Poltergeist II: Benjy’s Story
Part 2
By Kathleen T. Berney

Ben Cartwright charged into the barn, with Joe and Stacy following close at his heels. Jason and Susannah O’Brien ran behind the two youngest Cartwrights, with Hoss bringing up the rear. Susannah, almost without thinking, turned and ran toward the door leading out to the corral, and threw it wide open. Stacy and Joe quickly released their own mounts, Blaze Face and Cochise, from their stalls and herded them toward the door that would take them to the corral beyond. While Stacy next turned her attention to Bonnie Prince Charlie, in the stable next to Blaze Face, Ben released Buck and Sun Dancer. Jason ran to the stalls holding Guinevere and Gentleman Jim, while Hoss released Chubb and Sport II from their stalls. Hoss and Jason then moved to release the horses, used to draw the Cartwrights’ buckboard and buggy.

The instant the horses reached the corral, they bolted toward the end farthest away from the barn. There, they quickly began to calm down.

“Hoss, it’s . . . it’s FREEZING in here!” Jason declared, as he and Hoss moved away from the stalls holding the draw horses. “I can almost see my breath.”

An astonished, puzzled frown creased Hoss’ brow upon realizing that Jason was absolutely right. “It shouldn’t ought t’ be THIS cold, dadburn it!”

“I admit it’s a little strange,” Jason agreed as he vigorously rubbed his forearms.

“Jason . . . Susannah, thank you very much for your help,” Ben said, favoring them with a grateful, if weary smile.

“Sure thing, Mister Cartwright,” Susannah returned his smile with an equally weary one of her own. “Any idea what spooked ‘em like that?”

“None!” Ben sighed and shook his head, completely mystified. “Everything seems to be in order, though Joe and Stacy are double checking to make certain. I just don’t understand it.”

“Hey, Pa,” it was Hoss. “I just realized somethin’.”

“What’s that, Son?”

“We ain’t seen hide nor hair o’ Benjy since we got back from racin’ Sun Dancer ‘n Bonnie Prince Charlie.”

“D-Did someone call me?”

Ben and Hoss turned, and saw Benjy standing framed in the barn door that opened out into the yard. He held his book in his left hand. His mouth opened into a big wide yawn.

“Where y’ been, Benjy?” Hoss asked.

“I sat down to read in that grove of trees behind the barn,” the boy replied, nodding his head in the general direction of the tree circle. “I fell asleep. Is, uh . . . is everything ok?”

“It seems our horses had a bit of a scare, but everything’s fine now,” Ben replied. “Tell you what? Hop Sing baked up a big batch of chocolate chip cookies this morning.”

“I know, Grandpa. I smelled them baking.”

“Well, why don’t you go on inside and have one?” Ben suggested with a smile. “Perhaps our friends, Jason and Susannah O’Brien will join you.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright, but Susannah and I had best mosey along,” Jason said. “It’s getting a bit late and our big sister’s worse than Hop Sing when we show up late for supper.”

“She and Pa aren’t real easy to live with if we don’t get our chores done before supper either,” Susannah added.

“Thank you again for all your help,” Ben said gratefully, looking from Jason to Susannah.

“You’re welcome, Mister Cartwright,” Susannah replied.

“It was a most curious dream . . . . ” Benjy mused in silence as he ambled slowly back to the house.

He and the boy he’d met earlier this afternoon in that circle of trees out behind the barn, were running around, laughing and playing, completely invisible to everyone. He couldn’t remember how that had come about . . . exactly . . . .

He had forgotten other details as well, and the few he did remember, were fading way fast. He DID remember spooking the horses, and Dio, too. He almost laughed out loud upon remembering the look on her face, when the other Benjy practically stood right in her face and laughed at her, and she couldn’t even see him.

He felt a little bit of regret over scaring Grandpa’s horses, but none at all about giving his sister the fright of her life.

After all . . . .

. . . it was nothing less than she deserved . . . .

. . . even if it WAS only a dream.

By the time Benjy reached the front door, all he remembered of the dream was that it had been lots of fun. Upon entering the house, he froze as the sounds of a child sobbing wildly assailed his ears and awareness. The crying seemed to be coming from upstairs. Tucking his book under his arm, then went up to investigate.

Benjy found his parents and his grandmother clustered together in Dio’s room. Mother sat on the edge of the bed, with her arms wrapped firmly and protectively around his younger sister. Dio’s arms were about her mother’s neck and shoulders, clinging for dear life. Grandmother sat on the other side of the bed, behind Dio, gently rubbing her back, and murmuring quiet words of reassurance in Spanish. Papa stood, hovering close by, with a glass of diluted brandy in one hand, and a soupspoon in the other.

“Mother? Papa? What’s going on?” Benjy asked as he ventured into the room.

Upon hearing her brother’s voice, Dio immediately lifted her head, and favored him with a malevolent glare, filled with all the anger and hatred she could summon. Her eyelids and upper lip were red and swollen to at least twice their normal dimensions, and her cheeks were patchworks of angry red overtop pale skin.

Benjy involuntarily took a step backward, and raised his arms in front of his face, as if preparing to ward off physical blows. Her appearance shocked and frightened him.

“G-GET OUTTA HERE!” Dio screamed, as tears continued to pour from her eyes and flow down her cheeks.

Benjy stood, as if he had all of a sudden taken root, stunned by the raw intensity of his sister’s rage.

“GET OUTTA HERE!” she screamed again, as she wept. “M-MA, PLEASE! MAKE HIM G-GET OUTTA HERE!”

Adam quietly set the glass and spoon in hand down on the night table, then crossed the room to the door where his young son still remained, staring over at his sister, open mouthed with shock. “Come with me, Benjy,” he said quietly, as he slipped a paternal arm about the young boy’s shoulders. Together, they walked in silence down the hall toward Benjy’s room.

“P-Papa?” Benjy ventured, when they finally reached the door to his room. “What happened? Why is Dio so upset?”

“Your sister had a very bad scare out in the barn a little while ago,” Adam said quietly. “For some reason, she thinks YOU were responsible.”

Every last bit of color drained right out of Benjy’s face. “Me?!” he echoed, incredulous, in a voice barely audible.

Adam nodded.

“She’s lying, Papa!” Benjy accused, his face darkening now with anger. “She IS, I SWEAR she is! I wasn’t even in the barn . . . not when DIO was. I came to the barn door later. I DID, Papa, honest! I did.” He gazed up into Adam’s face earnestly beseeching for a moment, then looked away. “You can ask Grandpa if you don’t believe me,” he added in a sullen, angry tone.

Adam placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “Benjy, I believe you, and I think Dio will, too, after she’s had a chance to calm down and think things through a little bit. In the meantime, however, until she DOES calm down, it might be a good idea for you to stay away from her.”

“I will . . . gladly!” Benjy angrily shot right back. Given the way he felt at that very moment, if he never saw his sister again . . . ever . . . that would suit him just fine.

“I’m going to go on back and check up on your sister and your mother,” Adam said quietly.

He sighed. “Ok, Papa.”

Something in that sigh gave Adam pause. “Benjy?”

“Yes, Papa?”

“Is there . . . something else . . . . ?!”

“No, Papa. If it’s ok, I think I’ll just go to my room and read.”

“That’s fine, Son. I’ll look in on you in a little while.”

Benjy stepped into his room and quietly closed the door. He placed his book on top of the dresser, then walked over and dejectedly collapsed onto the bed. He was so sure that the mean words Dio had said to him this morning coupled with her obstinate refusal to apologize would keep her out of favor with everyone, at least for a little while. But that vision of Mother, Papa, and Grandmother, all gathered around her, fawning over her like they ALWAYS did, said otherwise.

“It’s not fair!” Benjy muttered angrily under his breath as he turned his face toward the window. “It’s just not fair!”

Mother and Papa were always doting on Dio, spoiling her, indulging her every whim. Even Grandmother as angry and exasperated as she had been with Dio the entire way out from their home in Sacramento, was all forgive and forget by the time they had arrived in Virginia City. Dio got hugs and kisses from Grandpa, too, while all HE got was a handshake. Aunt Stacy even let Dio ride home with her on Blaze Face. Now, after supposedly suffering a bad scare out in the barn, she was once again back in everyone’s good graces, the cruel words she had said to him, completely forgotten . . . .

. . . and worst of all . . . Dio actually blamed HIM for scaring her.

“I’ll bet anything Dio’s faking all that screaming and crying,” Benjy angrily groused aloud.

“No fun being left all alone is it?”

Benjy started violently, nearly toppling right off the bed. He turned and found his new friend standing behind him, in the middle of the room. “Y-you scared me!”

“Sorry.”

Benjy propped himself up on his elbows, and studied his new friend with a bewildered frown for a moment. “How did you get up here?” he asked.

“I came in.”

“Did my family let you in?”

“I came in.” The other Benjy walked over to the dresser and glanced down at the book. “You like to read?”

“Yeah.”

“I never learned how,” he said softly, his voice filled with regret. “My ma, though . . . she loves to read.” Memories of his mother sitting down at the end of the day with a book in hand, brought a wistful smile to his face. “She used to read me stories at bedtime every night until . . . until . . . . ?!”

“Until when?”

A bewildered frown appeared on the other Benjy’s face for a moment, as he pondered the question, then shrugged with an air of supreme indifference. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I guess until they left.”

Benjy Cartwright moved the edge of the bed, and sat up, dangling his legs over the side. “THEY left?” he asked. “They who?”

“All of ‘em! My ma, my pa, my brothers and sisters! Even my aunt and uncle and my grandparents! They all left!”

“They left?!”

“They ain’t here, are they?”

“Y-You mean . . . your parents, brothers and sisters . . . and the rest of your family . . . actually went off and left you here?!” Benjy Cartwright queried, unable to believe his ears.

“Well if they AIN’T here . . . and I still AM . . . figure it out for yourself, Stupid Head!”

Benjy initially bristled against his new friend’s insult and condescending tone of voice, then, a moment later, shrugged it off, as his natural curiosity got the better of him. “What happened?” he demanded. “Did they . . . did they DIE?”

The frown on the other Benjy’s face deepened. “I dunno . . . some of ‘em did, I think . . . maybe . . . . ” He sighed and dolefully shook his head. “I dunno where they went.”

“Who looks after you now?”

The other boy shrugged his shoulders, and again shook his head. “I guess I do, mostly.”

“Don’t you live with anyone?”

“No. Just me, all by myself! Benjy?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go outside and play.”

“Ok!”

“Race ya down the stairs!” The other Benjy abruptly turned heel and bolted out of the room.

Benjy Cartwright hopped down from the bed and ran after his newfound friend. The two boys tore down the hall and stairs, laughing and shouting at the tops of their voices.

“Benjy!”

He stopped at the landing mid-way between first floor and second. Turning, he looked up and saw his father leaning against the banister upstairs, glaring down at him.

“Benjy, your mother and I just got Dio off to sleep,” Adam said sternly. “I would appreciate it very much if you played QUIETLY.”

“O-Ok, Papa. Benjy . . . . ” he turned to pass his father’s admonition for quiet on to his friend, only to find himself quite alone. Benjy walked down the stairs slowly, scratching his head the entire way. What happened to his friend? Was he outside already, waiting?

Benjy stepped through the front door and walked out into the yard. His new friend was nowhere to be seen. “Benjy? Benjy, are you hiding?”

No answer.

“BENJY!? BENJY! WHERE DID YOU GO?” Benjy called out, louder.

“Benjy?”

He turned just as Ben stepped out of the barn. “I’m looking for my friend, Grandpa,” he said, as he fell in step alongside his grandfather. “His name’s Benjy, just like me!”

“Oh?”

“Yeah! He’s a little taller than me, with brown, real curly hair,” Benjy explained. “We were racing each other down the stairs inside, until Papa came and told us to be quiet.”

Ben frowned. “You mean to tell me this boy was in the house?!”

“Yeah, h-he came up to my room,” Benjy said warily, noting the scowl on his grandfather’s face.

“This boy . . . this OTHER Benjy . . . you said he’s a friend of yours?”

Benjy slowly, warily nodded his head. “I just met him today, Grandpa,” he explained, “out there . . . under those trees behind the barn.” He turned and pointed.

“That’s fine, Benjy,” Ben said, his voice softening. “I’m glad to see you’ve made a new friend . . . but I would really appreciate it if you’d would ask him NOT to venture into the house without an invitation.”

“I, uhhh . . . Grandpa? Y-You saying that . . . n-nobody . . . let him in?!”

The round staring eyes, and mouth gaping open compelled Ben to swallow the sharp retort that had immediately risen to the tip of his tongue. He closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. “No, Benjy,” he said finally, in a tone far kinder than might have been. “I was in the barn just now with Uncle Joe and Aunt Stacy, trying to figure out what spooked the horses . . . AND your sister. Hoss and Hank are in the corral checking the horses, making sure THEY’RE alright, and your parents and grandmother have probably been with Dio from the time we finally got her out of the barn.”

“How did you get up here?”

Benjy silently replayed the start of the conversation he had with the other Benjy, just a short while ago.

“I came in.”

“Did my family let you in?”

“I came in . . . . ”

“Sorry, Grandpa,” Benjy murmured contritely, as he looked up and met Ben’s warm brown eyes with his own, the same color. “I . . . I was so sure he’d . . . that umm someone let him in, but I guess they didn’t.”

“It’s all right,” Ben placed a paternal arm around his grandson’s shoulders, “no harm done. Just be sure to tell him not to wander in again, unless he’s been invited.”

“I will, Grandpa,” the boy promised eagerly. He found the idea of his new friend, the other Benjy, walking right on into the house, without having been asked first, a little unsettling himself.

“Well, Honorable and Venerable Older Brother Sir . . . . ”

Joe grimaced, as he rubbed his forearms against the cold, still lingering in the barn. “What happened to Grandpa?”

“With Benjy and Dio calling PA Grandpa and me calling YOU Grandpa, things could get a little confusing, so I decided to call you Honorable and Venerable Older Brother Sir like you asked me to the day Adam and Teresa arrived,” Stacy explained.

“Coming outta YOUR mouth, Little Sister, it sounds like the absolute worst insult anyone’s ever thrown at me,” Joe countered with mock severity. “I think I’d rather go back to Grandpa, if it’s all the same to you, confusion or NO confusion.”

“All right . . . GRANDPA!”

“That’s better . . . KIDDO!”

Joe and Stacy glared at each other, for a long moment. The former stuck out his tongue. Stacy returned the gesture before both of them dissolved into a brief fit of the giggles.

“You find anything, Stace?” Joe asked, as their laughter dissipated.

“Not a thing!” Stacy shrugged. “I raked every last bit of straw out of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s stall, got down on my hands and knees, and . . . nothing! Not even the mouse hole the cold air’s supposed to be coming through!”

“I can’t find anything either,” Joe shook his head, thoroughly perplexed. “No sign of any kind of wild animal . . . TWO-legged or FOUR legged, all the horses are present and accounted for, the tack room’s in order, nothing seems to be missing . . . I’m just plain at a loss to explain what happened with the horses and Dio.”

“They were all pretty badly frightened.”

Joe nodded grimly. “I think our horses are STILL spooked. They’re moving around the corral outside freely enough, but they still shy away from the barn.”

“I’m starting to feel a little creepy myself,” Stacy observed wryly as she blew warming breath on her chilled fingers. “Joe?”

“Yeah, Stacy?”

“I hate like anything to even suggest this, but . . . . ” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Is it possible that Dio’s right? That Benjy WAS in here trying to scare her?”

“Anything’s possible, of course, but I don’t think it was Benjy . . . not OUR Benjy anyway . . . . ”

“What do you mean not OUR Benjy?” Stacy asked.

“It seems Benjy’s made a new friend, Kid,” Joe explained, “a boy whose name also happens to be Benjy.”

Stacy frowned. “But . . . there’s no one Benjy’s age . . . NAMED Benjy, living here on the Ponderosa.”

“I figure he’s more ‘n likely a visiting relative.”

“Yeah . . . you’re right, Grandpa,” Stacy agreed, knowing that at least two of the men who worked for their father had young people visiting them for the summer. “Have you met this new friend of Benjy’s . . . OUR Benjy that is?”

“No,” Joe replied, shaking his head, “not exactly . . . . ” He shared with her the circumstances by which he had learned about their nephew having made a new friend.

Stacy silently mulled over everything her brother had just told her. “ . . . and you think maybe this OTHER Benjy snuck in here and scared Dio and our horses?”

“I think it’s a definite possibility,” Joe said grimly. “I saw OUR Benjy when we finally got the barn door open. He looked like somebody who had just woken up from a nap, and he had pine needles on the seat of his britches. I believe he was telling the truth when he said he fell asleep while he was reading under a tree.”

“Stacy . . . Joe, how’s it coming?” Ben asked, as he walked into the barn.

The two younger Cartwright offspring gave their father a capsulated version of the conversation they had just had with each other.

Ben scowled when Joe mentioned the possibility of Benjy’s new friend having been the one responsible for scaring Dio and the horses. “He told me his new friend actually came into the house looking for him, without being invited first. I asked Benjy to tell his friend that he’s not to come in the house without an invitation.”

“He didn’t do anything while he was in the house, did he?” Joe asked.

Ben shook his head. “No, nothing was broken or stolen as far as I could see, but all the same, I don’t like the idea. I think maybe we’d all better keep a sharp lookout for this other Benjy.”

“Sorry, Adam, I don’t know of any boy living here on the Ponderosa named Benjy, apart from your son.” Candy shook his head, after giving Adam’s question careful thought. “Mrs. Cromwell got a letter from her sister the other day saying that her nephew WON’T be coming to visit, and Mister Barnes’ nephews aren’t boys really . . . they’re practically grown men, what with the one being seventeen and the other fifteen. I’ll ask around, though.”

“Thank you, I’d appreciate that,” Adam said gratefully. He, then, returned to the house and walked straight upstairs to his daughter’s room. “Teresa?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“How’s Dio?”

“Sleeping,” Teresa replied softly. “A good long nap’s probably the best thing for her right now, but . . . I hope it doesn’t interfere with her sleep tonight.”

“Not to worry,” Adam said quietly. “Hop Sing can brew up an herbal tea after supper that will help her sleep through the night, if necessary.”

“Is Benjy all right?”

“He’s in his room reading at the moment,” Adam replied. “I told him it might be a good idea to stay away from Dio, until she’s had a chance to calm down, but . . . . ”

“What is it, Adam?” Teresa anxiously prompted.

“I . . . . ” He sighed. “I . . . can’t quite shake the feeling that he’s . . . that he’s holding out on us somehow.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I suggested that he and his sister keep their distance for awhile? For a minute . . . something in his voice . . . the way he looked at me . . . left me with the impression that there was something he wanted to say . . . but couldn’t,” Adam tried to explain, “ . . . or wouldn’t.”

“Adam . . . Teresa?”

They turned and found Dolores standing framed in the doorway to their daughter’s room.

“I’m sorry . . . it wasn’t my intention to eavesdrop,” Dolores said ruefully as she stepped from the hall into the room occupied by her granddaughter. “I meant to show you this yesterday, but I was so exhausted when I arrived, it completely slipped my mind.” She reached into the left pocket of her skirt and drew out an envelope, neatly folded in two, and passed it to Adam.

“What is it, Mother?” Teresa asked.

“Benjy’s final report card.”

Adam glanced at the envelope, as he and Dolores continued down to the first level. It was addressed, “Mister and Mrs. Cartwright,” on the front, in the bold, angular strokes that defined the handwriting of Mister Ian Townsend, Benjy’s teacher for the past year. Benjamin Eduardo was written below his and Teresa’s names.

Adam opened the flap and pulled out Benjy’s school report. His eyes widened more and more with shock and astonishment as they moved down the column showing Benjy’s grades for the second half of the school year. The terse note written at the bottom of the report card, dated the last day of school, read as follows:

“Taking into account Benjamin’s past scholastic performance, he is promoted to the next grade ON PROBATION. I know he is more than capable of doing the work required. However, if his grades do not improve during the course of the first nine weeks, he will be compelled to repeat the fifth grade.”

Stunned, shaken to the core of his being, Adam pulled a second piece of paper from the envelope. It was a letter from Mister Townsend:

“Dear Mister and Mrs. Cartwright,

I am heartily disappointed not only in Adam Benjamin’s poor scholastic performance over the course of the last remaining six weeks of the school year, but of what I can only view as your complete indifference. A letter informing you of Adam Benjamin’s decline in scholastic performance and growing problems in behavior was sent home with the student one month before the end of the school year. As of this writing, I have yet to hear from either you or Mrs. Cartwright.

As I noted on his report, Adam Benjamin will be passed to the next grade on a probationary status. He is a bright, intelligent young man, more than capable of doing the work required. If his grades do NOT significantly improve during the first quarter of the next school year, we will have no choice but to compel him to repeat his fifth year.

Sincerely yours,
Mr. Ian Townsend.”

“Dolores . . . why don’t we go downstairs?” Adam suggested, as he returned his son’s report card and accompanying letter from the boy’s teacher to the envelope. “I . . . have a few questions I’ve been meaning to ask you . . . . ”

“Yes, of course,” Dolores immediately agreed. “Teresa?”

“I’d better stay here with Dio . . . in case she wakes up,” Teresa said very quietly. “Given how frightened and upset she was . . . she’s probably going to want me.”

“If you or Dio need anything, we’ll be in the great room downstairs,” Adam said, as he handed the envelope in hand over to his wife . . . .

“No, Adam . . . I didn’t see any correspondence from the school or Benjy’s teacher,” Dolores said, almost apologetically, as she made herself comfortable on the settee. “Of course I never even thought to ask . . . . ”

Adam sat down in the blue chair next to the fireplace, to Dolores’ right. “That’s completely understandable,” he hastened to reassure his distraught mother-in-law. “You had no way of knowing that Benjy had done so poorly in his schoolwork.”

“I SHOULD’VE known!”

The angry vehemence by which she had uttered those words shocked and surprised him. “I’m . . . not sure I understand,” Adam ventured, with a bewildered frown.

“Oh, Adam . . . . ” Dolores groaned softly, “you know how enthusiastic Benjy is about school? How eager he is to talk about what he learned with Eduardo?”

“Yes . . . . ”

“Well, almost from the start, he said nothing,” Dolores continued. “Eduardo, spent the first week questioning the boy relentlessly about school . . . and what he learned . . . but the only things Benjy would say were yes, no, and fine.”

“That IS odd,” Adam had to agree. “Benjy’s ALWAYS been fond of talking about what he learns in school with Eduardo.”

“I finally asked Eduardo to stop badgering the boy with questions,” Dolores continued, her voice filled with deep regret. “I thought maybe he was going through some sort of phase, or something . . . . ”

Adam fell silent, as he did some mental figuring. From the approximate dates given in Mister Townsend’s letter, the decline in Benjy’s grades and the start of his behavior problems seemed to coincide with the approximate date he sent a wire, asking the di Cordovas to cancel travel plans for Dolores and the children, until he and Teresa sent for them.

An old friend from Adam’s past had come to the Ponderosa, seeking refuge from an abusive husband, who turned out to be violently insane. The husband had raped and tortured a bar maid to death back in San Francisco. Her father-in-law had packed them off to exile in Placerville until he could get his son exonerated of all charges and have the entire incident swept under the rug. Not wanting to expose their children or Teresa’s mother to the grave danger posed by this man, Adam and Teresa had jointly agreed to send that telegram. Teresa followed it up with a letter explaining the full details to her parents.

“Dolores?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“Did Benjy, by any chance happen to see either the wire I sent, or Teresa’s letter, asking you not to come until we sent for you?” he asked.

“No, absolutely NOT,” Dolores declared, with an emphatic shake of her head. “Eduardo locked the wire and Teresa’s letter in our safe, since the latter had instructions in case something happened to the both of you. But we made absolute certain that neither Benjy nor Dio saw those correspondences.”

“How did they take the news of the delay?”

“Dio was the one who was most upset,” Dolores replied. “She had been looking forward to visiting your family here on the Ponderosa since the beginning of school last fall. She sulked at home for the better part of that first week, but I had no complaints from the school or her teachers.”

“And Benjy?”

“He took the news very stoically, as is typical of him most of the time, though, in retrospect, he seemed a little relieved.”

“Relieved?” Adam looked over at his mother-in-law, one eyebrow raised in mild surprise.

Dolores, in turn, favored him with a puzzled frown. “In a way, that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, Adam, seeing as how much he’s afraid of horses these days.”

“What?!” This piece of information took Adam wholly by surprise. “Since when?”

“Since the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi, last October, remember? About the procession? That horse nearly stepping on Benjy?”

Adam had not attended the procession himself, but he remembered Teresa grimly filling him in on the details. One of the horses, a skittish young mare, was being led to the church for the annual blessing and prayers for the animals given on the feast day of their patron saint. A couple of children, young boys about Benjy’s age, set off a half dozen firecrackers, terrifying the mare. In her frantic attempts to flee, she broke her lead and began to run, beating a straight path toward the spot where Benjy stood, rooted by his own escalating fear. The quick and timely action by a uniformed policeman, running in and carrying Benjy to safety, tucked under his arm, saved the boy from what might have been serious and debilitating injury. In fact, that policeman had very likely saved Benjy’s life.

“I honestly, I had no idea,” Adam murmured, feeling heartsick at the prospect of his practically shoving Benjy into the barn earlier that day, so that he might learn how to properly stable a horse. And with Dio compounding things with her cruel taunting . . . . “Dolores, did Benjy tell you this?”

“About being afraid of horses?”

Adam nodded.

“No, Dio did actually, while they were with Eduardo and me after you and Teresa left to come here. She didn’t tell either of you?”

“She didn’t tell me, and I’m reasonably sure she didn’t tell Teresa either, because TERESA would have certainly told me.”

“I’m sorry, Adam. I honestly thought you and Teresa knew.”

“It seems Benjy’s become very good at keeping things to himself over this past year,” Adam said grimly. “TOO good, perhaps. Any idea what prompted Dio to tell you?”

“Benjy’s best friend, Juan Cortez, had a big birthday party the Saturday before the last week in school,” Dolores replied. “Benjy didn’t go. He told Eduardo and me he hadn’t been invited, but Adam, it was an out-and-out bold faced lie. Cecelia, our housekeeper, found the invitation hidden under his pillow, when she went in to change the bed linens. She immediately brought it in to me.

“Eduardo and I asked Benjy about it that night at supper. Benjy kept right on insisting that he had not been invited. Eduardo got pretty irate, I’m afraid,” she continued ruefully. “Poor Dio, I think being upset enough about the delay in coming here, blurted out about Benjy being afraid of horses and how, that whole last week, it seemed, the kids in the school had been mercilessly tormenting the boy about it.”

“It must have been pretty hard on her, too, having to stand by and watch as the older kids made fun of her brother,” Adam sighed and shook his head. “I think Teresa and I need to sit down and have a long serious talk with both of them.”

“Please, Adam, don’t be too hard on them?”

“Teresa and I agree that Benjy and Dio need to apologize to each other for what they said out in the tack room this morning . . . AND to Stacy as well,” Adam said firmly.

“Yes . . . she was a little upset now that you mention it.”

“Stacy was VERY upset,” Adam said, “and speaking for myself, I can’t say as I blame her. We also need to come to an understanding on a few things, not the least of which is Benjy’s final report.”

A few moments later, Adam returned to the guest room Dio had chosen to be her own. His young daughter lay sprawled on top of the bed, with a light cotton blanket over her, courtesy of her distraught maternal grandmother. Teresa sat in a straight hard backed chair, her attention equally divided between Dio and the open book in her lap.

“Teresa?” Adam called his wife’s name very softly as he stepped into the room.

Teresa turned and looked up expectantly into her husband’s face and eyes.

“Dio asleep?”

Teresa nodded.

“Would you feel all right about stepping out here into the hall for a few minutes?” Adam asked.

Teresa nodded once again. She rose, and after marking her place, set her book down on the seat of her chair.

“Has Dio been asleep the whole time?” Adam asked, as he and his wife moved out into the hallway.

“She stirred a couple of times, but I can’t say she actually woke up.”

“Did she say anything more about what happened?”

“No.” Teresa shook her head.

Adam first shared with his wife everything Dolores has told him downstairs. The stunned look on her face told him this was the first time she had heard a good deal of this, too.

“Oh, Adam,” Teresa groaned softly, her voice filled with contrition and remorse. “I had no idea . . . no idea in the world Benjy was so frightened of horses . . . and I was there when he was nearly stampeded.”

“Neither of us had any way of knowing . . . not really,” Adam quickly pointed out. “He never said a word to US or his grandparents about the kids at school teasing him, and . . . he’s not had to really confront his fear head on . . . until he came here.”

“Even so, I still feel badly about not having even the slightest inking,” Teresa lamented.

“So do I,” Adam confessed, “but at the moment, that’s not our biggest worry.”

“Oh?”

“I found out that Benjy made a new friend this afternoon . . . . ”

“Really?”

“Another boy, whose name is also Benjy.” Adam shared with his wife all that his father, his youngest brother, and Candy had told him about their son’s new friend.

“I don’t like the sound of this Adam,” Teresa said grimly.

“I can’t say I care much for it either,” Adam agreed. “If this other Benjy IS responsible for what happened out in the barn, we could be dealing with someone very disturbed emotionally.”

“You think maybe we should tell Benjy not to associate with this boy?”

“I’ve thought about it,” Adam replied. “On the other hand, we don’t know for sure that he was responsible for what happened out in the barn. I’d hate to break up their friendship, then find out Benjy’s new friend WASN’T the culprit.”

“You have a point,” Teresa reluctantly agreed.

“Teresa . . . . ”

“Yes, Adam?”

“We both agree that the four of us need to sit down together . . . as a family . . . and nip some things in the bud,” Adam said. “I’m beginning to think that needs to happen sooner rather than later.”

“I agree with you, Adam, one hundred percent . . . but not tonight,” Teresa said firmly. “Dio needs time to calm down. I think tomorrow morning, after breakfast, would be a better time.”

“I have an idea,” Adam said slowly. “If Pa doesn’t need the buckboard tomorrow, maybe we could borrow it and drive out to the lake. Just the FOUR of us! That way, we’ll have the entire day to talk things out, and come to some understandings . . . WITHOUT interruptions.”

Teresa favored her husband with an odd, bemused look. “Without interruptions?”

Adam smiled. “From grandparents, uncles, and aunt,” he replied. “Their intentions may be well meant, but I’m of the opinion we need to keep this between us and the kids.”

“Absolutely,” Teresa declared with a curt nod of her head for emphasis, “and the trip out to the lake . . . just the FOUR of us, is a wonderful idea. You think Hop Sing might be willing to pack us a picnic lunch?”

Adam smiled. “I think he can be persuaded.”

Young Benjy Cartwright, meanwhile, spent the better part of an hour reading the same paragraph over and over, before finally tossing aside his book in disgust.

“It’s not fair!” he groused aloud as he slid off of his bed. His feet hit the floor with a light thud. “They ALWAYS believe HER! ALWAYS!”

They’re liars. ALL of ‘em. Nuthin’ but no-good, dirty, stinkin’ LIARS.

Benjy froze. The words echoing through his head spoke with his new friend’s voice. He slowly, reluctantly glanced around the room, but saw no one. He was very much alone. He exhaled a long, slow sigh of relief. He was in enough trouble already with Dio accusing him of whatever it was that had scared her so badly out in the barn earlier this afternoon. The last thing he needed was to be in more trouble with Grandpa because the other Benjy had decided to just let himself into the house again.

They ARE, you know.

“What they?” Benjy asked as he began to unconsciously pace alongside his bed.

Little Sisters. I should know. I have two.

“Did yours get you in trouble all the time?”

You betcha. They’d do all sorts of bad things, then run and tell Ma ‘n Pa that Ellie and me did it.

“Who’s Ellie?”

My OLDER sister. Older sisters ain’t so bad actually. Just YOUNGER sisters.

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t have any older sisters.”

I have an older sister, two YOUNGER sisters, and two younger brothers. Younger brothers can be bad, too, sometimes, but no where NEAR as bad as younger SISTERS.

“It’s not fair,” Benjy groused. “Bad enough they love Dio best, but when they believe all her LIES . . . well, its just plain not fair.”

You wanna make ‘em sorry?

“Who?”

Why . . . ALL of ‘em, of course! Your ma and pa, your grandma, your grandpa, your uncles and your aunt. Even Dio. You can make HER sorry, too.

“How?”

Come with me.

“Go with you?! Where?”

Nowhere. We’ll stay right here.

“How will THAT make ‘em sorry?” Benjy asked, intrigued by his new friend’s suggestion.

Because we can see THEM, but they won’t be able to see US. Remember?

He smiled. “Oh yeah . . . . ”

Benjy?!

Hey, come on, Benjy! Wake up ‘n shake a leg!

Benjy’s eyes immediately snapped open and with a loud, startled gasp, he bolted from prone to sitting.

“Sorry I startled you, Sport.”

He abruptly turned and found himself staring into the anxious face of Uncle Joe. “It’s ok,” Benjy murmured softly. “I . . . I guess I must’ve been really tired. I don’t even remember falling asleep.”

“You ok?”

“Yes, I’m fine now.”

“I just came up to tell you that supper’ll be ready in five minutes! You’ve got just enough time to get washed up.”

“Uncle Joe, may I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Aunt Stacy . . . she’s kind of like your little sister, isn’t she?” Benjy asked, as he slid across the bed and dropped silently to the floor.

A smile slowly spread across Joe’s lips. “No kind of about it, Sport. Your aunt, Stacy, IS my little sister.”

“Does she ever lie about you and get you into trouble?” Benjy asked.

“No,” Joe replied, with an emphatic shake of his head. “That’s one thing we . . . your grandpa, Uncle Hoss, and I found out pretty early on about Aunt Stacy. She’ll own up to her own part in something, but she won’t tell on anyone else.”

“Never?”

“Never,” Joe confirmed.

“You’re lucky,” Benjy sighed morosely.

Joe paused at the door for a moment, then turned. “Benjy, I hope you’re not worried about being in trouble because of what happened to Dio out in the barn earlier.”

Benjy gazed up at his uncle for a long moment, his eyes round with awe. “Uncle Joe, h-how . . . how did y-you . . . how did you KNOW?”

“I took a wild guess, actually,” Joe admitted as the two of them moved out into the upstairs hall. “I guess with Dio being so shook up ‘n all, no one’s had the chance to talk to you, but we all know you had nothing to do with what happened to your sister and our horses out in the barn.”

“Do YOU believe me, too, Uncle Joe?”

Joe looked down at his troubled young nephew and smiled. “Benjy, when you told your grandpa and me that you had fallen asleep out under that circle of trees behind the barn, I believed you because you’ve never given me cause NOT to believe what you say.”

“Y-You mean . . . you just took my word for it . . . just like that?”

“Yes, Benjy, just like that,” Joe replied. “I’m a firm believer in giving a man . . . or woman, for that matter, the benefit of the doubt in the absence of evidence to the contrary.”

Benjy favored his uncle with a bewildered frown. “What does THAT mean?”

“It means I’m willing to believe what you say, Benjy,” Joe replied, “and as long as you continue to be honest with me, I’ll ALWAYS believe you.”

“R-Really?”

“Yes, really. Now we’d both best shake a leg,” Joe said. “Supper’s in two minutes now, and Hop Sing tends to get a wee bit upset if we’re not washed and seated at the table on time.”

The other members of the family, except for Dio and Theresa, were already seated at the table, when Joe and Benjy arrived. The former seated himself between Hoss and Stacy, while the latter squeezed in between his father and maternal grandmother.

“Papa?”

“Yes, Benjy?”

“Where’s Mother and Dio?”

“Dio’s upstairs sound asleep,” Adam replied, accepting the bowl of mashed potatoes from Hoss, seated on his left. “Your mother and I decided to just let her sleep.”

“Is Mother upstairs with Dio?”

Adam nodded. “In case she wakes up,” he said, as he dished out a large spoonful of potatoes on his plate. “Would you like some mashed potatoes, Son?”

“I guess,” Benjy murmured sullenly.

Adam held the large bowl in one hand and offered the serving spoon to his son with the other. Benjy took the serving spoon from his father and gingerly scraped it across the largely unbroken surface.

“Hey, Benjy, that ain’t enough t’ keep a newborn kitten alive let alone a growin’ boy,” Hoss remarked as his young nephew scraped half of what he had collected from the serving spoon onto his plate with his own fork.

“It’s ok, Uncle Hoss. I’m not very hungry,” Benjy said as he placed the serving spoon back into the bowl of mashed potatoes.

Adam passed the bowl on to his mother-in-law, then turned his attention back to his son. “Are you feeling alright, Buddy?”

“My stomach hurts a little, and I still feel kind of tired,” Benjy replied. “Other than that, I guess I’m ok.”

The anxious frown, already etched into Adam’s brow, deepened as he reached over and touched the back of his hand to his son’s forehead. “No fever,” he murmured quietly. “Benjy?”

“Yes, Papa?”

“You haven’t eaten very much since you’ve arrived here,” Adam said quietly. “It could be that your stomach hurts because you need to put some food in it.”

“I’m not very hungry, Papa.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Adam?” Ben replied, the anxious frown on his own brow nearly an exact mirror of the same on the face of his eldest son.

“Would you mind passing me that bowl of mashed potatoes again, and the bowls with vegetables and applesauce?”

Ben picked up the bowl of what remained of the mashed potatoes and handed it to Joe, seated at his right. Joe passed the mashed potatoes to his brother, Hoss, who in turn handed it back to Adam. In the meantime, Stacy and Dolores picked up the bowls of vegetables and applesauce respectively and passed those on to Adam.

“Thank you,” Adam said gratefully. He scooped out another spoonful of mashed potatoes on Benjy’s plate, then reached for the vegetables.

“Papa, I said I wasn’t hungry.”

“I know,” Adam replied in a quiet, yet firm tone. “But, you still need to eat. Uncle Hoss was absolutely right in observing that you’re a growing boy.”

“But, my stomach hurts.”

“You aren’t running a fever,” Adam said as he served up half a spoonful of vegetables and a generous spoonful of applesauce. “I think part of the reason your stomach hurts is that you aren’t eating enough. The food I’m giving you is bland and should be easy enough to digest. Stacy?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“Would you mind running out to the kitchen and asking Hop Sing to make up some of his peppermint tea for Benjy?”

“Not at all, Oldest Brother,” Stacy said rising.

“Stacy, I think you’d better look for him upstairs in Dio’s room,” Joe said. “I thought I just saw him go up with a tray in hand . . . probably for Teresa.”

“Thanks, Grandpa.”

Suddenly, a loud crash came from the kitchen, sounding as if every last breakable object out there had been hurled to the floor all at once. Stacy set off toward the kitchen at a dead run.

“Joe . . . . ”

“I’m right behind her, Pa,” Joe declared, as he pushed back his chair and jumped to his own feet all in the same, quick move.

A long string of terse, clipped Chinese syllables, shouted at top volume could also be heard by everyone still seated at the table, long before Hop Sing actually appeared at the top of the stairs, his face ominously dark as the thunderclouds accompanying the most dangerous and violent summer storms. Hop Sing’s angry invectives were in turn swallowed up in the deafening roar of metal pots, pans, lids, bowls and utensils, along with the large cast iron frying pan, all raining down on the stone floor of the kitchen.

At that juncture Ben shot right out of his seat with enough force and momentum to send his chair tumbling over on its back.

Benjy yelped fearfully as his grandfather’s wood chair clattered loudly against the hard wood dining room floor.

“I’d better go see what’s going on out in the kitchen,” Ben muttered angrily under his breath.

“You want me t’ come along, too, Pa?” Hoss asked, his own features melting into an indignant, angry scowl.

“No,” Ben tersely shook his head. “You and Adam had best stay here . . . just in case.”

Hoss nodded curtly.

As Ben headed out toward the kitchen, Adam placed his napkin beside his plate and rose.

“P-Papa?” Benjy queried fearfully. “Papa, where are you going?”

“Upstairs, to make sure your mother and sister are alright,” Adam replied. “You stay here with your grandmother and Uncle Hoss. I’ll be right back.”

Benjy stared after his father’s retreating back for a moment, completely and utterly crestfallen. Finally, he turned away with an exasperated sigh, and focused his gaze on the dinner plate resting on the table in front of him. “It’s not fair,” he grumbled softly, under his breath. “It’s not fair.”

Ben, meanwhile, burst into the kitchen with heart thudding wildly against his rib cage. “HOP SING, WHAT IN THUN— ” he stopped abruptly, mid-syllable as the reality of the situation slammed into him with all the brutal force of a hard sucker punch to the solar plexus.

“M-Mister Cartwright?” Hop Sing queried, peering anxiously into the stricken face of his employer and old friend.

“I . . . I don’t believe this . . . . ” Ben stammered, upon finding his voice.

Nothing in the kitchen was the least bit out of place. All of the glassware, the everyday earthenware dishes, the fine china that had once belonged to Elizabeth and Inger, was intact, safely stored away in their proper cabinets. The cast iron frying pan hung in its place on the wall next to the stove, and the cooking utensils all hung from their racks above the counter.

“I don’t understand this,” Ben muttered, shaking his head. “A minute ago, it sounded as if all hell was breaking loose in here.”

“Maybe noise come from outside,” Hop Sing suggested. “Little Joe, Miss Stacy go out, look around.”

Ben closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m going to go see if they’ve found anything,” he said a moment later, in as steady a voice as he could muster. He turned and started toward the back door. A moment later, he stopped abruptly and turned. “Hop Sing?”

“Yes, Mister Cartwright?”

“Maybe you’d better close that window. It feels a mite chilly in here.”

“Mister Cartwright, no window open. All close tight.”

“GRANDPA, I DIDN’T DO IT!” Stacy declared emphatically, the outrage in her tone loud and clear.

“THEN YOU TELL ME WHO DID!” Joe snapped back, without missing a beat, equally outraged and angry.

The exchange of angry words between his two younger children assailed Ben’s ears the instant he stepped through the back door from the kitchen into the lush, verdant herb and vegetable garden Hop Sing maintained. He rolled his eyes sardonically heavenward, begging for strength, before setting off, following the sounds of Joe and Stacy’s voices.

“HOW SHOULD I KNOW WHO PUSHED YOU IN?!” Stacy demanded. “I WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GARDEN LOOKING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION!”

“I WAS PUSHED! I WAS DEFINITELY PUSHED!” Joe obstinately maintained his ground. “EXPLAIN THAT ONE AWAY . . . IF YOU CAN!”

“EASY! YOU WEREN’T PUSHED! YOU PROBABLY TRIPPED OVER YOUR OWN BIG FEET!” Stacy immediately returned.

Ben found his youngest son and only daughter facing off at the far end of the garden in front of the rain barrel. Joe, dripping wet, stood glaring at his young sister with arms folded tightly across his chest. Stacy, with hands firmly planted on hips, returned her brother’s glare, with an equally ferocious one of her own.

“YOU CALLING ME A LIAR?”

“WHY NOT?! YOU’VE BEEN CALLING ME ONE!”

Ben sighed, then pursed his thinned lips together and let out a loud shrill whistle whose decibel easily cut through the rising volume of Joe and Stacy’s angry voices. The pair of them started and turned.

“All right . . . what’s going on between you two?” Ben demanded in that long-suffering tone he most often used upon reaching the final edge of patience.

“Ask HER!” Joe snapped back in a sullen tone, directing a murderous glare at his sister. “SHE started it.”

“I did NOT!” Stacy countered, her ire rising.

“Oh yes you did!”

“Oh no I DIDN’T!”

“Joseph Francis . . . Stacy Rose . . . . ”

Their father’s use of full first coupled with middle names immediately caught and held their attention.

“ . . . I don’t care WHO started it, I’M FINISHING it!” Ben declared, with his own arms folded across his chest. He directed a threatening glare at both of them that promised a whole world of trouble if they did not immediately cease and desist.

“Yes, Sir,” both mumbled in near unison.

“That’s better,” Ben said curtly. “Now what happened?”

“Someone PUSHED me into that rain barrel, Pa,” Joe replied through clenched teeth. “I was over next to it, looking around for something . . . anything that might have made those crashing sounds we heard at the table. I heard someone laugh, then I felt two hands on my back. The next thing I knew I was taking a bath in the rain barrel.”

“Pa, that someone who pushed Joe into the rain barrel WASN’T me!” Stacy stoutly, angrily maintained her innocence. “I was over on the other side of the garden getting ready to climb over the wall.”

“Oh?” Ben queried, favoring his daughter with a puzzled glare.

“When Joe and I came out here, I . . . well, I thought I caught sight of someone out of the corner of my eye,” Stacy explained. “A boy. I didn’t get a real good look at him, but I DID see that he had brown, curly hair . . . kinda like Joe’s. I thought I saw him run that way . . . . ” she pointed, “but, when I turned all the way around? He was GONE! I figured he’d gone over the garden wall.”

“Stacy, why didn’t you tell me?” Joe demanded with a touch of exasperation.

“Because YOU were too busy of accusing me of pushing you into that rain barrel,” she snapped.

Her words, her explanation immediately took all the angry wind out of Joe’s sails. “Sorry, Stace,” he murmured contritely.

She sighed. “I’m sorry, too, Joe.”

“Good! I’m glad THAT’S settled!” Ben declared with an emphatic nod of his head. He then turned his attention to his daughter. “Now about this boy, Stacy . . . . ”

“What about him, Pa?”

“You said he had brown, curly hair . . . like your brother’s.”

“Yeah.” She nodded.

“That’s the description Benjy gave me of his friend earlier this afternoon,” Ben mused thoughtfully. “Have YOU met this boy?”

Stacy shook head.

“Well, we’d better get back to the table, before Hop Sing and your brothers decide to organize a posse,” Ben sighed.

Mother Catherine Margarita Gibson, reverend mother of the nursing order assigned to Saint Mary in the Mountains Catholic Church and Saint Brigid Hospital, was rudely awakened from a deep and sound sleep by a loud cry, filled with an anguish that shattered her kind heart into a thousand million pieces. The eerie, disquieting silence that immediately followed was broken within less than the passage of time between one heartbeat and the next by the explosive pounding of fist against the wood of the fast closed door to her cell.

“One moment . . . . ” Mother Catherine gasped, as she frantically worked to gather her wits about her. She threw aside her bedclothes with a powerful sweeping motion of her well-muscled arm, and scrambled to her feet. “Wh-Who’s there?” she called out.

“Sister Frances, Mother,” came the response in a voice, calm and steady, that carried within it a note of urgency.

Mother Catherine closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Come in, Sister Frances,” she invited, as she snatched up her robe from its customary place across the foot of her bed.

“Mother, Mrs. Smith, God love her, has taken a terrible turn for the worse,” Sister Frances reported in a brisk, no nonsense tone of voice, upon entering the room.

“Let’s go,” Mother Catherine said grimly. “You can tell me on the way.”

“When Sister Anne and I went to check on her after Vespers, we found her pacing back and forth like a . . . a . . . like a wild animal locked in a cage,” Sister Frances huffed and puffed through her dismal report. Being a small, diminutive young woman, she had to jog in order to keep pace with the tall, statuesque mother superior. “Sister . . . Sister Anne asked her . . . what was the matter, and . . . she said she had to . . . to . . . stop her son from . . . from doing something that would . . . endanger . . . his mortal soul.”

“Did you say her son, Sister Frances?” Mother Catherine inquired, without breaking stride. A cold lump had begun to form deep within the pit of her stomach.

“Y-Yes, Mother,” Sister Frances affirmed. “H-Her son.”

“You’re sure? She actually said her son?!”

“I’m sure. Mother?”

“Yes, Sister?”

“I d-didn’t know she had a son. I . . . was under the impression she . . . that she had no one.”

“She had THREE sons once . . . and three daughters,” Mother Catherine replied.

“What happened? Where are they now?”

“They died, Sister.”

“ALL of them?!” Sister Frances gasped, stunned to the very core of her being by this grim revelation.

“All of them,” Mother Catherine affirmed. “Father Rutherford told me that they died from some kind of food poisoning. Tomorrow--- no! It’s well after midnight! Mrs. Smith’s eldest son was the last of her six children to die . . . thirty years ago TODAY!”

On the heels of that devastating loss, the woman known to the sisters as Mrs. Lee Smith was brought to Saint Brigid’s Hospital, more dead than alive, by Ben Cartwright and the two men he had just hired as ranch hands: Micah Everett and Jean di Marigny . Her physical wounds were serious, but not life threatening, because they were given prompt treatment. Within a matter of weeks, her body had almost completely recovered.

Her spirit and soul, however, were different matters entirely. During the course of that entire first year she had spent first in the hospital, then cloistered within the walls of the convent, she was consumed with anguish and guilt. Nearly every waking moment was spent in prayer, begging God to take her life. Mrs. Smith’s innate will to survive proved very strong, however, and had ultimately prevailed, despite her very best intentions to the contrary.

Impelled by her pragmatic nature and a work ethos, very strongly entrenched, Mrs. Smith began carving out her own niche among the community of sisters, until finally establishing herself as chief cook, bottle washer, housekeeper, hospital orderly, assistant nurse, and listening ear. Though she had no desire whatsoever to, in her words, “take the veil,” she was every bit as much a member of the community as the sisters and their mother superior. Even so, the loss of her family still haunted Mrs. Smith to this very day, and would continue to haunt her until she finally breathed her last. This was a given that Mother Catherine understood very well.

When Mother Catherine and Sister Frances had finally arrived at the door to Mrs. Smith’s cell within the convent, the former paused. “Sister Frances,” she said, taking great care to lower her voice, “you MAY speak of what I have just told you about Mrs. Smith with myself and Father Rutherford. No one else.”

“Y-Yes, Mother,” Sister Frances solemnly responded, taken aback by the stern scowl on the mother superior’s face and the grim, determined set of her mouth and jaw line.

“Mrs. Smith has found a measure of peace within our community . . . a peace for which she has labored very long and hard,” Mother Catherine explained. “If word of the circumstances that brought her to us were to go beyond the doors of our convent . . . that peace will be irrevocably lost. Do you understand, Sister?”

“Y-Yes, Ma’am,” Sister Frances replied, nodding her head vigorously. “I won’t say anything of what you have told me to any ONE apart from you and Father Rutherford. On that you have my solemn vow.”

Mother Catherine nodded, satisfied with the young sister’s answer. “All right . . . now that THAT’S understood, let’s go in.”

The sound of a child’s laughter roused Stacy Cartwright from the depths of sleep, drawing her reluctantly toward awareness. She opened one eye, then the other slowly, and eased herself from prone to sitting. All was silent, save for the steady ticking of the clock hanging on the wall next to her door, and the occasional whinnying of the horses still out in the corral. “Must’ve dreamed it,” she murmured as she snuggled back down under the warmth of her quilt, blanket, and sheets.

Stacy had no sooner closed her eyes, when she once again heard the child’s laughter, this time followed by the sound of running footsteps. She bolted upright and threw off the covers. Within less than a heartbeat, she was out of bed, stealthily making her way across her room to the door. She paused, with her hand on the doorknob, and listened. The laughter and running footsteps grew fainter. She opened her bedroom door and stepped out into the hall.

“It’s . . . it’s f-freezing!” Stacy muttered, heartily regretting that she hadn’t grabbed her robe. Folding her arms tight across her chest, she glanced up just in time to see a child, a boy, with brown, curly hair, clad in a white luminous nightshirt, turn and start down the stairs. “HEY!” she yelled. “YOU COME BACK HERE!”

The boy paused at the steps, and turned. “I’LL BETCHA YOU CAN’T CATCH ME!” he taunted, then with a scornful laugh turned and fled down the stairs.

“We’ll see about THAT!” Stacy muttered under her breath, as she took off after the boy at a dead run. When she reached the top of the stairs, less than a second later, there was no sign of the boy whatsoever. “He couldn’t have gotten away THAT quickly . . . . ”

“Who’s that, Little Sister?” a sleepy voice demanded cantankerously.

Stacy gasped, nearly jumping out of her skin. “Joseph Francis Cartwright, don’t you know better than to sneak up behind someone in the middle of the— ”

“Hey! Simmer down, will ya?! Before you wake up everyone ELSE?”

Stacy took a deep breath. “It’s that kid.”

“WHAT kid?”

“The boy I saw out in the garden,” Stacy replied, her eyes moving all over the area of the great room visible from her vantage point. “He’s somehow gotten inside the house. I saw him just now, running down the hall, laughing.”

“Where’d he go?” Joe demanded, suddenly alert, every last vestige of sleep gone.

“I saw him run down stairs,” Stacy said grimly. “He couldn’t have gone far . . . . ”

“Let’s go!”

Joe and Stacy noiselessly ran down the stairs, one behind the other. They spent the next hour and a half diligently conducting a thorough search of the great room.

“Nothing,” Joe murmured wearily, punctuating his declaration with a big yawn.

“I don’t understand this,” Stacy said, gazing around the darkened room in complete bewilderment. “He couldn’t have gone into the kitchen. Hop Sing would have nailed him for sure. Could he have gone out through the front door?”

“No,” Joe shook his head. “I checked. It’s bolted . . . from the inside.” This was their father’s custom whenever the payroll money was in the house, even if it was always locked tight in the safe. “There’s no way that kid could have left by the front door and bolted it shut behind him . . . which begs the question of how he got inside in the first place.”

“I . . . . ” Stacy shrugged, and shook her head.

“You SURE you didn’t dream this, Little Sister?”

“Now I . . . I’m NOT so sure.”

“Come on, Stace,” Joe sighed, then yawned again, “no harm done. Let’s g’won back to bed.”

“Alright . . . . ”

Joe and Stacy climbed the steps in silence. “Brrr! It’s freezing!” the former remarked, shivering.

“It’s colder NOW, than it was when I chased that kid down the stairs,” Stacy declared, her teeth chattering.

Joe saw Stacy back to her room, then turned and started back up to hall toward his own. He paused for a moment at the door, with hand on doorknob, to cast a quick, furtive glance over his shoulder. All of a sudden, he felt the eerie sensation of eyes, hidden and unseen, watching him very closely.

The following morning, Ben was rudely jolted out of a sound sleep by an onslaught of Chinese words screamed at top volume. Had that tirade been translated into English, it would have almost certainly brought a bright crimson flush to the cheeks of even the most hardened men who had served aboard the Wanderer, under Captain Abel Stoddard in days gone by.

“NO BREAKFAST!” He heard Hop Sing yell, as he stumbled down the stairs, uncombed and unshaven, clad in nightshirt, robe, and slippers. “HOP SING QUIT!! GO TO SAN FRANCISCO! HELP NUMBER NINE COUSIN IN RESTAURANT!”

“Aww . . . dadburnit, Hop Sing . . . . ” That wheedling tone belonged to Hoss. “Now why don’t ya fix us all up a nice big breakfast, ‘n--- ”

“NO BREAKFAST!” Hop Sing rudely cut Hoss off, mid-sentence. “NO EGGS!”

“WHADDYA MEAN NO EGGS?!”

“NO . . . EGGS! EGGS ALL GONE!”

“DADBURNIT, HOP SING, IF Y’ DON’T QUIT SPEAKIN’ IN RIDDLES--- ”

“THERE! THERE, THERE, THERE, THERE! YOU LOOK!”

“Aww, for the luvva . . . . ” Ben growled, as he ran down what remained of the stairs, then beat a straight path toward the kitchen. The scowl on his face deepened with each step. Less than a moment later, he burst into the kitchen like a barrel of exploding nitroglycerin. “Would you two mind keeping your voices DOWN?!” he reprimanded his middle boy and number one cook. “Some of us ARE trying to sleep--- ”

“Mister Cartwright, YOU look!” Hop Sing angrily turned on Ben. “You look real good! See yourself what bad boy do!” He thrust an arm and pointing finger toward the floor right by his feet.

Ben’s eyes dropped down to the place at which Hop Sing pointed. The dried remains of three-dozen eggs littered the kitchen floor, yolk and white mixing with tiny shards of shell to form a dull, lacquer-like substance with all the tough durability of concrete.

“I KNEW it!”

Hoss yelped and jumped backward upon hearing his sister’s voice.

“There WAS someone in this house last night!” Stacy blithely rambled on, with a note of smug triumph in her voice. “I KNEW I wasn’t dreaming. Wait’ll I tell Grandpa!”

“Dadburn it, Little Sister, you just scared me outta ten years’ growth,” Hoss growled, as he struggled to regain a small measure of composure. He favored Stacy with a menacing glare.

“ . . . uhhh, sorry,” Stacy apologized.

“Y’ might try ‘n let a body know you’re comin’ instead o’ sneakin’ up on him like a prowlin’ cougar or bob cat,” Hoss continued.

Stacy drew herself up to the fullness of her height and planted a pair of tight fists on her hips. “Hoss . . . I SAID I was sorry,” she hotly defended herself.

“That’s ENOUGH outta the BOTH of ya!” Ben sternly admonished his middle son and only daughter.

“But, Pa . . . . ”

“Stacy Rose Cartwright, I SAID that’s enough!” Ben reiterated his position, with a dark thunderous glare aimed in Stacy’s direction for emphasis.

“ . . . uhhh . . . yes, Sir,” she murmured softly.

“Now then, Young Woman, why don’t we begin with YOU telling us exactly what you know about the bad boy responsible for making this mess,” Ben said.

“I DID NOT!” Benjy yelled at the top of his voice, before Stacy had a chance to answer.

“YOU DID SO!” Dio yelled back, every bit as angry.

“I DID NOT!”

“LIAR!”

“ . . . uhhh . . . Pa?” Hoss ventured. “Y’ want me t’ break it up?”

Ben adamantly shook his head. “I . . . think that’s a chore best left to their parents,” he replied . . . .

“YOU’RE THE LIAR!” Benjy accused. The dark scowl on his face, and his stance, with posture erect and arms folded defiantly across his chest, was reminiscent of his father at the same age and in the same mood.

“I AM NOT!” Dio returned belligerently.

“Y’ ARE SO . . . AND YOU’RE MEANER THAN A SNAKE, TOO!”

“WELL, YOU’RE A BIG ‘FRAIDY CAT CRY BABY SISSY, AND I HATE YOU, BENJY CARTWRIGHT! I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU!”

“I HATE YOU, TOO, YOU . . . YOU LYING BITCH!”

“YOU’RE A LYING BITCH, TOO . . . . ” Dio yelled back. She had no idea what that word actually meant. She only knew it was a bad one, that its utterance got her best friend’s mouth washed out with soap by their irate school teacher early on during the school year. “I WISH YOU WERE DEAD!”

“BENJY . . . DIO . . . . THAT WILL BE ENOUGH!” Adam roared, as he bolted into the hallway, belting his navy blue robe as he ran. Teresa followed closely at his heels.

“HE started it!” Dio charged.

“I DID NOT!”

“YOU DID SO!”

“NO, I DIDN’T, YOU--- ”

“BENJAMIN EDUARDO . . . DELORES ELIZABETH, I SAID THAT’S ENOUGH!” Adam roared, glaring at his son first, then over at his daughter.

The two children lapsed into an angry, sullen silence.

“I want the two of you to go to your rooms right now and stay there until your mother and I call you,” Adam continued.

“BUT, PA-AAAA-AAAHHH . . . HE STARTED IT!” Dio wailed.

“I DID NOT!” Benjy returned.

“I DON’T CARE WHO STARTED IT . . . I’M PUTTING AN END TO IT!” Adam yelled. “NOW GO TO YOUR ROOMS.”

The children turned and stomped their way back to their rooms, without sparing each other, or their parents so much as a backward glance.

Adam closed his eyes and slowly . . . very slowly . . . counted to ten. Three times. Twice in English and once in Spanish.

“What in the world is going on with those two?!” Teresa demanded, bewildered, deeply concerned, and thoroughly exasperated. “Sure, they fight occasionally . . . all brothers and sisters do! But, not like this!”

“I don’t know, Teresa, but one way or another, we WILL get to the bottom of all this,” Adam grimly vowed, “but not now. The kids need time to cool off, and frankly . . . so do I.”

“ . . . uhhh, Adam? Teresa?” Ben ventured, hesitant, mentally bracing himself.

Adam reluctantly turned and found himself staring into the anxious faces of his father, his younger bigger brother, his sister, and Hop Sing. “Hoo boy! I’m sorry the kids woke you,” he murmured contritely.

“It wasn’t Benjy ‘n Dio who woke ME,” Hoss said, directing an angry glare over at Hop Sing.

“Bad boy!” Hop Sing said, his face darkening once again with anger. “Last night, bad boy come in. Take eggs Hop Sing get from chicken. Smash all over kitchen floor. Big mess. Hop Sing had plenty enough. Hop Sing QUIT!”

“Hop Sing, are you saying that Benjy---?!”

“No, Mister Adam!” Hop Sing shook his head. “Bad boy NOT Mister Adam’s little boy. Bad boy OTHER Benjy.”

Benjy Cartwright noiselessly eased the door to his room closed, then turned his attention to the boy, with light brown, curly hair, clad only in a pair of well-worn overalls, who stood on the center of the room. “Benjy . . . you didn’t--- ”

“They’re liars,” the other Benjy said, “all of ‘em! They’re nothin’ but dirty, rotten, stinkin’ liars . . . just like your sister.”

“No, they’re not,” Benjy stoutly defended his family. “My mother and father--- ”

“If you’re about to tell me your ma ‘n pa are as honest as the day’s long . . . save your breath,” the other boy snorted derisively.

“They ARE,” Benjy stubbornly maintained his ground.

“No, they ain’t.”

“They are so!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, how about all the times they’ve told you they love ya every bit as much as they love your sister?” the other boy sneered.

That gave Benjy Cartwright pause.

“You KNOW they love HER best, don’tcha?”

Benjy slowly, reluctantly nodded his head.

“Then ya gotta know when they say they love YOU every bit as much . . . it just plain ‘n simple ain’t true,” the other boy continued, “and if what they say ain’t true, then they’re liars. Simple as that.”

“I . . . I never thought of it like that,” Benjy murmured softly. Never in his entire life had he ever felt so terribly alone.

“Your grandmother’s as bad as your ma and pa,” the other boy continued. A bare hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “She might get mad at your sister sometimes, but a few minutes later, it’s all forgive and forget. You saw . . . . ”

“Yeah . . . I’ve seen alright . . . lot’s of times,” Benjy grumbled, his face darkening with anger.

“Benjy?”

“What!?” Benjy snapped, grief stricken and angry.

“You CAN make ‘em sorry, if you want to,” the other Benjy said. “You can make ‘em REAL sorry.”

“How?” Benjy demanded, eager and impatient . . . .

Hop Sing, meanwhile, fixed a hearty breakfast of fried ham and potatoes, toast, fruit, coffee, and milk for the two children. Benjy occupied the chair at the foot of the table, flanked on either side by his father and his maternal grandmother. Dio sat between her between her parents. The two children ate the food placed before them in silence, with heads bowed, and eyes glued to their plates. Stacy, seated directly across the table from her niece, flanked by Joe on one side and Dolores on the other, had just finished recounting the events that had transpired the night before.

“ . . . and you took it upon yourself to go after this boy?” Ben demanded.

“I was with her, Pa,” Joe immediately spoke up.

“Did she come and wake you?”

“Yeah,” Joe replied without hesitation.

“I woke Joe up last night, but, ummm . . . not the way you’re asking, Pa,” Stacy ruefully admitted.

“I see,” Ben said curtly. “Stacy, if I’ve told you once, I’m sure I’ve told you a million times . . . you are NOT to investigate strange noises you hear in the middle of the night BY YOURSELF.”

“I’m sorry, Pa . . . . ”

“I’ve got a real good mind to march you right out to the barn and make you REAL sorry,” Ben continued, fearful and angry. “What if that boy you saw in the hallway last night had turned out to be an armed intruder?”

“He wasn’t, Pa,” Stacy replied. “He was a boy . . . a little younger than me . . . with curly hair like Joe . . . wearing a nightshirt.”

“Her running around, screaming woke ME up, Pa.” Joe’s tone of voice was properly deferential, but it was clear to one and all that he was taking up for his young sister. “Like she said . . . we searched downstairs pretty thoroughly and couldn’t find hide nor hair of anyone.”

“Did the two of ya search the kitchen?” Ben demanded, glaring at his daughter first, then over at his youngest son.

“ . . . uhhh . . . no . . . . ” Stacy sheepishly replied.

“You know how light a sleeper Hop Sing is,” Joe quickly added. “We figured if anyone HAD gone back in the kitchen . . . Hop Sing would’ve nailed him.”

“Maybe you two should’ve searched the kitchen, Brother,” Adam said, while buttering his second piece of toast. “If you had, Hop Sing wouldn’t be in such a snit right now about all those broken eggs.”

“For cryin’ out loud, Adam,” Joe snapped, favoring his oldest brother with a murderous glare. “The front door was closed, with the deadbolt in place. Now you tell me how in the he--- ”

“Joseph!” Ben snapped, cutting his son off before he could finish that thought.

“Sorry,” Joe muttered through clenched teeth. “The front door was closed. The deadbolt was in place. Stacy and I found no sign whatsoever of forced entry. We honest and truly thought she had dreamed the whole thing.”

“It’s clear she didn’t,” Ben said sternly. He, then, turned his attention to his grandson. “Benjy, about this new friend of yours--- ”

“He didn’t do it, Grandpa!” Benjy fiercely took up for his new friend. “Honest! He DIDN’T! If Aunt Stacy DIDN’T dream the whole thing . . . then some OTHER kid messed up Hop Sing’s kitchen.”

“Benjy, you will NOT take that tone with your grandfather,” Adam sternly admonished his son.

“I’m sorry, Grandpa,” the boy apologized in a sullen tone of voice. “But my friend didn’t do it . . . and he didn’t scare the horses in the barn either.”

“Oh yes, he did!” Dio angrily countered. “So did YOU!”

“I did NOT!” Benjy hotly defended himself.

“Benjy . . . Dio . . . if you don’t cease and desist--- ” Adam began.

“NO!” Benjy cried, leaping from his chair with force sufficient to send it clattering to the floor. “SHE’S LYING!” he accused at the top of his voice, thrusting his arm and pointing finger at Dio. “SHE’S LYING! I WASN’T ANYWHERE NEAR THAT BARN YESTERDAY! I’LL JUST BET SHE FAKED THE WHOLE THING TO GET ME INTO TROUBLE!”

Dio gasped, astonished, outranged, and highly indignant. “YOU WERE SO IN THE BARN YESTERDAY, YOU AND THAT OTHER MEAN LITTLE BOY!” she accused. “I HEARD YOU!”

“YOU’RE A LIAR, DIO! A DIRTY, ROTTEN, STINKIN’ LIAR, AND I HATE YOU!” With that, Benjy turned, and with a strangled sob, fled to the upper environs and the safety of his room.

“Dio, have you finished your breakfast?” Teresa asked her daughter.

“Yes, Ma’am . . . . ” the girl responded warily, taking due note of the ferocious scowl on her mother’s face.

“Then you g’won upstairs to your room, too,” Teresa ordered.

“But, Ma . . . I didn’t do anything!” Dio immediately protested.

“You heard your mother,” Adam said sternly.

An exasperated sigh exploded from between the girl’s pursed lips, as she rose and threw her napkin down on the table. “It’s not fair,” she groused, as she stomped her way from the dining room to the stairs. “It’s not fair . . . it’s not fair . . . it’s not fair!”

“Ben,” Teresa said ruefully, as she turned her full attention to her father-in-law, still seated in his place at the head of the table, “I’m sorry . . . I don’t know what’s gotten into those two . . . they aren’t USUALLY like that . . . . ”

“I know,” Ben hastened to reassure.

“Given the way Benjy feels about horses right now, perhaps a trip out to the proverbial WOODSHED’S in order,” Teresa said grimly, “for the both of ‘em.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Adam said. “I’d thought their tempers might cool when I sent them to their rooms earlier, but that hasn’t happened. If anything, their initial anger’s increased.”

“It won’t do one speck of good, Adam,” Dolores spoke for the first time since the family had sat down to breakfast. Her grim, morose tone of voice drew the attention of everyone still seated around the dining room table. “There’s an evil spirit in this house.”

“There’s a . . . a . . . what?!” Ben demanded, alternating between shocked disbelief and an insane urge to simply throw back his head and laugh out loud.

“Oh for--- ” Teresa grumbled, while sarcastically rolling her eyes heavenward. “Mother, for goodness sake! This is the nineteenth century not the dark ages . . . . ”

“Be that as it may,” Dolores said stiffly, “there IS an evil spirit in this house. I felt it the minute I walked through that door, though at the time I didn’t recognize it for what it was . . . . ”

“Nonsense!” Teresa snapped, directing an angry, baleful glare in her mother’s general direction. “Evil spirits indeed! Stuff and . . . and . . . superstitious nonsense!”

“All right, Young Lady . . . suppose YOU tell ME . . . . ” Dolores shot right back, addressing her daughter in the same condescending tone of voice she might use in addressing a very young child, “ . . . how a boy, or for that matter, how ANY human being, can get into this house with deadbolts thrown on the front and back doors . . . no broken windows . . . . ”

“This boy OBVIOUSLY snuck into the house BEFORE we locked up for the night, and hid someplace . . . a closet perhaps, or an empty bedroom,” Teresa replied in a tone of voice every bit as condescending as her mother’s. “After Stacy chased him down the stairs, he no doubt retreated to his hiding place and waited until he was sure we’d all gone back to sleep before making his mischief out in the kitchen.”

“I’M inclined to think Benjy’s come under the bad influence of a new friend,” Adam said very quietly, and very pointedly, “one who, for reasons unknown, seems bound and determined to drive a wedge between the boy and the rest of his family. I think the best for all concerned is to simply tell Benjy he’s not to associate with this boy, though I’d still like to find out who his parents are. They need to know what their son’s been up to over the last couple of days.”

“I say we need to get a priest to come and bless this house,” Dolores declared with an emphatic nod of her head.

“Thank you for coming, Father,” Mother Catherine said, her voice filled with a mixture of gratitude and profound relief. She set aside the small ledger book, lying open before her, and rose. “I know you’ve been kept busy for the last couple of weeks.”

“It’s the least I can do,” Father Brendan said quietly. “I . . . heard she had a rough night?”

Mother Catherine nodded. “Very,” she replied with a touch of wryness. “She’s become quite obsessed with her oldest son over the last couple of days . . . . ”

“Doesn’t she always . . . around this time?” the priest queried gently.

“Not like this,” the mother superior replied, shaking her head. “In all the years she’s been with us . . . she has never been like this.”

“How is she now?”

“She slept all morning as you might imagine,” Mother Catherine replied. She turned and lowered the cover of the roll top desk, dominating her cubbyhole-sized office within the building housing Saint Brigid’s Hospital. “Did Brother Algernon tell you that she had almost reached the edge of town before he finally caught up with her?”

“No,” Father Brendan replied, shocked and astonished. Never, not even in the wildest of his dreams and imaginings given the woman’s fragility, would he have believed it possible for Lee Smith to make it all the way from her hospital room all the way to the edge of town.

Mother Catherine gestured for the priest to leave the office first. He nodded, and stepped into the narrow corridor beyond. The mother superior followed close behind, gently closing the door behind her. “She’s had a bit of lunch . . . toast and a small glass of milk. Her appetite has diminished considerably over the last month or so . . . . ”

Father Brendan nodded, as they turned and started down the hall.

“She’s resting comfortably enough, and . . . apart from her insistence that her oldest son is about to do . . . something . . . that will endanger his mortal soul . . . she seems very lucid,” the mother superior continued.

“Any thoughts on how she came by the notion of her oldest son endangering his immortal soul?” Father Brendan asked.

“None,” Mother Catherine replied with a helpless shrug. “I remember her going through this before . . . . ” she fell silent for a moment to do a bit of mental figuring, “ . . . twelve . . . maybe thirteen years ago.”

“That’s right . . . she did. I’d forgotten.”

“Same time as Ben Cartwright had some strange goings on in his home, as I recall,” Mother Catherine continued. “I remember my sister telling me some of the rumors that started to circulate around town shortly thereafter.” Her sister was the late Hazel Gibson, the schoolteacher who had graced the hallowed halls of learning at the Virginia City School just before Abigail Jones.

“I think most of those rumors might be more accurately classified as flights of fancy, Mother Catherine,” Father Brendan said with a wry smile.

“Most of those stories are long forgotten, thank the Good Lord,” Mother Catherine declared in a brisk, no nonsense tone of voice. “The change from boy to man is hard enough on any young lad, the Lord Above knows . . . and for Joe Cartwright, I dare say it was harder than most. The last thing he needed was having all of that fol-de-rol about ghosts, goblins, and things that go bump in the night clinging to him like glue.”

Many men would be shocked by Mother Catherine’s frank way of speaking, the priest silently mused, his smile broadening, particularly men of the cloth like himself. Over the years his association and friendship with the mother superior had endured, he had come to understand this was her way, with having grown up on a farm and gone into nursing as her vocation. “Young Joseph is made of the same sterner stuff as his father and brothers,” Father Brendan quietly observed. “He withered the storm with nary a whimper.”

“Thank the Lord for small mercies, and I dare say a very understanding father and older brothers,” Mother Catherine observed as they came to a stop before the closed door to the tiny room occupied by Lee Smith, the patient Father Brendan had come to see. She turned, and gently knocked on the door.

“Yes? Who is it?”

“Mother Superior, Sister Anne,” Mother Catherine identified herself. “I’m here with Father Brendan. Is Mrs. Smith . . . . ?”

“Yes, Mother,” Sister Anne replied. “Please come in.”

Mother Catherine opened the door and stepped inside, with the priest following close behind. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Smith,” she greeted the patient, a diminutive elderly woman with bright green eyes and white hair, the same bright purity of new fallen snow. “How are you feeling?”

“A little better, thank you,” Lee replied.

“Father Brendan has come in response to your request,” the mother superior continued.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Smith,” Father Brendan greeted the patient with a warm smile as he stepped out from behind the mother superior.

“Thank you so much for coming, Father,” Lee murmured, returning the priest’s smile and extending her hand.

“Father . . . Mrs. Smith . . . Sister Anne and I will leave you alone,” Mother Catherine said. “We’ll be right outside, if either of you need us.”

Father Brendan silently acknowledged the mother superior’s words with a nod, as he sat down in the chair beside the bed. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Smith?” he asked, after the nuns had left the room.

A wistful smile spread slowly across her lips. “I’m not long for this world, Father,” Lee said very quietly.

“You’ve suffered other attacks,” Father Brendan complacently pointed out. “The last was worse . . . far worse than this . . . yet you pulled through like a champ.”

“That’s one of the things I like most about you,” she said, her smile broadening. “You’re always looking on the bright side . . . always looking for that silver lining behind the dark thundercloud. Father . . . . ”

“Yes, Mrs. Smith?”

“I want you to know I have no fear of dying . . . nor do I have any regrets,” she said, her smile fading. “I’m grateful to the sisters . . . for all they’ve done for me . . . for embracing me as one of their own, though I’ve never desired to take the vows . . . for allowing me to make my own place among them . . . . ”

“ . . . and YOU’VE done so much . . . given so much . . . to them . . . to all of us in return,” Father Brendan said, with all sincerity, his voice filled with gratitude. “When your time DOES come, Mrs. Smith, it’s going to take three . . . maybe four of the sisters to do all the work YOU do . . . and that’s with Brother Algernon pitching in.”

“Thank you, Father. Your words . . . and your gratitude do my heart good.” She closed her eyes, and with a very soft sigh, leaned heavily into the down pillows stacked behind her head. Her breathing relaxed into a gentle, even pattern.

Father Brendan watched her for a time, then, figuring her to be asleep, eased the chair away from the bed, taking great care to be as quiet as he possibly could. He rose, with the intention of leaving her to her rest.

“Father?” she murmured softly; so softly, the priest almost missed hearing her words.

“Yes, Mrs. Smith?” he queried, as he returned to his seat.

“Do YOU believe in ghosts?” Lee asked. She lay unmoving under her bedclothes, with hands resting at her sides, and eyes still closed.

Father Brendan smiled. “Officially . . . no. Mother Church does not recognize the possibility of spirits remaining earthbound after the body dies,” he replied. “However . . . . ” his smile broadened, “I’ve certainly heard stories and experienced a thing or two personally that, ummm . . . might be best classified as unexplained . . . . ”

“You remember my oldest boy?”

“I do, indeed.”

“He’s still there, Father . . . . ”

Father Brendan frowned. “He’s still . . . where, Mrs. Smith?”

“Where our farm was,” she replied, her voice catching. “Don’t you remember?”

“Yes . . . . ” Father Brendan replied, the bewildered scowl on his face deepening.

“I’ve GOT to warn Ben.”

“Warn Ben?” Father Brendan echoed, feeling as if he had just stepped off the end of a pier into very deep water. “About . . . what, exactly?”

Her eyes softened and glazed over. A single tear slipped over her eyelid and ran down her cheek. “He . . . w-wasn’t a bad boy . . . . ”

“No,” Father Brendan agreed. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“I wish . . . oh, how I wish he’d had the chance to attend school,” Lee sighed, her voice filled with sadness and regret. “He was a smart boy, y’ know . . . bright as a brand new penny. He could’ve gone far with a half decent education, but . . . . ” She sighed again and dolefully shook her head, “my husband didn’t put much stock schools, ‘n learning . . . . ”

“Yes . . . I remember that, too,” Father Brendan said quietly. Her husband and his father were a couple of lazy, good for nothing drunkards. That was the way of it, pure and simple. Although he, personally, tried his best not to think or speak ill of the dead, or presumed dead, those were the kindest things he could think of to say about the husband and father-in-law of the woman known for the better part of the last three decades as Lee Smith. How a woman like her ever ended up leg-shackled to a man like that . . . it was ‘way beyond his poor ability to comprehend.

“He was a bundle of energy, that one . . . . ” Lee remembered.

“Your oldest boy?”

She nodded. “You know, I never once had to ask him to do the chores . . . chop kindling . . . look after the younger ones when I . . . when I had to fetch the doctor to see to their pa or . . . or go t’ town ‘n bail him out of jail. No, Sir . . . he just saw what had to be done and did it. Never complained . . . . ”

“I know he worried about YOU, Mrs. Smith . . . a lot,” Father Brendan said. “Seems he’s was always concerned about you working too hard.”

“I remember,” she said, smiling indulgently through the stream of tears now streaming down her cheeks. “He was a real worrywart, that’s for sure. Day he died . . . I wished . . . I wished with all my heart, with all my being, with everything I’ve got within me . . . that I could curl up ‘n die, too.” Her smile faded. “They were so young, Father . . . so young . . . wasn’t fair they should die like that, before they had a chance to live . . . to really experience life.”

“No,” Father Brendan agreed. “It happens all too often, but you’re right. It’s NOT fair.”

“He wanted so bad to live . . . and he fought. . . he fought so very hard, but he just . . . plain ‘n simply . . . didn’t have the strength,” she said sadly. She paused, just long enough to blot her wet cheeks against the sleeve of her nightgown. “I guess that’s why he stayed around.”

“I s’pose . . . . ” Father Brendan murmured softly, not quite knowing what else to say.

“Trouble is . . . hard as he wishes otherwise . . . he’s NOT alive,” Lee continued. “He can’t take part any more. All he can do is watch . . . and with no one to see or hear him . . . he’s lonely, Father . . . so terribly lonely. I can’t fault him none for wanting company, but he’s going about it wrong. I’ve gotta warn Ben . . . . ”

“Warn Ben about . . . WHAT, exactly?” Father Brendan asked, treading with great care. “That your son is still there? That he wants company?”

“I’m not crazy, Father,” Lee said, all of a sudden very much on the defensive.

She gazed up at him through eyes round and unblinking, reminding the priest of a frightened rabbit caught in a trap. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Smith. I didn’t mean to suggest--- ”

Lee seized hold of her blanket and threw it aside with a force and strength Father Brendan was astonished to see in an elderly woman so frail. “Yes, you do!” she rudely cut him off. “Can’t blame you none, I s’pose . . . once upon a time I would’ve thought an old woman like me nuttier ‘n great big pecan pie, too.” She sat up before the priest could even think to stop her. “Now what’d they do with my slippers?”

“Mrs. Smith, please . . . . ” Father Brendan begged, as he placed gentle, yet restraining hands on her shoulders. “You shouldn’t be out of bed.”

“Let me GO, Father . . . please. I’ve gotta stop him, don’t you see? I’ve gotta stop him before . . . before he . . . . ”

“Stop WHO, Mrs. Smith?”

“MY BOY!” Lee wailed. “I’VE GOTTA STOP MY BOY BEFORE HE GOES TOO FAR AND ENDS UP LOSING HIS MORTAL SOUL!”

“Y-You . . . you CAN’T make the trip out to the Ponderosa,” Father Brendan desperately tried to reason with the woman, suddenly turned ferocious tigress, struggling mightily to free herself from his grip. “It’s . . . with your health . . . it’s . . . simply . . . out of the question. Perhaps I--- ”

“NO!” she snarled, her fear and desperation rising steadily toward hysteria. “HE WON’T LISTEN TO YOU! I JUST HOPE AND PRAY TO GOD HE’LL LISTEN TO ME.”

At that moment, the door to Lee Smith’s room flew open, with enough force and momentum to send it crashing into the wall perpendicular. Mother Catherine strode briskly into the room, moving with all the easy strength and power of clipper ship with the wind in her sails. Brother Algernon and two postulates followed close at her heels, with Sister Anne bringing up the rear, breathless, running as fast as he short legs could carry her.

“We’ll take over from here, Father,” Mother Catherine said briskly, all business.

Brother Algernon and one of the postulants, a big woman, well muscled, standing at near the same height as Father Brendan, moved in on either side of the distraught woman, each taking firm, yet gentle hold of an arm. The monk softly spoke words of reassurance and comfort as he and the postulant eased Lee back down onto the bed.

“Laudanum!” the mother superior snapped, as she turned and glared over as Sister Anne.

“Yes, Mother,” Anne murmured, still breathless. She turned heel and fled from the room, returning less than a moment later with bottle and spoon in hand.

“Shall I send someone to fetch Doctor Martin?” the priest asked.

“Yes, Father . . . by all means,” Mother Catherine replied . . . .

The moon rose; every bit as full and as round as the tender, swollen udder of a cow, in desperate need of milking. Its color was the same hot white of molten iron, just taken from the forge. As it cleared the distant line of jagged mountain peaks, the hot white-blue summer sky quickly darkened to indigo, then black. The approach of night, however, brought no relief from the blistering heat of the day, quickly fading. If anything, the air grew hotter, more stultifying.

The exposed portions of his sweat-soaked body, his face, neck, and hands, gleamed with a dull luster by the dim light from an old lantern, hanging from the wall, suspended somewhere above his head. The rest of his body lay bundled under a mountain of sheets, blankets, two well worn quits, and a down comforter. His mouth fell open as the muscles of his chest labored valiantly against the pressing, burdensome weight of his pajamas and all those bedclothes, to expand allowing his lungs to draw breath, then expel it. He seized the top edge of the comforter in both hands and threw it off, followed by the quilts, and woolen blanket.

Two sheets drifted down on top of him, followed by another wool blanket, two more quilts, and the comforter.

He threw off the comforter, only to have two more and another quilt drop down on him. He opened his mouth wider and sucked in a breath of air. Not enough. Not nearly enough. Intense panic rose, fast and furious, from a place somewhere deep within. He drew in another deep, ragged breath, then another, and another in rapid succession, desperate to take in enough air to fill lungs, empty and hungry. He began to feel light headed and dizzy in short order.

“It’ll be ok, Benjy . . . . ”

His lips and mouth labored frantically to speak, but no words issued forth.

“It WILL be ok. I promise you . . . it WILL. I know it hurts now . . . but it WILL be ok. I KNOW it will. Then, you’ll make ‘em all sorry.”

Suddenly, inexplicably, he was afraid.

“ ‘Fraidy cat! ‘Fraidy cat! Benjy is a ‘fraidy cat!”

It was his sister. Though he couldn’t see Dio, her childish, singsong chant filled the room, coming from everywhere all at once.

“Benjy is a ‘fraidy cat! Benjy is a ‘fraidy cat! Benjy is a ‘fraidy cat!”

A feeble moan issued forth from dry throat and parched lips. Again he tried to speak, tried to tell his tormenter to shut-up and go away, can’t she see he was sick, for heaven’s sake?! But as before, no words came.

“ ‘Fraidy cat . . . ‘fraidy cat . . . Benjy is a ‘fraidy cat!” Her voice rose steadily in volume, growing louder and more shrill, as the moon, shining in through his window with the same blinding brilliance as the sun, rose higher in the dark night sky.

He raised his hands to his ears, pressing against the side of his head so hard, he half feared his skull would crack and shatter into a million pieces. Still his sister’s voice, and her childish laughter, so full of malice and hatred, rose to deafening volume.

He squeezed his eyes tight shut, and inhaled a deep lung full of air, hotter than fire, his chest and lungs protesting with searing agony . . . .

. . . and screamed.

Benjy bolted upright in bed, screaming. For a moment, he remained, unmoving, his eyes darting frantically around the darkened room, trying desperately to remember where he was. The dark, near opaque shadows in the corners of the room began to swell and grow. He sat in the middle of his bed, his thin arms wrapped tight around his shivering body, watching with rapt, morbid fascination as thin tendrils of impenetrable coal blackness slowly snaked out from the corners of the room toward him. He tried to move . . . to run . . . to flee from this room and the horror reaching out to him, but his arms and legs remained frozen.

He began to wag his head slowly, back and forth. “ . . . nuh-nuh-nuh . . . nuh . . . NO!” he finally screamed, and in so doing freed himself of the mysterious paralysis that scant moments before had nearly overwhelmed him.

With a strangled cry, Benjy leapt from the bed and tore across the room toward the closed door. Both hands closed tightly on the white porcelain knob. He frantically turned this way and that, but the latch wouldn’t give.

“Come on, come on, come on,” he begged, as tears borne of fear and desperation began to blur his vision. “Come ON, please . . . please, please, please open!” He could feel the shadow at his back now . . . cold . . . so terribly cold . . . colder than anything he had ever felt in his entire life.

Then, suddenly, the latch gave. He flung the door wide open and ran down the hall, fast as his legs could carry him. The shadow boiled out of the room and flowed down the hall after him, swift, powerful, and relentless like a mighty river swollen with the melt of spring. Benjy half ran, half stumbled down the stairs, to the front door. After a terrifying, endless eternity of fumbling with deadbolt, and latch, he finally threw the door open with all his strength and plunged headlong into the night.

Upstairs, the sound of the front door striking the credenza, rudely jolted Adam and Teresa from a sound sleep.

“A-Adam, wha---?!”

“Someone’s downstairs,” Adam said softly. He sat up and threw aside sheet, blanket, and quilt in a single powerful, yet very fluid move.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to go downstairs and have a look around,” he replied, remembering that his father still had the payroll money locked up in the safe behind his desk.

“I’m coming with you,” Teresa declared, as she, also scrambled out of bed.

“No.”

She frowned. “Adam . . . . ”

He silenced her protestations with a curt gesture. “Wake up Pa, Hoss, and Joe. Tell them someone’s broken into the house,” Adam ordered with a shudder, remembering the stern lecture Pa had given his sister earlier, outlining all the reasons why she shouldn’t investigate strange noises in the middle of the night by herself. “You’d better check on the kids, too . . . make sure THEY’RE all right.”

“All right,” she reluctantly agreed, “but you be careful. You hear me, Mister?”

“Loud and clear, Ma’am,” Adam replied, trying very hard not to smile.

“I mean it, Adam.” Though she spoke in a very firm, no-nonsense tone of voice, the uneasiness growing within her came through very clearly.

“I know you do,” Adam said, his voice softening, “and I promise you . . . I WILL be careful.” He slipped on his robe, and, acting purely on impulse, gave his wife a quick, chaste kiss on her lips. “YOU be careful, too.” With that, he slipped out of the room, silently closing the door behind him.

“Adam?! That you?”

Turning, he saw his brother, Hoss, barreling down the hall, armed with the poker kept next to the fireplace in his room. There was a ferocious scowl on his face, and his jaw was set with grim determination. “Yeah, Hoss . . . it’s me,” Adam responded to his brother’s question, taking great care to keep his voice low. “You heard . . . . ?”

“That . . . bangin’ sound?”

“Yeah.”

“Yep. I heard it alright,” Hoss said grimly. “Woke me right out of a real sweet dream, too. I WAS gonna just turn over ‘n g’won back t’ sleep, ‘til I all uva sudden remembered Pa’s got t’ payroll locked up downstairs.”

“I remembered that, too,” Adam replied.

The older Cartwright brothers started down the stairs, with Adam taking the lead, treading silently, “like the snow fall,” as Young Wolf had long ago taught them both. They had just passed the middle landing, when their ears were assailed by a long string of clipped Chinese invectives yelled at top volume. Hop Sing bounded into the room a moment later, clad in nightshirt, robe, and slippers, armed with a sharp meat cleaver.

“WHAT GO ON HERE?” Hop Sing yelled. “SOMEBODY ‘ROUND HERE GROW UP IN BARN?! WHO LEAVE OPEN FRONT DOOR?”

“We dunno, Hop Sing,” Hoss said grimly, as he and Adam stepped down onto the first floor, “but we sure aim t’ find out.”

Hop Sing screamed and jumped backward, crashing into the credenza, upon hearing the sound of Hoss’ voice. “WHAT YOU DO?!” the Chinese man angrily demanded. “SCARE TEN YEAR GROWING OUTTA HOP SING?!”

“S-Sorry,” Hoss murmured softly, with a wary glance at the meat cleaver and Hop Sing’s white knuckled grip on its handle.

“Adam!” It was Teresa.

Adam turned and saw her standing at the top landing.

“Benjy’s NOT in his room,” she said, speaking as loud as she dared, her voice filled with urgency.

“We’ll find him,” Adam promised. “You stay there.”

“Adam, he’s MY son, too,” she said in a cold tone of voice that sent ice cold shivers down the spines of the three men gathered beside the still open front door. She quickly drew the edges of her robe together, and tied the sash, hanging loose in its belt loops, before starting down the stairs.

“Teresa, NO!” Hoss cried out, watching his determined sister-in-law bounding down the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. “WE’LL find him . . . Adam, Hop Sing, ‘n me. Dadburnit, we could be surrounded by a whole gang o’ outlaws, armed t’ the teeth.”

“ . . . and if that whole gang of outlaws have so much as harmed a single hair on Benjy’s head, so help me . . . I’ll skin every last one of them alive and nail their sorry hides to the barn wall,” Teresa angrily vowed.

“Dang, Adam . . . SHE’S every bit as bad as PA!” Hoss muttered, as he grabbed his gun belt from its place on the credenza, making sure he kept a respectful distance between himself and his sister-in-law.

“Mister Ben father AND mother, too, like Mrs. Teresa mother,” Hop Sing sagely observed, keeping himself well out of Teresa’s reach as well.

Adam sprinted across the room to his father’s desk and pulled open the top right hand drawer. There, much to his great relief, he found the revolver his father kept there in case of an emergency. “Hop Sing . . . Teresa . . . you two double back through the kitchen,” he ordered, while Hoss quickly strapped on his own gun belt. “Hoss and I’ll circle around outside. We’ll meet out on the back porch.”

As Dolores di Cordova reached for the quilt, lying across the foot of her bed, neatly folded, she caught movement at the very edge of her peripheral vision and immediately froze. For a long moment she sat, unmoving, with the quilt pressed up hard against her chest, her eyes darting furtively about the darkened room.

“Who . . . who’s there?” she finally ventured, hesitantly, with fear and trembling.

There was no answer.

Fully awake now, Dolores peered into the surrounding darkness, again frantically searching. Her heart pounded within her chest, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end . . . this time, not entirely due to the cold.

Someone was in the room . . . watching her. She could feel it.

A woman’s terrified scream shattered the silence of the pre-dawn hours, and rudely awakened Stacy from a deep sleep. “Tha’ soun’s like Miz di Cordova,” she muttered, while struggling mightily to sit up.

Somewhere in the dark, the woman screamed again, this time driving every last vestige of sleep from Stacy’s weary brain. With face set with grim, stubborn determination, she threw off her covers and grabbed hold of the cane leaning up against the wall beside her bed. It was hewn from a solid piece of mahogany, with a brass horse head affixed to the top. Pa had loaned it to her a few months ago, when a tumble from a gelding she and Hoss had been training left her with a badly sprained ankle.

She noiselessly passed from her bedroom to the hall, and started for the stairs, pausing before she had so much as taken a dozen steps as memory of that blistering lecture from Pa earlier returned with brutal intensity. She immediately turned and started back down the hall toward Hoss’ room.

“Hey, Kiddo . . . where do you think YOU’RE going?”

Upon hearing Joe’s voice, Stacy gasped, and jumped backward. “Dadburnit, Grandpa, you sure gotta way of scaring a body half to death,” she growled, her heart still pounding.

“Sorry,” Joe apologized. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t running downstairs to check out . . . whatever that was . . . all by your lonesome.”

“Unh UNNNNHHH . . . not after that go ‘round with Pa this morning,” she said soberly. “I was on my way to wake up Hoss.”

Joe nodded. “You g’won, then,” he said, “and roust Big Brother up outta bed. While you do that I’LL go ‘n wake up . . . . ”

“PA-AAAA-AAAA . . . .” Joe screamed as the narrow outcropping of rock, known as Eagle’s Nest, broke off from the mountain and plummeted toward earth, taking him and the rifle, for which he had gone again and again and again, along with it. He had come so close . . . so very close . . . he could have actually reached out and touched it. All Ben could do was cling to the side of the mountain, where he had “fallen” just a few moments before, and watch his youngest son fall to the horrifying death that had haunted his dreams every night since he had lost the rifle . . . .

. . . and scream.

Pa?!

Pa . . . .

“Pa! Wake up!”

“Wha’ th---?!” Ben gasped, as his eyes suddenly snapped wide open. One minute, he was clinging for dear life to the side of the mountain, from which the rocky promontory, known as Eagle’s Nest, had broken . . . and the next, he was lying . . . here . . . where ever here was . . . in the dark. He tried to move, but found, much to his horror, that his body refused to respond. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flurry of movement . . . .

“Wh-Who’s . . . who’s there?”

“It’s me, Pa,” Joe replied, anxiously taking note of his father’s rapid, shallow breathing and the dull gleam of sweat upon his brow.

“Joe?!” Ben queried, as his eyes moved toward the direction from whence his son’s voice came. He peered intently into the darkness, through eyes round and unblinking, desperately seeking his youngest boy’s face . . . .

“Don’t LEAVE me, Ben . . . please . . . .”

The face that emerged from the opaque shroud of darkness, covering the entire room wasn’t Joe’s . . . .

It was Marie’s.

“Please . . . . ” she sobbed, reaching out her arms, with the palms of her hands turned upward. “Ben . . . My Love, My Darling . . . please?! Please . . . don’t LEAVE me . . . . ”

It was the same dream he’d had night after night after night, for . . . it was a very long time, nearly a whole year after Marie had taken that fatal tumble from her horse . . . .

. . . and with the dream’s sudden, inexplicable return, came all of the grief, the rage, the guilt, and that bottomless abyss of hopeless mind-numbing despair . . . as raw, as fresh, and every bit as intense as they had been the moment he saw her, lying sprawled on the ground, her neck clearly, without the slightest shred of doubt, broken . . . .

“I . . . I know the truth, Sir . . . . ”

He slowly lifted his head and found himself staring into the face of his son . . . THEIR son . . . his and Marie’s . . . so like his mother . . . so very like his mother in looks and in temperament, it sometimes broke his heart.

“I . . . I know the truth, Sir.”

This face was the face of a boy, who had just taken those first steps across the threshold toward manhood. It retained the cherubic roundness of the child, yet carried within its lines, and its planes, a subtle trace of the handsome young man who would all too soon emerge.

“I . . . I know the truth, Sir. About y-you and . . . and about m-my mother!”

The child-man stared up into his face through eyes, round and staring, gleaming with the liquid brightness of tears not yet shed, filled with the same hopeless grief and despair that had nearly devoured him when the life of his wife, the mother of the young man now standing before him, was so tragically, so brutally cut short. The boy’s eyelids, his upper lip, and his cheeks were an angry shade of red, and swollen after having spent many hours weeping secretly . . . alone.

He once again stood facing the boy up in the hayloft of a barn burning down around them. Now, as then, he pulled the troubled, angry, grief stricken boy into his arms, without pause or hesitation, and held him tight.

“M-Mister Cartwright, please! S-save yourself!” the boy sobbed heart wrenchingly.

“Wh-Why do you keep calling me Mister Cartwright?” he demanded, bewildered and hurt, yet seeking desperately to understand. The flames consuming the barn around them leapt higher and burned brighter, as if fueled, not by wood, hay, and straw, but by the boy’s escalating distress.

“DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?” the boy screamed, as tears, borne of his fear, anger, and grief flowed like rivers down his cheeks. “I KNOW! I KNOW THE TRUTH! I KNOW . . . YOU’RE NOT MY FATHER . . . YOU’RE NOT MY F-F-FATHER . . . . ”

He sensed the presence of another in the hayloft with him and the son he held on to so fiercely . . . another just as determined to take the boy as he was to keep him. The smoke, rising from below, eddied and pooled under that portion of roof covering the hayloft. Yet even as the smoke and the acrid tears now stinging his own eyes began to slowly rob him of his sight, he saw the other beginning to take form. As its core began to solidify, he saw tendrils of smoke growing, reaching out, as wild grape vines reach out, searching . . . groping for something . . . anything . . . to grab and . . . .. . . and to strangle.

In the next instant, revelation came.

“Joe, I want you to listen to me!” he begged, holding the boy a little apart from him so that he might look directly into his face and eyes. “You ARE my son,” he declared earnestly, ”I AM your father. You belong HERE with your brothers and me.”

The boy stared up into his face with a blank look, shaking his head slowly back and forth.

“Say it, Joe. You’ve got to say it!”

“I . . . I c-can’t . . . . ”

“ . . . say id, Joe . . . y’ godda say id . . . . ” Ben softly, yet earnestly, pleaded. “ ‘S the truth, Boy . . . y’ godda say id . . . . ”

“Dear God . . . Pa! Wake UP!” Joe begged, with heart in mouth. He placed his hands on Ben’s shoulders and began to shake him gently. “Please, Pa . . . please . . . you’ve gotta wake up--- ”

“JOE!” Ben cried out, as his eyes suddenly snapped wide open.

“I’m here, Pa,” Joe tried to reassure in a low, soothing tone. “I’m right here.”

“Thank God!” Ben exclaimed softly, as he threw aside his bedclothes, and bolted from lying down to sitting up. “Thank G-God . . . . ”

“It’s all right, Pa,” Joe continued, “everything’s all right. You were dreaming.”

“ . . . d-dreaming?!” Ben echoed, bewildered and uncertain. He reached out with trembling hand and gently touched Joe’s cheek to assure himself that his youngest son really and truly sat here . . . on the side of his bed, in the darkness before him, safe and sound . . . alive, whole, and in one piece. “Dreaming,” he murmured again, in a steadier voice, as wave upon wave of blessed relief rolled over him, one after the other.

“Pa?! Grandpa?”

“Stacy?” Joe queried, turning his face toward the door of his father’s bedroom, standing wide open. His sister stood at the threshold, clad in nightshirt, robe, and slippers, still clutching Pa’s horse head cane in her right hand.

“ . . . is, ummm . . . everything ok?” she ventured hesitantly.

“It WILL be,” Joe promised. “You can come on in, if you want . . . . ”

“You sure . . . . ?!” she queried, casting an apprehensive glance at their father. “Is Pa, uhhh . . . . ?!”

“I’m decent, Stacy . . . and I’m gonna be all right,” Ben said. “I just need a moment to wake up fully ‘s all.”

“Bad dream, Pa?” Stacy asked, as she stepped across the threshold from the hall into her father’s bedroom.

Ben nodded, grateful beyond measure that the vivid scenarios he had just lived through again, WERE only dreams. “I’m sorry I woke YOU up, too.”

“YOU didn’t,” Stacy replied as she circled around to the other side of the bed, and sat down directly across from Joe. “It was Mrs. di Cordova, I think. I heard her scream.”

“Where’s Hoss?” Joe asked.

“He wasn’t in his room,” Stacy replied.

Meanwhile, Hop Sing and Teresa froze in their tracks when Dolores’ terrified scream rent the night, rudely waking Hop Sing’s chickens out of a deep slumber.

“Mother!” Teresa exclaimed, raising her voice that she might be heard about the chickens’ frantic squawking. “Hop Sing . . . THAT was mother.” She stood, wringing her hands, visibly torn between finding her son and seeing to her mother.

“You wait! In kitchen! You wait ‘til Mister Adam, Mister Hoss come. Hop Sing go, see Mrs. Teresa’s mama.”

“Thank you, Hop Sing,” she murmured, grateful beyond measure to have that particular decision taken out of her hands.

“What the---!?” Hoss gasped.

“Dolores!” Adam said grimly. “That was Dolores . . . . ”

“Sounded more like a spooked bob cat,” Hoss murmured softly. The elderly woman’s scream had left the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, and now, all of a sudden, he couldn’t shake the feeling of someone watching them . . . him and Adam . . . somewhere in the night’s deep shadows.

“Hoss . . . . ”

“What?”

“I’ve GOT to find Benjy before Teresa takes it into her head to come looking for the both of us,” Adam said, his tone grim, yet there was a pleading note there as well. “If Dolores inadvertently stumbled upon an intruder . . . . ”

“I . . . dunno,” Hoss said, visibly torn. “Adam, I don’t feel right ‘bout leavin’ YOU t’ face whoever’s out here all by your lonesome.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“Adam . . . Hop Sing ‘n Teresa are in the house . . . ‘n I hafta tell ya, I can’t help but feel sorry for whoever’s broken in once he’s met up with the two o’ them,” Hoss grimly pointed out, “ ‘n besides . . . ain’t no way Pa, Joe, ‘n Stacy slept through Mrs. di Cordova screamin’ like that . . . . ”

“True,” Adam had to agree.

“Brrr! This floor is . . . it’s ice c-cold!” Ben remarked with a shudder as he stepped into the blessed warmth of the slippers he kept on the floor beside his bed. He grabbed his robe from its place on the bedpost and slipped it on. “ . . . uhhh, Joseph?!”

“Yeah, Pa?”

“Aren’t YOU cold?” he asked, upon noticing that Joe had on pajama pants, with no shirt, and that his robe hung open.

“It IS a mite nippy in here,” Joe confessed, “but I figured you’d left your window open.”

“No.” Ben shook his head. “In fact, I made a point of closing my window just before I went to bed because the past couple of nights have been chilly.”

“It’s even colder out in the hall,” Stacy said, as the three of them made their way across Ben’s room to the door.

“You’re joshin’!” Joe accused.

“Nope.”

“Aww, c’mon, Stace . . . that’s crazy!” Joe exclaimed. “All the doors up here are closed . . . at least they were when I passed through the hall a little while ago.”

“So?”

“SO, Little Sister . . . even if someone DID leave a window open, the hall should still be warmer,” Joe insisted. “There’s gotta be a draft coming in through a hole somewhere.”

“A draft, ‘ey?” she queried, favoring her brother with a jaundiced glare.
“Like the supposed draft coming through the mouse hole we never found in Bonnie Prince Charlie’s stall?”

Joe shuddered. “Cut it out, Kid. That over active imagination of yours is starting to give me a real bad case of the willies.”

“Save the ghosts, goblins, and all the other things that go bump in the night for Halloween,” Ben admonished both of his younger children sternly. “Right now, we need to get ourselves down stairs and see to Mrs. di Cor--- ”

A loud bang emanating from somewhere downstairs rudely silenced Ben mid-sentence.

“What the hell was THAT?” Adam demanded, upon hearing a bang issue from somewhere inside the house.

“You tell ME, Brother, ‘n we’ll BOTH know,” Hoss muttered. “Say, uhhh . . . Adam . . . . ”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t s’pose . . . . ” Hoss’ voice trailed off into the uneasy stillness that had fallen over the entire household.

Before Adam could even begin to form the words, asking Hoss to finish saying what was on his mind, another bang, louder this time, roared from inside the house, followed by another.

“Dadburnit!” Hoss muttered, as he drew his gun from its holster. He pivoted, with a speed, agility, and grace, found in very few men of his mass and stature, then, ran toward the open front door.

Inside the house, the banging continued, increasing steadily in volume, coming one after the other faster and faster. Hoss burst in through the front door, with gun in hand and a thunderous scowl on his face in the very same instant, Hop Sing barreled around the corner from the dining room, brandishing his meat cleaver, screaming a long string of Chinese invectives at the top of his voice.

“Come on,” Joe urged, with a determined scowl on his face. He slipped past his sister and father, with the ease and agility of a rabbit fleeing through the brush, and bounded the rest of the way down the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.

“Joseph!” Ben tersely called to his youngest son, to no avail.

“Daggone it, Grandpa, wait for ME, willya?!” Stacy growled, as she neatly sidestepped around her father.

Ben quickly reached out and snagged hold of the sash holding her robe together, bringing his daughter’s intended dash into a situation where angels, no doubt, fear to tread to an abrupt halt, and drawing a squawk of indignant protest. “YOU STAY BEHIND ME, YOUNG WOMAN,” he sternly admonished his impetuous, headstrong daughter, raising his voice in order to be heard over the constant banging. “YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

“Yes, Sir,” Stacy meekly responded.

Downstairs in the great room, Hop Sing froze when the banging suddenly stopped, leaving in its wake an eerie silence more deafening. “Hunh?!” he grunted, as his dark eyes darted uneasily back and forth across the room.

“ . . . uhhh, Pa?” Stacy queried, as she and her father came to an abrupt halt mid way between the middle handing and the first floor. Her face was white as a sheet and her hands trembled slightly.

“Yes, Stacy?” Ben responded, laboring valiantly to keep his tone of voice low, calm, and even. He quickly balled his hands into a pair of tight fists to conceal their trembling.

“I dunno which is worse,” Stacy said, unconsciously drawing closer to Ben, “all that racket just a minute ago . . . or this . . . this quiet.”

Before anyone could find the wherewithal to act, an explosion of shattering glass broke the stillness, sounding as if every window, every piece of fine china, earthenware, and every other breakable in the house had just been smashed into thousands of tiny pieces all in the same instant. Dolores di Cordova and her young namesake upstairs threw open their respective doors, and fled from their rooms, screaming, crying, on the very edge of hysterics, with the angry, scornful laughter of a young boy echoing in their ears.

Dolores sat in the middle of the settee, with blanket and quilt loosely wrapped about her slender frame, staring into the depths of the deep amber liquid filling the snifter she clutched with trembling hands.

“Drink,” Hop Sing pressed.

Dolores closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She silently counted three, then lifted the snifter to her lips and swallowed down half its contents in a single gulp. Her throat burned. She gasped, then succumbed to a brief, yet intense coughing spasm.

Hop Sing unobtrusively took the brandy snifter from her hands. “Little more,” he gently coaxed, as the attack finally began to subside.

Dolores immediately put up her hand, and wagged her head vigorously back and forth. “N-No . . . please! No more brandy!” she half gasped, half sobbed. “Thank you.”

Ben sat in the big, port wine colored chair, over next to the fireplace, cradling Dio on his lap. Thankfully, the worst of her fear had dissipated, though the child continued to whimper very softly, with her arms clasped tight about his waist.

Dio had woken up out of a very sound sleep “ . . . small wonder, that,” Ben sardonically, silently mused, “what with all the odd goings on around here tonight . . . . ” She tearfully insisted that she saw the mean boy standing at the foot of her bed, smiling down at her; the same “mean, nasty boy” who had scared her so badly in the barn earlier. This time, she made no mention of her brother. Ben, wisely, opted not to ask about that omission.

“Pa . . . Hop Sing . . . the tea’s ready,” Stacy quietly announced, as she entered the great room from the kitchen, bearing a tray with a tea pot filled to the brim with steaming hot herbal tea, along with a pair of matching cups and saucers.

“Thank you, Miss Stacy,” Hop Sing said, favoring the girl with a weary smile. “Please . . . set down here, on coffee table.”

Stacy nodded, as did as she had been told.

“Stacy?” Dolores queried.

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“Wh-What k-kind of tea is that?” Dolores asked, still shaken and wary. “It smells rather nice.”

“It’s chamomile tea, Mrs. di Cordova” Stacy replied, as she filled both cups with tea, steaming hot.

“Chamomile little tiny flower . . . grow wild in field,” Hop Sing explained. “Make soothing tea, help relax. Maybe help sleep.”

“Thank you,” Dolores murmured softly, as she accepted cup and saucer from Stacy. She would need all the help she could get in order to salvage anything remotely resembling a night’s rest of the scant remaining hours until sunrise. As far as she was concerned, tea was infinitely preferable to brandy.

“Dolores?” Ben ventured, after she had taken a few tentative sips from the teacup in hand.

“Yes, Ben?”

“Do you feel up to telling us what happened?”

“I . . . I think so, but . . . may we speak privately?” Dolores asked her eyes straying to Dio, still curled up on her grandfather’s lap.

“Of course,” Ben immediately agreed. He glanced down at the little girl still ensconced within the protective circle of his arms. “Dio?”

“Y-Yes, Grandpa?”

“I want you to stay here with Aunt Stacy and Hop Sing,” he said in a gentle yet firm tone. “They’ll keep you safe.”

“You betcha!” Hop Sing affirmed with a big, reassuring smile and an emphatic nod of his head. “No bad boy get past Hop Sing or Miss Stacy! Hop Sing and Miss Stacy owe bad boy lumps! Many, lotsa, lotsa lumps!”

“You’ve got THAT right . . . . ” Stacy readily agreed, remembering again that lecture from Pa and the eggs smashed all over the kitchen floor.

“Pa?” Joe ventured by way of announcing himself, as he bounded down the steps a few moments after Ben and Dolores had moved into the dining room.

“Papa there, at table with Mrs. Dolores,” Hop Sing said, as he rose from the settee, where he and Stacy now sat on either side of Dio. He crossed the room, moving at a brisk pace on an interception course with Joe.

“I just got through checking the rooms upstairs,” Joe began.

“Did you find that mean, nasty boy, Uncle Joe?” Dio demanded.

Joe sighed very softly and shook his head. “Sorry, Sweetheart, but I’m afraid I couldn’t find hide nor hair of anybody.”

“You look in all rooms? Look under bed? In closet? In wardrobe?!” Hop Sing demanded, as he trotted along side Joe.

“I checked all the bedrooms,” Joe replied, “and yes. I looked in all the closets, the wardrobes, and under all the beds. My knees will never be quite the same again.”

“What about window?”

“I checked all the windows upstairs, too, Hop Sing,” Joe replied. “Every last one of ‘em’s closed, locked up tight, and in one piece.”

“Anything missing, Grandpa?” Stacy asked, as her brother sank down heavily into the blue chair. Hop Sing resumed his place on the settee beside Dio.

“Nope . . . not as far as I could see anyway,” Joe replied, “and all of the other breakable things upstairs were in one piece, too . . . just like the windows.”

“Ben, I’m sorry,” Dolores meekly apologized, as she and Ben sat down together at the dining room table, “but, Dio’s so upset, I . . . I didn’t want to say this in front of her . . . . ”

“I understand,” Ben said quietly.

“It was awful,” Dolores moaned very softly. “AWFUL! I . . . I’ve NEVER . . . EVER . . . been so frightened in m-my whole entire life.” She picked up the teacup from its saucer, sitting before her on the dining room table, with both hands. “I woke up because it was cold in my room,” she continued, after taking another sip of tea, “so cold, I . . . I could actually see my breath. When I reached down to take the quilt from the foot of my bed . . . .

“Ben, there was someone in my room!” she cried. “I SAW him . . . first out of the corner of my eyes, then . . . I . . . I saw his face . . . ITS face.” She shuddered again. “It was ghastly! White as a sheet, with dark circles under . . . under where his eyes should’ve been . . . . ”

Ben frowned. “What . . . exactly . . . did you mean when you said . . . where his eyes . . . should have been?” he probed carefully.

Dolores stole a glance over at the settee, where Dio, Joe, and Stacy seemed to be setting up a game of checkers. Satisfied that the child would, for the next few moments at least, be sufficiently occupied, she returned her attention to Ben. “He had no eyes!” she said, taking great care to lower her voice. “He . . . had . . . NO eyes . . . like . . . like a skull has no eyes! Only a p-pair of . . . of d-dark circles . . . w-with nothing!”

There was no doubt in Ben’s mind that an intruder had gained entrance to the house, though he was far more inclined to believe him to be more corporal in nature. “Dolores . . . I . . . know . . . you were frightened . . . you had every reason to be--- ”

“Don’t PATRONIZE me, Ben Cartwright! Don’t you DARE patronize me!” Dolores rudely cut him off. She slowly pushed back her chair and rose to her feet, drawing herself up to the fullness of her height. Folding her arms across her chest, she favored Ben with a withering glare that would have sent any one of her household servants, from the highest to the lowest, scurrying. “I am not a crazy woman, despite what my daughter might say to the contrary . . . I’m NOT! I KNOW I didn’t dream what I saw . . . and I didn’t imagine it, either.”

“It wasn’t my intention to suggest you had,” Ben said very quietly, meeting her glare without flinching. “Dolores, it’s clear that someone HAS broken into this house. HOW he got in, I don’t know. Yet. But, there’s no doubt in MY mind he’s of flesh and blood, just like the rest of us.”

“How do you explain the fact that he had no eyes?!” she demanded, flustered and angry. “I saw him, Ben. He had NO eyes.”

“It was dark in your room,” Ben said very quietly. “Anyone with eyes deeply set within his head would--- ”

“I KNOW what I saw!” Dolores stubbornly maintained.

“ . . . and I don’t disbelieve what you say, Dolores, but I AM saying there’s a perfectly logical explanation for--- ”

Mercifully, the sound of the front door opening cut short the escalating altercation between Ben and Dolores. The former rose to his feet, his eyes never leaving the front door, and placed himself between whoever was about to enter and his houseguest. Across the room, Hop Sing and Joe circled around to the back of the settee, positioning themselves between the front door and the two girls behind them.

Teresa entered the house first, visibly shaken, her face white as a sheet. The instant she stepped over the threshold, she moved aside and held the door open for Adam, who followed close behind, with the ominously still form of their son, Benjy, gently cradled his arms.

Ben moved away from the dining room table, and struck out across the great room towards his eldest son, his daughter-in-law, and grandson. “A-Adam?” he queried, his own face and eyes mirroring the same bewilderment and fear he saw very clearly in Adam and Teresa’s. “What---?!”

“I don’t know, Pa . . . . ” Adam replied, wagging his head slowly back and forth, his voice barely above the decibel of a soft whisper.

“We . . . we f-found him outside, Ben,” Teresa continued, her voice tremulous, “half way between the h-house and . . . and the barn. He was . . . h-he was . . . literally . . . d-down on his hands and knees . . . in the midst of a very violent spasm of dry heaving.”

“Where Mister Hoss?” Hop Sing demanded, noting for the first time that the big man seemed to be missing.

“In the barn,” Adam replied, speaking in a wooden monotone. “Saddling Chubb, I . . . I asked him to get the doctor.”

“Bring Benjy over to the settee,” Ben ordered, taking charge of the situation.

Stacy took Dio by the hand and led her from the great room to the dining room, where Dolores remained on her feet, watching through eyes round with astonishment and dread, as Adam beat a straight path from the front door over to the settee in front of the fireplace. Dio followed behind her aunt, casting an occasional furtive glance over her shoulder.

“His entire body’s colder than ice,” Adam murmured softly, as he gently placed his insensate son on the settee, then covered him with his own bathrobe.

Teresa seated herself on the edge of the coffee table. “You’re right, Adam,” she said, her voice catching as she gently took both of his hands and held them gently sandwiched between her own.

“Stacy.”

“Yes, Pa?”

“Run upstairs and grab some blankets out of the armoire in the spare room at the top of the stairs,” Ben ordered, “and grab the pillow off the bed, too.”

Stacy nodded, and bounded upstairs, taking them two at a time.

“What happened?” Ben asked.

“I wish I knew,” Adam replied. He sat down beside his son and began to vigorously rub the boy’s bare feet. “He was conscious . . . barely . . . when Teresa, Hoss, and I found him . . . in the midst of some pretty intense dry heaving. In between spasms, h-he . . . he was babbling, but none of what he said made any sense.”

“I’ll bet anything he’s faking,” Dio silently, angrily groused. “He’s FAKING being sick so he won’t get in trouble for all the mean things he did in the barn today . . . and for scaring Grandmother and me tonight. It’s NOT FAIR!”

Had she been asked, Dio would be very hard pressed to explain exactly how Benjy had managed to do all of those things, but that didn’t matter one bit. SHE knew beyond a single doubt her brother was guilty . . . and that plain and simply was that. What troubled and surprised her was none of the other grown-ups saw through Benjy’s act . . . including Ma and Pa . . . and THEY almost always knew everything!

“Pa . . . I’ve got the pillow and blankets you asked for,” Stacy said by way of announcing herself, as she leapt down over the last two steps to the floor, and strode briskly across the room.

“Thank you, Stacy,” Adam murmured, weary, frightened, yet grateful. He took the big, down pillow and carefully eased it under Benjy’s head, while Ben and Stacy covered him with the blankets.

Hop Sing, meanwhile, reached down and gently touched Benjy’s forehead. “How---?!” he gasped, then vigorously shook his head. “You say boy cold,” he continued looking over at Teresa first, then at Adam. “But here . . . boy HOT! Burning up!”

Frowning, Teresa gently placed her son’s hands down onto his chest and pulled up the blankets. She, then, leaned over and touched her lips to Benjy’s forehead. “H-Hop Sing’s right!” she gasped . . . .

He and his new friend stood together, side by side, on the fireplace hearth and watched the front door opening. The other boy shifted from foot to foot, smiling the kind of smile kids do when they have a secret they want to tell in just about the worst kind of way, but can’t for whatever reason . . . .

. . . or won’t.

“What?” he demanded, not bothering to hide his annoyance.

“Watch,” the other boy said. “Just watch.”

Mother entered the house first, then Papa, carrying something . . . no! SomeONE! in his arms. He stood on tiptoes, trying very hard to see.

“God’s nightshirt!” the other boy groused, rolling his eyes heavenward. “Can’t you stand still for two seconds?!”

“What about YOU?!” he shot right back. “With all your rutching around, trying not to laugh . . . . ”

“I am NOT!”

“Y’ ARE SO!” he yelled, then, horrified, clapped his hands over his mouth.

“They can’t hear you . . . remember!?”

“Oh . . . yeah . . . . ” He turned and watched the others . . . his parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle, his sister, and the Chinese man . . . warily, with his hands still over his mouth. They suddenly erupted into a flurry of frenetic activity, everyone scurrying about like . . . like chickens with their heads cut off. He wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but one of his uncles said that about situations like the one unfolding before his eyes.

Yet, incredibly, no once so much as glanced over in the direction of the fireplace.

“I TOLD you . . . they can’t see us or hear us,” the other boy reminded him smugly. “We can yell, scream, jump up and down . . . anything we want. They won’t yell at us, or tell us to be quiet, or punish us . . . . ”

“Are we invisible?”

“To THEM we are.”

The thought of being invisible to everyone around him was lots of fun, but it felt very strange, too. He saw Papa remove his bathrobe and place over whoever it was now lying on the settee, like a blanket. Mother sat on the coffee table, with her back to him, blocking his view of . . . of the someone Papa just carried into the house.

“Come on. Let’s go play,” the other boy urged.

“I wanna see who it is,” he protested.

“Who CARES who it is? I wanna play.”

“Now?! It’s the middle of the night!”

“So?!”

“So . . . if they catch me running around outside in the middle of the night, I’ll be in big trouble . . . worse than I’m in already.”

The other boy laughed. “You stupid head! How many times do I hafta tell ya . . . they can’t SEE or HEAR you!? They won’t even KNOW you’re outside playing! Come on! Last one out’s a rotten egg . . . . ” He ran for the door, beating a straight path . . . as the crow flies, his uncle might say . . . .

He saw with dismay that his new friend was already half way to the door. “FIRST ONE OUTSIDE’S GOTTA EAT IT,” he shouted, as he moved away from the hearth and started past Mother.

As he passed the settee, he paused just long enough to take a peek at the whoever Papa had carried into the house.

“Come ON!” the other boy impatiently called from the door.

“Just a minute!” he angrily snapped back.

“I SAID come ON!”

“Willya STOP telling me what to do?!” he angrily turned on his new friend. “I’m getting sick ‘n tired of you telling me what to do all the time! You’re NOT my . . . uhhh, m-my . . . . ” His words trailed away to stunned silence the instant his eyes fell upon . . . .

“ . . . m-me!” he whispered, staring down at his own body through eyes round with horror. “It’s . . . it’s ME!”

End of Part 2

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