This story was inspired by a work of fiction titled Standing in the Light: The Captive Diary of Catharine Carey Logan, which is part of the Dear America young adult book series, written in the format of one keeping a diary or journal, covering different periods in American History. This story takes place roughly a century before the time of Bonanza, on the other side of the continent. It’s about a young girl who, along with her younger brother, was taken captive by the Lenape, a.k.a. the Delaware, Indians.

The culture shock Catharine Logan, the main character, suffers first in learning to live with the Lenape, and again upon returning to her home and family, after having been away for nearly a year caught and held my attention. In the historical overview presented at the end of the story, it was mentioned that those taken captive often felt bewildered and displaced upon their return home. Some, like the character of Snow Owl in the story, Standing in the Light, so identified and bonded with the Indians’ way of life, they did not wish to return.

“There But For The Grace of God” takes place after “Orenna,” the same winter.

There But For The Grace Of God
Part 1
By Kathleen T. Berney

A black Victoria, complete with bonnet top, hitched to a magnificent pair of large, well muscled black horses, rounded the corner at the back of the barn and pulled up into the yard, moving at a stately, decorous pace across a field of mud, dotted with patches of melting ice and snow. Inside, Clara Marlowe, aged thirty-nine, soon to be forty, fidgeted in her seat, impatient for the conveyance to be there, in front of the house. She giggled and clapped her hands, unable and unwilling to reign in the unbridled excitement and happiness waxing in her heart, even as the diminished light and warmth of the day steadily waned into fast approaching night. Her husband, aged in his early fifties, smiled indulgently at the squirming bundle of energy seated beside him, and shook his head.

“Oh HONESTLY, Carlton! Can’t you drive this thing any faster?” the woman impatiently chided the driver, a tall, slender yet well-muscled, young man, aged in his late twenties. Tonight, he wore a black suit with vest and string tie, a starched, pristine white shirt, and a pair of black boots, polished to a high gloss shine. Overtop his clothing, he wore a heavy black overcoat.

“Clara, we’ll be at the door in just a moment,” her husband admonished her in the same indulgent, yet faintly condescending tone a parent might use to scold an unruly, yet much beloved young child.

“But, Tom Darling, I can’t wait to tell Ben and the others,” she squealed with glee.

The front door of the house opened in the same instant the Victoria came to a complete stop. Ben Cartwright stepped from the warmth of his home out into the cold night air to greet his arriving guests, Tom and Clara Marlowe. Tonight, he wore his best gray three piece suit, a white shirt, freshly laundered, pressed, and starched, black string tie and boots. Candy appeared from the lengthening shadows, in the company of Kevin O’Hennessy and Robert Washington, two of the younger ranch hands, to take charge of the Victoria and the horses.

“You need to be careful and watch your step, Mrs. Marlowe,” Carlton said as he gallantly extended his hand upward toward Clara, already in her. “It’s very slippery right along here.”

A small, impatient frown creased the surface of her forehead, rendered smooth by the heavy, judicious application of cosmetics. Carlton quickly, albeit not quickly enough to satisfy the capricious wife of his employer, helped Clara Marlowe alight from the Victoria. “Thank you,” Clara murmured correctly, as she primly lifted her skits, just enough to keep her hemline from being muddied, and stepped up onto the porch.

“Tom . . . Clara, good evening,” Ben greeted his guests with a warm smile, then stepped aside, allowing them to enter the house first. “Please, come in.”

“Thank you,” Tom said quietly. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yes, it has, Tom. It’s been TOO long.”

“Ben, I promise you that Clara and I won’t let another . . . . ” He frowned. “How long HAS it been?”

“Nearly . . . six months now, I think . . . . ” Apart from a cool, polite hello in passing, the Cartwrights and the Marlowes had not really socialized with one another since the day Ben and his sons had let it be known that Stacy was related to them by blood.

Until now.

“I promise you, Ben, Clara and I won’t let so much time go by between visits.”

“Nor will I.”

Clara Marlowe, meanwhile, slipped past the two men, and dashed inside the house. She noted the blazing fire in the fireplace with a satisfied smile. It’s inviting warmth seemed to flow right from the heart of the flickering, dancing flames into every wall, every board, nail, and rafter. In the dining room, the table had been set correctly with a fresh, white linen table cloth, the crystal goblets, the good china and silver. Ben’s two younger sons and daughter, politely rose from their places next to the fireplace, and made their way across the room to greet the Marlowes.

Clara was gratified to see young Joe Cartwright wearing that nice blue suit that brought out the blue in his eyes. He looked so handsome, so debonair when he chose to dress himself properly and take a comb to the oft-unruly mop of brown curls. If ONLY she were twenty years younger . . . .

Clara vigorously shook her head to clear out that lovely, errant thought.

As for Hoss, if Clara Marlowe could have HER way, if only just for a moment, she would whisk that big galoot to a proper men’s clothier in San Francisco, or better yet, Philadelphia, or New York, and have some decent suits made up for him that fit him properly. That ill fitting, mud brown suit, that didn’t quite come together over his massive, barrel chest, with arms and pants just this side of being too short, would go into the nearest garbage pit and burned immediately.

And Stacy! Well that child was enough to make even the most patient of people throw up their hands in despair. Tonight, Clara had to grudgingly admit that the girl looked presentable enough in that sunlight yellow frock that complimented her dark hair and brought out the golden highlights of her flawless skin tone. But the simply cut, tailored dresses Stacy seemed to prefer showed up her appalling lack of fashion sense.

Granted, the girl’s ignorance stemmed from having lived in an otherwise all male household, and among Paiutes before that, heaven forbid. But, even so, a man of Ben Cartwright’s means could certainly well afford to see that his daughter was properly schooled as to the manner in which a young lady was expected to comport herself. Clara shook her head, unable, for the life of her, to comprehend why Ben chose to neglect Stacy so shamefully.

“May I help you with your cape, Ma’am?”

“Yes, Hoss, thank you,” Clara responded with a smile, as her musings on the Cartwright offspring, suddenly scattered, like frightened chickens when the coop is invaded by a predator.

Hoss gallantly held her long, black floor length cape, while Clara Marlowe gingerly eased it away from her shoulders, taking great care not to muss her hair or gown. She wore a stunning off the shoulder gown, of a deep port wine organdy, trimmed in gold lace. Her necklace, a choker, was a string of deep red garnets, each stone set in a gold mount. The thin lips of the mountings served as a frame for each stone. Matching earrings dangled from her ears.

“Light wrap, Mrs. Marlowe,” Hoss remarked as he draped the cape over the outstretched arms of his sister, Stacy. “It’s a wonder you didn’t freeze t’ death on the way over.”

“I’m very warm blooded,” Clara retorted lightly, with a smile.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Hoss murmured uneasily, making silent note of the goose bumps, stretching from her shoulders to her wrists, giving lie to her bantering words.

Ben noted Clara’s thin, near emaciated frame with dismay. The bones of her cheeks, chin, and eye sockets protruded with painful clarity through a layer of pale skin, stretched to alarming tautness. Dark eyes peering intently from deeply set, rounded eye sockets, and her scarlet lipstick, emphasizing a wide mouth and long row of white teeth, lent her face a deathly, skull like appearance. Clearly visible through the thinned, translucent skin covering her hands, face, neck, and forearms, was a vast network of interlacing blue veins. The cosmetics, so painstakingly and judiciously applied, somehow seemed to accentuate all of the imperfect flaws they were supposed to conceal.

Thomas Marlowe, quietly divested himself of his own outer garments, a heavy, fully lined fleece overcoat, a fur Cossack style hat with ear coverings, woolen scarf, and lined leather gloves. These he dutifully handed over to the waiting hands of Joe Cartwright. He was a tall, well-muscled man, despite having lived the largely sedentary lifestyle of the independently wealthy for the better part of two and a half decades. His eyes were grayish green, and his hair light brown, almost blonde, thinning on top with receding hairline.

“Dinner will be ready shortly,” Ben said, as his younger children quietly withdrew to the downstairs guestroom, carrying the Marlowes’ winter wraps. “In the meantime, why don’t we have a seat over here by the fire.”

The heady aroma of roast pork, wafting into the great room from the kitchen, kindled Clara’s appetite. Tonight was the first time in nearly five years now that she actually felt hungry.

“Ma’am, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were so full of good news, you’re gonna bust if you don’t tell someone,” Hoss remarked, as he fell in step beside Clara.

“Hoss Cartwright, YOU are a wonder!” Clara marveled, her dark eyes shining. “Do you know that?! You’re an absolute wonder!”

“Shucks, Ma’am, I don’t know so much about that,” Hoss said modestly, his cheeks and the tip of his nose flushed slightly redder than usual. “It’s the smile on your face that just won’t quit. I ain’t seen you smile like that since— ” He abruptly broke off, suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry, sometimes I talk too much.”

“Hoss, tonight there’s no need to be sorry,” Clara smiled and touched his massive forearm reassuringly. “You’re absolutely right. Tom and I DO have good news. The BEST news!”

Ben gestured for the Marlowes to take the settee with a broad sweep of his arm. “So, what’s your good news?” he asked, as he settled himself in the red leather easy chair, leaving Hoss the blue one on the other side of the coffee table.

“We got a wire, Ben, just this morning . . . . ”

Tom gently touched his wife’s hand, bringing her quick flow of words to an abrupt halt. “Why don’t we wait until Joe and Stacy join us?” he said quietly.

“Oohh, alright!” Clara acquiesced with the same intense reluctance of a two-year-old child.

“Joseph . . . Stacy,” Ben called to his two youngest children. “Get a move on!”

“Coming, Pa!” Joe emerged from the guestroom first, with Stacy following close at his heels. He took his place next to his father’s chair, while Stacy sat down on the ottoman next to the chair occupied by Hoss.

“Ok, Clara, we’re all here!” Ben said, looking over at her expectantly.

“We got a wire this morning from a Major Baldwin, garrison commander at Fort Charlotte.” The words rushed from her mouth in a torrent. “Guess what? They have Rachael!”

“Rachael?!” Ben stammered, looking from Clara to Tom through eyes round with astonishment.

“Yes, Ben, RACHAEL!”

Suddenly, the import of her words hit hard, like tumbling wall of bricks . “Well I’ll be . . . . y-you mean to tell me . . . they’ve found Rachael?!”

“Yes, Ben!” Clara squealed with glee.

“She was found living with a tribe of Chinook Indians up around the mouth of the Columbia River, in Oregon,” Tom said. “A troop of cavalry men, out on patrol, spotted her with a party of Indian women, and took her back to THEIR base at Fort Columbia.”

“The wire from Major Baldwin said Rachael arrived at Fort Charlotte a week ago,” Clara, impatient in her excitement, seized up the reins of the story. “Oh, Ben, she’s alive! She’s alive! Alive, whole, and in one piece, none the worse for wear after her horrible ordeal among those . . . those ignorant, unwashed, heathen SAVAGES.”

Clara’s accompanying shudder with grotesque melodrama, ignited a flash of red within Stacy, momentarily blinding her to everyone and everything in the room with her. She abruptly turned from the fire toward Clara Marlowe, her eyes blazing with fury.

Before Stacy could open her mouth to speak the harsh words rising swiftly to her thoughts and tongue, she felt a large massive hand gently coming to rest on her shoulder. She turned and found herself staring into the face of her brother Hoss, silently begging her to hold her peace. Stacy had never, not in all the years since she had joined the Cartwright Family, HER family, had the heart to go against the biggest and gentlest of her brothers, especially when he looked at her that way. She exhaled soft, curt sigh of exasperation and sullenly averted her gaze to her hands folded in her lap.

“Clara, the Chinook are hardly unwashed and ignorant,” Ben spoke quietly, yet with rock firm conviction. “For centuries, they, the Makah, and other tribes living through out Oregon, have been very well known for, not only their skills at hunting, fishing, even whaling, but for the extensive trade they’ve established all up and down the Pacific coast. They’re also very fine artists, musicians, and craftsmen.”

“Oh, Ben, honestly! You’re talking about uncivilized, primitive savages, who would kill you and steal all you have as much as look at you!”

Ben silently sent forth a heartfelt prayer of thanks, grateful that no matter how riled his hot-tempered young daughter became, she always obeyed the unspoken pleas of the family peacemaker to hold her peace. He took a deep breath and returned his attention to his conversation with Clara.

“The Chinook and the Makah are also known for their PEACEFUL ways,” Ben continued, taking care to keep his own voice measured, and even. “If they HAVE turned savage, then I can’t say as I BLAME them, especially if the white men in Oregon have treated them as WE’VE treated the Paiute and Shoshone HERE. In all honesty, Clara, I’D be pretty savage, myself after awhile, with people who had forced me from my home, taken from me not only the ways and beliefs of my ancestors, but . . . my children as well . . . made promises to me, only to turn around and break them, or— ”

Clara looked over at him askance. “Ben, you actually speak of them as if they were PEOPLE.”

“Clara, they ARE people,” Ben said, his own voice rising slightly, despite his valiant efforts. “Granted, their ways and ours are very different, but— ”

“Ben, we haven’t told you the best part of our news yet,” Tom interjected quietly, in the hopes of averting the looming prospect of a bitter argument between his wife and host. “Rachael will be coming home to Virginia City on the four o’clock stage day after tomorrow.”

“Tom . . . Clara, that IS wonderful news!” Ben said, with a smile that never quite reached his eyes. “I know you’ve felt Rachael’s loss very keenly over the past four years.”

“Going on FIVE years, Ben,” Clara said, her good humor restored. “Five long horrid years of waiting and not knowing . . . wondering if we would EVER know . . . well, it’s over! It’s . . . ALL . . . OVER! Day after tomorrow our Rachael will finally come home, and things will FINALLY be back the way they SHOULD be.” She wriggled and squealed like a small child, eagerly anticipating a birthday, or better, Christmas. “I’m on absolute pins and needles! I just plain and simply don’t know how I’m going to be able to stand it until four o’clock, day after tomorrow!”

“Mister Cartwright, supper ready!” Hop Sing announced tersely. “Everyone come eat while food nice and hot!” Without waiting for a reply, he abruptly turned heel and ambled back toward the kitchen.

“Well! You heard the man, uhh, Lady! . . . Young Woman, and Gentlemen!” Ben said. He was mildly surprised to note the absence of the triumphant smile that usually appeared on his daughter’s face whenever he caught himself before making that dreadful mistake of referring to her as a young lady.

“Finally!” Hoss rose, his eyes gleaming with eager anticipation of the feast ahead. “I’m hungry enough to eat a twenty mule train.”

“I’m famished myself,” Clara said.

“May I have the honor o’ escortin’ you to the dinin’ room, Mrs. Marlowe?” Hoss asked, offering his arm.

“Yes, you may,” Clara giggled with pure delight, as she demurely rested her dainty hand on Hoss’ forearm.

“Ben, I haven’t seen Clare so animated since . . . well, since we learned of Rachael’s disappearance,” Tom said, his eyes resting affectionately on his wife’s retreating form. “For the past four . . . going five years, she’s hardly eaten, she hasn’t seen anyone, except Mrs. Lind and Mrs. Sutcliff, she’s barely stepped foot outside our front door, and I honestly can’t remember when she last put more than two words together.” His smile faded. “I was afraid, Ben. I was SO AFRAID!”

“I understand, Tom,” Ben said, silently noting out of the corner of his eye that Stacy had not moved from her place on the ottoman next to the fireplace. “Why don’t you and Joseph go on in to the dining room? I’ll be right along.”

Tom nodded, then fell in step alongside Joe.

Ben, meanwhile, returned to the fireplace where Stacy remained seated on the ottoman, staring morosely into the blazing fire. He sat down on the coffee table next to her and gently touched her shoulder. “Stacy?”

She started at his touch and the sound of his voice.

“I’m sorry,” Ben immediately apologized. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“ ‘S ok, Pa,” she said in a melancholy tone.

“I’m also sorry Fort Charlotte had to come up in conversation. I know it doesn’t hold much in the way of good memories for you.”

“I do have ONE good memory about Fort Charlotte,” Stacy said. “I met you, Hoss, and Joe there.” Her voice broke on the last word.

“Are you going to be alright?”

“Are you talking about eventually or . . . or within the next few minutes?”

“Both,” Ben replied.

“I’ll be ok eventually,” Stacy sighed. “The next few minutes . . . . ” She mutely shook her head. “Pa, may I pleased be excused?”

“Alright,” Ben quietly gave permission. “We’ll talk later.”



The evening passed quickly. As the grandfather clock next to the door struck the hour of ten o’clock, Ben, Hoss, and Joe stood with their guests at the front door.

“Ben, it was a delightful evening,” Tom said, smiling broadly. He took his heavy, fleece-lined jacket from Joe, and slipped it on with a shiver. His smile faded. “I’m so sorry Stacy wasn’t feeling well.”

“Now don’t you worry about my little sister, Mister Marlowe,” Joe said, returning Tom’s smile. “That kid’s got the constitution of a ferocious grizzly bear. She’ll be over what’s ailing her in no time.”

“Joseph Cartwright, that’s no proper way to talk about a young lady even if she IS your sister,” Clara chided him lightly, as Hoss carefully placed her cape over her bony shoulders.

“Ma’am, whatever you do, DON’T EVER call Stacy that to her face,” Joe said, his eyes darting to the staircase. “I can guarantee things’ll get real ugly, real quick.”

“That’s very true, Ma’am,” Hoss agreed wholeheartedly. “Stacy hates bein’ called a young lady worse ‘n just about anything.”

“Oohh, that’s so silly!” Clara carelessly laughed it off.

“Whether it’s silly or not doesn’t matter,” Ben said with heartfelt sincerity. “What DOES matter are Stacy’s feelings.”

“Oh honestly, Ben, she’s just a GIRL for heaven’s sake! Not much more than a CHILD! You’re making a big deal out of nothing at all.”

“Clara, even though Stacy IS a girl, not much beyond childhood, what she thinks and feels matters just as much to me as what my sons, Adam, Hoss, and Joe think and feel.”

“Of course Stacy’s thoughts and feelings matter, but even YOU have to admit that . . . . well, a young girl’s thoughts and feelings are more frivolous, more capricious than a young man’s, especially since you’ve already raised three fine sons.”

“I admit no such thing,” Ben said very quietly.

“Oh, Ben, honestly! How can you possibly say that?” Clara laughed, then sobered. “Of course you’ve been widowed for quite a long time, and for many years it’s just been you and your boys. But, you take it from me, who’s been the mother of a daughter for fourteen years . . . you, by and large, take their thoughts and feelings with a grain of salt.”

“Ever since Stacy became part of this family, I’ve had this growing . . . sense? Gut feeling, perhaps? . . . that our society as a whole tells girls and women that their thoughts and feelings don’t matter to anyone. It’s the same as saying THEY don’t matter. Maybe that’s why so many have all the emotional problems they do.”

Clara looked over at Ben, open-mouthed with shock for a moment, then burst out into a peal of mirthless laughter. “Honestly, Ben, where DO you come by these funny notions?”

“Perhaps it’s insight that’s come with being the father of a daughter as well as sons.”

“Well, I’m NOT going to argue with you, Ben!” Clara said lightly with a touch of impatience. “With the prospect of Rachael’s homecoming, I’m much too happy tonight to argue with you or anyone else.”

Ben, his sons, and the Marlowes stepped out on to the porch as Carlton drove the Victoria right up to the front step.

“Thanks again for having Clara and me over this evening, Ben,” Tom said.

“Yes! It was a delightful evening!” Clara declared with an emphatic nod of her head. “Please tell Stacy I missed her company tonight, and that I hope she’s feeling better, soon.”

Ben watched as the Marlowes’ driver deftly helped Clara climb up into the Victoria then covered her with a brightly hued woolen blanket. Tom climbed in next to his wife while Carlton climbed into the drivers seat and took up the reins. Tom smiled and waved once more as the Victoria pulled away from the house, and headed out toward the road.

“Dadburn it! Pa, I hate t’ say this, but I think Hop Sing shouldda stuffed that apple in Mrs. Marlowe’s mouth, instead o’ the pig’s,” Hoss muttered under his breath, after the Marlowes had left.

“This is one time I agree whole heartedly with Big Brother here,” Joe said, scowling.

“Mrs. Marlowe’s remarks WERE uncalled for and completely out of line,” Ben said gravely, as he ushered both his sons inside out of the cold. “But, for the time being, please try and remember that Mister and Mrs. Marlowe spent the last five years not knowing whether Rachael was alive or dead.”

“Pa, surely you don’t agree with— ”

“Not at all, Joseph,” Ben quietly, yet succinctly nipped his youngest son’s passionate tirade in the bud. “But, I DO understand where they’re coming from as parents. I know Rachael’s been found and she’s coming home. But Tom and Clara faced the very real prospect of NEVER knowing what had become of Rachael. Facing the prospect of always wondering . . . of never knowing for the rest of your life— ” He shuddered. “You boys, and Stacy, too, will understand better when you have your own children.”

“Maybe, after Rachael’s been home awhile, Mrs. Marlowe’ll come to her senses an’ not think so badly about the Chinook,” Hoss suggested hopefully.

“I sure hope so, Big Brother,” Joe said with a yawn. “I don’t know about the two of you, but . . . tonight’s kind of tired me out. I’m gonna go ahead and turn in.”

“Me, too, Pa,” Hoss said. “You comin’?”

“Not just yet,” Ben said. “Good night, Boys.”

Hoss and Joe bade their father good night, then turned and made their way upstairs.

Ben slowly ambled over toward the fireplace, pausing briefly to remove his jacket, and vest. He very carefully draped both over the back of the settee before sitting down, and loosening his string tie.

His thoughts drifted to Clara Marlowe. She was as shallow as she was vivacious, her primary interests revolving around the social scene, gossip, and the latest in fashion. Clara’s attention constantly flitted from one endeavor to another, leaving a long string of unfinished projects over the years, because she had grown bored all too quickly. On the whole, she was too vapid an individual to ever harbor any kind of deep-seated hatred. That was the way she had always seemed to Ben, anyway . . . .

But tonight, her words, spoken with a malice Ben had never before heard in her voice deeply disturbed him, and stirred nebulous feelings of foreboding within. As Ben stared into the flames, still burning bright and warm in the massive, gray stone fireplace before him, his troubled thoughts drifted back to the time he, Hoss, and Joe first met Stacy at Fort Charlotte . . . .


He stood leaning against the corral fence sadly watching Stacy and his sons putting some of the horses brought to the fort from the Ponderosa through their paces. Their obvious happiness and the sheer delight of sharing each other’s company wrenched his heart. He had just gotten word from the fort commander, Major Stephen Baldwin, that Stacy would be accompanying Mrs. Vivian Crawleigh to the Lucia Hayes Churchill Home for Orphans and Foundlings in Ohio. Now, as he watched his sons and the girl he had in so short a time already come to love and think of as daughter, he wondered how in the world he was ever going to break the devastating news to them.

“Mister Cartwright?” It was Sergeant Dashel McGuinness, the man in charge of the horses at the fort, and the only one who had managed to earn a small measure of Stacy’s trust, albeit wary and guarded.

Ben started, but quickly recovered his composure. “Sorry, Sergeant, my . . . my thoughts were elsewhere . . . . ”

“I know,” Sergeant McGuinness said quietly, his eyes following the line of Ben’s vision to Hoss, Joe, and Stacy. “I need to speak with you about Stacy Louise.”

The note of urgency he had heard in the sergeant’s tone caught and held his attention. “What is it, Sergeant?” he asked, focusing his attention to the young man in blue uniform standing next to him.

“I . . . I had a sister once, an older sister who was abducted during an Indian raid out on the plains,” Dashel began haltingly. “She lived among them for two and a half, maybe three years. Lucinda was a little older than Stacy Louise is now, when SHE was taken . . . she came back about . . . about three months before her sixteenth birthday— ” He broke off, unable to continue.

Ben placed a comforting, paternal hand on the younger man’s shoulder, and offered him the same reassuring smile he would offer his own sons in a similar exchange.

“Lucinda changed during the years she lived among the Indians,” Dashel said sadly. “Their culture . . . their way of living . . . so different from our culture and our ways!”

He told Ben of the night before her sixteenth birthday, how Lucinda, sobbing with a depth of despair he had never, before or since, heard from the heart of another human being, told him of her betrothal to a young hunter known among his people as Thundering Buffalo.

“The way she described him . . . a big man, yet gentle . . . reminds me a lot of your son, Hoss, Mister Cartwright,” Dashel continued. “She loved him. I could see it in her eyes, hear it in the way she spoke of him . . . and . . . I felt it, in the depths of her grief and longing for him. It was like a thousand stab wounds to my own heart.”

A thousand stab wounds that had never healed. Ben saw that with crystal clarity.

“Ma and Pa loved Lucinda and were overjoyed to have her back, but they were repulsed by her, too. They expected her to be the same child who was taken away from them three years before. She WASN’T. She had grown and changed too much to ever go back to being the girl she was. Ma and Pa just couldn’t bring themselves to accept that. Looking back? I think they honestly saw the time Lucinda lived among the Indians as one of them as . . . as a mere footnote that could be easily erased.

“Ma and Pa figured Lucinda’d forget all about her life among the Indians if they could get her back among white people again. Her own kind was the way Pa put it. Her birthday seemed to them like a good excuse to do just that. They planned this big sweet sixteen party for Lucinda and invited all her friends.

“Mister Cartwright, it was a disaster! A horrible, horrible disaster! Her friends, the girls, chattered like a bunch of magpies about the next Saturday night dance, their dresses, who they wanted to ask them . . . while Lucinda mourned the loss of a man she loved and was set to marry. The boys talked on and on about how savage and cruel the Indians are, how the only GOOD Indian is a dead Indian . . . .

“I can still see her, Mister Cartwright. I can see her right now just as clearly as I saw her then . . . alone, silent, miserable . . . while the party guests chatted amongst themselves, sang songs at the piano, and danced without her. I don’t think they even noticed her absence. THAT broke my heart more than anything!”

“What happened to Lucinda?” Ben probed gently.

“That night? Mother stepped into her room to see how she was sleeping . . . make sure she had enough covers— ” The sergeant’s face contorted with agony, and his hands began to tremble. “I was awakened from a sound sleep by the sound of Ma screaming.” He took a deep, ragged breath. “I’d never . . . ever . . . in my entire life heard anyone scream like that. I-I hope to God I never do again!”

“Sergeant McGuinness, you don’t have to tell me this if— ”

“Yes, I do, Mister Cartwright, for Stacy Louise’s sake, I HAVE to finish!” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then another. “My father, my older brother, and I reached Lucinda’s room at the s-same time. We found Mother lying across Lucinda’s empty bed, out cold. Lucinda . . . oh dear God! Lucinda was dead, her body hanging by a sheet from one of the r-rafters over head.”

“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” Ben murmured sympathetically. “What does this have to do with Stacy?”

“Don’t you SEE, Mister Cartwright? Stacy Louise reminds me so very much of Lucinda— ” The sergeant’s eyes, glistening with unshed tears in the light of the late afternoon sun. “Y-you’ve got to find someway to take her with YOU.”

Ben remembered again the cold knot of fear that had coalesced in the pit of his stomach.

“You and your sons understand and accept her the way she is! I-I’m not sure I understand the how or why— ”

“We LOVE her very much the way she is,” Ben said quietly. “I never had a daughter, but if I did I’d want her to be exactly like Stacy.”

“Then, please! Make sure Stacy Louise goes with you, even if you have to stuff her in a saddle bag and sneak her out of this fort,” McGuinness begged. “If she goes to that orphanage in Ohio, Mrs. Crawleigh’s going to do to that girl what my ma and pa did to Lucinda . . . only it’ll be a thousand times WORSE because . . . well, deep down my parents DID love Lucinda, and honestly thought they were doing what was best for her. Mrs. Crawleigh, on the other hand, DOESN’T love Stacy Louise, any more than she loves any of the other children in living in that home she runs in Ohio. She does what she does because it’s her bounden duty to do so. Mister Cartwright, YOU’RE the only real chance Stacy Louise HAS . . . . ”

Lucinda McGuinness’ ghost rolled into Ben’s troubled thoughts, as those thick pea-souper fogs, he remembered from all years spent living in Boston, rolled in from the sea. He remembered Sergeant Dashel McGuinness showing him a photograph of his sister, just prior to their departure from Fort Charlotte. Set in a simple oval shaped wood frame, the picture showed young woman, a little younger than Stacy now, with light hair, egg-shaped face, with narrow chin and delicate features. A far cry indeed from Stacy’s dark hair, her square shaped face, with wide jaw line, and strong, even facial features.

Tonight, however, Lucinda McGuinness’ tragic ghost wore Stacy’s face in the steady stream of poignant images that appeared, then faded within the ebb and flow of Ben’s conscious thought. Images of a lonely young woman, isolated by experiences that came of having lived a life completely alien to those around her. Forbidden to speak of that life and those experiences with family and friends, and unable to return to the life she once led, she ended her all too brief time on earth at the end of a rope, in a final act of hopeless desperation.

“My parents LOVED her . . . but they were REPULSED by her, too.”

Sergeant McGuinness’ words echoed, and re-echoed through the silent recesses of Ben’s mind and thoughts.

There, but for the grace of God, could have gone his own beloved daughter. If Commander Baldwin HAD turned her over to the likes of Mrs. Crawleigh, or, if they had made that trip to Fort Charlotte a month later, as they had originally planned . . . .

Ben shuddered.

“Pa?”

The sound of Stacy’s voice drew Ben from his melancholy reverie. She stood beside him, clad now in a long, flannel nightshirt, and robe, gazing down at him anxiously.

“Pa, are you alright? For a minute there, you looked like you’d seen the ghost of someone you love very much.”

“I . . . think maybe I did,” Ben replied. He shuddered again.

“You SURE you’re alright?”

Ben looked up, his dark brown eyes meeting her bright blue ones, and held out his hand. Stacy immediately placed her hand in his, and allowing him to draw her over to the settee. It would never cease to amaze him how easily this daughter of his could read HIM sometimes, zeroing in on his thoughts, as she did just now, with more precision and accuracy than even the most deadly of gunslingers. Fey child, according to her mother.

Stacy sat down on the settee beside him, and nestled close. Ben slipped his arms around her, tonight taking comfort from her presence here and now. He silently offered up a prayer of deep gratitude for whatever circumstances had prompted Major Baldwin to change his mind at the eleventh hour, allowing the child-woman now resting securely in the circle of his arms to accompany him, Hoss, and Joe home from Fort Charlotte that day. For a time, they remained thus, watching the fire slowly diminish in companionable silence.

“I love you, Pa,” she said quietly, at length.

“I love you, too, Stacy,” Ben said. He looked down into her face, and smiled. “Ready for that talk?”

Stacy nodded solemnly.

Ben gave her an affectionate squeeze, then rose. He walked over to the fireplace and added an armload of kindling to the dying fire. Returning to the settee, he sat back down next to Stacy, and placed a reassuring arm around her shoulders. “What’s the matter?”

“I didn’t like the way Mrs. Marlowe kept on referring to the Chinook as ignorant, unwashed, heathen savages, Pa.”

“Neither did I.”

“I was ready to belt her one right in the gob.” Another Irish turn of phrase picked up from the brief time she had with her mother or possibly from Molly O’Hanlan’s feisty older sister, Colleen Nikolas. “If Hoss hadn’t stopped me, I WOULD have.”

“After they left, Hoss said that Hop Sing should have stuffed the apple in Mrs. Marlowe’s mouth instead of the roast pig’s,” Ben said.

The thought of Mrs. Marlowe lying trussed on a platter with an apple stuffed in her mouth brought a smile to Stacy’s face.

“I should’ve told her to cease and desist when she started talking that way about the Chinook. I’m sorry now that I didn’t.”

“You DID try to set her straight, but she wouldn’t listen,” Stacy said dolefully, then sighed. “Pa, between you and me? I don’t think Mrs. Marlowe EVER listens . . . not to ANYONE! Unless it’s something SHE really wants to hear.”

“Between you and me, Young Woman, you’re right, ESPECIALLY when she’s excited and happy like she was tonight.” Ben fell silent for a moment. “Stacy . . . .”

“Yeah, Pa?”

“I want you to try and understand about Mrs. Marlowe . . . . ”

Stacy opened her mouth to protest.

“Please, hear me out,” Ben said earnestly. “You CAN understand how a person feels without agreeing with him, or HER in this case. You remember how close Mrs. Marlowe and Rachael were to each other?”

Stacy nodded. “They were like two peas in a pod, as Hoss would say.”

“Then Rachael left on a trip that was supposed to last a summer . . . three months, but she ended up staying away for almost five YEARS,” Ben continued. “In all that time, Mister and Mrs. Marlowe didn’t know whether Rachael was alive or dead, and probably wondered . . . if she WAS alive, was she sick, in pain, being tortured?! Not easy things for a mother or father to live with!”

Stacy knew from the look on her father’s face that he spoke truly, even if she couldn’t fully empathize. “No, I guess not.” She fell silent for a moment, then turned and looked up at him earnestly. “Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“What’s going to happen to Rachael Marlowe?”

“She arrives in Virginia City on the four o’clock stage tomorrow,” Ben said slowly, “and I imagine she’ll go and live with her parents.”

“But what’s going to happen?”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“You heard the way Mrs. Marlowe was talking. She kept saying now that Rachael’s ordeal was all over, that things would be the way they should be, things would be the way they WERE.”

Ben nodded.

“Pa, things WON’T be the way they were. They CAN’T be!”

Ben was mildly surprised to see that she was on the edge of tears. He dug into his pocket and removed a clean, though wrinkled, handkerchief and placed it in her hands. He, then, offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “When Mrs. Marlowe spoke of things being the way they should be, I took it to mean being a family again when Rachael comes home.”

“I sure hope you’re right, Pa . . . and I’M dead wrong!”

“What did YOU think they meant?”

“I kept getting the idea that Mrs. Marlowe expects Rachael to be the exact same way she was when she left.”

Stacy’s words intensified that nagging sense of foreboding that had been with Ben since the Marlowes announced that their daughter was finally coming home.

“I think maybe what I really want to know is whether or not Rachael’s going to be alright.”

“The question of whether or not Rachael’s going to be alright is mostly going to be up to Rachael herself, Young Woman, but I think I know of a way to kind of help her along.”

“Really? How, Pa?”

“After Rachael’s had a few days to . . . well, to be with her parents, and get herself settled, maybe we could invite her out to the Ponderosa to spend a day,” Ben suggested, then smiled. “I happen to know of someone right here who, I’m sure, understands very well how Rachael might feel.”

Stacy’s entire face lit up at the prospect. “Can we, Pa? Can we really?”

“Yes, we can and we will.”

“Thanks, Pa!” Stacy favored him with a big bear hug.

“You feel a little better about things?”

Stacy nodded. “How about YOU, Pa?”

“Yes, I feel a lot better about things . . . for now,” Ben said, “and THAT being the case, Young Woman, I’d suggest we both get on upstairs and turn in. It’s well past our bedtimes.”



Clara Marlowe sat in the pale green upholstered easy chair of her bedroom, with the shades and curtains drawn against the bright morning sun, attired in a white nightgown and pink silk wrapper, belted at the waist with a matching wide sash. The carriage clock on her dresser, painted with delicate pink roses and pastel green leaves over a background of pristine white, chimed the hour of nine o’clock.

By the dim light of a sputtering oil lamp, its wick nearly spent, she gazed despondently at the framed oil painted miniature tenderly cradled in her hands. It was a painting of Rachael, given to her as an early birthday present four years ago now . . . almost five . . . .


“I’ll be in Oregon visiting Gram and Aunt Sara when your birthday comes ‘round,” Rachael had said, gleefully pressing a small package, carefully wrapped in pink paper and silver ribbon, into Clara’s outstretched hands. Her words tumbled out of her mouth one after the other, like a waterfall cascading down the face of a cliff. Her dark brown hair was unruly, as always, and her brown eyes glowed with excitement. “Well? Aren’t you going to open it?”

“Perhaps I should save it for when my birthday comes, Darling.”

“No, no, no, Mama! I want you to open it right now this very second. I want to see your face when you see what’s inside.”

“Alright, Rachael,” Clara murmured indulgently.

“It’s a little something to remember me by while I’m away.”

Clara untied the ribbon and carefully unwrapped the package, while Rachael eagerly looked on, hopping back and forth from one foot to the other. The wrapping paper slipped away revealing the exquisite miniature, framed in gold. The artist had completely captured Rachael’s joie de vivre, in the sparkling brown eyes and broad smile, just short of breaking into an infectious belly laugh.

Little did either of them realize back then, that Rachael’s trip to Oregon would last nearly five long miserable years . . . .


Clara exhaled a soft, melancholy sigh as she tenderly placed the miniature on the night table beside her chair, face down. Almost five years ago, her lively, vivacious Rachael had climbed aboard a stage to visit her aunt and grandmother in Oregon. Three days ago, a sullen, silent stranger returned to Virginia City in her stead . . . .


“Oh, Tom! Tom! Look! Here she comes! Here she comes!” Clara clapped her hands together, and jumped up and down like an excited child who had just learned that her family’s taking her to the circus. After a dreadful eternity of watching the stage move down the street toward the depot, it finally came to rest a few feet away from where she and her husband stood waiting.

The driver turned and grabbed the step stool from on top of the stagecoach, then jumped from his perch all in the same easy fluid movement. He placed the step stool on the ground, below the entrance to the coach, before opening the door.

The first to emerge was a tall woman, given to plumpness, aged in her mid-forties. Her brown hair, generously laced with strands of silver was styled in a sensible French twist. She wore a plain blue traveling suit, a matching pillbox hat, and white blouse. The woman immediately turned to Clara and Tom. “Mister and Mrs. Marlowe?”

“Yes, that’s us!” Clara said in a cool, aloof tone.

“I’m Mrs. Baldwin,” the woman introduced herself. “My husband is the commander at Fort Charlotte. I’m traveling on to Carson City to see family, so I offered to bring your daughter to Virginia City.”

Clara’s initial haughty reserve melted quickly into a demeanor of smiling sunshine and light. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Baldwin,” she gushed. “That was very kind of you.”

Mrs. Baldwin nodded curtly, then turned her attention to the stagecoach. “Rachael, you’re home.”

The young woman stepping next from the stage wore a knee length fringed buckskin dress, with boot-like moccasins, and a necklace of sea shells, coral, and carved pieces of bone. Her dark hair was plaited into a single, thick braid, reaching nearly to her waist, and she wore a headband made from hand carved beads of shell, bone, coral, and the hard to cut purple undersides of clam shells. She stiffly held her hands close to her body, just below her breasts. In them she clutched a single drawstring bag, fashioned from some kind of animal skin.

“Oh, Darling, Darling, Darling, you’re home!” Clara cried, as she caught Rachael up in her arms. “You’re finally home! Oh Rachael Darling, I’ve missed you so much!”

“Hello, Mama. Hello, Papa.”

Rachael made no move to return Clara’s embrace. Instead, she stood stiff and rigid within the tight circle of her mother’s arms. That and the sound of her voice speaking in a dull, lifeless monotone shocked Clara like a bucket of ice cold water, abruptly thrown in her face. She pulled back slightly, and looked up. Rachael’s face was an unreadable, impassive mask, set in granite. Her dark eyes were twin pools of flat, lifeless black, with not even the slightest sparkle to animate them.

“Such a long trip! You must be exhausted, Darling,” Clara whispered, her smile tremulous. “Tom . . . . ”

“Yes, Clara?”

“Why don’t you take Rachael and get her settled in the Victoria?” The words tumbled past Clara’s tips in a nervous rush. “I’ll arrange to have her luggage— ”

“ . . . . uuhh, Ma’am?”

“Yes, Driver?”

“Your daughter the squaw woman?”

Clara gasped in shock and outrage. “My daughter is most certainly and assuredly not a SQUAW WOMAN.” She furiously spat those last two words. “I’ll have you know that MY DAUGHTER happens to be a well born, genteelly raised, civilized young lady who had the horrible misfortune of having been abducted and held prisoner by savages for the last five years.”

“Clara . . . . ” Tom appeared at her side and gently touched her arm. “Clara, please don’t.”

“I MUST, Tom, I must!” she insisted, on the edge of angry tears. “Just because Rachael was no doubt FORCED to wear that . . . that . . . that FILTHY animal hide, and— ”

“Ma’am, I . . . I’m s-sorry . . . . ”

“Driver, if you would hand down our daughter’s luggage?” Tom ordered.

“Your daughter has no luggage, Sir.”

“WHAT?!” Clara shrieked, as Rachael ventured over, still clutching her animal skin bag.

“Ma’am, your daughter has no luggage,” the driver reiterated. “She boarded the stage in the company of Mrs. Baldwin with only the clothes on her back.”

“OH DEAR GOD! TOM! TOM, THOSE . . . THOSE HORRID, FILTHY SAVAGES STOLE ALL OF RACHAEL’S NICE PRETTY THINGS . . . ALL THOSE LOVELY FROCKS . . . I CAN’T BEAR IT! I SIMPLY CAN’T BEAR IT!”

“Clara, please. Let’s go home.”

Clara turned and saw Rachael standing behind Tom, her posture stiffly erect, still clutching the leather, draw-string bag in both hands.

“RACHAEL, GIVE ME THAT FILTHY THING!” Clara cried, reaching out her hand to snatch that horrid animal skin bag from her daughter’s clutches.

“No.” Rachael wrapped both hands even tighter around the bag and pressed it close to her heart, clinging to it for dear life.

“RACHAEL . . . . ” Clara reached out to snatch way that bag, a horrid, filthy thing in her own mind, a worthy candidate for the ashbin out back behind the kitchen.

Rachael, with a guttural cry, pivoted and turned the bag away from her mother, clutching it more tightly than ever.

“Rachael, you give me that . . . that THING, and you give it to me right NOW!”

“Clara . . . . ” Tom stopped her with a warning look and a gentle, feathery touch to her shoulder.

“TOM . . . . ”

“Leave it alone, Clara,” he said quietly. “For now, please! Just leave it alone!” Tom turned his attention to Rachael, still clinging tightly to her animal skin bag. She drew back when he touched her arm, but when she realized he had no intention of trying to take her bag, she fell in step beside him.

Clara stood unmoving, as if rooted to the spot, staring at the retreating backs of her husband and daughter in complete and utter shock.

“Mrs. Marlowe?”

Clara slowly, almost painfully turned and found herself looking up into the kind face of Mrs. Baldwin.

“Mrs. Marlowe, we’ve had a fair number of young people pass through Fort Charlotte who had been abducted in Indian raids in the years my husband has been fort commander,” she said quietly. “Including a young lady who went to live with a family from near here, as I recall . . . . ”

“That would be Stacy Cartwright,” Clara said irritably. “Her father is a very old and dear friend of ours . . . Mister Benjamin Cartwright, of the Ponderosa. Do you have a POINT to make?”

Mrs. Baldwin stared over at Clara Marlowe, speechless, taken aback by her sudden ire. “As a matter of fact, yes, I DO have a point to make, Mrs. Marlowe,” she said stiffly upon finding her voice. “The ways of the Indians are very different from our ways.” She shook her head. “The abductees lucky enough to return home have to learn all over again how to live in OUR society. The girls always seem to have a tougher time of it than the boys.”

“W-what are you saying, Mrs. Baldwin?”

“That Rachael is going to need a lot of time and patience to readjust.”

“Nonsense!”

“Mrs. Marlowe, please . . . . ”

Clara Marlowe drew herself up to full regal height and cast a withering glare at Mrs. Baldwin. “Mrs. Baldwin, I think I’M the better judge of what’s best for MY daughter,” she snapped. Before the other woman had even the slightest chance to form a response, Clara whipped around a full one hundred eighty degrees and flounced off after her husband and daughter at the briskest pace good deportment deemed allowable . . . .


In the dreadful three days that followed, Clara had kept up a lively stream of chatter, catching Rachael up on all the news about her friends. Her very dearest and best friend Katy Snodgres moved in on the young man Rachael had cast HER eye upon before making that trip to Oregon, barely a year after news of Rachael’s disappearance had reached Virginia City. Now the pair of them were engaged to be married.


“ . . . and they had the nerve . . . the colossal NERVE to actually send US . . . your father and me . . . an invitation to the wedding!” Clara had declared in tones of pure outrage. “Well, we’re going to cut them dead socially, I promise you that, My Darling. All of our friends will, too.”

“Why?”

Clara looked over at her daughter askance.

“Why are you and your friends going to cut Katy and . . . and . . . . ” Rachael frowned trying to recall the young man’s name.

“Desmond, Darling. Desmond Peters!”

“Why cut Katy and Desmond dead, Mama?”

Clara simply couldn’t believe her ears.

“Mama, I have not so much as THOUGHT of Desmond since the day I left here to go to Oregon.”

“Well, out of sight, out of mind, I suppose . . . . ” Clara said in a dismissive tone, the wind stolen from her angry sails.


She, then, went on to report with a faint malicious glee how poor Susan Murphy was plumper now, more than ever, poor thing, since that Sutcliff boy dumped her and how all winter long she sought solace and comfort at the table. Jenny Lind wore a bright yellow dress to the big dance last Saturday night that clashed mightily with her carrot color hair. So Clara thought! Green would have been far more complimentary, the girl should certainly know better by now . . . and Angela Griffith! That audacious little tramp brazenly threw herself at Lee Mayhew at the same dance last Saturday. “You should’ve SEEN that dress she wore! Darling, that dress was so tight, I’ll bet anything she was poured into it, and that neckline, WELL! It was so low cut, it left nothing . . . virtually NOTHING to the imagination.”

Rachael seemed uninterested, even bored.

Tom seemed to have better luck with Rachael conversationally. He, at least, was able to occasionally draw out one-syllabled answers to questions. It seemed the days, when Clara and Rachael wholly dominated mealtime conversation with gossip, talk of the next social functions, what they were going to wear, were gone.

Worst of all Rachael had actually flat out rejected all the lovely new clothes Clara had purchased for her, without so much as sparing them so much as a passing glance. She insisted on wearing that appalling Indian costume, until Clara in an act of pure desperation, decreed that horrid thing was to be taken out to the trash pit and burned. Rachael shrieked at the top of her lungs, like some kind of a wild animal, fighting literally tooth and nail, with the ferocity of an enraged cougar, to keep that . . . thing. It took all six of the upstairs maids to hold her down. Everyone, including herself, sustained cuts and bruises, courtesy of her daughter’s kicking legs, flailing fists, and raking nails. Rachael had even gone so far as to bite poor little Mary Lu’s wrist.

Clara was and still remained mortified.


A discreet knock on her bedroom door roused Clara from her melancholy musings.

“Yes?”

“Catherine, Ma’am. You have two visitors come to call. Jenkins has shown them to the drawing room.”

“Who is it?” Clara groaned. She had every intention of instructing the maid to inform the morning callers waiting in the drawing room downstairs that she was terribly indisposed.

“Ma’am, it’s Ben Cartwright and his daughter, Stacy.”

Her posture straightened. “Did you say Ben Cartwright?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Have Jenkins offer them refreshment and tell them I’ll be there directly.” Clara flew out of her chair like a shot. “Stacy!” she murmured. “Stacy was abducted and lived among the Paiutes . . . maybe SHE can reach poor Rachael.” She bolted out of her chair like a shot and stuffed every strand of her mussed hair under the confines of the matching pink mobcap, lying across her lap. Clara applied a touch of rouge to her lips, and deemed herself half way presentable.



The Cartwrights rose politely when Clara Marlowe finally entered the room.

“Good morning, Ben . . . Stacy . . . . ” It took a supreme effort of will not to grimace at the Cartwright daughter’s dreadfully appalling mode of dress. The girl had actually accompanied her father here, to pay a morning call, clad in a pair of britches and boots like a common ranch hand. Of course, she had to admit, that Ben, himself, wasn’t what she would call properly dressed for a morning call, either.

“Good morning, Clara,” Ben smiled, removed his hat and nodded.

“Good morning, Mrs. Marlowe,” Stacy said politely.

“I DO hope you’ll both forgive me for receiving you thus,” Clara said as she gestured for her guests to sit down. “I’m afraid I’ve been somewhat indisposed over the last couple of days. Looks like Stacy’s infirmity the other night was contagious.” This last drew a very sharp glance from Stacy.

“Clara, I’M the one who should apologize for dropping in on you unannounced like this,” Ben apologized quickly. “We’ll come back another time, when you’re feeling better.”

“That’s quite alright, Ben,” Clara said quickly. “I AM feeling much, MUCH better today.”

“Stacy and I thought maybe Rachael might like to come out to the Ponderosa, and spend the day with us,” Ben said, as he and Stacy seated themselves on the settee.

“That’s a wonderful idea!” Clara declared with a smile. She lowered her voice to a confidential decibel. “The poor dear hasn’t set foot outside this house since she arrived home three days ago, and she woke up this morning feeling a trifle under the weather herself.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Clara. Perhaps we should postpone things until Rachael’s feeling better.”

“Nonsense, Ben! It’s probably passed by now, it always does! In any case all that nice fresh air and sunshine will do Rachael an absolute world of good! It might even be just the fix-me-up to CURE whatever’s ailing her!” Clara shot right out of her chair to her feet. “I’ll just ring Marjorie, and ask her to go up and fetch Rachael down.”

“Mrs. Marlowe?”

“Yes, Dear?”

Stacy bristled against the faint condescending note she heard in the woman’s voice. “Would you mind if I went up to see Rachael?”

Clara frowned for a moment, then brightened. “Yes, that would be lovely having the invitation come from you directly. I’ll have Marjorie take you up.” She bounded across the room, and pulled the yellow and white tasseled cord hanging alongside the fireplace.

Marjorie Klein, the Marlowes’ head housekeeper, appeared a scant moment later. Aged in her early thirties, she was of average height, with a mop of honey brown ringlets cropped close to her head. She wore a dark brown skirt, simply tailored, and a white long sleeved blouse, with a high collar, buttoned to the very top button. “Yes, Ma’am?”

“Marjorie, please escort Miss Cartwright upstairs to Rachael’s room.”

“Yes, Ma’am. If you’d come with me, Miss Cartwright?”

Stacy rose, and followed the maid out of the drawing room. “Ma’am, would you do me a big favor?” she asked as they made their way toward the stairs.

“I would be more than happy to do so, Miss Cartwright.”

“Then please, drop the Miss Cartwright? That’s my pa’s cousin’s name.” She grimaced. “MY name’s Stacy?”

“Oh, yes, Miss Clarissa Cartwright! I’ve certainly heard all about HER last visit to Virginia City!” The maid smiled. “I’ll agree to your request on one condition.”

“ . . . . and that is?”

“YOU’LL drop the Ma’am and call me Marjorie.”

Stacy grinned. “You have yourself a deal, Marjorie.”

“I have to tell you, Stacy, I’m not at all sure how successful you’re going to be coaxing Miss Marlowe from her room,” Marjorie said archly.

“Oh?”

“She hasn’t stirred out of there since Mrs. Marlowe stripped that heathen animal skin dress she’s been wearing right off her back and gave the foul thing to the scullery maid to burn.”

“WHAT?” Stacy’s heart plummeted to her feet in a fast free fall.

“Mrs. Marlowe had all the upstairs maids hold Miss Marlowe down while she herself got a pair of scissors and cut that smelly thing right off her body, piece by piece,” Marjorie recounted the incident with relish, mistaking Stacy’s horror for eagerness to hear more juicy gossip about the oh-so-perfect Marlowe Household. “That girl fought like a wild cat, biting and scratching. Stacy, there was six of us holding on to that girl! SIX! Hanging on for dearest life tryin’ to keep her pinned down. I don’t know where in the world she ever came by all that strength . . . . ”

“Desperation!” Stacy snapped. “Pure, simple, ornery, cussed desperation!”

“That girl put up a real fuss ‘n a holler, too.” Marjorie blithely rambled on, as if Stacy had not spoken. “Gracie O’Leary, our cook, thought sure it was the cry of the Banshee, comin’ to get her. The poor dear was white as a sheet! Slept that night with a crucifix nailed to her door, Bible under her pillow, and rosary clutched tight in both hands.” At this, Marjorie laughed out loud.

In Stacy’s ears, the sounds of Marjorie’s mirth seemed harsh and grating, very much like the sound of Miss Parsons’ long fingernails scraping across the school blackboard in her bid to call for order when the students were at their unruliest.

At length, Marjorie shook her head, her mirth fading, much to Stacy’s great relief. “Now don’t get me wrong! I’m pleased as punch to see the child back home where she belongs, safe ‘n sound. Honestly, I AM! But, all the same, it’s been awful! Awful for Miss Marlowe and even worse for MRS. Marlowe.”

“I was afraid of this.” As horrendous as the worst of her fears concerning Rachael Marlowe had been, Stacy wished fervently that things had gone that well. Everything that Marjorie had told her with such relish and glee was far worse than anything she could have possibly imagined.

“I’m sorry, Stacy, I didn’t catch that.”

““I just said . . . maybe time out in that NICE FRESH AIR we have out at the Ponderosa will do Rachael some good like Mrs. Marlowe said,” Stacy said wryly.

“I hope so. I really and truly hope so.” Marjorie sighed and shook her head dolefully. “I feel so SORRY for the Marlowes, especially the Missus. Here they are, so looking forward to having their daughter back home . . . and they end up with a . . . with a heathen savage.” She cast a quick, furtive glance over her shouldered, then lowered her voice. “Don’t ever tell the Mister and Missus I said this, but . . . well, I can’t help but think it would have been far more kind and merciful if the girl had just plain turned up DEAD!”

Stacy, her face a veritable dark, menacing thundercloud, sidestepped slightly, placing her foot and ankle directly in Marjorie’s path. The maid tripped, as intended, shrieking at the top of her lungs as she fell, very much, no doubt, like the banshee Grace O’Leary believed poor Rachael to be. The maid landed on her hands and knees. “How very clumsy of me,” Stacy murmured with exaggerated contrition, her face a touch too angelic. “Here, let me help you up.”

Marjorie regarded the girl with a suspicious glare, as she shifted back onto her rump.

“Please?” Smiling, Stacy leaned down and extended her hand. She also firmly placed her foot strategically on the maid’s skirt, near the hemline.

“It’s the LEAST you can do,” Marjorie murmured in a condescending tone as she reached up and took Stacy’s hand.

Stacy pulled Marjorie to her feet, unable to quite hold back the smile as the unmistakable shriek of ripping material filled the air. Half the skirt had pulled away from the waistband, exposing an extensive view of a bright red silk petticoat. “Lovely shade of red, Marjorie.”

Marjorie gasped, her face purple with rage. “Miss Cartwright, you will find Miss Marlowe’s room at the end of the hall on the right,” she informed Stacy with stiff indignation as she gathered up the material of her skirt to cover the exposed slip. With that, she abruptly turned heel and flounced back down the hall in the opposite direction.

“I love you, too, Ma’am,” Stacy blithely called after the retreating maid.

Stacy quickly and easily located the fast closed door to Rachael’s bedroom. She paused, just long enough to wipe the smile off her face, before knocking.

There was no response.

Stacy knocked on the door again. “Rachael? It’s Stacy Cartwright. May I come in?”

“S-Stacy?”

“Yes, Rachael.”

“Is Mama with you?”

Stacy winced against the terrible anger and resentment she heard in Rachael’s voice. “No,” she said, “your mother’s downstairs chatting with my pa.”

The door immediately opened. A young woman, a couple of years older than Stacy appeared, dressed in a long dark green skirt and a plain white blouse. “Come in.” The words of Rachael’s invitation were clipped, almost terse.

Stacy stepped into the room and turned just as Rachael quietly closed the door behind her.

“Why . . . . ” Rachael frowned. “Why have YOU come here, Stacy Cartwright?”

“I came to invite you out to the Ponderosa for the day.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to come.”

A glance at Stacy’s face and eyes told Rachael that she spoke truly. “You have lots of forest, lakes and . . . and snow this time of year . . . on the Ponderosa,” she said quietly, her granite-like impassive mask slipped.

“Yes. If you’d like, we can ride out and see them.”

The mask shattered, revealing nearly the same depth of despair Stacy saw in the faces of her foster mother, Silver Moon, and her grandfather, Chief Soaring Eagle, just prior to their capture by the U. S. Army. Stacy felt the acrid stinging of tears in her own eyes.

“I . . . w-will come with you,” Rachael murmured haltingly. “Wait!” Two bounding strides carried her to the side of the canopied bed dominating the center of the room. She noiselessly dropped to her knees and reached under the bed. Rachael rocked back on her knees a few moments later, clutching her precious leather drawstring bag in hand. “I will go with you now.”



“Oh, Ben, it’s been so AWFUL!” Clara, meanwhile, paced the drawing room floor, wringing her hands in complete and utter despair. “I ask Cook to fix Rachael’s favorite foods, but she WON’T eat! The day before she came home, I spent the whole day shopping for nice clothes! The WHOLE DAY, Ben! Rachael won’t even look at them, let alone WEAR them. I offered to take her shopping, let her pick out her own wardrobe, but she REFUSED. Can you BELIEVE that?!”

“Clara, I— ”

“In fact, the only thing she WOULD wear . . . INSISTED on wearing . . . was that horrid, shapeless, unflattering, smelly piece of heathen animal skin!” Clara shuddered with a repulsive grimace. Her despair quickly gave way to righteous indignation. “I TRIED to be patient AND understanding, Ben, I DID! I tried so HARD, but in the end . . . well, I FINALLY had to take matters into my own hands.”

Ben’s heart sank as he heard the worst of Stacy’s fears concerning Rachael being confirmed. “Wh-what did you—?”

“I stripped that foul, wretched thing off her body myself!” Clara declared stoutly, with an emphatic nod of her head. The horrified look on Ben’s face quickly dispelled her ire, and put her on the defensive. “Ben, it was for her own good,” she whined. “Surely you see that?”

“T-to be absolutely honest, Clara . . . I-I’m not so sure I— ”

“Last night, Ben,” she rushed on, completely oblivious to Ben’s attempts to respond, “I suggested that we have a nice little intimate soiree, nothing big and elaborate, mind. We could line up someone to play a short piano program in the music room, serve up a nice sit down supper, and invite some of her close friends. I think that would be a wonderful way to ease her back into proper society, don’t you, Ben?”

Ben’s thoughts immediately zeroed in on Sergeant McGuinness’ account of his sister, Lucinda’s tragically disastrous sweet sixteen party. “Clare, have ANY of Rachael’s friends been around to see her?”

“Oohh, one! A young lady named Katy Snodgres, though as far as I’M concerned . . . with friends like Katy, who needs enemies!”

“What about the friends you plan on inviting to this shindig you’re putting together?”

“SHINDIG?!” Clara laughed, high pitched with a harsh, grating edge. “Oh, Ben, you’re just too priceless sometimes! I’m planning a SOIREE. There’s a world of difference— ”

“Alright!” Ben said with a touch of exasperation. “The friends you intend to invite to your soiree . . . have any of THEM been around to see Rachael?”

“Well . . . noooo . . . but they DO ask about her, whenever I’m in town,” Clara whined defensively. “In any case, Rachael was so indifferent, she . . . well, she just shrugged the idea right off.”

“Maybe throwing a party and inviting a lot of people is rushing things a tad, Clara,” Ben pointed out in a quiet, gentle tone.

“Oh, Ben, for heaven’s sake!” Clara angrily stamped her foot. “I SAID a SOIREE, NOT a party! A small intimate SOIREE! And I didn’t say a lot of people, either. I said just a FEW CLOSE friends. Rachael NEEDS to be with people, Ben, she desperately needs to be back among her own kind of people, and the sooner the better. Surely you can see that?!”

“ . . . she desperately needs to be back among her own kind of people.”

“ . . . get her back among white people again. Her own kind was the way Pa put it.”

The framed photograph of Lucinda McGuinness rose again within his angry, troubled thoughts, as he remembered seeing it gently cradled in her brother’s outstretched hands. This time, she wore Rachael Marlowe’s face.

“Ben!?”

Ben vigorously shook his head to clear it of the disturbing vision swimming before his inward sight. “Clara, I-I’ sorry. I was only trying to say is that . . . well, maybe Rachael needs time to readjust. Time, AND a lot of patience!”

“It’s amazing, Ben, it really and truly IS amazing!” Clara’s voice was ice cold. “Ever since Rachael’s come home, nearly everyone, it seems, is just chock FULL of advice as to what’s best for MY daughter, and I resent it. Do you hear? I RESENT it!”

“Clara . . . . ”

“No, Ben! I won’t have it! I won’t!” Clara declared petulantly. “I am Rachael’s mother. Surely I know what’s best for her!”

“Clara, I’m not questioning your adequacy as Rachael’s mother,” Ben tried to explain. “All I’m saying is that Rachael’s grown used to a completely different way of living. She needs TIME to readjust. It’s NOT going to happen overnight.”

“I want MY Rachael back, Ben.” Clara’s voice caught on the utterance of her daughter’s name. “I want MY little girl back the way she WAS. I want all the misery I’ve suffered for the last five years to STOP! I want this whole thing to be OVER, and I want it to be over RIGHT NOW!”

“Clara, Rachael may not be able to go back to being the girl she was, even if she WANTS to,” Ben said quietly.

“Even if she wants to?!?” Clara looked over at Ben as if he had just taken complete leave of his senses and sprouted a pair of purple antlers in the bargain. “Of COURSE, she wants to for heavens’ sake! Why in the world would she NOT want to?”

“How old was she when she left?”

“Fourteen,” Clara said morosely.

“That makes her eighteen, going on nineteen years old now. There’s a world of difference in those four and a half years, Clara! Rachael’s NOT a little girl anymore. Like it or not, she’s a full grown WOMAN.”

“Ben, stop it! Just STOP it, you hear?” Clara said peevishly, clapping her hands firmly over her ears. “You’re distressing me.”

“I’m sorry, Clara,” Ben immediately apologized.

“Pa?” It was Stacy. She stood just inside the open door to the drawing room, with Rachael standing beside her, clutching her leather bag close to her chest.

Clara exhaled a short, curt exasperated sigh upon seeing the animal skin bag clutched in her daughter’s hands. “Rachael, I don’t think you need to take that thing with you to the Cartwrights,” she said, venting her growing ire and frustration. She put out her hand to take it.

“NO!” Rachael shouted, clutching the bag tightly to her chest once again.

“RACHAEL . . . ”

“NO!”

“HONESTLY!” Angry and frustrated, Clara stamped her foot hard enough to rattle every piece of bric-a-brac in the drawing room.

“Clara, please, it’s alright,” Ben quickly intervened, as Stacy quietly interposed herself between Rachael and her mother.

Clara sighed and shook her head. “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand this at all. She must have a dozen lovely, perfectly suitable hand bags upstairs in her room, yet she insists on carrying THAT hideous thing around.”

“Rachael, may I see?” Stacy asked. “You can just turn it around, if you want.”

Rachael nodded warily, but nevertheless, turned the bag around so that Stacy could see the front. The dark brown intricate lines and geometric patterns came together to form the graceful body of a doe. The artist had used the color of the hide in his or her work, and white to accentuate and high light. Pieces of shell, and beads, carved from deer bone, were festooned to the fringe trim.

“That’s beautiful!” Stacy said softly. “Pa, come see!”

Ben walked over and took up position beside his daughter. He smiled, as he studied the deer’s face and sinuous body painted on the front of the bag. “Stacy’s right,” he said, addressing his comments to Rachael directly. “That IS very beautiful. Did YOU paint it?”

A bare hint of a smile tugged at the corner of Rachael’s mouth, as she solemnly shook her head. “My Chinook mother, Lammieh Towakh Moon [i], made this medicine bag as a gift to me. The name she gave me is T’kope Mauitsh, which means White Deer.”

“Rachael, I am your mother, NOT that ignorant savage who held you PRISONER for almost five years,” Clara said through clenched teeth, making no effort to conceal her rancor and disdain, “and I thought I made it clear that I do NOT want to hear that . . . that heathen name they called you spoken in this house EVER, EVER, again.”

Ben duly noted the growing, smoldering anger in Stacy’s eyes. “I, uh . . . think we’d best be going,” he said quickly, taking his own daughter and Rachael firmly by the hand. “We’ll leave you to relax and get some rest, Clara. I hope you’ll be feeling better soon.”

“Thank you, Ben,” she said in a stone cold voice. “Tom and I will see you later this evening, when you bring Rachael back.”



“Mister Cartwright, dinner time soon!” Hop Sing announced as the buckboard pulled up in the yard. “Mister Cartwright and Miss Stacy wash.” His dark eyes came to rest on Rachael sandwiched between Ben and Stacy. “You, too, Missy. You wash for dinner.” He punctuated his words with an emphatic nod of his head, then turned heel and ambled back into the house.

“I’ll take care of the horses, Mister Cartwright.” Candy appeared at Ben’s elbow as if by magic.

“Thank you, Candy.” Ben quickly climbed down, then turned to offer Rachael a hand getting down.

Rachael tucked her medicine bag under one arm, then reached to take Ben’s extended hand with the other. She jumped down, landing lightly on both feet. In the same instant her feet touched the ground, a wave of dizziness hit. She wavered.

Ben acted instinctively, planting his feet firmly on the ground, at roughly shoulder width apart, bracing himself. “It’s all right, Rachael,” Ben said quietly, as she collapsed heavily against him.

“Rachael?” Stacy immediately leapt down from the buggy, lightening swift as a cougar. Two brisk, giant steps brought her to the other side of Rachael. Noting Rachael’s pale face and rapid, shallow breathing, she looked over at her father, her eyes round with apprehension.

“Stacy, you run on inside . . . have Hop Sing bring smelling salts,” Ben ordered, as he hefted Rachael into his arms.

Stacy nodded, then bolted toward the house.



Ben spotted Hop Sing standing next to the settee, with the vial of ammoniated smelling salts in hand, as he entered the house, carrying Rachael’s limp, inert form. Stacy stood a little behind Hop Sing, watching anxiously.

“What wrong with Missy?” Hop Sing queried, as Ben carefully placed Rachael on the settee.

“I don’t know,” Ben shook his head. “She jumped down from the buggy, then . . . collapsed.”

Hop Sing removed the cap from the vial in hand, moving in as Ben stepped back. He seated himself on the massive coffee table next to the settee and waved the open vial several times under Rachael’s nose. A soft, barely audible groan rose from Rachael’s throat as she stirred, and slowly opened her eyes.

“Rachael? Are you all right?”

Rachael’s head turned toward the sound of Stacy’s anxious voice. As her vision cleared, the lines and planes Stacy’s face, gazing down at her from over the back of the settee, sharpened from nebulous clouds of golden peach, framed by an ebony halo, to crystal clarity. The girl’s face, a shade or two paler than usual, and bright blue eyes, round with worry and anxious concern touched Rachael deeply. “I’ll . . . I’ll be all right, Stacy,” she said, with a wan smile. “I woke up this morning, not feeling well, but . . . the worst is actually over, believe it or not.”

Stacy stared down at Rachael dubiously.

“Honest. I’ll be all right.” Rachael moved to sit up.

“Rachael, maybe you should lie still for a few minutes?” Ben suggested. “Sitting up too quickly can cause you to pass out again.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have any peppermint or catnip tea around . . . would you, Mister Cartwright?” Rachael asked. “My stomach’s feeling a little upset . . . . ”

“Missy know about herbs?!” Hop Sing queried, looking down at her in surprise.

Rachael slowly turned her head toward Hop Sing, then nodded. “I learned when I lived with the Chinook,” she said wistfully. “My . . . my adoptive mother, Lammieh Towakh Moon was a healer. SHE taught me.”

“Missy lie still. Hop Sing make tea.” Without further preamble, Hop Sing turned heel and ambled back toward the kitchen.

“Lammieh Towakh Moon,” Stacy repeated the name of Rachael’s Chinook mother slowly. “Sounds pretty. What does it mean?”

“Wise Woman of the Bright Moon,” Rachael replied, then gasped. “Oh dear!”

“What is it, Rachael?” Stacy asked.

An anxious frown knotted Rachael’s smooth brow. “My medicine bag!”

“You probably dropped it when you collapsed,” Ben said quietly. “You stay still. I’ll go find it.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright.”

Stacy moved to the coffee table, taking the seat vacated by Hop Sing a few moments before. “Rachael, are you SURE you’re going to be all right?”

“Yeah, I’ve been . . . well, a bit under the weather since before I left the Chinook. It’s worse when I wake up in the morning, but it passes.”

“If you’d like to see Doctor Martin . . . . ”

“I’ll be all right, Stacy, honest!” Rachael’s voice broke on the last words, as an overwhelming desire and need to be with her Chinook mother suddenly seized her.

Stacy took Rachael’s hand in both of hers. “You miss Lammieh Towakh Moon very much right now, don’t you.” It was a statement of fact, not a question.

“Y-yes. Stacy, how did you know?”

“My mother, the one who gave me life, said I was fey,” Stacy said quietly. “That’s Irish, I think for what Silver Moon used to say was touched by Great Spirit.”

“Was Silver Moon your Paiute mother?”

Stacy nodded.

“I miss Lammieh Towakh Moon terribly,” Rachael said quietly, her eyes welling up with new tears. “Do you miss Silver Moon?”

“I . . . I think about her a lot,” Stacy said evasively.

“Were you taken by the Paiutes?”

“No, I wasn’t taken,” Stacy replied. “For the first five, maybe six years of my life, I lived with my grandfather and grandmother, my MOTHER’S father and mother. One night my uncle came, and shot them all. My grandparents and two of my aunts! After he killed them, he burned down the house to cover up what he had done. He would have killed me, too, if Aunt Mattie hadn’t put me out the window and told me to run.”

Rachael looked over at Stacy, her eyes round with horror. “Why?”

“He wanted money that belonged to my grandmother. She had drawn up a will, leaving all her money to my aunts, Elsie and Mattie . . . and to me,” Stacy replied, her voice shaking. “I was a child, of course. My aunts never married. They had always stayed with their ma and pa . . . and looked after them.”

Rachael, much to Stacy’s surprise, placed her other, free hand over top Stacy’s, offering reassurance and a measure of support. She smiled her thanks.

“After . . . after Aunt Mattie put me out the window, the only thing I remember is running as fast and as hard as I could. Silver Moon found me asleep near their cooking fires the next morning. For a long time, I couldn’t remember what had happened, who I was, where I’d come from, or the people I lived with. The memories were too frightening!”

Stacy could feel her heart pounding wildly against her chest as she recounted the events of that terrifying night a decade ago. “I had a pendant on a chain with me, a gold, heart shaped pendant, with the name Stacy Louise engraved on it. One of the people was able to read English. Silver Moon, who had no children of her own, took me to live with her and her husband, Jon Running Deer. She gave me the name Stacy Dancing Colt.”

“Did Silver Moon adopt you?”

“No, we didn’t have any ritual of adoption,” Stacy said quietly. “A couple of nights after I blundered into Chief Soaring Eagle’s camp, Silver Moon was told by Great Spirit in a dream that I was placed into her care as a trust, until the time came for me to go live with my father.”

“Really?”

“Those were Silver Moon’s exact words. She was also given a sign by which she would know my father. It was a tall PONDEROSA pine tree.”

“Honestly?”

Stacy nodded.

Rachael smiled. “That’s amazing.”

“Silver Moon promised me that she would be my mother and the others my family until I left them to go live with my father, and they were. No one’s ever loved me more . . . except Pa, Hoss, Joe, Hop Sing . . . and Adam, and HIS family.”

“Lammieh Towakh Moon’s daughter, Olhaiyu Klutsma, died of pneumonia two winters before I came,” Rachael said. “I given to Lammieh Towakh Moon as her daughter.”

“Lammieh Towakh Moon adopted you?”

“Yes,” Rachael said as she moved once again to sit up. With Stacy’s able assistance, she slowly and cautiously eased herself from a prone to a sitting position on the settee.

Hop Sing quietly entered the room with cup and saucer in hand. The cup was filled nearly to the brim with clear, steaming hot peppermint tea. “Hot tea for Missy,” he said placing the cup and saucer in Rachael’s hands. “Missy drink while hot. If Missy want more, plenty in kitchen.”

“Thank you very much, Hop Sing,” Rachael said with a smile.

“Missy welcome,” Hop Sing returned her smile. “Maybe Missy come in kitchen, talk about herbs later.”

“I’d like that, Hop Sing. I’d like that very much.”

“Missy drink up tea,” Hop Sing admonished her. “Missy drink while hot.” With that he, turned heel and left the room.

“Rachael, you should considered yourself highly honored.”

Stacy and Rachael turned, and found Ben standing behind the settee, holding Rachael’s medicine bag carefully, yet firmly in both hands.

“Hop Sing doesn’t invite just anybody into HIS kitchen. Most of the time, he won’t even let US in.” Ben walked toward the red, leather chair facing the settee. He paused long enough to place Rachael’s medicine bag in her outstretched hands, before sitting down himself.

“Thank you so much, Mister Cartwright, for getting my medicine bag,” Rachael said gratefully.

“You’re welcome,” Ben responded with a smile.

“Rachael?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“Were YOU taken in an Indian raid?”

Rachael leaned against the back of the settee, shaking her head. “No, and I wasn’t held prisoner, either, I don’t CARE what Mama says!

“The stage I was on was robbed. The thieves took everything, and burned the coach. Then . . . then they lined the passengers and driver up and shot everyone, one by one. A silver dollar . . . it was a pendant given to me by Mama, with my birth year on it . . . well, it deflected the bullet by a real stroke of luck, or freak of nature, however you want to look at it. I . . . I was the only one who survived. I played dead until long after I heard the hooves of their horses riding away.

“Then, I got up and just started walking,” Rachael continued. “I had no idea in the world where I was, or how to get to where I was supposed to be going. I was afraid to stay where I was . . . among the dead. I was also afraid the men who robbed us and killed all the others might come back. So I started walking.”

Rachael felt Stacy’s hand squeezing her own, a gentle reminder of her strong, reassuring presence. Over in the big, red leather easy chair, Ben Cartwright sat, waiting patiently for her to resume. Between the two of them, it was almost like being with Lammieh Towakh Moon once again.

“I don’t know how long I wandered, lost . . . later sick, scared out of my mind the entire time. I couldn’t find much to eat.” A wry, ironic smile spread across Rachael’s lips. “My, umm . . . upbringing as the daughter of wealthy socialites didn’t exactly lend itself to surviving in the wild. Lammieh Towakh Moon told me later I was found by a hunting party, near death from starvation and illness, babbling, clearly out of my ever lovin’ mind. I know I was taken at once to Lammieh Towakh Moon. She was the clan healer, and . . . she nursed me back to health.”

“How was it for you among the Chinook?”

“I was angry at first . . . and resentful,” Rachael began haltingly. “I was afraid, I missed Mama and Papa, and all my friends here dreadfully. I knew they’d all be as worried about ME as I was about THEM. I had no idea in the world how to find my way back. That first year, I took a lot of my fear and anger out on Lammieh Towakh Moon. I regret that, Stacy . . . Mister Cartwright. I . . . I regret it with all my heart.”

“The woman who made and painted your medicine bag put a lot of her love into that,” Stacy said quietly. “I can see it in the way it was made and put together. I felt it, too, when you let me touch it. Anyone who loved you that much surely understood how you must’ve felt.”

Rachael nodded. “She WAS very kind to me. It took me the whole first year to be able to respond to her love and kindness. She taught me many things, Stacy. Lammieh Towakh Moon is . . . w-was . . . a powerful healer. She took me into the forest many times and taught me about plants, the ones that heal . . . what they heal, how to harvest them, dry them, make them into teas and ointments for healing . . . even how to make them into paint for . . . for decorating.

“Whenever I went with Lammieh Towakh Moon to gather plants, I felt peace inside myself, for the first time in my life.” As Rachael continued, her eyes misted over and a peaceful, beatific smile spread across her face. The stuccoed walls and massive stone fireplace in the Cartwright home faded into the tall, pine forest and sparkling water where the Columbia River joined the Pacific Ocean. “It took me a long time to learn the language, but somehow, Lammieh Towakh Moon and I didn’t have to talk a lot of the time. The silences between us were filled with a lot of love, happiness, and peace.”

Pine trees, river, and ocean slowly and inevitably faded again into stuccoed walls and massive gray stone fireplace. “The others accepted me at first because I was daughter of Lammieh Towakh Moon. As I learned her healing ways, and began to help her in her healing work, they accepted me as T’kope Mauitsh.” Rachael lapsed into thoughtful silence for a moment. “I learned to accept others for WHO they were . . . AS they were, I think . . . f-for the . . . for the first time in my entire life.”

A bewildered frown knotted Rachael’s brow, then faded, smoothing her brow as the light of revelation dawned. “No wonder we don’t have much to talk about . . . Mama and me . . . I . . . WE always, only talked about people before, how they fell short of our standards . . . . ” A large tear slipped up over her eyelid and ran down the length of her cheek, as she looked up, meeting Stacy’s eyes.

“It was the same with my friends . . . two of us together, running down a third, or maybe three of us, putting down a fourth. I . . . I honestly never thought of this before . . . but, how m-many times was I that third, or fourth . . . not present? It makes me wonder . . . who among them WERE really, honestly and truly . . . my friends?”

“Our family has been learning the answer to that question ourselves for the past six months, Rachael,” Ben said quietly.

“Oh?”

“That’s when I found out Stacy is my daughter . . . by blood,” Ben said quietly.

Rachael frowned. “I remember Mama saying that you, Hoss, Joe, and Stacy met each other at Fort Charlotte when you went out there to sell them some horses,” she said slowly, “and that you had planned to adopt her . . . but, you’re also . . . her natural father, Mister Cartwright?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I . . . I had no idea you had married again, after . . . after Joe’s mother died.”

“I didn’t. Paris McKenna, Stacy’s mother, was the daughter of an acquaintance,” Ben explained. “She came for a visit . . . supposedly for two, maybe three weeks. Paris and I fell in love with each other, and Paris . . . she ended up staying here for six MONTHS.”

“What happened, Mister Cartwright?” Rachael asked quietly.

Ben’s eyes met Rachael’s, and in them he saw a compassionate kindred spirit. “Paris left soon after she learned she was pregnant with Stacy. One morning, shortly after New Year’s, Paris was gone, without telling me she was leaving, without saying good-bye. She never told me she was pregnant.”

“That’s why I lived with my grandparents the first six years of my life, and not HERE,” Stacy added.

“Oh, Mister Cartwright . . . Stacy . . . I’m so sorry,” Rachael murmured sympathetically, looking from one to the other. She saw the sadness in Ben’s eyes clearly when he spoke of Paris McKenna, and sensed the presence of wounds deeply inflicted, yet in the process of healing in both father and daughter. “How did you come to find out that Stacy is your daughter?”

“The uncle who killed my grandparents and aunts found out I was here, and he came after ME,” Stacy said.

“To . . . to kill you?”

Stacy nodded. “I saw him kill the others. My testimony in a court of law would have sent him to the gallows. He also wanted my grandmother’s money. With her and my two aunts dead, I became the sole heir.”

“I . . . I hope he HUNG for that!” Rachael declared, her warm brown eyes flashing with anger.

“He didn’t live long enough to stand trial,” Stacy replied. “Anyway, HE’S the one who told me.”

“We decided to tell the truth . . . about Stacy . . . and about Paris and me because,” Ben looked over at his daughter, and smiled, “because Stacy IS a member of our family, by adoption AND by blood, as it turns out. To try and pretend otherwise . . . . ” He shrugged. “Truth always has a way of eventually making itself known. We decided it would be better to tell the truth ourselves, right from the start. Those who were our REAL friends, have REMAINED our friends. Those who haven’t . . . . ”

“We don’t give a bloody tinker’s damn, as my mother used to say sometimes,” Stacy said with heartfelt conviction, “and, Rachael?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“I want you to know that you can count on US as friends,” she said earnestly. “Me, Pa, my brothers, and Hop Sing, too.”

“Stacy speaks truthfully in that, Rachael,” Ben added in complete, wholehearted agreement.

End of Part 1

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