Summary:\u00a0 A murder on a cattle drive; Joe vanishes and Ben is forced to face the ghosts of the past, bringing his family into terrible danger.\u00a0 Only Hoss’s stoic perseverance and Adam’s selfless heroism can save the life of the youngest Cartwright.\u00a0 My response to an SJS challenge in which we were given the first few paragraphs.<\/p>\n
WC 26,000 \u00a0Rated: T<\/p>\n
His Father’s Son<\/strong><\/p>\n Joe always forgot how cold the middle of the night could get when he was sitting still, doing nothing but watching a bunch of cattle. The moon shone full and round, and the stars sparkled like the lake water on a sunny day\u2014all of which would have been just fine if he\u2019d been in a buggy with Hattie Miller. Even the crisp cold of the breeze that kicked up would have been fine then, because it would have given him an excuse to put his arm around her.<\/p>\n Instead, here he was, all by himself with a bunch of dumb cattle, and Hattie Miller was undoubtedly at home and sound asleep, just like anyone else with a lick of sense. But at least he had Hank Murray to keep him company for middle watch. Hank was new to the Ponderosa, and not much older than Joe, but he\u2019d worked at pretty near every ranch between Kansas and California. At least, that was what he said, and even if he was stretching the truth, there was no question that he was good at what he did. Not that Joe had any plans for nodding off, but it was nice to know that if he did, Hank would be fine.<\/p>\n He yawned as he scanned the moonlit pasture for Hank, who had been assigned to keep watch with him. He wasn\u2019t over by the rocks where he\u2019d been a few minutes ago. He must\u2019ve gone to tend to his personal business, Joe decided. Nothing wrong with that. His thoughts were just drifting back to Hattie Miller when he heard something that made him sit up straight. A couple of the cattle raised their heads. \u201cEasy, now,\u201d Joe whispered. All it would take was for one or two to spook, and things could get bad fast. He held his breath as he nudged his mount\u2019s sides, trying to move as quietly as possible. He wanted to call out for Hank, but he\u2019d be more likely to waken the herd and the sleeping cowboys than to get Hank\u2019s attention from wherever he was.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe!\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s head snapped around. He didn\u2019t recognize the voice, but it sounded harsh, hoarse, and full of pain. Without thinking, he drew his gun. All traces of sleepiness vanished. \u201cWho\u2019s there?\u201d he hissed.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe!\u201d The voice was closer.<\/p>\n \u201cWho\u2019s there?\u201d He still didn\u2019t see anybody.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s me.\u201d A dark figure\u2014on foot\u2014stumbled toward him.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the\u2014Hank?\u201d Frantically, Joe looked around. The herd wasn\u2019t moving, but that didn\u2019t mean everything couldn\u2019t change in a second. He couldn\u2019t just leave them, but something was wrong here. He was about to call out when Hank fell, landing solidly against one of the cattle, and that was all it took. The beast heaved itself up with a deep, startled moan. In the next instant, it was as though the earth itself was rising up with a roar. Joe shouted in an effort to divert the herd, and the peace of the night gave way to the thundering of hooves, the clashing of horns, and the yelling of cowboys.<\/p>\n It seemed forever before the herd was settled. Nobody was sleeping now; they were staked around the herd, watching. They\u2019d be slower tomorrow as a result, but it couldn\u2019t be helped.<\/p>\n Pa rode up next to him. In a low voice, he asked, \u201cDid you see what spooked them?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was\u2014Pa, have you seen Hank?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHank? \u00a0Hank Murray?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe nodded. \u201cSomething was wrong. He was supposed to be over on the other side, but he was coming over here, and he was on foot. He fell on one of the cattle and startled it.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa shook his head. Even in the moonlight, Joe could see him frowning. \u201cIf he was down when it started. . . .\u201d He didn\u2019t need to finish.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should go back anyway, Pa. Even if we\u2019ve just gotta bury him.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa nodded. He barked orders to the nearest men and turned to Joe. \u201cShow me where he was.\u201d<\/p>\n They rode in silence to where Joe had been keeping watch. \u201cHe was right here,\u201d said Joe at last. \u201cHe was walking real unsteady, and he was calling me, and then he fell.\u201d He considered the place where he\u2019d last seen Hank. \u201cMaybe he got himself out of the way.\u201d Pa allowed himself a small smile that Joe knew was a credit to his hopefulness. Adam always said that Joe would believe for something long after any sensible fellow would have given up and gone home.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe!\u201d The voice was hoarser, weaker, but unquestionably the same.<\/p>\n \u201cHank!\u201d Joe was off his horse in a flash, with Pa right behind him. \u201cHank, where are you?\u201d His eyes strained in the darkness.<\/p>\n \u201cHere.\u201d There, in the shadow of a rock, lay Hank.<\/p>\n Pa knelt beside him. \u201cJust take it easy,\u201d he said in that soothing voice Joe knew so well. \u201cJoe, get me your canteen.\u201d Joe obeyed, and Pa held it to the injured man\u2019s lips. \u201cTake it easy, now, Hank. We\u2019ll get you back to camp.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d Hank reached up as if to grab Pa\u2019s vest. \u201cJoe….\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m right here, Hank.\u201d Joe bent over him. Then, he whispered, \u201cPa?\u201d Pa nodded as if he\u2019d seen it, too.<\/p>\n Hank\u2019s face was bruised and bloody. Joe had seen men trampled by cattle, and they didn\u2019t look anything like that. Hank looked like he\u2019d been beaten by somebody\u2019s fists.<\/p>\n \u201cHank, what happened?\u201d asked Pa.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe.\u201d The word was more breath than sound.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m here, Hank. What happened?\u201d Joe tried to get a good look at the man\u2019s injuries.<\/p>\n \u201cBe… careful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCareful of what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLooking… for… you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho\u2019s looking for Joe?\u201d Pa asked. \u201cWhat do they want?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCareful.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa glanced at Joe. \u201cJust save your strength now, Hank. We\u2019ll talk when we get you back to camp.\u201d<\/p>\n Hank reached up and caught hold of Pa\u2019s vest. He tugged ever so slightly, and Pa bent lower. The injured man whispered something Joe couldn\u2019t hear. Then, his hand dropped, and his head fell back.<\/p>\n \u201cIs he\u2014\u201d Joe broke off as Pa nodded. They sat silently beside the dead man for a respectful minute. Then, Joe asked, \u201cWhat did he say, Pa?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s just get him back to camp,\u201d said Pa. \u201cBring my horse over here.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe did as he was told. Once they\u2019d loaded the body onto Pa\u2019s horse, he asked again, \u201cWhat did he say?\u201d<\/p>\n Pa turned to him, his eyes somber.\u00a0 \u201cHe said\u2014they wanted you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat else though?\u201d<\/p>\n Pa shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cNothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe knew he hadn\u2019t mistaken the almost imperceptible hesitation in Pa\u2019s voice, but he didn\u2019t get a chance to question further because Pa was suddenly brisk and business like.\u00a0 \u201cLet\u2019s get back to camp.\u00a0 Whoever did this to Hank could still be out there.\u00a0 On your horse, Joseph.\u00a0 Let\u2019s get on back to the men.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chapter 2<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have to do that you know.\u201d\u00a0 Ben laid his hand on his youngest son\u2019s shoulder as the boy leaned over the sheet of paper spread on the desk, pen in hand, brow drawn into a troubled crease.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m going into Virginia City.\u00a0 I\u2019ll send a telegraph.<\/p>\n Joe dipped his pen in the inkwell and pursed his mouth.\u00a0 \u201cA telegraph\u2019s not the same, Pa.\u00a0 I want<\/em> to write.\u00a0 Explain things.\u00a0 Hank was my friend.\u00a0 He told me all about his ma and his sisters, I feel like I almost know them.\u00a0 I want to let them know how much we all thought of him too, and…\u201d\u00a0 Joe\u2019s words wavered.\u00a0 He gave a small shake of his head.\u00a0 \u2018It…it seems only right,\u201d he finished lamely.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was owed some pay.\u00a0 I\u2019ll make sure it reaches his family.\u201d For a moment, Ben was tempted to say more, but Joe\u2019s gaze was focused on the blank sheet of paper in front of him and he didn\u2019t notice his father\u2019s troubled indecision.\u00a0 Ben waited another moment before giving his son\u2019s shoulder a gentle squeeze and heading for the door, the furrow in his own forehead mirroring Joe\u2019s.\u00a0 There he paused again and looked back.\u00a0 Once more he opened his mouth to say something, but Joe was scratching intently at the paper with his pen, oblivious to all else, face obscured by untidy brown curls. \u00a0Something akin to pain contracted briefly in Ben\u2019s middle.\u00a0 Joe was seventeen; a man grown in so many ways and yet still so young.\u00a0 Did a father\u2019s desire to protect his children ever go away?\u00a0 Ben sighed and stepped out into the warm sunlight, so engrossed in his own thoughts, he failed even to notice his two older sons, sitting on the porch, cups in hand.<\/p>\n \u201cCoffee, Pa?\u201d<\/p>\n Ben looked around, half surprised to see them there.\u00a0 He shook his head. \u201cI need to ride into town, Hoss.\u00a0 Talk to the sheriff about Hank Murray.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam raised an eyebrow.\u00a0 \u201cYou only got back last night, Pa. Thought you\u2019d want a break from the saddle.\u00a0 Let me ride in and talk to Roy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThanks, Adam. I think I need to deal with this myself.\u201d<\/p>\n He hadn\u2019t been aware that his distraction was written so plainly on his features, but the consternation on the faces of both his sons told him they\u2019d noticed.<\/p>\n Hoss tilted his head.\u00a0 \u201cIs there something else bothering you, Pa?\u201d<\/p>\n Ben looked from Adam to Hoss and back again.\u00a0 \u201cListen, boys, there\u2019s something I need you to do.\u00a0 Keep an eye on your brother while I\u2019m gone, will you?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>He\u2019s in the house…writing a letter to Hank\u2019s family, so if you could just…find some chores around here, that way you can keep an eye on him without him getting… well, upset about it.\u201d<\/p>\n He could see his clumsy plea had confused them.<\/p>\n Hoss\u2019s face crinkled.\u00a0 \u201cIs Joe in some kind of trouble?\u201d<\/p>\n Ben shook his head. \u201cNo.\u00a0 I mean… I hope not.\u00a0 I\u2019d just like you to keep an eye on him while I\u2019m gone.\u00a0 Make sure nothing happens.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLike what?\u201d\u00a0 Adam\u2019s voice held a note of caution.<\/p>\n \u201cJust keep an eye out for strangers, and make sure Joe stays here, close to the house.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou think someone\u2019s after him?\u201d<\/p>\n Ben hesitated again.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know, Adam.\u201d\u00a0 He glanced behind him as if to make sure Joe wasn\u2019t there, listening.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s just that, before Hank died, he mentioned a name to me.\u00a0 The name of a man I thought had been dead for fifteen years.\u201d\u00a0 He tightened his lips.\u00a0 \u201cIt would just put my mind at rest to know you two were watching out for you brother.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam put down his coffee cup and leaned forward. \u201cWhat man?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo one you know.\u00a0 His name was Sam Mitchell. This may all be a big mistake. The sooner I talk to Roy, the sooner I\u2019ll know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho was he, this Sam Mitchell?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA small time crook from New Orleans.\u00a0 Like I say, it doesn\u2019t make sense.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure there\u2019s a sensible explanation, but until then…\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss nodded.\u00a0 \u201cUntil then, you\u2019d like us to keep Joe where we can see him.\u00a0 Right under our noses.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam still looked wary.\u00a0 \u201cHave you said anything to Joe?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d\u00a0 Ben shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s already upset about what happened to Hank. You know how worked up he can get when he\u2019s upset. I want to wait until I\u2019ve talked to Roy before I dangle any half-baked suspicions in front of Joe or, like as not, he\u2019ll go rushing off half cocked and land himself in a pile of trouble, just like he always does.\u00a0 So, don\u2019t let him saddle that horse, and I\u2019ll be back as soon as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss gave his father a reassuring grin.\u00a0 \u201cRelax, Pa.\u00a0 We\u2019ll keep Joe outa trouble, I promise.\u00a0 Me and Adam, we\u2019ll just find some chores hereabouts to keep us busy.\u00a0 That barn could use a good clean for a start.\u00a0 You up for a spot of muck-shifting, brother?\u201d<\/p>\n Adam considered the question with an expression of gravity.\u00a0 \u201cI think maybe I\u2019ll leave that to you, younger brother, while I focus my attention on fixing the broken tailgate on the buckboard.\u201d<\/p>\n Ben\u2019s face finally relaxed. He even managed a half-hearted smile. \u00a0\u201cThanks, boys.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be back as soon as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n Hoss tossed a final forkful of clean straw into a stall and straightened his back. \u201cReckon it was no bad thing being stuck here in the yard.\u00a0 This barn sure needed a good clean.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam wiped greasy hands on a rag and nodded.\u00a0 He\u2019d fixed both the tailgate and the sticking pulley in the loft.\u00a0 \u201cIf Joe ain\u2019t finished that letter yet, we could take a look at that broken wagon shaft.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou reckon he\u2019s still at it?\u201d<\/p>\n Adam gave a shrug.\u00a0 \u201cHe was on his third attempt last time I stuck my head around the door. \u00a0Must be hard to know what to say. \u201d<\/p>\n Hoss pulled a face.\u00a0 \u201cBad business that. Beating a feller to death.\u00a0 You don\u2019t reckon Pa thinks this Sam Mitchell done that to Hank, do you, Adam?\u201d<\/p>\n Adam\u2019s mouth tightened.\u00a0 \u201cSounds a bit heavy-handed for a small time crook.\u00a0 But Pa didn\u2019t really say much about what happened, even when they got back last night.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLittle Joe didn\u2019t say a lot either.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, he\u2019s taken it hard.\u00a0 He and Hank had gotten close these last few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, maybe if he\u2019s finished that letter he\u2019s so set on writing, the three of us could slip off down to the lake this afternoon.\u00a0 Do some fishing.\u00a0 Cheer him up.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam gave a small smile.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s not such a bad idea.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut first I need to find me some grub!\u201d<\/p>\n Adam\u2019s small smile broadened into a grin.\u00a0 \u201cWell it\u2019s important we get our priorities right, isn\u2019t it, younger brother?\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss grinned.\u00a0 \u201cYou betcha!\u201d<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n \u201cHow you doing Joe?\u201d\u00a0 Hoss poked his head around the door.\u00a0 The room was silent.\u00a0 A faint smell, vaguely familiar, tickled his nostrils.\u00a0 \u201cJoe?\u201d<\/p>\n The desk was empty.\u00a0 Joe must finally have finished his letter. Adam followed his brother into the room and closed the door behind him.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe?\u201d\u00a0 Hoss strode to the stairs and called up.\u00a0 \u201cJoe!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHoss.\u201d\u00a0 Something in Adam\u2019s tone sounded a warning.\u00a0 Hoss looked where his brother was looking.<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s letter lay on the desk, unfinished, his pen abandoned in the middle of the page. \u00a0Ink from the nib had spread outwards in an untidy stain. Only after he had registered the dark blot spoiling the page did Hoss notice that the chair behind the desk was upturned.\u00a0 Cold fingers prodded at his heart even as he reminded himself that his younger brother was a creature of high passion, prone to flinging down his pen in a fit of pique, and perfectly capable of overturning flimsy items of furniture when his patience wore thin.<\/p>\n \u201cYou check upstairs, I\u2019ll look out back.\u201d\u00a0 Adam was already halfway across the room as he spoke.<\/p>\n Hoss took the stairs three at a time, but even as he checked the empty rooms, a niggling puzzle fell into place in his head and he knew he wouldn\u2019t find Little Joe upstairs, nor would Adam find him in the outhouse or anywhere out the back.<\/p>\n \u201cThat smell!\u201d he said, as he and Adam met back in the center of the great room, neither of them now pretending that the situation hadn\u2019t suddenly become serious.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat smell?\u201d\u00a0 Adam nosed the air and frowned and Hoss knew he had caught a whiff of it too.<\/p>\n Hoss dropped down on his hands and knees by the desk and sniffed, like a hound after a scent.\u00a0 A few seconds later he climbed back to his feet holding a shred of frayed fabric to his nose.\u00a0 His mouth set in a hard line, he passed it to Adam.<\/p>\n The torn fragment might have been small but the scent was pungent.<\/p>\n \u201cEther!\u201d said Adam, his face grave.<\/p>\n \u201cDadburnit, Adam!\u201d\u00a0 Hoss\u2019s voice was a harsh whisper.\u00a0 \u201cWe were supposed to be keeping an eye on him!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey can\u2019t have been gone long.\u201d\u00a0 Adam thought fast.\u00a0 \u201cWhen did I last look in on him?\u00a0 Less than an hour ago.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow did they get past us?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBack door\u2019s unlocked.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss muttered a curse.<\/p>\n \u201cBut listen, Hoss.\u00a0 They used ether.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t kill him.\u00a0 Wherever he is, they\u2019ve taken him alive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKidnapped him?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 Get out the back and see if you can find any tracks.\u00a0 I\u2019ll find someone to ride into town and get Pa; tell him what\u2019s happened.\u00a0 Then I\u2019ll saddle up our horses.\u00a0 They can\u2019t have gone far.\u00a0 Damn it, Hoss, we\u2019ve just got to find them!\u201d<\/p>\n Chapter 3<\/strong><\/p>\n A harsh cold light filtered on the brink of consciousness, penetrating the soft cocoon of sleep.\u00a0 Slowly, he drifted upwards from a deep red darkness.\u00a0 Sounds, unwelcome and vaguely familiar, pulled him towards the surface as if from the bottom of a warm silent lake. It was comfortable in the warm darkness; he wanted to stay.\u00a0 But the sounds were insistent.\u00a0 They tugged, unrelenting.\u00a0 And in the borderland between oblivion and wakefulness, the half remembered sounds became recognizable, took on shapes, gathered meaning, became words.<\/p>\n \u201cTake it easy, Joseph.\u00a0 Easy, boy.\u00a0 You\u2019re going to be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n All right?\u00a0 What did that mean?\u00a0 He was going to be all right?\u00a0 His brain stumbled again.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t all right.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t open his eyes.\u00a0 And he wasn\u2019t all right because his throat hurt and there was a foul taste in his mouth, and worst of all, he was choking on something sour.<\/p>\n His face was wet.\u00a0 Something hard and unforgiving pressed into his cheek.\u00a0 Finally engaging the muscles of his eyelids, he forced them open, blinking in some discomfort as the light battered his eyes.\u00a0 Several facts hit him all at once, none of them pleasant.\u00a0 The object digging with metallic hardness into his face was an enamel basin, and the reason he was choking and his face was wet was because he was throwing up into it, copiously.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re going to be all right,\u201d said the disembodied voice again.<\/p>\n In the land of red darkness and bright lights, Joe had somehow imagined the voice speaking his name to be his father\u2019s.\u00a0 Now he knew it was not.\u00a0 Nor was it Hoss\u2019s or Adam\u2019s, or even Doc Martin\u2019s.\u00a0 \u00a0As his present condition precluded raising his head to see who it was, he could do nothing but lie helplessly, vomiting into a basin held by a complete stranger.<\/p>\n He was forced to let his eyes close again; they hurt too much. \u00a0His brain was spinning, thudding against the inside of his skull as though it were trying to escape.\u00a0 The violent contractions in his stomach just kept on coming.\u00a0 The unknown voice repeated the assurance once again.\u00a0 \u201cTake it easy.\u00a0 You\u2019re going to be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t recall drifting back into sleep; not until he awoke a second time, and replayed the whole miserable scenario over again, but this time with an empty stomach, which hurt even more.\u00a0 A man\u2019s hand held a tin cup to his lips.\u00a0 He gulped gratefully at the cool water but every mouthful came straight back up.\u00a0 In the brief moments when he wasn\u2019t retching uselessly, he was seized instead by a racking cough.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the ether,\u201d said the man\u2019s voice. \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019ll pass.\u201d<\/p>\n Ether? \u00a0Yes, he remembered now.\u00a0 A damp rag clamped over his face, a steely arm tightening around his torso, an overpowering stench in his nose and throat. \u00a0At the memory of the smell, his stomach made another involuntary contraction.\u00a0\u00a0 His struggling fingers, clawing with frantic desperation at the hand smothering him, had grown thick and numb, his limbs as heavy as wet sponges, his head too much of a weight to support.\u00a0 He\u2019d been writing a letter. He remembered that too now.\u00a0 A letter to Hank\u2019s mother.\u00a0 Around him the room had rippled, grown dim, shadowy, blurred. \u00a0As though he was slowly sinking beneath the surface of the lake…<\/p>\n He awoke for the third time, once again with no memory of having fallen asleep.\u00a0 His brain pounded, his throat burned and his lungs felt as if they\u2019d been turned inside out and scoured, but at least the coughing and the gagging had ceased, even if his head and stomach were still rising and falling independently on a pitching swell of nausea.\u00a0 Every breath brought a potent reminder of the vileness of the ether.\u00a0 Cautiously, he opened his eyes.<\/p>\n Not daring to move his head even an inch for fear of triggering another bout of sickness, he could see enough to know that he was lying on his side in a covered wagon, on some kind of camp cot.\u00a0 The pitching sensation wasn\u2019t entirely in his imagination.\u00a0 The rattling wagon swayed and bumped as it moved.\u00a0 Sunlight filtered through the canvas. The air was hot and stuffy.<\/p>\n \u201cHow are you feeling?\u201d<\/p>\n It was the same voice that had offered him assurance before. A man\u2019s voice.\u00a0 Light.\u00a0 Friendly. An unfamiliar accent.<\/p>\n \u201cThirsty,\u201d said Joe, in a husky whisper.<\/p>\n A three-legged stool and a pair of legs clad in dark brown drill appeared in his line of vision.\u00a0 A man\u2019s body dropped down on the small seat and held out the same tin cup Joe had seen earlier.<\/p>\n \u201cTake it a sip at a time,\u201d said the voice.<\/p>\n With a sinking sensation, Joe realized he would need to move his head to drink.\u00a0 For a few moments he debated whether the reward was worth the risk, but with a thirst too fierce to ignore, he maneuvered himself with infinite caution onto one elbow, groaning aloud as the wagon jolted and swam around him.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d said his companion, \u201cyou\u2019ll soon be back to rights.\u00a0 Just a hangover really.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe reached for the cup with clumsy hands. \u00a0A fair portion of the water spilled straight down his bare chest, cold against his skin.\u00a0 It took his lethargic brain a few seconds to grasp the significance of the sensation, and to realize that, beneath the plaid blanket covering him, the rest of him was naked too.<\/p>\n \u201cLike I said, small sips.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere are my clothes?\u201d\u00a0 His head felt as if it was stuffed with wool and his voice sounded the same.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m afraid they were somewhat spoiled.\u00a0 Our on board laundry facilities are limited.\u00a0 But never fear, you can have fresh clothes as soon as your condition is suitably recovered.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s sluggish brain struggled to process this answer.\u00a0 He sipped from the cup, holding back with an effort the urge to gulp greedily.\u00a0 When the first mouthful showed no signs of reappearing, he risked another.<\/p>\n \u201cGood,\u201d said the man.\u00a0 \u201cThings are definitely looking up.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, still with caution, Joe raised his head and looked into the face of his mysterious attendant.\u00a0 A face as affable as the voice; pleasant – handsome, even – framed by thick brown curls not unlike his own, except this man\u2019s were streaked lightly with grey.\u00a0 A strong, clean-shaven jaw.\u00a0 Warm brown eyes lit with a spark of humor, edged with small crinkles.<\/p>\n \u201cWho are you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy name\u2019s Sam Mitchell. \u00a0Doctor Sam Mitchell.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDoctor?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u00a0 Listen, I\u2019m sorry about the ether.\u00a0 Didn\u2019t think you\u2019d react so badly.\u00a0 It won\u2019t last long, I promise.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe frowned.\u00a0 \u201cWhy did you do it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI needed to talk to you.\u00a0 Away from your family.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe took another careful sip of water, scowling into the cup as he tried to force his muddled head to focus clearly.<\/p>\n \u201cCouldn\u2019t you have dropped me a note, or knocked on the door, or something like that?\u201d\u00a0 His mouth still tasted of ether in spite of the water.\u00a0 He fought down an urge to gag.\u00a0 Sam Mitchell reached out and took the cup from his hand.<\/p>\n \u201cLie back down.\u00a0 That\u2019s enough for now.\u00a0 You can have some more in a while.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhere are we?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAbout thirty miles east of the Ponderosa.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThirty miles.\u201d\u00a0 Joe lowered his head onto the pillow, not to oblige his strange companion but because it felt as if it might burst if he didn\u2019t.\u00a0 \u201cWhere are you taking me?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhere would you like to go?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s brow furrowed deeper.\u00a0 \u201cHome.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam Mitchell laughed.\u00a0 \u201cOf course you can go home.\u00a0 Soon.\u00a0 If you still want to.\u00a0 But first we have to talk, you and I.\u201d\u00a0 He gave Joe\u2019s shoulder an encouraging pat.\u00a0 \u201cBut it can all wait until you\u2019re feeling yourself again.\u00a0 There\u2019s no hurry now.\u00a0 We can take all the time we need.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chapter 4<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWell?\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss took off his hat and rubbed the sweat from his forehead with the back of his big hand.\u00a0 He looked at his brother and pulled a helpless face.<\/p>\n \u201cYour guess is as good as mine, Adam.\u00a0 If you want to hide your tracks, the best way to do it is to find the busiest road out of town.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam pursed his mouth in frustration and glowered at the dirt beneath his feet as if he could force it to yield up its secrets that way.<\/p>\n Pa drew a deep breath in a concerted effort to stay calm. \u00a0\u201cWhat do we know?\u00a0 Two men, we think.\u00a0 \u00a0A twelve foot wagon pulled by a couple of mules.\u00a0 Someone in town must have seen it pass.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam kicked at a loose stone with the toe of his boot.\u00a0 \u201cHundreds of wagons pass this way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnly so many in a single afternoon though.\u00a0 Let\u2019s ride back into town and ask around.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam looked gloomy.\u00a0 Hoss gave a shrug.\u00a0 \u201cBetter than standing here wondering.\u201d<\/p>\n Sheriff Coffee met them as they made their way back into the hustle and bustle of the town.<\/p>\n \u201cI was just coming after you, Ben.\u201d\u00a0 He turned his horse to head back with them, fishing in the pocket of his shirt as he did so.\u00a0 \u201cThis reply just came from the New Orleans Police Department.\u00a0 Thought you\u2019d want to know what they said.\u201d\u00a0 He passed the paper to Pa.\u00a0 \u201cSam Mitchell didn\u2019t hang, Ben.\u201d\u00a0 Roy Coffee\u2019s face was grave.\u00a0 \u201cAfter you left New Orleans, there was an appeal. The murder charge was dropped.\u00a0 Mitchell went to prison for fifteen years.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa halted his horse in the middle of the street.\u00a0 \u201cWhy didn\u2019t I hear about that?\u201d<\/p>\n Roy checked his horse too.\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t know, Ben.\u00a0 Guess you were busy making your way back here.\u00a0 Lord knows you had enough to be thinking about with your boys so sick.\u201d<\/p>\n Fifteen years.\u00a0 Adam sifted back through his memory. \u00a0Pieces fell easily into place.\u00a0 The summer he was fourteen. \u00a0All three of them sick with fever.\u00a0 Pa away.\u00a0 Hoss about seven or eight, Joe hardly more than a baby. \u00a0Marie, distraught.<\/p>\n \u201cFifteen years?\u201d\u00a0 Pa\u2019s brows came down sharply.\u00a0 \u201cSo he\u2019d be out again now?\u201d<\/p>\n Roy nodded.\u00a0 \u201cYou think he\u2019s responsible for this?\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss screwed up his face.\u00a0 \u201cSam Mitchell? That\u2019s the name Hank told you, ain\u2019t it, Pa?\u00a0 The small time crook from New Orleans you told us about?\u00a0 What\u2019s he want with Little Joe?\u201d<\/p>\n Pa exchanged glances with the sheriff.\u00a0 Roy rubbed a hand over his mustache.\u00a0 \u201cGuess you ain\u2019t told them then?\u201d<\/p>\n Pa nudged his horse forward again.<\/p>\n Adam saw a muscle twitch in his father\u2019s tight jaw.\u00a0 \u201cWhat happened, Pa?\u201d<\/p>\n Pa kept riding as if he hadn\u2019t heard, but Adam knew he had.<\/p>\n \u201cPa?\u201d<\/p>\n Pa took a deep breath.\u00a0 Still without looking at anyone, he said, \u201cSam Mitchell was a doctor.\u00a0 But he was also a crook.\u00a0 A real clever fraudster.\u00a0 Used to con the folks he was doctoring.\u00a0 But like I say, he was real smart and no one in New Orleans suspected what he was up to.\u201d\u00a0 Pa\u2019s expression didn\u2019t alter but his voice dropped and took on a sharp edge of bitterness. \u00a0\u201cExcept Marie.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMarie?\u201d\u00a0 Adam frowned.\u00a0 \u201cWhat did she have to do with it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFolks liked Sam Mitchell.\u00a0 He was friendly, intelligent, witty, always happy to oblige.\u00a0 Nobody suspected he was anything more than the charming, dedicated doctor he claimed to be.<\/p>\n \u201cA couple of months before I met Marie, he arrived in New Orleans and started paying attention to her.\u00a0 At first she was flattered.\u00a0 But as the weeks went on, she became troubled by some of the things he said and did, so she told him she didn\u2019t want to see him any more.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew nothing of this at the time.\u00a0 She never mentioned him to me.\u00a0 We were married and came back here and everything was fine.\u00a0 Or so I thought.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout six months later, he came here, to Virginia City, to find her.\u00a0 It was like he was obsessed.\u00a0 His behavior was more than just a nuisance.\u00a0 At one point, he even tried to abduct her then claimed it was all a misunderstanding. \u00a0\u00a0Roy will remember.\u201d<\/p>\n Sheriff Coffee nodded gravely.\u00a0 \u201cI sure do.\u00a0 But he was careful to stay inside the law.\u00a0 Most folks thought he was a real nice feller too.\u00a0 And of course, him being a doctor, they loved that.\u00a0 Especially one as amiable as he made out to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa\u2019s face was grim. \u201cI wanted rid of him.\u00a0 After the abduction attempt, Marie got scared.\u00a0 That\u2019s when I found out about all the things he\u2019d told her back in New Orleans.\u00a0 Stories about people who\u2019d been swindled, boasts about the doctors having powers over their patients.\u00a0 I was worried enough to talk to Roy.\u00a0 He contacted a detective in New Orleans.\u00a0 Before long, there was enough evidence to arrest him.\u00a0 He was escorted back to New Orleans to stand trial.\u201d\u00a0 Pa gave a tight shrug.\u00a0 \u201cI thought they\u2019d hanged him.\u201d<\/p>\n The sheriff saw the question in Adam\u2019s mind before he spoke it aloud.<\/p>\n \u201cMarie\u2019s information helped uncover witnesses who claimed Mitchell had deliberately overdosed a couple of his patients to get at their money.\u00a0 It amounted to murder.\u00a0 Only, seems now the evidence wasn\u2019t solid enough.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t hang after all.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss gave a puzzled shake of his head.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s all that gotta do with Little Joe, Pa?\u201d<\/p>\n Adam caught a swift glance pass between Pa and the sheriff.\u00a0 It was Roy who answered.<\/p>\n \u201cThat man\u2019s got a grudge against your pa, Hoss.\u00a0 And he\u2019s got a conniving mind.\u00a0\u00a0 Some folks are plain raving mad and there ain\u2019t no mistaking their condition, but others, well they\u2019ve got their madness honed to a such a fineness you can\u2019t see the blade \u2019til it cuts you.\u00a0 There\u2019s something twisted inside Mitchell and it\u2019s all the more dangerous for being hidden behind a charming smile. The man\u2019s a snake.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPa?\u00a0 You all right?\u201d\u00a0 Adam had heard Roy\u2019s words but he had been watching Pa\u2019s expression as it paled and his mouth drew thin.<\/p>\n Pa\u2019s voice sounded stretched, as if his throat had tightened around the words.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll be all right when we get your brother back, Adam.\u00a0 Let\u2019s start asking around.\u00a0 Someone here has to have seen something.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Chapter 5<\/strong><\/p>\n Joe tucked an unfamiliar shirt into unfamiliar pants and wrapped a belt with a fancy buckle around his middle to hold the outfit together.\u00a0 The clothes were roomy but not a bad fit.\u00a0 Joe imagined they were Sam\u2019s own, although they had the feel and smell of new fabric about them.\u00a0 There was a jacket too.\u00a0 Brown like the pants.\u00a0 He sat down on the edge of the bunk to pull on his boots.\u00a0 At least they were his own.<\/p>\n He was still queasy but at least his stomach was finally under control.\u00a0 A lingering taste of ether permeated his every breath.\u00a0 It fueled the waves of nausea still pitching inside him, like the swell on a troubled sea.<\/p>\n The wagon had stopped.\u00a0 The sun was sloping down in the western sky.\u00a0 His second evening away from home.\u00a0 He remembered nothing about the first one.\u00a0 Smoke from a camp fire drifted in under the canvas, and the smell of food cooking.\u00a0 At the thought of food, he swallowed hard, sucked in a deep breath and the moment passed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll talk over supper,\u201d Sam had promised him.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll explain everything then.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe frowned to himself as he thought about Sam\u2019s words.\u00a0 How did you explain drugging a man and carting him away against his will?\u00a0 It was a puzzle because Sam seemed a decent enough feller, likeable even.<\/p>\n Unlike Brady.<\/p>\n It was Brady who had been driving the wagon.\u00a0 Joe had only glimpsed him only briefly, hadn\u2019t even spoken to him yet, but something in the cold black eyes and expressionless face had instantly put Joe on his guard.\u00a0 When they\u2019d finally jolted to a halt a short time ago, Brady had thrust his head inside the wagon and stared hard at Joe.\u00a0 Joe had expected him to say something, but he\u2019d simply stared in cold muteness before withdrawing his head again and setting about unhitching the mule team.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s Brady,\u201d Sam said.\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t mind him.\u00a0 He\u2019s a man of few words and even fewer social graces.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady was mopping stew from a bowl with a thick chunk of bread when Joe finally slid his still fragile body out of the wagon.\u00a0 Brady\u2019s back was against a rock, his long legs stretched in front of him.\u00a0 Even sitting, he looked huge.\u00a0 As big as Hoss, Joe decided, maybe even bigger.\u00a0 His dark, close-cropped hair had thinned almost to baldness over the top of his head.\u00a0 His eyes looked as if they had seen everything and sneered at it all.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you want some food?\u201d\u00a0 Sam nodded his head at his own bowl of half-eaten, thick brown stew.\u00a0 Joe recoiled.\u00a0 \u201cNo?\u00a0 Well how about some coffee?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe lowered himself carefully to the ground beside the camp fire and Sam passed a tin mug of coffee into his hand.\u00a0 Joe took a tentative sip.\u00a0 The strong, hot liquid tasted surprisingly agreeable.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re looking better,\u201d said Sam, resuming his meal. \u201cI suppose you\u2019re wondering what this is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe gave a wary nod.<\/p>\n Sam\u2019s mouth curved in a lopsided smile as he chewed. \u00a0\u201cI\u2019m sorry about the melodrama.\u00a0 I needed to get you alone, away from your family. \u00a0There\u2019s no way Ben Cartwright – your pa \u2013 would let me talk to you otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know my father?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s say we\u2019ve met.\u00a0 Some years ago now.\u00a0 Under circumstances that were less than happy.\u201d\u00a0 Sam gave a light laugh. \u00a0\u201cI knew your mother.\u00a0 Back in New Orleans.\u00a0 Before she married your father.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother?\u201d<\/p>\n Sam gave a wistful nod.\u00a0 \u201cThe most beautiful woman I\u2019ve ever had the privilege to meet.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry you didn\u2019t know her for longer, Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe sipped his coffee, puzzled.\u00a0 The longing on Sam\u2019s face as he spoke of Marie was uncannily familiar.<\/p>\n Sam put down his plate and drew his knees loosely up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them.\u00a0 \u201cI…I guess it\u2019s best if I don\u2019t beat about the bush.\u00a0 I owe you an explanation for what\u2019s happened.\u00a0 When you hear what I have to say, I\u2019m hoping you\u2019ll understand why I had to go to such lengths.\u201d<\/p>\n The coffee was good.\u00a0 Exactly what he\u2019d needed, Joe decided.\u00a0 Every mouthful made him feel a little more like his old self.\u00a0 He took another sip as he waited for Sam to go on, but after his earlier confidence, Sam now seemed hesitant, nervous even.\u00a0 Joe couldn\u2019t make him out at all.\u00a0 Over by the rocks, Brady shifted, setting his cup down on his plate with a clang. Sam threw him a look of annoyance then switched his attention back to Joe.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing is, Little Joe…<\/p>\n Joe blinked down at the dark liquid in his cup.\u00a0 Despite feeling stronger, a sense of numbness persisted, as if his brain was still fumbling to find the sharp edges.<\/p>\n He realized Sam had stopped speaking and raised his face.\u00a0 His eyes met Sam\u2019s and even through his dulled senses, he could see the unease in Sam\u2019s expression had turned into something approaching desperation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing is, Little Joe… I\u2019m your real father.\u201d<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n The light of the moon cast a pale glow through the taut canvas covering the wagon.\u00a0 Joe lay on the cot and listened to the sounds of the night and the deep rhythm of his own heart, loud in the darkness.\u00a0 Sam had insisted Joe take the bed while he and Brady rolled in their blankets by the fire, and Joe had been grateful for the solitude. After everything Sam had said, more than anything, he needed time alone.<\/p>\n He hadn\u2019t reacted at all at first, when Sam made his startling announcement.\u00a0 The words had been clear enough, but they\u2019d made no sense.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing is, Little Joe… I\u2019m your real father.\u201d<\/p>\n Then he\u2019d laughed.\u00a0 Not a wholehearted laugh, as if Sam had said something genuinely amusing; not even an incredulous snort of derision; more like the response reserved for occasions when a polite laugh is deemed the appropriate response.\u00a0 The pronouncement was so ludicrous, it barely deserved acknowledgement.<\/p>\n Yet something in Sam Mitchell\u2019s face had frozen the sound in his throat.\u00a0 That desperation he\u2019d recognized seconds before was now shot through with pain.\u00a0 The nausea Joe had thought past suddenly welled with renewed urgency in his gullet and he\u2019d had to swallow hard several times before he could force out the single word. \u00a0Even then it had erupted as a strangled squeak.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n They\u2019d carried on staring at each other in a silence that roared like a stampede in Joe\u2019s ears.\u00a0 Finally Sam had spoken again, in a voice as tight as Joe\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cI am, Joe.\u00a0 I\u2019m your real father.\u201d<\/p>\n Alone in the wagon, Joe curled his body and squeezed his eyes shut, as though he could fend off reality that way.\u00a0 But closing his eyes just made it all the easier to picture Sam\u2019s face again, suffused with earnest anxiety.<\/p>\n \u201cI already have a father. What are you talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n Sam, his arms still locked around his knees, had rocked back and forth, his fingers twitching nervously.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like I said.\u00a0 I knew your mother, Joe. Before Ben Cartwright ever came to New Orleans.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s eyelids sprang wide again and he stared blankly into the darkness.\u00a0 Even the memory of the conversation made him feel physically sick.\u00a0 It couldn\u2019t be true, could it?<\/p>\n \u201cDidn\u2019t it ever occur to you, Joe?\u00a0 About your birthday?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d\u00a0 His heart had started to beat so rapidly, it had been difficult to force his voice out evenly.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were married in late September.\u00a0 You were born in May. That\u2019s not even eight months.\u00a0 Don\u2019t tell me you never thought about that.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s hands had started to shake then.\u00a0 He\u2019d had to press them hard against his legs to hide the trembling. Of course he\u2019d thought about it.\u00a0 Plenty of times.\u00a0 He\u2019d even mentioned it to Adam once, when he was ten and old enough to wonder.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t the kind of question a ten-year-old could put to a man like Pa.\u00a0 Adam had just thumped him on the back and grinned.\u00a0 \u201cYou always were trouble, Little Joe, from the day you were born.\u00a0 You just came early; took everyone by surprise, especially your mama.\u00a0 There she was, down by the lake, and suddenly, without warning, you were on your way.\u00a0 That\u2019s why you were so small when you were born.\u00a0 Pa says it\u2019s only your pig-headed stubbornness that kept you alive.\u00a0 I guess that\u2019s why we call you Little Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI just came early,\u201d said Joe, wondering why his voice emerged as barely more than a husky whisper.<\/p>\n The way Sam had looked at him then had made Joe\u2019s insides turn over.\u00a0 His pulse drummed too loudly in his head. \u00a0Sam\u2019s face swam in a grey mist.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you all right?\u00a0 Lie down for a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Hands gripped his shoulders, pushed him backwards.\u00a0 Joe resisted.\u00a0 He took a couple of deep, shuddering breaths. The mist slowly evaporated, the drumming faded in his ears.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m all right. I\u2019m all right!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Joe.\u00a0 You\u2019re still not well.\u00a0 I should have thought.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam\u2019s face was close to his own, a face that expressed every emotion with an easy to read clarity.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll talk about this tomorrow, when you\u2019re feeling stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cNo.\u00a0 Just say what you have to say, now.\u201d<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n A faint breeze, barely discernible, shivered through the canvas, as though a ghost had drifted past.\u00a0 Hot tears burned behind Joe\u2019s eyes as he thought back to the conversation beside the camp fire.\u00a0 Why was he crying anyway?\u00a0 For the tarnished memory of his mother?\u00a0 For a man he had loved, who had lied to him for seventeen years?\u00a0 For the brothers he now doubted?\u00a0 What was the gaping, gnawing darkness that had opened inside him?\u00a0 Grief?\u00a0 Fear?\u00a0 Anger?<\/p>\n \u201cI was in love with your mother, Joe, don\u2019t get me wrong.\u00a0 I was as much in love with her as it\u2019s possible to be.\u00a0 I\u2019d have gone to the ends of the earth for her, if she had asked me to.\u00a0 I loved her more than any woman I\u2019d ever met, and I love her still now.<\/p>\n \u201cBut she broke my heart, Joe!\u00a0 She broke my heart.\u00a0 When Ben Cartwright came along, she found a better man than me, but never one who loved her as much as I did.\u00a0 How could I compete with him?\u00a0 He had wealth and charm, and he promised her the fairy tale life she\u2019d always dreamed of.\u00a0 I was just a poor doctor.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was carrying my child and when she left, she took that away with her too.\u00a0 You, Joe!\u00a0 She told me to forget her, but how could I?\u00a0 The woman I loved more than my life! \u00a0And my own child!\u00a0 How could I forget? \u00a0I did try, I really did.\u00a0 I built up my practice and for almost two years I lived a life that was only half a life.\u00a0 In the end I couldn\u2019t bear it and I followed her west, to Virginia City.<\/p>\n \u201cWas that wrong?\u00a0 Was it wrong to want to see her again, and to see you?\u00a0 Maybe it was, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 All I know is it was something I had to do.\u00a0 I don\u2019t really know what I expected.\u00a0 I knew it would be messy, of course, but I hadn\u2019t bargained on how vindictive Ben Cartwright would be, or how much power he held in that half built shanty town in the god-forsaken middle of nowhere!<\/p>\n \u201cI should have left again, but seeing Marie – and you \u2013 I just couldn\u2019t do it.\u00a0 I tried to talk to her. \u00a0To explain.\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019ll be honest, Joe, I tried to persuade her to leave him and come away with me.\u00a0 But Ben Cartwright had me arrested on some trumped up charges, and I was dragged back to New Orleans to stand trial there. He tried to have me hanged for murder.\u00a0 But I never murdered anyone, and the charges were dropped.\u00a0 They still sent me to prison though, for fraud and theft.\u00a0 Fifteen years, Joe!\u00a0 Fifteen years!\u00a0 And all that time I thought constantly of you and your mother.<\/p>\n \u201cFinally I was released.\u00a0 That\u2019s when I found out Marie was dead.\u00a0 All those years and I never knew!\u00a0 But you, you were still alive.\u00a0 I just had to see you.\u00a0 Let you know who I was.\u00a0 Who you really are.\u00a0 You understand that, don\u2019t you?\u00a0 You need to know the truth. Ben Cartwright\u2019s not your father; I am.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve always loved you, Joe. \u00a0Always!\u00a0 In spite of everything.\u00a0 I just wish I could have told you all this earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe pushed his face into the pillow to muffle the anguished moan that forced its way into his throat.<\/p>\n Sam Mitchell had to be wrong.\u00a0 He just had to be.\u00a0 Pa was his father; how could it be any other way?\u00a0 That deep, resonating voice speaking his name; the raised eyebrow humoring his shortcomings; the big, capable hands lifting him onto a pony, stroking his hair, clasping his shoulder; where had there ever been any clue that Pa wasn\u2019t his real father?\u00a0 He would have known it, surely?\u00a0 Deep down inside, he would have sensed it.\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t he?\u00a0 There was that bond, indefinable but real, always there.\u00a0 No matter what else happened in the world, the one thing he had always been sure of was his father\u2019s love.\u00a0 But now… now the universe had suddenly twisted.\u00a0 The things he had been certain about yesterday now slipped from him like water through a clenched fist.<\/p>\n Doubt was insidious.\u00a0 Once it found a crack and sneaked in, it took root swiftly, spreading nasty little suckers into every crevice, prying out all the little niggles that had seemed insignificant before, nudging them into an impassable line of questions that refused to be ignored.<\/p>\n Of course he could explain away the discrepancy in the date of his birth. Plenty of marriages were arranged in haste, weren\u2019t they?\u00a0 Wedding days discreetly moved forward to spare the gossip.\u00a0 Nothing unusual there.\u00a0 And, as Adam had said, he\u2019d been born early.\u00a0 Babies arrived before their due dates all the time, everyone knew that.<\/p>\n And what of the lack of family resemblance?\u00a0 He looked like his mother, plenty of people said so.\u00a0 Nothing more than a whim of nature.<\/p>\n Trouble was, he did<\/em> look like Sam Mitchell.\u00a0 Build, complexion, features, all similar.\u00a0 And more.\u00a0 The vague feeling of familiarity Joe had felt the very first time he heard Sam speak, saw his face, it now made sense.\u00a0 As if a piece of a puzzle he had never known was missing, suddenly slotted perfectly into place.<\/p>\n And where did it leave him? What was he supposed to do now?<\/p>\n \u201cYou need time to take all this in.\u201d Sam\u2019s face had been tense with apprehension.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s come as a shock to you.\u00a0 You need time to think it all over, of course you do. \u00a0\u00a0Ben Cartwright\u2019s the only father you\u2019ve known until now, but…\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019d stopped then and given Joe the ghost of a hopeful smile.\u00a0 \u201cBut, given time, maybe… maybe we could get to know each other better.\u00a0 Maybe then…\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe?\u00a0 Was it possible?\u00a0 Could he learn to love another father?<\/p>\n Sam\u2019s hand had reached out, tentatively resting on his shoulder.\u00a0 \u201cFour days from now, we\u2019ll be in Austin.\u00a0 All I ask, Joe, is that you give me those four days before you decide.\u00a0 That\u2019s all.\u00a0 When we reach Austin, it\u2019s up to you.\u00a0 If you want to head straight back home, we\u2019ll wire your pa and I\u2019ll buy you a ticket back to Virginia City.\u00a0 No more pressure from me, I swear it.\u00a0 On the other hand, if you decide I\u2019m not so bad after all and you want to get to know me better, we\u2019ll wire your pa to say you\u2019ve decided to do some travelling.\u00a0 How does that sound?\u00a0 Just think about it, Joe.\u00a0 Just think about it, that\u2019s all I\u2019m asking<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chapter 6<\/strong><\/p>\n Once again, Joe pen\u2019s hovered over a sheet of blank paper while he chewed uncertainly at his bottom lip.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t do this, Sam,\u201d he\u2019d said that morning, ruffled and troubled after a night of miserable uncertainty. \u00a0\u201cJust up and disappear.\u00a0 Pa and Adam and Hoss, they\u2019re going to be worried about me.\u00a0 They\u2019re going to be trying to find me. \u00a0I have to go back.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll telegraph,\u201d Sam had reminded him. \u00a0\u201cWe\u2019ll explain.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u00a0 I can\u2019t explain it in a telegraph?\u201d\u00a0 Joe had shaken his head, resolute.<\/p>\n \u201cA letter then.\u00a0 Write a letter and we\u2019ll mail it in Austin.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s brow had dinted.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know, Sam.\u00a0 Seems to me I ought to go back.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam had stared hard into his coffee cup.\u00a0 When he\u2019d looked up, he\u2019d said, \u201cDo you believe what I told you, Joe?\u00a0 About your mother and me?\u00a0 About what happened?\u00a0 About you being my son?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s weary hand had scrubbed at his bloodshot eyes.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know, Sam.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what to believe right now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why you need to give yourself more time.\u00a0 You mustn\u2019t try to make your mind up right now.\u00a0 You might as well ride with us as far as Austin.\u00a0 There\u2019s nowhere else to go.\u00a0 See how you feel then.\u00a0 A boy your age, surely there\u2019s places you want to see before you settle down for a lifetime on the Ponderosa.\u00a0 A few months of traveling, wouldn\u2019t you enjoy that?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe had hesitated.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to see New Orleans,\u201d he\u2019d admitted, slowly.<\/p>\n Sam\u2019s face had clouded then.\u00a0 \u201cNew Orleans?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 He\u2019d chewed the inside of his mouth.\u00a0 \u201cNew Orleans holds some bad memories for me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to see where my mother came from.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d\u00a0 Sam had sighed. \u201cI can understand that.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019d forced a bright smile back to his face.\u00a0 \u201cWell, if that\u2019s what you really want, let\u2019s go there.\u00a0 And to hell with what people think!\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019d flashed Joe a grin.\u00a0 \u201cWe can do that, Joe, you and me.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady had appeared beside them at that moment.\u00a0 He\u2019d fixed Joe with a blank stare then turned to Sam.\u00a0 \u201cMules are hitched up.\u00a0 Ready to head off when you are.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe had watched Brady\u2019s back as he wandered back to his mule team.\u00a0 \u201cI get the feeling he doesn\u2019t like me much.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBrady?\u201d Sam had given a quick laugh.\u00a0 \u201cBrady doesn\u2019t like people generally. It\u2019s nothing personal.\u00a0\u00a0 He\u2019s had a tough life.\u00a0 Spent a lot of it in prison.\u00a0 One thing you learn in prison is not to trust.\u00a0 But he\u2019s been a good friend to me; the best.\u00a0 Saved my goose on several occasions.\u00a0 He just needs to get to know you.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe had turned back to the wagon.\u00a0 Sam had called after him.\u00a0 \u201cJoe?\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019d looked back.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe, just tell me one thing.\u00a0 Honestly.\u00a0 What does your heart say?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy heart?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t you think there\u2019s something… something special between us?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe had studied Sam\u2019s face for a long moment, and the unease inside him had crawled deeper as he recognized again how like his own it really was.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he\u2019d said, finally.\u00a0 \u201cI need time to think, Sam.\u00a0 I just don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So, once again, Joe bent his head over a letter, and struggled to find the right words. \u00a0The light was fading beyond the canvas and he could no longer see clearly enough to write. He hoped what he had said would convey what he really meant.\u00a0 Carefully he folded the paper and slid it into the envelope Sam had given him. \u00a0Tucking the envelope into the pocket of his jacket, he climbed down from the wagon.<\/p>\n Sam looked up from his seat by the fire.\u00a0 Brady was cooking bacon.\u00a0 For the first time in two days, Joe felt stirrings of hunger.\u00a0 He sat down on the ground next to Sam<\/p>\n \u201cAll done?\u201d asked Sam.<\/p>\n Joe nodded.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cI hope he\u2019ll understand.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam wrapped an arm around Joe\u2019s shoulder.\u00a0 \u201cYou won\u2019t regret it, I promise.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got seventeen years to make up to you.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady turned his cold, expressionless gaze on Joe.\u00a0 Ignoring him, Joe let himself relax against Sam\u2019s arm for a moment.\u00a0 \u201cBacon smells good!\u201d<\/p>\n Sam gave his shoulder a companionable squeeze.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m glad you\u2019re hungry at last.\u00a0 You\u2019re obviously feeling better.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe acknowledged that with a nod.\u00a0 \u201cFor the first time in days, I can\u2019t taste ether on my breath.\u201d\u00a0 He pulled a face.\u00a0 \u201cI still don\u2019t get that, Sam.\u00a0 Why did you have to drag me off like that?\u00a0 If you\u2019d just talked to me…\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou reckon your pa would have bought that? I tell you, Joe, he\u2019d have done everything in his power to keep me away from you.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe hesitated.\u00a0 Much as he hated to admit it, he knew Sam was right.\u00a0 Pa was over protective, to a fault.\u00a0 Joe could picture the stony expression on Pa\u2019s craggy face, the low warning rumble in his voice.\u00a0 \u201cMaybe.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo maybe about it.\u00a0 And your two brothers.\u00a0 You see, I asked around.\u00a0 Everyone said it.\u00a0 The Cartwrights are the closest-knit family in the territory.\u00a0 What chance would I have stood?\u00a0 But I\u2019m still sorry.\u00a0 If I\u2019d have known how bad you\u2019d be, I\u2019d have thought of something else.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNever again, Sam, promise?\u201d<\/p>\n Sam gave his swift laugh.\u00a0 \u201cNo, of course not, son!\u00a0 Never again.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chapter 7<\/strong><\/p>\n Hoss had had the first stroke of luck, in the Bucket of Blood.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d said the bartender, nodding, \u201cthere was a couple of fellers in here only a week or so back, asking after you boys and your pa.\u00a0 Couple of your Ponderosa hands were in here.\u00a0 They told \u2019em your pa was off on a cattle drive up in the hills. \u00a0They were saying as how they\u2019d hire some horses; try and catch up with your pa.\u201d<\/p>\n Tom at the livery stables was brushing down a tall grey gelding when Hoss burst in.\u00a0 \u201cYou got trouble?\u201d he inquired.\u00a0 \u201cYou look worked up about something.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou could say that, Tom.\u00a0 Listen, you had a coupla fellers come by here with a wagon and a couple of mules?\u00a0 Left them here with you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d\u00a0 Tom lowered the brush and leaned back against the side of the stall, nodding.\u00a0 \u201cSaid they needed a couple of horses to take them up into the mountains for a few days.\u00a0 Decent enough fellers.\u00a0 Gave me a good tip.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd did they come back for the wagon?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYup.\u201d\u00a0 Tom nodded again. \u00a0\u201cFirst thing this morning.\u00a0 The big feller came in.\u00a0 Brought back the horses and took his wagon.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBig feller?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, real big.\u00a0 Bigger even than you, Hoss.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about the other feller, what did he look like?\u201d<\/p>\n Tom scratched his head as he thought back.\u00a0 \u201cSmaller.\u00a0 Curly hair.\u00a0 About my age, I\u2019d guess.\u00a0 Big smile.\u00a0 Can\u2019t really tell you more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a real big help, Tom.\u00a0 Did the big feller say anything about where they were heading?\u201d<\/p>\n Tom shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cSorry.\u00a0 What\u2019s the urgency?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey killed a man.\u00a0 And they kidnapped Little Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n Tom paled.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re kidding!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWish I was.\u00a0 Listen, Tom, you hear anything else, you tell me, right?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSure will, Hoss.\u00a0 Hope you find Little Joe real soon.\u201d<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n Adam had the next stroke of good fortune.\u00a0 Two separate sightings of the mule wagon heading east out of town. \u00a0\u00a0After that, for a while, their luck ran out.<\/p>\n \u201cPretty empty country, headin\u2019 east from here,\u201d Hoss said, over a beer in the saloon, as they argued their next move.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless they turn south,\u201d said Adam, stating the obvious.\u00a0 \u201cOr north.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss pursed his mouth and frowned.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe it\u2019s empty country they want,\u201d said Pa, and his two sons exchanged puzzled looks.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy would they want that?\u201d asked Hoss.<\/p>\n Pa gave an impatient shrug.\u00a0 \u201cWhy are they doing any of this?\u201d\u00a0 He banged his half-finished drink down on the bar.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m going to speak to Roy again.\u00a0 See if he\u2019s got any more ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s something Pa\u2019s not telling us,\u201d said Adam, watching his father hurry across the busy street.<\/p>\n \u201cAw, he\u2019s just worried about Little Joe.\u201d\u00a0 Hoss wrinkled his nose.\u00a0 You know, if them fellers was kidnapping Joe for money, why was there no ransom note when they took him?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe they\u2019re still planning on it.\u00a0 Could be holed up somewhere close by, right now.\u00a0 There\u2019re some mining camps on that side of town.\u00a0 You and I should take a ride out in that direction and find out if anyone\u2019s seen a mule wagon come by.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss nodded.\u00a0 \u201cAnything\u2019s better than sitting around doing nothing.\u00a0 We can round up a few of Joe\u2019s friends to give us a hand.\u00a0 The more pairs of eyes out there, the better chance we got.\u201d<\/p>\n But even with more pairs of eyes, they turned up no clues. When two more days of fruitless searching brought no fresh leads,\u00a0 Adam began to wonder how long they could go on scouring endless miles of mountain and desert before hope turned to hollow despair.<\/p>\n As they climbed wearily from their saddles outside the hotel on the second evening, Roy Coffee came hurrying to meet them.<\/p>\n \u201cA wire, Ben.\u00a0 Came in an hour ago.\u00a0 Mule wagon with two men fitting the description of Mitchell and his buddy, spotted this morning, about ten miles south of Stillwater.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStillwater?\u201d\u00a0 Pa looked back down the street as though he was thinking of mounting up again there and then, and heading off to Stillwater.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s late, Pa,\u201d said Adam, pointing out the obvious. \u201cIt\u2019ll be dark in less than an hour.\u00a0 And these horses need a rest.\u201d\u00a0 He could see the conflict going on behind his father\u2019s eyes as he acknowledged the sense in his son\u2019s words while fighting the desperate urge to act on this sudden turn of fortune.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo men?\u201d\u00a0 It was Hoss who picked up on the significance of Roy\u2019s words.\u00a0 \u201cNot three?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDoesn\u2019t mean Joe\u2019s not with them.\u201d\u00a0 The fierce determination in Pa\u2019s voice defied them to contradict him.\u00a0 \u201cHe could have been inside the wagon.\u201d<\/p>\n There was a silence then that was just a little too long before Hoss gave a vehement nod of his head.\u00a0 \u201cYeah, that\u2019s right.\u00a0 They coulda had him tied up inside that wagon.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEvery town east of here has their descriptions, Ben.\u00a0 If they show up anywhere, I\u2019ll hear about it.\u201d Roy did his best to look reassuring.<\/p>\n Adam laid his hand on Pa\u2019s arm.\u00a0 \u201cWe should get some food and rest, Pa.\u00a0 We need to be on the road by sun up.\u00a0 You go on inside.\u00a0 Hoss and I will see to the horses.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chapter 8<\/strong><\/p>\n Joe was laughing for the first time in days.\u00a0 He hadn\u2019t intended too. \u00a0His heart was still troubled with how Pa and his brothers would be worrying, and by a niggling sense of betrayal; as though he had had a choice about leaving with Sam Mitchell.\u00a0 But it was hard not to like Sam, and hard not to laugh when he told stories.\u00a0 His sharp sense of humor made even tales of his grim days in prison entertaining.\u00a0 In spite of what had happened, Joe found himself instinctively warming to Sam.<\/p>\n That in itself deepened his sense of treachery and opened the lid on a morass of confused emotions in which he floundered through the hours of darkness, and any moments in the day when his mind wasn\u2019t otherwise occupied.\u00a0 He tortured himself with unanswerable questions.\u00a0 Had his mother known that he was Sam Mitchell\u2019s son and not Pa\u2019s?\u00a0 How could she not have known?\u00a0 What kind of a relationship had it been anyway?\u00a0 Had she and Sam still been carrying on together when she met Pa?<\/p>\n Why had he never asked Pa more questions about his time in New Orleans?\u00a0 Sure, he knew his parents had met there, and he knew they\u2019d wasted no time getting wed, but he was vague about timescales and dates.\u00a0 The details had never been of great interest to him.\u00a0 Had Pa wanted to spare her the shame of a child out of wedlock?\u00a0 Was that why they had married so swiftly?\u00a0 He hated himself for even thinking such terrible things about his mother but the questions would not stop haunting him.<\/p>\n Would his mother have told him the truth when he was older?\u00a0 And what about Pa?\u00a0 If he had known all along, then he\u2019d been lying to Joe all this time.\u00a0 Whenever Joe thought about that, a hot mixture of anger and resentment burned in his blood.\u00a0 And did his brothers know?\u00a0 Joe felt sure Adam could know something like that and keep it a secret forever.\u00a0 But not Hoss.\u00a0 Hoss could never keep secrets from Joe.\u00a0 And Hoss had been only a small boy when Pa married Marie.\u00a0 But Adam, he\u2019d been old enough to understand, old enough to know when something didn\u2019t add up.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong, Joe?\u00a0 You worrying about your family again?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe dragged his attention back to Sam.\u00a0 They were eating supper again, by the fire.\u00a0 Aware he\u2019d lost the thread of Sam\u2019s conversation, he smiled ruefully.\u00a0 \u201cI guess I am.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam pulled a bottle of whiskey from inside his jacket, uncorked it, and tipped a generous amount into his half finished coffee.\u00a0 He offered the bottle to Joe.\u00a0 Joe shook his head.<\/p>\n \u201cGo on,\u201d said Sam.\u00a0 \u201cTake your mind off your troubles.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe gave him half a smile and reached for the bottle.<\/p>\n \u201cYou got a girl?\u201d Sam asked.<\/p>\n Surprised by the question, Joe\u2019s cheeks flushed involuntarily.\u00a0 He took a swig of the whiskey and gave a quick shake of his head. \u201cNo, not really.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam gave a knowing smile.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s not what I heard.\u00a0 Hattie…something or other, wasn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s color deepened.\u00a0 \u201cHattie Miller,\u201d he acknowledged.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u00a0 Hattie Miller.\u00a0 Pretty, is she?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe thought of Hattie\u2019s wide blue eyes, her pale, perfect skin that always reminded him of rose petals, cool and sweet-smelling.\u00a0 So far he\u2019d touched nothing more than her hand, except in his dreams.\u00a0 But he wasn\u2019t about to confess those to Sam; not yet anyway.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do you know about Hattie?\u201d he asked, with the hint of a frown.<\/p>\n Sam shrugged.\u00a0 \u201cI was asking around, in Virginia City.\u00a0 Someone mentioned Hattie.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho did you talk to?\u201d<\/p>\n Sam shrugged again.\u00a0 \u201cNo one in particular.\u00a0 Relax, Joe.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t spying on you.\u00a0 You have to remember, the last time I saw you, you were just a baby.\u00a0 I only wanted to find out what kind of a man you\u2019d grown into.\u201d<\/p>\n Hearing Sam refer to him as a man, Joe was mollified.\u00a0 His pa and brothers treated him like a child most of the time.\u00a0 He took another generous swig of whiskey as if to confirm Sam\u2019s faith in his adult status.\u00a0 \u201cWhat else did you find out about me?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat you\u2019re a very popular young man.\u201d\u00a0 Sam\u2019s eyes glinted.\u00a0 \u201cEspecially with the women.\u00a0 How fast you are with a horse.\u00a0 And with a gun. In fact, I found out that you\u2019re pretty much universally admired!\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s cheeks flushed warm again.\u00a0 \u201cOh, come on!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not kidding you, Joe.\u00a0 Seems people have a deal of admiration for you Cartwrights.\u00a0 Funny thing was, the more people spoke about you, the prouder I felt.\u00a0 As if I had anything to do with the way you turned out!\u201d\u00a0 Sam laughed and shook his head.\u00a0 Then unexpectedly, his face turned solemn.\u00a0 \u201cBut seriously, Joe, you really are everything a man could wish for in a son.\u00a0 You don\u2019t know what it means to me, finding you at last, having you here like this.\u201d<\/p>\n The awkward silence that followed Sam\u2019s admission was broken by the appearance of Brady, stepping out of the shadows on the other side of the fire.\u00a0 Joe had no idea where he\u2019d been.\u00a0 He had a habit of sloping off on his own whenever the wagon stopped.\u00a0 Joe was always relieved to find him absent.\u00a0 When Brady was around, he never felt entirely comfortable.\u00a0 The calculating eyes boring into him, the ripples of resentment floating in the air between them.\u00a0 Like now.\u00a0 Brady paused in the ring of firelight, the flames flickering in the darkness of his eyes the only movement in their cold, expressionless depths.<\/p>\n Joe looked down at the whiskey bottle in his hand and passed it back to Sam.<\/p>\n \u201cI think maybe I\u2019ll turn in.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam started to protest, but Joe was already on his feet, Brady\u2019s stare following on his heels like a cold shadow as he climbed into the wagon.\u00a0 Under normal circumstances, Joe would have chosen to sleep in the open, with the vast arch of the distant stars above him, and the bright glow of the embers to lull him into slumber, not in the stuffy confines of the wagon, but he had an illogical desire to be away from Brady; something about the man made Joe\u2019s skin crawl.<\/p>\n The whiskey should have numbed his mind, helped him sleep; instead he felt more agitated and restless than ever.\u00a0 Even liquor couldn\u2019t dull the persistent ache of doubt and guilt.<\/p>\n Outside, Sam and Brady\u2019s voices rose and fell in muted conversation.\u00a0 It was the first time Joe had known Brady to speak more than a few words at a time, although the hum of their dialogue was too low for him to make out what it was they were discussing.\u00a0 He found himself wondering about Brady.\u00a0 He and Sam seemed unlikely companions, Brady huge and formidable, Sam full of warmth and charm.\u00a0 What was the bond between them?\u00a0 An unlikely friendship had been forged in that prison.<\/p>\n Brady\u2019s voice rose momentarily.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t want him here!\u00a0 Things were just fine before he came along!\u201d<\/p>\n Sam responded with something Joe couldn\u2019t catch.\u00a0 Brady gave a snort of derision.\u00a0 \u201cSo you keep saying, but how do you know that?\u00a0 His mother was nothing more than a fancy whore!\u00a0 Why are you so sure the boy\u2019s even yours?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s face burned hot.\u00a0 He swallowed hard and turned his back on the two voices, but Brady\u2019s still carried through the thin wall of the canvas with unguarded clarity.<\/p>\n \u201cPut him on the stage, Sam.\u00a0 When we get to Austin.\u00a0 Buy him that ticket and send him home again.\u00a0 We don\u2019t need him complicating our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam spoke in his softer tones.\u00a0 Joe caught only his own name and his mother\u2019s.\u00a0 Then Brady broke in again.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t give me that!\u00a0 You want revenge!\u00a0 You want to get your own back on Ben Cartwright!\u00a0 The best way to do that would have been to kill him, I already told you that.\u00a0 I was ready to do it, you know I was.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam\u2019s answer was sharpened by annoyance. This time, Joe heard every word.\u00a0 \u201cHow does killing him pay him back for everything he took from me?\u00a0 He stole the woman I loved, he stole my son, and he stole fifteen years out of my life.\u00a0 Now he can know what it feels like to lose something he holds dear.\u00a0 Death\u2019s too good for him, Brady.\u00a0 Let him suffer!\u00a0 And suffer all the more knowing his beloved son is here with me because he\u2019s chosen<\/em> to be, of his own free will!\u201d\u00a0 Sam seemed then to remember himself because his voice dropped again and Joe missed his next words, but Brady\u2019s response sliced through the darkness, fine-edged with anger.<\/p>\n \u201cI told you, Sam, I don\u2019t want him here.\u00a0 Send him packing in Austin or you go on without me.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe sensed movement outside the wagon and then Sam\u2019s voice came again, much closer this time.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t force me to choose, Brady!\u00a0 You might not like my answer.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady retorted with an oath.\u00a0 Sam threw back another.\u00a0 Joe felt the slight shift of the wagon as a man\u2019s weight rested on the tailgate and Sam\u2019s voice spoke softly into the darkness of the interior.\u00a0 \u201cJoe?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe closed his eyes and kept very still.\u00a0 There was a prolonged silence. \u00a0Sam sighed. Joe heard him walk away.\u00a0 Opening his eyes again, he stared miserably into the blackness.<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n A sullen cloud of irritability pressed down around them all the next morning.\u00a0 It was Brady\u2019s turn to walk alongside the wagon.\u00a0 Taciturn as always, the stony blackness of his eyes measured Joe\u2019s every movement with surly resentfulness.\u00a0\u00a0 Sam drove with a dark scowl on his face.\u00a0 Joe, hunched next to him on the driving seat, doubted any whiskey could be left in last night\u2019s bottle judging by the volume on Sam\u2019s breath.\u00a0 His smiling charm had evaporated into a blanket of despondency.<\/p>\n Hardly a word had passed between them since they\u2019d set off after a breakfast marked by its ominous lack of courteous conversation.\u00a0 It was Joe who finally broke the brooding silence.<\/p>\n \u201cSam?\u201d<\/p>\n Sam lifted an eyebrow. \u00a0Joe took that as an indication he was listening.<\/p>\n \u201cListen, Sam, I want to tell you something.\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m glad we met.\u00a0 I want you to know that.\u201d The muscles in Sam\u2019s jaw tightened as though he predicted what was coming next.\u00a0 Joe pushed on.\u00a0 \u201cBut maybe this isn\u2019t such a good idea, you know, the three of us, this wagon?\u00a0 Maybe it would be better if I went on back.\u201d\u00a0 He paused and drew a deep breath.\u00a0 \u201cWe could still see each other, you and I.\u00a0 Perhaps you could find somewhere nearby.\u00a0 We could meet up sometimes.\u00a0 My pa wouldn\u2019t have to know.\u201d<\/p>\n His words hit a wall of rigid silence.\u00a0 Joe chewed at his lip. \u201cI just think maybe it would be for the best.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam\u2019s eyes remained fixed on the dusty trail in front of them.\u00a0 His face gave nothing away.\u00a0 Joe began to think he was being deliberately ignored.<\/p>\n \u201cIs that what you want?\u201d said Sam at last.<\/p>\n Joe hesitated only for a moment.\u00a0 \u201cI think it\u2019s for the best,\u201d he repeated, lamely.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ll be in Austin tomorrow.\u00a0 I can take the stage back to Virginia City.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam gave an ungracious shrug.\u00a0 \u201cIf that\u2019s what you want,\u201d he muttered, without even looking at Joe, and they lapsed back into stiff silence. \u00a0After few more uncomfortable minutes, Joe jumped down from the seat and kept pace with the mules on foot, staying a good ten paces in front of Brady.<\/p>\n Austin couldn\u2019t come soon enough.<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n In the small hours of the morning, he awoke with a jump.\u00a0 It had been a tense day, with less than a dozen words between them after Joe had made his announcement to Sam.\u00a0\u00a0 At supper, Sam produced another bottle of whiskey, but showed no inclination to share it, and Joe would have refused if he had.\u00a0 Slipping away at the earliest excuse to the merciful solitude of his bed, he hadn\u2019t expected to fall asleep easily, but his restless nights and long days on the trail had left him wearier than he\u2019d imagined.\u00a0 For once, he was spared the torment of thinking.<\/p>\n But now something had disturbed his rest.\u00a0 He jerked awake, instantly confused to see the canvas in front of his face lit from inside by the intimate glow of yellow lamplight instead of the translucent brightness of morning sunlight.\u00a0 Something else, familiar and threatening, nudged his rousing senses.<\/p>\n He made to roll over and a hand clamped itself firmly over his face.\u00a0 The back of his throat choked with fumes, heady and nauseating. Too late, his brain registered the danger he\u2019d half understood.\u00a0 Ether!\u00a0 Already filling his nose and mouth, fogging his brain.<\/p>\n Like a wild animal caught, he bucked and lashed out with a violence born of panic, and for a moment, breathed free air again.<\/p>\n \u201cNo!\u201d he gasped in desperation as the wagon swam in the lamplight.\u00a0 \u201cNo, Sam!\u00a0 You promised!\u201d<\/p>\n Something hard and heavy \u2013 a knee perhaps – crushed his chest.\u00a0 Confused from sleep and the first mouthfuls of stupefying ether, he flailed blindly and a hand seized his left wrist and pushed his arm down.\u00a0 Sam\u2019s voice spoke close to his ear, chilling in its quiet coolness<\/p>\n \u201cLie still.\u00a0 I\u2019m not going to hurt you. \u00a0This is for you your own good.\u00a0 It won\u2019t be as bad this time, I promise.\u00a0 I won\u2019t give you as much.\u00a0 Just trust me, Joe.\u00a0 It\u2019s only for a day or two. \u00a0Just until we get clear of Austin, that\u2019s all.\u00a0 Trust me, Joe.\u00a0 I won\u2019t hurt you, I promise.\u201d<\/p>\n The cloth was back over his face.\u00a0 Around him the canvas walls undulated like billowing sails in a wild storm.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t hold his breath because he was choking, and he couldn\u2019t push the weight from his chest because his limbs were too heavy. His pinioned arm belonged to someone else.\u00a0 His other arm – where was his other arm?\u00a0 He could no longer feel it.\u00a0 His mind was still fighting, but his body was already succumbing.<\/p>\n \u201cRelax, Joe.\u00a0 I\u2019m not going to hurt you…\u201d<\/p>\n Sam\u2019s face blurred, swam in and out of focus, bloated and hazy.\u00a0 Joe\u2019s mind struggled less and began to float on a warm sea of golden lamplight.<\/p>\n \u201c…not going to hurt you…\u201d<\/p>\n Sam\u2019s face was slipping, melting into the expanding glow around him.\u00a0 His words dissolved into meaningless lumps of sound.\u00a0 Joe\u2019s eyelids closed slowly; the yellow brightness faded into a soft well of ruby darkness as all conscious thought fell away.<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n He came to again with a disturbing sensation of having floated in and out of garish dreams and unpleasant realities that hovered just outside his memory.\u00a0 A familiar and troubling odor hung thick in his throat and coated the inside of his mouth.\u00a0 His brain thudded against the walls of his skull. Light, stark and unforgiving, stabbed at his aching eyelids.<\/p>\n Reluctantly, he opened his eyes and blinked in the cold half light of early morning.\u00a0 He was staring directly at a bottle, and a wad of folded fabric, their outlines indistinct and wavering.\u00a0 For several seconds, his brain remained blank, then awareness washed through him like a cold wave.\u00a0 Ether.\u00a0 Sam had done it again!\u00a0 The pain in his chest, the pain in his head, the nausea in his throat and his belly, they were there because of that.\u00a0 He groaned heavily and lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the hard light.<\/p>\n Austin.\u00a0 He remembered now. They had been only hours from the town.\u00a0 He was going to take the stage home from there.<\/p>\n How long had he been asleep?\u00a0 Joe blinked, trying to clear the lingering fog from inside his head. He had no idea how long he had drifted in his disembodied state of unconsciousness.\u00a0 Carefully he tilted his head and looked around him.<\/p>\n The wagon was as it had always been, except that, lying next to him, head pillowed on his doctor\u2019s bag and breathing heavily, was Sam.\u00a0 An empty whiskey bottle lay upturned near his head and another, almost empty, was still cradled in his hand.\u00a0 Even above the all pervading stench of ether, Joe could detect the powerful scent of the liquor.\u00a0 His stomach muscles clenched and his throat grew tight.\u00a0 With another deep groan, he heaved himself clumsily out of the bed and onto his feet.\u00a0 Immediately he wished he hadn\u2019t.\u00a0 The wagon pitched like a floundering ship beneath him.<\/p>\n He could see open sky beyond the opening in the canvas.\u00a0 Lurching towards it, he tumbled out, his limbs as wobbly as the legs on a newborn calf.\u00a0 He had a brief impression of a mountainside and a pink sunrise as he hunched on the ground and threw up into the dirt.<\/p>\n He was desperately thirsty.\u00a0 Raising his head, he looked about groggily for some water.\u00a0 There was a pail on a stool at the front of the wagon.\u00a0 With an effort, he dragged himself back to his feet. Groping his way along the side of the cart, he steadied himself against a wheel and gulped several hungry mouthfuls.<\/p>\n Where was he?\u00a0 With his wits returning gradually, he could at last take in his surroundings.\u00a0 He had been right in his first impression.\u00a0 They appeared to be camped on a high ridge.\u00a0 He could see other mountains in the near distance.\u00a0 The sun was just nudging over the brow of one as he watched.\u00a0 Even in his befuddled state, the apparent lack of any recognizable road or trail puzzled him.<\/p>\n He took another mouthful of water and poured the rest of the scoop over his head in an effort to dispel the lingering stupor.\u00a0 \u201cJust for a few days.\u00a0 Just until we get clear of Austin.\u201d \u00a0Sam\u2019s words still echoed in a far corner of his confused brain.\u00a0 He rubbed at bleary face.\u00a0 It seemed likely Austin was now behind them.<\/p>\n He shivered in the early morning chill and thought about his jacket.\u00a0 It must be in the wagon still.\u00a0 Along with his boots.\u00a0 He was going to need them if he was going to make his escape.<\/p>\n The plan hadn\u2019t come to him consciously, but he knew without a doubt that he had to get away.\u00a0 Before Sam woke.\u00a0 Before he could force any more vile ether into Joe\u2019s lungs.<\/p>\n First he had to find his boots.\u00a0 He turned from the pail and his heart plummeted as a dark shadow loomed around the end of the wagon.\u00a0 Brady.\u00a0 How could he have forgotten Brady?<\/p>\n \u201cFeeling poorly by any chance?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe tightened his jaw.\u00a0 The water he\u2019d drunk too fast churned in his stomach.\u00a0 He swallowed hard.\u00a0 \u201cWhere are we?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBeautiful spot, ain\u2019t it?\u201d Brady\u2019s lip lifted in a sneer of contempt.\u00a0 \u201cI was raised not far from here.\u00a0 I know this country well.\u00a0 I know all the best places.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cListen,\u201d said Joe, willing his voice and his stomach to remain steady, \u201cI\u2019m prepared to leave.\u00a0 I\u2019ll walk away now.\u00a0 I know you don\u2019t want me here.\u00a0 Well, I don\u2019t want to be here either.\u00a0 So, I\u2019ll go.\u00a0 While Sam\u2019s asleep.\u00a0 I\u2019ll make sure he doesn\u2019t find me again.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady crossed his arms and looked down at the ground, a scornful smile twisting his mouth.\u00a0 \u201cYou think Sam won\u2019t find you again?\u201d\u00a0 He shook his head in mock wonder at Joe\u2019s apparent slowness.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s spent fifteen years dreaming about you and your slut of a mother.\u00a0 At least she<\/em> had the decency to die in the meantime.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s throat constricted so he could barely force the words out.\u00a0 \u201cMy mother wasn\u2019t a slut!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWasn\u2019t she?\u00a0 For a respectable woman, she sure did a lot of entertaining on her back!\u00a0 What would you call it, kid?\u00a0 Face it, your ma was nothing better than a trumped up floozy, and it\u2019s about time you and Sam acknowledged that.\u00a0 Save us all a deal of trouble.\u00a0 Any number of fancy gents or miserable four-flushers could have spawned you, boy.\u00a0 Why Sam\u2019s so fixated on you, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 But he\u2019s not going to let you walk away from him.\u00a0 I would have thought that was obvious even to a soft-brained shave tail like you.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady took a couple of small steps closer, his vast bulk lowering darkly over Joe.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s not going to give up looking for you, Joe.\u00a0 Not while you\u2019re still alive.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe took a clumsy step backwards and bumped into the water pail.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t fall but the water slopped up the sides of the bucket and splashed cold over the back of his legs.<\/p>\n \u201cI should\u2019ve made sure you died, the night of the stampede.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe frowned in spite of himself. \u201cWhat d\u2019you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n Brady\u2019s lip curled. \u201cShould have finished you off then.\u00a0 Like your nosey friend.\u201d<\/p>\n An icy fist closed around Joe\u2019s heart.\u00a0 \u201cHank?\u201d he whispered.<\/p>\n \u201cWas that his name?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou didn\u2019t have to kill Hank.\u00a0 It was me you were after.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe almost spoiled our surprise.\u00a0 Pulled a gun on us.\u00a0 Sealed his own fate.\u00a0 You were supposed to come with us that night.\u00a0 That was the way Sam had planned it, but then that interfering boy…\u201d\u00a0 Brady gave a low chuckle.\u00a0 \u201cI kinda hoped you\u2019d go under those hooves, like your meddlesome friend.\u00a0 Would\u2019ve saved us all this trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHank didn\u2019t go under the hooves.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady raised an eyebrow.\u00a0 \u201cDidn\u2019t he?\u00a0 How did he die then?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou.\u00a0 You killed him.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady gave a shrug as if the manner of Hank\u2019s death was neither here nor there.\u00a0 Joe flicked a glance to his left, the only escape route left to him.<\/p>\n \u201cSo now you\u2019re going to kill me?\u201d<\/p>\n Brady gave a small snort of derision.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not going to kill you, boy.\u00a0 Of course not!\u00a0 Sam would never forgive me if I hurt you.\u201d\u00a0 He grinned at the confusion on Joe\u2019s face.\u00a0 \u201cWhat sort of man would kill the son of his best friend?\u00a0 No, I\u2019m not going to kill you.\u00a0 You\u2019re going to die trying to run away.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s breath came hard and fast in his chest.\u00a0 He shook his head.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter all, you\u2019re still confused and disoriented by all that dope you swallowed.\u00a0 And this is a steep mountain.\u201d\u00a0 Brady jerked his head to the right.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s an awful big drop down there.\u00a0 Of course, I\u2019ll try to stop you before you fall, but you\u2019ll fight me, and I\u2019ll lose my grip.\u00a0 It\u2019s going to devastate me, Joe, watching you tumble all that way down to your death.\u201d<\/p>\n He took a step closer and Joe drew back involuntarily, losing his balance against the stool behind him.\u00a0 He went down in a heap with both stool and bucket, barely aware of the cold water soaking through him as Brady reached down and grabbed him by the shirt.\u00a0 Joe heard the fabric rip and felt Brady\u2019s grip loosen. \u00a0Seizing his opportunity, he lunged sideways and scrambled inelegantly to his feet.<\/p>\n A long arm stretched out and gripped a handful of his hair.\u00a0 Joe yelped with pain as Brady hauled him back and wrapped a thick-muscled arm tightly around his throat.<\/p>\n Brady was built like an ox; Joe was weak from days of drug-induced stupor and lack of food.\u00a0 Holding his writhing prey just clear of the ground, Brady took a few steps forward and Joe froze in Brady\u2019s arms, drew in a sharp gasp of air, and pressed his body backwards into the bulk of the big man behind him as his stomach lurched and his head swirled.<\/p>\n They had reached the edge of the ridge.\u00a0 Immediately in front of them, the mountainside sheered away in a near vertical drop, at least three hundred feet.<\/p>\n \u201cTold you this was a good spot,\u201d said Brady as he released his arm from Joe\u2019s neck and thrust him forward with a hefty shove to his back. \u201cGoodbye, Joe!\u201d<\/p>\n There was no time even to think.\u00a0 Joe\u2019s bare heels scraped on the edge of the cliff, then the ground was gone from under him and he screamed out in terror as he tumbled into space.<\/p>\n \u201cSam!\u201d<\/p>\n The sky spun, the world wheeled.\u00a0 He plummeted into nothingness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chapter 9<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry, fellers.\u201d\u00a0 Perched on the corner of his desk, the sheriff surveyed the three Cartwright men from under his dark brows, and shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cYeah, we got the message from Roy Coffee, but I ain\u2019t seen anything of the wagon you\u2019re after, or the men you\u2019re trying to find.\u00a0 Austin\u2019s a busy town.\u00a0 If they passed through without causing any trouble, there\u2019s every chance I coulda missed them.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa opened his mouth to press the matter, but Adam laid a restraining hand on his arm.\u00a0 \u201cCome on, Pa.\u00a0 No sense wasting time here.\u00a0 We should get out and ask some questions around the town.\u201d<\/p>\n They were all three bone weary; their horses too.\u00a0 Outside the sheriff\u2019s office, Adam stretched his stiff muscles and nodded his head at the hotel across the street.<\/p>\n \u201cMight as well start there.\u00a0 I need a drink.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss gave a nod.\u00a0 \u201cAnd something to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa stared down the street.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m going to check the telegraph office.\u00a0 Maybe there\u2019s news from Roy.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss and Adam exchanged glances.\u00a0 Hoss touched his father\u2019s shoulder.\u00a0 \u201cListen, Pa, you need to give yourself a break.\u00a0 Come and get some food first.\u00a0 We\u2019re not going to be any good to Joe if we drop dead of exhaustion.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa flashed him a distracted look.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve not been much use to Joe at all yet,\u201d he pointed out, and shrugged Hoss\u2019s hand away.\u00a0 \u201cYou boys go and get some food in and I\u2019ll be along as soon as I\u2019ve found out if there\u2019s any news.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam and Hoss were already on their second beer when Pa appeared in the hotel lobby and made his way over to their table.\u00a0 Adam pushed a glass in his direction.\u00a0 Pa sank down in the chair and stared at the drink with blank eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cAnything from Roy?\u201d\u00a0 Adam tried not to let the empty expression on Pa\u2019s face alarm him.\u00a0 They were all worried about Joe, of course they were.\u00a0 Desperately worried.\u00a0 But right now, Adam was more concerned about Pa. They had been riding hard for days, with little rest and less sleep. \u00a0Pa looked ashen, his face gaunt.<\/p>\n Pa shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cNo. Nothing from Roy.\u201d<\/p>\n Something in the way he said it made Adam crease his forehead in a bemused frown.\u00a0 \u201cSomething else then?\u201d<\/p>\n Pa stared at his beer and said nothing.\u00a0 At that moment, their steaks arrived. \u00a0They were all hungry.\u00a0 They\u2019d eaten nothing since breakfast almost ten hours before.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s eat,\u201d said Pa, his voice bereft of emotion.<\/p>\n The food was good, but Pa ate like a man condemned, with no hint that he tasted anything he put in his mouth.\u00a0 He left half his meal untouched, and although Hoss and Adam shared some desultory words about their journey and what they should do next, Pa contributed nothing to the conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe we should start asking around,\u201d said Hoss when they had finished eating.\u00a0 Pa, why don\u2019t you stay here, try and get some rest?\u00a0 You look all in.\u201d<\/p>\n To their surprise, Pa gave a slow nod.\u00a0 \u201cYes,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cI might just do that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s up with him?\u201d\u00a0 Hoss stared after his father as he mounted the hotel stairs, like a man walking to his death.\u00a0 \u201cHe ain\u2019t right, Adam.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam frowned.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s making himself sick.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss rose from his chair.\u00a0 \u201cThe sooner we track down that little brother of ours, the better.\u00a0 Why are we sitting around here?\u00a0 Someone in this dadburned town must have seen them!\u201d\u00a0 He stopped when he saw the look on his brother\u2019s face.\u00a0 \u201cYou ain\u2019t getting no ideas about giving up on him, are you, Adam?\u201d<\/p>\n Adam twitched his mouth.\u00a0 \u201cWhen do<\/em> we give up, Hoss?\u201d<\/p>\n His brother stared at him out of blue eyes clouded with the dust of days of worry.\u00a0 \u201cNot yet, anyways.\u00a0 Not while there\u2019s any hint<\/em> of a trail. Come on, we\u2019ve got some tracking to do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss shot his brother a hard look.<\/p>\n Adam gave a half-hearted shrug.\u00a0 \u201cAlfred Lord Tennyson.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah?\u201d \u00a0Hoss leaned over and hauled Adam from his chair. \u201cNobody never got nothing done by \u2019crasinating on their backsides.\u00a0 Hoss Cartwright!\u201d<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n Pa wasn\u2019t asleep when they returned to the hotel, weary and dispirited; he was in a chair by the window.\u00a0 A single sheet of notepaper hung limply from his fingers.\u00a0 A few weak strands of moonlight filtered between the buildings and through the dusty panes of glass.\u00a0 As Hoss lit the lamps and the soft glow pooled out, Pa looked up, his face as wan as the moonlight.<\/p>\n \u201cYou all right, Pa?\u201d\u00a0 Hoss unbuckled his gun belt and dropped it on the end of the bed.\u00a0 Adam set his on the table.\u00a0 Still Pa didn\u2019t speak.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve turned up a few possibilities.\u201d\u00a0 Hoss, forced his voice to sound bright.\u00a0 He wondered why Pa hadn\u2019t asked.\u00a0 Until now, he had pushed to hear every detail of the smallest clue about Joe\u2019s possible whereabouts.\u00a0 Now he just sat, staring with hollow eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s the letter, Pa?\u201d asked Adam.<\/p>\n For a moment, it was as if Pa hadn\u2019t heard.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t move, his expression remained unchanging.\u00a0 Then he let out a long sigh and looked down at the paper in his hand.\u00a0 Slowly he raised it and held it out to Adam.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess you should see this.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam reached out and took the proffered sheet. Even from a distance, Hoss recognized Joe\u2019s characteristic handwriting.\u00a0 His heart made a painful leap halfway into his mouth.<\/p>\n \u201cRead it out,\u201d said Pa, \u201cso Hoss can hear it too.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam glanced sharply at Pa, then down at the letter.\u00a0 \u201cSeptember twentieth<\/em>,\u201d he began, and drew a deep breath. \u00a0\u201cDear Pa.\u00a0 First of all I have to tell you that I am all right<\/em>…\u201d<\/p>\n A wash of relief flooded through Hoss so that he let out an involuntary whoop of delight.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s alive, Pa!\u201d he burst out, grinning, before the look on his father\u2019s face silenced him again.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t need to worry that I have come to any harm.\u00a0 I am with a doctor.\u00a0 His name is Sam Mitchell.\u00a0 He knew you and Mama in New Orleans.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cPa, this is a real difficult letter to write.\u00a0 I do not want to hurt you and I sure don\u2019t blame you, but something has happened that I need time to think about.\u00a0 Sam Mitchell says he is my real father.\u00a0 I do not yet know if this is true, but I hope you understand that I need time to work out what to do.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAs I write, we are about three days out of Austin.\u00a0 Once there, I will make a decision about what to do next.\u00a0 If you are reading this letter, it is because I have decided to stay with Sam, at least as far as New Orleans.\u00a0 You know how I always wanted to go there.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cPa, none of this changes how I feel about you, or about Adam and Hoss.\u00a0 I will write whenever I can and let you know how I am and where we are. \u00a0Maybe you could write back. I hope to be home again on the Ponderosa in the spring or early summer.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cI sure am going to miss you all, and the Ponderosa.\u00a0 Please give my love to Hoss and Adam and know that, whatever happens, I will always be your loving son.\u00a0 Joseph.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n A somber silence filled the room as Adam stopped reading.\u00a0 Pa\u2019s head was in his hands.\u00a0 Hoss looked at Adam, saw the almost imperceptible shake of the head his brother gave him, and dropped his gaze to the floor.\u00a0 It was a long time before Pa stirred, and when he spoke, his voice sounded too small for his big frame.\u00a0 And dry, like his throat was full of dust.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was left with the telegraph operator.\u00a0 A man paid him money to hang onto it for five days.\u00a0 If no one collected it in that time, he was told to mail it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid he describe the man?\u201d\u00a0 Adam\u2019s voice was as emotionless as Pa\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout thirty five, forty years old.\u00a0 Built like a bear.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam nodded.\u00a0 \u201cMitchell\u2019s companion.\u201d<\/p>\n The unspoken question burned in the air between them.\u00a0 In the end, Hoss could bear it no longer.\u00a0 \u201cWhat does he mean, Pa?\u00a0 About Sam Mitchell being his real father?\u201d<\/p>\n Pa leaned back in the chair in an attitude of complete exhaustion.\u00a0 There was an unfamiliar expression in his eyes that scared Hoss, haunted and desolate.<\/p>\n \u201cI am Joe\u2019s father,\u201d he whispered.<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n From the murky depths of his whiskey-induced coma, Sam Mitchell heard a wild cry of terror pierce the fog of his drunken stupor.<\/p>\n A voice was calling.\u00a0 Outside the wagon.\u00a0 Brady\u2019s voice, shouting his name.\u00a0 Unmistakably urgent. \u00a0And the sound of footsteps thudding closer.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t like Brady to be worked up about anything.\u00a0\u00a0 Sam dragged himself to his feet, trying to ignore the hammering of his brain.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is it?\u201d\u00a0 He and Brady came face to face at the foot of the wagon.\u00a0 The big man\u2019s face was pale, his breath came hard and fast.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s Joe, Sam.\u00a0 He went over the edge!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d\u00a0 Sam swayed, suddenly faint, and gripped the boards of the wagon.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was staggering around like he was drunk.\u00a0 I saw him too late.\u00a0 He just went too close to the edge.\u00a0 Must have been that ether you gave him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhere?\u00a0 Where did he fall?\u201d<\/p>\n Brady pointed.\u00a0 \u201cJust there.\u00a0 By that rock.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam was already stumbling to the edge of the mountain, his legs slow to respond. Falling to his knees at the cliff edge, he leaned out, giving little heed to Brady\u2019s shouts of warning.<\/p>\n A dizzying, near vertical drop fell away below Sam, broken here and there by an uneven outcrop and a few spindly shrubs that had defied the odds and clung tenaciously to the forbidding rock face.\u00a0 Sam\u2019s stomach made an unpleasant flip.<\/p>\n \u201cSam, come away!\u00a0 Before you fall too!\u201d\u00a0 There was fear in Brady\u2019s voice.\u00a0 Sam made to rise, turning backwards, then stopped.\u00a0 With a strangled gasp, he leaned forward again, his body swaying unsteadily in the empty air above the ridge.<\/p>\n \u201cSam!\u00a0 What are you doing?\u00a0 Come away from there!\u00a0 You\u2019ll fall!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBrady!\u00a0 I can see him!\u00a0 He\u2019s caught!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSam, get back, please!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s caught!\u00a0 On a rock or something.\u00a0 I can\u2019t see.\u00a0 About forty feet down.\u201d\u00a0 Sam slid backwards, away from the edge. \u201cI have to go down there, Brady!\u201d<\/p>\n Brady shook his head in horror.\u00a0 \u201cGo down!\u00a0 Are you mad?\u00a0 He\u2019s dead!\u00a0 He\u2019s bound to be dead!\u00a0 Was he moving?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t see.\u201d\u00a0 Sam shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t think so.\u00a0 But we can\u2019t leave him there.\u00a0 Help me get the rope from the wagon.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady held back.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s nowhere near long enough!\u201d<\/p>\n Sam threw his hands up in desperate impatience.\u00a0 \u201cThen find anything else we can tie together!\u201d\u00a0 He started back towards the wagon.<\/p>\n Brady snatched at his arm.\u00a0 \u201cNo, Sam!\u00a0 It\u2019s madness.\u00a0 You\u2019ll both be killed!\u201d<\/p>\n Sam shook off his hand.\u00a0 \u201cTake the tethers off the mules.\u00a0 Use sheets, blankets, anything you can think of!\u00a0 Rip off the canvas if you have to!\u201d\u00a0 Sam looked behind him and saw Brady hesitating.\u00a0 \u201cDo it, Brady!\u00a0 Just do it and hurry!\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chapter 10<\/strong><\/p>\n Joe opened his eyes and saw the sky, still rose-tinted with the remains of the sunrise.<\/p>\n Why wasn\u2019t he dead?\u00a0 He should have been dead.<\/p>\n The mountain top.\u00a0 He remembered that.\u00a0 He remembered looking down, his belly freezing.\u00a0 Then falling.\u00a0 Breathlessly falling through empty space before the world went dark<\/p>\n So why wasn\u2019t he dead?<\/p>\n There was rock at his back, digging into his spine.\u00a0 And rock pressing into his cheek.\u00a0 A taste of blood in his mouth.\u00a0 He tried to turn his face and jerked involuntarily as he glimpsed the sheer drop still below him.<\/p>\n Confused, he closed his eyes and swallowed hard.\u00a0 Opening them again, he glanced upwards.\u00a0 Slowly comprehension dawned in his numbed brain.\u00a0 The steep, stark walls of the mountain towered over him and plunged away in a giddy drop beneath him.\u00a0 Somehow he was suspended, hundreds of feet in the air, wedged tightly against the rock.\u00a0 But how?\u00a0 He should have been lying at the bottom.\u00a0 In broken pieces.\u00a0 How was he here, stuck to the rock?<\/p>\n He was lying on his side, right arm trapped beneath him from the elbow up.\u00a0 Only his forearm and hand were free to move.\u00a0 He groped with fingers that were reluctant to respond and felt the edge of a narrow shelf, protruding only a couple of inches beyond his stretched out body. Was that what had saved him?\u00a0 A shelf, barely a foot wide?<\/p>\n If he moved, he risked falling.\u00a0 The shelf was too narrow.\u00a0 But he couldn\u2019t just lie there.\u00a0 Sit up<\/em>, he told himself.\u00a0 You\u2019ll see everything clearer if you sit up.\u00a0 Maybe there\u2019s a way back to the top.<\/em><\/p>\n He flexed the arm trapped below him in an effort to rise.\u00a0 His vision swam.\u00a0 A rush of nausea swelled through him in a shuddering wave.\u00a0 When that receded and the mist cleared from his head, he was trembling.<\/p>\n Something wasn\u2019t right but he couldn\u2019t work out what.\u00a0 Why couldn\u2019t he move?\u00a0 Was he injured?\u00a0 If he was injured, why wasn\u2019t he hurting?\u00a0 He could definitely taste blood.\u00a0 He\u2019d already swallowed some.\u00a0 Why could he taste blood and not feel the pain of a wound?<\/p>\n He shivered harder.\u00a0 The shivering made the sickness return, made his head spin again.\u00a0 \u201cHelp!\u201d he whispered into the empty air in front of his face.\u00a0 \u201cPlease help!\u201d<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n A tiny stone hit his cheek, rousing him from semi-consciousness.\u00a0 He blinked, confused.\u00a0 He had no idea how long he had been lying there.\u00a0 Minutes?\u00a0 Hours?\u00a0 Nothing had changed.\u00a0 The nightmare was still complete.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe!\u201d<\/p>\n He frowned.\u00a0 It seemed impossible but he was sure someone had spoken his name.\u00a0 He made an attempt to twist his head upwards, and caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m coming Joe.\u00a0 Just hold on.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam!\u00a0 Joe had no idea how Sam could be so near and he was too numb to try and make sense of it.\u00a0 \u201cJust hold on,\u201d Sam\u2019s voice had said.\u00a0 For some reason, Sam\u2019s ignorance struck Joe as funny.\u00a0 So funny he almost laughed.\u00a0 Sam didn\u2019t know what he was talking about.\u00a0 Joe wasn\u2019t holding onto anything.\u00a0 He was just kind of hanging there.\u00a0 That seemed amusing too.\u00a0 Joe\u2019s face twisted into a grimace of a smile.<\/p>\n \u201cMust be God,\u201d he muttered out loud and gave a giggle that turned into a broken hiccup.\u00a0 He imagined God holding him pinned to the mountainside by a single finger.\u00a0 The image seemed funnier the more Joe thought about it.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe?\u201d<\/p>\n He must have closed his eyes then, floated for a few seconds.\u00a0 When he opened them again, Sam was crouching on the ledge, close beside him.\u00a0 Very close because the ledge was so narrow.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSam.\u00a0 What are you doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCome to get you.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe tried to shake his head.\u00a0 The effort made his eyes close.\u00a0 \u201cNo good.\u00a0 I can\u2019t move.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to help you.\u00a0 Listen Joe, your leg\u2019s broken.\u00a0 It\u2019s going to hurt.<\/p>\n Joe frowned and made another attempt at the head shake.\u00a0 \u201cNo.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t hurt.\u00a0 It\u2019s fine.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam reached out and Joe felt his hand press on his right calf.\u00a0 \u201cCan you feel that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUh huh.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDoes it hurt?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe gave a crooked grin.\u00a0 He wished he didn\u2019t feel so exhausted.\u00a0 What was the matter with Sam?\u00a0 Why was he asking stupid questions?<\/p>\n \u201c\u2019Course not!\u201d<\/p>\n Sam leaned over, closer to his face.\u00a0 Joe could smell something strong, something familiar as he spoke.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s the ether, Joe.\u00a0 That\u2019s why it\u2019s not hurting.\u00a0 That\u2019s good.\u00a0 It\u2019ll help when we pull you up.\u201d<\/p>\n Whiskey, that was the smell!\u00a0 Joe remembered then.\u00a0 Sam asleep with a whiskey bottle in his hand.\u00a0 Why was that memory somehow troubling?<\/p>\n Sam straightened up.\u00a0 Joe, peering up at him through blurred eyes, saw he had a rope tied around his middle and he was fumbling at the knot with fingers that looked to Joe\u2019s fogged brain like they were struggling.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to tie this onto you, Joe, and Brady\u2019s going to pull you up.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady?\u00a0\u00a0 Joe\u2019s eyes flicked to the cliff then back to Sam. \u201cNo,\u201d he muttered.\u00a0 \u201cBrady\u2026pushed me.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam had the rope untied.\u00a0 He was leaning forward again, preparing to wrap it around Joe\u2019s middle.\u00a0 He stopped and stared at Joe\u2019s face.\u00a0 Then he turned his gaze upwards to the top of the mountain.\u00a0 Finally he looked back at Joe and his mouth was set in a hard straight line.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, he\u2019s going to pull you up now.\u201d<\/p>\n There was nothing Joe could do to help or prevent his fate.\u00a0 His body refused to comply with the simplest instruction.\u00a0 Sam reached down to thread the rope beneath him.<\/p>\n Joe wasn\u2019t sure what happened then.\u00a0 Sam\u2019s hand tugged gently at his side and once more he was overcome by a powerful rush of swirling giddiness and a rising tide of nausea.\u00a0 His entire body jerked in a violent spasm.\u00a0 Sam, caught off guard, was knocked backwards.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t even make any sound.\u00a0 Through the mist, Joe had a brief, frozen image of his look of startled surprise; his eyes wide, his open mouth forming a perfect \u201cOh!\u201d as he toppled backwards.<\/p>\n And then he was gone.<\/p>\n \u201cNo-o!\u201d\u00a0 As if from a long way off, Joe heard his own wavering cry of horror.\u00a0 The fog was still thickening in his brain; the sky was speckling; consciousness was spinning away.\u00a0 Sam was gone.\u00a0 Help was lost.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chapter 11<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAre we doin\u2019 the right thing, Adam?\u201d\u00a0 Hoss set down his beer on the table in front of him and looked at his brother with dull eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know, Hoss.\u00a0 I don\u2019t see what else we can do.\u00a0 Joe says he\u2019s fine.\u00a0 He\u2019s promised he\u2019ll write.\u00a0 And when he writes, we\u2019ll know where he is.\u00a0 Then, maybe, we\u2019ll be able to find him.\u00a0 Until then, we\u2019re just stabbing around in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss fell silent again, staring moodily into his beer.\u00a0 Adam tried to relish the silence.\u00a0 They had done so much talking, so much arguing in the last twenty hours that the silence should have been a blessed relief.\u00a0 But somehow it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you thinking, Hoss?\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cJus\u2019 can\u2019t get what happened to Hank Murray outa my head.\u00a0 You don\u2019t beat someone to death by accident.\u00a0 And whichever of them done that, Joe\u2019s still there, with them both.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam\u2019s mouth tightened.\u00a0 \u201cWe have to stop thinking the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI feel so danged useless!\u201d<\/p>\n Adam gave a brief nod.\u00a0 \u201cYeah, so do I.\u00a0 But we\u2019ve got Pa to think about too.\u00a0 We\u2019ve just got to try and get some sense of normality back.\u00a0 We\u2019ve done everything we can.\u00a0 And Joe\u2019s made a choice.\u00a0 Maybe it will turn out for the best, after all.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss leaned forward across the table, an uncharacteristic vehemence in his voice. \u201cYou think he knows them fellers killed Hank?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t follow that they\u2019re going to hurt Joe.\u00a0 What would they gain by it?\u00a0 If they were after money, we\u2019d have heard by now.\u00a0 Maybe he really does believe Joe\u2019s his son.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, well Joe\u2019s no business to think so!\u201d Hoss banged his glass down on the table.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t understand any of this, Adam!\u201d\u00a0 He rose from his seat so violently he almost turned his chair over.\u00a0 Adam picked up his hat and hurried after him, out of the saloon.<\/p>\n \u201cHoss, slow down, will you?\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss stopped in the middle of the street, his big shoulders slumped.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Adam. Little Joe\u2019s my brother and I just can\u2019t think of him any other way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s my brother too, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss gave a defeated shrug. \u201cYeah, I know that.\u00a0 I just don\u2019t want to give up on him.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam put a hand on his brother\u2019s huge shoulder. \u201cWe\u2019re not giving up on him.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss gave a heavy sigh.\u00a0 \u201cYeah, I guess I know that too.\u201d\u00a0 He raised his head and looked back down the street in the direction of the hotel.\u00a0 \u201cReckon we\u2019d better be getting back.\u00a0 If we\u2019re heading on back to the Ponderosa first thing tomorrow, we\u2019ve got an early start.\u00a0 And we don\u2019t want Pa worrying about where we\u2019ve gone.\u00a0 Wish we coulda persuaded him to come on out for a breath of fresh air.\u00a0 He ain\u2019t left that hotel room since we arrived in this town.\u201d<\/p>\n They started back slowly.\u00a0 Suddenly Adam reached out a hand and gripped Hoss\u2019s arm.<\/p>\n \u201cHoss, look.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss\u2019s eyes followed his own.\u00a0 Adam felt the muscles tighten in his brother\u2019s big forearm.\u00a0 \u201cWell, I\u2019ll be…!\u201d<\/p>\n Rolling down the center of the street, large as life in the afternoon sun, was a wagon, pulled by two mules.<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n Brady slumped in the chair in the sheriff\u2019s office, his giant frame sagging beneath its own weight.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m telling you, they\u2019re dead!\u201d he insisted.\u00a0 \u201cWe were camped up on Blackstone Ridge.\u00a0 They were drunk.\u00a0 The boy went over the edge and Sam went down after him, trying to help.\u00a0 Then he fell too.\u00a0 I tried to stop him, but Sam\u2019s as stubborn as both them mules put together.\u201d\u00a0 Brady dropped his head into his hands and shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cI told him we shoulda left the boy.\u00a0 He\u2019s brung us nothing but trouble.\u00a0 Sam and me, we were doing just fine on our own.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s Blackstone Ridge?\u201d\u00a0 Pa couldn\u2019t keep the desperation out of his voice.\u00a0 Adam was only surprised he hadn\u2019t already grabbed Brady by the throat to wring the information out of him.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout twenty miles south east of here,\u201d said the sheriff.\u00a0 He turned again to Brady. \u201cYou want any leniency from a jury over the killing of that Murray boy, you better do all you can to cooperate now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI already told you, it was the stampede killed him.\u00a0 He was good and alive when he ran off from us.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa took a threatening step forward.\u00a0 \u201cHank\u2019s death was nothing to do with that stampede.\u00a0 He was deliberately beaten and he died of those injuries.\u00a0 Now you take me to where my son fell.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady groaned.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s the point?\u00a0 It\u2019s a three hundred foot drop.\u00a0 The boy\u2019s carrion by now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDead or not, you\u2019ll take us there or I\u2019ll swing for you, I swear it!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn your feet, Brady!\u201d\u00a0 The sheriff pulled a set of handcuffs from the drawer of his desk.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re taking that wagon back out to Blackstone Ridge.\u201d\u00a0 He looked across at his deputy, waiting by the door.\u00a0 \u201cAnd we\u2019re gonna need plenty of rope.\u00a0 See what you can find.\u201d<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n The sun was starting to slip down behind the mountain by the time they reached the summit of the ridge, their journey silent for the most part.\u00a0 The sheriff had been grim-faced as they left the office.\u00a0 \u201cIf he can show us where they went over, we\u2019ll have a better idea where to search for the bodies,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a chance they\u2019re still alive, ain\u2019t there?\u201d\u00a0 Hoss had not been prepared to give up.\u00a0 Not yet.\u00a0 But the sheriff\u2019s face had answered for him, and after that Hoss had fallen silent too.<\/p>\n \u201cOver there, by that flat rock,\u201d said Brady, secured by a chain to an iron ring on the side of the wagon.\u00a0 He turned his eyes away as though the sight of the cliff edge pained them.<\/p>\n The sheriff sucked his teeth.\u00a0 \u201cIf they went down there, it\u2019s not going to be easy.\u201d\u00a0 He walked to the lip of the ridge and sank down on one knee.\u00a0 The three Cartwrights did the same.\u00a0 In silence, they gazed at the sickening drop beneath them and although nobody said as much, they knew they were all imagining the same terrible moment.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe!\u201d whispered Pa, his voice breaking beneath the pain.\u00a0 He stepped back from the edge, unable to contemplate the yawning void that had swallowed his son so completely, and stood with his head hunched down into his shoulders.<\/p>\n With the sun behind them, the mountainside below had fallen into shadow.\u00a0 Only Hoss\u2019s sharp gaze noticed the tiny pale smudge, way down the precipice.\u00a0 He screwed his eyes, trying to work out what it was he was looking at.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t look like a rock, and it was too pale to be a clump of brush.<\/p>\n \u201cAdam,\u201d he muttered, hardly daring to believe what his eyes were telling him.\u00a0 \u2018Look.\u00a0 Down there. There\u2019s a body.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa spun round again.\u00a0 For a moment, no one moved, then Pa\u2019s voice said, \u201cWhose?\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Can\u2019t tell.\u201d<\/p>\n The sheriff jumped to his feet in a sudden flurry of motion. \u00a0He was at the wagon and had Brady by the shirt front almost before anyone could draw breath.<\/p>\n \u201cDid you see, Brady?\u00a0 When they fell?\u201d<\/p>\n Brady tried to shrug his hand away, refusing even to raise his head. The sheriff looked back at the Cartwrights.\u00a0 \u201cHe said Joe fell and Mitchell went after him to help him.\u201d\u00a0 He turned back to Brady.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s what you said, wasn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Back in my office.\u00a0 You said Joe fell and Mitchell went down after him?\u00a0 Is that Joe down there?\u201d<\/p>\n Brady hunched his shoulders and stared fixedly at the wagon.<\/p>\n \u201cLord help you, Brady!\u00a0 If you don\u2019t want to hang, man, tell us who it is!\u201d<\/p>\n Brady raised a sullen face and glared at the sheriff with venom in his eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, it ain\u2019t Sam!\u201d he spat, and tugged his arm his arm free with a violent jerk.<\/p>\n The sheriff was already clambering into the back of the wagon and Pa was there beside him.\u00a0 Adam hurried to help. Only Hoss was left on the edge of the ridge, his blue gaze still fixed on the shape of a man stretched across the treacherous rock face way below.\u00a0 Hoss could barely make out the shelf that held him, no more than a thin dark line running horizontally across the cliff.\u00a0 Hoss\u2019s heart hammered to see it.\u00a0 How could anyone stay balanced on so narrow a ledge?\u00a0 Was there some kind of fissure there, invisible to Hoss\u2019s eye, that held Joe wedged?\u00a0 Hoss found himself praying there was. He could hear the three men behind him, barking orders, scrabbling with ropes, unhitching the mule team, yet he stayed where he was, his unflinching gaze fixed on his brother so far below, as though he could keep Joe from falling by the sheer unblinking strength of his eyes.<\/p>\n Adam crouched down by his side.\u00a0 He poked his head over the cliff as if to reassure himself that Joe was still there.\u00a0 Hoss, finally dragging his gaze back to the mountaintop, saw how white his brother\u2019s face was. He also saw the rope knotted around Adam\u2019s body, snaking back to the mule team, and a coil of narrower cord over his shoulder.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going down after him Hoss.\u00a0 Watch the rope, will you?\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss nodded without speaking.\u00a0 He looked behind him.\u00a0 Pa and the sheriff had positioned the wagon and were now securing the end of a second rope to the axle.\u00a0 When they were happy with the fastening, Pa picked up the heavy coil and hurried down to join his two sons.<\/p>\n \u201cAre we about right?\u201d\u00a0 His eyes flicked nervously between the wagon and the cliff edge.<\/p>\n Hoss leaned back out, noted Joe\u2019s position once more and looked back at Pa.\u00a0 \u201cRight on target, I\u2019d say.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa gave a tense nod and began to pay out the rope.\u00a0 Hoss watched it snake down the steep drop.<\/p>\n \u201cYep,\u201d said Hoss.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s made it.\u00a0 Less than two feet away, I reckon.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa fed out the remainder of the rope.\u00a0 They watched the line by their feet draw tight.\u00a0 Hoss climbed to his feet and took hold of the rope holding Adam and gave his brother a sharp nod.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve got ya, Adam.<\/p>\n \u201cAdam.\u201d\u00a0 Pa reached out and seized his son\u2019s wrist in a tight grip.\u00a0 Hoss saw their eyes meet and for a moment neither of them said anything.\u00a0 Pa\u2019s hand squeezed.\u00a0 \u201cYou be careful, son.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam gave a curt nod.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd… whatever you find\u2026 down there…\u201d\u00a0 Pa\u2019s voice faltered momentarily.\u00a0 \u201cWhatever you find, you bring your brother back with you, you understand?\u201d<\/p>\n Adam\u2019s mouth was a taut line.\u00a0 He nodded again.\u00a0 Despite his pallor, there was determination in his face, although Hoss was close enough to see the flicker of fear in his brother\u2019s eyes as he picked up the guide rope from the ground, took a deep breath, and stepped backwards, leaning his body out over the void of space.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chapter 12<\/strong><\/p>\n Alone on the mountainside, flitting in and out of confused wakefulness, the passing hours stretched to eternity. \u00a0Only the gradual return of full sensation to his body and the arch of the white ball of the sun across a bleached blue sky told Joe the day was gradually drawing on.<\/p>\n First there was fear and then there was pain.\u00a0 And at some point the two merged and became indistinguishable. \u00a0\u00a0He could not pinpoint the pain.\u00a0 He thought it might be his leg that was hurting, but then his head was hurting too.\u00a0 And his chest.\u00a0 And his back.\u00a0 It hurt to open his eyes; it hurt to breathe; it hurt to swallow.\u00a0 If he tried to move, the pain rose to a screaming crescendo and exploded in bright lights inside his brain.<\/p>\n The fear was a pain of its own.\u00a0 Every time he forced open his eyes and saw the emptiness of the sky in front of him, it drove sharp nails into his belly and up into his heart.\u00a0 The mountain, high and unrelenting, terrified him; that drop into the belly of space beneath him terrified him; and terror clutched at him every time a spasm of pain gripped him and wrung him like a torn rag.\u00a0 But mostly the fear was of loneliness; the fear of dying here; a long, slow death, suffering and alone.<\/p>\n He had long given up wondering why his body still clung of its own inexplicable accord to this empty rock face.\u00a0 He had given up wondering at all.\u00a0 All there was left was the pain, and his mind was so tired, even the pain had begun to detach itself.\u00a0 Exhaustion numbed even the fear.\u00a0 As the shadows crept over the mountain, Joe opened his eyes one more time, saw the darkness approaching, and felt nothing.<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n Adam had never been afraid of heights, but then he had never dangled precariously on a rope hundreds of feet in the air.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t a pleasant sensation.<\/p>\n The lower he dropped, the darker the mountainside became, and the smaller he felt.\u00a0 Close to, the rock was not smooth, but an uneven wall, jutting outwards here and curving away there.\u00a0 His hands were already burning from sliding down the guide rope, but the fear of the mountain was nothing compared to the fear that gripped his throat when he thought about Joe and what he might find when he reached his brother.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever you find, you bring your brother back with you…\u201d<\/p>\n Pa\u2019s voice played over in his head as he lowered himself foot by foot into the abyss. When he looked up, he could see Pa\u2019s head, outlined against the sky, watching his descent, and he could picture Hoss, feeding the rope that held him. If he trusted anyone to dangle him over a three hundred foot drop, thought Adam, he trusted Hoss.<\/p>\n He paused twice to look below him, trying not to let the dizzying drop distract him from the focus of his attentions, Joe\u2019s prostrate form, unnervingly stretched on a shelf so narrow, if he had tried to roll onto his front, he would undoubtedly have fallen.<\/p>\n Was that why he was lying so still?\u00a0 Was he conscious and aware of his own terrible predicament; his back pressed so tightly to the rock because he dared not move?\u00a0 Or was he oblivious, trapped in some way Adam couldn\u2019t yet see?\u00a0 Brady said he had been there since sunrise.\u00a0 That was a long time.\u00a0 Yet, thought Adam, if he\u2019d clung on that long, he could surely cling on a little longer.<\/p>\n The third time he looked, he was close enough to see Joe\u2019s face, in profile, partially obscured by the tangled mop of his untidy hair.\u00a0 In the failing light, his brother\u2019s face looked ghostly pale.\u00a0 He was lying on his right side, his back pressed into the rock behind him, his right leg below the knee protruding at an angle nature never intended.\u00a0 Adam could now see clearly the shelf on which he was lying.\u00a0 He baulked at its width, but it extended beyond Joe\u2019s head by a good three or four foot.\u00a0 His guide rope would bring him down on the ledge about eighteen inches from Joe\u2019s tousled head.<\/p>\n His feet found the shelf.\u00a0 He breathed a deep sigh of relief and let his arms relax for a few seconds.\u00a0 Looking up, he raised his hand and gave a wide wave.\u00a0 Pa\u2019s arm returned the signal.<\/p>\n Quickly he fished up the dangling guide rope and tied it loosely around his waist above the other knot.\u00a0 Joe would go back up on that rope.\u00a0 All Adam had to do now was get that lifeline secured around his brother\u2019s middle and the mule team would haul them back up that mountain as if they were no more than sacks of potatoes.\u00a0 Easy!<\/p>\n \u201cJoe?\u201d\u00a0 He sank down on his hands and knees, unpleasantly aware of the stomach-chilling drop on his right hand side, and crawled the last few inches to his brother\u2019s head.\u00a0 He laid a hand on Joe\u2019s hair.\u00a0 His heart hammered hard in his chest, and not simply from the exertions of his descent down the mountain.\u00a0 \u201cJoe?\u00a0 Can you hear me?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe groaned softly.\u00a0 Adam muscles went weak with relief.\u00a0 He gave his brother\u2019s shoulder a gentle squeeze. \u00a0\u201cYou had me scared, little brother!\u201d<\/p>\n The most important thing, Adam reminded himself, was to get Joe secured with a rope.\u00a0 Everything else could wait.\u00a0 He untied the loose knot of his guide rope and leaned across to thread it between Joe and the rocks behind him.<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s body flinched.\u00a0 Adam hesitated.\u00a0 Something wasn\u2019t right. There was no space to pass the rope behind his brother\u2019s body.\u00a0 Supporting Joe with his right arm, he slid his left hand behind Joe\u2019s back.<\/p>\n Once again, Joe\u2019s body recoiled, squeezing Adam\u2019s hand into the rock. Joe let out another low moan.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe?\u201d\u00a0 Adam peered back along his own shoulders to look at his brother\u2019s face.\u00a0 It was creased with pain.\u00a0 \u201cYou with me, kid?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s eyes opened.\u00a0 They stared straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to Adam\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe, it\u2019s me.\u00a0 Adam.\u201d<\/p>\n At last he saw something flicker in the depths of Joe\u2019s eyes.\u00a0 The boy\u2019s mouth shaped his name, then his head twisted just a fraction.\u00a0 He blinked up at Adam\u2019s body, hovering above him, and his gaze became puzzled as it traveled slowly to meet his brother\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cAdam?\u201d\u00a0 This time the sound came out.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, it\u2019s me.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to get you out of here, kid.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe blinked at him, confused.\u00a0 Adam repeated the words.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m going to get you out of here.\u00a0 I\u2019ve just got to get this rope tied around you.\u201d<\/p>\n The confusion cleared.\u00a0 After a moment, Joe\u2019s head made a slight nod.<\/p>\n Adam\u2019s hand was still pinned behind his brother\u2019s back.\u00a0 He slid it carefully downwards, feeling Joe wince.<\/p>\n \u201cDoes your back hurt, Joe?\u00a0 Can you tell me where?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe frowned.\u00a0 It took him a moment to process the answer.\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t know,\u201d he muttered, his voice thick and slow.\u00a0 Then his body jerked and he let out a wavering cry.<\/p>\n Adam froze.\u00a0 He knew now what was wrong with Joe\u2019s back.\u00a0 He also knew why his brother was pressed so tightly to the face of the rock.\u00a0 Beneath his fingers, fastening Joe to the cliff was a wooden branch, as thick as a broom handle<\/p>\n Adam\u2019s stomach did a tight somersault.\u00a0 He closed his eyes for several seconds and took a deep breath, his fingers still resting against the offending object. \u00a0\u201cJoe,\u201d he said quietly, \u201cI\u2019m going to have to move you, and I think it might hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe was still trembling from the last onslaught.\u00a0 Keeping his left hand where it was, and very still, Adam moved his right hand across Joe\u2019s front, gently pulling his shirt out of the way.\u00a0 The boy\u2019s muscles flinched warily as he ran his hand beneath Joe\u2019s belt, his mind carefully working out the possibilities as his eyes measured the likely angles the branch would have taken as it pierced through Joe\u2019s side.<\/p>\n His hand met only smooth, unbroken flesh; not telltale spike protruding.\u00a0 Joe was impaled, but the branch, or tree root, or whatever it was, had not gone right through him.\u00a0 Adam let his right hand rest back on the ledge in front of Joe<\/p>\n \u201cAdam, what\u2019s happened?\u201d\u00a0 His brother\u2019s voice was little more than a dry murmur.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing, Joe.\u00a0 You\u2019re going to be fine.\u00a0 I just have to move you a little.\u00a0 You ready for this?\u201d<\/p>\n He caught the tiny nod and drew another deep breath.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t at all sure how he was going to achieve what he needed to do.\u00a0 He was at the wrong angle to get the hold he needed to pull Joe free.\u00a0 Worse, from the little he could feel with the limited space he had for his left hand, the branch had grown out from its crevice in the rock at an upward angle.\u00a0 To free Joe he was going to need to lift him as he pulled.\u00a0 It made Adam\u2019s own insides turn cold to imagine what damage might already have been done inside his brother.<\/p>\n What he needed, he thought, was a saw.\u00a0 But he didn\u2019t have a saw.\u00a0 He had only his hands, and a shelf that was too narrow, and a brother who was going to die if he didn\u2019t do something soon.<\/p>\n \u201cAll right, Joe, you\u2019re going to have to help me.\u201d\u00a0 He took hold of Joe\u2019s free left arm and wrapped it around his own right shoulder.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m going to lift you a little way. I want you to hang onto me as tight as you can, do you hear me?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe gave a small grunt.\u00a0 Whether it was an acknowledgement or a grunt of pain, Adam wasn\u2019t sure.\u00a0 Leaning forward, he got the best grip he could manage around his brother\u2019s body and pulled slowly, in the direction he desperately hoped was the right one.<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s arm clenched across the back of his neck as the muscles in his body convulsed in protest.\u00a0 Locked in a contorted embrace, his sharp cries of anguish drove directly into Adam\u2019s left ear and straight into his heart.\u00a0 In the terrible seconds that followed, Adam wasn\u2019t sure who suffered more; Joe, as his back gradually eased free of that hideous spike, or Adam, knowing the agony he was inflicting on his brother. \u00a0Worst of all, he wasn\u2019t at all confident the attempt would succeed.\u00a0 The narrowness of their perch meant he could pull only with his arms and shoulders, and once he\u2019d begun, he didn\u2019t dare stop.\u00a0 He could see the bloodied spike lengthening painfully slowly as he heaved Joe clear, but he knew that if he let go of his brother now, his weight would take him straight back down, to be impaled a second time.<\/p>\n He could hear Joe gasping.\u00a0 His own shoulders and upper back were on fire with the strain.\u00a0 Joe\u2019s body was rigid in his arms.<\/p>\n \u201cStop!\u00a0 Adam, stop!\u00a0 Please!\u00a0 It hurts\u2026too much!\u201d<\/p>\n Adam gritted his teeth.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re almost there, Joe.\u00a0 Just hang on in there, kid.\u00a0 We\u2019re almost there.\u201d<\/p>\n He had no idea if that was the truth.\u00a0 The wooden spike was emerging only fraction by painful fraction.\u00a0 \u201cPlease!\u201d he heard himself whisper, unsure whether he was addressing God or the inanimate object protruding so obscenely from his brother\u2019s back.<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s body went limp.\u00a0 Adam adjusted his grip in time to stop him sagging backwards as a sickening fear tightened in his gullet.\u00a0 \u201cJoe?\u201d he breathed, twisting his head in an attempt to see Joe\u2019s face.\u00a0 But his brother\u2019s head had drooped; all Adam could see was a tangle of disheveled curls.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t you dare die on me, Joe!\u201d he said in a fierce voice.\u00a0 \u201cNot when we\u2019ve come this far, you hear me?\u201d<\/p>\n He felt the sudden lack of resistance. Joe\u2019s body slumped forward.\u00a0 Staring at the space behind him, Adam saw the barb in all its gory totality; the sheared stump of a young shrub.\u00a0 Joe\u2019s weight must have snapped it apart as he fell, leaving a pointed spear protruding from the fissure in the rock.\u00a0 He looked down in alarm at the corresponding hole in Joe\u2019s lower back.\u00a0 Blood was already welling up beneath his torn shirt and soaking down into the seat of his pants, a dark stain rapidly spreading.\u00a0 Adam knew he would have to move fast.<\/p>\n Forcing himself to stay calm, he took up the spare rope again, threading it swiftly beneath his brother and knotting it with hands that were trembling.\u00a0 There was no time for relief.\u00a0 Blood was already pooling on the rocks.\u00a0 Hurriedly Adam tugged the torn shirt from Joe\u2019s shoulders, bundled it against the ragged wound and tied the sleeves around his brother\u2019s waist, beneath the rope.<\/p>\n A foot or so behind them, the shelf was a whole precious couple of inches wider. Hefting Joe beneath the arms, Adam hauled him back.\u00a0 Joe stirred and moaned.<\/p>\n \u201cSorry, little brother.\u00a0 I know it hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe muttered something unrepeatable.\u00a0 In spite of their dire situation, Adam started to laugh, but the laughter wobbled in his throat and turned instead into something resembling a shaky sob.\u00a0 He swallowed down a fleeting moment of uncontrolled panic.<\/p>\n \u201cDidn\u2019t know you knew words like that, little brother,\u201d he said, with forced jocularity.\u00a0 \u201cJust lie still a moment while I see what I can do about your leg.\u201d<\/p>\n He couldn\u2019t go around Joe in the confined space they had.\u00a0 Once more he had to clamber over him, balancing on his knees, one leg either side of Joe\u2019s hips.\u00a0 He tried to sound light-hearted as he slipped the spare rope from around his neck.<\/p>\n \u201cGood thing you\u2019re such a shrimp, little brother.\u00a0 If you\u2019d been Hoss, I\u2019d have needed scaffolding to do this!\u201d<\/p>\n Joe made a brave attempt at a laugh as he peered down with bleary eyes at Adam, kneeling astride him.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u201cIf you were only Hattie Miller right now…\u201d<\/p>\n His voice may have been slurred and little more than a whisper but Adam could have cried with relief for his brother\u2019s unquenchable courage.\u00a0 As it was, he did his best to sound reproachful.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re an incurable reprobate, you know that?\u201d Rubbing sweat from his eyes with his sleeve, Adam gritted his teeth and pulled his brother\u2019s twisted leg straight. \u00a0Joe sucked in breath in a hoarse gasp. \u00a0Carefully Adam secured the broken limb to Joe\u2019s sound leg, using the spare rope.\u00a0 Edging backwards, his mouth tightened at the sickly yellow pallor of his brother\u2019s exhausted face.<\/p>\n \u201cHattie Miller, eh?\u201d he said in a bright voice.\u00a0 \u201cI didn\u2019t know there was anything going on between the two of you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIsn\u2019t really.\u00a0 Not yet…\u201d\u00a0 Joe\u2019s eyes were glassing over, his voice no more than an indistinct murmur.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to get you back to Virginia City soon, little brother, so you can continue to woo her with your charms.\u00a0 Before someone else snatches her away.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe eyelids closed and his mouth twitched in a faint smile.\u00a0 Then his eyes flicked open once more and there was a sudden, feverish earnestness in their depths.<\/p>\n \u201cAdam.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou won\u2019t leave me, will you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLeave you?\u201d\u00a0 Adam took the hand that was groping, half-blindly, for his.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not planning on going anywhere without you.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s hand relaxed in his grip.\u00a0 They had been here long enough, thought Adam.\u00a0 Time to make their ascent back up this mountain.\u00a0 The shadows were deepening; there was already a chill in the air.\u00a0 He leaned down so he could hitch Joe off the ledge, and his brother spoke close to his ear.<\/p>\n \u201cHow did you find me?\u201d<\/p>\n Adam eased Joe gently into his arms, cradling him against his own body.\u00a0 \u201cBrady.\u00a0 He said you\u2019d fallen.\u00a0 Showed us where to find you.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam reached up and gave three firm tugs on the rope that held him.\u00a0 Joe frowned with an effort.\u00a0 \u201cDidn\u2019t fall,\u201d he whispered.\u00a0 \u201cBrady pushed me.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chapter 13<\/strong><\/p>\n As soon as the signal came \u2013 three tugs on the rope \u2013 Hoss tightened his sweating palms on the leather harness and urged the mules forward.<\/p>\n \u201cEasy!\u201d yelled Pa.\u00a0 \u201cWe don\u2019t want to smash them into the rocks.\u201d<\/p>\n The sheriff was at Hoss\u2019s side.\u00a0 The two men exchanged glances.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re both coming up,\u201d said the sheriff.<\/p>\n Hoss pressed his lips together and said nothing.\u00a0 They unspoken question hung between them.\u00a0 Was Adam bringing up a brother still breathing, or a lifeless carcass?\u00a0 He had been down there a long time.\u00a0 Hoss hoped that was a good sign.\u00a0 Surely, if Joe had been plain dead, Adam would have simply wrapped a line around him and had them haul him up.\u00a0 Surely Adam fussing meant Joe had to be alive.\u00a0 But then Pa, hanging over the cliff to try and follow progress, called back that Adam seemed to be having trouble freeing up Joe\u2019s body, and Hoss\u2019s shoulders slumped.<\/p>\n It was a relief to be doing something.\u00a0 Anything.\u00a0 Better than standing around helplessly, just waiting, none the wiser. \u00a0At least they would know soon, one way or the other.\u00a0 Hoss focused his mind on the mules.\u00a0 It was up to him to make sure Adam and Joe had a safe ride back to the top again.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s good!\u201d called Pa.\u00a0 \u201cAbout thirty feet. Nice and smooth!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou heard him, girls,\u201d said Hoss to the mules, \u201cnice and smooth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTwenty feet!\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss\u2019s stomach tightened involuntarily as his brothers\u2019 ascent drew closer.\u00a0 When Adam appeared over that ridge, what would they see?\u00a0 He tried to push the dread away.\u00a0 One thing at a time.\u00a0 First they had to get Adam to the top.\u00a0 Just concentrate on the job in hand.\u00a0 He would know soon enough.<\/p>\n He was almost level with the wagon.\u00a0 The sheriff was at the head of the second mule.\u00a0 The rope was taut behind them.<\/p>\n Not long now, thought Hoss.\u00a0 A few moments more and…<\/p>\n Something solid smashed into his face.\u00a0 Glittering colors exploded in front of his eyes.\u00a0 He staggered backwards, colliding with the mule he was leading, and felt the earth beneath his back. He had a momentary impression of the sky below him, then the world righted itself.\u00a0 Eyes streaming, he felt a hoof graze his cheek and scrambled out of the way, just in time.<\/p>\n Blood was spurting from his nose.\u00a0 He pressed a hand to his face to try and stem the flow as his scattered senses regrouped and he scrambled, on instinct, back to his feet.\u00a0 Through vision still blurred by tears of pain, he saw the sheriff, also picking himself up from the ground, heard him yell a warning, turned his eyes to see Brady, head down like a charging bull, thundering towards Pa at the edge of the cliff.\u00a0 Between his hands, Brady held a six foot plank.\u00a0 It took Hoss\u2019s stunned brain a moment to register that his hands were still cuffed, the chains still fastened to the solid length of wood he had ripped from the wagon by brute force.<\/p>\n \u201cPa!\u201d he bellowed, staggering forward, hand still cupping his smashed nose.<\/p>\n A gunshot rang out.\u00a0 Hoss saw Brady stumble but keep on running, saw him collide with Pa, saw both men topple, saw Brady, arms flailing, scrabbling to hold onto Pa as he lost his balance, saw Pa break loose and tumble backwards as Brady disappeared with a loud cry of protest, over the edge of the precipice.<\/p>\n Hoss\u2019s gaze was focused on Pa, now lying on the rim of the cliff, but the sheriff\u2019s yell of alarm woke his brain.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mules!\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss swung around.\u00a0 The sheriff, gun still in hand, was lunging for the startled animals who had backed up, tossing their heads and were now stamping indignantly as they headed off in the other direction.<\/p>\n At least Pa was still alive.\u00a0 His bellow, echoing the sheriff\u2019s, rang in Hoss\u2019s ears as he made a grab for the rope stretched tight behind the mutinous team and hauled back with every ounce of strength in his body.<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n Adam gave a sharp cry of alarm as the rope above him slackened without warning, plunging him ten feet.\u00a0 Acting on a reflex, he tightened his grip across his brother\u2019s chest as the ropes holding them swung wildly, throwing them with force into the solid wall of rock.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t time to twist his body so his legs could absorb the impact; instead it was his shoulder that collided with a resounding thud.\u00a0 He heard Joe\u2019s anguished gasp even over his own his own breathless grunt of pain.<\/p>\n Swinging like a pendulum out of control, they plummeted another couple of feet. What was going on up there?\u00a0 In desperation he lifted his face, bracing himself for a second collision with the unforgiving mountainside and saw the shadow hurtling towards them.\u00a0 There was barely time to utter an involuntary oath.\u00a0 His body coiled instinctively, but there was nowhere to go.<\/p>\n Air rushed past, close to his face, like the brush of a hand.\u00a0 His eyes squeezed shut of their own accord.<\/p>\n \u201cPa!\u201d He could clearly hear the terror in his own voice.\u00a0 They swung once more into the rocks, but this time, somehow, without even thinking, he managed to fend off with his feet.\u00a0 \u201cPa!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAdam!\u201d\u00a0 The answering shout came from above.<\/p>\n Adam\u2019s face flipped upwards.\u00a0 His heart was trying to force its way out of his throat.\u00a0 And there were his father\u2019s head and shoulders.<\/p>\n Their crazy momentum slowed.\u00a0 Adam felt the gentle upwards tug once again, but his heart still raced.\u00a0 He adjusted his grip on Joe, only now aware of the slump in his brother\u2019s body.\u00a0 \u201cJoe?\u201d he whispered, but Joe, cradled against him, was silent and limp.\u00a0 Only the spreading warmth of the blood oozing through the makeshift bandage around his middle, seeping into Adam\u2019s own side, reassured Adam he was still alive.\u00a0 Somehow that was cold comfort.<\/p>\n Steadily they rose.\u00a0 Soon Adam was near enough to pick out the details of Pa\u2019s face; the dark shadows of his eye sockets; the tense set of his mouth.\u00a0 Closer still and he could see the glimmer of perspiration on his brow and top lip, and feel the hands gripping the shoulders of his shirt, reaching to take Joe from his arms.\u00a0 Then Hoss was there too, pulling him over the edge of the rocky slope, hauling him away from the perilous rim.\u00a0 There was blood all over Hoss\u2019s face, splattered across his shirt front, but there was no time to wonder about that.\u00a0 Pa was leaning over Joe, tugging at the rope around his middle.\u00a0 Adam fumbled with the knots of his own as he crawled to his brother.<\/p>\n \u201cIs he alive?<\/p>\n Pa gave a terse nod.\u00a0 \u201cYes, he\u2019s breathing.\u201d<\/p>\n That was all Adam needed to know right then, but even that sapped every last morsel of strength out of him.\u00a0 His limbs, a moment before capable of supporting two men, were suddenly as weak as if his muscles had turned to water.<\/p>\n But it no longer mattered.\u00a0 Pa was there, and Hoss.\u00a0 Then the sheriff was there too, all crouched around Joe.\u00a0 The sheriff had found a doctor\u2019s bag from somewhere.\u00a0 Adam\u2019s brain seemed to have liquefied too.\u00a0\u00a0 It was some moments before he recalled Pa saying that Sam Mitchell had been a doctor.\u00a0 He heard his own voice telling them to mind Joe\u2019s broken leg and the hole in his back<\/p>\n \u201cAre you all right, Adam?\u201d\u00a0 It was Hoss speaking into his ear.<\/p>\n He raised his head.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t remember lowering it, but it was resting against his knees.\u00a0 \u201cYes,\u201d he said, surprised to find his teeth were chattering and he felt as cold as if he\u2019d just been pulled from the lake.\u00a0 Hoss\u2019s face was close to his.\u00a0 Once again Adam registered the blood.\u00a0 \u201cWhat happened to your face?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBrady.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBrady?\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss nodded.\u00a0 \u201cHe broke free. Smashed me and the sheriff out of the way and nearly took Pa over the edge with him.\u00a0 Just flew at us like a mad man.\u00a0 Don\u2019t know what got into him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe pushed Joe over the ridge.\u00a0 I guess he was worried we\u2019d find out.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss glanced over at his younger brother and his face darkened in an angry scowl.\u00a0 \u201cIf I\u2019d known that, I\u2019d have dropped him over the edge myself and sung him a tune as he went down.\u00a0 Listen, we\u2019re gonna take Joe up to that wagon.\u00a0 Reckon you should give yourself a break and ride in there too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry about me,\u201d Adam assured him, battling to contain the tremors still shaking his body.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll be fine.\u201d\u00a0 As if to prove his point he made to rise and his legs gave out beneath him.\u00a0 He looked up into Hoss\u2019s big, blood-smeared face, wrinkled now with concern and managed a crooked smile.\u00a0 \u201cJust give me a few minutes.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve quite gotten the head for heights I thought I had.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chapter 14<\/strong><\/p>\n They had rescued Joe from the mountain but there was nothing any of them could do to rescue him from the nightmare of the days and nights that followed.\u00a0 His leg would heal well enough, said the doctor.\u00a0 It was a good clean break.\u00a0 But that ugly hole in Joe\u2019s back, that was another matter entirely.<\/p>\n \u201cI can stitch up the outside,\u201d he told them, with a gloomy shake if his head, \u201cbut as for what\u2019s on the inside…\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe got him back only to lose him again,\u201d said Pa, his voice full of bitterness, as Joe trembled on the threshold of eternity and they kept vigil at his bedside, expecting every ragged, labored breath to be his last.<\/p>\n Hoss looked down on his younger brother\u2019s face, pale and gaunt as a wraith.\u00a0 Sweat filmed his waxen skin, his eyelids and lips were a pale shade of blue, deep shadows gnawed at his wasted cheeks and eroded his sunken eye sockets.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d he told Pa.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s going to hold on.\u00a0 Jus\u2019 like he did on that mountain. I know he\u2019s going to hold on.\u201d<\/p>\n They waited and prayed, and slowly, little by little, hour by hour, the tide began to turn.\u00a0 Joe\u2019s breathing grew easier, his pulse steadied and became stronger, his fever subsided.\u00a0 At last he fell into a deep quiet sleep.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess it wasn\u2019t his time,\u201d said the doctor.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s a lucky kid.\u201d<\/p>\n There was still a long haul back to full health, they all knew that.\u00a0 But finally they could think about returning home and picking up some semblance of normal life again, at least for the older three Cartwrights.\u00a0 For Joe, there remained weeks of recuperation, confined at first to his bed, and then for short spells, to the couch downstairs, or a makeshift bed on the porch.<\/p>\n It all should have been good, but something was wrong and Hoss wasn\u2019t certain exactly what it was.<\/p>\n First there was Joe.\u00a0 Lying quietly, accepting all the enforced limitations without demur.\u00a0 A good thing, surely, Hoss tried to persuade himself, watching his younger brother smile patiently as Pa adjusted his pillows for the fourteenth time in an afternoon.\u00a0 So why did he feel a niggling sense of unease whenever he looked at Joe\u2019s composed face?\u00a0 What was it about his brother\u2019s acquiescent behavior that was vaguely disturbing? \u00a0Usually when Joe was laid up for more than a couple of days, he was as restless as a wild colt in a pen.\u00a0 Yet he submitted to every inconvenience, every ministration without a murmur of protest or bad grace.\u00a0 To Hoss\u2019s mind, the model invalid was altogether too perfect.<\/p>\n Then there was Pa.\u00a0 Laughing too much; joking too loudly; a shade too exuberant, a shade too interested; full of a cheer that never reached his eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cAdam,\u201d Hoss said, as he rode side by side with his brother, one morning several weeks after the incident up on the ridge, \u201csomething\u2019s not right.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam looked round at his brother, his eyes shadowed beneath a troubled brow.\u00a0 His mouth tightened.\u00a0 \u201cI know,\u201d He said.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve noticed it too.\u201d<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n \u201cHoss, give Joseph a hand back up to his room.\u201d<\/p>\n They had finished dinner.\u00a0 Joe still couldn\u2019t sit at the table with his leg pinned straight as a rod, but he could eat with a tray on his lap, stretched out on the couch, and at least it felt almost normal.\u00a0 Almost, but for the wearisome artificiality around the table, like an invisible film stretched tight with guarded politeness and meaningless joviality.\u00a0 Hoss was beginning to find these times together exhausting.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s still early,\u201d said Adam, glancing from Joe to his father.<\/p>\n Joe looked up from his position on the couch and gave a compliant shrug.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s fine.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mind.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe needs his rest,\u201d said Pa, his brow flickering a warning signal.<\/p>\n Hoss exchanged a swift glance with Adam.\u00a0 \u201cMaybe,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cBut maybe we should have a talk first.\u201d<\/p>\n No mistaking Pa\u2019s brow this time.\u00a0 It lowered by a full inch.\u00a0 \u201cA talk?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d\u00a0 Hoss rested his forearms on the table.\u00a0 \u201cAdam and me, we reckon it\u2019s time we got some things straightened out.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa looked at Adam, his eyes narrowing.\u00a0 \u201cWhat things?\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe Pa expected Adam to answer, but it was Hoss who pressed on.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a shadow hanging over this house.\u00a0 And we\u2019re all pretending it ain\u2019t there, or maybe we\u2019re all hoping that if we keep on ignoring it long enough, it\u2019ll just pass over and fade away.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa\u2019s shoulders stiffened.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know what you\u2019re referring to, Hoss.\u00a0 Things have been difficult, sure, with Joe being sick, but we\u2019ll soon be back to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss gave a resolute shake of his head.\u00a0 \u201cI ain\u2019t referring to Joe being sick, Pa.\u00a0 Not directly. I\u2019m talking about what happened before he got sick.\u201d<\/p>\n It was Joe\u2019s turn to look wary.\u00a0 \u201cI already told you what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, you told us what happened, sure, but that ain\u2019t my meaning either.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about the thing we just ain\u2019t<\/em> talking about.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about Sam Mitchell.\u201d<\/p>\n Both Joe and Pa fell silent.\u00a0 Joe flicked a nervous glance at his father, then looked away.\u00a0 For the first time in weeks, the passive lack of emotion in his expression was replaced by a surly resentment Hoss finally recognized.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s dead, Hoss.\u00a0 Why should we talk about him?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe might be dead, Joe, but his ghost is alive and well and haunting this family!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHoss!\u201d Pa\u2019s voice was edged with a cautionary chill.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Pa, but it\u2019s true.\u00a0 Ever since you read that letter of Joe\u2019s, you ain\u2019t hardly mentioned Sam Mitchell\u2019s name once!\u201d<\/p>\n Pa\u2019s jaw flexed.\u00a0 His eyes frosted over.<\/p>\n Adam spoke softly. \u201cHoss is right, Pa.\u00a0 We need to talk this over.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa stared at them both without speaking.\u00a0 His eyes flashed dangerously.\u00a0 Still without saying a word, he rose from his chair and crossed the room in a few giant strides.\u00a0 As he reached the stairs, Hoss scraped his chair around and looked directly at Joe.<\/p>\n \u2018Ain\u2019t you ever gonna ask, Little Joe?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe went white. \u201cAsk what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDadburnit, Joe!\u00a0 You know<\/em> what!\u00a0 You ain\u2019t been acting right since Adam dragged you back up that mountain!\u00a0 Well, if you won\u2019t ask, I sure as heck am gonna!\u00a0 Pa!\u201d<\/p>\n Pa froze at the foot of the stairs.\u00a0 He looked back slowly, his face almost as bleached of color as Joe\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s the truth, Pa?\u00a0 Let\u2019s straighten this out now, once and for all.\u00a0 Is Sam Mitchell Joe\u2019s real father?\u201d<\/p>\n Pa stood rooted to the foot of the stairs. \u00a0Joe stared at Hoss out of eyes stricken wide with horror.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to bed,\u201d said Pa, his face as hard and as icy as a winter chill.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll see you all in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n He managed three treads before Joe said, \u201cPa?\u201d<\/p>\n Pa hesitated once again, but this time he didn\u2019t look back.<\/p>\n \u201cWas Sam Mitchell my father?\u201d<\/p>\n Pa turned slowly.\u00a0 Leaning back against the stair rail he crossed his arms in front of him and fastened his iron cold gaze on Joe.\u00a0 \u201cThe truth, Joseph?\u201d\u00a0 He gave a small shake of his head.\u00a0 \u201cThe truth is… I don\u2019t know the truth!\u00a0 I only know what I\u2019ve always believed to be true.\u00a0 Is that good enough for you?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s face flickered.\u00a0 Pa\u2019s eyes didn\u2019t flinch.<\/p>\n \u201cDid my mother never say?\u201d<\/p>\n Pa hesitated for a fraction of a second, but his expression remained stony.\u00a0 \u201cI never put the question to her.\u00a0 I never felt the need.\u00a0 We trusted each other.\u201d<\/p>\n The statement, matter of fact as it was, had the ring of a reprimand.\u00a0 Hoss saw Joe had felt the stab; sensed the smart it left, saw the tears spring behind his brother\u2019s anxious eyes.\u00a0 Joe blinked them away, but his voice betrayed him.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought he was dead.\u00a0 I never imagined he\u2019d reappear.\u00a0 So what purpose would it have served?\u00a0 I\u2019m your father, you\u2019re my son.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always believed that, Joe.\u00a0 It\u2019s been good enough for me.\u00a0 If it\u2019s not good enough for you, I don\u2019t know what else to say.\u201d<\/p>\n Pa stood waiting while Joe stared back at him out of wounded eyes.\u00a0 And when Joe said nothing, he turned and walked away, vanishing around the bend in the staircase towards his bedroom.<\/p>\n *******<\/p>\n Damn Hoss!\u00a0 Damn Pa!\u00a0 Damn them all!\u00a0 He had tried to make it all right again.\u00a0 He had tried not to think about Sam, and Brady, and Hank, and the whole wretched mess.\u00a0 He had tried to co operate; tried to be the dutiful son; tried to put away the gnawing sense of betrayal, the anger, the disappointment, the grief.\u00a0 But they would not go.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe.\u201d \u00a0It was Hoss again.\u00a0 Why couldn\u2019t he let things be? Joe held up a hand and shook his head.<\/p>\n \u201cNot now, Hoss.\u00a0 Please, not now!\u201d<\/p>\n Hoss looked at Adam.\u00a0 His older brother gave a quick shake of his head.\u00a0 Hoss bit his lip.<\/p>\n Joe fumbled for his crutches.\u00a0 Adam and Hoss rose at the same time to help him.\u00a0 Adam got there first.\u00a0 He placed the crutches into Joe\u2019s groping hand.\u00a0 Joe struggled to his feet, trying not to wince at the pain the movement still cost his back.<\/p>\n Hoss reached out to steady him.\u00a0 \u201cHere, let me help.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe shrugged him away.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t need any more help from you, Hoss.\u00a0 Look where your help\u2019s got me.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam, in an obvious effort to remain reasonable, said, \u201cWe have to talk about this Joe.\u00a0 You and Pa, you\u2019ve been keeping everyone at arm\u2019s length ever since we found you again.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s face darkened to an angry scowl.\u00a0 \u201cWhat did you expect?\u00a0 You think everything can just go back to how it was?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t say that.\u00a0 Hoss and I just think you and Pa need to work this through somehow.\u00a0 It\u2019s not going to go away simply because the two of you refuse to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s easy for you to say!\u00a0 It\u2019s not happened to you; it\u2019s happened to me.\u00a0 Pa hasn\u2019t been lying to you your whole life!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd he\u2019s not been lying to you either, Little Joe, so why you saying that?\u201d\u00a0 Hoss paced behind the sofa and back again, as if physical movement would help ease the exasperation he was feeling.\u00a0 \u201cHe already told you he never believed Mitchell\u2019s claims.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut he doesn\u2019t know<\/em>, does he?\u00a0 That\u2019s the point!\u201d<\/p>\n Somehow, amid the raised voices, Adam managed to keep his calm.\u00a0 \u201cPa trusted Marie, Joe, why can\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n Adam!\u00a0 With an answer for everything.\u00a0 So smug.\u00a0 So clever.\u00a0 So…so knowing! \u00a0Joe shook his head in helpless frustration.\u00a0 Why did Adam always make him feel completely inarticulate?<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to talk about it.\u201d Joe was acutely aware that his sulky reply made him sound like a ten-year-old, but he was terrified his voice was about to reveal the gaping hole of misery he\u2019d kept so well hidden these past weeks.\u00a0 Any moment now and it would wobble out of control – he could feel it going – and he desperately didn\u2019t want that to happen.<\/p>\n \u201cOh well, there\u2019s a surprise!\u201d said Adam, and Joe winced at the biting irony in his voice.\u00a0 \u201cSo what do you plan to do?\u00a0 Carry around a giant chip on your shoulder for the rest of your life?\u00a0 Strikes me there\u2019s more than an ounce of self pity to all this, Joe!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t know anything!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, don\u2019t I?\u00a0 Well, I know when you\u2019re behaving like a spoiled kid.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a spoiled kid!\u00a0 It\u2019s just…\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust what?\u00a0 What exactly are you expecting from Pa? \u00a0Some stranger appears and tells you he\u2019s your father, so you decide to punish the man who\u2019s loved you and raised you for seventeen years?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, of course not!\u00a0 Only…\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnly?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe screwed his face and lowered his gaze to the carpet.\u00a0 \u201cOnly…\u201d Adam was doing it again.\u00a0 The words rolled so glibly from his tongue, they somehow robbed Joe of the ability to string a coherent sentence together in response, even if he could have forced the words past the treacherous lump that was swelling in his throat. \u201cOnly…it\u2026 it hurts<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n Adam gave him a hard look. \u00a0\u201cWhat?\u00a0 And you think Pa\u2019s not hurting too?\u201d<\/p>\n A pain, knife sharp, stabbed hard through Joe\u2019s middle.\u00a0 He looked up in surprise and heard his brother\u2019s scathing laugh.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, of course not!\u00a0 You haven\u2019t given any thought as to how Pa\u2019s feeling.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about you, isn\u2019t it Joe?\u00a0 It\u2019s always all about you!\u201d<\/p>\n He never planned it to happen.\u00a0 Something inside him just blew.\u00a0 Boiling tears scalded his eyes and blurred his vision, and a fury born of impotence exploded outwards.\u00a0 He heard the sharp smack of bone on bone as his fist collided with Adam\u2019s face, and his brother flew backwards.\u00a0 There was an instant of complete confusion as the armchair toppled, Adam\u2019s body tumbling after it, and Joe, fists still flailing, followed him down.<\/p>\n It was Pa\u2019s voice, bellowing in his ear that drove back the blind madness.<\/p>\n \u201cEnough, Joseph!\u00a0 Stop now before you kill someone!\u201d<\/p>\n The hot mist dissipated.\u00a0 He heard someone sobbing in great angry gulps and realized it was him.\u00a0 Adam\u2019s face emerged out of the fog, blood smearing his face, his top lip all crooked and puffy.\u00a0 Pa hauled Joe back to the sofa and pushed him down roughly.\u00a0 Too roughly.\u00a0 Joe yelped as pain speared through his back.\u00a0 Pa seized his broken leg and dropped it onto the sofa.\u00a0 Joe gasped again.\u00a0 The room dipped and swayed and gradually righted itself.\u00a0 Too late he became aware that the shameful tears he had been trying to control had spilled over in his rage.\u00a0 He threw up an arm to cover his face.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat in tarnation do you boys think you\u2019re doing?\u00a0 Have you got no sense?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was my fault,\u201d said Adam, his voice distorted by his swollen lip.\u00a0 \u201cI goaded him.\u00a0 He hit me.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe, scrubbing his face dry on the sleeve of his shirt, peered out from beneath his arm.\u00a0 Adam was still sitting on the floor, in front of the upturned chair, fingering his injured mouth with cautious fingers.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s on crutches, for heaven\u2019s sake!\u201d<\/p>\n Adam raised an eyebrow.\u00a0 \u201cI didn\u2019t ask him to hit me!\u201d<\/p>\n There was a moment of silence, then Hoss said anxiously, \u201cYou all right, Joe?\u201d<\/p>\n Joe silently cursed his broken leg.\u00a0 But for that, he would have got up and walked out of the house.\u00a0 As it was, he was stuck on this couch at the mercy of his family.\u00a0 He turned his head, still cradled in his arm, into the back of the sofa.<\/p>\n Pa sank down next to him, on the edge of the seat.\u00a0 He felt his father\u2019s hand on his raised arm.\u00a0 He was tempted to shrug it aside but for some reason, he didn\u2019t.\u00a0 He let it lie there.\u00a0 He imagined their glances of exasperated weariness, Adam rolling his eyes, Pa looking stern.<\/p>\n It almost made him jump when Pa\u2019s voice said gently, \u201cIt hurts me too, you know, Joseph.\u201d<\/p>\n Damn!\u00a0 So Pa had been listening.\u00a0 He hadn\u2019t gone into his bedroom and shut the door after all.\u00a0 He\u2019d waited just out of sight and heard everything they\u2019d said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, the night Hank was killed and I heard Sam Mitchell\u2019s name again, it was like being shot in the gut. And a whole load of other painful wounds opened too.\u00a0 Thinking of him with Marie; remembering how he\u2019d come out here after her; how he tried to steal the two of you away from me.\u00a0 And then, when we found out he had you, that he\u2019d taken you away… I was terrified.\u00a0 Terrified that I would never find you again.\u00a0 Terrified that he\u2019d turn you against me.\u00a0 Terrified that you\u2019d choose him over me.\u00a0 It hurt real bad, Joe.\u00a0 Real<\/em> bad!\u201d\u00a0 Joe heard the catch in his father\u2019s voice, but Pa pushed on.\u00a0 \u201cAnd\u2026and then I got your letter.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe tried to say something but it was no good.\u00a0 He felt himself crumbling the moment he opened his mouth.\u00a0 He shut it again and pushed his face harder into the back of the chair.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought I\u2019d lost you, son, I thought I\u2019d lost you forever.\u201d Pa\u2019s hand massaged his arm with a gentle motion; the tough, capable, tender hand that he had taken for granted for so much of his life.<\/p>\n \u201cI… I just don\u2019t know, Pa…\u201d\u00a0 So much to say and that was all he could manage!\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0He sounded, even to himself, like a feeble child.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat don\u2019t you know?\u201d\u00a0 There was a quiet desperation in Pa\u2019s voice.\u00a0 \u201cYou know I\u2019ve always loved you.\u201d<\/p>\n The way Pa said it, it sounded like it ought to be enough.\u00a0 A month ago, it might have been.\u00a0 Joe took a deep breath and willed his voice to stay steady. \u201cI always believed in you, Pa.\u00a0 I… I don\u2019t know… how to get that back.\u201d<\/p>\n This time Pa didn\u2019t answer straight away, but his hand stayed firm on Joe\u2019s trembling arm.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m the same man I always was,\u201d he said at last.\u00a0 \u201cAnd nothing will ever persuade me that you\u2019re not my son, because I know \u2013 deep down in my heart – that you are. I can\u2019t prove it to you, and I can\u2019t make you believe in me.\u00a0 You have to know it in your heart too.\u201d\u00a0 Joe heard his father\u2019s moment of hesitation then.\u00a0 \u201cWhat does your heart say, Joe?\u201d<\/p>\n What did his heart say?\u00a0 It felt so bruised from hurt and anger, confusion and resentment, all he\u2019d done for weeks now was nurse its pain.\u00a0 But underneath all that, was there a still small voice, waiting to be heard through the turmoil?<\/p>\n He lay very still.\u00a0 Around him, the room was silent.\u00a0 He felt his shoulders slacken of their own accord and the arm shielding his face fell back, limp.<\/p>\n \u201cSam asked me that,\u201d he said, into the silence.\u00a0 Half puzzled, he let his gaze drift slowly to his father\u2019s face. Something unfamiliar flickered there.\u00a0 Fear?\u00a0 Surely not!\u00a0 Pa was always so certain, so strong.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat did you tell him?\u201d asked Pa.<\/p>\n \u201cI told him I\u2026 I couldn\u2019t answer him… I didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd now?\u00a0 Do you know now?\u201d<\/p>\n The frown eased on Joe\u2019s brow.\u00a0 \u201cI think so,\u201d he said.\u00a0 He looked into his father\u2019s eyes and the pain melted from his face.<\/p>\n There was no still small voice, no gentle whisper of wisdom into his ear.\u00a0 There was something else instead. There was a sense of being home.\u00a0 A sense of belonging.\u00a0 A sense of peace.<\/p>\n He was, after all, his father\u2019s son.<\/p>\n The End<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thanks for reading.\u00a0 If you enjoyed this story. please consider leaving a short review to let the author know what you thought.\u00a0 Comments welcome via PM too.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n