough to worry about taking care of his three “boys.”

“Mistah Cartwright no sleep, then Mistah Cartwright sick. Mistah Cartwright sick, then Hop Sing waste time look after Mistah Cartwright. Have no enough time to care for Mistah Cartwright boys.” Hop Sing had thrown in a whole bunch of Chinese words and about a half dozen foolishments while he’d chased Pa down the hallway.

“I could ask the same of you.”

Confused, Hoss returned his thoughts to the room around him and noticed how odd Adam looked with his arm in a sling, his head wrapped in a ghostly white bandage and washed as he was in the moonlit glow of the witching hour.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Adam asked, his lips drawn up in that sort of half smile of his.

“It’s chilly. Thought I’d close the window.”

“That’s not why you came in here.”

Hoss looked at his brother for a long while, his head spinning, his thoughts jumbled.

“Sit down, Hoss, before you fall down.”

Hoss did as he was told without question, pulling out the desk chair and plopping heavily down into it. Then, finally, he looked at Little Joe. “He looks kind of peaceful sleepin’ like that, don’t he?”

He could hear Adam sighing across the room. “If it weren’t for that rope burn around his neck.”

“Aw, dangnammit, Adam! What’d you have to go and say that for? I been tryin’ not to think about that all night.”

“So have I.”

“Yeah, I…reckon you probably have, at that.” Hoss sighed just about as heavily as Adam had a moment earlier. “Doc sure was right about one thing.”

Adam looked at him, waiting.

“We were all lucky. Joe, especially. If you and Pa hadn’t found him when you did….” He didn’t bother finishing.

“We would have reached him sooner if I hadn’t been so hell-bent on stopping those two.”

“But you got to him in time. That’s what matters. Maybe it was just pure dumb luck, but….”

“But what?”

Chewing the inside of his cheek, Hoss shrugged. “I don’t know. Just seems to me luck that good has got to be something more than pure luck. Like, maybe–”

“…ghls.”

Interrupted by the thin sound of Joe’s raspy voice, Hoss looked to the bed to find his little brother trying to prop himself up on one elbow.

“Angels,” Joe repeated after he’d achieved his goal.

“Stop trying to talk, Joe,” Adam said softly. “Doc gave you strict orders to rest your voice until the swelling goes down.”

Joe shot older brother a dark glare before rattling off a whole string of raspy words; and, although Hoss couldn’t hear them clearly, he was pretty sure his little brother said something about Clyde calling them spirits, but Joe knew they were angels.

“Who’s Clyde?” Hoss asked.

“The Indian,” Adam answered so fast Joe didn’t have a chance. “And don’t encourage him. I’ll put a muzzle on both of you if I have to.”

“Well, then,” Pa called in from the hallway, “maybe we ought to rig up a hobble for you. As I recall, the good doctor ordered you to bed–both of you–just as strongly as he ordered Joe to silence.”

Adam grinned. “And, as I recall, Hop Sing ordered the same of you.”

“Which is precisely why we all ought to keep our voices down.” Pa chuckled softly, but his eyes…his eyes still looked haunted. “Especially you, young man!” Pa added, singling out Little Joe. “Tomorrow you can tell us anything you want…in writing. But tonight, we all need our sleep, each and every one of us. Now up and out, both of you. Say goodnight to your brother and get back to bed.”

“What about you?” Adam asked.

Wearing a small, tired smile, Pa turned to Joe. “Is there anything you need, son? Before we go?”

Joe smiled back and slowly shook his head before dropping wearily back to his pillows. Hoss was pretty sure Joe would be asleep again before Hoss, himself, even made it back to his room.

“Then goodnight, Little Joe. Pleasant dreams.” Sighing heavily, Pa closed the door behind him, joining Hoss and Adam in the hallway.

“Did you see that, Pa?” Hoss asked then, his eyes going to Joe’s bedroom door and his thoughts reaching inside.

“See what?”

“Joe. He didn’t look…well, when you said ‘pleasant dreams,’ it almost looked like he knew he would.”

“He would, what?” Adam asked.

“Have pleasant dreams.”

“Maybe,” Adam answered, “that’s because he believes angels were looking out for him, and he knows his ghost is locked up good and tight in Sheriff Coffee’s jail.”

Pa took in a long breath. “I’d say those are both very good reasons for all of us to have pleasant dreams.”

But Adam didn’t look convinced. “I wish it could be that easy.”

“It can be, son. If we allow ourselves to accept that Joe is safe–that we are all safe. Now….” Breathing in long and deep once more, Pa smiled again–only this time, the smile reached his eyes. “I hope you both have pleasant dreams.”

“You, too, Pa,” Hoss said.

Pa nodded. “I think…now…maybe I finally will.”

“Hey, Adam?” Hoss said as he and his brother began to move back down the hall under their pa’s watchful eye. “You know that smile Joe gave Pa just now? And how peaceful he looked when he was sleeping?” He stopped walking, and then waited for Adam to look at him before continuing. “When you close your eyes, think on that.”

It took a moment, but little by little that half smile of Adam’s started poking through. “Goodnight, Hoss.”

“’Night, Adam. Pleasant dreams, older brother.”

“Pleasant dreams, younger brother.”

When Hoss finally eased himself back into bed, he closed his eyes and imagined Little Joe smiling like he knew angels were watching over him. By the time the clock struck one, Hoss was no longer awake to hear it.

 

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