Two brothers ride into a sleepy, little town in the middle of nowhere.\u00a0 Their name is Cartwright and their appearance triggers a tragic quest for vengeance.<\/p>\n
Written for the Chaps & Spurs Gold Mega Challenge, and incorporating the C&S prompt words for a twelve month period.<\/p>\n
Rated T \u00a0WC \u00a017,000<\/p>\n
The Silent Land<\/strong><\/p>\n I’m not a superstitious kinda feller.\u00a0 Don’t have much time for religion neither.\u00a0 Seems to me, all that fixing your hope on something you can’t touch, or even see, is no more use than barkin’ at a knot.\u00a0 I ain’t prayed since the day Fynn died. Reckon that day I nailed all that prayin’ stuff to the counter.\u00a0 I figure we shape our own luck, good or bad.\u00a0 A feller’s better off putting his faith in his own sound wits and some good steel hardware.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Don’t believe in fate neither.\u00a0 Leastways, I didn’t till the day them two fellers came riding into town.\u00a0 Cartwright their name was, and I hadn’t heard that name in a long time.\u00a0 But I ain’t never likely to forget it neither.\u00a0 Ain’t much action in Redditch, but it allers seems folks come by just when you’ve set yourself down for a jaw or some shut eye.\u00a0 I didn’t know who it was first off, of course.\u00a0 Couple of strangers pulled up in front of the livery.\u00a0 Looked like they’d been a while out on the trail judging by the colour of ’em and the velvet couches strapped to their saddles.<\/p>\n “Reckon them fellers is gonna head for the hotel or drop by the saloon first?” Nate asked me.<\/p>\n I squinted lazily.\u00a0 “They look kinda dry to me.\u00a0 My bet’s on the beer.”<\/p>\n I was wrong though.\u00a0 When them two fellers emerged from the stable, they headed straight on over to the hotel.\u00a0 Nate pulled a kite ’cause he’d just got his pipe puffin’ and it was Mr. Wallis’s afternoon off, which meant he had to drag hisself back over the road and check ’em in.\u00a0 I sucked on my steamer as I watched him go.\u00a0 Seemed likely those two fellers would be heading my way pretty soon, judging by the looks of ’em.\u00a0 All that dirt and dust, they’d be bound to be wantin’ a bath.\u00a0 I still reckoned they’d be looking for a beer first though, which gave me another half hour or so.<\/p>\n Redditch ain’t much of a town, but it suits me.\u00a0 I had enough years living fast and tough when I was younger.\u00a0 We get a few hardheads kicking up a row now and then but real trouble here is scarce as hen’s teeth, and that suits me just fine.\u00a0 I don’t need no more trouble in my life.\u00a0 Leastways, I didn’t think I did.\u00a0 Not till Nate came back on over and told me that them two boys was brothers and they were called Cartwright.\u00a0 When I heard that name again, something inside me froze.<\/p>\n Kept it from showing on my face, though.\u00a0 I’m an expert at foolin’ folks.\u00a0 Years of practice.\u00a0 Pa always said a man’s feelin’s ain’t nobody’s business but his own.\u00a0 Taught me that right from the time I was in my cradle.\u00a0 Reckon he was right too.\u00a0 Show your feelin’s and somebody’s gonna find your weak corner sooner or later.\u00a0 Fynn shoulda listened more.\u00a0 I tried to tell him, teach him the things Pa taught me, but the kid never got the hang of it.\u00a0 Allers let his feelin’s get the better of him.<\/p>\n “Them boys is after a bath,” said Nate, settling himself back on the bench.\u00a0 “Told ’em as I’d let you know so’s you could have ’em ready.\u00a0 Sep’rate tubs and plenty of hot water.”<\/p>\n When I first wandered into this dusty hole in the mountains, there wa’nt no bath house here, and I sure coulda done with one!\u00a0 When I decided I liked it here, liked the way life seemed to pass this place right by, I talked to Mr. Wallis and Nate about the possibility of settin’ one up.\u00a0 That’s when Mr. Wallis suggested the old jailhouse.\u00a0 It’d been standing empty all winter, since they built the new office at the other end of the street.\u00a0 Like I say, Redditch is on the mountain, and the old jailhouse is built right into the rock.\u00a0 Don’t get much natural light, but then folks taking a bath don’t seem to mind that overmuch.\u00a0 ‘Course, Mr. Wallis didn’t see the irony in his suggestion, and I wan’t about to enlighten him none.\u00a0 He said he’d help me do the place up.\u00a0 He could see it would be good for what he called “reciprocal” business.\u00a0 The first time me and Nate looked round that place, I didn’t know whether to shudder or laugh when I saw the cell out back.\u00a0 Cut right into the rock.\u00a0 I’d spent ten years wishing myself out of a hole just like that, and now here I was lookin’ to make it my home.<\/p>\n I started off sleepin’ in that windowless jail, but as soon as I’d made me enough ballast, I built a room on the side for my living area, and closed the door on that lockup.\u00a0 A man can have enough of iron bars and I didn’t need no more reminding. \u00a0‘Cept, I weren’t paying no mind to fate back then.\u00a0 Seems to me now, nothing that happened back then was a coincidence, even though it all felt like it at the time.\u00a0 The place does good business now.\u00a0 This town’s full of miners with more’n enough cash to lay out for a weekly soak in the tub. Folks round here have gotten used to me now.\u00a0 No one hereabouts even calls me Simon no more, ‘cept Nate; they all call me Soapy.<\/p>\n I watched them two Cartwright fellers head on down to the saloon.\u00a0 I was itching to ask Nate whether one of ’em called hisself Adam Cartwright, but then Nate woulda been wondering why I was asking.\u00a0 All I could tell of ’em from across the street was that one-the tall one wearing the red shirt and black leather vest and walking with long, measured strides-was older than the other one-the one in a grey jacket-who looked no more’n a kid.\u00a0 I wondered what Adam Cartwright would look like now.\u00a0 Twelve years-twelve long years-had passed since I last set eyes on that man.\u00a0 Even then I didn’t get much more’n a glimpse of him.\u00a0 Still, I wasn’t likely to forget his face neither. And Adam Cartwright had been tall…<\/p>\n I was ready for ’em when they arrived.\u00a0 Two tubs full of good clean water, all hot and steaming, and more on the boil.\u00a0 I watched them from my waiting room; saw them cross the street towards me, my heart a-pumpin’ in spite of myself, and I still couldn’t be certain ’cause the day was as hot as a whorehouse on nickel night, and their faces were in shadow beneath the brims of their hats.\u00a0 Only when they stopped right outside my door did the older one swipe his hat from his head and fan his face with it, then my heart took a leap like a startled jackrabbit, right into my throat, and I had to step back into the shadow of the room to make sure my face didn’t give the game away.<\/p>\n “Feller at the hotel said you’d have a couple of baths ready for me and my brother,” said Adam Cartwright, pulling money from his pocket.<\/p>\n The strange sense of fate that had hit me in the gut the first time I heard the name Cartwright, now gripped me again, so hard it was all I could do to keep from shaking.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright had just walked right in under my nose, and <\/em>his kid brother.\u00a0 I could almost hear fate-long denied her just dues-cackling with glee.<\/p>\n I was back under control by then.\u00a0 I met his gaze, wondering if he would know me, but there was no recognition in the dark face.\u00a0 I wondered if he mighta remembered Fynn.\u00a0 But Fynn had been just a boy that day, kinda like the kid tagging along just behind Adam Cartwright.\u00a0 Twelve years changes a boy into a man. \u00a0Twelve years had changed Adam Cartwright, but not in essentials.\u00a0 He had filled out.\u00a0 He was harder, more rugged than I remembered, and days on the trail had left him dirt-stained and dark-jowled, but there was no mistaking that face.\u00a0 He was older, but he was the same man.<\/p>\n The two of them took themselves off to the tubs.\u00a0 I slid a bottle of whiskey from under the counter and poured myself a tumbler to steady my nerves. The man I’d hated for twelve years, blamed every day for twelve years, was here, under my roof.\u00a0 With his own kid brother.\u00a0 Was that coincidence?\u00a0 I swallowed back the liquor, but I was still shaking inside.\u00a0 Much as I hated him, much as I held him responsible for Fynn’s death, I’d never hunted him down.\u00a0 Was I too much of a coward?\u00a0 Was this Fynn’s doing?\u00a0 Was he lookin’ down on me, tired of waiting for the retribution that shoulda been his?\u00a0 Had Fynn brought Adam Cartwright and his brother here?<\/p>\n Musta sat there longer than I reckoned, like I was in some kind of a daze, like the world had stopped being real, ’cause Adam Cartwright’s voice made me jump as he came through the door, in fresh clothes, his wet hair slick and dark.<\/p>\n “Anywhere round here a feller can get a shave?\u00a0 Barber next door looked kind of shut up when we walked past.\u00a0 Blind was down on his door.”<\/p>\n I shook my head.\u00a0 “That’s just Lyle.\u00a0 Prob’ly dozing out back.\u00a0 Just give him a holler, he’ll be right out.” I watched him walk out of my door and hammer on Lyle’s, my mind numb.\u00a0 I went out to fill the pails with more hot water, like a man in a trance.\u00a0 Fate-or was it Fynn?-had delivered Adam Cartwright and his brother into my hands, and though I had no plan, no idea what was gonna happen, I just knew something would; like I was in the grip of a controlling force that was pushing me forward on a path I couldn’t see. \u00a0I knew it just as sure as I knew tomorrow was Thursday<\/p>\n I tipped the water over the kid in the tub and he grinned up at me and thanked me.\u00a0 He wasn’t very old.\u00a0 Sixteen, maybe seventeen.\u00a0 Then he slid down into the water and closed his eyes, humming to himself.\u00a0 I thought how Fynn used to grin like that.\u00a0 I looked down on the wet curls on the kid’s head and I thought about Fynn’s hair, all sticky and tousled with perspiration.\u00a0 I thought how this kid was kinda skinny, and I remembered how Fynn’s ribs had poked through his skin.\u00a0 I thought what a disadvantage this kid was at, with his gun on the chair, resting on his pile of discarded clothes.\u00a0 I thought how trusting he was, lying there with his eyes closed.\u00a0 And I thought how easy it would be to kill him as he lay there.\u00a0 Watch the life ebb out of him into all that good hot water I’d just poured for him.\u00a0 It would be easy; real, real easy. \u00a0Like lickin’ butter off a knife.<\/p>\n Shoulda known the kid would give me no trouble.\u00a0 Not with Fynn looking down on me the way he was doin’.\u00a0 Even so, I knew I was gonna have to plan more carefully for Adam Cartwright.\u00a0 Didn’t reckon he would go down as easy as his brother. I put the kid on the bunk in that abandoned jail cell out back and it was just like everything was falling into place, right the way it was allers meant to.\u00a0 Just for a moment, I remembered how I used to carry Fynn into bed, when he was jus’ a little feller and we sat too long on the porch waitin’ for Pa to come home; remembered how his hair used to smell faintly of fresh bread as I settled him down on our mattress, where the straw poked out like stubble on an old man’s chin.\u00a0 Jus’ for a moment, I a’most felt sorry for that Cartwright kid.\u00a0 Weren’t like he’d gotten to choose his brother, no more’n Fynn did.\u00a0 Both of ’em jus’ got dealt a deuce.<\/p>\n So I set him down comfortable, the way I used to do with Fynn.\u00a0 Put his clean clothes on the floor next to him; left him a candle burning so’s he’d be able to see ’em when he opened his eyes again.\u00a0 He looked kinda peaceful lying there.\u00a0 ‘Cept for the blood in his hair.\u00a0 Looked just like he was sleepin’.\u00a0 Like a babe, as my Ma used to say.\u00a0 Yeah, she knew.\u00a0 She knew how some babies sleep real deep!\u00a0 Like the one me and Pa buried in a box out back of the cabin.\u00a0 First time me and death really rubbed shoulders that day.\u00a0 Now we’re old buddies; real intimate acquaintances.\u00a0 Close as my own shadow now.\u00a0 Ain’t no way of escapin’ death.\u00a0 Fixes its hooks in us from the moment we’re born.<\/p>\n When I was a kid, Ma used to tell me a story.\u00a0 A legend about a giant who hid his heart in a well. Inside a duck’s egg!\u00a0 Figured if he didn’t keep it inside his body, nobody could kill him.\u00a0 Sure was up to trap, that giant. \u00a0Wisht I coulda hid my heart somewhere safe. \u00a0Somewhere death couldn’t get his muck forks into me.\u00a0 See, dyin’ ain’t just about taking that final breath.\u00a0 It ain’t that simple.\u00a0 It’s a long, drawn out process.\u00a0 Your heart bleeds out real slow.\u00a0 Mine started bleedin’ the day Pa and me buried that little box in the ground behind the cabin.<\/p>\n Yeah, I watched ’em all die.\u00a0 Ma; Pa; Fynn; the baby brother who came and went afore the sun even rose in the sky.\u00a0 Afore we even give him a name.\u00a0 Ma was never right after that.\u00a0 Never got her strength back.\u00a0 My ma never was strong.\u00a0 She had skin so pale, I could see right through it.\u00a0 See all the veins criss-crossing, like lines on a map.\u00a0 Used to wonder why her blood looked blue ‘steada red.\u00a0 It was women’s troubles did for her, Pa allers said.\u00a0 I was just a kid and a kid don’t ask nothing about no women’s troubles.\u00a0 Don’t reckon Pa rightly knew hisself.\u00a0 What did Pa know ’bout women?\u00a0 He was a lumberjack, jus’ like his<\/em> pa before him.\u00a0 And his four brothers.\u00a0 Up in the mountains.\u00a0 That’s what he did, right up until the day he met my ma, movin’ about from job to job, wherever they was logging. \u00a0Then he met Ma and I came along soon after.\u00a0 He bought some land, tried to settle down.\u00a0 That’s what Ma wanted.\u00a0 A place to call home.\u00a0 But Pa allers hankered after his old life.\u00a0 Missed the other fellers.\u00a0 Guess that’s why he spent so much time in the saloon.<\/p>\n The kid didn’t stir as I locked the cell door on him. \u00a0Adam Cartwright was gonna be back soon and I needed to be ready.\u00a0 I already knew what I was gonna do and I knew Fynn would approve.\u00a0 I could a’most hear him laughing as I shut the outer door and headed back to empty the tubs.\u00a0 Could a’most hear him whisperin’ in my ear.<\/p>\n When Adam Cartwright came back a while later, all slick and polished, I told him his brother had wandered on over to the saloon to find a beer. The edges of his mouth curved upwards, as if it wanted to smile and he weren’t about to let it.<\/p>\n “That’s Joe,” he said.\u00a0 “Can’t wait for anything.”<\/p>\n So, the kid’s name was Joe.<\/p>\n I pointed to the floor next to the tub were the kid – Joe – had been.<\/p>\n “That your brother’s shirt?”<\/p>\n Adam looked where I’d dropped the shirt.\u00a0 “Yeah, that’d be his.”\u00a0 He stepped past me and bent to pick it up.\u00a0 That’s when I pulled the gun on him – his brother’s gun.\u00a0 He heard the click and froze.<\/p>\n “Straighten up nice and slow,” I told him, as I tugged the iron from his holster.<\/p>\n He did just as I told him.\u00a0 “What’s this about?” he asked, his voice smooth as a fresh-rolled field.<\/p>\n Sweat was breakin’ out all over me, yet Adam Cartwright was as cool as a new-drawn pitcher.\u00a0 I prodded him in the back with the pistol and he went ahead of me out the back.\u00a0 He hesitated in the doorway as he caught sight of his brother in the cell.\u00a0 The boy was sitting up on the edge of the bunk, half dressed, head in his hands, the blood in his hair shining wet in the candlelight.<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright’s eyes darted atwixt me and his brother as I unlocked the cell door, keeping the gun trained square on his chest.\u00a0 “What’s this about?” he asked again as he passed me to join his brother behind bars.\u00a0 The boy had raised his head, and was watching us, face as bleached as summer grass<\/p>\n “Don’t ya know?” I said, as I closed the door behind him and turned the key in the lock.<\/p>\n He still didn’t know me, I could tell that by the expression on his face.\u00a0 Maybe that irked me a hooter.\u00a0 The way he’d messed up my life, I figure he might have remembered. The kid looked where I was gesturing, at the back of the cell, and frowned, confused.<\/p>\n I fixed the gun on his brother so’s he’d know I weren’t messing.\u00a0 “Move!”<\/p>\n Joe rose, looking none too steady on his timbers and went slowly.\u00a0 Once he reached the back of the cell, he leaned against the wall, like he might fall over if he didn’t.\u00a0 He looked kinda sick.\u00a0 Mebbe I’d slugged him too hard.\u00a0 I flexed my fingers around the gun in my hand, my palm wet and sticky.\u00a0 Wouldn’t do to let Adam Cartwright see my hesitation.\u00a0 I knew what I had to do; I could still hear Fynn murmurin’ in my ear, and this time I wouldn’t let him down.\u00a0 I remembered the day we’d gone huntin’ together, to track down a mountain lion.\u00a0 Followed its trail right up into the hills. Cornered it in a steep gully.\u00a0 Face to face with the creature, suddenly I couldn’t shoot.\u00a0 Just kinda froze.\u00a0 It crouched there, spitting defiance at us, all sleek and gleaming, and it was like I was overcome with pity.\u00a0 Fynn took it out with a single shot.\u00a0 Fynn never hesitated.<\/p>\n I couldn’t afford no pity this time.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright was watching me, his face giving away nothing.\u00a0 \u00a0No flicker of fear in his eyes, even with my gun fixed on him.\u00a0 Seemed like his coolness jes’ made me sweat all the more.\u00a0 Did he think I wouldn’t do it?\u00a0 Did he think I was a coward?<\/p>\n “What is it you want?” he asked.<\/p>\n I had to wipe my face with my arm.\u00a0 Sweat was trickling right into my eyes.\u00a0 I knew Adam Cartwright had seen.<\/p>\n “You don’t remember me, do you, Cartwright?”<\/p>\n He shook his head.\u00a0 Damn, but he was sure of hisself!<\/p>\n “Remember Morgan’s Bluff?\u00a0 Twelve years ago.\u00a0 Remember that?”<\/p>\n His eyes were steady, but he knew then.\u00a0 He said, “The stagecoach robbery.”<\/p>\n “Yeah.”\u00a0 I licked my lips.\u00a0 They tasted of salt.\u00a0 “You shot my brother, remember that?”<\/p>\n For a few seconds, he said nothing, then his eyes narrowed, just a fraction.\u00a0 “He came riding down.\u00a0 Out of the rocks.\u00a0 Shooting.”<\/p>\n “He was jes’ a kid.”<\/p>\n “A kid with a gun.\u00a0 There were women there.\u00a0 And a child.\u00a0 I had no choice.”<\/p>\n “There’s always a choice, Cartwright. \u00a0You killed him.”<\/p>\n No mistakin’ the frown this time.\u00a0 “I shot him in the arm.\u00a0 He came to the trial.\u00a0 He was fine.”<\/p>\n “He wa’nt fine.”\u00a0 I shook my head.\u00a0 “He wa’nt fine!\u00a0 He died.\u00a0 He died in agony.”<\/p>\n Cartwright said nothing.\u00a0 Jes’ kept lookin’ at me as if I was lunk-headed.\u00a0 My heart had started its thumpin’ again ‘cos I knew what I had to do.<\/p>\n “They took that bullet out, but it never healed proper.\u00a0 Then they slung him in that prison, even though he was just a kid.\u00a0 I was there with him, Cartwright.\u00a0 His arm blew up like a bloated sheep, purple and black and stinkin’.\u00a0 So, you know what they did?\u00a0 They cut it off.\u00a0 I watched ’em do it.\u00a0 Watched ’em saw off my brother’s arm, while he screamed and begged for ’em to stop.\u00a0 Then the fever came for him.\u00a0 Weren’t nothing I could do ‘cept watch him die slowly.\u00a0 I ain’t never seen no one in so much pain.\u00a0 You did that to him, Cartwright.\u00a0 You killed my brother.”<\/p>\n All the time I was speakin’, Adam Cartwright was watching me.\u00a0 When I finished, he dropped his eyes an’ all I could hear was my own breath, sounding strange and harsh in the silence.<\/p>\n “I’m sorry about your brother,” he said.\u00a0 “I didn’t know he’d died.\u00a0 I never meant to kill him.”<\/p>\n Jes’ for a moment, I hesitated.\u00a0 Jes’ like I did when me and that mountain lion came face to face.\u00a0 An’ I might’n have done jes’ like I did that day ‘cept for Fynn, ‘cos all of a sudden, I hearn his voice in my ear, jes’ like he was standin’ right behind me.\u00a0 Even swear I felt his hand in my back.\u00a0 “Go on, Si,” he murmured.\u00a0 “Do it.\u00a0 Do it now.\u00a0 Shoot, Si, shoot!”<\/p>\n My heart was racing so hard, when my finger squeezed back on that trigger, it was as if the bullet exploded inside of me.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright jumped.\u00a0 I saw his dark eyes widen in his pale face.\u00a0 The kid gasped and lurched, and made a stumbling step towards his brother.<\/p>\n I’d meant to stay.\u00a0 Meant to savor my moment of victory.\u00a0 After all, I’d waited a long time.\u00a0 But I had to light a shuck out of there.\u00a0 It was as if I could already smell the blood, even over the stink of the gunsmoke.\u00a0 Like the smell of death.\u00a0 Had to get out of that room afore I puked.\u00a0 It was the whiskey, I told myself.\u00a0 Should never have drunk all that whiskey.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Dang, but it was a long time afore I could make myself go back in that cell room. \u00a0\u00a0Even after I finally stopped my stummick heavin’, I couldn’ get my hands to quit shakin’, even though I must’ve supped enough whiskey to drown a cat.\u00a0 I knew it weren’t no good sittin’ there.\u00a0 There were things had to be done.\u00a0 Had to get rid of the Cartwrights’ horses afore anyone started thinkin’ summat was wrong.\u00a0 Didn’t want Nate asking no questions about his guests neither.\u00a0 Nate’s a good friend, but I ain’t never told him the truth ’bout me.\u00a0 When I came here to Redditch, I left all that behind.\u00a0 Leastways, I thought I did.\u00a0 Seems like the past has a way of catching up to you, no matter how far or how fast you run.<\/p>\n As it turned out, dealing with the horses was a cinch.\u00a0 Waited till the sun started to slip behind the mountain, then I moseyed on over to the stables with a bottle of whiskey and the liquor did the rest.\u00a0 One-eyed Jake enjoys a good jaw, and he sure is a sucker for the coffin varnish.\u00a0 By the time I left him, dusk was creeping over Redditch.<\/p>\n Mr. Wallis was back on duty.\u00a0 We passed some conversation, casual like, ’bout his sister an’ her nippers.\u00a0 He’d been to visit ’em that afternoon.\u00a0 Most times, I’d have been int’rested.\u00a0 I like Mr. Wallis.\u00a0 He’s a real genuine kinda feller. But that evenin’, jes’ about every word he tol’ me went straight past me, like smoke in the wind.\u00a0 Did manage to catch a glimpse of the register.\u00a0 Saw the name, Cartwright, next to Room 4.\u00a0 I asked Mr. Wallis if Nate was about, an’ he jerked his head upwards an’ said, yeah, Nate was in his room.\u00a0 I took a detour to Room 4.\u00a0 Weren’t much in the way of plunder.\u00a0 Them Cartwright boys had been carrying their saddlebags when they came by my bath house.\u00a0 But I picked up a coat and a coupla bed rolls and went out the back way.\u00a0 One-eyed Jake was already snorin’, full as a tick, when I got back to the stable.\u00a0 It all seemed so dadburned easy.\u00a0 I saddled up the Cartwrights’ animals and led ’em out the back.\u00a0 It was dark by then.<\/p>\n I had a long walk back after I skungled them horses.\u00a0 I thought about my ma and pa, an’ Fynn, and a whole lotta other things I ain’t thought about in a long time, and jes’ for a while, I felt real good.\u00a0 Like a drifter who’s finally found his way home.\u00a0 Like my brother could feel proud of me at last.\u00a0 But as I drew closer to the town, the whiskey I’d drunk earlier was turning to lead inside of me.\u00a0 When I seed the buildings hunkering down ahead of me in the moonlight, my hands started their danged quivering all over again.\u00a0 Somewhere in that darkness was that cell cave with them two fellers in it, one of ’em shot an’ bleedin’.\u00a0 I hadn’t even hung around to find out if my aim had been right.\u00a0 What if I’d shot crooked?\u00a0 What if he was already lyin’ dead?\u00a0 Then it weren’t jus’ my hands ashakin’, it was my whole body, tremblin’ like a frightened dog.<\/p>\n I told myself it didn’t matter none nohow.\u00a0 He was gonna die anyways.\u00a0 We’re all dyin’ one way or another; jus’ this one was gonna die sooner.\u00a0 So why did I have to force my feet to keep moving forwards?\u00a0\u00a0 Why couldn’t I hear Fynn’s voice tellin’ me what to do next?<\/p>\n “I’m doin’ this for you, kid,” I whispered, as I reached my own door.\u00a0 ‘Stead of opening it, I leaned ‘gainst it and tried to steady my breathing.\u00a0 Right up till that moment, I’d never ‘preciated jes’ what I’d found in Redditch these last coupla years.\u00a0 Goldarnit!\u00a0 I’d been happy!\u00a0 For the first time in my whole stinkin’, miserable life, I’d been at peace.\u00a0 Now the old enemy was back.\u00a0 Crawlin’ all over me.\u00a0 Pricklin’ like sweat all over my body.\u00a0 Fear!\u00a0 Gut-chawing, skin-shrinkin’ fear.<\/p>\n “Fynn,” I whispered, my voice croakin’, jes’ as if someone had their fingers closed around my throat.\u00a0 “Fynn, where are you?\u00a0 Hell and damnation, boy, don’t you leave me now!”<\/p>\n He laughed then.\u00a0 No word of a lie, I hearn him as clear as if he’d a been standin’ right there next to me.\u00a0 Always was a joker, my little brother. \u00a0Liked to catch me out. \u00a0I shook my head to clear the sweat from my eyes, but I couldn’t see nothing through the darkness.<\/p>\n “Come on,” I said to him.\u00a0 “Time to see how them Cartwright boys is doing.”<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n The door to them old cells is built like the gate to a fort.\u00a0 Jus’ as well, ’cause, when I got there, Adam Cartwright was tearin’ up Jake inside that room.<\/p>\n “You yell jus’ as much as you want,” I told him, though he couldn’ hear me since the thick planks were still atween us.\u00a0 You coulda run a freight wagon through the back of that office and none of them townsfolk woulda been any the wiser.\u00a0 Guess Adam Cartwright couldn’ta known that.\u00a0 Guess he was only doin’ what I woulda done in his place.\u00a0 Now Fynn was back aside me, I didn’ have no more worries about openin’ that door.<\/p>\n It hit me straight away.\u00a0 The stink of blood.\u00a0 Dammit, I hate that stink!\u00a0 It’s the smell of death.\u00a0 I sure know the smell of death!\u00a0 Smelled it too many times not to.\u00a0 Gets you right in the back of your throat and sticks there.<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright was soaked in the stuff.\u00a0 His red shirt was dark with it, and where he’d rolled up his sleeves, his arms were smeared to the elbows.\u00a0 My throat filled with gorge and I had to swallow real hard.\u00a0 Dang, but I had to hold it together! \u00a0For Fynn’s sake.<\/p>\n “If it’s money you want…” said Adam Cartwright.<\/p>\n He didn’t finish the sentence ‘cos I cut him short with my laugh.\u00a0 I needed to laugh; needed to do something to keep myself from gagging on the stink of death.<\/p>\n “I ain’t after money,” I told him.\u00a0 I reckon he a’ready knew that judgin’ by the way his face kinda hardened.<\/p>\n “What then?” he said.\u00a0 “Revenge?\u00a0 I already told you I didn’t even know your brother had died.\u00a0 I shot him in the arm.\u00a0 I never intended to kill him.”<\/p>\n I kept my gaze fixed on Adam Cartwright.\u00a0 I didn’t look at the kid.\u00a0 Avoided it.\u00a0 Didn’t wanna see any more blood.\u00a0 Wasn’t sure I could stummick it.\u00a0 Didn’ want Adam Cartwright to know how close I was to pukin’. \u00a0I licked my upper lip, tasting the salt of my own sweat.\u00a0 Salt and blood.\u00a0 Blood and tears.\u00a0 Tasted ’em more times than I care to remember.<\/p>\n “Let me get my brother to a doctor before this goes any further,” said Adam Cartwright, like he was in a position to make a deal.\u00a0 “You let him die here and that amounts to murder.”<\/p>\n Soon as he said that, my heart started to race so hard, for a moment I thought I might fold on the floor like a piece of calico at a dogfight.<\/p>\n “Shut it!” I told him, and my voice sounded harsh, even to me.\u00a0 “You ain’t going nowhere!”<\/p>\n His eyes stayed fixed on me, like he was looking for something he knew was there but couldn’t find.\u00a0 The stench of blood was making my head spin.\u00a0 My mouth was full of a sour taste, like I needed to spit.\u00a0 I wanted to head for the door, breathe fresh air again, but I knew I had to look at the kid first.\u00a0 Had to see what I’d done. \u00a0Didn’t want Fynn calling me yellow-bellied.<\/p>\n I’d shot him in the leg.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright shot my brother in the arm, but in a moment of doubt, I’d aimed for the kid’s leg.\u00a0 I ain’t fired a barkin’ iron in a coon’s age; leastways not at a man.\u00a0\u00a0 Shootin’ for his arm, I was afeared I’d shoot wide and either kill him outright or miss him the same.\u00a0 An’ a limb’s a limb.\u00a0 Seemed to me he’d die jus’ as slow from a bullet in his leg as in his arm.\u00a0 In the end, death’s all the same.\u00a0 It don’t matter none.\u00a0 It’s the dyin’ that hurts.\u00a0 I was gonna make real sure Adam Cartwright traveled every inch of that miserable journey alongside his brother, jus’ the way I did with Fynn.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright was going to hurt jes’ as much as his brother.<\/p>\n The kid was hurtin’ already; didn’t take an expert to tell that.\u00a0 On the bunk, hunched against the wall, he weren’t hummin’ no more.\u00a0 \u00a0His hands clutched his leg, above his knee, as though he struggled to hold the life inside him, and between his fingers, the crimson oozed<\/p>\n It’s the last straw that broke the camel’s back, as my Ma used to say.\u00a0 Panic rose like bile in my throat as I made for the door.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright’s plea followed me from the room.<\/p>\n “At least bring us some water.”<\/p>\n I didn’t get much shut eye that night.\u00a0 Kep’ thinkin’ I hearn Fynn laughing somewhere close by.\u00a0 Took most of a bottle of whiskey to get me off in the end, somewhere near dawn, then I dreamed crazy dreams where Adam Cartwright was my prisoner, but I knew I couldn’t keep him from escapin’.\u00a0 In the dream, I was hammerin’ a heavy iron stake into the ground to fasten him to, so’s he wouldn’t get away.\u00a0 I couldn’t figure why I was so dizzy an’ weak.\u00a0 Then I saw that the stake had gone right through my middle.\u00a0 Every swing of the hammer impaled me deeper. \u00a0I woke up sweatin’ and shakin’ like it was me’d been shot.\u00a0 Sun was over the mountain by then, and someone was aknockin’ at the door.\u00a0 I got up cussing, mostly to drown the bangin’ of my own heart.\u00a0 But it was Nate.\u00a0 Shoulda known that.\u00a0 Wonderin’ why I hadn’ opened up shop.<\/p>\n “I ain’t feelin’ so good,” I told him.\u00a0 “I ain’t plannin’ on openin’ up today.”<\/p>\n He looked at me, worried. \u00a0Guess I musta smelled like a saloon on Saturday night. I figure Nate reckoned I might be on one of my benders.\u00a0 Happens sometimes.\u00a0 I ain’t proud of it, but it’s like a black cloud rises outta nowhere and wraps itself around me.\u00a0 Those dark spells worry Nate.<\/p>\n “I’ll get you breakfast,” he said.\u00a0 I shook my head.\u00a0 Across the street, One-eyed Jake emerged from the livery, none too steady on his stumps, headin’ for the saloon in a zig-zag fashion. \u00a0Any other day, I’da laughed. \u00a0Me and’ Nate watched him in silence, then Nate turned back to me.<\/p>\n “You see anythin’ more of them fellers as rode in here yes’erday?\u00a0 Never came back las’ night.\u00a0 Looks like they rode out early too.”<\/p>\n I shrugged, like I hardly cared.\u00a0 “I heared there was a poker game going on down at the Palace.”<\/p>\n Nate seemed to accept that. He flashed me a crooked grin.\u00a0 “You reckon they got acquainted with Buttress Betty and Lil the Mare?”<\/p>\n I forced myself to smile.\u00a0 Redditch don’t boast many womenfolk.\u00a0 Ain’t nothin’ in this sleepy backwater to draw ’em here, much less keep ’em.\u00a0 Betty and Lil are the main attractions, both of ’em the wrong side of forty.\u00a0 Buttress Betty’s too formidable for my likin’, but Lil, she’s a jewel.\u00a0 They call her the Redditch Mare on account of the fact she’s kinda toothsome, but that ain’t never bothered me none.<\/p>\n “Reckon those fellers might fancy themselves too grand for the likes of Lil an’ Betty,” I told Nate.<\/p>\n “You sure you ain’t hungry?” he asked, and I shook my head again.<\/p>\n “Might grab me another coupla hours of shut eye,” I said.<\/p>\n “Take it easy,” said Nate, and I nodded, like I meant it.<\/p>\n “Yeah.\u00a0 I will,” I told him, lyin’ through my teeth.<\/p>\n Don’t know why it was, but that short conversation with Nate somehow pulled me back together.\u00a0 When I closed the door behind him, the panic I’d felt the night before had dissipated, washed away by a determined sense of resolve.\u00a0 I’d waited twelve years to pay back Adam Cartwright for Fynn’s sufferin’, an’ I sure as heck wa’n’t gonna waste that chance.<\/p>\n I filled a pitcher with water and grabbed a coupla dry biscuits.\u00a0 Openin’ the door to the back room, I hesitated only a moment as two things hit me: the darkness and the smell.\u00a0 I was familiar with them both: the cloying blackness of incarceration and the stink of humanity brought low.\u00a0 The candle I’d left beside the bed had died.\u00a0 I set the pitcher down on the floor and lit the lamp on the wall, next to the door.<\/p>\n I caught the movement as Adam Cartwright jumped to his feet.\u00a0 The light from the lantern drove him backwards a coupla steps, like a blow to the face.\u00a0 He twisted his face, blinkin’ and squintin’.\u00a0 I crossed to the cell and put the pitcher and the biscuits close to the bars, where he could reach ’em.<\/p>\n He looked at the food and water then back at me.\u00a0 I tried to read the expression in his dark eyes, but they didn’ give much away.<\/p>\n “How long are you planning to keep us here?” he asked.<\/p>\n I looked over at the kid still hunched on the bed.\u00a0 The blanket covered his bloody leg, but he looked sick, his face clammy and yellow-grey in the light from the lamp.<\/p>\n “Depends,” I said.<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright’s eyes flashed a challenge.\u00a0 “On what?”<\/p>\n “On him,” I said, twitchin’ my head at the sallow-faced kid.\u00a0 “How long it takes him to die.”<\/p>\n “You’re gonna wait a long time then,” said the kid.\u00a0 Defiance raised little beads of glistening sweat on his upper lip.\u00a0 I thought again how like Fynn he was.\u00a0 Sparky and stubborn.<\/p>\n “I got plenty of time,” I told him.<\/p>\n “Do you really think you’ll get away with this?” asked Adam Cartwright.<\/p>\n I shrugged.\u00a0 “Everyone thinks you left town sometime last night or early this mornin’.\u00a0 Nobody’s lookin’ for you.\u00a0 Like I said, I got plenty of time.”\u00a0 I fixed the kid with a cold smile.\u00a0 “You take all the time you need with your dyin’, boy.\u00a0 As long as you want.\u00a0 Your brother is gonna be right here by your side the whole time, watchin’ you go.”\u00a0 I nodded at the biscuits and the water, addressin’ myself to the older Cartwright.\u00a0 “You got any sense, you’ll eat that yourself and not waste it on him.\u00a0 It’ll speed up the process.\u00a0 Believe me, I know.”<\/p>\n I turned to leave, reaching to extinguish the lamp on the way out.<\/p>\n “Let us have some light.”\u00a0 This time, I was certain I heared an edge of fear in Adam Cartwright’s plea.\u00a0\u00a0 Reckon he thought I was about to refuse ‘cos he flattened his voice and added, “I thought you wanted me to see<\/em> him suffering.”<\/p>\n I liked his reasonin’ so I said I’d bring him another candle.\u00a0 I left the lamp burnin’ while I went to fetch one.\u00a0 When I returned, he was bendin’ over his brother, offerin’ him the jug of water.\u00a0 ‘Course, I’d known that’s what he’d do, in spite of my advice.\u00a0 It’s what I’da done too.\u00a0 What I did do.\u00a0 For all the good it did Fynn.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright shoulda listened to me.<\/p>\n The kid was weak.\u00a0 All that blood everywhere, I guess he woulda been.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright had to make a grab to save him from droppin’ that jug.\u00a0 One hand on the pitcher, he lifted the other to the kid’s hair, brushin’ it back from his forehead, an’ for a moment I was reminded of the priest who bent over my brother, an’ the desperation in Fynn’s eyes as the man pronounced his benediction.\u00a0 Saw the pleading in my brother’s face when he looked back at me.\u00a0 That was the moment I knew my brother was going to die.*<\/p>\n Reckon that day was longest of my whole life.\u00a0 I’d hoped I could catch up on the sleep I didn’ get the night afore, but I couldn’t settle.\u00a0 Didn’t feel much like eatin’ neither.\u00a0 Jus’ drank too much deadshot and watched the flies buzzin’ at the window, and tortured myself goin’ over an’ over those final days in the prison with Fynn.\u00a0 I even dragged out the iron box from under my bed and took out Fynn’s things, one by one.\u00a0 I ain’t done that in a coon’s age.\u00a0 Ain’t much to look at neither, not for the sum total of a whole life.\u00a0 Jes’ the stuff he had on him the day of the stagecoach robbery.\u00a0 The day Adam Cartwright shot him.\u00a0 There’s a fancy leather wallet I give him for his sixteenth birthday.\u00a0 Last birthday he ever saw.\u00a0 Nibbled it from a fireman in Virginia City durin’ a ruckus atween Union and Confederate supporters.\u00a0 Knew Fynn would like it.\u00a0 Had ten dollars in it when I give it to him. The money ain’t there now, of course.\u00a0 There’s a pipe used to belong to my pa.\u00a0 Fynn allers said it was his good luck charm.\u00a0 Sure didn’ bring him much.\u00a0 Never could figure why he reckoned anything as belonged to our pa would bring him good luck.\u00a0 Way I see it, my pa never brought nairn but bad luck to our family.<\/p>\n The las’ thing in that box is a book.\u00a0 It’s called The Red Rover<\/em>.\u00a0 Pa had no time for books, but Ma knew some readin’ and writin’, in a small way, and Fynn learned the rest hisself.\u00a0 Tried to teach me too, but I couldn’t see no point.\u00a0 My pa drank away every spare dime in our house so the kid got books mostly by stealin’ ’em.\u00a0 But a feller in Carson City – a rich business feller in a smart suit – gave him this’un, after Fynn caught his runaway team and saved his rig from plungin’ over the ravine.\u00a0 Fynn woulda done that kinda stunt jus’ for the sheer hell of it, but he sure was puffed up when that feller give him that book.\u00a0 Used to carry it with him all the time.\u00a0 Read it over an’ over,’til some of the pages plain wore out.<\/p>\n Too much whiskey and handlin’ those things of Fynn’s sorta choked me up, but I weren’ about to surrender to no tears, like some green girl in a hookshop, so I took Fynn’s book and went back to the cell.\u00a0 Shoulda stayed where I was.\u00a0 Knew afore I went in there that I was half corned an’ likely to shoot my mouth off.<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright was hunched over his candle, but he got to his feet when I went in.\u00a0 The kid was asleep, under the blanket.\u00a0 The candlelight carved deep shadows in the hollows of Cartwright’s face, hardened it, made him older.<\/p>\n “Fynn was real smart, ya know,” I said, holding up the frayed book like it was proof of the fact.\u00a0 “He was smart enough he coulda done anythin’<\/em>.\u00a0 He didn’ need to rob stages.\u00a0 He was a smart kid.”<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright lifted his head and fixed me with puzzled eyes, but he didn’ say nothin’.\u00a0 I kinda wisht I hadn’ spoke, but I wanted him to know jus’ how special my brother had been; how much he’d destroyed when he shot him.<\/p>\n “This was his’n,” I said, pushing on, steppin’ closer to the bars of the cell so Adam Cartwright could see the book more clearly.\u00a0 “Had it on him the day you shot him.”<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright’s expression flickered, like somethin’ I’d said had finally made the jack.\u00a0 When he still didn’ speak, I kept on.<\/p>\n “He was jes’ a kid, but he was real smart.\u00a0 He loved this book. \u00a0It’s about…”<\/p>\n “A pirate,” said Adam Cartwright, taking me by surprise.\u00a0 He nodded. “I know.\u00a0 I’ve read it.\u00a0 It’s a good story.”<\/p>\n His interruption took the wind out of my sails.\u00a0 Jes’ for a moment, I couldn’t think what else I’d been about to say.<\/p>\n “Yeah,” I finished, soundin’ as lame as a three-legged horse.\u00a0 “Well, he was real smart.\u00a0 I jes’ wanted you to know that.”<\/p>\n Cartwright’s dark stare probed me.\u00a0 For a moment, I thought I saw pity in his eyes.\u00a0 Dunno why he’d’a’ been feelin’ sorry for me though.\u00a0 I wa’n’t the one dyin’.<\/p>\n “I already told you,” he said, “I’m sorry about your brother. \u00a0I had no way of knowing what was going to happen.\u00a0 But shooting my brother and holding us prisoner like this won’t bring him back.”<\/p>\n “You think I don’t know that?\u00a0 You think I don’t know nothin’<\/em> ain’t gonna bring him back now.”\u00a0 I found myself starin’ at the book in my hand an’ cursin’ the whiskey for turnin’ my throat tight.\u00a0 “Ya know, Fynn allers fancied bein’ a pirate.\u00a0 Used to tell him that’s what we were.\u00a0 Pirates, with horses steada ships.”<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright’s eyes drilled right into me.\u00a0 Kinda unnerved me.\u00a0 Consid’rin’ I was s’posed to have the bulge on him, I couldn’ shake the feelin’ he was more in control than I was.<\/p>\n “My pa was a sailor,” he said.<\/p>\n I shouldn’a hesitated, but I did.\u00a0 “I ain’t interested in your family history,” I told him, though it weren’t strictly the truth.\u00a0 I ain’t never seen the ocean, but I’ve allers had a hankerin’ to.\u00a0 Them big ships with all the sails, I’d love to see one of them for real.\u00a0 That was Fynn’s dream too.<\/p>\n I knew Adam Cartwright would notice that pause.\u00a0 Shoulda guessed he try an’ take advantage.<\/p>\n “Why don’t you let me take the bullet out of Joe’s leg?” he said.\u00a0 Had to admire the way he spoke to me like I was a reasonable man. \u00a0“They took the bullet out of your brother.”<\/p>\n “You got the wrong pig by the tail, feller.”\u00a0 I thrust Fynn’s book out of sight, inside my vest.\u00a0 “You mus’ be mistakin’ me for someone who cares.\u00a0 He might as well die with a bullet inside him as out.\u00a0 You wanna help him, do him a favour an’ finish him off now.\u00a0 Save you both a whole lotta grief.”<\/p>\n I don’t know when the kid woke up.\u00a0 I hadn’ been payin’ much mind to him.\u00a0 I looked at him then an’ his eyes, sunk in their sockets, were starin’ at me. \u00a0I could already see the touch of death in the pallor of his skin.\u00a0 That’s what death does; it leeches the color outta life, turns it all to ash.<\/p>\n “You wanna drag it out, kid, or you wanna end it quick?”<\/p>\n The boy pulled hisself to a sitting position.\u00a0 That cost him, I could tell.\u00a0 Reckon he planned on answerin’ me hisself, but Adam Cartwright got there first.<\/p>\n “You underestimate my brother.\u00a0 He doesn’t give up that easily.\u00a0 Nor do I.”<\/p>\n “My brother didn’ give up easy neither.”\u00a0 I hadn’t meant to shout, it jes’ came out that way. “He kept on fightin’, right ’til the end.\u00a0 Ain’t nobody tried harder to stay alive.\u00a0 Don’t you ever think Fynn gave up easy!”<\/p>\n I woulda said more but I had to rattle my hocks outta there.\u00a0 There was way too much redeye runnin’ in my veins.\u00a0 Dang that whiskey!\u00a0 Sometimes it makes a man as weepy as a grievin’ widow.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Liquor was the ruin of my father and it’ll likely be the death of me too.\u00a0 Pa never could drink jes’ one or two glasses.\u00a0 He drank ’til the pot was dry, like it was matter of honor.\u00a0 Some nights, he wouldn’ come home, then he’d roll in next day, roarin’ an’ cussin’ an’ demandin’ my ma give him more whiskey.\u00a0 If she didn’, he’d take his fist to her.\u00a0 Ma hated liquor but she allers tried to keep some in the house to avoid a lacing.\u00a0 Like as not, that final bottle would send him unconscious an’ we’d all be spared.\u00a0 Not that Pa was a violent man by nature; it was the liquor boiled his blood.\u00a0 For a long time, I steered clear of whiskey ‘cos I seed what it did to my pa.\u00a0 But after Fynn died, I needed a way to silence the ghosts, an’ the deadshot did that.<\/p>\n I slept that night.\u00a0 I’d finally swallered so much liquor that my mind was numb. \u00a0I didn’ even dream.\u00a0 Only woke ‘cos someone was bangin’ on the door.\u00a0 I knew it was Nate from the way he knocked.\u00a0 I stayed where I was till I was sure he’d gone away again, then I heaved myself to my feet, my head as heavy as if I’d stuffed it full of musket shot.<\/p>\n There was a covered pot on the porch.\u00a0 Courtesy of Nate, a’course.\u00a0 That’s what he does when I have my dark days.\u00a0 My “bad turns”, he calls ’em.\u00a0 Comes by with food so’s I put somethin’ other than whiskey in my belly.\u00a0 Puts his mind at rest when he sees I’ve taken the pot inside.\u00a0 Guess he figures if I can do that, I’m still alive.\u00a0 It’s not jes’ the whiskey worries him.\u00a0 We never talk about it now, but I know he remembers the day he found me with the other bottle in my hand.\u00a0 I scared him that day.\u00a0 Thinkin’ on it made me put my hand over the pocket of my vest.\u00a0 I’ve had that bottle ever since the day Fynn died.\u00a0 It ain’t big but it sure weighs a lot.\u00a0 I don’t dare put it down no more.\u00a0 Couldn’ lay my hands on it one day and I was pitchin’ a fit ’til I found it.\u00a0 Now I keep it right here, in my pocket, where it won’t never get lost again.\u00a0 To remind myself.\u00a0 So I don’t forget.\u00a0 No.\u00a0 That ain’t true. Ain’t no way I’ll never forget!\u00a0 Never.\u00a0 I carry it ‘cos…I must.\u00a0 Won’t never drink it.\u00a0 That ain’t the point.\u00a0 It’s like them religious folks do.\u00a0 A penance.\u00a0 Though I cain’t say I ain’t been tempted, ‘specially in them early days when I’d still hear Fynn screamin’ in my dreams.<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright jumped to his feet again, the instant I opened the door to the cell.\u00a0 It was dark in there again.\u00a0 I’d only left him a stub of a candle.\u00a0 Musta burnt out hours afore.\u00a0 In the light from the doorway, I could see the sheen of sweat on his face.\u00a0 It was kinda close in that cave; the air sure didn’ stir much.\u00a0 \u00a0I heared the kid afore I seed him.\u00a0 Heared his breath, coming fast and’ heavy.<\/p>\n “This has gone on long enough,” said Adam Cartwright, his voice soundin’ clipped an’ tight. \u00a0Didn’ reckon he’d gotten much sleep neither. “Either shoot us or let us go.”<\/p>\n The kid wan’t makin’ no pretence of tryin’ to be feisty no more, nor could he keep the pain from distortin’ his face.\u00a0 The night had changed him.\u00a0 His eyes were glazed, like a veil had come down over them.\u00a0 I knew all about that veil; the way it grew thicker and harder to penetrate; how eventually he’d become insensible to everything outside and know nothin’ about nothin’ no more, ‘ceptin’ his own misery.\u00a0 I imagined Adam Cartwright tryin’ to comfort him through the long hours of darkness.\u00a0 Didn’ take much imaginin’.\u00a0 \u00a0I been there.\u00a0 I know what that’s like.\u00a0 Death creeping closer, like a shadow growing longer as the daylight slips away.<\/p>\n I shook my head.\u00a0 “I already told you, Cartwright, you’re here to watch him die.\u00a0 Jus’ like I watched my brother die.\u00a0 I want you to know what it feels like.”<\/p>\n “Then what?”\u00a0 He was bitin’ back his frustration.\u00a0 I could see that real clear.\u00a0 “You’ll kill me too?\u00a0 So, what’s the point?”<\/p>\n Forcing a smile to my face wasn’ easy in that stinkin’ hole, but I did it anyway.\u00a0 “I reckon I’ll let you live, Cartwright.\u00a0 Let you know what it feels like to carry the memories with you for the rest of your life.\u00a0 Let you wonder, forever, if there was somethin’ more you coulda done to ease his dyin’.”<\/p>\n Muscles twitched in Adam Cartwright’s jaw.\u00a0 His eyes flashed through the gloom.\u00a0 “If my brother dies here, and I live, I swear I won’t rest until you are brought to justice!”<\/p>\n Had to admire the way the man allers tried to take the upper hand, even though I held all the cards.<\/p>\n “You won’t find me, Cartwright.\u00a0 I’ll make dead sure of that.”\u00a0 I gestured with the bowl of stew in my hand. “Brung you some grub.”\u00a0 I put it down on the floor, next to the space in the bars where the trays passed back ‘n’ forth.\u00a0 Then I leaned back ‘gainst the doorframe and watched.<\/p>\n Cartwright’s eyes flashed me a challenge an’ I knew we were readin’ each other’s minds.\u00a0 The man had to be hungry.\u00a0 A coupla stale biscuits in three days ain’t enough to fill a feller’s belly, and Nate’s stew smelled real good.\u00a0 Leastways, to a man who’s insides wa’n’t swilling with rotgut.<\/p>\n When Cartwright realised I wa’n’t goin’ nowhere, he bent down and retrieved the food.\u00a0 Then he crossed to his brother.\u00a0 The kid was watchin’ him, but his eyes were hazy, like they was really lookin’ someplace else.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright said, “Joe?” and the kid shook his head once an’ turned his face away.<\/p>\n “Try and eat something.”<\/p>\n The kid muttered another refusal, but his brother wasn’t about to give up that easily.\u00a0 “A couple of mouthfuls, that’s all.”<\/p>\n The kid shook his head again, and I laughed.\u00a0 A harsh, ugly sound.<\/p>\n “He knows, Cartwright.\u00a0 He knows there ain’t no sense in wasting food on a dead man.\u00a0 Why don’t you listen to him?”<\/p>\n The kid dragged his gaze back to me, blinkin’ like he was tryin’ to clear his vision.\u00a0 He forced himself to sit up straighter and I saw that defiant jut of his chin I’d noticed afore.\u00a0 Had to admire his determination.\u00a0 Jus’ in that moment, I could see the family resemblance atween ’em.\u00a0 But I’d done a real good job with that bullet.\u00a0 Jes’ moving caused the kid e’en a’most to swoon away.\u00a0 Still, he opened his mouth to oblige his brother an’ eat the food spooned into him, but he couldn’t swallow it.<\/p>\n “You’re wastin’ your time,” I said again, as the kid made a funny sound, and gagged.<\/p>\n Finally, Adam Cartwright’s composure wavered.\u00a0 His head snapped round, his eyes flared.<\/p>\n “He’s my brother!\u00a0 I’m not going to sit here and watch him die, whatever you say.\u00a0 Don’t tell me you didn’t do everything in your power to help your brother!”<\/p>\n A sharp pain caught me right about in my middle.\u00a0 “‘Course I tried.” \u00a0I looked back at the kid, creased in a bout of agony, and for a split second I saw Fynn again.\u00a0 That grimace on his face, that catch in his breath, that half suppressed moan of pain somewhere atween a sob and a curse, I knew them well.\u00a0 Too well.\u00a0 Could feel ’em twisting in my gut as I watched him.\u00a0 Every fragment of the boy’s anguish was already lodged somewhere deep inside o’ me.\u00a0 Try as I might, I could not keep the gall outta my voice.<\/p>\n “I allers looked after my brother. ‘Course I did!\u00a0 He was jes’ a kid.\u00a0 Damn you, Cartwright! \u00a0I looked after him right from the time he could walk.\u00a0 I had to.\u00a0 There weren’t nobody else.\u00a0 If I coulda taken that bullet ‘steada him, I would’ve.\u00a0 Don’t you never suggest I didn’ look after my brother!”<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright pressed his fingers close to his forehead an’ took a deep breath.\u00a0 When he raised his face again, he was back under control.<\/p>\n “I wasn’t suggesting that.\u00a0 I’m sure you did everything you could.\u00a0 And I’m going to do the same for my brother.”\u00a0 His gaze travelled back to the kid.\u00a0 Joe Cartwright’s eyes were closed though he weren’t asleep.\u00a0 Pain flexed his body and strung his face taut. \u00a0\u00a0“It’d break my father’s heart to lose him.”<\/p>\n “What about your mother?”<\/p>\n Cartwright paused.\u00a0 “His mother’s dead.”<\/p>\n I was intrigued, in spite of myself. “My father had three wives.\u00a0 They’re all dead.”<\/p>\n All dead.\u00a0 Jes’ for a moment, I was distracted by another man’s ill fortune.\u00a0 Sometimes I forget there’s other folks who’ve rubbed shoulders with death a’most as often as me.\u00a0 Seemed like old man Cartwright was one of ’em.<\/p>\n “What was your ma like?”<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright gave me a sharp look, like he was trying to decide why I was askin’, but he answered all the same.<\/p>\n “I never knew her.\u00a0 She died when I was a baby.”<\/p>\n I jerked my head towards the boy.\u00a0 “An’ his ma?”<\/p>\n “I knew her.”\u00a0 Cartwright’s voice held that familiar note of caution. Reckon he thought I was tryin’ to trap him.\u00a0\u00a0 “Joe was only four when she died.”<\/p>\n My heart jumped.\u00a0 I tried to keep my surprise from showin’ on my face.\u00a0 Same age as Fynn when our ma died.\u00a0 Won’t never forget that day.\u00a0 The carnival came to town.\u00a0 Fynn begged to go.\u00a0 Ma said I could take him.\u00a0 She was too sick to come with us.\u00a0 She made us put on our clean shirts and tied our colored kerchiefs around our necks with her white, tremblin’ fingers.\u00a0 Our gay apparel she called it.\u00a0 Said she wanted to be proud of us.<\/p>\n We had us a real hog-killin’ time that day, me ‘n’ Fynn. \u00a0He was so tired on the way home, he fell asleep in the saddle, slumped ‘gainst me.\u00a0 Then, when we got back, Ma was dead.\u00a0 Jus’ like that.\u00a0 The life all gone out of her.\u00a0 All that happiness snuffed out in an instant.<\/p>\n I looked at Joe an’ wondered what he’d been doing the day his ma died.<\/p>\n “What she die of?”<\/p>\n “A riding accident.<\/p>\n I turned away.\u00a0 A riding accident ain’t the same as months of sufferin’.\u00a0 Those Cartwright boys never watched death turn their ma into a ghost, even afore it finally snatched her away.\u00a0 The ol’ familiar sense of loathing rose again inside me.\u00a0 Everythin’ about those Cartwright boys spoke of wealth.\u00a0 Not jus’ their fine trappin’s, but their swagger.\u00a0 Folks with money don’t have to bow to no one.\u00a0 More than anythin’, I wanted to see Adam Cartwright lose his poise, strip away his precious self-possession.\u00a0 Watch him beg.\u00a0 Like I did.<\/p>\n I lay on my bed while the day pressed hot an’ close about me, like a draggin’ blanket, an’ I tried to imagine Joe Cartwright slippin’ deathwards an’ Adam Cartwright crumblin’ under his brother’s anguish.\u00a0 He was tough, sure, but it would come, I knew.\u00a0 In the end. \u00a0I’d make sure it did.<\/p>\n I waited till the sun slipped behind the mountain afore I put Nate’s empty pot back out on the porch.\u00a0 Right overhead, a star shone down; the brightest star in the whole night sky.<\/p>\n “That you, Fynn?” I said, but my brother was silent.<\/p>\n “He’s sufferin’,” I told Fynn.\u00a0 “I’ll make sure he pays, I swear it.”<\/p>\n My right hand followed its old habit and touched the small bottle in my vest pocket.\u00a0 I drew it out, its familiar shape almost comfortin’, even though I knew what it contained.\u00a0 It wouldn’ take much, I knew.\u00a0 Won’t say I ain’t been tempted plenty of times since Fynn died, but the time ain’t never been right.\u00a0 I owe Fynn and I cain’t duck out till I paid my debt.<\/p>\n No, it wouldn’ take much.\u00a0 As little as a thimble full would be enough, even for a full grown man.\u00a0 It’s powerful strong.\u00a0 That’s all it would take.<\/p>\n I looked back up at the star, then at the door behind me, and I put the bottle back into my pocket.\u00a0 I knew what I had to do.<\/p>\n I’d figured I was on a sure footing, but, truth was, I was havin’ doubts.\u00a0 Serious doubts.\u00a0 Seemed to me I shoulda been feelin’ real good with everythin’ workin’ jus’ the way I’d reckoned it would.\u00a0 So why was I so balled-up inside?\u00a0 Adam Cartwright had ruined my life an’ all I was doin’ was dealin’ out the justice Fynn shoulda had.\u00a0 Some fools think justice is jes’ for the Almighty, but seems to me the Almighty ain’t that bothered with most of us ord’nary folk.\u00a0 Didn’ do nothin’ when Fynn was screamin’ with pain.\u00a0 An’ I sure was prayin’ then!\u00a0 I prayed over an’ over, an’ there weren’t no one answered. \u00a0\u00a0I’ve heared them preachers hark on about heaven and hell, but I ain’t so sure.\u00a0 Seems to me all them good folks ain’t never gonna enjoy heaven whilst their kinsfolk’s burnin’ up in the other place.\u00a0 An’ if you cain’t enjoy heaven…well, it ain’t heaven then, is it?<\/p>\n Ain’t nothin’ after this life but silence. \u00a0That’s what I reckon.\u00a0 \u00a0Death’s the silent land.\u00a0 I sure as heck ain’t gonna fit right amongst all them do-goodin’ angels, an’ I don’t fancy burnin’ in hell for the rest of eternity, so I guess I’m jes’ hopin’ for the silence.\u00a0 No more ghosts yammerin’ in my ears.\u00a0 That would be enough.<\/p>\n I had another bad night.\u00a0 Kinda resigned to it, by then.\u00a0 Sleep was startin’ to feel irrelevant.\u00a0 I jes’ lay there in the dark, thinkin’ about the two men in my cells an’ feelin’ the familiar chawin’ in my gut.\u00a0 It had all seemed so right at the time, but now, I couldn’ help wonderin’.\u00a0 What if the kid didn’t buck out?\u00a0 What if he took weeks to die?\u00a0 Could I remain locked behind my door all that time, while the rest of the world carried on jus’ like everythin’ was normal?\u00a0 Nate leaving me pots of stew.\u00a0 Mr Wallis sweeping dirt from his porch into a dustpan.\u00a0 One-eyed Jake taking his afternoon nap in the sun.\u00a0 Lyle’s cat preening hisself on the step outside his store.\u00a0 All carryin’ on around me, while I waited for a sorry kid to die in the darkness, and Adam Cartwright to crawl at my feet.\u00a0 How long before that stubborn man crumbled?<\/p>\n I’d reckoned there’d be satisfaction, not this gut-wrenching fear eatin’ away at me.\u00a0 Truth is, I was afeared.\u00a0 Afeared of what I’d done.\u00a0 Afeared I didn’ have the belly to see it through.\u00a0 Afeared of how messy it was all becomin’.\u00a0 But, underneath it all, mostly I was scared that Adam Cartwright was a stronger man than I was.\u00a0 Somehow, I had to find my courage, an’ the only place I knew where to look for that was inside a bottle.\u00a0 Seemed to me, I could hear Fynn clearer, too, with a few glasses of the deadshot inside me.<\/p>\n It was mid mornin’ afore I forced myself back to that cell room, leavin’ the door open behind me to let in the light.\u00a0 Took a moment for my eyes to ‘custom themselves to the dinginess, but I could already hear the kid’s pantin’ breath an’ his half-stifled moans.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright was propped against the back wall, by the cot. This time, he didn’ get to his feet when I came in.\u00a0 I took that as a promisin’ sign.\u00a0 Maybe luck was gonna be on my side, after all.<\/p>\n I’d brought fresh water. I put it down and stayed close to the bars, so’s I could get a better look at how the kid was progressin’.<\/p>\n “Don’t look too good, does he, your brother?”<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright turned his face to me, and I experienced a queer mix of shock an’ elation as I seed the gnawing shadows that had hollered his face and drawn his mouth into a hard, tight line.\u00a0 His sunken eyes were black as coal in the half-darkness, and behind them, somethin’ flickered.\u00a0 Somethin’ desperate an’ half wild.\u00a0 The night had been real bad for him too.\u00a0 I could see it.\u00a0 It had left its mark in Adam Cartwright’s eyes.<\/p>\n The kid arched and twisted on the bed and his moans rose to a skeersome wail, shot through with a breathless oath, as he called his brother’s name.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright reached out and pressed the flailin’ head back into the cot.\u00a0 “Easy, Joe,” he said.\u00a0 His voice was raspy with weariness, an’ I wondered how many times he had muttered those words in the long, dark night.<\/p>\n “He sure is hurtin’,” I said.<\/p>\n Cartwright, his hand still on his brother’s head, turned his accusin’ gaze in my direction.<\/p>\n “Get out!”<\/p>\n He couldn’t’a known jus’ how much I wanted to, but I weren’t gonna let Adam Carwright cow me down no more with his high ‘n’ mighty manner.\u00a0 I stood my ground.<\/p>\n “So, your pa,” I said, like I was making friendly conversation, “did you tell him you’d take care of the kid?\u00a0 Promise you’d look after him?”<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright turned his face away, as if I disgusted him.<\/p>\n “And do you feel bad now, Cartwright?\u00a0 Bad because you let ’em down?\u00a0 Your pa?\u00a0 Your brother?”<\/p>\n The boy\u00a0cried out again, all his bravado eaten away by the pain of the bullet festerin’ inside him.\u00a0 Shiverin’ too, despite the sweat stickin’ his shirt to his body.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright steadied him, mutterin’, “Easy,” again.\u00a0 Then his gaze flicked back to me, an’ it was like the same cold fire that had put his brother in a chilled sweat was in his eyes.”This is what you wanted.\u00a0 Aren’t you satisfied yet?”<\/p>\n My right knee started to quiver. I forced myself to look unconcerned.\u00a0 “Oh no,” I told him.\u00a0 “Not yet.”\u00a0 I nodded at the gaspin’ kid.\u00a0 “Reckon there’s at least another day left in him.\u00a0 Maybe more.\u00a0 Like you said, he’s tough.”<\/p>\n The kid heard what I said.\u00a0 His fevered gaze grew desperate.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright saw it too.<\/p>\n “You’re going to be all right, Joe.”\u00a0 I could hear in his voice how dragged out he really was.\u00a0 “You’re going to get through this.”<\/p>\n The kid met my gaze with eyes strugglin’ to stay focused.\u00a0 I shook my head at him, but he didn’ need me to tell him.\u00a0 He already knew.\u00a0 Could see it in his face.\u00a0 He tried to move, to sit up, like he wanted to prove somethin’.\u00a0 Fool kid.<\/p>\n His tortured wail turned my insides right over.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright grabbed the kid’s shoulders, tried to hold onto him while his body bucked like a dyin’ rabbit.\u00a0 I coulda told him. Coulda told Adam Cartwright, it don’t matter how strong your arms are, you can’t hold back death. \u00a0The kid writhed an’ cried out for relief, an’ each scream shredded my nerves, like the Devil himself was trying to carve his way into my soul.<\/p>\n I’d taken two steps back from the bars.\u00a0 Didn’ even know I’d done it.\u00a0 Inside the cell, the boy’s screams shattered the gloom an’ Adam Cartwright battled in vain to ease his brother’s anguish. Wasn’t this what I’d wanted?\u00a0 Adam Cartwright pleading for mercy? \u00a0Wasn’t that why I’d done all this in the first place?<\/p>\n I shook my head.\u00a0 “Pity?\u00a0 I don’t know nothin’ ’bout pity!\u00a0 He’s your brother.\u00a0 You help him.”<\/p>\n I heard the deep breath Adam Cartwright took then.\u00a0 He dropped his head, but not before I’d seen how his face contorted with helpless frustration.\u00a0 If he coulda reached me right then, sure as a gun, he’d a killed me.<\/p>\n The boy slumped an’ fell silent.\u00a0 Not dead though.\u00a0 Not yet.\u00a0 I could still hear him gaspin’.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright rested his forehead on the laborin’ chest.\u00a0 It was the closest I seed him get to breakin’.<\/p>\n I had to force my muscles to relax enough to reach inside my vest.<\/p>\n “Here,” I said, louder than I’d meant.<\/p>\n Cartwright looked at me, looked at the little bottle in my hand.<\/p>\n “What’s that?”<\/p>\n “You wanted help.\u00a0 Here it is.\u00a0 A coupla swallers of this and he won’t be in pain no more.”<\/p>\n I put the bottle down next to the water jug an’ walked out the door.\u00a0 That was as far as I got.\u00a0 Jes’ outside, I leaned my back ‘gainst the wall and slid down till I was sittin’ on the floor.\u00a0 My stemps were shakin’ so much I couldn’ta stayed upright no longer.\u00a0 Beside me, the door was still open but I couldn’ hear nothin’.\u00a0 Nothin’ but the thumpin’ of my own\u00a0blood.<\/p>\n “Fynn,” I whispered, but Fynn was dead.\u00a0 Died choking in my arms.\u00a0 He couldn’t hear me no more.\u00a0 Couldn’t hear me say sorry, even though I said it over and over again.<\/p>\n Damn you, Cartwright!\u00a0 Damn you to hell!<\/em> I closed my eyes and tried not to hear the moans of the dyin’ kid in the room behind me.\u00a0 Shut him up, Cartwright. Give him the stuff and make him quiet.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n What the hell was I doing?\u00a0 How the devil was I going to end this?\u00a0 I hearn Fynn’s voice laughin’, sayin, “Hey, Si, seems like you bit off a mite more’n you could chew?”<\/p>\n “It’s your fault,” I told him.\u00a0 “I did it for you.”<\/p>\n But Fynn wa’n’t listenin’.\u00a0 Jus’ laughin’.\u00a0 Crazy kid.\u00a0 Damn you, Fynn!\u00a0 Why d’you never listen to me?\u00a0 Why’d you ride out that day, irons a-blazin’?\u00a0 I told you to stay in the rocks, didn’ I?\u00a0 I told you!\u00a0 You never paid no heed.\u00a0 You always knowed best. \u00a0Damn you, boy!<\/p>\n I had a good life in Redditch.\u00a0 Ain’t nothin’ special, but I got friends here.\u00a0 Nate an’ Mr Wallis, Lil an’ One-eyed Jake.\u00a0 But there ain’t no turnin’ back the clock.\u00a0 Why’d I listen to Fynn?\u00a0 Why’d I always listen to Fynn?<\/p>\n My ma used to say, “The Devil sweetens poison with honey.”\u00a0 Well, I’d sure been fooled.\u00a0 When Adam Cartwright rode into Redditch, all I smelled was honey.\u00a0 Shoulda known fortune weren’t never gonna do a feller like me no favors.<\/p>\n I gritted my teeth an’ hissed into the empty air.\u00a0 “Shut him up, Cartwright, shut him up!” But the kid jus’ kept on mutterin’ and cryin’ out.\u00a0 I remembered holdin’ the bottle to Fynn’s mouth, seein’ in his eyes that he knew.\u00a0 He tried to fight me off with his useless stump of an arm an’ I told him it would be awright’ jus’ like I heared Cartwright tell his brother.\u00a0 I lied, jes’ like Cartwright was lyin’.\u00a0 I shook my head, tryin’ to dislodge the memories, pressed my hands over my ears so’s I wouldn’ hear the Cartwright kid’s pain, but I couldn’t shut ’em out.\u00a0 Seemed like they were inside my head as much as out.<\/p>\n “Damn it, Cartwright!\u00a0 Shut him up!\u00a0 Shut him up!”\u00a0 Without hardly knowin’ I’d done it, I was back on my feet, at the cell door.<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright was standin’ close to the bars.\u00a0 The bottle was in one of his hands, stopper in the other.\u00a0 I took a deep breath, tryin’ to steady my janglin’ nerves.\u00a0 I couldn’t read his face, the shadows were too deep, but, even through the stinkin’ gloom, I could sense his eyes borin’ into that bottle<\/p>\n “So that’s what this is all about.”\u00a0 He spoke low, but the words resonated through the darkness all the same.<\/p>\n Cold claws prickled ‘gainst my skin.\u00a0 “Don’t pretend to understand me, Cartwright.”<\/p>\n He cast a puzzled look in my direction.\u00a0 “I thought that’s why I was here.\u00a0 Why you shot my brother.\u00a0 So that I would<\/em> understand you.\u00a0 Wasn’t that your plan?”<\/p>\n “Yeah, well you don’t!”\u00a0 I fought to keep the tremblin’ outta my voice.\u00a0 “How could you?\u00a0 You’re rich.\u00a0 You ain’t never had to struggle.\u00a0 You allers had it easy.\u00a0 What d’you know ’bout what I been through?”<\/p>\n I wisht he wouldn’ stare like that.\u00a0 Like he could see right through me.\u00a0 Made my belly squirm.\u00a0 Behind him, the kid called out again.<\/p>\n “Is that what you think?”\u00a0 Adam Cartwright gave a slow shake of his head.<\/p>\n I thought of the dead mothers and shrugged them aside.\u00a0 This wa’n’t no time to be feelin’ sorry for Adam Cartwright.<\/p>\n “Let’s quit beatin’ the Devil ’round the stump,” I said.\u00a0 “You wanna end this now or drag it out?”\u00a0 I nodded at the miserable kid on the cot.\u00a0 “You wanna watch him keep on sufferin’ or give him peace?”<\/p>\n Cartwright’s eyes were still drillin’ right through me.\u00a0 “You mean, do I want to kill my brother?\u00a0 Like you killed yours?”<\/p>\n My stomach twisted into a hard knot that seemed to push its way right up into my chest, so’s I could hardly breathe.\u00a0 “I didn’ kill him.\u00a0 He was dyin’ anyways.\u00a0 I jes’ helped take the pain away.”<\/p>\n Cartwright’s gaze dropped back to the bottle in his hand.\u00a0 “You gave him hemlock. \u00a0\u00a0You fed him poison and it killed him.”<\/p>\n “No!”\u00a0 The denial broke from my throat on a gasp, like I’d been runnin’ hard.\u00a0 Inside my chest, my heart was racin’ fit to bust.\u00a0 “No, you<\/em> killed my brother, Cartwright.\u00a0 You shot him!\u00a0 You sent him to that stinkin’ hole!\u00a0 That’s what killed him!”<\/p>\n “What was he even doing there?”\u00a0 Cartwright raised his head again.\u00a0 “The day of the stagecoach robbery.\u00a0 What was he doing there?\u00a0 He was just a boy.”<\/p>\n “He shoulda stayed in the rocks.\u00a0 I told him to stay in the rocks.”\u00a0 I couldn’ stop myself babbling, like a scared kid desperate to avoid a lacin’.<\/p>\n Adam Cartwright was frowning.\u00a0 He shook his head.\u00a0 “There was nothing else I could have done.”<\/p>\n Wisht I could’ve sounded as sure of myself as Adam Cartwright did.\u00a0 He kep’ speakin’ in that measured way of his.<\/p>\n “I didn’t know how young he was, but it wouldn’t have made any difference if I had.\u00a0 A bullet’s a bullet; doesn’t matter who fires it.\u00a0 There were women to think about. \u00a0A little girl.\u00a0 I’m sorry he’s dead.\u00a0 But I didn’t kill him.”\u00a0 His eyes flicked to the bed where the kid was breathin’ in ragged gasps.\u00a0 “And Joe doesn’t deserve this punishment.\u00a0 Do you really believe killing my brother is going to make you feel better about killing yours?”<\/p>\n “I didn’ kill my brother, I already told you!”<\/p>\n “You gave him poison.\u00a0 And now you want me to do the same to my brother because you believe that, somehow, that will vindicate what you did.\u00a0 Well, it won’t.\u00a0 It won’t change anything.\u00a0 You won’t shake off your guilt that easily.”<\/p>\n “You cain’t say that!\u00a0 You don’t know.\u00a0 I ain’t guilty.\u00a0 I didn’ kill Fynn.\u00a0 I jes’ stopped him hurtin’.”<\/p>\n I blinked sweat outta my eye and scrubbed at my face with my arm.\u00a0 Trails of perspiration trickled down my temples.\u00a0 I’d thought the hemlock would be a mercy for Fynn.\u00a0 Compared to the agony of his festerin’ stump.\u00a0 Figured it would take the pain away, ease him into that other place.\u00a0 But it didn’t.\u00a0 Made him twitch and jerk instead, like a dyin’ rabbit; retchin’ an’ chokin’ jus’ as if I was stranglin’ him.\u00a0 I tried to lift him up, help him get some air in his lungs, but he couldn’ breathe.\u00a0 Couldn’ speak.\u00a0 I watched his eyes grow wide and starin’, an’ his face swell violet with darkening blood.\u00a0 After that, he stopped fightin’.<\/p>\n I fed my brother poison an’ I watched him choke to death.<\/p>\n When I tried to speak, I couldn’ hardly breathe neither.\u00a0 “Jus’ do it, Cartwright. \u00a0Do it an’ bring an end to this.”<\/p>\n His eyes narrowed.\u00a0 The line of his mouth drew hard.<\/p>\n “No.”\u00a0 The word fell heavy atween us.\u00a0 He let it hang there for several seconds, like a judgement.\u00a0 “My brother doesn’t give up, and while he has breath in his body, I’ll help him keep fighting for his life.”<\/p>\n He raised his arm and I watched as he tipped the bottle.\u00a0 Watched the liquid hit the dirt floor.\u00a0 There wa’n’t much there.\u00a0 It don’t take much.\u00a0 But the musty odour jabbed straight into my memory and I see’d Fynn’s face again, his eyes pleadin’, his open mouth gaggin’ for air.<\/p>\n “Damn you, Adam Cartwright!”\u00a0 I spat the words as I backed away from the door and slammed it shut.<\/p>\n Back in my own room, I pulled open the drawer of the table and I drew out my gun. So Cartwright wanted to suffer?\u00a0 Well, I’d make him suffer. \u00a0I’d make him suffer real good!<\/p>\n I stood there for several minutes, jes’ starin’ at that gun, feelin’ its weight in my hand.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright was my pris’ner.\u00a0 I was the one callin’ the shots.\u00a0 I’d make him remember that.\u00a0 I’d make him sweat.<\/p>\n “So, Cartwright,” I said to the empty room, “you wanna drag this out.”\u00a0 I even smiled to myself as I emptied the chambers.\u00a0 All ‘cept one.\u00a0 One lone whistler.<\/p>\n He was yellin’ my name.\u00a0 I hearn his shouts through the solid door.\u00a0 I’d figured nothing could break through that poker-faced exterior of Adam Cartwright’s, but there weren’t no disguisin’ the desperation in his voice.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright was afeared.\u00a0 I was back in control an’ that felt good. He was pressed up ‘gainst the bars, grippin’ the iron with clenched fists.\u00a0 His knuckles were white in the light from the door.\u00a0 He was in a bad way. His shoulders hunched, an’ atween the black smudge of his beard and the dark hollows of his eyes, his skin was clammy, like a bar of wet soap.\u00a0 Big patches of sweat stained his filthy shirt.<\/p>\n How are the mighty fallen, Adam Cartwright.\u00a0 How are they fallen!<\/em><\/p>\n He tightened his jaw. “You could at least let us have some light,”<\/p>\n I grinned.\u00a0 “Hero like you, ‘feared of the dark?”<\/p>\n I’d figured he’d give me some smart reply in return for the dig, but instead, he let go of the bars and his hands sagged at his sides.<\/p>\n “Please,” he said, like a kid rememberin’ his manners.<\/p>\n His desperation took the wind outta my sails.\u00a0 His eyes dropped to the gun I was holdin’, but he didn’ say nothin’.<\/p>\n I shrugged and reached for the lantern, settin’ the gun on the shelf.\u00a0 Cartwright’s gaze followed it, then came back to my face.\u00a0 He was doin’ it again: weighin’ me up.\u00a0 Well, this time, I wa’n’t givin’ nothin’ away neither. “It’s not too late to work this out,” he said.\u00a0 “I know you think I’ve wronged you, but we can still come to some arrangement.”<\/p>\n I allowed myself to smile.\u00a0 “We already have.”<\/p>\n “Think, McIlroy.\u00a0 You kill me or Joe, they’re going to hang you.\u00a0 Is it worth it?\u00a0 You served out your time.\u00a0 Your slate was clean.\u00a0 Why spoil it? \u00a0It’s not too late yet.\u00a0 Let me get Joe to a doctor.\u00a0 I’ll put in a word for you.\u00a0 We can still sort out this mess.”<\/p>\n I wanted to laugh when he said that.\u00a0 Sort out the mess?\u00a0 My whole life was a mess.\u00a0 Always was.\u00a0 One mistake after another.\u00a0 I shook my head.<\/p>\n He wa’n’t about to give up that easy.\u00a0 “They’ll be looking for us.\u00a0 My pa and my brother.\u00a0 They’ll have missed us by now.\u00a0 They’ll track us this far.\u00a0 They will find us, you can be sure of that.”<\/p>\n Funny.\u00a0 Until he said that, I’d forgotten Cartwright had another brother.\u00a0 I remembered him now.\u00a0 At the trial.\u00a0 Big feller.\u00a0 Built like a dray horse.\u00a0 Seemed like Adam Cartwright was a luckier man than me every angle I looked.\u00a0 Maybe things woulda been different for me if we hadn’ had to bury that baby.\u00a0 Dang, but he’d been small!<\/p>\n I spat a bad taste from my mouth and’ looked back at Cartwright.\u00a0 “So, they track you this far.”\u00a0 I lifted my shoulders in a careless shrug. “Won’t take much of a sleuth to do that.\u00a0 But they ain’t gonna find you.\u00a0 Ain’t no one in this town knows ’bout me. ‘Bout what I done.\u00a0 Ain’t no one gonna point them in this direction.\u00a0 No, Cartwright. They’ll find your horses wanderin’ miles from here, and they’ll figure you got bushwhacked out in them mountains.\u00a0 That’s what’s gonna happen.\u00a0 In fact,” I spat again, “I might jus’ give ’em a friendly wave as they ride on by.”<\/p>\n He turned away from me, lifting his hand to his forehead like I’d seed him do before.\u00a0 The kid on the bed muttered his name, an’ he lowered hisself to his haunches, close to his brother’s head. The kid groaned.\u00a0 “Pa,” he said, the word passing through his lips like a sigh.<\/p>\n “Yeah,” said his brother, givin’ the kid’s arm a squeeze.\u00a0 “Pa’ll find us.\u00a0 And Hoss.\u00a0 They’ll be here soon.\u00a0 You just hang on, you hear?”<\/p>\n The kid shuddered.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright picked up the cup next to the bed and raised the boy’s head so’s he could drink.\u00a0 Somethin’ ’bout the gesture an’ the closeness atwixt ’em stuck in my gullet, like a lump of hard bread.<\/p>\n “Guess you were right,” I told him, injectin’ a sneer into my words.\u00a0 “Your brother sure is tough.\u00a0 He don’t give up easy.\u00a0 But you ain’t bein’ fair on him, givin’ him false hope.”\u00a0 I took a step closer to the bars.\u00a0 “Hey, Joe!”<\/p>\n The kid was half insensible.\u00a0 I tried again, louder.\u00a0 “Joe!\u00a0 I’m talkin’ to you, kid.”<\/p>\n He turned his head in my direction, struggling to focus through the haze of his fever.\u00a0 Sweat trembled on his face. “What’s it like, Joe?\u00a0 Dyin’?\u00a0 Tell your brother what it feels like.”<\/p>\n The kid’s forehead wrinkled into a frown.\u00a0 I stepped closer so’s he could see me clearer.<\/p>\n Cartwright set the cup back down and straightened up. “Leave him alone.”<\/p>\n I ignored him.\u00a0 <\/em>“You can end this, kid.\u00a0 All you gotta do is quit strugglin’.\u00a0 Let go, an’ it’ll all be over.\u00a0 It’s that easy.”<\/p>\n Cartwright stepped up to the bars.\u00a0 His back had snapped straight again.\u00a0 Anger burnt fierce in his hollow eyes.\u00a0 “If he dies, this won’t be over, not by a long way.\u00a0 Not for you.”<\/p>\n It was an empty threat.\u00a0 After all, Adam Cartwright wa’n’t goin’ nowhere.\u00a0 I was the one with the gun.\u00a0 I was the one on the right side of the bars. Didn’ matter how much posturin’ Cartwright did, he was as powerless as a caged mountain lion.\u00a0 Why’d it strike me then, as he said it, that he was right? \u00a0If the kid died, how would it be over?\u00a0 Fynn would still be dead an’ the pain he’d left behind — inside of me — that would still be there.\u00a0 Dyin’ don’t end the sufferin’.\u00a0 Not for the livin’.\u00a0 Even when you’re wishin’ for it, day in, day out.\u00a0 Like with my pa, when I was a kid. \u00a0I’d lie in bed at night an’ pray he wouldn’ come home.\u00a0 Pray his horse’d throw him, or his heart’d give out, or some speeler’d put a bullet through him an’ end it.\u00a0 Jus’ so’s he wouldn’ come home and beat the daylights outta my ma.<\/p>\n After she died, Pa’s temper grew a whole heap worse.\u00a0 When he’d been drinkin’, he was savage as a meat axe.\u00a0 He’d lam us soon as look at us.\u00a0 Fynn an’ me took to hidin’ when we hearn him comin’ back from town.\u00a0 I’d try an’ make sure it was me ‘steada Fynn took the knocks, but it got so’s we lived in terror.\u00a0 So I prayed.\u00a0 I begged God to let my pa die.\u00a0 An’ if he couldn’ do that, to let me grow up fast.\u00a0 Make me as big as my pa, so he couldn’ hit me no more.<\/p>\n Reckon the A’mighty heared me.\u00a0 Answered both prayers, jes’ about on the same day.\u00a0 Pa came home one afternoon, roily with drink an’ ready to raise sand. I was fifteen. This time, when he hit me, I hit him back.<\/p>\n I’d grown tall, but I didn’ have my pa’s strength.\u00a0 He picked me up like I weighed no more’n a sack of wool, an’ slammed me ‘gainst the wall, once, twice, three times, till I didn’t know up from down no more.\u00a0 Hammered me with his fist too.\u00a0 Reckon he woulda killed me if it hadn’ been for Fynn.\u00a0 Fynn was five years old, barely waist high to my pa, but he picked up the poker and swung it at Pa’s head.\u00a0 Pa let go of me, an’ Fynn an’ me headed outta there real smart.<\/p>\n We holed up in a cave on the mountain.\u00a0 Fynn’s special hidin’ place.\u00a0 I was in a bad way.\u00a0 Couldn’ keep nothin’ down for two whole days.\u00a0 Couldn’ see straight neither.\u00a0 Fynn brung me water an’ made a fire, an’ curled up aside me to keep me warm at night.\u00a0 When I could walk again, we went back home.\u00a0 Fynn didn’ wanna go, but I told him we wouldn’ be stayin’.\u00a0 We’d make good an’ sure the coast was clear, an’ we’d grab our plunder an’ we’d leave.\u00a0 I was old enough to find work someplace a long ways away.\u00a0 I’d look after him.\u00a0 I promised him that.<\/p>\n All was quiet at our cabin.\u00a0 Seemed like we was in luck and Pa was back in town.\u00a0 Like as not, starin’ down the neck of a whiskey bottle again.\u00a0 But this time, we didn’ care.\u00a0 This time, we was leavin’.<\/p>\n A thick cloud of blowflies rose in the air as I pushed open the door.\u00a0 Pa was stretched out on the cabin floor.\u00a0 The poker was still there, lyin’ where it’d fallen.\u00a0 Reckon he musta died pretty much right after Fynn hit him.\u00a0 His body’d started to bloat up.\u00a0 The stink made us gag.<\/p>\n We left him there.\u00a0 Lit out Hell for Hades.\u00a0 Never went back.\u00a0 My prayers had been answered a’right.\u00a0 Fixed my pa’s flint real good.\u00a0\u00a0 But I felt sick as a dog for weeks.\u00a0 Death can cheat you just as sure as life can.<\/p>\n Cartwright was still glarin’ at me.\u00a0 I met his stare.\u00a0 “You been praying he’ll die?”<\/p>\n I swear he paled when I asked him that.\u00a0 Tried to make out he didn’ understand the question.<\/p>\n “What are you talking about?”<\/p>\n “The truth, Cartwright.\u00a0 Have you prayed for him to die?”<\/p>\n At first he didn’t answer, although I caught the little twitch jus’ under the skin of his face.\u00a0 I could a’most see the anger swelling up inside of him.\u00a0 “Get out of here!” he hissed, as if he was spittin’ venom from his mouth.<\/p>\n I stood my ground, held his gaze.<\/p>\n “I prayed Fynn would die.\u00a0 When things got real bad.\u00a0 When he couldn’t bear it no more.\u00a0 Weren’t nothin’ else I could do, so I prayed.”<\/p>\n He didn’ say nothin’.\u00a0 We stood starin’ at each other, like we was both waitin’ for somethin’.<\/p>\n “Prayed my father would die too.”<\/p>\n When the silence had stretched out long as the shadows on the walls, he finally spoke. “And?”<\/p>\n I shrugged.\u00a0 Drew a deep breath.\u00a0\u00a0 “And…he died. They all died.\u00a0 My ma.\u00a0 My pa.\u00a0 The baby.\u00a0 Fynn.”<\/p>\n For a few moments, it was so quiet in that cell, the hiss of the lantern sounded like a roarin’ in my head.\u00a0 Then Cartwright slumped again on a sigh.\u00a0 He pressed his fingers to his forehead, and the anger ebbed outta his voice.\u00a0 He sounded…defeated.<\/p>\n “I’m sorry.”<\/p>\n Didn’ matter how much he pretended.\u00a0 I knew the truth. The man had reached the bottom.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright knew what it was to want death for his brother.\u00a0 The evidence was there, in the slump of his shoulders, the defeat in his voice, an’ the anger that was really denial.\u00a0 Couldn’t blame him.\u00a0 The cell stunk.\u00a0 I’d left him in the dark with nothin’ but blood an’ filth an’ the constant torment of his brother’s anguish and his own inability to help.\u00a0 What man wouldn’t consider every option?\u00a0 In the end, death’s all that remains.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright was no hero, after all.\u00a0 He was jes’ a man.\u00a0 As weak an’ as wretched as I’d once been.<\/p>\n But I weren’t weak no more.\u00a0 I’d brought Adam Cartwright down, made him see what it was to crawl at the feet of despair.\u00a0 An’ I was still in charge.<\/p>\n I’d a’most forgotten about the gun. I closed my fingers round its solid weight and held it up so’s he could see it clearly.<\/p>\n “There’s one bullet in this gun, Cartwright.\u00a0 Jes’ one.\u00a0 Who’s it gonna be?\u00a0 I swiveled it to point at him. “You?”\u00a0 I swung it to the left, to the boy on the cot.\u00a0 “Or him?”<\/p>\n His jaw went tight, his shoulders stiffened.<\/p>\n “No more games,” he said. “If you want to shoot me, go right ahead and do it.”<\/p>\n There he was, givin’ the orders again, but this time I weren’t gonna be no cat’s paw.\u00a0 I was the one with the gun, remember.\u00a0 I waved it at him, to make the point.<\/p>\n “You got it all wrong.\u00a0 I don’t wanna shoot you.\u00a0 I want you to stay alive.\u00a0 Live with the memory of this hole.\u00a0 Wake up sweatin’ ev’ry night, with the stink of death in your nose,” I nodded at the prone kid, “an’ his voice in your ears, cryin’ out, beggin’ you for help.\u00a0 That’s what I want for you, Cartwright.\u00a0 Ev’ry night and ev’ry day for the rest of your life.\u00a0 See, I’m gonna be out of here soon.\u00a0 An’ when they start wonderin’, there’s folks gonna come lookin’ for me.\u00a0 Tomorrow, maybe.\u00a0 Or the next day.\u00a0 They’ll find you.\u00a0 You can be reunited with your Pa an’ that other brother of yourn.\u00a0 Them that’s out there lookin’ for you.\u00a0 If<\/em> you’re still alive.”<\/p>\n The kid had opened his eyes, was watching me, dazed an’ unclear.\u00a0 Face like a ghost.\u00a0 Jes’ about dead already.\u00a0 I’d be doin’ him a favor.\u00a0 I leveled the gun, pulled back the hammer.\u00a0 “Makes sense.\u00a0 Makes real good sense.”<\/p>\n I hearn Adam Cartwright’s shout as I squeezed the trigger, saw him dive at the cot.\u00a0 The kid cried out in protest.\u00a0 Cartwright’s arms had locked themselves around his brother before he registered the hollow click, realized there was no bullet.\u00a0 He looked round at me with a face as white as the kid’s.<\/p>\n I started to laugh.\u00a0 Somewhere close by, I hearn someone else laughing. I looked behind me, but couldn’ see him.\u00a0 Jes’ heared him laughin’.\u00a0 Fynn?\u00a0 You there?<\/em><\/p>\n “You want to shoot someone, you shoot me.”\u00a0 Cartwright spoke over his shoulder, defiant, his arms still round the boy.<\/p>\n “Always the hero, ain’t you?”<\/p>\n He gave me a hard look. \u00a0“No,” he said.\u00a0 No.\u00a0 That was all.<\/p>\n “He’ll likely be dead by the time they find you.\u00a0 You think it’s worth sacrificing yourself for a dead man?”<\/p>\n “He’s my brother.”<\/p>\n Our eyes locked, his stare unyieldin’ as granite.\u00a0 In spite of the gun in my hand, I could feel myself startin’ to buckle under the challenge of his silence.\u00a0 I swallowed hard.<\/p>\n “I’d’a died for Fynn,” I said, an’ I heared Fynn laugh again.<\/p>\n He gave a single nod.\u00a0 “I know.”<\/p>\n “I ain’t afeared of dyin’.”<\/p>\n His gaze didn’ flinch, jus’ the little muscles in his cheek.<\/p>\n “Jes’…no one gave me the choice.”<\/p>\n In front of me, the hand holdin’ the gun trembled.\u00a0 I knew he’d seen.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright saw everthin’.\u00a0 I was the strong one, right?\u00a0 I was the one with the gun.\u00a0 So why was I tremblin’?\u00a0 Why was I the one achin’ inside?\u00a0 I’d held my brother, jes’ like that.\u00a0 Tried to give him strength.\u00a0 Tried to make him hold on.\u00a0 Only difference was, I didn’ have the strength to give.\u00a0 Adam Cartwright was strong and I was…a coward.\u00a0 I’d let my brother down.\u00a0 I’d promised him I’d take care of him an’ I’d let him down.<\/p>\n Don’t laugh at me, Fynn!\u00a0 Don’t laugh at me!<\/em><\/p>\n Damn my hand!\u00a0 I couldn’ keep it from shakin’ any more’n I could stop the sweat startin’ to prickle the back of my neck.\u00a0 Thing was, I knew the truth now.\u00a0 I could see where it’d all gone wrong.\u00a0 Could see where my plan had failed.\u00a0 The truth hit me like a smack in the face.\u00a0 It wa’n’t Adam Cartwright I’d hated all these years.\u00a0 An’ if I shot the whole darn Cartwright clan, it wouldn’ make no difference.\u00a0 I’d still be a coward an’ Fynn would still be dead.<\/p>\n Damn you, Fynn!\u00a0 Why d’you do it? Why d’you always have to take chances?\u00a0 Why d’you burst outta those rocks with that gun in your hand?\u00a0 Why d’you throw your life away?\u00a0 Why did you have to die, you fool, crazy, brash, kid? <\/em><\/p>\n I’da died ‘steada you Fynn.\u00a0 If I could.\u00a0 You gotta believe that, brother.\u00a0 Woulda been easier than watchin’ you die.\u00a0 Dammit, I ain’t afeared of dyin’!\u00a0 It’s livin’ as scares me.<\/em><\/p>\n Fynn’s voice in my ear says, “We know all ’bout dyin’, don’t we, Si?”<\/p>\n The gun’s quiverin’ in my hand.\u00a0 I put out my other hand to steady it and I shake the perspiration outta my eyes.<\/p>\n “I ain’t afeared of dyin’,” I say again.\u00a0 “I know all ’bout dyin’.”<\/p>\n Cartwright’s eyes flick behind me.\u00a0 I wonder if he can see my brother too.\u00a0 Then he looks at the gun, an’ back at me.\u00a0 His eyes are steady.\u00a0 He ain’t afeared neither.\u00a0 Maybe he knows what’s on the other side too.\u00a0 The big jump.\u00a0 The promised land.<\/p>\n “They’ll find you,” I tell him again.\u00a0 “Today or tomorrow.\u00a0 I’ll be long gone.”<\/p>\n My hands ain’t shakin’ no more.\u00a0 I see his eyes follow me as I raise the gun.<\/p>\n The barrel’s cool ‘gainst my skin.\u00a0 Fynn’s still laughin’.\u00a0 I close my eyes.\u00a0 I squeeze the trigger. And I pray.<\/p>\n Please God, let there be silence.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Epilogue<\/strong><\/p>\n Dear Joe,<\/p>\n Firstly, let me apologise that it’s taken me so long to get around to writing this.\u00a0 It’s not been easy, remembering.\u00a0 I’d hoped that taking this trip abroad would help me shed the memories of our time in Redditch.\u00a0 I’m glad I resisted Pa’s efforts to keep me at home.\u00a0 It’s been difficult being away from the Ponderosa, but I know it would have been even harder, trying to come to terms with it all, at home.\u00a0 Pa and Hoss try, but they can never understand what we went through.\u00a0 Only you and I know the horror of those dark, interminable days; which is why I’m writing this to you.<\/p>\n The truth is, I’m struggling, Joe.\u00a0 That’s not easy for me to admit.\u00a0 You, more than anyone else, know I’ve always been the capable oldest brother.\u00a0 I’ve prided myself on my ability to cope, to deal with every situation reasonably and logically.\u00a0 Some people have called me arrogant, but you — and Pa and Hoss — you know me better.\u00a0 It’s even possible, I think, you wouldn’t be surprised to hear of my sleepless nights and tortured days.\u00a0 Maybe I set my own bar too high.\u00a0 Maybe I have been arrogant in believing I have enough strength of character to reason my way through the trials of life and maintain my sanity to the end.<\/p>\n It’s my sanity for which I fear, Little Joe.\u00a0 After what happened to us in Redditch, I am tormented by endless self-doubt; I, who was always so self-assured!\u00a0 I’m a grown man, and yet I wake sweating at night, like a child from a nightmare, in fear of the darkness.\u00a0 It presses against my eyeballs and crawls over my skin.\u00a0 I breathe it in and it smells like blood.\u00a0 I never feared the dark; not until those days in Redditch when you cried out and clung to me, and I could do nothing more to help you.\u00a0 Each time you fell silent, my stomach would seize with fear that you had died.\u00a0 In the darkness, I couldn’t even see if you still breathed.\u00a0 I put my hand on your chest, just to feel your heart beating; too scared to sleep in case I woke and found you dead beside me.<\/p>\n I’m plagued by what-ifs<\/em>.\u00a0 Pointless maybes <\/em>that gnaw at my sanity like crawling maggots.\u00a0 What if I had just looked more closely into the face of that man in the bath house?\u00a0 What if I had not gone next door for a shave?\u00a0 What if I had never shot Fynn McIlroy in the first place?\u00a0 What sense is there in questions like that?\u00a0 We can’t change the past any more than we can predict the future, yet they eat away at me.\u00a0 I lie awake, formulating endless scenarios that will never happen, and I wake up still wondering.\u00a0\u00a0 Was I wrong to shoot that boy?\u00a0 There were innocent people there, by that stage.\u00a0 Unarmed people.\u00a0 Women.\u00a0 Children.\u00a0 I shot him in the arm.\u00a0 At the time, I was relieved; even pleased.\u00a0 Was that wrong?\u00a0 Was that arrogance?\u00a0 Was what happened to you divine retribution for my own na\u00efve self-righteousness?\u00a0\u00a0 And is this torment my judgement?<\/p>\n Actions have consequences.\u00a0 How many times have we all told you that, over the years?\u00a0 I should have heeded my own warnings.\u00a0 The consequence of my shooting Fynn McIlroy was that his brother shot you.\u00a0\u00a0 That makes me responsible.\u00a0 I know you’ll tell me that doesn’t make sense.\u00a0 Pa would say the same.\u00a0 So would Hoss.\u00a0 Or any sensible man.\u00a0 But here’s the rub, Joe.\u00a0 Sense doesn’t come into it.\u00a0 Reason has long since deserted me.\u00a0 It vanished in the stinking darkness of that cell, and I don’t know how to restore it. I don’t know how to be the rational man I was before.<\/p>\n There’s something else I need to tell you.\u00a0 Something I never admitted to you before.\u00a0 Forgive me that my cowardice forces this confession from my pen rather than from my lips, but the truth is, brother, after Simon McIlroy put that poison into my hands, there were moments when I doubted the wisdom of pouring it away.\u00a0 I’m as much of a wretch as he was, Joe.\u00a0 Hearing you cry to me in that festering darkness, powerless to help you, I admit, I did contemplate the unthinkable.\u00a0 Not once, but many times.\u00a0 How\u00a0 I’ve wept for it since!\u00a0 How I weep for it now, even as I write.\u00a0 When Simon McIlroy told me he had prayed for his brother to die, how could I condemn him?\u00a0 I, who know the torment that drove him to that dark, desperate place.\u00a0 Damn it, Joe!\u00a0 What is a man to do when his brother cries out in unbearable pain and there is no comfort left to offer?\u00a0 What does he do when faith and hope evaporate into the darkness, and all the love in the world can’t ease his brother’s agony?\u00a0 Pray?\u00a0 Pa would have prayed, certainly.\u00a0 And Hoss.\u00a0 They have more faith than I ever did.\u00a0 They would have kept believing.\u00a0 But me?\u00a0\u00a0 Miserable creature that I am, Joe, I couldn’t pray.\u00a0 I couldn’t pray because I was too scared God might hear me and grant my prayers, the way He granted Simon McIlroy’s.<\/p>\n I thought you’d hang on, little brother.\u00a0 You’d hung on so long already.\u00a0 I thought, together, we’d have the strength to get through.\u00a0 We always did before.\u00a0 It’s why I let you keep on suffering, because I was so certain you would make it through.\u00a0 Even when McIlroy lay dead on the floor with a bullet in his brain, I thought you would hold on.\u00a0 Somehow.<\/p>\n You won’t read this letter, of course, I know that.\u00a0 But I wish you could.\u00a0 I wish you were still here to laugh at my madness and condemn me for the fool I am.\u00a0 I miss you, younger brother.\u00a0 Even though I’m thousands of miles from the Ponderosa, I feel your absence there like a constant ache in my heart.\u00a0 I’d thought all these miles would ease the pain, but the fact is, you weren’t just a part of the Ponderosa, you were a part of me too.\u00a0 I imagine I see you, in all kinds of impossible places: running beside the Seine, or grinning at me from a balcony, or stretched out on the grass in the sunshine, or ducking your head beneath a fountain.\u00a0 Sometimes I hear your voice on a busy street, or hear you calling me in the dark.\u00a0 So real, I even answer you, or turn to find you.\u00a0 I swear sometimes, I even hear you laughing….<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Thanks for reading.\u00a0 If you enjoyed this story, please consider leaving a review, however short.\u00a0 I’m always pleased to receive comments via PM too.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n“My brother wants to soak a while longer,” said Adam Cartwright. “He’d like some more hot water.”<\/p>\n
\n“I’ll remind you,” I said, and waved the gun at the boy.\u00a0 Joe.\u00a0 “You kid, over there.”<\/p>\n
\n“What d’you mean, his<\/em> mother?\u00a0 Your brothers, ain’t you?”<\/p>\n
\n“Help him!”\u00a0 Cartwright’s voice cracked under the strain.\u00a0 “For pity’s sake, help him!”<\/p>\n
\nI opened the door. “What you tearin’ up Jake about?”<\/p>\n
\nI took my time with the lamp.\u00a0 When it was lit an’ back on its hook, I picked up the gun again, lettin’ it hang loose in my hand.<\/p>\n
\n“Little Joe?\u00a0 How you doing?”<\/p>\n
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