THE DEVIL’S BARGAIN

By: Monette

“Oh, Pa….” sobbing with the wretched pain of his soul, Adam collapsed into his pa’s waiting arms.

“He was dragging a dead man, Pa.”

“He’s been through some kind of hell.” Joe tried to give Adam water, with only limited success, as it seemed Adam had passed out shortly after collapsing.

Ben held Adam tight, the son he had just given up for dead. He was ready to leave, go home, stop looking for his missing son. If they hadn’t seen him when they did, Adam’s hell would have been far from over. The anguish over that decision only slowly diminished, and fear added to it, fear that Adam might never recover from whatever hell he’d been through for two weeks. But relief at finding his son still alive slowly overcame all other concerns.

Hoss and Joe understood, and allowed him time to both mourn and rejoice.

“What do you suppose happened to him, Pa?” Hoss asked finally. “Who was that man?”

“Adam will tell us, when he can. Whatever happened, I don’t suppose there’s any more we can do about it now.” Ben felt Adam’s shudders against him lessen but still he couldn’t release the hold of his dear son’s body against his. “Boys, bury that man. We'll use that travois to get Adam home. Even if we had a horse for him, I doubt he’d have the strength to sit up.”

Joe stood next to Hoss. “Hoss, we’ll put a bedroll on that travois so that Adam can lay on it, so he’s not…” Joe bit back a shudder. “Lying where the dead man was.” Joe crouched down by Ben as Hoss went for digging tools. “Pa, how he is?”

Slowly Ben shifted Adam’s weight so he could see his face. His eldest, face flushed and dirty, had relaxed into sleep. “Probably hasn’t slept in days.”

“Pa, he was robbed and left out in the desert to die. He didn’t die because he ran into the…that man back there. But what did he mean by no more games, and no gold?”

“Joseph, not now. Let’s get that body buried and get Adam home. Go help Hoss.” Ben poured water from the canteen to keep Adam’s lips and face cooled with water.

Joe stood a moment longer over them, fighting the guilt that wanted to consume him - guilt he knew better than to bear but was there all the same.

***

Adam at first didn’t know where he was. His eyes opened to total darkness and shut quickly again. Was he dead? Had he died? Being still alive would shock him. He could feel movement. He was lying, as though in a bed, on the ground, in a grave, but the ground was moving, or he was….Kane! Kane was dragging him! He couldn’t feel his arms, so Kane must have killed him and now was dragging him…somewhere…

He jerked his arms - no, they were by his side. The ground still moved beneath him. Kane. Where was Kane? “KANE?!”

Instantly the ground stopped. Adam looked up but couldn’t see anything familiar. Kane won, after all, Kane was alive and Adam had died. But did that make Kane a better man? Somehow he lost track of the game. He couldn’t keep his eyes open. As they closed again, mercifully, he felt his mind drifting away - it was all over. The game ended. No gold.

“Adam…”

No! His family was looking for him! He was lost and they were looking. He opened his mouth and tried to call to them but couldn’t, because Kane would kill him or Kane would kill them. No, he couldn’t call out because Kane would do this to them, too. That’s why he was a better man but he didn’t expect Kane to understand that. He tried to open his eyes, to face Kane’s laughing face, but couldn’t, just couldn’t, he wanted all this to be a bad dream, and when he woke up….

“Adam, you awake?” The voice was soft and gentle, reassuring.

“Pa?”

“We’re almost home, son, don’t try to talk.”

“Home?” But had he won? “Kane?”

“He’s dead, son.”

“Dead? I…”

“Don’t talk now. Rest. There’s plenty of time later.”

No, Adam thought, no, there wasn’t. Not if Kane died. The game was over and he was still alive. But he didn’t deserve to be. Not at this price. He thought hard but couldn’t remember what happened after he learned there was food and water, enough for one of them to get out alive. If he had killed Kane, then Kane had won, proving him no better than an animal.

***

Sunlight hit his eyelids and Adam winced. The ground wasn't moving anymore and his throat was parched. He remembered the walk through the desert after his horse was taken from him. He had mourned the loss of his mount more than the danger, pushed aside the thought of what could happen if he didn't find a way out, all the while hoping his horse would get free and come find him. No, it was only a horse. It would find its way home but not in time for them to find him. Five days, a week, before he died of thirst? Three days, he remembered three days passing. He had chewed on stones, cactus leaves, dug in the ground for muddy soil, all before he found...salvation…in the form of...

By that time his eyes had been nearly burned into his skull and the miner's camp looked like a mirage.

He felt something cold and wet laid over his face and his whole body shook, startled. He reached up to take it off, but a firm strong hand grabbed his arm.

"Easy, son." Ben sat next to him, next to the son who looked seriously out of place in his own room. Dr. Martin had just left. Adam hadn’t even noticed his presence, though he had been conscious the whole time. The doctor prescribed bed rest and time. He had nothing else to offer.

"Where's Kane?" Adam tried to sit up and throw off his covers. "I have to talk to him."

Ben pushed him back down easily because Adam was still weak. "I'm sorry, son. If that's the man you were dragging, he's dead."

"Dead?" Adam stared at the ceiling, trying to remove himself physically back through time, back to when Kane was still alive, should still be alive. "He can't be dead. Who killed him?"

Ben frowned, trying but unable to hide his dismay. "I don't know, son."

“I have to know how he died, Pa. I just can’t...remember...”

“What do you remember, Adam?” Ben closed the curtains to shut off the outside world where Adam had so long fought to stay alive. He thought the sun must be keeping Adam from fully opening his eyes. He looked back at his son in the darkened room and frowned. Adam’s eyes were still only slits in a haggard, drawn face. Ben sat next to him again. "Can you talk about it?”

“Could I have some...some water?” With a sudden cry of pain he threw his arms up around his head, the memory of past agony collapsing him even further into the bed where it seemed life and death were all one world to him now.

Ben waited until he calmed again, and then helped him drink. He heard Hoss and Joe in the doorway behind them. "Go see if Hop Sing has anything Adam can eat." Hoss left but Joe remained. Ben turned back to Adam, who seemed not to recognize where he was or even who he was. “I can’t lose him now,” was Ben’s agonized thought and so he pushed ahead. “Start at the beginning, son. What do you remember?”

When Adam finally looked up at Ben and Joe it was without hope or recognition. “I’m tired. Please go.”

Ben patted Adam’s leg and stood. He walked out of the room but Joe was reluctant to follow, so Ben grabbed his arm and pulled him out.

“Pa, that doesn’t look like Adam in there. What happened to him?”

“He wants to know who killed Kane.”

“He doesn’t think he did it? Maybe there was someone else out there, someone we didn’t see.”

“Or he did kill Kane, and he’s afraid to face it.”

“Well, if he did, it’s because the man deserved it. We know that.”

Ben sighed, staring at the still figure in bed through the partially opened door. “This is more than a simple case of self-defense, Joe. Adam will have to come to terms with it in his own way. Somehow.”

***

"Pa, mebbe we oughta get Preacher Hartkins to come out and talk to Adam." Hoss had just come inside from chores because the banging from upstairs seemed to shake the entire house, and he thought he might be needed. Ben stood on the bottom of the stairs, looking up, uncertain what to do, and he stopped Hoss from running up there as well.

"I don't think a preacher can talk to him if we can't."

Hoss knew well what the last couple of days had been like for his pa. Adam rejected every conversation attempt, preferring instead whatever noise was going on inside his head. Then he stopped talking to himself and started making noises, not letting anyone into his room. They had taken to putting his food outside his door, often enough taking the tray back without any food being touched. How Adam kept up the energy to make all that noise none of them could figure. Ben tried to reassure everyone that Adam's appetite would need to come back slowly. It had only been three days since they brought him home, but he had locked himself up for the last two and the smell was getting bad up there. Ben didn't know when they finally got that door open, if he could stand to see what his son had become. What had Kane done to him?

Ben climbed a step, but stopped as another sudden loud bang shook the rafters.

"Pa, let me come up with you."

"No. You go join Joe out on the logging contract. Tell him...tell him I expect him to come home with you tonight."

Hoss watched Ben climb slowly but his thoughts drifted to his younger brother, who had fled the house after the first loud bang from upstairs and hasn’t been back since. Hoss wished Pa luck with Adam, and went out to see if he’d have better luck with Joe.

***

Ben climbed the stairs, braced for another loud bang. He stood outside Adam's door, getting more concerned over the lack of sound than by the banging. He rapped on the door softly. "Adam?"

When Adam didn't answer, Ben steeled himself, grabbed the doorknob and turned it. The door wouldn't open. "Adam!" Not a sound. "Son, you have to let me help. You have to talk about this. Please, Adam. Don't stay in the desert. Come home."

He heard a noise, a sound, but he wasn't sure what - a soft sobbing, or sighing or scrapping of wood, ever so slight. But then Ben found he could open the door and eased himself into room.

Adam sat on the edge of the bed, unshaven, clothes ripped. Except for a broken chair and a pile of bedclothes in one corner, the room seemed pretty intact. What had been making all those different sounds, just the chair? Ben walked to the window and opened it to air out the room. Adam just stared down at his hands.

Ben sat next to him and put a slightly shaking hand on his shoulder. "I'm going to town this afternoon and I'd like to bring Dr. Martin back---."

"No."

"But Adam, you---."

"I killed him, Pa. I did it."

"You're remembering?"

"I'm sorry for the noise, the mess..."

Ben never thought he'd ever see one of his sons so lifeless, so devoid of any emotion whatever.

“I thought if I could recreate what happened, feel it physically, I could remember. And I did…most of it. But not all. Not….all…”

"Tell me about it, son." Maybe now the healing could begin.

Adam told his pa everything he could remember, up to the rifle being put between them and Kane starting to count, at the moment when Adam said he felt like something inside him “twisted.” He talked slowly, and at times the words had to be pulled out of him like a worm from a mud hole. Ben, fighting tears as he listened, at times found the words he thought Adam needed, and at other times it seemed that hours went by in the silence when both were too horrified to speak.

“And then…I saw your face…and just for an instant, I thought I had died, or was dying, and seeing you again wasn’t real, because so little had been real, starting with the shooting of the mule.” Adam stood and just as suddenly sat again. “I can’t seem to shake this feeling of unreality, of still being in that mine, wondering when it would all end. How it would all end.”

Ben stood, unsure of his own composure. “You’ve just relived a very tragic experience, Adam. I suggest you try and rest, and maybe now that you’ve talked about it, you’ll remember the rest. I’ll bring…lunch---.” He stumbled from the room, hoping Adam didn’t notice his distress, and just outside Adam’s door fell to his knees as wrenching sobs wracked his body.

***

It seemed like just another day, like any day before the fateful cattle drive that nearly ended Adam's life. Hop Sing rattled breakfast pans, Hoss's snoring was disturbed by Joe's loud rapping to wake him up, and Ben yelled at them both to light their lanterns and get ready for early dawn chores.

But unlike other mornings, Ben hesitated outside Adam's room. Adam's lantern was already lit, but Ben knew that didn't mean he was awake. He slept a lot ever since getting home and with the lantern lit, like developing a habit he just couldn't break, in a fear of darkness he couldn’t name... because he couldn’t remember. He had confessed to Ben only the night before, when he hoped talking would help him remember how he killed Kane, that he felt like an empty corpse without a soul.

Ben knew that this feeling of emptiness was like death, he could see it in his son’s eyes. A week after the banging stopped was a time during which Ben had hoped Adam would find a way to come to terms with the killing, but he hadn’t. They all tried to reassure him that this Kane must have deserved it somehow, but Adam grew angry, nearly violent when they tried to reassure him, so finally Hoss and Joe took to being busy on the ranch. The chores were waiting for him, they reminded Adam, but Adam couldn’t bring himself to leave the house. He told them in one vulnerable moment that he was afraid of what was out there. “Out there.” As though he couldn’t trust himself anymore.

He kept himself busy in the house, or so he said. He said he did the books, but Ben found only broken pencils and smudges where figures should be. He said he read but there were no books alongside the chairs. The layer of soot on his guitar was a little thicker every day. Ben feared the ‘busy’ that he said he was meant that he did little more than wander from one room to another, as listless during the day as he appeared at night when he tried to eat supper with them.

Ben felt more and more they could be losing him for good. Adam didn't regain the weight he had lost, but actually looked more haggard and thin after a week than he had when they first found him, if that were possible.

Ben couldn’t just sit by and watch his son fade away. He met his boys downstairs to stop them from running off to do chores. He told Joe to stay with Adam instead of helping with the herd, and took Hoss with him to Virginia City to see Dr. Martin. Joe told his pa thought he might know how to snap Adam out of it, but Ben told him to wait until they heard what Paul Martin had to say.

***

"Paul, he just sits there most days! He can’t read, he can’t write, he doesn’t seem to concentrate, he can barely eat. How long can he live like this?" Ben and Hoss had been made to wait nearly an hour in the doctor's office for Paul to return from a call, and Ben nearly burst with his frustration.

"I’m afraid I just don’t know, Ben. The trauma to his mind is such an uncertain thing."

“He thinks he killed that man, but exactly how he just can’t recall,” Hoss said.

“It’s killing him, Paul, the idea that he killed the man who saved his life. But he had good reason!” Ben stood and paced. “The things that man did. If he were here right now he’d be dead three times over.”

“Four,” Hoss added quietly.

Paul cleared his throat and stood, facing his library before turning back. “Right now Adam doesn't trust himself. He doesn't trust either his mental or his physical capability. He needs to remember everything, and he needs to forgive himself. To understand that the heat, and the lack of food and water, can do terrible things to a man. Coupled with the insanity…"

"What if what he remembers is more painful than he could even imagine?" Ben and Hoss exchanged glances after Ben said this, knowing full well what Adam was like after finding out how he accidentally caused the death of a woman when he was only 11. He nearly died trying to make up for all that hate that came down on their family by her husband 18 years later. They all agreed that what Kane had done to Adam justified whatever savagery Adam may have resorted to. But Adam couldn’t see it that way. He told them if he had been the person he once thought he was, he never would have crossed a moral line, no matter how temporarily insane Kane had driven him.

In the silence Paul nodded. "Not knowing is always worse."

"You don't know my brother," Hoss said.

"I know human nature."

Ben stood. "We better get back, Hoss. I think we were hoping, Paul, that you'd have thought of some miracle cure."

"I'm sorry."

"Any idea how we can help him remember?"

Paul brushed at a speck on his coat jacket as he speculated. He walked over to his library and pulled out a book. After flipping through a few pages, he nodded as he read and turned to them. “He needs to have something brought to his senses from those moments that he's buried. Something he sees, or tastes, or hears can remind him of just one single second that he's lost. That something we call a 'trigger.' Once he remembers just one second of that missing past, the rest should start returning to him – like a bullet from a gun hitting a target. Find out as much as you can about his surroundings at the time, and you should find that trigger."

Ben and Hoss walked out of the office. Neither of them headed for the saloon, breaking a normal habit of washing the trail dust before heading back. There was an urgency to home now, one that broke all routine.

"Pa, what do you think Joe’s cooking up back home?”

"I don’t know. But I wouldn’t worry, Hoss, he won’t do anything before we get back."

"Mebbe not. But he’s been awful quiet ever since we found Adam. I don’t think I seen him smile once. Pa, Joe reassured us that he doesn’t feel guilty over this, but what if he’s hiding feelings, too?"

“I thought of that but, no, Joe has to realize this was beyond all our comprehension. No. He’s just upset, as we all are.”

Hoss took the reins of his horse. “Yeah. I reckon.”

Ben watched his son mount up before following slowly. His youngest, Joe, had matured almost beyond his years, starting when he found Adam's horse at the way station in the desert and especially after the encounter in Salt Flat, when he bore the heavy belief alone that Adam was dead. The wire he had then sent them was the worst moment in Ben’s life, but he only now started to understand what it must have done to Joe to send it. Ben had been proud of the idea that Joe was too mature to believe that what happened out there was in any way his fault. He certainly couldn't have foreseen the robbery.

Ben knew for sure that the visions he’d gotten from Adam of what Kane had done to his son would never fully dissolve from his mind. He only shared parts of the story with Hoss and Joe, sparing them these visions. And the agony that Adam had endured would have been enough to kill even him, except for - what? What had kept his son alive?

Suddenly Ben realized he needed to know the whole story, too. Not that he didn't trust his son, but how well do we know our own children? Adam had adjusted to the fact that Winnie Van Remus died because of his fear. But what had that done to him inside? Could he have intentionally killed a man without asking himself if there was another way?

Ben never thought he would believe that sometimes killing was right. After what they’d been through with Van Remus, and even with the War of the Rebellion raging back east, this was still a hard concept for him to grasp.

***

Joe sat at the dining table, finishing his lunch but not tasting it. He slyly watched Adam, noting his every move, which, at the moment, appeared like the wary watch of prey by the panther. Adam sat motionless, staring at the fire. Joe tried but couldn’t shake his guilt, only reinforcing it with the knowledge that he was the one who left Adam alone with all that money. But neither of them could have expected…

And Joe realized, watching Adam’s panther-like motionlessness, that he had never doubted any decisions his oldest brother made. It was just that way, since he could remember. Adam was always grown up. Why would he have questioned Adam’s desire to take all that money fishing? Now he knew that even Adam could make mistakes. But Joe should have known that all along, and in fact, they argued enough about things, Joe never thought Adam was always right. Just that when Adam made decisions, they always seemed right.

And now he just sat there, looking like he was destroyed inside. No, maybe Adam could make mistakes, but he couldn’t be destroyed. Not Adam.

“Hey, Adam, the mercantile got some new books in.”

Adam looked up at him with the blank expression that meant he was trying hard not to think, because the only other expression he had was of pain. Thinking hurt, he told Pa a few days before. He was tired of hurting. “You ought to take up reading.” Adam got up and poked the fire, and sat back again.

Joe grinned and stood. He may be hiding, but his brother was still there. This might take a little doing, but he was going to get Adam back, as only he knew how. “I didn’t get the chance to tell you that Obediah Johnson got off with only five years. He didn’t hang. You were wrong.”

“There’s a lot of that going around, isn’t there.”

“A lot of what?” Joe sat next to him on the settee.

“Wrongness.”

Joe could feel Adam’s body tense, and waited. He could tell Adam was struggling with this new information.

“He should have hung, if he admitted killing him.”

“But there were extenuating circumstances, Adam. You have to know the whole story. You’ve heard of self-defense, right?”

“Self defense.” As Adam mocked those words the fire crackled, sending ash into the room.

“Yeah. Pa has always taught us that we have the right to defend ourselves. Now in the case of Obediah, those two partners were robbing him blind and poisoning him with silver tailings. Because of that, the judge saw fit to let him live and just serve time.”

Adam stood and paced the room, taking his look of the wary panther with him, pacing as just another of the habits he’d developed. “So even though he could have just turned those two over to the authorities and instead decided to kill them, for vengeance, he wasn’t totally at fault? Does that make sense to you, Joe?”

“Well, in a way it does, yeah.” Joe walked over to Adam. “Look Adam,” he put a hand on his shoulder, “you were being tortured, brother. You have to see---.”

Adam flung Joe’s hand off his shoulder. “That I killed the man who saved my life. That’s what I see. What does that make me, Joe?”

“I don’t think you killed him, Adam.”

“What?”

“Look, you said you can’t remember all of it. You just know what we know, that you pulled a dead man out of the canyon, and you assume you killed him. What if there was someone else there? What if it wasn’t you? You could be killing yourself over this for no reason. You set great store by the law. What about pleading innocent until proven guilty?”

Adam turned to the door, shoulders slumped. “The answer. I have to find it.”

Joe took a deep breath. “I think we should ride back there. Then you’d remember.”

“No.” Adam sighed, and as he turned back into the room his knees gave out. He grabbed the back of the settee for support. Finally he stood again, steeling his shoulders, looking nearly as he should except for the dead in his eyes. “Me.” And before he could change his mind, he ran up the stairs to dress.

***

Joe helped Adam saddle his horse. Going out to his horse turned out to be harder for Adam than Joe had anticipated. “You sure you don’t need me to come along? I feel like I owe this to you.”

Adam mounted up. “Tell you what, I’ll meet you in three days at Signal Rock.” He turned and rode out without waiting for a response.

Joe watched him ride out, trying to reassure himself he’d done the right thing. He felt that he was the only one who could get through to Adam, because they had shared part of the blame for what had happened. Adam didn’t say as much, but he must know, as well as Joe did, that they never should have talked about the money in a saloon in a strange town.

At the same time, though, he didn’t want Pa to know what he had been planning because Pa still tended to treat his youngest like a kid. That would all change now, because this experience had changed him, too, something neither Pa nor Hoss had acknowledged. Adam had to face his fear out there. Joe figured that was the key to getting his brother back again.

As soon as he made sure Adam was headed in the right direction, he ran back inside the house. “Hop Sing! Throw some food together, enough for me and Adam for two days, and hurry up!”

Hop Sing came out. “You get Adam to work now?”

“I got him to ride off and I’m going to follow him. I’ve convinced him that he needs to remember and…” Joe stopped when he recognized the expression on Hop Sing’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“You maybe send him to his death? You not wait for food, you go now! Go!”

“What are you talking about?”

“He tell me this morning, that he should have die and not his mother.”

“He said that? Today?” Joe turned to the door. “And now… you think…”

“He find way to punish self for killing crazy man. Should not leave him alone until he remember.”

Joe had forgotten the one thing that made Adam the serious and determined man he was – the desire to prove himself worthy of being the reason his mother had died. Kane might have robbed Adam of more than he could ever know. Joe ran to the door, grabbing his gun and hat. “Tell Pa – tell Pa I got Adam to ride the range with me, Hop Sing, nothing more. Let me handle this, okay?”

He didn’t hear Hop Sing’s answer as the door slammed behind him.

***

Adam rode hard, pushing the horse up rocky cliffs at a torturous pace, almost as though punishing his mount for allowing those men to separate them. Finally he slowed up. “Couldn’t come back and find me, boy, huh? Thought maybe they shot you and that’s why you didn’t come back. I always thought we were friends.”

The rocks, the breeze, the trees – nothing about being outside felt good to him. All of this was a dangerous reminder of how much at the mercy of the earth’s resources they were, how easy it was to get lost and never find the way back home again. Home was where the food was but out here, life was merciless. Try and find a rabbit when you’re hungry, just try!

“Did I kill you, Kane, huh? ANSWER ME!” The horse, spooked by the shouting, slipped a little on the rocky path and Adam with experienced reflexes tightened his legs to keep from flying off the saddle. “What’s the matter, boy, can’t take a little madness?! Well, I can, so you better get used to it!”

The horse snorted and stumbled again and Adam jumped down. “All right, you win. You don’t want to be here, so go on home. Go on! I can survive without you, I did it before. GO ON!” He forced the horse backward onto more stable ground and waved his arms. Finally the horse trotted off toward home. Adam watched it a moment, nodding. “That’s loyalty, isn’t it?” He faced the path leading further up the side of the cliff. “This isn’t the way to Pyramid Lake. What was I thinking?”

***

Joe followed the trail to Pyramid Lake, judging that to be the direction Adam was headed. When he reached a section of the path with loose granite soil he pulled up short. There were no fresh horse tracks here. He thought he had been following tracks, wherever tracks could possibly be seen, but now he realized he’d been following more a path of wishful thinking. That Adam would actually do what Joe expected him to do – now that was wishful. Because of Hop Sing, he realized he never should have gone against Pa’s wishes, and now if anything happened…

“Adam!? Hey, ADAM!”

No response. Joe whirled his horse around and headed back, knowing there were other trails to take along the way, heading in other directions, including several that dead-ended. He’d find him – this time, he had to. Without help.

***

Ben and Hoss rode home silently, quickly, but still it was nearing sunset when they made it back. Both had been hard in thought about possible triggers to give Adam his trust back in himself, occasionally sharing a thought only to discard it. Neither of them expected what they saw when they rode up to the corral by the house.

“Pa, ain’t that Adam’s horse? Why’s it saddled?”

Ben jumped down and felt the horse’s rear. Not ridden lately. “Hoss, maybe this means…” Ben left his horse untied and ran into the house. “Adam!”

Hoss came in behind him. “Pa, Adam’s horse wasn’t tied.”

“Adam doesn’t seem to be here, either. Hop Sing! Joe!”

“Dadburnit. What has Joe gone and done?”

“Now, let’s not jump to conclusions. There’s probably a logical---.”

“Mr. Cartlight!” Hop Sing ran down the stairs. “Mr. Joe has gone after Mr. Adam. Why is Mr. Adam’s horse come back?”

Ben had to digest everything quickly, pausing only briefly to wonder what Hop Sing did with his afternoons that he would miss something like a horse returning without a rider hours ago. “Tell us what you know, Hop Sing.”

***

He wasn’t in the desert but he remembered heat, the cool mountain breeze for the moment unstirring. He was alone, on foot, and through nothing more than his own foolishness, his own stupidity, left out here to die. And he would’ve without Kane, because all he had was his own strength and resources. A faith in one’s self did not quench thirst. He no longer recognized that he was close enough to home to turn around and walk there but kept forging forward, determined, with a goal in mind that he couldn’t name. He recognized the heat, the thirst, but he couldn’t find the feeling of helplessness that so overwhelmed his movements once before and without that, could he ever hope to be whole again? Could he hope to overcome this frustration that he hadn’t had enough strength to save himself but had to depend on someone else, would always have to depend on others for help, and that there would be a higher price to pay each time?

He stumbled against his upward ascent of the cliff, smashing his little finger against the rock, but the pain was meaningless because there wasn’t anyone else around. Was it true that our lives only held meaning in relationship to someone else? Or something else? And he had sent his horse away, forgetting that his horse had no more control over what happened out there in the desert than he had. Loss of control. That was it, wasn’t it? He couldn’t take the loss of control, when someone else had his future, his very identity, in their hands.

Before he realized it he had reached the top of the cliff, the trail abruptly ending, and there was nowhere to go but down. He suddenly became dizzy and dropped to his knees. Kane was down there somewhere. All he had to do was call out, and Kane would hear him and come to his aid. He opened his mouth to yell but nothing came out. He didn’t want to be rescued. This time he was in control and he wasn’t about to put his life in someone else’s hands. No one had to help him anymore. He closed his eyes – the dizziness wasn’t passing. So easy to just slip, and in moments all the pain, from the little finger to the very large bruise in his mind, all would be over….

“Adam! Hey, Adam!”

Startled, Adam opened his eyes and looked down. He quickly latched on to a rock behind him and pulled himself backward as several rocks loosened beneath him and fell off the cliff. He listened but didn’t hear the voice again, only the sound his body would make falling with rocks off the cliff. He hadn’t imagined that voice. Someone was behind him somewhere. What did they want? Chances were they wanted what he didn’t have to give.

“Help! Please help!”

Now not so far away. Adam slid down a little to a bracing of half fallen trees and found a narrow path he hadn’t seen before. There was a man who appeared to have been trying to climb a tree when the tree decided to fall over on top of him.

“What are you doing there?”

The man laughed in relief. “Oh, I am so glad to see you. I was afraid I’d die of thirst out here. Could you help me out of this predicament?”

Adam crawled toward him to get a better look at his face without touching the tree. “You look familiar – do I know you?”

“I don’t think so. I’m new to the area. Don’t I look like a greenfoot, though?” He laughed again, sincerely embarrassed.

“Does it hurt?”

“Oh no, but, well, it’s uncomfortable. I’m not used to feeling this helpless, you know.”

“You sure I haven’t seen you anywhere before?”

“Pretty sure. Well, I’m a preacher, maybe you’ve been to Placerville?”

“A few times. Never for mass, though.” A sudden pain pounded through Adam’s head and he pinched his eyes shut, feeling sure when he opened them again all this would be gone and he would be back in that miserable cave, still pounding rock, Kane’s voice mocking him. “Still so sure of yourself, Cartwright?”

“Do you think you can help? Maybe go find someone who can? I’d ask God but a bolt of lightning would probably send me down the side of this cliff.” The preacher’s face was becoming shaded as the sun set behind them but his voice remained startlingly familiar.

“Maybe.” Adam stood and worked around the tree, looking for a place to grab hold. “I need to lift the tree just a little, and you can scoot out, right?”

“I think so.”

After a few cautious movements around the tree, Adam found a spot to grab hold and firm rock to brace against. He tried to lift it, but his strength during the past month had been sapped. He had no help to give. After a moment he sat back. “I’m sorry, I guess I better find someone else to help you.”

“Oh, no, my son. You can do it. You just have to have faith in yourself.”

“Look, you don’t know me.”

“Are you afraid to help me?”

“You’ll be happier if you help yourself so you’re not beholding to anyone. When someone owns you they can torture you.”

“Oh no, my son. This world is made up of beholding and beholders. Without the help we have for each other, we wouldn’t survive. The best part about it, though, is that the roles change, every day, as do the players. Some good, some bad. But we’re all needy, in some way or another.”

“I’ll go get help.”

“No, you won’t. Because you can’t even help yourself.”

Adam gritted his teeth, wanting to yell at this insidious man, but instead he grabbed hold of the tree again, getting under it this time, and pushed up, straining, grunting, biting back a cry, pushing until he could feel every pore fill with sweat. When he heard the Preacher say thank you, he slowly lowered the tree again. He leaned against it panting, and when he looked up, all he saw was the sunset. He felt the Preacher’s hand on his shoulder, vaguely heard him say thank you again, and then he was gone.

Adam didn’t hear him leave because Kane’s voice was in his head, Kane saying “kill me, kill me, Cartwright, either way, I win…” and Adam could feel himself choking him, could feel the man’s flesh, his lumpy throat muscles starting to bend in Adam’s clenched hands, and Kane starts to gasp and stops struggling. In horror Adam pulls his hands away from Kane’s throat and Kane starts breathing again –

He started breathing again!

Adam had smashed the rifle, ending the game. He grabbed the food to make his escape but heard Kane’s voice screaming at him, saying that he was an animal too, just like those two men who left him behind….and Adam had turned and saw Kane, saw his head wedged in the rocks, where he’d fallen…he’d fallen…

***

“Joe! Where’s Adam!?” Ben and Hoss, riding hard, caught up to Joe who was still searching for the route Adam might have taken.

Joe, startled, near tears, felt he was meeting his worst nightmare seeing Pa and Hoss and not Adam. Memory of meeting them to search for Adam’s body returned with such force he couldn’t bear it. How was he going to explain he lost his brother, and this time it was all his fault!? Not two men with rocks for brains – his own brother. He could have gotten over the guilt of losing Adam that first time, but not this time. This time he sent his brother out here, by himself, knowing the kind of mood Adam was in, and he let him go alone.

“Pa, don’t worry. Go home. I know where Adam is and I’ll find him.”

He couldn’t let them know, couldn’t let them find out that he was responsible, because this will destroy them all. This was worse than all the fights he and Adam had had, this was as though he didn’t care about his brother at all and sent him out here to die. But he didn’t! He just wanted to help! To make up for letting him go to Pyramid Lake alone.

Joe jumped off his horse and started running up a section of the cliff that the horse couldn’t scale. The rocks were loose, the brush half dead and breaking under his grip, and before he knew it he was falling backward, slipping, the granite dust filling his eyes and mouth and this was it, he couldn’t hide it anymore. He had killed his brother.

“Joe, are you all right?” Hoss picked Joe up carefully, getting him into a sitting position. Joe’s cheek was cut, his nose bleeding but he seemed only a little banged up. “Come on, boy, let me git you to your horse.”

“Joe!” Ben hurried to Joe’s side. “Whatever possessed you…” he pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at Joe’s blood. “Hoss, take him home, have Hop Sing clean him up.”

“No!” Joe jerked away. “I told Adam to come out here, and I’ll find him. You go home. Let me do this. This time I’ll find him, before it’s too late.”

“Joe! Do you know what you’ve done?!”

“Pa, wait.” Hoss pulled Joe to his horse and handed him his canteen. “Doc Martin mentioned a trigger. Maybe this is what Adam needed. Maybe we have to trust him now, Pa.” He watched as Joe drank from the canteen and wiped his nose on his sleeve, and pulled his younger brother into a bear hug. “Maybe we have to trust them both.”

“What are you suggesting, Hoss, that we just go home and let Adam come back on his own?”

“Would that be worse than the hell he’s been going through since we brung him home?”

Ben sat back, looking up at the sunset that seemed just a little brighter than usual. “You boys go. Go on. I’m going to look around awhile yet.” Ben stood again and considered the narrow trail the led up the side of the cliff. At the sound of an eagle cry the three of them looked up into the approaching night. “Wait, boys, did you hear that?” There was another sound, faint at first. They listened. “Footsteps! Adam!? ADAM!”

They waited, not one of them breathing, all hoping Adam would answer. The footsteps got louder.

“I don’t think it’s Adam, Pa,” Hoss’s voice bit heavily with disappointment.

“It has to be!” Joe ran part way up the hill and came to a stop.

From around the trees came a familiar sight. Adam, with his shoulders straight, had a smile on his face. Joe leaped toward him and they embraced. Before Adam realized it he was surrounded, everyone laughing and hugging and acting downright silly.

“Son, you’re all right?” Ben said finally as the dust cleared.

“I didn’t kill him, Pa.”

“Ha! We never thought you did, older brother,” Hoss said.

“What’d I tell you, see? What’d I tell you!?”

“You were right, Joe.” Ben said, laughing. “What finally helped you remember, Adam?”

“I had to help a preacher, caught under a tree. Didn’t you see him? He had to come down this way, there’s no other way around this cliff.”

The three exchanged glances. “No, no, we didn’t see anyone, son.”

Adam turned and looked into the setting sun. “That’s strange.”

“Well, I’m sure we just missed him. We only got to this area a few minutes ago ourselves.”

“Yeah. Listen, can we get home? Since it looks like I’m stuck walking, we better get started.”

When they got back to the horses Adam saw they’d brought his along. At first shy, he walked over to his horse and gently brushed its nose. It snorted and rubbed up against his shoulder. “All right. Yes, I forgive you.” He heard laughter behind him. “Well, what are you guys waiting for? I’m getting hungry.” Adam mounted up.

Ben rode up alongside him. “Listen, if you see that preacher again, let him know I’d like to meet him.”

“Sure will, Pa.”

Ben rode on ahead.

Hoss and Joe squeezed up the path to get alongside their brother. “Sure glad to see you, Adam.” Hoss was about to move on again.

“Hoss, wait.” Adam bit his lip and took a deep breath. “I just want you both to know that I understand why Ma died. So that I could have you two for brothers.”

“Oh-ho,” Joe said with a smirk. “You just figured that out?”

Adam laughed. “No, I guess I knew it already. Let’s just say I had to re-figure it out.” He looked behind him at the trail that he felt sure was somehow going to disappear again. “You guys want to ride on ahead? I’ll be right there.” He alighted, and after a brief pause, got down on his knees and bowed his head.

“You think he really saw a preacher, Hoss?”

“I don’t know, Joe. Mebbe. But mebbe it’s only important he thought he saw one.”

Ben rode back to them. “What’s he doing? Oh.” Ben relaxed back into his saddle again. “He tell you anything more about the preacher?”

“Nope. Pa, do you think this preacher really helped Adam remember, or is he just telling himself that he remembered so that he kin live with himself again?”

“Well, Hoss, I guess it all depends on who you believe in, God or the devil.”

Joe couldn’t take his eyes off Adam. “We sure know of one devil who existed, Pa.”

Ben nodded. “And we know the grace of God returned Adam to us. We don’t need to know more. If Adam is satisfied, so am I.”

***

Adam wondered, as he knelt near the trail, if the Preacher had been real and realized that it didn’t matter. What he had needed was to talk it out reasonably and logically. For that he could accept the Preacher’s existence, which was within reason. Believing that the Preacher instead was – well, maybe someday he’d be able to accept a different explanation, but not now. Now it was enough to understand that through the Preacher, Kane was asking Adam to forgive him.

And he knew something else now, too. One simple fact he had overlooked in Kane’s death, which Adam now knew he hadn’t caused. He had overlooked the fact that Kane had wanted to die, while Adam had wanted to live. One of them had nothing left to live for. And so they both got their wish.

***

The three men waited until Adam mounted up. They let him ride on ahead and followed him home.

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