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6

Hoss woke to the enticing aroma of fresh coffee and bacon, and the soft clatter of dishes. He’d slept through the night? The whole night?

For the past three nights, ever since the shooting, Joe’s midnight cries had grown in both volume and intensity. Little Joe’s nightmares had been bad enough after the murder and even worse after the hanging. But the shooting…well, that seemed to have opened up an even darker place in the boy’s imagination. The whole family had been drawn in night after night, woken by ghostly wails and howls that had at first made Hoss start to believe maybe Frank Carver was back, after all. But then he’d seen Little Joe make those sounds all by himself, drawn from somewhere deep in his gullet as he fought his way out of whatever horrific place sleep had dragged him into.

But last night, Hoss had managed a full night’s sleep. He might even still be sleeping, if breakfast hadn’t called to him just as loudly–if far more pleasantly–than Joe’s bad dreams.

Surprised but far from disappointed, Hoss poured fresh water into the basin on the washstand and readied himself for the day ahead. His stomach rumbling, he dressed quickly, and then hurried down the hall toward the stairs, hesitating for a moment beside Little Joe’s closed door.

Joe, too, must have slept through the night; otherwise…. Well, otherwise Hoss wouldn’t have. No one in the house could sleep through Little Joe’s nightmares, even if the boy could sleep through them himself. Hoss nodded happily, allowing a small grin to slip into place. Joe must finally be on the mend.

Downstairs, breakfast was already laid out on the table. Both Pa and Adam were sipping coffee while Hop Sing set down the final dish: A fresh platter of steaming hotcakes.

“Hop Sing, that looks like pure Heaven to me!” Hoss greeted, earning a rare happy nod from the family cook. In fact, everyone looked to be about as happy as Hoss felt. Yep, maybe the whole family was finally on the mend.

“I trust you slept as well as we did,” Adam said with a sideways grin as he passed the coffeepot to his brother.

“Sure did.” Hoss let his attention drift back toward the stairs. “Ya’ think maybe Joe’s done with all them nightmares?”

“Let’s hope so,” Pa answered. “He’s been sleeping worse than we have, and he needs his sleep more than we do right now.”

Adam waited his turn for the hotcakes, his eyes widening slightly as the stack on Hoss’s plate continued growing. “Do you mind saving some of those for the rest of us?”

Hoss paused. “Sorry. I guess all that extra sleep helped me to build up an appetite this mornin’.” He quickly scooped out two more hotcakes, and then passed the platter to his older brother.

“I was thinking,” Adam said as he dished out a much smaller stack. “It might be a good idea for Hoss and me to get to work on that fence line today.”

Pa took the platter, giving his head a quick shake in the process. “No, Adam. I’d rather you both stay close to the house today. Until I finish up that estate business with Hiram, that land isn’t even legally ours.”

“But Mister Ferguson’s will–”

“Yes,” Pa interrupted. “Micah Ferguson’s will lists me as the benefactor of that land. But the paperwork must still be signed. Frankly, I’ve put that off long enough. No, I’d better ride into Virginia City today to get that business sorted; and I’d rather not leave Little Joe alone just yet.”

“He wouldn’t be alone,” Adam said. “Hop Sing–”

“Hop Sing has his own work to do,” Pa argued. “And watching out for intruders is not his responsibility.”

Hoss looked up from his plate. “Intruders, Pa? I thought you agreed with the sheriff that whoever done that to Joe was probably just a drifter and wouldn’t be back?”

“I did, son. I still do. But believing in a probability and knowing something to be true are two different things. And one night of solid sleep is not enough to prove that Joe has stopped imagining it was a ghost who shot him–or that Carver’s ghost is going to come back to attack him again.”

Another platter of hotcakes saw the table conversation dwindling until Adam set his napkin beside his plate and pushed back his chair. “I think I’ll head up and wake Little Joe. He’s bound to be hungrier than the rest of us by now, and if he waits much longer, there won’t be anything left.”

Hoss grinned again. “Yeah, I reckon you’re right. Tell you what, though.” He pushed back his own chair. “You woke him yesterday. I figure it’s my turn, today.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “Yesterday, he slept so poorly he very nearly punched me in the eye when I woke him.”

“Yeah, and you don’t want that to happen again, do ya’?”

“Today,” Adam went on, “he’s more likely to wake like a kitten than a startled puma.”

“Little Joe?” Pa sounded dubious. “I’m not sure that boy has ever woken like a kitten, not even when he was one, himself!”

Sounds of soft laughter followed Hoss to the stairway. He half wanted to holler out a “Yahoo!” as he’d done just a few days before; but that “Yahoo!” had been a mistake. He sure didn’t want to jinx things this time around.

 

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