Ben and Stacy befriend a young woman returning home after living with the Chinook for four years. Part of the series begun in “Bloodlines” and includes the addition of a non-cannon character. “There But For The Grace of God” takes place after “Orenna,” the same winter.

Rating:  T (49,650 words)

Bloodlines Series:

Bloodlines
The Lo Mein Affair
The Wedding
Sacrificial Lamb
Poltergeist II
Independence Day
Virginia City Detour
The Guardian
Li’l One
Young Cartwrights in Love
San Francisco Revisited
There But for the Grace of God
Between Life and Death
Orenna
Clarissa Returns
Trial by Fire
Mark of Kane

---

There But For The Grace Of God 

Chapter 1

A black Victoria, complete with bonnet top, hitched to a magnificent pair of large, well muscled black horses, rounded the corner at the back of the barn and pulled up into the yard, moving at a stately, decorous pace across a field of mud, dotted with patches of melting ice and snow. Inside, Clara Marlowe, aged thirty-nine, soon to be forty, fidgeted in her seat, impatient for the conveyance to be there, in front of the house. She giggled and clapped her hands, unable and unwilling to reign in the unbridled excitement and happiness waxing in her heart, even as the diminished light and warmth of the day steadily waned into fast approaching night. Her husband, aged in his early fifties, smiled indulgently at the squirming bundle of energy seated beside him, and shook his head.

“Oh HONESTLY, Carlton! Can’t you drive this thing any faster?” the woman impatiently chided the driver, a tall, slender yet well-muscled, young man, aged in his late twenties. Tonight, he wore a black suit with vest and string tie, a starched, pristine white shirt, and a pair of black boots, polished to a high gloss shine. Overtop his clothing, he wore a heavy black overcoat.

“Clara, we’ll be at the door in just a moment,” her husband admonished her in the same indulgent, yet faintly condescending tone a parent might use to scold an unruly, yet much beloved young child.

“But, Tom Darling, I can’t wait to tell Ben and the others,” she squealed with glee.

The front door of the house opened in the same instant the Victoria came to a complete stop. Ben Cartwright stepped from the warmth of his home out into the cold night air to greet his arriving guests, Tom and Clara Marlowe. Tonight, he wore his best gray three piece suit, a white shirt, freshly laundered, pressed, and starched, black string tie and boots. Candy appeared from the lengthening shadows, in the company of Kevin O’Hennessy and Robert Washington, two of the younger ranch hands, to take charge of the Victoria and the horses.

“You need to be careful and watch your step, Mrs. Marlowe,” Carlton said as he gallantly extended his hand upward toward Clara, already in her. “It’s very slippery right along here.”

A small, impatient frown creased the surface of her forehead, rendered smooth by the heavy, judicious application of cosmetics. Carlton quickly, albeit not quickly enough to satisfy the capricious wife of his employer, helped Clara Marlowe alight from the Victoria. “Thank you,” Clara murmured correctly, as she primly lifted her skits, just enough to keep her hemline from being muddied, and stepped up onto the porch.

“Tom . . . Clara, good evening,” Ben greeted his guests with a warm smile, then stepped aside, allowing them to enter the house first. “Please, come in.”

“Thank you,” Tom said quietly. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yes, it has, Tom. It’s been TOO long.”

“Ben, I promise you that Clara and I won’t let another . . . . ” He frowned. “How long HAS it been?”

“Nearly . . . six months now, I think . . . . ” Apart from a cool, polite hello in passing, the Cartwrights and the Marlowes had not really socialized with one another since the day Ben and his sons had let it be known that Stacy was related to them by blood.

Until now.

“I promise you, Ben, Clara and I won’t let so much time go by between visits.”

“Nor will I.”

Clara Marlowe, meanwhile, slipped past the two men, and dashed inside the house. She noted the blazing fire in the fireplace with a satisfied smile. It’s inviting warmth seemed to flow right from the heart of the flickering, dancing flames into every wall, every board, nail, and rafter. In the dining room, the table had been set correctly with a fresh, white linen table cloth, the crystal goblets, the good china and silver. Ben’s two younger sons and daughter, politely rose from their places next to the fireplace, and made their way across the room to greet the Marlowes.

Clara was gratified to see young Joe Cartwright wearing that nice blue suit that brought out the blue in his eyes. He looked so handsome, so debonair when he chose to dress himself properly and take a comb to the oft-unruly mop of brown curls. If ONLY she were twenty years younger . . . .

Clara vigorously shook her head to clear out that lovely, errant thought.

As for Hoss, if Clara Marlowe could have HER way, if only just for a moment, she would whisk that big galoot to a proper men’s clothier in San Francisco, or better yet, Philadelphia, or New York, and have some decent suits made up for him that fit him properly. That ill fitting, mud brown suit, that didn’t quite come together over his massive, barrel chest, with arms and pants just this side of being too short, would go into the nearest garbage pit and burned immediately.

And Stacy! Well that child was enough to make even the most patient of people throw up their hands in despair. Tonight, Clara had to grudgingly admit that the girl looked presentable enough in that sunlight yellow frock that complimented her dark hair and brought out the golden highlights of her flawless skin tone. But the simply cut, tailored dresses Stacy seemed to prefer showed up her appalling lack of fashion sense.

Granted, the girl’s ignorance stemmed from having lived in an otherwise all male household, and among Paiutes before that, heaven forbid. But, even so, a man of Ben Cartwright’s means could certainly well afford to see that his daughter was properly schooled as to the manner in which a young lady was expected to comport herself. Clara shook her head, unable, for the life of her, to comprehend why Ben chose to neglect Stacy so shamefully.

“May I help you with your cape, Ma’am?”

“Yes, Hoss, thank you,” Clara responded with a smile, as her musings on the Cartwright offspring, suddenly scattered, like frightened chickens when the coop is invaded by a predator.

Hoss gallantly held her long, black floor length cape, while Clara Marlowe gingerly eased it away from her shoulders, taking great care not to muss her hair or gown. She wore a stunning off the shoulder gown, of a deep port wine organdy, trimmed in gold lace. Her necklace, a choker, was a string of deep red garnets, each stone set in a gold mount. The thin lips of the mountings served as a frame for each stone. Matching earrings dangled from her ears.

“Light wrap, Mrs. Marlowe,” Hoss remarked as he draped the cape over the outstretched arms of his sister, Stacy. “It’s a wonder you didn’t freeze t’ death on the way over.”

“I’m very warm blooded,” Clara retorted lightly, with a smile.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Hoss murmured uneasily, making silent note of the goose bumps, stretching from her shoulders to her wrists, giving lie to her bantering words.

Ben noted Clara’s thin, near emaciated frame with dismay. The bones of her cheeks, chin, and eye sockets protruded with painful clarity through a layer of pale skin, stretched to alarming tautness. Dark eyes peering intently from deeply set, rounded eye sockets, and her scarlet lipstick, emphasizing a wide mouth and long row of white teeth, lent her face a deathly, skull like appearance. Clearly visible through the thinned, translucent skin covering her hands, face, neck, and forearms, was a vast network of interlacing blue veins. The cosmetics, so painstakingly and judiciously applied, somehow seemed to accentuate all of the imperfect flaws they were supposed to conceal.

Thomas Marlowe, quietly divested himself of his own outer garments, a heavy, fully lined fleece overcoat, a fur Cossack style hat with ear coverings, woolen scarf, and lined leather gloves. These he dutifully handed over to the waiting hands of Joe Cartwright. He was a tall, well-muscled man, despite having lived the largely sedentary lifestyle of the independently wealthy for the better part of two and a half decades. His eyes were grayish green, and his hair light brown, almost blonde, thinning on top with receding hairline.

“Dinner will be ready shortly,” Ben said, as his younger children quietly withdrew to the downstairs guestroom, carrying the Marlowes’ winter wraps. “In the meantime, why don’t we have a seat over here by the fire.”
The heady aroma of roast pork, wafting into the great room from the kitchen, kindled Clara’s appetite. Tonight was the first time in nearly five years now that she actually felt hungry.

“Ma’am, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were so full of good news, you’re gonna bust if you don’t tell someone,” Hoss remarked, as he fell in step beside Clara.

“Hoss Cartwright, YOU are a wonder!” Clara marveled, her dark eyes shining. “Do you know that?! You’re an absolute wonder!”

“Shucks, Ma’am, I don’t know so much about that,” Hoss said modestly, his cheeks and the tip of his nose flushed slightly redder than usual. “It’s the smile on your face that just won’t quit. I ain’t seen you smile like that since— ” He abruptly broke off, suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry, sometimes I talk too much.”

“Hoss, tonight there’s no need to be sorry,” Clara smiled and touched his massive forearm reassuringly. “You’re absolutely right. Tom and I DO have good news. The BEST news!”

Ben gestured for the Marlowes to take the settee with a broad sweep of his arm. “So, what’s your good news?” he asked, as he settled himself in the red leather easy chair, leaving Hoss the blue one on the other side of the coffee table.

“We got a wire, Ben, just this morning . . . . ”

Tom gently touched his wife’s hand, bringing her quick flow of words to an abrupt halt. “Why don’t we wait until Joe and Stacy join us?” he said quietly.

“Oohh, alright!” Clara acquiesced with the same intense reluctance of a two-year-old child.

“Joseph . . . Stacy,” Ben called to his two youngest children. “Get a move on!”

“Coming, Pa!” Joe emerged from the guestroom first, with Stacy following close at his heels. He took his place next to his father’s chair, while Stacy sat down on the ottoman next to the chair occupied by Hoss.

“Ok, Clara, we’re all here!” Ben said, looking over at her expectantly.
“We got a wire this morning from a Major Baldwin, garrison commander at Fort Charlotte.” The words rushed from her mouth in a torrent. “Guess what? They have Rachael!”

“Rachael?!” Ben stammered, looking from Clara to Tom through eyes round with astonishment.

“Yes, Ben, RACHAEL!”

Suddenly, the import of her words hit hard, like tumbling wall of bricks . “Well I’ll be . . . . y-you mean to tell me . . . they’ve found Rachael?!”

“Yes, Ben!” Clara squealed with glee.

“She was found living with a tribe of Chinook Indians up around the mouth of the Columbia River, in Oregon,” Tom said. “A troop of cavalry men, out on patrol, spotted her with a party of Indian women, and took her back to THEIR base at Fort Columbia.”

“The wire from Major Baldwin said Rachael arrived at Fort Charlotte a week ago,” Clara, impatient in her excitement, seized up the reins of the story. “Oh, Ben, she’s alive! She’s alive! Alive, whole, and in one piece, none the worse for wear after her horrible ordeal among those . . . those ignorant, unwashed, heathen SAVAGES.”

Clara’s accompanying shudder with grotesque melodrama, ignited a flash of red within Stacy, momentarily blinding her to everyone and everything in the room with her. She abruptly turned from the fire toward Clara Marlowe, her eyes blazing with fury.

Before Stacy could open her mouth to speak the harsh words rising swiftly to her thoughts and tongue, she felt a large massive hand gently coming to rest on her shoulder. She turned and found herself staring into the face of her brother Hoss, silently begging her to hold her peace. Stacy had never, not in all the years since she had joined the Cartwright Family, HER family, had the heart to go against the biggest and gentlest of her brothers, especially when he looked at her that way. She exhaled soft, curt sigh of exasperation and sullenly averted her gaze to her hands folded in her lap.

“Clara, the Chinook are hardly unwashed and ignorant,” Ben spoke quietly, yet with rock firm conviction. “For centuries, they, the Makah, and other tribes living through out Oregon, have been very well known for, not only their skills at hunting, fishing, even whaling, but for the extensive trade they’ve established all up and down the Pacific coast. They’re also very fine artists, musicians, and craftsmen.”

“Oh, Ben, honestly! You’re talking about uncivilized, primitive savages, who would kill you and steal all you have as much as look at you!”

Ben silently sent forth a heartfelt prayer of thanks, grateful that no matter how riled his hot-tempered young daughter became, she always obeyed the unspoken pleas of the family peacemaker to hold her peace. He took a deep breath and returned his attention to his conversation with Clara.

“The Chinook and the Makah are also known for their PEACEFUL ways,” Ben continued, taking care to keep his own voice measured, and even. “If they HAVE turned savage, then I can’t say as I BLAME them, especially if the white men in Oregon have treated them as WE’VE treated the Paiute and Shoshone HERE. In all honesty, Clara, I’D be pretty savage, myself after awhile, with people who had forced me from my home, taken from me not only the ways and beliefs of my ancestors, but . . . my children as well . . . made promises to me, only to turn around and break them, or— ”

Clara looked over at him askance. “Ben, you actually speak of them as if they were PEOPLE.”

“Clara, they ARE people,” Ben said, his own voice rising slightly, despite his valiant efforts. “Granted, their ways and ours are very different, but— ”

“Ben, we haven’t told you the best part of our news yet,” Tom interjected quietly, in the hopes of averting the looming prospect of a bitter argument between his wife and host. “Rachael will be coming home to Virginia City on the four o’clock stage day after tomorrow.”

“Tom . . . Clara, that IS wonderful news!” Ben said, with a smile that never quite reached his eyes. “I know you’ve felt Rachael’s loss very keenly over the past four years.”

“Going on FIVE years, Ben,” Clara said, her good humor restored. “Five long horrid years of waiting and not knowing . . . wondering if we would EVER know . . . well, it’s over! It’s . . . ALL . . . OVER! Day after tomorrow our Rachael will finally come home, and things will FINALLY be back the way they SHOULD be.” She wriggled and squealed like a small child, eagerly anticipating a birthday, or better, Christmas. “I’m on absolute pins and needles! I just plain and simply don’t know how I’m going to be able to stand it until four o’clock, day after tomorrow!”

“Mister Cartwright, supper ready!” Hop Sing announced tersely. “Everyone come eat while food nice and hot!” Without waiting for a reply, he abruptly turned heel and ambled back toward the kitchen.

“Well! You heard the man, uhh, Lady! . . . Young Woman, and Gentlemen!” Ben said. He was mildly surprised to note the absence of the triumphant smile that usually appeared on his daughter’s face whenever he caught himself before making that dreadful mistake of referring to her as a young lady.

“Finally!” Hoss rose, his eyes gleaming with eager anticipation of the feast ahead. “I’m hungry enough to eat a twenty mule train.”

“I’m famished myself,” Clara said.

“May I have the honor o’ escortin’ you to the dinin’ room, Mrs. Marlowe?” Hoss asked, offering his arm.

“Yes, you may,” Clara giggled with pure delight, as she demurely rested her dainty hand on Hoss’ forearm.

“Ben, I haven’t seen Clare so animated since . . . well, since we learned of Rachael’s disappearance,” Tom said, his eyes resting affectionately on his wife’s retreating form. “For the past four going on five years, she’s hardly eaten, she hasn’t seen anyone, except Mrs. Lind and Mrs. Sutcliff, she’s barely stepped foot outside our front door, and I honestly can’t remember when she last put more than two words together.” His smile faded. “I was afraid, Ben. I was SO AFRAID!”

“I understand, Tom,” Ben said, silently noting out of the corner of his eye that Stacy had not moved from her place on the ottoman next to the fireplace. “Why don’t you and Joseph go on in to the dining room? I’ll be right along.”

Tom nodded, then fell in step alongside Joe.

Ben, meanwhile, returned to the fireplace where Stacy remained seated on the ottoman, staring morosely into the blazing fire. He sat down on the coffee table next to her and gently touched her shoulder. “Stacy?”

She started at his touch and the sound of his voice.

“I’m sorry,” Ben immediately apologized. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“ ‘S ok, Pa,” she said in a melancholy tone.

“I’m also sorry Fort Charlotte had to come up in conversation. I know it doesn’t hold much in the way of good memories for you.”

“I do have ONE good memory about Fort Charlotte,” Stacy said. “I met you, Hoss, and Joe there.” Her voice broke on the last word.

“Are you going to be alright?”

“Are you talking about eventually or . . . or within the next few minutes?”

“Both,” Ben replied.

“I’ll be ok eventually,” Stacy sighed. “The next few minutes . . . . ” She mutely shook her head. “Pa, may I pleased be excused?”

“Alright,” Ben quietly gave permission. “We’ll talk later.”

*********

The evening passed quickly. As the grandfather clock next to the door struck the hour of ten o’clock, Ben, Hoss, and Joe stood with their guests at the front door.

“Ben, it was a delightful evening,” Tom said, smiling broadly. He took his heavy, fleece-lined jacket from Joe, and slipped it on with a shiver. His smile faded. “I’m so sorry Stacy wasn’t feeling well.”

“Now don’t you worry about my little sister, Mister Marlowe,” Joe said, returning Tom’s smile. “That kid’s got the constitution of a ferocious grizzly bear. She’ll be over what’s ailing her in no time.”

“Joseph Cartwright, that’s no proper way to talk about a young lady even if she IS your sister,” Clara chided him lightly, as Hoss carefully placed her cape over her bony shoulders.

“Ma’am, whatever you do, DON’T EVER call Stacy that to her face,” Joe said, his eyes darting to the staircase. “I can guarantee things’ll get real ugly, real quick.”

“That’s very true, Ma’am,” Hoss agreed wholeheartedly. “Stacy hates bein’ called a young lady worse ‘n just about anything.”

“Oohh, that’s so silly!” Clara carelessly laughed it off.

“Whether it’s silly or not doesn’t matter,” Ben said with heartfelt sincerity. “What DOES matter are Stacy’s feelings.”

“Oh honestly, Ben, she’s just a GIRL for heaven’s sake! Not much more than a CHILD! You’re making a big deal out of nothing at all.”

“Clara, even though Stacy IS a girl, not much beyond childhood, what she thinks and feels matters just as much to me as what my sons, Adam, Hoss, and Joe think and feel.”

“Of course Stacy’s thoughts and feelings matter, but even YOU have to admit that . . . . well, a young girl’s thoughts and feelings are more frivolous, more capricious than a young man’s, especially since you’ve already raised three fine sons.”

“I admit no such thing,” Ben said very quietly.

“Oh, Ben, honestly! How can you possibly say that?” Clara laughed, then sobered. “Of course you’ve been widowed for quite a long time, and for many years it’s just been you and your boys. But, you take it from me, who’s been the mother of a daughter for fourteen years . . . you, by and large, take their thoughts and feelings with a grain of salt.”

“Ever since Stacy became part of this family, I’ve had this growing . . . sense? Gut feeling, perhaps? . . . that our society as a whole tells girls and women that their thoughts and feelings don’t matter to anyone. It’s the same as saying THEY don’t matter. Maybe that’s why so many have all the emotional problems they do.”

Clara looked over at Ben, open-mouthed with shock for a moment, then burst out into a peal of mirthless laughter. “Honestly, Ben, where DO you come by these funny notions?”

“Perhaps it’s insight that’s come with being the father of a daughter as well as sons.”

“Well, I’m NOT going to argue with you, Ben!” Clara said lightly with a touch of impatience. “With the prospect of Rachael’s homecoming, I’m much too happy tonight to argue with you or anyone else.”

Ben, his sons, and the Marlowes stepped out on to the porch as Carlton drove the Victoria right up to the front step.

“Thanks again for having Clara and me over this evening, Ben,” Tom said.
“Yes! It was a delightful evening!” Clara declared with an emphatic nod of her head. “Please tell Stacy I missed her company tonight, and that I hope she’s feeling better, soon.”

Ben watched as the Marlowes’ driver deftly helped Clara climb up into the Victoria then covered her with a brightly hued woolen blanket. Tom climbed in next to his wife while Carlton climbed into the drivers seat and took up the reins. Tom smiled and waved once more as the Victoria pulled away from the house, and headed out toward the road.

“Dadburn it! Pa, I hate t’ say this, but I think Hop Sing shouldda stuffed that apple in Mrs. Marlowe’s mouth, instead o’ the pig’s,” Hoss muttered under his breath, after the Marlowes had left.

“This is one time I agree whole heartedly with Big Brother here,” Joe said, scowling.

“Mrs. Marlowe’s remarks WERE uncalled for and completely out of line,” Ben said gravely, as he ushered both his sons inside out of the cold. “But, for the time being, please try and remember that Mister and Mrs. Marlowe spent the last five years not knowing whether Rachael was alive or dead.”

“Pa, surely you don’t agree with— ”

“Not at all, Joseph,” Ben quietly, yet succinctly nipped his youngest son’s passionate tirade in the bud. “But, I DO understand where they’re coming from as parents. I know Rachael’s been found and she’s coming home. But Tom and Clara faced the very real prospect of NEVER knowing what had become of Rachael. Facing the prospect of always wondering . . . of never knowing for the rest of your life— ” He shuddered. “You boys, and Stacy, too, will understand better when you have your own children.”

“Maybe, after Rachael’s been home awhile, Mrs. Marlowe’ll come to her senses an’ not think so badly about the Chinook,” Hoss suggested hopefully.

“I sure hope so, Big Brother,” Joe said with a yawn. “I don’t know about the two of you, but . . . tonight’s kind of tired me out. I’m gonna go ahead and turn in.”

“Me, too, Pa,” Hoss said. “You comin’?”

“Not just yet,” Ben said. “Good night, Boys.”

Hoss and Joe bade their father good night, then turned and made their way upstairs.

Ben slowly ambled over toward the fireplace, pausing briefly to remove his jacket, and vest. He very carefully draped both over the back of the settee before sitting down, and loosening his string tie.

His thoughts drifted to Clara Marlowe. She was as shallow as she was vivacious, her primary interests revolving around the social scene, gossip, and the latest in fashion. Clara’s attention constantly flitted from one endeavor to another, leaving a long string of unfinished projects over the years, because she had grown bored all too quickly. On the whole, she was too vapid an individual to ever harbor any kind of deep-seated hatred. That was the way she had always seemed to Ben, anyway . . . .

But tonight, her words, spoken with a malice Ben had never before heard in her voice deeply disturbed him, and stirred nebulous feelings of foreboding within. As Ben stared into the flames, still burning bright and warm in the massive, gray stone fireplace before him, his troubled thoughts drifted back to the time he, Hoss, and Joe first met Stacy at Fort Charlotte . . . .

He stood leaning against the corral fence sadly watching Stacy and his sons putting some of the horses brought to the fort from the Ponderosa through their paces. Their obvious happiness and the sheer delight of sharing each other’s company wrenched his heart. He had just gotten word from the fort commander, Major Stephen Baldwin, that Stacy would be accompanying Mrs. Vivian Crawleigh to the Lucia Hayes Churchill Home for Orphans and Foundlings in Ohio. Now, as he watched his sons and the girl he had in so short a time already come to love and think of as daughter, he wondered how in the world he was ever going to break the devastating news to them.

“Mister Cartwright?” It was Sergeant Dashel McGuinness, the man in charge of the horses at the fort, and the only one who had managed to earn a small measure of Stacy’s trust, albeit wary and guarded.

Ben started, but quickly recovered his composure. “Sorry, Sergeant, my . . . my thoughts were elsewhere . . . . ”

“I know,” Sergeant McGuinness said quietly, his eyes following the line of Ben’s vision to Hoss, Joe, and Stacy. “I need to speak with you about Stacy Louise.”

The note of urgency he had heard in the sergeant’s tone caught and held his attention. “What is it, Sergeant?” he asked, focusing his attention to the young man in blue uniform standing next to him.

“I . . . I had a sister once, an older sister who was abducted during an Indian raid out on the plains,” Dashel began haltingly. “She lived among them for two and a half, maybe three years. Lucinda was a little older than Stacy Louise is now, when SHE was taken . . . she came back about . . . about three months before her sixteenth birthday— ”He broke off, unable to continue.

Ben placed a comforting, paternal hand on the younger man’s shoulder, and offered him the same reassuring smile he would offer his own sons in a similar exchange.

“Lucinda changed during the years she lived among the Indians,” Dashel said sadly. “Their culture . . . their way of living . . . so different from our culture and our ways!”

He told Ben of the night before her sixteenth birthday, how Lucinda, sobbing with a depth of despair he had never, before or since, heard from the heart of another human being, told him of her betrothal to a young hunter known among his people as Thundering Buffalo.

“The way she described him . . . a big man, yet gentle . . . reminds me a lot of your son, Hoss, Mister Cartwright,” Dashel continued. “She loved him. I could see it in her eyes, hear it in the way she spoke of him . . . and . . . I felt it, in the depths of her grief and longing for him. It was like a thousand stab wounds to my own heart.”

A thousand stab wounds that had never healed. Ben saw that with crystal clarity.

“Ma and Pa loved Lucinda and were overjoyed to have her back, but they were repulsed by her, too. They expected her to be the same child who was taken away from them three years before. She WASN’T. She had grown and changed too much to ever go back to being the girl she was. Ma and Pa just couldn’t bring themselves to accept that. Looking back? I think they honestly saw the time Lucinda lived among the Indians as one of them as . . . as a mere footnote that could be easily erased.

“Ma and Pa figured Lucinda’d forget all about her life among the Indians if they could get her back among white people again. Her own kind was the way Pa put it. Her birthday seemed to them like a good excuse to do just that. They planned this big sweet sixteen party for Lucinda and invited all her friends.

“Mister Cartwright, it was a disaster! A horrible, horrible disaster! Her friends, the girls, chattered like a bunch of magpies about the next Saturday night dance, their dresses, who they wanted to ask them . . . while Lucinda mourned the loss of a man she loved and was set to marry. The boys talked on and on about how savage and cruel the Indians are, how the only GOOD Indian is a dead Indian . . . .

“I can still see her, Mister Cartwright. I can see her right now just as clearly as I saw her then . . . alone, silent, miserable . . . while the party guests chatted amongst themselves, sang songs at the piano, and danced without her. I don’t think they even noticed her absence. THAT broke my heart more than anything!”

“What happened to Lucinda?” Ben probed gently.

“That night? Mother stepped into her room to see how she was sleeping . . . make sure she had enough covers— ” The sergeant’s face contorted with agony, and his hands began to tremble. “I was awakened from a sound sleep by the sound of Ma screaming.” He took a deep, ragged breath. “I’d never . . . ever . . . in my entire life heard anyone scream like that. I-I hope to God I never do again!”

“Sergeant McGuinness, you don’t have to tell me this if— ”

“Yes, I do, Mister Cartwright, for Stacy Louise’s sake, I HAVE to finish!” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then another. “My father, my older brother, and I reached Lucinda’s room at the s-same time. We found Mother lying across Lucinda’s empty bed, out cold. Lucinda . . . oh dear God! Lucinda was dead, her body hanging by a sheet from one of the r-rafters over head.”

“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” Ben murmured sympathetically. “What does this have to do with Stacy?”

“Don’t you SEE, Mister Cartwright? Stacy Louise reminds me so very much of Lucinda— ” The sergeant’s eyes, glistening with unshed tears in the light of the late afternoon sun. “Y-you’ve got to find someway to take her with YOU.”

Ben remembered again the cold knot of fear that had coalesced in the pit of his stomach.

“You and your sons understand and accept her the way she is! I-I’m not sure I understand the how or why— ”

“We LOVE her very much the way she is,” Ben said quietly. “I never had a daughter, but if I did I’d want her to be exactly like Stacy.”

“Then, please! Make sure Stacy Louise goes with you, even if you have to stuff her in a saddle bag and sneak her out of this fort,” McGuinness begged. “If she goes to that orphanage in Ohio, Mrs. Crawleigh’s going to do to that girl what my ma and pa did to Lucinda . . . only it’ll be a thousand times WORSE because . . . well, deep down my parents DID love Lucinda, and honestly thought they were doing what was best for her. Mrs. Crawleigh, on the other hand, DOESN’T love Stacy Louise, any more than she loves any of the other children in living in that home she runs in Ohio. She does what she does because it’s her bounden duty to do so. Mister Cartwright, YOU’RE the only real chance Stacy Louise HAS . . . . ”

*********

Chapter 2

Lucinda McGuinness’ ghost rolled into Ben’s troubled thoughts, as those thick pea-souper fogs, he remembered from all years spent living in Boston, rolled in from the sea. He remembered Sergeant Dashel McGuinness showing him a photograph of his sister, just prior to their departure from Fort Charlotte. Set in a simple oval shaped wood frame, the picture showed young woman, a little younger than Stacy now, with light hair, egg-shaped face, with narrow chin and delicate features. A far cry indeed from Stacy’s dark hair, her square shaped face, with wide jaw line, and strong, even facial features.

Tonight, however, Lucinda McGuinness’ tragic ghost wore Stacy’s face in the steady stream of poignant images that appeared, then faded within the ebb and flow of Ben’s conscious thought. Images of a lonely young woman, isolated by experiences that came of having lived a life completely alien to those around her. Forbidden to speak of that life and those experiences with family and friends, and unable to return to the life she once led, she ended her all too brief time on earth at the end of a rope, in a final act of hopeless desperation.

“My parents LOVED her . . . but they were REPULSED by her, too.”

Sergeant McGuinness’ words echoed, and re-echoed through the silent recesses of Ben’s mind and thoughts.

There, but for the grace of God, could have gone his own beloved daughter. If Commander Baldwin HAD turned her over to the likes of Mrs. Crawleigh, or, if they had made that trip to Fort Charlotte a month later, as they had originally planned . . . .

Ben shuddered.

“Pa?”

The sound of Stacy’s voice drew Ben from his melancholy reverie. She stood beside him, clad now in a long, flannel nightshirt, and robe, gazing down at him anxiously.

“Pa, are you alright? For a minute there, you looked like you’d seen the ghost of someone you love very much.”

“I . . . think maybe I did,” Ben replied. He shuddered again.

“You SURE you’re alright?”

Ben looked up, his dark brown eyes meeting her bright blue ones, and held out his hand. Stacy immediately placed her hand in his, and allowing him to draw her over to the settee. It would never cease to amaze him how easily this daughter of his could read HIM sometimes, zeroing in on his thoughts, as she did just now, with more precision and accuracy than even the most deadly of gunslingers. Fey child, according to her mother.

Stacy sat down on the settee beside him, and nestled close. Ben slipped his arms around her, tonight taking comfort from her presence here and now. He silently offered up a prayer of deep gratitude for whatever circumstances had prompted Major Baldwin to change his mind at the eleventh hour, allowing the child-woman now resting securely in the circle of his arms to accompany him, Hoss, and Joe home from Fort Charlotte that day. For a time, they remained thus, watching the fire slowly diminish in companionable silence.

“I love you, Pa,” she said quietly, at length.

“I love you, too, Stacy,” Ben said. He looked down into her face, and smiled. “Ready for that talk?”

Stacy nodded solemnly.

Ben gave her an affectionate squeeze, then rose. He walked over to the fireplace and added an armload of kindling to the dying fire. Returning to the settee, he sat back down next to Stacy, and placed a reassuring arm around her shoulders. “What’s the matter?”

“I didn’t like the way Mrs. Marlowe kept on referring to the Chinook as ignorant, unwashed, heathen savages, Pa.”

“Neither did I.”

“I was ready to belt her one right in the gob.” Another Irish turn of phrase picked up from the brief time she had with her mother or possibly from Molly O’Hanlan’s feisty older sister, Colleen Nikolas. “If Hoss hadn’t stopped me, I WOULD have.”

“After they left, Hoss said that Hop Sing should have stuffed the apple in Mrs. Marlowe’s mouth instead of the roast pig’s,” Ben said.

The thought of Mrs. Marlowe lying trussed on a platter with an apple stuffed in her mouth brought a smile to Stacy’s face.

“I should’ve told her to cease and desist when she started talking that way about the Chinook. I’m sorry now that I didn’t.”

“You DID try to set her straight, but she wouldn’t listen,” Stacy said dolefully, then sighed. “Pa, between you and me? I don’t think Mrs. Marlowe EVER listens . . . not to ANYONE! Unless it’s something SHE really wants to hear.”

“Between you and me, Young Woman, you’re right, ESPECIALLY when she’s excited and happy like she was tonight.” Ben fell silent for a moment. “Stacy . . . .”

“Yeah, Pa?”

“I want you to try and understand about Mrs. Marlowe . . . . ”

Stacy opened her mouth to protest.

“Please, hear me out,” Ben said earnestly. “You CAN understand how a person feels without agreeing with him, or HER in this case. You remember how close Mrs. Marlowe and Rachael were to each other?”

Stacy nodded. “They were like two peas in a pod, as Hoss would say.”

“Then Rachael left on a trip that was supposed to last a summer . . . three months, but she ended up staying away for almost five YEARS,” Ben continued. “In all that time, Mister and Mrs. Marlowe didn’t know whether Rachael was alive or dead, and probably wondered . . . if she WAS alive, was she sick, in pain, being tortured?! Not easy things for a mother or father to live with!”

Stacy knew from the look on her father’s face that he spoke truly, even if she couldn’t fully empathize. “No, I guess not.” She fell silent for a moment, then turned and looked up at him earnestly. “Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“What’s going to happen to Rachael Marlowe?”

“She arrives in Virginia City on the four o’clock stage tomorrow,” Ben said slowly, “and I imagine she’ll go and live with her parents.”

“But what’s going to happen?”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“You heard the way Mrs. Marlowe was talking. She kept saying now that Rachael’s ordeal was all over, that things would be the way they should be, things would be the way they WERE.”

Ben nodded.

“Pa, things WON’T be the way they were. They CAN’T be!”

Ben was mildly surprised to see that she was on the edge of tears. He dug into his pocket and removed a clean, though wrinkled, handkerchief and placed it in her hands. He, then, offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “When Mrs. Marlowe spoke of things being the way they should be, I took it to mean being a family again when Rachael comes home.”

“I sure hope you’re right, Pa . . . and I’M dead wrong!”

“What did YOU think they meant?”

“I kept getting the idea that Mrs. Marlowe expects Rachael to be the exact same way she was when she left.”

Stacy’s words intensified that nagging sense of foreboding that had been with Ben since the Marlowes announced that their daughter was finally coming home.

“I think maybe what I really want to know is whether or not Rachael’s going to be alright.”

“The question of whether or not Rachael’s going to be alright is mostly going to be up to Rachael herself, Young Woman, but I think I know of a way to kind of help her along.”

“Really? How, Pa?”

“After Rachael’s had a few days to . . . well, to be with her parents, and get herself settled, maybe we could invite her out to the Ponderosa to spend a day,” Ben suggested, then smiled. “I happen to know of someone right here who, I’m sure, understands very well how Rachael might feel.”

Stacy’s entire face lit up at the prospect. “Can we, Pa? Can we really?”

“Yes, we can and we will.”

“Thanks, Pa!” Stacy favored him with a big bear hug.

“You feel a little better about things?”

Stacy nodded. “How about YOU, Pa?”

“Yes, I feel a lot better about things . . . for now,” Ben said, “and THAT being the case, Young Woman, I’d suggest we both get on upstairs and turn in. It’s well past our bedtimes.”

*********

Clara Marlowe sat in the pale green upholstered easy chair of her bedroom, with the shades and curtains drawn against the bright morning sun, attired in a white nightgown and pink silk wrapper, belted at the waist with a matching wide sash. The carriage clock on her dresser, painted with delicate pink roses and pastel green leaves over a background of pristine white, chimed the hour of nine o’clock.

By the dim light of a sputtering oil lamp, its wick nearly spent, she gazed despondently at the framed oil painted miniature tenderly cradled in her hands. It was a painting of Rachael, given to her as an early birthday present four years ago now . . . almost five . . . .

“I’ll be in Oregon visiting Gram and Aunt Sara when your birthday comes ‘round,” Rachael had said, gleefully pressing a small package, carefully wrapped in pink paper and silver ribbon, into Clara’s outstretched hands. Her words tumbled out of her mouth one after the other, like a waterfall cascading down the face of a cliff. Her dark brown hair was unruly, as always, and her brown eyes glowed with excitement. “Well? Aren’t you going to open it?”

“Perhaps I should save it for when my birthday comes, Darling.”

“No, no, no, Mama! I want you to open it right now this very second. I want to see your face when you see what’s inside.”

“Alright, Rachael,” Clara murmured indulgently.

“It’s a little something to remember me by while I’m away.”

Clara untied the ribbon and carefully unwrapped the package, while Rachael eagerly looked on, hopping back and forth from one foot to the other. The wrapping paper slipped away revealing the exquisite miniature, framed in gold. The artist had completely captured Rachael’s joie de vivre, in the sparkling brown eyes and broad smile, just short of breaking into an infectious belly laugh.

Little did either of them realize back then, that Rachael’s trip to Oregon would last nearly five long miserable years . . . .

Clara exhaled a soft, melancholy sigh as she tenderly placed the miniature on the night table beside her chair, face down. Almost five years ago, her lively, vivacious Rachael had climbed aboard a stage to visit her aunt and grandmother in Oregon. Three days ago, a sullen, silent stranger returned to Virginia City in her stead . . . .

“Oh, Tom! Tom! Look! Here she comes! Here she comes!” Clara clapped her hands together, and jumped up and down like an excited child who had just learned that her family’s taking her to the circus.

After a dreadful eternity of watching the stage move down the street toward the depot, it finally came to rest a few feet away from where she and her husband stood waiting.
The driver turned and grabbed the step stool from on top of the stagecoach, then jumped from his perch all in the same easy fluid movement. He placed the step stool on the ground, below the entrance to the coach, before opening the door.

The first to emerge was a tall woman, given to plumpness, aged in her mid-forties. Her brown hair, generously laced with strands of silver was styled in a sensible French twist. She wore a plain blue traveling suit, a matching pillbox hat, and white blouse. The woman immediately turned to Clara and Tom. “Mister and Mrs. Marlowe?”

“Yes, that’s us!” Clara said in a cool, aloof tone.

“I’m Mrs. Baldwin,” the woman introduced herself. “My husband is the commander at Fort Charlotte. I’m traveling on to Carson City to see family, so I offered to bring your daughter to Virginia City.”

Clara’s initial haughty reserve melted quickly into a demeanor of smiling sunshine and light. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Baldwin,” she gushed. “That was very kind of you.”

Mrs. Baldwin nodded curtly, then turned her attention to the stagecoach. “Rachael, you’re home.”

The young woman stepping next from the stage wore a knee length fringed buckskin dress, with boot-like moccasins, and a necklace of sea shells, coral, and carved pieces of bone. Her dark hair was plaited into a single, thick braid, reaching nearly to her waist, and she wore a headband made from hand carved beads of shell, bone, coral, and the hard to cut purple undersides of clam shells. She stiffly held her hands close to her body, just below her breasts. In them she clutched a single drawstring bag, fashioned from some kind of animal skin.

“Oh, Darling, Darling, Darling, you’re home!” Clara cried, as she caught Rachael up in her arms. “You’re finally home! Oh Rachael Darling, I’ve missed you so much!”

“Hello, Mama. Hello, Papa.”

Rachael made no move to return Clara’s embrace. Instead, she stood stiff and rigid within the tight circle of her mother’s arms. That and the sound of her voice speaking in a dull, lifeless monotone shocked Clara like a bucket of ice cold water, abruptly thrown in her face. She pulled back slightly, and looked up. Rachael’s face was an unreadable, impassive mask, set in granite. Her dark eyes were twin pools of flat, lifeless black, with not even the slightest sparkle to animate them.

“Such a long trip! You must be exhausted, Darling,” Clara whispered, her smile tremulous. “Tom . . . . ”

“Yes, Clara?”

“Why don’t you take Rachael and get her settled in the Victoria?” The words tumbled past Clara’s tips in a nervous rush. “I’ll arrange to have her luggage— ”

“ . . . . uuhh, Ma’am?”

“Yes, Driver?”

“Your daughter the squaw woman?”

Clara gasped in shock and outrage. “My daughter is most certainly and assuredly not a SQUAW WOMAN.” She furiously spat those last two words. “I’ll have you know that MY DAUGHTER happens to be a well born, genteelly raised, civilized young lady who had the horrible misfortune of having been abducted and held prisoner by savages for the last five years.”

“Clara . . . . ” Tom appeared at her side and gently touched her arm. “Clara, please don’t.”

“I MUST, Tom, I must!” she insisted, on the edge of angry tears. “Just because Rachael was no doubt FORCED to wear that . . . that . . . that FILTHY animal hide, and— ”

“Ma’am, I . . . I’m s-sorry . . . . ”

“Driver, if you would hand down our daughter’s luggage?” Tom ordered.

“Your daughter has no luggage, Sir.”

“WHAT?!” Clara shrieked, as Rachael ventured over, still clutching her animal skin bag.

“Ma’am, your daughter has no luggage,” the driver reiterated. “She boarded the stage in the company of Mrs. Baldwin with only the clothes on her back.”

“OH DEAR GOD! TOM! TOM, THOSE . . . THOSE HORRID, FILTHY SAVAGES STOLE ALL OF RACHAEL’S NICE PRETTY THINGS . . . ALL THOSE LOVELY FROCKS . . . I CAN’T BEAR IT! I SIMPLY CAN’T BEAR IT!”

“Clara, please. Let’s go home.”

Clara turned and saw Rachael standing behind Tom, her posture stiffly erect, still clutching the leather, draw-string bag in both hands.

“RACHAEL, GIVE ME THAT FILTHY THING!” Clara cried, reaching out her hand to snatch that horrid animal skin bag from her daughter’s clutches.

“No.” Rachael wrapped both hands even tighter around the bag and pressed it close to her heart, clinging to it for dear life.

“RACHAEL . . . . ” Clara reached out to snatch way that bag, a horrid, filthy thing in her own mind, a worthy candidate for the ashbin out back behind the kitchen.

Rachael, with a guttural cry, pivoted and turned the bag away from her mother, clutching it more tightly than ever.

“Rachael, you give me that . . . that THING, and you give it to me right NOW!”

“Clara . . . . ” Tom stopped her with a warning look and a gentle, feathery touch to her shoulder.

“TOM . . . . ”

“Leave it alone, Clara,” he said quietly. “For now, please! Just leave it alone!” Tom turned his attention to Rachael, still clinging tightly to her animal skin bag. She drew back when he touched her arm, but when she realized he had no intention of trying to take her bag, she fell in step beside him.

Clara stood unmoving, as if rooted to the spot, staring at the retreating backs of her husband and daughter in complete and utter shock.

“Mrs. Marlowe?”

Clara slowly, almost painfully turned and found herself looking up into the kind face of Mrs. Baldwin.

“Mrs. Marlowe, we’ve had a fair number of young people pass through Fort Charlotte who had been abducted in Indian raids in the years my husband has been fort commander,” she said quietly. “Including a young lady who went to live with a family from near here, as I recall . . . . ”

“That would be Stacy Cartwright,” Clara said irritably. “Her father is a very old and dear friend of ours . . . Mister Benjamin Cartwright, of the Ponderosa. Do you have a POINT to make?”

Mrs. Baldwin stared over at Clara Marlowe, speechless, taken aback by her sudden ire. “As a matter of fact, yes, I DO have a point to make, Mrs. Marlowe,” she said stiffly upon finding her voice. “The ways of the Indians are very different from our ways.” She shook her head. “The abductees lucky enough to return home have to learn all over again how to live in OUR society. The girls always seem to have a tougher time of it than the boys.”

“W-what are you saying, Mrs. Baldwin?”

“That Rachael is going to need a lot of time and patience to readjust.”

“Nonsense!”

“Mrs. Marlowe, please . . . . ”

Clara Marlowe drew herself up to full regal height and cast a withering glare at Mrs. Baldwin. “Mrs. Baldwin, I think I’M the better judge of what’s best for MY daughter,” she snapped. Before the other woman had even the slightest chance to form a response, Clara whipped around a full one hundred eighty degrees and flounced off after her husband and daughter at the briskest pace good deportment deemed allowable . . . .

In the dreadful three days that followed, Clara had kept up a lively stream of chatter, catching Rachael up on all the news about her friends. Her very dearest and best friend Katy Snodgres moved in on the young man Rachael had cast HER eye upon before making that trip to Oregon, barely a year after news of Rachael’s disappearance had reached Virginia City. Now the pair of them were engaged to be married.

“ . . . and they had the nerve . . . the colossal NERVE to actually send US . . . your father and me . . . an invitation to the wedding!” Clara had declared in tones of pure outrage. “Well, we’re going to cut them dead socially, I promise you that, My Darling. All of our friends will, too.”

“Why?”

Clara looked over at her daughter askance.

“Why are you and your friends going to cut Katy and . . . and . . . . ” Rachael frowned trying to recall the young man’s name.

“Desmond, Darling. Desmond Peters!”

“Why cut Katy and Desmond dead, Mama?”

Clara simply couldn’t believe her ears.

“Mama, I have not so much as THOUGHT of Desmond since the day I left here to go to Oregon.”

“Well, out of sight, out of mind, I suppose . . . . ” Clara said in a dismissive tone, the wind stolen from her angry sails.

She, then, went on to report with a faint malicious glee how poor Susan Murphy was plumper now, more than ever, poor thing, since that Sutcliff boy dumped her and how all winter long she sought solace and comfort at the table. Jenny Lind wore a bright yellow dress to the big dance last Saturday night that clashed mightily with her carrot color hair. So Clara thought! Green would have been far more complimentary, the girl should certainly know better by now . . . and Angela Griffith! That audacious little tramp brazenly threw herself at Lee Mayhew at the same dance last Saturday. “You should’ve SEEN that dress she wore! Darling, that dress was so tight, I’ll bet anything she was poured into it, and that neckline, WELL! It was so low cut, it left nothing . . . virtually NOTHING to the imagination.”

Rachael seemed uninterested, even bored.

Tom seemed to have better luck with Rachael conversationally. He, at least, was able to occasionally draw out one-syllable answers to questions. It seemed the days, when Clara and Rachael wholly dominated mealtime conversation with gossip, talk of the next social functions, what they were going to wear, were gone.

Worst of all Rachael had actually flat out rejected all the lovely new clothes Clara had purchased for her, without so much as sparing them so much as a passing glance. She insisted on wearing that appalling Indian costume, until Clara in an act of pure desperation, decreed that horrid thing was to be taken out to the trash pit and burned. Rachael shrieked at the top of her lungs, like some kind of a wild animal, fighting literally tooth and nail, with the ferocity of an enraged cougar, to keep that . . . thing. It took all six of the upstairs maids to hold her down. Everyone, including herself, sustained cuts and bruises, courtesy of her daughter’s kicking legs, flailing fists, and raking nails. Rachael had even gone so far as to bite poor little Mary Lu’s wrist.

Clara was and still remained mortified.

*********

A discreet knock on her bedroom door roused Clara from her melancholy musings.

“Yes?”

“Catherine, Ma’am. You have two visitors come to call. Jenkins has shown them to the drawing room.”

“Who is it?” Clara groaned. She had every intention of instructing the maid to inform the morning callers waiting in the drawing room downstairs that she was terribly indisposed.

“Ma’am, it’s Ben Cartwright and his daughter, Stacy.”

Her posture straightened. “Did you say Ben Cartwright?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Have Jenkins offer them refreshment and tell them I’ll be there directly.” Clara flew out of her chair like a shot. “Stacy!” she murmured. “Stacy was abducted and lived among the Paiutes . . . maybe SHE can reach poor Rachael.” She bolted out of her chair like a shot and stuffed every strand of her mussed hair under the confines of the matching pink mobcap, lying across her lap. Clara applied a touch of rouge to her lips, and deemed herself half way presentable.

*********

The Cartwrights rose politely when Clara Marlowe finally entered the room.
“Good morning, Ben . . . Stacy . . . . ” It took a supreme effort of will not to grimace at the Cartwright daughter’s dreadfully appalling mode of dress. The girl had actually accompanied her father here, to pay a morning call, clad in a pair of britches and boots like a common ranch hand. Of course, she had to admit, that Ben, himself, wasn’t what she would call properly dressed for a morning call, either.

“Good morning, Clara,” Ben smiled, removed his hat and nodded.

“Good morning, Mrs. Marlowe,” Stacy said politely.

“I DO hope you’ll both forgive me for receiving you thus,” Clara said as she gestured for her guests to sit down. “I’m afraid I’ve been somewhat indisposed over the last couple of days. Looks like Stacy’s infirmity the other night was contagious.” This last drew a very sharp glance from Stacy.

“Clara, I’M the one who should apologize for dropping in on you unannounced like this,” Ben apologized quickly. “We’ll come back another time, when you’re feeling better.”

“That’s quite alright, Ben,” Clara said quickly. “I AM feeling much, MUCH better today.”

“Stacy and I thought maybe Rachael might like to come out to the Ponderosa, and spend the day with us,” Ben said, as he and Stacy seated themselves on the settee.

“That’s a wonderful idea!” Clara declared with a smile. She lowered her voice to a confidential decibel. “The poor dear hasn’t set foot outside this house since she arrived home three days ago, and she woke up this morning feeling a trifle under the weather herself.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Clara. Perhaps we should postpone things until Rachael’s feeling better.”

“Nonsense, Ben! It’s probably passed by now, it always does! In any case all that nice fresh air and sunshine will do Rachael an absolute world of good! It might even be just the fix-me-up to CURE whatever’s ailing her!” Clara shot right out of her chair to her feet. “I’ll just ring Marjorie, and ask her to go up and fetch Rachael down.”

“Mrs. Marlowe?”

“Yes, Dear?”

Stacy bristled against the faint condescending note she heard in the woman’s voice. “Would you mind if I went up to see Rachael?”

Clara frowned for a moment, then brightened. “Yes, that would be lovely having the invitation come from you directly. I’ll have Marjorie take you up.” She bounded across the room, and pulled the yellow and white tasseled cord hanging alongside the fireplace.

Marjorie Klein, the Marlowes’ head housekeeper, appeared a scant moment later. Aged in her early thirties, she was of average height, with a mop of honey brown ringlets cropped close to her head. She wore a dark brown skirt, simply tailored, and a white long sleeved blouse, with a high collar, buttoned to the very top button. “Yes, Ma’am?”

“Marjorie, please escort Miss Cartwright upstairs to Rachael’s room.”

“Yes, Ma’am. If you’d come with me, Miss Cartwright?”

Stacy rose, and followed the maid out of the drawing room. “Ma’am, would you do me a big favor?” she asked as they made their way toward the stairs.

“I would be more than happy to do so, Miss Cartwright.”

“Then please, drop the Miss Cartwright? That’s my pa’s cousin’s name.” She grimaced. “MY name’s Stacy?”

“Oh, yes, Miss Clarissa Cartwright! I’ve certainly heard all about HER last visit to Virginia City!” The maid smiled. “I’ll agree to your request on one condition.”

“ . . . . and that is?”

“YOU’LL drop the Ma’am and call me Marjorie.”

Stacy grinned. “You have yourself a deal, Marjorie.”

“I have to tell you, Stacy, I’m not at all sure how successful you’re going to be coaxing Miss Marlowe from her room,” Marjorie said archly.

“Oh?”

“She hasn’t stirred out of there since Mrs. Marlowe stripped that heathen animal skin dress she’s been wearing right off her back and gave the foul thing to the scullery maid to burn.”

“WHAT?” Stacy’s heart plummeted to her feet in a fast free fall.

“Mrs. Marlowe had all the upstairs maids hold Miss Marlowe down while she herself got a pair of scissors and cut that smelly thing right off her body, piece by piece,” Marjorie recounted the incident with relish, mistaking Stacy’s horror for eagerness to hear more juicy gossip about the oh-so-perfect Marlowe Household. “That girl fought like a wild cat, biting and scratching. Stacy, there was six of us holding on to that girl! SIX! Hanging on for dearest life tryin’ to keep her pinned down. I don’t know where in the world she ever came by all that strength . . . . ”

“Desperation!” Stacy snapped. “Pure, simple, ornery, cussed desperation!”

“That girl put up a real fuss ‘n a holler, too.” Marjorie blithely rambled on, as if Stacy had not spoken. “Gracie O’Leary, our cook, thought sure it was the cry of the Banshee, comin’ to get her. The poor dear was white as a sheet! Slept that night with a crucifix nailed to her door, Bible under her pillow, and rosary clutched tight in both hands.” At this, Marjorie laughed out loud.

In Stacy’s ears, the sounds of Marjorie’s mirth seemed harsh and grating, very much like the sound of Miss Parsons’ long fingernails scraping across the school blackboard in her bid to call for order when the students were at their unruliest.

At length, Marjorie shook her head, her mirth fading, much to Stacy’s great relief. “Now don’t get me wrong! I’m pleased as punch to see the child back home where she belongs, safe ‘n sound. Honestly, I AM! But, all the same, it’s been awful! Awful for Miss Marlowe and even worse for MRS. Marlowe.”

“I was afraid of this.” As horrendous as the worst of her fears concerning Rachael Marlowe had been, Stacy wished fervently that things had gone that well. Everything that Marjorie had told her with such relish and glee was far worse than anything she could have possibly imagined.

“I’m sorry, Stacy, I didn’t catch that.”

““I just said . . . maybe time out in that NICE FRESH AIR we have out at the Ponderosa will do Rachael some good like Mrs. Marlowe said,” Stacy said wryly.

“I hope so. I really and truly hope so.” Marjorie sighed and shook her head dolefully. “I feel so SORRY for the Marlowes, especially the Missus. Here they are, so looking forward to having their daughter back home . . . and they end up with a . . . with a heathen savage.” She cast a quick, furtive glance over her shouldered, then lowered her voice. “Don’t ever tell the Mister and Missus I said this, but . . . well, I can’t help but think it would have been far more kind and merciful if the girl had just plain turned up DEAD!”

Stacy, her face a veritable dark, menacing thundercloud, sidestepped slightly, placing her foot and ankle directly in Marjorie’s path. The maid tripped, as intended, shrieking at the top of her lungs as she fell, very much, no doubt, like the banshee Grace O’Leary believed poor Rachael to be. The maid landed on her hands and knees. “How very clumsy of me,” Stacy murmured with exaggerated contrition, her face a touch too angelic. “Here, let me help you up.”

Marjorie regarded the girl with a suspicious glare, as she shifted back onto her rump.

“Please?” Smiling, Stacy leaned down and extended her hand. She also firmly placed her foot strategically on the maid’s skirt, near the hemline.
“It’s the LEAST you can do,” Marjorie murmured in a condescending tone as she reached up and took Stacy’s hand.

Stacy pulled Marjorie to her feet, unable to quite hold back the smile as the unmistakable shriek of ripping material filled the air. Half the skirt had pulled away from the waistband, exposing an extensive view of a bright red silk petticoat. “Lovely shade of red, Marjorie.”

Marjorie gasped, her face purple with rage. “Miss Cartwright, you will find Miss Marlowe’s room at the end of the hall on the right,” she informed Stacy with stiff indignation as she gathered up the material of her skirt to cover the exposed slip. With that, she abruptly turned heel and flounced back down the hall in the opposite direction.

“I love you, too, Ma’am,” Stacy blithely called after the retreating maid.

*********

Chapter 3

Stacy quickly and easily located the fast closed door to Rachael’s bedroom. She paused, just long enough to wipe the smile off her face, before knocking.

There was no response.

Stacy knocked on the door again. “Rachael? It’s Stacy Cartwright. May I come in?”

“S-Stacy?”

“Yes, Rachael.”

“Is Mama with you?”

Stacy winced against the terrible anger and resentment she heard in Rachael’s voice. “No,” she said, “your mother’s downstairs chatting with my pa.”

The door immediately opened. A young woman, a couple of years older than Stacy appeared, dressed in a long dark green skirt and a plain white blouse. “Come in.” The words of Rachael’s invitation were clipped, almost terse.

Stacy stepped into the room and turned just as Rachael quietly closed the door behind her.

“Why . . . . ” Rachael frowned. “Why have YOU come here, Stacy Cartwright?”

“I came to invite you out to the Ponderosa for the day.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to come.”

A glance at Stacy’s face and eyes told Rachael that she spoke truly. “You have lots of forest, lakes and . . . and snow this time of year . . . on the Ponderosa,” she said quietly, her granite-like impassive mask slipped.

“Yes. If you’d like, we can ride out and see them.”

The mask shattered, revealing nearly the same depth of despair Stacy saw in the faces of her foster mother, Silver Moon, and her grandfather, Chief Soaring Eagle, just prior to their capture by the U. S. Army. Stacy felt the acrid stinging of tears in her own eyes.

“I . . . w-will come with you,” Rachael murmured haltingly. “Wait!” Two bounding strides carried her to the side of the canopied bed dominating the center of the room. She noiselessly dropped to her knees and reached under the bed. Rachael rocked back on her knees a few moments later, clutching her precious leather drawstring bag in hand. “I will go with you now.”

*********

“Oh, Ben, it’s been so AWFUL!” Clara, meanwhile, paced the drawing room floor, wringing her hands in complete and utter despair. “I ask Cook to fix Rachael’s favorite foods, but she WON’T eat! The day before she came home, I spent the whole day shopping for nice clothes! The WHOLE DAY, Ben! Rachael won’t even look at them, let alone WEAR them. I offered to take her shopping, let her pick out her own wardrobe, but she REFUSED. Can you BELIEVE that?!”

“Clara, I— ”

“In fact, the only thing she WOULD wear . . . INSISTED on wearing . . . was that horrid, shapeless, unflattering, smelly piece of heathen animal skin!” Clara shuddered with a repulsive grimace. Her despair quickly gave way to righteous indignation. “I TRIED to be patient AND understanding, Ben, I DID! I tried so HARD, but in the end . . . well, I FINALLY had to take matters into my own hands.”

Ben’s heart sank as he heard the worst of Stacy’s fears concerning Rachael being confirmed. “Wh-what did you—?”

“I stripped that foul, wretched thing off her body myself!” Clara declared stoutly, with an emphatic nod of her head. The horrified look on Ben’s face quickly dispelled her ire, and put her on the defensive. “Ben, it was for her own good,” she whined. “Surely you see that?”

“T-to be absolutely honest, Clara . . . I-I’m not so sure I— ”

“Last night, Ben,” she rushed on, completely oblivious to Ben’s attempts to respond, “I suggested that we have a nice little intimate soiree, nothing big and elaborate, mind. We could line up someone to play a short piano program in the music room, serve up a nice sit down supper, and invite some of her close friends. I think that would be a wonderful way to ease her back into proper society, don’t you, Ben?”

Ben’s thoughts immediately zeroed in on Sergeant McGuinness’ account of his sister, Lucinda’s tragically disastrous sweet sixteen party. “Clare, have ANY of Rachael’s friends been around to see her?”

“Oohh, one! A young lady named Katy Snodgres, though as far as I’M concerned . . . with friends like Katy, who needs enemies!”

“What about the friends you plan on inviting to this shindig you’re putting together?”

“SHINDIG?!” Clara laughed, high pitched with a harsh, grating edge. “Oh, Ben, you’re just too priceless sometimes! I’m planning a SOIREE. There’s a world of difference— ”

“Alright!” Ben said with a touch of exasperation. “The friends you intend to invite to your soiree . . . have any of THEM been around to see Rachael?”

“Well . . . noooo . . . but they DO ask about her, whenever I’m in town,” Clara whined defensively. “In any case, Rachael was so indifferent, she . . . well, she just shrugged the idea right off.”

“Maybe throwing a party and inviting a lot of people is rushing things a tad, Clara,” Ben pointed out in a quiet, gentle tone.

“Oh, Ben, for heaven’s sake!” Clara angrily stamped her foot. “I SAID a SOIREE, NOT a party! A small intimate SOIREE! And I didn’t say a lot of people, either. I said just a FEW CLOSE friends. Rachael NEEDS to be with people, Ben, she desperately needs to be back among her own kind of people, and the sooner the better. Surely you can see that?!”

“ . . . she desperately needs to be back among her own kind of people.”

“ . . . get her back among white people again. Her own kind was the way Pa put it.”

The framed photograph of Lucinda McGuinness rose again within his angry, troubled thoughts, as he remembered seeing it gently cradled in her brother’s outstretched hands. This time, she wore Rachael Marlowe’s face.

“Ben!?”

Ben vigorously shook his head to clear it of the disturbing vision swimming before his inward sight. “Clara, I-I’ sorry. I was only trying to say is that . . . well, maybe Rachael needs time to readjust. Time, AND a lot of patience!”

“It’s amazing, Ben, it really and truly IS amazing!” Clara’s voice was ice cold. “Ever since Rachael’s come home, nearly everyone, it seems, is just chock FULL of advice as to what’s best for MY daughter, and I resent it. Do you hear? I RESENT it!”

“Clara . . . . ”

“No, Ben! I won’t have it! I won’t!” Clara declared petulantly. “I am Rachael’s mother. Surely I know what’s best for her!”

“Clara, I’m not questioning your adequacy as Rachael’s mother,” Ben tried to explain. “All I’m saying is that Rachael’s grown used to a completely different way of living. She needs TIME to readjust. It’s NOT going to happen overnight.”

“I want MY Rachael back, Ben.” Clara’s voice caught on the utterance of her daughter’s name. “I want MY little girl back the way she WAS. I want all the misery I’ve suffered for the last five years to STOP! I want this whole thing to be OVER, and I want it to be over RIGHT NOW!”

“Clara, Rachael may not be able to go back to being the girl she was, even if she WANTS to,” Ben said quietly.

“Even if she wants to?!?” Clara looked over at Ben as if he had just taken complete leave of his senses and sprouted a pair of purple antlers in the bargain. “Of COURSE, she wants to for heavens’ sake! Why in the world would she NOT want to?”

“How old was she when she left?”

“Fourteen,” Clara said morosely.

“That makes her eighteen, going on nineteen years old now. There’s a world of difference in those four and a half years, Clara! Rachael’s NOT a little girl anymore. Like it or not, she’s a full grown WOMAN.”

“Ben, stop it! Just STOP it, you hear?” Clara said peevishly, clapping her hands firmly over her ears. “You’re distressing me.”

“I’m sorry, Clara,” Ben immediately apologized.

“Pa?” It was Stacy. She stood just inside the open door to the drawing room, with Rachael standing beside her, clutching her leather bag close to her chest.

Clara exhaled a short, curt exasperated sigh upon seeing the animal skin bag clutched in her daughter’s hands. “Rachael, I don’t think you need to take that thing with you to the Cartwrights,” she said, venting her growing ire and frustration. She put out her hand to take it.

“NO!” Rachael shouted, clutching the bag tightly to her chest once again.

“RACHAEL . . . ”

“NO!”

“HONESTLY!” Angry and frustrated, Clara stamped her foot hard enough to rattle every piece of bric-a-brac in the drawing room.

“Clara, please, it’s alright,” Ben quickly intervened, as Stacy quietly interposed herself between Rachael and her mother.

Clara sighed and shook her head. “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand this at all. She must have a dozen lovely, perfectly suitable hand bags upstairs in her room, yet she insists on carrying THAT hideous thing around.”

“Rachael, may I see?” Stacy asked. “You can just turn it around, if you want.”

Rachael nodded warily, but nevertheless, turned the bag around so that Stacy could see the front. The dark brown intricate lines and geometric patterns came together to form the graceful body of a doe. The artist had used the color of the hide in his or her work, and white to accentuate and high light. Pieces of shell, and beads, carved from deer bone, were festooned to the fringe trim.

“That’s beautiful!” Stacy said softly. “Pa, come see!”

Ben walked over and took up position beside his daughter. He smiled, as he studied the deer’s face and sinuous body painted on the front of the bag. “Stacy’s right,” he said, addressing his comments to Rachael directly. “That IS very beautiful. Did YOU paint it?”

A bare hint of a smile tugged at the corner of Rachael’s mouth, as she solemnly shook her head. “My Chinook mother, Lammieh Towakh Moon [ii], made this medicine bag as a gift to me. The name she gave me is T’kope Mauitsh, which means White Deer.”

“Rachael, I am your mother, NOT that ignorant savage who held you PRISONER for almost five years,” Clara said through clenched teeth, making no effort to conceal her rancor and disdain, “and I thought I made it clear that I do NOT want to hear that . . . that heathen name they called you spoken in this house EVER, EVER, again.”

Ben duly noted the growing, smoldering anger in Stacy’s eyes. “I, uh . . . think we’d best be going,” he said quickly, taking his own daughter and Rachael firmly by the hand. “We’ll leave you to relax and get some rest, Clara. I hope you’ll be feeling better soon.”

“Thank you, Ben,” she said in a stone cold voice. “Tom and I will see you later this evening, when you bring Rachael back.”

*********

“Mister Cartwright, dinner time soon!” Hop Sing announced as the buckboard pulled up in the yard. “Mister Cartwright and Miss Stacy wash.” His dark eyes came to rest on Rachael sandwiched between Ben and Stacy.

“You, too, Missy. You wash for dinner.” He punctuated his words with an emphatic nod of his head, then turned heel and ambled back into the house.

“I’ll take care of the horses, Mister Cartwright.” Candy appeared at Ben’s elbow as if by magic.

“Thank you, Candy.” Ben quickly climbed down, then turned to offer Rachael a hand getting down.

Rachael tucked her medicine bag under one arm, then reached to take Ben’s extended hand with the other. She jumped down, landing lightly on both feet. In the same instant her feet touched the ground, a wave of dizziness hit. She wavered.

Ben acted instinctively, planting his feet firmly on the ground, at roughly shoulder width apart, bracing himself. “It’s all right, Rachael,” Ben said quietly, as she collapsed heavily against him.

“Rachael?” Stacy immediately leapt down from the buggy, lightening swift as a cougar. Two brisk, giant steps brought her to the other side of Rachael. Noting Rachael’s pale face and rapid, shallow breathing, she looked over at her father, her eyes round with apprehension.

“Stacy, you run on inside . . . have Hop Sing bring smelling salts,” Ben ordered, as he hefted Rachael into his arms.

Stacy nodded, then bolted toward the house.

*********

Ben spotted Hop Sing standing next to the settee, with the vial of ammoniated smelling salts in hand, as he entered the house, carrying Rachael’s limp, inert form. Stacy stood a little behind Hop Sing, watching anxiously.

“What wrong with Missy?” Hop Sing queried, as Ben carefully placed Rachael on the settee.

“I don’t know,” Ben shook his head. “She jumped down from the buggy, then . . . collapsed.”

Hop Sing removed the cap from the vial in hand, moving in as Ben stepped back. He seated himself on the massive coffee table next to the settee and waved the open vial several times under Rachael’s nose. A soft, barely audible groan rose from Rachael’s throat as she stirred, and slowly opened her eyes.

“Rachael? Are you all right?”

Rachael’s head turned toward the sound of Stacy’s anxious voice. As her vision cleared, the lines and planes Stacy’s face, gazing down at her from over the back of the settee, sharpened from nebulous clouds of golden peach, framed by an ebony halo, to crystal clarity. The girl’s face, a shade or two paler than usual, and bright blue eyes, round with worry and anxious concern touched Rachael deeply. “I’ll . . . I’ll be all right, Stacy,” she said, with a wan smile. “I woke up this morning, not feeling well, but . . . the worst is actually over, believe it or not.”

Stacy stared down at Rachael dubiously.

“Honest. I’ll be all right.” Rachael moved to sit up.

“Rachael, maybe you should lie still for a few minutes?” Ben suggested. “Sitting up too quickly can cause you to pass out again.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have any peppermint or catnip tea around . . . would you, Mister Cartwright?” Rachael asked. “My stomach’s feeling a little upset . . . . ”

“Missy know about herbs?!” Hop Sing queried, looking down at her in surprise.

Rachael slowly turned her head toward Hop Sing, then nodded. “I learned when I lived with the Chinook,” she said wistfully. “My . . . my adoptive mother, Lammieh Towakh Moon was a healer. SHE taught me.”

“Missy lie still. Hop Sing make tea.” Without further preamble, Hop Sing turned heel and ambled back toward the kitchen.

“Lammieh Towakh Moon,” Stacy repeated the name of Rachael’s Chinook mother slowly. “Sounds pretty. What does it mean?”

“Wise Woman of the Bright Moon,” Rachael replied, then gasped. “Oh dear!”

“What is it, Rachael?” Stacy asked.

An anxious frown knotted Rachael’s smooth brow. “My medicine bag!”

“You probably dropped it when you collapsed,” Ben said quietly. “You stay still. I’ll go find it.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright.”

Stacy moved to the coffee table, taking the seat vacated by Hop Sing a few moments before. “Rachael, are you SURE you’re going to be all right?”

“Yeah, I’ve been . . . well, a bit under the weather since before I left the Chinook. It’s worse when I wake up in the morning, but it passes.”

“If you’d like to see Doctor Martin . . . . ”

“I’ll be all right, Stacy, honest!” Rachael’s voice broke on the last words, as an overwhelming desire and need to be with her Chinook mother suddenly seized her.

Stacy took Rachael’s hand in both of hers. “You miss Lammieh Towakh Moon very much right now, don’t you.” It was a statement of fact, not a question.

“Y-yes. Stacy, how did you know?”

“My mother, the one who gave me life, said I was fey,” Stacy said quietly. “That’s Irish, I think for what Silver Moon used to say was touched by Great Spirit.”

“Was Silver Moon your Paiute mother?”

Stacy nodded.

“I miss Lammieh Towakh Moon terribly,” Rachael said quietly, her eyes welling up with new tears. “Do you miss Silver Moon?”

“I . . . I think about her a lot,” Stacy said evasively.

“Were you taken by the Paiutes?”

“No, I wasn’t taken,” Stacy replied. “For the first five, maybe six years of my life, I lived with my grandfather and grandmother, my MOTHER’S father and mother. One night my uncle came, and shot them all. My grandparents and two of my aunts! After he killed them, he burned down the house to cover up what he had done. He would have killed me, too, if Aunt Mattie hadn’t put me out the window and told me to run.”

Rachael looked over at Stacy, her eyes round with horror. “Why?”

“He wanted money that belonged to my grandmother. She had drawn up a will, leaving all her money to my aunts, Elsie and Mattie . . . and to me,” Stacy replied, her voice shaking. “I was a child, of course. My aunts never married. They had always stayed with their ma and pa . . . and looked after them.”

Rachael, much to Stacy’s surprise, placed her other, free hand over top Stacy’s, offering reassurance and a measure of support. She smiled her thanks.

“After . . . after Aunt Mattie put me out the window, the only thing I remember is running as fast and as hard as I could. Silver Moon found me asleep near their cooking fires the next morning. For a long time, I couldn’t remember what had happened, who I was, where I’d come from, or the people I lived with. The memories were too frightening!”

Stacy could feel her heart pounding wildly against her chest as she recounted the events of that terrifying night a decade ago. “I had a pendant on a chain with me, a gold, heart shaped pendant, with the name Stacy Louise engraved on it. One of the people was able to read English. Silver Moon, who had no children of her own, took me to live with her and her husband, Jon Running Deer. She gave me the name Stacy Dancing Colt.”

“Did Silver Moon adopt you?”

“No, we didn’t have any ritual of adoption,” Stacy said quietly. “A couple of nights after I blundered into Chief Soaring Eagle’s camp, Silver Moon was told by Great Spirit in a dream that I was placed into her care as a trust, until the time came for me to go live with my father.”

“Really?”

“Those were Silver Moon’s exact words. She was also given a sign by which she would know my father. It was a tall PONDEROSA pine tree.”

“Honestly?”

Stacy nodded.

Rachael smiled. “That’s amazing.”

“Silver Moon promised me that she would be my mother and the others my family until I left them to go live with my father, and they were. No one’s ever loved me more . . . except Pa, Hoss, Joe, Hop Sing . . . and Adam, and HIS family.”

“Lammieh Towakh Moon’s daughter, Olhaiyu Klutsma, died of pneumonia two winters before I came,” Rachael said. “I given to Lammieh Towakh Moon as her daughter.”

“Lammieh Towakh Moon adopted you?”

“Yes,” Rachael said as she moved once again to sit up. With Stacy’s able assistance, she slowly and cautiously eased herself from a prone to a sitting position on the settee.

Hop Sing quietly entered the room with cup and saucer in hand. The cup was filled nearly to the brim with clear, steaming hot peppermint tea. “Hot tea for Missy,” he said placing the cup and saucer in Rachael’s hands. “Missy drink while hot. If Missy want more, plenty in kitchen.”

“Thank you very much, Hop Sing,” Rachael said with a smile.

“Missy welcome,” Hop Sing returned her smile. “Maybe Missy come in kitchen, talk about herbs later.”

“I’d like that, Hop Sing. I’d like that very much.”

“Missy drink up tea,” Hop Sing admonished her. “Missy drink while hot.” With that he, turned heel and left the room.

“Rachael, you should considered yourself highly honored.”

Stacy and Rachael turned, and found Ben standing behind the settee, holding Rachael’s medicine bag carefully, yet firmly in both hands.
“Hop Sing doesn’t invite just anybody into HIS kitchen. Most of the time, he won’t even let US in.” Ben walked toward the red, leather chair facing the settee. He paused long enough to place Rachael’s medicine bag in her outstretched hands, before sitting down himself.

“Thank you so much, Mister Cartwright, for getting my medicine bag,” Rachael said gratefully.

“You’re welcome,” Ben responded with a smile.

“Rachael?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“Were YOU taken in an Indian raid?”

Rachael leaned against the back of the settee, shaking her head. “No, and I wasn’t held prisoner, either, I don’t CARE what Mama says!

“The stage I was on was robbed. The thieves took everything, and burned the coach. Then . . . then they lined the passengers and driver up and shot everyone, one by one. A silver dollar . . . it was a pendant given to me by Mama, with my birth year on it . . . well, it deflected the bullet by a real stroke of luck, or freak of nature, however you want to look at it. I . . . I was the only one who survived. I played dead until long after I heard the hooves of their horses riding away.

“Then, I got up and just started walking,” Rachael continued. “I had no idea in the world where I was, or how to get to where I was supposed to be going. I was afraid to stay where I was . . . among the dead. I was also afraid the men who robbed us and killed all the others might come back. So I started walking.”

Rachael felt Stacy’s hand squeezing her own, a gentle reminder of her strong, reassuring presence. Over in the big, red leather easy chair, Ben Cartwright sat, waiting patiently for her to resume. Between the two of them, it was almost like being with Lammieh Towakh Moon once again.

“I don’t know how long I wandered, lost . . . later sick, scared out of my mind the entire time. I couldn’t find much to eat.” A wry, ironic smile spread across Rachael’s lips. “My, umm . . . upbringing as the daughter of wealthy socialites didn’t exactly lend itself to surviving in the wild. Lammieh Towakh Moon told me later I was found by a hunting party, near death from starvation and illness, babbling, clearly out of my ever lovin’ mind. I know I was taken at once to Lammieh Towakh Moon. She was the clan healer, and . . . she nursed me back to health.”

“How was it for you among the Chinook?”

“I was angry at first . . . and resentful,” Rachael began haltingly. “I was afraid, I missed Mama and Papa, and all my friends here dreadfully. I knew they’d all be as worried about ME as I was about THEM. I had no idea in the world how to find my way back. That first year, I took a lot of my fear and anger out on Lammieh Towakh Moon. I regret that, Stacy . . . Mister Cartwright. I . . . I regret it with all my heart.”

“The woman who made and painted your medicine bag put a lot of her love into that,” Stacy said quietly. “I can see it in the way it was made and put together. I felt it, too, when you let me touch it. Anyone who loved you that much surely understood how you must’ve felt.”

Rachael nodded. “She WAS very kind to me. It took me the whole first year to be able to respond to her love and kindness. She taught me many things, Stacy. Lammieh Towakh Moon is . . . w-was . . . a powerful healer. She took me into the forest many times and taught me about plants, the ones that heal . . . what they heal, how to harvest them, dry them, make them into teas and ointments for healing . . . even how to make them into paint for . . . for decorating.

“Whenever I went with Lammieh Towakh Moon to gather plants, I felt peace inside myself, for the first time in my life.” As Rachael continued, her eyes misted over and a peaceful, beatific smile spread across her face. The stuccoed walls and massive stone fireplace in the Cartwright home faded into the tall, pine forest and sparkling water where the Columbia River joined the Pacific Ocean. “It took me a long time to learn the language, but somehow, Lammieh Towakh Moon and I didn’t have to talk a lot of the time. The silences between us were filled with a lot of love, happiness, and peace.”

Pine trees, river, and ocean slowly and inevitably faded again into stuccoed walls and massive gray stone fireplace. “The others accepted me at first because I was daughter of Lammieh Towakh Moon. As I learned her healing ways, and began to help her in her healing work, they accepted me as T’kope Mauitsh.” Rachael lapsed into thoughtful silence for a moment. “I learned to accept others for WHO they were . . . AS they were, I think . . . f-for the . . . for the first time in my entire life.”

A bewildered frown knotted Rachael’s brow, then faded, smoothing her brow as the light of revelation dawned. “No wonder we don’t have much to talk about . . . Mama and me . . . I . . . WE always, only talked about people before, how they fell short of our standards . . . . ” A large tear slipped up over her eyelid and ran down the length of her cheek, as she looked up, meeting Stacy’s eyes.

“It was the same with my friends . . . two of us together, running down a third, or maybe three of us, putting down a fourth. I . . . I honestly never thought of this before . . . but, how m-many times was I that third, or fourth . . . not present? It makes me wonder . . . who among them WERE really, honestly and truly . . . my friends?”

“Our family has been learning the answer to that question ourselves for the past six months, Rachael,” Ben said quietly.

“Oh?”

“That’s when I found out Stacy is my daughter . . . by blood,” Ben said quietly.

Rachael frowned. “I remember Mama saying that you, Hoss, Joe, and Stacy met each other at Fort Charlotte when you went out there to sell them some horses,” she said slowly, “and that you had planned to adopt her . . . but, you’re also . . . her natural father, Mister Cartwright?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I . . . I had no idea you had married again, after . . . after Joe’s mother died.”

“I didn’t. Paris McKenna, Stacy’s mother, was the daughter of an acquaintance,” Ben explained. “She came for a visit . . . supposedly for two, maybe three weeks. Paris and I fell in love with each other, and Paris . . . she ended up staying here for six MONTHS.”

“What happened, Mister Cartwright?” Rachael asked quietly.

Ben’s eyes met Rachael’s, and in them he saw a compassionate kindred spirit. “Paris left soon after she learned she was pregnant with Stacy. One morning, shortly after New Year’s, Paris was gone, without telling me she was leaving, without saying good-bye. She never told me she was pregnant.”

“That’s why I lived with my grandparents the first six years of my life, and not HERE,” Stacy added.

“Oh, Mister Cartwright . . . Stacy . . . I’m so sorry,” Rachael murmured sympathetically, looking from one to the other. She saw the sadness in Ben’s eyes clearly when he spoke of Paris McKenna, and sensed the presence of wounds deeply inflicted, yet in the process of healing in both father and daughter. “How did you come to find out that Stacy is your daughter?”

“The uncle who killed my grandparents and aunts found out I was here, and he came after ME,” Stacy said.

“To . . . to kill you?”

Stacy nodded. “I saw him kill the others. My testimony in a court of law would have sent him to the gallows. He also wanted my grandmother’s money. With her and my two aunts dead, I became the sole heir.”

“I . . . I hope he HUNG for that!” Rachael declared, her warm brown eyes flashing with anger.

“He didn’t live long enough to stand trial,” Stacy replied. “Anyway, HE’S the one who told me.”

“We decided to tell the truth . . . about Stacy . . . and about Paris and me because,” Ben looked over at his daughter, and smiled, “because Stacy IS a member of our family, by adoption AND by blood, as it turns out. To try and pretend otherwise . . . . ” He shrugged. “Truth always has a way of eventually making itself known. We decided it would be better to tell the truth ourselves, right from the start. Those who were our REAL friends, have REMAINED our friends. Those who haven’t . . . . ”

“We don’t give a bloody tinker’s damn, as my mother used to say sometimes,” Stacy said with heartfelt conviction, “and, Rachael?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“I want you to know that you can count on US as friends,” she said earnestly. “Me, Pa, my brothers, and Hop Sing, too.”

“Stacy speaks truthfully in that, Rachael,” Ben added in complete, wholehearted agreement.

*********

Chapter 4

The front door opened. Joe entered, then Hoss, with Candy bringing up the rear.

“Uummm UM! Somethin’ sure as shootin’ smells good!” Hoss declared with a broad grin, as he divested himself of coat, hat, scarf, and gun belt. “I sure hope it’ll be ready soon, ‘cause I’m hungry enough right now to eat a whole corral full o’ horses.”

“You’re hungry enough to . . . I don’t believe it!” Joe’s jaw dropped almost down to his chest, and his eyes, though round with sheer, unimaginable comic horror, danced with an impish inner light. “Pa, you’d better send for Doc Martin right away. Big Brother here’s LOST his appetite.”

“Dadburn it, Li’l Joe— ”

“Boys, settle down,” Ben admonished, as an amused grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “We have company.”

“So we do!” Joe declared with a broad grin, as he walked over toward the settee, still occupied by Stacy and Rachael. “Good afternoon, Miss. Are you a new friend of Stacy’s?”

Rachael rose and smiled. “Well . . . yes, I guess you might say I’m a new friend of STACY’S, but I’m an old friend of the family, Joe.”

Joe studied her silently. A puzzled frown knotted his brow.

“I’m sure you remember Rachael Marlowe, Son,” Ben prompted.

Joe’s jaw dropped again, this time for real. “I . . . I . . . y-you’re . . . you’re Rachael M-Marlowe?!”

The last time he had seen her was two weeks before she had left for Oregon nearly five years ago. Though she stood nearly as tall as she did now, a thick layer of baby fat still sheathed her entire body, prompting her mother to place Rachael on a very strict, very limited diet, and her hair was a mass of unruly dark, wispy curls that blatantly defied even the tightest barrette. She was also very annoyingly cock sure of herself.

The young woman presently standing before him was tall, slender, with no evidence of discernible baby fat at all. Her hair was quite long now, long enough to have sufficiently squashed the natural wave. The way she had it pulled hack away from her face, and braided, suited her. Though she projected a calm, even poised outward demeanor, Joe sensed a lot of uncertainty boiling just below the surface. He attributed it to her having just left one way of life to return to another, wholly different, even alien after the passage of five years.

“Gee, Rachael, I . . . I’m sorry, I guess, well . . . I guess it’s been a long time . . . . ” The words poured out of Joe’s mouth like the rush of a spring flash flood.

“Grandpa, you’re babbling!” Stacy teased.

“Pa, WHEN are you going to teach this wayward child of yours to show a little respect for her ELDERS?” Joe demanded, glaring over at his sister.

Stacy responded by sticking out her tongue.

Rachael, noting the stern look in Ben’s eyes, tried very hard not to laugh.

Meanwhile, Hoss and Candy had already crossed the room from the front door, to the settee, where the rest of the family, and guest, were gathered.

“Rachael, welcome home,” Hoss said, smiling, “an’ welcome to the Ponderosa.”

“Good seeing you, Rachael,” Candy said. “Welcome back.”

“Thank you, Hoss . . . Candy,” Rachael said quietly.

“What Hoss and Candy said goes for me, too, Rachael,” Joe said. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you there for a minute.”

Rachael smiled. “It’s ok, Joe, I know it’s been awhile . . . . ” Her smile faded. “In fact, it seems like two whole lifetimes.”

“Mister Cartwright, dinner ready!” Hop Sing announced. “Everybody in dining room, chop, chop! Eat while hot!”

“It’s about dadburn time!” Hoss said eagerly, licking his chops. “I’m about to keel over from hunger.”

“I don’t think so, Big Brother,” Joe teased, as they made their way through the great room to the dining room. “You could live off the fat of the land there for a whole year at least.” He reached over and patted Hoss’ ample girth in the same way he might pat the head of an affectionate dog.
“Well at least I carry my fat around the stomach, instead o’ between the ears,” Hoss retorted, eliciting a hearty laugh from Stacy.

“Hey, Kid, you got no room to laugh!” Joe immediately rounded on his sister. “I can’t help but notice you’ve gotten a little broad in the beam this past winter yourself.”

“So have you, Grandpa.”

“No way!” Joe’s gesture brought the eyes of his father, brother and sister, Hop Sing, Candy, and Rachael to his abdomen. “I want you ALL to take a gander at that! A classic example of a washboard stomach if ever there was one.”

“Ok, Grandpa, let’s see ya EXHALE!” Stacy challenged.

“I’m breathing . . . HEY! Back up, Little Sister, I don’t like that look in your eyes!”

Before he could move to stop her or protect himself, Stacy was walking close behind him, mercilessly tickling his waist on both sides.

“H-hey! C-cut it . . . cut it out!” Joe giggled.

“Hey, Li’l Brother, where’d that washboard stomach go?” Hoss queried with a broad grin.

“From the looks of things, I’D say it just disappeared into those luu-uuu-v handles,” Candy teased.

“I do NOT have love handles!”

“Whaddya call THESE, Grandpa?”

“HEY! PA, SHE’S PINCHING ME!” Joe bellowed.

Rachael found herself laughing so hard, the tears began to pour from her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed so uproariously, and with so much mirth.

“Boys . . . you, too, Stacy! Settle down!” Ben quietly admonished his high-spirited offspring.

“Mister Cartwright, are they ALWAYS like this?” Rachael asked, as she wiped her eyes.

“Pretty much,” Ben said with a smile.

*********

Dinner that afternoon was a rich, hearty beef stew that had been slow simmered over a low fire through out the night, and into the morning. There was a generous amount of beef, so tender it literally melted in the mouth. Hop Sing had added potatoes, yams, dried peas, onions, and an assortment of vegetables he had canned during late summer and early autumn months. Biscuits, fresh and hot right from the oven, with fresh made butter and home made strawberry jam rounded out the meal. There was also coffee, milk for Hoss and Stacy, and peppermint tea for Rachael. For desert, there was chocolate cake, left over from supper the night before.

For Rachael, the healthy appetite that seemed to have deserted her upon leaving the Chinook at rifle point, returned suddenly, and with a vengeance. She quickly devoured the first bowl of beef stew, and asked for seconds, much to Hop Sing’s delight, along with three biscuits and two pieces of cake.
“Hop Sing, this stew is every bit as delicious as the venison stew Lammieh Towakh Moon used to make.”

Hop Sing grinned. “Thank you, Missy. Hop Sing thank you very much. Who ‘La-my-eh To-wa Moon’?”

“Lammieh Towakh Moon is . . . w-was . . . my Chinook mother, Hop Sing.” Rachael’s voice caught as she spoke the name of her Chinook mother.

Stacy quietly reached over and gave Rachael’s hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

“Your Chinook ma must’ve been one real fine cook, if her venison stew was as good as Hop Sing’s beef stew,” Hoss said quietly.

“Hoss oughtta know, Rachael,” Joe said. “HE’S the family expert on good food.”

Rachael managed a small, sad smile. “You’re right, Hoss. Lammieh Towakh Moon was an excellent cook. She knew the seasoning properties of different herbs and plants, as well as their medicinal ones.”

“Did she teach you about their seasonin’ properties?” Hoss asked.

“She started to,” Rachael replied, averting her eyes to her plate. Stacy, seated next to her at the table, noted that her eyes blinked excessively.

“Stacy . . . Rachael . . . you’ve got time to get in a nice long ride, but you need to get a move on,” Ben said. “The days may be lengthening, but it still gets dark early.”

“You two mind if I tag along?” Joe asked, drawing a skeptical glare from Ben. “All my chores are done, Pa,” he added defensively.

“It’s ok with me, Grandpa, IF Rachael wants you along . . . and if it’s ok with Pa.”

“Sure,” Rachael agreed, “the more the merrier.”

“As long as your chores are done,” Ben agreed.

Rachael rose. “Oh no!” she groaned, looking down at her long skirt in complete and utter dismay.

“We have side saddles out in the tack room, Rachael,” Joe said, as he and Stacy also rose. “Little Sister here never uses them, so we keep ‘em for guests, mostly.”

“I got used to riding astride when I lived among the Chinook,” Rachael sighed dolefully. “I honestly don’t know if I could manage to ride side saddle anymore.”

“You and I look to be about the same size,” Stacy said thoughtfully. “Come on upstairs with me. I think I can outfit you properly.”

*********

Within just under an hour, the trio, mounted on their horses, stood at the bottom of the hill leading to the overlook where Adam Cartwright once took Delphine Marquett, the wife of an old friend. Adam brought Delphine here to this overlook and the spectacular view as a brief respite from the terror and grief brought about by a loving husband who had inexplicably become violently insane. [iii]

“You g’won up first, Rachael,” Joe said smiling. “Stacy and I’ll be along in a few minutes.”

“Cartwright family tradition,” Stacy added by way of explanation.

Rachael urged her horse, a gentle mare named Guinevere, up the high hill looming before her. She thoroughly enjoyed their ride out to this place. After having spent weeks closed in, confined to small rooms, the cold fresh air, scented with the heady aromas of earth and pine, even horse, was gloriously intoxicating.

Stacy and Joe, with their horses, Blaze Face and Cochise respectively, waited a few moments before following at a slower pace.

Rachael and Guinevere reached the top of the rise within a scant few minutes, where she was treated to a vista of forest, lake, and snow, stretching across a vast valley toward the distant horizon, marked by a line of jagged, snow covered mountain peaks.

“Well?” The sound of Joe Cartwright’s voice coming from so close startled Rachael. She was so entranced by the awesome vista stretched out before her, she never heard Joe and Stacy coming.

“It takes my breath away!” Rachael exclaimed, her eyes and face shining with wonder and delight. “It just literally . . . takes my breath away.”

“Whenever we bring someone here for the first time, we let the person come up here first,” Joe explained in a soft, reverent tone. “This is the kind of view you need to see for the first time alone.”

“Yes, I understand,” Rachael said softly, her eyes greedily drinking in the patchwork of pristine white snow and dark evergreen forests spread out before her.

The three lapsed into a companionable silence made sacred as each contemplated the majestic vista spread out before them, extending from the base of the hill on which they and their horses stood, all the way to the mountains in the far distance, and saw in that vastness the divine touch of the Creator of All.

Memories of another time, another place . . . another life, rose like incense in the censor of Rachael Marlowe’s thoughts. The profound sweetness of those memories were almost beyond bearing. She averted her gaze to her gloved hands wrapped lightly around the reins of Guinevere’s bridle, as tears stung her eyes.

“Rachael?”

It was Stacy, speaking softly, reaching out to gently touch her arm. Rachael felt Joe’s presence, too, standing close by on the other side. His hand covered hers, and squeezed it gently, offering comfort and reassurance.

“I was married last year,” Rachael said quietly, astonished at how calm and even her voice sounded in her own ears, “in a wedding ritual to Aiak Enanamuks. His name translates into English as Swift Otter. On . . . I guess it would be the equivalent of a wedding night, he brought me to a place very much like this, except, instead of mountains, there was ocean.”

Rachael closed her eyes and saw Aiak Enanamuks’ face once again, smiling, his eyes glowing with the fire and warmth of his love for her. She felt his arms, strong yet so very gentle circling around her, and drawing her close to the warm hardness of his chest. His lips against hers, his hands moving through her long hair to gently touch her face, and caress her cheek . . . .

Then, suddenly, Aiak Enanamuks was gone. Rachael heard someone scream in agony. At first the sound seemed to come from a place, as far distant as the mountains, whose blue and white jagged peaks marked the horizon line. A scant heartbeat later, she realized, much to her astonishment that it was she, herself, who had screamed. Her chest heaved, and she felt herself suffocating, unable to draw breath. When she opened her eyes, she found her entire world blurred to a mass of molten whites, greens, and blues under a veil of hot tears. Her yearning for Aiak Enanamuks burned within her chest at the place of her heart.

Rachael cried out again, as a heavy shroud of hopeless despair closed in around her. It’s darkness, the absolute night of the abyss, overwhelmed and shut out all life and light.

“That’s right, Rachael!” Stacy’s arm circled her waist and held her close. “Just let it all out. Joe and I . . . w-were right here.” Rachael felt the wetness of Stacy’s tears falling on her cheeks, mingling with her own.

“Stacy and I are here, Rachael . . . . ” Joe promised, his own voice breaking. “We’re gonna STAY right here.”

*********

“ . . . . Lammieh Towakh Moon also painted this,” Rachael said as she placed a stone, white quartz worn to smoothness by the waters of the river, on the coffee table. On the top of its smooth surface were painted two animals: a seal and a young white deer. Both were framed by a yellow halo. “She gave me this following the ritual of my adoption. My Chinook name, T’kope Mauitsh is White Deer in English. Olhaiyu Klutsma, the name of Lammieh Towakh Moon’s daughter, the one who died before I came translates as Seal Woman.”

“The yellow circle behind the seal and the deer . . . . is it the moon?” Ben asked.

“Yes, Mister Cartwright, it IS,” Rachael replied with a smile.

Ben pointed at the stone. “May I?”

“Certainly.”

Ben carefully picked up the stone from its place on the coffee table and studied it closely. “Beautiful . . . . ” he murmured softly. “The workmanship is . . . well to say it’s excellent is understating the matter. Lammieh Towakh Moon was truly a very gifted artist as well as healer.”

“Yes, she was, Mister Cartwright.”

“Was this gift Lammieh Towakh Moon’s way of saying that you and Olhaiyu Klutsma are now sisters?” Ben asked.

“Yes! How did you know?” Rachael exclaimed, surprised and delighted.

“Some things . . . be they words or images . . . need no translation,” Ben said quietly. “Did Lammieh Towakh Moon have any other children besides Olhaiyu Klutsma . . . and YOU?”

“She had three sons, one of whom died the same winter Olhaiyu Klutsma did,” Rachael replied. “Skookum Tumtum Leloo, the oldest of Lammieh Towakh Moon’s three sons . . . he was in the village the day . . . the day the cavalry came. He died trying to save our mother and me. The other was away . . . with the other men hunting.”

“What does Skookum Tumtum Leloo mean in English?” Joe asked.

“Brave Wolf,” Rachael replied. “The day I . . . I became his sister, he gave me this.” She removed an abalone shell from her bag. It was a small shell that fit in the palm of her hand. The outside of the shell was rough, hued in varying shades of gray and brown. By contrast, the inside was an iridescent display of rainbow colors.

“It’s beautiful,” Stacy murmured, awestruck.

“Skookum Tumtum Leloo was one of the few who knew a smattering of English,” Rachael said. “He was one of the few I spoke with during that first year with the Chinook.” A sad, wistful smile spread slowly across her lips as she remembered her Chinook brother. “I had a shell collection once. Every year, when Mama and Papa took me to the beach, I added to it . . . and whenever Papa traveled to ANY place near water, he always brought me back shells, sometimes even coral for my collection. I told Skookum Tumtum Leloo about it . . . that’s why he gave me this.”

“Where did he find it?” Stacy asked. Ben noted that her eyes were unusually bright, and that they blinked excessively.

“He found it when he was a boy. Before he became a man, he and some of the other youths, boys mostly but a few girls, too, used to dive down and bring up abalone for the men to eat while THEY cleaned and butchered the whales they harpooned.”

“Rachael, what’s in this pouch over here?” Hoss asked, pointing to a small, unadorned leather drawstring bag that had taken from the larger medicine bag earlier on.

Rachael opened it, then taking Hoss’ large hand in her own small one, she carefully poured the contents, an assortment of beads, carved from shell, coral, and stone, two kernels of corn, and several small shells, all gleaming with their own natural luster, into his palm. With Hoss’ hand still cradled within both of hers, she stared down at the beads, shells, and corn kernels for a long moment.

“I had forgotten about . . . about these,” Rachael murmured at length. “Lammieh Towakh Moon had been teaching me her ways of healing . . . ways that have been handed down from m-mother to . . . to daughter for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. The beads and the shells would have b-been used in the . . . in the birthing of my first rattle to be used for healing.”

“Aww, dadburn it . . . Rachael, I-I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to upset you,” Hoss immediately apologized.

“Hoss, you haven’t upset me,” Rachael hastened to assure him. “You’ve . . . ALL of you . . . h-have helped me so much by . . . by just letting me . . . remember— ” She broke off, unable to continue. She felt Ben’s arm around her shoulders and Stacy’s hand on her forearm. Rachael closed her eyes and leaned back against the settee, grateful beyond measure for the comfort and reassurance both offered in a simple touch.

Hoss carefully returned the beads, shell, and corn back to the smaller bag from which it came.

“Rachael?”

She opened her eyes. “Yeah, Joe?”

“You, uh . . . feel up to answering a question?” he ventured hesitantly. “I promise, it’s not personal or anything like that . . . . ” He frowned. “At least I don’t THINK it is . . . . ”

“What do you want to know?”

“What did you mean just now when you said the beads and shells were for the BIRTHING of your first rattle?”

Rachael offered Ben and Stacy a reassuring, if still tremulous smile, then took a deep breath. “Lammieh Towakh Moon taught me that everything we make, whether it be drums and rattles used in sacred ritual or the pots we use for cooking already exists in spirit,” she explained. “When we make it, we give it birth here, on earth.”

“I’m gonna think about that next time I sit down to do a little whittlin’,” Hoss said thoughtfully.

“One thing I . . . I regret very much is . . . that Lammieh Towakh Moon’s ways of healing have, well they’ve died with her,” Rachael said sadly.

“Did she teach her ways of healing to her sons and . . . and to her other daughter?” Joe asked.

“By tradition, the ways Lammieh Towakh Moon learned in healing are passed from mother to daughter,” Rachael replied. “She DID teach Olhaiyu Klutsma, who I later learned was a great, powerful healer in her own right . . . and she started to teach ME.”

“As long as YOU live, Rachael, the ways Lammieh Towakh Moon taught you continue to live,” Ben pointed out.

“But, I will never have an opportunity to use them . . . not now,” she said, her voice heavy with despair, “and by the time I have my own daughter, I’ll probably have forgotten all the things Lammieh Towakh Moon taught me.”

“No, Rachael, you’ll remember,” Ben insisted in a gentle, yet very firm tone, “just as Stacy still remembers the ways her Paiute foster mother, Silver Moon, taught HER.”

Rachael looked over and favored Stacy with a wan smile and squeezed her hand. “You let Stacy remember, Mister Cartwright,” she said, then added, half embarrassed with a touch of rancor, “You saw for yourself h-how Mama feels about . . . about me remembering.”

“Rachael, whenever you need to remember, you’re welcome to come here, anytime, no invitation necessary,” Ben said quietly.

“Can I? Really?”

“Anytime you want,” Ben reiterated.

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright.”

“I’d also like you to remember something else, as a favor to me, but also for your OWN sake . . . AND your mother’s.”

“What’s that?” Rachael asked warily.

“Please try and remember that five years ago, a young GIRL, not much more than a child, got on a stage to go to Oregon to visit family,” Ben said quietly. “Three days ago, a young WOMAN came home. Your mother, through no fault of her own, couldn’t be there to see, maybe help guide that child into becoming a woman. She has a big adjustment to make, too, Rachael.”

“I . . . to be perfectly honest, I hadn’t considered things from that perspective, Mister Cartwright,” Rachael said slowly. “But . . . the cruel, horrible things she says . . . I just wish I could somehow get through to her that the Chinook didn’t hold me prisoner.”

“Maybe you WILL, if you can somehow meet her half way,” Ben suggested.

“Y-you . . . really think so, Mister Cartwright?” she queried dubiously.

“I can’t give you any absolute guarantees, Rachael, only that it would be worth the while to TRY. I know it won’t be easy.”

“Nothing that’s really worth while IS ever easy,” Rachael said ruefully. “Lammieh Towakh Moon taught me that, too. But I promise you, Mister Cartwright, I’ll at least TRY.”

“Mister Cartwright, supper ready ten minutes!” Hop Sing announced.

“Thank you, Hop Sing! All of a sudden, I’M hungry enough to eat a bear!” Rachael declared.

“Come along, we’d best get out to the kitchen and wash up,” Ben rose, and urged his offspring and guest to follow suit.

“Well, I’m hungry enough to eat a whole twenty-mule train!” Hoss countered with a grin. “Mule skinners ‘n all!”

“Eeewww!” Stacy’s grimace was comically grotesque.

“I’m glad to see Big Brother here’s got HIS appetite back!” Joe quipped, punctuating his words with a playful elbow jab to Hoss’ rib cage. “I hafta admit, the thought of eating mule skinners kinda takes MY appetite away though . . . . ”

“That’s ok, Li’l Brother. I’LL eat yours,” Hoss offered, grinning from ear to ear.

Rachael, meanwhile, fell in step beside the Cartwright daughter, as they entered the kitchen. “Stacy?”

“Yes, Rachael?”

“Can I . . . can I see what you have in YOUR medicine bag after supper?” Rachael ventured hesitantly.

“Y’ know? Now that Rachael mentions it, I don’t think you’ve ever shown US what’s in your medicine bag, Stace,” Joe remarked.

“You haven’t!?” Rachael favored Stacy with a bewildered frown.

“I . . . don’t like looking into it very much,” Stacy said, her voice tremulous. “Whenever I do? I think about that last time I saw Silver Moon, and I— ” She broke off, unable to continue.

“Oh, Stacy, I’m so sorry,” Rachael said quietly, as she slipped her arm around Stacy’s shoulders. “I didn’t mean to bring up old wounds.”

“I’M the one who should be sorry, Rachael. It’s been five . . . going on SIX years . . . I should be OVER this by now!”

As he stepped up to the kitchen pump, Ben was surprised, not so much by the grief he heard in his daughter’s voice, but by the depth of anger, most of which seemed to be directed toward herself . . . .

*********

“Blip, blip, blip, blip, BLOP!” Joe gloated triumphantly as he circled the checkerboard, leapfrogging over every last remaining piece belonging to his opponent. “Winner and STILL undefeated champion!”

“I still think you’re cheatin’ somewhere,” Hoss declared with a scowl.

“He didn’t this game, Hoss,” Rachael said. “I watched him the entire time like a hawk.”

Joe thumbed his nose as his brother, then turned his attention back to Rachael. “How about ANOTHER game, Rachael?”

“You betcha,” she agreed, “except THIS time, I get the red pieces.”

“Your wish is MY command,” Joe agreed, as they began to divvy up the checkers.

After a leisurely supper of beef stew, left over from dinner, with dumplings, and the remainder of the chocolate cake, Ben had retreated to the red leather easy chair next to the fireplace with a good book, while his sons, daughter, and guest set up the checkerboard. Rachael sat in the middle of the settee, flanked on either side by Stacy and Hoss, while Joe perched himself on the edge of the coffee table.

“This time, I’LL get to move first,” Rachael said as they set up for the next game.

“It won’t do ya any good,” Joe countered. “Whether I go first or second, I’ll still win ‘cause I’M the better player.”

“I STILL say it’s ‘cause ya cheat!” Hoss said.

The grandfather clock struck the hour of nine.

“I had no idea it was so late!” Ben gasped. He placed a scrap sheet of paper in the book to mark his place, then snapped the book shut. “Rachael . . . Joe, I think your rematch is going to have to wait.”

“Rachael, I’m ready anytime YOU are,” Joe said, rising.

“Ditto that sentiment,” Rachael quipped.

“Until next time,” Joe took her hand in his, bowed with a flourish and kissed it, prompting a sarcastic roll of the eyes from both siblings.

“Until next time,” Rachael agreed.

“Uh oh . . . I, uhh, think we’d better get you out of your riding clothes,” Stacy said, suddenly realizing that Rachael still wore the clothes she had borrowed for their riding expedition.

“Oops!”

“Come on, YOUR clothes should still be upstairs on my bed,” Stacy said, taking Rachael’s arm.

Rachael and Stacy ran quickly up the stairs to the latter’s bedroom. There, Rachael quickly changed back into her skirt and blouse, while Stacy neatly folded the pants she had loaned to their guest.

“Stacy?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you do me a favor?”

“Sure, Rachael.”

“Please keep my medicine bag here with yours,” Rachael asked, as she carefully placed her bag in Stacy’s hands.

“Rachael, I’d be more than happy to keep your medicine bag here with mine,” Stacy said, clearly taken aback by Rachael’s request. “Are you SURE you don’t want it with you?”

“I’m afraid to take it back home with me, Stacy,” Rachael said sadly. “After what my mother did to my buckskin dress . . . . ” She looked up at Stacy earnestly, her brown eyes meeting and holding Stacy’s blue ones. “I know it will be safe here, in your keeping.”

“I understand.”

“ . . . and I was also thinking that maybe, if I didn’t return home with it . . . well, maybe it would help us meet somewhere half way, like your father said earlier.”

Stacy nodded. “If you want or need your medicine bag or anything from it, just let me know.”

“I will. For now, though, I just want to know that it’s in good hands for safe keeping.”

Stacy stepped over to the massive chest of drawers, against the north-facing wall running perpendicular to the wall with the window. She opened the top drawer, and placed it in beside the small jewelry box her father had given her last Christmas, that contained several pieces of antique jewelry that had belonged to his mother and maternal grandmother. “It’ll be right here, Rachael.”

“Thank you, Stacy,” Rachael said gratefully.

“Rachael?”

“Yeah?”

“I hope everything turns out ok with you and your mother.”

“I . . . I hope so, too, Stacy. Thank you.”

“STACY! RACHAEL! BOTH OF YOU, SHAKE A LEG! WE NEED TO GET A MOVE ON!” Ben bellowed from downstairs.

“COMING, PA!” Stacy yelled back in response. “Ready?”

“Yeah. Stacy?”

“Yes, Rachael?”

“Thank you for inviting me to come here today,” Rachael said, her voice catching on the last word. “I wish I could find the words to tell you . . . how wonderful today’s been for me.”

“Words aren’t necessary!” Stacy, acting purely on impulse, slipped her arms around Rachael and hugged her.

Rachael smiled and hugged back.

*********

Chapter 5

“Oh, Tom! Tom! Darling, guess what?” Clara turned from the living room window, clapping her hands with excitement.

“What is it, Clara?” Tom asked. He was ensconced in his favorite easy chair for the evening with a glass of port in hand and a copy of the latest edition of the “Territorial Enterprise,” on his lap.

“Rachael’s home! Oh, Darling, Darling, come quick! Come see!” Smiling, her dark eyes wide with delighted astonishment, Clara turned back to the window and watched as Rachael and Stacy walked together up the front walk together. Ben followed a few steps behind them. The two girls seemed to be in very animated conversation, and Rachael was actually smiling for the very first time since she got off that stage three days ago. Best of all, she didn’t have that filthy animal bag with its shells and heathen images.

“Darling, it’s Rachael! OUR Rachael! Our Rachael’s back, Darling! It’s her, she’s back!”

The near hysteria he heard in his wife’s voice brought an anxious frown to Tom Marlowe’s face. “Of course our Rachael’s back, Clara. You told me when I came home this evening that she was visiting Stacy at the Ponderosa.”

Clara laughed, a soft melodic laugh with a hard steel knife-edge. “Silly, Tom! You don’t understand! It’s OUR Rachael! OUR Rachael, Darling, back just the way she was!”

Jenkins, the chief butler, stepped to the open door to the family living room, located on the second floor of the Marlowes’ home, and coughed discreetly before entering.

“Yes, Jenkins?” Tom inquired blandly, while folding the newspaper. Clara, smiling, clasped her hands together, expectantly. Her eyes darted rapidly from her husband to Jenkins, and back to her husband.

“Mister Cartwright and his daughter have returned with Miss Rachael, Sir. I have taken the liberty of showing them to the drawing room.”

“Thank you, Jenkins. Please escort them up here.”

“Yes, Sir.” Jenkins inclined his head slightly, then withdrew.

A few moments later, Ben entered the room followed by Stacy and Rachael.

Tom rose, and placed the folded newspaper on the end table next to his chair. “Hello, Ben,” he greeted his old friend with a tired, yet welcoming smile. “Please, come in and sit down.”

“Thank you, Tom, but Stacy and I need to be getting on back,” Ben politely declined the invitation to stay and visit. “I’m sorry we’re so late getting Rachael home. After supper, Joe insisted on teaching Rachael how to play checkers, and we ended up losing track of the time until the clock in the living room struck nine.”

“Did you enjoy yourself, Darling?” Clara asked, as she slipped her arm around Rachael’s shoulders.

Rachael’s entire body stiffened against her mother’s touch, but tonight, she didn’t pull away. “I had a wonderful time today, Mama.” She turned and smiled at Ben and Stacy. “Thank you again, very much for inviting me today, Stacy . . . and you, too, Mister Cartwright.”

“It was our pleasure, Rachael,” Ben said sincerely.

“You’re welcome to come out any time you want,” Stacy added.

Rachael left her mother, to walk over and give Stacy a big affectionate bear hug. “Thanks again, Stacy.”

“You’re welcome, Rachael.” Stacy hugged Rachael back with equal affection.

“Come on, Stacy, you and I need to move along,” Ben urged his daughter gently.

“Ben, you SURE you and Stacy can’t stay, even for just a little while?” Clara asked, punctuating her words with a pout.

“Not tonight, Clara,” Ben said. “Hoss, Joe, and Stacy, will be getting up early tomorrow morning to take feed out to our winter pastures. Perhaps another time.”

“Oh, Ben, surely you don’t have a delicate young lady like Stacy doing back breaking chores like your boys?!” Clara was aghast.

“In the first place, Mrs. Marlowe, the Ponderosa’s a family operation, which means the entire family pitches in,” Stacy said, glaring venomously at Clara. “That includes ME! Second, I may be young, but I’m NOT delicate by any stretch of the imagination, and— ”

“Stacy, we’d best get a move on,” Ben said again, this time with the intention of keeping his daughter and Clara from coming to blows. “Good night, Everyone.”

“Good night, Rachael . . . you, too, Mister and Mrs. Marlowe.”

“Ben . . . Stacy, I’ll see you to the door,” Tom said. “I’ll be right back, Clara.”
“So tell me ALL about your visit with the Cartwrights, Darling.” Clara seated herself primly at the edge of the living room settee, and pulled Rachael down beside her. “I want to hear everything.”

“Dinner was ready when we arrived, pretty much,” Rachael began. “It was delicious, Mama.”

Clara’s face fell. “I . . . see,” she murmured softly. “What did you have?”

“We had beef stew, with potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, corn, tomatoes, onions,” Rachael rambled on, oblivious to her mother’s increasing dismay. “Hop Sing also made up fresh biscuits, and we had chocolate cake for dessert.”

“Beef stew?” Clara echoed, incredulous.

“Mama, it was so good . . . the beef just melted in your mouth, literally— ” She frowned, noting the dismayed grimace on her mother’s face. “Mama? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, uuhh, nothing’s WRONG, Darling, not really, I suppose . . . . ”

“But . . . . ?”

“Well . . . no, Darling, it’s too silly, actually . . . . ”

“Please, Mama, what is it?”

Clara looked over at her daughter, her smile wavering. “It’s just that I . . . I asked Cook to fix all your favorite dishes, Darling, you know . . . for your homecoming,” she said hesitantly. “Just for you, to . . . well, to try and make you feel welcome.”

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

“No need to feel sorry, Darling.”

“The food Cook fixed was delicious,” Rachael added quickly. “Honestly, it was . . . it’s just that . . . those sauces were so rich, I . . . well, I guess I’m not used to that . . . now.”

“I see!” Clara snapped.

“After supper we played checkers, while Mister Cartwright read,” Rachael continued, taken aback by her mother’s sudden change of mood from warm and friendly, almost conciliatory to cold and angry. “Joe beat everybody.”

Clara, once again smiling warmly, linked her arm through Rachael’s and huddled close. “I’m glad you remembered your manners and let HIM win,” she cooed. “You know how fragile the male ego is.”

“Actually, I DIDN’T let him win, Mama. Hoss accused him of cheating a time or two, but Joe didn’t. He won fair and square all by himself.”

“Oh he did, did he?” Clara chortled.

“Yes, he did. I KNOW because I watched him the entire time.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Different things, Mama,” Rachael said evasively.

“Tell me!” Clara demanded, lowering her voice to a confidential level. She began to squirm impatiently on the settee next to her daughter. “I told you I want to hear everything!”

“Well, I . . . found that Stacy and I have a lot in common.” Rachael replied, her voice a wooden monotone. She suddenly felt like a trapped wild animal by her mother’s close proximity. “I . . . I want to see more of her.”

“That can certainly be arranged, Rachael.” It was her father, returning from seeing the Cartwrights out. He smiled. “Ben and Stacy just got through telling me again how much they enjoyed having you . . . and that they’d like to have you come back very soon.”

“I’d like that, too, Papa,” Rachael said quietly. “I’d like that very much.”

“But, what did you and Stacy and the others all talk about, Darling?” Clara wheedled.

“It was mostly things that . . . that, well . . . that Stacy and I have in common, Mama,” Rachael said stiffly. “Nothing YOU’D be interested in particularly.”

“Clara, stop badgering the girl,” Tom chided her gently. “I doubt very seriously that Stacy keeps up with the latest gossip, anyway.”

“I . . . see.” Clara immediately unwrapped her arms from around Rachael’s arm, and stiffly slid as far as she possibly could to the other end of the settee. Her daughter’s reluctance to recount her conversations with the Cartwrights, coupled with her husband’s chiding stung, like an entire hive of wasps, or yellow jackets—thousands of them all able to sting once, then circle around and come back to sting again and again.

“Joe and Stacy took me out riding, too,” Rachael continued. “They showed me some really beautiful places on the Ponderosa. One place, there was a hill. They made me go up first.” She smiled. “Stacy said it was a Cartwright family tradition. The view up there . . . . ” Her eyes misted dreamily, and her smile faded. “Papa . . . Mama . . . it was magnificent! They . . . Joe and Stacy . . . told me it’s the kind of place you need to see for the first time alone. They were so right.”

“I’ll have to ask Ben to take ME out there,” Tom said thoughtfully, “when the weather warms. I haven’t the stamina to go out in the dead of winter, like you young folks seem to have.”

Clara moaned, and buried her face in her hands.

“Clara?” Tom prompted, looking over at his wife anxiously.

Clara lifted her face and looked over at her daughter. Rachael flinched against the intensity of her mother’s gaze. “How could you possibly have gone riding?” she demanded. “I . . . I know Ben keeps side saddles around, for guests, but . . . you didn’t take your riding costume with you.”

“Stacy loaned me a pair of HER britches, Mama. Except for her being a bit taller, we’re roughly the same size.”

Clara moaned and buried her face in her hands once again.

“Mama?”

Tom walked over to the settee, and gently placed his hands on his wife’s shoulders. “Clara, what is it?”

“R-Rachael . . . she went out riding . . . wearing a pair of . . . of britches like some common ranch hand,” Clara sobbed, “and in front of Joe Cartwright, too.”

“Clara, I think the night you and I went to the Ponderosa for dinner is the second, maybe third time I’ve EVER seen Stacy wear a dress at home,” Tom said with a bemused look on his face.

“Stacy Cartwright’s NEVER known how to dress properly,” Clara wailed. “Why Ben so adamantly refuses take a firm hand in the matter . . . I can’t even begin to fathom!”

“Mama . . . Papa . . . . ” Rachael rose from the settee, then turned to face her parents. “It’s been a full day today, and I’m feeling very tired. I’d like to go on up to my room now, and get ready for bed.”

“Of course,” Tom nodded. “Good night, Rachael. I’m glad you enjoyed your visit with the Cartwrights today.”

“Thank you, Papa, I did. Good night.” She turned to face her mother, still seated on the settee. “Good night, Mama.”

“I . . . yes, w-well . . . g-good night, Darling.”

*********

“I have TWO bones to pick with you, Young Woman,” Ben said as he and Stacy rode back to their home in the enclosed buggy.

“Oh?”

“The first has to do with Miss Klein’s skirt.”

Stacy swallowed nervously. “ . . . uh oh . . . uhhh . . . what, exactly about Miss Klein’s, ummmm . . . skirt, Pa?” She had all but forgotten . . . .

“Their butler, Mister Jenkins, came into the drawing room while I was talking with Mrs. Marlowe. He told me that Miss Klein’s skirt was torn when she took you upstairs to Rachael’s room,” Ben said. “Miss Klein seems to be under the impression that it WASN’T an accident.”

“Pa, I . . . I’m afraid, ummm . . . Miss Klein’s under the, ummm . . . right impression?!” Stacy admitted, with a healthy dose of fear and trembling. Owning up to the truth might save her tender hide from what Hoss and Joe wryly referred to as a “tanning you’ll never forget,” but she STILL wouldn’t be able to sit comfortably for the next few days. The thought of spending the entire next day in the saddle after a trip to the barn . . . .

She winced, then shuddered.

“I trust you have a good explanation for what happened to Miss Klein’s skirt?” Ben queried, his scowl deepening.

“She made me mad, Pa!” Stacy replied, her own face darkening with anger upon remembering the incident.

“I sincerely hope that’s not the best explanation you can come up with,” Ben said with a touch of wryness.

Stacy angrily recounted the mostly one-sided conversation with Marjorie Klein as they walked up the stairs to Rachael Marlowe’s room. “It was when she told me that . . . well, that things would have been a lot better all the way around if . . . if Rachael had just plain turned up dead, instead of . . . of coming home an ignorant, heathen savage.”

“She ACTUALLY said that?!” Ben asked, thoroughly appalled.

“She didn’t actually say the part about Rachael coming home an ignorant, heathen savage,” Stacy replied, “but she DID say it would have been better all the way around if Rachael had turned up dead!” She turned and looked into her father’s face, her eyes meeting his, boldly, without flinching. “Pa . . . that was a horrible thing to say! If she had been a man, I . . . I . . . so HELP me, I would’ve belted her one!”

“For Miss Klein to say that everyone would be better off if Rachael had died WAS a terrible, cruel thing to say,” Ben wholeheartedly agreed. “Even so, that still doesn’t excuse what YOU did, Young Woman. We’ve had quite a number of discussions about your temper before.”

Stacy nodded warily.

“Do you remember what I told you?”

“You said I hafta learn to NOT let it get the better of me,” Stacy replied, “and I did, Pa. Instead of belting her one in the gob like I wanted to do, I . . . I, ummm . . . ripped her skirt . . . . ”

“While I AM glad you refrained from in your words, ‘belting Miss Klein one in the gob,’ the willful destruction of her property is NOT a suitable alternative,” Ben admonished her sternly.

“What else COULD I have done?”

“You could have done one of two things, Young Woman,” Ben replied. “You could have simply changed the subject of conversation yourself, or you could have told Miss Klein that you didn’t want to talk about Rachael long before she ended up wishing the poor girl dead.”

“Oh,” Stacy murmured, rueful and contrite.

“Are you sorry you did what you did?”

“I . . . want to say yes, Pa, but the truth is . . . I just plain don’t know,” Stacy replied, resigning herself to a trip out to the barn when they arrived home. “I AM sorry I didn’t even think of doing what you just said, but I’m NOT sorry I took up for Rachael.”

“I can’t fault ya for taking up for a friend,” Ben allowed. “As for the other . . . I told Miss Klein that I would pay for replacing the skirt you damaged, AND for two more skirts in addition to that. I, in turn, will withhold your allowance until all three skirts have been paid in full.”

“Yes, Sir,” Stacy murmured.

“Furthermore,” Ben continued, “you will be responsible for doing ALL of the barn chores . . . morning and evening . . . for the next two months.”
Stacy grimaced, but said nothing.

“You will also be responsible for feeding the chickens, gathering the eggs, AND keeping the kindling box full.”

“Y-Yes, Sir,” Stacy responded with fast sinking heart, all the while silently telling herself if could be a lot worse . . . .

“ . . . and finally,” Ben concluded, “to make sure you have ample time to complete those extra chores AND keep up with your school work, you’re restricted to the house, the barn, and the front yard. The only exceptions will be the trip back and forth to school, when that resumes . . . and helping your brothers take feed out to the herd.”

“Yes, Pa,” Stacy replied. “Is it, ummm . . . alright if I ask you a question?”

“Go ahead.”

“How come you umm . . . weren’t so hard on me when I . . . well . . . when I accidentally started that fight in the Silver Dollar Saloon last summer, the night before The Wedding of the Century?” she asked. “The saloon was a lot more demolished than Miss Klein’s skirt . . . . ”

“Whenever the Silver Dollar gets busted up in a fight, the men responsible more often than not pay for the damages,” Ben explained. “Once in a while a man serves thirty days in jail because he can’t . . . or WON’T pay, but most of the time they DO pay. Sam is also well able to make due until broken windows are repaired, and broken tables, chairs, and tables can be replaced.

“However, most women in Miss Klein’s position have limited means. VERY limited means,” Ben continued. “They have very little to spend on clothing. Now I can’t tell ya for sure whether this applies to Miss Klein personally or not, but a good number of women, who, like her, who work as servants for wealthy men and their wives, are lucky if they own ONE skirt and perhaps a half dozen or so blouses.”

Ben immediately saw that his words were a new revelation to his young daughter, judging from the look of astonishment he saw in her eyes, now round as saucers, and mouth slightly open.

“Pa?”

“Yes?”

“You pay the men who work for you a decent living wage . . . you mean to tell me that . . . the Marlowes . . . that they DON’T pay Miss Klein a decent living wage, too?”

“Wealthy people like the Marlowes more often than not provide room and board,” Ben replied, “and pay a small wage over and above that. People like Miss Klein have to use what little money they have to buy their own clothing, and . . . other things they need. Now, if the skirt you damaged ended up being the only skirt Miss Klein owned . . . . ”

“Sorry, Pa. I didn’t know,” Stacy said, in a voice barely audible, filled with remorse.”

“Now that you DO know, I think it might also be a good idea if you wrote Miss Klein a note, apologizing for what you did,” Ben suggested.

“I will,” Stacy immediately promised, “and next time, I’ll try to do what you said.”

“I know you will,” Ben replied in a kindlier tone.

“What’s the OTHER bone you want to pick with me?” Stacy asked, mentally bracing herself.

“It’s not a bone exactly,” Ben said quietly. “It’s just that I noticed that you were awfully quiet through out the evening. Is everything alright?”

“I guess,” she replied, punctuating her answer with an indifferent shrug.

“You feel up to talking about it?”

“Pa, did Rachael tell you that she was married?”

“No,” Ben shook his head.

“She told Joe and me, when we were out riding this afternoon,” Stacy said sadly. “The place where we took Rachael reminded her of a place where Aiak Enanamuks, her husband, took her.”

That statement of fact, softly spoken, brought with it all of what she and Joe felt, when Rachael released the grief, the sadness, and longing she had kept bound up inside. But, it wasn’t the imagined faces of Lammieh Towakh Moon and Aiak Enanamuks that rose within Stacy’s thoughts. It was the remembered faces of Silver Moon, Chief Soaring Eagle, Leaping Antelope, her blood brother . . . .

. . . and Jason O’Brien, whose family had been close friends and neighbors for many years. He had been courting her ever since the Independence Day race, under the watchful eye of her father, her brothers, and Hop Sing. The thought of being parted from him . . . with no hope of ever seeing him again . . . .

“When were Rachael and Aiak Enanamuks married?” Ben asked, noting Stacy’s sudden, valiant struggle not to burst into tears.

“She said— ” Stacy broke off, unable to speak.

“Has it been very long?”

“Last year.”

Ben’s heart went out to Rachael, separated, perhaps forever, from someone she apparently loved so deeply. He silently resolved to do what he could to not only help her, but maybe help her parents understand when they learned that their son-in-law was a full-blooded Chinook.

Ben relegated Rachael, and his own resolves concerning her to the back of his thoughts, and turned his attention to a growing concern closer to home. He strongly suspected that being with Rachael, the inevitable sharing of their lives and experiences among Chinook and Paiute, had stirred up Stacy’s own feelings of grief and loss that almost certainly accompanied her forced separation from Silver Moon and her Paiute Family. From the first day she took up residence on the Ponderosa, Stacy had freely talked about Silver Moon, and shared the knowledge and wisdom given her by her Paiute foster mother. Ben, Hoss, Joe, and even Hop Sing, actively encouraged this. Yet, in all that time, he couldn’t remember a time when she actually mourned the loss of her Paiute family.

The buggy pulled into the yard a few moments later. Candy and two of the younger ranch hands, new hires learning the ropes, appeared to take charge of the conveyance and two horses.

“Stacy?” Ben queried as they entered the house together.

“Y-yeah, Pa?”

Ben walked over toward the settee facing the fireplace, where a warm and welcoming, if waning, fire still burned. “Come on over here and sit down for a minute,” he invited.

Stacy paused at the door to remove her hat and jacket, before walking over and taking a seat next to her father on the settee. She said nothing, just looked up at him, waiting.

“Stacy, I’ve never asked you this straight out, but . . . . ” Ben turned and gazed earnestly into her face and eyes. “Do you regret parting company with your Paiute family?”

“No, not since I’ve come to live here with you. Silver Moon told me early on that I had been placed into her care as kind of a trust, until the time came for me to leave her to go with my father. She said Great Spirit showed her that in a dream, so . . . all along, she and I both knew I would leave them someday. But the WAY we had to part company . . . .

“They had us at the fort, Pa . . . rounded up, bunched together . . . like cattle. Silver Moon had her arms tight around me, holding on for dear life. For just about the whole time I was with her, I never knew her to be afraid of anything. But, that day in the fort, I knew she was afraid . . . and THAT frightened me, more than just about anything.”

Ben quietly placed a comforting, paternal arm around her shoulders. He felt her slide across the settee and nestle close in the crook of his arm, as she haltingly told him the rest . . . .

A man wearing dark blue uniform had come and literally ripped her from the protective circle of Silver Moon’s arms. Stacy kicked and screamed with all her might in a valiant effort to free herself. Silver Moon, her face contorted with anger and fear, for herself and for the young girl placed in her care six years before, broke from the ranks, and surged toward Stacy and the uniformed man struggling to hold her.

Another uniformed man took hold of Silver Moon, then another. The Paiute woman with the easy superhuman strength born of desperation, shook herself free of the first man to grab her. She continued moving toward Stacy Dancing Colt, the child she had come to love and cherish as a daughter. Another man replaced the first man, and a third quickly stepped in, struggling with the others to stop Silver Moon.

While her foster mother valiantly fought against the men struggling desperately to keep them apart, Stacy, with a hard, sudden wrench, twisted in the grip of the man trying to restrain her, placing her mouth close to his bare hand. She opened her mouth and clamped her teeth down hard, breaking skin and drawing blood. The man screamed in pain and let her go. Stacy ran, only to be snatched again before she could run three paces.
In the end, it took four big men to finally subdue and drag Silver Moon away . . . .

“First, they took me away from the only real, honest-to-goodness family I had ever known. Then, they took away the name Silver Moon gave me, and insisted on calling me by my grandmother’s name. She wasn’t a very nice woman, and I still can’t shake the feeling that she hated me. Then, they locked me up in a jail cell . . . . ”

“A jail cell?!” Ben queried, feeling terribly sick at heart and very angry.

“They kept me there until they took Silver Moon and the others away. They were afraid I’d escape.”

“Stacy, I had no idea . . . . ”

Ben remembered Erin O’Donnell, a young woman who almost certainly would have become his daughter-in-law, had the fates been kinder.

“Mister Cartwright, there’s something I have to tell you . . . . ”

He heard her voice again, speaking softly in a very calm, almost bland monotone, devoid of all feeling, as she showed him the scars on her wrist left behind by the manacles used to bind her when she was arrested and jailed in the Dakotas, for fighting with the Sioux against the army.
Her facial features mirrored the blood chilling bland placidness in her voice, as she recounted the details of her arrest and imprisonment for himself and for Hoss. She was manacled to a cot in a hospital storeroom, comprised of four walls, no windows.

“No sunshine . . . no air . . . . ”

Erin O’Donnell’s words again echoed through his thoughts, and his memories as clearly as they had the evening she had spoken them.

“No wonder she can’t stand being closed in,” Hoss had observed, after she had left the table abruptly, to seek a measure of solace in the barn. [iv]

No wonder indeed! What Erin endured went beyond the bounds of solitary confinement to the lonely darkness of the grave. The thought of Stacy, not much more than a child, being literally torn from a loving family, then jailed, suffering all that Erin had, left Ben feeling heart sick and deeply angry.

In the three days that followed her forced separation from Silver Moon, and subsequent incarceration, Stacy, frightened and despondent, had refused to eat. Major Baldwin, faced with the very real prospect of the child literally starving herself to death, struck what amounted to a devil’s bargain. IF, and ONLY if Miss Stacy Louise solemnly promised to eat the food set in front of her, he would allow her to see Silver Moon one last time, to say good-bye.

“You should have seen her face, Pa. Her eyes were coal black with no life, no light in them. It was as if some part of her had died. That . . . that w-was the last time I . . . I ever s-saw her . . . . ” Stacy suddenly burst into tears.

Ben gathered her in his arms and held her close as she wept. He had fully expected HER anger and grief, even the tears, but not the profound anger the knowledge of what Stacy and her Paiute family suffered at the hands of the cavalry men stationed at Fort Charlotte, had aroused within himself.

“Oh, Pa, I’m . . . I’m sorry, I . . . . ”

Her apology, and the depth of regret and remorse her heard in her voice initially shocked and surprised him. Then, suddenly, he saw and understood something that he had never known before. Something that had never even occurred to him, until this very moment!

“Stacy . . . . ”

She looked up at him expectantly, the tears still flowing freely down her cheeks.

“I wish to heaven I had thought to tell you this, earlier on,” Ben said, his voice filled with regret, “but there’s no need for you to be sorry. You CAN be happy here . . . with Hoss, Joe, Hop Sing, and me . . . and still miss Silver Moon, Chief Soaring Eagle, and the other members of your Paiute family . . . at the same time.”

“I . . . I can?”

Ben, keeping one arm firmly around Stacy, reached into his pocket and drew out a handkerchief. “Yes, you can,” he said quietly, placing the clean handkerchief into her hands.

“After I f-found out they were . . . they were going to let me c-come with YOU? Mrs. Crawleigh told me I . . . that I c-couldn’t love Silver Moon and the others . . . that I-I shouldn’t even think of them anymore because . . . because it would be d-disloyal to you.”

In that moment, if Ben could have but one wish, it would be that one Mrs. Vivian Crawleigh could be turned into an a fine strapping individual, by the name of VICTOR Crawleigh, who stood at the very least, a whole head taller and weighed in at a good thirty pounds heavier . . . so he could personally pound his face into the ground.

“Stacy,” Ben said, thrusting those delicious fancies aside. “I want to tell you something. If you never listen to anything else I ever say, I want you to hear this,” he said earnestly.

She peered earnestly into his face, her own blue eyes meeting and holding his dark brown ones.

“You’re NOT going to stop loving your Paiute family, because you’ve joined your family here on the Ponderosa,” Ben’s tone was gentle, yet with a touch of firmness. “I would NEVER ask or expect it of you, and neither would your brothers. Loving Silver Moon, Chief Soaring Eagle, and the others . . . and missing them ISN’T an act of betrayal or disloyalty toward me, your brothers, or Hop Sing . . . nor does it mean that you love US any less.”

Stacy felt the stinging of fresh tears in her eyes. “Pa, I . . . I hope you know that I love you, Adam, Hoss, Joe . . . and Hop Sing . . . very much.”

“Yes, I know,” Ben said slipping his other arm around her. “Just as I hope YOU know that we love you, too. . . very much. Nothing can or will EVER change that!”

“I do miss Silver Moon, Chief Soaring Eagle, and Leaping Antelope,” Stacy said haltingly, without remorse and without guilt for the first time. “Sometimes . . . Pa, sometimes I miss them so bad, it hurts— ” The words not yet spoken were suddenly drowned, swept away in the flash flood of tears and agonized weeping, as her heart began to finally release some of the pain and grief borne of the loss of her Paiute family.

Later, after the worst of the storm, generated by the release of her pain, grief, and anger, had passed, Stacy rested quietly in the protective circle of her father’s arms, drawing comfort and reassurance from his loving presence.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“When Silver Moon left that day, the last time I ever saw her? She thought she had failed to honor the trust g-given her. I . . . . ” She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes once again. “I wish there was SOME way to let her know that she DID honor her trust . . . that I AM with my family.”

“You said Great Spirit told Silver Moon that you had been given to her as a trust,” Ben said quietly. “I’d like to think that Great Spirit also found a way to let her know that she DID honor her trust and that you’re with your family.”

“I hope so.” Stacy somehow managed to get her arms around Ben’s waist and give him a big, bear hug. “Thanks, Pa.”

Ben smiled and returned her hug with equal affection. “For what?”

“For not forcing me to give up the ways Silver Moon taught me.”

“I could never in a million years do a thing like that. The lessons and the ways Silver Moon taught you are a very important part of who YOU are.”

“They are?! Really?”

“Yes, really! To take away what Silver Moon gave you is to take away a very important part of the beautiful young woman you are.” Ben looked down at her, and smiled. “And to do THAT would be unthinkable because I love you very much the way you ARE.”

“Thanks, Pa.” She hugged him again, and held tight for a moment. “I love you, too.”

*********

Chapter 6

The following morning, Hoss Cartwright paused by the open door to his sister’s bedroom, and glanced in. He was surprised to find the old, well-worn overalls, and plaid flannel shirt that she wore when she did the barn chores, lying neatly folded on the seat of the hard-backed chair over next to the window.

“Stacy?”

“Over here, Hoss.”
She was seated crossed legged on top of her bed, clad in fresh clean clothes, gazing intently at an assortment of objects spread out in across the drawn up quilt in front of her.

“I thought it was MY turn t’ do the barn chores this week,” Hoss said, his eyes momentarily drifting to her work clothes on the chair.

“Nope. I’m afraid it’s MY turn to do the barn chores . . . AND feed the chickens . . . AND gather the eggs . . . AND keep the kindling box filled . . . for the next two months,” Stacy responded with a melancholy sigh.

“Hoo boy!” Hoss groaned. “Sounds like YOU’VE been a bad girl.”

“I’m afraid so,” Stacy replied in a disparaging tone of voice. She told Hoss about the incident involving Miss Marjorie Klein’s skirt, and the conversation between herself and their father on their way home from the Marlowes’ last night.

“Can’t say as I blame ya for getting mad at Miss Klein,” Hoss said quietly, “but Pa’s right all the same.”

“I know . . . now, anyway.”

“I guess that means you won’t be able t’ go with Joe ‘n me over t’ Valhalla t’ see Brunhilda.”

“I’m afraid not. The only place I can go with you ‘n ol’ Grandpa is out to the winter pasture when we take feed to the herd,” she sighed with genuine regret. “Hoss?”

“Yeah?”

“Willya tell Brunhilda hello for me?”

“I sure will,” Hoss promised. “Hop Sing sent me up here t’ tell ya that breakfast’s almost ready . . . . ”

“I’ll be right there, Hoss.” She began to carefully gather up the pieces spread out before her and return them to the open fringed leather pouch sitting next to her, on the bed.

“What all y’ got there?” Hoss asked, his eyes falling on the assortment for the very first time.

“Come and see, Big Brother,” Stacy invited.

Hoss entered the room, stopping at the side of her bed. “Hey, ain’t that the stuff y’ brought home with ya from Fort Charlotte?”

“Yeah.”

Hoss recognized the heart shaped gold pendant, engraved “Stacy Louise.” It was Stacy’s only connection to her life before the Paiutes. Because the small pendant and chain had so obviously been crafted for a child, the officers at Fort Charlotte had erroneously assumed the necklace belonged to Stacy herself, when in fact, it had been given to her maternal grandmother when she was a child.

“I had no idea you had such a treasure trove hidden up here, Li’l Sister,” Hoss said with a smile.

There were two stones . . . river stones . . . both white quartz, made round and smooth by the river from which they had been taken. There were animals, too, carved from wood and stone. Among them, a buffalo, carved from turquoise, greenish blue laced with brown striations, the same color brown as the aspen leaves that have lost their brilliant gold hue and fallen to the ground. Though the piece was small enough to easily fit in the palm of Stacy’s open hand, it powerfully conveyed the stolid massiveness of the animal. It was decorated with three tiny beads, one white, two red, and a single feather.

Stacy smiled. “Buffalo reminds me a lot of YOU, Big Brother.”

“Oh yeah?” Hoss queried, returning her smile.

“The buffalo’s a mainstay,” Stacy explained. “Hides for tipis, clothing, blankets, meat for food, bones for tools, the innards for bags, even hooves for glue. Silver Moon used to make a pretty tasty soup, too . . . from the blood.”

Hoss found a chair and drew it up beside the bed. “Sounds like you’da been pretty much lost without Buffalo.”

“Just like we’d be pretty much lost around here without YOU, Hoss.”

Hoss smiled. Two spots of subtle color appeared on his cheeks. “Well, I ain’t so sure ‘bout THAT, Li’l Sister. Pa built the Ponderosa ‘n still pretty much runs it.”

“ . . . and he watches over her . . . and US, too. This is more how I see Pa.”
Stacy picked up an eagle and placed it in the palm of his hand. It was carved of dark brown stone, generously laced with pyrite that seemed to catch and hold the sun when Hoss moved it into the shaft of sunlight streaming through the window in her room.

“Eagle is the totem spirit of . . . of my Paiute family,” Stacy began.

Hoss smiled, realizing that this morning was the first time he had ever heard his young sister refer to the tribe who had raised her as HER family. “What, exactly is a totem spirit, Li’l Sister?”

“In this case, the totem spirit is the spirit who leads, guides, watches over, and protects the entire family. That’s why, when my grandfather was made chief, he took the name Soaring Eagle.”

“Kinda like a guardian angel?”

Stacy nodded.

“Pa’s been, and still IS every bit o’ that for all four of US,” Hoss said thoughtfully, as he gazed down at the eagle lying in the palm of his hand, “and the Ponderosa, too.”

“There’s more. Silver Moon told me the Eagle is also a messenger of Great Spirit. THAT reminds me of the strong faith Pa has in God, faith strong enough to move mountains, in the words of his sacred book.”

“Yeah, he does at that,” Hoss said thoughtfully, as he reflected back on what he knew of his father’s life: the years he had risked his life to sail the seven seas, starting from the age he would have been old enough to serve aboard ship as a cabin boy; the four women he had loved, cherished, and tragically lost; the strength and courage to take on the daunting task of raising three sons, and now a daughter, alone . . . .

. . . and the dream, he had nurtured and sustained over the course of many years, that lead him, Hoss’ mother, Inger, and his two oldest children on the long, often arduous journey that stretched all the way from Boston to Nevada.

“Like Eagle, Pa is the spirit and guardian of this family and the Ponderosa. But, YOU, Big Brother, like the buffalo, are the bounty . . . and the heart . . . that sustains us all of us, even Pa.”

Hoss placed the eagle back down on the bed and started to hand her the buffalo. Stacy took his hand and gently closed his massive fingers around the turquoise piece. “It’s yours, Big Brother.”

“Mine?”

Stacy nodded, still holding his hand in both of hers.

“Thank you, Li’l Sister. I’ll always treasure it.” As she would always treasure him. Hoss saw that plain as day in her eyes. Smiling, he placed his hand on top of hers and squeezed it gently.

Hoss’ gaze wandered over the other animals spread out on the bed. There was a bear, carved from a piece of jet-black stone, polished to a glossy shine. She, and she was very plainly a she, was asleep, hibernating. The gentle slopes and curves of her body formed a near perfect sphere. She had been adorned with white beads and a small white feather, shaped long and slender. He also recognized the stone shapes that so clearly formed beaver, fox, cougar, owl, turtle , antelope, howling wolf, otter, coyote, and hummingbird.

The doe, like bear and buffalo, also caught and held Hoss’ attention. She was carved from white stone, tiny ears cocked forward, her head and neck rigid, listening. Her entire streamlined body and slender legs seemed poised, ready to run, to leap away in less than the wink of an eye. A circlet of tiny turquoise and blue beads circled her neck. Attached to the deer’s necklace was a tiny hawk’s feather, and a string of beads carved from stag’s antlers.

“Li’l Sister, if Pa’s an eagle, an’ I’m a buffalo, then this critter’s YOU!” Hoss smiled and pointed to a horse, whittled from a piece of wood, lightly hued. “ ‘Specially the way the pair o’ you can run like the wind, nigh on forever, it seems.”

“That’s how I got my Paiute name. Silver Moon told me she named me Stacy Dancing Colt because I was a bundle of energy, never wanting to sit still for a minute.”

“Ok, Kid . . . . ”

Hoss and Stacy turned and found Joe, standing in the open doorway, leaning against the doorjamb with his arms folded across his chest.
“ . . . if Pa’s an eagle, Big Brother here’s a buffalo . . . though the animal I have in mind right now’s probably a better description of ol’ Hoss here . . . . ”
This prompted a dark glare from Hoss.

“ . . . what kind of animal am I?”

“I can tell ya right now, Li’l Joe, that the kind o’ animal YOU are . . . AIN’T in this collection.”

“How do YOU know?” Joe demanded.

“ ‘Cause I don’t see no jackasses among Stacy’s animals.”

“Oohh, you’re sooo-oooo funny, Big Brother, har de har har!” He pivoted, grabbed one of the pillows from Stacy’s bed, turned and hit Hoss over the head with it.

“Grandpa, I think you may be THIS animal.” Stacy reached into her bag and pulled out another horse, carved from black and white onyx. This horse

had been carved, rearing up on its back legs. Its elongated, thickened tail formed the third point of the carving’s base. She placed it in the palm of Joe’s open hand.

Joe held up the tiny stone carving, and smiled. “Hey! He kinda looks like Cochise!” he exclaimed, surprised and delighted. He held out the carved pinto, intending to return the piece to his sister.

“That’s YOURS!” Stacy said.

“You sure, Kid?”

“I’m sure, Grandpa.”

“THERE you are!”

Three heads rose and turned toward the open door to Stacy’s bedroom in unison. They found their father standing, framed in the open door, just on the other side of the threshold, with arms folded across his chest.

“You three had best get moving,” Ben admonished his offspring sternly. “Your breakfast is getting COLD, and Hop Sing getting HOT!”

“Sorry, Pa,” Stacy murmured contritely, as she began to quickly gather together the contents of her medicine bag, “it’s all MY fault.”

Ben’s eyes were immediately drawn to the carved animals, the feathered hairpieces, the jewelry, the two river stones, and a familiar heart shaped pendant on a gold chain. Intrigued, he unfolded his arms, and stepped into the room. “Is that the contents of your medicine bag, Young Woman?”

“Yeah,” Stacy nodded. “Like I told Hoss when HE came in, I . . . well, for the first time since leaving Silver Moon and my Paiute family, I felt like I wanted to go through the bag and take a look at everything.”

“She’s got some real pretty things in there, Pa,” Hoss added with a smile.
“ . . . which I hope you’ll show ME later on this evening,” Ben said.

“I will, Pa,” Stacy promised.

“WHERE EVERYBODY GO?! BREAKFAST ON TABLE, GET VERY COLD, EVERYBODY TURN INVISIBLE! HOP SING QUIT! GO TO SAN FRANCISCO, HELP NUMBER NINE COUSIN IN RESTAURANT.”

“Stacy, you can run up and put away the contents of you medicine bag AFTER breakfast,” Ben said. “Right now, I think the four of us had better get ourselves right down to the table, pronto.”

*********

Rachael Marlowe was aroused from a sound sleep by the rapid-fire percussion of human knuckles striking the fast closed door of her bedroom. She slowly opened her eyes, then closed them, dismayed by the fast closed drapes, shutting out the morning light. For the last three days now, since her visit to the Ponderosa, she had asked, ordered, screamed, threatened, pleaded, just about everything short of dropping down on her knees and begging, for maids to raise the shades and part the curtains. Every time, her mother countermanded her requests.

“Yoo hoo, Rachael Darling, are you awake?”

Rachael groaned.

“Darling, please? I’m so excited I’m about to burst.”

“Just a minute, Mama . . . . ”

Without further preamble, the door opened and Clara waltzed into the room, properly garbed in a stunning yellow print morning dress, with hair coiffed, and make-up applied with precise perfection. “Darling, I WAS going to tell you at breakfast, but I’m so excited I just couldn’t wait.”

“What is it, Mama?” Rachael asked warily.

“Next Friday night, your father and I are going to have an intimate little soiree,” Clara said, her eyes glittering with excitement. She dashed across the room, squealing with pure delight. “What do YOU think, Darling?”

Rachael opened her eyes and looked up at her mother, standing beside the bed, smiling broadly, with hands tightly clasped at her throat. Her eyes and face glowed with excitement and anticipation.

“Well?”

“Who’s coming?”

“I thought I’d invite a few close friends.”

“Are you going to invite the Cartwrights, Mama?”

A tiny frown knotted Clara’s brow as she gingerly seated herself on the edge of Rachael’s bed. “Well, noo-ooo . . . . ” A sunny smile suddenly broke out on her face. “You silly, silly, Darling. I want to invite YOUR friends.”

A puzzled frown knotted Rachael’s brow. “Aren’t the Cartwrights my friends?”

“Well, Ben, your father and I have all been friends for a good number of years, of course, but, Rachael Darling, this soiree is for you and YOUR friends.”

“I . . . I don’t understand,” Rachael murmured, raising herself up to her elbows.

“Jenny Lind, Angela Griffith, Susan Murphy, poor thing, I swear! She grows plumper by the DAY! Millicent Adams, snooty piece of bag and baggage though she IS, Lee Mayhew, Kirk Sutcliff, Greg and Roger Sherwood . . . . ”

Those were the names of people who belonged to another lifetime that died in the aftermath of a stagecoach robbery along a lonely road somewhere in Oregon, nearly five years ago. These were no longer the names of friends and acquaintances, but rather the names of strangers. “Mama?”

“Yes, Darling?”

“Aren’t you going to invite Stacy Cartwright?”

“Of COURSE not!” Clara snapped, then smiled once again. “Darling, Stacy’s a little YOUNG, don’t you think? She’s ONLY sixteen years old, after all, and a very IMMATURE sixteen at that! Don’t you agree?”

“She IS high spirited, Mama,” Rachael said, smiling as she recalled the lively banter among Stacy, her brothers, and Candy, as they prepared to sit down to dinner the day before. “So are Hoss and Joe, but in a GOOD way. I don’t see that as being immature, in fact, from what I saw of Stacy yesterday, I think she’s one of the most mature people I know.”

“Well, come on, Darling,” Clara urged, blithely rambling on as if Rachael had not spoken. “We’re going straight into town to Madame Darnier’s!”

“M-Madame Darnier’s?”

“Of COURSE, Silly. You need a dress for next Friday’s soiree. Come, come, Rachael Darling, we simply MUST move along.”

“Mama?”

“Yes, Dear?”

“I was just wondering, instead of going to all the trouble of putting together a big soiree, could we maybe, just have a simple dinner and invite the Cartwrights?” Rachael asked, as she reluctantly rose from prone to sitting position.

“Perhaps another time,” Clara said in a dismissive tone.

Suddenly, Rachael’s stomach lurched.

“D-Darling?” Clara noted her daughter’s suddenly pale face with alarm.

“M-Mama, I . . . I think I’m going to be sick . . . . ”

Clara bolted out of her daughter’s room, screaming for Marjorie. A few moments later, a dreadfully long eternity to Clara, Marjorie appeared, with bowl in hand. She immediately took charge of the situation, asking Babette, Mrs. Marlowe’s personal maid to kindly escort the distraught Clara back to her room. She dutifully held Rachael’s head, seeing her through a wrenching spasm of largely dry heaves. After the worst of Rachael’s distress had passed, Marjorie bathed her face with a cool, soothing cloth, then settled her back into bed.

Marjorie walked down the hall to Mrs. Marlowe’s bedroom, and there knocked resolutely on the closed door. Babette, a thin woman with hair a shade of red not normally occurring in nature, cracked open the door and peered anxiously into Marjorie’s face.

“Is Mrs. Marlowe . . . . ?”

“She is lying down,” Babette said, with a heavy and pronounced French accent, “with . . . ache of head. But she keeps asking me how is Miss Rachael. Come in, s’il vous plâit. Please.” She opened the door further, then demurely stood aside, allowing Marjorie to enter.

Marjorie found Clara Marlowe lying on her bed, with an ice pack pressed to her forehead. “Mrs. Marlowe?”

Clara impatiently threw aside the ice pack and bolted upright, from prone to sitting. “Marjorie, is Rachael . . . . ?” she stammered, peering up into Marjorie’s face intently.

“Rachael is in bed, resting comfortably for the moment.”

“I . . . don’t suppose she’ll be able to go into town now,” Clara pouted morosely.

“No, Ma’am, I wouldn’t advise it.”

“Oh, this is just AWFUL! She’s been sick every single morning since she’s come home,” Clara wailed, wringing her hands. “How am I EVER going to get that dress made?”

“Well, seeing as how you’ve got your heart so set on it, why don’t YOU stop by Madame Darnier’s and ask if she’d be willing to come here and take Miss Rachael’s measurements,” Marjorie suggested. “If she is, you could pick out a dress pattern and material while you’re there.”

“That’s a wonderful idea!” Clara exclaimed, delighted that her planned trip to Madame Darnier’s dress shop need not be necessarily postponed after all. “Oh, Marjorie, I simply don’t know WHAT I’d do without you sometimes.” Suddenly, her face fell. “But, what about Rachael?”

“She’ll be alright, Mrs. Marlowe,” Marjorie hastened to reassure. “Annabelle’s with her now, and knows to ring me, if Miss Rachael should take a turn for the worse.”

“Oohhh! I’d so hoped that spending the day at the Ponderosa, in all that nice clean fresh air might cure whatever’s ailing her,” Clara pouted.

“I’m beginning to think a visit from Doctor Martin might be in order,” Marjorie said thoughtfully.

“I don’t know, Marjorie, doctors make me so nervous.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing serious, Ma’am, but all the same, it wouldn’t HURT to have Doctor Martin come out and check her over, and who knows? He just might have something in that little black bag of his that’ll fix Miss Rachael right up.”

“Well, alright,” Clara agreed reluctantly. “Send Annie. Cook can do without her for a few hours.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Marjorie murmured, then took her leave.

“Babette.” Clara’s pouting face abruptly evaporated into a sunny smile. “Fix my hair, it’s gotten mussed since I’ve been lying down. I’m going to town.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Oh, and call Jenkins. Tell him to have Rogers bring ‘round the phaeton.”
“Yes, Ma’am . . . . ”

*********

“BEN! YOOO-OOOO! BEN!”

He turned at the sound of his name and was delighted to see Clara Marlowe, rosy cheeked and smiling, stepping out of Madame Darnier’s dress shop.

“Good morning, Clara,” Ben smiled, and politely tipped his hat. “Nothing like having a new dress made to lift the spirits, eh?”

“The dress in question’s not for ME, Ben,” she said, falling in step beside him. “It’s for RACHAEL.”

“Oh?”

“We’re having a soiree next Friday night,” Clara chattered happily. “Nothing big and elaborate, mind. Just a small, simple, intimate gathering, with a sit down dinner and musical entertainment. Oh, Ben, this is so exciting, Tom’s going to arrange for Mister Clarence Tolliver to come.”

Ben frowned for a moment, trying to recall the name. At length, he shrugged and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Clara. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of this Mister Tolliver.”

Clara stared over at Ben, crestfallen, for the length of time it takes to blink once. “He’s a concert pianist, up and coming, from New York,” she said condescendingly. “Mister Tolliver has been giving performances all week in Carson City, but it just so happens that a very good friend of Tom’s actually KNOWS Mister Tolliver’s manager— ”

“W-what does Rachael have to say about all this?” Ben asked, taken aback by news of the soiree.

“Oohh! She’s a little nervous and reluctant, but once she’s back among her friends . . . her REAL friends, I mean, well, the ice will be broken, she’ll be right back to her old vivacious self, chattering away like a regular little magpie.”

Ben shivered as an ice cold shadow passed over and through him. He glanced upward, figuring a cloud had passed over, briefly obscuring the light and warmth of the sun. He was mildly surprised to see a cloudless bright blue sky. “I, uh guess Rachael’s still in with Madame Darnier?” he asked anxiously.

“No, she’s NOT, Ben.” There was a touch of exasperation in her voice. “She didn’t come to town with me today, I’m afraid.”

Ben frowned. “Oh?”

“She woke up feeling a mite poorly again this morning.” Her tone was light, carefree, and dismissive. Clara looked up at Ben and smiled. “The next time my Rachael comes out to the Ponderosa, you’ll simply have to make sure you don’t do anything too strenuous, like she did yesterday. My little darling-darling has a very delicate constitution, you know.”

“I’m sorry Rachael’s not feeling well, Clara,” Ben said, privately nursing grave doubts as to her blithe assessment of Rachael’s constitution. “Please, tell her I asked about her.”

“I will, Ben, I promise you,” Clara said quickly.

“Clara, about that soiree you’re planning— ”

“Well, I’d simply love to stay and chat, but I have a million things to do.”

“I need to push on myself. It was good talking with you, Clara, and I’m glad to see YOU’RE feeling better.”

“Thank you, Ben. It was lovely chatting with you, too.”

*********

“Doctor Martin, are you absolutely sure?” Rachael asked, following a complete and thorough examination from Paul Martin. His wife, Lily, was also present, seated on the edge of the bed next to Rachael.

“Given what you’ve told me and my examination, there’s no doubt at all in my opinion,” Paul said quietly. “I’d like to begin seeing you once a month to start.”

Rachael nodded.

“May I ask you a personal question, Rachael?” Paul asked, noting the sadness deeply etched into the lines and planes of her face. “You don’t have to answer it, of course, but it’s certainly something you need to think over . . . given your present circumstances.”

“Wh-what is it, Doctor Martin?”

“Do you want the child?”

“Yes, I do,” Rachael said immediately. “I loved . . . LOVE . . . this child’s father very much, more than I’ve ever loved anyone— ” She broke off unable to continue.

Lily Martin edged closer, and placed her hands comfortingly on Rachael’s shoulders.

Rachael, taking comfort and a measure of reassurance from Lily Martin’s loving and kind presence, wiped her eyes on the edge of her sleeve, and took a deep breath. “Aiak Enanamuks, the father of my child to be, and I WERE married, Doctor . . . Mrs. Martin. It was a tribal wedding ritual, but for me no less binding than a church wedding for you.”

“I understand,” Paul murmured. Looking into his eyes and face, Rachael knew that he DID understand, or at the very least, he made an effort to TRY and understand.

“What about Aiak Enanamuks, Rachael?” Lily asked, treading very carefully.

“I . . . I don’t know whether he’s alive . . . or dead,” Rachael said haltingly.

“I’m so sorry,” Lily murmured sympathetically.

“Thank you.” Rachael reached up, covering Lily’s hand still resting on her shoulder, with her own. “Telling Papa won’t be easy, but I think I could manage that if it was . . . well, if it was just him. But the thought of . . . of having to tell Mama . . . . ” She shuddered.

Lily Martin’s heart went out to the young woman sitting on the edge of the bed beside her. She knew all too well how capricious Clara Marlowe could be, even on the best of occasions. She found herself shuddering along with Rachael.

“Rachael, Lily and I can break the news to your mother, if you wish,” Paul offered.

“ . . . or, if you want to be the one to tell her, we’re more than willing to be with you,” Lily added.

“Thank you,” Rachael said gratefully, looking from one to the other.

“Perhaps Stacy and Mister Cartwright, too.” She told the Martins about visiting the Ponderosa the day before. “I told Joe and Stacy about my marriage to Aiak Enanamuks . . . I-I ended up getting very emotional, but bless their hearts, they were right there . . . crying along with me.

Rachael sighed, then smiled wistfully. “You know . . . it’s kind of funny in a way. Stacy had not long ago joined the Cartwright family when I started out on that trip to Portland. I kinda thought of her a wild little kid whose main reason for living was horses. Me . . . I was a lot like Mama, always looking ahead to the next party, the next new dress, trying to keep up with the latest gossip, and the latest in fashion.

“Back then, I never, in a million years, ever, could have imagined that the likes of Stacy Cartwright and I would have anything in common. Now . . . well, she’s NOT a little kid anymore, and . . . she may be the only real friend I’ve got.”

“There’s one thing I’ve come to know about the Cartwrights, Rachael,” Lily said with a smile. “You make friends with ONE Cartwright, you’ve made friends with the whole family. Paul and I sure found THAT out when we first came.”

“Your parents and Ben have been friends for a number of years, too,” Paul added. “If you need moral support, there’s no doubt in MY mind, he’ll be more than willing to give it.”

“Thank you, Doctor Martin.”

“If you need the doctor or me for anything, Rachael, please don’t hesitate to ask,” Lily said kindly. “We were there when you came into this world, and we’re both here for you now, anytime you need us.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Martin.”

“Unless you have any questions, I’ll see you next month, in my office,” Paul said.

After saying good-bye to the Martins, she rang for Marjorie and asked her to see them down to the front door. “I’d like Annabelle to come . . . with pen, paper, and envelope.”

“Yes, Miss Rachael.”

Annabelle, her personal maid, timidly entered the room a few moments later, with the requested stationary in hand. Rachael took the pen and paper and scrawled a hasty note. “I want to get this out to Mister Ben Cartwright at the Ponderosa,” she said, as she signed her note and stuffed it in the envelope. Rachael wrote ‘Mr. Cartwright’ across the face of the envelope, then as an after thought, added, ‘and Stacy.’ She sealed the envelope and presented it to her maid.

“Miss Rachael, I . . . I can’t possibly leave now . . . Miss Klein asked me to keep an eye on you.”

“I’m feeling better now, Annabelle,” Rachael said firmly. “If I need anything while you’re gone, I can ask Marjorie or any of the other maids in this house. I want that note delivered to Mister Cartwright as soon as possible.”

“Yes, Miss.” Annabelle curtseyed, dipping her knee slightly and inclining her head, before leaving.

“ . . . and, Annabelle?”

“Yes, Miss?”

“I’d rather you did NOT tell my mother, Miss Klein, or anyone else where you’re going and why,” Rachael added as an after thought.

*********

Chapter 7

“The good Lord oughtta strike y’ down with lightenin’ good ‘n proper, Miss Marjorie Hepzibah Klein, for spreadin’ around such lies!” Grace O’Leary, the Marlowes’ chief cook declared indignantly. She was a short woman, standing just under five feet tall, stocky, with white hair and sharp, piercing blue eyes. Grace stood in front of her stove, with arms folded resolutely, defiantly across her ample chest, glaring murderously up at Marjorie.

“It’s no lie, Mrs. O’Leary!” Marjorie stated primly. “I heard Doctor Martin say so myself, word for word.”

Grace’s eyes narrowed. “You was actually . . . really ‘n truly in the room when t’ doc said it?”

Marjorie’s pale complexion suddenly flushed pink.

“Well?” Grace pressed. “Was ya?”

“ . . . uuhhh, no!” Marjorie admitted very reluctantly.

“Then how could ya have heard it with your very own ears?”

“That’s easy, Mrs. O’Leary,” Carrie Blanchard said. Aged in her mid-thirties, widowed, with two daughters and an elderly mother to support, she cleaned the houses of Virginia City’s well to do. Three weeks ago, she had been hired on at the Marlowes as extra help to prepare for Rachael’s homecoming. “Miss Klein, like as not, had her ear plastered to Miss Rachael’s door the entire time Doc ‘n Mrs. Martin were there.”

“I most certainly and assuredly did NOT!” Marjorie declared, outraged. “I dropped my handkerchief in front of the door to Miss Rachael’s room. Of course I bent down to pick it up. When I did . . . . ”

“Aggh!” Grace snorted derisively.

“That’s the pure God’s honest truth!” Marjorie snapped.

The others, which included Catherine Hyde and Cindy Fletcher, two of the upstairs maids; Annie Jones, Grace O’Leary’s assistant; Patty Moorehead, Carol Hill, and Josephine McRainy, the kitchen maids, and Edward Jenkins, tittered and exchanged knowing looks among themselves.

“Well, it is.”

“If you say so, Miss Klein,” Edward Jenkins said in a condescending tone of voice.

“Well, if it’s true . . . . ” Grace turned and glared pointedly at Marjorie, “and I ain’t sayin’ it IS, mind, we oughtta feel sorry for her.”

“Oh, Miz O’Leary, you don’t think poor Miss Rachael was . . . attacked . . . do you?” Patty queried, her eyes round with both eagerness and a morbid fascination.

“Agh, y’ read too many o’ them penny dreadful novels, Girl,” Grace snorted. She exhaled a short, curt exasperated sigh, then shook her head dolefully. “I was more thinkin’ o’ Miz Marlowe . . . how SHE’S gonna be when she finds out.”

“Mrs. O’Leary, I wouldn’t feel too sorry for Mrs. Marlowe, or Miss Rachael, either, for that matter,” Carrie Blanchard said. “They’ve got more ‘n enough money to send the girl away to, ummm, visit Aunt Petunia?! . . . ‘til the baby’s born ‘n given up for adoption. When she comes back in a year or so, the matter will be all but forgotten. The Marlowes got enough money to see t’ THAT, too.”

A murmur of complete agreement spread through the crowd of servants gathered in the kitchen.

“Well . . . . ” Carrie Blanchard rose, and stretched. “I need t’ be pushin’ on if I’m gonna get back to Virginia City before dark.”

Marjorie reached into the pocket of her apron and drew out a plain white envelope with “Mrs. Blanchard,” scrawled across the surface. “Your wages,” she said as she placed the envelope into Carrie’s outstretched hand. “Mrs. Marlowe MIGHT need you next week, from Thursday evening to Saturday morning, to help with that soiree she’s putting together for Miss Rachael. Would you be available then?”

“Sure,” Carrie shrugged indifferently. She took the envelope from Marjorie’s out stretched hand, and stuffed it into the pocket of her coat, lying on the kitchen table along side her handbag. “Just let me know.”

*********

The insistent knocking at the door, roused Ben from the task of sorting through the mail he had picked up at the post office in town, earlier that day. He rose from his desk, and walked over to the front door. Upon opening it, he found himself looking down onto the stricken face of a petite, diminutive young woman, not much more than a girl, looking up at him through green eyes, set in sockets round as saucers.

“M-M-Mister Ben Cartwright?”

Ben smiled, hoping to put her at ease. “Yes, I’m Ben Mister Cartwright. What can I do for you?”

“Miss Marlowe asked me to bring this to you.” Annabelle removed the envelope from the folds of her shawl and offered it up to the Cartwright clan patriarch looming so high above her head.

“Thank you, uuhh, Miss . . . . ?”

“Annabelle, Sir.”

“Why don’t you step inside for a moment?” Ben invited, as he slit the envelope open, with his thumb.

“I’d best not, Sir.”

Ben removed the note and read it’s brief message quickly:

“Dear Mister Cartwright,

Need to see you as soon as possible. Matter urgent. Stacy welcome if available.

Many thanks, Rachael Marlowe.”

Ben folded the note and placed it back in the envelope. “Annabelle . . . . ”

“Y-yes, Mister Cartwright?”

“Please tell Rachael I’ll be along, as soon as I get my horse saddled, but I’ll be coming alone. Stacy and her brothers aren’t back from taking feed to the winter pastures yet.”

“Thank you, I’ll be sure to tell her,” Annabelle said quickly, before turning heel and fleeing back across the yard to Manuel and the big gelding waiting.
Ben, meanwhile, dropped the envelope, containing Rachael’s note, on the credenza next to the front door, before removing his heavy fleece lined jacket from its peg on the wall over the console. He quickly slipped it, his hat and scarf on. Next, he grabbed his gun and holster, followed by his gloves.

“HANK!” Ben bellowed as he crossed the yard between house and barn. He fastened the gun belt around his waist, and slipped on his gloves.

“Yes, Mister Cartwright?” Hank responded as he stepped from the barn, bundled up against the cold.

“Please saddle Buck.”

“Sure thing, Mister Cartwright.”

“ . . . and when my sons and daughter return, would you please tell them I’ve ridden over to the Marlowes to see Rachael.”

*********

“Miss Rachael, Mister Cartwright will be along directly,” Annabelle reported sotto voce, “but he said to tell you he’s coming alone. Miss Stacy and her brothers aren’t back from the winter pastures yet.”

“Thank you very much, Annabelle,” Rachael said gratefully, as she finished combing her long hair.

“Miss, I can braid that for you, if you’d like.”

Rachael smiled, graciously refraining from telling the young maid that she could do that herself, in fact had been during her time with the Chinook.

“Perhaps later, after Mister Cartwright has left,” she said.

“Yes, Miss.” Annabelle shyly returned Rachael’s smile.

Rachael had risen, after sending Annabelle off to the Ponderosa, washed and quickly dressed herself in a skirt the reddish brown color of richly stained cherry wood and a plain white long sleeved blouse. “Mama would no doubt be absolutely appalled by MY woeful lack of fashion sense,” she groused wryly, in silence. Since returning to her parents’ home outside of Virginia City, she found that her own fashion sense preferred simplicity.

A knock on her closed bedroom door, soft and discreet yet insistent, scattered Rachael’s nebulous thoughts. “Yes?”

“Jenkins, Miss.”

“Annabelle?”

“Yes, Miss.” Annabelle moved quickly, covering the distance between the full-length mirror, where she had been standing with her mistress, to the door on the other side of the room, in less than half dozen giant strides. She silently opened the door, allowing Jenkins to step inside.

“Miss Rachael, Mister Cartwright is here to see you. I have taken the liberty of showing him to the drawing room.”

“Thank you, Jenkins. Please offer Mister Cartwright refreshment and tell him I’ll be there directly.”

“Yes, Miss.”

Rachael quickly pulled her long hair back and secured it at the nape of her neck with a plain silver clip.

*********

Rachael entered the drawing room, a scant few moments later. Ben set aside the cup of coffee and saucer, and rose from his place on the settee, noting her pallid complexion with dismay.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said gratefully. “Please . . . sit down. To, umm get right to the heart of things, I need your help, Mister Cartwright. Doctor Martin and his wife were here to see me two hours ago.”

“I ran into your mother in town earlier,” Ben said gently. “She told me you weren’t feeling well. I . . . hope it’s nothing serious.”

Rachael favored him with a wry, if wan smile. “Common ‘ailment’ actually, one that’s come upon most women at one time or another since Eve. I . . . I’m going to have a baby, Mister Cartwright.”

“Stacy told me about your marriage on our way home last night,” Ben said kindly. “What . . . about your husband?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know whether Aiak Enanamuks is alive or dead,” she said sadly. “Most of the men, my husband among them, were away on a hunting trip when the cavalry swooped down on our village. Every last one of the people in the village were killed, Lammieh Towakh Moon among them. I— ”

Ben quietly reached over and touched her hand, resting lightly on the arm of her chair.

Rachael looked over at Ben, her eyes meeting his. She placed her other hand over top his. “It wasn’t a battle . . . or a war . . . it was a slaughter!” she forced herself to continue. “Women . . . children, some of THEM babies
. . . a few of the elders, all very old men . . . every last one of us unarmed, Mister Cartwright. They rode in and murdered everyone they could lay hold of. The only reason I was spared is because I’m a white woman.

“I don’t know if the cavalry men engaged our hunter-warriors BEFORE they killed everyone in the village or if they lay in wait for their return. They may have decided not to even wait around for the warriors. In any case, I was taken back to their barracks at gunpoint. I was AFRAID to ask them about Aiak Enanamuks and the others. If they hadn’t encountered the hunter-warriors, well . . . I didn’t want the soldiers to get any ideas about looking for them.”

“Rachael, I have a couple of well placed friends in Oregon who owe me at least a dozen favors. I can write to them and ask them to make inquiries, if you wish.”

“Would you, Mister Cartwright? This . . . not knowing . . . . ”

“I understand.”

Looking into his eyes and face, Rachael knew that he spoke truly. “Thank you,” she murmured with heartfelt gratitude, then added ruefully, “I hope Stacy and Joe are all right. When I told them about Aiak Enanamuks yesterday, I’m afraid things got very emotional . . . for all of us.”

Ben noted the increased brightness of her eyes, exacerbated by the sunlight streaming in through the drawing room windows, and the quivering lower lip. “Rachael, Stacy and Joe openly wear their hearts on their sleeves, and they’re very sensitive to the feelings of people they care very much about,” he said. “That’s one of the things that endears both of them to me. They’re fine.”

Rachael nodded, unable to speak.

“There’s something else I want to tell you,” Ben continued. “You were talking about not having the opportunity to practice the healing ways Lammieh Towakh Moon taught you.”

“Y-yes . . . . ”

“I want you to know that being with you yesterday, talking about the time she lived with the Paiutes, seeing the contents of your medicine bag opened Stacy’s eyes . . . and MINE . . . to emotional wounds she has been carrying since her time at Fort Charlotte.”

“Really?”

Ben nodded, then shared with her Mrs. Crawleigh’s parting words to Stacy. “All that time she couldn’t allow herself to grieve for Silver Moon and the others because of what that woman said! Had it not been for our time with YOU yesterday, Stacy might have gone on for another six years, or worse, might never have been able to allow herself to mourn Silver Moon’s loss.”

“Lammieh Towakh Moon told me time and time again that when we loose someone, we can’t come to a place of healing until we take time to mourn our loss,” Rachael said slowly.

“Thanks in large part to you Stacy will be able to reach that place of healing . . . in time.” Ben smiled. “This morning, when I looked in on her, she was showing the contents of HER medicine bag to her brothers . . . for the first time. She told Hoss that today was the first time those lovely stone carvings Silver Moon gave her brought back a lot of good memories of her Paiute family, without a lot of the sadness or worse, the guilt.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright. I’m happy to know I’ve been a small measure of help for Stacy and you, too.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Rachael, last night was no SMALL measure,” Ben said. “Your presence yesterday turned out to be a healing balm for Stacy. I’m sure Lammieh Towakh Moon taught you about the powerful healing that can come with talking, and listening.”

“Yes,” Rachael nodded, “she did. That was one of the first lessons she taught me.”

“I hope you can find a way to practice the methods and the ritual Lammieh Towakh Moon passed on to you, Rachael. It would be a shame to loose that. But, if you can’t, you CAN still be a very powerful healer by practicing the arts of listening and talking, as Lammieh Towakh Moon ALSO taught you.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright. I . . . I hadn’t even considered THAT possibility.”

“In the meantime, what can I do to help YOU?”

“I— ”

“YOOO-OOO, YOOO-OOOO! RACHAEL DARLING, I’M HOME!”

Rachael’s heart plummeted to her feet.

A moment later, Clara burst into the drawing room, her face flushed and eyes sparkling with excitement. “Good afternoon, Ben, Jenkins told me you were here,” she gushed. “What-in-the-world-EVER brings you out to THIS neck of the woods?”

Ben rose politely. “When I spoke to you in town, you told me that Rachael wasn’t feeling well. I thought I’d stop by and visit, if she was up to it.”

“I AM feeling a little better now, Mama.”

“That’s most kind of you, Ben.” Clara flounced into the room and squirmed her way onto the settee between Ben and the chair occupied by her daughter. “So! What WERE the two of you talking about before I so rudely interrupted?”

“Nothing, Mama . . . really,” Rachael’s voice trailed way to silence.

“We were just talking about some of the things Rachael and Stacy talked about last night, that’s all,” Ben put in quickly.

“Humph!” Clara pouted. “Isn’t THAT a fine how-do-you-do! You’ll tell MISTER CARTWRIGHT what you and Stacy were talking about, but you won’t tell your own mother!”

“Mama, I already told you . . . what Stacy and I talked of wouldn’t interest you in the slightest,” Rachael said defensively.

“Well, you and Stacy HAVE always enjoyed riding, I suppose,” Clara said in an airy, dismissive tone. “But, Darling, the NEXT time you visit the Cartwrights, you simply MUST take your riding costume with you. It’s in the attic, packed in one of the cedar chests. I’ll ask Marjorie to get one of the maids fetch it down and air it out, so you’ll have it, Darling. Anyhooo . . . to the more practical matters in hand, Rachael Darling, I’ve picked out several dress patterns and materials, and Mrs. Darnier will be out tomorrow to take measurements, and— ”

“Clara . . . Rachael, if there’s nothing else . . . . ?!” Ben looked over at the latter meaningfully.

Rachael mournfully shook her head.

“Rachael, if you’d like to come out to the Ponderosa tomorrow, I, ummm think Stacy’s anxious to show you the things she was showing to her brothers this morning, and I KNOW Joe’s eagerly looking forward to that rematch,” Ben said rising.

“Rematch?” Clara echoed, looking from Ben to her daughter, and back again.

“Checkers, Mama,” Rachael explained. “After winning something like three games out of three, we were setting up for a fourth when we suddenly realized it was nine o’clock.”

“Oh,” Clara murmured softly, dubious and uncertain.

Rachael rose, with the intention of seeing Ben to the door. “Mister Cartwright, your invitation to come back and visit sounds wonderful, and I’M just as eager for a rematch myself. I’d love to— ”

“Perhaps AFTER the soiree next Friday night, Darling,” Clara said immediately. “Before that is just absolutely OUT of the question.”

“Mama, I don’t see why . . . . ”

Clara glanced up sharply, eyes round with a mixture of shock, bewilderment, and anger.

Rachael shuddered, and involuntarily took a step backward. For one brief, horrifying instant, the walls in the drawing room seemed to grow, reaching upward and inching closer. A memory from early childhood flashed before her eyes, vivid and crystal clear, as if it had happened moments, rather than YEARS ago . . . .

She was out watching the family’s gardener, an elderly man she had always referred to as Grandpa Garth, while he cleared the flowerbeds in preparation for the coming spring. He had just finished digging out a circle of especially tenacious weeds. Their roots and foliage had grown into a thick, lush, nearly impenetrable mat. Though Grandpa Garth finally managed to dig out the stubborn weeds, it had proven a mighty struggle, leaving him drenched with sweat and exhausted. What she saw, after the weeds were removed, shocked and frightened her to the very core of her being. It was a daffodil, its growth stunted and body parts of leaf, stem, and petal twisted into something almost beyond recognition. The parts that should have been a lush deep green color were a sickly greenish yellow.

“Don’t worry, Li’l One,” Grandpa Garth said. “It’ll right itself now that it can reach the sun and git what it needs from the earth, but ya gotta watch them weeds. Let ‘em go too long, like what almost happened here, they choke the very life outta the flowers . . . . ”

Rachael squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden, rising panic within, that threatened to wholly inundate her. She focused all of her thoughts on her breathing. Slowly. In, out. Keep the flow even.

“Ben, it was very kind of you to stop in and see Rachael today.” Mama’s voice penetrated the thick veil that had surrounded her thoughts and feelings like the slice of a sharp dagger. “Marjorie, if you would see Mister Cartwright to— ”

“I’LL see Mister Cartwright out, Mama!” Rachael’s own voice sounded far away in her own ears, almost as if spoken by someone else.

“Darling, I’ve just asked Marjorie to— ”

“It’s all right, I’m already up.”

Clara frowned, then shrugged indifferently. “Go ahead, Rachael, but please do, DO hurry! I just can’t wait to show you these dress patterns, and the material. All the very latest thing, Darling. Please, hurry, hurry back.”

Rachael and Ben left the drawing room together and crossed the vestibule in silence.

At the front door, Ben turned, and cast a quick glance behind over Rachael’s shoulder. “Rachael, if you need me for anything . . . anything at all, please, don’t hesitate to ask,” he said, taking great care to keep his voice low. “You can send Annabelle if you need to.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright,” Rachael said gratefully.

“I ALSO want you to know if things get unbearable for you here, you’re more than welcome to stay with us at the Ponderosa.”

Rachael smiled, seeing the truth not only in Stacy’s promise of friendship, but in the words spoken by Lily Martin a short while ago. “Thank you, I’ll certainly keep that in mind.”

“RAAAAA-CHAEL! DARLING, COME ON! ”

“I . . . guess I’d better get back to her, Mister Cartwright,” Rachael said ruefully. “Thank you again for responding to my request so quickly.”

“I will again, if you need me,” Ben promised.

Rachael reluctantly entered the drawing room a moment later. She found her mother seated on the settee, squirming while arranging and rearranging pattern pictures, swatches of material, and samples of various trims, buttons, and notions spread out over the surface of the coffee table in front of her.

“Darling, whatever is wrong with you?!” Clara pouted. “It’s simply NOT like you to dawdle so, especially with a brand new dress in the offing.” The pout suddenly evaporated into a bright, sunny smile. “Come see, come see!”

Rachael walked over and sat down next to her mother on the settee.

“Aren’t these lovely, Darling?” Clara, her eyes and face shining with excitement, gestured to the five dress patterns she had picked out. “And Mrs. Darnier absolutely and positively assures me these are the very latest in fashion, direct from Paris, no less! Pick one for now, Darling, for the soiree. If you like any of the others, we can have them made up later, at our leisure.”

“Mama, these look more like . . . well, like party dresses,” Rachael remarked casually. “I thought you said this was going to be an intimate soiree, with just a few friends.”

“It WAS, Darling, I swear it was, but . . . well, you know how these things are! When Marjorie and I started putting together the invitation list, well . . . I started thinking, I couldn’t very well invite Millicent Adams without inviting the Danvers girl.” Clara sighed and grimaced. “The pair of them have been in each others pockets for quite sometime now, and even though the Danvers girl is wholly beneath our station in life, it would be most impolite to invite Millicent and NOT invite HER, after all.

“I also just went ahead and took the liberty of inviting Jenny Lind’s cousins, Darling. The one’s younger, fourteen or fifteen. They’re visiting the Linds from back east, New York, I think, or was that perhaps Baltimore or Philadelphia? You know how place names escape me, Darling, they always have, and in any case I couldn’t very well invite Jenny, and NOT invite her guests, especially seeing as how they’re all around your age.”

“Mama, you told me this morning that you didn’t want to invite Stacy because SHE’S too young!”

“Well, she IS, Darling.”

“But, you’re inviting Jenny Lind’s younger cousin, who’s even YOUNGER than Stacy?!”

“That’s different!”

“Why?”

“Oh, Darling, HONESTLY!” Clara chortled. “Jenny Lind’s younger cousin’s from back east, one of those big cities. People there are exposed to so very much more in the way of refinement and culture that . . . well it simply stands to reason Jenny Lind’s younger cousin’s BOUND to be far more mature and sophisticated than the likes of Stacy Cartwright . . . . ” Clara sighed and grimaced, “don’t YOU agree?”

“No, Mama, I don’t!” Rachael said sullenly.

“You will, Darling, believe me! You WILL . . . after you’ve had the chance to meet and talk with Jenny’s younger cousin!” Clara lightly dismissed her daughter’s words with a careless wave of her hand.

Rachael lapsed into a melancholy silence.

“Now where was I? Oh yes! Kirk Sutcliff will probably bring along that girl HE’S seeing now, even though she’s not much above a saloon girl from what I’ve heard,” Clara happily resumed her rambling. “Still, young men must sow their wild oats, that’s the nature of the beast, Darling, but even so! That means Poor Susan needs an escort! It would be too, too cruel seeing her former beau here with another, and not having another herself . . . don’t YOU think so, Darling?”

Rachael averted her eyes to the coffee table, trying desperately to tune out her mother’s endless flow of gossipy chatter.

“Darling?” Clara suddenly noticed Rachael’s lack of enthusiasm.

“Mama, how many people h-have you invited next Friday?”

“Taking into account all OUR social obligations, of course, visiting guests, who’s escorting WHOM these days, who’s speaking to whom . . . . ”

“Mama, how many did you invite?” Rachael wailed.

Clara frowned. “Darling, I simply couldn’t get away with less than fifty people. I just plain and simply couldn’t!”

“Oh no!”

“Why don’t I show you the guest list?” Clara suggested brightly. “If there’s others you’d like to invite, we can! The invitations haven’t gone out just yet.”

“Mama, you’ve really got your heart set on this party haven’t you?” Rachael could feel the walls moving again, edging inexorably closer.

“Darling, this party’s not for ME . . . it’s for YOU!”

“Then, can’t we just invite the Cartwrights here for dinner? I had such a wonderful visit with them yesterday . . . . ”

“ . . . which you’ve told me next to nothing ABOUT!” Clara snapped.

Rachael pointedly turned away, training her eyes on her hands, clasped tightly in her lap.

“Oh, Darling, please . . . don’t get me wrong, the Cartwrights are wonderful, wonderful people,” Clara said in a more conciliatory tone. “Your father and I have been good friends with Ben Cartwright for many, many years now, but . . . well, even YOU must admit they, ummm . . . ARE a little rough around the edges.”

This drew a sharp glare from Rachael.

“Well, they ARE, Darling, that’s the plain and simple truth of it,” Clara declared, emphatic yet very much on the defensive.

“I don’t know what you mean by a little rough around the edges, Mama,” Rachael said, her anger rising. “But yesterday, I found them to be very kind, very caring, and very gracious people.”

“Well, of COURSE they are, Darling, but— ”

“If money and breeding are all that matter to you, the Cartwrights have plenty on both counts,” Rachael said sardonically. “It’s common knowledge that they’re quite wealthy, and Mister Cartwright came here from Boston. I remember Papa saying so once, before . . . before I left.”

“I’ll thank you not to be so vulgar!” Clara rounded on her daughter with a sudden, ferocious rage. “And I don’t think you’d be so quick to say they’re such a good family, if you knew the whole truth about Miss Stacy Cartwright.”

“For your information, I DO!” Rachael turned on her mother in stout defense of her new found friends. “Both Stacy and Mister Cartwright were very forth coming, not only about Stacy, but about her mother, too.”

“They should’ve kept it quiet! Ben had already legally adopted the poor waif, he should’ve just left things at that.”

“No!” Rachael protested. Her voice broke as her own escalating anger pushed her to the edge of tears. “Like Mister Cartwright said yesterday, the truth has its way of making itself known. So they decided to tell the truth themselves sooner rather than later instead of having someone else tell the truth for them.”

“I thought Ben’s attitude was horrendously naive and I’ll have you know I flat out told him so, straight to his face, Rachael. NONE of them even stopped to think of the repercussions! NONE! Not even Ben, which to be honestly frank, surprised me, Darling. Ben’s usually so knowledgeable about human nature! In any case, when it DID become known that Ben and Stacy’s mother never married, well! A lot of people cut the Cartwrights dead socially, Dear.”

“Not their REAL friends, Mama. Mister Cartwright told me yesterday that those who were their real friends before, REMAIN their friends now.” Rachael paused to wipe her eyes on the sleeve of her blouse. “As for the others, well, in the interests of NOT being vulgar, I’ll just say, Stacy expressed it very well.”

Her defense of the Cartwrights having been made, Rachael braced herself, mentally and emotionally for the full brunt of her mother’s wrath. Clara’s fury, however, had dissipated, as abruptly and as quickly as it had initially manifested itself. She smiled at Rachael, and once more turned conciliatory. “Please, Rachael, I don’t want to fight with you. Tell you what, Darling. We WILL have the Cartwrights here for dinner.”

“Thank you, Mama,” Rachael murmured gratefully.

“ . . . sometime AFTER your party next Friday night!”

Rachael groaned.

“Darling, are you alright?” Clara eyed her daughter apprehensively. “What did Doctor Martin say when he was here?”

“He said I’m perfectly healthy,” Rachael said. Her valiant labor to keep her voice measured and even produced a dead monotone. “He wants to see me in his office in a month or so.”

Clara frowned. “Whatever for, Darling?”

“Just to make sure, Mama. It’s been awhile since I had a proper check up, he just wants to make absolute sure I’m ok, that’s all.”

“That makes some sense, I suppose, but I’d much, much rather HE come HERE, Darling. That way Marjorie and I can be with you.”

That was the very last thing Rachael wanted. “Mama, he can’t give me a complete and thorough check up HERE, and besides . . . Mrs. Martin will be with us.”

“But, Darling, I’m your mother.”

“Mama, I AM a big girl now. You don’t need to hold my hand for everything.”

Clara felt as if Rachael had just slapped her hard in the face. “But, Rachael Darling, I’m your mother. I WANT to be there, to hold your hand.”

Rachael closed her eyes and forced herself to turn away from the stricken, horrified look on her mother’s face. “Mama, please? I need to do this BY MYSELF.”

“Well!” Clara murmured, stung.

“Mama, can I look at these dresses later? I’m feeling kind of tired right now, and I’d like to go to my room, and lie down.”

“Of course, Darling. We can look at these tonight, after supper.”

Clara sat on the drawing room settee, unmoving, her eyes riveted to her daughter’s retreating back. Rachael’s odd behavior disturbed and frightened her. She found her daughter conversing easily enough with Ben Cartwright when she had come upon them a few minutes before. But when SHE entered the room, Rachael suddenly had nothing to say. Worse, the prospect of playing checkers, of all things, with Joe Cartwright . . . .

Clara moaned softly, and shook her head in complete and utter bewilderment. Joe was a nice enough boy, and good looking, too, in his own way, but a very far cry from the kind of young man she had envisioned as the proper sort of husband for her daughter.

. . . and that a return visit to the Ponderosa, playing checkers, and who knows? . . . another ride with Joe and Stacy Cartwright to some other remote, God-forsaken place on the Ponderosa would hold more allure than a wonderful party and a brand new dress . . . .

Clara sighed and shook her head once again, feeling hurt, angry, and bewildered.

“Perhaps Rachael IS tired as she said,” Clara murmured to herself as she gathered up the patterns, material swatches, buttons, and samples of the laces and trim Madame Darnier had sent along home with her. She smiled suddenly, and her entire face lit up once more with anticipation and excitement. “Rachael will be feeling more the thing after supper, I’m sure of it. We’ll have a wonderful time this evening pouring over those beautiful dress patterns and all these lovely dress materials . . . just like before. We will, I just know it! I can’t wait!”

*********

Chapter 8

“Carrie?! Carrie! Oh thank goodness, you’re back!” Hannah Adams greeted Carrie Blanchard effusively the instant she set foot inside the Adams’ Virginia City town house the following morning.

“G-good morning, Mrs. Adams, and . . . thank you,” Carrie said, taken aback by her employer’s enthusiastic greeting.

“I had Tina Gayle and Nancy Loomis in while you were out working at the Marlowes for the last three weeks, like you suggested, but . . . . ” Hannah exhaled a long, melancholy sigh. “They just plain don’t know how to clean a house like YOU do.”

“Thank you again, Mrs. Adams, however, I may be working at the Marlowes toward the end of next week. Miss Klein will be letting me know in the next couple of days, or so . . . I hope.”

Hannah’s face fell. “Oh dear, dear, dear! I hope you won’t be gone for another three weeks!”

“No, more on the order of three days,” Carrie smiled, and hastened to reassure. “I’ll be helping out with a small party Mrs. Marlowe’s giving in honor of her daughter, Rachael’s, home coming next Friday night.”

“Oh yes! Millicent’s been invited,” Hannah exclaimed with glee.

Carrie Blanchard cast a quick, furtive glance over her shoulder. “Before you accept for your daughter, Mrs. Adams, there’s something you really should know . . . . ”

*********

Hannah Adams was still seated on the settee in the family living room, unmoving, her light blue eyes fixed on the flames of the wood fire leaping in the fireplace. “What could Clara Marlowe POSSIBLY be thinking of?” she wondered aloud, for at least the thousandth time. Though her own husband, Seth, adamantly decried their blatant ostentatiousness, AND it WAS true that Clara Marlowe tended to be snooty and wholly condescending about places and people west of the Appalachians, she had nonetheless ALWAYS been THE model of propriety and decorum. Most of the other ladies of their social position often looked to her as their example.
Hannah Adams felt heartily sorry for poor Rachael. Spending the last five years living like a savage must have been a terrible ordeal for one so gently born and raised. But to come home with child . . . Hannah shuddered delicately, trying to imagine the absolute horror that girl must have endured. Even so, Carrie Blanchard was absolutely right when she said that Mrs. Marlowe should be making plans to send the girl away, at least until the baby was born and could be adopted. THAT would be in Rachael’s best interests, not throwing a big party and inviting half the population of Virginia City.

The sound of someone knocking at the door, abruptly drew her from her troubled musings. Hannah automatically rose.

“Don’t trouble yourself, Mrs. Adams,” Carrie said, as she passed by the open living room door. “I’LL get it.”

“Th-thank you, Dear.” Hannah sank back down onto the settee. “Carrie?”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“If the caller is Myra Danvers, would you please show her in?”

“Yes, Ma’am, I will.”

A few moments later, Myra Danvers entered the room, her face aglow, and eyes shining with excitement. “Hannah, you’ll never guess!” she gushed. “It arrived by messenger, just this morning!”

“Pruella received an invitation to that homecoming party Clara Marlowe’s giving for her daughter?”

For a moment, Myra was completely taken aback. “Why, yes, how . . . oh! Of course, Millicent would have received one, too.”

Hannah nodded.

“You don’t seem very happy about it,” Myra observed, looking over at her friend, askance.

“Please, excuse my manners, I shouldn’t have kept you standing for so long, Myra,” Hannah said, rising. She gently took Myra by the arm and led her into the living room. “Please come in and sit down, I . . . oh dear, I’m so shocked right now, I’m just not thinking straight.”

“Oh dear!” Myra’s eyes went round with horror. “I hope you haven’t received any bad news.”

“No, at least none concerning MY family.” She gestured for Myra to sit down on the settee. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea, perhaps?”

“No, thank you,” Myra declined. “I came over to talk about the Marlowes’ party. Mrs. Marlowe’s so exacting, I . . . well, I don’t want Pruella to go improperly dressed, not knowing how to comport herself correctly.”

“Myra, I have to tell you straight out, that I intend to send Clara Marlowe my regrets on Millicent’s behalf,” Hannah said firmly.

Myra’s jaw dropped.

“It seems Clara Marlowe’s suffered an appalling lapse in comportment and decorum. I have it on VERY good authority that Rachael Marlow . . . . ”

*********

Four days later, Clara Marlowe left home in the company of Marjorie Klein and Babette Dechard, her head housekeeper and personal maid respectively, bound and determined to hostess her planned party for Rachael, come hell or high water. It galled her the way Rachael STILL woke up feeling sick to her stomach every morning, despite Doctor Martin’s supposed pronouncement of good health. Tom had suggested they seek a second opinion on Rachael’s physical health, and that idea, Clara supposed, had merit. If Rachael was still waking up sick in the morning come the Monday following the party, she would call in another physician herself.

That, however, wasn’t the point! The real point was the all the fuss, bother and inconvenience. As it was, Clara, herself, ended up choosing the pattern, material, and trim because for some reason wholly beyond all rational good sense, Rachael just plain and simply couldn’t be bothered. She was sick, she was tired, she was always something that kept her from sitting down and making those crucially important decisions. Clara sighed, longing for the days to return when she and Rachael sat down as they used to, spending long hours pouring over dress patterns, material, giggling and sharing the latest gossip.

“Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Marlowe?”

The sound of Myra Danvers’ voice stirred Clara from her melancholy reverie.

“Mrs. Marlowe, I want to thank you so very much for the kind invitation you extended to Pruella for the party you’ve planned in Rachael’s honor next Friday night.”

“Oh, not at all, Mrs. Danvers,” Clara said lightly.

Myra smiled. It was a secretive, smug, cat-that-ate-the cream smile. “I’m afraid we must decline, however. Pruella and I have a previous commitment, that we simply can’t cancel or postpone.”

Clara’s face fell.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Marlowe. Perhaps another time?” Myra nodded and moved on.

“I don’t understand this,” Clara murmured, as she stared after Myra Danvers’ retreating back in complete and utter astonishment. “She’s . . . what of how many now?”

“She makes twelve who have declined now,” Marjorie stated matter-of-factly. “If too many more offer their regrets, you may be back to the intimate soiree after all, Mrs. Marlowe.”

“No!” Clara pouted resolutely. “I’ll invite others if I must, but I promised Rachael a party, and a party she shall have. Come along, Marjorie . . . Babette.”

“Clara, is that you? Good morning.”

Clara turned and smiled upon recognizing the voice of Elizabeth Lind, Jenny’s mother. Her personal maid, Clementine, followed deferentially behind, just a little to the right. On her left was a young girl, Clara had not previously met. “Good morning, Elizabeth.”

“Clara, I’d like to present my niece, Miss Alicia Lewis from New York,” Elizabeth said, favoring the young girl with a smile. “She and her older sister, Lucille, are visiting. Alicia, this is Mrs. Marlowe, an old and very dear friend of mine.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Marlowe? I’m very pleased to meet you.”

“I’m fine, thank you, Miss Lewis, and I’m also very pleased to meet you,” Clara smiled at the girl, charmed by her outward show of perfect manners. “I hope to see you, with your sister and cousin at our home next Friday night.”

“Clara . . . . ”

“Yes, Elizabeth?”

“I, umm . . . sent one of the maids to your house with a message, but seeing as how we, uh . . . we’ve managed to run into each other, well . . . I may as well tell you in person, but . . . Jenny, Lucille, and Alicia won’t be able to accept your invitation on Friday night,” Elizabeth said haltingly. “We have a previous commitment.”

“Elizabeth, you of all people MUST know how important this is . . . for me AND for Rachael,” Clara whined. “Surely, whatever it is, you could postpone?”

“Clara, do you have a few minutes?” Elizabeth asked, with a sudden impulsive resolve. “I need to talk to you about something. Maybe YOU and I could go over to the International Hotel for a cup of tea?”

“Yes, I suppose I could have Marjorie and Babette finish things up.”

Elizabeth turned toward her maid. “Clementine, I’d like you and Alicia to finish up HER shopping. Have the shopkeepers put her purchases on my tab. I’ll meet you both in one hour at the post office.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Clementine nodded and ushered Alicia off.

Clara, in turn, instructed Marjorie and Babette to complete her business. “I’ll meet you both back here at Mrs. Darnier’s.”

*********

“Miss Rachael?”

Rachael looked up from the book lying open on her lap. She reclined on the day bed in her sitting room, recovering from another bout of morning sickness, clad in nightgown and robe. “Yes, Annabelle?”

“Mister Jenkins asked me to tell you that Miss Snodgres is here, waiting downstairs in the drawing room,” Annabelle said haltingly. “She’s been here . . . this makes the fourth time since you’ve come home, Miss. Mrs. Marlowe’s had Mister Jenkins tell her the other times that you were out or indisposed, but today . . . Mister Jenkins says today, she’s most insistent.”

“Is Miss Snodgres alone?” Rachael asked.

“Yes, Miss.”

“Then go down, and tell Jenkins I said for you to show her up . . . HERE to my sitting room,” Rachael said with a touch of annoyance.

“But, Miss, you mother instructed— ”

“I don’t CARE what my mother instructed,” Rachael snapped. “Miss Snodgres is MY friend here to visit ME. You WILL tell Jenkins that MY instructions are for you to show her up.”

“Y-yes, Ma’am.” Annabelle, with shoulders hunched, scurried out of the room.

“Of all the silly . . . just because Kate and Desmond— ” Rachael muttered as she angrily flung her book aside and ran to her dresser for a comb.

A few moments later, Annabelle returned with Kate Snodgres following close at her heels. Kate stood roughly the same height as Rachael, though more stolidly built, with honey blonde hair and blue eyes. Her clothing, a simply cut and tailored navy blue suit with a white ruffled blouse, was tasteful though not voguish.

“Oh, Rachael, I’ve tried and tried to see you . . . . ” Kate murmured as they embraced.

“I know, Annabelle just told me,” Rachael said with a touch of wryness. “Please sit down.”

Kate took the chair next to the daybed in Rachael’s sitting room. “Rachael, someone’s been spreading the most dreadful rumors about you,” she anxiously came to the point. “I had to come and warn you.”

A cold, hard knot began to form in the pit of Rachael’s stomach. “What is it, Kate?” she asked woodenly, fearing she already knew the answer.

“I overheard two of our upstairs maids talking this morning, Rachael. They were saying that you’re— ” Kate’s pale face flushed a deep crimson. “They said you were in the family way,” she finished quickly, averting her eyes to the floor.

Rachael, much to Kate’s surprise, burst into tears.

“Rachael?”

“Kate, it’s true,” Rachael sobbed. She haltingly told Kate of her marriage to Aiak Enanamuks, and how much she still loved him.

“Oh, Rachael . . . I . . . I’m so sorry,” Kate murmured with genuine sympathy, as she placed her arms around her shoulders. “If there’s ANYTHING I can do . . . . ”

“There is,” Rachael said, as she dried her tears on the edge of her robe. “Did you come in your buggy?”

“Yes . . . . ”

“Kate, I haven’t told Mama yet,” Rachael said quickly. “I’ve been afraid to because I . . . well, I just . . . don’t know WHAT she’s going to do.”

“I understand,” Kate said sympathetically. “What can I do?”

“Can you wait for me to get dressed, then drive me out to the Ponderosa?”

Kate looked at her askance.

“Ben Cartwright has been a friend of our family for a long time,” Rachael explained. “I’ve already told HIM everything I just told you. He told me to come to the Ponderosa if I needed to, and . . . I think I need to, if only to just talk to him, maybe between the two of us figure out HOW I’m going to tell Mama.”

“Figure out how you’re going to tell Mama WHAT?”

Rachael and Kate looked up, and saw Clara Marlowe standing framed in the open door, her posture ramrod straight, and arms folded tight across her chest. Her face was pale, and her eyelids red and swollen.

Clara turned and glared at Kate with murderous intensity. “KATE SNODGRES, GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!” she screamed. “WHAT, WHAT I ASK YOU, DO I HAVE TO DO TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN THIS HOUSE NOT NOW, NOT EVER AGAIN?!”

“K-Kate . . . m-maybe you better g-go and . . . . ”

Kate nodded, adroitly picking up Rachael’s unspoken message. “I will.”
“MARJORIE!”

Marjorie Klein immediately appeared in the doorway, behind the enraged Clara. “Yes, Mrs. Marlowe?”

“See that bag and baggage OUT of my house right now this very instant!” Clara ordered, thrusting her arm and pointing finger square at Kate.

“Yes, Ma’am.” Marjorie looked up at Kate with a cold, jaundiced eye. “Miss Snodgres, if you’ll come with me.”

Kate hesitated, unwilling to leave Rachael alone with the angry shrieking demon that seemed to have possessed Mrs. Marlowe’s body.

“Go ahead,” Rachael urged.

Kate nodded, and reluctantly followed Marjorie.

“I have never . . . NEVER . . . in all my life EVER . . . been so HUMILIATED!” Clara sobbed, turning the full force of her wrath on her daughter. “Everyone! EVERYONE, Rachael! Everyone in Virginia City . . . the area surrounding . . . probably everyone in the entire State of Nevada knows about your delicate condition! Everyone, except ME! ME! YOUR OWN MOTHER!”

“M-Mama, please . . . . ” Rachael involuntarily took a step backward, instinctively raising her arms as if to protect herself from physical blows.

“You wanton . . . immoral . . . . ” Clara growled as she moved into the room. “You’re nothing but a common WHORE!”

“I was married, Mama.”

“MARRIED?!” Clara shrieked. She balled her fist and struck Rachael hard across the face, with enough force to knock her daughter off her feet. “Marriage, Rachael, is a CHRISTIAN sacrament, that can ONLY take place in a CHURCH . . . WITH a minister. Period! Those . . . those damn’ heathen savages who kept you prisoner know NOTHING about the sanctity of Christian marriage! NOTHING! How COULD they? How could they POSSIBLY?! They’re no better than ANIMALS! DO YOU HEAR ME, RACHAEL? ANIMALS!!”

Clara, her face contorted with murderous rage, loomed menacingly above her daughter’s head. Rachael tried desperately to scuttle out from under her mother, to no avail. For every foot she moved, Clara seemed to move three. Within less than a minute, her back bumped up against a corner of the room.

“Mama, please?” Rachael whimpered fearfully, as she drew her legs up protectively toward her abdomen. “Please listen to me!”

“So NOW you want to talk!” Clara raged. “All those times, I asked you . . . I BEGGED you to talk to me . . . to tell me what was happening . . . to tell me what you did. I wanted so badly to hear then, Rachael, to hear everything, but YOU didn’t want to talk, not to ME anyway!”

With the wall so solidly behind her, and her mother raging over top and all around her, Rachael’s eyes darted from one side to the other, desperately seeking for some means of escape.

“You talked to Stacy, you talked to Ben, you talked to the Martins, you talked to your father . . . you even talked to that Snodgres witch! You talked to everyone, Rachael! Everyone except ME!” Clara ranted, clearly on the edge of hysteria. “Do you know how that makes me FEEL, Rachael? Do you have ANY idea at all?”

Rachael tried valiantly to fight back the swift rising tide of panic within her.
“How many, Rachael? Five? Ten? The whole tribe?!”

“No! Mama, it wasn’t like that! We were . . . ARE . . . husband and wife.”

“DID YOU ENJOY IT, RACHAEL?” Clara demanded, thoroughly repulsed.

Terrified and in fear of her own life and that of her unborn child, Rachael silently and fervently prayed for Kate and Ben to hurry. She curled tightly in fetal position, and braced herself for the expected physical violence soon to rain down upon her.

Suddenly, there was silence. Rachael found that even more terrifying than her mother’s hysterical ranting and raving. She slowly, fearfully opened her eyes. Clara stood, her posture ramrod straight, and arms held rigidly at her side. Her face was an impassive mask, with not the slightest trace of the rage, waxing so hot mere seconds before, remaining.

“You’re going away, Rachael.”

Rachael stared up at her mother, dumbfounded.

“It’s for your own good. You’re going someplace where you’ll be properly cared for, until your baby’s born. Then you’ll be moved to a sanitarium.”

“A . . . a s-sanitarium?!” Rachael echoed, stunned. “But, I . . . I don’t need a sanitarium.”

“I’m afraid you DO, Darling,” Clara said with a touch of sadness. “Your behavior since you’ve come home has been most disturbing to say the least.”

Rachael could feel the walls moving, closing in on her rapidly. She stared up at her mother, numb, horrified, the way a doomed mouse stares up at the snake poised, ready to deliver the fatal strike.

“The suffering you endured, it’s completely unhinged your mind. I see that now. To be honest, I . . . I knew all along you weren’t yourself, that something was dreadfully, desperately wrong, but I wanted to have you back so much, Darling. I wanted more than anything to have you back, to have things back just the way they were, I was selfish. Selfish and blind!”

Rachael, her eyes fixed on her mother’s placid face, slowly shook her head in denial.

“Your father and I love you very, very much, Darling, but we’re just not up to the task of caring for someone so . . . so mentally unhinged. I should never have tried.”

“What . . . what about my baby?” Rachael could barely manage to utter the words.

“Your father and I will see that it’s placed in a good foundling home, Rachael.”

“NO!” Rachael very suddenly and very forcefully found her voice. “No, Mama, you can’t do this!”

“It’s for your own good, Rachael, and I won’t let ANYONE stop us from doing what we need to do now, to help you. Not even Ben Cartwright!” With that, Clara turned heel and walked briskly toward the door. Rachael could only lie there and watch helplessly as her mother stepped out of her room, and resolutely closed the door behind her. The faint sound of a key turning in the lock fell on her ears like the dull thud of a casket lid being closed for the last time.

Possessed by the sudden, desperate vitality of her own rising panic, Rachael leapt to her feet, and bolted across the room toward the door. She turned the doorknob, pounded and shouted for someone to come, free her from the dark abyss in which she found herself. Minutes later, her energy all but spent, she slowly turned toward the window.

*********

The vigorous, desperate pounding shook the front door of the Cartwright home on its hinges, prompting a string of colorful Chinese invectives from Hop Sing as he ambled in from the kitchen to answer the front door. He threw the door open, with every intention of giving the individual standing without a piece of his mind. The sight of Kate Snodgres’ pale face, her eyes round with fright, strangled the words before he could utter them.

“Please . . . . ” Kate wheezed breathlessly. “Mister Cartwright . . . I need to see Mister Cartwright right away!”

“Missy come in.” Hop Sing gently took her by the arm and drew her inside. “MISTER CARTWRIGHT!”

Ben immediately appeared at the top of the stairs. “What is it, Hop Sing?”

“Missy here. Must speak with Mister Cartwright. Urgent, right now!”

“Mister Cartwright,” Kate half sobbed as she ran across the room to the landing. “I’m Kate Snodgres, a friend of Rachael Marlowe’s. She asked me to come get you. She needs your help! Desperately! I . . . Dear God, I only hope we’re . . . that we’re n-not too late . . . . ”

Ben, with heart in mouth ran down the stairs. “Hop Sing!”

“Yes, Mister Cartwright?”

“If Hoss and Joe return from Valhalla before I get back, send them to the Marlowes right away. I’ll probably need them!” Ben looked over, his eyes meeting and holding Kate’s. “Let’s go, Miss Snodgres.” He paused at the door, just long enough to put on his gun belt, and grab his coat scarf and hat. “Miss Snodgres, do you ride?”

“Yes,” Kate immediately replied.

“Good. We can make better time on horseback than by buggy.” Ben bolted out through the front door and tore across the yard toward the barn, while buttoning his long, fleece lined jacket. Kate Snodgres trotted at his heels.

“CANDY! BOBBY! KEVIN!”

“Yes, Mister Cartwright?” Candy responded, as he stepped out of the bunkhouse with Kevin Hennessey and Bobby Washington sprinting close behind.

“Saddle my horse,” Ben ordered, “and saddle Guinevere for Miss Snodgres.”

“Miss Snodgres, do you prefer to ride side saddle or astride?” Bobby asked, turning his attention to the distraught woman standing alongside his employer.

“I can ride faster astride,” Kate replied.

“Pa?” It was Stacy. She stepped out of the chicken yard, with the empty feed tray in one hand and a basket filled with eggs in the other. “Pa, what’s wrong? Where are you going?”

“I’m going to the Marlowes, Stacy,” Ben replied. “Rachael’s in trouble.”

“Pa . . . I know I’m on restriction, ‘n all, but . . . may I go with you? Please?” Stacy begged.

“Have you finished feeding the chickens and gathering the eggs?” Ben asked.

“Just finished,” Stacy replied.

“Alright,” Ben acquiesced. “You get those eggs in to Hop Sing and get your horse saddled. I have a real strong feeling that Rachael’s gonna need all the real friends she has right now . . . . ”

*********

Chapter 9

Rachael, her face set with grim determination, threw up the sash of the window facing her bed, and stepped out onto the roof. A strange, numbing calm stole over her entire being as she adeptly made her way over the roof, shading the verandah stretching across the back of the house. She moved as Lammieh Towakh Moon taught her, silent and swift as her namesake, the deer. Rachael reached the far end of the roof and climbed down the rose trellis, dropping lightly to her feet on the ground below.

She bolted across the yard toward the barn, aware of the cold, yet impervious to it, despite the woefully inadequate protection her thin nightgown, wrapper, and silk slippers offered. Rachael opened the barn door and stepped inside, pausing momentarily to glare at the three stable boys seated on milking stools, huddled around a small, wood burning stove for warmth. “YOU!” she shouted, thrusting her finger at the tallest. “SADDLE MY HORSE!”

“M-Miss Rachael?” he murmured fearfully, shrinking away from his employer’s daughter, standing over him, glowering down at him menacingly, her hair flying in all directions like Medusa’s snakes.

“I SAID . . . SADDLE MY HORSE!”

The three boys stared up at her dumbfounded, unable to move.

“Of all the damned stupid idiots!” she raged. “I’ll do it myself!”

Rachael, possessed of an insane, desperate strength and vitality, led her horse from its stable, slipped on the bridle, blanket, and saddle, as the stable boys watched with a fearful, morbid fascination. She then threw open the large barn door, mounted her horse, urging it to a hard fast gallop.

*********

“Hey, Joe . . . that looks like Rachael Marlowe!” Hoss pointed toward the horse and rider crossing the road up ahead, galloping at breakneck speed.

The two of them were returning from Valhalla, a small, but lucrative spread owned, managed, and operated by a woman named Brunhilda Odinsdottir. She and Hoss had come to be very good friends over the past few months. Joe and Stacy, also, often accompanied Hoss on his visits to Valhalla ostensibly as chaperons. More often than not, however, the pair of them ended up keeping company with Olaf Erikson, Brunhilda’s chief cook and bottle washer, in the kitchen, over a big plate full of fresh baked oatmeal raison cookies and a glass of his home made ale, leaving Hoss and Brunhilda to enjoy each other’s company in the relative privacy of her formal parlor.

“You’re right, Big Brother!” Joe said, with an anxious, bewildered frown. “That IS Rachael Marlowe. I wonder what she’s supposed to be dressed for?”

“I dunno, Shortshanks,” Hoss said grimly. “But, she’s gonna end up catchin’ her death if she stays out f’r too long in that get up. Come on.” Without further preamble, he urged Chubb to a fast gallop, then set off across the snow-covered meadow after Rachael.

“Let’s go, Cooch,” Joe murmured softly as he deftly turned his pinto, then set off behind Hoss and Chubb.

*********

“I’m very sorry, Mister Cartwright, but Mister Marlowe is away, and not expected to return until late this evening . . . VERY late this evening,” Jenkins said in a firm, succinct, and faintly condescending tone of voice that set Ben’s teeth on edge. He made a point of ignoring Stacy and Kate, who stood on the doorstep with Mister Cartwright, flanking him on either side.

“Mister Jenkins, I am NOT here to see Mister Marlowe,” Ben returned stiffly. “I’m here to see Miss Rachael Marlowe, at HER request, I might add.”

“Again, Sir, I am terribly, terribly sorry,” Jenkins responded without missing a beat. “But Miss Marlowe is quite indisposed and is NOT receiving visitors.”

“Indisposed, my a—!” Stacy exclaimed, her face darkening with rage. Her words came to an abrupt end upon catching sight of the withering glare on her father’s face; the one Joe wryly referred to as “The Look.”

Satisfied that his daughter would, for the moment at least, hold her tongue, and behave herself, Ben returned his attention to Jenkins, still standing framed in the open front door of the Marlowes’ grand and glorious home. “Mister Jenkins, my patience is at an end,” he said, endeavoring to keep his voice calm and even. “One way or another we ARE going to see Miss Marlowe. Now, you can either stand aside and let us in, or I can personally MOVE you aside. It’s entirely up to you.”

Jenkins opened his mouth with every intention of daring Mister Cartwright to follow through on his threat to forcibly move him aside. The ferocious scowl on Ben’s face, however, gave him due cause to reflect and reconsider. His mouth snapped shut, as he grudgingly stepped aside.

Ben bolted into the foyer beyond, with Stacy and Kate Snodgres running close behind him. “RACHAEL?” he bellowed. “RACHAEL, IT’S BEN CARTWRIGHT!”

“Pa, this way!” Stacy called out, as she turned and bolted toward the stairs, leading up to the second floor. “Rachael’s room is this way.”

“We’re right behind you, Young Woman,” Ben replied, as he and Kate turned and followed.

At the top of the staircase, they found Marjorie Klein waiting. She stood stiffly erect, with arms folded defiantly across her chest, and her face set with grim, angry determination.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Mister Cartwright, but the way out is back the way you came,” Marjorie stated imperiously, punctuating her words with a dramatic thrust of her arm toward the front door at the bottom of the steps.

“Miss Klein, Rachael Marlowe asked me to come,” Ben said through clenched teeth.

“She’s indisposed,” Marjorie said primly. “QUITE indisposed like Mister Jenkins just said.”

“Then I’ll tell YOU the same thing I told him, Miss Klein,” Ben said. “Miss Marlowe herself asked me to come. I am NOT leaving until I see her!”

Stacy feinted to her left. When the housekeeper moved to block her, she quickly sidestepped and ran past before the woman could even think of trying to stop her. “Pa! Miss Snodgres! This way!”

“HEY! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE— ” Marjorie protested, in tones of righteous indignation. Her first thought was to pursue Stacy. To that end, she pivoted and took a single step, opening up a space with plenty of room to allow Kate and Ben egress. The easily slipped past the housekeeper and continued down the long, dimly lit hallway after Stacy.

Marjorie, meanwhile, turned and ran the other way, screaming for Jenkins at the top of her voice.

Stacy led Ben and Kate down the entire length of the corridor before them, turning left at the end. She bolted up the backstairs, taking them two-by-two, up to the third floor, when the family members’ bedrooms were located. She tore down the hall, stopping at a door half way down, on the right. “RACHAEL?” she cried, pounding on the closed door with all her might. RACHAEL, IT’S ME! STACY! PA AND MISS SNODGRES ARE WITH ME, TOO!”

There was no answer.

“RACHAEL! PLEASE OPEN UP! IT’S OK . . . PA, MISS SNODGRES, ‘N ME ARE HERE TO HELP YOU!”

“Stacy, let me,” Ben said softly as he moved in along side his daughter. Kate and Stacy exchanged worried glances, while Ben’s fingers closed around the glass doorknob. “It’s locked!” he muttered through clenched teeth, after trying several times to turn it.

“Yes, it is, Ben, and it’s going to stay locked!”

Ben, Stacy, and Kate turned and found Clara standing a few feet away, her calm placid tone at frightening odds against the rigid set of her jaw, and her eyes wide, and staring intensely.

“Clara, what’s the meaning of this?” Ben demanded, as he instinctively moved himself between Stacy and Kate on one side, and Clara Marlowe on the other. A dark, angry scowl knotted and deepened the lines of his brow.

“Ben, you and Stacy were told that Rachael is indisposed,” Clara said. “As for YOU, Miss Snodgres, I thought I made it abundantly clear to that your presence in this house is NOT welcome.”

“What have you done with Rachael?” Kate demanded.

“My daughter’s welfare is none of your business.”

“Clara, Rachael sent for me,” Ben said, taking great care not to allow his own growing anger to get the better of him. “I’m not going to leave here until I see her.”

“Ben, you’ve been very kind to my daughter, and I appreciate it far more than I can say,” Clara said. “I don’t how what Rachael may have told you, but judging from the look on your face, it must have been pretty horrible. But, the truth of the matter is, it’s all a pack of dreadful lies told you by a young lady who’s completely lost her mind.”

“Clara, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull . . . . ” Ben growled.

“I’m not trying to pull anything, Ben. I’m just plain and simply facing the truth, painful though it may be.”

“ . . . and what truth is that?” Ben demanded.

“That Rachael’s ordeal living among those savages in Oregon has completely unhinged her mind.”

Ben, Stacy, and Kate stared at Clara, stunned.

“That’s why we’re taking Rachael away.”

“YOU’RE the one who’s lying, Mrs. Marlowe,” Stacy said, her entire body trembling now with rage and fear for Rachael’s well being. “There’s NOTHING wrong with Rachael! Nothing at all . . . and YOU bloody damn well know it!”

“Really, Ben!” Clara exclaimed, with righteous indignation. “It’s bad enough you allow that child to run around looking like a . . . a . . . like one of your field hands. But this . . . this is simply outside of enough!”

“That doesn’t change the fact that she’s right, Clara,” Ben countered, as he placed a restraining hand firmly down upon his daughter’s shoulder. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with Rachael . . . and YOU know it.”

“You’re wrong, Ben,” Clara said, her voice filled with sadness. “There IS something wrong with Rachael . . . terribly, terribly wrong. That’s why she’s going away. Tom and I are going take her someplace where she’ll be properly looked after, and cared for.”

“ . . . and the baby?” Ben asked.

“The baby will have to go to a foundling home, of course. Heaven knows Rachael’s not fit to care for it properly, and Tom and I . . . . ” She shrugged with an air of supreme indifference. “Well, at our age, we just plain and simply DON’T have the wherewithal to cope with the demands of caring for and raising another child. Far better for everyone concerned that it go up for adoption, or at the very least it be placed with people who are equipped to take care of it, raise it properly.”

The image of Lucinda McGuinness, appearing as she did in the photograph, slammed hard into Ben’s thoughts, her lifeless body hanging from the rafters in her bedroom. Next, he saw Stacy, as the young woman she had become, galloping across country on Blaze Face, laughing, her hair flying free in the breeze generated by the forward motion of her horse. Rachael Marlowe stood at the crossroads, the proverbial fork on the road between those two possibilities. With that realization, the iron clad will Ben had exerted to keep his temper in check, finally shattered.

“Go ahead, Clara!” Ben rounded on her furiously, his voice filled with scathing contempt. “Go ahead! Get rid of ‘em! Lock your daughter . . . your only child . . . away for the rest of her natural life in a sanitarium somewhere then place her baby . . . your grandchild . . . the ONLY grandchild you and Tom will ever have, like as not . . . in a foundling home. That’ll make it all the easier for you to forget all about them.”

“How DARE you, Ben? HOW DARE YOU?!” Clara angrily stamped her foot. “Do you honestly think this is EASY for Tom and me?”

“Yes, Clara, I think its VERY easy for Tom and you,” Ben returned in an ice-cold tone that sent a shiver running down the length of Kate’s spine, and raised the fine hairs on the back of Stacy’s neck. “In fact, it’s only TOO easy for Tom and you! You don’t give a damn about Rachael, do you.”

“I LOVE RACHAEL!” Clara screamed, with tears running down her face. “I DO! I LOVE HER WITH ALL MY HEART! I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS . . . I HAVE NO CHOICE! CAN’T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?! I HAVE NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER! NONE!”

“No, I don’t suppose you do,” Ben said, his voice filled with bitterness and rancor. “Not if you want to keep your lives and your so called reputation neat, clean, and tidy.”

“That’s enough, Ben.”

“Oh, Tom! Darling, Darling, thank God!” Clara sobbed and she turned and ran to the safety of her husband’s arms, now opening to receive her.

“Ben, you, your daughter, and Miss Snodgres will do as my wife has asked immediately,” Tom Marlowe said as he took Clara into his arms and held her close.

“Tom, I’m gonna tell YOU the same thing I told your wife, your housekeeper, and the man who answers your door. Rachael herself asked me to come. I’m not going anywhere until I see her,” Ben stubbornly held his ground.

“Mister Jenkins AND Miss Klein both have already told me about the three of you pushing your way in here, and badgering poor Clara,” Tom said in a tight, angry voice. “Mister Jenkins has gone into town to fetch Sheriff Coffee, at MY request. If you aren’t gone by then, I WILL have all three of you jailed for trespass.”

“Did Mister Jenkins and Miss Klein also tell you about Clara’s plans to have Rachael placed in a sanitarium?” Ben demanded, glaring over at Tom.

The initial anger on Tom’s face gave way to complete and utter shock.

“Well, Clara? Aren’t you going to tell your husband about the arrangements you’ve made to send Rachael away?” Ben’s voice dripped with acid sarcasm.

“Tom . . . Darling, I WAS going to tell you, tonight, after supper. Honest and truly, I was!”

“I don’t understand, Clara? Tell me . . . what?!”

“It’s all for Rachael’s own good, Darling,” Clara turned to her husband, her tone wheedling, every shred of the raw fury present seconds earlier, gone.

“Go ON, Clara. Tell Tom about the arrangements you’ve made for Rachael to be placed in a sanitarium and her child to be placed in a foundling home,” Ben said in a cold, angry tone.

Tom looked from his wife to Ben, then back to his wife. “Clara, what’s Ben talking about?”

“We’ll discuss this later, Darling, after supper . . . after we’ve been able to relax from this horrible ordeal we’ve suffered . . . at the hands of . . . of people I thought were our friends, and— ”

“Why wait?” Ben demanded. “Why not discuss it right now?”

“Oh, Darling, Darling, Darling,” Clara whined, “you KNOW how disturbing poor Rachael’s behavior’s been, surely you of all people can see— ”

“Tom, Rachael sent for me,” Ben said earnestly. “RACHAEL asked me to come.”

“Mister Cartwright’s telling the truth, Mister Marlowe,” Kate said in a small, quiet, yet very firm voice. “Rachael asked me to ride out to the Ponderosa and ask Mister Cartwright to come.”

“Tom, all I ask is to be allowed to see and talk with Rachael.”

“Since it would appear that Rachael herself sent for you . . . your request is not unreasonable,” Tom murmured very softly.

“No, Tom . . . NO! You CAN’T!” Clara protested. “It’s completely and utterly OUT of the question!”

Tom stepped past his wife and made his way to the fast closed door to Rachael’s room. He knocked discreetly. “Rachael? It’s Papa. Mister Cartwright, Stacy, and Miss Snodgres are here to see you.”

No answer.

Tom tried the door. Finding it locked, he looked up, his eyes meeting those of his wife. “Clara, may I have the key?”

“Tom, no! Rachael’s much too ill— ”

“Clara, the key.” Tom held out his hand expectantly. “Please.”

“No, Tom! No! This is all been very distressing for me!” Clara whined. “Very distressing indeed! I will not have poor Rachael exposed to all this sordid— ”

“Clara, if you don’t give me the key, I am going to stand aside and let Ben break the door down.”

Clara’s jaw dropped. “Tom, no! You wouldn’t!”

Tom stepped aside. “Go ahead, Ben.”

Clara exhaled a long sigh of exasperation. She reached into the pocket of her dress, drew out the key and angrily slapped it into Tom’s outstretched hand. “I did everything I could for Rachael, honest and truly!” she stated in a sullen tone of voice. “I tried very HARD to protect her, to be patient with her, to . . . to understand . . . surely . . . surely you can see that!”

Tom slipped the key in the lock and turned it while Ben, Stacy, and Kate looked on anxiously. He eased the door open, and stepped inside, with his unwanted visitors following close at his heels. Clara very slowly, very reluctantly brought up the rear.

“It’s awfully cold in here!” Kate declared, rubbing her arms to generate warmth.

“Oh for the—!! Honestly!” Clara groaned, angry and exasperated upon seeing that the only window in the room stood wide open with the sash pushed all the way up, and the curtains thrust aside, allowing the sun to stream in. “Is it any wonder that girl has been so sick ever since she came home?!” she groused, as she strode across the room, moving at a brisk pace. She paused just long enough to shove Kate out of her way with force sufficient to sent the girl toppling to the floor in an ungainly heap.

“Clara!” Tom cried, bewildered and astonished, while Stacy ran to help Kate back up to her feet.

“Tom? I . . . I don’t think Rachael’s here,” Ben quietly observed, as the ever present sense of foreboding within him suddenly intensified.

“Don’t be silly, Ben,” Clara angrily admonished him, as she stepped before the window. “She’s here!” She reached up and seized hold of the sash with both hands. “She’s hiding somewhere in this room, watching . . . laughing at us behind our . . . b-behind our . . . our . . . . ” Her words died away to a stunned, fearful silence.

“Clara?” Tom queried, as he and Ben exchanged uneasy glances.

“No . . . . ” Clara moaned, wagging her head slowly back and forth. She stood before the open window, unmoving, with her hands still gripping the sash. “Oh no . . . no . . . oh no, no . . . no . . . . ”

“Dear God . . . . ” Tom murmured, watching his wife through eyes round with terror. At the same time there was an air of fatalistic resignation in the way he spoke and in the way he stood, with shoulders slightly stooped and arms hanging down at his sides. “Ben, it’s . . . it’s like the last time. Just like the last time.”

“Last time?!” Ben echoed, with a bewildered frown. “The last time . . . what?”

“The day we found out the stage on which Rachael was riding had been robbed, and . . . and all the passengers killed,” Tom said mournfully, his eyes glued to his wife. “All except Rachael, who . . . who was no where to be found.”

Stacy, meanwhile, had silently made her way to the window. She eased her way around Clara, taking care not to startle or disturb her any more than she had been already. She stole a quick glance at Clara’s face, then followed the line of her vision.

“Pa?”

Stacy’s voice, filled with apprehension and utter bewilderment, drew Ben’s attention from Tom and from his own troubled thoughts. He lifted his head and glanced over at his daughter now standing before the window along side Clara Marlowe.

“Pa . . . I . . . think . . . you and Mister Marlowe oughtta come take a look at this . . . . ”

Ben gave Tom’s shoulder a gentle, reassuring squeeze before walking over to the window. Tom followed slowly, shuffling across the floor, wringing his hands in complete, and utter despair. Kate Snodgres silently fell in behind Tom.

“What is it, Stacy?” Ben asked as he moved in behind his daughter.

“Look.” She pointed to the gently sloping, roof that sheltered the wide veranda that ran the entire length of the back of the house.

Ben’s eyes followed the line of Stacy’s extended arm and pointing finger. There, in the snow covering the back verandah roof, were human footprints.

“You want me to trail ‘em, Pa?” Stacy asked, as she followed the line of footprints down the length of roof, stretching away from the open window in Rachael’s bedroom, all the way to the end, where they appeared to turn the corner.

“If she’s indeed gone around the corner . . . as that line of prints seems to suggest . . . at the very end of that roof, there’s a rose trellis,” Tom said, speaking very quietly, his voice a bland monotone. “It’s not sturdy by any means, but it might hold someone light on her feet . . . able to move quickly.”

“Stacy, I know where that rose trellis is,” Kate said. “Would you be able to trail Rachael from there?”

“Yes,” Stacy replied. “With all the snow on the ground, trailing her should be very easy.”

“Let’s go,” Kate urged. She, then, lifted her long, heavy skirts, and bolted across the room, beating a straight path toward the door, still standing wide open. Stacy silently followed.

Ben started after Kate and Stacy, moving across the room at a brisk pace. Upon reaching the door, he paused briefly. “Tom?”

“What NOW, Ben?” Tom queried with asperity as he moved across the room in the opposite direction, toward the window, where his wife yet remained.

“You coming?”

“No,” Tom replied very quietly, as he reached out and very gently took Clara into his arms. “I have to see to my wife.”

*********

Stacy and Kate, meanwhile, had, in very short order, followed Rachael’s trail from the rose trellis, by which she had climbed down from the roof over the verandah, around to the large stable, set behind the house directly across a small expanse of yard from the kitchen door.

“Yes, Miss Snodgres . . . yes! She’s b-been here . . . . ” the eldest of the three stable boys replied to Kate’s stern questioning. All three were still visibly shaken from their encounter with Rachael Marlowe less than an hour before.

“ . . . and you didn’t stop her?!”

“Sp-speaking for myself, Miss, I . . . well . . . . ” Two spots of bright scarlet erupted on each cheek, standing out in stark contrast against his pallid complexion. The young man immediately dropped his gaze to his booted feet. “Speaking for myself, Miss Snodgres,” he said very quickly, in a voice barely audible, “I . . . I w-was afraid she’d . . . that she’d KILL me, if— ”

“If that isn’t the most ridiculous—!” Kate sputtered, incredulous, angry, and worried sick.

“YOU didn’t see her, Miss,” the youngest of the three boys stoutly declared, as he leapt from his stool by the fire to his feet. “That look on her face—” He shuddered. “It wouldda scared off the very devil himself!”

“It looks like she went THIS way,” Stacy quickly interjected, before Kate could respond to the remarks made by the youngest of the three stable boys. Finding Rachael before she injured herself, whether intentionally or by accident, or froze to death was paramount. There would be ample time and opportunity for calling the three stable boys out in the carpet for what they did . . . or failed to do . . . later.

“Yes. Yes, she did, Miss Cartwright,” the eldest boy confirmed, as his gaze followed the line of Stacy’s extended arm and pointing finger toward hoof prints in the snow that lead around the other side toward the front of the house and the roadway beyond.

“Stacy?! Miss Snodgress?”

It was Ben. Stacy glanced up sharply upon hearing the sound of his voice. He had just stepped down off the verandah and started across the yard toward the stable. Stacy turned and ran back across the yard, meeting her father half way.

“The stable boys said Rachael took her horse and headed off that way,” she reported, pointing out the trail and the direction in which it led. “Pa . . . . ”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“The trail looks pretty fresh,” she said. “If I go after her now on Blaze Face, maybe . . . just maybe I can get to her before . . . before she— ” Stacy abruptly broke off, unable, unwilling to complete that dire thought.

“Go ahead,” Ben readily gave his permission. “Miss Snodgres and I will be right behind you.”

Stacy nodded, then turned heel and tore around to the front of the house where their horses remained tethered to the hitching post in the driveway.

“Ellis, Miss Marlowe’s in a bad way right now.” Kate, in the meantime, had returned her attention to the eldest of the three stable boys, addressing him in a tone of voice far more kindly than she had a few moments before. “Mister Cartwright and I need to borrow the phaeton.”

“Yes, Miss Snodgres.” Ellis immediately jumped up from his own stool by the wood-burning stove, yanking the middle boy to his feet. “We’ll have if done for ya in a jiffy.”

“Thank you,” Ben murmured softly, drawing shy smiles from the two older boys. “I have a job for you, too, Young Man,” he continued, as he turned his attention to the youngest.

“Yes, Sir?” the boy queried.

“I want you to go around front and get our horses . . . mine and Miss Snodgres’,” Ben said. “You’ll find them tethered to the post out front.”

Stacy, meanwhile, urged Blaze Face to a fast gallop, upon reaching the main road. The trail, left by Rachael Marlowe and her horse, stood out with surprising clarity against the snow, the mud, the hooves and wheel ruts of any number of horses and other vehicles, including a large freight wagon, loaded to full capacity, judging from the depth of the furrows, left behind to mark its passing. At the bend in the road, situated roughly a quarter of a mile from the spot where the entrance to the Marlowes’ extensive property, Rachael’s trail left the road, and continued across a wide meadow toward the mountains.

When she and Blaze Face turned from the road toward the meadow, Stacy saw the tracks of two horses following after Rachael’s. Both sets were fresh . . . very fresh. For one brief, heart-stopping moment, she feared that poor Rachael might facing terrible trouble.

“Come on, Blaze Face . . . . ” With an angry, determined scowl on her face, Stacy again urged her horse to a fast gallop, heedless of the consequences. She caught sight of the two riders a scant few moments later.

*********

Hoss and Joe respectively brought Chubb and Cochise to a complete stop the instant their sharp ears picked up the sounds of a lone horse and rider coming from behind them.

“He’s comin’ up on us mighty fast, whoever he is,” Hoss grimly observed. His hand automatically dropped down to touch his revolver.

Joe turned Cochise slightly, to get a better look at the horse and rider closing in on them. He frowned. “Hey, Hoss . . . that’s no he . . . that’s a SHE . . . and is SHE gonna be in deep trouble if Pa catches her.”

“What’re you talkin’ about, Li’l Brother?” Hoss demanded, as he gently turned Chubb. “Oh!” he murmured softly, upon recognizing the horse and rider as Blaze Face and Stacy. He left Joe and started back across the meadow, heading on an intercept course with his sister. “HEY, STACY!” he yelled. “WHERE ARE YOU OFF TO IN SUCH AN ALL FIRED HURRY?!”

*********

Chapter 10

Rachael had no destination in mind when she had set out from her parents’ home, so was mildly surprised when she found herself at the place Joe and Stacy Cartwright had taken her five days ago. Yet, it was fitting. She quickly dismounted and sent her horse on its way with a firm slap to its hindquarters. The peace, the like of which she had never known before, that had come over her once she had made her decision, mushroomed and grew during the long ride from her house to this place, permeating, even possessing her entire being.

Rachael slowly approached the edge, her eyes locked on the far distant horizon. She felt the presence of Lammieh Towakh Moon standing beside her, as real, as palpable as she had been in life. One by one, like stars appearing in the night sky, she began to sense the others who had also died that dreadful day, encircling and surrounding her.

“I should’ve died with you,” she murmured haltingly, in the language of the Chinook.

In her mind and thoughts, she heard a sound swelling, growing, rising in pitch and volume. At first, Rachael thought it was the wind, but very quickly saw that the tree branches were still. The sound continued to rise, forming words. No, not words, a single word. Wik! Chinook for no.

“Wik, T’kope Mauitsh.”

Rachael heard Lammieh Towakh Moon’s words just as clearly as if she stood her in front of her speaking them.

“T’kope Mauitsh, it’s not your time. You and your little one have much to do yet.”

“I don’t belong here, Lammieh Towakh Moon . . . Mother! I don’t belong here anymore, not with them. They want to lock me in a cage and take my little one away from me.”

“T’kope Mauitsh, it’s not your time.”

Wik . . . . the spirits of her adopted family, her tribal community, cried aloud on the winds of the great and powerful storms that churned the waters of ocean and river. She could feel those winds buffeting her from all directions, though not even the slenderest of pine needles stirred, and the sky remained clear, with not even the slightest trace of cloud to obscure or soften its intense, brilliant azure blue.

“NO!” A voice, a man’s voice cried out with all the grief, the fear, and the anguish, she heard in the spirit winds . . . in the cries of the ghosts of those who died when the cavalry, the men in blue, came. This lone voice came from a time and place very far removed from the precipice where she stood, surrounded by a magnificent visa of trees, mountains, lake, and sky, wholly at peace with the decision she had made.

“Oh my God . . . Rachael, NO!”

For but an instant, less than the space between one heartbeat and the next, she had thought that voice crying out to her from the land of the living was Aiak Enanamuks, her beloved, the man she had come to love more than life itself, and her heart leapt for joy.

“No, Rachael . . . please . . . . ”

No. That wasn’t Aiak Enanamuks, after all. It was Joe Cartwright. With that revelation, her heart plunged from the soaring heights of joy to the bleak depths of hopeless despair. Rachael slowly, reluctantly turned from the edge and, much to her chagrin and dismay, saw Joe, Hoss, and Stacy ascending the steep path, leading up to the precipice, where she stood at the threshold between the world of matter and of earth, where her body yet lived, and the world of spirit, for which her heart desperately longed. “Stay back,” she warned. “Stay back, or . . . or else I’ll . . . . ”

The three of them froze dead in their tracks.

“Don’t do it, Rachael,” Hoss begged. Keeping his eyes glued to her face, he very slowly slid his left foot in her general direction, then brought his right even with the first. “Please . . . DON’T do it.”

“Don’t come any closer, Hoss . . . or so help me— ”

“Alright, Rachael . . . alright . . . . ” Hoss said, speaking to her in the same low, gentle tone he used when approaching an animal that was sick or injured, and frightened out of its mind. “I’m gonna stay put right here.” He paused just long enough to close his eyes take a deep, ragged breath. “But, Rachael?” he continued. “I want ya t’ listen. Please! Can y’ do that?”

There was no response. Without uttering a sound, she simply turned her face again to the magnificence spread out in the valley hundreds of feet below her.

“Rachael, I . . . I don’t know what’s troublin’ ya, but whatever it is . . . this AIN’T the answer,” Hoss continued, laboring valiantly to keep his voice calm and even.

“It is for me,” she replied, her voice a dead monotone.

“No it ain’t,” Hoss warily pressed, with heart in mouth.

“Hoss . . . Joe . . . and you, especially, Stacy . . . I know that you . . . and your father . . . WANT to help, but you CAN’T. No one can.”

“Yes, we C-CAN!” Hoss replied, his voice and his heart breaking upon hearing the deep, hopeless despair in her words and the terrible resignation in her voice. “We CAN, Rachael! All YOU gotta do is let us.”

“No.” She took a step closer to the edge of the precipice, towering nearly a thousand feet above rock strewn earth lying directly below, covered with a deep layer of snow and ice. “No one can help me. No one.”

Hoss couldn’t remember a time when he felt more helpless, frightened, and alone. “Rachael, you can come back to the Ponderosa . . . right now . . . with Joe, Stacy, ‘n me, if you’re of a mind.” A terse, urgent note had crept into his voice. “You’ll be safe there . . . . ”

“No. I won’t, Hoss. They’ll come for me there.”

“They . . . who?” Hoss asked.

“Mama,” Rachael replied, taking another step closer to the edge. “She wants to put me in a cage, Hoss. She wants to lock me up in a cage for the rest of my life, so she can take my baby away, and put him in a foundling home.”

“B-Baby?!” Hoss echoed, stunned to the very core of his being.

“She was married, Hoss,” Joe quietly informed his brother, his own voice breaking as her anguished scream again echoed in his ears.

Stacy silently nodded, with tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Is he—?!”

“She . . . oh Hoss, she doesn’t know,” Stacy sobbed.

“Dear God,” Hoss murmured, reeling under the onslaught of a myriad of intense, conflicting emotions.

“I can’t let that happen,” Rachael continued. “No one will adopt my poor baby because his father is Chinook and his mother a white woman . . . and no one will love him. This is the only way.”

“No, it ain’t, Rachael.”

“Yes, it is, Hoss.”

“Who says so?” Hoss demanded.

“Mama,” Rachael replied. “Mama told me that I was going to be put in a sanitarium, and my baby in a foundling home, after he’s born . . . and there’s nothing I or anyone else can do to stop her.”

“Rachael, you listen t’ me . . . ‘n you listen good, y’ hear?” Hoss exhorted, with tears flowing freely down his cheeks, his chin and jaw line set with grim resolve. “You are NOT gonna be locked away in . . . in some sanitarium somewhere . . . and that child o’ yours AIN’T gonna grow up in no orphanage or foundlin’ home! He’s gonna grow up with his mother, who I know for fact loves him ‘n wants him . . . more, I think, than just about anything in this whole wide world.”

Rachael slowly turned away from the precipice, and stared over at Hoss, incredulous, yet with a glimmer of hope. “B-But Mama said— ”

“Don’t matter none WHAT she said,” Hoss stubbornly maintained, “ ‘cause we’re gonna find a way t’ stop her.”

She knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt whatsoever, she KNEW that he, his brother, and his sister believed in the words he had just spoken. She saw it in their eyes and in their faces, with their mouths, the lines of their jaws and chins set as firm as the high, lofty mountains surrounding them all. She wanted to trust them . . . to believe in their words . . . words that Hoss had just spoken for the three of them. She wanted it so badly, her body ached for the desiring of it, as it had ached for Aiak Enanamuks once upon a time, so very long ago

For a moment, she wavered . . . .

“You’re going away, Rachael.”

It was the voice of Clara Marlowe, the woman who had given her life, who had brought her into the world. She was her mother once . . . .

But that was so long ago; a whole lifetime ago. Clara Marlowe’s daughter, Rachael had, for all intents and purposes, died on the day the stage in which she traveled was held up by robbers.

“You’re going away, Rachael. It’s for your own good. You’re going someplace where you’ll be properly cared for, until your baby’s born. Then you’ll be moved to a sanitarium.”

“What . . . what about my baby?”

“Your father and I will see that it’s placed in a good foundling home, Rachael.”

“NO!”

“It’s for your own good, Rachael . . . . ”

“NO!”

“ . . . and I won’t let ANYONE stop us from doing what we need to do now, to help you. Not even Ben Cartwright!”

“No, Mama,” she sobbed, as she slowly, resolutely turned her back on the Cartwright brothers, and the final chance of life, of light, and hope they offered. “No, Mama . . . I can’t . . . I WON’T . . . let you do this . . . . ”

Though she still felt the presence of Lammieh Towakh Moon and the others very keenly, their cries and the winds upon which they had been borne from the realms of the dead into the lands of the living, had died away to a silence so thick, so palpable, she felt as if she could actually reach out and touch it. She allowed herself a moment to gaze one last time upon the magnificent vista surrounding her. Then, with a beatific smile on her face, and with arms open wide to accept, to embrace . . . she stepped forward.

With a scream, born of denial, of rage and grief, Stacy leapt in the same moment Rachael stepped off the edge of the cliff. The momentum of gravity’s inevitable downward pull, brought Stacy crashing down hard against rock, snow, and ice, knocking the wind out of her lungs. She fought for breath and to tighten her grip on Rachael, who continued to slip though the loop of her arms toward the valley lying thousands of feet below.

“Rachael, t-take my hand, please,” Stacy begged, barely able to find sufficient breath to utter her plea. Her words fell on deaf ears. Rachael hung, suspended between life and death, with her eyes fixed to the distant line of mountains delineating the boundary line between earth and sky. She made no move to save herself. As Rachael’s body slipped through the circle of her arms, Stacy lunged, grasping blindly. Though she managed to get both hands tight around Rachael’s wrist, her movements brought her sliding inexorably toward the edge.

“Hang on, Li’l Sister, I gotcha!”

Stacy almost sobbed with relief as she felt the weight of Hoss’ body over her own, holding her fast. “Rachael, please . . . give me your other hand. Hoss can pull us both up, please . . . . ”

There was no response. Rachael continued to stare straight ahead, giving no sign that she had even heard Stacy speak.

“Stacy, can you grab her arm further down?” Joe asked tersely, his own stomach lurching against the sheer drop inches from his feet.

“No,” Stacy replied. “If I let go to do that, she’ll fall. I . . . I’m afraid I didn’t get too good a grip on her.”

“You did good enough, Kid,” Joe said, steeling himself. “You just hold on. I . . . I think I can move out on the cliff, and get under her . . . push her up. You two be ready.”

“Take your time, Li’l Brother,” Hoss cautioned him.

Joe, his face set with grim determination, sat down and eased his way over the ledge one leg at a time. He could hear Stacy and Hoss trying to coax Rachael to help herself, but their words fell on deaf ears. Rachael stared straight ahead, beyond knowing or caring. Joe froze as panic seized him. He closed his eyes, and forced himself to take slow deep even breaths. As his breathing slowed to its natural rhythms, he slowly opened his eyes and forced his gaze away from the sheer drop to Rachael’s inert form, still dangling from Stacy’s tenuous, uncertain grip.

Joe slowly eased his way down, testing hand and foot holds along the sheer face as he moved, focusing not only his eyes, but his very thoughts on Rachael. “Rachael,” he whispered aloud, “Rachael. Think only of Rachael.”

He whispered the words over and over as a mantra against the terror surrounding him on all sides, waiting like a prowling mountain lion to pounce and seize him once again. “Think of Rachael. Think of Rachael. Think of Rachael.”

He slowly eased his way toward Rachael, her face still firmly set toward faraway places lying somewhere beyond the distant line of mountain and sky. He half feared she might be dead already, from exposure. Even though, thankfully, there was no wind, the thin nightgown and wrapper were scant protection against the freezing cold. The brief intrusion of wind into his thoughts raised the all too real specter of falling. “Rachael!” he spoke tersely to the panic rising in him again, threatening to inundate him completely. “Rachael!” His breath came in painful, ragged gasps.

“Think of Rachael. Think of Rachael!” He squeezed his eyes shut again and forced himself to repeat his mantra.

Another voice, Stacy’s, soft and reassuring joined him, speaking the same mantra, but different words. “You can do it, Joe. You can do it.”

“Think of Rachael,” Joe chanted firmly, resolutely as he drew upon the strength offered through his sister’s voice.

“You can do it, Joe.”

“Think of Rachael.”

“You can do it, Joe.”

“Come on, Li’l Brother.” Hoss’ base drone harmonized with Joe’s spoken melody line and Stacy’s descant.

“Think of Rachael. Think of Rachael.” Buoyed by the surge of strength and energy coming from his brother and sister, Joe was surprised to suddenly find himself on the cliff face along side Rachael. “Think of Rachael, think of Rachael.” Carefully, balancing his feet side by side, Joe wrapped the fingers of his right hand firmly around a thick, exposed piece of tree root.

“Up you go, Rachael,” Joe said, wrapping his left arm around her waist.

“J-Joe?”

The sound of Rachael’s voice, and her eyes round with horror, boring into his own with such intensity, seemed to sear his brain. His fingers automatically released the root onto which he had been holding. A strange inevitable calm stole over him as his body began to pitch backward over the yawning abyss below.

“I’ve got you.”

Joe felt Rachael’s arm firmly around him, her fingers grasping the material of his jacket. Next thing he knew, he and Rachael were up and over the edge of the cliff, back to safety, courtesy of the enormous strength of his biggest brother.

“Thank G-God!” Stacy half sobbed, as her arms wrapped tight around Rachael and Joe.

Joe, feeling his own eyes suddenly stinging with tears, wrapped one arm fiercely around Stacy and Rachael and the other around Hoss.

“So stupid . . . . ” Rachael leaned against Stacy, openly sobbing with regret and remorse. “How . . . h-how could I h-have been so . . . so stupid?”

“It’s ok, Rachael,” Stacy sobbed along with Rachael, hugging her closer.
“Come on, we . . . we gotta git Rachael outta th-this cold,” Hoss said, his voice none too steady either.

“Oh, dear God . . . Joe! I almost KILLED you! . . . and Stacy, too!”

“You didn’t Rachael. You didn’t!” Joe said in a gentle, yet firm tone. “And, thank God, you didn’t kill yourself, either!”

“I-I think the cold’s starting to freeze my brain,” Stacy said, her teeth chattering. “I hear horses.”

Joe frowned. “If it’s freezing YOURS, Little Sister, it’s freezing mine, too, ‘cause I hear horses.”

“HOSS! JOE! STACY!” A familiar sonorous voice bellowed from the bottom of the hill.

“UP HERE, PA!” Joe yelled back, suddenly feeling giddy.

“IS RACHAEL WITH YOU?”

“YEAH, RACHAEL’S HERE! WE’RE COMIN’ DOWN,” Hoss yelled back.

Ben and Kate quickly bundled Rachael, shivering and weeping, into the buggy between them. The horse that Rachael had ridden out to this place was hitched to the back of Kate’s buggy. Kate whipped off her coat and wrapped it around Rachael, then held her close, as Ben took the reins in hand.

“Hoss, you’d better ride into town and fetch Doctor Martin,” Ben said, noting that of his three offspring, Hoss seemed to be the one most together emotionally. “Joe . . . Stacy, you two ride ahead, and let Hop Sing know we’re coming.”

“Sure, Pa,” Joe replied.

Stacy nodded.

*********

Paul Martin spotted the members of the Cartwright family seated next to the fireplace. Joe and Hoss occupied the settee, Ben the red chair, with Stacy seated on the coffee table next to him. They looked up sharply and the sound of his footfalls on the stairs. They rose and turned their anxious faces toward the doctor expectantly, Ben first, followed by Stacy, then the boys.

“Rachael Marlowe’s a very, VERY lucky young lady, Ben,” Paul said, as he reached the bottom of the stairs, where Ben now stood, waiting. “Physically, she’s going to be fine. All she needs is to rest, keep warm, and eat.”

“Her baby?” Ben asked.

“Her baby’s fine, too,” Paul said gravely. “I am very concerned about her mental state, however . . . . ”

“Paul, you have a few minutes?”

“I suppose.”

Ben took a deep breath, then shared with Paul the details about Rachael’s altercation with Clara, as Kate and Rachael herself had related them during the ride back to the ranch house. He also gave a brief account of his own confrontation with Clara when he and Stacy accompanied Kate Snodgres back to the Marlowes.

“Rachael was momentarily blinded by desperation and despair,” Ben said quietly. “ANYone would have been, given the circumstances, including you and me.”

“I certainly can’t disagree with you on that, Ben,” the doctor said softly, shaking his head.

“In any case, Rachael deeply regrets what she tried to do,” Ben earnestly pressed his point. “She knows that she’s safe now. No one’s going to commit her to an insane asylum or force her to put her child up for adoption. She has some big decisions to make, a lot of things to think through, but I’m reasonably certain she won’t try to kill herself again.”

“She’s also more than welcome to stay here on the Ponderosa with us, too, Doctor Martin,” Stacy said stoutly. “Right, Pa?”

“Absolutely right!” Ben agreed, placing his arm around Stacy’s shoulders.

“Stacy ‘n Pa speak for me, too,” Hoss said.

“Yeah! What Hoss said!” Joe added.

“Well with the four of you and that young lady upstairs in her corner, I pity anyone who even thinks of trying to harm Rachael in any way,” Paul said with a tired smile, “and that includes Rachael herself.”

“Can we go up and see her?” Stacy asked.

“She’s sleeping, Stacy, and that, I think might be what she needs most of all right now,” Paul replied. He turned his attention to Ben. “Rachael’s friend . . . . ”

“Miss Snodgres,” Ben supplied the name.

“Miss Snodgres insists on staying with her,” Paul said. “I think her presence will do Rachael some good.”

Ben nodded. “Stacy . . . . ”

“Yeah, Pa?”

“Would you mind going up and letting Miss Snodgres know she’s welcome to stay the night? We can send one of our hands with word to her family.”

Stacy nodded and started up the stairs.

“If there’s any problems, don’t hesitate to call me, Ben, though I don’t foresee any. I’ll drop by sometime tomorrow evening and see how she’s doing.”

“Why don’t you bring Lily with you and stay for supper?” Ben invited as he and the doctor ambled from the bottom of the stairs toward the door.

“Sounds good to me, Ben, and I don’t think Lily’ll raise any objections either.”

“Good!” Ben politely opened the front door, then stood aside. “Paul, I’d like to ask a big favor of you?”

“Sure, Ben.”

“Would you mind stopping by the Marlowes on your way back to town?” Ben asked. “I’m sure Tom’s anxious to get word about Rachael, and Clara was in a very bad state when Miss Snodgres and I left.” He fell silent. “I’d go myself, but under the circumstances, I’m probably about as welcome there right now as the plague.”

“I understand, Ben,” Paul said gravely. “I’ll be more than happy to stop by.”
“Thanks, Paul.”

“See you tomorrow night, Ben.”

Ben nodded, then closed the door behind the doctor with a heavy heart.

“Pa?”

Ben turned at the sound of Joe’s voice and found himself staring into the anxious face of both his younger sons.

“You all right?” Joe asked. “For a minute there, while you were closing the door, you looked like you had just lost your last friend.”

Ben smiled wistfully. “Not my LAST friend, but certainly one of long standing.”

“You did what you had to do, Pa,” Joe said quietly.

“I know, Son.”

“All ain’t lost yet, Pa,” Hoss said as they returned to their places near the fireplace. “Maybe, once he knows Rachael’s gonna be alright, he won’t think quite so badly about ya.”

“Maybe,” Ben said slowly. “We’ll see. . . . ”

*********

A black Victoria, complete with bonnet top, hitched to a magnificent pair of large, well muscled black horses, rounded the corner at the barn of the barn and entered the yard, moving at a stately, decorous pace across a field of mud. Most of the snow had melted, except in the high mountains. The surrounding aspens and cottonwoods were covered with tiny yellow-green leaves, still tightly curled, and across the yard a thin, translucent film of newly sprouted grass overlaid the muddy dark browns of earth. Inside, under the shelter of the rounded bonnet top, Tom Marlowe rode alone.
Carlton eased the horses to a full stop in front of the house.

“Please wait, Carlton,” Tom said, as he alighted from the Victoria. “I won’t be long.”

Carlton nodded, then settled himself more comfortably in the driver’s seat.
The front door opened as Tom stepped up onto the porch, and there, standing framed in the open portal stood Ben, smiling, yet surprised to see him.

“Tom, please . . . come in!” Ben invited him eagerly. His smile faded. “I’m sorry you missed Rachael. Joe and Stacy took her in town to see Doctor Martin for her monthly check up.”

“How is she?” Tom asked, as they entered the house together. “How is she, really?”

“Why don’t you stay and see for yourself?” Ben invited. “They should be back in another hour or so.”

Tom shook his head. “I can’t stay, Ben.”

Ben’s smile faded.

“Don’t look at me like that!” Tom snapped.

“Sorry, Tom, I wasn’t aware that I was looking at you in any particular way.”

“Ben, I have a lot to do. I have business to conclude, loose ends to tie up . . . I really can’t stay more than a few minutes.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

Tom bristled. “We’re leaving Virginia City in two weeks,” he said in terse, clipped tones, “for good.”

“Oh?” Ben was completely taken aback.

“Clara and I are moving to New York.”

Ben silently noted that Rachael was very conspicuous among her immediate family, by her lack of mention.

“Rachael’s of age now, Ben, as YOUR lawyer, Mister Milburn so succinctly spelled it out, three weeks ago,” Tom said with a touch of rancor, as he accurately discerned the unspoken content of his old friend’s thoughts. “It’s high time she was off on her own.”

“Why New York, Tom?”

“Clara’s always wanted to visit there,” Tom explained, much relieved by the sudden change of subject. “She’s delighted by the prospect of actually living there. I’ve already purchased a house, with a garden so she can take walks . . . get some fresh air.”

“Tom, how IS Clara doing?” Ben asked, with a touch of wariness.

“She’s doing very well, Ben. She’s lively, she’s happy, her appetite’s back, she’s her old chatty self . . . she even has Rachael back with her.”

Ben felt like he had just taken a hard sucker punch to the solar plexus.

“Rachael’s exactly the way she was, before that trip to Oregon.”

“Tom, I’m so sorry . . . . ”

“Don’t be, Ben!” Tom shook his head. “Clara’s perfectly happy.”

“Maybe, once you and Clara get yourselves settled, you can get her to someone who can help her,” Ben suggested hopefully. “In New York, there’ll be a lot of fine physicians to choose from.”

“No. I intend to keep Clara at home, engage the best people I can to help look after her, but I’m NOT going to take away her delusions. It would be too cruel.”

“Clara’s living a lie, Tom.”

“Maybe so, but it brings her a lot of happiness. In fact, I haven’t seen her this happy since . . . well, since we got word that Rachael had been found. I won’t take that away from her, Ben.”

“I see,” Ben said softly.

A strained silence fell between them.

“I know you feel SORRY for Rachael, and while I’m not asking for your pity or your sympathy, I AM asking that you not think too badly of Clara and me?”

“You’ve got it wrong, Tom. I’ve known Rachael since she was a baby, and I care about her very much,” Ben said. “But, I don’t feel the least bit sorry for HER. If I feel sorry for ANYONE, it’s you and Clara.”

Tom favored Ben with a bewildered frown. “Y-you feel sorry for . . . for Clara and me?! I don’t understand.”

“In the five years she lived among the Chinook, Rachael’s grown and matured into a lovely young woman, with an open heart and generous spirit. I feel very privileged for having had the opportunity to get reacquainted with her.”

“Your point, Ben?”

“Alright! My point is I feel sorry for you and Clara because neither one of you will ever allow yourselves the chance to know your own daughter or your grandchild,” Ben said with an angry scowl. “You’re so worried about appearances, about what people may or may not think, so blinded by prejudice and misconception, you’re turning your backs on Rachael and walk away without sparing so much as a second glance. In addition to all that, Clara clings so hard to the past that she’d rather have a daughter formed by her own delusions, who exists nowhere, save within her own mind, than a loving daughter of flesh and blood.”

“I’m not wholly turning my back on Rachael, Ben,” Tom said stiffly, as he reached past the lapels of his long black overcoat, into the inside pocket. He withdrew a plain white envelope, made thick by its contents, and slapped it into Ben’s hand open hand. “Please give this to Rachael, Ben. It’s twenty-five thousand dollars, in cash.”

“I’ll see that she gets it, Tom.” Ben’s tone dripped icicles.

“CLARA’S the one who needs me now.”

Ben nodded mutely.

“I’ll be sending all of Rachael’s things over within the next day or so,” Tom said. “If that’s alright with you.”

“Fine.”

“ . . . and please, DO give Rachael my regards. Tell her I was here asking after her.”

“I’ll tell Rachael you were here, and Tom . . . . ”

“Yes, Ben?”

“I honestly and sincerely wish both you and Clara well.”

“Thank you, Ben,” he replied in a cold, hollow voice. “I’d best be going. I still have to make arrangements for having OUR furniture and other things shipped east, and I need to see my lawyer about selling our house here.”

“Please feel free to come by again, before you leave, to visit with Rachael, and to say goodbye.”

“I’ll try, but . . . I don’t know, Ben. I need to make arrangements for Clara, too. If I DON’T see you before Clara and I leave . . . . ”

Ben knew then and there, that neither he nor Rachael would see Tom before he and Clara left for New York.

“ . . . I’ll keep in touch.”

Ben also knew from the look in his eyes, and the halfhearted way in which his promise had been spoken that he would neither see nor hear from Tom Marlowe again. Their long-standing friendship, that stretched over the better part of the last thirty years had simply ceased to be, as if it had never been. He was saddened by the thought.

Ben silently watched as Tom crossed the porch, and climbed into his Victoria, without pause, without looking back. Carlton nudged the horses to a walk, then a trot.

Ben remained on the porch watching, until the Victoria disappeared around the edge of the barn a few moments later.

“Goodbye, Tom,” Ben said quietly.

*********

Epilogue . . . .

Rachael Marlowe, clad in white flannel nightgown, and a heavy woolen robe, dyed a deep pinkish-rose, stood before the massive, gray stone fireplace, gazing down into the glowing, dark red embers, with the poker loosely clasped in her right hand. The robe hung open, with the untied sash laced through the half dozen loops encircling the waist. For the better part of the last couple of weeks, the robe, if properly closed had become an uncomfortably snug fit across her belly, courtesy of the little one nestled there. At the rate he seemed to be growing lately, it wouldn’t be long before her nightgown, also, became too small. The morning sickness was all but gone, however, something for which she was profoundly grateful; and three days ago, Doctor Martin had given his ok for her to travel.

“I had no idea insomnia was contagious.”

Rachael turned and found Mister Cartwright standing on the middle landing, clad in nightshirt and a robe the color of a deep, full-bodied port wine. “I didn’t either,” she sighed wistfully. “I . . . I hope I didn’t wake you . . . . ”

“Not at all,” Ben hastened to assure her. He turned and started moving down the stairs at a slow, yet steady pace. “I ran into Reverend Hildebrandt in town this morning . . . . ”

“Oh?”

“He told me to thank you again . . . very much . . . for all the clothing you donated to the ladies’ charity drive,” Ben said, as he stepped down onto the great room floor. “The ladies were quite impressed by the quality AND the quantity.”

“They couldn’t help BUT be impressed by the quantity, I suppose,” Rachael quipped with a wry smile. “I hafta admit to being pretty impressed by the quantity myself.”

She remembered again the day Tom Marlowe . . . her father, had brought all of her things out to the Ponderosa. There had to have been half a dozen buckboards, at the very least, all piled high with box after box after endless box, stuffed to the brim with blouses, skirts, dresses, hats, shoes, nightgowns, robes, stockings, and various and sundry undergarments.

Some of the pretty outfits she remembered, among them the deep red riding costume. But many of those outfits she had never seen before, including a white dress with tiny puffed sleeves, tastefully bedecked with lace and tiny seed pears around the collar, with a note attached, penned in the very neat, very precise, and very tiny hand instantly recognizable as belonging to Clara Marlowe. “Darling Rachael,” it read, “For your society debut. Your Loving Mother.”

“Did Mama actually have clothes made for me all the years I was away?” she wondered silently, not for the first time. The thought saddened her greatly.

“Your mother was most distressed at the thought of you not outfitting yourself properly,” her father said, by way of explanation, while Hoss, Joe, Hop Sing, and Stacy lugged all those boxes from the buckboards into the Cartwrights’ downstairs guestroom. “She asked me . . . TOLD me, actually, in no uncertain terms . . . . ” At this an indulgent smile spread slowly across his face. “ . . . that I should make you promise . . . cross your heart and hope to die . . . that you would dress properly while you’re visiting the Cartwrights.”

“Tell Mama I promise,” she said quietly, omitting the ‘cross your heart and hope to die’ part.

Tom and Clara Marlowe had finally left Virginia City for New York a little over a month ago now, with out a word or even a note to say good-bye. Though not something wholly unexpected, for their daughter . . . their little girl, Rachael . . . had, for all intents and purposes, died the day robbers set upon the stage en route to Portland . . . deep down, it rankled.

“I’m glad all those clothes will be going to people who can use them . . . and maybe appreciate them a little, too,” Rachael said with a wan smile, her thoughts returning to present time and place.

“I’m a little surprised you didn’t keep a few things,” Ben remarked as he settled himself in his favorite chair, the dark red one, next to the fireplace.

“My needs and my tastes are a lot more simple these days,” she replied, still half mortified by the excess despite Hoss’ cryptic remark about Stacy’s crazy uncle STILL having her beat by a mile. “I . . . hope you don’t mind me giving Stacy my shell collection. With all the traveling Papa did over the years, it’s got to be every bit as extensive as my old wardrobe.”

“Not at all,” Ben replied with a smile. “Shell collecting can be every bit as educational as it is fun. The four of us have had a wonderful time going to the lending library and doing research on the shells you gave Stacy.”

For a time, Ben and Rachael lapsed into a companionable silence, broken only by the very soft, slow, measured ticking of the grandfather’s clock, set against the wall next to the front door.

“Rachael?” Ben queried softly, just after the clock struck the half hour.

“Yes, Mister Cartwright?”

“I heard that you got a letter from your grandmother the other day . . . . ”

“Yes, I did,” Rachael replied. “Gram’s invited me come live with her and Aunt Sarah. Me AND my baby . . . said ‘it’s been ‘way too long since I’ve heard the pitter-pattering of tiny feet around the house.’ ”

Though Ben had never had occasion to meet Rachael’s maternal grandmother, he found it hard to believe that she and Clara could possibly be actually mother and daughter, based on things he had heard second hand from not only Rachael, but from Clara as well.

“Have you given thought as to what you might like to do, after the baby’s come and you’re back on your feet?” Ben asked.

Rachael took a deep breath, and as she turned to face him, drew herself up to the very fullness of her height with posture straight and shoulders back. “I want to return to the place of the Chinook and look for my husband,” she replied in a tone of voice, firm and resolute. “I have to find out for certain whether Aiak Enanamuks is living or dead, and . . . and if he IS dead, I want to know the story . . . the circumstances that led to his death.”

“I understand,” Ben said immediately. “I have friends who live near the place of the Chinook. If you’d like, I can write you a letter of introduction.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright. I’d appreciate that very much,” she replied, turning her attention back to the dying flames. “I . . . must confess . . . I half expected that you would try and talk me out of it.”

“No.” Ben shook his head. “I think I know a little how you feel,” he said remembering again the desperate search for his oldest son when he had fallen into the hands of a mad man named Kane [v], and facing to all-to-real prospect of never knowing. “I wish you all the best.”

“Thank you,” Rachael murmured softy. She reached into the midst of the glowing, deep red embers and gently stirred the accumulation of ashes and wood, burned and charred, with the poker still in hand. “I’ve also decided to go to Portland . . . to be with my grandmother and my aunt,” she continued. “I’ll stay with them until them until the baby comes . . . and I’ve sufficiently recovered. After that . . . . ” she shrugged and replaced the poker in its place with the other fireplace tools. “It will depend on what I find out about Aiak Enanamuks.”

“You’re more than welcome to remain here . . . with us, for as long as you wish,” Ben said. “I want you to know that.”

“I do, Mister Cartwright,” she replied with a smile. “In the time I’ve already been here, not once has anyone ever made me feel that I’ve overstayed my welcome, and I’m grateful . . . so grateful, that simply to say thank you seems woefully inadequate, but it will have to do.”

“You’re very welcome,” Ben replied, returning her smile.

“My grandmother . . . my aunt . . . and I . . . we’re all the family we have, now that Mama and Papa have gone east to New York,” she said, her smile fading. “I know it would mean a lot . . . to all of us . . . if they could be with me when my baby’s born.”

“Yes, it will. I was with my son, Adam, when both of HIS children were born, and looking back . . . I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Have you decided . . . . ?”

“Now that Doctor Martin has told me that it’s alright for me to travel, there’s no point in putting things off,” Rachael replied. “I found out that Miss Braun will be leaving for Portland next Monday morning on the ten o’clock stage. She’s already invited me to go with her.”

Miss Heidi Braun was a nurse who had worked with Doctor Martin extensively, and daughter of Gretchen Braun, an old friend of the Cartwright family, who ran the restaurant at the International Hotel.

“I’ll sit down and write that letter of introduction to my friends first thing when I get up,” Ben promised, “that way, you’ll have it with you when you’re ready to begin your search for Aiak Enanamuks.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright.”

“In the meantime, Young Lady, I think we’d best g’won up and try to salvage what sleep we can before sun up,” Ben said, rising. “The next few days are going to be very busy.”

 

The End

April 2003

Revised October 2006

Next Story in the Bloodlines Series:

Between Life and Death
Orenna
Clarissa Returns
Trial by Fire
Mark of Kane

 

Notes:

This story was inspired by a book titled Standing in the Light: The Captive Diary of Catharine Carey Logan, which is part of the Dear America young adult book series, written in the format of one keeping a diary or journal, covering different periods in American History. This story takes place roughly a century before the time of Bonanza, on the other side of the continent. It’s about a young girl who, along with her younger brother, was taken captive by the Lenape, a.k.a. the Delaware, Indians.

The culture shock Catharine Logan, the main character, suffers first in learning to live with the Lenape, and again upon returning to her home and family, after having been away for nearly a year caught and held my attention. In the historical overview presented at the end of the story, it was mentioned that those taken captive often felt bewildered and displaced upon their return home. Some, like the character of Snow Owl in the story, Standing in the Light, so identified and bonded with the Indians’ way of life, they did not wish to return.

[i] See Bonanza Episode #94, “The Crucible,” written by John T. Dugan.

[ii] The Chinook names and words are based on the Chinook Jargon, or The Trade Language of Oregon, which incorporates words from many different languages, including French and English. The Chinook Jargon-English English-Chinook Jargon Dictionary by George Gibbs can be found at the following web address:
http://chinookjargon.home.attbi.com/gibbs.htm

[iii] As happened in Bonanza episode #56, “The Dark Gate,” written by Ward Hawkins.

[iv] As happened in Bonanza episode #321, “Erin,” written by Sandy Summerhays.

[v] See Bonanza episode #94, The Crucible, written by John T. Dugan.

 

Reviews from the Old Bonanza Brand Library are on the next page.

*********

All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are property of the author. The author is not in any way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, and makes no money from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.