Trial By Fire

Part 5

By Kathleen T. Berney

For a time, Joe stood, as if rooted to the very spot, staring after the fast closed door, numb with horror. Had that little scenario just now all been an act? Very plausible certainly, given her extreme mood swings, triggered by a wrong word, a look, or a certain turn of a phrase. He also remembered how, the last time she had come to visit, she was all sweetness and light, how very concerned she appeared to be while everything all around them was quickly going to hell in a hand basket at her secret bidding.

But, suppose it WASN’T an act? That was a very real possibility, too, taking into account her skewed version of the relationship between herself and his father.

Either way, if Linda Lawrence, Countess of Chadwick, had hoped to completely rattle and unsettle him, she had definitely succeeded.

“I’ve GOT to find a way out of here,” he mused silently. “Got to, got to, got to!” The only possible way out, apart from the door, was the window. His eyes moved from window to cot. “I wonder . . . . ”

As Joe walked over toward the cot, a wave of dizziness and lightheadedness swept over him. He could feel his stance, his balance faltering. Taking a deep ragged breath, he half ran, half stumbled the remaining distance between himself and the cot, collapsing down heavily upon it the instant his fingertips brushed against the mattress.



Weary and discouraged, Hoss Cartwright dismounted from Chubb’s back, and tethered him to the hitching post on the street in front of the Martins’ home. He had begun the day with high hopes, with no doubt in his mind that if he didn’t actually find out where his younger brother was being held, they would at the very least be significantly closer. Instead, he found himself pretty much right back to square one. Hoss trudged reluctantly into the Martins’ house and found his father waiting in the formal parlor downstairs, anxiously pacing the floor. “Pa?”

Ben abruptly stopped his pacing mid-stride. “THERE you are!”

“Where’s Li’l Sister?” Hoss asked, noting Stacy’s absence with mild surprise.

“I left Stacy upstairs, in the Martins’ living room, sleeping,” Ben said, as took his biggest son by the elbow and steered him in the direction of the settee. “After having spent the better part of the last five days, since the fire, nearly flat on her back, coupled with having to get around on crutches, she tires very easily.”

“Better enjoy it while y’ can, Pa,” Hoss quipped with a weary grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Knowin’ Li’l Sister like I do, it ain’t gonna be long ‘fore we’re hard pressed t’ keep up with her, crutches or not.”

“Between you and me? After all that we’ve gone through these last few days, I find myself looking forward to being hard pressed to keep up with her again, crutches or no crutches,” Ben said quietly, as he and his middle son seated themselves on the settee. “Were you able to find out anything?”

“I checked with Sam at the land office first, Pa,” Hoss reported in a melancholy tone. “We looked at his records for the past month up until now, ‘n came up empty handed. Sam said he’d do some more checkin’.”

“How about people renting, Hoss?”

“I asked Sam about that, too. He told me folks wantin’ t’ rent usually go through a realtor or a lawyer,” Hoss replied, “so I decided t’ start by askin’ Mister Milburn. Seems a Mister Charles stopped in ‘n asked John Casey ‘bout places for rent. He made an appointment six months ago t’ come back, but never showed. Charles was Mister Montague’s first name, Pa, an’ Sheriff Coffee said the sheriff over in Carson City’s pretty sure he was murdered six months ago.”

“What did John Casey say?” Ben pressed.

“He’s outta town ‘til the end o’ the week. I’m gonna check back with him then,” Hoss replied. “I also checked with some o’ the other lawyers. They weren’t as willin’ t’ talk as Mister Milburn was, so Sheriff Coffee’s gonna look into it. He says the investigation into Mister Montague’s death gives him grounds, Pa.”

“Damn!” Ben swore through clenched teeth. “Like quicksilver! That bitch keeps slipping right through our fingers like quicksilver!”

“Pa, we’re gonna find Joe,” Hoss said, his face set with grim, stubborn determination. “I can’t tell ya how, but somehow, someway, we’re gonna FIND him, an’ we’re gonna bring him back home ALIVE.”



That night, Joe, weak and horribly disoriented, dropped to his knees with a dull thud and leaned once more over a full-to-over-flowing chamber pot as the overpowering urge to vomit seized him once again, the third . . . or was it the fourth? time in the last hour of so since he had finally eaten.

As she had promised earlier, Lady Chadwick sent Crippensworth up bearing a tray with a big, thick juicy steak that literally melted in the mouth, a huge mountain of mashed potatoes smothered in a rich beef gravy, a vegetable mix covered with a spiced creamy cheese sauce, biscuits, every bit as light and fluffy and the ones Hop Sing made . . . almost, and a big slab of fresh apple pie even Hoss would be hard pressed to finish. There was also a full canteen of fresh water, cold this time, and a cup of coffee.

The meat, gravy, and cheese sauce covering the vegetables reeked heavily of garlic. Joe wrinkled his nose in complete and utter distaste. “I hate garlic,” he muttered. He wolfed down the pie first, then the biscuit. He had fully intended to set the tray aside after that, but the steak, potatoes, even the vegetables looked so irresistibly good . . . and he so terribly hungry . . . .

Joe attacked what remained on the tray with reckless abandon, garlic or no garlic.

In the time it had taken the sun to slip down from the line of the bottom branch, as seen through his window, under the line of the window sill in his small attic room, an hour by his reckoning, Joe was seized in the grip of stomach cramps so agonizing, he literally doubled over. As the brilliant golds, oranges, and reds of a magnificent sun set faded into the indigo blue of night, another hour, maybe less, he had violently regurgitated every last bit of the food he had eaten and more in four different bouts, five including this one, that had swept over him one after the other after the other.

Joe crawled from the chamber pot back to the cot, squeezing his eyes shut against the spiraling, pulsating walls and floorboards. He collapsed onto the cot, like a lead weight dropped into water, utterly spent. His last semi-coherent thought was that he couldn’t ever remember being THIS sick, not even after the worst hangover he had ever had . . . .

“I can’t . . . I WON’T let them cage me . . . and take my baby away . . . . ”

He saw the heart wrenching anguish once more in Rachael Marlowe’s eyes, heard the hopeless despair in her voice. After living among a tribe, a family, of Chinook Indians up near the mouth of the Columbia River for five years, she was found in the wake of a massacre launched against her village by a band of renegade cavalry men, and forced to return to so-called civilization at gunpoint. Her Chinook mother and an older brother were killed in the massacre. Her husband and another brother had been out with a hunting party when the village was attacked.

Rachael had returned home to Virginia City, desolate and alone, not knowing whether she was wife or widow, pregnant with her . . . and her husband’s first child, to parents who expected her to be the same fourteen-year-old girl she was when she left home five years before.

“I can’t . . . I WON’T let them cage me . . . and take my baby away . . . . better THIS way.”

He saw Rachael once again step off the edge of the cliff, then Stacy leaping in less than the space of a heartbeat later, her arms reaching out blindly, encircling Rachael’s waist. The inevitable downward pull of gravity brought Stacy crashing down hard against rock, snow, and ice, knocking the wind out of her lungs.

Again and again, the action played itself out in horrifying slow motion. Rachael stepping over the edge, Stacy leaping, blindly groping, then crashing to the ground with a reverberating thud that echoed through the terrifying, endless vista of valley spread out before them, almost like a dynamite blast, its sound slowed, yet building steadily to a crescendo . . . .

“Rachael, grab my hand, please!” He heard Stacy begging, barely able to find sufficient breath to utter her plea.

“Rachael . . .

. . . grab my hand.

Please!”

Rachael stared at the scenery ahead, with a beatific smile on her face, as her body slipped through the circle of Stacy’s arms.

Stacy lunged, again grasping blindly. Though she managed to get both hands tight around Rachael’s wrist, her movements brought her sliding inexorably toward the edge.

“Hang on, Li’l Sister, I gotcha!”

Hoss appeared, there at his elbow, as if my magic. A scant half dozen giant strides brought him to Stacy’s side. There, he immediately knelt down, grasping Stacy’s shoulder with one hand, digging into the frozen earth with the other, gloved fingers extended like cat claws. Hoss, once he himself was securely braced, threw the entire weight of his body down over Stacy’s preventing her and Rachael from sliding over the edge of the cliff to their inexorable doom hundreds of feet below.

“Rachael, please . . . .

. . . give me your hand . . .

. . . Hoss can pull us both up.

Please . . . . ”

Rachael stared straight ahead in to the valley, turning deaf ear to Stacy’s, impassioned, desperate plea.

They had done all THEY could do.

Stacy and Hoss.

The rest was up to him.

He sat down, his face set with a grim, stubborn resolve, and eased his way over the ledge one leg at a time. Suddenly, his entire body froze as panic seized him.

“Rachael,” he whispered aloud.

“Rachael.

Think only of Rachael.”

He whispered those words once again, over and over as a mantra against the terror surrounding him on all sides, waiting like a prowling mountain lion to pounce and seize him once again.

“Think of Rachael . . .

. . . think of Rachael . . . .

“ . . . think of Rachael.”

Cold.

Freezing.

Thank heaven . . . no wind . . . .

That brief intrusion of wind into his thoughts had raised the all too real specter of falling. Panic once more rose within him, threatening to inundate him completely. He squeezed his eyes shut again and forced himself to repeat his mantra . . . .

“Think of Rachael.

Think of Rachael.”

Another voice, Stacy’s, soft and reassuring joined him, speaking the same mantra, but different words.

“You can do it, Joe . . .

. . . you can do it.”

Think of Rachael, think of Rachael, think of Rachael. He again took up the chant, drawing upon the strength offered through his sister’s voice.

“You can do it, Joe.”

“Think of Rachael.”

“You can do it, Joe.”

“Come on, Li’l Brother.”

Hoss’ bass drone harmonized with Joe’s spoken melody line and Stacy’s descant.

“Think of Rachael.”

“Think of Rachael.”

Buoyed by the surge of strength and energy coming from his brother and sister, he was surprised to suddenly find himself on the cliff face along side Rachael Marlowe.

“Think of Rachael.”

“Think of Rachael.”

“Think of Rachael.”

Wrapping the fingers of his right hand firmly around a thick, exposed piece of tree root, he reached out to touch Rachael, to thrust her upward toward Stacy and Hoss . . . to safety.

Then, Rachael turned.

He was surprised to see her wearing HIS face. He gasped and turned away, confused . . . .

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in Stacy’s grasp, battered, naked, save for the bandages covering his shoulder and chest . . . .

Joe’s eyes flew open.

“Come on, Li’l Brother.”

“You can do it, Joe.”

The words of his big brother and young sister echoed once more through his mind and his heart before fading away to silence.

He took a deep breath, long, slow, even, then exhaled. A shaft of silvery moonlight shone in through the window onto the bare floor forming what appeared to be an elongated circle. Joe rose slowly, stiffly to his feet, shivering in the chilled night air. He moved around to the foot of the cot, folding his arms across his chest in a feeble attempt to somehow warm himself. There, he leaned over, gritting his teeth against a momentary bout of lightheadedness, and loosely wrapped his fingers around the metal handle of the cot.

“Hmmm . . . not TOO heavy,” Joe mused silently, after lifting the end of the cot several times to test it for weight. He, then lifted the foot of the cot in both hands, and dragged it the short distance to the window, wincing as the legs scraped across the bare floorboards.

He had to get out of there.

Now.

Tonight!

His thoughts momentarily centered on Rowdy, a stray puppy Hoss found and brought home, many, many years ago when they were children. Not long after, exactly how long, Joe was unable to recall, the puppy had gotten into some poison, Hop Sing had set out to kill a family of rats that had invaded the kitchen and pantry. Nothing could be done to save the hapless pup. He and Hoss had clung to each other, sobbing, as Rowdy vomited in much the same way as he himself had earlier. Pa ordered Adam to take him and Hoss into the house, that he might quickly and mercifully end the poor animal’s suffering.

“I’m NOT gonna give Lady Chadwick the chance to try it again,” Joe mused silently, with grim, angry determination. He positioned the cot directly beneath the window, then paused, every sense alert, his ears straining for even the slightest of human sounds whether it be a quiet cough or the feather light footfall on the floor beyond the locked door.

Nothing.

Silence reigned.

Joe carefully climbed up onto the cot, grimacing as iron manacles grated against tender flesh, rubbed raw. He stepped over to the wall, and peered outside. The wall, into which the window was set, dropped two stories to a roof, spread out below. Joe surmised that to be the roof covering a porch. A quick glance at the outside wall revealed no ledges, no hand holds, only a sheer, two-storey drop.

To his right grew an old tree, with sparse leaf cover. It’s topmost branches could be seen from his window without the aid of the cot. It was by those very branches and the movement of the sun between them and the bottom of the window frame, he was able to calculate the passage of time. His eyes dropped down to the branch closest to the round attic window. It was positioned about four or five feet below the window and three feet away from the house. Trying to reach it would, at best, prove very tricky. He followed the line of the branch back to the trunk with his eyes. There, he saw three more thick, sturdy branches that would take him to within six feet of the ground.

“All I gotta do is get across that limb to the tree,” Joe mused silently, as he turned his attention to the window.

He saw no hinges, nor sign of any kind of latch, which meant he was going to have to break the window in order to escape. Thankfully the slats across the glass were thin and flimsy, little more than ornamentation. He figured the diameter of the window frame to be roughly a foot and a half, give or take an inch or two. Trying to get through could prove a tight, even painful squeeze, especially if a large number of sharp, jagged pieces of glass remained after breaking the window. He pressed the top of his forehead to the window and hunched his shoulders to check the fit. It would be tight, as he had figured, but it could be done.

Correction.

It WOULD be done.

He had no choice.

Not after that exquisite dinner Lady Chadwick had sent up.

Joe paused once again, his ears alert, straining for even the slightest of human sounds. There was nothing, only the still silence of night. He took a deep ragged breath, his entire body quaking with terrified anticipation. After wrapping the chains, binding together the iron manacles on his wrists, around his fingers, Joe balled his hands into tight, rock hard fists and thrust them through the window.

The glass and wood slats shattered with a near deafening explosion of sound that seemed to echo and bounce off the walls of the room in the same endless profusion as a line of cannons each firing one after the other after the other. Overcome by a swift rising tide of panic, Joe seized the side edges of the window, oblivious to the protruding jagged pieces of glass that remained set within the frame, and pulled himself through the newly made opening in the wall.

Once free of the confining space of the window frame, Joe, much to his horror, found himself in free fall, hurtling to the porch roof two stories below at terrifying speed. He blindly thrust out both arms, all the while squeezing his eyes shut. By sheer luck, the fingers of his right hand touched, then grasped the tree branch nearest the window, followed immediately by the left. The abrupt cessation of his body’s fall earthward, painfully wrenched the right arm and shoulder, dislocated when the steps collapsed the night of the fire. Joe cried out in agony, unable to stop himself.

For what seemed an eternity, he clung to the tree branch, rendered immobile by the agonizing pain in his injured right arm and shoulder. Tiny rivulets of blood flowed from the numerous nicks, cuts, and gashes, just now inflicted by the sharp jagged pieces of glass that remained embedded in the window frame. Dizzy, lightheaded, his naked body shivering uncontrollably in the chilled night air, his gaze fell upon the ground nearly three stories distant, setting off another wave of near-blind panic . . . .


Then, suddenly, the darkness of night became the near blinding glare of mid-afternoon, and the chill of night, the sweltering heat of the desert. The tree limb to which he clung for dear life was now the sheer rock face of Eagle’s nest. His favorite rifle rested in the rocky crags high above his head, right where he had dropped it days ago, when he and Mitch Devlin came out here, hot on the trail of a cougar that had been preying on their calves. How many times had he come out here to retrieve that rifle, only to be overwhelmed by this surge of irrational panic, and mind numbing terror? How many times had he come, only to lie there, half way up, sobbing with frustration and shame because he could go no further?

“Joe . . . . ”

It was Pa.

“Joe, I’m coming up to the top of Eagles’ Nest along side ya.”

“Pa,” he sobbed, now as he did then. “I . . . I know y-you want to help . . . but, you’re only m-making it worse.”

“I’m coming up along side ya, Joe . . . . ”

Next came the ominous sounds of a boot sole sliding against the loose rock, of tumbling gravel, then the worst sound of all, that of a human body sliding against the bare rock face, caught in the relentless pull of gravity.

“JOE! HELP ME! HELP ME, JOE!”

“PA!” he shouted, the paralyzing, mind numbing terror suddenly gone, as if it had never been. “PA, HOLD ON! I’M COMING!”

“YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO REACH ME HERE!” Pa yelled back. “YOU GOTTA GET A LONG STICK.” There was a slight pause, no more than the space of a heartbeat. Then, almost as an after thought . . . . “THE RIFLE, JOE! THAT’LL DO IT! GET THE RIFLE, JOE! GET THE RIFLE!”

“HOLD ON, PA!” He yelled back, as he scrambled up the face of that mountain, lickety-split, with the sure ease of a mountain goat. “I’M COMING . . . .”


Joe squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m c-coming, Pa,” he half sobbed, gritting his teeth against his pain. “Hold on, Pa! I’m coming . . . . ” He moved one hand forward, then the other, focusing his entire attention to the remembered face of his father, as he clung to the edge of the mountain that day. “H-Hold on, Pa . . . PLEASE! Hold on! I’m c-coming . . . . ”

Finally, after what seemed an eternity of agonizing pain and nearly overwhelming panic, his body brushed up against the rough bark of the tree trunk. He scrambled down the remaining branches, giddy with relief, laughing and crying at the same time. As he stepped down to the last branch, the chain binding the manacles around his ankles caught on the jagged nub of a smaller branch, that had at some time broken off. Joe lost his footing and plummeted the remained six feet to the ground, landing on his stomach.

For a time, he lay at the base of the tree, unmoving. The pain of his injuries, the cold, weakness for lack of food, and the physical exertion from not only climbing down from that attic window, but from the ferocious bouts of vomiting hours earlier left him completely spent, utterly exhausted. The sudden appearance of lamplight in one of the second story windows, however, drove all trace of weariness from his body. Stifling a cry of alarm, Joe scrambled to his feet and tore away from the house, half running, half stumbling as his gait tried to exceed the limits of the chain binding together the manacles still locked around his ankles.



“ ‘Mornin’, Candy, come on in,” Sheriff Coffee waved the Ponderosa’s junior foreman in with a wave of his arm. Ben and Hoss were there, huddled together against the morning chill around the small potbellied stove. The latter drank from a large mug cradled in both of his massive hands, while the former reached for the pot on the stove to freshen his cup.

“Good morning, Sheriff Coffee . . . Mister Cartwright . . . Hoss,” Candy greeted the entire assembly affably, with a smile. “I figured you might be here, when I didn’t find you at Doc Martin’s. Mister Cartwright, as of late yesterday afternoon, we rounded up an additional one hundred and ten calves. Hank Carlson said to tell you they expect to have the branding finished by this evening, tomorrow morning at the very latest. After that, they’ll be ready to move the cattle on out to the summer pastures.

“I’m going to remain behind with a skeleton crew to supervise the saddle breaking on that string of horses for the army, and see to the chores around the—well, around.” He had almost said ‘around the HOUSE.’ “You can also tell Hop Sing that a couple of his chickens have started laying again.”

“Hop Sing’ll be very happy to hear ‘bout them chickens o’ his,” Hoss said quietly.

“Candy?”

“Yes, Mister Cartwright?”

“Thank you,” Ben said gratefully, “for every thing. I honestly don’t know WHAT I would’ve done without you, Hank, and the others over the last few days.”

“Well, I kinda feel responsible, since I was the one who hired Jack Murphy in the first place,” Candy said, his voice filled with remorse.

“Candy, WE hired Jack Murphy,” Ben said firmly. “You and ME. We had no reason to suspect that he was anything other than what he claimed to be. The only people I hold responsible for what happened are Jack Murphy himself, his mother, and the man she has working for her these days. No one else.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“You remember that, Young Man.”

“I will, Mister Cartwright,” Candy promised, as he pulled a vacant chair up beside the stove. “How’s Stacy doing?”

“Li’l Sister’s been given a clean bill o’ health by Doctor Tao, Doctor Johns, ‘n Doc Martin,” Hoss replied with a smile. “Doc Martin ‘n Doctor Johns were gettin’ ready t’ outfit her with a plaster cast when Pa ‘n I came over here. Now all we hafta do is wait for the bones t’ knit properly.”

“ . . . which means the worst is about to come,” Ben declared, rolling his eyes.

“YOU said it, Mister Cartwright, I didn’t,” Candy said with a knowing chuckle, then sobered. “Any word on Joe?”

Hoss filled Candy in on his search among new people buying or renting in Virginia City and the surrounding environs. “Didn’t turn up a dadburned thing,” he concluded with a doleful shake of his head, “but I have an idea . . . . ‘n I need you to help carry it out.”

“What’s your plan, Hoss?” Candy asked.

“We’re pretty sure now that Lady Chadwick’s been keepin’ a real close eye on us for a good long time,” Hoss said grimly. “Pa ‘n I are pretty well convinced that she’s still keepin’ a close watch t’ see how were all holdin’ up with Joe bein’ gone. Especially Pa.”

“Ok so far,” Candy agreed, nodding his head slowly.

“My plan is this. Candy, I want you t’ follow Pa around for the next couple o’ days, but lay low. Keep an eye on whoever’s around, see if anyone’s around all the time.”

“I can do that. When do you want me to start?”

“Right now, Candy,” Ben finished the last of the coffee in his mug, then rose. “My first stop is Mister Milburn’s office. Now that Stacy no longer needs constant care from the doctor, it’s time we stop imposing on the Martins. I’m hoping to find a furnished townhouse to rent, until we can get OUR home rebuilt on the Ponderosa.”

“I’m right behind you, Mister Cartwright.”

As Ben opened the door to step outside, he nearly collided head on with Lucas Milburn’s secretarial assistant, John Casey. The latter was a short man, his head barely reaching to the middle of Ben’s chest, of thin, wiry build. He wore a simply tailored black suit, trousers and coat, with a white shirt and black string tie.

“Oh dear! Please, excuse me, Mister Cartwright,” John stammered.

“I’M the one who should be asking YOUR pardon, Mister Casey,” Ben said, as he placed a steadying hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, Sir, I’m fine. Mister Lucas said your son, Hoss, is looking for me?”

“Come on in, Mister Casey,” the sheriff invited. “Hoss is right here.”

“I’m off. Hoss, I’ll meet you at the Martins later.”

“Right, Pa. See ya later.” Hoss, then, turned his attention to John Casey. “I thought you weren’t gonna be back ‘til the end o’ the week,” he said as he led the diminutive man over to the chair Ben had just vacated next to the stove.

“My pa, my sister, and I managed to wind things up earlier than expected,” John said, seating himself close to the stove. He rubbed both hands together briskly, then spread them out over the warmth radiating from the top of the stove. “I arrived on the four o’clock stage yesterday afternoon.”

“I was real sorry t’ hear about your ma, but I’m glad things went well for ya,” Hoss said quietly.

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright. Now how can I help YOU?”

“Mister Lucas said a man named Charles stopped in t’ ask questions about places t’ rent,” Hoss said, taking the chair next to Casey. “This was about six months ago. Do you remember anything about him?”

“I remember him very well, Mister Cartwright. Mister Lucas and I don’t get many clients who speak with an English accent.”

“What did this Mister Charles look like, Mister Casey?” Roy Coffee immediately stepped in and took charge of the questioning.

“He was a tall fella, around the same height as your father, Hoss. He had dark hair, graying around the edges, clean shaven,” John replied.”

“What, exactly, did he talk to ya about?” Roy asked.

“He told me that he was a business manager, working for . . . . ” John frowned. “I can’t recall her name. Mister Charles said his employer was a widow, with a son just home from school. He asked about the Marlowe place.”

The Marlowe mansion, former home of Tom and Clara Marlowe, was located a few miles outside of town. After their daughter, Rachael, had moved on to Oregon, Tom and Clara moved back east, to New York. Tom had placed the house in the care of his own lawyer, ostensibly to sell. With some of the mines in the area closing down, their vast resources of silver depleted, few potential buyers had the wherewithal to purchase or keep up a home of that size. Except for an occasional renter, or squatter seeking shelter, the big, cavernous house had stood empty since Tom and Clara’s departure nearly a year ago.

“The Marlowe place! Dadburn it, why didn’t we even think o’ that?” Hoss muttered softly, his face darkening with anger.

Roy Coffee immediately shot Hoss a sharp glare, warning him to keep quiet.

“I told Mister Charles that he would have to see Cecil Morrow,” John Casey continued, unfazed by Hoss’ reaction to his mention of the Marlowe Mansion. “Mister Morrow was the Marlowes’ lawyer while they were here, and he’s supposed to be overseeing disposal of that house. He, Mister Charles that is, asked me about other houses in the area for rent. After that, he asked for an appointment, and left.”

“You gave him an appointment?”

John Casey nodded. “He never came, nor did he send word asking me to cancel his appointment.”

“Thank you, Mister Casey, you’ve been very helpful,” Roy said, rising.

“The Marlowe place, eh?” Hoss murmured under his breath as he slowly rose from his seat. An dark, angry scowl knotted his brow.

“Now you hold on right there, Hoss Cartwright,” Roy Coffee sternly admonished Hoss, as he returned from seeing John Casey to the door. “You so much as take one step in the direction o’ the Marlowe place, I’m lockin’ your butt in jail ‘n tossin’ away the key ‘til ya come to your senses.”

“Sheriff Coffee . . . . ”

“Hoss, y’ got TWO choices! Either WE do this nice ‘n legal or I do this nice ‘n legal whilst YOU watch from that jail cell. Now which’ll it be?”

“Alright!” Hoss said tersely. “WE do this nice ‘n legal.”

“That’s very sensible of ya,” Roy said in a wry tone as he strapped his holster around his waist. “Now let’s go see Mister Morrow.”



“No, Roy, I’ve not had anyone named CHARLES stop in to inquire about the Marlowe mansion,” Cecil Morrow said cantankerously. He was an elderly man, tall and reed slender, with a full head of wavy, dust gray hair fading to snow white. His salt and pepper goatee was neatly trimmed, and he had gray-green eyes that peered out over a pair of half moon shaped reading glasses.

“Is there anyone rentin’ the Marlowe place now?” Roy Coffee asked.

Cecil’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You said this relates to a murder investigation, Sheriff Coffee?”

“That’s right.”

“I rented the Marlowe mansion to a woman by the name of Mrs. D. Sally Lawrence,” Cecil said. “Widow, with an invalid son. The arrangements were made with a man who gave his name as Gerald Worth. Mister Worth also spoke with a pronounced English accent, but that’s where the similarity between him and the Mister Charles you’re looking for ends.”

“What does this Mister Worth look like?” Roy asked.

“He’s a big man, bigger even than Mister Cartwright here,” Cecil replied. “Dark hair, dark eyes. Age . . . . ” He shrugged indifferently. “Hard to say. Could be anywhere from his late thirties to his mid-to-late fifties.”

“Have y’ ever met Mrs. Lawrence or her son?”

Cecil shook his head. “All the arrangements were made by Mister Worth.”

“Thank you very much, Mister Morrow,” Roy said, as he turned toward the door.

“Sheriff Coffee . . . . ”

Roy stopped and turned back. His eyes came to rest warily on the attorney’s face. “Yes, Mister Morrow?”

“I hope I don’t have to remind you that you will need a court order, signed by a judge in order to search that house,” Cecil warned. “If either you or the Cartwrights so much as set foot on the property out there WITHOUT a proper writ, I will advise Mrs. Lawrence to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Mister Morrow, you make your self REAL clear,” Roy said quietly. “Now let me make somethin’ clear t’ YOU. If you carry out that threat against me, I’ll have my deputy arrest ya for hinderin’ a lawful murder investigation. I’ll ALSO have my deputy send a wire t’ Mister Marlowe, lettin’ him know that you ain’t servin’ his best interests one iota in lettin’ out his house t’ known criminals. As things stand now, I know that big, empty house is no better ‘n a useless white elephant, but I also know Mister Marlowe’s payin’ ya a real pretty penny t’ keep on lookin’ after things.” He paused, to allow the import of his words to sink in. “I think you ‘n I understand each other, Mister Morrow?”

Cecil Morrow glared venomously at Roy Coffee, but said nothing.

“NOW do we ride out to the Marlowe place?” Hoss asked, as he and Roy Coffee stepped from Cecil Morrow’s office, back out onto the board sidewalk.

“Not just yet, Hoss. We got one more place t’ stop first.”

“Where?” Hoss demanded, with an almost uncharacteristic impatience.

“Judge Faraday’s office,” Roy replied with a wolfish grin, “t’ git ourselves a search warrant, like Mister Morrow suggested.” The grin faded. “I promise ya, Hoss. We’ll be on our way out t’ the Marlowe place sometime in the next five minutes. TEN at the outside.”



“Gotta get away . . . gotta get away,” Joe whimpered, as he half-limped, half-stumbled through a wide meadow of tall grass, that reached up just past his knees. Patches of new green could be seen among the yellowed, dead stalks of last year. Joe had no idea in the world where he was, nor did he much care. “Gotta . . . g-gotta get away . . . gotta get away . . . . ”

The toes of his foot caught in a gopher hole, hidden among the tall, dried grasses. In a desperate bid to keep from falling, Joe tried to swing his other leg forward. The iron chain connected to the manacles around his ankles pulled taut, preventing him from getting his foot out. He involuntarily tried to flail his arms to regain his balance, but was prevented from doing so the chain holding together the manacles around his wrists. His entire body twisted as he fell, except for the foot held fast in the gopher hole. Joe thudded hard to the half frozen ground, crying out as burning pain seized his ankle in a vice like grip and raced up the length of his leg to his knee.

For a time he simply lay there in the tall grass, curled in a light ball, his breath coming in ragged shallow gasps.

“Gotta get away!” The words, an all consuming impetus, silently screamed within his mind and thoughts. “Gotta get away!”

Joe uncurled his body slightly, and rose to his hands and knees, taking great care not to bang his injured ankle, the one he had caught in the gopher hole, against the hard ground. He gingerly shifted his weight forward, biting his lower lip against the shooting pain in his dislocated right arm. He tried to bring his uninjured foot up under his body, to provide the necessary leverage that would enable him to stand. The iron chain pulled taut, causing the manacle around his injured ankle to dig into tender flesh, angry red and rapidly swelling.

“Gotta get away,” his brain insisted.

Joe tried again, and again to get to his feet, spurred on by his own rapidly escalating panic. Each time, he fell. Finally, with tears borne of frustration, anger, fear, and pain, he resigned himself to crawling on his hands and knees. He barely managed a half dozen steps before collapsing once again. His eyelids closed the minute his head hit the ground as exhaustion, cold, the pain of his own injuries, and lack of food finally extracted their toll.

“Hey, Alex!”

Alexander Grant, Alex to his friends, stopped and turned. At the age of seven, going on eight, he was a small boy for his age, with jet black hair and dark brown eyes. “Good morning, Mister Candy,” the boy greeted the Ponderosa foreman with a big smile. “I was sure sorry to hear about Mister Cartwright’s house burning down.”

“Thank you. I’ll be sure to tell him YOU said so,” Candy promised the boy with a big smile. “The important thing, however, is that everyone made it out.”

“That’s what my ma says,” Alex said, as he climbed up on the bench Candy occupied outside the general store. “I heard Miss Stacy got hurt.”

“She did,” Candy replied, his eyes glued to the door of Lucas Milburn’s office directly across the street.

“Is she doing ok now?”

“She’s on the mend, but it’s gonna take a while.”

“Wouldja tell her I hope she gets better real soon? Please?”

“I sure will, Alex.”

“You gonna come have dinner with ma ‘n me on Saturday?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Candy replied. “By then, most of the men will be moving the cattle out to the summer pastures . . . and with Mister Cartwright and Mister Hoss looking after Miss Stacy and trying to find Mister Joe . . . well, I think I’m going to be very busy out at the Ponderosa for awhile.”

Eating supper with Alex, and his widowed mother, Rebecca Grant, every Saturday night had become a given over the better part of the last three, going on four months ago now. She had returned to Virginia City with her son last fall, roughly six months after the sudden death of her husband, so that she might be near to her parents, Jonas and Elleanor Sinclair. Rebecca worked for her father, leaving her son in the care of her mother and two younger sisters on weekday afternoons following school, and in the morning on Saturday. Candy had met her and the boy at the Cartwrights’ annual Christmas party this past year.

“I sure hope you can come, Mister Candy.”

“I’ll do my best,” Candy promised. “You tell your ma I’ll let her know as soon as I can.”

“I will.”

“Now you’d best be off,” Candy said, grinning. “If you don’t shake a leg, it’ll be time to go on back to school, with no time left to eat that fine lunch your grandma made for ya.”

“See you later, Mister Candy.” With that, the boy sped off.

“See ya, Alex,” Candy said, taking due note of the two women standing out on the sidewalk in front of Lucas Milburn’s office conversing with one another; the youths seated on the bench across the street in front of the notions shop next; the elderly man hobbling by, leaning heavily on his cane, politely tipping his hat to the ladies as he passed by; the young man tethering his skittish bay mare to the hitching post on the street in front of him, before sauntering into the general store.

A buxom woman, whom Candy immediately recognized as Emmeline Potter stepped out of the notions shop, carrying a shopping bag, and a half dozen boxes. The youths politely rose as she approached the bench. The taller of the two nodded to the other as he took Mrs. Potter’s packages, then fell in step behind her as he left.

When Ben Cartwright finally stepped out of Lucas Milburn’s office, the two women out front immediately moved toward him on a direct intercept course. Candy heard the younger of the two call out, and wave, as she surged ahead of her companion. Ben stopped, politely tipped his hat, and conversed with the two women for a few moments, before parting company. The two women remained, again conversing with one another, before moving off in the opposite direction. The youth still seated on the bench turned his head in the direction Ben had gone, then rose, and set off in the same direction.

Candy rose, and followed, keeping himself well within the shadows cast by the buildings on his side of the street.

“Good morning, Mister Canaday.”

Candy turned, and smiled as his eyes fell on the face of Jenna Lee Dennison, companion to Georgianna Wilkens, one of Virginia City’s leading and oldest citizens.

“Good morning, Mrs. Dennison,” he warmly returned the greeting, as he watched Ben Cartwright enter the barber shop across the street. The youth, who had followed him from the lawyer’s office, walked past the barber shop. He paused at the junction of C Street and a small, narrow side lane, crossed, and took up his position in front of the bakery, two stores away from the corner.

“How’s Stacy doing?” Jenna Lee asked.

“Much better,” Candy replied. “The infection’s cleared, so there’s no longer any danger of her losing her leg. Now all we have to do is wait a few weeks for the bone to properly knit.”

“Thank the Good Lord!” Jenna Lee murmured with genuine, heartfelt gratitude. “The hard part for her ’s past.”

“No, Mrs. Dennison, I think the hard part for Stacy’s about to BEGIN,” Candy said. “As soon as she starts getting some of her strength back, which won’t be long, now that she’s able to be up and about, she’s gonna want to be right back in the ol’ saddle again, cast or no cast.”

“You tell that girl from ME that she’s t’ mind her doctor, y’ hear?” Jenna Lee said sternly.

“You bet I will,” Candy promised.

“How ‘bout the rest o’ the family? They find Li’l Joe yet?”

“Not yet, but I think they will soon. Sheriff Coffee’s been very diligent, and speaking for myself, I trust his experience.”

“I hope so. Miz Wilkens ‘n I’ve been sayin’ a prayer for that boy every night since the fire, ‘n we’ll keep right on ‘til he turns up.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Dennison, and speaking of Mrs. Wilkens, how’s SHE doing? I heard she was a little under the weather.”

“She had that bad bout o’ cold toward the end o’ summer, that lingered, turned into pneumonia over winter, but she’s doin’ better,” Jenna Lee replied. “ ‘Course a woman o’ her age takes a mite longer t’ bounce back than you young’ns.”

“I’m glad she’s doing better,” Candy said in all sincerity. “Please tell her I was asking about her.”

“I surely will,” Jenna Lee eagerly promised. “I’d best be movin’ along. Still can’t be leavin’ Miz Wilkens alone f’r too long, even if she is on the mend. Good chattin’ with ya, Mister Canaday.”

“Good seeing you, too, Mrs. Dennison.”

Jenna Lee Dennison moved off, just as Ben Cartwright left the barber shop. Candy watched as the Cartwright family patriarch turned and started up the street toward the bakery. He paused at the bakery window, where the youth yet remained, then continued. The youth remained in front of the bakery window, though his head turned slightly in the same direction Ben continued walking.

Ben walked past the next two stores then stepped down off the side walk and moved toward the hitching post, where he had tethered Buck. He quickly loosed the reigns and climbed up in the saddle. The youth turned from the bakery window and waved to a man standing next to a big sorrel gelding, tethered to a hitching post on Candy’s side of the street. As Candy continued to watch, the man mounted his own steed and started off down the street, heading in the same direction as Mister Cartwright.

“Four ‘n half feet tall, wearing a light blue shirt about three miles too big, a pair of faded denims, and a plain brown hat that’s definitely seen better days,” Candy murmured softly under his breath as he walked down to the hitching post in front of the saloon, located two doors down from where he had taken up his position across from the barber shop, keeping Mister Cartwright and the man following behind under very close scrutiny. Candy quickly climbed up in the saddle of his own horse, Thor, and followed behind, again keeping a discreet distance and well within the shade cast by the buildings positioned directly in front of the morning sun.

A short time later, Mister Cartwright stopped in front of the Martins’ house, and dismounted. The man following turned, and started down a narrow street that adjoined the main road a block before Doctor Martin’s home and office.

“Whoa!” Candy ordered Thor in a low voice.

As the man following Ben Cartwright rounded the corner, Candy caught a good look at his profile. The high sloping forehead, jutting chin, and hawked nose could only belong to one person . . . . .

“Jack O’Connor!” Candy muttered, his eyes brows coming together to form a dark, angry scowl. Aged in his early to mid-forties, Jack O’Connor stood nearly as tall as Hoss Cartwright, with very thin, wiry build. He was a surly, bitter man, these days a ne’er-do-well with an enormous ego and an even bigger chip on his shoulder, who blamed others for his own shortcomings. He drank whiskey, beer, anything strong that he could get his hands on, from the time he rose in the morning until he finally went to sleep at night.

Candy had not so much as laid eyes on the man since Hoss fired him for drinking on the job six months ago. The man had been warned many times. Candy had warned him, so had Hoss, Joe, and Hark Carlson, the senior foreman. They had all gone out of their way to overlook, not only the man’s irresponsible consumption of whiskey, but his surly attitude as well, out of pity for the man’s niece, Midge Frakes. She had come to live with him four years ago, at the age of eight, following the untimely deaths of her parents. Jack O’Connor was supposedly the only family she had.

The incident last spring, as they were moving the cattle from the winter pasture, up to the summer pasture, however, was something that could not be overlooked. Jack had finally shown up for work nearly two and a half hours late, and “falling down drunker ‘n a skunk,” to quote Hoss verbatim. The men had no sooner rounded up all the cattle together, when Jack, who had spent most of the time leaning heavily against the fence, watching, let out an ear-splitting screech. Before anyone could even think of stopping him, he had whipped his gun from its holster and started firing. Two of the younger men finally wrestled him to the ground and took his gun, but the damage had already been done.

The minute Jack O’Connor started shooting, the frightened cattle began to stampede. One man, Johnny Oates, aged seventeen, was killed, trampled into a mangled, bloody mass. Three others were badly injured. One of those three would never be able to walk again. Many others, including Joe Cartwright and himself, had barely escaped with their lives.

Hoss, at that point, had no choice but to fire the man.

That night, Jack O’Connor was at the Bucket of Blood Saloon, spending the last of his pay on cheap, rotgut whiskey, telling everyone who would listen, that Hank Carlson, Candy, and a few of the other men had actually been responsible for starting that stampede. The reason HE had been fired instead of them was THEY were all very good friends of the Cartwrights.

He wasn’t.

He also let it be known that he had never had much use for that high-and-mighty bunch, anyway.

Candy turned Thor and headed at once for Jack O’Connor’s favorite haunt, his home away from home, the ol’ Bucket of Blood Saloon. He looped Thor’s reins around the hitching post out front, then walked inside. He spotted Jack standing at the far end of the bar, with a bottle of whiskey, nearly half empty, sitting in front of him. Candy wasn’t surprised to find the youth, whom he had last seen standing in front of the bakery window, also at the bar, standing next to Jack.

“Well, well, well! If is isn’t Jack O’Connor! Long time no see!” Candy greeted the man with a tight mirthless grin. “How’s it going’?”

“Fine, no thanks to YOU,” Jack growled, as he poured himself another glass of whiskey.

“Who’re you working for these days, Jack?”

“Ain’t none o’ your business.”

“You’re wrong, Jack, Ol’ Buddy. I think it’s every bit my business.”

“I said it AIN’T!”

“I beg to differ!”

“Looky here, Mister! If my uncle says it ain’t none o’ your business, then it ain’t none o’ your business,” the youth, standing beside Jack O’Connor, spoke up for the first time. “Why don’tcha take a hike ‘n leave us alone?”

“Can’t do that, Midge,” Candy replied. “It seems your uncle . . . and you, too, for that matter, have made something of a habit out of following Mister Cartwright around these last few days.”

“What of it?” Jack growled.

“I’d like to know WHY.”

“Look, Mister Canaday! I already said it once . . . I’ll say it again! It AIN’T none o’ your business.”

“I say it IS.”

Jack downed the entire glass of whiskey in a single gulp, then went for his pistol.

Candy was much faster. “Don’t even think about it, Jack,” he warned, as he leveled the barrel of his own revolver at Jack O’Connor’s abdomen. “Now I’ll ask you one more time. WHY are you and Midge here following Mister Cartwright?”

“What part o’ ‘it ain’t none o’ your business’ are ya havin’ trouble understandin’, Mister Canaday?”

“It’s a free country, anyway,” Midge retorted. “My uncle ‘n I can go anywhere we like.”

“It may be a free country, Midge Dear, but a man also has his right to privacy,” Candy returned without missing a beat. “You and your uncle have violated Mister Cartwright’s privacy by following him around.”

“Why don’t you go rope some stray cattle, Greenhorn?” Midge shot back.

“If you don’t keep a civil tongue in your head, Young Lady, so help me, I’M gonna turn you right over my knee and whale the livin’ daylights out of you.”

“You ‘n what army?”

“Jack, you’ve got a choice,” Candy said, returning his attention to the unruly girl’s uncle. “You can either tell me right here and right now why you and Midge have been following Mister Cartwright around, OR you can tell the sheriff . . . from behind bars.”

“You can’t put me in jail.”

“You wanna try me?”

Jack O’Connor glared over at Candy, noting the deep, ferocious scowl, the fire in his eyes, and the mouth thinning to a nearly straight angry line. He turned away a moment later, and poured another glass from the bottle. “Buy me another bottle o’ whiskey, ‘n I’ll tell ya.”

“How about I buy Midge something for supper tonight?” Candy countered, making no attempt to his disgust.

“I SAID whiskey.”

“Bruno!”

“Yeah, Candy?”

“A bottle of your finest for Mister O’Connor here.”

“Comin’ up.”

Bruno returned a moment later with the bottle of whiskey and placed it in front of Jack. Before he could even think of reaching for it, Candy quickly grabbed the bottle by its neck and swung it back out of reach.

“HEY!” Jack protested.

“Uh unh!” Candy shook his head. “You don’t get a single drop of this until you tell me why you and Midge have been following Mister Cartwright.”

“Don’t tell him, Uncle Jack,” Midge begged. “Please, don’t tell him.”

“Shut yer yap, Brat!” Jack growled at his niece, then turned back to Candy. “Ok, Mister Canaday, Midge ‘n me been working for a guy named Worth. Mister Gerald Worth! He’s been payin’ me sixty bucks a day to watch the Cartwrights, ‘specially MISTER Cartwright, ‘n tell him what they’re up to.”

“Did this Mister Worth tell you WHY he wanted you to watch the Cartwrights?”

“Nope!” Jack adamantly shook his head. “I didn’t ask neither. Now gimme back m’ whiskey.”

“Here!” Candy contemptuously slammed the bottle down on the bar in front of Jack O’Connor. “I hope for Midge’s sake, ya CHOKE on it.”



“John, whaddya MEAN you ain’t gonna swear out a search warrant for the Marlowe place?” Roy Coffee demanded. He stood directly in front of the judge’s face, leaning over, with the palms of his hands lying flat on top of the desk. Hoss stood behind him, scowling, with arms folded tight across his massive barrel chest.

“Roy, you have no proof that Joe Cartwright is actually in that house,” John said tersely. “You just got through saying so yourself.”

“John— ”

“No! As much as I’d LIKE to swear out that warrant, I CAN’T! Not until you bring me some good, solid proof that Joe is in that house, being held against his will.”

“John, ain’t ya heard one word I said?! That woman . . . Lady Chadwick’s . . . wanted in Carson City f’r questionin’ about the murder of a man by the name o’ Montague,” Roy pressed.

“The woman renting the Marlowe house gave her name as D. Sally Lawrence.”

“D. Sally Lawrence is another name f’r Lady Chadwick,” Roy argued.

“You don’t know that, Roy.”

As the sheriff and the judge argued, Hoss began to slowly edge his way toward the door.

“Lady Chadwick’s maiden name was DE SALLE! Ben told me so himself. Her MARRIED name’s LAWRENCE. There was a Mrs. de Salle livin’ in that house in Carson City . . . the one where Mister Montague’s body was found. Those names are awfully close t’ soundin’ like D. Sally Lawrence.”

“Close, Roy, but NO cigar.”

“Dammit, John, what the hell more do y’ NEED?!”

“A helluva lot more than here say,” John Faraday angrily shot back. “You have absolutely no proof whatsoever that Mrs. de Salle in Carson City and Mrs. D. Sally Lawrence here are one and the same, NOR can you prove that they and this Lady Chadwick are the same. Even if you COULD, there’s still not a shred of proof that they’re holding Joe Cartwright against his will.”

“Keep it up, Guys,” Hoss silently implored them as he continued to move toward the door. “You’re doin’ just fine.”

“I’ll bet YOU’RE just doin’ this ‘cause Ben Cartwright blew your backin’ for governor clear outta the water a few years back,” Roy accused.

John Faraday scowled. Granted his friendship with the Cartwrights was no longer as warm and as close as it had been before Sam Endicott had offered to financially back his bid for the office of governor, he prided himself on being a man who would never set personal feelings, for good or for ill, before the dictates of the law. “I’ll overlook that remark, Sheriff Coffee . . . THIS time,” he said tersely. “I know you and Ben Cartwright have been very good friends for a number of years. You can’t help BUT be upset by everything that’s happened to them in the last few days.”

“Are you accusin’ ME o’ settin’ friendship above the law?” Roy demanded.

“No, but now that YOU mention it . . . . ”

Hoss sidled up to the door and gently placed his hand on the door knob.

“You listen t’ me, John Faraday, ‘n you listen GOOD!” Roy immediately shot back. “I never, not in all the years I been sheriff o’ Virginia City, EVER set my friendship with Ben Cartwright or anybody ELSE above the law. An’ I’ll tell ya somethin’ ELSE! If ‘n I ever DID set my friendship with Ben above the law, HE’D be the very first t’ call me on it!”

“What’s the matter, Roy? Guilty conscience?”

Hoss turned the door knob and quietly eased the door open.

“My conscience is clean, Judge Faraday. Is YOURS?”

“Now see here, Roy— ”

“No, John, YOU see here!”

Hoss quickly, and very quietly stepped out onto the street and closed the door behind him.



“HOSS! HEY, HOSS!”

The biggest of Ben Cartwright’s sons glanced up and saw Candy on Thor galloping toward him at top speed. He immediately crossed the board side walk and stepped down onto the street. “What’s up, Candy?” he asked, as the foreman dismounted from Thor’s back.

“I found out who has been following your pa around, Hoss.”

“Already?”

Candy nodded.

Hoss’ scowl deepened. “Who?”

“Jack O’Connor and his niece, Midge Frakes. Jack said they’ve been working for a man by the name of Worth. Mister Gerald Worth!”

“Dadburn it! That’s the man who arranged f’r this D. Sally Lawrence t’ rent the Marlowe Place.”

“Could be a coincidence, My Friend.”

“You believe that, Candy?”

“Nope!” He adamantly shook his head. “What do we do NOW?”

“We go back ‘n tell Pa. You know where he IS?”

“I trailed him back to Doc Martin’s home,” Candy replied.

“Let’s go!” Hoss turned and started toward Chubb, who stood tethered to the hitching post near the entrance to the courthouse and the offices of the three Virginia City judges.

“What happened to the legalities?” Candy asked as he climbed back up into Thor’s saddle.

“I think they went right out the window,” Hoss replied. “If we’re goin’ out t’ the Marlowe house, we’d best git, ‘fore Judge Faraday ‘n Sheriff Coffee figure out that I’M missin’.” Hoss untethered Chubb from the hitching post, and climbed up into the saddle. “You said Pa went back to the Martins?”

“Yeah,” Candy replied with a curt nod.

“Let’s go. We’ll stop by there on our way out to the Marlowe place.”



“DAMN, DAMN, DAMN, DAMN!” Gerald Crippensworth swore vehemently, as he stormed into the house, his face as dark as a veritable thundercloud. He slammed the front door shut behind him with all his great strength. It’s sound continued to echo and reverberate through the empty entryway as he strode resolutely toward the curved double staircase, leading up to the second floor.

He found Lady Chadwick in the upstairs living room, clad in a long, filmy white negligee, with her painting smock over top. She stood before her easel set up in the very center of the room, with an enormous canvas, measuring six feet tall and four feet wide, leaning against it. It was a portrait of a man, woman, and a young boy, nearly life sized. Crippensworth immediately recognized the woman as a younger version of his employer, a much, MUCH younger version.

“You’ve been working on that for quite some time, Milady,” Crippensworth remarked sardonically, as he strode into the room.

Linda started, nearly dropping the brush in hand and her palette. “Crippensworth, how many times have I told you to knock first before entering?” she reprimanded him in a cold, angry tone that dripped icicles. “When you startled me just now, I nearly RUINED this painting. It’s a birthday gift.”

“For WHOM?”

“My husband,” she replied in an imperious tone that dripped icicles.

“Your HUSBAND?! A little LATE, isn’t it?”

“What’s THAT supposed to mean?” she demanded.

“The man’s DEAD, Milady, as in deader than a damned doornail,” Crippensworth replied, his voice dripping with acid sarcasm. “In any case that man doesn’t look a THING like Lord Chadwick.”

She paused, completely motionless, with her arm raised, the paintbrush in hand touching the canvas, and regarded him with a sharp glare.

“If that’s supposed to be a family portrait, the WOMAN is quite obviously YOU. . . as you would have looked many, many, MANY years ago, no doubt, but, still, all the same, its YOU.”

Linda angrily bristled against his insulting reference to the passage of time, but said nothing.

“The boy COULD pass for your son, I suppose, but to me, he looks more like young Cartwright, as he probably looked as a young boy,” Crippensworth continued in a tone, faintly condescending. “I can’t quite place the MAN, however . . . . ”

“That’s my husband,” Linda replied, returning her attention once more to the painting.

“Your husband?!” Crippensworth exclaimed, completely taken aback. “I’ve met Lord Chadwick a time or two, Milady. THIS man looks absolutely NOTHING like him.”

“Lord Chadwick?! I don’t know WHAT you’re talking about. MY husband is Ben Cartwright.”

“Oh?” Crippensworth queried, wholly taken aback. “Since WHEN?”

“Since forever,” she replied with a dreamy smile.

“Pack your things, Milady, we’re leaving,” Crippensworth ordered in a flat tone of voice. “You can be balmy on your OWN time.”

“Leaving?!” Linda echoed, as she set her palette and brush down on the small table she had set up next to the easel and canvas. “What do you mean we’re leaving?”

“That bloody fool O’Connor told the Cartwrights’ foreman EVERYTHING, Milady. We’ve got to cut our losses and high tail it the hell out of here PRONTO!”

“What ARE you talking about, Crippensworth?” Linda demanded. A bewildered frown knotted her brow.

“I’m talking about that damn’ bloody fool of a drunkard you INSISTED on hiring to spy on the Cartwrights,” Crippensworth spat. “Jack O’Connor! ‘He hates the Cartwrights!’ Your very words, Milady. ‘He HATES the Cartwrights, just as much as I do.’ You FAILED to take into account that the man loves his whiskey far more than he hates the Cartwrights.”

“I have no idea WHAT you’re talking about.”

“I told you to be balmy on your own time,” Crippensworth snapped. “Now get your arse upstairs and pack your things. I’ll kill the boy first— ”

“NO!” Linda immediately protested, her eyes round with horror.

“Haven’t your heard a single word of what I’ve just said?!” Crippensworth demanded, taking no pains to conceal his anger, frustration, healthy fear, and a general overall disgust for his employer that had been growing, festering for quite some time. “That damned fool O’Connor TALKED! For a lousy bottle of cheap, rotgut whiskey, he told the Cartwrights’ foreman EVERYTHING. We’ve GOT to cut our losses NOW, and get the hell as far away from here as we possibly can.”

“We take the boy WITH us.”

“We CAN’T. He’ll only slow us down.”

“Alright, then we’ll just leave him.”

“We can’t just leave him, you stupid twit! If we do, HE’LL talk. He’ll tell them everything, not only about what we’ve done to HIM, but about the late Mister Montague, may God rest his poor, unfortunate soul. The boy MUST be silenced. PERMANENTLY!”

“NO! I WON’T LET YOU KILL MY SON!” Linda cried out in anguish.

“Oh God!” Crippensworth muttered, shaking his head.

“You’re FIRED, Crippensworth,” Linda said, her entire body trembling with rage. “I TOLD Ben it was a mistake to have hired you. I TOLD him. Now you collect your things together and meet me in the drawing room downstairs. I’ll have your pay ready.”

Crippensworth angrily turned heel and fled from the room. He bounded up to the second floor, heading for the attic. He fully intended to kill Joe Cartwright first, then return and kill Milady. She had finally plunged over the edge upon which she had been teetering for quite some time, that fine dividing edge between sanity and INsanity. In the short time he had worked for her, taking over the tasks left behind by the late Mister Montague, he had found her to be a semi-amusing diversion, mostly in the privacy of her bedroom. Of late, however, she had become quite tiresome, particularly with regard to this big, grandiose plan of hers for revenge. Now, she had also become a liability, a threat to his chances of continued survival.

He bounded up the narrow backstairs between the servants’ quarters on the third floor and the private family’s rooms on the second. Upon reaching the third floor, he bounded all the way down the entire length of the dimly lit narrow corridor to the door at its very end, behind which lay the steep, narrow flight leading up to the attic. A few moments later, he burst into the room where he and Milady had kept Joe Cartwright prisoner. The stench of stale vomit overwhelmed him. Gagging, he immediately stepped back out of the tiny room, slamming the door shut behind him. Crippensworth threw open the door to the attic room next to Joe’s, one slightly larger, that also faced out toward the front of the house. He bounded across the room, to the windows, both long and rectangular, set into the wall, directly opposite. He kicked out the panes with a swift, powerful thrust of his leg, then stuck his head outside, through the opening. For a few minutes he stood there, greedily gulping in lung full, after lung full of clean, cold fresh air.

As Crippensworth’s stomach began to settle, his eyes moved down to the roof below, the roof overtop the wide porch at the front door. There, he caught odd glints of light, not unlike the brilliant flash and sparkle of sunlight on a diamond, directly below the window of Joe Cartwright’s attic room. He scrutinized the glints at length for a few moments, then gasped.

“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed, upon realizing they were shards of glass lying on the roof below. With heart in mouth, he ran from the larger attic room, to the smaller one, plunging in, thoroughly unmindful now, of the pungent smell of stale vomit. His eyes immediately fell on the shattered round window. Joe Cartwright, of course, was no where to be seen.

Crippensworth tore back down the stairs, making a brief detour toward Milady’s bedroom, on the second floor at the very end of a long hallway. Her jewelry box, made of mahogany, polished to a high, glossy shine and inlaid with pieces of ivory, sat in the center of her dresser. He threw open the lid and grabbed out a handful of rings and necklaces. Thrusting them into the left hand pocket of his jacket, he yanked open the top drawer of the dresser and removed the soft black leather wallet lying on top of a pile of silk underwear. He opened it and smiled. Inside was a thick stack of bills, a few ones, and fives, the rest twenties, fifties, and a couple of hundred dollar bills in the back. Between that and the jewelry, he had more than enough to take him far away from Virginia City.

Before he could leave, however, he had two unfinished pieces of business to complete.



“Pa!” Hoss grimly announced himself as he bounded into the Martins’ upstairs living room where Ben, Stacy, Hop Sing, and Mrs. Martin were ensconced. Candy followed close at Hoss’ heels.

Ben turned and glanced up. He was bending over Stacy, ready to cover her with the hand crocheted afghan that Lily Martin kept neatly folded across the back of the long divan. “What is it, Hoss?” he queried, noting the grim set of jaw and mouth.

“I know where Lady Chadwick’s been holin’ up,” Hoss replied. “Ten t’ one we’ll find JOE there, too.”

“I’ll get Buck saddled,” Candy offered.

“Thank you,” Ben said as he placed the afghan over Stacy’s lap. “You’ll find him out in the Martins’ stable.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?” Ben said, as he seated himself down on the edge of the ottoman facing her chair, taking great care not to jostle her injured leg, now sporting a plaster cast.

“I . . . I wish I could go with you guys,” she said with heartfelt sincerity.

“I know.”

“You, Hoss, and Candy bring Grandpa back, y’hear?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Ben replied with an emphatic nod of his head. On impulse, he reached over and gave her a big hug. As Stacy slipped her arms around his neck, and hugged back, he felt another hand coming down on his shoulder, a small hand, somewhere in between the size of Joe’s and Stacy’s hands, with wiry, strong fingers.

“What Miss Stacy say, Mister Cartwright,” Hop Sing said very quietly. “You Mister Hoss, Mister Candy, go, bring back our boy.”

“We will,” Ben promised. He planted a kiss on Stacy’s forehead, then rose to his feet.

“Give that shrew bitch a belt in the gob for me, too, willya, Pa?” Stacy said, frowning.

“Tell you what, Young Woman. I’ll bring that harridan back here and have her thrown in jail,” Ben said. “Then I’ll offer Roy Coffee a substantial bribe to look the other way while YOU give her a good solid belt in the gob for ME.”

“That suits me even better,” Stacy declared, with relish.

After Ben, Hoss, and Candy left, Lily Martin rose. “Hop Sing . . . Stacy, if you’ll both excuse me, I’m going to go ask Hilda Mae to fix us some lunch.”

“Mrs. Martin?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“You don’t have to on MY account,” she said with a morose sigh. “I’m not really very hungry.”

“Honestly, you’re just as bad as your father and brothers . . . except maybe for HOSS,” Lily admonished the younger woman severely. “Well, I’m going to tell YOU the same thing I told your pa the night Doctor Johns operated on you, Miss Stacy Rose Cartwright. You’re NOT going to do your pa or Joe any good by NOT looking after yourself properly and making yourself sick. Worse than that, you won’t help yourself either. If you expect to heal up properly from your own injuries . . . ” her eyes pointedly moved to the cast around her leg, “ . . . you need to keep up your strength.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Stacy said quickly.

“Not to worry, Mrs. Martin. Hop Sing make sure Miss Stacy eat every single bite.”

Satisfied, Lily Martin turned and left the room.

“Hop Sing?”

“Yes, Miss Stacy?”

“I sure hope Pa, Hoss, and Candy find Joe,” Stacy said fearfully. “I have this terrible, horrible feeling that he’s going to be in real big trouble if they don’t.”

“Hop Sing know how Miss Stacy feel,” the Chinese man said very quietly. “Hop Sing feel same thing.”

Linda de Salle . . . . NO! Linda CARTWRIGHT! Even after four years . . . . very soon to be FIVE, and a bouncing baby BOY . . . . . what ELSE? . . . . she was still getting used to the idea that she was now Mrs. Benjamin Cartwright. Little Joseph Francis, their son, was sound asleep upstairs in his crib, up in the nursery. Her lips curved upward forming an indulgent smile as she envisioned her lovely, little boy with his green eyes, and that mop of unruly brown curls . . . .

She stepped backward to admire her latest work, a family portrait, of Ben, Little Joe, and herself, done completely from memory. She would never, not ever, not even if she lived a million years, forget the lines and planes of those wondrous, beloved faces. She had been working on this painting for a long time, nearly twenty-five years now, on a near life sized scale, far larger than she had ever dared work before.

It would hang prominently, in the living room, behind Ben’s desk, along side their wedding portrait.

Her smile widened, her lips parting to reveal a row of even white teeth. These two paintings, the wedding portrait and the family portrait on which she now labored, were to be her finest work. She was pleased with its progress thus far. Very pleased indeed.

“Milady . . . . ”

Linda Lawrence, Countess of Chadwick, turned and found herself staring up in the placid face of her man, Gerald Crippensworth.

“I’ll never understand you, Milady, never,” he said in a bland tone, his eyes coming to rest on faces, painted so lovingly, with such great tenderness and care. “One minute you’re ranting on and on and on, ad nauseam, about how much you despise this man, how he’s so cruelly used and abused you, the next you’re slaving over this oversized photograph with that love-sick cow look all over your face.”

“Crippensworth, my husband will be coming home from that trip to San Francisco this evening,” Linda said, smiling. “I want you to fix his favorite for supper . . . as a welcome home.”

“You’re pathetic,” he declared, shaking his head.

“Crippensworth, I will NOT have you speaking to me in that manner,” Linda stated imperiously, as an irritated frown deepened the lines of her brow. “My husband will be home within an hour. I want supper ready and on the table by then.”

Crippensworth laughed derisively right in her face. “Sorry, Milady, there’s been an ever-so-slight change of plans,” he said. “You’ve not only become dreadfully tiresome, but you’ve become a serious liability as well.”

“Wh-What do you mean?” she queried, suddenly frightened. She involuntarily took a step backward.

“You were an amusing diversion, and not half bad in the sack either,” Crippensworth continued as he moved in closer, “although your constantly calling me Ben got rather old and dull very quickly on.”

“Stay away from me . . . . ”

“It’s time for me to cut my losses and move on,” he continued, as he reached up and unknotted the string tie about his neck.

“Crippensworth, stop it! You hear me? You stop this right NOW!” She continued to back away from his steady, relentless advance, watching through eyes round with horror as he wrapped the ends of his string tie in both hands and pulled it taut.

“As I just said a moment ago, you’ve become a serious liability, Milady.”

“NO! You stay away from me!”

A wild, predatory grin slowly spread across his lips, as he continued to advance. He relaxed the string tie in his hands, then pulled it taut again, over and over for emphasis.

“Crippensworth, if you don’t stop this right now, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . so help me, I’ll SCREAM!”

“Be my guest, Milady. The only ones around to hear you are the thrush and the meadowlark.”

Linda gasped as her back suddenly struck solid wall. Before she could even think of turning and running, Crippensworth was upon her, pressing his string tie, stretched taut, hard against her neck. “N-No . . . . ” she gasped, “I’ll . . . I’ll give you money . . . any . . . any amount . . . I-I . . . I AM a . . . a wealthy w-woman . . . . ”

“No, you’re not! You’re flat busted broke! I told you . . . don’t you remember?”

Linda tried to scream as she felt his string tie digging into her throat. Desperate, she tried slapping his hands away, prompting a peal of mirthless, cruel laughter, as panic and blackness overcame her.

Crippensworth held the string tie against her throat, until the shallow rise and fall of her chest finally ceased altogether. He, then, scrambled to his feet, and pulled a mother-of-pearl handled derringer from the inside pocket of his jacket. He aimed square at her chest and fired once, twice. “Just to make certain,” he muttered to himself as he slipped the gun back into his pocket. “Now to find the boy.”



“John Faraday, so help me, if you DON’T grant me that warrant, I’ll— ”

“You’ll WHAT, Sheriff?”

“Never mind!” Roy Coffee shot back. “Let’s go, Hoss.”

“Sheriff Coffee, I’m warning you . . . if you and the Cartwrights so much as set foot on that property, I’ll have the lot of you arrested.”

“Let’s go, H— ” Roy Coffee turned, and found much to his astonishment, that he and Judge Faraday were alone. Hoss Cartwright was nowhere to be seen. “Hellfire and damnation!”

“Roy— ”

“Stuff it, John, deep! REAL deep!” Roy snapped, as he turned and started toward the door at a brisk pace. Once outside, he quickly made his way to the hitching post and untied the reins of his own horse, Tin Star.

“Roy?”

The sheriff glanced up and found himself staring into the anxious face of his deputy, Clem Foster, out making the afternoon rounds.

“What’s wrong?”

“Plenty,” Roy said grimly. “Some good friends o’ ours are more ‘n likely about t’ make a terrible mistake. I want you t’ get your horse saddled ‘n meet me over at Doc Martin’s.”

“Yes, Sir.”



“Da—, uh . . . dar—dadblast it! Stacy Rose Cartwright, so help me if you DON’T give me a straight answer to my question, I’ll throw your sorry a—uhhhh . . . . YOU! right in the poky ‘long with your pa ‘n Hoss!” Roy declared, giving vent to the frustration that had been steadily building since the start of that argument with Judge John Faraday.

“You’re going to stop them, aren’t you.” Her words were more of an accusation than a question.

“Da—, uhhhh . . . right! You bet I’m gonna stop ‘em, hopefully ‘fore they do somethin’ illegal!”

Stacy folded her arms defiantly across her chest, and favored Roy Coffee with a murderous glare.

“Now f’r the last time, Stacy, where’d your pa ‘n Hoss go?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, the intensity of her glare never wavering.

“If you DON’T tell me, I’m gonna carry you right down to the jail ‘n lock you up,” Roy vowed.

Stacy’s response was stony silence.

“Alright, Stacy Rose Cartwright, you’re under arrest,” Roy said tersely.

“Roy Coffee, that is quite enough,” Lily Martin angrily stepped in. “I will NOT have you badgering the poor girl, not after— ”

“Lily, Stacy’s hinderin’ a legal investigation,” Roy said sternly. “A CRIMINAL offense that can get her up t’ three years in prison.”

“You’d better add resisting arrest, too, Sheriff Coffee,” Stacy said through clenched teeth, “because so help me, if you try to pick me up and carry me down to the jail . . . I’m NOT going to go quietly.”

“It’s NOT going to come down to that, Stacy,” Lily Martin said very firmly. “Sheriff Coffee, if you want to haul Stacy down to the jail, you’re going to have to go through ME first.”

Roy glared at the doctor’s wife, then exhaled a long, long sigh, borne of pure and simple exasperation. “Alright,” he said slowly, through clenched teeth, “Stacy, consider yourself under HOUSE arrest.” He, then, turned to his deputy. “Let’s go, Clem.”

“Where?”

“Out to the Marlowe place.”



Crippensworth, meanwhile, noted the bloodstains on the bark of the tree closest to the house, and the flattened grass surrounding its base. It was a large, old oak tree, whose branches extended nearly the entire way to the round attic window, reduced now to a gaping hole without glass. This was the only way young Cartwright could have possibly escaped. He quickly and easily located a trail of blood, a spot here, a spot or two there, with a long thin dribble of a trail in between.

As he ran down the long drive that linked the main road and the house, he momentarily toyed with the idea of leaving the boy, and making good his escape now. Chances were very good that if loss of blood, dehydration, or weakness brought on by lack of food and Milady’s pathetic, botched attempt to poison young Cartwright didn’t kill him, then spending another night outdoors naked, with the temperatures still going down close to, if not slightly below the freezing mark almost certainly would.

Crippensworth discarded the notion, almost from the moment he had conceived it. Despite how heavily the deck seemed stacked against the boy’s survival, there was always that one lucky chance in a million, lurking. No, the only way to make certain Joe Cartwright never implicated him was to silence the boy’s tongue permanently himself.

The dribbled trail of Joe Cartwright’s blood led down the driveway to the dirt road beyond. There, in the dry dust, he spotted Joe’s footprints along with the blood leading in a straight light across the road to a vast meadow on the other side. Crippensworth followed the line of footprints and blood splotches across the road with his sharp eyes. The trail led to a large patch of trampled, pressed down grass and broken reeds. For a moment he stood with hands placed squarely on his hips, surveying the near straight line of beaten down vegetation cutting a swatch through the tall meadow grass still standing.

His smile broadened, upon noting that the path cut through the tall grass ended abruptly a few hundred yards from the edge of the road. “I have you NOW, Boy,” he muttered aloud, as he started across the road. “I have you now.” His eyes gleamed with a triumphant, feral light, as he focused on the grim task ahead, turning a deaf ear to the roar of thundering horse hooves against the packed dirt road, not far distant.



“Come ON, Grandpa . . . come ON! Stacy begged, grabbing his hands in hers. We gotta move.”

It was winter. That terrible winter his horse bolted, tossing him down the embankment of a steep ravine in the midst of a bad snowstorm a few days before Christmas.

“Go ‘way, Kid, y’ bother me. Lemme sleep!”

“NO!”

“Come on, just for a little while . . . . ”

“NO, Grandpa! Y’ gotta MOVE . . . right NOW!”

He had vague awareness of his sister’s fingers tightening around his own, and something tugging at him, pulling him up. “Awww . . . dang it all, Stacy would ya lemme alone? Jus’ lemme sleep--- ”

“NO!” she shouted. He heard anger in her voice, but something else, too. Desperation . . . and fear. “GRANDPA, IF YOU DON’T GET UP RIGHT NOW, YOU MIGHT NEVER, EVER GET UP AGAIN!”

Joe’s eyes snapped open. He was astonished to find himself lying amid tall grass, completely alone. Stacy was nowhere to be seen. He started to roll over, only to flop over on his back, as wave upon wave upon wave of dizziness stole over him. The tall grass, surrounding him on all sides began to pulsate and spin, which set his stomach churning once again. Joe raised his hands to his face and saw the iron manacles still bound to his wrists, and the short iron chain connecting the manacles. A bewildered frown knotted his brow, then he remembered.

“Oh dear God! How long have I been lying here?” he moaned, squeezing his eyelids tight shut against his still swimming environment. “I . . . I g-gotta get movin’.” Ignoring the escalating dizziness and nausea, Joe tolled over from his back to his hands and knees. “I gotta get away . . . gotta get away . . . . ” He rose to his feet and found himself staring into the malevolent face of Gerald Crippensworth.

“Going somewhere, Boy?” he growled in a low menacing tone that sent a shiver running down the length of Joe’s spine.

“M-Mister Crippensworth, I . . . I’ll make a deal with you,” Joe begged, desperately stalling for time. “T-Take me back to . . . to the Ponderosa. I’ll . . . tell Pa . . . I’ll tell him that . . . that you f-found me on the road . . . brought m-me home. I . . . I won’t tell him th-that y-you . . . that you were involved with Lady Ch-Ch-Chadwick, I p-promise. I . . . I m-might even be able t-to . . . to convince P-Pa to give you a n-nice reward . . . . ”

“I must admit that your offer is most tempting, Boy, but I’m afraid I MUST turn it down,” Crippensworth said.

“Please . . . . ”

“You’re a loose end, Cartwright, and loose ends always have a way of coming back to haunt you if they’re not securely tied up tight,” Crippensworth said. He reached into his pocket and drew out his derringer. “Sorry, Lad, I really am, but I simply can’t afford to leave a loose end like you dangling.”



“Pa, look! Ain’t that the entry t’ the Marlowes driveway?”

Ben quickly brought Big Buck to a stop, as his eyes followed the line of Hoss’ extended arm and pointing finger. He barely recognized it as such amid the tall, dry grasses. “Yes,” he said belatedly. “Yes! That’s it!” He nudged Buck forward, intending to turn up the drive way.

“Wait, Mister Cartwright!” Candy said tersely, as he reached out and placed a restraining hand on Ben’s forearm.

“What is it, Candy?”

“Over there!” Candy pointed toward the meadow, across the street from the driveway. In the midst of the grasses, roughly a hundred yards from the side of the road stood two men.

“Pa, I think that’s Joe!” Hoss declared, pointing toward the smaller of the two.

“JOE!” Ben yelled, as he wheeled Buck around.

“P-Pa?” Joe whimpered, hardly daring to believe the sight of his father bearing down on himself and Crippensworth like an angry god of vengeance, was real.

“Oh bloody hell!” Crippensworth exclaimed, his eyes round with sheer horror.

The minute Crippensworth turned his attention to Ben, Joe grabbed the hand holding the derringer, and with an almost superhuman strength borne aloft on a surging flash flood of adrenalin, struggled valiantly to disarm the larger man. At first, Crippensworth was shocked into near immobility by the move, then, gritting his teeth, he fought to bring his weapon back to bear on Joe’s head.

A shot rang out. Crippensworth looked up and found himself looking directly into the face of Ben Cartwright, his dark brown eyes blazing with rage.

“Drop that gun now,” Ben ordered softly, his voice shaking with rising fury, barely contained.

Crippensworth swallowed nervously, then complied.

“HOSS! CANDY! OVER HERE!” Ben yelled.

“P-Pa?”

Ben turned, while keeping his own weapon trained on Crippensworth’s mid-section. His heart wrenched at the sight of his youngest son standing before him completely naked, his right arm dislocated, hanging limp at his side, covered with cuts and bruises, manacled like a common criminal . . . .

“I . . . I’m s-sure glad t-to see YOU . . . . ” Joe stammered. He punctuated his words with a faint groan as his eyes rolled back up under his eyelids. Ben’s arm shot out with the powerful swiftness of a striking rattler, snagging his son as he collapsed.

Less than a minute later, Hoss and Candy drew up alongside Ben, Joe, and Crippensworth.

“Candy?”

“Yes, Mister Cartwright?”

“Take charge of this vermin,” Ben spat.

“My pleasure, Sir,” Candy replied, his face hardening with anger.

Hoss, meanwhile, silently doffed his own jacket and slipped it around his bother’s naked body. “We gotta get him to Doctor Martin, Pa,” he said gravely, as he lifted Joe’s inert form in his strong arms.

“Can you manage him on Chubb?” Ben asked.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Then take him. I’ll meet you at the Martins’ shortly.”

“Pa, where are YOU goin’?” Hoss asked warily.

“Candy, this . . . this low-life, and I are going to pay Lady Chadwick a visit.”

“Pa . . . . ”

“No, Hoss! I’m not going to give that woman a chance to make her escape,” Ben rounded on his second son furiously.

“Ben, you hold on right there!”

Ben looked up in time to see Roy Coffee dismounting from the back of Tin Star, with Clem Foster pulling up behind on his own horse, Carla Jo, a big brown gelding.

“Roy, we found Joe with this man . . . and I use that term very loosely, HERE, in this meadow,” Ben said tersely. “He had a gun on Joe.”

“That’s nonsense!” Crippensworth blustered heatedly, taking great care to keep his eyes averted from the dark anger in Ben Cartwright’s face. “I happened to find the boy here . . . I tried to help.”

“With a derringer aimed at his head?!” Ben growled.

Crippensworth lapsed into sullen silence.

“We’ll see what JOE has t’ say ‘bout all this,” Roy said grimly. “Hoss, you git Joe on back t’ town, to Doc Martin. Candy?”

“Yes, Sheriff Coffee?”

“Raise your right hand.”

Candy exhaled a soft, reluctant sigh, then complied with the sheriff’s request.

“Candy, do you swear t’ uphold the laws of Story County ‘n the State o’ Nevada t’ the best o’ your ability, so help ya God?”

“I do.”

“Consider yourself deputized,” Roy said, tossing Candy a deputy’s badge. “I want you ‘n Clem to take this feller back to town ‘n lock him up.”

“On what charge?” Crippensworth demanded.

“Suspicion,” Roy shot back. He quickly searched his prisoner, while Candy, Ben, and Clem all trained their rifles on him. He confiscated the derringer, and wallet, along with the jewelry and money he had stolen from Lady Chadwick. Roy briefly held the gun up to his nose. “It’s been fired,” he said grimly. “That, along with this jewelry ‘n the money inside a billfold that almost has t’ belong to a WOMAN, with all this satin ‘n lace . . . I’d say we’ve caught us a thief at t’ very least.”

“The money and jewelry belong to my employer,” Crippensworth hotly protested. “She had asked me to take those jewels into town to a jeweler for cleaning and repair.”

“And the money?” Roy asked.

“She had asked me to deposit it at the bank.”

“I see,” Roy replied. “Who’s your employer?”

“Mrs. Lawrence,” Crippensworth replied.

“She the lady rentin’ out the Marlowe house?”

“No, Sheriff, I . . . I mean YES . . . . ”

“Fine ‘n dandy,” Roy replied. “Candy . . . Clem, you boys git this feller back t’ town ‘n lock him up. In t’ meantime, Ben ‘n I are gonna pay a call on this Mrs. Lawrence.”

“NO!” Crippensworth frantically protested. “You can’t, Mila—Mrs. Lawrence isn’t at home.”

“Then we’ll leave word with her butler, or her ladies’ maid,” Roy said.

“Let’s go, Mister,” Clem said sternly.

Crippensworth sighed and surrendered himself to the inevitable.

“Alright, Ben, let’s you ‘n me go,” Roy said grimly. He and Ben Cartwright mounted their steeds and started up the driveway at a brisk trot, himself leading. They rode in silence, as the shadows began to lengthen, until they reached the circular drive that lead them to the front door. “Ben . . . . ?”

“What is it, Roy?” Ben demanded with a touch of asperity.

“You’ll know this Lady Chadwick if y’ see her?”

“Probably.”

“It’s been . . . what? Ten years?”

“A few MORE,” Ben said in a stone cold voice. “If I had MY druthers, we would have never seen or heard from that . . . that harridan . . . ever again!”

The two men dismounted and tethered their horses to the hitching post in front of the house.

“Now, Ben, you let ME do the talkin’, y’ got that?” Roy said sternly, as the pair climbed the dozen steps that led up to the front porch.

Ben responded with a curt nod.

As they stepped up onto the porch, both were surprised to find the front door standing wide open. Roy and Ben exchanged puzzled, anxious glances, then immediately drew their guns, and started into the house, with the former taking the lead.

“MRS. LAWRENCE?!” Roy Coffee yelled out as he and Ben moved through the front door into the foyer. “MRS. LAWRENCE, IT’S SHERIFF COFFEE!”

There was no reply, save for the sound of Roy’s voice echoing eerily through the empty foyer.

“ANYBODY HOME?” the sheriff called out once again.

Still no answer.

“MRS. LAWRENCE? IT’S SHERIFF COFFEE! I REALLY NEED T’ SPEAK WITH YA.”

Again, no answer.

“Roy?”

“Yeah, Ben?”

“I don’t know about YOU, but I’m beginning to get a bad feeling about this.”

“You ‘n me both,” Roy quickly agreed. He nodded over toward the stairs. “You ‘n Tom Marlowe were good friends f’r many years. You remember what’s on t’ second floor?”

“The family’s living quarters is on the second floor, through a pair of pocket doors at the top of the stairs,” Ben replied, pointing. “On the left, as you go up the stairs, is the parlor. Tom’s study and the library directly across the hall, on the right.”

“How ‘bout on THIS floor?”

“There’s a ballroom in front of us,” Ben answered. “See those doors?” He pointed to a pair of closed pocket doors, centered amid the frame provided by the curving double staircase, leading to the second floor.

“I see ‘em,” Roy replied.

“The ballroom’s through there. The doors over here on the left open up into the formal parlor, and the doors over here on the right open into a small drawing room.”

“What’s on the third floor?”

“The servants’ rooms are on the third floor, and the attic above that.”

“I’d like t’ g’won up to the second floor, Ben,” Roy said. “I’ll lead, you follow. Keep alert.”

“You BET I’ll keep alert,” Ben vowed.

Upon reaching the second floor, Roy Coffee and Ben Cartwright cautiously opened the pocket doors and stepped into the wide corridor beyond, with guns drawn.

“MRS. LAWRENCE?” Roy yelled as he banged on the closed door to the upstairs parlor with his fist. “ANYONE HOME? IT’S SHERIFF COFFEE!”

There was no answer.

“MRS. LAWRENCE?!” Roy yelled out, as he banged on the door once again. “OPEN UP, MRS. LAWRENCE. IT’S SHERIFF COFFEE!”

As before there was no answer. Only eerie silence.

“Ben?”

“Yes, Roy?”

“We’re goin’ in.”

“I’m right behind ya!”

Roy opened the door and cautiously entered. In the center of the room stood the easel with the large canvas propped up against it. He heard a sharp intake of breath behind him. He turned, and saw Ben Cartwright standing as if rooted to the spot, his normally robust complexion ashen gray, staring up at the portrait through eyes round with horror.

“B-Ben? You alright?”

“My God . . . I-I don’t b-believe this . . . . ” Ben murmured, shaking his head in utter disbelief.

Roy turned his attention back to the portrait and studied it very closely. It depicted a young family, the man and woman, father and mother, stood side-by-side, very close together. A young boy, aged four, maybe five, with large green eyes and a mop of unruly chestnut brown curls, stood in front, with a winsome smile guaranteed to wrap even the hardest of hearts around his little finger. “Ben, is . . . is that s’posed t’ be YOU?”

Ben mutely nodded, too shocked to voice a reply.

Roy Coffee studied the bride a few moments. “The man’s you . . . lot younger o’ course, ‘n the boy’s gotta be Little Joe, but . . . . ” he frowned, “I know that woman ain’t Marie, ‘n she don’t look like Stacy’s ma either.” Then, suddenly, his own face paled, as the truth began to dawn on him. “Ben . . . th-this ain’t . . . it ain’t Lady Chadwick . . . is it?”

“Yes, much younger.”

“I thought you two never got married.”

“We DIDN’T,” Ben declared. “I met Linda . . . Lady Chadwick, and courted her a year or so before I met Marie. I DID ask her to marry me, but she turned me down flat. A week later, I found out that she had eloped with Lord Chadwick and sailed off with him to England. I never saw or heard from her again until she visited us at the Ponderosa.”

“When she tried t’ ruin ya?”

“Yes. Even THEN, she spoke of . . . of remembering wedding preparations that we had SUPPOSEDLY made,” Ben continued, his eyes still riveted to the portrait in morbid fascination. “But . . . she and I . . . we NEVER made any k-kind of wedding preparations. As I said before she turned down my proposal of marriage. That was that . . . so I thought any way . . . . ” An involuntary shudder rippled through his entire body as his thoughts briefly drifted to the house in Carson City, the house that had been a belated wedding gift from Lord Chadwick more than twenty-five years ago.

“Good likeness of ya, Ben,” Roy remarked as he began to move away.

“P-Probably from memory,” Ben said in a hallow voice, “just l-like the OTHERS.” He shuddered again.

“Others, Ben? What others?”

“When she came to visit? She brought a portrait of the two of us as a gift. She destroyed it when I exposed her scheme,” Ben explained. “Hoss and I . . . we also found another painting in that house in Carson City. A WEDDING portrait, about the same size as this. She depicted us at around the same ages we’re depicted here.”

“Ben!”

The urgency in Roy’s voice, wrenched Ben’s attention away from the portrait.

“I think I found Mrs. Lawrence.”

Ben immediately ran to the place where Roy Coffee was kneeling, at the far end of the large cavernous room, nestled in an alcove. A woman’s body lay crumpled on the floor, with a black string tie draped loosely across her neck, following a mottled line, tinged with varying shades of light blue and lavender. There were also two bullet holes in her chest.

“Ben, is this . . . . ”

“Yes,” Ben replied in a voice barely audible. Her face was lined more than he had remembered. Some of the lines, there when he saw her last, had deepened. Her jaw line, so clear, so crisp, had sagged noticeably, and her hair had been dyed. He knew that by the general sameness of color spread evenly over her entire head. Still, it was definitely, unmistakably Linda Lawrence, Lady of Chadwick. He felt a hand gently coming to rest on his shoulder.

“Come on, Ben, let’s get on back to town,” Roy said quietly. “YOU got a hurt young man who’s gonna be askin’ for ya, if he ain’t already, and two OTHER young’ns, who’re probably worried sick . . . not t’ mention Hop Sing. After I see ya t’ Doc Martin’s, I’ll come back with the undertaker.”

Ben nodded mutely, and allowed Roy to lead him away. They walked out of the house together in silence. Outside on the porch, the sheriff paused to close the door.

“Oh . . . by the way, Ben . . . . ”

“Yes, Roy?”

“Give Stacy a message f’r me? I’m gonna be busy f’r awhile . . . . ”

“Certainly,” Ben agreed as the pair walked to the post where their horses remained tethered. “What to you want me to tell her?”

“I, umm . . . . had t’ place her under arrest, Ben.”

“WHAT?!”

“You heard me.”

“ROY COFFEE, DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME YOU LOCKED HER UP IN JAIL W-WITH A BROKEN LEG, ON CRUTCHES . . . . ?!”

“Simmer down, Ben, I did NO such thing,” Roy said indignantly. “ ‘Specially after she told me she wasn’t gonna go quietly. I placed her under HOUSE arrest at the Martins.”

Ben remained silent, unsure of how to take all this.

“You tell Stacy I said she’s free t’ go,” Roy said as he climbed up on the back of his horse, “all charges agin her’ve been dropped.”

“That’s good to know,” Ben observed wryly, as he climbed into Buck’s saddle. “Roy?”

“Yeah, Ben?”

“What WERE the charges?”

“Obstructin’ justice,” Roy replied, the smiled. “The other charge . . . resistin’ arrest . . . that was HER idea.”

When Ben finally arrived at the Martins, he found Hoss, Stacy, and Hop Sing together in the upstairs living room. Stacy occupied the doctor’s favorite easy chair, with her injured leg propped up on the ottoman. Hoss sat nearby on the divan, while Hop Sing nervously paced. All three of them started violently, upon hearing the door open. As he stepped into the room, Ben found himself staring into a trio of faces, several shades paler than normal, and round, staring eyes, the size of meat platters.

“Pa! Thank goodness you’re back,” Hoss declared, after exhaling a long, heartfelt sigh of relief.

“Yeah. We were getting worried,” Stacy adamantly voiced her own agreement.

“Any word yet?”

Hoss and Stacy both dolefully shook their heads. “By the time I got him here, he was colder ‘n ice . . . driftin’ in ‘n out,” the former added. “I got back . . . . ” He glanced over at the regulator clock hanging on the wall, above the center of the divan. “It’s been a couple o’ hours now, Pa. Doc ‘n Mrs. Martin have been with him since.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“Did you and Sheriff Coffee find that ****?” It was a Paiute word, one Ben remembered her using before in reference to the man who had killed Lotus O’Toole, a very good friend of Joe’s for many, many years. Though his own knowledge of the Paiute language was scant, he nonetheless knew this word almost certainly had to be among the vilest of obscenities, given its context, and the way it was contemptuously spat, more than spoken.

“Yes, Roy and I found her,” Ben said very quietly, his voice astonishingly void of emotion, “and we don’t have to worry about her . . . ever again. Linda . . . Lady Chadwick’s dead. She was murdered, more than likely by her man, Crippensworth.”

“He the big ugly fella Clem ‘n Candy brought back t’ town?” Hoss asked.

Ben nodded.

“G-God forgive me for . . . for sayin’ this, but I ain’t sorry she’s gone,” Hoss said with deep, heartfelt sincerity. “Leastwise I know she can’t hurt us no more.”

Ben sat down on the divan next to Hoss, and placed a gentle, paternal hand on his big son’s shoulder. “I know how you feel, Son,” he murmured quietly, giving Hoss’ shoulder an affectionate, reassuring squeeze. “I feel the same way, myself.”

“That picture you ‘n me saw in Carson City . . . it’s gonna give me the willies for the rest o’ my life,” Hoss murmured, shaking his head.

“What picture was THAT, Hoss?” Stacy asked.

“A big picture, that Lady Chadwick was workin’ on,” Hoss replied, his voice shaking. “It was a picture of her ‘n Pa . . . all d-dressed up for their weddin’.”

Stacy blanched as she looked over at her father. “But, I thought . . . . ”

“You thought right, Young Woman. Lady Chadwick and I never even came close to having a wedding . . . ” Ben said slowly, “ . . . except, it seems, in the deep recesses of what little was left of her mind.”

“You saying this Lady Chadwick was . . . insane?!” Stacy asked, unable to completely repress the shudder that passed through her slight frame.

“Yes, Stacy,” Ben replied. “I’m beginning to suspect that she’s been insane for a long time . . . a VERY long time.” He was inwardly thankful that none of his children had seen the large painting he and Roy had found in the Marlowe’s house. “I’d . . . like the three of you to do me a favor . . . . ”

“What’s that, Pa?” Hoss asked.

“I don’t want Joe to know about that painting,” Ben said. “He’s . . . . ” He sighed and dolefully shook his head. “Forgive me, I’m probably being overly protective, but . . . I’d feel a lot better if Joe didn’t know about that wedding portrait right now.”

“Little Joe not hear from Hop Sing’s lips,” the Chinese member of the Cartwright family declared.

“Nor mine,” Stacy said, shuddering again.

“I won’t tell him neither,” Hoss also vowed.

The sound of light footfalls outside the closed living room door brought all conversation, and Hop Sing’s pacing to an abrupt halt. Lily Martin calmly entered the living room, not the least bit surprised or flustered to find four pairs of eyes intently watching every move.

“Hoss?”

“Y-Yes, Ma’am?”

“The doctor asked me to come and fetch YOU,” she said quietly. “He needs someone big and strong to hang onto Joe while he sets that dislocated arm back in line.”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Martin,” Hoss said, rising.

“You go ahead and g’won down, Hoss. Tell the doctor I’ll be along directly.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Lily, how is he?” Ben queried anxiously, after Hoss had left the room.

“Physically . . . I’ll be blunt, Ben. He’s in terrible shape! His right arm’s been dislocated, he has a badly sprained ankle, his entire body’s covered with cuts and bruises, there’s a healed over wound in his right arm that’s abscessed,” Lily Martin wearily recited the litany. “He’s also malnourished, severely dehydrated, and suffering from exposure.”

Ben sank down heavily onto the divan, in the place recently vacated by Hoss, as the blood drained right out of his face. “Dear God,” he whispered, horrified. “Did they . . . did they torture him the whole time they kept him prisoner?”

“Joe told us he sustained many of his wounds escaping from the fire and both times he attempted to flee from his captors,” Lily replied. “Though there ARE some healed over, scabbing wounds that WERE inflicted on him by this Lady Chadwick, Paul and I are of the opinion that most of the torture he endured was psychological.”

Ben silently bowed his head, too stunned, too grief stricken to even speak. He felt Stacy’s hand gentle, yet firm, resting on his forearm, and Hop Sing sitting down beside him on the divan.

“Joe’s gonna get through this, Pa,” Stacy said quietly. “He’s strong, and he’s GOT all of US behind him.”

“Miss Stacy right, Mister Cartwright. We, all of us, be there for Little Joe,” Hop Sing added. “The way we be there for Miss Stacy.”

Ben reached over and squeezed Stacy’s hand, and flashed both her and Hop Sing a weary smile, filled with gratitude. He then returned his attention to Lily Martin, who stood before him, gazing down at him anxiously. “When can we see him?”

“Just as soon as Paul realigns that dislocated arm,” she replied . . . .



“I . . . I never dreamed I’d see the day when I’d say this to any of you . . . except for Little Sister. . . MAYBE! But right now, your faces are . . . well, they’re just about the prettiest things I’ve EVER seen,” Joe Cartwright declared with a tremulous smile, as his family entered the examination room together en masse. “That includes y-your big, ugly puss, Big Brother.”

With that, Joe burst into tears. Paul Martin graciously took that as his cue to leave the room for a little while and allow the Cartwright family a measure of privacy.

Ben was at his youngest son’s side at once, gathering him into his arms, as tears streamed down his own face. “Thank God y-you’re b-back, Son,” he sobbed.

Joe reached up to touch his father’s cheek with his heavily bandaged right hand, wincing against the pain of his newly realigned right shoulder, hardly daring to believe that Ben was really and truly right there. At the same time, he reached out and took Stacy’s hand in his, drawing her closer. “Pa . . . St-Stacy . . . th-thank G-God . . . y-you’re ALIVE.”

“Of course we are, Joe,” Ben said, slightly taken aback.

“Sh-She told me— ” His words were swallowed up in another, very sudden fierce torrent of weeping.

“Shhh, Son, sshhhh. You don’t have to talk about it, if— ”

“Pa, I . . . I g-gotta talk about it,” Joe sobbed. “I gotta! If I d-don’t? I’ll go m-mad if I . . . if I d-don’t . . . . ”

“Alright, Joe,” Ben said very softly, as his arms tightened around his youngest son, pulling him even closer. Mentally, he braced himself.

“She . . . L-Lady Chadwick . . . told m-me that you we’re . . . that y-you were c-convinced that I . . . d-died in the fire,” Joe continued, as his tears streamed freely from his eyes and on down his cheeks. “She s-said . . . she said that you n-never sp-spared me a . . . a moment’s thought after . . . after . . . . ”

“She l-lied to ya, Li’l Brother,” Hoss said, his own voice unsteady. His brows came together in a dark angry scowl. “That . . . that no g-good bitch out ‘n out LIED to ya.”

“Papa . . . Mister Hoss . . . even Sheriff Coffee . . . all go out, all look for Little Joe,” Hop Sing said. Though his face remained an impassive mask, his dark eyes glittered with the brightness of tears, newly formed, not yet shed. “All go out, look for Little Joe when we first know he go missing. Even Miss Stacy go, with broken leg, if Papa NOT threaten to tie up in chair.”

“I . . . I KNEW y-you wouldn’t g-give up on me . . . I just knew it,” Joe continued, forcing his words out past his weeping, “ . . . and I . . . I t-told her s-so. When I d-did? She got mad at me . . . that’s h-how . . . that’s how I g-got THIS.” He held up his bandaged left arm. “B-but I . . . I got confused. She s-said Hoss was m-making funeral arrangements. I . . . I knew it w-wasn’t f-f-for me, then I. . . I remembered . . . Stacy had been pretty badly hurt . . . . ”

“I WAS, Grandpa,” Stacy said, her own eyes stinging with newly forming tears. She clasped his hand in both of hers and leaned heavily against the examination table for support. “But, I didn’t die, and now . . . n-now . . . I’m on the m-mend.”

“Thank . . . thank, G-God . . . . ” Joe sobbed, as he reached out, and grasped Stacy’s hand tight in his own.

“I’m here, Joe,” Stacy sobbed, as she carefully balanced herself on her good leg, that she might place her other hand overtop his. “I’m not going anywhere . . . and neither are YOU.”

“Joe?”

“Y-Yeah, Hoss?”

“We . . . . ” Hoss paused to wipe his eyes and cheeks against the heel of his hand. “We got somethin’ for ya . . . somethin’ that survived the fire. C-Candy found it.”

“What is it?”

“You remember that . . . that Virgin M-Mary statue Mama always loved?”

“Y-Yeah,” Joe turned and favored his brother with a sharp glance, hardly daring to hope that maybe . . . just maybe . . . .

“She . . . she made it through the fire, Li’l Brother,” Hoss continued, succumbing to the swift tide of emotion that had been rising up within him since he had first turned and found his younger brother standing out in the meadow with Lady Chadwick’s man. “She . . . she was b-broken in three places, but . . . they was CLEAN breaks. Malcom Reilly’s gonna glue her b-back together.”

“She’ll b-be as good as new, Son,” Ben promised.

Joe turned his head and buried his face against the solid strength of his father’s chest for a moment, to overcome to speak. He felt his brother’s massive hand, stronger than an ox, yet gentle enough to cradle a new born kitten, coming to rest on his good shoulder. Stacy gently squeezed his hand and reached out to touch his cheek, while Hop Sing’s hands came to rest on his left shoulder and arm. Joe felt himself relaxing in his father’s arms, drawing upon love, strength and comfort his family offered freely, without reservation.

“Thanks, H-Hoss,” Joe said at length, when at last he was able to speak. “SHE was with m-me y’ know. The Virgin M-Mary, and she . . . well, sometimes she looked like that statue, and sometimes . . . Pa?”

“Yes, Son?” Ben murmured as he absently began to stroke the side of Joe’s head, still resting squarely against his chest.

“I . . . I hope y-you won’t think this is sacrilegious, but sometimes . . . sometimes, she, well . . . she looked like Mama.”

“No, Son, I DON’T think that’s sacrilegious at all,” Ben said quietly. “She is, after all, the Mother of God. I like to think she’s also mother to all of US, as well. THAT being the case, I think it’s only natural that she would sometimes look like your mother.”

“You were there, too, Pa,” Joe continued. “You, Hoss, Stacy, Hop Sing . . . even ADAM! All the t-times I . . . when I f-felt my lowest? When . . . when I l-lost all hope? I-I’d remember something . . . something l-like . . . like PA finding m-me in the desert that t-time when we . . . when Adam, H-Hoss and I . . . when we wanted t-to give you that h-horse. Y-You remember . . . don’t ya, Pa?”

“I’ll . . . I’ll never forget,” Ben said quietly, his voice, his entire body shaking as the memory of his young son, lying on the desert sands of Arizona, unmoving, cruelly trussed like a calf for branding, swam again before his vision.

“I . . . I remembered other things, too,” Joe continued, his voice at long last, beginning to steady. “Like the three of us . . . Hoss, Stacy, and me . . . the time we went after Rachael Marlowe, or . . . or the time Pa went to rescue some folks stranded in the mountains by a blizzard . . . . ”

“You remember that, Joe?” Ben asked, incredulous. “You couldn’t have been much more than four or five at the time.”

“I guess I remember because it was real soon after Mama died,” Joe said quietly, “and I was afraid that . . . that YOU might get caught in a blizzard, too, and— ” He broke off, unable to bring himself to complete that thought.

“Hop Sing remember. Remember about grown-ups talk too much,” Hop Sing said. “Little Joe very scared for Papa. Hop Sing tell Little Joe say Mama Virgin Mary prayer for Papa.”

“I prayed that prayer every night, too . . . until you came home,” Joe once again took up the story, “and I . . . I found myself saying it every night the whole time Lady Chadwick k-kept me prisoner.”

“Joe?”

Five weary, tear stained faces looked up in unison toward the door, as Paul Martin returned to the examination room.

“Y-Yeah, Doc? What’s up?”

“Would you mind excusing your pa for a moment? I need to speak with him.”

“Alright,” Joe agreed, “b-but please? Not too long?”

“I promise you, Joe, we’ll only be a few minutes.”

Ben carefully eased his youngest son back down onto the examination table, then followed Paul Martin out of the examination room. As they stepped through the door, Paul stepped aside, allowing Ben to pass, then reached behind him to close the door.

“Let’s step into the parlor, Ben.”

The Cartwright family patriarch nodded mutely, then once more fell in step behind the doctor.

“How much has Lily already told you?” Paul asked, after closing the parlor door behind them.

“She told us about the dislocated arm, the sprained ankle, the cuts and bruises,” Ben apprehensively recited the litany. “She also said he’s suffering from exposure, that he’s m-malnourished— ” He abruptly stopped, unable to continue.

Paul Martin silently placed a steadying hand on Ben’s shoulder.

“My God, Paul! What did that . . . that bitch DO to him?!”

“From what little Joe’s been able to tell me, most of the torture this Lady Chadwick inflicted on him was psychological . . . emotional in nature,” Paul said. “He spent most of the time he was with her tied down to a bed. A couple of days ago, he was taken to an unheated attic room. He told me that he tried to escape when they moved him, but didn’t get very far. He said he ended up falling down the stairs . . . due no doubt to his severely weakened physical condition.”

“I . . . couldn’t help BUT notice his . . . physical condition,” Ben said, laboring to keep his voice calm in the face of the raw fury churning within him. “It’s only been a week, Paul! One WEEK . . . maybe less! In that short amount of time, my son . . . strong and physically fit BEFORE Linda and that . . . that . . . CREATURE, Crippensworth, kidnapped him . . . has been reduced to . . . to skin and bones. What the hell did they DO to him?!”

“They gave him just enough water to keep him alive . . . barely,” Paul Martin said, while inwardly bracing himself to bear the brunt of Ben Cartwright’s rage, seething just below the surface, “and they gave him no food at all . . . except for a big extravagant meal . . . that was laced with arsenic.”

“What?!” Ben’s voice was low, and menacing.

“That’s my professional opinion, based on what Joe himself told me.”

Ben felt the blood drain right out of his face. “Dear God! Paul, J-Joe’s not . . . h-he’s not g-going to . . . to . . . . ?!”

“No, Ben, he’s NOT going to die, not from the poison, anyway,” Paul gently answered the question Ben could not bring himself to voice. “What saved him, in my opinion, was that after being deprived of solid food for nearly a week, Joe’s system just plain couldn’t handle the big, fancy meal Mrs. Lawrence had served to him, so . . . up it came, with a vengeance, along with most of the poison. That however, poses a WORSE problem.”

Ben could feel his heart plummeting to his feet. “What’s that, Paul?”

“We may be facing the prospect of having to re-acclimate his stomach to accepting solid food.”

“H-How do we do THAT?”

“In most instances, it would be a simple process, beginning with liquids, like broth, soups, watered down stews perhaps and gradually introducing more and more solid foods, depending on the patient’s tolerance.”

“What do you mean ‘in most instances,’ Paul?” Ben demanded, zeroing in on those first three words like a loadstone to iron.

“Joe’s suffering from added complications that are going to make this entire process very precarious,” the doctor explained. “Right now, Joe’s body is dangerously dehydrated from lack of water AND from vomiting up that meal.”

“HOW dangerously dehydrated?” Ben asked, his face a mixture of terrible anger towards the late Lady Chadwick and Crippensworth, and fear for his youngest son.

“I won’t mince words, Ben. Any more vomiting . . . or the onset of diarrhea . . . COULD kill him.”

Ben sank down onto the settee in the Martins’ parlor, his face white as a sheet, his entire body trembling. Never in his entire life could he remember feeling as overwhelmed . . . as helpless as he did at that moment. Then, slowly, gradually, the iron strength of will that had over the course of a long, eventful life, seen him across an expanse of nearly three thousand miles from Boston, Massachusetts to Virginia City, Nevada, in the face of poverty and tragedy that had stopped lesser men in their tracks . . . began to reassert itself. Ben silently vowed that he would see Joe through this ordeal, that his son would not only survive it, but would come out in the other side, a stronger, better man for it.

Ben raised his face, his intense gaze meeting and holding the eyes of the man, who for many years, had been not only the family doctor, but a valued friend, as well. “Paul, tell me,” he said. “What do I have to do now to save my son?”

Paul Martin stared down at his long-time friend, greatly heartened to see that determined scowl on his face, and hear the edge of steel in his voice. “Getting Joe’s body back to the place of accepting solid food again is going to be a very tricky piece of business, Ben. You’ve got to make sure he takes in enough to keep his body hydrated, while at the same time seeing to it that he doesn’t gulp things down too quickly. That won’t be easy, because he’s going to be feeling hungry all the time.

“I’m going to have you start Joe out on CLEAR liquids . . . water, tea, broth,” Paul continued. “Stay with chicken broth the first week. It’s easier to digest than beef. I’m also going to give him some medicine to help keep his stomach settled enough to keep things down. He’s to take it four times a day, once every four hours during the time he’s generally awake. Peppermint tea also works well as a remedy for upset stomach. So does tea made from catnip. To help counter Joe’s hunger pangs, you might consider smaller portions six or eight times a day, instead of the usual three.”

“Alright . . . . ” Ben murmured, hoping that he’d be able to remember all that Paul Martin was telling him.

“Don’t worry. I KNOW it’s a lot to remember, and I fully intend to write all of this down . . . for YOUR benefit and Hop Sing’s,” Paul said, taking due note of his friend’s eyes round with horror, and mouth gaping open.”

“Paul, I . . . I HAVE to know. What are Joe’s chances of pulling through this?”

“It’s too soon to say right now.”

“Paul . . . . ” Ben growled.

“I’m telling you the truth, Ben,” Paul said sternly. “It’s too soon right now to say what Joe’s chances are of coming through this. His weakened physical condition, the fact that he’s so severely malnourished and dehydrated . . . to be brutally frank, I’m worried. He spent the better part of last night lying out in the meadow across from the Marlowe house, completely naked, bleeding from cuts and scratches all over his body. When I listened to his chest, I heard phlegm rattling around in his lungs. Not a whole lot, but enough to concern me. Physically, that’s a big deck he’s got stacked against him.

“Now on the OTHER side of the fence, Joe was in good health . . . in excellent physical condition going into his ordeal. That’ll give him a significant edge. Mentally and emotionally, he’s had a passionate love of life that’s . . . that’s larger even than the Ponderosa. He’s also got a very strong will, not only to survive but to return to the place of living and enjoying life to its fullest,” Paul continued. “He’s ALSO got the lot of you around, to offer him love and encouragement. I’ve seen THOSE things pull many a patient through illness and injury that have left lesser mortals permanently disabled or bedridden.

“It’s NOT going to be easy, Ben, but . . . if we can get Joe through the next couple of weeks of keeping down the clear liquids, he’s looking at a real good chance of a full and complete PHYSICAL recovery.”

Ben glanced up sharply upon hearing the emphasis on physical.

“I know Lily’s already told you that most of Joe’s physical injuries were sustained when he escaped from the fire and during both of his attempts to escape from Lady Chadwick and Mister Crippensworth,” Paul continued. “Though his captors did abuse him PHYSICALLY, in addition to starving and trying to poison him, his worst injuries are the ones we CAN’T see.”

“The one’s we can’t see?” Ben echoed, looking bewildered. “What do you mean by the injuries we CAN’T see?!”

“Most of the torture this Lady Chadwick inflicted on him was psychological . . . emotional in nature,” Paul explained, as he took a seat on the settee next to Ben. “For instance . . . she told him that you and the rest of your family believed him dead, that he had perished in the fire that destroyed your house . . . and BECAUSE you believed him dead, you never gave him a moment’s thought.”

“That’s a lie, Paul,” Ben muttered through clenched teeth. “A damn’ cruel vicious LIE.”

“Of COURSE it is. Hoss and Candy didn’t believe it for a second. Neither did you, Stacy, or Hop Sing. I also knew that you’ve all thought of little else, since Stacy’s moved out of danger.”

“Even . . . even when SHE was at her worst, she . . . she kept asking me if . . . if Hoss and I had f-found Joe,” Ben said, his voice tremulous.

“I know.” Paul Martin reached out and placed a steadying hand on Ben’s shoulder. “However, during the time Joe was with his captors, he had no way of knowing what was really happening. He told me of having nightmares about Stacy dying of HER injuries, then of YOU dying of a broken heart because Stacy had died and because you believed him dead.”

Ben felt as if someone the size, strength, and power of his middle son, Hoss, had just sucker punched him in the stomach. “That’s why . . . he was so happy to see . . . to see Stacy and me.”

Paul nodded.

Ben shook his head, wondering how in the ever lovin’ world he could have fallen in love with Linda de Salle in the first place, given the monster she had become over the years. “What in the hell was she trying to do to my boy?” he murmured softly.

“I . . . think I may have an idea, Ben.”

The Cartwright family patriarch glanced up sharply. “I . . . wasn’t expecting an answer, Paul.”

“I know. It was a rhetorical question. However, based on what Joe’s told me, I think this Lady Chadwick was trying to somehow turn him against you.”

The look on Ben’s face strongly suggested that the sawbones should be returned from the lunatic asylum from which he must have escaped.

“I’ve heard of that sort of thing happening,” Paul said defensively. “Mostly in time of war, but also among kidnap victims. When a person is effectively cut off from people he loves and trusts, stripped naked, bound, placed on a starvation diet, more often than not, he’ll come around to believing what his captors tell him. But such a process takes time. Weeks, months, sometimes . . . with the kind of stubborn determination Joe has, coupled with his iron will, such a process could take YEARS. Joe resisted of course . . . less than a week is a far cry from many years . . . but I fear damage was done, case in point being how happy he was to see you and Stacy alive and well.”

“Why? Why in the world would she want to go through all that trouble?”

“I wish to heaven I could tell you.”

Ben sighed, and morosely shook his head. The dicey prospect of working to get Joe’s stomach accustomed once more to solid food, so horribly overwhelming given the possible dire consequences, now seemed like a simple walk in the park against all that his youngest boy had suffered inside. “What can we do to help him, Paul?”

“Ben, as you know, I’m trained to bind PHYSICAL wounds, treat illness, occasionally see a new life into this world, and, lately more often than I’d like, see folks departing from this world,” Paul said soberly. “When it comes to matters of the mind and soul, I’m ‘way out of my depth, however . . . . ” He favored Ben with a weary smile. “From what little I saw before I left the room for a while, I think the lot of you just might have things well in hand.”

“Oh?! How so?”

“You . . . ALL of you . . . gave him a listening ear, you held him while he cried . . . even cried yourselves right along with him . . . offered him reassurance, and above all . . . you let him know how much you love and care for him, how glad you are to have him back,” Paul replied. “In the days to come, encourage, but don’t force him to talk about what happened. I have to warn you, Ben . . . listening’s NOT going to be easy, not for any of you. I’m merely his doctor and a friend of the family and . . . well, a lot of what he said shook ME to the core. But, it’s crucial that he talk about it.”

“I know,” Ben said quietly. “Just before Joe told us . . . what he DID tell us . . . he said that he HAD to talk about it, because if he didn’t . . . he’d go mad.”

“Fortunately, Joe’s NOT one to keep things bottled up inside. In my long years of practice, I’ve seen many people who’ve suffered as Joe’s suffered, but WON’T talk about it,” Paul said soberly. “Sometimes, they won’t even acknowledge that it happened. The more they try to push it way, the more it comes back to haunt ‘em, until it becomes like an abscessed wound, looking healed and healthy on the outside, but festering and eating away at a person on the inside. I’ve had many a patient go to an early grave for stubbornly keeping things bottled up inside.”

“I’ve seen MY share of friends . . . and family members, too, who went down to an early grave for the same reason,” Ben said. All of a sudden, he began to feel uneasy.

“As what happened begins to come out, so will a lot of the feelings that go with it,” Paul continued. “Rage, fear, grief, frustration, feeling helpless. You folks may have to roll with a few punches for awhile.”

“I . . . understand,” Ben said slowly.

“Ben, if at any point you or Joe feel the need to consult with someone who IS trained to deal with matters of the mind and of the soul, I can contact a couple of colleagues, who I know to be very fine doctors.”

“Thank you, I’ll certainly keep that in mind,” Ben said. “Paul, I have something to tell YOU. I guess NOW is as good a time as any.”

Paul frowned. “What is it, Ben?” he asked, bracing himself to hear something on the order of Stacy having attempted to ride her father’s or her brother’s horse out to the ranch sometime in the dead of night.

“Nothing like THAT, Paul. I promise you . . . Stacy’s behaving herself, and Joe’s GOING to behave himself, so get that look off your face,” Ben said.

Paul’s facial features and muscles relaxed. “Sorry, it’s just that I, well--- ”

“I know. You’ve come to expect the worst regarding my youngest children whenever they’re convalescing . . . or SUPPOSED to be convalescing,” Ben said wryly. “No, I just wanted to let you know that I spoke to Lucas earlier, and he’s found me a house for rent, completely furnished. Five bedrooms upstairs, guest room down stairs, indoor plumbing, and a small stable out back. He should have the papers drawn up for me to sign first thing tomorrow morning. After that, I can get the lot of us moved in. If, ummm . . . we can impose on you and Lily one more night . . . . ?”

“No imposition at all, Ben,” Paul declared, favoring his old friend with a broad grin. “We’ve enjoyed your company, even though we could’ve all wished for better circumstances. I know Lily’s going to miss Hop Sing puttering around in her kitchen.” The sawbones’ grin faded. “However . . . . ”

“What is it?”

“I’d like to keep Joe here, for a couple of days at least . . . strictly for observation.” Paul quickly added the last, upon noting the apprehension creeping back into Ben’s face. “I’d like to make absolutely certain the poison’s out of his system, and see how he’s doing with that clear liquid diet.”

“That may not be entirely necessary, Paul, since we’re going to be neighbors for a little while.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. We’ll be living in the Fletchers’ house right across the street,” Ben said. “Lucas told me Sam and Ella will be spending the next year or so touring Europe and that they wanted to rent their house while they’re away.”

Paul silently considered the matter. “Tell you what, Ben. Let’s see how Joe fares for the rest of the day and through out the night. I’ll give you my decision in the morning. In the meantime, I’ll let you get back to Joe and the rest of your family,” Paul said.

End of Part 5

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