THE RETURN
by
Lynne C.
Adam sat outside the way station, hoping for a chance to marshal his
thoughts, before the last leg of his journey home. The rest of the
passengers were still inside, enjoying the meal, which old Charlie had
prepared for them. The man came across as being meaner than a basket
full of rattlers, but he cooked as well as any of the finest cooks in
the fancy restaurants Adam was used to dining in, back East. Adam
leaned back against the wall of the cabin, and wondered, not for the
first time, what the reaction of the family was going to be, once he
reached the Ponderosa.
`I had good reason to leave,' he thought. `I wonder if they will
welcome me home.'
Trouble was, although Adam considered that his reasons for leaving,
were valid ones, he knew that his family didn't agree with him, well,
at the time, they didn't.
Ben, his father, just wanted to have all his sons close by, and felt
rather let down, if the truth was to be told, by Adam's desertion.
Sending his eldest away to college had not been achieved without a
fair amount of financial sacrifice, on Ben's part, and the only reason
he'd agreed, was because he could see that Adam was going to learn a
lot that could be put to good use, on the ranch.
Yet, when Adam returned, it was obvious, almost from the start, that
the place was now too small to hold the boy's full attention and he
needed other challenges. But, at the time, Hoss was only just old
enough to work full time and Joe was still at school, and so Adam did
stay at the Ponderosa, to repay his father for giving him the
opportunity for such a fine college education.
However, once Joe turned twenty-one, Adam could no longer contain his
restless spirit and he announced to the family that he was leaving,
and this time it would be for good.
"Joe can easily run the horse breaking part of the ranch, Hoss knows
more about cattle than I ever will, and we employ the best lumber camp
manager and mine operator that money can buy. You don't need me here,
anymore, and there is a great big world out there, just waiting for me
to explore."
All three Cartwrights tried to get him to change his mind, but they
all knew they were fighting a losing battle, as Adam was the most
stubborn member of the family. However, Joe came a close second, and
while Hoss and Ben had made their peace with Adam and accepted his
decision, albeit reluctantly, Joe hadn't.
On his last night, after he had said his goodbyes to Hoss and to Ben,
Adam sought out his youngest brother, who had been missing most of the
evening. He found him, as he expected to do, up at the lake, by their
mother's grave.
As Adam approached, Joe whirled around, gun in hand. When he saw it
was Adam, he holstered the gun, and said, "Don't ya know better than
to creep up on a man like that? I could've killed you."
"Sorry, Joe, I thought you would've guessed it was me. I'm leaving
at
first light, so just wanted to say goodbye. I've made Pa and Hoss
promise not to come into town, to see me off, as I hate public shows
of affection, as well you know."
"Okay, well goodbye, then, and I hope you find what you're looking
for, out in that big, wide world."
Joe turned away from Adam, as he didn't want his big brother to see
the tears that were coursing down his cheeks. He'd fought so hard,
especially with Adam, to prove that he was now a grown man, and not
just the kid brother, any longer, and he felt that the tears belied that.
Adam wasn't fooled, though, and he reached out and held onto Joe's arm.
"Don't turn away from me, buddy, not tonight, please. I know you're
angry with me and you don't understand why I have to go. Heck, I don't
really understand myself, a lot of the time, but all I do know is that
I have to do this, and if I don't, the resentment will just build up,
more and more, until I end up hating everything that we have here. I
don't want that to happen, and I want to leave here, knowing that I
can come back, some day, as I had your blessing to go."
His brother's touch and the pleading in his voice, was more than Joe
could stand. He turned around and threw himself into Adam's arms, and
the two brothers cried together.
Eventually, when they were both calm again, Joe said, "I do
understand, kinda, why you need to go, just as I know you understand
why Hoss and I wanna stay. We want different things out of life, and
it would be wrong of me to try and force you to stay, when it's
obviously not where you want to be. But just promise me this, big
brother. Don't let that pride of yours get in the way of you coming
home, if things don't work out the way you hope they will, okay?"
"I promise, Joe and I'll even spit on it," and Adam spat on his
hand
and held it out to his brother, to shake, as they used to, when they
were boys.
Joe did the same and then, after giving Adam a few moments to say
goodbye to Marie, the two brothers rode home.
Things did work out pretty well for Adam and seven years passed,
before he found the need to return to the Ponderosa. During that time,
he'd been back east to see his grandfather, Abel Stoddard, and had
lived with the old man, until his death. He'd worked as an architect
and also as a mining consultant. He'd seen his family twice in that
time, but not at the ranch. Both times had been when Ben, Hoss and Joe
were on trips away from the Ponderosa.
Adam was always good with words and he sent home regular letters, full
of news and of witty anecdotes about the people he met and worked
with. Hoss and Joe were not so adept at writing letters, but they did
reply, and Ben loved to write almost as much as Adam did, so, over the
years, an awful lot of letters passed between them.
Ben was delighted to hear that Adam was getting married, although he
was upset at not being able to attend the wedding, being that he was
ill with influenza, at the time. Adam, too, was upset not to be able
to get home for Hoss' wedding, nor for the birth of Hoss and Erin's
little girl. However, he softened the blow about not being there, by
telling the family that the reason was, because his wife was expecting
a baby, around about the same time as Erin was.
`I'm glad I won't miss anymore family events,' he thought, as he stood
up and stretched out his long, still lean frame, and ran his hand
through his beard, now made up of more grey hairs, than black.
The most recent news that Adam had to impart to his family, had been
too terrible for him to convey, in a letter, and so no one knew, yet,
that his beloved wife now lay in a grave, next to his mother and his
grandfather.
As soon as he'd felt able, Adam had wound up his affairs, sold his
house and booked his passage home. Nothing else seemed more important,
anymore, than being back on the Ponderosa, with those who loved him.
He checked the time by the watch that his father had given him, for
his twenty -first birthday, and could see that the stage would be
leaving, in a matter of minutes. He was just about to enter the cabin,
when he was almost knocked off his feet, by a small boy, who cannoned
straight into him.
"It's time to go, Daddy," said four year old Benjamin Adam Cartwright.
"Next stop's Virginia City, and then I'm gonna see my Grandpop and
Unca Hoss and Unca Joe, ain't I?"
Adam lifted his son up into his arms and gently kissed the excited
little boy.
"It's aren't I, and yes, you are, son. The next generation of
Cartwrights is going to be raised on the Ponderosa, just as the last
one was."
And that was how it was, as Adam was welcomed back, with open arms,
and young Benjamin soon captured the hearts of his grandfather, his
uncles and his aunt Erin, as well as that of his cousin Niamh.
THE END
Little Joe forever
Lynne
August 28th 2006