{"id":13375,"date":"2016-09-05T04:56:23","date_gmt":"2016-09-05T08:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=13375"},"modified":"2025-09-25T15:41:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T19:41:27","slug":"wet-bottom-warm-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=13375","title":{"rendered":"Wet Bottom, Warm Heart (by McFair_58)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary:\u00a0<\/strong>Deep inside 17 year old Little Joe Cartwright there’s an angry beast waiting to get out. It makes him say and do things he always regrets, like talking back to his Pa. \u00a0After one such incident, his shame drives him away from the Ponderosa, straight into the arms of trouble – and the waiting rifle sight of a little golden-haired girl named Elizabeth Carnaby.<\/p>\n

Rating: PG\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Word Count:\u00a0 13,300<\/p>\n

All known and public characters belong to those who created them. \u00a0All new characters belong to the author. \u00a0There is no intent to infringe on copyright and no money is being made – just friends and warm hearts hopefully!<\/p>\n

Wet Bottom, Warm Heart Series:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wet Bottom, Warm Heart<\/a>
\nSunshine With a Little Hurricane<\/a>
\nIn the Light as in the Darkness
\n<\/a>Doubt that the Stars are Fire<\/a>
\nAn Unspeakable Dawn<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wet Bottom, Warm Heart<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

WAKING UP ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE BED<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I<\/p>\n

\u201cLooks like little brother\u2019s got hisself a night of courtin\u2019 planned.\u201d<\/p>\n

He winced.\u00a0 Where\u2019d that big galoot come from?<\/p>\n

The young man \u2013wearing an immaculate gray suit, black hat and dress boots, his skin dashed with just the right hint of Bay rum, and his thick mass of coiling brown curls tamed but not controlled by a healthy dose of macassar oil \u2013 halted where he was and sighed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long have you been there?\u201d Joe asked, praying that there was only one.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust arrived, little brother,\u201d Adam answered, proving that if there was<\/em> a god in Heaven, He hated him.<\/p>\n

His remote and reserved, but too infrequently reticent older brother stepped out of the shadows and looked him up and down.\u00a0 \u201cWho\u2019s the lucky lady?\u201d he asked, his lips bowing up.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d like to have set an arrow to that bow and shot that smug look right out of Adam\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bet it\u2019s that pretty little gal what was eyeing baby brother in the mercantile yesterday.\u00a0 The one with that passel of big ugly brothers said they\u2019d break him in half if he came around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adam advanced. \u201cNo…I think not.\u00a0 Coral wasn\u2019t wearing blue and, as you know, little brother has a penchant for girls in blue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe wasn\u2019t sure what a \u2018penchant\u2019 was, but he was sure as shooting positive <\/em>he didn\u2019t have one.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you two go pound sand up where the sun don\u2019t shine,\u201d he snarled as he headed for the buggy he\u2019d already hitched Cochise to.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy, oh, my!\u201d\u00a0 Hoss shook his head.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s sure got a fiery temper, don\u2019t he, big brother?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d think all of that Bay rum would have put it out, middle brother,\u201d Adam snarked as he crossed his arms and leaned back on the hitching rail.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe all that grease in his hair\u2019s feedin\u2019 it,\u201d Hoss snickered.<\/p>\n

Hoss snickered.<\/em><\/p>\n

His brothers didn\u2019t know it, but ever since his mama had died there was this beast in him just waiting to be riled.\u00a0 It lived in that dark spot in his heart \u2013 the one that never stopped hurting.\u00a0 Most of the time it rattled it chains, snarling and shrieking and striking out but stopping just sort of breaking free.<\/p>\n

Most<\/em> of the time.<\/p>\n

Joe spun on his heel. \u00a0Fists clenched, jaw tight, steam blowing from his nose, he growled, \u201cYou take that back.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was stupid.\u00a0 He did <\/em>sound like a kid.<\/p>\n

Maybe the beast was showing.\u00a0 Hoss and Adam were looking at each other and they looked something like Miss Jones had that day she\u2019d told him to stay after school and tried to tie an apron on him so he could clean the boards while the other boys were snickering.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t like snickering.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, baby brother,\u201d Hoss was saying, \u201cyou know Adam and me is just teasin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes<\/em>, I know you\u2019re teasing and, yes<\/em>, I know<\/em> I\u2019m your baby brother because neither of you ever let me forget it, and yes<\/em>, if you don\u2019t take back what you said \u2013 both of you \u2013 I\u2019m gonna knock <\/em>your lights out!\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoss was scratching his head.\u00a0 \u201cWell, Joe, I\u2019d take it back right fast since it\u2019s got you so all-fired up, but you know, for the life of me, I cain\u2019t remember what I said.\u201d\u00a0 Hoss pursed his lips as his eyebrows reached for his thinning hair.\u00a0 \u201cMaybe you can tell me?\u00a0 No?\u201d\u00a0 Middle brother glanced at Adam who was still leaning on the fence rail looking pleased as a stallion in a stable full of fillies.\u00a0 \u201cHow about you, Adam?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLittle brother took offense at your comment on his hair…grease.\u201d<\/p>\n

That…did…it!<\/em><\/p>\n

So much for the suit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Head wagging.\u00a0\u00a0 Joe wondered idly if there was a competition for it.<\/p>\n

Pa would certainly win.<\/p>\n

He was doing it now while he paced up and down in front of the hearth, wearing a deeper rut into the floorboards.\u00a0 Adam and Hoss had told him that that place on the floor had grown thinner by inches since he\u2019d been old enough to walk.\u00a0 They kept talking about Pa\u2019s hair too, claiming it was him and his hi-jinks that was taking all the color out of it, but he didn\u2019t believe it.\u00a0 He had the same brown hair pa had had when he was young and, truth to tell, there was already gray creeping into it.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoseph.\u00a0 Joseph.\u00a0 Joseph.\u201d<\/p>\n

He couldn\u2019t help but think it.\u00a0 Went to show how grown up<\/em> he was.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s my name, don\u2019t wear it out.<\/em><\/p>\n

Pa stopped and looked him square in the eye.\u00a0 \u201cWhat in Heaven\u2019s name am I going to do with you?\u201d<\/p>\n

He \u2018d tried giving Pa that look \u2013 the one where he furrowed his brows and pursed his lips and looked down and up at the same time \u2013 the one that meant he was sorry but just couldn\u2019t say it.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t work.\u00a0 The set-in-stone look of disappointment and anger on his pa\u2019s face just hardened, it didn\u2019t crack.\u00a0\u00a0 Must have only worked with someone under seventeen.<\/p>\n

He used to be under seventeen.\u00a0 Now he was over.<\/p>\n

Barely.<\/p>\n

And then it started.\u00a0 The lecture.\u00a0\u00a0 Pa walking and talking and shaking his head and sighing and scowling and raising his hands to the sky, and all the while older brother Adam and middle brother Hoss were sitting there \u2013 looking just as much responsible as him with their busted lips and torn clothes \u2013 smiling smugly while he took a dressing down like to tie him to the bed post, lock the door, and get the key thrown away \u2013 for a whole month!<\/p>\n

And on top of all this Coral Violetta Gertner was waiting on her front porch, looking pretty as a picture, wondering where he was.<\/p>\n

A sigh escaped him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAm I boring you, Joseph?\u201d<\/p>\n

There<\/em> was ice there that wouldn\u2019t thaw \u2018til spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that\u2019s good!\u201d\u00a0 That white head was shaking again.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s good!\u00a0 Because it seems I have to say a thing a hundred <\/em>times before any of them get through that thick skull of yours!\u201d<\/p>\n

He licked his lip.\u00a0 The blood drying on it was itching.<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t taste too good either.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you two!\u201d his Pa roared, turning toward his self-righteous brothers at last.\u00a0 \u201cI see I can\u2019t trust you two to keep this young scamp<\/em> out of trouble!\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe touched his rear, remembering.<\/p>\n

Pa did<\/em> love that word.<\/p>\n

\u201cPa, you have to understand….\u201d Adam began.<\/p>\n

\u201cPa, you gotta see….\u201d Hoss tried.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not have to see <\/em>or understand <\/em>anything when the evidence of it is here right before my eyes!\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe stifled a snicker of his own.\u00a0 They were a sight.\u00a0 Adam\u2019s left eye was black and beefy as a steer\u2019s hindquarters and his lip thick as a center cut steak.\u00a0 Hoss, on the other hand, had nothing to show for their fight other than a cut over his right eye.\u00a0 Course, the kick he\u2019d given middle brother to his middle section with both boots was gonna show up the minute the big lummox took his shirt off.<\/p>\n

Served him right for teaching him how to fight dirty.<\/p>\n

Joe felt a smile tickle his lips.\u00a0 It must have been contagious because his brothers were fighting it too.<\/p>\n

Their father looked from Hoss to Adam and then back to him.\u00a0 That was when Pa pulled out the big gun and everything went to Hell.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYour mother would be ashamed of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe felt the beast stirring, tightening the skin around his lips and jutting out his jaw.\u00a0 He\u2019d strike the first man down who said his pa lied, but about this, he just…well…he wasn\u2019t telling the truth<\/em>.\u00a0 He\u2019d heard plenty of stories about his ma from Hop Sing and his brothers, about how she \u2018vexed\u2019 his pa and how he was unable to control her, about her spitting nails when they disagreed, and flying off the handle.<\/p>\n

Joe tried to tame the beast but he failed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat ain\u2019t true!\u201d he shouted.\u00a0 \u201cShe was just<\/em> like me!\u00a0 You\u2019re a liar!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

A feather dropping to the floor would have sounded loud enough to wake the dead.<\/p>\n

After that, it all came in slow motion, like one of those magic lantern shows winding down.\u00a0 There was no sound, just a rushing in his ears and his father\u2019s face \u2013 stunned, shocked, disbelieving \u2013 and enraged.<\/em>\u00a0 There was a flash of Adam rising.\u00a0 Of Hoss, shouting something.<\/p>\n

And then his father struck him across the face with his open palm so hard it jarred the teeth in his head.<\/p>\n

His ears were ringing.\u00a0 Tears stung his eyes.\u00a0 He looked at his brothers who were staring open-mouthed and then he looked at his pa whose mouth was drawn into a tight line and then he did something he never would have done if the beast hadn\u2019t been needling him on.<\/p>\n

Joe pivoted on the heel of his dress boots and stormed out the door.<\/p>\n

A second later, the sound of that buggy roaring out of the yard wasn\u2019t the only thing to be heard.<\/p>\n

That beast was laughing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

II<\/p>\n

There it was.\u00a0 That sound.\u00a0 The one she knew all too well.\u00a0 That soft huff like a train was coming far down the line.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a good sound.<\/p>\n

Not…at…all.<\/p>\n

\u201cElizabeth Annabelle Carnaby, whatever<\/em> do you think you\u2019re doing?\u201d<\/p>\n

The little girl tried to brush the golden ringlets out of her eyes, but they fought back.\u00a0 Blowing out a breath in hopes that it would dislodge at least one or two of the bothersome things, she said, \u201cLooking at the water, Ma.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adults could be so thick sometimes.\u00a0 Like nut butter.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what would it be <\/em>that is so important to look at that you had to come all the way down here and perch on a rock and dangle dangerously over a rain-swollen\u00a0 creek?\u00a0 It\u2019s near a half mile to the house.\u201d<\/p>\n

She drew in a breath and let it out real <\/em>slow.\u00a0 \u201cCan\u2019t say.\u201d<\/p>\n

She could\u2019a said the next three words afore her mother did.\u00a0 \u201cCan\u2019t or won\u2019t?\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth, or Bella as her Pa liked to call her, knew she\u2019d be in trouble if she didn\u2019t say something.\u00a0 But she couldn\u2019t tell her ma what she was really doing.<\/p>\n

It was too embarrassing.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth glanced at the water rushing in the creek out front of the Clayborn\u2019s old cabin, and then up at the sky.\u00a0 The new moon was a fingernail and that\u2019s what Josie had told her it had to be for it to work.<\/p>\n

But she had to be alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019m waiting,\u201d the older woman prompted.<\/p>\n

No, she wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 Ma was tapping her toe and her hands were on her hips and she had about two seconds to come up with something that kind of made sense that the older woman might just<\/em> believe.<\/p>\n

\u201cJack wanted a fish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever for?\u201d her mother huffed.<\/p>\n

Oh, dear.\u00a0\u00a0 Something more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, he wanted to sleep with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her ma\u2019s brown eyebrows danced.\u00a0 \u201cA fish.\u00a0 To sleep with?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you know, I was reading him \u2018Stories about the Whale\u2019 and he really wanted a whale, but I told him whales only grow in oceans and all we had was a creek so I\u2019d have to get him a little bitty whale and well, ain\u2019t a fish a little bitty whale?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pursed her lips and frowned.\u00a0 Pa said \u2018ain\u2019t\u2019.\u00a0 Ma didn\u2019t think it was proper<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Did that mean Pa <\/em>wasn\u2019t proper?<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t<\/em> a fish an itty bitty whale?\u201d<\/p>\n

There was that sound again.\u00a0 Like air snorting out of a mule\u2019s nose.\u00a0 \u201cAnd how do you propose to keep this itty bitty whale alive <\/em>once it\u2019s out of the water and tucked safely in your little brother\u2019s bed?\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth drew in a big bunch of air and held it \u2018cause it helped her think better.\u00a0 Well, really, letting it out slow-like helped \u2018cause all the best ideas seemed to come out with it.\u00a0 \u201cHow \u2018bout I put it in a bowl and put the bowl in Jack\u2019s bed?\u201d<\/p>\n

It sounded good.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you could<\/em> try that.\u00a0 But what happens when Jack turns over in the middle of the night and knocks the bowl on the floor and no one is awake to know the little thing is lying there gasping for breath?\u00a0 Is that what you want?\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a pretty picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo why don\u2019t we leave the…whale where it belongs and your brother where he belongs?\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth nodded slowly.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cYes, ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her mother turned then and started up the rise beside the creek.\u00a0 At the top she turned back. \u201cAre you coming?\u201d<\/p>\n

The little golden-haired girl looked at the new moon and then at the creek one last time.\u00a0 Maybe she could try again tomorrow.\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t a moon that was only a sliver thicker still a new one?\u00a0 Was it only new one night or did that go on until it was old?\u00a0 When did it become<\/em> old?\u00a0 Did it have to be twelve or thirteen like she did?\u00a0 As she watched her reflection roll one way and the other, Elizabeth frowned.\u00a0 Josie had told her if she perched over the creek and held real still when the moon was high and new and pushed a yellow flower under her chin, she\u2019d be able to see the face of her true love.\u00a0 \u00a0She was ten.<\/p>\n

Life was passing her by.<\/p>\n

It was time she knew.<\/p>\n

\u201cElizabeth!\u201d<\/p>\n

She hoped he\u2019d still be there the next night.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

HEADING OUT THE DOOR<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I<\/p>\n

Joe Cartwright looked up at the sliver of a new moon and sighed.\u00a0 For a man who\u2019d just burned every bridge he had behind him he felt awful cold.\u00a0 Being so all-fired and het-up, he\u2019d plumb forgot that he was in his city slicker suit.\u00a0 He\u2019d also managed to forget that it was October and the nights were growing cold as a witch\u2019s….<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it, Joe. \u00a0Add a foul mouth to your pa\u2019s list of crimes.<\/p>\n

After what he\u2019d done back at the house, Pa probably had Roy Coffee out looking for him.\u00a0 He\u2019d probably told the crotchety old sheriff that he was \u2018no son of mine anymore\u2019 and that he could just take the young scamp<\/em> and throw him in jail and toss the key in after him!<\/p>\n

No, that didn\u2019t work.\u00a0 Toss it away.<\/p>\n

Far <\/em>away.<\/p>\n

Joe drew in a big snort of air and let it out slowly.\u00a0 He\u2019d never seen his pa look so mad.\u00a0 Well, maybe he\u2019d come close that time he\u2019d asked the preacher what a \u2018whore\u2019 was in the middle of the Sunday social.\u00a0 Or maybe that time when Pa\u2019d caught him trying to be one of those African savages Adam used to read to him about.<\/p>\n

Somehow painting himself brown with pa\u2019s desk ink and swinging practically bare-naked through the trees to Sara\u2019s house to ask her if he looked \u2018authentic\u2019 had seemed like a good idea at the time.<\/p>\n

Still, this was different.\u00a0 That look in Pa\u2019s eyes, well, it wasn\u2019t the anger so much as the disappointment that told him he\u2019d better run and better stay<\/em> far away.<\/p>\n

Joe looked at Cochise.\u00a0 He was his horse, but in a way, Cooch still belonged to Pa.\u00a0 He\u2019d better leave him behind with the wagon since he didn\u2019t want to add stealing to that long list.\u00a0 But then again, everything<\/em> he had belonged to Pa even the clothes \u2013 such as they were \u2013 that he was wearing.\u00a0\u00a0 He could strip down, but then he\u2019d be in trouble just like he\u2019d been in trouble for trying to be a man from Africa. \u00a0And he\u2019d be buck naked.<\/p>\n

Now that he was older, that was bound <\/em>to draw attention.<\/p>\n

The image of Coral Violetta Gertner flashed before his eyes, wondering what she\u2019d think if she saw him buck-naked.<\/p>\n

What her father<\/em> would think….<\/p>\n

What his<\/em> father would think….<\/p>\n

Dismissing that idea with a roll of his green eyes, Joe finished unhitching Cooch from the wagon.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t gonna compound his sins by taking that too.<\/p>\n

As he rode along, considering the road and where it would take him, Joe couldn\u2019t help but think about that beast he had inside.\u00a0 It sure did get him into trouble.\u00a0 He tried to remember if it had been there before his momma died.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t think so.\u00a0 Seemed to him it reared its ugly head the day the preacher had him toss a clump of dirt on that wooden box they shut her in.\u00a0 He\u2019d just been a little tyke.\u00a0 His pa had held him while he leaned in and let it drop.\u00a0 He\u2019d watched it fall into the dark hole they\u2019d lowered his mama into and heard it hit.\u00a0 Then he heard something move.\u00a0 Something shifted and came roaring up outa that hole and into him.\u00a0 His pa had held onto him kicking and screaming, speaking soft words and stroking his hair.\u00a0 Adam told him later that he\u2019d fought like a puma, working his way out of Pa\u2019s arms, running back, jumping down….<\/p>\n

Joe closed his eyes.\u00a0 He shook himself.<\/p>\n

It seemed sometimes like he\u2019d never climbed back out of that hole.<\/p>\n

Straightening his back, he planted his eyes on the road.\u00a0 He was seventeen now and by the standards of most \u2013 his Pa not<\/em> included \u2013 he was a man.<\/em>\u00a0 It was time to be on his own.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t need those three mother hens \u2013 well, four<\/em> if you counted Hop Sing \u2013 watching over him every minute, clucking about him taking it slow, telling him to watch his temper and look before he leaped \u2013<\/p>\n

A strangled cry cut through the night.\u00a0 It sounded all nervous-like, like one of their baby beeves caught in a bush.\u00a0\u00a0 Joe reined in Cooch and sat for a minute listening, wondering if he\u2019d really heard it or not.\u00a0 It was night and the night had a way of making a man hear and see things, things that were real sometimes but more often not.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, he supposed he\u2019d have to find out which one it was.<\/p>\n

Putting spurs to horse flesh Joe leaped.<\/p>\n

But he forgot to look.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

II<\/p>\n

Her ma was sighing again, like it seemed she did most every day.\u00a0 Her pa, though, he was smiling.\u00a0 Pa was always like that, laughing and smiling and poking her ma and patting her on the rump while her ma looked sour and said in a sour tone \u2013<\/p>\n

\u201cFitzhugh Reese Carnaby!\u00a0 What will<\/em> the children think?\u201d<\/p>\n

Her ma liked to use all three names whenever she could, just to show she knew them.<\/p>\n

Pa understood that and he never corrected her.\u00a0 He<\/em> knew what the children thought.\u00a0 At least he knew what she <\/em>thought.\u00a0 She thought it was right funny when ma pulled that face \u2018cause she\u2019d pull a bigger one a minute later when Pa rushed her, picked her up, and kissed her with a big \u2018smack!<\/em>\u2019 right on the mouth.<\/p>\n

Yuck.<\/p>\n

\u201cPut me down! \u00a0Fitz! \u00a0If you want supper on the table, I have work to do!\u201d<\/p>\n

Work.<\/p>\n

Yuck two.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all it seemed they ever did.\u00a0 Fetch the water from the creek.\u00a0 Check on Jack.\u00a0 Milk the cow.\u00a0 Go find Jack where he was hiding.\u00a0 Brush down the horses.\u00a0 Tell Jack he\u2019d better listen or else.<\/em>\u00a0 Gather eggs.\u00a0 Go find Jack where he was hiding again.\u00a0 Fetch more water from the creek.\u00a0 Pull Jack out of the henhouse and take him inside.\u00a0 Sit through schooling.\u00a0 Work on sums.\u00a0 Put Jack to bed.\u00a0 Fetch more water from the creek.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d asked her ma once why they didn\u2019t have a big old cistern that they could fill with a couple of days\u2019 worth of water so\u2019s she wouldn\u2019t have to go the creek three times each and every one of them.<\/p>\n

Her mother said it gave her something to do.<\/p>\n

But she had other things to do \u2013 important <\/em>things \u2013 like what she was doing now; perching on that rock and leaning over that creek, mooshing a yellow flower under her chin and asking the water to show her what her true love would look like.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth frowned at the\u00a0 wobbly water.\u00a0 He looked kind of like an octopus at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cElizabeth!\u201d<\/p>\n

She rose to her feet.\u00a0 \u201cYes, Ma\u2019am?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get away from that water.\u00a0 One of these days God\u2019s going to let you fall in and you\u2019ll float down that creek and out to sea and find yourself in some foreign land where they eat little girls with too much imagination!\u00a0 Is that what you want?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, Ma\u2019am.\u00a0 I mean, no<\/em>, Ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth didn\u2019t need an imagination to know what was going to happen next.<\/p>\n

Dropping the flower in the water she picked up her bucket and ran toward the house leaving her true love behind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

GOING FOR THE\u00a0BUCKET<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I<\/p>\n

Joe\u2019d been riding for ten or so minutes now, looking right and left and listening.\u00a0 Just about the time he thought he\u2019d been hearing things, the sound came again.\u00a0 There was a hollow not too far away.\u00a0 He\u2019d gone there fishing with Hoss when he was little.\u00a0 Seemed to him that the sound might be coming from that hollow, though what one of their beeves would be doing there he had no idea.\u00a0 Wandered off from its mama probably.<\/p>\n

Or maybe lost its mama like him.<\/p>\n

Joe shook his head as he pressed his heels into Cooch\u2019s black and white hide.\u00a0 What was wrong with him anyway?\u00a0 Hoss and Adam had lost their mamas and they didn\u2019t sit around all day thinking about what it would have been like if they hadn\u2019t.\u00a0 Maybe it was \u2018cause he had his mama for a longer time.\u00a0 He could still feel her, smell her \u2013 sometimes\u00a0 he even saw her standing at the end of his bed at night, looking down at him.<\/p>\n

Usually shaking her head just like Pa.<\/p>\n

Pa.<\/p>\n

He wondered, would Pa take him back?<\/p>\n

It seemed really stupid now, listening to that beast roar.\u00a0 When he came to think of it, it almost always got him in trouble.\u00a0 Pa\u2019d told him once that there wasn\u2019t a thing wrong with anger.\u00a0 \u2018Be angry and do not sin\u2019, the Good Book said.\u00a0 He should be \u2018quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.\u2019<\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s lips curled in a tight grin.\u00a0 Well, he\u2019d sort of kind of thought the Good Book got that backward.\u00a0 It\u00a0 should have read be \u2018slow to hear, quick to speak and quicker<\/em> to anger.\u2019<\/p>\n

Sad to say there was another Bible verse he recalled from the Revelation of John that said something about anyone adding or taking away from the Word would lose their share in the tree of life.<\/p>\n

Chastised, Joe urged Cochise on.<\/p>\n

There was a little waterfall at the back of the hollow.\u00a0 He could hear the rushing water now splashing and crashing on the rocks below.\u00a0 Maybe that was why he hadn\u2019t heard anything more from whatever poor little feller had lost his way.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d lost his way today too.\u00a0 He\u2019d let that beast rear up and come out fighting mad.\u00a0 It\u2019d been silly really.\u00a0 Any other day he\u2019d a taken a dose of what Hoss and Adam were spooning him and fed it right back to them.\u00a0 They\u2019d \u2018a laughed and he\u2019d \u2018a laughed and they\u2019d all probably ended up in the horse trough.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t know why today was different.\u00a0 Why he got so goldarned<\/em> mad.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t \u2018cause of his hair, not really.\u00a0 It was only natural for a fellow who was losing what someone else had to pick on him for it \u2013 and Adam and Hoss both sure<\/em> had reason to be jealous of his hair.\u00a0 And he didn\u2019t really think it had to do with them making him feel like a baby \u2013 this time, at least.\u00a0 No, there was something seated right down deep in the middle of him that made him think he had to take on the world because, well, because he had <\/em>to.<\/p>\n

Oh, right, Joe.\u00a0 That helps.<\/p>\n

The finger-thin moon was hanging on the horizon.\u00a0 It cast a pale light on the hollow as he pulled into it and dismounted.\u00a0 He could hear the baby cow bellowing and snorting.\u00a0 In fact, it sounded like there was more than one bellowing and snorting.\u00a0 They were raising quite a ruckus.\u00a0\u00a0 Puzzled, he looped Cochise\u2019s reins over a tree limb and moved forward, heading toward the sound.\u00a0 It grew louder as he walked.\u00a0 There was a brace of trees at the bend before the falls that blocked his view.<\/p>\n

He sure wished they hadn\u2019t when he rounded them.<\/p>\n

\u2018Cause that was when he found himself staring straight into the face of one of Coral Violetta Gertner\u2019s butt-ugly brothers.\u00a0 He was holding a running brand in his fat hand and sneering like a wolf that just spied its supper.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, John,\u201d Joe said with a twitch of his busted lip.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou laughing at me, kid?\u201d John snarled as he advanced.<\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s\u00a0 eyebrows leapt for his well-greased hair and he shifted back and raised his hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho?\u00a0 Me?\u00a0 No, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t like the look of that iron.\u00a0 It was red hot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that snot-nosed kid doin\u2019 here this time of night?\u201d a gruff voice asked out of the shadows.\u00a0 \u201cYou s\u2019pose Coral told him what we\u2019re up to, Jim?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably sweet-talked it out of sis when he had his lips on hers and those smooth hands of his working their way into her dress.\u201d<\/p>\n

His hands weren\u2019t smooth.\u00a0 Really.\u00a0 In fact, they were pretty callused. \u2018Course that was just water over the dam now.<\/p>\n

There were three of them and one of him.<\/p>\n

Dang!<\/em>\u00a0 He was in trouble.<\/p>\n

A moment later Coral Violetta Gertner\u2019s brothers were ringing \u2018round him and not looking at all rosy.<\/p>\n

Besides the brand John held, Jim had his pistol drawn and Will had a rope dangling from his not-so-smooth hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s seen us,\u201d Will declared.\u00a0 \u201cWe can\u2019t let him go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will was the oldest and the biggest.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that he was big like Hoss \u2013 weren\u2019t many who were \u2013 but he\u2019d been a dockworker before he\u2019d become a drover \u2013 which was obviously before he\u2019d decided to become a rustler \u2013 and his muscles had muscles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we cain\u2019t kill him, you half-wit.\u00a0 He\u2019s got family \u2013 important<\/em> family,\u201d Jim, who was two-thirds the size of Will, which was plenty big, reminded him.<\/p>\n

Good for Jim.<\/p>\n

Then John had to go and spoil it.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot outright<\/em>, at least.\u201d<\/p>\n

He figured he had about ten seconds.\u00a0 John was at least three yards away. \u00a0\u00a0That eliminated the brand as a weapon.\u00a0 Jim had that gun, but shooting it would be more than stupid as the cattle the brothers were rustling would take fright and what part of them didn\u2019t run off would make a riot of noise like to raise the dead.<\/p>\n

Joe swallowed over a lump the size of the territory in his throat.\u00a0 Bad<\/em> choice of words.<\/p>\n

That left Will and that rope.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo ahead, Cartwright,\u201d Will smirked as he lifted the rope and twirled it above his balding head.\u00a0 \u201cTry it.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019d tightened the ring \u2018til it felt like a noose around his neck.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t anywhere to run and, you know, just when he counted the most on that beast to rise up and try something reckless, daring<\/em> even, it just hunkered down and sat there laughing at him, and refused to rise.<\/p>\n

Plain and simple, he was scared.<\/p>\n

Still, there was nothing for it but to try.\u00a0 Sizing up the brand and the gun and thinking what damage they could do, Joe dropped to the ground and rolled, knocking John flat on his arse and then rolled into Jim whose gun flew wide.<\/p>\n

He was on his feet in five seconds.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Will was a second faster with that rope and in another thirty he had him hogtied and laying face down in the grass. \u00a0Will cussed and spit when he\u2019d finished and then tried to pull him up off the forest floor by taking hold of a hank of his curly hair.<\/p>\n

It was so well-greased it slipped out of his fingers.<\/p>\n

Joe heard Jim snort and John guffaw.<\/p>\n

Just before his <\/em>lights went out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

II<\/p>\n

\u201cElizabeth!\u201d<\/p>\n

Gosh.\u00a0 What\u2019d she done wrong now?<\/p>\n

The supper dishes were all red-upped, the floor\u2019d been sweeped…er…swept, she\u2019d cleaned out the piss-pot and read Jack his whale story again and then tucked him in bed in the room they shared.\u00a0 She had a big rope bed near six feet long on one side and Jack\u2019s cradle sat on the other.\u00a0 Why, she\u2019d even tied the ropes over the top of the cradle so he couldn\u2019t crawl out.<\/p>\n

What in all of Tarnation<\/em> was left?<\/p>\n

Elizabeth rolled that word around on her tongue.\u00a0 Tar-naaa-tionnn.\u00a0 <\/em>She liked the feel of it almost as much as the sound.<\/p>\n

\u201cBella!\u201d<\/p>\n

Pa this time.\u00a0 That meant business.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing!\u201d<\/p>\n

Putting her picture book of the Bible down carefully so as to be sure the pages wouldn\u2019t get bent, Elizabeth stood up, straightened her nightdress and, after taking a quick peek in the mirror to make sure it didn\u2019t show that she still had her day <\/em>clothes on underneath, headed out to the common room of their house where her parents were sitting.<\/p>\n

She had plans for later.<\/p>\n

Big <\/em>plans.<\/p>\n

Pa was sitting in front of the fire.\u00a0 It was March, but it had come in like a lion and the nights were cold enough to freeze…well, something<\/em> off of brass monkeys.\u00a0 At least that\u2019s what her Pa said when Ma wasn\u2019t around.\u00a0 Pa used to be a sailor and Ma said his language was \u2018salty\u2019 and not for a young lady\u2019s ears.\u00a0 Her ears liked it fine.<\/p>\n

Though she never could go and figure how a word could be salty.\u00a0 She\u2019d tried sprinkling some table salt on her dictionary once and licked a couple and it just didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t too sure about those brass moneys either.\u00a0 Sometimes she saw them in her dreams, swinging from tree to tree, ringing like the big brass bell in the church back East.<\/p>\n

Her ma was rocking and darning, darning and rocking.\u00a0 Ma said she\u2019d never seen a child with such big first toes as she had.\u00a0 Said she had so much darning to do \u2018cause of it there wasn\u2019t time to do anything else.\u00a0 Elizabeth\u2019s eyes went to her Pa\u2019s feet.\u00a0 You couldn\u2019t tell in those great boots he had, but his big toe was bigger than hers \u2013 bigger than anyone\u2019s.<\/p>\n

She was right proud of that big toe \u2013 even if it made her Ma extra work.<\/p>\n

Standing straight in front of the two of them she linked her hands and looked her Pa straight in the eyes and asked, \u201cYes, Ma\u2019am?\u201d<\/p>\n

Pa giggled.\u00a0 He did that \u2013 giggled.\u00a0 Just like a girl.<\/p>\n

Her Pa put down his book and reached out and took her by both hands.\u00a0 He looked her up and down and then up and then down again.<\/p>\n

\u201cMm-hmm!\u00a0 You sure are a pretty one!\u201d he exclaimed.<\/p>\n

The sun didn\u2019t have anything on her face beaming.<\/p>\n

\u201cFitz….\u201d<\/p>\n

Her Pa drew in a deep breath, just like she did, to think better.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cLet\u2019s see, how old are you now?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

Apparently it didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know how old I am, Pa,\u201d she giggled back.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m ten.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTen whole years.\u00a0 Land o\u2019 Goshen!\u00a0 You\u2019ll be a woman soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her nose wrinkled.\u00a0 \u201cDo I have to?\u201d<\/p>\n

While he Pa roared, her Ma stopped rocking the chair and started rocking her head.\u00a0 \u201cWhat am I going to do with you, child?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was one of her Ma\u2019s favorite things to say.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe if she said it enough she\u2019d find an answer one day.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow come you want to know how old I am, Pa?\u201d she asked, wary.\u00a0 When grown-ups asked funny questions they already knew the answer to, it was usually not something anyone wanted anything to do with.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re thinking of sending you back East to live with my sister for a year or two so you can get a proper education,\u201d her mother blurted out before her father could answer.<\/p>\n

Now that just wasn\u2019t something you sprang on a girl in her nightclothes with her day clothes underneath who was planning on finding the face of her true love tonight by looking in the creek after she snuck out of the window and who was gonna marry him and settle down in the Clayborn\u2019s old cabin.\u00a0 Millie Collins had only been twelve when she got engaged.<\/p>\n

And she was practically twelve.<\/p>\n

Sort of.<\/p>\n

Both of her parents were looking at her.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, do you have anything to say?\u201d her Ma asked<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I hafta go?\u201d she asked, her voice small as a mouse.<\/p>\n

Pa beat Ma to it.\u00a0 \u201cWe think you should.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looked from the one to the other.\u00a0 When it came to things concerning her, \u2018we\u2019 meant Ma<\/em> thought so since Ma was a girl and Pa wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 Ma was all <\/em>about her growing up to be a lady.<\/p>\n

Since she had to go away to do it that must mean Ma wasn\u2019t one, so she wasn\u2019t sure why it was so all-fired important.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t go.\u201d<\/p>\n

There.\u00a0\u00a0 Whatever end of the strop she landed on, she\u2019d said it.<\/p>\n

Ma got that look.\u00a0 The one she\u2019d only worn a time or two before that she could remember.\u00a0 A look of \u2018mor-ti-fi-ca-tion\u2019.\u00a0 <\/em>That\u2019s what someone said her Ma had worn when she\u2019d jumped up in the middle of the service and started walking across the empty pews one day.\u00a0\u00a0 Next came the even scarier part.<\/p>\n

The con-nip-tion<\/em> fit.<\/p>\n

The darning went down to the seat of the chair and Ma came up off of it, throwing her hands in the air like some Indian had a bead on her.<\/p>\n

Whatever am I going to do with this child?<\/em> Elizabeth mouthed as her pa snorted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever am I going to do with this child?\u00a0 She\u2019s growing up like Topsy!\u00a0 Bare feet.\u00a0 Nettles in her hair!\u00a0\u00a0 I can\u2019t keep a clean pinafore on her.\u00a0 And her manners.\u00a0 She\u2019s got the manners of a…a….\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth exchanged a glance with her pa.\u00a0 It all depended on the next<\/em> word.<\/p>\n

\u201cBumpkin!\u201d<\/p>\n

Whew!\u00a0 That was way<\/em> better than a bull in a china shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, Maggie, calm down,\u201d her Pa said exchanging her hand for her ma\u2019s as she swung past.\u00a0 Rising, he caught her Ma\u2019s other hand and looked into her eyes.<\/p>\n

Men did that when they were working their magic.\u00a0 Josie told her so.\u00a0 Never look a man in the eyes if you want to get your way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can talk about this another day.\u00a0 Anyhow, Bella wouldn\u2019t go \u2018til she\u2019s at least eleven, so there\u2019s plenty of time to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eleven.<\/p>\n

A whole year.<\/p>\n

A whole year<\/em> to find her true love and make plans for him to take her away to his big old spread with its big old ranch house with a dozen rooms and a cook and a maid where she could be the lady of the house without all of that stupid schooling to turn her into<\/em> a lady.<\/p>\n

After all, if she had a house she didn\u2019t need <\/em>the schooling.<\/p>\n

Her Pa was holding her Ma now and patting her back like Ma did for Jack when he needed to burp. \u00a0Ma didn\u2019t burp, but her back shook and she was making little whimpering noises like a pack of puppies.<\/p>\n

Pa caught her eye over her ma\u2019s shoulder.\u00a0 \u201cWhy don\u2019t you check on Jack, Bella, and then say your prayers and put out the light.\u00a0 It\u2019s past your bedtime.\u201d<\/p>\n

She nodded and then threw in a little curtsy just for good measure.\u00a0 \u201cSure thing, Pa.\u201d\u00a0 Elizabeth hesitated.\u00a0 \u201cNight, Ma.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her ma wagged her hand and kept on whimpering.<\/p>\n

Her Pa wagged his too, but his meant \u2018get moving before Ma changes her mind.\u2019<\/p>\n

After Elizabeth checked on her brother she went to her bed and knelt beside it and said her prayers.\u00a0 She asked God to heal the preacher\u2019s toe which was hurting him since he had the gout and to heal Mrs. McCorkle\u2019s back so she didn\u2019t bend over no more and scare all the children who thought she was a witch.\u00a0 She asked that He look after her little brother \u2018cause Jack could get into a heap of trouble without trying.\u00a0 And last of all \u2013 \u2018cause Ma taught her to always ask for yourself last \u2013 she asked God to make her ma forget about sending her to school back East.<\/p>\n

Well, that was almost last.\u00a0 At the end she snuck in something about that yellow flower and her true love and seeing his face so\u2019s she\u2019d know him when he came to take her to his big old ranch house.<\/p>\n

Then she blew out her lamp and laid back in the darkness and waited.<\/p>\n

There was a creek with her name on it and she was gonna go looking for a man yet tonight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

HEADING FOR THE CREEK<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I<\/p>\n

It must have snowed \u2018cause everything was white.\u00a0 Well, not exactly white, but bright maybe.<\/p>\n

Maybe blank.<\/p>\n

Yeah, that was it.\u00a0 Blank like a slate with no letters or numbers.\u00a0\u00a0 He needed to find a slate pencil and make some marks, fill it in somehow.\u00a0 Put something down.<\/p>\n

Something….<\/p>\n

The man with the curly brown hair, whose generous dose of expensive macassar oil was now the gathering place of all manner of leaves, bracken, and not a few small oily and slightly drunk living creatures, tried to open his eyes.\u00a0 It seemed they were coated with something too \u2018cause they didn\u2019t want to open.\u00a0 He scrunched his nose and wiggled his lids and was rewarded not by them opening, but by a sledgehammer taking aim at his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere.\u00a0 I told you he ain\u2019t dead,\u201d someone said a long ways off.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s pissin\u2019 and moanin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe sniffed.\u00a0 He\u2019d admit to the pissing.<\/p>\n

Things didn\u2019t smell too good.<\/p>\n

In fact, it smelled kind of like that night behind the barn when he and Seth took that old half-drunk whiskey bottle and finished it off and then Seth puked and he puked and they both crapped themselves and then he fell and smashed his nose on the side of the water trough when he was trying to dunk his head under.\u00a0 Someone came and got him that night and cleaned him up and put him in his bed without anyone ever knowing what a fool idiot he\u2019d been.<\/p>\n

Someone.<\/p>\n

He wondered who.\u00a0 And he wondered how he could remember Seth and the whiskey bottle but not remember whoever it was that had rescued him.\u00a0 That slate must have had something written on it, but\u00a0 it must of been part way erased.<\/p>\n

Maybe by whoever was talking.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou hit him awful hard,\u201d another man said.\u00a0 \u201cBetween that crack on his head and his nose bleedin\u2019 it\u2019s gonna leave a trail.\u00a0 I hear that one brother of his is about the best tracker in Nevada.\u201d<\/p>\n

So he was in Nevada.\u00a0 And he had a brother.<\/p>\n

Maybe that<\/em> was who rescued him.<\/p>\n

He sure wished he could remember, but trying to remember was making his head hurt and his head already hurt so much he wanted to take it off and throw it away.<\/p>\n

Now, wouldn\u2019t that have been a sight?<\/p>\n

\u201cIs he laughin\u2019?\u00a0 What\u2019s he got to laugh for?\u201d a surly voice asked.\u00a0 \u201cHey, kid!\u00a0 What you laughin\u2019 at?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Kid\u2019 was punctuated by fingers twisting in his hair and yanking hard.<\/p>\n

Sadly, they didn\u2019t slip this time.<\/p>\n

Joe came fully awake with a jolt to find Coral Violetta Gertner\u2019s three \u00a0coyote-ugly brothers circling him.<\/p>\n

Again.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t look so purty now, does he?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd look at that curly hair Coral keeps goin\u2019 on about.\u00a0 Looks fit for rats.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI kinda like his hair.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the littlest one.\u00a0 \u2018Bout his age.<\/p>\n

He got his hair yanked too.<\/p>\n

\u201cShut up!\u00a0 You two, get purty boy in the wagon and throw a tarp over him.\u00a0 Can\u2019t take this kind of goods over Ponderosa land, even this time of night, without makin\u2019 it secure.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he was lifted up and carried, Joe\u2019s tired brain turned over that word.\u00a0 Ponderosa.\u00a0 It was a big<\/em> word that had all kinds of sounds and sights and smells attached to it.\u00a0 There was a deep voice booming and a lot of laughing, tall pines reaching toward the sky and a room with a picture of a sailing ship above a bed.\u00a0 He could smell eggs and bacon and cherry pie and, funny as it was, hear someone shouting in Chinese.\u00a0 There was a face, a weary, wise face, that was looking at him, its black eyes narrowed with pain.<\/p>\n

He\u2019 done that.\u00a0 He\u2019d put that pain there.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we get him to the Clayborn\u2019s old place we\u2019ll douse it.\u00a0 After the fire\u2019s done, won\u2019t be enough left of Mister high-and-mighty Joe Cartwright to scrape off the floor and bury.\u00a0 Or to identify,\u201d he added with a snort.<\/p>\n

Joe closed his eyes tight, concentrating on that face, trying to remember the last time he\u2019d seen it and why it was so important.\u00a0 The slate pencil scraped across that empty board, filling in some blanks.\u00a0 His pa\u2019d been mad at him and his brothers too.\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 He had a pa and brothers.\u00a0 Pa\u2019d said something about his mama and it made him mad and that old beast had come bubbling up fists at the ready.<\/p>\n

Where was it now?<\/p>\n

Come on, beast, he coaxed, come on!\u00a0 I know you\u2019re there.\u00a0 Come on, wake up!<\/p>\n

Joe, damn it!<\/em>\u00a0 Start moving or you\u2019re gonna die!<\/p>\n

He\u2019d never heard such a string of cusswords in all his born days as the ones he heard when he rolled out of the Gertner\u2019s hands and started kicking and shouting and fighting.<\/p>\n

He would have made Hoss and Adam proud.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrab his skinny little arse!\u201d one yelled.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s slippery as a eel, Will!\u201d<\/p>\n

The next one was a mumble since his heel had connected with Jim\u2019s jaw.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cEmmmmgnnnaaKILLthltsknnnnyyyylllllbasstttddddddd!!!!!<\/p>\n

Running seemed like a right smart idea.\u00a0 It would have worked too if something hadn\u2019t come outa nowhere and hit him in the back of the head with enough force to drive him straight into a tree.<\/p>\n

\u201cGot blood on your gun butt, Will,\u201d a voice said.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ll have to clean that off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clean.<\/p>\n

The slate was clean.<\/p>\n

Everything was white.<\/p>\n

Must have snowed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

II<\/p>\n

She must have got something wrong.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth was perched on her rock again, leaning out over the water, squishing a new yellow posy under her chin.\u00a0 The moon was high in the sky.\u00a0 She could see it wobbling in the water.\u00a0 It kinda looked like a white ribbon.\u00a0 It was right pretty but it wasn\u2019t the face of her true love.<\/p>\n

She must <\/em>be doing something wrong.<\/p>\n

Standing up, she turned round and plunked down on the rock facing the opposite direction and anchored her chin on her fists.\u00a0 Her ma and pa thought she was sleeping.\u00a0 She\u2019d sneaked out once she heard pa snoring.\u00a0 Ma never snored, but she kind of whimpered like a newborn lamb all content-like when she snuggled up in pa\u2019s left arm.\u00a0 She\u2019d looked at them for a full minute before leaving, wondering if Ma had ever gone out to the creek and leaned over it and pushed a posy up against her chin and waited for Pa\u2019s face to appear.\u00a0 She finally decided probably not.\u00a0 Ma was a pragmatist<\/em>, Pa said.<\/p>\n

When she\u2019d asked him whatever did that mean, he said it was a fancy word for \u2018stubborn as a mule\u2019.<\/p>\n

She was gonna be in trouble if they woke up and found her out of her bed.\u00a0 She\u2019d thought about asking to come out, but she knew that was pointless.\u00a0 Pa\u2019d say it was too dangerous and Ma, well, Ma would just give her that look \u2013 the one she gave Jack when she caught him pulling the cat\u2019s tail or chasing the chickens and scaring \u2018em so they wouldn\u2019t lay.<\/p>\n

Trouble, that\u2019s what that look was, plain and simple pure<\/em> trouble.<\/p>\n

So instead she\u2019d sneaked out.\u00a0 It was mighty important or she wouldn\u2019t have dared.\u00a0 With Ma thinking she needed to be a lady and her needing to stay where she was, well, she needed to find a man who would take her off Ma\u2019s hands and give her a house to take care of so she could be a woman and she could make her own decisions.\u00a0 Ma made her own decisions. The only difference between them was that Ma was a little older and taller.<\/p>\n

And scarier.<\/p>\n

Did she have to be scary to be a lady, she wondered?<\/p>\n

She thought ladies were scary.\u00a0 Like that old schoolmarm, Abigail Jones, who had come out to their place one time wanting her to go to school.\u00a0 She\u2019d been scarier than two coyotes and a rattlesnake all rolled into one.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth glanced at the water and then looked up at the moon.\u00a0 She raised a hand to measure it and decided it was just about the size of her thumbnail.\u00a0 She\u2019d heard stories about a man living on it.\u00a0 He must have been awful tiny to fit.<\/p>\n

With a big sigh she turned back to the water and looked at it again.\u00a0 The moonlight was winking in and out of the clouds and for just a second she thought she saw a face.\u00a0 It was a pretty face with lots and lots of curls.\u00a0 Or so she thought.\u00a0 It might have been ripples, but it looked like curls.\u00a0 They were sort of dark and there were two kind of greenish points of light in the middle of them.\u00a0 As she leaned over, trying to look closer, she lost her balance and fell into the water with a splash.<\/p>\n

She went under, but it was only two or three feet deep so she righted herself right quickly and came up sputtering.<\/p>\n

It was then she saw the light.<\/p>\n

There were rumors about the old Clayborn place.\u00a0 Ma and Pa told her there weren\u2019t no such things as ghosts, but she wasn\u2019t so sure.\u00a0 The Clayborns had been gone about a two years.\u00a0 Leastwise, that\u2019s what she thought.\u00a0 Jack was four now and he\u2019d been about two when they went away.\u00a0 Josie Miller had told her that Mister Clayborn had been a drinker and one night when he was on a bender he\u2019d taken an axe and murdered his wife and children in their beds.\u00a0 Ma said that was nonsense and slander and threatened to wash her mouth out with soap if she repeated it.\u00a0 She said Mister Clayborn had been a nice man who\u2019d suffered when his wife and children died of the fever and had gone back home to New York to live with family.<\/p>\n

Secretly, she suspected Josie was right.\u00a0 She\u2019d heard strange things at the Clayborn place.\u00a0 And seen them too.\u00a0 Like what she was seeing now.<\/p>\n

There was a fire burning in the old cabin just like it had when the Clayborns lived there.\u00a0 And as she watched from her position in the creek, she saw black shadows moving away from it.\u00a0 They was running to beat the band like they was scared.<\/p>\n

She was scared.<\/p>\n

But she had <\/em>to know.<\/p>\n

Her Pa had read her some of Mister Shakespeare\u2019s works.\u00a0 She liked the scary one they called the Scottish play.\u00a0 She\u2019d practiced being Lady Macbeth, walking and moaning, \u2018Out damned spot\u2019, over and over again \u2018til she got it right.<\/p>\n

Since it was literature, it was okay to cuss.<\/p>\n

There was another line from the Scottish play her Pa liked to quote.\u00a0 \u2018Screw your courage to the sticking place, Bella,\u2019 he\u2019d say, \u2018and you\u2019ll not fail.\u2019<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t really know what a \u2018sticking place\u2019 was, but she figured it meant \u2018don\u2019t be afraid\u2019, so she tried not to be.\u00a0 Like now .\u00a0 Like when she wanted to be \u2018cause those shadows were scary and the light in the cabin was too.<\/p>\n

But she had <\/em>to know.<\/p>\n

Hunkering down behind the rock Elizabeth watched as the shadows mounted shadow horses and rode away, and then she climbed out of the creek and dripping wet went to look in the windows of the old Clayborn place.<\/p>\n

What she found laying on the middle of the floor in the front room of that cabin sent her running and shouting for her ma and pa in spite of the fact that she was gonna get a tanning for being out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

WET BOTTOM<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I<\/p>\n

Joe Cartwright was sitting hip deep in water, with his hands and feet bound and a bandage around his head, and absolutely no self-respect.\u00a0 He sighed as he looked up at the little blonde girl with the big eyes and even bigger gun and wondered how in the world this had happened.<\/p>\n

Then he tried to remember who had talked him into this \u2013 coming out here, wherever he was…to do whatever it was he was here to do.<\/p>\n

Whatever he had <\/em>been here to do.<\/p>\n

He was…certainly not <\/em>doing it now.<\/p>\n

Of course, with a bandage around his head that was dripping with blood, remembering was a little hard.\u00a0 He closed one eye and tried to concentrate on the girl\u2019s face as if clearly seen it might spark his reluctant memory.\u00a0 It was hard with the sun sinking behind her.\u00a0 It was right in his eyes so that meant he was facing west, which might mean he\u2019d come from the east.\u00a0 All of which could mean something<\/em> if he\u2019d known what direction he came from in the first place.<\/p>\n

Joe sniffed and shivered.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then he sneezed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just keep quiet,\u201d the mighty tot with the rifle aimed squarely between his eyes warned in a tiny tot\u2019s little voice.\u00a0\u00a0 She drew a big breath and drew herself up as the big gun dipped dangerously down.\u00a0 \u201cOtherwise I might have to shoot you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe blinked.\u00a0 All of a sudden there had been three of her.\u00a0 He hadn\u2019t liked the odds when there was only one.<\/p>\n

She looked like she might be a small ten, or maybe a big seven year old.\u00a0\u00a0 Her arms weren\u2019t any bigger in girth than the rifle barrel and her fingers, well, they were curled under near the firing mechanism like five little piggies.<\/p>\n

Were there five?<\/p>\n

Joe looked at his bound hands and watched as another drop of blood dripped down them to join with the rushing water, twisting this way and that like a pink ribbon in brown hair.\u00a0 His eyes stayed on it for a long time, noting how the ribbon grew paler the farther away it got.\u00a0 Wondering where it was going…..<\/p>\n

\u201cHey!\u201d<\/p>\n

The shout brought his head up.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cain\u2019t go to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sun was almost down now.\u00a0 She was a skinny silhouette against the burning orb.\u00a0 \u201cHow come?\u201d he asked, feeling stupid for doing so.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might die, silly.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019d batted his lashes as much as a girl looking over her fan.\u00a0 This last time, one eye wanted to remain shut.\u00a0 Maybe it thought it could shut out the pain.<\/p>\n

He hated to tell it, it wasn\u2019t working.<\/p>\n

Drawing a breath, Joe forced both eyes open.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI kind of thought that was what you wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

If a silhouette could be indignant, this one was.\u00a0 \u201cWhy would I want you dead, silly?\u201d she paused.\u00a0 When she spoke again, her tone had a giggle hidden in it\u00a0 \u201cI think you\u2019re just about the cutest thing that ever came down the\u00a0 Gold Hill Road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gold Hill.\u00a0 That was south of Virginia City, wasn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Maybe he\u2019d been in the city.\u00a0 Or on his way to the city.\u00a0 Or coming home.<\/p>\n

Pa.\u00a0 Adam.<\/p>\n

Hoss.<\/p>\n

Joe eyed his hands and feet and then the water,\u00a0 and then the mighty tot who had a crush on<\/em> him and a gun pointed at<\/em> him.<\/p>\n

He was never <\/em>gonna live this one down.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I ask you a question?\u201d<\/p>\n

She nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow come you got a gun on me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMa told me to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour ma.\u00a0 Where is she?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBack at the cabin, putting out the fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that she mentioned it, there was a scent of smoke on the air.\u00a0 \u201cWhat fire?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one we pulled you out of, silly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou <\/em>pulled me out of?\u201d<\/p>\n

Her shoulders rose with pride and then fell with the truth.\u00a0 \u201cPa wouldn\u2019t let me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPa\u2019s here too?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere else <\/em>would he be?\u201d she asked as if his question had been the dumbest thing in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay.\u00a0 Let me get this straight.\u00a0 Your pa and <\/em>ma,\u201d he looked to her for confirmation and got it, \u201cpulled me out of a burning cabin, bandaged my head, and then tied my hands and feet and shoved me in the creek after hitting me over the head?\u201d<\/p>\n

She sighed.\u00a0 \u201cYou sure<\/em> are pretty, but you\u2019re awful dumb.\u00a0 What would you think they\u2019d do that for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEntertainment?\u201d<\/p>\n

The girl\u2019s head shook.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cMa always told me you can\u2019t judge a book by its cover.\u00a0 You was already tied up and hurt when they pulled you out. \u201d\u00a0 She straightened up proudly.\u00a0 \u201cI <\/em>put the bandage on your head.\u201d\u00a0 She wrinkled her pert nose.\u00a0 \u201cIt was yucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo why am I sitting in a creek?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCause \u2013 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMa told you to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gun lifted and fell with her shoulders.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cWell, not exactly<\/em>….\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cElizabeth Carnaby what are you doing?\u201d a female voice demanded.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cLand\u2019s sake alive!\u00a0 He\u2019ll catch his death!\u201d<\/p>\n

A brown-haired woman appeared.\u00a0\u00a0 She held her hand out.\u00a0 \u201cGive me that gun!\u00a0 Wherever did you get it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou told me to get it, Ma.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you remember?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen did I tell you that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we got to the cabin and it was on fire.\u00a0 You and Pa rushed in and found the stranger and pulled him out. You looked at me and said, \u201cElizabeth, you take care of him like you would your little brother.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what I did.\u201d\u00a0 The girl stood tall.\u00a0 \u201cLast year when we had that fire you had me take Jack to the creek and put him in it so he wouldn\u2019t burn, and then you had me watch over him with the gun.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman was stunned into silence.\u00a0 Then she laughed.\u00a0 \u201cSo I did.\u00a0 But, child….\u00a0 Just help me get him out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe felt gentle hands lift him and then half-carry him up the bank.\u00a0 Then, all of a sudden they disappeared and he found himself floating like that ribbon.<\/p>\n

Sometime later Joe opened his eyes.\u00a0 The girl was there.\u00a0\u00a0 She had her hands anchored on the side of the bed and was staring at him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, big sister,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, little brother,\u201d she beamed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

II<\/p>\n

Little brothers.\u00a0 You just had to keep watch over them all the time and it weren\u2019t easy now that she had two.<\/p>\n

It had all started off okay when the one in laying her bed \u2013 the one Ma found out from a paper in his pocket was named\u00a0 \u2018Joseph\u2019 \u2013 woke up and opened those great big green eyes.\u00a0 Ma\u2019d tried to clean him up a little bit the night before, washing the mud and blood from his face, but she said she was afraid to do too much \u2018til he\u2019d had some rest.\u00a0 Even dirty and messy and smelly, he was still about the most beautiful thing she\u2019d ever seen.\u00a0 He looked kind of like the little china man Ma kept in her corner cupboard that she said was made in England.\u00a0 Ma told her Joseph probably had other injuries that didn\u2019t show \u2018neath his clothes and that the Doc would have to come and take a look at him before they could let him move.\u00a0 Ma was gonna stay with him but she begged and begged for Ma to let her<\/em> look out for him.\u00a0 Ma had agreed on one condition \u2013<\/p>\n

\u201cYou make sure you keep him in that bed, young lady,\u201d Ma said in that firm \u2018I mean what I say\u2019 voice she used when things were really<\/em> important.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s too sick to get up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then she\u2019d stayed close to the bed \u00a0and spent the time studying \u00a0Joseph.\u00a0 She\u2019d counted three cuts on his face and twice as many bruises, as well as somewhere around a dozen brown curls dangling down on his forehead.\u00a0 \u00a0She noted how he had a little dip near the end of his nose and one of those neat little creases in his chin.<\/p>\n

She really wanted to put a finger in it but figured that would wake him up and she shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

While she was studying him hard, she had a \u2018piffany\u2019<\/em>, as her Pa liked to call making a discovery without even trying.\u00a0 She realized that her new<\/em> little brother looked an awful lot like the face she\u2019d seen in the creek \u2013 the one that was supposed to be her true love.\u00a0 Now that was kind of confusing to a girl \u2013 your new little brother ending up as your true love.\u00a0 In the end she decided she\u2019d have to question Josie about it.\u00a0 Maybe she\u2019d been holding the posy upside-down or it had been that two-day-old new moon.\u00a0 Joseph was a sight older than her too and, while she thought he was about as handsome as handsome could be, he probably wouldn\u2019t want to wait five or six years for a skinny little tomboy girl to catch up.\u00a0 And even if he did want to wait, then he\u2019d<\/em> be five or six years older and then she\u2019d just have to catch up all over again.\u00a0 But then Ma\u2019d told her once that the difference between ten and sixteen was twice as much as the difference between sixteen and twenty-two.<\/p>\n

That had puzzled her mightily.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d done the sums and took them to Pa to show him they were just the same and he\u2019d just laughed and laughed.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, since Joseph wasn\u2019t going anywhere anytime soon, she decided to set aside the planning of the rest of her life until he got better.\u00a0 Maybe by then she\u2019d of talked to Josie and would know if the posy and the old-new moon had been what they needed to be or just plain wrong.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth reached out and touched one of those brown curls.\u00a0 When Joseph moved and turned his face away, she sat up guilty and held really still.\u00a0 It was okay, though.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t wake up.\u00a0 Looking at him sleeping made her feel kind of drowsy and she yawned mightily.\u00a0 Ma\u2019d let her skip her chores that morning since she was so wore out.\u00a0 \u00a0She\u2019d also taken Jack\u2019s cradle and moved it into her and Pa\u2019s room and then laid an old tick on the floor in its place and covered it with blankets so she had a place to lay down when she wanted to. \u00a0Elizabeth looked at Joseph and decided he was down and out for the count.\u00a0 That was another one of Pa\u2019s expressions.\u00a0 Pa\u2019s brother, Rob, was a pugilist so she knew what it meant.\u00a0 It was probably safe, since he was sleeping so soundly, to take a nap.\u00a0 All tuckered out, the girl with the golden curls headed for her makeshift bed.<\/p>\n

It sure felt good when she hit it.<\/p>\n

Trouble was, that last sheep she was counting had barely pushed off the rail fence and started to fly when she heard an awful sound.\u00a0 Uncle Rob and her Pa had been horsing around one day when Rob gave Pa a good old punch in the stomach that knocked him back and into the barn door.\u00a0 Boy, did Pa let out\u00a0 shout when he hit.<\/p>\n

It sounded kind of like that.<\/p>\n

Blinking sleep out of her eyes, Elizabeth looked and dang it<\/em> if her new little brother wasn\u2019t out of bed and on his feet!<\/p>\n

Well, sort of.<\/p>\n

Joseph was wobbling worse than Jack had when he took his first steps.<\/p>\n

Throwing off her covers Elizabeth crossed the small room, glancing out the door and into the common room as she went, wondering if there was anybody to help.\u00a0 Of course there weren\u2019t no one there since it was mid-afternoon.\u00a0 Ma and Pa, with Jack, were out doing chores. \u00a0Turning back she sized up the man with the curly brown hair wobbling by her bed.\u00a0 Ma always said she weren\u2019t no bigger than a minute.\u00a0 Compared to Pa, this feller might have been about five.<\/p>\n

Still, Joseph was way <\/em>taller than she was and, by the look of him leaning forward and fixing his eyes on the door to the outside, he was bound and determined that he was leaving.<\/p>\n

That was, if he didn\u2019t fall flat on his face first.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey!\u201d she shouted, putting herself between him and the open door.\u00a0 \u201cWhat do you think you\u2019re doing?\u201d<\/p>\n

He was about a foot away when he stopped and looked down at her.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth looked up into those green eyes and that face that was all sweaty and shining and sighed.<\/p>\n

Joseph sure<\/em> was purty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI…\u201d he stammered.\u00a0 \u201cI….\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou what, young man?\u201d she asked placing her hands on her hips and tapping her toe like her Ma did when Jack was being naughty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI…gotta…go…home.\u201d\u00a0 He was breathing hard, which made his chest rise up and down<\/p>\n

It was sweaty too.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t go home now!\u201d she said in her best imitation of her Ma\u2019s \u2018you-are-not-to-argue-with-me\u2019 voice.\u00a0 \u201cYou get back to bed!\u00a0 You\u2019re gonna hurt yourself worse!\u201d<\/p>\n

He shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cGotta go.\u00a0 Gotta…tell Pa…sorry….\u201d<\/p>\n

He was still moving toward the door.\u00a0 She stepped right up to him and put her hands on his chest low down by his belt.\u00a0 It startled her for a moment.\u00a0 Joseph was as hot to the touch as one of Ma\u2019s pies just come out of the oven.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou ain\u2019t going nowhere \u2018til the Doc gets here,\u201d she insisted, shaking her head.\u00a0 \u201cYou gotta<\/em> lay back down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joseph was still looking at that door, like it was the gateway to Heaven or something.\u00a0 Then all of a sudden he shuddered, and then shivered, and then pert near fell down on top of her.<\/p>\n

Now this was what her Grandma Shaffner would have called a \u2018pickle\u2019.<\/p>\n

When Ma\u2019d told her to put Joseph in the creek, well, he\u2019d been laying outside the Clayborn\u2019s burning cabin on the ground then so all\u2019s she had to do was grab his feet that were tied together and drag him.\u00a0 This time he was laying on the floor and the bed was about a foot off it.\u00a0 Kneeling beside him she drew a deep breath, caught her lips between her teeth, wrapped her arms around his middle and tried to pull him up onto the bed.<\/p>\n

He was way heavier than Jack!<\/p>\n

After about a minute all she\u2019d managed to do was get Joseph propped against the bed frame.\u00a0 He was sitting there with his eyes closed, panting like her pup on a hot summer day, with the sweat running down, mixing with the mud and blood left on his face.<\/p>\n

When Ma finally came she didn\u2019t yell.\u00a0 She just held out her arms and wrapped them around her and held her close.<\/p>\n

Her face was wet too.\u00a0 Only it wasn\u2019t sweat.<\/p>\n

It was tears.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

WARM HEART<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I<\/p>\n

\u201c…thank you….did…Joseph.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was something keeping his eyes from opening.\u00a0 Joe wasn\u2019t sure what it was, but he thought it might be about a ton of sand.\u00a0 He fought it for a few seconds before he became aware of the fact that the sound of voices had woke him up.\u00a0 They were so low he could barely hear them.<\/p>\n

Then again, maybe they weren\u2019t low and some of that sand was in his ears too.<\/p>\n

\u201c…horrible…what we could…sorry….\u201d<\/p>\n

Sorry.\u00a0 He was sorry.\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t he?\u00a0 But why?<\/p>\n

Maybe he was sorry that he couldn\u2019t open his eyes.\u00a0 No.\u00a0 That wasn\u2019t it.\u00a0 It was a bigger <\/em>sorry than that.\u00a0 It was a sorry so big it had taken that beast that was in him and put it in chains and left it alone in a dark room with nothing but water until it grew so weak it couldn\u2019t lift its head any more to roar.<\/p>\n

He kinda needed it to roar.<\/p>\n

\u201c…brothers and I…worried…God…safe….\u201d<\/p>\n

He was safe, wasn\u2019t he?\u00a0 But if he was safe now, that meant he hadn\u2019t been before.\u00a0 What had happened before?\u00a0 Before when the beast had been raging, when he\u2019d slapped his….<\/p>\n

And it all came back in one fell, devastating whoosh of memory.\u00a0 Getting so mad at his brothers over nothing.\u00a0 Fighting with \u2013 hitting his Pa.\u00a0 Feeling so ashamed he ran for the door and took off like a house on fire not knowing where he was going or how he was gonna get there.<\/p>\n

Like a house on fire<\/em>….<\/p>\n

The flames were everywhere, licking at the dry wood walls and the dusty abandoned furniture, crawling up the blue and white check curtains, running along the floor boards toward him. \u00a0He woke up to those leaping darting flames and to two facts: his hands and feet were bound \u00a0and there was a gag between his teeth keeping him from shoutin out, and he was gonna\u00a0 die.<\/p>\n

He was gonna die<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Gertner boys had hit him so hard that for a while he couldn\u2019t remember who he was.\u00a0 That was the worst thing of all.\u00a0 As he lay there in that burning cabin knowing<\/em> he was gonna die, he knew it would be alone.\u00a0 Whoever was gonna miss him would never know what happened, and he would never know that they missed him.<\/p>\n

The tears had turned to steam on his face.<\/p>\n

Then he\u2019d heard shouting.\u00a0 It sounded like a man and woman.\u00a0 A minute later the door had burst in and a man with his head all wrapped in wet cloth had come straight for him, taking hold of him and lifting him up and carrying him out of the house just as the ceiling caved in behind them.\u00a0 He remembered being laid on the blessedly cool ground and the touch of a woman\u2019s hand on his face.\u00a0\u00a0 And a voice, must have been the woman\u2019s, saying softly, \u201cEverything will be all right.\u00a0 You\u2019re okay now.\u00a0 Everything\u2019s gonna be fine, little brother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe blinked.\u00a0 Some of the sand must have slipped away because this time he was able to open his eyes.\u00a0 Someone was bending over him.\u00a0 A woman, talking soft and low and pressing a cool cloth to his forehead.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything\u2019s gonna be fine, little brother,\u201d she repeated again. \u00a0\u201cYou\u2019ll see.\u00a0 You\u2019ll be all better soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the beast tamed there wasn\u2019t much fueling him, but he managed a smile.\u00a0 \u201cHey, little sister.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Carnaby\u2019s smile was brighter than the late afternoon sun shining in the window. \u00a0\u00a0She reached out and timidly touched his cheek.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou ain\u2019t so hot now.\u00a0 That medicine the Doc gave you must be working.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had a vague memory of the doctor.\u00a0 Older.\u00a0 Gray-haired.\u00a0 Wearing a black suit and looking grim as an undertaker.<\/p>\n

Somewhere there had<\/em> to be mold.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d…\u201d\u00a0 He swallowed.\u00a0 Apparently the fire wasn\u2019t gone \u2018cause there was smoke in his throat.\u00a0 \u201cCan I…have…some water?\u201d<\/p>\n

She turned to a stand by the bed, so the glass must have already been there.\u00a0 Then, cradling his head like she might a rag doll, she lifted him up and gave him some water.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere\u2019d you…learn to…do that?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took care of Ma when she was awful sick one time,\u201d the little girl answered, looking serious.\u00a0 \u201cBut she weren\u2019t as sick as you. The Doc said you coulda died.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cElizabeth!\u201d<\/p>\n

He watched the girl wince and then her head craned back.\u00a0 \u201cSorry, Ma.\u201d<\/p>\n

This time it was a woman\u2019s hand that landed on his forehead.\u00a0 \u201cAh,\u201d she sighed, obviously relieved.\u00a0 \u201cYou are<\/em> better.\u201d\u00a0 She was a pretty lady, clean and smelling of soap, with her brown hair pulled up into a tight knot at the back of her neck.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s someone here who will be right happy to hear that.\u201d\u00a0 She turned then and moved toward the door.\u00a0 Leaning on the jamb, she called out, \u201cBen, you can come in.\u00a0 You and your boys.\u00a0 Joe\u2019s awake.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

II<\/p>\n

Someone had told her once that grown men didn\u2019t cry.<\/p>\n

Well, she knew enough now to call them liars \u2018cause there was a whole lot of tears in that room when little brother saw his other brothers and his pa.<\/p>\n

Seems like she and Joseph was more alike than she knew.\u00a0 There were times when this old beast reared up in her too and made her say and sometimes do things she felt sorry for later.\u00a0 It was kind of like things got so hot under her seat that she just couldn\u2019t sit still.\u00a0 Most of the time it got her in trouble, but then there were the times when she didn\u2019t really think it was a beast after all.\u00a0 It was more like a determined little pup that wouldn\u2019t stop barking until she did what it wanted \u2013 like walking up to that cabin and looking in and finding Joe.<\/p>\n

He liked to be called \u2018Joe\u2019, Adam told her.\u00a0 Only their pa called him Joseph.\u00a0 \u201cBut,\u201d Adam said, leaning in close to her ear and whispering so it tickled, \u201cYou can call him Little<\/em> Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was nice having two older brothers.\u00a0 She got awful tired of being the oldest one all of the time.<\/p>\n

And Mister Ben, he reminded her of the grandpa they\u2019d left all the way back east.\u00a0 He\u2019d looked right scared the first time she saw him.\u00a0 She\u2019d been sitting at the table eating a piece of bread with violet jam when someone had knocked at the door.\u00a0 When her ma opened it she\u2019d almost yelped.\u00a0 There was a real big man standing just outside with his hat in his hands and he was covered from the very top of him to his toes in soot.\u00a0 Behind him there was another man \u2013 he was dressed in black \u2013 and his hands and face were black too. \u00a0And then, behind them, there was a man with white hair.\u00a0 He was sitting on his horse and looking back toward the Clayborn cabin, his shoulders all slumped like he was all tuckered out and needed to go to bed.<\/p>\n

Ma\u2019d stepped outside and closed the door partway behind her.\u00a0 Heading that little yappy dog, she\u2019d gotten up and gone over to the crack to listen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking for my little brother, Ma\u2019am.\u00a0 We was hopin\u2019 maybe you\u2019d seen somethin\u2019 of him?\u201d\u00a0 The big man paused and lowered his voice.\u00a0 \u201cOur pa wanted us to ask, Ma\u2019am, even though it ain\u2019t likely.\u201d\u00a0 He made a sound then, like tears caught in his throat.\u00a0 \u201cYou see, well, my brother Adam and me….\u00a0 It looks like Joe might have been in that there cabin \u2018bout a half-mile away from here.\u00a0 The one that burned….\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe!<\/p>\n

Her ma got all excited and went out to talk to the man on the horse.\u00a0 Elizabeth watched him stiffen in his saddle and then his slumping shoulders straightened up, and then he was off that buckskin horse and running for the house fast as one of those pony express riders her pa had read to her about.\u00a0 She\u2019d followed behind them and watched from the doorway as Little Joe\u2019s Pa sat down beside him and took Joe\u2019s face in his hands and cried.<\/p>\n

Her Pa came to the door to watch with her.\u00a0 He had Jack in his arms.\u00a0 He knelt beside her and pulled her in close.<\/p>\n

And then he cried too.<\/p>\n

Her mother shooed her out of the house early the next morning.\u00a0 The Doc had come again and he was taking care of Little Joe.\u00a0 Joe\u2019s pa was with him but his big brothers were out in the field helping her Pa.\u00a0 Since he and Ma\u2019d been taking care of Little Joe there was an awful lot of things that hadn\u2019t got done and Adam and Hoss told her pa they wouldn\u2019t take \u2018no\u2019 for an answer when they offered to help him catch everything up.<\/p>\n

She liked Adam and Hoss.<\/p>\n

Ma had Jack with her, tied by the apron strings.\u00a0 She\u2019d told her she\u2019d been such a good girl and taken such good care of Joe that she could have the day to do whatever she wanted.\u00a0 At first that had seemed like a right good thing. \u00a0Ma\u2019d packed a picnic basket for her and let her walk the mile and a half to Josie\u2019s house to visit, telling her to be back by sundown.\u00a0 While she was at Josie\u2019s she had dinner with them and at the table her pa said he\u2019d been to town and heard that the three men who\u2019d kidnapped the son of the man who owned the Ponderosa had been caught by the sheriff of Virginia City name of Roy Coffee and were in jail awaiting trial.\u00a0 Any kind of legal action, he said, had to wait until the star witness could give testimony.<\/p>\n

The \u2018star\u2019 witness.\u00a0 That was Little Joe.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth lifted her head and looked up.\u00a0 There were stars twinkling in the sky.\u00a0 She\u2019d come home before dark but had begged her mother to let her sit outside for a while.\u00a0 She\u2019d been surprised when she agreed, but then again there were seven people in the house \u2013 eight if you counted the Doc, and you might as well since he\u2019d been coming a couple times a day \u2013 and it was mighty crowded.\u00a0 Joe\u2019s brothers were sleeping on the floor by the hearth.\u00a0 His Pa had taken her mat on the floor.<\/p>\n

Scooting her behind around on the rock, she turned so she could look into the water.\u00a0 The moon was about quarter full now and her posy wouldn\u2019t do any good anymore.\u00a0 Josie\u2019d told her she didn\u2019t think one day would have made any difference.<\/p>\n

Resting her elbows on her knees and anchoring her chin on her hands, Elizabeth sighed.\u00a0 It ended up Little Joe wasn\u2019t gonna be her true love and take her to his big ranch to get away from becoming a lady, or even her little brother anymore.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, he was going home.<\/p>\n

A soft sound beside her made her turn and look up.\u00a0 Puzzled, she frowned.<\/p>\n

It was Little Joe\u2019s pa.<\/p>\n

\u201cMay I?\u201d he asked, indicating the part of the rock she wasn\u2019t sitting on.<\/p>\n

She shrugged.<\/p>\n

As he took a seat, he looked up too.\u00a0 Indicating the sky and the stars, he said, \u201cBeautiful, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure is,\u201d she agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou like to sit out here, don\u2019t you?\u00a0 All by yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth screwed her face up.\u00a0 \u201cMa says I\u2019m con…con-tum-pla-ive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man with the white hair laughed.\u00a0 \u201cMy older boy, Adam, is like that.\u00a0 He looks and he thinks, but he doesn\u2019t say much.\u201d<\/p>\n

She liked Adam.\u00a0 She liked that funny little smile he had.\u00a0 It made her laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs…is Little Joe….\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cContemplative?\u201d\u00a0 Little Joe\u2019s pa let out a sigh.\u00a0 \u201cSometimes.\u00a0 Though with Joe, it\u2019s more that something gets hold of him and he thinks he has to work it out himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike there\u2019s a little snarly dog inside him that takes hold and just won\u2019t let go?\u201d she asked, her voice hushed.<\/p>\n

He looked startled.\u00a0 Then Joe\u2019s pa laughed.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cYes,\u201d he said as he held her gaze.\u00a0 \u201cDo you have a little snarly dog inside you too, Elizabeth?\u201d<\/p>\n

Her Ma\u2019d taught her not to lie.\u00a0 \u201cSometimes,\u201d she admitted.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you keep a secret?\u201d the white-haired man asked, lowering his voice and leaning in.<\/p>\n

She nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just keep feeding that little dog,\u201d he said, patting her knee.\u00a0 \u201cThat little dog kept my son alive.\u201d\u00a0 He paused and then said, all solemn-like.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s why I came out here.\u00a0 To thank you for saving Joseph\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a good thing it was dark \u2018cause she blushed all the way up to the top of her ears.\u00a0 \u201cMa and Pa saved him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me they pulled Joe out of the burning cabin, but they also told me that you were the one who found him and sat with him day and night and gave him water and cooled his face with a cloth and….\u201d\u00a0 His voice cracked, just like Josie\u2019s older brother\u2019s had when he turned fifteen.\u00a0 \u201c…and talked to him, telling him everything would be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019d been afraid to ask, what with the Doc coming out so much.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s gonna be, isn\u2019t he?\u00a0 All right, I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s pa sniffed in some of those tears.\u00a0 \u201cYes.\u00a0 It will take time for him to heal, but he\u2019ll be fine.\u201d\u00a0 He patted her leg.\u00a0 \u201cThanks to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re…you\u2019re gonna take him away tomorrow.\u201d\u00a0 It was her turn to sniff.\u00a0 \u201cAin\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

He touched her hair.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m going to take Joseph home.\u201d\u00a0 Joe\u2019s pa paused.\u00a0 \u201cIf you were sick, wouldn\u2019t you want to be home in your own bed with your family around you?\u201d<\/p>\n

She looked down at her hands.\u00a0 \u201cI s\u2019pose so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked to your mother, Elizabeth, and she said it was all right.\u00a0 When the harvest is over, would you like to come to the Ponderosa for a visit?\u201d<\/p>\n

Her eyes went wide as a full moon.\u00a0 \u201cTo your ranch?\u201d<\/p>\n

He nodded.\u00a0 \u201cJoe\u2019s seen where you grew up.\u00a0 That way you can see where he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t growed up yet,\u201d she protested.<\/p>\n

Ben Cartwright bent down and kissed her on the forehead.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I think you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The next morning the Doc came again and he took care of getting Little Joe out of the house and into the wagon that was gonna take him home.\u00a0 Little Joe\u2019s big<\/em> big brother went right into the room and picked him up just like she did Jack, and just like Jack, Hoss\u2019 little brother squirmed and fought and told him the whole time that he should put him down and that he could walk on his own.\u00a0 Little Joe\u2019s older big brother stared him down just like Ma did with Jack and Joe got real quiet and stopped fussing.\u00a0 Her ma and pa were standing to the side talking to Little Joe\u2019s pa.\u00a0 He\u2019d offered to send men to help them with the harvest, \u2018to repay you for your kindness to my son,\u2019 he said.\u00a0 Ma was so got she was crying.<\/p>\n

There\u2019d been enough tears shed in the last few days in their house to float a boat.<\/p>\n

And she was adding more to the river.<\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s older big brother came to her side and knelt by her.\u00a0 Adam reached out with his thumbs and dried her tears.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not goodbye, Elizabeth, just fare well for now.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see you in a month or so and Joe will be strong enough by then that he can take you out riding and show you the Ponderosa.\u00a0 You\u2019ll like that.\u201d\u00a0 He stood then and smiled down at her.\u00a0 \u201cI have a feeling we\u2019ll be seeing a lot of each other in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adam climbed up then into the wagon seat and took hold of the reins.\u00a0 Hoss was on his own horse and their pa was sitting in the wagon bed by Little Joe.\u00a0 They\u2019d found Joe\u2019s horse while they were looking for him and the pretty black and white pony was tied to the back of the wagon.\u00a0 Her new little brother was so worn out from everything that he was sleeping again.\u00a0 The Doc said that was good.\u00a0 It would be good if he slept all the way home.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d said goodbye earlier in the house before Hoss came in and picked Joe up.\u00a0 Cause of what happened she knew Adam was right.\u00a0 She was gonna see them a lot.\u00a0 She\u2019d finally told Little Joe about the creek and the rock and the fingernail moon and the yellow posy under her chin.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d nodded his head and grinned.<\/p>\n

And promised to wait.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Next Story in the Wet Bottom, Warm Heart Series:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sunshine With a Little Hurricane<\/a>
\nIn the Light as in the Darkness
\n<\/a>Doubt that the Stars are Fire<\/a>
\nAn Unspeakable Dawn<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tags: Adam Cartwright,\u00a0Ben Cartwright,\u00a0Joe \/ Little Joe Cartwright,\u00a0SJS<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/g><\/svg><\/i> \"Loading\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary:\u00a0Deep inside 17 year old Little Joe Cartwright there’s an angry beast waiting to get out. It makes him say and do things he always regrets, like talking back to his Pa. \u00a0After one such incident, his shame drives him away from the Ponderosa, straight into the arms of trouble – and the waiting rifle sight of a little golden-haired girl named Elizabeth Carnaby.<\/p>\n

Rating: PG\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Word Count:\u00a0 13,300<\/p>\n

Wet Bottom, Warm Heart Series, links to stories within the series are included.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10058,"featured_media":30567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"template-full-width-post.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,23,4,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actionadventure","category-drama","category-humor","category-hurtcomfort","wpcat-2-id","wpcat-23-id","wpcat-4-id","wpcat-41-id"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":3112,"today_views":1},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Sunshine-duo.brown--scaled.jpg?fit=2141%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13721,"url":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=13721","url_meta":{"origin":13375,"position":0},"title":"Sunshine with a Little Hurricane (by McFair_58)","author":"mcfair_58","date":"January 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Summary:\u00a0 A\u00a0 sequel to 'Wet Bottom Warm Heart'. 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