Loss and Legacy

By Meira Bracha

July 2002

    This story takes place in 1872.  Joe is thirty-one, Hoss thirty-seven, and Adam forty-three.  It’s sequel, “The Legacy That Matters”, takes place twenty-four years later.  I had originally thought to make the storyline consistent with other fan fictions by other authors that dealt with the same time periods, but ultimately developed my own take on the direction the fortunes of the Cartwright clan would take.  Some of what happens with Hoss in this story, including his almost unbelievable utterance near the end of Chapter 1, is based on real experiences of two people who meant a lot to me.  May memories of them be for blessings.

Chapter 1.  Loss

“Joe, I gotta talk serious with ya.”  Hoss was looking directly at his brother, who was sitting on the opposite side of the small table that held their checkerboard.  Hoss was in his oversized, custom-made bed, propped into a seated position against several pillows.

    “You mean, you finally want to know my secret for winning every game?” asked Joe, who had come immediately after breakfast to keep his brother company.

    “Naw, I figgered you were cheatin’ years ago.  I jest keep playin’ fer the sociability of it.  Really Joe, I want to talk about what’s gonna happen.  Pa acts like if he don’t say nothin’  then everything’s gonna be ok, but I think you and me know better.”

    Joe shifted uneasily in his chair and seemed to find something fascinating to stare at on the floor.  Hoss continued.  “Dadburnit little brother, don’t make this harder ‘n it already is.  I’ve talked to Doc Martin.  This ain’t gonna get any better.  Once this sorta thing starts growin’ inside a body, there ain’t nothin’ to be done.  I’m gonna be leavin’ ya, and I’d jest as soon do it with proper goodbyes, rather’n jest sneakin’ off without a word.”
 
    Joe wanted to argue, but he took a good look at his older brother’s tormented face and thought the better of it.  He knew, but hadn’t wanted to admit, that what Hoss was saying was true.  

At first the signs had been easy to ignore.  Hoss piled up less food on his plate and stopped asking for seconds and thirds at meals.  He took more frequent breaks while working, and often seemed short of breath.  Then more than once Joe noticed him bent over, his arms wrapped around his middle.  And a day came when Hoss announced that he was going to skip his chores and take a ride into town.  He came back late that afternoon and said he would be lying down for a while and not to hold supper.  

Doc Martin rode out that evening, checked in on Hoss, and then sat down to talk with Ben and Joe.  They had listened but not really absorbed what they heard.  And of course the physician had said there was no way he could know for sure what was going on deep inside a man’s body.  So the father and brother had clung to hope, even as Hoss visibly weakened over the next few weeks.  And now Hoss had spent several days hardly getting out of bed at all.

“What do you want me to do, Hoss?  What do you want me to say?” Joe asked.  “How can I help you?”

“I’ve been thinkin’ about this a lot.  First thing, the most important thing, is stop pretendin’ that what’s happenin’ ain’t happenin’.  Cuz I figure if you don’t pretend, I don’t hafta pretend.  And I ain’t got time to waste in pretendin’.  Can you understand that, Joe?”

“I think I understand.”  Joe forced his answer out in a near whisper.  “But I don’t want to.”

“I ain’t too thrilled neither.  I…”, Hoss paused, his face scrunched into a grimace of pain.  His whole body seemed to contract and stiffen.

“Do you need some more medicine, Hoss?”  Joe indicated the bottle of laudanum on the bed stand.

“Reckon…so,” gasped Hoss.  

Joe poured a dose into a spoon and brought the spoon to his brother’s lips.   He followed the spoon with a glass of water from which Hoss took a few sips.   Joe then moved the checkers table out of the way and pulled his chair up close to the bed.  Before sitting, he removed one of the propping pillows and helped his brother into a more prone position.   Hoss’s face and body gradually relaxed a bit.

“That stuff helps.  Trouble is, I can’t have a conversation without it cuz I can’t concentrate, and I can’t talk fer long with it cuz  I fall asleep.”

Joe prompted him.  “What do you want to talk about?”

“A lot of things.  ‘Bout us, first.”

“Us?”

“You an’ me, Joe.  We been a good partnership, dontcha think?”

“You’re the best brother a man could hope for, Hoss.  As far as being partners, I don’t know that we’ve been the most successful pair of businessmen.  We’ve sure talked each other into a lot of hare-brained schemes.”

“You did most of the talkin’ ”

“Sorry about that.  Any hard feelings?”

“Nary a one.  Weren’t fer you and your ideas, I woulda missed out on a whole lotta fun.  And you’ve always been there for me in a pinch.”

“Hoss, you’ve watched out for me and rescued me more times than I can count.  I owe you more than I could ever repay.  I wish this time…”  Joe couldn’t go on.

“That’s ok, little brother.  I owe you too.  No one’s keepin’ score.  This time, ain’t nothin’ nobody can do.”  Hoss shut his eyes and soon fell asleep.

Joe sat, numb at first, trying not to think about what they had just discussed.  But wishing it away didn’t actually change anything.  The more he thought, the more he realized that Hoss was right.  If Hoss knew he was going to die soon…it was almost as hard to think those words as it would be to say them aloud…it wasn’t doing him a favor not to let him talk about it.  Joe thought back to times when he felt he’d been lied to in order to protect him from some painful truth.  Fact is, the feeling of betrayal that came with the lie was worse than the truth.  

Honesty with Hoss was not going to cost him his life any more than dishonesty could save it.  That was the truth that needed acknowledgment.  Hoss was not given to brooding and melancholy.  But it seemed that the only thing that anyone could do for him now was to be truthful.  That way he wouldn’t have to…how had he put it...waste time he didn’t have, pretending.  Sitting there at his brother’s bedside, Joe resolved to give Hoss this gift of honesty, and to try to persuade Pa to do the same.

Pa…Joe thought about whether trying to get his father to admit that Hoss was dying was the right thing to do.  Joe was torn by what felt like divided loyalty.  Perhaps an act of kindness towards his brother would be an act of cruelty towards his father.  “As hard as this is for me, it has to be worse for Pa,” thought Joe.  

And Pa had experienced so much loss in his life.  Married three times, his wives had all died tragically young, each leaving him with a motherless son to raise.  Only Joe’s mother had lived long enough to provide her natural son with even the most vague memories of his own mother.  Pa maintained that it was his sons that had prevented him from giving in to despair.  And now he was going to lose one of those sons.

No, Joe realized after some thought, as much as it would hurt Pa to acknowledge the truth now, it would be better that than let his Pa live the rest of his life with the regret that he had denied Hoss the chance to say goodbye.   Joe resolved to penetrate the protective wall Pa had built around himself and give him and Hoss a chance to say whatever they needed to say to each other.  Joe made one more resolution as well.  Then he prayed that he was making the right decisions and if so that he would be successful in accomplishing his plans in time.  He slipped quietly out of Hoss’s room and went downstairs to join his father in the great room.  “Who won?” asked Pa.

    It took Joe a few seconds to realize Pa was referring to checkers.  “Oh I did, as usual.”

    “Did it occur to you that while your brother is feeling poorly you might want to go easy on him?  Maybe let him win once in a while?” asked Ben.

    “Pa, he would have seen right through that.  In fact, he and I were talking about something along those lines before he fell asleep.”  Joe bit his lip.  He hadn’t really planned to bring this up with Pa quite so soon.  He’d wanted a chance to put his words together a little more carefully in his head.  But now, it seemed, he was committed.

    “What do you mean?” asked Pa.

    “Well, Hoss doesn’t like the way we’ve both been pretending with him.  He convinced me to stop, and I did.”

    “I don’t know what you are talking about, Joe.”

    Joe couldn’t think of any other way but to blurt it out.  “Pa, Hoss isn’t going to get any better, and he knows it.  I even think you know it.  He’s going to die.”

    Joe had been on the receiving end of his father’s anger many times in his life, but he still wasn’t prepared for the onslaught that his last remark precipitated.

    “How dare you stand there and say that?”  Pa wasn’t shouting, probably in deference to the son who was sleeping upstairs.  But Ben Cartwright’s voice was even deeper than usual, his tone raw, and his face blazed with fury.  “You don’t know what is going to happen!  No one does!  But the surest way to be defeated is to say you’re defeated!  You have no right to give up and you certainly have no right to encourage your brother to give up!  I’m going to go sit with him until he wakes up.  You go about your business.  This is still a working ranch and you have work to do.  Do not repeat what you just said, to me or to anyone.  And I forbid you to enter Hoss’s room again until you can muster up a different attitude!  Do I make myself clear?”

    “Yes sir.  But Pa…”

    Ben was already halfway up the stairs.  He did not turn to hear what Joe might reply, and he did not appear to notice when Joe took his hat and gun belt and left the house.

    It was midmorning.  Joe rode out to the places on the Ponderosa where the hired men were working and assured himself that the ranch was running smoothly.  There was still just barely enough time for him to make it to the Virginia City telegraph office and back to the house by nightfall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joe opened the front door to find his adopted fifteen-year-old brother sitting alone at the dining room table, trying to work up an interest in the schoolbook he had open.  The brothers greeted each other, and Jamie told Joe that Pa hadn’t come out of Hoss’s room since the youth had returned from school.  Joe climbed the stairs and paused outside Hoss’s closed bedroom door.  He could hear a murmured conversation taking place, but he couldn’t make out the content.  He went down and poked his head into the kitchen.  Hop Sing told Joe that his father had spent most of the day in Hoss’s room, and had not yet eaten supper.  Hop Sing shooed Joe away, telling him he’d feed the family, by force if necessary, the next time Mr. Cartwright emerged.

    Joe returned upstairs.  The murmuring had stopped.  Quietly, he opened Hoss’s door and went to stand beside his father.  Pa was seated in the chair Joe had vacated that morning, and his face was hidden in his hands, an attitude that could indicate either prayer or despair.  Hoss was asleep.  Joe saw that the bottle of laudanum was running low.  “Refilling that will give me a reason to go back to Virginia City tomorrow, and while I’m there I can check in at the telegraph office,” he thought.

    Ben sensed Joe’s presence and looked up at his younger son.  He rose, put a hand on Joe’s shoulder, and led him from the room.  Joe told his father that Hop Sing had supper prepared.  They descended to the dining room in silence.   Then they both began speaking at once:

    “Pa, I’m sorry…”

    “Joseph, I’m sorry…”

    “Elders first,” said Ben.  “Joe, I said some things to you this morning that I now regret.  You were right.  I’d give anything to be able to say otherwise.  But Hoss and I have spoken about it.  I understand now.”

    “Oh, Pa.  I’m so sorry.  I shouldn’t have blurted it out that way, but I didn’t know how else to say it.”

    Ben shook his head and gestured with his right hand, indicating that it didn’t matter.  “You did right, son.  When Hoss wanted to talk to me I remembered what you said and I listened.”

    “Oh, Pa, I’m going to miss him so much.  It’s just not fair.”   Joe’s tears surfaced.

     Ben gathered the younger man into his arms.  “Oh Joseph I know.  Me too.”  

    Hop Sing entered the room carrying a tray full of food.  Father and son separated awkwardly and sat down with Jamie to eat.    “I go sit with Mr. Hoss.  Bring him small meal for when he wake,” said the cook.

    As they ate, Ben and Joe discussed how Hoss’s insistence on their being honest with him had also freed them to be honest with each other.   They gently explained to Jamie what was happening.  The boy excused himself from the table and went outside.  “On top of everything else, that boy is just getting over losing his father and settling in with us.  It isn’t going to be easy for him to face losing Hoss,” Pa commented.

    Over the next weeks, their lives fell into a new pattern.   Ben, Joe, or Hop Sing sat with Hoss almost constantly, snatching sleep for themselves in shifts.  At Ben’s insistence, Jamie continued attending school, but he spent as much time as possible with Hoss when he was home.  Joe would periodically give the hired hands instructions and check on their progress, but for the most part he and his father left the running of the ranch to them.  Fortunately the Cartwrights had a good foreman, and all the men realized what the family was going through and did their best to keep things going smoothly.

    As Hoss rapidly weakened, tending to his physical needs took up an increasing portion of the family’s time.  Whoever was available did whatever task was most pressing, with no distinction made between father and son or between boss and employee.   After one episode which Joe was certain had to be particularly unpleasant, and perhaps humiliating, for his brother, Joe blurted out, “Hoss, you just don’t deserve this!”

    Hoss’s soft reply, “No one does, Joe, no one does,”  was the closest to a complaint anyone heard the dying man express.

    When the laudanum ceased to alleviate Hoss’s pain, Doctor Martin provided the caretakers with a supply of morphine and a hypodermic needle and showed them how to inject the painkiller.  Hoss’s reaction, at Ben’s first wary attempt to give him an injection, was, “Now Pa, I know you always said it were a good idea, and no shame, for a man to learn to sew so’s he wouldn’t be goin’ around with missin’ buttons and such, but I never figgered on bein’ no human pincushion.”

    As the morphine took affect and the pain subsided he commented drowsily, “Sure am lucky to live in a time of newfangled notions like that medicine in a needle.  I hate to think of what it woulda been like for someone sick and hurtin’ a hundred years ago.”

During those times when Hoss was awake and relatively comfortable, he, his brothers, his father and Hop Sing would talk, sometimes in pairs, sometimes three or four together, and occasionally all five.  Mostly they reminisced or made small talk.  However, the enormity of the situation, and Hoss’s open and direct manner, overcame their usual characteristically masculine and Western reticence to speak of anything personal.  Hoss made sure he said goodbye to each of the other four, and they in turn each tried to let him know how much he meant to them.  One day Hoss somewhat shyly brought up the subject of his funeral.  Ben and Joe each came close to changing the subject, but both thought the better of it.    Characteristically, Hoss wanted the service to be short and simple.  Before he drifted back to sleep, he motioned to Joe to lean close.  He whispered,  “There is one thing that’d be mighty nice, though I don’t imagine there’s much of chance…”  

    Ben didn’t catch what was said, and when he gave Joe an inquiring look, Joe just shrugged.  That evening, when Hoss was asleep and Joe and Ben were sitting together at his bedside, Ben let Joe know how proud he was of him.  “Not only did you bring me to my senses about this, but you have stayed calm and taken on the most difficult nursing duties without complaint.”

    Joe stared at the floor.  “Pa, what right would I have to complain, when he’s just putting up with it?   If I were in his place I think I’d be screaming!  Or maybe I’d just crawl inside myself and shut everyone else out, like I did when I couldn’t see.  It’s not just the dying that’s so awful, but what he’s going through on the way there.  And he just lies there smiling and joking, trying to make US feel better!  How does he do that?  Why does he do that? “

    Pa thought for a moment.  “Hoss has always been like that.   For him, what happens happens, and you just make the best of it and try not to hurt anyone else in the process.  Joe, you rage against the things you cannot change.  Adam tries to think his way out of impossible situations, and sometimes he ties himself up in knots in the process.  I’ve been known to do both.  But Hoss…Hoss, he usually just lets things be.  I don’t mean that he’s passive.  He’ll do anything to help someone out of a difficulty, or to get a job done that needs doing.  But when there’s nothing to be done, like now, he doesn’t fret.”

    “That is just the word he used, every time either one of us got hurt.  He’d say, ‘Don’t you fret none.’ “  Joe smiled a bit at the memories.

    Ben continued.  “Part of that I think he inherited from his mother.  Inger was the most even-tempered person I have ever known.  She took everything in stride, including a very scruffy and dubious character who showed up at her store needing work for himself and care for his sick little boy.”  

    Joe interjected, “It’s hard for me to picture you as scruffy Pa, and almost as hard for me to imagine Adam as little.”

    “Well I was and he was,” answered Ben.  “I think there is another reason Hoss is the way he is.  He discovered very young that his size and strength could be intimidating to others, so he worked extra hard to give folks no cause to fear him.  One way to do that was to avoid showing anger.  On the very rare occasions when he becomes enraged, he can be pretty dangerous.  Do you remember when he almost killed Adam because he believed Adam had tried to steal his fiancé?”

    “I sure remember that fight, but I never knew exactly why it happened.”  Joe mused for a bit.  “That is one of the few times I remember Hoss ever raising a hand in anger to any of us.  You sure can’t say the same for me and Adam, and we both have the scars to prove it.”

    “Well Joe, I think he trained himself so well to avoid losing his temper, that now he can’t show anger even at this blasted illness, at least while we are watching.”

    “You know me pretty well, Pa.  So you’ve gotta know that even if I seem calm when I’m with you or Hoss, the minute that I’m alone I’m raging up a storm.  Last time I went out to check on the men I rode poor old Cochise awful hard, like if I went far enough, fast enough, I could outrun all of this.  Pretty silly, huh?”

    “Not silly at all.  I’ve mostly been taking it out on the furniture and the walls.”  Ben rubbed his right fist with his left hand, smiling ruefully.  “You are doing the right things where and when it counts Joe.  I think we’re all entitled to some rage.”
 
    Aided by the morphine, Hoss slept for longer and longer periods, punctuated by ever-shorter intervals of consciousness.  And then came a day when he did not waken at all.  When Joe entered the room the next morning at daybreak he found that Ben had spent the night at Hoss’s bedside.

    “No change,” Ben said.  “I guess we have to face the possibility that we’ve had our last conversations with him.”

    Joe checked his pocket watch.  “I have an errand that has to be done today,” he announced.  “I’m taking the buggy.  If everything goes right, I should be back before it gets dark.”  

    Ben lifted his eyes in surprise.  Joe hadn’t ventured far from the house in quite a while.  Joe approached his unconscious brother, whispered something in his ear, and squeezed his hand.  Aloud, he said to him, “You hang on until I get back, you hear me?”

    If Ben wondered at Joe’s behavior, he didn’t indicate it.  Ben sat with Hoss most of the day.  Hop Sing did persuade his boss to rest for a few hours after lunch.  Both older men and Jamie were at Hoss’s bedside when Joe opened the bedroom door around nightfall.  “Is he…?”

    “He’s still here.”  Ben answered the unfinished question.  Then his eyes widened as Joe stepped into the room and to the side, revealing a figure standing behind him, leaning on a cane.  Ben rose, mouth open, and the man met his eyes and nodded, then limped past him and took the vacated seat.  The new arrival clasped Hoss’s nearest hand between both of his and gazed with tear-filled eyes at the unconscious man’s illness-ravaged face.  To the amazement of the five individuals clustered around his bed, Hoss’s eyes blinked open.  He took a moment to focus, then whispered softly, as if he were just changing the topic in a conversation in which he had been participating, “Hey Adam, when did you get here?”  Then he closed his eyes again.  Before the sun rose again over the mountains, Hoss Cartwright drew his last breath.

                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    The graveside funeral service was short and simple, as Hoss had requested.  The minister finished his eulogy by saying, “Hoss asked, if possible, that his brother conclude our farewell to him.”

    Joseph Cartwright handed his older brother a guitar, and Adam began to play and sing one of their middle brother’s favorite songs.

“Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you, away, you rolling river….”


Chapter 2.  Legacy

    In the sad flurry of activity preparing for Hoss’s funeral, the Cartwright family had had little time to just sit and talk.  For the long-absent Adam especially, the whole experience felt somewhat unreal.  The brother he had known the longest was gone, and there was a new brother with whom to become acquainted.  

Jamie was also feeling awkward, and was spending most of his spare time in the kitchen with Hop Sing.  The cook took it upon himself to provide comfort and support to the grieving youth.

When the last of the neighbors who came to pay their respects left the house, Joe and Adam sat down together in the great room.  Adam occupied the red leather chair, and Joe slouched out on the settee with his feet on the low table in front of it.  “Well it’s good to see that some things don’t change,” commented Adam wryly.

    “Yes, and those same things get the same reaction.  Joseph, sit up and put your feet on the floor!”  Ben rumbled as came through the front door after saying goodbye to the last of their visitors.  He walked over to his seated sons.   “Boys,” he continued in a softer voice, “I am more grateful for the two of you than I can say.   Adam, I still can’t quite believe you are here.  You don’t know what this means to me.  What it meant to Hoss…”

    “I wish I’d gotten here sooner.”  Adam replied.

    Ben bent slightly to rest his hands on the back of the settee, and gazed across to where Adam was seated.  “But he knew you came.  It’s as if he was waiting for you.  He held on until you got here.  Joseph, I think that was partly your doing.”

    Joe turned and looked up.  “I couldn’t tell him any sooner that Adam was coming.  Even after Adam wired me from Boston that he was on his way, I had trouble convincing myself that it was going to happen.  I was afraid to disappoint Hoss, or you for that matter, Pa.  Pa, I’m sorry, but that’s why I didn’t tell you either.  But Hoss seemed so close to the end when I left for Carson City, I just had to say something to try to get him to stay with us a few more hours.  I still don’t know if he actually heard me.”

    Ben’s eyes were glistening.  “I think, somehow, he must have heard you son.  Adam, it was your brother Joseph here who convinced me to listen when Hoss wanted to speak about what was happening to him.  Joe gave me the gift that these last days with Hoss became.  I will cherish this time that I got to spend with your brother as long as I live.”

    “Good work, buddy.  I guess Little Joe’s not so little anymore.”   Adam used the long-discarded nickname in a voice that managed to convey both affection and teasing.  If it distressed Adam that Joe hadn’t trusted him to come when he said he would, he didn’t let on.  After all, Adam hadn’t entirely trusted Joe’s first telegram asking him to come home.  Only a second, blunter message had convinced him that he had to hurry if he was ever to see Hoss alive again.

    Joe rolled his eyes when he heard “Little”.  Adam raised his eyebrows in response.  Pa smiled a bit at the antics of his two “bookend” sons, a sight he hadn’t seen for seven years.  Then he reflected on what was missing from this scene and he was nearly overcome.  He hurried up the stairs and closed his bedroom door behind him before Adam and Joe had a chance to react.  They could just make out the sound of muffled, wrenching sobs.  Joe spoke first.

    “Adam, he’s been so strong since the day I sent you that first telegram.  He says I gave him a gift, but he gave Hoss the real gift.  Hoss got to spend his last days with Pa pretty much the way he wanted to.  This is the first I’ve seen Pa give in to his grief.  And you have to know, he’s not had more than a couple of hours sleep a night since Hoss took sick.”

    Adam replied.  “Joe, you don’t have to make excuses for him.  Not to me.  Pa deserves to cry.  In fact, it may be a good thing.  I haven’t heard him cry like that since a few months after your Ma died.  And I don’t know how much you remember, but those first few months, before he was able to talk about her and mourn for her, he was locked away in a melancholy that I was afraid he’d never come out of.”

    “I don’t really remember.  Except, when I think about the time after Ma died, I never picture myself with Pa, only with you or Hop Sing or Hoss.”  Joe gasped as the distant memories reminded him of the enormity of his current loss.  “Oh Adam, Hoss is really gone!”  

Joe looked about to cry, but then he composed himself.  Adam reflected on how he (Adam) was always deemed the most emotionally reticent in the family, yet here was his Pa hiding in his room to mourn, and Joe holding back his tears.  “Well,” he thought, “I’m not exactly putting on a showy display of grief myself.”

Joe and Adam both felt like they ought to be talking, catching up on seven missing years, filling in the blanks that infrequent letters couldn’t cover.  But no topic of conversation seemed to match up to sorrow they were each experiencing, so they mostly sat in silence.  Finally Joe roused himself from his reverie and turned to Adam. “OK, I have you here.  I don’t know when I’ll get another opportunity, so I’m going to ask.  Any chance you’ll come back home for good?”

“No, Joe, there is no chance.  I’m sorry.   It’s not really possible for me move back here.”

Seven years earlier, Adam, who had been feeling restless ever since he had returned to the Ponderosa from college, had left home again to go to sea.  He traveled the world for several years.  His letters home described months of boredom and backbreaking labor, interrupted by days of exotic adventures in marvelous foreign ports.

Not long prior to his departure, Adam had fallen from the roof of a house he was building for himself and his then-fiance, Laura Dayton.  Initially he had been paralyzed from the waist down.   His recovery was remarkable, but as is common with back injuries, Adam continued to experience constant pain.   In any case, thirty-six is a rather advanced age to first go to sea.  Eventually his body began to protest the strain put on it by a seaman’s duties.  He left his ship in Marseille and spent a year traveling through France and Italy, supporting himself by drawing and selling accurate renderings of some of Europe’s cathedrals and other architectural wonders.

When the life of an itinerate American expatriate artist in Europe lost its luster he signed on to a ship sailing to Boston and there, like his father before him, he left the seafaring life for good.  He went to work for the shipping business founded by his maternal grandfather, and when the old man died soon after Adam’s arrival, Adam inherited the majority share of the company.   As he had previously done on the Ponderosa, he committed himself fully to his new responsibilities and was now working hard to build up the business that had been suffering of late from lack of strong leadership.  

Joe assumed that Adam was referring to his back problems with the phrase “really not possible”.  Ben had descended the stairs in time to hear their last exchange and suspected there was more hidden behind those words.  “Adam, how long will you be staying, then?” he asked.

“Unfortunately, I need to take the next available eastbound train,” he replied.  “I plan to leave tomorrow.”

Joe reacted with disbelief and annoyance.  “We don’t see you in seven years and you come home for less than a week?  Can’t that shipping business of yours run itself for a little while?”

“In fact this has been a difficult time for many businesses.  I have obligations.  I am sorry, but I really must go back.”  There was finality in his tone that seemed to eliminate the possibility of further argument.

 “Alright, so you are leaving tomorrow.”  Ben looked very weary.  “Then there is a discussion that cannot be postponed.”

Adam and Joe both looked at him expectantly.  “Boys, my will hasn’t changed much for over twenty-five years.  All my property is to be divided equally between my surviving sons when I die.  Recently, I made sure that Jamie would inherit equally with the rest of you, though his share would be held in trust until he was an adult.  Until now, I had always considered the word ‘surviving’ to be an unnecessary legal flourish.  Now I know better.”

“Pa, this can wait.  Even if I am leaving,” Adam interjected.

“No, there are some things I want to find out now,” Ben continued.  “Adam, I have suspected for a long time that it was entirely possible you would never return to live on the Ponderosa.  From what I heard you tell your brother, I take it that that is still a fair assumption?”

“I plan to stay in Boston for now, yes, Pa,” answered Adam.  His face was unreadable.

“I always imagined that as long as your brothers were here to run the Ponderosa, the four of you would be able work out something equitable between yourselves after I’m gone.  Adam, I figured your share of the profits could be reinvested in the ranch.  The Ponderosa would always be here when you were ready to claim your share.”

“Joe, you and Hoss were named as Jamie’s legal guardians and trustees if anything were to happen to me before he reached adulthood.  Now that responsibility will be yours alone.  What he will want to do with his life once he is a man is anybody’s guess.  I just hope we can provide him with a strong foundation.  I never imagined Hoss doing anything but staying here and working the land.  It’s what he loved to do.  But now he’s gone.  I just never figured….”.  Ben couldn’t finish the sentence, so he took a deep breath and went on to the heart of what he wanted to discuss.

“That brings me to you, Joe.  You’ve become invaluable to me in the last few years.  You have always worked hard, even when you had apparently set your sights on the goal of becoming the most unmanageable youth a man ever had to raise.”

Joe gave a sour smile.

“But Joe,” his Pa went on, “More recently I’ve been able to rely tremendously on your judgment and advice in managing this place.  Despite instigating a few cockamamie schemes, you’ve really become my right hand.  Or in your case, left hand.”

Joe managed to smile again, genuinely this time, while flushing a little with embarrassment.

Ben continued.  “But I realize that I don’t know what you really want.  The Ponderosa was my dream, right from the start.  Adam, I sacrificed your childhood to that dream.  So when you chose to leave I did not stand in your way.”

“I dreamed of passing this land down to all my sons.  But Joe, that was MY dream.  There are no more ‘dues to be paid’ before you get to pursue your own dreams.  This is a home, not a prison.  You are not tied to the Ponderosa for the rest of your life.  I don’t think Hoss ever had any desire to leave.  So I will not brood about never offering him the option.  But his death is a reminder that men have finite possibilities in this life.  And Joe, I do not want to stand in your way.  You have worked with me as unwaveringly as any man could wish for from a son.  I want you to know that you are always free to go.”

There was a long silence, and then Joe spoke up.  “Pa, I know I have always complained more than Hoss about chores and work.  I will never be as wise about the land and the stock and the wild things as he was.  And I will never be as smart a businessman as Adam here.  I’ve been hearing the words ‘restless’ and ‘reckless’ attached to me for as long as I can remember.  Sure, I have done my share of foolish things.  And sure, I’d like to see faraway places.  I’d like to visit New Orleans some day, and I kinda have a hankering to see New York City too.  Maybe someday I’ll visit old Adam here in Boston.  But leave the Ponderosa for good?  Do something else with my life?  Oh, Pa, no.  Maybe I never said it before because I never thought it needed to be said.  This is my home.  I’ve never known or wanted any other.  My mother is buried here.  Now my brother is buried here.  Pa, you’re here.  I’d complain about work wherever I was, because I sure do have a lazy streak, but the work here is the only work I really want to do.  So Pa, I will stay here and work with you on this ranch for as long as you’ll have me.”

“As long as I’ll have you?  Boy, I hope you haven’t changed your mind about that lesson on honesty that you gave me recently, because I am going to take you at your word.   You and I will continue to work this land together.”

Jamie emerged from the kitchen and was about to slip quietly upstairs.  Instead, Ben gestured for him to come join them.  Jamie sat next to his adopted father on the settee and let Ben hold him close.  

None of the Cartwrights wanted to waste the short time they had left to spend all together sleeping.  So it was a tired quartet that sat down to an early breakfast the next day, trying to substitute coffee for the slumber they lacked.  Jamie excused himself from the table first.  “I guess I best be getting to school.”  

Adam reached across the table to shake his hand.  “I’m proud to have made the acquaintance of my youngest brother.  Now that Joe is such a sober citizen, this place needs some youth to liven it up.”  Jamie smiled shyly and gratefully, and left feeling that his position in the family was secure.

In a few minutes Joe followed.  “It’s time a Cartwright got back to running this place.  We’ve got good hands, but we can’t leave them to their own devices forever.”

Adam rose stiffly and walked him to the door.  While Joe put on his hat and strapped on his gunbelt, Adam spoke.  “Joe, thank you again for getting me here on time.   The pain of this visit, losing Hoss, I can’t put into words.  But seeing you, no longer a boy, at Pa’s side, knowing how much Pa can rely on you, is tremendously gratifying.  Pa may seem all right on the outside, but he’s really hurting.  And I know you are too.  I trust you to take care of Pa and to take care of yourself as well.”

“Thanks Adam.  That means a lot.”  Joe took a deep breath, decided to risk some humor rooted in their youthful rivalry, and added,  “Even from a Yankee granite-head.”

Adam reached to swat Joe’s head playfully, but Joe ducked the blow, and Adam had to catch himself on the doorframe to keep from falling.  He shook his head in apparent defeat.  Joe stood just outside the open door, trying to decide whether to revel in the experience of getting the upper hand, or to feel just a bit contrite at having reverted to childish name-calling, especially at such a time.  He didn’t have long to ponder the conundrum.

“Well, LITTLE Joe, I see you still need to learn to respect your elders and betters.”   With that Adam deftly tossed his cane in the air, grabbed it by the bottom, and wrapped the curved top around Joe’s ankle.  Joe was caught by surprise and Adam managed to pull him to the porch floor.  The maneuver was nimbly executed, but as he pulled his brother’s leg out from under him Adam also overbalanced, and he landed in a heap on the threshold, not far from Joe.  

Ben rushed over, alarmed.  “Adam, are you hurt, boy?”

Adam winced from the jolt his back had taken.  The spasm passed mercifully quickly, and the wince was replaced by a resigned smirk.  “Just my dignity.  I am definitely too old and decrepit for such tomfoolery.”

“Just watch whom you are calling old, son.”  Ben glanced down, amused.

“Hey!  You didn’t ask whether I was hurt!  I’m the one who was attacked by the mad caner and his lethal weapon!”  Joe disentangled his foot from the cane and stood.  When Ben determined that neither of his sons was seriously injured, he found himself chuckling, somewhat surprised that he still could.

“What is it they say, Pa?” asked Adam.  “The more things change the more they stay the same?”

“Always a clever expression for everything, huh Adam?” grumbled Joe.  He reached down to offer Adam a hand up, but Adam was more inclined to trust his father’s assistance.

Joe handed Adam back his cane and clasped his brother’s hand tightly.  “Well, so long, Adam.   Have a safe trip back.”  He paused, gazing into his older brother’s eyes.  His voice became hoarse.  “Thank you for coming.  I mean it.”  Then he let go, turned sharply for the barn and walked away, unable to trust his emotions for a more prolonged farewell.

Ben drove Adam in the buggy to the train station in Carson City.  From there it was now possible to travel on the Virginia-Truckee line to Reno, where Adam would catch an eastbound transcontinental train. During the buggy ride Ben learned more details of Adam’s life and business.  He could see that his eldest son was still somehow searching, still discontent with his life.  Ben considered making one last plea for Adam’s return to the Ponderosa, and then thought the better of it.  He decided that he owed it to his sensible eldest to continue to let him manage his own affairs.  They exchanged short, but heartfelt, goodbyes as Adam boarded the train for the first leg of his journey east.

On his long, solitary ride back to the Ponderosa, Ben took in the scenery he had marveled at many times before.  He felt sharp pangs of loss for his gentle middle son who so loved the land and who would never again enjoy these sights on earth.  And Ben pondered with wonder and gratitude the fact that his mercurial third-born had proven to be the steadfast partner who would help him continue to build his dream and his legacy.

End


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