Trial By Fire

Part 2

By Kathleen T. Berney

“I can tell you for sure that the second body is NOT Joseph Francis Cartwright,” Paul Martin said, the relief evident in his voice and in his face.

“I KNEW it!” Candy declared, grinning from ear-to-ear.

Hoss let out a joyous whoop at the top of his lungs, then immediately sobered. “Sorry,” he murmured contritely. “I don’t want none o’ ya t’ think I’m glad someone ELSE died in that fire, ‘cause I ain’t.”

Paul Martin placed a comforting, paternal hand on Hoss’ shoulder. “I understand, Hoss.”

“H-How can ya be so sure, Doc?” Jacob Cromwell demanded, stunned. “His face is almost all burnt up, ‘n he’s wearing the same kinda clothes Joe usually does.”

Paul smiled. “Back when Joe was a wee tyke, three . . . four years old maybe, he got a little too curious about the branding irons, and suffered the consequences in the form of a bad burn and a permanent scar that remains to this day on his left thigh. The body of the man initially identified as Joe has no such scar on his left thigh.”

“You got any idea who the other man is, Doc?” Roy asked.

Paul shook his head. “I checked his pockets . . . they were empty,” he replied. “His clothes . . . what’s left of ‘em . . . appear to be brand new, and of top quality material. Furthermore . . . this mystery man did NOT die in the fire.”

Four pairs of eyes, stared back at the doctor, stunned and shocked.

“Would you mind explainin’ yourself?” the sheriff asked, being the first to find his voice.

“He was shot, Roy, in the head,” Paul replied. “THAT’S what killed him. Half of the man’s head was blown away when the bullet hit. Mister Cromwell?”

“Yeah, Doc?”

“Did you say the second man was found in the house, lying alongside Mister Welles?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Then . . . I’d have to say that the second body was burned, then added to the house later,” Paul said grimly.

“You sure ‘bout that, Doc?” Roy asked, incredulous.

Paul nodded. “The body reeks of kerosene,” he said. “Please . . . I ask you gentlemen to excuse my bluntness, but Mister Welles’ body was almost completely burned. Our mystery man . . . was not. Hoss, you were upstairs fighting the fire along with Joe and Stacy?”

“Yes, Sir, I was.”

“Did you see anyone go up into the attic?”

“No,” Hoss replied. “By the time Joe, Stacy, ‘n I were in there fightin’ the fire, the upstairs was pretty much overtaken. No one couldda gotten up into the attic.”

“Where were the steps to the attic located?” Paul asked.

“At the far end o’ the hall was a door,” Hoss said. “Y’ open the door, there was a set o’ high narrow steps.”

“Given the fact that Mister Welles fell into the blaze shortly before the entire main roof collapsed, and taking into account the extent to which HIS body was burned, the second man had to have been placed in the house later,” Paul Martin said, “MUCH later, given the fact that the body and clothing were dry as a bone. Mister Welles’ body, on the other hand, was soaked from the heavy rain this morning that no doubt put out most of that fire.” He paused, then turned his attention to the sheriff. “Roy, as far as our mystery man’s concerned, you’re looking at a murder case.”

“Make that TWO,” Hoss said with a scowl.

“TWO murders, Hoss?” Roy asked.

“Yes, Sir. The mystery man’s one, Derek Welles is the other.”

“You tellin’ me that fire was set deliberate?”

“Yes, Sir, I am.”

“That’s a pretty serious charge, Hoss,” Roy said soberly.

“I know it.”

“Sheriff Coffee, I found some charred rags lying near the place Derek Welles’ body was found,” Candy said. “They reek of kerosene, too. I left ‘em in the barn.”

“I’ll get ‘em afore I leave t’ g’won back t’ town,” Roy said. “In the meantime, I wanna see what ya have t’ show me ‘round where the kitchen ‘n Hop Sing’s room was, Candy.”

“This way, Sheriff Coffee,” Candy invited with a broad sweep of his arm. “After you. You comin’, Hoss?”

“I’ll catch up,” Hoss replied, then turned his attention back to Doctor Martin. “Doc?”

“Yeah, Hoss?”

“How’s Stacy doin’?”

“When I left town she was still in surgery to repair that broken leg,” Paul Martin replied, his smile fading. “Thank God, Doctor Johns just happened to be in town. If he hadn’t been . . . I would have almost certainly had to amputate.”

“Li’l Sister’s gonna be alright, then?” Hoss asked hopefully.

“To be up front and honest with you, Hoss, the jury’s still out on the answer to THAT question,” Paul replied “When I left, Doctor Johns had been working on her since early this morning, and from the looks of things, he STILL had a long way to go.”

Hoss’ face fell. “Y’ m-mean to tell me that . . . that Stacy c-could die?!”

Paul nodded.

“I . . . I knew she was bad hurt, but . . . Doc, I had no idea in the world she was THAT bad hurt.”

“It’s more than simply how badly hurt she was,” Paul said. “As I told your pa, Stacy lost a lot of blood . . . and making matters even worse, she was drifting in and out of consciousness right before she went in. That makes administering anesthesia very tricky. Give her too little, she could wake up right in the middle of surgery. Give her too much . . . she never wakes up at all . . . ever again.”

“I know my li’l sister, Doc. She’s a real fighter, ‘bout as scrappy as they come,” Hoss said with quiet conviction, “an’ I have all the faith in the world in Doctor Johns. I was at death’s door when he operated on me several years ago, ‘n I came through with flyin’ colors. I know he can bring Stacy through, too.”

“Michael . . . Doctor Johns . . . IS a good man, Hoss, and a very skilled surgeon. If anyone CAN pull Stacy through, he can.”



She remembered fleeing with her brothers, Hoss and Joe, down the upstairs hallway, half blinded by the rising, thickening clouds of black smoke and gray-white plaster dust, with the thunderous roar of fire and the ominous creaking of a roof about to collapse echoing in their ears. Then, black silence, occasionally broken by the sound of voices, far distant. Pa, mostly . . . and Hop Sing . . . and later on, Doctor Martin. Next she saw Pa, through eyes dulled and clouded by pain. His face was ashen gray, his eyes round with fear, worry, and grief. When she reached out, the hand that took her own trembled.

Now, she found herself floating up on the ceiling in Doctor Martin’s examination room, surrounded by a world of light . . . bright, yet not blinding. The bright afternoon sunshine seemed to take on a life, an energy of its own, as it streamed in through naked panes of glass . . . glittering in the bright, silvery highlights of the metal surgical tray and tools . . . gleaming in the shine of a high gloss polish on the wood floor below . . . reflecting off the white walls and ceiling to brighten, to illumine the room with soft, diffuse white-yellow sunshine.

Her attention was drawn to the examination table, set in the center of the room. A man and a woman, standing on either side of the table, worked together on a patient, a young woman with long dark hair, roughly the same age as herself. The woman was Lily Martin. Garbed in a clean white lab coat that matched her snow white hair, she looked very troubled. Her blue eyes, shining with unusual brightness, the red cheeks, and quivering lower lip suggested that she had been crying. The man standing on the other side of the table, was tall and slender, with dark graying hair. She frowned. Though he was clearly a doctor, it was equally clear that he was NOT Doctor Paul Martin.

The patient was covered over by white sheets, except for her right leg, cut open, exposing torn muscle and sinew. Mrs. Martin and the strange doctor had been working on the young woman’s leg. She knew that from the set broken bone, and torn muscle partially sewn back together. Her eyes were drawn to the patient, as completely, as inevitably, as a moth is drawn to candle light.

She began to spiral down from the ceiling, floating in lazy circles like a hawk, or a vulture. The patient’s face was hidden from view behind a veil of sunshine and deep shadow, cast by the tall, slender doctor. As she drew closer to the patient, she became aware of sharp, searing pain in her own leg . . . and suddenly, she was afraid.



Lily Martin frantically blotted the gleaming sheen of sweat, that covered Michael Johns’ forehead and had just begun to seep down through the hairs forming his thick, distinctive eyebrows.

Michael silently nodded his thanks, then returned his attention to Stacy’s leg. Though the break had not been a clean one, he had, nonetheless pieced together the jagged edges of bone and stitch together the worst of the torn muscles and ligaments, using the kind of suture that eventually dissolved. He had planned to leave the wound open, at least for the next day or so, to allow for drainage in case infection set in. He cleaned the wound in Stacy’s leg thoroughly with alcohol, then reached for the splints.

“M-Michael . . . . ” Lily ventured, her voice tremulous.

His head immediately snapped up. “What is it, Lily?” Michael tersely snapped out the question.

“I . . . Michael, I don’t think Stacy’s breathing.”

“Damn,” Michael groaned, as his long nimble fingers began to search and probe Stacy’s wrist, desperately searching for a pulse.

Lily Martin picked up the small mirror lying on the tray among Michael’s surgical tools with shaking hands, and held it just above Stacy’s nose and mouth.

“Anything, Lily?”

Lily Martin strained though vision blurred by tears to see the small mirror she held less than an inch above Stacy’s mouth and nose. “N-no. Nothing.”

“No pulse . . . . ” he murmured, as he reached down to probe his patient’s neck. “Damn!” At length, he swore, anger and frustration mixed with a profound sadness. “Nothing.”

“Is she . . . . ?!”

He looked across the examination into the tear stained face of his late wife’s first cousin, and nodded.

“Michael, I . . . I know y-you did your b-best . . . . ”

“My best!” he spat bitterly. “Unfortunately my so called best wasn’t good enough . . . was no where NEAR good enough. I should’ve left well enough alone.”

“Michael J-Johns . . . you listen t-to me . . . and you listen GOOD!” Lily Martin, though sobbing, spoke to him in a firm tone, one that brooked no argument. “Had you NOT been here . . . Stacy would’ve h-had no chance at all. You . . . you did your best as . . . as the skilled surgeon y-you ARE. But, you’ve . . . you’ve got to remember . . . skilled though you are . . . y-you’re a DOCTOR, n-not GOD.”

“Dammit, Lily, I . . . I owe the Cartwrights so much. I wish— ”

“I know. I wish, too. I’ll . . . I’ll t-tell her . . . her f-father if y-you’d like.”

“Thank you, Lily. I appreciate your offer, but . . . telling her father is MY duty . . . MY responsibility . . . . ”

The tall, thin man stepped back away from the patient. As he moved, the deep shadows ebbed and flowed away from the face of the young woman lying on the table. She gasped upon realizing that face was her own face.

“PA!” she screamed, against the overwhelming tide of fear and panic rising within her, and moving with all the deadly swiftness of a flash flood coursing through the dry river beds in the desert during the time of spring melt.



Doctor Michael Johns slowly, with great reluctance, walked up the stairs to the third floor of the Martins’ town house, heading for the guest room to do what he hated the most about this job. He did as he had countless times through out the years he had practiced medicine and surgery. He wracked his brains desperately searching for the right words, for a kind and gentle way to say what he must, what duty, honor, and obligation demanded him to say. “Dammit,” he swore silently. “You’d think I’d have learned by now that there IS no kind and gentle way to tell an anxious father that his daughter just died on the operating table.”

He replayed the surgery, everything he did, over and over and over again, condensing many hours down to the space of mere seconds. He examined and reexamined every action, every decision, wholly detached, as if he were watching someone else, a complete stranger, trying to determine if there was something he should have done differently.

“I don’t know which would be worse . . . finding out there was something I could have done that would have made the difference or finding out there was nothing I could have done at all,” he murmured to himself, as he continued to relive Stacy’s operation, unaware that he spoke aloud.

Then, suddenly, Michael Johns found himself standing outside the closed door to the Martins’ guest room, wondering how in the world he had gotten here so fast. He swallowed nervously, then gently knocked on the door. Within less than a heartbeat, he found himself staring up into the weary, anxious face of Ben Cartwright.

“Mister Cartwright— ” Michael began, then stopped. “He knows!” the surgeon silently realized, as he watched the anxiety in the older man’s face undergo a dark transformation to a deep, profound grief. “Without one word being spoken . . . he knows.” Aloud he murmured, “I’m sorry.” Words he felt barely adequate in a voice barely audible.

“Thank you, Doctor Johns. I . . . I know you did your best.”

“If there’s anything I can do . . . . ”

Ben shook his head. “I’d . . . I’d like to be alone for a little while.” With that he turned, and very quietly, very pointedly closed the door in the surgeon’s face.

Doctor Michael Johns stood unmoving for a time, his eyes riveted to the closed door. Finally, with a soft sigh, he turned and moved toward the stairs. “Some days, I really hate this job,” he muttered through clenched teeth.



Ben, meanwhile, trudged wearily across the room toward the bed. With each step, his feet grew heavier and heavier, until by the time he finally reached the bed, he could barely lift them. He collapsed down onto the bed, plummeting like a millstone cast into deep water, with tears streaming down his face like rivers.

This had to be a dream.

A very, very, very bad dream.

Stacy couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be! Just yesterday, she and Blaze-Face were galloping down the road, flying like the wind, racing against Joe on Cochise. He heard their laughter again above the thunder of horse hooves against the earth, their easy, good natured taunting of one another.

Now . . . .

“P-Please, God,” he prayed aloud, as he wept. “Please . . . please, let me wake up.”

She found herself standing in another room, a small bedroom, furnished with French provincial furniture, painted white with a gold trim. The walls were papered with blue and white stripes. A double bed, with brass barred headboard dominated the center of the room. Pa sat on the bed, with head bowed, hands so tightly clasped together, his knuckles had turned white. With heart in mouth, she tore across the room and sat down beside him on the bed.

“Pa, I’m scared,” she half sobbed as she slipped a trembling arm through the crook of his elbow, and pressed close. “I’m having a real bad dream and . . . and I can’t seem to wake up . . . . ”

Ben felt his daughter with him, sitting right there on the bed beside him, nestled close, as she did when she was a little girl and sometimes as a not so little girl, whenever she was frightened, hurt, upset, sad, even angry. Her presence was intense, so strong as to be tangible. He automatically reached out to take her into his arms, only to find himself embracing empty air.

“Stacy?”

She saw him lift his head and look around the room, his eyes frantically searching. It was then that she saw the tears in his eyes, shining on his cheeks.

“I’m here, Pa,” she said, pressing closer. “I’m right here.”

Ben could almost hear her answer.

“Stacy.”

She lifted her head at the sound of a new voice speaking her name, all the while clinging to her father’s arm for dear life. She was astonished to find her mother, Paris McKenna, standing in the room with them, clad in a long white grown, looking very much the way she had probably looked when Pa had fallen in love with her.

“It’s time,” Paris . . . Mother . . . said, reaching out her hand. Her face, so like her own yet so very unlike, was filled with love and compassion.

“Time? For what?” she asked warily, still clinging to her father’s arm.

“Time to go.”

She was suddenly aware of another presence, standing behind her mother . . . a presence she had known and sensed twice before . . . once when Lotus O’Toole died, the second time very recently . . . when she last spoke with Pa. He moved out from behind her mother, taking his place beside her. Clad in a white three piece suit with a light blue shirt, and white string tie, he had light brown hair, and kind blue eyes.

Ben knew the time had come to tell her how much he loved her, to assure her no matter how much he would miss her . . . and he would miss her terribly . . . that he would be alright. He needed to tell her that it was alright to move on, as he had told his own mother when SHE lay on her deathbed, after having suffered through many years of illness . . . as he had told Elizabeth, Inger . . . even Marie, when their lives had ended all too soon. But, somehow, Ben simply could not bring himself.

“F-Forgive me, Stacy . . . please . . . f-forgive me,” he wept, as he buried his face in his hands. “B-But, I . . . I can’t let y-you go, I . . . I c-can’t.”

“Stacy, it’s time for you to leave,” the man said.

“No,” she said, as a strange, immensely powerful strength seemed to take possession of her entire being. That rising flash flood of fear and panic, transformed into a fierce, angry determination, with all the solid strength of a granite mountain. “I’m NOT going with you.”

“Stacy . . . . ”

“NO!”

“Please.”

“I told you NO! I promised Pa I wouldn’t let you take me.”

“You’re only making this harder.”

“You stay the hell away from me . . . do you understand?!” Her angry glare took in her mother as well. “BOTH of you . . . just stay the bloody hell AWAY from me.”

“Stacy . . . . ” Paris begged.

“NO!”

Her vehement refusal brought an impatient scowl to the face of death’s angel. He reached out, seizing her by the forearm. “Stacy, you stop this nonsense right now,” he ordered, as he yanked her to her feet.

With her jaw clenched, her mouth thinned to a near straight, lipless, angry line, she lashed out kicking him in his left shin with all her might. He bellowed, in both surprise and outrage, releasing his hold on her.

“M-Mister Meredith was right. You DO kick harder than a mule.”

“ . . . and don’t you forget it,” she snapped.

“Stacy, you stand a good chance of LOSING your leg . . . of being maimed, incapacitated for what remains of your life,” Paris said, her eyes and face filled with sadness. “If THAT should happen, you would become a terrible burden on your father and your brothers for many years to come.”

“PA wouldn’t see me that way,” she said, as tears began to flow down her cheeks. “N-Nor would Hoss, Joe, or . . . or H-Hop Sing. I KNOW that. Y-You might know that, too, if . . . if y-you’d . . . g-given Pa . . . half a chance when y-you . . . when you found out you were g-going to have me . . . . ”

The deep, all consuming sadness and regret she saw mirrored in her mother’s face, her eyes . . . tore her heart to shreds. She found herself weeping for both of her parents, for all that they might have shared together, with each other and with herself . . . had her mother given them all the chance.

“Paris, it’s time for US to go,” death’s angel said, still massaging his leg. “Your daughter won’t be coming with us. It would seem that it’s not yet her time after all . . . . ”



Downstairs, Lily Martin paused to wipe the tears from her eyes, then reached for the sheet to pull up over Stacy’s dead body. Hop Sing stood on the other side of the table, with his hands clasped in front of him. Though his face remained impassive, his cheeks were wet, and his dark eyes glistened with unusual brightness. Lily began to sob openly, in earnest, as slowly moved the edge of the sheet up to cover Stacy’s head.

“Wait.” Hop Sing’s voice shattered the silence like the crack of a whip. He reached out, his thin, wiry fingers wrapping themselves around Lily’s wrist, restraining her movements. “Look.”

She turned, and saw tears squeezing out from between Stacy’s closed eyelids, and spilling down across her cheeks.

“Dead don’t cry,” Hop Sing said softly, his voice catching.

“Y-You’re right . . . d-dead DON’T cry,” Lily said, as the sheet slipped through her fingers.

“I stay,” Hop Sing said. “You go— ”

Lily Martin was out of the examination room, screaming for Doctor Johns, before Hop Sing could finishing telling her to go get the doctor.

“You hold on, Miss Stacy,” Hop Sing said softly, as he took her hand in his. “You hold on real tight. Hop Sing right here. Papa come soon, be here, too.”



Meanwhile, Hoss and Candy led Roy Coffee behind the what remained of the addition that had housed the kitchen and Hop Sing’s room. Upon entering the garden, Candy took the lead and showed the lawman everything he had shown Hoss several hours earlier. Roy stood for a time, unmoving, with head bowed and arms folded tight across his chest, as he digested all that Hoss and Candy had shown him. After a seeming eternity of silence, he raised his head. “Hoss . . . Candy . . . you boys SURE ‘bout the red robe ‘n slippers?”

“Yes, Sir, that’s what Joe was wearin,” Hoss affirmed, with a curt nod of his head for emphasis.

“Mind if I take another look around?” Roy asked.

“You go right ahead,” Hoss readily gave permission.

Roy returned to the starting place in the garden following again the trail as Candy and Hoss had shown him, this time, moving much more slowly. “Hoss, you told me y’ found family pictures, a prayer book that belonged t’ Marie, things like that in the pocket o’ Joe’s robe?”

“Yes, Sir,” Hoss replied, with an emphatic nod of his head.

“What kinda shape was all that stuff in?” Roy asked as he moved along very slowly, his eyes glued to the ground.

“Everything was in pretty good shape, I s’pose, except for the broken glass on a couple o’ the frames,” Hoss said.

“No water damage?”

“No,” Hoss replied.

Roy stopped walking, and looked up meeting first Candy’s hazel eyes, then Hoss’ bright, sky blue ones, without flinching. “That WAS a pretty fierce downpour we had earlier . . . . ”

“So?” Candy demanded, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“So from whatcha say, Joe had to’ve been kidnapped before the rains came,” Roy hastened to point out. “That means his bathrobe oughtta be soaked.”

“What’re you trying to say, Sheriff?” Candy demanded with arms folded across his chest, and a ferocious scowl.

“Alright, Boys, I’ll say it straight out. If Joe’s robe’d been left behind b’fore he was s’posedly kidnapped, why didn’t it get wet? Why didn’t all the pictures, ‘n things he stopped t’ save git wet?”

“Because I found it under THAT!” Candy angrily thrust his arm in the direction of the stone wall, encircling the garden, which in turn connected to the house several yards beyond the kitchen door. It was a jagged piece of roof, partially charred. “It obviously fell, when the roof gave way and landed here in the garden, overtop Joe’s bathrobe.”

“Both the slippers WERE wet, Sheriff Coffee,” Hoss added.

Roy nodded, then moved toward the place where, according to Candy and Hoss, Joe had supposedly fought with one of the men who had abducted him. “Candy, this Jack Murphy fella . . . he a good worker?”

“Good enough,” Candy replied. “Did what he was told with little or no complaint, and did it adequately. He never indulged in any drinking or gambling either on the job or in town. In fact, many’s the time I overheard a couple of the boys razzing him about drinking sarsaparilla whenever they’d go to the Silver Dollar on a Saturday night.”

“How well’d he get on with the other men?”

“He seemed to get along alright with just about everybody. But he DID pretty much keep to himself.”

“That never bothered ya?”

Candy shrugged. “Not particularly. It’s the way most of the drifters who have ever worked for US have been. They’ll sign on to work a couple o’ months, maybe longer if it’s a special job and there’s a big enough bonus at the end. Then they give notice ‘n move on. While they’re here, they make a point of getting along with everybody, but don’t go out of their way to make friends. There WAS one thing about Jack, I thought was kind of odd, however . . . . ”

“What was that?” Roy asked as he stepped to the outer edge of the rough, circular area of tall weeds, trampled and broken. His eyes slowly moved along the outer parameters.

“Well, for a drifter, Jack wore real good quality clothes,” Candy replied.

“Whaddya mean by good, quality clothes?” the sheriff asked as he began to slowly move along the edge.

“Exactly THAT!” Candy replied, as he and Hoss followed. “Good material, put together so it’ll last a while, no holes or thin spots. He’s also a real stickler for washin’ up and shavin’ every morning.”

“So?”

“So MOST of the men living in the bunk house only wash up ‘n shave on Saturday night, unless they’re courting someone,” Candy replied, “and another thing, Sheriff Coffee . . . most of the drifters WE see passing through tend be a pretty seedy lookin’ bunch, especially when they first hire on.”

“That a fact.”

“Yeah, that’s a fact,” Candy said. “You’d be pretty seedy lookin’, TOO, if you’d just spent weeks in the saddle, then came looking for work. But, NOT Jack Murphy. When he came and applied for work, he told Mister Cartwright and me that he’d just spent the last . . . I dunno, three, maybe four months riding up from Texas. Yet, there he was, wearing clean clothes, clean shaven and hair neatly trimmed.”

Roy stopped walking, and crouched down. He studied the ground directly at his feet for a moment, then reached in through the tangle of trampled grass and weeds.

“You find something, Sheriff?” Candy asked.

“Yep.” Roy straightened up and held out his hand. In the center of his open palm, lay a button, carved from the mother-of-pearl found within an oyster shell.

“That ain’t Joe’s!” Hoss stated firmly. “M’ li’l brother was wearing a nightshirt.”

“A lotta night shirts have buttons, too, Hoss,” Roy pointed out.

“Maybe, but none o’ Joe’s have fancy buttons like that one.”

Roy slipped the button into his shirt pocket, then gazed over the trampled area once more. “Uh oh, don’t like t’ look o’ THAT,” the lawman muttered as he started to move into the circle.

Hoss and Candy looked at each other in dismay.

Roy stopped at a place a few inches shy of dead center, and knelt down again.

“What is it, Sheriff Coffee?” Hoss demanded as he and Candy moved in closer to the sheriff.

“Blood!” Roy said grimly. “Right there!” He pointed toward an elongated area dotted with dried, reddish brown splotches.

Hoss and Candy moved in for a closer look, kneeling down on either side of the sheriff, their eyes glued to the place he had just pointed out. “We don’t know that it’s Joe’s,” the former insisted stubbornly.

“We also don’t know that it AIN’T Joe’s blood,” Roy countered.

“Dammit, Sheriff Coffee, I thought you were a friend!” Candy exclaimed, his face darkening with anger.

“I AM a friend, Son.”

“Then WHY are you so hell bent on trying to prove that Joe is DEAD?!”

“Candy, like I told ya before, I AIN’T tryin’ t’ prove anything one way or t’other,” Roy said curtly.

Candy exhaled a curt, exasperated sigh. “I can’t stand this,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Candy, y’ gotta git hold o’ yourself,” Hoss’ said in a very quiet, yet very firm tone. “I know it’s gotta be rough on ya, but— ”

“Dammit, Hoss, how can YOU stand it, with him going on and on like . . . well, like Joe’s dead?!”

“Sheriff Coffee AIN’T goin’ on like Joe’s dead,” Hoss said. “He’s tryin’ t’ get at the truth. That’s ALL! But, even if he DOES believe Joe’s dead, it don’t mean you ‘n I gotta believe it . . . an’ I’ll tell ya somethin’ else. I ain’t gonna believe it, not unless I see his dead body f’r myself.”

“Hoss?”

“Yeah, Candy?”

“Sheriff Coffee doesn’t need TWO of us following him around like puppy dogs,” Candy said in a sullen tone. “All things considered, I think I might be more useful if I went back and gave the men a hand with . . . with clearing things out.”

“Go ahead,” Hoss readily gave the junior foreman permission. “I’ll see ya back at the house in a li’l while.”

“I had no idea Candy could be so touchy,” Roy remarked in a low voice, as he watched Candy’s retreating back.

“Derek Welles was a good friend o’ his, Sheriff,” Hoss said quietly. “Bobby ‘n Mitch told me he tried his darndest t’ save Derek, but he couldn’t. In the end all Candy could do was watch him fall into the fire. Between you ‘n me, I’d be pretty touchy, too.”

“You’re right, Hoss,” Roy sighed. “I guess I’d be pretty touchy, myself, if ‘n I was standin’ in Candy’s shoes right now.” He left the circle of trampled grass and started up the hill, with Hoss following close behind. “Worst part o’ all this is, everything you ‘n Candy’ve shown me back here’s raisin’ a whole lotta new questions, but AIN’T given me much in the way of answers.”

“Whaddya mean?” Hoss asked, as they reached the top of the hill.

“Take these wheel ruts ‘n horse tracks, f’r instance,” Roy said pointing to the water filled ruts, etched deeply onto the mud and grass.

“What about ‘em?” Hoss asked.

“Takin’ into account how far the wheels’re set apart . . . an’ the fact that it’s was drawn by one horse, I’d hafta say it was a small buggy, probably a two seater,” Roy said. “Accordin’ t’ what you ‘n Candy showed me so far, there were THREE men s’posedly involved in kidnappin’ Joe. If one man carried Joe off in the buggy, that means TWO are walkin’.”

“Three men COULD fit in a two seater, if they was ‘round about the same size as Joe or maybe Adam,” Hoss pointed out. “It’d be a tight squeeze, but it could be done.”

“Alright, that leaves ONE man walkin’,” Roy argued.

“What if he ain’t walkin’?” Hoss asked. “S’pose that third man works right here . . . on the Ponderosa?”

Roy looked over at Hoss, his eyes filled with doubt.

“It ain’t as crazy as it sounds,” Hoss said, feeling a bit on the defensive.

“Alright, Hoss, I’m listenin’.”

“Three men are plannin’ t’ kidnap Joe,” Hoss began. “So they plant a man here, supposedly workin’ for us, but his REAL job is t’ keep tabs on Joe, watch where he goes . . . what he does, then let ‘em know when’s the best time t’ grab him. AFTER they grab Joe, he sneaks back ‘n joins everyone else.”

“It’s POSSIBLE things couldda happened that way,” Roy admitted. “Only two problems. First of all, for ‘em t’ grab Joe just as he’s comin’ outta the house . . . well, they’d hafta know the house was gonna burn down.”

“We already know that fire was set deliberate,” Hoss said grimly, his mouth thinning to an angry, near straight line. “I’d say it’s a real good bet that the men who took Joe DID know the house was gonna burn down, ‘cause THEY’RE the ones who burned it down.”

“Why would they burn the house down?”

“T’ smoke Joe out,” Hoss replied. “T’ keep the rest of us too busy to see ‘em grab Joe ‘n take off with him.”

“It’d be a helluva easier t’ lie in wait ‘n grab Joe as he’s riding down the road, or somewhere out on the trail,” Roy pointed out. “It also don’t make one lick o’ sense t’ burn a house down around the would-be victim while he’s sleepin’ OR around the family that’s gonna pay the ransom.”

“Y’ gotta point there, I reckon,” Hoss reluctantly admitted.

“It also begs the question o’ why kidnap JOE?” Roy continued. “Stacy’d probably be seen as an easier target, leastwise by someone who don’t know better.”

“I don’t know, Sheriff Coffee.”

“On t’ other hand, I know all too well Joe’s got a ferocious temper that gits t’ better of him sometimes. He been in any fights . . . any arguments lately?”

Hoss shook his head. “No, Sir, leastwise none that I know about.”

“Anybody threaten him recently?”

“No.”

Roy Coffee made himself a mental note to speak with Joe’s close friends, like Mitch Devlin and his wife, Sally. “Right now, I wanna check out that trail . . . over there,” the sheriff said aloud, pointing to a thin, jagged line cutting across the side of the hill, about a quarter of the way down from the top.

Hoss frowned. He and Candy had completely missed seeing it when they had come out here earlier that morning.

“It looks t’ ME like someone started walkin’ away from that place there, where you ‘n Candy said was a struggle,” Roy said as he and Hoss started back down the hill.

“I see it,” Hoss said, trying to ignore the feelings of dread suddenly rising within him. “Whoever it was comes over t’ here . . . ” he pointed, “ . . . then he starts running down the hill t’ there.”

“Yep. I see it, too, Hoss.”

“There’s also another trail that goes along in a pretty straight line t’ where that other trail ends.”

“Let’s go take a look.”

Hoss nodded, then fell in behind Roy. They descended the hill in silence, following the second trail leading down to the place where the path found by the sheriff came to an abrupt end. The two paths converged on an elongated, roughly oval shaped patch of broken, mashed down weeds and grass, smaller than the first.

“ . . . ‘bout the size of your average man, if ‘n he was lyin’ down,” Roy noted in grim silence. All of a sudden, he halted and turned to Hoss, following close behind. “Hoss . . . . ” he said aloud.

“Yeah?”

“Maybe y’d best wait here,”

“No, Sir, I’m comin’ with ya,” Hoss stubbornly insisted.

“Ok, suit yourself,” Roy said, as he turned to continue the rest of the way.

Less than a minute later, they stood at the edge of the oval shaped area, staring down at a large pool of dried blood, covering the ground at their feet.

“Someone’s been sh-shot,” Roy noted the obvious, shaken to the very core of his being, “probably by someone standin’ up there on top o’ the hill. Whoever it was must’ve known what was happening, ‘cause he tried t’ run.” He pointed to a jagged line of trampled vegetation stretching up the hill to the trail leading away from the place of struggle that Candy had found.

“Sheriff C-Coffee . . . what’s that?”

Roy’s eyes followed the line of Hoss’ extended arm and pointing finger to a place near the outer edge of the opposite side of the circle. There, lying nestled in the broken, trampled down grass, were two jagged pieces of bone, gleaming stark white amid the mud and dried blood. Roy slowly approached, untying the bandanna around his neck as he moved.

“They’re pieces o’ bone . . . skull more ‘n likely,” Roy said slowly, as he bent down to gather them into his bandanna.

Hoss turned away abruptly, heartily regretting the big meal he had eaten at the Cromwells not long before.

Roy rose, straightening his posture and tied the corners of the bandanna together, to keep the gruesome contents safely tucked within. He paused, his eyes moving over the entire area, checking one last time before he and Hoss left. Lying at nine o’clock, relative to his position at six, was a small swatch of material, caught among the brambles growing among the tall grasses and weeds. Roy quietly walked over and retrieved it for a closer look. He knew almost immediately that the material had come from a jacket very much like the one Joe Cartwright always wore.

“Hoss?”

“Wh-What is it, Sheriff Coffee?” Hoss murmured, willing with all his might for his breakfast to remain in place.

“Son, I hate like hell havin’ t’ say this, but . . . . ”

“But . . . WHAT?”

“You’re gonna have t’ face up t’ the possibility that JOE was the man who got shot here, maybe killed.”

“I . . . I know it’s a possibility, Sheriff Coffee,” Hoss said with an angry scowl, “but, like I told Candy, I STILL ain’t gonna b’lieve it until I see Joe’s dead body with m’ own eyes.”



“Pa?” Stacy murmured softly, as she finally, at long last, began to stir. She opened one eye, then the other. Her eyes came to rest on Lily Martin’s face first, with red, tear stained cheeks, swollen eyelids, and tremulous smile. Paul Martin stood beside her, smiling, yet with an odd look on his face, and behind him stood a tall thin stranger with a kind face and startling bright blue eyes, not unlike her own.

“Miss Stacy back,” another voice, coming from above, to her right, murmured softly. It was Hop Sing, smiling, his dark eyes unusually bright.

“Hop Sing, where’s PA?” Stacy asked anxiously, as Hop Sing drew up a chair along side the bed in which she was lying.

“I’m h-here, Stacy . . . . ”

She turned, and found her father sitting close beside the bed, on her left.

“ . . . I’m . . . I’m right here,” Ben murmured softly, his voice catching. He took her hand in his, then gently reached over to pushed back a stray lock of hair that had fallen into her face.

For Stacy, at that moment, the sight of Ben’s face, though careworn and weary, was far more beautiful than even the most spectacular vista the Ponderosa had to offer. She reached up to touch his cheek, noting with dismay that the lines of his face seemed more deeply etched. “I’m right h-here, too,” she said, her own voice breaking, “and . . . and I’m gonna STAY . . . right . . . here.”

“I’m . . . I’m gonna HOLD you to that,” Ben said as tears rolled up over his eye lids and flowed down his cheeks, unchecked

“Y-You’d BETTER!” Stacy said, as she felt the sting of tears in her own eyes. “I was worried about you, Pa.”

“ . . . and I’ve been worried about YOU,” Ben said. “You gave me a very bad scare today, Young Woman.”

“Was it when you were in that other room?”

“What other room?”

“The one with the white furniture, and the blue and white striped wall paper,” Stacy replied.

“That . . . SOUNDS like . . . our . . . guest room,” Lily Martin said slowly, in mild surprise.

“I don’t know WHERE it was . . . I don’t think I’ve even seen the room before. I only know that I saw PA in that room, sitting on the bed,” Stacy said. “I was having this nightmare, and I couldn’t wake up. It scared me . . . more than anything’s ever scared me my whole life.” She turned and gazed earnestly up into Ben’s face. “I feel kinda silly saying this . . . after all . . . I’m not a little kid anymore, but at the time, I . . . I was so scared, I just wanted to be with you more than just about anything.”

Ben knew by the haunted look in her eyes that the nightmare still exerted a deep, profound effect on her. “You’re not being silly at all, Young Woman,” he chided her in a gentle, yet firm tone, “and I, for one hope you and your brothers never outgrow coming to your pa when the chips are down. You want to tell me about it?”

“The nightmare?”

Ben nodded.

“It starts off kinda weird, Pa. I woke up and found myself in here . . . in THIS room . . . floating up on the ceiling . . . watching Mrs. Martin and . . . another doctor working on a patient,” Stacy began, her voice shaking. Her eyes drifted to the face of the stranger standing behind Doctor Martin. “Pa! That’s him!”

“Who?”

“Standing behind Doctor Martin!” She stared over at the stranger with the kind face and blue eyes, in complete, and utter astonishment. “You’re the man I saw in my dream.”

“Stacy, this is Doctor Michael Johns,” Paul Martin quietly made the introductions. He stood aside and drew the surgeon out from behind him. “He’s a very fine, very skilled surgeon.”

“That’s really weird . . . that I would DREAM about somebody before I actually met him.”

“Maybe you caught a glimpse of Michael . . . Doctor Johns . . . before you were taken into surgery,” Lily Martin suggested.

“I don’t see how that’s possible, Lily,” Ben said slowly. “The only time she was conscious before going in for surgery was . . . after you had left for the International Hotel to get Doctor Johns. I know . . . ” he looked down, and favored his daughter with a weary smile, “ . . . I was with her the whole time.”

“ . . . Miss Cartwright was still unconscious when we brought her in to repair that broken leg,” Michael Johns murmured softly. His weary muscles and flesh hung limp on his bony frame. “That’s one of the factors that made the whole thing so damned dicey.”

Ben noted the troubled, fearful look on his daughter’s face, how their words seemed to add to her distress. “What happened next, Stacy?” he prompted gently. “After you saw Mrs. Martin and Doctor Johns doing surgery.”

Stacy was profoundly grateful at that moment for her father’s presence, as firm, as solid, and as reassuring as the mountains that had surrounded their home; and for his strong, gentle hand that so firmly held her own. “I knew the patient that Doctor Johns and Mrs. Martin were operating on was about m-my age . . . and that she had a leg that was busted up pretty bad. But, I didn’t know who she was at first because . . . I couldn’t see her face.

“Then . . . I started to drift down from the ceiling. As I got closer, I saw Mrs. Martin holding a small mirror above the patient’s nose and mouth,” Stacy continued. “She was also crying. Doctor Johns was holding her wrist at first, then . . . I saw him touch her neck. I think he was looking for a pulse, but . . . he didn’t find one.”

“How do you know he didn’t find one?” Ben asked.

“I know because Doctor Johns told Mrs. Martin that the patient was dead,” Stacy replied. “Mrs. Martin offered to tell the patient’s father, but Doctor Johns told her no, that was his place.”

“I’ll be damned . . . . ” Michael Johns whispered, his face several shades paler than normal, his blue eyes round with shocked amazement. “I . . . I’ve HEARD of this sort of thing h-happening— ”

Paul Martin placed a firm, steadying hand on Michael’s shoulder, then turned anxiously to his wife, upon seeing the blood drain from her face, leaving it chalk white. “Lily? YOU alright?”

“I . . . I d-don’t know, Paul . . . . ” she murmured softly. “I . . . I just plain and simply . . . don’t . . . know.”

“After Doctor Johns told Mrs. Martin that the patient had died, he stepped back away from the table,” Stacy continued. “When he did, I . . . I saw the patient’s face for the first time.”

“Who was the patient?” Ben prompted gently.

“Me! Pa . . . the patient was ME!”

“Oh my GOD!” Lily whispered, as the blood drained from her face, leaving it a sickly ashen gray. “M-My GOD!”

“Lily, perhaps you’d best sit down,” Paul said, taking his wife gently by the arm. She stared up into his face through eyes, round as saucers, her entire body trembling.

“Paul . . . . ” Michael stammered in a voice, barely audible.

“Yes, Michael?”

“Everything Miss Cartwright said . . . that’s exactly what happened when . . . when she— ”

“H-How . . . how could she possibly . . . KNOW?” Lily asked, shaking her head.

Ben, meanwhile, gathered his daughter in his arms and held her close, as much to assure himself of her very real, very physical presence as to offer her comfort and reassurance. He felt her entire body trembling, her arms reaching up under his shoulders, and hanging on tight, as if for the dear life she had come so close to losing twice now in the same day. “It’s all right, Stacy, it’s all right now . . . I’M here . . . and more important . . . YOU’RE here, too,” he murmured softly, over and over.

Stacy rested her head against his broad chest, drawing not only the comfort and reassurance she had come to know over the years that she could count on from the big, silver haired man now holding her tight in his arms, but confirmation of her own physical existence as well. “Pa, I was so scared, all I could think of was f-finding YOU.”

“How did you know to look for me in that room where you said you saw me?” Ben asked.

“I . . . ” Stacy frowned. “I didn’t. One minute, I was desperate to find you, the next . . . I was THERE. I called out to you, and when you looked up? You were crying. I— ” She abruptly broke off when she realized that her father was staring at her oddly, his face was white as a sheet. “Pa? What’s the matter?!”

“Stacy, I . . . I WAS in a room . . . exactly like the one you just described,” Ben said, his voice shaking. “They . . . h-had almost finished patching your leg back together when . . . they . . . when Doctor Johns told me that you . . . that you had died.”

Stacy stared up at her father, through eyes round with shock and astonishment. “Is that why you were crying, Pa? Because Doctor Johns told you I was—?!”

Ben nodded.

“When I saw you crying, I started to cry myself,” Stacy continued. “I kept telling you I wasn’t going to let him take me, and I thought I heard you call my name.”

“I did,” Ben said. “For a moment, I . . . . ” He sighed, and shook his head. “I’m not sure if I actually heard you, or if I just felt your presence, but somehow, just for a minute, I knew you were there . . . with me . . . in that r-room.”

“Then Ma . . . Miss Paris . . . was there with us,” Stacy continued. “She told me I had to go with her. At first I was scared, then . . . all of a sudden I . . . it was really strange, Pa, but I felt strong . . . so strong, I probably could’ve picked up HOSS just as easy as he can pick me up. I wasn’t scared anymore. In fact, when the Angel of Death showed up and started telling me I had to go with him and Miss Paris, I got mad, and told the both of ‘em to leave me the he— . . . uuhhh, the HECK alone. I ended up having to give him a good, swift kick in the shins, too . . . to let him know I meant business.”

“Good for you, Stacy,” Paul Martin said, his smile tremulous, and his eyes gleaming brighter than was his norm.

“That’s MY gal,” Ben said proudly, smiling through the new tears forming in his eyes.

“He told me that Mister Meredith was right . . . that I DO kick harder than a mule,” Stacy said. “He also told Miss Paris that it’s not my time, and they left, but . . . before Miss Paris left, she turned and looked at me . . . and she looked over at you, too, Pa. The look on her face was so sad, I started to cry all over again.”

“Well, now . . . isn’t THAT something . . . . ” Lily Martin murmured softly.

“What’s that, Lily?” Paul asked.

“That’s how Hop Sing knew that Stacy was alive,” Lily said slowly, holding tight to her husband’s hand. “Doctor Johns had left the room to tell Ben, and I . . . I was starting to pull the sheet up over Stacy’s head when Hop Sing said the d-dead don’t cry. I looked down and saw tears squeezing out from under her closed eyes and running down her cheeks.”

“That’s . . . that’s quite a story,” Michael murmured softly, while shaking his head. He reached out to touch the back of the chair, occupied by Lily Martin, in an effort to steady himself.

“Yes, indeed it IS,” Paul agreed with a weary smile. He removed a handkerchief from his pants pocket and began to dab his eyes and cheeks. “Over the many years I’ve practiced medicine, I’ve heard enough stories like this one, I could write a book . . . of about a hundred volumes. Although,” his smile broadened when he looked over at Stacy and Ben, “this is the very first time I’ve ever heard tell of a patient inflicting bodily injury on the Angel of Death. However . . . . ”

“What is it, Paul?” Ben asked warily.

“Stacy’s NOT completely out of the woods just yet,” Paul warned.

“What do you mean by THAT, Doctor Martin?” Stacy asked. “Doctor Johns DID fix my leg . . . didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Doctor Michael Johns nodded his head. “I WAS able to piece the bone back together and repair some of those torn muscles and ligaments. Given time, I’m confident all that will heal.”

“But?” Stacy prompted, still holding tight to her father’s hand.

“We have no way of knowing what kind of nerve damage there may be.”

“How soon will we know?”

“We’ll know better in the next couple of days, after the swelling goes down,” Michael replied.

“ . . . and if there IS nerve damage?”

“If it’s not severe, there’s a very good chance it’ll heal . . . in time,” Michael said.

“How MUCH time?”

“Difficult to say, Miss Cartwright. Could be a few weeks . . . a few MONTHS . . . maybe even as long as a year.”

“What if it DOESN’T heal?”

“The consequences can range from not being able to feel your toes to walking with a severe limp the rest of your life . . . to— ” Michael broke off, reluctant to continue along this line of conversation. “Mister Cartwright, perhaps we can discuss this further in the morning.”

“Doctor Johns, you’re gonna discuss this right here, right NOW, with Pa and ME,” Stacy said, her face darkening with anger.

“Stacy, Doctor Johns is probably exhausted,” Ben quietly pointed out. “Perhaps we might be better off resuming this conversation tomorrow morning, after we’ve ALL had a good night’s rest.”

Stacy silently considered Ben’s words, then nodded. “Ok,” she agreed. “We can talk more about this in the morning. ALL of us! I just want to ask one more question.”

“That’s fair enough,” Ben agreed.

Stacy looked up into Doctor Johns’ face, intense, sky blue eyes meeting same. “Doctor Johns, you said you were able to pretty much put everything back together. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean you WON’T have to amputate?”

Doctors Martin and Johns exchanged nervous glances.

“Paul . . . . ”

“Yes, Ben?”

“Tell her,” Ben said quietly.

“Ben, I— ” Paul shook his head. “I’m not so sure that’s a very good idea. Not right now.”

“Come ON, Doctor Martin,” Stacy sighed, weary, exasperated, and impatient. “I’ve almost died TWICE today. In fact, it sounds like I DID die for a little while the second time. I don’t think anything you and Doctor Johns have to say’s gonna scare me very much after all THAT.”

“You have a point there, I suppose,” Paul had to agree. He closed his eyes, swallowed, then took a deep, ragged breath. “Stacy, you were right about the patient you saw earlier . . . yourself . . . having a leg that was busted pretty bad. In medical jargon, you suffered a compound fracture of the tibia. That’s the larger of the two bones in your lower leg. From what your pa said earlier, it probably happened when the staircase collapsed, with you, Hoss, and Joe on it.”

“What’s a compound fracture?” Stacy asked, her gaze shifting from Ben’s face to Paul Martin’s.

“A compound fracture happens when the bone breaks and it actually pushes out through the skin.”

For a moment, Stacy felt ill. Very ill. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “But, Doctor Johns put everything back together all right?” she asked, inwardly surprised at how calm and even her voice sounded in her own ears.

Paul nodded. “Yes,”

“ . . . and THAT means you WON’T have to amputate?”

“I . . . HOPE it’s not going to come down to that, Stacy,” Michael Johns said quietly. “I’ll know more within the next few days. The good news is that I WAS able to set the broken bone properly, and repair most of the damaged muscle tissue. You’re also young, strong from what your pa’s told me, and healthy as a horse going into all this. With all that in your favor, I’m reasonably sure that bone’s going to knit properly, given time.”

“What’s the BAD news?” Stacy asked.

Doctor Johns sighed, heartily wishing now that they had kept to the subject of nerve damage. “There is a very real danger of infection, Miss Cartwright.” His eyes moved over toward Ben’s face as he spoke.

Ben’s intense dark brown eyes met and held Michael’s bright blue ones. He nodded, much to the physician’s chagrin.

Michael Johns closed his eyes and took a deep breath, wishing with every fiber of his being that he did not have to utter his next words. He opened his eyes again, and turned, his blue eyes meeting hers, and holding them. “Stacy, IF your leg or the bone becomes infected . . . and we, Doctor Martin and I, can’t treat it . . . we may very well HAVE to amputate the leg.”

“Thank you, Doctor Johns,” Stacy said, in a tone of voice a bit too calm, too bland.

“Miss Cartwright, I’m sorry, I— ”

“It’s ok. I had to know.”

“Ben?”

“Y-Yes, Paul?”

“ . . . and you, too, Stacy,” Paul Martin continued in a quiet, yet firm tone. “I want to remind BOTH of you that everything we said just now is, at this point, a lot of maybes, what ifs, and possible outcomes. It’s just as possible that everything’s going to heal up just fine.”

“Be prepared for the worst, but don’t stop hoping for the best,” Michael Johns added.

“Stacy?”

“Y-Yeah, Pa?”

“I want you to remember that the most important thing is you came out of that fire . . . and through that surgery ALIVE,” Ben said. “No matter WHAT happens from here on in, we . . . you, me, your brothers, and Hop Sing . . . are going to meet it head on and work it through together.”

“I know, Pa,” Stacy said, as she slipped her arms about his waist and gave him a gentle squeeze. “If there’s one thing in this world I CAN count on is that we Cartwrights ALWAYS face whatever we have to together.”

“ . . . and THAT’S another plus in your favor, Miss Cartwright,” Michael said. “A BIG one!”

“ . . . and I think yet ANOTHER plus in Stacy’s favor would be for the lot of us to get out of here, so she can get some proper rest,” Paul said. “Sleep always has been, always will be just about the best medicine in the world.”

“Miss Stacy need liquid,” Hop Sing said very firmly. “Not eat, not drink all day. Need liquid. Hop Sing go, bring hot peppermint tea in big mug.”

“You’re absolutely right, Hop Sing,” Paul said. “Go ahead and brew up a pot.”

“Pot ALREADY brewed, ready to drink,” Hop Sing said. “Hop Sing go fix.”

Paul nodded, then turned to Ben, as Hop Sing quietly left the room. “Ben, you’re certainly welcome to use our guest room.”

“Thank you, Paul, but not tonight,” Ben said in a firm tone that brooked no argument, no further discussion of the matter. “I’m going to stay right here, where I can be close to Stacy.”

“Ben, you’re exhausted!” Paul admonished his old friend severely. “You need to get proper rest in a— ”

“I want to be with my daughter.”

“Stacy’s a big girl now, she’ll be all right,” Paul argued.

“That may very well be,” Ben countered. “However, that’s not the point.”

“What IS the point?”

“The point is right now I’m a worried father. A VERY worried father! And if I’m forced to retire to your guest room upstairs, I promise you, I won’t sleep a wink,” Ben replied. “However, since I WILL be down here, you can put DOCTOR JOHNS in the guest room instead of taking him back to the hotel. THAT way . . . if anything should happen . . . you’ll BOTH be close.”

“Paul, you might as well g’won up to the attic and fetch down BOTH cots,” Lily said wearily. “Hop Sing’s going to want to be close to his family, too. I’ll ask Hilda Mae to make them up.”

“Lily, whose side are you on?” Paul Martin demanded, outraged.

“Right now, I’m on MY side,” Lily returned irritably. “It’s been a long day, Paul, for ALL of us. I, for one, am exhausted . . . physically and emotionally. The last thing I want to do is stand here and listen to you and Ben argue all night. That won’t help Stacy get any rest, either.”

“Alright,” Paul growled, ungraciously surrendering to the inevitable. The angry scowl he directed toward his wife warned that the conversation was far from over.



“I’ve got both cots set up like you asked,” Paul Martin informed his wife in a tone that dripped icicles, upon entering their bedroom. With a gentle tug, he pulled his shirttail out from under his pants, then set himself to the task of unbuttoning his shirt.

Lily Martin, attired in her favorite nightgown, flannel, with tiny blue and pink flowers dotting a background of white, had already crawled into bed. Her face had been scrubbed clean of all the cosmetics she generally wore, and her long silver white hair had been plaited into a single braid and tucked up under a white, ruffled mob cap.

“Lily . . . . ”

“Yes, Paul?”

“Why?”

“Why WHAT?”

“Why didn’t you back me up when I tried to insist that Ben sleep in our guest room?” Paul demanded, with a touch of exasperation, as he continued to undress in preparation for bed. “The man’s exhausted! He should be sleeping on a proper bed, not on a cot.”

“Paul, you know as well as I do that whenever ANY of his children are sick or seriously hurt, Ben Cartwright’s as fussy as an old mother grizzly with HER cubs, and about a hundred times more ornery,” Lily said, trying hard not to yawn in her husband’s face. “He’ll sleep a lot better on that cot where he can be close by his daughter, than he would in our guestroom upstairs. As for Stacy, I know that child’s got more strength and courage about her than any ten men put together, but— ”

“Child, Lily?” Paul Martin favored his wife with a bemused smile.

“Yes, Paul, CHILD!”

“As I recall, Stacy Cartwright turned eighteen on her last birthday,” Paul Martin hastened to point out. “Legally, she’s of age. Hardly what I’d call a child.”

“However, eighteen years old isn’t THAT far past being a child,” Lily argued, “and DESPITE that stubborn determination of hers to keep a brave face on things, that young woman is very much a frightened child, and with good reason. Paul. . . . ”

“What?”

“For tonight at least, Stacy needs to be with her pa, every bit as much as HE needs to be with her.”

“ . . . and the next thing you’re going to tell me is that Ben and Stacy need Hop Sing as much as he needs to be with them, to look after them.”

Lily favored her husband with a weary, self-satisfied smile. “Looks like I don’t HAVE to tell you, Doctor . . . seeing as how you were able to, shall we say, arrive at your own diagnosis?!”

Hours later, Sheriff Roy Coffee sat behind the desk in his office in Virginia City, his mind reeling. His supper, brought over from the International Hotel restaurant by its manager, Gretchen Braun, sat off to the side, untouched, and long since gone cold. He mentally reviewed his facts as he slowly rose, with empty coffee mug in hand, and crossed the room toward the small pot belly stove and the pot of hot coffee there . . . .

The fire that had consumed most of the Cartwrights’ ranch house had been set deliberately. That was a given, with ample evidence, in form of charred pieces of cloth, that STILL reeked of kerosene, to back it up. The blaze more than likely began somewhere up in the attic, given how quickly it had gone to the roof and consumed the entire upper level. If Ben, Hoss, and Hop Sing hadn’t woken up when they did, none of the Cartwrights would have woken up ever again. Roy shuddered upon realizing just how very close he had come to losing his oldest, and dearest friends.

After the fire was doused, due in very large part to a torrential downpour early that morning, the bodies of two men were found in the charred remains of the Cartwrights’ log ranch house. The one most badly burned was that of Derek Welles. No doubt at all in anybody’s mind about that. He had been up on the roof with Candy and a young fella, by the name of Kevin Hennessey, working to contain the blaze. Derek ended up falling to his death into the fires consuming the attic, when the roof under him collapsed.

“The doc told me he’s pretty sure the fall killed him,” Roy mused grimly between sips of coffee. “I sure hope he’s right. A broken neck’s a hell of a lot more quick ‘n merciful than bein’ burned alive.”

The second body, found in what remained of the house, lying right next to Derek Welles according to the men who had found them both, had yet to be officially identified. His head, part of his upper torso, and most of his left arm had been burned. From what remained intact, however, he had been wearing a green jacket, light brown pants, and matching shirt, at the time of his death. All of his garments were well constructed, using good, top quality material. Doctor Martin had gone through the pockets of the unidentified man’s clothing, those untouched by the flames that had partially consumed his body, and found them completely empty.

“At THIS point things start gettin’ a little screwy,” Roy mused silently. He sat behind his desk, staring down into the near opaque black depths of the untouched mug of coffee in front of him, as a gypsy fortune teller stares into her crystal ball.

This mystery man, officially listed as ‘John Doe,’ had been shot in the head on the hillside out behind the addition that housed the kitchen and Hop Sing’s room. Doctor Martin had confirmed this when he pieced the two large pieces of bone, that Roy had found back there, into the man’s shattered skull. The torn piece of material, also found by Roy near the place where the skull fragments had been found, fit snugly into the torn cuff of the left sleeve of the jacket the unknown man wore at the time of his death. The mother-of-pearl button, found within the area in which Candy insisted that Joe had struggled with one of his abductors, matched the others still attached to what remained of the dead man’s shirt. Two buttons were missing from the shirt, one from the cuff of the right sleeve, and the one second from the bottom.

The man had been shot down, fleeing for his life, by someone standing at the top of the hill, or close to it. The absence of other bullet wounds gave strong credence to the possibility of ‘John Doe,’ having been felled by a single shot.

“ . . . fired by a real sharp shooter,” the sheriff mused in grim silence. “Next the body’s burned, then put into what’s left o’ the Cartwrights’ house . . . probably by t’ killer himself. MY question is . . . WHY?”

Roy lifted the coffee mug, on the desk in front of him, to his lips, sipped, then grimaced. “Nuthin’ worse ‘n a good strong cup o’ coffee gone cold,” he groused under his breath, as he rose and started across the room toward the door, with mug in hand.

His thoughts drifted to Joe Cartwright and Jack Murphy, both of whom had been missing since early this morning. Doc Martin had officially ruled out the possibility of the unknown ‘John Doe’ being Joe Cartwright, as the men who found him had originally supposed. According to Hoss, the collapse of the great room ceiling separated Joe from the rest of the family, and barred him from the front door. He had told Hoss and Ben that he could still get out through Hop Sing’s room. That was the last time his family saw him. A scarlet, slightly worn robe and matching slippers, now in Roy’s possession, were proof that Joe had in fact safely escaped the burning house.

But where was he now?

Hoss and Candy were absolutely convinced that Joe Cartwright had been abducted by party or parties unknown. They had taken him out behind the what remained of Hop Sing’s room and the kitchen, to show him the paths and trails that led through the vegetable garden and the grassy meadow beyond. Based on what Roy saw there, and the conclusions Hoss and Candy had reached, Joe was taken by at least two, maybe three men.

If Hoss and Candy’s supposition was true . . . IF . . . could ‘John Doe’ have been one of the men involved in Joe’s abduction? If so, why had he been killed? Had there been a falling out between the three men? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a group of men, who were in cahoots with each other to commit a crime, found themselves in an argument that ended in violence. Though such a happenstance was not premeditated murder, therefore NOT a hanging offence, the guilty party still faced prison time. The Cartwrights’ house burning down as it did presented an ideal cover for the disposition of a dead body.

In most cases nobody ever would’ve been the wiser.

The loud, insistent pounding on the closed door to his office, drew Roy Coffee from his convoluted musings. “WHO IS IT?” he shouted.

“IT’S HOSS, SHERIFF COFFEE.”

“C’MON IN, HOSS! DOOR’S STILL OPEN.”

Hoss opened the door and stepped inside. Roy noted the slumping shoulders, the drooping eyelids, and the stifled yawn. “ ‘Evenin’ Sheriff. Y’ asked me t’ stop by on my way to see Pa ‘n Stacy.”

Roy rose. “Come on in, Hoss, ‘n pull up a chair. Can I getcha a mug o’ coffee?”

“Thank you, Roy, I sure could use it,” Hoss said wearily, as he crossed the room between the door and the sheriff’s desk. His gait was slow, a mere fraction of his normal, brisk pace. He half fell, half collapsed into the chair, sitting directly in front of the sheriff’s desk. Hoss yawned again, then dropped his head down on his arms, resting on top of the desk.

Roy pulled out the extra clean mug he kept in his drawer, for company, and walked over toward the pot bellied stove. “Anyone seen or heard anything from Joe or Jack Murphy?” he asked, as he picked up the pot and poured the last of what remained into the mug in hand.

“No, Sir,” Hoss replied curtly, shaking his head. “I took t’ liberty o’ bringin’ ya Jack Murphy’s things. Not much, just some clothes, shavin’ stuff, an ol’ tin box, ‘n a bunch o’ letters all bound up t’gether.” He reached down and lifted the half filled duffle bag, sitting on the floor beside him, up, onto the sheriff’s desk.

Roy handed Hoss the mug of coffee, then stepped around to the other side of his desk, to open the duffle bag. “This everything?”

Hoss nodded. “Jack didn’t have much.”

“Had good clothes,” Roy remarked, as he lifted out a stack of shirts, every one clean, pressed, and neatly folded. There was a half dozen work shirts, hued in black, bright scarlet, royal blue, and emerald green, along with three white dress shirts. “Real good material, well put t’gether. That usual f’r a drifter?”

“No, Sir. Like Candy said earlier, most o’ drifters WE hire on tend t’ be a real seedy lookin’ bunch.”

Roy next removed a stack of envelopes, roughly a dozen, bound together with twine from the duffle bag. He untied the bundle, as Hoss quietly looked on, and started leafing through the envelopes. “It seems they’re all postmarked New Orleans . . . except f’r this LAST one. IT has a Carson City return address.”

“I remember Jack tellin’ me his ma lived in New Orleans, once . . . when we got t’ talkin’.”

“Candy told me the same thing when I talked to him this mornin’ . . . whilst you we’re gettin’ dressed,” Roy said. “He also said that Jack said somethin’, ‘bout movin’ his ma somewhere close by.”

“I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout that, Sheriff Coffee.”

Roy picked up the envelope on top of the stack, noting that it had the oldest postmark date, and opened it. He removed the letter, written on a single page of plain pink stationary. The cursive handwriting was neat and precise, with no smudges, and each letter correctly formed, the spaces between words and lines almost uniform. A date was noted in the top, right corner. Roy brought the letter up to eye level and read it aloud:



“Dearest John,

How lovely to hear from you once again.

I was most gratified to hear about you finding work on the Ponderosa. Do keep me posted on all the details, no matter how small, trite, or insignificant they may seem to you.

Until I hear from you again,

With much love,
Mama.”



Hoss frowned. “Keep her posted on the details?! Details o’ what, I wonder . . . . ”

“Now don’t you go readin’ a bunch o’ stuff into that letter that in all likelihood just plain ain’t there,” Roy warned in a stern tone of voice. “This woman’s Jack’s ma, ‘n she’s probably askin’ him t’ keep her posted on how he’s doin’, who his friends are, is he seein’ any girls . . . stuff like that.”

“What does the one from Carson City say?”

Roy pulled the envelope from the bottom of the stack, and opened it. This missive was also composed on the same pink stationary. The sheriff also read this one aloud:



“Dearest John,

Your anecdotes about the entire Cartwright family have been quite amusing, especially the exploits of Joseph, the youngest son. He is such a darling boy, so impulsive, so full of life.

M., C., and I have relocated to the yellow house in Carson, and have settled in quite nicely. I have a few more details to tend to, Dearest, before we can sent our plans in motion. M. has been making discreet inquiries, and believes he has found a place suitable.

If all goes well, I will meet you on the 8th, two months from now.

Until then.

With much love and tender affection,

L. L.”



Though the writer of the letter had signed with the initials, L. L., the handwriting clearly belonged to the same person who had penned the first letter.

“L. L.,” Hoss murmured the letters aloud. “L. L. . . . . ” Those initials . . . New Orleans . . . both stirred something deep and nebulous within Hoss’ mind and thoughts. He tried with all his might to grab hold of that elusive memory, trying so hard to surface. It proved more slippery than a greased pig at a picnic.

“Hoss?”

“Sorry, Sheriff, I was thinkin’,” Hoss said. “What’s the return address for the letters comin’ from Carson City?”

“You thinkin’ maybe o’ payin’ a visit t’ this address?” Roy asked, knowingly.

“Yeah.”

“When ya figurin’ on goin’?”

“It’ll depend on how well Stacy’s farin’ . . . how much Pa might need me,” Hoss replied slowly. “I’m hopin’ maybe I can go within the next couple o’ days, or so.”

Roy reached into the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a pencil and scrap sheet of paper. He copied the Carson City address from the envelope, then handed it to Hoss. “First thing tomorrow mornin’, I’m sendin’ a wire to Amos Dudley, lettin’ him know to expect ya. He’s the sheriff over in Carson City, ‘n a real good friend o’ mine.”

“Thanks, Sheriff Coffee. Much obliged,” Hoss said with a curt nod.

“Now, when y’ git there, I don’t want ya upsettin’ whoever may be livin’ there with a lotta wild talk about Joe bein’ kidnapped,” Roy said sternly. “We ain’t established that yet.”

“Yes, Sir. I know that.”


“Any idea what’s in this tin box?” Roy asked, turning his attention to the last item that was in the duffle bag, containing Jack Murphy’s things.

“Nope. I just gathered it all up, ‘n stuffed it in his bag.”

Roy carefully lifted the lid, and peered inside. “Got a lotta money put by in here, Hoss. Must be a couple o’ hundred, at least. Any idea what he might’ve been savin’ up fer?”

“Nope.”

Roy was about to replace the lid on the tin box, when his eyes caught a glint of gold nestled among the huge wad of paper money, stuffed inside. He reached in and pulled out a solid gold ring with a raised coat of arms. “What in the world would a drifter be doin’ with a hunk o’ gold like this?” Roy wondered aloud.

“Could be he won it somewhere in a poker game,” Hoss said with a shrug. “Y’ know, with that coat o’ arms, it looks like a king’s ring . . . or someone with a fancy title.”

“I heard each o’ these coats o’ arms belongs t’ a different family,” Roy said thoughtfully. “I’m gonna take this over t’ Mrs. Wilkens first thing in the mornin’. Been meanin’ t’ look in on her, since I found out she’s ailin’.”

“If anyone can tell ya who that coat o’ arms belongs to . . . well, it’d be Mrs. Wilkens,” Hoss said. “When y’ go t’ see her, will ya give her my best?”

“Sure will, Hoss,” Roy promised. “You tell your pa ‘n Stacy that I’m thinkin’ about the two o’ them, too.”

“Thanks, Sheriff Coffee, I’ll be sure t’ tell ‘em.”



The sound of small knuckles lightly tapping against a closed wooden door roused Ben from the light slumber into which he had at long last drifted. For one brief, thoroughly unsettling moment, he had no idea where he was. Then, suddenly, he remembered . . . .


The fire.

Stacy hurt.

Nearly drowning on the ride to town and Doctor Martin under a torrential downpour.

The surgery.

Doctor Johns.

Ben sat up slowly and opened his eyes just in time to see Hop Sing opening the door.

“Hop Sing, Hoss is here . . . . ” It was Lily Martin, clad in nightgown, hastily donned robe, and a pair of slippers. “He’s in the parlor downstairs. Would you like me to bring him on up?”

“Hop Sing go downstairs, see Mister Hoss. Mister Cartwright, Miss Stacy sleeping,” he said, taking great care to keep his voice down. “Not want to wake up.”

“Hop Sing? I’m awake,” Ben said, rising stiffly to a sitting position.

Lily stepped into the room past Hop Sing and walked over to the cot upon which the Cartwright clan patriarch now sat, yawning. “Ben?”

“Yes, Lily?”

“If you want to go down with Hop Sing to see Hoss, I’ll be more than happy to sit with Stacy,” she offered.

“Thank you,” Ben murmured gratefully as he reached for the brand new boots sitting just under the cot.

“Pa?” It was Stacy. “I’m not asleep, either.”

Hop Sing sighed and threw his hands up in the air. “Mister Cartwright, Hop Sing go downstairs, get Mister Hoss.”

“Alright, Hop Sing,” Ben nodded wearily. He, then turned to Lily Martin. “Lily, I promise . . . we won’t talk long.”

“That’s alright, Ben,” Lily said, trying her best not to yawn. “Take all the time you need. I’m afraid I don’t have an extra cot for Hoss, but he’s welcome to use the divan in the living room upstairs, if he wants.”

“Thank you, Lily. Thank you very much . . . for everything,” Ben said gratefully. “You, Paul, and Doctor Johns have all been real godsends today.”

“I’m glad we were able to help,” she replied. “Do you need me for anything else?”

“No, thank you. We’ll be alright.”

“In that case, I’m going back to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, Lily.”

“Good night.”

Ben closed the door behind Lily Martin, then walked over toward the bed occupied by his daughter. “As for you, Stacy Rose Cartwright, you SHOULD be asleep,” he chided her gently, as he seated himself in the chair.

“I don’t know WHY, Pa. With being unconscious and— . . . well, you know . . . when I had that weird dream? I’ve pretty much spent all day sleeping.”

“I guess you have a point there,” Ben agreed, greatly heartened by her flip answer.

“Speakin’ f’r myself, Li’l Sister, I’m real glad t’ see you awake.”

Stacy turned and found herself looking up into the weary, yet smiling face of her biggest brother, Hoss. Hop Sing dutifully lit the oil lamp sitting on the night stand next to the examination table, serving as her bed.

“Hoss, sit down.” Ben immediately rose from the chair.

“I don’t wanna take your chair, Pa.”

“It’s alright, Son,” Ben said as he pulled up the doctor’s stool beside the bed Stacy occupied.

Hoss wearily sank down in the chair his father had just vacated. “Last I heard from Doc Martin, YOU were still bein’ operated on, Li’l Sister. I’m glad t’ see it’s over, ‘n you’ve come through with flyin’ colors.”

“I have, Hoss, but . . . I almost didn’t,” Stacy said, her voice shaking, “and we’re not sure yet about my leg.”

Ben reached out and took her hand in his, and gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

“The pair o’ you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Hoss remarked, noting his father’s and sister’s pale faces, and the haunted looks in their eyes. “What all went on here t’day?”

Ben quietly told Hoss everything that happened, including Stacy’s unsettling near death experience and the prognosis offered by Doctors Martin and Johns earlier.

Hoss took a moment to silent digest everything, then let out with a soft, low whistle. “Imagine that! My li’l sister beatin’ up on t’ Angel o’ Death.”

“I had no choice,” Stacy said very quietly. “He was trying to force me to go someplace I don’t want to go . . . at least not yet.”

“Well, I’m real glad you’re still with us,” Hoss said with a tired smile. Taking care to avoid the place where she had been struck by a piece of falling plaster, he reached out and gently tousled her hair, as he often had when she was a child. “Now I want ya t’ promise me you’ll remember one thing.”

“What’s that, Hoss?”

“Whatever ELSE happens, we’re all with ya. I know ya already know that, but at times like this, it helps t’ hear it. Sheriff Coffee also told me, when I was with him just a little while ago, that he’s thinkin’ about you and Pa, too. He said f’r me to let the two o’ YOU know.”

“Thanks, Hoss,” Stacy murmured gratefully. “Next time you see Sheriff Coffee, please . . . tell HIM thank you for me.”

“I sure will, Li’l Sister,” Hoss promised. “I, uh . . . got a surprise, mostly f’r Pa, I think, but there’s one thing I know you’ll appreciate.” He reached under his jacket and withdrew the picture taken of the entire Cartwright clan, two years ago when Adam, Teresa, and the kids came to visit. He held it so his father and sister both could see it.

“Hoss, I . . . I don’t believe it!” Ben declared, his eyes misting. “That was a wonderful summer, wasn’t it?”

“Sure was, Pa.” A bare hint of a smile tugged at the corner of Stacy’s mouth. “A lot of firsts.”

“Oh?” Ben queried.

“Yeah. First time I met Adam, Teresa, Benjy, and Dio . . . . ”

“First time I met Benjy ‘n Dio, too, Li’l Sister,” Hoss added, grinning from ear to ear.

“It was also the first time you proved yourself a wily mastermind, Hoss . . . .”

“ . . . an’ the first time I’ve ever in my whole life been dealt a royal flush.”

“That summer was also the first time I ever got involved in a barroom brawl, then thrown in jail.”

“The less said about THAT the better, Young Woman.” Ben’s voice was stern, but his dark eyes shone with a mixture of delight taken from memories of that eventful summer now two years past, and of tears yet unshed.

“Mister Hoss?”

“Yeah, Hop Sing?”

“Hop Sing make space, put picture here . . . on table, so Miss Stacy see. Mister Cartwright, too.”

Hoss handed the picture over to Hop Sing. “That table’s gonna git a mite crowded, though . . . ‘cause that ain’t the only surprise I got.” He reached into the deep, lower right hand pocket of his jacket and pulled out the miniature oil portrait of Marie, and the photographs of Elizabeth and Inger. He gently placed them in his father’s hands.

Ben stared down at the images of the three women he had loved and married. Though the time he had with each of them was tragically cut short, they had altogether blessed him with three sons, whom he dearly loved and cherished. “I . . . Hoss, I don’t believe this . . . you . . . you actually saved these pictures . . . . ?!”

“I didn’t, Pa . . . JOE did,” Hoss said quietly. “He also got the pictures o’ Uncle John ‘n Cousin Will, along with the prayer book that belonged to Mama.”

“Hoss?”

“Yeah, Li’l Sister?”

“Where IS Grandpa?” Stacy asked. “Did he stay back at the h— . . . at the Ponderosa?”

Hoss closed his eyes and bowed his head. The hour he had been dreading the entire day had finally, at long last, come upon him.

“Hoss?” Ben prompted, his own heart skipping a beat.

Hoss took a deep breath, then looked up, forcing himself to look into his father’s face and meet those intense brown eyes, boring into him, demanding an answer. “Pa . . . Stacy,” he began in as steady a voice as he could muster. “Joe’s gone missing.”

“Oh, Dear Lord, no! Please . . . no!” Ben groaned. The muscle and bone in his legs felt slack, as if they had just turned to rubber. Had he not already been sitting down, he would have most certainly fallen down.

“Oh no, Hoss!” Stacy murmured, her voice unsteady. “He . . . he didn’t— ”

“No, Li’l Sister, he didn’t,” Hoss said very quickly. “We know for fact that he got out.”

“Thank God!” Ben murmured a genuine heartfelt prayer of relief

“Where is he NOW, Hoss?” Stacy pressed anxiously.

“We . . . Candy ‘n me . . . are pretty sure he’s been kidnapped,” Hoss said.

“Kidnapped?!” Ben echoed incredulous.

Hoss nodded, then brought his father, sister, and Hop Sing up to date on every thing, including all that he had just learned from Roy Coffee.

“New Orleans? Those letters you found under Jack Murphy’s bunk were from New Orleans, signed with the initials, L. L.?!” Ben demanded.

“Yeah, Pa, all of ‘em WERE from New Orleans, except one. THAT one was from Carson City,” Hoss replied. “Sheriff Coffee only looked at two while I was there. One from New Orleans signed Mama, the other from Carson City . . . signed L. L.”

“Same handwriting?”

“Yes, Sir.” Hoss studied the anxious, preoccupied frown on his father’s face for a moment. “Pa?”

“Yes, Son?”

“There’s somethin’ about the initials L. L. ‘n New Orleans, ain’t there? I’ve been wrackin’ my brains tryin’ t’ figure it out, but it just ain’t comin’.”

“Linda Lawrence,” Ben said as a wave of dizziness washed over him. “Lady of Chadwick.”

“Pa, who’s this Linda Lawrence, Lady of Chadwick?” Stacy asked.

“A woman I knew in New Orleans, many, many years ago now,” Ben quietly answered his daughter’s question. “I met her a couple of years before I met Joe’s mother, Marie.” A rueful smile spread slowly across his lips. “I was in love with her, or so I thought at the time. I asked her to marry me, but she turned me down flat. Turned out that the entire time I was courting her, she was courting a titled Englishman, Oliver Lawrence, Lord of Chadwick.”

“She turned down the better man,” Stacy declared with an emphatic nod of her head.

“To paraphrase something a certain lovely young woman said to me a couple of years ago, I think you’re just a wee bit prejudiced,” Ben said quietly, smiling despite his grave concerns about his two younger children, “and I love you all the more for it.”

“Madame Darnier’s dress shop.”

Ben nodded. “Madame Darnier’s dress shop, indeed.” His smile faded. “Looking back, though, I’m sure glad I found out that she didn’t really love me, BEFORE making the big mistake of marrying her. A year after Linda and I parted ways, I met Marie.”

“I don’t get it, Pa,” Stacy said, frowning. “Why would she want to kidnap Joe? That was a long time ago, and besides . . . SHE turned YOU down. This Lady Chadwick’s hardly what you’d call the woman scorned.”

“She came t’ visit US at the Ponderosa . . . it’s been awhile now,” Hoss explained. “The man she DID marry, this Lord Chadwick died not long before, I think. We . . . Pa, Adam, Joe, ‘n me . . . thought she was an old friend droppin’ by t’ catch up on the years, maybe remember old times, but she had somethin’ else in mind.”

“What?” Stacy asked.

A dark, angry scowl creased Hoss’ brow. “She tried t’ ruin us . . . t’ ruin PA, so he’d hafta marry her for her money.”

“I caught on to her scheme and exposed it before the damage she did became permanent,” Ben said grimly. “By the time I confronted her, I’m afraid I was ‘way too angry to even think of conducting myself like a gentleman. Linda went into a pretty violent rage herself. She swore to get even somehow, but as Hoss said, it’s been a long time. I haven’t heard either FROM her or ABOUT her . . . until now.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Son?”

“I’d like t’ ride over t’ Carson City ‘n check on that address where Jack Murphy mailed his letters, if it’s alright with YOU.”

“I don’t know, Hoss,” Ben shook his head.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“If you want to go with Hoss, I’ll be ok here for a few days,” Stacy said in as steady a voice as she could muster. She squeezed his hand reassuringly for emphasis.

“I— ” Ben dolefully shook his head. “I know Doctor Johns said the surgery went well enough, that he was able to put your leg back together, Young Woman, but he AND Doctor Martin both said you’re not exactly out of the woods yet.”

“Doctor Johns also said I’m young, strong, and healthy as a horse, Pa. He said all that’s in my favor . . . remember?”

“I remember, but— ”

“I’ll be fine, Pa, I promise,” Stacy said earnestly, “and if something DOES happen, I’ll be right here, where Doctor Martin and Doctor Johns can get to me quickly.”

Ben gently stroked the uninjured side of her head. “I . . . I just hate the thought of . . . well, of leaving YOU alone right now, especially after . . . after— ”

. . . after you almost died. Though her father couldn’t bring himself to voice those words, Stacy nonetheless heard them, loud and clear. “I’ll be ok, Pa,” she said earnestly, as she slipped her arms around Ben’s neck and shoulders, “I promise.”

Ben slipped his own arms around Stacy and held her close for a moment. “You SURE you’ll be alright?” he asked, his voice tremulous.

“I’m sure.”

“Mister Cartwright?”

“Yes, Hop Sing?”

“Miss Stacy NOT be here alone,” Hop Sing said quietly. “HOP SING stay here with Miss Stacy. Make sure she take medicine and do what doctors say. You, Mister Hoss go to Carson City. Bring home Little Joe.”

“Yeah, Pa . . . what Hop Sing just said.”

Joe Cartwright woke up to a world of impenetrable darkness, pressing in on him from all sides, suffocating him. He opened his mouth to take a deep breath, even as he fought to quell the panic now rising within him, crying out in sheer agony as the expansion of lungs and chest sent spasms of intense pain rippling through the entire length and breadth of his upper torso. Squeezing his eyes shut as tightly as he possibly could, he concentrated on slowing his deep, ragged, excruciating breaths to an even cadence, shallower, less painful.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

He tried to turn over onto his side, only to discover something restricting his movements. He shifted onto his back, and tried to turn over again. Both of his feet and his left hand seemed to be stuck somehow. He peered into the opaque darkness, searching frantically for his feet. They were completely hidden, swallowed up in the same oppressive veil of darkness pressing down on him so heavily.

Joe tried to raise his left leg, and found, much to his astonishment, that he could not. He was able to bend his knee slightly, and move his foot a little back and forth, but something kept pulling at his leg, rendering it largely immobile. The same held true for his right leg. He tried his ankles, his left first, then the right. He could move them up and down, but found his side-to-side movements restricted.

“Pa?” Joe called out into the darkness, wincing against the soreness in his throat. He was very much surprised at how hoarse his voice sounded.

There was no answer.

“PA!”

Still no answer.

“HOSS? STACY? HOP SING?”

No answer. Only the thick, shroud like silence of the darkness all around him.

“HELLO . . . ANYONE HOME?!”

“They can’t hear you.”

Joe started violently upon hearing a woman’s voice issue from the darkness. There was a familiarity about it that set him on edge.

Then, suddenly, the room was filled with an intense bright sunlight. Joe screamed, as he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to turn his face away from the source. His breath came in rapid deep gulps, sending ripple upon ripple of excruciating pain searing through his chest and lungs. He tried once to roll over onto his side, away from the sun’s blinding glare, but, as before, found he couldn’t move. Again, he forced himself to relax, to lie still and slow his breathing, keeping his face averted away from the source of the light as much as he could. Finally, and with trepidation, he slitted one eye open, then the other.

“Good morning, Little Joe.”

He turned toward the sound of that voice. It was Lady Chadwick, standing at the foot of his bed, a little to his right, placing her out of the sun. She held her posture rigidly erect, with thin, bony arms folded tight across her chest.

Her appearance shocked him. That angry scowl and turned down mouth seemed indelibly etched into a hard, gaunt, granite like face, its planes and muscles so rigidly set. Her hair, once a rich chestnut brown hue, not unlike his own, appeared in the harsh daylight as a flat, yellowish brown, of a peculiar shade that did not normally occur in nature. It’s uniform color, with no shadows, no highlights, clearly marked it as a dye job, and a very poor one, at that.

The harsh, glare of sunlight, streaming in through the naked window panes, lent a garish intensity to her hair color, and rendered the lavish, painstaking application of her cosmetics almost completely invisible. Every line, every flaw in her face was laid bare. Though somewhere between ten and fifteen years younger than his father in age, by the bright, merciless morning sun, Lady Chadwick looked old enough to be his grandmother.

She wore a morning dress, white, overlaid with dainty blue forget-me-nots and tiny pink rosebuds, all gathered in miniature bouquets, held together by pink ribbons. Its cut and style seemed to him more suited for a girl, a young, teenaged girl, poised at the brink of womanhood, than to a matron of Lady Chadwick’s years. On another elderly woman, such a dress would almost certainly provoke cruel laughter, or pity. Seeing bouquets of forget-me-nots and rosebuds on Lady Chadwick, however, made him feel very uneasy.

“Where . . . where am I?” Joe asked.

“You are in my home away from home,” Linda answered in a stone cold voice.

“Wh-Where is your . . . your home away from h-home?”

“That’s NOT something you need to know, Little Joe.”

“Why not?”

She laughed. There was no mirth, no amusement. “Dear, Dear, Dearest Little Joe . . . did anyone EVER tell you that you ask too many questions?”

She seemed to be gazing down at him as if he were something very good to eat. Joe very slowly, very carefully lifted his head, and in that moment, realized he was completely naked, save for the bandaging around his chest, right arm and shoulder. He felt the tingling, hot rush of blood to his face as his head dropped back down onto the mattress like a heavy lead weight.

“You were running a very high fever by the time I got you home,” Linda continued. Her pink lipsticked lips twisted upward into a fierce, predatory smile. “Though your temperature has dropped considerably, you’re still a tad feverish.” Her eyes came to rest on his private parts, now lying open to her intense, cruel scrutiny. “On the OTHER hand, Darling, MY temperature remains quite high.”

Unable to turn his body away from her frank, appraising gaze, he settled for turning his head and face away, prompting an explosion of harsh, derisive laughter. Joe wished desperately, with every fiber of his being, that the earth would simply open right out from under the bed in which he was lying and just swallow him up. Though the prospect of being plunged forever into an eternity of complete and utter darkness terrified him beyond imagining, it was still preferable to Lady Chadwick’s intense scrutiny, and her harsh, cruel laughter.

“Why, Dearest Little Joe, I . . . well I simply had no idea! No idea in the world that you, of all people, were so modest,” she taunted. “I would have expected that sort of thing from Hoss, or even Adam, with HIS prim and proper New England sensibilities . . . but, not from YOU.”

Linda moved around into the sunlight, and walked around to the left side of the bed, with the slow, deliberate gait of a cougar stalking prey. She primly seated herself on the edge of his bare mattress, and leaned over, displaying her own cleavage to good advantage. “You dearest darling boy, you have absolutely no reason . . . no reason in the world to BE so modest.”

She, then, leaned over and kissed him on the mouth.

Joe squeezed his eyes shut, and pressed his lips together as tightly as he could. He unconsciously pressed his head and his shoulders hard against the mattress, in a desperate, if futile attempt to move away from her.

“Ben, Darling, at last . . . . ” she purred, as her lips moved from his mouth down to the small of his neck, just below his Adam’s apple. “I FINALLY have you right where I’ve ALWAYS wanted you.” She slowly, relentlessly moved downward, leaving a trail of tight hard kisses, overtop the bindings around his rib cage, then onto the bare flesh of his abdomen, taking an obvious delight in the feel of his hard muscled torso and his acute embarrassment. She stopped just below his naval, straightened, and smiled expectantly.

Joe stared up at her through eyes round with astonishment and horror.

Linda gasped, surprised, outraged, and grief stricken, upon seeing the open revulsion, the fear, even disgust in the face of the captive young man lying sprawled on the bed before her. She slowly rose to her feet, her entire body trembling. “THAT little tidbit has enthralled many, many men, driving them absolutely insane with desire and longing.”

Joe was too shocked, too horrified to even think of responding. All he could do was shake his head and softly mutter, “No, no, please, no.”

Linda Lawrence’s stone cold face suddenly contorted with rage. Snarling with all the vicious intensity of a mad dog, foaming at the mouth, she slapped his face so hard, he could almost feel his teeth rattle. “Your father happened to be one of those men.”

“Until he found out what you REALLY are . . . greedy, self-seeking, cold hearted, conniving bitch, who cared more for a . . . a fancy European title than you ever did for him!” Upon finding his voice, Joe immediately gave vent to the anger and rage, now rising inside him, with a wild, reckless abandon.

The next thing Joe realized, she was straddling him at the waist, her hands tightly balled into a pair of surprisingly solid, rock hard fists, raining blows down on his face and chest, screaming incoherently with rage. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head and face as far as his neck muscles would allow.

“Well, well, well! Isn’t THIS a sweet, cozy little scene!”

Then, suddenly, the blows stopped, though not her screaming. Joe turned and opening his eyes, saw Lady Chadwick twisting and struggling in the ironclad grip of her man, Crippensworth.

“My Lady, you really MUST learn to curb your temper,” Crippensworth chided her in a tone, insultingly condescending. “That boy can’t be much of an instrument of your revenge if you beat him to death the first day.”

“LET GO OF ME, CRIPPENSWORTH . . . YOU LET GO OF ME RIGHT NOW!”

“ . . . as for YOU, Boy, I don’t know what you said to set her off, but it was a very stupid move on your part,” Crippensworth sneered. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten the LATE Jack Murphy?!”

Joe paled.

Crippensworth smiled, showing a long string of hard white teeth, reminding Joe of a growling wolf or dog, ready to leap and tear the very throat out of its opponent. “I’d strongly suggest you not forget Jack Murphy again, lest you ALSO forget, Milady is capable of anything. Anything at all!”

“CRIPPENSWORTH! YOU UNHAND ME RIGHT NOW THIS VERY INSTANT!” Linda’s screams escalated in volume, proportionally to the fury burning hot within her.

Joe watched with horrified, morbid fascination as Lady Chadwick’s face underwent a dark transformation from anything even remotely bearing human semblance to something frighteningly bestial, even daemonic. Her words quickly degenerated into ferocious, guttural growls and snarls, as her struggles to free herself from Crippensworth’s grip intensified. Lady Chadwick’s eyes locked and held fast to Joe’s own.

“N-No . . . . ” Joe moaned, as he squeezed his eyes shut, and turned his face away from Linda’s intense, malevolent gaze. Still the image of her eyes remained, as if indelibly burned onto the backs of his eyelids. The venom, the malice, and the bitter hatred reflected in her gaze bore into the depths of his soul, the very core of his being like a fast acting, highly corrosive acid. Never, in his entire life, had he ever felt so frightened, helpless, or alone.

Crippensworth half dragged, half carried the shrieking daemon, he held clasped in his arms, toward the door to Joe’s room, his hold becoming more and more tenuous with each passing second. Upon finally reaching the closed door, Crippensworth wound one arm so tight around Lady Chadwick’s waist, Joe could see muscles and veins bulging, as he struggled mightily to keep hold of her. He grabbed hold of the door knob with his free hand and threw open the door, slamming it into the adjoining wall with a loud, explosive bang. With a loud, explosive grunt, Crippensworth hurled the still struggling, still shrieking and howling Lady Chadwick out into the hallway beyond with a near superhuman strength borne of sheer desperation.

Crippensworth, now thoroughly disheveled, stepped quickly through the open door, then turned to favor Joe with a sardonic, malicious grin. “Remember, Boy,” he said again, so to be heard against his employer, still shrieking at the top of her lungs. “Remember.”



Crippensworth dragged Lady Chadwick into the hallway outside Joe’s room, pausing just long enough to turn and close the door firmly behind him.

“LET ME GO! LET ME GO, DAMN YOU . . . LET ME GO THIS INSTANT!” she screamed as he literally dragged her down the hall to the large master bedroom at the very end.

Crippensworth kicked open the door, dragged his employer into the room, and threw her down on the bed. “My . . . don’t YOU look a sight, Milady,” he said with a sardonic chuckle, as he took in her mussed hair, the make-up smeared across her face, the torn ruffle at the hemline of her dress, the puff sleeve, completely detached from her bodice, that lay bunched around her wrist.

Linda launched herself off the bed to her feet with a savage, animalistic snarl, and ran toward Crippensworth with her arms fully extended, her fingers curled like the talons of a hawk or an eagle. Crippensworth snagged her wrists, one in each hand, with ridiculous ease. He then pulled her arms behind her back, eliciting a cry of pain and outrage before fastening his lips down on hers in a harsh, brutal, demanding kiss.

“How DARE you?” Linda snarled the instant their lips parted. “If you don’t unhand me right now, this very instant, I’ll— ”

“In the first place, you can save your breath from making these idle threats, Milady. I’m NOT so easily cowed as Montague was . . . and in the second place, you LIKE your men rough,” Crippensworth sneered, his eyes lingering very pointedly on her cleavage. He pulled her back in his arms and kissed her again, with all the harsh violence of the first.

Linda tried to push away, then with a sigh, her struggles ceased and her body went limp in his embrace. When, at last they separated, she looked up at him, breathless, her heart racing and eyes glazed. “Benjamin Cartwright, you’re nothing but a common piece of trash,” she purred.

“ . . . and YOU, Milady, are nothing but a common whore!” Crippensworth spat contemptuously.



Ben and Hoss, meanwhile, slowly dismounted from their horses, Buck and Chubb respectively, and tethered their leads to the hitching post on the street, just outside a small, narrow town house, three stories high. Though the wood siding had originally been painted a brilliant canary yellow, years of relentless sunshine and rain had dulled it’s vivid intensity to a pastel shadow of its former self. The white paint on the window trim, the door, the railing on either side of the small door stoop was cracked and peeling. The window boxes stood empty, and the flower bed next to the house, the pride and joy of the late Ezekiel Reid, was overgrown with weeds.

“I remember Derek tellin’ me about how Carolyn was gonna clear out those beds, ‘n plant flowers again, the way her pa used to,” Hoss said sadly, as he and Ben tethered their horses to the hitching post.

“Maybe Carolyn will feel up to doing all that NEXT spring,” Ben suggested.

“Pa, I don’t think Carolyn ‘n her ma are gonna be here come spring,”

Ben looked over at his biggest son with a perplexed frown. “What makes you say that?”

Hoss pointed toward the front door. Ben’s eyes followed the line of his son’s extended arm and pointing finger to the hand lettered sign reading, “For sale,” hailed there.

“Awfully sudden . . . . ” Ben murmured. “How long have you known, Hoss?”

“I found out just now when I saw that sign, same as you.”

“I can’t say as I blame them with Mister Reid dying so suddenly last year, and now Derek,” Ben said sadly. “I just hope they don’t regret their decision to move.”

“Yeah.”

Ben looked over at the biggest of his three sons, taking due note of his pale face, his blue eyes round with apprehension, and trembling hands, hanging down at his side. “Hoss?”

“Yeah, Pa?”

“You alright?”

“As alright as I can be right now,” Hoss sighed, then dolefully shook his head. “Dadburn it, Pa, if I had m’ druthers . . . I’d be right back up on Chubb lickity-split, high-tailin’ it outta here.”

“I know how you feel, Hoss,” Ben murmured sympathetically, “however, Derek Welles was not only one of the best, most trusted, and loyal men who’s ever graced our payroll . . . he was also a good friend. We owe it to him and to his memory to see Carolyn.”

“I know,” Hoss said, as he and Ben started to move slowly up the walk. “I just wish I knew what t’ say at times like this. A lot o’ the stuff I hear folks say . . . like he or she’s in a better place . . . or they’re with God . . . it’s a blessin’ in disguise . . . it’s the will o’ God . . . . ” He sighed once more and again, shook his head. “I . . . to me, none o’ that seems right somehow.”

“I usually find a simple ‘I’m sorry,’ an ear willing to listen, occasionally a shoulder to cry on more than ample at times like this,” Ben said quietly, “along with ‘is there anything I can do?’ Son . . . . ”

“Yeah, Pa?”

“The most important thing, I think, is being there.”

Hoss nodded. “I think you just might be right,” he said, as he quickened his pace. His face was set with a rock-like determination to see this whole grim business through. Ben followed close behind.

Flora Reid, Carolyn’s mother, opened the door in answer to their summons. Aged in her mid-to-late forties, she wore a gray skirt and white blouse, both simply tailored with no adornment. Her only jewelry consisted of the plain gold wedding band on the third finger of her left hand and the gold heart shaped locket around her neck, containing a picture of her late husband.

“Mister Cartwright . . . Hoss . . . please, come in,” Flora invited, as she stood aside to allow them entry. “I hope you’ll both excuse the mess. Carolyn and I are in the midst of packing.”

“We . . . saw the ‘for sale’ sign on the front door, Ma’am,” Hoss said, as he and his father politely removed their hats. “I’m gonna hate seein’ you ‘n Carolyn go.”

“Thank you, Hoss. Speaking for myself, there’s a lot of wonderful, kind people I’m going to miss . . . your family among them,” Flora said very quietly, as she led Ben and Hoss through the maze of packing crates. “But, after all that’s happened . . . we can’t stay here.”

“Where are you headed?” Ben asked, as he helped Flora clear boxes from their large divan.

“Back east . . . to Philadelphia. My husband was from there originally. His mother and eldest sister still live there,” Flora replied. “I sent them a wire yesterday after . . . after we learned about Derek. Genevieve, my sister-in-law, sent us a wire yesterday evening telling both of us we were more than welcome to come. Carolyn will be leaving right after Derek’s funeral. I intend to follow after I’ve settled things here.”

“I’m sorry my family and I haven’t come sooner— ” Ben started to apologize, as he and Hoss sat down together on the divan.

“Mister Cartwright, as far as I’M concerned, you have nothing to apologize for,” Flora said firmly. “We . . . Carolyn and I . . . heard about Stacy . . . and about Joe. Any word . . . on either one?”

“Stacy had surgery on her leg yesterday,” Ben replied. “It was touch and go most of the day, but Doctor Johns was able to put everything back together.”

Flora managed a wan smile. Barely. “I’m glad to hear everything went as it should,” she said sincerely, “and I hope she continues to do well. I . . . well, I just couldn’t imagine that child not ever being able to sit a horse again.”

Ben refrained from adding the prospect of his daughter not being able to ride again had been the very least of his worries yesterday. “We’ll know more how things are gonna go in the next few days,” he said aloud.

“Have you heard anything about Joe?”

“Not yet,” Ben replied. “I have everyone who can possibly be spared out looking for him, of course.”

“I hope he turns up alive and well, Mister Cartwright. I’ll remember you and your family in my prayers.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Reid,” Ben said, genuinely touched. “If there’s anything Hoss and I can do for YOU . . . anything at all— ”

“As a matter of fact, there IS,” Flora said, lowering her voice. “After Doc Martin releases Derek’s body . . . Carolyn and I want to see to his funeral arrangements. He had no family, to speak of . . . . ”

“No,” Ben sadly shook his head. “His parents were killed when he was sixteen, and I don’t recall them ever mentioning any other family members. I’ll tell Paul to release Derek’s body to you and Carolyn.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright.”

“I hope you’ll let us know when the funeral’s t’ be,” Hoss added.

“I will, Hoss. I know that you and the rest of your family were all very fond of Derek, and . . . and so were the men he worked with.”

“Mrs. Reid, would it be alright if we saw Carolyn?” Hoss asked.

“I’m so sorry, but . . . well, she’s . . . very much indisposed, and not . . . really up to seeing much of anybody.”

“Now, it’s my turn to tell you that neither you nor Carolyn have anything to apologize for,” Ben said. “Please give her our condolences?”

“I will,” Flora promised.

“ . . . and please . . . if there’s anything else we can do for you and Carolyn, don’t hesitate to ask,” Ben said earnestly.

“I’ll remember,” she said.

“Hoss and I need to be moving along. We have some pressing business to take care of in Carson City— ”

“ . . . which I’m sure you both want to wind up as quickly as possible, so you can be back here with Stacy,” Flora said knowingly. “If you need someone to sit with her or anything while you and Hoss are away— ”

“Thank you, Mrs. Reid,” Ben said quietly. “Stacy’s with the Martins’ right now, and she’s going to stay there, until we know she’s completely out of the woods. I’m also leaving Hop Sing with her to make sure she takes her medicine and follows doctor’s orders.”

“Sounds like she’s in very good hands,” Flora said, as they walked to the door. “Thank you very much for stopping by, Mister Cartwright . . . Hoss. I’ll let you know about the funeral arrangements as soon as I’m able to make them.”



“Pa?”

“Yes, Son?”

“You’ve been awful quiet since we left Virginia City.”

“So have you.”

They had left the Reid home during the mid-morning hours, and set out immediately along the road toward Carson City. For the better part of the first three hours, father and son had ridden in silence, each lost in the tangled maze of his own thoughts.

“I keep goin’ back ‘n forth, Pa,” Hoss confessed. “One minute, I’m worried somethin’ awful about Joe ‘n Stacy, the next, I . . . well, I start thinkin’ ‘bout Derek ‘n Carolyn, how they was s’posed t’ be gettin’ hitched this Saturday ‘n I . . . . Pa, can a man be mad enough t’ spit ‘n still feel like bawlin’ . . . both at the same time?”

“Yes,” Ben replied.

“It ain’t fair, Pa,” Hoss said tersely.

“Carolyn and Derek?”

Hoss nodded. “After his ma ‘n pa were killed, all Derek ever wanted was t’ settle down with a nice gal ‘n raise a whole passel o’ kids,” he said, his voice catching, “an’ now . . . less ‘n a week before realizin’ that dream . . . he’s GONE. It ain’t fair, Pa. It just plain ‘n simple ain’t fair.”

“I agree with you, Son.”

Hoss looked over at his father, mildly surprised. “You ain’t gonna tell me somethin’ about how it’s the will o’ God . . . and it ain’t ours t’ question?”

“No,” Ben shook his head.

“Why NOT?”

“Because I don’t believe the kind, loving, and merciful God I’VE come to know would actually will such a thing as . . . as the untimely, tragic death of a young bridegroom-to-be less than a week before his wedding,” Ben said quietly, “but, as I told your sister, back when Lotus O’Toole was so brutally murdered, what I DO believe is maybe a harder thing to accept than simply passing it off as the will of God.”

“What . . . exactly DO ya believe about where God is in all this?”

“In Derek’s case, he had a choice, Hoss,” Ben said. “He knew that going up on the roof, to open up a hole there so that they might pour water in from above . . . was a very dangerous proposition. I didn’t want him to do that, and I told him so. But, he was so bound and determined to save what he could of that house . . . of everything IN that house— ”

“Probably ‘cause he once lost everything . . . except the clothes on his back . . . when his folks died,” Hoss said sadly.

“When he told me he wanted to go up on the roof, I told HIM that every THING in that house could be replaced . . . but people couldn’t.” Ben looked over at his son, favoring him with a wistful smile that came no where close to reaching his eyes. “Sometimes . . . sometimes I find myself wishing I could have Derek back for five minutes, Hoss . . . just five minutes . . . so I could THROTTLE him.”

“It’s too bad Carolyn’s pa died when he did last year. If he hadn’t, Derek ‘n Carolyn would’ve gotten themselves hitched THEN.”

“His death now would still be a pretty bitter pill to swallow, Son.”

“Yeah, but they would’ve had pert near a whole year together, Pa, ‘n maybe a young’n around . . . or on the way . . . t’ comfort her now.”

“It’s . . . not easy raising a child alone.”

“YOU did it, Pa. YOU raised FOUR all by yourself.”

“That’s how I know it’s not easy.”

“I know I’ve asked ya this before, but . . . did you ever regret takin’ the lot o’ us on?”

“No. As difficult as it’s been sometimes . . . and I’ll be honest with ya, Son, some of those real difficult times were almost overwhelming . . . I still have no regrets. If I had it to do all over again, I would . . . in a heartbeat.”

“Y’ did a great job of it, Pa . . . even if I do say so m’self.”

“Thank you, Son.”

Hoss glanced over at his father sharply, upon hearing his voice break on the last word. “You alright, Pa?”

“I will be, Hoss . . . once I know that your sister is out of the woods . . . and I . . . I have your younger brother back home, safe and sound.”



“For the ONE HUNDREDTH TIME . . . I was out in my buggy for an early morning drive . . . WITH Crippensworth . . . when I spotted the flames from your home,” Linda said impatiently, through clenched teeth. She had changed out of the morning dress to a light gray skirt, and a light green long sleeved blouse, rolled up to the elbows. Her hair was styled in a French twist and her make up carefully, painstakingly reapplied.

“Though your father and I didn’t part on the best of terms last time we met, I, nonetheless, felt duty bound to help,” she continued, as she slowly paced the floor, moving on a parallel course relative to the footboard of the bed on which Joe still lay bound, helpless, and naked. She held a riding crop in her right hand, in a grip so tight her knuckles had turned a bloodless white. As she walked, she slapped the riding crop hard against the open palm of her left hand, keeping time with the cadence of her footsteps. “We turned— ”

“Why in the world would you feel duty bound to help . . . when you told me earlier that you had someone set our house on fire in the first place?” Joe groused. He was hot, hungry, thirsty . . . every muscle in his body ached from being held immobile, and he was nursing what had to be the absolute worst headache it had ever been his misfortune to suffer, brought on by his ever growing hunger and thirst.

Crippensworth rolled his eyes and chuckled, sardonically, without mirth.

Linda halted her pacing abruptly, mid-stride, then turned and marched over to the left side of Joe’s bed. With a soft, low snarl, she raised the riding crop high above her head and brought it down against Joe’s left shin, with a loud, thunderous crack. Joe cried out in pain and outrage. Again and again, her arm arced through the air, up, then down, moving too fast for the eye to see, slapping hard against Joe’s left shin, until she finally drew blood. With each blow she landed, her face contorted more and more into the terrible mask of the fury that always seemed to be burning just below the surface.

Linda stepped closer to the edge of the bed and bent down, bringing her face mere inches from his. “Don’t you EVER . . . interrupt me . . . ever . . . again,” she whispered, her entire body trembling with pent up rage. “Do you understand me?”

Joe angrily turned his face away.

Linda grabbed a fistful of hair in her left hand and yanked his head around, eliciting another cry of pain. “You look at me when I’m talking to you,” she said in a low, menacing voice.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Joe replied in a sullen tone, fighting back the strong inclination to spit right in her face.

Linda threw Joe’s head back down onto the mattress, then straightened. “Where was I?” she asked in a stiff tone of voice.

“Something about you and me being out for an early morning ride, Milady,” Crippensworth replied, the sarcasm in his voice blatantly evident. “We saw the flames consuming the house . . . you felt duty bound to offer help, even though you bitterly hate Ben Cartwright’s guts.”

This last drew a sharp, angry, withering glare from Lady Chadwick. “I’ll thank you NOT to be so insolent when speaking to your betters, Crippensworth,” she admonished him in a cold, angry tone.

“Yes, Milady,” Crippensworth said, rolling his eyes sarcastically upward.

Satisfied with her man’s outward show of compliance, Linda returned her attention to Joe. “As Crippensworth just said . . . we were out for a drive early this morning, when we saw the fire. I felt duty bound to offer what assistance I could, even though your father . . . ” she grimaced, “ . . . and I didn’t part on the most cordial of terms.

“I told Crippensworth to turn around, to head back,” she continued, as she once more resumed her pacing, this time moving parallel to the left side of Joe’s bed. “When we reached the place where the narrow little venue, that runs along in back of your house, intersects with the main road, I saw you struggling, fighting to get out of the house. You got out, but collapsed in the garden out back. I told Crippensworth to stop the buggy. I got out and ran to your side, Little Joe, with Crippensworth following along right behind me.

“You were hurt. I could see that.” Linda began to strike the open palm of her right hand this time, as she paced, gripping the riding crop tightly in her left. As before the riding crop slapping against the flesh of her palm fell into cadence with her footsteps. “I wanted to move you . . . to take you back around front where I figured your father would be, but Crippensworth strongly advised against it. He said you might have suffered internal injuries. I saw the wisdom in what he said, so I told him to remain with you, while I ran around to the front of the house for help.”

Linda closed her eyes, averted her face toward the floor, then sighed a long, melodramatic sigh. The lines and planes of her face began to slowly ease back into a stone cold mask, completely void of emotion. “It . . . pains me very much to have to tell you this, Little Joe, but when I went around to the front to get you help, your father went into a violent rage. I tried to tell him about YOU, of course . . . but he just plain and simply refused to listen to reason. He ordered me off his property, threatening to kill me then and there, if I didn’t go.”

“That DOESN’T sound like Pa,” Joe said through clenched teeth, his eyes blazing with the fury rising and swelling within himself.

“He also told me THEN that you were dead,” Linda continued impassively, “ . . . that he even had your body to prove it.” A nasty, malicious smile oozed slowly across her pink lipsticked lips. “My little charade seems to have worked.”

“Wh-What little charade?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“WHAT LITTLE CHARADE?” Joe demanded frantically.

“Having Crippensworth burn the body of the LATE Jack Murphy and placing IT in the smoking embers of your once and former lovely home. Do you remember NOW, Darling?”

“NO!” Joe hotly protested. “They won’t buy it.”

“Ah, but, they HAVE, Little Joe. Lock . . . stock . . . and barrel.” Linda turned to her man with a triumphant smile. “Haven’t they, Crippensworth?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Crippensworth lied with the oily smoothness that comes with long practice. “One of the men I’ve employed to watch your family reported that your brother . . . you know, the lummox? . . . that the very minute they pulled Jack’s body from the ash heap, he couldn’t get to the undertaker and make the necessary arrangements soon enough.”

“No! I don’t believe you,” Joe countered. The uncertain undertones in his voice brought smug, complacent smiles to both their faces.

“Fine. DON’T believe me,” Linda said in an airy, dismissive tone. “That won’t change the facts, Darling . . . and the facts are your so called wonderful, loving family . . . your father, your brother and sister . . . even that heathen Chinese cook of yours . . . have all written you off as DEAD.”

“NO! YOU’RE LYING!” Joe snarled, snapping his head back around to face her. “EVERYTHING YOU’VE SAID . . . IT’S NOTHING BUT A PACK OF FILTHY LIES!”

Linda exhaled a pretty sigh, soft, bordering on the melodramatic. “Oh, you poor dearest darling! You love your family so much, I really and truly wish things were otherwise, but . . . ” she shrugged, “ . . . you have to face the facts, I’m afraid.”

“You’re damn right I’ve gotta face the facts,” Joe growled back through clenched teeth, “and fact number one is . . . you and Crippensworth did NOT come to help me. You and that overgrown gorilla of yours came to KIDNAP me!”

“Your memory is faulty,” Linda said in an ice cold tone that dripped icicles. “VERY faulty!”

“Oh no, it’s NOT!”

“Oh yes, it IS, Little Joe, rest assured . . . it IS!” Her breathing had finally begun to slow.

“ . . . and Pa couldn’t possibly have my body.”

“You’re absolutely right, Darling. Your father couldn’t possibly have YOUR body. But, he DOES have the body of the man you knew as Jack Murphy.”

“J-Jack Murphy?!”

“My SON, Little Joe. Remember?”

The image of the recently hired hand running, fleeing for his life, assailed Joe’s troubled mind and thoughts. Again, he heard the rifle fire, and saw Jack’s head burst apart like an overripe pumpkin.

“Y-Your own s-son!” Joe stammered, horrified. “You . . . you actually killed your own son just s-so you could make Pa think I d-died in that fire?!”

“The plan seems to be working very WELL, Darling. Very well indeed! My beloved son definitely did NOT die in vain.”

“NO!” Joe screamed in anguish, as he squeezed his eyes shut against the vision of his father’s face, as he had seen it at Angelus, after a mine collapse, triggered by a dynamite blast set off by the owner. For the brief space of a heartbeat, his father stood, rendered immobile, staring into the smoke and dust pouring out of the opening into the mine, not yet knowing that he had actually survived the blast.

Joe would never, not if he lived to be a hundred, ever forget the terrible look he saw on Pa’s face. “No! You can’t fool pa so easily . . . . ”

“You think SO, eh, Little Joe?” Linda taunted him.

“I KNOW so. My pa has NOT written me off as dead, nor would he WANT to. I’ll betcha any amount of money that he, Hoss, and Stacy are probably out right now scouring the countryside looking for me.”

“You LOSE that bet, Darling. Your sister, Stacy, it seems was very badly hurt.”

Joe suddenly remembered that piece of plaster falling, striking her head, and knocking her out. He had picked her up and carried her to the staircase, following close behind Hoss. Then, the ceiling overhead fell. Some of the larger beams fell onto the staircase, reducing it to so much scrap lumber. He, with Stacy in his arms, and Hoss fell nearly the entire height between the second floor and the first.

“I understand your father spends night and day at HER side,” Linda continued. “So does that Chinese man.” She grimaced delicately.

“If Stacy’s badly hurt, of COURSE Pa’s going to stay with her, just like he has stayed and would stay by my bothers and me,” Joe argued. “But, he’s probably got HOSS out lookin’, along with some of the other men.”

Linda shook her head. “Your father and Hoss have every man that can be spared working on the house. Hoss has been going back and forth between the house and your father and sister, as is natural, I suppose. But from what I’VE been able to see, Little Joe, they’ve not spared YOU a second thought.”

“You’re lying!”

Linda stepped over to the bed and gently traced the line of his jaw with her index finger. “Dearest, Darling, Little Joe. You love your family so much . . . I honestly and truly wish I WERE lying.” With that, she abruptly turned heel and sashayed out of the room. Crippensworth silently followed.

End of Part 2

RETURN TO LIBRARY