Bloodlines
Part 6

By Kathleen T. Berney

It was an unbearably hot summer night.

The argument between Grandfather and Uncle John steadily escalated. Though well used to living in a household filled with anger, strife, and bitterness, the altercation between the men had grown ‘way beyond that to a new and frightening intensity. Grandmother, Aunt Mattie, and Aunt Elsie were frightened, too. She heard it in their voices, as they talked among themselves, in the room next to her own.

Finally, unable to bear lying scared and alone in the dark, she had left her bed for the company of the women in the next room.

“What are YOU doing here, Young Lady?” Grandmother demanded, with her back straight, arms folded tight across her chest. Her chin was rigid, as if carved from rock, and her mouth had thinned to a near straight, lipless line. In the dim light of the oil lamp, sitting on the small, round table behind Aunt Mattie, the deep shadows pooling in the hallows of Grandmother’s cheeks, her sunken eye sockets, and the angry lines, eternally etched into her brittle flesh, lent her a frightening, almost daemonic appearance.

Aunt Elsie, seated on a low footstool at Grandmother’s feet was an exact mirror, in her face, and in the stiff, rigid way she held her body. They hated her. Grandmother and Aunt Elsie. She knew that as surely as she knew the sun was going to rise in the morning and set in the next evening. They never said so in words. It was in the way they always looked at her, as if she were the ugliest thing that ever walked on two legs.

“I’m scared, Grandmother. Please? Please let me stay here with you . . . .”

“You’re a big girl now,” Grandmother said sternly. “You’re too old to be afraid of the dark.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark . . . I’m afraid because of the way Grandfather and Uncle John are yelling.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” Grandmother snapped a little too quickly. “Now go to your room, and get yourself back in bed where you belong, or so help me . . . I’ll GIVE you something to be afraid of.”

“Come with me . . . . ” Aunt Mattie called her by that other name.

“You coddle her too much, Mattie,” Grandmother complained.

“She’s just a CHILD, Mother.”

“She needs to toughen up.”

Aunt Mattie gently took her by the hand and led her back to her own room. She realized for the very first time that the hand holding fast to her own trembled.

The next thing she knew, Aunt Mattie was calling her . . . again by that other strange, frightening name. She very slowly drew the covers up over her hear, then scrunched beneath them, curling herself into a tight ball, making herself as little as she possibly could.

“Stay still,” she silently exhorted herself. “Stay very, very, very still. Maybe . . . maybe . . . if you stay still enough . . . and keep little enough . . . they won’t even see you.”

“W-Wake up, Child . . . . ” Mattie said, her voice shaking. She began to peel away the covers, one by one, layer by layer, until finally, at long last, she lay completely exposed to the cold and the night.

“Come on, Mattie . . . get that brat up . . . NOW!” Uncle John growled from somewhere in the dark.

“Wake up, Child . . . you have to wake up now,” Aunt Mattie pleaded, as she very carefully, very gently unrolled the tiny, tightly wrapped ball, and helped her to sit up.

“I-I’m scared,” she whimpered very softly.

“It’ll be all right . . . . ” Aunt Mattie promised. “It’ll be all . . . right, I promise you.” Though meant to reassure, the uncertainty she heard in her aunt’s voice deepened her fears.

As Aunt Mattie drew her from the bed to her feet, she turned toward the small window, positioned directly above the head of her bed. The shade that Grandmother always insisted by kept down, shivered slightly then with a loud snap, shot right up to the top, revealing the full moon in the sky above.

“Mattie! What the hell’s taking you so damn’ long?!” Uncle John demanded. “I don’t have all night!”

“Coming, John . . . we’re coming,” Aunt Mattie responded. She took firm hold of her hand, and led her toward the open door and hallway beyond, where Uncle John, Grandfather, Grandmother, and Aunt Elsie waited. “Let’s go, Child,” she quietly, gently urged. “W-We have to go.”

She started to follow, then paused when she caught sight of something quivering in the darkness out of the corner of her eye. She turned and, glancing out the window, saw a pine tree sapling pushing skyward. She watched, awe-struck, barely aware of Aunt Mattie’s gentle, frightened entreaties to hurry. The tree’s branches extended, and its needles sprouted everywhere in thick profusion, and lengthened, until it finally covered the moon completely.

Something about the pine tree . . . .

Aunt Mattie snatched her right off her feet and carried her out of the room, but for that moment in time, she, incredibly, wasn’t afraid. She wrapped her thin arms loosely about her aunt’s shoulders, and kept her eyes glued to the enormous pine tree outside her window, until her aunt finally carried her out of the room, and she could see it no more.

“Downstairs,” Uncle John snapped out the order. His face was twisted into the same horrible mask of rage she had come to know all too well again . . . and he had a rifle.

Grandmother started down first, with Aunt Elsie following. Aunt Mattie set her down on her feet and took her by the hand. Together, they went down behind Aunt Elsie. Grandfather and Uncle John brought up the rear. Their faces . . . her grandparents, her aunts, and her uncle . . . were all hidden in the black shadows of the darkest early morning hours before dawn.

Uncle John herded them all to the downstairs parlor, like cattle bound for a slaughterhouse. Aunt Mattie led her over to the window, while the others gathered around the fireplace.

“One last chance,” Uncle John said in a voice, low and menacing, as he turned to face Grandfather and Grandmother.

“No,” Grandmother responded in a tone of voice stone cold.

“You can make her,” John said, turning now to his father. “If you tell her to, she’ll HAVE to do as you say. All YOU have to do is TELL her.”

“She’s . . . NOT done as I say, by and large,” Grandfather said sardonically, “but even if your mother was the kind of woman that . . . that false man o’ the cloth . . . that wolf in sheep’s clothing of yours calls a dutiful wife . . . I still would NOT tell her.”

“I’ll KILL you,” Uncle John vowed. “I’ll kill you and them, too. When I do, it’ll be mine anyway.”

“You’d shoot down three unarmed women and a child?!” Grandfather demanded, angry and outraged.

“I don’t WANT to, but I will if I must.”

“You cowardly yellow bellied son-of-a bitch!” Grandfather sneered, his voice filled with contempt and loathing. “Your mother and I disowned you when you threw in your lot with that damned devil in priest’s clothing, but now . . . NOW . . . I DENY you! From this time forward, my son is DEAD to me.”

Uncle John raised his rifle and squeezed the trigger. Grandmother and Aunt Elsie both screamed. A spot of red appeared on Grandfather’s chest, a small dot that quickly mushroomed into a giant, irregularly shaped circle that covered the upper part of his torso. Pain mixed with anger, fear, and astonishment. Grandfather took a step forward, then collapsed to the floor in an ungainly heap.

Aunt Elsie dropped to her knees and probed Grandfather’s neck for a pulse. When, at length, she lifted her head, her face was white as a sheet. “You . . . you killed him,” she accused, her eyes, her face filled with horror and revulsion. “You KILLED him.”

Grandmother buried her face in her hands and began to cry. Uncle John took aim at Grandmother, and fired. She gasped, then fell, landing on top of Grandfather’s body. As he turned his attention to Aunt Elsie, still on her knees beside Grandfather, Aunt Mattie turned and threw open the parlor window. She, then, whisked her up off the floor, and in a single, fluid motion set her down on the ground below the window.

“Run, Rose,” Aunt Mattie urged. “Run.”

Rose.

That was the other name.

She stood below the window, as if she had just taken root, and watched in stunned horror, Uncle John fired his rifle again, hitting Aunt Mattie in the back.

Run, Rose.

Run.

Aunt Mattie’s words echoing through her brain galvanized her to action. She ran, blinded by sheer terror, with the deafening thunder of Uncle John’s footsteps pounding against the earth echoing in her ears, coming closer and closer . . . .

Then, all of a sudden, the Pine Tree she had seen from her window was there on the path in front of her. It gathered her up in its branches, and pulled her in close to its trunk. There, nestled within the tree’s strong branches, nestled deep within needles, surprisingly soft, she watched as her uncle tore down the road, never pausing, never looking back . . . .

“PA!” Stacy cried out upon waking up to darkness more frightening than any she had ever faced in the terrible dreams that had tormented her in the ensuing years since that night. She struggled desperately to move, to sit up.

“YOU!”

The voice of the short, pudgy man, called Corporal by his cohorts, once again echoed in the ears of her inward hearing.

“YOU! Get your ass over there ‘n finish off the old man! Now!”

“No!” Stacy whimpered, her eyes stinging with tears. “No!”

YOU!

. . . finish off the old man!

Now!

NOW!

. . . FINISH . . . OFF . . . the old man!

“Oh, Pa . . . . ” she whimpered softly, her heart breaking. “Pa! It’s m-my fault . . . it’s . . . all . . . MY . . . fault!” Though Pa had said they were going to catch a whole big mess of trout for their supper, the real reason he had taken her out there was to give her an opportunity to spend the day outside. “I’m sorry, Pa . . . if . . . if only I hadn’t acted like such a baby about . . . about having to stay inside, you’d be . . . y-you’d still be . . . . ” Her words were lost in a fierce torrent of weeping.

A pair of thin arms, encased in tattered flannel gently circled her and held her close. Stacy buried her head on Claire’s shoulder and sobbed. Claire held her distraught cousin, rocking her gently, stroking her long hair tenderly, as a mother comforts a child upon waking from the horror of nightmare.

“C-Claire,” Stacy whispered, when at long last she was able to speak. “Please . . . you’ve got to let me go.”

Claire sadly shook her head.

“M-My pa! I’ve got to find out a-about my pa! Please--- ” Stacy tried once again to rise.

Claire placed her hands against Stacy’s shoulders, wagging her head back and forth. The movement exposed Claire’s neck and the angry, red, jagged scar there.

“Daddy did that.” It was Erin. “Daddy did that when Claire was little because she was bad. Daddy told her and told her to stop crying, but Claire wouldn’t. Daddy did that to make her stop crying.”

Stacy would never be sure which appalled and horrified her more. The fact of a father inflicting so grievous wound on his elder daughter for so small an offense, or Erin’s deadpan recounting of the incident.

“P-please,” Stacy forced herself to speak, against the tide of overwhelming fear and revulsion. “You GOT to let me go! Pa . . . he’s hurt! H-He . . . he may be---,” she broke off abruptly, unable and unwilling to complete that dreadful thought. “Claire, you can come WITH me!” Stacy pressed. “You AND Erin! We can all go t-together.”

“No!” Erin vehemently shook her head. “I won’t leave Daddy, I won’t.”

“He’s a monster!” Stacy rounded furiously on her younger cousin. “Can’t you see that?! He’s no man, no kind of father, he’s a monster! A goddamed MONSTER!”

“No! He’s my daddy and I love him,” Erin declared stoutly, her facial features twisting with rage in a manner similar to her father.

“You want him to do to you what he’s done to Claire?” Stacy recklessly pressed, just short of adding, “ . . . and to your grandparents . . . and two of your aunts . . . and maybe even my pa!?!”

“He won’t do that to me. He won’t! I KNOW he won’t because . . . because I’M a good girl,” Erin murmured, looking very uncertain.

Claire gently touched Stacy’s cheek, and placed a finger to her lips. She rose, then turned and held out her hand to her younger sister.

Erin scampered across the room, and took firm hold of Claire’s hand. “Are you . . . are y-you going to put me to bed now?”

Claire nodded, then started for the door. Before she and Erin got half way across the room, the door opened, and their father entered, dragging their mother unceremoniously behind him. Claire noted the fresh bruise on her mother’s left cheek, her painfully stiff gait, the way she bit down on her lower lip to keep from crying out.

“Claire, take your sister around to the other side of the bed,” John ordered in a stiff, wooden tone.

Claire nodded, then did as she had been told. Erin trotted along behind, clutching her sister’s hand so tightly, her knuckles had turned a bloodless white.

“Virginia, for the time being, YOU will join them.”

“Y-Yes, John,” Virginia murmured softly, then scurried around to the other side of the bed, her shoulders hunched and eyes fixed on the floor.

“Claire . . . Erin . . . your cousin, Stacy, was disobedient earlier,” John continued, focusing his entire attention upon his daughters. “Erin?”

“Y-Yes, Daddy?”

“What does the Holy Bible say about disobedience?”

“It s-says . . . if you spare the rod, you . . . you spoil the child,” Erin replied, gazing up at her father through eyes round with terror.

“That is correct, Erin,” John said in a lofty tone. “Claire?”

Claire slowly lifted her head and looked expectantly into her father’s face.

“My riding crop.”

Claire nodded slowly, feeling very sick at heart. She, then, turned heel and fled from the room, as fast as her legs could carry her, loath to leave her mother and sister behind to face her father alone.

For a time, John McKenna stood beside the bed his niece occupied, with back ramrod straight, and arms folded across his chest, staring down at Stacy, his eyes, the same bright blue as her own, filled with loathing and contempt, stirred within her memory of another night, not so far distant from the terrible night that had for so long plagued her dreams.

“Mattie?! Mattie!”

She raised her head slowly, and standing in Uncle John’s place, saw Grandmother, every bit as real, and as vivid as she had been the day this particular incident had happened, towering high above her, with fists firmly planted on her thin, narrow hips, and the exact same look of disgust in her eyes.

“Mattie!” Grandmother sharply snapped out her aunt’s name. “Damn it, Mattie, you get your arse out here right now, this very instant.”

“Coming, Mam,” Aunt Mattie responded, harried and out of breath.

“How in the hell am I supposed t’ get supper ready ‘n on the table by the time your da gets home with this . . . this . . . CHILD . . . . ” Grandmother grimaced, as she might if she had just bitten into something with an incredibly foul taste, “ . . . CONSTANTLY under foot?!”

“I’m sorry, Mam . . . . ”

“Just . . . get that child OUT of my sight!”

“Aunt Mattie?”

“Yes, Rose?” Aunt Mattie responded, after she had taken her outside, well away from the house and out of sight of the big window in the kitchen.

“Why do they hate me?”

“Why does . . . who hate you, Child?”

“Grandmother . . . Grandfather . . . Aunt Elsie . . . they ALL hate me,” she replied, hurt and bewildered.

Aunt Mattie bowed her head. “No, Rose . . . they don’t hate YOU,” her aunt replied in a voice softer than a whisper, sounding as if she was going to break down and cry any moment.

“Yes, they do,” she insisted. “They DO! You’re the only one who DOESN’T! Grandmother hates me worst of all. I can see it in the mean way she always looks at me, and . . . and even when she’s NOT yelling at me . . . she IS. Aunt Mattie?”

“Yes. Rose?”

“Do they hate me because . . . because I made my mam go ‘way?”

Mattie closed her eyes and very slowly counted to ten through clenched teeth. Three times. “Rose,” she queried, giving her a strange, funny kind of look, “who told you that you made your momma go away?”

“No one’s ever said it to me in words, Aunt Mattie,” she said sadly. “But, one time, when I asked Grandmother where my mam ‘n da were? She said my mam’d gone away when I was a baby. But the way she looked at me . . . made me feel like it was all MY fault.”

“Your mam DID leave like Grandmother said, Child, but it wasn’t YOUR fault,” Mattie said very firmly.

“What about my DA? Did HE go ‘way, too?”

Mattie shook her head. “Your da doesn’t know about you, Rose. If he did, he’d be here like a shot, breaking down the door . . . and there’d be hell t’ pay, like as not.”

“There would?” she queried, her eyes shining with awe at the thought of such a happenstance.

“You BETCHA. Rose . . . . ”

“Yes, Aunt Mattie?”

“There’s something I want you to promise me . . . . ”

“What?”

“Please . . . PLEASE . . . promise me you won’t EVER believe the horrible things Grandfather, Grandmother, and Aunt Elsie say about your mam ‘n da,” Mattie said. Her aunt was mad. She saw it very clearly in her face and in her eyes most especially. But she wasn’t mad at HER. “Your mam left . . . NOT because she wanted to, but because she HAD to. She LOVED you, Child. She loved you so much . . . . ”

“Is she . . . did she die, Aunt Mattie?”

“I don’t know,” Mattie replied, shaking her head sadly. “It’s been nearly seven years. I wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for her.”

“Aunt Mattie?”

“Yes, Child?”

“Why doesn’t my da know about me?”

“Your mam . . . your mam never told him,” Mattie replied.

“Why didn’t she?”

“I don’t know, Rose,” Mattie said sadly. “I honest and truly DON’T know. You and your mam both would’ve been a lot better off if she had.”

“Will I know better why she didn’t tell my da about me . . . when I grow up?” she asked.

“To tell you the honest to goodness truth? I don’t know whether or not you WILL understand any better when you grow up,” Mattie replied. “I only hope and pray that someday . . . some . . . day . . . you’ll find it in your heart to forgive the BOTH of us . . . her AND me. . . for being the damn’ bloody cowards we are . . . . ”

“They knew . . . .” she silently realized, as revelation hit her like a hard blow to the stomach, and the reason behind her aunt’s sad, desperate plea to forgive her and her mother “for being the damn’, bloody cowards we are,” became clear. Grandmother . . . Grandfather . . . Aunt Elsie . . . Aunt Mattie . . . even Uncle John! They knew all the time Ben Cartwright was her father.

As a young child, living under her grandparents’ roof, their animosity and Aunt Elsie’s had left her feeling hurt and confused. But now, as the vision of her grandmother faded, Stacy felt rage. She embraced the fury rising up within her, drawing from it renewed strength and courage.

She lifted her head very slowly. “Why?” she growled.

John McKenna flinched away from the raw fury he heard in her voice and saw burning in her eyes with the bright, agonizing intensity of the sun. He instinctively raised his hands to his face, as if to ward off physical blows.

“You KNEW!” she accused. “You knew all along WHO my pa is . . . WHERE he lives! My grandparents . . . Aunt Elsie . . . and YOU! You’ve always hated me . . . you never wanted me . . . why in the hell didn’t you let me go live with my pa?!”

“You . . . you . . . miserable . . . little ingrate!” John growled in a low voice, barely audible. “My mother and father took you in . . . they fed you . . . they clothed you . . . they gave you a name . . . . ”

“They s-sent my mother away,” Stacy shot right back with angry tears streaming down her face. “They . . . they didn’t bother to tell Pa about me. They HATED me . . . they didn’t want me . . . yet they deliberately kept me away from the . . . from the two people in this world who . . . who loved me . . . would’ve love me and c-cared for me the most. And for that I’M supposed to be GRATEFUL?!”

“Why you . . . you . . . insolent— ” John McKenna’s words were swallowed up in a snarl, more vicious wild animal than human. Balling his hand into a tight, rock hard fist, he smacked her across the face with all his strength and might. The force of his blow sent her crashing into the wall, behind the head of her bed.

Stacy cried out as her head struck the wall with a sickening thud. Somewhere, beyond the pain and the pulsating yellow spots that had nearly overwhelmed her field of vision, she heard a terrified child scream.

“Virginia,” John snapped. “You shut that brat up right now, or so help me . . . so . . . HELP . . . me . . . I’ll come over there and shut her up myself.”

“Yes, John . . . yes. I will. Right away, I will,” Virginia babbled, as she grabbed Erin by the arm and pushed the child’s face against her abdomen in a desperate attempt to, at the very least, muffle the sounds of the girl’s piteous weeping.

“Willful . . . defiant . . . proud . . . and stiff necked . . . just like the bitch whore, who birthed you,” John muttered softly, as he glared down at Stacy with undisguised revulsion and contempt. “But, you’ll learn. As God is my witness, you’ll learn obedience . . . just as my daughters have learned.”

“If I were free . . . . ” Stacy said slowly, her senses still reeling from the hard blow to her head, “as . . . as God is MY witness. . . I’d KILL you for the horrible things you’ve said about my mother . . . my father . . . and me.”

John leaned over, seized her by the lapels of her shirt and pulled her close to his face. His eyes bore into hers with malignant hatred. The raw fury with which she returned his gaze shocked and astonished him. He slammed her back down onto the bed, then backed away staring down at his trembling hands as if they had suddenly turned into things, alien and grotesque.

On the other side of the bed, Virginia watched her husband through eyes round with horror, her entire body trembling. Her arms around Erin tightened. Thankfully, the child had finally stopped crying.

The thought of having to watch John do to Erin what he had done to Claire so long ago . . . .

She couldn’t bear it. She just plain and simply couldn’t bear it.

A moment passed. For Virginia, as she stood desperately clutching her youngest daughter, that moment, that bare space between one heartbeat and the next, lengthened and stretched to a near unbearable eternity, in the face of the mind numbing terror, hopeless despair, and the helplessness that had possessed her for so terribly long. John McKenna abruptly straightened, and pivoted, turning his back to his wife and younger daughter. The awkward, jerking movements of his body drew a soft cry of alarm from Virginia.

Claire entered the room clutching her father’s riding crop tight in both hands. She froze the instant her eyes fell upon her father, with his head bowed, his eyes closed. His entire body shook like a leaf, and he kept drawing one labored, ragged breath after another in rapid succession. On the other side of the bed, her mother slowly turned away. She released the near strangle hold she had on Erin, and buried her face in her hands.

John took one more ragged breath, then straightened. His hands relaxed slowly, his thumbs first, then each finger, one at a time. When he lifted his head and opened his eyes, every sign of the intense distress he had just suffered had completely evaporated in an instant. He, then, turned to Claire, as she hesitantly approached, holding out his riding crop before her. He wordlessly held out his own hand, open with palm facing upward.

Claire’s heart went out to her cousin as she reluctantly offered her father the riding crop. She wished with all that was within her that she could find some way to spare Cousin Stacy from her father’s frightful wrath, soon to be unleashed, all the while knowing deep down inside that such was in vain.

“Preferable . . . far more preferable . . . you, and any other child for that matter, be raised in a household filled with a proper and righteous fear of God, and a bitter hatred to all that is evil,” John began to lecture, his voice a stiff, wooden monotone. “My parents’ house fell very short of being such a household in many ways, but you were a lot better off with them than with a lascivious mother and a debauched father who thought of nothing but their own unbridled, carnal lusts. Now that you are a member of MY household, Rose Miranda McKenna--- ”

“My name is CARTWRIGHT!” Stacy rudely cut him off.

John gritted his teeth and, with movement swift and powerful, slapped her across the back with his riding crop, eliciting a cry of pain, outrage, and surprise.

“In the future, Rose . . . Miranda . . . MCKENNA . . . you will ONLY speak when I give you permission,” he said, his words, his syllables terse and clipped, “otherwise you will remain silent.”

“You are among your own now, Young Lady . . . . ”

Another voice . . . another memory.

“ . . . from this time forward you WILL answer to the NAME given you by your own . . . not to one given you by . . . by . . . . ” the man wrinkled his nose in disgust, “by a band of HEATHEN Paiutes.”

. . . and with those words, one Major Stephen Baldwin, the commander of Fort Charlotte, stole from her the name given her by her beloved foster mother, Silver Moon, and foisted upon her a name, not hers, as it turned out, but the one belonging to a mean, bitter woman, who hated her guts.

She’d be damned first before she allowed the cowardly bully strutting before her playing soldier, steal from her the name hers not only legally, but by right of birth as well.

“My . . . name . . . . ” she said, “is CARTWRIGHT.”

“Your name is Rose . . . Miranda . . . McKenna,” John returned, striking her back three times with his riding crop in cadence with the three names.

With her balled fist pressed tightly in her mouth, Virginia pressed her face into the corner tight as she could. Erin had left her mother and gone to stand next to her older sister. With arms wrapped tight about Claire’s waist, she had turned and buried her face against the comforting warmth of her sister’s breast. Claire watched her father and cousin, as she held her frightened younger sister close, through eye round with horrified morbid fascination and awe.

“I am a devout man of God,” John said, his body trembling once more. He squeezed his eyes tight shut and drew a deep, ragged breath. “I . . . am . . . a DEVOUT man of God,” he said again, “grateful that he saw fit to spare MY life through the terrible ravages of war, when he didn’t see fit to spare so many others.

“In church, at the feet of Parson Lewis Merriweather, a holy and righteous man of God, and in my own reading of the Holy Scriptures, I have learned that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,” John continued. He began to pace, slowly at first, his limp agonizingly pronounced, slapping the riding crop hard against the open palm of his left hand, in cadence with his words. “I FEAR God. I FEAR his wrath. I FEAR his chastening rod. I FEAR his judgment soon to come. I, in turn, have diligently instructed my wife and daughters by example, by reading to them from God’s Holy Word, AND by the chastening rod.

“I shall instruct YOU, misbegotten whore spawn . . . Daughter of Sin and Iniquity . . . Daughter of Eve . . . the same way.”

His stoic mask, so tenuous and fragile, shattered. “Your name is McKenna,” John snarled, beating her again and again with his riding crop. “McKenna. Rose . . . Miranda . . . MCKENNA!” At length, he stopped and very stiffly straightened his back. “Now,” he snapped. “What is your name, Girl? Tell me your name.”

“Cart . . . wright,” Stacy replied, her voice barely above the decibel of a whisper, before succumbing to merciful, dark oblivion.

“ ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’ ”

“Pa?” Stacy softly whispered, upon hearing his voice, deep and calm as the waters of Lake Tahoe in her most serene mood, speaking from somewhere in the darkness surrounding her.

Her eyes suddenly snapped wide open.

She found herself at home . . . lying on the settee, toasty warm before a cozy fire in the fireplace. Pa sat in his favorite chair, the red one next to the fireplace, with his sacred book lying open in his hands, reading aloud one of his favorite passages:

“ ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will NOT fear . . . though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea . . . . ’ ”

Seeing that she was awake, he smiled.

“I . . . think it’s time YOU were in bed, Sleepy Head. You g’won up, wash your face, and get into your night shirt,” Pa said. “I’ll be up directly to tuck ya in.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“Before I go up . . . can I ask you a question?”

“Alright . . . . ” He closed his sacred book, and looked over at her, giving her his complete, undivided attention.

“Pa . . . YOU trust God . . . don’t you?”

“Yes . . . I’ve come to know I can trust God in a lot of things, but I’m still learning,” Pa replied.

“What do you mean you’re still learning?”

“For me, trusting God hasn’t been something that’s happened suddenly . . . overnight,” Pa patiently explained. “As a boy, I learned to trust God first in the small things and as I grew up, I learned that I could trust him in the bigger, more important things in my life . . . and that I could trust him to see me through the hard times in my life. But, the lessons in learning to trust aren’t over for me yet . . . and probably won’t be over until the day I finally draw my last breath.”

“ . . . and THAT won’t be for a very, very, VERY long time yet,” she said firmly, punctuating her words with an emphatic nod of her head.

“No. That WON’T be for a very, very, VERY long time yet,” Pa promised. “Time for you to g’won up to bed, Li’l Gal . . . . ”

“Can I ask you one more question? Please? It’s . . . it’s kinda important, Pa.”

“All right,” Pa agreed. “One more question, then it’s upstairs. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir. Understood.”

“What’s your question?”

“Can you trust someone if you’re afraid of ‘em?”

“It would be very difficult, I think . . . . ” Pa said slowly.

“Why?”

“Because trust walks hand in hand with love, and most people tend to hate the things and the people they fear.”

She fell silent, as she mulled over her father’s words.

“Stacy?”

“Yes, Pa?”

“You’ve asked me a couple of real serious questions tonight,” Pa said. “You mind me asking what prompted them?”

“When I went over to Molly’s after school, I . . . I didn’t eavesdrop, but I still kinda overheard Mrs. O’Hanlan . . . Molly’s mother . . . talking to Reverend Hildebrandt about fearing God,” she explained with a troubled frown, “and I wondered how somebody could trust God if they were afraid of him.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to fear God in the sense of being afraid,” Pa said.

“Then why does your sacred book say you have to fear God?”

“That sacred book is actually made up of many sacred books, written many, many centuries ago in languages different from ours,” Pa patiently explained. “The word in one of those other languages CAN mean to be afraid, but it also means to respect, to have reverence for, or to be in awe of.”

“What’s awe?”

Pa smiled. “Do you remember the way you felt inside the very first time I took you out to see the view at Ponderosa Plunge?”

“Yeah.” She found herself smiling at the memory. “I’ll never forget it.”

“That’s what being in awe of something . . . or someONE . . . feels like.”

“ . . . and THAT’S how we’re supposed to feel about God?”

“Yes . . . in my humble opinion, of course.”

“Well YOUR humble opinion makes a lot more sense than what Reverend Hildebrandt and Mrs. O’Hanlan said. I . . . I think maybe I could learn to trust somebody who could make me feel like I did the first time you took me out to Ponderosa Plunge.”

“You feel a little bit better about things?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. It’s time to go, Li’l Gal . . . . ”

“Go?” she queried, feeling frightened and very sad all of a sudden. “Go where?”

“Time to wake up,” Pa said.

Wake up? Didn’t Pa just get through telling her it was time for her to go to bed?

Wake up . . . .

Daddy?

“Daddy . . . . ”

It was Erin. What was Erin doing here, at the Ponderosa?

“Daddy . . . . ” Erin ventured, hesitant and uncertain, “I . . . I think C-Cousin Stacy’s waking up now . . . . ”

“You are every bit as willful . . . and stubborn . . . as your mother.” The sounds of John McKenna’s voice, calm yet very stern, and of his riding crop striking flesh of his left palm, forced Stacy back to grim reality. He walked back and forth alongside the bed, his steps slow and measured.

Virginia remained in the corner farthest from the door, on her knees, sobbing very softly, with her face buried in her hands. Claire knelt beside her mother, with one hand on her shoulder, the other stroking Virginia’s hair, keeping a wary, yet close watch on Erin, who stood next to the bed upon which Stacy lay.

“Erin,” John snapped.

“Yes, Daddy?” the child queried, her voice barely audible. She held her hands clasped tightly together, with fingers interlacing, to hide their trembling near the center of her chest.

“Tell your cousin, Rose . . . Miranda . . . MCKENNA . . . what God does to those he loves,” John ordered.

“He chastens them,” Erin replied. “God . . . chastens . . . the ones he loves. It says so in the Holy Scriptures.”

“That is correct,” John said. “HOW does God chasten those he loves?”

“With a rod, Daddy.”

“And?” John prompted.

“With a rod and . . . and with his mighty hand.”

“That is correct, Erin,” John intoned. “As God chastens those HE loves . . . so I chasten those I love. GOD spares not the rod; neither do I spare the rod. As I fear God, my wife and my daughters have learned to fear ME. For the FEAR of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

“Can you trust someone if you’re afraid of ‘em?”

“It would be very difficult, I think . . . .”

“Oh, Pa . . . . ” she inwardly groaned. “I wish YOU were here with me now . . . and not just your words . . . . ”

“My daughters . . . .” John continued, “BOTH of them . . . were conceived in fear of God, and born in the hatred of all that is of the sinful flesh.”

Stacy closed her eyes, feeling sick with revulsion for her uncle and pity for her aunt and cousins. “How?” Her demand was more an accusation than an inquiry. “How can you possibly love God and trust him . . . when you hate him so much?”

With a deep guttural snarl, John lashed out with all his might, this time striking Stacy’s bound legs with his riding crop. “LIAR!” he shouted.

“NO!” Stacy shouted back, repulsed now by the very sight of her uncle, and far too consumed with rage to care about the consequences. “IT’S THE TRUTH! YOU HATE GOD . . . YOU HATE AUNT VIRGINIA . . . YOU HATE CLAIRE AND ERIN--- ”

“RECANT!” John howled, his face beet red. “RECANT NOW . . . OR BE DAMNED FOR ALL ETERNITY, DAUGHTER OF SIN AND INIQUITY . . . OF . . . OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH,”

“NO! I WON’T TAKE IT BACK! I WON’T, I WON’T, I WON’T!” Stacy yelled back. “BECAUSE IT’S THE TRUTH!”

John gazed down at Stacy, too shocked, too stunned to move or even speak. His entire body was tensed, like a cat ready to spring on its cornered, helpless prey. “On your knees, Girl,” he murmured in a low, menacing tone.

“NO!”

John, his entire body trembling, seized hold of Stacy’s forearm, and dragged her off of the bed with terrifying ease, dumping her unceremoniously onto the floor. “I SAID . . . on . . . your . . . KNEES,” he murmured in a low, menacing tone. Irregularly shaped patches of bright, angry red appeared on his neck, his cheeks, and his forehead.

Stacy remained when she had fallen, making no attempt to move.

“ON YOUR KNEES, DAMN YOU!” John screamed, as he grabbed the back of her collar and dragged her up off the floor.

“NO.”

John kicked her feet out from under her, forcing her down onto her knees.

“Now you are going to pray,” John said. “You are going to pray and ask God’s forgiveness for your willful disobedience. Then you will beg MY forgiveness . . . on your knees . . . for the vile, filthy aspersions you’ve cast upon ME.”

“Go to hell!” Stacy spat.

John raised his arm, with tightly clenched fist as if about to strike her. He stood, ominously still, wavering, before abruptly turning heel and storming out the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

“Oh no . . . no, no, no, please! I c-can’t bear it!” Virginia wept in earnest. “Dear God, no, no, please . . . I . . . I just c-can’t bear it . . . not again . . . . ”

“STUBBORN . . . WILLFUL . . . DAUGHTER OF . . . OF . . . OF SIN AND . . . AND WHORE SPAWN!” Erin yelled in a sudden burst of rage, using words of which she had little or no knowledge their meaning. She only knew they were somehow bad words that she had heard her father use. With tears streaming down her face, she balled her small hands into a pair of tiny rock hard fist and fell upon her bound, helpless cousin, pummeling her back over and over. “WHY?” Erin screamed, on the edge of hysteria. “WHY? WHY DO YOU MAKE MOTHER CRY? AND WHY DO YOU MAKE DADDY SO MAD?”

With heart in mouth, Claire immediately leapt to her feet and tore across the room. She seized hold of Erin’s wrists, gently yet very firmly, and turned the younger girl around. Looking directly into her sister’s eyes and face, she earnestly, passionately mouthed, “No,” over and over, frantically wagging her head back and forth.

“I HATE him!” Stacy gave reply to Erin’s questions, her voice filled with raw fury and deep, nearly overwhelming sadness. “He’s a monster, a . . . a no good yellow-bellied cowardly bully who . . . who beats up on . . . on women and children who can’t fight back.”

“NO!” Erin yelled, her fury rising to equal her cousin’s.

“HE IS!” Stacy yelled back, with hot, angry tears scalding her cheeks. “HE
IS! HE TOOK MY PA AWAY FROM ME AND NOW HE WANTS TO STEAL MY PA’S NAME! I WON’T LET HIM DO IT, YOU HEAR ME? I WON’T, I WON’T, I WON’T!”

“LIAR!” Erin shrieked. “LIAR, LIAR, LAIR---!” Her words ended abruptly in a startled, outraged gasp, when Claire, in desperation, struck the child’s cheek, hoping against hope to end her sister’s rising hysteria, lest it anger their father more.

Erin stared over at Claire for a moment, then collapsed into her sister’s outstretched arms weeping.

As she gave comfort to her angry, frightened younger sister, Claire stole an occasional glace at Stacy, who had rolled over on her side, turning her back to them all.

No one had ever stood up to her father the way Stacy had, no one. Not the men who had served under him during the war and continued to serve him to this day, not her mother, and certainly not her sister, Erin, or herself. Though Claire was able to summon the strength, the wherewithal to offer what poor measure of comfort she could to her mother and sister, she knew, to her great shame, that whenever her father would order her to fetch his riding crop, she would always do so no matter how sick at heart it left her.

“Stubborn . . . willful . . . . ”

The words uttered by her father and sister echoed again in her ears of her silent hearing.

Stubborn.

Willful.

Yes . . . Cousin Stacy was all of that, but those things alone wouldn’t have given her the strength of spirit needed to stand up to her father the way she had. What made Stacy so different, so strong, that she refused to back down no matter how savagely her father beat her?

As her mother’s and Erin’s intense, piteous weeping lessened, and finally gave way to silence, Claire gave thought to freeing Stacy and fleeing with her to the Ponderosa for sanctuary, bringing her mother and sister along as well. Yet, even as she considered this possibility, Claire knew deep within her own heart that her mother and sister would never, not in a million years, ever agree to leave husband and father.

Go to the Ponderosa with Cousin Stacy . . . alone?

“I . . . I can’t,” Claire silently realized. Her mother’s spirit was shattered, had been since the day she stood by watching, wringing her hands, and weeping helplessly while her father inflicted the wound that forever robbed her of speech. Now all her mother could do in the face of her father’s wrath was turn her face to the wall and weep. She didn’t have the wherewithal to protect her daughters. Claire couldn’t help but wonder if her mother ever did.

“No,” she silently mouthed the word, while slowly shaking her head back and forth. Despite what she perceived as her own cowardice, she was still the only one able to offer any kind of comfort to Erin, and her mother, too.

“But somehow . . . I’ve GOT to find a way to help Cousin Stacy,” Claire silently, desperately ruminated. If her cousin didn’t get away soon, her father was going to end up killing her. Claire knew that as surely as she knew night followed day.

The sound of horses, on the narrow dirt road just below the window in Stacy’s room, drew Claire from her troubled thoughts. She kissed Erin’s forehead, then rose.

“Are y-you . . . are you gonna p-put me to bed now?” Erin asked as Claire held out her hands.

Claire nodded.

“No,” Erin whimpered. “Please . . . DON’T take me down there,” she begged. “Please?”

Claire nodded, feeling a small measure of relief, knowing that she and Erin would have to pass by the large room in which their father slept in order to reach their own. She pointed to the corner, where their mother yet remained, on her knees, oblivious to all except her own misery.

Erin nodded, then rose, and yawning, slipped her small hand into Claire’s slightly larger one.

Claire took Erin over next to their mother and settled the child on the floor as best she could, then silently crossed the room to the window, and cautiously glanced out.

In the narrow alley below, a woman, tall and thin like her father, emerged from the deep shadow and boldly walked up to the door. The man standing watch at the front door immediately snapped to attention. Claire recognized him as man who had served as the drummer boy in her father’s unit during the war.

Jed Matthews watched the woman stagger up the walk toward the house in which Captain McKenna and his family had taken up residence with increasing dismay. He had been assigned to stand watch while his brother, David, ran an important errand for the captain. “ . . . uhhh, Ma’am?” he finally queried, when she had come half way up the dirt path, leading from the alley to the front door. “Ma’am . . . please? Stop right there.”

The woman, dressed in a wrinkled navy blue skirt, with matching jacket and white blouse, advanced three more steps, bringing her less than a yard from the spot where the sentry stood. There, she straightened her posture and glared over at the young man. “ . . . ‘n just who the hell are YOU?” she demanded imperiously, slurring her words. The reek of cheap whiskey was enough to knock a man over.

“I . . . I, um WORK for the man, who . . . who lives here,” Jed stammered. “Is there anything I can, uhh . . . do to, um help you?”

“Man?!” she echoed, indignant and outraged. “What man? I’ll have YOU know, Young Man, that THIS is m’ SISTER’s house.”

“No, Ma’am, no! You’ve . . . y-you’ve . . . Ma’am, I’m afraid you’ve, umm, made a mistake,” Jed stammered. “This IS my employer’s home--- ”

“It’s my sister’s house!” the woman insisted. “ ‘N I’ll thank ya kin’ly very much t’ move yourself along. Ain’t seemly for a man, ‘specially a young man like yourself, t’ be parked outside the house of a widow lady, livin’ all by herself.”

Jed moved away from the door. “Ma’am, this IS my employer’s house,” he said again. “There’s no widowed woman living here . . . in fact, before my employer and his family moved in--- ” His words abruptly ended with a soft, startled gasp upon feeling the barrel of a gun shoved up hard against the small of his back.

“Don’t move,” a deep, sonorous voice growled very softly in his ear.

Jed felt the blood drain right out of his face. “Y-Yes, Sir,” he whispered.

“Hand me your rifle, Boy! Nice ‘n slow! REAL slow!” Ben Cartwright ordered, keeping himself behind the young man, and well under the cover of the deep shadows cast by a moon overhead, a few days past full.

Jed swallowed nervously as he reluctantly passed his rifle to the man standing behind him.

“Eyes front!” Ben snapped. He snatched the rifle out of the young man’s hand, then ordered him to remove his gun belt.

“Wh-Who are you?” Jed ventured with healthy fear and trepidation, as he reluctantly set himself to the task of unbuckling his gun belt. “If y-you . . . if you m-mean to rob me, my . . . my billfold’s in my right pants pocket . . . b-but you won’t find much . . . . ”

“I have NO intention of robbing you, Boy,” Ben said, sotto voce. “You just keep your mouth shut and do as I tell ya . . . no one’ll get hurt.”

Jed nodded.

“Ben, we’d better tie him up and gag him.” It was the woman who had claimed that the hovel, barely standing behind him, belonged to her sister. Though she still reeked of cheap, rotgut whiskey, she seemed to have sobered up very quickly.

“You got the rope?”

“Right here.”

Ben took the coil of rope she clutched in both hands, then slipped the young man’s revolver out of its holster. “Here,” he said curtly, as he handed Paris the weapon. “Keep it on him,” he ordered. “If this young man so much as bats an eyelash without me telling him he can . . . USE it.”

“You’ll get no argument from me,” she said with a mirthless smile that set the hairs on the back of Jed’s neck standing on end.

“Ben . . . Ben . . . . ” Jed silently turned the man’s name over and over, wincing as he felt his arms being pulled behind his back, and tightly secured at the wrists. The only Ben he knew of--- “Oh my---!! Could it be?!” All of a sudden, he felt very lightheaded and sick to his stomach. His stance wavered.

“Sit down, Boy,” Ben ordered.

Jed collapsed to the ground with a hard, dull thud, as his quivering legs gave out from under him.

“Paris, you have a handkerchief?”

“Yes . . . . ”

“Gag him!” Ben said tersely. “We can’t take a chance on him crying out and alerting John to our presence.”

“Paris! The captain’s sister!” Jed realized, nearly gagging when Paris stuffed her balled handkerchief into his mouth.

Ben finished tying Jed ankles, then removed the bandanna from around his neck. “Here! Tie this around his mouth so he can’t spit out your handkerchief.”

Paris quickly did as she had been told, then stepped back, making sure she kept to the darkest shadows, while Ben dragged the bound and gagged sentry out of sight.

“Cousin Stacy’s mother and father! They HAVE to be!” Claire suddenly, silently realized, as she watched the big silver haired man drag her father’s guard around the side of the house, presumably out of the sight of anyone on the street. She waited, with heart in mouth, until he emerged once again from the shadows, and started toward the front door with the woman following close behind.

She turned and stole a quick glance at her mother and sister. Virginia sat in the corner, with her arms clasped tight about her knees and face to the wall, rocking slowly back and forth, whimpering very softly. Erin slept fitfully beside their mother, curled up in a tight little ball. Claire left the window, and ran noiselessly across the room to the door. She opened it cautiously, and peered into the darkened hallway. The coast appeared to be clear in both directions. Breathing a silent sigh of relief, she stepped from the room and made her way down the stairs to the front door.

Claire met Ben and Paris on the front stoop of the house. She placed her finger to her lips, and motioned for them to follow. Ben and Paris exchanged glances. He nodded, knowing instinctively that he could trust the slight, otherworldly being, clad in tattered white flannel, standing before him.

Claire silently led Ben and Paris up the stairs, and down the hall to the last door on the right. She took hold of the doorknob and paused, just long enough to turn and place her first finger to her lips. Ben and Paris both nodded. Claire opened the door just enough to allow them entry, then took up position just inside the room.

Ben and Paris silently entered and crossed the room to the cot where Stacy lay, bound hand and foot, sleeping fitfully.

“Dear God!” Paris moaned very softly, upon catching sight of Stacy’s bruised and battered face.

“So help me, if I get the chance, I’ll kill him for that,” Ben muttered, seething.

“Not if I get the chance first,” Paris vowed.

Ben carefully sat down on the bed beside his sleeping daughter. “Stacy?!” he whispered, nudging her gently.

Stacy opened her eyes and turned. For a long moment, she simply lay there, unmoving, with her eyes glued fast to his face. She was almost afraid to believe he was real, even as she in silent desperation hoped and prayed he was. “P-Pa?!” she finally whispered.

Ben quickly put his finger to his lips, warning her to keep her voice down.

“Pa, please? Please . . . DON’T be a dream,” she begged tearfully, as Ben helped her to sit up.

“Shh,” Ben whispered back. He started to untie the ropes binding her wrists, while Paris worked to free her ankles.

“Claire?” It was Virginia. “Claire, who---?!”

With sinking heart, Claire left her place at the door and scampered across the room to her mother, still seated on the floor, huddled against the wall. She cast a quick glance at her sister, noting with a measure of relief that the child still slept.

“Claire,” Virginia pressed, blithely ignoring her oldest daughter’s frantic gestures to keep silence, “there’s someone in this room.”

Claire interposed herself as best she could in the line of sight between her mother and the cot in the middle of the room, where Cousin Stacy’s mother and father worked as fast as they could to untie her. She pointed to herself first, her mother next, and last to Erin, curled up on the floor. “And Cousin Stacy,” she mouthed.

Ben and Paris, meanwhile, helped Stacy to her feet. As she rose, Stacy’s eyes fell on Claire, kneeling before her mother, huddled in the corner farthest from the door. A sudden jolt of realization crashed upon her like a falling brick wall. “Pa,” she whispered frantically, “Claire!”

“Is that Claire?” Paris asked very quietly, inclining her head in the direction of the girl who had led him and Paris to Stacy. She was on her knees, facing the corner on the other side of the room.

Stacy nodded. “We HAVE to take Claire with us. If . . . if he finds out she . . . that she . . . Pa, he’ll KILL her!”

“Stacy, listen to me!” Ben said tersely, his voice a hoarse whisper, filled with urgency. “Right now, WE . . . you, me, and Miss Paris . . . have to get out of here. We’ll come back for Claire, I promise.”

“Who are you?” A young child’s voice, filled with astonishment and outrage, demanded.

“Erin, run quick! Get your daddy!” Virginia ordered.

The child was on her feet in an instant, bolting for the door as fast as her small, thin legs could carry her. Claire rose and set off after her sister on an intercept course. Erin was out of the room and tearing down the hallway beyond, calling for her father at the top of her voice. Claire stamped her foot and banged her balled fist against the wall, angry and frustrated for having missed catching Erin by less than a second. Recovering herself from that sudden burst of temper, she ran over to Cousin Stacy and her parents, frantically motioning for them to hurry.

“Claire, you HAVE to come with us!” Stacy begged.

Claire held up her hands and shook her head vigorously.

“Claire, please!” Stacy implored, genuinely fearful for her silent cousin’s well being. “You KNOW what he’ll do to you, if— ”

Claire emphatically shook her head.

“Please!” Stacy begged, on the verge of tears.

“All of you, stay RIGHT where you are,” a masculine voice ordered imperiously.

Four heads turned slowly, in unison. John McKenna, clad in a brocade dressing gown and matching silk pajamas, stood in the hallway, armed with a rifle aimed squarely at Ben’s head. Erin stood on his right, with a grim, angry look on her face, and arms folded tight across her chest. Jed Matthews stood on John’s left, leveling a murderous scowl at Ben and Paris, while rubbing his wrists. David stood behind his older brother, equally grim faced, cradling his rifle in the crook of his arm. Alexander Deveraux, dressed in street clothes, hastily donned, stood beside his captain, on the right, with a revolver clutched tight in his hand. “Corporal . . . . ”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Have Lieutenant Hilliard and Private Yates arrived yet?”

“No, Sir. Not yet.”

“Private Matthews,” John said curtly, turning to face the elder of the two brothers, “you will go back down stairs and wait for them. When they arrive, escort both of them up here to THIS room.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Corporal, YOU will round up the other men and bring them up here AT ONCE,” John continued.

“Yes, Sir.” Alexander turned heel and roughly pushed his way past the Matthews brothers. His footsteps were heard less than a moment later thundering down the rickety stairs to the first floor.

“Captain?”

John turned and regarded Private Jed Matthews with his left eyebrow slightly upraised. “Question, Private?”

“Sir, I was derelict in my duty just now,” Jed confessed solemnly, with head bowed, and eyes fixed on the floor at his captain’s feet. “My dereliction made it possible for Mister Cartwright and Miss McKenna to gain entry. I hereby submit myself for disciplinary action.”

“Private, the events that resulted in Mister Cartwright and my sister gaining entry to this house were the Hand of Providence,” John said. “I can not, in all good conscience, nor WILL I discipline you for something that was ultimately beyond your ability to control. You may return to your post.”

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

John, then, turned to David Matthews. “You will remain with me, Private. There is much for you to learn tonight, not all of it pleasant. I strongly urge you to pay very close attention.”

“I will, Sir,” David promised.

“The rest of you . . . back into my guest room,” John ordered, turning now to Paris, Ben, and Stacy. “I know the hour is quite late for an impromptu visit, but I simply won’t hear of you leaving so soon after you’ve arrived.” His lips twisted upward to form a malevolent, sardonic grin. “If you both’d had the good manners to WAIT for an invitation, I would have had better a better welcome prepared for you, but . . . this will more than suffice.”

Ben and Paris backed into the room, keeping Stacy sandwiched protectively between them.

“Claire, go stand over there . . . next to your mother,” John ordered. “I’ll deal with the both of YOU later.”

Claire nodded, then ran to her mother, who yet remained on her knees, her face pressed into the corner. She knelt down and placed her arm firmly about Virginia’s shoulders.

“John . . . what the hell’s this all about?” Paris angrily, imperiously demanded, keeping back none of the animosity she felt toward her brother.

“You and Mister Cartwright have arrived just in time to join in the celebration of a great victory, one a very long time in coming,” John replied.

“Victory celebration?” Ben echoed with a puzzled frown.

“Yes, Mister Cartwright, a victory celebration,” John affirmed. “The riches for which I’ve labored for long and hard, over the course of the past ten years, are finally within my grasp. I sorely regret that my jubilation will be a bittersweet one, however . . . . ”

“Keep him talking!” the inner voice of Ben’s intuition, respectfully referred to as his mother’s voice, screamed loud and clear. “Why, John?” he asked warily, laboring to keep his tone calm and even. “Why will this great victory celebration of yours be a bittersweet one?”

“I have recently discovered that I am surrounded on all sides by those who would betray me,” John seemed only too happy to explain.

“Are you referring to ME, John?” Paris demanded, her voice filled with rancor.

“No, Paris,” John replied in a lofty condescending tone that set his older sister’s teeth on edge. “I have ALWAYS known you to be my adversary. You’ve never pretended to be anything else.”

“Then WHO?” Ben pressed, as he, Stacy, and Paris came to a stop in the center of the room.

“Private Matthews,” John snapped, his voice cracking like a whip.

“Yes, Sir?” David immediately responded.

“Where does your loyalty lie?” John asked.

“My loyalty first, foremost, and above all, Sir, is to my Lord and my God,” David replied, his tone crisp and businesslike, yet speaking as a schoolboy reciting lessons learned by rote for a tyrannical, exacting teacher. “My second loyalty is to my captain, and my third to the men serving with me.”

“You speak rightly, Private Matthews,” John praised the young man. “As I just told my sister, I have recently discovered that I am surrounded by those who seek to betray me, while vowing their undying loyalty with lying, false hearts and deceitful lips.” He cast a baleful glare over in the direction of the corner, where Virginia and Claire huddled together. “There is ALSO the matter redressing a grievous wrong done to my sister, Paris.”

“WHAT grievous wrong done to me?” Paris demanded.

“Come now, Paris . . . surely you of all people have not forgotten,” John sardonically returned, then sighed. “Sixteen years ago . . . almost SEVENteen, Ben Cartwright seduced and raped you . . . leaving you a defiled harlot. Worse . . . he left you . . . with child.” He looked over at Stacy and grimaced once again.

Paris laughed derisively, without mirth. “I don’t know WHERE in the hell you came by your information, but to set the record STRAIGHT, John . . . then AND now, Ben Cartwright has conducted himself like a true gentleman. He did NOT . . . I repeat he DID NOT seduce or in any way force himself on me sixteen going on seventeen years ago. If anything, I was the one who seduced HIM.”

John recoiled. “You brazen WHORE! Have you no shame?! No shame at ALL?”

“John, that’s ENOUGH!” Ben growled. He moved in front of Paris and Stacy, then took a step in John’s direction. “If you think for one minute I’m going to simply stand here and allow you to say such things about my daughter’s mother--- ”

“You stop RIGHT where you are, Mister Cartwright . . . or so help me . . . so HELP me . . . I’ll kill you right where you stand,” John vowed, caressing the trigger of his rifle for emphasis.

Frightened, Stacy grabbed hold of Ben’s arm. “Pa, no! Please!” she begged.

John closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep, ragged breath. He had almost lost control just now . . . he mustn’t again, lest he end up snatching the bitter dregs of defeat right out of the jaws of sweet victory. A knock on the doorjamb drew John McKenna away from his troubled thoughts and deep passions that stood poised to inundate and overwhelm him. He took another deep breath, then straightened his posture.

“Yes?” John responded in a crisp, business like tone, his facial features schooled into a stoic mask of outward calm. “Who is it?”

“Sergeant Alexander Deveraux, Sir, and the men of the “56th Battalion, State of New York, reporting as ordered.”

“It seems CORPORAL Deveraux was recently promoted,” Ben wryly observed in a low voice.

“Enter,” John snapped.

The door opened. Alexander Deveraux stepped into the room first, then stood aside allowing a dozen armed men enter and take up position on the outer periphery of those already assembled, effectively surrounding them.

Jim-Boy Tuttle seized hold of Virginia McKenna’s forearm and hauled her and hauled her roughly to her feet. “Over there,” he grunted, pushing her over toward the bed where Stacy had not long ago lain bound and gagged. He nudged Claire in the same direction with the barrel of his rifle, then took his place in the corner.

“Corporal Deveraux, have Lieutenant Hilliard and Private Yates arrived?” John asked, frowning. They were nine minutes late.

“No, Sir,” Alexander replied. “Private Jed Matthews remains downstairs waiting for them, as ordered.”

John nodded, satisfied. “Close the door,” he ordered.

Alexander nodded, then obeyed.

“I will have to deal with Lieutenant Hilliard later, and Private Yates also should THAT prove necessary,” John growled. “Erin.”

The child ran from her place at the door to her father’s side, as fast as her small legs could carry her. “Yes, Daddy?” she responded eagerly.

“Tell our guests . . . and your mother and sister as well . . . what the Holy Scriptures have to say about the wages of sin.”

Horrified, Virginia sank down onto the bed, as the muscle and sinew in her legs turned to jelly, unable to support her, and buried her face in the meager shelter of her hands, while Erin squeezed her eyes shut, and struggled to remember. Claire unconsciously placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder, her eyes darting back and forth between her father and sister, desperately seeking an opportunity to mouth the answer to Erin, without their father seeing.

“Erin . . . . ” John prompted through clenched teeth, in a voice low and menacing.

“DEATH, DADDY!” Erin shouted, suddenly remembering to her older sister’s profound relief. She took a deep, ragged breath, as she fought hard to regain some small measure of composure. “It’s death. The wages of sin is death.”

“Very good, Erin. You may go and join your sister for the time being.”

“Yes, Daddy,” she murmured softly.

“Out of the mouths of little children shall come forth pearls of wisdom,” John loftily intoned, as his youngest daughter serenely trotted across the room and took her place beside Claire. “The wages of sin are indeed death.” He then turned and looked Ben straight in the eye. “Mister Cartwright.” A nasty smile slowly eased its way across his lips. “For the monstrous crimes, committed against my sister, I sentence the FRUIT of your unholy union to death.” He paused. The smile on his face broadened. “Now . . . if you and my sister would be so kind as to move away from your daughter . . . . ”

“JOHN, FOR GOD’S SAKE— ” Paris cried out, horrified.

“Using the Lord’s Name in vain only adds to YOUR many sins, Paris,” John said. “As for your daughter . . . YOUR daughter and HIS . . . she’s not FIT to live.”

“NO!” Stacy yelled. “YOU’RE THE ONE WHO’S NOT FIT TO LIVE, YOU . . . YOU . . . SICK . . . TWISTED ****!” The word was a Paiute obscenity for a warrior deemed a coward and a traitor, despised and beneath all contempt. “HOW?!” she demanded. “HOW IN THE HELL COULD YOU STAND THERE TELLING ME HOW . . . HOW DAMNED DEVOUT YOU ARE, WHEN YOU’RE GUILTY OF MURDER?!”

“How dare you?” John’s soft, calm voice was frighteningly at odds with his stiff body, now trembling with barely contained rage. “How DARE YOU . . . foul, lying whore spawn . . . reeking with the stink of your parents’ iniquity . . . how dare one such as YOU . . . stand in judgment of ME . . . FOR WHAT I HAD TO DO IN TIME OF WAR?!”

“I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT THE WAR!” Stacy yelled back, her own body trembling with rage. “I’M TALKING ABOUT TEN YEARS AGO, WHEN YOU MURDERED YOUR OWN PARENTS AND YOUR SISTERS, MATTIE AND ELSIE . . . THEN BURNED DOWN THE HOUSE TO COVER IT UP.”

“LIAR!” John howled.

“I WAS THERE, I SAW YOU,” Stacy shouted back at him. “I SAW YOU SHOOT THEM DOWN IN COLD BLOOD. YOU SHOT YOUR PA AND AUNT MATTIE IN THE BACK LIKE THE LOW DOWN, YELLOW BELLIED COWARD YOU ARE! YOU WOULD HAVE KILLED ME, TOO, IF AUNT MATTIE HADN’T LIFTED ME OUT THE WINDOW AND TOLD ME TO RUN.”

Paris gasped, as the blood drained from her face. She seized hold of Ben’s arm for support.

“Stacy, are you sure?” Ben asked, deftly placing an arm around Paris’ waist.

“That’s what the dreams were about, Pa,” Stacy said, glaring at her uncle with murderous fury. “THAT’S what they were trying to make me remember.”

“Dear God in Heaven! John, how COULD you?” Paris moaned, numb with horror.

“Don’t LOOK at me like that,” John snarled, with all the bestial viciousness of a rabid animal. “You BITCH! Harlot! Don’t you DARE look at me like that . . . . ”

“How SHOULD I look upon a man guilty of murdering his own father, mother, and both of his younger sisters?!” Paris immediately returned, sparing no pains to conceal the revulsion and the bitter hatred she held in her heart towards her brother. “ . . . and . . . and how should I look upon a man who . . . who tried to kill a child . . . a CHILD, John, no more than five or six years old . . . then reveled in LYING to that child’s mother, leading her to believe her daughter was dead?”

“THEY WANTED TO DEPRIVE ME OF WHAT WAS RIGHTFULLY MINE,” John screamed.

“Of WHAT that’s rightfully yours, John?” Ben asked, desperately hoping and praying they might keep John engaged until Joe and Hoss arrived help.

“THE MONEY!”

“WHAT MONEY?” Paris demanded. “Oh, I remember you damn’ near forcing me to retire to Bedlam with your incessant badgering about Mam’s will when we last met in Saint Jo— ”

“Mam was a wealthy woman,” John adamantly insisted.

“Wealthy!” Paris snorted derisively. “Da might’ve made a decent enough living with the livery he had in Mormon Springs, I s’pose . . . but they weren’t wealthy people, John, not by ANY stretch of the imagination.”

“Mam WAS! She was, I tell you.”

“You’re lying,” Paris accused, “either that, or you’re deluded.”

“It’s TRUE, Paris. I SWEAR it’s TRUE! Our grandmother . . . MAM’S mother, was Lady Eleanor Sinclair,” John argued. “I met her, while I was a student at Westpoint. By then, she was widowed and living with Mam’s youngest brother, Major Josiah Sinclair . . . Virginia’s father.”

“Virginia?” Ben prompted.

“My wife, Mister Cartwright,” John replied.

“But . . . surely . . . even YOU know that the Sinclair home and the entire Sinclair fortune would have passed to Mam’s OLDEST brother . . . along with the title when our grandfather died,” Paris scathingly pointed out.

“True,” John agreed, “but Lady Eleanor Sinclair was a wealthy woman in her own right . . . a VERY wealthy woman.”

“Our maternal grandparents DISOWNED Mam after she ran off and married our father,” Paris said with wry contempt. “Remember?”

“Grandmother Sinclair CHANGED, Paris . . . she did! Honest! When I told her who I was? And who my mother was? Lady Eleanor told me that she deeply regretted the estrangement between herself and her only daughter,” John argued.

“Good for her!” Paris immediately returned, her voice filled with bitter scorn. “Too bad she didn’t come to ‘deeply regret the estrangement between herself and her only daughter’ in time to spare Mam the humiliation of begging table scraps from the scullery maids in her own father’s house during the famine years.”

“But, Grandmother Sinclair more than made up for it.”

“How?! How could she POSSIBLY make up for that . . . and everything ELSE Mam suffered?”

“She left her entire fortune to Mam,” John replied. “ALL of it! Lock, stock, and barrel. But . . . when Mam drew up HER will? SHE left it all to Mattie . . . Elsie, and . . . and HER!” He dramatically thrust an accusing finger in Stacy’s direction. “She didn’t leave ME a thing.”

“ . . . and why in the hell SHOULD she?”

“BECAUSE I AM THE ONLY SON!” John shouted. “I SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN CONTROL OF THAT MONEY . . . NOT THEM!”

“ . . . and why NOT them?!” Paris angrily demanded.

John’s entire body went rigid. “Because Mattie and Elsie are women,” he replied through clenched teeth, overemphasizing each word, “and Rose . . . she was a child, Paris . . . a CHILD. Mam said that since Mattie and Elsie never married, they would need the inheritance to live on after she and Da died, and that Rose could do with a bit of a nest egg, put by. But, it wasn’t right, I tell you . . . it . . . wasn’t . . . RIGHT!”

“Why not?” Ben demanded.

“BECAUSE MATTIE AND ELSIE ARE . . . WERE . . . WOMEN,” John shouted, teetering now on the very edge of hysteria. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Don’t you see?” he continued, speaking through clenched teeth and jaw, rigidly set. “It’s not right to leave so vast a fortune entirely in the care of . . . of women . . . . ” This last word he spat with derision and contempt.

“Why not?” Ben asked.

“They’re EVIL! Corrupt to the very core of their being!” John replied. “Hell spawn, every last one of ‘em . . . just like their mother, Eve. Surely YOU know that, Mister Cartwright. A woman is good for one thing and one thing ONLY.”

“Does that include your own wife and daughters?” Ben asked.

“Of COURSE it does!” John replied. “Maybe not Erin, so much . . . not NOW . . . not YET! But Claire and Virginia . . . THEY number among those who seek to betray me, Mister Cartwright.”

“Oh for---!!” Paris growled, with a sarcastic roll of her eyes heavenward. Her eyes wandered to her sister-in-law, seated on the bed with shoulders hunched, and head bowed, then to her niece, standing next to her mother, with hand lightly resting on her shoulder, watching events unfold with a serene detachment. “HOW, John? Your poor wife, heaven pity her, can’t even summon the wherewithal to raise her head and look at you cross-eyed, for God’s sake! And Claire . . . she’s a child, John. A CHILD!”

“A child who has come into the evil legacy of her mother, Eve,” John growled back.

“John,” Ben said, in a voice stone cold, heartily sickened by the cruel, misogyny that possessed John McKenna, soul and spirit, “listen to me. The day your grandmother died, that money became your mother’s to do with as SHE wished . . . and if it was HER wish to leave that money to her younger daughters and to her only granddaughter, she WAS within her rights to do so.”

“No,” John immediately countered, as he slowly shook his head. “No! Da promised me . . . . ”

“Da promised you . . . WHAT?!” Paris demanded.

“Da promised me that I’D be head of the family when he died,” John replied. “How could I possibly be head of the family . . . if Mattie and Elsie were in control of all that money?!”

“ . . . and just what the bloody hell has all the damned money mother supposedly left to Mattie, Elsie, and . . . and to Rose . . . have to do with YOU being head of the family?” Paris pressed.

“If Mattie and Elsie were in control of that money, they wouldn’t have to submit to my authority as head of the family,” John explained. “Da SHOULD have taken MY side . . . but he didn’t. He took MAM’S side.”

“ . . . and THAT’S the real reason you killed your mother . . . your father . . . your sisters . . . and why you TRIED to kill my daughter . . . then AND now,” Ben accused, seething. “Greed! Pure and simple GREED!”

“THEY WERE IN MY WAY, DAMMIT! MAM, DA, MATTIE, ELSIE, AND ROSE . . . THEY WERE ALL . . . IN . . . MY . . . WAY!” John screamed. He took a deep ragged breath, then squeezed his eyelids together, as tight as he possibly could. “Now . . . .” he continued, his entire body trembling, “NOW . . . Rose . . . is the only one left . . . the only one who stands in my way. Talk is done, Paris. For the last time, I’m ordering you to move away from your daughter.”

Ben quickly pushed Stacy behind him, then, by mutual unspoken agreement, closed ranks with Paris. “We’re not budging, John,” Ben said, taking hold of Paris’ hand.

“Sergeant Deveraux,” John snapped.

“Yes, Sir,” Alexander said. “You four!” He glared at David Matthews, Seth Harris, Alfred Simmons, and Jim-Boy Tuttle. “Move Miss McKenna and Mister Cartwright to a place of safety at once.”

David, the youngest of the four moved in and took firm hold of Paris’ left forearm. “This way, Ma’am . . . . ”

Paris gritted her teeth and punched David in the stomach with all her strength, drawing a startled, agonized gasp.

Ben, meanwhile, landed a swift, powerful right cross in the middle of Alfred Simmons’ face, breaking his nose. Alfred fell over backwards, hitting the floor with a dull thud, where he remained, unmoving, as if he had suddenly taken root. Blood flowed generously from his nose and a split lower lip.

“I’VE got the woman!” Jim-Boy drawled, as he slipped behind her and wrapped his strong, well muscled arms about her waist. “You get over there ‘n give Al and Seth a hand.”

“UnHAND me right now this INSTANT!” Paris angrily, fearfully demanded as she struggled valiantly to free herself. She balled her fists and rained blow after blow after blow on his hands, while screaming the most vile, most obscene epithets she knew at the top of her voice.

David drew his fingers together into a tight fist and swung at Ben, hitting him square on the left cheek. Ben staggered backward a couple of steps, then followed through, almost without thinking, knocking David on his rump.

“PA! BEHIND YOU!” Stacy cried out, the instant she spotted Seth Harris circling around behind Ben.

Upon hearing Stacy’s warning cry, Ben glanced up sharply, just in time to catch a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye. The next thing he knew, someone had grabbed hold of his arms and pulled them behind his back, effectively rendering him helpless.

“YOU DIRTY, ROTTEN, NO-GOOD, YELLA BELLIED SON-UVA-JACKASS!” Stacy shouted, as she set upon Seth, pummeling his back relentlessly with her balled fists, calling him every nasty name she knew in English and Paiute.

David scrambled to his feet almost immediately, delivering two hard blows to Ben’s abdomen with his left fist, then his right in rapid succession. Gritting his teeth against the onset of pain and intense nausea, Ben leaned over as far as he possibly could, given his restraints, kicking David’s right leg out from under him, and pulling forward with all his might, hoping to at the very least loosen the hold Seth had on him.

“TURN MY PA LOOSE RIGHT NOW, YOU HEAR ME?!” Stacy yelled, as she kept up her merciless assault.

“Matthews! Simmons! On your feet, dammit!” Seth groaned. “I . . . I c-can’t . . . hold on to ‘im . . . much . . . longer!”

David once again staggered to his feet. His face was beet red, and his breathing shallow and rapid. He favored his right leg as he moved in on Ben a second time, delivering another hard blow to the abdomen, sidestepping, barely, when Ben once again tried to kick his legs out from under him.

Seth wrapped his left arm around Ben’s shoulders as David delivered another blow, this time to the face, and tightened. A wild elbow jab with his right arm found its mark in Stacy’s abdomen. The force of the blow knocked the wind out of her, and sent her crashing hard onto the floor. Nauseated, and gasping for breath, Stacy’s arms instinctively wrapped themselves around her abdomen and stomach. Seth tightened his grip on Ben, allowing David.

“Claire!” John snapped, after Ben and Paris had been dragged away from the center of the room.

Claire looked up at her father and waited.

“Time for YOU to join your disobedient cousin.”

“JOHN, NO! DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN, NO!” Virginia cried out on anguish as she watched Claire leave her side and walk toward the center of the room, where Stacy still lay on her side, clutching her stomach. “JOHN, YOU CAN’T DO THIS!”

“I must, Virginia. Claire is guilty of high treason.”

“High treason?!” Virginia echoed, incredulous and feeling very sick to her stomach. She rose from her place, her entire body trembling his fear. “John, you can’t be serious!”

“Claire led my sister and Mister Cartwright to Stacy, knowing full well they had come to rescue her,” John explained, in the same condescending manner a parent might address a dull witted child. “In so doing, she is, first and foremost, guilty of committing the sin of rebellion against ME, her father, whom the Holy Scriptures have commanded her to respect, honor, and obey.” He paused to allow his wife a moment to ponder and to absorb the import of his words.

“Claire also tried to keep her cousin, Rose, from receiving HER just retribution,” John continued, “and last, because she committed these acts of rebellion and betrayal during the course of a military operation, that makes her guilty of HIGH treason. Virginia . . . you should know as well as I that the penalty for committing high treason is death . . . before a firing squad.”

Virginia rushed forward, half running, half stumbling, blinded by fear and the tears streaming down her cheeks. “NO!” she screamed and sobbed, on the very edge of hysteria, as she reached out and tried to seize his rifle. “NO, JOHN, I WON’T LET YOU DO THIS. I WON’T, I WON’T!”

John carefully set his rifle down on the floor beside his feet, then turned, and seized hold of his wife by the ragged lapels of her well-worn dressing gown. Pulling her close, he struck her hard across the face, several times in rapid succession, with open hand, until her hysterical screams had finally died away to the barely audible whimpering of the utterly defeated.

“Adulteress!” he snarled, grimacing in utter disgust as he released his hold on her dressing gown, allowing her to drop to the floor like an ungainly sack of potatoes. “Daughter of sin and iniquity!” He punctuated that epithet with a hard kick to her ribcage, eliciting a cry of pain and anguish. “Go BACK to your corner, Virginia,” he snarled, thrusting arm and pointing finger at the place where she had spent most of the time huddled. “CRAWL back to your corner like the miserable . . . pathetic . . . WORM . . . you . . . ARE . . . and consider yourself damn’ lucky I’m not putting YOU in the center with your errant daughter and the vile abomination my sister whelped.”

Sick with horror and despair, blinded by the tears streaming down her face, Virginia struggled to rise.

“I said, ‘CRAWL!’ ” John growled, kicking her legs out from under her.

Shamed and utterly humiliated, Virginia crawled on her hands and knees back to her corner, and there, remaining on her knees, she squeezed her eyes tight shut and placed her hands tight against her ears.

“John, please!” Ben pleaded, blinking his eyes against the sting of tears newly forming. “Let them go. Let Stacy . . . Paris . . . and Claire, too! Let them go. I’M the one who . . . who in YOUR eyes, wronged your sister. You can keep ME . . . do what you will! I promise ya, John . . . I give ya my word I won’t fight you or try to escape, but . . . for the love of God . . . please! Let THEM go!”

“I can’t do that, Mister Cartwright,” John replied in a tone of voice faintly condescending. “If I let Rose go . . . I won’t inherit Mam’s legacy.”

“I’m Stacy’s legal guardian,” Ben pressed. “As such, I CAN and WILL sign the papers necessary to set aside your mother’s will, and declare you the beneficiary. You get a lawyer, and have everything drawn up, and— ”

“No, Mister Cartwright. Rose MUST die to atone for YOUR sins . . . and those of her mother as well.”

Erin, meanwhile cautiously, silently made her way across the room toward her mother, with her eyes glued to Claire, now sitting on the floor beside Cousin Stacy in the center of the room. She knelt down beside Virginia, wrapping her arms tight her mother’s shoulders, desperately seeking some small measure of comfort and reassurance in the midst of the unspeakable nightmare unfolding all around her.

Although Claire was every bit as terrified of their father as she and their mother were, Erin had known for nearly as long as she could remember that she could count on her sister to kneel down, to wrap her arms tight around her, and hold her very tight. It was in that closeness that Erin took comfort, found protection and strength, and had come to know of something else: a love, unconditional, freely offered, asking nothing back in return.

Sobbing now in earnest, Erin pressed close to her unresponsive mother, who stood with her face in the corner, wholly oblivious to all, except for her own pain. “What’ll I do without Claire?” she silently wondered, panic-stricken. Never in her entire life had she ever felt so horribly alone.

John, meanwhile, turned back towards the helpless, still prostrate Stacy, lying in the center of the room, unmoving, and, with a malevolent, triumphal smile, raised his rifle, slowly.

With a superhuman strength she never even dreamed she possessed, Paris suddenly and with almost ridiculous ease broke free of Jim-Boy Tuttle’s grasp, and rushed headlong toward her daughter, before anyone could even think of stopping her. John, at the same time, pulled the trigger. The bullet meant for Stacy found its mark deep within Paris’ chest. With a sickening gurgle, she collapsed.

“Dammit,” John swore under his breath, as, with trembling hands, he labored to reload his rifle. “Dammit, dammit, dammit . . . . ”

Ignoring her own pain and queasiness, Stacy half ran and half crawled toward Paris, the mother who had given her life, and knelt down. Ben’s own sensibilities rudely returned at the sound of John McKenna’s rifle firing. He vigorously renewed his struggles against the big man, trying desperately to hold him back.

“Stacy . . . . ” Paris whispered.

“Don’t try to talk, Miss Paris . . . M-Mother,” Stacy said with tears streaming down her face. “We’ll get you to Doctor Martin, and— ”

“No . . . b-beyond doctor’s help,” Paris struggled to speak. “F-Forgive me . . . please . . . . ”

Paris reached up with trembling hand to touch Stacy’s . . . no! Rose Miranda’s cheek, and stroke her hair one last time. The instant she lifted her elbow from the floor, a sharp stab of pain shot from her shoulder into her chest. Her hand dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes, eliciting a cry filled with intense grief, mingling with anger at the thought of being denied that one small mercy. With tears streaming down her face, she tried again to reach up, but her arm wouldn’t budge.

Stacy gently took her mother’s hand in her own and placed its palm firmly against her cheek. “I . . . I forgive you, Mother,” she promised.

“ . . . remember . . . . ” Paris gasped. There was so much she wanted to say, but it was growing more and more difficult to keep her thoughts together. “P-Promise me you’ll . . . that . . . you’ll always . . . always r-remember . . . you c-came into this world . . . because your f-father and I . . . because we loved each other. We l-loved each other s-so . . . so very much . . . . ”

“I’ll remember, Mother, I promise . . . I-I’ll always remember,” Stacy said sobbing openly. “And, Mother? I love you.”

Paris smiled, then closed her eyes.

After a ferocious struggle, Ben managed to break free of the men holding him. Three quick strides brought him across the room to his daughter’s side. “Stacy . . . . ?”

“She’s . . . she’s dead, Pa,” Stacy sobbed. Though Ben knelt down and put his arms around her, she immediately sensed the presence of a barrier between them.

“Prepare to join her!” John’s voice suddenly brought Ben and Stacy back to the frightening reality of their situation. He once again raised his rifle and took aim.

Ben immediately shifted, placing himself between Stacy and the end of John’s rifle barrel, then braced himself.

Suddenly, the door to the room burst open with enough force to send it flying off its hinges.

“Drop your weapons! Now!” It was Joe Cartwright. He stepped into the room, rifle ready. Hoss, Candy, and Sheriff Coffee followed.

“Do as he says,” Roy Coffee ordered the assembly tersely.

Seth Harris and Alfred Simmons immediately did as they had been told.

“Don’t be stupid, Boy,” Hoss growled turning baleful eye and the barrel of his rifle on David Matthews as he reached inside his brown leather jacket. “You’ll, like as not, be spending a few years in prison, but you’re young yet . . . with a long life ahead o’ ya after . . . IF ya do the smart thing right now.”

David swallowed nervously as he very slowly, very cautiously withdrew a knife from the inside pocket of his jacket, and with shaking hand offered it to Hoss.

“No,” John McKenna protested with a strangled cry. “No, damn you . . . damn ALL of you! I WILL have my revenge.” With his gun still aimed at Ben’s chest, he started to pull the trigger.

Driven purely by instinct, Sheriff Coffee quickly raised his own rifle, took dead aim at John McKenna’s head, and fired. John collapsed to the floor without a word or sound, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Across the room, Virginia screamed. She scrambled to her feet, shoving Erin aside, then half ran, half stumbled across the room to where her husband lay on the floor, unmoving. Upon reaching his side, she collapsed onto her dead husband, her body wracked with sobs. Claire, with heart in mouth, immediately left Stacy and Ben, and ran to Erin, who remained in an ungainly heap right where she had just fallen.

While Sheriff Coffee and the men, who had accompanied him and the Cartwright sons, rounded up their few remaining prisoners and confiscated weapons, Joe and Hoss made their way across the room to their father and sister.

Hoss leaned over and gently helped Stacy to her feet. “Come on, Li’l Sister . . . let’s get you outta here,” he said as he placed his arm around her shoulders and led her out across the room to the door.

“Pa?” Joe looked down at his father anxiously.

“You boys came in just the nick of time, Son,” Ben said wearily.

“We got here, soon as we could,” Joe said, as he helped his father to stand. His eyes fell on Paris McKenna’s body.

“Dead,” Ben said, his voice breaking. “She sacrificed herself to save Stacy. I’d like to have her buried on the Ponderosa . . . near the lake. She . . . she had a favorite spot there . . . . ”

“I remember, Pa,” Joe said quietly. “I’ll let Sheriff Coffee know that we intend to claim Miss Paris’ body.”

As his youngest son moved off to find the sheriff, Ben turned his attention to Claire McKenna. She now sat on the bed, where he and Paris had found Stacy not long before, bound hand and foot, cradling her sister in her arms. “Claire?”

She looked up at him expectantly, with tears streaming down her own cheeks.

“Please tell your mother that you’re all welcome to come back with us to the Ponderosa,” he offered, “and stay as long as you wish.”

Claire managed a small grateful smile and nodded her thanks.

End of Part 6

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