Into the Night
by
Janice Sagraves
<1>
The evening sun would shortly drop below the horizon to bring the other side of the world into day and sister moon would return to light the darkness. The stars would dazzle and shimmer like diamonds in a sea of ink and the coyotes and whippoorwills and late summer insects would fill the air with their melancholy music. But it would all be lost on those inside the big roughhewn log house as their minds and thoughts turned to what went on within the walls of one room.
Dr. Paul Martin completed his examination of Adam Cartwright and turned to the distraught father standing by the door. With hushed steps and a grave sigh he stopped before his friend and his somber blue-gray eyes bore straight into him.
“Paul, I don’t like the look on your face,” Ben Cartwright said barely above a whisper as his eyes darted to his oldest son lying in bed so pale and unearthly still. “How serious is it?”
“I’d be lying if I told you not to worry, so I won’t. He’s a very sick young man, Ben, the sickest I’ve seen in a good long while. He has a high fever, and he’s begun drifting in and out of consciousness, and when he is awake he’s hardly aware of anything.” He took Ben’s arm and his fingers tightened. “Probably sometime tonight it’ll settle in, and he’ll remain unconscious, and by morning, if he wakes up, we should know.”
“If he wakes up. Paul, am I going to lose my son?”
“I wish I knew, Ben. I sincerely wish I knew.” He glanced back at his patient. “Make sure that someone’s with him at all times, don’t leave him alone for a second. Try to bring the fever down with the coldest water you can find and I left a bottle of medicine on the bed table, not that I think it’ll do much good even if you’re able to get it into him.”
“You needn’t worry about him being left alone. I’m staying right here all night.”
“I won’t suggest you let someone spell you because I know better. Now there’s nothing more I can do here tonight, and I need to get back into town, but I’ll be back out tomorrow. But if you need me before then…”
“I will, Paul.” Ben turned to where his son lay as if the doctor no longer existed.
Paul watched as the big man, suddenly so small, stepped lifelessly to the side of the bed then he went out into the hall, closing the door behind him. As he did he turned to a pair of anxious brothers and one Chinese cook that had been waiting here since he entered the room.
“How is he?” Joe Cartwright asked.
“Not so good, I’m afraid.”
“Well, we already knew that, Doc, but how bad is it?” Hoss Cartwright asked as his gentle blue eyes narrowed.
The doctor’s gaze flicked from one to the other. “This could be the one we won’t win.”
The bottoms fell out of their faces and the air seemed to be sucked from the house.
Ben stood staring down at his first-born with dulled, grief-stricken coffee eyes then sat on the edge of the mattress. He pushed back the heavy black hair that clung to his son’s sweaty forehead and felt the weight of the situation crash down on him. With mechanical motion, he picked up the cloth in the washbasin on the bed table and wrung it out then began washing Adam’s face and throat.
“Come back to us, son. Come back. Thirty-one years just isn’t long enough to have you.” He gave a pathetic little laugh. “I don’t think a hundred would be.”
As he watched, his son’s dark hazel eyes slowly opened, and they were filmed and vacant.
“Adam,” Ben said softly. “Do you hear me, son?” He got the impression that his boy was trying to say something. “What? Are you trying to tell me something?”
Adam’s lips continued in a feeble attempt to speak as he looked through his father, but only the whispering of his breath made any sound and no words came.
“I’m right here, son. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.” He took one of the fine hands and held it as if to never let go. “I’m right here, Adam.”
Then Adam’s lids drifted down and the fans of dense black lashes rested on his pallid skin. His lips continued to move for several seconds then ceased, and he fell into his unconscious state again.
The ache in Ben’s heart intensified with each beat. He had seen his sons sick before but never any worse than this, and maybe not as bad, for that matter.
“Stay with us, son. Don’t let this win. I lost your mother, I can’t lose you.”
His eyes went to the small amber bottle, and he realized that he hadn’t even tried to use it; he had been so focused on Adam. Then the doctor’s words came back to him loud and clear. “… not that I think it’ll do much good even if you’re able to get it into him.” Ben picked it up and glared at it. “What good are you,” he snarled. “What good is anything that can’t help my son?”
<><><><>
An hour had passed when Joe stole quietly into the room with a cup of coffee. The wing chair that usually sat by the window had been pulled to the side of the bed, and Ben sat in it with his hands folded in his lap. His eyes were locked on his terribly ill child, and he wasn’t aware that his youngest had come in.
“I brought you some coffee, Pa,” the teenager said mildly as he held the cup and saucer down to his father.
Ben took it and thanked him, and the steam rose into his face as he took a sip but his gaze stayed on Adam.
Joe looked at his brother lying so dreadfully, suggestively still and suddenly felt cold inside. “How long has he been like this?”
“Since right after Paul left. He just lays there breathing so heavy but he doesn’t move except for that.”
Joe moved closer to the head of the bed and simply stood there then took the cloth and began wiping his brother’s face. “Does this do any good?”
“I don’t know, but we have to try.” He took another sip. “Joseph, why don’t you go on to bed? This is going to be a very long night.”
“I know that, Pa, but I couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to. And I’ll have Hoss and Hop Sing to keep me company. I won’t get lonely.”
“All right, son.”
Joe was a grown man with all the responsibilities that went with it, but since losing his mother he couldn’t remember when he had wanted to cry so badly. Before the sun came up again he knew that one of them could leave the others and it cut through him like a newly sharpened knife. He dropped the cloth back into the water and stiffened his spine. The tears that crowded into his green eyes he couldn’t let anyone see. Men didn’t cry, at least, not until they got to the privacy of their own room.
“Good night, Pa,” he said without turning around.
“Good night, son.”
His hand went to his brother’s face and touched the hot, damp cheek. “Good night, Adam,” he said softly. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Then he spun on his heel and left.
The sound of the door closing didn’t really register with Ben, consumed as he was with the fate of his oldest. He absentmindedly sipped and thought of the time when he first held the dark bundle. A ragged breath shuddered through him, and he sat the cup onto the saucer with a sharp clink. Was he watching his son pass away from them?
“No,” he said adamantly then the helplessness of the whole thing closed in on him, and his fingers gripped the cup’s handle until they blanched. His eyelids dropped and squeezed out the tears that ran down his face and dripped into his coffee.
<2>
The first thing Adam gradually became aware of was standing at the window in his room near the big wingchair. The harsh sunlight entered through the panes of glass like an intruding enemy and nothing cast shadows as the glare filled every corner and every niche. Much of the color had been leached from his surroundings and replaced with a thick layer of gray dust that whiffed into the air when slapped only to resettle as if never touched. It was hot, stiflingly so, and it nearly scorched his lungs as he breathed it in. His hair was matted to his head like a sodden black cap, and his clothes clung to his body like a second skin. Even his boots seemed to enfold his feet as if a part of them.
How had he come to be here and how long ago had that been? He couldn’t remember anything that had gone before, he had simply awakened to the fact that he was standing there…, and he was alone. Alone? Where was his family? Were they in the house wondering the same things he was?
He rushed across the room and flung the door open and dashed into the hall. “Pa?” He ran to his father’s room and looked inside but it was as lifeless as his own. “Joe! Hoss!” But his brothers’ rooms were the same.
He bolted down the staircase, his hand sliding along the smooth dusty banister but leaving no sign. He shouted for his family as he left the last step but once again got no answer.
“Where are you?” and it remained eerily silent. Then the light of a notion glowed in his eyes, and he headed for the kitchen.
It was, however, just like the rest of the house with no signs that anyone had been there in a long time or ever had been. “Hop Sing! Hop Sing!” He looked in the pantry and the little cook’s quarters and found only the same nothingness.
He returned to the parlor and stepped to the immense stone hearth, dormant and cold, and was instantly struck by the fact that there were no logs, charred or otherwise, with no appearance that there ever had been. His eyes turned to where the fireplace tools usually stood and they were gone as well.
“What is going on here?” he asked of no one as he spun around. Then a thought dawned in his face. “They must all be outside.”
His long legs propelled him around the furniture but he stopped as his eyes went to the rack on the wall. The family’s hats and sometimes their gun belts were usually hung there but now there was nothing. He jerked the sturdy oak front door open and ran out into the yard but all that greeted him was a bigger emptiness. The pervading gray dust had settled here as well and the sun was blindingly brighter though his eyes had no trouble adjusting to it. He called out again but his voice seemed to echo from the trees and the buildings, and, as before, he got no answer.
“I don’t understand, somebody is always here.”
With a huff, he started off toward the barn picking up the pace as he got closer. With a burst of speed, he shot inside in the hopes that he would find them there, but the moment he entered they plummeted to the floor. His head pivoted as his dark eyes scanned about him. The stalls were empty with even the cow gone, and there was no sign of life, not so much as a mouse. And another thing he noticed, the usually cool, shadowy interior was as brightly lit as it was outside and just as hot.
“Hello!” he shouted, suspecting that it was in vain.
He climbed the ladder to the loft and found only an empty void without as much as a scrap of hay. Without wasting any time, he went right back down and started out but froze just inside the big doorway. Then, as if afraid to, he turned back around. The saddles and bridles, harnesses and hackamores, anything that went with a horse was gone. It was like the barn had never been used before.
With an abrupt jerk, he went back out into the intense rays of the sun and just stood there. He thought about looking in the bunkhouse but feared he would only find more of the same.
“But you havta look.”
He ran off for the building that housed the men who worked for them and went right inside, and was met by the same barrenness. The uselessness of it all came at him in a wave, and he turned and went back outside.
“Well, what do I do now? I have to find somebody, and it’s for sure there’s nobody here.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm, then looked up to the sky and squinted. “And it’s not a bit cooler in the house than it is out here.” Then his eyes went wide as his head came down. “Virginia City. They’ve all gone to town. But why? It doesn’t matter; I just have to get there and find them. But first I’d better get some water because it’s a long walk, especially in this heat.”
He went to the supply shack for a canteen but found it as empty as the barn. Well, he’d just have to look in the house. He went back in but all the scrounging in the world wouldn’t turn up one. “I’ll just get a good long drink from the pump and it’ll havta hold me until I get to a stream or creek.”
He went into the kitchen and to the sink where, to his surprise, a glass sat. “That’s funny. I don’t remember that being there.” With a shrug, he picked it up and held it under the spout of the pump and worked the handle but no water came. Maybe it was blocked, but his fingers met with no obstruction. In spite of how hard he tried he couldn’t get so much as a drop.
Out of sheer frustration, he threw the glass and it shattered against the large iron wood burning stove.
“Temper, Cartwright, temper,” he said then stomped out.
He went out onto the porch with only little more than he had the day he was born. “Count your blessings. You’ve at least got your clothes and your boots.” He ruffled his hair in an attempt to cool his scalp but there wasn’t enough wind blowing to disturb a frog’s fur. He snorted at the thought. “I sure wish I had Sport. He’d make the going a lot easier and it wouldn’t take so long. Oh, well, no sense crying over what you don’t have. Just make the most of what you do.” He looked down at his feet. “I’m sure no horse.”
With a nervous titter he stepped into the yard. He had to get to town if it took him all day and into the night. This idea of being so alone didn’t appeal to him in the slightest, and he wanted to know what had become of his family.
He went out past the barn and along the road that would take him into Virginia City. Hopefully, when he got there he would find out why the Ponderosa had been abandoned and why they hadn’t bothered to take him with them. It wasn’t like Pa to just go off and leave one of his sons behind, even with the best of reasons.
The road seemed more winding and difficult to traverse than he remembered. Of course, he hadn’t traveled it much on foot, but it hadn’t been this hard going. Nor had it been this hot, in fact, he couldn’t recall it ever being this hot. Out in the desert, yes, but in and close to the mountains, even in the midst of summer, it wasn’t this searing.
He took a deep breath and instead of the smell of wild flowers and sage and pine it was only stale without any real scent. It was like living in a painting whose pigments had faded.
As he trudged on he almost wished he had stayed at the house, but he had to get into town to try to find his family. Maybe Roy Coffee would know where to find them or maybe they were with him or Paul Martin. The two men were dear friends and Pa would seek them out, so Adam would do the same.
As he ambled on he became aware that there wasn’t another sound except for his feet scuffing along the dirt road. No trill of birds or holler of insects, and, not only that, he saw nothing else. Usually the trees were vivid with living things and activity but now there was absolutely nothing, and he had never seen everything so motionless, like in his painting.
“Well, I guess if I want to hear anything it’ll have to be my own voice. But what’ll I talk to myself about?” As he walked on he went pensive and a perplexed scowl covered his face. “Why is it that whenever you try to think of something to talk about you never can?” He scratched the side of his head, and his nose wrinkled as he tried coming up with a topic for self conversation. “Oh, well, maybe I’ll come up with something later.”
As he continued on he began to whistle and it sliced through the stillness like an axe. It drowned out his footfalls and brought life to the deadened landscape. He had a good distance yet to cover before he reached Virginia City and the sound made it a little more bearable.
<3>
Adam stopped and his arms fell to his sides. Ahead lay the mining hamlet of Virginia City. It hadn’t taken as long to get there as it usually did, even with a horse, but he didn’t care to ponder it, he would soon be there and hopefully reunited with his father and brothers and one diminutive Chinese cook. One side of his finely sculpted mouth turned and the sunlight caught in his dark hazel eyes. When he found them he would bawl them out for leaving him behind then they would go to one of the myriad of saloons and have a cold beer together.
With a stretch of his legs, he resumed his trek and headed on in. But as he drew closer he began noticing that the town was no different that the rest of the country he had just come through. There was no sound, nothing at all, when typically it was alive with it. The blacksmith working at his anvil, the clatter of wagon wheels, the tinny music from the saloons, children’s gleeful laughter and the general bustle of everyday living, but this day he hard nothing.
As he entered he glanced inside the livery, finding more of the same, and then went down the central thoroughfare, looking from left to right and back-and-forth as his legs numbly carried him on. Like every other place he had seen it was colorless and covered with that gray film of dust. Doors and windows were shut tight and there wasn’t a trace of life. No horses or any indication that one had ever been here, no ruts in the street from the incessant passage of wagons and buggies and the big Overland stage. And it had the smell that a sketch on a piece of paper would. There should be food mingled with manure and leather and all the other conglomerated aromas of a place like Virginia City, but there was none.
And on he went. He would try the sheriff’s office first but from there he didn’t know. In his eagerness to reach his destination that long legged, determined stride so typical of him drove him on, picking up momentum as he went. The buildings on either side of him held no interest as all his attention focused ahead. When he reached his goal just beyond the center of town, he raced up the steps and onto the porch.
“Roy!” he shouted as the door burst open.
He just stood there, his hand clutching the knob. Everything was in place, and, other than the obvious absence of people, something was missing. Cautiously, he moved into the room, his eyes floating around him, and stopped at the desk. Now he knew. There were no papers, no wanted posters tacked to the wall, no coffee pot and cups, and the weapon’s rack on the wall was empty. Other than the furniture, all signs of human habitation had been removed. But why? Why take some things and leave others? Maybe haste made it necessary, but if that was the case, why take anything at all? The rifles he understood taking, but why the blotter?
With a sharp breath he went to the double doors behind Roy’s desk and – with hesitation – opened them. The cells were empty and the bars looked colder and more confining that ever. The bunks had been stripped, leaving only their bare wooden frames.
With an onerous sigh, he went back outside and down into the street. If at all possible, in the short time he was inside, it had gotten hotter and the sun brighter.
“There’s no sense just standing here. You’re not accomplishing anything this way. I’ll try Paul’s. He’s always there when people need him.”
He riffled his fingers in his hair and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck and started on for the other end of town.
It wasn’t long until he came to the Silver Dollar saloon, and he stopped and just looked at it and it appeared as dead as everything else. “No,” he said firmly. “When I come back.” Then he turned and started on again.
As he entered the yard past the small stable, the house, partly constructed from native Nevada stone, stood like everything else. A tiny whisper in the back of his head told him that going inside would be a total waste of time but he didn’t listen.
As he suspected it was no different. The same gray pallor hung over everything blotting out much of the color and it was like standing inside a vacuum. He stepped from the entryway into the front parlor that doubled as an examining room. The furnishings were as they always sat but the bottles of pills and medicines, the medical books and the instruments of the trade were gone.
“Well, I suppose I should look through the rest of the rooms. It’s a waste of time but it’s my time to waste.”
After giving the house a cursory look through, he went out to the stable and found more of the same.
“Well, I can’t stay here,” he said as he came back out. “And I did promise myself a cold beer.” With a final look around him he started back into town.
As he made straight for the Silver Dollar it dawned on him that since finding himself standing in his room he hadn’t had a drink of anything, and for some odd and perverse reason didn’t want it. Still, what normal, red-blooded man of the west passed up the chance for a beer, and a cold one at that?
His boots clomped on the boardwalk, and he pushed through the batwing doors, and all that met him was unnatural silence. The chairs were still stacked on top of the tables and even the small match holders that sat on each one were missing.
“I doubt if you’ll find anything in here but you can try.”
But as he turned around he went perfectly taut and fists balled at his sides. For the first time he got a look at himself and the image looking back at him from the ponderous mirror behind the long mahogany bar was someone he didn’t know. His clothes and hair were covered in that same creeping gray dust and his skin was wan and white as milk. His dark hazel eyes were glassy and sunk back in their sockets, and his cheeks were hollow, and his cheekbones more pronounced. This time he took serious notice of his hands as they spread in front of him, and the bones stood out in the backs of them, and his slim, tapered fingers were knotty. He would have sworn that they weren’t like that this morning. Then he looked back at his reflection and felt he was looking at a walking cadaver.
With a burst of fury intermixed with fright, he grabbed one of the chairs and hurled it at the glass and it shattered into silvery shards that sprinkled around him. Then he ran out and, as he left the boardwalk, the toe of one of his boots caught, and he wound up in a wad in the middle of the street but he felt nothing. He sat up and refused to look around as the merciless sun shone down as if laughing at him and taunting him. Quick pants ran through him, and he began to shake.
“What’s going on?” he shouted as his fingers dug into the dirt. “Why can’t you just leave me alone? And where’s my family? Where is everybody?” He fought back the tears that burned behind those corpse-like eyes and let his head drop. “Am I dead?” More lucid thought took over as he sat there. “No, you’ve just been sick.” He looked up as hopes rose. “That’s it. You’ve been sick.” Then hope quickly dissipated. “But did you die?” His eyelids lowered, and he tried to reason out what was happening to him, and why he looked the way he did. “Well, you won’t find anything out if you sit here feeling sorry for yourself and let the sun render you out.”
With an uneasy snicker he got to his feet and brushed himself off but the dust stuck right to him. Then he threw his chin out, and, standing board straight, he began walking with purpose to the other end of town.
“I’ll go to Carson City. Just because Virginia City is like this doesn’t mean that Carson is. It has been around a little longer, and I don’t think they’re just gonna up and abandon the Territorial Capital.”
He tried not to look at what stood around him. He had seen enough desolation, and he wanted to see some life. His lips puckered, and he thought about whistling again but he wasn’t in the mood. After what he found here and failing to learn about his family, music just didn’t appeal to him. How about a little poetry?
“But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
And fortify your self in your decay
What means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
And many maiden gardens, yet unset,”
His feet carried him on, and he wouldn’t let them drag.
“With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
So should the lines of life that life repair,
Which this, Time’s pencil, or my pupil pen,
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,
Can make you live your self in eyes of men.
To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,
And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.”
Then he walked beyond the town limits and didn’t look back.
<4>
The way to Carson City didn’t seem quite so arduous or winding, though not as he remembered it either, but he wasn’t complaining. He felt sure that he would find what he was seeking at the end of the trail and he didn’t care how long it took him to get there just so long as he made it.
He tried thinking of something to take his mind from what he had left behind in that town once so full of energy and vigor. Holding his unfamiliar hands out again, he tried finding some humor in his sorry state of affairs.
“Boy, Pa isn’t gonna recognize you. Nobody is and they may just run you off.” He looked away from them and fought off the urge to touch his face. “But once you get some of Hop Sing’s cooking in you, you’ll be all right. Maybe some of his roast duck and sage rice stuffing.” He smacked his mouth but as he did it drove home the fact that he wasn’t one bit hungry. “Who’re you trying to kid? You haven’t wanted a bite or a drink of anything all day. Face it, dead men don’t eat or drink.”
There it was again, the notion that he was dead. But if he was then how did he get that way? An accident or did someone shoot him? No, he had said it himself, he had been sick. But sick how and how badly?
“How badly? You’re dead, man, how much worse can it get?” He shook his head as if to jar such thoughts from his brain. “Would you stop that,” he said tersely. “Would you just stop that.”
He started moving faster as if in an effort to outrun what he saw as the only likelihood to his current predicament. Looking up to the dazzling sky, he ran his fingers through his hair, and as he did his foot caught in dip in the road, and it threw off his balance. There wasn’t anything or time to grab, and he fell flat, landing with a grunt. Brown dust filled the air and settled right on him as if pulled by a magnet.
“Why don’t you watch where you’re putting your big feet?” His face twisted, and he rubbed his hands together. “That hurt. What’re you trying to do, kill yourself?” and he let lose an edgy chortle. Then he turned onto his back, and as he lay there, light dawned within his skull. “Hurt? That’s another thing dead men don’t do. They don’t hurt.” He held his hands up in front of him, and his palms were abraded and blood seeped from the scrapes in places. “They don’t bleed either.”
With a chuckle, he pushed himself away from the ground and got up. He still didn’t know why he didn’t want any food or drink but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. There had to be a sensible reason, he just hadn’t figured it out yet.
He picked up where he had left off and started along the road again. In spite of the fact that it was hot enough to melt iron and even among the trees there weren’t any shadows it wasn’t such a bad day. The colors were muted and gave an almost pastel feel to everything, including him. The dark red shirt he wore looked lighter than usual as if faded from repeated washings, and the gray that coated him from head to foot softened his strikingly black hair.
The day continued its onward motion, and he moved deeper into it. He had yet to catch sight or sound of a single living thing. “Other than me,” he said and his mouth spread. Even though he looked like something you would dig up from a cemetery on Halloween he was alive.
He figured that – at the rate he was going – it would probably take him another couple or three hours to reach his goal but he wasn’t in any over eager hurry, he would get there when he did. And, anyway, when you got in too much of a hurry there were usually consequences.
The thought of seeing his family and friends filled him with a warm feeling that even the heat of the sun couldn’t produce. He wouldn’t let himself think that they weren’t in Carson City because where else would they go? And if they weren’t the connotations were too dire to want to think about. And he had a bone to pick with Pa for leaving him behind but at this point he didn’t really care. When he got there he would be too glad to see them to even think about it, after all, Pa didn’t do something without a good reason. What good reason there could be for not taking him with them he couldn’t fathom but if Pa did it there had to be one.
“Maybe he thought you were dead, I mean, after all, you do look the part.”
It didn’t matter though. All that did was to find them and be reunited with those he cared most for. It was of no momentous concern if they had to live away from the Ponderosa – even though he didn’t particularly care for the thought – as long as they were together and a family.
Again he looked up at the sky and this time he took notice of the fact the sun didn’t seem to be moving. Maybe it was only his imagination, but he could almost swear that it was in the same place it had been when he had left Virginia City, as well as the Ponderosa, now that he thought about it.
“Stop watching the sky,” he said with annoyance, “or you’ll wind up on your face again.”
That wasn’t, however, the real reason he didn’t want to look up anymore. If the sun wasn’t moving, how could he be? And another thing, if he wasn’t dead, where was he? This all looked liked home but if it was where were all the creatures that inhabited it? Where were all the people? If this wasn’t Nevada he didn’t want to think about where it was.
“Don’t think so much. You’ll drive yourself crazy.”
He halted and stared at the ground, his brain working fast and furiously. Could that be it? Could he be crazy and locked up in an asylum someplace and this was all in his mind? That would explain why everything looked so familiar yet somehow different.
Pushing away that kind of ruminations he trudged on, he had to get to Carson City and find his family. Right now that was his main purpose in getting there and what drove him on.
“Oh, how I wish night would come, cool, blessed night. Ah, stop thinking about it and keep walking.”
He couldn’t be sure how long he had been going when he suddenly stopped. His eyes swept over the land for as far as they could see. He knew where he was but it couldn’t be possible. Had he taken a wrong turn someplace along the way, and he wasn’t where he thought he was? Taking a few steps forward he knew exactly where he was without mistake, he had been here way too many times to make that kind of an error. And the scary thing was that he didn’t recognize it as it was now but as it used to be. But how could that be? How could that possibly be?
“What is going on? The road is here but… but where’s the town.” He turned around more than once, his eyes constantly darting, searching for some hidden clue that he hadn’t caught. “I should be standing in the middle of Carson City.”
He walked on a little farther but the whole thing was useless. No matter what he did it didn’t change the fact that Carson City, with all its buildings, all its people, all that made it a town, was gone. And if there was no town his family couldn’t very well be here. But what had happened? What had taken it away, and had his father and brothers and Hop Sing been here when whatever had befallen it occurred?
He left the road and got down onto his knees and examined the ground, and it was as virgin as it had been before the white man ever came to this wild territory. Try as he might he could find no trace – except for the road – that anything had ever been built on this spot. Trees were in place that had been cut down ages ago and grass grew where stores and saloons and the livery and sheriff’s office once were. It was as if the town of Carson City had never existed.
“I don’t understand, I just don’t understand.”
As he stood, he felt a sense of helplessness close in around him, threatening to squeeze him to death. What could he do now? Where could he go? What options were left to him?
Then it came to him clearer than anything ever had. “I have to go home. That’s all that’s left. I have to go home. I shouldn’t have left in the first place but I had to try to find my family.” Wrapping his arms around himself a sense of tranquility filled him, and he knew that it had to be that way. “But now I have to go home because that’s where I belong.” With a sigh he rubbed at the ache that throbbed behind his eyes. “Dead men don’t get headaches either.”
With a final massage up and down the back of his neck, he followed the road for several feet then left it and started off to the right. He had to get back home, back to the Ponderosa, back to the big roughhewn log house he had designed and helped his father build what seemed like eons ago. He would walk until he got there or until he dropped in his tracks, whichever came first. For as he kept going in that direction, home’s pull increased as it did with the salmon as they did the same. He knew he could let nothing stop him, and he wouldn’t. Home beckoned, and he had to heed its call.
<5>
He was uncertain how long it had since he had started back – it seemed like forever – when he looked up at the sky. The sun hung in the same spot it had all day without so much of a variance that he could detect. No one had to tell him this wasn’t right, but then so much had been wrong today so why not this as well. Virginia City was dead and devoid of any kind of life, Carson City was gone, obliterated as if it had never been and maybe it hadn’t, and the land around him was still as death. No wind rustled the trees, no squirrels chattered nor birds sang, and never once he had seen any water anywhere. What he wouldn’t give to just hear it splashing and playing over rocks on its way to wherever it went for he had yet to get thirsty.
A small rise presented itself before him, and he took it in his stride. After what he had been through a bump in the ground wouldn’t deter him or make him alter his course. In his lifetime he had climbed higher mountains, some nearly insurmountable, but he had made it, and always with the love and support of his family. His family. Would he ever see them again? He didn’t even know where they were or what had become of them or if they were even still alive.
“No,” he growled, “I can’t, I won’t think that way.”
He continued up the mound but as he did he became aware that he didn’t seem to be making any headway. The more he walked the higher it got and the stiffer his legs grew. They didn’t hurt but they were threatening to seize up on him. No, he couldn’t let this stop him – he had to find out what lay on the other side. His heart pounded with the exertion, and the good thing about it was that it let him know that it still beat. He looked ahead of him, and he could see the top of the ever-higher mound but no matter how much or how fast he went he couldn’t reach it.
He wanted to stop but he feared that if he did and succumbed to defeat it would swamp him, and he wouldn’t be able to go any farther. Then it came to him in a rush all at once. Maybe this wasn’t real. Maybe this was all in his mind.
“This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real,” he said over and over in an effort to convince himself. “It’s all in your imagination. Maybe it’s all been in your imagination.”
Suddenly, he reached the crest of the mound and shot beyond it, and as he did gravity took over, and he lost his footing. His arms flayed in the air like a bird’s broken wings until he hit with a thud and a grunt and tumbled to the bottom, hitting every rock and twig on his way.
Coming to rest face down in a jumbled heap he just laid there breathing hard. “That felt good.” He groaned and blinked to clear his vision. “Well…, at least you felt it.”
With a monumental effort not uncommon to him, he pushed up with wobbly arms and got his feet under him again. He tried rubbing some of the tension from his legs that wanted to take over the rest of him. Something told him that if he let that happen he would never again see home and that he couldn’t bear the slightest thought of.
After pulling the fabric of the shirt loose from his sweaty skin and with a final rub of his muscles he picked up where he had left off. He couldn’t be positive exactly where he was; only that he was headed in the right direction, and this he felt more than saw.
From there the ground leveled off some, making the going a little easier. Now if only a breeze, regardless of how slight, would pick up and cool things down if only barely. His mind wandered to night again and he had to shove it away.
As he went it got so that he had to prod his feet to follow one after the other. It wasn’t that he was so tired but it all seemed so endless and so pointless. Since his mishap with the incredible growing mound, in fact, all day, time had appeared to stand in place with that relentless sun overhead. He had to stave off thoughts that he wished it would all just end, and he didn’t much care how. At this point, he would even welcome death and the peace it would bring with it. In its grip maybe he would finally meet up with his family again.
“Stop it! Just stop it!” he said as he flew into a pique. “At first you were afraid of being dead, and now you wantta be! Why can’t you just make up your mind?” He kicked at a stone in his path and it skittered along the ground. “Oh, that accomplished everything. Now you’re behaving like a petulant child. What would Pa say?”
The merest thought of his father was enough to soothe him. The corners of his drawn mouth turned in a smile and the hollows in his cheeks became deeper. Pa had always been there for him, even when he was miles away, and was one of the driving forces in his oldest son’s life.
“And Pa didn’t raise you to be a quitter. What would he say to you if he were here right now?” Wheels in his mind turned as he tried hearing his father’s rich voice. “Never doubt yourself, son, and never doubt what you’re capable of until you try, because if you never try, you’ll never know,” he said in a voice that wasn’t his. The calming effect spread through him like warm molasses and just as sweet. “All right, Pa. I’ll try.”
Soon he found himself in the midst of a thick stand of pines, and the blinding light of the sun gobbled up the shadows as it had everywhere else. He took a deep breath in anticipation of what would enter his nose but was sorely disappointed, though not at all surprised. The scent of the trees should be overwhelming but there was nothing.
Gladly, it didn’t take long to clear them and almost as soon as he did he froze in place. Just up ahead stood a fair-sized cabin that he recognized as belonging to Jubal Harriman and his wife Lotta and their five daughters. He had known these people for close to ten years even before the three youngest girls were born and no finer family could a man ever meet. But he knew this would be no different from his own home or Virginia City so why bother to stop. Food and water still held no interest for him, though he was starved for human companionship or just the sound of a voice other than his own.
“Well, you can’t afford to waste time just to be disappointed, you need to get back to the Ponderosa.”
No sooner had he started on his way than smoke began rising from the chimney. Excitement built inside him like a bonfire, stoked by the urgent desire to make contact with someone flesh and blood. His legs couldn’t carry him fast enough as he bolted for the house, the sound of his heart beating in his ears.
“Jubal!” he shouted as the door swung wide, and he stood in the doorway.
There wasn’t another living soul in the big main room of the cabin. The furniture and stove were covered in the same oppressive gray dust and there was no fire in the grate. He knew the youngest two girls to be five and six but there were no dolls or evidence that children had ever been near the place.
His fingernails began digging into the doorjamb as futility dropped on him like a bolder pushed from a cliff. “I guess it’s just as well, I would’ve frightened the children.” But his attempt to lighten his discouragement didn’t help. This was it, the final straw, and he couldn’t take it anymore.
The door slammed as he gave it a fierce jerk, and he whirled around so he wouldn’t have to look at the cruel joke any longer. He stamped out into the yard but didn’t get very far before he fell to his knees.
“What is going on?” he cried to the sky. “Why can’t I find anybody?” He leaned forward and began beating his fists against the hard packed soil but didn’t feel it. “I don’t wantta be alone!” Some of the steam went out of his anger. “I don’t wantta be alone.” He rested his forehead in the dirt. “Oh, please… help me…. Please help me.”
As he sat there hunched over a puff of fresh breeze caressed his skin and disheveled his hair. He rose and as he sat there the sunlight began to slowly fade into darkness, cool, all encompassing darkness that closed in around him like a tender friend. He looked up and the moon floated there like a silver ball on an ebony sea and seemed to smile at him with the visage of a beautiful woman. The light twinkled in his eyes as he recognized the face looking down at him.
“Thank you, Mother. I’m all right now.” Rigidly he got to his feet. “It’s time for me to go home.”
Without looking around him he started off again, the silvery glow from above illuminating his path. As he walked on a gentle rain began to fall, soaking him to the skin. Tilting his head back he let it patter in his face then he opened his mouth and let it trickle down his parched throat. It was sweet and wet and nothing had ever tasted or felt so good. He ran his hands back over his hair, pressing it flat against his head, shiny and black as a raven’s feather.
Soon he would be home where he belonged. He knew the possibility remained that he would still be alone once he got there, but he had to go home, and the pull had never been any stronger.
<6>
The rain still fell to Earth as he walked on into the endless night that he had longed for all through the ceaseless day. He had returned to that familiar road that would lead him back where everything felt right, and soon he would be embraced in its loving hold.
Again he held his face up and let the drops run into his mouth and remind him that he still lived. A tiny gurgle ran through his stomach to let him know that it needed more than water to make it content.
Rubbing the rain from his eyes, his head came down just as he passed into a clearing and came to a standstill. Ahead of him and much closer than he had realized stood the big house made of chinked logs and dreams and nurtured by love and family.
“Almost there,” he said and his heart swelled in his chest. “It won’t be long now.”
Picking up his step again he forged forward once more. The road had straightened out more than before and was level as a tabletop so he shouldn’t have any trouble getting there. As he got closer the song of crickets played in his ears and sounded as pleasing as any sonata.
When he finally came around the side of the barn into the yard the rain had lessened to a soft sprinkle. Home, at last he was home. He stopped near the barn and drank it all in. Things looked different than they had in the harsh glare of day. Where before there had been little there was now color and with the coming of the rain, the nectar of Heaven, life and vibrancy had been restored.
Out of curiosity, he stepped inside the big building. Near one of the stalls burned a lone lantern that hung from a nail, and inside stood a sleek red chestnut. With his long stride, Adam went to the animal.
“Hello, Sport,” he said as he stroked the blaze between the horse’s eyes. “Did you miss me?”
In answer, he got an affectionate nuzzle.
“I missed you too, son,” and he gave Sport a healthy pat on the neck. “Well, I’m home now, and we’ll go riding again before much longer. I’ll see you later. Right now I’ve got to get in the house.”
He didn’t know if he would find anyone waiting there for him as well, and he was afraid to look, but he knew he had to find out.
As he stepped back outside into the rain he noticed that someone had lit the big porch lamp, and its warm, orangey glow seemed to welcome him back and invite him inside. Slowly, he moved closer, almost afraid of what he would find. His boots thumped on the plank floor of the porch as he approached the heavy oak front door. He reached for the handle but went solid as he recalled what he had left that morning. What if what he saw outside was deceiving and nothing inside had changed? What if he was still alone?
“There’s only one way to find out,” he said as he slowly opened the door.
Lamplight greeted him as he entered and quietly pushed the door shut behind him. It had all become as he remembered it with its warmth and rustic appeal. With a half turn he saw that the painting that always hung over the bureau has been replaced with a mirror in an ornate golden frame. He moved closer and looked at the person there. Adam Cartwright was as handsome as he had ever been. Vitality and sparkle had come back into his keenly intelligent eyes and the color to his dark skin. He had filled out and no longer bore the gaunt appearance of death. He tousled his heavy black hair, which was now dry, as was the rest of him. Holding his hands out before him, he saw that the bones no longer made ridges along their backs and his fingers were tapered and elegant. Looking at the front of his dark red shirt he also saw that he was no longer covered in gray dust. Then he looked back at his reflection and grinned as he touched his face.
He turned into the room but didn’t get very far before he stopped again. A crackling fire blazed in the huge stone hearth and before it stood an impressive, silver-haired man with his back to the door. Slowly, Adam moved forward with the tread of a cat and went around the end of the settee.
He edged closer to the man and got a good look at his face. “Pa?”
The man looked around and there were those comforting coffee eyes that Adam and his brothers had grown up with and turned to many times for answers and solace. His full mouth curved ever so slightly, and he held his hand out to his son.
Adam looked at it then to his father’s face and any traces of the fear, of the anger and anguish and frustration that had followed him through the day evaporated. No longer did he dread what the ensuing days would bring, and no longer did he wish for death. He looked back at the strong hand being held out to him, and he reached for it.
“Pa!”
From where he sat in the big wingchair Ben looked around at his youngest son then followed his emerald gaze to the bed. Ever so slowly, Adam was raising his arm. Ben bounded to his feet and instantly came forward.
Hoss came to stand next to his little brother as they watched the drama unfolding before them.
Ben grasped his first-born’s hand and held on for dear life. “I’m here, son. I’m still here just like I promised I would be.”
The broad chest rose with a deep breath and the heavy lids fluttered then the weary dark hazel eyes opened.
Ben squeezed the long fingers with one hand while he placed the other against his son’s forehead and his spirits soared. “I think the fever is broken.”
With a grin, Joe gave Hoss a poke in the arm and got poked back.
Ben sat on the side of the mattress. “Adam, you’re going to be all right, son. Everything is going to be all right now.” He took the cloth from the basin and began bathing his oldest son’s face.
“Pa.”
“Don’t try to talk now. There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”
“You’re… real.”
“Yes, son, I’m real.”
Adam smiled faintly and let his eyes close.
<><><><>
Paul Martin had come and pronounced what Ben Cartwright already knew, that the fever was indeed broken. He had been guarded about the convalescence and warned that his patient mustn’t try to take things too fast, but then he always did and stressed it particularly with the eldest Cartwright son.
While Hoss and Joe saw the doctor out Ben remained in the room with his oldest. Since they had first realized that Adam was sick, he hadn’t strayed too far.
“Pa.”
“Yes, son,” Ben said as he sat on the side of the bed.
“It’s good… to be back…. When I was… away… I went someplace… I never want… to go… again.”
“Where was that?”
“A place… where there were… no birds…, no animals…, no people…. Only… aloneness…. Only… aloneness.”
“Well, you’re home now, and you’re not alone anymore.”
Adam managed a weak smile and took his father’s hand. He had gone into the night without anyone and, frightened and confused, found what he had, in his delirious mind, thought he had lost, but now he was back. And Pa was right, he wasn’t alone anymore.
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The poetry is Shakespeare’s Sonnet XVI.