Bloodlines
Part 5

By Kathleen T. Berney

“Eric, please . . . take me back to the Ponderosa,” Paris demanded, the instant she came within earshot of Hoss, still seated in the front pew.

“N-Now?!”

“RIGHT now!”

Hoss slowly rose to his feet with the rim of his white ten-gallon hat clasped in both hands. “M-Miss Paris, I . . . I thought you were— ” he stammered, perplexed and bewildered.

“I’m very sorry . . . more than I can possibly say . . . to have put you to all this fuss and bother,” she said wearily, as she seized hold of his arm with a grip surprisingly strong for a woman of fragile health. “I have a splitting headache, and I . . . I feel like I’m going to regurgitate that wonderful breakfast Hop Sing made this morning. I . . . guess the ride into town just . . . plain . . . wore me out.”

“I’m sorry, too, Miss Paris. I know y’ really had your heart set on goin’ t’ church this mornin’, ” Hoss said quietly, noting her pallid complexion and trembling hands with an apprehensive frown. “If ya’d like, we can stop by Doc Martin’s office on our way home, ‘n— ”

“I DON’T need to see the doctor,” Paris said in a firm, no nonsense tone of voice, as she and Hoss made their way through the church narthex, past the stream of parishioners arriving for Mass.

“We wouldn’t be goin’ outta our way, Ma’am . . . honest,” he gently pressed. “In fact, we’ll be passin’ right by his street on our way outta— ”

“Damn it, Eric . . . I just told you . . . I DON’T need to see the doctor,” she snapped, her eyes flashing with anger.

“Yes, ‘M,” Hoss responded stiffly, stung inwardly by her sharp rebuke.

A strained silence fell between them as they walked across the churchyard toward the buggy. Upon reaching the conveyance, Hoss helped Paris climb up into the passengers’ seat, then circled around the back to the other side.

“Eric, please wait,” Paris begged, as he settled himself in the buggy beside her. She reached out and placed a restraining hand over top his forearm, as he took up the reins.

Without uttering a word, Hoss turned toward the woman seated beside him, and waited.

“I just wanted to tell you that I . . . that I’m sorry,” Paris murmured contritely, “and I AM, Eric . . . honest! I am! Just because I’m feeling poorly and out of sorts doesn’t give me the right to snap your head off.”

“ ‘S ok, Miss Paris,” Hoss said curtly, before gently commanding the horse to begin backing up.

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with me that a good, long nap won’t cure,” Paris stoutly maintained, “which happens to be a very good thing because doctors tend to be expensive, and I’m kinda low on funds at the moment . . . . ”

“You needn’t worry yourself one bit ‘bout money,” Hoss gamely pointed out, as he turned from the church yard out onto the road that would eventually lead them back to the Ponderosa. “Pa’d— ”

“I KNOW he would, Eric,” she returned with a touch of exasperation. “He’s been very kind and generous . . . more so than I deserve, God knows, and I’m very grateful. I would have been in dire straits indeed had your father not been here, and taken me in. All the more reason, then not to take unfair advantage of his good nature.”

“You’re still a friend o’ the family,” Hoss said quietly.

“You . . . your father . . . your brother and sister . . . and Hop Sing have ALL shown yourselves friends to me,” Paris said, as she turned her face to the road stretching out before them. “I couldn’t ask for better. I only wish that I . . . well, that I had shown myself worthy of your friendship . . . . ” She punctuated those last words with a soft, melancholy sigh.

“Miss Paris . . . . ”

“What?!”

“ . . . alright with you if I speak plain?”

“I s’pose . . . . ” she warily gave ascent.

“I don’t know why y’ left so sudden last time you was here, but speakin’ for myself, it just plain don’t matter,” Hoss said in a firm tone that brooked no argument, no dissension of any kind on the issue. “What’s past is gone . . . like water passin’ under a bridge. Y’ can’t bring it back, ‘n ya can’t hold on to it, though a lotta folks try. What matters . . . leastwise what oughtta matter . . . is how a body’s livin’ in’ the right here ‘n right now.”

“Sometimes, Eric . . . some times . . . there’s things in a person’s past that are so terrible . . . so painful . . . it’s impossible to let go,” she ventured in a voice barely audible.

“I know there’s times when a man . . . or woman ‘s gotta find a way t’ make peace with what’s past,” Hoss said, “ ‘n believe me . . . I know it ain’t easy. But, to carry a heavy burden like that around for the whole rest o’ your life . . . . ” He sighed and shook his head. “There comes a time when a body’s gotta make up his mind t’ let go o’ the past, so he can live as he ought in t’ here ‘n now.”

“I see the wisdom in your words,” she said softly, marveling at his insight. “The way a person’s living out his life in the present is all that SHOULD matter. But, supposing that person finds himself surrounded by others who are not so willing to, ummm . . . shall we say let sleeping dogs lie?”

“All the more reason t’ live the best y’ can . . . ‘n to BE the best y’ can,” Hoss replied.

“Something along the lines of living well can be your best revenge?” she queried.

“I’ve never heard it put quite THAT way before,” Hoss responded, his lips curving upward to form an amused grin, “but . . . yes, Ma’am.”

For a single, brief, shining moment of what could only be foolish insanity, Paris McKenna desperately wished, with all the strength and all of the wherewithal she could summon from within her, that it WAS possible to for her make peace with what was, that she might live the kind of life Eric had conveyed so strongly in his words, and in the conviction behind which those words had been uttered.

But, such could never be.

Not for her.

Not now.

Maybe . . . if Rose Miranda had lived . . . .

“Foolishness,” she castigated herself in angry silence. “Rose Miranda is dead. Dead and buried.” No matter how fervently she might wish otherwise, there was nothing she or anyone else could do to change that. To wish so hard for things that might have been, but could never be was pointless.

“M-Miss Paris?!” Hoss ventured, noting her physical appearance with growing concern. In the space of a few minutes, she had shriveled, like grapes and plums turned respectively to raisins and prunes. She leaned heavily against the other side of the buggy, with chin resting down upon her bosom and eyes closed. “Ma’am, are y’ . . . are y’ all right?!”

“Fine, Eric,” she moaned softly.

“ . . . ‘n you’re sure ya don’t want me t’ stop by the doc’s office on our way home?”

“Quite sure,” she immediately replied. There was a hard, biting edge to her voice. “Good long nap’s all I need . . . . ”

“Yes, ‘M,” Hoss murmured softly, as he turned and, in passing, cast a longing eye down the street, where Doctor Martin and his wife lived and worked.

Upon her return to the Ponderosa, Paris turned heel and fled across the yard toward the front door of the log ranch house, the instant Hoss lifted her down from the buggy and gently set her feet down upon terra firma, without sparing so much as a second glance or even a simple thank you. Hoss stood beside the buggy with his eyes glued to Paris’ retreating back, as she strode across the yard, with head bowed and shoulders hunched, moving as fast as her precarious health and decorum allowed. He kept close watch until she finally entered the house, then, with a disheartened sigh, he set himself to the task of unhitching the horse from the buggy.

Meanwhile, the sound of the front door opening, then slamming shut, brought Hop Sing running out of the kitchen. “M-Missy?!” he gasped, upon catching sight of Paris bolting headlong across the great room toward the steps. “Missy Paris . . . why you back so early?!”

Paris half ran, half stumbled up the stairs, turning a deaf ear to Hop Sing’s anxious entreaties. Upon finally reaching the safe confines of the guest room upstairs at the far end of the hall, she slammed the door shut, then collapsed against it, gasping for breath.

“WHORE!”

Her mind echoed with the sound of a voice that, mercifully, she had not heard in nearly sixteen years. It was the voice of Gerald McKenna, her father, stone cold, filled with anger, hatred, and bitterness.

“WHORE!”

A vision of his face, when last she had seen it, swam into view. His jaw was set with an agonizing rigidity and his thick, bushy eyebrows drawn tightly together, locked in a perpetual scowl. The deep lines and hallows, seemingly gauged into brittle flesh the consistency of dried parchment, lent him the appearance of a man twenty years older at the very least. His blue eyes, the same bright color as her own, burned with the corrosive emotions literally eating him alive from within.

“Whore,” he spat contemptuously. “Nothing but a common WHORE!”

“No!” she tearfully insisted, now as she had then. “No! It WASN’T like that . . . it WASN’T! I swear!”

“ . . . and how many OTHERS did you give yourself to?!”

“NONE!” she snapped right back, almost before he had finished asking that terrible question, as anger rose to mingle with her grief and her heartbreak.

“Liar!”

“I’m NOT lyin’,” she argued, wanting so much to cry, yet stubbornly bound and determined that he not see her cry.

“Tell t’ TRUTH, Girl. That’s t’ REAL reason he sent ya packin’ . . . . ”

“Shut-up,” Paris moaned, clapping her hands tight over her ears.

“ . . . damn’ whore slut . . . givin’ her favors t’ everything in pants that came down t’ pike . . . . ”

“SHUT-UP, YOU HEAR ME?!” she shouted. “YOU SHUT YOUR FILTHY LYIN’ GOB, OR SO HELP ME . . . AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, SO HELP ME . . . . ”

“Miss McKenna . . . . ”

Father Rutherford’s voice, hesitant and uncertain, rose from the wounded places within her heart, effectively . . . and mercifully . . . stilling her father’s cruel words, and exorcizing the terrible image of his face.

“Miss McKenna . . . .

. . . if I may be so bold, he continued, . . . what . . . exactly . . . ARE your intentions concerning Ben Cartwright?”

“Are you asking me if I intend to m-marry him?”

“Do you?”

“No . . . I don’t know, I don’t. I hadn’t even thought— ” Paris moaned softly, as she stumbled across the room, fervently hoping to reach the bed, before she lost her balance and fell down.

“Paris?”

Father Rutherford’s face shimmered. His eyes, that circlet of red hair, now mixed so generously with gray, the long, aristocratic nose, that firm mouth and squared jaw line, all melted into a formless mound of flesh before the gaze of her inward sight.

“Paris . . . . ”

That formless mound of flesh coalesced into the face Ben Cartwright, as he appeared now, still every bit as handsome, as he had been when she first took up with him nearly seventeen years ago, leastwise in HER humble opinion. His graying, dark brown hair had gone completely snow white, and some of the lines, present in his face then, had deepened with the passage of time. Those changes, ones that would make the vast majority of people look old, lent a certain dignity and grace to his rugged good looks. Ben had aged exceedingly well over the past seventeen years, and there was no doubt in her mind whatsoever, that he would continue to do so.

“Paris . . . . ”

With a soft, contented sigh, she half sat, half fell down on the edge of her bed, closing her outward eyes, that she might all the better see once more the remembered passionate warmth radiating from his eyes and face.

“A penny for your thoughts . . . . ”

“Oh no! No, no, no . . . Ben, we shouldn’t,” she moaned, her voice filled with sadness and regret.

“Is that what you want?”

“You know damned well that ISN’T what I want, Ben Cartwright. I’m . . . I’m trying to be sensible, that’s all.”

“I’m not so sure I want to be sensible, Paris . . . . ”

“If we had the common sense God gave a horse’s arse, we WOULD be sensible. It’s been sixteen years, Ben . . . .

. . . sixteen years . . . .

. . . almost seventeen . . . .

“ . . . nearly half my life.”

“Paris,” Ben gently pressed, “what matters is the years that lie ahead . . . not the years gone by . . . . ”

“You have to tell him, Miss McKenna.”

Father Rutherford’s face, his voice, his words burst into her reverie with Ben with all the rude suddenness of someone throwing a bucket of ice cold water in her face.

“You HAVE to tell him, Miss McKenna . . . .

. . . you have to tell Ben about Rose Miranda!”

“Whore!”

Her father’s face returned, displacing Father Rutherford’s, with the same rude suddenness his, in its turn, had displaced Ben’s.

“Nothing but a common WHORE!”

“Paris, what matters is the years that lie ahead . . . . ”

“You HAVE to tell him . . . . ”

“ . . . the years that lie ahead . . . . ”

“ . . . nothing but a common whore!”

Shut-up,” she whimpered softly, as she leaned forward, pressing her hands tight against her ears once again. “All of you, please . . . . ”

“You have to tell him, Miss McKenna . . . . ”

“. . . what matters is the years that lie ahead . . . . ”

“You HAVE to tell Ben about Rose Miranda.”

“. . . damn’ whore slut . . . . ”

“ . . . what matters is the years that lie ahead . . . NOT the years gone by . . . . ”

“ . . . givin’ her favors t’ everything in pants that came down t’ pike . . . . ”

“You have to tell him, Miss McKenna . . . . ”

“Whore!”

“ . . . you have to tell Ben about Rose Miranda.”

“No! No, damn you! Damn ALL of you!” she vehemently swore, fearful that she had finally stumbled across that razor thin boundary line between sanity and utter madness. “Just . . . shut-up! Please . . . for the love of God, please . . . just . . . shut-up, and . . . and leave me in peace . . . . ”

Mercifully, the even rhythm of someone gently knocking on the door dispelled the dread visions and silenced their voices.

“Wh-Who . . . Who is it?” she responded, her voice shaking.

“It’s me,” Hoss replied from without. The concern and anxiety he felt within him, came through in his voice all too painfully loud and clear. “Miss Paris . . . are you all right?! I thought I heard ya screamin’ just now . . . . ”

“ . . . s-sorry, Eric, I . . . I, ummm dozed off for a moment and . . . and, I guess I . . . I must’ve been dreaming,” she stammered, grateful for the closed door that safely concealed his face and her own bright red cheeks, very warm to the touch. “It . . . w-wasn’t a very nice dream, I’m afraid . . . . ”

“I’m sorry,” Hoss replied, not knowing what else to say. “Hop Sing sent me up t’ tell ya that dinner’ll be ready in five minutes . . . . ”

Paris closed her eyes again, and took a deep, ragged breath. “I-I’m not hungry, Eric,” she responded, endeavoring to keep her voice calm and steady.

“Y’ sure ya can’t manage a li’l?” he cautiously pressed. “Hop Sing fixed pot roast, ‘specially for you.”

“I . . . appreciate all the trouble Hop Sing went through, but I’m . . . just . . . plain . . . not hungry,” Paris replied. “I’m sorry.”

“Alright, I’ll tell him,” Hoss said. He started to turn, then stopped. “Miss Paris?”

“What is it, Eric?” she responded warily. She remained, seated on the edge of her bed, with hands clasped tight beneath her chin, and every muscle in her body rigidly tensed.

“I’m real sorry you ain’t feelin’ very well right now,” he said with heartfelt sincerity. “I hope you’ll be feelin’ better real soon.”

“Thank you, Eric,” she murmured softly, listening close to the sound of his footsteps as they moved down the hall, away from the door to her room, fast closed. The instant his soft footfalls finally gave way to silence, she warily exhaled the breath she had been holding, then unclasped her hands slowly, one finger at a time.

“ . . . stupid,” Paris bitterly castigated herself, as she removed her shoes, then eased herself down onto the bed. She rolled over onto her side, turning her back to the closed door separating this room and herself from the rest of the house, and everyone in it. “How in the ever lovin’ world could I have been so bloody damn’ stupid?!”

If, at that very moment, she could have but one wish . . . it would be that the ground beneath her would open right up and swallow her whole, crushing her under a blanket of earth and rock, enveloping her in darkness so thick . . . so solid, a body could cut it with a knife. It would be bliss beyond imagining not to have to see anymore . . . to think or feel anymore . . . .

. . . and most especially not to BE anymore.

Unbeknownst to Paris or the Cartwrights, John McKenna, made his way painfully, one halting step at a time, across C Street, heading from the stage depot to the narrow passage way between the hotel and the Silver Dollar Saloon, that led to Blood Alley.

“You’re LAUGHING at me!” he silently accused the citizens of Virginia City, as he limped, making damned sure he kept his back straight, his shoulders back, and head held high. “You think to fool me, but I KNOW. I . . . KNOW . . . you’re ALL laughing at me!”

To the undiscerning eye, they were simply children playing . . . women shopping, pausing briefly to exchange a few words, and gossip more than likely . . . men about their daily business. Most would, no doubt, be completely taken in by the bland, insipid masks they presented to the world, day after day after day, but not a man, like himself, greatly blessed and just as greatly cursed with a rare gift that allowed him to see the true faces behind their deceitful façade. He could hear their derisive laughter and see their wagging heads and pointing fingers all too clearly.

“It didn’t take long for word of what happened at the bank in Carson City to get back here,” John silently observed, as he glared balefully into faces, that, for the most part, seemed content to ignore him.

He knew it would have eventually, of course. That was a given, human nature being what it was, and according to Parson Lewis Merriweather, one of the most unsavory, most disagreeably foul, most evil aspects of said human nature was the way it drooled with such nasty relish at the sight of its betters falling so utterly, so completely from grace. But he had no idea, no idea in the world, that word of the humiliation he had suffered yesterday afternoon at the hands of one Esau Brisbane, president of the Carson City branch of the Lattimer Platt and Sons Bank, would actually spread across the entire length, width, and breadth of Virginia City before his return.

“Captain McKenna . . . . ”

Esau Brisbane’s strident, gravelly voice echoed again in the ears of his inward hearing for what had to be the millionth time.

“ . . . your account has been closed, as you have requested,” Esau said curtly. He held out a thin envelope, bearing his name, neatly penned, on its face.

John frowned. Given that he had specifically requested that the funds from the closed account be issued primarily in denominations of fifty, twenty, and ten, he expected that envelope to be much, much thicker.

“ . . . the final balance in your account was twenty two dollars and seventy three cents.”

John’s jaw dropped. For a time he remained frozen in place, staring up into the bank president’s face, through eyes round with astonishment. “N-No,” he whispered, when, at last he found his voice. “N-No . . . th-that . . . that c-c-can’t be!”

“Twenty two dollars and seventy three cents IS the correct amount, Captain McKenna,” Esau said. “If you’d like to review the final statement— ”

John McKenna flew out of his chair with surprising speed and power, given a man with, in his own words, ‘a bum leg.’ “THERE SHOULD BE FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS IN THAT ACCOUNT,” he shouted. Before Esau could react, John seized hold of his jacket lapels in a tight, white knuckled grip, and pulled him close. “Do you hear me?!” John whispered, his face less than an inch from Brisbane’s. “There should be fifty thousand dollars in that account! Fifty . . . THOUSAND . . . dollars.”

“Captain McKenna, I suggest you unhand me this minute,” Esau ordered, in a tone of voice that dripped icicles. “If you don’t, I’ll have you jailed for assault.”

John, his body trembling in the grip of intense, impotent fury, released his hold on Esau with enough force to upset his balance. The bank president stumbled backward a few steps. Had he not bumped into his desk, he would have almost certainly taken a very nasty tumble.

“There should have been more than fifty thousand dollars in that account,” John insisted, his dead calm voice a frightening contrast to his body, still trembling, his beet red face, and eyes round and staring. “I wired my bank in Westpoint . . . and asked them to wire a draft for fifty thousand dollars to my account HERE.”

“Westpoint, New York,” Esau muttered softly, as he pulled himself up to the fullness of his diminutive height, and straightened his jacket. He, then, walked around the enormous desk, that completely dominated his small office, and took his place in front of his chair. “Was the bank Mercers and Coe Bank and Trust, Captain McKenna?”

“Yes,” John replied. “You KNOW damned well it WAS.”

Esau sat down, and yanked open the bottom left hand drawer of his desk, and withdrew a slender folder. “I received a wire from Mister Coe, President of Mercers and Coe, in response to your request to transfer funds from that bank to this,” he said stiffly as he slapped the folder in hand down onto the top of his desk in front of John McKenna. “Your account with Mercers and Coe WAS closed, per your request, Captain McKenna, and the entire remaining balance, which by the way totaled seven hundred seventy two dollars and seventy three cents wired to your account HERE.”

“No!” John protested, shaking his head vigorously in denial. “No! That’s NOT possible!”

“A total of seven hundred and fifty dollars was deducted to cover the amount your account here was overdrawn,” Esau continued, “leaving a balance of twenty two dollars and seventy three cents. Here!” He thrust a copy of the message, hastily scrawled by the telegraph operator into John McKenna’s face. Read it for yourself.”

John snatched the note from Esau’s hand and read it over with sinking heart and increasing dismay . . . .

“Virginia’s father,” John grumbled, unaware that he spoke aloud. His step quickened. His face was slightly flushed and his breath rapid. Tiny beads of sweat dotted his brow. “That damn . . . petty . . . vindictive . . . son of a . . . BITCH. This is HIS doing. It HAS to be, though I never DREAMED he’d actually stoop this low . . . . ”

In addition to being his father-in-law, Major Josiah Sinclair was also John McKenna’s uncle, by virtue of being the last of seven children born to one Annanias Sinclair, Lord of Devonswyk, and his wife, the Lady Sarah. He had left home and country at the tender age of fifteen to make his own way in the world, knowing that his chances of someday inheriting his father’s title and lands were virtually nil, with six older brothers and at least a dozen or so nephews ahead of him in the line of succession.

The day after his eighteenth birthday, he enlisted in the army of his adopted country, distinguishing himself, not only on the battlefield, but in diplomacy as well, most notably for keeping the peace between the white settlers from the east, and the indigenous population, ensconced in the plains. Over and over again, he had shown himself to be a man of honor, earning the respect, grudging more often than not, of white men and Indians alike.

After serving twenty years in the field, Major Sinclair was transferred to Westpoint to teach cadets the ways of diplomacy and peacekeeping. He had proven himself to be an excellent teacher, during his tenure at the academy, stern, yet fair, liked and respected by the cadets and his colleagues as well. Not long after he and his family had moved to Westpoint, he had sent for his mother, then recently widowed and living in the tiny, cramped dowager’s apartment within the family townhouse in London.

John McKenna learned of his kinship with Major Sinclair and his mother, Lady Sarah toward the end of his freshman year. The major, of course, had investigated his claims of kinship thoroughly. Upon learning that his allegations were true, the major treated John as he would an acquaintance, friendly enough, while yet maintaining a certain distance. Lady Sarah, however, was nearly beside herself with joy upon meeting the son of her only daughter, Stacy Louise. She remembered him very generously at Christmas and on his birthday, and at her insistence, he was included in all of the Sinclair family gatherings.

Regrettably, Stacy Louise, his mother, never responded to her mother’s grand overtures of reconciliation, which continued from the time she learned of her daughter’s whereabouts, until the day she finally drew her last breath. His mother and father heartily disapproved of him forming ties with his maternal grandmother and uncle, and did all within their power to discourage him. Try as he might, John could never understand their bitterness, their animosity. Uncle Josiah, after all, was very well placed by way of the respect his distinguished service as an army officer had earned him, and financially as well, thanks to the shrewd acumen of the men, who had, over the years, more than adequately advised him regarding business matters.

“Y’ think t’ get your grubby hands on the Sinclair family fortune?!” his mother angrily sneered when first he told her of his meeting with Grandmother and Uncle Josiah. “Think again. IT’S tied up to vast land holdings in Ireland and any number of bank accounts in England, and passes down to he who inherits the title. It’ll be a cold day in hell before JOSIAH sees any o’ that money . . . let alone yourself.”

“Uncle Josiah’s made his own fortune, Mam. He doesn’t— ”

“ Oh! I see . . . . So, you’re thinkin’ my skinflint of a brother’s goin’ t’ share HIS filthy lucre with the likes o’ YOU?!” she snorted derisively.

“He won’t . . . but GRANDMOTHER WILL!”

“GRANDMOTHER?!” his mother hooted, disdainful and incredulous.

“Yes, Grandmother,” he insisted. “SHE’S more than willing to share her wealth with me . . . and with you, too, Mam . . . if you’d let her.”

“WHAT wealth?!”

“There’s the interest she’s made from her dowry--- ”

“A pittance. A mere pittance,” Mam declared in a tone of voice insultingly dismissive. “Josiah sees to her upkeep, make no mistake about that. If she had to live solely on the interest generated by her dowry, she’d have been reduced to begging years ago, and it would’ve served her right.”

“She doesn’t ONLY have the interest she earns per annum from her dowry,” John argued. “She ALSO has the wealth SHE inherited from her own mam and da.”

“I’ll have NO PART of her filthy, ill-gotten gain,” Mam declared loftily, with that very same look of evil pride that seemed ever present in the face of his older sister of late . . . .

At the ripe old age of ninety-three years, Lady Sarah had finally breathed her very last. Josiah took her body back to Ireland, and saw her laid to rest in the family cemetery alongside her late husband. Her last will and testament was read shortly after Josiah’s return to Westpoint six weeks later. John, his uncle, Micah Cummings, the attorney who handled legal matters for his uncle and late grandmother, and Micah’s secretary, John Paine, in attendance. It was brief and straight to the point:

“I, Sarah Wainwright Sinclair, being sick and weak in body, but sound in mind, declare this to be my last will and testament, revoking any and all wills made by me previously.

“I, Sarah Wainwright Sinclair, bequeath my entire estate, my fortune and all of my worldly goods, to my only daughter, Stacy Louise Sinclair McKenna, and her heirs and assigns forever.”

The silence that had fallen upon the small assembly was so thick, so palpable, John felt as if he could have sliced it with a knife. He took a deep, ragged breath and squeezed his eyes tight shut against an environment that had suddenly began to swirl and pulsate with a nauseating intensity.

“This is YOUR doing, Young Man.”

John very slowly, very reluctantly opened his eyes and found himself staring into his uncle’s face, its complexion several shades paler than was his norm, his mouth and jaw line set like granite, and eyes burning with raw fury beneath a pair of bushy salt and pepper eyebrows, drawn so close together, they formed a single line.

“YOU put her up to this.”

“I . . . I don’t know wh-what y-you’re talking about,” John stammered, wagging his head back and forth in denial.

“Micah!” Josiah snapped, turning the full brunt of his rage and attention to his attorney. “I want to break my mother’s will.”

“On what grounds?” Micah queried in a firm, even tone of voice.

“Try undue influence,” Josiah growled with a pointed glare in the direction of his young nephew.

“Valid grounds,” Micah admitted, “assuming, of course, you can adequately prove your charge in a court of law.”

“It should be painfully obvious,” the major immediately returned. “My late mother’s friends . . . and MY friends, too, for that matter . . . can tell you how she gushed and fawned over this . . . this . . . money grubbing, gold digging son of a bitch my sister unfortunately whelped into this world. You ask them, Micah. You ask any one of ‘em . . . or ALL of ‘em for that matter! THEY’LL tell you . . . . ”

“I’m sure they can, and would, if I asked,” Micah said quietly, “and you might have a good, strong circumstantial case, except for one thing.”

“ . . . and what might THAT be?” Josiah demanded.

“Lady Sinclair did NOT leave her entire estate to this young man,” Micah explained. “Instead, she left it all to a daughter, who, for whatever reason, never responded to any of her mother’s entreaties.”

“My mother and grandmother had a bad falling out many years ago, Mister Cummings,” John meekly offered.

“Be THAT as it may, this young man still numbers among my sister’s heirs and assigns, Micah,” Josiah angrily pointed out. “As such, he eventually stands to inherit.”

“That decision, of course, is entirely up to your sister.”

“If YOU can’t see the damned forest for the trees, I sure can,” Josiah declared. “My nephew here . . . . ” he grimaced, as if he had just bitten into something with an exceedingly foul taste, “ . . . he talked my mother into leaving her entire estate to my sister knowing that he’d eventually stand to inherit.”

“It’s been done,” Micah allowed, “but it’s damned difficult to prove.”

“Didn’t HE bring my mother around to see you when she decided to change her will . . . with his help?!”

“No,” the attorney replied. “She came in the company of the young man, who drives her buggy. Mister Paine here can and will attest to that.”

“It’s true, Major,” John Paine quietly affirmed, nodding his head. “Cadet McKenna did not accompany Lady Sinclair at all through out the entire time she and Mister Cummings were drawing up a new will.”

“ . . . and before you take it into your head to question Lady Sarah’s sanity, Josiah, it was clear to me through out that her mind was as sound as a dollar,” Micah said firmly. “I’m sure Doctor Crandall can and will attest to that, as well.”

Josiah exhaled a long, loud, exasperated sigh. “All right!” he growled. “I know when I’m defeated.” He rose, then turned and cast a cold, baleful eye down upon his nephew. “You mind, Young Man. Though I can offer no satisfactory proof, I KNOW this is YOUR doing. From here on in, I’d strongly suggest you pay very close attention to the rules and regulations during what remains of your time at the academy, because I’m going to be watching you very, VERY closely. If you so much as commit even the smallest infraction . . . . ”

His voice trailed away to an ominous silence.

“From now on, Sir, you WILL keep your distance between me and mine.”

With those parting words, Major Josiah Sinclair stormed out of his attorney’s office.

After the initial shock had passed, John was every bit as grief-stricken and angry as his uncle at the prospect of his grandmother naming his mother as the sole beneficiary in her will. At the same time, however, he would have sold his soul to the very devil himself for a glimpse of Stacy Louise McKenna’s face the day she learned of her inheritance . . . and the great extent of it. He quickly set aside his grief and resentment, as the pragmatic man within began to assert himself. What was done was done, and no amount of yelling, screaming, throwing temper tantrums, and railing against the heavens, would ever undo it. There was only one course of action left to him, and he had adamantly vowed to pursue it, despite the major’s angry injunctions.

One year, almost to the day, after the old lady’s death and the obligatory period of deep mourning, John McKenna began to pay court to Uncle Josiah’s only daughter, Virginia . . . .

“ . . . Virginia,” John whispered softly, his pace quickening. “Virginia . . . . ” She had always been the apple of her father’s eye, what with being the only daughter among six sons. One word from her . . . .

“Damn!” he swore, leaping from the dusty street to the board sidewalk with all the power and grace of a ballet dancer. “Damn, damn, damn, damn, DAMN! Curse me for the fool that I am, I should’ve KNOWN . . . should’ve REALIZED!!!”

VIRGINIA had done it!

That lying, thieving, back stabbing, conniving little bitch had put her father up to stealing the money . . . money that Josiah Sinclair had grudgingly given as a wedding gift . . . from HIS bank account in Westpoint and transferring it to a new account bearing the names of Josiah Sinclair and daughter Virginia Sinclair McKenna only.

This wasn’t the first time Virginia had deceived and betrayed him, either. She had her uses, limited though they may be, had served him adequately enough since their hasty marriage. But her purpose and her usefulness were very quickly coming to an end, and the girls . . . .

He grimaced. “Parson Merriweather was right,” he silently ruminated, as he walked briskly toward the narrow alleyway between the hotel and saloon, occasionally pushing aside people he perceived to be in his way. “A wife has use and her place, but in the end, she’s still the hell spawn of her mother, Eve.”

John resolved, right then and there, that once he had obtained what he needed from the Cartwright girl and dealt with her father and his sister, he would quietly put away his wife and two daughters as well . . . .

. . . in a place so remote, so far away from anything remotely resembling human habitation . . . .

. . . where no one would find them.

Ever.

“Better this way,” he continued, ruminating aloud. “The girls are certainly meek and obedient enough . . . I’ve seen to that! Both will almost certainly be assured of their place in heaven since neither one has, as yet, come into her wisdom in the ways of this corrupt and evil world.” When the time came for him to quietly put them away, he solemnly resolved to be merciful and quick.

“But NOT Virginia!” he silently vowed. “Oh no! Not Virginia! So HELP me, when the time comes, I swear . . . by all that I hold holy, I SWEAR . . . Virginia Sinclair McKenna will pay for her many, many sins . . . IN FULL.”

David Matthews stood watch near the front door of the temporary quarters in where Captain McKenna and his family had taken up residence, watchful and vigilant almost to a fault, yet unobtrusive. He watched from his place, partially concealed within the shadows of the half fallen down roof over the entryway, as the captain haltingly made his way up the sidewalk. David crisply saluted when the captain at last drew near the front door.

“I trust all is well, Private Matthews?” John asked.

“All is well, Sir,” David replied. “A liaison sent from Sergeant Collier’s camp waits to see you. He brings a message from the sergeant, and is under orders to deliver it to you in person.”

“Did you show the courier inside?”

“I asked Private Matthews NOT to show me inside, Captain.” The man was Private Seth Harris, Sergeant Collier’s much trusted, unofficial right hand. He was a mountain man, from somewhere in the Appalachians, a hunter and trapper who had lived most of his life outdoors.

“Your message, Private?”

Seth cast an anxious, wary glance over in David Matthews’ general direction.

“It’s quite alright, Private Harris,” John McKenna hastened to reassure. “You may speak freely in front of Private Matthews.”

“Sergeant Collier ordered me to inform you that the girl and her father are fishing together at Dressler’s Pond, Sir,” Seth reported.

“He has them under surveillance?” John McKenna asked. Though he spoke in a calm tone of voice, his mind and thoughts began to race a mile a minute.

“Yes, Sir,” Seth quietly replied. “He has them under surveillance even as we speak.”

“Is anyone ELSE with them?”

“No, Sir.”

“Excellent,” John murmured softly.

“Orders, Sir?”

“What to do . . . what to do . . . .” he silently ruminated, stymied by near paralyzing indecision. ”NO!” a part of him silently screamed. “You can’t! You can’t, not NOW----

“I may never get another chance,” he growled back in response.

“Wait,” a calmer, saner part insisted. “You act now . . . all you’ve planned for . . . all you’ve worked so long and hard for . . . will be completely undone.”

Unfortunately, he was a desperate man, financially destitute, with creditors at the door, and men . . . good, loyal men, who had not been paid in two, going on three months now . . . in short, he had no time left to wait.

“Timing.” Major Josiah Sinclair’s voice on the very first day of class, at the start of his freshman year at Westpoint. “Timing is everything. Timing can mean all the difference between living to survive and fight another day . . . or death.”

Words truer than true, even if they WERE spoken by the petty, vindictive son-of-a-bitch largely responsible for the dire financial straits in which he now floundered. But his back was hard up against the proverbial wall. He had no other choice but to act now before Ben Cartwright had the chance to sequester her once again within the safety of his home.

“Impossible! You haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of carrying out your vengeance against Ben Cartwright if you remain here, in Virginia City!” that sane, rational inner voice argued. “You MUST take her away . . . FAR away, like you planned!”

“No! I CAN do it here . . . I CAN and I WILL!” John passionately vowed, filled suddenly with grim resolve. “By all that I hold holy and sacred, I promise . . . I VOW before God Himself, I WILL take back what’s rightfully mine, AND I will have my vengeance against Ben Cartwright for the many, and grievous sins he has committed . . . and that whore bitch of a sister, as well.”

“ . . . S-Sir?” Private Harris ventured hesitantly. “D-Do you . . . umm, have a m-message for me to take back to Sergeant Collier?”

“Yes, Private Harris,” John replied, speaking calmly, with a deep confidence he had not felt within him for a very long time. “Tell Sergeant Collier the word is given.”

“The girl?”

“Bring here here . . . AFTER dark.”

Ben carefully dipped his line into the water, without creating so much as a single ripple in its smooth, glass-like surface, then settled himself comfortably against the tall, standing stone, erected near the edge of the pond by the Dressler, for whom that particular body of water had been named.

“I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day . . . if I had ordered it up myself,” he silently mused, with a deep, genuine gratitude. It was a gorgeous early spring morning, with sunshine, a bright blue, cloudless sky overhead, and the occasional breeze weaving its way through the boughs of pine needles and new leaves, just beginning to open. The chill of early morning gradually dissipated as the sun climbed from the eastern horizon line toward zenith, following the same upward path across the sky it had trod since its beginning.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“You think we have a chance of catching Ol’ Ulysses?”

“Ol’ Ulysses?!” Ben echoed. An amused smile tugged hard at the corner of his mouth. “Ol’ Ulysses . . . . ” he murmured softly, shaking his head. “Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a quite a while . . . . ”

“Hoss says he weighs at least three hundred pounds . . . maybe a little MORE,” Stacy said, speaking in the same, solemn, hushed tone of voice her big brother used whenever he spoke of Ol’ Ulysses, “and he’s more wily and crafty than the devil himself.”

“Three hundred pounds?!” Ben queried, chuckling softly. “He was a puny eighty pounder when I first arrived here with Adam and Hoss . . . though your brother, Adam always insisted Ol’ Ulysses had to be a catfish instead of a trout.”

“A catfish?!” Stacy echoed, with a bewildered frown.

“Um hm!”

“Why did Adam say Ol’ Ulysses had to be a catfish?”

“Because Ol’ Ulysses supposedly lives at the bottom of Dressler’s Pond,” Ben replied, “and, according to your oldest brother, catfish are bottom feeders . . . trout are not.”

“You kinda sound like you don’t believe in Ol’ Ulysses, Pa.”

“Well . . . . ” Ben smiled. “These days, I s’pose I AM more inclined to think Ol’ Ulysses is a fish story who’s grown bigger and bigger with each passing year.”

“Would that make Ol’ Ulysses a tall t-a-l-e or a tall t-a-i-l?” Stacy asked, smiling back.

“Very funny, Young Woman,” Ben laughed, then sobered. “Between you and me, I kinda hope he IS just a fish story whether that be a tall t-a-l-e or tall t-a-i-l.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well . . . for one thing a three hundred pound fish is plenty big enough to eat the two of US,” Ben replied.

“I . . . didn’t think of that,” Stacy replied with a shudder.

“ . . . second,” Ben continued, “your big brother might be able to wrestle a three hundred pound fish out of the pond, be he trout or catfish, but even HE’D need the buckboard to get him home.”

“You’re right about that,” Stacy had to agree.

“ . . . AND it would also take us a mighty long time to eat a three hundred pound fish . . . . ”

“How long, Pa?”

“I’m not sure, Stacy,” Ben replied. “But if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say . . . oohhh a good three, maybe four months or so.”

“Three or four MONTHS?!” Stacy echoed, incredulous. “Even with HOSS helping us eat him?”

“Yep.” Ben smiled and nodded his head. “Now if we DIDN’T have Hoss around to help us eat him, it would take us a good six months, I’d think . . . maybe a li’l more.”

“Six months?!” Stacy gasped.

“ . . . that’s assuming the rest of us were very, VERY hungry,” Ben affirmed with a chuckle.

“Pa . . . . ” she queried, her eyes all of a sudden narrowing with suspicion.

“Yes, Stacy?”

“Are you joshin’ me?”

“Well . . . maybe a little,” Ben admitted.

Stacy smiled. “I guess a three hundred pound fish IS kinda far fetched when you start thinking about it,” she said.

“A three hundred pound fish living at the bottom of Dressler’s Pond may be a bit of an exaggeration, but out in the deep ocean there’s all kinds of fish . . . sharks . . . and other marine animals that easily weigh three hundred pounds or more,” Ben said.

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Have YOU ever seen any of ‘em?”

Ben nodded. “I’ve seen plenty of whales, though the ship on which I served as first mate wasn’t a whaler,” he replied. “I’ve also seen dolphins . . . sharks . . . and fish of just about every size, shape, and description. Once, when the Wanderer stopped to pick up cargo . . . it was in Australia somewhere . . . I saw a giant sea turtle.”

“Wow!” Stacy exclaimed in a voice barely audible, her eyes round as saucers. “Pa?”

“Hmm?”

“Are the stories about dolphins saving drowning sailors true?”

“I’ve heard a lot of stories about dolphins saving men from drowning,” Ben replied, “though it’s never happened to me or any other sailing man of my acquaintance. Captain Stoddard . . . he was the Wanderer’s captain and your brother, Adam’s maternal grandfather . . . HE told me once about meeting a sailor who claimed he’d been saved from drowning by a dolphin when he was a cabin boy.”

“You think the sailor told Adam’s grandfather the truth?” Stacy asked.

“To be up front and honest, Young Woman, I never met the man who told Captain Stoddard that story, so I can’t tell ya for sure whether he WAS telling the truth or not,” Ben replied. “However, I like to think the sailor was telling the truth.”

Stacy smiled. “Me, too, Pa . . . and I’ll tell you something else . . . . ”

“What’s that?”

“I like the idea of Ol’ Ulysses living at the bottom of the pond a whole lot better than him lying on someone’s dinner plate,” Stacy said, “be he trout or catfish.”

“I couldn’t agree with ya more, Young Woman,” Ben said quietly.

For a time, father and daughter lapsed into companionable silence.

“Pa! I’ve got another bite!” Stacy cried out, shattering the late morning stillness.

Ben glanced up sharply just in time to see the line on her pole moving on a straight course toward the center of the pond. Within less than a minute, Stacy’s line had pulled taut, forming a straight line stretching from a pole slightly bowed to a spot about a yard or so from the pond’s center. “Stacy, you need to give him a little more room.”

“How? I’m almost standing in the water now.”

Ben scrambled to his feet, then bent down to grab his net. “See if you can move over there . . . . ” he pointed to a spot a few feet to her left, where the land curved slightly out into the water, toward the center, where the deepest water lay. “Take it slow.”

Stacy nodded, then slowly eased her way along the boundary line between land and water, toward the place her father had indicated. “Please, Great Spirit . . . lover and creator of us all?” she silently and earnestly prayed. “Please . . . please . . . PRETTY please . . . DON’T let this be Ol’ Ulysses! I meant it when I told Pa that I like the idea of him living at the bottom of this pond a lot better than the thought of him lying on someone’s dinner plate . . . . ”

“All right, Stacy, bring him in . . . slowly,” Ben ordered, as he moved in alongside her, with net clasped firmly in hand.

Stacy nodded, then took a step backwards.

The line went slack for a few seconds, then struck out on a course parallel to the shoreline, under the impetus of the fish hooked on the end submerged in the waters of the quiet pond. Stacy instinctively moved along with it.

“That’s right,” Ben murmured softly. He immediately fell in step behind his daughter. “That’s right . . . stay with him, Stacy . . . stay with him as best you can.”

The hooked fish swam parallel to the gently curving shoreline for a distance of three and a half yards, then abruptly turned and moved again toward the center of the pond. Stacy followed, endeavoring to keep the line from pulling too tight, until she reached the very edge of the pond.

“Pa? NOW what do I do?” she asked, as the line once again pulled taut.

“See if you can coax him into moving parallel with the shoreline again,” Ben replied. “Take it slow. Slow ‘n easy.”

Stacy nodded and did as her father had told her. For one, brief heart stopping moment, the fish on the other end of the line stayed to the course taking it into the deep water in the middle of the pond. Stacy braced herself, when her pole bowed, half expecting the fish she had hooked to break the line and continue on toward safety in the deep water. Then, suddenly, the fish turned away from the deep water and swam vigorously toward the shoreline.

“Stacy . . . . ”

“Yeah, Pa?”

“I want you to try following him, but . . . if you can . . . as you move around the pond, try to move away from the water,” Ben instructed.

“I’ll do my best.”

She circled the narrow eastern end of the pond, gradually veering away from the water’s edge. The fish on the end of her line continued on a straight course that took it away from the deep water and into the shallow near the shore on the opposite side of the pond, from the place where their horses were tethered.

“Good!” Ben praised her. “Keep moving away from the pond.”

Stacy did as she had been told.

Ben quickly moved in close to the shore, with his net ready. “Now, Stacy . . . see if you can pull that fish out of the water.”

Stacy gritted her teeth and dug in her heels. She lifted the top of her pole as high as she could, then turned. The instant Ben saw the fish’s head break the surface of the pond, he waded out into the water and scooped, hoping against hope he had gotten the net well under the fish. He lifted the net, and was gratified to see a trout of respectable size flopping within.

“Pa? Didja get it?” Stacy called out from her position several feet away from the pond.

“I got it,” Ben called back grinning from ear-to-ear.

“How big is he?” Stacy asked, as she jogged over to her father’s side.

“See for yourself,” Ben replied with a proud smile, as he held the net up allowing her to see.

“Wow!” Stacy whispered, surprised and awe struck. “He’s a big one alright.”

“Looks to me like he’s the biggest one we’ve caught so far,” Ben observed.

“We’ve done real well so far, haven’t we, Pa?”

“We sure have,” Ben whole-heartedly agreed. “All that work we did just now in landing that big one’s left me mighty hungry,” he continued, rising to his feet. “How about YOU, Young Woman? You ready to find out what Hop Sing packed for us in that great big basket?”

Stacy nodded her head vigorously. “I was just getting ready to ask YOU the same question, Pa,” she declared, with a broad grin, “ ‘cause I’M starving, too.”

“It’s attached to Buck’s saddle,” Ben said, smiling. “Think maybe YOU can fetch it, while I add this big fella to the ones we’ve already caught?”

“You betcha!” Stacy declared, as she turned and started for their horses, both of whom were tethered under the big aspen tree growing not far from the banks of the pond. Before she had taken three steps, a shot rang out from behind the tree, spooking Buck and Blaze Face. The bullet flew by Stacy’s head close enough for her to feel the wind of its passing against her right ear. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her father’s body jerk violently back first, then forward before dropping to the ground like a lifeless sack of potatoes.

“Pa!” she whimpered, as she turned and dropped to her knees beside his ominously still form. She reached out with trembling hand and firmly touched her father’s neck, just under the ear, for a pulse. “Thank you, Great Spirit,” she murmured, as a tidal wave of relief washed over her. Though unconscious, his pulse was steady. A closer look told her that the bullet had merely grazed his left temple, though it continued to bleed profusely.

With the knowledge that Pa was alive, came the harsh realization that both of them were in grave danger. Stacy reached over and, with the quick fluid movements of a stalking cat, removed Ben’s weapon from its holster and shoved it under her jacket.

“All right, Kid. You just do as you’re told and no one’ll get hurt.”

Stacy very slowly, and with sinking heart, raised her head. Six men surrounded her and her father on all sides. Jeff Collier, their leader, stood just outside the circle. He nodded to the short squat man standing directly in front of Stacy.

Alexander Deveraux nodded curtly. “Stand up, Kid . . . nice and slow,” he ordered, “and move away from the old man.”

“You won’t hurt my pa?”

“I just tol’ja no one’ll get hurt if ya do as you’re told,” Alexander growled, annoyed and impatient. “Now on your feet. Slow ‘n easy. I’m NOT gonna tell ya again.”

Stacy rose, and moved away from her father’s insensate form. “Don’t cry!” she silently, fearfully admonished herself. “Whatever you do, Stacy Louise Cartwright, don’t you DARE cry.” She saw that the men forming the circle seemed to be concentrating their attention on her.

“That’s right, Kid. Now g’won over to those horses over there,” Alexander ordered.

Stacy started toward the tree where she and Pa had tethered their horses. As she moved, the circle opened, giving her a clear shot at the man standing outside. She drew Ben’s weapon out from under her jacket, lightening quick, and before anyone could even think to stop her, she took aim, and squeezed the trigger. The gun discharged, embedding a bullet deep in Jeff Collier’s right shoulder. The force of the blow sent him reeling backward. He fell, striking his head on a rock. The remaining men stood unmoving, gazing stupidly at their insensate leader. Seizing advantage of the men’s momentary lapse, Stacy ran toward Blaze Face with all her might.

“Stu-stu-stu . . . stop her!” Alex stammered, recovering his senses.

The remaining five men immediately turned and gave chase.

Stacy unhitched Blaze Face, pausing just long enough to whisper in his ear. She, then slapped his rump, and turned again to fire. One quick thinking individual among the men saw Stacy raise her father’s gun. He immediately drew his own weapon and fired, nicking the wrist of her gun hand. Ben’s gun immediately dropped from her hand to the ground.

Alex Deveraux raised his own revolver and aimed it at Stacy’s head. “You so much as blink without me tellin’ ya to . . . you’re dead!” he said curtly, then turned to the biggest man in the group. “Grab her.”

It took every ounce of that strong will she possessed to remain in place, allowing that big, mean looking man, now leaving the circle of his companions, to move in close enough. The instant he stepped in range, Stacy gritted her teeth and lashed out kicking the man square in the groin just below the belt. He moaned very softly as he fell to the ground, doubled over with exquisite agony. As the other men moved in around him, Stacy turned and fled.

“DAMMIT! WHAT THE HELL DO YA THINK YOU’RE DOIN’?!” Alexander shouted, fearful and angry. “THE KID’S GETTING’ AWAY!”

“Hurry, Blaze Face,” she silently, fervently prayed, “please . . . PLEASE hurry back to the house, so Hoss and Joe will know to come.” All she had to do now was lead the men now in hot pursuit behind her on a merry chase, well away from her injured pa, until help arrived.

“Well?!” Hop Sing demanded. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, with arms folded tight across his chest, feet planted firmly on the floor, shoulder width apart, glaring up at the Boss of the Ponderosa’s number two son, who had just stepped into view at the top of the stairs.

“Huh boy!” Hoss inwardly groaned, as he started down the stairs, moving very slowly. “Hop Sing looks like he’s just about ready t’ take on the whole wide world.”

“Where Missy Paris?”

Hoss paused mid way between the top of the steps, and the landing where the staircase turned. With both hands resting lightly on the banister rail, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Hop Sing,” he began, in as steady a voice as he could muster, “Miss Paris just told me she AIN’T comin’ down for dinner. She also asked me t’ tell ya that she’s real sorry ‘bout you goin’ t’ all the trouble y’ did t’ fix this pot roast just for her, ‘n all . . . but she . . . just . . . plain ‘n simple . . . ain’t hungry.” He swallowed nervously, then, braced himself, mentally and physically, for the tirade sure to follow.

To Hoss’ great surprise and even greater relief, Hop Sing snorted derisively, then abruptly turned heel and strode briskly toward the kitchen, muttering a long sting of unintelligible syllables behind him.

Hoss closed his eyes again and slowly exhaled the breath he had been holding. “Dang it all . . . I’d give anything t’ know what he just said,” he murmured softly, as he continued down the stairs.

“No, Big Brother . . . you DON’T want to know.”

Hoss glanced up sharply upon hearing Joe’s voice. His younger brother and Candy stood next to the credenza, divesting themselves of their jackets and hats.

“There’s times when ignorance is pure bliss,” Joe continued, casting a wary glance over in the general direction of the dining room and kitchen, “and THIS is one of those times. Trust me . . . oh! And . . . one more thing . . . . ”

“What?” Hoss queried warily.

“The three of US . . . you, me, ‘n Candy here . . . had better do justice to the pot roast Hop Sing fixed,” Joe replied, “IF we know what’s good for us.”

“That right! Ditto what Little Joe say!” Hop Sing declared, upon returning to the dining room, carrying a large serving dish containing an enormous slab of tender beef and all the trimmings in very generous amounts.

Joe gasped and started violently. “Doggone it, Hop Sing . . . you just scared me outta ten years’ growth!” he exclaimed, indignant and outraged.

“You!” Hop Sing snapped, neither moved nor unduly impressed by Joe’s sudden burst of quick temper. “You, too!” This time, he glared ferociously at Candy. “In kitchen, right now! Wash up!”

“You don’t hafta tell ME twice,” Candy retorted with a smile, as he turned and beat a straight path toward the kitchen.

“All whole long morning, Hop Sing slave and slave and slave over hot stove, hotter than hinges of heck, fixing nice meal for Missy upstairs,” Hop Sing groused as he followed Joe and Candy into the kitchen. “Now Missy upstairs say she not hungry. So up to YOU! You boys eat real good, like Little Joe say . . . or Hop Sing quit!”

“Dadburn it! He keeps goin’ on ‘n on like THAT long enough . . . I’m gonna lose MY appetite,” Hoss grumbled very, very softly under his breath.

“You!” Hop Sing said, glaring at Hoss now, as the big man took his customary place at the table. “No talk! Eat! Right now while food---!?”

Hop Sing’s angry admonition was rudely silenced by the sound of someone pounding insistently on the front door. His scowl deepened.

“I’ll get it,” Joe offered, as he stepped into the dining room past Hop Sing, drying his wet hands on his shirt.

“No!” Hop Sing snapped. “You sit down. Eat! Hop Sing get door!”

“Better do as he says, Li’l Brother,” Hoss warned.

The visitor without pounded on the door again.

“ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, HOP SING COMING!” Hop Sing yelled, as he barreled headlong toward the front door. “KEEP ON BRITCHES!”

“Chimminey Christmas, Hoss! What burr worked its way up under HIS saddle?!” Joe queried, taking great care to keep his voice low, as he set himself to the task of cutting the generous slab of roast on his plate into bite sized pieces.

Hoss sighed and again rolled his eyes heavenward, before launching into a terse account of what had transpired earlier, when he had taken their houseguest to town to attend Mass at Saint Mary’s. “Now Hop Sing’s got himself worked up into a real fine lather ‘cause he went ‘n fixed this meal ‘specially for her . . . ‘n SHE ain’t the least bit hungry.”

“You said she was feeling fine when you left . . . right?” Joe asked.

“Yeah,” Hoss responded with a disparaging sigh.

“Well . . . it’s probably just a case of trying to do too much too soon, just like she told ya,” Joe said. “Why . . . I’ll betcha ten to one she’s feeling more the thing come supper time.”

Hop Sing returned to the dining room, his face a sickly ashen gray. Mitch Cranston, the boy recently hired to help look after the barn animals followed behind Hop Sing, his own face a few shades paler than was the norm, clutching the rim of his hat with both hands.

“Bad, very bad,” Hop Sing mumbled, wagging his head back and forth.

Hoss and Joe exchanged troubled glances. “Hop Sing? Mitch? What’s goin’ on?” the former ventured, rising slowly to his feet.

“HE say . . . . ” Hop Sing inclined his head in Mitch’s direction, “Miss Stacy horse in yard. All work up, big lather.”

“Any sign o’ Stacy or Pa?” Hoss demanded, taking charge of the situation.

“No, Sir,” Mitch replied. “Just Blaze Face.”

“Y’ said Blaze Face is out in the yard?”

“Y-Yes, Sir,” Mitch replied. “I . . . I tried t’ catch ‘im, but he won’t let me near ‘im.”

“I’ll get him, ‘n take him into the barn,” Hoss promised. “Meantime, I want ya t’ get Chubb saddled.”

“Yes, Sir,” Mitch murmured, before turning heel and running out to the barn to do as Hoss had asked.

“Joe, you saddle up, too,” Hoss continued. “Candy, I want YOU t’ round up as many men as ya can, ‘n meet Joe ‘n me at Dressler’s Pond.”

“Will do, Big Guy,” Candy promised . . . .

Though Stacy possessed a great deal of energy and stamina, far more than the average young woman the same age, she felt herself slowing. The man, whom the others called corporal, had slowed to a walk, huffing and puffing, his face beet red. The big mean looking man, against whom she had launched her brutal frontal assault followed slowly behind him, still unable to stand erect. The remaining four men, however, relentlessly continued their pursuit. Worse, they were gaining. “Come ON, Hoss and Joe!” she urged silently, while casting about for a place to hide.

Stacy felt her left foot catch on something, a rock, a chuckhole, she would never be quite sure. She remembered pitching forward, the earth rushing up at her at her, the new green grasses, the dried brown remains of last years growth, the rocks, fallen twigs all reduced to a formless, gray-green blur. She struck the ground an instant later, hard enough to knock the wind out of her.

“COME ON, WE HAVE HER NOW,” one of the men shouted.

Gasping for breath, Stacy seized a handful of dry dusty soil, and rolled from her stomach to her back. She threw the dirt into the eyes of the first man to come within range, and scrambled gracelessly to her feet. Before she could even think of turning and making her escape, another man silently circled around and grabbed her from behind. He seized her right arm in a painful, vice like grip, and twisted it painfully behind her back.

“Come on, y’ got the stuff ready?” the man trying to keep hold of Stacy demanded. “This kid’s squirmin’ like a greased pig at a picnic.”

Stacy took a deep ragged breath, and drove the elbow of her free arm, with every ounce of strength she could muster, into the abdomen of the man trying to hold her. His hand and fingers went limp, setting her free. She turned and started to run, as fast as her legs could carry her. One of the younger, more agile of the group brought Stacy down with a flying line back tackle. Even as she struggled to free herself, she had dim awareness of someone slipping a wet handkerchief over her nose and mouth. Every muscle in her body all of a sudden went limp.

“HURRY UP WITH THAT KID!” the man called corporal bellowed, “AND YOU! GET YOUR ASS OVER THERE ‘N FINISH OFF THE OLD MAN! NOW!”

“PA!” Stacy silently screamed before plunging into a sea of utter blackness.

“Dammit, Harris, how much of that stuff did you use?!” Alexander Deveraux demanded with a grimace. “I can smell it all the way over here.”

“Hey, the kid’s breathing,” Harris said grimly.

“She’d better be,” Alexander growled. “Our orders are to bring her in ALIVE and UNHURT.”

“Corporal Deveraux, we did our damndest NOT to hurt her,” Seth Harris said, annoyed yet very much on the defensive. “You saw for yourself she didn’t leave us a whole lot of choices.”

“All right, all right! Just tie her up and get her on one of our horses,” Alexander ordered. “Tuttle . . . Avery, I want the two of ya to grab the sergeant and . . . dammit, Simmons . . . I thought I told you to finish off the old man!?”

“ . . . and I thought I heard Sergeant Collier tell us in no uncertain terms that we were to leave Ben Cartwright ALIVE,” Alfred Simmons returned, sparing no pains to keep the contempt he felt towards the corporal out of his voice.

“Corporal,” James, known best as Jim-Boy among his companions, Tuttle cried out. “Someone’s coming.”

“Dammit, dammit, dammit!” Alexander vehemently swore. “Harris, finish tyin’ up that kid now ‘n get her on a horse. Company . . . RETREAT!”

“What about Sergeant Collier?” Harris demanded, as he slung Stacy’s inert form over his shoulder.

“Sergeant Collier’ll have to fend for himself,” Alexander said briskly. “We go back to rescue him, we’re gonna get caught by whoever’s coming. We’ve gotta get outta here NOW!”

Hoss and Joe spotted Buck still tethered to the tree, grazing peacefully. “I sure wish ya could talk to us, Buddy,” the former said very softly, while gently stroking the palomino’s neck, “maybe YOU could tell us where Pa ‘n Stacy got themselves off t’.”

“Looks like whatever happened . . . they didn’t even have time to eat their lunch,” Joe said grimly, noting that the picnic basket was still attached to Buck’s saddle. A quick glance inside confirmed that nothing had been touched since Hop Sing had packed it early this morning.

Hoss, meanwhile, studied the scene spread out before him. A gentle breeze had just sprung up, stirring the waters of the pond, but otherwise, all seemed peaceful and quiet. There was no sign whatsoever of Pa or Stacy. “Joe, you stay here ‘n cover me,” he ordered in a no-nonsense tone of voice as he lifted his revolver from its holster. Confident that Joe would watch his back very closely, Hoss cautiously moved out from under the shelter of the aspen tree toward the pond.

As he drew near the water, his sharp blue eyes easily picked out the trampled grass, the myriad of footprints, set deep in the mud by the water’s edge, overlapping one another, the mud tracked through the trampled grass toward the open field beyond . . . all sure signs that a struggle had recently taken place. A soft groan assailed his ears, somewhere up ahead, where the grass and weeds stood their tallest. He froze.

“Dear God!” Hoss gasped, when he heard the groan a second time. “Pa!” He jammed his gun back into its holster, then tore through the grass in the direction where the sound had originated. A few seconds later, he was kneeling down beside his father, who had just started to regain consciousness.

“JOE! OVER HERE!” Hoss yelled.

A close examination of Pa’s head wound revealed that a bullet grazed him. It had bled quite profusely earlier, as evidenced by the dried rivulets in Ben’s hair and on his cheek. A scab was beginning to form.

“S-Stacy . . . ?” Ben groaned.

“Easy, Pa,” Hoss said quietly, struggling mightily against the strong feelings churning within, to keep his voice calm and even.

Ben very slowly opened one eye, then the other. “H-Hoss?” he queried with a bewildered frown.

“I’m here, too, Pa,” Joe said as he knelt down beside Hoss.

Ben’s scowl deepened as he looked from Hoss to Joe and back again to Hoss. “Wuh . . . whad’re you boys . . . d-doin’ . . . here?” he groaned, wincing on every other word. “Wuh-where’s . . . where’s y-your sister? Stacy?!” He tried to sit up.

“Easy, Pa . . . just lie still,” Hoss anxiously cautioned.

“Men . . . s-surrounding us . . . h-heard shot . . . gotta f-find ‘er,” Ben rambled on, struggling mightily against Hoss’ gentle restraint.

“We will, Pa . . . we WILL!” Joe grimly hastened to assure. “Hoss told Candy to round up as many of the men as he could and for them to meet us here. They’re probably on their way right now.”

“Meantime, Pa, we gotta get you back t’ the house ‘n get Doc Martin out t’ look at ya,” Hoss said firmly.

“Hoss, why don’t you take Pa back?” Joe suggested. “I’ll wait here for Candy ‘n the others.”

“All right, Li’l Brother . . . but don’t you try anything foolish, y’ understand?”

“I won’t, Hoss. I promise . . . . ”

Candy had arrived less than ten minutes after Hoss had left with their father carefully balanced in front of him on Chubb, still drifting in and out of consciousness. Nearly twenty men had accompanied the junior foreman, just about all currently on the Cartwrights’ payroll.

“Most of the sign for . . . for whatever happened here, seems to move away from the pond in a northeasterly direction,” Joe told Candy and the others. “The main thing right now is to find Stacy. I’ve tried calling to her since Hoss left with Pa and she’s not answered, so . . . I hafta assume she took a bad tumble off of Blaze Face or . . . or she might’ve been shot, too . . . like Pa.” As he spoke, he tried desperately to ignore that strident, nagging inner voice insisting over and over that no one would find Stacy that day.

“Joe?” Candy queried, after the other men had moved out.

“Yeah, Candy?”

“See over there . . . just on the other side of the pond, where the grass has been trampled?” Candy pointed.

“What about it?” Joe asked.

“I’m gonna follow it . . . see where it leads.”

“All right,” Joe agreed. “In the meantime, I’m gonna work my way around the other side of the pond, toward that rock . . . where Hoss and I found Pa.” He pointed toward the boulder against which Ben had sat a short time before.

Candy nodded, then moved off. Suddenly he stopped, and turned back. “Joe?”

“Yeah, Candy?”

“We’re gonna find her,” Candy said, the grim, determined set of mouth and jaw a mirror image of Joe’s at that moment. “Even if . . . even if we don’t find her HERE . . . we WILL find her, and we’re gonna bring her back home alive, whole, and in one piece.”

“You betcha!” Joe agreed, with an emphatic nod of his head. He and Candy, then, parted company.

Upon reaching the water, Joe made his way very slowly along the pond’s northern edge back tracking prints made by a small boot in the mud near the water. They were his sister’s prints. He recognized them at once from the size and shape left by her favorite boots. She had been running, as evidenced by the lengthened stride, toward the area Candy searched.

The glint of sunlight on metal, a few yards ahead, suddenly caught Joe’s eye. He quickened his pace. “Pa’s gun!” he muttered aloud as he knelt down to retrieve the weapon. It was still slightly warm to the touch. A quick check of the ammunition cylinder revealed that one shot had been fired.

“Did STACY use Pa’s gun?” Joe wondered aloud with a frown, as he rose to his feet. “Looks like she started out walking . . . until she came to that spot right there,” he continued, voicing his thoughts aloud as he carefully studied the prints approaching the place where he had found Ben’s revolver. “She paused here . . . turned . . . and judging from the prints leading away, took off running like hell . . . with two . . . no! Make that three men chasing after her.”

There were three distinct sets of prints in the mud along with his sister’s. One set belonged to a heavy man, probably the same height as himself, given the length of the length of the prints roughly equaled Joe’s own. The second set of prints belonged to a man who weighed about the same as the owner of the first, given that both sets appeared to be the same depth, but the second man was taller . . . much taller, closer to the same height as big brother, Hoss. The third man was also a tall man, again judging from the length of his stride. His prints didn’t sink as far into the ground as those belonging to his companions, and they were narrower.

Joe caught a flash of off white out of the corner of his eye. Turning, he found Stacy’s hat lying in the grass, less than a yard from the place where she had paused and turned.

“The three men who left their prints here must’ve surprised Pa and The Kid back there at that rock,” Joe surmised, again voicing his thoughts out loud. “They shot Pa. The Kid must’ve grabbed his gun without them knowing. They forced her to walk that way . . . . ” He turned for a moment and once again studied the line of prints leading away from the spot where he stood. “ . . . to that tree . . . where Hoss and I found Buck!”

Upon uttering those words, Joe could feel the blood draining right out of his face and his knees all of a sudden turn to rubber. He quickly sat himself down in the grass, well away from the pond . . . it was that or fall down . . . as the light of revelation began to dawn on him. The three men who had left their prints in the mud along with his sister’s had kidnapped her, and spirited her away to Heaven only knew where.

Joe could envision the scene clearly now, just as clearly as he would have remembered it, had he actually been there. Three men, maybe more, had surprised Pa and The Kid. One of them had shot Pa first, then tried to herd Stacy toward the horses. “The Kid grabbed Pa’s gun . . . somehow without them knowing,” he remembered again, “and at the place where she paused and turned, she fired at someone . . . standing on the other side of the pond . . . before taking off and running like hell toward the horses. One of ‘em . . . the man on the other side of the pond, more ‘n likely, nicked The Kid’s wrist, making her drop the gun. She ran to the tree after that and . . . must’ve sent Blaze Face running home . . . . ”

Home.

“To get help,” Joe silently realized.

Help that arrived in time to save Pa, so he hoped and prayed, but help that ended up arriving too late to save The Kid.

“You hang on, Kiddo!” Joe fervently, silently prayed, as he rose on legs still very unsteady. “You hang on, ‘cause WE’RE gonna find you! We’re looking for ya now, and we’re not gonna stop looking until we find you . . . no matter how long it takes.”

“JOE! HEY, JOE!” It was Candy.

Joe cautiously turned and saw the junior foreman standing on the other side of the pond amid tall grass, some of which had been trampled.

“JOE!” Candy called out again, waving and pointing down toward his feet. ‘I’VE GOT A LIVE ONE!”

“Finally . . . . ” Paul Martin sighed, relieved and weary, as he eased the bullet out of the shoulder of the big man lying on the bed before him, all but dead to the waking world. “Hoss . . . . ”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Would you mind handing me that glass there?” He pointed to the empty water glass on the night table, on the opposite side of the bed.

“Sure thing, Doc.” Hoss grabbed the glass off the night table in front of him and handed it across the bed and still insensate patient.

“Thank you,” Paul murmured softly as he took the glass from Hoss and dropped the bullet in with a loud clatter.

“He gonna live?”

Paul rose to his feet stiffly, wincing as joints and ligaments screamed in silent protest against the sudden movement after nearly three hours of enforced stillness. “He won’t die from the gunshot wound,” the sawbones replied. “It’s the head injury that concerns me most right now . . . . ”

“Head injury?” Hoss queried with a bewildered frown.

Paul nodded. “He’s got a lump on the back of his head roughly the size of a goose egg,” he explained. “My guess is he struck his head against something very hard when that bullet in his shoulder knocked him over.”

“A rock, maybe?”

“Yeah.”

“Any idea as t’ when he’s gonna come to?”

“I’m afraid it may not be a question of WHEN he comes to, but IF he comes to,” Paul said grimly.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Miss Paris?!” Hoss queried, surprised to see her standing framed in the open door way. “I thought you was feelin’ poorly.”

“I was,” Paris said, addressing Hoss in the same cold, brisk tone she would to a co-worker or an employer. She entered the room, clad in the dark blue skirt and white blouse she had donned earlier that day for the purpose of attending mid-week Mass. Both were badly wrinkled from having spent the better part of the afternoon tossing and turning on the bed in her room. She had rolled her sleeves up past her elbows and pinned her hair up in a loosely styled French twist. “I’m feeling much better now, and I’d like to help.”

Paul Martin took in her red, swollen eyelids, her angry red cheeks, and the snow-white complexion lying beneath with a dubious frown. “I . . . appreciate your offer, Miss McKenna, but this man’s going to need the care of someone with experience--- ”

“Doctor Martin, though I’ve not received any kind of formal schooling in the field of nursing, I’ve had lots of practical, hands on experience over the last sixteen going on seventeen years,” Paris said curtly. “I’ve done everything from . . . from laundering soiled sheets and emptying bedpans to handing the docs whatever they need while they do surgery.”

“Miss Paris, you sure---?!”

“Eric, I told you . . . I’m feeling much better,” she said, rudely cutting him off.

“Perhaps you might be of help at that, Miss McKenna,” Paul said in a cool, business-like tone of voice. “I’m sure you heard me telling Hoss about the patient’s head injury just now . . . . ”

“Yes,” Paris replied.

“Hopefully, he’ll regain consciousness sometime within the next few hours,” Paul continued. “If and when he does, I want you to wake me immediately. I’ll be sleeping in the next room.”

“I’d best see to it y’ have clean linens on the bed, and some clean towels, too,” Hoss said quietly. “If you’ll both excuse me?”

“Sure, Hoss, and thank you,” Paul said gratefully.

“What about fever, Doctor?” Paris asked. “With a wound like this, it’s the nature of the beast, as I’m sure you know.”

“Hop Sing is in the kitchen right now fixing up a big batch of his herbal remedy,” the doctor replied. “He’ll see to its administration. Bathing the patient’s head, neck, and hands with ice water should also help, but make sure his bandage stays dry.”

Paris nodded. “Will the bandage need to be changed?”

“Keep an eye on it,” Paul instructed. “He almost bled to death earlier, so I’ve got the wound packed. I’d prefer to leave it alone until morning. There may be a little bleeding, and that’s fine. If it becomes a steady flow, come wake me.”

“I will, Doctor.”

The first thing to intrude upon Stacy’s awareness was pain, worse than anything she had ever felt in her life. It began at the back of her head and circled around to her temples. She tried to roll herself over from her back onto her side, hoping to relieve some of the agony, but found herself unable to move. Frightened and feeling horribly disoriented, she slowly opened her eyes and found herself staring up into the anxious face of a girl two, maybe three years younger than herself. The girl had eyes the same intense sky blue as her own, and a long thick mane of dark brown curls.

“Wh-who are y-you?” Stacy murmured, wincing against each word. She struggled to sit up.

The girl placed a restraining hand on Stacy’s shoulder and shook her head. She, then, turned to face another, whom Stacy could not see.

“I’ll go get Mother,” the voice of another girl, much younger, replied. Stacy heard the soft sounds of bare feet slapping against the wood floor, one after the other, in rapid succession, followed, less than a moment later, by the sound of a door opening and closing.

Stacy closed her eyes. She remembered Pa asking her to go and fetch the picnic basket Hop Sing had packed for them, after the two of them had landed that big humongous trout. That was her last, fully coherent memory. The rest followed in shards and fragments: gunfire . . . seeing Pa fall, his head bleeding profusely . . . struggling against half a dozen men to free herself . . . .

“Hello, Stacy,” a woman’s voice greeted her very softly.

Stacy found herself having to strain very hard in order to hear. She cautiously opened one eye, then the other, and, much to her surprise, found that the girl she saw first was gone. The woman, who had taken her place, sat on the very edge of the bed, peering down into her face anxiously. Aged somewhere in her mid-to-late thirties, she had an oval face, framed by a cloud of light brown hair worn loosely about her shoulders. Her eyes were the same dead slate gray as a hunk of granite, with no sparkle to enliven them. The faded remnants of a bruise circled the bottom of her left eye and partially covered her cheek. Stacy knew immediately from the woman’s red cheeks and swollen eyelids that she had recently been crying. She looked up, meeting the woman’s eyes. The immense sadness she saw there overwhelmed her.

“Stacy, I’m your aunt, Virginia McKenna,” the woman introduced herself in a wooden monotone. She turned and beckoned. Two faces appeared, looking down at Stacy from behind the woman’s shoulders. One of the faces belonged to the girl she saw when she initially regained consciousness. “These are my daughters, your cousins,” the woman continued, “the eldest is Claire, the younger Erin. Claire . . . d-doesn’t speak.”

“Aunt? C-Cousins?” Stacy murmured, unable to completely grasp the import of the woman’s words.

“My husband, John McKenna, is your uncle,” Virginia continued, “your mother’s brother.”

“M-my mother?!”

“Your mother,” Virginia said.

“McKenna . . . McKenna . . . . ” Suddenly the light of revelation dawned on her with the brutal intensity of the sun in the desert at high noon. “Oh my God!” she whispered, stunned and utterly shaken to the very core of her being. “M-Miss Paris?! Miss Paris is my mother?”

“You would do very well NOT to use the Lord’s Name in vain,” Virginia chastised her severely, “ . . . not in THIS house. But, to answer your question . . . yes. Paris McKenna IS your mother.”

Stacy felt the room closing in on her as it had the day she had decided to face Paris McKenna and the unsettling feelings the woman had initially aroused. Somewhere, deep inside, amid all the turmoil and shock, a saner voice insisted it was, indeed, true. The unsettling déjà vu . . . the common interests she and Miss Paris shared . . . the bond that had grown so quickly between them . . . even the physical resemblance; it all made sense. “Aunt Virginia,” Stacy said slowly, “why?”

“Why what?”

“If . . . if I AM related to you . . . why did you kidnap me?” Stacy demanded, her mind reeling. “And . . . why do you keep me tied up?”

“You have NOT been kidnapped, Child,” Virginia said briskly. “We . . . my husband and I . . . simply brought you home . . . back to your REAL family . . . where you belong.”

“No,” Stacy protested. “My home is on the Ponderosa. Pa . . . Hoss . . . Joe . . . and Adam . . . THEY’RE my real family . . . . ” Suddenly, the memory of her father lying on the ground, unconscious and bleeding rose swiftly to her waking thoughts . . . .

“YOU!” The last voice she remembered hearing just before blacking out echoed again in her ears. “YOU! Get your ass over there ‘n finish off the old man! Now!”

“Pa! Oh no . . . no . . . Aunt Virginia, please!” Stacy begged. “You’ve GOT to let me go! My pa . . . h-he’s . . . he’s . . . badly hurt . . . and I’m the ONLY one who knows were he is!”

“His sons will find him,” Virginia said stiffly.

“But they won’t know where to look!” Stacy cried.

“If it’s meant to be, his sons WILL find him,” Virginia insisted.

“Please . . . he m-may be . . . be . . . he may be---!!” Stacy abruptly broke off, unable to bring herself to give voice to that which she feared most. “Aunt Virginia, please! He’s HURT! I know he is--- ”

“The sooner you put them out of your mind, the better,” Virginia said sternly. “The Cartwrights were very kind to take you in for a little while, but they are NOT your REAL family. WE are!”

“Au contraire, Virginia,” a masculine voice said. His tone of voice, lofty and condescending, set Stacy’s teeth on edge. “It would appear that the Cartwrights ARE Stacy’s REAL family after all.”

Virginia and the girls turned, their faces almost identical masks of sheer terror. Stacy lifted her head and saw a tall, imposing man standing framed in the open door way, leaning heavily on a solid wood cane. He had the same dark curly hair and blue eyes Miss Paris did.

“Leave the room,” he ordered his wife and daughters in clipped angry tones.

Virginia meekly complied, with her face tilted downward to the floor, not daring to meet his eyes. She shooed Claire and Erin out ahead of her.

“Virginia.”

Virginia stopped in her tracks and looked up at her husband with a mixture of expectancy and terror.

“Close the door.”

She nodded and complied.

“Hello, Stacy,” he greeted her in a dead monotone, after his wife and daughters had gone, “or . . . perhaps I should say Rose Miranda.”

“R-Rose Miranda?!” Stacy looked at him askance.

“That IS the name on your birth certificate,” John said, as he limped across the room, leaning heavily on his cane. “It was given you by your mother, sentimental fool that she is. Beautiful name. Such a terrible waste . . . such a terrible waste indeed to bestow so beautiful a name on a child conceived in the ugliness of carnal lust and born in sin.” He grimaced with disdain and distaste.

Stacy suddenly remembered the other name the people in her dream had called her. It was Rose.

“I am your uncle, John McKenna,” the man continued, seating himself primly on the very edge of the bed, where Stacy lay bound hand and foot. “This, ” he said acerbically, referring to his stiff right leg, “was a parting gift from my loving sister, your mother.”

Stacy’s feelings of deja vu began to surface with an overwhelming, frightening intensity. She had met this man before. She was certain of it. She wracked her brains, desperately searching her memory for the how and why, but turned up nothing.

“I’ve been searching for Rose Miranda for the better part of the last ten years,” John continued in a stiff, formal tone. “I did not learn until very recently that your name was somehow changed to Stacy Louise.”

“My grandmother’s name,” Stacy said, remembering the heart shaped locket that had been her only possession from the life she had led before Silver Moon. Everyone had assumed, erroneously it seemed, that the locket and the name engraved on the outside belonged to her.

“Yes,” John’s nose wrinkled with disgust, “. . . indeed! The name of my sainted mother, may God rest her soul.”

“Why have you kidnapped me?” Stacy demanded. “ . . . and why did you . . . why did you . . . k-kill my pa?!”

“Your father . . . . ” John frowned. Ben Cartwright had better NOT be dead . . . not yet. His orders regarding that matter had been very clear. Yet, at the same time, it was clear that the girl, at the very least, strongly suspected that her father was no longer of this world. “Divine intervention . . . that can be made to work very well in my favor . . . very well indeed!” he mused silently. A malevolent smile began to spread slowly across John McKenna’s lips.

“Why?” Stacy demanded, grief stricken and very angry. “Why did your men have to . . . h-have to . . . if it’s money you want, my pa would’ve--- ”

“No. I neither need nor want ANY of Ben Cartwright’s filthy, ill-gotten lucre,” John said thinly disguised contempt. “My reason for wanting Ben Cartwright . . . your father . . . dead . . . is a very personal one. He DEFILED my sister.”

“H-He . . . WHAT?!”

“Your father seduced my sister . . . your mother, by the way, with all manner of pretty lies and empty promises, then raped her,” John replied, in a tone of voice lofty and imperious. “When he discovered she was with child, he immediately sent her packing right back to her parents. He absolutely REFUSED to acknowledge you, or have anything to do with either you or your mother.”

“A-Are you saying that Pa---that . . . that Ben Cartwright---?!” Stacy murmured, her senses reeling.

“If you’re TRYING to ask me whether or not Ben Cartwright is your natural father, the answer is yes,” John replied, his eyes alight with malicious delight.

“No,” Stacy protested angrily. “Pa’d NEVER do to Miss Paris or anyone else the things you just said . . . and he’d never deny me or any other child of his, either!”

For a long moment, John McKenna stared down at the girl in complete astonishment, stunned by her anger, and by the way she had so quickly, so passionately came to Ben Cartwright’s defense. When at last he was able to move, he rose very slowly to his feet, and drew himself up to the very fullness of his height. “I don’t know what LIES you may have been told, nor do I especially CARE to know,” he said, glaring down at the girl lying on the bed before him, helplessly bound hand and foot. “But the TRUTH is . . . Ben Cartwright . . . your father . . . absolutely REFUSED to acknowledge or have anything to do with you whatsoever. He USED your mother to satisfy his depraved, carnal, lusts . . . and when he was done, he cast her aside like garbage.

“That’s WHY my sister, Paris . . . your mother . . . ultimately abandoned you, leaving you in the care of our parents and sisters. YOU were and are the living embodiment of all the degradation, shame, and humiliation she suffered at the hands of Ben Cartwright. She was repulsed by the very sight of you.”

“Liar!” Stacy spat contemptuously.

John McKenna’s entire body went rigid. He drew his fingers of both hands together, one at a time, forming a pair of tight, rock hard fists. His face, however, remained an impassive mask. “What did you say?” he asked in a very quiet, very calm tone of voice.

“I SAID you’re a liar!” Stacy’s words, boldly uttered, were both denial of his charges and an accusation. “Pa LOVED Miss Paris. He’d NEVER have treated her like you said . . . and he’d never abandon any of his children.”

“Then tell me, if you can, why you spent your formative years growing up in my parents’ home and not on the Ponderosa?” John demanded through clenched teeth.

“Because Pa didn’t KNOW about me,” Stacy stated with absolute confidence. “If he HAD known, he would have come looking for me. I KNOW he would have . . . and he wouldn’t have STOPPED looking, either, until he FOUND me.”

John McKenna’s stoic mask abruptly vanished, revealing a face twisted with rage. He lashed out, striking Stacy across the face, with closed fist. “You will recant your words, Daughter of Sodom and Gomorrah,” he ordered imperiously, “then you will apologize to me for your blatant disrespect and beg my forgiveness.”

Stacy glared back at him with a raw fury that bordered on hatred. “The only TRUE thing you’ve said is that Miss Paris and Pa ARE the mother and father who gave me life,” she said. “But everything ELSE you said is nothing but a pack of LIES!”

John, expecting fear, was momentarily taken aback by her stubborn, angry defiance. Reasserting himself, he lashed out again, striking her several times. “So help me, Girl,” he snarled through clenched teeth, “as God is my witness, I’m going to beat this evil stubbornness out of you, even if you are my niece.”

“WHY DON’T YOU UNTIE ME AND LET ME SEE HOW BRAVE YOU REALLY ARE, YOU . . . YOU COWARDLY SON-OF-A-BITCH?!” Stacy shouted back, angered beyond all sense of reason or caution.

“Daughter . . . of . . . Sodom . . . RECANT!” John demanded over and over, through clenched teeth. The utterance of his words kept time with his fist, striking her again and again, until she collapsed back down on the cot, unconscious.

John abruptly straightened his back, then turned heel and retreated from the room without sparing a backward glance. The minute he stepped into the narrow hallway beyond, his mask of stoic calm quickly and suddenly reasserted itself leaving no trace of the rage that had all but consumed him scant moments before. He traversed the hall and started slowly down the stairs. Upon reaching the bottom landing, he looked over and established eye contact with David Matthews, standing guard at the front door.

“Private Matthews,” he snapped, “attend.”

“Yes, Sir,” David acknowledged the order in a clear, crisp tone of voice, then fell in step at a discreet, respectful distance behind his captain.

John silently led the way to the parlor, set at the very end of the downstairs hallway. David followed John inside the tiny, dilapidated room, taking up position to the right of the door, standing at rigid attention.

“At ease, Private,” John allowed, as he very gingerly lowered himself into the chair before the fireplace.

David noiselessly leaned his rifle against the wall behind him, yet well within his easy reach, and relaxed his stance, placing his feet shoulder width apart and hands loosely behind his back.

John opened the small drawer in the table next to his easy chair and withdrew a piece of stationary and a pencil. After a moment’s thought, he scrawled a quick note, then slipped it into a matching envelope. “Private Matthews . . . . ”

“Yes, Sir?”

He closed the envelope and wrote “Lt. Hilliard” across its face. “You are to wait precisely one hour and thirty minutes,” he ordered, holding the envelope out to the young man standing guard at the closed door to his parlor. “Then you are to hand deliver it to the lieutenant at the Bucket of Blood Saloon.”

“Yes, Sir. Shall I wait for a reply?”

“No. You will simply hand deliver that missive to the lieutenant and return here immediately.”

“Yes, Sir,” David acknowledged the order as he took the proffered envelope from John McKenna’s hand.

“One more thing, Private . . . . ”

“Yes, Sir?”

“I will be with my wife for the next couple of hours,” John said. “I am not to be disturbed for any reason.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“You’re dismissed, Private Matthews,” John said. A few minutes after David had left the room, he rose to his feet and made his way to the door, his limp very pronounced. He paused briefly at the bottom of the rickety stairs, and yelled for his oldest daughter, Claire.

The girl appeared at the top of the stairs less than a moment later, and waited expectantly.

“Fetch my riding crop,” John ordered, as he started up the stairs, “and bring it at once to your mother’s room.”

Claire nodded her head vigorously, then ran off, fast as her legs could carry her, to do her father’s bidding.

John continued down the long, narrow hallway to the room, not much more than a closet at the very end. Upon reaching the closed door, he paused just long enough to take a deep breath, then lashed out with astonishing power and strength, given it was his “bum leg,” knocking the door off its hinges.

Virginia cried out, alarmed and dismayed, as the door crashed into the wall perpendicular, then fell to the floor with a resounding bang. With head bowed, and shoulders hunched, she scurried across the room to its farthest corner.

“Jezebel!” John growled as he strode into the room, every last trace of stiffness gone from his bad leg. Four long strides brought him face to face with his terrified wife. “Adulteress!” he spat, his voice filled with loathing and contempt. “I know! I know all about you and Lieutenant Hilliard . . . . ”

“John . . . wh-what are you talking about?!” Virginia demanded, her back pressing hard against the wall behind her. Her arms rose to block her head and face, almost without her realizing.

John seized hold of his wife’s wrists, and pulled her arms down away from her face with almost ridiculous ease. “You bitch! You DARE play innocent with me?!”

“John . . . please . . . please tell me . . . what ARE you talking about?” Virginia begged.

“The tryst between you and Lieutenant Hilliard,” John replied.

Virginia blanched, and her jaw dropped. For a moment, she stood, unable to move, staring up at her husband through eyes round with shocked horror. “John . . . Dear God! WHAT are you saying?!” she queried. her voice barely above the decibel of a whisper.

John slapped his wife across the face, hard enough to rattle every tooth in her head. “Don’t LIE to me . . . . ” he growled. “Don’t you DARE . . . LIE . . . to me . . . . ”

“John, I swear . . . by . . . b-by everything I hold to be holy . . . I SWEAR . . . I’ve never . . . EVER . . . so much as l-looked at another man, since . . . since the day w-we met,” Virginia babbled, wagging her head back and forth.

“I’ll have the truth from you, Virginia,” John vowed through clenched teeth, as he dragged her back up the hall to the large, spacious bedroom he had claimed for his own, “I WILL have the truth . . . every . . . nasty . . . salacious . . . detail . . . if I have to thrash you within an inch of your miserable, misbegotten life to get it.”

“I AM telling you the truth,” Virginia insisted, “I AM, John . . . I swear. I’ll . . . I’ll swear on the Holy Bible if you’d like . . . please! John, please, I’m begging you, please . . . please believe me . . . . ”

John dragged his terrified wife into his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him.

A few moments later, Claire stepped in front of the door to her father’s room, clutching his riding crop close to her chest. Her sharp ears picked up the sounds of flesh striking hard against flesh and her mother sobbing piteously. Too frightened to make her presence known yet too frightened to leave without giving her father the riding crop he had asked for, Claire stood, her entire body paralyzed by indecision, her eyes glued to the closed door before her. Her mother’s weeping rose steadily in pitch and volume, culminating in a loud, ear splitting cry that set the hairs on the back of Claire’s neck standing on end.

Silence descended over the entire household like a pall, more deafening than all of her mother’s agonized outcries all put together. Claire’s entire body began to tremble, as she hugged her father’s riding crop even closer, in manner not unlike the way a frightened child might hug a favorite doll or teddy bear.

“The truth, Virginia.” Though her father spoke very softly, the sound of his voice shattered the awful stillness like a loud clap of thunder.

“C-Claire?”

She turned, and much to her horror found her younger sister standing behind her. Erin’s face was white as a sheet, and her round, staring eyes glistened with the sheen of tears, newly formed, but not yet shed. Frightened, more for her sister than herself, Claire vigorously shook her head and pointed toward the open door to Erin’s room near the top of the stairs.

“I . . . I’m . . . I’m scared, Claire,” Erin whimpered very softly. “Please? Please, can I stay with YOU?”

Claire reluctantly extended her arm, inviting Erin into the circle of her embrace. Within less than the space between one heart beat and the next, she held her sister clasped tight in her arms. Erin pressed her trembling body close, so close it almost hurt, and buried her face against Claire’s chest.

“The truth, Virginia . . . . ” their father prompted again.

“Y-Yes, John . . . y-yes,” Virginia sobbed. “I . . . I . . . l-loved . . . Muh-Muh . . . M-Mister Hilliard . . . . ”

“On your knees, Virginia,” John ordered in a tone of voice stone cold.

Claire and Erin heard their mother sobbing very softly as she moved, to presumably kneel down before their father.

“You will confess before me everything,” John continued, “ . . . everything, Virginia . . . every last nasty, filthy, salacious detail.”

Inside, Virginia took a deep ragged breath, and, weeping again, began to “confess” all of the humiliating detail her husband so anxiously wanted to hear, while he daughters stood just outside the door, wrapped very tight in each others arms, bearing silent witness.

Ben, meanwhile, leaned heavily into the mound of pillows piled up against the headboard of his bed, clad in a freshly laundered nightshirt, with a tight bandage encircling his head. He silently mulled over everything his youngest son had just told him, with Stacy’s hat resting in his lap. “You’re sure?” he asked.

“I . . . yes!” Joe replied, nodding his head vigorously. “Pa . . . we went over that field and over it with a fine toothed comb,” he continued, his voice unsteady. “All we found were her footprints and . . . . ” His eyes strayed over to his sister’s hat.

“ . . . and you’ve no idea where they’ve taken her?” Ben pressed, as he unconsciously traced the hatband with his thumb. “No idea at ALL?!”

“Candy and I followed the tracks out to the road, while the other men searched the field,” Joe patiently explained once again. “We saw that they turned toward town, but lost their tracks very soon after.”

“ . . . and because the road forks about a mile or so further on . . . they could be anywhere,” Ben sigh morosely. He closed his eyes and allowed his thoughts to drift back . . . .

“All that work we did just now in landing that big one’s left me mighty hungry,” Ben said. He rose to his feet with net firmly in hand, and the biggest trout he had seen in . . . it had been quite awhile . . . flopping inside. “How about YOU, Young Woman? You ready to find out what Hop Sing packed for us in that great big basket?”

“I was just getting ready to ask YOU the same question, Pa,” Stacy declared, with a broad grin, “ ‘cause I’M starving, too.”

“It’s attached to Buck’s saddle,” he said, with a proud smile. “Think maybe YOU can fetch it, while I add this big fella to the ones we’ve already caught?”

“You betcha!”

The next thing he knew, they were surrounded by five . . . six men, maybe? Seven? Ben silently wracked his brains trying to remember, but it was like trying to grab hold of a moonbeam, or an elusive will o’ the wisp. He remembered hearing the sound of gunfire . . . .

. . . then nothing.

“Pa?”

Ben opened his eyes and found himself staring into the anxious face of his youngest son, still straddling the hard backed chair he had pulled up next to the bed a short while ago. “I’m alright, Son,” he said quietly. “That man in the room across the hall . . . is he . . . . ?!”

“Yeah, Pa,” Joe replied with a thunderous scowl. “He’s one of ‘em.”

“Who shot him?”

“The Kid,” Joe said.

“Stacy?!”

Joe nodded.

“H-How? She wasn’t armed . . . . ”

“She . . . somehow . . . managed to grab your gun without them knowing,” Joe explained. “After they shot YOU, they . . . must’ve . . . told her to walk toward the tree, where Buck and Blaze Face were tethered. At the northern end of the pond, she turned, then took off running. I think she saw an opportunity and she took it. She shot the man across the hall, then ran to Blaze Face, and sent him scurrying home . . . to get help. Then . . . then she . . . she tried to . . . to lead those men on a merry chase until help came, but . . . we didn’t get there in time. H-Hoss and I left . . . quick as we could, but . . . we . . . w-we didn’t get there quick enough.”

“No . . . reproach for your pa?” Ben quietly asked.

Joe slowly, reluctantly lifted his face. His cheeks were wet and his eyes glistened with the sheen of tears yet to be shed. “I . . . I don’t understand, Pa . . . . ”

“Your brother told me . . . it was the day Candy and I found Eddie Jones’ body,” Ben said ruefully. “I’m sure you remember how angry I was when I’d found out that Stacy had gone out to the barn.”

Joe nodded, unable to bring himself to speak.

“Hoss told me then that my keeping her on so short a lead was . . . that it was sufficient punishment in and of itself,” Ben continued, “and in the end . . . it did no good. They . . . they took her anyway . . . on MY watch.”

“Pa, you had no way of knowing--- ”

“I SHOULD’VE known, Son,” Ben bitterly castigated himself.

“How?” Joe demanded, his voice filled with anger and despair. “How could you have POSSIBLY known?!”

“I suspected Zachary Hilliard was up to no good when Candy told me he was asking people in town about your sister,” Ben lashed out, giving vent finally to all of the fear, rage, frustration, and despair that had quickly grown within him since learning that Stacy had been kidnapped. “I KNEW that someone had already tried to hurt . . . maybe KILL her . . . dammit! I SHOULD’VE realized--- ”

Without a word, Joe rose to his feet, his face darker than the thunderclouds heralding the approach of a dangerously violent summer storm.

“Where are you going?” Ben demanded warily, his fury evaporating in the face of the raw, murderous fury he saw burning in his youngest son’s emerald green eyes.

“That man lying in the room across the hall was with the men who took Stacy,” Joe replied through clenched teeth. “He KNOWS where they’ve taken her, Pa . . . he HAS to know! I’m gonna see to it that he tells US.”

“Right now, Joseph Francis Cartwright . . . trying to get that man to tell you anything’s going to be a waste of time, energy, and breath.”

Joe glanced up sharply and, much to his surprise, saw Doctor Paul Martin standing framed in the open door to his father’s room, his own face set with fierce, stubborn determination and arms folded defiantly across his chest.

“In addition to that gunshot wound, the man across the hall sustained a bad head injury,” the doctor explained as he strode briskly across the room.

“Head injury?!” Ben echoed.

“That’s right . . . a head injury,” Paul reiterated. “My guess is when he fell after being shot, he struck his head against a rock. In addition to that hole in his shoulder, he’s also got a lump on the back of his head the size of a goose egg.”

“How long do you figure before he comes to, Doc?” Joe demanded, seething with frustration.

Paul took the chair Joe had just vacated, turned it around the other way, and sat down. “Joe . . . and you, too, Ben! Like I just got through telling Hoss, the question’s not WHEN will he regain consciousness . . . it’s IF he regains consciousness.”

“Whaddya mean IF he regains consciousness?” Joe asked, the scowl on his face deepening.

“I mean exactly THAT!” Paul said tersely.

Ben felt the blood drain right out of his face, taking with it what little color had returned since having been shot himself. “Paul, are you telling us that man across the hall . . . that he might . . . . ?!” he stammered, wincing against the lightheadedness that all of a sudden assailed him.

“Yes, Ben,” Paul answered the question his old friend had tried to ask, but couldn’t quite bring himself. He turned and glanced up at the railroad clock, hanging on the wall across the room, perpendicular to the foot of Ben’s bed. “Joe, you said yourself that man was unconscious when you and Candy brought him back here.”

Joe nodded.

“THAT was early this afternoon,” the doctor pointed out. “It’s now almost suppertime and that man’s not so much as stirred. You know as well as I do that each passing moment lessens the likelihood that he ever WILL regain consciousness.”

“Dammit, Doc, you’ve gotta DO something!” Joe hotly protested.

“Joe, I’m doing ALL it’s in MY power to do,” Paul said curtly, then sighed. “I’m sorry. I know you’re all worried sick right now--- ”

“DO you, Doc?” Joe angrily questioned. “Do you REALLY know how worried we are?”

“Yes, I do, Young Man,” Paul returned without missing a beat. “I have a daughter myself, and if I knew SHE had been kidnapped by someone who had previously tried to harm or kill her, I’d be going out of MY mind, too.”

“But?” Ben growled.

“But . . . I’m going to tell YOU, Ben Cartwright, the same thing I think YOU’D be telling ME right now, if our situations were reversed,” Paul said sternly.

“ . . . and THAT is?”

“To get hold of myself,” Paul replied, looking Ben straight in the eye without flinching. “I can hear you now. You’d be telling me that my going off half-cocked wouldn’t help Janie and wouldn’t help Lily or me, either for that matter. You’d be telling me next that I needed to calm down enough to be able to think things through clearly . . . because Janie’s life might depend on my being able to do just that.”

For Ben, the doctor’s words acted as a bucket of ice water thrown in his face. He vigorously shook his head as if to physically dislodge the despair, anguish, and impotent fury that had all but overtaken him.

“Mister Doctor?” It was Hop Sing. He stood at the threshold between the hall and Ben’s bedroom. “Missy Paris say you come,” he continued, his tone of voice terse, filled with a sense of urgency. “Man in guest room start coming to.”

“Thank you, Hop Sing. Please tell Miss McKenna I’ll be right there,” Paul said.

Hop Sing nodded and left.

“Joe . . . . ”

“Yes, Pa?”

“Hand me my robe,” Ben ordered.

“Ben!” Paul protested with a withering glare. “What do you think---?!”

“I’m going with you,” Ben said firmly, in a tone of voice that brooked no argument, no further discussion of the matter. He angrily threw aside his bedclothes, then eased himself from lying prone to sitting up. “Joe . . . . ”

“Here, Pa.” Joe took his father’s robe from its place on the bedpost of the headboard and held it out to him.

Ben rose very slowly, wincing against another bout of lightheadedness. He put out a hand against the headboard to steady himself.

“Ben . . . Joe . . . . ”

“What is it, Doc?” Joe demanded.

“Bear in mind that the man in your guest room may have suffered some form of brain damage as consequence of the blow to his head,” Paul warned.

“Meaning?” Ben growled.

“Meaning the good news right now is . . . he’s regaining consciousness,” Paul explained.

“ . . . and the bad news?” Ben prompted, the scowl on his face deepening.

“The absolute worst case scenario would be that he’s completely paralyzed, unable to see, hear, or speak,” Paul explained. “Complete amnesia is a relatively rare occurrence, but still a very real possibility. The most common occurrence in a case like this is he may have no memory whatsoever of any of the events that transpired just before he suffered the head injury.”

“You mean he . . . that h-he might not remember what happened to Stacy?” Joe asked.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Paul replied. “The two of you and Hoss need to be prepared for that . . . . ”

“How soon will we know?” Ben demanded, as he slipped his robe on.

“We’ll know something once he’s fully regained consciousness and I’ve had a chance to examine him,” Paul replied.

Ben and Joe silently followed the doctor down the hall to their guest room where Jeff Collier lay stretched out on the bed. Paris sat in the wooden chair next to the bed bathing Jeff’s face with a skilled gentleness, learned and nurtured through nearly sixteen years of practice.

“How is he, Miss McKenna?” Paul asked, as he strode briskly into the room with Ben and Joe following closely behind.

“He’s not yet opened his eyes, but he IS talking,” Paris replied. “He appears to know his own name, the year, and who the president of the United States is. His body temperature has gone up over the last hour or so, but not so high as to be a cause for alarm.”

“May I?” Paul queried with a pointed glance at the chair she occupied.

“Yes, of course,” Paris murmured as she rose stiffly to her feet, then stepped aside, allowing the doctor access to the chair and patient.

Paul immediately checked the bandage covering the bullet wound, noting with grim satisfaction that it remained clean, with no sign of seepage.

“Wh-Where am I?” Jeff groaned once again, his voice barely audible. “ ‘N who are YOU?”

“I’m Doctor Paul Martin,” the physician curtly introduced himself, “and you?”

“C-Collier,” Jeff replied, his voice so soft, Paul had to strain to catch his words. “ ‘Name’s . . . Jeffrey . . . Collier . . . . ”

“Mister Collier . . . you’re on the Ponderosa, in the home of Mister Benjamin Cartwright recovering from a bullet wound to your shoulder,” Paul continued.

Upon hearing the name Benjamin Cartwright, Jeff Collier’s eyes slitted open. “How---?!”

“You took a bullet in your right shoulder,” Paul said bluntly, as he checked the man’s pulse. “Either you’re one very lucky man, or whoever was doing the shooting intended to wound, not kill. One of Mister Cartwright’s men found you lying in the tall grass out by Dressler’s Pond and brought you here.”

“D-Dress . . . ler’s . . . Pond?” Jeff queried, his head, his senses reeling.

“Yes. It’s a fishing hole known to a handful of the locals, the Cartwrights among them,” the doctor explained. “Can you remember anything of what happened out there, Mister Collier?”

Jeff frowned, then immediately winced against a sudden stab of pain at the back of his head and a slight twinge of nausea. “H-Head . . . hurts,” he mumbled softly.

“Yes . . . I’m sure it does,” Paul said with a touch of wryness. “You’ve got a lump on the back of your head the size of a goose egg.”

“How . . . . ?!”

“I . . . can’t really say for certain, but MY guess, for what it’s worth, is . . . after you were shot, you fell and hit your head against something very hard . . . a rock, more than likely,” Paul explained.

“Mister Collier?” Joe spoke for the first time.

Jeff took a deep breath, then slowly, warily turned his head. He found himself staring up into the scowling face of Ben Cartwright’s youngest son.

“I’ve sent one of our men into town to get Sheriff Coffee,” Joe said curtly.

“Sh-Sheriff?” Jeff queried. It took nearly every ounce of strength and determination not to flinch away from the raw fury he saw burning in the younger man’s emerald green eyes.

“You and my father were both gunned down out there this afternoon and my sister . . . she and my father were out there fishing earlier . . . SHE’S missing,” Joe continued.

Jeff squeezed his eyes shut tight against a room that had all of a sudden began to pulsate at the edges of his peripheral vision with sickening intensity and the dark anger he saw in the face of not only the youngest son, but of the silver haired family patriarch as well. “C-Can’t . . . can’t h-help you,” he groaned, wincing against his physical pain and as well as an agonizing stab of conscience. “W-Won’t . . . betray C-Captain . . . M-McKenna . . . . ”

“Captain McKenna?” Paris echoed with a puzzled frown and an odd sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She closed her eyes and took a deep, ragged breath. “Mister Collier . . . .” she began slowly, afraid to ask, yet more fearful of not knowing, “ . . . your captain . . . is his given name John?”

“Yes, uhhh . . . Miss McKenna? Miss . . . PARIS . . . McKenna?”

“I don’t recall ever having met you, Mister Collier. How . . . how do you know who--- ”

“I know, Ma’am, because . . . because my captain IS . . . your brother.”

The blood drained right out of Paris’ face, leaving her feeling light headed and very unsteady on her feet. She barely had awareness of the doctor’s hands taking firm hold of her shoulders and steering her back toward the chair next to the bed. “Dear God!” she moaned, as she half sat, half fell down onto the seat. “He . . . he knows I’m here . . . . ”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Jeff quietly affirmed.

“What does John McKenna want with my daughter?” Ben demanded. “Is he holding her for ransom?”

“No,” Jeff replied, as he very quickly averted his eyes from Ben Cartwright’s cold steely glare.

“Then why---?!”

“He wants to kill her, Mister Cartwright,” Jeff replied.

“Where is she now?” Joe demanded through clenched teeth.

“I . . . I already told you . . . I . . . WON’T . . . betray Captain McKenna,” Jeff said, his voice filled with remorse. “I owe that man my LIFE! At the very least, he deserves my undying loyalty and trust.”

A murderous scowl darkened Joe’s features. He dived across the bed, his hands reaching for Jeff’s neck. Ben instinctively reached out and succeeded in getting a firm hold of his jacket collar. Joe struggled mightily to free himself. Gritting his teeth, Ben pulled Joe away from the helpless man lying on the bed.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Ben demanded in the low, soft voice before the storm breaks.

“Pa, you heard him!” Joe turned on his father furiously.

“Joseph, you listen to me and you listen good,” Ben said, his jaw clenched with barely contained rage. “You kill this man, our chances of finding Stacy drop from slim to none. You understand me?”

“Yes,” Joe snapped, then furiously shook himself free of Ben’s grasp.

Ben turned his attention to the man lying on the bed in his guest room. “Where is my daughter?” he demanded.

“I . . . will NOT . . . betray my captain,” Jeff stubbornly maintained his ground. “I TOLD you. I owe that man a debt of blood . . . and of honor . . . that I can never, not in a million years, ever repay.”

“Even though this . . . this so called debt of honor requires you to just lie there while John McKenna murders a young girl in cold blood?” Joe demanded through clenched teeth. “You and your captain sure have twisted notions of honor, Mister.”

Joe’s words, filled with anger and contempt for the injured man and his captain, provoked an excruciating attack of conscience with all the debilitating power and strength of a hit below the belt from a massive, rock hard fist. Jeff bit down on his bottom lip to keep from crying out. “Spare me your sermons, Boy,” he returned, his voice filled with loathing and contempt more for himself than the angry young man standing before him. “You WEREN’T in the war. You were here, protected and sheltered on your pa’s ranch. You have no idea what it was like out there. None!”

“Maybe not,” Joe responded without missing a beat. “But in MY book, MURDERING a young girl in cold blood is an act of the worst kind of cowardice.”

“Joseph, back off,” Ben ordered tersely.

“Pa . . . . ” Joe turned, ready to lash out at Ben.

“Now!” Ben snapped.

Joe lapsed into an angry, sullen silence.

“Mister Cartwright?” Jeff pointedly turned his attention from Joe toward Ben.

“What?” Ben snapped.

“Antietam Creek, located just outside a little town called Sharpsburg, up near western Maryland,” Jeff said in a cold, angry tone. “Do YOU know anything about the battle at Antietam Creek?”

“Yes,” Ben said grimly. “Hundreds . . . maybe thousands lost their lives there. I’ve heard it said that the battle at Antietam Creek was the bloodiest single day of the entire war.”

“Apt! I know, I was there,” Jeff said bitterly. “I was among the many cut down, and left for dead. I’ve no idea how long I lay there among the dead and dying . . . watching men die, hearing others cry out for help and not able to do anything . . . I only remember it seemed a stinkin’ eternity.”

Jeff Collier’s eyes glazed over, as he sank deeper into his dreadful reverie. “Half the time I was crazy with fear that I’d die out there, so far from my home and my family . . . my body left to rot, or worse, dumped into a mass grave somewhere in that crazy hellish nightmare,” he continued, no longer aware of the others present in the room. “The other half the time, I was afraid I WOULDN’T die, that I’d end up in some pit like Andersonville.

“That night, Captain McKenna risked his life to come out from the shelter of the trenches to rescue me. The Rebs were picking off men who ventured out to retrieve the living . . . and the dead. Don’t you see? I owe that man my very life . . . and I WON’T betray him . . . no matter what!”

“You served with my brother during the war, Mister Collier?” Paris asked, her calm, steady voice at startling contrast to her trembling hands, and eyes, round and staring.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Did my brother ever kill any women and children during the war?” Paris pressed.

“No, Ma’am . . . never!” Jeff replied, outraged that the captain’s sister of all people would actually give voice to such a question. “No matter where we were . . . no matter what or how dire the situation . . . Captain McKenna ALWAYS gave strict orders NOT to in any way harm or molest civilians. If the men gave us trouble, we were allowed to defend ourselves . . . but under NO circumstances were we allowed to harm women or children.”

“Why not?” Paris snapped out the question.

“Because Captain McKenna is a man of decency and honor . . . truly an officer of the highest caliber and a gentleman, as you surely must know,” Jeff immediately answered. “He conducted himself that way and expected the same of the men serving under him.”

“Why has that code of conduct changed with regard to Mister Cartwright’s daughter?” Paris demanded.

For a long moment, Jeff stared up at Paris, too stunned to reply. “I . . . . ” he finally stammered, desperately groping for a satisfactory answer. “The captain’s got his reasons,” he said finally. “I don’t know what they are . . . and I probably wouldn’t understand ‘em much if I DID know . . . but, he DOES have his reasons.”

“Sergeant, you have a family?” Ben asked.

“Yes,” Jeff replied warily. “My wife died during the war . . . of typhoid, as did my oldest son and youngest daughter. The middle children . . . a son and two daughters . . . survived and are alive and well.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mister Collier,” Ben said quietly, with all sincerity, knowing only too well how devastating the loss of a beloved wife could be. He desperately hoped and prayed he would never outlive any of his children, including the li’l gal who had stolen his heart and the hearts of her brothers almost five years ago now, at the corral holding the horses belonging to the cavalrymen stationed at Fort Charlotte. “You must love the children left to you very much.”

“Of COURSE I do,” Jeff declared. “Since the deaths of their mother . . . their oldest brother . . . and baby sister . . . they’re all the more precious to me.”

“How would you feel if someone kidnapped one of them for the sole purpose of killing him, or her?” Ben relentlessly pressed.

“If anyone . . . anyone at all so much as harms but a single hair on their heads, I’ll hunt the son-of-a-bitch down and kill him,” Jeff snarled through clenched teeth.

“That young woman your captain has kidnapped is MY daughter,” Ben said quietly. “I love her every bit as much as you love your children. As one father to another, I’m begging you . . . PLEASE . . . help me find her.”

Jeff turned away, as the soldier within warred mightily against the father. “M-Mister Cartwright, she’s being held in Virginia City . . . in a tenement house on the street called Blood Alley,” he said in agonized, halting tone of voice. “I can’t understand why the captain wants to kill her, she’s his niece for God’s sake!”

“H-his niece?!” Joe stammered, looking over at his father, then Paris through eyes round as saucers.

“His niece,” Jeff reiterated.

Ben suddenly felt as if he had been dealt a hard blow to his stomach. Every muscle in his legs suddenly turned to water. He grabbed one of the posts at the foot of the bed for support and held on for dear life. “Dear God,” he whispered, as the reason for Paris McKenna’s abrupt departure in the dead of the night almost seventeen years ago suddenly became crystal clear.

“Pa?” Joe queried, as he placed a steadying hand on Ben’s shoulder.

Ben squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to take deep, even breaths. When, at last, he had steadied himself to stand unaided, he turned toward Paris, with a white hot, murderous fury burning in his eyes. “Why, Paris?” he demanded in a tone that sent a chill down the entire length of Joe’s spine. “Why in God’s Name didn’t you tell me you were going to have a baby . . . OUR baby?”

The prophetic words . . . or had that actually been a warning? spoken by the priest this morning had come to pass. She knew also that the very worst of her fears had been realized as well. He despised her. She saw that very clearly in the devastating grief and raw fury now laid bare in his eyes and upon his face. She had thought should this day came, heaven forbid, that she would be equally grief stricken, at the very least, upon suffering the final, irrevocable loss of the only man she loved, that she would ever love. Yet, much to her amazement, she felt nothing.

Absolutely nothing!

“You’re a man of honor, Ben Cartwright . . . highly principled, morally upright . . . had I told you I was going to have a baby, you would have felt yourself obligated and duty bound to marry me,” Paris said in the same dispassionate tone of voice most might use when speaking of the weather. “I couldn’t bring myself to burden you in that way. I loved you too much.”

“ . . . I loved YOU, Paris,” Ben said. “Yes, I WOULD have married you, but not out of any misguided sense of duty or obligation. I would have married you for one reason only. Because I loved you.”

“I n-named her Rose Miranda,” Paris murmured.

That revelation cut through Ben’s heart like a dull knife. He turned away, his eyes burning with unshed tears.

“Rose Miranda?” Joe queried, looking over at Paris.

“My mother’s name.” It was Ben who replied. “I once told Paris that if I’d had a daughter, I would have named her R-Rose Miranda . . . for my mother.”

“I went to my parents,” Paris spoke aloud, addressing no one in particular. “I’d heard that they had left the gold fields and returned to Mormon Springs. They took me in, much to my amazement . . . looked after me until the baby was born. When I had finally gotten back on my feet, Mam and Da promised me they’d give her a home . . . provide for her . . . raise her. In return, I had to promise that I’d leave and never come back, never even try to contact her. I agreed to their damned devil’s bargain, even though it broke my heart. I had no other choice.”

“That’s not true, Paris. You HAD a choice,” Ben said coldly. “You could have come to ME, and . . . allowed me to do the right thing by you and . . . and . . . by our daughter.”

“Ben, I told you--- ”

“Yes, I KNOW what you told me, Paris,” Ben angrily, rudely cut her off mid-sentence. “But, I think you and I both know the real reason you fled in the middle of the night like a cowardly thief had more to do with that damned, obstinate, stubborn Paris McKenna pride than with any sense of duty or obligation you thought I might be feeling. I only wish you had thought more of our daughter . . . and of what might have been best for HER . . . than you did of your pride.”

Paris turned away, with tears streaming down her face. “All these years, I thought she was dead,” she continued, her voice breaking. “I thought she had died in the same fire that took my parents and my sisters. John told me she had died.”

Joe warred within himself, feeling sorry for Paris on the one hand, and, guilty, seeing the pity he felt for her as an act of disloyalty to his father.
“H-he must have known all along that she . . . that she didn’t die,” he murmured softly.

Paris turned and favored Joe with a sharp glare for a moment. “Yes . . . . ” she whispered, as his observation coalesced all the animosity she had ever felt toward her brother into a bitter, deep seated hatred.

“Hoss . . . . ”

“Yeah, Pa?” Hoss queried as he and Joe turned expectantly toward their father.

“Saddle my horse,” Ben ordered.

“Saddle your horse?!” Paul echoed, incredulous and outraged. “Ben, I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing--- ”

“I’m going after my daughter, Paul,” Ben replied in that obstinate, resolute tone of voice signaling that a decision had been made, subject closed.

“Dammit, Ben . . . in case you’ve forgotten, you ALSO suffered a head wound,” Paul hastened to point out.

“ . . . which you said yourself was superficial,” Ben argued. “Hoss . . . . ”

“Yes, Pa,” Hoss said curtly. “I’ll saddle YOUR horse, but I’m also gonna saddle MINE.”

“ . . . after you’ve saddled Chubb, I want you to round up as many of our men as you can, and bring them to Blood Alley,” Ben continued without missing a beat.

“Yes, Sir,” Hoss responded with a curt nod of his head.

“Joe . . . . ”

“Yeah, Pa?”

“You said that you’d sent Candy to get the sheriff?”

“Yes, I did,” Joe replied.

“I want YOU to g’won out and meet them,” Ben said. “Tell Candy and Roy that Stacy’s being held in one of those Blood Alley tenements, and bring ‘em along.”

“I will, Pa,” Joe promised.

Paris closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Ben . . . . ”

“What?” Ben responded in a voice stone cold.

“I’M going with you,” she declared, her face set with the same fierce, stubborn determination he had seen many times before in Stacy’s face, whenever she had made up her mind about something.

Ben pointedly turned his back on Paris. “No, you’re NOT!”

With her mouth firmly set in a thin, determined line, Paris marched with a reckless defiance around the foot of the bed, occupied by Jeff Collier. Stepping between Ben and the door, she looked him straight in the eyes. “Ben,” she pressed with desperate urgency, “I KNOW you must think me the scum of the earth right now, and God knows, you have every right to . . . and, for that matter . . . so does Ro---I mean Stacy. But . . . dammit, no matter what I’VE done or NOT done, she’s MY daughter, too.”

Ben opened his mouth to argue, but the fierce, angry determination he saw in her face stopped him cold. He snapped his mouth shut. “Hoss!” he snapped.

“Yeah, Pa?”

“Hitch up the buggy!”

End of Part 5

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