Summary: \u00a0Adam’s choices regarding his torment at the hands of a madman result in an ever-widening ripple effect. A WHN\/WHI for “The Crucible.”<\/p>\n
Rated:\u00a0MA \u00a0WC 35,000<\/p>\n
Crossroads<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Part I<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s been through some kind of hell.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s the first thing I hear\u2014the first thing I\u00a0truly\u00a0<\/em>hear, the first to break through the disordered chaos whirling inside my head.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Just a minute ago, there were other sounds, other shouts, but I decided those were all in my imagination. After all, days ago\u2014or was it weeks?\u2014when I desperately tried to escape Kane\u2019s camp, I had heard the same exact thing: my family calling my name. Nothing had come of those shouts I\u2019d heard back in the camp. Nothing but more misery.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAdam! Adaamm!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I don\u2019t answer. It isn\u2019t real. Neither had it been real when I\u2019d lain in camp and listened to it all those days ago, too tired and dazed to answer. It had only been wind disguised as human voices, calls floating in on the hot desert air, coming from far, far away and distorted by distance and echoes. I had quickly\u00a0dismissed it as having been a figment of my imagination not only because of the slightly ethereal sound of it, but because, if it\u00a0had<\/em>\u00a0been real, my family surely would have come for me. They wouldn\u2019t have just ridden away and left me there in that camp. They wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So I simply continue to struggle to drag the heavy travois through the sand, ignoring the call of my name. It is only my imagination, just as it was back in Kane\u2019s camp. Only my imagination.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So ridiculous that my mind decides to conjure up such a thing. After all, who would be calling me? Nobody. I know for a fact I am all alone with Kane. Just him and me as I drag him through the desert. On and on and on, with the blistering sun toasting us to a brown crisp and slowly peeling away layers of our skin. The reality is that there is no sound other than the wind and the scraping of the travois across the sand.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Still, I hear it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAdam! Adam! Adam!\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Closer now, right next to me, demanding that I pay attention.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s just Kane. He stopped his fevered muttering hours ago, but maybe he\u2019s managed to rouse himself enough to continue tormenting me. I have to hand it to him. He is doing an incredible job of making his voice sound just like those of my family. Pa. Hoss. Joe.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m tempted to turn and look, but no, that\u2019s what he wants.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You aren\u2019t going to fool me. Not again.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I stumble on, but my imaginings are growing stronger, for I swear I can not only hear Pa, but can see him running toward me. I begin to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it. It\u2019s my mind, I know it. Too many hours under a hot sun with too little water. My mind is going, and it\u2019s trying to trick me into believing my family is here.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So cruel of nature to play such tricks.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I continue to laugh, even when I swear I can feel Pa\u2019s hands grasping my shoulders, still speaking my name.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I can see him. My brothers too, moving like apparitions out of the shimmering, heated air.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My mind\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0going. I\u2019m teetering on the edge of madness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My laughter turns to sobs, the tears born of many things\u2014exhaustion. Fear. Desperation. Relief and hope that maybe Pa really\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0here, that perhaps my ordeal is at an end. But\u2014and dread floods through me at the thought\u2014maybe Kane has broken me to the point that my mind is conjuring up\u00a0everything<\/em>.\u00a0All<\/em>\u00a0of it. Perhaps I\u2019m even imagining this trek through the desert. Maybe I never left the camp at all. Maybe I\u2019m still back there, striking hammer against worthless stone hour after hour while my mind has decided it is tired of the same old scenery.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My knees give out. I go down onto the burning sand, and I imagine Pa catching me and holding me in his arms. Through the sound of my sobbing, I hear my pa and brothers talking, but I can\u2019t make out what they are saying. It\u2019s all garbled, jumbled together with the sounds of Kane\u2019s laughter.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then one soft phrase comes through.\u00a0\u201cHe\u2019s been through some kind of hell.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s a dark lyric running through a shadowed dirge, a requiem, a lament for\u00a0me<\/em>\u2014but it\u2019s real. It is\u00a0real.<\/em>\u00a0Those words, spoken in that husky voice my kid brother tends to use when he\u2019s under stress, are not just in my head.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My kid brother . . .<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He\u2019s supposed to be somewhere else. Where? Wait\u2014yes, I remember; I left him back in Eastgate. He wanted to stay to watch a trial.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So I went on to Hell without him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now, somehow, he\u2019s here in the desert with me. It\u2019s\u00a0true.<\/em>\u00a0Not<\/em>\u00a0my imagination.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I hold fiercely to that fact. Joe is here, and Hoss. And\u2014I let myself sag more fully into his embrace\u2014Pa.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u00a0am\u00a0<\/em>away from that camp. I am alive. Not only do I hear Joe\u2019s words, I fully comprehend them, without the haze of my thoughts or the clamor of Kane\u2019s voice getting in the way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s been through some kind of hell.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Despite their awful truth, those words help me thrash my way back to the surface, back into the world of the living. Maybe it\u2019s because Joe is the last member of my family I had contact with before I descended into hell, the last decent, sane person I spoke to. I don\u2019t know. Whatever the reason, my youngest brother\u2019s voice brings me full circle. It reaches through all the shadows and confirms the veracity of my ordeal, even as he presses fingers dripping with water against my bleeding, split lips, even as my father tightens his grip on me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m here. They\u2019re here. Heaven help me, it\u2019s all real.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cOh, Pa!\u201d I cry harder. If only all the things that happened back in Kane\u2019s camp hadn\u2019t been real . . .<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No, there\u2019s no sense wishing for that, much as I wish it were the case. I know the truth\u2014what happened to me in that camp was very, very real. Oh, yeah, it was. I\u2019ve got the pain to prove it. In my mind, in my heart. In my body. It was real, and it was Hell, or as close to Hell as I am likely to get while I still walk this earth.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So tired. It\u2019s a good thing I am no longer standing, for I suspect my quaking legs are too weak to hold my weight. But it doesn\u2019t matter, for I have no place to go anyway.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The canteen is lifted to my mouth and I am allowed one short wash of water. It is warm and smells musty, but it\u2019s the sweetest thing I\u2019ve ever tasted. Too soon it is taken away, but Pa is gathering me to him again, pulling me close to his chest as though he\u2019s afraid I\u2019ll disappear. Holding tight and rocking, rocking.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We sit there just like that, with him rocking me close and my brothers hovering near.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I am no longer alone. No longer on my own. No longer simply a target for a warped old man like Kane to vent his poison upon. If he tries, my family will stop him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The need to let someone else know what I\u2019ve been through is almost as strong as the need for water. Haltingly, words begin to form. It\u2019s like I\u2019m listening to somebody else.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cPa, I didn\u2019t mean for it to happen. I didn\u2019t, you know I didn\u2019t. I just couldn\u2019t\u2014Kane said he was going to prove I wasn\u2019t a better man than he was, and I couldn\u2019t\u2014\u201d I try hard to communicate the wretched ridiculousness that was Kane\u2019s way of thinking, but I know I\u2019m babbling complete nonsense. It\u2019s frustrating. To my great dismay, I even cry some more; sobs erupt every few seconds while I talk, seemingly of their own accord. I don\u2019t do such things. My youngest brother does. His emotions run hot and close to the surface, and they bubble over when he grows too full of them. But not me. Not until today, and I do not care for the feeling of it at all.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m embarrassingly aware that I sound like some raving lunatic. I\u2019m not making sense. I\u00a0know<\/em>\u00a0I\u2019m not making sense. Worse, I\u2019m beginning to remember that there are things that need to remain\u00a0un<\/em>said, but it\u2019s like my mouth has somehow been disconnected from my brain, and I don\u2019t even know for sure what\u2019s spilling out. I need to shut up.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Please,\u00a0<\/em>just shut up, Cartwright. Shut up, shut up, shut\u00a0up.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n But I\u00a0can\u2019t.<\/em>\u00a0It\u2019s as if my body wants to purge itself of everything Kane put me through, and my mind is in agreement, with no regard to logic or control. I just keep going, talking and talking until, after an immeasurable amount of time, I am finally empty and quiet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I draw in a shuddering breath and manage to push feebly away from Pa. He lets me lean away from him, but he keeps one hand on me as though to anchor me to him. I take the first clear look at my family. They\u2019ve been put through hell too. I can see it in the hard set of Hoss\u2019s jaw and in the turbulent depths of Joe\u2019s eyes. And I can see it in the new lines etched into my father\u2019s face.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And it hits me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n They\u00a0know<\/em>. Dear God. Somehow, despite all my intentions, my family has guessed the repugnant details of what happened to me in that camp.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No, not guessed. They couldn\u2019t have guessed. I didn\u2019t tell them about\u2014about\u00a0that,\u00a0<\/em>did I? Did I\u00a0tell<\/em>\u00a0them? No. Please, God, no.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But . . . yes. I did. I let it slip. Told them all about Kane, and what happened. All of it. Not just how he tried to break me by treating me like an animal, but the rest too.\u00a0\u00a0All\u00a0<\/em>of it, despite the promise I had made to myself that\u00a0nobody\u00a0<\/em>would ever know. During all those long hours of dragging Kane through the desert, I spent almost every minute promising myself that no matter what happened my family would never find out the worst parts of the nightmare I\u2019d been living.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Maybe I\u2019m imagining the worst. Maybe I haven\u2019t told them as much as I fear. Maybe I just think I have. After all, I\u2019m having an amazingly difficult time telling reality from hallucination. And besides, it\u2019s not like me to lay my cards out for all to see. That\u2019s Joe\u2019s way, not mine. I know how to guard secrets, especially my own.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But I study their faces\u2014and I know I haven\u2019t guarded\u00a0this\u00a0<\/em>particular secret, the one I most need to keep buried. God, how I wish I could just die and sink into the dry earth and stay there. \u201cMortified\u201d doesn\u2019t even begin to describe how I feel.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yet, strangely, part of me is relieved. Maybe it\u2019s better this way. Yes, I am angry that I was fool enough to let it spill, but now I won\u2019t have to struggle under the terrible secret of it. I won\u2019t have to try to hide it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My relief is only a thin shell on the surface, however; the biggest part of me is still filled\u2014and will\u00a0always<\/em>\u00a0be filled\u2014with the darkest shame I\u2019ve ever known. Shame for what Kane did. Shame for what I allowed to happen.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My family\u2019s faces are all set hard, like they might crack and splinter at a touch. Joe is shaking; the expression he wears is much the same as the one he had the day I narrowly kept him from blowing Red Twilight\u2019s head off in our barn.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Who will stop my hot-blooded brother from seeking family vengeance this time?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Curiously, thinking of the trouble Joe is sure to bring down on himself brings a feeling of being grounded, of the earth shifting closer to its proper place.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019ll go to jail,\u201d I rasp, and point at the travois. \u201cKane. He\u2019ll be punished. Keep your hands off of him, Little Joe.\u201d I stare at him and try to look threatening. God knows I didn\u2019t drag Kane all this way just to see my little brother shoot him down. But I don\u2019t have the strength to stop Joe if he doesn\u2019t listen. Hoss and Pa will have to do it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n They all turn their heads to look at Kane, then, for several long moments, at each other. Then back at me. Hoss shakes his head, and when he speaks, his voice is very, very soft. \u201cGuess you didn\u2019t hear me a minute ago, Adam. This man you\u2019ve been carryin\u2019 . . . he\u2019s dead.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dead. Dead? What\u2019s he talking about? Incredulous, I stare at the stiffening body lying on the travois. I start to laugh\u2014only, to my utter humiliation, it is more sobbing that comes out. By the time I finally force myself to go quiet again, Joe is trembling harder and Hoss\u2019s jaw looks as if it will surely break. Pa just watches me, but I haven\u2019t missed the way his throat convulses.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n They are in terrible pain, and it\u2019s\u00a0me\u00a0<\/em>who has done this to them.\u00a0Me.<\/em>\u00a0Part of the torment of these long, lost days was from knowing my family would be worried sick, and now I can look into any one of their faces and see the toll that worry has taken. How much worse they must feel now that they know what Kane did? What\u00a0I<\/em>\u00a0did? How can I ever make this right? How can I make them understand that what I did, I did because I had no choice?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My thoughts swirl around me, a confusing, dark vortex of mixed-up images that threatens to pull me under. Something that sounds distressingly like a scream claws its way up my throat, but before it escapes, the canteen is in my face again and someone helps me lift it to my mouth. For a few blissfully blank moments, the blessed wash of water is all I can think about.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pa gathers me against him once more, holding tight. But this time I stay quiet. I say nothing, and I don\u2019t shed any more tears. I simply stare over his shoulder, off toward the distant mountains.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ve made it; I\u2019ve survived.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Only thing is, I find myself wishing I hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m ashamed to be thinking such things, but I can\u2019t help it, for it would be infinitely better if I\u00a0had<\/em>\u00a0died. Even if my family can figure out how to forgive me for what happened, it won\u2019t matter, because I\u2019ll never be able to forgive myself. The things that happened in that camp will forever visit in me in my nightmares, whether I\u2019m asleep or awake.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I can\u2019t imagine living the rest of my life\u00a0like this.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n o~o~o~o~o~o<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The ride through the desert is a blur of foggy half-dreams and textures and sounds. The movement of the horse beneath me is a lulling one, making it difficult\u2014impossible\u2014to ward off sleep. Unfortunate, because sleep is an enemy to be avoided; it brings with it images of Kane\u2019s face, Kane\u2019s smile, Kane\u2019s hands . . .<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sleep is terrifying, so I try to hold myself upright. It doesn\u2019t work. I nod off over and over again, only to jerk awake each time to find myself sagging back against Pa, my face pressed against the fabric of his shirt. It\u2019s ridiculous. Here I am, helpless as a babe, riding in the saddle in front of my father for the first time since I was probably no older than six or so. His scent is comfortingly familiar, but at the same time, it isn\u2019t the one I usually associate with him. No tang of pine, no hint of bay rum cologne. Still clinging to his clothing is the barest suggestion of the western cedar that lines his bureau drawers, but it is overpowered by the smell of stale sweat and the sour scent of fear.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The scent of fear. I know it well, as it\u2019s been emanating from my own body for days. Oddly, it seems even stronger now than it did when I really thought I might die. When Kane shot the mule, our only means of making it out of the desert, I truly thought I was next. I thought his next move would be to turn that gun on me, and I knew there wasn\u2019t a thing I could do to stop it. Yes, I had been frightened when that mule had died in the dirt and I\u2019d realized just how unbalanced Kane was, but I had no idea then that the worst was yet to come. Had I known, had I had any\u00a0idea<\/em>\u00a0of what was in store for me, I would have made a break for it right then, gun or no gun. I had asked Kane what he would do if I refused to be his pack animal in place of the dead mule. \u201cYou won\u2019t refuse,\u201d he\u2019d said calmly. He\u2019d been right. I hadn\u2019t been given the choice of refusal about that, or about . . . so many things.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That distinctive scent of fear is sharp and acrid in my nostrils. It\u2019s all around me, emanating from all of us . . . me . . . my brothers . . . and of course, my father . . .<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My father is\u00a0afraid<\/em>. Not just hurting for me, but . . . actually afraid.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Well, of course he is afraid. After what happened back in that camp, nothing will ever be right again. My father is naturally thinking about how they\u2019ll deal with this when we get back to the Ponderosa. What they\u2019ll tell Sheriff Coffee. What they\u2019ll say to all the people who know I was missing. Pa was frightened for my life before, but now . . . it\u2019s what comes next that scares him. He\u2019s trying to figure out how they\u2019ll cover up the parts of the story that nobody must ever be allowed to know, for my sake and for theirs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even exhausted as I am, my mind starts casting about for various ways to help my family do exactly that. Not that it makes much difference to\u00a0me<\/em>. After all, there\u2019s no help for me; I\u2019m already destroyed. But my pa and brothers still have a future and a life to lead, and right now that\u2019s all I\u2019ve got left to care about\u2014stopping Kane from hurting them. Besides, it\u2019s always been in my nature to fix what has gone awry. Some things never change, even when a man\u2019s world is ending.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I leave my eyes closed, trying to examine possibilities, but my thoughts are as easily scattered as dandelion fuzz. No matter. Between all of us, we\u2019ll figure out a story that runs parallel to the truth, branching away from it only slightly\u2014just enough to avoid the parts of it that have shattered me into a thousand pieces.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Somewhere in the distance, I swear I can hear Kane still laughing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Oh, sure, Cartwright. Anybody who looks at you will know. It\u2019s written all over your face. Do you really think you can hide something like this?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n An odd, rhythmic sound moves along with us as we ride, but I am so distracted I can\u2019t quite make out what it is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kane\u2019s laughing voice has the right of it. Who am I kidding?\u00a0 I can\u2019t help my family with this problem. Hell, I\u00a0am\u00a0<\/em>the problem. I\u00a0should<\/em>\u00a0have died back in that camp. If I was dead, there wouldn\u2019t be any problem at all. My family would grieve, of course; they would be beside themselves with sorrow, but at least there wouldn\u2019t be anything for them to hide. Nothing for them to be shamed by. If I had died, they never would\u2019ve known what had really happened in that camp, and they would never have had to bear the weight of it. They would\u2019ve either caught my killer, or not. After a few months, their lives would\u2019ve gone on, and nothing would\u2019ve changed but the fact that I wasn\u2019t there with them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0that sound? Is it\u2014is it breathing? It is. Very labored breathing. Someone is sick, maybe hurt. It is harsh, shallow panting, awful to hear.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Wait. It\u2019s\u2014it\u2019s me. That\u2019s\u00a0my<\/em>\u00a0breathing. Pa talks to me, asks me something, but I can\u2019t seem to make sense of it. I barely register the fact that he has pulled the horse up short and we\u2019ve stopped moving.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My time with Kane has taken its toll, both mentally and physically. Those days of working in the mine with not nearly enough food or water has weakened me, and the time I had spent towing him across the desert\u2014who knows how long I was out there\u2014has pretty much sapped everything I had left.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I let my thoughts roll back to the moment I had set off across the desert and left the camp behind. I had stopped just short of killing Kane then; I had closed my hands around his throat until his eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp. I had come so close to choking the life out of him, in fact, that it had terrified me. A few seconds more, and I would have done exactly what Kane had been so certain all along I would do.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Maybe I should have.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But I hadn\u2019t gone that far. It had taken him a while to come to, but he\u2019d been alive. Then I had given him water and waited until he had recovered sufficiently to get to his feet. Only then had we shuffled away from that camp, both of us, me occasionally shoving him in the back to keep him moving. Hours later, when he\u2019d finally collapsed and was unable to rise, I\u2019d strongly considered leaving him behind in order to try and make it out myself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the end, of course, I\u2019d built that travois and loaded him onto it. At first I told myself that I didn\u2019t abandon him because doing anything else would mean that he\u2019d won. I\u2019d have proven his theory that I wasn\u2019t a better man than him, that given the right circumstances, any man could be provoked into killing or letting someone die. I held onto the idea that I dragged him with me to prove he\u00a0was wrong.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But that wasn\u2019t entirely true, for there had been many times I had\u00a0desperately<\/em>\u00a0wanted to kill him\u2014and would have, had I been given the opportunity at just the right moment, regardless of whether or not it would prove Kane was right about me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The first of those times was the night after he\u2019d shot the mule. That night he\u2019d proven just how far he would go to put me in my place. I had lain in the dark afterwards, cold and hurting, my ankles and wrists snubbed tight to the posts of his lean-to while he snored a short distance away. I\u2019d been left shattered, my humiliation complete; I\u2019d spent the entire night staring at his blanket-wrapped form, planning all the ways I would exact revenge once I got the chance. Every one of my mental scenarios ended up with Kane bruised, bloody\u2014and dead. Yes, very, very dead. I hated him more than I would ever have believed it possible for me to hate anyone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When the sun had risen, I had still been watching him. By then, reason and calculating anger had pushed cold rage out of the way somewhat, enough to remind me that I was no killer, despite what Kane said. He would be punished, all right, but he would be punished within the confines of the law. I wouldn\u2019t even have to tell the jury everything he\u2019d done; he\u2019d held me prisoner and made me work the mine against my will, withholding food and water while he did it. The act of kidnapping would be plenty to put him away. His punishment would be enough. The authorities and the jury didn\u2019t even need to know the rest of what he\u2019d done.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nobody needed to know the rest.\u00a0God, please don\u2019t let them find out the rest<\/em>, I\u2019d silently begged.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As the sun began to climb into the sky that next morning, Kane had been no different than he ever was. He had untied me, given me a shove with the toe of his boot, and told me to get to work. I was almost glad for the dim isolation of the mine\u2014anything so that I wouldn\u2019t have to look at him. Anything so that he wouldn\u2019t look at me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019d been given nothing to eat all that day, but for supper I\u2019d been given a cup of muddy water, and he had tossed me a strip of raw mule meat that he\u2019d forced me to hack out of the carcass before burying the rest. Other than that bit of nourishment, he had ignored me. I had desperately hoped there would be no repeats of the kind of punishment I\u2019d received the night before.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It had seemed that my prayers might be answered, for that night, Kane had kept to himself. Not that I\u2019d gotten much sleep; I\u2019d found myself waking and holding my breath every time he rolled over or muttered in his sleep. But I\u2019d been left alone that night, and the night after that, and my fears had begun to ease.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But then the next night came, and with it, more appalling, breath-choking humiliation. The following night brought more of the same. And each morning, my reason had a more difficult time overtaking my rage.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The day finally came when I couldn\u2019t face anymore; he had pushed me over the edge. I finally got the jump on him. I had screamed that I was done with his games. I\u2019d meant it. Our scuffle had ended with me choking almost all the life out of him. I had fully intended to kill him right there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Only one odd little thing had stopped me. A memory had flashed into my mind, an image of Joe\u2019s finger trembling on a gun trigger as he told Red Twilight he was going to blow his brains out. I\u2019d been terrified that day, because I knew there was nothing I could do to stop Joe. I was going to watch my kid brother commit murder and then see him go to prison for it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Only he hadn\u2019t done it. He had stopped only because of what I said to him; I told him to go ahead, that it would only mean he was no better than Red Twilight. Somehow, the thought of ending up like a man as low as Twilight had been enough to bring Joe to his senses that day.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The memory of it brought me to my senses this time. Did I myself want to end up no better than Kane?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The thought had stopped me cold.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So I\u2019d dragged Kane across the desert and told myself it was because I was proving I couldn\u2019t be driven to kill. But I\u2019d been lying to myself. The truth\u2014the truth is much, much harder. I am loath to admit it, but the truth is that, to some extent, Kane knew what he was talking about. There were certain things that\u00a0could\u00a0<\/em>drive even a civilized man to kill. Simple survival, for example. I\u2019d killed for that reason more than once. But that\u2019s not what Kane was talking about; I know he was alluding to murder rather than self-defense when he spoke of men being driven to kill.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But with Kane, after everything that passed, it was different. I didn\u2019t drag him along because I was a \u201cbetter man.\u201d Hard as it is,\u00a0I\u00a0<\/em>know the truth of why I didn\u2019t leave him for dead back in that camp, even if nobody else will ever know. The truth is that I\u00a0needed\u00a0<\/em>to take him with me. I needed to see him punished for what he\u2019d done to me, wanted to see his body rot, wanted to see the buzzards land on him and eat their fill . . .<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For the first time in my life, I hated someone so much that I\u00a0needed<\/em>\u00a0to see him punished\u2014needed it like I needed air to breathe.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Only there isn\u2019t enough punishment in the world to make up for what he did to me.\u00a0 I understand that now. The realization of that harsh fact crashed in upon me the instant I looked into the faces of my family today after I\u2019d spilled my guts to them. Nothing can make it right. Nothing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My breathing is growing worse. A harsh, hacking cough rises up out of my throat and I stiffen, trying in vain to clear it all out. Pa tightens his grip on me. He says something in a low, soothing tone, but I can\u2019t hear what it is, not over Kane\u2019s laughter echoing inside my skull. I cough harder, and my heart slams against my chest.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I struggle to take in air\u2014and find I can\u2019t. After a few seconds of straining to breathe, I stop caring. After all I\u2019ve been through, why should I have to deal with more?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Wasn\u2019t what happened to me bad enough? Why did my family have to come when they did? If they had found me just a few hours later, it would all be over now. If they couldn\u2019t have come days earlier, then why couldn\u2019t they have just waited until I was gone? I want to scream with the injustice of it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What does it matter now if I don\u2019t make it? It doesn\u2019t. Not at all.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s not a lost cause, Cartwright. Not completely. You aren\u2019t that far from checking out of here. This is your chance; you could fix things right now. As much as possible, anyway. You could set everything right for Pa. For Hoss and Joe.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n At first the words are in Kane\u2019s voice. But as they repeat over and over, it becomes\u00a0my<\/em>\u00a0voice, my own thoughts, clear and hard and logical, and suddenly I think maybe it\u2019s true; maybe there\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0still a way out.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And so . . . I stop fighting. Just like that. I simply\u2014stop. I never realized before that a person could just stop trying to live, but it turns out it is true. Maybe it is because I am too far gone. My body is too tired. Or my mind. Or both. I don\u2019t know, but I turn loose, and that is that. I stop breathing. Somewhere very far away, I hear my father say my name, first questioning, then in loud, alarmed shouts. I hate doing this to him, hate it. Still, it\u2019s so much kinder than the alternative\u2014saddling him with a son who has been through something that he won\u2019t be able to bear even thinking about, much less talking about. I know he would give his life to help me, but the truth is there isn\u2019t a single thing he can do for me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But I can do something for him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My brothers are shouting too. I hear the pain in Hoss\u2019s voice, the terror in Joe\u2019s. I wish I could tell them that it\u2019s all going to be all right, that it really will be better for everyone this way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m a little sad, I admit, having to leave so soon. There were so many things I still wanted to see and do. But along with the sadness, part of me is fiercely glad, because a battle I thought was lost isn\u2019t quite over. I can still salvage a piece of my world\u2014the part that contains my pa and brothers. It\u2019s too bad I have to die to do it, but I can\u2019t think of any other way. Kane has destroyed me, but he will not destroy my family.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For the first time since I realized the mistake I made by trusting Kane when I stumbled into that camp, I smile.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And the darkness comes with velvet softness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n o~o~o~o~o~o<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI never figured you for a coward, Adam.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I whip my head around. I\u2019ve definitely lost my mind. There is no way I should be hearing that voice. But sure enough, there he is, standing right there beside me\u2014Ross Marquette, shaking his head with an easy smile on his face.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Impossible, of course. Obviously all rationality I once possessed has fled. Kane has driven me mad. But\u2014wait. This vision of Ross isn\u2019t being caused by insanity. It\u2019s happening because I am\u00a0dead.\u00a0<\/em>So this what the mind does as we leave life behind? It makes you think you are seeing friends long dead? That isn\u2019t so bad. It could be worse.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Still, I take a wary step backward, away from the imaginary Ross, for he seems disturbingly solid.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all right,\u201d he says gently, still smiling. \u201cI know what this seems like, but it\u2019s me.\u00a0 \u00a0Really.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I shake my head. \u201cMy mind is making you up.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He laughs. \u201cCartwright, you\u2019re a real smart man, but you\u2019ve always put more stock into the power of your own mind than you\u2019ve ever had a right to. I\u2019m not a hallucination. I\u2019m right here talking to you.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I stare at him, more than a little shaken and a whole lot scared. But against all reason, what he says appears to be true. This does indeed appear to be the Ross I had been friends with for so many years, the one I\u2019d fished with, hunted with, talked my problems over with. Thankfully, it doesn\u2019t appear to be the Ross whose mind had taken a dark turn during the last months of his life, the one who had beaten his wife and broken the law and forced me to kill him to stop him from killing me first. It is Ross\u2019s clear, lucid eyes that look back at me, not those of the stranger I once held as he lay dying by my own hand.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Somehow he knows what I\u2019m thinking. The smile slips from his face, leaving a sad, gentle apology. \u201cI\u2019m awful sorry about what happened there at the end with you and me, Adam. What you had to do . . . well, it was a terrible thing for one friend to have to do to another. I hope you can forgive me for that. You can, can\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I nod without thinking. How\u00a0real\u00a0<\/em>he looks. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing to forgive,\u201d I tell him, and it is true. I know without asking that he feels the same about me\u2014or would if he were really standing here. Ross had no more been able to help what had happened between us than I\u2019d been. Neither of us had had any control over what his mental state had triggered during those awful days when his mind had begun sliding into that dark abyss.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t me who did those things, you know,\u201d Ross says.\u00a0 \u201cNot the real me. And I sure never held any of it against you. Your hand was forced. My head, inside, was all\u2026upside down. It wasn\u2019t me\u2014\u201d He stops and smiles again. \u201cBut you know all that, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d I tell him, and I\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0know. If I had worried about how things had ended that awful day\u2014and I had\u2014that worry is now gone, wiped away by a simple smile from him. Everything is right between us. Nothing more needs to be said. It is done.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s a good thing, for there are other, more demanding issues at hand. \u201cRoss, how is it you\u2019re here? How can you be just . . . well, standing here like this?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ross laughs. \u201cSince I\u2019m dead, you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have to smile at his easy acceptance of his situation, strange though that situation definitely is. This is the old Ross, dry sense of humor intact, untouched by whatever illness took his mind at the end of his life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWell, yes, since you\u2019re–since you’re dead,\u201d I say, (it\u2019s so strange to think that the word\u00a0dead\u00a0<\/em>applies to me as well) \u201cWhy is it that I can see you? What\u2019s going on?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Instead of answering, Ross turns to look out in front of us. \u201cLook out there, Adam. What do you see?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yet again I am taken by surprise, for we are no longer in the desert. Instead, Ross and I stand shoulder to shoulder on a gently sloping mountainside as Lake Tahoe shimmers below us. A few years ago, I had sat on horseback beside Pa, looking down at the lake from this exact spot; I remember Pa saying Heaven would have a hard time comparing to the beauty of the lake. I had always wondered how many other places in the world were even more beautiful than this spot, so when Pa had said that, I didn\u2019t want to limit the idea of Heaven to something I\u2019d seen almost every day since I was eight. I had answered him with something along the lines of “You’ve never been to Heaven, so how can you know?”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now it seemed that maybe he had been right all along, since I am no longer among the living and yet here I am, standing in front of that lake, as sparkling and as blue as ever.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No longer among the living . . .<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Wait a minute. Had I actually accomplished what I set out to do when I gave up struggling to breathe? \u201cSo I\u2019m dead now too, right? Really dead?\u201d I can\u2019t help the small tremor threading through my voice. I dread the answer even though I’m pretty sure I know what it will be.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ross turns from the view of those sky-blue waters to look at me, and now there is no trace of a smile on his face. \u201cDo you want to be dead?\u201d he asks, his expression solemn.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I think about that for a minute. Finally I decide to answer with the truth. \u201cNo, but\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThen why\u2019d you quit?\u201d Ross asks flatly. \u201cWhy\u2019d you give up? Like I said, Adam, I never figured you for a coward. Appears maybe I was wrong about that.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I am dumfounded at the way Ross\u2019s easy candor has been replaced by sharp criticism. \u201cYou don\u2019t understand,\u201d I tell him. \u201cI had no choice.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t lie to me.\u201d Ross spits at the ground. \u201cLots of folks don\u2019t have a choice, but you did. You could have kept fighting. Yeah, between Kane and that desert, a lot got taken out of you, and you were in bad shape, but you weren\u2019t whipped. At least I didn\u2019t think you were. Appears I was wrong about that, too, since you went crawling off into the night with your tail between your legs\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI told you, I had no choice!\u201d I grit my teeth, angry at the way Ross is describing what happened. Why is he treating me like this?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cExplain it to me, then. Tell me why you think it was okay for you to stop trying, to just give up the way you did.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The set of his jaw says that Ross is angry, too\u2014which only fires my temper even more. \u201cYou act like you don\u2019t want me here. So it\u2019s not okay for me to be here, is that it?\u201d Now I\u2019m shouting. \u201cI\u2019m not meant for Heaven?\u00a0 I\u2019m not supposed to be here?\u201d And in a cold wash of clarity, I go still. \u201cDear God, that\u2019s it, isn\u2019t it?” I whisper. “I\u2019m not good enough for Heaven, not after what happened with Kane. I\u2019m not good enough\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n All the anger is instantly wiped from Ross\u2019s face. Pain and gentle sympathy shows in his eyes. He reaches out and clasps both my shoulders. \u201cNo, Adam, don\u2019t be thinking that way. That isn\u2019t it at all. Of course you\u2019re good enough for Heaven. You\u2019re one of the finest men I\u2019ve ever known.\u201d He shakes his head and says, very softly, \u201cBut it\u2019s the way you went out\u2014it isn\u2019t right, not for you, not this time. And you know it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He stares at me, waiting. I stare back. And suddenly I\u2019m crying again, just like I did in Pa\u2019s arms when my family found me. Such odd behavior for me; I\u2019ve always prided myself on presenting a cool and collected front to others, even when I\u2019m anything but calm on the inside. Not this time. My knees buckle and I fall to the ground, and Ross goes down with me, keeping a tight hold while I shake my head back and forth.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI did it for them,\u201d I manage to say. \u201cFor Pa.\u00a0 For Hoss and Little Joe. So they don\u2019t have to live with it hanging over their heads.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWith\u00a0what<\/em>\u00a0hanging over their heads?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I swipe one hand across my eyes to clear the tears and look at Ross, wondering if he is the one person I could ever tell the whole truth to. Not the pieced-together, haphazard accounting I gave my family, but the whole story, clear and hard. Even as I wonder, though, the thought of trying to get the words out past my teeth is enough to make my stomach roil. And then I see his expression and suddenly, I realize I don\u2019t have to tell him anything at all.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou know,\u201d I breathe. \u201cYou know what happened in that camp.\u201d Ross nods, and hot shame floods through me. I look away from him. \u201cThen why are you asking me about it?\u201d I mumble.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBecause you\u2019ve got to face up to it, Adam. What went on out there wasn\u2019t none of your doing, but it happened. Pretending it didn\u2019t won\u2019t change anything.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I stare up at him and then stand abruptly, kicking at a rock and sending it sailing over a nearby precipice. \u201cFine,\u201d I snap. \u201cIt happened. I was Kane\u2019s pack animal. No,\u00a0worse\u00a0<\/em>than a pack animal. He did things\u2014\u201d Bile rises up inside me. I shake my head and look out over the distant blue of the lake. \u201cHappy now? I\u2019m facing up to it. It happened. It\u2019s done. But my family shouldn\u2019t have to continue to suffer for something that happened to me. It\u2019s my rotten luck, but it shouldn\u2019t be theirs as well.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ross\u2019s voice is soft. \u201cDo you think that\u2019s how they would feel about it?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOf course not. They\u2019d insist on riding the whole thing out right along with me.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSo why won\u2019t you let them?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I kick at another rock. \u201cYou were always thick-headed, Marquette.\u201d He chuckles softly, but I know he\u2019s still waiting on an answer. I pull in a breath and try to give him one. Why it\u2019s important that I make him understand, I don\u2019t know. Maybe I\u2019m trying to explain it to myself as well.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThis is just too big,\u201d I tell him. \u201cIt\u2019s not something we could ever put completely behind us. They wouldn\u2019t be able to help me, no matter how much they\u2019d want to. The shame of it\u2014\u201d I drop my head. \u201cThey\u2019d just hurt. A\u00a0lot.<\/em>\u00a0Dear God, do you know how much? Do you have any idea? And it would be every time they looked at me. Every time they rode into town and folks looked at\u00a0them.<\/em>\u00a0I don\u2019t want that. I won\u2019t have it. I\u00a0won\u2019t.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSo you figure it\u2019s better for you to just leave than to put them through the pain of what happened back there. You\u2019d rather die than push part of this burden onto them. Is that it?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the general idea, yeah. Look, I get what you\u2019re saying. Never in my life would I have thought that I would end up just letting go like that, without a fight. I don\u2019t like it any more than you do, but it\u2019s the only solution I\u2019ve been able to come up with. This is the way it has to be.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ross sighs and shakes his head. \u201cYou\u2019re wrong, Adam.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He doesn\u2019t understand, and that saddens me. \u201cNo, I\u2019m not. I wish I was, but I\u2019m not.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Slowly he rises to stand beside me. \u201cSo there\u2019s no changing your mind on this?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n His question surprises me, I admit. \u201cChange my\u2014you mean I\u00a0can\u00a0<\/em>change my mind?\u201d Not that I would change it, even if I could. Truthfully, I thought it was a done deal, since I\u2019m dead. I mean, dead is dead. The only reason I\u2019ve been arguing with Ross about it is because I don\u2019t want him to think less of me. It\u2019s important, somehow, that he understand why I chose death over life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d Ross answers quietly. \u201cThose with a choice\u00a0can<\/em>\u00a0reverse their decision to stay on earth or . . . go. For a short period of time, anyway. After that period of time, though, it\u2019s final, and there\u2019s no going back.\u201d He watches me carefully, and I can tell he still hopes I\u2019ll change my mind.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I swallow, wishing with all my heart there was some other way. There is so much out there I still want to see, to learn, to experience, to do. But the price is too high, so I say nothing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When Ross speaks, he sounds tired and disappointed. \u201cYou still want to call it quits, then?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d I whisper.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He drops his head. \u201cOkay, then,\u201d he sighs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I wait, but he doesn\u2019t say anything else. \u201cSo it\u2019s that simple? That\u2019s all there is to it? I\u2019m here for good?\u201d Twinges of regret nudge at me, but I brush them away.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He looks up and gives me a tiny smile with no humor behind it. \u201cAlmost, but not quite.\u00a0 You have to take a little trip with me first.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Suspicious, I frown at him. \u201cA trip?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThink of it as a sightseeing tour.\u201d There is now something evasive in Ross\u2019s expression that I can\u2019t quite put my finger on.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Something else occurs to me. \u201cRoss, are you like my guardian angel or something?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For some reason that strikes Ross as hilariously funny. He howls with laughter. \u201cDo I look like an angel to you, Cartwright?\u201d he snorts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d I am forced to admit, \u201cyou don\u2019t look a darned thing like any angel I\u2019ve ever imagined. You just look like my old friend Ross.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s exactly who I am. Your old friend Ross, come to help you out if I can. Sometimes God saves himself some time and trouble by delegating work, and those of us who have sins to atone for tend to get the worst jobs. Right now,\u00a0you<\/em>\u00a0are one of those worst jobs. I\u2019m stuck with trying to get you out of a jam, just like when we were kids.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a \u2018worst job\u2019? Thanks a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He winks. \u201cI\u2019ve always enjoyed a challenge.\u201d He waves off more questions from me. \u201cCome on, no more time for talk. Are you ready?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThat depends,\u201d I say slowly. \u201cReady for what, exactly?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cTo see how this \u2018solution\u2019 of yours works out for everybody,\u201d Ross says. \u201cYou think that after what\u2019s happened, everyone you love would be better off without you. I want to show you how wrong that kind of thinking is.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What is he trying to pull, some sort of twist on Dickens\u2019\u00a0A Christmas Carol<\/em>? I read that book to Joe a hundred times when he was a kid. He always loved it, but it was too much of a fantasy to be a favorite of mine. I prefer realism. Now, though, I\u2019m looking at that tale with an entirely new viewpoint. Maybe that whole story isn\u2019t as farfetched as it has always seemed. Is Ross trying to set himself up to be my Jacob Marley? If so, he\u2019ll be disappointed in the results, because it\u2019s not going to change my mind. The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet-to-Come have\u00a0nothing<\/em>\u00a0on Peter Kane. I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ll be visited by his ghost for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Which means it\u2019s a good thing, I remind myself, that there\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>no rest of my life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A hard breath of exasperation whistles past my lips. \u201cLook, Ross, I\u2019m pretty sure I know what you\u2019re trying to do, and I appreciate it. Really, I do. But your twisting around my words and somehow\u2014I don\u2019t know, dragging me around the world or something isn\u2019t going to make me change my decision. I don\u2019t\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0a choice. Can\u2019t you understand that?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Frustration at the futility of it all takes a firm hold in my gut, and I shut my eyes once again with the pain of knowing that everything has been taken from me. Everything. My honor. My pride. And now my life. Kane has won it all.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Except for my family. He has no control, no hold, over my family. And he never will.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Still, it is so unfair. My fists clench. I want to be done with it. All of it, and Ross is only delaying things. I round on him, my anger against the injustice of it all rising. \u201cIf you know so much\u2014if you really want to make things right,\u201d I snarl, \u201cwhy don\u2019t you just undo everything? Just fix it so that I never left Eastgate to go hunting at all? Fix it so I headed straight home, never got robbed, and never met Kane?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m shouting again, bellowing at the top of my lungs. \u201cCan you do that, Ross? Can you? Because if you can\u2019t, you can just stop with the lectures and wise comments. I don\u2019t need them.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ross, to his credit, doesn\u2019t flinch away from my rage. He just stands there, steadily regarding me. \u201cIs that what you really want, Adam?\u201d he asks quietly. \u201cFor things to shift so that you didn\u2019t hang around Eastgate at all? Because things happen for a reason, you know. God has a plan\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t give a damn about God\u2019s plan!\u201d I roar, and I pick up another rock and hurl it with all my might over the side of the mountain. I listen as it knocks against trees and boulders, finally clattering into nothingness. Angrier than I have ever been in my life, I turn back and shove my face an inch away from his. \u201cHow can you stand there and tell me that there was a reason for what happened to me at the hands of that insane, wretched excuse for a man? Am I supposed to believe there was a reason I ended up under his control, that there was a reason things happened to me that shouldn\u2019t happen to a mongrel dog?\u201d I whirl away from him and slam my fist into a pine trunk\u2014once, twice, three times. Bits of bark and blood mix together. I barely notice the sting. I want to keep punching that tree until it crashes to the ground.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My fist is grabbed and held fast.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat I\u2019m telling you,\u201d Ross says calmly, as he clamps one hand around my wrist to keep it still, \u201cis that you don\u2019t know what would have happened if you\u00a0hadn\u2019t\u00a0<\/em>been there in Kane\u2019s camp. As bad as it was, Adam, you\u2019re a strong man. The strongest I know. You\u2019re hurting like everything, but you\u00a0will\u00a0<\/em>get through it. You\u2019ll get past it. And so will your family. You\u2019ll lean on each other, and you\u2019ll get through. But if you decide instead to simply make sweeping changes, circumstances could . . .\u201d He stops, chews his lip. \u201cLet\u2019s just say circumstances could change drastically as well. Not necessarily for the better, either. Things could spiral out of control and the resulting situation could be worse than the way it ended up for you.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWorse? Are you\u00a0kidding?\u00a0<\/em>How could they be any\u00a0worse?\u201d\u00a0<\/em>And then something he said hits me. \u201cWait. Are you really saying\u2014do you have the power to change this? Change history?\u00a0Can <\/em>you? Can you make it so I didn\u2019t go hunting that day? So I didn\u2019t end up in Kane\u2019s camp?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ross looks decidedly uncomfortable, but he nods slowly. \u201cIf that\u2019s what you really want. Yes. I can put in a request.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I stare at him, first amazed, then elated beyond all measure. Hope floods through me. Dear God! All is not lost after all. All\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0not lost.<\/em>\u00a0I throw my arms around my friend. \u201cFor Pete\u2019s sake, Marquette, why didn\u2019t you just tell me about this in the first place? Why didn\u2019t you just say you have the power to change it all?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c<\/em>Well,\u00a0I\u00a0<\/em>don\u2019t that kind of power, no. But my superiors can take a look at a request from me. They can . . . make adjustments, let\u2019s say. Within a certain scope, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Superiors? That strikes me as an odd way to run Heaven. \u201cAfter you die, you have\u00a0superiors?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ross shrugs. \u201cIf you die and still have things to make amends for, you do. God delegates some chores to certain angels, and then those chores in turn get divided further down the hierarchy. Like I said, if you leave earth with some marks against you, as long as those marks aren\u2019t too bad, you work for a while, pay off some debts\u2014\u201d He shrugs again, and pokes me in the chest with a finger. \u201cI\u2019m still on grunt work detail. You’re part of that.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My mind is racing. So Ross can somehow make it where I had never met Kane. And if I had never ventured near Kane\u2019s camp, he never would\u2019ve entered my world, and never would\u2019ve destroyed me from the inside out. Surely this is too good to be true. I want to make sure I\u2019ve got it straight. \u201cSo I can change my mind about deciding not to live, and you can fix it so I don\u2019t meet up with Kane. And there\u2019s still time?\u201d I ask carefully.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYes, there\u2019s still time. You can decide to live. And\u2014yes, you can decide to change everything.\u201d But Ross doesn\u2019t look happy about it, not at all. Something isn\u2019t right.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you not telling me?\u201d I ask, watching his face.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u00a0am\u00a0<\/em>telling you. You just haven\u2019t been listening. For Pete\u2019s sake, Adam, I feel like I\u2019m talking to your kid brother here. Since when did you get so thick-headed? If you\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOkay, okay. I\u2019m listening.” I stare at him. “I just don\u2019t understand why you\u2019re so reluctant to do something that would erase all the things that have happened to me over the last couple of weeks.\u201d He’s my friend, after all. Surely he would want to do whatever it takes to free me from the torment of what I’ve been through.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like this,” Ross says slowly. “If you start messing around with destiny, you\u2019re liable to change things in ways you never saw coming. I can\u2019t even tell you what those changes might be, because I don\u2019t have any more idea than you do. All I know is that it\u2019s never better to change the order of what God puts in motion. I\u2019ve seen this happen before. Granted the opportunity, things can be changed to an extent, but it generally doesn\u2019t work out for the best, that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For the\u00a0best?\u00a0<\/em>He\u2019s got to be joking. I throw up my hands. \u201cYou know what?\u201d I say,\u201c I don\u2019t care. Whatever changes, it has to be better than\u2014than what happened to me with Kane.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s it. I\u2019m through talking. I\u2019m still having a hard time believing it, but my old friend has offered me true hope, however grudgingly, when I thought there was none to be had. I\u2019ve got my reason for living back. I\u2019m ready to do what has to be done to get everything to get back to normal.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I step back and fold my arms across my chest. \u201cDo it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ross sighs, looking troubled, but nods. \u201cAll right. It\u2019ll be just a minute. Gotta okay it up top first. Hold on.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And then he\u2019s gone, leaving me alone in an empty meadow. Just when I begin to wonder if I\u2019ve imagined the whole exchange, he\u2019s back, making me jump when he appears behind me from out of nowhere.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAll right, it’s been approved. Everything\u2019s in place and ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I frown, suddenly remembering a sobering issue. \u201cWhat about the fact that I\u2019m dead?\u201d Surely death is the one thing that can’t be reversed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He grins. \u201cYou aren\u2019t dead. You are\u00a0near<\/em>\u00a0death. And we\u2019re pulling you out.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cComforting.\u201d It really is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cShut up and listen. Here\u2019s how it works. We\u2019re rewinding time. You\u2019ll be dropped off at the trail drive, just before you and Joe go to Eastgate. We\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWait. To Eastgate? Can\u2019t we back up further and make plans not to go there at all? Maybe we can deliver cattle to some other place instead. Or maybe we can rush ahead, so that we\u2019re already back at the Ponderosa after we deliver the cattle?\u201d Even the thought of being near Eastgate makes me feel queasy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ross shakes his head. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, compadre, but it doesn\u2019t work that way. We\u2019re given leave to manipulate time, but only within boundaries. There are only certain\u2014let\u2019s call them windows\u2014windows of time we can drop you through. In this case, dropping you just before you arrive at Eastgate is as close as we can get. After that, it\u2019s up to you to decide what you will do differently the second time around.\u201d He puts out his hand to shake mine, and he clasps my shoulder in a warm embrace with his other hand. \u201cGood luck to you, Adam. You know I mean that.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSo this is it?\u00a0 I won\u2019t be seeing you again?\u201d\u00a0 Now that I know my life will soon be back on an even keel, I\u2019m not thinking only of myself. I\u2019m thinking more about Ross and how much I\u2019ve missed him. It\u2019s been an exceedingly short visit, and one filled with turmoil. Now that everything is okay, I hate to say goodbye so soon to the best friend I\u2019ve ever had.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He smiles. \u201cOh, you\u2019ll be seeing me again. Many, many years down the road, God willing.\u201d\u00a0 The smile wavers a bit. \u201cI hope the change you\u2019ve asked for goes well, my friend.\u201d And then he raises one hand and snaps his fingers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And just like that, I\u2019m astride Sport, riding just to the left of my tired kid brother and his pinto pony as we push cattle into the holding pens on the outskirts of Eastgate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n o~o~o~o~o~o<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAdam, I can\u2019t for the life of me figure out why you wanna rush off back home to chores when you could stay here in town for a couple of days and just relax and take it easy. Besides, we can take in that trial together.\u201d Joe\u2019s voice is full of contented ease as he lounges in the tub of water we\u2019ve had brought up to our room.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I continue to put my hair to rights in front of the mirror, my own deep sense of contentment flooding through me. It\u2019s a new day. A new life, one untainted by Kane. \u201cIt\u2019s been the longest trail drive of my life,\u201d I say. \u201cI\u2019m beat. All I want is to get home to my own bed. And the sooner I start out, the quicker I\u2019ll make it there. Besides, the cattle buyer told me about the case. The man confessed. So he\u2019ll hang. I don\u2019t want to stay around for that.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Joe is skeptical. \u201cHow can you be so sure he\u2019s gonna hang? \u201c<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Did he ask that same question the first time around? The first time he and I were here in this same hotel room, in this same town? I think so, but I\u2019m not entirely sure. This time manipulation thing has left my memory foggy in places, like a window with smudges blocking the full view. At any rate, my answer is on my lips even as I turn away from the mirror to look at him. \u201cSimple logic. He\u2019s guilty. He\u2019ll hang. It\u2019s the law.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Joe pours dippers of water through his hair. \u201cAw, does everything have to be so logical?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Typical Joe. \u201cNo, not if you don\u2019t want to use your brains,\u201d I say, collecting my hat and holster. \u201cLook, Joe. A man\u2019s responsible for what he does.\u00a0 If he loses control, he has to be punished for it. That\u2019s the way it is.\u201d I know what I\u2019m saying is truth, but I feel an unease deep inside as I buckle on my holster.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYeah. I just wonder if you\u2019d feel that way if you were in Obediah\u2019s shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I shove my uneasy feelings away. \u201cWell, I could never be in Obediah\u2019s shoes, because nobody could ever drive me to murder.\u201d\u00a0It\u2019s true, it\u2019s true,\u00a0<\/em>I tell myself as I grab the money bag and prepare to walk out the door. It\u2019s true, no matter what Kane said or did. That day never happened. My convictions are intact. \u201cWith one exception,\u201d I add.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOh, yeah, who\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou!\u201d I shove my kid brother\u2019s head beneath the surface of the cooling, sudsy water. He comes up gasping and hollering, and I can\u2019t help but grin. Before he can exact retribution, I am out the door, narrowly dodging being whacked with a wet, soapy sponge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I pop my head back in and point at him. \u201cBe sure you\u2019re on the road back to the Ponderosa in three days. And be on time for a change.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I leave my brother shaking his head with water still streaming into his eyes. In minutes, I\u2019ve retrieved Sport from the livery, and I\u2019ve hit the trail filled with a peculiar mix of dread and exhilaration. I\u2019m almost giddy with relief over the reprieve I\u2019ve been given\u2014and yet I\u2019m needled by a sense that something isn\u2019t right.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s just because I\u2019m remembering what happened the first time. I shake off my doubts and remind myself that I need never lay eyes on Kane, never hear his voice give me haughty commands, never cringe under the feel of his hot breath on my neck . . .<\/p>\n Abruptly, I knee Sport into a trot, even though I know he needs to walk most of the long, hot trip ahead. The fact that I am hurrying irritates me. Why am I so jumpy? Why do find myself looking over my shoulder every minute? Everything is different this time. I have made sure of that, leaving nothing to chance. When Joe and I rode into town, I made sure we went straight to the hotel. No stop at the saloon first, despite Joe\u2019s protests, and certainly no discussion of the money we carried. I can\u2019t believe I was stupid enough to blab about that the first time around. It was something I would normally be cautioning Joe about, not myself. All I have to offer in my defense is how hot and tired I had been; I simply hadn\u2019t been thinking the first time. But I had paid the price for it\u2014God, did I pay the price.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But now the cost has been anted up by someone else, by Ross, by his superiors, perhaps by God himself. It doesn\u2019t matter how or why. What matters is I\u2019ve been set free, and I\u2019m determined to follow the right path this time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Since we didn\u2019t spend time in the saloon and didn\u2019t mention money to anyone, there will be no robbers waiting for me outside town. I\u2019m not even traveling down the same road, for I\u2019m certainly planning no side hunting trip this time. The outlaws will not ambush me, will not steal my horse, and I will not be left afoot to wander into a mad man\u2019s camp in the depths of the desert.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nor have I forgotten my kid brother\u2019s safety; the thought has not escaped me that he himself could end up a target for the robbers if they somehow discovered he carried money, so that\u2019s the one thing, the only thing, I haven\u2019t changed\u2014I carry the money myself. Since nobody knows we have it, it shouldn\u2019t be a danger, but I\u2019m not willing to take that chance where Joe is concerned. It\u2019s just one more detail in a series of actions that I\u2019ve taken great care to handle in just the right way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It bothers me that Joe isn\u2019t leaving Eastgate with me, that he is insisting on staying to watch the trial. Nothing I said managed to change his mind. When I got too vehement about it, he started looking at me funny, and I let it go. God knows I couldn\u2019t tell him the truth. But it\u2019s okay. He has no intention of heading east toward the foothills above Kane\u2019s camp; he\u2019ll head straight back home and everything will fall into place.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So why am I nervous? Everything will be all right. I\u00a0will\u00a0<\/em>change what happened to me.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n If you start messing around with destiny, you\u2019re liable to change things in ways you never saw coming.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ross\u2019s words ring in my head, and I click my tongue to Sport to urge him into an easy lope, promising myself and him that I\u2019ll let him stay at a more reasonable gait once Eastgate no longer peers over my shoulder on the horizon.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you start messing around with destiny, you\u2019re liable to change things in ways you never saw coming.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Well, I didn\u2019t see Kane coming the first time, either, and look what that got me. I\u2019ve been handed a priceless gift in this second chance, and I\u2019m holding onto it with everything I\u2019ve got. I\u2019m taking it, and I\u2019m heading for home.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Destiny be damned.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Part II<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n My bedroom is on the north side of the house, in the leg of the T-shape formed by the extension jutting out behind the house. Hop Sing\u2019s room is directly below mine. My brothers have always been mystified as to how I\u2019m always able to rise so early, but I\u2019ve never told them the truth: my habit of waking before dawn is mainly due to the location of my bedroom.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is Hop Sing who wakes me every morning, though not intentionally. I don\u2019t know why the sound travels so well from his room up to mine; some sort of fluke in the house\u2019s construction, I suppose. You might think I would know if that was the case, since I designed and helped build this part of the house, but sometimes even houses throw surprises at you.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Whatever the reason, when Hop Sing awakes, the sounds of his morning ablutions filter clearly up through my floorboards. I have begun each day since I was twelve years old by listening to him splashing water on his face, then to the soft opening and closing of his door behind the staircase. If I listen hard enough, I can just make out the sounds of pots and pans being readied in the kitchen long before dawn arrives.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This morning the sound of Hop Sing\u2019s splashing brings a surge of relief, for it rescues me from strange dreams. Disturbing dreams. Halfway between sleep and wakefulness, flickers of images flash before me: a man\u2019s perspiring face, skin bronzed by sun, teeth flashing as he laughs. Dimly lit mine passages thick with oven-hot air. My own hands, wrists bound tightly in front of me as I strain to escape\u2014<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I lurch into a sitting position and stare wide-eyed into the pitch blackness of my bedroom, my harsh breathing almost drowning out the muffled sound of water pouring from a pitcher in the room below. Terror thrumming through me, I close my mind to the dreams, drawing comfort from the sound of the water and Hop Sing\u2019s soft humming; the noises are familiar and homey, weaving themselves into a gentle silken ribbon that ties adolescence to adulthood with unerring constancy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After a few moments I am calm enough to push the last vestiges of the dreams from my head, and even to snort at my distress over them. I vow that next time Hop Sing serves deviled eggs for supper, I will avoid second helpings of them. For surely it is something I ate that brought on such ridiculous nightmares.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s just that they seemed so real\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Shutting my mind to the images that threaten to move back up out of the darkness, I throw back the blankets and light the lamp on the bedside table. Heaving myself out of bed and crossing the room to the washbasin to shave, I am suddenly anxious to get the day started. As I free my face of the dark growth that always greets me in the mirror in the mornings, I\u2019m still dimly aware of those odd, shredded bits of dreams. I feel slightly off-kilter this morning, though I can\u2019t place my finger on exactly why.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cDarned deviled eggs,\u201d I mutter into the dimly lit mirror, and begin to splash my face with cold water and prepare to head down to breakfast, even though I can\u2019t shake the feeling that I\u2019m forgetting something.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Something important.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ve been back from Eastgate for several days, and there\u2019s a lot of work to catch up on. Pa has a list a mile long, and though I\u2019ve been working hard these last few days, I haven\u2019t made much of a dent in it. But I don\u2019t mind. After weeks of riding, it feels good to stay busy at other things, to stack hay and nail up new corral fencing, to grease wagon axles alongside Hoss, to exercise muscles still slightly stiff from too many long days in the saddle. With Joe not yet returned from Eastgate, I don\u2019t even mind doing his chores.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By evening I fall into bed so tired I\u2019m convinced those idiotic dreams won\u2019t make another appearance.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But they do. Visions of that same laughing man and the dark mine are interspersed with placid scenes of Lake Tahoe and my old friend Ross.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ross, of all people. I didn\u2019t dream of Ross even immediately after his death\u2014the memories were too painful and I guess my mind just shut them off\u2014but I\u2019m dreaming of him now after all this time? So odd.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Maybe I\u2019m coming down with something.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For the next several nights, the dreams find me, but each night they are more hazy, less troubling. Less real. Eventually they don\u2019t come at all. Whatever brought them on is gone, and my nights are filled with peaceful slumber.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n All is right with the world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n o~o~o~o~o~o<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Something is wrong.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s been days since I left Joe at Eastgate. Far too many days. He should\u2019ve been home, but he\u2019s not. Yesterday we sent a telegram to Eastgate; now Sheriff Coffee stands here at the door to inform us that the sheriff of Eastgate has sent a reply. The message confirms that Joe left town three days after I did, just as he was supposed to.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Within a half hour we are in the saddle, riding hard and fast for Eastgate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have strangely conflicting feelings as I ride. I am desperate to get there soon, and yet, every few miles I have an almost irresistible urge to whip Sport\u2019s head around and head for home. It\u2019s worry over Joe, I tell myself. I\u2019m afraid we\u2019ll miss him and he\u2019ll be safely at home while we\u2019re out here searching for him. That\u2019s all it is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The sheriff of Eastgate is waiting for us by the time we arrive, but he has little information to offer. He\u2019s contacted all the lawmen in the surrounding territory. We are sitting in his office going over maps when a telegram arrives from the sheriff of Salt Flats.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt says he has a horse in town that fits the description of the pinto we\u2019re looking for,\u201d the Eastgate sheriff tells us, and hands the telegraphed message to us so we can read it for ourselves.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Salt Flats? Salt Flats was far to the south of the road Joe should\u2019ve taken back to the Ponderosa. What would he have been doing in Salt Flats?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By the time we make it to Salt Flats two days later, our horses are badly winded, and our guts are tight and empty with worry and lack of food.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The sheriff there leads us to the town\u2019s livery stable, talking matter-of-factly as he walks. \u201cWhen Sheriff Coffee sent that wire and described your son\u2019s horse, I figured this one had to be it,\u201d he says. \u201cSeemed like too fine an animal for the likes of the two hombres that had him, and I was a bit suspicious right from the start, even before I got the telegraph from Eastgate.\u201d He ushers us inside, and Cochise nickers at us from inside a stall. \u201cThis him?\u201d the sheriff asks.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pa nods and swallows. \u201cYes. That\u2019s my son\u2019s horse.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The sheriff sighs. The sound carries with it a world of bad news. \u201cThen I\u2019m afraid, mister, that you might not find your boy. The two that stole this pony were no good, to say the least. I wouldn\u2019t have put it past them to ambush a man.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI want to talk to them.\u201d Pa\u2019s voice is hard and clipped. Even as my anger surges like acid inside me, I am aware of the restraint my father holds himself under, and out of lifelong habit, I follow suit. \u201cRight now, Sheriff, if you don\u2019t mind,\u201d Pa adds when the sheriff doesn\u2019t move.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Instead, he shakes his head. \u201cI\u2019m afraid that\u2019s out of the question.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The walls of my restraint break free, and I grab the man\u2019s arm in a hard grip. \u201cYou heard my father. We need to question the men who stole my brother\u2019s horse.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSon, they ain\u2019t gonna be answering no questions from you or nobody else.\u201d Frowning, he shakes my hand off. \u201cThey were killed two days ago when they rode in shooting up the town. One of \u2018em was riding this pinto.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n o~o~o~o~o~o<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n For days we ride through the desert between Salt Flats and Eastgate, but we find nothing. Hoss and I are completely worn out, and Pa\u2026Pa has nothing left. We can\u2019t keep this up. We need to give up, to quit, but neither of us wants to be the one to tell Pa that all hope is gone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This isn\u2019t right. My brother should be at home, cheating at checkers with Hoss, driving Pa to distraction. Giving me grief.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n People always talk about anger as being something hot. That is not how it is for me. For me, anger is cold. Cold and black. It weighs in my gut now like a great chunk of ice, sending icy tendrils snaking through me until I can hardly contain it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And along with the anger is the nagging sensation that I\u2019ve forgotten something. Something very important. The feeling rubs at me like a blister in an ill-fitting boot, pushed to the back of my mind but never really gone. Perhaps it\u2019s only grief, simply waiting for me to acknowledge it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Grief\u2014yes, that\u2019s it. It must be. All this time I\u2019ve refused to accept that we might not find my brother. But now my hope is at an end. It\u2019s been two weeks since Joe was reported to have checked out of that hotel in Eastgate; it\u2019s time to face reality.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We aren\u2019t going to find him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hard as it is for me to relate that truth out loud to Pa, I force myself to do it. Hoss backs me up, and Pa slumps in the saddle, weary resignation lining his face and making him appear a decade older.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAll right,\u201d he says softly. \u201cLet\u2019s head home.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n o~o~o~o~o~o<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We are headed through the desert toward Eastgate when Hoss points out a large flock of buzzards circling an outcrop of rocks in the foothills. Could be a dead deer. Or a strayed cow that wandered around out here until she died. Or even nothing at all, for buzzards are notorious for riding hot currents of air just for the fun of it sometimes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Or it could be something terrible, a voice in the back of my head whispers. Something that, once we\u2019ve laid eyes on it, will brand itself forever in our minds and hearts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Despite an overwhelming urge to dig my heels into Sport\u2019s flanks and tear out of there as fast as I can, I nudge him toward whatever it is that has captured the buzzards\u2019 interest. Hoss and Pa are close beside me, but none of us speak. The desert heat presses down; my heart beats leaden and slow, but picks up speed as we come closer and closer to the corpse the birds are feeding on. Only about a hundred yards away now; through the shimmering heat I see the body lying on the ground. It is half-buried. Even from here I can make out a shock of dark hair poking up through dirt and rocks. Buzzards peck at the body, feeding.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before I\u2019ve realized what I\u2019m doing, I\u2019ve spurred my exhausted horse into a run, charging at the buzzards. \u201cGet away!\u201d I wave my arms and yell at them, and when I am close enough, I swing down from the saddle and hit the ground running. The large, ugly birds scramble to take to the air in clumsy lurches. Their black wings buffet against the heated air. My ears feel deaf to all other sound.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I skid to a stop in front of the body and drop to my knees.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dark hair. Dark hair that is dusty-gray with dirt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cA mule,\u201d Hoss gasps out from behind me. \u201cA dadblamed mule.\u201d He turns to Pa, who is just now catching up to us. \u201cIt\u2019s just a mule, Pa. Not\u2014 \u201d He shakes his head and repeats softly, \u201cIt\u2019s just a mule.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A mule.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Suddenly the stench is overpowering, and we reel away from the decaying carcass, coughing to rid ourselves of the toxic air the buzzards find so tempting. The animal has been buried in a shallow grave, but it is obvious from the surrounding claw marks that coyotes or wolves have been working at digging it up. Some of the uncovered parts of the body have already been gnawed away.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhy would anybody go to all the trouble of burying a dead mule way out here?\u201d Hoss asks.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We find out soon enough. On the other side of the outcrop of boulders, someone has staked out a small mining camp. It appears to be abandoned, though not long ago. A rough lean-to with a table sits just outside the mine entrance, and tools and various articles of clothing are scattered about. A small heap of unprocessed ore lies in one corner of the makeshift shelter. Lying beside it is a canvas pannier, the kind used to sling across a mule\u2019s back for transporting. Hoss picks it up and turns it upside down, and a couple of chunks of ore tumble from it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLooks like the owner of that mule tried for a while to keep going without him.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cTough way to eke out a claim.\u201d Pa shakes his head. \u201cIt\u2019s likely that\u2019s why he\u2019s not here now. Could be he gave it up and headed to Eastgate or Salt Flats for supplies and a new pack animal. He\u2019ll probably be back, unless he\u2019s decided that the mine is played out.\u201d It is clear from the flat, tired tone of Pa\u2019s voice that he doesn\u2019t really care much why the mine was abandoned. Neither does Hoss. The worry over my missing brother is about all they can handle right now.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I shouldn\u2019t be that bothered by the missing miner, either. Likely, it\u2019s just as Pa says\u2014he\u2019s given it up for good or gone for supplies. But I glance back toward the place where the dead mule lies, and a new, strange kind of anxiety uncoils into my veins. I wonder if the miner has another mule or horse; if not, it will be a long, hard trek to town for him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As it turns out, there is no need to worry about this particular miner. Not anymore.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Using a lantern from the camp, we make a quick inspection of the mine\u2019s interior, and it is here that we find him. He hasn\u2019t been dead long, but he\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0dead. Of course, we don\u2019t know for certain if he is indeed the owner of the mine, but it seems likely, given the calloused condition of his hands and fingers. A gunshot wound to his chest gives us the answer to what caused his end, though it sheds no light on the person responsible.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cProbably robbed of whatever tiny bit of silver ore he dug outta this hole, poor devil.\u201d Hoss says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The man\u2019s eyes are still open. It\u2019s as if he continues to search for a rich vein among the murky interior of the mine, even as he lies there on the cold, dank floor. I can\u2019t help but stare at his face. Something there scares the hell out of me. Something familiar. Something evil.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My limbs are frozen in place. I can\u2019t breathe. Pa and Hoss are talking, but I am barely able to make sense of what they\u2019re saying.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c\u2014and we\u2019ll let the sheriff know when we get there. Unless we\u2014 Adam? Adam!\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I jerk my gaze free of the dead miner. Pa and Hoss are both staring at me, brows drawn together, puzzlement in their eyes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What is wrong with me? \u201cI\u2014 I don\u2019t think I can\u2014\u201d I can\u2019t even finish trying to explain the absurd fear that has me in its grip. I stagger backwards, and then break and run. The path I take through the mine passage is dark, since Hoss carries the lantern, but I don\u2019t care. Dim light is ahead, indicating the opening, and that is enough. Pa and Hoss are shouting from behind me to stop, to wait, but I don\u2019t listen. I have to get out, have to get out. Have to. Get.\u00a0Out.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I burst into the blinding sunshine, lurching ahead so fast that I stumble and fall face-first into the dust. My mouth and eyes are full of dirt; my ears ring with what sounds like laughter. Cruel, maniacal laughter. I try to get away, but suddenly hands are on me, forcing me, holding me down. I kick out with one boot and scramble forward on my knees and elbows. Someone shouts my name. I am free for only an instant\u2014but it is long enough. I am on my feet and running again, even though dirt is still in my eyes and I can\u2019t see where I\u2019m going.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Something hits me behind the knees, and I go down. Deep, irrational fear floods through me as muscular arms wind around my legs. I close my fist and throw a desperate punch. There is an instant of grim satisfaction as it connects; my attacker responds with an \u201coomph\u201d and muffled swearing, and then he shouts my name, over and over, while he fights to hold me down. Again I try to crawl out of reach, but I am too late, for hands grab me and drag me back. I am pinned tightly to the ground. No matter how I struggle, I am trapped, ropes chafing at my wrists and ankles, securing me to stakes driven in the ground.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Finally I give up and lie still. My despair is so thick and strong that I could drown in it. But then . . . I realize suddenly that there is no insane laughter. Only the subdued, worried whispers of my pa and brother talking of exhaustion and insufficient water and too much sun.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are no ropes, either. Nor stakes. Only the cotton dampness of Pa\u2019s water-dipped bandana as he wipes my face, and the comforting weight of Hoss\u2019s hand on my leg. Their faces hover close; beyond them is the ragged ceiling of the lean-to, sagging in the heat but still providing precious shade.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cFeeling better?\u201d Pa asks softly, his eyes searching mine. Deep worry creases the corners of his eyes. I hesitate, then nod.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cCrazy what the sun will do to a feller if he\u2019s out in it too long, ain\u2019t it? Here, drink a little more water.\u201d Hoss\u2019s voice is gently cheerful as he hands me the canteen, but I don\u2019t miss the quick look that shoots between him and Pa.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s my fault,\u201d Pa says, still wiping my forehead with his water-soaked bandana. His eyes don\u2019t leave my face. \u201cWe should\u2019ve headed back two days ago. It won\u2019t help Joseph any if we all end up out here getting sunstroke.\u201d Concern overlays the grief in his eyes. The sight of it makes me struggle slowly into a sitting position.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m all right,\u201d I say. \u201cLike Hoss says, just too much sun.\u201d That\u2019s it, certainly. Nothing else can explain the way I\u2019ve just reacted to the sight of the man inside the mine, a stranger whose life and death mean nothing to me. It is pity I should feel for him, and I do. But paralyzing, irrational fear? No.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ve just been rationing myself too hard on the water we\u2019ve brought with us, that\u2019s all. I should\u2019ve been drinking more.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I start to try to get myself onto my feet, but Pa plants a hand in the middle of my chest and stops me. \u201cOh, no you don\u2019t,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re going to just sit here in the shade for a while. Hoss and I will dig a grave for the miner. In fact, maybe we should just camp here for the night\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo!\u201d I blurt out, too loudly. Hoss and Pa glance at one another again, and I inhale, gathering myself. \u201cI mean . . . no. We\u2019ve still got hours of daylight left for travel. Really, I\u2019ll be fine after I sit here for a minute. Just got too hot, that\u2019s all. Let\u2019s just keep going, all right?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I can\u2019t explain why, but the thought of spending the night in this camp fills me with white-hot terror. I can\u2019t stay here. I\u00a0can\u2019t.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n After staring hard at me for several long moments, Pa slowly nods. \u201cAll right. We\u2019ll go on as soon as we take care of the miner. But if you feel ill at all\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sick. It\u2019s nothing. Seriously, I feel fine now. I just got lightheaded and disoriented back there, that\u2019s all.\u201d It\u2019s not all. I know it, and they know it, but I have no other idea how to explain it all away. It doesn\u2019t make any sense, not even to me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Still, they simply nod and then leave me to tend to the dead man. Obediently, I sit in the shade of the lean-to, giving my head time to clear while they dig a hole, trying their best to make it deeper than the one on the other side of the outcrop where the dead mule lies. It takes a long time, for beneath the top few inches of sand the ground is baked cast-iron hard. Several times they both stop and come to rest beside me, slowly sipping at water from the canteens, perspiration dampening their shirts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Finally they go back into the mine and carry the miner out, and I cannot help myself; I avert my eyes. I don\u2019t want to see his face again. If Pa and Hoss notice, they say nothing. Instead, Hoss finds an old blanket stashed with the supplies under the shelter, and they wrap him in that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n An hour later we ride out, leaving the dead miner there in the parched earth, the tattered corners of his abandoned shelter fluttering slightly as if to wave us on our way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is hot as blazes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And yet I shiver.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n o~o~o~o~o~o<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The aspens on the mountainsides turn from green to yellow; they scatter their round leaves across an early snowfall like gold coins offered to pagan winter gods. Apparently it\u2019s an inadequate offering, for winter comes early, and it comes with a particular vengeance. The sun seems to have forgotten us. If ever we\u2019ve had a colder November, I don\u2019t remember it. The mountains are smothered in white. Hop Sing keeps the window shutters closed most days. Under a mantle of snow, everything seems muffled. Silent. The house, especially.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The snowy weather continues through December, and then worsens as we move into January. We lose cattle, and a handful of horses as well.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not Cochise, though. Cochise stays warm and snug in his stall at night, next to Buck and Chub and Sport. Every morning before we saddle our horses, Hoss turns Cochise out into the paddock behind the barn to spend the day pawing at the snow in search of a few sprigs of frozen, dried grass. The pinto leads a life of horse luxury, remaining unused and unridden. I suspect he will do so for the rest of his days. My father would never allow him to be sold, nor can any of us bring ourselves to saddle him and mount up.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When we ride out on dark, gray mornings to check the cattle, Cochise races along the paddock fence beside us as far as he can, not understanding why he is being left behind. When the snow is coming down, he appears almost ghostly, an icy dusting turning his black parts gray to match the sky. Herd instinct is a strong thing; desperate to follow our horses, he flies back and forth along the fence, his breath rising like smoke from flared nostrils, his shrill, whistling neigh echoing after us long after he can no longer see us. The sound scrapes against us, sharp as a knife. We grit our teeth and hunch our shoulders against it as we ride away.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s too good a horse to let go to waste,\u201d I say once as we hurry away from that high, piercing ache. \u201cOne of us really should ride him out every now and then.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYeah. One of us should,\u201d Hoss agrees, but that\u2019s as far as it ever goes. Cochise remains behind, and though we care for him faithfully, none of us ride him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is April before winter loosens her iron grip. The blue-white ice paralyzing the creeks begins to shift and groan and crack until, one luminous afternoon, all the streams seem to break free at once in a rushing, exhausting purge of rushing water.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With it, something seems to break free within us as well. After nine months of relentless grief, there is a letting go. Bouts of crushing sadness and irrational hope give way to quiet acceptance. One crisp, sun-filled day in late April, friends and family join us at the side of the lake where Marie is buried. Standing near her headstone is a new granite marker. The words \u201cJoseph Francis Cartwright\u201d are engraved upon it, even though the ground beneath the stone holds no body. Pastor Johnson conducts the service, the ladies sing beautifully, and then everyone offers handshakes and gentle condolences. Then quietly, they all slip away and go home. For a time, we remain there alone, the three of us, me, Hoss and Pa.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We let our tears fall one more time, with only the trees and lake to see.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ordering the stone and holding the service has been cathartic in some strange way. The sadness hasn\u2019t disappeared, but it is no longer quite so paralyzing. Our hearts seem to have remembered that life must go on, even when loved ones don\u2019t go on with us. The days and weeks pass. We play checkers. Hoss sings a song or two in his off-key, rumbling voice. Chicken and dumplings was Joe\u2019s favorite meal, and Hop Sing serves it for the first time since he\u2019s been gone. We eat it gladly, and there is even some laughter during the meal. One Saturday night Hoss and I go down to the Silver Dollar and have several beers, for no other reason than because Hoss decides Joe would\u2019ve wanted us to. We flirt with the girls because he would\u2019ve wanted us to. We even get into a fistfight with some cowboys from the Rocking S\u2014because he would\u2019ve wanted us to, just for the fun of it. And before we leave the saloon and head home, we raise our beers high. The boys from the Rocking S join us in a rousing toast to him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Upon our return home, Pa looks at our bruises and black eyes and raises a brow; then he lifts one corner of his mouth in a small smile and asks if we\u2019d like to join him in a brandy before bed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We are not healed, but we\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0healing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As for my strange dreams, they have receded completely. Sometimes the barest wisp of an almost-memory skitters past, but it always disappears when I try to examine it more closely. After a while, I stop trying, and the odd feeling that I\u2019ve forgotten something eventually goes away entirely.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The days grow warm. The spring drive comes and goes. The branding takes a little longer than usual because our best roper isn\u2019t here to help, but Hoss and I take up the slack and we get it done. Missing a family member is like missing a limb\u2014you get used to it, but not really. You learn to compensate, to get along without it. But not really.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Still, you know the missing part isn\u2019t coming back, so you square your shoulders and get on with things.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And so it is with us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Part III<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Spring gives way to summer, and we find ourselves preparing to travel to New Orleans.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Years ago Pa invested some money in a shipyard there, but despite the active port, the ship-building industry has been slow to develop in Louisiana for a variety of reasons. An eastern-based firm has contacted us and is interested in buying our shares in the still-fledgling shipyard, and Pa is just as interested in getting out if the price is right. When the firm suggests meeting in New Orleans to complete the transaction, Pa agrees.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll all go,\u201d he says. \u201cYou boys deserve some time off. We\u2019ll stay a while and have a time of it. The three of us. Eat at some fine restaurants, see the sights. Take it easy for a couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We all know why he doesn\u2019t want to go alone. Rather than dimming with time, some memories grow more painful. New Orleans has long been a bittersweet place for Pa, and now it will be worse. Alone there, he would be miserable, remembering how he and Marie had met, and how they\u2019d gone on to marry and make Little Joe . . .<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hoss exchanges a quick look with me. \u201cSounds like a good idea, Pa,\u201d he says. \u201cI reckon some time off would be just the thing. Right, Adam?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cJust the thing,\u201d I confirm, even though I don\u2019t feel like going any more than Hoss or Pa do.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sometimes the only way back to normalcy is to feign it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n o~o~o~o~o~o<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n New Orleans in late September is often as warm and sultry as the hottest day in July on the Ponderosa. Heavy and wet, the air deep in the French Quarter at night is a sluggish thing, pregnant with the scent of saltwater and flowers, crawfish and beignets, expensive perfumes and unwashed bodies.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tonight I am alone as I wander through the streets. Not truly alone of course, as there are always plenty of people about in this city late at night, but for once I am without Pa and Hoss. I suggested another visit to the French Opera House earlier this evening, but they both claimed exhaustion and the preference of an early bedtime. Pa\u2019s fatigue has been apparent in the dark circles below his eyes; he and Mr. Latimer have had a long and difficult time coming to a compromise on their business deal, but it is at last finished to the mutual satisfaction of each. Hoss\u2019s weariness comes more from home sickness than anything else. He enjoyed New Orleans for the first week, but admitted to me yesterday that he will be glad to get home again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Part of me is also craving the crisp, pine-scented air of home\u2014but still, the lure of the city is strong. New Orleans is one of the largest cities in these United States, and the most European of them all. Tonight I stroll from the opera house toward the hotel, my eyes continuously roaming over the gaslight-gilded framework of the elegant structures so common to the Quarter. Now and then the lines of a particular building catch my eye; I take a detour here and there to take a closer look, but of course, never do I let my guard down so much that I would let someone sneak up behind me. Not only does this city contain fine food and architecture; it also comes with all the vices one would expect from a huge conglomeration of people. I do not intend to become one of the city\u2019s statistics while enjoying its charms, so I remain alert even as I enjoy my stroll.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I turn down a less heavily traveled street. As I walk, my attention is suddenly drawn by a soft sound in a dark alley. A groan. A harsh whisper. I flick a glance down the alley and can just make out two figures pressed close together against a brick wall. An illicit tryst, one the likes of which I have no desire to witness. There are things that happen here that would make some of our saloon girls in Virginia City blush from head to toe.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Shrugging, I turn to head back toward the hotel. Enough sightseeing for one night. As I walk away, one of the pair in the alley speaks to the other. The voice drifts out of the alleyway, each word clearly heard.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIf you want it, you\u2019re gonna have to pay for it just like everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I feel as though I have stepped off a cliff and plunged into ice water. I cannot move. I cannot think. My brain is shouting at me, but I cannot process what it is saying\u2014for the voice from the alley is disturbingly familiar. A man\u2019s voice. Soft. Rough.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even before I realize I am moving, I am already flattened against the wall next to the entry to the darkened passage.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You\u2019re an idiot, Cartwright. Hearing things\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll pay you after, how\u2019s that?\u201d A different man\u2019s voice, arrogant and sure.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Two men. Together. That\u2019s what\u2019s throwing you. This is something totally out of your realm, that\u2019s all. You did\u00a0<\/em>not\u00a0hear what you thought you did. You\u2019re just . . . thrown. By something you don\u2019t see in Virginia City. That\u2019s all. That\u2019s all.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cLook, I don\u2019t have time for this. If you\u2019re interested, fine. Not here, though. If you aren\u2019t interested, that\u2019s fine too. But I don\u2019t give anything away for free.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s your name\u2014Jori? That\u2019s what I heard them calling you, isn\u2019t it? Look, Jori, give me a chance and I promise I\u2019ll make you feel so good you won\u2019t care if you get paid or not,\u201d the other man coos.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But \u201cJori\u201d is having none of it. He laughs, a short, sharp, cynical sound devoid of all humor. \u201cMister, you can\u2019t make me feel anything at all, good or bad. Quit wasting my time and get out of my way. I\u2019ve got paying customers waiting for me.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With roaring in my ears, I numbly stagger forward to stand in the middle of the alley in full view of the two men. They both start and turn their faces toward me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is a narrow alley, and the space between the buildings is very dark. Feebly, my mind registers the fact that with the way the weak light from the street is coming from behind me, I am only a black, faceless silhouette to them. They are still several yards away, and in the dim light, I can\u2019t see much of their features, either.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But I can see enough.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He has lost weight. A white shirt hangs loosely from his frame. His hair is much longer than I\u2019ve ever seen it; it covers his collar and brushes loosely against his face, emphasizing the unfamiliar gauntness of his cheekbones. But there is no mistaking who he is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How? I can\u2019t think. I can\u2019t speak. Nothing makes sense. It can\u2019t be him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But there he is, Joe, with his back against the crumbling brick wall, his shoulders pinned against it by the much larger man. He is working hard at appearing cool and unfazed, but I know him too well. The kid is scared. With the light at my back, I know he can\u2019t possibly tell who I am, but he flashes a grin at me anyway. The defiant smile is half a snarl, and it is cold and hard. He turns his attention back to the other man. \u201cSo you thought you\u2019d bring a friend along to help trap me back here so you can steal what you want? Well, it ain\u2019t gonna work, mister.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat? No! Hell, I don\u2019t know who he is!\u201d The man insists, and then scowls at me. \u201cGet lost. You want some of this, you go find your own. Or else wait till I\u2019m done.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Joe shoves hard at him and tries to duck away, but the man slams him back in place, closing one beefy fist around his throat to hold him. I am lunging toward them even as the man brings his mouth down hard upon Joe\u2019s. Before I can reach them, a flash of metal arcs between them, and the larger man falls back screaming and swearing. Joe vaults away and bolts toward the alley\u2019s dead end.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cJoe! Stop!\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If he hears me over the wounded man\u2019s shrieks, he gives no indication. He leaps, catches the top of the brick wall at the end of the alley, and scrambles on top of it. He stands there for just an instant before leaping, all but invisible in the darkness save for the billowing whiteness of his shirt. I charge after him, but once I climb up and look over, he has disappeared. There is nothing to show which direction he took. On the other side of the wall is a veritable rabbit warren\u2014more alleys, doors to courtyards, multiple iron-spiked gates and wooden doors leading into the backs of buildings. My brother has disappeared as if he never existed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cJoe!\u201d I strain my ears, listening for his running footsteps, but the man on the ground behind me is wailing and cursing so loudly I can barely hear myself think. Dogs are barking; people begin to throw windows open on second stories and shout complaints down on us. \u201cShut up!\u201d I snap at the man, but still he carries on. For a brief moment I consider leaping down to the other side of the wall and trying to follow Joe, but any direction I take will only be a guess since I don\u2019t know which way he went. And he has always been fast; at this point there is little chance I could catch him even if I knew which way to go.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Swearing under my breath, I reluctantly drop back down and return to the man, who is sitting with both hands pressed against his thigh, blood seeping between his fingers. I can see it probably isn\u2019t enough blood to be fatal.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHe knifed me! I\u2019ll see that little bugger dead, see if I don\u2019t. His face ain\u2019t gonna be so pretty once I\u2014\u201d The rest of what he planned to say is lost in a strangled gulp as I grab his collar in both fists and haul him upright.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHow do you know him?\u201d I grit out. \u201cDo you know where he lives? Where can I find him?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The man gurgles something unintelligible and claws at my hands. I loosen my grip just enough to give him air enough to speak.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHell, I don\u2019t know nothin\u2019 about him,\u201d the man gasps. \u201cHe\u2019s just a who\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I give him one hard shake and put my face near his. \u201cYou like boys, do you? Men?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He narrows his eyes suspiciously. \u201cYou with the police? I ain\u2019t done nothin\u2019. I was just\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a split second I have him shoved against the wall where he had Joe pinned only moments ago. \u201cI want to know where you go to find them. These men you\u2014these assignations. Where do you go?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLook, mister, I\u2019m bleedin\u2019 to death!\u201d he complains. \u201cI\u2019m stabbed. I gotta get myself to a doctor\u2014\u201d I bury my fist in his gut. The blow steals his breath, and he crumbles to the ground. I go down on my haunches and look at him, feeling no pity, only black desperation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI need to know where I can find him,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He sneers at me. \u201cOh, now I\u2019ve got it. You got a thing for that one in particular, do you? Well, too bad. You can just hang yourself\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This time I slam my fist done onto his thigh, right onto the knife wound he is nursing. He screams, and then tries to scramble away. I yank him back.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cJesus, mister! Fine, I\u2019ll tell you. Just let me go,\u201d he whimpers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhere? And don\u2019t lie to me. I\u2019ll hunt you down if you do, and that scratch on your leg will be the least of your worries.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s an empty threat; I won\u2019t be able to find him again if he doesn\u2019t want to be found, and we both know it. All I can do is hope I\u2019ve frightened him sufficiently that he\u2019ll give me good information. Right now, I really don\u2019t care what I have to do to him to get him to talk, so I hope for both his sake and mine that he uses some sense.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thankfully, he does. \u201cFine. What do I care if you go after that piece of\u2014\u201d He stops, looks at my closed fist, and swallows. \u201cHe stays different places,\u201d he says sullenly.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He sighs. \u201cMaggie Thompson\u2019s place sometimes. I seen him there before. On Toulouse Street. That\u2019s all I know, mister. I swear it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I give him one last hard look. Then I shove him away and leave him to hurl curses at my back as I start running, headed for Toulouse Street as fast as I can.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My thoughts race faster than my feet can possibly carry me, and they are agonizing ones.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How is this possible? He\u2019s been gone a year. Dead and gone. No. We\u00a0<\/em>thought\u00a0he was dead.\u00a0<\/em>Believed\u00a0he was dead. Why didn\u2019t he come home? Why is he here, in New Orleans, more than two thousand miles from home?<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n What is he doing in dark alleys?<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n God, I heard enough back there to know what he\u2019s been doing. And I don\u2019t believe I\u2019ve somehow misunderstood the intent of that rendezvous I stumbled across.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n It makes no sense. None of it.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n People turn to stare at me as I run block after block. I barely notice; indeed, I can relate little of anything I pass by. What I saw in the alley, what I heard, keeps running through my mind.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIf you want it, you\u2019re gonna have to pay for it just like everybody else.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Just like everybody else.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I let fly with a stream of profanity, using words I normally would never stoop to using. Still, they aren\u2019t vulgar enough, aren\u2019t awful enough, to describe what I am feeling.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Toulouse Street. Where on Toulouse? I slow, taking stock. Two women standing near an cast-iron fence appear to be a likely place for information. Their smiles brighten as I approach them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMon Dieu, you hurry so!\u201d one of them laughs. \u201cDo not worry, mon mignon, I will teach you to go very, very slowly.\u201d She leans into me and walks her fingers up my arm.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Her blonde companion moves around to take my other arm. \u201cOh, you are a\u00a0fine\u00a0<\/em>one!\u201d she purrs. \u201cI\u2019m Delia. Tell you what, Kate and me will give you a special deal. Two for one. What do you say?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I disengage myself a little less gently than I should, but remind myself that I need their help. I force myself to smile back. \u201cTempting,\u201d I say, still breathing hard from my run. \u201cBut I\u2019m looking for Maggie Thompson\u2019s place.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Delia pouts. \u201cWhy do you want to go there for? I promise, I\u2019ll give you a whole lot more fun than anything you\u2019ll find at Maggie\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I catch her hand before she can thread it back underneath my arm again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m searching for someone in particular,\u201d I say, trying to keep my impatience tamped down. \u201cA man. Twenty years old, dark brown hair, green eyes\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Surprise crosses their faces. Then they glance at each other, roll their eyes, and step back.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cQuels d\u00e9chets,\u201d Kate mutters. Delia glares at me. Smiles gone, they both resume their places in front of the fence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t know why you\u2019re wanting to go to Maggie\u2019s then,\u201d Delia says crossly. \u201cThey ain\u2019t got no boys there. Maggie would never allow it. Too much trouble with that route. Maggie just has girls. Like us.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Disappoint settles in my belly. So the man\u00a0had\u00a0<\/em>lied. \u201cPlease,\u201d I say, \u201cwhere\u00a0might\u00a0<\/em>he be, then? I saw him in an alley, four or five blocks over, just a few minutes ago. Maybe you\u2019ve seen him. He\u2019s\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe ain\u2019t seen nobody,\u201d Delia sniffs. She glances at Kate, and then says, \u201cMaggie\u2019s place is that big yellow-painted house down there. The one between the two brick buildings.\u201d She points. \u201cGo on and see what you can find there, since you were so all-fired up looking for it a minute ago.\u201d She drops her gaze low on my body and smirks. \u201cThough I can guarantee you ain\u2019t gonna find anything there that stirs your interest, being as you\u2019re after . . . other things.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If I wasn\u2019t so terrified that I\u2019ve let my brother slip through my fingers, I might even be embarrassed by the obvious insinuation. As it is, though, all I feel is frustration as Delia flips her yellow curls across her shoulder and stalks away down the street without looking back.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At wit\u2019s end, I stare at the large yellow house down the street. Lamplight spills from its windows. \u201cMaggie\u2019s Boarding House\u201d, the wooden sign out front proclaims. But according to Delia, no male \u2018employees\u2019 reside there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He\u00a0would\u00a0<\/em>be an employee at such a place, wouldn\u2019t he?\u00a0You\u2019re gonna have to pay for it just like everybody else.\u00a0<\/em>Am I jumping to conclusions?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I cast about for any other possible explanation, but no. My brother hadn\u2019t been making a cattle deal back in that alley. Granted, he\u2019d obviously been biding his time to make an escape, but there is no possible way to explain away what I\u2019d heard him say. No, there can be no doubt. Joe has been selling the same thing these two women are selling.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What has happened to you, Joe? What are you doing here?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The world is crashing in around me, I swear it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Heavily, I sit down on the ground next to the spiked iron fence, taking off my hat and running a hand hard over my face and through my sweat-dampened hair. I have no idea what to do next. I\u2019ll be the first to admit that I am not a complete stranger to the goings-on inside bordellos and bawdy houses, but I\u2019ve never given a tremendous amount of thought to how a person would go about hunting for one particular girl\u2014and I\u2019ve certainly never stopped to consider where one would go to find a man. I am in foreign territory here.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I drop my head and try to think, but my stomach roils as my mind insists on conjuring up alien images of Joe. Joe, pressed against a wall in a dark alley, a stranger\u2019s mouth coming down hard\u2014<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The foul oath I let drop is one that I would never utter around my father. But at the moment it is the only word I can come up with to express the situation and my inability to deal with it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A gentle hand at my elbow causes me to start, but it is only the dark-haired girl, the one called Kate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d At the moment, I have no more patience for the ladies of the evening so prominent on these streets.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI only wish to speak to you,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhy? My French is fairly poor, but a minute ago, didn\u2019t you say I was a waste of time?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She smiles. \u201cPerhaps I am reconsidering.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWell, don\u2019t. You were right the first time. I\u2019m feeling pretty much useless right now.\u201d Useless. What an understatement. I\u2019ve found my dead brother\u2014alive<\/em>\u2014only to lose him again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou are distraught, yes?\u201d she asks quietly.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Distraught? Yes, I am most definitely distraught. At the moment, I can\u2019t decide which is the more appealing action to take\u2014to punch the red brick building in front of me until my knuckles are raw and bloody, or to stand here in the street and bellow at the moon until they hear me all the way back in Nevada Territory. Of course I do neither, but only nod instead.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou love this boy you search for?\u201d she asks, regarding me closely.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I nod again, suddenly feeling completely exhausted. \u201cHe\u2019s my brother.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That seems to surprise her, and I\u2019m pretty sure I understand why. \u201cAh,\u201d she murmurs, \u201cI thought\u2014\u201d She laughs. \u201cWell, it is no matter what I thought.\u201d She cocks her head and regards me speculatively. \u201cSo what will you do now?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What\u00a0will\u00a0<\/em>I do? I shrug. \u201cI don\u2019t know. Turn to the police, I suppose. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll be able to find him without help.\u201d Which means I\u2019ll have to tell Pa what has happened. I can\u2019t even begin to imagine how he\u2019ll take all this.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou are correct in that,\u201d she says. \u201cNew Orleans has too many houses of ill repute and too many places to hide for you to ever find someone who may not want to be found.\u201d She smiles. \u201cBut you do not know New Orleans, or how it works here. The police will be of no help to you.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got to try.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou want them to arrest him?\u201d Now she sounds defiant. Vaguely accusatory, even.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI want them to\u00a0find\u00a0<\/em>him. If they have to arrest him to do it, at least we\u2019ll have him back. We can worry later about the details of any\u2014any laws he\u2019s broken.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She frowns and chews her bottom lip. \u201cPerhaps you do not realize all of the . . . consequences for a man in this business when an arrest is made. Fines and punishment are often much more harsh than it is for a woman. Sometimes, for a man, it means several years of prison time. Or worse.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Is she right about that? I have no idea. It isn\u2019t a subject I\u2019m familiar with.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Besides, I\u2019m not sure I have a choice about involving the police even if she\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>right. \u201cI don\u2019t know what else to do. If I\u2014if I could just find him, talk to him, maybe\u2014\u201d My voice cracks, and I look away, blinking to clear my vision.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For long moments, Kate is quiet. Then, \u201cYour brother . . . he is very handsome?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I think about the way women looked at Joe whenever we rode into town. How they whispered to one another and giggled behind fans when he walked by. \u201cHandsome. Yeah, you could say that.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHis smile\u2014it is very big and bright, no? His eyes green, as you said, more so when he is angry? He is slender, but also very . . .\u201d She pauses, searching for the correct word, and curls her arm as if showing off her bicep. \u201cVery muscular.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I frown at her, my suspicions rising.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHe is not so tall as you\u2014more average in height. He is very quick with a pistol. And not bad with an epee. And he is left-handed\u2014and oh, what a skilled hand it is,\u201d she purrs, and has the audacity to wink.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The suggestive comment would no doubt embarrass me if it weren\u2019t for the anger surging through me. I don\u2019t have the time or the inclination for this woman\u2019s games. Before she can say another word, I\u2019ve got her by the arm, and I\u2019m not gentle about it. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you say before that you know him?\u201d I growl.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMon mignon, you are hurting my arm.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll break it if you don\u2019t spill your guts in about three seconds. Where\u2019s the kid?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She sighs and rolls her eyes. \u201cMonsieur, if I was going to hide information from you, would I be so stupid as to describe him for you? We\u00a0are\u00a0<\/em>speaking of the same man, then, correct?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYes. Apparently we are, \u201cI grind out between my teeth. \u201cWhere is he?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI do not know. I have not seen him today.\u00a0But,<\/em>\u201d she adds hastily as I tighten my grip, \u201cI will help you find him.\u201d She looks meaningfully at my hand, then back at my face. I hesitate and then slowly take my hand away.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI promise you, you\u2019ll be sorry if you try to run.\u201d I am not bluffing. This woman has obviously been in contact with Joe; her detailed description proves that. She is the only tie I\u2019ve got to him, and the chivalry toward women we were all taught at my pa\u2019s knee is not uppermost in my priorities at the moment. For her sake, I hope she understands just how desperate I am.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOh, I have no doubt I will be sorry. Believe me, I tremble in my boots.\u201d Her mockery and the smirk on her face let me know that she is not all that worried about my threat. \u201cCome.\u201d She leads me down the street, and we continue until we are in front of the yellow house.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m confused. \u201cI thought Delia said there were no men\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe protect our own,\u201d she says, shrugging as if that explains everything.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Inside Maggie\u2019s \u201cboarding house\u201d, the parlour is large, and filled with overstuffed settees and love seats covered in red and pink velvet and brassy chandeliers. Every seat seems to be occupied with men and women talking, laughing, joking. Kissing. Stroking. Brightly colored gowns adorn giggling women. The men are mostly well-dressed, but there are a few who appear to be of the less elite sector of the working class. People mill about the place drinking and laughing as if they are attending nothing more than a respectable party.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As we move through the crowd toward the staircase, there is a feminine squeal at my side and a white-gloved hand places itself at the crook of my elbow.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOoo, I\u2019ll be glad to take this one if you\u2019re too busy, Katie,\u201d a tall redhead says. She rubs her hand up and down my arm in a way that would be distracting at any other time, but now is only irritating.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kate doesn\u2019t even slow down. She just starts up the stairs and waves at me to follow. \u201cGo away, Lily,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The redhead pouts, still holding onto my arm. \u201cSeems to me you\u2019re getting\u2019 kind of greedy lately, Kate. It wouldn\u2019t hurt you to share more. For heaven\u2019s sake, you\u2019ve already got Jori, after all\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cJori isn\u2019t mine and you know it,\u201d Kate retorts. \u201cAnd speaking of Jori, have you seen him today?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lily sighs. \u201cHe was here a few minutes ago, all out of breath, looking for you. I told him you had an appointment to keep and hadn\u2019t gotten back yet. So he left again.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kate shoots me an apologetic look and shrugs. \u201cHe might come in again tonight, or he might not. Do you want to wait?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As if I would walk away at this point. I don\u2019t think so.<\/em>\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ll wait.\u201d I pry myself away from Lily\u2019s still-clutching hands and follow Kate up the stairs and down a corridor, where she pulls a key from her reticule and unlocks the door. She waves me in ahead of her.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I step inside and then stop, stunned.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She smiles. \u201cNot what you were expecting, I take it?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I shake my head. \u201cNot at all. This is\u2014very nice.\u201d It is. The garish velvet upholstery and badly done paintings of nudes that made up so much of the d\u00e9cor downstairs are nowhere in evidence in this quietly done room. Instead, the floors are covered with expensive rugs, and the furniture is highly polished black walnut upholstered in tasteful damask. Strategically placed in corners are a couple of marble statuettes. A costly French mirror with a gilt frame hangs over the mantle. The overall effect is costly but elegant.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She holds out her hand for my hat and hangs it on a gilded stand in the corner. Then she pulls off her gloves and lays them on a marble table, and places her plumed bonnet beside them. \u201cI\u2019m pleased you approve,\u201d she says. \u201cI intend to have my own place someday very soon, and it will all be like this.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The lady has ambition, I have to hand her that. Then it occurs to me\u2014the French accent is gone, having disappeared sometime after we entered the house. In its place is a soft, vaguely British accent. Can I really believe anything this woman has to tell me? \u201cThe \u2018French\u2019 Kate\u2014where did she go?\u201d I ask suspiciously.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kate grins. \u201cYou finally noticed.\u201d She shrugs. \u201cIt\u2019s all part of the act. Men who come to New Orleans from some other place\u2014and you are very obviously not from New Orleans\u2014often expect a sweet French or Creole maid. I do my best to oblige them. Can\u2019t be letting my French sisters have all the fun, now can I?\u201d She steps over to a side table and picks up a finely-cut crystal decanter. \u201cI\u2019m going to change into something more comfortable. May I interest you in a brandy while I\u2019m gone?\u201d After a moment\u2019s hesitation, I nod. She pours a generous amount into a glass and hands it to me. \u201cI won\u2019t be long, Mr. . . . \u201d She stops. \u201cJori has never told me his last name. What may I call you?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cCartwright. Adam Cartwright. And his name isn\u2019t Jori. It\u2019s Joe,\u201d I add. I sound petulant, even to myself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She smiles in a patronizing way that needles at me, and opens the door to a small dressing room. \u201cPlease, Mr. Cartwright,\u201d she says over her shoulder, \u201cmake yourself comfortable.\u201d She shuts the door behind her.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I stare at the brandy in my hand for a moment and then gulp the entire thing down in several rapid swallows. There are plenty of chairs in the room, but I can\u2019t imagine trying to sit still right now. Instead, I help myself to another brandy and move to the window. Under a cloud-shrouded moon, the city is a dusky queen, bedecked in lacy ironwork and twinkling gaslight. The despondent moan of ships\u2019 horns mingles with the lively strains of a piano and a couple of fiddles.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My kid brother is out there somewhere.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After a few minutes Kate returns wearing a white peignoir, sheer, but not as crudely so as I would have expected, given her occupation. I raise my glass. \u201cYou look\u2014different,\u201d I brusquely offer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She grins again, and she appears a decade younger than the woman I first approached out on the street. \u201cLess like a\u00a0whore<\/em>\u00a0than most, you mean?\u201d She throws the word out there like a gauntlet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo. I mean, yes. I mean\u2014\u201d I shake my head, embarrassed by my lack of finesse. \u201cSofter,\u201d I say finally.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She inclines her head graciously. \u201cI will take that as a compliment,\u201d she says. \u201cMay I pour you another?\u201d she asks as she fills her own glass with brandy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Her relaxed manner bothers me. \u201cThanks, but no. You know I\u2019m not here for drinks. Or social niceties. Or\u2014or anything else. I\u2019m here to find my brother.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cVery well. No \u2018social niceties\u2019, then.\u201d She takes her brandy and sits down at the table. \u201cCome. Sit.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I take the chair she offers and regard her steadily. This woman might have information I need, not just about where Joe is at the moment, but also about what has happened to him during these past long months. Perhaps the time we spend here waiting for him won\u2019t be wasted. \u201cJust how well do you know Joe?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI would say fairly well.\u201d She shrugs. \u201cWe are friends.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cCan you tell me why he hasn\u2019t gotten in touch with his family? Why he\u2019s here, doing\u2014doing what he\u2019s doing? Why he let us believe he was\u00a0dead<\/em>?\u201d I can\u2019t keep the anger out of my voice as I say the last.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIf you truly want to talk about all that, I think you might want to take me up on that offer of another brandy,\u201d she says pointedly, though there is a touch of what might be kindness in her voice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Instead of answering, I stare at the bed in the room. It is a huge four-posted affair set up on a dais, covered with a white duvet and sheer white fabric draped artfully around the canopy.\u00a0We are friends,\u00a0<\/em>she\u2019d said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Friends. Yeah, I\u2019ll bet.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHave you lain with him?\u201d I ask, not looking at her. I’m not even sure why I want to know.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She laughs. \u201cThis is your brother. The one you say you know and love. If so, then you know the answer to that question. What do you think?\u201d She sighs when I don\u2019t answer, and then says quietly, \u201cYes. We have been\u00a0together. Many times.\u201d She takes a sip of brandy. \u201cSometimes after he makes a call to one of the wealthy plantation owners\u2019 wives, he comes back here with the money they have given him, and he takes me out on the town. We laugh, we dance, we walk beneath the trees, and then we come back here. And we make love.\u201d There is a wistful tone to her voice that makes me glance at her. She gives me a cocky smile. \u201cIs that what you wanted to hear?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo. I just\u2014\u201d I drop my head. \u201cI have no idea what I want to hear.\u201d It\u2019s true. I need any information she has to offer, but nothing she tells me is going to be good. She, this place, none of it is anything that should be attached to Joe.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSometimes he even makes me forget what I am,\u201d she says softly. Then she slips back into a matter-of-fact tone. \u00a0\u201cBut he is skilled that way. It is one reason he has become such a favorite of so many customers. He makes people forget, just for a while. It doesn\u2019t hurt, of course, that I have taught him a good deal. He is a quick learner. His looks are an asset, naturally.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Skilled that way. Favorite of customers. Quick learner.\u00a0<\/em>\u201cPlantation owners\u2019 wives,\u201d I say dully. I try, unsuccessfully, to imagine explaining all this to Pa.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYes. And other women too, of course. Some widows, some not. Many are simply lonely. Others need more than their husbands can or will give them. He has a pretty face and body, and he shares that with lonely women for a few very pleasurable hours, and then he is compensated in return. Is that so wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I don\u2019t answer. What I really want to do is to get up and walk out of this room and out of this nightmare. But I have no choice; waiting here is perhaps the only shot I\u2019ve got at finding Joe. Will he run once he realizes I\u2019m looking for him? I don\u2019t know. Probably. Maybe. I have to find out everything I can. I don\u2019t\u00a0want\u00a0<\/em>to know what he\u2019s doing at the moment\u2014God knows I don\u2019t want to know. But not knowing is worse.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Believing he was dead is worse.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Maybe Pa doesn\u2019t have to be told. Perhaps no one but Joe and me need ever know anything about any of this. He can come home, and what happened here can simply be . . . erased. It will be enough that we\u2019ve found him, and that he\u2019s alive. Can I possibly keep the rest from Pa?\u00a0Should\u00a0<\/em>I? I don\u2019t know. At any rate, at this moment I am the only thing my brother has to pull him out of the pit he\u2019s somehow fallen into. I need to learn what I can in order to be able to do that, to save him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Can\u00a0<\/em>I save him?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I stare down at the empty brandy glass as I roll it slowly back and forth between my palms. \u201cWhat about the men?\u201d My voice is raspy and harsh.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe men?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe men. When I saw him in that alley earlier, he was with a man. Does he\u2014does he\u2014\u201d My stomach twinges uncomfortably. I can scarcely draw the words out. I know what I saw, what I heard, but maybe . . .<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Her hand comes to rest on top of mine. \u201cNot that I know of,\u201d she says gently. \u201cBut of course, sometimes things happen here that we don\u2019t necessarily want or plan.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Her answer does nothing to put my mind at ease. \u201cWhy is he doing this?\u201d I hate how plaintive the question sounds. I can\u2019t help it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe all have to make a living, Mr. Cartwright. Even Jori.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I grit my teeth and then explode. \u201cJori! Jori! What is this \u2018Jori\u2019 business? It\u2019s Joe, not Jori!\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She looks at me, then rises to go to the sideboard. She carries the bottle of brandy back to our table, takes the empty glass out of my hand, and fills it to the brim.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou will.\u201d She sets the filled glass down in front of me and leans back in her chair. \u201cI think it is only fair that you also give me information. I know nothing of Jori\u2019s life before he was separated from his family. Will you tell me? I\u2019ve asked, of course, but he refuses to talk about that part of his existence. He always just says that it is over and done with.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOver and done with?\u201d I am bewildered. \u201cWhy would he say that?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe first time I asked him, his exact words were, I believe, \u2018It was a life that happened to somebody else.\u2019\u201d She raises her shoulders slightly. \u201cSo . . . will you tell me?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I stare at the brandy in my glass. How could so much change in a year\u2019s time? For whatever reason, I am reluctant to share intimate details of my family with this stranger. The answer I give her is short and blunt. \u201cWe live on a cattle ranch in Nevada. Me, my pa, our brother Hoss, and Joe.\u201d I silently defy her to say anything about my inclusion of Joe as if he still lived there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She doesn\u2019t. \u201cAh. A ranch.\u201d She smiles. \u201cThat certainly explains the way he rides. Occasionally he borrows a horse from a friend of mine, or,\u201d she laughs, \u201cfrom someone he doesn\u2019t even know. And when he rides, it is as if he believes by riding fast enough, he can outrun all his problems. All his fears.\u201d She shakes her head. \u201cSo wild and risky, the way he gallops down the street. I worry for him\u2014as well as for anyone unfortunate enough to step into his path.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Joe, taking risks and riding like a banshee. Some things never change. It\u2019s almost comforting, thinking about him terrorizing the streets of New Orleans on horseback.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhen was the last time you saw him?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I stare up at the elaborately decorated tin which festoons the ceiling. \u201cA year ago. We were in Eastgate, the two of us, delivering cattle to a buyer. There was a big trial in town, and he wanted to stay for it. I wanted to go home. I tried to talk him into leaving with me, but he didn\u2019t want to miss that trial. Finally I told him fine, stay, but he\u2019d better be on the road for home in three days. And I\u2014I left him there.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The last time I saw him. The last time I saw him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I grab the glass of brandy and slam it back, all of it, in one hard swallow. I wish the burn of the liquor was stronger. I wish it was strong enough to burn out the sorrow and the guilt that I feel . . .<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou blame yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I say nothing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWell, you shouldn\u2019t. Jori is young, but he is not a child,\u201d Kate says. \u201cHe made his own choice to stay in that town to watch that trial. It wasn\u2019t your choice to make for him.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She doesn\u2019t understand. I don\u2019t bother trying to explain.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSo you have discovered nothing else of what happened to him when you parted from him in Eastgate?\u201d she asks. \u201cUntil now?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo. Nothing. We had reason to suspect a couple of outlaws of ambushing him. They\u2019d already been killed themselves by the time we caught up to them, so we couldn\u2019t be sure, but we believed they were to blame for his disappearance.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAnd so you stopped looking for him.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo. Yes\u2014\u201d I\u2019m flustered, feeling as though I need to defend our actions to this woman. \u201cNot right away,\u201d I clarified. \u201cWe hunted for weeks, but found no sign of him. That area is all harsh desert. Next to impossible for a man to survive out on foot for long. For a long time, we hoped . . .\u201d I shake my head. \u201cBy the time spring came and we\u2019d heard nothing else, we decided it was time to stop hoping. We put a headstone next to his mother\u2019s grave with his name on it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHis mother\u2019s grave,\u201d Kate murmurs. \u201cMarie.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I look up sharply. \u201cI thought you said he told you nothing of his life, his family.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMarie is the\u00a0only\u00a0<\/em>one he has ever mentioned. She is why he chose to come here, to New Orleans. He said his roots were here.\u201d She watches me for a moment. \u201cYou were right to suspect outlaws of ambushing him. He told me that is what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Somehow, knowing for sure what happened to him it doesn\u2019t help. Not at all. \u201cIt still doesn\u2019t explain why he just . . . left us.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She chews on her bottom lip. \u201cI told you things happen sometimes that we don\u2019t want. Not just here, but everywhere. That is the sort of thing that happened to Jori after he was ambushed outside Eastgate.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She pours my glass full again. I hold it tight, but I don\u2019t lift it. I just watch her.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAfter those men took his horse, he almost died walking through that desert you mentioned,\u201d she continues. \u201cWhen he stumbled upon a remote mining camp, he was overjoyed. He thought he had been rescued.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I sit up straight. \u201cA mining camp? We found an abandoned camp out there while we were searching for Joe.\u201d Memories of the camp sift hazily through my head. It seems like there is something important about that camp I need to remember, but trying to grasp hold of those memories is like trying to hold onto fog.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWas the\u2014was there a man there?\u201d she asks. \u201cA dead man in a mine?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What the hell? I narrow my eyes at her. \u201cHow did you know that?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBecause Jori told me. He was the one who killed him, you see.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My belly is one congealed mass of cold agony. It was Joe who killed the miner we\u2019d found? \u201cI don\u2019t understand,\u201d I whisper. \u201cWhy would he do that? Kill the very man who offered him refuge?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHe offered him no refuge!\u201d Kate spits out, and her brown eyes are alight with fire. \u201cHe offered him nothing at all. Oh, at first he gave him food and water and tricked him into believing that he would help him get out of that desert. But then . . .\u201d She shakes her head. \u201cAre you sure you want to hear this? Do you really want to hear what your brother lived through?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No, I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0<\/em>want to hear it. Pain is already slicing through me at the thought of what she is going to tell me. I don\u2019t want to hear it put into words.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But she doesn\u2019t wait. \u201cHe attacked Jori in his sleep. Knocked him out. Bound his hands and feet, and tied him down to stakes driven in the ground. And then he\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cStop.\u201d I\u2019m suddenly desperate to shut her up.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c\u2014then he forced himself on him. Night after night. He\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cStop it!\u201d On my feet now, I hurl my glass against the wall. Kate jumps as it shatters, spraying glass and brandy everywhere. My heart pounding, I look at her. \u201cStop. Please. Just . . . stop.\u201d She does. I shut my eyes to block out both the sympathy on her face and the images she has put in my head. My hand goes to my abdomen as my stomach heaves. I feel the blood drain from my face. \u201cDo you have a\u2014a\u2014\u201c<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She dashes to the bed and then shoves an enamel chamber pot into my hands. I immediately make use of it, depositing all the brandy I\u2019ve drunk as well as the remains of my early supper. And still my body demands more purging, as if it can also clear my mind of the image this woman has put there. The second time, I\u2019m even able to turn my back on her so as not to subject her to the sight of my indignity. Afterwards, I am spent and shaking, and grateful for the damp cloth she hands me. I allow her to guide me to a large armchair, and I collapse back in it, while she sits on the settee across from me. For long minutes we simply sit there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHe told you all this himself?\u201d I finally ask, my voice a hoarse rasp.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She nods.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I shut my eyes and rest my head on the back of the chair, my fingers holding tight to the arms. \u201cTell me the rest,\u201d I grate out. Despite how I pleaded earlier for her to stop, we both know I have to hear it, even though I know what she\u2019s going to say. \u201cAll of it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She complies. There is no outrage in her voice now; she relates the entire story in a flat monotone. It feels as though it takes a lifetime. Finally, she says, \u201cJori wouldn\u2019t stop fighting back. For three days he was left tied to those stakes. Occasionally the miner would . . .\u201d She shakes her head. \u201cHe took what he wanted from Jori, and in return gave him tiny amounts of food and water. Finally he told him that he would untie him if he promised \u2018to be a good little pack mule\u2019 and do as he was told. Jori agreed\u2014and as soon as he got a chance, he grabbed the man\u2019s gun and shot him dead with it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s like I\u2019m standing under a great waterfall, a great sheet of deafening white blankness, pounding down on me and blocking out all sight and sound except for the roaring between my ears. Dear Lord in heaven, how? How could this happen to Joe, to my family?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLast autumn when I first met him,\u201d Kate says, \u201che was very . . . broken inside. Outside, though, underneath bruises and dirt, he was\u2014is<\/em>\u2014beautiful. I knew he could do well for himself in New Orleans. I took him under my wing, cleaned him up and taught him how to handle his clients and how to remain as safe as possible as he did so.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How to remain as safe as possible as he sold himself. \u201cSo very kind of you to usher him into prostitution,\u201d I say coldly. \u201cFirst some wretched parasite attacks and rapes him, and then you turn him into a whore.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She jerks her head up and glares at me. \u201cYou are wrong. He needed help. I gave him that help.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I laugh. The sound is cold and harsh, exactly the way I am feeling. Never in my life have I hit a woman in anger, nor even thought to do so\u2014but my palm itches to slap this one. \u201cHelp?Help?\u00a0<\/em>God, with people like you preying on my brother, he doesn\u2019t even\u00a0need\u00a0<\/em>monsters like that son of a bitch in the mine to destroy him.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhen I met him, he was turning a trick every other hour in the alleys on the south side of the city,\u201d she snaps. \u201cHe blamed himself for what happened at that mine, thought it was somehow his fault. He was convinced it was some personal flaw that caused it to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to hear any more. I\u2019m on my feet, grabbing her by the shoulders. I shake her to make her shut up, but she keeps going. \u201cThat\u00a0<\/em>is why he decided to do this for a living. For him, it is a form of self-punishment for what he felt he let happen at the mine. He\u00a0still<\/em>\u00a0feels that way. He thinks if he\u2019d just been quicker when that miner came at him, been smarter, paid more attention, he wouldn\u2019t have allowed himself to be drawn into such a predicament, wouldn\u2019t have allowed himself to be attacked.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I shake my head back and forth, trying to will her words out of existence, but she keeps going.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHe roamed the streets constantly when he first arrived here. Sometimes he didn\u2019t even insist that they pay him anything at all. He thought his life had no value, that\u00a0he\u00a0<\/em>had no value. He told me that often he did it simply out of a need for human comfort and a desperate urge to forget. It\u2019s why he is so good at making people do the same, you see. He knows what it\u2019s like to wish your memories would simply vanish.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHe wasn\u2019t. Alone, I mean,\u201d I whisper. \u201cHe had us. All he had to do was come home.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHow could he do that? Even if he had been sure of his welcome, he felt himself unworthy. After what had happened to him, he truly thought himself nothing but a piece of insignificant filth, less valuable than the scraps of garbage on the street. He was selling himself for\u00a0nothing,\u00a0<\/em>Mr. Cartwright. Pennies, a scrap of food, a blanket in the shelter of someone\u2019s cowshed for the night. All because he felt that he deserved no more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYes, yes, I get it. And then you came along and helped him bury himself even deeper,\u201d I say bitterly. \u201cSo very kind of you.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She shakes her head. \u201cYou don\u2019t understand. He was going to die out there. A month, two months, maybe three, but he was going to die, probably knifed and left sprawled in some gutter. \u00a0Or worse. I could not bear to see it happen to him.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSo you\u2019d rather he die of self-loathing or some vile disease? Become an empty shell, ancient before he hits thirty? God save him from help like yours,\u201d I snarl.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She stiffens. \u201cIf my efforts were below your standards, so be it. But I was here to help him. You were not.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I grip her arms so hard I am surprised she doesn\u2019t cry out. I want so very, very badly to hit something, someone,\u00a0her,\u00a0<\/em>even\u2014but deep down, I know she isn\u2019t the real enemy here. The real enemy is dead in the ground outside a ramshackle mine in Nevada. I am glad his burial place is so far away, because I\u2019m afraid if I were there at this moment, I would dig him up just to kick him until my strength is gone.<\/p>\n