Summary: Three men, imprisoned in the Virginia City Jail, have been charged with committing murder and other brutal acts of cruelty. According to the scuttlebutt, the attorney representing them is determined to see his clients acquitted, and will stop at nothing to make it so. Gossip, lurid speculation, and rumor stoke the fear, anger and complete bewilderment of Virginia City’s citizens, leading to the unthinkable catching Ben, Adam, and Hoss up in the midst of the turmoil. Sequel to Mark of Kane.
T
Word Count: 39,168
All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are property of the author. The author is not in any way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, and makes no money from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Bloodlines Series:
Bloodlines
The Lo Mein Affair
The Wedding
Sacrificial Lamb
Poltergeist II
Independence Day
Virginia City Detour
The Guardian
Li’l One
Young Cartwrights in Love
San Francisco Revisited
There But for the Grace of God
Between Life and Death
Orenna
Clarissa Returns
Trial by Fire
Mark of Kane
Part 1
“ ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth,’ ” Father Brendan Rutherford, monsignor, now retired, of Saint Mary’s in the Mountains Catholic Church in Virginia City, softly, reverently intoned words spoken by Job in the midst of his own personal tragedy, suffering, and grief. ” ‘And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.’ ”1
Six pallbearers followed behind the priest, grim, silent, bearing a simple, pine box coffin that contained the earthly remains of a young man by the name of Lorenzo Enrico Estevan. Adam Cartwright and Matt Wilson were at the head, on the right and left respectively. Matt was one of Adam’s oldest friends, one of the very few with whom he had remained in touch since he left Virginia City for good more years ago than he cared to count sometimes. Clem Foster and Eli Barnett, respectively Virginia City’s deputy sheriff and foreman at a spread called the Five Card Draw, held the handles in the middle. Clem was positioned directly behind Adam, and Eli behind Matt. Darryl Hughes, foreman at the Shoshone Queen Ranch, and Apollo Nikolas, one of Hoss’ oldest and best friends, brought up the rear.
“ ‘I . . . KNOW . . . that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth . . . .’ ” Father Brendan continued to recite the passage from Job as the small procession passed through the cemetery gate.
Adam glanced up at the vast expanse of sky, noting, with a pang of sadness that it was the same bright blue as the eyes of his biggest brother and only sister. Gentle, warm breezes stirred the branches of the ancient cottonwood growing just inside the cemetery gate, on the right. Amid the dried, yellow brown remnants of last year’s grasses, tiny shoots of bright yellow green covered the ground, like the fine mist of hair on the head of a new baby.
“It’s not fair!” Adam groused silently, with all the angry petulance of a frustrated two year old. Lorenzo Estevan and his wife, Maria, would have been married now for three, going on four months, had The Fates been kinder. In his mind’s eye, he saw them again, standing together, smiling, at the entrance to the International Hotel, where he and Hoss had dropped them off the day he arrived in Virginia City to design and build a new home for his family. Lorenzo’s arm was draped about his new wife’s shoulders, resting with an ease and a naturalness that comes of long practiced habit. Maria’s arm loosely encircled her husband’s waist. Their eyes and faces were alight with all the newness of springtime.
Adam fervently wished he could stop everything, right here, right now, so that he could open his mouth and scream. Perhaps later, he might ride out to Ponderosa Plunge alone and indulge himself.
“ ‘And though after my skin, worms destroy this body . . . . ’ ”
Maria Estevan followed behind her husband’s coffin, flanked on either side by Doctor Paul Martin, and his wife, Lily. She wore a black linen suit, with a short, waist length jacket and long, full skirt, borrowed from Lily Martin, and hastily altered to better fit her slight, bordering on emaciated form. Beneath the translucent black veil, also borrowed from the doctor’s kindly wife, her pale, drawn face stood out like a beacon. Her once regal posture, now slightly stooped; her bowed head, slumping shoulders, and slow, shuffling gait, lent her the appearance of a woman much older than not quite yet twenty.
“How can a person hurt so much . . . yet still go on living?” Maria wondered silently, not for the first time.
Some days, she woke up in the morning to sunshine, streaming in the window, gently warming her face, as Lorenzo had warmed her heart and soul, absolutely convinced that the last couple of months were but the fading remnants of a horrible dream. On those mornings, she would softly call Lorenzo’s name that he might come, hold her in his strong arms, and gently soothe away her fears with gentle words of comfort. The appearance of the doctor’s face . . . or that of his wife . . . their housekeeper . . . or Mrs. McShane cruelly shattered the illusion, forcing her back to this harsh, grim reality, in which the vibrant promise of springtime had died and now lay buried beneath the deep snows of a bleak winter, with no ending in sight.
They had meant well, of course . . . .
. . . and they had sacrificed much on her behalf.
Maria Estevan would be eternally grateful for the kindness and generosity of the strangers surrounding her. To be otherwise would be unthinkably, unimaginably churlish.
Had they not saved her from what would have been a cruel, lingering death in the desert? Had they not fed her . . . clothed her . . . given her shelter?
. . . and in the dead of night, when memories of Lorenzo’s death and of her own horrific ordeal rose up to possess her with an intensity beyond frightening, had they not come to her within seconds of her first cries, to be with her, to hold her, to offer what comfort they had to give, until the blackness of night gave way to the silver gray light of dawn, more often than not?
Those kindly strangers had also given Lorenzo a place within their midst . . . a beautiful place, under the sheltering branches of an old, venerable cotton wood tree, on top of a hill overlooking an exquisite vista of sky, mountain, and distant forest. Maria knew this to be a sacred place, one well-tended, where the living returned regularly and often to visit their beloved dead. When she was gone from this place, she knew that they would come to visit Lorenzo, too, when they came to visit their own . . . that they would tend to his final place of rest with all the loving care they gave to their own lying in eternal slumber beneath the earth.
“I will ever and always be grateful for that above all else,” Maria silently lamented, “but I wish . . . oh, Dear Sweet God, forgive me . . . but . . . I wish . . . with all that lies within me . . . that it had been my corpse that Mrs. McShane, Mister O’Brien, and Mister Hughes found in the desert that night.”2
“ ‘And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I SEE . . . GOD.’ ”
Hugh O’Brien followed behind the Martins and the young widow, trying very hard not to wince at the arthritic pain in both knees and right ankle. He leaned heavily on his solid black mahogany cane and his eldest daughter, Crystal McShane. Hugh, Crystal, and Darryl had found Maria Estevan wandering in the desert a little more than a month ago now, lost, half out of her mind with hunger and thirst, her body and soul one vast open wound. They had brought her to Virginia City, to Doc Martin. Crystal had not left the young woman’s side since . . . .
“It’s not fair, Pa.”
Crystal’s words, spoken last night when he had stopped by the Martins to visit with her, and talk over some major decisions they would be making about their spread, Shoshone Queen, within in the near future. In his ears, they sounded very childlike and peevish, in manner not unlike her youngest son.
“ . . . had all this never happened, I think Maria Estevan and I could have become very good friends,” she continued, her voice breaking.
“Had all this never happened, you probably wouldn’t have met Mrs. Estevan in the first place,” Hugh had very sagely pointed out.
“True.”
“Maybe . . . after she returns home, gets herself situated, maybe she’ll write ya,” he had suggested hopefully.
Crystal sadly shook her head. “No.”
“How can ya be so sure, Crys?”
“I’ll always be a reminder, Pa . . . a reminder of her husband’s cruel and untimely death, and even worse . . . of all that happened to her,” Crystal explained. “The Martins will be, too . . . and so will Adam. I don’t hold it against her because . . . I know . . . without a doubt, that I’d feel the same way myself, were I in HER place.”
“I can’t say I understand all that well . . . not bein’ a gal myself,” Hugh said kindly, “but, I think I can see your point. I’m real sorry, Crys.”
“So am I, Pa . . . . ”
“ . . . yet in my flesh shall I see GOD, whom I shall see FOR MYSELF, and MINE eyes shall behold . . . and not another,’ ” Father Brendan continued, while silently praying with all his heart that Mrs. Estevan . . . that all of them would someday find a glimmer of hope, a measure of comfort and healing in those words. Job had, for at the end of the book bearing his name, he had come to the place of confessing, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now, mine eye seeth thee.” 3
The small procession came to a stop before a newly opened grave in the middle of the cemetery. Tobias Chaney, Jr., son of the undertaker, who had recently entered the family business, stood a discreet distance from the grave, surrounded by a half dozen big, burly men, armed with shovels, and two coils of stout rope, very tightly woven. The pallbearers carried the coffin over to the left side of the grave and carefully set it down.
“ ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth,” Father Brendan continued to speak the words from Job, as he took his place at the head of the grave, “ ‘and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth . . . .’ ”
Maria Estevan stepped up to the edge of the grave, silently taking her place at the head, to Father Brendan’s left. Paul Martin stood alongside her, casting an occasional anxious glance over at the young woman, so cruelly left widowed, so terribly young. Lily Martin took her place directly behind Maria Estevan, then turned to extend a helping hand to Hugh O’Brien, as he slowly limped up the slight incline. Both Crystal and Hugh graciously smiled and nodded their thanks.
“ ‘. . . And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see FOR MYSELF, and MINE eyes shall behold . . . and not another.’ ”
Father Brendan fell silent, after the small group of mourners had taken their places around the open grave. He bowed his head and sent forth a silent prayer for the living, for loved ones present and not present, that God would strengthen and comfort them all in this time of unspeakable tragedy, and in time, see them beyond the horror, beyond the grief and sorrow, to a place of healing.
“Let us pray,” Father Brendan, at length, broke the silence in a voice barely audible. He removed a vial containing holy water from the right hand pocket of his jacket, and uncorked the cap. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,” he murmured softly, as he sprinkled holy water into what would soon be Lorenzo Estevan’s final resting place. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
“Amen,” the mourners responded softly, in unison.
“Heavenly Father, bless, consecrate, and make holy this earth, opened to receive the body of your beloved child and servant, Lorenzo Enrico Estevan.” He paused to make the sign of the cross over the open grave, the outward sign of God’s blessing, according to his own beliefs. “ . . . through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
“Amen.”
“Lord have mercy,” Father Brendan intoned.
“Christ have mercy.” Maria Estevan, Hugh O’Brien, Crystal McShane, and Adam immediately responded. The others responded a beat behind.
“Lord have mercy,” priest and mourners responded together.
“Let us say together the words of the Pater Noster, the Our Father, the words Our Lord himself gave us,” Father Brendan continued.
“Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” the small group quietly prayed together. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.”
As they spoke the words of the Our Father, also known also as the Lord’s Prayer, Father Brendan circled around the closed coffin twice, sprinkling holy water.
“Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine,” the priest immediately took up the final words of the Mass for the Dead, as the last of the ‘amens,’ faded, “et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen.”
“Amen,” the mourners responded very softly.
“Anima ejus, et animae omnium fidelium defunctorum, per miseric ordiam Dei requiescant in pace. Amen.”
“Amen.”
“Grant unto your child and servant, Lorenzo Enrico Estevan, eternal rest, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him. May he rest in peace. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.”
“Amen.”
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I commit the body of Lorenzo Enrico Estevan to the hallowed earth. Amen.”
“Amen.”
“Let us pray,” the priest invited. He stood for a time, with head bowed and eyes closed, waiting and listening for the words of a prayer that would offer to all who suffered in the wake of Lorenzo Estevan’s sudden passing, those present and those not present, the comfort and peace . . . the balm of healing . . . and that glimmer of hope, he, himself so desperately wanted for them.
But, the words never came.
“Not today,” a still, small voice gently insisted from a place deep within his heart. “Those words WILL come . . . but not today.”
“ . . . and what words . . . what prayer SHALL I utter this day?” he demanded, impatient and bewildered.
“Speak”, the voice replied. “Just speak. The words . . . the prayers needed today will come.”
Father Brendan Rutherford took a deep breath. “Heavenly Father,” he began, “Dear . . . Gracious . . . Heavenly Father, ‘to everything there is a season, and a time and purpose under heaven. A time to be born . . . and a time to die . . . time to weep and a time to laugh . . . a time to mourn . . . and a time to dance.’4
“I ask that you, in your great mercy, would grant to all who knew and loved Lorenzo Enrico Estevan . . . those gathered here now at the place where he will take his final rest, and those not present . . . the strength, the courage, and the grace to walk through this season of death . . . of weeping and mourning.
“Give comfort now to the sorrowful, the grieving . . . and I would also ask that in this time of mourning, all, especially the beloved ones, left bereft in the wake of Lorenzo Estevan’s passing, might be granted an extra and special awareness of your love, and your presence that has never left them or forsaken them. Grant them also time and place to weep . . . to grieve . . . to mourn . . . to acknowledge and give vent to anger, that in the fullness of time, all might come to a place of healing . . . of hope . . . and of peace.
“All this I ask in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. Amen.”
“Amen.”
The priest lifted his head and opened his eyes, as he turned to face the small group, clustered together around the gaping, rectangular shaped hole in the earth, destined to be Lorenzo Estevan’s final place of rest. He lifted his right hand and blessed them all, making the sign of the cross. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti . . . in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, go in peace.”
“Thanks be to God,” Crystal McShane, Hugh O’Brien, and their young foreman, Darryl Hughes, murmured together in unison, as they crossed themselves.
The others responded with a scattering of amens, softly uttered.
“Father Rutherford?”
The priest turned and found Clem Foster standing at his elbow, with the younger Tobias Chaney standing beside him, to his left. The men, who had stood alongside the young funeral director during the burial observances, had taken up position over near the open grave. Adam Cartwright and Matt Wilson stood behind Tobias, looking on expectantly.
Clem cast a quick, furtive glance over his shoulder toward Maria Estevan, noting with a measure of satisfaction and relief, that she seemed engaged in animated conversation with Crystal McShane and Mrs. Martin. He turned back to the priest, and softly, nervously cleared his throat. “Father Rutherford, as I’m sure you know, the law requires that the interment of the deceased be witnessed by the next of kin, or someone designated by the next of kin,” Clem began.
Father Brendan nodded.
“Would you let Mrs. Estevan know that if she finds the prospect of witnessing her husband’s burial too upsetting, that we . . . Adam, Matt, and myself . . . would be willing— ”
“I thank you for your kind consideration, Deputy Foster, but seeing that Lorenzo is properly buried— Please understand . . . it’s something I HAVE to do.”
Clem started at the sound of Maria’s voice. He turned, and much to his surprise, found her standing beside him, to his right, her posture fully erect, with gloved hands folded, just below her bosom.
“Mrs. Estevan . . . are you sure—?!”
“Yes, Deputy . . . I am QUITE sure,” Maria said in a firm tone of voice, that brooked no argument, no further discussion of the matter.
“Mrs. Estevan, if you would like someone to remain with you— ” Adam began.
“Thank you, Mister Cartwright, but . . . no,” Maria immediately cut him off. “You’re very kind . . . very kind indeed, in offering to remain, but I need to do this ALONE.”
“Adam . . . I want you to g’won back to the house with Hop Sing and your brothers.”
Pa’s voice, the day they buried Joe’s mother, Marie, echoed once again in his ears. They stood, huddled together, at the very edge of her grave, newly dug . . . Hop Sing, Hoss, Joe, Pa . . . and himself, along with a half dozen or so men, armed with shovels. The minister and the rest of the mourners had already left.
“But, Pa . . . . ” Adam protested. “I’m not sure you ought to— ”
“Please, Son . . . please . . . do as I ask,” his father begged. “I . . . I need to do this ALONE. Do you understand?”
“Do you understand, Mister Cartwright? I need to do this alone.”
“Yes, Mrs. Estevan, I understand,” Adam said softly, as the memory began to fade once more back into the mists. “If you need me for anything . . . anything at all, please don’t hesitate to ask. My family and I will be in the house across the street from the Martins for the next couple of weeks.”
“Thank you,” Maria said gratefully. She, then, offered her hand.
Adam reached out, took her hand and held it briefly, then released it with a gentle squeeze, meant to offer a small measure of reassurance. He reached up and politely touched the rim of his hat, then turned to leave.
“Adam?”
He paused just outside the cemetery gate, and turning, saw Matt Wilson loping toward him.
“Adam, I . . . I just wanted to say that I don’t blame you one bit for being angry about— ”
“I WAS angry,” Adam quietly cut him off, “but, I think I can understand why you did what you did.”
“I’m sorry. If I had it to do over . . . . ”
“ . . . I hope that you would have done the exact same thing,” Adam said in a kind, yet very firm tone of voice, drawing a look of shock from Matt, “and . . . as far as I’M concerned, you DON’T owe me an apology. Not for acting from the place of being my friend.”
“I . . . I . . . Adam, I . . . I just don’t know what t-to say . . . . ”
“If I might offer a suggestion, you might say, ‘Adam, I accept YOUR apology.’ ”
“What?!” Matt queried, favoring Adam with a bewildered frown.
“Matt, I DO owe you an apology,” Adam said earnestly. “I . . . realize now that you telling Joe what happened after the two of us left the others to search for that stagecoach was an act of friendship. I’ve had to face some hard truths about myself . . . truths not very much to my liking. I’m very sorry I took all that out on you.”5
“Adam?”
“Yeah, Matt?”
“I’ll accept YOUR apology . . . if you’ll accept mine.”
Adam grinned. “Done.”
“Amen,” Matt agreed, holding out his hand. “Friends?”
Adam eagerly took the proffered hand. “You betcha, Buddy,” he declared as they heartily shook hands.
Maria Estevan, meanwhile, took Crystal McShane’s outstretched hand, and held it, sandwiched between both of her own, for a moment. “I . . . I think I would be the most wretched creature alive if I . . . if I neglected to thank you for all that you’ve done,” she said, her voice breaking.
“I’m not happy for the circ*mstances, but I AM grateful that I COULD be there,” Crystal said quietly. “If you would like me to remain with you at the Martins’— ”
“Thank you, Mrs. McShane, but I think, maybe, that the time has come for me to start getting used to being . . . well . . . to being on my own,” Maria replied, “and besides . . . . ” she glanced over Crystal’s shoulder and favored Hugh O’Brien with a small, tremulous smile, “ . . . I think I’ve kept you from your own family for too long as it is.”
“Speakin’ for myself, Young Lady, I’ve MISSED Crystal, of course, but I don’t begrudge the time she’s spent with you,” Hugh said gently. “Now if you should need us for anything, you just ask. The doc ‘n his wife can help you in sending for us, if need be.”
“Thank you, Mister O’Brien,” Maria murmured softly. “Thank you so much . . . for everything.”
The Martins and Father Rutherford silently waited while the young widow graciously thanked each of the remaining pall bearers. After they silently took their leave, Maria turned her attention to the priest.
“Father,” she said, her voice a near monotone. “I am eternally in your debt. Lorenzo . . . well, not having attended church in a very long time, most priests would have denied him the rite of Christian burial.”
“I believe it’s what lives in a man’s heart that truly matters, not the supposed outward show of piety,” Father Brendan said quietly, “and only God knows what truly lives within each of our hearts. As a priest, if I’m going to err, I would prefer to do so on the side of mercy.”
“Thank you,” Maria murmured softly. “I would also like to speak with you, sometime when your schedule allows.”
“Certainly. Being semi-retired, my schedule is open and very flexible,” Father Brendan replied. “I can come see you tomorrow morning, if that is suitable for you and the Martins?” He cast an expectant glance over toward the doctor and his wife, still maintaining their places behind the young widow.
“Tomorrow morning is fine,” Lily Martin immediately spoke up. “The doctor will be making his rounds to the outer lying ranches and farms all day, so things should be pretty quiet. You may come by any time you wish, Father.”
“Would ten o’clock be suitable, Mrs. Martin?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. I will see you at the Martins at ten o’clock tomorrow morning, Mrs. Estevan.”
“Thank you, Father,” Maria murmured softly.
Tobias Chaney, Jr. patiently waited until the priest finally took his leave, and the Martins had retreated from the cemetery to their buggy, parked just outside. “Mrs. Estevan, would you like a moment alone with your husband before— ”
“No, Mister . . . ummm, sorry . . . is it . . . Chaney?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Tobias replied with a slight nod of his head. “Tobias Chaney, Junior . . . at your service.”
“Mister Chaney, you may go ahead with the burial,” she said quietly. “As for Lorenzo, I . . . I’ve already kept my vigils and said my farewell.”
Tobias nodded, then turned and signaled for the gravediggers to begin the grim task set before them. Maria Estevan returned to the grave, resuming her place once again at its head. There, she stood, drawn up to the very full of her diminutive height, with arms and hands down by her side, watching with unwavering gaze, as the grave diggers lowered her husband’s coffin down into the earth. They accomplished their task with a quickness and an ease that comes of having worked together performing the same task, over a long period of time. The young widow marveled again and again at the tender care and great respect the grave diggers . . . big, hulking men, whose rough outward appearance would have sent her scurrying to the opposite side of the street had they met in town . . . treated her husband’s remains and the pine box containing them.
As the coffin was lowered into earth, memories of Lorenzo arose, one after the other, like a string of smoke from a candle, whose flame had just been snuffed.
Playing together as children . . . .
. . . saving most of her dances for him on the occasion of her quinceañera, the celebration of her fifteenth birthday . . . .
. . . the walks they shared in the gardens of her family’s home, under the light of a full moon, when finally, at long last, they were allowed to spend time alone . . . away from the sharp, prying eyes of her duenna . . . .
. . . their very first kiss . . . .
. . . the night he finally proposed, on bended knee, right in the middle of the dance floor at the Harvest Ball . . . .
. . . the happy, frantic days leading up to their wedding . . . .
. . . their wedding trip . . .
. . . the light shining so brightly in his eyes and in his face on their journey from Sacramento to Virginia City, as he shared his stories and pictures with another kindred spirit by the name of Adam Cartwright . . . .
“Odd,” she thought, “that there should be no sadness . . . no tears . . . . ”
The happy images and pictures, now parading before the eyes of her inward vision, belonged to another time . . . another place . . . another life . . . where springtime came, and a future, bright as sunshine and filled with infinite tomorrows, beckoned. But that life was as far removed from the grim one lying before her, as winter never ending was from spring . . . .
. . . and the happy memories of a woman named Maria, and the man she had loved more than life itself, all felt as if they belonged to someone else.
………
“ ‘Mornin’, Ben . . . ‘mornin’, Stacy,” Amelia Jared greeted father and daughter with a bright, sunny smile. She and her husband, Virgil, owned and operated the general store in town, with the help of their three children, Burt, Lilly Beth, and Cora Lynn. “Good seein’ YOU up ‘n about, Stacy.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Jared.”
“How much longer you gotta wear that cast?”6
“Doctor Martin says three and a half more weeks,” Stacy said with a disparaging sigh. “Somehow, I’ve got this horrible feeling the next three and a half weeks are going to be the longest three and a half weeks of my whole life.”
“Those three and a half weeks are gonna go by lickity-split, before ya know it,” Amelia Jared hastened to assure her. “You just mark my words.”
“I sure hope so.”
“What can I do for ya today, Ben?” Amelia asked, as she turned her attention to the head of the Cartwright household.
“I have a list here from Hop Sing . . . . ” Ben reached into the inside pocket of his leather vest. “THIS time, Amelia . . . it’s in ENGLISH.” This last he added sheepishly upon catching sight of the bleak, withering glare the proprietress of the general store leveled at him. “Honest.”
“It better be,” she growled, as she held out her hand.
“It is, I promise.”
Amelia took the list from Ben and quickly read over the items written down in what she took to be surprisingly neat penmanship. “Flour, sugar, coffee, tobacco . . . . ” She looked up and smiled. “You’re in luck, Ben. We just got some o’ that real fine Virginia tobacco you like so much in this mornin’. You wanna wait or would ya rather I have Burt deliver this to the Fletchers’ house later on this afternoon . . . that’s assumin’ I can get him t’ stay home five minutes . . . . ”
“We can wait, Pa,” Stacy said at once.
“You sure?” Ben queried, as he anxiously studied her face for signs of fatigue.
“I’m sure.”
“Amelia, do you have a couple of nice, cold sarsaparillas on hand?” Ben asked.
“Make that THREE nice, cold sarsaparillas . . . and I’ll buy.”
It was Adam. He stood behind his father and sister, still attired in the black suit recently purchased for the occasion of Lorenzo Estevan’s burial observance. The string tie, undone on the short walk between the cemetery gate and the place where his horse had been tethered, lay draped around his neck like a stole. He had unfastened the top two buttons of his shirt and rolled up the sleeves to roughly three quarter length. The jacket was carefully draped over his arm.
“Oh no, you won’t, neither,” Amelia declared with an emphatic nod of her head. “Them sarsaparillas is on t’ house.”
“Amelia, you don’t have to— ” Adam started to protest.
“Any more lip outta YOU, Adam Cartwright, ‘n so help me . . . I’m gonna box your ears so hard, they’ll be ringin’ like church bells for the next month o’ Sundays,” Amelia immediately countered.
“But, Amelia— ”
“Adam, I wouldn’t argue if I were you,” Stacy said, looking from her oldest brother to Amelia, then back again. An amused smile tugged hard at the corner of her mouth. “I, umm . . . think Mrs. Jared meant what she said about boxing your ears.”
“I KNOW Amelia meant what she said about boxing your ears, Young Man,” Ben said, drawing a soft groan and a sarcastic roll of the eyes from his firstborn.
“Durn tootin’!” Amelia shot right back.
“Amelia, it’s such a beautiful day . . . tell you what! If we could have those three sarsaparillas right now, Adam, Stacy, and I’ll wait out on the bench until you get the rest of our list together,” Ben said. He, then, turned his attention to his oldest and youngest. “How does THAT sound?” he asked with a smile.
“Oh, Pa . . . that sounds wonderful,” Stacy replied, cheered by the prospect of sitting outside for a while, soaking up the sunshine of a beautiful spring day.
“It sounds good to me, too,” Adam agreed. “Come on, Little Sister . . . why don’t we go on out and get ourselves settled?”
Stacy gamely nodded. Adam immediately opened the door and told her to precede him with a grand sweeping gesture of his arm.
“I’ll be right with ya,” Ben called after them.
“I’ll have them sarsaparillas for ya in two shakes, Ben,” Amelia promised, as she walked over to the icebox, kept behind the counter, and removed three cold bottles. “LILLY BETH!” she shouted. “LILLY BETH, FRONT ‘N CENTER!”
“Coming, Ma . . . . ” her oldest daughter called from somewhere within the back portion of the store, which the Jared family called home.
“How’s Virgil doing?” Ben asked.
“Much better, Ben, much better, thank the good Lord!” Amelia replied, as she quickly opened the three bottles. “I declare, I ain’t never, not in all the years Virgil ‘n me’s been married . . . ever . . . seen him so sick as he was this last winter.”
“I’m glad to hear he’s doing better,” Ben said with genuine, heartfelt sincerity. A few days before Christmas, Virgil Jared had come down with a bad cold that had quickly turned into pneumonia. He had spent much of the winter flat on his back, leaving his wife and two older children to run the store. A couple of weeks before the fire that had completely consumed the Cartwrights’ home, Virgil had finally “turned a corner,” according to his wife. His improvement was steady, albeit very slow.
“Thank you, Ben. I’ll tell him you was askin’ about him.” Amelia handed him the three open bottles. “Can ya manage ‘em ok?”
Ben smiled. “Yes, Amelia . . . I can manage them.”
“Alright, then . . .you g’won ‘n sit yourself down on the bench with Adam ‘n Stacy ‘n soak up some o’ that nice sunshine,” she said sternly. “This business o’ livin’ in town the last few weeks ‘s left ya lookin’ a mite peaked. I’ll letcha know when your order’s ready.”
“Thank you, Amelia.” Ben picked up the three opened sarsaparilla bottles and walked outside to the bench where his oldest son and only daughter were already seated. “Adam?”
“Yeah, Pa?”
“How did it go this morning?” Ben hesitantly ventured, as he handed them their drinks.
“Very well,” Adam replied. “The rite was very powerful and very moving, thanks, I think, in very large measure to Father Brendan.”
“Oh?” Ben queried with upraised eyebrow.
“Pa, Father Brendan has been a good friend of our family . . . a very good friend ever since Marie made the decision to reconcile with the church,” Adam explained. “I’ve always known that he truly is a man of God, but I’ve never seen it as clearly as I did when Mister Estevan was laid to rest. He recited those scripture passages . . . read the words of the burial mass . . . and said the prayers like . . . . ” He looked over at Ben, and smiled. “ . . . well, like YOU do, Pa. You and Father Brendan have always said those things like they really and truly MEAN something.”
“Adam’s right, Pa,” Stacy said quietly. “I think that’s why I like hearing you pray or reading from your sacred book.”
“Thank you both for the compliments,” Ben said. He gave Stacy’s hand a gentle, affectionate squeeze, then reached over and touched Adam’s forearm.
“Adam?”
“Yes, Stacy?”
“Any idea what’s going to happen to Mrs. Estevan?”
“She hasn’t spoken to me about her plans for the future,” Adam replied. “She’ll likely have to testify at the trial, of course . . . . ”
“She . . . she will?!” Stacy queried, visibly shaken, her face suddenly white as a sheet.
“I’m afraid so, Little Sister,” Adam said, not without a measure of sympathy for what she had to be feeling right now. “Mrs. Estevan is the only witness to everything that happened.”
“Will she . . . oh, Adam, is she gonna have to tell what . . . what happened to her?”
“Yes, Stacy . . . she is,” Adam said quietly. “In addition to murder and robbery, those men are also being charged with . . . with . . . everything that they did to her . . . among other things.”
“Dear God!” Stacy murmured softly, all of a sudden grateful to be seated on a bench, sandwiched between her father and oldest brother, with the former’s comforting arm around her shoulders, and the latter’s hand resting protectively over both of her own. “That poor woman . . . I don’t know how in the world she’s gonna be able to . . . well, to say those things . . . . ” Her voice trailed away to an uneasy, miserable silence.
“She has a lot of strength, Stacy . . . a lot of strength and a lot of courage,” Adam said. “She couldn’t have come to the place where she is now, after having witnessed and suffered through all that she has. I think she also knows that, being the only survivor of everything that happened, she’s the only one who can bear witness on behalf of the three men and one woman Matt and I found that day . . . as well as for the others who are missing, and . . . and . . . are more than likely dead.”
“Sorry, Adam,” Stacy murmured contritely, upon feeling his hand, still resting over her own, tremble. “I . . . I didn’t mean to dredge it all up for you again.”
“I . . . accept your apology, but there was no need. You DIDN’T dredge it up for me, Stacy,” Adam said, “because I’ve been endeavoring to keep it out where I can see it and, I believe, better come to terms with . . . with that time I was left out in the desert by robbers to die the same slow, miserable death.”7 He gave her hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze, then withdrew.
“You all right, Son?” Ben queried, as he looked over and studied his eldest son’s face with anxious, fatherly concern.
“I’m fine, Pa,” Adam replied. “Honest.” He sighed, then, and slowly shook his head. “I have to admit, however, that it would help matters a great deal, for ALL concerned, if we could get the trial over and done.”
“Indeed,” Ben murmured with deep, heartfelt conviction.
“Did I tell you that I’VE been called upon to testify?”
Adam’s words drew sharp glances from his father and sister. “No . . . you haven’t told me,” the former said, “but I can’t say it surprises me any. I kinda figured they’d want you . . . and Matt Wilson, too, for that matter . . . to give testimony about what you found in the desert.”
Adam nodded. “I’m also the only one, besides Mrs. Estevan, who can positively identify Mister Estevan’s journal for being what it is,” he added.
“You gonna be ok, Adam?” Stacy queried anxiously.
“If all this had happened before the night Joe and I . . . before we, ummm . . . had it out? I’m not so sure I would’ve been alright,” Adam had to admit. He, then, favored her with what he hoped to be a reassuring smile. “But now . . . you don’t have to worry one bit, Little Sister . . . because I’m going to be just fine.”
“We’re ALL right here if ya need us,” Ben said.
“I know, Pa. I know, and for that, I’m very grateful.”
“G’ mornin’, Mister Cartwright . . . Adam . . . ‘n you, too, Stacy. Glad t’ see ya up ‘n about.”
The Cartwrights glanced up and found Burt Jared standing at Ben’s elbow, grinning from ear-to-ear, politely offering his hand.
“Good morning, Burt,” Ben returned the greeting, as they affably shook hands.
“Bertram Bartholomew Jared, it’s about time you got yourself back here!” Amelia sternly admonished her son as she angrily flounced out of the store onto the board walk. “I expected you back two hours ago! Where’ve you been all this time?”
“ . . . uhhh, Ma, please! Not in front o’ the Cartwrights . . . . ” Burt hissed through clenched teeth, as two bright patches of red appeared on his cheeks.
“Don’t you ‘Ma, please’ me, Young Man! I asked you a question, ‘n I expect ‘n answer!”
“I was helpin’ Uncle Walt with somethin’.”
Amelia sighed disparagingly and sarcastically rolled her eyes heavenward. “With your pa still ailin’ . . . Lilly Beth ‘n me workin’ ourselves bone weary tryin’ t’ keep up with the store, ‘n keepin’ house . . . ‘n you’re off helpin’ that no good, lazy, shiftless uncle o’ yours?!” she exclaimed, incredulous.
“S-Sorry, Ma, I . . . well, I didn’t think it was gonna take this long.”
“Sorry is right,” Amelia said scathingly. “You finish up that inventory o’ goods in the back room like I asked ya t’ do yesterday?”
“ . . . uhhh . . . no . . . . ”
“Well you git your tuckus in there ‘n get t’ work! . . . an’ if ya know what’s good for ya, you won’t stir outta that back room, ‘til you’re finished. You understand me, Boy?”
“Y-Yes, Ma’am.” Burt slunk into the store with his head hung, and shoulders slumped, like a puppy dog that had just been whipped.
“Sorry,” Amelia immediately apologized, the instant her son had entered the store and moved well out of earshot. “It’s just that lately . . . every time I turn around just about, that boy’s runnin’ off doin’ somethin’ with Walt. Bad enough he’s leavin’ me ‘n Lilly Beth high ‘n dry, but Walt’s takin’ t’ keepin’ company with that lazy, good-for-nothin’, trouble maker, Wesley McGrath. ‘N with the way HE’S been goin’ ‘round, spoutin’ off at the mouth about them fellas who robbed that stage ‘n . . . well, used that poor young lady . . . I don’t like it, Ben. I don’t like it one li’l bit.”
“I can’t say as I blame you,” Ben said, completely sympathetic.
“From what I hear, Wesley’s been prattlin’ on ‘n on about ‘em every night since t’ sheriff done brought ‘em in, gettin’ decent men all riled up,” Amelia continued. “Things keep on like they’re goin’, somebody’s gonna get hurt. BAD hurt, you mark my words.”
“ . . . and a lot of otherwise decent, law abiding men may end up doing something they’ll bitterly regret for the rest of their lives,” Ben added with a dark, angry scowl.
“Well . . . Lilly Beth’s just about got your things together,” Amelia said. “I’ll get Burt t’— ”
“That’s alright, Amelia.” Ben looked over at his son and smiled. “I think Adam and I can handle things.”
Adam rose to his feet and downed the remainder of his sarsaparilla in a single gulp. “Pa, I can manage the groceries.”
“B-But— ”
“Now, Pa, I may be a city slicker these days, but I’m STILL the same big strong boy I always was,” Adam immediately nipped his father’s protest in the bud. “I may not be as big and strong as Hoss, but I’m a big, strong boy nonetheless, and, as such, I’m more than capable of carrying a box of groceries out to the buckboard.”
“Well, Adam, since you put it THAT way . . . . ” Ben said, before turning to his daughter. “While HE’S getting the groceries, Young Woman, why don’t we g’won and get you settled in the buckboard?”
“Alright, Pa,” Stacy agreed, watching as her father retrieved her crutches from their out-of-the-way niche.
“Adam, I can’t say I’m happy much ‘bout WHY ya came this time, but it sure is good t’ see ya,” Amelia proclaimed as she and Ben Cartwright’s eldest entered the store in the meantime.
“It’s good seeing you, too, Amelia,” Adam said. “I was sorry to hear about Virgil being so sick this past winter.”
“Thank you, Adam,” Amelia replied. “He IS doin’ lots better, though it’ll be a good, long while afore he’s a hunnert percent.”
“I’m glad to know that he’s doing better, AND that he’s ultimately going to be alright,” Adam said with heartfelt sincerity. He looked over at Lilly Beth, and smiled. “I see you have a clerk working for you these days who’s every bit as competent as she is lovely.”
“They grow up so fast . . . as you gotta know very well yourself, what with havin’ a couple o’ young ‘ns o’ your own,” Amelia said.
“Yes indeed,” Adam declared, punctuating his declaration with an emphatic nod of his head. “Amelia . . . and you, too, Lilly Beth . . . please give my regards to Virgil.”
“Sure will, Adam,” Amelia said. “He’ll be glad t’ know you was askin’ ‘bout him.”
Ben, meanwhile, had tethered Adam’s horse, Sport II, securely to the back of the buckboard, then stowed Stacy’s crutches underneath the back seat. “Alright, Young Woman . . . now it’s your turn,” he said, holding out his arms.
Stacy turned from the hitching post, upon which she had been leaning heavily for support, and placed her arms loosely around her father’s neck.
Ben easily lifted her in his arms, and carried her to the right side of the buggy. “Stacy? Are you alright?” he asked, noting with concern the way her head dropped heavily down onto his shoulder.
“I was just thinking . . . .”
“You want to talk about it?” Ben invited, as he gently set her down on the front seat of the buckboard.
“This Wesley McGrath Mrs. Jared mentioned . . . do YOU know him?”
“I know him when I see him, but that’s the extent of it,” Ben replied.
“Is he . . . is he really trying to talk people into stringing up the men Sheriff Coffee’s got locked up in his jail?”
“I’m afraid so,” Ben admitted reluctantly.
“I’m scared, Pa,” Stacy said in a voice barely audible. “I sure wish our house was ready for us to move into right now.”
“I do, too,” Ben agreed, “but, cooler heads have prevailed so far. I’m reasonably certain that will continue, until the trial’s over and done.”
“I hope so, Pa . . . I sure hope so.”
Part 2
“ ‘Evenin’, Boys. What can I getcha?” Sam Tucker, the owner, manager, and chief bartender at the Silver Dollar Saloon greeted Adam and Hoss Cartwright with a weary smile, as they stepped up to the bar together.
“I’ll have a beer,” Hoss replied, trying his level best not to yawn in the bartender’s face.
“Make that two, Sam,” Adam said.
Sam eyed Hoss, then Adam with an anxious frown. “You boys look about as tired as I feel,” he murmured, shaking his head. “There’s an empty table in the back, if ya wanna take a load off.”
“Thank you, Sam, but . . . way I’m feelin’ right now . . . if I SIT down, I ain’t gonna be standin’ up again ‘til sun up t’morrow,” Hoss said, punctuating his words with the great big yawn he could no longer stifle. “On second thought better make that a great big steamin’ mug o’ that real strong coffee o’ yours, instead o’ the beer. I’d . . . . ” He yawned again. “I’d sure like t’ make it back t’ the Fletchers without fallin’ off Chubb.”
“Alright . . . one beer . . . one coffee . . . you want anything in that coffee, Hoss? Cream? A lump or two o’ sugar?”
“Nope.” Hoss emphatically shook his head. “Just black as coal ‘n real strong.”
“Comin’ right up,” Sam murmured, as he moved off to fill the order.
“Hoss, if you need an extra man to help you move the herd out to the summer pastures, I’d be more than happy to— ”
“I’d love t’ take ya up on it, Adam, but . . . what about the house?”
“George has those men working like a well-oiled machine,” Adam said. “Now that all the creative blocks are gone, and I’ve finally been able to finish up those final drawings, my role is largely supervisory.”
Hoss yawned again, then grinned. “In other words you done come to that place where you’re just standin’ around watchin’ ‘em work.”
Adam grimaced. “Indelicately put, but that’s the truth of it, by and large. I need to be there once in a while to keep tabs on what’s happening and answer questions, but . . . . ”
“If you can spare a few days, I sure could use ya,” Hoss said. “Hope y’ won’t mind workin’ for one o’ your YOUNGER brothers.”
“Hoss, of the five of us, the only one who knows more about running the ranch than you do . . . is PA,” Adam declared. “I’d consider it an honor to be working FOR you, if only for a few days.”
“ ‘Evenin’ Hoss . . . Adam.”
The Cartwright brothers turned and found Jack Hurley, one of Hoss’ friends, stepping up to the bar alongside them, with David, the youngest of his identical twin sons.
“Howdy, Jack . . . you, too, David,” Hoss affably returned the greeting.
David Hurley politely nodded, first to Hoss, then to Adam.
“Pa ran into Athena over at the General Store a couple o’ days ago,” Hoss said. “She told him Harlan maybe comin’ home sometime this summer.”
Harlan Hurley, the eldest of Jack and Athena’s twin boys, had spent the last three years in jail for theft. Taking into account his young age, that it was his first offense, and that he had freely confessed when finally confronted, Judge Isaiah Greenberg was inclined toward leniency, sentencing the boy to serve five years hard labor at the state prison over in Carson City.
“Harlan’s been a model prisoner ever since he got there,” Jack said quietly. “The warden’s lettin’ him off for good behavior.”
“That’s good news,” Hoss said. “I know Athena’s been fretin’ ‘bout him from the minute he . . . umm, left.”
“I just hope he’s learned his lesson,” Jack said with a dark, angry scowl. He sighed, then dolefully shook his head. “Him stealin’ so he could court that Danvers gal in high style was bad enough. But, tryin’ t’ pin blame on David here . . . . If it hadn’t been for Stacy ‘n YOU, Adam, David might’ve ended up in jail for somethin’ HE didn’t do.”8
“Harlan owned up to it all in the end, Jack,” Hoss quickly pointed out, “AND they’re gonna let him off for good behavior. That tells ME that he’s more ‘n likely learned his lesson, ‘n maybe he deserves a second chance.”
“Thanks, Hoss,” Jack said gratefully. “I appreciate your vote o’ confidence.”
Sam quietly moved in to serve Adam and Hoss their beer and coffee, respectively. “ ‘Evenin’, Jack . . . David. What can I getcha?”
“I’ll have a beer, Sam,” Jack replied.
“Me, too,” David said.
Sam nodded, then moved off.
“Coffee, Hoss?” Jack asked, gazing over at the enormous white mug cradled in both hands.
Hoss lifted the mug to his lips and gently blew across the steaming hot surface. “Yep.”
“So . . . how’s it goin’?” Jack asked, knowing that the lion’s share of running the enormous empire called Ponderosa had fallen on the shoulders of the big, gentle giant standing next to him, what with Joe and Stacy both recovering from serious injury and Mister Cartwright spending much of HIS time caring for them, with Hop Sing’s able assistance. Though, by all accounts, Hoss had done a magnificent job, none of it had been easy.9
“We finally got all the brandin’ done.” Hoss’ reply was accompanied by a big, heartfelt sigh of relief. “Now— ”
“WHAT?!”
Hoss was rudely cut off by Clay Hansen, owner of the Five Card Draw Ranch. He had also been friend and neighbor to the Cartwright family for many years. Aged in his mid-fifties, he was a big, beefy man, standing nearly as tall as Ben, and weighing in somewhere between forty and fifty pounds heavier. His hair, medium brown, heavily laced with strands of silver, and of late, rapidly thinning on top, was kept scrupulously cropped short under the hat he wore most of the time he was out in public these days.
He stood at the end of the bar farthest from the door, with a half empty mug of beer in hand, and an indignant, angry scowl on his face.
“THAT NO GOOD SON-UVA-BITCH IS GONNA . . . WHAT?!”
“He ain’t GONNA, Mister Hansen . . . he already done DID!” Wesley McGrath spat contemptuously. He stood to the right of Clay, nursing a bottle of rotgut whiskey. His appearance, tall and thin, with stooped posture, scraggly beard and thinning shoulder length hair, a pallid complexion, and those disconcerting round, staring dark brown eyes, lent him the illusion of one frail, even sickly. Though aged in his mid-thirties, many of his acquaintance assumed him to be much older. He was a ne’er do well, more apt to channel the greater portion of his energy and effort into a night’s drinking than a full day’s work.
“Who toldja this?” Clay demanded.
“Nobody.”
“Then how do ya KNOW?!”
“ ‘Cause I overheared it.”
“Y’ overheard it?!” Clay echoed, angry and incredulous.
“That’s what I said, ain’t it?”
“Aggh . . . so what?! Don’t mean NOTHIN’! Half the tall tales Miss Mudgely ‘n Miz Kirk spread around about folks they claimed they overheard.”
“This is different!!” Wesley insisted.
“Why?” Clay demanded.
“ ‘Cause I done overheared it right from the horse’s mouth his self tellin’ Sheriff Coffee, afore he let me outta jail this mornin’.” Nearly everyone present knew that Wesley McGrath had spent the previous night in the presently overcrowded Virginia City Jail for being drunk and very disorderly.
Clay Hansen stared over at Wesley, his eyes round with shocked horror, too stunned to move or even speak.
“I did! So help me God . . . I did!”
“Well. Don’t THAT just beat all,” Elmer McBantry, one of Virginia City’s certified public accountants, recently retired, grumbled under his breath. He stood next to the bar, to Wesley McGrath’s right, leaning very heavily on his solid oak cane. Elmer was a thin, wiry elderly man, with a full head of white hair and greenish brown eyes. As always, he was impeccably attired in a black, three piece suit, white shirt, and black string tie.
“What the hell’s that no good fancy pants tryin’ t’ DO?!” Clay sputtered, banging his tightly balled fist down on the bar. “Turn a gang o’ murderin’, thievin’ rapists loose on honest, law abidin’ folk?!”
“Yep. That’s EXACTLY what he’s tryin’ t’ do, Mister Hansen,” Wesley replied, with an emphatic nod of his head.
“I don’t get it. If I recollect proper, HE’S got a daughter himself . . . a couple o’ years older ‘n my Rachel. You’d think he’d be one o’ the first in line t’— ”
“Tobias Lindsay’s daughter ’s dead,” Abe Miller said, “remember? It’s been a couple or three years now . . . . ” He stood at the bar next to Eli Barnett, the foreman at the Five Card Draw. Abe was the owner of a small spread, named Miller’s Folly many years ago by the father of his first wife, who had taken a very dim view of Abe bringing his daughter west, to “ . . . that lawless, God-forsaken frontier, populated by Injuns ‘n every thievin’ son-of-a-bitch that’s not already in jail.”
“Yeah . . . NOW I remember,” Clay said with a dark angry scowl.
“Cold hearted bastard!” Abe spat, his voice filled with loathing and contempt. “When that poor li’l gal o’ his died? Well, I hear tell that Tobias Lindsay got on board the next stage out ‘n left without even troublin’ to see that she was buried proper.”
“Worse ‘n that, . . . his li’l gal wasn’t even cold b’fore he was lookin’ t’ sell her baby to a couple o’ muckity-mucks out in San Francisco for twenty thousand bucks,” Wesley said rancorously.10
“I heard it was almost FIFTY thousand . . . in gold,” Elmer said, his voice filled with scorn.
“Now I ask ya,” Wesley challenged, his eyes darting from one face to the other, glittering with an unholy light. “You think a man like Mister Toe-buy-us Lindsay . . . a man who’s only thought after his li’l gal died was t’ SELL her baby, his own flesh ‘n blood, mind . . . you REALLY think a man like that’s gonna care f’r the safely o’ YOUR wives . . . daughters . . . or any other decent, law abidin’ woman?”
Wesley’s words set off a flurry of angry muttering that in Hoss’ ears sounded very much like the buzzing of angry hornets or wasps.
“That man’s pure ‘n simple out t’ WIN,” Wesley continued, raising his voice to be heard among the din of infuriated customers all talking at once.
“Even if winnin’ means lettin’ that scum back out on the streets?!” Eli Barnett spoke up for the first time.
“Yup. ‘SPECIALLY if it means lettin’ that scum back out on the streets, Mister Barnett,” Wesley replied.
“Why? I don’t understand,” Eli said with a bewildered frown.
“ ‘Cause he’s lookin’ t’ make his self a reputation as one real smart lawyer,” Wesley explained, speaking with the authority of one who knows beyond all doubt. “When folks found out ‘bout him tryin’ to sell his own grandkid, his business about went belly up like a beached whale. That’s what RAY says, anyhow . . . . ”
“Aw, Lord-A-Mighty! NOT Ray Donnelly . . . . ” Clay groaned.
“Yeah. Ray Donnelly,” Wesley reiterated. “So what?!”
“So Ray Donnelly’s just as bad as that damn’ son-of-a-bitch-fancy-pants lawyer in his own way,” Clay observed in a tone of voice insultingly dismissive.
“Now don’t you sell Ray short, Clay,” Abe said. “Sure, he’s one obnoxious horse’s patoot most o’ the time, but he almost always knows what he’s talking about.”
“For a dumb ass that didn’t get much beyond the second grade, Ray Donnelly sure seems t’ know an awful lot,” Clay snorted derisively. “So you tell ME, McGrath . . . how’s gettin’ that low life scum off scot free gonna help ol’ Tobias?”
“Ray says this Tobias Lindsay feller’s thinkin’. . . if he can win this case ‘n get them low life pieces o’ cow dung off scot free f’r what they done, with all that mountain o’ evidence piled up agin’ ‘em, folks are gonna start thinkin’ he can get ME off, too ‘cause he happens t’ be one real smart lawyer,” Wesley was only too happy to explain.
“You gotta be kiddin’ ME,” Eli snorted derisively.
“I dunno . . . . ” Elmer said slowly. “I’M thinkin’ that might not be so far-fetched.”
“Dammit, what about justice?!” Clay demanded, banging his fist down onto the bar again, this time with force sufficient to slosh the beer and whiskey in the nearest glasses. Several patrons turned to stare. Others looked on and began to listen with interest.
“How many times do I hafta TELL ya . . . a man who’d sell his own grandkid same as YOU’D sell a calf ain’t interested one bit in justice,” Wesley argued, speaking with all the passion of an inspired preacher at a revival. “He wants t’ win! Period! An’ the uppity son-of-a-bitch won’t stop at nothin’ TO win, neither.”
Clay Hansen downed the remainder of his beer in a single swallow, then signaled the bartender for a refill. “But . . . he can’t get the whole blamed trial moved . . . CAN he?”
“Ray Donnelly says he can,” Wesley replied with confidence.
“Agggh! Ray Donnelly again!” Clay snorted derisively.
“Don’t matter t’ ME none if Ray Donnelly says it or t’ man in t’ moon . . . my question is . . . do we wanna take the chance that scum over in Coffee’s jailhouse ‘s gonna end up walkin’ away free as birds?!” Abe Miller demanded.
“Take a chance? On what?!” Elmer queried.
“On Tobias Lindsay movin’ that blamed trial somewheres where he CAN get those rabid animals off scot free!” Abe Miller replied, his voice rising.
“ . . . an’ that’s exactly what’s GONNA happen if ol’ Toe-buy-us gits HIS way ‘n has that trial moved over t’ Carson City,” Wesley added.
“I don’t understand it,” Eli murmured, shaking his head. “Why Carson City?”
“ ‘Cause THAT’S where he lives,” Wesley replied.
“Did Ray Donnelly tell ya that, too?” Abe derisively chortled. “ ‘Cause if he did, he’s wrong! Mister Toe-buy-us Lindsay left Carson City not long after his daughter died.”
“Abe’s right, y’ know,” Elmer immediately put in his two cents worth. “When he tried to sell off his assets, it was found that he owed back taxes. All his property was seized and yours truly was hired to audit his books.”
“OK, OK, so he don’t live in Carson no more,” Wesley grudgingly acquiesced, “but he STILL knows all the other lawyers there, ‘n he STILL knows the judges, too. Ray says he’s got one o’ them judges over there tucked away deep in his ol’ hip pocket, ‘n ways o’ makin’ dead sure THAT judge hears the case.”
“B-But a judge can’t do that . . . set a bunch o’ murderin’, thievin’, rapists free . . . just ‘cause he’s friends with their lawyer . . . can he?” Eli Barnett’s son, Andy, spoke up for the first time. “I mean . . . don’t he gotta hear all the evidence ‘n stuff?!”
“It’s happened, Boy,” Wesley replied. “More times ‘n you can shake a stick at.”
“It sure as shootin’ has,” Abe said tersely. “Now I ask ya again . . . we willin’ t’ take a chance of it happenin’ HERE . . . NOW . . . with THOSE men?!”
“Don’t know ‘bout the REST o’ you fellers, but I sure as hell don’t,” Walt Jared declared as he sauntered up to the bar, with his young nephew, Burt Jared, in tow. “Hell! He gets them fellers off, I’m gonna be worried sick ‘bout my sister-in-law ‘n my two nieces.”
“Yeah,” Burt agreed, with a dark angry glare.
“There’s gotta be SOMETHIN’ we can do ‘bout all this,” Abe Miller groused.
“There is,” Wesley said.
“What?” Walt demanded.
“We make damn’ sure the Carters ‘n Higgins don’t come t’ trial,” Wesley replied. “If you fellas get my meanin’?”
“Now wait a minute,” Clay protested, “if you’re talkin’ about lynchin’— ”
“I’m talkin’ ‘bout JUSTICE, Mister Hansen,” Wesley declared in a solemn tone. “Like as not the ONLY justice WE’RE gonna’ git if that fancy pants son-of-a-bitch ends up getting’ HIS way.”
“Well, to MY way o’ thinkin’ a trial’s a waste o’ anyway, what with the evidence Sheriff Coffee’s supposed t’ have on ‘em,” Abe Miller grunted.
“Uh oh! I don’t like the sound o’ THAT,” Hoss declared with a frown. “Not no how, not no way!”
“I don’t, either,” Jack Hurley said, “though I can’t say as I blame ‘em. I have a wife and a daughter myself.”
“Say, Adam . . . . ”
“Yeah, Hoss?”
“That feller, Tobias Lindsay . . . he can’t REALLY git the trial moved outta Virginia City . . . can he?”
“He can if he’s able to convince a judge that his clients can’t get a fair trial here,” Adam replied. “Unfortunately, Clay, Abe, and the others are playing right into Tobias’ hands with all their talk about lynching.”
“You think it’s true what they’re saying about Tobias Lindsay?” David Hurley asked, casting a nervous glance over in the direction of Clay, Abe, Wesley, and the others.
“That he’s trying to win this case to feather his own nest?” Adam asked.
“Yeah . . . that . . . . ” David replied, “ ‘n what they said about him tryin’ t sell Cara’s baby.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know Mister Lindsay well enough to accuse him of winning this case, and in so doing, set three vicious men free to further his own ambitions,” Adam replied. “As for the other . . . the accusation of peddling his own flesh and blood . . . that’s a little more complicated.”
“How so, Adam?” Jack asked.
“It’s common practice for adoptive parents to engage a lawyer to handle the paperwork, and make sure everything is on the up and up, to avoid any legal difficulties later,” Adam explained. “I remember Pa telling me that Mister Lindsay admitted he hadn’t the means to properly raise his grandson, so he’d arranged for someone he thought suitable to adopt the baby.”
“He also didn’t figure on Mrs. Jarvis also suin’ for custody o’ the baby,” Hoss added.
“Who’s Mrs. Jarvis?” David asked.
“She was the li’l one’s grandma on his pa’s side o’ the family,” Hoss replied. “Turned out she was too ill t’ care for the boy. She died in the fall o’ that year.”
“There were rumors about him sellin’ other folks’ unwanted babies, too,” Jack Hurley said, shaking his head in dark bewilderment of the notion.
“Pa told me there were others,” Adam said, “but, the question is was he simply acting within his capacity as a lawyer or was he actually in the business of selling babies to those able to meet his price? No evidence of wrong doing was ever found.”
“Maybe he didn’t do anything illegal, but . . . I dunno.” Hoss shook his head. “I just remember Pa ‘n Stacy both sayin’ his li’l gal, Cara, was nigh on next t’ hysterical at the thought o’ her pa getting’ hold o’ her ‘n the baby. Don’t know all the whys ‘n wherefores. Never will since she passed on without sayin’, but Pa said he was of the mind that Cara believed she had reason t’ be afraid. That kind o’ fear don’t come outta nowhere.”
“No,” Adam agreed. “It doesn’t.”
“Can’t say I knew him all that much, but I remember him defending Joe’s friend . . . .” Jack frowned. “Dang, my mind’s drawn a blank! Hoss, he was a friend o’ Joe’s.”
“Mitch Devlin11,” Hoss said.
“Yeah. Mitch Devlin!” Jack said. “Tobias was perched all nice ‘n pretty in the catbird seat after that trial . . . . ”
“ . . . ‘til his wife died,” Hoss said sadly. “He changed after that . . . a LOT. Took t’ drinkin’ . . . ‘n what really got me was the way he treated that li’l gal o’ his, beatin’ up on her for stuff she didn’t even do one minute, ‘n completely neglectin’ her the next. After she died, ‘n he realized he wasn’t gonna get custody o’ her baby, he just up ‘n left without lookin’ back.”
“I heard he QUIT drinkin’ after his ma came ‘n took him ‘n his li’l gal to live with her in Carson City,” Jack said, “but I more give credit to ol’ Mrs. Lindsay for that, may God rest her soul.” He shuddered. “That woman could be a real tarter when she wanted t’ be.”12
“Ooohhhhh yeah,” Adam wholeheartedly agreed.
“Y’ know? It’s too bad that lawyer fella’s ma didn’t have the sense enough to take the girl ‘n just leave HIM right where she found him like as not . . . lyin’ STINKIN’ DRUNK in a gutter.”
The Cartwrights and the Hurleys looked up and found Dick Faraday, one of the ranch hands at Millers’ Folly, standing in their midst, with a full mug of beer in hand.
“ ‘Cause if she had? WE wouldn’t be worryin’ about him gettin’ the fellas who robbed that stage ‘n sullied that girl off scot free,” Dick continued, half on the defensive, flinching away from the dark, angry glare Hoss leveled in his direction. “Hey! C-Come on, Hoss. It’s true, an’ YOU know it.”
“That may very well be,” Adam said, laboring to keep his voice calm. “However, it’s ALSO true that Tobias Lindsay would be having a much harder time trying to convince a judge that his clients can’t get a fair trial here without all this talk about people taking the law into their own hands.”
“So what do YOU think we ought to do, Adam?” Abe Miller called out from his place at the bar.
“Sheriff Coffee has more than enough evidence to send the Carters and Mister Higgins to the gallows,” Adam replied. “I say those men should go to trial.”
“ . . . and what if a jury decides those animals AIN’T guilty?” Clay Hansen demanded. “What happens THEN?!”
“I have every confidence they WILL be found guilty,” Adam said.
“Adam, YOU got a wife ‘n daughter,” Clay argued. “Yeah . . . they’re out in California, far away from all this, but your sister ain’t. Who’s t’ say those mad dog sons of bitches won’t turn around and come after your sister, once a jury’s set ‘em loose?”
“I don’t believe for one minute that the Carter brothers and their associate WILL be set free, except by way of the hangman’s noose.” Adam maintained his position with all the firm, rock hard stubbornness of a granite boulder.
“Well, speakin’ for myself, I don’t wanna take that chance,” Clay Hansen declared, his voice rising, “not with a wife and FOUR daughters livin’ under my roof.”
“Maybe I ain’t got a wife or a little gal, but I sure as shootin’ got a sister-in-law and a couple o’ young nieces,” Walt Jared chimed right in. “I don’t wanna take no chances either.”
“Same here,” Burt Jared agreed.
“To MY way o’ thinkin’, there’s only one way to make sure the Carters an’ that Higgins fella don’t walk away from this scot free,” Wesley McGrath said, as a sly, predatory smile slowly oozed its way across his thin lips.
“What are we waiting for?” Elmer McBantry demanded.
“Wesley . . . Clay . . . and the rest of ya . . . it’s time to call it a night.”
They turned and found Sam, the bartender standing between Abe and Clay, with his big, beefy arms folded across his broad chest.
“That goes for you, too, Adam,” Sam said apologetically. “I know you was defendin’ yourself, but I don’t want no trouble.”
“I don’t know who in the hell you think you are, Sam, but it’s a free country,” Clay sputtered angrily. “That means I can go anywhere and STAY anywhere I damn’ well please, ‘n YOU, Mister Too-Big-For-Your-Britches, ain’t got a thing t’ say about it.”
“That’s right!” Elmer declared with an emphatic nod of his head.
“Yeah,” Eli Barnett voiced his own agreement.
“If the lot o’ you ain’t outta here by the count o’ ten, I’m sendin’ someone down t’ fetch the sheriff,” Sam stated in a clear, succinct tone, glaring unflinchingly at each of them, including Adam. “I ain’t gonna stand for none of this crazy talk about lynchin’.”
“Come on,” Wesley said with a disparaging sigh. “Let’s us g’won over to the Bucket o’ Blood. We can talk there all we want.”
“Jack . . . David, it was good talking with you,” Adam said, as he dug into his pocket and withdrew two silver dollars. “Hoss . . . . ” he gave the money in hand to his younger brother, “that should cover my tab for this evening. I’ll see you at the Fletchers’ house later.”
“I think, maybe, I oughtta just come along with ya, Adam,” Hoss said, punctuating his words with a great big yawn. He finished the remaining coffee in his mug, then rose. “Jack . . . David, I’m gonna hafta ask ya both t’ excuse me. I’m ‘way too weary t’ be any kind o’ real good company tonight.”
“That’s all right, Hoss,” Jack replied. “Athena will appreciate us callin’ it an early night, anyway.”
“Pa?” David ventured, as he, his father, and the Cartwrights made their way toward the saloon door. “Think maybe we oughtta warn Sheriff Coffee?”
“About what?” Jack asked.
“About what Mister Hansen, Mister Miller, and the others were saying.”
“Talking’s not a crime, Son.”
“Maybe it ain’t, Jack,” Hoss said with a scowl, “but we all know what usually happens when folks get t’ drinkin’ ‘n talkin’ about lynchin’ long enough.”
“Actually, it might not be a bad idea to let Sheriff Coffee know what’s going on with that bunch,” Adam said thoughtfully. “Though, chances are, he and Clem already have a good handle on the situation. Hoss and I have to pass the sheriff’s office on our way back to the Fletchers. We can stop by.”
After stepping through the double wing doors of the saloon, the Hurleys and the Cartwrights paused to bid each other good night, and a safe trip back to their respective homes, before parting company.
“Folks’ve been talkin’ about stringin’ the three of ‘em up almost from the minute Sheriff Coffee ‘n the others brought ‘em in,” Hoss said grimly, as he and Adam made their way across the board walk to the hitching post, where they had tethered their horses earlier. “This business about Tobias Lindsay tryin’ t’ move the trial outta Virginia City sure ain’t makin’ things any better.”
“No . . . it’s NOT,” Adam agreed.
“Say, uhhh, Adam . . . . ”
“Yeah, Hoss?”
“You think, maybe, it’s possible TOBIAS might be fanning the flames, if ya get my meanin’?”
Adam frowned. “I was under the impression that Wesley McGrath was the one who’s responsible for keeping feelings running high.”
“He did it before, Adam. Tobias, I mean,” Hoss said. “We weren’t able t’ prove it, but there’s no doubt in our minds he tried t’ turn public opinion in his favor t’ force Judge Faraday t’ hand him custody of his grandson.”13
“I remember Pa telling me about that,” Adam said quietly. “One word to Miss Mudgely . . . .”
“Exactly!” Hoss said. “Well a man doesn’t hafta be a genius t’ figure it wouldn’t be hard for Tobias t’ convince a judge his clients can’t get a fair trial here, what with the way folks’re feelin’ ‘n talkin’ right now. You said so yourself.”
“So I did,” Adam agreed, as he untied Sport II’s lead, and climbed up onto his back. Hoss silently followed suit with Chubb. “Are you suggesting that Tobias is somehow manipulating Wesley McGrath the way he did Miss Mudgely?”
“Now mind, I’ve got no proof,” Hoss said as they turned and headed toward the jail. “But, Wesley admitted he’d overheard Tobias threatenin’ t’ get that trial moved.” He sighed. “Between you ‘n me, Adam? It wouldn’t surprise me none if Tobias made dang sure Wesley overheard him.”
………
“You SURE you wanna do that, Roy?” Ben asked as he watched Roy Coffee capture his last remaining rook with a bishop.
“Yup!” Roy answered with a smug grin. “Check, Ben.”
“Oh well . . . . ” Ben murmured with a hopeless resignation that verged on the melodramatic. He moved his knight, capturing Roy’s queen and taking his own king out of check.
“Hey, I . . . I . . . you sneaky-son-uva— ”
“Your move, Roy,” Ben said in a tone of voice infuriatingly complacent.
“I’m sure glad we ain’t playin’ for money,” Roy growled, as he made his next move.
Ben ruthlessly moved in and captured Roy’s last bishop. “Check,” he said. “Mate in seven moves.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well now, we’ll just hafta see ‘bout that, won’t we.”
“Yep.”
For the better part of the last month, ever since the Carter Brothers and Timothy Higgins had been brought back to Virginia City, Ben spent most evenings keeping Roy Coffee company at the jail, while Clem went home and had supper.
Joe had almost fully recovered from the physical injuries sustained as a result of the fire that had consumed their Ponderosa home, and his subsequent ordeal at the hands of the late Lady Chadwick. He had also . . . finally . . . graduated to eating solid food again. The only things left on the forbidden list were alcohol and spicy foods. Though Joe occasionally expressed a desire for a nice, cold beer, it was more than clear to Ben that his youngest boy was really living for the day he could finally resume seasoning his scrambled eggs liberally with Tabasco sauce.
Joe’s nightmares and the incidents he referred to as waking dreams had all but ceased. He had been meeting on a fairly regular basis with Father Brendan Rutherford, and he occasionally attended the mid-week Mass at Saint Mary’s in the Mountains on Wednesday mornings. A lot of Joe’s old playfulness had returned, but there was a strength, a rock solid, yet quiet self-confidence that had been lacking before.
As for Stacy, her cast would be coming off in another three weeks. That was the good news. The bad news was, she had grown weary of the enforced inactivity that had been thrust upon her for the course of the endless weeks since the fire. The arrival of spring, with its lengthening days, bright sunshine, warm temperatures, and gentle breezes had only served to intensify her frustrated longing to be outside, specifically to be back in the saddle once again.
“Mister Cartwright, Little Joe and Miss Stacy . . . they look after them-self now,” Hop Sing solemnly decreed one night, after supper. “Mister Cartwright need get out, go to Silver Dollar, drink beer, play poker.” A sly grin spread across his face. “Maybe chase saloon girls around back table.”
“I’m ‘way too old to be chasing saloon gals around a back table or anything ELSE,” he returned, grumpy, leveling a withering glare in Hop Sing’s direction.
“I dunno about THAT, Pa . . . but I think Hop Sing’s got the right idea,” Joe immediately chimed in with his two cents worth. “For the last month and a half you’ve been tied down to this house pretty much, looking after The Kid and me. It’ll do you a world of good to get out at night, even if it’s just to g’won over to the Silver Dollar for a mug of beer.”
Ben glared over at his youngest son. “Are YOU accusing me of . . . of going stir crazy, Young Man?”
Joe grinned and shrugged. “Hey, if the shoe fits . . . .”
“Well, if JOE won’t come right out and say it, I WILL,” Adam immediately weighed in with his two cents worth. “Pa, you’re going stir crazy. Hop Sing and Joe are absolutely right when they say you need to get out of this house more.”
“Ditto what Adam, Joe, ‘n Hop Sing said, Pa,” Hoss made his opinion on the matter known in no uncertain terms.
“Yeah,” Stacy declared, making the verdict unanimous . . . .
Ben had gone to the Silver Dollar a couple of nights, ostensibly to join his neighbors, Clay Hansen, Blake Wilson, and Abe Miller for a couple rounds of beer and good conversation. That the subject of conversation seemed always to make its way around to the question of why the Carter brothers and their cohort, Timothy Higgins, should be brought to trial at all, given the evidence Sheriff Coffee supposedly had against them and the fact that Jacob Carter, the ringleader of the bunch, had actually confessed, was disturbing in and of itself. The grim realization that Wesley McGrath, a born follower with a dangerous habit of trotting gamely after the heels of some of the absolute worst troublemakers, went out of his way to keep the Carters, Higgins, and the lawyer allegedly hell-bent on seeing them freed, the SOLE topic of conversation night after night, troubled Ben deeply.
A knock on the doors leading outside drew both men’s attention from the game, and Ben’s from his own anxious musings.
“Who’s there?” Roy responded warily, as he automatically reached for the rifle leaning against the wall behind him.
“Adam and Hoss Cartwright,” the eldest of the Cartwright offspring immediately replied.
“Just a minute.” Roy rose, the tips of his fingers lightly brushing the handle of his holstered revolver. He walked over toward the door and cautiously opened it. Upon seeing Hoss and Adam standing outside, he opened it wider, and invited them in.
“I thought you boys were going to spend the evening at the Silver Dollar,” Ben said, rising, mildly surprised to see his older sons walk through the door.
“We were, until Sam asked me to leave,” Adam said ruefully.
“Oh?” Ben queried with a puzzled frown. Had Joe been the one to tell him that, he wouldn’t have thought a thing of it, given the young man’s quick, mercurial temperament. But hearing that from his rational, cool headed first-born son . . . .
“I think Sam was tryin’ t’ avoid trouble,” Hoss quickly added. “He told Wesley, Clay, Abe, ‘n that bunch to skedaddle, too.”
Ben’s frown deepened, as puzzlement gave way to worry. The horrific violence perpetrated by the Carter brothers, and a third man named Higgins against the passengers of a stagecoach bound for Freedonia had forced Adam to acknowledge and work through some painful, deep seated issues, the consequences of which had long ago led him to leave the Ponderosa . . . his home and family . . . for good. To simply say that Adam had been angry and moody would have been the understatement of the century. He was doing much better now emotionally, especially after that ride the two of them had taken out to Ponderosa Plunge, but he still suffered occasional bouts of moodiness.14
“Seems Wesley, Clay, Abe, ‘n the rest o’ that bunch were talkin’ ‘bout stringin’ up the Carters ‘n that Higgins fella,” Hoss continued, speaking directly to Ben’s fears and concerns. “One thing kinda lead to another, ‘til they flat out asked Adam what he thought o’ the whole thing.”
“I, of course, told them in no uncertain terms that those men should stand trial, and that I had every confidence that the law and justice would be properly served no matter what Tobias Lindsay takes it in his head to do,” Adam said.
“Hoss . . . Adam . . . you boys got any idea as t’ where Wesley, Clay, ‘n the others might’ve gone after they left the Silver Dollar?” Roy asked.
“Wesley was trying to talk everyone into going over to the Bucket of Blood, when Hoss and I left with the Hurleys,” Adam replied.
“That’s all we need,” Roy sighed. “I’d sure like t’ g’won over there ‘n see what that bunch is up to, but ‘til Clem comes back from havin’ supper . . . my hands’re tied.”
“You want US to hold the fort for a little while, Roy?” Ben asked.
“Ordinarily, I’d take ya up on it, Ben, but with Tobias Lindsay breathin’ down my neck, I’d best not,” Roy said. “If anything happened, that’d give him all the more ammunition t’ make his case.”
“For what?” Ben asked, with an anxious frown.
“For moving the trial out of Virginia City for one thing,” Adam said.
“For moving the trial . . . out . . . of Virginia City?!” Ben echoed, astonished and incredulous. “Roy, you mean to tell me he’s actually— ”
“Yep.”
“Seems everyone over at the Silver Dollar knows he’s tryin’ t’ git the trial moved,” Hoss said grimly.
“THAT means if it ain’t all over town by now, it’s sure gonna be afore the night’s out,” Roy said, vexed and apprehensive. “Dagnabit! Judge Greenberg, Judge Faraday ‘n me were hopin’ t’ keep Tobias Lindsay’s request t’ move the trial under wraps. With feelin’s runnin’ high like they are . . . . ” He sighed and dolefully shook his head.
“Now THAT’S very interesting,” Adam said wryly. “I’m sure I overheard Wesley telling Abe, Clay, and the others that he actually heard it from the horse’s mouth this morning . . . the horse in question being none other than Tobias Lindsay.”
The scowl on Roy’s face deepened. “Did Wesley happen t’ say exactly when this mornin’ he heard Mister Lindsay say somethin’ about movin’ the trial?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Adam replied. “He told the others he’d overheard you and Mister Lindsay talking before you released him from jail.”
“I hauled his sorry ass down here late last night for bein’ drunk ‘n disorderly,” Roy explained. “Wesley was so drunk he couldn’t see straight. When Callahan over at the Golden Nugget refused t’ serve him anything, except maybe a good strong cup o’ coffee, he took out his gun ‘n shot out that big mirror behind the bar. No one was hurt, leastwise not serious— ”
“Thank heaven for that!” Ben murmured a heartfelt prayer of thanks and relief.
“Ray Donnelly came in ‘bout an hour or so after I locked ‘im up, ‘n paid for all the damage Wesley done t’ the Gold Nugget,” Roy continued, “but he wasn’t in any kinda shape t’ be turned loose, so I kept him overnight. But b’fore I let Wesley go this mornin’? Tobias Lindsay come waltzin’ in here accusin’ Clem ‘n me o’ not lookin’ after those men back there proper, ‘n makin’ threats . . . one o’ those threats bein’ he was gonna see that trial moved come hell or high water. I told him t’ hold his voice down, but, if anything, he started talkin’ even louder.”
“No wonder folks is all riled up,” Hoss murmured, shaking his head.
“You sure you don’t want us to hold the fort for ya . . . long enough for you to take a quick stroll over to the Bucket of Blood and back?” Ben asked.
Roy shook his head. “No point in givin’ Tobias Lindsay MORE fuel for his fire, an’ anyway, Clem’ll be back b‘fore long. In t’ meantime, Ben, you ‘n Adam oughtta take Hoss home, ‘n put him t’ bed. He looks plumb tuckered out.”
“You sure, Roy?” Ben asked dubiously, as he rose to his feet.
“I’m sure.”
“If you should need our help— ”
“I know right were t’ find ya,” Roy said. “Now git on with ya.”
“Yes, Sir,” Adam responded with a wry smile and a mock salute.
………
“Well, I ain’t a gonna stand for it!” Clay Hansen declared, his face beet red, courtesy of the frustration and impotent fury seething within him, and the consequences of having imbibed too much whiskey. “Y’ hear me? I AIN’T gonna stand for it!”
“Me, neither!” Elmer McBantry declared, banging his tightly balled fist down onto the bar for emphasis. “A man’s gotta do . . . what a man’s gotta do!”
“Yeah! Like Elmer said . . . a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” Abe Miller voiced his wholehearted agreement, slurring his words together into a near incomprehensible mass.
Clay Hansen, Elmer McBantry, and Abe Miller had left the Silver Dollar in the company of Wesley McGrath, along with Eli Barnett, his son, Andy, Dick Faraday, Walt Jared, and his young nephew, among others. They had long ago switched from drinking beer to cheap, rotgut whiskey by the bottle, their anger and frustration coming to the surface proportionate to their fast decreasing sobriety.
“That’s right!” a man, standing at the end of the bar nearest the door, voiced his opinion, setting off a discordant chorus of murmuring.
“If I said it once, I done said it a million times! There’s only ONE way to make sure things turn out as they ought,” Wesley McGrath said in a smooth, oily tone. “We need t’ go right on down to that jail and take the bull by the horns . . . provided, YOU have the stomach for doing what needs to be done.”
“I ain’t afraid,” a young miner by the name of Oscar Donaldson declared in a loud, clear voice.
“Me, neither,” Oscar’s companion, Freddy Baker voiced his agreement.
“Anyone ELSE with us?!” Wesley turned to appeal the other patrons gathered that night in the Bucket of Blood Saloon.
“You can count ME in,” Arnold Thompkins immediately leapt to his feet. His energetic momentum sent his chair toppling to the floor with a loud clatter. Like Oscar and Fred, he was also a miner.
“You can count ME in, too!” Boyd Thompkins leapt to his feet a split second behind his older brother. “Who does that fancy pants lawyer think he is anyway, settin’ those fellers loose on us decent, law abidin’ folk?”
“Yeah,” several raucous, angry voices shouted in unison.
“ANYBODY GOT SOME ROPE?” Wesley McGrath shouted in order to be heard above the rising din.
“I HAVE,” Eli Barnett shouted.
“ME, TOO!” Dick Faraday immediately chimed right in.
“SO DO I!” another man, seated in the very back, yelled out.
Cosmo Tully, the bartender at the Bucket of Blood turned and grabbed, Paulette, his youngest barmaid, as she eased her way behind him, bearing a half dozen beers on a tray destined for the big group seated at the largest table in the middle of the room. “P-Put the tray down,” he ordered, his face pale and voice shaking.
“But, I— ”
“Put the tray down. NOW! I’LL serve it to ‘em,” Cosmo hissed, casting an anxious glance toward the corner where Wesley McGrath, Clay Hansen, and others seemed to be holding court. “I need you to run down to the sheriff’s office . . . to warn him. Things’re gettin’ ‘way outta hand.”
Paulette nodded as she carefully set her tray down on the bar. “It goes to those guys over here . . . at the big table in the middle.”
“Gotcha,” Cosmo grunted.
Paulette quietly made her way to the door and slipped out into the night.
“HEY! WHERE’S SHE GOIN’?!” Dick Faraday angrily demanded, upon catching sight of the young barmaid leaving.
“Never mind HER,” Clay growled.
“What if she’s going to Sheriff Coffee to WARN him?” Dick demanded.
“Let her,” Wesley snorted derisively. “Sheriff Coffee can’t stop US . . . ‘cause WE ain’t gonna let him.”
A loud, raucous chorus of “yeah,” and “that’s right,” rose in response to Wesley McGrath’s impassioned declaration.
A young man, a cowboy, seated at one of the tables in the back of the room, rose to his feet, chugging down his glass of whiskey in a single gulp. “SO,” he demanded in a loud voice as he banged his empty glass down on the table, “WHAT’RE WE ALL WAITIN’ FOR?!”
………
“SHERIFF COFFEE! SHERIFF COFFEE!” A woman shrieked at the top of her lungs, amid’ a volley of ferocious pounding that rattled the very hinges of the locked doors stopped the sheriff, and the three elder Cartwrights mid stride.
“Sounds like Paulette Simmons from over at the Bucket o’ Blood,” Roy muttered with sinking heart, as he strode briskly across the room to the door. Ben, Hoss, and Adam exchanged glances, fearing the worst.
The instant Roy Coffee threw open the door, Paulette half fell, half stumbled inside, her face pale, her emerald green eyes round with alarm. “Sheriff Coffee, Cosmo sent me t’ fetch ya,” she gasped, as she collapsed into the lawman’s outstretched arms. “Mister Hansen, Mister McGrath ‘n the others . . . they’re gettin’ outta hand.”
“Come on over here, Miss Simmons,” Roy said as he led her across the room to the chairs facing his desk. “Now you sit yourself down here, ‘n catch your breath.”
“Hoss . . . grab a rifle and keep an eye on the street outside,” Ben ordered, sotto voce. “Adam, you remember where Clem Foster lives?”
“Yes, if he’s— ”
“Somebody mention my name?” Clem queried affably, with a smile, as he sauntered into the sheriff’s office. His smile faded upon catching sight of Paulette seated in front of the sheriff’s desk. “What’s up?” he asked, his eyes flitting from one face to the next.
“There seems to be some trouble brewing at the Bucket of Blood,” Ben grimly filled the deputy in.
“Clay Hansen and that bunch?” Clem asked with a dark scowl.
“I think so.”
“They . . . they was talkin’ about who had ropes ‘n everything,” Paulette, meanwhile, told the sheriff, her voice still shaking.
“Did they say for fact that they was comin’ over here?” Roy asked, taking great care to keep his voice calm and even.
“Cosmo sent me to fetch you at the place they was still talkin’ ‘bout who had ropes,” Paulette moaned, shaking her head dolefully. “But, I heard ‘em sayin’ somethin’ about . . . about you not bein’ able to stop ‘em.”
“Roy, our offer to help still stands,” Ben said quietly.
“Even if it means shootin’ down your friends ‘n neighbors . . . t’ protect the likes o’ the Carters ‘n that Timothy Higgins feller?” Roy asked.
“I don’t LIKE the idea . . . any more than YOU do, Roy,” Ben said grimly. “But I like the idea of anarchy, mob rule, and men, drunk and angry, taking the law into their own hands even less.”
“Pa speaks for me, too, Sheriff Coffee,” Adam said.
“ . . . and me,” Hoss declared with a curt nod of his head for emphasis.
“Alright, Ben . . . Adam . . . Hoss . . . raise your right hands,” Roy said.
The three men silently complied.
“Do you swear t’ uphold the laws o’ Virginia City . . . Story County, ‘n the State o’ Nevada to the best o’ your ability, so help ya God?”
“I do,” the Cartwrights murmured softly, in unison.
“Consider yourselves deputized,” Roy said. “You know where the rifles ‘n the ammunition are. Clem?”
“Yes, Sir?”
“I want you ‘n Adam t’ stand watch outside,” Roy continued. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key ring. “This is the key t’ that vacant office buildin’ across the street.” He tossed the key ring over to Clem. “I want ya t’ take up position on the roof. Adam?”
“Yes?”
“I want you out on t’ porch. Clem . . . .”
“Yes, Sir?”
“First sign o’ trouble, I want ya t’ fire three shots.”
“I will,” Clem promised.
“Ben . . . Hoss . . . you’ll stay in here with me,” Roy continued. “If I end up havin’ t’ g’won outside t’ deal with Clay, Wesley, ‘n the others, I want the two of ya t’ keep watch out the window, but stay in here . . . unless I tell ya otherwise.”
“Alright, Roy,” Ben agreed.
Hoss nodded.
Roy, then, turned his attention back to the distraught saloon girl, still seated primly on the edge of her chair in front of his desk. “Miss Simmons?”
“Y-Yes, Sheriff?”
“Y’ have any place you can go? This may prove NOT t’ be a safe place ‘fore the night’s over.”
Paulette rose to her feet slowly. “Laurie Lee Bonner, over at the Silver Dollar’s a good friend of mine. I’m pretty sure she’ll let me stay there with her, leastwise for a little while.”
“Hoss?”
“Yes, Sir?”
“Would you please see Miss Simmons on over t’ the Silver Dollar?” Roy asked.
“I’d be gla— ”
“No!” Paulette Simmons immediately cut Hoss off, mid-sentence. “Sheriff Coffee, please . . . don’t worry about me, I can make it to the Silver Dollar alright.”
“Miss Simmons, I’m not sure I like the idea o’ you out there all by your lonesome.”
“ . . . and I don’t like the idea of me taking away one of your men,” Paulette argued. “The Silver Dollar ain’t far, just down the street ‘n around the corner.”
“Suppose you run into that mob on its way from the Bucket of Blood, Miss Simmons?” Ben asked.
“Mister Cartwright, they couldda stopped me from leavin’ the Bucket o’ Blood in the first place, but they didn’t. If I happen t’ run into ‘em again, before I get to the Silver Dollar, I’m pretty sure they won’t stop me or try to hurt me.”
“Alright,” Roy sighed reluctantly, knowing he had no choice in the matter, “but you go directly t’ the Silver Dollar, y’ hear me?”
“I will, Sheriff Coffee,” Paulette promised, before slipping outside.
“Sheriff Coffee, I can step outside ‘n watch, make sure she gets down the street to the corner all right,” Hoss offered.
“Thank you, Hoss, that WOULD make me feel a li’l better,” Roy said.
Hoss nodded, then quietly stepped outside, with rifle in hand.
“Stepping out for a breath of fresh air, Big Brother?” Adam asked, as Hoss moved out onto the board walk in front of the sheriff’s office. He was comfortably ensconced on the bench just outside, with one leg propped up on the wooden box Roy Coffee occasionally used as a make shift footstool. His rifle lay across his lap, loaded and ready for use should the need arise.
A half-smile tugged at the corner of Hoss’ mouth, as he shook his head in answer to his older brother’s question. “I told Sheriff Coffee I’d watch ‘n make sure that li’l gal made it to the corner alright.” He inclined his head toward Paulette Simmons’ retreating form, as she darted across the street.
On the roof of the vacant building across the street, Clem fired three shots from his revolver.
“Looks like Miss Simmons got away just in time,” Adam said, his sharp ears picking up the raucous shouting of the men making their way from the Bucket of Blood to the sheriff’s office. “They’re still a few blocks away, yet, but you’d best g’won back in. I’ll keep an eye on the girl.”
Hoss curtly nodded his thanks, then went back inside.
“Hoss . . . did Miss Simmons make it to the corner?” Roy asked as he slipped the last bullet into his rifle, and snapped it closed.
“Adam’s keepin’ an eye on her,” Hoss replied.
“Ben . . . Hoss . . . .”
“Yes, Roy?” Ben replied.
“I want the both of ya t’ hold the fort inside,” Roy said curtly. “I’m gonna go out, ‘n try t’ talk some sense into ‘em.”
“God go with ya, Roy,” Ben murmured softly.
“Amen t’ that,” Hoss somberly agreed.
Part 3
Roy stepped out onto the board walk, closing the door to his office behind him. He paused to allow his eyes a moment to adjust from the bright burning glow of the oil lamps illuminating his office, to the dim light of the waning quarter moon, now rising toward zenith. At the end of the street, he saw the torch lights, borne by the angry crowd of self-appointed vigilantes, rounding the corner. Their voices, harsh and grating, shattered the night stillness, growing louder and louder as they advanced.
“Roy?”
Roy felt rather than saw Adam Cartwright standing close by, waiting expectantly. “I’m gonna try ‘n talk with ‘em, Adam. I want ya t’ cover me . . . as long as ya can.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
Roy shook his head. “I want ya t’ stay here. If . . . if anything happens t’ me, your pa ‘n Hoss are gonna need ya.”
Adam nodded.
“You seen Clem?”
“I just saw him come out there on that balcony,” Adam replied, pointing.
“Good. He’ll know what t’ do.” With that, Roy stepped down off the board walk and moved right out into the middle of the street, murmuring a very short, yet deeply heartfelt prayer for protection; not for his own so much, but for Clem, the Cartwrights, and most of all for the men now advancing up the street toward his office and the jail. “ . . . most o’ the time, they’re decent, law abidin’ men. Some of ‘em even go t’ church once in a while. So, please, God . . . I’d be much obliged if ya’d do what y’ can to protect ‘em from themselves. Amen.”
“HEY! WHAT’S GOIN’ ON OUT THERE?!” Timothy Higgins demanded, shouting at the top of his voice so to be heard over the clamorous din of the approaching vigilantes and Billy Bob Carter, down on his knees, with his hands pressed tight over his ears, sobbing hysterically.
“THAT, Dear Boy, is the sound of your executioners coming to drag you out into the streets, kicking and screaming, so that they might in the parlance of this barbaric corner of the world, string the lot of you up,” Gerald Crippensworth cheerfully informed his cell mate. He and Timothy Higgins had been sharing a cell, since the latter’s arrest. An amused smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, upon hearing the sudden, sharp intake of breath and seeing the younger man’s eyes grow round with sheer terror.
Timothy’s mouth frantically worked, but no sound issued forth.
“BILLY BOB,” Jacob Carter, over in the adjoining cell, shouted in a desperate bid to make himself heard above his younger brother’s wailing and the shouts of the approaching men outside. He was kneeling on the floor beside Billy Bob, trying to pull the boy’s hands away from his ears. “BILLY BOB, WILL YA FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE STOP THIS GOD-AWFUL WAILIN’ ‘N LISTEN TO ME!?”
“THEY’RE . . . THEY’RE G-GONNA HANG US,” Billy Bob sobbed. “THEY’RE G-GONNA H-HANG US . . . . ”
“I for one can’t wait,” Crippensworth retorted sardonically. “Once the lot of you are hanging from the nearest tree, I’ll FINALLY have some peace and quiet once again.”
“You’ll have peace ‘n quiet all right . . . JER-ROME,” Jacob Carter angrily returned, “as in the REST in peace kind, same as US.”
Crippensworth bristled against Jacob’s insistence upon addressing him by that particular derivation of his given name.
“I hope you ain’t thinkin’ they’re just gonna take US ‘n leave YOU behind,” Jacob pressed. Crippensworth’s stony silence prompted a loud peal of harsh, mirthless laughter. “Y-You . . . you really ARE thinkin’ that, ain’t ya, Jerome?”
Silence.
“Well, they ain’t,” Jacob snapped, taking perverse gratification in seeing that big ox of an Englishman flinch. “Mob like that . . . they NEVER stop ‘n think. They just haul out every last son-of-bitch who happens t’ be locked up in the jail, ‘n string ‘em up, one after the other after the other, quick, quick, quick, just like that.” He abruptly snapped his fingers. “I know, Jerome, ‘cause I seen it happen.”
“NO!” Timothy shouted, his entire body quaking with terror. “NO! I DIDN’T DO NOTHIN’! IT WAS ALL SELF DEFENSE!”
Crippensworth glared murderously over at Jacob, still on his knees, trying desperately to reach his terrified younger brother. “Can’t you make this hysterical old woman shut-UP?”
“He’s YOUR problem, Jerome.”
“I DIDN’T DO NOTHIN’, YA HEAR! IT WAS SELF DEFENSE! SELF DEFENSE!” Timothy shouted. “I DIDN’T SHOOT DOWN NOBODY, BUT IN SELF DEF— ”
Timothy’s words were swallowed up in a bellow of pain, astonishment, and outrage, when Crippensworth turned, and slammed his rock hard fist into the center of his face with all his might. The force of the blow sent Timothy reeling across the cell. His screams were swallowed up in a panicked gasp as the impact of his body slamming against the thick outside wall, drove the air right out of his lungs. He collapsed to the floor in an ungainly heap like a marionette whose strings had just been cut.
“Thanks, Jerome. Much obliged to ya,” Jacob said in a wry tone.
“You’re a cool one, Jake. I’ve GOT to give you that,” Crippensworth grudgingly allowed.
“If it were just me . . . . ” Jacob shrugged. “I’d say, hell! Let ‘em come! If I’m gonna have my neck stretched, I’d sooner now than later, ‘n get it over with. But, it ain’t just me. I gotta figure out what I’m gonna do about my brother.”
“You ‘n th-that idiot brother!” Timothy wheezed, his voice still shaky. “If it hadn’t been for HIM holdin’ us back all the time— ”
“What about YOU gettin’ hysterical on us, screamin’ an’ hollerin’ like some prissy li’l gal that’s just seen a mouse?!” Jacob snarled, taking no pains to keep back the anger and contempt he felt for Timothy Higgins. “If it hadn’t o’ been for you, carryin’ on so out in the desert, the sheriff would’ve gone on HIS merry way . . . ‘n WE would’ve gone on ours.”
“ME?!” Timothy angrily shot right back. “It was that big, clumsy ox, Black Burt Somethin’-Or-Other, carryin’ on like a frightened old woman that— ”
“The name’s Black BART,” Jacob spat contemptuously, “and I couldda handled him.”
“You weren’t doin’ such a great job of it out in the desert.”
“DAMMIT, I WOULDDA, IF I HAD THE CHANCE,” Jacob shouted. “BUT BLACK BART DIDN’T EVEN GIT FIVE WORDS OUTTA HIS MOUTH, BEFORE YOU SHOT ‘IM DOWN IN COLD BLOOD.”
“THAT’S ‘CAUSE HE WAS GONNA LIE ‘BOUT ME,” Timothy shouted back. “HE WAS GONNA TELL THAT SHERIFF THAT I MURDERED THEM FOLKS, WHEN I DIDN’T. YEAH, I SHOT ‘EM, BUT IT WAS SELF DEFENSE.”
“J-Jacob?”
It was Billy Bob. Jacob turned and found his younger brother staring up at him through eyes round with fear, and glistening with tears yet unshed.
“Jacob, I-I’m scared,” the boy sobbed. “I wanna b-be brave . . . I w-wanna b-be like a . . . a man, s-so’s you’d b-be proud o’ me, but I c-can’t. I’m t-too scared.”
“ ‘S ok, Billy Bob. Important thing is you’re tryin’. You’re tryin’ real hard,” Jacob said, his tone, his entire manner softening. “It ain’t easy tryin’ t’ be brave when you’re feelin’ scared, but I know you’re tryin’, an’ I’m real proud o’ you for that.”
“Y-You are?” Billy Bob asked, as fear gave way to astonishment.
“Yes, I am.”
“Jacob?”
“Yeah, Billy Bob?”
“Will we go to heaven?”
“YOU will, Billy Bob.”
“W-Will MA be there?”
“Y-Yeah. Ma’ll be there. She’ll be right there, standin’ next t’ Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates, waitin’ for YOU.”
“She . . . she will?”
“She will, Billy Bob,” Jacob reiterated with an emphatic nod of his head. “Now, I want ya to promise me that you’ll think of Ma waitin’ for ya. No matter what happens, you’ll just keep right on thinkin’ o’ Ma.”
“I’ll t-try, Jacob. I promise . . . I’ll try REAL hard.”
Meanwhile, Roy Coffee took up position in the middle of the road, roughly ten yards away from the front of the building that served as his office and the Virginia City Jail. As he watched the angry mob making its way up the street, a strange calm stole over him. He felt oddly detached from what was happening, as if he were viewing everything through a telescope, or from the far end of a long tunnel.
To the casual observer, it would appear that the ringleaders were Clay Hansen and Abe Miller. The two ranchers walked, side-by-side, at the head of the crowd, with jaws rigidly set, and mouths thinned to near straight lipless lines. Wesley McGrath, the man Roy knew to be the real instigator of this whole sorry venture, followed a few feet behind the ranchers, positioned at dead center, framed by Clay on his right, Abe on his left.
Roy caught glimpses of other familiar faces. Clay’s Hansen’s foreman, Eli Barnett, strode resolutely behind his employer, clutching a length of coiled rope in his right hand. His son, Andy, his face pale yet set with grim resolve, walked alongside him. Elmer McBantry was in the crowd, along with Walt Jared, and his young nephew, Burt. Roy also spotted Dick Faraday, one of Abe Miller’s men, and the Thompkins brothers. He recognized others in the crowd, too. Miners, cowboys, shop keepers . . . every last one of ‘em men who had given him their vote of confidence on election day, year after year after year for more years now than he cared to count, sometimes . . . .
The known faces of friends and neighbors remained for an instant more, then faded . . . swallowed up in strange shadows, cast by the dance of fire light emanating from torches, rendering that which was comforting and familiar into something strange and disturbing.
Roy walked down the street to meet the men advancing on his jail, on him, and on the men who stood with him, equally resolute. “THAT’S FAR ENOUGH RIGHT THERE.” His voice rang out loud and clear above the clamoring of the advancing mob. He stood his ground, with his rifle raised, fingering the trigger for emphasis.
The men came to a halt a few yards away, and for a moment, an uneasy silence descended upon them all, like a thick, heavy shroud.
“DON’T BE A FOOL, ROY!” Clay shouted back, at length, breaking the silence like a clap of loud thunder.
“Please, Roy we don’t want t’ hurt nobody,” Abe said. There was an odd pleading note in his tone of voice. “You just give us what we come for— ”
“I can’t do that, Abe, ‘n you know it.”
“Roy, we’re gonna do what we came to do, with or without your help,” Clay said. “Now we don’t wanna hurt you, Clem, or anyone else standin’ with ya, but we will if ya get in our way.”
“Be sensible, Sheriff,” Elmer called out. “There’s almost thirty of us to you and your deputy. Ain’t no possible way you can stop us.”
“Maybe so, Elmer, but you or anyone else so much as takes one more step, I’m gonna do everything in my power t’ TRY ‘n stop ya,” Roy said sternly.
“You’d shoot down decent, law abidin’ folks to protect the . . . the filth you got locked up in your jail?!” Walt Jared sputtered angrily.
“There ain’t nothin’ law abidin’ about a mob hell bent on cold blooded murder, Walt,” Roy immediately returned.
“ENOUGH!” Wesley McGrath shouted, as he pushed his way past Clay and Abe. “SHERIFF, YOU GOT TWO CHOICES. YOU CAN EITHER STAND ASIDE OR GIT YOURSELF SHOT.” He started to raise his rifle.
“DROP THE RIFLE, MCGRATH. NOW!” It was Adam.
Wesley turned and peered into the deep shadows cast by the balcony, hanging over the board walk. “WHO’S THERE?”
“I SAID, ‘DROP THE RIFLE, MCGRATH.’ I’M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU AGAIN.”
Wesley turned and aimed his rifle in the general direction of the sheriff’s office. Adam fired first, catching Wesley in the shoulder. Yelping in pain and outrage, Wesley dropped his rifle like a hot potato and grabbed his shoulder. Dick Faraday and Andy Barnett immediately brought their rifles to bear, both aiming at Adam. Clem immediately fired from his vantage point on the balcony of the building, across the street from the sheriff’s office, branding the side of Dick’s leg, just above the knee. Dick bellowed as he fell, trying to hug his injured knee to his chest.
“Drop it, Son,” Roy said, aiming his own rifle at Andy Barnett’s chest.
Andy blanched in the face of the sheriff’s dark angry glare. His rifle slid right out of his hands and thudded softly on the ground at his feet.
“Roy, so help me, if you hurt Andy— ” Eli, the boy’s father, stepped out from behind Clay, his dark eyes blazing with fury.
“Andy’s fine, Eli, an’ he’ll STAY fine, just as long as he don’t do nothin’ foolish,” Roy said. “That goes for the rest of ya, too.”
“We don’t call protectin’ our womenfolk foolish, Sheriff,” Walt argued.
“That’s right!” Clay agreed with an emphatic nod of his head.
A ripple of loud, raucous murmuring rose from the men forming the vigilante mob.
“Who’s protectin’ YOUR womenfolk right now, Walt?” Roy demanded, raising his voice to be heard above the murmuring. “With your brother, Virgil, home sick in bed, ‘n you ‘n Burt here . . . who’s home right now looking after Amelia, Lilly Beth, ‘n Cora Lynn? An’ YOU, Clay? I see you ‘n just about all your men HERE . . . who’s home right now, lookin’ after YOUR wife ‘n daughters?”
Clay Hansen and the Jareds glared over at Roy for a moment, then turned away, looking uncertain.
“Eli . . . ‘n you, too, Andy,” Roy quickly pressed his advantage. “With the two of ya here . . . your ma’s home . . . all by her lonesome.”
The Barnetts stared at Roy, their faces twin masks of utter astonishment.
“It’s a long ride back t’ the foreman’s house at the Five Card Draw, Eli,” Roy continued. “A lot could happen in all that time . . . ‘n YOU, Arnold Thompkins. Your wife’s gonna have a baby sometime ‘round the end o’ summer . . . who’s home right now lookin’ after HER?”
The malevolent rage, so apparent in the faces of Arnold and his brother, Boyd, quickly gave way to apprehension.
“DON’T LISTEN TO HIM!” Wesley McGrath shouted, his hand still pressed hard against his shoulder. “FACT O’ THE MATTER IS . . . THOSE MEN GO TO TRIAL, THAT FANCY LAWYER’S GONNA SEE TO IT THEY GO SCOT FREE! HOW SAFE ARE YOUR WIVES . . . DAUGHTERS . . . SISTERS . . . EVEN MOTHERS GONNA BE THEN?!”
Wesley’s words set off a ripple of angry muttering among the men gathered.
“THAT AIN’T GONNA— ”
A shot rang out, effectively cutting off Roy Coffee’s protest mid-sentence.
“Roy, if ya know what’s good for ya . . . you’ll stand aside,” Clay warned.
“Clay, don’t be stupid,” Roy begged.
A second shot was fired, catching Roy in the chest, near the shoulder. Roy took a step, then suddenly collapsed, pitching forward and landing with a soft thud in the middle of the street.
“COME ON!” someone shouted.
Clem quickly raised his rifle and fired once, then twice. Both bullets entered the ground less than an inch from Clay Hansen’s booted feet. Clay instinctively jumped backwards, with a bellow of astonishment mixed with rage.
Adam turned upon catching movement within the crowd and the dull glint of moonlight on metal at the farthest edge of his peripheral vision. A man, standing at the edge of the crowd on the other side of the street, had raised his rifle, and taken aim at Clem. Acting on pure instinct, fueled by a powerful surge of adrenalin, Adam raised his rifle and fired . . . .
“THE NEXT MAN WHO MOVES— ” Clem’s words came to an abrupt end, when the man across the street fired, a split second before Adam.
Everyone froze, and for a moment remained, as if they had all just taken root where they stood. An uneasy silence fell over the entire assembly.
“WHAT’RE YA WAITIN’ FOR?” someone in the crowd yelled. “LET’S GO!”
Within less than the space of a heartbeat, the mob of angry men surged forward, with all the raw strength and power of a raging flash flood.
“PA! HOSS! BAR THE DOOR . . . NOW!” Adam shouted, then, with heart in mouth, he moved toward the street, pushing his way against the massive tide of his fellow men in a desperate attempt to reach Sheriff Coffee, who lay, unmoving, in the street where he fell.
“ADAM!” Ben shouted, as he reached down to open the door.
“No, Pa!” Hoss said, his face set with grim determination, as he stepped between his father and the door.
Ben scowled. “Out of my way, Boy.”
“Adam said t’ bar the door,” Hoss said in a quiet, yet firm tone of voice. “We gotta do as he says.”
Ben hesitated.
“HE’LL be alright,” Hoss insisted. “But, if we don’t bar t’ door right now . . . like Adam just told us . . . I can’t say t’ same for us.”
Hoss was right. Deep down, Ben knew that. “Alright,” he growled, as the father within . . . the father that would dash out into that melee without hesitation to grab his firstborn, and drag him off to safety . . . surrendered ungraciously to the inevitable.
Hoss handed his own weapon to his father, then turned to lock the door, and slip the bar down in place.
“Adam’s gonna be all right . . . he’s gonna be all right!” Ben muttered those words very softly under his breath, over and over, chanting them like a mantra. “He’s . . . gonna be . . . all right.”
Surely the smart one in the family would have the good sense to duck when the bullets started flying . . . .
Wouldn’t he?!
“Pa . . . . ”
WOULDN’T HE?!!
“PA!” Hoss’ curt tone of voice cut right through Ben’s mounting worry for his firstborn with the ease of a hot knife slicing through butter.
Ben started. “Wh-What is it, Hoss?!”
“I’m gonna move Sheriff Coffee’s desk over there t’ brace the doors,” Hoss said tersely, speaking above the din raised by the mob without pounding on the door. “All of a sudden, that bar’s lookin’ awful flimsy.”
“Do it,” Ben snapped out the order. “I’ll cover ya.” He leaned Hoss’ rifle against the wall behind him, then raised his own, half afraid that mob of angry men was going to bust right through those doors, before Hoss had the chance to move the desk.
Within a matter of seconds, Hoss shoved Roy Coffee’s massive desk over in front of the fast closed double doors. “Pa?”
“Yes, Son?” Ben queried, exhaling the breath he had been holding.
“Adam IS gonna be all right.” Hoss spoke directly to Ben’s fears, and his own, with a firm, rock hard conviction. “Just ‘cause he’s been a city slicker for a few years, don’t mean he can’t take proper care o’ himself.”
“I know, Son . . . I know . . . . ”
“J-Jacob?”
“Yeah, Billy Bob?”
“Will it hurt?”
“Will what hurt?”
“When . . . when they . . . when they hang us, Jacob. Will it hurt?”
“A little,” Jacob said quietly. “When the rope pulls tight, it’ll hurt for a little while . . . less ‘n second. Then you’ll see Ma.”
“I been thinkin’ o’ Ma . . . just like ya told me.”
“You just keep right on thinkin’ about Ma, Billy Bob.”
“Thinkin’ o’ Ma, thinkin’ o’ Ma, thinkin’ o’ Ma,” Timothy, his face pale, his eyes round with fear, cruelly mocked the young man. “Oh how wonderful, wonderful, thinkin’ o’ Ma. They’re gonna kill ya, Boy, don’t you understand that? No matter how much your brother tries t’ sugar coat it . . . you’re gonna DIE.”
“Oh damn, here we go again,” Crippensworth groaned, and sarcastically rolled his eyes.
“I DON’T WANNA DIE . . . PLEASE, IN THERE . . . YA GOTTA HELP ME!” Timothy howled.
“YOU FELLERS KEEP QUIET BACK THERE!” Hoss yelled.
“NO! NO, NO, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE! SAVE ME! I DON’T WANNA DIE! YOU GOTTA STOP ‘EM, PLEASE . . . SAVE ME, I DIDN’T KILL NO ONE, I DIDN’T. IT WAS SELF DEFENSE!” Timothy Higgins screamed louder, his voice rising higher and higher in pitch until he almost sounded like a very lost and frightened little girl. “OH GOD, PLEASE, PLEASE, PUH-LEEEESE . . . I DON’T WANNA DIIIIIII-EEEEEEEE!”
Timothy’s words quickly degenerated into a wailing, made primal by the intensity of the escalating blind terror that had possessed him.
“OPEN UP IN THERE!”
“C’MON . . . WHOEVER Y’ ARE . . . OPEN UP!”
“WE DON’T WANT TO HURT NOBODY . . . . ”
Ben immediately recognized the voices of Clay Hansen, Walt Jared, and Abe Miller, respectively, shouting at the tops of their voices in order to be heard above the thunder of many fists pounding on the doors; the raucous clamoring of their fellows without, and Timothy Higgins’ hysteria.
“CLAY? CLAY, IS THAT YOU?” Ben called out to the one he felt to be the most reasonable of the three.
“BEN?”
“YES, CLAY. IT’S BEN CARTWRIGHT.”
“WE DON’T WANNA HURT YA, BEN . . . . ”
“BUT, WE WILL! AS GOD IS OUR WITNESS, WE WILL, IF YOU TRY T’ STOP US!” That was Walt Jared.
“WALT, I WAS TALKING TO CLAY!” Ben admonished Virgil Jared’s younger brother in the same tone of voice he had often used to admonish his own children throughout their growing up years.
“WELL, I’M TALKIN’ T’ YOU, BEN CARTWRIGHT, AN’ I’M TELLIN’ YA . . . STAND ASIDE NOW, OR WE AIN’T GONNA BE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENS TO YA!” Walt angrily yelled back.
Ben heard several of the men outside shouting, “Stand back. Stand back.” A deafening silence settled over the men outside. Then, suddenly, the whole world seemed to erupt in the roar of glass shattering into thousands upon thousands of pieces as a heavy, mahogany chair flew through the window, to the left of the door. Hoss, who stood nearest that window, barely had time to register movement out of the corner of his eye, before the chair slammed into him, knocking him right off his feet.
“HOSS!” Ben shouted, as his biggest son thudded hard onto the floor, like a dropped sack of potatoes. Before he could even think of moving, Abe Miller, Clay Hansen, and Walt Jared were through the window and into the sheriff’s office, with pair of big, burly men, whom Ben immediately recognized as two of Clay’s hands, bringing up the rear.
“Nate . . . Cy . . . you boys get that desk outta the way,” Clay ordered, glancing first at Nate Barker, then over at Nate’s younger brother, Cy, a young man nearly the size and strength of Hoss. The Barkers had worked for Clay Hansen since the death of their widowed father several years ago.
Nate and Cy both nodded curtly, then set to work.
“Clay . . . please. Stop this,” Ben turned to a man he had for many years considered as neighbor and friend. “Don’t do something you’re going to bitterly regret for the rest of your life.”
“See to your son, Ben,” Clay said in a tone of voice colder than the deep freeze of a long winter’s night.
“Clay . . . . ” Ben moved on a direct intercept course.
“Please, Ben . . . don’t be stupid,” Clay begged, his tone softening.
“Don’t listen to him, Clay,” Walt spat contemptuously, “just ‘cause Mister-Better-‘n-the-REST-of-us don’t have the stomach for doin’ what ought t’ be done— ”
“Stand aside, Ben.”
“I can’t do that, Clay. You know I can’t do that.”
“You stand aside NOW, Cartwright . . . or we’ll MAKE ya stand aside,” Walt growled, his face contorted with raw fury.
Ben’s hand unconsciously dropped down to the revolver in his holster. A shot rang out, then another. Ben groaned softly, as he collapsed to the floor like a rag doll, with blood flowing from a head wound.
After a seeming eternity of desperate struggle against the teaming mass of angry humanity hell-bent on breaking into the jail, Adam finally reached Roy Coffee. The lawman lay where he fell, sprawled face down on the hard packed earth that served as the main thoroughfare through Virginia City. The dirt beneath Roy’s right shoulder was stained with the sheriff’s blood.
“Roy? Roy, it’s Adam. Can you hear me?” he ventured, as he knelt down beside the stricken lawman, all the while laboring valiantly to ignore the angry shouts of the men, converging on the building that housed the sheriff’s office and the jail. “Pa and Hoss are well able to take care of themselves,” he reminded himself very sternly. “They’ll be all right. They’ll . . . BE . . . all right.”
The sound of shattering glass assailed his ears, followed immediately by two rifle shots. Adam turned and cast an anxious glance over toward the sheriff’s office, torn between his duty to Roy Coffee and a near overwhelming, instinctive desire to leap to his feet and rush to the aid of his father and younger brother. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“They’ll be all right. Hoss and Pa will be alright,” Adam muttered very softly under his breath, as he turned his attention back to the sheriff. “Roy? Roy, can you hear me?”
No answer.
Adam very gingerly rolled Roy over onto his back. “ROY?! SHERIFF COFFEE, CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
“Shush-up, Adam . . . I’m tryin’ t’ sleep,” Roy finally responded in a cantankerous tone of voice.
Clem Foster, meanwhile, stumbled down the rickety back stairs of the empty building, leaning heavily against the wall on his left for support. He held his rifle with a white knuckled grip in his left hand, while pressing his bandanna hard up against the bullet wound in his left shoulder with his right, in a desperate bid to staunch the generous flow of blood. His face was a sickly ashen gray, and his breath came in ragged, uneven gasps.
At the bottom of the steps, his legs all of a sudden turned to jelly. He took a single step, then collapsed. A soft, involuntary cry escaped his lips as he crashed down onto his knees, with the full weight of his body. He wavered, then pitched forward, striking the hard wood floor with a sickening thud.
For a time, he remained where he fell, his entire state of awareness wholly consumed by an agonizing fire that began just below his left shoulder. From there, the white-hot fiery pain within spread very quickly throughout his entire body.
Men’s voices . . . raised . . . shouting in angry triumph began to trickle slowly into the world of shock and pain that all but consumed him.
Images of torchlight . . . of strange, frightening faces, their eyes filled with a deep, all consuming fear that had ignited into murderous fury. Roy Coffee stood in the middle of the street, with rifle clasped in both hands, watching the mob make its way toward him . . . .
Watching . . . .
. . . and waiting.
More gunfire, more shouting. Wesley McGrath fell . . . then Dick Faraday . . . then Roy Coffee.
Then nothing.
The sound of shattering glass, followed by another exchange of gunfire, drew Clem back from one world of darkness to another filled with strange shadows, the angry shouts of terrified men, and searing pain.
“Roy!” Clem gasped, as he struggled to rise. Upon reaching his feet, he began to sway, as wave upon wave of dizziness, consequence of pain and blood loss, began to wash over him. He followed the wall as far as he possibly could, before turning and stumbling across the empty room toward the open door, illumined by the waning moon and flickering light of the torches borne by the mob storming the sheriff’s office and jail across the street.
As he stumbled across the threshold of the empty building, Clem gazed in horror at the scene before him. Roy Coffee and Adam Cartwright were nowhere to be seen. The double doors of the sheriff’s office stood wide open, and there was a gaping hole where the front window had been. Worst of all, judging from the number of men gathered around the door, that angry, bloodthirsty crowd had grown, swelling to at least twice the size of the mob that had initially left the Bucket of Blood.
Clem heard shouts of “stand back,” “stand back.” Less than a moment later, the men crowding the door began to inch their way back, clearing a space, barely wide enough for two of Clay Hansen’s men to leave the jail, with Jacob Carter between them, trussed securely like a calf for branding.
All of a sudden, Clem’s pain and dizziness were gone, as if they had never been. He drew his revolver from its holster, and tore out into the street. “HOLD IT!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “ALL OF YOU, STOP RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE.”
Andy Barnett, Burt Jared, and Ezra Miles, a young drifter who had been working for Clay Hansen for the last three and a half weeks, were standing at the very back of the crowd that had just a moment ago been pressing hard up against the door of the sheriff’s office. All three of them froze upon catching sight of Clem lumbering across the street, with gun firmly in hand and blood flowing like a river from the bullet wound in his shoulder.
Ezra and Andy flinched away from the deputy’s eyes, filled with pain and rage. The two young men exchanged fearful glances, through eyes round as saucers before turning back and raising their hands.
“What the hell do ya think you’re doin’?!” Burt demanded, gazing over at his peers with undisguised contempt. “He can’t stop US . . . nobody can.” He reached over and slipped Andy’s revolver from its holster.
“Hey!” Andy protested, as he made a futile grab for his weapon.
“OH NO, DEPUTY. YOU STOP RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE . . . AND THROW DOWN THAT GUN!” Burt yelled as he began to inch away from the edge of the mob.
“BURT, GIVE ANDY HIS GUN,” Clem ordered, as he lowered his own weapon.
“Y-YOU . . . YOU THROW DOWN YOUR GUN RIGHT NOW, DEPUTY, OR . . . OR I’LL SH-SHOOT. S-SO HELP ME . . . I’LL SHOOT!”
Clem noted Burt’s pale face, his round staring eyes, and the trembling hands that clutched Andy Barnett’s revolver with alarm. Though Virgil Jared kept a couple of rifles in his home for hunting, he doubted seriously that young Burt had the slightest idea as to how to use them, or any other kind of firearm. It was common knowledge that Amelia Jared was terrified of firearms, and had forbidden her husband and brother-in-law to teach Burt in the proper use of one.
“BURT, GIVE . . . ANDY . . . H-HIS GUN.” Clem’s physical pain suddenly returned.
“I . . . I MEAN IT, DEPUTY. YOU’D BETTER THROW DOWN YOUR GUN RIGHT . . . N-NOW, OR . . . OR I’LL—” Burt Jared’s words ended in a scream of astonishment, mixed with a healthy dose of terror as the revolver in his hands discharged.
The bullet, accidentally fired by Burt, shattered the plate glass window in the empty building across the street, missing Clem by a mile. The second shot, fired by someone else standing a few yards away from Burt, Andy, and Ezra, branded Clem’s right forearm, causing him to involuntarily drop his revolver. He stood for a moment, gazing dully at his gun, lying in the street not three feet from where he stood.
“Don’t even think about it, Clem.”
The deputy glanced up and found himself staring down three long rifle barrels in the hands of three young cowboys. Two worked for Abe Miller, the third for Clay Hansen.
“Back up . . . slow ‘n easy,” the biggest of the three ordered. His name was Carl Yates, and he worked for Abe Miller as his ranch foreman.
As Clem took a tentative step backwards, he was assaulted by a sudden wave of intense dizziness. He stomach lurched, then, with a soft groan, his eyes rolled up under his eyelids, and he fell.
“Jim, grab his gun,” Carl ordered.
The youngest of the three nodded curtly, then bent down to retrieve Clem’s revolver.
“ . . . uuhhh, Carl?”
“Yeah, Jim?”
“He don’t look real good,” Jim said, as he gazed down into Clem’s face, his eyes round with horror.
“No. He sure don’t,” Carl agreed. He turned to the third among their number. His name was Everett Jenkins, and like Carl, he also worked for Abe Miller. “Everett . . . . ”
“What?”
“I need ya to gimme a hand with getting the deputy outta the street.”
“Why bother?!” Everett said with a derisive snort. “If he AIN’T dead, he’s gonna be . . . real soon.”
“Dead or not, he deserves better ‘n to be left lying in the street.”
A sigh, born of anger and exasperation, burst from between Everett’s pursed lips, as he leaned over, bending at the waist, to grab Clem’s feet.
Meanwhile, Andy Barnett and Burt Jared desperately struggled for possession of the gun belonging to the former.
“I’m . . . I’m thinkin’ o’ Ma,” Billy Carter murmured softly, over and over and over, as Cy Barker and Arnold Thompkins led him out of the jail, with his hands bound securely behind his back. “Ma. I’m . . . thinkin’ o’ Ma. She’s waitin’ for me. Ma’s at the pearly gates waitin’ for ME.”
Half way between the door opening into the room housing the jail cells, and the same leading outside, Cy suddenly halted mid-stride. “You got him, Mister?” he growled at the young miner standing on the other side of Billy Carter.
“Yeah,” Arnold replied with a puzzled frown. “What’re you— ”
“Come ON, dammit!” Wesley McGrath whined, as he glared over at Cy and Arnold. He stood by the door, his face pale, his hand clutching the shoulder Adam Cartwright’s bullet had branded at the start of this whole business. He had a good mind to string Adam up, too, along with the rest of the low life scum they were dragging out of the jail. That’d show him . . . and the rest of those uppity Cartwrights, too.
“Come ON, what’s the blamed hold up?!” Wesley peevishly demanded. “We ain’t got all night.”
“Just gimme a minute to gag him, willya?!” Cy snapped. “His babbling’s driving me nuts!”
“Cy . . . just get him outta here,” his boss, Clay Hansen, ordered. “In a few minutes, you won’t have to listen to him babbling ever again.”
Cy Barker sighed, sparing no pains to hide his ever increasing exasperation, but did as he had been told.
“ . . . please . . . you gotta LISTEN to me,” Timothy Higgins whimpered, as Nate Barker, and another man from the Five Card Draw, literally dragged him out into the sheriff’s office. His hands were also securely bound, just like the Carter brothers. His face was white as a sheet, and his legs trembled so badly, he could hardly stand. “It’s not like ya think. I didn’t kill those men, y-ya gotta believe me, I didn’t, leastwise not like they say . . . . ” His words tumbled out of his mouth, one after the other.
“Mister Hansen . . . what about this other guy back here?” It was Boyd Thompkins, Arnold’s younger brother.
“WHAT other guy back there?” Clay demanded with a puzzled frown.
“That big English guy.”
“The one who kidnapped Joe Cartwright when their house burned down14?” Clay asked.
“Yes, Sir . . . that’s him,” Boyd immediately replied.
“Bring him out,” Wesley ordered. “If we’re gonna clean house around here, we may as well do it right.”
“I hear ya, Mister McGrath,” Boyd replied.
“Where do you figure on hangin’ ‘em?” Clay asked, after Timothy Higgins had been taken out of the sheriff’s office.
“I was thinkin’ o’ that big ol’ tree, growin’ right inside the cemetery,” Wesley replied with a nasty smile. “From what I hear tell, it’ll be in plain view o’ the place where that young bridegroom was laid t’ rest this mornin’.”
Clay nodded. “Yeah. I like it,” he murmured softly, as his mouth curved upward to form a tight, mirthless grin.
“You’d best g’won outside . . . make sure the prisoners’re mounted proper when that guy from the livery comes with the horses,” Wesley said. He, then, turned to Abe Miller. “You ‘n a couple a men oughtta stay here, ‘n keep your eyes on these here Cartwrights.” He contemptuously spat the family’s name, then grimaced, as if he had just eaten something incredibly sour.
“What for?” Abe demanded, irritated all of a sudden with the way Wesley McGrath just stood there by the door, holding his arm, and issuing orders like he was some kind of army general, or something.
“If they wake up, we don’t want ‘em t’ follow out after us,” Wesley said, in a tone of voice, faintly condescending.
“Well Ben over there . . . he ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Abe said, shaking his head with genuine regret. “With all that blood under his head, I’d say the only place HE’S gonna go anytime soon is the undertaker.”
“Well, Hoss over there’s still with us,” Wesley argued. “I can see his chest movin’ up ‘n down clear over t’ here.”
“We COULD tie him up and drag him back to one of the jail cells,” Abe immediately pointed out.
“Yeah! We COULD do that,” Wesley said petulantly, “and someone could also come in here right after we leave, ‘n let him out.”
“All right, all right,” Abe growled, reluctantly conceding the possibility. “I’ll get a couple o’ my men.”
“I said YOU!”
“ . . . ‘n I said I’d get a couple o’ my men.”
A dark, murderous scowl deepened the lines and creases already present in Wesley McGrath’s face. “I’M givin’ the orders ‘round here, Mister Miller.”
“Oh yeah?! . . . an’ who decided THAT?!”
“We ALL agreed— ”
“I dunno who this mysterious WE is, but speakin’ for myself, I didn’t agree t’ NUTHIN’, except for doin’ what we hafta do,” Abe declared.
“Now see here, you— ”
Outside, three shots were fired in rapid succession.
“What the hell—?!” Abe muttered, as he ran toward the broken window, his altercation with Wesley McGrath all but forgotten. Upon looking out, he saw, much to his frustrated dismay, that a half dozen men on horseback had effectively surrounded everyone who had, in his own mind, come out tonight to do his civic duty.
“What’s goin’ on out there?!” Wesley angrily demanded, as he rushed over and unceremoniously shoved Abe Miller aside. “Say! They Cartwright’s men?” He scowled over at Ben, who lay on the other side of the room, face down, with blood still flowing from a bullet wound to the left side of his head.
“Some of ‘em,” Abe growled back through clenched teeth. “Darryl Hughes works for Hugh O’Brien out at the Shoshone Queen, and those two fellas over there work for that uppity bitch what owns Valhalla.”
“NEXT MAN WHO SO MUCH AS BATS AN EYELASH WITHOUT MY PERMISSION IS GONNA GET SHOT,” Candy, meanwhile, informed the would be lynch mob from his place atop Thor’s back. “I WANT EVERY LAST ONE OF YA TO THROW DOWN YOUR GUNS AND RIFLES, AND GET YOUR HANDS UP.” His sharp eyes caught movement to his left. He immediately turned and aimed his rifle at the chest of the big Irishman everyone knew simply as Clancy. “Don’t do anything foolish,” he warned in a low, menacing tone.
Clancy swallowed nervously, before lowering his rifle, and allowing it to drop harmlessly to the street. Ezra Miles quickly followed suit, dropping his rifle and the gun in his holster. Several other men standing near Clancy and Ezra dropped their rifles and slowly raised their hands.
“NOOOOOO-OOOOOOO!” Wesley McGrath howled in protest as he bolted head long out of the sheriff’s office, his wounded arm all but forgotten. “NO! DON’T LISTEN TO HIM! DON’T— ” His words ended in a squawk of surprise and protest as a bullet whizzed past his ear.
“It’s over, McGrath,” Candy said in a tight, angry voice.
“Aww, no!” Wesley hotly protested. “It ain’t over until every damn last one o’ them murderin’ sons-of-bitches—”
“I SAID it’s over.” Candy slowly raised his rifle, taking dead aim at Wesley’s head.
For a long, tense moment, Wesley stared up at Candy, looking uncertain. “You’re . . . y-you’re bluf— ”
The explosive discharge of a single revolver somewhere at the edge of the crowd, abruptly terminated Wesley’s response.
“IT’S THE JARED BOY!” someone shouted. “HE’S BEEN SHOT!”
Candy turned just in time to see Andy Barnett, his face pale, and eyes round with shocked horror, drop his revolver like a proverbial hot potato. Burt Jared took a step, stumbled, then collapsed heavily against Andy.
“IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!” Andy cried, his voice shaking, as his strong, wiry arms wrapped themselves tight around Burt Jared’s limp body. “I SWEAR . . . IT WAS AN ACCIDENT.”
Suddenly, everyone was talking at once.
“Candy?”
“Yeah, Darryl?”
“I’ll go ahead ‘n let Doctor Martin know Burt’s comin’,” the Shoshone Queen’s young foreman offered.
Candy’s eyes slowly moved over to the sheriff’s office, with its window broken, and doors standing wide open. He knew for fact that Ben and Hoss were still inside. “Better tell the doc there may be others besides Burt,” he said softly, feeling terribly sick at heart . . . .
Part 4
“YOU WANT ME T’ . . . WHAT?! OOOHHHH NO! I AIN’T STAYIN’ HERE, NOT FOR ONE SINGLE SOLITARY BLESSED SECOND MORE ‘N I ABSOLUTELY HAFTA! NO SIR! NOT NO HOW . . . NOT NO WAY!”
“OH, YES, YOU ARE . . . AT LEAST FOR TONIGHT!”
“OH, NO, I AIN’T!”
“YOU ARE!”
“I AIN’T, ‘N THAT’S THAT!”
“WILL YOU PUH-LEESE BE REASONABLE?! YOU CAN’T POSSIBLY BEGIN TO LOOK AFTER YOURSELF PROPERLY, UNTIL— ”
“I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW THAT I BEEN LOOKIN’ AFTER M’SELF VERY WELL FOR THE PAST THIRTY, GOIN’ ON THIRTY FIVE YEARS NOW, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I AIN’T NEVER, NOT IN ALL M’ BORN DAYS . . . EVER . . . HAD NOBODY MOLLYCODDLIN’ ME, NOT EVEN WHEN MARY WAS STILL LIVIN’ . . . ‘N, I’LL BE DADBLAMED IF I’M GONNA LET YOU OR ANYONE ELSE START WITH ME NOW!”
“ . . . d**bl ***m*d stubborn, cantankerous ol’ coot!” Doctor Paul Martin muttered under his breath, giving vent to the anger, grief, frustration, and the deep down, bone-weariness, that threatened to overwhelm him. He slowly opened the door to his examination room, located down on the first floor of the town house he shared with his wife, Lily, and trudged inside.
“Doctor . . . is THAT MRS. Martin?!”
Paul turned and found himself gazing down into the anxious, bewildered face of Adam Cartwright. He occupied one of the straight, hardback dining room chairs, fetched down from the living quarters upstairs on the second floor. Hoss sat before the doctor’s massive roll top desk, bent over, with his head cradled within the circle of his folded arms. Ben lay stretched out on a cot, set up in front of Adam, alternately dozing and waking. A makeshift bandage, generously stained with coagulated blood, encircled his head.
“I’m afraid so, Adam,” Paul replied with a weary sigh. He turned up the lamp placed atop his desk, then glanced about, searching for an empty chair.
Adam rose. “Take this one, Doctor. I need to stretch my legs a bit anyway.”
Paul nodded his thanks.
“So . . . who’s Mrs. Martin arguing with so vehemently?”
“Sheriff Coffee,” Paul replied, as he collapsed heavily into the chair that Adam had just vacated. “What happened to Ben and Hoss?”
“Near as I can tell, Pa was branded by a bullet across the left side of his head,” Adam replied.
“ . . . and Hoss?”
“I’m fine,” Hoss groaned, then lifted his head. “I got hit broadside when one o’ them blamed yahoos threw a chair through the window, but I’m all right.”
“I’LL be the judge of THAT, Young Man,” Paul said sternly, “right after I’m through seeing to your pa.”
Hoss groaned again, then dropped his head back down heavily onto his arms.
Paul turned his attention to Ben. “Bullet brand to the left side of the head you say?” he queried, as he began to carefully cut away the bandage.
“Y’ heard m’ boy,” Ben muttered irritably, wincing as the doctor gently eased away pieces of bandage, caked with dried blood, away from the wound.
“Sheriff Coffee left Pa and Hoss in his office standing guard over the prisoners, while he went out to try and reason with that mob,” Adam said. “I haven’t as yet been able to get a coherent story about what exactly happened from either one of ‘em.”
“You probably won’t tonight,” Paul said. “Adam . . . . ”
“Yes, Doctor?”
“Would you mind running upstairs to the kitchen and getting a bowl of hot water from Miss Graves?”
“Not at all,” Adam agreed. “I’ll be right back.”
“Ben . . . all I’ve got to say is . . . you’re a lucky man,” Paul Martin sighed wearily, as he finished removing the last of the bandage. “A VERY lucky man.”
“M’ boys . . . . ” Ben murmured anxiously. “Where’s m’ boys?”
“Adam will be back in a few moments,” Paul replied. “I sent him up to the kitchen for a bowl of water so I can properly wash out this wound.”
“Is ‘e all right?”
“Fine. Not a scratch on him.”
“Whadda ‘boud Hoss?”
“ . . . over here, Pa,” Hoss replied, punctuating his words with a great big yawn.
“He’s seated at my desk,” Paul added.
“Y’ all right, Boy?” Ben asked.
“Fine, Pa.”
“I’m going to give HIM a once over, as soon as I finish with YOU,” Paul said firmly.
Adam quietly returned to the room, carrying a large bowl of steaming hot water, a stack of clean washcloths, and a bar of soap.
“Thank you,” Paul murmured gratefully, as he accepted the bowl from Adam. He carefully set the water at his feet, then reached up for the soap and two of the washcloths. He washed his own hands, then set himself to the task of cleaning Ben’s head thoroughly, and washing away the dried blood from his left temple, his hair, and cheeks.
“Excellent! As I just got through saying . . . Ben, YOU are a very lucky man,” he declared with a satisfied smile, after closely examining the injury. “This is going to heal just fine without stitches. Adam, would you please get the bottle of alcohol from my medicine cabinet? Top shelf, over toward the right.”
Adam nodded, then went to fetch the alcohol.
“Ben, I want you to lie still,” Paul said rising. “While Adam’s getting the alcohol, I’m going to look Hoss over.”
Ben yawned. “Paul . . . . ”
“Yes, Ben?” the doctor queried, as he coaxed Hoss to lift his head and sit up straight.
“ . . . wha’ were Roy ‘n Lily goin’ on ‘n on about?”
“I want to keep Roy here for observation,” Paul replied, as he set to work unbuttoning Hoss’ tattered shirt. “Given MY druthers, I’d keep him here for a week, but knowing THAT to be a foregone conclusion, I’d settle for the next twenty-four hours. Roy . . . disagrees.”
“ . . . can’ say’s I blame him,” Ben muttered, his eyelids slowly drooping. “I always said a man sleeps best . . . in ‘is own bed. Roy gonna be alright?”
Paul nodded. “He’s ALSO a very lucky man. Another couple inches to the left and that bullet would’ve pierced his heart.”
“Thank the good Lord f’r small mercies,” Ben whispered softly.
“Doc . . . dadburnit, I said I was fine,” Hoss grumbled irritably, as his fingers worked to button what Paul had just unbuttoned.
“You are NOT fine unless and until I say you’re fine,” Paul countered, taking no pains to conceal his growing annoyance. “I need to take a look at you, Hoss.”
A string of unintelligible vowels and consonants passed through Hoss’ lips.
“Hoss, the sooner you let the doctor examine you, the sooner the two of us can grab Pa and g’won back to the Fletchers’ house,” Adam admonished his brother, as he returned to the circle with the bottle of alcohol in hand.
“Oh, all right, dadburn it!” Hoss growled.
“Adam, if you’d be so kind as to help Hoss off with his clothing from the waist up while I finish up with Ben— ”
“Doc, I ain’t had need o’ m’ older brother to dress or undress me since I was a real li’l feller,” Hoss said irascibly.
Adam very wisely refrained from pointing out that Hoss was never “a real li’l feller,” from the time he first entered the world, weighing in at a whopping fourteen pounds, fifteen and a half ounces. He handed Doc Martin the bottle of alcohol, then turned to retrieve Hoss’ vest from the floor.
“All right, Ben . . . brace yourself,” Paul warned, as he poured a generous amount of alcohol into the fresh washcloth in hand.
Ben closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as the doctor dabbed the wound generously with alcohol. “Blast it, Paul . . . THAT hurt worse than the damned bullet,” he growled.
“The worst is over . . . for the time being.” Paul reached for the roll of clean roll of linen, sitting on his desk, then set to work bandaging Ben’s wound. “Now, I want you to keep that wound clean. Twice a day, wash it out with soap and plenty of hot water, swab it real good with alcohol— ”
“Dadblamed sad*st!”
Paul grinned. “ . . . then put on a clean bandage,” he continued, pointedly ignoring Ben’s gibe. “I’ll stop by the Fletchers and check up on you in a couple of days. Adam?”
“Yes, Doctor?”
“I’m going to need another bowl of hot water, so I can clean out these cuts on your brother’s forearms,” Paul said. “Would you please—?”
“Of course,” Adam agreed, as he bent down to pick up the bowl of water used to wash Ben’s wound.
Paul examined the numerous nicks, cuts, and bruises covering the insides of Hoss’ forearms. Most of wounds had scabbed over, and none appeared to have gone deep. “Let me see your face, Hoss . . . . ”
Hoss lowered his hands and sat up straight.
“It seems your face escaped injury altogether,” Paul murmured softly. “You say you were hit by a chair someone hurled through the window?”
“Yep.”
“Apparently you caught sight of it coming . . . and raised your arms to protect your face and head,” the doctor declared. “Your arms are cut . . . up to the place where you generally roll up your sleeves . . . and you have bruising on both your arms and the right side of your body. You have any trouble breathing?”
“It hurts some, Doc . . . but not real bad.”
“Take a deep breath.”
Hoss complied, drawing in air and exhaling it slowly.
“Again,” the doctor ordered.
Hoss once again complied.
“No pain or discomfort?”
“Like I just said, Doc . . . it hurts some, but I can live with it over the next couple o’ days or so,” Hoss said impatiently.
“I think I can safely rule out the prospect of broken or fractured ribs,” Paul said. “I also don’t see any evidence of head injury. That’s the GOOD news.”
Hoss frowned. He opened his mouth to ask what, exactly, the BAD news was, only to close it again when his oldest brother entered the room.
“Doctor, here’s the clean water you asked for,” Adam said as he returned to the examination room, with a second bowl of steaming hot water.
“Thank you very much, Adam. Would you mind holding it for me, while I clean Hoss’ arms?”
“Not at all,” Adam replied. “Is he going to be alright?”
“He’s going to be one very stiff and sore young man come morning,” Paul replied, as he reached for the soap and a clean washcloth, both perched on top off his desk. He dipped the washcloth in the water, and lathered generously with the soap. “He said he was hit by a chair someone in that mob outside Roy’s office tossed in through the window.”
“Oh?” Adam queried, as he cast anxious eyes in his younger, bigger brother’s direction.
“Fortunately, Hoss saw it coming and instinctively raised his arms to shield his face and head,” Paul continued, as he set himself to the task of washing away the dried blood from Hoss’ arms. “The chair must’ve slammed into his arms and the right side of his body. You can see the discoloration . . . . ”
Adam whistled. “Big Brother, you’re going to be black and blue all over when you wake up tomorrow morning.”
“Aww, dadburnit! Just what I need!” Hoss grumbled.
“The nicks and cuts here on his forearms were no doubt from the shards of glass from that broken window,” Paul continued. “His clothing protected him from the worst of it.”
“Looks like you were pretty lucky yourself, Hoss,” Adam said quietly.
“Some lucky!” Hoss groused. “NOW the doc’s gonna tell me I hafta take things easy for the next few days— ”
“You betcha!” Paul exclaimed, without missing a beat.
“Aww, Doc, I can’t,” Hoss protested. “We got that string o’ horses t’ saddle break ‘n train for the army . . . ‘n dadburn it! With all the brandin’ ‘n getting’ the cattle out t’ the summer pastures, I just plain ain’t found the time t’ ride out t’ the lumber camps ‘n the saw mill ‘n we got timber contracts t’ fill.”
“Surely Hank and Candy can look after things for a few days,” Adam suggested.
“Yes . . . they can,” Ben grumbled.
“But, Pa . . . . ” Hoss started to protest.
“But, Pa nuthin’!” Ben immediately cut his middle son off. “If I gotta do as the doc says . . . then YOU gotta do as the doc says!”
“Hoss, I’m going to get you a tube of salve— ”
Suddenly, the door to the doctor’s examination room burst open. Amelia Jared sailed into the room, followed by her good friend, Sally Tucker, who ran the gift shop next to the general store. The former’s face was pale, and her bottom lip trembled.
“I just found out my boy’s been shot!” Amelia said, her words tumbling out, one after the other, like the rush of a waterfall. “Where is he? Is he all right?”
Paul Martin rose. “I’m . . . very sorry, Amelia.”
“No,” she whispered. “N-No. It ain’t true. It . . . it c-can’t be true, m-my boy . . . he . . . he can’t b-be . . . he can’t b-be . . . . Doc, I wanna see my boy. I wanna see my boy right now.”
“He’s over here, Amelia.” Paul gently took her by the arm and steered her over toward the examination table at the very back of the room, where the body of Bertram Jared lay, covered by a clean white sheet. Ezra Miles and Andy Barnett had carried him in almost an hour and a half before.
Adam and Hoss watched, transfixed, as the doctor, Amelia, and Sally, slowly, reluctantly made their way across the room. Ben took a deep, ragged breath, then, closing his eyes, he offered up a prayer for Amelia . . . for Virgil . . . and for their daughters. Though his words were very few, they nonetheless rose from places very deep within his heart.
On the other side of the room, Amelia Jared, flanked closely on either side by Paul Martin and Sally Tucker, reluctantly approached the examination table. “ . . . no,” she whimpered, wagging her head back and forth, slowly, in denial. “N-no . . . oh, God, please?! Please don’t let this be . . . no! No, this c-can’t be, it can’t be, n-not Burt . . . oh, God, d-don’t let it be B-Burt . . . please . . . not Burt . . . . ” Her heart wrenching pleas ended in an ear-splitting primal shriek borne of rage and a very deep, profound, all consuming grief, as the doctor reluctantly lifted the sheet to reveal the lifeless body of her son, her firstborn.
Neither the elder Cartwrights nor Paul Martin had ever, not in the whole of their very interesting lives, heard a sound like that issue from the throat of human or animal. Later, all would earnestly pray they never would, ever again.
Amelia, dry eyed, reached down and gently pushed back a stray lock of hair that had fallen down into Burt’s face. Her mouth and lips worked, again and again forming the consonants and vowels that made up her son’s name, though no sound came forth. Finally, she leaned over, and with trembling hands gently gathered Burt’s remains into her arms and held him close, as she had twenty-two, almost twenty-three years ago now, the night he first came into this world. Her head dropped down onto his chest like a lead weight that had suddenly become too heavy to be borne. Clutching her son tightly to her bosom, Amelia gave herself over to her grief.
Sally Tucker, with tears streaming down her own face, quietly edged in very close beside Amelia. She wrapped her arms about her grief stricken friend’s shoulders, and held on tight, offering comfort through the strength of her touch, the warmth of her close proximity, rather than mere words.
………
“It was an accident, Pa,” Adam said later, after they had returned to the Fletchers’ house, across the street. He had dutifully seen Hoss upstairs to bed, then turned the gentle giant over to Hop Sing’s ministrations, that he might see Pa safely off to bed. Now, he sat perched on the edge of his father’s bed, trying to give an account of the circ*mstances that had culminated in Burt Jared’s death. “It was a damn . . . silly . . . STUPID . . . accident.”
“How’d it happen?” Ben asked softly, his voice barely audible.
“I was told that Burt Jared took Andy Barnett’s gun right out of its holster and— ” Adam sighed and shook his head. “Sorry, Pa. The whys and wherefores weren’t all that clear. With everything that was going on . . . . ”
“I . . . understand, Son,” Ben murmured softly, as he reached out and placed a paternal hand on his eldest son’s shoulder.
“The upshot of the whole thing was, Andy and Burt ended up in a tug of war over Andy’s gun,” Adam continued, speaking softly, his voice a near monotone. “ONE of ‘em apparently had his finger close enough to the trigger to pull it.” He fell silent for a moment. “Candy told me that Burt’s death is what finally brought that attempted lynching to a screeching halt, but . . . at what cost?!”
“Indeed,” Ben agreed. “Adam?”
“Yeah, Pa?”
“Hoss was right,” Ben murmured softly.
“He almost always is,” Adam said with a wistful smile. “What is he right about this time?”
“Tonight, just before that mob broke into the sheriff’s office, Hoss told me that he hoped Tobias Lindsay COULD get that trial moved out of Virginia City,” Ben said. “He figured with the Carters, that Higgins fella, and their lawyer gone, Wesley McGrath wouldn’t have anything to go on and on about every night, and everyone else would settle down.”
“After what happened tonight, I think it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that the trial WILL be moved elsewhere, Pa” Adam said slowly. “As for everyone else . . . well, they’ve certainly settled down.”
“But, the price was a young man, not much more than a boy, really, being cut down in what should have been the prime of his life,” Ben said sadly. “Poor Amelia! She really doted on that boy, even if she WAS always scolding him for one thing or another.”
Adam reached over and gave his father’s hand a gentle, affectionate squeeze, then rose. “I think maybe I’d better turn in and let you get some sleep. Doc Martin was pretty adamant about you getting proper rest.”
Ben nodded. “Good night, Son. I . . . don’t think I’m gonna get much sleep, though.”
“I don’t think I’M going to sleep very well either, Pa . . . . ”
………
“NO, NO, NO, NO!” Hop Sing bellowed at the top of his voice the following morning, angry and highly indignant. “DOCTOR SAY YOU REST. REST MEAN YOU STAY IN BED.”
“REST DOES NOT MEAN I HAFTA STAY IN BED,” Ben protested with equal indignation. “REST MEANS I TAKE IT EASY.”
“TAKE IT EASY MEAN STAY IN BED!”
“HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YA . . . IT’S ONLY A FLESH WOUND!”
“FLESH WOUND STILL WOUND. YOU REST. IN BED.”
“HOP SING, I AM NOT AN INVALID . . . AND . . . AND I’LL BE HORNS WAGGLED IF I’M GONNA LET YOU . . . OR ANYONE ELSE IN THIS HOUSE FOR THAT MATTER, TREAT ME LIKE ONE.”
Hoss sat in his customary place at the dining room table, still clad in nightshirt and robe, gingerly massaging his temples against what potentially loomed as a real, honest to goodness, rip roarin’ mother lode headache of all headaches.
“Hoss?!”
He gritted his teeth, then slowly turned his head with an agonized grimace. His brother, Adam, also clad in nightshirt and robe, stood at the foot of the table, his hands resting lightly on the back of the chair. “ ‘Mornin’, Adam,” he groaned softly.
“What are you doing up?” Adam demanded, his voice filled with concern. “You belong upstairs in— ”
“Adam . . . . ” Hoss rudely cut his older brother off, “I’ve slept through a LOTTA things . . . thunderstorms . . . blizzard winds . . . avalanches . . . cattle stampedes . . . an earthquake, once . . . when we was in San Francisco . . . ‘n Joe told me I slept through a tornado last time we was in Texas.” He gritted his teeth, then turned toward the stairs and glanced in the direction of the upper environs, where the argument continued at top volume, “but, Pa ‘n Hop Sing scrappin’ like a pair o’ tom cats over a chicken bone just AIN’T one of those things.”
“I . . . understand,” Adam sighed. “Unfortunately, judging from the way they’re going at each other right now, it’s probably going to be a long time before we get any breakfast.” Assuming Hop Sing didn’t quit on the spot and storm out of the house with packed bags in hand. “I’m going to g’won out to the kitchen and make up a pot of coffee. You interested, or would you prefer a cup of tea?”
“A cup o’ coffee’d be good,” Hoss groaned softly, “but no tea. Knowin’ Hop Sing, he’s gonna be plyin’ me with all them herbal concoctions o’ his, ‘til t’ cows come home.”
“You have my deepest sympathy, Big Brother,” Adam said, grimacing as if he had just tasted something incredibly vile.
Upon entering the kitchen, Adam was surprised to find his youngest brother leaning up against the counter, with arms folded across his chest, attired in a pair of pajama pants and shirt, that hung open on his lean, well-muscled frame. “Good morning!” he exclaimed by way of greeting.
“Good morning to you, too, Oldest Brother of Mine,” Joe returned the greeting, as he uncrossed his arms and walked over to the stove, where a pot filled with water had just started to boil.
“How long have YOU been up?”
“Oh . . . I guess it’s been since a li’l past sun-up,” Joe replied, as he searched among the pots and pans on the shelf above the stove for a coffee pot.
“Really!”
“Yep.” Joe spotted the coffee pot at the other end of the shelf. “I rolled over . . . pulled the covers up over my head . . . even tried burying my head under a couple of pillows, but try as I might, there was just plain no going back to sleep with all that yellin’ and carryin’ on upstairs.”
“Truth to tell, I don’t think ANYONE can sleep through Pa and Hop Sing yelling and carrying on,” Adam declared, as he began to shovel coffee beans into the grinder, placed at the end of the counter nearest the stove.
“Adam, if ya need any kindlin’ for t’ stove— ” Hoss said wearily as he entered the kitchen, wincing at each and every step.
“We’ve got plenty of kindling for the stove, thank you very— ”
The remaining words died in Joe’s throat upon getting a good, hard look at Hoss. Both forearms were covered with numerous scratches, abrasions, and puncture wounds. A bruise, luridly hued in shades of black and a deep, rich purple, stretched down the inside of his arm, from wrist all the way up to the elbow. “Chiminney Christmas, Big Brother . . . what happened to YOU?!”
“A dadblamed chair happened,” Hoss replied, irritable and cantankerous. “So help me, if I ever find out which o’ them yahoos threw it . . . . ”
Joe frowned. “A chair?!” he echoed, completely bewildered.
“Yes, Li’l Brother . . . a chair,” Hoss reiterated through clenched teeth.
“That must’ve been one heckuva a slugfest,” Joe murmured softly, as he searched for a sieve and a filter. “I hope you left the Silver Dollar still standing and structurally sound. You know what PA said if— ”
“Joe . . . I’m afraid Hoss didn’t get himself banged up in a barroom brawl,” Adam said quietly.
“Oh?”
“Last night, some of our more civic minded neighbors and friends decided to take the law into their own hands,” Adam said, his voice dripping with sarcasm upon making mention of the participants.
Joe looked from one brother to the next, uncomprehending. Then, suddenly, the light dawned. “Y-You mean someone tried to . . . to . . . . ”
“Yep,” Hoss replied.
“Who?”
“Clay Hansen . . . Elmer McBantry . . . Abe Miller, ‘n THAT whole bunch,” Hoss declared with a dark, angry scowl. “Like I told ya last night, Adam. They been spoiling f’r somethin’ mighty fierce since Sheriff Coffee ‘n the rest o’ the posse brought in t’ Carter brothers ‘n that Higgins fella.”
“Wesley McGrath’s the one who actually instigated the whole thing,” Adam hastened to add. “The rest just fell in and followed HIS lead.”
“Y-You’re joking!” Joe exclaimed, his eyes round with astonishment.
“I wish I were, Little Brother,” Adam said softly. “I wish to high heaven I were.”
“I . . . I can’t believe men like Mister Hansen and Mister Miller would actually take a ne’er do well like Wesley McGrath that seriously,” Joe said, shaking his head in complete, utter disbelief. “They’re all good men, stubborn and opinionated sometimes, but still basically decent, law abiding men who have established themselves as pillars of this community . . . including Mister McBantry! Yeah . . . he can be a real ornery ol’ coot sometimes, but it couldn’t ever be said that he doesn’t have a mind of his own.”
“Even so, Li’l Brother . . . no matter how decent ‘n law abidin’ a man is, he can only take so much,” Hoss sagely offered. “I, m’self, don’t think Wesley couldda stirred up a bowl o’ cake batter, if it hadn’t been for all them rumors goin’ ‘round town ‘bout their lawyer tryin’ t’ move the trial t’ Carson City, so’ he stands a better chance o’ winnin’.”
“ . . . and all of Wesley’s dire predictions about those men getting off scot free, given the nature of the crimes they’re accused of committing . . . well, it proved too much for any man who just so happens to have a wife . . . a daughter . . . a sister . . . or a mother,” Adam quietly added.
“So, ummm . . . how . . . exactly . . . did you get yourself so banged up, Hoss?” Joe asked, as he set himself to the final steps of preparing the coffee.
“Sheriff Coffee’d asked Pa ‘n me t’ hold the fort whilst he went out t’ try ‘n reason ‘em,” Hoss replied. “I was watchin’ out the window, tryin’ t’ keep tabs on things. For a minute there, it looked like the sheriff had gotten through to ‘em. Then, all of a sudden, things got real ugly real fast. I’d moved the sheriff’s desk in front o’ the door . . . then some dadburned horse’s patoot threw one o’ them great big heavy chairs . . . like t’ ones over at the bank in that big room where they have meetin’s . . . right through the window. After that, I don’t remember much, ‘til I found myself in the doc’s office with Pa ‘n Adam.”
“Hoss . . . y-you said Pa was in the sheriff’s office with you,” Joe said slowly, his voice shaking.
“Yeah . . . . ”
“Pa was shot, Joe . . . but he’s going to be all right,” Adam said gently, as he stepped over and placed a steady, yet comforting hand on his youngest brother’s shoulder. “The bullet grazed his left temple. It bled profusely, as those kind of wounds tend to do, but it was shallow. It didn’t even need stitches.”
“A few days’ rest, Li’l Brother, ‘n Pa’s gonna be just fine,” Hoss said, managing a small smile in the midst of his own agony.
“Thank God for that!” Joe murmured softly. “THAT why Pa ‘n Hop Sing are fighting?”
“I would imagine so,” Adam replied. “Hop Sing and Pa have always had very different ideas about what getting some rest means.”
An amused smile tugged hard at the corner of Joe’s mouth. “That’s true,” he said. “It’s ALSO true that Pa’s most ornery ‘n cantankerous when he’s on the mend, so I guess I ought to be feeling relieved to hear him and Hop Sing going on the way they are.”
“Maybe so,” Hoss muttered crossly under his breath. “But, all t’ same, I sure hope they settle things quick, ‘cause I’m feeling powerful hungry all of a sudden . . . . ”
Joe was about to quip that, for Hoss, ‘feeling powerful hungry’ was a constant state of being, but the ferocious look on his biggest brother’s face gave him due cause to reconsider. “Why don’t you fellas g’won out to the dining room and sit yourselves down?” he said instead. “The coffee’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
“Adam . . . so HELP me . . . I’m gonna give Pa ‘n Hop Sing another five minutes,” Hoss wearily declared, as he returned his place at the dining room table. “If they ain’t at least called a truce by then, I’m gonna saddle Chubb ‘n head on down t’ the C Street Café for great big plate piled high with Miss Maxine’s flapjacks.”
“You do, and Doctor Martin will have a fit,” Adam protested, as he took his seat directly across the dining room table from Hoss. “He said that YOU’RE to rest, too . . . remember?”
“Hmpf! Easy f’r HIM t’ say,” Hoss groused. “HE ain’t t’ one lyin’ awake at night, thinkin ‘bout all the work that needs doin’ . . . ‘n I’ll betcha anything he ain’t sittin’ ‘round with a belly that’s achin’ ‘cause it’s so dadblamed hollow.”
“As for all the work that needs doing . . . my offer to work for you still stands,” Adam said.
Hoss silently mulled over his prospects and his options. “Adam . . . . ” he ventured, at length, “think, maybe y’ could see your way clear t’ ridin’ out t’ the lumber camp ‘n the saw mill? We got shipments due end o’ next month for t’ Vein Glorious ‘n Lady Luck Mines— ”
“Don’t forget that shipment to the railroad,” Joe said, as he entered the dining room, bearing a tray with a pot full of strong, black coffee, steaming hot; the sugar bowl and creamer filled to the brim; and three cups, saucers, and spoons.
Hoss groaned.
“You can cross the lumber camps, the saw mill, and whatever’s due on the lumber contracts OFF your list of worries, Hoss,” Adam said, favoring his youngest brother with a withering glare. “I’m going to go up and get dressed. Maybe, by THAT time, those two upstairs will have called a truce long enough so Hop Sing can make breakfast.”
“Thanks, Adam,” Hoss murmured gratefully. “That’ll take a real load off.”
“I’m glad I can help, Big Brother. In the meantime, YOU just concentrate on getting some rest for the next couple of days,” Adam said.
“Say, Adam . . . . ”
“Yes, Joe?”
“If you need a guide to getcha out to the lumber camps, I’M ready, willing, and able,” Joe offered his services with that co*cky, boyish grin most found irresistible, particularly those of female persuasion.
“Li’l Brother, you’re just as bad as Pa,” Hoss admonished his younger brother severely.
“Come on, Hoss . . . Doc Martin’s all BUT given me an official clean bill of health, and besides . . . most of the lumber camps now are on that tract of land Pa bought a couple o’ years ago,” Joe argued. “Adam’s not going to know his way around.”
“Our baby brother raises a valid point, Hoss,” Adam was forced to admit.
“Hoss, I promise ya . . . I won’t do anything more strenuous than show Adam the way,” Joe said, laboring valiantly to keep his voice measured and even. The prospect of riding Cochise once again, and spending a few days out in the fresh air and sunshine excited him no end. “There’s a line shack out there, about a mile or so from the sawmill. I can hole up there until Adam’s finished taking care of business.”
“I don’t like it,” Hoss said immediately. “I don’t like it, not one li’l bit. PA’S gonna like it even less ‘n I do. Only problem is . . . you ‘n Adam are right. I . . . s’pose we’re gonna hafta letcha go, Li’l Brother, but you better take it easy, y’ hear me?”
“I sure do, Big Brother Sir,” Joe quipped, with a snappy mock salute. His smile broadened.
“Now don’t you go gettin’ smart alecky neither,” Hoss warned. “You show Adam the way around. Nothin’ else! Adam?”
“Yes, Hoss?”
“I hope you’re up f’r seein’ to it our Li’l Brother here behaves himself,” Hoss said grimly. “ ‘Cause if he don’t, Pa’s gonna skin all THREE of us alive ‘n nail our sorry hides t’ the barn wall.”
“Take it easy, Big Brother. With young Benjamin and Dio constantly keeping me on my toes, our baby brother doesn’t stand a chance.” Adam turned and favored Joe with a feral grin.
“Are you challenging me, Adam?” Joe demanded, returning Adam’s feral grin with a ferocious one of his own.
“Li’l Brother . . . you keep goin’ on in that direction, you’re gonna end up showin’ Adam the way by drawin’ a map,” Hoss growled.
“Kidding, Hoss . . . just kidding!” Joe said quickly. He, then, sighed and sarcastically rolled his eyes heavenward. “Sheesh! Some people have absolutely NO sense of hu— ” Joe’s words ended in an audible, horrified gasp.
“Joe?!” Adam queried with an anxious frown. “Joe . . . what’s the matter?”
“You hear that?” Joe asked, his voice barely above the decibel of a whisper. His face was all of a sudden a few shades paler than was the norm, and his eyes were round as saucers.
“I don’t hear a dadburn thing, Li’l Brother,” Hoss said as he reached across the table with a grimace, and picked up the coffee pot.
“Now that you mention it . . . neither do I,” Adam said as he glanced over at Joe through eyes round with alarm.
“Y-You don’t suppose Pa and Hop Sing k-k-killed each . . . . uhhh . . . . !?” Unable and unwilling to complete that dreadful thought, Joe allowed his voice to trail away into the uneasy silence that had suddenly descended upon the entire household.
“No!” Adam said a little too quickly.
“How can YOU be so sure?!” Joe demanded.
“Come ON, Joe . . . Pa and Hop Sing are grown men . . . perfectly able to settle their differences in a mature way— ”
“ . . . man-to-man,” Joe declared stoutly.
“That’s right!” Adam said with an emphatic nod of his head.
“Yeah. Sure,” Joe replied. “What YOU said!”
“ . . . uhhh . . . Joe?”
“Yeah, Adam?”
“We’d better get up there,” Adam said as he bolted right out of his chair with enough force and momentum to send it toppling over backwards.
“You took the words right outta my mouth, Oldest Brother of Mine . . . . ”
Upstairs, meanwhile, Ben had closed his eyes, and tried very hard to count to ten. He only made it to five. Barely. “Hop Sing . . . how many times do I have to tell ya . . . it’s ONLY a flesh wound?!” he grumbled through clenched teeth.
“Doctor STILL say Mister Cartwright need rest,” Hop Sing adamantly insisted. “Plenty, a lotta rest. Hop Sing gonna make sure Mister Cartwright get plenty lotta rest . . . even if it kill Hop Sing and Mister Cartwright.”
“ . . . it just might come down to that,” Ben growled back.
“That up to Mister Cartwright,” Hop Sing loftily retorted, without missing a beat. “Hop Sing go now, make breakfast. Bring Mister Cartwright tray— ”
“OH NO . . . YOU’RE NOT BRINGING ME A TRAY, HOP SING,” Ben roared. “I’M GOING TO GO DOWNSTAIRS AND EAT AT THE TABLE WITH EVERYONE ELSE.”
“HOP SING BRING TRAY!” With that last parting shot, Hop Sing abruptly turned heel and strode purposely toward the door, narrowly missing a head on collision with Stacy, who had been standing at the threshold between bedroom and hall, leaning heavily on her crutches for support.
“Missy Stacy, so sorry,” Hop Sing cried out with alarm. His strong wiry arms shot out and seized her by the shoulders, steadying her, as her stance wobbled. “Hop Sing very sorry. Not see. Miss Stacy ok?”
“Y-Yeah . . . I’m ok,” she replied, her voice unsteady. “S-Sorry, I . . . I guess I c-came at a bad time?”
“It’s all right, Stacy, please . . . come in,” Ben invited, addressing his daughter in a more kindly tone, upon noting her pale face and the unusual brightness of her eyes.
“Hop Sing warn Miss Stacy . . . come into papa room at own risk to yourself,” Hop Sing declared, directing a fierce, angry, defiant glare over in Ben’s general direction, daring him to challenge.
“I . . . I just wanted to make sure Pa’s all right,” Stacy said in a voice barely audible.
“Hop Sing go now, make breakfast,” Hop Sing said. “Everybody eat. Everybody BETTER eat, or Hop Sing quit. Go help Papa, Hop Ling, with laundry.” He turned with every intention of leaving, then paused and turned back again to face the head of the family he had adopted, that he had come to love and cherish every bit as much as he did his own blood relations. “You be nice with Missy Stacy. Not yell at Missy Stacy, way you yell at Hop Sing.” With that, he abruptly turned heel and strode angrily from the room, muttering a long string of terse, clipped Chinese invectives under his breath.
After Hop Sing had gone, Ben looked up at Stacy, and without a word patted the space on the bed beside him. Stacy nodded, then made her way across the room. She leaned her crutches up against the wall, near the headboard, and sat down next to her father.
“Stacy Rose Cartwright . . . what’s this?” Ben asked gently, noting the telltale wetness now gleaming on her cheeks.
Stacy opened her mouth to reply, only to shut it again, upon suddenly finding herself too emotionally overcome to speak.
Ben pulled a clean handkerchief out of the pocket of his robe and gently pressed it into her hands, before placing his arm around her shoulders and hugging her close. “I’m gonna be all right, Young Woman . . . Doc says it’s only a flesh wound,” he murmured softly, soothingly. “A few days rest and I’ll be as good as new . . . maybe even better.”
“P-Promise?”
An amused smile tugged hard at the corner of his mouth. “Cross my heart.”
“I . . . I’m sorry, Pa,” she ventured at length.
“For what?” Ben demanded. “I hope you’re not apologizing for being worried about me.”
“No, I’m not s-sorry about THAT, b-but I AM sorry I’m . . . that I’m acting like such a . . . a big crybaby,” she said ruefully.
“You remember what I told you the night Adam and Joe came to blows, and YOU ended up busting your cast when you tried to break it up?”
Stacy nodded and gently dabbed the tears from her eyes and cheeks. “I . . . I think you said something about . . . that we’d ALL h-have m-moments like this.”
“That’s right.”
Stacy’s head dropped down heavily onto his shoulder, as she squeezed her eyes shut against the new tears forming there. “Pa?”
“Yes, Stacy?”
“H-How long are we g-gonna go on . . . having m-moments like this?”
“I wish I could give you an answer, but I’m afraid I can’t.”
“I don’t want to . . . to . . . . Oh, Pa . . . I don’t want to turn into M-Mrs. O’Hanlan.”
“Turn into Mrs. O’Hanlan?!” It was Joe. Ben and Stacy glanced up and found him standing framed in the open door, with Adam standing behind him, a little to his left. “You ok, Kid?”
She sighed and dolefully shook her head.
“What do you mean when you say you don’t want to turn into Mrs. O’Hanlan?!” Adam queried with a puzzled frown. He stepped around his brother, and crossed the short distance between the threshold and the bed, upon which his father and sister sat. Joe silently followed.
“Oh, Adam . . . she’s become so bad . . . it would be a big improvement if . . . if she turned into a terrible worrywart,” Stacy sighed.
“That’s for dang sure,” Joe agreed.
“Ever since Colleen got married and . . . and Frankie left home? Poor Molly can’t even sneeze without accounting to her ma for it,” Stacy continued, “and if she’s out of sight for any more than five seconds . . . . ” She shuddered. “Mrs. O’Hanlan gets hysterical! I don’t want to end up like that . . . ever!”
“THAT, Young Woman, is . . . or should be . . . the very LEAST of your worries.” Ben’s voice was gentle, yet very firm. “Mrs. O’Hanlan, even on the best of days, is a very high strung woman, who more often than not finds herself overwhelmed by the small, simple everyday things. You’re a very far cry from that, Stacy. You always have been, and I dare say, you always will be.”
“Then . . . why am I falling apart now?”
“I think it has a lot to do with everything this family has been through over the last few months,” Ben said. “I STILL shudder when I think about how close I came to losing you, Joe . . . even Adam.”
“So why are you guys doing better . . . while I, all of a sudden, seem to be doing a lot worse . . . especially in the last week or so?”
“I think I might have an idea as to why, Little Sister,” Adam said, as he drew up one of the straight-backed chairs over next to the bed, and sat down. “In the days right after the fire, I know you were worried about Joe during the time he was missing, and later, as he began that slow task of recovering from his ordeal. Hoss told me things were pretty hairy for a while.”
Stacy nodded. “I was also worried about YOU, Adam.”
“I know,” Adam said gently. “Hoss and Pa also told me that you nearly died from YOUR injuries . . . and that you almost ended up losing your leg.”
“Really?!” Joe exclaimed. “I . . . I had no idea. You’ve been holding back on me, Kiddo.”
“Sorry, Grandpa, it’s just that . . . well, it was pretty much over and past when Pa, Hoss, and Candy found you, that I— ”
“I know, Stace. I . . . WAS in pretty rough shape when they first brought me back,” Joe said quietly, cutting right to the heart of the matter. “But, I’m doing much better now, and . . . I want to be there for YOU, every bit as much as you were there for ME.”
Stacy nodded, too overwhelmed to speak.
“So do I,” Adam added. “You’ve had a pretty full plate to deal with, too, Stacy. Now that the worst of it’s behind you . . . it’s time for YOU to begin working through the emotional ramifications of everything that’s happened. The important thing is that you allow yourself time to do that, and don’t try to hold back or deny what you’re feeling. I . . . know . . . from recent personal experience . . . that only makes things harder later . . . a LOT harder.”
“I just realized something,” Stacy said slowly, as she gazed into her oldest brother’s face with a look akin to awe.
“What’s that, Stacy?”
“How very much you sound like Pa.”
Adam smiled, first at Stacy, then over at his father. “Little Sister, I accept any and all favorable comparisons between Pa and me as the highest of compliments. Thank you.” On impulse, he reached over and gave her a big hug.
“I always said he was the smart one in the family,” Ben said, his eyes suddenly blinking to excess. “Well, Young Woman? You feeling a little better about things now?”
“I’m feeling a LOT better about things, Pa,” Stacy replied, “for now at least.”
“Good.” On impulse, Ben hugged her again, and planted a kiss on her forehead.
“I think we’d best get ourselves downstairs immediately if not sooner,” Joe said. “That’s bacon I smell cooking.”
“So?” Adam queried.
Joe sighed, rolled his eyes, then favored his oldest brother with an impish grin. “Ah, how quickly they forget.”
“Forget what?” Adam demanded, thoroughly bemused.
“That if we aren’t at the table by the time it’s ready, Hoss is going to eat HIS share . . . and ours, too,” Joe replied with a grin, as he turned and started beating a straight path to the bedroom door.
Part 5
“The purpose of this hearing is to consider Mister Lindsay’s petition that Jacob Carter, William Carter, and Timothy Higgins, all three being charged with murder, criminal assault, kidnapping, robbery of a stagecoach, and other various and sundry . . . be tried in another jurisdiction,” Judge John Faraday15 wearily informed the small group of men gathered in his office . . . .
He had been very rudely awakened from a deep sleep that morning, shortly after three a.m. by the sound of someone, a man, pounding on the front door of his home hard enough to rattle its very hinges, shouting his name over and over at the top of his voice. When the judge had finally stumbled and groped his way to the door, he was astonished to find his secretary, Elmer McFarlane, standing there, clad in the clothing he had worn the previous day, hastily donned, his face white as a sheet, his eyes round and staring.
“They tried to lynch the Carter brothers and Timothy Higgins, Judge Faraday,” Elmer gasped, completely breathless, before the judge could even begin to form the question. “The Jared boy’s dead, and Sheriff Coffee’s hurt. So’s Clem, and the Cartwrights. Heard MISTER Cartwright was shot in the head— ”
Thankfully, Ben’s head wound turned out to be a bullet brand, a minor injury that would very soon heal, but that was still too close. Hoss would also recover from his injuries in very short order; though, according to Doc Martin, the big man would like as not be stiff and sore for the next few days.
Roy Coffee had also been very lucky. Although he would be side lined for a few weeks, the bullet he took in the shoulder had missed vital organs.
Barely.
The lawman himself often quipped that a miss, any miss, was as good as a mile, but that was far too close for comfort as well.
Clem Foster had also taken a bullet wound to the shoulder. It was a shallow one, thank the Good Lord, but he had still lost quite a bit of blood and the tumble he took down the stairs in that old building across from the sheriff’s office had left him battered and bruised. The deputy had returned to work, however, over and above Doctor Martin’s objections.
Burt Jared, it seemed, was the only casualty. Another stroke of good luck, actually, considering the bloodbath that almost certainly would have resulted, had an all-out free-for-all shoot-‘em-up erupted. That, however, would be of small comfort to the Jared family in days to come, especially the boy’s mother, who by all accounts had doted so fiercely on him.
John Faraday spent the next several hours interviewing people . . . Doc Martin, the bartenders at the Silver Dollar and the Bucket of Blood, Paulette Simmons, and Clem Foster, among others, trying to piece together what had transpired. The picture slowly emerging was a bleak, sobering one. All his hard work, the time and energy spent, would turn out to be in vain, however . . . .
Upon reaching his office, a few moments before the regulator clock on the wall struck the quarter hour before seven, he found George Ellis, the telegraph operator, clad in nightshirt, robe, and a pair of well-worn slippers, waiting with a message clutched tight in his hand.
The message, short, terse, and right to the point, was from the state governor himself. “It seems to me that someone ELSE has been hard at work, busy as a bee this morning,” John had grumbled under his breath, as he took the message from George and tipped him a whole dollar for his trouble . . . .
Judge Faraday sat, straight and tall at the head of the massive oak board room table in his spacious office. Muscle and flesh hung limp from his bones, like laundry hanging from a clothesline on a still day. His face was several shades paler than normal, and the lines and hallows of his face seemed deeper, more pronounced.
“Here we go again,” the prosecuting attorney, Hamilton Morris groused, sparing no effort to conceal his irritation. “Your Honor, I move that Mister Lindsay’s petition be denied.”
“Denied?!” Tobias Lindsay echoed, incredulous, outraged, and highly indignant. “After what almost happened last night?” He quickly turned his attention to the judge. “Your Honor . . . it should be obvious . . . PAINFULLY obvious to anyone with but a modicum of intelligence that my clients can NOT get a fair trial here, in Virginia City.”
“That’s absurd!” Hamilton declared with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Absurd?! Absurd?? Is that ALL you have to say, Mister Morris?” Tobias demanded.
“I COULD say more,” Hamilton returned stiffly, without missing a beat, “but I am not generally accustomed to using that kind of language in polite company.” His eyes strayed very pointedly in the judge’s direction.
“Your Honor . . . . ” Tobias continued his rant, focusing his entire attention on John Faraday. “I’ve spent the better part of the last month trying desperately to convince SOME one . . . ANY one . . . that my clients can’t get a fair trial here because the good citizens of Virginia City have already tried them and found them guilty.” He paused briefly, for effect. “Last night, the good people of this town almost EXECUTED them . . . WITHOUT benefit of a trial. What more do you need to convince you?!”
“You should have been an actor, Sir,” Hamilton wryly observed, as he softly applauded. “That performance just now would put the likes of Lotta Crabtree and Adah Menken to absolute shame.”
“The only shame, Sir, is that rather than apologize, and admit that you’re wrong, you choose instead to be deliberately, stubbornly OBTUSE!”
“Sit DOWN, Mister Lindsay,” the judge ordered, his irritability and crankiness increasing in direct proportion to his weariness from lack of sleep.
“Your Honor— ”
“Sit down NOW! Before I fine you for contempt.”
Tobias sat down in his chair, seething with impotent fury.
“Mister Morris, on what grounds do you move that Mister Lindsay’s petition be denied?” John Faraday asked.
“How many men actually participated in the events that transpired last night?” Hamilton demanded. “One of the more reliable sources for news places that number between thirty and thirty-five. That hardly qualifies as the entire citizenry of Virginia City, which at the time of our last census, numbered— ”
“I heard that number was closer to one hundred,” Tobias countered in a lofty, imperious tone.
“One hundred?!” Hamilton snorted derisively. “Who told you THAT? Was it Eloise Kirk or Clara Mudgely?”
The two women named by the prosecuting attorney were respectively the owner of a boarding house, called Kirks’ Hostelry, and the church organist. Those who knew them best referred to them as Virginia City’s walking newspapers.
“The exact number of men who participated in what happened last night ’s irrelevant,” Tobias declared with all the angry passion of a preacher, reaching the climax of his oration at a tent revival meeting. “I STILL contend that their opinions are shared by the vast majority of Virginia City’s population.”
“That’s preposterous!” Hamilton immediately shot right back.
“ORDER!” John Faraday raised his voice in order to be heard above the escalating voices of the two bickering attorneys. He banged his gavel twice on the table in front of him. “I WILL have order, Gentlemen.”
The two lawyers lapsed into sullen silence.
“Mister Morris, ordinarily, I would be inclined to agree with you,” John said casting a baleful glare over in the general direction of Tobias Lindsay. “However, the decision has been taken out of my hands. It appears someone sent a wire to the governor between the time things wound up in the wee hours of the morning and now.”
Tobias leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. A smug, triumphant smile slowly spread across his face.
“The governor has instructed me to grant Mister Lindsay’s petition,” John continued in a sullen tone of voice.
“Why you— ” Hamilton murmured as he slowly rose to his feet, his eyes blazing with fury. “You son-of-a-bitch! This whole thing . . . it’s a plot!” he accused. “You PLANNED this entire fiasco so you could get this trial moved to Carson City.”
“Oh come now, Mister Morris,” Tobias responded in a lofty, imperious tone of voice. “Next you’ll be telling us that you saw the Easter bunny hopping down the bunny trail, or . . . Santa Claus flying through the air on his sleigh.”
“I’ve heard rumors that you were doing your da—!! Your best! to make sure that trial got moved,” Hamilton accused. There was a murderous scowl on his face and his cheeks were flushed bright scarlet. “I put it all down to a lot of idle gossip . . . until NOW.”
“If YOU’RE accusing ME of inciting that mob to break into the jail— ”
“You didn’t HAVE to get those . . . those well-manicured hands of yours dirty by inciting a drunken mob to run riot yourself,” Hamilton sneered. “All YOU had to do was make sure word kept circulating about you trying to get that trial moved someplace where YOU’VE got a better shot at getting those murdering . . . those murderers! off scot free.”
“Have a care, Mister Morris, lest I sue you for slander,” Tobias threatened.
“Go ahead!” Hamilton shot right back. “Your case gets thrown out of court into the nearest trash heap where it belongs the instant I put Wesley McGrath on the stand.”
“Mister Lindsay . . . Mister Morris . . . sit down,” John ordered, growing more weary and exasperated with this whole shameful affair by the minute, “and for heaven’s sake . . . shut. up.”
Tobias opened his mouth with the intention of responding to Hamilton’s last verbal barb.
“Mister Lindsay . . . one word! If you say one more word, so help me . . . I’m going to fine you for contempt and have you JAILED. Between the deputy sheriff and myself, I’m sure we can come up with a whole laundry list of charges longer than my arm,” John said through clenched teeth.
Tobias’ mouth immediately snapped shut without utterance and he dropped down into his chair like a stone into deep water.
“To continue, Gentlemen, the governor HAS instructed me to grant Mister Lindsay’s petition to have the trial for the Carter brothers and Mister Higgins moved,” John continued. He paused, as his lips began to curve upward slightly, to form a tight, brittle smile. “But, he said nothing about moving the trial to Carson City.”
Tobias frowned.
“The governor ordered that the trial be moved to the city of Winnemucca in Humboldt County,” John continued, with nasty relish.
“What kind of trick is this?” Tobias demanded, his face darkening with anger.
“No trick at all, Mister Lindsay,” John replied. “The governor was pretty straight forward in his wire. He agrees that given what happened last night, your clients can’t get a fair trial here in Virginia City.”
“B-But that’s . . . Winnemucca’s nearly two hundred miles away!” Tobias cried.
“Exactly. The governor figures that the information about the stagecoach robbery allegedly perpetrated by the Carter brothers and Mister Higgins, including all of the lurid, sensational elements, won’t have had time to reach the folks in Winnemucca,” John happily explained.
Tobias slowly rose to his feet. “Judge Faraday . . . and you, too, Mister Morris! I don’t know what the he—!! What you’re trying to pull, but I intend to file a formal protest— ”
“Mister Lindsay, you may file all the formal protests you wish until the cows come home for all I care at this point,” John rudely cut him off. “It will be a waste of time and energy. The governor’s word is final. My advice to YOU, for what it’s worth, is to concentrate all that abundant energy of yours on preparing your defense.”
“ . . . and what’s THAT supposed to mean?!” Tobias demanded warily.
“It means I’ve saved the very best for last, Mister Lindsay,” John replied. “Mister Ellis presented me with a wire not ten minutes ago stating that Judge Clarence Dozier has been duly appointed to hear the case.”
“Judge Dozier? As in H-HANGING Judge Dozier?” Tobias stammered.
“Hanging judge?!” John mirthlessly chortled. “That IS something of an exaggeration, Sir. Now mind, I’m not acquainted with the man, but I have heard it said that he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.” He paused. “Something you would do well to remember and take to heart, Mister Lindsay.”
“ . . . and what, exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“It means, should you take it into your head to push Winnemucca’s resident drunk and trouble maker to incite a lynch mob, or to seek out a lonely old woman known for having loose lips and telling her an outrageous sob story about how your clients have been horribly maligned, my advice to you is . . . don’t,” John said sternly. “I . . . trust we understand each other?”
Tobias immediately slid down in his chair, his cheeks, forehead, and neck flaming red. He bowed his head, fixing his eyes on the edge of the table, and folded his arms across his chest.
With perverse satisfaction, the judge, then, turned his attention to the prosecuting attorney. “Mister Morris.”
“Yes, Your Honor?”
“YOU are hereby ordered to surrender all the information and evidence you’ve thus far collected to a Mister Eustace Bartlett, Esquire, at the earliest opportunity,” John said. “He has been appointed prosecutor.” He paused. “If there’s no further questions, this hearing is adjourned.”
………
“Ummmm UM!” Joe grunted, as he dropped into the empty chair across the table from Hoss. He closed his eyes and deeply inhaled the rich, heady aroma of hickory-smoked bacon wafting in from the kitchen. “That sure smells good,” he declared, with a contented smile.
“High time you get off what Papa call seat of learning hard way, and come to table!” Hop Sing admonished the youngest Cartwright son with a dark angry glare, as he strode briskly from the kitchen, carrying a large bowl filled with fluffy, yellow scrambled eggs and another filled with fried potatoes, mixed with sweet bell and hot chili peppers.
“Seat of learning hard way?!” Adam queried with a puzzled frown, as he stepped into the dining area.
“You remember, Mister Adam. That what Papa sometimes say when he take Little Joe outside to barn for ‘necessary taking to,’ ” Hop Sing explained. “Papa sometimes say he apply Education Board to Little Joe Seat of Learning Hard Way.”
“Oohhh yeah!” An amused smile tugged at the corner of Adam’s mouth, as he took his place at the foot of the table. “I’d forgotten all about Pa applying the Board of Education to Joe’s Seat of Learning the Hard Way,” he said quietly.
“Though for you ‘n me, Adam, it was just the Seat o’ Learnin’,” Hoss added, with a smug, if wan, smile.
“You two think you’re so-ooo-oo smart, don’t ya?” Joe growled.
“Y’ gotta admit, Li’l Brother . . . Adam ‘n me WAS smart enough t’ keep our, ummm . . . shall we say our own personal, private Mighty Ponderosas? . . . the just plain, pure ‘n simple Seat o’ Learnin’,” Hoss retorted.
“Oh hardy-har-har-har, Big Brother! That was so darn funny, I forgot to laugh,” Joe snorted derisively.
“So. All you boys at table. Finally!” Hop Sing observed, glaring at Adam first, then over at Joe upon uttering that last word. “Where Papa and Miss Stacy?!”
“Pa and Stacy are coming, Hop Sing,” Adam replied. “Slowly but surely . . . . ”
“The Kid’s getting around pretty good on those crutches your nephew made for her,” Joe said, “but not as fast as she did on her own two feet . . . and Pa . . . well, he IS a mite stiff and sore this morning . . . . ”
An exasperated sigh exploded from between Hop Sing’s thinned lips, followed by a flurry of rapid fire, terse, clipped syllables. “Hop Sing tell him and tell him . . . belong in BED. More stubborn . . . more can . . . . ” He frowned. “ . . . can . . . . Mister Adam!”
“Yes, Hop Sing?”
“What word?! Can . . . can . . . . ”
“I, ummm . . . think the word you’re looking for is cantankerous,” Adam said, as he quickly raised his napkin to his mouth to hide the smile he just plain couldn’t keep back.
“Can . . . Can-ter-ank . . . say again! Slow!”
Adam complied, enunciating every syllable.
“Can-tank-er-us! That it! Can-tank-er-us! Papa no better than can-tank-er-us elderly mule!” Hop Sing continued his rant. “Not listen to doctor . . . worse . . . not listen to Hop Sing!” His English disintegrated into a long string of terse, clipped Chinese invectives.
“I have a feeling that the loud discussion we couldn’t help BUT over hear earlier is far from over,” Adam wryly observed, as he reached across the table for the coffee pot.
“I sure am looking forward to that trip out to the lumber camps,” Joe murmured softly, as he cast a fearful glance over in the direction of the kitchen door.
“That’s right, Li’l Brother . . . rub it in,” Hoss groused, casting a baleful glare at Joe.
“Here. Dig in, Big Brother,” Adam exhorted, as he shoved the bowl of scrambled eggs over toward Hoss.
Hoss took the bowl from Adam, and spooned out two generous helpings of scrambled eggs onto his plate.
“Hey!” Hop Sing snapped upon his return to the dining room. He carried a platter filled with crisp, hot bacon on one hand and a basket of light, fluffy biscuits in the other. “Mister Hoss! Save some egg for papa, brothers, and sister.”
“Aww c’mon, Hop Sing . . . there’s enough left in that dang bowl for all of us t’ have a second helpin’ ‘n for ME t’ have a third,” Hoss grumbled.
Hop Sing abruptly turned heel and beat a straight path back toward the kitchen, grumbling in Chinese, with an occasional, “big boy bad . . . very, very bad . . . nearly bad like Papa,” sprinkled in between.
“See what Pa, Stacy, ‘n me are gonna hafta put up with?!” Hoss muttered, just loud enough for his brothers to hear.
Joe immediately snatched a biscuit out of the breadbasket and stuffed it into his mouth whole, a split second before he would have burst out into a fit of the giggles.
………
“Your chariot awaits, Little Brother,” Adam said, gesturing to the brown, standing alongside Sport II. Both horses were saddled, and ready to ride.
The entire family, including Hop Sing, stood together outside on the small front porch of the house belonging to Sam and Ella Fletcher, who were away on an extended trip to Europe. For now, it ably served as the Cartwrights’ temporary home until their new log house was ready for occupancy.
Another brown, larger and more powerfully built than Joe’s designated mode of transportation, stood on the other side of Sport II, packed with enough provisions to last a week. All three were tied to the hitching post out on the street in front of the Fletchers’ house.
“We’ll stop long enough to collect Cochise, of course,” Adam continued.
“Will you guys tell Blaze Face hello for me? Please?” Stacy asked wistfully.
“You BET we will, Kiddo,” Joe promised as he slipped his arm around Stacy’s shoulders, and gave her a gentle, affectionate squeeze. “In the meantime, though, I want you to promise me you’ll remember something.”
“What?”
“The plaster on your leg’s gonna be coming off in another three weeks,” Joe said. “I know you’re gonna have some work to do before you’re able to get around properly, but you’re STILL gonna be back in the saddle again before you know it.”
“I’ll try to remember,” she said with a melancholy sigh.
“Hey! It could be worse,” Joe quipped.
“I’m almost afraid to ask this, Grandpa, but . . . how could it possibly be worse?”
“Well, for starters you might’ve lost your leg, not to mention your life,” Joe said very quietly, “and . . . instead of having only three more weeks to wear that cast, you might’ve had FOUR . . . if Adam and I hadn’t gotten into that ruckus a couple o’ weeks ago.” He grinned and winked over at his oldest brother, prompting a soft groan and a sarcastic roll of the eyes.
“Which reminds me, Young Man . . . you aren’t entirely out of the woods quite yet yourself,” Ben reminded his youngest son in a stern, no-nonsense tone of voice. “I expect YOU to keep the promise you made to Hoss and me. You’re going to show Adam the way and THAT’S ALL.”
“Yes, Pa . . . that’s all,” Joe dutifully promised.
“ . . . and if he tries to step out of line, I’ll hog-tie and gag him right there on the spot,” Adam vowed, favoring his youngest brother with a pointed glare of his own. “On that, you have MY word.”
“In THAT case, Adam, I’ll leave the young scalawag in YOUR hands,” Ben said with a smile that never came close to reaching his eyes.
“Now, while Joe and I are gone, I expect the three of YOU to be on your very best behavior for Hop Sing,” Adam exhorted his father, younger brother, and only sister. “I don’t want the two of us to come back and find out he’s quit and is well on his way back to China.”
“Yes, PA!” Hoss and Stacy exclaimed in unison.
“I mean it,” Adam returned with mock severity, his eyes twinkling with amusem*nt.
“We’ll behave, Son,” Ben promised. He turned and glared pointedly over at Hoss and Stacy. “Won’t we?”
“Of COURSE we will,” Stacy replied.
“Li’l Sister ‘n I can’t help BUT behave, Pa,” Hoss declared as he stepped over beside Stacy and placed his arm around her shoulders, “what with havin’ YOU as our example, ‘n all . . . . ” He flashed his father a wide, saucy grin.
“Chiminney Christmas!” Joe groaned. “Hop Sing won’t be well on his way to China by the time we get back . . . he’ll already be there, and well settled in.”
“Smart aleck!” Ben growled.
“Which one?” Joe quipped.
“The BOTH of ya!” Ben immediately returned.
Adam very pointedly cleared his throat. “Joe and I should be back by the end of the week,” he said. “If we get held up due unforeseen circ*mst— ”
“ADAM!? HEY, ADAM . . . HOLD UP!” It was Clem Foster.
“ . . . uh oohh . . . I gotta real bad feeling about this . . . . ” Joe murmured very softly, as his hopes of spending the next few days enjoying fresh, clean air and sunshine, well away from the maddening crowd making up the populace of Virginia City, plummeted to his feet along with his heart.
Clem brought his steed, Carla Jo, a big brown, even tempered gelding to a halt, and dismounted, trying his best not to grimace, as stiff, aching, sore muscles and joints protested against every move he made. He nodded to Ben and the other members of the family, before turning his attention to the eldest son. “Adam?”
“Yes, Clem?”
“I . . . hope you’re not planning on leaving town,” the deputy said as he eyes strayed over to the brown packhorse, tethered to the hitching post.
“As a matter of fact, I am,” Adam replied, feeling very much on the defensive all of a sudden. “Joe and I are heading out to our lumber camps and saw mill. Why do you ask?”
“I, uhhh . . . hate like all get out having t’ do this to ya, Adam . . . especially since Hoss ‘n your pa here are, like as not, counting on ya,” Clem reluctantly continued, “but I’m afraid I have no choice.” He reached into the inside pocket of his vest with a pained grimace, and pulled out a blue envelope sized folder with Adam’s full name, first, middle, and last, hastily penned in Judge John Faraday’s bold, angular script.
“A . . . summons?” Adam queried, his own heart fast sinking, as he reluctantly took the proffered document from Clem.
“Sorry, Adam, I really am,” Clem said with all sincerity. “You’re being called upon to testify for the prosecution against the Carter Brothers and Timothy Higgins . . . in person . . . in Winnemucca.”
“Winnemucca?!” Ben echoed, incredulous.
“Yes, Mister Cartwright, Winnemucca,” Clem grimly confirmed.
“So all them rumors ‘bout Tobias Lindsay trying t’ get that trial moved WERE true,” Hoss quietly observed, mildly surprised and resentful.
………
“Father Rutherford, I want to take the veil.” Maria Estevan came right to the point in a very firm, very resolute tone of voice. She stood before the fireplace in the Martins’ formal parlor, her posture stiffly erect, with her gloved hands clasped firmly in front of her. She still wore the black suit that she had borrowed from Lily Martin, albeit without the veil.
All things considered, her request shouldn’t have surprised him, yet it had. Very much. Was it her youth? The vibrant energy he sensed lying dormant now under a terrible burden of grief, anger, and perhaps a very large measure of survivor’s guilt? Maria Estevan reminded him of another, who not only shared a variation her given name, but had also suffered more than her share of tragedy, humiliation, and grief.
“Marie Cartwright,” Father Brendan mused silently, upon remembering the many hours she had spent with him in the confessional, and in private consultation as well, pouring out her heart. “But Marie DID find love . . . happiness . . . and a measure of peace as Ben Cartwright’s wife, and mother to three fine sons.”
Every instinct within him screamed that it would be a terrible mistake to allow the young woman standing before him, to turn her back on the world by entering into a convent . . . “taking the veil,” to borrow her own words. Same as it would have been for Marie Cartwright, assuming she had ever at any time in her life given consideration the idea.
“Mrs. Estevan,” Father Brendan ventured, treading carefully, “a . . . a decision of this nature requires a great deal of thought . . . of soul searching . . . and above all prayer.”
“I’ve not come to this decision impulsively or in haste,” Maria hastened to assure. “During the time I’ve spent here with the Martins and with Mrs. McShane recovering from . . . from m-my ordeal . . . I’ve had plenty of time to give the matter a great deal of thought, AND to do a lot of soul searching. I WANT to take the veil.”
“You ARE, of course, more than welcome to come, and stay with the sisters at the Convent of Saint Mary on the Mountain for as long as you have need,” Father Brendan said quietly. “I’ve even gone so far as taking the liberty of broaching the possibility with the mother superior, when I first heard of your dreadful circ*mstances. However—”
“What?!” she angrily snapped out the question.
“While it IS true that most of the women who embrace life within the convent . . . who go on to take those final vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, find the life and experience deeply rewarding . . . I must caution you, becoming a bride of Christ is a hard spiritual path,” he replied, “one that requires much in the way of devotion, sacrifice, and self-discipline.”
“I have already lost much, Father,” Maria said very quietly, her voice catching.
“Yes,” Father Brendan was quick to agree, “you have indeed suffered terrible and devastating loss. But, loss is not the same as sacrifice. Loss involves having your most precious treasures taken from you. Sacrifice means to WILLINGLY relinquish those treasures.
“Mrs. Estevan, life behind convent walls is a call from God, every bit as much as MY call to serve God and my fellow man as a priest,” Father Brendan continued. “Neither vocation was EVER intended to be an escape, though many HAVE come, seeking to escape life . . . to escape the travails that ARE part and parcel of living in THIS world— ”
“Father, I freely admit to seeking shelter and a home,” Maria stubbornly maintained her position. “With my . . . w-with my husband now dead, I have nowhere to go. But, I do NOT come seeking this escape from life of which you speak.”
“Have you no family? No friends?”
She dolefully shook her head. “No, Father. Not NOW. I can’t go back. Not after everything that’s happened. It’s better all the way around if our family and friends . . . Lorenzo’s and mine . . . believe me dead and buried with my husband.”
She was resolute. Father Brendan saw that quite clearly in her stance, the stubborn set of her jaw and mouth, the hands at her sides now balled into a pair of tight fists, and the angry fires burning in those dark brown, almost black eyes. Argument at this juncture would not only be useless, but would like as not harden her resolve even more.
“The mother superior, of course, makes the decision regarding who’s accepted into the community as postulant,” Father Brendan said, backing down for now.
“Of course,” Maria replied. “I would still like to move to the convent, however. The Martins have been very kind, but I . . . I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”
“As I said before, you ARE welcome to come and stay with the sisters for as long as you have need,” Father Brendan said. “You may come whenever you wish.”
A soft, discreet knock at the closed parlor door brought any further conversation to an end.
“Mrs. Estevan . . . Father Rutherford, it’s Mrs. Martin,” the doctor’s wife immediately identified herself in a brisk, business-like tone of voice.
“Please, Mrs. Martin . . . come in,” Maria invited, with an anxious, bewildered frown.
Father Brendan rose to his feet as the door opened, and Mrs. Martin ventured in, with Deputy Clem Foster following close behind.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Estevan . . . Father Rutherford,” Lily apologized, “but Deputy Foster is here to see YOU, Mrs. Estevan. I wouldn’t have interrupted, but he insisted it was urgent.”
Clem removed his hat as he stepped around Lily Martin and entered the room. “Father . . . Mrs. Estevan, I’m terribly sorry for interruptin’, but my instructions from Judge Faraday were to present this in person . . . as soon as possible,” he said, his voice filled with remorse and deep regret. He produced a blue envelope with “Mrs. Estevan” hastily scrawled across its face.
Maria recoiled momentarily, as she might have had she been staring down at a rattlesnake coiled at her feet, poised, and ready to strike. She swallowed nervously, then slowly, reluctantly put out her hand to take the proffered envelope. “What IS this, Deputy Foster . . . exactly?”
“A summons, Ma’am.”
“A summons?!” Lily echoed, incredulous, with a bewildered frown. “What FOR?”
“I’m sure you’re aware of the trouble last night, Mrs. Martin?” Clem queried, with eyebrow slightly upraised.
“Yes, of COURSE I’m aware of the trouble that happened last night,” Lily replied, sparing no energy to conceal her anger. “What of it?”
“The governor’s ordered the trial to be moved,” Clem explained, “to Winnemucca. The summons I gave Mrs. Estevan . . . and that I’ll be giving to others including the doc, requires them to present themselves in Winnemucca to—”
“NO!” Maria cried out, anguished and enraged. “NO! HE . . . THAT SON OF A . . . A . . . ****” The word she so contemptuously spat was Spanish. Though none of the others present were in any way familiar with the language, they knew beyond all doubt that the word she used had to be among the most vile and obscene. “HE CAN’T DO THIS! IT’S NOT RIGHT!”
Lily Martin strode into the room with back ramrod straight like a general marching off to battle. She rudely shoved Clem Foster aside, then reached out and took firm hold of the distraught young woman’s shoulders. “Mrs. Estevan . . . Maria!” she said in a quiet, yet very firm tone of voice. “Listen to me, please—”
“HE’S . . . THAT LAWYER . . . HE’S GOING TO GET THEM OFF!” she shrieked, angry yet filled with hopeless despair. “AFTER ALL THEY DID . . . TO LORENZO . . . TO ME . . . TO THE OTHERS—”
“No,” Lily countered. “That’s NOT going to happen. Do you hear me? That is NOT going to happen.”
“Oh, yes it is,” Maria insisted, weeping. “Don’t you see? He’s gotten the trial moved to a place where he knows he can win.”
“He CAN’T win,” Lily said, meeting the young woman’s gaze without flinching. “Please listen to me, Mrs. Estevan. Their lawyer can’t possibly win, no matter how good he is, or where the trial’s been moved—”
“Yes, he WILL!” Maria sobbed. “He will, he will, he will.”
“Father Rutherford . . . Deputy Foster . . . I think you’d better bring her back into the doctor’s examination room,” Lily said firmly.
The two men gently took hold of Maria’s forearms. She offered no resistance, rather she buried her face in her hands and wept piteously. With the young widow in tow, the lawman and priest silently fell in step behind the doctor’s wife.
“Will she . . . will she be all right, Mrs. Martin?” Clem asked, still visibly shaken.
“As all right as she can be, I suppose,” Lily Martin replied, as she gently placed a light blanket over the now sedated young woman lying in deep slumber on the doctor’s examination table. She slipped a pillow under Maria’s head, then turned to usher Father Brendan and Clem out of the room.
“If Mrs. Estevan has need of me, Mrs. Martin . . . for any reason . . . no matter what the hour, please don’t hesitate to send for me,” Father Brendan said as they stepped out of the room into the long narrow hallway beyond.
“Thank you, Father Rutherford . . . I will,” Lily promised.
………
“I STILL don’t see why your testimony can’t be given in a sworn deposition, same as Matt Wilson,” Ben grumbled, for the umpteenth time. He sat on Adam’s bed watching him, as he moved around the room packing the essentials he would need for the trip to Winnemucca in a pair of matching leather bags, sitting open in the desk.
Though his pa’s exasperation came through loud and clear, Adam heard the underlying worry as well. “First of all, Pa, Matt was allowed to give testimony in a sworn deposition because his wife, Clarissa’s due to give birth to their third child any day now,” he explained once again, with infinite patience. “Second, I am the only witness who can positively identify Lorenzo Estevan’s journal for what it is . . . apart from his wife.”
“Matt was with you when you found it,” Ben immediately pointed out.
“That’s true,” Adam replied. “Matt, however, wasn’t invited by Lorenzo Estevan himself to look at the drawings and read some of the passages. I was.”
“I STILL don’t like it!” Ben groused.
Adam placed an arm load of socks and undergarments into one of the bags, then turned to face Ben. “Pa . . . I promise you . . . I’m going to be all right. MY only regret is that I won’t be able to make that trip up to the lumber camps as I promised Hoss.”
“Please, Son . . . you needn’t worry about that,” Ben hastened to reassure. “We’ve been in tough spots before, as YOU very well know. We’ll manage as we always have.”
“By the proverbial skin of our teeth?”
Ben nodded. “If need be, yes. Adam?”
“Yes, Pa?”
“ . . . you sure you don’t want me to go with ya?”
The apprehensive edge he heard in his father’s voice, coupled with the loving concern he saw laid bare upon his face, and shining in those dark brown eyes touched Adam deeply. He walked over to the bed and knelt down. “Pa,” he said softly, taking Ben’s hands into his own, “please . . . don’t take this the wrong way. I’m grateful . . . more than I can possibly say . . . for all the love, support, and understanding you, Hoss, Joe, Stacy, and Hop Sing have given me over the past few weeks. I . . . I know I wasn’t exactly the easiest man to . . . to live with— ” He broke off abruptly, mid-sentence, unable to continue.
Ben smiled and gently squeezed Adam’s hands. “ . . . that’s what being a family means, Son,” he said. “Loving each other enough to BE there . . . especially when things aren’t easy.”
Adam returned his father’s smile with a tremulous one of his own. “I know that NOW, Pa,” he said, “but . . . this business of going to Winnemucca and giving testimony about what Matt and I found out in the desert . . . it’s something I need to do on my own.”
In the golden brown eyes of the man one birthday from four decades, Ben saw again the eyes and face of the child, barely three years old, in the midst of a struggle to dress himself. He had managed to put on his undergarments, his pants, and his socks, but aligning the buttons of his shirt with the correct buttonhole was fast proving elusive and frustrating.
“Adam . . . do you need help?” Ben remembered asking, after the third attempt had gone awry.
“No!” Adam stoutly declared. “I can do by-self.”
“I . . . understand, Son,” Ben said as the vision faded, leaving him face to face once more with the man. “But, I want you to remember, even though you’re going by yourself to Winnemucca . . . that you’re NOT alone. We’re here for ya, Adam. You’ll be in our thoughts and prayers while you’re gone, and if you find that you need us there with ya, don’t hesitate to send word.”
“I’ll remember, Pa,” Adam earnestly promised.
Father and son then embraced briefly. Ben was surprised and gratified that for the first time ever, he was the one to let go first.
………
“ . . . ummm . . . excuse me . . . Mrs. Martin?”
The doctor’s wife glanced up from her needlepoint and saw Maria Estevan standing framed in the open door to the living room on the second floor of the townhouse she shared with her husband. The young woman’s hair was mussed, and her clothing crisscrossed with a myriad of wrinkles, the result of having spent the better part of the afternoon downstairs in the doctor’s examination room under sedation.
“Please . . . come in, Mrs. Estevan,” Lily invited. “I’ve taken the liberty of asking Miss Graves to begin packing for your trip to Winnemucca. I . . . hope you don’t mind.”
“No, I DON’T mind,” Maria replied in a wooden monotone. “In fact, I’m grateful. I . . . I just couldn’t bear having to . . . to— ” She broke off abruptly. “Sorry.”
“You’ve no need to apologize,” Lily said very quietly.
“Mrs. Martin, our things . . . Lorenzo’s and mine . . . were brought here from the hotel?” Maria asked.
“Deputy Foster kept a few items, like Mister Estevan’s journal, at the request of the prosecuting attorney as evidence, but the rest WAS delivered here,” Lily replied. “It’s upstairs in our attic.”
“There’s something I need . . . would it be alright if I went up to the attic and got it? I promise you, I won’t be long . . . . ”
“What do you need? I can ask Miss Graves to— ”
“No!” Maria snapped, drawing a sharp look from Lily. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take your head off, Mrs. Martin,” she immediately apologized, “I . . . this may sound silly, but I don’t want anyone else to . . . to . . . . ”
“ . . . to go through yours and your husband’s personal belongings? No.” Lily shook her head. “It’s not silly at all. However, it IS very dusty upstairs.” She set aside her needlepoint and rose. “Why don’t you g’won to your room and get out of those clothes? I’ll get you an old housedress of mine to wear while you go up to the attic and fetch down what you need.”
“I don’t want to trouble you— ”
“No trouble,” Lily assured Maria in a firm tone of voice, “and I can give what you have on now over to Miss Graves to press, so it’ll be fresh and presentable tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Martin . . . thank you so very much . . . . ”
For what seemed a dreadful eternity, Maria Estevan sat on the attic floor with legs crossed, elbows resting on her knees, and hands clasped tightly together under her chin, staring at the leather bag in which Dear Lorenzo, may God rest his soul, had packed his toiletries and other personal items. The rest of their luggage, comprising three trunks, two flowered carpet bags, and the leather valise that matched the bag holding her unwavering gaze, sat in a pile behind her. There were a few keepsakes she wanted. The rest . . . she would ask the Martins to donate to someone in need after this whole nasty business was over and done. She would no longer have need of those things once she entered the convent of Saint Mary in the Mountains.
At length, she swallowed nervously, then reached with trembling hands to take Lorenzo’s small leather bag. She opened it and within very short order found that which she so desperately sought, much to her relief. It was lying in the very bottom of the bag, as she had figured it would be, wrapped in a clean handkerchief, yellowed with age, with the initials “E S E” hand stitched in one of the corners.
“Enrico Sebastian Estevan,” Maria murmured very softly. Lorenzo’s paternal grandfather. She carefully unwrapped the object, an old pearl handled derringer, that had been passed down to Lorenzo’s father, then to Lorenzo himself. “If only . . . . ”
If only Lorenzo’d had the weapon on his person, then maybe, just maybe, HE’D still be alive, and at least one of the rabid animals who had set upon the stage, its passengers, who had so cruelly used her—
No.
She mustn’t think about all of the countless “if onlys.” Not now, not ever. To do so, even for a moment, would surely drive her stark raving mad.
Maria very quickly closed the bag and rewrapped the handkerchief around the derringer. “If justice is denied Lorenzo . . . me . . . and all the others in a court of law, I swear . . . by all I hold holy, I SWEAR . . . I’LL see that justice is done . . . with this,” she silently, passionately vowed, while absently stroking the gun as she might a cat curled up in her lap.
Maria carefully placed the derringer into the deep right hand pocket of the dress borrowed from Lily Martin, and started for the stairs that led from the attic to the Martins’ living quarters on the second floor.
………
The following morning, Ben saw his eldest son to the stage depot, after an unusually quiet, subdued breakfast with the rest of the family.
“ ‘Morning, Ben . . . ‘morning, Adam . . . . ” a familiar voice greeted them curtly.
It was Paul Martin, his face darkened by a black thunderous scowl. He stood close beside Roy Coffee, with his fingers wrapped firmly around the lawman’s forearm. Lily Martin, Maria Estevan, Father Brendan Rutherford, and a woman, aged perhaps in her mid-twenties, garbed in the novice’s habit of the Order of the Sisters of Mercy and Compassion, stood close behind, clustered together.
“Pa, I don’t believe you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Maria Estevan,” Adam said quietly. “Mrs. Estevan, this is my father, Ben Cartwright.”
Maria extended her hand. “How do you do, Mister Cartwright?” she politely acknowledged the introduction. “The Martins and Mrs. McShane have told me so much about you and your family, it’s good to have a face to put to your name.”
“I’m pleased to meet YOU, Mrs. Estevan.” Ben took her hand in his and gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “I’m very sorry to hear about your terrible loss.”
“Thank you, Sir,” Maria murmured softly.
She sensed within the big silver haired man standing before her something of a kindred spirit in that he, too, had suffered great tragedy and loss over the course of his life. The Martins had told her that he had suffered through the same devastating loss of spouse she herself had, not once but three times. “How?” she silently wondered, as Ben politely touched the rim of his hat. “How can any man . . . bring himself to keep on opening his heart again and again, only to have it crushed and broken each time?”
Was it strength? Courage? A simple desire perhaps to love and in turn be loved once again by another?
“Is it possible that someday, I . . . . ?”
Maria Estevan felt something flicker and come to life somewhere in the deep most places within her heart, and it frightened her. The mind numbing horror of seeing her beloved shot down in cold blood, the suffering she had endured at the hands of the men who murdered Lorenzo, and the terror and despair she felt upon contemplating life without the man she had just taken as husband, paled in comparison. She fought desperately, with all the strength she could muster to snuff out the hope stirring within her, for to allow it to take root, to grow and to flourish would be to risk having her heart broken again.
But that tiny flicker of hope, newly resurrected, refused to die.
“Mister Cartwright, may I present Sister Hannah?” Maria continued, turning to include Adam with a glance. “She’s coming with me for moral support.”
Both father and son graciously acknowledged the introduction.
“ . . . and I’m pleased to meet both of you,” Sister Hannah said quietly, as she extended her hand. “I’m relatively new to the convent and hospital,” she continued, as she shook hands with Ben first, then Adam. “I’ve heard a great deal about your family and the Ponderosa.”
“All good I hope?” Adam quipped with a broad grin.
Sister Hannah smiled. “All VERY good,” she replied with a sidelong glance at Father Brendan.
“Mea culpa, Ben . . . Adam,” Father Brendan admitted with a smile. “Sister Hannah is my first cousin, who, prior to her coming, I hadn’t seen since she came up to my knees and had just begun to walk.”
“Father Brendan and I have made a point of sitting down together for a meal once a week to get reacquainted,” Sister Hannah explained.
“It’s very kind of you to come and lend your support to Mrs. Estevan,” Adam said quietly.
“I’ve made arrangements to move into the convent as soon as I return, Mister Cartwright,” Maria said. “I’ve decided to take the vail. With . . . n-now that Lorenzo’s gone, there’s nothing left for me. Not anymore.”
Maria’s words, and the dispassionate, near monotone by which she spoke them, invoked within Adam a deep, profound sadness, the like of which he had felt once before. It was the terrible day Inger died, cut down suddenly by an arrow during an Indian raid, leaving his father, infant brother, and himself to pick up the pieces and continue on. “I . . . hope you’ll find a measure of peace and healing with the sisters at Saint Mary’s in the Mountains Convent, Mrs. Estevan,” he said very quietly.
“Good morning, Paul . . . Brendan . . . and you, too, Roy,” Ben, meanwhile, greeted the sawbones, priest, and lawman. He couldn’t help but note that the sheriff’s posture was stooped, his face was averted toward the ground, and that his equilibrium was precarious at best. Had it not been for the support offered by Paul Martin and Father Brendan Rutherford, the lawman would have almost certainly taken a nasty spill. “Roy?”
The sheriff slowly lifted his head and gazed up at Ben through half closed eyes. “Ben?” he mumbled softly, his voice barely audible. “Tha’ you?!”
“Roy Coffee, don’t tell me YOU’RE headed for Winnemucca,” Ben admonished, with an anxious frown.
Roy drew himself up to the full of his height, and in so doing, nearly lost his balance completely.
“Roy, for heaven’s sake . . . take it easy,” Paul scolded, the scowl on his face deepening.
“I’m all right, dammit,” Roy growled, returning the doctor’s glare with an equally murderous one of his own. With surprising quickness he snatched his arm out of Paul’s firm grasp. “ . . . ‘n I don’t need t’ likes o’ YOU ‘n the good padre here holdin’ me up like . . . like a gol’ durn toddler just startin’ t’ walk.”
“Sheriff Coffee, why don’t the two of us g’won over to that bench . . . the one right over there next to the depot, and sit down?” Adam suggested, as he moved in and gently took Roy’s arm.
“Sure, Adam . . . be glad t’ keep ya company,” Roy agreed, punctuating his words with a big yawn. “I guess you’re pretty dang tuckered out what with havin’ t’ look after your whole fam’ly.”
“My whole family?” Adam queried with mild surprise.
“Sure, wha’ with Joe still laid up ‘n Stacy’s leg still in a cast . . . now y’ve had yer pa ‘n Hoss t’ look after . . . . ” Roy sighed and dolefully shook his head. “Don’ envy ya, Boy . . . not one li’l bit.”
“Fortunately, Joe’s up and about . . . well able to fend for himself, even though the doctor hasn’t given him an official clean bill of health,” Adam said, as he watched Roy slowly lower himself down onto the bench. “ . . . and Stacy’s getting around very well, too, all things considered.”
“Glad t’ hear THAT,” Roy declared, “though I’m sure lookin’ after Hoss ain’t been no picnic, whu’ with bein’ banged up t’ way HE was. He’s a nice fella, Adam . . . a real nice fella most times. But, when he’s on t’ mend from somethin’, he’s can be just as cantankerous as t’ younger ones.”
A wry smile tugged hard at the corner of Adam’s mouth. “My wife tells me I’M no bed of roses myself, when I’m on the mend,” he admitted.
“ ‘Course t’ worst o’ t’ lot’s your pa,” Roy declared, shaking his head. “Tha’ man can be one stubborn, c’ntakerous ol’ mule when he wants t’ be . . . . ”
“. . . and he’s the first one to admit it,” Adam immediately replied.
“Paul . . . .” Ben turned his attention to the doctor. “Please . . . tell me that Roy Coffee isn’t going to Winnemucca . . . .” he begged.
“I’d give anything to be able indulge you, Ben . . . but I can’t,” Paul said curtly. “They want to hear about how he and the other men in that posse caught up with and arrested the Carters and Timothy Higgins. He was also the only one to hear the deathbed confession of their associate, Black Bart Troutman.”
“Look at him, Paul. Even I can see the man belongs at home . . . in his own bed,” Ben argued, “and I’M no doctor by any stretch of the imagination.”
“Ben, I’m afraid you’re preachin’ to the choir,” the doctor said with a melancholy sigh.
“Why didn’t they allow ROY to make his testimony by way of sworn deposition?!” Ben demanded, appalled and outraged. “If they can allow Matt Wilson to give his testimony that way, I see no reason— ”
“I understand the defense attorney insists on Roy giving his testimony . . . in person . . . so that HE can cross examine him,” Paul said through clenched teeth.
“Doesn’t the defense attorney know how badly Roy was injured?!”
“He knows, Ben, believe me . . . he knows,” Paul angrily grumbled. “I sent a wire letting him know clearly and succinctly—”
“TOO clearly and succinctly,” Lily put in with a disapproving frown.
“Then why in the world—?!”
“Ben, need I remind you that the defense attorney is none other than our ‘good’ friend, Tobias Lindsay?”
Ben sighed, remembering how that “good” friend the doctor scathingly referred to had tried to manipulate public opinion to pressure Judge Faraday to find in his favor in a custody suit for a baby, who had been left at the kitchen door of the Cartwrights’ Ponderosa home16. “Same modus operandi, then as now” he silently recalled, according to one Professor Foote17. A couple of years ago, Tobias had used Clara Mudgely to stir things up; this time, it had to have been Wesley McGrath. Tobias ultimately got the change in venue he wanted, however he was reminded of something his mother often said: “Be careful what you wish for. You may end of getting it.”
………
Upon his return to the Fletchers’ house, Ben saw, much to his surprise and dismay, that Chubb and the same brown, Adam had obtained from the livery stable the day before, were tethered to the hitching post beside the gate, saddled and ready to ride. A moment later, Hoss and Joe stepped through the front door, carrying their saddlebags and bedrolls.
“ . . . and just where do the pair of ya think YOU’RE going?” Ben demanded, his voice stern, yet filled with anxiety.
Joe let out a very long, very melodramatic sigh. “That close,” he murmured softly, holding up his hand with less than a half inch space between thumb and forefinger. “We were that close to a clean get away, Hoss.”
“Dadburn it,” Hoss groaned very softly.
“How about you boys putting your saddlebags and bedrolls right there on the porch so we can ALL g’won inside and have a nice family chat?” Ben suggested with arms folded across his chest, glaring over at Hoss first, then at Joe.
“Yessir,” Ben’s two younger sons mumbled in unison.
“Hey!” Stacy quipped upon seeing her brothers enter the house again a few moments after they had left. “That’s gotta be the quickest trip between town and the Ponderosa . . . . ” Her voice trailed off to a stunned silence when Pa entered right behind her brothers. “Oh.”
“That’s right, Young Woman . . . oh!” Ben growled, turning a baleful eye upon his daughter as well.
“Now, Pa . . . I want ya t’ know I spent the whole day yesterday restin’,” Hoss said, very much on the defensive. He sat down on the very edge of the settee beside Stacy.
“I think Doctor Martin’s exact words were ‘the next few days’, Hoss,” Ben said sternly, taking a seat in the easy chair next to the fireplace.
“Pa, I’m feelin’ a whole lot better,” Hoss insisted, “ ‘n dadburn it! With Adam on his way up t’ Winnemucca t’ testify against the Carters ‘n that Higgins fella . . . Li’l Sister havin’ t’ wear that cast for the next three weeks or so . . . ‘n YOU in no shape for doin’ a lot o’ hard work—”
“ . . . and I s’pose you ARE in shape to be doing a lot of hard work?” Ben demanded, the scowl already present on his face deepening.
“I ain’t a hundred percent,” Hoss grudgingly admitted, “but the fact o’ the matter is there’s still a lot t’ do at the ranch, ‘n with Adam away, I’M the one that’s in best shape t’ be doin’ it.”
“ . . . and that’s why I’M going,” Joe said.
“You?!” Ben demanded, incredulous.
“I’m fine, Pa,” Joe insisted, his mouth and chin stubbornly set. “Only things still off my menu are pretty much using Tabasco sauce on my eggs and beer.”
“Doctor Martin has YET to give you his official clean bill of health, Joseph Francis.”
“Which he might have, if HE didn’t hafta go to Winnemucca, too,” Joe argued.
“Pa, ain’t NO one been up t’ the lumber camps since the fire,” Hoss pressed. “The brandin’s pretty much done, ‘n the herds, most of ‘em anyway, have been moved out t’ the summer pastures, but those timber contracts ‘n the horses for the Army—”
Ben immediately turned and favored his youngest son with a knowing glare. “If you think for one minute, Young Man, I’m going to stand for you bustin’ broncs before the doctor tells ya you can, I’d strongly suggest YOU think again,” he growled.
Joe closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “No, Pa . . . I’m NOT going to be bustin’ any broncs,” he replied, struggling mightily to keep his rising temper in check. “But I CAN oversee things, maybe help the other men slap a saddle or two on the horses we plan on breaking, and there’s a lot I can do to help with training the horses after they’ve been broken.”
Ben didn’t like it, not one little bit. At the same time, however, he knew that Hoss and Joe were absolutely right. “Alright,” he grudgingly gave his blessing, “but I expect the both of ya to take it easy, and make sure you don’t overdo things. Understood?”
“Understood, Pa,” Hoss replied.
Ben glared over at his youngest son. “Joseph?”
“Yessir.”
“I wish I could do something to help you guys,” Stacy said with a doleful sigh.
“There is, Kiddo,” Joe said a little too earnestly.
Stacy favored the youngest of her brothers with a jaundiced glare. “Doing WHAT?” she demanded incredulously. “If you’re joshin’ around with me—!”
“I’m NOT,” Joe quickly reassured her, then grinned. “YOUR job is to make sure Pa behaves HIMself while he’s still recovering from that head wound.”
“How come I always get the hard jobs?” Stacy queried with a melodramatic, long suffering sigh.
An amused smile pulled hard at the corner of Ben’s mouth. “I think Hop Sing’s the one who’s got the hard job, Young Woman,” he quipped. “HE’S got the onerous job of making sure the BOTH of us behave.”
“I sure as shootin’ don’t envy him THAT job,” Joe said, his voice a little too somber, his eyes twinkling with amusem*nt.
“Pa . . . Stacy . . . I expect the two of ya t’ be on your very best behavior for Hop Sing,” Hoss said with mock sternness, “ ‘cause if HE quits ‘n goes back t’ China, you’re gonna hafta put up with Joe’s ‘n my cookin’.”
“Yuck!” Stacy said with a grimace. “That a threat, Big Brother?”
“Nope,” Hoss replied with a smug grin, “that’s a PROMISE.”
The End
Endnotes
- Job 19: 25 – 27, as taken from The Book of Common Prayer, used by The United Church of England and Ireland, c. 1855.
- Mark of Kane
- Job 42: 5, as taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
- Ecclesiastes 3: 1 – 2a; 4, as taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
- Mark of Kane
- Trial By Fire
- See Bonanza Episode #94, “The Crucible,” written by John T. Dugan.
- The Wedding
- Trial By Fire and Mark of Kane
- Li’l One
- Joe’s friend, Mitch Devlin, appears in Bonanza Episode #177, written by Ed Adamson
- Li’l One
- Li’l One
- Mark of Kane
- Trial By Fire
- Judge Faraday appears in Bonanza Episode #291, “The Late Ben Cartwright,” written by Walter Black
- Li’l One
- Professor Foote’s book, “How to Solve Crimes,” plays a key role in Bonanza Episode #260, Joe Cartwright, Detective,” written by Michael Landon and Oliver Crawford.
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