Summary:\u00a0 While sitting in jail, Adam Cartwright ponders the potency of words.<\/p>\n
Rating: K+<\/p>\n
Word Count:\u00a0 1,203<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Power of Words<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n “I\u2019ll kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n Odd that three such short words could get a man in so much trouble, though you\u2019d think that I, of all people, would have realized the power of words.\u00a0 I\u2019ve studied enough of them: the words of classical scholars in Latin and Greek, the words of great literature in the modern languages, the words of our own founding fathers.\u00a0 How can a man who has studied words as potent as those not realize that words have power?\u00a0 Power to move, power to persuade, power to . . . to land a man in jail if he ignores their power.<\/p>\n Yet, how could I have dreamed my words would be taken seriously?\u00a0 Because I sounded so serious, I suppose.\u00a0 Logic tells me that, so I shouldn\u2019t be surprised to be here, should I?\u00a0 Of course, I should.\u00a0 Logic could never have warned me that someone else would take advantage of my overheard words and harm the man I\u2019d threatened.<\/p>\n Man?\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t he love to hear me call him that!\u00a0 He\u2019s just a boy, three months short of eighteen, and I would never have harmed him.\u00a0 I . . . love him.\u00a0 Why didn\u2019t I say those three words, instead of \u201cI\u2019ll kill him\u201d?\u00a0 Now I may never get the chance.\u00a0 Oh, God, don\u2019t let him die thinking I did this to him . . . please, don\u2019t let him die, whatever he thinks of me.<\/p>\n Angry words.\u00a0 When will I learn that angry words carry force?\u00a0 And force can lead to action, sometimes unpredictable action.\u00a0 I thought I already knew.\u00a0 I seem to recall lecturing him on the subject of his temper\u2014many, many times.\u00a0 Not that the lectures weren\u2019t merited.\u00a0 Oh, how quick he was to fling angry words into the air, heedless of what he was actually saying!\u00a0 How quick I was to criticize, to condemn his hasty words . . . how slow to check my own.<\/p>\n Angry words.\u00a0 Oh, he deserved that much.\u00a0 He deserved to be chewed up one side and down the other, as my other brother might have phrased it, he of the plain but powerful speech.\u00a0 The scamp had the audacity to take my horse without permission and use him for some wild race with his friends down the center of C Street, dodging whatever pedestrians, freight wagons or stagecoaches happened to lie in their path.\u00a0 Then not only did he lame Sport in that ridiculous undertaking, but he took off, afraid to face me, leaving Hoss to break the news.\u00a0 And when our longsuffering middle brother did, who could blame me for bellowing, \u201cI\u2019ll kill him!\u201d<\/p>\n But who could have known, who could ever have dreamed that someone would actually try to kill the boy?\u00a0 A boy liked\u2014even loved\u2014by all; a boy with no enemies, unless you count a few petty rivals from his schoolyard days.\u00a0 No one had gotten a good look at his assailant, but everyone who saw that man running away gave the same description: tall, dark hair, dressed head-to-toe in black.\u00a0 And every man in the Bucket of Blood reported that a man answering that description\u2014me\u2014had threatened to kill Joe Cartwright.<\/p>\n Me, kill Little Joe?\u00a0 The boy I cradled in my arms within an hour of his birth, the boy I\u2019ve sheltered and protected all his life, the boy I\u2019d give my own life for?\u00a0 Kill him?\u00a0 I\u2019ve never even raised a closed fist to him!\u00a0 Oh, I\u2019ve applied an open palm to the appropriate seat of learning when Pa wasn\u2019t around to do it himself, but never more than that.\u00a0 He\u2019s a boy\u2014a maddening, infuriating pest of a boy\u2014but a boy nonetheless, and I\u2019d never hurt any boy, much less my own baby brother.\u00a0 How could anyone believe that?\u00a0 Yet I fear twelve men, honest and true, might believe exactly that, all because of three short words spoken in anger.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll kill him.\u201d\u00a0 Someone tried; someone very nearly succeeded.\u00a0 Thank God, the boy\u2019s still breathing, or was when Pa was here last.\u00a0 But it\u2019s two days now since that assault, and Joe still lies there in Doc Martin\u2019s office, unconscious, fighting for every breath, and instead of being with him, I sit here behind bars, charged with assault and battery.\u00a0 If he dies, the charge will be murder.\u00a0 So if he dies, I will, too . . . and what will that do to Pa?\u00a0 And Hoss?\u00a0 Both of them believe me; both have stood by me and will, no matter what.\u00a0 Even Roy doesn\u2019t believe me guilty, but he can\u2019t ignore all those witnesses, so here I sit, when where I want to be is with my family.\u00a0 With my brother.\u00a0 All because of three little words.\u00a0 You\u2019d think a man so noted for self-control could have kept three little words contained.<\/p>\n Commotion in the outer office, the sound of a scuffle, the reverberation of flesh striking flesh, a sound I know well.\u00a0 Sounds have power, too, but I can\u2019t interpret these, except to surmise that I\u2019ll soon have company in this cell block.<\/p>\n The door flings open.\u00a0 A prisoner, one I recognize, wrestles in the grip of Roy Coffee and my brother Hoss.\u00a0 Luke Cameron, my old nemesis.\u00a0 Together, Hoss and Roy wrangle him into the next cell, clang shut the door and lock it.<\/p>\n \u201cHoss, what . . .\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss grins broadly as Roy unlocks my cell.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s awake\u2014and he told us who done it.\u201d<\/p>\n Awake?\u00a0 He\u2019s awake?\u00a0 If three words had power, imagine the impact of those two.\u00a0 He\u2019s awake; he\u2019s alive and . . . suddenly I realize.\u00a0 Luke Cameron.\u00a0 Not my spittin\u2019 image, but roughly my build and coloring.\u00a0 Disguised in dark clothes and seen at a distance, he could be mistaken for me, as he no doubt intended.\u00a0 I rush toward the bars separating me from a man capable of beating a boy he bore no ill will to a bloody pulp and leaving him to die . . . all to punish the man he did hate, the man he wanted to hang for his crime . . . me.\u00a0 As Roy and Hoss pull me back from the bars, I scream out in fury, \u201cI\u2019ll\u2014\u201d\u00a0 But that\u2019s as far as I get.<\/p>\n Three little words.\u00a0 I had almost shouted those same three words, the ones that locked me in this cell.\u00a0 But I\u2019m no fool; I learn from my mistakes; I won\u2019t utter them again.\u00a0 I will my muscles to relax and say, instead, through gritted teeth, \u201cI\u2019ll leave you to the law.\u201d\u00a0 Words not as forceful, but holding the quiet power of promise.<\/p>\n Their power washes through me, freeing me from the rage, so I can focus on more important matters.\u00a0 \u201cI want to see my brother.\u201d<\/p>\n Seeing me in control, once again the Adam Cartwright he knows, Sheriff Coffee nods, and he and Hoss release their hold on my arms.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re free to go,\u201d Roy says.<\/p>\n As Hoss and I walk out together, he drapes an arm across my shoulder.\u00a0 I say nothing.\u00a0 Words are not needed between us, and I\u2019m storing up mine, concentrating their potency.\u00a0 The next words I speak will be to Joe.\u00a0 Just three words, as before, but, oh, how much more powerful!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The End<\/p>\n \u00a9 July, 2004<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tags:\u00a0 Adam Cartwright,\u00a0ESA<\/p>\n