Summary:  There is another side of every story that remains just beyond your grasp sometimes

Rated: T – Word Count:  7540

                                                        The Other Side of Valor

The cool fall wind had pushed before it the lead-colored clouds and with them, rain. Starting just after noon, it was a slow steady drizzle that turned the countryside dark and gray as well. The streets of bustling Virginia City had quickly become sodden masses of mud, clinging to hooves and wagon wheels alike. The broad wooden walkways, normally full of people were nearly empty that afternoon in November. Those citizens out and about went quickly from one roofed-over porch to the next, trying to scurry from the cold dampness that seemed ever pervasive. And miserable.

Under one of those roofs, the three Cartwright brothers stood waiting. For the hundredth time, Adam had wondered aloud about why it took the three of them to meet their father’s stage from Sacramento. And for the hundredth time, he got baleful stares from Hoss and Joe.

“It weren’t my idea to come out in this weather,” Hoss groused, shoving his bear-paw hands back in his jacket pockets as he moved out to the edge and looked down the street again.

“Don’t look at me! I have no idea why Pa wanted all of us here,” Joe muttered morosely. Unlike his brothers, he was content to stay leaning against the depot wall, well away from the mud splattering up onto the walkway from the occasional passing wagon.

His boot heels thumping across the planks, Adam walked back to the narrow bench and sat down, crossing his arms over his chest. Leaning against the building wall, he tipped his hat over his eyes. The telegram from Pa had been adamant in tone: ‘Want all to meet the stage 3pm Wednesday’. There was no room for interpretations that would let any of them off the hook. If he had asked for them to meet him with the wagon, Adam figured he could understand that: Pa had something of some size that he wanted them to help him with. But Pa hadn’t asked for the wagon. No, that little word “all” could only mean one thing: all of his sons. And it wasn’t just Adam grousing about it either. Hoss and Joe had made their individual displeasures known as well. Joe had even gone so far as to volunteer to stay home and start supper since Hop Sing was away as well. That had gotten an even louder groan from Hoss. So there the three of them were, wet, cold and miserable.

A shout from down the street yanked Adam from his thoughts of a warm fire and a good book. It was Roy Coffee, his oilskin slicker whipping in the wet wind as he hurried across the muddy street.

“Boy, am I glad to see you boys in town! I could use your help real bad,” Roy puffed, out of breath from his exertion and shouting. He shoved his dripping hat back from his face and ran a wet hand over his face as he did.

“Why? What’s the matter, Roy?” Adam spoke up as he and his brothers gathered around the lawmen.

“Miss Jones came up from the school house a little bit ago. Said one of the kids hadn’t come in from lunch. Little gal by the name of Amy Parsons. Miss Jones said she was new to town. Her pa works down the smithy’s. I done checked with him but he said she didn’t go there. Anyway, long story short, I need to get up some search teams to look for this kid. You boys help me?” Roy asked, knowing the answer already.

“Where do you want us?” Hoss spoke up quickly.

“Down the school house. I’m going on to the Silver Dollar. You boys go let Miss Abigail know that help is coming.”

The search party was relatively small but Roy considered that with the weather as ugly as it was, he was lucky to get anyone to help. Finding the three Cartwright boys in town had been a godsend as far as he was concerned for they knew the area better than most folks. And Hoss Cartwright was rumored to be able to track just about any thing anywhere. Once Roy had returned to the schoolhouse and seen that Miss Jones had sent the other children home, he set about dividing his forces.

“She and her folks live on the other side of Danvers’ farm. Amy isn’t very big, even for an eight-year-old girl. And I noticed this morning that she wasn’t wearing a coat, only a thin little shawl so she’s got to be cold,” Miss Jones explained, wringing her hands.

“Are you sure she just didn’t head on home for some reason or another?” Hoss questioned, wiping a drip of rain from the side of his face as they stood there in the small schoolroom.

“I asked her father down to the smithy. She would go down there and walk home with him every night because she was afraid of walking through the woods between here and home. Her father borrowed a horse and is headed for home. We’ll wait here until we hear from him. I know none of us want to be out in this weather looking for a kid that is sittin’ home, drinkin’ milk and munchin’ cookies!” Roy put in plain words what they were all thinking.

The sound of a horse pulling to a halt outside the schoolhouse door a few minutes later made every last man there grimace. Just the sound the horse made sliding to a stop and the feet running to the doorway and they all knew that Amy hadn’t been found at home.

“All right men. You know what to do,” was Roy’s simple instruction.

Hoss had first caught a glimpse of something pale blue hanging on the side of the narrow path through the woods. Dismounting, he snagged it up in his cold fumbling fingers. It was a tendril of blue yarn that had snagged on a thorn. Looking down, he studied the ground at his feet. There he saw the small footprints, nearly invisible in the dim light of the wet woods. As he straightened up, he looked out over landscape, to where the path wound down and out of the thinning woods. Hurriedly he remounted.

“You find something?” Joe asked, pulling Cochise to his brother’s side.

“Sure did, little brother. That little gal is lost for sure. She got turned around some how and look, see them little tracks going that away?” and he gestured not towards her home meadow but into the steeper hills to the west. “Somethin’ spooked her and she’s started runnin’. Come on.”

Hoss, his eyes glued to the ground, rode ahead, looking in the dwindling light for signs. The urge to hurry weighed heavily on him for not only were they losing the light, but the temperature was dropping as well. And the rain continuing to fall, its intensity varying with the push of the winds, Hoss knew that wherever the little girl was, she was wet and cold. Unless she found shelter soon, she would not survive the night’s dropping temperatures in all likelihood. He pushed Chubb a little faster as they neared the edge of the woods. The open area they rode into now was hilly and pockmarked with old mines, played out and covered over. And the twisty, winding road that ran through it did not go back to town but deeper into the wild mountain country.

Like Hoss, Joe had been watching the ground for clues and didn’t see what happened. All he knew was that suddenly Chubb was rearing in front of him and Hoss had lost his seat, falling to the side of the path there at the very edge of the copse. Instantly Joe was off his horse and helping Hoss to sit back up.

Hoss was fuming mad. “Think I was some greenhorn, couldn’t stay on a horse! Help me stand up, Joe.”

His eyes rolling with the effort, Joe gave Hoss his shoulder to lean on as the big man got his feet back under him. “You okay? I mean you didn’t break nothin’ when you hit, did ya?” Joe interrogated in what he hoped was a conciliatory tone.

“Ow! Dadburnit!” Hoss fussed, his hand rubbing the side of his head where a cut was bleeding. He yanked his handkerchief out of his back pocket and pressed it to his temple. He took a deep breath and decided that nothing major was broken beyond his pride. “Just go get Chubb for me,” he fretted.

Joe brought the wary-eyed horse back to his owner, all the while looking for what had spooked the normally complacent animal. If it had been Cochise doing that, Joe would have understood. Sometimes the pinto seemed to rear up just for the fun of it, like he was seeing if Joe was paying attention. But Chubb wasn’t that sort of horse. Handing the reins to Hoss, Joe caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of something blue that seemed to be rolling with the rainy wind across the slope that angled up towards the road.

Without a word of explanation, Joe started walking towards what he had seen, leading his horse. Once he had left the shelter of the woods, the storm seemed to increase in fury but it was because the woods had protected them for so long. As Joe got closer to it, he realized that it was not the little girl but it was her shawl. He picked it up and turned back to holler at Hoss. Hoss was already headed for him, walking with a decided limp as the rain pushed the brim of his white hat down across his features. When Hoss got caught up with Joe, Joe handed him the shawl and stood looking at the hillside before them, his eyes searching.

“Think she got up to the road?” Joe asked.

“You go on up and see if you see any sign. I’m gonna stay down here a bit.”

Something in the tone Hoss used made Joe turn back to his brother sharply. “Are you sure you’re okay? I saw you limping. Here, let me help you up on Chubb-.”

“Joe, just get up there and see what you can see on the road. That little girl-child is liable to be in worse shape than me iffen we don’t find her soon. So git!”

Reluctantly, Joe swung aboard his horse and rode straight up the embankment to the road. Riding there along the edge, he saw no sign that child had made it to the top. He paused long enough to shake his head for Hoss to see before he pulled the horse’s head around to face back into the storm and pushed back down to where his brother still stood.

Both men again scanned the slope for several long moments then Hoss saw it and pointed with a shout. “Over there, Joe, I think I see an opening. Maybe she went in there.”

The opening turned out to be not much bigger than the mouth of one of Hop Sing’s pickle barrels. Joe leaned down to inspect it but became alarmed when the scant ledge just inside the opening, gave way. Scooting back to solid ground he called the little girl’s name. Faintly, barely audible above the sound of the rain, came a cry back.

“Hot diggitty!” Hoss exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. He couldn’t understand why Joe was shaking his head. “We found her, Joe. Come on, let’s get her and get out of this weather.”

Instead of answering Hoss, Joe stuck his head back into the hole and called the little girl’s name again. When a faint “yes?” reached his ear, Joe went on. “Can you tell me how far down you are sweetheart? “

The tiny voice wobbled as she called back “No and it’s dark down here and I’m cold. I want my mommy!”

Joe looked back over his shoulder, sure now Hoss had heard as well. “Are you hurt? When you fell, did you hurt anything?” Joe called to her again.

Again the child’s tremulous call back. “No, but this ledge I am on is breaking apart. It’s kind of little. I’m scared, mister!”

“You just sit tight and I’ll be down there to help you get out in a jiffy, okay?” and Joe tried to out as much enthusiasm into his voice as he could.

Joe pulled his head from the opening and sat back on his haunches. “It’s an old air shaft, Hoss. Beyond this ledge here, it drops down, kind of at an angle. A real steep angle. And it’s a skinny one to boot. We’re gonna need help.”

Hoss had stood there, his head nodding in agreement with what Joe was saying. When Joe had said they were going to need help, Hoss couldn’t have agreed more. “You go back to town, Joe. I’ll stay here and talk with her. Try to keep her calm but you hurry, okay?”

“Can we dig around the mouth there and open it up some?” one man, Hoss took him to be a miner, offered.

Adam rose from inspecting the opening, subconsciously wiping the mud from his knees as he did. “That wouldn’t get us very far. The whole hillside here is saturated and we start trying to move earth and it will move on its own. These airshafts weren’t shored up at all. It could collapse if we try to open it up. The only thing we can do is send someone down with a rope.”

Roy Coffee stood at the opening to the shaft and bounced up and down on the balls of his feet just a few times. Then he shook his head. “This ground around the mouth here is givin’ up real easy, Adam.”

The eldest Cartwright son pushed rain from the side of his face as he looked first upslope then back down and across the vale to the woods behind them. “Yeah I know Roy. We have to figure a way to spread the weight and stress out away from the opening.” Then he snapped his fingers.

“You and you,” he shouted to two rather burly looking men in the search party turned rescue party. “Get me a four real stout limbs. Make them about ten feet long. Hurry! Joe, you and Hoss get our ropes. I figure they’re about the best ones out here.”

“What have you got planned, boy?” Roy questioned.

“Simple, we make a frame, a tripod-like over the hole. The two ropes run through a rope loop suspended from the underside. We send a man down the shaft with a lantern and the other rope. Once he has the girl tied onto the other rope, we bring them back up, one at a time.”

“Sounds as good a plan as any, I reckon, but one question, Adam,” Roy’s eyes became slits in the lantern light. “Who you gonna get to fit down that hole?”

He thought later that he had suddenly become deaf because everything went dead silent to Joe Cartwright’s ears. He’d heard what Adam was purposing and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was him going to be going down into that hole. Joe took a really deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“I’m the only one who’s gonna fit down that shaft, Roy. I’ll go,” Joe volunteered.

“You don’t have to Joe, I checked it out and I think that I’ll fit okay, “ Adam countered only to hear his little brother snort derisively.

“Nope, ‘cause I ain’t gonna pull you up, big brother. Face it, your frame ain’t gonna hold a lot of weight. And we all know you had me in mind from the get-go,” and Joe, looping the ropes into his gloved hands, prayed that his shaking didn’t show too badly. His brothers knew, and probably Roy Coffee as well, that Joe hated being underground. Even though he and his family had been called upon time and again to help with mine cave-ins and the like, and Joe had gone into the darkness there, they all knew his fear. But he had seen the size of the hole in the ground and knew Adam, the only other man capable of it there, wouldn’t fit.

With the long tree branches fitted and tied at the top, the ends were sunk into the ground a good three-foot from the small opening. These feet were then lashed together so that they wouldn’t spread any further apart. Across the juncture point at the top, Hoss looped a short length of rope and tied it securely. If time hadn’t been critical, Adam would have sent for a block and tackle but with the rain increasing in tempo and night nearly full upon them, there just wasn’t time. For extra precaution, Adam tied the ends of both rescue ropes to Chubb’s and Sport’s saddle horns and positioned the two horses a short distance from the tripod.

Joe dropped his hat and sodden jacket to the ground as he took one end of a rope and tied it around his chest. He stepped over to the hole and picked up one of the lit lanterns as Hoss patted him on the back.

“You ready, little brother?” Adam asked softly and got a quick nod from Joe in reply.

“Just don’t let go of me,” Joe whispered, his voice nearly lost in the noise of the rain.

“Even if he did, me and Chubb still got you,” Hoss encouraged, getting his brother’s shaky smile in return.

Joe took a deep breath and dropped to sit on the side of the hole.

“We got you, Joe. Go get that kid, okay?” Adam prompted, loud enough that the other few men there heard him. With a quick nod, Joe was gone from sight.

Slowly, his feet walking him down the side of the narrow dark confining shaft that his shoulders rubbed against, Joe crept down into the darkness. The lantern, held in one hand, barely made a dent in the dark cold. Down below him, he could now hear the child. She was crying softly so as he descended he spoke to her, telling her repeatedly that he was coming. He encouraged her to talk to him and he wondered if it really was to tell how far he was from her or to calm his own fears. Finally, the light from the lantern showed him her tear-streaked face just below him. The shaft had widened at that point, a ledge to one slightly sloping side where the child stood. Joe sent up a quick prayer of thanks that somehow in her fall, the child had managed to find that ledge. Otherwise she would have fallen much, much further.

“See? I told you help was coming! My name is Joe and I already know your name is Amy,” Joe tried to sound casual as though they were meeting somewhere entirely different.

“I want to go home,” Amy whimpered.

“Well, you know what? I do too. So this is what we are going to do,” Joe said, now face to face with her wide blue eyes. He would have laughed at her at any other time. Her tear-streaked face was smudged with dirt. Her white smock over her navy blue dress was torn and dirty and one pigtail had come unbraided, letting her baby-fine blonde hair hang in tangles. Nervously, she chewed her lower lip. “See this rope here in my hand? I’m gonna hand it to you and you are gonna slip it over your head and around you like I got mine. Okay?” She nodded and started to reach for him but was too close to the edge for comfort and she pressed herself back to the wall of the narrow shelf, clearly afraid now to move that she could see there was a long drop at her feet.

Joe steadied himself with one foot and the hand holding the lantern pressed to the side of the shaft. It pushed him almost close enough that he could reach out one hand and touch the child. But not close enough. With the child now afraid to come away from the wall, he tried to throw it her but she remained frozen in place, refusing to move. Joe studied the situation and knew the only way for him to get close enough to put the loop over her was to put both feet against the wall and lean for all he was worth. Carefully, he placed his feet and prayed that up above him, two brothers and a pair of horses were standing real still. He reached for her, his fingertips just grazing her. She had to move.

“Amy, listen to me, sweetheart. You have got to step away from the wall so we can get this rope around you.”

“I can’t! I’ll fall!” she screamed.

“No you won’t,” Joe wondered for a split second if the child could see him shaking with fear. “I won’t let you fall. Come on, one step is all you have to do. Come on.”

She shoved a strand of hair from her face and took a tiny step. That was all Joe needed. Now, with the rope around her chest, he had to get her to the edge of the ledge.

“Come to the edge, sweetheart.”

Amy refused, her head violently shaking. Joe gently pulled on the rope around her. She took another step.

“I’m scared, Joe. I’ll fall. I know I will,” she pleaded.

“What if I promise to hold you? That way you can’t fall,” Joe lied but she went for it. “But if we do that, I can’t hold the lantern too. So you come over to the edge so I can feel you. Then I am gonna drop the lantern. It’ll be okay. We can see for a little bit. But, Amy, we can only do this once so you have to be brave and stand real still there on the edge okay?”

When he saw her nod and take the last little step to the edge, Joe gathered the last of his own courage. He turned loose of the lantern and made a desperate lunge for the child. Just as he snagged her, the lantern hit bottom and exploded. Holding the frightened child tightly, Joe took one look down and saw just how far the bottom was from his feet. He gulped and closed his eyes.

“Hey, you all right down there?” Hoss shouted down and Joe’s own fright got shoved from his thoughts.

“Pull us up!”

Going back up was harder than going down. Repeatedly, Joe’s back scraped against the protruding rocks, causing showers of debris to fall, frightening the child even more. Unable to use his own arms to help his ascent, Joe prayed that his brothers and everyone else had the strength to pull them both back to safety. Where he could, Joe would brace his feet against the wall and push up. The rope, tight around his chest constricted his breathing and, along with the fear, made him light headed.

Finally, his felt rain on his face and hands reaching for him, pulling him up. Amy was pulled away from his arms and Joe was laid back in the wet grass, his chest heaving, and his arms weak. He closed his eyes and concentrated on getting his hammering heart under control. He could hear Hoss and Adam talking to him as they removed the rope from around his chest but he couldn’t answer them.

“You okay?” Hoss asked again when Joe opened his eyes.

Still not sure if he could speak without losing control, Joe merely patted the massive arm beside him and used his brother’s help to sit up. Adam was draping his own jacket around Joe’s shoulders as well as Joe’s familiar green one. Joe shook his head ‘no’ and tried to push Adam’s questioning hands away.

“That rope was pretty tight around you, Joe. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m okay. Amy?” Joe ultimately wheezed out, knowing if he didn’t speak soon, his brothers would have him in Doc Martin’s office so fast his head would spin.

Adam stepped aside and gestured to the scene behind him. There little Amy was being bundled into blankets and her father was picking her up, headed to the wagon and home. She managed to get one hand free and she waved to her rescuers before snuggling back into her father’s embrace.

“Well, I would say you boys done earned yourselves a beer!” Roy crowed, watching both family scenes as they played out before him.

“I don’t know about Adam or Joe, but I’ll take a raincheck on that beer, Roy. I don’t think I have ever been this cold and miserable feelin’ in my whole life. Right now, all I want is a big ol’ fire, somethin’ hot to drink and dry clothes,” Hoss grumbled.

“That makes two of us, but you think you need to see Doc Martin about that place on your head?”

Hoss put his hand to his head and felt the growing lump there just before his ear. It was tender but the bleeding had stopped. “Naw, but you want to see him about your hands, Adam, I’ll wait for ya.”

Adam allowed that a little rope burn was a small price to pay for getting the child back. “A little of Hop Sing’s salve and I’ll be fine.”

“Well, the offer for the beer stands, boys. It ain’t often we get three heroes in one night, ya know!” Roy offered again.

“Thanks anyway, but I think we really need to get on home,” and with a long arm reached down, Adam snagged Joe’s outstretched hand and pulled his youngest brother to his feet.

The ride home was one of the most miserable the three brothers had had in a long time. The mud slowed them, of course, but what with their physical conditions being what they were, none of them wanted to get their horses above a walk any way. By the time they reached the ranch house, the rain was falling in steady sheets and since none of them had their rain gear with them, they were thoroughly soaked to the skin. And pulling into the yard, each one of them sorely missed Hop Sing for the house was dark and cold looking. There would be no ready hot water for baths to warm up with. There would be no hot coffee, no hot stew, no hot anything.

Swinging open the barn door to lead their tired horses in, each one of them had the same wild thought push through their minds. The first stall on the left usually held their father’s big buckskin. But not tonight.

“Oh God,” Joe groaned and sagged into Cochise’s wet hide.

Adam’s hand hit his forehead and he winced as the raw palm made contact. “Oh no,” he moaned.

But Hoss’ words summed it up clearly. “We forgot Pa was coming in on the stage. Wonder if Buck is still standing there in the rain?”

“Yes, he is,” came the words right outside the barn door behind them. “But if you’ll move on in, we can get out of the rain too.”

With not a heartbeat’s worth of time passing, the way was cleared and a very wet Ben Cartwright pulled his horse into the barn. As the glow from the lantern Adam had quickly lit spread, Ben looked around at the scene before him. He almost chuckled for it had been a long time since he had seen three more bedraggled and sodden individuals.

Joe recovered the quickest, giving his father a hearty “Hi Pa!” along with what he hoped was a warm smile.

“Pa, we’re sorry, but there was –“ Adam started to explain but Ben’s raised hand stopped him.

“I heard all about it in town. Seems you three have a very good excuse for not meeting me at the stage. The whole town is talking about nothing else, you know. How my three sons are heroes for saving that little girl. They are even talking of having some sort of celebration to honor the three of you!” But there was a note in his voice that led the siblings to believe that their father wasn’t happy about something and even the broad smile on Joe’s face faded as quickly as it had come.

“Well, we did, Pa. We saved that little girl. The three of us,” Hoss spoke up first, most uncharacteristically of him.

“Yes, you did,” Ben agreed, pulling Buck into his stall to unsaddle him.

“Ain’t you proud of us?” Joe asked, incredulous that their father seemed angry. Just in case it had more to do with how they were standing there letting their horses go untended, Joe pulled Cochise into his stall.

“Yeah, we are heroes, ain’t we?” Hoss again spoke up. He led Chubb into his stall and followed his brother’s example.

“We’ll talk about it in the house,” was all Ben said before he turned, dropped his wet saddle in its place and stalked from the barn.

“How can he be angry at us?” Adam muttered but neither of his brothers had an answer.

By the time Adam, Hoss and Joe had taken care of their own horses and their father’s, Ben had the fire stoked up in the cook stove in the kitchen. He had lit the fire in the main room but because of the size of the room and the pervading chill in the air, it would take a while for that room to warm. The kitchen however seemed to warming up nicely. And the brothers, seeing the only light in the house was in the kitchen, chose to slip in that door.

“Give me your guns, boys. I’ll put them away. You might as well get out of those wet things right here where it’s warm. I’ll bring back your robes and a couple of blankets for you,” Ben instructed firmly. His voice held that tone that the three had learned long ago not to argue with and they began to strip out of their sodden clothes there in the warmth of the kitchen

A half-hour later, with the three of them wrapped in robes and quilts and Ben in his own robe, they sat in that warm kitchen sipping hot toddies. No one had dared say a word to their father, afraid to open Pandora’s box. On the stove, leftover stew was just beginning to bubble, sending its mouth-watering aroma around the room.

Ben had just finished inspecting Hoss’ head and was moving to take a look at Adam’s raw hands when he decided that he had had enough silence. “Yes indeed, the whole town is talking about my sons, the heroes. Hold your hand open, Adam.”

Adam visibly winced as his father rubbed the abused flesh on both his palms.

“Here,” and Ben poured water into a tin dishpan for Adam to soak his hands. Gingerly, Adam dropped his hands into the water, feeling the sting as he did.

“Pa, we’re sorry that we forgot you were coming. We were just so wet and miserable that we came on home after it was all over. We’re sorry,” Adam apologized, hearing his brothers’ murmured agreements.

“That’s fine. Roy told me you were headed home and what sort of shape you were in. Let me see your back, Joseph.”

“Then what are you mad at us about?” Joe piped up as his father took a hard swipe at one of the stone-bruises on his shoulder. “Everybody in town thinks we’re heroes ’cause we found and saved that little girl’s life, for crying out loud! It can’t be why you’re mad at us!”

“Who said I was mad? Hold still Joseph!”

Adam rolled his eyes, Hoss hung his head and Joe squinted his eyes nearly closed.

Jaw out-thrust, Adam decided to take the bull by the horns. “You could have fooled us, Pa.”

Ben dropped the cloth he was using to wipe away the muddy streaks from Joe’s back then turned to face his older sons. Joe half-cowered behind him in the small kitchen.

“Ah yes, all of Virginia City is singing the praises of my sons. Calling them ‘heroes’,” Ben huffed hotly, his hands planting themselves firmly on his hips.

“Well, aren’t we?” Joe shot back and had the misfortune of being the closet to his quickly turning father and said father’s withering look.

“What is the definition of a hero, Joseph?” he asked, each word spoken succinctly.

“A person who does something to help another person when he doesn’t have to,” Joe tried.

Ben turned to Hoss. “What is your definition of a hero, Hoss?”

Never one very good with words, Hoss thought for a few moments before he answered. “Someone who risks his life for someone else.”

Adam didn’t wait for his father to ask him. “Someone who makes a sacrifice for others.”

“I’d say those are three pretty good definitions. Now tell me how it is that the three of you fit into those definitions.”

The three siblings looked closely at one another, then Adam took the floor. “We didn’t have to help the search party look for Amy but we did. Hoss didn’t have to use his skill as a tracker to find her, but he did. Joe risked his life to go down in that shaft and get her out when someone else could have done it. And I was the one who thought up the way to get her out quickly and safely when we could have waited for someone to dig her out. There’s your three ways we were heroes, Pa.”

Ben almost smiled as the shoulders around him all straightened noticeably as Adam spoke.

“Now I am going to tell you why you aren’t the heroes everyone thinks you are,” he intoned, letting his voice rumble out across the small kitchen. “Hoss, you are always being asked to track people and such. This was nothing new for you. And Adam, you are forever thinking up ways to help others with your machines and the like. Joseph, you are always going into tight places that others can’t get into. But more than that, the reason you three aren’t heroes is that I raised you to help others, no matter what the cost to you yourselves personally. Whether it’s skinned hands or a knot on your head. You aren’t heroes if you are simply doing like you have been taught.”

Around him, Ben watched as the shoulders dropped back down. Without another word spoken, he returned to the job of cleaning the scrapes down Joe’s back. Pulling his quilt closer to him, Adam took four bowls from the kitchen cupboard and held them while Hoss filled them with the hot stew. Adam and Hoss leaned on the worktable and silently spooned in their meal. Once Ben was finished, Joe moved off the stool he had been sitting on and shoved it over so his father could sit on it. He too silently ate while leaning on the planks Hop Sing kept polished so well.

The bowls and spoons made their way into the sink and Joe confessed that it was his turn to wash dishes.

“Adam needs to soak his hands some more. He can do that washing the dishes. You two get on to bed,” Ben ordered Hoss and Joe. No one argued back.

When they were alone in the kitchen, Adam finally spoke up. “That hurt, Pa. But I guess you can see further down the road than we can some times.”

Ben’s head dipped a bit to one side as he poured hot water into the sink full of dishes and elbowed Adam aside. “Thank you for understanding, son. I had the feeling that the lot of you would be getting your heads pretty far up in the air about being heroes. Thought you needed to have your feet firmly planted on the ground.”

“You planted ‘em all right!”

“But I was wrong, too,” Ben admitted and saw in the mirror over the sink that Adam’s eyebrows had shot up. He turned and leaned against the sink, wiping his soapy hands on a towel. “You are a hero, son. But not for the reason you thought you were. To me, you are a hero because you found a way to protect and help not just the child, but your brothers as well. And when it comes to your brothers, you do it every day, without even thinking of it. And that makes you a hero in my book. Now let me put some salve on those hands, get them bandaged and let you get to bed.”

The salve stung, as Adam knew it would, but not as much as his father’s words had. His father then carefully wrapped his hands in several strips of bandaging, all the while Adam’s thoughts were how his father was bandaging his wounded ego as well. When he had finished, Adam looked at his hands then told his father “Thank you. And not just for the doctoring. But for keeping our feet on the ground as well.”

Ben did smile then. “It just goes with the job of being a father. Now get to bed!”

“You might want to take some of that salve up and put it on Joe’s chest. You missed the fact that he’s got a real doozy of a rope burn on him too!” advised Adam, then, trailing his quilt, he left the room yawning and bidding his father good night.

“Like I said, always protecting your brothers,” Ben mused then turned back to finish the dishes Adam was to have washed. Then he banked the fire in the cook stove and filled the kettle that stayed there with water so it would be warm tomorrow morning. He knew there would be need for it aplenty. He dimmed the light there in the kitchen and, picking up the tin of salve, left. Hurrying through the main room, he banked that fire as well before he headed up the stairs. As he rounded the corner to go down the hall, he was surprised to see Hoss rummaging in the hall closet.

“Something wrong, son?” he asked.

“Gettin’ me another cover is all. It’s cold tonight, what with the house not bein’ warmed up all day like it is when Hop Sing is home,” Hoss explained, dragging one out. He held it for a moment then reached in and grabbed another one as well before he turned and headed back to his room. Hoss was surprised that his father had followed him in. “Somethin’ wrong. Pa?” he asked, sotto voce.

“No, not now. But I did want to talk to you for a moment, if you don’t mind.”

Hoss winced in the dark and hoped his father couldn’t see it. “No sir.”

“I just wanted to tell you something,” and Hoss felt the side of his bed sag and knew his father had sat down beside him. “Other men, given the circumstances, would have given up this afternoon. They would have called off the search when the weather turned bad or when it started getting dark. You didn’t. That in my estimation makes you a hero. Not the fact that you were able to find the little girl but the fact that when the going got tough, you stayed with it. It is that persistence, that dogged determination in you that makes you go on that makes you a hero, Hoss.”

Beside him, Ben could feel the tension flowing out of his biggest son. With one hand, he reached over to the broad thigh and gave it a loving pat. “Now get to bed. I have a feeling that tomorrow morning is going to come very early.”

“Yes sir,” Hoss replied and the way he said it made Ben know that there was contentment in his son’s soul.

Ben stood to leave the room and was just stepping into the hallway when Hoss spoke up and bid him good night.

“Good night, Hoss,” he called back.

Ben retraced his steps to the first door he had passed. With one knock, he opened Joe’s door and entered. Typically Joseph, the young man was sprawled half under the covers and half not, the light from the hall lamp casting a shaft of light across his form. Upon hearing the knock, Joe had half raised up. Upon seeing who it was, he flopped back down.

“Can the rest of the lecture wait until tomorrow morning, Pa?” he groaned theatrically.

“Who said anything about a lecture? Adam pointed out that I missed putting some of Hop Sing’s salve on your chest. Said you had a good case of rope burn there,” Ben teased as he lit the lamp at Joe’s bedside. The groan he heard from his baby boy was louder that time and made Ben smile in spite of his trying to maintain a poker face. “Come on, down with the covers, boy and let me see. Ouch! That even looks like it hurts, son.”

Joe snatched the covers back and said he was fine. He caught the look in his father’s eye that spoke of dire things to come and then lowering the quilt, admitted, “Forgot, I ain’t no hero.”

Keeping his touch as light as possible against the raised red welt he saw there, Ben applied the stinging salve. When he had finished, he pulled the quilt back up.

“There are times when you are a hero, Joseph,” Ben started.

“But downstairs you said-”

“I know what I said downstairs and it still stands. You think of yourself as a hero because you risked your life going down that shaft to get that little child. To some people’s way of thinking, yes, that makes you a hero. But remember what I said about that sort of thing being what you have been taught? I can’t see you standing back and letting a child suffer and possibly die when you could do something about it! No, your heroism comes from something else entirely, son.”

Joe cocked his head to one side and waited for his father to continue.

“You did something you were scared to death to do. Don’t try to tell me that after all these years, you are suddenly not afraid of being underground because I won’t believe it! But yet you did it any way. You put aside your own fears long enough to help someone who needed it. That makes you a hero, Joseph. Any man can say they have risked their life but it takes someone special to go beyond themselves and their own fears as well. Do you understand?”

Joe quirked his mouth into a little grin. “I think so. And I think I know what you’re aiming at.” Ben’s eyebrows raised and Joe continued. “Keeping us from getting too big in the britches.”

“Something like that, son. Something like that. Good night, now. If you need anything-” Ben offered, thinking that there were times afterwards like this when Joe would be plagued by nightmares.

“I’ll be fine. Good night, Pa,”

With a gentle thump to the solid chest of his youngest, Ben left the room, pausing to turn out the light.

For several long moments, Ben stood in the hallway then he blew out the lamp there, intent on making his way to his own room and the warm bed awaiting him there. But something stopped him. He stood in the dark and let it come to him. Down the hall and across from his room, he could see the light creeping under Adam’s doorway. There beside him, he could hear the first rumblings of Hoss’ snores. And behind him, he heard Joe rustling as he tried to find a comfortable position to sleep.

My sons, Ben thought. My sons are heroes. Virginia City will praise them for what they did today and rightfully so. But for me, no. It’s what they do day in and day out that makes them my heroes. And it isn’t just what they do either but how they do it. But tonight I hope they came to realize that there is something more important than praise, more important than being called ‘hero’. Long after Virginia City and her residents forget what they did today, it’s the other side of valor that they will need to know to sustain them.

            As his thoughts died away, Ben turned his attention back to his surroundings. There was no rustling from Joe’s room. Hoss had given up a snort then the bedsprings groaned and silence reigned again. And down the hall, as Ben watched, the light dimmed then went out in Adam’s room.

Yes, he thought again as he went on to his door. My sons are heroes for all the right reasons. They know that the other side of heroism, the other side of courage, and valor, is humility.

The End