TITLE: INTO THE LINE OF FIRE

(Part I was originally inspired by a long ago discussion about how the departure of the character of Adam should have been handled and whether it might have been better for the character to be heroically killed off. I decided to take a crack at such a scene and see what would happen. This might be a scene from the last episode of his last season.

Part II came about when the topic for a weekly exercise on another site led me to think of doing a follow-up. It could be a scene from the first episode of the following season.)

PART I: A SINGLE SHOT

“I’m sure glad we’re gonna be home in time to sleep in our own beds tonight,” Hoss Cartwright said as he untied his horse and prepared to mount.

“You said it , Hoss,” his brother Adam replied as he did the same. “I feel like I could sleep for a long, long time.”

The four Cartwrights were just returning from delivering some cattle to a buyer across the border in California. They had stopped in Virginia City for some food and drink before tackling the last leg of the journey home.

Now, as they stood by their horses, ready to head out, their attention was diverted to a commotion coming from across the street at the Silver Dollar Saloon. A figure staggered out of the door of the saloon and barely avoided falling on his face into the street. This seedy looking individual carried a revolver in each hand as he flailed about drunkenly, singing snatches of some unidentifiable tune.

“Isn’t that old Lem Avery?” Joe said, stepping around his horse to get a better look.

“Yes, it is.” Ben frowned as he moved up to stand beside his youngest. “Someone had better get the sheriff. That man could easily hurt someone.”

Almost as if he had heard, old Avery staggered out into the middle of the street, raised his hands above his head and fired two shots into the air. Bystanders scattered, huddling against the sides of nearby buildings wherever they afforded some protection. The drunken man spun around a couple of times, lowering his arms.

He ended up with the gun in his right hand pointing directly at Ben and Joe Cartwright .
With a cry of “NO!” Adam Cartwright leaped forward into the line of fire. At the same instant the noise of a single shot split the evening air with the impact of a thunder clap.

The jolt of the bullet sent Adam reeling backwards into his father, who caught him and sagged to his knees from the weight. Ben ended up kneeling in the dust cradling his son. His face was devoid of any expression except numb shock. Hoss and Joe quickly knelt down on either side of him.

“Get the doctor!” someone yelled. None of the Cartwrights noticed who it was.

Ben looked down into the eyes of his injured son. Adam was struggling to speak, but only a single gasping “Pa” escaped his lips.

“Don’t try to talk, son.,” Ben said, his own voice trembling. “Save your strength. Help is coming.” His shock was rapidly turning to fear as he watched Adam lapse into unconsciousness.

Roy Coffee appeared out of somewhere. He took in the scene before him with utter dismay. He had always been close to the Cartwrights. Never having had a child of his own, he had envied Ben his boys. Adam especially had been there to help him on so many occasions. Now, seeing Adam lying there wounded, it was almost like seeing his own son struck down.

“Ben, Avery is in custody.” Roy finally found his voice. “He’ll pay for this. I promise you, Ben. I only wish to God someone had come for me sooner.” Ben hardly seemed to hear. He was caught in the grip of a nightmare. “This can’t be happening,” he thought to himself. “Oh God, wake me up. Please let it all be a dream.” He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping against hope that when he opened them again everything would be changed. It didn’t work.

He sensed Hoss on one side of him, his head bowed, his whole body shaking. Joe was on the other side of him, his hand reaching out to gently touch Adam’s shoulder, tears coursing down his face.

“Pa, you saw....he jumped right out in front of me ....Adam took that bullet for me, Pa.....I should be the one....” he choked out.

“It could have been either of us, Joe,” Ben managed. He wanted to say more, but the words wouldn’t come.
It was at this moment that Doctor Paul Martin arrived. He knelt down in front of Ben and spoke gently to him. “Ben, let me see him....please.”

Something in his compassionate tone reached Ben. Here was someone who would help. He loosened his tight hold on his son, allowing the doctor to examine the wound in Adam’s chest. It took very little time for Paul Martin to realize that his services would be of no use this time. He looked into the pleading eyes of his longtime friend and quietly spoke perhaps the hardest words he had ever been forced to say.

“Ben, I’m so terribly sorry, but there’s nothing that can be done.”

Ben bowed his head, fighting to find some sort of acceptance. A hundred images were flashing through his mind. The infant, whose eyes were so like his mother’s. The dark haired four year old tramping bravely across a wilderness at his father’s side. That same boy a couple of years later, holding his baby brother during the Indian attack that claimed his new mother’s life. The lanky youth who headed back East to pursue his dream of learning and the self-assured young man who returned. So many other images showing boy and young man working on the ranch, helping fulfill his father’s dream.

A small groaning sound reached his ears, and the images faded to be replaced by the reality he held firmly in his arms.

Adam’s eyes were open now, looking straight up at him. His breathing was labored.

“Pa.” It came out more clearly this time.

“Yes, son.”

“You.....Joe....Hoss....all right?”

Ben could only nod his head. How could he really say any of them were all right?

The response satisfied Adam. He gave a small sigh of relief. His pain seemed to ease a little.
A far away look came into his eyes then. A smile played briefly across his lips.

“It’s....so beautiful,” he whispered.

“What is it, son?” Ben whispered back.

But Adam never replied. The light in his eyes faded, his head rolled back against his father’s chest, and his breathing ceased.

Ben clutched the still form to him even more tightly as his tears began to flow. Everyone around fell silent . The setting sun threw the shadows of the buildings into the street, covering the scene with a blanket of dusk.

Far above, the very first star of the night began to glimmer brightly.

PART II: A BOTTLE

The grandfather clock had just chimed three when the door creaked open and Joe Cartwright sidled in, clutching a bottle in his left hand. His bleary eyes glanced around the great room, which was dimly lit by a low fire. Not seeing anyone, he breathed a sigh of relief, then raised the bottle to his lips to take a swig. Unsteadily he moved over to the stairs and set his foot on the bottom step.

“Joseph.”

The resonant voice, seemingly coming out of nowhere, startled Joe. He turned his head and watched as the flickering light revealed a figure rising from the chair nestled in the shadows next to the fireplace. Joe groaned. His father. He should have known. As Ben approached Joe glared at him with a certain resentment.

“Waddya doin’ waitin’ up, Pa?” he demanded. His voice was slurred from the effects of drink.

The eyes that looked back at him from his father’s haggard face were clouded with weariness.

“I wanted to see just how late you were going to be tonight,” Ben replied.

“Well you don’t have to worry, Pa. I may be gettin’ in late, but you’ll still get a full day’s work out of me tomorrow,” Joe retorted.

“That’s the least of my worries,” Ben said sternly. He looked at the bottle in Joe’s hand, noticing how little liquor was left in it. “Joseph, how long do you think you can go on like this? How many times in these last two months have I heard you stumble up those stairs long past midnight in a drunken stupor? And did you think that word of how much you’ve been losing at the gambling table wouldn’t get back to me? Are you really trying to destroy yourself? If that is your intention you seem to be doing a wonderful job of it.”

“And if I were,” Joe said with a catch in his voice, “what would it really matter?”

Ben closed his eyes against the pain of hearing such a statement from his son. The two men stood there silently for a moment. Finally, Ben opened his eyes again.

“Joseph,” he began quietly, “as much as I might wish to, I cannot force you to care about what becomes of you.” His voice rose and began to tremble. “But I will not stand by and watch you dishonor your brother’s memory!”

There was a stabbing pain in Joe’s eyes as he glared back at his father.

“Dishonor him? How can you say that, Pa?”

“What else can I say?” Ben demanded. “Son, every day of your life is a precious gift. Adam gave up his own life to give that gift to you. And what are you doing with it? From all I can see you’re throwing it away as carelessly as you’d toss a piece of scrap paper into the fire. Now how do you think Adam would feel, watching you squander his gift to you that way?”

Joe lowered his eyes. “I guess he’d be pretty disappointed,” he said with bitter shame. “It’s just that...when I think of what happened...it hurts so much inside...and I can’t think of any other way to stop the pain except to drink it away.”

Ben grasped his son’s shoulders. “I think there’s something you’re ignoring,” he said quietly.

“What’s that, Pa?” Joe said.

For a moment the look in Ben’s eyes seemed far away. He was thinking back to the night two months earlier in Virginia City when the town drunk, Lem Avery, staggered out of the Silver Dollar Saloon, carelessly waving a gun in either hand. He remembered his sudden horror as he saw that one of Avery’s guns, for no apparent reason, was trained on Joe...and him. Seeing the danger. Adam had leaped into the line of fire and Avery’s bullet had caught him in the chest. There was nothing that could be done, and Adam had died within minutes...held in his father’s arms. That moment would stay with Ben forever.

“Pa, what do you mean?” Joe urged gently, bringing Ben’s attention back to him.

“Joe, the bullet that Adam took...it might just as easily have hit me as you.” Ben paused, letting the import of that sink in. “How do you suppose I feel about that? I’ve lived so much of my life...and Adam had so much more of his life to live. And yet, he was the one who took the bullet. And I’m still here. And that is something I have to live with every day.”

Joe stared at him, finally understanding that the depth of his father’s pain was just as great his own.

“Oh God, Pa,” Joe whispered, bowing his head. “How do you stand it?”

“It’s as difficult as anything I’ve ever had to do in my life,” Ben answered in a voice heavy with emotion. “In those first days after Adam was killed I truly questioned if in fact I could get through it. I had known grief before, especially when each of your mothers died. But even then there had always been something for me to cling to. Each of my wives left me a son and, in a way, part of them lived on in the three of you. But this time I had lost my son. Everything he had been was gone, and there was nothing of him left to hold onto or to provide any hope for the future. Looking on as he was buried was the worst. It filled me with a kind of despair that I had never felt before. I prayed every day that God would take away the pain, but there seemed to be no answer. Then, about a week later, I went out to visit Adam’s grave. I stood there in that beautiful, peaceful spot, but I was feeling anything but peaceful. And as I stood there something came over me. I seemed to feel Adam standing there beside me with his hand on my shoulder. Perhaps it was only my wishful thinking, but I prefer to think that it was the belated answer to my prayers. It was almost as though he was whispering in my ear, telling me, “Pa, don’t let it be for nothing”. I realized then that I had an obligation to make sure that the sacrifice he made would not be in vain. And I vowed that I would live each day striving to meet that obligation. Now I start every day praying for the strength to live up to my vow. The pain is still there. It always will be. But now I have a purpose which makes it endurable.”

Ben grasped Joe’s shoulders more strongly and looked directly into his eyes. “Son, that is an obligation that the two of us share. And I’m asking you now, will you join me in fulfilling that obligation? Will you strive, along with me, to live each day in a way that will give meaning to your brother’s sacrifice?”

Overcome, Joe nodded wordlessly. His eyes were brimming with unshed tears.

Ben drew back and looked kindly at his son. “Give me the bottle, Joseph,” he said softly. And without question or complaint, Joe handed it over.

Ben turned and strode over to the fireplace with Joe following him. Ben stared at the bottle for a few seconds, then, with a sharp, dismissive gesture, he threw it down onto the hearth, shattering it into a hundred pieces. He and Joe stood and watched the flames flare up briefly as the remaining alcohol burned off. Then they turned to face each other.

“Pa, I’m sorry,” Joe choked out. “I won’t disappoint you...or Adam...any more. You’ll see.”

Ben drew his son close. Joe rested his head on his father’s shoulder and his tears were no longer held back as he began to sob freely.

“I know, son. I know,” Ben intoned soothingly. “It’s going to be all right now. It won’t be easy, but we’ll get through this together.”

Father and son stood together for quite some time, finding a blessed comfort in each other’s embrace. Eventually, they pulled back and smiled at each other gratefully.

“Let’s get to bed, son. We do both need our rest,” Ben said.

“Sure, Pa,” Joe agreed.

With his arm around his son’s shoulders Ben began to move toward the stairs.

“Pa, when is Hoss getting back from San Francisco?” Joe asked.

“He’s due back on Thursday,” Ben replied. “It will be good to have him back. We all need to be together now.”

“That’s for sure,” Joe said thoughtfully. “I was just thinking, I have a lot to make up to him for. He’s been covering up for a lot of my foolishness over this last couple of months. Maybe I can get a few jobs done for him before he gets home.”

“I’m sure he’d appreciate that very much, son,” Ben said with satisfaction.

He tightened his arm around his son as together they slowly made their way up the stairs.

THE END

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