{"id":872,"date":"2002-06-19T14:47:47","date_gmt":"2002-06-19T18:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=872"},"modified":"2025-02-27T12:05:49","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T17:05:49","slug":"reclaimed-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=872","title":{"rendered":"Honor Series # 5 – Reclaimed Love (by the Tahoe Ladies)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary:\u00a0 <\/span>Season 15 continues – episode\u00a05.\u00a0 A continuation of the Honor Series<\/p>\n

Rated:<\/span> T\u00a0 Word Count:\u00a0 45300<\/p>\n

Honor series<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Changes<\/a>
\nSteps Forward and Back<\/a>
\nThe Most Important Job in the World<\/a>
\nBroken Promise<\/a>
\nReclaimed Love<\/a>
\nWhisper My Name<\/a>
\nWhen Little Boys Grow Up<\/a>
\n<\/a>Romantic Interlude<\/a>
\nI Do, I Do<\/a>
\nTwenty Years<\/a>
\nOld Shadows<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Reclaimed Love<\/strong><\/p>\n

Authors’ Note: As with all of our stories, this one was written in collaboration and therefore went through many changes, arguments, and much compromise before it was done. It proved to be a hard story to write and took us over a year to complete. The subject matter may be considered sensitive, as it is partially an attempt to find logic, balance and heart in the story of Josh Overton Cartwright, the son of Hoss as he was introduced in the movie “Bonanza: The Return”. By placing the story within the framework of our continuing Honor\/Joe series of stories, we have obviously had to make some major alterations to the structure of the movie plotline, but the Josh\/Hoss segment remains largely intact. <\/em><\/p>\n

If you are among those readers who vehemently believe that no Cartwright ever slept with a woman he was not married to, we respect that opinion, though we do not share it, and hereby extend fair warning that this story will probably not be to your liking. <\/em><\/p>\n

For those who only like a story with a guaranteed happy ending, again, we warn you that this may not be to your liking. <\/em><\/p>\n

For all the rest of you, we hope that you will enjoy the journey we have taken. <\/em><\/p>\n

As always, we learned much more than we taught. <\/em><\/p>\n

The Tahoe Ladies <\/em><\/p>\n

Progress can bring many things to a town. Rejuvenation, hope, new business and new people. Prosperity. Just the sound of the word can make one’s step lighter and give new confidence, new meaning and a new direction. But when the town council of Virginia City approved the new post office, for one family in particular, it brought only a renewed heartache.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

R<\/em><\/strong>eclaimed <\/em><\/strong>L<\/em><\/strong>ove<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

By The Tahoe Ladies<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He heard someone calling his name as he walked down the broad wooden walkway, headed from the bank to the Bucket of Blood saloon. Joe Cartwright turned to find Cyrus Lewis, the newly appointed postmaster for the new post office, chasing him. Poor Cyrus, harried by the move, had done his best to keep up with the delivery of mail too. But just one look at his face and Joe thought for sure that the man was going to fall over from exhaustion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Glad I caught you Mr. Cartwright,” Cyrus began and inwardly Joe groaned. Being referred to as Mr. Cartwright made him feel old, as if the gray in his hair wasn’t enough.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Just Joe, <\/em>Cyrus,” Joe gently corrected the frazzled thin man as he put up his hands to slow the other man down.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Like I said, glad I caught you. Didn’t want to have to ride all the way out to the Ponderosa to deliver this!” He waved a yellowed envelope in his hand as he skidded to a stop in front of Joe.<\/p>\n

“We come pick up the mail every couple of days, Cyrus. Surely it could have waited until someone-” Joe started but the panicked look on Cyrus’ face stopped him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“This one, sir, well, it’s waited long enough. When we were moving the counter out of the old building, we found it. Must have slipped under it years ago. I had to ask Mr. Kelsey, the old postmaster who this was so I could be sure to get it to the right one of ya’s. I am sorry, Mr. Cartwright but I guess you are the closest one to being the right one.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Now you have me confused, Cyrus. Just give me the letter, okay?” Joe said shaking his head.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The little postmaster looked as though he expected Joe to hit him when he handed Joe the envelope but then he saw Joe pale and the gloved hand holding the envelope trembled.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Are you okay, sir?” Cyrus asked when Joe drew a shaky breath.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Thank you, Cyrus,” Joe whispered, still looking at the address on the envelope. He started to turn away, then turned back to the waiting postmaster. “Say, do me a favor would you? You’re going back past my brother Adam’s place, Sacramento-Los Rios Freight. Stop in there and tell him\u2026never mind. I’ll take care of it myself. Thanks Cyrus.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As he sat in the back of the saloon later, a whiskey in one hand, and the opened letter in the other, he wished that he had asked Cyrus to get Adam. He wasn’t sure whether he could manage getting down the street on his own right about then. Joe gestured for another whiskey that Bruno poured.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You okay, Joe?” Bruno asked, his voice full of concern.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yeah, just leave the bottle, will you?” Joe asked and, with reservations, Bruno left the bottle and went back to the bar.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe knocked back his whiskey in one smooth motion then looked at the single sheet of paper in his hand again. The writing there had a definite female flow but the sentences were short and concise. Both tore at his heart. He read the letter again, thinking that maybe he was reading it wrong but there was no mistaking anything about the meaning of it. He picked up the envelope and read again the postmark, the return address and finally, his finger tracing it, the name it was addressed to.<\/p>\n

Joe was torn in two, half in the present and the other half nearly ten years in the past. Again he felt the searing pain of loss as clearly as he had that day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Though he sat in the Bucket of Blood, his mind stood on the side of Lake Tahoe and he watched as his brother’s casket was lowered into the ground. Joe couldn’t hear the tinny piano music, just the sounds of others crying around him, the lap of the waves against the shore and the twitter of birds overhead from that long ago yesterday. He could still feel his father shaking in his arms as he tried to console him, but there was no consolation for either of them, then or now. His beloved brother Hoss was dead and had been for nearly ten years. Now this letter had dropped Joe back into that yesterday.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Joe? You okay, little buddy?” came Adam’s voice just to one side and it brought Joe back to the saloon in a dizzy rush. Before he could respond, Adam had dropped down beside him, one hand holding Joe’s arm to the table so he couldn’t raise his glass again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bruno had sent word when Joe had asked for the bottle of whiskey. There weren’t too many folks in town who didn’t know the Cartwrights, and some knew them pretty good. Long time friends and associates, like Bruno, knew that not but a short while ago, Joe Cartwright had nearly been killed by a series of heart attacks, but only the family knew that in the recuperation period, Joe and Adam had had a serious falling out that was only now being repaired. It had been an ugly triangle between the two brothers and Joe’s wife, Honor, and during the upheaval, Joe had become deeply depressed and had seemed determined to drink himself to death. So when Joe had asked Bruno to leave the bottle, the only thing Bruno could think of was that Joe needed help, and Adam was the closest, with his office right down the street.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now as Adam looked into his brother’s face, he saw eyes glazed by tears and wondered what was wrong, for Joe was obviously upset and for him to be drinking whiskey, it had to be major.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Joe?” Adam called again and this time got his attention. “What is it? Chest pains? Come on, let’s get you over to Paul Martin-”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No,” Joe answered, and even to him his voice sounded strained. “Sit down with me Adam. We need to talk something over.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Here?” Adam slid into the chair, still holding Joe’s arm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes, here.” Quickly Joe told Adam of Cyrus chasing him down the street and giving him the letter that he still held. The half shake of Adam’s head told Joe that he didn’t understand but would stay quiet and let Joe finish. “He gave me this. It’s addressed–” and his voice caught on the strong emotion from his heart, “it’s addressed to Hoss.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam felt like a line of dominoes, one tumbling onto another, the whole collapsing in slow motion towards him as he heard Joe’s words. Yes, it was understandable then why Joe was upset. Adam was as well with this ghost from the past. He took the glass of whiskey from Joe and drank it himself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Look at the post mark,” Joe encouraged and signaled for another glass.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Handling the yellowed envelope carefully, Adam looked at the front of it and noted the date but it didn’t mean anything to him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“That’s a week before Hoss died,” Joe said as if it would explain everything, but to Adam it didn’t and his shoulders shrugging said as much.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Read the letter,” Joe’s voice struggled for control.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam took the single sheet of paper and leaned back in his chair, sipping his whiskey as he read. When he was finished, he folded it carefully and slid it back into the envelope it had rested in for so long.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“He would have been the last one\u2026” Adam started then let his words drift away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I knew he was happy about something when he came home from that trip but he wouldn’t tell me anything,” Joe whispered, the words full of heartbreak.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“He couldn’t have known, Joe. And I can’t see telling Pa any of this,” and Adam knocked back his shot of whiskey in one gulp.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No, not just yet.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam’s eyes hardened into obsidian flints. “What do you mean by that? I will have no part in tarnishing our brother’s memory for Pa.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Adam, you know what this means, don’t you?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I don’t follow you, Joe.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe took a deep breath and let it go slowly. He turned slightly and looked at his oldest brother, the determination plain on his face. “We need to go to Marysville. We need to find this woman.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam hissed “Why?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Because for ten years, she’s thought that Hoss didn’t love her. That he had just used her. That he didn’t care that she was pregnant. Because there is a child out there that has Cartwright blood in his veins. Our brother’s blood, Adam.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“And if we find this woman and her child? What then?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I don’t know. Tell her that Hoss never had the chance to come back to her like she says in her letter that he was going to!” Joe insisted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“This is going to kill Pa, Joe. We can’t-”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“We have to, Adam. Don’t you think he would have done the same for you? Don’t you think he would have found your child? That he would have raised it like you would have?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Whoa! You are getting way ahead of things here, Joe. We don’t know if any of this is true,” Adam reasoned and poured another shot of whiskey for them both.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“And we aren’t going to find out sitting here in Virginia City. No, we need to go to Marysville, find the woman and the child.” Joe stood after he tossed down the last drink and picked up the letter and slipped it inside his jacket.<\/p>\n

“We?” Adam asked as he also stood.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yeah, I think we both need to go, Adam.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“The only thing you need me for is to keep you out of trouble,” Adam jested, and began to follow his brother from the saloon. Just before he followed Joe through the swinging door, he nodded and smiled his thanks to Bruno.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No,” Joe sighed as he pulled his hat down over his eyes, “I only need you to explain it to Honor.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam grimaced then realized that Joe was joking with him. Joe’s fiery wife had been a bone of contention between them but with Joe’s statement, Adam prayed the fight was finally over.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What do you say we tell everyone that we are on a trip together to look for breeding stock?” Adam couldn’t stop himself from letting his hand fall as gently as possible to his brother’s shoulder as he came to stand beside him on the wooden walkway.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe cast his eyes at his brother’s distinguished appearance. As Adam stood there that afternoon in his dark broadcloth suit and white shirt and string tie, he looked anything but like someone who would be buying breeding stock. Joe smiled to himself. Adam certainly did look the part of a prosperous businessman, right down to the trim beard. And Joe supposed that anyone looking at the two of them would never guess that they were brothers since Joe still wore plain ranchers’ clothing. Right down to the stone colored hat that failed miserably to cover his wild torrent of quickly graying hair.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Breeding stock, huh?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well? You got any better cover story for why the two of us would go riding off somewhere together?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No,” Joe replied then gave Adam a tiny smile. “Can you be ready by day after tomorrow? It’s going to take me that long to say good bye to my boys!”<\/p>\n

“Breeding stock, huh?” Athena asked, her eyebrows arched. Together she and Adam were sharing a private dinner at his home on Virginia City’s Second Street. It was something they had been doing more and more, these private dinners. Then they would attend a Piper’s Opera House production or any number of other social gatherings. In the two months Athena Dawson had been in Virginia City, she had been seen repeatedly on the arm of the eldest Cartwright brother. Gossip had started that she was destined to be the next Mrs. Cartwright. And neither Adam nor Athena attempted to dissuade the gossips.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam let a gusty laugh escape then raised his wineglass in salute to his dinner partner. She was beautiful, he thought. Tonight, there would be no excursion out on the town so her hair she allowed to hang loose and free, a near black cape across her back. As her emerald green eyes caught the candlelight, flecking with gold, they seemed to laugh back at him.<\/p>\n

“Breeding stock,” Adam replied. “A special kind of breeding stock, you could say.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Athena leaned forward, placing both crossed arms in front of her on the table. She knew what the motion did and was pleased when she saw his eyes dip to her bodice. This was a game they would play. She was the temptress and he the tempted but the end of the game would always be the same: complete satisfaction for the two of them. A mature woman, Athena had finally broken through the reserve in Adam Cartwright and given him a gift he valued above all others. She had shown him time and time again, the true meaning of passion. Tonight would be no different, she thought.<\/p>\n

She rose from her place at the opposite end of the table and in the cloud of black silk mourning clothes she still wore, came to stand beside him. “Tell me,” she whispered into his ear, pressing her breasts to his shoulder, “about this breeding stock.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Something dropped over Adam, she saw. It was like the past two months had never existed between them. The softness she had seen in his face just a moment before was gone, replaced by hard planes and angles, his eyes now hooded. Beneath her hand on his shoulder, she felt the muscles go tight and everything about Adam silently screamed in agony. He pushed her away and stood abruptly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You wouldn’t understand, Athena,” he hoarsely whispered and turned away from the table and its dinner remains. With long angry strides he left the room, headed for his beloved study, his retreat from the world. He prodded the fire back to life and stood there before it, lost in far away thoughts.<\/p>\n

After a while, he heard the distant clatter of china and silverware cease from the dining room area.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He half expected to hear Athena’s soft ‘good night’ and the closing of the front door behind her, for he had been rude to her. He wasn’t sure if being alone was what he wanted that night. But if she stayed, he would feel compelled to tell her what he was feeling. He wasn’t sure he could put it into words she would understand. He wasn’t sure he could understand it either.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He heard the rustling of her dress just before her hands slid up his chest from behind to hold him to her. She laid her head against his broad back, listening to the beating of his heart and feeling the pain coursing through him that night. Adam caught her hands and pressed them to him, trying to silently beg her to stay. He took a deep breath and let it go slowly. Finally, he made up his mind and turned to take her into his arms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You don’t have to tell me anything, Adam,” she said as she stroked his hard jawline with one finger.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“That’s right, I don’t but-” and he hesitated a moment then plunged on,”but maybe I need to.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gently she took his hand in hers and led him back to the small loveseat, pulling him down beside her. She would let him take his own time and tell her whatever it was that he needed to say.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’ve told you about my brother Hoss, the one between Joe and I,” he began and at once, she felt the pain rise in his him, heard it in the strained timbre of his voice. She slowly stroked the arm next her, feeling the warmth beneath her fingers. “Athena, I would never have expected-” he shook his head then, leaning forward, buried his face in his hands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It’s all right, Adam,” she crooned and began to rub his shaking back, slow, easy circular motions meant to calm the torrent she could feel building inside him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With his face still turned from her, Adam began to tell her of his gentlest brother. He told her of helping to raise him. Of how he rarely, if ever, fought with his brothers. Of how many small or injured animals Hoss brought home over the years for tending. Of how the biggest thing about him was his heart. But at the same time, a girl could send him into a blind panic. Of how unsure Hoss had been around girls and then later on, women. Courteous to a fault, Hoss would stumble over his words in the presence of even a saloon girl, treating her with the same respect a church matron would get.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“That’s why it doesn’t make sense, Athena,” he concluded.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What doesn’t?” she asked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hesitantly, Adam told her of the letter Joe had shared with him that day. “\u2026And she said that she knew it would be pushing things a little, but that he needed to come back for her earlier than they had planned. She said she had just found out that she was pregnant.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I don’t understand, Adam.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Athena, if that letter had been addressed to Joe, or me, even, it would make sense. Both of us sowed our own share of wild oats when we were younger,” Adam blushed in the darkness, thinking of just what he was telling this woman beside him. “But Hoss? He wasn’t ignorant of\u2026” Adam paused, looking for the right word.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“He had watched enough animals to know about sex, is that what you are trying to say?”<\/p>\n

Adam rolled his eyes to the ceiling and thanked the heavens for her frankness before he went on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Exactly. He just wanted to–what’s the term you women have? — he wanted to save it for the marriage bed? That was Hoss, to a ‘T’. So for this woman to say she was pregnant and some how say that it was Hoss’ child, well, it just doesn’t seem to fit.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Maybe it does, Adam. Maybe they had gotten married while Hoss was away and he just didn’t know how to tell your family?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No, Hoss would have known that that would have made our father the happiest man in the world. Pa has always wanted grandchildren since we boys were old enough to marry. And that was always the way he wanted it done, too: marriage first, then the kids. So if Hoss had gotten married, he would have brought her back to the Ponderosa right then. He wouldn’t have waited for anything.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She smiled a slow sad smile that Adam didn’t see. With her hand continuing to rub his back, she could feel the tension begin to drop away from him as he released his thoughts. Athena could imagine Adam standing in front of his father as a young man and try to explain his behavior but then figured that Adam had rarely disappointed his father. Except perhaps in that he had left home, unmarried and returned home the same way. She had met Ben Cartwright twice and each time had felt like she was being judged as suitable spouse material. And probably found wanting, she thought. All she had to do was look at Joe’s wife and see the mark intended for all the Cartwright women to hit. Honor Cartwright, Athena thought, was everything she was not. Honor was a small and graceful woman, educated as a physician yet somehow content with being a wife. Honor was a fiery, spirited woman with long auburn hair and flashing blue eyes. You couldn’t walk into a room and not know she was there. By her own comparison, Athena knew she was never going to equal her. She had no idea how far wrong she was.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“So, now you and Joe are going to this Marysville to find this woman?” Athena asked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yeah, we are but until we find out the truth, we can’t tell anyone why. I can’t conceivably pull Hoss’ reputation into the mud. I just can’t!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No, that is the right thing to do, Adam. Keep him on that pedestal until you have the truth. But what then? What if you go to Marysville and find this woman and she has Hoss’ child? What are you going to do then?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam leaned back and gathered her into his arms. With a deep sigh, he kissed the top of her head before he answered. “I have no idea.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It’s just over on the other side of Sacramento, for God’s sake, Honor! You make it sound like we’re going to the other side of the moon. We won’t be gone that long. Two weeks at the most,” Joe tried explaining for the hundredth time that evening. He certainly hadn’t expected to meet with the amount of negativity that his decision to go to Marysville on a buying trip had generated. It had been his father first but Honor had quickly jumped onto the same wagon. Now as they prepared for bed, Honor was doing her utmost to discourage him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But why is it all so sudden, Joe? And I am not sure that you are well enough for such a long ride.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why do you have to ride? There are other ways of getting there, aren’t there?” She took another angry swipe at her hair with the brush, glaring at his reflection in her mirror. In many ways, he was still the man she had met and fallen in love with all those years ago, still lean and muscular with broad shoulders. As he lay back against the pillows and patted the space on the bed beside him for her to join him there, his easy way still screamed confidence to her, and a degree of sensuality she couldn’t resist.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I told you at dinner, sweetheart. I got word in town that there is some excellent stock going up for sale over there. I want to go check it out.” He couldn’t decide if he was lying or not as she came to bed and slipping beneath the covers, snuggled up to him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But why is Adam going with you? Why not take Candy? Or Jaime? Or your father?” Honor half-whined, her fingers lacing through his thick curls at the back of his neck. For the life of her, she couldn’t imagine that the two of them had buried the hatchet that quickly. The discord between the two brothers had nearly cost her everything that had been dear to her, not just her husband but also her children, and she still condemned herself regularly for having caused it. But she had done as her father-in-law had asked. Every day, she made it a point to not only tell Joe but also show him that she loved him.<\/p>\n

“Candy? With Anne so close to having their first baby? A stick of dynamite wouldn’t get him off the ranch right now. As for Jaime, he deserves a little time with his wife. He hasn’t had that much lately, remember? And Pa is a little old for a ride like that!” Joe nuzzled her hair as he explained patiently again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But Adam?” she protested again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You want me to go alone?” Joe felt her head on his chest shake in reply. “Didn’t think so. Besides, the horses may eventually wind up as his for the freight company.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, I can get Cathy to take care of the boys so I can go with you.” Her hand beneath the covers tracked down his thigh and he shifted towards her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Honor, please. If Adam and I are ever going to get things settled between us, we need to do this.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You mean you and Adam going off together on some trumped up trip? I think the two of you are really going to Sacramento so you can both get drunk, play cards and womanize all night long,” Honor pouted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe pulled her towards him. “Sweetheart, you are imagining things. Except of course the womanizing. But tell me something, why would I go all the way to Marysville when everything I want is right here?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Prove it,” she challenged and felt his non-verbal response.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Gladly.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe stared out the window as he silently pulled on his second boot, eyes fixed on the moon still plainly visible in the dimly lit rose sky. It seemed too early to be up yet, too dark to be anything other than night, and a part of Joe longed to crawl back into the warmth of his soft bed and the embrace of his wife. Opening the curtain a bit farther to let the waning moonlight and burgeoning sunlight mingle upon her sleeping form, he studied her. Honor was sleeping peacefully, her hair draping over her pillow and one bare shoulder, with a few stray wisps curling down to frame her face. She was so beautiful that it made his heart ache to look at her, but this ache had nothing to do with any physical weakness. It was, rather, the strength of love he felt for her. That fiery stubborn woman who nonetheless had shown such graceful acceptance last night when he could not, or would not, tell her the whole truth of where he and Adam were going. Joe had known she was unconvinced by his story, not even the passion of lovemaking that had followed their conversation had entirely erased that slightly hurt suspicion from her eyes, but she had given up questioning, trusting him to do whatever it was he felt he needed to do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Taking a seat beside her on the bed, Joe pulled away the auburn curl teasing at Honor’s eyelashes and replaced it with his lips. She sighed softly as he continued to plant soft caressing kisses over her face, suddenly hard-put to leave her. Perhaps it was the very fact that she had given him her trust, but Joe suddenly knew that he would not have an hour of peace on the trail if he left with any barrier of suspicion hovering between them. He was due to leave soon, Adam was probably already up and waiting for him, but Joe continued his gentle wake-up call and was rewarded by the flutter of soft lashes against his cheek as Honor opened her eyes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What is it?” she whispered, her hand rising to stroke his cheek. “Joe? Are you all right?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Honor, I have to tell you. I can’t go until I do.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She needed no clarification to understand what he was saying. Shifting so that she could see his face more plainly in the faint light, Honor slid her hand down until it rested over his heart, as though willing her own strength into him so that he could find the will to confide in her. Joe’s hand moved to cover hers, holding it in place.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“We got a letter…no, that’s not right either. Hoss got a letter in the mail. A letter mailed some ten years ago and lost until now.” He nodded at her soft gasp, squeezing her hand in his. “It was from a woman in Marysville who claims that Hoss was going back to marry her. She was telling him that she was pregnant. Honor, if Hoss had lived he would have been a father.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Those words moved the woman in the bed to stretch her arms up to embrace her husband, responding to the pain and the longing in his voice, a longing she sensed was for both himself and for his late brother. “Do you believe it?” she asked carefully.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I don’t know,” he said quietly, “but if it is true, we owe it to Hoss to find out. We owe it to Pa.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Does he know?” Honor asked, her voice as soft as the gray light. She already knew the answer even before she watched Joe shake his head, his chin dipping down to meet his chest. Hands clasping both of hers loosely upon his updrawn leg, Joe sighed heavily.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Honor persisted, “Why haven’t you told him?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He shook his head again and, so softly she had to strain to hear him, said, “I couldn’t hurt him again. Hoss was the only one of us who never hurt Pa. He never hurt anybody, but if the letter is true then it’s gonna be hard for Pa to face it, and if it isn’t true then there’s no point.” Before she could interject a comment, Joe lifted his face, his eyes imploring her to understand. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. He’ll ask, you know. He’ll figure out that there’s more to this trip than just buying stock, if he hasn’t already, and he’ll ask you what you know. I didn’t want to put you in the position of having to lie.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Oh, Joe,” the words were breathed more than spoken. “I think you’re underestimating your father. He knows none of his children were perfect. Every parent knows that.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Are you saying that our boys aren’t perfect?” he demanded, trying to distract her with a note of humor that fell flat the moment the words left his lips.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Honor drew his hands up to her chin and kissed the rough knuckles. “I’m saying that he knows you tried your best, all of you and that includes Hoss, to never be a disappointment to him, and to always do the right thing. But he’s a human being with faults of his own, and more importantly, he’s a parent who loves his children enough to forgive them almost anything. He may be shocked or even hurt that Hoss didn’t wait for marriage before getting this woman with child, if the letter is true, but he’ll forgive him, just as he forgave us. Besides, don’t you know what it would mean to him to know that he’s got another grandchild, a living piece of your brother out there somewhere?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But what if he doesn’t?” Joe persisted. “What if it’s not true? I can’t raise his hopes until I know for sure.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Then let me,” she suggested. Joe’s eyes betrayed a mixture of shock and dismay, perhaps self-disgust at not following his original plan to keep the secret from Honor as well, but she forestalled his protest with a finger to his lips. “I won’t say anything if he doesn’t ask me, Joe, but I think it’s wrong to keep this from him and if he asks me directly, then I want your permission to tell him the truth. I think I can make him understand your reasons.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Slowly, Joe released the breath he had been holding, his feelings a jumble of further protests, fear of what might happen, and relief that his wife was willing to take the burden of delivering that potentially explosive news from him. “Only if he asks,” he repeated.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Drawing him closer, she pressed her mouth to his, the gesture both a promise and a benediction. “Hurry home,” she whispered. Joe held her tight for several moments, then with a quick kiss to her forehead, he rose and moved quickly from the room, afraid that if he didn’t leave then that he never would find the strength again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The light in the kitchen shed a soft glow about the room, warming it. Adam stood stuffing supplies into a sack while Hop Sing scurried about the room, handing him this and that. Adam heard the door close across the way from the kitchen entrance and knew Joe had finally managed to arise.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Some things never change, little brother. You getting out of bed late is one of them,” Adam teased gently as Joe accepted the cup of coffee Hop Sing handed him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Some day when you get around to putting a woman in bed next to you on a permanent basis, you will discover that there are a whole lot of reasons for staying bed that Pa never told us about!” Joe quipped back, sipping the black brew tentatively. He propped himself against the end of Hop Sing’s worktable, watching while Adam and Hop Sing finished packing up supplies. “You takin’ enough?” Joe teased lightly. “Or did you invite someone else along to help you eat all that?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam snorted, then hefted one sack in his hand. It did feel a little heavy but he decided that having too much was better than having too little.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’ll go saddle the horses and load up the pack mare while you finish your breakfast,” Adam offered and without a glance back, headed out the door.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Daylight was coming on strong when Adam led their two saddle mounts and the packhorse out of the barn and tied them to the hitching rail in front of the still dark house. He slipped over to the kitchen door and back into the kitchen where Joe was just finishing his own breakfast.<\/p>\n

“Are you ready?” Adam drawled, letting his tone convey the fact that he thought his little brother may have been dawdling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Not yet. Gonna run upstairs and tell Pa good-bye. You comin’?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam huffed. “Joe, Pa has been battling a bad head cold for the better part of the week. He’s probably just gotten the best night’s rest he’s had in a while and you want to go wake him up to tell him good-bye?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe stopped at the entranceway to the dining room and looked back into the dimly lit kitchen. There Adam stood, his hat cocked back on his head, hands on his hips and his jaw thrust out. It is almost like he is begging me to defy him<\/em>, Joe thought then simply smiled.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Like I said, I am going upstairs to tell Pa good-bye. You comin’?” Joe didn’t wait for Adam’s reply but turned and made his way through the great room and up the stairs in the gray light of morning.<\/p>\n

Joe had just sat down on the side of their father’s bed when Adam caught up. Ben was awake and he was playfully making Joe promise to behave and do everything Adam told him to do. Adam cleared his throat and rolled his eyes, making sure that his father could see that he was taking the admonition both in the spirit it was given and one far more serious. ‘When has that boy ever done what I told him to?’ was Adam’s silent protestation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I wish I was feeling up to going with you boys,” Ben allowed. The truth was, he had never had it in his mind to go, figuring that his sons, ‘boys’ no longer, needed this time together to clear the air between them. And that they wouldn’t do if he was with them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“That’s okay, Pa, somebody has to stay home and take care of things. I figure you have plenty of experience,” Joe gibed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, get on, both of you,” and Ben took a halfhearted swipe at the lean thigh resting on his bed. Joe quickly moved out of the way. “Go on, have yourselves a good time.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Bye, Pa,” Joe quickly said and moved back close enough to pat his father’s arm as it lay on the bed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Take care of yourselves. Both of you! No wooden nickels, you hear me!” Ben playfully groused again just as Joe disappeared beyond Adam and into the hallway.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The faint smile that played on Adam’s lips was one Ben had remembered from long ago. It said so many things to the father that Adam often had trouble putting into words.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Travel careful, son. Bring us back some fine stock, ya hear?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Good bye, Pa” Adam finally got out and closing the door behind him heard Joe’s boot heels clatter down the stairs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When he caught up to Joe, Joe was strapping on his gunbelt; his coat and hat already on. Adam shook his head and went on out to where the horses stood waiting. He untied the packhorse’s lead and mounted his own horse. And waited.<\/p>\n

And waited a little longer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Finally, just about the time Adam was ready to dismount and go looking for his brother, Joe came out of the house and without comment, swung onto his horse.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You finally ready?” Adam pouted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yep, come on. You gonna sit here all day or are we gonna go find ourselves some prime breeding stock?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Following his brother’s pinto out of the yard, all Adam could do was shake his head.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They rode silently for a short while, following the road they could have traveled in pitch black night and still found their way it was so familiar. Finally Adam could contain his thoughts no longer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Why do you do that?” he queried, riding up beside Joe and studying him in the early morning light.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’ve seen you do it so often! You go out of your way to go tell Pa and Honor good-bye. This morning you even wake Pa up to do it! Why, Joe?” For the life of him, Adam couldn’t fathom what he perceived as Joe’s insecurity. There had to be another reason.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe glanced from under his lowered hat brim at his brother. A thousand excuses popped into his head but instead he followed the example Honor had given him this morning: he would tell Adam the truth, the whole truth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, I didn’t tell Pa the real reason we were going, if that is what you are worried about!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam snorted and had to pull his horse around when the sound made the animal dance. “You’re the one worried about that, as I recall.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe smiled and nudged Cochise ahead while he pushed his careening thoughts and emotions into some form he thought Adam would understand. When he found the right words, he pulled up and let Adam come to him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Because,” Joe struggled to get the words out, “You never know when it will be the last time you ever have the chance to tell someone good bye and that you love them.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Even in the dim light, Adam could see the unshed tears in Joe’s shadowed eyes. He opened his mouth to say something then closed it before he uttered a word. Yes<\/em>, he thought, I know what you mean. I’ve lost chances to do that too. But maybe you can teach me how not to do it again. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Together they rode, never pushing their horses hard over the rough mountain territory they traveled through. They had cut across the highest part of the Sierras and now as they dropped down through a wide pleasant valley, they were side by side. Every once in while, Joe would feel Adam’s eyes on him and would know he was checking up on him. Joe knew Honor and Ben had both taken Adam aside before they left and talked to him. He could almost hear their voices: Don’t let him get too tired; don’t let him get cold; don’t let him get hot, wet, angry. Again, he mentally shook his head. They worried too much. It had been the better part of a month since the last little go around with the pain in his chest but to listen to them\u2026 Adam had done his best to be circumspect but it was getting on Joe’s nerves. He had to do something to distract Adam\u2026and himself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What’s the first thing you remember?” Joe asked, pulling Cochise to a slow walk, the packhorse following to the side.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam’s mind snapped to attention as he turned his eyes from his brother. He had thought for a while that they should stop and rest. Joe looked tired but then Adam had nearly chuckled aloud when he realized that the real reason he wanted to stop was more personal. His butt was a little sore from this much riding. But now Joe had thrown out this odd question.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Why you asking?” he queried, trying not to sound suspicious or hostile.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Just conversation, is all,” was Joe’s reply, accompanied by a small shrug.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Oh,” Adam grunted softly, “Okay then. First thing I remember,” and something very much like a shadow dropped across his persona. It was so apparent that as Joe glanced at his brother, he had the thought that he could have touched it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam took a deep breath, smelling the clean whiff of pine first but overlaying that was the smell of saddle leather and the horses they rode. It was as though it was a latch on a memory box long kept closed. Adam allowed his mind to open the box, knowing that what was inside was both sweet and painful at the same time. And his brother had asked with such simple sincerity that Adam had to respond.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I wasn’t five years old yet. Pa and I had been on the road a long time. I know that now because he’s told me the stories, just like he has you, about coming out west. But what I remember,” his voice trailed away in lost thought then he cleared his throat and continued.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It was getting to be cold weather. I don’t know exactly where we were but I think it may have been Ohio or Indiana. We were outside of a town, a rather fair sized town as I recall. Pa had told me that morning that we wouldn’t be able to keep going much longer. That we had to find some place to lay over for the winter. It didn’t really matter to me that we were stopping. It was just something we did, I guess. Anyway, Pa and I were taking stuff out of the wagon and sorting through it for some reason. Pa was having me make this little pile off to one side. I remember there was some clothes there, the family Bible, a few other things. The bigger pile was cooking utensils, a chest of drawers, that sort of stuff. As we did it, I couldn’t understand what was going on but then a man came. I don’t know who he was but I remember that he and Pa talked a long time. The man kept looking at the wagon, inside and out, then he looked at Brownie, that was the horse. Finally he shook Pa’s hand and gave him some money. Pa turned to me and he had a real sad smile on his face. ‘Son,’ he told me, ‘we need to get our things together and get into town. Find us a place to stay for a while.’ Then he went over to the little pile and put the stuff there into a backpack he rigged up using an old quilt. Then he held his hand out to me.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For many minutes, the silence stretched between the two men. Finally Adam found his voice again and resumed.<\/p>\n

“I couldn’t understand why we were leaving the wagon and Brownie. I was just a little kid and we were leaving the only home I had ever known. I tried to pull away from Pa but I couldn’t. He picked me up and carried me and I remember looking back over his shoulder and waving good bye to Brownie.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There we were, just Pa and I. Everything we owned was in a pack on Pa’s back and winter was coming on. I don’t recall how long Pa walked that day, carrying me. But he finally put me down and told me in no uncertain terms that we needed to go on. And he promised me that things would get better. We wound up in a shack on the outskirts of town. We worked together using mud to chink the holes in the walls. I thought we were playing. Pa cleaned up the fireplace and we gathered and cut some wood for a fire. Then that night, I remember curling up in Pa’s lap, the quilt wrapped around both of us and stared into the fire. Pa tried explaining it to me, I know but that I don’t remember. I just remember feeling really lost without the wagon, without ‘home’ but as long as I had Pa, I was okay. Cold, hungry, tired, but okay.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the rest of that winter, we stayed in that miserable little shack. Pa found work but it must not have paid much since he couldn’t afford much for us to eat. He’d bring home some hard bread, maybe if we were really lucky, some cheese. A real treat was when he’d go hunting and get us a rabbit or squirrel. But he always made sure that I had something on my stomach before we’d curl up together to sleep.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But Pa did keep his promise. Things did get better. In the spring, we bought a new wagon and a new team of horses and we moved on. But I’ll always remember what it felt like when Pa had to sell my first ‘home’. ”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Again, silence. It was only broken by the creak of saddle leather, hooves swishing through the high meadow grass and the occasional birdcall. The two men rode that way until they reached the edge of the meadow and the small creek that ran between the gnarled oaks there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Without discussing it, Joe swung down off his horse. This would be their camp that night. The horses were cared for and by dusk, Joe had bagged a fat rabbit, skinned it and skewered it over the campfire. Adam made a pot of coffee and laid out their bedrolls on either side of the fire. But throughout that afternoon and into the evening hours, Adam said nothing more about that first memory.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, I don’t know about you, little brother, but I think I am going to make an early night of it. I’m not used to putting in this many hours in a saddle,” Adam joked, tossing the last nibbled clean bone into fire.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Next thing I know, you are going to be telling me you are too old for this sort of thing!” Joe teased back but he too was ready for bed. He grimaced, thinking that he could be home, curled next to his wife in their big soft and warm bed. Getting old myself<\/em>, he thought. He glanced across the fire to where Adam now lay, his blanket pulled up to his ears.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Adam,” Joe called softly and went on when he heard Adam’s grunt that said he was listening. “What you told me today, about remembering about Pa selling the wagon. That all true?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yeah, ‘fraid so,” Adam answered and Joe could hear the strain in his brother’s deep baritone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You thought of that wagon as your home but then the Ponderosa became your home.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yeah, like I said, Pa kept his promise to me. Things got better. We ultimately traded the wagon for the Ponderosa. We didn’t have to worry about where our next meal was going to come from. Pa didn’t have to work so hard to keep a roof over our heads. And the walls kept out the cold. Yeah, things got lots better.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Then you really didn’t like it when you came back awhile ago and found out that Pa had handed the Ponderosa to me to run, did you?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The dark blanketed figure across from him stirred. “At first, yes, it was like he had sold my home to someone else again, without even talking it over with me. But then I figured that just like when he sold Brownie and the wagon way back then, Pa knew what he was doing. And,” Adam chuckled briefly, “the last few months when you were sick and couldn’t run things and I had to\u2026well, Joe, let me put it this way: I am glad it’s you and not me with your hands on those wagon reins.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the back of his mind, Adam shuddered. The memory had brought him back to a childhood fraught with cold, hunger and uncertainty. It had instilled deep within him the irrational fear that it would happen again. When he had returned to the Ponderosa almost a year ago and found things so changed, he had felt that fear rise up in him just for a moment. Then logic and rationality had taken over and pushed those childish fears away. But something about talking with Joe about that memory today had reopened a wound he thought long since healed. As he laid there beside the bright fire, he again experienced the overpowering sorrow he had felt that day as a child. Even though he had eaten well not long ago, his belly felt empty as he again ate the meager meals his father had provided. But the most overpowering of all to him, was the memory of leaning into his father’s embrace. He wanted his father there with him that night even though Adam knew Ben’d had to stay behind at the Ponderosa. Adam tried to conjure up the warmth he must have felt as a child with his father but in that he failed. Determined, he clamped down on his emotions and tried to sleep.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe wedged his shoulders into his upturned saddle and dipped his hat over his face. He could hear that Adam was tossing and turning and figured at first that he was getting a little old for sleeping on the trail, but then Joe cast his thoughts back over the things his brother had told him that afternoon. Adam had such a way with words that Joe could feel himself there with his brother and father, could see the wagon and the piles of belongings. He sighed. To think that Adam had watched the wagon and horse being sold and not understood what was happening\u2026 Joe’s thoughts skidded to a halt. So much of what was Adam was revealed in that memory. Adam had always hated the cold, more so than any of them. He had always made sure that there was enough for everyone to eat, even to the point of tucking extra rations into his saddle bags for “just in case”. And Joe had always felt like Adam was walking on eggshells, like one wrong move and the house of cards that was Life would come tumbling down on him. Like Pa would sell his home again without so much as a word to him about why.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Later, and he couldn’t explain to himself why he felt he had to do what he did, Joe rose and picked up his blanket. Quietly, he walked to the other side of the fire and draped it over Adam’s recumbent form. Then, still hunched over, he laid a gentle hand to his brother’s upturned shoulder, not surprised to see a dark eye staring up at him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I promise you, Adam” Joe whispered hoarsely, “as long as I have a hand on those reins, the Ponderosa will never be sold. It will always be there. It’s your home too, and as long as I am alive, there will be food on the table, and a fire in the fireplace. Pa made that promise to a sad, lost, frightened little boy so that he could go on. I’m making it to a sad and lonely man so maybe he can finally believe it.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe had just settled back on his side of the fire when Adam finally spoke.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Thanks,” was all Adam said before he drifted off to sleep and dreamed of an old quilt wrapped around him, strong arms holding him, and whispers of a father’s love.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The coming of the new day brought the two brothers awake slowly. Adam swore that he could feel every mile they had ridden the day before. He groused again that this journey could have been made by train but there was no heat in his rumblings. Stretching and popping joints, he finally managed to get himself upright. He even tolerated Joe’s gentle teasing about being too old for a trip like this one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I may be older than you, little brother, but I would bet that you spent a while last night thinking about your bed at home!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe thumbed his hat back onto his mass of gray-white curls and squinted at his brother. “Guilty as charged. Now are you gonna spend all day bitchin’ about things or are you gonna have some breakfast and go along peacefully?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Do I have to eat your cooking?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once the horses were saddled and the packhorse settled with its load, they swung easily into their saddles and started down a well-worn trail.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“If we make decent time, we should be close to Marysville by tonight. Maybe close enough you can have that nice soft bed you were moaning about,” Joe challenged, looking over his shoulder as Adam trailed him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You mean the one you wanted?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe shook his head just once. “Nope, you! Mine has a woman in it!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was on the tip of Adam’s tongue to reply that many nights, his did as well but that he decided he would keep to himself a little longer. Last night he had even dreamed of Athena and when he had awoken to reality, laid watching the stars overhead fade into dawn just thinking of her. Yes, he missed her. And he probably missed her as badly as Joe did Honor. A secret smile creased Adam’s face and his eyes lit with an unexplained delight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the remainder of the early morning hours, they rode in companionable silence. Both men were lost completely in thoughts of other days and times they had ridden this trail. Begun by loggers in the heyday of the Gold Rush days, it had nearly been overgrown. Then with the discovery of silver on the Comstock, the trail opened up again. This time it took men into the deep Sierras that were home to the Cartwright brothers. And when the Comstock slowed to a trickle, the trail again slowly began to return to its primordial stage. Now, despite the passing of years, the ruts worn by thousands of wagon wheels were still faintly visible through the high meadow grass and meandering among the trees.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where the trail allowed, Joe and Adam would ride side by side, Adam trailing the packhorse today. Just like the day before, Adam kept watch on his brother. And Joe knew he was doing it. At one point, he thought about turning to his brother and sticking his tongue out in a childish display of displeasure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Okay, turn about is fair play, Joe,” Adam finally spoke up and the sound of his voice caught Joe by surprise.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What d’ya mean? Turn about?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yesterday we –no–I told you about my earliest memory. Today is your turn. Come on! Out with it!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe tilted his head a little to one side and looked at Adam. “I didn’t mean to pry Adam. I was just looking for something to talk about that we wouldn’t wind up fighting over!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Same thing now. Just talking.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe scrunched his face up and looked out across the ridgeback they were crossing. “Kind of silly since you were there all the time when I was growing up. Well, most of it.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But that doesn’t tell me what made that first memory for you,” Adam pushed. Something about the way Joe was trying to sidestep the issue urged Adam on but then he thought perhaps whatever it was for Joe was painful. “Look, it’s okay if you don’t want to-”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“That’s not it, Adam. It’s just that\u2026well\u2026I have trouble sorting things out sometimes. I have been told so many stories over the years that it is hard for me to decide what is my memory and what is something someone has told me. Seems like when you hear stuff about your family, it can become like a memory. But you never experienced it so is it your memory?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With his face in shadows, Adam had a hard time telling what might be running through Joe’s mind. He had a point. Throughout the years, the family history had been told and retold so many times that someone in Joe’s position could begin to wonder if what they remembered was their memory or not.<\/p>\n

“Just tell me what the first thing you remember is,” Adam encouraged.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The younger brother took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. When he began to speak, Adam could hear the impending heartbreak in his brother’s voice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Unlike you Adam, I can’t remember how old I was. There was a party going on downstairs but I wasn’t suppose to be there so I guess I was pretty young at the time.” As his pause lengthened, Adam moved his horse closer to Joe’s as a way of showing support.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I remember sitting at the top of the stairs. You know, right up next to the wall in the hallway. You can see a lot from that vantagepoint and not be seen at the same time. Looking down at the party, I could see all the pretty ladies and hear the music everyone was dancing to. It might have been Christmastime but I am not sure. I can’t remember a tree.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What do you remember?” Adam said encouragingly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I remember my mother. She had on a beautiful green dress. Silky stuff as I recall since I remember how the lamplight kept making it sparkle-like. She was radiant in it, Adam. She and Pa were dancing, a waltz I think, and it was only them on the dance floor. Mama was looking up at Pa and smiling. And he was too. Smiling, I mean. God, Adam, I remember the look on his face that night, but you know, I never saw him look that way again.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam smiled. He could fill in the rest of the memory for his brother but he had to know what else Joe remembered about that long ago night. “Anything else?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, I kinda remember Hoss sneaking down the back stairs and swiping some cookies and punch for us. He had been down to the party for a while but had been sent to bed. He found me there and took pity on his baby brother, I guess. I remember he said something about us having a party too. He also said that we didn’t need any girls at ours.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both brothers chuckled briefly at the memory. Then Joe continued his reminiscing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I don’t know how long we watched like that but I still remember that night, Adam. I don’t recall anything else except watching Pa and my mother dancing together. And how happy they were then. You know, come to think of it, I don’t recall ever seeing Ma in that dress again so it must have been some special party!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam was torn. He could tell Joe so much but he knew as sensitive as Joe was, he might not take it well. How much could he–should he–tell his brother? Swallowing hard around the lump that had grown in his throat, Adam decided he would fill in the missing places for Joe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You wouldn’t have seen that dress again, Joe. I remember that party too. It wasn’t Christmas. It was Valentine’s Day. Marie had that dress made from material that she’d sent all the way to New Orleans for and you were right, she was beautiful in it! But she would only wear it one more time.” Adam stopped, praying Joe would catch on to what he was trying to say. When Joe had made no other comment, Adam continued. “That emerald silk dress wasn’t packed away with her things in the attic.” He took a deep breath that shook in his throat. He silently begged Joe to say something.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe said nothing but in the shadow under his hat, his eyes narrowed slightly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“That was the last party she had, Joe. So it isn’t any surprise to know why you never saw her in that dress again.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But you said she wore it only one more time.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes,” Adam explained softly, hoping against hope that Joe would stop him. “Pa had her buried in it. And I don’t think you were allowed to see her-”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Stop it!” Joe said sharply and slammed his heels into his horse’s sides, sending it lunging forward.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As Adam watched, Joe rode furiously to the far side of the little valley. There at the edge of the trees, he pulled up and let the horse blow. Adam continued on at the same dull plodding pace, giving Joe whatever time he would need to himself. He finally pulled into the shade of the trees and sat like Joe: just staring off into nothing but the past.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’m sorry I ruined your memory Joe.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe shook his head, his chin tucked down so that his entire face was hidden in the shadows. “No, you just explained something else to me. You see, it wasn’t really a memory of Ma that has held me for so long. It was the expression on Pa’s face that night that has stayed with me all these years. I can’t explain it, Adam. All I can say is that I have never seen it again. Now I know why.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The brothers looked at one another then and what passed between them spoke of more than just brotherly affection. It spoke of an understanding that went deeper than words.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They made their noontime camp there and rested for a while. All discussion now centered on what they were doing: gathering wood, starting a fire, making coffee. There was no teasing, no bantering, no laughter between them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“How about we try fishing in that stream down there. I don’t know about you but a couple of fried trout would go a long ways to making this trip easier on these old bones,” Adam suggested, figuring that Joe really needed the break more than he did. If there was something Joe loved, it was fishing so Adam wasn’t surprised when Joe agreed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But we do that and you’ll miss that comfy bed tonight.” Joe squinted at the sun, judging the time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the end, the fishing, of course, won out and the two brothers spent the afternoon lying on the stream bank, bare feet in the cool water and hats dipped over their faces. They caught a few fish but kept only two for their meal. And when the sun dipped below the western horizon, the cook fire was banked and the two men once again rolled into their blankets for a night beneath the stars.<\/p>\n

All afternoon, something had been worrying Adam. Joe had said something about a look on their father’s face and it seemed odd to Adam that Joe should have been so preoccupied about it. Finally, curiosity took over and Adam asked what Joe had meant by it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I can’t explain it, Adam. It was just such a look of peace and contentment, I guess you could say. You know, like for once in his life, everything was going all right. That he wasn’t worried about anyone or anything. It doesn’t matter. I never saw that look on his face again. Wanted to, lots of times. Wanted to know that Pa was happy with things. That he was at ease. But…” and Joe’s voice trailed wistfully off in the dark. It was more than a few moments before he spoke again and this time when he did, Adam could plainly hear the longing in his voice. “Maybe that’s what I’ve been trying to do all my life: trying to put that look, that expression, back on Pa’s face. But I can’t seem to do it, Adam. Seems like no matter what I do, how hard I work or whatever, I just can’t put it there again. Makes me feel like I’ve kind of failed, ya know?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Quickly Adam sat up and stared across the orange embers of the fire at Joe. Joe was leaning into the crease of his up-turned saddle, his arms crossed behind his head as he looked up into the empty sky.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Joe, don’t ever think that way. You have managed to do for Pa what he truly wanted all those years ago when he started building the Ponderosa.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe snorted but gave no further reply so Adam continued. “Why do you think we all worked so hard to build the Ranch? It wasn’t necessarily for us, you and me and Hoss. It was for our children, Joe. And you, you<\/em>, have given Pa the grandsons to carry the Ponderosa into another century. Did it ever occur to you that that was your job? Mine was to help Pa build it, but yours was to see that it continued to be held in Cartwright hands.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“If that’s the case, Adam, then Pa should be happy. At some point in time, I would have seen that contented look on his face, don’t you think?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam chuckled, recalling not long ago when he had looked at his baby brother and thought how much like their father Joe had become: broadchested and hair quickly going from brown to grey to silver-white. There would always be that simple loving and child-like fascination with the world that was uniquely Joe but more and more, Adam had thought Joe was following in their father’s footsteps closely. And to understand its origin, Adam thought that you had to look no further than Joe’s twin sons, now not quite a year old.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No, little brother, you been looking in the wrong place for that contented look. Somewhere about the time those boys of yours were born, Pa gave that look to you. Oh, Pa’s happy, all right, but that look you were describing, it’s yours now.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It ain’t like only one person can have it!” Joe protested hotly and rolled to face Adam as Adam poured himself a little more coffee from the cooling pot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No, I didn’t say that, but it does take certain, well, call them ingredients, and you’ve got ’em all: a happy home with a loving wife and children. You enjoy the work you do and you are surrounded by friends you have known all your life. That, Joe, that gives you the right to that look of pure bliss. And that was the look I am sure you saw on Pa’s face that night so long ago. Like I said, he gave it to you. Just make sure your sons see it on your face for a long time to come.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unrolling from his blanket, Joe picked up his tin cup and gestured for Adam to pour some for him. Adam obliged and as they sat across the ring of fire from one another, sipping their coffee, a measure of peace came to them both. It didn’t matter what the source was; they had both gained an understanding of the other and themselves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Something you said earlier has been rumbling around in my head, Joe,” Adam said, pulling his blanket up across his shoulders as he hunkered over the small fire.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Like what?” Joe mumbled, wondering why two otherwise sane men wouldn’t be asleep by then. He decided that it didn’t matter. Just talking with Adam over the past few days had become almost a joy. That thought nearly rocked Joe back on his mental heels but he had come to the conclusion that Adam was no longer an adversary. Maybe he had never been one at all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You were saying something about being told stories and those becoming your memory; that you incorporated them into yourself. That they became your memories even though you had never experienced it.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yeah, so what of it?” Joe blew across his cup and took a hesitant sip.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I want you to do that for me,” Adam admitted and found more of interest in his cup than in his brother’s expression. This was a conversation he had wanted to have with Joe for so long but until then, had not known how to go about it. Now, with the reliving of old memories, he felt the time was right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Adam,” Joe softly snorted, “remember something? Like you were around nearly all my life? How could I have a memory that you don’t?” But as Joe watched Adam’s eyes rise to meet his, a part of him shuddered with an old fear.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You were there. I wasn’t. In fact, you are the only one who can tell me, Joe, because you were the only other one there. I need to hear it from you first hand.” Adam watched as Joe’s eyes began to sparkle with unshed tears. A part of him wanted to turn away from what he was about to ask but the part that called itself ‘brother’ begged him to go on. “Tell me what happened the day Hoss died, Joe.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For a moment, heat rose between the two men and the old temptation to lash out at Adam was back. In that flash of an instant, it made Joe angry. How dare he ask such a thing? What gave him the right to bring that pain back? Who did he think he was?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Please, Joe. He was my brother, too. Pa has told me some of it but only you know all of it. Please, Joe,” Adam begged again, hating himself for the tears that now freely flowed down Joe’s cheeks. “I need to hear it from you. I need your memory of that last day to be mine too.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’m not sure I can, Adam,” Joe whispered and set his cup down on a stone next to the fire. “Besides, it was a long time ago now and\u2026and I \u2026some things happened afterwards that kind of messed with me\u2026.Adam, after Hoss died, I kind of lost it for a while. And before I finally got myself together enough to face Pa, I got started drinking and I just couldn’t stop\u2026. I’m not the one for this, Adam.” Joe pulled his blanket around himself tight and sat staring into the last glowing embers of the fire.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Seeing the strained look on Joe’s face, Adam knew he had to back off. He had been wrong, he thought. This wasn’t the place or time for such memories but he still felt the surge of longing to know. He was about to lay back down when Joe’s voice reached out to him in the now dark night air. From just the sound of it, Adam knew Joe was in pain and while he wanted him to stop, he also wanted him to go on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“We were headed back from a hunting trip up in the high mountains. Hadn’t been very successful. Only thing we had shot was an old wolf that had been trying to make off with our supplies when we weren’t watching. Hoss felt sorry for it ’cause it was so mangy and scrawny. Said it had been a hard winter for the wolf too, with snow four foot deep in the flats. It was late spring and there was still some snow still left up there as high as we had been.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam could see it in his mind’s eye clearly for he had seen the same things in other years. That particular winter had been hard. His father had written of the deep snows that had kept them housebound for days a time, only venturing out to care for the stock. And it had been cold as well, making for deep snow packs in the mountains that in the spring melt created rivers where streams had been. Involuntarily, Adam shuddered.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe went on, his voice a mere strained whisper. “We had decided to come on back home and dropped down onto the Washoe Road instead of going across country like we normally would. Hoss wanted to go across country but I didn’t. I guess I bitched enough that he finally gave in. Looking back, I wish we’d\u2026” Joe took a deep breath and in the stillness of the night, Adam could almost see his brother’s shoulders sagging then straightening. “We were about an hour from home, not quite a half mile from the bridge when we got pushed to the side of the road. The stage come around that broad curve so fast you would have thought the Devil was chasing ’em. I don’t think the driver even saw us then. Hoss made a remark about them needin’ to slow down but that was all. We rode on and when we came to the top of the rise there, we could see that the stage was in trouble on the bridge. The bridge was half washed out and the driver had been goin’ too fast to stop in time. The teams had broken free and were already thrashing in the deep water, headed downstream. The stage was half over the edge and we knew we had to help those people. Next thing I remember was Hoss and I tying our ropes to the rear axle of the stage and then to the end posts of the bridge. Just walking on the bridge planks, you could feel the rush of the water pushing on them. You knew there wasn’t a lot of time left before that whole bridge was going to be washed away.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Although his voice had gained a little strength talking about the scene, Adam knew that Joe was struggling. He longed to reach out and touch his brother. If he did, the pain in Joe’s voice would stop but Adam’s own pain of not knowing would go on. He stayed where he was and let Joe continue.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“We had gotten all of the passengers over onto the bank when it happened. Hoss had gone to help the driver. What for, I don’t know. Maybe it was to get the strongbox or the mail. I’m not sure but it didn’t matter. I heard the shrieking, the horrible grating noise when the stage went on into the water. It was so loud, Adam, that you couldn\u2019t think. I looked up just in time to see that Hoss was hanging onto it as it plunged into the river. I was frozen there, Adam. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t shout. I couldn’t do anything but stand there and watch. The coach rolled over and over as water shoved it down river, but after the first time, I couldn’t see Hoss. Maybe I didn’t want to see him.”<\/p>\n

“But Pa said you tried to save him that day,” Adam spoke reassuringly, hearing the condemnation in Joe’s words.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I did but it was too late. By the time I got to where the coach was wedged into the bank\u2026.I dived in, looking for him. The water there wasn’t real murky like out in the main body of the river and I could see\u2026 I could see him, Adam. His white shirt stood out so plain from everything else. He was pinned under the stage.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then Adam did move around to sit beside Joe but Joe leapt to his feet and, becoming a darker shadow in the night, stood shaking and continued.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’ve never told anyone this. Maybe I shouldn’t now. I mean, what good would it do?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Please, Joe,” Adam begged again softly, knowing that whatever it was that Joe had kept to himself for these many years, he would need to share.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“He was still alive, Adam,” Joe whispered so softly that Adam almost didn’t hear him. “Oh God, I can still see him looking up at me, his blue eyes begging me to help him. But I couldn’t, Adam. I couldn’t move the stage off of him. Maybe if I had been as smart as you are, I could have figured a way fast enough. Maybe if I had been stronger. Maybe, maybe, maybe! It didn’t matter in the end, because I couldn’t help him. He drowned right there in front of me. Hoss died right there in front of me. The one time in his life that he needed me and I couldn’t help him.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam sat there stunned by what Joe had said, his last shaking, trembling words shouted to the cold stars above. Adam had known from other sources how Joe had been the one to break the news to their father. Candy had told him how Joe had ridden into the yard, leading Chubb. Joe had dismounted and mutely handed the reins over to a hand. Candy had said how terrible he had looked and when asked if everything was all right how Joe had just shook his head. Joe had asked where Jamie was at and told that he was in the barn, he’d asked Candy to get the boy and come into the house. When Candy and Jamie had opened the front door, they had seen Joe kneeling beside his father’s chair. The look on Ben’s face had been horrified. Adam had seen his father like that before and knew what Joe had faced in the ensuing days. Others, Roy and Paul, had told Adam how well Joe had pulled himself together. How he had arranged everything and how their father had leaned on him so heavily. But then it had all come crashing in on Joe and he had taken refuge in alcohol for a while to forget. Adam knew why now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Joe, you couldn’t have done anything. No one could have.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam sensed rather than saw when Joe whirled around to face him. “Don’t tell me that!” he screamed. “You have no idea what it was like. Hoss needed me, Adam, and I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t help my own brother! Do you have any idea what that’s like?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the dark, Adam could hear Joe’s ragged breathing and feel the pain radiating off his brother. Down his own cheeks, he could feel the hot scalding tears running. Once again, he recalled the day he had opened the four month old mail that had finally caught up to him half a world away. He could nearly quote word for word what his father had written: Hoss was dead and he feared what the loss was doing to Joe. Could Adam come home? Unwilling to face the loss then himself, Adam had not answered the letter. He had read it and carried it for another month before he realized that it was never going to change. Irrationally, it had seemed to him that if he had read it just so, then Hoss would still be alive and everything was the same back home as when he left. But one afternoon, he watched the birth of a little black horse with a white blaze and white stocking feet. When the little fellow stood for the first time, Adam had thought immediately of Hoss’ Chubb. The dammed up emotions broke open in him and Adam had found himself unable to stop crying.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes, I know what it’s like. When both my brothers needed me, I wasn’t here. But I am now, Joe.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A few eternal moments passed, as Adam’s self-condemning words hung in the air. Joe blinked slowly, as though he could not quite make sense of the words; as though it had never occurred to him that anyone else could share the burden of guilt he had carried alone for so many years. As he knelt before Adam, the faint light from the fire glistened against the tears wetting both their faces, and Joe slowly stretched out his hand and briefly touched his brother’s arm before lying back down upon his bedroll and turning his back. Though he did not speak, both men knew that he would hold Adam to the promise he had just made.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Late that night, when the moon finally rose high in the sky, the two men that were brothers lay rolled in their blankets. Neither was asleep but both lay watching the stars above them, lost in their own thoughts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Joe?” Adam called softly and when Joe replied with a non-committal sigh, he went on. “Is that what this trip is really about? You think by finding Hoss’ kid, you can bring Hoss back? It won’t, you know.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I know that,” Joe reluctantly admitted. “But maybe then I can say that I helped him all that I could.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They crossed over the Yuba River and rode slowly into the bustling town that was Marysville late in the afternoon the next day. Wearily they had located a hotel only to discover that it had but one room available. The desk clerk explained that when the other hotel in town had burnt to the ground, it had left a paucity of decent places. He suggested another hotel down a side street but something about the way he spoke of convinced Adam and Joe that it wasn’t the place for them. They took the single room. Adam was sure he could talk Joe into sleeping on the floor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dropping their bedrolls and saddlebags onto the ornate carpet, the two men looked around the room they had rented. It wasn’t very large but it surely was pretentious. The bed with its heavy silken coverlet and overabundance of pillows reminded Adam of something more like they would have found in a bordello. Joe cautiously sat on the side then with a shrug, laid down, dropping his hat to the floor beside him. He stretched and then wiggled his shoulders into the soft mattress.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You know this beats sleeping on the ground all to hell and back,” Joe commented, his eyes closing.<\/p>\n

“Just don’t go getting too comfortable. You lost the coin toss, remember? You get the sofa here,” Adam reminded him just as Joe sighed deeply.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the length of time it took Adam to say the words, he knew he had lost. He stood at the foot of the bed and watched his little brother’s chest rise and fall all too rhythmically. With a shake of his head and a half scowl on his face, he pulled Joe’s boots off before they left too much of the trail on the coverlet. Joe moaned and feeling the coolness on his feet stirred just a bit then dropped back to sleep.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I have never figured out how you do that, Joe. Just go to sleep at the drop of a hat. Well, okay for now, you get the bed. I’m gonna find me a bath and hot meal but when I come back, you are gonna be out of the bed. Okay?” Adam felt more than a little foolish talking to Joe’s obviously sleeping form. Just to make sure, Adam grabbed a hold of a toe and wiggled Joe’s foot. The only response he got was a sleepy sniff and snort and the foot pulled away from easy reach. “The bed is mine, remember? Joe?” Adam huffed once and turned to the door, still shaking his head. He looked back just before he closed the door behind him. Joe was asleep, a small satisfied smile on his face that wiped away years for Adam.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What the town lacked in hotels and decent rooms, it made for in other areas. As he stood on the steps outside his hotel, Adam counted five saloons, three barbers and one place he would have sworn was a house of ill repute. Scratching at his chin, he thought about getting a beer first then the bath. Two of the three barbershops sported signs advertising baths. One went so far as to list prices depending on how hot, and how clean, Adam supposed, a man wanted his water. Again he looked at the different saloons. With a shrug to his shoulders, he decided that a bath was in order first. Then he would return to the room, roust his brother out of bed and the two of them could spend time bending elbows in one of the saloons. The older he got, the more Adam realized that the times a drink tasted best was when it was shared with friends. Funny, I would have had a hard time calling Joe that years ago. Now it just seems so, well, so natural<\/em>, Adam caught himself thinking and laughed to himself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A half-hour later found the eldest Cartwright sibling reclining in a huge bronze tub, steaming hot water up to his chest. On the small stand beside the tub sat a glistening mug of beer, half-empty. With a deep sigh that started about his toes and ran up the length of him, Adam thought himself one of the most comfortable men in the world at that moment. The long days the saddle melted away, leaving him relaxed and mellow. But the discussions he’d shared with Joe stayed with him and for the first time, he pulled them from his subconscious and ran them round in his thoughts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why had he come with Joe on this trip? Was it the same reason he had accused Joe of? Of trying to bring Hoss back to them in whatever form they could? Or was it because he also felt that he had failed his brothers, both of them? Had he failed Hoss by not being there when he died? Or just by leaving? He recalled some of the letters Hoss had written him over the years he had been away. The letters were always full of things that only Hoss would write: what the mountains looked like, the call of wild geese on the wing, a nest of tiny birds blown to the ground in a high wind, a new foal or calf. These were the things Hoss had loved most dearly and it showed when he wrote of them. Unlike his father’s letter that had always asked him when he was coming home, Hoss never asked. Hoss had known keenest of all that Adam had to go and experience the world in its fullest for himself. And he had seemed to understand why Adam hadn’t returned year after year. Locked away, Adam had kept the letters, reading them at times when he felt most lonely and homesick. Hoss had known all along what would make Adam return and had never had to write it down. As he took a long pull on his beer, Adam thought that he would share those letters with Joe when they returned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That brought his thoughts full circle: Joe. Just before he had returned home a little more than a year ago, he had almost convinced himself that nothing would have changed with Joe. But he knew now that he couldn’t have been more wrong. Some where in the intervening years, his baby brother had matured immensely. And at some point in those years had become, unfortunately, more like his eldest brother: more reasonable and more down to earth, working the ranch and stepping into the role Adam felt he would have assumed if he had stayed. Adam wondered if he hadn’t failed Joe there as well. If he had stayed, Joe would been able to keep his boyish fantasies and pranks, never having to shoulder the burden of a demanding business that called itself the Ponderosa. Adam swished another swallow of beer around in his mouth then gulped it down, feeling the guilt remain. Is that all there is left holding Joe and I together? Guilt?<\/em> he wondered. No, something of Hoss still binds us to one another: simple, unassuming, undemanding and all encompassing love.<\/em> And that was what had Hoss had known would bring Adam back to the ranch and what Adam knew would hold him there forever now.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Maudlin<\/em>, he chastised himself silently, finishing off the beer. I’ve grown maudlin in my old age! I say anything like that to Joe and he would tease me about it for the rest of my days!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Mister, we’ll be closing up in a bit,” the barber’s voice called from the other side of the door to Adam.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Uh, thanks, ” Adam called, wondering where the afternoon had gotten to. One look at his wrinkled toes and fingers told him Joe would have had more that his attitude to tease Adam about. “Must be getting old to fall asleep in the tub,” he muttered, climbing out of the lukewarm water and reaching for a towel.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Uh, Mister Cartwright,” the desk clerk called to Adam’s back just before he would have mounted the first stair, headed for his room on the next floor. “The other gentleman said that he would meet you in the restaurant when you returned.” The little pinched-face man gestured towards the opening swathed in too many velvet drapes to his left.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam smiled his thanks and stepped into the hotel’s small and overly ornate dining room. He took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim light but since Joe was the only patron, Adam didn’t need to see further than the back of Joe’s head.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Slapping Joe playfully on the shoulder as he sat down next to him, Adam had to tease. “Get your nap in all right?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe’s smirk answered for him and for that instant, Adam felt chagrinned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’m sorry, Joe. I shouldn’t have said that. You were obviously tired, too tired probably,” Adam began to contritely apologize only to see the look of “oh no” all over Joe’s face.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When Adam finally stumbled to a halt, Joe picked up his cup of coffee and dipped his head to drink. “You know, if you are gonna bird dog my every move on this trip-” he began.<\/p>\n

“I have strict instructions where you are concerned,” Adam replied evenly and gestured for the waiter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes, and I know who gave you those instructions! This is a wedding ring, not a collar. And if you persist, I am liable to slip the leash and go running for tall timber!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam chuckled shortly and smiled up at the waiter. “What did he order?” Adam asked, a finger jabbed in Joe’s direction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“A steak, medium rare, baked potato, string beans and for dessert, apple pie.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam was astounded that Joe had ordered so much. “What? No appetizer?” he asked, his voice showing his surprise.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Uh, no sir. And what shall we prepare for you, sir?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’ll have the same but make my steak well done,” the elder brother replied all the while watching the younger one’s face.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once the waiter had departed, Adam raised an eyebrow in Joe’s direction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I been eatin’ your cookin’ on the trail!” Joe protested but without heat. “A person could starve the way you cook!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam just shook his head. You never could tell which way the little scamp was going to jump. When the waiter brought him coffee as well, Adam decided he would let it all go.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Maybe I have been watching out for you too long to stop now. You ever consider that?” he teased and watched a slow smile spread over Joe’s face. “Old habits are real hard to break.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Especially when you still feel like you have to report back to Pa!” Joe retorted. “You know, while I am out on the range, I run things just fine. But let me step back through that door and -BAM!-” Joe slammed one fist into his other palm, “I lose thirty years!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chuckling, for he knew what Joe was saying was true, Adam agreed then expounded on it. “Yep, I know what you mean. The other day while I was at the feed store ordering supplies for Sacramento Los Rios, old Walt Palmer, bless his half blind old eyes, walks up to me and pounds me on the back, telling all the world that ‘there ain’t a soul better than one of the Cartwright boys!'”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Oh yeah! You still get it too? ‘The Cartwright boys’,” Joe jested, his voice deepening. “At least you ain’t got old timers calling you “Little Joe” still to your face! Hell, first time Honor heard that she about went into a conniption fit! I did my best to explain it to her but you know how women are-specially that one! I don’t know whose memory is longer: some of those old farts in town or Honor’s!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Do you suppose they will ever let us grow up?” Adam asked, moving his elbows back off the table as the waiter placed a huge platter of meat before him.<\/p>\n

“Not likely! I’m liable to be as white haired as Pa, playing with my grandchildren and someone will call me one of the Cartwright boys!” Joe eyed his own platter expectantly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You haven’t been looking in the mirror too good lately. Won’t be long before you are as white haired as Pa,” and Adam sliced into his meat and licked his lips in anticipation as the juices poured out<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You are just jealous ’cause I still got all of mine! Saw you were thinning a bit in the front. Is that why you decided to grow the beard-thing?” Joe gestured with his loaded fork then a chunk of red beef disappeared into his mouth with the same gusto Adam had seen Hoss devour food with.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam sliced into his baked potato and laid a dab of butter on the cut then turned his attention back to his vegetables. “It’s called a goatee, Joseph. Well, okay it’s a little more than a goatee. So what’s wrong with it? I have you know the ladies find it rather interesting.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And so throughout the meal, the easy banter between the two see-sawed back and forth. The occasional out burst of raucous laughter from Joe would fill the empty dining room while Adam’s gentler, quieter laugh would drift over to make the waiters smile. Finally, with their second piece of pie finished, Adam suggested they adjourn to one of the saloons. Dropping several quickly counted bills onto the table, Adam followed Joe out onto the sidewalk.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Throwing his head back, Joe stopped and laced his thumbs into the back of his gunbelt. He took a deep breath and held it for so long that Adam wondered if he were going to ever start breathing again. When he finally let it go in a long sigh, Adam clapped him on the back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You okay?” Adam asked, fearful of starting the tirade again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yeah,” Joe said, his voice barely above a whisper.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Then why the long sigh? Missing the little woman? Or the little boys?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chewing on his lower lip, Joe turned and looked at Adam. Adam expected to see challenge in the green eyes but what was there was something else: sadness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Some, but no, since last night, it’s been him I miss, Adam,” and Joe didn’t have to explain the “him’ because Adam’d had the same feeling. “When we stand here like this, I can feel him move up between us, putting a hand on my shoulder.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Me too,” admitted Adam, remembering his own thoughts of not long ago. “But I can also feel him pushing us towards that saloon and a couple of beers before the night gets too old on us! So come on. Last one through the doors buys the first round.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With a flip of his hand, Joe headed across the street, the lights just down the way his destination. The soiled doves on the porch of the bordello as they passed by made suggestive remarks to the two brothers. For a half second, Joe seemed to pause but with Adam pulling on his arm and calling out to the girls “He’s a married man!” quickly regained his senses.<\/p>\n

“What about you, sugar? You a married man too?” one dark haired beauty cooed in Adam’s direction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was Joe’s turn to pull at an arm then but he couldn’t just leave it at that. No, his flippant, “Please ladies! Have a little restraint for a man of the cloth!” backed them away from their target.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Joseph Francis Cartwright!” Adam hissed lowly but smiled as Joe pulled him further up the street and into the saloon. “God will get you for things like that!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What? I didn’t say you<\/em> were a man of the cloth! Barkeep! A pair down here, if you would please and take this man’s money for it! After all, you were the last one through the door!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Several hours and more than a few drinks later, the barkeep closed the door behind the two brothers. Holding one another up, they aimed across the street and up the walk, intent on getting to their hotel room while still upright. Or mostly so.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yep, one good thing about Hoss, you could trust him to get you home,” Adam said as he steadied an unsteady Joe opening the hotel door.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You missed it then when he got drunk at ol Randall Whitakers’ barn dance!” Joe hooted a little too loudly Adam thought and tried to shush his brother.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Together they staggered up the stairs and wound up in a heap on the sofa there in their room.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Oh I remember the time you and Hoss decided to make your own beer. What went wrong with it? Did you ever find out?” Adam pulled himself out from under Joe and plopped back down on the furniture.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Nope we never did figure that out. You got any idea why it would blow up like that? I mean them jugs and jars were popping their corks right and left. The stuff was just a-oozing out onto the cellar floor.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Only thing I know is that the house smelled like a brewery for a week after that. The house and everything in it! Remember old Widow Thompkins coming up to us at church that next Sunday, sniffing and wrinkling her nose at us?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Oh Lord yes, I remember that! And the good reverend decides to preach on the sins found in a bottle that week!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I thought Pa was going to kill the pair of you for that stunt!” Adam chortled, recalling how his father looked that fateful afternoon when he came home in the dead of winter to find every window and door in the house wide open to air it out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It wasn’t Pa I was worried about,” Joe confessed. “It was what Hoss would do to me if he found out what Hop Sing was threatening to do to us!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Aw, Hoss wouldn’t have hurt you!” Adam shoved at Joe’s arm playfully.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe leaned back and cast a wary eye in his brother’s direction. “What? You never heard about how he shoved me into a rabbit cage? See, we had decided we were going to make a fortune selling rabbit hides\u2026”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Into the night, the two brothers swapped stories of the one who had been between them for so long. They laughed until their sides hurt then laughed some more. In the end, with the first light of dawn creeping over the rooftops of Marysville, they finally fell asleep, Joe stretched out full length on the bed and Adam reclining on the sofa, his long legs draped across a hassock. But both were smiling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By noon, Joe and Adam had both finally risen. Only moderately hung over, they had glared bleary eyed at one another then decided that a meal would make things right. It did and now, fully refreshed and revived, they stood once more on the steps of the hotel, looking out over the main street of Marysville.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well,” Adam drawled slowly, the toothpick in his mouth shifting from one side to the other as he spoke, “Where do you suggest we start our search?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tugging his hat over his eyes to shield them from the bright afternoon light, Joe stepped down into the street. “Where this all started: the post office.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam shrugged and followed. He was more than willing to let Joe take the lead since it had been Joe’s idea from the beginning. More and more however, Adam could sense the same misgivings in Joe that he had. Especially after what Joe had told him about how Hoss had died, Adam was reluctant to face the truth. Athena had phrased it correctly; it was like pulling Hoss off a high marble pedestal and dragging him and all the goodness that was his brother through the mud. The more he tried to convince himself that they were doing the right thing, the more uncertain Adam became. And he had felt the same emotions coming in waves off Joe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes, the last name was Overton. All I know is that it was a lady who lived here about ten years ago,” Joe was explaining to the postal clerk, and losing his patience at the man’s obtuseness.<\/p>\n

Adam stood looking out the little post office’s window.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Across the street as he watched a group of children, three boys and two girls, were busy playing some sort of game that reminded Adam of hide-n-seek. He wasn’t sure just how old they were but to his untrained eye, he thought that they were of the right age. Is one of them Hoss’ child<\/em>, he wondered. He studied them a little closer, searching for some clue that would say, “This is my brother’s child.” There was one little girl, her hair was the same sandy blonde color Hoss’ had been but she was slight and elfin almost in body and face. One of the boys had a gap between his front two teeth. That was the same gap Hoss had as well but the child was darker than what Adam would have thought he should have been. He shook his head to clear away old pictures of his brother. It would be hard to tell what traits Hoss may have passed on to his child. After all, only one of Joe’s children even slightly resembled him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Come on,” Joe urged coming up behind Adam. Stepping into the bright sunlight, Joe took his hat off and ran a hand back through his hair.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No luck, huh?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No, the fella back there said that there are two sisters here in town whose last name is Overton. Or was Overton. Married now. One is married to the town sheriff, the other is a widow. Recently widowed.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam could hear the hesitancy plainly but couldn’t decide if it was all his own or Joe’s as well. “Do we still-” he started.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes!” came Joe’s sharp answer and to emphasize his point, his hand slashed through the air between them. “If you don’t want to come with me, fine. Go back to the hotel. Go to the saloon. I don’t care. You don’t understand it Adam because you aren’t a father. I am and I have to do what is right by that child.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe turned to walk away but Adam’s hand shot out and grabbed hold tightly of the younger man’s bicep. “You wait just a minute!” he hissed and pulled his brother around to face him. “I told you I would go with you and I will. All the way! He was my brother too! And I may not be a father but I understand what a child needs. Don’t talk about what is right for a child, Joe, think about what the child needs. <\/em>Are we sure that we are doing this for the child? Or are we doing it for ourselves?”<\/p>\n

Joe took a deep breath and looked into Adam’s dark eyes. ” We’re doing it because it is the right thing to do. For the child, for the woman, for all of us, Adam. We are righting a wrong that is way too old. Let’s not let it get any older.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Standing there on the wooden sidewalk, Adam watched Joe walk away from him for a few heartbeats then went after him, his longer legs catching up easily. Shoulder to shoulder they walked, between them a small space. With a glance to the side, Adam longed to reach out and pat his brother on the back for the way Joe had just spoken. He held back. The set to Joe’s jaw showed determination. And a hint of fear. So Adam let the space between them remain but let his thoughts of Hoss fill the gap there. Hoss would have known how to handle them both. Let him now.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They pushed open the gate that led through the blossom-filled garden. It spread in a wild cacophony of color to either side of the short walk but seemed to extend onto the porch of the little white house. Off to one side of the porch, a swing hung, a bright cushion making it seem part of the flower garden. Through the open windows, both men could hear the sound of a woman’s singing. Joe raised his fist to rap on the door but Adam reached over and grabbed it before it made contact with the dark wood.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“We do this and we upset a lot of people’s lives, Joe. Not just ours, but hers, Pa’s, everyone’s. Are we sure we can handle it?” he asked and for that briefest of moments, saw the glimmer of doubt in Joe’s eye. He let go of Joe’s hand and waited.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Together we can, Adam,” and Joe completed his knock on the door.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The singing stopped abruptly and the door opened. There stood a woman, a tall gaunt woman with gray hair and hard blue eyes. Her mouth seemed set in a perpetual scowl, if the lines around it were any indication. With a thin hand she pushed back the wisps of hair in her face and glared at the two men at her door.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well?” she confronted them with the single word exploding from her lips.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“We’re looking for a lady whose last name was Overton,” and before Joe could continue, the woman opened up the door the rest of the way and stepped back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I know who you are and who you are looking for,” she said crisply, her back to them as she opened the door into her parlor, clearly expecting them to follow. “Marysville is a small town, gentlemen. When two men of obvious wealth choose to spend more than one night in town, it doesn’t go un-noticed. And when my husband, the sheriff, checked the register at the hotel\u2026well it kind of made things a bit clearer. My name is Catherine Overton Bishop. The woman you have come to see is my sister, Claire.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Can we see her, please? We would like to-” Adam started but the woman turned on him with a vengeance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You would like to what? Ruin her life even more than your brother did? Oh yes, I know all about how he used her. And when he left her here to fend for herself, filling her head with nonsense about going back to your mighty Ponderosa to ready things for their wedding! I told her then and I will tell her till my dying day that he had no intention of ever coming back. You Cartwrights! You think that even down here we don’t know about how you wield your influence over any one and everyone? It made me sick when I found out about Claire and your brother.” Her eyes narrowed and her voice, strident and angry, barely had the volume to carry beyond the walls, but she made her feelings plain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was like hitting a brick wall for the two brothers. They hadn’t any idea what kind of reception had awaited them but it certainly wasn’t the one they’d just received. Adam was the first to regain his footing and with a hand on his arm to stop Joe from an outburst, he cleared his throat and stopped the woman’s tirade.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Mrs. Bishop,” he began, “there are some facts that I think your sister has a right to hear from us. Is she here? Can we talk with her?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Why doesn’t your brother come and talk with her? He was the one who left her alone and pregnant. While she and I struggled to make ends meet, he sat up there in your fancy house! When there was no money for food, did your brother even think twice about us? Did he ever even send her a dime to help raise his son? NO! And now he wants to turn her life upside down again? Why? The Ponderosa short on heirs?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The only sound following her accusations was that of silence. She never let her glare leave the faces of the two men now seated uncomfortably in her small parlor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe swallowed hard and looking at the floor rather than the woman’s face, he spoke softly. “Our brother can’t come and talk with her or her son. He never knew she was pregnant. And I believe he had every intention of returning just like he promised, Mrs. Bishop, but Hoss was killed in an accident before he found out.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“And it takes you ten years to get up the nerve to come and do what is right by her and the boy? That makes you both even more despicable in my eyes. Get out of my house!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Please, we can explain,” Adam pressed but the woman turned her back on them and left the room. They had no choice but to do as she asked and leave.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The glasses thunked on the wooden tabletop, the wet rings around the bases giving idle fingers something to play with. The remainder of that disastrous afternoon Joe and Adam had spent in the saloon down the street from the hotel. Although there was a bottle of whiskey on the table between them, the level hadn’t gone down appreciably since it had gotten there several hours before. Instead the two brothers had sat there, mostly staring into the amber liquid, not speaking.<\/p>\n

Adam finally broke the ice. “What do we do now?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe shrugged and emptied his glass in one smooth motion. “I was about to ask you the same thing. I’m open to suggestions.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well,” Adam scratched under his chin and thought for a moment before he continued. “We could always just pack up and go home.” He cut his eyes to look at Joe’s expression. Joe’s face remained impassive. “But then again, we could always stay here a while longer and hope the harridan down in that little house will eventually let us talk to her sister. Which is it?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe’s mouth twitched, first into an almost smile then he seemed to grimace, as though tasting something unpleasant. “What do you think? You’re the smart one.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam gave an amused snort and emptied his glass. “In this case, Joe, it isn’t going to be intelligence that wins this war. Nope, I think you have the right weapon in your arsenal. That woman isn’t the one we have to convince. It’s her sister. Claire. She’s heard all the arguments over the years from her sister; all the bad things that Hoss supposedly did to her. It is going to be the emotional side of her that you are going to have to address. And you have to do it, Joe, because I can’t. It isn’t in me.” I’m not strong enough<\/em> Adam finished in his own thoughts, at least not open enough.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“A son,” Joe poured another drink for them both. “I think we need to toast our brother, Adam. Without even knowing it, he gave Pa a grandson! And think of it, we’re uncles! We’ve got a<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

nephew!”<\/p>\n

“You forgetting something? I’m an uncle already. And I have three nephews now.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All through their quiet dinner, Adam wrestled with the idea that somewhere in that drab little town was a boy who would call him Uncle Adam long before Joe’s two sons. This boy could be like his son, almost. He could envision himself taking the boy hunting and fishing; having long rides together as he told him about his past, the family he hadn’t known. Did he even have a pony to ride? He wondered if the boy had been going to school regularly. What was his favorite subject? Did he enjoy his meals with the same gusto his father had? Remembering what the boy’s aunt had said, Adam doubted many of his pleasant thoughts had life in the young boy’s world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Tomorrow,” Adam said, his fork jabbing into a slice of pie on his plate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe raised questioning eyebrows at his brother’s single word.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Tomorrow, we go and try again. And the day after that and the day after that. We keep going back there until that woman gets so sick of us showing up on her doorstep that she lets us talk with her sister.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I wonder if her sister, if Claire, even knows we’re in town. The old biddy seemed pretty controlling to me so it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if she kept that information from her.” Joe polished off his own slice of pie and looked a little longingly at the almost untouched piece on his brother’s plate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Bet she doesn’t know.” Adam grinned, his gray flecked goatee giving him a nearly demonic look as he did so. “But she will. Tomorrow we start a campaign. We wander around town. We talk to people. We’ll start with the preacher. Old Catherine Bishop seemed to say that lots of folks here knew Claire was pregnant and not married so it isn’t like we are letting some cat out of the bag. Someone in this town will tell us where we can find Claire Overton.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Or someone will tell Claire Overton we are looking for her,” Joe finished. “And I don’t much care which way it happens as long as we have the chance to talk with her face to face. What I don’t understand is her sister’s attitude!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You know as odd as it seems, I think I understand it very well. She’s protecting her sister the best way she knows how. You put yourself in between the bad parts of the world and your brother so that he doesn’t get hurt again because it hurts you too,” explained Adam thoughtfully. When Joe didn’t say anything, Adam looked up from his plate. His brother had a bemused expression on his face, a smile playing on his lips. “What?” the elder queried.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You started out talking about Catherine Bishop and Claire Overton. When you finished, you were talking about us, weren’t you? That’s been what you have done all your life, Adam. You’ve tried to put yourself between the world and Hoss and I. You’re still trying to protect us both. You can’t protect Hoss any more.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam folded his napkin and laying it beside his own plate, looked across the table into his brother’s eyes. The niggling thought that he had been caught out having an emotional moment attacked him but he pushed it aside. Instead, he stood and took the easy way out. “True, but somebody still has to watch out for you, little buddy. And like it or not, it is the universal job of older brothers to take care of the younger ones. But if you take the bed again tonight, I may forget all that. Come on, tomorrow is going to be a rough day.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It took them two days of asking questions and talking to people in the small town before the first crack appeared in the protective wall erected around the mysterious Claire Overton. When Sheriff Bishop approached Adam and suggested he leave town, Adam wanted to shout for joy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Sheriff, my brother and I are just enjoying your little town here. Why would we want to leave?” Adam leaned back against the door opening that went into the mercantile. He had just come from within, asking his questions while Joe worked the other side of the street.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The sheriff, an older man in his early fifties with muddy gray hair and a thin mustache, shifted his shoulders back as he looked into Adam’s placid face. This Cartwright was a bigger man than he had thought at first. And smarter too. He wouldn’t be bluffed easily but to keep peace with his wife, Frank Bishop would do about anything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Maybe to keep from getting locked up is why you’d want to leave.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pursing his lips, Adam sized up the sheriff and decided the man needed to take some lessons from Roy Coffee when it came to dealing with people. Roy had never once, to Adam’s knowledge, ever resorted to threats to get his way. “You know, I didn’t know the laws in California were so different than Nevada. Over in Nevada, to be locked up, you have to have broken the law. I haven’t broken any law in your town, sheriff. Unless asking to talk to your sister-in-law is against some strange law you got here.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Maybe I should arrest you on a charge of loitering!” The sheriff went to grab Adam’s arm and direct him to his jail down the street. He was surprised by the smile on Cartwright’s face as he did so.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Go ahead. And when my brother finds out why you have arrested me, he will be down to pay the fine.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So it was that Adam Cartwright was arrested for loitering in Marysville. As he had predicted, within minutes of the cell door closing behind him, Adam could hear Joe’s voice in the other room, demanding to know what was going on. When the door opened and Joe walked into the anteroom, Adam was smiling hugely.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What the Hell,” Joe began but Adam’s hand slicing through the air between them brought him up short. He waited until the door behind him closed and the two were alone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam spoke first, softly. “Don’t bail me out. Let me see what I can do with the friendly sheriff. I have a feeling I can make him come to reason. When you open that door, be angry, Joe. Let the sheriff think that you and I have had a falling out.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Why?” Joe whispered, confused.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“If nothing else, for the sympathy! Seriously, just give me some time in here. Come back tomorrow. If I am getting anywhere, we’ll have another fight. If not, you can bail me out and we can go back to rubbing the fur on this town’s back the wrong direction.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By the time Joe stepped back into the main area of the sheriff’s office, anyone else would have sworn that the two were mortal enemies.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It’s a ten dollar fine,” the lawman pronounced.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Let him rot in there. This was all his idea, let him bail himself out! Since he came home he has been nothing but trouble. Now this. Sheriff Bishop right? Sheriff, I have no idea how to handle my brother any more. He is irresponsible, irreverent and sometimes downright rude to people. I have had it with him on this trip. You keep him here for a while and see if you can make him come to his senses.” Throughout his pretend tirade, Joe could see Adam’s expression in his thoughts: eyes rolling and head shaking. If this little charade didn’t work, Joe wasn’t sure how much of his hide he would have left when Adam was sprung from jail.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The rifles in the rack behind the sheriff’s desk rattled when Joe slammed the door behind him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By late afternoon, Adam, to his consternation, had not spoken once to the sheriff. A small woman who said nothing to him had brought his lunch to him. She had just set the basket down on the floor outside the cell so he could reach it and turned to go.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Thank you,” Adam called to her back and saw her pause. She glanced over her shoulder and he had the fleeting glimpse of large brown eyes that reminded him of a doe’s. She ducked her head and hurried away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As he left the raucous music behind him in the saloon, Joe aimed for the hotel room, noting how few people were on the street for a Friday night. Throughout the afternoon, he had felt so very alone with Adam locked in the jail cell. He wasn’t sure how the night would be any different. Least I’ll have the bed to myself without an argument, <\/em>he thought then realized that he would have enjoyed a little argument from his brother right then. He had his hand on the door to their room when he heard a woman’s voice call out “Sir?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

His first impression of her was that she was no bigger than a door mouse. Dressed in a dark dress and bonnet, she had blended in with the shadows so that he hadn’t seen her when he had come to the end of the hallway. Now as she stepped into the light, she seemed to shrink even smaller, if that were possible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Are you Mr. Cartwright?” Her soft voice trembled as she asked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’m Joe Cartwright. What can I do for you?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“My name is Claire Overton.” And just with those words, Joe felt like he had been pummeled.<\/p>\n

As he stood looking down at her, it kept running through his head that this was the woman Hoss had fallen in love with and intended to marry. And how much she reminded Joe of his first wife Alice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You’ve been asking for me all over town.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shaken from his speechlessness, Joe asked if he could talk to her. “The restaurant downstairs. Let me buy you some coffee, or something?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She nodded briefly and with a swish of her skirt, went down the hallway before him.<\/p>\n

Once they had settled in the empty restaurant, she declined the coffee and Joe wished his had something stronger in it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Claire smiled at him. “You are just like Hoss described you. A little older than what I had thought but then it has been a few years. Please, tell me. How is he? Does he ever mention-”<\/p>\n

Swiftly, Joe reached out and grabbed at her hands. “Claire,” he tried to control the hurt in his heart but found he couldn’t. “Before he could tell us about you; before he knew you were even pregnant, Hoss was killed in an accident. I’m sorry but we never knew about you. Or your son.” Haltingly, Joe told her of his brother’s death, skimming some of the details as he didn’t want to cause her any more harm than he could see his first words had. Then he told her of the letter that had led them to her.<\/p>\n

Throughout the entire time, she sat ramrod straight, her head held a little to one side.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“So,” she whispered when Joe finished. “He did love me. Please tell me that he did.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Without a moment’s hesitation, Joe answered even though he had no basis other than the loving knowledge of his brother’s life to do so. “Yes, Claire. He loved you. Just looking at you, I know he did.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Catherine said he used me. Did he?” She caught her lower lip between her teeth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Hoss never used anyone. He was the kindest, gentlest soul God ever made. If you were hurt by what happened, it wasn’t because Hoss wanted it that way.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Claire smiled a small trembling and fearful smile. “And so now you come looking for me and Josh. Why?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Josh? That’s what you named your son? Short for Joshua?” Joe sipped at his coffee, hoping she wouldn’t ask the “why” question again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes. When I married finally, my husband wanted to adopt Josh but I didn’t want him to so he goes by Overton. I guess that maybe I always wanted him to be able to take his real father’s name. Some little part of me kept thinking, kept dreaming, that Hoss would come back and take me away. But he didn’t, did he?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“He never got the chance to, Claire.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The silence that grew between them was overpowering to Joe. Finally he had to break it and answer the question she had asked: why had they come?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“When I found out about you and about my brother’s child, I wanted to come here. I needed to come here. I had to let you know why Hoss had never come for you; why he had never written a reply to your letter. Do you have any idea how hard that was?”<\/p>\n

She shook her head and reclaimed her hands. The emotional intensity of the man sitting cross from her washed across her in waves. Unable to look into his earnest face, she stared instead at the white linen tablecover.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You see, Claire, Hoss was so bashful around women it was hard to watch some times. Then to find out that you and he had\u2026well, it was like seeing him in a whole different light. He wasn’t just my big, bumbling bashful brother. He was a man. A man who had the same drives and needs as the rest of the world. But he was also a righteous man, Claire.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She looked up sharply, her brown doe-like eyes wide. “I know he was, Joe. And he was just what you said he was: a kind and gentle man. And I loved him. Then\u2026and now. But there has been so<\/p>\n

much that has happened over the years. I raised Josh. He’s my <\/em>son.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I know that. And I know the bond between parent and child is a strong one. My brother and I aren’t here to break that bond, Claire. We didn’t come to take Josh away from you, if that is what you are afraid of.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You could, I’m sure,” she said defensively. “I know you have a great deal of money and power. If you took it into your heads to take my Josh, I wouldn’t stand a chance of keeping him! But he is my son and no one is taking him from me! No one!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To her surprise, the man across from her smiled and leaned back a little in his chair.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Back at the Ponderosa there is another woman who feels the same way about her children. I have the distinct impression that the two of you would have some things in common. But I meant what I said, Claire. Adam and I didn’t come to take your son away from you.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Good! Then tomorrow morning, you’ll be gone!” With a hurt huff, she rose to her feet. Joe stood quickly as well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I had hoped that we could at least meet him. Talk to him, maybe. Let him know that he has family he’s never met. Please, Claire. Just tell me that you’ll think about it; that you’ll consider it. If not for your son’s sake, for Hoss’.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Claire drew herself up to as tall as she could manage and without another word, left the room.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Early the next morning, Joe went to the jail. He gave the sheriff a long drawn out tale of how he had had second thoughts about keeping his big brother behind bars. With a ten-dollar bill from Adam’s own wallet, Joe paid the fine. Once out in the street, Joe excitedly told Adam of his late night visit.<\/p>\n

“\u2026And I asked her if we could meet with him. Adam, you would not believe the size of this woman! She is tiny! But she is also everything Hoss would have wanted in a woman, I just know it!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Whoa! Slow down, there. I think I met her. Comes to here,” and Adam held his hand to slightly less than chest level, “big brown eyes. Very demure looking?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Reminded me of a little ol’ mouse,” Joe chuckled, deciding to keep the fact that she also reminded him of his first wife a secret.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, are we going to get to meet the boy?” Adam insisted then wished he hadn’t when Joe’s face fell to his boot tops.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“She didn’t say yes or no. Just got up and left.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, that gives us some hope. Come on, you owe me breakfast,” Adam gently punched his brother’s shoulder and headed across the street to the restaurant.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam tucked into his breakfast steak with a relish, but noted that Joe’s scrambled eggs sat virtually untouched as he simply sat and sipped his coffee.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Joe,” Adam called again and when Joe finally blinked his way back to the restaurant from wherever he had been, Adam gestured with his fork at his brother’s plate. “I promised people back at the ranch that I would see to it that you ate and slept and, in general, took care of yourself. You don’t dig into that breakfast and I am going to -“.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe gave his brother an exasperated look and picked up his fork. “I keep looking for him, you know. I keep expecting to see this miniature Hoss come around the corner and say something like ‘dadburnit! Where you been?’ ” He dropped his fork back onto his plate and pushed it aside. “What do we do now?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The older brother carefully dabbed his napkin to his lips then laid it aside. With a glance across the table into his brother’s face, he saw that Joe’s question was an earnest one. It needed an answer but Adam wasn’t really sure just what the right answer was.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What do we do now?” Adam repeated and picked up his coffee and sipped some before he spoke again. “We could go back to their house and demand to see the boy. Or we could sit here and wait for Claire Overton to figure out that we aren’t the bad guys in this whole mess. Or,” and he paused, letting the word hang in the air before them, “we could get back on our horses and go home. Never see the boy; never bother the family again. Just go on about our lives like this never happened.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“We can’t do that and you know it!” Joe’s fist pounded the table, making the silverware jump. “We can’t turn our backs on this boy and his mother or we will be just what they have thought we were all these years!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Okay,” Adam kept his voice low and controlled, “So that means we stay. If we go to them and demand to see the boy, we look like the demons they think we are. That we have come to rip the boy away from his mother’s arms and carry him off to the Ponderosa.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Okay, I see your point, Adam. We have to let them come to us. But you know that patience and I never exist well together for very long.” As if to prove his own point, Joe was on his feet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, we could always get you tossed into jail for loitering.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe turned back and wagged a finger at his brother’s chin. “That was your idea.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the end, they didn’t have to wait all that long. Late in the afternoon, as they finished another hand of poker, a note was slipped under their hotel room door. The handwriting was the same as that of the letter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Gentlemen,” Adam read aloud needlessly since Joe was at his elbow reading along with him. “If you will come to my sister’s home this afternoon at four, I will permit you to meet Joshua. Understand, however, that he and I will not be alone. My brother-in-law, Sheriff Bishop, will be there as well as my sister. If you have any thought whatsoever of taking Josh by force, please discard it. I detest the mere thought of violence in my son’s presence.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Why is she so afraid of us?” Joe asked when they had both finished reading, his face drawing up on one side as he considered the timbre of the note.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“If someone came to the Ponderosa and said that your boys weren’t yours, how far would you get away from those little ones of yours?” Adam carefully folded the note back along its creases. When he caught the sudden tight look to his brother’s face, he continued. “I rest my case. Joe, this woman is afraid we have come to take her son away from her.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But she loved Hoss. She said so herself!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Different set of emotions here,” countered Adam and returned to his place on the settee. “She has been told repeatedly that Hoss used her. The boy has undoubtedly heard it as well but that is off point right now. Look at it this way, Joe: all your life you have been told that Marie loved Pa. You have nothing other than our word for it since you really can’t remember that much about her and Pa together, right?” Joe’s head dipped and Adam went on. “What if all your life you had heard different? That Marie used Pa. That all she wanted was away from a difficult life in New Orleans? That she got pregnant with you just to insure that Pa would take care of her. That she never loved him. How would that make you feel now?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Even from across the room, Adam could hear Joe’s deep sigh. “It would depend on who I heard it from. Was it someone I trusted or was it someone who’s opinion I didn’t give a rat’s ass about?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Let’s say you heard it,” and Adam took a deep breath, “from me, from Hoss, from Pa. Let’s say you heard it from all the people you thought loved you.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But some things you just know in your heart! I remember the love I felt from Momma. She used to sing to me. I remember her rocking me and humming to me. I remember being sick and she was there to hold me. To love me. I know this, Adam!” Joe’s voice had continued to rise until towards the end, he was nearly shouting, his breathing becoming labored as though he fought against an unseen foe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In two long steps, Adam had Joe’s arms caught in his iron grip, realizing too late that he had taken a track that had for whatever reason, hurt his brother.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“That is just the same way Claire feels right now, Joe. To every story there are two sides, two truths, if you will. The one you know and the one you feel. To believe in the story, you have to make them ‘one’. Claire’s fear is the result of her trying to make what she feels and what she knows, what her sister has pounded into her all these years, one emotion and she can’t do it.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For a brief moment, Joe leaned towards Adam and for that moment, Adam knew his own fear. Had he pushed Joe too far? How fragile was his brother’s health? Feeling the lean hard muscles under his hands, it was hard for Adam to not think of Joe as anything but as he appeared to the world: vibrant, healthy and in the prime of his life. But within his brother’s chest beat a heart that Adam knew was unreliable, threatening his brother’s very life. Make it beat too fast and too hard, and the threat could become very real. This Adam had been warned about from not only Joe’s own wife but also Paul Martin. And he had seen first hand the damage his brother’s condition could generate. Had he unwittingly just caused another episode?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But Joe straightened back up and walked away from Adam to stand at the window that looked over the street. He brushed aside the lace curtain and studied the street and the people there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I guess that’s my problem, Adam. I can’t see people– I can’t see your truths — in any way other than by using my feelings. Maybe if I’d grown up the way you did, I would be more questioning, more doubtful about things and people. Well, maybe doubtful is the wrong word. Maybe I should have said ‘careful’.” He felt more than saw Adam come to stand behind him. There was always something comforting to Joe to have his older brother there at his back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I realized a while back that I never wanted you any different than what you actually are, Joe. Now, years too late, I understand what happened between us. The fights we used to have, Joe. They weren’t your fault.” Joe snorted and smiling looked over his shoulder to see Adam’s faint smile as well. “Okay, maybe not ‘all’ your fault. There were a lot of things about you and the way you dealt with life that I envied. I tried to label it as a weakness in you but I know now that those are strengths in you. If we hadn’t been so hell bent on besting each other, I could have learned a lot from you and you a lot from me. Would have saved ourselves years of being apart, years of uncertainty.” Adam’s voice grew husky and immediately Joe recognized it as a sign that Adam was struggling with his own emotions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I never wanted it to come to your leaving, Adam, but it did anyway. I’m sorry but I guess that’s a lot of years too late too.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No, I had to leave for other reasons, Joe. I had to make my own way. Had to make my own mistakes.” He snorted softly. “Funny, you know that was something I never wanted for you. I never wanted my little brother to be hurt. I never wanted to see him make a mistake like I had. But that is how you learn. You make mistakes; you feel some pain. That’s how you grow up.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe returned his attention to street, wanting to step away from the turn the conversation had taken. “You are going to make a good father some day, Adam,” was all he could think to say.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With a gentle fist, Adam pounded on his little brother’s shoulder just once. “Some day. After all, I had enough practice with you and Hoss.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They could both hear the chime of a grandfather clock as it struck four times. Nervously, Adam and Joe Cartwright stood on the porch of a white house in Marysville, ready to change lives. Their resolve had wavered, Adam knew, all afternoon. They had argued out all the pros and cons, each taking various sides. In the end, they had simply decided to lay out the truth as they knew it for a little boy and his mother. They would make their offer then step back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For a moment, Joe had trouble seeing, coming out of the bright sunlight into the shadowy parlor. He heard Adam’s sliver of a gasp but then Adam’s deep baritone was greeting the adults in the room, introducing himself and his brother. Once he had made the visual adjustment, his heart pounded several hard beats against his chest wall. In just that half instant, he was covered with a fine sheen of sweat and his knees threatened to buckle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The boy standing beside Claire Overton wasn’t any bigger than other youngsters his own age. His hair was red-blonde and had the barest hint of curls. As he tucked himself into his mother’s side, Joe almost reached out to touch him but held back. The first thought that had assailed Joe was that this was not Hoss’ child. He wasn’t big enough, his body structure was all wrong, his hair wasn’t right but then when the child looked into Joe’s eyes, Joe knew he was wrong. The child was his beloved brother’s for the same clear blue eyes he had last seen almost ten years ago to the day were looking back at him. They stared at Joe evenly, never darting away or closing in fright. They are his eyes<\/em>, Joe thought, and they know how I failed him in the end. <\/em>Working on instinct alone, Joe hunched down in front of the boy, bringing himself more to the boy’s level.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Do you know who I am?” Joe asked the boy, keeping his voice low and calm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The boy, Joshua, shook his head once but then nodded all the while holding fast to his mother’s skirt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Your father was our brother so that makes us your uncles. This is Adam,” and he gestured to his now silent brother, towering still above Joe and Joshua. “And my name is Joe. We know that your mother has told you that much, hasn’t she?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joshua nodded once and as Joe watched him, the young lad chewed on his lower lip, nervously.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Did she tell you that your father died before he could come back for you and your mother?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Again, the boy nodded once then looked up at his mother. Joe looked up into the doe-like eyes of Claire. He couldn’t read the woman’s expression, caught some where between fear and anger. It didn’t matter right then what the mother thought or felt; Joe was concerned only with the blue eyed boy in front of him. Cautiously he reached out his hand but the boy burrowed back further into his mother’s side, hiding his face in the folds of her dark dress.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You have what you wanted now leave,” demanded Catherine Bishop, her voice strident and sharp.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“We thought we might have some time to talk with Josh. Explain some things to him. Tell him the truth about his father,” Adam tried in his best placating tone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Your tall tale, Mr. Cartwright but it isn’t what we want him to hear. Now, you have met him as you desired. Leave!” The sheriff positioned himself between Claire and Josh and the two Cartwright brothers. Joe still hadn’t risen from where he crouched and as he looked up into the other man’s face all he could see was the anger the man irrationally held.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Josh,” Joe called softly and the little boy pulled his face out of his mother’s skirt to look at him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Can we talk to you for a little bit? We have some stories about your father that we bet you would like to hear. What it was like when he was your age. Can we do that? You and me and Adam? Just the three of us? Together?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You’re gonna take me away from here, aren’t cha?” the boy demanded, suddenly hostile.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Now where did you get that idea?” Joe jested but knew all too well where it had come from. “No, we don’t want to do that. We just want to talk to you. Get to know you.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Go away! I don’t wanna talk to you! Go away!” he shouted and once again, on instinct only, Joe reached out to touch him. The boy became a flurry of small fists, all motion and anger as he struck out repeatedly at Joe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was more the suddenness of the attack and the ferocity of it that hurt Joe more than the small fists that repeatedly connected with his chest and arms. Joe’s balance gave way as the youngster pushed hard to get by him and out the door. To Joe it was as though the confusion surrounding him was divided. He could hear Catherine Bishop’s high pitched scream for he and Adam to leave but he could see Claire’s painfully ashamed expression in front of him as she bent to help him rise. He quickly glanced around for the boy and Adam but both had disappeared.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When the boy had pelted past Joe, shoving his brother to the floor, Adam’s first instinct had been to go to Joe but instead he had whirled and followed the boy out of the parlor and though the boy made it as far as the side of the house, Adam caught him. With one hand grasping hold of a slender shoulder, Adam yanked Josh off his feet, plunking the youngster into the dust. The same grasp then hauled the boy up to his feet and whirled him around to face Adam.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I can see the first thing you need is to learn some manners, young man!” Adam all but shouted into the wide-eyed face before him. He didn’t care that the child wasn’t his to discipline; he was just ready to do it because he figured no one else had in the boy’s life. As a result, the boy viciously kicked him in the shin, then backed away when the hand dropped from his shoulder.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You leave me alone! You got no call on me!” Josh shouted defiantly, just out of Adam’s long reach.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You impertinent little whelp! You have listened to that harpy of an aunt for so long-”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Adam!” Joe’s shout cut through Adam’s oncoming hard words and yanked Adam to a stop before he could confirm the fear the boy was obviously showing. “This isn’t the way!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Josh stood rooted to his spot, watching the two adults before him as the one who had tried to talk to him earlier pulled at the arm of the stern-faced other man. At nine, he’d seen adults argue before but never had he watched it this closely and it half-fascinated him. It had been in his thoughts to run away from the parlor and avoid the men and the things they were saying. What they said conflicted with what his Aunt Catherine had told him all along. His mother had never contradicted any thing Aunt Catherine had said until last night. Even at that, Josh had heard them discussing it after he had gone to bed and was supposedly asleep. Momma was all for giving the Cartwright’s a chance to explain but Aunt Catherine and Uncle Frank were against it. Josh supposed that in the end, to keep peace in the house, Momma and Aunt Catherine had compromised.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Josh! Come here!” his mother’s voice called from the corner of the house. He could see her frightened expression and turned to go to her but the man who had been introduced as his Uncle Joe, stopped him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It’s okay,” Joe said softly, stopping himself from ruffling the red-blonde hair as the boy started hesitantly passed. “We know this is tough on you, trying to sort out all this business. We’re sorry. But maybe, just maybe, can we be friends at least?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Josh could only look up into the man’s face. He was baffled by the hurt he saw there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, that went really well, if I do say so myself!” Adam’s voice was so full of self-reproach and sarcasm that Joe was tempted to reach out and punch his brother’s jaw.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Forget what I said about you being a good father material, Adam! And remind me to watch you around my boys when they get a little older. What Josh did was natural for a little kid! He’s scared; he’s frightened so he starts to run away. What do you do? You go chasing after him and probably have the look of murder in your eye when you threaten to punish him!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As the two brothers walked the short distance back into town and headed by unspoken and mutual consent to the saloon, each kept a distance apart from the other. Josh had summarily been taken into the house by his mother and with Catherine Bishop and her husband barring even entrance onto the porch, Adam and Joe had been dismissed curtly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You were in the house, picking yourself up off the floor as I recall so how could you know what was in my eye?” Adam shot back, feeling that Joe had given in too easily to being removed from the boy’s presence. If it had been solely up to Adam, he would have blistered the boy’s backside and made him apologize, barging into the house if necessary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Maybe because I was on the receiving end of that look a time or two growing up. And if someone hadn’t stopped you, you would have done the same thing to Josh that you did to me!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, little brother, let me remind you that Josh, the same as you, deserved a good tanning for that sort of behavior. You don’t treat your elders with anything but respect and pushing them to the floor then running away is NOT treating them with respect!” His finger punctuating the air the same way his words did, Adam half turned to Joe.<\/p>\n

Joe pulled himself to a complete halt. Adam took a few more steps before he realized he was walking alone and turned back to see what was stopping Joe. There Joe stood, his hands on his hips, his brows flattening out into a straight line the same way their father’s did when Ben was angry.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Josh,” Joe calmly tried to explain, “was not running away from his elders, Adam. He was running away from fear. He’s afraid we are going to take him away from the only home he’s ever had. That we are going to take him away from his mother. Does any of this seem familiar to you, Adam? Surely it does.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For just a brief second Adam was slammed back in time. He watched again as the wagon and Brownie were sold, leaving he and Pa without a home. He saw again as they buried Inger, wrapped only in a blanket to protect her lifeless form from the dirt, then drove the wagons over the grave to hide it from marauders. Then he dropped back into the present. Yes, he understood then the fear Josh had.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When Adam hadn’t said anything, Joe went on. “Well, I don’t know about you but I think I am going up to the room. For some reason, I’m tired. You go on and have supper without me.”<\/p>\n

Shaken from his memories and his newfound understanding, Adam thought that Joe was ill and said so but Joe merely shook off his brother’s hand and again claimed that he was tired was all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Not sleepin’ real good I guess,” was Joe’s only admittance to the real weakness he felt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Maybe a doctor-” Adam started but the withering look Joe gave him told him the reception the doctor would get would most likely be an adult version of the one they’d gotten from Josh. “Okay, you go rest up some. I’m going down to the saloon for a while. Try to figure out what we need to do next. Don’t argue with me, Joseph Francis Cartwright! Whatever else I may not be, I am still your older brother! Go!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the end, Adam had had only one whiskey before old thoughts and memories forced him from the saloon and he found himself down on the banks of the Yuba River. He sat down, his back to a gnarly tree on the bank and watched the river flow by him. Letting the river take his thoughts away, he emptied his mind. He heard the snap of a twig to his rear and half turning saw a now-familiar figure stop dead still on the path. It was Joshua. Adam didn’t turn or say anything to his visitor. The boy tried another few steps. Noisy little thing<\/em>, Adam thought, not at all like your father in the woods<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Your father could sneak up on deer in the woods, he was so quiet,” Adam spoke aloud, still watching the gray-brown river before him. He waited for a response from the boy but there was none coming, so he continued. “Your father could track fleas in a snow storm.” The boy snorted his disbelief and Adam smiled to himself. “Or at least that was what he always claimed. He was pretty good at a lot of things like that.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Aunt Catherine-” the young voice started to protest hotly then stopped abruptly. By then he was even with Adam’s shoulder and could see that the man dressed in the ominous dark clothing hadn’t moved a muscle.<\/p>\n

“Your Aunt Catherine didn’t know Hoss the way that I did. She didn’t watch him grow up. She didn’t know the shenanigans he was capable of. Your Aunt Catherine also didn’t know how tender and loving he was. Your mother did. That’s why they created you.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Aunt Catherine says I was a mistake Momma should have never made. She says that Momma was stupid to trust someone like him.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam inwardly cringed at the hatred, unfounded to be sure, that he heard in the little boy’s voice. He is far too young to think that, to know that, to feel that way. Curse you, Catherine Overton Bishop, for the lives your hated words–no, lies!– have destroyed.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I don’t think your mother is a stupid woman and I don’t think you were a mistake, either. Come here, Josh and sit down for a while with me.” Adam then did turn towards the boy but Josh shrunk back a step. Adam decided that Joe had been right and he smiled, both for the thought and for the young boy before him. “I promise I will not raise a hand to you. I’m sorry for earlier. I really am. But maybe you can understand some of what my brother and I have been going through.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Momma fussed at me some. Said that your brother didn’t look well and that I shouldn’t have pushed him.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam smiled again. Maybe Claire Overton had it in her yet to bring the boy around.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Guess it was a good thing she didn’t see you kick me,” Adam chuckled, crossing his arms over his chest, pinning his hands to his sides. There was something about the child that made him want to reach out and grab his neck and gently, teasingly shake him. Just the way I did Hoss when he was about that size\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You gonna tell her?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Not if you and I can talk for a while. Deal?” Adam extended his hand for a handshake and surprisingly, found the youngster’s warm soft hand in his.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Deal,” the boy said, his head giving a tentative nod. “Gee, you got big hands. Momma says that my father was the biggest man any one ever saw. That can’t be true!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Why do you say that?” Adam arched an eyebrow at the boy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“‘Cause you and he were brothers and that other fella-”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“He’s your Uncle Joe and I think it might be a good idea for you to start thinking of us that way: as your uncles,” Adam counseled cautiously. To distract himself and keep himself from saying anything else, he picked up a small stone from between them and threw it lazily into the river.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Okay, then,” Josh sighed and Adam almost laughed aloud, “Uncle Joe sure ain’t no big man!”<\/p>\n

Adam rested his arms on his up-drawn knees. He tilted his black hat back and kept his eyes glued to the water, only daring to look at Josh when he felt certain the boy wouldn’t see him doing so.<\/p>\n

“Depends on how you measure a man, Josh. Yes, your father was a big man. Big in physical stature. His heart was big too. He was a very likable person, your father was. And he was very slow to anger but if you made him mad, oh Lordy, watch out! Hoss was strong, almost too strong, I guess you could say. He had to learn to temper his emotions. He had to learn real early that he couldn’t let himself get mad and hit people because he was mad. Hoss was teased a lot too because he was big. Kids ever tease you?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Sometimes,” Josh admitted and followed Adam’s example and tossed a pebble into the river.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Because ever’body in town knows I ain’t got no father. They call me a– a– bastard.”<\/p>\n

Inside, Adam’s heart broke when the child beside him said that last word. Technically, the word was right but it was true only by circumstance. And Adam knew right then and there that he had to correct the assumptions made about that circumstance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Josh, what do you know about folks being married? And having kids?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The boy shrugged his shoulders but just the motion told Adam that he knew more than a child his age should.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“When two people, a man and a woman, love each other a whole lot, they want to make that love go on and on. That’s why they have children. A child is that man’s and that woman’s way of showing the world how much they love one another. And trust me on this, a woman like your mother had to have a lot of love in her heart for my brother. Same as he did for her, I’m sure. Hoss, your father, never had the chance to marry your mother. They had some sort of agreement that he was going to come back for her when he had things set up at home for her. Hoss always thought of other people before he did himself and I am sure he wanted things perfect for your mother. And Josh, he had no idea that your mother was going to have you. He died before he could come back for your mother.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“He could have took her with him when he left here. Momma wouldn’t have cared if she truly loved him, would she?” Josh looked up into the shadowed face beside him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam couldn’t help himself any longer. He laid a gentle arm across the small shoulders beside him before he spoke again. “I can’t answer that question for your mother. I haven’t gotten to talk to her that much but like I said, my brother must have loved her an awful lot to make you. And to me, that’s all that matters.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For a long while, neither said another word. Every once in a while, Josh would dash his arm across his face but Adam tried not to see the tears the boy cried, knowing how important it was for Josh to appear in control.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Finally the boy sagged under Adam’s arm. “Uncle Adam, can you tell me some more stories about my father?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam didn’t know what made him happier: the fact that Josh had called him ‘uncle’ or the fact that the boy had asked about his father. Either way, it was getting dark before Adam stopped telling Josh about his father.<\/p>\n

“You better be getting home,” encouraged Adam, seeing the darkening sky. He stood up and brushed the leaf-litter from his legs. He had expected Josh to go scampering off but the boy had waited.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Would you walk with me a ways? And, Uncle Adam, promise me that you won’t say nothin’ to Momma or Aunt Catherine about us talkin’. That would liable get me a whippin’ good!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Your secret is safe with me,” Adam allowed and held out his hand for the child to take. He wasn’t in the least surprised to find it filled in less than a heartbeat. Together man and boy walked around the outskirts of town until they were barely within sight of the small white house that was surrounded by flowers. There Josh dropped Adam’s hand and started to run for the glowing lights. Abruptly he stopped and returned. With a quick and breathless ‘thank you’, Josh hugged Adam’s legs then darted off again. Struck dumb by the suddenness of the action, Adam could only lift his hand to the little figure running away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Hot damn!” Joe exclaimed happily when Adam gave him a brief rundown of his conversation with Josh. “I take back what I said about you making good father material, Adam. Maybe with a little more work, and of course, getting that long-legged dark haired filly you been playing with to the altar-”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Wait a minute! You know about Athena?” Adam’s forkful of mashed potatoes stopped halfway to his mouth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Everybody in Virginia City knows about you and Athena Dawson. But we are getting off track here, brother. What do you say we have another go at Claire tomorrow? Could be we can whittle down those lions at the gate she calls family enough that we can make head way!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No,” came Adam’s one word reply just before he picked up his cup of coffee for a sip.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe pounced on the word. “Why not? There is a crack in the wall, Adam. We have to-”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before he could continue, Joe realized that Claire Overton was standing beside the table that he and Adam were sharing in the hotel restaurant. One look into her face showed that she had been crying at some time in the recent past but at present she was under complete control.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You won’t have to wait to talk to me. I pried it out of Josh before he went to bed so don’t feel you have to keep your conversation with my son a secret, Mr. Cartwright,” she said evenly. “May I sit down?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hastily, Adam arose and pulled the empty chair out and allowed Claire to settle into it. Adam noted that she kept her hands in her lap and her back ramrod straight. She is struggling with this the same way we are<\/em>, he thought but simply gestured for the waiter and ordered coffee for her without asking. Silence reigned around the small table until the coffee was brought and the waiter disappeared again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Besides telling me about Hoss and meeting his son, why else have you come here? All of that could have been done in a letter. What is it you want of me?” she whispered, her soft voice hard to hear even though the restaurant was nearly empty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“We didn’t come here with the express purpose of taking Josh away from you. We keep saying that but it’s like no one is truly listening,” Joe said, and Adam could see that Joe was having a little trouble remaining on an even keel emotionally.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Then why did you come?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe looked just once to Adam, seeking his approval for the offer they had discussed earlier. Adam nodded just once and Joe drew in a deep breath and plunged forward. “We’re going to make you an offer, Claire. You and Josh. Or just you. Or just Josh. However you want it.” Joe paused, knowing he wasn’t making a lot of sense but again he plunged on. “Come to the Ponderosa. For a visit, if that is all you want, but the door is open for you to stay, if that is what you decide. Either way, no one is going to hold you to a decision. We just want you and your son to know that you have a place with us. And it is an open invitation. You can come back with us now or wait a while and think about it. All we ask is that you think about it. Our father would love to meet you, we’re sure, and there isn’t a doubt in our minds whatsoever about him wanting to know Josh.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Claire slumped just a fraction into her chair. This wasn’t at all what she had expected.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It’s a long ways to your ranch, Mr. Cartwright. And I am sure that Josh and I wouldn’t exactly fit in your world. We are rather plain people.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To her surprise, both of the brothers laughed shortly. She looked from one to the other and thought they may both have been confused by her words.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“First of all, my name is Joe, not ‘Mister Cartwright’. And his name is Adam. You may call him ‘Mister Cartwright’ since the title fits him a little better than it does me. Where you got the idea that we are any better than you, I have no idea, Claire. My world,” Joe emphasized the word, “is a working cattle ranch. I spend my days on the back of a horse most of the time. I get hot and dirty and sweaty just like every other man on the payroll. The only difference is that when I get home, I have a wife who makes me clean up before I come to the dinner table.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But maybe the difference between our worlds is what is on that table, sir,” she spat, the old hurt rising in her again. “I would wager that your table is considerably more heavily laden than mine has been, trying to raise a child on my own!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam decided it was time to speak up but first he had to have the woman’s attention. He sucked in his breath and laid a hand across her arm, pinning her to the table.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes, I imagine that is true. But never once has our table not been surrounded by love. Not once in all of our growing up was our father not proud of his children and told us so while we sat at his table. There may have been words in anger said before but never once were we allowed to bring the same sort of hate to the table that I have seen in your family. Tell me, Claire, how many times at your table did you allow your sister to curse your circumstances instead of thanking God for what you did have?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“So you’re saying I should have been content to live in poverty? How sanctimonious of you!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No, I am saying that you had the opportunity I am sure of writing to us, to Hoss but you never did. You could have written and said that things were hard and ask for help but you didn’t. Now we have come, the very first time we even knew anything about you and your son, we come here and hunt you out. And we are offering you a place at that table but only if you can come to it without hate.”<\/p>\n

Claire Overton drew herself up as tall as she was able and with deliberate actions, withdrew her arm<\/p>\n

from Adam’s grasp. Her eyes narrowed as she stared into his face.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“There is such a thing as pride.” Her chin lifted as she said the word, making the emphasis clear.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Do you have so much pride that you allow others to call your son a bastard and not do anything about it? He told me earlier about how the other children in town taunt him but he never said anything about any one standing up to it.” Adam and Joe both saw her flinch when Adam had spoken the word ‘bastard’. Adam pressed on. “Come to the Ponderosa and no one will ever say that again about Joshua.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The color rose high on her cheeks and she blinked her doe-like eyes several times before she stood up. Both Joe and Adam got to their feet with her. For a brief moment her hands toyed with her small handbag and it kept her eyes down for that time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’ll\u2026I’ll think about it,” she stammered. “Your offer, I mean. But I do wish that you would not pressure Josh or me about it. When the time is right\u2026.” She moved hastily back and away before one or the other of the brothers could stop her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“When the time is right,” Joe repeated her words back to her, making sure that she understood that they would be patient and that the decision would be hers and hers alone.<\/p>\n

She bobbed her head just once and left the restaurant. Neither Adam nor Joe saw her pause at the doorway and look back at them. Nor did they hear her whisper “when the time is right.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The room was completely dark and silent with the exception of the creaking springs of the bed as Joe tried to find a comfortable position. The bed was just too big, he had decided then changed his mind and came to the conclusion that he had finally turned the corner into being an old married man. The bed, any bed for that matter, which didn’t include his wife, would be too big and too empty. He rolled over onto his side and pulled one of the fat feather pillows into an embrace like he would have Honor. Then he huffed. It wasn’t the same and he knew he was fooling only himself if he said he didn’t miss her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“If you don’t settle down and go to sleep, I am going to make you sleep on this sofa, so help me God,” Adam sighed, hearing the noises coming from the bed across the room.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It’s just\u2026I don’t know\u2026too big, too empty. I can’t get comfortable tonight,” Joe’s voice floated in the darkness.<\/p>\n

Adam smiled and almost laughed aloud at the near-whine in his brother’s tone. “Well, maybe that is telling us something.” He waited for a reply but got none so he went on. “We laid out our idea for her. We met with the boy. I got the chance to set him straight on some things; tell him something about his father. All we can do now is wait for them to make up their minds. That we can do back at the Ponderosa.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You think if we stay here it is gonna look like we are pushing them? Trying to make them hurry or something?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Exactly, Joe. We need to back off or they are gonna, how was it you said it? Run for tall timber?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I was talking about something different all together!” huffed Joe and Adam heard the bed creak yet again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Doesn’t matter. We lean on them any harder and they will see us as trying to control their decision. I hate to say it, Joe, but we need to go home. And we need to go home empty handed on this one.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I don’t want to, Adam. I don’t want to go home without Josh.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I know you don’t, little buddy, but we have to.” Adam fought himself to say the words and using the old epithet he had for Joe when they were both much younger didn’t help blunt the pain and make it easier to say.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam listened in the darkness for a sound from his brother. There was none and after the minutes stretched into an hour or more, he finally allowed himself to fall asleep. But Joe remained awake into the gray of dawn, remembering another time when he had gone home without someone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Agreed. There’s a lot of wrong we needed to right here, Joe. But something is bothering me. You never owned up to Pa about why we were coming here, did you?” Joe shook his head just once, regret showing plainly on his face. “I didn’t either,” Adam went on. “How are we going to explain any of this to him when we get back to the Ponderosa? Are we going to explain it?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Adam,” Joe sighed and let his eyelids droop, “after all these years, if you think I can’t handle Pa, you need to go back to school. I’ve been explaining the impractical, the way out there strange to him since I was younger than our nephew.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“And you think he swallowed your ‘explanations’?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Maybe not all of them but enough of them. Enough of them that I kept my hide!”<\/p>\n

His eyes dancing with barely contained mirth, Adam agreed. While Adam had tried to use logic and reason to deal with their father, he had been moderately successful. Joe, on the other hand, had a far better success rate, appealing to their father’s softer and loving side so easily.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But Joe, this is a little more than staying out too late, or getting into a fight at school.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Which is precisely why I didn’t say anything to him. But what about you? Why didn’t you tell Pa anything?” challenged Joe as he folded his napkin beside his plate.<\/p>\n

“Because I wanted to make sure of the facts before I did. But that isn’t our problem now.” Adam also folded his napkin and laid it beside his breakfast plate. He cleared his throat and in doing so, cleared away the lightheartedness of the morning meal. “Our problem now is how do we tell Pa<\/p>\n

about Josh and the fact that we didn’t bring him with us back to the ranch.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The breakfast plate Joe had merely picked at that morning he shoved to one side of the table. Still not wanting to meet his brother’s eyes, he raised his coffee cup to his lips and took a long drink. Finally, he figured he had stalled long enough and faced Adam. There he saw the same emotions filling his brother’s eyes as in his own soul: sorrow, shame, and a deep-seated confusion that wouldn’t, and couldn’t, be explained.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I thought it would be so easy, you know? Just come down here, meet these people, explain to them what happened and then we could take Josh and Claire back home with us. Just like that.” Joe snapped his fingers. Still shaking his head, he rose from his chair to leave.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam grimaced and tossing several bills on the table to cover the cost of their uneaten meal, followed Joe out the front door of the hotel. There he stood, hands laced into the back of his gunbelt, his head thrown back as he breathed deeply of the early morning air. Unlike at home, here there was no cleansing pine to fill the nostrils and wash away the smell of mankind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’ll go get the horses ready if you want to settle up with the hotel,” Adam sidestepped what he knew was on Joe’s mind. He too wanted to return to the little white house and try to talk to Claire Overton once again. He too wanted to talk with Josh once again and maybe he could make them understand that he and Joe wanted no harm to come to the boy and his mother. But Adam thought he had convinced Joe of the same thing he had himself: leave the matter alone; let them make their own decision.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No,” Joe said and his brother clearly heard the heartbreak in that single word. “I’ll get the horses,” and he moved off down the street, his arms swinging as though working out kinks and soreness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam stood watching him until he saw Joe turn in the direction of the stable and disappear from sight. He rubbed his hand over his jaw and squinted into the morning sun. He had to force himself to turn his steps back into the hotel instead of down the street towards his nephew. At the desk, he turned in their room keys and retrieved their gear they had stowed there earlier before going to breakfast. The clerk there smiled an automatic smile and mouthed off some things Adam was sure management had taught him to say about hoping their stay had been enjoyable. Adam had merely grimaced at the pinch-faced man and taken the change the clerk counted out to him. He tucked the bills into his shirt pocket and picking up their saddlebags and the like, headed out the door. He had a short detour to make before he joined up with Joe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Down at the livery stable, Joe was just finishing tightening the cinch on his own saddle when Adam stepped into view. Joe plucked his own bedroll and saddle bags from Adam’s burden and proceeded to toss them onto his own saddle. Wordlessly, the two brothers went about finishing their preparations for departure. At last, the pack mare was loaded with new food supplies, their cooking gear and other camping essentials and the two brothers pulled the three horses out into the street.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam caught Joe looking down the street and could tell the thoughts in his brother’s mind: go try one more time. He handed the lead to the packhorse to Joe and said “No. We agreed. Remember?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You agreed. I just went along with you at the time so you would shut up and I could get some sleep,” Joe quipped back but there was no solid mirth behind it. There was more a feeling of resignation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam stepped into the stirrup and swung into his saddle. He turned to watch Joe. He had come to the conclusion that a lot of how his brother was feeling was telegraphed through how Joe mounted his horse. If Joe stepped into the stirrup and swung his leg over the pinto’s back, he wasn’t doing too well. He was either physically in some sort of distress or mentally unwilling to leave where he was. Let Joe’s feet never touch leather from dirt to the back of the horse and he was ready to ride the best man into the ground. This morning, as Adam was afraid he would, Joe put his foot into the stirrup to mount.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They were about to pull their horses around and head east when both heard a woman’s plea to wait.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both turned in that direction and sure enough, Claire was hurrying down the street towards them, Josh’s hand held in hers. Joe and Adam both grinned widely at one another, feeling that perhaps the tide had changed in their favor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Wait, Mr. Cartwright!” she cried again and was relieved to see both men swing down from the back of their mounts. “Don’t leave yet!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, good morning,” Adam greeted, his heart considerably lighter than a few moments earlier.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both men dismounted, dropping the reins and ground tying both animals<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I had to talk to you one more time before you left,” the little woman finally got out between gasps.<\/p>\n

“I had to make you understand something.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Josh had torn loose from his mother’s hand and approached Joe’s black and white pinto slowly, tentatively.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Mornin’ Josh,” Joe greeted as though it were the most normal thing in the world for him to do. “Like my horse, do you?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It’s an injun horse!” Josh exclaimed softly, his hand out to touch the silky nose Cochise presented him. “You steal him from a brave?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe chuckled. “No, he was a gift from my father years ago. He’s getting a little old and I am going to have to put him out to pasture soon. But he’s still the best trail horse there is. You want to sit up there in the saddle?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The boy’s eyes grew large and after a glance over to his mother to gain her permission, nodded briskly to Joe. Before he knew it, he was in the saddle, looking down at the world. The horse turned to see who was now in the saddle but otherwise stood still.<\/p>\n

“You ever ridden a horse before?” Joe asked him and Josh, now a bundle of tightly strung barbwire, only shook his head. Joe went on. “Out at the Ponderosa, we raise horses. Horses for riding, for pulling wagons, for working in timber, for working cattle. All sorts of horses. Years ago we used to round up the wild ones and break them to ride but those days are about over. You come to the Ranch and I’ll see to it that you have a horse of your own and you learn to ride him.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Could I ride this one some time?” Josh excitedly whispered and Joe and Adam both smiled at the simple awe in the boy’s words.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Like now?” Joe quickly offered and sent a warning glance to the boy’s mother.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Could I, Momma? Please, just for a minute?” Josh pleaded.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe didn’t wait for the mother’s reply. He handed Cochise’s reins up to Josh, snagged the reins from Adam’s hand and swung into the saddle of his brother’s tall bay. Joe knew that Cochise would remain absolutely still until ordered to move by either a nudge from heels or a voice command. He angled the bay next to the pinto and began telling Josh everything he could think of to teach a boy in five seconds on how to ride. “Keep yourself centered in the saddle. That’s it. Hold the reins like I have mine. Good. Now, since you can’t put your heels into him, tell him to go.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

His little face screwed into a half-panicked – half-delighted expression, Josh asked, “How do I do that?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Simple,” Joe laughed, knowing when he said the words that the black and white would move anyway. “Tell him, ‘let’s go.'”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe chose not to look at the fear filled face of the boy’s mother behind him. Claire, Joe would leave to Adam to deal with. He rode stirrup to stirrup with the boy, talking to him calmly all the while as the two horses walked down the street. Little by little Josh relaxed. When they reached the end of the block, Joe showed him how to turn Cochise and they sedately walked back to where Adam and Claire stood.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Momma! Look! I can ride a horse now!” Josh crowed and Joe and Adam both smiled broadly. But it was obvious that Claire did not share their enthusiasm although she had the presence of mind not to allow her son to know how upset she was by what had just happened.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“There’s a lot more to know about riding a horse than that, young fella!” Adam cautioned and reached up to pull the youngster from the saddle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A child’s enthusiasm is hard to ignore, the adults standing there in the morning light knew but Claire Overton had more experience in doing so than either of the men.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Come here, Josh,” she ordered and reluctantly the boy complied. Once he was back beside her and his hand clasped firmly in her’s, she straightened her shoulders. “Thank you for allowing my son to ride that little bit, Mr. Cartwright, but it isn’t going to sway my decision one bit. I have to think of my child’s welfare.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Then why did you come here this morning?” Adam queried.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I came to tell you something. And to give you something to return to your home with. For your father’s sake, I suppose.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both men looked quickly at one another then centered their attention back on the wisp of a woman in front of them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I came to tell you -” her voice cracked and she had to pause before she continued. “I loved Hoss. With all my heart and soul, I loved him. I know now that my sister has allowed Josh here to believe otherwise but I am going to change all that. And I wanted to give you this.” She handed Adam a piece of paper, folded and refolded many times and no longer the crisp white it once was. “It is the only thing of your brother I have left, other than Josh. Give it to your father so that he knows how it was between us.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

His hands trembling slightly, Adam unfolded the paper. There before him were Hoss’ bold letters, the ink a little faded and, at places on the paper, obvious tear stains. “My beloved Claire, ” he began to read aloud, “I have to leave in a few minutes and you aren’t awake yet and I just can’t bring myself to wake you, you are so beautiful when you are asleep. Like we planned, I am going on the ranch and set things up for your arrival. I’ll send the stage fare like I promised so you can arrive in Virginia City in style! I’m gonna wait until you meet my Pa and little brother to tell them about us getting married. They are gonna be so happy with you, I know they are. It shouldn’t be too long a wait and if you are like me, then you know how much I am gonna miss you until then. All my love, Hoss.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“He left that on my bedside table that morning and I felt him kiss me but I didn’t wake up enough to see him off. Now I wish I had of.” Tears ran down her face and with a delicate fist, she scrubbed them away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam, swallowing the lump in his throat, folded the letter back along its creases and handed it back to her. “When you and Josh come to the Ponderosa, you can give this to our father. Until then, you need to keep it. We don’t need any proof that Hoss loved you. We’ve known it all along.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Claire nodded and tucked the well-worn note back into her hand. She took a quivering breath and turned to walk away. She hadn’t gotten but a few yards away when Josh, still looking over his shoulders at the two men behind him, tore out of his mother’s grasp and ran back to them. He threw his arms wide around Adam’s legs, hugging them fiercely.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe and Adam both knelt in the dusty street, hugging the crying child between them. It was Joe who finally pulled away and saw that Claire had not moved. He untangled the young boy’s arms and picked him up, gripping the boy’s slender body close to his own. With faltering steps, Joe carried the child to his mother and stood the boy next to her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Good bye, Josh. You be a good boy for your mother, okay? You study hard in school and do what the teacher tells you. You do your chores and be respectful to your elders. Okay? And when-” Joe quickly looked into Claire’s face to emphasize his word ‘when’ then looked back into the blue eyes in front of him, “when you come to the Ponderosa, we’ll be waiting for you. Okay?”<\/p>\n

The boy didn’t know what to say. He had never expected to see a grown man cry but the man kneeling in front of him was. He reached out and touched the salty drops and saw the man smile just a little. “I will, I promise. Good bye, Uncle Joe.”<\/p>\n

Yes, it feels like we failed, but did we really? Didn’t we go with too high an expectation? You don’t just waltz into some stranger’s house and change the world on them and expect them to do what you want just because you say so. Maybe we were relying on something else. Like maybe some big angel to help us? Whatever it was, it didn’t work. We did the best we could. We tried to handle it the best way we knew how. I think we made some headway but how much? Did we convince her that we meant no harm? That we would truly welcome her and the boy into our homes as well as our hearts? <\/em>Joe nudged Cochise to urge the horse eastward a little faster as though to match the speed of the careening thoughts running through his mind like a runaway train. At first he had started thinking about what he was going to tell his father. But the excuses – and that was what he was sure they were, excuses- sounded flat and hollow to him so he had simply let the thoughts become something else: an admission of failure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Joe!” Adam shouted again and saw his brother finally hear him. “Slow up some, would you? At this rate, you are gonna wear out the horses before noon!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Sorry,” Joe smirked, his chin drooping onto his chest as he let his horse sidle back alongside his brother. “Didn’t realize I was pushing your old bones too fast. You know if you spent less time behind a desk-”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Don’t start that business, Joseph!” Adam teased, relieved that the two of them could banter at that point. “I think you forget that I was sitting a horse all day long when you were still in diapers.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam chuckled shortly. “But there again, I remember Pa holding you in front of him in the saddle and I think you were maybe all of about a year old!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, old man,” Joe leaned heavily on the ‘old man’, “if you had waiting for you for what I do, you might want to hurry those old bones of yours along!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Do you mean the soft bed? The gourmet cooking of Hop Sing? Or just what?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I mean what’s in the bed!” shot back the younger of the two and winked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“And where do you come up with the idea that mine is empty all the time?” Too late, Adam realized what he had admitted. Well, from earlier, he knew that Joe knew about Athena but he hoped that until then, he could pretend that the nature and the closeness of the relationship was a mystery.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You gonna marry her some time soon? Maybe put something in that Virginia City house of yours<\/p>\n

other than books?” Joe teased relentlessly and gleefully saw Adam’s ears redden a touch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Joseph, you are one nosey son of a gun, you know that? Come on, we’re wasting time here. You think you can get that old mangy flea bitten nag of yours to pick up the pace? Thought you would have had let Cochise retire years ago rather than keep dragging that old sack of bones out onto the trail.” Adam continued to rant but it was to his brother’s back as Joe indeed did pick up the pace and moved ahead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Throughout the rest of that first day back on the trail towards home, they avoided the subject of Claire Overton and her son by mutual unspoken agreement. Instead their talk, when they chose to talk at all, was more centered on their own futures. Adam finally unwound enough to easily talk about his relationship with Athena Dawson and found that his brother dropped the teasing when he realized the depth of the feelings Adam had for her. For a few brief moments, Adam thought about telling Joe about how Athena had taught him about true passion but then he veered away, keeping that between himself and the lady. Besides<\/em>, he pondered, I would bet that you and that redheaded goddess – no, don’t go down that road. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For Joe, he knew his future was caught up in his sons now. Although they would soon celebrate their first birthday, Joe could envision them as young men. They would work the ranch beside him the same way he had with his own father. To Joe, it was like he was carrying on a tradition given to him years before. He was sure that AJ and Hoss would love the land the same way he had. They would protect it and nurture it. The land, the ranch, and all that walked upon the hillsides and meadows of it would be theirs one day. Joe would teach his sons all that he knew and encourage them to learn more. Like his own father before him, Joe was sure he could wrangle one of them into going to college for more education. And hopefully, again like his pa, convince the boy to come back home with his knowledge. But until he could arrange that, he figured he had plenty to teach his sons.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When they halted for the night, both kept themselves busy making camp and preparing their evening meal and coffee. With the falling of true night, they settled into their upturned saddles, ready to sleep next to the glowing coals that gave little light to see by.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Adam,” Joe’s voice floated into the crisp air. When Adam grunted, he continued, “if something happens to me before the boys are old enough to handle things on their own, promise me that you’ll take over and show them everything they need to know.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Although he had been about to drop off to sleep, Joe’s request brought Adam fully awake and aware. “You feeling okay?” he asked anxiously.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that I got to thinking for a while today about what my sons will have in life compared to what Josh has had. One of the things my boys are gonna have, hopefully, is a man who loves them enough to show them how to do boy things. Like riding a horse. Fishing.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Swinging on a rope and letting go to fall into a cool summer stream. Make snowballs and have snow fights. Learn to use an axe to chop wood right. Read sign to track a deer or a rabbit.” Adam let himself drift with old memories of doing just that: teaching a boy to become a man. But in his case, the boy was his brother, not his son.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Find the right shape stone to skim across the lake surface. How to make a snow cave to survive if you get caught in a blizzard. How to tend to a sick calf,” Joe continued with his list and Adam smiled into the darkness.<\/p>\n

“Who taught you all those things, Joe?” Adam questioned but he knew the answer: Hoss had. Adam at that stage in Joe’s life was too busy to take the time to enjoy a little brother who had more energy to channel than a herd of wild horses. Sure his father had been there but like Adam, had found little time. What time his father had taken with Joe was to share with him the simple joys of a father’s love: a ride together to the lake or when Joe was very young, to have the little boy sit in his lap and tell him stories before bed. No, the art of being a boy had been Hoss’ lessons to a younger brother.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“That’s the biggest hurt in all of this, Adam. That boy down there in Marysville is never going to have his father teach him those things. And Hoss would have loved doing it. Josh deserves a man in his life and from the looks of it, Frank Bishop ain’t the one for the job.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You’re right about that.” A soft chuckle rose from Adam’s side of the fire as well as Joe’s. “Hoss was a natural teacher like that. And I think he finally got a round to teaching me something too.” Even in the darkness, Adam could imagine Joe’s eyebrows raised. “What was the one thing Hoss always did best?” When there was no answer forthcoming from Joe, Adam plunged on. “He always kept you and I from killing one another when we got mad with each other. How many times he stood with his arms stretched to either side, me in one hand and you on the other!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Kind of makes me wonder why he never just bashed us together a time or two. Lord knows, he had the strength!” Joe chortled.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Because-” Adam then hesitated, knowing what he was about to say was more what Joe would have said, not him, “because he loved us. We were his brothers and he loved us. And he wanted us to realize that we loved one another too. He wasn’t holding us apart, Joe. He was holding us together. Guess it took me a long time to understand that was what he was showing us, Joe.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yeah, you’re right. And we loved him.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Still do. That’s why we took this little excursion Joe. To try and replace that love that used to hold us apart yet pull us together as brothers. We thought we needed that little boy to replace our brother. Nothing and no one can do that for us.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Because Hoss is still here with us. And he always will be,” finished Joe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Overhead, both men silently watched the stars in the sky. Neither was sure if there was one that shone a little brighter than the others that night. Or was it a tear in their own eye that made them think that it did.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The whisper of hooves pushing through tall grass provided a quiet rhythm for the two riders moving side by side over the fertile lands of the Ponderosa. The Cartwright brothers had crossed the border onto their own land some thirty minutes earlier but neither felt any need to increase their pace, instead they maintained their horses at a steady walk. As much as they both missed those waiting for their return, there were too many questions waiting for them at home to make either man eager to end their journey. For now, it was more appealing to simply ride, sharing the comfortable sense of companionship and friendship they had found along the way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By mutual consent, the two riders finally pulled to a stop on a high vista overlooking the majesty of the pristine lake that comprised most of the Ponderosa’s western border. Neither one of them was surprised that they had somehow wound up here, although their destination had supposedly been the ranch house still some miles ahead to the northeast. Gazing out over the smooth royal blue surface of the water below, Joe gave a sigh that was unmistakably sad. “Do you think Claire will really come? I know she said she’d consider it and all, but ‘maybe someday’ just doesn’t seem good enough any more. I want Josh to have the chance to know us now. To know as much as we can share of his father with him now. All of us have already wasted too many years.” He glanced back over his shoulder toward an area about a quarter-mile’s distance to the east where Hoss was buried.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam followed his gaze and nodded. “I know, I feel the same. There’s so much we didn’t get to tell either one of them,” he lamented. “There was no other choice, though. The decision ultimately still belongs to Claire, and we had to keep our promise and give her a chance to make up her mind without outside pressure. We did what we had to do.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An impatient sound, almost a groan, of frustration cut him off. “I know that. I do, and I keep telling myself that it was right thing to do, but deep down I can’t seem to accept that. We shouldn’t have left so soon. You saw how he was, Adam. He was beginning to reach out to us, maybe believe what we said, and now the only thing he and his mother have left is Catherine Bishop and her husband. You know those two are going to be putting every ounce of that so-called ‘outside pressure’ they can on Claire never to see us again. That’s not fair, Adam, and it’s not right. That kid is our nephew and he has a right to know his family. We have a right to know him.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam wondered wryly what had become of his famous gift for always having the right words for every situation, as he found himself unable to answer. If Joe had spoken with passion, with anguish, or even the anger he was known for, then it would have been easy to know what to say, but he had not. His words had been quietly wistful, only the slight tremor in his voice giving away how badly it had hurt him to turn his back and ride away from Marysville. Knowing that for Joe there had always been deeper meaning in touch than in words, Adam reached out and placed a hand on his brother’s slumped shoulder. A brief smile told him that Joe knew what he was doing and appreciated it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You know, Adam, I didn’t think it would be possible to miss Hoss any more than I already did, but ever since I saw that little boy looking at me with those eyes, those same blue eyes-”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I know. Me, too.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They fell silent again, and when Joe turned away and began walking Cochise across the meadow without a word, Adam let him go. There was no need to ask where he was going, and no need to follow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe stood silent for several long minutes, his eyes riveted to the large white stone marker that bore his brother’s name. It had been a long time since he had visited this place. Unlike his mother’s grave, which had always brought a sense of peace and contentment to his soul, particularly in times of trouble, Hoss’ grave seemed to do just the opposite. He rarely came here without carrying away with him that terrible feeling of guilt and sorrow that had filled him in his brother’s last moments of life, and deep down he had always wondered if Hoss’ spirit was blaming him for that untimely death. That was the reason he had once considered ending his own life here; as if a sacrifice of his own blood would somehow appease that blaming spirit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reaching out a hand, Joe brushed away a leaf that had strayed on the wind and come to rest on the marker and he was startled when an insect fluttered up into his face, disturbed by the removal of its leaf shelter. The sheer unexpectedness of the creature made him fall back a step, and he raised an eyebrow at the stone. “You trying to tell me something, Hoss? Like, to let things be and stop trying to make everything the way I want it?” An imagined voice laughed in hearty agreement at his question and Joe smiled. “It never was you that blamed me, was it? You’d never have let me hang onto that kind of guilt when you were alive, and if I’d just stopped talking and listened for a change maybe you wouldn’t have let me hang onto after you were gone either. Right?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The breeze that had been teasing at Joe’s hair and clothing suddenly picked up, swirling around him and then settling back down just as quickly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Hoss?” he said tentatively, then shook his head, berating himself silently for letting his imagination get carried away with him. “I sure do miss you, big brother. Don’t think either one of us realized just how much we still did miss you until this last week. You want to know something funny, though? I think maybe Adam and I have finally learned how to get along without you. To be friends without anybody forcing us to, I mean. Thing is, we still needed you to get us to there. If it hadn’t been for that letter from Claire we might never have taken this trip; might never have started talking things out. We owe you for that. Sure hope we haven’t let you down.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Again, he fell silent but this time Joe studied the surrounding area, allowing the sun-warmed grasses, gently swaying trees and freshly scented breeze to become part of him, drawing him close once again to the man he had come to see. How Hoss had loved this place, of all on the Ponderosa. As Joe took a deep cleansing breath, he allowed the tranquillity of this spot to wash over him. “I liked your Claire,” he said suddenly. “I can understand why you two were drawn to each other. I like your son too. She calls him Josh. Doesn’t look much like you, he’s just a little guy, but I think he’s maybe got your feel for things and how they ought to be. Don’t know why I say that, it’s just a hunch, but I can tell you for a fact that he’s no pushover. He’s a feisty little thing. Kinda reminds me of myself at that age, so I know you would have loved him.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe laughed at his observation but didn’t take it back. If two strangers had come to his home wanting to take him away with them at Josh’s age, he’d have fought and kicked and run away too. The kid definitely had signs of the family temper and stubbornness. And the joy with which he had taken to his ride aboard Cochise left no doubt as to his Cartwright heritage; at least in Joe’s eyes. “We had to leave him in Marysville with his ma,” he went on, apology ripe in his tone. “Adam says it’s her decision to make. Don’t know if I agree with that or not. I was so sure that it would be easy to convince both of them to come back with us that it hasn’t quite soaked in yet that they might not. I mean, how could any kid of yours not want to be a part of the Ponderosa?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There was no answer on the wind or in his heart, and gradually Joe straightened up from the crouch he had assumed and studied the marker once more. “I won’t give up, Hoss. Someday, your boy will come home to us, I promise.” Again brushing a hand across the top of the stone marker, but tenderly this time, he whispered, “See you soon,” and turned and walked away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As Joe returned to his place at the top of the vista, Adam turned his head slightly, surreptitiously studying him. Joe’s expression was more peaceful now than it had been when he left. There was, however, a slightly reddened edge to his eyes and he made an effort to disguise the single hard sniff that required him to dash a hand across his nose by saying, “Must be coming down with a cold. That’s what I get for sleepin’ out nights, I guess.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Knowing full well that Joe wasn’t coming down with anything more serious than just a case of emotion, Adam fished out a handkerchief and dangled it toward his brother. “Probably. If it gets any worse, you may finally have to resort to carrying one of these yourself. Or maybe its just you want that doctor wife of yours to lay on the TLC?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe bristled then chuckled at the comment as he accepted the cloth and blew his nose vigorously. His brothers and father, and of course Hop Sing, had all spent hours trying to instill the habit of carrying handkerchiefs in him during his youth, but even now he forgot more than half the time. “Thanks. And after dealing with you for more than a week, I’m gonna need all of my wife I can get.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam snorted and smiled. “Me? Giving you trouble? Not a chance! You ready to go?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No need to rush on my account,” he returned, walking over to a tree that had grown up against a flat-sided boulder and perching on the stone. Smiling at Adam, he gestured with his chin toward the valley below then turned and blew his nose again with a resounding honk.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam watched him settle back against the tree trunk and stretch out his legs, drawing his hands up in a loose clasp across his stomach as he turned his attention back toward the water. It was clear that Joe was prepared to wait comfortably for as long as it took him to pay his own visit to Hoss. Gently knocking the side of his fist against Joe’s shoulder in acknowledgment, Adam turned and made his way down the hill.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Just as Joe had done, Adam knelt next to the marker and studied the name etched there. Unlike his brother, however, no sense of melancholy gripped Adam’s heart. He had spent many hours in this spot since his initial reluctant visit with Honor when he had first returned to the Ponderosa. There was something about it that was very welcoming, as though the spirit of its gentle inhabitant had come to permanently dwell here, ready to listen whenever anyone came to him with a problem.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Surprised to find himself doing so, Adam had often found himself talking out loud to the gravestone, spilling out all of his problems with Joe, his confusion over Athena and Honor, his doubts about his own place in the Ponderosa, and his pride in all of them. He gave regular updates on the entire family, and talking to Hoss’ grave still gave Adam the sense of peace that talking to his brother always had. The only thing missing was the advice, so surprisingly wise and well thought out, which had always followed the patient silence in which Hoss had accepted his brother’s confidences in life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“So, what did you and Joe talk about?” Adam began distractedly as he reached to remove a few scattered weeds from the edge of the marker. “Once upon a time I’d have bet it was about me. If he and I had come home from a trip together, I expect the first thing he’d have done was start griping about me, and you’d have told him what you always did. ‘Don’t let older brother rile you, Joe. He doesn’t mean half of what he says. It’s just all that learnin’ getting in the way of his thinkin’ again.’ A chuckle interrupted the easy-going drawl Adam had affected, and he shook his head. “You know what though, Hoss? Just for a change, we’re not<\/em> at each other’s throats. Imagine that if you can. Joe and Adam Cartwright take a weeklong trip together and come back as friends. I think you were probably the only person in the world who ever thought that would happen. Not even Pa would have put any money on it.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He laughed again softly. Hoss had understood his two siblings a lot better than they had ever understood each other, and he had always had faith that they would someday meet in the middle. Neither of them had ever felt any particular need to do so, though, while their brother was around to do it for them. “He’s changed a lot, you know. I’ve told you that before, but it still comes as a surprise to me sometimes. Joe is a lot less hotheaded than he used to be, and I’m a lot less\u2026 What did he used to call it? Oh, yes, ‘granite-headed’. Guess we were both ready for a change.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Did Joe tell you about Josh and Claire? He was upset that I advocated leaving them behind to make their own choice, but I told him we did what we had to do. Fact is, I didn’t really want to leave them either. I’m afraid Joe may be right about Claire’s sister controlling her, but I just don’t believe we had a choice.” Adam sighed suddenly, his posture wilting as he slumped down to sit in the grass. “What really worries me is what we’re going to tell Pa. After all it’s not like our excuse about buying stock is going to hold much water when we show up without a single animal. I’ve been trying to put myself in his place and imagine that I’ve just learned that my son fathered a child out of wedlock right before he died. It’ll be a shock to him, a big shock, but I’m sure he’ll forgive you once we tell him about the letter that Claire read to us. Not so sure he’ll forgive Joe and me when we tell him we didn’t bring Josh with us, though.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No answer rose to fill the pause as Adam’s worried conjecture faded away on the breeze.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“You really loved her, didn’t you? You must have to go that far.” Adam gave a short, self-disgusted snort. “I thought I knew both of my brothers so well, and I’m only just learning. All the times I’ve been here, telling you about Athena, about how she’s taught me about having a passion for life and another person, and it never even crossed my mind that you’d have understood what I was saying. You did though. That letter; hell, the very fact that you loved Claire enough to make love to her, tells me that! I’m sorry, big fella. I should have known better.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A few minutes later, Adam stood and brushed himself off. It was getting late and there was no use putting off the trip home any longer. Silently praying that a little of Hoss’ strength might bolster him and Joe through their upcoming confrontation, Adam touched his hat brim in farewell. “I’ll see you later.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I hope you don’t think me too forward,” Athena Dawson had half-pleaded again, her eyes not rising to meet Ben Cartwright’s solid visage. Her voice, with its easy Southern languidness, had barely reached beyond the porch where she stood facing the Ponderosa patriarch the afternoon before.<\/p>\n

“Not at all, my dear lady. In fact, I thank you for bringing us the news. And of course, you can stay here. From what this telegram says, the boys should be home either tonight or some time tomorrow.” While he spoke, he studied the woman before him. Or at least what he could see of her. He finally did what he longed to do: put a finger under her chin and lift her eyes to meet his directly. Why is she so frightened? So unsure of herself? Did she think I would put my eldest son’s paramour- wait, now, Ben, you aren’t suppose to know that! <\/em>“Is there something else?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I just wasn’t sure, sir, I mean here I am inviting myself in to a family affair, a homecoming, I mean,” she floundered about, avoiding the real reason for her unease: her longing for the man who had become too close to walk away from.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Nonsense,” Ben enthused and put a protective arm about the woman’s shoulders and drew her towards the house. She resisted just a hair then gave in and allowed herself to be led to stand before the warming fireplace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One shout for Hop Sing and the little man, bent slightly by age, appeared as if by magic. Ben wondered how often Hop Sing’s efficiency was based on eavesdropping as he asked for some hot tea for Athena. With a bob of his head, the little celestial disappeared and Ben knew he would be back, fulfilling the simple request quickly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Let me take your wrap,” Ben offered, hoping that the reserve in the woman would break and she would at least exchange small talk with him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About that time, as Ben had Athena’s riding jacket in his hands, Honor rounded the corner from the kitchen, all hustle and hurry, as was her nature. Under his hands, Ben felt Athena stiffen at the sound of Honor’s voice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Oh, didn’t know we had company. Afternoon, Mrs. Dawson,” Honor greeted and Ben detected just a hint of sarcasm in her voice, with heavy emphasis on Athena’s married state.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Athena raised her dark head and gazed coolly at the other woman. “Mrs. Cartwright,” was all she said by way of greeting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Athena got a telegram from Adam. He says that they should be home in a day or two. They left Marysville day before yesterday. I’ve asked her to stay with us until Adam and Joe get here. That way she can be here for the homecoming celebration.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Honor’s eyebrows arched and her lips pursed for a split second before the veil of civility dropped back down. There was just something about Athena Dawson she didn’t like but to put a name on it, Honor couldn’t. And it didn’t help matters that she could feel the same almost hostile emotion emanating from Athena in her direction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For her part, Athena, perhaps more worldly than Honor, could describe exactly the feeling she had: she despised her. Here was a woman who was spoiled by all the men within her grasp. She had everything given to her and wanted for nothing and still she had flirted with another man, flaunting it even, Athena thought, into the face of her own husband. Wanting more, perhaps? As far as Athena was concerned, Honor Cartwright, lofty and self-assured Honor Cartwright, did not deserve half of what she had. Strip the woman of her beauty and what remained Athena saw as nothing redeeming.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

What in God’s name is wrong with these two? They barely know one another and here they are acting like\u2026like a pair of cats, ready to hiss and scratch one another’s eyes out. I’ll not have that in my house<\/em>, Ben thought. He had no idea how to go about preventing it and any further thought was put aside as Hop Sing delivered tea and cookies. Honor, hearing one of her babies fussing, excused herself without another word.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“How are you enjoying your stay in Virginia City, Athena? Rather a rambunctious town, isn’t it?” Ben made small talk as he eased himself into his chair by the fire. Athena perched herself on the settee, looking for all the world to Ben like she was poised and ready to take flight momentarily.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’ve taken to riding a good bit here in the last few weeks. Adam,” and her head ducked and bobbed once before she raised it and continued on, “Adam has given me a horse. Thank goodness the horse knows the way home or I would have been lost for sure so many times. As it is, all I have to do is turn loose of the reins and the horse heads for Adam’s stable.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“So you’ve seen a good bit of the countryside. Fall is a lovely time of the year here but you had best beware of riding too far from shelter this time of the year. We can get a blizzard dumped on us pretty quickly. Are you going to be staying on in Virginia City much longer?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She had to swallow hard. His last question sounded on the surface so innocent but Athena wasn’t sure that it was. Answer ‘yes’ and she would be sized up again as wife material for Adam. Answer ‘no’ and she would be seen as a dilettante, merely toying with the mighty Ben Cartwright’s son’s affections. She would take the cautious way out. “I’m not sure yet. A lot depends on\u2026” and she let her words drift off.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Depends on Adam. That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?” Ben finished for her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A delightful little laugh escaped her and Ben found himself wanting to hear it more often. That and the slow Southern softness to her voice entranced him more than bit. “Are you always so direct, suh?” she smiled, all coyness and dark beauty. “But I am afraid that I may not be the sort of woman you would want as a daughter in law.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ben cocked his head to one side as he considered her words. “You misjudge me, Athena, I think.<\/p>\n

Why would I not want you and Adam together?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Athena set her teacup down and for the first time, Ben thought, looked at him directly and with the boldness he had sensed the woman had in her. “Because it is rather obvious that I miss the mark that your other daughter-in-laws have set. I do not have the youthful charm and naivet\u00e9 of Cathy. And as for Honor, I am certainly not her equal in any sense of the word. I do not have her fiery beauty, nor her easy wit. And God forbid, I barely got through finishing school while she is a learned physician!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To Athena’s surprise, Ben didn’t seem to take offense at her outburst. He merely smiled at her.<\/p>\n

Unnerved, Athena shot to her feet and moved to the opposite end of the settee, away from him. Her hands twisted around themselves as she considered her options: turn and run away or stay and stand up for what she believed to be true.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What makes you think that I have some sort of standard for my sons’ wives? One that is based on how much schooling they have? How they look? How they are? Nonsense, Athena. If I had a standard it would be this: I want the women my sons associate with, be they married to them or just<\/p>\n

close personal friends, to love them as much as they are capable of. That’s all.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But-” with a wild gesture Athena threw her hand in the direction Honor had disappeared.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Like I said,” Ben repeated and found himself rising to calm the darkening fury he saw on her delicate ivory features, “all I ask is that they love them. That the woman returns in kind what my son gives her. Besides,” and he stroked the silken sleeved arm still half-extended, “That one is no saint to live with at times. But she is perfect match for Joseph. Just like -” Ben stopped himself before he could say that he had come to the conclusion that she was Adam’s equal match.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Sometimes, Mr. Cartwright, I swear, I think you can read my mind,” she half taunted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I had plenty of practice with another Southern belle years ago.” And with a mental jolt, Ben found himself almost laughing at the prospect of his Yankee-bred son marrying this Southern charmer. Even though Marie had been Creole, there had been the same gentility about her as Athena seemed to exude.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But aren’t we putting the cart ahead of the horse, Mr. Cartwright? I mean, your son has yet to ask me to marry him so all of this is speculation Merely speculation,” she backed into the role of smooth and worldly woman easily, hiding her shaking fears.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I don’t think it will be too long before he gets around to it. Adam always was very cautious in making big decisions.” Ben returned to his chair and took back up his cup.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Why do you think he would ask me? We’ve hardly known one another but a while,” protested the woman as she suddenly found her arms cold, longing for that one touch that would warm her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ben cocked an eyebrow in her direction. “He sent the telegram to you, didn’t he? Not to me. That says something.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes,” she muttered, considering it, “But again I think we put the cart before the horse. You assume that I would tell him yes if he should ask.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now Ben smiled broadly and nodded at the woman who suddenly couldn’t sit still. “You came here to the Ponderosa to be here when he gets back. What would any one else make of that? Hmm?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She dropped to the broad gray stone ledge, the fire at her black. As she did, the pretense of a strong-minded, aloof woman of the world dropped from her also and what presented itself to Ben was a young woman in love. Athena leaned her elbows ungraciously on her knees and cradled her face in her palms.<\/p>\n

“You do have a way about you, suh! I do believe that you can read my mind.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As that afternoon shadows had lengthened, Ben watched, chuckling to himself as the two women would take turns as “lookouts.” As for himself, Ben settled into his chair, stoked the fire occasionally, even played a little with his biggest grandson. He had loads experience waiting for Joe and Adam to return home from some trip. He knew that the first signal would be the sound of hooves just on the other side of the barn. There was no clear view down the road that led ultimately to the yard and house proper, so Ben didn’t bother to watch. But he would know when they returned. Finally the darkness grew complete and reluctantly, the two women both admitted that their men would not be back that night.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Honor, would you do me a favor tonight? Ask Athena to help you with the boys,” Ben approached her quietly while Athena was not on the porch with them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As the hair on the back of her neck stood up, Ben calmly let his huge hand come to rest there. To appease the rising spirit, he slowly stroked her neck and back, much as he would have an angry cat. She did remind him of one right at that moment when she hissed “Why? I can take of the boys on my own!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I didn’t say you couldn’t, now did I? Hmm?” When he saw her give just a fraction he pushed again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I want her to feel like she is welcome here. Let her get a little more at ease with us.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“So I’m supposed to do that by letting her take care of one of my children? Whoa, Father Ben.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“She wouldn’t hurt them and you know it. It’s just that she has been here other times and when something else needed your attention, you have handed over one of the boys to Cathy or Anne or me even. Why should Athena be any different?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“To start with,” Honor rounded on her father in law and had trouble keeping her voice below a screech, “she isn’t family.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Neither is Hop Sing but he has been known to change a diaper or two.” Ben held on to Honor’s arm to keep her out of Athena’s hearing range as she stood on the porch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Hop Sing may as well be family, he’s been around longer than I have! You are going about this all wrong, if you want her to feel like a member of the family and not some special guest.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ben raised a still dark eyebrow, questioning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“And you assume that I want to treat her that way. Father Ben, the woman doesn’t like me. Even in the least and she barely knows me. It’s like she decided she wasn’t going to like me even before she laid eyes on me. How am I supposed to get over that hump in the road?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He buried his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. For a little bit, he studied the planking beneath his feet. “Did it ever occur to you that she is afraid of you? She is afraid of what you represent?” When Honor didn’t answer him, he went on, still looking down. “You are a generous woman, Honor Cartwright. Why can’t you extend that generosity to her? When you first came here, you didn’t have much. And you desperately needed a friend.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“And as I recall very clearly, you stepped up and took on both roles: benefactor and friend. Of course, now I think you had ulterior motives in mind.” Honor skidded to a verbal halt, her mouth making a tiny “o..” “That’s it isn’t it? You want her and Adam–Father Ben, you sly old fox. You’re a matchmaker if I ever saw one! Shame on you!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I am not a matchmaker,” he insisted firmly. “I just happen to know what is good for my sons and Athena is good for Adam. You know it too, but if we can’t make her feel a little less guest-like and a little more family-like, she may decide to move on before he gets around to asking her.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“And you think handing her a baby who needs a diaper changed is going to make her feel like part of the family? Oh, for heaven’s sake, Father Ben, what you know about all of this wouldn’t fill a thimble. Just leave us be and we will sort this out on our own!” With a little flounce to her skirts, Honor huffed her way passed his shoulder. She never saw the smile on his face.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Although there had been more cordial dinners around the big table than the one there was that night, Ben sensed a little thawing of the two icebergs that sat on either side. There was a little sadness, of course, since Adam and Joe had not made it home that night but as the little gathering moved to have their coffee in front of the warm fire, Ben thought that perhaps he could get out of them the answer to a burning question of he owned. Once he was settled into his chair and had his pipe lit and little AJ perched happily in his lap, Ben cleared his throat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Call it a parent’s intuition, or any thing that you like, but I have a sneaky suspicion that my sons didn’t go to Marysville looking for stock.” Ben felt rewarded when he saw Honor and Athena trade quickly covered panicked expressions. “And I have the feeling that they told you ladies why they were going. Feel like sharing that information?” He took a draw on his pipe and watched.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the end, it was Honor who laid out the whole story to him. As he listened, a part of him that had been long withered blossomed anew. He felt his heart constrict with the long suppressed memory of Hoss’ sudden death. For just the briefest moment he relived that afternoon when Joe had forced him to sit in that very chair then knelt before him, tears streaming down his face and told him that Hoss wouldn’t be home again. Now, he was hearing that a part of his beloved son lived on. The grandchild and the woman who had captivated his gentle giant’s heart would become a part of the expanding family. That Adam and Joe would be bringing Hoss home, if only in the form of his child. Ben felt tears on his face but he didn’t care that they were there. Hoss was coming home! His boy was coming home!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When he realized he was sitting in silence, that Honor had finished her explanation, it was as though a new day had dawned for Ben. His happiness literally radiated off of him, making Honor and Athena a bit uneasy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Father Ben, they had no proof that the letter wasn’t some sort of scam,” Honor pressed, trying to make him see that there was possibly a down side to it.<\/p>\n

“What she is saying is very true, Mr. Cartwright. And there is no guarantee that the woman hadn’t moved on. Maybe she married and the child has no idea about who his father really is.” Athena tried as well but both women quickly realized they were talking only to themselves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“He,” Ben latched onto the gender that Athena had unwittingly used. “You don’t suppose I have a grandson? I’m sorry Honor, I shouldn’t have said it that way. I meant a grandson who is, what maybe nine, ten years old? Oh Lord, why didn’t they tell me what they were up to? Those two sons of mine-.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Father Ben!” shouted Honor and finally got his attention. “There is no guarantee, no assurances that this woman was telling the truth. That’s why they didn’t say anything to you. Joe I know didn’t want to hurt you with possibilities. He also didn’t want to shame his brother’s memory for you.” But by just the expression on his face, both women knew he wasn’t truly listening to them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When Ben got up to check the barn stock once more before turning in for the night, it left Honor and Athena alone for the first time all evening. Honor sat trying to lull two little ones to sleep unsuccessfully. To her surprise, Athena had simply asked if she thought she might be of assistance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Remembering her father in law’s words, Honor handed her AJ. The little one instantly calmed down and stared up into the strange lady’s face then he cooed and giggled for her, not in the least interested in falling asleep now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Athena, what are we gonna do if we’re right and Father Ben is wrong? What if that woman was using Hoss?” Honor asked, keeping her eyes on her own Hoss.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She took a deep breath and held it for what seemed like an eternity then she slowly let it go. “No,” Athena whispered, “what are we going to do if it is true? What if there is a child? And Adam and Joe return here with it? What do you know of raising a child that age? A boy or girl of ten? Speaking for myself, I barely know what to do with them when they are this size. So that would leave either Jamie, who is also not capable of dealing with a child right now or Mr. Cartwright. If it is a boy, I am sure Mr. Cartwright could deal with it, but he is an old man and ultimately, the job would yours and Joe’s. But what if it is a girl?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Honor groaned theatrically and Athena laughed at the sound. “You know, for a woman named after the goddess of wisdom, Athena Dawson, you<\/em> ask a lot of questions. And I don’t have an answer for any of them.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well,” and Athena juggled a now squirming AJ, “For once we are on even ground. Neither one of us has any answers. All we can do is hope that the men in our lives do.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I know one thing,” Honor vowed and Athena looked up to catch the twisted expression on the redhead’s face as she disentangled little fingers from her hair, “I wish Cyrus Lewis had just thrown that letter away.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Silence stretched thin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Okay,” Honor sighed, “I don’t wish that. Maybe I just wish that the letter would have been delivered to the right person all those years ago.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Athena smiled then also grimaced as AJ caught a handful of dark curls in one tight little fist.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Watching her loosen the tiny fingers, Honor figured that maybe her father in law was right: the babies had made Athena more like family. Or was it the facing together of a tragedy that had started long before that night? And just as Hoss grabbed at another dangling red lock, both women stood on level ground for the first time. It was not a closeness, a sisterhood reaction, nor even a fleeting sense of camaraderie. It was just that they shared the same place in life for a moment. But it was a start in the direction Ben had asked for.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well Adam and Joe should be home today,” Ben smiled as he spoke that morning. His heart was full of brightness as he planned out his day. He had the whole scene in his head, plotted out just so. His sons would ride into the yard and have the young child with them. He would walk over to the youngster, take him, for Ben was sure it was a boy, from the saddle and introduce himself and hear the magic words he had longed to for: Hello, Grandfather. The boy, Ben was also sure would look just like his son had at that age. He would be a large framed, sturdy lad, with sandy blonde hair and gap between his front teeth. And his eyes would be that same clear blue that could see all the way to your soul. Then Ben knew his life would be complete, whole again. It might not be Hoss but it would a piece of him come back and reclaim his rightful place in a father’s heart. That morning at the breakfast table it was all Ben could do to stop himself from saddling Buck and riding out to meet them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was too bad that Athena and Honor did not share in his jubilance. They were too wary and actually too afraid of the coming to day to do more than plaster a smile on their faces. Why am I so caught up in this?<\/em> Athena asked herself as she spooned a bit of scrambled egg onto her plate. This is not my family. I never knew this man, this brother of Adam’s. So why am I so afraid of what today brings? I can’t see Adam taking on a child to raise. He has no experience! Surely it would be Joe and Honor tagged for the chore. And certainly, Ben would want the child close to him, not in far away Virginia City. Is that it then? I am afraid that Adam, who loves his family would shoulder the responsibility. Would he leave Virginia City and return here to live? And I would be left behind?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Honor ate sparingly that morning. Like her female compatriot at the other side of the table, she also feared what today would bring, but not for herself. Long ago she had seen Father Ben grapple with broken dreams and shattered expectations. To her, he had always seemed as solid as a rock. But when Joe had suffered a near fatal heart attack, Honor had seen a tiny crack form in the face of that rock. What would this business with Hoss’ child do? Honor didn’t know what to hope for: that they came home with the child or empty-handed. As she wiped AJ’s face and shoved his mangled piece of toast out of reach, she wondered if part of her problem was jealousy. If they came home with this other child, her children would not be Father Ben’s only heirs. They would have to share the love of their only grandparent and Honor wondered, never having had any grandparents, if that love divided was actually multiplied.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, Athena, I wonder if I could get you to help me today? I promised Hop Sing I would help him. The potatoes need to be gotten out in the garden before the ground freezes and put in the root cellar,” Honor queried, wondering if the elegant woman across from her would deign to get her hands dirty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Athena lifted an eyebrow and shoved back her chair from the table. She brushed her hands down the front of her black riding outfit. She recognized a challenge when she heard one. “Of course. In fact, why don’t you just stay in here and take care of your boys? I can handle this little chore.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I’ll take care of the boys,” Ben spoke up and lifted AJ from his high chair. “Both of you can work in the garden. I’m too old for all that getting up and down. Besides, it’s getting too cold for the little ones out there.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Honor laughed softly then leaned across the table and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “He would claim anything just to keep from having to help in the garden. I think he secretly hates vegetables.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It dawned on Honor that Athena had never done this sort of work. As Honor used the blunt tined potato fork to dig into the soft earth, Athena pounced on each golden brown orb with glee and delight. When the bucket became too heavy, she would dump it into the wheelbarrow Hop Sing had provided them then scurry back for more. As the morning wore on, the women changed places and Athena found herself almost enjoying digging the carrots and turnips. They exchanged little in the way of talk beyond what was required to do the work. Honor had offered the elegantly manicured Athena a pair of gloves early on but she had not accepted. Now as Honor looked up from where she knelt, loosening carrots from their summer home, she wanted to laugh aloud. Athena’s hair, once so artfully arranged was in the process of falling down completely. There was a broad smug of dirt on one cheek and another across her forehead. The sleeves to her black cotton blouse were rolled up unevenly and there were dirty knee prints on her riding skirt. But then of course, I imagine I don’t look too much different<\/em>, Honor decided silently as the last carrots in that row popped into her hands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She was about to suggest a short break when she heard it. Her eyes grew large and before she could say a word, Honor was on her feet and headed for the front of the house. Athena must have heard the horses as well since she was hot on Honor’s heels when they both rounded the corner.<\/p>\n

There in the broad front yard stood three horses: the packhorse, Joe’s beloved pinto and the chestnut Adam favored. Athena skidded to a halt at the corner of the kitchen but Honor kept going. The red haired woman even made it past Ben and into her husband’s arms before he was completely dismounted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe just dropped his reins into the dirt and swept his wife up into his embrace. He bent to kiss her and found her reaching for him as well. His hat knocked to the ground, he didn’t care. This kiss, this welcome home, was one he wanted to go on forever. He had missed his wife and wanted her to know it. He held her against him tight, letting her body melt into his. When he let her go, he left his hands laced behind her head, tangled in her hair. Looking down he could see nothing but her bright eyes, dancing, happy, and loving. He winked at her and then proceeded to kiss her again, totally oblivious to the rest of the world around them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When Adam turned from dismounting, he saw Athena standing at the corner of the house. He smiled and dropped his reins like Joe had done, knowing the horses wouldn’t stray. But she remained rooted there, her hands behind her back and it struck Adam that Athena longed to do what Honor had done and yet was afraid to. Why, he wasn’t sure but he was certain about one thing: if the sounds, the murmured words coming from beside Cochise were any indication of what was transpiring, he sure wished Athena would have met him the same way. Keeping his eyes locked on hers, Adam smiled crookedly and opened his arms to her as if to tell her that it was all right.<\/p>\n

But the Southern bred dignity had risen high in her veins. A Southern lady didn’t throw herself with such wanton abandon into a man’s arms, she believed. There was to be a certain amount of restraint while in the public view. But the graceful opening of Adam’s arms towards her and Athena forgot to be the Southern well-bred lady. To her surprise, Adam lifted her from her feet and swung her around then buried his mouth on hers again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“God, I missed you,” he whispered into her hair, surprising himself with the intensity of the feeling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He had missed her, more than he had wanted to admit up until then. He could feel her hands knotted into his shirtfront, her forehead pressed to his chest as she nodded mutely, saying that she had also missed him. He wrapped his arms protectively around her waist and lifted her face with one finger beneath her chin. Her green eyes were swimming with tears, threatening to make a track through the dirt on that one cheek. “Shh,” he whispered and prayed it would calm her. “I’m surprised to find you here, but I am glad you are. I don’t think I could have gone another hour without you!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She smiled and ducked her head, letting her cheek rest against the hard plane of his chest. “You are being silly, Adam Cartwright,” she jested back at him, her fingers, lacing through the buttons on his shirt, branding his flesh beneath with their own desire. “And right now I wish we were back in Virginia City instead of here at your father’s home. I would make you the happiest man alive.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam gathered her face in his hands and just before he bent to kiss her again murmured “Promise? Then tell me you will marry me, Athena Dawson.” Before she could answer, his kiss was ravishing her, seducing her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like the two women, Ben had heard the horses come into the yard. Quickly, he had handed AJ to Hop Sing with instruction to watch the little ones and he had made a beeline for the door. He had caught the flash of Honor’s red hair and she ran across the yard to Joe and turned and seen the reticence on Athena’s face. But what commanded his whole attention was the third horse in the yard. When Adam dismounted, Ben could see that there was no one riding it. For a few moments,<\/p>\n

Ben had to lean against the massive upright there on the porch. He stood behind it and braced his head against his hand and fought for control. The third horse was just a packhorse. They hadn’t brought the child home with them. To Ben, it was like another day, long ago, when not enough sons came home from a trip. “Hoss,” he sighed into the back of his hand pressed into the post, “oh Hoss, they didn’t bring the child home.” And while the happy noise of his other sons played out in the background, the only other sound Ben acknowledged was the breaking of his heart again. But then he pulled himself upright and walked on out into the yard. While his sons were busy becoming reacquainted with their ladies, Ben gathered up the dropped reins and pulled the tired horses towards the barn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Wait a minute, Pa,” he heard Joe call him but over his shoulder he called back that they should just go on; he would take care of the horses. In truth, he wanted to be alone for a while. To Ben, Adam and Joe still didn’t know that he knew their real reason for going off to Marysville. Well, he would let them enjoy their homecoming. The rest of story could and would come later. And he needed to get himself under full control before that time. And he felt the overwhelming need to be alone and grieve for just a little while.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With a slap to the pinto’s haunches, Ben put Cochise into his stall, then turned to do the same for the packhorse and Adam’s Sport. With hot scalding tears running down his face, he stripped the saddles off both animals and gathering up the currycomb and brush into either hand, started to clean the trail dust off the bright chestnut hide. But there his resolve to weather the storm gave out and Ben Cartwright found himself clinging to the big horse, his face buried in the thick mane, crying tears of loss for what should have been.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tugged with insistent hands into the privacy of their own room, Honor struggled to make Joe listen to her. Finally, breaking the physical contact, she was able to get his attention to her words. “He knows, Joe,” was all she said and watched her husband change before her very eyes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Deflated, Joe sank onto the side of the bed, his hands limp between his knees, head down. Honor started to apologize but a wave of his hand stopped her. “He asked me and like I told you before you left, I felt I had to tell him, Joe. But you need to go to him, Joe, he was so happy about it, but now\u2026” her words were lost in a shaky gulp. “Was there a child?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe nodded. “A boy,” he explained then filled Honor in briefly on what had happened. When he finished his few sentences, he reached and snagged at Honor’s hand, drawing her back to him as he did. “We did everything we could think of to change that woman’s mind and get her and the boy to come back with us. Nothing seemed to work. I guess if Pa knows, I better go explain what happened.” As he stood, Joe felt the many miles he had ridden, the cold nights spent trying to rest on the hard ground, the seemingly wasted effort in the end. They all crashed in on his body and his mind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Honor felt the tremble that began in his hand and went into his fierce embrace willingly. His arms crushed her to his chest and she listened to his pained choking. For however long it took, she would remain there like she was, supporting him not just with her body but with her love. Finally she felt him move a tiny bit away. She reached up and put her hands to his face, turning it so she could see his eyes clearly. He wasn’t ill, she knew that, but still she had to see for herself. With his eyes locked to hers, it was hard to miss the heartbreak behind them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe fought to find his voice. “I have to go to Pa. I need to be there with him, right now. There’s a lot of explaining I guess I need to do.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes,” Honor mumbled and once again sought out his eyes, this time with her hands as she brushed at the tiny lines she saw there. “You need to tell him that \u2026.” She ground to a halt. It was on her lips to tell him that he should tell his father how hard he had tried, he and Adam both, but it suddenly felt as though to do that would just be making an excuse. And Ben Cartwright didn’t listen very well to excuses when it came to his sons’ welfare. That she knew first hand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe smiled briefly and kissed her forehead then left the room, shoulders slumped. Once again, he felt the old familiar ache come to his heart. He would have to tell his father that he had once again come home without a loved one.<\/p>\n

Before he could get across the room, the door opened wide and with a cheerful hello, Jamie and Cathy burst into the room. Hot on their heels, Candy and Anne followed. The ‘welcome backs’ and questions peppered Joe as warmly as the handshakes. When Adam descended from upstairs, the rounds were repeated. Joe sought for a way to get to Adam and tell him and as the emotion ratcheted up a notch, Joe nearly became desperate. But then his father came into the big room now full of people. Although his eyes were rimmed red, there was no other outward sign from the elder man. He laughed and joked with everyone present and to a casual onlooker, no one would have known that Ben Cartwright was struggling mightily to maintain control of his heart.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Where did -? How did-?” Adam wondered aloud, looking at his extended family now surrounding him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Your father sent word, I imagine,” Athena answered, accepting the small glass of sherry that Candy was handing out to the ladies. She would have much preferred the brandy being doled out in hefty quantities to the men.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“All right!” Ben called out, begging silence or at least quiet. “Even though they came home empty handed, ” and Joe and Adam traded pained looks, then ducked their heads to avoid their own pain,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I am glad to see them home. If only because your sons have been giving me the Devil, Joseph! ” A laugh tittered around the room and both of the small ones chimed in to the families delight. “And we are all interested in hearing how things went. If my nose is telling me right, Hop Sing is cooking up a storm in the kitchen, so perhaps if you all could stay for dinner?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Why do you think I came?” Jamie teased and got a sharp elbow in the side from Cathy as a result. Although the young woman could cook, her recently awakened love of reading was said to be getting in the way of household chores.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well first I think we need to cleaned up,” Adam’s crooked grin seemed forced to Ben but he let it slide. His own joviality certainly was.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Amen to that!” Athena piped up and, for the first time, let her guard down as she mimed holding her nose just behind Adam. The laugh that erupted in the great room let her relax a little but Adam’s arm encircling her shoulders and drawing her close to him made her tense again. Out in the yard, his sudden proposal had rocked her. She had no idea how to answer him and now she was afraid he would do it again, and so openly that she would feel compelled to answer him. Athena had no honest answer for him. A part of her wanted him as her husband while another part relished the freedom she had had. No, she had no answer. Yet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, Athena, you’re gonna have to wait. I won the coin toss!” Joe winked at her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“No, first things first, Joseph!” Ben countered then raised his glass of brandy in the direction of his two blood sons. “Welcome home, Adam and Joe. The place has been a little quiet around here lately.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The calls of “here, here” slipped like a cool breeze on a hot day around the room.<\/p>\n

“And after we have had a good meal, you can tell us all about it! But first, I think the rest of us might appreciate\u2026” and Ben let his voice drop away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I am glad you won that coin toss, Joe,” Honor piped up and covered her mouth and nose with one hand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam relaxed into the huge tub full of hot water. The miles and pain of the trip drifted away from him like the bubbles the soap made. Athena had told him briefly and succinctly that Ben knew the real purpose of the trip. Like Joe, his first instinct had been to go to his father. But the impromptu party had forestalled that and from what Adam could see, his father seemed to be taking it in stride. Adam’s face scrunched into a grimace. Or perhaps Pa was just getting better at holding in his emotions. No,<\/em> he thought again, Pa and Joe were alike in that respect: they wore their feelings for all to see. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Behind him, he heard the door open and thought that perhaps Hop Sing was bringing him in another bucket of hot water so he didn’t turn around to look. Sighing, he just sunk a little deeper into the tub.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“If you’ll sit up, I’ll wash your back,” her voice purred in his ear and Adam nearly leapt from the tub.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Athena, listen, if we were in Virginia City, this would be fine but, please, this is still my father’s house!” he warned, his voice a sharp whisper.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“All I offered to do was wash your back!” Her dark brows raised then she languidly blinked at him, throwing him completely off guard. She reached into the water and caught up the floating bar of soap, her sleeve dampening as it trailed through the water.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He caught both her hands in his at once. “I know where this usually leads Athena, and while I want it too, I just can’t. With my luck the tub would fall over, water would go everywhere and I would have more explaining to do than what I can handle!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She pulled free and sank to her knees beside the tub. Not using a cloth, she rubbed the bar of soap across the back of his shoulders. “That wouldn’t happen,” came her soft voice, just as smooth as the soap to Adam. “If you hadn’t checked, the tub’s feet are nailed down.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He quickly glanced over the side and found that yes, cleverly placed within the clawed feet of the tub were nail heads peeking out even though they had been painted over to disguise their existence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“How did you know?” Adam questioned, forgetting his trepidation for a moment. He had never seen them and he had bathed here more than once in his lifetime.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Honor told me. Seems there was more than one unforeseen floor scrubbing when the tub tipped. Now lean forward. Have you washed your hair? I swear let two men disappear from a lady’s sight and the first thing they forget is how to bathe!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well, if this is what I get when I come home, I think I should do it more often.” That would have gotten him dunked if Athena had been a little stronger. With a quick glance to the door to make sure it was truly locked, he considered pulling her, clothes and all into the tub with him. She caught the look in his eyes and backed away from the side of the tub.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They had played this game more than a time or two and she knew what was bound to follow. “I thought you were concerned about this sort of behavior here in your father’s house,” she shot back, reminding Adam all too painfully of the circumstances. “Although why I am in a quandary about. Your father knows about us, Adam, I am sure of it. Yesterday, when I said I was going to slip upstairs for a brief respite before dinner, he followed me. Pointed out your room from when you lived here before, he did. Then he left me alone until it was time to eat.” Moving back to beside him, she again took up the soap but this time a wash cloth as well. Obligingly, Adam leaned forward so she could scrub his back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Oh?” he prompted when she didn’t continue. “So you found my other bachelor’s den? What did you do there? Run from the sight of it, I bet. I think Hop Sing keeps it just like he did when I was here all the time.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Actually, I spent a good bit of time just looking at the things you have there. The books, the little things that speak of you. I laid there on the bed and dreamed of you being beside me.” She felt his muscles tense, “I said dreamed<\/em>. Don’t worry, I will behave but it was nice to think of you that way, a young man growing up in that room. It was so much of you, the feel of it, the smell of it even. It was you but not you.” Her hands slipped around and began to rub the warm soapy cloth across his chest. “Anyway, your father found me sleeping on your bed and didn’t seem to make anything of it.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Well tonight, after dinner and all, let me make those dreams of yours come true – but in my house in Virginia City- not here! I’m serious Athena, until we’re married, I wouldn’t feel right.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“In that case,” and Athena let her hand dip beneath the surface of the water, brushing across his manhood with the most intimate of fleeting touches, “let’s hope dinner is short!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dinner proved to be more like a party. With his entire extended family around the table that night, Ben could put aside the ache in his heart for a few moments. His loved ones were at ease with one another, even to the point that Honor and Athena had sheathed their claws but there again, Ben thought that perhaps it was because each of the women had their own man so close at hand. And close at hand was a good description. Joe, of course, never seemed to let himself get far from Honor, constantly touching her as if to verify her existence in his life. Ben knew something about why Joe did that even though perhaps Joe didn’t realize it. In the past when Joe was upset about something, he had chewed his lower lip. Now he would be holding onto his wife, touching her, his arm around her shoulders, his leg against hers beneath the table, his head inclined in her direction. And Honor would do the same, supporting her husband, showing him that even though he didn’t ask for it, she was there for him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But it surprised Ben that Adam was doing the same with Athena. Adam was usually too reserved to do that yet that evening as Ben watched, he saw them. He knew they were lovers, certainly. A man didn’t get to Adam’s years without having had at least one lady in his life and, knowing the charm Adam could exhibit, probably a lot more than one! But tonight, it was a different son Ben was seeing. No<\/em>, he backtracked in his thoughts, this is the Adam of old. This Adam is the Adam I knew before he got angry at the world. This is the Adam who can love openly. He’s been gone a long time.<\/em> Ben mentally lifted his glass of wine in Athena’s direction. Thank you,<\/em> he thought, for giving him back to me. I’ve needed him for a long time. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once dessert was over and Joe and Adam had quit telling tall tales on each other, they all moved into the great room for coffee. Ben of course, settled into his chair and took both his grandsons into his lap. AJ immediately leaned against him and it pleased Ben that he did. Hoss however, better at sitting up, took childish delight at his perch and pounded on the arm of the chair. Joe went to snag his child but got a warning from his father instead. “You had them earlier. This is my time. Go sit with your wife. When they cry you can have them back!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joe made a big show of backing away, hands raised in submission. With Honor snuggled against him, he sat on the settee, Anne and Candy joining them there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“When you gonna get around to having that baby, Anne?” Joe bantered when Anne finally got her bulk settled.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Honor keeps saying soon<\/em>. I think the child is hanging onto my ribs, silently screaming that he won’t go, he won’t go!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Another boy, huh?” Cathy asked. “Just what this family needs is another boy, you know.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Candy says it\u2019s a girl. I say it’s a boy. Hopefully, one day soon, one of us will be right!”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The gentle laughter lingered for a moment then silence settled in, marred only by the sound of china cups and silver spoons.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jamie unwittingly opened the door they had avoided. “So what about this new stock you went looking for? Any good? I noticed you didn’t bring any home? Is it going to follow? Do we have to get some drovers together and go get it?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It took Adam several deep breaths before he could find his voice. Joe had looked at him and just that barest glance gave Adam the ultimate courage to speak. “We found it, all right, Jamie. It needed to, “Adam couldn’t look at his father before he plunged on “It needed to season a while still. We didn’t decide against it, we just couldn’t get the price to where we needed it to be.” The words, while the truth in a sense, were like bitter lies to Adam and as such, lay foul on his lips.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At that point, Ben couldn’t contain his heartache another moment. Hoarsely he asked Honor to take the boys from him, and once he was able to stand, excused himself from the room. With quick long strides, he left the house.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He halted his headlong flight in the barn. Again he found himself drawn to one particular horse: the bay Adam rode. The only thing particular about the animal came to Ben in crushing remembrance: it occupied the stall Hoss’ Chubb had for years. Not bothering to wipe away the tears, Ben just stood there. He never heard the door open behind him. Never heard Adam call out to him. Never felt Adam’s arms encircle him and hold him when he would have fallen to the floor. As if walking through a dream, he allowed himself to be returned to the house and seated again in his favorite chair, a small glass of brandy pressed into his hand. He looked at it numbly, unable to drink it yet unable to set it down either. After what seemed like just a few moments but was in fact much longer, he came to realization that the room was darkened and the only two others with him were Adam and Joe. Adam sat across from him on the square wood table, his hands loosely clasped before him. Joe was kneeling beside the arm of his chair, one hand resting easily on Ben’s leg.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Tell me,” Ben’s whisper commanded. “Tell me about the child.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam spoke, his voice low, his words simple yet full of emotion that he would have been uncomfortable with otherwise. Throughout the telling, Joe said nothing but felt again the pain lancing through him that had lingered since parting from Josh in Marysville. He was also painfully aware that once before he had knelt beside his father’s chair like this and told him about not being able to bring a loved one back. That memory clawed at him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“We tried Pa. Everything we could think of, we tried. But in the end, it’s Claire’s decision. She is the boy’s mother and we couldn’t have justified any reason taking him from her. I’m sorry, Pa. But maybe, given a little time, she will relent.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I should have gone with you,” Ben pressed. “Why didn’t you come to me before you left? Why did you try to keep me ignorant of this?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Don’t be angry with Adam, Pa,” Joe’s face fell a little further. “I talked him into it. I told him that we didn’t need to tell you. If this woman had been using Hoss, if none of it were true, if the child was dead or something, I couldn’t see possibly breaking your heart over nothing.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“So you concocted this tale about looking for breeding stock.” Ben smiled ruefully. It was so much like his sons to try and shield him. “But do you think there’s a chance that this woman, this Claire Overton, will listen to reason a little later? When she’s had the chance to sort things out?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adam scooted further towards his father, laying his hand over Joe’s where it rested on Ben’s leg. “I’m sure of it, Pa. She just needs a little time. A little space maybe. Let her remember how much Hoss did love her. She tried to give us a note he had written to her just before he left.” Ben’s eyes lifted and Adam regretted mentioning it. “I thought she needed to keep it. Let it, as well as Josh, remind her that she loved Hoss too.” Ben nodded just once, his eyes now dipping back down to his leg. It washed over him then, brought on by something so innocent but to Ben held such power. There, one overlaying the other, were the hands of his sons, his only remaining blood sons. They were the hands of men, not children. They were hands that had been fists not long ago and been held one against the other for most of each other’s life. Now they lay together, open and at peace, not just with him, but with each other, Adam’s covering Joe’s, protecting his brother as always and Joe, allowing it now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He let his own hand, just beginning to show signs of age, fall on top of their joined hands. “You think that maybe she’ll come? That maybe she’ll let Josh come back here?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Yes, Pa,” Joe answered simply. Those two words held all the hope in the world right then. Even though Adam doubted them, he too had to hope Joe was right.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The grandfather clock chimed twice into the warm stillness. Ben threw another log onto the fire and resumed his place in the same space that had always served as the Ranch office. After he had finally gotten Adam and Joe shuffled off to their own respective beds, Ben had gone to his room as well. Unable to sleep, he had finally put on his robe and come downstairs. Now as he sat at the desk, he looked again at the words he written in the coppery glow of the lamp. They seemed so cold, so foreign, and so proper but he knew they were what he had to do. Again he picked up his pen: Dear Miss Overton, My name is Ben Cartwright\u2026\u2026.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Epilogue<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Two weeks later<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ben finally gave up standing and sat on the log there in the shady glen that shielded the graves from easy view of the road. In his hand he held the letter he had fished out of the mail Jamie had dropped off yesterday afternoon. Sprawled across it were the words “moved, left no forwarding address.” He really honestly hadn’t expected any reply but that the letter had never been delivered gave him pause.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“She’s moved on, son,” Ben patiently explained to only the angel listening. “She took your son and moved on. I’ve written to the Pinkerton Agency in Carson City. I’ll hire them to find her. Then, when they do, I’ll go to her. I’ll see your son, my grandson. And I will make sure he knows everything he needs to know. About you, about the ranch, everything.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“That night, when Adam and Joe told me the whole story, I could feel you there, Hoss. You know I wanted to tan their hides for trying to keep a secret from their father but I could hear you. It was your voice I heard, telling Adam just how to tell me. I could sense that you were helping Joe. He still has trouble talking about your death, you know. Who am I to talk? I can’t think about you and not feel the same way, I’m sure.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As if to let the grief have reign for a moment, Ben paused, pulling at a lingering sprig of grass beside his boot. The breeze brushed against his face, reminding him that another winter was not far away. In the far off distance, Ben heard the lowing of a cow, calling apparently for her calf.<\/p>\n

“I wish they had brought Josh back with them. I sure wish they had. But they did bring something else back. I noticed it the evening they returned. Adam came home. I mean really came home. It was like he had never gone away to college. That the last thirty-five years never happened between Joe and Adam. But that’s your doing, isn’t it? You always said that if we gave them enough time, they would see that they were brothers and quit fighting each other all the time. You were right. But I wish you were here to see it, Hoss.”<\/p>\n

From high overhead came the sound of geese calling. Ben looked into the brilliant blue sky and saw the V of the migrating birds dark against the cloudless expanse. He let his gaze linger until the birds disappeared from view. Then he looked again at the white marble stone with his son’s name etched there.<\/p>\n

“You not only see it, but you made it happen. Thank you, son.” Stiffly Ben rose from his seat and took a few steps towards where his horse waited. “I’ll be back and we can talk some more.”<\/p>\n

He gathered up Buck’s reins and swung slowly into the saddle. He couldn’t decide what to tell Joe and Adam about the returned letter. He would eventually tell them but for a while he would let the hope still live in their hearts. Just as it did in his.<\/p>\n

the end<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Tahoe Ladies<\/em><\/p>\n

May 2001 to June 2002<\/p>\n

Next Story in the Honor series<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Whisper My Name<\/a>
\nWhen Little Boys Grow Up<\/a>
\n<\/a>Romantic Interlude<\/a>
\nI Do, I Do<\/a>
\nTwenty Years<\/a>
\nOld Shadows<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tags:\u00a0 Wife\/Wives<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

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

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

Summary:\u00a0 Season 15 continues – episode 5\u00a0 A continuation of the Honor Series<\/p>\n

Rated: T\u00a0 Word Count:\u00a0 45300<\/p>\n

Honor series, links to all stories within the series are included.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":40380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-full-width-post.php","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,23,1008,1007,698,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-u","category-drama","category-family","category-joe-cartwright","category-post-timeline","category-romance","wpcat-7-id","wpcat-23-id","wpcat-1008-id","wpcat-1007-id","wpcat-698-id","wpcat-3-id"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":1506,"today_views":0},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Bonanza-slide.jpg?fit=1086%2C815&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":879,"url":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=879","url_meta":{"origin":872,"position":0},"title":"Honor Series # 3 – The Most Important Job In The World (by the Tahoe Ladies)","author":"Tahoe Ladies","date":"July 19, 2001","format":false,"excerpt":"Summary:\u00a0 Season 15 - Episode 3 A continuation of The Honor Series Rated: T\u00a0 Word Count:\u00a0 1734 Honor Series, links to all stories of this series included.","rel":"","context":"In "Alternate Universe"","block_context":{"text":"Alternate Universe","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/IMG_2234.jpg?fit=840%2C639&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/IMG_2234.jpg?fit=840%2C639&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/IMG_2234.jpg?fit=840%2C639&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/IMG_2234.jpg?fit=840%2C639&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":886,"url":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=886","url_meta":{"origin":872,"position":1},"title":"Honor Series #10 – Twenty Years Means Nothing to the Pines (by the Tahoe Ladies)","author":"Tahoe Ladies","date":"May 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Summary:\u00a0 Season 15 - Episode 10 (A What Happened Later story)\u00a0 A continuation of the Honor Series Rated: K\u00a0\u00a0 Word Count:\u00a0 1994 Honor series, links to all the stories within the series included.","rel":"","context":"In "Action\/Adventure"","block_context":{"text":"Action\/Adventure","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Pepper-Shannon3.jpg?fit=722%2C468&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Pepper-Shannon3.jpg?fit=722%2C468&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Pepper-Shannon3.jpg?fit=722%2C468&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Pepper-Shannon3.jpg?fit=722%2C468&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":877,"url":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=877","url_meta":{"origin":872,"position":2},"title":"Honor Series # 8 – Romantic Interlude (by the Tahoe Ladies)","author":"Tahoe Ladies","date":"July 19, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Summary:\u00a0 Season 15 - Episode 8\u00a0 A continuation of the Honor Series Rated: T\u00a0 Word Count:\u00a0 2797 Honor series, links to all the stories within the series are included.","rel":"","context":"In "Alternate Universe"","block_context":{"text":"Alternate Universe","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Pepper-Shannon3.jpg?fit=722%2C468&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Pepper-Shannon3.jpg?fit=722%2C468&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Pepper-Shannon3.jpg?fit=722%2C468&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Pepper-Shannon3.jpg?fit=722%2C468&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":869,"url":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=869","url_meta":{"origin":872,"position":3},"title":"Honor Series # 6 – Whisper My Name (by the Tahoe Ladies)","author":"Tahoe Ladies","date":"February 28, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Summary:\u00a0\u00a0 Season 15 continues...episode number 6.\u00a0 A continuation of the Honor Series \u00a0 Rated: T\u00a0 Word Count:\u00a0 10700 Honor series, links to all the stories within the series are included.","rel":"","context":"In "Alternate Universe"","block_context":{"text":"Alternate Universe","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Pepper-Shannon3.jpg?fit=722%2C468&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Pepper-Shannon3.jpg?fit=722%2C468&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Pepper-Shannon3.jpg?fit=722%2C468&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Pepper-Shannon3.jpg?fit=722%2C468&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7595,"url":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=7595","url_meta":{"origin":872,"position":4},"title":"She Left (by DJK)","author":"DJK","date":"May 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Summary:\u00a0Adam\u2019s love is leaving him. Rated:\u00a0T\u00a0\u00a0 Word count:\u00a0 599 The Wheelchair Series The Wheelchair She Left","rel":"","context":"In "Adam Cartwright"","block_context":{"text":"Adam Cartwright","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?cat=1005"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Springtime-Vignettes.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Springtime-Vignettes.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Springtime-Vignettes.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Springtime-Vignettes.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":884,"url":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=884","url_meta":{"origin":872,"position":5},"title":"Honor Series # 9 – I do, I do (by the Tahoe Ladies)","author":"Tahoe Ladies","date":"January 19, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Summary:\u00a0\u00a0 Season 15 - Episode 9\u00a0 A continuation of the Honor Series Rate: T\u00a0\u00a0 Word Count:\u00a0 6746 Honor Series, links to stories within the series are included.","rel":"","context":"In "Alternate Universe"","block_context":{"text":"Alternate Universe","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}